 I'm talking about the reception of Paul's mysticism in European scholarship. Paul was a mystic, so claimed scholars from Adolf Deismann to Albert Schweitzer, although others disagreed, figures no less significant than Adolf Boltzmann, Karl Bart, Ernst Keesermann. The pro-mystic group argued that Paul's theological message was best understood if it is set within Hellenic or Jewish mysticism. The anti-mystic group could not tolerate any similarity of that sort, which in their opinion could only taint Paul's authentic theology. In this paper I will examine the arguments for and against Paul's mysticism to see what was theologically and politically at stake in all of these debates. As I will argue here, these debates resulted from an anxiety about constructing Paul as a rational Christian that happened to be also a Protestant European. This is also relevant to stories I have from teaching Christianity in Iran when sometimes when I'm talking about Jesus and Paul on law, some of the students just say, oh, it's so mystical and it's so relevant to mysticism. And by saying that story, I'm not trying to construct or build my argument on that East-West mystical rational dichotomy which I am critiquing here, but I'm trying to say that many times certain things are not seen like Paul's mysticism perhaps precisely because of your social and political location and others could perhaps see it. So first I will give a history of the debate. Both Dijsman is credited with starting it all in the beginning of the 20th century when he claimed that the entire Pauline teaching could be understood in light of his in Christ mysticism. Dijsman starts his book by saying that after traveling to Anatolia twice he had got significant insights into Paul. And I'm quoting here a long excerpt from Dijsman, but it's pretty interesting because he talks about that experience of traveling to Anatolia and it's from the preface of his book. Besides the Paul who has been turned into a western scholastic philosopher, besides the aristocratized, conventionalized and modernized Paul now suffering his eighth imprisonment in the paper bondage of polynism, I would faint said the Paul whom I think to have seen at Tarsus, Jerusalem and Damascus in Antioch, Lysinia, Galatia, Ephesus and Corinth and whose words became alive to me at night on the decks of Levant shipping and to the sound of birds of passage winning their flight toward the Tarsus aliving in their passionate emotion the force of their popular appeal and their prophetic depth. I mean Paul the Jew who in the days of the Caesars breathed the air of the Mediterranean and ate the bread which he had earned by the labor of his own hand. The missionary whose dark shadow fell on the glittering marble pavement of the great city in the blinding glare of noon, the mystic devotee of Christ who so far as can be comprehended historically at all will be understood not as the incarnation of a system but as a living complex of inner polarities which refuse to be parceled out. This is where Schweitzer starts to disagree and yes we are already in the preface of Dismann's book. I will come back to Schweitzer's contention but as for the title of Dismann's book and again as a title St. Paul a study in social and religious history indicates he was relying on history of religious school to show that the Apostles' teachings were embedded in their Hellenic context but are not in a philosophical tradition rather in a mystical Hellenistic legacy. Paul's preaching therefore resembled a cult of Christ more than the religion of Jesus. As Dismann famously put it, Paul was in Christ and Christ was in Paul but unlike Reisenstein and Boussouet around that time who also claimed that Paul's teaching resembled Gnosticism very much and many times even they are happy to say that Paul was the first Gnostic and was precisely situated within that group Dismann unlike those people could find both Jewish and Greek elements but he was careful to note the differences as well. He claimed that in Paul's theocentric mysticism communion rather than union sanctification or personality, conformation of the human towards the divine are highlighted something which is in contrast with the Hellenic egocentric mysticism which no boundary between humanity and deity is observed. Schweitzer followed up on Dismann but with important criticisms and qualifications he confirmed that Jesus and Paul were involved in different kinds of mysticism namely in God and in Christ mysticism respectively. He disagreed with Dismann in that he believed that Paul's thought was quite systematic. Schweitzer held that the system was wholly in line with Jewish scatology just as Dismann had distinguished between egocentric and theocentric mysticisms Schweitzer emphasized the distinction between intellectual and primitive mysticisms. According to Schweitzer, primitive mysticism has not, I'm quoting from Schweitzer's book, primitive mysticism has not yet risen to a conception of the universal and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super earthly, temporal and eternal. The entry into the super earthly takes place by means of a mystery, a magical act in a more developed form, magical mysticism is found in the Oriental and Greek mystery religions at the beginning of our era. In the cults of Addis, Osiris and Mithras as well as in the Illusinian mysteries in their later more profound form the believer attains by means of initiation unity with the divinity and thereby becomes a partaker in a immortality for which he yearns, end quote. And please note those whom Schweitzer includes in both primitive and intellectual groups as he calls them. In contrast, developed or intellectual mysticism and again I quote Schweitzer is a common possession of humanity. Whenever thought makes the ultimate effort to conceive the relation of their personality to the universal, this mysticism comes to existence. It is found among the Brahmins and in Buddha, in Platonism, in Stoicism, in Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Hegel. In a less end quote, and yes he also mentions other names in a less abstract forms, it may be found in the works of many Christian figures not the least, Hugo of Saint Victor, Francis of Assisi, Jacob Boomer and Meister Eckhart among others. End quote. Now the question is where does Paul stand here? Paul's mysticism according to Schweitzer occupies a unique position between primitive and intellectual mysticism. The religious conceptions of the Apostles stand high above those of primitive mysticism. This being so, it might have been expected that his mysticism would do with the unity of man with God as the ultimate ground of being, but this is not the case. Paul never speaks of being one with God or being in God. He does indeed assert the divine sonship of believers, but strangely enough he does not conceive of sonship to God as an immediate mystical relation to God, but as mediated and affected by means of the mystical union with Christ. End quote. Besides being an in Christ union, Paul's mysticism has another peculiar feature. It involves the believers dying and rising with Christ, that is they really participate in Christ's bodily suffering. Now if the history of religion scholars had heard in assuming a Hellenic origin for Paul's thought over looking the significant contribution of Jewish eschatology, why had Christianity later become Hellenic? Schweitzer responds by saying that it was Ignatius and Johanna in theology that Hellenized Paul's teachings making us miss a lot in understanding Paul. Other theologians also grappled with this issue. It is famously claimed that many Protestant theologians prefer to interpret Paul's in Christ remarks as participation in Christ, many of them showing an anxiety over the word mysticism. Rodolf Boltmann, who shared with Schweitzer an eschatological interpretation of Paul's message, could not concede to the mystical reading. According to Boltmann, Paul's apocalypse was not a passion mysticism because quote, this fellowship or sharing does not take place in absorbed meditation on the passion or in so full appropriation of Christ's suffering and mystical experience. End quote. Although he, unlike Schweitzer, accepted the Gnostic roots of the Pauline in Christ formula, Boltmann emphasized that the formula was ecclesiological rather than a formula of mysticism. Again, I quote Boltmann, it denotes not to be sure an individual mystical relationship to Christ, but the fact that the individual actual life of the believer living not out of himself but out of the divine deed of salvation is determined by Christ. End quote. In Boltmann's opinion, although Paul did have ecstatic experiences as a rare exception, note that Paul has to refer to 14 years ago in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul's in spirit or in Christ experience was about all his way of life. Again, I quote Boltmann. The spirit does not mean to him the capacity for mystical experiences. Rather, everything indicates that by the term spirit, he means the eschatological existence into which the believer is placed by having appropriated the salvation deed that occurred in Christ. But Ernest Casemont could not even allow for this. He went so far as to claim that Paul's doctrine of justification was, quote, a protection against enthusiasm and mysticism, end quote. E.P. Sanders also believed that participationist is a better description of the Pauline experience rather than the controversial word mysticism. James Dunn, quite exceptionally, was fairly comfortable with the term mystic. He does not reject the term mysticism and tries to find historical explanations for its replacement by other terms. For example, he says that one reason that Schweitzer's book was not continued was actually the way Schweitzer had put it. I quote Dunn. The extremness of Schweitzer's view on Paul's mysticism helps explain why the mystical approach faded so quickly as a viable option for Pauline studies in the middle decades of the century, end quote. Dunn generally feels that the insights of pro-mystic scholars could help in understanding Paul's thoughts. His stresses on the fact that Paul's mysticism was by no means an individual union, rather it involved social integration. Even though Dunn does not reject the term mysticism, he seems to prefer to use the word theology instead. The Catholic-alphaed Wickenhauser bemoans a protestant antipathy towards mysticism. But in order to object to the protestant equation of mysticism with Hellenic experiences, Wickenhauser emphasized the difference between Pauline and Hellenistic mysticism. He said that Paul was driven by a monotheistic, clear scatology and that he was aiming at union with a person rather than infinity. Although Wickenhauser and Valentin Prokulski were willing to point to one's attitude toward mystical experience as a confessional marker, that is Catholic protestant, one can see among Catholic scholars like Lucien Seufel, who did not find what he called vague mysticism an adequate explanation of Paul's precise theological ideas, as he put it. Now, I like to talk about the causes of this discomfort. This anxiety about Paul's mysticism can be indicative of underlying theological and political anxieties and marking boundaries between the same and the other. Jules Bessler attributes this anxiety to one's definition of mysticism and to one's personal attitude toward mysticism. I quote Bessler, Only another mystic can grasp the category of reality of which Paul speaks and the mystical scholars are few and far between. Yet whatever the language used and whatever the level of insight into the nature of reality, more and more scholars of a non-mystical bent are acknowledging that some form of real union with Christ was important, even central to Paul's experience and thought and quote. The question of definitions is important, as I will make clear. Mysticism is usually difficult to define and obviously theologians had to offer their definitions of the term before stating their disagreement or agreement with picturing a mystical Paul. As we have noted before, those who disagreed with the term mysticism said that their disagreement resulted precisely from a discomfort with the term, although they may not have been uncomfortable with the idea. Moreover, as mentioned above, some have attributed this anxiety about Paul's mysticism to a Protestant Catholic divide and have stated that Catholics were not so uncomfortable with the mystical Paul, but not McGean holds that German Protestants more particularly rejected mysticism, quote, at least God mysticism or the mysticism of union with God as essentially world-negating and salipsistic, and quote. If there is anything like a Protestant Catholic divide in the mysticism debate, it is reminiscent of the all-pervasive and highly influential Bowerian biblical scholarship. FC Bower's church history rested on the idea that Protestantism had yet to be purged from its, quote, unquote, Catholic or Jewish elements. It has to be polinized in a way and rejecting mysticism, which was usually associated with the Christian middle ages, could be a step in that direction. Another factor in this theological discomfort with the mystical Paul might be existentialism. Marcus Bookmore has pointed this out. Mysticism, however, defined is usually a way to bridge the abyss between God and humanity while existentialist and dialectical theology is based on this, depend on this huge gap, even to the point of emphasizing that it is not bridgeable. No wonder then that those theologians like Boltzmann and Bart, who emphasize the infinite qualitative difference between God and humanity, were not happy with the mystical Paul. This explanation seems plausible, but it is also a bit problematic. The problem with mysticism may be that its language of union is overcoming the God-human gap, although Boltzmann and Bart do not state that. The proposed term participation, however, is not solving the problem either. If mysticism is a way to bridge over the God-human abyss, the language of participation or fellowship in Christ is not any less than mysticism a way to cover up this separation. Nevertheless, without refuting the above factors, that is the Protestant-Catholic debate and the existential theology point that Bookmore had made, I'd like to suggest a third factor that contributed to this unease with the mystical Paul. In my opinion, debates on Paul's mysticism can be read in light of anxieties about Paul's political location. Richard King's study of mysticism in religious scholarship can be helpful in this survey. King argues that defining mysticism like its sister-term religion is fraught with difficulties. Mysticism and religion have been invented and reified only in modern times and largely in academia. Like religion, mysticism is a social construct which has over time been relegated to the realm of the private. In the history of the definition and usage of the term, one can see a first instance of disapproval by Luther who rejected the illogical and mystical exegesis of the scriptures. In the 17th century, mysticism gradually began to be used to distinguish science and literature. Why did this happen? King responds by saying that a quote, 17th century usage of the term mystical appears to have become increasingly pejorative. Critics attacked the apparent novelty of the mystic. Having a history, they argued, that spanned barely three or four centuries and usually said to originate with figures such as Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross. Apologists for the mystical responded to this critique in two ways. First, they claimed to reveal only what was already present in holy scriptures. However, the claim to access the secret meaning of scripture was always likely to be seen as a threat to the church's institutionalization of biblical meaning if made by those outside its auspices. So we find the predominance of a second strategy, namely the invention of an ancient mystical tradition within the orthodox walls of Christianity. This involved a selective colonization of classical Christian authors, in particular the early church fathers and a variety of medieval Christian writers and saintly figures. The consequence of the second strategy, of course, was that it tied the newly sanctified mystic and their apologists to the established tradition of exegesis and the overarching authority of the church, as well as binding them to a canon of acceptable and orthodox ecclesiastical literature. So it would seem, then, that the birth of a Christian mystical tradition also coincided with its domestication by the ecclesiastical authorities. Another key moment in the study of mysticism is the emergence of William James' theories on religious and mystical experiences. Although very prevalent to this day, James' understanding of mysticism was largely based on the philosophy of his age as King remarks. He was influenced by romanticism and emphasized the private psychological and individual aspects of mystical experiences. And it also rested on the idea of mystical experiences that could be deemed delusory, subjective and hallucinatory or described as altered states of consciousness. Again, this shows how it was developing as something that is different from normative nature of experience. And it was usually associated with oriental religions. King believes that the modern distinction between private religion and public thought coupled with the labeling of the other as non-rational, which is by no means only a Western phenomenon, led to the association of the mystical with the other. Again, I quote King, in fact the mystical has tended to be defined in post-continent thought in direct opposition to the rational. Mysticism comes to represent the preeminently private, the non-rational and the quietistic. As such, it represents the suppressed other that contributes to the establishment of and high status of those spheres of human activity that are defined as public, rational and socially oriented in the modern academy, end quote. Again, as King remarks, even when in romanticism and new age spiritualities, mysticism is celebrated precisely for the elements of irrational and mysterious that it contains. That is both its celebration and its rejection are embedded in the rational-irrational binary histories of philosophy do not take the Eastern thought into account as they are considered non-philosophical, poetic and irrational, they relegate it to the realm of mysticism. In light of what King has put forward, we can get a better idea of the European reception of the mystical Paul. Let us go back to the scholars we have examined before. First, the very emergence of these debates can be in line with what King has observed about the strategies of the promistic group or the apologists of mysticism to show their long heritage. But more than that, important questions of inclusion and exclusion rise in these debates. The pioneer Deisman made a case for a mystical reading of Paul based on his journeys to the Orient after which he was convinced that Paul belongs more to the mystical Levant rather than the philosophical Greece. Only when he was too close to locating Paul in thought in the Orient, Deisman qualified it by distinguishing between egocentric and theocentric mysticism. Yes, Paul was a mystic. No, not that kind of mystic. Deisman was including Paul in a mystical tradition, excluding him from a philosophical tradition and taking extra care not to include him within the unfavorable mystical traditions. Similarly, Schweitzer, by whose name the mystical Paul is known and remembered, started his book Mysticism of Paul the Apostle with distinguishing two kinds of mysticism, a primitive and an intellectual one. Intellectual mysticism, in his opinion, involved thought while primitive mysticism was more a matter of magic. Schweitzer could not locate Paul in primitive mysticism. He insisted that Paul was an apostle of thought and freedom of thought, and that Paul, according to Schweitzer, was not an intellectual mystic as such because he was not thinking of unity with God, rather his object was unity with Christ. Also note that it is only Schweitzer's own definition of mysticism that excludes the union with Christ from intellectual mysticism. Schweitzer's Paul was influenced by Jewish eschatological beliefs rather than Hellenistic mysteries. His thought was Hellenized only later with theology and Ignatius. Resistance to the Hellenization of Paul in message that was represented in the history of religion schools echoed in the work of other theologians, not the Lees, Barth and Boltman. What they saw in Paul was not at all similar to what they knew of mysticism. Gradually Protestant theologians proposed to use the substitutive terms that said almost the same thing, but also preserved the uniqueness of Christianity and Paul in message. James Dunn held that the wider interest in mysticism, which had been a feature of pre-World War II period, had anyway been diminishing in the face of psychological critique and the horror of World War I. By psychological critique, Dunn means William James' work, although he does not explain it further. Neither does he elaborate on how the horror of World War I influenced the debates. Perhaps the question was forgotten altogether or overshadowed by other overarching themes such as the participation in Christ. In recent years, however, there has been a turn to a mystical Paul and quite a few scholars have tried to read Paul's message in light of his mysticism. Colleen Shuntz, for example, has observed that all of these debates arise from a thought-experience dichotomy that can be reassessed and that then Paul's experience can shed light on his intellectual message. Danielle Margrott notes that Paul had all of the elements of mystical knowledge and his work can be interpreted in light of that. Celia Courier relies on postmodern theology, which according to her provides room for mystical aesthetic and transformative experiences. Courier argues that Paul's mysticism is not confined to certain quote-unquote lofty moments of excitement, which involves one's daily life, which she calls quotidian mysticism. Suffering is part of that daily life. Therefore, it leads to a transformed ethical life and inner tranquility. Conclusion. In this paper, I tried to survey the Western European responses to Paul's mysticism, and I should note that I could also work on charismatic responses and also Western orthodox responses. From what I have surveyed, I can see that the question is highly theological and political. Debates on Paul's mysticism arose only to include Paul within a tradition, Gnosticism according to Bussuere and Reitz und Stein, Drich's eschatology according to Schweitzer, both according to Deismann, neither according to Boltzmann. Many of these studies started with definition, which is methodologically correct and helpful, but when in situating or not situating Paul within mystical traditions, scholars got out of their way to distinguish different kinds of mysticism. Again, their struggles about favorable and not so favorable kinds of mysticism show up. Relying on Richard King's study of the politics of religious scholarship, I suggested that the above questions can indicate certain attempts at recognition, inclusion and exclusion. Paul was a pioneering mystic, but not that kind of mystic that can be imagined from other traditions. Paul's was a unique experience. To follow up on that book, I can say that it was a question of constructing a European Paul, the mystic philosopher who while confirming the ancient history of Christian mysticism remained free from certain ancient practices or strange ecstasies. Even while living and dying with the actual body of Christ, the mystic apostle is largely a man of ideas and not the flesh. Disembodied and mentalistic. And now I think that speaks for itself. Now the question is whether this whole thing was necessary at all. If one considers Deismann and Schweitzer if one considers Deismann and Schweitzer only children of their age, when constructing a history of Christian mysticism was significant, when history of religion school was looking for a Hellenic context of Christianity, when political and theological boundaries could be different from our own, then do we have continued it at all? Yes, I agree that Paul's mysticism can even explain a lot of inexplicable elements of his message. For example, his attitude toward the law is in line with what many mystics in Judaism, Christianity and Islam suggested about the significance of law in God-human relation. Paul's understanding of transitory life, his hope for future union with Christ or of God, how can it matter? His focus on the spirit are all parts of a mystical tendency. I especially suggest that a Paul within Judaism scholars take this formulation seriously. Thank you.