In the beginning was the letter. In the beginning of Christianity that is. And the letters were mostly written by St Paul. There had of course been Christian believers before Paul put pen to papyrus or parchment (or should we say his amanuensis put stylus to wax). And in that preliminary time the Gospels were being assembled and written. The letters marked a stage in development that we now see as highly formative. Starting with letters to the Thessalonian Christians, they preceded the Gospels.
Paul’s letters were not always welcomed. We find a sharp comment being quoted in one of Paul’s letters to the Christians in Corinth: ’His letters, so it is said, are weighty and powerful but when he is present, he is unimpressive, and as a speaker he is beneath contempt.’ (2 Corinthians 10.10) This gets a pretty smart rejoinder from Paul. He responded: ‘People who talk in that way should reckon with this: my actions when I come will show the same man as my letters showed when I was absent.’
As if we had not gathered this already, we have clear evidence that Paul had a hard time in making his mark with some of the early believers. In Corinth things were likely to get out of hand. Paul had to choose between being a kindly mentor and wielding a big stick. He was persuasive in giving advice on patterns of worship; he was plain-speaking in his insistence that they be grown up in their thinking. He was even plainer in requiring that they avoid giving grounds to a visitor for concluding that they had taken leave of their senses.
The letters are of the moment. The messenger would be waiting at the door. The style was as one would expect, sometimes abrupt, even disjointed, sometimes mellifluous and enchanting. By contrast the Gospels are shaped and sophisticated literary productions, very far from being composed in haste. It’s the difference between the Marseillaise written in half an hour on the back of an envelope and ‘God save the Queen’ the provenance of which nobody can be sure of and which went through a number of variations.
The mode and manner of composition of the New Testament documents are a separate issue altogether from any verdict on the outcome. Whether the process of composition was long and laboured, as it was for ‘Paradise Lost’ or whether it was dashed off as happened with Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, it is the resulting text that matters.
REDEEMER BENEFICE
Two parishes make up the Redeemer benefice, Blackburn. They unite with the slogan ‘Seeking to know Christ better and to make Christ better known.’ The Rector is Chris Anderson. Christianity reached Blackburn in the sixth century and the diocese of Blackburn came into being in 1926. The Blackburn population is 25 per cent Muslim.
CHANGING CHEYLESMORE
Christ Church, Cheylesmore, Coventry backs the ‘Together for change’ scheme that favours ‘creative and innovative projects to alleviate poverty.’ The Coventry diocese and the Church Urban Fund set up the project. The congregation worship in a modern building (1956-8) and the Vicar is Arthur Woo. The church website carries statements by church members about their Christian belief.
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