Why Acts doesn't report the death of Paul
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 1:36 am
I think that the reason is strictly connected with the fate of "Jesus Barabbas": he escaped the Roman justice, too. He is the Judaizing parody of the Son of Father of the marcionite tradition. This is 100% probable (and I wonder forever about the absolute blindness of who disagrees with me about this point).
Paul had to be condamned by Nero but the author of Acts doesn't give him that honour. The reader has to be left in the doubt about the real martyrdom of Paul. If Paul escaped the martyrdom at the end, from even Nero!, as the propaganda goes, then he resembles too much closely Jesus Barabbas, the Christ of the Alien God of which the great embarassment, for the Judaizers, was to escape the martyrdom, differently from the true Christ, the davidic king of the Jews, who was really crucified.
To have avoided the martyrdom works therefore as a negative resizing of the credentials of the apostle, for fear of making him a too much powerful icon. It has to be not considered as a positive sign of the divine Providence who would have saved the true apostles of the Christ from martyrdom in extremis.
The logic was not: my apostle suffered the Death in the name of Christ, therefore the his death proves the truth of Christ.
The logic was: the apostle Paul didn't suffer the death in the name of Christ, therefore he has to be not considered really great as apostle.
Paradoxically, the Testimonium Taciteum could be entirely genuine and even independant evidence of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome (sic), but even so, the Catholics had to be silent about their martyrdom, to re-size the importance of these apostles and especially of Paul.
Paul had to be condamned by Nero but the author of Acts doesn't give him that honour. The reader has to be left in the doubt about the real martyrdom of Paul. If Paul escaped the martyrdom at the end, from even Nero!, as the propaganda goes, then he resembles too much closely Jesus Barabbas, the Christ of the Alien God of which the great embarassment, for the Judaizers, was to escape the martyrdom, differently from the true Christ, the davidic king of the Jews, who was really crucified.
To have avoided the martyrdom works therefore as a negative resizing of the credentials of the apostle, for fear of making him a too much powerful icon. It has to be not considered as a positive sign of the divine Providence who would have saved the true apostles of the Christ from martyrdom in extremis.
The logic was not: my apostle suffered the Death in the name of Christ, therefore the his death proves the truth of Christ.
The logic was: the apostle Paul didn't suffer the death in the name of Christ, therefore he has to be not considered really great as apostle.
Paradoxically, the Testimonium Taciteum could be entirely genuine and even independant evidence of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome (sic), but even so, the Catholics had to be silent about their martyrdom, to re-size the importance of these apostles and especially of Paul.
