^ PRINCETON, N. J. Shelf BS 2505 .S22 1891 Sabatier, Augusts, 1839 1901. The apostle Paul V - ,>^: P THE APOSTLE PAUL. THE APOSTLE PAUL: gi ^hdt^ of l^c Qcbelctj^ment of feis ^otinnt. BY a/sabatier, Professor in the Faculty of Protestant Theolot^y at Paris, TRANSLATED BY A. M. HELLIER. EDITED, W ITH AN ADDITIONAL ESSAY ON THE PASTORAL EFJ>TI.KS, BY GEORGE G. FINDLAY, B.A., Headingley C allege ^ Leeds. ITonbou ; HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCXCI. Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. ''P^RAXSLATION into another tongue is for any ^ book an honourable and a perilous experience. The author of Lapotre Paul is fully conscious both of the honour and the peril. The success of a work which is in any degree original depends not only upon its intrinsic merit, but also, to a great extent, upon a certain instinctive harmony already established between the mind of the author and the requirements of the public to which he addresses himself No plant is rooted in its native soil by finer and more numerous fibres than is a literary work in the country and society in which it was produced. It is with some anxiety that I inquire whether Uapotrc Paul, under the new circumstances in which it is about to appear, will again meet with the inner cor- respondence and the moral and spiritual sympathy necessary to make it intelligible and to justify its publication. There are two things, however, which re-assure me. The first is the distinguished patronage under which my work is presented to English readers, the b PREFACE. care, learning and judgment of those who are re- sponsible for the translation of my work. My further ground of confidence is derived from the hero of the book himself and the universal interest which he inspires. Where should he be studied, loved and venerated, if not in England ? Are not English Christians, in a very special sense, his spiritual chil- dren ? Do they not owe to him the character of their religion, the form of their doctrine, even their principles of religious liberty and civil right ? Is not Anglo- Saxon society his work? Does not his spirit pervade the thousand ramifications of English civilization, extending from individual conduct to the highest scientific activity, from domestic life to the political debates of Parliament ? Who is there, we may ask, not among theologians only, but amongst all earnest and cultured men, who is not interested in ever}- attempt made to understand the apostle better, and to explore the inner workings of his mind ? Paul as a missionary and shepherd of souls is great indeed. There is nothing in all antiquity to compare with the record of his travels and his triumphs. Preble in body, living by his toil like a working- man, this weaver of Tarsus enters the vast world of Paganism, another Alexander, to conquer the faith and the reason of mankind. Merely to form such a resolution was heroic. Darkness covered the earth ; the peoples, to use the language of the prophet, were sitting in the valley of the shadow of death. Paul entered, alone at first, into these depths of darkness, PREFACE. with the Gospel torch in his hand ; and wherever he went he left in his track from Damascus to Rome a succession of young expanding Churches, the radiant centres of a new life, the fruitful germs of modern society forming already in the midst of the old world. In all this, I repeat, there is something truly heroic. There is something greater still in the mind that inspired this mighty work, and of which, in truth, the work itself is only the exhibition and luminous tran- scription in the visible order of things. Not only did Paul conquer the pagan world for Jesus Christ ; he accomplished a task no less necessary, and per- haps even more difficult, in emancipating at the same time infant Christianity from Judaism, under whose guardianship it was in danger of being stifled. Besides removing the centre of gravity of the new Church, by the advance of his mission, from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Ephesus, and from Ephesus to Rome, he also succeeded in disengaging from the swaddling bands of Judaism the spiritual and moral principles which constitute Christianity a progressive and universal religion. Not that Paul can in any sense claim to be the founder of Christianity, or be compared to Jesus. The apostle gloried, and rightly, in being the servant, and not the master. It is as a servant that he is great. There was nothing creative in Paul's genius. The first impulse came from Jesus. Jesus it is who in our religious life has substituted filial relationship with the Eather by means of the Holy Spirit for the PREFACE. legal relationship based upon the Mosaic law and tradition. Jesus established the new covenant ; and in doing this planted His cross, if we may so say, between ancient Judaism and the Gospel, in a way that rendered void all attempts at reconciliation. On the other hand, it is equally certain that His first disciples at Jerusaleni endeavoured to repair this breach. They wished to keep the new wine in the old bottles. Next to Stephen, the first mart}T, it was Paul who broke the Judaistic spell. To his think- ing, the Christian principle onl}' took the place of the Jewish principle by destroying it. His conversion was, in effect, the negation of the power of the law as a means of salvation ; and his theology, centring entirel}' in the antithesis of faith and works, law and grace, the old things and the new, the time of bondage and the time of freedom, was but the expression in argument and theory of the moral and religious experiences which began in his conversion. Thus the external revolution had its spring in a psychological regeneration ; and it is important to grasp firmly this primary fact, if we would not mis- take the meaning of the whole drama. In reading the epistles of the great apostle, nothing strikes the attentive observer more than this psycho- logical connexion between his doctrinal creed and his inward life. The first is the beautiful fruitage of the second. Of no other doctrine can it be so truly said, that it was lived before it was taught. It may even be affirmed that oui minds do not properly PREFACE. apprehend it, unless we have undergone for ourselves, in some measure, the inward experience it implies. An eminent professor of history of the Sorbonne at Paris related one day that he had remained for years without in the least understanding Paul's theology, and that its meaning was made clear to him by a Christian shoemaker at Lyons. The moral crisis of conversion is, indeed, the first and best initiation into the truths of Paulinism. But if the doctrine of the apostle Paul is always the outgrowth of his experience, it is easy to infer that it must have had a history,— that, in other words, it was developed in the order of these experiences. It is equally plain that from this historical standpoint alone shall we be able to understand it fully, and to account for the various forms it has assumed at dif- ferent times and under varying circumstances. To regard it in any other way would be inevitably to pervert its character, by making it a system of ab- stract philosoph}-, and by separating it from the parent stem whence it still derives its life and truth. This has been done, it seems to me, alike by the orthodoxy of the past and by the rationalistic criticism of the Tlibingen School. They both deny the existence of progress and development in Paul's doctrine ; they sever the delicate nerves, of which we have spoken, that connected his spiritual thought and his spiri- tual life. The former theory assumes that he received his doctrinal system from heaven complete in its dialec- PREFACE. tical organization and its exegetical demonstrations — a thing absolutely inconceivable, since reasoning always implies effort on the part of the productive intelligence. The second school treats Paul as though, after his conversion, he had lived in solitude like a philosopher, creating by means of speculation and logic the entire doctrinal system that he was after- wards to preach, to expound, and defend before the world. In both instances there is the assumption that his mental and doctrinal development was com- plete from the outset, and was neither disturbed nor stimulated by new conflicts as they arose, — by the arguments of opponents, and by the experiences of his busy and exciting life. This is humanly impossible ; and it is historically untrue. It must be clearly understood that Paul was no philosopher of the schools. The purpose or wish to construct a system, properly so called, was wholly foreign to his mind. He was a missionary, who brought everything to bear upon his work. He learned by teaching. In every crisis of his life he looked for guidance from God. The solution of difficult questions he sought in prayer ; and the answer came sometimes like a flash of light, sometimes as the result of profound meditation, but was always regarded by him as a Divine inspiration. He studied events ; he reflected upon past experiences ; he pro- fited b}' his traxcls and his reading. PIverything, in short, furnished him with food for thought, and with opportunities for discovering the practical or theo- PREFACE. xi rctical issues of the faith that he incessantly preached. Thus his thinking ahvays kept pace with his outward activities ; and till the end there was a constant re- action of the one upon the other. Indisputable proofs of this will be found, we believe, in the present work. It is on this account that we have combined the exposition of Paul's doctrine with the history of his life. The exegesis of the apostle's writings must always start from the latter, and be guided by it. The only means of understanding them, whether as a whole or in detail, is to explain them by the historical circumstances under which they originated. Thus restored to their place in history, they are no longer treatises in abstract theology ; they are in reality acts of Paul's apostolic life, weapons of warfare or means of instruction, and living manifestations from time to time of the apostle's heart and will, as well as of his genius. So they acquire for us, together ^^•ith a singular dramatic interest, a truth and life which are absolutely new. The historical standpoint has another advantage, and renders us a further and equally important service. It enables us to solve without prejudice or violence the important problem which modern criticism has raised with regard to the authenticity of Paul's epistles. The critics, as is well known, often argue, from the literary or dogmatic differences they have established amongst them, the impossibility of their being the work of one and the same author. They take their stand upon the group known as PREFACE. that of tJie great epistles — Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans ; and peremptorily set aside all those which are not exactly of the same type. As if amid changing circumstances Paul's manner of writing were not bound to undergo like changes ! As if, to begin with, the epistle to the Romans were not very different frorh the epistle to the Galatians ! It has been forgotten that these four letters all belong to a period of scarcely three years' duration, from 55 to 58 A.D. at latest, and that the apostle's career lasted for nearly thirty years. What a long space of time elapsed, both before and after those momentous years spent at Ephesus and Corinth ! How can we infer with any certainty from the four letters of Paul then written what the nature may have been of those he wrote at other periods, relating to other questions ? Who would maintain that the apostle, when travelling along with Silvanus and founding the Macedonian or Corinthian Churches, wrote in the same strain to these young communities as subsequently to the Christians of Galatia, at the most exciting stage of his contro- versy with his Judaizing opponents ? P'urthermore, is it probable that, after three or four years' imprison- ment, he would indite a letter to his beloved Philip- pians precisely like those he had formerly written from Ephesus to Corinth, or from Corinth to Rome ? The historical doubts accumulated by the criticism of P'erdinand C. Baur and his disciples find their natural answer in the supposition of historical develop- ment in the Pauline system. This assumption docs PREFACE. not ignore, on the contrary it explains, the differences which have been pointed out between the various epistles ; nor is it in the least obliged to strain the historical exegesis for the purpose of obtaining an artificial unity and resemblance. By accepting the idea of progress, it makes room for the variations of thought and expression which exist. We perceive, for instance, that in the epistles to the Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians, the apostle in his moral teaching has happily attained larger views of social and family duties We observe in the same way that from the time of the second letter to the Corinthians, while still anticipating the glorious and speedy coming of Christ, Paul no longer hopes to see it in his lifetime ; already, we find, the foreboding of martyrdom shadows his spirit, and has rendered the visible triumph and glory of Christ a prospect more remote. There is the same development in his Christology. But none of these distinctions really affect the authenticity of the letters, so soon as we discover the chain which links them together, and can trace in them a natural and normal development, continuous from point to point. This is the definite task that the author of this volume has endeavoured to accomplish. How far he has succeeded in reducing to a progressive series the elements previously set in contrast as mutually ex- clusive, and in supplying their natural explanation, it is not for him, but for his readers impartially to decide. In writing this book, he has striven to open PREFACE. out a path hitherto untrodden in Pauline studies. Others may travel farther along it, and with surer foot ; in this he will be the first to rejoice. In theo- logical science as in practical life he sees servants only, working not for themselves but for truth and for the kingdom of God. And in offering his work to those who may read, or even criticize it, he feels that he cannot say to them anything better than that which Paul said to the Corinthians respecting their preachers : iravja vjjlmv iariv, eire TlauXo^, et're jiiroWo)^, €LT6 Kr](j)d<;, 6tVe K6(Tfio<;, etre fo)?;, etre 6d\'aro<^, e'lre evearCora, etre fieWovra' TTuvra vfiwv, vf-ieU Se XpiaTou, XpL(TTo<; 8e Seov (l Cor. iii. 22, 23). AUGUSTE SABATIER. PREFACE. *Mc* Besides the Appendix, the English editor has thought fit to insert brief foot-notes, inclosed in square brackets [thus], on some points of controversy. M. Sabatier commands, in the greater part of his exposition, an assent so warm and admiring, that it is with reluctance one records, here and there, a dissent equally decided. He has applied the scientific method of modern historical inquiry to the life and work of the apostle Paul with great skill and penetra- >tion, and with a singular charm of treatment, of which the reader will be sensible, even through the medium, necessarily imperfect, of translation. Possibly, through the bias natural to a scholar so versed in historical and psychological criticism, he has leaned too heavily against the older " ecclesiastical theology." It is unnecessary to bespeak for this gifted repre- sentative of French Protestant scholarship a friendly reception upon English soil. We rejoice to claim M. Sabatier, in the words he so aptly quotes from the apostle, amongst the all things that are ours. G. G. F. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Preface . . v-xvi Introduction i BOOK I. The Sources of Paul's System of Thought . 23-94 I. The First Christian Community at Jerusalem. — Christianity and Judaism 25 II. Stephen the Precursor of Paul. — Collision between the Jewish and the Christian Principle . . 39 III. Paul's Conversion. — Triumph of the Christian over the Jewish Principle 47 \V. The Genesis of Paul's Gospel . ... 71 BOOK II. PTrst Period, or Period of Missionary Activity 95-134 I. The Missionary Discourses in the Acts.— The two Epistles to the Thessalonians . . . .98 ri. Primitive Paulinism 112 III. First Conflicts with the Judaizing Christians. — The Time of Crisis and Transition . . . .124 CONl'ENTS. BOOK III. Second Period ; or, The Period of the Great Conflicts I. The Epistle to the Galatlans . II. The First Epistle to the Corinthians III. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians IV. The Epistle to the Romans 35-211 . 137 . 156 . 165 . 185 BOOK IV. Third Period : The Paulinism of Later Times 213-272 I. The Address at IMiletus. — Appearance of the Gnostic Asceticism. — New Evolution in Paul's Theological Doctrine 214 II. The Epistles to Philemon, to the Colossians, and to the Ephcsians 225 III. The Epistle to the Philippians .... 250 IV. The Three Pastoral Epistles 263 BOOK V. Organic Form of Paul's Theological System 273-340 I. The Person of Christ, the Principle of the Christian Consciousness 282 II. The Christian Principle in the Sphere of Psychology (Anthropology) 2S6 III. The Christian Principle in the Sphere of Society and History (The Religious Philosophy of History) 307 IV. The Christian Principle in the Sphere of Meta- physics (Theology) 321 CONTENTS. ADDITIONAL ESSAY ON THE EPISTLES TO I. II. III. IV. \\ TIMOTHY AND TITUS. Introduction . . . . . The Pastoral Epistles in Modern Criticism The Vocabulary and Style The Personal Data The Doctrinal Characteristics The Church System of the Pastorals I'ACE 343 344 353 362 374 390 INTRODUCTION. IT is the tendency of all tradition, and of religious tradition more especially, to resolve Into type and symbol the persons of those whom it has once enshrined. It is thus that the figures of Christ's first apostles have generally assumed a sacredness and immutability resembling that of their stone statues as we see them ranged In frigid, symmetrical order on the front of our cathedrals. And yet these daring missionaries of the Christian faith were real men, men of their own race and age, each bringing his peculiar temperament and genius to bear upon the work that it had fallen to their lot to accomplish. It should be the aim of history to discover this original and distinctive physiognomy beneath legend and dogma, the individual life In the traditional type, and, in short, the man In the apostle. And such has been the end, whether consciously or unconsciously pur- sued, of all the work of Biblical criticism and exegesis accomplished during the last fifty years. Unfortunately, this kind of historical resurrection is impossible for the majority of the apostles, whose work was, as it were, anonymous, and done in com- mon, leaving no personal trace beyond a bare name, and that often uncertain and surrounded by legend. But with the thirteenth and latest apostle, Paul of I THE APOSTLE PAUL. Tarsus, the missionary to the Gentiles, the case -is very different. Not only are we in undoubted pos- session of several of his authentic writings, but his genius and passion have inspired them wath an in- tensity of life which renders them the free and spontaneous revelation of his soul, — one of the most powerful and original that ever came into being. True, the beginning and end of his life are involved in obscurity ; but thanks to his epistles to the Thes- salonians, Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, and Philip- pians on the one hand, and the detailed narrative of the second part of Acts on the other, we have a vivid light thrown upon a period of more than twelve years in the very midst of the apostle's career, in which his personality stands out with wonderful distinctness. Starting from this luminous centre, we are enabled, by means of historical and psychological induction, to trace the main tenor of his life with a fair amount of certainty. For this purpose, dates and places and external things are of minor importance. It has been our aim to write not a general biography of Paul, but a biography of his mind, and the history of his thought I. Progressive Character of Paulinism. The law of development is so inseparable from the idea of life that we always assume its action, even when we cannot trace it. In the life of Paul it is strikingly obvious. The more we study his writings and theology, the more we feel that it was impossible for a mind so ardent and so laborious speedily to reach its limits and to rest in its final conclusions, and that a system of thought so richly and solidly constructed could not be completed at a stroke. The INTRODUCTION. agency of dialectics is equally apparent with that of inspiration. At the same time, we must not think/ of the apostle as a professed theologian, absorbed in \ elaborating a speculative system. He was a mis- \ sionary and a preacher. His mind followed the guid- ance of circumstances, equally with abstract logic ; it developed organically and spontaneously, in response to the demand for new solutions or deductions made upon it by the course of events. His great soul knew no repose ; the thinker kept pace with the missionary; mind and will were at equal tension, and within and without were displayed the same ardour and the same energy. The Gospel that he preached to the heathen had to be freed from Judaism, and justified to the Christian understanding by ex- perience and by Old Testament exegesis. The man who spread the name of Jesus from the borders of Palestine to the confines of the West is the same who wrote the epistles to the Romans and Colossians ; and the distance between Jerusalem and Rome is but a type of that much longer road the Gospel traversed from the Sermon on the Mount to the Christianity of these great epistles. The course of development pursued by the apostle's doctrine lies between these two limits. Taking its departure from the first apostolic preaching, it reaches its goal in the theological system to which we have just referred. The internal progress of his thought corresponds exactly with the external progress of his mission ; and both were alike stormy and full of con- flict. This history has more than a merely personal and psychological interest ; it is virtually the history of the revolution which first emancipated Christianity and constituted it an independent religion, beyond the THE APOSTLE PAUL. sacred inclosurc of the Jewish nation. This revolu- tion, as we know, had various phases. Paul did not in his early days see the full bearing of the liberal and individualistic principle that he was introducing into the traditional faith, nor all the consequences of the work he was doing in the heathen world. They only revealed themselves to his understanding pro- gressively. He walked bravely, but only by one step at a time, in the unknown path at the beginning of v/hich, in spite of himself, the very special character of his conversion had placed him from the outset. We insist on this point, because it is ignored alike by those whose theory of a mechanical and wholesale theopneustia leaves no room for the workings of the apostle's own mind, and by those who make him out to have been a sort of speculative genius, creating a priori and in solitude the system that he was after- wards to preach and defend. Take as an illustration one of the great declarations of Paul : his doctrine of the abolition of the Mosaic law as a system and a means of salvation. It is evident that he reached this position by. degrees. At first he was able to content himself with having obtained at the famous conference at Jerusalem (Gal. ii. ; Acts xv.) a dispen- sation from circumcision for Christians of heathen origin. A few years later this had ceased to satisfy him. His mind being of an essentially dialectic cast, he rose from the concrete fact to the absolute principle. He had not set out by formulating the latter in its abstract generalit}', but having found from experience that the law was of no avail in the salva- tion of the Gentiles, it seemed to him no longer essential to the Jews ; and he ended by formulating in his epistle to the Romans his profound and original INTRODUCTION. theory as to its scope : viz. that its purpose was not to save sinners, but on the contrary to multiply sin, in order to deliver up the guilty conscience more entirely to the grace of God. Examine this theory more closely ; you will soon see traces of the violent conflicts out of which it was evolved, ft is not a primitive belief, but a final conclusion — ^the sum of a long experience, and the end of a fierce controversy. We might further quote passages from the epistle to the Galatians (Gal. i. ro; v. 1 1) which seem to imply changes in Paul's conduct with respect to circumcision and the Christians of Palestine. But what is the use of putting forward uncertain inferences, when we have elsewhere a striking proof of the very clear conscious- ness the apostle had of the successive modifications and constant progress of his Christian views ? How many times he laments the incapacity of his efforts to grasp all the riches of the Gospel ! " When I was a child," he writes to the Corinthians, " I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child (comp. I Cor. iii. i) ; now that I am become a man (comp. I Cor. xvi. 13), I have put away childish thoughts." Reference is here made, as the parallel passages show, to the childhood and maturity of the Christian life. ; Can it be doubted that the mind of the man who wrote these vrords obeyed the natural laws of all human knowledge, and that there were elementary conceptions which it had already left behind ? In fact, this idea of progress is inherent in Paul's theo- / logy, and essential to it. Even his present knowledge, I which he regards as that of mature years, does not really satisfy him. In the recollection of progress achieved he only sees a cause and pledge of further progress. The distance separating him from child- THE APOSTLE PAUL. hood is but an image to him of that which still separates him from the ultimate goal. At no period did his conceptions appear to him either complete or final. " Now we see as in a dim mirror ; one day we shall see face to face. My knowledge is but imperfect and partial ; one day I shall know as I have been known" (i Cor. xiii. ii ff.). The older the apostle grew, the more this natural feeling strengthened in him. This is how he wrote to the Philipnians a few years before his death : " I do not imagine that I have reached the goal, nor obtained perfection ; but I am pursuing it. This one thing I do : forgetting the things which are behind me, I strenuously press toward those which are before. I see the goal, and march on to it" (Phil. iii. 12-16). The sequel clearly shows that the progress in question has as least as much reference to his mental develop- ment as to his moral perfection. " If you think dif- ferently from me in anything," he adds, " God shall make known the truth to you. Meantime, let us walk in unity in the common knowledge which we have already attained." It would have been astonishing if an idea so natural in itself, and so clearly indicated in the text, had not been pointed out by modern criticism. But we have no such omission to complain of As soon, in fact, as Paul's life and writings began to be studied from an historical point of view, the idea of a progressive development in his views compelled attention to itself Usteri clearly suggested the idea, in a work of which the third edition appeared as early as 1831 ;^ but at the same time he abandoned it as incapable of de- ' Eniwickcliing dcs Paulinischen Lehrbegriffes, p. 7. INTRODUCTION. monstration, because the historical connexion of the authentic letters was still undefined, and their chrono- logy unsettled, while the great critical epochs of the apostle's life were wholly unrecognised. The work of reconstruction could not be resumed with any chance of success, until the task of patient and minute analysis had been first performed. The honour of this achievement belongs to Baur.^ Thanks to his critical studies, abundant light has been thrown upon Paul's epistles ; their order of sequence has been recovered, their distinctive features clearly defined, the historical events that occasioned them perfectly established, and their differences marked out not less plainly than their resemblances. In short, the first and essential conditions for tracing out the apostle's mental history were fulfilled. It is true that Baur's refusal to recognise as authentic anything but the doctrinal type evolved from the great central epistles (Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans) prevented him from completing this task himself. But since then the epistles to the Thes- salonians, to Philemon, and to the Philippians have asserted their place by the side of these, not to mention others whose authenticity is now generally admitted, even by the severest critics. Yet the dogmatic dif- ferences pointed out by Baur exist all the same. And thus, while maintaining the Pauline origin of these other writings, and recognising at the same time their distinct doctrinal types, modern criticism is shut up more and more to a contradiction, of which the only and inevitable solution is found in the conception of ^ Paulus dcr Apostel Jesu Christie 2nd cd., 1866 [Eng. trans., 1873]. THE AFOSTLE PAUL. a progressive development in the apostle's system of thought. This solution was still much disputed when the first edition of this book appeared [1870]. But at the present dato, though subject to some modification in detail, it has triumphed completely. On reviewing, as a whole, those epistles of Paul which have been preserved to us, we see that they fall naturally into three groups: (i) The epistles to the Thessalonians, which appear to be simply an echo of his missionary preaching. (2) The great epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, the outcome of his conflicts with the Judaizers. (3) The epistles of the Captivity. Each of these groups contains a homogeneous and clearly defined type of doctrine, equally characteristic in its turn of thought and in the nature of its polemics. It is no less easy to per- ceive that these three types have a logical sequence, and correspond exactly with the great periods of the apostle's life : the first dominated by his missionary activities and interests ; the second by his fierce struggle against Judaism ; the third by the appear- ance of the Gnostic asceticism. Will the establishment of these three periods enable us, then, to understand how the doctrine of Paul, by virtue of its inner principle and under the outward pressure of events, developed from its elementary into its higher form ? And will this conception of a natural and necessary development solve the problems to which the historical exegesis of his epistles has given rise ? That is the whole question. Our answer lies in the reconstruction that we have attempted in this volume, and it will be enough here to explain its historical basis and mode of procedure. INTRODUCTION. YVe find our starting-point in the middle group of Paul's writings — the four great epistles to the Gala- tians, Corinthians, and Romans, which are closely consecutive and intimately related to each other. The system of Paul, eminently dialectic, is here developed in its strong antithesis to the Judaistic tendency. Plere, in the midst of the apostle's career, it presents itself in a phase in the highest degree characteristic and indisputably genuine. But however important and glorious, this stage of Paul's doctrine is not the only one, a fact to be carefully borne in mind. These letters written one after another from Ephesus, Mace- donia, and Corinth during Paul's last missionary journey, belong only to one period, and that the short- est, of his life, to an interval of three or four years in a career w^hich lasted for nearly thirty. Must we forego all knowledge — all conjecture even — as to the twenty years w^hich preceded, or the six which followed it ? Nay, indeed : we are bold to affirm that Paul the missionary must have thought and spoken differently from the dialectician of these great letters. How could they have been understood, unless those who received them had had previous preparation ? On examining them more nearly, we can plainly see that Paul's dialectic expression of thought is due to an external fact, to his conflict with Judaism. The argument of the apostle cannot be understood apart from that of his opponents. In other words, we have here an antithesis, the first member of which is determined and conditioned by the second. We may safely affirm that before the outbreak of Judaistic opposition the teaching of Paul could not possibly have taken the form and development which this opposition alone could give. lo THE APOSTLE PAUL. Now, we are well informed of the origin and date of this conflict. It could not have arisen before the success of the great missions to the heathen, because their success was the cause of it. Besides, we have on this point the express declaration of the apostle himself in his epistle to the Galatians (chap. i. 18-24). He went, he tells us, three years after his conversion to visit and confer with Peter at Jerusalem. From thence he went to Syria and Cilicia, and the Churches of JudiEa rejoiced and gave thanks for his ministry in those regions. The controversy, therefore, did not then exist. It only broke out fourteen years later (Gal. ii. i), when the Pharisaic Christians came to Antioch and tried to force circumcision upon the heathen converts. Here then is an earlier and pro- longed period, during which the doctrine of Paul, developing under other conditions and amid other conflicts, must inevitably have taken a simpler, a more practical and general form. Can we discover the moment at which the crisis that transformed it came about ? At the conference of Jerusalem (Gal. ii. ; Acts xv.) new and weighty questions presented themselves to Paul's mind ; but they were not at once solved. He contented himself, as we have said already, with having secured for the heathen a dispensation from circumcision. The epistles to the Thessalonians, written a little later, are still without any sign of contention with Judaizers. Evidently the apostle has left Jerusalem and set out on his second missionary journey fully satisfied with his victory, and without any anxiety as to the future. The precise moment of the crisis must therefore have occurred between the epistles to the Thessalonians and the epistle to the INTRODUCTION. Galatians. What happened in this interval? The violent dispute between Peter and Paul at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11-21)/ and all that the recital of it reveals to us : the arrival of messengers from James in the Gentile Christian community, and the counter-mission organized by the Judaizers to rectify the work of Paul. It was this new situation, suddenly presenting itself to the apostle on his return from his second missionary journey, which by compelling him to enter the con- test, led him to formulate in all its rigour his prin- ciple of the abrogation of the law (Gal. ii. 16). While admitting a development in Paul's doctrine during this long and obscure primitive period, some may perhaps consider that it ceased with the epistle to the Galatians. Now, they would say, it has come to realize its essential principle ; it cannot make further progress. No doubt this epistle marks an epoch in the apostle's life ; but it is a point of de- parture, rather than a halting place ; it inaugurates a new era. Far from being at rest, the mind of Paul was never more active and eager, never more fertile than during this stormy period. Involved from the first in the glaring antithesis of law and faith, his mind strives to get beyond and above it to a loftier point of view, from which he may bring about its synthesis, by the subordination of the one principle to the other. In the epistles to the Corinthians his view had already expanded beyond these limits, and in the epistle to the Romans it is transformed ; larger pro- ^ We place this event not at the return of Paul to Antioch after the conference at Jerusalem ('Acts xv. 33), but at his return from his second missionary journey (Acts xviii. 23). Thus Neander, Wieseler, Renan, etc. 12 THE APOSILE PAUL. spects open before it. But there is no more reason for arresting his mental progress at Romans than at Galatians. New events and an altered situation lead to a new expansion of thought. The last period of his life is of an entirely peculiar character, determined by certain leading facts. To begin with, Paul was in prison. This captivity, in snatching him from the duties and conflicts of his mis- sionary work, afforded him leisure ; it sentenced him to solitude and to meditation. Furthermore, there was springing up a tendency at once ascetic and specu- lative, a sort of early Gnosticism, which invaded Paul's Churches and threatened to ruin them. Naturally, and logically, these errors called forth a fresh develop- ment of the apostle's doctrine, more speculative and more theological than the other two. Thus it reached its highest level in the epistles of the Captivity. The three periods of Paul's life which we have in- dicated, are as follows : First Period. — Primitive Paidinism : From the conversion of Paul to the epistle to the Galatians. Documents : The missionary discourses in the Acts, and the epistles to the Thessalonians. This is the adolescence of the apostle's .system of thought. Second Period.— r/^^: PauUnism of the great epistles: From the epistle to the Galatians to the imprisonment of Paul. Documents : the epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans. This is the virile and heroic age of his mind. Third Period. — PauUnism of later days: P'rom the beginning of his captivity until his death. Docu- ments : the epistles to Philemon, Colossians, JCphe- sians, and IMiilippians ; the parallel record of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts xx. to the end), especially the introduction: 13 discourse at Miletus. This is the ac^e o{ perfect and full maturity. Such is the course and plan of this history. To these three essential divisions two more must be added : the first, in which the historical and psycho- logical origin of Paul's theology will be set forth ; and the last, a necessary conclusion to our history, in which we shall endeavour to explain his theological system in its definitive form, and to sketch its organism. II. CliRONOLOClV. Before commencing our narrative, it is important to fix as nearly as possible the chronology of the apostle's life. Let us admit, to begin with, that the dates of his birth and death are completely lost to us. For us, his historical career ends at the year 63 or 64 A.D. The writer of the Acts leaves him in his prison at Rome two years after he had entered it. From that time we know nothing of him. Did he perish in the burning of the city (July, A.D. 64), or in the persecution which followed ? Was he released ? Did he go to Spain, as he intended ? Did he come back to the East and return to Rome, to die on the same day as Peter in 6^ or 6Z A.D., according to Catholic tradition ? On all these points we have nothing but idle con- jecture or legends. Nor are we any better informed as to the date of his birth. The only two indications of which we can avail ourselves, are the epithet veaviae do not think that the parallelism between Galatians ii. and Acts xv. can be seriously called in question. This being the case, we have from the pen of Paul himself all the materials for a precise chronology. We know that at the beginning of his epistle he defines in the clearest manner his relations with the Twelve, and the exact number of his visits to Jerusalem— two in all — up to that time, including the apostolic conference. In such an argument it is plain he could not possibly omit a single visit, for such -omission would have laid i8 THE APOSTLE PAUL. him open to the charge of falsehood. We must there- fore consider the journey mentioned in Acts xi. 30 as apocryphal,^ it being positively excluded by the de- claration of Paul himself (Gal. i. 22). It is plain that the first half of Acts is not of the same historical worth as the second, and that its statements must be tested by the evidence of the authentic epistles. Of this we have further proof. If Luke adds a journey of Paul to Jerusalem, he omits the journey to Arabia (Gal. i. 17). He has no precise idea of the time which elapsed between the conversion of Paul and his first visit to the apostles (Acts ix. 23 : r^^iepai iKavai =^ three years, according to Gal. i. 18). We cannot therefore depend upon him as before, and must not venture beyond the statement of the apostle himself. Happily this account is as explicit as it is vigorous and concise. Paul relates that he paid his first visit to Peter and James at Jerusalem three years after his conversion (Gal. i. 18). He only spent fifteen days with them. Then he went to preach the Gospel in Syria and Cilicia. The Churches of Judaea had not even seen his face. It was not till fourteen years after- wards that he made his second journey to Jerusalem, on the occasion of the apostolic conference (Gal. ii. i). Since this conference, as we have already pointed out, was held in 51-52 A.D., in order to ascertain [' But Acts xi. 29, 30; xii. 25 say nothing which imphes that on this occasion Paul met the chiefs of the Church at Jerusalem, or made himself "known by face to the Churches of Judica.'' The gift was sent "to the elders"; and at a time of severe persecution (Acts xii. i), therefore probably in a secret and expeditious way. For all that Luke says, Paul himself may not even have set foot in Jerusalem.] INTR on UCTION. 19 exactly the date of his conversion, we must find out from what point he himself reckons these fourteen years. In our opinion, there is no room for doubt. The adverb irdXiv (Gal. ii. i), showing that Paul was accounting for his visits to the Holy City ; the pre- position hid which he uses here (instead of ixera, which we find in i. 18), indicating the time during which he affirms that he had not set foot in Jerusalem, prove beyond a doubt that the terinimis a quo of the number fourteen is his first journey, previously men- tioned (Gal. i. 18), not the event of his conversion. To obtain the date of the latter, then, wc must add the fourteen years spent in Syria and Cilicia to the three years previously spent in /\rabia, or at Damascus. Paul, therefore, had been a Christian seventeen years when he came to attend the conference at Jerusalem in 51 or 52; and this carries back the date of his conversion to the year 35 A.D., at the latest. The only objection that can be made to this date, which is not, we admit, the one generally received (this varies between the years '}^'j and 42), is that the murder of Stephen must then have occurred before 36 A.D. — that is, before the recall of Pilate. x-\nd this, it is argued, is improbable; for Pilate, if still in office, would not have allowed a murder w^hich amounted on the part of the Jews to a usurpation of judicial power. But on what a thread hung Paul's life in the like cir- cumstances (Acts xxi. 31) ! The execution of Stephen, occurring in a popular riot, might have happened before the Romans were aware. And it is as easy to assume a temporary absence of Pilate, as a subsequent interregnum ; in which latter case, moreover, the au- thority of Rome would not be left without a represen- tative. The uncertain inference drawn from Luke's THE APOSTLE PAUL. narrative could not, in any case, be maintained in face of Paul's definite statements ; and we can only over- throw the date of 35 A.D. for his conversion by over- throwing that of 52 for the conference at Jerusalem. This latter once established, the remainder of the cal- culation is a matter of course. The history of Damascus, as we find to our regret, is too obscure for us to avail ourselves of the allusion made by Paul in 2 Corinthians xi. 32. At the time of his conversion there was still in that city an ethnarch, representing Aretas the king. The Romans may very well have been able to leave the government of Damascus to a vassal until 36 A.D. But immediately after this time, and before the death of Tiberius, war broke out between king Aretas on the one side, and Herod xAntipas and Rome on the other ; so that it is impossible to see how the king of Arabia could have retained any later the authority and privileges hitherto allowed him in Damascus. This suggests a further indirect confirmation of 35 A.D. as the date of Paul's conversion, which we had arrived at by another calculation. It only remains for us, returning to the close of the apostle's life, to put together the slender indications that we have of its date. He embarked for Rome in the autumn of 60 (or 61) A.D. ; but was compelled by shipwreck to winter in the island of Malta, and only reached the Eternal City in the spring of 61 {62). Luke adds that he remained there as a prisoner for two years, living in a private house under the guard of a soldier ; then his narrative breaks off abruptly, and we are confronted with the unknown (Acts xxviii. 30;. Paul is supposed to have perished in the frightful persecution caused by the fire of Rome INTRODUCTION. m in Jul}', 64 A.l). At the same time, wc would point out that the two years of imprisonment mentioned by Luke at the end of his book, ending, according to our chronology, in the spring of 6^ — or, extending our calculation by a year, in the spring of 64 — must in any case have come to an end before the events of the fire, and the persecution, which cannot have broken out until August or September. All that is certain is that he died a martyr at Rome, under Nero (Clemens Romanus : i Epist. ad Corinth, v.). Paul's apostolic career, as known to us, lasted, therefore, twenty-nine or thirty years ; and it falls into three distinct periods, which are summarized in the following chronological table : First Pm^^.— Essentially Missionary. 35 A.D. Conversion of Paul. Journey to Arabia. 2)'$^. First visit to Jerusalem. 38-49. Mission in Syria and Cilicia. Tarsus and Antioch. 50-51. First missionary journey. Cyprus, Pam- phylia, and Galatia (Acts xiii., xiv.). 53. Conference at Jerusalem (xActs xv. ; Gal. ii.). 52-55. Second missionary journey. Epistles to the Thessalonians (from Corinth). Second Period. — The Great Conflicts, and the Great Epistles. 54. Return to Antioch. Controversy with Peter (Gal. ii. i?-22). 55-57. Mission to Ephesus and Asia. 56. Epistle to the Galatians. 57, or 58 (Passover). First Epistle to the Corin- thians (Ephesus). 22 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 57, or 58 (Autumn). Second Epistle to the Corin- thians (Macedonia). 58 (Winter). Epistle to the Romans. Third Period. — The Captivity. 58, or 59 (Pentecost). Paul is arrested at Jerusalem. 58-60, or 59-61. Captivity at Ca^sarea. Epistles to PJiileinon, Colossians, and Ephesians. 60, or 61 (x^utumn). Departure for Rome. 61, or 62 (Spring). Arrival of Paul in Rome. 62-63. Epistle to the Philippians. 61, or 64. End of the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. Note. — TJie Pastoral epistles (so called) of necessity lie outside the known life of Paul. Their authenticity will be discussed afterwards. BOOK I. THE SOURCES OF PAUES SYSTEM OP THOUGHT. THE sources of Paul's system of thought are to be discovered in these three facts : in the Pharisaism which he forsook, the Christian Church which he entered, and the conversion by which he passed from the one to the other. The first of these facts to be considered is the existence of the Church. It is sometimes forgotten that a Christian community existed before Paul, hitherto its fierce persecutor, came to join its ranks. This conversion, while opening a new era in his life, was at the same time a bond of close connexion with primitive Christianity, and obliges us to look beyond Paul himself for the origin of his Christian belief. Furthermore, his conversion marked a crisis in the development of the apostolic Church. However un- expected it may have been, this event, we must confess, was wonderfully opportune. At no other time could it have had the same import or the same consequences. We could not have understood its earlier occurrence, before the death of Stephen ; nor later, when the missions to the heathen had been already set on foot. But happening just when it did, it seems to us the most weighty fact of this first age. 24 THE AFOSTLR PAUL. And it is so closel)- linked with the past which it crowns, and the future which it inaugurates, that to view it apart from its historical connexion is a thing impossible. It is indeed in this connexion, and invested with this critical importance, that the conversion of Paul is presented to us in tlie Acts of the Apostles. If we study the course of this narrative with a little atten- tion, we shall perceive in it three stages, constituting b}- their logical sequence an internal progress within the primitive Christian community, of which Paul's conversion is the goal and natural conclusion. I. The first stage is represented by the first five chapters of the Acts. Judaism and Christianity are still closely united and blended in the creed of the first Christians. Acts i.-v. : Union of the spirit of Christianity with JcivisJi tradition. . II. The second stage is marked by the episode of Stephen. The conflict between the Jewish and Christian principles, hitherto latent, breaks out in the most violent manner in the speech and the death of the mart}'r. Acts vi., vii. : Open struggle betzveen the JcwisJi and Christian principles. III. The conversion of Paul is the third stage. The conflict between the two principles, undetermined by brute force, ends within the breast of Saul the Pharisee, by the radical negation of the one and the triumphant affirmation of the other. Acts ix. : TriunipJi of the Christian over the fezuish principle. Such is the progressive course of Luke's narrative ; and it is in this historic sequence, and under this light, that we must place and stud}^ the great event that made Saul the apostle to the Gentiles. CHAPTER I. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AT JERUSALEM, —CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. THE first beginnings of the Christian Church are involved in obscurity. For the period that elapsed between the death of Jesus and the conver- sion of Saul, of which we do not even know the length, we have absolutely no information beyond that afforded by the much-disputed record given in the Acts of the Apostles.^ But this obscure period lies ^ We attach no value to the patristic, or heretical traditions of the second century. They would not, we think, have deserved even the honour of a critical discussion, if the results of Baur's researches had not invested them for a time with some appear- ance of credit. How is it possible to discuss with any serious- ness the historical value of the narratives and descriptions of the Clementine Homilies,— that romance in which the dreams of the Gnostic are mingled with the fastidious scruples of the Pharisee? They are not popular traditions, but the work of fancy ; and one cannot think the representation they give of Peter any more lifelike than that of the Apostle Paul. The famous portrait of James furnished by Hegesippus, and pre- served for us by Eusebius, has been, it is true, much more insisted on : OvTo^ ii< KOiXtas rr}? }xr]Tpo<; avrov dyto? */i" oXvov kol (Tik^pa ovK €7rtcr, ovZl eixxj/vxav €<^ay€V $vpov tVt Tyv KecfiaXyv avTov OVK aviftiy iXaiov ovk yXeiij/aTO kol (3a\av£no ovk ^XPV' (Xaro- TovToi /^oroj ii'>]i' ek ra uyta ctVieraf ot'Se yap ipeovv 26 THE APOSTLE PAUL. between two other points of history with which we are somewhat better acquainted. On one side is Paul's testimony, which throws light on the course of things previous to his conversion ; on the other, from what we know of the life and teaching of Jesus we can infer, with a tolerable degree of certainty, the position of the disciples immediately after His de- parture. Thus two luminous rays from opposite points focus themselves on this obscure interval, and icfiopei aWa (riVSova?, kol /xoi'os €laryp)(€TO €t? toi' I'aor, k.t.X., Ef. E. ii. 23. What is there in this tradition or legend but a purely ideal portrait ? Its elements are derived, not from popular tradition, but directly from the Old Testament. They are made up of the vows of the Nazarite, the customs of the Pharisees, or perhaps the Essenes, and the prerogatives of the High Priest : comp. Num. vi. 3, etc., and Lev. vi. 3, in the Septuagint. The writer did not himself believe that James had ever been High Priest, or worn a linen robe, or had sole right of entrance to the temple — a fact sufficiently proving that his intention was to draw an ideal portrait. And when, on the other hand, he says that James was sanctified from his mother's womb, and drank neither wine nor strong drink, and that no razor ever touched his head, he was evidently thinking of the birth of John the Baptist (Luke i. 15), or of Samson (Judges xiii. 4). Abstinence from meat, from ointment and the bath, was still a feature of Jewish sanctity, and distinguished the Jewish fast, in the days of Jesus (Matt. vi. 17). To the imagination of the second century, this ascetic and Levitical righteousness seemed the highest ideal of piety ; and the writer therefore wished to represent the life of James as that of a Nazarite and perpetual priest. Since James was not High Priest, is it any more certain that he was an ascetic ? The epistle which bears his name gives quite a different idea of him. Instead of commending legal sanctity, it rather opposes it (i. 27). In place of the pre- judices of the Levite or Nazarite, he gives us reminiscences of the Sermon on the Mount. Moreover, the categorical state- ment of Paul (I Cor. ix. 5) authorizes us to believe that James, THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 27 they seem to us to set it in a fairly vivid light. Let us first, therefore, gather the testimony of Paul, since this alone can furnish a safe starting point for our inquiry. The grand controversy maintained by Paul against the Judaizers proves clearly enough the distinctly Jewish character of the primitive Christian com- munity. It does not prove, however, that this com- munity was a mere Jewish sect, hardly distinguished like Peter, was married, which is hardly consistent with the account of Hegesippus. Nor is James the only one who has been thus idealized. In the second century all the apostles were represented as priests, or ascetics. Thus Clement of Alexandria states that Matthew abstained from meat and lived only upon vegetables {Pcedag. ii. i). In the same way Polycrates, in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome, depicts John with the attributes of the High Priest (09 iycv'fjOr] Upevs to tt^tuXov TrecfioprjKui^j //". £". iii. 31J. Finally, about the same period, we find a legend arising which makes Jesus Himself a priest, descended from the tribe of Levi, as well as from that of Judah {Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi 2 ; Simeon 7). On the origin and specific character of these traditions, see Ritschl, Die E?itstehu?ig der altkatholische?i Kirche, 2nd edition, p. 178. These traditions, while giving us very useful and accurate information about the spirit of the second century, teach us nothing whatever about the rise of the Church ; and they are amongst the best proofs which can be adduced to show that the Acts of the Apostles was of earlier date than the period at which they originated. In seeking to ascertain the ideas of the primitive Christians, we should be better warranted in making use of the epistle of James, the Apocalypse, or the Gospel of Matthew, which be- long to Judaso-Christian Christianity. But this would bring us to the same result as that already obtained, only by a more uncertain route. The authors of these writings are profoundly Jewish ; but no one can deny that they have got beyond Judaism, and that their creed already embraced the specific principle of the new religion. 2S THE APOSTLE PAUL. from that of the Pharisees. On the contrary, Paul himself held, and conveys to us, a very different idea of it. The manner in which he regarded this society, both before and after his conversion, is a decisive proof that he discerned in it an essentially new ele- ment. To this his former hatred and his subsequent devotion alike testif}\ Let us hear what he says of this Church : "You know," he writes to the Galatians, " how I lived in Judaism. I persecuted tJie CJnircii of God beyond measure,' and laid it waste ; . , . being full of zeal for the tra- ditions of our fathers" (Gal. i. 13, 14). It is remark- able, to begin with, that Paul never speaks of his past life without associating as cause and effect his zeal for Judaism and his hatred of the Christians : ihlwKov* T))i> €KK\i](riav. . .^i]\a)Ti)(; virdp^cov ; com. p. Philippians iii. 5, 6, Kara vofxov ^apLaalo^^ Kara ^fj\o<;: hucoKcov ti]u €KK\7](Tiay. In the eyes of the jealous Pharisee, it was a merit to persecute this new enemy of the faith of his fathers. His observation, quickened b}- fana- ticism, detected from the first under the Jewish exterior of the Church that which so man}- modern critics fail to recognise. In the second place, Paul calls this primitive Christian community the Church of God, rijv eKKXi-j- ai'av Tov OeoO (Gal. i. 13, and I Cor. xv. 9) ; on another occasion, simply 7Vi-\di par excellence, t)]v eKKXija-iav (Phil, iii. 6) [//le Church]. He calls the first Christians, of whom he knew a great number, by the new name o[ aS6\(f)ol (i Cor. XV. 6) [the brethren]; or else " the saints," ol cijioL^i Cor. xvi. I ; Rom. xv. 31). He sets them before the Thessalonian Church as models, which he is glad to see them imitate. "A^ou, brethren, became imitators 0/ the CJiurcJics of God ivhicJi are in THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 29 Judcca, in Christ Jesus : for you have suffered the same evils from your fellow citizens which they did from the Jews, who have killed the Lord Jesus, and per- secuted us" (i Thess. ii. 14, 15). The recollection of having persecuted the Church of God continued throughout Paul's life to be a cause of grief and humiliation to him. He laments for it, as if he had persecuted the Lord Himself. On this account he reckons himself last of the apostles, unworthy even to be called an apostle ; he calls himself an abortion, the chief of sinners (i Cor. xv. -8 ; J Tim. i. 13-15)- It is not the case then that there were two gospels, the gospel of the Twelve and the Pauline gospel, each the negation of the other. Paul found himself in fellowship with the primitive Church. His faith rested on the same foundation. The legitimate existence of two apostlcsJdps, one appointed for the evangelization of the Jew and the other for that of the Gentile, he did indeed admit ; but never of two essentially different gospels. He acknowledged but one Gospel, which saved equally and in the same way both Jew and Gentile. " If any man preach another, let him be anathema" (Rom. i. 16 ; Gal. i. 7-9). Here we are confronted with the passage in Galatians ii. 7-9: "When they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision (He that wrought in Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision, having wrought in me also for the evangelization of the Gentiles),— recognising, I say, the grace that has been committed to me, they gave me the right hand of fellowship." Here, it is said, we have the two gospels clearly defined and contrasted with each other : &va'y^/e\iov tt)^ aKpo^3vaTia<;, evayyiXiov ri)^ THE APOSTLE PAUL. TrepcTOfir)^. But who does not see that by these two genitives Paul meant to indicate, not the dogmatic content, but //le tivofold destination of the Gospel ? Besides, these words are clearly explained in the succeeding verse, where the equivalent terms are sub- stituted : T779 7r€pLT0fjLr](; = eh diroaToXrjv t?}? TrepLTO/jLT}^ ; T>)9 aKpo^v(n[a<; — eh tcl eOvrj. And, what is more, the apostle ascribes these two apostleships and the abun- dant fruit they bore to one and the same act of God : 6 yap evepyijaa^; Uerpw . . . KafJLoi. If two hostile and contradictory gospels are in question, it must be admitted that Paul attributes them equally to God as their supreme Author — a crying absurdity ! We have here not a dogmatic definition, but an ethnographical delimitation of two missionary fields. The apostles were able, therefore, without any hypocrisy to give to each other the right hand of fellowship ; they felt themselves to be standing on a common basis, which was broad enough to support them all. What was this common foundation, this identical content of the twofold preaching, which, belonging equally to both fields of labour, for that very reason may be regarded as the primitive Gospel ? Paul has stated it for us in the opening verses of the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians. There he sums up the Gospel that he had preached at Corinth, *' I remind you," he says, " of the gospel which I announced unto you, that which also I received, wherein ye abide firmly, by which ye are saved. . . . Among the chief things (Iv Tr/jcorot?), I taught you that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures ; that He was buried ; and that He was raised on the third day, according to the Scrip- tures." Then, after referring to the different appear- THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 31 ances of the risen Jesus, he adds : " This is what lue preach, whether it be I or they (the Twelve) ; and this is zuhat you believed^ These last words apply not only to the appearances recorded above, but to the entire summary of the apostle's preaching as just given. Another passage in the same epistle, no less inte- resting to study, shows us how the apostle estimated the work that was being done by others alongside with himself, and that which had been done before him in the Church : " According to the grace of God which was given unto me, I have like a wise architect laid the foundation, and another is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. No other foundation can be laid than that which has been already laid, — namely, Jesus Christ" (iii. 10, ii). So far from reproaching Peter with having built on a different foundation, Paul reckons him among the number of those who were labouring at God's build- ing. He neither commends nor blames him, leaving to God the office of appraising the work of each (iii. 22). In the epistle to the Ephesians, Paul calls this primitive foundation de^kXiov twv airoaroKcov (ii. 20) ; and, farther on, he adds that the mystery of Christ has been revealed to His holy apostles and pro- phets, as never in former ages (iii. 5).^ We see with what absolute sincerity Paul attached himself to the primitive Church. Does not this evidence justify us in inferring the twofold character, both Jewish and Christian, of this original com- munity ? Had it not been Jewish in its manner of ^ We are aware that the authenticity of these two last pas- sages is questioned. But we only quote them as confirming the previous citation. 32 THE APOSTLE PAUL. life and its hopes, the struggles and schisms that followed would be inexplicable. But if, on the other hand, it had not in the midst of its Judaism held fast to the new principle of the Gospel, Saul would never have left Pharisaism for a sect which continued so much like it ; at all events, he would not after his conversion have remained in communion with it. Between Jesus and Paul, then, the Church at Jeru- salem formed a necessary connecting link. The sub- sequent course of events can only be satisfactorily explained by the original alliance existing in the faith and life of the first Christians between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and traditional Judaism. It is, in fact, the combination of these two fundamentally hostile prin- ciples which gives to this first period of the Church's history its peculiar and primitive character. In order to understand this unique historical situa- tion, we must carry our thoughts back to the morrow of the death of Jesus. The attitude assumed by the disciples toward Judaism was the consequence and continuation of that in which the Master Himself had stood. Now, the position of Jesus in regard to the national religion had a twofold aspect. He was emphatically a Jew ; He sought to fulfil all righteousness. His life was entirely confined within the limits of Judaism. Nothing is more remarkable than the way in which He has succeeded in bringing about, without any violence, the greatest revolution that has ever taken place. He brought into the world in His own person a new principle of religious life. In pre- senting Himself as the object of faith and love. He instituted a new righteousness, and opened to. men THE PRIMITIVE CHRIST/ AX COMMUNITY. 35 a new way of salvation. Thus He supplied another fulcrum in place of that on which the religious con- sciousness of His disciples previously rested, substi- tutincf for their traditional faith an absolute devotion to His person. When He met with a tradition of the elders, or even an article of the law which opposed the application of the new principle, He brushed it aside with a sovereign authority. But His reforms were, nevertheless, as free from violence as His rever- ence and obedience were from weakness. Jesus never formally abrogated the authority of the law ; on the contrary, He vindicated it, sometimes with great solemnity : " I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." In these words lies the secret of His action. Jesus loved to present His gospel as the realization of the ancient promises, the crown of earlier revelation. So that His disciples, in devoting themselves unre- servedly to His person and becoming His messengers, did not in any way feel that they were seceding from the chosen people. On the contrary, they held them- selves to belong to Israel now more truly than ever, and with a better claim than their fellow citizens (Acts iii. 23). But, on the other hand, the revolution not as yet effected in their minds was nevertheless accomplished as an objective fact. Calvary made an irrevocable breach between the religion of the past and of the future. Jesus, in dying, guaranteed His work against any unintelligent or timid reaction. From the outset He planted His cross between Christianity and Judaism ; and so often as His disciples are tempted to retrace their steps, they find it placed as an impas- sable barrier between them and their nation. The cross, in fact, was the real motive principle of 3 54 THE APOSTLE PAUL. all the progress which ensued ; it was this which gave impulse and impetus to the primitive Church, and drove it irresistibly beyond the limits of Judaism. In spite of all their attempts at conciliation, the cross was destined to bring the apostles into conflicts, ever renewed, with the Jewish nation (Acts v. 28). Mean- while it weighed upon their secret thoughts and wrought on them like an inward goad. They have to justify the cross by the declarations of the pro- phets, to discover the purpose of God in this in- famous punishment ; in short, to prove its necessity as an essential factor in the plan of salvation pre- pared by God for mankind (Acts iii. 17, 18 ; viii. 31, etc.). The terminus of this movement of thought is found in the theory of redemption formulated by the apostle Paul. Thus the external development of the Church and the internal progress of the apostolic doctrine equally proceeded from the cross of Jesus. The apostles, to be sure, did not foresee all these consequences. The principle of their faith and their loyalty to their crucified Master were about to lead them whither they would not. For a little while the bark which bears them remains in harbour ; but the last cords are already severed, the anchor is lifted, and from that moment every impulse, every motion of the waves serves to carry it farther from the ancient shore of Judaism, to which it will never more return. That which seems to us, more than anything else, to characterize the narrative of the Acts is this same latent dualism, this tranquil co-existence of Judaism and Christianity in the primitive Christian life and creed. The union is sincere, because it is complete. It is, in fact, in this very simplicity of hope and this THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 35 very behaviour that the striking originality of the pic- ture of early Christianity consists. There is no trace of any compromise between hostile tendencies ; the two streams are intermingled, and blend in perfect harmony. No one feels it necessary to renounce Moses in order to remain faithful to Jesus. There is actually so little contradiction between the old and new faith, that in some cases conversion to the Gospel awakened a new zeal for Judaism. We find the early Christians observing the national feasts and holidays (Acts ii. i ; xviii. 21 [?] ; xx. 6, 16 ; Rom. xiv. 5). They take part in the worship of the temple and the synagogue ; they pray at the cus- tomary hours (chaps, ii. 46 ; iii. i ; v. 42 ; x. 9). They observe the fasts, and undergo voluntary abstinence, binding themselves by special vows like all pious Jews (xiii. 2 ; xviii. 18 ; xxi. 23). They scrupulously avoid unlawful food, and all legal defilement (x. 14). They have their children circumcised (xv. 5 ; xvi. 3 ; Gal. V. 2). In short, they are like the pious Ananias in the eyes of the Jews at Damascus \avrip evKa^i)^ Kara rbv vofiov (i\cts xxii. 12). This scrupulous piety won for them the esteem and admiration of the people (chap. v. 13).^ The primitive Christians w-ere Jewish alike in their ideas and their hopes. Their creed was still com- prised in a single dogma : Jesus is the Messiah. This simple proposition, as M. Reuss well observes, was not new in respect to its attribute, but only as regards its subject.^ Their preaching of the Gospel strictly ^ See Reuss, Histoire. de la theologie chretiennc au sicclc apostolique^ vol. i., p. 282, 3rd edition. [Eng. trans., i , 249.] * Reuss, Histoire^ etc. vol. i., p. 284. [Eng. trans., i., 251.] 36 7'HE APOSTLE PAUL. followed the lines of Messianic tradition (i. 7 ; ii. '"^6 ; iii. 3o). They awaited, with almost feverish expecta- tion, the approaching advent of their Master, and pictured his return in colours and images wholly borrow^ed from Pharisaism. But in reality, all this formed only the outside of their life and creed. The conception of the Messiah, when applied to the historical person of Jesus, could not fail to undergo a transformation. The kingdom of God, which the apostles invited their fellow citizens to enter, was from the first divested of its political and terrestrial character ; it must be entered by repentance and the remission of sins ; and the Saviour of the nation becomes thus, in the nature of the case, the Saviour of the individual. Herein lies the profound significance of the miracle of Pentecost. That day was the birthday of the Church, not because of the marvellous success of Peter's preaching, but because the Christian principle, hitherto only existing objectively and externally in the person of Jesus, passed from that moment into the souls of His disciples and there attained its inward realization. On the day of Pentecost memory became faith.^ And thus in the very midst of Judaism we see created and unfolded a form of religious life essen- tially different from it — tJic Christian life. A new flower blooms on the old stem. In the midst of the national family, the first Christians felt themselves brethren in a peculiar sense ; side by side with the temple ritual, we find the more intimate and ' Sec Neandei's History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church; Dc Prcssensc's Early Years of Chris- tianity. THE PRIMITIVE CHKISTIAX COMMUXITY. 37 spiritual worship of the " upper room." Exhortation and prayer, baptism in the name of Jesus, the breaking of bread in commemoration of His death, charity to the poor — here are present ah'eady all the essential elements of Christian worship. At the same time, by the natural effect of discus- sion, the apostles gained a clearer understanding of the new principle which animated them. Their faith, which at first was nothing more than a powerful sentiment binding them to Jesus, sought day by day to attain a more just and exact definition of its object. Peter at first simply designates Jesus as a man approved of God (ii. 22) ; then, as the Holy and Righteous One; as the Prince and Leader of life (iii. 14, 15). At last the new faith is revealed in its full import in the courageous declaration of the apostle : " Jesus is the stone which you builders despised, and which has become the headstone of the corner. In none other is there salvation : for there has not been given to men any other name under heaven by which they can be saved" (iv. 11, 12). To the claim of Judaism to be the sole religion is here opposed the equal claim of the Gospel. Conflict was inevitable. On both sides, it is true, there seem to have been efforts made to prevent it. The Jewish authorities, alarmed by their too easy triumph over Jesus, hesi- tated to attack His disciples. They wished to have no more to do with them ; they warned, and even implored them. They could not make up their minds to repress them by violence, and yielded readily to the wise counsel of Gamaliel. The apostles, on their side, seemed equally unwilling to precipitate matters. In their naive expectation of soon seeing their whole THE AFOSTLE PAUL. nation converted, they avoided giving it offence. If they recall the murder of Jesus, they hasten to excuse it, on the ground of the ignorance of the per- petrators and its Divine necessity (iii. 13-19). But the logic of principles and events was to prove too strong for this goodwill. The heads of the nation contented themselves at first with forbidding the apostles to speak in the name of Jesus. Un- fortunately, this was the one point on which it was impossible for them to obey. The prohibition led to transgression ; and the transgression in its turn in- evitably provoked violence. These first persecutions stimulated the zeal and enthusiasm of the disciples, and braced them for the struggle (iv. 24 ; v. 41). " It is better to obey God than man." In this phrase we hear by anticipation the farewell of the apostles to national Judaism. So, little by little, Christianity and Judaism came to exhibit the hostility latent in their principles. Let a man now arise bold enough to disentangle the two systems and set them in antithesis, and we shall see the great conflict begun by the discourses and the death of Jesus break forth again as fiercely as before. Such a man was Stephen, deacon and martyr. CHAPTER ir. STEPHEN THE PRECURSOR OF PAUL. — COLLISION BETWEEN THE JEWISH ' AND TEIE CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE (Acts vi., vii.). THE first verses of the sixth chapter of the Acts indicate a great change in the internal con- dition of the primitive Church. At the same time, we find ourselves apparently on firmer historical ground. The earl}' days of pure enthusiasm are succeeded by a period of bitter divisions within, and fierce conflicts without. The growth of the Church destroyed its internal harmon}'. Opposing tendencies were aroused and displayed themselves in its midst. " In those days, when the number of the disciples was increasing, there arose a loud murmuring of the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the distribution of relief" (vi. i). Is not this an undeniable proof that the Judaic spirit, with its prejudice and intolerance, survived in the Chris- tian community? and may we not foresee already something of the more ardent and serious struggles to which this spirit was afterwards to give rise ? This dissension was appeased, however, by a triumph of the primitive spirit of charity. The seven deacons who were appointed all bear Greek names. Probably they were selected, by preference, from the aggrieved party, 40 THE APOSTLE PAUL. in order to prevent further complaints. Among these deacons, Stephen was designated first, being a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and of favour and influence among the people. He had apprehended the spiritual character of the Gospel better than the apostles themselves, and surrendered himself with absolute faith to the new principle.^ He soon found himself in the forefront of the struggle that was beginning against Judaism, carried onwards by the boldness of his views quite as much as by his zeal. To this struggle his intervention gave a new turn. The apostles had remained on the defensive in their preaching of Jesus ; Stephen broke through this reserv^e, and boldly assumed the offensive. In his public discussions he laid bare the materialistic principle of Pharisaic piety ; he pointed out with unsparing plainness the secret cause of that invincible obstinacy with which the Jews had always resisted ^ We consider that it was in this faith and holy inspiration — that is, in a clearer comprehension of the gospel of Jesus — rather than in his Hellenism, that the loftiness, courage, and spiritua- lity of Stephen's thought had their source. We believe, contrary to the received opinion, that it is attributing undeserved honour to the Hellenist Jews to regard them as a spiritual and liberally minded party. They were treated somewhat with contempt, because their origin appeared less pure ; but it is probable, as in all analogous cases, that they cherished on this account a more bigoted temper and a sterner zeal, in order to atone for their foreign taint and efface the recollection of it. They attached themselves to the Pharisaic party much more than to that of the Sadducees. It was the Hellenists, indeed, who accused and stoned Stephen. Saul was a Hellenist. It was Hellenist Jews, again, who wished to kill Paul after his conversion (ix. 29). And finally, the men who, on recognising Paul in the temple, denounced and sought to slay him were Jews from Asia (xxi. 27). STEPHEN THE PRECURSOR OF PAUL. 41 the word of God. His denunciations of their reh'gious formahsm recalled sometimes those accents of the Master which used to excite the Pharisees to fury. This fury again awoke. The capital charge brought against Jesus was renewed against Stephen ; false witnesses again repeated the accusation, " We have heard this man speak against the holy place and against the law. We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy the temple, and change the customs that Moses gave us " (vi. 13, 14). How far was this charge true or false? What was the real idea of Stephen ? We can only learn it through his discourse. This speech is divided into two parts, of very unequal length — one historical, and the other personal. The fifty-first verse forms the somewhat abrupt transition from the one to the other. At first sight, one does not readily perceive the con- nexion between this long defence and the accusation ; and some interpreters, misled by this, have concluded that we have not here Stephen's actual discourse, but a free historical composition which the author of the Acts has substituted for it. That is only a superficial judgment. When we study the address more closely and grasp its main idea, we find it impossible to imagine anything which could have met the accu- sation more directly or gone more thoroughly to the root of the matter, or any defence, on the whole, more apt and eloquent. What, then, is its pervading thought? This de- clares itself in that same fifty-first verse which marks the transition from the first to the second part of the address. *' You stiff-necked men," cries Stephen, " un- circumcised in heart and ears, will you always resist the Holy Ghost ? " This vehement apostrophe, with 42 THE APOSTLE PAUL. which his lon^^ historical statement conckidcs, com- pletely sums it up. Stephen, in fact, endeavours in traversing the course of Israel's history to point out and illustrate the perpetual conflict that existed be- tween the unfailing mercy of God and the stubborn, carnal obstinacy of the people. This tragic antithesis is the one subject of his discourse. He seems, at the first glance, to forget the accusation laid against him ; but in reality he does not lose sight of it for a moment. It is the constant goal to which every word is directed. In rehearsing the conflicts of the past he is well aware, and makes it very evident, that he is depicting by anticipation the struggle in which at the present moment he is himself involved. Besides, Stephen had no other means of making himself listened to and understood. To the High Priest's question. Is it true what these men say ? he could not answer directly either Yes or No. He could not answer in the affir- mative ; for in his eyes the Gospel was not the de- struction of the law and prophets, but their fulfilment. To answer] No, would have been to den}- his cause, and to save himself by means of an equivocation. He must explain, in order to defend himself; and what better explanation can he offer, than to make his case parallel with that of Moses and the prophets ? On a similar occasion, Jesus had made much the same reply. Stephen's discourse is the complement and develop- ment of the parable of the Vineyard. The orator was obliged to throw his speech into this historical form. By doing so he gave the rage of his opponents time to subside, and meanwhile secured the means of showing clearly the true cause of their hatred. The great epochs in the history of the Jewish people fur- nish the main divisions of his discourse. STEPHEN THE PRECURSOR OE PAUL. 43 The first extends from Abraham to Moses (vii. 2-19). The nation does not exist as yet ; but before its birth it was the object of Divine favour ; for to it, in truth, the promises given to the patriarchs were made (vers. 4, 5, 7). The second epoch Hes between Moses and David. In referring to the first period, the orator has extolled the goodness of God ; in describing the second, he endeavours to depict with equal force the ingratitude and carnal disposition of the people. This period becomes typical. In Moses the deliverer (A-urpwrr;?), Stephen enables us to recognise the image of a far greater Deliverer. His unworthy reception, the oppo- sition he met with and the incredulity with which his word was received, are set forth in such terms that the history of Moses, by an easy transition, becomes the history of Jesus acted out beforehand (ver. 35). The third period comprises the times of David and Solomon. Stephen breaks off at the building of the temple. He does not, as some have thought, censure the very idea of such an undertaking ; on the con- trary, he sees in it a distinct fulfilment of God's original promise made to Abraham : " They shall worship Me in this place " (ver. 7). He saw fit to confine his historical exposition be- tween these two events — the prophecy, and its fulfil- ment. In vain the nation displayed its ingratitude. God remained faithful, and the temple was built. But alas ! this blessing produced no better result than the rest. The carnal disposition of the people spoilt it, and turned it into a cause of destruction. The very temple where God should have been worshipped in spirit and in truth, became the centre and support of a bigoted and hypocritical piety. Instead of reveal- 44 THE APOSTLE PAUL, ing to all mankind the one universal God, who made heaven and earth, it only served to limit and conceal the majesty of Jehovah. This, we take it, is the true interpretation of the passage, the most important in the whole discourse, in which Stephen shows what he really thought about the temple : "David found favour before God, and asked that he might build a taber- nacle for the God of Jacob ; and Solomon built Him a house. But the Most High dwells not in houses made by human hands, according to the prophet's word : Heaven is My throne, earth the footstool of My feet ; what house will you build Me ? saith the Lord ; or what should be the place of My rest? Is it not My hand that has made all these things ? " (vers. 46-50.) Thus had Stephen advanced slowly, but always in a straight line, to meet the charge laid against him. He now confronts and grapples with it directly and without hesitation. His answer is deduced from this prolonged narrative with overwhelming effect. It is an old contention, this in which he is engaged — the contention between God and His people. Is it surprising that the people to-day show no more intelligence, no better disposition than they had done with regard to Moses, or the prophets, or Jesus ? *' Which of the prophets did not your fathers perse- cute? They killed those who foretold of the coming of the Righteous One; and when this Righteous One appeared, you became His betrayers and murderers! You possessed the law, . . . and }'ou did not keep it." In other words. You arc just like your fathers : o)? ol Trarepe? L'yuojv Kai vfxeiJ TroAct Tat'rr/ must mean Jerusalem, and not Tarsus. Paul was not only instructed, 7r£7ratSei;/x€Vos, but nourished and brought up from earliest child- hood at Jerusalem, di/are^pa/x/xeVo?. This disposes of all the conjectures that have been made about Paul's Greek education. - On Hillel and Gamaliel, see Derenbourg: Essai sur Vhis- toire et la geographie de la Palestine d^apres le Talmud, Tp'fi. 17S, 187, and 239. Hillel, of whose family, along with the traditions of his school, Gamaliel was the heir, seems to have been, so far as we can judge, the Aristotle of rabbinical theology. He classified and formulated the different rules of its scholastic reasoning. Here is an example of his mode of discussion, quoted by M. Derenbourg. The point in question was whether, if the 15th Nisan, the Passover, fell on a Saturday, it was lawful to sacrifice the Paschal lamb on that day. Hillel answered in the affirmative, and established his assertion by three reasons : (i) by an argument drawn from analogy. The law of the Sabbath does not prevent the daily sacrifice ; there is no more reason why the Paschal sacrifice should be forbidden. — (2) By an argument d fortiori. If the daily sacrifice was offered notwithstanding the Sabbath, when its omission was 4 50 THE APOSTLE PAUL. did not abandon all his former convictions ; for had not many of his Christian ideas their roots in his early faith ? What else, in fact, is his entire system of doctrine but Pharisaism transformed and inverted ? Unfortunately, we have onl}' very vague and im- perfect information about the doctrines taught in the Pharisaic schools of the period. Nevertheless, it is certain that the apostle's theology owed to Judaism the general basis on which it rests. There is no need of appealing to external documents of doubtful authority, in order to discover the exact nature of this basis. It will be enough to note in his epistles the general ideas which had their origin in Judaism. We shall thus be able to trace the traditional mould in which Paul's system of thought was cast from the beginning. His theology continued to be Jewish to a much greater extent than has been commonly supposed. P^rom the Old Testament Paul drew the primary and fundamental ideas of his system : the ideas of God, of revelation, of righteousness, and of holiness. He is essentially Jewish, in what one might call his mental categories, and in the general point of view not punishable by extermination, how much more should the Passover be, seeing extermination was the punishment for its omission. — (3) liy an exegetical argument. It is ordained that the act should be fulfilled at its appointed time ; if that means in spite of the sabbath in the case of the daily sacrifice, it must have the same meaning respecting the Passover. Is not this the very logic used by Paul in his discussions? Comp. i Cor. ix. S-io ; Gal. iii. 15 ; 2 Cor. iii. 7 ; Rom. v. 12. Beside these three kinds of argument there were four others, not less exactly defined. There was evidently a complete 07'ga7iuni taught in these schools and there acquired by Paul, who mastered and wielded it with wonderful effect. PAUVs conversion: 51 from which he considers the relation of God to the world. The God of Paul is the God of the old cove- nant ; He is the God of Abraham, of Jacob, of Moses and the prophets ; He is the One, the jealous God, the absolute Creator of the universe, who manifests in His works the signs of His divinity ; He is the one God, living and true (i Cor. viii. 4-6 ; x. 26 ; Rom. i. 20, 23 ; I Thess. i. 9 ; i Tim. vi. 15, 16). This God was the God of Israel in a peculiar sense, because He had entered into a special covenant with them, and had given them the oracles and promises in trust (Rom. iii. 2 ; ix. 4, 5). On this account, the Old Testament still possesses the authority of a Divine revelation (i Cor. xv. 4 ; Gal. iii. 8) ; it is the revela- tion of the holy God, with whom we can have no peace without perfect purity of heart. Hence Paul's loft}' conception, at once moral and religious, of ScKaioavvi], and the correlative idea of sin ; whose tragic conflict in the apostle's soul was the starting point of his whole spiritual development. Paul regards the pagan world as did the Pharisees of his da}'. Paganism is the kingdom of darkness (2 Cor. vi. 14). The heathen know not God ; they adore the creature instead of the Creator (i Thess. iv. 5 ; Gal. iv. 8). They were at once uitlgtoi and avo/ioi (2 Cor. vi. 14 ; Rom. i. 24-26 ; i Cor. vi. 6). And lastl}', as opposed to the Jews, the}' are essen- tially d/xapTwXoL (Gal. ii. 15). It was to Pharisaism, again, that Paul was indebted for his notions respecting angels and demons. Ranged in different orders, the angels surround God's throne (Col. i. 16 ; Rom. viii. 38). They take part in the government of the world, and will accom- pany Christ at His coming (i Thess. iv. 16). The THE APOSTLE PAUL. idea of the intervention of angels at the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, SiarayeU ^t' uyyeXcDv (Gal. iii. 19),^ belongs likewise to the J.udaism of that day. To the host of angels is opposed that of the demons, with Satan at their head. It was he who long ago tempted Eve, under the form of a serpent (2 Cor. xi. 3). Since then he has never ceased his endeavours to beguile men into sin (i Thess. iii. 5 ; 1 Cor. vli. 5), or to torture them by the infliction of physical pain (i Cor. v. 5 ; 2 Cor. xii. 7). His proper domain is heathenism ; and he is the real object of the worship of idolaters. He is the god of the present age, as opposed to Christ, the King of the age to come (2 Cor. iv. 4). For Paul, in fact, as for the Pharisees, the history of humanity had two great divisions : the existing, and the future age (Eph. i. 21). The latter is to be inaugurated by the glorious return of Christ, of which the apostle has the same conception as the other disciples of Jesus (i Cor. vii. 29 ; i Thess. iv. 16; v. 2; 2 Thess. i. 7 ; I Cor. xv. 51, 52). The first period was one of sin, suffering, and death ; the second will be one of holiness and life. Adam is the head of the old humanity ; the Messiah is the head of the new. We know, further, that the doctrine of Predes- tination, whose roots are found in the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament, had been developed and formulated in the Pharisaic schools. Here, no doubt, lay the origin of the Pauline predestination. The doctrine of the resurrection and of the last judgment are derived from the same source. " The ^ Comp. Acts vii. 53; Josephus, An/, xv. 5, 3; and Deut. xxxiii. 2, according to the LXX. PAWS CONVERSION. 53 Pharisees," Josephus tells us, " think that everything which happens has been decreed beforehand by destiny. They do not on that account deny the agency of the human will ; for it has pleased God that the decrees of destiny and man's free will should coincide, whether in respect of the practice of virtue or of vice. They believe that souls possess an im- mortal energy, and that beneath the earth are rewards and punishments for those who in this life have lived virtuously or otherwise ; that the souls of the latter shall be imprisoned there for ever, while the rest shall speedily be restored to life." * In the last place, is it not to the rabbinical theology that Paul is indebted for his anthropological views ? He did not invent his division of human nature into (Tcip^, '^^X^h TTvev/jia ; for it can be traced back to the very phraseology of the Old Testament. The idea of original sin hereditary in Adam's race seems likewise to have been formulated by Pharisaism. It was evidently a complete body of doctrine, coherent and systematic, that Paul learned at the feet of Gamaliel. This system he has greatly modified ; but for all that, one can easily discern that the new edifice contains much of the material of the old, and follows the main lines of its construction. The mental bio- graphy of Paul which we propose to relate is simply the progressive transformation, under the influence of the Christian principle, of that Pharisaic theology which formed the object of his original faith. The soul of Saul's Pharisaic creed was the hope of the Messiah (2 Cor. v. 16), a hope which fired both * Wc quote this passage as it has been restored and trans- lated by Derenbourg, pp. ci'L, p. 123. 54 THE APOSTLE PAUL. heart and Imagination. His convictions were his hfe ; he surrendered himself to them unreservedly. But this ardent piety, these holy ambitions and deep crav- ings, and the absolute logic wyhich Paul brought into his Pharisaism, supplied the very force which was des- tined, in driving him forwards, to carry him beyond it. Let us observe here that dominant feature of Paul's character which enables us to comprehend, if not to account for, the great change that took place in him. We refer to Ids passion for the absolute. Paul's was, in fact, a mind simple and complete — all of a piece — one that must above everything be logical. He sees in a principle all the consequences that it involves ; and detects the principle in each of its manifold consequences. It was of no use to speak to him of degrees of truth, of accommodations or com- promises ; he marches by way of a radical negation to an absolute affirmative. His intellectual tempera- ment was naturally intolerant. To him truth and error, so far from being matters of degree, stand like good and evil in radical contradiction. It is not surprising, therefore, that a mind of this cast failed to acquire the breadth of view and moderation of temper which distinguished his master Gamaliel. He has himself described what he must have been at this period of his life: "You know my past life in Judaism; I excelled in zeal most of my companions in age, showing myself specially zealous for the traditions of my fathers " (Gal. i. 13). The teaching of the rabbis, the prophetic sayings of the Old Testament, the theocratic dreams of his contemporaries — he received them all with eagerness and emphasis ; he systema- tized and formulated them into a complete, coherent whole. It was altogether an ideal world that this PAUL'S CONVERSION. 55 Pharisee contemplated within his soul. But the more he clung to these hopes, the more he had to suffer from the existing state of things. How melancholy was the contrast between his radiant inward vision and the sorrowful state of his people around him ! And this contradiction had no possible solution, from the Pharisaic point of view. The future appeared even more threatening than the present. Does not this bitter consciousness, this incongruity endured with so much impatience, explain Saul's furious hatred against the new sect of Christians ? For its scandalous progress was hastening the inevitable destruction of Judaism. In another direction Saul encountered an equally hopeless contradiction. There was in this Pharisee something still more absolute than his intellect, — his conscience. In vain would he have sought to satisfy it with a partial righteousness ; it demanded nothing less than perfect holiness. This ideal of holi- ness was set up in the written law ; and with this law his conscience entered into an incessant and unequal struggle, in which it was always and inevitably worsted. Every fresh effort resulted, of necessity, in a more humiliating defeat. He has himself described this mournful struggle in the seventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans. " It was through the law that I knew sin, for I had not known coveting, except the law had said. Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion from the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting ; for without the law sin is dead. Once on a time, without the law, I was indeed alive ; but w^hen the commandment came, sin recovered life, and I died ; and the commandment which had been given me to bring life, proved a cause of death" 56 THE AFOSTLE PAUL. (Rom. vii. 7-12). Thus Paul found the very power in which he trusted for salvation rise against him and overwhelm him. The situation was without escape ; it could end only in despair (Rom. vii. 24). It was doubtless in the midst of these experiences that Paul encountered Stephen. With our know- ledge of his temperament, we may safely assume that he was one of those Jews from Asia and Cilicia who maintained the cause of the temple and the law against the disciple of Jesus (Acts vi. 9). The temp- tation of breaking a theological lance with Stephen was one he could not resist ; he listened to his discourses, and was present at his death. Stephen's arguments and his serene faith could not fail to touch him, and to awaken reflection. Perhaps it was then that he felt in his conscience for the first time the goad of Jesus (Acts xxvi. 14). It was not from this cause, however, that he became a Christian. Not only is it the case that Paul never refers his conversion to Stephen ; he forbids, most explicitly, any such ex- planation by his solemn declaration that he was not taught by any man, and does not hold his gospel in charge from any man. Between the death of Stephen and Paul's first preaching of Christianity at Damascus, there took place in his life that mysterious event to which he attributes his conversion and apostleship, and of which we must now ascertain the true character. II. Till- Appearance of Jesus to Paul. The Acts of the Apostles contains three accounts of this event — one given directly by Luke (ix. 1-22), the other two taken from the lips of Paul (xxt|. 1-21 ; xxvi. 9-20). PAUL'S CONVERSION. 57 There are some variations in the three narratives. According to the account in the ninth chapter, Paul's companions heard the voice which spoke to him ; according to that in the twenty-second, they did not. The ninth chapter states that they saw no one ; the two others, that they saw at any rate a dazzling light. In the first account, they remain standing ; in the third, they fall to the ground. And, lastly, the words which Jesus is said to have spoken to Paul, vary in all three reports. What the Saviour said to him, accord- ing to chap. xxvi. 1 6, is in the twenty-second chapter put in the mouth of Ananias (ver. 14). How did these differences arise ? Schleiermacher's school tried, for some time, to account for them by the variety of sources from which the author drew his narrative ; but even a superficial comparison of the three recitals shows clearly that they were drawn up by the same hand, and had one and the same origin. There is therefore no occasion to inquire, as has some- times been done, which is the most accurate. Could these differences have had a dogmatic reason? Did they serve to express in each instance some special aim pursued by the author ? So thought Baur. In the first account, he says, the historian, narrating the event from an objective point of view, lays stress upon the external circumstances of the event in order to prove its absolute reality. The two other accounts, put in the mouth of Paul, are from a more subjective point of view.^ But of what value is this distinction ? Was Paul, when speaking before the Jews at Jerusalem, or before Agrlppa, less concerned than Luke to prove the substantial reality * Baur, Paulus, 2nd cd., pp. 72, j^)- [EnS- trans., i., 65, 66.] 58 THE APOSTLE PAUL. of this fact ? Were this explanation as legitimate as it is arbitrary, it would still in reality explain nothing. The first account, it is said, dwelling on the objective reality of the miracle, makes out that Paul's com- panions heard the heavenly voice. But why did not Luke add that they saw the light, as appears in the second account? and that instead of standing they fell to the ground, as in the third ? Are not these two latter circumstances as appropriate as the first to prove the external reality of the vision ? or could it be said that they better accord with the subjective point of view of the later accounts, than with the objective standpoint of the first ? M. Zeller, unable to accept this explanation, offers us another. According to him, the author has been guided by a literary caprice, not by any dogmatic purpose. He is indifferent to historical accuracy and careless of self-contradiction ; his discrepancies are such as to show that pious imagination played a leading part in the composition of his narrative. But are we to admit that our author has modified his first account with the sole purpose of variety, or that in order to avoid monotony, he went to the length of contradicting himself? Can it be correct to assert, in the face of the con- trary evidence of his prologue, that the author of the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles cared nothing for historical truth? Do we not find him scrupulously anxious about accuracy, always trying to trace things to their beginning, to get at the original witnesses, and to explain the facts in their true origin and connexion ? Supposing he is some- times in error, has he not succeeded in making certain parts of his work pass for' the journal of an PAUL'S CONVERSION. 59 actual companion of the apostle Paul? Can wc fairly accuse the man who wrote the last chapters of the Acts of indulging an arbitrary fancy ? These divergences are absolutely inexplicable on any hypothesis which assumes that the author was aware of them, and designed them to serve some doctrinal or literary purpose. It is obvious to any unprejudiced mind that they were undesigned, s.x\d that they entirely escaped the writer's notice. They are discrepancies of precisely the sort that one always finds existing in the most faithful repetitions of the same narrative. Their explanation lies in their very triviality. They cannot in any way affect the reality of the event in question. They arise at certain ex- treme points belonging to the mere circumference of the narrative. They do not even belong to the cir- cumstances accompanying the miracle, but only to the subjective impressions made by them upon Paul's companions. On this point the record was liable to much more variation, as these impressions could not have been the same in all cases, nor described by all with the same exactitude. To draw from these discrepancies an argument against the historical character of the narrative seems to us a forced and arbitrary proceeding. If they were perfectly reconcilable, or even if they had never existed, those who will not admit the miracle would just as decisively reject the testimony of the Acts of the Apostles. As Zeller frankly acknowledges, their denial of the miraculous rests on a philosophical theory, the discussion of which lies outside the scope of historical research.^ ^ Zeller, Die Aposiclgeschichfe, p. 197. [Eng. trans., i., 291.] 6o THE APOSTLE PAUL. For our part, wc cannot set aside this triple record quite so easily. We find it repeated at the end of the book, in that fragment which in the judgment of the majority of critics is the authentic testimony of a friend of the apostle. This being so, it is natural to suppose that Luke's narrative was derived from the testimony of Paul himself; and it only remains to ascertain how far it is confirmed by the apostle's statements in his own epistles. It is a point of the utmost importance to observe that Paul knows absolutely nothing of any progressive stages or gradual process in his conversion to the Gospel. He looked back to it throughout his life as a sudden, overwhelming event, which surprised him in the full tide of his Judaic career and drove him, in spite of himself, into a new channel. He was van- quished and subdued by main force (Phil. iii. 12). He is a conquered rebel, whom God leads in triumph in face of the world (2 Cor. ii. 14). If he preaches the Gospel, he cannot make any boast of doing so ; he was compelled to preach it, under a higher necessity which he had no power to resist. There he stands, — a slave in chains! (i Cor. ix. 15-18.) Independently of this general impression, Paul makes three express statements on the subject, which we must consider with close attention. The first of these passages, where Paul undoubtedly is referring to his conversion, is Galatians i. 12-17. He only describes it there as an inward experience. One day it pleased God, who had set him apart from his mother's womb, to reveal His Son in him, in order that he might go and preach Him to the heathen. Paul here refers his conversion and his apostleship to the same date, and the same cause. His one object rAUVS CONVERSION. 6i being to set forth the Divine origin and absolute independence of his gospel, he contents himself with presenting the inner phase of his conversion {airo- KaXvyjrai, tov v'lov avrov ev i/jLoi,), and makes no reference to the special means employed by God to bring about in him this work of grace. Two remarks will show, however, that the idea of a miraculous and direct revelation from Christ is none the less involved in this passage. In the first place, while attributing his conversion to the grace of God as its prime cause, he at the same time gives as its proximate and effectual cause the personal intervention of Jesus. This comes out clearly in the first verse of the epistle, where the name of Jesus occurs even before the name of God ; and it is expressly signified in ver. 12, where Jesus Christ is spoken of, not as the object alone of Divine revelation, but even as its Author.^ Secondly, Paul regards his conversion as a sudden occurrence, an event sharply defined and associated with certain external circumstances of time and place. He observes, for instance, that it happened in the midst of the war he was carrying on against Chris- tianity, overtaking him while yet a busy and zealous persecutor. Furthermore, he remembers that it took place in the neighbourhood of Damascus (Gal. i. 17); and that, from this moment, his life followed an entirely different course. Thus in three essential points— the personal intervention of Jesus, and the 1 At' (XTTOKaXvi/'eto? ^Irjcrov XptarTov. These two last words form what the grammarians call a subjective genitive. They indicate not the object, but the author, the subject of the revela- tion, as is proved by the words Trap' dvOpu)7rov^ to which these are the antithesis. 62 THE AFOSTLE PAUL. time and place at which it occurred — the story told us in the Acts is indirectly, but distinctly, confirmed. While in this passage of Galatians Paul only brings out the inner aspect of his conversion, we find him dwelling quite as exclusively on its exterior and objective nature in the two passages remaining for our consideration. The first is in i Corinthians ix. i : "Am I not an apostle} Have I not see7i the Lord Jesus ? " Paul here associates his apostolic call with the manifestation of the Risen One, shared by him with the other apostles ; he links them to each other as effect and cause. The objective reality of this manifestation is still more apparent in the second passage (i Cor. xv. 8), where Paul puts it on a level with that of which the Twelve were witnesses. "Lastly, and after all the others, Christ appeared to me also, as to an abortion." These last words (oyaTrepel t(o eKTpcofiart) should be noted. Only one interpretation is possible : that already given by Grotius, and accepted by Baur. An t/crpcofia can only mean a foetus torn violently and prematurely from the maternal womb ; as Grotius has well ex- pressed it, /wc ideo dicit, quia non longa institutione ad Christianisimnn pcrdiictus fiiit.qiio cssct vehit natitralis partus, sed vi snhita, quo mod o immaturi partus ejici solent. How could Paul indicate more pointedly than he does in this expression the objective nature of the force exerted over his mind at his conversion ? Whatever the fact may be, no critic will now deny that Paul maintained throughout his life that he had witnessed an external appearance of the risen Christ. Baur contends that the apostle spoke of the matter always with reserve, and with a kind of shame, as though he felt instinctivch' that he was standing on PAUL'S CONVEKSION. 63 somewhat unstable ground. But what c^round is there for this assertion ? Are the two passages in the Corinthian epistle, in which the external side of the occurrence is specially emphasized, of less impor- tance than that in Galatians, which chiefly reveals its internal character ? If Paul bases the independence of his gospel on the inward revelation, does he not regard the external reality as the source and proof of his apostleship ? Does it seem as though he referred but timidly to this manifestation? We are bold to affirm the contrary. If in his epistle to the Corin- thians, he makes no more than a passing reference to the event, it is because the Corinthians already knew about it. The apostle, in the first verses of the fifteenth chapter, is only summing up his pre- vious teaching ; and among the leading facts, which he dwelt on before everything else (eV Trpoiroi^), he mentions in its turn this appearance to him of the risen Jesus. Does not this strongly suggest to us that he must have already related the great event in detail, and given an account at Corinth similar to the one we have in the book of the Acts ? Paul's testimony, therefore, is explicit and incon- trovertible. But though we may not mistake its import, is it not possible to diminish its weight ? The evidence, it is said, proves that Paul believed in the reality of the manifestation, — nothing more. How shall we educe the external reality from this personal and subjective conception? Unquestionably, criticism may push its demands in this way to a point at which of necessity any positive proof becomes im- possible. This style of reasoning tends to nothing less than the destruction of all historical certainty ; for, in point of fact, history depends on nothing else than 64 THE APOSTLE PAUL. subjective and individual testimony. This universal scepticism disarms assailants and defenders alike ; on its terms, negation and affirmation are equally unwarrantable. But the evidence of Paul is a fact ; as such, it must have had a cause and demands an explanation. To call it inexplicable, as Baur seems to do, is to leave the door open for the supernatural. This M. Holsten, the boldest and most faithful of his disciples, sees clearly enough. This writer has in his very remarkable work applied all his resources, the closest logic and most penetrating observation, in his attempt to explain the origin and natural forma- tion of this conviction in the apostle's mind. But has his criticism solved the psychological problem thus presented to it? That it has done so, no one, I think, will venture to affirm. M. Holsten himself, after all his endeavours, remains in doubt ; he does not mean, he declares, to insist on the truth of his solution, only on its possibility. Practically, it amounts to the well-worn vision-hypothesis. Saul drew from Messianism the principal features of the person of Christ which he claims to have seen. So that all the materials of his vision were ready to hand. Furthermore, he had a natural tendency to ecstasy ; his physiological, no less than his spiritual constitution predisposed him to it. He had a ner- vous disposition easily over-wrought, a sanguino- bilious temperament ; and was very delicate, subject probably to epileptic attacks (2 Cor. xii. 7). That he had revelations and visions, both his epistles and the Acts assure us ; he spoke with tofigues, worked miracles, had the gift of prophecy, and often boasts of his spiritual charismata (i Cor. xiv. 18 ; Gal. ii. 2 ; 2 Cor. xii. .1-9). What was the appearance of Christ PAurs coxvERsrox. 65 at his conversion but the first of these ecstatic visions, and that which gave rise to all the others? ^ Much might be said on the details of this argument, which is full of disputable points. The passage in 2 Corinthians xii. 1-9 supplies its nucleus, and is indeed its only ground of support. This text, how- ever, not only fails to establish M. Holsten's theory ; properly understood, it even furnishes, to our thinking, a decisive proof against it. It shows that Paul, so far from comparing the manifestation of Christ to him at his conversion with the visions he afterwards enjoyed, laid down an essential difference between them. At the beginning of chapter xii., Paul proposes to give a full account of his visions, and commences with the first, which, far from being confounded with his con- version, is dated at least five years later {irpo irayy SeKareacrdpcov). He does violence to his feelings in making known this private aspect of his life. At the fifth verse he is checked by this repugnance, this sacred modesty, and suddenly takes quite the opposite course. Instead of glorying in his privileges, he will only glory in his infirmities. The visions referred to in this passage, it would seem, he had never previously related; and just as the insults of his enemies were on the point of compelling him to do so, he checks him- self and again drops the veil over these mysteries of his spiritual life. His ecstasies and visions do not belong to his ministry, and are not for others, only for God and himself: eire yap e^earTjfjLev, QecZ- eire aoi(^povov[iev, vfxlv (2 Cor. v. 13). But so far from -speaking of his conversion in the manner in which ^ Holsten, Zum Evangelium des Petnis u?2d des Pji:a(s. Chrisiusvision des Paiiliis. Rostock, 1868. 66 THE APOSTLE PAUL. he speaks of his visions, Paul shows neither reluctance nor embarrassment in describing it ; it was one of the staple subjects of his preaching. He spoke, in short, of the appearance vouchsafed to him with the same confidence with which the Twelve related those which they had witnessed. This event belonged not to the sphere of Paul's private and personal life (indicated by the words elVe efeo-T?;/xev), but to that of his apostolic life, aptly characterized in the phrase etre acocf^povovfjLev, vfilv. Paul therefore perceived an essential distinction between these two orders of facts, corresponding to that which existed between the two different spheres of his life to which the}^ belonged. To make a second and equally decisive observation, Paul knew that his visions were spiritual cJiarisinata, effects of the Spirit. He ascribes them to the Spirit's agency as their true cause ; whilst he attributes his conversion to a personal and corporeal intervention of the risen Jesus. In the phenomena of his visions he was transported, ravished into ecstasy, carried to the third heaven : at his conversion, Jesus descended to him and appeared before him in the midst of his ordinary life. Moreover, though Paul had several visions, he states that he had seen the risen Lord but once, and that this appearance was the last made by Jesus on earth. In the consciousness of the apostle there must therefore have existed a broad line of demarcation between the series of appearances then terminated (ea')^arov Se ttuvtcov, I Cor. xv. 8), and the ecstasies and visions which lasted throughout the apostolic age. How could this marked distinction have arisen, except from the conviction that the ap- pearances, of the risen Lord had a real and objective PAUVS CONVERSION. 67 character, such as the spiritual visions of ecstasy did not possess. Finally, if Christ's appearance to Paul had been an inward vision, it must have been not the cause, but the product of his faith. How could the mind of Saul the Pharisee have created such a vision, unless he were a Christian already? and if, on the other hand, he were a Christian already, how could he have attributed his conversion to this cause? Such a transformation makes the enigma still more obscure. M. Holsten's ingenious explanations leave the mystery just where it was.^ These considerations, it seems to us, deprive the vision-hypothesis of all exegetical support. And v/e must not forget that the question of Saul's conversion is not to be explained as a mere isolated fact. It is attached to the question of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and bound up inseparably with it. The solu- tion we give to the former of these miracles depends upon that of the latter. Any one who accepts the Saviour's resurrection would hardly find it worth while to question His appearance to this apostle. But the critic \vho, before entering on the question, is absolutely persuaded that there is no God, or that if there is, Pie never intervenes in human histor}^, will doubtless set aside both facts, and would have recourse to the vision-hypothesis, were it ever so improbable. The problem is thus carried from the field of history into that of metaphysics, whither we must not pursue it. ^ .See Beyschlag's excellent criticisms on the vision-hypo- thesis, in the Studien iind Kritike?i for 1864 and 1870. 68 THE APOSTLE PAUL. III. Paul's Conversion and his Theology. It only remains to define the dogmatic significance of this conversion. It was the generating fact, not merely of Paul's apostolic career, but of his theology besides. We find in this event — latent in the spiritual experiences and feelings attending it — all the great ideas and the leading antitheses which characterize his doctrinal system. His conversion was the fruit of God's grace, manifesting itself in him as a sovereign power which triumphed over his individual will. Paul rose from the ground the captive of that Divine grace to which henceforth he was to surrender him- self without reserve or condition (Gal. i. i6). Here are, in effect, the two terms of that universal anti- thesis which dominates his thought — God and man, grace and liberty, faith and works. Embraced within this wide antithesis, we must notice another, which is still more conspicuous, — I mean the radical opposition that displays itself be- tween law and faith, between the Gospel and Judaism. The other apostles came to Christ through the medium of the Old Testament and the prophecies. P'or them there was, as one might say, a raised ladder, which they climbed step by step, finding Jesus at the summit. In their eyes, the Law and the Gospel had never been in opposition ; they had never felt it necessary to renounce the old covenant in order to enter upon the new. This was the real cause of their hesitation and perplexity, when confronted with the great revolution that was about to take place. But Paul, from the first, was in a totally different position. The Gospel and Judaism had always seemed to'him absolutely and radically opposed (Phil. PAUL'S CONVERSION. 69 iii. 7, etc.). The antithesis existed in his mind before his conversion ; and it remained there. His conscience, laid hold of by God's grace, was abruptly and vio- lently forced from one extreme to the other. His adhesion to the Gospel was, above everything else, the complete negation of his previous life. For this reason it was that his doctrine and his career only attained their full development in the conflict between Judaism and Christianity— the old things and the new. The two terms of this dualism con- tinued to be the poles round which all his theology revolved. This conversion, as we see, exemplifies in the most striking manner the utter impotence of the ancient principle of justification by the works of the law, and the triumph of the new principle of justi- fication through faith and the grace of God (Rom. vii. 24, 25). Here lies the germ of the whole Pauline system. Our task will be to trace its progressive development during the rest of the apostle's life. To seek the origin of Paul's Christian universalism in his Hellenism is therefore, manifestly, an entire mistake. It is rather to be found in his rigid Pharisaism. We may safely say that if Saul had been less of a Jew, Paul the apostle would have been less bold and independent. His work would have been more superficial, and his mind less unfettered. God did not choose a heathen to be the apostle of the heathen ; for he might have been ensnared by the traditions of Judaism, by its priestly hierarchy and the splendours of its worship, as indeed it happened with the Church of the second century. On the contrary, God chose a Pharisee. But this Pharisee had the most complete experience of the emptiness of external ceremonies and the crushing yoke of the law. There 70 7 HE APOSTLE PAUL. was no fear that he would ever look back,- that he would be tempted to set up again what the grace of God had justly overthrown (Gal. ii. i8). Judaism was wholly vanquished in his soul, for it was wholly displaced. CHAPTER IV. THE GENESIS OF PAUL'S GOSPEL. WE are now in a position to understand the essential principle of Paul's gospel, and the leading elements which, from the beginning, entered into its working and form the creative factors of his Christian theology. The origin of his gospel, as we have just seen, is to be found in his conversion. Paul has well defined it in those three words by which he characterizes the essential content of this Divine revelation: It pleased God to reveal His Son in vie^ airoKcCKv^ai rbv vVov avTov iv ifiol (Gal. i. 1 6). The object of this revela- tion, therefore, was simply the person of Christ. There is, as we have already said, no question here of that external manifestation which accompanied his conversion, but only of a revelation or inward illumi- nation. A veil had concealed from the Pharisee's eyes the Divine glory of the crucified One. The cross was to him a mystery, and a scandal (i Cor. i. 18-24; ii. 9, 10). This veil was now removed ; and on the instant what seemed luminous before was darkened, and what was dark came into light. Light, the most radiant, burst suddenly out of thickest darkness. We find a very exact and vivid reminiscence of this marvellous phenomenon in a 71 THE APOSTLE PAUL. passage which is, in truth, beyond translation : On o 0eo? 6 eliroiv e/c gkotov^ ipovTe^, 2 Cor. iv. 10 ; comp. Gal. vi. 17; Col. i. 24). According to Paul, Jesus was fastened to the cross with nails, and His blood poured forth (Col. ii. 14 ; comp. John xx. 25). The comparison he makes between this death and the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb tells us the exact time of its occurrence (i Cor. v. 7). With no less precision Paul had related the burial and resurrection of Jesus. The words of i Corinthians So THE APOSTLE PAUL. XV. 1-9 are nothing else than a summary of his preaching on this point. This resurrection occurred on " the third day." That we have here an historical statement, and not the application of a saying of prophecy, is proved by the substitution in the Pauline Churches of the first day of the week for the Sabbath (i Cor. xvi. 2). Finall}', Paul seems, in this same chapter, to have arranged the different appearances of the risen Lord in chronological order ; and every- thing that follows leads us to infer that he had moreover insisted on the external and corporeal nature of this resurrection. The apostle, therefore, was perfectly familiar with the last scenes of the life of Jesus, and told the story of them with great exactness. The passion and resur- rection of Christ were not to him, as to the Gnostics, a pair of abstract notions, — the passion and triumph of an ideal Christ resembling the Sophia of Valentinus ; they were historical and concrete facts, preserved in their actual character, and with all their accom- panying circumstances. Pic sets before us the veritable cross on which Jesus of Nazareth had hung but a few years ago; the tomb where His body was buried, and from whence He rose in triumph. Even had it been impossible to prove that Paul knew any- thing else of the historical life of Jesus, the manner in which he has examined and estimated these two great events sufficiently proves the connexion of his faith with the historical Christ, and forbids our reducing his theology to mere idealism. When he has related these last events in such detail, can we believe that the apostle ignored all that belonged to the previous life of Jesus ? Is it a very hazardous conjecture to suppose that during his THE GENESIS OF PAUVS GOSPEL. Si fifteen days' visit to Peter at Jerusalem after his con- version, he questioned him minutely about the life of their common Master ? Surely the term which Paul employs in Galatians i. i8, laropijaai Rrjcfydv, allows us to think so. Besides, how could this eager follower of Jesus Christ do other than seize upon and master all that wealth of Gospel tradition so piously preserved by the early Christian communities, and reproduced in our first three Gospels ? If he never appeals to the Saviour's words to establish or defend his doctrines, this fact, however strange it may appear to us, encumbered as we are with scholastic methods, has nevertheless a cause and an explanation other than that of ignorance or contempt. The apostle was far from regarding the teaching of Jesus as a collection of sayings, an external law or written letter (ypdfMfia), which' he had nothing more to do than to quote at every turn. Christ was to him, above all things, a life-ghnng spirit, an immanent and fertile principle, producing new fruit at each new season. There was such a perfect identity in his eyes between the historical and the indwelling Christ, that he never separates nor distinguishes them, and even attributes to the former that with which the latter had inspired him, and to the latter that which unquestionably he owed to the former. We find a remarkable example of this identification in i Corinthians xi. 23. But was this a purely subjective idea.? When Paul expresses his certainty that his apostolic teaching is indeed the faithful interpretation of the Master's*, is he the victim of an illusion ? Or is it not more natural to suppose that he had studied the discourses of Jesus, and knew them well enough to feel sure 6 82 THE APOSTLE PAUL, that no one could seriously bring any of Christ's words in argument against him ? If, after all, we still feel surprise at not meeting with more frequent quota- tions in his epistles, we must remember that the epistle of Peter, the Apocalypse, the Acts of the Apostles, and the first epistle of John contain still fewer. From the beginning, Christ was not so much the herald or preacher of the Gospel, as Himself the object of the apostles' faith and teaching. To know what Christ had said or done seemed less important than to love Him, to receive Him, and to give oneself to Him. There certainly existed for Paul, as for the other apostles, an objective, traditional teaching of Jesus. It is enough to recall the care and exactness with which he has preserved and transmitted to the believers at Corinth the very words used in instituting the Lord's supper (i Cor. xi. 23). The whole discussion on marriage and celibacy, which occupies the seventh chapter of the same epistle, furnishes a proof yet more decisive. The apostle distinguishes with perfect clearness between the Saviour's express command and his own inspiration, and repeatedly sets them in contrast : ovk ijo) aWa 6 KvpLO<; — iyco ov^ 6 KvpLo. It is impossible to detect any contradiction or breach between the indwelling and the historical Christ. The latter was essentially spirit (iTvev/ia). During His earthly life this Divine force was loca- lized ; it was inclosed in the limits of the ilesh. But when the flesh was destroyed by death, this Divine force, which was the very soul of Jesus, displayed all its expansive power. Poured into the heart of believers, it made not only Christ's memory live again there, but His actual holiness. Christ Himself be- came the believer's interior life. Thus we see how the two Christs continued one, and how the apostle passed from the one to the other. Instead of being opposed in his ideas, they could not exist apart from each other ; they are mutually dependent and confirmatory. From this intimate blending of history and faith, of the subjective and objective in his mind, the Pauline theology resulted ; and in this combination lies its distinguishing feature. In brief, the apostle was so fully inspired by Jesus of Nazareth and understood Him so well, that his apostolic teaching, with all its originality and in- dependence, was, notwithstanding appearances, an entirely faithful interpretation of the Master's views. II. Paul's Use of the Old Testament. Besides this primary external factor in the genesis of Paul's system of thought we must notice a second, which, though much less important, was equall>' essential. I refer to the Old Testament, and the use which the apostle continued to make of it after his conversion. The faith in the Son of God, which had seized him 16 THE APOSTLE PAUL. in his strict Pharisaism, had destroyed the unity of his reh'gious consciousness. He found himself placed between the ancient and venerated revelation which he could not possibly renounce, and the new revelation which had been forced upon him. So soon as the contending emotions of the first few days were passed, Paul must at once have set to work to re-establish the unity of his belief, and recover peace of mind. Nothing furthered the development of his views more than this long internal struggle. The first result of the revolution which had been wrought in him was to subordinate the old revelation to the new. The Christian faith served as a principle of criticism to direct him in his study of the Old Testament, sifting out its different elements and enabling him to estimate the worth of each. By this means he soon came to distinguish and contrast the Laiv and the Promise, and to proclaim the abolition of the one and the perfect realization of the other. But the Divine authority of the sacred writings in no wise suffered from these distinctions. If the old covenant ceased to exist as an economy of salvation, it became all the more important as a preparation and dL prophecy. The typological method was the result of this situation, its function being to clear away contra- diction and re-establish harmony between the old and the new oracles. This method, which was no more than the inevitable result of the relationship that the new faith wished to maintain with the the old, was employed by all the New Testament writers. But Paul's rabbinical education gave him in this respect an immense advantage over the other apostles. He may be said to have read the Old Testament books with the eyes of a Christian, and the penetration of THE GENESIS OF PAUL'S GOSPEL. 87 a rabbi. Everything in this long history of God's people became prophecy ; its personages and events equally so with its discourses. Its language became transfigured ; the spiritual meaning shone forth through the veil of the literal sense. Thus a rich typology was created and evolved, which served to support and illustrate all the apostle's demonstrations. Only a few examples of this teaching are preserved in the epistles ; but this method must have held a much larger place in Paul's missionary teaching. It will not do to regard this typology as a mere formal accommodation to the Jewish mode of think- ing, or as a style of literary illustration. It is inherent in the matter of Paul's doctrine, and forms an integral part of it. At the same time, Baur goes much too far when he says that the Old Testament was to Paul the sole objective source of truth, the only external ground of his religious belief As we have seen, he found a fuller and higher revelation in the person of Jesus. No ; it was not from the Old Testament, not by way of exegesis, that the apostle attained the ground on which his doctrine rests. If his faith depends on his exegesis, his exegesis depends still more on his faith. His convictions are not the result of his bold method of interpretation ; that method can only be explained by the new convictions, which of necessity gave rise to it. Paul borrowed little from the Old Testament beyond its forms ; it was an ancient mould into which he poured a new material. But we can understand how greatly his ideas must have been influenced by this constant effort to trace them in the old covenant. Nothing is better calcu- lated than allegory to develop an idea to its fullest extent. The famous allegory of Hagar and Sarah THE APOSTLE PAUL. should be studied from this point of view (Gal. iv. 21-31). It is evident in this case, that if the idea created the image, the image in its turn was a won- derful help in defining the idea and developing its fulness. We now perceive how the different elements of the Pauline system were constituted. The inner revelation of Christ is its central and generating principle, to which the other two are related as the body is to the soul. Historical knowledge concerning Jesus, and the institutions and prophecies of the Old Testament, were in themselves nothing more than inert matter which the Pauline principle permeated and vivified, finding in them its constant nourishment, the means for its expression and realization. But that is not all. We must further ask, where the power la\' that created the system, that united these different elements and gave to Paul's theology its eminently original character. This power consisted, and could consist in nothing else than the apostle's strong individuality. His spiritual individuality explains his doctrine, for it has produced it. Let us endeavour, in conclusion, to indicate its essential features. HI. Paul's Idiosyncrasy. The lofty character of Paul has not always been properly apprehended, because it has too often been considered from a narrow point of view. Its striking originality seems to be due to the fruitful combi- nation in it of two spiritual forces, — two orders of faculty which are seldom found united in this degree in one personality, and which in the case of Jesus alone present themselves more perfecth' blended and carried even to a further height than in the apostle. THE GENESIS OF PAUL'S GOSPEL. I mean dialectic power and religions inspiration, the rational and the mystical element ; or, to borrow Paul's own language, the activity of vov^ and that of The rational or dialectic nature of the great apostle's doctrine has been very forcibly exhibited by Baur. Paul evidently belongs to the family of powerful dialecticians ; he ranks with Plato, with Augustine and Calvin, with Schleiermacher, Spinoza, Hegel. An imperious necessity compelled him to give his belief full dialectic expression, and to raise it above its con- tradictories. Having affirmed it, he confronts it at once with its opposite ; and his faith is incomplete till it has triumphed over this antithesis and reached a point of higher unity. It is interesting to study, in this aspect, the progress of ideas and the unfolding of the apostle's argument in his great epistles. From the particular question Paul's mind rises at one bound to the general principle governing the whole discussion. Having lighted up the subject from this height, he descends again with irresistible power to the level of fact. It is this dia- lectical procedure which imparts such crushing force to his logic. This method is apparent in the two epistles to the Corinthians, and still more in the epistle to the Romans. At the very outset Paul ascends to the general idea of righteousness {hiKaioavvT]), which he at once divides into a negative and a positive con- ception. The first eight chapters are only the dialec- tical development of these two opposing ideas. The apostle follows each to its ultimate consequences. He shows— with what power of logic we know— how the former notion, that of justification by works, soon disproves itself, and inevitably ends in the despairing 90 THE APOSTLE PAUL. cry, "Oh, wretch that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death ? " But at the same time he follows the development of the latter conception in all its fruitful consequences, till we hear the final song of triumph : " Who shall separate us from the love of God ? " (Rom. vii. 25 ; comp. viii. 35, 39.) His dialectic power is certainly the mainspring of Paul's thought. It is this w^hich impelled it forward, which gave it organic form and created the rich and powerful system in which it has embodied itself. However important this rational element may be, those who look no further only see the surface of the Pauline thought. Beneath this reflective force of reason there is that which \ve have called, for lack of another name, the pneiunatical life, taking its rise at the point of contact bet\veen the human soul and the invisible world. Paul's habitual state is, in fact, not that of a mind which reasons, but of a soul \vhich contemplates and adores. Beyond the reasoning faculty there lay in him the realm of intuition, — truth palpable to the soul, deep feeling which nourished and gave birth to thought, and which thought was never quite able to express. It was in this region that he felt those ineffable things w'hich it is not possible for man to utter (appiira pijfiara, a ovk e^ov dvOpMiro) \a\rj(Tai, 2 Cor. xii. 4). There we have a mysterious life at once active and passive, an inexplicable inter- course between the spirit of man and of God, which the psychical man with hi.*? ordinary common sense regards as foolishness (i Cor. ii. 14); but in which lay, nevertheless, the apostle's chief wealth and power, and his supreme consolation. This condition of soul cannot be analysed, because the soul on enterinq; it ceases, to some extent, to THE GENESIS OF PAUVS GOSPEL. 91 belong to and observe itself. It is the sphere of ecstasy, of vision, and of all the phenomena that we describe as inspiration. It is a permeation of the individual soul by mysterious forces. In it, strangely enough, we find our personal life expand, while at the same time our dependence increases. To condemn such a state as morbid is, in my opinion, a proof of great levity of mind and rashness of judgment. No doubt this mystical tendency may be perverted and corrupted, like all other faculties. But it is not in itself a disease, any more than they, for it is natural to every human soul. I am perfectly aware that ordinary psychology gives it no place in its tra- ditional categories ; but these categories are far from including the whole of life. Where could we find a more wholesome mental constitution than belonged to Socrates, or to Luther ; where a more true and delicate conscience than that of Joan of Arc ? And yet we know that their spiritual life had its source far beyond the sphere of pure reason. \i this faculty of mystical exaltation is a disease, we should have to acknowledge that Jesus, despite the harmony of His nature, possessed an unsound mind ; for He had His moments of ecstasy — sacred moments, which a coarse, vulgar understanding profanes by calling them hallucinations (Mark i. 12 ; iii. 21 ; Luke ix. 29 ; X. 18). No ; this is not the sign of a morbid disposition. In truth, he is much rather the sick man who has never known any state but that of dry, cold reason. What else is religion, what is prayer and adoration, but an exaltation of spirit — to employ again Paul's own language, an h irveviiaTL elpac ? We recognise this m}'sterious life underlying all 92 THE APOSTLE PAUL. the reasonings of the apostle. It constitutes the foundation of his being ; and we feel the throb of its mighty pulsations through all his dialectic machinery. This dialectic is, in fact, a mere instrument which of itself creates nothing. The hfe of the Spirit, an ever gushing spring, throws out the material which his logic interprets, elaborates, and organizes. This inner life had been created in Paul by the first revelation of Christ in his soul. Christ living in him continued to reveal Himself in and through him. This abiding and inward revelation forms the basis of apostolic inspiration. It supplies to him an abso- lute assurance, springing from his conviction of being in immediate possession of the truth ; it is an un- erring instinct that guides the apostle alike in thought and action. From that hour this pneumatical life remained in him, and was ever growing and in- creasing. It manifested itself not only in the jo}', the strength and authority that it gave him, but in extraordinary phenomena and exceptional charis- mata , in his gift of Jiealing, his speaking with tongues, his ecstasies, visions and revelations (2 Cor. xii. 12 ; I Cor. xiv. 13 ; 2 Cor. xii. i). In this mysterious sphere great problems were solved, and great resolutions taken. Whenever the apostle reaches a critical stage of his career, we find one of these inner revelations occurring, to show him what course to pursue and to put an end to his hesitations. Just when his anxiety is keenest and his excitement most intense, there comes to him a sudden illumination. We find this phenomenon occurring in all the great crises of his life. Thus on his first encounter with the Judaizers at Antioch, it was a revelation that pointed out to him the way THE GENESIS OF PAUL'S GOSPEL. 93 to Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 2). When on the point of leaving that city to begin his great mission to the heathen, he had a vision in the temple (Acts xxii. 18). It was a vision again that directed his course to Europe (Acts xvi. 9). On another, less familiar occasion, when, buffeted and beaten by Satan's mes- senger, he despaired of his apostleship, there re- sounded in his ears the comforting words : " My grace is sufficient for thee " (2 Cor. xii. 9). Lastly, during that frightful tempest which drove the vessel bearing him to Rome upon the shores of Malta, a vision came to assure Paul that he should see Rome and Caesar (Acts xxvii. 24). We recognise therefore that Paul's apostolic in- spiration bore the chief part in the genesis and development of his belief But we must understand its working differently from the way in which it has been understood hitherto. P'aith without criticism, and criticism without faith seem to me to result equally in a moral impossibility. The first assumes that this theological system — so human, rational, and individual in its traits — fell straight from heaven into Paul's mind ; the latter makes Paul out an enthusiast, a sort of Swedenborg, who mistook his own ideas for a revelation from God. Let us take the gospel of Paul for what it was — not a series of scholastic formulae, but the positive and immanent revelation of Christ, which while it continued to unfold itself in the hidden depths of his conscious- ness, displayed its ethical product in the fruits of righteousness, and its intellectual result in his theories and his ideas. Thus we find it render a priceless aid to our faith, without imposing a burdensome }'oke upon our understanding. 94 THE APOSTLE PAUL. Being now in possession of all the elements which combined to form the Pauline system, we might en- deavour to reconstruct it a priori, by way of logical deduction. Rut we shall resist this temptation. To construct it in this way would only be to cramp and petrify it. Paul's theology was not developed after this fashion ; it was not wrought out in solitude. Its development was logical, no doubt, but slow and laborious notwithstanding. The apostle's circum- stances, his external conflicts and practical necessities, have left their impression deeply marked upon his doctrine. The course of this historical development we must now proceed to recover and describe. BOOK II. FIRST PERIOD, OR PERIOD OF MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. From 35 to ^z A.D. PAUL'S missionary preaching was, unquestion- ably, the earHest historical outcome of his system of belief It occupied a period of nineteen or twenty years — the longest in his life, but also that in which he wrote the least ; and it therefore remains com- paratively in the shadow. During these long years the greater part of Paul's apostolic work was accomplished. It was the period of his great journeys, of his fairest hopes and his early successes. Then it was that, in Asia and Greece, he conquered for himself the wide sphere of which his great epistles show him in possession. It is not surprising that during this time he wrote but little. There was no occasion for it. Oral preaching of necessity everywhere preceded written preaching; and the work of founding Churches had to be undergone, before the labours of their edification or of doctrinal controversy were possible. The missionary character of this first period naturally determined the special form in which the apostle's doctrine was cast. It cannot be doubted 96 THE APOSTLE PAUL. that when preaching to Jews or Pagans for the first time, he presented his gospel to them in a fashion essentially different from the learned and logical exposition of his great epistles. Those who refuse to recognise the true Paul except in the abstruse dialectician of the great epistles, forget that he was a missionary, and must have addressed himself in the first instance to women, to working men, to the ignorant, to little children — indeed, to all sorts of low people (i Cor. i. 28). If he had spoken to them as he afterwards wrote, he would not even have been understood. But when we find this man, meagre and feeble in appearance as he was, exercising such an irresistible ascendency over every one who came near him, and from Damascus to Rome, wherever he sets his foot, becoming a cause of disturbance and popular excitement, can we doubt that beside his powers of abstract thought and logic, Paul had a striking, impressive utterance, and set forth his faith, in the first instance, under a very concrete and palpable form? It was then that he laid the historical basis upon which the laborious edifice of his religious thought was afterwards to be reared. His doctrine, therefore, could not have at this time the dialectic character that conflict was to im- part to it. It is, as it were, w^rapped up in itself, taking shape only in the general and oratorical form of preaching. Yet it does not remain stationary ; it advances all the while, stimulated in its progress by success and fructified by experience. These years were a long, obscure period of gestation. It is cer- tainly to be regretted that, for the purpose of tracing this inner progress, we have not more numerous, and especially more positive, documents belonging to the FIRST PERIOD. 07 period. But is not that an additional reason for try- ing to turn those that remain to us to better account ? After the fact of Paul's conversion, which is here our secure starting point, we have his first mis- sionary discourses in the Acts, an indirect echo of his preaching no doubt, but far from being unfaithful. With these discourses the two letters to the Thessa- lonians are in close connexion and sequence, resum- ing and carrying forward their teaching. Finally, at the close of this first period, we have the discourse at Antioch addressed to Peter and the Judaizers, which has been preserved in the epistle to the Gala- tians (chap. ii. 15-21). These, I frankly admit, are but scant, uncertain way-marks on a very long road. But do they not form a progressive and ascending series, and indicate unmistakably the general direction that the apostle's doctrine naturally followed, under the pressure cf logic and of circumstances ? CHAPTER I. THE MISSIONARY DISCOURSES IN THE ACTS.— THE TWO EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS. I. Paul's Discourses in the Acts. THE missionary discourses preserved in the Acts are three in number, delivered at Antioch in Pisidia (xiii. 1 6-4 1, 46, 47), at Lystra (xiv. I5-I7)» and at Athens (xvii. 23-31). The first was addressed to Jews ; the other two to Gentiles. Do these dis- courses furnish us with material for delineating the apostle's preaching ? This question has been answered in different, but for the most part in equally arbitrary fashions. Be- fore replying to it, we must endeavour to gain a definite conception of the preaching itself and its contents. We can do so, I think, by combining certain scattered indications in the later epistles, which hitherto have been neglected. These indica- tions will furnish us with a sure starting point, and moreover with an excellent standard of appreciation. Paul himself has given us a summary of his apo- stolic preaching in his first epistle to the Corinthians : " I call to your mind, brethren, the gospel that I have preached unto you, which \'c have received, and in which ye- stand fast. ... I delivered unto you that which also I received : above all, that Christ V3 PACWS MISSIONAI^Y PREACHING. 99 died for our sins according to the Scriptures ; that He was buried ; that He was raised again according to the Scriptures. . . . This is what / and the other apostles preach, and what you have beUeved" (i Cor. XV. i-ii). To this passage should be added the following : I Cor. xi. 23 ; Gal. iii. i ; Rom. ix. 4, 5 ; I Thess. i. 10. It is manifest that the apostle's preaching consisted, above everything else, in a recital of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, with scriptural arguments designed to prove that Jesus was the Christ, and that in Him there was remission of sins. Affirmation predominates here over reflection, ^ historical facts over theological ideas. Paul's preach- /y^ ing, in its general character, did not differ essentially from that of the Twelve. Prophecy, it appears, was from the first Paul's grand argument in debate with the Jews (Rom. i. 2 ; iii. 21 ; iv. ; Gal. iii.) ; and the author of the Acts is perfectly correct when he says that the apostle in the synagogue of Thessalonica reasoned with the Jews from the Scriptures {airo rwv ypacpcbv), showing from them that Christ must needs suffer and rise- again from the dead (Acts xvii. 2, 3). There could not be -a better summary of Paul's preaching in the synagogues. How did he address his pagan hearers ? The epistles leave no doubt on this point either. Accord- ing to Romans i. 18-23, the Gentiles' chief offence lay in allowing the idea of the true God to become obscured and lost. With their religious consciousness, their moral conscience became darkened ; still, there remained in their nature some gleams of light. Their conscience was inwardly disturbed, accusing and defending itself by turns, unable to find rest (Rom. ii. 15). Here it was that Paul evidently found the basis 100 THE APOSTLE PAUL. and starting point of his appeals. To restore the primitive idea of the one invisible God by showing the vanity of worshipping idols ; to awaken the moral consciousness, by giving it a foresight of tJic wrath of God ready to punish all iniquity ; to renew it by preaching repentance, and faith in Jesus the Saviour and the Judge, — such must have been the apostle's first and constant endeavour when in the midst of heathenism (i Thess. i. 9 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16, etc. ; Eph. iv. 17, 18 ; Rom. i. 19 ; ii. 16). When we compare with this twofold result the missionary discourses put into Paul's mouth in the Acts, we find a correspondence sufficiently exact, at least in regard to their fundamental ideas. These discourses are not literal reproductions of the apostle's words ; they are a little blunted and indistinct, and too much resemble those of the other preachers ot the Gospel. In drawing up the discourse at Antioch in Pisidia, for example, the writer has evidently Stephen's address and Peter's Pentecostal sermon in his recollection. But to infer from these resem- blances that the addresses in question are merely free compositions and have no historical value, is, in my opinion, going too far. Although their tenor is very general, original features and bold and novel ideas are not altogether wanting ; and there are passages in which we distinctly catch the inimitable accents of Paul's voice. It will be well to analyse them more closely. The discourse delivered in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia has three essential divisions. The first, relating the history of the Jewish people up to the time of David, recalls the beginning of Stephen's address (xiii. 16-23;. ^t must, however, be acknow- PAUrS MISSIONARY PREACHING. lOI ledgcd that if it presents the same history, this passage exhibits it from a new point of view. It is no longer the people's ingratitude, but the idea of the promise which guides Paul as he proceeds in his course across the wide field of the history of Israel. And is not the summing up of the history under the idea of the promise an essentially Pauline concep- tion ? Besides, we find that Paul makes David the terminus of his historical exposition, instead of de- scending, like Stephen, to the time of Solomon and the temple. For it was from the family of David that the Messiah was to come. Acts xiii, 23. Romans i. 2, 3. ToJrou o 0co? (Itto tov '^O TrpoeTTTyyyetAaro 6ta ToJv crirlp^aaTo^ kut i-ayyeXiav 7Tf)0(fi7]TQ)U avTov, . . . Trepi •^yaye to) 'LcrpuL^jX cruorTjpoL tov vlov avTOv tov yero/xeVov ^Irjcrovv. €K aTripixaro^ Aa/3't6 Kara crdpKa. A more novel and characteristic Pauline trait is the profound distinction made in regard to the Old Testament between t/ie laiv and tJic promise, — the one being pronounced impotent (ver. 39), and the other realized in Christ (ver. 32). The second part of the discourse (vers. 24-37) shows the fulfilment of the promise in the death of Jesus. Its details might very well have been taken from the Third Gospel ; though it will be observed that Paul says nothing about the Saviour's public labours. He dwells solely on three points : the sufferings and death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus, — that is, on the very points which are emphasized in i Corinthians xv. 3, 4. Notice above all the reference, so remarkable in this place, to the intermediate event 102 THE APOSTLE PAUL. of the burial, which has no importance in the preach- ing- of the other apostles, but which had an essential bearing on Paul's ethical conception of faith and baptism (Rom. vi. 3, 4). The Pauline cast of thought is still more obvious in the third and subjective part of the discourse (vers. 38-41). Certainly we do not find here as yet the theory of expiation, nor that of justification by faith ; they are equally wanting, as we shall see, in the two epistles to the Thessalonians. The germ of these doctrines, however, is present : Zia tovtov vfilv a<^eai<^ u/xapTLMV KarayjeWeraL. The words Bta tovtov do not relate to KaTayyeWeTac, which would not make sense, but to dcpea-L^; afiapTLcbv. Peter had said at Pentecost : " Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus, for the remission of your sins." There is much more implied in Paul's phrase. The remission of sins, instead of being connected with baptism, is associated here with the death and resurrection of Jesus, in and through which redemp- tion is objectively realized. It is also at the same time, a complete and absolute justification : Kal cltto irdvTwv o)v ovK i)hvv)}dr}Te iv v6/ji(p Mayvaeco^ SiKaico- Orjvai, ev tovtco ira^ 6 iTLaTevwv hiKaiovTai. Justifica- tion by faith is here presented in its negative form, l^ut, as M. Reuss has remarked, it is under this form that the idea must have first originated in Paul's mind. The passage is a perfectly just expression of the experience which Paul himself had made of the ineffectiveness of the law. Add to this, that it would be difficult to imagine a phrase more true to Paul's peculiar style. In the first place, the very singular grammatical form of the sentence is Pauline (comp. Rom. XV. i8\ Secondl}', its terms are all found PA UVS , MISS 10 MA R V PRE A CHING. 1 03 amongst those most characteristic of the epistles : ySvi'/jOijre ev yo/jbo) (comp. Rom. viii. 3 : to dovvarov lov vo/jiov); Si Kaio)6f]vat construed with avro (comp. Rom. vi. 7) ; and the general and comprehensive phrase Tra? 6 iTiarevcov (comp. Rom. i. 16 ; iii. 22). Lastly, in the whole proposition, iv tovtm 7ra? u TrLcrrevcov BiKaiovTai, the words iv toutm cannot be grammaticall)^ related to iriarevcDV — which, however, would still express a Pauline idea (Gal. iii. 26; — but must be attached to StKaLovraL, conveying a meaning far more original and profound (comp. Gal. ii. 17 : SLKaLcodrjvai iv XpiaTti)). Verses 46 and 47 mark the transition by which the Gospel passed the Jews to address itself to the Gentiles : " It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you {viilv r)v dvayKalov rrpcoTov ; comp. Rom. i. 16: 'lovSaiM irpcoTov). But since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles." This double experience, often repeated, of the obstinate unbelief of the one people, and the receptiveness of the other, gradually created in the apostle's mind the conviction that the kingdom of God was about to be transferred from the Jewish to the Gentile nations, — a conviction entirely opposed to the hope to which the apostles of the circumcision who remained in Palestine fondly clung. Paul w as the instrument of a new and radical evolution of God's plan. His experience, as it widened into a general principle, naturally took in his eyes the shape of that Divine law which he was afterward to interpret and formulate in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of the epistle to the Romans. At the same time, he gained a clearer understanding of his special vocation as apostle to the Gentiles. A vast horizon was now opening before his eyes. 104 THE APOSTLE PAUL, As the heathen world, with its history and its destinies, entered more and more into his thoughts, they could not fail to gain a greatly wider scope. This epoch is marked by the two discourses of Lystra and Athens. They are naturally associated together ; for indeed they express the same idea. These two addresses being more original than that of Antioch, have excited critical suspicions to a less degree. In the Athenian discourse especially, so exquisite in rhetorical style and so admirable in its profundity of thought, one can scarcely refuse to recognise the master's touch. It is, in fact, a piece of apologetics of a new order ; and there is nothing to compare with it either in preceding or in following discourses. Paul's preaching no longer finds its starting point in the Old Testament, but in the moral and religious consciousness of humanity (comp. Rom. i. 19). Acts xiv. 15. i Thess. i. 9. CL'ayye/\t^o/xcFOt . . . Trajs iTTiaTfieil/are vfxa<; (Itto tovtu)}' tojv fxaraniiv Trpos Tor ©eor ('.tto rHiv Kttt uAvy^tj'u). But in these two discourses there is something beyond the general notion of God, which belonged properly to Jewish theology much more than to Chris- tian teaching. They are an attempt to comprehend paganism and its history from the standpoint of the new revelation ; they are a sketch of that philosophy of history which the apostle was destined afterward to complete. Notice, to begin with, his new and profound cpnception of paganism. " I find you, O Athenians, devout to excess. Passing through your PAUrs AriSSlOXARY PREACHING. 105 city, and looking at your temples and altars, I have found one with this inscription. To the unknown God ! What you worship in ignorance, I come to make known to you " (Acts xvii. 22, 23). In poly- theism thus understood Paul could have no difificulty in finding a point of attachment for the worship of the true God. That paganism which the Jews, and Paul himself, were accustomed to regard as a pure negation of piety, has here a positive value assigned to it ; and is in this way brought into the plan of salvation prepared by God for all humanity. The difference between Jews and Gentiles is reduced to its minimum. God has made all nations of one blood. He is not the God of the Jews alone, but also of .the Gentiles (Rom. iii. 29). His providence has regulated the destiny not only of Israel, but of the Gentile nations as well, determining the place, the time, and the boundaries of their earthly habitation. They have walked in darkness, it is true, groping their way ; but they have been moving towards a goal fixed by God Himself In the Divine plan, the history of paganism unfolds itself in a line parallel with that of Israel, and both meet at the cross of Jesus Christ. Thus the universalism of the new Gospel found expression ; and thus was formed in the mind of Paul that great historical plan which he will expound in the epistle to the Romans. The Athenian address was interrupted, and its specifically Christian portion remained undeveloped. But on comparing i Thessalonians i, 9, 10 and x\cts xvii. 30, 31, it is easy to see that Paul would have confined himself to the assertion of a few very simple ideas and essential facts : the necessity of repentance, the imminence of the last judgment, the death and lo6 THE APOSTLE PAUL. resurrection of Jesus, and deliverance from the wrath to come. Sucli was Paul's early missionary preachinj^'. If the discourses of the Acts do not give us his whole theology, yet they mark the first stage in the develop- ment of his system. The experiences of this epoch were so many fertile germs out of which, under the influence of the apostle's intense meditation, a rich harvest of profound views and great thoughts would shortly be produced. 11. The Two Epistles to the Thessalonians. These two epistles are connected with the dis- courses we have just analysed, alike in their chrono- logical order and in the nature of their ideas. It will be noticed, in the first place, how readily the two letters adjust themselves to the setting fur- nished by the account of Paul's second missionary journey in the Acts, and what constant harmony exists between them and it. In the address of both letters we read the names of the three mis- sionaries who appear in the narrative : Paul, Si/as, and Timothy (i Thess. i. i ; 2 Thess. i. i). Silas, moreover, is mentioned before Timothy ; his name ranks second in the epistles as it does in the Acts — a fact all the more surprising, inasmuch as Silas' name only occurs once besides in the rest of Paul's epistles. This circumstance is inexplicable on the hypothesis of a pseudo-apostolic authorship of the two letters ; but it is fully confirmed by a phrase in the second epistle to the Corinthians, where also the second place is assigned to Silas (chap. i. 19). Furthermore, wc gather from the two epistles that PAUL'S MISSIONARY PREACHING. io7 Paul arrived at Thessalonica from PhiUppi, and that from Thessalonica he passed on to Athens (i Thess. ii. 2 and iii. I ; comp. Acts xvii. i and 16). We tind reference made in very precise terms to the ill-treat- ment that he and his friends had been subject to at Philippi : irpoiraeovre^ Kal v^pLadevre^, Kadc^^ oihciTe, Iv ^aiTTTTOt?, ^irappvcTiacTdfxeeaXaXriaaL Trpo? vfia<{ to €vaT/e\Lov tov eeov iv ttoWw iiy^vt (i Thess. n. 2). This l?o/dness and ^mit coiiteniiou answer very well to the account of the Acts (xvii. 1-9)- ^"^g^m, it appears from the two epistles that the majority of Christians at Thessalonica were of heathen origin ; and this is just what is said in Acts xvii. 4 : t^^ re ae^ofxevcov 'E\\i]V(ov ir\7]0o<; iroXv, yvvaifccov re Twv irpci^Tcov ovK oUyai. The Jews, on the contrary, had violently opposed the preaching of the Gospel, and having rejected it themselves, did their utmost to prejudice the heathen against it and to make Paul's ministry in Thessalonica impossible (Acts xvii. 5 ; comp. i Thess. ii. 15, 16). These statements remind us at every point of the narrative of the Acts: nay, the phraseology of this last passage recalls its very style (e/cSt^/cen-, KwX^ecu vf^d}? eXircSo^, I Thoes. i. 3 ; comp. v. 8 ; 2 Thess. i. 3, 4, 1 1 ; ii. 13, 16 ; iii. 5). The work of faith is that profound change by which the Thessalonians turned from the vain worship of idols to serve the living God, and were consecrated to Jesus Christ (eV d'^/iaa/ioj Uyev/jLajo^; Kal iTLGTeL dXrjOeia^, 2 Thess. ii. 13). By this consecration they were separated from heathenism and snatched from all its defilements ; and they must carry it out in their whole life and being, by the entire sanctifica- tion of spirit, soul, and body {a<^id(jai vjid^ okoreXeU, I Thess. V. 23). But this destruction of the old nature is the consequence of the new life in them, the essence and strength of which is love. The first duty of Christians is mutual love among themselves (2 Thess. i. 3). This mutual love is the love of brethren, for all Christians form one famil}- (i Thess. iv. 9). It should further extend itself to all men (et? dWi']\ov^ Kul €L<; TTuvra^^ I Thess. iii. 12). Christians must not return evil for evil ; according to God's ex- ample of love, they must seek the good of all (i Thess. v. 15 ; 2 Thess. iii. 5). It is this holy labour of love, which spends and wearies itself in service and self- sacrifice, that Paul describes in the energetic phrase /coTTo? T/)9 uyuiTi]^. After faith and love comes hop^, a constant source of joy and consolation, even in the rnidst of the darkest and severest trials. Hope begets PRIMITIVE PAULINISM. 117 patience. Rooted in Jesus Christ, Christians are enabled to stand firm in Him, awaiting His speedy coming (crT?;/c?;Te eV Kvplw, r Thess. iii. 8). Thus the apostle's thought, starting from eschato- logy, returns to it and there reaches its goal. The Messianic ideas, in short, here come both first and last ; they supply not indeed the vital principle, but the external framework of this early Paulinism. We must now examine them more directly. n. ESCHATOLOGY. It is an apocalypse in brief which these two epistles set before us. The great apostasy, the appearance of the man of sin, or Antichrist, the advent and victory of the Lord, the resurrection and the judgment — such are the successive scenes of this great drama. Underneath the differences of detail we feel the pro- found analogy of this eschatology to that of John. Fundamentally, Christian eschatology in the apostolic times followed a regular course of development. It is not so richly unfolded here as in the Apocalypse, but much more definitely than in the discourses of Jesus ; it is at an intermediate stage betv/een these two extreme points of its history. The apostle Paul has referred no part of his teach- ing to that of Jesus more expressly than his escha- tological doctrine. What he says on this point is taught, he assures us, eV Xo^/m KvpLov (i Thess. iv. 15). Indeed, wc may certainly recognise in the first verses of the fifth chapter a faithful reproduction of some of the Master's words. Jesus Himself had also spoken of the outburst of evil in the last days, of the apostasy of a great number of believers, and of the II 8 THE APOSTLE PAUL. appearance of false Christs and false prophets. He had, in like manner, maintained a very sober reserve respecting the time and hour of the Parousia, simply comparing its sudden coming to that of a thief in the night. He too had spoken of the resurrection, of the assembling of all the faithful with the Son of man, and of the final judgment which w^ill render unto every man according to his works. Only, in the teaching of Jesus there is found, under the most material images borrowed from Jewish apocalyptics, an indefinable inner spirituality, which gives them breadth and freedom, and invests these pictures with a symbolical import. In the apostolic preaching, on the contrary, these ideas become set and rigid, and they fall into a systematic order and scheme. It could not be otherwise. The work of systematization was carried on under the constant influence of the Book of Daniel, traces of which are easily to be discerned in the Gospel of Matthew, the epistles to the Thessa- lonians, and the Apocalypse of John (2 Thess. ii. 4 ; comp. Dan. xi. 36). The end of the world will be brought about by God's direct intervention. But the moment of this intervention has not been arbitrarily chosen. It depends upon the historical development of the forces at work in the world. And for that reason this time may, to some extent, be foreseen and calculated. Such is the fundamental idea of the Jewish Apo- calypse. The first catastrophe is to be a judgment, a condemnation of the power of evil. That which precedes and prepares for it, therefore, is the growth of this power to its culmination and full maturity. The world, in fact, must become ripe for destruction, the sins of the fathers and children uniting to fill up PRIMITIVE PAULINISM. 119 their measure (Matt, xxiii. 32; i Thess. ii. 16). That is what Jesus taught, and His disciples also. In like manner, Paul expressly declares that the end cannot come until evil has attained its final manifestation (r; airoGTaaUi TrpMToy, 2 Thess. ii. 3). This power of evil at work in the world is as yet in a state of secret ferment, of mystery (to fivar^jpLov T^? dvofiia^;, 2 Thess. ii. 7). But it will break forth violently, incarnated in a personality who will serve as its medium, — t/ie man of sin, the son of perdition (0 avOpcoiTO^ 77)9 afxaprla'?, 6 vlo^ t?}? aTTCoXela^). This personage will be in the order of evil what the person of Christ is in the order of good. He is, therefore, the evil and anti-divine principle in its ultimate reve- lation. As God came into the world in the person of the Messiah, Antichrist will appear as the radical and absolute negation not only of Christ,, but of God Himself. He will set Himself above everything Divine, and will make His throne in the temple and cause Himself to be worshipped as God (2 Thess. ii. 4). Whence will this head of the powers of evil arise ? The general answer is. From the midst of heathenism ; so the epithet civo/jlo^ (ver. 8) might lead us to think. But this adjective is used here in an absolute sense ; it is not the man without law, but the man who knowingly tramples on the law, who is the conscious negation of the law, because he is the negation of good. The two epistles to the Thessalonians, as a whole, lead us to suppose that in Paul's view the Antichrist who will enthrone himself as God in the temple of Jerusalem itself in place of the true Messiah, is to arise out of Judaism. Did not the Jewish people already embody for him the fiercest possible opposition to the Gospel ? Those civOpcoirot aroiroL 120 THE APOSTLE PAUL. Kal irovrjpol of whom the apostle complains, were they not Jews (2 Thess. iii. 2)? And, finally, is it not the Jews whom Paul describes as hostile to the human race, constantly multiplying their sins, filling up the measure of their iniquities, and ready for destruction by the Divine wrath (i Thess. ii. 15, 16)? Antichrist, therefore, is not Nero, nor any other Roman Emperor ; he is the representative of the Jewish revolution, which was already at work. The power that represses it and prevents its outburst, the KaTe-)(wv, is the Roman government which maintains order. Was it not this which saved Paul at Corinth, and which had everywhere saved him from the machi- nations of the Jews ? When this barrier is removed and the ideal power of evil, already active in Judaism, shall have triumphed and in its transgressions far surpassed heathen idolatry (2 Thess. ii. 4) — when the king of evil has come — then the world will be ripe for judgment.^ ^ A renewed examination of these passages now renders us less confident of the Jewish character of the Antichrist spoken of in this much controverted passage. The apostasy in question seems to extend far beyond the limits of Judaism, and to be the outcome of a general and hopeless revolt of the whole world against God and the order established by Him. In Daniel xi. 36, the passage alluded to by Paul, the king who blasphemes and sets himself above every god, becoming the symbol of Antichrist, is a heathen king ; it is Antiochus Epiphanes. But that is no reason why, in Paul's belief, the drriKc/'/xei/os of 2 Thess. ii. 4 should be a Roman emperor. In assuming a deeper moral and religious significance, the type has lost much of its political character. The author of the epistle, as it seems to us, abides by the prediction of Daniel, and leaves the personality of Antichrist indefinite, precisely because this personality did not as yet present a distinct form to his eyes. PRIMITIVE PAULINISM. I2l Thus the parousia of Antichrist is to precede and prepare for the parousia of the Lord. The latter will be a splendid and decisive triumph over the adversary. At a signal given by God, Christ will What he asserts at the time of his writing is the existence of a wide and powerful leaven of evil, which will afterward have its incarnation in an individual, according to the terms ot Daniel's prophecy, but which at present \vorks in an impersonal form. Hence the general expression, to fivaTijpLov eVepyetrat T779 dvo[jLLa., as the power of order and justice which as yet checks the outbreak of evil, and delays the disclosure of the mystery of iniquity in the per- sonality of Antichrist and in the world-wide apostasy. At a later time this distinction between the Roman Emperor and Empire on the one hand, and Antichrist on the other, disappeared ; and not only that, but Rome itself became the mystery of iniquity, and the Emperor in person figures as the Beast in the Apocalypse (Rev. xiii., xvii. ; comp. i Pet. v. 13). This identification of the powers that we here find contrasted, took place after the year 64 and in the person of Nero. But in the second letter to the Christians of Thessalonica, the Empire and Emperor are still regarded as the beneficent and protecting powers of social order. Indeed, Paul here enterUiins exactly the same views and opinions on this subject to which he gives expression in the epistle to the Romans, chap. xiii. 1-6 : worre 6 drrtTtto-cro'/xeio? tt; e^ovaia, rrj rov ®€ov StaTayrj avOecTTijKiV ot yap ap^ovTCS oi'K elcrl (jiolSos toj aya6(2 f^yw, ttA/Xo. Tw KaKiZ . . . ov yap ilKrj Trjv ixd)(aipav (fiopel' ©eoi) yap Sta/cov'os icTTU', eKSiKo<; cts opyijv toj to KaKov TrpadCOVTi. To our mind this correspondence is a decisive proof that this much-disputed second epistle to the Thessalonians was written before the year 64, and is consequently of Pauline origin. — Note written by the author for this edition. THE APOSTLE PAUL. descend from heaven with His mighty angels, as He has Himself announced. The day of the Parousia is uncertain and unknown ; but as Jesus had appa- rently said that it would come before the generation then present had passed away, and that men should watch for it constantly, Paul, like the other apostles and all the early Christians, hopes to be still living at the time (i Thess. iv. 15-17). We may observe, n passing, that this declaration v/ould be very strange if these two epistles to the Thcssalonians had been composed after the apostle's death ; since the forgery would have credited Paul, gratuitously, with a hope that was obviously falsified. The Christians who have died will rise first, and join those who are still alive ; together they will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord descend- ing from heaven, and will be for ever with the Lord. But this day of the Lord is at the same time the day of judgment The destruction of Antichrist is nothing less than the first act of this judgment, which will also bring about the eternal ruin {p\edpo% alcovio^, 2 Thess. i. 8-10) of all the ungodly. We meet with this eschatological doctrine once more in the first epistle to the Corinthians, wanting only the figure of the Antichrist. But it is already in course of transformation under the influence of the principle of the Pauline gospel, which as it unfolded itself, could not possibly remain confined within the very narrow lines of the Jewish Apocalypse. The description of i Corinthians xv. 15-52, which by its very phraseology so plainly recalls i Thcssalonians iv. 16, is, however, sufficient proof that the eschatological hopes which wc have just set forth were an essential feature in the earlier phase of the l^auline doctrine. PRIMITIVE PAULINISM. 123 Such then, for the present, is this early type of PauHnism, — still closely allied in its general concep- tion to the preaching of the other apostles, but bearing within it already the new and bold ideas to which subsequently it gave birth. It is admirably calculated to serve as a transition, and means of organic con- nexion, between the apostolic preaching with which Paul set out and the independent conception of the Gospel to which he afterwards attained. We shall now see the true Paulinism take shape, under the double pressure of the inner logic of its own prin- ciples and of the external opposition of the Judaizing party, which proved a still more effectual stimulus. CHAPTER III. FIRST CONFLICTS WITH THE JUDAIZING CHRIS- TIANS. — THE TIME OF CRISIS AND TRANSITION (Acts XV. ; Galatians ii.). IN order to understand the struggle which is about to begin, we must revert to the apostle's conver- sion, and note carefully the new course into which it directed his mind and his life. The conversion of Paul had been, in point of fact, a radical negation of the Jewish principle. His apostle- ship to the Gentiles was its logical consequence ; and this mission, pursued with equal boldness and success, was the practical realization of the kingdom of God beyond the sacred limits of the Jewish people. If during this first missionary period Paul does not attack the authority of the law in theory, he com- pletely ignores it in fact, and carries on his work without the least reference to it. The very name of the law is not to be found in the two epistles to the Thessalonians. Through the unexpected progress of his work, the contradiction of Judaism implied in the apostle's faith passed from this inner sphere into the general life of the Church ; it expressed itself in actual facts, previously to its being dogmatically formulated. Meanwhile the Jewish principle on its part, con- THE CONFLICT WITH THE JUDAIZERS, 125 quercd and negatived as it was in the soul of the apostle to the Gentiles and in his ministry, revived in the Jewish Churches of Palestine in a vigorous and obstinate form. It was not to be expected that the old principle would yield to the new without conflict. The astonishing success of the mission to the Gentiles caused, no doubt, more embarrassment than pleasure at Jerusalem. The old Judaism felt that its venerable claims were in jeopardy ; and it could not maintain and defend them without endeavouring to enforce them on others. Let us define clearly the great question which now arises. It is not as to whether Gentiles shall be admitted into the kingdom of God : on that point every one was agreed. The question was, On what terms were they to be admitted ? Was it necessary to become a Jew in order to be a Christian ? Must one pass through Judaism to reach the Gospel ? This was the point at issue. Those who upheld the eternal claims of the old religion would, of necessity, impose circumcision on the Gentiles ; for it was only through circumcision that they could be materially incorpo- rated with the elect people, and become members of the family of Abraham. Accordingly, it was over circumcision that the great battle came to be fought. No wonder that it was long and fierce. Christianity and Judaism were now contending for their existence. If the Gentiles enter the Church directly, and there obtain through faith alone the same rank and privi- leges as the Jews, what becomes of the rights of Israel ? what advantage has the elect people over other nations ? Is not this utterly to deny the abso- lute validity of Judaism ? On the other hand, if circumcision be imposed on the Gentile converts, is 126 THE APOSTLE PAUL. not that in itself a declaration that faith in Christ is insufficient for salvation ? Does it not reduce the Gospel to the position of a mere accessory to Mosaism? Is not this to deny the absolute validity of the work of Jesus Christ? Such was the fundamental question that Paul's missionary successes raised amongst the Judaean Churches. It could not fail to create a profound division of opinion. Up to this time Christianity and Judaism had marched hand in hand. But now a choice must be made. The Christian Jews, who belonged more to Moses than to Jesus (and there were many such), were prepared without hesitation to stand forward as the ardent champions of threatened Judaism. Paul, on the other hand, natu- rally became the apostle of Christian freedom. To defend the independence of the Gospel was to defend his own work, his apostleship, his faith, his conversion. This great cause became his personal cause. Betwixt the two parties, the Twelve are eclipsed. They appear full of anxiety and hesitation, seeking for a reconcilia- tion between the two hostile principles, which could not be other than precarious. The first conflict seems to have taken place upon Paul's return from his first missionary journey. Cer- tain Pharisaic Christians, who had come down from Judaea to Antioch, sought to impose circumcision on the Gentile converts. " If you do not submit to circumcision," they said, " you cannot be saved " (Acts XV. i). They alleged the authority of the Twelve in support of their claims. Great was the disturbance they excited, and violent the dispute. Paul did . not underestimate the gravit)' of the struggle then beginning. The triumph of these new THE CONFLICT WITH THE JUDAIZERS. 127 missionaries compromised his whole work ; and he was keenly distressed. He could not tell what were, at the bottom, the real sentiments of the apostles at Jerusalem. He feared that a scandalous rupture would be caused. The right course to pursue was made plain to him by a revelation, — by a decisive illumination, an inspiration full of assurance and strength, following an interval of hesitation and inner conflict (Gal. ii. 2). He will go up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and set forth his gospel to those who are accounted pillars in the Church ; he will rehearse the triumphs that have been won, and the hopes that are entertained. And he will find means, if it prove neces- sary, to persuade or win them over to support him. They will be compelled to endorse his work, and protect it from the attacks of the intruders . In any case, he will deprive them of that authority from the apostles from which they draw their credit and strength (Gal. ii. 1-3). In these hopes Paul was not deceived. The essen- tial end he sought was gained. The revelation he had received, and upon which he acted, had not misled him. The Twelve in no wise supported the pretensions of the false brethren. Titus was not compelled to be circumcised. The authorities of the Church gave Paul's gospel their unreserved approval, and did not propose to add anything to it. They acknowledged the legitimacy of his apostleship, and gave him the right hand of fellowship ; so that they might labour together in the work of God, the one party among the Gentiles and the other among the Jews. They even requested Paul and Barnabas to bear in mind the poor of Jerusalem, and to interest the new Gentile Christian Churches on their behalf. 128 THE APOSTLE PAUL. At the same time, the Twelve could not share either in the boldness or confidence of Paul. They had other hopes, and judged things from a totally different standpoint. The Gospel might, indeed, have a partial, and more or less brilliant success among the Gentiles ; but, in their eyes, this was quite a secondary matter. The main and chiefly important work was the con- version of the Jewish people, who were to be the first to enter, as a nation, into the new covenant ; then the turn of the Gentiles would come. Therefore they must not scandalize the Jews, nor break with Judaism. The part played by the apostles in these keen de- bates was, and could only be, that of conciliation. All their efforts were directed to bring about through these deliberations such a compromise as would pre- serve unity among all divisions in the Church, without placing the new evangelical principle in peril. Hence the equivocal position in which they were found throughout, and the minor part they played in the history of these great struggles.^ The Acts of the Apostles has preserved for us the material result of these conferences in the form of a letter addressed by the Church at Jerusalem to the new Gentile Christian Churches, for the purpose of re-assuring and pacifying them. Their freedom is recognised. The letter is no more than a recom- mendation of observances such as Paul himself en- joined and the Churches already practised ; viz. abstinence from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, ^ See an excellent estimate of the part taken by the Twelve in IJ Histoire de la tJu'ologie apostoliqiie of M. Reuss, vol. i., pp. 306-329 [Eng. trans., i., 263-283] ; de Presscnse, Uistoire des trois premiers siuies, vol. i., pp. 457-474 [Kng. trans., I'he Apos/o/u' /Jife,\)p. 1 25- 141]. THE CONFLICT WITH THE JUDAIZERS. \l() from things strangled, — and lastly, from fornication. In other words, they were to continue within those general limits under which the Jews received prose- lytes into social .communion with themselves. These restrictions occur again in Paul's epistles to the Corinthians, and in the Apocalypse. While it is certain that the two parties at Jerusalem came at last to an understanding, it is equally certain that this agreement could not have been arrived at in any other way or upon any other basis. This solution, it must however be said, was really no solution at all. It might have some effect in the sphere of practical life ; but it left the question of principle untouched. The truth is, that from this time it was no longer possible to arrest the conflict between the Christian and the Jewish principle. The apostles at Jerusalem showed their tact and wisdom, as well as their moderation, in not entering upon it. Time alone could bring it to an issue. It was the dawn of a religious revolution, whose course it was useless to resist. So far from preventing it, the debates and resolutions of the council at Jerusalem served only to precipitate the struggle. The compro- mise then agreed upon became the starting point and occasion of still fiercer and more serious contest. The two hostile parties might each, indeed, regard it as a first victory. It was an obvious inference for Paul to conclude from it that the Gospel has abolished the Law for Jews as well as Gentiles. But on the other hand, his adversaries gained an equal advan- tage. It was well understood that the decision of the council only affected the Gentiles ; and that the La^v remained obligatory for the Jews who continued .to form the nucleus of the Church, the Messianic com- 9 THE APOSTLE PAUL. munity. In relation to the Jewish Church, therefore, Gentile Christians held an inferior position. They purchased their liberty at the cost of their privileges. They became \.\\(t proselytes of the gate of Christianity; they remained, in fact, at the door of the kingdom. Thus the Judaizers had, seemingly, an equal right to claim the settlement made at Jerusalem as a first success. It furnished them with an excellent vantage ground for a new campaign. They were inevitably tempted to turn these proselytes of the gate into proselytes of righteousness. This persistent antagonism soon declared itself in the event. A second contest, still more serious than that at Jerusalem, broke out at Antioch (Gal. ii. 13, ff.). This event, as we have seen [pp. 10, 11], finds its proper occasion on Paul's return from his second journey, at the end of the first and the beginning of the second period of our history. In the vigorous discourse addressed to the Judaizers and summed up in the epistle to the Galatians, the full-grown Paul for the first time displays himself, with his great thesis of justification by faith, his radical negation of the law, and the irresistible logic of his polemics. The crisis now reaches its height. Peter on coming to Antioch had eaten with Gen- tile Christians, without regard to the precepts of the law, which were in danger of being cast aside by the Jewish Christians themselves. But just then certain emissaries of James arrived, who protested against this apostasy and asserted the authority of the law. Peter was unable to withstand their influence. After havinor sanctioned Christian liberty by his example, he seemed to condemn it. He withdrew, and separated himself from the Gentile Christians in order to make common THE CONFLICT WITH THE JUDAIZERS. 131 cause with those of the circumcision. Many other Christians, and Barnabas himself, were drawn into this act of hypocrisy ; and there was a temporary revival of zeal for Judaism. Paul remained firm and faithful. *' Seeing," he says, " that they walked not with straight foot according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest like a Gentile, why dost thou compel the Gentiles to Judaize ? " The inconsistency of Peter's double conduct could not be better shown. But Paul does not stop there ; his argument goes to the root of the matter. This flagrant inconsistency of behaviour arose from an inner, though perhaps unconscious inconsistency, which was at the bottom of the doctrine of the Judaizing Christians, and which Paul's pitiless logic lays bare in the discourse which follows this apostrophe. All equivocation is cut short. This is the overwhelming dilemma to which Peter is shut up : Either faith in Christ is sufficient in itself — in that case, why ask anything more from the Gentiles, why glory in anything besides ? — or else it is not sufficient ; but if not, it is not really necessary, — and we Jews were mistaken in despairing of salvation through the law and in having recourse to faith and the death of Christ. In this case. His death was superfluous and useless ! The whole discourse centres in this dilemma. Paul, from the first, puts himself in the position of the Jewish Christians (y/xeU (f)i>(jet 'lovBalot) ; he aims at showing the radical contradiction existing, unawares to them, between their professed faith in Christ and the Jewish claims that they seek to im- pose on others. " We, who are Jews by origin and not Gentile sinners {a/jLaprwXoi), being convinced that 1.32 THE APOSTLE PAUL. man cannot be justified by the law, if he continue a stranger to faith in Christ, — we, I say, have also be- lieved in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith, and not by the works of the law. What does this mean, if not that our conversion to Christ is with us Jews an undoubted proof that the essential means of justification lies not in the law, but in faith ? For we have only believed in Christ, after despairing of the law. It is true then to affirm that in our view also no flesh can be justified before God by the law." It is thus that Paul was led, in conflict with the Judaistic opposition, to the full development and definition of the grand thesis of his theology, — viz. justification by faith ; and to apply it to Jews and Gentiles alike, without making any distinction. He asserts and logically deduces the consequences of the fundamental principle he has now arrived at. "In the work of our justification, faith in Christ is therefore substituted for the works of the law. In seeking to be justified through Christ, we acknowledge, by that very act, that the law is ineffectual to this end. Faith in Christ, therefore, implies the negation of the law for all." In the seventeenth verse the objection is raised, which Paul's teaching has ever since continued to provoke. The suppression of the law will reduce the Jews to the rank of the a/iaprcoXo], the Gentiles. Sin will no longer be restrained ; and if Jesus abolishes the law. He becomes the servant, the minister of sin (comp. Rom. vi. i). Paul is not content to reject this conclusion, as he does, by an energetic /Ltr; jevouo. " So far from that," he exclaims, " it results, on the contrary, that if I build up again the law which I removed in' coming to Christ, I am not only incon- THE CON FLIC! WITH THE JUDAIZERS. 133 sistent with myself, but I lose what I have gahied ; in face of the law thus restored, I find, and indeed constitute myself, a transgressor ! Of necessity, trans- gression is revived along with the law ; and the death of Christ is rendered vain. But on the contrary, where there is no law, there is also no transgression. The truth is, that' through the law I died to the law. I have been crucified and condemned by the law with Christ ; I am therefore freed from the law. It is no longer I that live, it is Christ who lives in me ; and that life which I still live in the flesh, I live not under the law, but by faith in the Son of God, who has loved me and given Himself for me." Finally, gathering up this profound and powerful argument into a single sentence, he declares, " If righteousness comes to us by any kind of law, Christ died for nothing ! " Thus understood, the discourse which Paul has con- densed in this brief abstract is really the complete programme developed in the great epistles. It not only contains all the essential ideas of the Pauline theology, but they are presented already in the same logical order in which we shall find them in the epistle to the Romans : the inability of born Jews and of sinners among the Gentiles alike to justify themselves by their works ; the. necessity, identical for both parties, of believing in Christ ; the opposition between justification by faith and justification by law ; the abolishment of the law through faith ; the conception of redemption as a death to the law and a resurrection with Christ, resulting in the glorious liberty" of the children of God — all the links in this golden chain are found here in their organic connexion. The principle implanted in Paul's mind on his conversion 134 THE APOSTLE PAUL. at last yields its full result. The germ has become a mighty tree. We have passed through the first period of Paul's life ; and we enter forthwith on the great conflicts of the second. BOOK III. SECOND PERIOD; OR, THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT CONFLICTS. From 53 to 58 A.D. THE discussion which took place at Antioch seems to have been a regular declaration of war. From this hour the struggle became general, and was carried out on both sides without truce or restraint. The Judaizing opposition, originating in Palestine, extends and breaks out everywhere ; we find it dis- turbing Galatia, Ephesus, and the Church at Corinth by turns ; and outrunning the apostle of the Gentiles himself, it gets to Rome before him. The Judaizing party had its missionaries, who followed in Paul's track, and in every place strove with embittered zeal to undermine his authority, to seduce his disciples, and to destroy his work under the pretence of rectify- ing it. It was a counter-mission systematically organized. The delegates arrived with letters of recommendation, and gave themselves out as repre- sentatives of the Twelve, denying Paul's apostleship and sowing distrust and suspicion of him everywhere by their odious calumnies. With the apostle this was a time of bitter expe- riences and keen distress. His letters show us how 136 THE APOSTLE PAUL, greatly he suffered from this intestine struggle, from the treachery of some of his friends and the fickle- ness of his most beloved Churches. But, \ye hasten to add, without these great troubles we should never have known Paul at his greatest, nor guessed how tender his heart was, how heroic his faith, how vigorous his mind, how infinite the resources of his strong and supple genius. He was indeed born for conflict, and in it his spiritual nature acquired its full maturity and developed all its powers. Attacked almost simultaneously at every point of his work, Paul does not shrink from the contest ; he redoubles his energies, and makes himself almost ubiquitous, ever}'where confronting his adversaries and never for one moment doubting of victor}-. For four or five years this great controversy absorbed his whole thought and energy ; it was the leading fact which dominated and distinguished this second period. Our great epistles are the issue of these truh' tragic circumstances, and can only be thoroughly understood in their light. These epistles are not theological treatises, so much as pamphlets ; they are the crush- ing and terrible blows with which the mighty com- batant openly answered the covert intrigues of his enemies. The contest is in reality a drama, which grows larger and more complicated as it advances from Galatia to Rome. The letters to the Galatians, the Corinthians, and the Romans, which are its principal acts, mark also its successive phases. They are in close connexion with each other, and enable us to establish a twofold progress, both in external events and in the mind of the apostle, which we shall now proceed. to demonstrate. , CHAPTER I. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. THE epistle to 'the Galatians, the earliest of the four, enables us to witness the first outbreak of this prolonged struggle. With its opening words, we are in the midst of the fray ; and from beginning to end it is simply the apostle's vehement answer to the unlooked-for attack of his enemies. It would be hopeless, therefore, even to attempt to understand it, without first having a clear perception of the character of these Judaizing teachers, the nature of their con- tention, and the strength of their arguments. Upon these points, fortunately, the letter itself supplies us with all necessary information. The Galatians had received Paul's earliest preach- ing with an enthusiasm and gratitude which had touched and charmed him (Gal. iv. 14). Their cor- diality had been maintained throughout the apostle's sojourn with them ; and he had carried away from Galatia the most pleasing impressions and the brightest hopes. When therefore he heard of such a speedy defection, his astonishment was only equalled by his distress (Gal. i. 6). What is it that had happened ? After Paul's departure, there had arrived in Galatia certain men whom he only chooses to designate by the somewhat scornful term nve^, quidam (i. 7}. The new mission- 137 138 THE APOSTLE PAUL. aries brought to these young societies not, as they would have it, another gospel, but those very Judaic claims for which they had already pleaded at Jeru- salem, and obtained a momentary triumph at Antioch. They supported them by the name and example of the Twelve, and by the authority of the mother Church in Jerusalem. The apostles whom Christ has ordained, who lived with Him and received His directions and teaching, live and preach differently from Paul. Above all, it is not true, as Paul teaches, that the old covenant has been abolished by the death of Christ. God cannot be unfaithful and de- part from His promise ; nor take back what He has once given. Now, He made an eternal covenant with Abraham, and promised salvation to the children of Abraham only. The word of God remains. So far from having abolished this covenant, the death of Christ only has its full effect and actual virtue w^ithin the covenant, and for those who have entered into it. Into this covenant you must enter, if you wish to belong to the true Messianic people. Unless you are circumcised, and thus become children of Abraham, you cannot be saved. So they reasoned. Paul's doctrine and that of the Judaizers may be summed up in two assertions. He declared : " The law and its ceremonies are nothing without the cross of Christ, and nothing to the believer in Christ." — " The death of Christ, and faith in Christ," they re- plied, •' are nothing apart from circumcision and legal observance." At first sight, the difference between these phrases may not appear great ; at the bottom it is enormous. The first proposition is the negation of Judaism ; the second is the destruction of the Gospel. But Paul's adversaries would seem powerful indeed THE EPISTLE TO THE GALAT/ANS. 139 when they pointed out that his teaching ran counter to the entire Old Testament, and to the most solemn promises of Jehovah. Nor were they less so in quoting against him the example and teaching of the apostles at Jerusalem, the only true heirs of the word of Christ. Finally, they must have succeeded in shaking the apostle's firmest friends, when they urged that the abolition of the law compromised the holiness of God, and encouraged sin by removing the barriers against it ; and when they showed that this so-called Christian liberty degenerated into a license that no longer had either law or limit. The doctrine of Paul, the}' concluded, is the subversion at once of all authority, all truth, and all moralit}'. But this radical negation of Paul's gospel involved the negation of his apostleship. The discussion of his views resolved itself inevitably into a violent personal attack. Who is this newcomer, that he should set himself up against the first apostles, and against the word of God itself? What is his authority ? He has not seen Christ ; he has not been made an apostle. What little he knows of the Gospel, has been learned from the Lord's real disciples ; and now he revolts against them ! Why does he separate himself from them ? Why does he not reproduce their preaching in its full and proper form ? His mission is purely extemporized ; and he has constituted him- self an apostle on his own authority, and out of his mere fancy. He claims, no doubt, to have received revelations, and to have had visions vouchsafed to him ; but what proof have we that his assertions are true? Must we believe it on the strength of his word ? Besides, how can these mere personal revela- tions that he alleges hold good against the traditional 140 THE APOSTLE PAUL. teaching of men who lived so long with Jesus, who saw His face and heard His words? Is not this tradition the standard by which we must test every private vision, in order to ascertain whether it comes from God or from the Devil ? The surest proof that the nezv apostle's visions are nothing but falsehood is that they contradict and subvert the true doctrine of Jesus Christ. His assumed independence is nothing but culpable audacity ; his gospel is a mutilated gospel ; his apostleship, a usurpation ; and his attack on the law, a sacrilege. The Galatians must beware of him as an enemy ; they must hasten to enter into communion with the true Church of the Messiah by submitting themselves to the Divine ordinances. What an impression this skilful and sweeping attack must have made on the fickle minds of these Galatian tribes ! The new teachers, apparently, had the facts on their side — the external tradition of Christ and the apostles, and of the Old Testament. The gospel of Paul rested on his personal testimony alone. How could this authority counterbalance that of the traditions of Jerusalem? Is it surprising that the Galatians, ready, it would seem, for all novelties, should have been seized with distrust of the apostle, and have eagerly accepted the new gospel ? But Paul was not the man to abandon the struggle. His defence rose to the height of the danger. So far from weakening the force of his opponents' argu- mentation, I conceive that his logical mind has strengthened it, and given it a sequence and inner cohesion that it probably lacked in their own repre- sentation. It may be reduced to these three essential points : THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 14I 1. They deny the Divine origin of his gospel, and the independence of his apostleship : whatever he knows of the Gospel, he received, they say, from the other apostles, and his authority must consequently be subordinated to theirs. His adversaries may even have added that in the presence of the pillars of the Church at Jerusalem he had taken care not to assert his empty claims (Gal. ii. 1 1 ff.). 2. This gospel of human origin is, in addition, false in substance ; for it destroys the law, and is in flagrant contradiction to the Old Testament. 3. This gospel, human in origin and false in prin- ciple, is further disastrous in its practical results. By doing away with the law it removes the barrier between the elect and sinners (djjLapTwXoi)} This triple attack gives us the actual plan of the epistle to the Galatians, and enables us to see the strength of its structure. Paul proceeds to take up and refute these accusations. He has to maintain the independence and authority of his apostleship, and the intrinsic truth of his gospel ; and moreover to explain the moral consequences zv/ik/i, logically and in point of fact, result from it Hence the three main divisions of his letter, which has been somewhat inadequately divided into an historical (chaps, i., ii.), a dogmatical (chaps, iii., iv.), and moral section (chaps, v., vi.). These three parts follow each other in logical suc- cession. They are, in fact, the three essential branches of the same demonstration. Perhaps no other of Paul's letters has such a powerful inner cohesion, or so much unity of character. Its one idea, from first to ^ See Holsten, op. cit., InJuilt unci Cedankengang des Brief cs an die Gahitcr, p. 241. 142 THE APOSTLE PAUL. last, is tJie Gospel of faith ^ whose origin^ principle, and consequences are explained in turn and in progressive order. The refutation of the Judaizers' arguments becomes, thanks to the apostle's dialectics, the lumi- nous and triumphant exposition of his own views. The general forms of thought which met the requirements of the apostle's missionary preaching, manifestly could no longer suffice for this controversy; and they disappeared. Paul's belief, in all its distinct- ness, at last finds trenchant and decisive utterance. Its whole import is contained in the following antithesis, which from this time becomes its charac- teristic : ///j-^Z/fr^//^// by faith, diud justification through the law ; things neiu, and things old ; the flesh, and the spirit ; the time of bondage, and the time of liberty. Paulinism has reached its transforming crisis. I. Paul's Apostolic Commlssion. When writing to the Thessalonians, Paul did not in his superscription give himself an}^ title. The superscription of the epistle to the Galatians, on the contrary, is exceptionally solemn. This circumstance by itself shows, from the outset, the change that had taken place in the apostle's position. He now asserts, and with remarkable emphasis, at once the Divine origin of his apostleship {airoGToXo'^ ovfc cW dvOpcoircov ovSe Sl' dvdpcoTTOv, dWd Std 'Irjaov XpLarov koX Seov -rrarpo^), and the essential principle of that Gospel which it is his business to preach, and to defend against all opponents: *' Jesus, delivered unto death for our sins, according to the will of God our Father " (chap. i. 4). Full of indignation and astonishment, Paul flings himself eagerly into the question at issue. Verses THE EPISTLE TO THE CALATIANS. 143 6-10 lay down the thesis to be demonstrated in the epistle: "I marvel that you should have allowed your- selves to be so quickly turned aside from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to another gospel. • — xA-nother gospel ? There is none. The fact is, there are certain mischief-makers who wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But if any one, were it ourselves or an angel from heaven, came to declare a different gospel, let him be anathema I I have said, and I repeat, If any one preach a different gospel, let him be anathema ! Am I seeking to commend myself to men, or to God ? Or am I seeking to please men ? If I were still trying to please men, I should not be a minister of Christ." ^ After this exordium ex abnipto, the first part of the epistle immediately begins, and extends to the end of the second chapter. Paul first asserts the Divine origin of his gospel under its negative form : TJie gospel that I have declared^ is not according to man. I have not received^ neither learned it from any man ; — then, under its positive form : / hold it by a direct revelation from fesus Christ (chap. i. 11, 12). He proves this absolute independence of his gospel by a threefold series of arguments, which fortify each other and form a powerful gradation. I. Paul insists on the absolutely miraculous nature of the event which made him a Christian, and an ^ These last words, taken along with another passage in the epistle (v. 11), can only be understood as alluding to a time when Paul adopted a conciliatory policy toward certain men (the Judaizers), and made certain concessions in order to avoid giving offence. But the time for concession is now passed. The apostle may not suffer himself to be checked by any regard for persons, under pain of becoming himself unfaithful to Christ. 144 THE APOSTLE PAUL. apostle. It was in the midst of his zeal for Judaism and his persecuting fury that the grace of God {evhoicriaev Slcl rf;? j(cipL70s avrov), which had set him apart from his mother's womb, took possession of him. No man intervened between his conscience and the Divine call. It was God Himself who revealed His Son in his soul, and at the same time commissioned him to go and preach Him among the heathen. This work, begun without man's agency, was also com- pleted without man's participation (ov irpoaaveOefiriv aapKi Kol ai/jLart). The purpose of vers. 16-24 is to insist on the isolation in which Paul lived : he emphatically declares that he did not see Peter and James until three years after his conversion, and then only for a few days. By virtue of this call, which was solely of God, he has laboured and preached as an apostle to the Gentiles for fourteen years ; and wdth so much success that the Churches of Judaea, to whom he was unknown, glorified God nevertheless, because His grace had turned a persecutor into so mighty an instrument for the extension of His kingdom. 2. But this is not all. Not only did he carry on his labours as an apostle for a long period in absolute independence, but also the mission entrusted to him by God, and which, to be sure, needs no confirma- tion from men (however great and influential their position), has been officially recognised by the apostles at Jerusalem, — by those who pass for pillars of the Church, Peter, James, and John. They gave him the right hand of fellowship, and acknowledged that while Peter had received the apostleship of the Jews, he, Paul, was equally entitled to the apostleship of the Gentiles (chap. ii. i-io). 3. Furthermore, his apostleship is so entirely in- THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATTANS. 145 dependent of that of the other disciples of Jesus, that on one occasion he was enabled, in virtue of this Divine vocation and the authority it conferred upon him, to reprove Peter and recall him to the right path, from which he had attempted to depart. This was at x^ntioch. He went so far as to condemn Peter, because he was to be blamed ; he made him feel both the duplicity of his conduct and the inconsistency of his views ; he succeeded in making the Gospel of Jesus Christ triumph over all the fears and scruples of the one party, and the opposition of the other. He solemnly declared on that occasion the truth that he preaches— 77,3-. that no flesh is justified by the law, but every believer is justified solely by his faith in Christ. For, he insisted, the choice must be made : either Christ saves us, and in that case the law does not ; or else it is the law that saves, and in that case Christ died in vain. In this manner, Paul naturally passes from the subject of the origin of his gospel to its exposition and the demonstration of its contents. So the first leads to the second part of his letter. n. The Doctrine of the Gospel. This threefold demonstration of the Divine origin of his gospel has wrought upon the apostle's own feelings. The truth at this point seems to him so plain, that he cannot possibly understand the defection of the Galatians : *' O foolish Galatians, who then . has bewitched you ? " With this vigorous apostrophe the second part of the epistle opens. His object is now to show the intrinsic truth of his gospel, and its profound harmony with the Old Testament. Without doubt, the saying of the new teachers which had done most to shake the Galatians' faith 10 146 THE APOSTLE PAUL. was that ancient, ever powerful phrase : " We are the children of Abraham " (comp. Matt. iii. 9). Salvation belongs to the elect race alone. Now, God has given in circumcision a sign by which the children of Abra- ham are to be known. Those who are w^ithout it do not belong to the people of God, and can have no share in their privileges. This is the reasoning that the apostle had to overthrow. For this theocratic and narrow Messianism, Paul will substitute the great universal scheme, the spiritual history of the king- dom of God and of its revelation upon earth. To the carnal descent from Abraham, he. will oppose the spiritual and only true filiation — that of faith. He w^ill appeal, in his turn, to the promise made to the father of the faithful ; he will show in what manner salva- tion is connected with it, and how the law is related to it. He will thus reconstruct the genuine tradition of Israel ; and it will be seen whether he or his enemies are its true representatives. We can now understand why the faith of Abraham plays such an important part in Pauline theology. It was not arbitrarily that the apostle chose this example, rather than another. The promise made to the patriarch was the common basis of argument, both for Paul and the Judaizers; and upon this promise and its accompanying conditions a keen debate was sure to arise, for this was the crucial question. The whole discussion turns upon this first point. If the Law qualifies and limits the Promise, it is plain that it will continue to be the eterndl condition of salvation. In the epistle to the Romans we shall find Paul returning to this example of Abraham, intent on showing that faith, without the observance of the law, is the sole condition implied in the promise. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAXS. 147 He appeals here at the outset to the actual fact of the conversion of the Galatians — a fact which was undeniable, and, in his view, sufficient of itself to overthrow the Judaizers' vain pretensions. "You have been converted ; you have received the Spirit, the earnest of life eternal, the pledge of your adoption. Well, I ask you, was it in consequence of the works of the law, or through the preaching of faith, that you experienced all that ? Or is it all to be in vain ? — See how inconsistent you are: you began In the Spirit, and you would finish in the flesh ! God has wrought in you, and produced through His Spirit all the fruits of the new life : do you not see then that the promise made to Abraham is fulfilled in you through faith, and that the true sons of Abraham are those who are so by faith? Through faith the promise was given ; through faith, and not by the law, it is fulfilled." Paul now comes to the formulation of his ereat distinction between the law and the promise, which, in the first instance, he contrasts with each other. So far from the promise being fulfilled in and by the law, they produce a diametrically opposite effect. The end of the promise is blessing {evXo^'ia) ; and the inevitable effect of the law is the curse {Kardpa). All those who place themselves under the law are under the curse {biro Kardpav elaiv). Christ placed Himself under the law and became a curse for us, in order to redeem us from the curse. Wherefore it is in Jesus Christ, and not in the law, that it is possible for the Gentiles to obtain the blessing of Abraham (chap. iii. 9-14). This reasoning seems unanswerable. But Paul further urges and illustrates it by a comparison drawn 148 THE APOSTLE PAUL. from human relationships {Kara avOpwirov \eyco). When a man has made a testament, nothing can nulHfy his fixed decree ; nothing can be added to it. Now a testament was made in favour of Abraham's heir (tm aTrepfiarc avrov). The promise was made to his seed, — that is, to Christ. The law which came in 430 years later could neither abolish nor change it. So that it is not the law which gives us our title as heirs, but the promise, the free gift of the grace of God. Hitherto Paul has been contrasting the promise and the law ; he has shown that the law brought about a state diametrically opposed to that contem- plated by the promise, whose realization it was bound to seek. But it was not enough to set aside the law thus absolutely by a mere negation ; its positive value must also be understood and explained. If the law is contrary to the promise, of what use is it ? What part was assigned to it in the Divine plan ? Why was it given ? This is the question which in- evitably meets us here (rt ovv 6 p6/io<;; chap. iii. 19). The apostle, in answering it, completes his demon- stration. The following verses, which contain this answer, are the most important and the most difficult in the epistle to the Galatians. They furnish the key to the Pauline theory of the progress of Divine revelation. But they are concise to an extent com- pared with which the style of Tacitus is prolixity itself At every point thought defeats expression. P'or what purpose is the law, it has been asked ? It was superadded (irpodeTeOrj) as something external, in a provisional, temporary sense (axpi^ ov) ; and that for the sake of transgressions, — which is to say, in order to produce and multiply transgressions {toov THE EPISTLE TO THE GALA! LANS. 149 irapaPdaewv %a/3tv 7rpoa€Te6r] = 6 vo/io^ iTapeia)]k6ev ha TrXeovuai] to TrapaTTTW/jia, Rom. v. 20j. Thus transgression, the actual reaHzatlon of sin, is the primary end of the law. It is an essential, but transi- tory factor in the development of the plan of salva- tion. The law was designed to carry sin to the height of its power and its extreme consequences ; it had this function to fulfil, up till the time of the coming of the seed of Abraham— Tvr. Christ — to whom the promise had been made. The much disputed words which follow {Siarayel^; Si ayjiXcov iv X^ipt /xealrovj are still part of Paul's answer to the question pro- pounded. From the form and manner in which the law was given, Paul infers its character. The apostle, as Holsten rightly perceived, did not intend by these words either to disparage or glorify the law, but to bring out its intermediate and subordinate character. Nothing shows better than these accessory circum- stances that the law was not an end in itself, not the final goal, but simply a means. As the angels are ministers working after the Divine plan, so the law is a minister, working towards the fulfilment of the promise ; given by the hand of a mediator, it still continues to be a mediator,— a middle term between the promise made to Abraham and its fulfilment in Christ, designed to fill up the interval that elapsed between Abraham and his heir. But what is the meaning of the yet more obscure twentieth verse, 6 yLteo-iV?/? evo? oxjk ecmv, o Se 0eo^ eU icrrlv? In form the verse is a syllogism. The mediator is not of one alone ; but God is one, therefore the mediator is not of God. What does this mean, if not that the mediation to be accomplished by the law has nothing to do with God ? God being ISO THE APOSTLE PAUL. ever in absolute unity, has no need in Himself of any mediation. But every mediation at least implies a duality. It is in history, and in humanity, that this mediation has to be accomplished ; where, in fact, a duality does exist between the Jezvs and Gentiles, which has occupied the whole period intervening between the time of the promise and its accomplish- ment. The law, which multiplies transgressions, places Jews under sin as well as Gentiles ; it con- stitutes them sinners like the Gentiles ; and this is its function, till the Redeemer's coming. The law, there- fore, is not contrary to the promise ; for in reality it is intended to bring about its fulfilment. Neither is the reign of the law a simple interregnum, or parenthesis, but a necessary factor in the evolution of Divine grace. The law is an active agent which labours, and with full success, to make men realize sin and to bring them all under the curse. It is a tutor, a peda- gogue, who keeps them in this state against the coming of faith (ecppovpovfieda avyKe/cXeicr/jLevoi). This 23rd verse has often been misunderstood ; the words €(j)povpovfie6a, TratSaycojo^, etc., have led some to believe that the law was given, to check sin, and so to lead man by an actual progress up to Christ. This idea is not at all Pauline, but the very reverse of the apostle's real doctrine. The law has only one aim : to multiply sin by realizing it ; to constitute all men sinners, and like a gaoler to guard them, shut up under sin. Thus the law brings about the unity of all men after a negative fashion, by placing them all equally under the curse. Christ, on the contrary, realizes this unity in a positive manner, by making all men alike children of God. " In Christ there is no longer Greek nor Jew, nor slave nor free, nor man THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 151 nor woman, for you are all united in Him. And if you are of Christ, you are of the seed of Abraham, and therefore heirs according to the promise." Such is the apostle's conclusion (chap. iii. 29). To sum up, the law is neither absolutely identical with the promise, nor absolutely opposed to it. It is not the negation of the promise ; but it is distinct from it, and subordinate to it. Its final purpose lies in the promise itself It is an essential, but transi- tional element in the historical development of humanity. It must needs disappear on attaining its goal. Christ is tlie end of the law. Thus Paul, in opposition to the theocratic and national Messianism of the Judaizers, succeeds in con- structing a new economy of salvation, a history of redemption, broad, profound, and singularly spiritual. It attains its realization in three stages — tlic Promise, the Laiv, and CJirist. The first and last terms are identical ; the law is the intermediary through which the promise reaches its final realization. A further comparison suffices to set the apostle's idea in its full light. Humanity is a child, who passes first of all through a period of minority. Man under the law is a minor in tutelage, a child with a pedagogue who simply forbids and commands. There is no difference between this condition and that of the slave. But this state of minority cannot last for ever. At the appointed time Christ came, to proclaim that the human race had attained its majority. Man henceforward is freed from tutelage ; he is the heir put in possession of his patrimony. It is as reasonable a thing to seek to reduce the child of God again under the law, as it would be to make the mature man return to the rudiments, to those elementary things {ajoiyjda) 152 THE APOSTLE PAUL. which served to guide his youth. Between the reh*- gion of the letter and that of the spirit there is all the distance that lies between childhood and maturity. Such was the Divine adoption, the liberty and spiritual manhood which the apostle came to declare to the Galatians, and which they had received with so much enthusiasm and gratitude. Is all this to be rendered vain ? To make his victory complete, Paul sums up his exposition once more in his admirable allegory of Sarah the free-woman and Hagar the bond-woman. The children of the free-woman are free as she is ; the children of the bond-woman are slaves like their mother. The true heir is not Ishm.ael, the purely carnal son ; it is Isaac, the spiritual son, the child of faith. III. The GosrEL in its Practical Effect. This allegory, while summing up the second part of the epistle to the Galatians, is also the transition which leads us to the third part. The goal of the apostle's powerful demonstration is the idea of Chris- tian liberty, so that this last section is no less essential to the structure of the epistle than the other two. It is its completion and necessary conclusion. The Gospel of faith becomes the Gospel of freedom. Paul's whole discourse centres in two ideas : I. Christian liberty is a privilege of which the Galatians must not suffer themselves to be robbed. They must vindicate it against the attempts of the new teachers, who would re-impose the yoke from which Christ had freed them. " I Paul declare to you, that if you are circumcised, Christ will no longer avail you anything" (chap. v. I-12), THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATEiNS. 153 2. But this liberty must not be used as a starting point or occasion for fleshly lusts ; it asserts itself only that it may in turn submit to the law of love. " Free by faith, make yourselves slaves by love." Love is only another name for liberty ; and liberty, so far from overthrowing the law, is on the contrary the sole means of its fulfilment. For the law is ful- filled by love (vers. 13-15). Paul does not stop there. He wishes to show the actual consequences of his doctrine. To admit the principle of faith, and live in sin, is a logical impos- sibility. Here we have the first outlines of the moral psychology which is developed in the epistle to the Romans. The apostle points out to the Galatians the conflict existing in every man between the flesh and the spirit, one in which the law of good is always conquered by the power of sin. But, he adds, the flesh was crucified with Christ, so that the believer is, with Christ, dead to sin ; if he lives henceforward, he lives by the new Spirit of Christ. By a necessary consequence, he must no longer walk according to the flesh which is dead, but according to the Spirit of holiness which raised Christ from the dead (chap. V. 16-26). Such is the epistle to the Galatians, now lying before us complete in its three divisions, — the first, perhaps the most admirable, manifestation of the apostle's genius. There is nothing in ancient or modern literature to be compared with it. All the powers of Paul's soul shine forth in these few pages. Broad and luminous views, keen logic, biting irony — everything that is most forcible in argument, vehe- ment in indignation, ardent and tender in affection. 154 THE APOSTLE PAUL. is found here combined and poured forth in a single stream, forming a work of irresistible power. Its style is no less original than the matter of its ideas, and has in truth been perfected in the same conflict which matured the apostle's thought. Although Paul's manner is discernible in the two epistles to the Thessalonians, there is nevertheless a wide dis- tinction in character between those two letters and the epistle to the Galatians. Here the true Pauline type reveals itself, in its bold and full originality. The celebrated maxim, The style is the man, was never better verified. Paul's language is his living image. There is the same striking contrast between his thought and its expression as was presented by his feeble constitution and ardent spirit. It is an inferior style, — poor in its external form, its phraseology rude and incorrect, its accent barbarous. As the apostle's body, a " vessel of clay," yields under the weight of his ministry, so the words and form of his diction bend and break beneath the weight of his thought. But from this contrast spring the most marvellous effects. What power in weakness ! What wealth in poverty ! What a fiery soul in this frail body ! The style does not sustain the thought, it is that which sustains the style, giving to it its force, its life and beauty. Thought presses on— overcharged, breathless and hurried — dragging the words after it ! — It is a veritable torrent, which channels its own deep bed and rushes onward, over- throwing all barriers in its way. Unfinished phrases, daring omissions, parentheses which leave us out of sight and out of breath, rabbinical subtleties, audacious paradoxes, vehement apostrophes pour on like surging billows. Mere words, in their ordinary meaning, are THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIaNS. insufficient to sustain this overwhelming plenitude of thought and feeling. Every phrase is obliged, so to speak, to bear a double and triple burden. In a single proposition, or in a couple of words strung together, Paul has lodged a whole world of ideas. It is this which makes the exegesis of his epistles so difficult, and their translation absolutely impossible. From a dogmatic point of view, however, the epistle to the Galatians is after all no more than a pro- gramme. All the essential ideas of the Pauline system are indicated in it, but they are not worked out. It is indeed a masterly sketch ; the epistle to the Romans turns the sketch into a picture. CHAPTER II. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. BETWEEN the epistle to the Galatlans and the epistle to the Romans come in chronological order the two letters to the Corinthians. The conflict raging in Galatia was of a simple and open character. It was the flagrant opposition of two contending principles. At Corinth the struggle was complicated by a multitude of special difficulties. It is less dogmatic, and more personal. Paul's enemies have renounced, or at least concealed their preten- sions. They do not raise the question either of cir- cumcision or of the law. But their animosity is none the less fierce for being more secret. It raises up a crowd of practical difficulties in the apostle's way, and forces upon him questions of the most grave and the most delicate nature, through which his authority is covertly assailed. Hence the changed character of Paul's polemics. In this complex situation the con- densed and solid argumentation of the epistle to the Galatians would be inappropriate. He has not now to give a formal refutation of error, but to solve a variety of practical problems, — to quell disputes, repress dis- orders, and disconcert his opponents' schemes. For this task he needed tact equally with logic, adroitness as well as firmness. Paul's doctrine, so concentrated THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 157 in the epistle to the Galatians, is here expanded in a multitude of varied applications. The stream hitherto pent in spreads itself into a thousand channels ; but it flows in the same direction, and while dividing becomes enriched. We shall see in the epistle to the Romans, how at a later period all its streams meet again and resume their broad and mighty course. The Church of Corinth was one of the apostle's noblest creations. It was, as he says himself, the child that he had begotten amid many sorrows (i Cor. iv. 9-15), and had nourished and reared with tenderest love. But this child was of Greek birth, and retained the tendencies and temperament of its race. The quarrelsome spirit native to the Greek city re- appeared in the Christian Church. The new faith, with its hopes and mysteries, seems to have stimu- lated the hereditary disposition to curiosity and subtle disputations. In this town of Corinth, with its mixed population, so wealthy and so corrupt, the quest for pleasure and sensual enjoyment was combined with intellectual refinement. At that period, to lead a dis- orderly life was called to Cori)ithianize. On reading the descriptions of the moral condition of this great city given by pagan writers, we are no longer sur- prised that the little Christian congregation in its midst, formed probably out of its most impure ele- ments, was tainted in some degree with the general corruption. These circumstances account for the situation of the Church, as it appears in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Some of its members were leading disorderly lives. One of them was actually living with his father's wife, and had not been excommunicated. There were heated discussions about divorce, about the respective 158 THE APOSTLE PAUL. advantages of celibacy and marriage, about sacrificial meats. The celebration of the Agapae gave rise to scandals. The assemblies were stormy ; every one was eager to parade, in season and out of season, the spiritual gifts that he claimed to possess. Pride and jealousies flourished. i\ i^w, more refined than the rest, did not believe in the resurrection of the body. Lastly — and this perhaps was the most serious symp- tom of all — the Church was split into factions, each taking for its flag the name of some preacher of the Gospel, as formerly in the Greek republics the citizens were wont to rally round one or other of the popular orators. One said, I am for Apollos ; another, I am {ox Paul \ another, I am for Cephas', another again, I am for Christ (i Cor. i. 10-12). What is the real import of these disputes ? Were there four parties, each with a definite and settled constitution ? Certainly not. From a dogmatic point of view, such sects could have had no raison d'etre ; and those who try to discover one are obliged to reduce them to two factions — that of Paul, and of Cephas. But it will be observed that in this first letter Paul nowhere combats a dogmatic tendency opposed to his own. In the earlier chapters especially, his condemnation bears on the mere fact of the dis- putes ; and indeed he throws blame on his own partisans and those of ApoUos, rather than on the adherents of Cephas (chaps, iii. 4-9 ; iv. 6). Finally, he places Cephas, Paul, and Apollos on the same level, as so many servants of Christ belonging to the Corin- thians, but to whom the Corinthians in their turn do not belong : " Whether Paul, Apollos, or Cephas — all are yours ; you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Here is order ; and here is unity. If Paul had been THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTH I A h^S. 159 encountering a party division, or a conflict similar to that in Galatia, how could such a mode of procedure on his part be explained ? It is a vain attempt to seek to trace out these four parties, especially the Christ party, either in the remainder of this epistle or in the second.^ In fact, the language of chap. i. 12 does not describe a general and permanent state of affairs, but a momen- tary situation which very soon altered. It is the beginning of a fermentation in which all the elements are still mingled and contending together ; the Church was seized with the fever of Greek democracy. In such rivalries persons play a more important part than principles. But the agitation wonderfully served to facilitate the attempts of Paul's antagonists. The latter, arriving with letters of recommendation, brought with them a new leaven ; they laboured secretly to effect a profound schism. Paul's letter, the arrival of the Judaizing teachers (2 Cor. iii. i), the logic of prin- ciples, and above all, as we shall see, the affair of the incestuous person, led to the separation of the con- tending elements ; and from this general agitation there were evolved two parties radically opposed, — one adhering to Paul, the other to the Judaizers. ^ Paiilus, vol. i., pp. 2cS7 ff. [Eng. trans., i., 269 ff.]. The error of Baur's exegesis of i Cor. i. 10-12, to my mind, arises from the mistaken idea with which he starts, that the first and second epistles to the Corhithians imply an identical situation in the Church. But it is obvious that in the interval the situation had materially changed, and that for the worse. The four earlier parties had speedily disappeared, and given birth to two that were dogmatic and essentially different, — the Pauline and the Judaizing party. It is this progress of the contest at Corinth that we have endeavoured to make evident. l6o THE APOSTLE PAUL. Such is the situation afterwards disclosed by the second epistle to the Corinthians. But the agitation is at present somewhat complicated and undefined. Beneath the actual disputes Paul's insight detects unmistakably a greater danger ; he divines a secret hostility to his gospel ; indeed he throws out already a few words here and there in the nature of a defence (chaps, iv., ix.), but always in a veiled and indirect manner. It is the interests of the Church for which he is here concerned, and in a general way. Farther on, when the Judaizing party is unmasked, we shall find him resuming the controversy in a style more ironical, more keen and penetrating than ever. Such, it seems to us, was the course of affairs, and the progress of the struggle in the midst of the Church at Corinth. It was impossible that this epistle, addressed to so complex a situation and such varied needs, should assume the systematic and logical construction of the letter to the Galatians. The apostle, however, has managed to group into a few great divisions the numerous questions presented to him, and has im- parted some degree of method to his long reply. PI is letter seems to fall naturally into three main divisions : I. The first includes the general questions (chaps, i.-vi.). Paul reviews the state of the Church, setting it in a decidedly gloomy aspect. He first of all pro- tests against the internal divisions which are rending it asunder (chaps, i.-iv.) ; against the scandals which disgrace it, especially the crime of the incestuous person (chap, v.) ; and, lastly, against the habit which the believers have formed of carrying their law-suits before heathen tribunals (chap. vi.). THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. i6l 2. In a second group of questions the apostle distributes the inquiries that the Corinthians them- selves had proposed to him in writing, Trept hi on> iypd^p-are (chaps, vii.-x.). He discusses in succession marriage, celibacy, widowhood, divorce, and meats sacrificed to idols. The solution of all these diffi- culties is deduced from a general principle, which Paul has always accepted as his own rule throughout his apostleship (chaps, ix. and x.), and which he lays down in the following terms : A// tilings are lawful^ hut all things edify not. 3. Lastly, after disposing of these general questions, Paul enters more fully into the interior life of the Church, and corrects its defects and errors, proceed- ing by a well-marked gradation from the lighter to the more serious. He deals in succession with the position and deportment of women in the assemblies (chap. xi. 1-16) ; with the disorders which disturb the Agapae (vers. 17-34) ; with spiritual gifts, their diver- sity and unity, and the charity which excels them all (chaps, xii., xiii.) ; with the gift of tongues (chap, xiv.); and, finally, with the resurrection of the body (chap. XV.). He adds some advice with respect to the collection for the saints at Jerusalem, which he was organizing in all the Churches ; and sums up all his exhortations in the words so full of vigour : " Watch, stand fast in the faith, be manly and strong. Let love inspire all that you do" (chap. xvi. 13, 14). Such is the order of this first epistle. In spite of the variety of questions touched upon, a profound unity prevails throughout it. Paul's dialectical mind, instead of stopping short at the surface of these par- ticular questions and losing itself in the details of a finely drawn casuistry, always ascends from facts to 11 l62 THE APOSTLE PAUL, principles, and thus sheds a fuller light on all the difficulties presented to it by the way. After he has carried the mind of his readers up to the serene heights of Christian thought, he sweeps down from this elevation with irresistible force ; and each solution that he suggests is simply a new application of the permanent and general principles of the Gospel. This epistle exhibits, as one might say, the expansion of the Christian principle, as it spreads into the sphere of practical affairs. In it the new life created by the spirit of Jesus becomes conscious of itself, and asserts its unique and independent character, — distinguished on the one hand from the Jewish life with its servi- tude, and on the other from the pagan life with its_ license. Our modern Christian civilization, liberty and solidarity, its constant demand for its impulses towards progress, its delicate charity and scrupulousness, its inner vigour, and its ever enlarging ideal, is all here in the germ. A great revolution is commencing. Already accomplished in individual souls, it begins to manifest itself outwardly in social e Willi itb I, with its"^ or reform 1 :4-.- „^J ' and domestic relationships. A new^ humanity is to issue from this new religion. Such is the import of the first Corinthian epistle. While the letter to the Galatians was the foundation of Christian dogma, the two letters to the Corinthians, signalizing as they do the emancipation of the regene- rate conscience, are the beginning of Christian ethics. Paul has clearly formulated the essential principle of this new consciousness ; it is the Spirit of God Himself immanent therein (i Cor. ii. 10-16). This does not imply a mere illumination, or a sanctifying influence ; but, if I may so call it, a transformation in the substance of our being. The Spirit becomes 2is, J THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHiANS. 163 and we become essentially spirit. This Spirit ot God, itself the creative power, makes of us a new creation (i Cor. ii. 12). To the two classes of men thus formed there correspond two kinds of wisdom, the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God, as contrary to each other as flesh and spirit, reason and folly. The carnal man cannot understand spiritual things (/jLcopla yap avTQ) iariv). The wisdom of God becomes the folly of the cross, even as carnal wisdom is nothing hut follj' before 6"^^/ (chap. i. 21-25). The work of the Spirit within us is twofold. It is first of all negative, setting us free from all external dependence. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. iii. 17). "The spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by nothing " (i Cor. ii. 15). But this liberty is at the same time a positive virtue. For the Spirit is love, as essentially as He is liberty. This absolute independence becomes an absolute bondage ; for it is an independence which enslaves itself through love, and which sacrificing itself unremittingly, by each sacrifice finds itself en- larged. " Free from all things," cries the apostle, " I submit myself to all, in order to gain more souls for Christ" (chap. ix. 19). The liberty of faith is found in the bondage of love. From these principles results that great practical, eternal rule, which cuts short all casuistry, and which Paul is constantly applying : All things are laivful for vie, but not all things are expedient (chap. vi. 12). It enables the apostle to make the logic of his principles everywhere triumphant without any wound to charity, and to resolve all moral questions in a manner in the highest degree both bold and delicate. On one point only the apostle's judgment appears l64 THE APOSTLE PAUL. to be still narrow, — I mean that of celibacy (chap. vii.). This narrowness, for which he has been so greatly blamed, does not arise from a dualistic asceticism. There is no dualism to be found in Paul's doctrine ; and it is obvious that there would be a strange contradiction between the asceticism of practice sup- posed, and the broad moral principles which we have just expounded. It is his eschatological views which, in this instance, check and trammel the apostle's reasoning- (chap. vii. 29). The parcusia is imminent ; the time is short ; all other interests fade before this immediate future. But a further progress of thought on this subject was soon to take place in Paul's mind. Before long it finally shook off the narrow bonds of Jewish eschatology. In the epistles of the Captivity we shall find that he has arrived at a wider and more just appreciation^ of marriage and domestic life. [' From what has been said it is clear that at the juncture marked by i Corinthians this " wider and more just appre- ciation" would have been out of place. But one is reluctant to think that Paul himself, with his sympathetic nature and Jewish training, had still to arrive at a just appreciation of marriage and domestic life. At the same time, we quite admit that his appreciation of marriage in its Christian bearings widened in later years.] CHAPTER III. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. N' O other of Paul's letters is of equal importance to this second epistle in its bearing on the history of his inner consciousness. In none does his personality so prominently come into play or so spontaneously and fully reveal itself, as it does under the pressure of the bitter experiences and cruel griefs here recounted. It is easy to perceive that the second epistle bears no resemblance to the first, either in tone or contents. Manifestly, it arises out of an entirely new state of things, both in the Church of Corinth and in the apostle's mind. To define the relations of this letter to its predecessor, by recon- structing the history of the troubles at Corinth, which had now issued in open revolt ; to set forth the contents of the epistle ; and to describe the evolution of Paul's religious ideas in this, the most critical period of his life— such is the threefold task which now devolves upon us. I. State of the Corinthian Church. The second epistle to the Corinthians affords fur- ther evidence of the keen anxiety ^\■hich the Church of Corinth gave the apostle, and the feverish suspense which had made him long for the return of Titus, his latest messenger. At the time when he wrote, the 165 1 66 THE AFGSTLE PAUL. Storm was dispersing, and we only hear its final mutterings. But in the joy and gratitude with which Paul's soul overflows there linger the vibrations of his sorrow, his anger, and apprehension. A drama has evidently been enacted at Corinth, of which this letter is the dawitement. Can we retrace its course ? Unquestionably, this very serious crisis was con- nected with the affair of the incestuous person, whose excommunication Paul had demanded (i Cor. v. 3). But the view of the subject generally taken is too narrow and isolated. This circumstance could not by itself have led to the far-reaching effects which are now apparent. It became a source of discord, only from the opportunity which it afforded Paul's adver- saries for attacking the integrity of his character and the authority of his apostleship. We admit, indeed, that the individual referred to in 2 Corinthians ii. 5, 6, is identical with the incestuous person designated in the first epistle by the same general pronouns, 6 toicvto^, and rt?. But he appears here in quite a different position. It is easy to see that there had been re- bellion on his part, and that he had committed out- rages against Paul (2 Cor. ii. 5 and 10). In his manner of recalling these injuries, we recognise the delicacy of the apostle's pen, and his disinterested spirit (66 hk ri? 'Xe\viT7)icev ovfc i/ie Xekvirrjicev. — Kal "yap eyo) o Ke)(^iipLaixai, eX rt K6')(^dpt(T/xaL 5t' v/uLd<; eV TrpoacoTTw Xpiarov). Nor is this all. Paul's directions had not been obeyed. Discussions had arisen on the mode of procedure proposed by the apostle, and the authority to which he laid claim. Instead of the unanimity in excommunicating the guilty person which he had expected from the Church, a majority and a minority had been formed ; and when punish- THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 167 ment did take place, it was only decreed by the majority (77 iirLTLfjiia virb tmv irXetovcov, chap. ii. 6). A division like this, on a point of discipline so simple and obvious, is matter for astonishment. Is it conceivable that the minority hostile to Paul approved the conduct of the guilty person ? We know that on the question of impurity the Jewish Christians were even stricter than the apostle's partisans. The cause of their opposition is to be found elsewhere. In order to discover it, we must go back to chap. v. of the first epistle. " I, being absent in body, present in spirit, have resolved as if I were present, in the name of the Lord Jesus, you and my spirit being assembled, with the power of Jesus our Lord, to deliver such a man unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, and the salvation of the spirit at the day of the Lord." What did Paul mean by this demand? Evidently, he was thereby exercising his apostolic antJiority over the Church of Corinth. He was con- voking a general assembly of the Church, over which he wished to preside spiritually. He was acting in the capacity of an apostle of Jesus Christ, on a level with the Twelve, assuming to himself the same rights and authority. But it was precisely these rights and this authority that his Judaizing adver- saries at Corinth disputed. To obey his orders, under these circumstances, would be to acknowledge the very thing that they denied him. Now, it must not be forgotten how powerful the Judaizing tendency represented by the partisans of Cephas and Christ was in Corinth. The first epistle, without openly combating them, seems to suspect their hostility and secret menaces. Owing to the affair of the incestuous person and Paul's claims, that which in the first in- THE APOSTLE PAUL. stance was only a discussion on the merits of different missionaries, had speedily become an ecclesiastical and dogmatic schism. The apostle's letter had helped to bring on the crisis, and to raise the main question. Furthermore, emissaries had arrived in the interval from Jerusalem or Palestine furnished with apostolic letters. The report of the violent debate between Paul and Peter at Antioch had got abroad, and the opposition to the apostle of the Gentiles had become strengthened and defined. How could his adversaries accept declarations such as that of i Corinthians ix. i, where Paul asserts his apostleship and founds it on his vision of Christ ; or those of chap. xv. i-ii, in which, while calling himself the last of the apostles, unworthy even to be called an apostle, he adds that by the grace of God he had laboured more than all the rest ? We see how a wider and more important question became involved in that of the incestuous person. Paul was accused of extravagant boasting. From a distance, said they, he speaks loudly and confidently ; but he takes care not to come to Corinth, for his presence is ineffectual. Contrary to all reason and justice, he is usurping apostolic privileges. He is not competent for such an office, and has not been called to it (i/cavoTt]^, chaps, iii. and iv.). His wish is to lord it over Christ's heritage, in order to make his gain out of it (chap. xi. 7-12). He thinks only of vexing and destroying them (chap. xiii. 8-10). He is an intruder, a false brother among the Messianic people, one to be held in distrust (chap. xi. 21-23). We understand thus why it is that the whole discussion in this epistle, from first to last, turns on Paul's apostolic authority. He himself had raised this question in his first letter, by his mode of dealing with the case of the incestuous person. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 169 That such was the course of events is highly pro- bable on logical and intrinsic grounds ; and it is further apparent from all that occurred between the two existing letters, and from the satisfactory way in which the obscure allusions, so numerous in the second, are thus explained. For a long time we refused to admit the existence of a lost letter written between the first and second epistle. A new study of the text has modified our previous opinion, and we consider that there was a letter written before the second epistle, just as there was another one before the first ; so that the apostle must have written at least four epistles to the Church of Corinth, of which the second and fourth alone remain to us. The loss of the third is the more to be regretted, because it went to the very root of the conflict at Corinth. Paul wrote it in a spirit of profound grief and indignation, that dictated stern language. He had written with tears, and in great distress of mind ; and when the letter had gone, he went so far as to regret some expressions which were, possibly, ex- treme^ (chap. vii. 5-12). What effect would it produce at Corinth? For some time this anxiety seems to have left him no rest. It was on this account that he sent Titus immediately after, or perhaps at the same time, to watch the events that might occur, and to re-establish harmony and confidence between himself and the Church. He awaited his return with impa- tience, and not finding him at Troas, went to meet him in Macedonia. It is evident that the character- ^ May not the exaggerated character of this letter, and the kind of regret which Paul has expressed, explain why it has not been preserved ? 170 THE APOSTLE PAUL. istics of the letter to which Paul so often refers in our second epistle, do not properly belong to the first, which is highly pacific in tone and calm in its tenor, and, on the whole, kindly in feeling towards the Corinthians. In the first epistle, moreover, Paul commended Timothy, his earlier messenger, to the Corinthians (i Cor. iv. 17 ; xvi. 10, ii). Timothy, who was still very young, had not sufficient authority to allay the storm ; he was overmatched by the revolt, and returned to tell Paul of the fresh complications that had arisen. At the beginning of the second epistle, we find him with the apostle ; but it would be strange, unless some letters were written in the interval, that Paul says nothing of his return, or of the anxious tidings he had brought. It is Titus, on the contrary, who is now mentioned ; indeed Paul speaks of him only to the Corinthians. VVe cannot, therefore, question the existence of the lost letter, to which he refers more than once (chap. ii. 1-3 and 9) What did it contain ? It would be a daring thing to attempt its '-eproduction. We do not consider that M. Hausrath, who thinks he has found it in the last four chapters of the second epistle, has been happy in this hypothesis.^ But the vehement, the ironical and impassioned tone of these last pages represents very fairly, I believe, that of the lost letter. . We may add, in accordance with chap. ii. 9 and chap. vii. 7, 11, 13, that in this letter Paul gave ex- press orders, and demanded satisfaction. Clearly, the crisis was a serious one ; it was a sort of idtimatuui that Paul had sent. W^e can understand the anxiety ^ Der Viercapital Brief des Paulus an die Corinther, THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE COKIXTHIANS. 171 with which he awaited the news that Titus was to bring him, and the joy and gratitude which it ex- cited. The two first chapters of the epistle are Hke a sigh of relief, a cry of deliverance (chap. ii. 14). Titus, armed with the severe letter of Paul which had preceded him, has brought the rebels and disturbers to reason. The man who had grossly outraged Paul has been punished ; and the apostle now declares himself satisfied, and wishes him to be forgiven. Though the Corinthians had been mortified by his remonstrances, their trouble led to repentance, and to the display of a more ardent affection. The victory, in short, remained with Paul.^ ^ I do not now feel quite satisfied with this historical recon- struction of the crisis which occurred in the Church of Corinth. That there was a letter, now missing, which came between the two existing epistles, still seems to me uncontestable ; but there <%''^as something more. These passages, when studied more cl6sely, compel us to admit further a visit made by Paul to Corinth during the interval that elapsed between the two canonical epistles. Three passages in the second letter to the Corinthians estabHsh the fact of this visit : (i) In 2 Cor. xiii. i and 2, the words Tpirov tovto ipxofxat, and especially the phrase ws Trapiov TO Sevrepov, further followed by ore iav eXOw €t?To TraAtj', cannot be explained by a merely projected journey, but imply a second, which was actually accomplished. (2) The same conclusion is equally apparent from 2 Cor. xii. 14 : 'l8ou rpiTov tovto crot/xa)9 €)(w i\6e.lv Trpos t'/xa?, kol ov KaTavapKtjcro}. The assertion contained in this latter verb can only be explained on the sup- position of a second sojourn of Paul at Corinth, before he wrote the present epistle. (3) Paul, in his first letter, promised the Corinthians a speedy visit (i Cor. xvi. 7 and iv. 21), and asked the faithful themselves to decide whether he should come with a rod of chastisement, or with the spirit of gentleness and love to console them. (4) Lastly, the language of 2 Cor. ii. 1-3 proves that this visit had taken place, and had been full of 172 THE APOSTLE PAUL, II. Paul's Remonstrance. It was in order to secure and strengthen this new o situation, even more than to prepare for the collection on behalf of the poor at Jerusalem, that the apostle took up his pen once more. Rightly to understand the tenor of the second epistle, apparently so strange, we must form a clear conception of the circumstances which called it forth. The crisis which had occurred at Corinth had come to a relatively favourable issue ; sorrow. The words, to fxr] izaXiv iv XvTry iXO^lv Trpbs v/xas, cannot refer to the occasion when Paul was evangelizing Corinth for the first time. The Church had not then given him any disappointment ; for it did not as yet exist. The reference here is to a second, and quite recent visit, of which he retained a very sorrowful recollection, including it among the most bitter trials of his apostolical career. It will be observed, in fact, that Paul speaks in the same tone of this visit as he does of the missing letter, written immediately afterwards, under the shock of distress which it occasioned. What, then, had taken place at Corinth during this visit of Paul ? There are two passages which throw some light upon this question : 2 Cor. ii. 5-1 1 ; vii. 11, and especially ver. 12. It appears from these statements that Paul had been personally and directly affronted. There is some one at Corinth who in his own presence, and before the whole Church, has done him serious injury. The words rov aStKyaarros and rod dSt/cv/^eVros of 2 Cor. vii. 12 are only naturally applicable to Paul and the man who had affronted him. They could not refer, in this con- text, to the incestuous person of i Cor. v. and his father, as is generally supposed. How could Paul, in that case, have had anything to forgive.^ See 2 Cor. ii. 10. How could he say in the same passage that he had been directly wounded : e>c X€Xv7rrjK€v, iv Xviry (chap. ii. 1-5) ? And how, in the last place, if it were still a question of the man whom in his first letter he had delivered to Satan (i Cor. v. 5), could he now write about him so considerately in 2 Cor. ii. 7, fj.,} ^rcos ttJ Trepia-a-oTepa XvTZTj Kara-oBfj^ — and yet more in \qy. ii ? THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTFITANS. 173 but it left the Church still greatly divided. The majority had returned to the apostle's side, with the liveliest tokens of regret and affection. But besides this majority, there still remained a minority, obsti- nate in its hatred and hostile in its intentions. The letter, like the position of affairs, has a twofold aspect. Paul could not have written it on any other plan. He first addresses himself to the faithful majority, and pours out the feelings which fill his soul towards them. He has never written anything more touching (chaps. The affair of the incestuous person may indeed, as we explain above, have helped to raise in the Church the great question, now under discussion, of Paul's apostolic dignity and authority; but it was not this man who had insulted Paul ; and the vague expression T19, o roioOro?, which Paul always uses to designate his adversaries, and which occurs again and again in the same epistle (chaps, x. 7 and xi. 4), must be applied to some influential person in the Church of Corinth, probably one of the Judaizers come from Palestine with letters of recommendation (2 Cor. iii. i), who specially claimed to be of Chfisi according to the flesh and to speak in His name (chap. x. 7). It was this same person who said that, though Paul's letters were strong and weight}', his presence was ineff"ectual. He it was who publicly affronted Paul (dStKrJo-avTos, chap. vii. 12), and had occasioned him so much distress (et Se ti? Xekvir-qKa'^ chap. ii. 5). . We can therefore reconstruct, with some degree of proba- bility, the drama which was enacted at Corinth during Paul's second visit. The apostle had hastened thither to counteract the manoeuvres of the emissaries from Judi^a or Syria, who were undermining his authority. Debate and conflict arose. The Church assembled ; and both Paul and his adversaries were present. His words were of no avail ; the Church yielded in part to the specious arguments and more facile eloquence of the Judaizers. One of them, doubtless their leader, denounced Paul openly ; he accused him of falsehood, treated his visions as chimerical, and reproached him with hving at the expense of the Churches. The confidence of the Corinthians was shaken. 174 THE APOSTLE PAUL. i.-viii.). Then, after briefly arranging the matter of the collection (chap, ix.), he turns abruptly to the hostile minority, and mercilessly chastises it with the lash of his irony. Nothing more biting than these last pages has proceeded from his pen (chaps, x.-xiii.). This is the natural explanation of the two, most dis- similar portions of his letter. Nothing bridges the transition from one to the other, because there was nothing in the facts to furnish a point of connexion. Heartbroken by this affront, and feeling utterly helpless, Paul left Corinth. But a few days later, pen in hand, the apostle regained his power, and wrote a crushing letter, the vehement tone of which be seems at first to regret (2 Cor. vii. 5-9). This letter, further supported by the oral mission of Titus, seems with the majority to have prevailed over the calumnies and intrigues of his adversaries. The insult had been public ; it was publicly withdrawn ; and the offender was so earnestly dis- owned and censured by the majority of the believers, that Paul is now the first to ask mercy on his behalf. These events, taken fully into account, demand a slight modi- Ication in our chronology of the two epistles. At first we had only allowed for an interval of five or six months between them, reckoning from about the Passover of 57 to the autumn of the same year. This space of time is too short for the occurrence of all the facts that we have now come to recognise. We must place the first epistle a year earlier, which is easily done, and date it at the Passover of the year 56 A.D., leaving the second in the autumn of 57 (written in Macedonia). This gives an interval of eighteen months between them, which is amply sufficient. Let us restate the chronological order and development of the inner history of the Church of Corinth during" this period. I. Towards the end of the year 55, and upon his arrival at Ephesus, Paul writes his first letter to the Corinthians, now lost, but referred to in i Cor. v. 9. The heterogeneous fragment of 2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. I is doubtless one of its pages, which survived through having strayed into the context where it is found at present. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 175 Notwithstanding their marked difference of tone and manner, the two parts are none the less Hnked together by a large unity of thought and aim. It is the same adversary that Paul combats in both parts, the Judaic spirit which strove by its pretensions to extinguish the Christian spirit, — that bondage to the letter which still prevailed over the liberty of the Gospel. He resumes, therefore, the warfare begun by 2. la the winter of 55-56 : the answer of the Corinthians to Paul (i Cor. vii. i), the visit made to Paul at Ephesus by the members of Chloe's household (r Cor. i. 11) and by other Corinthian Christians (i Cor. xvi. 17), and the discussion in the Church on the merits of the different preachers (i Cor. i. 12-14). 3. About the passover of the year 56 : Paul's second letter— our first epistle to the CorintJiians, and the mission of Timothy to Corinth (i Cor. xvi. 10). 4. Arrival of the Judaizing emissaries with letters of recom- mendation (2 Cor. iii. i). Great disturbance in the Church. 5. In the autumn of the year 56, Timothy reports his failure to Paul, who sets out for Corinth and spends one or two months there. 6. The public conflict between Paul and his adversaries. Paul is worsted, and leaves heartbroken. The Church seems lost to him. 7. In the spring of the year 57: Paul's third letter to the Church of Corinth, now lost (2 Cor. ii. 4 and vii. 5-9). 8. About the same time, the mission of Titus. 9. In the spring of 57 : the meeting of Titus and Paul in Macedonia (2 Cor. vii. 5). 10. Autumn of 57 : Paul's fourth letter (from IMacedonia), our second epistle to the Corinthitms. 11. Winter of 57-58 : Paul's third visit to Corinth, a happy and peaceful one ; for it was then that he wrote his great letter to the Romans. Thus reconstructed, this dramatic chapter of the apostle's life enables us, better than anything else, to understand what that life was really like.— A't?/^ of the author written for this edition. 176 THE APOSTLE PAUL. the epistle to the Galatians, and carries it a stage further. The battle is no longer about circumcision, but concerns the ministry of the old, and that of the new covenant. In the third and fourth chapters Paul addresses himself to this fundamental question. The two cove- nants are powerfully described (chap. iii. 6, 7) — one as the letter, dead in itself and imparting death ; the other as the spirit, having life in itself and giving life ; one resulting in condemnation, the other in salvation. If the first was glorious, notwithstanding its limited and transitory character, how much more so is the second, which is not only called to have its phase of glory, but to abide in it (to Karapyov/xevoy Sia So^t^? . . . TO fievov ev ho^rj, chap. iii. ll). To the two covenants there correspond two minis- tries (hiaKovia ypdijLfjLaTO<;, hiaKovia irvevixaro^). The first was that of Moses, whose face was veiled before the children of Israel, that they might not see its glory pass away. But the ministry of the new cove- nant, radiant with permanent glory, is manifested before all eyes without veil or reservation, because its glory is progressive ; for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is entire confidence (irappijala), — a perfect liberty, a continual glorification (chap. iii. 12-18). Here Paul introduces the dramatic contrast occu- pying the fourth and fifth chapters, betv/een the inner might and glory of his ministry, and the humiliations and outward infirmities, which while they seem to eclipse it, only serve to reveal its Divine power more adequately. " We have this trea- sure in an earthen vessel, that the exceeding power of its virtue may be ascribed to God, and not to us. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORIMTHIANS. 177 We are afflicted on all sides, but not overwhelmed ; always in distress, yet never brought to despair ; persecuted, but not conquered ; tempest-tossed, but not submerged ; always bearing in our body the dying and mortified image of the Lord Jesus, that in the death of our flesh might also shine forth the vigour of His life." Not merely do trial and reproach fail to injure our ministry, they even commend it, and are the Divine seal by which it may be recognised. The Christ whom we serve is not Christ according to the flesh, but the Christ who died and rose again. Thus every- thing that is glorious or powerful according to the flesh disappears from our ministry, as with Christ Himself, that the new life, the life of the Spirit, may be more fully manifested. " Thus we commend our- selves as ministers of God, by great patience, by sufferings, by trials, by the wounds we have received ; in prisons, in watchings, in weariness, in fastings ; through glory and dishonour, through renown and calumny. Treated as deceivers, and yet faithful ; mis- taken by men, and yet known of God ; ever dying, ever living ; always tried, yet always joyous ; poorest of the poor, yet enriching multitudes." These ad- mirable pages close with this touching appeal to the Corinthians : " Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians ; our heart is enlarged. You are not straitened in our affections ; recompense us in kind. Enlarge your hearts in turn " (chap. vi. 1 1).^ ^ It is impossible to discover the slightest connexion between the 13th verse of chap. vi. and the totally different line of thought beginning in ver. 14. The same breach of continuity recurs between the first and second verses of the 7th cliapter. If, on the contrary, this section (chap. vi. 14-vii. i) be removed, 12 178 THE APOSTLE PAUL. Chapters vii -ix. revert to some details which had been too briefly explained at first, and to the collec- tion which had to be completed before Paul's return. The controversy with the Judaizers, which in the first letter was indirect and incidental, occupies, as we see, the whole of the second, and becomes keener and more urgent as the apostle proceeds. Now that he has disposed of the question of principle, Paul faces the accusations and calumnies directed against his own person by his adversaries. His long-repressed indignation bursts forth in a sudden explosion (chap. X. i). "I Paul myself exhort you once more with all gentleness, and with the patience of Christ, — I, so lowly and humble among you, so bold when absent ! God grant that when I come, I may not have to put forth my strength to bring to subjection those who represent me as walking according to the flesh." After refuting the assertions of his enemies, he in his turn attacks them. He draws a parallel between their ministry and his own, in which the most lashing irony and the bitterest indignation are mingled with a most delicate reserve. " Well, though at the risk of appearing foolish, I too wish to boast a little : you will easily endure it. I am about to speak not after the Lord, but as a fool : no matter ! since others sing their own praises, I too will sing mine. You who are so wise, can easily bear with fools! Whether one bring you into bondage, or devour you, or glorify himself, or strike you on the face, you bear it with admirable there is a most natural connexion between chap. vi. 13 and vii. 2. The exegetes are therefore quite right in regarding the paragraph which so untowardly interrupts the thread of the discourse as an interpolated gloss, or a fragment of one of Paul's lost letters inserted in the midst of the second epistle. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORJNTH/.-LXS. 179 patience. What would you have ? I say it to my shame — but I also have my weaknesses. Of what do they boast ? — I am a fool, but I too boast of the same. Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. x\re they servants of Christ ? (here my foolish- ness has no bounds) I am more so than they; in weari- ness, imprisonment, and wounds — in the endurance of suffering, I surpass them ! I have five times received from the Jews forty stripes save one. I have thrice been beaten with rods, and once stoned. Thrice have I been shipwrecked. I was a night and a day in the jaws of the deep. Wearying journeys, perils on the rivers, dangers of every kind — from robbers, from my fellow countrymen, from the heathen, in cities and deserts, on the sea, and among false brethren — labour, sorrows, vigils, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, — I have braved everything, endured every- thing. . . . But enough ! If I must needs glory, let me glory in my infirmities ! " As in the epistle to the Galatians, so here Paul yields none of his rights. He does not fear to place himself on a level not only with those false apostles who came to trouble "the Churches {y^evhairoaroXoL, epyaTcn SoXcoi, iieTaa')(ri- fiaTL^6[u,evoL et? uTroaroXov^ Xptarov, chap. xi. 13), but with those whose authority these others so much exalt, and whom he calls ol virepXlav aTroaroXoL, the arcJi-apostles (chap. xi. 5). This expression of Paul's corresponds very well with those in the epistle to the Galatians, — gtvXoi, SoKovure'^. HI. The Crisis in Paul's Soul. While there was occurring at Corinth that profound schism which alone can explain both the form and substance of the second epistle, an equally momentous I So THE APOSTLE PAUL. crisis had supervened in the great apostle's own soul. No external changes can account for all that we find in this letter ; it gives evidence of other occurrences no less momentous, which took place in the author's inner life. It is very remarkable that Paul's eschatological notions, which, as we have seen, are maintained to the end of the first epistle to the Corinthians, disappear — or, at least, are transformed — from the second on- wards. From this time he no longer hopes to witness the coming of the Lord within his lifetime. This glorious parousia, which formed the horizon of his vision of the future, has been indefinitely postponed, and makes room for a darker and more sorrowful perspective. Instead of the appearance of Jesus, the apostle henceforward has the prospect of death and martyrdom before him ; and beyond this painful stage, the hope of being finally reunited to the Lord (2 Cor. v. i-io ; Acts XX. 22-25 ; Phil. i. 20, 21). This marked change in the Pauline eschatology took place in the interval between the two letters to the Corinthians. What has happened meanwhile ? The beginning of our second epistle shows us. The last months of Paul's stay at Ephesus and in Asia seem to have been the darkest and most difficult of his life. For the moment, his hopes and his spirit flagged. Everything seemed to conspire against him. After the defection of the Galatians, he had just heard of the troubles in the Church at Corinth. He . finds the same adversaries confronting him at Ephesus and furiously persecuting him. The care of all the Churches consumes him (2 Cor. xi. 28). He has no rest in his flesh ; he is afflicted on every side (e^wdev fid'^^ai, tawdev (pofioi, 2 Cor. vii. 5). THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTH FANS. iSl Nor is this all. He has just incurred a mysterious danger in Asia, of exceptional gravity (2 Cor. i. 8). This trial, which the apostle does not explain more definitely, but which could not have been the riot of Demetrius and his workmen at Ephesus (Acts xix. 30-41), surpassed all bounds, and exceeded his power of endurance {otl Ka6' viTep(3o\i]v iffap/jdrjaev virep huvafjiLv). He despaired of life. He carried within his soul a sentence of death. And now his unhoped for deliverance seems like an actual resurrection (chap. i. 8-10). The hero's indomitable courage, shaken for the moment by this terrible crisis, was soon re-established. But there was one thing which was not restored : the hope of seeing with his own eyes the triumph of the Gospel, the establishment of the Messianic king- dom, and the immediate parousia of the Lord. In this crisis his faith at length freed itself from the last bonds of traditional Judaism ; and Christian escha- tology escaped from the narrow limits of the escha- tology of the Pharisees. The spirit completes its triumph over the letter. Paul sees new prospects opening before him. He can no longer reckon on the intervention of the arch- angel and the celestial trumpet for the founding of God's kingdom. It will be established by the weakness, by the devotion and the sufferings of its messengers. The image of death, with which the apostle had not hitherto concerned himself, enters for the first time within the scope of his doctrine. In this season of anguish and distress, he seems to have had a clear vision of martrydom. He was to seal his preaching of the Gospel with his blood. The disciple, like the Master, can only triumph through lS2 THE APOSTLE FAUl. humiliation and suffering. But Paul's resolution is fixed. Henceforth he passionately devotes himself to this vision of the dying Jesus ; he experiences a new and indescribable pride, a joy blended with anguish, in renewing in his own body the martyrdom of his Master, in carrying it forwards by his personal sufferings and completing it by his death {ttjv ve/c- pcoaiv Tov 'Itjctov iv tc3 acofxari irepLc^epovTe'^, 2 Cor. iv. 10 ; comp. Col. i. 24; Phil. i. 20; ii. 17; 2 Tim. iv. 6). Thus the apostle's momentary defeat is changed into a higher, and, this time, a decisive victory. From henceforth he is happy and contented ; his mind has discovered its true bent, and he now feels that the various elements of his faith are brought into full and perfect harmony. If the earthly future is darkened, shrinking and closing up before his gaze, in the heavenly future there is revealed to his soul a new, wide, and luminous prospect. The mournful conception of 5/?r6'/ vanishes from his mind ; and with it the Messianic framework of the Jewish apocalypse gives way. Instead of the unconscious sleep of souls in the bosom of the earth, there emerges triumphant the Christian hope of the immediate reunion of the elect with the Saviour (2 Cor. v. i-io). True, the struggle between the power of the Gospel and that of sin here on earth will be prolonged. Paul has no doubt that it will issue at last in the full triumph of Christ and His glorious advent ; but he no longer attempts to estimate the length, or foresee the phases of this great drama. Like Jesus, and with the same filial submission, he leaves in the hands of God the Father the destiny of His kingdom. The spiritual principle of Christianity everywhere prevails. Death THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 18 henceforth is completely vanquished and overcome by the Christian consciousness. We know with what a crushing effect this idea of death weighed upon the Jewish, as well as the heathen mind. In spite of the doctrine of the resurrection, fairly established in the popular belief as it appears from the time of the production of the book of Daniel, Hades, or Sheol, retained its shadows, and death its terrors. The soul of Jesus had shuddered on ap- proaching it. But the darkness speedily disappeared before the radiance of His faith ; and He had entirely triumphed over death, by His sense of perfect and indissoluble union with the Father. To die was, for Jesus, to return to His Father and His God (John XX. 17). But neither the first Christians, nor the first apostles, had appropriated to themselves this victory of the Master. Death was not less fearful to them than to the Jews. The Messianic reign that they were expecting was only to be realized upon earth ; they knew no other sphere of life. They were ex- pecting the coming of the Lord ; and when their friends died, they were deeply distressed on their account. This explains the anxiety of the Thessa- lonians about their dead— an anxiety which Paul endeavoured to soothe. In what manner ? He could only at that time direct their expectation and faith to the impending event of the coming of Jesus, and assure them that the dead will then rise first of all, and, with the living, share His triumph. Death still retained its appalling mystery ; it was only con- quered in hope, and as regards the future.^ [ ^ But see i Thess. v. 10 : " Jesus died and rose again, that, whether we be waking or sleeping, we may live together with Himr Here is already a sense of indissoluble union with l84 THE APOSTLE PAUL. In the second letter to the Corinthians ah-eady Paul comforts himself in a manner quite different from this, and more effectual. While the outer man succumbs to death, the inner man, whose principle of life is the Spirit of God Himself, is delivered from it. The trials which destroy the former only strengthen and glorify the latter. In proportion as the one decays, the other is renewed and reinvigorated (2 Cor. iv. 16). We sigh for the time when, above our mortal flesh condemned to die, we shall put on the celestial and spiritual body {iirev^vaaaOaC). Though our earthly body be destroyed by death, we have yet in the heavens a spiritual body awaiting us ; so that, when disrobed of our earthly covering, we shall not be found naked, any more than those living at the re- surrection day (2 Cor. v. 3). So far, therefore, from fearing death, we should rather desire it. For while we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord : but out of the body, we are with the Lord. Death only despoils us of a perishable covering, to clothe us with an immortal body. For the Christian, there- fore, death is truly conquered ; it belies itself ; it is nothing more than a point of transition, the final crisis which accomplishes our eternal glorification (2 Cor. iv. 17). Thus regarded from the double standpoint of the conflict with Judaism and the development of the Pauline doctrine, we perceive how important in all respects is the place which is occupied in Paul's his- tory by the second letter to the Corinthians. Jesus, corresponding to that "sense of indissoluble union with the Father ' by which Jesus triumphed over death. Conip. I Cor. XV. 55, 56 ("God . . . .;Vr7'/// us the victory") ; also John vi. 50, 51 ; viii. 51 ; xi. 25, 26.] CHAPTER IV. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. THE epistle to the Romans completes and crowns the progress achieved by the apostle's mind during this stormy period. The ideas briefly sketched in the epistle to the Galatians, or merely thrown out incidentally in the two letters to the Corinthians, here present themselves firmly bound together and brought to a powerful unity ; they are dialectically established, and organized into a complete system. The struggle in which Paul was engaged enters upon a new phase, and for himself at any rate, approaches its issue. The tranquillity which seems to be attained in his mind and thoughts imparts a breadth and calmness to this last letter which the others did not possess. It is no longer a question of circumcision, or of the attacks made upon Paul's person or apostle- ship. Personal feelings and private quarrels are forgotten ; the question of principle about which the two parties were contending can now be seen in its full import. P\mdamentally, indeed, the controversy is still the same ; but the apostle's doctrine, disen- tangled from external incidents, is raised to a higher level and attains a freer and fuller development. Escaping from the violent antithesis by which it was hitherto dominated, it tends towards a general and lS6 THE APOSTLE PAUL. culminating synthesis. Paul at last brings Judaism and Paganism within the scope of his contemplation. He is not content to contrast them with the Gospel, and to condemn them purely and simply ; he en- deavours to understand them in their historical func- tions and actual value, to assign them their due place as transitional but essential stages in the Divine plan of redemption. In this manner the new circle of Pauline thought is enlarged and completed. Having taken possession of the sphere of the conscience, it conquers the domain of history. The epistle to the Romans is the first attempt at what we should call, in modern phrase, a philosophy of the religious his- tory of mankind. Such appears to us to be the drift and character of this great letter. It is not a formal treatise of ab- stract theology, as our ancient theologians supposed ; neither is it an expressly controversial writing like the epistle to the Galatians, or the second letter to the Corinthians. The apostle, while designing to combat the same tendency and achieve its final overthrow, directs against it a more general and less passionate style of argument. He places the question on the ground of principle, and is not so anxious to get the better of his old opponents as to do full justice to the truth. The epistle to the Romans marks the exact point at which controversy resolves itself naturally into dogma. But we cannot hope to gain either a just appre- ciation or a full comprehension of this letter, unless we take exact account of the occasion which gave rise to it, and the aim by which it is inspired. Al- though Paul's doctrine is presented here in a more general and dialectical form, it would be a great THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 187 mistake to look upon his letter as the work of a professed theologian, dictated by a purely speculative interest. Only the historical circumstances which pro- duced the epistle will enable us to understand it. I. The Church of Rome. Having arrived at Corinth shortly after his second letter to the Christians of that city, Paul stayed there some time, — about three months, according to the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles (xx. 2, 3). Doubtless his presence finally calmed the minds of the Corinthians, and confirmed his authority amongst them. At that time new and mighty projects were germinating in his soul. This last sojourn at Corinth marks the brilliant climax of Paul's apostolic career. The epistle to the Romans, which was written then, seems on the one hand to conclude and crown the first stage of his life and work, and on the other to prepare for and in- augurate the second. The great missionary who had undertaken to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth here pauses a moment, mid-way in his career. Taking a double survey, he looks back along the road he has traversed and forward to that which he intends to follow. i\lready from Jerusalem to Illyria there stretched the numerous succession of Churches which seemed to mark the halting places in his long journeys. P>om Corinth at the eastern extremity, he now sees opened before him an equally wide field of activity towards the west. Before pushing into these new regions, he wishes to go up to Jerusalem once more, and take to the mother Church the offerings of the Gentile Churches, that by this means the distrust of the Christians in Palestine may be finally overcome [88 THE APOSTLE PAUL. and banished ; possibly also, desiring thus to make amends to some extent for the evil that he had formerly done to it. Then, leaving Syria, Asia, and Greece behind him, he intends to penetrate to the limits of the West, perhaps never more to return (Rom. XV. 22-29).^ With such a project in view, Rome of necessity was the object which in the first instance attracted and engaged the apostle's thoughts. The Church of this city afforded the most promising and convenient vantage ground for his new mission. In- the centre of Italy, equally distant from Germany, Gaul, Spain, and Western Africa, Rome had the further advan- tage of being in direct line with the course which the apostle had hitherto pursued, thus linking the work he was about to undertake with that which he had already accomplished ; so that, in Paul's view, the Church of Rome was destined to become a mother Church, and to be for the West what the great cities of Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth had been by turn for the East, alike the goal and starting point of his new missionary enterprises (Rom. xv. 24). The epistle to the Romans is nothing else but the first step in the execution of these vast designs. In announcing his impending arrival at the capital of the Empire, the apostle seeks to prepare his field of action, and to pave his way thither. A Christian Church had been in existence in Rome for some years, and it was of the first importance to secure its sympathy and support. This is the primary aim of the epistle to the Romans. Inasmuch as Paul ^ Reuss, GescJiiclitc der Heiligen ScJir(fie?i des N.T., § 105 {^tli story of the Sacred Scriptures of the N,T.^ p. 96.] THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 189 was bound to direct all his efforts towards this pur- pose, and made it his business to meet the feelings and special requirements of his readers, it is evident that his letter can only properly be explained by the position of the Church at Rome. There, and nowhere else, is the key to this epistle to be found. Unfortunately, opinion is far from being unanimous upon this capital point. Critics and expositors have long been divided into two hostile camps. Some insist that the Church of Rome was essentially Gentile- Christian, and quote in support of their assertion Romans i. 6 and xi. 17-24 — passages whose bearing and significance they perhaps exaggerate. Others, on the contrary, with Baur at their head, assert that it was essentially a Jewish-Christian Church, and openly hostile to Paulinism. From these two opposite conclusions there logically result two contradictory conceptions of the epistle. Those who look upon the Church of Rome as Gentile-Christian, can only regard Paul's letter as a strictly dogmatic exposition of his gospel, made with the object of elevating and confirming the faith of the Romans ; or, at most, of forearming them against the intrigues of the Judaizing teachers (chap. xvi. 17). According to this view, the dialectic exposition of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, which occupies the first eight chapters, forms the essential part of the apostle's letter. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters are a mere historical corollary, having no direct connexion with the previous section, whose tenor and whose presence, from this point of view, it is impossible to explain. On the opposite theory, the relation of these two component parts of the letter are exactly reversed. 190 THE APOSTLE PAUL. Those who regard the epistle of the Romans as polemical, and addressed to an unknown or hostile Church, make these last three chapters, which, accord- ing to the first hypothesis, are disconnected with the rest, the central part and the essential basis of the letter. There only, according to these critics, is dis- closed the apostle's true intention, the object which in reality occupies his mind. His object is to justify the substitution of the Gentiles for the Jewish nation ; and the first eight chapters are therefore simply an introduction, preparatory to the burning question of the destiny of Israel.^ In point of fact, these two conceptions of the epistle to the Romans appear equally defective. They cut the epistle into two parts, whose connexion and unity are then entirely lost. It is very difficult, on the one hand, to regard the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, charged with emotions so vivid, as being a mere appendix, foreign to the main body of the letter and unconnected with the state of opinion at Rome ; on the other hand, it is no less difficult to treat the first eight chapters as a preliminary intro- ^ The first opinion, which was that of the greater number ot ancient interpreters, was taken up and maintained not long ago with great skill by M. Th. Schott : Der Ronierbrief., seineni Eftdstucck iind Gedanken^s^aiig 7iach ausgelcgt. (Erlangen, 1858.) This work of Schott provoked a still more remarkable study by Tvl. Mangold, Professor at Marburg : Dcr Romc^brief inid die Anfdnge dcr rdniisclicii Genieinde. (Marburg, 1866.) The latter adopts Baur's thesis, but with such corrections as to transform it. He seems to me to have proved decisively that the majority of the Christians at Rome were of Jewish origin. M. Godet, however, in his recent Commentary, has returned to the old opinion ; and has even exaggerated it, to an extent that makes it wholly untenable. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 191 duction. With so slender a body and so enormous a head, there would be something truly monstrous in the structure of the epistle. On the contrary, one of its great beauties is precisely the logical archi- tecture which distinguishes it. A harmonious agree- ment prevails throughout its various parts and details. True, we seek in vain for any obvious transition between the two sections referred to ; but have we not noticed a breach of continuity, at least as great, existing between the ninth and tenth chapters of 2 Corinthians ? Paul's mind often takes these abrupt and violent turns, to the surprise and discomfiture of the superficial reader ; but we may rest assured that even then, so far from departing from the right path, it is pursuing its end more directly and eagerly than ever. Is it not obvious, for example, that the two halves of the epistle to the Romans are intimately connected at the bottom, and that the second without the first would have no foundation, while the first without the second would have no culmination ? Is it not the case that these three later chapters, treating of Jews and Gentiles under the state of grace, correspond with, and form a pendant to the first three, in v/hich the apostle exhibited them both in a state of sin ? In view of this, how can it be doubted that the two portions of the epistle form an organic whole ? We must therefore endeavour to discover some method of understanding the letter to the Romans which will preserve its internal unity, and determine its precise bearing. To return to the Church at Rome. Its members were both of Jewish and Gentile extraction : this is a certain fact. Everything leads us to believe that the 192 THE APOSTLE PAUL. former constituted the great majority, and that in this sense the Church might be called Jewish-Christian. But does it follow from this that it was Judaiziug, — distinctly hostile to Paul's gospel, and maintaining salvation through the rites of the law in opposition to salvation by faith ? We answer decidedly, No ; and Baur's error consisted in drawing this second inference from the former. If, as we shall see presently, the Church of Rome did not belong to Paulinism, certainly it was just as free from the bias of the teachers of Galatia or Corinth. Paul does not regard it as hostile, or even alien to himself On the contrary, he considers this Church to be included in the field of action assigned to him (edveatv, tV oU iare koX u/^ei?, chap. i. 6). He regards himself as its debtor, and declares himself ready to impart his gospel to it (chap. i. 14, 15). He applies to its members all the titles that he gave to his Churches in Asia (kXtjtoI 'Irjaov Xprarov, ayaTryrol ©eov, ayioi). He not only praises their faith, but gives thanks to God on their behalf, just as for the faith of the Thessalonians and Corinthians ; and as he had not done in writing to the Galatians. To view these words as a mere insinuating exordium, a sort of captatio benevolentice, is an injustice to Paul's character. To say that he has modified his way of looking at things and softened his views, is con- tradictory to the essential tenor of the epistle itself We must recognise the fact that we have here a Church of Christians who cannot be placed in the same category with the Judaizers of Galatia or Corinth. The rest of the epistle accords with its beginning. The apostle's line of argument does not imply a declared hostility among his readers. There THE EFISTLE TO THE ROMANS. IQ3 is no direct polemic. His design is to instruct, rather than refute ; to expound his gospel, to dispel or an- ticipate misconceptions, rather than to repel particular attacks. The stern warning given to the Gentile Christians (chap. xi. 17-24) does not, indeed, prove that these were in the majority ; but is it conceivable that Paul would address such words to a few friends of his own, lost in the mass of Jewish Christians openly hostile to them ? Neither are the iveak (ucrOevovvre^;) in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters Judaizers of the same class as those of Corinth. But it is none the less true that Paul's appeal to the rest of the Church for tolerance and charity on their behalf, implies in it a considerable breadth of view. Any one, in short, who reads the fifteenth chapter attentively, will have difficulty in persuading himself that words like those could havje been written to a Church which was confessedly hostile, and had made common cause with Paul's adversaries : " I exhort you by the Lord Jesus," he says in concluding, " to strive with me in your prayers to God, that I may be delivered from the rebels in Judaea,— that the offering I am taking to Jerusalem may be favourably received by the saints, and that I may come to you in joy and find refresh- ment and rest." Finally, if the fragment contained in chap. xvi. 17-20 belongs to this epistle, it would prove that the adversaries against whom Paul had formerly been compelled to defend himself, had not yet reached Rome ; he hoped in his letter to be beforehand with them, and to anticipate their wonted attacks. Are we to conclude from this that the Church at Rome was a Pauline Church? That would be going far beyond the meaning of the passages just examined, to another extreme even less warrantable 194 THE APOSTLE PAUL. than the former. If the Romans had attained the spiritual elevation of Paul, where would have been their need of such a long explanation and careful justification of his gospel ? Those who adopt this hypothesis are obliged to regard the epistle to the Romans as a dogmatic treatise, written with a purely speculative end. But besides the fact that Paul has never composed anything of that kind, it would be impossible then to establish any connexion between the epistle and the Church to which it is addressed, and to explain why this dogmatic treatise was sent to Rome rather than elsewhere. The explanation of Paul's attempt must be found in the state of the Church at Rome. Now the apostle himself tells us what he wishes to impart to the Romans, and con- sequently what in his view was still lacking to them : " I earnestly desire to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, that you may be es- tablished " (tW Ti /jLeraSco ')(apicrixa v/j,lp Trvev/jiaTi/cov eh TO (TT7}pL-^6?]vaL u/^a?, chap. i. 1 1). What are we to understand by this 'y^dpccrna irvev/jiaTLKou, this donum spirit2iale ? If we reflect that in i Corinthians ii. 10-14 Paul has given the irveviia as the vital prin- ciple of the Christian consciousness, the source of his own liberty of faith and of his spiritual conception of the Gospel ; if we remember that in the above context he has distinguished between the TrvevfiarLKol, judges of all things and free with respect to all, and the aapKLKol still in bondage,— and that, lastly, he designates the Gospel as he understands it by the neuter TrvcvfiaTiKd, there can be no doubt that he must have intended by those two words a wider and more spiritual conception of the Gospel of Jesus and a clearer understanding of the intimate relation THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 195 of the believing soul with the Spirit of God, which will make their faith stronger and more joyful and give it greater liberty. Does not the whole epistle rev^eal a persistent effort to raise the Christian faith of the Romans from a lower to a hierher level ? Written to a distinctly Pauline Church, it would cease to be comprehensible ; the long disquisitions on the law, and the care with which Paul anticipates Judaistic objections are inexplicable. Still more per- plexing would be the justification which Paul feels it necessary to offer of his mission to the Gentiles and their entrance into the kingdom of God. The nature of the questions raised, the precautions taken, the general tone — everything in the letter implies not a hostile Judaizing Church, but one of Jewish parentage, in which however the great questions were not yet raised which for some years past had agitated the Christianity of the East. This peculiar and most remarkable position of the Church at Rome is accounted for by the history of its origin, and also by the comparative isolation in which it had existed until the arrival of Paul's letter. We have no reliable documents relating to the intro- duction of Christianity into Rome. But we may safely assume that here, as elsewhere, the Church had its rise in the Synagogue, and was only separ- ated from it by a violent rupture. It is probable that the allusion of Suetonius {Vit. C/aud.y § 25), ClmidmsJndcBos inipulsore Cliresto assidne Uuiuiltiiantes expulit,YQiQ.Y?> to the inevitable disturbances that broke out on this occasion in the Roman Jewry. This edict of Claudius was imperfectly or only temporarily carried into effect ; while the Christian community suffered from it, it was not thereby destroyed. It 196 THE APOSTLE PAUL. continued to recruit itself from among the Jews and the numerous proselytes, without renouncing Jewish ideas and customs. It was in the same position as that of the Churches of Syria, before the dissensions brought on by the great success of the Gentile mission. No apostolic teacher seems to have visited it, or to have given it any special and exclusive bias. It had been the spontaneous creation of the Gospel. Paul now encountered it in the field of labour which had fallen to his lot. Aquila and Priscilla had doubt- less drawn the apostle's attention to this already flourishing community, and encouraged him to write to it, acquainting him with the kindly simplicity of its disposition, and the deficiencies of its faith. We have followed the progress of the Judaistic agitation step by step from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Galatia, from Galatia to Ephesus, and from Ephesus to Corinth. The Judaizing teachers only seem to have reached this last town, the limit of their progress westwards, in the year 57, during the interval between the two epistles to the Corinthians. They cannot therefore have arrived at Rome, where, moreover, there was no Paulinism to combat. This Church had remained in the simple and un-theological faith of the primitive days. It was virgin, and therefore neutral soil, which might easily be claimed by the first occupant. It was most important to Paul that he should take possession of it, and not allow himself to be anticipated. He will therefore himself expound his gospel to the Church at Rome, before his adversaries come to present it in caricature. He will endeavour to raise the Romans to the level of his own faith, and win them to the cause of the Gentile mission ; or, at any rate, if that THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 197 is too much success to hope from his letter, he will try by its means to secure a favourable reception for his gospel and his apostleship. Addressed to a Church like this, with this object in view, the epistle is its own explanation. Paul is not engaged in a con- troversy, for he is writing to brethren, not enemies ; he is attempting to justify his gospel and apostle- ship before a community which, reared as it was in Judaism, might find both difficult for it to accept.^ The crisis now in progress throughout the Christian Churches, by which the Jewish and Christian spirit, so united at the first, were growing more and more distinct and coming into violent collision, could not but occur at Rome. But the epistle to the Romans was not subsequent to this crisis ; on the contrary, it preceded and provoked it. It raised in that Church, for the first time, the great question of the abrogation of the law, and thereby marked a decisive epoch in its history. The Judaic spirit was to show itself here, as everywhere else, obstinate and implacable. Paul gained a few partizans, and made many adversaries. The Church became divided. The epistle to the Philippians, written three or four years later, shows us the breach accomplished (Phil. i. 12-18). Two (apparently authentic) passages in the second epistle to Timothy give us the saddest impression of Paul's position a few days before his death. He is alone, ^ These considerations, I believe, afford sufficient refutation of the conjecture of M. Renan, who regards the epistle to the ilomans as an encycHcal letter addressed by the apostle to several Churches, but not more required by that of Rome than by any of the others. It might, indeed, only have been sent to the Roman community by way of exception I (See his Saint Paul, Introduction, p. 72.) 198 THE APOSTLE PAUL. in prison, betrayed by some, deserted by the rest (2 Tim. i. 15-18 ; iv. 9-18). Nevertheless, this victory of the Judaizing party did not destroy Paul's in- fluence at Rome. In the letter of Clement of Rome it appears again, still vigorous and profound. But it is time to return to the epistle itself. II. The Plan of the Epistle. To this Church, such as we have just described it, Paul had to explain two very important facts, and secure acceptance for them : the substitution in the new religious economy of the Gospel for the Law, and of the Gentiles for the people of Israel — the one tJie defence of his teaching; the other the iusiification of Jus apostlesJiip. The essential contents of the dog- matic portion of the epistle are summed up in these two theses. The first eight chapters arc the de- monstration of the former ; chapters ix.-xi. are the demonstration of the latter. From this general dis- position of the subject matter, it is very evident that the two parts are equally essential to the structure of the epistle to the Romans, and equally important. The one is the logical consequence of the other. Paul has formulated the fundamental thesis of his gospel in the 16th and 17th verses of the first chap- ter. He introduces it by the words oh ^ap liraKj- yyvoixai TO eva'y^eKLOv, which express the apostle's courage and boldness not only in face of the con- tempt of the Greek and Roman world, but most of all when confronting the hostility and scorn of the Judaizing party. The Gospel which he proclaims before all, he well defines as a hvvafjn^ Oeov, realizing the hiKauoavvri Qeov for the salvation (ek a^joTripLav) of eveiy believer^ — of the/ac/ first, and also of ihQ pagan. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. I99 This salvation is universal, just because it depends on faith alone — as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Whilst thus vigorously formulating the universal character of his doctrine, Paul carefully from the first avoids wounding the Jewish sentiment ; he accords priority to the Jew (lovSato) Trpcorov). This is no concession ; it is the recognition of the simple fact that the Jew, as the heir of the promises, was in the course of history called before the Gentile to enter the kingdom of God. Paul establishes this great thesis by an admir- able demonstration, in which we note four essential stages : I. Chapter i. i8-iii. 31. Entering upon a survey of the moral and religious condition of humanity, the apostle shows that there is no salvation for it apart from Christ. He sketches in broad outlines the cor- ruption of the heathen world, in which the just wrath of God is revealed, punishing sin through sin itself, unrighteousness by idolatry, and the latter by moral depravity (chap. i. 18-32). He then turns to the Jew, who has a better knowledge of the Divine law, but in practice keeps it still less; who condemns himself in condemning the Gentile, forgetting that external circumcision is nothing if the heart remain uncircum- cised (chap. 11. 1-29). At this point, Paul might already consider the basis of his doctrine as established ; but he is anxious to remove, or to anticipate an objection which will infallibly be made. Does it not seem like denying the privileges of the Jews, to put them on the same level as the Gentiles ? Hence the question with which the third chapter opens : What advantage, then, has the Jew ? Paul recognises his historical privi- 200 THE APOSTLE PAUL. leges. The Jew received the oracles of God ; and God is faithful, even towards men who are not so. But what is there in this belief to encourage such men, and to justify their unfaithfulness ? Would any one draw the impious deduction that unfaithfulness, if serving to glorify the will of God, ought not to be punished ? Would not this amount to saying. Let us do evil that good may come? The sin of the Jew remains, therefore, as much as that of the Gentile. To make his demonstration still more impressive, Paul sums it up in terms which are all borrowed from the Old Testament. Jews and pagans, alike impeached by the Divine justice, have equal need of salvation of God (chap. iii. 9-20). Here the apostle resumes the thesis in which he summed up his gospel, and develops it in a more complete and exact manner (chap. iii. 21-26). All are deprived of the glory of God, but the righteousness of God has been mani- fested apart from the law. We are justified by a gratuitous act of grace, by means of the redemption that is in Jesus Christ — through faith in His blood — in order to manifest the righteousness of God. This is no longer revealed in mere punisJunent^ as was the case under the law, but in justifying Jiini that be- lieves. Vers. 27-31 deduce the consequences of this first demonstration of Paul's thesis. 2. Chapter iv. The apostle could not stop short at this point. His opponents would still have adduced against his syllogisms the authority of the Old Testa- ment. He therefore changes the direction of his argu- ment, and in the fourth chapter endeavours to prove that the doctrine of justification by faith is at the very root of the old covenant, and has the evidence of Scripture in its favour (/iapTu/Jou/tej/T/ viro rod vofiov Ka\ THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 201 T(av 7rpo(l)7]Tcov). Neither Abraham nor David was justified by works (chap. iv. 1-9). Abraham's faith was imputed to him for righteousness before he had received circumcision, which rite, so far from dispens- sing- with faith, has from the first merely been its confirmation (vers. 10-12). Lastly, it was to fait/i that the promise was given, and through faith also it is realized. Abraham believed in God, who raises the dead, and addresses the things that are not as things actually existing ; for the word of God is, in fact, creative, and realizes by its own virtue all that it declares. In the same way we believe in God, who delivered Jesus to death for our sins and has raised Him again for our justification (vers. 13-25). 3. Chapter v. With the fifth chapter begins a new development of the subject. In order to complete the demonstration of this principle of faith, Paul allows it to explain and justify itself by its spiritual fruits (vers. i-ii). It gives a new life, of which the believer is intensely conscious, manifesting itself in the peace which he enjoys before God, in patient endurance of tribulation, in the love filling his heart, and in the firm hope that sustains him, of which the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the sure pledge. Then, review- ing the whole history of humanity and summing up all that he has just set forth, the apostle goes on to show the power of sin entering the world through Adam's transgression, developing there by degrees as an organic force, and bringing in its train the death which comes to all men, because all are sinners. But beneath this progress of humanity in sin and towards death, he points out a new progress proceeding from Christ, the second Adam, which fulfils itself in holiness and tends to life. "Where sin abounded, grace super- THE APOSTLE PAUL. abounded ; that as sin reigned by death, grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal Hfe, through Jesus Christ our Lord " (vers. 12-21). Thus Paul has demonstrated his thesis, first by dialectic reasoning, then by Scriptural authority, and then by the con- clusive evidence of experience and history. 4. Chapters vi.-viii. Arrived at the culminating point of his demonstration, Paul again encounters the perpetual objection made to his gospel, the same that had been raised at Antioch and in Galatia, and which his last words could not fail to arouse. Is not this doctrine of an absolute grace, abounding over the sin of men in order to cover it, the ruin of all morality ? Will it not afford occasion and excuse for saying, Let us sin, that grace may abound ? This objection brings the apostle to the very core of his doctrine, and suggests the admirable exposition of the seventh and eighth chapters, the profoundest pages which he has ever written. He there defines with wonderful clearness the relation of the three terms, aiJbapTLa, vofin^, X^p^?- This common objection does not touch the Christian ; for in his quality as a sinner he has been crucified with Christ. He left his sin in the grave of Jesus ; and has risen with Him to a new life, which belongs wholly to God (chap. vi. i-ii). Instead of being the slave of sin, he is now the slave of righteousness (vers. 12-23). But at the same time that he died to sin, he died also to the law ; he escapes by death from this second power, as from the first, for it only had dominion over him so long as he lived. But now he has died ! and if he is raised again, it is to obey not the old letter, but the new power of the Spirit of God to which henceforward he belongs (chap, vii. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 203 1-6). Does that mean that the law is sin ? Far from it. But the law gives life to sin by making it known as sin, and actualizing it in the form of transgression. The function of the law is to awaken within us this painful consciousness of sin, and intensify it to the point of despair. Thus the law, owing to our flesh in which the power of sin resides, brings us death (chap. vii. 7-24). But at the very point where the law makes ship- wreck and we founder on death, there triumphs the almighty grace of God, manifest in Jesus Christ. Paul here explains, more fully than he did in the fifth chapter, the wonderful effects of this grace : absolute freedom from all condemnation (chap. viii. 1-4) ; efficient sanctification by the Holy Spirit (vers. 5-1 1); filial adoption by God (vers. 12-27) ; the triumph of faith amidst even the severest trials, through the firm hope of the glory which shall be revealed in us (vers. 18-39). Thus triumphantly ends the demonstration of Paul's first thesis. From this point, whither the logic of his doctrine and the impulse of his emotion have led him, he could not descend to the second thesis of his letter by any natural transition. It is useless, therefore, to look in the eighth chapter for anything which announces, or prepares for the developments to follow. The tran- sition does not lie in the words. It takes place in Paul's feelings, in the painful contrast which forced it- self upon him. In the midst of the joy with which his heart has just overflowed, he is seized with the thought that his people remain strangers to this covenant of grace. His joy changes suddenly to bitter sorrow, and it is with a heartfelt cry of distress (chap. ix. 1-5) that he begins the defence of his apostleship. In these 204 THE APOSTLE PAUL. three last chapters Paul is bent on one thing only — to make plain the agency of God in the religious revolution which has taken place, the issue of a plan which may seem unjust, but which increasingly vin- dicates itself as it is further unfolded. God is not bound to the Jewish people. If He rejects them now, in order to call the Gentiles, it is by a free decree of His sovereign grace. The Jews, moreover, have no right to complain ; they have only themselves to blame for their unbelief But this rejection is neither absolute nor final ; if it brings about the conversion of the Gentiles, that in its turn will lead to the salvation of Israel. Such, in its historical sequence, is the universal plan of redemption. Where the Jews see nothing but painful contradictions, an insoluble enigma and dense darkness, the profounder insight of the apostle perceives and points out the glorious issue of the Divine plans. Hence the three essential stages in his argumentation — the absolute freedom of the grace of God, which justifies from the standpoint of the Divine will Paul's work among the Gentiles (chap, ix.) ; the unbelief of the fezus, justifying to their own understanding the decree of God which abandons them (chap, x.) ; the final solution of this existing" antithesis between Israel and the Gentiles, in the complete redemption of both (chap. xi.). I. Chapter ix. 6-29. Paul does not touch directly upon the question of the future of the Gentiles. His main point is to explain and reconcile his readers to the sorrowful fate of the people of Israel, who, with all their great privileges, continue strangers to the new covenant. The apostle starts with the principle that carnal descent from Abraham does not constitute a right to inherit the promise, but that this right THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, 205 depends solely upon the free, sovereign grace of God. Just as in the family of Abraham, Isaac was chosen and not Ishmael ; and in the family of Isaac, Jacob and not Esau ; so now from among the people of Israel this grace calls some to salvation, and leaves the rest to destruction (vers. 6-13). It is true that a grave objection is here raised. In punishing him whom He has hardened, is not God unjust? Several pass- ages in Scripture itself seem to confirm this accusation (vers. 14-18). Paul is content to repel it by abso- lutely refusing to man the right of contending with God, or of controlling His will (vers. 20, 21). God is free to create vessels of wrath to manifest the great- ness of His judgments, and vessels of mercy to mani- fest the infinite riches of His love. These vessels of mercy may be taken from any quarter, from amongst the Gentiles as well as the Jews. God may, accord- ing to the word of Hosea, call those His people who were not His people, — and according to that of Isaiah, reduce to a feeble remnant, to a small number of elect, the great multitude of Israel (vers. 24-29). 2. Chapter ix. 30-x. 21. Hitherto Paul has only considered these dispensations from the absolute standpoint of the Divine sovereignty. But they have another aspect ; and from vers. 30-33 a new point of view is disclosed, in which human responsibility regains all its importance. Why, after all, should the Jewish people complain ? Is the judgment of God arbitrary ? Is not the persistent unbelief of Israel its immediate and historical cause ? Because the people obstinately sought righteousness by the works of the law, and despised that which comes by faith, therefore it is now rejected (chap. x. i-i i). The Jew had the same opportunity as the Gentile. The mercy of God is the 2o6 THE APOSTLE PAUL. same toward all who call upon Him. But the differ- ence lies in this, that the Gentiles have believed the Gospel, while the Jews have always proved rebellious (vers. 11-2 1). 3. Chapter xi. 1-32. Paul does not stop here. He will not leave his readers in a state of mournful resignation, dictated solely by a sense of the inevitable necessity of things. Beyond the darkness of the present, he desires to show them in the future the absolute triumph of the work of God. This is the design of the eleventh chapter. The apostle reminds them that the word of God is immutable, and that He cannot absolutely and finally reject His people. He saves even now a part of it. If the mass indeed is rejected, it is not that it may be eternally lost. This fall is in God's design a mode of bringing about the salvation of the Gentiles. But the salvation of the Gentiles, in turn, is intended to accomplish the full and perfect realization of the salvation of the Jews (vers. 1-12). With this conviction, and in fulfilment of this Divine idea, the apostle labours with indefatigable zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles. As things are, it is the best thing he can do for his nation itself. He strives to excite it to jealousy, for he knows surely that it cannot perish. The Gentiles, indeed, should never forget that this people whose branches are now cut off, are none the less the holy root, the true olive- tree, on the trunk of which they are engrafted ; and that while its fall led to their adoption, this in its turn will yet more certainly lead to its restoration. Thus the ways of God justify themselves ; and thus the temporary oppositions and painful contradictions of the present are effaced, and disappear in the final THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 207 unity and consummation of the redemption : " God has shut up all men in sin, that He might have mercy upon all ! " Is it surprising that the apostle, stirred by such lofty thoughts and so grand a vision, suffers his enthusiasm to burst forth at the last in a hymn of adoration in praise of the unsearchable wisdom of God ? (vers. 33-36.) The second victory won by Paul's dialectic is as great and final as the first. Not only has he justified his apostleship, by referring it to the Divine decree ; not only has he proved that he dero- gates nothing from the Jews, who are called to faith equally with the Gentiles ; but he has further shown that in reality he is indirectly serving, and effectively preparing for, the fulfilment of the destinies of the people of Israel. There is no need that we should analyse the hor- tatory portion of this epistle, the precepts and moral exhortations of which are the practical issue of the principles that Paul has just developed. We may say, however, that nothing in chaps, xv. and xvi. gives any ground for the doubts raised by Baur respecting their authenticity. Only, these later pages of the letter are in great disorder. The manuscripts entirely disagree with each other, and present strange pheno- mena. The epistle to the Romans, as now constituted, has four, or even five terminations : chap. xiv. 23, where we sometimes find intercalated the doxology of chap. xvi. 25-27 ; then chap. xv. 33 ; chap. xvi. 20 ; xvi. 24; and the actual termination, chap. xvi. 25-27. Of all the hypotheses which have been assumed to explain these details, that of M. Renan still .seems to me the best. According to this, several copies of the letter were made and sent to the different Churches, with appropriate additions from Paul himself ; one, in 2o8 THE APOSTLE PAUL. particular, to Ephesus, to which may have been added the special note preserved in chap. xvi. 1-20. This rapid analysis exhibits the new features of the epistle to the Romans and the theological pro- gress accomplished since the letters to the Galatians and Corinthians. The Pauline doctrine has at last attained its unity. The apostle is no longer satisfied with contrasting the Gospel and the Law ; whilst re- jecting the yoke of the latter, he goes further, and finds the Law fulfilled in the Gospel. In the same way, though he shows how the Gentiles take the place in the kingdom oi God which the unbelieving Jews left vacant, he does not stop short at this contrast ; he feels the necessity of explaining to himself, as well as of justifying to others, this m\'stery in the plan of God. The necessary consequence of the Jews' rejection is to bring the Gospel out of the narrow circle of Judaism and spread it to the ends of the earth. But in this general conversion of the Gentiles, Paul only sees a new method by which God designs to bring back the people of Israel in their turn into the covenant of grace. Here again, review- ing the conflicts of history, his doctrine attains a final reconciliation. In this unity it finds repose. From this culminating point it surveys the progressive evo- lution of the plan of redemption, and of the destinies of humanity. God has shut up all men into disobt\litUCt\ that He might have mercy upon all. This great saying, which closes and crowns our epistle, is the keystone of the arch in the apostle's structure. Oneness and equality in sin, oneness and equality in redemption : these words sum up both the leading idea and the entire plan of this great work. P^rom this historical point THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 209 of view, the two portions of the epistle, which usually have been merely placed in juxtaposition, are blended together and recover their profound \\x\\\.\. While the first shows us the fall of humanity and' its virtual uplifting in Jesus Christ, the second, still on the same lines, exhibits the progressive realization of the Kin"-- dom of God in histor\-, up to the point where it embraces all humanity. The religious philosophy broadly sketched in the epistle to the Galatians, is here defined and completed. Viewed in the light of this final unit)-, all the inter- mediate stages through which the Divine conception passes in its fulfilment, in the very nature of things appear but transitory. We understand them alike in their historical necessity and their subordination, —in their essential relativity. Only the short-sighted could suffer themselves to be arrested or driven to despair by the inevitable antagonisms and conflicts. The true believer foresees the final reconciliation, and knows that all these struggles really serve to fulfil God's design. The apostle had to win acceptance, in minds still fettered by Judaism, for two facts equally revolting and equally painful—the abrogation of the Law by the Gospel, and the substitution of the Gentiles for the Jews in the Kingdom of God. How could he succeed better than by directly referring these two facts to the Divine will, and showing them to be essential stages in God's eternal plan } We may sa>-, therefore, that Paul's letter is pre- eminently a work of synthesis and reconciliation. We must not, however, go too far ; we will not, with some theologians, speak of concessions, of advances made by the apostle towards his adversaries, of a Paulinism which is not so strict as that of the epistle to the 14 210 THE APOSTLE PAUL, Galatians. Such an opinion could only be held by superficial readers, who judge from first impressions and do not attempt to analyse the epistle. None of Paul's letters sets forth with greater profundity or with more rigorous logic his most cherished ideas. His doctrine is rounded and completed, but not modified. It reduces to unity the two terms of that problem which had long disturbed it. Though we speak of reconciliation and of synthesis, it is of that loo-ical reconciliation of his various ideas that must be sought by every earnest thinker, and of the final synthesis in which alone the mind can find repose. Hence the admirable harmony, the calm sense of power which distinguish this epistle above all the others. A perfect equilibrium prevails in it from beginning to end. The balance is always justly held between Jew and Gentile. If the Gentile is corrupt, the Jew is no less guilty. By different routes they arrive inevitably at the same condemnation {oh fydp ianv SiaaroXi], chap. iii. 22). United in sin, they con- tinue united in their redemption. Is God the God of the Jews only, is He not also the God of the pagans ? (chap. iii. 27-30.) There are only two humanities — the one sinful, descended from Adam, to which all belong; the other redeemed and sanctified, the issue of Christ, the second Adam, to which all ought to belong. This equilibrium is still more striking in chaps, ix., X., and xi. Paul not only proves that the advantages of the one party are not acquired to the detriment of the other, but that neither obtains any grace which will not in the end redound to the benefit of all. If the Jews received the promises, it was that they might preserve them and transmit them to the Gen- tiles ; and if the Gentiles enter into the new covenant, THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 211 their conversion is to lead to that of the Jews. In the same way the apostle entreats the weak to respect the strong, and exhorts the strong to support the weak (chaps, xii., xiv., xv.). For blind rivalries he substitutes everywhere fraternal solidarity, and for intestine conflicts organic unity. This is the culminating point which the Pauline theology has now attained. From the psychological sphere, where it discovered and established its funda- mental principle, it has risen to the wide sphere of history, and there attains its full expansion. It pauses a moment to contemplate and admire the onward progress o the plan and the revelations of God. But at this height it has already reached its critical point, where the philosophy of history changes of necessity into speculative theory. As yet it does not pass this limit ; but remains within the horizon of time. It even declares the wisdom of God unfathom- able, and the secret of His ways impenetrable ! But may it not attempt to gain some glimpse of them ? Shall it refrain from seeking to unveil at last the meta- physical principles implied in its previous develop- ments ? May it not crown the edifice so laboriously constructed ? The inherent logic, the natural bias of the apostle's mind, was to lead him to climb this last summit. The new events and the important changes about to take place in his own history, and in that of his Churches in Asia, will soon furnish the occasion for this. In the epistles of the Captivity Paul's inde- fatigable intellect attains its final goal. BOOK IV. THIRD PERIOD: THE FAUIINISM OF lATER TIMES. From 58 A.D. to — (?) WITH the apostle's captivity begins the last epoch of his life. The letters usually referred to this period present us with a new type of doctrine as distinct from that of the great epistles as the latter was from primitive Paulinism. The striking antithesis between the Law^ and the Gospel formulated during the struggles of the preceding period is found here in a qualified and more general form, though it has not wholly disappeared (Phil. iii. 2, 3 ; i. 12-18). The Judaistic opposition seems relegated to the back- ground. Errors of another, but no less dangerous char- acter, threaten the apostle's work in Asia, and evoke a third and broader development of his doctrine. Before entering upon the exposition of this last phase of Paul's teaching it is necessary, therefore, to define clearly the entirely new^ circumstances in which the apostle is now placed. CHAPTER I. THE ADDRESS AT MILETUS. — APPEARANCE OE TPIE GNOSTIC ASCETICISM. — NEW EVOLUTION IN PAUL'S THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE. THE farewell address delivered by the apostle at Miletus to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, forms the natural transition from the second period of his life to the third (Acts xx. 13-35). Paul left Corinth a few days after the despatch of his letter to the Church at Rome (Rom. xv. 25 ; comp. Acts XX. 3). He was going up to Jerusalem. His journey through Macedonia and along the shores of Asia Minor was simply a long series of farewells. Paul accomplished it in great anxiety of mind and under the most gloomy forebodings. Vainly did his friends, who shared his fears, endeavour to shake his resolution. He obeyed the inward call of God ; he was bound in conscience (Acts xx. 22). His hour had come. This journey reminds us of the last journey of Jesus to Jerusalem. At the end of his career the disciple, like the Master, was to undergo Jiis passion. The tenderness of his heart, his serene faith in the midst of sorrow, his submissive and firm obedience, are strikingly exhibited in his pathetic farewell to the pastors of Ephesus. The address at Miletus has a still G^reater historical THE LATER FAULINISM. 215 significance. The apostle was affected not only by the crisis about to take place in his own life, but by the changes which he already foresaw in the destiny of his Churches. The Judaistic opposition had spent its first fury, and no longer seemed very formidable. A new crisis was developing. / kiioiv, said the apostle, that after my departure rapacious wolves ivill attack you, and will not spare the flock ; from the midst of you will men arise uttering- perverse things {\a\ovure^ Biea-rpa/j^/j^eva) to draiv tJie disciples after them (Acts xx. 29, 30). It is very evident that* these rapacious wolves, these false teachers coming actually from the midst of the Gentile Christian Churches, are no longer the Judaizing teachers with whom we have become familiar. What can their distorted talk be, but an unnatural perversion of the Gospel itself, tortured from it by their false wisdom ? There is an obvious allusion here to the modes of interpretation familiar to Gnosticism. Some critics, it is true, have only brought forward this allusion as an argum.cnt against the authenticity of the Address itself, or at least against the fidelity of the narrator. The argu- ment would be very strong, if this indication of the concealed presence of the Gnostic leaven and its hitherto secret working were an isolated fact. But there are other considerations, more explicit and less disputable than this, which serve to confirm and justify these predictions as coming from Paul's mouth. Let us return to the epistle to the Romans. Let us ask ourselves who were the iveak members of this Church, whom Paul describes in chapter xiv., and towards whom he preaches charity and tolerance ? No doubt they were connected, more or less closely, with Judaism. It was from Judaism, and not from 2i6 THE APOSTLE PAUL. the Pythagorean philosophy, that their scruples and asceticism were derived. But they must not be con- founded with the Judaizing- Christians of Galatia and Corinth, or even identified with the Judaizers of Rome as a body. These Christian ascetics who insist, not on circumcision and Pharisaic observances, but on certain abstinences, are a new development, radically different from primitive Judaeo-Christianity. They neither eat meat nor drink wine, living only on vegetables. Where shall we find the origin of this asceticism ? Ritschl, not without some show of reason, regards it as a result of Essenism, the spirit of which was already creeping into the Church. Be that as it may, this practical asceticism had its basis either in a philosophical dualism, or in an interpreta- tion of Scripture analogous to that employed by the Ebionites to justify the same abstinences.^ But at Rome this ascetic morality seems to have propagated itself without the dogmas which justified it. Practice had anticipated theory. That is why the apostle, while condemning the principle of action adopted by these ivccik meinbers {Treireia^ai iv Kvplw 'Irjaov on ovhev KOLVov ^i eavrov), does not trouble himself to contend with them, and shows them the indulgence which is due to every scrupulous conscience. Later on, at Colossae, the two elements of theory and practice are found in combination.- The tendency. ^ See Epiphanius, NcTres., 30. 15. - Perhaps the language of Rom. xvi. 17-19 should be applied to Gnostic teachers elsewhere than at Rome. It would be more appropriate to such teachers, it seems to us, than to the early Judaizers. It is a new indication to add to those which we are now pointing out, of the early appearance of Gnosticism in the apostolic Churches. THE LATER PAUL IN ISM. 217 hitherto vague and floating, presents itself to us here in a more decided and clearly marked shape. The false teachers whom Paul attacks in his epistle to the Colossians, are distinguished in fact by these two characteristics : a very rigorous asceticism, and a very daring boldness of speculation. They seem indeed to have endeavoured, in concert with the Judaizers, to impose circumcision upon the Gentile Christians (Col. ii. 11), but their originality does not lie in this. It consists in that voluntary asceticism which spares not the flesh, which credits itself with something specially meritorious just because it goes beyond the commandments of God, and which Paul so aptly characterizes in the word eOeXodpTjaKCLa (chap. ii. 22, 23). They not only observe the Sab- baths and the new moons, but they further command abstinence from certain kinds of food and drink : t02ic/i not ; taste not. With this system of abstinence is joined the worship of angels, among whom, no doubt, Jesus Christ was reckoned. This worship of angels implied something that went far beyond a mere popular superstition. It was a subject of speculation and transcendental science. These celestial beings were divided into classes and ranged in an elaborate hierarchy, which was intended to explain the relations of God and the world, the origin and nature of evil, the course of the world's history, and its final issue.^ This system was destined to become transformed and perfected in the great Gnostic schools of the beginning of the second cen- ^ It is well known that the worship of angels and a specula- tive philosophy of the celestial hierarchies formed an essential part of the Essenian theology. ai8 THE APOSTLE TAUL. tury. But it is already sketched out here. The vocabular)' of Gnosticism is created. Its terms still preserve, it is true, the religious colouring, the positive character due to their origin ; but they have already begun to merge both these in the metaphysical and abstract sig;nitication which constanth' grows upon them. The xons are enumerated : 6p6vot, fcvpi6Tt]T€e<;. Their totality- is expressed by the Divine rrXt'ipiofLa, Between the lowest of the i^ons and the supreme God there is an ascending scale through which all these beings must rise, to re-enter by degrees the Di\ init\- whence they issued. Such was the fantastic world that the teachers of Coloss.e were absorbed in contemplating. These are the far-fetched speculations, alike baseless and irrational, with which the apostle upbraids them in denouncing their religion of angels ^a ,u)) ecopaxev t-pSarevaH-, chap. ii. 1 8^. The more ingenious their theories, the prouder they were of them {tiKn (hvaiov- f.i€vos). The\- claimed to have found the true w isdom, and to possess all its treasures ^chap. ii. 3, 4) ; the}* had sounded the depths of being ; the>- /(.y/t'u\ where others only Mu':yi/. So the\* opposed their ^^v/cV/jt to the simple faith of humble Christians. Such is Judaistic Gnosticism, as it appears in the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians. Its image becomes still more dennite and complete in the three r<7.vA'n?/ epistles i^so called^. There we have the same asceticism, the same fiintastic specu- lations, the same dreams of the imagination (i Tim. iv. 1-7). The fundamental dualism of this philosophy is still more marked (chap. iv. 3, 4). The system acquires a more articulate and consistent form ; it is a profane m>-thology (j^ivSot iSlSfjXoi kuI ypawEet<:) THE LATER PAULIXISAr. 219 around whose figures metaphysics weaves stories of the strangest and most daring character. Tliere are endless genealogies (yeveaXoyiai din^pavToi), pas- sionate and fruitless discussions, gratifying morbid curiosity. Finally, this philosophy alread\- bears its historical title, — that of^-ziosis (i l^'m. vi. jo).' There can be no doubt of the nature of this primitive Gnosticism. It was evidently a speculation which arose in Jewish circles, and which remained Judaistic. Its teachers not onl\- counselled circum- cision, the observance of the Sabbath, and the new moons (Col. ii. 1118) ; they claimed moreover to be the true teachers of the law (i'o/ioBiBdaKa\oi, i Tim. i. 7). Doubtless they started with the Old Testa- ment, and b\' the mode of exegesis common at that time discovered in it all their dreams. The epistles call their fables /ivOoi 'IovScukol (Tit. i. 14^ ; either because these myths were originated b\- Jews, or — what is more probable — because they consisted in Jewish legends or narratives from the Old Testament, transformed into philosophical m}'ths in the spirit and direction of Philonism. l^ut these new tendencies, which must from the beginning ha\-e assumed a variety of forms, were none the less fundamentally distinct from the Jud^eo- Christianit)' of the primitive days. The latter re- sembled a continuation of Pharisaism in the Christian Church ; the former, as Ritschl and Mangold have well observed, has the appearance of a development of Essenism. We are unwilling to enter in this place upon the difficult question of the origin of Gnosticism. * See Mangold, V/c IrrlJircr der Pastoralbriti'e. Marburg, 1S56. 220 THE APOSTLE PAUL. It probabl}^ took its rise spontaneously, in different places at the same time. It was not in fact a special philosophy, but a general impulse of the human mind, which made itself felt at that period in all schools and creeds alike, striving to transform the elements of tradition, to dissolve and absorb them by a laborious process of speculative reason. Thus neo-Platonism and Neo-pythagoreanism are nothing else but a philosophical Gnosticism ; just as the specu- lations of Basilides or Valentinian are a Christian Gnosticism, and the Alexandrianism of Philo a Jewish Gnosticism. These systems are the result of the same spiritualizing processes, differently applied in different places and by different minds. They aim at the same goal, and pursue it by the same method, seeking not only discursive knowledge, but direct intuition, the possession and enjoyment of absolute truth. Finally, one permanent feature of all these schools is the union of speculative mysticism with practical asceticism. If we consider the abundant development of this Gnosticism at the beginning of the second century, and recollect that it was then the dominatingf philosophy throughout the East, we can scarcely doubt that its origin lay as far back as the middle of the first century. It cannot, in short, be supposed that the systems which prevailed about 120 or 130 A.D., blossomed out all at once in the scholarly and finished form which then distinguished them. Gnos- ticism only arrived at this point of development by a somewhat lengthy process of elaboration. By this time it had its ancestors, its history, and traditions ; it loved to connect itself directly with the apostles.^ ^ It is well known that Basilides, ^'alentinian, and Marcion THE LATER PAULIMISM. 221 Its chronology, no doubt, is still very uncertain. But the Gnostic terms scattered through Paul's later epistles, especially in the epistle to the Colossians, can no longer be brought forward as proofs against their authenticity. They only show that the origin of Gnosticism is much earlier than has long been supposed. Can we wonder to see such a tendency breaking out thus early, in the very midst of the Christian Church? In explanation of this fact it is not necessary to refer to the eclectic methods of the time, or to the general fermentation of thought in the great cities of Asia Minor, which was then engen- dering so many strange phenomena. It is enough to observe the remarkable affinity of Gnosticism^ with the Gospel. Gnosticism had the same end in view— the union of man with God, the redemption of fallen beings ; and in practical life its asceticism might only seem a rigorous application of Jewish or Christian morality. But we can also understand what dangers the apostolic teaching incurred from this association. In becoming a metaphysical speculation, the Gospel was losing its moral character. The concrete facts and positive tradition on which it was based, and which constituted its strength, were dissolving, evapo- rating, changing into symbols of abstract ideas. The Gospel was becoming a mythology. The Christian redemption, which always implies human liberty, and which involves struggles of conscience and conversion, was no longer anything more than the theory of the claimed to have collected secret traditions, which had been transmitted to them from the immediate disciples of the apostles. Thus Basilides was said to hold his doctrine from a certain Glaucias, an interpreter of Peter, and ^^1lcntinian from Theodas, a disciple of Paul. 222 THE APOSTLE PAUL. gradual return to God of every being who had issued from Him. Finally, the person of Christ was on the point of being merged and lost amongst a crowd of intermediate beings, in the hierarchy of aeons with whom His work and His glory were shared.^ Such was the new situation opening in Asia Minor, the dangers of which Paul was eager to avert The apostle's penetrating mind, so swift to discern prin- ciples and to seize at the first glance both their nature and consequences, could not be mistaken as to the gravity of this movement. Still, as M. Reuss admirably remarks, "if the contact of Christianity with the leaven then working in men's minds had been purely hostile, it might perhaps have been possible to run the risk of leaving it alone to exhaust itself. But what made it specially dangerous was the incapacity of many minds to distinguish the radical difference between the two currents of ideas, and the pre- dilections of so many Greeks who were attracted to the Church chiefly by the desire of knowledge and by philosophical aspirations, and who naturally turned to the quarter from which these aspirations seemed to receive the most ample satisfaction. There came a time, therefore, when the old reactionary party of the Judaizers seemed less dangerous than the advanced party, — that of the new philosophers."- In this way all the essential features in the Paulinism of later times are sufficiently explained. I. Paulinism, hitherto of such a bold, I had almost said revolutionary character, was of necessity about to assume a more conservative form. Resistance ^ See Reuss, LListoire de la thiologie apostoliquc, vol. i., pp. 366-377. [Eng. trans., i., pp. 316-325.] - See Reuss, vol. i., p. 378. [Eng. trans., i., p. 326.] THE LATER PAULINISM. 223 must succeed attack. The apostle seeks to recall men's minds to the old doctrine, the primitive tradi- tions (Eph. iii. 2-5 ; ii. 20 ; Phil. iii. i ; Col. ii. 2-5). 2. The Pauline teaching, in face of this opposition, takes a more speculative form. In the first epistle to the Corinthians the apostle had already described his Gospel as perfect zvisdoiu (ao^iav iv roU reXe/oi?, I Cor. ii. 6). But there he still preferred to contrast the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of the v/orld. Henceforward, without robbing the Gospel in any way of this Divine foolishness, or allowing the Christian to forget the sphere of the inner and sanc- tified life, he seeks to expound this perfect wisdom, and exhibits in his teaching the most exalted philosophy. Besides, his own instincts led him in this direction ; and he must have found a certain delight in opposing to these daring speculations the true Christian knowledge, and thus crowning the labour of his whole system (Col. i. 9, 10 ; ii. 2 ; Eph. iii. 10 : ofc Orja-avpol rr}? (TO(f)La^ koI t?}? jva)(7eco} TroXuTro/zciXo? cro^ta rov Oeov, chap. iii. 10). Thus, in the general economy, is ordained the succession of special economies^ which simply mark stages in the progress of the work of universal re- demption. This salvation, conceived in eternity and prepared in preceding ages, is revealed in its own time, which is the very fulness of the times (Gal. iv. 4 ; Eph. i. 10). But any one who has thoroughly apprehended the nature of the Pauline doctrine must know that it is pre-eminently realistic and matter of fact. It never represents the revelation of God as the exhibition of an abstract idea, but as the unfolding of a Divine operation. The consummation of revelation is therefore, at the same time, the consummation of God's creative work ; and ih^ pleroma of things corre- sponds of necessity with the pleroma of times. The THE ASIATIC EPISTLES. 239 word irXripcofia thus passes naturally from its original to its metaphysical signification. The starting point of this idea — a leading charac- teristic of these epistles — is in i Corinthians xv. 28. According to this passage, the supreme design of God, carried out in the whole creation throughout the entire succession of ages, is to permeate 3.nd Ji/l all tJiiugs, to become all in all. The apostle's doctrine, developing in this direction, conceived of the Divine action as pouring all its riches into the Person of Christ, who thus actually becomes \h.G. pleroma of Divinity. Christ in His turn constantly pours out and communicates all His riches upon and to His Church, which becomes the plcronia of Christ, the complete realization of His virtue, His actual body, precisely as Christ was the corporeal manifestation (ao)iiaTi/c(h^) of the Divine plenitude. Thus God fills Christ ; Christ fills the Church ; and the Church, extending to the limits of all things, fills the universe (chaps, iii. 19 ; i. 23). The crisis of this Divine action is the appearance of Jesus upon earth ; and in that appearance. His death upon the cross. The centre of gravity of Christ's work has not been removed. The historical cause of redemption is still the Saviour's expiatory death (chaps, i. 7; ii. 13, 16; Col. ii. 14, 15). The cir- cumference is enlarged ; the centre remains the same. It is from this standpoint that Paul contemplates the progressive realization of the plan of God, advancing towards its final goal, the reconciliation of all opposi- tions, and the consummation in Christ of the unity of the world. Thus has the barrier been overthrown already between Jews and Gentiles (to [leaoTOL^ov roO