[Link] St. Paul: memetic engineer

New post by Federico on his new blog that I mentioned earlier. Worth reading for those interested in the memetics of religion, politics, Christianity or Islam. The cited material also led my mind to some related questions.

AnnoDomini suggests I write about “St. Paul the social engineer!”

“Social engineering” is coercive. Saint Paul was a missionary, not a law-maker; I would call him a memetic engineer.

Like any ingeniarius, a memetic engineer takes elements at his disposal, makes one or two small changes, synthesises, and sells his product. The product is designed to fulfil a personal end; if it endures, this is most likely incidental. Few engineers care if their creation outlasts them.

The elements at this memetic engineer’s disposal are an ethnic-supremacist religion, a popular dead Messiah, and a cunning intellect.

Saul of Tarsus spends his twenties persecuting Christians. In his own words:

13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: 14 And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.

Galatians 1:13–14

He even participates in the racist murder of a naive idealist called Stephen, in a scene echoed many centuries later by Sacha Baron Cohen.

55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. 57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, 58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Acts 7:55–60

But what he sees afterwards gives him pause.

1 And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. 3 As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. 4 Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. 5 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. 6 And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. 7 For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. 8 And there was great joy in that city.

Acts 8:1–8

Saul realises that he can do better as a Christian. All that joy to be had in all those cities. The problem is, he never met Jesus. So he spins an absurd yarn about Jesus’s ghost.

13 At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. 14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. 16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; 17 Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Acts 26:13–18

Christians are not popular with the Jews. Therefore, ~~Saul~~ Paul won’t risk preaching to them. Here is his first innovation:

1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. 6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

Romans 9:1–8

In other words, Yahweh, God of the Israelites, who was complicit in the genocide of Amalekites, Canaanites, Midianites, Gibeonites, Libnahites, Eglonites, Debirites, Moabites, Benjamites, Ammonites, Edomites, Egyptians, Syrians, Philistines and anyone else who got in the way of his favourite ethnic group…is now God of Everyone. “Israel” is just a metaphor, decides Paul.

Paul now has license to go on a world tour; but he mustn’t upset the local rulers. The Romans are touchy about rabble-rousers. Paul has heard of Christ’s cryptic comment:

15 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. 16 And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. 17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? 18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? 19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. 20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? 21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. 22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

Matthew 22:15–22

So Paul invents “separation of Church and State”. This makes his exotic new religion seem inoffensive, although the Romans end up killing him anyway.

1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. 6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

Romans 13:1–7

Leo Tolstoy points out:

Not only the complete misunderstanding of Christ’s teaching, but also a complete unwillingness to understand it could have admitted that striking misinterpretation, according to which the words, “To Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” signify the necessity of obeying Caesar. In the first place, there is no mention there of obedience; in the second place, if Christ recognized the obligatoriness of paying tribute, and so of obedience, He would have said directly, “Yes, it should be paid;” but He says, “Give to Caesar what is his, that is, the money, and give your life to God,” and with these latter words He not only does not encourage any obedience to power, but, on the contrary, points out that in everything which belongs to God it is not right to obey Caesar.

But the deed was done.

Paul is set to have fun in his middle age. He isn’t married, and all his expenses are paid.

So, too, in his last speech to the Ephesian elders he lays great stress on the fact that he had not made money by his preaching, but had supported himself by the labour of his hands. ‘I coveted no man’s gold or apparel. Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities.’

Yet St. Paul did receive gifts from his converts. He speaks of the Philippians as having sent once and again unto his necessity, and he tells the Corinthians that he ‘robbed other churches, taking wages of them, that he might minister to them’. He does not seem to have felt any unwillingness to receive help; he rather welcomed it. He was not an ascetic. He saw no particular virtue in suffering privations. The account of his journeys always gives us the impression that he was poor, never that he was poverty-stricken. He said indeed that he knew how ‘to be in want’, ‘to be filled, and to be hungry’. But this does not imply more than that he was in occasional need. Later, he certainly must have had considerable resources, for he was able to maintain a long and expensive judicial process, to travel with ministers, to gain a respectful hearing from provincial governors, and to excite their cupidity. We have no means of knowing whence he obtained such large supplies; but if he received them from his converts there would be nothing here contrary to his earlier practice. He received money; but not from those to whom he was preaching. He refused to do anything from which it might appear that he came to receive, that his object was to make money.

Paul’s epistle to the Romans holds a clue to the source of his mysterious wealth.

19 Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. 20 Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation: 21 But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand. 22 For which cause also I have been much hindered from coming to you. 23 But now having no more place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come unto you; 24 Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company. 25 But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. 26 For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. 27 It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. 28 When therefore I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will come by you into Spain. 29 And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.

Romans 15:19–29

Scholars are puzzled by this excerpt.

He is a person who is somehow a city person, and he sees that the cities are the key to the rapid spread of this new message. . . . At one point he can write to the Roman Christians, I have filled up the gospel in the East, I have no more room to work here. What could he possibly mean? There are only a handful of Christians in each of several major cities in the Eastern Empire. What does he mean, that he has filled up all of the Eastern Empire with the gospel?

He had merely filled up his coffers. Those burgeoning trade centres, bustling with merchants and artisans…

Paul’s final stroke of genius is to dumb down the gospel.

8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Romans 13:8–10

“The law” means the Decalogue, or the parts of it Paul can remember. This is another gross misinterpretation of Jesus and his disciples’ teaching. Yahweh says in Leviticus:

18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 19:18

Jesus, like any hipster, uses this obscure reference to put a Pharisee in his place:

34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22:34–40

This doesn’t mean that Christians can dispense with the law! James the Just concurs:

8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: 9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

James 2:8–11

Paul not only tells his converts that God’s single law is “be nice”, but he abolishes all of the fiddly rules.

Now the situation seems to be that initially when people were attracted to the Jesus movement, they first became Jews and they had to go through all the rituals and rites of conversion to Judaism. But apparently it’s among Paul and some of his close supporters that they began to think that it was okay to become a member of the Christian movement without having to go through all of those rites of conversion to Judaism [...]

Now the other things that one must do in order to convert to Judaism, in addition to circumcision if a male, would be to observe the Torah. That is, the Jewish law and the dietary and other kinds of purity regulations that would have come from the Torah. [...]

Paul’s notion that it was possible for gentiles to enter the congregation of God without some of the rules of Judaism interestingly enough seems to be a conviction on his part that comes from his own interpretation of the Jewish scriptures.

A very convenient interpretation, for someone who is on a whistle-stop tour of Europe’s richest and most cosmopolitan cities. Does a televangelist ask his marks to study ancient Greek, or make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem?

If human nature has changed little in 2000 years, Saint Paul was a con artist. He turned Yahweh into a universalist, Jesus into a lackey, and Christianity into Barney, all because he wanted to live the good life. He also misled the world in general about the plausibility of “Damascene conversion”.

Yet, Christianity prospered. Kenneth Clark thought it essential to Western civilisation. Why is that? One must contrast it with Islam. Roger Scruton explains:

The student of Muslim thought will be struck by how narrowly the classical thinkers pondered the problems of political order, and how sparse and theological are their theories of institutions. Apart from the caliphate—the office of “successor to” or “substitute for” the Prophet—no human institution occupies such thinkers as Al-Mawardi, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiya, or Saif Ibn ’Umar al-Asadi for long, and discussions of sovereignty—sultan, mulk—tend to be exhortatory, instructions for the ruler that will help him to guide his people in the ways of the faith. [...]

Law is fundamental to Islam, since the religion grew from Muhammad’s attempt to give an abiding code of conduct to his followers. Hence arose the four surviving schools (known as madhahib, or sects) of jurisprudence, with their subtle devices (hila) for discovering creative solutions within the letter (though not always the spirit) of the law. These four schools (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi and Maliki, named for their founders) are accepted by each other as legitimate, but may produce conflicting judgements in any particular case. As a result the body of Islamic jurisprudence (the fiqh) is now enormous. Such legal knowledge notwithstanding, discussions of the nature of the law, the grounds of its legitimacy, and the distinguishing marks of legal, as opposed to coercive, social structures are minimalist, Classical Islamic jurisprudence, like classical Islamist philosophy, assumes that law originates in divine command, as revealed through the Koran and the Sunna, and as deduced by analogy (qiyas) or consensus (ijma’). Apart from the four sources (usul) of law, no other source is recognised. Law, in other words, is the will of God, and sovereignty is legitimate only in so far as it upholds God’s will and is authorized through it.

There is nevertheless one great classical thinker who addressed the realities of social order, and the nature of the power exerted through it, in secular rather than theological terms: Ibn Khaldun, the fourteenth-century Tunisian polymath whose Muqaddimah is a kind of prolegomenon to the study of history and offers a general perspective on the rise and decline of human societies. Ibn Khaldun’s primary subject of study had been the Bedouin societies of North Africa; but he generalized also from his knowledge of Muslim history. Societies, he argued, are held together by a cohesive force, which he called ’asabiya (’asaba, “to bind,” ’asab, a “nerve,” “ligament,” or “sinew”—cf. Latin religio). In tribal communities, ’asabiya is strong, and creates resistance to outside control, to taxation, and to government. In cities, the seat of government, ‘asabiya is weak or non-existent, and society is held together by force exerted by the ruling dynasty. But dynasties too need ’asabiya if they are to maintain their power. Hence they inevitably decline, softened by the luxury of city life, and within four generations will be conquered by outsiders who enjoy the dynamic cohesion of the tribe.

I’m bolding this just in case you aren’t familiar with Ibn Khaldun’s theory to emphasise how important this is. I would argue that it is basically correct.

That part of Ibn Khaldun’s theory is still influential: Malise Ruthven, for example, believes that it casts light on the contemporary Muslim world, in which ‘asabiya rather than instituions remains the principal cohesive force. But Ibn Khaldun’s secular theory of society dwells on pre-political unity rather than political order. His actual political theory is far more Islamic in tone. Ibn Khaldun introduces a distinction between two kinds of government—that founded on religion (siyasa diniya) and that founded on reason (siyasa ‘aqliya), echoing the thoughts of the Mu’tazili theologians. The second form of government is more political and less theocratic, since its laws do not rest on divine authority but on rational principles that can be understood and accepted without the benefit of faith. But Ibn Khaldun finds himself unable to approve of this form of politics. Secular law, he argues, leads to a decline of ‘asabiya, such as occurred when the Islamic umma passed from Arab to Persian rule. Moreover the impediment (wazi’) that constrains us to abide by the law is, in the rational state, merely external. In the state founded on the shari’a this impediment is internal, operating directly on the will of the subject. In short, the emergence of secular politics from the prophetic community is a sign not of civilized progress but of moral decline. [...]

At this point I ask my fellow rationalists to consider. If this was the case, what might decline of ’asabiya look like in modern secular societies if it was happening?

For all his subtlety, therefore, Ibn Khaldun ends by endorsing the traditional, static idea of government according to the shari’a. To put in a nutshell what is distinctive about this traditional idea of government: the Muslim conception of law as holy law, pointing the unique way to salvation, and applying to every area of human life, involves a confiscation of the political. Those matters which, in Western societies, are resolved by negotiation, compromise, and the laborious work of offices and committees are the object of immovable and eternal decrees, either laid down explicitly in the holy book, or discerned there by some religious figurehead—whose authority, however, can always be questioned by some rival imam or jurist, since the shari’a recognizes no office or institution as endowed with any independent lawmaking power.

Three features of the original message embodied in the Koran have proved decisive in this respect. First, the Messenger of God was presented with the problem of organizing and leading an autonomous community of followers. Unlike Jesus, he was not a religious visionary operating under an all-embracing imperial law, but a political leader, inspired by a revelation of God’s purpose and determined to assert that purpose against the surrounding world of tribal government and pagan superstition.

Second, the suras of the Koran make no distinction between the public and private spheres: what is commanded to the believers is commanded in response to the many problems, great and small, that emerged during the course of Muhammad’s political mission. But each command issues from the same divine authority. Laws governing marriage, property, usury and commerce occur side-by-side with rules of domestic ritual, good manners, and personal hygiene. The conduct of war and the treatment of criminals are dealt with in the same tone of voice as diet and defecation. The whole life of the community is set out in a disordered, but ultimately consistent, set of absolutes, and it is impossible to judge from the text itself whether any of these laws is more important, more threatening, or more dear to God’s heart than the others. The opportunity never arises, for the student of the Koran, to distinguish those matters which are open to political negotiation from those which are absolute duties to God. In effect, everything is owed to God, with the consequence that nothing is owed to Caesar.

Third, the social vision of the Koran is shaped through and through by the tribal order and commercial dealings of Muhammad’s Arabia. It is a vision of people bound to each other by family ties and tribal loyalties, but answerable for their actions to God alone. No mention is made of institutions, corporations, societies, or procedures with any independent authority. Life, as portrayed in the Koran, is a stark, unmediated confrontation between the individual and his God, in which the threat of punishment and the hope of reward are never far from the thoughts of either party.

Therefore, although the Koran is the record of a political project, it lays no foundations for an impersonal political order, but vests all power and authority in the Messenger of God. [...]

Islamic revivals almost always begin from a sense of the corruption and godlessness of the ruling power, and a desire to rediscover the holy leader who will restore the pure way of life that had been laid down by the Prophet.

If only people commenting on upheavals in the Middle Eastern world actually knew anything about the Middle East, they might actually make usable predictions. Not that punditry is about predictions anyway.

There seems to be no room in Islamic thinking for the idea—vital to the history of Western constitutional government—of an office that works for the benefit of the community, regardless of the virtues and vices of the one who fills it. Spinoza put the point explicitly by arguing that what makes for excellence in the state is not that it should be governed by good men, but that it should be so constituted that it does not matter whether it be governed by good men or bad. This idea goes back to Aristotle, and is the root of political order in the Western tradition—the government of laws, not of men, even though it is men who make the laws. There seems to be no similar idea in Islamic political thinking, since institutions, offices, and collective entities play no part in securing political legitimacy, and all authority stems from God, via the words, deeds, and example of his Messenger.

Islam and Christianity both flourished, once the latter had endured its dormant period on the Celtic fringe. Yet Christendom’s civic evolution, courtesy of “separation of Church and State”, eventually left its rival in the dust.

We mustn’t give Saint Paul too much credit. Jethro Tull surely wasn’t the only person capable of inventing the seed drill. The triumphant religion in Europe could easily have been someone else’s mutated Judaism, Christianity or another Messiah cult.

Facile, universalist religions spread easily within a multi-ethnic empire. Kings and emperors see the benefit to themselves in “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God”. And who would miss circumcision or dietary regulations? Adaptive traits coincide in a product that happened to be useful to the antique version of GodTV.

God-memes like Yahweh (v.1) prosper in more refractory circumstances. A draconian, legislative God supplements the tribal leader’s tenuous monopoly on violence, allowing regimented Israelites to conquer the libertines of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The tragedy of Islam is that it falls between two stools. It is legislative enough to help its adherents conquer other unruly Arab tribes, universalist enough to spread worldwide, and simple enough to go viral: There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God. But it wasn’t born within an empire, so it lacks “separation of Church and State”. The memeplex persists, but doesn’t avail its bearers.