by Gary W. Buchholz

Gary W. Buchholz was completing graduate work at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1985, posting long theological essays to net.religion.christian — the early internet's first sustained forum for academic theology. In this post he responds to Charley Wingate's challenge about the word "fulfilment" in Matthew's Gospel, but the response quickly transcends the immediate debate to become something else entirely: a sustained argument about the ideological nature of the Christian canon.

Buchholz's core thesis is that the New Testament canon represents the victory of Pauline Christianity over other 1st-century Christianities — not because Paul's gospel was "true," but because it was institutionally successful. The canon is not an innocent document. It is the record of a war of Christologies, in which the losing parties — Petrine Christianity, the communities behind the apocryphal Acts, the Gnostic churches — have been systematically excluded. What we call "Christian doctrine" is the theology of the victors.

The post closes with a provocative inversion: Constantine is dead, but those who wield an "infallibly true text filled with True doctrine" continue the fight. The pen and the sword were on the same side — and still are.

Well, there's no getting around that word "fulfilment." It's in the text. This is probably one of the most hotly debated statements of Jesus, right up there with "not one iota of the law will pass away…." It first must be pointed out that, as far as Gentile Christianity is concerned, this passage is of little direct import. The Acts of the Apostles clearly states that we are not bound to Mosaic law. Period. So the chief importance of the passage today is how it depicts Jesus' relationship to Judaic law and custom.

I don't think I will attempt to explain the passage. As I said, it is much argued about, and there are numerous commentaries on the passage. The only comment I have is that Jesus prefaces the passage with "I am not come to destroy [the law]," even though in another place he says that nothing a man eats can defile him, in violent contradiction with the dietary laws. So perhaps there is no simple answer to be given on this point.

— Charley Wingate

Let's not overlook something here. The NT canon as we have it contains a great deal of specifically Pauline material. One might say that the NT represents a "Pauline Christianity" over against other forms that were present in the 1st century. The effect of this "high density" of Pauline material in the canon and its literary ordering has the effect of skewing — distorting — our view of the 1st century church.

Is the Pauline view of the relation of the Mosaic Law to gentiles and to Jews the "true" view simply because this is the only view represented in the canon? Is the Pauline view of the Law the "true" view simply because Paul left literary artifacts of his theology while others did not?

The text — the canon — is not co-extensive with the culture. The canon is a "key hole" through which to view the history of the early church, but it is not the whole history of the church. The canon is a bias in the reconstruction of history. It is not the true history of the church simply because it is canonical. Nor is it the true history of the church simply because it is the only one accessible to the believer.

Pauline Christianity is successful Christianity. "Truth" of the kind that theologians and philosophers are wont to talk about does not enter into the socio-political and historical fact of success. Socio-political success does not validate historical facts and cosmological assertions that the canonical scriptures make.

A basic thesis of Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels is the assertion that the reason for the "failure" of Gnosticism was not that it was "false" — not "true" — but that it failed to develop "institutions" instantiating its theology, and this was so because its theology did not understand "Salvation" in any kind of corporate manner, as did early catholicism.

Peter did not write — or if he did, what he wrote did not survive history. But there is the Gospel of Peter and the Acts of Peter that, even though he did not write them, may indeed be based on authentic Petrine tradition passed on in community from one generation to the next, just as Pauline Christianity was passed on in community from one generation to the next. The Gospel of Peter and the Acts of Peter may be as true to his thoughts — his theology — as are the canonical Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) written in Paul's name after his death. I would be willing to defend the thesis that Paul's view of the validity of the law as regards Jews and gentiles is in radical opposition with those of Peter.

The canon is not an innocent document. It is the juxtaposition of a number of separate writings that in themselves, and with each given its own integrity, are — I would call — ideological weapons. Not only do they hurl polemics among themselves (the Gospel of John to the Gospel of Mark), but they also polemicize individuals (John the Baptist in John's Gospel) who are not even present in literary form to defend themselves.

The canon is witness to a war of "superpowers" in the early church. Canon has already suppressed those communities that did not survive the first wave of theological confrontation. The views of Paul's opponents have not survived history, and all we hear from Paul is that it was a "false gospel." What that gospel was, no one knows — but in Paul's judgement it was "false," and that is the only judgement we have.

Well, there's no getting around that word "fulfilment." It's in the text. This is probably one of the most hotly debated statements of Jesus, right up there with "not one iota of the law will pass away…." The Acts of the Apostles clearly states that we are not bound to Mosaic law. Period. So the chief importance of the passage today is how it depicts Jesus' relationship to Judaic law and custom.

"It's in the text… and there's no getting around it." The text is the victor, and has the "truth" — but not the kind of truth you think it has.

The canon defines the kind of truth one has when one systematically eliminates all opposed and contrary opinions by means of force. Paul's opponents have already been vanquished by their exclusion from the canon. Petrine Christianity has fallen also and has been banished to the apocrypha — even if he was the "rock" on which Jesus said he would build his church. John the Baptist didn't have a chance in the face of repeated polemic salvos fired off in rapid succession in the first three chapters of the canonical Gospel of John — put in his own mouth, no less.

The early churches have been reduced to 400 pages of text in the canon, and this is the big war — the war of Christologies. I would ask: who is the ultimate victim? (A person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency; a person who is cheated; a living being sacrificed in religious rites.) I answer: the victims are three. First, the Jews, for Christians slew Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures by an act of heretical exegesis. Second, Jesus of Nazareth, for I take the Gospels to be, each in their own right, a systematic distortion. The third victim is the believer, for she or he is only dimly aware of the true enterprise in which they participate and to which they are party.

The Truth of the Gospels is clear: "Might is right," and the victory goes to the one who carries the biggest sword and the longest spear — even when those "spears" and "swords" are polemic and rhetoric.

Is the pen mightier than the sword? A hard question indeed. But not a question at all once pen and sword are on the same side. Military might met literary rhetoric in alliance in 337 AD when Christianity became the officially sanctioned religion of the Empire and the Law of the land.

Constantine is dead. But Wingate and others, now armed with an infallibly true text filled with True doctrine, continue the "Christian" fight to this very day.

Colophon

Gary W. Buchholz posted this to net.religion.christian on 17 October 1985 from the University of Chicago Computation Center. Buchholz was completing graduate work in theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he had immersed himself in canonical criticism (Brevard Childs), the historical-critical school (Helmut Koester, James Barr), feminist biblical scholarship (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza), and the history of early Christianity (Elaine Pagels, Morton Smith). This post is part of a series of essays posted to net.religion.christian in September–October 1985 — alongside "Schleiermacher and the Church," "Hunting Phantasma in the Christian Tradition," "GhostBusting the Christian Tradition," "Canonical Conjuring and Brevard Childs," and "Ghostbusting Brevard Childs" — which together form one of the most sustained engagements with post-critical biblical scholarship in early Usenet history. Charley Wingate, who prompted this response, was a regular contributor from the University of Maryland Computer Science department.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

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