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studies in 
 Pauline Eschatology 
 
 AND ITS BACKGROUND 
 
 By 
 
 EDWIN J. PRATT, M.A., B.D. 
 
 A Thesis 
 
 Submitted in Conformity with the Requirements for 
 
 the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 
 
 the University of Toronto 
 
 February, 19»7 
 
 TORONTO 
 
 WILLIAM BRIGGS 
 
 1917 
 
Copyright, Canada. 1917, 
 by Edwin J. Pratt. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introduction 5 
 
 I., Tabular Form of the Concepts: The Day of 
 the Lord, The Messianic Age, The Resur- 
 rection, Spirit, Soul, Body, Flesh, etc. 
 
 (Charts) 10a 
 
 II. Summary of Tables 11 
 
 III. Conjectural Outline of Paul's Life and the 
 
 Order of the Epistles 23 
 
 IV. Paul's General Use of the Concepts: Spirit, 
 
 Soul, Flesh, Body 25 
 
 V. Paul's Treatment of the Same Concepts from 
 
 the Eschatological Standpoint 68 
 
 VI. Paul's Treatment of the Concepts: The 
 Parausia, The Messianic Age, and Their 
 
 Apocalyptic Accompaniments 120 
 
 VTI. Conclusions 193 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The purpose of this inquiry is to investigate 
 certain religious concepts which were fundamental 
 in the thought of the apostle Paul. For the 
 delimitation of the field those concepts have been 
 chosen which, as will be later argued, formed the 
 intellectual groundwork of his teaching, and be- 
 long to a domain usually designated as Eschat- 
 ology. The ripened products of Paul's thought 
 which constitute his theology are here not ex- 
 pounded; the inquiry rather is into those basal 
 conceptions out of which the theology grew. 
 Hence the attenipt is to examine that intellectual 
 equipment, inherited largely from the past, with 
 which he addressed himself to the pressing prob- 
 lems of his day. For this purpose it will be neces- 
 sary to study- the general religious outlook of his 
 race at the time during which he wrote which, in 
 turn, can only be properly determined by an 
 analysis of Jewish beliefs and speculations in the 
 centuries immediately preceding. 
 
 In the treatment of any concepts that belong to 
 
 the progress, of a nation's thought, an important 
 
 question arises as to the selection of a timepoint in 
 
 the stream of development — to use a current 
 
 5 
 
INTEODUCTION" 
 
 expression — wherewith to commence the investiga- 
 tion. Naturally the stream cannot be traced to 
 its original source for that would lead back to an 
 age so distant that nothing but the merest con- 
 jecture could be formed in view of the lack of 
 memorials, literary, archaeological or otherwise. 
 Indeed, as the development of the Jewish eschato- 
 logical thought is not in itself the objective of this 
 thesis, but rather the bearing of such a product 
 upon the outlook of Paul, the needs of the case can 
 be reasonably satisfied if the analysis begins with 
 the distinct literary remains of early Hebrew 
 prophecy represented by such names as Amos, 
 Hosea and Isaiah. This preliminary task will be 
 limited as far as possible to the delineation of the 
 great outstanding hopes which gave perpetual 
 vitality to the long line of prophetic succession, 
 and which, when prophecy in the accepted sense 
 had ceased, and was replaced by a new movement 
 described as apocalyptic, still persisted in spite of 
 the transformations conditioned by an ever-chang- 
 ing history. 
 
 It may be claimed that the attempt to discover 
 what were the actual thought processes of people 
 living over two thousand years ago must always 
 remain unsatisfactory, especially when the people 
 often resorted to allegory and pictorial symbolism 
 to express their meaning. But this difficulty lies 
 behind all investigation into the life of primitive 
 peoples, and to a less or greater measure awakens 
 any investigator handling an historical question to 
 a sense of the seriousness of his problem. It 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 might be conceded indeed that the more allegori- 
 cal and fanciful a writer the greater the liability 
 that an interpreter should fail to grasp the import 
 of his message, and that becomes a perplexing 
 handicap when a whole system of teaching is 
 couched in the symbols of mysticism as instanced 
 by that of Philo. However, in this development it 
 is a source of satisfaction that certain of the 
 cardinal beliefs under consideration were unfolded 
 by prophets who were too intense in their moral 
 aims to becloud their messages by the constant 
 use of ambiguous language, and this taken into 
 conjunction with the fact that the more oracular 
 utterances of the age of apocalyptic may often 
 have their hidden meanings disclosed by the events 
 of contemporary history, makes less difficult the 
 treatment. 
 
 Starting then with religious experiences known 
 mainly by their records in Hebrew literature of 
 the eighth century B.C., the attempt will be made 
 to follow the course of eschatological develop- 
 ment down to the time of Late Judaism when Paul 
 appeared upon the scene. The main concepts 
 under review will be those treated in the first 
 chapter: — The Day of Yahweh, The Messianic 
 Expectation, The Future Life, Pneuma and 
 Psyche, together with those hopes and beliefs 
 which grew out of them. It must not be sup- 
 posed that such an analysis would exhaust the 
 description of all the sources of influence upon the 
 mind of Paul at the commencement of his career. 
 The complete background is obviously not on 
 7 
 
INTEODUCTION 
 
 record. Moreover, it might be reasonably held 
 that a considerable portion of eschatological mater- 
 ial never formed a part of his education, and a 
 great deal more he might conceivably have re- 
 jected, but, nevertheless, to discover vi^hat was the 
 apocalyptic teaching in currency when he was 
 shaping the religious views of the primitive 
 church is essential for an adequate appreciation of 
 his own position. 
 
 Following that, the main interest will consist in 
 the analysis of the apostle^s views with regard to 
 the future age. The heir to the accumulated 
 inheritance of Pharisaic apocalyptic gathered 
 mainly out of the issues which produced the Mac- 
 cabsean times, did he tacitly accept the traditions 
 as a finality, and then proceed to construct his 
 theology, or did he on the other hand subject it to 
 a rigorous examination modifying it and develop- 
 ing it, as his intense missionary zeal brought him 
 in vital touch with the varied religious phenomena 
 of the G-rseco-Eoman world ? 
 
 This, then, is the task of the thesis. It is not 
 a case of what might be called " the objective 
 truth " of the beliefs registered in the literature, 
 not a case of the discovery of criteria by which 
 certain religious views might be rejected as simply 
 "subjective fancy," and others sustained because 
 of their supposed '' absolute validity,'^ but rather 
 a question of determining by critical analysis, how 
 various controlling ideas which regulated and 
 inspired the action and thought of a people 
 emerged out of antecedent ideas into distinct- 
 8 
 
INTEODUCTION 
 
 ness, and how, in their turn, these again were 
 formative in producing the thought-content of a 
 succeeding age. The setting forth of that develop- 
 ment is here regarded as a psychological study. 
 Before the investigator are given language-records, 
 really an elaborated system of synfbols which, 
 according to their characteristics, may be desig- 
 nated prophetic, apocalyptic, epistolary and so on. 
 Assuming now it is possible to place fairly 
 approximately the records in chronological succes- 
 sion, the question is as to the nature of the inter- 
 action between the processes of imagination, belief 
 and reflection, and the political events of a nation 
 or a group of individuals, as this interaction is 
 reflected in the transmitted symbols which we call 
 their literature. 
 
 The historical investigation into the order of 
 the books in both the Old and 'New Testaments 
 constitutes a special problem in itself. With 
 regard to the Old Testament many sections in 
 Pre-exilic prophecy are by some authorities rele- 
 gated to Post-exilic times. That, however, is not 
 so vital to this inquiry, for wherever they are 
 placed they long antedate the Pauline literature, 
 and hence help to form its background. Introduc- 
 tion, though, becomes more important when the 
 writings of Paul are being examined, as it is 
 precisely the development of certain phases of 
 their content that forms this task. It will then be 
 necessary to state briefly the generally accepted 
 findings upon the order of the epistles. As an 
 essential preliminary to this, there is supplied in 
 9 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tabular form the variations in the main concepts 
 of the historical works, in their order, of the 
 Hebrew prophets and the writers of subsequent 
 Jewish religious literature down to the latter part 
 of the first Christian century. The summary of 
 these fundamental concepts thus aSords the 
 appropriate introduction to the analytic study of 
 their operation in the religious thought of Paul. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 SUMMARY OF TABLES. 
 
 The concepts classified in the foregoing chapter 
 represent, in part, the changing religious thought 
 of the Hebrews from the period of early prophecy 
 down to the latter decades of the first century 
 A.D. It has been customary to divide up this 
 stretch of history into broad sections according to 
 outstanding events constituting crises in the life 
 of the nation. Such divisions may, from the 
 standpoint of the Babylonian captivity be termed 
 Pre-exilic and Post-exilic, or viewed from the 
 transformation of religious outlook consequent 
 upon exilic and Maccabsean developments be 
 termed Prophetic and Apocalyptic. The former 
 period, speaking generally, would embrace the two 
 centuries antedating the exile, the exile itself, and 
 the two centuries following. Its chief character- 
 istics are the appeals of the great teachers for 
 national repentance, the fundamental insistence 
 upon the righteousness of Yahweh involving in 
 turn the demand for the righteousness of his 
 people, the certainty of judgment upon wrong- 
 doers, the favor of Yahweh resulting from obedi- 
 ence, and almost ' universally the promise of a 
 coming era of blessedness for the kingdom of 
 Israel contingent upon its preparation in the 
 hearts of men — a kingdom wherein all forms of 
 11 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 oppression would cease whether of the character 
 of civic injustice or of foreign despotism. 
 
 The age of apocalyptic ranged from the second 
 century B.C. to the first century A.D. The name 
 is applied to a special body of anonymous and 
 pseudepigraphic literature which began with the 
 rise of the Maccabees, followed the varied fortunes 
 of that dynasty, and continued to the fall of 
 Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and even after. The tran- 
 sition from the prophetic to this form of literary 
 activity was mediated through writings which 
 probably were produced before the second century 
 B.C., but appear as interpolated sections in the 
 canonical books especially in Isaiah and Zechariah. 
 Other prophecies as Ezekiel and Joel show decided 
 affinities with this later type and undoubtedly pre- 
 pared the way for it. While apocalyptic does not 
 make an absolute break with its predecessors in 
 Jewish literature, inasmuch as the forecasts of 
 prophecy are taken as the basis for its own inter- 
 pretation of the future, and as the same hopes for 
 the ultimate triumph of the nation are common 
 to both, yet the differences are many and impor- 
 tant. The call of the prophet to repentance ; his 
 passionate denunciation of sin rampant within the 
 life of his community, while present at times, was 
 not the keynote of this new message. The attack 
 became concentrated upon the heathen oppressor 
 and the official priesthood — the abettors in the 
 forced Hellenization of their own countrymen. No 
 author placed his own signature to his work. The 
 canon of prophecy had probably been completed 
 12 
 
SUMMARY OF TABLES 
 
 and the stamp of authority had to be created by 
 the association of the message with a great name 
 of the distant past. The form current was the 
 vision — the machinery of Ezekiel rendered still 
 more intricate. Attempts were made to fix pre- 
 cisely the date of the coming judgment with the 
 overthrow of pagan enemies and apostates within 
 the fold. Tyrants were described under the sym- 
 bolism of wild beasts. The history of the world 
 became mapped out into several divisions, and the 
 writer regarded himself as living with the end in 
 sight. The consummation of the kingdom as 
 taught in prophecy was gradually transformed in 
 character until the expectation included, not the 
 land of Israel renewed and blessed but a trans- 
 cendent and heavenly kingdom prepared afresh 
 by God where the national idea was completely 
 abandoned. Angelology became a constant fea- 
 ture. Speculation as to the nature of the soul, 
 the life after death, the resurrection of the body, 
 the punishment of the wicked, the reward of the 
 righteous, grew with the progress of the literature. 
 Behind it all was the deep-rooted conviction that 
 the promises which Yahweh had made to his 
 people through his servants, deferred indeed as 
 they had been throughout many generations, yet 
 were inviolable, and would receive their complete 
 fruition at a time which was imminent. It is only 
 necessary here to sum up briefly the characteristic 
 beliefs, the development of which is traced in the 
 foregoing classification. 
 
 13 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Whatever may have been the original meaning 
 of the phrase, " The Day of Yahweh/^ it is evident 
 of Yau^eh ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^™^ i^ which Amos wrote it was con- 
 strued by the popular imagination with favorable 
 meaning. The reverse construction was placed 
 upon it by the greater prophets, Amos leading the . 
 way with a vivid description of its terrifying char- 
 acter. It spelled disaster to Israel as well as to 
 the other nations simply upon moral grounds. It 
 was to be accompanied by fearful visitations in 
 nature, by earthquake, darkness and tempest. The 
 picture drawn in the second chapter of Isaiah 
 seems to imply a world judgment with the vindica- 
 tion of Yahweh alone. Later, as seen in Zephaniah, 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel the destruction of immense 
 foreign hordes invading Judah was comprehended 
 in the general catastrophe. The Post-exilic 
 writers exhibit a tendency to direct the brunt of 
 the desolation upon the Gentile nations, returning 
 somewhat to the earlier view. The second century 
 with the introduction of apocalyptic widened the 
 sweep of the judgment to the extreme limits, so 
 that not only the world powers but also disobedient 
 angels and demons were to fall before its blasts. 
 The idea of a double Judgment was developed — 
 that which occurred at the deluge, and the final 
 one yet to appear. The strange accompaniments 
 seen in earlier pictures were still further elabo- 
 rated. Eiery swords fall to the earth; cataclysms 
 of rain and fire occur ; the sun becomes quenched, 
 the moon turned into blood; famine and earth- 
 quake — " The Woes of the Messiah," prelude the 
 14 
 
SUMMAEY OF TABLES 
 
 end when the first earth and the first heaven pass 
 away. 
 
 The age so inaugurated was universally con- 
 ceived as one of glory and triumph for the king- 
 dom of Yahweh. The destruction of world Messianic 
 empire would free Israel from the bondage and 
 oppression to which she had been continuously 
 subjected. In the vision of the prophets the 
 change from the old order did not involve the 
 removal of the scene of blessedness from the 
 present earth. The land of Palestine was still to 
 be inhabited; the Dispersed of Israel were to be 
 restored from their exile^ and united with the 
 righteous remnant. Wonderful fertility would 
 mark the soil ; poverty and misery would become a 
 condition of the past; Israel would "'blossom as 
 the lily and cast forth its roots like Lebanon." 
 Even the animal world would be transformed, the 
 peacefulness characteristic of the restored State 
 being reflected in the harmony amongst the wild 
 animals. National hopes centred in the political 
 restoration and perpetuation of the Davidic line. 
 At times the interest was focussed upon the 
 importance of the Temple and the Priesthood as in 
 the theoretical construction of Ezekiel; at times 
 it was the free and unofficial worship of Yahweh 
 with his law written on the heart as in Jeremiah 
 which was foremost; in any case the vision was 
 that of -a theocracy in which the devoted service that 
 Israel rendered to her national God was rewarded, 
 according to the terms of the original covenant 
 with his mercy and favor. This hope underwent 
 15 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 considerable transformation in later thought. 
 Early apocalyptic, it is true, placed the scene of 
 the new kingdom upon the present earth. Homes 
 were still to be built and inhabited, vines planted 
 and harvests reaped, but the age of the inhabitants 
 was to be wonderfully increased. The last chap- 
 ters of Isaiah furnished the description which was 
 taken over by a number of writers notably of the 
 second century B.C. The century following intro- 
 duced remarkable developments. The establish- 
 ment of the kingdom took place occasionally upon 
 the earth after an inaugural judgment, but it was 
 merely temporary and was to be superseded by a 
 final judgment wherein the present order of things 
 passed away, to be followed by an exalted and 
 heavenly Israel the citizens of which were to 
 become like the angels. This extreme position was 
 reached mainly by the increasing sense of the 
 irretrievably evil character of the natural world, 
 by the disappointment of Messianic hopes and the 
 longing for an existence where, in the words of 
 Second Enoch, " all corruptible things shall vanish 
 and there shall be eternal life." 
 The Messiah. The analysis showed that many of the prophets 
 anticipated the coming of a king " out of the 
 loins of David who, supremely endowed with the 
 spirit of Yahweh, would reign in wisdom and in 
 righteousness. The ninth chapter of Isaiah 
 unfolds a striking delineation of his character, and 
 the thirty-second represents him as governing his 
 kingdom in association with princes sharing in 
 the same functions. Jeremiah refers similarly to a 
 16 
 
SUMMAEY OF TABLES 
 
 righteous '"Branch raised unto David who shall 
 reign as king and deal wisely/^ and he also refers 
 to shepherds who shall feed the people "with 
 knowledge and understanding." In Ezekiel, the 
 allusion is to David the Prince^ or to a number of 
 princes ruling in succession upon the Davidic 
 throne. And so in the case of Zerubbabel, when 
 the first pre-exilic prophets attempted to stimulate 
 national enthusiasm in the early days of the 
 Eestoration. While it is true that the hope of the 
 future is scarcely ever expressed without relation 
 to an ideal kingdom or commonwealth, yet a 
 special doctrine of the Messiah is not a constant 
 and integral constituent of the hope. If the 
 " Servant passages " receive the construction now 
 placed upon them by a large body of scholars, 
 namely, that of an ideal kingdom rather than of 
 an ideal king, the invariable presence of a 
 Messiah-hope can be still less established. Many of 
 the prophecies make no allusion at all to the 
 Messiah as, for instance, Amos, Zephaniah, Joel, 
 and the later eschatological additions in Isaiah. 
 The great deliverance for the nation is generally 
 the peculiar achievement of Yahweh himself. The 
 same feature characterises the apocalyptic writ- 
 ings. The earliest strand of Enoch refers only to 
 the presence of God with his people upon the 
 earth, and it is probable that the much-discussed 
 phrase in Daniel does not possess the individual 
 interpretation sometimes ascribed to it. The 
 Assumption of Moses, certain portions of Enoch, 
 the First and Second Maccabees contain no such 
 17 
 
-STUDIES IK PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 references. On the other hand, prominence is 
 given to the Messiah in the second 'section of 
 Enoch where he appears under the symbolism of 
 a white bull but, nevertheless, it is God who estab- 
 lishes the kingdom. Towards the close of the 
 second century B.C. the expectation of a Messiah 
 sprung from the tribe of Levi is seen in the Testa- 
 ments and in Jubilees, evidently in respect to the 
 Maccabsean leaders. The most specific references 
 are in the Similitudes of Enoch of the first cen- 
 tury B.C., where he is conceived as pre-existent and 
 possessing the high functions of Judgeship in 
 connection with the final Judgment, but the whole 
 scene is set in a supramundane sphere of activity. 
 The first Christian century documents show simi- 
 lar variations. Most of the writings are silent 
 upon the subject, though definite allusions are 
 found in 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra. In the earlier 
 strands of the former work a Messiah is to reign 
 in a temporary kingdom upon the earth. In 4 
 Ezra some early sections predict the coming of 
 Enoch, Elijah, and Moses as a prelude to the end 
 ushered in not by the Messiah, but by the " voice 
 of God." Other passages still considered early 
 give full descriptions of the " Son of Man " pre- 
 existent and coming " in the clouds of heaven '' to 
 judge the world. Another section evidently show- 
 ing traces of Christian redaction (according to 
 'Charles) alludes to the death of the Messiah after 
 a reign of four liundred years upon earth. Such 
 passages show the tendency of eschatological 
 thought to vindicate the prophetic forecasts of the 
 18 
 
SUMMAEY OF TABLES 
 
 Messianic kingdom by postulating a temporary- 
 rule of Yahweh upon earth varying in length with 
 the views of individual winters. They also show, 
 in the final displacement of the earthly kingdom 
 by a heavenly one, how firmly rooted was the 
 pessimism, seen at its acutest in the Alexandrian 
 literature, as to the thoroughly corruptible char- 
 acter of the present world. 
 
 The advent of " The Age " was in the thought 
 of the prophets close at hand. Usually it was to 
 appear at the end of a crisis in which the nation ^^® ^^^®- 
 was at the time involved ; with the destruction of 
 Assyria ; with the Eestoration from exile ; with the 
 comipletion of the Temple building; or with the 
 fall of the Persian Empire. ISTot the least change 
 in the transition from prophecy to apocalyptic are 
 the novel methods adopted to determine with pre- 
 cision the date. The seventy years of Jeremiah 
 were, in the prediction of Daniel, interpreted by 
 the angel as seventy weeks of years from the exile, 
 with the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus 
 Epiphanes taking place in the last week. It was 
 to come with the Maccabsean success, or later 
 with the destruction of the Eoman Empire. 
 Wherever two Judgments were declared the inter- 
 val between constituted the Messianic age. Its 
 duration was calculated as five hundred years, or 
 as seventy generations, or again as three world 
 weeks, that is, from the eighth week to the tenth 
 inclusive, of a series of ten weeks comprising the 
 history of the world. In II Enoch the millennial 
 idea is expressed in that, the world already having 
 19 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 completed the span of six thousand years, the 
 Messianic age would stretch through another 
 period of one thousand years before the final 
 judgment. 
 
 The attitude towards the Gentiles assumes vari- 
 ous phases determined by the changing relation- 
 The Gentues. gj^jp ^f ^j^g jg^ ^j^j^ ^^^ outside world, and by the 
 
 character of the prophets. The rarer view is the 
 broad cosmopolitan outlook voiced by such men 
 as Amos, the First and Second Isaiahs, Jeremiah, 
 Malachi and Jonah. Here the promises of the 
 kingdom are extended far beyond Hebrew limits, 
 and in some of the noblest utterances the outlook 
 is not qualifi^ed by the thought of Gentile subjec- 
 tion after conversion. With other writers the 
 nations are to share in Israel's future, but their 
 position is one of servility, and whatever conces- 
 sion ' is granted, it is made to depend upon the 
 Gentile acceptance of Jewish observances. Again, 
 the expectation is one of their general destruction 
 especially of hostile nations as seen in Habakkuk, 
 Ezekiel, Haggai and Zechariah. In apocalyptic 
 the same viewpoints are expressed, Enoch 1-36 
 taking the broad ground of the first, and followed 
 by the Testaments. But the prevalent disposition 
 is one of extreme antagonism, the Similitudes 
 refusing to consider the conversion of the Gentiles, 
 notwithstanding the possibility of their repent- 
 ance. The Psalms of Solomon allow the repentant 
 nations the chance of survival at the advent of the 
 Messiah, but they become subject to his heavy 
 yoke. In the latter writings of the first century 
 20 
 
SUMMAEY OF TABLES 
 
 A.D. the hatred has become so fierce that the judg- 
 ment leaves nothing to them but " dust of ashes 
 and smell of smoke/^ 
 
 But one of the main dividing lines between 
 prophecy and apocalyptic is that whereas, in the 
 former, the doctrine of the resurrection, whether 
 bodily or pneumatic, found practically no place, The Resur- 
 it became, in the latter, an invariable feature. In 
 the Messianic kingdom of the prophets, the 
 inhabitants after living long lives departed into 
 the abode of Sheol. Indications of an individual 
 bodily resurrection appear first in Isaiah 24-27, 
 where the author takes pains to state that such a 
 privilege is restricted to righteous Israelites, and 
 this is the general tendency throughout the second 
 century B.C., though occasionally, and with quali- 
 fication, the resurrection of the wicked is admitted. 
 The first century B.C., except in one instance, 
 denied the resurrection of the body but affirmed 
 it of the righteous spirit. The first century A.D. 
 follows practically the same teaching — apart from 
 the Alexandrian literature which postulates only 
 the immortality of the spirit — until toward the 
 close appeared the belief in a general resurrection 
 of the bodily form. 
 
 Concurrently with this belief there grew up a 
 body of speculation regarding the nature of Sheol. sheoi. 
 From its being the great underworld where the 
 dead lay practically without any of the distinctions 
 that characterise the living, it became, in Pales- 
 tinian thought, an intermediate state containing Soui. 
 chambers or treasuries for the souls or spirits of 
 21 
 
STUDIES m PAULIISrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Spirit. 
 
 Angelology. 
 
 the departed, from which the righteous rose either 
 to Paradise or to Heaven. At other times it was 
 the final abode of punishment for the wicked, and 
 synonymous with Gehenna. The departed are 
 designated as souls or spirits, these terms being 
 interchangeable. Eighteous souls were to enjoy 
 eternal felicity, the wicked, eternal anguish. 
 
 A highly developed Angelology and Demonology 
 is prevalent throughout apocalyptic. The 
 righteous after the resurrection take on the 
 likeness of good angels, whereas the wicked, the 
 fallen angels and demons suffer the same ultimate 
 condemnation. 
 
 32 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 CONJECTURAL OUTLINE OF PAUL'S LIFE AND 
 THE ORDER OF THE EPISTLES., 
 
 Events. Bates. 
 
 Conversion 34-36 
 
 In Arabia, three years. 35 (36)-38 (39) 
 First visit to Jerusalem. (Visit 
 
 of fifteen days with Peter). 38 (39) 
 
 In Cilicia and Antioch To 45 
 
 Second visit to Jerusalem. 
 
 (Collection for the Poor) , . 46 
 
 (i) Missionary Journey 47-49 
 
 (Cyprus, Pisidia, Lycaonia.) 
 
 The Council at Jerusalem. 
 (Third visit to Jerusalem) . . 
 
 50 
 
 (ii) Missionary Journey 51-53 
 
 1. Thessalonians — 
 
 (At Corinth) 53 
 
 2. Thessalonians — ■ 
 
 (At Corinth) 53 
 
 Fourth visit to Jerusalem. . . 53 
 
 (iii) Missionary Journey — 
 
 (Asia Minor to Ephesus, 
 thence to Macedonia and 
 Corinth) 54-58 
 
 Galatians — 
 
 (Possibly during early part 
 of residence at Ephesus) 
 
 I Corinthians — 
 (Towards close of visit to 
 
 Ephesus) 
 
 II Corinthians — 
 (Probably after departure 
 
 from Ephesus) 
 
 Romans — 
 
 (Probably at Corinth) .... 
 
 Fifth visit to Jerusalem. 
 
 (Arrested in Temple) . . 58 .. 
 
 54 
 
 57 
 
 57 
 
 58 
 
 Authorities. 
 Zahn, Turner, Weiss, Findlay, 
 Jiilicher, Sabatier, Burton. 
 (Harnack, Moffatt = 30.) 
 (Ramsay = 33.) 
 
 Turner, Ramsay, Bartlet. 
 (Lightfoot ~ 45.) 
 (Zahn = 44.) 
 Turner, Ramsay, Lightfoot, 
 
 Moffatt. 
 Ramsay ^ 50. 
 Lightfoot, Burton := 51. 
 Sabatier ^ 52. 
 Harnack ^ 47. 
 
 Turner, Moffatt, Findlay, Bart- 
 let = 49. 
 Zahn, Ramsay, Lightfoot, Jiil- 
 icher, Weiss, Drummond, 
 agree in the main. 
 (Harnack = 47-49.) 
 (Turner ~ 49-50.) 
 Zahn, May (1). 
 Zahn, September (2). 
 Ramsay, Spring of 53. 
 
 Zahn, Ramsay, Lightfoot, Find- 
 lay, Sabatier, agree in the 
 main. 
 
 (Moffatt = 52-56.) 
 
 Priority of Galatians to the 
 other three epistles generally 
 accepted. 
 
 Scheme in bracket observed by 
 Sabatier, Jiilicher, Sanday 
 and Headlam, Drummond, 
 Moffatt. 
 
 Some place Galatians between 
 the Corinthian epistles and 
 Romans; e.g., Lightfoot, 
 Findlay, Adeney. 
 
 23 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Imprisonment at Caesarea.. 58-60 
 
 Journey id Ronle . 
 
 61 
 
 In Roman Captivity 61-63 
 
 Imprisonment Epistles- 
 
 Colossians. 
 Philemon. 
 Ephesians. 
 Philippians. 
 
 Zahn, Rarasay, Clemen, Light- 
 foot, substantially in agree- 
 ment. 
 
 Zahn, Sabatier, Burton, Light- 
 foot. 
 
 (Harnack = 57.) 
 (Findlay = 60.) 
 (Ramsay = 60.) 
 (Jiilicher = 62'.) 
 (Weiss = 62.) 
 
 Zahn, Sabatier, Burton, Light- 
 foot. 
 
 (Harnack = 57.) 
 (Findlay = 60.) 
 (Ramsay — 60.) 
 (Jiilicher = 62.) 
 (Weiss = 62.) 
 
 Order usually assigned. 
 ' ' Colossians is certainly to be 
 placed before Ephesians (when 
 the last named is taken as 
 genuine) though priority here 
 carries with it very little sig- 
 nificance. Both letters were 
 written about the same time." 
 — Moffatt, ' ' Historical New 
 Testament,' ' p. 131. 
 
 Lightfoot placed Philippians 
 first, though he admits that the 
 reverse order ' ' is the prevail- 
 ing view among the vast major- 
 ity of recent writers." — 
 Philippians, p. 32. 
 
 Jiilicher, Harnack, O. Holtz- 
 mann. 
 
 (Turner = 64-65.) 
 (Burton = 65.) 
 (McGiffert rz 58.) 
 (Lightfoot, Ramsay, Find- 
 lay = 67.) 
 
 Hypothesis of a release from imprisonment, together with that of the 
 Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, not very Strongly supported. 
 
 The following works of reference have been used amongst others as the 
 main sources of Historical Introduction: — New Testament Introductions of 
 Zahn, Jiilicher, Pindlay, Adeney ; L' ApGtre Paul. Sabatier ; Luke, Acts, 
 Harnack ; Apostolic Age, McGiff ert ; St. Paul, The Traveller, Ramsay ; 
 Epistles, Lightfoot; Article, Chronology, H. B. T>. Turner; Romans, Sanday 
 and Headlam; Epistles, Milligan; and particularly Moffatt 's "Historical 
 New Testament," for comparative tables of Chronology. 
 
 Death of Paul 63-64 
 
 24 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 PAUL'S GENEBAL USE OF TEE CONCEPTS: 
 SPIRIT, SOUL, FLESH, BODY, ETC. 
 
 To understand the position of Paul with regard 
 to the foregoing system of concepts known as 
 soul i^xv), spirit (Trvev/xa), flesh (o-dpi)^ hody 
 (<ra)/>ta), and others of like character, it would 
 be well as a point of departure to review in 
 brief the teachings of the great sources to which 
 he had access, viz., the Old Testament and the 
 Post- Canonical writings. This itself is a task of 
 some difficulty as the passages in which these 
 words occur do not always admit of clear-cut 
 interpretation. Nephesh and Ruach (tl' B J, m "l) 
 designating soul and spirit, are constantly being 
 used in the Old Testament in a loose and popular 
 -sense, the easy transition from one to the other 
 making it almost impossible to mark out any 
 sharp boundaries of meaning. The nephesh is ^^* Testa- 
 described as beinff the subiect of hate and aversion nae of 
 
 ^ ** Kepliesli. 
 
 (Isaiah i, 14) ; of fear and trembling (His soul 
 trembleth within him — Isaiah xv, 4) ; of delight 
 and joy (Behold, my chosen in whom my soul 
 delighteth — Isaiah xlii, 1 ) ; of , pity and compas- 
 sion (That which your soul pitieth — Ezekiel xxiv, 
 21) ; of comfort and satisfaction (Psalm Ixxvii, 
 2-6); of longing and desire (Job xxiii, 13); of 
 25 
 
STUDIES IlSr PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Physical 
 and Moral 
 Appetites. 
 
 vexation (And the Almighty who hath vexed my 
 soul — Job xxviij 2); of loathing and disgust 
 The emotions. (Zechariah xi^ 8). Here ostensibly the ascriptions 
 are respecting emotional attributes of the soul, but 
 both physical and moral appetites are predicated 
 of it. " And it shall be as when a hungry man 
 dreameth; and behold he eateth, but he awaketh 
 and his soul is empty. Or as when a thirsty man 
 dreameth, and behold he drinketh but he awaketh 
 and behold he is faint" (Isaiah xxix, 8). See 
 Micah vii, 1-3 ; Isaiah v, 14 ; and Jeremiah xxxi, 
 25 — " Por I have satiated the weary soul, and 
 every sorrowful soul have I replenished." Also 
 Proverbs xxv, 25 — "As cold water to a thirsty 
 soul so is good news from a far country." The 
 term may likewise stand for the physical life of 
 the organism; it may indicate the life of the 
 nation personified, and expressed by the reflexive 
 pronoun. " Backsliding Israel hath showed her- 
 self (n tt^ S j) more righteous than treacherous 
 Judah" (Jeremiah iii, 11), It may broadly rep- 
 resent a large number of individuals in a collective 
 sense, " eight hundred and thirty persons " ( t^ £ J 
 Jeremiah Iii, 29) ; "every living creature" (^ S J- 
 b 5 Ezekiel xlvii, 9).^ Further, it is identified with 
 the blood and hence with the heart and the 
 life. "To shed blood, to destroy souls" (Ezekiel 
 xxii, 27). 
 
 But nearly all these qualities may be similarly 
 ascribed to the ruach. The emotions of distress, 
 
 Individual 
 
 and 
 
 CoUective 
 
 * Cf, Genesis xlvi, 18 (The sixteen sons of Jacob are sixteen 
 sonls). 
 
 26 
 
QENEEAL TKEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 fear and pity may belong indifferently to the soul, 
 heart or spirit even in the same writer. " And 
 every heart shall melt, . . . and every spirit 
 shall faint " (Ezekiel xxi, 7). " That which your ^idjesta- 
 soul pitieth" (Ezekiel xxiv, 21). "And theyj^^^^^^f 
 shall weep for thee in bitterness of soul with bit- 
 ter mourning^' (Ezekiel xxvii, 31). "Joy of 
 heart and despite of soul" (Ezekiel xxxvi, 5). 
 The ethical change from rebellion against 
 Yahweh^s commandments to devotion to his ser- 
 vice is expressed in the famous passage of Ezekiel 
 xi, 19, " And I will give them one heart, and I 
 will put a new spirit in you; and I will take the 
 stony heart out of their flesh and I will give them 
 a heart of flesh." So Isaiah liv, 6, " Grieved in 
 spirit " ; and the following references : — " They 
 have quieted my spirit." " Spirit of heaviness." 
 " For the spirit would faint before me, and the 
 souls that I have made." " With my soul have I its general 
 
 T . 1 , 1 interchange- 
 
 desired thee m the ni^ht; yea, with my snirit ability with 
 
 -XI ■ -m -r . Nephesh. 
 
 witmn me will 1 seek thee earnestly." Zechariah 
 vi, 8; Isaiah Ixv, 14; Isaiah Ivii, 16; xxvi, 9. 
 Notice Job^s expression of his grief and pain: — 
 " I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will 
 complain in the bitterness of my soul" (vii, 11). 
 Dejection, discomfort, and misery are attributed 
 in the same way; ''A glad heart maketh a cheer- 
 ful countenance, but by sorrow of heart the spirit 
 is broken" (Proverbs xv, 13). "For the enemy 
 hath persecuted my soul; He hath smitten my 
 life down to the ground. Therefore is my spirit 
 37 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 overwhelmed within me; My heart is desolate 
 within me" (Psalm cxliii^ 3, 4), A further 
 examination of the passages given in the analysis 
 reveals the easy interchangeability of usage 
 which, as far as the feelings are concerned, allow 
 of no rigid dichotomy of soul and spirit. This 
 applies also to the chronological development of 
 the religious thought of the nation. The later 
 writers, as well as the earlier, use the same terms 
 with practically the same emotional content, with 
 Stensitiesof ^^^^ difference, however, that unusual intensities 
 St^iiliiuai* of feeling came to be regarded pre-eminently as 
 IJk^e?^"^^''*^ the properties of the ruaeh, while the ordinary 
 tr^ach. states manifested in the daily round of life be- 
 longed to the nephesh, although here the distinc- 
 tion is not absolute. 
 
 It is on the intellectual and volitional side 
 that the contrast between nephesh and ruach is 
 best exhibited, for these belong mainly to the 
 sphere of the ruach. The deliberate refusal of the 
 prophet's message by his countrymen is designated 
 as a ruach of perverseness (Isaiah xix, 14). False 
 prophets or men guided by them are actuated by 
 a ruach of falsehood (Micah ii, 11; Jeremiah v, 
 13). It is the term used for the wind, the east 
 wind, and the ethical transference is then made 
 to the shallow utterances of unthinking people.^ 
 
 While nephesh was in common use to indicate 
 an individual in the most complete sense, that is 
 
 ^ Ezekiel xxxvii, 9. Zechariah vi, 5. Job vi, 26; ivi, 3. 
 Eccleeiastes i, 14; ii, 2. 
 
 28 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 to say, with the significance attached to the per- 
 sonal pronouns/ I, thou, etc., ruach is not so 
 employed. "My ruach" was not used as an equiva- 
 lent for "my nephesh."^ And in the case of people 
 taken collectively, nephesh is the term. No defi- 
 nite and unambiguous examples can be found 
 where ruach designates the life of the organism. 
 But there are instances where the nephesh is some- 
 how regarded as being the result of the ruach 
 especially the Euach of Yahweh, which, as soon as 
 the latter departs, the human ruach becomes 
 extinct. The nearest approximation of ruach to 
 nephesh in this sense may perhaps be seen in such 
 statements as Ecclesiastes iii, 19, and Psalm cxlvi, ^"cii not 
 
 ' ' ' nsed Uke 
 
 4. " As the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they ^®pJ®|*^ 
 all have one breath, and man hath no pre-eminence individual. 
 over the beast." " His breath goeth forth, he 
 returneth to his earth," where man and beast were 
 represented as having a unitary basis. But with a 
 few apparent exceptions such as these, it may be 
 claimed that the use of nephesh to designate the 
 organic life of an individual in the widest sense^ 
 forms the main basis of differentiation from that 
 of ruach. 
 
 As life then depends upon the presence of either 
 the nephesh (occasionally neshama) or the ruach, 
 so death, conversely, is the result of the departure 
 of either. "And it came to pass, as her nep- 
 hesh was departing, for she died, that she called 
 
 1 Schultz, O. T. Theol., vol. ii, p. 247. 
 
 ^ Charles, Eschatology, p. 38. 
 
 3 Koeberle, Watur und Geist, p. 202 ff. 
 
 29 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 his name Benoni " (Genesis xxxv, 18). " Let this 
 child's nephesh come unto him again" (I Kings 
 xvii, 21); "He (God) that giveth breath 
 (neshama) unto the people upon it (the earth), 
 and ruach to them that walk therein" (Isaiah 
 xlii, 5).^ 
 
 Neither term is applied to the existence of the 
 individual after death wherever such a view is 
 held. Two conceptions are to be seen in Hebrew 
 thought, first, an older and popular view, which 
 attributed to the departed a certain degree of 
 vitality and knowledge, and a later one which 
 tended to reduce this activity to a very low ebb 
 if it did not deny it altogether.^ Wherever the 
 former is in evidence, such terms aso*'J'lj?1*'(the 
 knowing ones), QtSD"! (shades) are used. 
 
 In the apocalyptic literature little development 
 in this direction is seen as far as the emotional 
 and intellectual life is concerned. The main 
 result has been to make the terms more synony- 
 mous than ever. Feelings such as grief and pain 
 as well as the qualities of wisdom and understand- 
 ing belong to the spirit.^ The ethical sense of a 
 '^ .spirit of righteousness " is common,** as also the 
 identification of the soul with the blood, or with 
 the heart, or with the strength.^ The spirit faints 
 
 * Ezekiel xxxvii, 5. Job xxxiii, 4; ixxiv, 14. Ecclesiastes 
 xii, 7. 
 
 2 Biblical World, L. B. Paton, Article, xxxv, No. 4, Ap. 1910. 
 
 3 Daniel v, 10-13; vi, 3; vii, 15. 
 
 * Jubilees xxv, 14. 
 
 ^ Jubilees xxi, 2 ; 2 Baruch xlvi, 5. 
 
 30 
 
GBNEEAL TEEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 and the soul is humbled.^ Either the spirit or the 
 soul is roused to action,^ is hardened or is broken.^ 
 The principal contributions, which this Greek 
 period* has furnished, lie in the direction of specu- 
 lations regarding the soul or spirit after death, or 
 the nature of angels and demons; a phase of the 
 discussion which will be treated later. One dis- 
 tinction alone may be traced in the employment 
 of the terms, namely, that spirit and never souP 
 is the designation of angels and demons, while to f|py*^ ^^ 
 describe the human being in his post-earthly state ^emons*^** 
 both terms are freely interchangeable. No 
 dichotomy of soul and spirit can be discovered, 
 except perhaps in two or three passages** which 
 seem to stand out in the general mass of the litera- 
 ture as exemplifying a new current of speculative 
 thought with which the Hebrew literature has very 
 little in common. 
 
 Turning now to the use of these concepts and 
 their corresponding terms by Paul, the passages 
 in which the term, psyche, occurs yield in certain 
 cases the same meaning as already indicated. It 
 is used as a strong expression of affection for hisf*^*^ 
 Thessalonian converts for whose well-being Paul 
 
 * Judith iv, 9; vii, 19. 
 => Mace. XV, 10, 17. 
 
 3 Zadokite Fragment iv, 6. 
 
 * For the widespread belief throughout the Greek world of 
 the nature of the soul after its separation from the body, and 
 its bearing upon the question of immortality in connection with 
 Mystery ritual, see Rohde^ Psyche, i, p. 294 ff. 
 
 °This does not apply to Philo's usage; see references. 
 
 «Tobit iii, 6; 1 Baruch ii, 17; 2 Mace. vii. 23, 23. 
 
 31 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 would spend himself " in labor and travail, night 
 and day." " Even so, being affectionately desirous 
 of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you, 
 not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls 
 (ras iavrSiv \j/vxa.<>), because ye were become very 
 dear to us " (I Thessalonians ii, 8). It is used to 
 give additional weight to his affirmations when 
 he wishes to convince his readers that his interest 
 expression ^^ their welfare is genuine. " But I call God for 
 emotions ^ witness upon my souP that to spare you, I for- 
 bore to come to Corinth" (II Corinthians i, 23). 
 Once, it is used to sum up their religious life in 
 general. "And I will gladly spend and be spent 
 for your souls" (II Corinthians xii, 15). It is 
 scarcely correct to say, with Charles, that Paul 
 "never speaks, as almost all the other writers of 
 the New Testament do, of the salvation of the 
 soul, save in one instance, as in his first epistle " 
 (I Thessalonians v, 23).^ "While, indeed, the 
 predominant usage is to regard salvation as the 
 final goal of the pneuma, yet the distinction is not 
 so fixed that eternal interests may not likewise 
 belong to the psyche. It seems likely that here in 
 this case, the phrase " for your souls " {v-n-lp twv 
 tfn}x<iiv)^ simply is the equivalent for " for your 
 lives, for your sakes, for your comfort, for your 
 salvation." Compare II Corinthians i,'6, "But 
 
 ^ His most usual affirmations lack this expressive phrase 
 (kiTL T^ kfi^v i)vx^v). Compare I Thessalonians ii, 5. "God 
 is my witness"; Galatians i, 20, "Before God I lie not"; 
 Philippians i, 8, "For God is my witness, how I long after 
 you." 
 
 2 Charles, Eschat., p. 410. 
 
 33 
 
GEISTEEAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort"; 
 Romans ix, 3, " For I could wish that I myself 
 were anathema from Christ for my brethren's 
 sake"; Philippians ii, 17, "Yea, and if I am 
 offered upon the sacrifice and service of your 
 faith I Joy." Further, the emotions of dis- 
 tress and pain are attributed to the psyche. 
 " Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man 
 that worketh evil" (Romans ii, 9). It stands for 
 the life of the organism here upon earth, and this, 
 as in the Old Testament, is its most general use 
 in Paul. The enemies that persecuted Elijah 
 sought to destroy his psyche (translated by life). ^physical 
 Salute Prisca and Aquila my fellow workers in 
 Christ Jesus, who for my life (psyche) laid down 
 their very necks " (Romans xvi, 3). Epaphroditus 
 is commended to the Church at Philippi because 
 " for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, 
 hazarding his life" (psyche), (Philippians ii, 
 30). It is used collectively; "Let every soul be 
 in subjection to the higher powers " (Romans 
 xiii, 1). It expresses the state of steady deter- 
 mination and united action in Philippians i, 27; 
 " Only let your manner of life be worthy of the 
 gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see 
 you or be absent, I may hear of your state, that ye 
 stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for 
 the faith of the gospel." 
 
 ^ Romans xi, 3, 4. 
 
 N.B. — The transliterations, pneuma, psyche, will now be used 
 generally for spirit and soul. 
 
 3 33 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Heart and 
 psyche have 
 same 
 
 emotional 
 content. 
 
 Similar 
 content 
 ascribed 
 to the 
 
 pneuma, sarx 
 and nous. 
 
 Paul's use of the word, heart {rj KapSta), corre- 
 sponds in some respects to that of psyche. On 
 the emotional side both are practically identical. 
 The former expresses the solicitude of Titus for 
 the church at Corinth. '' But thanks be to God 
 who putteth the same earnest care for you in the 
 heart of Titus'' (II Corinthians viii, 16). It 
 expresses also sorrow and pain ; " I say the truth 
 in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness 
 with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sor- 
 row and unceasing pain in my heart" (Eomans 
 ix, 1, 2) ; and also comfort, peace, joy and love; 
 "That their hearts may be comforted" (Colossians 
 ii, 2) ; " And let the peace of Christ rule in your 
 hearts" (Colossians iii, 15) ; "Whom (Tychicus) 
 I have sent unto you for this very purpose, that 
 ye may know our state, and that he may comfort 
 your hearts" (Colossians iv, 8); "Singing and 
 making melody in your hearts to the Lord" 
 (Ephesians v, 19); "Because the hearts of the 
 saints have been refreshed through thee, brother " 
 (Philemon i, 7) ; "I beseech thee for my child, 
 . . . Onesimus, . . . whom I have sent 
 back to thee in his own person, that is, my very 
 heart " (i, 10, 11, 12) ; " Yea brother, let me have 
 joy of thee in the Lord, refresh my heart in 
 Christ" (i, 20). 
 
 Such states are also ascribed to the pneuma, and 
 occasionally to the sarx and the nous (o"ap^, vovs). 
 The fears of the Thessalonians concerning the 
 immediate approach of the Parousia are quieted 
 with the message of a longer intervening period 
 34 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OP CONCEPTS 
 
 than they anticipated. " To the end that ye be 
 not quickly shaken from your mind (airo rovi/oos), 
 nor yet be troubled either by spirit (Sta Trvtvfiaros) j 
 or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the 
 Lord is just at hand" (II Thessalonians ii, 2). 
 The emotions of love, gentleness, and such like 
 belong to the heart or to the pneimia indifferently. 
 " Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love and 
 a pneuma of gentleness?" (I Corinthians iv, 21). 
 Persecutions in Macedonia elicited the statement: 
 — '^ For even when we were come into Macedonia 
 our sarx had no relief, but we were afflicted on 
 every side" (II Corinthians vii, 5). Conditions 
 such as despondency, or depression, the result of 
 the non-attainment of a desired object are states 
 of the pneuma. " I had no relief for my spirit, 
 because I found not Titus my brother" (II Cor- 
 inthians ii, 13). So are states of joy, comfort 
 and happiness consequent upon the receipt of good 
 tidings, or upon meeting with friends. " In our 
 comfort we joyed the more exceedingly for the joy 
 of Titus, because his spirit hath been refreshed by 
 you all" (II Corinthians vii, 13). Purpose, 
 singleness of aim, determined effort, steadfastness 
 of faith, and such like processes are Variously 
 indicated. "To the end that he may establish your 
 hearts (ras KapStas) unblameable in holiness" (I 
 Thessalonians iii, 13); "But he that standeth 
 steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but 
 hath power as touching his will (BeXrjfjuiTo^)^ and 
 hath determined this .in his own heart" (I Cor- 
 35 
 
intellectual 
 and voUtic 
 processes. 
 
 STUDIES m PAULIlsrE ESCHATOLOiGY 
 
 inthians vii, 37); "Let each man do according 
 as he hath purposed in his heart " (II Corinthians 
 ix^ 7) ; " !N"ot with eye-service as men-pleasers, but 
 in singleness of heart" (Colossians iii, 22); 
 " That ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul 
 striving for the faith of the gospel" (Philippians 
 i. 27).- 
 stands^for the Thus far the coincidence of usage may be seen 
 genS"^:^ i^ these leading terms of Paul, and it is in har- 
 fe^s if tho^ mony with the thought of contemporary Judaism.^ 
 inteuectuai ^^ cxpress the emotional phases of human life; 
 and volitional pgyche, pncuma, kardia seem to be perfectly inter- 
 changeable. The first term, however, unlike 
 kardia or pneuma is always at hand to designate 
 an individual in the comprehensive sense of a 
 member of a community, or as a citizen of a state. 
 While on the intellectual andvolitional side as these 
 processes are operative in religious life, psyche 
 has little characteristic application, it is Just here, 
 where the chief significance lies for the other con- 
 cepts, and also where the difficulty of reaching 
 distinctions becomes greatest. The processes of 
 knowledge, of judgment, of conviction belong to 
 the kardia, as they do to the pneuma, as again 
 they do to the conscience (o-wctSi^o-ts), or to the 
 thoughts (Xoytxrfxoi). In many late Stoic writings 
 as those of Plutarch and Epictetus, psyche 
 stands for the highest and noblest capacities, and 
 herein differs from the rather restricted usage of 
 
 ^Cf. Acts xix, 21, "Now after these things were ended, Pan! 
 purposed in the spirit, ... to go to Jerusalem." 
 ^ Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 180. 
 
 36 
 
GEISTERAL TEEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 the apostle.^ But still the following instances, in 
 the Pauline letters, show how easily in certain 
 cases one term might be substituted for the other 
 without violence to the meaning. In the argu- 
 ment of Romans, Paul shows that the Gentile 
 world although without the codified Hebrew 
 statues, yet showed "The work of the law written 
 in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness 
 therewith, and their thoughts with one another 
 accusing or else excusing them" (ii, 15). "The 
 word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy 
 heart, that is the word of faith which we preach " 
 (x, 8). It is the lust of the heart that bringeth 
 the body into dishonor (i, 24). It is the heart, 
 hardened and impenitent, that treasurest up for 
 itself "wrath in the day of wrath" (ii, 5). It 
 becomes subject to defilement, deceit and blind- 
 ness (xvi, 18). So also may the conscience, 
 pneuma, nous and thoughts. The conscience of 
 the weak Corinthian who eats as of a thing sac- 
 rificed to idols is defiled (I Corinthians viii, 7). 
 "In whom the god of this world hath blinded 
 the minds of the unbelieving" (II Corinthians 
 iv, 4). "But I fear lest your minds should be 
 corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that 
 is toward Christ" (II Corinthians xi, 3); "But 
 became vain in their reasonings (SuxXo-yMr/xots) and 
 their senseless heart was darkened " (Romans 
 i, 21) ; "God gave them up to a spirit of stupor" 
 (Romans xi, 8). 
 
 ^ American Journal of Theology, Burton, Article, Spirit, Soul 
 and Flesh, July, 1916, p. 396. 
 
 37 
 
STUDIES m PAULIISrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Various 
 expressions 
 for the 
 '*old" and 
 the "new" 
 Ufe. 
 
 On the other hand, the entrance upon the new 
 life in Christ, is a condition of kardia, or of 
 pneuma or of nous. " Seeing it is God that said, 
 Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in 
 our hearts '^ (II Corinthians iv, 6) ; " That Christ 
 may dwell in your hearts by f aith ^^ (Ephesians 
 iii, 17) ; " The new circumcision not of the letter 
 of the law, is that of the heart, in the spirit " 
 (Eomans ii, 29). Other ways of expressing the 
 same contrast are by such phrases as : — " Our old 
 man" (o TroAatos ^/xaiv dvOpwiro's Eomans vij 6); 
 " outwardly " (cv t<^ <^av€|oa)) ; " inwardly " (^v rw 
 Kpv7rT<2 ii, 28 f.) ; '* the new man" (tov Kaivov 
 avOpwTTov Ephesians iv, 23 f.) ; "the inward 
 man " (6 co-oj ly^oiv avOpoi-n-os^ 6 ea-u)^ II Corinthians 
 iv, 16 ; Eomans vii, 22 ; Ephesians iii, 16). 
 The contrast is identical with that of the 
 "spirit and letter" (Eomans vii, 6) ; of " men- 
 pleasers and God-pleasers " (Colossians iii, 22); 
 of "eye-service and singleness of heart'' (Colos- 
 sians iii, 22; Ephesians vi, 6) ; of "in appearance 
 and not in heart" (II Corinthians v, 12). 
 
 It is the pneuma which pronounces sentence 
 upon the wrong-doer in the church at Corinth. 
 " For I verily being absent in body, but present in 
 spirit, have already as though I were present 
 judged him that hath so wrought this thing" 
 (I Corinthians v, 3). It is the TrvevfiaTiKo^ man 
 who is supposed to understand the apostle^s 
 message. " If any man thinketh himself to be a 
 prophet or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the 
 things I write unto you " (I Corinthians xiv, 37). 
 
 38 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMEITT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 But " the truth " may also be verified by the con- 
 science. " But by the manifestation of the truth 
 commending ourselves to every man's conscience, 
 in the sight of God" (II Corinthians iv, 2); 
 " I hope that we are made manifest also in your 
 consciences" (II Corinthians v, 11) ; "I say 
 the truth in Christ, I lie not, my con- 
 science bearing witness with me in the Holy 
 Spirit" (Eomans ix, 1, 2). How easily the terms 
 are convertible may be seen by contrasting the 
 above statement of I Corinthians v, 3 with I 
 Thessalonians ii, 17, "But we, brethren, being 
 bereaved of you for a short season, in presence not 
 in heart, endeavored the more exceedingly to see 
 your face with great desire." 
 
 Occasionally a distinction is drawn between 
 pneuma and nous, as in I Corinthians xiv, where, 
 in his discourse upon the glossalalia, Paul speaks 
 of the understanding (nous) being unfruitful 
 while the pneuma prayeth in a tongue. But this 
 is rather a reflection of the popular view of the 
 pneuma which, in the opinion of a large number 
 of commentators, connected it with ecstatic 
 syllables carrying little if any intelligibility with 
 them. The following verses indicate Paul's cor- 
 rection of the use to which speech was too often 
 put, by substituting for frenzied utterances in 
 prayer and song, a language that possessed some 
 meaning for the hearers. In that case a message 
 in the pneuma became a message in the nous or 
 understanding. 
 
 39 
 
STUDIES IN" PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Religious 
 
 beUef 
 
 together 
 
 ■with the 
 
 intellectual 
 
 processes 
 
 involved, 
 
 predicated 
 
 of the 
 
 kardia. 
 
 Intellectual processes^ then, are predicated of 
 the human pneuma as well as of the nous and the 
 kardia. " Eor who among men knoweth the 
 things of a man save the spirit of a man which is 
 in him" (I Corinthians ii, 11). " That the God 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ rcmy give you a spirit of 
 wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, 
 having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye 
 may know what is the hope of his calling " 
 (Ephesians i, 17, 18). Belief is stated to be a pre- 
 eminent characteristic of the kardia in the sense 
 of the religious process underlying verbal confes- 
 sion. " Because if thou shalt confess with thy 
 mouth Jesus as Lord and shalt believe in thy 
 heart, that God raised him from the dead, thou 
 shalt be saved, for with the heart man believeth " 
 (Eomans x, 9, 10). 
 
 It may thus be seen that the attempt to find 
 rigid categories in the thought of Paul must meet 
 with failure. Just as in the 'Old Testament, in the 
 apocryphal literature, and in the non-Pauline por- 
 tion of the New Testament, the terms merge into 
 each other^ in respect to their meaning, leaving 
 only a vague impression in the mind of the inves- 
 tigator that as far as the numerical value of cases 
 is concerned, some states emotional, intellectual, 
 and volitional are more often predicated of cer- 
 tain concepts than of others, so, in these epistles, 
 no trichotomy is disclosed at least at this stage of 
 the inquiry. The most comprehensive term used 
 
 1 "All distinctions between -ipv^^ a-iid Trvevfia in the sense of 
 a trichotomy, such as Delitszch has adopted, are arbitrary." 
 Weiss, Bib. Theology, vol. i, p. 124. 
 
 40 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 is kardia, for practically all states are ascribed to 
 it, and to a slightly less extent, does this apply 
 to the pneuma; the nous wherever used is gener- 
 ally a concept for the intellectual side of life ; the 
 conscience denoting characteristically the moral 
 operation involved in criticism upon points arous- 
 ing ritual and ceremonial debate, while the psyche, 
 in so far as it is applied outside the' field covered 
 by the other terms, denotes the individual in the 
 complete sense without emphasis upon his special 
 characteristics.^ 
 
 But there is a large group of passages not yet 
 considered where it is claimed that Paul has 
 placed a stamp peculiarly his own upon the terms, 
 pneuma, sarx and soma (o-oi^a) and that this 
 comes into prominence whenever such terms are 
 found in Juxtaposition and in contrast. With 
 regard to the latter two, it might be pointed out 
 that where they do not directly enter into the dis- ^pp^^ation 
 cussion of pneuma, they show very little diver- ©^ sarx. 
 gence from current usage. The sarx has still its 
 generic application to mankind. " Because by the 
 works of the law shall no flesh be justified " 
 (Galatians ii, 16) ; "And the base things of the 
 world, and the things that are despised, did God 
 choose, . . . that he might bring to nought The earthly 
 the things that are, that no flesh should glory ^^^®' 
 before God" (I Corinthians i, 28, 29). ^ It rep- 
 resents the individuaFs life upon the earth with- 
 out any distinct ethical implications. " Por I 
 
 ^ For the eachatological usage, see next chapter. 
 ^Galatians i, 16; Romans iii, 20. 
 
 41 
 
STUDIES IN PAULIISTE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 would have you know how greatly I strive for you 
 and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as 
 have not seen my face in the flesh" (Colossians 
 ii^ 1 ) ; " Yet to abide in the flesh is more needful 
 for your sake " (Philippians i, 24). It is equiva- 
 lent, as shown above, to psyche with respect to the 
 emotions of anxiety, tribulation, suspense, relief, 
 etc. (I Corinthians vii, 28; II Corinthians vii, 5). 
 
 The term, soma, may be easily substituted for 
 sarx in some of the above senses as is seen by many 
 examples: — "For I verily being absent in body 
 but present in spirit '^ (I Corinthians v, 3) ; " For 
 though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you 
 in spirit" (Colossians ii, 5) ; "Know ye not that 
 he that is joined to a harlot is one body, for the 
 twain, saith he, shall become one flesh" (I Corin- 
 thians vi, 16) ; "Even so ought husbands also to 
 love their own wives as their own bodies. For no 
 man ever hateth his own flesh " (Ephesians v, 28, 
 29) ; " Always bearing about in my body the dying 
 of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be mani- 
 fested in our body. . . . That the life also 
 of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh " 
 (II Corinthians iv, 10, 11). The earthly exist- 
 ence, expressed in Philippians i, 24, as a life in 
 the sarx, is in II Corinthians v, 10, a life in the 
 soma. " That each may receive the things done 
 in the body, . . . whether it be good or bad."^ 
 
 Throughout the sixth and the eighth chapters of 
 Eomans this interchangeability is in evidence in 
 
 iBeyBchlag, N. T. Theology, vol. ii, p. 31, E. T. 
 42 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 several places. The phrase may be either o-S^a 
 TT7S afjLapTtas, OP (rdpi ajxaprtas Indifferently (vi^ 6; 
 viii, 3). Nevertheless^ as identical in meaning as 
 the two terms are in a given number of applica- 
 tions, a preponderance of usage might occasionally 
 serve to furnish a distinction, and there is a 
 large number of instances to show that soma, more 
 readily than any other term, suits the idea of an 
 organism, for when the organic character of the ^^a,°t?e*^*^ 
 church is shown by relating it to its many mem- sense*of 
 bers, or when the apostle discusses the relation of ' 
 Christians to Christ, their living Head, it is this 
 term which is applied.^ It may also be distin- 
 guished from sarx in that while soma may apply 
 to an organism, it does not specifically connote 
 humanity in the wide sense, and yet its range is 
 broader inasmuch as it covers inanimate objects as 
 well as animate, as in the contrast bet\A^een terres- 
 trial and celestial o-w/mra.^ 
 
 Once again, there is the ethnic signification of 
 sarx which differentiates it from all the other 
 
 soma. 
 
 *I Corinthians vi, 15; 12 f; Romans xii, 4; Colossians i, 
 18, 24; ii, 19; Ephesians i, 23; iii, 6; iv, 4 f; v, 30. 
 
 2 " In classical Greek, slaves were called c6fiara oIketiko. 
 or ^ov?.a. a€)fia alone — ^without any such addition — is not 
 found used for slave earlier than in LXX Genesis xxxiv, 29 
 
 (xxxvi, 6); Tobit x, 10; Bel and the Dragon The 
 
 Greek translators of the Old Testament found the usage in 
 Egypt i the Papyri of the Ptolemaic period yield a large num- 
 ber of examples." Deissmann, Bib. Studies, p. 160. 
 
 Note. — Non-Pauline usage of soma may iiLclude dead bodies 
 as well as living. "Where the body is, thither will the eagles 
 be gathered together" (Luke xvii, 37). "And he boldly went 
 in unto Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus" (Mark xv, 
 43). "For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought 
 into the Holy Place by the High Priest as an offering for sin 
 are burned without the camp" (Hebrews xiii, 11). 
 
 43 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 terms in question. In the second epistle to the 
 church of Corinth Paul vindicates the boldness 
 with which he speaks by insisting upon his 
 Hebrew descent. " Seeing that many glory after 
 the sarx I will glory also. Are they Hebrews? 
 So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are 
 they the seed of Abraham? So am I.'^ (II Cor- 
 inthians xi, 11-22.) Evidently, his glory (Kara 
 adpKa) need imply nothing more than a racial 
 pride in his lineal connection with the traditional 
 founder of the Hebrew race. Compare also the 
 passages where the phrase has just this national 
 significance : " Concerning his Son who was born 
 of the seed of David according to the flesh" 
 (Eomans i, 3); "Whose (the Israelites) are the 
 fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the 
 flesh " (Eomans ix, 5) ; " If by any means I may 
 provoke to jealousy them that are my fleshy and 
 may save some of them" (xi, 14).^ There is also 
 the social relation of master and servant (xara 
 aapKo)^ a relation held sacred by Paul. " Servants, 
 obey in all things them that are your masters 
 according to the flesh " (Colossians iii, 22). 
 
 It is not here but in an entirely different rela- 
 tion that the apostle makes a broad line of depar- 
 ture from strictly Jewish tradition, and has 
 invested the terms with a signification which might 
 properly bear the title of Pauline. The term sarx, 
 has now, apparently for the first time, a charac- 
 teristic ascribed to it so pronounced that its other 
 
 * II Corinthians v, 16; Romans ii, 8; Philippians iii, 4. 
 
 44 
 
GENERAL TEEATMEJSTT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 meanings become all but submerged, and its con- 
 stant juxtaposition to the term, pneuma, opens up Duausm 
 a new and wide field of inquiry. It has been cus- and pneuma 
 
 . p T ^ attributed 
 
 tomary amongst a large number of scholars, e.g., to Paul. 
 Pfleiderer, Holsten, Heinrici,^ to regard Paul in 
 the light of an exponent of a dualistic theory of 
 sarx (or soma) and pneuma, in which the former 
 is held as a principle necessarily evil, and the latter 
 as essentially good. The school of Alexandrian 
 Judaism were the classic representatives of this 
 ancient theory as seen in their chief literary 
 products, namely, the Book of Wisdom, the Writ- 
 ings of Philo, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, 
 and the Fourth Maccabees.^ There are indeed 
 certain phases of their teaching which tend to 
 soften down the extreme character of this dualism 
 wherein the body is regarded as a kind of a passive 
 obstacle in the way of the flight of the pneuma. 
 The Wisdom of Solomon has a few passages which 
 would place the resistance of the sarx or senses 
 within such limits, where, as Drummond says, 
 " the body is not represented as the active source 
 of sin but only as the passive check upon the 
 higher aspirations."^ But the general tendency is 
 to make the separation between the soma and the 
 pneuma sharp and uncompromising. Deliverance The 
 from the soma consisted rather in a release of the literature. 
 psyche by death as from a prison house, than in 
 a conquest of the soma while present upon earth. 
 
 ^ Schweitzer, Paul, p. 63. E.T. Pfleiderer, Paulinism, vol. 1, 
 p. 51. E.T. Sabatier, L'apotre Paul, p. 249 f. 
 2 See Tables. 
 ^ Philo JudEBUS, vol. i, p. 202. 
 
 45 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 " The body is by nature evil and plots against the 
 soul. It is dead so that each one of us carries a 
 corpse/'^ Numerous passages attest the eternally 
 evil character of sarx and soma.^' ^ The resurrec- 
 tion of the sarx is denied by all the above writers. 
 In only one of the works namely, the Slavonic 
 Enoch, is the resurrection of the soma admitted 
 though even here the description given of such a 
 body is so vague and intangible that it is quite 
 impossible to frame a picture of what it is like. 
 It is a body composed of the Divine glory. " And 
 the Lord said to Michael, ^ Go and take from 
 Enoch his earthly robe and anoint him with my 
 Holy Oil, and clothe him with the raiment of my 
 glory.^ And Michael did as the Lord spake unto 
 him. He anointed and clothed me, and the 
 appearance of that oil was more than a great light, 
 and its anointing was like excellent dew.^^* 
 
 If this more dominant phase of Alexandrianism 
 is taken to represent the dualism in general, then 
 it must be concluded that whatever antithesis is 
 taught by Paul as existing between sarx and 
 pneuma, it, at least, cannot be of this character. 
 If it be granted for the present that a principle of 
 evil is operative in the Pauline sarx, then the most 
 a^Sst^^such emphatic of Paul's statements used so much as 
 a buttress of extreme dualism, namely, " For I 
 
 dualism. 
 
 ^Ibid, p. 23. 
 
 2 See Philo and Wisdom in Tables. 
 
 ^ " It is essentially evil, and an ineradicably evil nature 
 attaches to the human body. The soul pre-exists and finds in 
 the body a temporary prison house." Charles, Eschatology. 
 p. 255. 
 
 ■•xxii, 8-10. 
 
 46 
 
GENEEAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 know that in me^ i.e.^ in my sarx dwelleth no good 
 thing," only proves that at present the principle 
 of good is not working in the sarx; it does not 
 prove that such an operation may not yet he intro- 
 duced (Romans vii, 18). Allow that two such 
 principles are at work, and it can be clearly shown 
 in the chapter preceding the one in which this 
 declaration is set, that the sarx may become the 
 centre of right action as well as of evil. The 
 reformation of the sarx is constantly taught and 
 enjoined. Evidence of that is in Paul's appeal 
 to the church at Rome that whereas they had pre- 
 sented their members as servants to uncleanness 
 they should now present them as servants to 
 righteousness (Romans vi, 19; xii, 1). "Let not 
 sin reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should 
 obey the lusts thereof" (Romans vi, 12); "For 
 sin shall not have dominion over you " (Romans 
 vi, 14). That such an emancipation is not 
 merely a theoretical possibility, but in the view 
 of the apostle, is an actual fact of life, is seen in 
 the following part of the same chapter. " But 
 thanks be to God that whereas ye were servants to 
 sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that 
 form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered, and 
 being made free from sin ye became servants of 
 righteousness" (Romans vi, 17, 18). The life 
 upon earth in the sarx may be a life in Christ. 
 " And that life which I now live in the flesh, I 
 live in faith, the faith which is in (of) the Son 
 of God who loved me and gave himself up for me " 
 (Galatians ii, 20). There are also the many 
 47 
 
STUDIES m PAULIISTE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 illustrations of the soma being the sanctuary of 
 
 the Holy Spirit which should be kept pure and 
 
 Further holy. " But the body is not for fornication but for 
 
 evidence. 
 
 the Lord/' " And the virgin is careful for the 
 things of the Lord that she may be holy both in 
 body and in spirit." "That the life of Jesus may 
 be manifested in our mortal flesh '' (I Corinthians 
 iii, 16; I Corinthians vi, 13; vii, 34; II Corinth- 
 ians iv, 11; Romans vi, 12; xii, 1; Philippians i, 
 20). The body of the flesh may become the 
 occasion to sin, but not necessarily so. "For 
 though we walk in the flesh, we do not war accord- 
 ing to the flesh'' (II Corinthians x, 3). The 
 phrase, Kara (TOLpKa^ usually connotes evil though, 
 as shown above, it may have a purely neutral sig- 
 nificance. And the phrase, eV ry o-apKt, may 
 mean either the early life, not of necessity evil, 
 or the life governed by sinful passions/ " For 
 when we were in the flesh, the passions of sin 
 which were through the law wrought in our mem- 
 bers to bring forth fruit unto death" (Eomans 
 vii, 5 ) ; " Among whom ye also lived once in the 
 lusts of the flesh" (Ephesians ii, 3). Whether 
 the sarx or the soma is sinful depends everywhere 
 upon the deeds characterizing either. It becomes 
 a soma of sin if the life is " joined to a harlot " 
 (I Corinthians vi, 16). On the other hand, it 
 
 ^ "For in my flesh dwelleth. no good thing." "But it is 
 unfair to press a sentence like this, uttered evidently under 
 the pressure of strong personal emotion, into evidence for a 
 strict theological judgment. And the context in Romans vii, 
 14, and the parallel in Galatians v, 17ff, make it plain that 
 sarx here refers not to the material flesh; but is used as in 
 popular parlance for human nature.'* Brummond, Apostolic 
 Teaching, p. 137. 
 
 48 
 
GENEEAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 may become a soma of righteousness in which God 
 is glorified, and Christ magnified through its 
 instrumentality (I Corinthians vi, 30). The way 
 of salvation according to the Law, as contrasted 
 with the way of salvation according to Christ, is 
 expressed in the antithetic phrases, " the children 
 of the flesh," and '' the children of the promise " 
 (Romans ix, 8). 
 
 A dualism regarded by many as metaphysical iUin^oiS ^™ 
 character cannot be found in any of the sources '^®^**'"®^*' 
 known as directly available to Paul. There is no 
 evidence of it in the Old Testament.^ The term 
 "1 tfi^ i (flesh) generally stood for living beings, 
 but is sometimes applied to animals as well. 
 " And there went in unto Noah into the ark, two 
 and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life " 
 (Genesis vii, 15). As above indicated, it is fre- 
 quently interchangeable with soul, spirit, or heart. 
 " Wherefore my heart is glad and my glory 
 rejoiceth, my flesh also shall dwell in safety" 
 (Psalm xvi, 9). By an easy transition of usage it 
 could easily be made to picture man's weakness as 
 contrasted with God. " For who is there of all 
 flesh that hath heard the voice of the living God 
 speaking out of the midst of the fire and lived" 
 (Deuteronomy v, 26) ; "In God have I put my 
 trust, I will not be afraid; what can flesh do to 
 
 * "The theory that matter is essentially evil is decidedly 
 un-Hebrew. The dualistic conception of man as composed of 
 two natures, flesh and spirit, standing in necessary and perma- 
 nent antagonism to each other, is not to be fonnd in the Old 
 Testament Scriptures." Bruce, Paul's Conception of Chris- 
 tianity, p. 270. See also Toy, Judaism and Christianity, 
 p, 219. 
 
 4 49 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 The Ruach 
 of Tahweli 
 regarded ' 
 as the 
 source of 
 the marvel- 
 lous, etc. 
 
 me?" (Psalm Ivi, 4). Human nature, then, with 
 the emphasis on its limitations and its incomplete- 
 ness is so designated, but one searches in vain for 
 evidence of its use as a principle radically evil. 
 In fact some of the prophets employed the term 
 to cover a type of the highest moral conduct. 
 "And I will take away the stony heart out of 
 their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh 
 that they may walk in my statutes ^^; figurative 
 language indeed, but evidence that the thought of 
 its inherent sinfulness was the most remote pos- 
 sibility in the mind of the Hebrew writers. 
 
 On the other hand, ruach does not imply a 
 principle necessarily good. In the discussion of 
 its usage, the distinction, vague as it is indeed at 
 times, should nevertheless be noted between the 
 Euach of Yahweh and the human ruach where the 
 latter is not definitely conceived as the immediate 
 result of the former. When the writers, early or 
 late, refer to the Euach of Yahweh, the emphasis 
 is predominantly upon the extraordinary and the 
 phenomenal.^ The recorded feats of Samson and 
 of other heroes are prefaced by such phrases as 
 " The Euach of Yahweh came mightily upon him." 
 " And the Euach of Yahweh came mightily upon 
 him, and he rent him (the lion) as he would a 
 kid." " And the ropes that were upon his arms 
 became as flax that was burned with fire " (Judges 
 xiv, 6 ; XV, 14) . It is sometimes regarded as the 
 prelude to a violent outburst of rage or indigna- 
 tion. " And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily 
 
 * A. B, Davidson, 
 
 O. T. Prophecy, p. 153 fP. 
 
 50 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 upon Saul when he heard these words, and his 
 anger was greatly kindled'' (I Samuel si, 6). 
 Sometimes it is the reason of a special advance- 
 ment in valor and strength as in the early life of 
 David. " And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily 
 upon David from that day forward '' (I Samuel 
 xvij 13). Men possessing unusual skill in craft- 
 manship are said to have been " filled with the 
 Euach of God" (Exodus xxxv, 31). Perhaps the 
 most striking example is in the strange behavior 
 of Saul which later became the occasion of the 
 proverb, " Is Saul also among the prophets ?" 
 Samuel tells Saul that in his journey he will meet 
 a band of prophets, and the Euach of Yahweh 
 will in turn come upon him, that he too will pos- 
 sess the same gift of prophecy. " And thou shalt 
 prophesy with them and thou shalt be turned into 
 another man'' (I Samuel x, 5^ 6). "And he also 
 stripped off his clothes, and he also prophesied 
 before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day 
 and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul 
 also among the prophets?" (I Samuel xix, 24). 
 'Such peculiar states are invariably the result of 
 the entering in of the Euach of Yahweh. But 
 other abnormal conditions such as deep melancholy 
 and gloom are supposed to be the effect of the 
 departure of the Euach of Yahweh, and the result 
 of an evil ruach, though indeed in the earlier 
 writers this operation of the evil agency is attri- 
 buted to Yahweh. " Now the Euach of Yahweh 
 departed from Saul and an evil ruach from Yah- 
 weh troubled him" (I Samuel xvi, 14). When 
 51 
 
ruach. 
 
 STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 again Saul becomes refreshed through David's 
 playing, the result is expressed by the departure of 
 Both normal the evil Tuach (xvi, 23). Wherever the reference 
 states is to the human ruach, not specifically ascribed to 
 
 the human the Euach, of Yahweh, both normal and abnormal 
 conduct is included. When Samson's extreme 
 thirst resulting in "weakness is quenched with 
 water from the hollow place cloven by Yahweh, 
 "his ruach came again and he revived/' an 
 instance of how nephesh or physical life could still 
 be present even though the ruach were absent 
 (Judges XV, 19). So with the Egyptian whose 
 ruach had left him as a result of having eaten no 
 food for three days and three nights. Upon par- 
 taking of bread and water his ruach returned (I 
 Samuel xxx, 12). Again, the amazement of the 
 Queen of Sheba is expressed by the statement 
 " that there was no more ruach in her," evidently 
 implying that her normal state was an effect of 
 the possession of her ruach (I Kings x, 5). That 
 is to say, an abnormal state may at times be the 
 result of the presence of the ruach, or, again, the 
 result of the lack of it, though indeed the former 
 is by far the more prevailing standpoint. Accord- 
 ing to Koeberle, the most ancient conception of 
 ruach would identify it with breath or wind on 
 the ground that all such terms as ruach, nephesh, 
 neshama are descriptive in the first place of con- 
 crete natural phenomena, but that in the course of 
 time differentiation took place within the content 
 expressed by each, until ruach principally repre- 
 sented some extraordinary power not native to 
 52 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OP CONCEPTS 
 
 man, but coming into him from an outside source 
 producing abnormal conduct, while nephesh 
 came to designate simply the earthly life of 
 the individual.^ 
 
 In later documents, mjore general functions are 
 attributed to the Ruach of Yahweh. In the latter 
 part of the Book of Isaiah, the prophet recounts 
 the favors of God shown to the ancient Israelites, 
 and then regards the afflictions suffered by them 
 as disciplinary visitations of the Ruach of God 
 (Isaiah Ixiii, 10-14). The outstanding reference 
 in the Old Testament to the operation of the 
 Ruach of Yahweh is that given by Joel, where a 
 national future is described in which there will be 
 a great awakening on the part of the nation with 
 wonderful activity in prophecy.^ Emphasis is 
 placed upon physical accompaniments. In fact, 
 whatever was the nature of the visions which the 
 prophet delineates, the rich and elaborate color of 
 the setting shows how obsessed he was with the 
 developing apocalyptic imagery of his age — a fact 
 which testifies to the growing belief that it was 
 chiefly in the domain of the startling and the mar- 
 vellous where the Ruach of God had its prime 
 manifestations. 
 
 Following in line with these older views, the 
 later Jewish apocalyptic writings, notably the 
 Psalms of Solomon, the Sibylline Oracles, and the 
 Book of Enoch abound in references to the spec- 
 tacular as due to the Ruach of God. Moreover, 
 
 ^ Natur und Geist, p. 202, 3. 
 
 2 American Journal of Theology, Article, Burton, Spirit, 
 Soul, and Flesh, July, 1916, p. 407. 
 
 53 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Old Testa- 
 ment viewB 
 reflected in 
 Acts and 
 
 Synoptics. 
 
 this concept designated by the word, ruach, in the 
 Hebrew writers, is also retained in the Synoptics 
 and Acts thongh, of course, expressed by the Greek 
 word, pnenma. The opening chapters of the gospel 
 of Luke bear evidence of this. Prophesying is 
 the reported result of being filled with the pneuma. 
 Zechariah describes the future work of the child, 
 John, immediately after, according to the evan- 
 gelist's account, he was "filled with the Spirit" 
 (Luke i, 67). 
 
 Simeon^s belief that he would see the Messiah 
 before death is regarded as fore-knowledge due to 
 the possession of the Holy Spirit. " And it had 
 been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit that 
 he should not see death before he had seen the 
 Lord's Christ" (Luke ii, 26). The knowledge of 
 the fate of Judas which Peter ascribes to David is 
 due to the same source (Acts i, 16, Cf. iv, 25). 
 Philip's purpose in joining the Ethiopian eunuch 
 is suggested to him in the same way (viii, 29). 
 So also Peter's vision and his subsequent decision 
 to go from Joppa to Caasarea. "And while Peter 
 thought on the vision the Spirit said to him, 
 behold, three men seek thee" (x, 19). Whenever 
 any important step is taken in the development of 
 the church appeals are made to the Spirit for 
 guidance. Saul and Barnabas commence their 
 work together, and are sent out under the same 
 control (xiii, 2-4). The direction of travel is 
 changed by Paul and Silas from Asia to Europe 
 because "they were forbidden of the Holy Spirit 
 to speak the word in Asia" (xvi, 6). And the 
 54 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMENT OF COITCEPTS 
 
 appointment of officials in the Church, together 
 with the general conduct of the work is through 
 such help (xx, 28). Substantial evidence that the 
 gift of prophecy, in the narrower sense of the 
 ability to forecast an event near or remote,, was a 
 special endowment of the Spirit is given in this 
 narrative. Agabus, one of the prophets who came 
 down from Jerusalem, foretells by the Spirit a 
 general famine (xi, 28). Paul, in leaving Miletus, 
 preparatory to taking his journey to Jerusalem 
 says to the elders : — " The Holy Spirit testifieth 
 unto me in every city saying that bonds and afflic- 
 tions abide me " (xx, 23) . Agabus similarly 
 credits his foreknowledge of Paul's imprisonment 
 to the Spirit (xxi, 11). In fact, the general move- 
 ment of the primitive Church, in its wonderfully 
 widespread expansion from Jerusalem to Eome 
 accomplished in one generation, was regarded as 
 the principal result of the operation of the Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 In the treatment of this subject in the epistles, emphasis' 
 Paul undoubtedly shows certain affinities with his*^^*^- 
 age in respect to some of the functions which he 
 assigns to the Spirit. Indeed in Acts, as above 
 indicated, he regarded " prophesying " which 
 seemed at times little more than a type of divina- 
 tion, as one of the results of the possession of the 
 Spirit, while in other places he adds such powers 
 as the working of miracles, discerning of spirits, 
 gifts of healing and so on (Galatians iii, 5; I Cor- 
 inthians xii, 8-10). But the apostle has reduced 
 this side of the activity of the pneuma to a com- 
 55 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 parative incident. The miraculous does not take^ 
 in his view, anything like the importance it occu- 
 pied in the age in which he lived. The emphasis 
 is transferred to the life of the disciple in the 
 modest and humble phases of daily conduct. The 
 effect of the Pneuma is here a love shed abroad in 
 human hearts which occasions rejoicing in the 
 midst of tribulation; a steadfastness of hope when 
 confronted by distress; a moral disposition the 
 opposite of that characterized as the spirit of the 
 world, which crystallizes in the works of righteous- 
 ness; a peace that cannot be disturbed; a trium- 
 phant and complete conquest over the lusts of the 
 flesh ;^ a cleansing of the heart rather than indul- 
 gence in rampant Corinthian vices ;^ and a new 
 liberty of action constituting, in itself, the 
 law of righteousness as opposed to the ritual 
 of ceremonial requirement f in a word, it 
 is that mode of conduct exemplified in Christ 
 where sensual and degrading license becomes 
 crucified, and the lowly walks of life abound 
 in love, long-suffering, kindness, self-control, and 
 other virtues receiving insufficient consideration in 
 the codes of the schools. This is decidedly different 
 from the more apocalyptic description of the 
 results of the Pneuma, for such a moral life needs 
 no exaggerated accompaniments of breathless 
 amazement and emotional arrest. The gifts of 
 prophesying, the power to mystify, the working of 
 
 ^I Thessalonians iv. 7-8; Galatians v, 16 ff. 
 
 ^ I Corinthians vi, 19. 
 
 " Galatians v, 5 ; II Corinthians iii, 17. 
 
 56 
 
GENEEAL TREATMENT OF COKCEPTS 
 
 miracles amidst signs and wonders that overpower 
 the imagination, while still in evidence upon rare 
 occasions, are made to yield to the more potent, if 
 less ostentatious, spirit of love displayed in the 
 performance of daily tasks. 
 
 To revert then to the question of the opposition 
 between this concept and that of flesh, any evil 
 characteristics at times ascribed to the former 
 must naturally be those of the human rather than 
 of the divine pneuma. Although it is difficult in 
 places to discover whether the Hebrew writers had 
 any clear distinction between the Euach of God 
 as it operated in man, and the human ruach as not 
 specifically connected with the former, yet wher-'^^^'i® , 
 
 ^ -J ^ J range of 
 
 ever the latter as such seems to be referred to, it application 
 
 ^ of ruacli. 
 
 may represent in the wide range of its application, 
 breath, wind, false prophecy, haughtiness, pride, 
 etc., together with the processes of joy, gladness, 
 sorrow, grief, and other manifold feelings. But 
 where it is, in the Old Testament, placed side by 
 side with flesh it is by way of contrast, which is a 
 physical rather than an ethical opposition. 
 Schultz remarks :—" The word spirit is from its ?*" '"'*^*^- 
 origin the natural antithesis to the word flesh. 
 As possessing motion, life, and invisibility, it is 
 the opposite of what is inert, frail and material."^ 
 " Now the Egyptians are men and not God, and 
 their horses flesh and not spirit, and when Yah- 
 weh shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth 
 
 tlon from 
 flesb. 
 
 ^ Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 245. 
 
 57 
 
STUDIES IIST PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 shall stumble and he that is helped shall fall;, and 
 they shall be consumed together."^ 
 
 But these examples are not in any case illustra- 
 tive of the dualism in question. That indeed was 
 a product of Hellenistic thought^ , in the years 
 following the completion of the canon of Scripture, 
 and was pushed to great lengths in Alexandria. 
 Pfleiderer's attempt to show that this assumed 
 Hellenistic tendency in Paul found additional cor- 
 roboration in a more ancient Hebrew dualism is 
 based upon a presupposition which is read into 
 certain Old Testament passages. " The sinfulness 
 of man is referred to his fleshly origin and his 
 fleshly nature" in Psalms li, 7; ciii, 10, 14; Job iv, 
 17 fl, and other statements. So Paul took "this 
 step of advancing the physical uncleanness 
 and perishableness of the (rdpi to moral sinful- 
 ness."^ But the appeal for forgiveness of sin, for 
 cleansing from unrighteousness does not refer the 
 sin to the evil origin of flesh. There is no such 
 implication in the passage : — " Purge me with 
 hyssop and I shall be clean ; "Wash me and I shall 
 be whiter than snow." Likewise in Psalm ciii, the 
 statement :— " For He knoweth our frame ; He 
 remembereth that we are dust. As for man his 
 days are as grass, etc./' may only imply human 
 
 * Isaiah xxxi, 3. 
 
 * Cf . the passage in the Phaedo: — " And he attains to the 
 purest knowledge of them (beauty and goodness, etc.) who 
 goes to each with the mind alone, ... he who has got 
 rid, as far as he ,can, of eyes and ears and, so to speak of 
 the whole body, these being in his opinion distracting elements 
 which, when they infect the soul, hinder her from acquiring 
 truth and knowledge." Par. 66. (Jowett, Translation, vol. ii, 
 p. 205.) 
 
 ' Paulinism, vol. i, p. 53. 
 
 58 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 weakness and the brevity of life ; it does not indi- 
 cate that the step of raising the " perishableness 
 of the flesh to actual sinfulness " has taken place. 
 
 Neither can the direct dependence of Paul upon 
 Alexandrianism, which Pfleiderer, Holtzmann, 
 Grafe and others have urged^ be established. It 
 is true that he may have been brought into contact 
 with much of that type of speculation in his 
 travels, but, according to Schweitzer^ who vigor- 
 ously combats the theory of the Hellenization of 
 Paul's thought, even Holtzmann " admits that no 
 tangible influence of Philo's writings is to be 
 recognized." But allowing for indirect contact, 
 the evidence of the epistles is decidedly against the 
 view that Paul took over as a finished metaphysical 
 product the Alexandrian theory of the sarx. 
 
 While, however, the theory which ascribes this what 
 
 ^ ' "^ antithesis 
 
 dualism to Paul may be rejected, there can be no does Paul 
 question that he everywhere places great emphasis 
 upon some antithesis between sarx and pneuma. 
 An important question here emerges. Is this con- 
 trast merely a moral one ? Does sarx simply denote 
 a generic concept covering a more or less definite 
 group of actions, dispositions and habits, differing 
 it may be in many minor respects but, nevertheless, 
 agreeing in the fact that they are all condemned 
 as wrong? And does pneuma, on the other hand, 
 serve as a concept for another group more or less 
 varied but approved as right? Or must one go 
 further, and include within the scope of the con- 
 cepts, content of a distinctively eschatological 
 
 1 Schweitzer, Paul, p. 111. 
 
 59 
 
one. 
 
 STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 character akin to that which colored the whole 
 Messianic outlook of the apostle? That is to say, 
 do the terms designate, in addition to the distinc- 
 tions of right and wrong, bad and good, something 
 which appertains to the future Messianic kingdom 
 on the earth, or in the heavens, and in which the 
 believer either before death, or after, or in both 
 states, shares? This second feature will receive a 
 more extended treatment in the next chapter. 
 In regard to the first, it seems undeniable that 
 Sometimes in certain places in the epistles, the antithesis is 
 
 a moral and ^ ^ 
 
 inteUectuai best explained by confining it to the moral and 
 intellectual processes that characterized the pro- 
 gress of Paul's life. " It is not the sarx as such 
 that is evil, but the evil that dwells in us^' 
 (Eomans vii, 7). The dixapTia^ the error that 
 in principle adheres to us, is the perversion of 
 the relation between o-dpi and -irveCfxa which God 
 intended, and this perversion hinders the true 
 unfolding and development of the spirit into the 
 likeness of God."^ The letter to the Galatians 
 shows that a distressing situation had arisen in 
 those churches threatening to destroy the fruit of 
 PauFs missionary labors amongst them. Judaizing 
 parties adhering to and advocating the rites and 
 tenets of Judaism had been tampering with his 
 converts, and attempting to re-establish the yoke 
 of the circumcision by discrediting the status of 
 Paul as an apostolic teacher. The reports of their 
 success had occasioned him grave alarm, especially 
 as his original efforts had promised such good 
 
 ^ Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, vol. ii, p. 42. 
 
 60 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 results, and to head oS the further development 
 of this relapse into Pharisaism, Paul sends this 
 letter — one of the strongest messages of his life. 
 The contrast between their former acceptance of 
 his gospel, and their present retrogression to the 
 beggarly elements of the law, is treated under the 
 distinction of pneuma and sarx. " Are ye so 
 foolish? Having begun in the pneuma, are ye 
 then perfected in the sarx ?^'^ The term is 
 employed in First Corinthians in much the same 
 sense. Here, however, the Church is being 
 reproved, not for a falling back from a sound and 
 healthy position, but for tardiness of development. 
 The elementary teaching which they had received 
 had, by misinterpretation, given rise to party divis- 
 ions, and in the interval between Paul's visit, and 
 the writing of the letter, no advancement in 
 Christian knowledge had been made. This condi- 
 tion with the jealousy and strife it engendered is 
 described as a-apKiKov. " For ye are yet carnal 
 (o-apKiKoC)^ for whereas there is among you jealousy 
 and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk 
 after the manner of men?'* Taking the section 
 just as it stands the term need only connote the 
 regrettable qualities mentioned. Here indeed a 
 claim of dualism might be put forward, but the 
 antithesis is one, not between fleshly material pre- 
 
 ^ Galatians iii, 3. 
 
 Note. — Rabbinical speculation conceived of two principles 
 witbin man, ( 1 ) an evil disposition, the yezer hara ( cor 
 malignum) ; (2) a righteous inclination, the yezer hatob, and 
 that these two tendencies in their opposition were responsible 
 for variations in his .conduct. — See Maldwyn Hughes, Ethics 
 of Jewish Apoc. Literature, p. 197 ff. 
 
 61 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 sumed as radically evil, and spirit, as Hausrath^ 
 would argue, but between the bondage to cere- 
 monial law with the wranglings and disturbances 
 conditioned by it, and the freedom of love. " Eor 
 we brethren were called for freedom ; only use not 
 your freedom for an occasion to the flesh but 
 through love be servants one to another."^ The 
 resumption of such ceremonialism after a pneu- 
 matic commencement, and conversely, the failure 
 to emancipate oneself from the former is a state 
 a-apKLKov; but no metaphysics as to the nature of 
 the sarx is involved in the contrast. The range of 
 the sarx is so great that Paul may apply it to the 
 mere rudiments of Christian knowledge, where the 
 o-apKLKOL are further described by the paraphrase, 
 " babes in Christ."^ In such a case Paul's atti- 
 tude is that of a mild reproof ; or, and this is, par 
 excellence, its connotation, sarx may cover certain 
 heinous actions visited by the apostle with passion- 
 ate condemnation.* These and other passages 
 confirm the ethical antithesis of conduct repre- 
 sented by sarx on the one hand, and by pneuma 
 on the other, and can only lead by implication to 
 a more fundamental dualism. 
 
 Further, it cannot be proved that Paul was an 
 
 Paul's exponent of asceticism in the sense in which that 
 
 form of life was taught and practised under Stoic 
 
 ^ Paul ' 'arrived at the extreme dualistic view that the 
 flesh is naturally evil, and that for redemption there is needed 
 a new creation of humanity after the pattern of another 
 Adam.*' — N. Test. Hist., iii, 43 E.T. 
 
 2 Galatians v, 13. 
 
 ^ I Corinthians iii, 1. 
 
 ■* I Corinthians v-vii. 
 
 62 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 and Essenic influences.^ Certain passages, taken 
 by themselves, might indeed serve as a basis for 
 this interpretation. " But I buffet my body and 
 bring it into bondage, lest by any means, after 
 that I have preached to others, I myself should be 
 rejected.^'" "Always bearing about in my body 
 the dying of Jesus."^ Put to death therefore your 
 members which are upon the earth, fornication, 
 uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness 
 which is idolatry."*' ^ But it may easily be seen 
 that in view of the large Clumber of instances 
 already quoted, which exhibit the soma and sarx 
 as ethically indifferent, and in view of others which 
 represent them as the channels, so to speak, 
 through which the fruits of the Spirit may be 
 made manifest, there is no reason to appeal to 
 full-blown Oriental asceticism to satisfy the above 
 supposedly exceptional examples. It is not the 
 physical organism that is implied when Paul, in 
 the description of the bitter struggles which he 
 waged with evil passions, speaks of the crucifixion 
 of the sarx. That intense statement in the sixth 
 chapter of Romans, " Knowing this that our old 
 man was crucified with him, that the body of sin 
 might be done away, that so we should no longer 
 be in bondage to sin," expressly indicates the 
 triumph of the new life in Christ over the former 
 
 ^ McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 337. 
 
 * I Corinthians ix, 27. 
 
 ^ II Corinthians iv, 10. 
 
 * Colossians iii, 5. 
 
 "For further examples: — I Corinthians v, 5, vii, 1 ff; 
 Romans vi, 12-19; viii, 13. 
 
 63 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 life of sin. " Present your bodies a living sacri- 
 fice/'^ is ever his fervent exhortation to the mem- 
 bers of his church- implying that such bodies are 
 but instruments which could Just as nobly minister 
 to the cause of Christ, as they could, if put to base 
 ends, become unworthily the servants of unrighte- 
 ousness. Paul does not feel that he has to 
 enumerate, seriatim, the different passions and 
 vices whenever he makes his indictment of sins 
 within the life of his churches. The old man, the 
 body of sin, the flesh, the reprobate mind, the 
 hardened heart, etc., are but concentrated phrases 
 denoting the complex processes of evil, and serve 
 the purposes of language in the avoidance of need- 
 less repetition. Any phrase possessing sinister sig- 
 nificance in the popular mind could be employed. 
 Compare : — " For they that are such serve not 
 our Lord Christ, but their own belly (rrj koiXlo)," 
 When the injunction is given to put to death the 
 members which are upon the earth, the catalogue 
 of sins placed in apposition thereto, is merely 
 another way of stating what he expresses elsewhere 
 as the " deeds of the body.'' " For if ye live after 
 the flesh ye must die, but if by the spirit ye put to 
 death the deeds of the body, ye shall live."^ This 
 putting to death, or crucifixion, is the conquest of 
 sin within the life, and is not to be effected by an 
 asceticism which, in the severity of its application, 
 breaks down the tissues of the body and results in 
 
 ^ Romans xii, 1. 
 2 Romans ivi, 18. 
 ^ Romans viii, 13. 
 
 64 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OF CONCEPTS 
 
 physical death, but by the exercise of those 
 volitions which constitute in the truest sense the 
 service of Christ.* 
 
 This indicates the decided cleft between the 
 " crucifixion " to which Paul refers, and that 
 aa-Kija-is which, when pushed by extreme Stoicism, 
 finally merged into suicide/ Several of the Stoic 
 writers, notably Cicero," Seneca, and to a less 
 degree, Epictetus regarded " the infirmities of old 
 age " as a legitimate reason for depriving oneself 
 of this natural life. But the remarkable example 
 in Ephesians v, 29, already quoted ; " For no man 
 ever hated his own . flesh ; but nourisheth it and 
 cherisheth it," shows how far was the apostle from 
 the idea of the exercise of flagellation or any ritual 
 requirement entailing physical disability. Indeed 
 in Colossians, asceticism of that character meets 
 with his strong disapprobation. " Which things 
 have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and 
 humility and severity of the body (xat ac^etSta o-oJ/AaTos), 
 but are not of any value against the indulgences 
 of the flesh. "^ Such a practice is not considered 
 the true corrective of fleshly passions.'" If ye died 
 with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why 
 as though being in the world do ye subject your- 
 selves to ordinances ?"* When the apostle says that 
 he buflets his body that he might bring it into 
 bondage, his statement must be understood in rela- 
 
 *See expansion of this idea from another point of view in 
 foUowing chapter. 
 
 * Hicks, Stoic and Epienrean, p. 101. 
 
 2 De Finibus, iii, ps. 60, 61 (Hntchinson's Translation). 
 ^ Colossians ii, 23. 
 
 * Colossians ii, 20. 
 
 5 65 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 tion to the figure of speech which leads up to the 
 use of the phrase. The figure is taken from the 
 Greek games which were such a prominent feature 
 of Hellenic national life in the Isthmus of Cor- 
 inth. " And every man that striveth in the games 
 exerciseth self-control in all things, . . I 
 therefore so run as not uncertainly; so fight I as 
 not beating the air.^'^ Just as the body needed 
 the discipline of control in the training of the 
 athlete that the coveted prize might be won so, to 
 Paul, the same mastery must be achieved, not by 
 mutilation, nor by other ascetic prescriptions, but 
 by a wise and watchful temperance which would 
 fit him for a competition in which the prize sought 
 was a crown of righteousness. That this prepara- 
 tion involved for him long and difficult struggle 
 might account for the extreme language used in 
 his descriptions. But while due consideration 
 must be given to the apostle's observance of cer- 
 tain Jewish customs of fasting and other forms of 
 abstinence — for it cannot be said that he broke 
 absolutely with his fellow-countrymen in this 
 respect^ — yet his glorying did not lie in the adher- 
 
 ^ I Corinthians ix, 25, 26. 
 ^ 2 In II Corinthians, fasting is cited with patience, watch- 
 mgs, kindness and other laudable characteristics as the means 
 by which Paul's converts might commend themselves "as 
 ministers of God '* (vi, 4-7). Compare Acts xiv, 23: — " And 
 when they had appointed for them elders in every church 
 and had prayed with fasting they commended them to the 
 Lord in whom they had believed." This practice may stand 
 with a number of other Jewish rites such as circumcision, 
 which, in the view of Paul, was only occasionally expedient. 
 To adhere to them, or to refrain from them, lay ' ' in his right 
 in the Gospel." " What then is my reward? That when I 
 preach the gospel, I may make the gospel without charge, 
 so as not to use to the full my right in the gospel For 
 though I was free from all men, I brought myself under 
 bondage to all that I might gain the more" (I Corinthians ix, 
 
 66 
 
GENEEAL TEEATMENT OF COFCEPTS 
 
 ence to these observances, but rather in the fact 
 that the Spirit of God by its " indwelling " in the 
 temple of his body thereby made it an instrument 
 for the fulfilment of the law of Christ. 
 
 67 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 PAUL'S TREATMENT OF THE SAME CONCEPTS 
 FROM TJSE ESCHATOLOGJGALt STANDPOINT. 
 
 Turning now to the second question indicated 
 on page 59, as to the eschatological character of 
 sarx and pnenma,it is first necessary to refer to the 
 main apocalyptic concepts which formed the back- 
 ground of Paulas intellectual and religious activ- 
 ity. The tabulated analysis has shown that one 
 " advance " which the age of apocalyptic made 
 upon the prophetic period consisted in widening 
 the scope of the Day of Judgment to include, not 
 only the punishment of oppressors, pagan and 
 A growing apostate, but also the complete destruction of the 
 
 duaUsm In 
 
 apocaisrptic. natural world, and its supersession by a new 
 world at that time transcendent in character. The 
 dualism between the existing present and the 
 imagined future became so acute, that the citizens 
 of the new and supra-mundane Israel were sup- 
 posed to possess scarcely any characteristics native 
 to their earthly state, but on the contrary they 
 were to become like the stars or angels,^ and the 
 description is generally based upon celestial 
 analogy. The literature abounds in speculation 
 upon the existence of angels and demons. They 
 are grouped in a hierarchical classification, and the 
 
 ^ Volz, Jiidische Eschatologie, p. 358 ff. 
 
 68 
 
significa:^ce of concepts 
 
 harassing vicissitudes through which the Jewish 
 nation passes beneath the tyrannic sway of the 
 successive world powers, is explained on the 
 hypothesis of a continuous warfare between good 
 and evil angels being reflected in the bitter con- 
 flicts upon the earth^ — a view which probably 
 points to definite contact of Jewish thought with 
 Persian theology. Moreover, the Old Testament 
 Sheol as the underworld into which the departed 
 regardless of distinctions enter/ becomes now a 
 state intermediate between death and resurrection 
 wherever the latter is admitted. Definite abodes 
 of men, angels and demons are represented in the 
 divisions of Sheol, Paradise, the Abyss and 
 Gehenna, and there certain rewards and punish- 
 ments are meted out to good and bad, as well as 
 after the final judgment. With respect to the 
 terms applied to beings in the intermediate state, 
 and the other non-earthly abodes, the writers 
 make use of the concept, pneuma, to designate 
 angels or demons, never the concept psyche. But n^t^p^* i^^ 
 just as in earlier Hebrew literature these terms ^®g|^J^^®j^^j 
 are easily interchanged as designatory of human ^j^™°^^ ^^" 
 beings in the ethical and emotional sense, so?*^?^^^®' 
 
 ° , ^ both terms 
 
 in this eschatological speculation they become sy^°°y°ious. 
 synonymous. 
 
 Some of these conceptions are taken over by 
 Paul without much modification. While he never 
 goes to the ascetic and dualistic extremes of 
 
 ^ Fairweather, Background of Gospels, p. 266 ff. 
 
 2 Compare the picture of the Babylonian Aralu, a cavern 
 filled with dust, a place of silence, " a land without return." 
 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 306. 
 
 69 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Paul' s 
 views of 
 angelology 
 and 
 
 demonology 
 similar to 
 those of 
 earlier 
 apocalyptic. 
 
 Jewish Alexandrianism, yet he is^ at least, the heir 
 of Palestinian Judaism in his general deprecia- 
 tion of this present evil world which is to have a 
 catastrophic termination at the " revelation of the 
 Lord Jesus in flaming fire."^ The transient char- 
 acter of the world is emphasized in I Corinthians 
 vii, 31; its " vain ^^ character under present con- 
 ditions in Eomans viii, 19 fE. 
 
 The traditional views of angelology are also 
 reflected in the epistles. The reference in 
 Galatians iii, 19, to the law having been ordained 
 through angels is just the Eabbinical notion based 
 on Deuteronomy xxxiii, 2, that the angels had some 
 part at Sinai in the promulgation of the Law.^ 
 In his rebuke of the spirit of litigiousness that 
 prevailed in the Corinthian Church, Paul refers 
 to the widespread belief that in the general judg- 
 ment both human and angelic beings would come 
 under the combined jurisdiction of God and the 
 saints. " Or know ye not that the saints shall 
 judge the world? And if the world is judged by 
 you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest mat- 
 ters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" 
 (I Corinthians vi, 2^ 3). The condemnation of 
 God will be visited, not only upon the world but 
 also upon the angelic " watchers," who are charged 
 in Eabbinic tradition with the responsibility of 
 much of the wickedness and the misery of the 
 world. 
 
 ^"II Thessalonians i, 7; Galatians i, 4; I Corinthians iii, 13. 
 ^JoBephuB, Antiq. 15.5.3. Compare I Corinthians xiii, 1; 
 Romans viii, 38; Colossians ii, 18, for belief in angels, 
 
 70 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 Likewise, his views of Satan and of demonology 
 are closely similar to the latest development of 
 apocalyptic. The temptation to lust was charac- 
 teristically due to evil angels or, more specifically, 
 to Satan.^ Physical injuries, disease, and death 
 are the results of the latter's operations in human 
 beings.^ His principal domain is in the air, but 
 he may, together with his demons, enter into 
 mortal bodies.^ 
 
 Notice PauPs exhortation to the Corin- 
 thians : " That ye may give yourselves unto 
 prayer, and may be together again, that 
 Satan tempt you not, because of your incon- 
 tinency" (I Corinthians vii, 5). '^ That no - 
 advantage may be gained over us by Satan; for 
 we are not ignorant of his devices." (II Corin- 
 thians ii, 11). He is regarded as the god of this 
 world, "blinding the minds of the unbelieving," 
 that the light of the gospel of Christ might not 
 shine upon them (II Corinthians iv, 4). The 
 name Belial was used in late Jewish literature as 
 a synonym for Satan or the Devil, and Paul in 
 II Corinthians vi, 15, uses the same designation in 
 stating the contrast between righteousness and 
 iniquity, light and darkness, Christ and Belial. 
 
 ^I Enoch XV, xl, liii, liv; II Enoch xviii. 
 
 ^ Jubilees x, xvii, xlviii. 
 
 ^ Philo, De Gigantibns ; II Enoch xxix. 
 
 Note. — The injunction of I Corinthians xi. 10, that a 
 woman should wear * ' a sign of authority upon her head 
 because of the angels," might imply a belief that the un- 
 veiled woman was subject to the lust of evil angels — an 
 interpretation based on Genesis vi, 4; or, it possibly might 
 indicate that this form of immodesty was revolting to angels 
 as ministers of God. 
 
 71 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 In the temptation of man, Satan is regarded as 
 assuming the guise of an angel of light. " For 
 even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of 
 light. It is no great thing therefore if his min- 
 isters also fashion themselves as ministers of 
 righteousness " (II Corinthians xi, 14, 15) . 
 Whatever may have been the nature of the 
 infirmity described as " a thorn in the flesh'' which 
 harassed Paul, it is due to the activity of Satan.^ 
 The hierarchical conception of evil spirits is seen 
 in Ephesians ii, 2, where Satan is placed at the 
 head of the " powers of the air." Similarly in 
 Ephesians vi, 12, 13, th-ere is the undoubted con- 
 viction of a world of evil spirits, principalities, 
 world-rulers of darkness, spiritual hosts of wicked- 
 ness in the heavenly places, all of them emissaries 
 of the devil against whose wiles Paul urges his 
 church " to put on the whole armor of God '^ that 
 they may be able to " withstand in the evil day." 
 Evidently then, there is in Paul little modifica- 
 tion of the traditional view." It runs througji his 
 epistles from the earliest to the latest. An 
 important divergence however, might be noted, not 
 so much in respect to the nature of the Judaistic 
 
 ^ Both. Judaistic and Babylonian thought developed this 
 view. ' ' To demons all manner of evil is ascribed. Their 
 presence was felt in the destructive winds that swept the 
 land. The pestilent fevers that rise out of the marshes of 
 the Euphrates valley, and the diseases bred . . were 
 
 alike traced to demons lurking in the soil. . . . The 
 petty annoyances that disturb the peace of man — were also 
 due to the instigation of the demons." — Jastrow, Religion ol 
 Bab. and Assyria, p. 260. 
 
 2 ' ' Below the moon, in the sublunary sphere . . . the 
 air was full of demons, beings whose substance was lighter 
 than flesh and blood, but yet too gross to ascend into the 
 empyrean." — Burkitt, Jewish and Christian Apocalypse^ p. 31. 
 
 72 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 conception as to the prominence given to the 
 treatment of it. The multiplication of functions 
 assigned to angelic and demonic agencies^ the 
 voluminous speculations as to their origin, their 
 abode, the specific character of the punishments 
 meted out to them, given in detail in Jubilees, 
 II Enoch, II Baruch, and other writings, are 
 practically ignored by the apostle. The references 
 to such agencies in the epistles, while they indicate 
 to some extent his acceptance of this Eabbinical 
 contribution,^ yet reveal not so much the apostle's 
 interest in the speculation as a mere cosmological 
 inquiry, as a deeply practical appeal to his con- 
 verts that inasmuch as they themselves believed 
 in hosts of evil agencies operating for the moral 
 destruction of human beings, there was on that 
 account all the more reason for girding their 
 " loins with truth/' and for putting on the 
 " breastplate of righteousness." 
 
 What relation then has Paul's conception of an 
 after-life, and of the eschatological o-w/mi and 
 wvevfia with the Judaistic outlook upon this 
 subject ? Several currents of belief are dis- 
 cernible in the Old Testament and later apo- 
 calyptic upon the nature of existence after death. 
 The earlier views attributed to the departed in 
 Sheol a certain degree of activity^ and of knowl- 
 
 * Lake, Earlier Epistles of Paul, p. 192. 
 
 ^L. B. Paton. Biblical World, Article xxxv, No. 2, Feb.. 
 1910. 
 
 Note. — Egyptian thought had developed the conception of 
 the ka, a genius corporeal in character whose office it was 
 -to guide an individual in his fortunes after death. ' ' In the 
 oldest inscriptions the death of a man may be stated by say- 
 
 73 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 edge respecting the aSairs of human beings upon 
 earth. The practice of necromancy implied the 
 belief that communication was possible between 
 the living and the Shades in Sheol. 
 
 The latter were represented as possessing some 
 of the characteristics belonging to them in their 
 earthly state. Saul identifies Samuel from his 
 mantle and general appearance/ The king of 
 Babylon is recognized by the " dead princes " as 
 soon as he enters the underworld^ and Pharaoh 
 at his death enters into a company recognizable by 
 certain national and individual features.^ This 
 popular belief continued right down through the 
 prophetic period even though it came under the 
 lash of the prophets, who saw in the many magical 
 practices growing out of the belief an invasion of 
 their prerogatives as the exponents of the will of 
 Yahweh.* In later times, a twofold belief 
 expressed the general outlook of Judaism. There 
 was first the skeptical attitude voiced by many 
 writers of the Wisdom literature and of some of 
 the Psalms. Notice the expressions : — " For there 
 
 ^ I Samuel xxviii, 14. 
 ^ Isaiah xiv. 
 3 Ezekiel xxxii. 
 * Isaiah viii. 
 
 ing that 'he goes to his ka' ; when Osiris dies he 'goes to 
 his ka.' ... In their relations to each other the ka 
 was distinctly superior to his mundane companion. In the 
 oldest texts the sign for the ka, the uplifted arms, are fre- 
 quently borne upon the standard which bears the signs for 
 the gods. . . . The ka assists the deceased by speaking 
 to the great God in his behalf, and after this intercession, by 
 introducing the dead man to the God. He forages for the 
 deceased, and brings him food that they may both eat 
 together." — Breasted, Development of Heligion and Thought 
 in Ancient Egypt, p. 56. 
 
 74 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom 
 in Sheol whither then goest."^ " For in death 
 there is no remembrance of thee, in Sheol who 
 shall give thee thanks ?"^ There was also the other 
 note of optimism varying in conviction from the 
 wistful yearnings of Job to the triumphant utter- 
 ances of Psalms xvi, xlix and Isxiii. 
 
 As the pessimism respecting the future of the 
 nation and the life of the individual upon the 
 earth grew in the following centuries, the optimism 
 with regard to the life beyond the grave increased 
 proportionately. With the Maccabsean struggles 
 there emerged definite convictions, not only of 
 immortality, but also of a resurrection from the 
 grave. Eighteous Israelites in embodied form 
 were to rise again at the final judgment, and to 
 enjoy the blessings of the Messianic kingdom upon 
 a rejuvenated ea,rth, or within a new and heavenly 
 Jersualem. Palestinian and Alexandrian Judaism 
 diverged here in two important directions. The 
 former generally held to a resurrection of the body ; Main 
 
 ° *^ ^ ' differences in 
 
 the latter, while holding to the immortality of the Palestinian 
 pneuma, rejected the notion of the bodily resur- ^®^^|^^*" 
 rection. This school also developed the view of life 
 eternal as identical with the life of virtue as lived 
 here on earth. Philo identifies life with righteous- 
 ness. Death in the deepest sense is the earthly life 
 of the wicked. " The wicked man is the most 
 
 ^ Ecclesiastes ix, 10. 
 ^ Psalm vi, 5. 
 
 75 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 short-lived of men, living only to die, or rather 
 having already died as to the life of virtue."^ 
 
 There is scarcely any need of pointing out that 
 there is no hint whatever that Paul shared for a 
 moment the sceptical attitude of Ecclesiastes upon 
 the question of immortality. Every passage of the 
 exceedingly large number where his eye ranges 
 beyond the stretch of this life throbs with a hope 
 even more intense than that of the Psalms. His 
 conception of life and death is two-fold, the former 
 relating to the present existence under earthly con- 
 ditions, the latter referring to the existence beyond 
 the grave. The earthly life itself may, upon a cer- 
 tain construction of the passages, possess immor- 
 tality in its qualitative character, in that the 
 abandonment of legalism and the acceptance of 
 the new salvation in Christ has the promise and 
 potency of the emergence from death into life. 
 " For I through the law died unto the law, that I 
 might live unto God. I have been crucified with 
 Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ 
 liveth in me, and that life that I now live in the 
 flesh, I live in f aith."^ " Even so reckon your- 
 selves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in 
 Christ Jesus. '^^ The law of sin and death has been 
 transcended by the law of the Spirit, which giveth 
 life.* Moral death is the mind of the flesh ; moral 
 life is the life of peace, the result of possessing the 
 mind of the Spirit.^ 
 
 1 Philo ii, 153. 
 3 Galatians ii, 19, 20. 
 3 Romans vi, 11. 
 ^ Romans viii, 2, 
 ^ Romans viii, 6. 
 
 76 
 
SIGNIFICAI^CE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 This is undoubtedly an important constituent 
 in the teaching of Paul. The life of salvation is 
 variously described. It is a life issuing out of the 
 death of trespasses and the " uncircumcision of the 
 flesh " into the " circumcision of Christ." It is a 
 resurrection " through faith in the working of 
 God." It is a condition of ^' being made alive 
 together with Christ."^ "And you did he make 
 alive when we were dead through your trespasses 
 and sins, . . . even when we were dead through 
 our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with 
 Christ, . . . and raised us up with him and 
 made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in 
 Christ Jesus."^ 
 
 Evidently life in the rich qualitative sense of 
 communion with God in Christ, and resurrection 
 in the sense of a " new creation " in Christ, has 
 not, in such references, to be construed in the light 
 of a mere continuance of existence furthered by 
 the dissolution of the body at the Parousia. Such 
 a qualitative view of life is indeed not a new con- 
 tribution to the belief in immortality. It is rather 
 an intensive revival of a similar conception seen in 
 the prophets, in Habakkuk,^ in Ezekiel,* in 2 
 Isaiah,^ and in many of the Psalmists, and 
 although suffering temporary eclipse in the bulk of 
 the apocalyptic literature, yet sprang into vigorous 
 vitality in the teachings of Jesus. 
 
 * Colossians ii, 11-13. 
 ^ Ephesians ii, 1-7. 
 Mi, 4. 
 
 • XX, xxxiii. 
 Mv. 3. 
 
 77 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Escliato- 
 logical life 
 In Paul. 
 
 Difficulty 
 of the 
 treatment. 
 
 Nevertheless, this phase of life and death by no 
 means , exhausts the Pauline conception. The 
 apocalyptic outlook of the apostle, as developed in 
 a later chapter of the thesis, throws open a wide 
 field in which the discussion of the resurrection 
 and of the life and death eternal becomes capable 
 of great extension. It is, therefore^ necessary to 
 examine passages running concurrently with the 
 above where the eschatological treatment of life 
 and death is prominently set forth. The difficulty 
 of the investigation is apparent when it is seen 
 that the late Jewish views, from which the Pauline 
 apocalyptic is largely drawn, interpreted the ter- 
 mination of the natural world upon thoroughly 
 catastrophic lines. If we were dealing with con- 
 ditions similar to those which held in the prophetic 
 period, or in the early part of the second century 
 B.C., the problem would be less complicated, for 
 there the future life was depicted as being lived in 
 this world, renewed and blessed it is true, but still 
 this world, of which Palestine and Jerusalem 
 would be the centre of national hopes — a world 
 fertile and peaceful, where the Davidic line would 
 be perpetuated. But that conception had already 
 been superseded by a transition to a non-earthly 
 Messianic kingdom, and later apocalyptic, of which 
 Paul himself was with modifications a fervent 
 exponent, allowed for the New Jerusalem the 
 smallest modicum of resemblance with that which 
 had hitherto existed. 
 
 The question then as to the nature of the 
 eschatological life, in Paul's thought, can only be 
 78- 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 properly investigated by a preliminary consider- 
 ation of his views concerning the current doctrine 
 of the resurrection^ or the character of the tran- 
 sition of the life from its earthly to its transcendent 
 abode. 
 
 What phase of the resurrection tradition does 
 the apostle accept? A glance through the liter- 
 ature from I Enoch to IV Ezra discloses manifold 
 threads of speculation. In I Enoch, 1-36, the 
 resurrection of the righteous Israelites in bodily 
 form is taught, together with that of the wicked 
 in a disembodied condition. In Daniel it is 
 limited to saints and apostates. In the Testaments 
 there is a definite plan in the order of the risen 
 ones; the Old Testament saints appearing first, 
 then the tribal leaders, and finally all Israelites, 
 righteous and wicked, all apparently with bodies. 
 Some writers, as Jubilees, admit an immortality of ^*^g^f ^j^^ 
 spirits without any indication of a bodily appear- Resurrection. 
 ance. Others, as in I Enoch,37-71, admit the resur- 
 rection of all Israel, without flesh, but still clothed 
 with " the garments of life " ; others still, as 
 
 I Enoch, 91-104, a resurrection of the spirit, not 
 however to the intervening Messianic kingdom, but 
 to the new Heaven after the final judgment. Some- 
 times the resurrection of righteous Israelites with 
 their former earthly bodies is taught, as in 
 
 II Maccabees already quoted. Again, as in 
 II Enoch, while a denial of the fleshly resurrection 
 is made, yet a bodily form of the Divine glory is 
 admitted similar to that in I Enoch, 37-71, 
 though differing from that writer in that it is 
 
 79 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 restricted to righteous souls. Only in the very 
 latest sections of IV Ezra, and II Baruch, is a 
 general bodily resurrection of Jew and Gentile 
 taught, while in the Alexandrian literature no 
 reference to a resurrection of any type is given. 
 
 It will be shewn in a later discussion that in 
 many aspects of Eschatology Paul's attitude 
 variaHons iowards current views was one of characteristic 
 from above, independence. He accepted a tradition wherever 
 he felt convinced of its harmony with his special 
 message ; he rejected it when it came into collision. 
 Just as he ran counter to Judaistic prejudice by 
 admitting Gentiles into the Kingdom of God on 
 an equal footing with Jews^ so here, although the 
 bulk of apocalyptic absolutely refused to consider 
 the resurrection of a Gentile, Paul, by placing the 
 condition of such a privilege upon moral rather 
 than upon ethnic grounds, freely allowed him the 
 same right as the Jew. This fact constitutes right 
 through his epistles the leading departure from 
 the inherited standpoint. With regard to the 
 hypothesis that Paul taught, in his epistles, a 
 general resurrection of righteous and wicked, such 
 a view stands or falls with the exegetical and 
 theological interpretation placed upon such 
 passages as I Cor. xv, 20 ff, and Eomans v, 12-21. 
 The balance of probability favors the view of the 
 exclusive resurrection of believers in Christ. 
 Eef erring to the " imposing array of interpreters " 
 who restrict the '' all " who are to be made 
 alive in Christ, to those who before death were in 
 80 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 living fellowship with Him, Bruce remarks that 
 a large measure of agreement can only be found 
 " in regard to one fundamental point, viz,, that 
 St. Paul did earnestly believe and teach a resur- 
 rection of Christians to eternal life."^ Without 
 entering just at present into a discussion of these 
 interpretations, the main problem before us is to 
 attempt to discover the nature of such resurrection 
 as Paul conceived it, its points of agreement with, 
 and disagreement from, current reflection. 
 
 As far as the teaching is set forth in the first 
 epistle to the Thessalonians tRe apostle does not ^^J^g^^J^**^^ 
 commit himself, in set phrase, to a doctrine either ^^^^*t£jugti 
 of a bodily or a pneumatic resurrection. The ^I^Jj®* *^^ 
 accompaniments though are certainly Jewish. The fleshly type. 
 imagery suggests the Palestinian, not the Alexan- 
 drian outlook. The question is not merely the 
 immortality of the psyche or pneuma, as in the 
 Book of Wisdom or Fourth Maccabees. If that 
 were the view of Paul there would be no signifi- 
 cance in postponing a merely pneumatic immor- 
 tality until the occurrence of the Parousia. The 
 Palestinian tradition usually associated the resur- 
 rection in bodily form with the Judgment, and the 
 references in this epistle to the departed rising 
 from their sleep at the sound of the trump, and 
 meeting the earthly survivors in the clouds, sug- 
 gests, though it does not prove by itself, the soma 
 as the form of the new life. 
 
 The setting, however, constitutes an argument 
 in favor of a pneumatic as against the fleshly soma. 
 
 ^ St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, p. 387. 
 
 6 81 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Wherever in the Jewish view the Judgment 
 ushered in a renewed Messianic kingdom either 
 temporary or eternal upon the earth, the fleshly 
 or bodily form of the resurrection was taught. If 
 the dualism of the present and the future pro- 
 ceeded far enough to provoke the belief in the 
 complete abandonment of the present earth in all 
 its forms, then the Judgment inaugurated a new 
 and heavenly Jerusalem, the citizens of which 
 entered into a life embodied in a pneumatic soma, 
 or else into an immortal existence where no mention 
 is made whatever of an organism. There is but 
 scant evidence to show that Paul believed either in 
 a temporary and earthly Messianic kingdom, into 
 which the departed entered after their resurrection, 
 or in an eternal Messianic kingdom upon the earth, 
 where those who rose from the grave to share in 
 it would obviously need appropriate human somata. 
 It is possible to interpret the passage as having 
 relation to an earthly kingdom, if Paul's reference 
 to the "word of the Lord" reflects the closing 
 verses of the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, where 
 Jesus tells His disciples that in the new kingdom 
 many of their cherished earthly possessions will be 
 restored to them. If Paul's instructions to the 
 Thessalonians had been in accordance with the 
 Matthean account of the words of Jesus, then his 
 earliest teaching would probably have included the 
 hope of a restoration to a renewed earth. But the 
 mode of description where the departed and the 
 survivors gather together to meet the Lord in the 
 clouds suggests that the interpretation should fall 
 82 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 along the traditional line of I Enoch, 37-71 and 
 the Assumption of Moses, where the transcendent 
 view is worked out, than in accord with the 
 Testaments and II Maccabees, with their earthly 
 Messianic hopes.^ 
 
 It is in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians 
 where the apostle enters upon his more elaborate 
 treatment of the resurrection soma. The argument ^i^"^^^* °^ 
 
 ° I Oorintliiaiis 
 
 was raised by the denial of the resurrection of the ^^• 
 dead by some members (iv vfilv rtvh) within the 
 Corinthian Church. To a Jew whose two long cen- 
 turies of tradition had developed a belief in a body 
 coming forth from the grave at the Judgment, so 
 similar in form to the earthly body that surviving 
 friends would immediately recognize it, the ques- 
 tion would not present this perplexity. But to a 
 Greek, especially if he were of the Philonic school, 
 with its craving for an utter elimination of the 
 corporeal condition — a school which looked upon 
 physical death as a welcome medium for bodily 
 emancipation — this recovery of the soma would be 
 construed in the light of an obstruction to the 
 purely pneumatic state than as an auxiliary to it. 
 The objector, granted that he had accepted a great 
 deal of the rest of Paul's teaching, might possibly 
 have held to a belief in the resurrection of Christ 
 in the symbolic sense of freedom from the trammels 
 of the body, and a pneumatic ascension into the 
 heavens, and hence the same might apply to his 
 followers at death, but Paul's argument shows his 
 
 ^ See Tables. 
 
 83 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 What is the divergence from the Alexandrian speculation/ 
 this soma? where, in the first part of the epistle, he recounts 
 the evidence for the post-Crucifixion appearances 
 of Christ. A detailed investigation into the histori- 
 cal credibility of these appearances is essentially a 
 synoptic problem, and need not be considered here, 
 though Paul is evidently making use of a tradition 
 fairly current among the early Christians. The 
 problem that faces us in the analysis of Pauline 
 thought is the content of the resurrection soma, 
 whether of Christ or of His followers. That it 
 does not mean merely a continuance of life follow- 
 ing physical death, which might be summed up in 
 the word immortality, is evidenced by the fact that 
 both Jew and Greek, if the former were not a 
 Sadducee, and the latter were not a disciple, e.g., 
 of Epicurean^ speculation, might still firmly hold 
 to a conviction of the life beyond the grave. The 
 recounted appearances of Christ to Cephas and to 
 the twelve, to the ^ye hundred, to James, to the 
 apostles, and lastly to Paul, were intended not 
 exclusively as an argument for immortality, but as 
 an argument for some type of organism, however 
 that might be pictured in the imagery of Paul. 
 " With what body do they come ?" was the crucial 
 question, and in the answer Paul moves over to the 
 side of the Greek rather than to that of the Jew 
 in rejecting the fleshly nature of the new form of 
 
 * I. F. Wood, Biblical World, Article, Sept., 1911. 
 
 2 Second maxim of Epicurus: " Death is nothing to us; for 
 the body, when it has been resolved into its elements, has no 
 feeling, and that which has no feeling is nothing to us, ' ' 
 Quoted by Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, p. 185. 
 
 84 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 existence. " Now this I say, brethren, that flesh 
 and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God " 
 (verse 50). But he is not ready to admit the 
 immortality of an unclothed pneuma. In the 
 delineation of this soma Paul adduces the well- 
 known analogy of the process through which the 
 seed-corn goes from the time it is implanted in the ^i^;^* ^^^ 
 soil until it reaches the maturity of the plant, an analogy, 
 
 •^ ^ ' tut later 
 
 analogy abundantly used in the formulation of predicates 
 
 empliasize 
 
 Stoic doctrines. The new soma of the plant has differentia- 
 
 tlon, 
 
 properties differing greatly from that of the bare 
 grain, the yv/xvov kokkov which is sown. To this 
 is added the argument that bodies in nature differ 
 from each other, and differ greatly, each with its 
 own glory (So|a), its own special properties. 
 Celestial bodies are contrasted with bodies terres- 
 trial. The glory of the sun differs from that of 
 the moon as it does from that of the stars, as, 
 again, the latter differ among themselves in bril- 
 liancy. When, however, the apostle in following 
 up the analogy attempts to define further the 
 relation between the human soma of earth, which 
 is admittedly ijrvxtKoVj and the new soma of the 
 resurrection, which is not itrvxtKov^ he does so by 
 the employment of categories which suggest the 
 maximum degree of contrast. The former, the 
 ijrvxiKov soma, is subject to corruption. It enters 
 into dissolution at death; its properties are those 
 of weakness, dishonor and mortality. The latter, 
 the irvevfjLariKov soma, is not subject to death. It 
 is incorruptible; its properties are those of glory, 
 honor and immortality. The contrast is not merely 
 85 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 between death and deathlessness. A term of more 
 positive meaning is used in opposition to 
 "destruction" {<t>6opd)^ namely^ dcfyOapa-ta^ not 
 
 simply adavaa-Ca. 
 
 Process How the transformation takes place Paul does 
 
 simply ^ 
 
 assigned not answer, except in his characteristic method of 
 
 to God. ^ 
 
 attributing the change to God. " God giveth it a 
 body even as it pleased him/' and in a moment 
 it is given in exchange for the other. That is 
 for Paul, as for Hebrew thought in general, the 
 full explanation behind aU new forms of life in 
 vegetable and human existence. It is one example 
 among many of the fivari^pux of God. 
 
 But this incorruptible, pneumatic soma is not 
 indeed the exclusive inheritance of the resurrected. 
 It is given as well to those in Christ who survive 
 to the Parousia. The transformation affects both 
 the living and the dead, just as in I Thessalonians 
 the gathering together of Christians " to meet the 
 Lord in the air " includes both classes. The 
 further description of the new soma is based upon 
 familiar illustration. In II Corinthians v, the 
 present soma is likened to an earthly build- 
 ing, a tent (ot/cta rav <TK^i/ous) which, whether the 
 picture is drawn from the Tabernacle of the 
 Wilderness, or from Paul's vocation as a tent 
 maker, or from nomadic life in general, becomes 
 subject, like all earthly structures, to final disso- 
 lution. The contrast, then, is between a perishable 
 building and a heavenly one — " a building from 
 God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." The intensity of his longing for this 
 86 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 transformation is expressed in the following part 
 of the chapter where he groans to be freed from 
 the present bodily condition with it& suffering its 
 persecution and its pain ; an emancipation achieved 
 by being clothed upon with a body not subject to 
 these distressing accompaniments. " Longing to 
 be clothed upon with our habitation which is from 
 heaven" (verse 2). 
 
 That this sentiment is not Alexandrian in tone 
 is further indicated by the desire of the apostle to 
 avoid a possible disembodied state before the final 
 consummation. If, on the other hand the expres- 
 sionSj " If so be that being clothed we shall not 
 be found naked " ; " Not that we would be 
 unclothed, but that we would be clothed 
 upon/' may be interpreted as implying an imme- 
 diate passage from earth to the heavenly habitation 
 (oLKyjTT^piov)^ then it might be concluded that the 
 apostle has also left behind the Jewish conception 
 of Sheol, or an intermediate state between death 
 and the resurrection. But it might likewise be 
 interpreted that he could not be content with the 
 notion of a naked pneuma. The idea predom- 
 inant in late Judaism was that the physical body 
 would be raised from the grave; the idea familiar 
 to the Greeks was a continued pneuma having 
 discarded its earthly soma. Paul avoids both by 
 affirming the continued life of the pneuma with 
 an appropriate soma prepared by God for the 
 righteous. As against the " old idea which was 
 familiar to the Jews now comes a new idea : 
 87 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Instances of 
 
 "ecstasy*' 
 
 In Greek 
 
 and 
 
 Judalstic 
 
 literature. 
 
 Christians when they die go to their home, to the 
 Lord."^ 
 
 The fact that Paul never enters at length into 
 this favorite theme of Eabbinical speculation con- 
 cerning Sheol^ with its compartments/ its retri- 
 butive and geographical features, suggests the 
 inference that he may have hoped for an instant 
 admission at death into the presence of God, or, 
 if the Parousia should occur shortly and within 
 his lifetime, death and therefore Sheol would be 
 avoided. 
 
 But there are traces within the epistles which 
 indicate that Paul believed there was the possi- 
 bility of attaining, in this life, some insight into 
 the nature of the heavenly or pneumatic world. 
 Both Greek and Judaistic speculation had devel- 
 oped a theory of vision or ecstasy in the raptures 
 of which a mystic might be transported from this 
 world into the abode of the pneumata, and upon 
 his return to normal conditions would describe in 
 symbolic language the flight of his spirit. Certain 
 sections of I Enoch picture the seer as being 
 brought into the presence of God, who, although 
 invisible, yet communicates by word of mouth to 
 Enoch the history of the world from the creation, 
 and its final destiny. Some of the experiences 
 are described as dreams, in which the visions of 
 the Flood, the fortunes of the survivors, the 
 destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and 
 other events succeed each other. These experiences 
 
 ^Weinel, St. Paul, p. 381, E. T. 
 
 ^ Porter, Messages of the Apocalyptic Writers, p. 
 
 88 
 
 62 S. 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 then are recorded in books which must be kept 
 inviolable by Enoch's descendants. In II Enoch 
 the seer stays one month in heaven, where he 
 writes 366 books of what he has seen, and then 
 comes back to the world for another month to 
 give the records to his family. In such cases the 
 heavenly pneumata, whether of angels or of 
 departed righteous, are spoken of as possessing 
 human shape and motion. They can speak to the 
 seer; are glorious of appearance; are full of joy 
 and gladness, and as they guide him in his jour- 
 neys they resemble in many respects human 
 companions.^ The Book of Tobit gives a remark- 
 able example of the belief in angels appearing as 
 human beings, possessing many human functions 
 from the time of their manifestation till their 
 return to the heavenly world. The sections in 
 question narrate the journeys of Tobit where the 
 angel Eaphael appears as a man, Azarias the son 
 of Ananias, and guides the traveller to his 
 destination. Throughout the journey Eaphael sits 
 down at meat with Tobit, and enters as companion 
 with him in all his affairs. At the close Raphael 
 discloses to Tobit his (Raphael's) angelic nature, 
 explaining that he had, in reality, eaten nothing 
 during the journey, that the partaking of the 
 meals was only an illusion given in a vision. 
 But his presence there in human form, his guid- 
 ance, his conversation, and finally his ascension 
 into the heavens were not supposed to possess the 
 illusory properties of eating and drinking.^ 
 
 1 1 Enoch 1-36. 
 = Tobit liii, 19-32. 
 
 89 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 The literature is full of the description of 
 
 heavenly beings, and of the ecstasy of mystics, 
 varying in language from the most concrete, 
 earthly analogies to the most vague symbolism. 
 Philo^s utterances are an excellent example of the 
 latter method. He states: — "Often when I have 
 come to write out the doctrine of philosophy, 
 though I well knew what I ought to say, I have 
 found my mind dry and barren, and renounced 
 the task in despair. At other times though I came 
 empty, I was suddenly filled with thoughts shower- 
 ed upon me from above, like snow-flakes or seed, 
 so that in the heat of Divine possession, I knew 
 not the place, or the company or myself, what I 
 said, or what I wrote."^ On the other hand, the 
 Vision of Aridaeus as given by Plutarch, although 
 belonging to the latter part of the first century 
 A.D., yet strikingly reflects the tendency to draw 
 minute pictures of beings in the other world, and 
 shows that souls of men, though possessing faint 
 and shadowy outlines, still were colored, and had 
 the power to fly through space at lightning speed- 
 Wicked souls were identified by the peculiar color 
 of their forms, whereas the righteous were clothed 
 in an "entirely ray-like uniform color." 
 "Observe," he continued, "the colors of the souls 
 of every shade and sort; that greasy brown -grey 
 
 ^ Works vol. ii, De Mig. Abra. p. 50 (Tonge). 
 
 Note. — In, the story of Er the Armenian, souls although 
 having left the earthly bodies are regarded as coming into 
 the intermediate space between earth and heaven, bearing 
 upon their backs the symbols of their deeds, some coming 
 out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, and some "des- 
 cending from heaven clean and bright." 
 
 Republic, p. 331 (Jowett). 
 
 90 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 is the pigment of sordidness and selfishness; that 
 blood-red inflamed shade is a sign of a savage and 
 venomous nature. Wherever blue-grey is, from 
 such a nature incontinence in pleasure is not 
 easily eradicated; innate malignity, mingled with 
 envy causes that livid discoloration in the same 
 way that cuttle-fish eject their sepia."^ The 
 Jewish apocalyptic writings are pre-eminently the 
 sources of such examples. Many expressions, such 
 as those found in Daniel occur which illustrate 
 angelic communications with human beings. 
 "And a thing was revealed unto Daniel, . . . and 
 he understood the thing, and had understanding 
 of the vision" (x, 1). Other men present with 
 the sage at the time, although in some way aSect- 
 ed by fright and amazement, yet were supposed 
 not "to see the vision" (x, 7). The revelation was 
 sometimes associated with a deep sleep and physi- 
 cal weakness (x, 9), in which state the angel, or 
 presence, or ^^man clothed in linen," with a face as 
 the "appearance of lightning," set forth in graphic 
 terms the catastrophes attending the end of the 
 
 ^Vision of Aridaeus, p. 25 ff. (Mead). 
 
 Note — The apostle uses the same term(w00v)in describing the 
 appearance of Jesus to himself, as to the other apostles. 
 The word in its various forms is employed where the dream 
 or vision state is either distinctly mentioned or implied. 
 "And a vision (bpafia) appeared (cj007?) to Paul in the night; 
 There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him and 
 saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us" (Acts, xvi 9). 
 In the Apocalypse of John it is used to describe the vision 
 of the temple of God in heaven and other signs. "And there 
 was seen (^^6^) in his temple the ark of his covenant" 
 (Revelation xi, 19). "And a great sign was seen in heaven" 
 (Revelation xii, 1). In several other places although (&06??) is 
 not used, yet the experience is expressly referred to as a vision 
 
 91 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 world, together with the ultimate triumph of the 
 saints of God. 
 
 The religious thought of the first century A.D. 
 was saturated with these ecstatic conceptions. 
 They are reflected in Acts 2, where the words of 
 Joel are quoted by Peter; in chapter x, where an 
 angel of God appears to Cornelius and to Peter; 
 and in the statement of Paul's conversion in 
 chapters ix, and xxii. In the epistles the vision 
 (oTTTao-ta) or apocalypse (diroKdXvxI/i's) becomes, in the 
 interpretation of the apostle, a source of his 
 insight into the gospel of Christ, or of his knowl- 
 edge of his character.^ It is not clear whether 
 such revelations came in the form of dreams in 
 the waking state, or in trances, or whether the 
 language used in their description is highly sym- 
 bolical of overwhelming convictions regarding the 
 significance of Christ for the salvation of men. At 
 any rate they revolve around Christ especially in 
 his eschatological character as the important 
 centre. The experience related in the twelfth 
 
 ^ Gralatians i, 12; ii, 1; I Corinthians ix, 1; xi, 23; xlv, 6; 
 XV, 3 ; Epheaians iii, 3. 
 
 or trance (bpa/ia), or (birraaia) or (iKOraatc). Zechariah's ex- 
 periences with the angel is described as a vision. (oTrraffta) 
 which he saw (S<^paKev^ in the temple (Luke i, 22). The 
 appearance of the Lord to Ananias at Damascus is £V dpdfiari 
 (Acts ix, 10). Peter's vision of the sheet at Joppa comes 
 while in a trance (ev EKaraGEi xi, 5). "And the Lord said 
 ^elirev) unto Paul in the night by a visionj' {61 bpdfjLaraq 
 xviii, 9). Luke also refers to Paul receiving"a message from 
 the Lord as he fell into a trance {kv tKardaeL)^ in the temple 
 at Jerusalem (Acts xxii, 17, 18). But the terms are not so 
 restricted. In Ecclesiasticus xliii, 2, biZTacia is used of the 
 appearance of the rising sun. And although Paul's argu- 
 ment for his apostleship is expressed in the words; "Have I 
 
 92 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 chapter of Second Corinthians furnishes the 
 ground of the most extensive speculation in Paul f^yj^^^^ 
 upon this subject, but even here he places, by a^^^j 
 two-fold repetition, a restricting parenthesis upon speculation, 
 the description; — "Whether in the body or apart 
 from the body I know not^ God knoweth." It is 
 true that he accepts one of the two Eabbinical 
 traditions, that the highest place in the heavenly 
 sphere is the third heaven. Contemporary thought 
 at times limited the classification of the heavens 
 to three series, the third being the abode of God, 
 and at other times extended it to include seven as 
 in 2 Enoch,^ where the third is a place of "sweet- 
 flowering trees," a region " between corruptibility 
 and incorruptibility, with springs of honey and 
 milk, oil and wine," and where the seventh is the 
 habitation of God. Paul identifies the third with 
 Paradise, but his reluctance or his inability to tell 
 whether the revelation was communicated to him 
 while he was in the human or pneumatic soma, or 
 even merely as pneuma, is indicative of the diffi- 
 culty of describing his vision, or of his lack of 
 concise differentiation between these concepts. In 
 
 not seen (edpoKa) Jesus our Lord?" yet in Colossians ii, 1 
 this term is used in the sense of ordinary sight. "For as 
 many as have not seen {HpaKav) my face in the flesh." 
 Compare Acts xx, 25, and also John viii, 57 — "Thou art 
 not yet fifty years old and hast thou seen Abraham ? ' * 
 Compare further, Mark xvi, 7 ; Matthew xxviii, 7, 10 ; Luke 
 xvi, 23; John xiv, 7, 9; xx, 18, 25, 29; Kev. i, 7. 
 
 The terms then are used of ordinary perceptions, of human 
 beings and things, of extraordinary states in connection with 
 visions of angels, and dazzling light and glory from heaven. 
 Sometimes a distinction is drawn between the appearance 
 of angels and other heavenly messengers in dream visions, 
 and in the normal waking state. See the Tobit reference 
 
 93 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 this instance he is in line rather with the Alexan- 
 drian mysticism for contrary to the Palestinian 
 procedure he admits the revelation to be expressed 
 "in unspeakable words which it is not lawful for 
 a man to utter." This hesitation to furnish the 
 features of his ecstatic experience in curious con- 
 trast to the detailed and descriptive method is 
 thoroughly in agreement with the scant notice 
 which the apostle gives to the question of Sheol 
 and Paradise in the rest of the epistles. Despite 
 such hesitancy in this case, he elsewhere urges 
 that the posthumous life with its appropriate 
 (Twfia TTvev/xttTtKov is dependent upon the character of 
 the life lived on earth in the atofxa ifnjxt-Kov and, there- 
 fore, is applicable only to the righteous. That the 
 judgment with its rewards and punishments was 
 conditioned by the nature of the earthly life was 
 indeed a Eabbinical notion, but it was conceived 
 in the light of a ledger account or a scale of 
 measurement, where good and evil deeds usually 
 of a legal character were minutely balanced in the 
 records kept by the angels in heaven.^ In Paul, 
 the moral relation is ever prominent. 
 
 ^ Volz. Judische Eschatologie, p. 93 ff. 
 
 above. Compare also Acts xii, 9, where an angel stands by 
 Peter in his cell, smites him on the side, and awakening 
 him says : — ' 'Rise up quickly. ' ' Peter at first cannot con- 
 vince himself whether the command of the angel is merely 
 a visionary one or not. ' * And he went out and followed ; 
 and he knew not that it was true which was done by the 
 angel but thought he saw a vision." The subsenuent release 
 .created the conviction that it was the action of an angel 
 producing certain important changes in existing conditions, 
 and not the product of a "mere fancy" or a dream. "And 
 when Peter was come to himself {ev tavri^} yevS/ievo^ ) he 
 said, Now I know of a truth that the Lord hath sent forth 
 his angel and delivered me." verse, 11. 
 
 94 
 
SIGMFICAISrCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 Steadfastness in persecution and suffering is a 
 condition of being counted worthy of the kingdom 
 of God.^ The inheritance is an "incorruptible 
 crown/' the result of a race well run in contradis- 
 tinction to a ^' corruptible crown " attained, for 
 example, by a Corinthian in athletic competition.^ 
 The eschatological resurrection is the mature 
 fruit of the ethical resurrection which is wrought 
 in Christ in the earthly life of the Christian. 
 Paul speaks of God "who raiseth the dead, who 
 delivered us out of so great a death, and will 
 deliver ; on whom we have set our hope that he will 
 also deliver us." ^ The fact of moral resurrection 
 is clearly a teaching of Paul. "And you being 
 dead through your trespasses and the uncircum- 
 cision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive 
 together with him, having forgiven us all our 
 trespasses."* But this is not contraposed to the final 
 "rising up" when the new kingdom of God is 
 ushered in. It is rather a stage in which the later is 
 the final process, for when * 'Christ who is our life 
 shall be manifested then shall ye also with him 
 
 ^ II Thessalonians i, 5. 
 ^I Corinthians ix, 25. 
 
 * II CorinthianB i, 10. 
 
 * Colossians ii, 13 ; Ephesians ii, 5. 
 
 Note. — The terms "ethical and eschatological" are not used 
 here as mutually exclusive, but rather complementary to indi- 
 cate respectively a transformation in the religious lijEe of an 
 individual which may occur before the Parousia, and that 
 final ripening of the process together with the startling world 
 changes constituting the end of the age. Both, naturally, are 
 the results of God's operation in the narrower and wider 
 spheres, and may from that point of view be considered as 
 moral happenings, but in default of a definite language tech- 
 nique the terms as above used may serve to mark this dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 95 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 be manifested in glory."^ The presence of the 
 Spirit of God in the hearts of men is the earnest 
 or seal of the final deliverance.^ "To the end 
 that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we 
 who had before hoped in Christ, ... in whom 
 having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy 
 Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our 
 inheritance."^ The glory (Sola) which snms up in 
 Paul's language, the characteristics of the heaven- 
 ly o-w/xa or life, also distinguishes, though in less 
 degree, the present life. That progressive trans- 
 formation into the likeness of Christ begun here 
 and perfected after the Parousia is a point 
 frequently stressed. "But we all with unveiled 
 face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the 
 Lord are transformed (fjLeTafjiop<t>ovfX€Oa) into the 
 same image (eUovaf from glory to glory (dTro 
 Soirjs €ts Bo^av) * "And be ye not f ashionod accord- 
 ing to this world; but be ye transformed by the 
 renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is 
 the good and acceptable and perfect will of God."^ 
 The opposition between the present and the 
 future o-ttifMi given at length in I Corinthians xv, 
 is applied to the present and future life in 
 II 'Corinthians iv, 17, 18. The things of this world 
 are "seen and temporal^' (ra pXeiroficva and 
 TTpoo-Katpa ) ; the things of the future are not seen 
 
 ^ Colossians iii, 4. 
 2 II Corinthians i, 22. 
 ^Ephesians i, 12-14. % 
 
 *II Corinthians iii, 18. 
 ■* Romans xii, 2. 
 
 96 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 (ra fiTj jSXcTTo/Aei/a) and are eternal (atwvto). But 
 still, as already emphasized, the character of the 
 present life is a preparation for the future. "For 
 our light affliction which is for the moment, work- 
 eth for us more and more exceedingly an eternal 
 weight of glory." The recompense of the righteous 
 who '%y patience in well-doing seek for glory and 
 honour and incorruption " is eternal life.^ Jt 
 is a ^^reign in life"^ through Jesus Christ. It is 
 a taking on of the likeness of his resurrection, 
 conditioned upon heing "united with him in the 
 likeness of his death/^^ It is a glorification with 
 him, heightened in contrast with present misery. 
 "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present 
 time are not worthy to be compared with the 
 glory which shall be revealed to us-ward,"* In a 
 word it is " the redemption of the body," which the 
 apostle eagerly awaits. "And not only so, but 
 ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the 
 Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves 
 waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption 
 of our body."^ The eschatological deliverance in 
 which nature shares we well as human beings, is 
 expressed by the antithesis of "The bondage of 
 corruption" with the ^^iberty of the glory of the 
 children of God."« 
 
 ' Romans ii, 6. 
 ^ Romans v, 17. 
 ' Romans vi. 5. 
 
 * Romans viii, 17, 18. 
 ^Romans viii, 23. 
 
 * Romans viii, 21. 
 
 7 97 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 If the future life then depending as it does 
 upon the present relation of the individual to 
 Christ, is summed up in such phrases as: a 
 deliverance from wrath, salvation/ an eternal 
 weight of glory, an incorruptible crown, our 
 inheritance, honor and incorruption, eternal life, 
 or simply life itself, what are the characteristics 
 of the eschatological death? It does not imply 
 merely death in the sense of the cessation of physi- 
 ":\\ functions though inclusive of it. Neither can 
 it be shown that Paul's statements argue for a 
 theory of annihilation at the dissolution of the 
 organism. Apocalyptic speculation treated exten- 
 sively this question and interpreted death for the 
 wicked as their continued existence in some part 
 of Sheol or in Gehenna. It became "an eternal 
 dying." "Ye shall be burned with torches the 
 live-long day throughout the age." ^ It is an 
 "eternal punishment'^ conceived by some of the 
 seers as a perpetual separation from God,^ as a 
 "banishment from the face of the Lord of 
 Spirits,"^ or as the penalty of "not being remem- 
 bered when the righteous are visited."^ The 
 souls of the wicked are portrayed as being slain 
 in Sheol, yet this slaying is paraphrased as an 
 existence of intense wretchedness. "Know ye that 
 their souls will be made to descend into Sheol, and 
 
 ^ For discussion of this in its relation to 66^a and (o>^ 
 in Jewish Eschatology, see Volz, JUdische Eschatologie. Hei! 
 Tind Seligkeit, par. 44. 
 
 ^ Sib. Oracles, Proverbs iii, 44. 
 
 8 Testament, Pats. T. R. iv, 6 ; v. 5. 
 
 * 1 Enoch, liii, 2. 
 
 ^ Psalms, Solomon, iii, 13, 14. 
 
 98 
 
SIGNIFICAISTCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 they will become wretched, and great will be their 
 tribulation/'^ "And they shall weep and feel 
 their pain forever."^ 
 
 This is a phase of the question which Paul 
 hesitates to discuss. He shows little of that exul- 
 tation displayed by a Jew at a crisis of persecution 
 over the spectacular punishment of his foes. It 
 was regarded as one of the compensating privi- 
 leges of the pious Jew that he might look down 
 from his abode in Paradise upon the torment of 
 his oppressors. Paul prefers to dwell more upon 
 the happy lot of the righteous than upon the mis- 
 fortunes of the wicked. But in the relatively 
 few instances where he does describe the condi- 
 tion of the latter, it is nevertheless one of irre- 
 parable loss and disaster. The conception given 
 in the Testaments of a lasting banishment from 
 the face of the Lord is expressed in II Thessa- 
 lonians. It consists of punitive suffering, even 
 eternal destruction "from the face of the Lord, 
 and from the glory of his might.'" It is a visi- 
 tation of wrath, from which the righteous are 
 delivered at the Parousia, as against the glory and 
 honor of those who, by patience in well-doing, 
 receive as their inheritance eternal life, the exis- 
 tence of the wicked is one of " tribulation and 
 anguish."^ 
 
 Further than this the apocalyptic speculation 
 of the apostle does not extend.* The general 
 
 ^ I Enoch ciii. 8. 
 
 2 Judith xvi. 17. 
 
 ^ Romans ii, 9. 
 
 * See Thesis, p. 149, for theory of Restoration. 
 
 99 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 tendency is to set death as the antipodal contrast 
 to life without drawing minute pictures of the 
 antithesis. The phrases epitomizing the distinc- 
 tion are in the most succinct manner placed in 
 opposition; "The mind of the flesh, the mind of 
 the spirit/^^ "The wages of sin, the free gift of 
 God."^ " Dead through trespasses and sins ; 
 being made alive together with Christ."^ "Being 
 separate from Christ . . . having no hope and 
 without God in the world, being made nigh in the 
 blood of Christ."* 
 
 The question now reverts again to the character 
 of the future a-wfia. It was seen that in divesting 
 it of flesh and blood, Paul diverged from a strong- 
 ly marked traditional tendency, particularly 
 Palestinian,^ while he favored in one respect the 
 Hellenistic interpretation. But this sweeping 
 independence is illustrated by the exclusive use of 
 the pneuma and the pneumatic body to designate 
 the form of the eschatological life. Although he 
 used psyche and pneuma, together with other 
 concepts of non-apocalyptic connotation, as large- 
 ly interchangeable, in general conformity with 
 past and current speculation, still the future life 
 of the Christian is invariably that of the pneuma, 
 and never that of the psyche. The latter concept is, 
 in one instance, applied to the wicked in the des- 
 
 ^ Romans viii, 6. 
 
 2 Romans vi, 23. 
 
 ^ Ephesians ii, 1-5 ; Colossians ii, 13. 
 
 * Ephesians ii, 12-14. 
 
 •> See Volz, op. cit. par. Materielle and Spirituelle 
 Anschauung, for discussion of opposition between Palestinian 
 and Alexandrian views. 
 
 100 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 cription of .their punishment at the Parousiaj but 
 pneuma is never so employed, although earlier 
 literature contains many examples of the torment 
 of the pneumata of the wicked in Gehenna, Just 
 as there are as many examples, on the other hand, 
 of the use of the psyche in the same connection. 
 Similarly in the same writings the future bliss of 
 the righteous is ascribed either to their psyche or 
 pneuma. And also in the New Testament, in 
 other than the Pauline documents, the eschato- 
 logical usage of psyche is inclusive of both the 
 wicked and the good.^ But Paul strikes out in 
 a new direction. In the command to the Corin- 
 thian church to expel the culprit who is guilty 
 of incest he hopes by the destruction of the flesh 
 "that the pneuma may be saved in the day of the 
 Lord Jesus."^ This troublesome passage has been 
 accorded a great variety of exegesis. Some of the 
 early fathers construed tlie phrase "delivering to 
 Satan" as a synonym of excommunication, "but 
 there is no proof that such a formula of excom- 
 munication existed either in the synagogue or the 
 early church."^ To some it implies the belief 
 that the excommunication in the presence of the 
 whole church, and accompanied as it was by the 
 solemn utterance of the formula, would issue in 
 physical affliction or possibly death to the offen- 
 der; that is to say the magical effect of the pro- 
 
 ^ Compare Matthew x, 28; Luke xii, 19, 20; Hebrews x, 39j 
 James i, 21; I Peter i, 9; Revelations vi, 9; xx, 4. 
 = I Corinthians v, 5. 
 ^ Expository Greek Testament, I Corinthians, Findlay, p. 809. 
 
 101 
 
STUDIES IN PAULIlSrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 nouncement of a name is connected with the 
 operation of a curse. ^ Compare the cases of 
 Ananias and Elymas. Acts v, xiii. 
 
 But the reference to the hope of the ultimate 
 salvation of the condemned person would involve 
 that whatever afflictions might be visited upon 
 him through Satan^ the effect would be of a 
 remedial character issuing possibly in the repent- 
 ance and salvation of the culprit. The thorn in 
 the flesh which afflicted Paul was regarded by him 
 in the light of a salutary agency, even though it 
 was a messenger of Satan. ^ In any case, the point 
 to be noted here is that the actual salvation is 
 conceived, in accordance with the rest of the 
 apostle^s teaching, as a property of the pneuma. 
 
 Then if this is the consistent Pauline usage 
 of pneuma as the subject of the present and 
 eschatological a-wriqpia^ may anything further be 
 added that would furnish us with a concrete 
 picture of the o-w/Aa Trvev/AartKov ? With the view 
 of a catastrophic destruction of the world by fire, 
 so marked a feature of apocalyptic, and the intro- 
 duction of a completely new order at the Parousia, 
 what earthly symbolism could be employed in the 
 delineation of the pneumatic o-w/Aa transcendent 
 in its very nature ? Is there any description other 
 than that indicated by such terms as incorruptible, 
 immortal, spiritual, etc., which would suggest 
 further delimitation? Or does the very fact of 
 
 1 Heitmuller, quoted by Clemen, Primitive Chriatianity, 
 p. 233 E. T. 
 
 -II Corinthians xii, 7. 
 
 102 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 a catastrophic standpoint preclude such an inquiry 
 at the outset? If the Parousia ushered in an 
 eternal Messianic Kingdom upon the earth such 
 as the prophets dreamed of, or even that which 
 certain seers of the second century B.C. portrayed, 
 then a great deal of description could still be 
 couched in human and earthly terms. But this 
 standpoint has in the outlook of Paul been super- 
 seded. The account of I Thessalonians would, 
 unless the interpretation proceeds upon an 
 extremely figurative basis, localize the resurrected 
 ones in the clouds with Christ. The added quali- 
 fication that they are to meet "in the air" is one 
 that cannot be paralleled in Jewish literature,^ 
 though the notion of an ascent into the upper 
 regions is quite common.- This general concep- 
 tion is also Pauline, for the new home or building 
 is "eternal in the heavens," the latter phrase being 
 in frequent employment, in apocalyptic, to denote 
 the home of the soul or the spirit after the resur- 
 rection. Heaven is conceived as the abode of the 
 angels, and is always pictured as above the earth, 
 a place to which a spirit ascends in contrast to 
 Sheol to which entrance is made by descent. Paul 
 makes heaven the present home of Christ and the 
 future home of Christians. "He that descended 
 is the same also that ascended far above all the 
 heavens that he might fill all things."^ Here 
 
 ^ Expos. Greek Testament, Moffatt, I Thessalonians, p. 38. 
 2 Expositor, Askwith, Eschatological Section of I Thessa- 
 lonians, January, 1911, p. 67. 
 ^ Ephesians iv, 10. 
 
 103 
 
STUDIES IN PAULIISrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 indeed, Christ is pictured as being enthroned in 
 a region even higher than the heavens; but in 
 Philippians iii, 20 this qualification is not added. 
 "For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also 
 we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 Is it then possible to conclude from the symbols 
 employed that when Paul spoke of the pneumatic 
 o-w/Attj the imagery present in his imagination 
 possessed some of the characteristics of the human 
 body in that it had shape, localization and other 
 spatial features ? The comparison of the souls or 
 spirits of the righteous in the heavenly world to 
 angels or stars is met with in other literature. 
 ''And time cannot age them, for they shall dwell 
 in the heights of that world, and be like the 
 angels, and be comparable with stars."^ Cumont 
 refers to the poems of Lucan and Statins where 
 these writers addressing Nero and Domitian 
 respectively ask the question as to what part of 
 heaven will the Emperors inhabit after their 
 apotheosis. "Will they mount on the flaming 
 chariot of the Sun? Will they take their place 
 as new stars among the constellations? Or even 
 will Jupiter himself in the height of the heavens 
 yield to them his sceptre?"^ Moreover, theo- 
 phanies and angelophanies figured largely in 
 
 ^Apac. Banicli, li, 3-10. 
 
 * Astrology and Religion, p. 196. 
 
 Note. — See Plato's reference to the stars as living angelic 
 souls. Timgeus, Section 40, p. 53B (Jowett). 
 
 104 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 current speculation/ The belief that gods could 
 assume human shape and appear on earth is 
 evident in Acts xiv, where the people of Lystra 
 declare with regard to the presence of Paul and 
 Barnabas and their work among them : "The gods 
 are come down to us in the likeness of men." And 
 angels ( see earlier discussion ) possess certain 
 human functions in that they may converse with 
 men in language understood by the latter, become 
 visible, and are clothed in apparel, the raiment 
 being described as effulgent light, and the appear- 
 ance likened to that of the sun or heavenly glory. 
 Stephen's face at his martyrdom is "as it had been 
 the face of an angel/' An interesting illustration 
 of this point is the statement of II Enoch xx, 1 if, 
 where the writer characterizes the " fiery troops " 
 of heaven as consisting of " great archangels, 
 incorporeal forces, dominions and orders," etc., 
 some of them possessing many eyes, and "stand- 
 ing in stations of light," or on the "ten steps 
 according to their range," living in " places of joy 
 and felicity, singing songs in the boundless light." 
 Gressmann and Bousset "believe that the white 
 robe was originally, in the case of deities, a cultus 
 representation of the luminous nature of their 
 bodies." A statement in the Bundehesh runs as 
 follows: "When through me (Ahura Mazda) the 
 sky arose from the substance of the ruby, without 
 columns, on the spiritual support of far-com- 
 passed light, — when by me the sun and the moon 
 
 3 Matthew xxviii, 2 ; Luke xxiv, 4 ; John xx, 12 ; Acts vi, 
 15; X, 30. 
 
 105 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 and stars are conducted in the firmament of 
 luminous bodies, etc."^ 
 
 But it is one thing to claim that when Paul 
 uses such highly pictorial language as he does, 
 the corresponding imagery might be an angelic 
 or pneumatic being with certain properties of 
 shape, light, and other human lineaments, and 
 quite another matter to argue that had he entered 
 further into the speculative description, he 
 would have constructed a definite replica of the 
 human body, differing from the latter indeed by 
 its not possessing flesh and blood, but resembling 
 it in form, and having a habitation even though 
 it were in some non-terrestrial sphere. The 
 evidence is altogether too scant for the conclusion 
 that the eschatological soma was a sort of a 
 "wraith of light,^' or an embodied though blood- 
 less and fleshless apparition as a shade, familiar 
 to many Jewish and Greek writings. The pictorial 
 analogies of the apostle are a dangerous ground 
 for such an interpretation. It is true that angels, 
 and stars, and righteous spirits are often regard- 
 ed as synonymous, but some caution must be 
 exercised in committing oneself to such a declara- 
 tive statement as that given by Weinel: — "Evi- 
 dently Paul thought of himself and his contem- 
 poraries, Jew as well as Greek, dwelling in the 
 glorious celestial bodies of the stars, call them 
 
 * Quoted by Clemen, op. cit. p. 174. 
 
 106 
 
siG]sriFicA:NrcE of concepts 
 
 Helios, or Semele, Azazel or Uriel."^ The stars 
 or the heavenly bodies- may have afforded him the 
 best pictures available to express the hope of glory 
 awaiting Christians in the Hereafter, but never- 
 theless his usual method in representing the 
 pneumatic body is to refer it to the likeness of 
 Christ/ but when we seek for precise description 
 of this likeness of Christ, the regressus goes still 
 further back to what is called the form or image 
 of God. As illustrations of this, the following 
 instances may be cited. "For if we have become 
 united with him in the likeness of his death, we 
 shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" ;* 
 "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may 
 be also glorified with him;"^ "For whom he did 
 foreknow, he also foreordained to be conformed to 
 the image of his Son;"^ "Who (Christ) shall 
 fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it 
 may be conformed to the body of his glory."^ 
 But to determine the character of the body of his 
 glory we learn that Christ is the image (etKwv) 
 of God.® The " light of the knowledge of the 
 glory of God" is in his face.^ He is the image 
 
 1 St. Paul, p. 26. 
 
 ^ See Hibbert Journal, Article, Grilbert Murray, Oct., 1910, 
 p. 20; for discussion of the deification of tbe sun, moon, and 
 stars in Plato, Aristotle, and Stoics. 
 
 3 Carre, Biblical World, Oct., 1916, p. 204. 
 
 * Romans vi, 5. 
 
 ° Romans viii, 17. 
 
 ^ Romans viii, 29. 
 
 ' Philippians iii, 21. 
 
 8 II Corinthians iv, 4. 
 
 ^ II Corinthians iv, 6. 
 
 107 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 of the invisible God/ and pre-existed in the 
 form' (fioptj}!/]) * of God.^ The terms which 
 sum up thfe description are those of glory^ radiance, 
 power, and form etc. It is easy to see that to 
 construct a more precise formula of definition is 
 an impossible task. To take the instances where 
 the phrases, " in the heavens, in the heavenly 
 places, the image of the heavenly, above princi- 
 palities and powers,^' and others occur, as indicat- 
 ing definite spatial properties, is confronted by 
 the difficulty involved in the transference of 
 simile from human beings to Christ and thence 
 to God. It is true that when the Old Testament 
 prophets tried to give a description of their vision 
 of God, imagery implying symbolic localization 
 is employed. Isaiah pictures God as " sitting upon 
 a throne high and lifted up,^' while his glory fills 
 the Temple.^ Resplendent light, glowing metal 
 and fire, thunderous noise and other awe-inspiring 
 phenomena are the features of Ezekiel's vision. 
 " This was the appearance of the likeness of the 
 glory of Yahweh."* The very circumlocution 
 suggests the inadequacy of the symbols of por- 
 traiture. The picture has to do rather with the 
 attendant circumstances of the Theophany. God 
 himself is not regarded as being visible. The 
 light and fire are his " manifestations," the effects 
 
 ^ Colossians i, 15. 
 
 2 Philippians ii, 6. 
 
 ^ Isaiah vi, 1. 
 
 *Ezekiel i, 28. ' 
 
 *See note on fJ-optji^ and kindred terms at end of chapter. 
 
 108 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 of his power. The more developed became the 
 view which subsequently was designated as the 
 Transcendence of God, the more insistent became 
 the teaching that He could not be brought within 
 the comprehension of human knowledge. " For 
 what flesh can see visibly the heavenly and true 
 God, the Immortal, whose abode is the Heaven ? "^ 
 Especially is this so in the Alexandrian specula- 
 tion. Philo's adjectives are : — " The Wise, The 
 Divine, The Indivisible, The Undistributable."^ 
 In the Book of Wisdom, God works through 
 Wisdom which is " an affluence from everlasting 
 light."^ Hence such expressions as "the invisible 
 presence, the light encircling the throne, the 
 Glory of the Great One, an insufferable blaze of 
 light," are invariably the symbols to illustrate 
 the unapproachable presence of God. Philo thus 
 pictures heaven : — " An eternal day without night 
 and without shadow, for it is lighted by inex- 
 tinguishable and unalterably pure radiance."* In 
 his description of Wisdom the very language he 
 employs scarcely admits comparison with anything 
 of the nature of physical light. It is true that he 
 uses such phrases as a " vapor of the power of 
 God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Omni- 
 potent, a reflection of eternal light, a spotless 
 mirror of the energy of God, and an image of his 
 goodness." But he further adds, possibly to 
 
 ^ Sib. Orac. Pro. i, x, xi. 
 
 = Philo, i. 334. 
 
 ^ Wisdom, vii, 26. 
 
 * Works, vol. ii (De Josepho), p. 483. 
 
 109 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 prevent a literal construction, that " Wisdom is 
 more comely than the sun, and above all the 
 ordering of the stars; compared with light she is 
 found preferable for this is succeeded by night, 
 but against Wisdom evil has no power."^ The 
 Fourth Book of Ezra transcends even this. " ISTot 
 mid-day or night or dawn, not gleam or brightness 
 or shining, but wholly and alone the radiance of 
 the glory of the Most High."^ In the Ascension 
 of Isaiah,^ God and the Great Glory (17 /xcyaXT/ 
 Sola) are synonyms. And also the pneumata of 
 the righteous as of the angels are regarded as 
 being clothed, though of course to a less degree, 
 with the same effulgence. The monarchical con- 
 ception of God had become so developed that even 
 the highest angels are assigned positions prudently 
 remote from the throne.* Enoch pictures God as 
 surrounded by an impassable wall of fire and 
 glory, so terrible that the nearest angels are not 
 permitted to stand in his immediate presence nor 
 even to see him,^ but nevertheless, glory is the 
 characteristic not only of God but of the heavenly 
 host whether of angelic or human existences. 
 Philo will only allow human shape to angelic and 
 heavenly beings when these pneumatic existences 
 appear upon the earth. "But it happens every now 
 
 * Drummond, Philo, vol. i, p. 217. 
 2 vii, 42. 
 
 »x, 16; xi, 32. 
 
 * "Have courage, Enoch, do not fear, and (they) showed me 
 the Lord from afar, sitting on His very High Throne." 
 2 Enoch XX, 3. 
 
 ** I Enoch xii-xvi. 
 
 110 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 and then that on emergencies occnring, they have 
 imitated the appearance of men, and transformed 
 themselves so as to assume human shape." But 
 in their native abode they are bodiless, " incor- 
 poreal, as living spirits destitute of any body/^^ 
 
 Now in Paul's treatment while he uses the 
 hierarchical machinery with its allocations of 
 positions and functions, his language is too 
 figurative to demand a literal construction. It is 
 true that the righteous pneumata have their homes 
 in the heavenly places. That conception had 
 become very prevalent in the century before Paul. 
 It is present everywhere in the thought of 
 Posidonius and his school. Cicero refers to it in 
 his " Dream of Scipio.'' " The souls of those who 
 have deserved immortality will not descend to the 
 depths of the earth, they will rise again to the 
 starry spheres."- Compare the Latin epitaph: — 
 " My divine soul shall not descend to the shades ; 
 heaven and the stars have borne me away; earth 
 holds my body, and this stone an empty name."^ 
 Paul certainly seizes hold of this belief, and adds 
 that the righteous will become conformed to the 
 ciKiLv of Christ, but this must be construed in 
 the light of the terms applied to Christ. " If then 
 ye were raised together with Christ seek the things 
 that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right 
 hand of God.''^ "Which he wroup:ht in Christ 
 
 ^ Works, vol. iv, 334. 
 ^ Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics, p. 111. 
 ^ Quoted by Cuinont, op. cit., p. 179. 
 * Colossians iii, 1. 
 
 Ill 
 
STUDIES IJST PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 when he raised him from the dead, and made 
 him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly 
 places far ahove all rule etc."^ To rob the lan- 
 guage of its metaphorical meaning, by fastening 
 a prosaic literalism upon these clauses, collides at 
 once with the more comprehensive Pauline expres- 
 sions where Christ is conceived as " filling all in 
 all/' and as the one in whom the universe is 
 created and sustained. I^othing is more perplex- 
 ing than to try to assign the terms which Paul 
 employs to a place in a definite philosophical 
 scheme. If the investigation in his use of lan- 
 guage discloses any conclusion at all, it is the fact 
 that the fluid and popular usage is everywhere 
 dominant. A given concept may not only be 
 taken to cover quite a variety of properties, but 
 these properties themselves may be designated by 
 just as great a variety of terms. Paul gives no 
 hint whatever that he possesses a technical equip- 
 ment of scientific terminology. To take any term 
 and begin to explore its etjnnology in the philo- 
 sophical schools of the fifth and fourth centuries 
 B.C., and then insist upon grounding its Pauline 
 significance upon the original content, is as 
 hazardous as to run back a nineteenth century 
 refinement into the thought of the middle ages. 
 The argument of derivation must reckon with the 
 fact that the apostle, intimate as he was with the 
 prophetic development of his race, and versed in 
 the procedure of Eabbinical argumentation, yet 
 
 ^ Ephesians i, 20. 21. 
 
 113 
 
SIGISTIFICAlSrCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 quotes from the Old Testament in the language of 
 the Septuagint, and thus brings to the formula- 
 tion of his religious thought a mode of expression 
 unknown to the very men who shaped Hebrew 
 theology. And it is quite probable that over a 
 century had intervened between the period of this 
 translation and the time when Paul was borrowing 
 its phrases. All these terms spirit, soul, image, 
 form, body, flesh and others had been used in a 
 technical vocabulary, but from there they had 
 passed into popular employment to serve distinc- 
 tions more concrete. Deissmann remarks: — 
 "One might write the history of religion as the 
 history of religious terms, or more correctly, one 
 must apprehend the history of religious terms as 
 being a chapter in the history of religion . . . 
 The Greek Old Testament was no longer under- 
 stood in the Imperial period as it was in the 
 Ptolemaic period, and again, a pagan Christian in 
 Eome naturally read it otherwise than a man like 
 Paul . . . The men of the New Testament 
 resembled the Alexandrian translators in bringing 
 with them from their " profane surroundings, the 
 most varied biblical elements of thought and 
 speech."^ 
 
 This pointed statement of Deissmann applies 
 just as well to the development of any literature. 
 The numerous shadings and transitions through 
 which language passes, not only in philosophical 
 developments, but also through popular media are 
 
 * Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 79, E.T. 
 
 8 113 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 too well recognized to be challenged. This becomes 
 all the more apparent when in the examination of 
 the apostle^s thought^ the purely speculative ten- 
 dency is seen to be a matter of merely passing 
 consideration. It is true that; amidst so much of 
 earthly suffering following in the wake of the new 
 religious movement, that broke at once with 
 Jewish prejudice and the demands of an imperial 
 cult, Paul directed the hopes of Christians to a 
 future painted in radiant colors, yet inasmuch as 
 such a future was by its very nature transcendent 
 and heavenly, the description had frankly to be 
 clothed in the symbols of mysticism. No theolo- 
 gical schematism in which doctrines of Sheol, 
 Paradise, Heaven and Hell^ and of the ortafia and 
 irvevfjLa are elaborately systematized can be dis- 
 covered in the epistles. The apostle has none of 
 the speculations of Stoic naturalism, where the 
 body, for example, is defined as that which acts 
 or is acted upon. Such categories as active, pas- 
 sive, efficient cause, or such definitions as:^ 
 " Body is that which is capable of extension in 
 three dimensions,"^ are not included at all within 
 his religious horizon. His method is not that of 
 a theorist who wishes to construct a view of the 
 universe that might satisfy a logical test, but that 
 of a missionary who brought a practical ingenuity 
 to bear upon the multifarious moral and social 
 needs that grew in proportion to the expansion 
 of his churches, and demanded sometimes imme- 
 
 ^ Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, p. 23. 
 
 114 
 
SIGMFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 diate adjustments. Solutions could never be 
 given in abstracto. Tbey had to shape themselves 
 in accordance with situations of a definitely local 
 character, and it is quite conceivable that in mat- 
 ters of provincial or racial concern, a Jew might 
 readily dismiss a solution that would satisfy a 
 Greek, or a Phrygian accept what a Eoman would 
 summarily reject. 
 
 But when the apostle having, however success- 
 fully, done his best to meet such contingencies, 
 applied himself to his great soteriological task of 
 making known what he designated as the riches 
 of God in Christ to the heterogeneous classes that 
 made up the Gra?co-Eoman populations of his 
 time, he stated his case with definiteness and 
 lucidity. And to accomplish this, he adopted the 
 customs, modes of thought and phraseology native 
 to the peoples amongst whom he labored. His 
 language therefore would have more in common 
 with current vernacular than with the terms of 
 academies and eclectic circles. The figures of 
 speech, the striking similes, the illuminating 
 illustrations that light up the epistles are a lasting 
 monument to his skill in driving home a message 
 as they reflect the range of his intellectual insight, 
 and practical sagacity. His burning ethical exhor- 
 tations place under tribute the whole field of 
 Jewish, Eoman and Greek Metaphor. The insti- 
 tution of slavery aSorded him not only the basis 
 of an appeal for a more humane and considerate 
 relationship between a SovXos and his master, 
 115 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 but also helped to throw into relief the more 
 radical serfdom of sin as opposed to that liberty 
 which is the birthright of the heir of God and 
 Joint heir with Christ. From the pursuit of 
 agriculture he took the figure of sowing and 
 reaping, of germination and increase, of careless- 
 ness and diligence in husbandry, of the plough 
 and the ox-goad, to set forth the law of harvest 
 in the moral life, and the struggles involved in 
 the old and new methods of salvation in the pro- 
 cess of his own conversion. From the splendor 
 of the sun, the moon and the stars, he tried to 
 illustrate the radiance that would characterize the 
 transcendent life of the pneuma and its organism. 
 From the magnificent temple of Herod, from the 
 Pantheon, and from the structures in the great 
 Greek and Roman cities which, however costly 
 and resplendent, would perish with the changes 
 of time, he could direct the vision of his converts 
 to an eternal temple not made with hands. From 
 the stadium, the race-meet and the gymnasium he 
 could illustrate how a Christian agon might be 
 fought and won, how a race if well run would 
 receive a laurel still more honorable than the 
 fading wreath of wild olive placed on the brow 
 of an athlete, and how in the match with the 
 adversaries not of flesh and blood a moral mastery 
 might be achieved. From the garrison in a 
 Roman barracks, from the soldiers on parade, and 
 on the battlefield he could turn to the breastplate 
 of faith and love, to the armor of righteousness, 
 116 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 to the helmet of salvation^ to the sword of the 
 spirit, and indicate how necessary to the Christian 
 were the watchful vigil, the martial steadfastness, 
 and the iron discipline that he might endure 
 hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And 
 indeed the great spectacle which, perhaps above 
 all others, impressed most the imagination of 
 Rome together with that of her subject peoples, 
 namely, the historic pageant which periodically 
 moved along the Via Sacra in honor of a returning 
 conqueror, became the grand allegory by which 
 Paul described the immortal triumph of Christ 
 over all his adversaries. No one could fail to catch 
 the apostle's meaning when such well-known 
 symbols were harnessed to the strong ethical 
 messages of his life. The discussion of the terms 
 shows that he was not employing a rigid 
 technique of anthropology. A clearly schematised 
 system of concepts was not essential to his 
 propaganda any more than it was to the preach- 
 ing of the Hebrew prophets.^ Provided that a 
 term had sufficient distinctness in a given instance 
 to serve in the enforcement of an appeal, a warn- 
 ing, or a rebuke, or a message of comfort, it 
 satisfied the needs of the case. The fact that in 
 another situation, or in another environment, such 
 a term might have a content seemingly opposed 
 to a former usage, when considered as entering 
 into a problem of abstract classification, was of 
 little moment as long as the present ethical issue 
 
 * Expositor, Kamsay, Article, The Teaching of Paul in Terms 
 of the Present Day, July, 1912, p. 91. 
 
 117 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 was met. Difficulties would probably arise when 
 later exegesis began to operate upon the problems 
 of analysis. 
 
 Note. — It is difficult to discover the precise significance of 
 such terms as Paul uses, in the general Jewish and Greek 
 literature. The word {^'tK^v) in Hebrews is contrasted with 
 [GKid), "For the law having a shadow of the good things 
 
 to come, not. the very image of the things.' '^ The word 
 {XO-po-K-Tf/p) is used in the same epistle to shew the relation 
 of Christ to God. "The very character of His substance" 
 (TTJg vTroardaeog),^ It is the same term which Philo uses of 
 
 the resemblance of the Logos to God. "But the great Moses 
 has not named the species of the rational soul by a title 
 resembling that of any created being, but has pronounced it 
 an image of the divine and invisible being, making it a coin, 
 as it were, of sterling metal, stamped and impressed with the 
 seal of God, the impression of which is the eternal logos.** ^ 
 The term {/iop(p^) together with expressions like kvdbeaBaiy 
 riTiEio^ might, according to Clemen, "be borrowed from the 
 language of the Mysteries." In the Hermetic literature the 
 Primal man is called the fiop^^ of God. But Clemen adds: 
 ' 'Only the expressions, 'Ye put on Christ,' and 'We have 
 become united with Christ' . . . might ultimately be 
 traced to the belief . . . that the participant in the rites 
 is physically united with the Deity." * 
 
 The term {//op^^) is the Septuagint translation for the fol- 
 lowing italicised words in Daniel: — "Then the king's counten- 
 ance was changed in him" ;^ in Job: — "A form was before 
 mine eyes" ;^ in Wisdom'^: — "And the Egyptians hearing 
 their voice, but not seeing their form, envied them because 
 they had not suffered," and in IV Maccabees^: — "We stamp 
 a marvellous likeness of our soul and of our shape on the 
 tender nature of the child." 
 
 Lightfoot has examined the expressions in the writings of 
 Plato, Aristotle, and other earlier Greek writers, and found 
 the following distinctions: 0';t^/iC[ denotes the figure, shape or 
 fashion of a thing." It is used of "dress, costume, or some- 
 times of attitude or demeanour." It signifies, moreover, 
 "pomp, display, outward circumstance, and frequently sem- 
 blance, pretence, as opposed to reality, but . . . altogether 
 it suggests the idea of something changeable, fleeting, unsub- 
 stantial. /'op0^ has none of "these secondary senses which 
 attach to axVH-^t as gesture, or dress, or parade, or pretext . . . 
 
 ^x, 1. 
 
 2i, 3. 
 
 3 Works, vol. i, p. 420. 
 
 *0p. cit., p. 158, 232. 
 
 ^v, 6. 
 
 «iv, 16. 
 
 "^ xviii, 1. 
 
 " XV, 4. 
 
 118 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONCEPTS 
 
 TheffX^y"°is often an accident of the //o/30^." Again, that 
 "great and entire change of the inner life, otherwise deacribed 
 as being born again, being created anew, is spoken of as a 
 conversion of f-Op^i} always, of <^XVI^<^ never." When Paul 
 speaks of this change either in the present ethical, or in the 
 future eschatological sense, fiop<l>i) in its many forms is used. 
 "Being made conformable {GVfXfzop(pi^6fiEVog) to his death." ^ 
 "We are transformed jUsra^o/j^oi'/ieQa into the same image."- 
 "Until Christ be formed {fiop(J>uQy) in you."^ "That it may 
 be conformed ahfxfiopfpov to the body of his glory." ^ Re- 
 ferring to the fiop<p^ of God, Lightfoot contends that "it is 
 used in a sense substantially the same which it bears in Greek 
 philosophy." Quoting Aristotle, he says, "it is the essence 
 corresponding to the definition (^ ovaia ?J Kara rdv Xdyof) 
 or the definition of the essence {6 Xdyoc ryg ovcrtag) or again 
 the actuality {evepyeia), or the perfection {evreMx^ia)' 
 The significance of his fiop^-^ or elSoq will appear also from 
 the fact that he elsewhere identifies it with the final clause 
 V^^Of). . . , The speculations of Alexandrian and Gnostic 
 Judaism formed a ready channel, by which the philosophical 
 terms of Ancient Greece were brought within reach of the 
 apostles of Christ. "° 
 
 But it might be claimed in reply that these terms, what- 
 ever be their original philosophical significance in the fifth 
 and fourth .centuries before Christ, having passed into popular 
 usage, would obviously lose much of that precision attending 
 scientific definition. ' 'The criticism of the early Christian 
 epistles must not leave out of account the considerations which 
 are to be deduced from the history of ancient epistolography 
 . . . The exegesis of the letters of Paul must take its 
 special standpoint from the nature of the letter. Its task is 
 to reproduce in detail the apostle's sayings as they have been 
 investigated in regard to the particular historical occasions of 
 their origin, as phenomena of religious psychology."* To a 
 priest engaged in the ritual of a mystery cult the term {fiop(}>^) 
 might indicate the "hidden process" by which an initiate was 
 supposed to attain immortality by becoming a god, but even 
 here the esoteric character of such a rite with the consequent 
 penalties imposed for violation of the vows of secrecy makes 
 it diflicult to know what this metamorphosis implied. Paul's 
 restraint in laying bare the details of the process of auT7)pia^ 
 his aversion to refined theological technictue, leaves the philo- 
 sophical meaning of the terms a matter of pure conjecture. 
 The term (ei/c(^v) or {fiop(py)j since either was in the popular 
 vocabulary, would do to express the moral likeness of a man 
 renewed in Christ to his master, or again the extreme contrast 
 between Christ's pre-existent state of glory with His earthly 
 life of humiliation. 
 
 ^ Philippians iii, 10. 
 
 ^ II Corinthians iii, 18. 
 
 ^ Galatians iv, 19. 
 
 * Philippians, iii, 21. 
 
 s Philippians, p. 127 fe. 
 
 "Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 57. 
 
 119 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 PAVL'8 TREATMENT OF THE CONCEPTS— THE 
 
 PAROVBIA, THE MESSIANIC ACE, 
 
 AND THEIR APOCALYPTIC 
 
 ACCOMPANIMENTS. 
 
 The question now to be investigated concerns 
 the extent to which this eschatological background 
 of Jewish thought, as summarized in the Tables, 
 is reflected in the Pauline letters, which by general 
 agreement represents the earliest literature of the 
 Christian community. How much of the specula- 
 tion of the two centuries preceding his time has 
 been taken over as fixed tradition, how much 
 rejected, and wherein, if at all, have advances been 
 made upon the inherited body of apocalyptic faith, 
 as the apostle wrestled with the complicated 
 problems emerging throughout a history of thirty 
 active years? It is true that many important 
 events which must have had a critical bearing 
 upon the thought of Paul do not find a place 
 within the analytic scheme here presented, the 
 most important obviously being the life and teach- 
 ing of Jesus, but as the records in any form 
 accessible to us, even the earliest of them, which 
 chronicle such events are believed to have been 
 committed to writing at a period later than the 
 final letters of Paul, an exhaustive study of their 
 120 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOQICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 data on the eschatological side need not be regard- 
 ed as a necessary preliminary task. This fact is 
 all the more evident when it is seen that it is 
 precisely in the field of eschatology that tradition 
 is formed and accumulated. Eeferences to the 
 Synoptic accounts will be made as occasion 
 requires. 
 
 It has been seen that Hebrew and Judaistic 
 literature painted in high color the crisis of the 
 " latter days," and the inauguration of " The 
 Kingdom.^' Speculation varied as to the role 
 which the Messiah should perform. Often, as in 
 Joel, the Assumption of Moses and II Enoch, he 
 was not mentioned at all. Sometimes, as in 
 I Enoch 83-90, he was regarded as merely intro- 
 ducing the new Age, while the great upheavals 
 and transformations were assigned directly to 
 God. In the later developments he became more 
 prominent. But the emphasis upon the startling 
 accompaniments of the End, the changes in world- 
 history, the nature of retribution and the future 
 fortunes of the righteous and wicked is fairly 
 uniform. 
 
 The first epistle to the Thessalonians breaks i^ Jonians^*" 
 upon this literature about the beginning of the 
 second half of the first Christian century, and 
 stands at the very threshold of Paul's literary 
 activities. The church at Thessalonica had been 
 founded in the second missionary Journey. Paul 
 had moved on to Corinth and while there, 
 Timothy, who had a little time before been sent 
 121 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 The 
 
 Farousia 
 and 
 
 accompani- 
 ments. 
 
 to Athens to minister to the Thessalonians had 
 now returned with the report of his work, and his 
 message of their faith and love occasioned the 
 epistle. Both Acts^ and this epistle indicate that 
 at least one feature of the apostle's teaching had 
 been eschatological. As the whole history of 
 Judaism shows^ one of the main springs of 
 apocalyptic was the fact of persecution. The 
 promise of deliverance shone most brightly when 
 faith was being keenly tested in the crucible 
 of bitter oppression, and the Jew had learned 
 that his only hope lay in God's decisive inter- 
 vention at the close of this seon.^ No epistle 
 of Paul shows so clearly as this one the kinship 
 of view-point which he had with his race. Dis- 
 tress and affliction had visited the new church 
 and to establish them in their faith their hopes 
 are directed towards the events of the End. The 
 persecutors who had filled out "the measure of 
 their sins" were soon to be overwhelmed by a 
 catastrophic judgment. " The wrath is come 
 upon them to the uttermost."^ The phrase, ^ 
 opyrj ri ^p^oi^ivq^ ever upon the lips of a seer 
 in troublous times is in prominent use here.* The 
 
 ^ Acta xviii, 5. 
 
 2 This hope was not confined to the Jews. "The idea of a 
 new era, of a fresh start in nniversal history, has sunk deep 
 into the heart of mankind. Sometimes, it is presented as the 
 return of a weary world to the happy innocence of a far- 
 distant past, sometimes, as a deliverance from the intolerable 
 evils of a worn-out state of society, but always as a consum- 
 mation devoutly to be wished and heralded with eager antici- 
 pation." Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, p. 33. 
 
 ^ I Thessalonians ii, 16. 
 
 * 1, 10. 
 
 122 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 wicked are to be destroyed by it; the righteous 
 are to be saved from it. The Messianic kingdom 
 is to appear but it is to belong to the coming age 
 (6 altov fji€\X<ov)^ not to the present (o aloiv oDros) 
 The one exhortation to his converts is that they 
 "should walk worthily of God" that He might 
 establish their " hearts unblameably in holiness " 
 till the coming of the End.^ 
 
 Several divergences, however, from con- J^^^rlences 
 temporary apocalyptic emerge in the epistle. The^^™^.^^^,^^^^ 
 first is the position assigned to Jesus in the fiil-^i^"*^^ 
 filment of the Hope. In previous Messianic des- 
 criptions,^ allusions to the Messiah were of the 
 most covert and figurative character. Wherever 
 special treatment of his lineage is given, the des- 
 cent is of course traced to the Davidic House, 
 except in a few writings of the Maccabeean 
 times^ where the tendency was to place the 
 Levitical priesthood in the ascendency over the 
 monarchy. But as a rule it is the nature of the 
 kingdom established that is the significant fact,, 
 and the references to the Messiah concern rather 
 his office and work than his historical character 
 as an individual. Paul, on the other hand, 
 introduces Jesus as the Messiah — the Christ, and 
 makes his Parousia coincident with the end of 
 the age that now is. His preaching as recorded 
 in Acts up to the time of this epistle had borne. 
 
 Hii, 13. 
 
 ^ Lake, Earlier Epistles of Paul, p. 393. Driver, Ideals of 
 the Prophets, p. 168 ff. Pairweather, Background of the 
 Gospels, p. 277. 
 
 133 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOaY 
 
 upon that point. The records of Acts show him 
 controverting the Jews at Damascus proving 
 The " that this is the Christ/' ix, 22. His historical 
 
 of Jesus. character is emphasized by the emphasis upon 
 his lineage from David which Paul affirms to be 
 in accordance with Scripture. "Of this man's 
 seed hath God according to promise brought unto 
 Israel a Saviour, Jesus.^' xiii, 23. He was con- 
 demned by his countrymen led by the rulers in 
 Jerusalem and slain, xiii, 27, 28. And at 
 Thessalonica in express terms, he " reasoned with 
 them from the Scriptures, opening and alleging 
 that it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise 
 again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom 
 said he ' I proclaim ' unto you is the Christ." 
 xvii, 2, 3. 
 
 This epistle is, in part, a reiteration of that 
 statement. Jesus is the Messiah of " deliverance 
 from the coming wrath." The church has been 
 commended because they had " turned unto God 
 from idols," and were waiting " for his Son from 
 heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even 
 Jesus who delivereth us from the wrath to come."^ 
 His coming accompanied by his saints is the 
 stimulus of their watchful fidelity.^ 
 
 Nowhere in Jewish literature prior to this 
 period is there the remotest conception of a 
 Messiah whose career upon earth is cut short by 
 death, especially a death so loaded with calumny 
 
 ^ I Tliessalonians i, 10. 
 2ii, 19; iii, 13; iv, 18; v, 23. 
 124 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL COlSrCEPTS 
 
 as that of crucifixion instigated by the religious 
 leaders of his own nation. The sections in 4:th J/^^^^'^°° 
 Ezra which alone in this literature make cursory jj^^gj^^^ 
 allusion to his death are supposed to be the result 
 of late Christian reaction, and even here the 
 brevity of the treatment might argue for the 
 repulsiveness of the view to Jewish minds, and a 
 desire to dismiss it summarily. Besides, the inci- 
 dent is mentioned in such a way as to give the 
 impression that his death is an end of peace after 
 a reign of four hundred years. Neither was the 
 conception of a suffering Messiah a very wide- 
 spread one amongst Jewish writers. The casual 
 references found in Eabbinical Judaism are sup- 
 posed to be quite late. In the dialogue between 
 Justin and Trypho — a work of the second century 
 A.D. — the latter as the representative of Eabbinism 
 admits that suffering would form a part of the 
 Messiah's career when he appeared, but death 
 and especially death by crucifixion is never 
 admitted for a moment. The 53rd chapter of 
 Isaiah was by many authorities interpreted 
 Messianically but only indisputably in the second 
 century after Christ. Schiirer claims that the 
 ■atoning sufferings of death cannot be found in 
 any of the remains of Eabbinical thought.^ " In 
 
 ^ Scliurer Jewish people in the time of Christ 11, 11, 
 p. 187 E. T. 
 
 Cf. O. Holtzmann — "The later Jewish conception is that 
 the Messiah will suffer along with his suffering people, but 
 even later Judaism is ignorant of a Messiah suffering through 
 his people. "Life of Jesus," p. 334 (Black). So Dalman, 
 Words of Jesus, p. 265, E. T. 
 
 125 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 not one of the numerous works discussed by us 
 suSev^R °^ have we found the slightest allusion to an aton- 
 ?nt^ du^*d ^^^ suffering of the Messiah. . . . Accordingly, 
 by Paul into it may be be well said that it was on the whole 
 
 the Concept. '^ 
 
 one quite foreign to Judaism in general/^ The 
 pageant of his appearance is elsewhere never 
 curtailed in its brilliancy by an ineffective con- 
 quest of those who would oppose his reign. His 
 enemies are slain by the word of his mouth as 
 thoroughly as by his sword, and wherever, the 
 temporary character of his reign is admitted, his 
 return to heaven is scarcely less clothed with the 
 signs of power than his original advent to earth. 
 But in view of the apostles, the persecution and 
 death of the Messiah in the person of Jesus is as 
 clear a point as his exaltation. Galatians iii, 13, 
 shows that he was familiar with the Deuteronomic 
 curse, — " He that is hanged is the curse of God,'' 
 and applies it to Jesus in his argument there. 
 The preaching of Paul is one with that of the 
 primitive apostles on that score. "Ye by the 
 hand of lawless men did crucify and slay," is the 
 charge of Peter (Acts ii, 23). '^Who (the Jews) 
 both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets," 
 is the declaration of Paul (I Thessalonians ii, 
 15). 
 
 The reference to the identification of the 
 enemies of God with the persecuting Jews can 
 scarcely be said to be new in content. Hitherto, 
 the apostate Jews had come in for their full share 
 of condemnation from their pious countrymen, 
 126 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 especially such Jews as had cleared the way for 
 the introduction of Hellenism into the religious 
 practices of the nation, Daniel^ Enoch, and 
 others had vehemently denounced such treachery 
 to Jewish faith. ^ The departure in this epistle 
 consists rather in the changed character of the 
 crime. The crucifixion of Jesus, and the perse- 
 cution of his followers constitute the grand 
 apostasy on the part of the Jews, and what is 
 scarcely less culpable in the eyes of Paul, their 
 rooted antagonism to the idea that the Gentiles are 
 to be included within the salvation of God.^ 
 
 Again, in the interval between the apostle's 
 preaching at Thessalonica and Timothy's return, 
 a difficulty had arisen in the minds of the converts 
 causing them much concern. The hope of thep^J^^g^j^ 
 Parousia as it was taught had satisfied their j^^j^^gg^ 
 perplexities in as far as it related to the fortunes **'^*^*^^- 
 of those who were still alive. It had apparently 
 not included in its scope those of their brethren 
 who had died, and the bereavement of death had 
 raised the question as to the fate of the Christian 
 dead. The departed had lived in the hope of the 
 blessedness of the Parousia. Had death destroyed 
 that hope, and was the triumph to be a possession 
 only of the survivors ? A new and pressing situa- 
 tion demanded some kind of a solution, and to 
 meet it Paul in the 4th chapter has to add certain 
 elements to his eschatology. Judaism had given 
 
 ^Dan. ix, xii, En. XC. 
 2ii, 15, 16. 
 
 127 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOaY 
 
 such wide currency to the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection 'of the righteous, that Paul would have 
 little difficulty in explaining his message, at least 
 in places where the synagogue had been estab- 
 lished. But distinctions had been drawn between 
 the condition of the living and the dead at the 
 Parousia, to the advantage of the former. 
 " Blessed is he that waiteth,'^ is the comment of 
 p°ni°*" t Daniel, xii, 12. " Happier are those that remain 
 than those that are dead" is the passage in Ezra. 
 (Ezra xiii, 2-t) . The Thessalonians were 
 undoubtedly familiar with the contrast, but the 
 conception is reversed by the reassuring words of 
 Paul. " We that are alive that are left unto the 
 coming of the Lord shall in no wise precede those 
 that are fallen 'asleep, . . . and the dead in Christ 
 shall rise first.'' The freedom of Paul in handling 
 traditional data may possibly be seen here. The 
 solution found already to hand was not sufficient 
 to meet the needs of the case, and apocalyptic was 
 simply made to adjust itself to the intellectual 
 embarrassments presented. The phrase " by the 
 word of the Lord " might indicate that he was 
 using as authoritative a saying of Jesus known to 
 him, or in view of the fact that the phrase has noth- 
 ing corresponding to it in the Gospels, it may 
 express his conviction that the answer which he 
 was giving was a part of what he terms " the 
 revelation of Jesus'' ('Galatians i, 12). 
 
 The moment that the apostle after satisfying 
 the Thessalonians upon their main point of 
 anxiety, attempted to give a further scenic 
 128 
 
LAEGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 elaboration of the Par()iisia events he availed him- 
 self of the same imagery which runs abimdantly 
 through the Old Testament, the Inter-Testament ^^ag?^*^*" 
 and the G-ospel literature. The Theophany of ^Tms''*'"^ 
 Exodus xix, is placed in such a setting. Yahweh ^ ^* ®' 
 is represented as descending upon Mount Sinai 
 in the midst of thunders and lightnings and fire, 
 while the " voice of a trumpet exceeding loud " 
 summons Israel to the Mount. The dispersed 
 Israelites in Isaiah xxvii, 13, return to Palestine 
 at the same signal. The clouds of heaven, con- 
 suming fire, loud noise, appearances of angels, or 
 archangels are factors constantly depicted as 
 featuring the presence of God at critical times 
 amongst his people, and particularly constituting 
 the accompaniments of the end of the present 
 world.^ Oriental eschatology,^ as a whole, was 
 continually developing this lurid background and 
 Paul's treatment is but a clipping from the pic- 
 ture. " For the Lord himself shall descend from 
 heaven with a shout, with- the voice of an arch- 
 angel and with the trump of God.'' (iv, 16). 
 
 It seems that the apostle took it for granted 
 that the Thessalonians would not be seriously 
 
 ^ Numbers x, 9 ; Zechariah xiv, 5 ; Psalms civ, 3 ; Isaiah Ixvi, 
 15; Baniel vii, 13; x, 13; xii, 1; Matthew xxiv, 30 ff; xxvi, 
 64; Revelations viii, 2; xii, 7. 
 
 ^"Israel's, however, was not the earliest literature to de- 
 velop apocalyptic. Without attempting to discuss any views as 
 to the actual contact of the two systems of thought, and the 
 influence of one upon the other, we may note the fact that 
 centuries before the earliest Jewish writings of this kind, 
 Zarathustra was expressing in difficult but quite unmistak- 
 able language the conceptions ( eschatological ) I have de- 
 scribed." Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, p. 154. 
 
 9 129 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Time — ^Its 
 sudden and 
 stealthy 
 character. 
 
 exercised over the precise time of the event. With 
 the situation cleared as to the fate of their 
 departed, " the times and the seasons " mattered 
 little, for if death should in the future claim 
 further members of their community, the consol- 
 ing argument still applied. As for the living, the 
 stealthy and sudden -character of the Day of the 
 Lord need have no terrors, for their attitude of 
 prayerful watching, with their life of soberness 
 and faith was the great safeguard of preparation. 
 "But ye brethren are not in darkness that that 
 day should overtake you as a thief, ... so then 
 let us not sleep as do the rest but let us watch 
 and be sober." v, 4-6. 
 
 Nevertheless, that admonition of Paul did not 
 have the effect desired. The belief in the near- 
 ness of the Parousia had, amongst some of the 
 members, resulted in a growing sense of restless- 
 ness and in the neglect of the ordinary duties of 
 life. The question of " the times and seasons " 
 had proved a favorite theme of speculation for the 
 late Judaism. Prophetic eschatology had remained 
 satisfied with merely announcing the nearness of 
 the Day, usually associating it with the expected 
 collapse of foreign powers at the height of their 
 hostility towards Israel. "It is near at hand " sum- 
 med up, in general, this phase of the expectation.^ 
 But in the Syrian period the indefiniteness of 
 the date failed to satisfy the feverish demand for 
 
 1 Volz. Jiidische Eschatologie, 162 ff. 
 Testament Prophecy, p. 353. 
 
 130 
 
 A. B. Davidson, Old 
 
LARGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 retribution. The cry — " How long, how long, 
 Lord ?" became more intense with the heightening 
 of the persecution, and the seers set themselves 
 the task of preparing exact answers. It was not 
 sufficient to synchronize the end with the break- 
 up of the Syrian empire. Greater exactitude was 
 required and the less defined predictions of 
 prophecy became elaborated into the more precise 
 formulations of apocalyptic. 
 
 The first epistle then, in accordance with 
 apocalyptic utterances had declared the imminent 
 approach of the Parousia. The predictions of 
 Joel and Daniel were familiar to the apostle as 
 well as to many of his converts. But that the 
 great event might be circumscribed within the 
 lifetime of Paul did not necessitate a knowledge 
 of the week or the month. Neither the day nor 
 the hour was fixed. The synoptic tradition^ 
 reveals the tendency amongst the disciples of 
 Jesus to shorten the interval, and it became 
 evidently necessary for Jesus to abate somewhat P Thesaa- 
 their excited eagerness.^ The second Thessalonian 
 epistle indeed still adheres to the main features 
 of the first, and is in harmony with current 
 thought inasmuch as the dvoKaXvil/L^ would 
 ensure the complete destruction of oppressors 
 and the " glorification of saints.^' It was to be a 
 " revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with 
 
 * The Gospel entered the world as an apocalyptical, eschato- 
 logical message, apocalyptical and eschatological not only in 
 its form, but also in its content. Harnack^ History of Dogma, 
 vol. I, p. 58. 
 
 ^ Mark xiii, 32. 
 
 131 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 A certain 
 development 
 to precede 
 Farousia. 
 
 the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering 
 vengeance to them that know not God/^ 
 I Thessalonians 7-8. The feverishness of the 
 hope, however, was allayed by the fact that certain 
 preliminary omens which, as shown in the outleok 
 of Judaism must anticipate the Parousi-a, had not 
 yet taken place, and the second chapter of the 
 second epistle contains the outline of that develop- 
 ment. The man of lawlessness (o avOpatno^ t^s 
 avofjLtai) will make his appearance, and will be 
 guilty of the blasphemous attempt to exalt him- 
 self against every deity that is worshipped. For 
 a time the evil power will be cheeked in his 
 operations by some opposing agency until when 
 the latter has been removed, he will break out 
 again in violence causing great havoc and disaster. 
 His dominance, however, will be of short dura- 
 tion, for at the Parousia he will be slain by " the 
 breath of the Lord.'^ 
 
 It is not easy to determine the exact nature 
 of this dnoo-raauL. In the Septuagint the word 
 is used to indicate a rebellion against Vae power 
 of God (Joshua xxii, 22, Jeremiah ii, 19) and 
 in I Maccabees ii, 15, to characterize the defec- 
 tion of the Jews from their national religion 
 beneath the cruel pressure of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes. Its usage is predominantly religious 
 rather than political both in Biblical and 
 Judaistic writings.^ In this epistle it is evidently 
 of religious significance. Its most striking fea- 
 
 ^ Meyer's Comm. Thessalonians p. 596. 
 
 132 
 
LARGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 ture is the appearance of an Antichrist who is 
 to stand as the arch-opponent of God. This con- 
 ception was prevalent in eastern thought. It is 
 believed by Gunkel^ Zimmern and others to have 
 had its origin in the Babylonian myth of the 
 fight between Tiamat, the dragon, and the god 
 Marduk where the dragon is for a time conquered 
 in the struggle, yet reappears at the end of the 
 world to renew the war in which he becomes 
 irretrievably crushed.^ The myth^ is supposed 
 to have been taken over into Jewish literature 
 with modifications. The Old Testament gradually 
 began to form the tradition of a terrific conflict 
 between the heathen forces of the world and 
 Yahweh. The picture was completed with the 
 account of the overthrow and destruction of this 
 evil agent.^ The best known illustration of this 
 conception of Antichrist is found in Daniel. 
 There he is identified with Antiochus (Daniel xi, 
 36 ff). In the Psalms of Solomon, Pompey is 
 represented as the great embodiment of sin and 
 violence. Other writings show the prevalence of 
 the belief in the rise of a mighty foe under the 
 name of Beliar. Both the language and thought 
 of Paul contains much of this view-point. Imagery 
 supplied by tradition is borrowed to characterize 
 this aTToo-Tao-ta. While the interpretation of this 
 
 * Gunkel, SchSpfung und Chaos, p. 114 ff. Cf. Bousset, Der 
 Antichrist, p. 123. 
 
 ^ "A myth which is found to exist in the lore of many 
 peoples, Phoenician, Egyptian, Zoroastrian, Greek, South 
 American, etc." Oesterley, Evolution of the Messianic Idea, 
 p. 59. 
 
 ^ Psalms ii, xciii. Zechariah xii-xiv. 
 
 133 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 section is not without its difiEiculties yet it may be 
 safe to assume that just as the earlier descriptions, 
 however allegorically applied, yet referred invari- 
 ably to nations and individuals who were " filling 
 up the cup of their iniquity/' so here some his- 
 torical situation is implied. The " man of 
 lawlessness " most easily applies to persecuting 
 Jews, though in Paul's mind there may well have 
 been some outstanding leader of this persecution. 
 No opposition that faced Paul was more deserving 
 of the epithet than that which came from his own 
 countrymen. They had followed him from place 
 to place with relentless bitterness. In the first 
 epistle he charges them with having killed Jesus 
 and the prophets, and having brought upon them- 
 selves the wrath of God to the uttermost. They 
 had once been the people of God; hence the logic 
 of the term, dTrocrTaaia^ and the fitness of the title 
 applied. 
 
 The systematic destruction of the disciples of 
 Jesus was nevertheless impossible under the 
 established order of the empire. Jewish hatred 
 could only show its hostility in sporadic outbursts. 
 The restraining power (to Karixov) probably 
 indicates the Eoman empire standing as it did 
 for law and order.^ This is supported by the 
 experience of Paul in his journeys, where, in the 
 rabid attacks made upon him by the Jews, the 
 authority of Eome had been invoked in his defence. 
 The allusion to the removal of the restraining 
 hand is not adequately explained. It can only 
 
 ^ Sabatier, L'apotre Paul, p. 104. 
 
 134 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 be suggested that since the time of Augustus the 
 empire began its course of d^cay here and there 
 revealing its inherent weakness in the character of 
 a ruler such as Caligula^ and Paul may reasonably 
 have anticipated a hasty dissolution. That such 
 a fall was expected and that it would be thereupon 
 succeeded by the general breaking-up of the. pre- 
 sent world order is also indicated in the literature 
 of the first century A.D., the apocalypses of Ezra 
 and Baruch making the destruction of Rome — 
 the fourth kingdom of Daniel — the immediate 
 sign of the End. 
 
 A stretch of four or fiYe years intervenes 
 between Second Thessalonians and First Corin- 
 thians. The Epistle to the Galatians had probably 
 been written during the second missionary jour-iOorintMans. 
 ney, but as the great conflict with the Judaizing 
 party upon the question of law and freedom 
 absorbed the whole treatment, no further facts as 
 to Paul's eschatological position are disclosed. 
 Just as in the Thessalonian letters the fact of 
 the expected Parousia* was assumed without 
 
 Note. — The word Parousia is found fairly frequently in 
 classical Greek, and is used to indicate the actual or expected 
 arrival of some important person. "Having taken Byzantium 
 on his former visit" {^v^avTiov yap k7iO>v ry Tzporepa 
 irapovata). Thuc. i, 128.^ Further, certain papyri use the 
 word in a technical sense concerning the official visit of a 
 ruler or his ambassador. The Jewish apocrypha make very 
 sparing use of the term, but when so used it has the same 
 meaning as above; e.g., Judas MaccabaBUs refers to the 
 immediate approach of Nicanor (r^v irapovaiav tov 
 arparoTriSov II Mace, viii, 12. In the Testaments it 
 refers to the manifestation of God upon earth (euf Trapovaia^ 
 TOV Qeov TTJg SiKaioavv^g Judah xxii, 3). In Paul it is 
 the usual term for the advent of Jesus at the final judgment, 
 and thus the old term and its main content are here retained 
 but applied to Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 ^ Milligan, Paul, Thessalonians, p. 146. 
 
 135 
 
STUDIES IIST PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 debate — only the nature and time of the event 
 being subject to extended discussion — so in the 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians, it is taken for 
 granted. No reasons are advanced in proof of 
 parousia the Parousia. It is rather used as an accepted 
 expected. argument to show the need of righteousness of 
 action in view of coming judgment. It is 
 variously characterized — " The revelation of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ" (i, 7), "the day of the Lord 
 (Jesus) Christ" (i, 8), "The day" (iii, 13), 
 "The day of the Lord (Jesus) " (v, 5), "The 
 ends of the ages" (x, 11). Its main content is 
 that of judgment, and the thoroughness of the 
 test to which human character is put. Fire is 
 the symbol which is again applied. " Each man's 
 work shall be made manifest, for the day shall 
 declare it because it is revealed in fire " (iii, 13). 
 "Wherefore judge nothing before the time until 
 the Lord come, who will bring to light the hidden 
 things of darkness, and make manifest the 
 counsels of the heart" (iv, 5).^ The judgment 
 which is to be upon the world including men and 
 angels is effected not only by the Messiah,^ bat 
 also by the saints (vi, 2). This thought was a 
 familiar one in Jewish tradition. In Daniel,^ 
 at the appearance of the Ancient of Days, " judg- 
 ment was given to the saints of the Most High,'' 
 and in the Wisdom of Solomon the souls of the 
 
 ^Cf. Matthew xix, 28. Luke xxii, 30. 
 ^ Mattlie-w ixv. Acts xvii, 31. 
 "vii, 22. 
 
 136 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 righteous share in this Messianic function.^ That 
 the apostle has practically the same view concern- 
 ing the nearness of the Paronsia, as he had in 
 the earlier epistles of the Thessalonians^ is evident 
 from the seventh chapter. Persecution, ever a 
 sign of the hastening end was afflicting his 
 church. " I think therefore, that this is good by 
 reason of the distress that is upon us, that it is 
 good for a man to be as he is '' (verse 36). " But interval is 
 this I say brethren, the time is shortened, that 
 henceforth both those that have wives may be as 
 though they had none, . . . and those that use 
 the world as not using it to the full, for the 
 fashion of this world passeth away" (29-31). It 
 would seem that the advice was based not merely 
 upon the shortness of the interval but also upon 
 the nature of the new kingdom ushered in by the 
 Parousia, a kingdom which according to certain 
 phases of current tradition did not admit of these 
 earthly relationships. " The sons of this world 
 marry and are given in marriage, but they that 
 are accounted worthy to attain to that world, . . 
 . neither marry nor are given in marriage, . . . 
 for they are equal to the angels." Luke xx, 34-36. 
 Cf. also Matthew xxii, 30; Mark xii, 25. It is 
 possible that the question may have been raised 
 by a celibate sect in Corinth or by an ascetic party 
 formed in reaction to the Corinthian licentious- 
 ness.^ In any case, it seems likely that the present 
 
 1 iii, 7, 8. 
 
 =* Lake, Tlie earlier epistles of Paul, p. 81 (Rivingtons.) 
 
 137 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 earth with its numerous ties and cares — "The 
 things of this "world '' (vii, 34) appeared as of 
 secondary interest in the light of the momentous 
 changes which were imminent. 
 
 The great Eesurrection chapter reaffirms his 
 belief that the Day will come within the life-time 
 of many to whom he writes, and probably within 
 his own, for in addition to the change which the 
 dead undergo when "this corruptible shall put 
 
 Time. On incorruption," a corresponding transformation 
 
 takes place in the case of the living. " We shall 
 not all sleep but we shall all be changed " (verse 
 51)/ 
 
 This particular phase of the expectation seems, 
 in the opinion of Charles, to go through some 
 modification in the second epistle. The connection 
 of the Parousia with judgment, and with Christ 
 as Judge, together with the fact that judgment 
 is based upon the life on earth is still invariable, 
 but it looks as if the apostle had serious misgivings 
 
 PossiDie as to his former time-view, and expected not so 
 
 change in ^ 
 
 the concept much the dissolution of his body before the 
 
 of Parousia. '^ 
 
 "manifestation of Christ/' as the immediate 
 passage at death from this earthly condition to 
 the resurrection life. Death is indeed in his own 
 case a possibility. The turbulent riots at 
 Ephesus^ narrated in the 19th chapter of Acts 
 
 1 See further discussion under ctwuo. 
 
 2 ' ' But in that hour of the peril of death at Ephesus, the 
 apostle had been obliged to look the possibility of death 
 straight in the face and in the Second Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians the prospect of death occupies him very deeply.'* 
 Weinel, Paul, p. 381. 
 
 138 
 
LARGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 which probably occurred between the writing of 
 the two epistles may have led the apostle to think 
 that such violent persecution might at any time 
 end fatally for him. Nevertheless, this is not the 
 point emphasized. The expectation, as stated on 
 page 86, rather takes on the form of an abandon- 
 ment of the Jewish view of an intermediate state, 
 and in place of it the hope of a "building of 
 God " following direct upon the passing away of 
 the earthly tabernacle.^ In any case the change 
 of outlook is not stated with declarative certainty, 
 as the apostle would seem to admit the possibility 
 of the standpoint of Thessalonians towards the 
 end of the section. " Whether also we make it 
 our aim, whether at home or absent to be well- 
 pleasing to him.^' 
 
 The letter to the Romans lays greater stress 
 upon the retributive character of the judgment. 
 It is a " day of wrath and revelation of the Romans. 
 righteous judgment of God who will render to 
 every man according to his works, to them that 
 by patient well-doing seek for glory and honor 
 and incorruption, eternal life, but unto them that 
 are factious and obey not the truth, .... wrath 
 and indignation, tribulation and anguish" (ii, 
 5-9). It is a day "when God shall judge the 
 secrets of men" (ii, 16). Whether Paul's expec- 
 tation here refers to his lifetime or subsequent 
 thereto is not perfectly clear. The 11th verse of 
 the 8th chapter might be interpreted to lengthen Time. 
 
 ^ Findlay, I Corinthians, Expos. Greek Testament, p. 940. 
 
 139 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Time. 
 
 Colossians. 
 
 Ephesians. 
 
 the interval beyond his death. " But if the spirit 
 of him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
 dwelleth in you^ he that raised up Christ Jesus 
 from the dead shall give life also to your mortal 
 bodies through his spirit that dwelleth in you." 
 The 13th chapter, 11-13 goes back to First 
 Thessalonians : "And this, knowing the season, 
 that already it is time for you to awake out of 
 sleep, for now is salvation nearer to us than when 
 we believed. The night is far spent, the day is 
 at hand." 
 
 There are no data in Colossians to determine 
 the modifications, if any, in this aspect of the 
 apostle's conceptions since writing Eomans. The 
 hope laid up " in the heavens "" is still held out 
 to his readers : — " When Christ who is our life 
 shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him 
 be manifested in glory/' but the nearness or 
 remoteness of its realization is not discussed. 
 
 Ephesians has sometimes been cited as an 
 instance of Paul's rejection of the Parousia hope, 
 and of a newly arisen belief in an indefinitely 
 long continuance of the present earth. Bruce, 
 for example, thinks that." a trace of the concep- 
 tion of a protracted Christian era may be dis- 
 covered in the words of Ephesians iii, 21; ^To 
 him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus 
 unto all the generations of the age of the ages.' "^ 
 But, on the other hand, " the idea of the Parousia 
 may be behind all, the age (o altav) being the 
 
 ^ Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, p. 382. 
 
 140 
 
LAKGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Messianic age which opens with the Parousia, 
 brings all other ages with the generations belong- 
 ing to them to an end, and is itself to endure 
 for ever. Thus as Meyer puts it, the idea is that 
 the glory to be given to God in the church and in 
 Christ, its head, is to endure ' not only to the 
 Parousia but then also ever onward from 
 generation to generation in the Messianic 
 aeon.'"^ 
 
 Philippians returns to the conception of ^^^pp^*"""' 
 II Corinthians v, 1-10 in that the anticipation 
 of death intervenes between the time of his writ- 
 ing and the end. But there is nothing to indicate 
 that The Day is to be postponed to any consider- 
 able length. It is indeed near (Philippians iv, 5), 
 and that fact is as ever the ground of his exhor- 
 tation to patience, but Paul's advancing age 
 together with the manifold dangers of persecu- 
 tion made death a contingency quite within the 
 limits of probability. The same thought of the 
 Second Epistle to the Corinthians is repeated. 
 " Christ shall be magnified in my body whether 
 by life or by death" (i, 20). Lightfoot thus 
 paraphrases the passage : — ^^" If I consulted my 
 own longing I should desire to dissolve this 
 earthly tabernacle and to go home to Christ, for 
 this is very far better. If I consulted your 
 interests I should wish to live and labor still ; for 
 this your needs require."^ The later epistles 
 
 ^ Salmond, Ephesians, EipoB. Greek Testament, p. 319. 
 ^ Philippians, p. 92. 
 
 141 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 The 
 
 Messianic 
 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Thessalon- 
 ians. 
 
 show very little tendency to work in elaborate 
 imagery as a background to the Day of the Lord. 
 The apostle seemed to have ignored this side of 
 the expectation after Second Thessalonians. Even 
 in the First Epistle to the Corinthians when the 
 question of the Eesnrrection presented a fine field 
 for this phase of the speculation, descriptive 
 minutise so dear to the apocalyptist are not 
 worked out, and in the closing letters, beyond 
 the use of occasional phrases epitomizing the 
 Parousia, the drama has lost practically all its 
 setting. 
 
 Turning now to another main concept of Paul 
 we find that the term, Pao-iXcta^ although occur- 
 ring comparatively seldom in the Pauline epistles, 
 yet wherever ^o used includes both present and 
 eschatological features.^ The Thessalonian 
 letters bring out the future aspect of the kingdom 
 which is initiated by the d-n-oKaXvij/Ls of Jesus. 
 " To the end that ye should walk worthily of 
 God who calleth you into his own kingdom and 
 glory ^^ (I Thessalonians ii, 12). To be delivered 
 from the coming wrath, and " to be for ever with 
 the Lord " is the hope of their glorying. Parti- 
 cipation in that kingdom is the recompense of 
 their patient suffering. " To the end that ye may 
 be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for 
 which ye also suffer^' (II Thessalonians i, 5). 
 Note the parallel in Luke xx, 35, commented on 
 by Dalman,^ where the statement of Jesus is 
 
 ^ Matthews, Messianic Hope, p. 167 ff. 
 = Words of Jesus, p. 118 ff. E. T. 
 
 142 
 
LAKGER ESCHATOLOGICAL COISTCEPTS 
 
 regarded as distinctly eschatological. It is an 
 inheritance into which the wicked cannot enter. Gaiatians. 
 " As I did forewarn you that they who practise 
 such things shall not inherit the kingdom of 
 God" (Galatians v, 21). " Or know ye not that 
 the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of 
 God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators nor 
 idolatorsj . . . shall inherit the kingdom of 
 God" ( I Corinthians vi, 9, 10). '''Now this Ii corintn- 
 say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit 
 the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians xv, 50). 
 Usually the thought of the future is expressed by 
 such terms and phrases as ^(^^v, a-ayrrjpLa^ cts 
 
 (TtOTrjptav^ Soga^ airoXvTpoxrtSj €ts rifxipav awoXyTpiafrews 
 
 which sums up the blessings of the Messianic 
 kingdom.^ 
 
 Concurrently with the eschatological treatment ^® present 
 runs the view of the present and earthly life of 
 the Christian as comprising the kingdom of God. 
 " For the kingdom is not eating and drinking, 
 but righteousness and peace and Joy in the Holy 
 Spirit" (Romans xiv, 17), and probably (Colos- 
 sians i, 13) '' Who delivered us out of the power of 
 darkness and translated us into the kingdom of 
 the Son of his love." The two phases are not 
 antithetic. The kingdom is already begun in the 
 life of the Christian, and the presence of the 
 Spirit is the pledge of the final consummation 
 which is realized in the new ason soon to be 
 inaugurated." For if by the trespass of one, 
 
 ^ Kennedy, St. Paul's Conception of the Last TMngs, cap. i. 
 
 143 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 death reigned by one, much more shall they that 
 receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of 
 righteousness reign in life through the one, even 
 Jesus Christ" (Eomans v, 17). "And not only 
 so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits 
 of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within 
 ourselves, waiting for the Sonship, the redemption 
 of our body" (Eomans viii, 23). "And grieve 
 not the Holy Spirit in whom ye were sealed unto 
 the day of redemption" (Ephesians iv, 30). 
 
 In this two-fold setting of the present and the 
 future life, where should the thought of the 
 apostle in I Corinthians xv, 34-26 be placed? It 
 is generally acknowledged that the eschatological 
 ySao-tXeta or more strictly, the consummated 
 pa<Ti\€La commences with the Parousia of Christ 
 when the fx^/*** of this world undergoes a com- 
 plete transformation, being substituted by the 
 transcendent and heavenly in the rigid sense of 
 late apocalyptic. But does this section indicate 
 that Paul conceived of an interim between the 
 Parousia and the End where a rapid development 
 of Christianity should take place upon this earth 
 together with a final subjugation of all powers 
 inimical to Christ, and that it is only when that 
 conquest has been achieved, should the consum- 
 mation in the strict eschatological sense be 
 reached? The tendency to place an intervening 
 Messianic Kingdom between the two seons, that 
 is, between the Parousia and the Consummation, 
 had come into prominence. The language of 
 IM 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOCIICAL COISrCEPTS 
 
 Paul has, in the view of Pfleiderer^ favored this 
 point of view. " But each in his own order, 
 Christ the first-fruits, then they that are Christ's 
 at his coming. Then cometh the end when he 
 shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the 
 Father/' This passage, to Pfleiderer, represents 
 " a series of moments of the resurrection in which 
 each is separated in time from the preceding one, 
 . . . Hence it follows undeniably that we must 
 conceive the tcXos when Christ gives up the 
 paxrtXeia as essentially different from the Parousia 
 when he enters upon it, and in fact separated 
 from it by the period during which he reigns, i.e. 
 by the period of the millennium (as it is called in 
 the Apocalypse)."^ It is conceded that the inter- 
 val is left indefinite in Paul's treatment but that 
 sufficient time must, nevertheless, be allowed for 
 this extensive work of Christ prior to the deliver- 
 ing up of the kingdom to be affected. If that 
 were the thought of Paul then the Corinthian 
 eschatology at least, in this instance, would be in 
 accord with that expectation of a temporal 
 Messianic kingdom which runs through such 
 writings as Jubilees, I Enoch xci-civ, II Enoch, 
 The Assumption of Moses, II Baruch and others. 
 Paul would then have believed, in agreement 
 with that view, that the Parousia would be the 
 
 ^ Paulinism, vol. i, p. 269 E. T. 
 
 So Beys.cMag : — ' 'It is therefore, incontestable that Paul 
 cherished a view similar to that of the writer of the Apocalypse 
 with his 'thousand years' kingdom' ; though his notion was 
 richer in his content. ' ' New Testament Theology, vol. ii, 
 p. 262 E. T. 
 
 10 145 
 
tion. 
 
 STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 personal return of Jesus to develop on the earth 
 the kingdom of God to its consummation. This 
 period would include the possibility of the con- 
 version of both the Jewish and Gentile peoples 
 which Paul seems to cherish in the subsequent 
 Epistle to the Eomans (xi^ 25, 26). 'Now do the 
 data of Paulas letters furnish sufficient evidence 
 that he held to such a millennial conception ? His 
 consumma- teaching invariably identifies the day of the 
 Parousia with the day of Judgment whereupon 
 the final consummation of the paa-iXeia takes 
 place. Even in Thessalonians there is the express 
 view of the coincidence of the Parousia with the 
 Judgment; this Epistle to the Corinthians itself, 
 that of EomanSj and those still later, indicate no 
 such interval between the Parousia and the Judg- 
 ment^ and thus the problem would be whether 
 there would be one between that event and the 
 complete consummation. In the many passages 
 cited above — (II Thessalonians i, 6-10; I Corin- 
 thians i, 8; iv, 5; Eomans ii, 5-10; Eomans xiii, 
 11 f.; Colossians iii, 4; Philippians iv, 5) it would 
 appear that the judgment synchronizes with the 
 appearance (the Parousia) of Christ. It is diffi- 
 cult to see what would be the nature of this 
 intervening period. However great may have 
 been the optimism of Paul with regard to the 
 triumphs of his Gospel when he wrote Eomans, 
 such triumphs would find a better setting in the 
 interval between the exaltation (the Ascension) 
 of Christ and his Parousia, than between the 
 146 
 
LAKGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 latter and a consummation of the kingdom 
 hypothetically placed at a later stage. 
 
 It may be seen from a study of the pseu- 
 depigraphic sources that the Judaistic sentiment 
 was usually averse to the admission of the 
 Gentiles into the Messianic kingdom. With the 
 exception of a small number of writers like the 
 writers of the Testaments, who appear to voice 
 the cause of the " alien," exclusion is emphatically 
 taught. The later the time the more uncomprom- 
 ising the prejudice. Ocasionally the concession 
 is allowed that they may be spared to " serve 
 Israel" in the temporary Messianic kingdom, 
 but this applies rather to the neutral pagan than 
 to "the actively hostile Gentile, the latter being 
 subject to irretrievable disaster. While the 
 privilege of entrance into the kingdom is some- 
 times allowed, the reference is always to the inter- 
 mediate rule between the two judgments. It is 
 never extended to the resurrection, except in the 
 view of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, where it is not so 
 much a case of a resurrection as a transference of 
 the Gentiles from Sheol to the furnace of 
 Gehenna. 
 
 It is the outstanding greatness of Paul that 
 following the teaching of Jesus he smote hip and 
 thigh that veteran prejudice of Judaism. The 
 steps that led up to his manifesto at Pisidian 
 Antioch may be traced in Acts. The apology ^ttJtade 
 and martyrdom of Stephen, the Cornelian inci-G^^^I, 
 dent, the evangelization of Antioch, the heated 
 147 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 opposition of the Jews constituted the developing 
 preparation. The Council of Jerusalem after 
 severe debate finally gave official sanction to the 
 new Pauline stand, and the record of the Mission- 
 ary journeys is but the history of Paul's success 
 in the breaking down of the wall of partition in 
 Christ, " in whom there could neither be Greek 
 nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, bar- 
 barism, Scythian, bond nor free." Naturally the 
 sifting which would be brought about at the 
 Parousia became based upon moral not upon 
 ethnic grounds. That judgment irrespective as 
 it is of race or ritual is as decisive in its way as 
 in the current apocalyptic. There are a few 
 passages indeed which some expositors have 
 interpreted in the light of Universalism, notably 
 that of the 15th of I Corinthians: "Eor as in 
 Adam all die, even so also in Christ shall all be 
 made alive;" Eomans v, 13-21, "So then as 
 through one trespass the judgment came unto all 
 men to condemnation, even so through one act of 
 righteousness the free gift came unto all men to 
 justification of life." v, 18. So Colossians i, 19, 
 20; Ephesians i, 10; Philippians ii, 9, 10. 
 
 But the Corinthian argument is not designed 
 to prove a general resurrection of wicked and 
 good, but only those who have fallen asleep in 
 Christ. " The stress of the comparison does not 
 lie on fl-avTC9 as though the apostle meant to say 
 that all men will rise in Christ as certainly as 
 they die in Adam . . . The point is that as 
 148 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL COISTCEPTS 
 
 death is, in all cases, grounded in Adam, so life in 
 all eases is grounded in Christ, " no death without 
 the one, no life without the other." 7ravTes=^ot 
 voWot in Eomans v, 18 S., as set in contrast with 
 
 CIS av9p(t)Tro^. 
 
 Beyschlag, while admitting that the passage in 
 II Thessalonians i, 8 points decisively to the 
 eternal destruction of the enemies of God, yet 
 argues that the well-known passage in Eomans 
 (xi, 25, 26) teaches just as certainly their res- 
 toration, and so he advances the theory that 
 " between the composition of the epistles to the 
 Thessalonians and the later main epistles, the J^g^^°^Jj^j^ 
 apostle, in respect of this point of doctrine, had**"^^*^ 
 undergone a change similar to that from the 
 expectation of the Antichrist in II Thessalonians 
 ii, to the hope of the conversion of the world in 
 Eomans xi."^ So Charles : — " In Eomans xi the 
 apostle proclaims the inner and progressive 
 transformation of mankind through the Gospel, 
 culminating in the conversion of the entire 
 Gentile and Jewish world as the immediate 
 prelude of the advent of Christ."^ And the 
 supremacy of Christ as it is more fully developed 
 in the later epistles seems to substantiate in the 
 mind of Beyschlag this standpoint of Eomans xi, 
 while it sends into the background the initial 
 teaching of Thessalonians. That final summing- 
 
 ^ Findlay, I Corinthians, Expos. Greek Testament, p. 926. 
 Cf. Kennedy, St. Paul's Conception of the Last Things, pp. 
 310 ff. 
 
 ^'New Testament Theology, p. 270 (Clark). 
 3 Eschatology, p. 398. 
 
 149 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 up in Christy to Charles, admits, howeyer, the 
 possibility of two alternatives. " Since, however, 
 all things must be reconciled and summed up in 
 Christ, there can be no room finally in the 
 universe for a wicked being, whether human or 
 angelic. Thus the Pauline eschatology points 
 obviously, in its ultimate issues, either to the final 
 redemption of all created personal beings, or — 
 and this seems the true alternative — to the des- 
 truction of the finally impenitent.'^^ 
 
 This section standing by itself might imply 
 the inclusion within the kingdom of the whole 
 world, Israelite and Gentile taken exhaustively. 
 But the phrase, all Israel (ttSs 'la-pavjX) may 
 mean and does mean in several contexts, Israel 
 in the collective sense allowing for individual 
 exceptions. Cf. I Kings xii, 1. "And Eehoboam 
 went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to 
 Shechem to make him king." Daniel ix, 11. 
 " Yea, all Israel have transgressed the law even 
 turning aside that they should not obey thy 
 voice." Just as in impassioned denunciation a 
 prophet might make a general indictment of his 
 nation as a result of widespread idolatry, so he 
 might, in his optimistic outlook for the future, 
 picture a general restoration of his people con- 
 ditioned upon their repentance, and yet in sober 
 reflection admit the possibility of ' individual 
 against it. cases of stubborn and wilful antagonism to 
 Yahweh and his purposes. The case of each 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 405. 
 
 150 
 
LAKGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Israelite on its own merits is not here before the 
 apostle's thought. Questions as to the fate of 
 rebellious Jews who may conceivably die before 
 the Parousia, or of those who have already died 
 are not raised here, and further, his warnings 
 presented again and again throughout the later 
 letters against the vices of his time, suggest the 
 anxiety that the acceptance of his gospel may not 
 be such an unqualified success as his heart might 
 yearn for. Cf. Philippians iii, 18, 19. " For 
 many walk of whom I told you often and now 
 tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies 
 of the Cross of Christ, whose end is perdition.'' 
 
 In the parallel passages to the above, in 
 Ephesians and Philippians, the thought is centred 
 in the supreme Lordship of Christ in the universe. 
 That fact involved the recognition of his Mes- 
 sianic authority even by his enemies. Referring 
 to the Ephesian passage i, 10, Salmond remarks : — 
 " This passage has been supposed to teach the 
 doctrine of a universal restoration. But . . . 
 it has nothing to do with any such doctrine, 
 whether in the sense of a final salvation of all 
 unrighteous and unbelieving men, or in that of 
 a final recovery of all evil beings, devils, and men 
 alike, ... It expresses the truth that Christ 
 is to be the point of union and reconciliation for 
 all things, so that the whole creation shall be 
 finally restored by him to its normal condition 
 of harmony and unity ."^ 
 
 ' Expos. Greek Testament, Ephesians, p. 262. 
 
 151 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 The apostle then has taken over the inevitable 
 character of the Judaistic judgment but, as has 
 been pointed out, bases it upon a strongly ethical 
 foundation, bringing both Jew and Greek, and 
 " every soul of man that worketh evil " beneath 
 the penalty of exclusion from the kingdom, and 
 opening out Messianic " glory and honor and 
 peace to every man that worketh good," both to 
 the Jew and to the pagan who " showed the work 
 of God " written on their hearts ; in a word those 
 that received " the abundance of grace and of the 
 gift of righteousness should reign in life through 
 one, Jesus Christ " (Eomansii, 9-16; v, 17). How 
 far the apostle has swung away from the particu- 
 laristic prejudices of his race may be seen by 
 comparison with many Post-exilian utterances. 
 Even when he is dealing with the present king- 
 dom of God, and not the eschatological, the con- 
 ditions of admission are never theocratic in the 
 narrow sense. The pagan few who chance to 
 escape the punishment of God in Zechariah,^ are 
 represented as going up to Jerusalem to attend 
 annually the feast of the Tabernacles, and in the 
 late Isaiah passages^ all flesh " from one moon to 
 another and from one Sabbath to another " shall 
 come to worship at Jerusalem.^ With Paul, the 
 Gentilesv become " the seed of Abraham " in the 
 sense of their renewed life ^v tS xp^^'^^j "now 
 
 ^ Zechariah xiv, 16. 
 
 2 1xvi, 23. 
 
 ^ Cheyne, Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, p. 134. 
 
 152 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 that the hitherto ethnico-Israelitish character of 
 the theocracy has been entirely removed."^ 
 
 There is here a peculiar divergence from, and 
 yet a parallelism with, such Judaistic thought. 
 In the above utterances it is clear that pagans 
 are admitted to the theocratic kingdom when they 
 become Jews in the sense of adhering to Jewish 
 ceremonies, and worshipping in Jerusalem, in a 
 word, adopting the Jewish religion. With Paul, 
 pagans who showed the work of God written in 
 their hearts, or who accepted the free gift in 
 Christ, are admitted to the Messianic kingdom, but 
 in no case is there any hope of other pagan dead. 
 
 Most of the functions ascribed to the Messiah 
 in the contemporary apocalyptic are in the 
 Pauline epistles assigned to Jesus. Sometimes 
 his official duties seem to be clearly distinguished 
 from the work which God alone has to perform; 
 at other times both are regarded in the same 
 eschatological capacity. The Parousia or 
 oLTTOKdhnj/Ls as seen above is invariably that of J^^^^j^j^ 
 Jesus who is to appear from heaven with the 
 angels of his power, but the deliverance which 
 the believer obtains is always from the retributive 
 judgment of God described as y opyrf ri ipxafiivr]; 
 17 opyy Tov Oeov ^ The work of immediate 
 deliverance is the task of Christ, " who delivereth 
 us from the wrath to come" (I Thessalonians 
 
 ^Riehm, Messianic Prophecy p. 261, E.T. 
 ^l Thessalonians i, 10; ii. 16; v, 9. Romans i, 18; ii, 5; 
 iii, 5; iv, 15; v, 9; ix, 22; Romans xii, 19. Colossians iii, 6. 
 Ephesiana ii, 3; v, 6. 
 
 153 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Thessalon- 
 ians. 
 
 I Corintli- 
 ians. 
 
 II Corinth- 
 ians. 
 
 Bomans. 
 
 i, 10) ; "who gave himself for our sins that he 
 might deliver us out of this present evil world" 
 ('Gralatians i^ 4). Usually God is Judge, and it is 
 his judgment which is executed, though occasion- 
 ally the function is directly that of Christ. " So 
 that we ourselves glory in you in the churches 
 of 'God, . . . if so be that it is a righteous 
 thing with God to recompense affliction to them 
 that afflict you" (II Thessalonians i, 4-6). In 
 the following verses, " the divine prerogative 
 (e.g. fiery manifestation and judicial authority) 
 are carried over to JesuS/'^ So in I Corinthians 
 iv, 5 : — " Wherefore judge nothing before the 
 time, until the Lord come who will bring to light 
 the hidden things of darkness." Also II Corin- 
 thians V, 10 " For we must all be made manifest 
 before the judgment seat of Christ." On the 
 other hand, the second chapter of Eomans refers 
 throughout to the judgeship of God. " And 
 reckonest thou this, man . . . that thou 
 shalt escape the judgment of God, . . . who 
 will render to every man according to his works?" 
 (verses 3-6). '' In the day when God shall judge 
 the secrets of men according to my gospel by 
 Jesus Christ" (v, 16). €f. also Romans iii, 5, 
 6, 19 — " Is God unrighteous who visiteth with 
 wrath? . . . God forbid, for then how shall 
 God judge the world ? . . . That every mouth 
 may be stopped, and all the world may be 
 brought under the judgment of God." And also 
 
 * Moffatt, ExpoB. Greek Testament, 45. 
 
 154 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Romans siv, 10, " 5'or we shall all stand before 
 the judgment seat of God/^ Whenever the 
 kingdom becomes the subject of treatment the 
 predominant reference is to God, only rarely to 
 Christ, — at least in phraseology — " To the end 
 that ye should walk worthily of God who ealleth 
 you into his own kingdom and glory ^' (I Thessa- 
 lonians ii, 12). 'Of. also II Thessalonians i, 5; 
 Galatians v, 21; I Corinthians vi, 10; xv, 50. In 
 Ephesians the kingdom belongs both to God and 
 to Christ. " For this ye know of a surety that 
 no fornicator . . . hath any inheritance in 
 the kingdom of Christ and of God" (v, 5). 
 
 Whenever the apostle in retrospect undertakes 
 an interpretation of history, or in long distance 
 prospective attempts to picture its goal, the 
 operations belong to God. Nowhere is this seen 
 so clearly as in the Lucan record of PauFs address 
 at Athens. There his rigid Jewish monotheism 
 is boldly outlined : — " The God that made the 
 world and all things therein, he being Lord of 
 heaven and earth, . . . But now he com- 
 mandeth men that they should everywhere repent, 
 inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which 
 he will judge the world in righteousness by the ^'^"J*^**?^ 
 man whom he hath ordained " (Acts xvii, 24-31). *<> ^°^- 
 In the epistles it is God "who raised Jesus from 
 the dead, who will bring with him those that have 
 fallen asleep in Jesus,^ who appointed us not 
 
 ^I Thessalonians i, 10; iv, 14; I Corinthians vi, 14; 
 XV, 15; II Corinthians i, 9; xiii, 4; Romans i, 4; iv, 24; 
 Romans viii, 11; x, 9; Colossians ii, 12; Ephesians i, 20. 
 
 155 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 unto wrath/ but unto the obtaining of salvation, 
 who separated Paul from his mother's womb and 
 called him through his grace/ who sent forth his 
 Son born of a woman under the law/ who chose 
 the foolish things of the world that he 
 might put to shame them that are wise/ who 
 always leadeth in triumph in Christ/ who 
 said ^ Light shall shine out of darkness/ "^ " But 
 all things are of God who reconciled us to himself 
 through Christ/'"'' The supremacy of God as the 
 creative and sustaining source is emphasized in 
 I Corinthians and in Eomans, " For there be that 
 are called Gods, ... yet to us there is but 
 one Godj the Father of whom (ii ov) are all 
 things and we unto him («« avrdv), and one 
 Lord Jesus Christ, through whom (St ou) are 
 all things, and we through him " (St avrav) 
 (I Corinthians viii, 6). Combining this- with the 
 fifteenth chapter, it would appear that some 
 function mediatorial in character was ascribed to 
 Christ after which he delivers up the kingdom 
 which he has established to God the Father. In 
 whatever light the 28th verse may be construed 
 the final phrase, "that God may be all in all," 
 seems to throw into relief the subordination of 
 Christ, and the indisputable sovereignty of God. 
 
 * I Thessalonians v, 9, 10. 
 ^Galatians i, 15, 16. 
 ^ Galatians iv, 4, 5. 
 ■• I Corinthians i, 27. 
 " II Gorintliians il, 14. 
 " II Corinthians iv, 6. 
 
 ^11 Corinthians v, 18, 19. Cf. RomanB iii, 25; viii, 32. 
 Colossians i, 20. 
 
 156 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Romans reiterates this point. " For of him (God) 
 and through him, and unto him are all things^' 
 xi, 36. 
 
 But now it is interesting to note that the 
 Imprisonment epistles dealing as they do with 
 the Christological phase of eschatology, apply the 
 same predicates to Christ as the above epistles 
 apply to God, and this fact has led to the theory 
 that Paul has here emerged into a new develop- 
 ment with regard to the exaltation of Christ. 
 Charles states that while " in earlier epistles the 
 creation of the world was effected through the 
 Son, (I iCorinthians viii, 6) its consummation 
 was to be realized in the Father when the SonPnnctions 
 
 assigned 
 
 had resigned his mediatorial kingdom to the to Christ. 
 Father (I Corinthians xv, 24-26). 'But in these 
 later epistles not only is the Son the Creative 
 agent in the universe, " in him were all things 
 created'^ (Colossians i, 17) — not only is he the 
 principle of cohesion and unity whereby it is a 
 cosmos and not a chaos — " in him all things hold 
 together ^^ (<tvv€(ttt}K€v Colossians i, 17) — "but 
 he is also the end to which they move — ' all things 
 were created, . . . unto him ' " (ets avror 
 Colossians i, 16).^ Compare Ephesians i, 10 where 
 " all things are summed up in Christ, the 
 things in the heavens and the things on the 
 earth." 
 
 It is not the purpose here to show the possi- 
 bility of reconciling this exalted position of 
 
 ^ Charles, Eschatology, p. 403. 
 
 157 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Christ in the view of Paul with the Jewish idea 
 of monotheism, nor of indicating how the later 
 dogmas^ of Christendom developed out of Pauline 
 Christology. One phase of this problem though in 
 a less accentuated degree appears in earlier 
 Judaism. The work of the Messiah was never 
 sharply differentiated from that of Yahweh 
 wherever comparisons are made in either the 
 prophecies or the pseudepigrapha. The deliver- 
 ance of the nation was to be accomplished through 
 Yahweh or through his servants. It might be 
 assumed throughout that the ultimate source of 
 salvation was everywhere the power of Yahweh, 
 and references to other agencies have in the back- 
 ground the idea of relegated authority. " Behold 
 a king shall reign in righteousness and princes 
 shall reign in justice " (Isaiah xxxii, 1 ; xxxii, 17) . 
 " For Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh is our law- 
 giver, Yahweh is our king ; he will save us " 
 (Isaiah xxxiii, 22'). The Deliverer of Davidic 
 descent is raised up by Yahweh to execute justice 
 and righteousness, in Jeremiah (xxiii, 5; xxxiii, 
 14-26). He is the Mediator for the Gentiles, and 
 the Prophet of the Most High, and rules over all 
 nations with the authority given him by God, in 
 the Testaments (Lev. viii, 14), but again it 
 is Yahweh who "visits all the Gentiles with 
 his mercies " (Lev. iv, 4) . In the Psalms 
 of Solomon, a righteous king of the House of 
 David is to be raised up to destroy the godless 
 nations (xvii, 27), but still more frequently is 
 158 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 that destruction regarded as the direct visitation 
 of Yahweh without reference to an intermediary 
 (xv, 1-15). 
 
 It is suflficient to point out here that the apostle 
 in the closing years of his life soared ahead of all 
 apocalyptic precedents in declaring the authorita- 
 tive functions of the Messiah. His pre-existence 
 is indeed a conception not unfamiliar to the Inter- 
 Testament literature. The Similitudes states — 
 " Before the sun and the signs were created, 
 before the stars of the heaven were made, his 
 name was named before the Lord of Spirits '^ 
 (I Enoch xlviii, 3), but this and the large list 
 of titles which constitute the dignity of the 
 Messiah, distributed through the section xxxvii- 
 Ixxi, cannot compare in significance with the 
 remarkable sentences of Colossians i, 15-20; 
 Ephesians i, 10; and Philippians ii, 5-11. It is 
 true that earlier epistles show evidence of this 
 high authority — (Galatians iv, 4; I Corinthians 
 viii, 6; II Corinthians viii, 9; Romans viii, 3, 32) 
 
 but the later and more dcA'eloped thought makes, 
 
 • 
 
 in explicit terms, all eschatological interests 
 centre in Christ, and in man's relation to him. 
 This transition, or as some might hold, culmina- 
 tion in Paul's Yiew remains a problem to be 
 examined. Even if the position in Colossians and 
 Ephesians be regarded as a natural culmination of 
 the antecedent views, it is perfectly legitimate 
 to inquire what was the background, what were 
 the occasions which led to this further and 
 159 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 apparently final step. Was it due to PauFs 
 further reflection upon the position which Christ 
 should hold in the complete religious life of the 
 world, and was it brought forth by his keen and 
 perhaps sympathetic observation of the religious 
 practices of contemporary faiths? 
 
 The problems that confronted Paul's vision at 
 the outset of his missionary activity were of the 
 most complex character. Three centuries before 
 his time, the rise of the Macedonian power had 
 wrought great changes in the political organiza- 
 tion of Greece, and the new world empire that 
 sprang up in the path of the victorious armies 
 of Alexander had impressed Greek culture, — its 
 literature, art, and habits of thought upon 
 Eastern civilization from the Aegean to the Indus. 
 Babylonia, Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor were 
 molded by the wide-spread expansion of this 
 new power, and, for several centuries afterwards, 
 the intellectual supremacy of Athens itself was 
 challenged by the vigorous growth of such great 
 Hellenic centres as Alexandria, Antioch and 
 Tarsus. The same dominance of Hellenic thought 
 had also prevailed throughout the West. Several 
 centuries before the rise of Alexander, numerous 
 Greek colonies had been founded in every region 
 of the Mediterranean, and thus by the end of the 
 third century B.C. that vast stretch of territory 
 from Spain to Persia might well have been called 
 the Hellenistic world. Every prominent city 
 became an educational centre for Hellenism. 
 Whereas " the Jews developed a system of home 
 160 
 
LARGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 education, in which certain religious, and family 
 and national influences were impressed on the 
 child in a marvellous fashion so that they per- 
 manently molded his character; . . . Hellenism 
 evolved a national and public education, intellec- 
 tual and physical, of remarkable character ; and it 
 was in later times and in the Graeco- Asiatic cities 
 that this system can be observed in greatest per- 
 fection."^ 
 
 Nor was Hellenism supplanted by the Latin 
 civilization when Rome in her turn completed 
 her military subjugation of Europe and Western 
 Asia.^ It is true that Roman citizenship carried 
 with it certain inalienable rights which afforded 
 special protection to his life and property, 
 wherever, in any one of the provinces, a Roman 
 appeared before a tribunal. He was by his birth 
 a member of a recognized aristocracy wherever 
 the power of his government was felt. But apart 
 from this the Romanizing of the East in the 
 strictly cultural sense was not all carried to the 
 same degree that the Hellenizing process had been 
 
 ^ Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, p. 41. 
 
 ^ Momsen, History, vol. v, p. 465 E. T. "The increased 
 contact with, the Greeks, especially the frequent iourneya 
 of the Romans into the Hellenic provinces, and the 
 assemblage of literati in Rome naturally produced a public, 
 even amongst the Italians, for the Greek literature of the 
 day." 
 
 See also Schiirer, Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 
 Div. ii, vol. i, p. 51 E. T. "But Latin, as in the Eastern 
 provinces, so also in Palestine, attained no wide diffusion 
 till the late Imperial period. In the first .centuries the 
 Roman officials in their intercourse with provincials exclu- 
 sively employed the Greek language." 
 
 11 161 
 
STUDIES IN PAULIISrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 in the earlier centuries., On the contrary, the 
 original Greek influence became by Eoman exten- 
 sion more deeply ingrained upon eastern life than 
 it had ever been. " Eome was content to 
 organize and govern them (the Eastern provinces) 
 to preserve peace in an orderly population and 
 make it contribute to the strength of the Empire 
 as a whole. "^ Hellenic ideals were not disturbed 
 but fostered, and the fact that the kolvt^^ the 
 common speech of the Grseco-Eoman world in 
 the lifetime of Paul was the Greek dialect shows 
 the tremendous influence such a culture had upon 
 the thought and manners of the first Christian 
 century.^ In Philosophy and Eeligion, Greek 
 thought was perpetuated although constantly 
 undergoing considerable modifications. The 
 decline of the city-states had opened out a vision 
 of a larger brotherhood " that transcended the 
 limits of a city or a tribe." The Stoic Philosophy,^ 
 by far the most widely diffused philosophy of this 
 age had taken hold of the principle of univer- 
 salism, and had worked it out in a system of 
 ethics containing some of the noblest utterances 
 in the two or three centuries immediately pre- 
 ceding the time of Christ, as also in the first 
 century following. 
 
 ^ Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, p. 7. 
 
 ^Deissmann, New Light on the New Testament, p. 31. 
 E. T. 
 
 ' C. H. Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 40. "Its ideas 
 penetrated into all parts of the Roman Empire leaving no 
 cultivated community or circle untouched or uncolored by 
 their influences, not even Jewish Palestine, so much disposed 
 to hold itself aloof from heathen thought." 
 
 162 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 But agairij just as the East, as represented in 
 the newly established kingdoms consequent upon 
 the division of Alexander's empire, absorbed the 
 pervasive civilization of Greece, so reciprocally 
 there streamed into the West many powerful 
 currents which, as far as they have been traced, 
 are believed to have had their source in Oriental 
 origins.^ Long before the third century B.C. 
 " the commercial cities of Ionia threw open their 
 gates to Asiatic influences." Referring to the 
 Chaldean infiltrations after the Persian wars, 
 Cumont remarks : — " Certain facts recently 
 brought to light indicate that the relations, direct 
 or indirect, between the centres of Babylonian 
 learning and the Greek culture, were never at any 
 time entirely broken off/' " Babylon was to the 
 men of old the mother of astronomy as of star 
 worship. It is in this department more than all 
 others that it is possible to show how the Greeks 
 profited, . . . from the positive data which 
 had been slowly accumulated by these ancient 
 priests of Mesopotamia."^ 
 
 Eastern speculation, however, was more widely 
 transmitted through the medium of the Jewish 
 Diaspora. The exile had sent the Jews into many 
 remote parts of the world, especially into Baby- 
 lonia and Egypt. Later, continuous migrations 
 through Asia Minor had resulted in the founding 
 
 ^ For discussion of Asiatic influences, see Hogarth, Ionia 
 and the East, p. 99 ff. 
 
 ^ Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and 
 Romans, p. 44. 
 
 163 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 of numerous settlements, and it is probable that 
 many phases of Persian theology, as well as 
 much that was native to the Hebraic religion 
 had slowly filtered into cities where Hellenism 
 had already gained the ascendant. Eamsay refers 
 to Tarsus as the main city in the iGrseco-Asiatic 
 kingdoms which attempted most successfully to 
 unite the Oriental and the Occidental. The 
 other cities of "Western Asia had to some extent 
 accomplished that union, but " The Tarsian state 
 was more successful than any other of the great 
 cities of the time in producing an amalgamated 
 society in which the Oriental and the Occidental 
 spirit in unison attained in some degree a higher 
 plane of thought and action."^ 
 
 In other parts of the Hellenized world this 
 general interblending of religious and physical^ 
 speculation of both East and West had no better 
 illustration than in the country along the Nile. 
 Egypt had served for centuries as a distributing 
 centre for hybrid beliefs.^ That nation had 
 received considerable accessions of Jews in the 
 age antedating the Persian conquests. Colonies 
 were continually being established under the 
 reign of Alexander, and especially during the 
 Ptolemaic dynasty when the Jews were allowed 
 on a liberal scale to participate in the political, 
 religious and commercial life of the Empire. 
 
 1 Op. cit. p. 89. 
 
 2 ' 'Hellenistic theology was most strongly influenced by 
 Egyptian conceptions and traditions. The Egyptian religion 
 is known to have spread itself over the Hellenistic world." 
 Mea'd, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, vol. i, p. 41. 
 
 164 
 
LAEGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Jewish temples were built and synagogues estab- 
 lished, and what is even more significant Hellen- 
 istic Judaism produced its great literary achieve- 
 ment in the Septuagint translation of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, 
 
 But the religious life of the time, seemed to 
 have found its most distinct expression in a 
 syncretism^ grounded in the mystery-cults of the 
 East^. This was made possible by the influx into 
 the West of people from many countries each 
 with its special deity and mode of worship. Lake 
 points out that the word Diaspora has usually J*/^t^e^*^° 
 been narrowed too much in its meaning by being ^^1*®^ 
 applied exclusively to the Jewish Dispersion, that 
 " it was the Orontes, not the Jordan which seemed 
 to the Roman eye to be flowing into the Tiber, 
 and we ought to remember that just as there was 
 a Jewish Diaspora with its proselytizing propa- 
 ganda, there were Egyptian, Syrian, Persian and 
 other Diasporse, in which the various cults were 
 taught, though each probably with more or . less 
 pronounced variations from the native type."^ 
 
 The Mysteries in their earlier forms were based 
 upon such myths as the tearing to pieces by the 
 Titans of Dionysus Zagreus, the Son of Zeus, in 
 the form of a bull, after which the parts were 
 devoured by the Titans. The latter were des- 
 troyed by Zeus in revenge, but from their remains 
 
 ^The Mysteries of Mithra. Mead, p. 38 S. 
 
 ^ Shirley Jackson Case. Biblical World, xliii, No. 
 January, 1914. 
 
 *Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, p. 42. 
 
 1G5 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 sprang up a new race of men in which both good 
 and evil elements were mingled, and the process 
 of redemption consisted in eliminating the 
 Titanic elements by a series of reincarnations, 
 which, as they succeeded each other, became 
 increasingly characterized by the presence within 
 man of the god-like nature. The earliest type 
 of such emancipation centred in orgiastic rites 
 where devotees after sacrificing a bull devoured 
 it. Under the stimulus of frenzied intoxication 
 the worshipper believed himself to be identified, 
 partially at least with the god — in the sense of 
 partaking of the virtues of the God, in whose 
 name the sacrifice was offered. These excesses 
 became in the course of time relieved of their 
 many extravagances especially under the infiuence 
 of astral worship mediated by the Stoic of Syria, 
 Posidonius, who took hold of the astronomical 
 speculations of Persia and Babylonia and adapted 
 them to the religious life of his own country.^ 
 
 Everywhere in the Western world^ these cults 
 were established. In Egypt the cult of Isis and 
 Osiris formed a large part of the national 
 religion.^ In Phrygia, it was the worship of 
 Cybele and Attis; that of Dionysus probably had 
 its home in Thrace. But while certain cults were 
 
 * Cumont, Astrology and Religion, p. 147. 
 
 2 The Mysteries of Mithra. Mead, p. 18. 
 
 ^ The Corpus Hermeticum, a large body of Eg3T)tian 
 literature, shows the remarkable blend of foreign religious 
 ideas together with "native" thought. Persian cosmolo- 
 gical theories, Stoic philosophy, liturgic fragments embodying 
 diverse mystery strains are all intermingled in its many 
 strands. 
 
 166 
 
LAEGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 at first more usually associated with certain 
 great centres than with others, there was grad- 
 ually formed a general syncretism^ which espec- 
 ially peculiarized important commercial cities 
 frequented by travellers from over the Mediter- 
 ranean -coast. The worship of Dionysus became 
 blended with that of Cybele and Isis. Votaries 
 of any particular god in their intercourse with 
 foreigners found marked afiinities in the worship 
 of gods of other lands, — a fact which greatly 
 facilitated the community of feeling at a given 
 shrine. When the national religious faiths of early 
 Greece became to a great extent dissolved upon the 
 change of political fortunes in the third century 
 B.C., these cult communities (^tWot), supplied 
 the place of the old national bonds, and men 
 journeying from the most diverse parts of the 
 world might unite together in their common 
 sacrifice to a god, who was not conceived merely 
 as the patron of a local patriotism.^ The Stoic 
 philosophy as it penetrated the Roman world 
 
 ^ "Philo also tells us that the worker of all is gnosis, 
 
 emaT'^fir^j the very name which Plutarch gives to Isis. ' ' 
 
 Mead, op. cit. vol. 2, p. 30. See cults of the Greek State, 
 vol. 2, p. 473 fe. Farnell. 
 
 ^Ferguson in "Hellenistic Athens" refers to the frequent 
 importation of new deities into Greek life in the fourth and 
 third centuries B.C. This worship was propagated through 
 private associations of ' 'orgeones' ' dedicated to the Great 
 Mother, Dionysus and other deities. ' 'The renascence of 
 these private associations, since it affected aliens from all 
 parts as well as natives, is a general Hellenistic, not a 
 specifically Attic phenomenon. It is attributable in large 
 part to the new cosmopolitanism which the conquests of 
 Alexander had produced." Hellenistic Athens, p. 220. 
 
 For evidence of the Great Mother worship in the Peiraens 
 in the fourth century B.C., see also "Mythology and Monu- 
 ments of Ancient Athens." Harrison and Verrall, p. 46 £f. 
 
 167 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 seemed in this one respect to give added strength 
 to the religious unity. In Ephesus and Smyrna, 
 as well as further inland into Phrygian t-erritory 
 and in the large towns along the Ionian coast, in 
 the cities of Thrace, notably at Philippi, and 
 throughout Greece numerous associations in 
 honor of the Great Mother and other affiliated 
 deities were in evidence, at least for three or four 
 centuries before the lifetime of Paul. The 
 Eleusinian Mysteries had become a Pan-Hellenic 
 festival. The brotherhoods had penetrated fur- 
 ther West, and there is evidence of the worship 
 of Isis and Dionysus in Eome as early as the 
 second century B.C.^ 
 
 Amidst all the manifold constituents that com- 
 prised the Mystery Eeligions one conspicuous 
 feature emerged into the foreground. The 
 inheritance which the West received from the 
 Chaldeans was the belief in the government of 
 human life by the influence of sidereal revolutions. 
 In Babylonia, not only was the course of a man's 
 life regarded as being fixed by elfmpfian]^ but 
 also the wider existence of the gods themselves. 
 Moreover, the rhythmic regularity which marked 
 the movements of the sun and moon and the 
 
 ^ The cult of Isis was perpetuated in Rome with, the most 
 degrading ceremonial. It had become such a social pest that 
 its official exercise in the temples of the city was sternly 
 suppressed by Tiberius in 19 A.D., the statue of the goddess 
 being thrown into the river, and the priests crucified. 
 Friedlander, Koman Life and Manners under the Early 
 Empire, 256 E. T. "The worship of the Phrygian Mother 
 of the gods was adopted by the Romans in 204 B.C., towards 
 the close of their long struggle with Hannibal." Frazer, 
 Golden Bough, vol. i, 265. See also Hausrath, New Testa- 
 ment History, vol. i, p. 61, E. T. 
 
 168 
 
LAKGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 stars had given rise to the idea that the course 
 of the universe formed a never ending series of 
 vast periods, each one merely repeating the cycle 
 of its predecessor. Similarly the life of man was 
 wrapped up in the same kind of periodicity. The 
 doctrine of the wheel of births was a theological 
 formulation of that astronomical theory. But 
 this speculation had to subject itself to the 
 demands made upon it by religious hopes. Astro- 
 logy was in the hands of Chaldean priests who 
 professed to be able to rescue an individual from 
 his fate by an elaborate system of incantations 
 and magical ceremonies. Whenever apparent 
 irregularities occurred, as the appearance of fall- 
 ing stars or comets, such phenomena were inter- 
 preted as exceptional divergences from the rule 
 of necessity, and the priesthood, in accordance 
 with this fact, was regarded as possessing the 
 means of emancipating human life from the 
 thraldom of the archons. In other words. 
 Mysticism became par excellence the remedy 
 against the power of fate. " Not only magic but 
 also mysteries profess to teach methods for exor- 
 cising Fate. They will be able to appease the 
 wrath of sidereal powers and to win their favor 
 by rites and offerings; they will teach above all 
 how to prolong man's life beyond the term 
 appointed by Destiny, and to assure him an 
 immortality of bliss. "^ The outstanding goal 
 then of the Mysteries was just this deliverance 
 
 ^ Cinnont, op. cit., p. 161. Jastrow, Religions of Babylonia 
 and Assyria, Chapter XVI. 
 
 169 
 
,STIJDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 from the rule of the archons — an immortality 
 freed from the trammels of Eate, an actual 
 deification of the initiate effected through the 
 proper employment of the apparatus provided by 
 the cult.^ The rites symbolized the death and 
 resurrection of the mystes. It is significant that 
 the great festivals were connected with the rota- 
 tions of the seasons, — with the sowing and the 
 reaping of the corn, with the decay and growth 
 of vegetation.^ They were attended with brilliant 
 pageantry, processions and sacrifices, the critical 
 moment of resurrection occurring in the darkness 
 of night, broken by the sudden illumination of 
 torches.^ Initiates were sworn upon oath to keep 
 secret the formulse which accompanied initiation. 
 Ablutions, fastings, sacraments and rigid ascetic 
 prescriptions formed the preliminaries to the final 
 act which was supposed to graduate the neophyte 
 from his life of mortality and decay into an exis- 
 tence god-like and eternal. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to derive both 
 the Synoptic tradition of the life of Jesus, 
 especially the account of his passion, death and 
 
 ^ Manual of Greek Antiquities, Gardiner and Jevons, p. 224. 
 ' ' In the mysteries various deities were .called upon by 
 secret names, the mere utterances of which by the votaries 
 put them at once on a footing of intimacy with the 
 god." 
 
 3 "They pictured to themselves the growth and decay of 
 vegetation, the birth and death of living creatures as_ the 
 effects of the waxing or waning strength of divine being?, 
 of gods and goddesses who were born and died, who married 
 and begot children on the pattern of human life." Frazer, 
 Golden Bough, vol. i, p. 1. 
 
 3 Kennedy, St. Paul and'^he Mystery Religions, p. 215. 
 
 170 
 
LAEGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 resurrection, and many of the main conceptions 
 of Paul from the elaborate machinery of the 
 mysteries as here outlined. J. M. Robertson 
 regarded the records of the closing portion of the 
 life of Jesus as simply a transcript of the Mystery- 
 Drama.^ And parallels have been adduced in 
 Mystic fragments, in Gnostic literature, in Stoic 
 philosophy,^ and in formulations of Oriental 
 gnosis in general to account for the whole 
 theology of Paul. It is not the purpose here to 
 discuss in any detail the merits or demerits of 
 such a point of view. It is perhaps sufficient just 
 at present to point out that the position has in 
 no sense been established, but, on the contrary, 
 evidence may be gathered at great length in proof 
 of the comparative independence of the apostle 
 Paul. But it must, however, be admitted that 
 the Grseco-Roman world with its vast amalgam 
 of religious beliefs,^ with its society composed of 
 innumerable strata formed by the many Diasporse, 
 which had poured into it for centuries, consti- 
 tuted precisely the very environment in which 
 Paul lived, and travelled, and thought. And now 
 the problem stated on page 160 recurs again with 
 greater emphasis. What was the standpoint from 
 which the apostle approached the cardinal 
 
 ^ Christianity and Mythology, quoted by Clemeu, op. cit. 
 
 ^ The close af&nity of Seneca's teaching with that of Paul 
 suggests contact of thought. True worship, to Seneca, con- 
 sisted in purity of life where God was known not in temples, 
 but in the "sanctuary of the heart." As far as one might 
 work out a theory of dependence there is just as much 
 reason to argue for the priority of Paul as of Seneca. 
 
 ^ Zeller, Eclectics, p. 146. Toy, Judaism and Christianity, 
 p. 10. 
 
 171 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Problems of 
 Christology 
 in later 
 Epistles. 
 
 religious needs of those diverse races that 
 thronged the centres of population from Eome to 
 the shores of the Euxine ? Was the rabbinical and 
 apocalyptic outlook which governed the earlier 
 part of his life broad enough to solve the new 
 and knotty situations that arose in his missionary 
 labors? What functions did he assign to Jesus, 
 in his character of Messiah and Saviour, which 
 might satisfy a mystic neophyte yearning for 
 deliverance from the burdens which Oriental 
 beliefs had imposed upon him? In short, was 
 the exalted role, which in the view of Paul as 
 expressed in the later epistles, Christ performed, 
 the outcome at least in part, of the cravings and 
 needs that seemed to grow in magnitude and 
 intensity as the apostle in his distant journeys 
 saw more and more of the condition of the Gentile 
 world ? 
 
 It has been seen that Paul although of the 
 strictest sect a Pharisee, and a child of his age 
 in carrying with him even throughout his life a 
 large part of his Jewish inheritance, yet in many 
 essential directions travelled far beyond the 
 horizon of his co-religionists, feeling that he had 
 authority invested in him through Christ to make 
 many fundamental departures from the Judaistic 
 point of view. How much then of the religious 
 outlook as traced above could he adopt as in har- 
 mony with his own position, and how much would 
 he reject as being contrary thereto, and, further, 
 may one suppose that the high Christology of the 
 Imprisonment epistles may have been shaped in 
 17^ 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 part by the reaction of his thought on the 
 religious movements of his time ? 
 
 Paul's teachings upon the Pre-existence of 
 Christ have already been alluded to in an earlier 
 part of this discussion. This phase of the charac- 
 ter of the Messiah had been in Judaistic writings 
 subjected to a two-fold treatment^ viz., that of 
 Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism.^ When not 
 conceived in purely symbolic terms, the Messiah 
 is represented occasionally as existing before the 
 creation of the stars of heaven, and later in his 
 manifestation on earth he is described by titles 
 which indicate his character of righteousness, 
 wisdom, power and kingship. I Enoch 37-71. 
 This reference is in accord with a more ancient 
 Jewish conception that many earthly possessions 
 highly valued by the nation such as the Temple, 
 the city of Jerusalem, and the Law pre-existed in 
 heaven before they were manifested upon earth, 
 and that this manifestation (^iavepova-Oai) was 
 simply a reduplication in visible shape of what in 
 heaven was regarded as invisible, 'fhis applied 
 also in the wide sense to the history of the world 
 and its destiny, and in the figure of the " Books 
 of God " kept by angelic ministers is in its way 
 a reflection of this idea. Pre-existence seems at 
 first to be confined to certain Messianic things 
 considered of high importance, but from the time 
 of the Maccabees onwards, under the influence 
 of Greek thought the restriction was removed and 
 
 ^ Volz, Jiidische Eschatologie, 334 f. 
 
 173 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY^ 
 
 persons also were included. The appearance of 
 the Messiah on earth was of this kind^ but 
 nowhere is there evidence that the predication of 
 Deity was made in his special case. Compare 
 IV Ezra xiii, 25, 26. "Whereas thou didst see 
 a man coming up from the heart of the sea; this 
 is he whom the Most High is keeping many ages." 
 " This is/' says Harnack " neither an incarnation 
 nor a humiliation, but he appears on earth as he 
 exists before God, viz., as a mighty and just king, 
 equipped with all gifts . . . Nowhere do we 
 find in Jewish writings a conception which 
 advances beyond the notion that the Messiah is 
 the man who is with God in heaven; and who 
 will make his appearance at his own time.''^ 
 
 On the other hand, the references in Hellen- 
 istic literature to the pre-existence of Wisdom 
 can scarcely be interpreted in any other sense 
 than that of the personification of an abstraction 
 or an attribute of God. Wisdom was present 
 when God made the worlds; it is the creator of 
 all things; and is described in terms which in 
 other places are ascribed to God himself. It is 
 an " effulgence from everlasting light, a breath 
 of the power of God, which remaining in herself, 
 renewed all things and from generation to gener- 
 ation passes into holy ones" (Wisdom vii, 25, 
 26). In Philo, one cannot be definite in drawing 
 such a distinction especially in his treatment of 
 the Logos. The Messiah who brings back the 
 
 ^ History of Dogma, vol i, p. 323. E. T. 
 174 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Tribes is " more divine than is compatible with 
 its being of the nature of man, invisible indeed 
 to every one else, but apparent only to those that 
 are saved" (iii, 494). 
 
 Now in whatever centres of Paul's missionary 
 labors wherein representatives of Alexandrian 
 philosophy and Palestinian thought were to be 
 found, it seems clear that the apostle could have 
 found some points of contact with both classes. 
 In fact Paul works out a partial synthesis of 
 both points of view, though indeed with the 
 elimination of certain phases peculiar to each. 
 The pre-existence of Christ is laid down in both 
 earlier and later epistles, but never is the point 
 forgotten that this Christ alike in the pre-existent 
 state as in his exaltation, is the same who was 
 Jesus "born of a woman, and born under the 
 law." " But when the fulness of the time came, 
 God sent forth his Son born of a woman, born 
 under the law, that he might redeem them that 
 were imder the law" (Galatians iv, 4, 5). "But 
 ye know the gi-ace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 though he was rich yet for your sakes he became 
 poor that ye through his poverty might become 
 rich" (II Corinthians viii, 9). "God sending 
 his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
 for sin condemned sin in the flesh" (Eomans 
 viii, 3). Now it is usual to speak of Hellenistic 
 theology as dealing with abstractions in the sense 
 that the agencies at work such as Wisdom are the 
 Deity's several attributes hypostasized as individ- 
 175 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 urrnt!^'*'**" ualSj or to use a still more difficult term^ Person- 
 alities. And it is exceedingly difficult to deter- 
 mine whether or not these so-called abstractions 
 were recognized by the people concerned as 
 abstractions, or whether such categories are the 
 refinements of a later age, even the present, eager 
 for fine distinctions. While then it is with some 
 hesitation, in view of the indefiniteness of the 
 treatment in Philo and elsewhere, that we would 
 characterize these conceptions of Hellenistic or 
 Alexandrian theology as being exactly such abstrac- 
 tions, it seems to be fairly clear that if such were 
 the case Paul does not adopt that method. If, on 
 the other hand, these non-Christian theologies 
 were not employing abstractions but were dealing 
 with those things which they believed to be the 
 attributes of God, i.e., God acting in this, that, 
 or the other way, there remains the question as 
 to whether or not Paul was in accord with this 
 latter line of argument. In any case the 
 Alexandrian, assuming that he was acquainted 
 with his own literature, received from Paul 
 emphatic declarations as to the earthly history 
 of Jesus. And to the Jew was pressed home the 
 teaching that Palestinian speculation about the 
 Messiah fell short of the real glory of Christ, and 
 here Colossians, Ephesians and Philippians 
 abound in higher predicates. It must not be 
 claimed, of course, that there is no evidence of 
 this Christology in earlier letters. Compare 
 176 
 
LARGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 Romans ix, 5 " Of whom is Christ as concerning 
 the flesh who is over all, 'God blessed for ever." 
 The interpretation of this passage has divided 
 commentators, some, e.g., Gifford, Sanday, West- 
 cott, Weiss and others making the phrase " Who 
 is over all, God, etc." refer to Christ, and others, 
 e.g.,^ Denney construing it as a doxology, not in 
 praise to Christ, but to God. Into the gram- 
 matical exegesis of this statement it is not the 
 purpose to enter. If Ocos is applied to Christ 
 in this passage, there are no other examples of 
 such a direct appellation in any of the letters. 
 The data which might be brought to corroborate 
 this theistic interpretation is of an indirect 
 character. There is the use of the title, Kvptos, 
 which is applied constantly to Christ. In the 
 Epistles to the Thessalonians, it occurs twenty- 
 two times, eight times without, and fourteen 
 times with, the article, the former indicating 
 how it was employed as a proper name.^ Its use 
 came through the Septuagint which utilized the 
 term to translate the Hebrew designation of 
 Yahweh. The phrase, "The day of Yahweh" 
 became in the language of Paul, " The day of 
 the Lord." When the title "Son of God" or 
 "Son" is applied it cannot be decisively ascer- 
 tained whether or not this is merely the oflQcial 
 
 * Expos. Greek Testament, Romans, p. 658. 
 
 ^ See discussion of Titles, Mill 
 mians, p. 135 ff. 
 
 12 177 
 
 ^See discussion of Titles, Milligan, Epistles to Thessa- 
 lonians, p. 135 ff. 
 
STUDIES m PAULIISrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Messianic appellation.^ But at any rate before 
 we get to Colossians and Ephesians, the fact 
 pressed upon his readers is the Lordship of 
 Christ.^ How in the later letters the Christology 
 of Paul is deepened is a problem which is diffi- 
 cult to solve. That the Jewish notion of the 
 character of the Messiah is transcended in these 
 epistles is evident. The functions belonging to 
 the Logos of Philo or to the abstract Wisdom — 
 if that view be taken — in the Alexandrian litera- 
 ture are here in their highest capacity ascribed 
 to Christ. Not merely pre-existence but creative 
 power are invested in him. " For in him were 
 all things created in the heavens and upon the 
 earth, whether things visible and things invisible^ 
 whether thrones or dominions, or principalities 
 or powers; all things have been created through 
 him and unto him (cts avrov) ; and he is before 
 all things, and in him all things consist^^ {iv avna 
 (Tvvia-TTjKeVj €olossians i, 16, 17). 
 
 " For it was the good pleasure of the Father 
 that in him should all the fulness dwell (ttolv to 
 TrXi^ptofxa V, 19) . If Gnosticism in its less 
 developed stages was the evil which Paul was 
 combatting in this letter, then surely the angelic 
 intermediaries, and all the principalities and 
 powers invested with deity by this sect and subject 
 to their worship, are here despoiled of their 
 
 ^ I Oorinthians xii. 3. Romans x, 8 ff. 
 
 2 Galatians ii, 20 ; iv, 4 ; I Corinthians i, 9 ; xv, 28 ; 
 II Corinthians i, 19; Romans i, 3, 4, 9; v, 10; viii, 3, 32; 
 Ephesians iv, 13 ; Colossians i, 13. 
 
 178 
 
LAEGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 imputed prerogatives (Colossians i, 19). " Eor 
 in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead 
 bodily^ and in -him are ye made full who is the 
 head of principality and power" (Colossians ii^ 9, 
 10). Compare Colossians ii, 18. "Let no man 
 rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and 
 worshipping of angels." If in these cities of 
 Western Asia the circumcised and uncircumcised, 
 the G-reek and the Scythian, the bond and the 
 free, gathered together to hear the message which 
 a " new teacher " sought to deliver, it was of a 
 Christ calculated to satisfy the most diverse needs 
 that they learned. If it was a Creek with his 
 quest after o-oc^ta or yi/oio'ts that wanted instruc- 
 tion, the answer was " that ye may be filled with 
 the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom 
 and understanding" (Colossians i, 9). If it was 
 the " uncircumcised " who wanted perchance to 
 find out the conditions of entering the New Way, 
 he was told that in Christ there could be no cir- 
 cumcision nor uncircumcision, that the legalistic 
 partition which Judaism had set up had been 
 abolished in the same person (Colossians iii, 11). 
 
 Note. While Gnosticism in its developed form cannot be 
 said to be much earlier than the second century A.D., yet 
 there were tendencies at work in the earlier part of the first 
 .century A.D. which were giving expression to the G-nostic 
 principles. King thus siunmarizes the grand doctrine of 
 Gnosticism : — ' 'The soul on being released from the body 
 (its prison-house and place of torment) has to pass through 
 the regions of the Seven Powers; which it cannot do unless 
 impregnated beforehand with knowledge ; . . . But should 
 it be filled with knowledge, it eludes the Seven Powers and 
 tramples upon the head of Sabaoth, . and mounts 
 
 up into the eighth heaven, the abode of Barbelo, the 
 Universal Mother and who according to the Pistis Sophia, 
 is the celestial mother of the Saviour," Gnostics and their 
 Remains, p. 333. 
 
 179 
 
STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 It would appear then that the twenty years of 
 profound reflection upon the scenes of his mis- 
 sionary labors, in countries which exhibited the 
 most heterogeneous types of religious belief, had 
 led the apostle, especially towards the close of his 
 life, to invest Christ with the categories that are 
 found in these later epistles. The mystery cults 
 practised in every large city of his time must 
 have deeply affected him. To say this does not 
 carry with it the implication that any leading 
 phases of his teachings were derived from the 
 mysteries.^ The gods in whose names the rites 
 were performed, associated as they were with the 
 processes of decay and growth of vegetation,^ 
 could have in this respect little affinity with the 
 Christ that Paul preached. The nature of the 
 death of Attis and Osiris was as far apart as the 
 poles from the kind of death that Jesus suffered 
 at the hands of Jews and Eomans.^ But admit- 
 ting this, it is not merely a coincidence that out 
 of the eighteen examples of the use of the term 
 fxv(TT-qpL0Vj ten are to be found in the two epistles 
 of 'Colossians and Ephesians. Indeed, so universal 
 was the influence of the Mysteries in the religious 
 life of the West that certain writers have claimed 
 that, although Paul himself might not have 
 
 ^ Shirley Jackson Case, Biblical World, xliii, No. 1, January, 
 1914, p. 15. 
 
 2 Jane Harrison, Ancient Ritual and Art, p. 139, 182 ff. 
 
 ^ Loisy makes Christ "a Saviour-god after the manner of 
 Osiris, an Attis, a Mithra, . . Like Adonis, Osiris, and 
 
 Attis, he had died a violent death, and like them he had 
 returned to life. ' ' Hibbert Journal, October, 1911, 
 p. 51. 
 
 180 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 intended that his gospel should have been so 
 technically interpreted, yet many of his churches 
 regarded it as another mystery religion.^ Others 
 such as Schweitzer and Heitmiiller^ have attri- 
 buted to Paul the ex-operato notion of the mystic 
 sacraments. " In Paul we have an unmediated 
 and naked notion of sacrament such as is nowhere 
 else to be met with . . . Contact with the 
 water is supposed to effect a dying and rising 
 again with Christ, a partaking in his mystical 
 body, and the possession of the Spirit . . . 
 What happens is that in a moment when he 
 receives baptism the dying and rising again of 
 Christ takes place in him without any co-operation 
 or exercise of will or thought on his part . . . 
 It is like a mechanical process which is set in 
 motion by pressing a spring."^ N"o unanimity 
 has been reached by scholars upon this point. This 
 transformation has been regarded as a "merely 
 moral '^ renewal like that for which the Hebrew 
 prophets strove with eager appeal; and many of 
 the passages which seem to have a marked eschato- 
 logical phrasing have been reduced to the plane 
 of this present life without reference to any 
 apocalyptic framework. It seems possible to take 
 such exhortations as " be ye not fashioned accord- 
 ing to this world but be ye transformed by the 
 renewing of your mind" (Eomans xii, 2); 
 together with many other statements above quoted. 
 
 * Lake op. cit., p. 46. 
 
 ^ Schweitzer, Paul p. 204, E. T. 
 
 3 Ibid. 212. 
 
 181 
 
STUDIES m PAULIISrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 as in accordance with this interpretation. When- 
 ever Paul alludes to the believer's relation to 
 Christ, there is little incongruity in construing 
 his message as an ethical transformation of heart ; 
 namely the death to sin, and the life of righteous- 
 ness. What is crucified is evil desire and covetous- 
 ness, fornication, uncleanness and passion, all 
 concentrated in the expressions, " the old man, the 
 body of sin" (Colossians iii, 5). The "putting 
 on " need not necessarily be explained as the 
 magical action of a cult ceremony, but the " peace 
 of Christ" ruling in the heart. This very epistle 
 illustrates the discussion in striking language. 
 " Put on therefore, 'EvSuo-ao-^e ovv as God^s 
 elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, 
 kindness and lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, 
 forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, 
 if any man have a complaint against any; even 
 as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye; and above 
 all these things put on love, which is the bond 
 of perf ectness " (iii, 12-14). As an individual 
 might, in pictorial expression, die to the circum- 
 cision of the law by the abandonment of legalism, 
 he might rise to newness of life by entering the 
 new way of salvation. Taking the language just 
 as it stands, such a conclusion might indeed easily 
 be reached. But the more we emphasize the 
 eschatological standpoint of the apostle where, 
 in his consuming expectation, the future world 
 was about to break in upon the present order, the 
 more color is lent to the position that " the forces 
 182 
 
LAEGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 of death and resurrection ^' were already at work 
 producing in part the very transformation which 
 the advent of Christ would accomplish in its 
 completion. The Parousia would then initiate 
 on a cosmic scale what was already in process in 
 the lives of Christians. It is such phrases as : 
 " Having been buried with him in baptism, 
 wherein ye were also raised with him through 
 faith in the working of Cod who raised him from 
 the dead," which has prompted Schweitzer to 
 regard the Sacraments in themselves as eschato- 
 logical and designed to effect this mystic change. 
 "The apostle asserts an overlapping of the still 
 natural, and the already supernatural conditions 
 of the world, which becomes real in the case of 
 Christ and believers in the form of an open or 
 hidden working of the forces of death and 
 resurrection — and becomes real in them only. The 
 doctrine of the death and resurrection of Jesus 
 and the mystical doctrine of redemption are alike 
 cosmically conditioned."^ 
 
 A decision concerning the symbolic^ or the 
 magicaP action of baptism will depend upon the 
 
 ^Paul, p. 245. 
 
 ^ "It is a faith, which is the ground of our being raised 
 with Christ (this again, like the "being buried," is probably 
 mentioned because of some baptismal formula containing 
 these details) ; . . . There is in Paul's teaching no 
 suggestion of a sacrament in the Catholic or even in the 
 orthodox-Protestant sense. ' ' Clemen, Primitive Christianity, 
 p. 223. 
 
 * Contrast Weinel: — "Bo we not enter into a mysterious 
 and yet real communion, at once sensual and supersensual 
 with the devils, if we partake of the flesh offered to them? 
 Paul believed this as firmly as he believed that in the Lord's 
 supper he partook of the very Body and Blood of Christ." 
 St. Paul, p. 31. 
 
 183 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 thoroughness with which this eschatological 
 machinery is applied. But still whether it is an 
 operation of faith or of ritual which effects the 
 resurrection of the believer before the Parousia, 
 the mystic character of the process which by the 
 way never receives explanatory detail at PauFs 
 hands is implied in his treatment, and brings him 
 into the most intimate touch with his wide circle 
 of readers. Nevertheless^ the points of contact 
 must not be made too inclusive. The votary of 
 the Oriental cult believed that he was putting on 
 the god/ as he was being initiated into the 
 secrets of his deity. The Hermetic literature 
 attests the belief in a " real " participation in the 
 nature of the god on the part of the initiate. "To 
 be made a god " is the expression ever recurring. 
 But such deification of the convert is never for 
 a moment taught by the apostle Paul. Neither 
 would Paul countenance many of the practical 
 issues which sprang from the mystery observances. 
 His vigorous ethical impulses would condemn any 
 antinomian tendencies or any licentious excesses 
 which were, for example, associated with the cult 
 of Isis. Granted a " sacramental " theory implicit 
 in his teaching, the point is never for a moment 
 forgotten that the hidden life of Christ in the 
 believer, which flowers into full bloom at the 
 Parousia, is one of intense moral obligation, for 
 which no magical process can ever be held as a 
 substitute. 
 
 *Loisy, Hibbert Journal, October 1911, p. 47. 
 
 184 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 With regard to the view that Paul's Gospel 
 may have been interpreted by the Asian Churches 
 as just such another €ult as existed everywhere in 
 their midst, it would not be at all impossible to hold 
 that at least amongst a large number of non- 
 Jewish people this belief prevailed. It is indeed 
 difficult to ascertain the exact composition of the 
 audiences to which Paul preached, or of the 
 communities to which he wrote, but as his mission 
 was on his own declaration to the Gentiles, many 
 and diverse pagan classes must have been brought 
 within the compass of his labors. It is also a fact 
 that our knowledge of that religious syncretism 
 of his time is not as full and as systematized as 
 one might wish, but with the data at our disposal 
 it seems safe to assert that religious yearnings 
 found expression in complex mystic ritual, and 
 Paul could scarcely avoid reacting upon such 
 environment. Further, the fact that the whole 
 process, magical as it may have been had for its 
 all-important purpose, <To)T7)pta^ the Salvation 
 or Redemption of the individual from the burdens 
 of this life,^ whether these took the form of a 
 belief in a ruthless Destiny, or in the hostile 
 operations of demons within the body causing 
 pain, disease and death, no matter how these 
 burdens may have been construed, the craving for 
 Salvation must have awakened within the heart 
 of Paul a reaction which demanded an appro- 
 
 * Loisy, op. cit., p. 48. 
 
 ^Dionysos and Immortality, Wheeler, p. 53. 
 
 185 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 priate adjustment of his message. Might it here 
 then be suggested that we have in these epistles 
 in question, the mature reflection of the apostle 
 upon the character of Christ and upon his soterio- 
 logical capacity as a Saviour — that the earlier 
 standpoint of his Messianic functions as a 
 Deliverer from the coming wrath in Thessalonians, 
 and of his implied subordination to the Father in 
 I Corinthians, was now transcended, and that the 
 central theme becomes more and more the exal- 
 tation of Christ, the summing up of all things in 
 him who is all in all? (Colossians iii, 11; 
 Ephesians i, 10). The word dvaKe</»aAaiwo-ao-^ae 
 occurs only twice in the New Testament; in 
 Eomans xiii, 9, where it refers to the summing 
 up of the various commandments in the one 
 requirement of love to one's neighbour, and here 
 in Ephesians i, 10. " It is an inclusive phrase, 
 equivalent to the totality of Creation; not things 
 only nor yet men or intelligent beings only 
 — although the phrase might bear that sense (cf. 
 Galatians iii, 22), but as the context shows, all 
 created objects men and things/'^ Without then 
 making any claim for the extensive derivation of 
 Paul's teaching from the mysteries, yet at least 
 his employment of many of their concepts showed 
 how sympathetically he felt towards the " groping 
 after God " which the mystic process in all its 
 elaborate complexity of apparatus expressed. The 
 gospel which he had to offer was in its one 
 
 ^ Expos. Greek Testament. Salmond, p. 261. 
 
 186 
 
LARGER ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 way a fivarrjpiov " which hath been hidden for 
 ages and generations, but now hath it been 
 manifested to the saints, to whom God was pleased 
 to make known what is the riches of the glory of 
 this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in 
 you the hope of glory" (Colossians i, 26).^ 
 
 To those who were searching after yvwo-ts as 
 the highest point, to which an initiate might 
 climb in the ritual or magical direction, Paul 
 could answer as he does in Colossians ii, 2, 3, by 
 referring them to the " full assurance of under- 
 standing, that they may know the mystery of God, 
 even Christ in whom are all the treasures of wis- 
 dom and knowledge hidden." " Continue stead- 
 fastly in prayer, watching therein with thanks- 
 giving; withal praying for us also that God may 
 
 ^ "The Mystery par excellence has a special reference to 
 the Gentiles. In fact it is nothing less than the inclusion 
 of the Gentiles, as well as the Jews in a common hope in 
 Christ ; . . . Christ in you, Gentiles — that is the great 
 surprise. None could have foreseen it, or imagined it. It 
 was God's secret. He has disclosed it to us." J. Armitage 
 Robinson, Ephesians, p. 238. 
 
 Note. The use of the term fivOTi]pLOv^ in the earlier 
 epistles reflects much the same meaning as in the later, though 
 in occasional instances it refers to a particular situation 
 which is engrossing the attention of the apostle. The cul- 
 mination of evil in the appearance of Antichrist is so des- 
 cribed : — ■' 'the mystery of lawlessness' ' (I Thessalonians 
 ii, 7). The wisdom of God is a mystery to the rulers of 
 the world who, had it been revealed to them, ' 'would not 
 have crucified the Lord of Glory" (I Corinthians ii, 7, 8). 
 Paul and the other apostles are "stewards of the mysteries 
 of God" (I Corinthians iv, 1). Knowledge, prophecy and 
 mysteries are valueless without love (I Corinthians xiii, 2). 
 Unintelligible utterances are in the same category. "For no 
 man understandeth ; but in the spirit he spealceth mysteries" 
 (I Corinthians xiv, 2). It applies to the resurrection of the 
 pneumatic a&fia ( I Corinthians xv, 51); to the fact that 
 the inclusion of the Gentiles within the kingdom of God will 
 provoke to jealousy the Jews, tending to their conversion 
 (Romans xi, 25, 26), and to the revelation of Jesus Christ 
 (Romans xvi, 25-27). 
 
 187 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 open unto us a door for the word^ to speak the 
 mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds, 
 that I may make it manif est, as I ought to speak "' 
 (Colossians iv, 3-4). The <ro)T7jpia which was 
 the one goal of the ardent votary of a mystery 
 god hadj in fact, already in its non-eschatological 
 sense been attained by the apostle Paul. The 
 exact nature of the process through which it was 
 reached by him may not perhaps in its full 
 characteristics be set forth. It cannot be doubted 
 that Paul lays the greatest stress upon the import- 
 ance of his conversion experience as he travelled 
 to Damascus. This is evident by his references 
 to it in Acts and the Epistles. The term which 
 he generally uses is " revelation " (droKaXvi/'ts), 
 or in certain cases " visions " (otttoo-uw). But 
 still the further knowledge of Christ and his 
 gospel came to Paul with the expansion of his 
 missionary work throughout his travels. " And I 
 went up by revelation ; and I laid before them the 
 gospel which I preach among the Gentiles but pri- 
 vately before them who were of repute " (Galatians 
 ii, 2). " But unto us God revealed them through 
 the Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea 
 the deep things of God'' (I Corinthians ii, 10). 
 " I must needs glory, though it is not expedient, 
 but I will come to visions and revelations of the 
 Lord'' (II Corinthians xii, 1). Whatever then 
 may be the complete analysis of such an experience 
 expressed by the term, o-oiTrjpia^ it, nevertheless, 
 from the standpoint of Paul, lay hidden in the 
 dwoKoXvxf/vs of Christ. 
 
 188 
 
LAKGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 And just as in the development of certain 
 Messianic ideas delineated in the foregoing treat- 
 ment, concepts current in Judaistic language 
 were often changed with respect to their content, 
 in the bold originality of Paul, so here the same 
 terms in use in the religious formulations of his 
 churches, /Avo-T^ptov, anoKoiXvxl/L^^ oirraxriay a-o<f>ta^ 
 yvwo-ts, and many others, though still 
 retained, are charged with new content. Paul 
 was not attempting to place Christ as simply 
 another object of worship alongside of Attis, 
 Osiris and other deities. He would never have 
 held to a syncretism in which a rival to Christ 
 might claim equal standing ground. The 
 supreme Lordship of 'Christ is so explicitly shown 
 where, again and again, Paul exhausts his vocab- 
 ulary in picturing the dominion over which 
 Christ reigns. *^ That in all things he might 
 have the pre-eminence" (iColossians i, 18). The 
 phrase, ra Travra, is one which he is never tired 
 of using in this connection. In Christ all things 
 are created and reconciled. " Things visible and 
 things invisible, whether thrones or dominions, 
 or principalities or powers ; . . . whether 
 things upon the earth, or things in the heavens " 
 (Colossians i, 16, 20). The fivarrripiov is Christ, 
 in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge hidden ('Colossians ii, 2, 3). The 
 elements of the world, o-Totxeta, however inter- 
 preted, whether on Jewish grounds they are con- 
 189 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 sidered as the ritual of Judaism/ or in respect 
 to Oriental speculation they represent the rule of 
 the archons,^ are in subjection to Christ, for " in 
 him divelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily, and in him ye are made full who is the 
 head of all principality (o-pxv^) and power " 
 (Colossians ii, 9, 10). All archons have been 
 despoiled by him and led in his triumphal pro- 
 cession (Colossians ii, 15).^ The literature of 
 the time dwells upon the resurrection of the 
 mystery god from his grave to his celestial abode. 
 The initiatory ritual was supposed to accomplish 
 a similar resurrection for the votary. It is true 
 that nowhere does Paul show any inclination of 
 taking over the machinery of any one of the 
 cults. He never refers to the processions, the 
 orgies, the bloody sacrifices or the priestly 
 formulae attending a mystery demonstration as 
 a part of the a-iOTiqpCa accomplished by Christ. 
 But still the pageant that signalized the conquest 
 of Osiris over death is surpassed in its splendour 
 by the triumph of Christ whom God " raised from 
 the dead and made him to sit at his right hand 
 in the heavenly places, far above all rule and 
 authority and power and dominion and every 
 name that is named, not only in this world but 
 
 > Hort, p. 118. 
 
 ^ Reitzenstein, Poimandres, quoted by Clemen, op. cit. 109. 
 ' Hort, Judaistic Christianity, p. 125. 
 
 190 
 
LARGEE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONCEPTS 
 
 also in that which, is to come "^ (Ephesians i, 20, 
 21). 
 
 Thus from the foregoing argument we con- 
 clude that it was this tenden-cy to establish the 
 indisputable supremacy of Christ over against 
 that of every deity or archon worshipped in his 
 day, that caused Paul to make use of the very 
 predicates which he employs in the epistle to the 
 Philippians. It has already been pointed out 
 that, in Judaistic theology, the appearance of the 
 Messiah upon earth was not conceived in the light 
 of a humiliation or a deprivation of his powers 
 natural to his pre-existent state. But the famous 
 passage in Philippians ii, 6-8 illustrates the 
 decided contrast between Christ's earthly life of 
 humility and weakness culminating in the cross 
 and his pre-existent condition. This passage, like 
 many others quoted above is not without its 
 peculiar difficulties, but one point seems to stand 
 out clearly, viz. : that in the ascent of the predi- 
 cates evidenced by this epistle as also in Colos- 
 sians and Ephesians, the apostle has climbed so 
 far that it was the shortest step to the designation 
 of Christ as Oeos. If these terms, elusive as 
 they are in their precise signification, do not 
 admit of the predication of Deity yet they cer- 
 tainly express such an approximation thereto. 
 
 * "Thus presented in dramatic form, the incidents of the 
 Osiris myth made a powerful impression upon the people, 
 Osiris thus gained a place in the life and hopes 
 of the common people, held by no other god. The royal 
 destiny of Osiris and his triumph over death, thus vividly 
 portrayed in dramatic form, rapidly disseminated among the 
 people the belief that this destiny, once probably reserved for 
 the king, might be shared by all." Breasted, Development 
 of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 290. 
 
 191 
 
STUDIES m PAULII^TE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 that they cannot in the thought of Paul be applied 
 to any other being. Just as the description of 
 'Christ in his pre-ezistent state requires for Paul 
 the highest categories which the language of his 
 day furnished him, so the picture of Christ's 
 exaltation needed the loftiest imagery reached 
 by his imagination. When definitely-cut con- 
 cepts failed him, he still could say that 'God had 
 given him a "name which is above every name," 
 and that all things — notice again the exhaustive 
 character of his description — " in heaven, on 
 earth, and under the earth " should pay their 
 homage to his name, and that " every tongue 
 should -confess that Jesus 'Christ is Lord to the 
 glory of God the Father" (Philippians ii, 9-11). 
 On the one hand, it is true that certain functions 
 are still held to be exclusively in the possession 
 of 'God, as for example, it is God who raised 
 Jesus from the dead, who gives him his exalted 
 name, who placed him at his right hand, and 
 again it is God to whom belongs whatever pro- 
 perties might be included in the expression — 
 " God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 But on the other hand, all knowledge, wisdom 
 and salvation, and Creative capacity are " sum- 
 med up " in Christ, and even if the most search- 
 ing analysis of Paul's thought carried on by the 
 aid of exegesis, historical criticism and theology 
 fails to reach a unanimous verdict upon the sig- 
 nificance of the predicates applied, it can at 
 least be seen how one path of development might 
 easily lie in the direction of the 'Christological 
 dogmas of the third and subsequent centuries. 
 192 
 
CHAPTEE yil. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 When we now come to gather up the results 
 of our inquiry, it' seems clear that PauFs treat- 
 ment of the special concepts coming under our 
 review shows many afBnities with, and consider- 
 able divergences from, antecedent and con- 
 temporary Jewish tradition. When Paul desig- 
 nates by Psyche the life of the individual in its^^^*^^®- 
 personal and social relations, and specifically the 
 emotions such as distress and pain, tenderness 
 and solicitude, and even volitional processes, he 
 is using the thought and language of his time. 
 But the term with the possible exception of 
 Eomans ii, 9, has little, if any, explicit reference 
 to the life after death, and in this lies its main 
 difference from preceding apocalyptic thought 
 which used psyche and pneuma interchangeably 
 in this relationship. 
 
 With regard to kardia, the apostle introduces Kardia. 
 practically no change in its customary applica- 
 tions. It is one of his most comprehensive terms. 
 It includes the emotional content of psyche 'but 
 emphasizes in addition the intellectual and voli- 
 tional processes of knowledge, judgment, belief, 
 conviction, determination etc., and kardia, like 
 psyche, has its main content in the religious life 
 lived upon the earth. Other terms not so much 
 13 193 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 Sarx and 
 Soma. 
 
 Fneuma. 
 
 in evidence snch as conscience, thoughts, mind 
 and reasonings serve to accentuate the more 
 intellectual phases comprehended under kardia. 
 
 Sarx in many instances bears, like psyche, both 
 the generic and individual reference without any 
 precise moral implications. It possesses intensive 
 emotional qualities, and may therefore upon 
 occasion be substituted for psyche. Soma shares 
 the same usage as sarx in denoting the physical 
 life, but differs from the latter in that it is not 
 a normal term for the emotions. Its specific 
 reference is to an organism human, angelic or 
 stellar. But the characteristic content of sarx, in 
 Paul, is seen in its ethical contrast with pneuma. 
 This is not a borrowing from the Alexandrian 
 dualism, for the sarx or soma when not used in 
 the antithetic relation to pneuma may serve, under 
 specified conditions, to designate righteous action. 
 Still in the treatment of such a contrast, the sarx 
 stands generally for complex evil processes, and 
 may occasionally be interchanged, for other expres- 
 sions as '^ the old man, outwardly, the circum- 
 cision of the letter of the law, eye-service, etc." 
 
 Pneuma resembles kardia in the wide range 
 of its application, denoting the intellectual, voli- 
 tional and emotional processes, and may, though 
 very infrequently, have a sinister reference, for 
 example, its possible domination by the sarx. Its 
 prevalent usage, however, is to indicate the con- 
 formity of human life on the earth with the life 
 of Jesus in direct opposition to the life of the 
 sarx in the sense pointed out in the preceding 
 194 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 paragraph. On its distinctively post-earthly or 
 eschatological side it characterizes the new 
 organism given by God to the Christian — a 
 heavenly and incorruptible organism which 
 replaces the earthly and perishable one of flesh 
 and blood. It stands for the present existence of 
 Christ in the heavens ; for the power of God who 
 raised Jesus from the dead, and who likewise 
 raises believers in Christ from the death of sin 
 to the life of righteousness. It also represents, 
 especially in the later epistles, those " powers, and 
 rules, and principalities," not of flesh and blood, 
 against which the 'Christian warfare is incessantly 
 waged. In Acts, it is particularly the source of 
 the direction of Paul's missionary activity and of 
 the success of his work among the Gentiles. 
 
 It is in the setting forth of the larger eschato- 
 logical concepts that Paul appears to exhibit a 
 gradual development of thought. There is little 
 ground for an hypothesis of a static eschatology. 
 In his earliest epistles he states his Palestinian 
 belief in the imminence of the Parousia, fully -E^® , 
 
 ' -^ Parousia. 
 
 expecting to be alive at the crisis, and paints the 
 picture of the end of the aeon in Jewish linea- 
 ments and coloring. Here, as throughout all his 
 letters, the Parousia is the appearance of Jesus 
 Christ who from the time of his ascension existed 
 in the heavens, and whose reappearance was to 
 be the signal for the passing away of the present 
 aeon and the inauguration of the consummated 
 kingdom. The Second Thessalonian epistle intro- its Time, 
 duces details not explicit in the first, such as a 
 195 
 
STUDIES IN PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 culmination of apostasy couched in the character- 
 istically veiled symbolism of Palestinian apocalyp- 
 tic — a feature which would imply a greater post- 
 ponement of the Parousia than possibly Paul's 
 converts had anticipated, but nevertheless does not 
 exclude its occurrence within the apostle's life- 
 time. With the succession of the epistles, there 
 becomes increasingly manifest the tendency to 
 ignore lurid accompaniments; to express the 
 whole apocalyptic change by a single phrase as 
 The Day, or The Day of the Lord Jesus, or The 
 Day of Redemption, and to focus attention upon 
 the 'conformity of the new life and organism of 
 the Christian to that of ^Christ in his supra-earthly 
 existence. In addition to this, the belief in the 
 occurrence of the Parousia within his lifetime 
 loses some of its earlier conviction with advancing 
 age, although indeed right to the end the time 
 is considered near. 
 
 Resurrection. -^^^ teaching concerning the Eesurrection is 
 occupied first with the resurrection of Jesus, and 
 then with that of Christians, and exhibits as the 
 epistles follow each other a sense of the growing 
 importance of the former in relation to the latter. 
 The resurrection of Jesus becomes in Paul's 
 thought the ground of the claim for the same 
 change in his followers — a change which is already 
 in operation in the renewed life of an individual 
 upon earth but becomes completely manifested 
 at the Parousia. The concept shows some varia- 
 tion from the Pharisaic point of view, in that as 
 the argument is essentially based upon the rela- 
 196 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 tion of Christ to his followers^ this hope, together 
 with that of the new life in the Messianic aeon 
 is therefore not extended to the wicked. 
 
 The description of the Messianic aeon in the J^^lg^^^^^ 
 apostle's treatment is by no means elaborate in*^°°- 
 its details. Certain expressive phrases as Deliver- 
 ance from Wrath, Grlory, iSalvation, Eedemption, 
 The Inheritance, and such like, epitomize the life 
 of the future kingdom. The tendency throughout 
 is to make the scene of Messianic blessedness a 
 transcendent and pneumatic one, that is, in the 
 heavens, though the germane passages in I Thessa- 
 lonians, and the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians 
 are sometimes interpreted as implying an inter- 
 vening kingdom of an earthly type. In this 
 consummated kingdom ethnic distinctions are 
 abolished, the union of human beings with Christ 
 being the only ground of citizenship. 
 
 Again, Paul's conception of Christ becomes ^**^^'°^°^- 
 characterized by greater amplitude of treatment 
 in the later letters. The Imprisonment epistles 
 employ the highest type of predicates in setting 
 forth the functions of Christ, not merely in res- 
 pect to the Parousia, the Judgment, the end of 
 the old aeon and the inauguration of the new, 
 but also in respect to the development of human 
 history and of the world in general. And it is 
 concluded here that among the important factors 
 that led the apostle to this High Christology were 
 his reflections upon the significance of the resur- 
 rection of Jesus, and of his eschatological func- 
 tions in their bearing upon the future of mankind 
 197 
 
STUDIES m PAULIlSrE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 and of the world, together with the influences of 
 contemporary religions systems that' extended to 
 their disciples the hope of redemption through 
 the initiatory processes of the cnlts. 
 
 This summary deals, then, with what may readily 
 be seen as a comparatively highly developed con- 
 tent of religion, a content which was naturally the 
 product of centuries of reflective activity. It is 
 clear that the religious ideas of the first Christian 
 century cannot receive adequate treatment with- 
 out being brought into the closest relationship 
 with the national beliefs and customs forged out 
 of the vicissitudes and struggles of the late Greek 
 and early Eoman periods. Likewise the formative 
 conceptions of these two centuries, crystallizing 
 as they do into fairly definite shape out of national 
 crises, are in part the refinements of many of the ^ 
 leading ideas that constituted the teaching and 
 outlook of the prophets. In fact, the memorials 
 of ancient Hebrew religion attest to a growing 
 complexity of religious thought wherein the 
 beliefs and practices of a given age are seen to 
 emerge out of the age anterior to it, though indeed 
 to a greater or less extent remoulded by the social, 
 political and international movements then in 
 progress. In this historical evolution, one cannot 
 take a ' belief at a specific time, and consider it 
 as a ready-made product whose genesis needs no 
 further explanation or derivation, for a full 
 analysis of the case demands an inquiry into reli- 
 gious origins as they are found in the roots of 
 Semitic antiquity. And even here further investi- 
 198 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 gation is barred only by the paucity of data 
 concerning so distant a past. 
 
 Now it would seem that in its most primitive 
 types, religious life was expressed in a complexity 
 of ritual and practical observances prescribed by 
 tribal and local customs where the objects of 
 worship were concrete natural phenomena as 
 plants, trees, wind and fire, etc., together with 
 certain animals especially noted for characteristics 
 intimately related to the idea of the perpetuation 
 of tribal existence. None of the concepts that 
 we are dealing with here can be said to have been 
 formed at this stage in the history of religion, 
 though such original rites and sanctions formed 
 the data out of which the later concepts arose. 
 'Certain properties of such objects are abstracted 
 from others, and synthesized into concepts which 
 are then regarded as having definite objective 
 existence in the mythical god, no longer seen but 
 imagined. The period under review in this thesis 
 already possessed such products as an inheritance 
 from its past, but the point must ever be borne in 
 mind that these concepts of imagination and 
 reflection underwent similar developments in 
 succeeding centuries, keeping pace with the intel- 
 lectual progress of the people, with their social 
 advancement and their international relations. 
 And in the course of Jewish history they were 
 the decisive factors in the advance of the nation's 
 civilization in the widest sense. The Messianic 
 concept, for example, not only emerged out of 
 the national hopes of a given state of society, but 
 199 
 
STUDIES m PAULII^TE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 became again the ground of reinvigorated faith 
 amidst long stretches of misfortune and disaster, 
 and the analysis of this interplay between great 
 religious beliefs and customs, and their underlying 
 conditions in the social and political experiences 
 of the Jewish people, may properly be called the 
 psychology of their religion. 
 
 Some of these factors in the development have 
 already been pointed out. Many words and 
 phrases in the vocabulary of the prophets were 
 carried over into apocalyptic, and finally these 
 Hebrew terms were exchanged for Greek expres- 
 sions. Now it is obvious that in the employment 
 of a Greek term for the expression of a Jewish 
 idea, for example, pneuma for ruach, or psyche 
 for nephesh, or Parousia or Day of the Lord for 
 the Day of Yahweh, certain shades of meaning 
 may have been taken up by the old term, and 
 conversely, the former content of the Greek term 
 may have been modified by its substitution for 
 the Hebrew term which thus designated a basal 
 Hebrew idea, and this factor is of supreme impor- 
 tance in the growth of all concepts religious and 
 otherwise. 
 
 But influences other than those of the linguistic 
 type had been constantly at work for many 
 centuries preceding PauFs time in the trans- 
 formation of old concepts, and in the production 
 of new ones. The general drift of development 
 shows at least two lines along which the process 
 of concept-formation took place. The first is 
 what might be called a process of attenuation by 
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CONCLUSIOlSrS 
 
 means of which a given concept would lose much 
 of its original content by normal refinement in 
 the history of theJewish religion. The second tends 
 towards the gradual enrichment of the concept hy 
 the introduction of new properties contingent upon 
 the many pressing issues emerging out of the 
 critical periods through which the nation was 
 passing. The concept of individual resurrection, 
 for instance, can scarcely be said to have been 
 definitely formed before the third century B.C. 
 If the term is used at all in the literature before 
 this period, it can only apply to the restoration 
 of the nation from exile, or to its deliverance from 
 foreign oppression, or possibly to its reinstate- 
 ment in the favor of Yahweh following general 
 repentance. It was in the Maccabaean times that 
 the term stood specifically for the raising from 
 the grave of a deceased individual that he might 
 share with the survivors the blessings of the 
 Messianic kingdom. In the earlier apocalyptic 
 teaching, the body which was to be taised would 
 possess to a remarkable degree its former earthly 
 characteristics, but in later thought these proper- 
 ties were abandoned, and were replaced by others 
 of a supra-earthly character. It is not necessary 
 here to review the historical causes of this opera- 
 tion. It is but sufficient to indicate that the 
 processes of analysis, abstraction and synthesis 
 were continuously operative in the concept-con- 
 struction. The former was in evidence in the 
 gradual abandonment of earthly content, a result 
 of the developing pessimism of the Jewish out- 
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STUDIES m PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 
 
 look for the national future; and the synthetic 
 process was exhibited in the combination of 
 qualities to form a concept, for example, like that 
 of the resurrected soma with its properties of 
 eternal life and felicity, its garment of radiance 
 and glory, its abode in the heavens or among the 
 stars, etc. This period of apocalyptic which may 
 be regarded as accretive is especially noted for its 
 rich and varied development along the foregoing 
 line. In one respect it differs from the prophetic 
 age. Prophecy in the main had laid great stress 
 upon moral duties, and its chief concept was the 
 character of Yahweh in his relation to human 
 actions. It had also developed others like the 
 Day of Yahweh, the Messianic kingdom, but it 
 showed a striking reticence in its treatment of the 
 concepts of Sheol, Eesurrection, and of the Ruach 
 and Nephesh in their eschatological significance. 
 Indeed with regard to these, it had by reaction 
 from many current beliefs pushed the process of 
 abstraction so far that the above terms possessed 
 the barest minimum of content. 
 
 It remained for Jewish speculation of the 
 Greek period to work out these concepts by an 
 elaborate procedure in which, while not ignoring 
 the process of analysis, it yet placed the greater 
 emphasis upon the synthetic phase of the operation. 
 How this analytic-synthetic method was perpet- 
 uated, amidst the new scenes and interests that 
 formed the background of the Christian propa- 
 ganda of the middle of the first century A.D. may 
 be seen in the foregoing treatment of the concepts 
 '203 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 in the thought of Paul. But it must be remem- 
 bered that technical formulation was not his 
 purpose. Practically all of the terms were current 
 in the vocabulary of his time, and so little were 
 they fixed in their connotation that they were 
 often used in fluid substitution for each other. 
 Hence the concepts which they covered would 
 lack the precision of scientific definition, although 
 in the preaching and epistolary activities of the 
 apostle they readily lent themselves to popular 
 interpretation. 
 
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