During the 1920s the British essayist and editor A. R. Orage came to New York City intent on fostering interest in the teachings of George Gurdjieff. Mr. Orage was well known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic. His activities on behalf of Gurdjieff's teaching attracted the interest of quite a few professionals, scientists, writers, and intellectuals in the New York area, including the attorney Allan Reginald Brown.
What in the teaching attracted? For Mr. Brown it was
the simplicity of Gurdjieff's teaching ... which first attracted me to his sincerity. There was no attempt at recondite intellectuality.1
Gurdjieff was one of those who, like Socrates, believed that a great deal of human misfortune, both individual and shared, stems from our ignorance of ourselves. Here he made a strong distinction between the two kinds of knowing: knowing about something (for example, the qualities of different cigarettes) and knowing for oneself through effort and attention (for example, how to quit smoking). Consistent with this distinction, he taught that, where ideas were concerned, one should verify everything for oneself from experience. Such a teaching produces not followers but new nodes of awareness in networks of shared experience. That might well have been part of what attracted Mr. Brown to Orage and Gurdjieff.
Another factor that made Gurdjieff's teaching particularly attractive was the effectiveness of its methods. Mr. Gurdjieff noted that trying to explore one's own mental makeup is of little use unless one can learn to observe not only diligently but also without judgment. He also knew that for most people the act of observing oneself persistently and without judgment arouses substantial psychological resistance. It takes an exceptional effort to overcome this resistance, and when spontaneous efforts at judgment-free self-observation falter, structured exercise or practice can be of real aid.
Underlying those habits of mind which feed resistance is the fear of losing something one has spent a lifetime constructing: the psychological self, with its likes and dislikes, its tales of praise and scorn. Where Mr. Gurdjieff differed from, say, current British academics like Bruce Hood ("The Self Illusion") and Julian Baggini ("The Ego Trick"), was in his hard-won affirmation that when we let go of the constructed self, the fictive self, something else quite wonderful becomes available to us, something each person can verify for themselves, something a Christian might call 'the Christ'.
Allan Brown was himself a Christian with a strong wish to serve the Christ. As someone with a keen interest in objective data and scientific method, Mr. Brown was understandably drawn to those sources closest in time to Jesus himself. Mr. Brown studied classical Greek and mastered it well enough to impress a pro like Herbert Parrish (see the Introduction). His monograph is informed by and benefits from his reading of the epistles in Greek. However, he never poses as a professional scholar. The chief and rare merit of Paul the Sower lies less in its scholarship than in the way it draws on experiences Mr. Brown accumulated through inner disciplines practiced with his mentor Orage. These engendered a lived understanding that resonated strongly with something kindred in the letters of the Paul.
Throughout Paul the Sower Mr. Brown's excitement is palpable as he finds parallel after parallel between the message in Paul's epistles and the teachings of Orage and Gurdjieff. Did he, perhaps, read his own viewpoint into the writings of the apostle? The answer, as it must be for any reader, is: Yes. But to a degree—and, in this case, to a rather low degree. Mr. Brown's Paul is not built up through argument but rather is revealed through improved translation of the original Greek. The result is both coherent and inspiring. At the very least, Mr. Brown offers a fresh, lively, and above all eminently useful reading of Paul.
When Paul the Sower was released the critic and essayist Gorham Munson said that it
... ought to be most fruitful, ought to initiate a new understanding of one of the greatest characters in history and to inspire in the reader further questions of the most important kind. The principal one is, By what means did Paul effect a passage from the state of automatism we are born in to the state of freedom we have never experienced? Was there once a science of religion?2
A more recent reception is found in The New Age Bible Interpretation. There Corinne Heline observes that
Brown comes very near New Age Bible interpretation when he writes, "The words 'in Christ' Paul uses over 150 times; these words do not refer to the historical Jesus, but denote a continuing relationship with the Christ present in the heart; Paul is not completing Christ's sufferings (Colossians, 1:24), but is carrying out in his body his own Christ-sufferings."3
To this I would add: Allan Brown's Paul the Sower stands out among the many precursors of New Age writing in placing the locus of its novel viewpoint entirely within the traditional core Christian canon, Paul's letters, without admixture from Asian religions or from spiritualism, and without appeal to Gnostic writings or to such later Christian figures such as Meister Eckhardt. Mr. Brown seems to say, in effect, that the more rigorous our reading of Paul, the more intense our attempt to translate his words into actions, the more we shall find ourselves being drawn toward an inner transformation that transcends any dogma or historical context.
After 80-odd years Mr. Brown's text remains remarkably fresh, its message timeless as few messages are. Liberal employment of scientific metaphor occasionally intrudes into the argument when the sciences of the 1910s and '20s have themselves become dated. More often than not, though, Mr. Brown's well-chosen illustrations are illuminating and surprisingly modern, whether they touch on coral reefs or cosmology. Regarding his connection to the rubric 'New Age', it was one of his favorite authors, William Blake, who wrote in the Preface to "Milton":
Rouze up, O Young Men of the New Age! ... We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever in jesus our lord.
Paul the Sower offers food for "our own imaginations" together with persistent reminders that its point is not to update or improve upon the received Christian theology of its time. Why? Because theology, as a structured form of belief, is a fabrication of the intellect. Paul, on the other hand, places his focus on faith, a condition of life entire, harmoniously centered. Works of faith such as Paul's, transmitted through his letters, inform us when we are open. We become open, and eventually faithful, after we want to so much that we willingly forbear distraction.
Allan Brown's Paul the Sower: A Study of the Purpose and Meaning of the Epistle to the Romans was published by the evangelical publisher Fleming H. Revell Company. The title page describes the contents as "A Series of Lectures Delivered Before the Midweek Meeting, Religious Society of Friends, 144 East Twentieth Street, New York."
The Fleming H. Revell company submitted Paul the Sower for copyright in May 1932; copyright was granted in June 1932, According to Library of Congress records, copyright was not renewed at the end of the initial 28-year period. It is therefore possible to give the full text of Mr. Brown's book here. To judge by copies in my possession, there were at least two printings of the book.
Each chapter of Mr. Brown's book is given here in toto (in the first level of navigation bullets) and (if warranted) as a series of links. The editor has endeavored to reproduce the text exactly as it appears in the original edition, with the exception of correcting certain obvious misprints. These corrections, appearing in footnotes, use the rubric 'PtS-32' to refer to the 1932 published edition of Paul the Sower. No attempt has been made to modernize, "correct," or regularize punctuation. A scattering of exegitical footnotes also appear under the pages. With one exception these are the editor's and are labeled as such.
1Allan R. Brown, "The Biblical Treatment of Time and Eternity," in Writings by Allan R. Brown, Lakemont, Ga.: CSA Press, 1969, p.42.
2Gorham Munson, statement printed on the rear flap of the dustjacket to Paul the Sower.
3Corinne D. Heline, The New Age Bible Interpretation, vol. 6: The New Testament: pt. 3, p. 172.