Ben Masada
Well-Known Member
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh - II Corinthians 12:7-10
That was a condition, which Paul would call it an infirmity. For three times, as he said, he prayed God, so that it be removed from him, but that it had been denied on the basis that what seemed weakness to him, his spiritual strength would be made perfect.
Paul was suffering from Epilepsy, whose aftereffects would cause him a devasting condition of depression.
Epilepsy is a condition which has the characteristic to awake in the epileptic the esoteric sense of spirituality, and to bring up to mind what was spiritually
disturbing the mind, as the condition derives from a neurologic disorder characterized by sudden recurring attacks of motor, sensory or psychic malfunction with or without loss of consciousness or convulsive seizures.
During an attack of epilepsy, sparkles of light are perceived in the mind as to make the person with the condition embelish what it was concerning him or her as to admit a literal fulfilment of what was only a matter of the imagination.
When Paul went for letters in Jerusalem to arrest and bring under chains those in the synagogues of Damascus who followed "the New Way," which was a reference to the Nazarenes followers of Jesus. Halfway, on the Road to Damascus, he was taken by an attack of epilepsy and fell from his horse. During such an attack, he would experience sparkles of light fleshed into his mind, as such effects are usual in epilepsy, and he would experience the rehearse of everything that was in his mind just prior to the attack, which caused in Paul a change of mind. Instead of persecuting the disciples of Jesus physically, just to see them rather grow in number, he would change his strategy and fight them from within by join the Sect of the Nazarenes at his return to Jerusalem. But he was rejected by the Apostles due to his history of violence towards the Nazarenes.
Since epileptic attacks cause the sense of materialization of one's imaginations, as Paul came to complete consciousness, he seemed to be a different man with the fantastic claim that he had spoken with Jesus during his epileptical seizures, and decided to join the Sect of the Nazarenes. However, instead of returning to Jerusalem from the Road to Damascus, he proceeded to Damascus where he stayed for three years, perhaps with the intent to acquire some history of peaceful coexistence with the disciples of the Nazarenes before returning to Jerusalem as "new" man. From then on, everything he experienced in his attacks of epilepsy, he would interpret it and follow it like in a prophetic vision.
Being rejected by the Apostles, after a havoc he caused in Jerusalem, he was sent back to Tarsus, where he belonged, and decided to found his own religion. Since he had always been a Hellenistic Jew, and well-educated in Hellenism, he founded Christianitity on the basis of his Hellenistic concepts, which, of course would not miss to crash with Judaism, and turn the fight into the famous Pauline policy of Replacement Theology.
Ben
