© 2005 Olga López
© 2005 Urantia Association of Spain
I’ve always had a soft spot for “secondary” characters in all kinds of stories, and after reading the fourth part of the Book, I found Abner of Philadelphia to be a very interesting supporting character in many ways. Not only because of the role he played throughout Jesus’ public life, which I was completely unaware of since he doesn’t appear in the Gospels. Also because he personifies an attitude toward the Gospel of Jesus that, while much more faithful to the original message than that adopted by Paul of Tarsus, quickly fell into oblivion. In the confrontation between Paul and Abner, Paul’s choice ultimately triumphed. The Christianity we know today is largely the work of this great religious teacher.
I would like to reflect on this, trying to compare both attitudes toward Jesus’ message, that of Abner and that of Paul. I believe this reflection can be very useful to us, since Jesus’ mission marked the fourth epochal revelation, and we, the readers of The Urantia Book, have the responsibility to prevent the fifth revelation from being distorted by the passage of time. We have before us almost a thousand years in which there will be no other such revelation, and we must ensure that the flame remains alive throughout this time. We should not fall into the error that Christianity made in its beginnings, that is, allowing the religion about Jesus to eclipse the religion of Jesus. We must not fall into the temptation of “sanctifying” the Book itself and allowing the teachings it contains to fade into the background, following Paul’s path. But it is also clear that we must be flexible and not isolate ourselves in a “Numantine” defense of the “purity” of the teachings contained in the Book, as Abner did with the teachings of Jesus. As Aristotle advocated, the most appropriate solution is always the middle ground. We will try to determine where this point lies throughout these reflections.
Abner played a prominent role in Jesus’ public life. He wasn’t one of the twelve apostles, but he was always there, providing support and preaching. Although we find the first mention of Abner in Paper 134, his story truly begins to intertwine with Jesus’s in Paper 135, when we learn about John the Baptist. Although John was not entirely at home among the Nazarenes at En Gedi, he fraternized closely with Abner, their leader and chief (UB 135:2.4). After John the Baptist began his public life, he appointed twelve apostles from among his principal disciples at the urging of Abner, who was then the leader of his followers (UB 144:6.1). During the time of John the Baptist’s imprisonment, a three-week-long conference was held in which both the disciples of Jesus, led by Andrew, and the disciples of John, led by Abner, attempted to harmonize the functioning of the two groups. From these meetings, Abner became a fervent believer in Jesus. Later, he was appointed leader of a group of 70 educators charged with preaching the gospel (UB 144:8.6).
From then on Andrew and Abner acted as associates, and each apostle of Jesus had an apostle of John as an associate (UB 146:3.9). But they never fully merged; they were associated but independent groups. In fact, we are told that at the second Passover that Jesus celebrated with his apostles in Jerusalem, the apostles of John celebrated this feast with Abner (UB 147:2.3).
After that Passover, the two groups temporarily separated. John’s apostles remained in Jerusalem under the direction of Abner, where they began discreet work to expand the kingdom, while Jesus and his disciples returned to Galilee. They didn’t meet again until shortly before the 70 evangelists received their mission. But they cooperated with each other and there was a good relationship between them, despite their differences of opinion.
In general, Abner’s job was to stay in the rear, acting as a “reinforcement” for the evangelistic mission of Jesus and his apostles, furthering the revelation. In the year 29, Abner and his associates established their headquarters in Hebron and went periodically to Bethsaida, where Jesus and his apostles were located, to hold meetings with them (UB 150:0.1).
Precisely the fact that Abner had a group of disciples independent of Jesus’s (although collaborators) made it possible that, at those times when the doors of the synagogues were closed to Jesus and his apostles, some of those synagogues were open to Abner and his associates, with the excuse that they were followers of John, not of Jesus (UB 156:6.7).
From Hebron, Abner moved his headquarters to Bethlehem, where he could stay informed of the activities of Jesus’ group (UB 159:6.4). There he also had occasion to spend time with Jesus (UB 162:0.4). During this time, the work of his group in Judea helped to build a favorable feeling toward the gospel of the kingdom, which prevented Jesus’ enemies from daring to openly express their opposition (UB 162:1.6).
From his headquarters in Bethlehem, Abner had sent many disciples to Judea, Samaria, and even Alexandria (UB 162:9.2). At that time, Jesus divided his time between Bethany (where his apostles were) and Bethlehem (where Abner and other apostles of John were). This contact with John’s apostles was very fruitful, for they felt understood and valued and wholeheartedly accepted the kingdom and all that it entailed. Shortly thereafter, Abner and his eleven companions joined forces with Jesus and his apostles. Only then did they work as a single group until the day of the crucifixion.
Abner was placed in charge of the group of 70 gospel preachers and instructors (UB 163:1.1), whom he sent out in pairs to all the cities of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea (UB 163:1.6) to preach for six weeks. Abner also led the women’s corps (UB 163:7.3).
In the year 30 he gathered his associates and gave them final instructions before sending them out to the cities and towns of Perea (UB 165:1.3), on a mission that lasted almost three months and marked the master’s last ministry. The Master himself emphasized to his disciples the excellent work being done by Abner and his associates in Perea, where they were obtaining very good results without resorting to miracles and wonders (UB 166:0.1).
It was precisely in Philadelphia, a city in Perea, that the greatest number of followers of the Master’s teachings were found. This was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that its synagogue was never subject to the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem and was therefore always open to the teachings of Jesus. In fact, at that time, Abner taught three times a day in the synagogue of Philadelphia (UB 166:5.1). It was also in Philadelphia that Lazarus fled from the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem and where he lived until the end of his days in close association with Abner (UB 168:5.2). David Zebedee also went to Philadelphia, in association with Abner and Lazarus (UB 171:1.5).
Abner last saw Jesus shortly before the last Passover. Jesus counseled him to continue his work without paying attention to what was going to happen in Jerusalem. This was his parting advice: “My son, I know you will be true to the kingdom, and I pray the Father to grant you wisdom that you may love and understand your brethren.” (UB 171:3.2) These words are very revealing, if we consider the events that followed, which we will discuss later.
Abner followed the advice not to go to Jerusalem and remained in Philadelphia, engaged in his mission. Abner was one of the witnesses to Jesus’ tenth morontia appearance, where he also appeared to Lazarus and 150 other companions. This was during a meeting Abner had called in the synagogue to discuss Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection (UB 191:4.1).
What happened after Jesus’ death? How did relations between Abner and the other leaders of the early Christian communities evolve?
Abner’s problem was precisely that of exercising a certain intransigence towards his companions, which led him to become enemies with the leaders of emerging Christianity.
The first synagogue, then church, of Philadelphia had promising prospects. As we have previously stated, the doors for preaching the gospel had always been open in that city. There was a large group of gospel followers among Jews, Gentiles, and people of every social and intellectual class. The church in Philadelphia was the headquarters for the missionaries charged with spreading the gospel in the eastern regions (UB 166:5.2). It was the stronghold of the Master’s teachings, the center of Christian knowledge in the region for centuries.
However, problems soon arose between the different Christian communities. If the Jews of Jerusalem had always had problems with the Jews of Philadelphia, these problems also spread to the Christian communities. Abner clashed with James, Jesus’ brother and leader of the Jerusalem church, and this caused the churches of Philadelphia and Jerusalem to clash as well. The revelators attribute this distancing between them to the fact that Abner is not mentioned in the New Testament events. As we know, history always silences the losing side…
The estrangement between James and Abner continued throughout his life, and continued even after the destruction of Jerusalem, after which Antioch became the seat of Christianity according to Paul, and Philadelphia the seat of “the kingdom of heaven according to Abner” (UB 171:1.6).
But it wasn’t just James that Abner clashed with. He also argued with the apostle Peter and Paul, albeit for different reasons. He and Paul shared philosophical and theological differences. Abner disagreed with Paul’s attempts to rework Jesus’ teachings to better fit Hellenistic philosophy and cause fewer adaptation problems among the Jews. Abner was, in a word, more of a “purist” than Paul.
Jesus was perfectly aware that Abner would have problems with his fellow members of the future Christian community. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given him that advice the last time they met during Jesus’ lifetime. And, as we mentioned earlier, the course of events gave Jesus’ words a special meaning.
Abner’s “purism,” though commendable, led him toward isolation. The church in Philadelphia upheld the religion of Jesus as he had taught it, but that momentum didn’t last much longer than his long life (he died at 89 years of age), and, worse still, they were alone, lacking the support of the influential church in Jerusalem. The missionaries sent by Abner took their version of the gospel to Mesopotamia and Arabia, but their message never progressed as far as Paul’s version and was diluted and even silenced by the unstoppable rise of Islam (UB 195:1.11).
Here it would be appropriate to allude to a fact mentioned in Document 134 concerning the future of the religious school in the Persian city of Urmia, promoted by a wealthy merchant named Cymboithon. During his journey with Ganid and Gonod, Jesus visited that city where, as in so many other places, he prepared the ground for the rapid spread of his gospel in the years following his death. However, unlike other places where Paul and other messengers of the kingdom arrived, where the soil was fertile for their teachings, educators sent by Abner arrived in Urmia, but they proved to be very intransigent and inflexible, only adding to the atmosphere and increasing the confusion. The school eventually closed and was finally destroyed during an orgiastic Mithras cult (UB 134:6.16-17).
We should note here that Abner found an ally in Nathanael, who also agreed to preach the original gospel and not a gospel about Jesus (UB 193:6.4). Nathanael spent a year with Abner in Philadelphia and then went beyond Mesopotamia to preach the gospel as he understood it. But he, too, was alone in that enterprise. With the perspective of the intervening centuries, we can determine what its fruits were.
Thus, we find ourselves in the paradoxical situation that the group that most faithfully practiced Jesus’ religion eventually vanished. Others were the victors in this story, those who managed to perpetuate their vision of Jesus’ gospel to this day.
It’s now time to talk about Paul.
Paul of Tarsus is a figure who did not know Jesus during his lifetime and did not participate in his public life. However, there are many references to him in the LU, since the success of Christianity is largely due to him. These references are more numerous in the early documents of the fourth part, which describe the religious landscape of Jesus’ time and explain why Christianity spread so successfully throughout the West.
Paul was a Hebrew but also a Roman citizen, and he proclaimed the gospel in Greek, the lingua franca for the citizens of the empire (the equivalent of today’s English). Most of his converts to Christianity came from Gentile believers (UB 121:2.5). He borrowed some of the doctrine from the Stoics and the sermon method from the Cynics (UB 121:4.3-4). Despite competition from Mithraism, and despite the fact that Paul did not preach exactly the gospel of Jesus, for he made numerous adaptations to make it more acceptable to potential converts, his message was superior, and this was soon reflected in the rise of Christianity and the decline of Mithraism. Paul used the blend of Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology structured by Philo of Alexandria as a foundation to build his Christian cult (UB 121:6.3), eliminating many of its contradictions. Although this greatly improved the doctrinal body of Christianity, he was unable to surpass Philo in one respect, and that was in his doctrine of the atonement and original sin, which was his own creation (UB 121:6.5). We can also consider the Gospel of Luke to have been directly inspired by Paul (UB 121:8.8).
We know that the death of Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity, aroused in him such feelings that he embraced the cause of Stephen and became the founder of the Christian religion (UB 128:3.6).
Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally), Jesus was preparing the ground for Paul many years before he toured the territories of the Roman Empire preaching the gospel, years before Jesus even began his public life. Paul never knew that the one his interlocutors were referring to, the one who impressed them so deeply that they remembered him after so much time (the scribe from Damascus, the tentmaker from Antioch, the Jewish tutor of the son of an Indian merchant), was the same Jesus he was talking about and whom he had never met personally. Paul often met people who had known Jesus and Ganid, and he even lived in the same houses where Jesus and Ganid had been welcomed during their journey. Could there be a greater “irony” of fate? Would Paul’s mission have been as successful if his interlocutors had not known that “Jewish tutor”? I sincerely doubt it.
Christianity was initially established in Ephesus through the efforts of Paul (UB 133:6.3), although it was in Antioch that Jesus’ followers first began to be called “Christians.” It was in Antioch (“by chance”) that Jesus lived for two months, working and learning; in fact, it was the longest stay of all the places he traveled (UB 134:7.3). Ten years later, Paul preached there and heard the doctrines of “the scribe of Damascus,” not suspecting that they had heard Jesus himself.
Paul worked closely with Peter, the chief apostle after Jesus’ death. Despite their differences in character and background, they worked together harmoniously (UB 139:2.11), just the opposite of what happened with Abner.
Paul’s great achievement was to bring together the best concepts from other religions and doctrines and incorporate them into Christian doctrine. This led to the rapid and willing acceptance of Christianity by other peoples, such as those of the Near East and the Western Greeks. Paul created the institutionalized church, which became the substitute for the kingdom of heaven that Jesus had come to proclaim (UB 170:5.7). Although Jesus’ ideal concept partially failed, Paul built one of the most progressive human societies ever to exist on Urantia (UB 170:5.16). Even though he was not faithful to the message, the concept of Jesus is still alive in the world’s advanced societies.
Although Peter was the first to make the mistake of emphasizing the unique facts surrounding Jesus rather than his message, Paul continued that line of preaching and reinforced it (UB 194:0.3).
Paul was aware that his religion could not prosper if it allowed itself to be tainted by any national culture or associated with established practices (UB 194:3.9); therefore, he came into conflict with those who wanted to impose the demands of Judaism on the new Christians. However, he did not separate himself as much as he should have from the social inertia of his time. Despite the fact that Jesus had a group of women disciples and that during the early days of the Christian church there were deaconesses (teachers and ministers), Paul did not fully recognize the equality of women among the ministers of the church, a situation that unfortunately has continued to this day.
In Paper 195, we learn more about the beginnings of Christianity and the factors that aided its spread. It is clear that Paul was a crucial figure for Christianity: not only was he a great organizer, but he was also willing to compromise shrewdly and astutely (UB 195:1.4); he was a great negotiator. Christianity, based almost exclusively on Paul’s personal religious experience, spread first among the Greeks, and through them among the Romans.
Unfortunately, Paul’s Christianity relegated the human Jesus, the courageous, fighting Jesus, the Jesus who had faith in our poor human condition, to the background. In any case, that was the image of Jesus that eventually prevailed in our time, although it did not completely eclipse the human Jesus.
Just as Jesus of Nazareth is an example of life, we can draw many useful lessons from the figures who appear in his life and who determined the success of his mission of giving.
Jesus came to this world not only to fulfill his seventh bestowal but also to show us very simple truths: the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. He showed us how it was possible to live by actively following the Father’s will. During his years on Urantia, he set an example with his life and even with his death. When that happened, it was up to his disciples and followers to perpetuate the message and spread it throughout the world.
Among these followers, some faithfully maintained the message, while others made concessions to make it more widely accepted. Those who remained more faithful to the message failed to make it endure, while those who made concessions and adaptations ensured that the message endured over time, albeit distorted.
Why didn’t the message most faithful to the original endure? Because its bearers isolated themselves from the rest of the Christian community, remaining firm in their uncompromising stance. Here we clearly see the negative consequences of remaining isolated and distant from those with whom one must walk hand in hand.
What would have been the ideal solution? It seems clear that it would have been to maintain Jesus’ message while making concessions that would have allowed it to reach the greatest possible number of people without distorting the message. This is the ideal solution, but (admittedly) difficult to put into practice. It’s always easy to speculate that, if Abner hadn’t confronted James, Peter, and Paul and tried to bring them over to his side through more diplomatic methods, Christianity would have taken a different course. But it’s also true that most of the apostles were soon blinded by the “miraculous” fact of Jesus’ resurrection and focused their message on his divine status, just as Paul did. It would have been truly difficult to change their course, but perhaps it would have been possible to maintain a greater part of the message if more tolerance and understanding had been exercised between Abner on the one hand, and Peter, James, and Paul on the other.
In his essay “Advertising,” Jeffrey Wattles alluded to the idea that the expansion of Christianity in the West had been Plan B for the fourth epochal revelation (that of Jesus), after Plan A of winning over the Jewish priests failed. Clearly, Paul would not have been so successful among the citizens of the Roman Empire if he had not Hellenized the gospel of Jesus, if he had not adapted it to make it more accessible to Greek culture. This was something Abner flatly denied, accusing Paul of being a “skillful corrupter.”
With the perspective that time gives, could anyone say that Plan B failed? I would say not entirely, despite everything that has happened and the excesses committed by the Church. Let us not forget that the revelators tell us that part of Jesus’ message remains latent in Christianity.
Now we have before us a new revelation, which began just fifty years ago. A revelation without visible faces that contains an expanded message destined to enlighten humanity for a thousand years. The path, therefore, is long, and there are many risks involved. The most important is that the message may become distorted and even disappear altogether.
What will our attitude be as readers committed to the revelation? Will we be faithful but intransigent like Abner, or possibilistic and negotiating like Paul? We know that both positions carry risks: the risk of isolating ourselves and closing ourselves off in the purity of our revelation, or the risk of opening ourselves up to the rest of society and making concessions that distort the message. In both cases, we risk repeating past mistakes. But knowing history is supposed to help us avoid repeating it. Two thousand years have not supposedly passed in vain.
Balancing is difficult and complicated, but it’s the only way to keep the flame of revelation alive and unswerving. It’s up to us to find that longed-for middle ground, one that will finally break our tendency to worship the vessel and forget the content.