Was Paul the hero of Christianity — or its first heretic? Some early Christians weren’t so sure.
Today, I came across a post claiming that the first Christians thought Paul was the anti-Christ. I’ve long stopped commenting on posts from people with strong convictions on either side because, no matter what, you’re either blamed for being a Christian apologist or an anti-Christian zealot if the scholarly facts presented don’t align with how the writer wants to view Christianity and its history. But is there any truth to this? Did the first Christians view Paul as the anti-Christ?
Well, if we dig into early Christian writings and the ideas circulating in the early Church, the short answer is… kind of, yes. But before you start screaming Heresy! or Yuppie!, let’s examine the facts and the context, which, I’m afraid, may not satisfy either Christians or anti-Christians with strong convictions.
Paul — A Radical Game Changer
Paul’s role in the early Christian movement isn’t as straightforward as your average Sunday school lesson makes it seem. The guy was a missionary, a writer, and a theological rebel. He took Christianity and turned it on its head, blending it with the wider Greco-Roman world in a way that no one else had. The first Christians, including the original disciples of Jesus, were Jewish. They followed the laws of Moses, and they believed that Jesus was the Messiah who came to fulfill the Jewish scriptures.
Then came Paul, who used to be a Pharisee, went on a religious rampage, and later claimed to have had a dramatic conversion experience, with no witnesses, of course. He started teaching that Gentiles (non-Jews) didn’t have to follow Jewish laws, including circumcision and dietary restrictions, to become Christians, which was a major shift, and it caused huge friction within the Christian community.
Hand-picked apostles of Jesus — particularly James, the brother of Jesus, and Peter — weren’t thrilled with Paul’s new doctrine. They saw it as a betrayal of the original teachings and the Jewish roots of Christianity. So, what did Paul have to say about this? He argued that salvation through Jesus didn’t require adherence to the Law of Moses, a bold stance that ultimately created a divide in early Christian communities.
But many Christians will tell you that Satan’s greatest trick is to make people believe they are following God’s laws while they are actually being diverted from them. So, what makes Paul, the self-proclaimed 13th apostle (someone Jesus didn’t pick during His lifetime, even though Paul was around), different?
Anti-Christ? Not Quite, but…
Now, here’s where things get interesting. The term “anti-Christ” as we know it today wasn’t really in use in the early Christian era in the same way it is now. But the concept of someone or something working against Christ — either by changing his teachings or leading people astray — was definitely on the radar.
Early Christian writings, especially the ones attributed to the so-called “apostolic fathers” (the guys who came after the apostles), give us some juicy hints about how Paul was viewed. And no, they didn’t exactly throw him a welcome party.
One of the strongest voices against Paul came from a group known as the Ebionites. The Ebionites were Jewish Christians who refused to let go of the Law of Moses. They saw Paul as a dangerous figure who was leading people away from the true teachings of Jesus. In their view, Paul’s relaxed approach to the Law was heretical. He was teaching a “cheap” Christianity, one that didn’t require the full commitment to Jewish law. For them, Paul was a direct threat to the integrity of the movement Jesus had started. They even referred to him as a false apostle and a “heretic.”
There’s also evidence that some early Christian writers like Irenaeus and Tertullian were wary of Paul’s teachings, though they didn’t go as far as calling him the anti-Christ. They understood Paul’s importance in spreading Christianity but were critical of how his message was used to justify ditching traditional Jewish customs. Tertullian even mentioned that some people were misinterpreting Paul’s teachings to justify sinful behavior, a criticism that likely stems from how Paul’s ideas were being applied in various communities.
So, while nobody was putting a label on Paul as the “anti-Christ” per se, there were plenty of early Christians who saw him as a dangerous figure leading people away from what they believed was the true faith. It’s not that they thought he was Satan incarnate, but they did believe his teachings were distorting the core message of Christianity and making it more palatable to the Gentile world at the expense of Jewish tradition.
Paul’s Relationship with the Twelve Apostles
The relationship between Paul and the original twelve apostles is a real source of drama in the early Christian Church. In the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters, we see a tense rivalry playing out. Paul frequently defends his apostleship, claiming that he wasn’t appointed by any human authority but directly by Christ. This would have rubbed some of the original apostles the wrong way, especially when they saw him preaching in ways that were so radically different from their own approach.
The most famous incident involves Paul and Peter. In Galatians 2, Paul recounts a public confrontation with Peter in Antioch. Peter had been eating with Gentiles, but when some Jewish Christians arrived, he backed off and refused to eat with them. Paul called him out for being hypocritical. This was both a personal squabble and a theological clash. Paul believed that Peter was undermining the core message of Christian freedom by trying to enforce Jewish laws on Gentiles — and in his eyes, that was a betrayal of the gospel.
This kind of infighting is pretty telling. Early Christians weren’t all in agreement about what Jesus’ message actually meant, and Paul’s teachings definitely ruffled some feathers. It wasn’t just a small disagreement, either. As far as Christianity was concerned, it was a matter of life and death for the direction the faith would take. Would it remain a sect of Judaism, or would it break free and become a religion for everyone?
Did Paul Think He Was the Chosen One?
One thing that stands out when you read Paul’s letters is his confidence in his own calling. Paul was absolutely sure that he had been chosen by God to spread the gospel to the Gentiles. Whether you think he was right or wrong, his unwavering belief in his divine mission meant he didn’t shy away from conflict. Paul even went so far as to say that he was more qualified than the other apostles because of his direct revelation from Christ. This kind of swagger, combined with his disregard for Jewish laws, was bound to create tension.
Many early Christians thought that anyone who messed with the foundational teachings of Jesus and reinterpreted his message could easily be considered an adversary — perhaps even an anti-Christ. While it’s a stretch to say that Paul was officially seen as the anti-Christ by all early Christians, there’s enough evidence to suggest that some certainly viewed him as a threat to the original vision of Christianity.
Would Jesus Do That?
Now, here’s something worth pointing out. In Judaism, witnesses are far from being a formality — they’re a requirement. Whether it’s for legal matters, priestly testimony, or claims of prophecy, Jewish law demands the presence of at least two witnesses to verify truth and prevent fraud (Deuteronomy 19:15). No one was expected to just “take your word for it” when it came to major claims.
That’s part of why Paul’s story raises so many eyebrows. He claimed Jesus appeared to him privately, on a road, with no one else seeing or hearing the vision. No witnesses. No confirmation. Just Paul’s word that Jesus personally commissioned him to spread a new message that just so happened to contradict what Jesus’ actual disciples were teaching. If Jesus really had a change of heart and wanted to shift gears, why would he bypass the people he personally trained and make this crucial announcement to a guy who used to persecute Christians — alone, in secret, with no one there to back it up?
It doesn’t align with the way Jewish tradition handles divine authority, which makes Paul’s story even more controversial among the early Jewish Christians who still followed those principles.
Before You Go
Paul wasn’t officially labeled the anti-Christ by the early Christians, but he was seen as a controversial and divisive figure. His teachings were radically different from what the apostles like James and Peter were advocating, and they caused significant theological conflict. Some early Christian groups, like the Ebionites, saw him as a false prophet, leading people away from the true faith.
Paul’s influence on Christianity is undeniable, but it’s clear that his teachings didn’t sit well with everyone. His message of freedom from the Jewish law and his stance on Gentile inclusion opened up Christianity to a broader audience but also set the stage for serious divisions in the Church. Whether or not he was the anti-Christ is a matter of interpretation, but he was definitely the anti-hero to many of the early Christians.
By Tanner the Humanist
Comments:
Russell
This is a Christian apologetic exercise pretending that it is not. It also incorporates anachronism.
Paul was teaching Jews (as well as non-Jews) to drink the blood of Christ. Blood is unclean to Jews. Paul was teaching apostasy to Jews. The blood is very very special, therefore arguably not apostasy to Jews, only in myth.
The original meaning of ἔθνος (ethnos, translated Gentiles) is a “nation” or “people,” signifying a group of people united by shared identity, culture, or origin. Paul’s nation (ethnos = Gentiles) was Jewish! The word evolved meanings. First in the 4th century when Christianity’s fortunes changed, and again in the 14th century. In the Age of Discovery, the foreign people in the New World were ‘Gentiles’ and the European Christians discovering them were not. Should we be using the meaning of the word that was current at the time in question?
The word ‘Christian’ was coined by the Romans in about 100 CE after they realized that not all of the Jews were the same. Nobody was called a Christian during the time examined in this article. There were only Jews then, and they fought over Paul’s teaching of apostasy to Jews.
Paul taught Jews to apostatize. Paul claimed that Jesus revealed to him that Jews should violate Torah in remembrance of him. The leaders in Jerusalem definitely did not agree with this, and they had known Jesus personally.
One famous conflict between Paul and people who really knew Jesus was at Antioch. Did Paul serve wine to Peter and not inform Peter that, by drinking the wine, he violated Torah (because it had transformed into blood)? Another famous conflict was when Paul traveled to Jerusalem and the leaders there told Paul not to teach blood.
And whose blood was it? It was the blood of the brother of James. James was the leader in Jerusalem who told Paul to stop teaching blood.
The Council of Jerusalem reflects two levels of disagreement:
1) It was very hostile of Paul to say that he drank the blood of James’ martyred brother. (And that he slipped some to Peter in Antioch.)
2) Paul was teaching apostasy to Jews. When this happened before 200 years earlier, it was pork. The pork did not have as slick a marketing plan as the blood.
When pork was the preferred mode of apostasy, there was one war and the apostate Jews lost. When blood was the mode of apostasy, there were three wars and the apostate Jews won. The victors write history in all cases. This history includes myth. Myths are not true facts.
It is not true historical research to ‘read back’ later events into an earlier time. Tanner, when you read apologists who pose as historical researchers and repeat what they say uncritically, that makes you also an apologist.
