For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

If Paul was this towering figure in the first century bringing this semi-jewish shit loaf to gentiles then the Gentiles should have known all about him and revered him, shouldn't they?

I had a look at what early Christian writers around Justin's time wrote about. There's only three of them in the wikipedia list because the earlier writers are Paul of Tarsus and the authors of the canonical gospels.

Ignatius of Antioch. Nobody is sure when he died because estimates range from Eusebius's report of 108 AD to 115 AD.

Ignatius modelled his writings after Paul, Peter, and John, and even quoted or paraphrased their own works freely, such as when he quoted 1 Cor 1:18, in his letter to the Ephesians[12]:

I found the Letter to the Ephesians - this version shows where Ignatius quoted and paraphrased from various texts, including 1 Corinthians. If Marcion forged it he must have said who wrote it otherwise it wouldn't have suited his idea that Paul was the real apostle. The letter starts and ends with

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 1:2unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours:

The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.

Ignatius quoting from this letter which probably had Paul's name in it, suggests that he didn't wonder who Paul was supposed to have been. What could have given Ignatius the idea that Paul had existed?

The First Epistle Of Clement appears to be around the right date.

The First Epistle of Clement, (literally, Clement to Corinth; Greek, Κλήμεντος πρὸς Κορινθίους, Klēmentos pros Korinthious) is a letter addressed to the Christians in the city of Corinth. The letter dates from the late 1st or early 2nd century, and ranks with Didache as one of the earliest — if not the earliest — of extant Christian documents outside the canonical New Testament.

Many scholars believe 1 Clement was written around the same time as the Book of Revelation, c. 95-97 AD.

The epistle mentions Paul twice.

1Clem 5:5
By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the
prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in
bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in
the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the
reward of his faith,

1Clem 47:1
Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle.

1Clem 47:2
What wrote he first unto you in the beginning of the Gospel?

This suggests that there could have been a tradition about Paul writing to the Corinthians and suffering for his faith. If the epistle has been dated correctly, Marcion would have been 10 or 12 at the time because he lived c.85 – c.160. Any tradition about Paul doesn't automatically mean he really existed, of course, but, if he didn't exist, the tradition must have got started some time.

The next writer near the time was Melito of Sardis who died in 180 AD but only fragments of his work survived.

Instead, we find "his" epistles being trotted out by Marcion and, it would seem, only later being adopted into the growing xtian bullshit story of the day.

Call me suspicious.

If there was a tradition about Paul writing a letter to the Corinthians, Marcion might have forged it and then got carried away by forging some more letters. Justin Martyr knew enough about Marcionism to regard it as a heresy so he must have been aware of Marcion promoting Paul as the only true apostle. Justin still quoted and paraphrased Paul's letters, though, so even if he'd been taken in my Marcion's forgeries he couldn't have been wondering who Paul was.

On the other hand, Marcion might have collected letters which were attributed to Paul and then edited them to suit his own purpose. The only other explanation is that Marcion forged Ignatius's and Clement's letters as well. Somebody then forged Justin's work so he quoted and paraphrased Paul.

Anyway, I've done enough for now. If you think there were dozens of early Christian writers around Justin's time or before who should have mentioned Paul, I'll leave you to find them. Try looking at all the writings that didn't make it into the Bible along with the Gnostic texts. The object of the exercise isn't to do with whether Paul actually existed but when a tradition about Paul existing could have got started.