the former point? Despite their differences with respect to the later period,
Goodman and MacMullen (and Harnack, too, for that matter) are agreed
in their assumption that in the case of Paul, at least, we have an example
of this type of mission. But is this an accurate characterization of Paul’s mis-
sionary activity and intentions? Might it be possible that here, too, a con-
ceptual a priori has shaped our reading of the evidence?
GEOGRAPHY AND MISSION IN PAUL
Deconstructing Paul the Missionary?
In chapter 1 of this book, Vaage questions traditional scholarly approaches
to the mission and expansion of Christianity, not only in the post-apos-
tolic period but also with reference to Paul himself. Vaage claims, or at
least implies, that it is possible to develop a comprehensive argument that
would dismantle the prevalent view of Paul as the first Christian mission-
ary. Unfortunately, Vaage does not provide us with any indication of how
this massive program of deconstruction might be carried out. Nevertheless,
there is heuristic value, I believe, in pressing the issue and asking what this
claim might mean.
One aspect of the prevalent view has been dismantled already, i.e., the
idea that Paul was the first missionary, in the sense that he was the proto-
type and model for an ongoing series of missionaries, whose work resulted
in the conversion of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, anticipating obser-
vations to be made later in this chapter, one could easily envisage extend-
ing this process of demolition to the next stage—moving, as it were, from
the upper storey to the ground level—and denying that it ever was Paul’s
intention to initiate a missionary enterprise that would carry on into the
future. The eschatological framework within which Paul operated—his
expectation of Christ’s imminent parousia,in particular—tends to rule out
any possibility that Paul saw himself as a pioneer, marking a trail for later
generations of the church to follow. Confirmation of this impossibility can
be found in the striking absence from Paul’s letters of any attempt to mobi-
lize his congregations for ongoing evangelistic activity, even in the present.
Both of these points will come up again for further discussion (on the
eschatological framework, see below, Eschatological Horizon; on the absence
of any evangelistic injunctions, see Patterns of Selection).
But might Vaage’s program be pushed even further to deny any element
of mission whatsoever in Paul’s apostolic self-consciousness, i.e., demolish-
ing not only the superstructure but also the foundation as well? The answer
depends, to a certain extent, on one’s definition of mission. For my pres-
ent purposes, it is probably the third element in Goodman’s definition (as