“. . . our beloved Barnabas and Paul”
St. Paul, who is mentioned in today’s first reading, is a captivating character. Initially an extremely conservative Jew, a Pharisee through and through, a witness to St. Stephen’s stoning in Jerusalem, he later became an extremely Christian agent of the early Church – always on the go, preaching here and there all the way to Greece and Rome and possibly Spain. He has been my hero through thick and thin ever since his letters in the New Testament introduced me to “grace” as a reality instead of a classroom monosyllable.
I began to learn of St. Paul – somewhat sketchily – in my third year of theology training at Catholic University when I enrolled in Father John Weisengoff’s Scripture class. Weisengoff was a formidable fellow. On opening day he dared anybody in his class to pass his course. He often publically dressed down students for their mistakes (he did it to me when I came in late one day). I don’t remember learning too much from his course because my primary interest was in keeping a low profile until class was over.
But then one day he gave out assignments for a research paper and I was given the topic: “The North Galatian Theory”. Galatia was a Roman province in central Asia Minor (Turkey today) to which St. Paul wrote a bombshell of a letter (look it up in the New Testament). Scholars were divided between the majority who claimed the recipients of the letter lived in South Galatia and those who favored North Galatia. An assignment like that always caught my interest – like that of a detective.
In the course of my study I discovered that the North Galatians, who lived up around modern Turkey’s capital Ankara, were Celts – like the people of Gaul (modern France) and the British Isles in Caesar’s time. But these Gauls or Galatians or Celts chose to migrate east and ended up in the upper region of Asia Minor. As such they were related to my Irish ancestors – Celts also. This fascinated me. Indeed it crept subjectively into my conclusions. I opted for the North Galatians as the target of Paul’s letter – proudly concluding that these distant cousins of the Irish were among the first to receive the Gospel according to Paul.
Weisengoff was pleased, not with my conclusion but with my decision to choose the least likely conclusion of most scholars at that time. He was a contrary fellow. Indeed, he made me his gofer (a servant whose chief duty is running errands). In other words, if Weisengoff wanted a pizza delivered to his chambers, I was privileged to go get it. He took me into his confidence. I saw another side to him; he wasn’t just an ogre, he could be a pleasant guy. Henceforth I could be condescending toward all the other terrified students in his class.
The whole incident had a benign effect on me. I felt I had accomplished something, pleased a hardboiled professor, even if it resulted from twisting my scholarship to accommodate my Irish heritage. But on the other hand, if the North Galatians were indeed the intended recipients of Paul’s letter, his reference to them as “you stupid Galatians!” was hardly something I wanted to broadcast.
Such was my introduction to Sacred Scripture and especially to the writings of St. Paul – which within a few years of more scholarly work radically changed my appreciation of the New Testament and my Christian heritage from something like an inherited reflex to something I cannot live without!