"Love your neighbor," the son, and the sons' community: Reading Paul's epistles in view of freud and lacan

For several decades, Paul's epistles have been the focus of academic and philosophical debates revolving around questions pertaining to Jewish law, love in relation to the law, the nexus between Judaism and Christianity, and so on. What is it about Paul's writings, a short collection of only a few epistles, that makes for such passionate discussion? In what ways can they be viewed as a key to understanding Western civilization? In this essay,1 I present my analysis of the perception of love and identification with Jesus in Paul's epistles. Paul was the first and greatest Christian theologian. He emerged after Jesus' death and sought to spread the messianic gospel beyond the religious and social boundaries of the Jewish people. In most of Paul's epistles, generally directed to the Mediterranean Christian communities, most of which he himself had founded, he addresses the concept of the law-nomos in Greek-as signifying the legislative aspect of the Torah. For Paul, the law-which distinguishes between Jews and non- Jews (gentiles) and has its place in the "carnal" realm-is characteristic of the "old," antiquated Jewish experience. "Spiritual" belief, on the other hand, is characteristic of those who follow Jesus Christ-the "new Jews." In order for Paul to go beyond the realm of the law, beyond the domain of pedestrian, allegedly "unspiritual" life, he had to put forward an eschatological redemption wherein one does not live by the Law of the Father but rather by the Law of Jesus, the Son. Nevertheless, Paul did not seek a total departure from the law; he needed it at least in part to organize the community of disciples of Christ. To this end, Paul put forth new tenets, primarily derived from the biblical commandment "Love your neighbor," as well as rituals that establish the community's borders and its inner disposition through love for both one's fellow human and for Jesus. Following Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, I will suggest that Paul should be regarded as the founder of a narcissistic community of sons who emphasize the image of the Son at the center of their experience. At first, it seems that this Son, Jesus, who is presented as the Son of God, is the sons' object for imitation. But Jesus' image is also a projection of the Pauline believer himself. Thus Paul is the founder of an imagined community that establishes its identity through games of identification with the reflection of its own image / Jesus'-image in the proverbial mirror.