173PAUL, THE APOSTLEoften imprisoned for his teachings (again,
mainly according to Acts). At his death,
he is said to have been imprisoned in
Rome, likely under the reign of Nero. The
apocryphal Acts of Paul tells the story of
his martyrdom under Nero, which is the
only explicit story of Paul’s death (Paul
does not die in the book of Acts). In this
story, when Paul is beheaded at the hands
of Nero, milk flows from his head.
Paul quickly became an influential
figure in early Christianity, and many
who followed him tried to use his name
to bolster the authority of their argu-
ments. The result is a second corpus of
“Pauline” letters written using Paul’s
name. Some of these texts, such as 3 Cor-
inthians, were never placed in the biblical
canon. Other letters were interspersed
with Paul’s original letters within the
Bible and have only been found as forger-
ies since modern times. Scholars looking
at word usage, Greek grammatical differ-
ences, style, and theological positions
have determined fairly conclusively that
these letters were not written by the
same author who wrote the seven origi-
nal letters. The Pauline forgeries found
in the New Testament are Ephesians,
Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy,
and Titus. Both the original Pauline and
the pseudo-Pauline letters hold an impor-
tant place in most Christian communities.
Pauline theology is both interesting
and difficult to define because within his
authentic letters, the early development
of Christian theology is apparent. Paul’s
later letters often adapt the theology of
earlier letters in order to refine his origi-
nal thought or to reshape his argument
for a different context. For example, Paul
often references the parousia (“presence”
or “coming”) of Christ, which he believes
is immanent within his own lifetime. This
naturally influences his theology because
he has little need to think about future
church order and development beyond
his death. While Paul does seem to take
this more into account in his later letters,
most “Pauline” writings that deal with
church order can only be found within
the Pseudo-Pauline corpus.
Paul is also concerned with the
relationship between Judaism and Chris-
tianity, which were not two separate
entities in the first century. Christians
either came to believe in Jesus as Jews
(thus, “Jewish Christians”) or as non-Jews
(“Gentile Christians”). It seems that Paul
primarily saw himself as the “apostle to
the Gentiles,” but once these Gentiles
converted to Christianity, Paul had to
determine the relationship between
Christianity and Jewish law (it appears
that since Jewish Christians still saw
themselves as Jews, they continued all
forms of Jewish practice). In his letters,
Paul clearly determines that Gentiles
who come to believe in Christ are not
required—nor should they be forced—to
keep the Law, which often for Paul is nar-
rowed to dietary laws and circumcision.
However, as can be seen in Galatians,
other early Christian leaders appear to
have differed from Paul’s opinions, par-
ticularly on this subject. Disputes like this