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About Google Book Search Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at htip:/ / books: coodle.com/ γα Jerome --ὔ ΟΠ -ς Ya 4 165 -W THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY σώφρονος δ᾽ ἀπιστίας οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδὲν χρησιμώτερον βροτοῖς. —Kvr. Hel. 1617. Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. | —Liv. xxxix. 16. THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY WITH ΠΑΝ OUTLINE OF VAN MANEN’S ANALYSIS OF THE PAULINE LITERATURE BY THOMAS WHITTAKER, Author of “The Neo-Platonists,” etc. (ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED) WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1904 CONTENTS PREFACE - - ς- - - - THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY 1.—BrBiicaL CRITICISM AND ITS VERIFICATION 2.—Tue Cuurca-Stare or JuDZA 3.—Post-BiBLIcAL EscHATOLOGY OF THE JEWS 4,—ALEXANDRIAN JUDAISM - - - - 5.—Tuet PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL θ.--- ΤῊ DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 7.—Tae AntI-HELLENIc REActTIoN - - - 8.--ΙΝΒΑΟΙΙΝΊΒΕΜ . - . ᾿ς - - 9.---ΤῊῈ CatHontic CHURCH - 10.—THe Later History or ΡΑΥΙΙΝΊΒΝ - - - 11.—PaHmosopHy AGAINST REVEALED RELIGION - 12.—ConcLUSION : - . - . . , 278846 PAGE xi vi CONTENTS VAN MANEN ON THE PAULINE LITERATURE Parr I. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES PAGE INTRODUCTION - - - - - 67 Section I. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 1.—The Unity of the Work - - - - 67 2.—Its Composition- ἧ- - - - 70 3.—Sources Pauline Letters - - - - - 77 The Itinerary - - - - - 78 Acts οὗ Paul - - - - - 81 Acts of Peter - - - - - 86 Josephus - - . . . 87 4.—General View of the Use of Sources” - . 89 5.—The Author’s Aim - - - - 90 6.—His Personality - - - - - 91 Section II. PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS The Representation of Luke - - - - 93 The Acts of Pauls - - - - - 9ὅ The Itinerary - - - - - 99 Conclusion - - - - - - 100 “4,9 CONTENTS ear | re ee . -..-...... - Parr II. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS PAGE INTRODUCTION - - - - - 1.—The Nature of the Work - - - 2.—The Unity of the Book - - - - 3.—Its Composition - - - . A.—Traces of Juncture and Manipulation - The Address: i, 1-7 - - . Introduction: i. 8-17 - - - First Part: i. 18-viii. 89 - - Ν Second Part: ix.—xi. - - . Third Part: xii.-xv.13 - - . Conclusion : xv. 14—xvi. 27 - . B.—Witnesses for the Existence of a Shorter Epistle - ©. - . C.—General View - - - . 4.—Whence Came the Epistle? A.—Significance of the Preceding Investigation B.—Improbability of the Tradition - - C.—Indications of a Later Time - - Doctrinal Utterances -" - - Acquaintance with Paulinism - - Affinity with Gnosis - - - The Community - - - - Persecutions - - - - The Rejection of Israel - - - Faults in the Form - - - Written Gospels’ - - - - Books of Acts - - - - D.—Nationality of the Author - - - E.—Attempts at Parrying Difficulties - - F.—Arguments for Genuineness - - G.—Conjectural Mode of Origin - - 104 105 107 108 108 108 110 111 113 115 116 vii 116. 119 119 120 121 121 126 127 129 130 131 131 182 133 134 136 136 138 ¥ viii bed CONTENTS Paulin Acts’ - - - The Younger Contemporary of Peter Galilee and Jerusalem - : The Old Testament Agreement and Difference The History of the Apostolate - The Revelation of John - The Fourth Gospel The Preaching of Peter Philo - - - : Seneca - - - - Justin - - - Irensus - - + Tertullian - - The Clementines - - Peter and Paul at Rome The Christmas Festival The Development δὲ Christianity 6.—The Antiquity of the Book - -----.-.-.....-......................-.. ....... ....-.. -.- 5.—Justification of the Proposed Explanation CONTENTS -.-- --.-. ......-.-.... Part ΠῚ. THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS PAGE INTRODUCTION - - - - - 168 THE FIRST EPISTLE 1.—The Nature of the Work _ - - 168 2.—The Unity of the Book - - - - 164 8.—Its Composition 4.—Traces of Juncture and Manipulation - 165 B.— Witnesses for the Existence of a Shorter Epistle - 4 - - 171 C.—Conclusion - - - - 172 4.—Whence Came the Epistle ? + A.—Significance of the Preceding Investigation 174 B.—Improbability of the Tradition - - 174 The Occasion of the Writing - 175 The Relation between Paul and the Corin. thians - - - - - 176 The Community - - - - 178 Parties - - - - - 179 Opponents - - - - - 180 C.—Indications of a Later Time Paul a Power - - - - 181 The Community no longer Young - 182 Doctrinal Utterances . -.. - - 183 Some Special Points - - - 185 A Written Gospel - - - - 186 Books of Acts - - - - 187 D.—Nationality of the Author - - - 187 E.—Attempts at Parrying Difficulties - - 189 F.—Argyments for Genuineness - - 190 CONTENTS PAGE G.—Conjectural Mode of Origin Lost Letters of Paul - - - 100 Paulinism - - - - - 191 The Author - - - - 194 Relation to Romans - - - 195 Determination of Date - - - 196 THE SECOND EPISTLE 1.—Character—Unity—Composition - - 196 A.—Traces of Juncture and Manipulation - 198 B.—Witnesses for the Existence of Shorter Epistles - - - - 199 C.—Conclusion - - - - - 200 2.—Whence Came the Epistle? - - - 201 A.—Improbability of the Tradition - - 201 The Occasion of the Writing - - 201 The Relation between Paul and the Corin- thians - - - - . 203 Opponents - - - - 204 B.—Indications of a Later Time Paul - - - - - 206 The Community - - - - 208 Doctrinal Utterances - + - 209 The Collection - - - - 211 Special Points - - - - 211 Books of Acts - - - - 212 C.—Attempts at Parrying Difficulties - - 213 D.—Conjectural Mode of Origin The Author and his Aim - - - 218 Relation to thé First Epistle - - 21ὅ Determination of Date - - - 215 PREFACE Arter reading the celebrated article on ‘“ Paul” in the third volume of the Encyclopedia Biblica, my thought was that, if the conclusions stated could be established by analysis, then Professor van Manen must be regarded as the Copernicus of New Testament criticism. To place the Pauline writings, along with the rest of the New Testa- ment, in the second century, would both remove an anomaly and make possible a consistent deduction of the process by which Christianity came into being. Study of his original work has, so far, confirmed my view. At the same time, I was under the impression that the result might be also to disclose a stratum of genuine historical tradition in the Gospel narrative. I did not, indeed, think that, for example, a single indubitable saying of Jesus could be determined. What 1 imagined might become a practic- able problem was to trace the original Judeo-Christian movement, as distinguished from Pauline or Gentile Chris- tianity, to an impulse from a personal teacher who had made a profound impression by his continuance of the effort of Hebrew prophecy towards universalising the mainly national ethics of older Hebraism. The actual Jesus would thus have been a teacher who did from a religious base what had already been done philosophically by the successors of Plato and Aristotle, and especially by the Stoics, who before the Christian era had quite definitely universalised the civic morality of an earlier phase of social xii PREFACE life. According to this view, the conception of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and afterwards as the Son of God in a special sense, did not proceed from himself, but from his followers and the succeeding generations. Paulinism was ἃ form taken by an advancing movement of speculative theology among the Greek-speaking Christian converts in Syria and Asia Minor. This is something like the view suggested by Professor van Manen himself; though I am not aware that he has stated precisely what kind of teacher he conceives Jesus to have been. In one place he ascribes to the early “disciples” ἃ conception of themselves as ‘dedicated to God” in an archaic religious sense, rather than anything that we should call a distinctively ethical reforming direc- tion. If this view is right, there can be no ground for attributing to Jesus himself any peculiar stress on an advanced ethical teaching. The period that lies before Paulinism is left, therefore, somewhat vague. Professor van Manen, in fact, keeps for the most part rigorously to his own problem of the origins of Paulinism, merely pro- viding himself with such an outline of the earlier growth of Christianity as seems hypothetically sufficient. That this outline furnishes a sufficient hypothesis I quite agree. A teacher to whom nothing can be authentically attributed but some undefined impulse on a succession of disciples, who afterwards put together, from Hebrew sources, the body of ethical and religious sayings which we call the “teaching of Jesus,” might conceivably, when his name was brought into a different social medium and he was person- ally forgotten, grow into the supernatural ‘“ Christ” of the Pauline school. If, however, we are to inquire resolutely into the origins of Christianity from the beginning, the question must be put: Is the hypothesis necessary as well as PREFACE xili sufficient ? The result of further consideration has been to convince me that it is not. I accept the conclusion recently set forth by Mr. J. M. Robertson in a trilogy of able works, that the Gospel story is, to all intents and pur- poses, not merely legendary, but mythical. Mr. Robertson’s thesis, it seems to me, can even be carried further. He, too, has stopped short—as he points out that earlier critics have done—through not questioning the ecclesiastical tradition radically enough. He concedes that Christianity, as a distinctive sect, may have arisen about the time when it arose according to the authorised view of the Church; that is to say, in the generation pre- ceding the destruction of Jerusalem. He holds, indeed, that at that time it was no more than a Jewish sect; though here Paulinism, if the Epistles attributed to Paul and im- ping his activity are genuine, would be at least an anomaly. Professor van Manen’s investigations, however, remove this difficulty. For his thesis can be perfectly well combined with Mr. Robertson’s. This done, I contend that we must take an additional step in the negative direction. Before the fall of the Temple we must assume nothing at all corresponding to Christianity except an obscure cult— the evidence for which Mr. Robertson has done much to bring to light—and an indeterminate Messianic movement. The quasi-historical life and death of Jesus, around which a new sect or sects came to cohere, did not take form till after the year 70. The period of gestation—of oral myth- making—lasted till about the end of the first century. Then began the production of the New Testament litera- ture—without exception pseudepigraphic—which was approximately completed by the middle of the second century. Anyone to whom these conclusions may seem startling me, , xiv PREFACE will do well to read in the light of them Kant’s Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blosen Vernunft, where their general drift may be found philosophically anticipated. It is clear not only that Kant had studied the New Testament with that close attention which Matthew Arnold regretted that Hume had not seen fit to give to it, but that he had come to entirely negative conclusions, equally as regards the tradition embodied in the books and the tradition about them. He says distinctly that no historical value can be attached to the statements of Christian literature for the period before Christianity had a learned and critical public of its own; and that it had no such public till it emerged into the general life of the Roman Empire. And in detail he deliberately refrains from committing himself to the supposition that there is any historical basis gvhat- ever for the legends he may use incidentally as the text for ἃ religious philosophy. These are treated as simply what the society that was building up the new cosmopolitan religion desired to have believed by the faithful. His position that—in the total absence of real evidence—we are at liberty to devise the best interpretation we can of Chris- tian doctrine and teaching, so as to carry Christianity for- ward to the stage of a purely rational and ethical religion, could only seem permissible in a time less pre-occupied with historical problems than ourown. The century that followed Kant, instead of putting aside such problems as irrelevant to a rational construction, threw itself with new zeal into investigations of the embryology of institutions. The results cannot, in the long run, be without bearing on the practical attitude of the world to existing religions. 1 hope the pages which follow may be of service towards the traditional task of English philosophy—that of “clearing the ground a little’ for the scientific cultivators of the field. PREFACE xv My exposition of Professor van Manen is based on his great work Paulus, of which the three parts are: I. De Handelingen der Apostelen (1890); II. De Brief aan de Romeinen (1891); 1Π. De Brieven aan de Korinthiers (1896). I have added a few notes, of which some, however, are only transferences of the more detailed evidence from the original text. Occasional reference is also made to the short Handleiding voor de Oudchristelijke Letterkunde (1900). As the exposition of Part 11. was written independently of Professor van Manen’s article on “ Romans” in the Ency- clopadia Biblica, Vol. IV., the two accounts should supple- ment one another. The introductory essay is an attempt to do more ex- plicitly what Biblical critics themselves do concurrently with their analytic work—namely, to deduce the order of events in outline according to the results reached by ex- amination of the documents. My method has been to take the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70—the conscious- ness of which pervades all the old Christian literature—as the pre-supposition of the development. Thus we are at the point of view of historical causation. The analysis having shown that all the documents are considerably posterior to the great catastrophe of Judaism, the synthesis ought to show how this was precisely the event which we must select as the cause—or as the indispensable occasion—of the peculiar conflux of elements that came together in the Christian Church. ERRATA Page 67, line 4 from bottom. ForlI. read 1. Page 70, line 7 from top. For II. read 2. Page 109, line 10 from bottom. Delete comma after ‘* writer.” THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY 1.— Biblical Criticism and its Verification. Critican analysis of the Hebrew Scriptures has resolved them, for the most part, into a stratification of pseudepigraphic documents. This is a general character not only of the religious literature of the East, but also of the incipient stages of our Western literature. We even find something like it in the scientific and philosophical text-books of later classical antiquity, though here the character is that of straightforward compilation ; there is no false ascrip- tion of authorship to saints and sages of old time. It must, therefore, always be remembered that, in applying the ancient and modern European norm of individual authorship to an Oriental religious litera- ture, we are more likely to be wrong than right. The Koran, which undoubtedly proceeded from a known person, Mohammed, is an exceptional case among the books that have been made the founda- tion of Eastern religions—that is, of all the great historic religions. Although the New Testament was written in Greek at a time long after individual authorship had become the norm in Greek literature, it clearly belongs to the Oriental type. Its ideas spring directly out of an Oriental religion ; and the literature that imme- diately preceded it in its own line—that is, the later 1 2 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY Jewish apocryphal literature with Messianic aspira- tions—is admitted to be entirely pseudepigraphic. It is worth noting that religious or semi-religious litera- ture in the West also has tended to this type. Take the case of the Orphic poems and of a large part of the compositions put forth by the Neo-Pythagorean school. The cultivated Greek mind, however, was critical in our sense of the term. It really cared to know whether a composition was by its alleged . author ; not merely whether it was edifying. Hence, while modern criticism has been able to go further, _ ancient criticism had already detected the true char- . acter of much of this literature. When Iamblichus, writing in so credulous an age as the fourth century of our era, apologised for what some thought decep- tion on the part of the Neo-Pythagoreans, the state of the case was evidently well known. And his apology was exactly that of some modern Europeans, who have found if a merit in Eastern authors not to make so much of their individuality as we do; not to put forward any personal claim for their thought. He argued that the procedure was to be commended as a sign of modesty. If we could be perfectly impartial, no doubt we should neither praise nor blame, but simply recognise that it is a mode of authorship normal in a different intellectual environ- ment. When a literature which has arisen in this way has become the basis of a great religion—especially of a religion still accepted in our time and country—the difficulties of the critic are of course increased. More stringent proof of the pseudepigraphic character of Moses is required than of Orpheus. The opponent of ‘‘ destructive criticism’’ can hold to the formal possibility that the writings may belong to the time BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND ITS VERIFICATION 8 supposed, even if the weight of the inductive evidence is against it. He can safely challenge the critic to produce the original manuscripts of the superimposed documents. It is evident that verification cannot be sought along this line. What, then, is the true method of verification, that which must at length carry general conviction if scientific culture does not relapse to a lower stage ? It is no other than the historical or ‘‘ inverse deductive’’ method formulated by Comte and Mill. A generalisation is made inductively from the facts of history. Then it is deduced by showing how the Sequence of events was necessitated according to known laws of human nature. In the special case of Biblical criticism, a certain chronological order of books and portions of books, different from that tradi- tionally assigned, is inferred from analysis, linguistic and other. This order, and the sequence of historical facts derived from it, is then shown to make the process of history naturally or rationally intelligible, as the traditional account does not. By a method of which this is fundamentally the character, a conviction of the truth of what is called the higher criticism, so far as it relates to the Old Testament, has already been brought home to most of the minds that can be got to attend toit. ‘ But,”’ the more ingenious and obstinate traditionalists say to the higher critics, ‘‘ you beg the question. You assume the absolute uniformity of nature. You will not allow any explanation that is not from natural causes. We, on the other hand, believe in super- natural interferences with the course of nature. Now we defy you to disprove a miracle by formal logic. Till you can reduce us to self-contradiction, we hold to the tradition of the religion in which we have been 4 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY brought up. And, as you see, we can do this without abandoning the use of reasoning. To insist that we must admit everywhere iron laws of nature is, out of scientific prejudice, to refuse us the right to prove our case even if there should be actual exceptions to natural law.”’ To this the reply is that, of course, scientific method assumes the uniformity of nature; but that it does not absolutely exclude proof of miracles if they occurred. Suppose that in certain regions of time and space the assumption of uniformity now and then led us astray ; that we ran against empirical facts which reduced it to nonsense at certain points: then we should have to reconsider the question of its universal validity. Suppose, for example, that a priesthood affirms certain events not naturally explicable, and that we meet with specific confirmations of them which stand out from the mass of facts we can explain. Let us put the case that to reason from natural knowledge has led to manifest error about the formation of the earth or the events of Egyptian history; whereas an account declared to be supernaturally revealed is supported by unexpected discoveries, and enables us to think the order of events with logical coherence, provided we dismiss the scientific prejudice in favour of uniformity. This would oblige us to reconsider our position, or at any rate to search for unknown laws. But how different, in the case in question, is the real state of affairs! To point to the issue of the conflict between the quasi-scientific assertions, in cosmology, in geology, in ancient history, to which theologians have com- mitted themselves, and the unbroken career of science, almost savours of a past age. How a religion basing itself from the beginning on such assertions can live without them is not yet revealed; but we are to BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND ITS VERIFICATION 5 understand that the Church no longer insists upon anything that can by any possibility come into con- flict with verified science ; and we are to forget that it ever did. We need not further trouble ourselves about apologetics grounded on an imaginary claim to ! have given a verifiable account of the universe. In fact, critical science has made just as triumphant progress as physical science. The postulate that the history of the Jews, like that of other races, is rationally explicable by natural causes, has led to constantly increased insight. From Spinoza in the seventeenth century to Wellhausen in the nineteenth, the movement has been comparable to any other scientific movement that can be named. Spinoza was successful in breaking down the supernaturalist assumptions by analysis, but he did not put forth a constructive theory which could give permanent satis- faction. He took the idea of the Hebrew common- wealth (respublica Hebreorum) too “ statically ’’; reasoning as if a society fundamentally of the same type had existed all along. Modern criticism at length found the true solution in placing the realisa- tion of the type—so far as it ever was realised—at the end, and explaining it by development, under special circumstances, from a primordial state of things that was far less determinate. Those who redacted their sacred books during that late stage of the national life which we call the ‘‘ theocracy ’’ threw back their ideal into the past; ascribed the final legislative code to ἃ supposed early lawgiver, ‘‘ Moses,” to whom the law had been divinely revealed ; and, with a view to edification, attributed all the errors and misfortunes of the people to deviation from the imaginary revealed code placed at the beginning. In this process, how- ever, the late redactors did not wholly re-write the 6 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY earlier records on which they worked. Portions of the oldest Hebrew literature lie embedded as frag- ments with a newer structure around them. This mode of composition, carried on sometimes for a con- siderable length of time, has led to the existence of ‘* historical ’’ books, not merely of two, but of many strata; each new stratum involving modifications in the history, according as the kind of edification aimed at varied from period to period. The more or less archaic fragments, the words of which had been preserved to a certain extent unmodified as already sacred, gave valuable clues to criticism, which could thus disentangle the extremely complex structure and, within limits, explain the process by which it arrived at the form in which 10 was fixed. This being the character of the Old Testament as literature and history, we should expect similar phenomena in the case of the New Testament, which is its direct descendant. And, a little later, critics are arriving at an equally thoroughgoing rejection of the tradition under which it has long been presented. What seems probable is that we shall find the teaching ascribed to the founder of the new religion and his apostles to be a result of gradual growth, thrown back in imagination to the beginning, like the ideal of the ancient theocracy. The question is, Will this hypo- thesis rationally explain the phenomena of stratifi- cation detected in the books by analysis? For undoubtedly the books do present such phenomena. They are not unitary compositions like those of a Greek or Roman historian, or even romancer. It will help to clear up the problem if we return to the history of the Hebrews, and try to set forth in brief outline some general results of criticism. THE CHURCH-STATE OF JUDMHA 7 2.—The Church-State of Judea. The Jewish theocracy, as it is called—that is, the direction of life by a priesthood speaking in the name of God and appealing to sacred books—was established under the Persian supremacy many years after the chiefs of the nation had been exiled to Babylonia on the conquest of Judwa by Nebuchadnezzar. The exiles, who in the meantime had come in contact with the civilisation of the New Babylonian Empire, must have been considerably influenced by it. Continuous as if was with the immensely long tradition repre- sented by the Assyrian and Old Babylonian monarchies, it stood for a far more elaborate system of life and thought than their own. The extent of the obligation has been partly made out by recent discoveries, but it is yet too early for definitive results to be stated. When the Babylonian dominion had given place to that of the kings of Persia, certain priestly reformers, inheriting the ideals of the prophetic movement that had preceded the exile and had gained some transitory political successes in Judea, were allowed to rebuild the temple of the national God and to remodel the nation as 8 Church. From this and the following period dates not only the redaction of all the sacred literature, but the original composition of ἃ great part of it. If the attempt is made to trace the history of the Hebrews before this time, the condition of the docu- ments puts many difficulties in the way; but it is historically certain that from the ninth century B.c. they had been divided into two kingdoms—the northern kingdom of ‘“‘Israel” and the southern kingdom of ‘“‘Judah.” The former was overthrown by the Assyrian power near the end of the eighth 8 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY century; the latter had survived to the beginning of the sixth. An undivided ‘‘ kingdom of Israel,” described as having existed earlier, had probably been ruled in succession by the two Biblical kings, David and Solomon. The accounts of them, however, are much embellished; and this portion of the record has not yet been confirmed by the monuments of the great empires then existing. It has been conjectured that about the twelfth century s.c. the Israelites formed part of a group of desert tribes making incursions on the cultivated land of Canaan. These tribes, having conquered territories for themselves, took to a settled life, and by degrees formed the nationalities we know as Israel, Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Anything earlier than this is legendary or altogether mythical. On the borders between Palestine and Egypt, Semitic tribes, the kindred of the Israelites, were from time to time subject to the Egyptian Government; but there is nothing whatever to confirm the story with which we are familiar of the captivity of Israel in Egypt and the exodus under Moses.! When we go back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs, we find ourselves in a region of mythical figures turned to literary account; perhaps of old Semitic gods brought down to mortality. The effective beginnings of the literature scarcely date. from an earlier period than the ninth century. From this period come the most archaic portions of the early books. The Israelites were originally polytheists, like the surrounding tribes; but, like the others, they had their own tribal god. The God of Israel was at first worshipped with rites like those of Semitic 1 Cf. Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. THE CHURCH-STATE OF JUDHA 9 ‘“‘heathenism ” generally. He was represented some- times by an image in the form of a man or of an ox. Under the name of ‘the King” (Molech), he was propitiated in times of national calamity by rites of human sacrifice; as was also Chemosh, the god of the kindred Moabites, and the Carthaginian deity whom the Greeks called Cronos. Among the Hebrews, however, there arose in the eighth century the reformers described as prophets. They claimed to speak in the name of Jehovah (as the God of Israel has long been called in European literature) ; denounced many immoral and inhuman cults as contrary to his will; and more especially aimed at the extirpation of ‘‘ idolatry ’’—that is, the represen- tation of Jehovah by any kind of image. He was pre-eminently a ‘‘ jealous god,” who would endure no other divinities beside him. Intolerance of other worships was for the Israelite a sacred duty. Of the kings who had not rigorously practised it, but had allowed foreign cults in their dominions (although they might worship Jehovah first), it was said later that they ‘‘ did evil in the sight of the Lord.” The higher minds among the prophets succeeded at length—how early or how late it is difficult to say —in arriving at an ethical monotheism. Jehovah was the God of the universe; there was no other god; he rewarded righteousness and punished iniquity; he asked not for sacrifice. This concep- tion, it should be needless to point out, was never realised in the public religion. The actual achieve- ment of the prophets was, by forming an alliance with the priests of Jerusalem, to centralise the worship, to put down irregular local cults, and to get rid of ‘‘ graven images.’ By the returning exiles from the sixth to the fifth century s.c.—the national omen, 10 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY monarchy having disappeared—the State was identi- fied with ‘‘the congregation of the Lord.” Pure theocracy was henceforth the ideal. A most elaborate system of sacrifice and ceremonial observance was established, and was declared in the name of Moses to be for all time. Jehovah was identified, as the higher prophets had identified him, with the God of the universe; but he remained essentially an invisible king to be recognised by the State, demanding at the hands of his chosen people a perpétual service of bloodshed and burnt offering. Nevertheless, an interest in questions of moral conduct went on apart from the sacrificial cult. These it was proposed to solve by application of ‘‘ the law.”” There arose what has been called a system of ‘* legal dialectic.” The characteristic Jewish institu- tion of the Synagogue appeared. In the Rabbinic schools there seems to have been a relative freedom of moral and religious life analogous to that of Protes- tantism. The reforming movement, with its stress on the inward disposition, had not been in vain. Private judgment could be used in interpreting the sacred texts. The hierarchy did not grow into an anti- human organisation for the repression of thought. The conception of ‘‘heresy’’ had not yet been evolved. An elaborate cult was still unaccompanied by an elaborate creed. The deepest questions about human destiny might be put freely; and unshrinking dis- cussion of them was admitted in books that came to be regarded as sacred. As time went on the priestly families displayed tendencies to the type of a secular aristocracy. Among their members were afterwards the sceptical Sadducees. When Judea, through the fall of the Persian Empire, came under the dominion of the Greek Kings of Syria, POST-BIBLICAL ESCHATOLOGY OF THE JEWS 11 it needed a national uprising to prevent the hierarchs themselves—rather than the foreign king—from ‘‘Hellenising’”’ their religion and institutions. The contest was fought out, in the second century B.c., between the ideals of a polished decadence and of exclusive theocracy; and the latter triumphed. Under the Maccabees national independence was won, though only to be lost again as the dissolution of Alexander’s world-empire made way for the advance of Rome. Meanwhile, the distinctive line of spiritual life which the nation had marked out for itself was followed to new issues. 38.—Post-Biblical Eschatology of the Jews. A famous work of the Maccabean age marks the transition to a new epoch. The Book of Daniel was written to encourage the pious Jews in their resistance to the Hellenising movement, started from within, but taken in hand with violent caprice by the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes. The composition was attributed to the seer Daniel, a supposed Jewish exile in Babylon four hundred years before the date of the book. Much in it that purports to be prophecy is therefore an account of past events in symbolical form. It became the model of all later apocalypses, both for Jews and Christians. Pseudo-Daniel was not received into the number of the Jewish prophetic books, but only into the class of writings known as Hagiographa. The earliest critic to detect its real character was the philosopher Porphyry in his extensive work against the Christians, known to us now only by the references of ecclesiastical authors. Renan has described the Book of Daniel as a first attempt at a philosophy of history. The Jews, he 12 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY remarks, were in & central position among the great empires, acted as intermediaries, and could observe their transformations from an external point of view. Thus they were prepared to see a general direction of the world-movement and to search for its law. The later apocalypses, with all their supernatural machinery, have something of the same wide outlook. The law of history, according to Daniel, is clearly the successive dissolution of the kingdoms of this world, to give place at last to the universal theocracy foretold by the prophets. And the dream was in a manner fulfilled; though not by the Jews, not to their advantage, and not with the idyllic effect antici- pated in some of the prophecies. When their kingdom of God came, it brought “ not peace, but a sword.” There are indeed prophecies with the tone of which this was quite in unison; but in many there prevails the hope that ‘‘ the nations ”’ will at length feel the attrac- tion of the pure religion revealed to Israel, and will voluntarily submit themselves to its ordinances. Israel is conceived as having for destiny to be a priesthood for the human race. And efforts were made in both directions. While peaceful proselytism was constantly going on, there was no scruple about making war on neighbouring peoples in a religious interest. During the time of Jewish independence the heathen inhabi- tants of Galilee were subjugated and converted to the temple-worship by force. What in general was looked for, however, was ἃ catastrophic change brought to pass without human volition, as part of the design of God with the world. In the later period, the kingdom of God on earth was usually conceived as established by the ‘‘ Messiah’”’ —the ‘‘ Anointed King ’’—a figure derived from various passages in the prophets, and not of wholly consistent POST-BIBLICAL ESCHATOLOGY OF THE JEWS 18 attributes. Among the current inaginations were those of a Messiah ben David who was to be trium- phant, and of a Messiah ben Joseph who was to suffer. Occasionally also in the apocalyptic writers there is no deputed King or Messiah at all; God rules directly. Traces of an anti-monarchical theocratic feeling like that of the Puritans, as we may learn from the canonical books themselves, were not unknown to the Jews. The suffering Messiah combined the ideas of the just man struggling with adversity and of the holy people persecuted by the heathen for adherence to the one true God. Both these modes of suffering had forced themselves as facts on the Jewish mind, and had contributed to modify the prevalent ideas on the destiny of the soul; which, apart from external influences, seem to have undergone changes curiously parallel with those that went forward in a similarly spontaneous manner in Greece. As is well known, there is in the great period of Hebrew literature and religion practically nothing that has reference to personal immortality. The prophetic writers hold that the problem of divine justice finds its complete solution in earthly life, national or individual. It is not that they had con- sciously dismissed that ‘‘ animism’ which 18 man’s first conception of the source of individual life and thought. In the archaic portions of the Bible there is sufficient evidence that the Hebrews were not exceptional in their early ideas. They, too, had the notion of the soul as a kind of breath or shadow. They had their ‘‘ Sheol” for departed souls, as the Greeks had their ‘‘ Hades.’’ The religious reform of the prophets, however, was not specially concerned with this. Jehovah was the God, not of the dead, but 14 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY ,. of the living; like the Olympian gods of Greece. Ideals of righteousness were to be realised and to find their justification on earth. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the notion of a permanent individuality, or even of its manifestation as a ‘* ghost,” ever disappeared from the popular mind. Just as in Greece this played a larger part in the general religion than could be inferred from Homer or Sophocles, so no doubt in δυάδα it went on unaffected by the silence of the prophetic literature. Thus, when the theodicy of the prophets, under stress of the facts of Israel’s destiny, was felt to have broken down, religious thinkers were able to recur to the animistic idea, in order to redress the balance by visions of a future life. Though the parallel with Greece does not altogether fail in this last stage, yet the differences are more conspicuous than the resemblances. In Judea there was ἃ far more decided influence of what we should call the ““ practical reason.’ Ethical aspirations did not, indeed, suggest the thought of survival—it was already there; but they were the motives that set thinkers to work on the problem. And the small part that metaphysics played in the process is seen in the form which the expectation of survival usually took—namely, that of a ‘‘ resurrection of the body.”’ In the Jewish apocalyptic literature the future bodily resurrection of the dead was associated with the coming of the Messiah. When the predicted deliverer has established the kingdom, overthrowing all who resist him among “‘ the nations,” the dead will rise again and join the faithful Israelites who are alive at hiscoming. It is notinconsistent with this, which 18 the general imagination, that the Messianic kingdom should be pictured as enduring on earth. That ALEXANDRIAN JUDAISM 15 kingdom is, of course, the theocracy universalised. Jerusalem is its centre, and all enemies are put under the feet of its Anointed King. In the resurrection sometimes only the righteous have part; sometimes the wicked also are raised up to be punished along with the living enemies of the Messiah. By some visionaries the fate of the heathen at the resurrection is passed over in silence; by others they are included as a matter of course among the “wicked.” The agent of punishment—sometimes of destruction—is the fire of ‘‘Gehenna.”’ Though of different origin as imagery, 10 corresponds in conception with the ‘‘ Tartarus ’’ which, through a mixture of ethical ideas with the primitive, more indeterminate notion of the future, had come to be regarded by the Greeks and Romans as a place of retribution for crimes that had escaped judgment in this life. We have now evidently reached a state of the spiritual atmosphere which explains much in the Gospel; but there are still some further preliminaries. 4.—Alexandrian Judaism. The rather unspeculative, though not unimaginative, character of these ideas need not be attributed to any peculiarity of the Semitic as distinguished from the Aryan race. Indeed, it is not unlikely that they were in part the result of contact with Aryan Persia. Their development is sufficiently explained by the circum- stances of the Palestinian Jews. Among the Jews of the Dispersion those of Alexandria, who had oppor- tunities of coming in contact with Greek philosophy, showed no intrinsic want of aptitude for metaphysics. Philo, their most eminent representative, was an able thinker, though trammelled, like our Western 16 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY scholastics of the Middle Age, by the necessity of limiting himself where ‘‘revealed religion” has spoken. If there was no such living coercive authority to check him, he personally desired to remain a faithful adherent of the Mosaic law. He was at work during the early years of the Christian era; but the move- ment he represents can be traced back, like the production of the apocalyptic literature, to at least the second century B.c. When Hebrew religion and Greek philosophy met, some degree of interest could not fail to be aroused on both sides. We know more about the impression made on the Jews. The thinkers among them per- ceived that some among the Greeks had attained to as pure ideas of divinity as theirown. To the original contact with Greek thought must be ascribed, indeed, the beginnings of the effort to explain away those anthropomorphisms in the Bible which were a scandal to Jewish and Christian theologians till the higher criticism shifted the problem. What is known as the ‘‘ Wisdom-literature " is already touched by the Greek spirit. Philo’s historical significance is due to his strenuous effort of reconciliation on the same line. In elaborating with the aid of his philosophical learning the half-personalised abstractions, called Wisdom, or Spirit, or Word, through which the transcendent God of Platonising Judaism could be conceived as acting on matter, he provided Christian speculators in advance with their conception of the Logos. The difference is that for Philo the personality of the Logos, or mediating Word, could be set aside when he was in a less mythological mood and more anxious to agree with the philosophers. It took its start, not from interest in an actual person or a concrete myth, but from more or less conscious ALEXANDRIAN JUDAISM 17 philosophical mythologising to meet certain difficul- ties of a monotheistic creed. But if Israel had received its monotheism by divine revelation, how was the attainment of the same conviction by heathen philosophers to be explained? To admit that it could be attained by natural light would make revelation superfluous, or would place the chosen people on an inferior level. In the absence of philological science, it was easy to devise an explanation. The Pen- tateuch, as every one knew, was of primeval antiquity. The Greek philosophers, it was equally well known, had all borrowed their systems from the East. Evidently, then, the Mosaic revelation, or some fragments of it, had been communicated to Plato and Aristotle. This was in its way a liberal view. It permitted the pious Israelite to read and appreciate the books of the heathen. The more open-minded of the Christian Fathers in their turn found it very con- venient ; and as late as the seventeenth century it was still quite alive. In any case, the knowledge that the educated portion of the heathen world, so far as it was religious at all, was permeated with a philosophical theology not unlike that which could be stated as the essence of their own religion, furnished the cosmopolitan Jews with an excellent opening for proselytising. The claim could be made to instruct the multitude authori- tatively in a wisdom long recognised by the few in their own lands. Besides, the Jews came from the Kast, to which the peoples of the West were accus- tomed to look as the home of esoteric mysteries. One form which proselytism took was accordingly the writing of those Greek compositions in verse known as the Sibylline Oracles. The Cumean, or σ 18 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY some other Sibyl, was represented as proclaiming the superiority of the Jewish religion to all others, the falsity of ‘‘idols,” and the identity of the God of the Jews with the God of the universe. Beyond their pure theism, the Sibylline books contained Messianic elements. Hence they came to be much appealed to on behalf of Christianity ; for which reason Celsus, in his True Word addressed to the Christians, gave them the name of ‘‘ Sibyllists.”’ The appeal to the Greek-speaking world was much facilitated by the Septuagint translation of the Bible, which had proceeded from Alexandria. At the opening of the Christian era Hebrew existed only as a learned language. The language of Palestine was Aramaic; and the Scriptures, for popular use, needed interpretation into it. Among the Greek- speaking Jews of the Roman Empire the Septuagint was the version in use. Thus there could be put into the hands of proselytes an authorised collection of literature containing the very revelation which, as their new instructors would tell them, they vainly sought in the mysteries of Phrygia or of Egypt. No other religion could offer them the sacred books of an ancient and still living priesthood translated into the vernacular. 5.—The Preparation for the Gospel. Hopeful as the outlook may have appeared for great conquests of the religion of Israel over the old religions of the Mediterranean world, it was not pure Judaism that was to profit by the situation. The reasons that have ordinarily been assigned for this by Christian apologists are sufficient on the whole, though they lead to unexpected conclusions. THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 19 But first it may be premised that Hebrew religion had nothing to teach the philosophic schools. Probably the verdict of any religious-minded Platonist would have differed little from that of Julian: that the prophets had indeed, by narrowing their vision for all else, caught a glimpse of one great truth—the unity of directive power in the universe—but that in their expression of it there was more of fire than of light. If any distinct influence could have found access to classical culture, it was on the ssthetic side; and the treatise On the Sublime suffices to prove that a critic with academical standards was not insensitive to the peculiar quality of Hebrew literature. On the side of thought it was the Jews who underwent influence. With the establishment of amicable relations between Jew and Greek, in a world of continued speculative freedom, this influence would no doubt have gone further. The personality of Jehovah even might have been merged in a pantheistic conception, as 16 tended to be among small groups of the heterodox in the Middle Ages. This, however, would scarcely have affected the multitude; and it is with the fortunes of popular religion that we are at present concerned. For the many, it is usually said, Judaism had, on the one hand, too much the character of an abstract monotheism; while, on the other hand, it was too stringent in its demand for the observance of a minute ritual. And, of course, proselytes from among the heathen could not feel any deep interest in those discussions of the law which were a delight to the pious Pharisee. To become an adept in them would have required a training as difficult in its way as that of the Hellenic schools. But new religions appealed precisely to those who found the path of philosophy arduous. Above all, a pathetic religion was needed. 20 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY Who was to take the place of the slain and suffering divinities already introduced from the mystic Hast ; of Dionysus and Adonis and Attis and Osiris; of the sorrowing Isis, and of Cybele, the mother of the Gods ? Could Judea, in fashions unknown to its doctors of the law, offer any such objects of devotion? And could that high tone of authority also be retained which was assumed by proselytisers orthodox in their own national monotheistic religion, who claimed to teach as a divine revelation what had been for the wisest among the Greeks at best a result of fallible human reasoning ? The former question, as we know, was solved by the emergence of a cult directed to the crucified Son of God. The latter was solved by the destruc- tion of the temple at Jerusalem. The old hierarchy thus overthrown, the way was left clear for a new one to claim the succession to its authority. Such a hierarchy was formed among the groups of societies practising the cult; and it displayed the requisite vigour and adaptiveness. It soon had sacred books of its own, which it appended to the older Scriptures. The generalised ideas of official Judaism, the Messianic hope, Hellenistic myth and ritual, ethical and meta- physical ideas that had passed into currency, and in particular the idea of personal ‘‘salvation”’ in a future life, were all in due proportion assimilated. A new religion had appeared, which at length succeeded in imposing itself in the Roman Empire. By what process did it first emerge? Was the slain god originally a human person, an ethical teacher put to death by the Procurator of Judea to appease the Jewish authorities whom his teaching had offended ? Did he first, from a prophet or Rabbi with a group of disciples, come to be regarded as the Messiah, and THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 21 then afterwards, on non-Jewish ground, receive full apotheosis? Was the cult as well as the mythology thus an accretion, in small part Jewish, in large part Hellenistic, that gathered round an actual human being who was “‘ deified ”’ 2 A majority of non-traditionalist critics would probably answer these questions in the affirmative. There is, however, a dissentient minority. Before deciding, we must ask, first, what evidence there is for the historical events assumed to be recorded in the New Testament. Then, if we find that there is no real evidence, we must go on to ask, in the second place, whether the beginnings of the Christian Church can be explained without supposing its story of Christ to have a basis of fact. Now the Gospels, to which the primary appeal has to be made, cannot be regarded as historical docu- ments. They are of unknown authorship and of composite origin. Their probable date is more than two generations after the events they professedly record, and they are of miracle-stories all compact. The teacher never appears as ἃ mere human being, but as ‘“‘the Lord,” the ‘‘Son of God.” His birth is miraculous. His death on the cross is not described with accompaniments that were those of a Roman execution, but with the characteristic details of various rites of human sacrifice known in all parts of the world from India to Mexico. To all of them a mystic signi- ficance is attributed. Asa teacher, he from the first claims authority to reverse the decisions of the ancient lawgiver of his nation: if he approves of the law, that, too, is by his authority. Weare remote enough here from memoirs of some one who really lived. Is there, then, any external evidence pointing to some nucleus of actual occurrence? The answer 22 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY must be that there is none whatever. The only apparent exception is the celebrated passage in the Annals of Tacitus (xv. 44). This passage itself, indeed, defies all scepticism ;1 yet on every side it has been found puzzling. It only becomes clear by the ad- mission that, in the period to which it refers, there was as yet no Christianity in our sense of the term— that is, no belief in a Christ who was said to have appeared at a definite place and time. The account is briefly this. To divert from himself the suspicion of having caused the great fire at Rome in the year 64 (for the sake of his ambitious archi- tectural schemes), the Emperor Nero accused those who were commonly called Christians. Christus, the author of that name, had been put to death in the reign of Tiberius by Pontius Pilatus, the Procurator. The dire superstition (exitiabilis superstitio), repressed for ἃ moment, burst forth again, and spread from Judea, the original seat of the evil, to Rome itself. Inquiries being now instituted with reference to the conflagration, a vast multitude was in the end seized. The accused were convicted, not so much of having caused the fire as of ‘‘ hatred of the human race.” Their punishment was of Neronian atrocity ; 1 Not that the recurrent scepticism about the works of Tacitus has been purely and simply idle. The age when the principal part of them came to light bears a superficial resemblance to that of which he wrote. The Renaissance in Italy and the early Roman Empire were alike violently sensational. A deeper resemblance is that the two periods, of Roman and of modern European history, were corresponding phases on “the way down” and “the way up ”—the descent to theocratic monarchy and the return. Thus, forgery of the Annals (by Poggio Bracciolini) was a suggestion not quite devoid of plausibility ; though exact scrutiny entirely confirms the genuineness of the work. To suppose the particular passage on the Christians an interpolation is confessed to be hopeless. THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 23 so that, in spite of the guilt imputed to them, com- passion arose for their fate; since it was felt that their sufferings had been inflicted not for the public good, but to satiate the cruelty of one man. A difficulty in this account is the absolute want of plausibility of such a charge against the early Chris- tians of legend. The commentators have pointed out that it would have been much more plausible against apocalyptic Jewish fanatics; and the suggestion has been made that the real ‘‘ Christians ’’ were somehow mixed up with these, who formed the chief portion of the ‘‘ vast multitude.” On this hint let us put the extreme hypothesis that there were no Christians at all in our sense; and that there could not be, because the author of the sect was mythical, and the circumstantial form of the myth had not then arisen. We shall find that every statement of Tacitus falls spontaneously into its place. Christians, as we understand the term, existed, of course, in the time of the historian himself, who was writing under Trajan early in the second century. It is to their faith that he applied his memorable phrase. Having been a Roman official, he would know or suspect something of the close and authoritative organisation of the rising Church; and he may have heard rumours as to the damnatory character of its creed. The almost colourless statement about the founder he would naturally take from what was repeated in common by the Christians of his own day. He would see no reason for rejecting the assertion that the author of a new sect, presumably anti-Roman, had ‘‘ suffered under Pontius Pilate,” a Procurator detested by the nationalist Jews. To suppose that he may have derived the information from the ““ Roman archives” is perfectly gratuitous. He 24 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY was trying to get at the history of the sect by the procedure known to students of sources as ““ combina- tion.”” Here is no testimony to the crucifixion inde- pendent of the Christian belief which, in the same age, was incorporated in the Gospels. But why should “Christians” be spoken of as existing in the time of Nero? And what is the his- torical basis of the account? There is no difficulty about the answer. By no other name could Greeks or Romans speak of Messianic Jews. Now, we know that soon after the date of the great fire the revolt of Judwa broke out, which was suppressed by Vespasian and Titus. It may reasonably be inferred from Suetonius (Claud. 25) that the tumults he mentions as having gone on among the Jews of Rome earlier were associated with Messianic movements.1 We know also the type of apocalyptic expectations current among the Messianists. At the coming of the Anointed King from the East, the secular world-State was to be dissolved amid slaughter and universal conflagra- tion, over which the saints of the theocracy would ever- lastingly exult. When the Jewish community every- where was seething with preludes of insurrection set going by these hopes, who could be more speciously accused of incendiarism than those among them by whom the Messiah—‘‘ the Christ ”’ (χριστός, ‘Anointed) —was most vividly expected? And would not the beliefs about the end of all things which they would confidently express bring them, in the eyes of “ the heathen’’ who were to be destroyed, under what might 1 The ground for this inference is the curious phrase ‘‘ impulsore Chresto.’? Suetonius evidently thought the Jews had been rioting under the incitement of a party leader named Chrestus (the pro- nunciation of which name in Greek would be identical with that of 66 Christus ἡ. THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 25 seem the justified charge of ‘hatred of the human race,” even if it should be made clear that they were falsely accused of setting fire to the city? That a “vast multitude’’ of apocalyptic Jews (including perhaps Greek-speaking proselytes) could be arrested in Rome, then largely of foreign population, there is no reason to doubt; so that, if the real victims of Nero were fanatical Jews, the historian need not be accused of exaggerating. With this view the small amount of reference made for a long time by Church- writers to the so-called ‘‘ Neronian persecution ”’ is in harmony.! They knew nothing of it from their own tradition ; and, when they came to speak of it, merely transmitted the misunderstanding of Tacitus, who, from the identity of name, had confused the Mes- sianists of Nero’s time with the new sect of Christians in the time of Trajan. Still, though there is nothing that can be called historical evidence for the existence of a personal Christ whose name was adored by a group of believers as early as the reign of Nero, may not the hypothesis be necessary to explain the legend? The Gospels assign his appearance to the reign of Tiberius and to the Procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. Cannot this information have been correctly preserved by oral transmission till the accounts were written down early in the second century? I had thought that some such view might be defended; but, partly 1 The passage in Juvenal (i. 155) which has been supposed to refer to the same event is also quite consistent with the view taken. Speak your mind of the creature of a tyrant, says Juvenal, and you will be made ἃ ‘live torch.’? This suggests that those who were thus punished had displayed an insurrectionary spirit. Now the Christians prided thengBlves on never having been insurgents. ‘‘ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers”; even if the higher powers should happen to be Nero and Tigellinus. 26 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY by the arguments of Mr. Robertson,’ and partly by confirmation of them since met with, I have been led to a different conclusion. The real basis of the Christian community I take to have been, as Mr. Robertson holds, a cult which was connected with a Jesus or Joshua long since conceived as of divine status. The story of a quasi-historic Jesus grew out of immemorial elements of native Semitic ritual and myth which now rose to the surface after ages of obscure persistence beneath the official and Pharisaic Jewish religion.? To form the definitive myth, this story combined with Hellenistic stories of similar type, itself undergoing modification in the process. Elements of what is called ‘‘ heathenism ”’ are, of course, to be detected in the canonical Hebrew Scrip- tures. Julian had no difficulty in proving this against the claim that as a whole they taught an absolutely pure monotheism. He could even show that the ‘‘devil-worship” of which the Jews, and the Christians after them, were fond of accusing ‘‘ the nations ’’ was not absent in their own documents. His interpreta- tion of the scapegoat, sacrificed to Azazel, has been confirmed by modern critical science. Thus there is no paradox if we find in apocryphal or Christian books still more distinct traces of lingering polytheism. A particular confirmation of Mr. Robertson’s view 1 See his works, Christianity and Mythology (1900), 4 Short History of Christianity (1902), and Pagan Christs (1903). 3 Compare Grant Allen’s remark that Christianity as known to us from the New Testament and the works of the Fathers ‘‘ embraces in itself elements which doubtless lingered on in secluded corners more or less among the mass of the people even in Judea itself, though discountenanced by the adherents of the priestly and official Jahweh- worship ; but which were integral parts of the popular and even the recognised religion throughout the whole of northern Syria’’ (The Evolution of the Idea of God, R.P. A. edition, p. 130). THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL 27 to which I desire to draw attention is an older reading in the Epistle of Jude (recognised in the margin of the Revised Version). It occurs in verse 5, and its significance is brought out by verse 6. “1 will there- fore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that Jesus [that is, Joshua, instead of ‘ the Lord ’] having saved the people out of the land of Egypt the second time [Moses having saved them the first time] afterward destroyed them that believed ποὺ." The next verse proceeds: ‘‘ And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.’ Plainly the binding of erring angels can only be attributed to a supernatural being, and not to a mere national hero. And it must be remembered that the Epistle is a Judeo-Christian, not a ‘‘ heathen Chris- tian,” work. With this passage from a book of the New Testament, it is interesting to compare a Messianic prophecy from the Sibylline Oracles, trans- lated by the Rev. W. J. Deane as follows :? “ΝΟΥ͂ a certain excellent man shall come again from heaven, who spread forth his hands upon the very fruitful tree, the best of the Hebrews, who once made the sun stand still, speaking with beauteous words and pure 1108." Here, as Mr. Robertson would say, we observe the conception passing into that of the Teaching God. 1 T give the passage as it stands in Buttmann’s Greek Testament: ὑπομνῆσαι δὲ ὑμᾶς βούλομαι, εἰδότας ὑμᾶς ἅπαξ πάντα, ὅτι ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς λαὸν ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου σώσας τὸ δεύτερον τοὺς μὴ πιστεύσαντας ἀπώλεσεν, ἀγγέλους τε τοὺς μὴ τηρήσαντας τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀρχὴν ἀλλὰ ἀπολιπόντας τὸ ἴδιον οἰκητήριον εἰς κρίσιν μεγάλης ἡμέρας δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν. 3 Pseudepigrapha (1891), p. 312.—The original is given at the end of the article on ‘ Apocalyptic Literature’? in the Encyclopedta Biblica. 28 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY The ‘‘ very fruitful tree’’ (or ‘‘ tree of fair fruit’) has reference, of course, to that sacrificial idea of which the implications have been brought out by Mr. Frazer in The Golden Bough. We evidently have here, in the idea already present on Jewish ground of a deliverer with divine name and attributes, a possible centre of a new growth. This renders superfluous Mr. Frazer’s own explana- tion of the Christian cultus as the starting of the sacrificial idea into renewed vitality through the death of an actual Jesus—the Galilwan teacher—selected, by the machinations of sacerdotal hostility, as the victim of a surviving annual rite at Jerusalem in which usually a condemned criminal played the part of a dying god. For Mr. Frazer’s tentative hypothesis there can be substituted a combination of the positive results of his great anthropological investigation with the results, negative as well as positive, of Biblical criticism.! The particular events related in the Gospels did not happen ; but, as Mr. Robertson puts it, the story condenses a whole phase—indeed, more than one phase—of religion in a single figure. The human victim is crucified as the incarnation of the god. He has the attributes of a corn-god and of a wine-god ; hence his body and blood can be partaken of sacramentally by eating bread and drinking wine. He rises again from the dead. His death and resur- 1 Does not a generalised position stated by Mr. Frazer himself tend to exclude his hypothesis so far as it would apply also to the sacramental meal? ‘‘ People do not usually observe a custom because on a particular occasion a mythical being is said to have acted in a certain way. But, on the contrary, they very often invent myths to explain why they practise certain customs.” (The Golden Bough, 2nd ed., vol. ii., p. 420.) On the annual sacrificial rite, compare Mr. Robertson’s remarks (Pagan Christs, pp. 153 ff.), starting from the variant ᾿Ιησοῦν Βαραββᾶν in Matt. xxvii. 16. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 29 rection are celebrated annually, at the season when celebrations of the death and new birth of deities— whether representative of the forces of vegetation or of the power of the sun—are usual. With this most archaic conception, according to which the god is slain in his prime so that he may regain his vigour in a new manifestation, the piacular idea is combined. Sinless himself, he was made a sacrifice for the sins of others. His death, therefore, coincides in time with an old piacular rite, the Passover, probably itself derived from a custom of human sacrifice. Then, since the new religion of the Incarnate God adopts the sacred books of its predecessor as its own, all other conceptions have to be reconciled with Jewish monotheism. Hence the problem of Christian theo- logy, handed down from the New Testament to the Fathers and from the Fathers to the Schoolmen. 6.—The Destruction of Jerusalem and its Consequences. But, if we accept some view of this kind, the question still remains for decision, When did the cult first draw to itself a new myth in a concrete form ? . The answer I propose is, that it was not until after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. That great crisis unloosed ideas which had long been pre- paring. We know both from Josephus and from Tacitus that prodigies were reported to have taken place before the fall of the Temple. A voice louder than human was heard proclaiming the departure of “the gods.” But few, says Tacitus, interpreted this in the sense of fear: most were persuaded that it was contained in the ancient scriptures of the priests that at that time the East should wax strong, and that 80 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY men going forth from Judsa should possess the world.! Now these hopes were not abandoned by the orthodox Jews themselves till long after. The Gentile proselyte to Judaism was still a familiar figure at Rome in the reign of Domitian, and even later, as we may infer from Juvenal—who, it may be noted, at the beginning of the second century knows nothing of the Christians. It was not until the total annihilation of the Jewish polity, in consequence of the revolt suppressed by Hadrian, that the religion retired into the all but complete exclusiveness it has ever since maintained. And by that time the orthodox proselytism, reserving as it did for born Israelites the position of a religious aristocracy, had been superseded by that of the Christians, who had gone forth from among them. Thus it seems probable that, just after the catastrophe of the year 70, those Jews or semi-Jews who for any reason were discontented with the hierarchy and the Rabbis would show quite exceptional activity. For they too were penetrated with the national hopes, and the accepted leaders of the people had failed. Let a rumour go forth that the Messiah who was to suffer, and then to triumph,” had already appeared and undergone that which was foretold by the prophets. Would not this gain instant credence with many? And here is such basis as may be found for 8 myth. There was nothing incredible in the asser- tion that one who had been sent to lead the nation along a new way had been crucified by Pontius Pilate, whose Procuratorship was now in the past, and was remembered as a harsh one for the Jews. The name of Jesus—an actual name in Palestine—was destined 1 TI have quoted the original in a note to the exposition of Van Manen. 2 A syncretism was, of course, made of the two ideas. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 81 for the new deliverer as being that of the ancient god transformed into a national leader. Evucharists, par- taken of by limited circles, existed among the Jews as elsewhere. And these circles, with their devotion to unofficial mysteries, were likely to retain the most archaic religious ideas. Thus there was already a cult and organisation prepared to receive so congenial a new belief. Enough is known of such confraternities to make it intelligible that extended associations grow- ing out of them should become very powerful. This, indeed, was one ground for suspicion on the part of the Roman government, not now displayed for the first time. A new proselytising society, if it could not make its innocence of all far-reaching designs very clear, was sure to find itself classed among un- lawful collegia. And, asa matter of fact, no sooner did the conception of the Christian Church as one great organisation begin to exist than such designs were inseparable from its life. On the ethical side it was easy to ascribe to the new deliverer a reformed teaching which some among the best minds, reacting against the superfetation of official ritual and casuistry, desired to educe from the ancient books. Thus might appear the first collec- tions of sayings attributed to Jesus. If this was ἃ comparatively early movement, originating in Palestine, then we can explain the difference between the impression made on a modern liberal Jew by the Synoptic Jesus and by the Paul of the Epistles.! The teaching primarily attributed to the founder represents ἃ phase of moral reflection that was really 1 See the article by Mr. Montefiore quoted in a note to the exposi- tion of Van Manen; and compare the Master of Balliol’s observations in the Hibbert Journal for October, 1903 (vol. ii., p. 16). 82 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY in contact with the law, and could criticise its short- comings and those of its expositors with effect. The Pauline writings represent Gentile Christianity, to which “‘ the law’ was an abstraction. For the Pauline groups the main interest lay in developing the idea of the supernatural Christ on the lines of an incipient theology and ““ soteriology.”’ And this development, as Van Manen has shown, was Hellenistic, and was removed at least one stage from the origin of the religion of Jesus. The teaching, so far as it is not disfigured by eccle- siastical accretions, such as the commission to certain persons to forgive sins, and so forth, is that which has conferred on Christianity its attraction for minds which the dogma leaves unaffected or rouses to revolt. Yet pagan opponents like Celsus were able to prove that, to one who knew the philosophers, it was not fundamentally original. It was not, of course, derived from philosophy. By modern criticism its derivation from Hebrew sources has been traced. Its notable sayings are for the most part to be be read word for word in the Old Testament. The exaltation of the poor and oppressed was no new thing, but had long been a distinctive feature of Hebrew literature ; so much so that it had modified the connotations of Greek words used in the Septuagint.! The Greek classical literature, with its insistence on justice first and foremost, does not dwell so much on the side of conduct which this expresses.” Recognitions of it, however, are not wanting ; so that 1 See Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek. 2 The Golden Rule, which touches both sides, is, of course, to be found not only in Greek, but in Chinese classics long before the Christian era. (Whether it occurs in the positive or in the negative form is immaterial.) THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 88 the later representatives of the classical spirit could show that kindness to the unfortunate, though in their time, as they admitted, more practised by Jews and Christians, was, nevertheless, in their own traditions. Any moderns who imagine that the virtue of com- passion was invented by Christianity, or even by Hebraism, may be confuted by sayings dating not solely from the cosmopolitan period of Greco-Roman ethics, but from the militant period of the city-State.’ And here natural feeling is trusted in the last resort: the appeal is not to the authority of a divine person who has commanded men to be humane under the promise of heaven and the threat of hell. The ascetic side of Christianity was hardly at all distinctive till it degenerated into repulsive monkery. Whatever may be thought of the ascetic movement of later antiquity, if was in its origins undoubtedly ‘‘ pagan.” Its great representatives were the Neo- Pythagoreans, who included in their ascetic discipline, besides chastity, abstinence from flesh and wine. Their abstinence from flesh had for one motive com- passionate feeling towards the lower animals. Now this, although not usually carried to the same length, is ἃ part of all modern non-Catholic ethics ; but, while it may be traced equally in ‘‘ Hebraism’”’ and in ‘‘ Hellenism,” if gets no special recognition from Christianity. ‘‘ Doth God take care for oxen?” asks the Apostle of the Gentiles. Around the central figure of the religion, to whom the widened ethical teaching of certain Aramaic- speaking groups may have been first ascribed, there gathered at length all kinds of typical stories of divine teachers. Some of these stories are said to be of 1 τοῖς ἥσσοσιν γὰρ πᾶς τις εὐνοίας φέρει. Aesch. Supp. 489. D 84 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY Buddhistic origin. What was required of neophytes, however, was not acceptance of the teaching, but belief in the miraculous resurrection of ‘“‘the Lord.’’ There is no vestige of evidence for any early or earliest Christianity that was simply a moral rule of life. The simplest form of faith described in the Christian record is the confession that the Jesus of whose life and death oral accounts were in circulation was the Messiah - the Christ.” Few of the Hellenistic converts of Syria or Asia Minor, where Christianity gained its first successes, would have the competence or the desire to investigate such accounts. If any displayed the inclination, they were told that belief without evidence was a virtue. The story, besides, had close affinity with their own religious ideas; and it had been placed in the time before a convulsion deeply affecting all who, practising less organised cults, looked with awe on the tremendous claims of Judaism. The Messiah of the Jews, it could now be declared in terms of a typical and world-wide myth, had suffered and risen again from the dead. He would return to reward those who believed, and to punish unbelievers with destruction. Thus the old theocratic dream reappeared. The initiates of the emergent cult had no thought of giving up the expec- tation of universal dominion bequeathed to them, as they held, by their forefathers, natural or spiritual. Their kingdom was not of this world; because, when it came, the world—or the present age—would be destroyed. Their Jerusalem was a New Jerusalem ; hence they need not regret the old. Peaceful and violent theocratic aspirations were mingled, as with their predecessors. By some among them it was desired that everything should be done by mild per- suasion; others looked forward to plagues and THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 35 earthquakes and flaming fire. As the orthodox Jews did not enthusiastically receive the new Gospel, or ‘“‘glad tidings,”’ the responsibility for the death of the promised Redeemer began to be cast upon them, and withdrawn as much as possible from the Roman governor. Prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem, and parables prefiguring the rejection of the unbeliev- ing Jews from the promised kingdom, were put in the mouth of Jesus. The new sect turned more and more to the Gentiles. The feast is for all except those men who were first invited: if any are unwilling, the servants of the kingdom must ‘‘ compel them to come in.’’! Jesus, it was held, had sent forth his mystic Twelve Apostles—corresponding to the twelve patriarchs and the twelve tribes of Israel. He had commissioned them to teach all nations, and had appointed the ceremonies of his religion—in reality, immemorial usages, Jewish and pagan. A story of his betrayal grew up. He had been “ bought with a price,” like the victims of known human sacrifices. A Mystery Drama came into being, setting forth his Crucifixion and Resurrection and the associated events. This is the basis of the extant narrative; as is especially evident in our first two Gospels.? Hellenistic ritual and mythology—in their remoter origin themselves Asiatic—contributed to the syncretism. The mythical development was accompanied or followed by specu- lations of a more intellectual kind. In about a generation from the fall of the Temple, the way had been prepared for the new movement called Paulinism. 1 This text was used later in support of persecution. 2 Mr. Robertson, I think, has convincingly made out this point. See, in particular, 4 Short History of Christianity, pp. 87-89. 86 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY To understand the exact position, however, we must go back and consider, in its bearing on the future of religion, the process of development undergone by the ancient classical world till it was confronted with Christianity. mi 7.—The Anti-Hellenic Reaction. In the West a new type of civilisation had arisen different from that of Asia. Its characteristics were political self-government as opposed to absolutism, humanist as distinguished from theological culture, and (in tendency) the direction of life by ideas attained through a process of unfettered thought as opposed to its direction under the traditional system of a priestly hierarchy. No hard-and-fast division between East and West, indeed, has ever existed grounded in these distinctions; but on the whole they describe the fundamental contrast. The Western type was developed with various degrees of purity by the Greek cities, and afterwards by Rome. Its ideal has by all later generations been found in Athens in the fifth century p.c. This ideal was not, of course, realised without imperfections : the representatives, for example, of popular govern- ment and of philosophy did not always understand that their causes were united. The progressive move- ment, besides, was stopped; so that in many ways the humanity and sense of justice displayed even by not extraordinary minds had no chance of coming to fruition. To this period the ancients themselves looked back as the humanist ideal. Cicero, at the opening of the fifth book of his De Finibus, already treats it as a sacred antiquity, very much as we do ourselves. From the collapse of the Athenian power THE ANTI-HELLENIC REACTION 37 at the end of the great age, the world has never since wholly recovered ; that is to say, if we consider, not individual men of genius nor yet mere expansion, but conceptions of life as realised in political societies without reference to their magnitude. The civilisa- tion of renascent or modern Europe is on a larger scale, but it still remains, even at the height, deeply entangled in the systems that were imposed by reaction from the East. On a general survey, we perceive that, in the nature of things, a polity of yesterday, surrounded on the one side by complex civilisations reaching back through millennia, and on the other by groups of barbarian tribesmen, could not permeate the whole world with light by a continuous process. The sudden emergence of light was, in fact, owing to a conjuncture of favourable circumstances as well as to the natural genius of a race. The statesmen of later antiquity, when the reversal had begun, per- fectly understood that, on the whole, their business was to check a decline. The first Eastern institution to return was absolute monarchy; the second was theocracy.! The two were fatally connected, though it was still a question whether the latter should be nominal or should be an active power in the State. ‘‘The mightiest Julius,”’ 1 Perhaps it is not strictly accurate to say that they ‘‘ returned ”’; for, apart from imitation of the East by the West, they did not exist except in isolated cases such as that of Druidism—a, typical theocracy which, itself supreme, gave solidity to the power of the kings or chiefs. What is meant is that, although a higher type had appeared in a portion of the world, the old civilisation, with its immense prestige, had still power to sap the new and subdue it to its level. Germs of freedom, however, remained latent, partly in literature and partly in institu- tions; and, from the later Middle Ages onward, they have so far succeeded in growing. - πον, - EL oe nee ie Coe κῶν Oey 7 age 88 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY the descendant of gods and kings, displayed his usual clear insight when he staked his whole future on being made Pontifex Maximus. United in one person or separated, the kingly and priestly dignities were henceforth necessary to each other. The framework of the republican type remained, indeed, after the victory of the monarchical cause; and it is easy to undervalue its preservation. In reality, it gave the Roman Empire what still distinguished it from the monarchies of the East. ‘‘ Cesarism ”’ in the proper sense of the term—which may be described as a system resting on military loyalty to a quasi-royal family—lasted only from the battle of Actium to the death of Nero. With Vespasian came a prelude to the recovery of influence by that party in the Senate which, sustained by the Stoic philosophy, had resisted pure absolutism. The reform was retarded for an interval by the tyranny of Domitian—more frightful in its sheer oppressiveness than anything that had gone before; but tyrannicide laid the foundation of nearly a century’s good government. The Emperors of the second century took in hand the task of organising the imperial system so as to make the monarchy, as Tacitus put it, compatible with liberty. By Marcus Aurelius ‘‘Cesarism’’ was expressly repudiated ; and his ideal of a monarchy republican in spirit was still official in the third century. The Roman Empire, according to the view put forward, was not to be confounded with an Asiatic despotism. The Emperor did not rule by arbitrary will, but according to law and for the common good. It was admitted that the rule of a single person had only become necessary through want of sufficient virtue in the multitude. If the republic had been possible, it would have been better that it should be retained. THE ANTI-HELLENIC REACTION 39 The old basis of civic religion also, it was held, must as far as possible be preserved. Suppression of barbarian cults, or their assimilation to the civic type, was to be undertaken by the State in accordance with the ideas of philosophical reformers. Human sacrifices were legally abolished, as they have been by the British Government in India. Apart from abuses which it was hoped might gradually be got the better of, each city or country was to continue the practice of its own religion. This, indeed, had been the position of the early Cesars themselves. Augustus promoted religious reaction on a Roman basis; but, like his successors for nearly two centuries after his death, he maintained the old hostility to ‘* foreign superstitions.” Those who directed practical affairs knew all along the terrible power latent in popular religion and the susceptibility of the multitude to waves of fanaticism. Civic religion, with its administration by State function- aries and its esthetic forms used as a means of beautify- ing life, was obviously an artificial structure. The true natural religion, as Cardinal Newman perceived and said, is of the barbarian type; and, as he pro- ceeded to show, it is this that contains the root-ideas of the Christian revelation. From foreign cults at Rome there were occasions when nothing less was feared than the subversion of the State. The popular appeal in support of the native religion against more exciting mysteries could only be to patriotism. When this atrophied through loss of liberty, the whole battle was lost. At Athens it was no accident that Demos- thenes should try to associate his Macedonising rival with the invocation of “Yune "Arrne,”Arrne’Yune. The overlordship of King Philip and the introduction of a strange god from Asia were instinctively seen to be | ! PT ed — ee wor 40 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY parts of the same process. The process was complete when the mob of Antioch acclaimed ‘‘ the Chi and the Kappa’’! against a sovereign who would not allow himself to be called ‘‘ despot.” On the other side of the account, it must be remembered that the monarchy of Philip and Alexander was the means of introducing Hellenic culture into the Oriental world. And that culture penetrated by its pervasive force beyond the dominions of Alexander’s successors. The kings of Parthia, for example, called themselves officially ‘‘ phil-Hellene.” Asia, however, soon grew weary of this. The aggres- sion of the West, ending in the conquests of the Roman Republic, at length stirred up the deep under- : lying desire to return to its own type. The popula- ' tions, as has often been observed, were glad to be relieved from the contests of unfamiliar political factions, and to know only ‘‘ Cesar’; but rumours such as that which is mentioned by Tacitus as current during the siege of Jerusalem reveal a pro- founder sentiment. The Jews, however, were too isolated in the East itself to fulfil the oracle literally, and to go forth and conquer in the name of resurgent darkness. Besides, the nobler elements in their character did not permit them to evolve the required ethics of submission. Jerusalem was not the cradle of the Catholic Church. The name of Christian was said to have been first heard at Antioch. With this it is in accordance that one legend makes Peter bishop there before he became bishop of Rome. Now Antioch, while extremely cosmopolitan, was at the same time, as we know from Philostratus, the special aversion of the 1 Christ and Constantius. THE ANTI-HELLENIC REACTION 41 men of Hellenic culture. It was as typically un- Hellenic as it was Hellenistic. Around Antioch as a centre the literature of the new religion may have begun early in the second century. Up to then we may suppose the mythology to have been elaborated by way of oral transmission and modification. About the time of the first writings the sect had attracted the attention of the Roman authorities. Soon it began to “‘ appeal unto Cesar’’; as the heroes of its legend were to be represented as having done in the past. Keeping out of sight its sacramental and sacrificial base and its hierocratic superstructure, it tried to gain the sympathy of influential men by putting in the forefront its monotheism and the purity of its morals. It claimed to be especially useful in promoting obedience to the magistrates. But always, as Renan has pointed out, its hope was in the Emperors personally. The fable that, on a report by Pontius Pilate relating the recent supernatural events in Judea, Tiberius moved in the Senate that Christ should be received into the pantheon, and that the assembled Senators rejected the motion, had an obvious “‘ tendency.” The Emperor was the natural friend of the Christians; the Senate was their natural enemy. And, indeed, it formed the last rallying- ground of the opposition in Italy, as the Athenian schools of philosophy did in Greece. The Empire of the second century, however, was not prepared to meet these overtures. There is 8 story that Hadrian once proposed to introduce the worship of Christ, but was dissuaded by an oracle, which pronounced that, if he carried out his design, all the other worships would cease. This, of course, is legendary; but it represents the real conjuncture of things. The official recognition of Christianity by 42 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY the State meant that the rulers were to second the propaganda of an intolerant theocracy. If, among the Eastern worships, Mithraism was more favourably received, that was because it could be assimilated to the other cults of the Empire; and it did not threaten to usurp the domain of philosophy. For absolutism, no pagan idea of apotheosis could be of greater service than the Christian doctrine of divine right, put forward in the epistolary and apologetic literature. Indeed, in the Middle Ages, not only the Pope but the Emperor was called deus in terris. The opposition to Christianity in distinction from the permitted cults sprang from no self-interest on the part of the Emperors who opposed it, but from their Roman patriotism and their training in the free Greek schools. How remote they were from the conception of philosophy itself as a State-dogma is shown, for example, by the circumstance that Marcus Aurelius, while himself a Stoic, endowed chairs for all the schools of philosophy equally. In what precise manner Christianity was repressed before the acces- sion of Commodus—when the repression was relaxed simultaneously with the acceleration of the drift to absolutism—we do not know; since nearly all the information comes to us in a legendary form. What we do know is that 1¢ was in motive political; it was not religious persecution. That the Christians under- went no serious persecution till the time of Diocletian has been proved once for all by Gibbon. This persecution was to be the prelude to their triumph under Constantine ; who developed further the Oriental court etiquette and the formally absolutist administra- tion that had marked the reign of his predecessor. In the meantime, the same anti-Hellenism was manifest- ing itself by a continued return-wave in the remoter PAULINISM 48 Eastern world. At the beginning of the third century the new Persian kingdom had been founded. The kingdom of the Sassanidse was a Church-State, strictly intolerant in principle, successfully persecuting Chris- tianity as well as heresies of native growth. Its substitution for the half-Hellenised kingdom of the Arsacids was only one more evidence of the drift of things. In the same period the Roman Empire was becoming ever more accessible to Eastern cults; though the position of Christianity was still preca- rious. What the resistance of the second century had secured was a breathing-space for a last effort of independent thought before the new hierarchy entered into possession. But this belongs to a later section. We must now return to the development of Chris- tianity from the end of the first century onward. 8.—Paulinism. The earliest literary expression of Christianity, though not the earliest type of doctrine, was Paulinism. Those who began to put forward a speculative Chris- tianity in the name of ‘“‘ Paul”’ were the first Christians to write, precisely because they were the innovators. The Epistles which form our collection grew out of 8 Pauline literature consisting of short doctrinal expositions and exhortations. They do not differ essentially from the other old Christian epistles, which were never actual letters, but, from the first, edifying compositions ascribed to men of reputation in the past, bearing unmistakeable marks of the present to which they belong. This view, which is Van Manen’s, set forth partly in his own words, I accept; but some re-adjustment is necessary in relation to the different position I have ~~! 44 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY been obliged to take up with regard to the very earliest Christianity. The modification needed, how- ever, is surprisingly little. The first question to arise is: Who was this “‘ Paul”’ to whom doctrinal developments and then epistolary expositions of them were ascribed? According to Van Manen, he was one of those who had been con- verted by the disciples of an actual Jesus to the belief that he was the Messiah. The new “ apostle’ (to adopt the later term) was especially active in missionary journeys, and hence was remembered with greater vividness than the rest. Some of those members of the Christian communities who, about the end of the first century or the beginning of the second, were departing from narrowly Judaic ideas, put themselves under the protection of his name, perhaps because the wide range of his activity suggested a larger tolerance of non-Jewish customs. Embellished accounts of his travels were written—on the basis partly of a diary by a fellow-traveller. Of this diary we possess portions in the “‘ journey-narrative”’ of the canonical Acts of the Apostles. The narrative we possess has been somewhat manipulated; but the retention of the first person plural indicates a real diary. The genuine substratum that may be inferred is not inconsistent with the chronological position assigned to Paul in the legend. Thus there was a point of contact for the Pauline literature in the actual life of one who lived in the generation preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. The modification I suggest is this: The Paul who was remembered was not indeed an associate of the ‘ disciples of an actual Jesus; but he belonged to a group of Messianic propagandists of Judaism. Some such groups must have been vaguely remembered, and PAULINISM 45 the “‘ Christians” in our sense (who arose after the destruction of Jerusalem) would naturally make use of their names, transforming them into disciples of the personal Jesus in whom they believed. The ‘‘ apostolic age” was thus legendary, but not wholly mythical. No doubt there are considerable elements of pure myth, especially in the case of ‘‘ Peter,” the ‘‘ rock ”’ apostle. And, indeed, of the figures that remain, none has the least tangibility except Paul. Still, in the Paul of Acts and of the epistolary literature there is left one figure which has the degree of reality to be sought in historical romance. This is the character | of his trial before Festus. Like the trial of Apollonius of Tyana before Domitian, it may not represent any- thing that actually took place; but it was composed in relation to a real personage, and it has some circumstances of a possible trial. It is not simply a transcription from a Mystery Play. The Paul who really lived may have travelled as far as Greece and Italy, and may have been finally lost sight of in Rome. Beyond the fragmentary narrative of a single journey preserved in Acts, there is, however, no hope of reconstructing his story. Even this view, which, so far as Paul is concerned, does not differ substantially from Van Manen’s, is not absolutely necessary to explain the Pauline literature. Considering similar attributions before and after, we might be inclined to say that a purely fictitious personality would suffice. Yet the collection of circumstantial narratives in the Acts of the Apostles seems to point to some such view on the whole. These narratives are indeed full of miracles; but they seem better explained on the supposition that they are legends growing out of the propagandist activity of Messianic Jews before the destruction of Jerusalem - tomo i a re 46 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY than by dismissing them all as merely typical miracle- stories about ‘‘symbolical”’ personages. For a fuller account of the doctrinal development called ‘‘ Paulinism,’ I refer to the exposition which follows. The conspicuous features of the Pauline gospel are, of course, the insistence on “ faith” that in Jesus ‘‘ the Christ’ has come, and on the “ grace ’”’ that is given men to believe. This grace and this faith are the conditions of personal salvation. The Christ of Paul, the ‘‘ Son of God” in whom faith is required and from whom grace comes, is the expres- sion of a more exalted supernaturalism than that of the old Messianists. The development is speculative rather than mythical or apocalyptic. The Johannine school, carrying this forward, gave satisfaction also to the concrete imagination which felt the need to com- bine with it the belief in the reality of a ““ Christ according to the flesh.”” For ““ Paul,’’ a merely appa- rent fleshly manifestation of ‘‘ the Christ ’’ would have been sufficient ; there are indications in the Epistles of what was afterwards called ‘‘docetism.” The school of ‘‘ John,” by avoiding this development, con- ciliated the ‘‘ orthodox’: that is to say, those among the leaders who instinctively perceived the importance for governing mankind, of keeping terms with the prepossessions of the crowd, which evidently could not let go the pathetic concrete Jesus, the equivalent for the Tammuz or Adonis of the old Semitic cult. The popular religious mythology, as distinguished from the philosophical mythology of the Christian Gnostics, to which by itself Paulinism tended, was thus saved. At the same time, “John” brought more exactitude than ‘“‘ Paul” into the philosophical side of the mytho- logy. The Alexandrian idea of a mediating Logos, or creative Reason, between the supreme God — of PAULINISM 47 philosophy and of Judaism—and the world and man, was applied in a peculiar sense to Jesus Christ. The man of flesh and blood, and the divine being, were to be conceived as mystically united. And the Logos was not merely a power or aspect of God, but was God. Thus the problem afterwards brought to an orthodox solution in the Nicene formula was posited. In any admissible solution, formal monotheism had to be retained. The average Christian consciousness was too Judaic to allow of a real ‘‘ second God.’ On the other hand, Christian theology, as it was brought more in contact with the schools, necessarily worked under the dominance of the triadic idea, which then fascinated speculative minds. Another mediating power, therefore, was required to complete the divine triad. This was found in the Holy Spirit (the Pneuma), a conception which also appeared on the line of Alexandrian Judaism. There is no need to go further into the complex process through which formal logic on the one side, and the spirit of practical accommodation on the other, worked to produce out of the scattered data of the New Testament the dogma of three co-equal “ persons’’ or ‘‘ hypostases’’ in one God. It may suffice to say that the type of solution is to be found implicitly in ‘‘ John.” ‘‘ Paul” admitted of more varied speculative development. What, then, was to become of the forward-striving movement of the Pauline school, which preceded the Johannine school and was not absorbed into it ? The answer is given in ecclesiastical history. The ““ Catholic Church’’ succeeded in nominally appro- priating ‘‘ Paul’’; but he never ceased to be, what he had been called in the second century, ‘‘ the Apostle of the Heretics.” A slight sketch of the new develop- ment by which the transition was made to a 48 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY de-catholicised Christianity will be necessary before concluding this introduction. In the meantime, it may be worth while to bring into view one or two indications that our collection of the ‘‘ Epistles of Paul,” like the New Testament generally, is long subsequent to the year 70. Such indications, indeed, have been made clear by Van Manen in the epistles he specially deals with : and if these were abandoned, there could be no serious thought of defending the rest; while the abandonment of the rest would not by itself affect them. It is, therefore, merely for the sake of preliminary illustration, and not with the notion that the passages cited close the question, that I choose an instance from the Epistle to the Galatians and one from the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. Take the allegory of the two covenants in Gal. iv. 924-26. Does not the antithesis on the face of it apply to two religions, both of them conscious of its claims as such; the new not regarding itself as a mere sect of the old? But the verse to which I would draw special attention is iv. 25, where it is said, in reference to the present Jerusalem (ἡ νῦν ‘Iepovoadfp), ‘‘ for she is in bondage with her children” (δουλεύει γὰρ μετὰ τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς). By contrast, ‘“‘the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”’ What would have been the point of this while Jerusalem with its Temple and its hierarchy stood, not only secure, but full of hope soon to be made the visible centre of the kingdom of God on earth ?! 1 There is not, of course, a formal anachronism, since the Jews were all along in varying degrees of subjection to Rome. The cessa- tion of the Temple-worship was too conspicuous for the old Christian literature to permit itself direct references by Paul to the event, unless clothed in the form of prophecy. The political subordination of Judsa, however, is quite insufficient to explain the tone of the THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 49 A passage that tells, if possible, more strongly in the same sense is 1 Thess. 1.14-16. ‘‘ The Jews”— of whom the Apostle is supposed to be one—are ‘contrary to all men”; and “the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.” The only question about the latter expression is whether it should not be referred to some time shortly after 185, when the revolt that had finally broken out in the reign of Hadrian was suppressed. The former might have been borrowed from Tacitus (adversus omnes alios hostile odium).1 The point of view belongs to a Chris- tianity of which the ambition to be a world-religion was rising so high that it was already beginning to stir up ‘‘ anti-Semitism ’’ among the heathen.” 9.—The Catholic Church. According to the view taken in Van Manen’s work, the Pauline Epistles in our present text are slightly ‘‘catholicised.”” It would be possible to treat the passage just quoted from 1 Thessalonians as an inter- polation in this sense. The argument, however, would not have to be on purely textual grounds, but passage, which clearly implies that Judaism is already a defeated cause, and that the future of the theocratic idea may now be seen to be bound up with Christianity. 1 Hist., v. 5. 2 The original should be read to appreciate the absolutely unthink- able character of the whole passage in 54, the traditional date :— ὑμεῖς yap μιμηταὶ ἐγενήθητε, ἀδελφοί, τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν οὐσῶν ἐν τῇ ᾿Ιουδαίᾳ ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿ἸἸησοῦ, ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ ἐπάθετε καὶ ὑμεῖς ὑπὸ τῶν ἰδίων συμφυλετῶν, καθὼς καὶ αὐτοὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων τῶν καὶ τὸν κύριον ἀποκτεινάντων ᾿Ιησοῦν καὶ τοὺς προφήτας, καὶ ἡμᾶς ἐκδιωξάντων καὶ θεῷ μὴ ἀρεσκόντων καὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίων, κωλνόντων ἡμᾶς τοῖς ἔθνεσιν λαλῆσαι, ἵνα σωθῶσιν, els τὸ ἀναπληρῶσαι αὐτῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας πάντοτε. ἔφθακεν δὲ ἡ ὀργὴ ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς εἰς τέλος. Every clause indicates reminis- cence, dramatically referred, in the mouth of the supposed apostolic author, to the present or the future. KE δ0 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY on grounds of the “ higher criticism’; and, as Van Manen has shown, when such a process is carried out thoroughly, the results are hardly more conservative than those that he has arrived at himself. In any case, the Pauline Epistles did not originally express the ideas of that which afterwards became the ‘** Catholic Church.’”’ Paul—the ideal author of the series—was not, as Comte took him to be, ‘the founder of Catholicism.’”’ Neither was he precisely, as Renan called him, ‘‘the Protestant doctor.’”’ He may be best described as the father of Gnosticism. The earliest historic persons influenced by him were Basilides and Marcion. They developed “086 Apostle” (the only one they recognised) in the direction of their own anti-Judaism. This anti- Judaism was of a speculative kind; it does not seem to have been a form of embittered propaganda. The object of the Gnostics was not to capture the multi- tude and the State, but to maintain for themselves the position of higher speculative thinkers among the rising Christian communities. They had no decisive part in the ramifying organisation by which Christian ecclesiastics succeeded in dominating the world. Indeed, they were themselves among those afterwards persecuted by its chiefs. The self-styled Catholic Church first became visible as a growing association of Christian communities animated by the ambition of succeeding to the theocratic powers of the Jewish hierarchy. These powers, as in the dreams of ancient seers, were to be expanded till they should sway the world. The special representatives of the dream of world-dominion came now to be certain practical-minded office- bearers, ready to work by all methods, but, on the intellectual side, proceeding especially by compromise THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 51 within limits. As time went on, they naturally became more and more hostile to those who, obstinately adhering to the elder Jewish community, seemed a living protest against their assumptions. An illustra- tion of their characteristic mode of dealing with the protest was furnished, when they had come into power, by Cyril of Alexandria. It was not that they in the least sympathised, like the speculative Gnostics, with rebellion against the wrathful Jehovah of the Old Testament. On the con- trary, they adopted into their canon the aspirations of the fiercest apocalyptists. Every soul that will not hear the new prophet shall be destroyed (Acts 111. 28). The ‘‘ man-child,” the seed of the woman, is to ‘‘shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron” (ποιμαίνειν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐν ράβδῳ σιδηρᾷ, Rev. xii. 5).1 His vesture is dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God (xix. 18). In recompense for the persecutions and tribulations that they endure, the faithful shall rest with the Apostles, ‘‘when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with the angels of his power, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Thess. i. 7, 8).᾽ 3 The ideal of the new theocracy was authoritative dogma socially supreme. Pure monotheism combined with the practice of a ritual would no longer suffice— the dogma had been complicated by the revival of archaic sacramental conceptions and by a new mytho- logy, .in part of pagan derivation. The horribilia 1 Cf. Rev. ii. 27, xix. 15. According toa passage in the Stbylline Oracles, ‘‘the rod of iron which tends and rules the flock” is the Cross (see Deane, Pseudepigrapha, p. 325). 2The eschatology here is admitted to be not characteristically Pauline ; and I do not quote it to illustrate Pauline ideas. 52 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY secreta of ‘‘killing the god” and ““ eating the god’” were to be brought within the forms of logic as if they were philosophical truths. The old idea of the national Church-State, the ‘‘ chosen people,’ had passed into that of universal hierocracy. In the notion, now definitely formulated, of ‘‘ heresy and schism’’ as crimes, was involved the deadly germ whence grew the historic system compared with which the religions of Dahomey and of ancient Mexico were natural and amiable errors. Hopes of emancipation from the yoke of tyrannic ' custom that arose in the Christian communities, as _ they had arisen before in Greece, were systematically : quenched. Definite and repeated sanction of slavery, thorough-going -‘‘ subjection of women,’ political maxims that have been rightly interpreted in the sense of ‘‘ passive obedience,’ may contrast with the spirit of much in the New Testament; but it is in them that we perceive the authentic ‘‘ mind of the Church.” And yet there could never be any doubt that, if they once came into conflict with the system of the hierarchy and its dogma, all civil and domestic ties would be dissolved. Criticism seems to have justified the audacious suggestion of Hobbes, that what was originally meant by the sin against the Holy Ghost, which could never be forgiven, was resistance to the ecclesiastical power. This was the system that conquered in the fourth century. In its absence no doubt the imperial govern- ment would, all the same, have become nominally 1 Cf. Spinoza, Ep. 74: ‘“Desine, inquam, absurdos errores mysteria appellare, nec turpiter confunde illa, quae nobis incognita vel nondum reperta sunt, cum iis, quae absurda esse demonstrantur, uti sunt huius ecclesiae horribilia secreta, quae, quo magis rectae rationi repugnant, eo ipsa intellectum transcendere credis.’’ 2 See Mr. Frazer’s Golden Bough for the unveiling of the secrets. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 53 *‘ theocratic.”” The deified emperor would have pre- sided over a syncretism of recognised religions. Philosophy, withdrawn wholly from politics, or, if it ever touched them, recurring to the republican tradi- tions of the past for illustrations, would have retained in pure thought the independence it possessed. The effective government would have been a secular despotism tempered by law, without the superposition of a spiritual tyranny in action. It is an interesting problem whether this would have been more easily broken through than the double order—secular and spiritual—handed down to the West. In any event, it could not have been more impregnably fixed than the Christian theocratic State of the East, which in its older form perished by foreign conquest, but which has never, so far, been shattered from within: and in comparison with Eastern orthodoxy it would have been a free and humane civilisation. A more soluble question than this fascinating one of hypothetical history is the causation of events as they actually occurred. With the two systems of philosophic pagan comprehension and of Christian intolerance face to face, there could be no doubt, in the circumstances of the time, as to the issue. Even in a time of widely- diffused science and freedom the terrors and the glamour of superstition are not easily dispelled. When the conflict actually came, the world had already been broken in to autocracy; and the know- ledge that there was of nature and history, though more than sufficient for dealing with the new dogma- tists in equal debate, had no hold on the multitude. The theocracy, as its apologists boasted, had sapped the organisation of the empire; and, even if its devotees numbered less than a tenth of the indifferent or hostile, the transcendent threats and promises of its “τὴν δά THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY ereed, and its readiness, whenever its time came, to inflict sustained, not fitful, persecution, would assure it the victory. What it needed was that, in the con- tention for imperial power, a successful candidate should have seen the value of its support. Nominal tolerance accorded, the victory was won. The dominant faction in the Church pressed ever more relentlessly, through its court-prelates, for the persecution of its antagonists, whether mere polytheists or Christian heretics or philosophical Hellenists. Against popular superstitions not incorporated in its new pantheon of saints and martyrs, the religion of baptismal regenera- | tion and of exorcism by the cross adopted the old laws ᾿ς against ‘“‘magic.” Heresy—that is, choice of one’s own belief,! was made “ treason against God,” as to which evidence could be elicited by torture, whether the accused was ‘‘ bond or free”; here there was equality. Lastly, the schools of philosophy were closed, their endowments confiscated, and those who should ““ Hellenise ’’ proscribed. 10.—The Later History of Paulinism. With all their arrogant claims, and with all their weapons of fraud and violence, the great Churches called Catholic and Orthodox have never for a moment succeeded in bringing within their unity even the whole of those who call themselves Christians. ‘‘Heresies and schisms” there have always been ; and, in spite of persecutions, their life has been again and again renewed. In this succession ‘‘ the Apostle of the Heretics’? had an important part. After the Gnostics of the earliest Christian centuries, 1 Cf. 2. Peteri. 20: πᾶσα προφητεία γραφῆς ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται. THE LATER HISTORY OF PAULINISM 55 who were the first to attach themselves to the name of Paul, there came the Manichsans, in whose doctrines there were Christian elements of the same derivation. Then, after the victory of the Church, there survived in corners of the Eastern Empire the Paulicians ;* whose teaching at length, by a complex process, affected the West in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The episode in which their heresy was stamped out is by general consent the most atrocious in the annals even of Christendom. There went on, nevertheless, groups hostile to the great Church; but with a difference. The tendency now began to be in the direction of modern Pro- testantism. But as before, so now, a basis was sought in the writings attributed to the Apostle Paul. Here takes place a curious transition, which has scarcely been enough dwelt on, though Gibbon clearly perceived it. For the anti-Judaic Paul of the Gnostics is substituted the essentially Judaising Paul of the Protestant Churches. That there are Judaising passages in the Epistles must, of course, be admitted; but it seems likely that the almost contemporary Gnostics had a truer feeling for the general drift of their ideal Apostle than late comers like the fourteenth- century precursors of Luther and Calvin. Modern 1 Some of the unfortunate sectaries made large attempts at com- prehension ; as is indicated in the words pronounced by converts to the ‘‘ Church universal’? when they abjured their errors of theological ‘‘liberalism.’”? ‘‘I anathematise those who say that Zarades (i.¢., Zarathustra) and Buddha and Christ and Manicheus and the Sun are one and the same.’’ The Greek formula is given by Cumont, Textes et Monuments figurés relatifs aux Mystéres de Mithra, i. (1899), p. 349, n. 5, who cites it from Kessler, Mani (1889), p. 404. 2 εἐ ΠῚ name of the Paulicians is derived by their enemies from some unknown and domestic teacher; but I am confident that they gloried in their affinity to the Apostle of the Gentiles” (Gibbon, Roman Empire, liv., ed. Bury, vol. vi., p. 112). 56 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY Protestants have interpreted their Paul in the light of the Old Testament canon accepted by the Rabbis, and with the help of a juridical theory of the sacrifice of Christ elaborated by Catholic doctors like Anselm. The Paulicians of the twelfth century were still of the old Gnostic type, professing a dualism for which the God of the Jews was a subordinate if not an evil being. In the fourteenth century a new type of Paulinist, who yields to no Hebrew psalmist or prophet in devotion to Jehovah, has begun to emerge; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the type definitely appears. Less interesting from the specu- lative point of view, the new doctrine has proved of tougher fibre practically. With the Paulicianism of the Middle Ages it had, however, one feature in common. Against the tyranny of priests and despots it showed, as its strength grew, something of the spirit of insurgent theocracy, ‘‘ to the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Cor. x. 4). Moreover, since it denied the supernatural powers of the old hierarchy, it expelled in practice the ‘‘ forgiveness of sins.” One who had ““ faith ” might indeed believe that his sins were ‘‘ forgiven” through Christ; but, after all, he was thrown back for satisfaction on his own conscience, which, as Kant says, is more exacting than a con- fessor; no one else could tell him that he was absolved. The commission to the Apostles and their successors to “remit” sins or ‘‘retain” them was in effect cancelled. This was an immense gain for moral progress, though the new doctrine of ‘faith alone” might in itself be no sounder than the old one of religious ‘‘ works”’—that is, devotional exercises. The insurgent side of the doctrine was just as beneficent. The divine right of kings was indeed preached even more zealously and in a more THE LATER HISTORY OF PAULINISM 57 unqualified manner by Protestant than by Catholic ecclesiastics, when the papal overlordship had dis- appeared and there were Protestant State Churches ; but the gemius of the new form of Christianity told againstit. The destruction of political absolutism was begun by the Protestant nations. In this prelude of revolution, it is fair to allow that the reading of the Old Testament was not without effect. The Hebrew Scriptures contain, indeed, the idea of legitimist theocracy ; but they also contain, more effectively than anything in Paul, the ideas of theocrats in revolt, who will obey none but an invisible king, and who are even on the way to refuse submission to priests as his interpreters. ‘Not that such ideas have the least positive value for the founding of a constitution. The development of the English polity, for example, would have been impos- sible without the structural basis of old Teutonic or other customary rights, reinforced by intellectual con- ceptions of the State, derived not from Judea, but - from Greece and Rome. Still, without the element of Hebraic fervour, all might have ended in anti- quarianism and literary reminiscences. The sacred- ness of ‘‘ Christian monarchy,’’ as it still appeared to the devout and loyal imagination of the seventeenth century, had to be counteracted by the popular force of a religious emotion on the other side. We have thus at a few strides got far away from the origins and arrived at the time of the irrevocable dis- ruption of Christendom on a world-wide scale. From this time forth it has also been confronted as a whole with independent or free thought. If we recross the intermediate period, then, as we approach the origins, we find the position in this respect on the surface identical. ‘‘ Revealed religion” has not yet come into 58 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY full possession of the power, which it was to retain for over ἃ thousand years but at length to lose, of repres- sing the “liberty of philosophising.’’ Before con- cluding, we must dwell for a moment on this last phase of the ancient world. 11.—Philosophy against Revealed Religion. The remark was made above that the resistance of the second century to the propagandists of new revela- tions secured a breathing-space for independent philo- sophy. This respite enabled Plotinus, in the third century, to found the last great philosophical system of antiquity, since known as Neo-Platonism, without so much as naming the Catholic Church; though in one book he opposed the doctrines of the Gnostics. The Gnostic Christians, with their high speculative pretensions, no doubt seemed better worth refutation at the hands of a philosopher than the orthodox, who would, to him, represent only the purely deceptive side of the movement. Plotinus finds, indeed, in the Gnostics a sort of blurred reflexion of Plato: and yet we should know from his tractate, if we had no other evidence, that they too were anti-Hellenic fanatics, full of the arrogance which regarded the whole visible world and all men except the Christians as shut out from the care of divine, as distinguished from demonic, or even diabolic, power. The new philosophical development was not, in the long run, without benefit to Christianity itself as a system which could give satisfaction to those who sought in religion higher elements than creed and ceremonial. Much that ordinarily passes for Christianity is really Stoicism or Platonism; and the Neo-Platonists, becoming the authorised expositors of the ancient philosophy so PHILOSOPHY AGAINST REVEALED RELIGION 59 long as the teaching of it was unsuppressed, imbued educated Christians with some of the learning of the schools. Besides, they made contributions of their own to speculation, which Christian thinkers found their advantage in borrowing. In view of all that has been said about the ‘“‘theurgy ᾿᾿ of the school, it is necessary to point out that Neo-Platonism remained essentially a philosophy. Tt had no new religion to advocate; but, if allowed, would have continued the process of allegorising and morally reforming the religions of the Greco-Roman world. Some members of the school refused to have anything to do with theurgy; and, if others were infected with the contagion of the age, that is not surprising. What divides them all fundamentally from the Christians—and, indeed, from the Oriental world generally—is their attitude to mythology. With them myth is clearly distinguished from science. They allegorise the adventures of a god while denying explicitly that what is related of the god ever took place. It appears that some, following Plato himself, objected even to this degree of compliance with popular religion. Proclus, in his commentary on the Republic, argues against those who blamed the Greek myths for giving a handle to the Christians,’ who were accustomed to make points by denouncing their immorality. His reply is singularly modern. The abuse does not take away the use: if might equally well be urged that intoxicants ought to be expelled from the State because some indulge in them to excess. Divine myths are to be used in modera- tion: they are to be treated in their obvious sense as myths, and not as an expression of pure reason ; 1 Alluded to, but not mentioned by name. te we “κως 60 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY but a philosophical meaning is to be sought under them. Now, of course, the mode of allegorising Homer common to the leter Greek schools, while often interesting in itself, ted away from the truth about the real nature of the poems, which were not exposi- tions of philosophical theology. But it is well to recognise that after all there is something in the point of view. The old myth-makers, not being able to express themselves by abstractions, but only by imagery, did often convey a general truth by this means. The philosophers themselves, in putting forth their interpretations, were accustomed to express 8 doubt whether this had been done self-consciously or by a sort of instinct. It is still quite easy to find under stories like the Fall of Man or the Tower of Babel such mythical truth as was found under many Greek myths; and a philosopher cannot reasonably be blamed for exercising his ingenuity in this way— ‘‘dum vera re tamen ipse Religione animum turpi contingere parcat.” The meaning educed from the Bible stories, as from similar stories in Hesiod, may have been put there originally : they seem to be examples of myth passing into the reflective stage. At any rate, the question would furnish an interesting topic for disputation. And it must be conceded that, if the philosophers could have retained for popular use the old system as against the new, they would have been preserving for the time a less cruel superstition. The Christians, much as some might have liked to be rid of the whole tradition that had preceded them, soon found that, to keep their hold on a world still inheriting the remains of intellectual culture, they needed a formal philosophy to combine with their PHILOSOPHY AGAINST REVEALED RELIGION 61 mythology. This they could only derive from the Greek schools. Neo-Platonism furnished them with their later theory of the immaterial soul. And it is a remarkable fact that a religion gaid to have been revealed has had to recur, for every serious effort to find in the universe the manifestation of a rational and moral order, to thinkers who never pretended to have obtained what they might offer in this direction by anything but the exercise of their own reason. Some tribute ought to be paid to the better minds in the period of established Christianity for thus going back to the wisdom of the Greeks, so contemptuously contrasted in documents they held sacred with the “ὁ foolishness ”’ that was to confound it. We owe, for example, to William of Morbeka, the Dominican Archbishop of Corinth in the latter part of the thirteenth century, the preservation, in a Latin version, of three treatises of Proclus containing the exposition of his theodicy. And these, in the half unintelligible translation, may still be read with interest ; while lLeibniz’s corresponding treatise, through its official acceptance of elements common to the Protestant and Catholic creeds of the seventeenth century, is already obsolete. The radical question between the Neo-Platonists and the Christians was whether philosophy should be formally above popular religion or popular religion above philosophy. A system of thought summing up for its time the tradition of the highest civilisation attained could not submit to become the ““ handmaid” of a faith it regarded as barbarian. And this was to be the position assigned to philosophy during the lowered civilisation into which Europe was now sinking. In modern times philosophy has again so far emancipated itself that it can subsist as a kind of 62 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY scientific specialism without doing homage to the creed still nominally accepted by the world at large ; but, till the position is formally reversed, the ancient civilisation, in which all who were not content simply with custom sought light from philosophy, must be classed as in this respect higher than the modern. Of course, no one would propose to revive Neo-Platonism as a philosophic creed. It has, however, some typical value as the result of a long process of thought, which, cautious as if might have to be in relation to popular feeling, needed to pay deference to no constituted authority in matters of opinion. How long has this been true of modern philosophy 3} 12.—Conclusion. A short writing entitled Derision of the Gentile Philosophers (Διασυρμὸς τῶν ἔξω φιλοσόφων), by a certain Hermias otherwise unknown, throws inter- esting light on the attitude of the victorious faith about the fifth or sixth century. ‘‘ Paul, the blessed Apostle,” the author begins, ‘‘ writing to the Corin- thians, declared, ‘O beloved, the wisdom of this world is folly with God’; speaking not at random: for’I think it took its origin from the apostasy of the angels. Through which cause the philosophers set 1 On the naturalistic side, Comte claimed to have been the first to be perfectly open, though the real position of some of his predecessors is unmistakeable. In theories of constructive idealism, some ambi- guity is to be met with even now through tacit reference to a Judmo- Christian mythological position as regards ‘‘ creation.’’ How many idealistic thinkers venture to put quite plainly the perfectly intelligible question, whether an absolute beginning of phenomena is to be assumed on their principles? Here there would be an advantage in referring to the Neo-Platonists, not necessarily to agree with them, but in order to start from some thesis maintained on rational grounds. CONCLUSION 68 forth opinions neither in harmony nor correspondent.” Simplicius, one of the Neo-Platonists who sought philosophic liberty in Persia when the schools at Athens were closed by Justinian, puts the other side of the case. We must not think, he says, that the differences of expression among philosophers indicate such absolute opposition as they are reproached with by some who, acquainted only with historical com- pendia, understand nothing of what they read. More- over, those who reproach them are themselves cloven by schisms innumerable, not about physical prin- ciples (for of these no notion visits them even in dream), but about the mode of degrading the divinity (περὶ τὴν καθαίρεσιν τῆς θείας ὑπεροχῆς). As a matter of fact, the method of Hermias is precisely that which is here hinted at. Such and such & philosopher (says the derider) held that water was the principle of things; another “the infinite,’ another alr, another fire, and so forth: which am I to believe ὃ Of the emergence of truth from free discussion he has no conception. Since the philosophers do not offer him an infallible revelation, their wisdom is folly. The most interesting passage comes at the end, where he successively scoffs at the Pythagoreans and the Epicureans. Pythagoras (the inquirer is supposed to cry out) measures the world; and I, raised to enthusiasm by this idea, forget family and country and wife and children, and set out on an expedition to measure all the elements. If, mighty body and mighty soul that I am, I do not go up to heaven and measure the ether, the dominion of Zeus is gone.’ 1 Quoted by Diels, Doxographi Graeci, Prolegomena, p. 259. 2 Observe how the Christian writer seeks an ally in popular poly- theism as against philosophy and science. 64 THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY When Zeus has learned from me how many angles fire has, I again descend; and, eating olives and figs and herbs, I apply my measuring-rod to the moist substance, and teach Poseidon what is the extent of sea he rules. I know also the number of the stars and of fishes and of beasts; and, by placing the world in balance, I can easily learn its weight. But (he proceeds) I am not yet at the end of my labours. Epicurus comes and tells me that I have measured one world, indeed, but that there are many and infinite worlds. I furnish myself with provisions for a few days, and set out to measure these also. At length, having measured, say, the thousandth world, I become bewildered. ‘‘But why do I delay to number the very atoms, out of which so many worlds have come into being; to the end that I may leave nothing unexplored, especially of things that are so necessary and useful to the prosperity of a household and a city?” By a strange irony of events, the derider of philo- sophy, in what he says of measurement and number and atoms, has sketched out the programme which became that of modern science when the great dark- ness receded. If we are to guard against the return of that darkness, we must remain faithful to the prin- ciple that was the final object of his scorn—the dis- interested pursuit of truth. ST. PAUL: AN EXPOSITION OF THE INVESTIGATIONS OF DR. W. C. VAN MANEN, Professor tn Leyden I. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES HW. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS Hil. THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS Parr I. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES In our investigation of the Pauline Epistles and the history of Paulinism, it is desirable first to arrive at a judgment on the historical value of the Acts of the Apostles. Here two opposite errors are to be avoided. The Tubingen school, assuming the genuineness of the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians (1 and 2), and Galatians, set aside the testimony of Acts wherever it conflicted with what was supposed to be a direct statement of Paul. By reaction from this arbitrary procedure, the danger has arisen that the trustworthiness of the representation of Paul’s life and work in Acts may with no less arbitrariness be taken for granted as against the representation in the Epistles. In view of this, we must, for the moment, postpone the discussion of the Epistles, and examine the Acts of the Apostles as a book standing by itself. If we can here arrive at security, we shall have gained a foothold not to be despised for our further inquiries. Srction I. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS I.—Tue Uniry or tHE Work. We have not before us the work of an eye-witness of the events narrated. These are too far apart in time and place for the unity to be of this kind. Yet 67 68 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES there is no doubt about the unity itself. The book is no loose stringing together of reports or traditions from various sources, but has a definite order and plan. There are references in the later to the earlier portions of the narrative, and when the connexion has been broken it is expressly taken up again. The history, too, has a definite movement. We see Christianity spreading into wider and wider circles, from Jews to Samaritans, to God-fearing heathens like Cornelius, and then to ordinary Greeks, till at last its universal destination is made visible. The apostles come to the consciousness of this by degrees. It is true that we may speak of a “‘ Petrine”’ and of a ‘“‘ Pauline’ part of Acts, but these have numerous inter-connexions. Like the third Gospel, this second book of Luke—as we may call the writer for conveni- ence'—is a rounded-off whole. The appearance of incompleteness, due to the abrupt conclusion, is only apparent. That Paul was to die at Rome had been already hinted (xx. 22-24, xxi. 4, 11-14, xxvii. 28-24). For not actually mentioning his death, as it took place there according to tradition, the reason most probably was that the writer did not wish to arouse prejudice on the part of the Romans, whom it was his object to prepossess in favour of Christianity. The persistency with which that aim is kept in view is another proof of the unity of the work. The Jews are represented as rejecting and persecuting the new ‘‘way’’; the Romans as benevolently disposed towards it, and as taking its missionaries under their protec- 1 There is no reason, as Van Manen remarks, for rejecting the tradition which assigns the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles to the same author. The author, however, was not Luke, the com- panion of Paul mentioned in the Epistles. A conjecture is offered later to account for the attachment of his name to the two works. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 69 tion. No speaker for the cause of Christianity fails to make it clear that, although Pilate gave his assent to the death of Jesus, the guilt was with the Jews. Persecution of Christianity, the writer is bent on showing, had never in those days taken its origin from the Romans. How, then, it is implicitly argued, can another line of action now be taken against the people, ‘‘everywhere spoken against’”’ though they might be, whose great Apostle had been constantly moving about in the heathen world, and had himself been a Roman citizen ?! No difference as regards the universal destination of the Gospel is represented as existing between Peter and Paul. Peter speaks of himself as chosen from ancient days (ἀφ᾽ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων) to preach the Gospel among the heathen (xv. 7). None of the chiefs raise any objections to the un-Jewish proceed- ings of Paul and Barnabas. On the other side, Paul displays no hostility to the brethren at Jerusalem. As a rule, he does not address himself to the heathen till forced by the obstinacy of the Jews. He is from the first in vital and constant relations with the mother-community, and submits to its decisions; and in every forward step that he takes he has been preceded by someone else. To all he consistently proclaims his belief in the Law.? The style, which remains the same with few excep- tions even in the speeches of the different persons, is 1 This, as we shall see later, was probably a fiction of ‘‘ Luke.” The apology directed to the Romans points, of course, to the second century, which is indicated by various other circumstances as the period when the book assumed its present form. 2 It is this representation in particular that is in such glaring con- tradiction with that of Galatians, and led directly, the Epistles being supposed genuine, to the assumption of the general untrustworthiness of Acts. 10 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES another proof of the unity of the book. This casting of all into a certain form, however, does not prove the whole to be a work of poetic reflection or the persons a ‘‘free creation.” Neither is it simply contemporary history plus tradition. Luke also had written sources. II.—Its Composition. The evidences, indeed, of imaginative reconstruction are plain. Peter could not, in addressing his fellow- countrymen, have spoken of the Jewish authorities as “ὁ your rulers ”’ (iii. 17), nor of the sending of the Son of God first to Israel (iii. 26).1 In the vehement out- burst at the end of Stephen’s speech we hear the voice, not of Stephen himself over against the Sanhedrin, but of the later Christianity against the Judaism from which it had separated, and which had since had abundant opportunity to ‘‘ resist the Holy Ghost.” It is a similar dramatic transference of the ideas of the present to the past when Paul and Barnabas ‘‘ turn to the Gentiles ”’ (xiii. 46). Readers are to be made to feel that ‘‘ Paul” is compelled to take this step because the Jews have rejected ‘‘the grace of God.” This is also the effect aimed at in the bitter, and at the same time foolish, outburst of Paul against the Jews at Corinth (xviii. 6). That the work is not a free composition all through is shown, however, by the intermingling of incon- sistent traditions. In the account of the ‘‘ speaking 11 have not given many details of this somewhat ruthless dissection. The traditionalist who could succeed in imagining i. 19 (ὥστε κληθῆναι τὸ χωρίον ἐκεῖνο τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ αὐτῶν ᾿Ακελδαμάχ, τοντέστιν χωρίον aluaros) as spoken by Peter at Jerusalem, would certainly be incurable by any method known to logic. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 71 with tongues,’’ the older tradition that it was an affec- tion such as is described in 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. is fused with the newer, that it was a gift, instantaneously conferred, of speaking foreign languages. To the latter the accusation of being drunk could have no relevance. Sometimes it is the imparting of the Holy Ghost, sometimes it is baptism, that is the mark of the Christian. In xi. 16 (φῇ 1. 5) the being baptised with the Holy Ghost (βαπτίζεσθαι tv πνεύματι ἁγίῳ) of the Christians is set over against the baptising with water (βαπτίζειν ὕδατι) of John. In the other tradition, to receive the Holy Ghost is a special gift independent of baptism. Again, in xix. 5, con- verts at Ephesus have to be re-baptised (after having been baptised with the baptism of John), that they may receive the Holy Ghost. With this is connected another double tradition. On the one side, ‘‘ the apostles” are clearly indicated as the highest authority among Christians. They have a doctrine (ἡ διδαχὴ τῶν ἀποστόλων) which is to be adhered to (ii. 42); work miracles; have the power of life and death ; appoint deacons ; remain as a high court at Jerusalem; send out missionaries. All submit to their ‘‘ dogmas” (xvi. 4). Luke, how- ever, knows a different tradition, according to which the highest authority among Christians is the Holy Ghost, by which the overseers of the flocks are directly appointed (xx. 28). Sometimes he attempts to combine these two traditions, as, for example, when the decision of the council at Jerusalem is put in the form, ‘‘ It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us” (ἔδοξεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν, xv. 28). The eldest community is,on the one hand, repre- sented as an ideal of love and harmony. On the other hand, there are such circumstances as the 72 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES contention among the widows that led to the appoint- ment of deacons (vi. 1-7), the small-minded quarrel- ling about eating with heathen converts, and so forth. The community spreads rapidly, and yet can remain long undisturbed at Jerusalem. It has favour with all the people (i. 47), and yet is subjected from the first to mockery and persecutions. Paul has scarcely gone over to Christianity when his life is threatened. Luke knows different answers to the question, Who first made converts among the heathen? One account would ascribe this to the evangelist Philip, another to Peter, a third to certain men of Cyprus and Cyrene (xi. 19-22), a fourth to Paul and Barnabas (xiii. 46-49), ἃ fifth to Paul and no one else. To this end was Paul chosen by the Lord from the first (ix. 15, xxii. 21, xxvi. 16-18). The presence of this tradition is especially evident in Luke’s abrupt way of making him turn his back on the Jews to whom he has only just addressed himself. About Paul himself the traditions are inconsistent. He is a “young man,” apparently of no special importance, at the time of the death of Stephen, and yet is old enough to become immediately afterwards the moving spirit of a bloody persecution, which ceases when he goes over to Christianity (ix. 31). Heis represented as a contemporary of the Apostles and in constant relations with them; yet on his last visit to Jerusalem he is received not by the Apostles, but only by ‘‘the brethren.” Altogether, it is here as if we were in a later generation. Luke knows the tradition according to which his calling was not of men, but from the risen Lord. He knows also an account in which Ananias (ἀνὴρ εὐλαβὴς κατὰ τὸν νόμον, μαρτυρούμενος ὑπὸ πάντων τῶν κατοικούντων ᾿Ιουδαίων, xxii. 12) plays an important part in his conversion. In accordance THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 73 with this representation, Paul seeks and gains access to the apostles, obeys their directions, and submits to their decisions. Luke has a double view as to the circle in which he was called to work. Sometimes he is represented as having the heathen pointed out to him from the first as the goal of his endeavours. Among his converts ‘“‘Greeks”’ are especially mentioned. Where the heathen converts come from, however, is not always clear. At Berea, for example, nothing can be inferred from the context but that they came from the synagogue of the Jews (xvii. 12). At Athens he both visits the syna- gogue and speaks publicly to all alike. To James and the presbyters at Jerusalem (xxi. 19) he has nothing to report on his activity among the Jews, but tells what God has done among the Gentiles by his ministry. According to another conception of that ministry, it always began with the Jews; and it had some success among them. They are put in the first place among those addressed at Athens (xvii. 17), though we hear nothing of them there afterwards. The Jews look upon him as having to do especially with them, since they are constantly accusing him and raising tumults against him. He is regarded by them as their special enemy (6 ἄνθρωπος 6 κατὰ τοῦ λαοῦ kai τοῦ νόμου καὶ τοῦ τόπου τούτον πάντας πανταχῆ διδάσκων, χχὶ. 28). On the substance also of Paul’s preaching Luke knows a double tradition. According to one conception of it, not only the Athenians, but the Jews and even the first Christians, would have had a right to speak of his ‘‘new doctrine,” and to call him a “setter forth of strange gods.’”’ Jesus is proclaimed, no longer as the Christ in the sense of the Messiah promised to Israel, but as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, newly revealed, 74 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES and the object of a “ faith’’ which “justifies ’’ and “saves”? as the Law cannot do. Through him is ‘forgiveness of sins.’ The ‘grace of God” and “‘ eternal life”’ are for the believers in Christ. Paul does not preach the God of the Jews, but a God hitherto unknown (xvii. 28). This God dwells not in temples made with hands, hence not in the shrine at Jerusalem.! Paul’s Jewish and primitive Christian opponents? alike know well that he does not really “keep the law.” Side by side with this, however, there is another representation, according to which he simply taught that Christ, the Jewish Messiah, ‘‘must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead” (xvii. 8). The content of his preaching is not, as elsewhere, the new “ gospel of the grace of God,” but the traditional “ kingdom of God ”’ (xix. 8, etc.), into which Christians must enter through much tribulation (xiv. 22). He has done nothing against his people or its law (ἐναντίον τῷ λαῷ ἣ τοῖς ἔθεσι τοῖς πατρῴοις, ΧχΧΥ. 17), of which he has been from first to last a scrupulous observer (xxi. 20-27). Hven as a Christian, he is a worshipper of the God of his fathers 1 The address to the Athenians put in Paul’s mouth is here viewed 88 an expression of those ‘ Pauline” ideas of which the later Gnosti- cism, with its subordination of the God of the Jews to the highest God, was a development. If we were to regard it more as an original composition of Luke, and less as the expression of any tradition, even that of the ““ Paulinists,’’ it might be interpreted as an outline of the typical orthodox apologetic of the second century described by Renan. The apologists, as Renan points out, appealed, with small sincerity, to the educated classes of the Roman Empire on the ground of that philosophic monotheism which as a rule they already held, seeking to give the impression that acceptance of the new faith would mean little more than making such a rational theology official. 3 These, according to Van Manen, are figured in the legend of Bar- Jesus (xiii. 6-12), the ‘‘son”’ or disciple of Jesus—in other words, the Christian of the old stamp. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 75 (ὁμολογῶ δὲ τοῦτό σοι, ὅτι κατὰ τὴν ὁδὸν ἣν λέγουσιν αἵρεσιν, οὕτως λατρεύω τῷ πατρῴῳ θεῷ, xxiv. 14).! Luke endeavours to reconcile these two views by their simple juxtaposition. This may be seen in the peculiar form of statement about Paul’s preaching ; for example, ix. 20 (ἐκήρυσσεν τὸν “Inoovy, ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ). To ‘‘ preach Jesus,’’ and ‘‘ that this is the Son of God,” may still be discerned as two conceptions, which have not arrived at complete fusion. As might be conjectured from his introduction to the third Gospel, Luke has drawn for these various traditions partly on written sources. This can be proved by a direct examination of Acts. Various confusions and contradictions in the narrative are explicable by a partially free working up of material, together with retention to a certain extent of the very phrases of the documents. The words “through the Holy Ghost’ (διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου) in i. 2 have the appearance of an interpolation by someone who wished to say that Jesus taught by the Holy Spirit before his ascension—a statement really inconsistent with i. 4, 5, according to which the disciples were to wait at Jerusalem for it to be given. If there is no reason to think that the interpolator was any one but the author of the book, then we may suppose him to have extended a sentence which he took over from some previous narrator, and not to have noticed the effect of the addition. A similar explanation will apply to the confused passage v. 12-15. So also to Gamaliel’s warning in v. 38-39 (ὅτι ἐὰν 9 ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἡ βουλὴ αὕτη ἢ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο, καταλυθήσεται * ἐι 1 Here we see the tradition preserved of the time when Christianity was merely a sect, a αἵρεσις, of Judaism. - 76 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES δὲ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐστίν, ov δυνήσεσθε καταλῦσαι αὐτούς), which obviously breaks the connexion. The repe- titions and the interrupted connexion in the account of the death of Stephen may be similarly explained by insertions from Luke’s hand in a narrative on which he worked. The account of Simon Magus points to the use of two different sources; in one of which the effect produced by the preaching of Philip was celebrated, while in the other the Samaritan magician was represented as trying to get the Holy Ghost at his disposal, like the Apostles. Passing over other instances of imperfect redaction, we come to the passages, of which xvi. 10 offers the first example, where the narrative changes from the third person to the first. This points to the literal taking over of fragments from an itinerary, and will occupy us later. In the meantime, one or two cases may be noted that come further on in the book. The Areopagus, where Paul is said to have delivered his discourse at Athens (xvii. 19), was a law-court. Here was no place where everyone was at liberty to expound his theology to passers-by. Perhaps Luke found it stated, in the source he used, that at Athens, as else- where, Paul had had to defend himself before the legal authorities. This would explain the circum- stance that those who brought him to the Areopagus are said to have laid hold of him (ἐπιλαβόμενοι δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν “Apsov πάγον ἤγαγον). The author, working over this in his own way, imagined an encounter with philosophers curious to hear a new doctrine set forth. In xix. 14 seven sons of Sceva are spoken of; they are afterwards (xix. 16) referred to as ‘‘ both” «((ἀμφοτέρων, changed by correctors to αὐτῶν). The probable explanation is that Luke curtailed the intermediate narrative, transcribing THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 1T literally the portions of it which he took over. Lastly, observe what seems the hopeless confusion of xx. 4, 5,1 where those who followed are said to have gone before. There were then written sources. Can we ascertain what those sources were ? 8.—SouRCES. Pauline Letters. Were our ‘‘ Epistles of Paul’? among the sources? Of one thing there is no doubt: the author nowhere makes mention of a letter written by Paul. However this may be explained, it does not lead us to expect diligent use in his work of a collection of Pauline epistles. Exact investigation of the details entirely supports the presumption—if we do not take for granted that the Epistles, being older, must have been used. Some points of detail seem to show that the writer knew Pauline letters—perhaps a collection— and borrowed one or two things from them; but such points are not numerous.’ For example, the resemblance between Acts xv. and Gal. 11. 1s so striking, in spite of much difference, that we are justified in supposing one of the accounts of 1 Van Manen discusses this passage at length. 2 In a supplement to this investigation, the opinion is quoted of M. Sabatier, who accepts all the Epistles of Paul as genuine except those to Timothy and Titus: ‘‘ Parmi les sources historiques du livre des Actes, il ne faut point compter les épttres pauliniennes.’”? ‘‘ Nous ne voulons pas contester la possibilité en soi que Luc ait vu ou lu une ou deux épitres de Paul. Nous disons seulement qu’il n’a pas vu, dans ces lettres occasionelles, des écritures divines que tous devaient recueillir et encore moins des documents historiques qu’il importait de consulter.’? Some critics have gone so far as to hold that the writers of the Epistles were dependent rather on Acts; but this opinion Van Manen decidedly rejects. 78 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES the apostolic meeting to have been known to the writer of the other ; unless we suppose dependence on 8 common source.’ If the last supposition is thought improbable, then it is the writer of Acts who must have had the corresponding passage of Galatians in his eye. For, had the dependence been the other way, the writer of Galatians could not have failed to appeal to the concessions made to the heathen con- verts not only by Peter, but by James himself, who figures in Galatians as the most decided opponent of Paul. On the other hand, some of the details in Galatians would not at all have served the purpose of Luke with his endeavour towards reconciliation of the rival parties. Hence he would be inclined to omit them.? The Itanerary. In the second or Pauline part of Acts there are some pieces where the writer speaks in the first person plural—namely, xvi. 10-17; xx. 5-15; xxi. 1-18; xxvii. 1—xxviii. 16. These, although we shall find no reason against the view that they contain portions of 8 diary written by a fellow-traveller of Paul, cannot, as they stand, have formed part of such a diary. For this they are too much worked up into the historical form of the book, and show too many traces of modifi- cation in accordance with thatform. Take the fourth 1 A possible common source would be the Acts of Paul, which, as we shall afterwards see, was one af the principal foundations of the canonical Acts. 3. Van Manen, we may observe here, does not altogether set aside the conclusions of his Tiibingen predecessors as to the reconciling “‘ tendency ’’ of Acts. The reconciliation to be effected, however, was between the later groups which enrolled themselves under the names of Peter and Paul, not between the Apostles themselves. In his view, neither the account in Galatians nor in Acts is historical. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 79 of them, which includes the account of the shipwreck. Many circumstances inditate that in the earlier narrative Paul made his voyage from Czsarea to Rome not as a prisoner, but with his friends as a free man. Those who accompanied him to Jerusalem (xxi. 16)—or, at least, a part of them—are still with him at Caesarea when he sets out for Italy—namely, the companions spoken of as ‘‘ we,” together with Aristarchus of Thessalonica, already mentioned as a travelling-companion (xxvil. 2, cf. xx. 4). This sug- gests a short stay at Cmsarea after the visit to Jerusalem, rather than a two years’ imprisonment. Details are preserved as to Paul’s treatment on board ship, which seem natural in the case of one who is making a voyage freely, but not in the case of a prisoner. The texture of the narrative shows discon- tinuities at the points when his bonds are spoken of. In xxvii. 8, for example, the reference to the centurion (φιλανθρώπως τε ὁ Ἰούλιος τῷ Παύλῳ χρησάμενος ἐπέτρεψεν πρὸς τοὺς φίλους πορευθέντι ἐπιμελείας τυχεῖν) breaks the connexion. The account of what took place on the island of Melite bears marks, even in the grammar—as is to be observed in xxvill. 2—of the fusion of an original narrative with more or less legendary anecdotes. When the fragments are disentangled, they present themselves as a plain statement of the experiences of a single journey. No fragments from the same source can be detected in any passages but the four consti- tuting this ‘‘ we-narrative,” as it is called. The view of some critics that the author preserved the form because he wished to pass himself off as a travelling- companion of Paul must be rejected on the ground that, if that had been his aim, we should expect the first person plural to be used in all the accounts of 80 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES Paul’s journeys. Luke takes no pains to conceal from his readers that he is other than the ““ we ”’ of the passages in question. The very fact that he isa skilful writer goes to show that, if he had intended to convey the misleading impression that he was an eye-witness all through, he would have taken other means.! The ““ we-narrative’’ does not supply us with a full account of Paul’s activity. Its character is that of external note-taking ; and, even in its original form, it cannot have been a composition aiming at any sort of completeness. As far as it goes, however, there is no single reason for regarding it as other than the work of an eye-witness or as untrustworthy. Who the author was we can only guess. That he was 8 Jew by birth may be inferred from his use of the Jewish calendar (xx. 6, xxvii. 9). Such data as there are point to the Luke of Pauline tradition (2 Tim. iv. 11, Philem. 24, Col. iv. 14). This assignment of authorship would have the advantage of explaining how the whole of Acts, together with the third Gospel, came to be assigned to ‘‘ Luke.” 1 This view attributes the literal incorporation of portions of a diary neither to want of skill—an explanation which, as Schmiedel points out (Ency. Bib., ‘‘ Acts of the Apostles’’), is inadmissible—nor to any deliberate purpose such as Schmiedel himself would assign. If the latter view were accepted, Luke could hardly escape the charge of being a fundamentally dishonest writer. Van Manen, too, remarks that he knows how to give the air of history to a composition from materials in great part not historical; but the same thing might be said of Livy. Livy’s purpose was patriotic and ssthetic; that of Luke had much in common with later religious art. From the sesthetic point of view, in the case of Luke we have to allow for the peculiar stratification characteristic of an Oriental literature. The Acts of the Apostles can, of course, no more be regarded as critical history than the first decade of Livy. A critical historian like Thucydides is unthinkable among the early Christians. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 81 To return to our Luke—the author of Acts. Whence did he get his other data about Paul which he com- bined with the diary? It is necessary—as we shall soon find—to suppose that he drew on a narrative written before his own time, but after the time when the diary was written. Probably the diary was already incorporated with this narrative when he took it over; otherwise we should have to suppose that it had survived till then unused. From the narrative then extant or from tradition he got the datum about Paul’s imprisonment. The original form of this story may be preserved in the assertion, first met with in Eusebius (H. E. ii. 22), that Paul was imprisoned a second time at Rome. In the earlier narrative, we may suppose, the apostle was arrested on some accusation relating to his activity in Rome itself, whither he had come as a free man; and the imprisonment that followed was the only one mentioned. Next, the arrest was transferred to Jerusalem, as in the narrative of Acts, which represents him as conveyed in bonds from Czesarea to Rome. Then, finally, the account in Acts having in the meantime become authoritative, the single imprisonment at Rome was described as a second imprisonment. Of course, it does not follow that the earlier tradition itself is historical. Acts of Paul. Notwithstanding all resemblance in style and treat- ment, a difference at once strikes the reader between the so-called Petrine and Pauline parts of the book —that is to say, in general and exceptions allowed for, between chapters i.—xii. and xiil.—xxvili. The latter part is livelier, fresher; it gives the impression of being less legendary and more true. The writer α 82 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES seems to stand closer to the facts. The details confirm this impression, and point to one principal source used by Luke for this part of his work. That source, in accordance with the known titles of books of the kind, we may call the Acts of Paul (Περίοδοι or Πράξεις Παύλου). The use of the Acts of Paul first becomes con- spicuous in the description of Paul’s so-called ‘‘ first missionary journey’ with Barnabas. In the original account, as is still evident (xiii. 2, 4), they were sent on their mission directly by the Holy Ghost. The statement that they were sent by the community (xiii. 8) is in obvious contradiction with what goes before and after. Paul (as in most places still) and not Barnabas (as in verses 1, 2, 7) was everywhere the chief person. He was called Paul from the first, and not at the beginning Saul (verses 1-9), and then, abruptly and without reason assigned, Paul. Bar-Jesus (xiii. 6-12) was originally neither a sorcerer nor a Jew, but a type of the pre-Pauline Christians, with their dread of the new ‘‘ doctrine” preached by the men ‘full of the Holy Ghost.” From the Acts of Paul Luke may have borrowed some expressions in the speech at the Pisidian Antioch (xiii. 16-41): as, for example, that through Christ forgiveness of sins is proclaimed (88); that through him everyone that believes is justified (89). This was the ‘‘ Pauline” gospel of “‘ faith ’’ and ‘‘ grace” (cf. xiii. 48). Some things from the Pauline document have been taken up into the earlier chapters of Acts. This is probably the case with the mention of Barnabas (iv. 86-37), whose name originally belonged not to the community at Jerusalem, but to the circle of Paul at Antioch (cf. xiii.-xv.). All the names of the seven appointed to ‘‘ serve tables”’ (vi. 1-6) are Greek, THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 83 and suggest that the deacons were non-Jews. It may be conjectured that in the earlier account they were neither appointed by the Twelve nor at Jerusalem. To suppose a preponderantly heathen-Christian com- munity already there is inconsistent with the repre- sentation in other parts of Acts (cf. xxi. 20). Luke may have derived the account from the Acts of Paul, where it had reference to events outside Palestine, and transferred it to Jerusalem. The same conjecture applies to the martyrdom of Stephen, accused of attributing to Jesus the purpose of changing the Mosaic law (vi. 14. The account of a violent effort to uproot Christianity, starting from Jerusalem, in which Saul-Paul played a leading part, has been transferred probably, but not certainly, from Damascus. There are passages in which not only the Apostles, but ‘‘ the brethren ”’ also, are described as remaining in quiet at Jerusalem ; while the execution of James the brother of John is mentioned as an isolated event (xii. 2). And the passage in Galatians (i. 18-22) where Paul describes himself as having ‘‘ persecuted the Church of God” assumes that he was resident at Damascus at the time of his conversion, and not at Jerusalem. Whether Luke found the persecution by Paul and his conversion already side by side in the Acts of Paul or brought them together must remain uncertain. In the chapters containing the main body of the Acts of Paul the following points are to be noted. The account of the gathering at Jerusalem (xv. 1-33), as a whole and in the form in which we have it, cannot have come from that source. The Paul of ‘‘ Paulinism”’ is to be seen rather in passages where the opposition between his direction and that of the Judaisers among the chiefs is more pronounced. The declaration of 84 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES Paul that he is a Roman citizen comes from Luke, with his desire to place Christianity in a favourable light before the Romans. This tendency was foreign to the Acts of Paul. The representation, also, that Paul went first to the Jews belongs to Luke’s redac- tion. The converts he had read of in his source were especially Greeks, as at Bercea (xvii. 12). Luke pre- pares the way for turning the pre-Pauline Christians of Ephesus, to whom the Paul of the earlier document made known the Holy Ghost (xix. 1-7), into disciples of John the Baptist. To his hand is due the town clerk’s apology for the Christians. He manipulates Paul’s statement at Jerusalem (xxi. 89) that he is of Tarsus, ‘‘no mean city,” by making him insist at the same time that he is a Jew. This can be inferred from the peculiarity of the antithesis (ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος μέν εἰμι Ἰουδαῖος, Ταρσεύς, τῆς Κιλικίας οὐκ ἀσήμου πόλεως πολίτης), the force of which is “8 Jew, though of Tarsus.’’ Moreover, it is known from Epiphanius (Haer. xxx. 16) that certain Ebionites, probably in their own version of the Acts of Paul, preserved the original reading (Ταρσεύς εἰμι, οὐκ ἀσήμου πόλεως πολίτης), in which there is no mention οὗ Paul’s Jewish origin, and in which the reminder to the less-instructed reader where Tarsus is—namely, in Cilicia—does not occur. Luke’s modification, effected by stages, in the events at Jerusalem as recounted in the Acts of Paul, may be detected in the changing representation of his opponents, first as Judaising Christians among the ‘‘ believers’ there (xxi. 20), then as Jews from Asia (xxi. 27), lastly as ‘“‘ the Jews” in general together with the Sanhedrin. In the earlier story they would seem to have included anti-Pauline Christians. To escape the tumult raised by them, Paul was conducted to Cesarea by the faithful “‘ brethren,” introduced too THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 85 early by Luke (ix. 29-80). Thence he went to Rome as a free man. How the Acts of Paul ended we can only conjecture; but it seems likely that an account was given of his imprisonment at Rome and his death there as a martyr, hinted at by Luke, but omitted in accordance with his apologetic aim in relation to the Roman government.} An uncanonical book entitled Acts of Paul 18 referred to by Eusebius. Was this identical with the Acts of Paul mentioned by Origen? And do both writers refer to the book used (perhaps in an earlier redaction) by Luke? It is not impossible; but we are not advanced by the supposition, since there 18 no material for judging of the contents of the book outside the canonical Acts of the Apostles. According to the best judgment we can form, it presents itself as too full of legendary stories to have been written by a contemporary of Paul. The really contemporary record of the ““ we-narrative,” as has been said, was probably worked up into it by the unknown author. The date of the Acts of Paul may be placed provision- ally not earlier than the end of the first century, before which time the outlines of the remodelled Christianity known as ““ Paulinism”’ cannot be con- ceived to have fixed themselves. This, however, 18 somewhat to anticipate the result of discussion of the Epistles. The Pauline substratum in the Acts of the Apostles must be placed earlier than the earliest of 1 In this reconstruction Van Manen shows himself the true con- ¢inuator of the Tiibingen school. The Paul of the document here inferred to underlie the canonical Acts of the Apostles is essentially the Paul of the Epistle to the Galatians, and probably could not have been discovered without the aid of that Epistle. The difference is that the pioneers, having penetrated beneath Luke’s superstructure, naturally thought they had got down to the historical foundation ; later investigators find the substratum itself to be partly legendary. 80 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES these. For, while the direction of thought that appears there has much in common with that of the Epistles, no use is made of them, and an epistolary activity of Paul is in no way alluded to.! Acts of Peter. The particular document which forms the basis of the first twelve chapters of our canonical Acts may be called most conveniently the Acts of Peter (Περίοδοι or Πράξεις Πέτρου). It is a counterpart of the Acts of Paul, and was evidently written with the Paul of the older document as a model. For the hypothesis of independent origin, the parallelisms with the story of Paul are too numerous; and, this hypothesis being excluded, the exaggerations of the legendary and miraculous element in what is related of Peter show the narrative of which he is the hero to be secondary. Contrast, for example, the account of his deliverance from prison by an angel (xii. 8-19; cf. v. 17-42) with the account of Paul’s deliverance at Philippi (xvi. 19-40). The latter leaves open the interpretation that it is the form assumed in tradition by some historical event ;? whereas the first is evidently nothing but a miracle-story. The possibility, and 1 The slight use of the Epistles in Acts which seemed probable from the foregoing investigation was, of course, by Luke, the final redactor. 3.18 it altogether fanciful to discover here a reminiscence of a real Paul who had not yet even been transformed into an “ apostle of Jesus Christ,” but was simply αὶ propagandist of (expectant) Messianic Judaism? Observe the accusation: οὗτοι of ἄνθρωποι ἐκταράσσουσιν ἡμῶν τὴν πόλιν, ᾿Ιουδαῖοι ὑπάρχοντες, καὶ καταγγέλλουσιν ἔθη ἃ οὐκ ἔξεστιν ἡμῖν παραδέχεσθαι οὐδὲ ποιεῖν Ῥωμαίοις οὖσιν (vv. 20-21). The passage, it may be noted, follows on ἃ section of the “ we-narra- tive.” THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 87 even the probability, that the writer made use here and there of traditions that had come to him from other sources, is not excluded; but the way in which, always with the aim of glorifying Peter and his circle, he follows in the steps of his Pauline predecessor, makes it improbable that he had command of any rich independent Petrine tradition. His purpose was not historical in our sense of the word, but was to give Peter a concrete life and activity, and to write his Acts s0 as to make him comparable to Paul. Josephus. That the author of the Acts of the Apostles made use of Josephus among his sources is shown by many details of the narrative. Perhaps the parallelism of the phenomena said to have accompanied the out- pouring of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost (ii. 1-4) with the portents described by Josephus as prophetic of the destruction of Jerusalem (B. J. vi. 5, 8)! may be taken as evidence. There are, however, clearer traces than this and other such small coincidences. The mention of Theudas and of Judas the Galilean in Gamaliel’s speech (v. 86-37) is due evidently to an imperfect recollection of what the author had read in Josephus (Ant. xx. 5, 1 and 2); where the Theudas mentioned, and with him “ the 1 Another account of the prodigies in the Temple at the siege of Jerusalem, among which was a voice proclaiming the departure of ‘*the gods’’ (excedere deos), is to be found in Tacitus (Hist. v. 13): ‘* quae pauci in metum trahebant: pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotum litteris contineri, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens -profectique Judaea rerum poterentur.’’ If the passage in Acts is rightly connected with the passage in Josephus, it might seem that the Christian author intended to symbolise in visible form the transference of the theocratic privileges and claims of the old hierarchy to the legendary founders of the new. 88 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES sons of Judas the Galilean,” belong to a later time than that to which Luke assigns the events he makes Gamaliel describe. The “ Egyptian” for whom Paul was taken at Jerusalem (xxi. 88) is the unnamed ‘prophet out of Egypt”? whose expedition, with its defeat by Felix, is recorded by Josephus (Ant. xx. 8, 6; 8. J. ii. 18, 5). The word σικάριοι (sicarit), applied to his adherents, is found nowhere else in the New Testament ; it occurs often in Josephus—though not in the two passages referred to—and apparently in no other Greek author. Luke’s ‘‘ tendency’ here is manifest. He seizes the opportunity of illustrating his implied thesis that any harsh treatment of a Christian by Romans must be due to some misunder- standing. In making his Paul predict that God shall *‘smite’’ the high priest Ananias (xxiii. 8), he probably had in memory that the same high priest—whose slaves used to ‘‘ smite’’ those who would not submit to his exactions (Ant. xx. 9, 2), as he commanded that Paul should be smitten (xxiii. 2)—had died a violent death (B. J. ii. 17, 8). The chief personages con- nected with Paul’s imprisonment and trial—Felix and Drusilla, Festus, Agrippa and Berenice—are all taken from Josephus. Luke puts together a well-constructed narrative on the basis of their characters as depicted by the Jewish historian, but has no mdependent authentic tradition to work on. The narrative itself is an insertion by him in the Acts of Paul. The coin- cidence with Josephus in the introduction of Festus is even verbal (ἔλαβεν διάδοχον 6 Φῆλιξ Πόρκιον Φῆστον, xxiv. 27; Πορκίον δὲ Phorov διαδόχου Φήλικι, Ant. xx. 8, 9). The whole serves the purpose of showing how Christianity, while it was persecuted by the fanatical Jews, was protected by the Roman authorities. THE ORIGIN OF ACTS 89 4.—GereneraL View OF THE USE oF SovURCES. From an examination of the whole work, we see how the author now freely recasts the materials in his own manner, now holds himself bound by the words of his documents. A favourite mode of transition with him is the apparently exact but really indeter- minate—‘‘ And in those days”’ (vi. 1, xi. 27; ¢f. Luke 1. 89, ete.), or “At that time” (xii. 1). At intervals he introduces his beloved refrain about the increase of the communities and the growth of the word (v. 14, xul. 24). Such an abrupt intrusion as that of ‘‘ Saul,” identified with Paul, into the account of the death of Stephen, strikes the eye at once. The establishment of a heathen Christian community at Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, taken over from the Acts of Paul, is modified by the introduction of unknown ‘‘ men of Cyprus and Cyrene ”’ (xi. 19-26), of whom we hear no more. As the last verse shows, the founding of the community was originally ascribed to Paul and his associate, Barnabas. This illustrates the method of accommodation by which the Paul of the “‘ Paulinists”’ had precursors given him in the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen. Paul’s gathering of alms for the brethren at Jerusalem, which would seem to have been assigned in the Acts of Paul to a later date, is brought by Luke into connexion with what he had read in Josephus about a famine in the reign of Claudius (xi. 28; cf. Ant. xx. 2, 6, and 5,2). He describes the death of Herod with circumstances remembered from Josephus (Ant. xix. 8, 2). That he gives the name of Silas to the member of the Pauline circle called in the Epistles Silvanus, is explained by the fact that ‘‘ Silas’ is the only form of that proper name met with in Josephus. Silas and Barnabas are 90 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES brought arbitrarily into connexion with the com- munity at Jerusalem; in the Pauline tradition, preserved in other passages, they were connected with Antioch. The circumcision of Timothy by Paul (xvi. 1-8) counterbalances the non-circumcision of Titus (Gal. ii. 8-4), who—perhaps as too much identi- fied with the extreme Pauline school—is not mentioned in Acts. When the chief of the synagogue at Corinth is called Crispus (xviii. 8) instead of Sosthenes (xviii. 17), this is probably due to a reminiscence of 1 Cor. i. 14. 5.—Tue AvutHor’s AIM. Various intentions have been ascribed to Luke’s work ; each of them in a manner correctly, so long as none is held to furnish by itself a complete expla- nation. He did not need to begin the reconciliation of the Petrinists and the Paulinists, since others, notably the author of the Acts of Peter, had preceded him in this; but he consciously manipulates his data in the same direction. The approximation, as has. already been pointed out, is from both sides. Peter from the beginning recognises that the Gospel, though first offered to the Jews, is for all who shall be called (ii. 89). Paul is obedient both to the Law and to the other Apostles, and makes it his custom to preach first to the Jews, only afterwards turning to the Gentiles. Yet it would be an error to describe such reconciliation as Luke’s predominant aim. Even the apologetic aim with regard to the Roman authorities, though this belongs peculiarly to his redaction and not to any of his sources, must not be described as the purpose of the whole. What he does by his way of presenting the relations of Jews and Christians and Romans is tacitly to invite the Romans to continue the THE ORIGIN OF ACTS» 92 protective attitude towards Christianity which, accord- ing to the story, they had taken up at first. He combines this, however, with other purposes; such as that of drawing clearly the line between Judaism and Christianity, smoothing over the existing differences among Christians, and so forth. And in the end it would be unjust not to recognise that his essential purpose is correctly described by himself at the open- ing of the third Gospel, of which the book of Acts, according to his own statement, is a continuation. What he primarily had in view was to give more exact instruction to Christian converts as to the events on which their faith was founded. His purpose was to write history in a sense—“‘ sacred history,” if you like. 6.—His PEeRsonatiry. He was evidently not a Jew, but rather a Greek or 8 Greek-speaking Roman. ‘The Jews” always present themselves as men with whom he has nothing in common. His general tolerance and his sympa- thetic attitude towards Christians on all sides do not extend to them.! Penetrated with the ‘‘ Catholic ”’ thought of the unity between Peter and Paul, he puts texts side by side to which the opposite parties can appeal—yes and no on the same page. These, by their juxtaposition, are to serve as a sign that the old differences have become antiquated. For the leaders especially they never existed. Among Christians all was—that is, it ought to have been—harmony from the first. Where was the book written? For Alexandria, as 1 This is, of course, not inconsistent with his adoption of the point of view that made the Christian apostolate inherit the rights of the rejected Jewish hierarchy. Rather it is a necessary consequence of it. Ὁ2 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES also for any place in Greece, there is little to be said. One living in a Hellenic environment would hardly have spoken as Luke does of the way in which the Athenians spent their time (xvii. 21), and would have known that at Athens there were altars “to unknown gods” (ἀγνώστοις θεοῖς), but not “to the unknown God” (ἀγνώστῳ Gq). The quantity of traditional material from Asia Minor gives ground for inference regarding the Acts of Paul rather than the final redaction. For the place of origin of this, most circumstances point to Rome. The writer inserts information about the place or people in referring to Jerusalem (i. 12, xxiii. 8), Macedonia (xvi. 12), Athens (xvii. 21), and Crete (xxvii. 8, 12, 16), but not in referring to places in Italy. There it is as if he was on familiar ground (compare xxviii. 12, 18, 15).! Latinisms occur, as for example at the very beginning (πρῶτον instead of πρότερον, 1. 1). Above all, Rome was the special seat of the rising Catholicism; and it is not to the pagan State and its citizens generally that Luke directs his apologetics, but definitely to the Romans.’ There are many indications that the, book was composed a considerable time after the age of the Apostles. That it was written after the year 70 is certain; the destruction of Jerusalem being pre- supposed in the author’s first book (Luke xxi. 20-24) : and there are marks of a much later origin. The 1 Express topographical information in the ‘‘ we-narrative”’ is naturally ascribed to the redactor and not to the diarist. 2 The fact, however, that Rome was the seat of government, and that the highest civic authorities everywhere were Roman ofiicials, might explain this in any case. And was not the Catholic idea at Rome part of the flowing of the Orontes into the Tiber spoken of by the Roman satirist ? PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS 98. writer knows of discord that has arisen in the com- munity at Ephesus after the departure of Paul (xx. 29). The Christian community (Church) has. long been established; it has its official elders. (presbyters). Christianity, while fully conscious of its internal continuity with the ancient Israel, has broken with ‘‘ the Jews,’ and sees itself obliged to. appeal to the men in authority among the heathen. The time has arrived when it has to make good its right to exist as an independent religion. Altogether,. the canonical Acts of the Apostles cannot be assigned to an earlier date than about 125. The time of its. composition may most reasonably be placed between 125 and 150. Section I. PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS In the canonical Acts we find three Pauls: Paul as. represented by Luke; the Paul of the Acts of Paul ; and the Paul of the Itinerary. ' The Representation of Luke. The inconsequences of Luke’s account have already: in part appeared from the analysis. His Paul is a. Jew, and at the same time a Roman citizen by birth. He is of Tarsus, but was brought up from his youth at Jerusalem. He is a tentmaker, yet has the leisure. to come forward and take a leading part in persecuting- Christianity. That he was a teacher in Israel, and had learned a handicraft only in that capacity, Luke- does not tell us. We are not told why he is called Saul as well as Paul; why Barnabas alone, after his conversion, was not afraid of him (ix. 26-27); why he: 94 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES in particular should have incurred the hostility of the Hellenists (ix. 29). So the account proceeds, without clearness as to the precise causal connexion, till his last visit to Jerusalem. Here he is well received by *‘the brethren,’’ yet seems to be personally unknown to almost everyone, in spite of his repeated visits and of his having been educated there. Though he ‘behaves as & pious Jew, his appearance in the Temple excites 8 furious riot. We hear nothing more of any interest taken in him by those who had received him. While he is represented as quite at one with the members of the Christian community at Jerusalem, and while they apparently enjoy complete toleration, the charge of the Jews that he is the enemy of his people and of its law is so constantly presupposed that at Rome (xxvii. 17) he enters upon an apology in advance to those who have never heard of the accusation. Thus, beneath its well-ordered literary clothing, Luke’s life of Paul reveals its unhistorical character in detail. It is full of ‘‘ signs and wonders,” and the accounts of some of these are inconsistent, as, for example, that of Paul’s conversion. In ix. 7 the bystanders hear the voice, but see no man; in xxii. 9 they see the light, but hear not the voice. The story of the Apostle’s arrest at Jerusalem and of his imprisonment at Cxsarea loses all its air of truth on analysis. To take one detail, Felix, who is said to have hoped for a bribe from Paul to set him free, might have known that he had no means. But in reality Felix, Drusilla, Festus, Agrippa, and Berenice owe their presence in Luke’s narrative entirely to his acquaintance with the works of Josephus; on the strength of which he could judge himself safe in . attributing to Felix accessibility to bribes. His PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS 95 weakness in chronology would betray this if it were not otherwise evident. Festus, as may be inferred by com- bining the statements of Josephus (Ant. xx. 8, 9) and of Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 65, xiii. 14), entered on his pro- curatorship in succession to Felix not later than 56. For Felix was saved from punishment by his brother Pallas, the court-favourite, when the Jews brought complaints against him on his return. And Pallas, who died in 62, had already been removed from Court by Nero in 56. Time then being allowed for Paul’s journey to Rome and for his two years’ preaching there, his martyrdom—presupposed by Luke—would have to be placed in 59. This, however, is incon- sistent with the tradition he follows, which places it near the time of the fire at Rome in 64. Thus, Luke’s data, contradictory as they show themselves, oblige us to seek some other ground than that of authentic record for their actual combination in his narrative. As has been made plain, he did not aim at writing history in our sense. The accounts of Paul that were in his hands had to be modified for edification. The chief document on which he worked, manipulating it in his ‘‘ Catholic’ sense, was the Acts of Paul. To this we must turn for further light—so far as the distinctive character of Paul set forth in it can still be determined. The Acts of Paul. Here the Apostle presents himself as a younger contemporary of the first disciples, not as a member of their circle. Ina little time these are only repre- sented by an occasional survivor like Mnason (ἀρχαῖος μαθητής, xxi. 16). Christianity has spread abroad. Apollos of Alexandria has already preached at Ephesus 96 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ‘‘ the things concerning Jesus” (xviii. 25). Paul isa citizen of Tarsus, and in the beginning attached to Judaism either by birth or as a proselyte ; the writer does not say which. He is a tentmaker by occupation (xviii. 8). At first hostile to the new sect, he 18 after- wards converted by a vision of Jesus, and is sent to the heathen directly by the Lord. He is immediately filled with the Holy Ghost (ix. 17), and remains always under its guidance. He makes all his plans in accordance with the inspirations and visions granted him. He has the power of imparting the Spirit to others by laying on of hands. Its possession is the mark of his converts. He works not among the Jews, but among the ‘‘nations.’’ To their joy he is their Apostle (xiii. 47-48). The older disciples of Jesus can receive more accurate instruction from him and his disciples; as, for example, Apollos from Aquila and Priscilla (xviii. 26). It is he and those of his direction who are first called ‘‘ Christians”’ at Antioch (xi. 26). With the ‘‘ disciples’ of the older direction he some- times comes into hostile contact. Elymas, the ‘son of Jesus,” tries to turn away the hearers of Paul ‘from the faith” (ἀπὸ τῆς πίστεως, xiii. 8). The movement against him at Jerusalem begins with the believers ‘‘ zealous of the law” (xxi. 20). Originally it was, perhaps, carried forward by them and not by ‘“‘the Jews,’ on whose broad shoulders Luke seeks to discharge the responsibility. It may have been from them also that the ‘‘ brethren’ whom Paul had succeeded in winning to his doctrine rescued him and placed him in safety at Cesarea; but it is no longer possible to make out how often ‘‘ disciples’ of the old type, ‘sons of Jesus,’”’ are hidden behind the mask of Luke’s “ Jews” hostile to Paul and his preaching. The new “doctrine” which Paul preaches is the PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS 97 fruit of a revelation granted to him in visions. It is distinguished from that of the old disciples by seeing in Jesus not so much the Messiah promised to Israel as the ‘‘ Son of God ”’ (ix. 20). He is still called ‘‘ the Christ” (6 χριστός, the Greek translation of the Hebrew name) or simply ‘‘ Christ” (now become ἃ proper name), but is thought of under that name as a supernatural being. Christ, or the Son of God, is one with the Jesus manifested for a short time on earth and now living in heaven. Precisely how Paul con- ceived of this unity of Christ and Jesus as coming to be, we are not told. The problem of ““ Christology ” was left for the future. Jesus himself in the mean- time recedes into the background. The essential thing is to believe in Christ and to persevere in “ the faith”’ (xiv. 22). In him there is given a new revelation of God, the hitherto unknown. Jews and heathens, also the mere ‘“‘sons of Jesus,” stand outside and dwell in darkness, are ‘‘in the power of Satan” (xxvi. 18), ‘‘ sons of the devil” (xiii. 10); but can now come to a knowledge of light, of the highest God, and of his true being. For the new revelation is for “all men everywhere ”’ (xvii. 80). The law is done away with. There is forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ. Faith comes ‘‘ by grace.”” Grace is communi- cated by the instrumentality of the ‘“‘ chosen vessel ”’ (σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς, ix. 15), on whose preaching as many as are ordained to eternal life believe (xiii. 48). | This presentation of Paul, too, in spite of its greater verisimilitude, is one that cannot be held for historical asawhole. The Apostle is not quite a man of flesh and blood, but has much of the hero of romance, the idealised personality. Many of the stories about him bear an obviously legendary character, of the same kind, though not so strongly coloured, as that of H 98 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES the later apocryphal lives of saints. Then the content of his doctrine offers a difficulty. Can the development of speculation on the unity of Jesus with & supernatural being, a ‘‘ Christ the Son of God,”’ have gone so far at a time no later than that even here assigned to Paul? There is the paradox that a Jew or a Greek proselyte to Judaism, who has not been a follower of the new ‘‘ way,” but a persecutor of its adherents, should no sooner see his error than he comes forth as a reformer of their ideas; preaching a system which, whatever else may be thought of it, bears witness to a deep religious life and long and serious reflection. The Paul of this narrative is among the first preachers of Christianity outside of Palestine; yet in every country where he arrives—in Syria, in Asia Minor, in Greece, in Italy—he meets with ‘‘ disciples,” and even “brethren.” For this stage to be reached, and for the ‘‘ new doctrine ”’ to supervene, more time seems necessary than is allowed when he is supposed to be a contemporary of the earliest disciples, even if a younger contemporary. An actual Paul may have given the starting-point for the development, and some facts relating to him may have been preserved; but he was not himself the creator of the Pauline ‘‘ gospel of grace,” the spiritual father of the ‘‘ Christians’’ of Antioch. Such a union of incompatibles as the hero of the Acts of Paul can never have lived and worked. In this shape he may be conceived as the glorified figure-head of a party which attaches its ideas to him in order to commend them in his name: a figure drawn from life he is not. Are we in a position to discover any actuality at all behind this semblance ? PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS 99 The Itinerary. To this question the diary of a fellow-traveller of the Apostle gives some answer, but unfortunately not ἃ very circumstantial one; for it only relates the events of a single journey. The real Paul, we may infer, was a travelling preacher. He was a younger contemporary of the other Apostles, and his views did not differ materially from theirs. To judge from the use of the Jewish calendar in the diary (xx. 6, xxvil. 9) —a use which the hero of the Acts of Paul would probably not have made—his circle had not yet broken with Judaism. We may conjecture that he was Originally a tentmaker of Tarsus, a Jew or a proselyte to Judaism ; that, having at first persecuted the “ disciples” or ‘‘sons of Jesus,” he was gained for their cause and devoted himself heart and soul to propagating it; that he was one of the first to make their views known outside of Palestine among Jews and heathens; and that this intercourse with the people of various lands detached him from the law. We may perhaps go a step further, and try to fill in the outline from the missionary journeys and experi- ences attributed to him in the Acts of Paul. Perhaps we are justified in concluding that he seldom or never came in contact with the disciples in Palestine; that he remained practically unknown to the brethren at Jerusalem; that, on his arrival there at last, he nearly fell a victim to his real or imagined want of respect for the Temple. All this, however, is uncertain. We must guard against taking for granted the truth of whatever in the Acts of Paul is not manifestly fictitious. At the same time, the diary itself—or rather, the fragmentary portion of it which can still be detected beneath the double 100 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES redaction—presents nothing whatever that is untrust- worthy. For regarding the Paul of the Itinerary as a fictitious personage there is no single reason. Thata real person should in the course of years be trans- formed into a hero of romance is a perfectly familiar historical phenomenon. Conclusion. Thus, viewing the Acts of the Apostles for the present without reference to the Epistles, we find that only the oldest of the three representations of Paul which they contain brings us near the historical reality. Here he presents himself as one “‘ disciple”’ along with others. There is no question as yet of ‘‘ Christians,” or of a break with Judaism. The days of the ‘‘ Holy Spirit’’ have not yet dawned. No one knows that Spirit, or fancies himself led by it. What- ever else they may be, the ‘‘ disciples,’”’ both in their own estimation and in the judgment of others, are Jews (and remain 80), either by birth or by having become proselytes. They simply form a direction, a sect, among the Jews, not apart from them. The centre of their distinctive convictions is Jesus, whose sons or disciples they esteem themselves to be, and in whom they recognise the Messiah promised to their fore- fathers. To remind one another of ‘the things concerning Jesus,” and to declare them to the rest of the world—that is what distinguishes them from the other Jews, and is with them the motive to a pure life and mutual love. To this band of brothers Paul joins himself. In the service of their ideas he travels through various lands with varying success. We do not find either that he wrote letters of any importance, or that any divergence about belief or conduct arose PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS 101 between him and the other disciples. The late writer whom we call Luke, knows indeed of discords that have arisen; but it is significant that in the predic- tion of them which he puts into the mouth of the Apostle (xx. 29-80) he makes them arise after his departure. A generation—perhaps more—having passed away, a tendency manifests itself outside of Palestine, particularly at Antioch in Syria, to break loose from Judaism. This would be the natural consequence of the accession of heathen proselytes and of intercourse with the Greco-Roman world at large. Accordingly, & new direction appears. The Gospel of the Son of God, of ‘‘ grace,” of ‘‘ faith,” is born. The knowledge that Jesus is no other than the Son of God, the Christ, is ascribed to a special revelation, to a com- munication of the Holy Spirit. The “ disciples,”’ from a sect of Jews, have become ‘ Christians.” Those who follow this direction connect it with the name of Paul. Having made him their hero, they proceed to write his life. Yet they can take over almost nothing from that life as it really was, because a grander image of the Apostle is before their eyes. Besides, ‘‘ Paulinism,” though it has to be attributed to Paul, is really new, and did not belong to the man himself. Hence the indistinctness in the image of this Paul according to the Paulinists. We have in this indistinctness one evidence that Paulinism was born after Paul’s time. That it immediately won approval we can see; but also that it provoked strong opposition among the old disciples. It is remarkable enough that there is absolutely no hint of any letters written by this Pauline Paul. Years again pass by. The strife between the old and the new, in the judgment of influential men, has 102 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES lost its interest. Peter, the hero of the ‘‘ disciples ” as Paul was of the ‘“‘Christians,’’ has been made the sub- ject of Acts on the model of the Acts of Paw. Finally, Luke girds himself up to the task of complete reconcilia- tion, brings the two lives together, and modifies the traditional features of each Apostle into approximation to those of his colleague. He is probably acquainted with Pauline Epistles; but he does not name them, and he makes sparing use of them. His Paul bears a character other than that of the Epistles, and of those Acts which he diligently used as the basis of his own narrative. Through this process of adaptation, Paul, next to Peter, can become the founder of the ‘‘ Catholic Church.”’ Thus, for those who acquiesce in the com- posite image presented in the Acts of the Apostles, adolescent Christianity has lost the true sense of its development. What it is, or ought to be now, that it has always been—in essentials unalterable, one and the same faith for all right-thinking confessors, and — especially for the men of name, after whom parties have wrongly called themselves. The sense of development having been recovered, two views founded on the two ideal representations of Paul must be dismissed as untenable. The old Catholic view corresponds to the imaginary portrait painted by Luke; the view of the Tubingen school to the only less imaginary one of the Acts of Paul. No assured reality is left but the Paul of the Itinerary. There was, in historical fact, no quarrel between Peter and Paul, but only between the ‘‘ Petrine”’ and ‘‘ Pauline ”’ partisans who arose after them. On the other hand, neither Apostle taught the principles of Gentile ‘‘ Christianity’: both alike taught simply those of the disciples or ‘“‘sons of Jesus.” The apple of discord thrown into the world by Paulinism was the PAUL ACCORDING TO ACTS 103 result of an advance made after the death of the Apostle. Or is there some. flaw in the argument? Do the Epistles forbid us to reject the portrait in the Acts of Paul, along with that of Luke, as unhistorical? The answer to this question must be sought in an investi- gation of the Pauline Epistles. Part II. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS For ages the fourteen Epistles attributed to St. Paul in the New Testament were all undoubtingly accepted as proceeding from the Apostle of the Gentiles. The leaders of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, however, were so far critical as to contest the Epistle to the Hebrews; and the doubt as to its genuineness has never since been suppressed. From the latter part of the eighteenth century more and more inroads have been made on the Epistles still accepted as genuine. By the Tubingen school these were reduced to four—namely, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians.! In these, also, interpolations were admitted by their defenders, and by degrees it came to be seen that, under the application of the tests which had been fatal to the rest, even the Epistles ‘‘ universally received ’’ could not hold together as a whole. So the process of demolition went on; until, before the end of the nineteenth century, the time could be seen fast approaching when, of the once imposing edifice, not one stone should be left on another. : 1 The rejected Epistles, of course, have all along found defenders. Van Manen himself, as he mentions, argued for the genuineness of the first Epistle to the Thessalonians in a doctoral thesis published in 1865, though he rejected the second. In sympathy with Baur’s critical views, and always recognising his own intellectual debt to the founder of the Tiibingen school, he yet could not help being struck with the arbitrariness of his division between genuine and spurious Epistles. The prolonged search for a more satisfactory criterion at length showed the absence of a solid basis anywhere. 104 THE NATURE OF THE WORK 105 In justifying the conclusion arrived at, the appeal is to those who are willing to examine the Epistles without traditional assumptions, whether those of the Church or of ““ the science of our days.”” Taking first the Epistle to the Romans, we place ourselves before 10 in complete freedom and ask, What is it, and whence? Our aim is simply to know the truth as regards Christian antiquity. 1.—Tue Nature or THE WorK. We speak of the ‘“‘ Epistle” to the Romans; but is the composition properly an Epistle? Undoubtedly it presents itself under the external form of a letter. This, however, is mere appearance, as even the opening verses make plain. The disquisition contained in i. 2-6 betrays the author of a dogmatic treatise who wishes to dispose as summarily as possible of a number of disputed points the discussion of which is current in certain circles. Even apart from this, the address is far from clear. Comparison of the text 1. 7 (πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ, ἀγαπητοῖς θεοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις) with other passages (cf. xil. 3), and with a usage known to ecclesiastical writers, shows that the words τοῖς οὖσιν mean “ those that really are ’’—that is, do not merely seem to be—Christians. What is indicated is ἃ spiritual circle of hearers, not a local community ; and indeed there are specific reasons for holding the mention of Rome in this place, as also in 1. 15, to be interpolated.!. Generalised rhetorical forms again, such as occur in many places (cf. 1]. 1, 8, 17, 1x. 20, xi. 18, xii. 8, xiv. 4, 10, 15), point to the great public, 1 This does not imply any doubt as to the intention of the redactor or redactors to make the whole composition pass for a letter from the Apostle Paul to the Romans. 106 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS and not to a limited circle of determinate persons, as the audience addressed. However patient we may be in the matter of salutations, it is difficult to find truth and not fiction in the words, ‘‘ AW the Churches of Christ salute you” (ἀσπάζονται ὑμᾶς ai ἐκκλησίαι πᾶσαι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, xvi. 16). The contents generally are those of a book rather than of a letter. Neither the doctrinal nor the hortatory discourses which succeed one another seem more adapted to the needs of the Chris- tians at Rome than anywhere else. Viewing the work as an Epistle, we try in vain to form any idea of the relation between the writer and his readers. No light is thrown on this relation either by the Acts of the Apostles or by tradition. According to tradition, Peter and Paul were the founders of the community at Rome; whereas it follows quite clearly from the Epistle that the Christians addressed were such before the writer had ever seen them face to face. We get no more light from the details, which indeed frequently give contradictory impressions. The faith of the Roman Christians is spoken of throughout the whole world (i. 8) ; so that the Apostle can put it on & level with his own (i. 12): and yet he speaks of himself as striving to preach the Gospel not where Christ was named, lest he should build upon another man’s foundation (xv. 20). No explanation has suc- ceeded in making it comprehensible why Paul should address such a “letter” to Christians personally unknown to him at Rome. In no traditional record do we come upon a trace of any impression, favourable or unfavourable, made by it among those to whom it is supposed to have been addressed. And yet it was not the kind of letter to be simply received, read, and laid aside. So various are the contents that grounds can be assigned with equal show of reason for holding THE UNITY OF THE BOOK 107 that the community at Rome consisted of Jewish Christians, of heathen Christians, and of a mixture of both. Sometimes, indeed, the work seems to be meant even for Jews and heathens who are outside Christianity. The result of the whole examination is that—whoever wrote it—we have before us, not an epistle in the proper sense of the term, but a book, a treatise in epistolary form. 2.—Tue Unity or tHE Book. Whatever conclusions may be arrived at as to the way in which it was composed, the relative unity of the book in its traditional form must be recognised. That there should be slight additions or interpolations is & matter of course in a book coming down from antiquity that has been much read, and has passed through the hands of many copyists. The cases of this kind that occur and are recognised by textual critics do not in the least affect the general view we must take. None of the pieces that make up the composition can be removed without injury to the whole. If we suppose it to end, as has often been fancied, at xiv. 28, we feel that there is no proper close. In content as well as in form it is a whole as it stands. With a little goodwill we may find in it what might appear to the writer a coherent develop- ment of the Pauline doctrine, and an ordered reply to the objections urged against it. The minor disquisi- tions fit into the scheme as a whole. A conclusion such as we have was an essential part of it. The traditional text is accordingly no product of an acci- dental conjoining of scattered pieces. There is identity of style, as may be seen by comparison with the Epistle of James or of Clemens Romanus or with one 108 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS of the Johannine Epistles. Thus, most even of the critics who propose to divide it have been obliged to recognise the ‘‘ Pauline’’ origin of the separated parts, and not merely of that which they regard as the original Epistle addressed to the Romans. This insistence on the unity of the work had to be placed in the foreground to guard against misunder- standing of what follows. 8.—Its CoMPosITION. For the unity insisted on is, it must be repeated, 8 relative unity. It reminds one of the unity of a Synoptic Gospel or of the Acts of the Apostles. The writer has not freely and logically developed his own thought, but has roughly sketched outa plan with a view to the incorporation of older writings which he had before him. Into this plan he has fitted his materials, modifying and adapting them, but not effacing the signs of their previous separate existence. Hence the discrepant judgments that have been passed by critics according as they have been struck by the identity of the hand that put together the whole work or by the difference of character in the parts. There are sutures that make its dependence on written sources visible to the attentive reader. A.—Traces of Juncture and Manipulation. To discover these, let us examine the parts of the Epistle successively as they present themselves accord- ing to a natural division. The Address: 1. 1-7. Verses 2-6 break the continuity between verses 1 and 7. Their doctrinal intention is plain: (1) ITS COMPOSITION 109 Stress had to be laid on the prefiguring of Paul’s Gospel in the prophetic parts of the Old Testament (verse 2). The fact that the Catholics who affirmed the connexion with the Old Testament and the Marcionites who dwelt on the break with it alike appealed to the authority of Paul, shows the probable absence in the older Paulinism of any definite pro- nouncement on the point. (2) The affirmation that the Son of God is a descendant of David according to the flesh (verse 8) proceeds from the effort to reconcile the old Pauline with the Messianic idea. Character- istic passages in the Epistle show absence of all preoccupation with the manner in which the Son of God was made flesh. A very close analysis of expres- sions such as that of vill.3 (ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας) would lead to the notion that the body of Christ was merely apparent. From a point of view like this, descent from David could be of no importance. (8) The intention of verse 4, in spite of some unintel- legible words (ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης) in the text as it stands, evidently is to assert that Jesus became the Son of God by rising from the dead. This conception, that he became or was made the Son of God, was not unknown in the old Christian world (cf. Acts 11. 86, xxvi. 23), but finds no place in the thought of the writer, for whom the Son of God was a pre-existent being (Rom. viii. 8, 82) sent to manifest himself on earth before he died and in his death (v. 6, 8, 10). (4) The same verse, in affirming the identity of the Pauline ‘“‘ Son of God ”’ with ‘‘ Jesus Christ, our Lord,” illustrates the process of fusion by which the favourite expressions of the Paulinists and of the old disciples of Jesus were combined. The variation, again, between ‘‘ Christ Jesus’’ and “‘ Jesus Christ ’’ (compare verses 1 and 4) is not arbitrary. 110 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS The first belongs distinctively to Paulinism,' for which Christ, as ἃ supernatural being, is prior; the second is a formula of reconciliation enabling the older disciples to adopt the new ideas. Comparison of variants in the texts where the two types of expres- sion occur shows that the predominant tendency was to change from the former to the latter. (5) The intention of verse 5 is to combat the mistaken imagi- nation that Paul attained the apostleship in an illegitimate way—that 18, not as called by Jesus. The plural (ἐλάβομεν), however, contrasting as it does with the singular which is retained in verses 1 and 8-16, shows that the writer was thinking not of Paul alone, but of Paul and those of his direction, and betrays the hand of the redactor. (6) The particular intention of verse 6 is to convey the idea that the original readers of the Epistle were heathen Christians brought to the Gospel by Paul. The redactor is aiming at a wider public, consisting of all kinds of believers, not simply of the few who have reached a spiritual height, to whom, as verse 7 (with its expres- 8100, πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν) shows, the original form of the Epistle was addressed. Introduction: 1. 8-17. Here we find a complication of inconsistent reasons for desiring to come and see those who are addressed at Rome. This again points to the hand of the redactor, as does also the glaring want of sequence towards the conclusion of the passage. The whole, however, 18 not to be held for the work of the redactor himself, but rather for an attempt to combine pre- existent ideas current in different surroundings. (1) 1 And this is the older reading in i. 1. ITS COMPOSITION 111 Paul desired to visit the Romans in order to give them some spiritual gift and for mutual confirmation in the faith (verses 9-12). (2) He was constantly making plans that he might have fruit of his missionary activity among the brethren at Rome as elsewhere (verse 13). (8) Though he had no reasons connected with the particular community at Rome, still he wished to come because he felt himself a debtor to all men (verse 14). First Part: 1. 18—vii. 39. When we enter upon the attempted demonstration of the power of the Gospel for the salvation of all believers, whether Jews or Greeks, we find too many incompatible positions to leave open the possibility that the whole proceeded from the same author, deve- loping his own thought without reference to sources. In detail, the characteristic procedure is the mechanical linking of sentences by means of particles that should denote logical transition. This is intelligible on the sup- position that the whole is composite, but not otherwise.! 1 To this line of argument the following objection might most plausibly be taken. It does not seem a priori impossible, one might say, that the original author of the Epistle to the Romans was an intermittently powerful religious thinker driven by fervid emotion to the alternate expression of positions logically irreconcilable. The inconceivable complexity of such antitheses of doctrine led Julian to describe Paul as the prince of charlatans (τὸν πντας πανταχοῦ τοὺς πώποτε γόητας καὶ ἀπατεῶνας ὑπερβαλλόμενον Παῦλον), but not to deny his authorship of the writings attributed to him. This purely general defence, however, loses its force when an attempt is made to apply it to the particulars. The arbitrary and inconsequent use of the particle γάρ, for example, does not seem adequately explained by the favourite resource of modern Protestant philo- sophical Paulinists—namely, the Apostle’s supposed training under the unfortunate Rabbis. Van Manen’s hypothesis of the use of sources really explains this peculiarity in the work of a ‘“‘ Greek-speaking and Greek-thinking writer,’’ such as the author or redactor of the Epistle 112 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS Among the more prominent antitheses the following may be noted. The God who will render to every man according to his works (ὃς ἀποδώσει ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, li. 6) is not precisely the God of the Paulinism taught elsewhere in the section. The writer who says that the doers of the law shall be justified (ii. 18) 1s other than the writer who says that by the works of the law there shall no flesh be justified (iii. 20). Again, the verses ili. 25-26 express a different idea from that which is indicated in 111. 24 and other passages, taken in conjunction with vil. 20. In the former, the Son of God is offered as a pro- pitiation by God to himself to satisfy the demands of his own justice. In the latter, he is the price of man’s redemption paid to a power standing over against God. (Note the words διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα in villi. 20, and compare with Gal. 11]. 18, iv. 5; 1 Cor. li. 8, v. 5, vill. 5, x. 20-21.) The first-named passage proceeds from a more Jewish-minded Paulinist ; in the second we detect a Gnostic thought. According to passages of the latter type, the justification on God’s part is gratuitous (δωρεάν, iii. 24). Further, in the comparison between Adam and Christ (νυ. 12-19), the coming of death into the world is ascribed alter- nately to the sin of one man (12a, 18-14) and to the sin of all (ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον, 120). Another antithesis becomes visible in the idea of a permanent moral struggle as distinguished from a redemption once for all completely effected. The impressive passage vil. 7-25 cannot be reconciled with the to the Romans undoubtedly was. And, as he observes elsewhere, no one has arrived at a psychology—any more than a logic—of Paul which has satisfied other students. ITS COMPOSITION 113 passages where the Christian is described as having broken for ever with sin in becoming free from the law. To make the ejaculation of vii. 24, with its note of moral seriousness, refer only to Paul’s pre- Christian life, is to reduce it to mere verbiage. The aspiration here is for freedom from the body; and it refers to the inward conflict still to be undergone by those who from full conviction have already embraced Christianity. Whatever may be the original source of this passage, the redaction proceeds from one whose aim it was to rescue the Pauline teaching from the reproach of antinomianism. Second Part: 1x.—x1. It takes good will to find any connexion between the second part and the first. Logical sequence there is none. We hear nothing more of justification by faith: even the words δίκαιος, δικαιοῦν, δικαιοῦσθαι, are not to be found. The question is a new one: Why do the heathen accept the Gospel, while Israelites exclude themselves from its benefits? The opinion of the critics who regard this piece as originally by another hand is substantially correct; though, as was said before, a relative unity has been imposed on the different parts in the redaction. It forms a whole by itself, and has a conclusion of its own ; as, indeed, the first part, with which if is externally linked, has an excellent one. In its successive chapters an inti- mate relation of the writer to Israel is supposed which the preceding ones in no way suggest. He is eager to declare himself ‘‘an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” (xi.1). In the former part an entirely different tone is taken with the ‘‘ Jew”’ (ii. 17), whom the author addresses as if he had nothing in common with him. Differences of I 114 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS vocabulary, besides the one mentioned above, can be pointed out, notwithstanding the general uniformity of style. In cc. i—vili. the words ‘‘Israelite’’ and ‘*Tsrael’’ do not occur; in cc. ix.—xi. the first occurs twice and the second eleven times. On the other hand, the word ““ Jew’”’ occurs nine times in 66. 1.--11]., and only twice in cc. ix.—xi.—in both of which cases, besides, 16 may with probability be referred to the redactor. In cc. i.—vili. Christ is called seven times, in 1x.—xi. never, the Son of God. Here the condition of salvation is to confess with the mouth that Jesus is the Lord (ὅτι κύριος ‘Incovc), and to believe in the heart that God raised him from the dead (x. 9). The peculiar relation of ‘‘ faith’ to ‘‘ grace” and ‘‘ the Spirit” does not come into view. The general drift of the three chapters is the defence of Paul from the charge that he had no care for the ancient people of God. Like the preceding ones, they form in themselves not a single but a composite whole, being put together from sources. This may be shown by inconsequences in the order, incon- sistencies in detail, and peculiar repetitions; but especially by the presence of broadly contrasted views as to the rejection or return of Israel. The first view is that the rejection of God’s people needs no explana- tion beyond his good pleasure (ix. 14-29). Next we learn that in fact God has not rejected his people, for a remnant has believed (xi. 1-8). Then at the close— not to attempt to follow all the complex involutions— the mystery is revealed that, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, all Israel shall be saved; so that finally all are saved (xi. 25-32). Such divergent views were certainly not born in the same brain. ITS COMPOSITION 115 Third Part: xii.—xv. 18. The attachment of the third to the preceding parts is loose and merely mechanical. It would not be correct to say that Paul has put first the statement of his doctrine, and then added a hortatory completion. There are hortatory passages in the foregoing chapters, as there are doctrinal statements in those of the third part. This last, while forming, in the sense already defined, an essential portion of the whole, has a different origin from the others. In many peculiarities of vocabulary and contents it agrees with portions of the Epistles to the Corinthians more than with Rom. i.-xi. The idea, for instance, of a measure of faith imparted to each (xil. 8) is foreign to the earlier chapters of Romans both in expression and in thought, while it agrees in both with passages in Corinthians. For Rom. i.—xi. faith is the one first principle of the new life, and carries with it everything else. The idea of a distinction among the gifts of grace (xii. 6-8) has its parallel not here, but in 1 Cor. xii. 4-11, 28-80. This section of the Epistle is in itself less organic than the other two. Construction of passages (e.g., ΧΙ]. 1-7) out of various fragments is disclosed by alternations, otherwise inexplicable, between the second and third persons singular and plural, and by the use of different terms for the same office (διάκονος, ΧΙ]. 4; λειτουργοί, 6). The dissertation on the strong and the weak believer (xiv.-xv. 18) presents itself as an independent but not unmodified piece. The weak in the faith appear from xiv. 2 to be vegetarians, but are afterwards treated as Jewish- minded Christians (cf. 1 Cor. vili.—x.), who esteem one day holier than another (xiv. 5) and regard some 116 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS meats as unclean (14 ff.). Perhaps, as has been con- jectured, the original ending of the piece is concealed in xv. 5, which a redactor extended by the next verse, adding his own terminal formula (τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) to the simpler one (Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν) of the primary document.! Conclusion: xv. 14—xvi. 27. The conclusion has so little of an organic character either in relation to the whole or in itself that many critics who hold to the Pauline origin of the rest of the Epistle have declared it not genuine, or have tried to account for its presence here by supposing it brought in from another Epistle of Paul. For us the question is not whether it is “ genuine,’’ but whether it was originally the conclusion of the Epistle entitled ‘to the Romans.” This question has already been answered in the affirmative, though the answer does not exclude further queries as to possible modification and rearrangement. The last chapter has a peculiarly inorganic character. Some have supposed verses 1-20 to be part of a letter Paul wrote to the Ephesians— which is, so far, to admit the theory of composition out of fragments. B.—Whitnesses for the Existence of a Shorter Epistle. The result of the preceding investigation is that the Epistle to the Romans was made rather than written. There is evidence also that it was once extant in a shorter form. This may be inferred with probability from the omissions of Irensus and Tertullian in citing it; but in any case it is clear that the Gnostics, whom they opposed, and who 1 Thus xv. 12, in which the ‘‘ root of Jesse” is spoken of, belongs, like i. 3, to a more recent stratum of the Epistle. ITS COMPOSITION 117 preceded them considerably in time, used a shorter Epistle. According to Hippolytus (Philosophumena vii. 25), who makes no remark here on the textual difference, Basilides quoted the substance of vii. 19-22 in a briefer and more intelligible form than that of the canonical text: ‘‘ The creation itself also groaneth and travaileth together waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God” (καὶ ἡ κτίσις αὑτὴ συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τῶν νἱῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκδεχομένη).} The inference that he had a dif- ferent text before him is confirmed by comparison of v. 18, 14 with another citation which Hippolytus makes further on: ‘‘ To Moses from Adam then sin reigned, as is written” (μέχρι piv οὖν Μωσέως ἀπὸ ᾿Αδὰμ ἐβασίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία, καθὼς γέγραπτα)ὴ. This is not a quotation from the canonical text, but recalls it, and is explicable on the supposition that Basilides used a form of the Epistle no longer extant. We have more information about the text read by Marcion. This was certainly shorter than the canonical text, which Tertullian accuses him of mutilating. We cannot, of course, take the word of the ‘‘ Catholics” for it that their text was the original, though there is no need to accuse them of bad faith. The mere fact that the copies they had 1 The Gnostic, as was explained in a discussion not included in the foregoing summary, understood by this desire of the natural creation for delivery a desire to be set free from the “ sons of God —that is, the Christians—who, not being of this world, troubled its harmony. The end of its longing is “‘ that all the men of the sonship should go up hence” (iva πάντες ἀνέλθωσιν ἐνταῦθεν οἱ τῆς υἱότητος ἄνθρωποι). God, having at length taken pity, will shed over the whole world a deep oblivion, “ to the end that all things m&y remain according to nature, and nothing may desire anything eontrary to nature.” Thus the world, knowing no more henoeforth of the “sons of God,” and contented in its ignorance, will not again be troubled with similar birth-pangs. 118 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS before them contained passages not included in the Epistle recognised by the “‘ heretic’”’ was sufficient in their own eyes to justify the charge of falsification current from Ireneus onward. In reality, there are positive grounds for holding the form of the Epistle read by Marcion to be the older. Irensus wrote his chief work against the heretics at least forty years after Marcion came forward at Rome; and this allows time for modifications to be made in the text, and for unjust suspicions to arise about the reason of the differences. For Marcion, Paul was ‘“‘ the Apostle ”’; he did not take him over as an authority from his opponents. Ireneus and Tertullian, on the other hand, were busily engaged in trying to capture “ the Apostle of the heretics’’ in the Catholic interest. Which, then, is more probable—that Marcion set up for himself an authority to which he could appeal only after extensive mutilations; or that that authority, which, as we must remember, he himself and the men of his direction had brought into repute, afterwards received additions and underwent modifications from the other side? We need not regard him as exempt from the bad habits of the second century with regard to texts that were to be quoted as authoritative ; but, if he attempted a falsifi- cation on so large a scale, it seems strange that he did not carry it through more efficiently. In the text he used, passage after passage stood which his opponents could afterwards allege against him ; while others were absent which did not even to the smallest extent tell against any position of his. And if, while he was about it, he had done the work thoroughly, he would not have found it necessary to write a contro- versial treatise to prove that Paul, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, was really on his side. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 119 On all grounds we must conclude that Marcion’s shorter text was earlier and more original than the canonical text. C.—General View. Putting the various considerations together, we may state the result thus. The Epistle to the Romans was constructed with the aid of short treatises already extant. These were at various times taken up into a composition in the form of a letter, which went through several “editions.” Each time they were modified and adapted in view of their relation to the whole. The earliest edition was much shorter than the final one. Conjectures may be formed as to the outlines of the Epistle at earlier stages; but there can be no thought of actually reconstructing the editions or determining their no doubt very complex relations to one another. 4.—WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE Ὁ A.—Significance of the Preceding Investigation. If not in the abstract impossible, it is at least highly improbable that Paul himself should have put together, under the external form of a letter, a composition of the kind described. The result of the analysis in any case contradicts the accepted tradition as to the origin of the Epistle to the Romans, since this is taken to be an actual letter bringing us face to face with the original thought of the Apostle. To meet the arguments, however, that will still be urged against rejecting the apostolic authorship, a new investigation is requisite. The question must be put as if it had not already received its answer: Was the Epistle written by Paul? And, in connexion with 120 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS this investigation, we must try to determine positively whence the writing proceeded. B.—Improbability of the Tradition. As has been said already, we in vain seek to learn why Paul wrote a letter of the kind to the Roman Christians, or what was his relation to them. How is it that he is able to take such a tone of authority towards men with whom he has never personally come in contact? Tradition, of course, replies that Paul was an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and as such possessed and claimed authority. And, indeed, the writer of the Epistle, speaking in Paul’s name, comes forward in this spirit (Παῦλος, δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπό- στολος, ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ, 1. 1). His right to instruct and praise and warn is taken for granted all through. The fact that Paul is an Israelite even contributes to the proof that God has not rejected his people (xi. 1). From the supernaturalist point of view there is, of course, no difficulty about this; but those for whom that point of view has become obsolete cannot so easily admit that the Apostles themselves could without arrogance assume straightway the attri- butes a grateful posterity was to invest them with. Paul as an intelligent man could not take this high tone with Christians unknown to him, whom he desired to win for his cause; and the more if the traditional story is true that there were already divisions in the Church. It is remarkable that he gives no plain and succinct statement of his principles, but supposes an acquaintance on the part of his audience with the outlines of Paulinism. There are in the Epistle, one may put it in parliamentary language, some things hard to be understood (ἐστὶ δυσνόητά τινα, 2 Peter iii. 16). To speak more WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? 121 bluntly, the uncertainty in which we are often left as to the writer’s meaning is due to the presence of con- tradictory utterances. This is how things appear when we no longer see the head of the venerable Apostle surrounded with the nimbus that for ages adorned it—when he has become for us simply 4 human figure from whom we expect only the possible and the probable. That a zealous preacher of the Gospel who hoped ere long to pay a visit to the Christians at Rome should write to them beforehand a lengthy and obscure epistle in a tone of apostolic authority is possible, but it is not probable. More- over, we should not expect that kind of literary activity from an artisan-preacher like the Paul of New Testament tradition (Acts xviii. 8—4, xx. 838-84; 1 Cor. iv. 12; 2 Thess. iii. 8; cf. 2 Cor. xi. 8-9, xii. 18). All evidence as to the effect of the Epistle on the Roman Christians is wanting. According to the ordinary View, it was sent about 59. After that there is no trace of it until, more than half a century later, we find it held in honour by—the Gnostics! Where was it preserved before it came, we know not how, into the hands of men like Basilides and Marcion ? C'.—Indications of a Later Time. Much in the Epistle to the Romans, apart from these antecedent improbabilities, points to a later date than 59, or than 64, in which year, according to the tradition, Paul suffered martyrdom. To this order of facts belong in the first place— Doctrinal Utterances. The Jewish law has been definitively broken with. The light which the Gentiles had by nature (i. 19-21) could bring them as far in the knowledge of God as 122 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS their revelation could bring the Jews. The law was as inadequate as natural light to the universal need. To rescue men in general from bondage to sin, a new revelation was required. If, indeed, some among the chosen people have been found ‘“‘ doers of the law,” this is no more than has been achieved among the Gentiles, who, ‘‘ having not the law, are a law unto themselves ”’ (i1. 18-14). Far from saving men, the law rather called slumbering evil into life by awaken- ing the desire opposed to its commands. For the Christian it has lost its significance. He is liberated from sin in being liberated from the law (vi. 14). The new revelation is ‘‘ without the law” (νυνὶ δὲ χωρὶς νόμον δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ πεφανέρωται, iii. 21).1 God has found the means for the salvation of sinners, which the old law could not effect. He has sent his Son, by ‘‘faith ’’ in whom men are to be saved—that is, made capable of living a life pleasing to God. There is no question of merit; all is ‘‘ grace.” The new dispen- sation of ‘‘ spirit,’’ opposed to the “‘letter’’ of the Old Testament, is a dispensation of the grace of God. To Paul a special grace has been granted, so that he can speak of ‘‘ my Gospel,” which is no other than “‘ the Gospel of God,’ or simply ‘‘the Gospel.” He and the believers in his Gospel are under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. They walk “after the Spirit’ (κατὰ πνεῦμα, Vill. 4). This new Gospel of belief in the 1 This is a Paulinism expounded indeed on the basis of specific statements, but rendered comparatively free from the confusions and contradictions of our documents. The clause that follows the above (μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμον καὶ τῶν προφητῶν) is treated as part of the ‘“‘ water’’ with which the redactor diluted the strong wine of the older ‘‘ Pauline’’ Gospel out of which proceeded a doctrine like that of Marcion. The verse as it stands furnishes a good illustration of Julian’s remark about Paul’s perpetual changes of colour (ὥσπερ of πολύποδες πρὸς τὰς πέτρα). WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? 123 Son of God is ‘‘ the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began’”’ (xvi. 25). For the writer of the Epistle in its present form, the God who is the author of this revelation is identicah with the God of the Jews; but there are indications that originally it was not so. When there is mention of the law of God simply (viii. 7), it is not the Mosaic law that is meant, but the “law of faith” as distin- guished from the ‘‘ law of works ”’ (iii. 27). The Jew is under illusion when he thinks he has ‘the form of knowledge and of the truth” (ii. 20). The true God is not, as we might suppose, the governor of the world. Rather he stands in opposition to this world (xii. 2), as the spirit to the flesh. The created world of sense or of unreason was subjected to vanity ‘“‘by him who subjected it” (διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα, viii. 20)—that is, not by God, nor yet by the devil, but by a power resem- bling the demiurge of the Gnostics. (This power Basilides called ‘‘the great archon.’’ His empire extended to the visible heaven; he was under the delusion that he was the highest God, but was after- wards made aware of his error by the Son, and repented.) The ‘rulers of this world” (ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου), who knew not what they did when they crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. ii. 8), were no earthly authorities, Jewish or Roman, but supernatural powers, the ‘‘gods many and lords many,” the ‘“‘demons ” (cf. Rom. viil. 88, ἄγγελοι and apxaf). For the love of man, in order to rescue him from the powers of the world, God sent his Son to die under their dominion, and then delivered him again from ‘‘ death ’’—one of these lower, hostile powers. The highest God is thus no longer the Unknown. He has revealed himself. Believers in the new revelation know him for their Father, as in a more special sense 124 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS he is the Father of ‘‘ his own Son.’’ They serve him ‘*in the spirit ’’; no longer, like Jews and heathens, in temples made with hands. Jesus, from the Messiah or Christ of the early disciples, has become Christ the Son of God, a pre-existent supernatural being, sent in the likeness of flesh, though not flesh. To declare him at once man according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the spirit, was a later development springing from the effort to reconcile the newer with the older conception. In the Epistle to the Romans almost nothing is said of his life on earth: to the cross there is only one allusion (vi. 6). From this recapitulation of Paulinism, it must be evident that a considerable lapse of time was needed before such a system could be arrived at from a starting-point so Jewish as that of the disciples of Jesus. And, if the data of the Epistles are regarded as historical, there is no escape from the conclusion that Paul’s distinctive Gospel, the revelation of the Son in him, coincides in its origin with his conversion (Gal. 1. 11-24). No period during which he was a Judso-Christian can be interposed. And the received chronology cannot be materially altered consistently with acceptance of the Epistles as genuine. Thus we have to suppose his Gospel in the main already present to his thought, no more than three years after Jesus—that is, in 35 or 86, and extant in the form an which we know it between 52 and 58 or 59. The zealot for orthodox Judaism has no sooner been brought to see in Jesus of Nazareth the promised Messiah than he goes on to regard him as the Son of God sent down to earth for the sake of men; preaches deliverance from the Law; and appeals for his new conviction to a revelation of the Spirit. If we were not familiar with this representation from our youth, WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? 125 we should reject it at once as incredible. The diffi- culty of so rapid an advance for one who had been a Jew is realised when we think of the sharp opposition which Pauline Christianity still met with in the second and third centuries. That Paul himself came forward with the ‘‘ Pauline” Gospel at so early a date as that assigned is, if we consider it well, a psychological impossibility. It 18 simply unthinkable that Paul the Jew, who had persecuted the Christian community out of religious conviction, should almost immediately introduce this colossal reform of a belief which he had only just begun to share. Had it not been for the influence of non-Jewish Eastern gnosis, assimilating Greek philosophical conceptions and heathen mythology, the monotheism of Israel would have permanently withheld Christianity from the “ deification ” of its ‘‘ founder.’”’ Enoch and Moses. and Elijah were already imagined to have attained in an exceptional way to heaven without the thought arising that they had been other than human beings. If it is said that ‘‘ Paul of Tarsus” might easily come in contact with Greek philosophy and Eastern gnosis, the reply is at hand in an observation that has been made on the religion of Mohammed. There was no deification of its founder by Islam, because it ‘‘ was born too much in the light of history for unen- cumbered growth of legends.” This applies com- pletely to Paul, because for him Jesus was still in the full ‘‘light of history.”! It may be said that, 1 The destructive argument is, of course, not invalidated if we go further and adopt the position that “Jesus of Nazareth” is mythical. The point is that no supernaturalist development so exalted as that of the Pauline epistles could be arrived at by a Jew of Paul’s assumed date who had come in contact with companions of an actual Jesus. . co νλανσα camer πο = 120 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS psychologically possible or not, there is the fact that Paul did come forward with his Gospel. To this the reply is that the supposed fact rests only on the Epistles, of which we are investigating the genuine- ness. Turn to the passage in Galatians already referred to; it 18 in vain that we try to learn from it anything as to the mode of revelation of the new Gospel. ‘‘ Nobody knows,” as a French critic has rightly remarked ; and it is idle to plunge into hypo- thesis in order to explain an assumed fact for which there is no historical warrant. Acquaintance with Paulinism. By the time when the Epistle to the Romans was written there already existed a whole vocabulary of technical terms belonging to Paulinism. With these the reader is assumed to be familiar. ‘‘ Faith” and ** grace,” “ righteousness ” and ‘love,’ ‘‘ justification by faith” and ‘‘ by the works of the law,’’ and so forth,’ are used without any feeling of difficulty in altogether peculiar senses. There are all sorts of standing questions connected with the Pauline Gospel. Is there, where Jews and Greeks are concerned, respect of persons with God (προσωπολημψία παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ, 11. 11)? Has the Jew, as such, any advantage over the Greek, seeing that both sin? In what sense may Abraham be called the father of Christians? If the Christian no longer lives under 1 As terms that are intelligible only if referred to the Pauline theology, the following are cited: —wloris and χάρις, δικαιοσύνη and ἀγάπη, πιστεύειν and δικαιοῦσθαι, δικαιοῦσθαι ἐκ πίστεως and δικαιοῦσθαι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, ἁμαρτάνειν ἀνόμως and ἁμαρτάνειν ἐννόμως, παραδοθῆναι and ἀποθανεῖν ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων, ἀπολύτρωσις, βαπτισθῆναι εἰς Χριστόν, συσταυροῦσθαι (Χριστῷ), ζῆν κατὰ σάρκα, κατὰ πνεῦμα, τῷ θεῷ ἐν Xpory. And of course these are not isolated expressions picked out: they form the texture of the thought. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? 127 law, but under grace, is there not a danger that he may think sin permitted to him? How to explain the rejection of Israel? ‘The readers of the Epistle know and have accepted Paulinism as a peculiar form of doctrine (ὑπηκούσατε ἐκ καρδίας εἰς ὃν παρεδόθητε τύπον διδαχῆς, Vi. 17). Now, all this tells against its supposed early origin. If, on the other hand, the existence of a Pauline community or group at Rome about the year 59 is treated as a fiction of the writer, who lived in a later generation, there is no difficulty in the case. Affinity with Gnosis. That there is some close relationship between Paulinism and Gnosticism is generally admitted, however it may be explained, whether by a pre- Pauline gnosis influencing Paul or by the existence in his writings of germs which the Gnostics afterwards developed. Most of the Christian Gnostics are known to have held ‘‘ Paul”? in high honour. Tertullian undertakes to refute the ‘‘ heretics’ by the testimony of their own Apostle (‘‘ Apostolus vester,”” Adv. Marc. 1. 15). And, in fact, the Pauline writings are full of the phraseology and the ideas characteristic of Gnosticism. The same peculiar stress is laid on ‘‘knowledge”’ (γνῶσις). We hear of the “ wisdom ” (σοφία) that is spoken among “the perfect” (τοῖς τελείοις, 1 Cor. ii. 6-16). The highest knowledge rests neither on tradition nor on Scripture, but on a special revelation. It has pleased God, says Paul, “10 reveal his Son in me” (ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί, Gal. 1. 16; cf. 1 Cor. ii. 10, ἡμῖν ἀπεκάλυψεν 6 θεὸς διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος). For him and his there is a continual ‘‘ manifestation of the truth” (φανέρωσις τῆς ἀληθείας, 2 Cor. iv. 2). They have nothing to do with the letter (Rom. ii. 29, vii. 6; oe es ee Oe ἀσαθα 128 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 2 Cor. iii. 6). Like the Gnostics, they are ‘‘ spiritual” (πνευματικοῖ), in possession of “‘ the spirit ”’ (ro πνεῦμα). Anti-Judaism, in spite of sentences to the contrary scattered through the Epistles, is just as much a characteristic of the Pauline as of the Gnostic teaching. The “called” (of κλητοῦ stand opposed to both Jews and Greeks outside as the ‘‘saved’’ (σωζόμενου) to the “lost” (ἀπολλύμενοι, 1 Cor. i. 18, 24). By the natural or animal man (ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος), who ‘‘receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,’ is meant the Jew as well as the Greek. Like all gnosis, Paulinism cares little for historical events except as material for allegory. This indifference extends not only to the Old Testament, but to the actual life of Jesus on earth (2 Cor. v.16). If dualism is a mark of the Gnostic teaching, it is no less a mark of the Pauline. We find opposed—God and the world, which has its own ‘“‘rulers’”’ and “ elements”’; the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world; God and Satan ; God and his Son on the one side and a series of powers hostile to them on the other; ‘‘ the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”’ and the blindness proceeding from “ the god of this world ’’(2 Cor. iv. 4); the animal and the spiritual (τὸ ψυχικόν and τὸ πνευματικόν); flesh and spirit; and so forth. The differences between Paulinism and Gnosticism are not greater than the mutual differences of the Gnostic systems known to us. We recognise both by the peculiar significance they give to certain words! and phrases (Rom. xi. 88) and antitheses (viii. 38, 39). Thus it may be stated as unquestionable that there are Gnostic elements in the Pauline writings, including 1 E.g., γνῶσις, ἀλήθεια, σοφία, κόσμος, χάρις, πνεῦμα, πλήρωμα, ἔκτρωμα, ζωή, ζωὴ αἰώνιος, ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, φῶς, φωτίζειν, φωτισμός. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 129 the Epistle to the Romans. Now, whether Paulinism is to be placed at the origin of the Christian gnosis or later in its development may be left for the present undetermined. In any case, these elements are fatal to the claim of the Epistles containing them to‘have been written by Paul. For the origin of Christian Gnosticism, if perhaps somewhat earlier that the last years of the reign of Trajan (d. 117), to which it is commonly assigned, cannot be carried back to a period within the lifetime of the Apostle.} The Community. There is nothing to prevent us from supposing a Christian community already in existence at Rome when Claudius (41-54), according to a statement of Suetonius, expelled the Jews from Rome (‘‘Judaeos im- pulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit,”’ Claud. 25). If we refer the cause of this expul- sion of the Jews? to a strife that had arisen among. them through the belief of some that Jesus was the Messiah, we may reasonably assume that in 59 the Christian (or Messianic) community was as much as twenty years old. The Epistle to the Romans, how- ever, implies a considerably greater antiquity. For it presupposes more than the growth of a Messianic sect—a ‘“‘ sect of the Nazarenes ”’—similar to the sects 1 Professor Schmiedel, defending the genuineness of Romans in the. Hibbert Journal for April, 1903, lays down the position that the four εἰ principal Epistles ’’ stand or fall together, so that none can be dealt with as an isolated problem. In the foregoing section this position seems to have been already turned successfully in favour of the opposite view. It will be observed that there are references to all of them, and not simply to Romans, as contributing to the account of the Pauline gnosis. 3 Perhaps only threatened, and in any case not thoroughly carried out. . K 180 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and, like them, included within the limits of Judaism. The com- munity addressed numbers among its members Paulinists, and even Paulinists with an eye for shades of difference within the general doctrine. This is not thinkable at so early a date, even if for a moment we suppose the doctrine to have developed in the mind of Paul himself to the stage it has attained in the Epistle to the Romans. The practical precepts, no less than the doctrinal developments, indicate the existence of a past that is not of yesterday. Consider, for example, those that relate to the performance of ἃ variety of functions by the many members of one body (xii. 4-8). Some members are “weak in the faith” (c. xiv.); they avoid flesh and wine, or pay scrupulous attention to distinctions of days and of ‘“‘clean”’ and “ unclean ”’ meats. Others think it permissible to eat and drink of anything, and treat all days alike. So long have these differences subsisted that the writer mixes up with the Judaisers those who have scruples about partaking of flesh and wine, and has no better solution to offer than the genuinely ‘‘ Catholic ’’ one of praising freedom and advising that it should not be put in practice. Persecutions. Such allusions to persecution to be undergone as we meet with in xii. 12, 14, and other places, point to a later date than 59. Before that of Nero there is no trace of such a persecution af Rome; and what is said to have occurred on the pretext of the great fire in 64 had not the character of a general persecution of Christians. Besides, Paul could not have thought of putting his readers in mind of that, five years before it happened. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 131 The Rejection of Israel. The question so earnestly debated (cc. ix.—xi.), why Israel, the chosen people of God, remains outside Christianity, could not arise till it had become evident that such, with few exceptions, was to be the per- manent condition of things. For this it was neces- sary that the Gospel should have been preached in wide circles; as is, indeed, everywhere presupposed, and almost stated in so many words (x. 18-18). The opportunity has been offered to all, but most have refused to accept it (xi. 7). Now in 59 nothing had yet happened to justify the assumption that Israel must be regarded as broken off from the root—a rejected branch (xi. 17-21). To explain the writer’s appeal, ‘‘ Behold the severity of God ”’ (ide......amoro- μίαν Θεοῦ, xi. 22), at least the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70 was necessary. That was the first event of importance since the death of Jesus in which Christians could see a judgment upon the Jews. Faults in the Form. Expressions from time to time inadvertently used make it evident that the writer is not Paul, but is some- one speaking in his name at a later date. Such, for example, are the passages in which the Apostle betrays consciousness of being the representative of a party (iii. 8, etc.). Paul the born Jew would not have called himself a debtor to ‘‘ Greeks and barbarians ”’ (i. 14). The appeal to Paul the Israelite as a proof that God has not rejected his people (xi. 1) is plainly enough what would occur to a younger admirer and not to the Apostle himself. Unless Paul actually worked miracles, the assertion in xv. 19 points to someone distant enough to mix up truth and fiction in 182 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS his life. When,as is supposed, he wrote his Epistle from Corinth, he was a free man, and consequently could not speak of his “ fellow-prisoners”’ (xvi. 7). The warning against false teachers (xvi. 17-20) is explicable as put in the mouth of the Apostle so that the ‘‘orthodox” might appeal to his authority in some present contest: it could not have occurred to Paul himself writing to the Romans in the year 59. Written Gospels. In our Epistle to the Romans there are traces of acquaintance with a written Gospel. The phrase in 11. 16 (κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν pov, cf. i. 9, xvi. 25) is most intelligible as referring to a book, and was so understood by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome. From expressions not identical with, but recalling those of our canonical Gospels, if may be inferred that occa- sionally something was taken over from the Gospel spoken of. The following are possibly examples of this procedure: ὁδηγὸν εἶναι τυφλῶν (ii. 19), of. Matt. xv. 14, Luke vi. 39; φῶς τῶν ἐν σκότει (ii. 19), cf. Matt. v. 14, Luke xi. 35; ὁ κρίνων (11. 1), of. Matt. vii. 1, Luke vi. 87. More especially there may be cited: εὐλογεῖτε rove διώκοντας ὑμᾶς, εὐλογεῖτε καὶ μὴ καταρᾶσθε (xii. 14), cf. Matt. ν. 44, Luke vi. 28; love as the fulfilling of the law (xiii. 8-10, also Gal. v. 14), cf. Matt. xxii. 34-40, Mark xii. 28-84, Luke x. 25-27; ἕκαστος ἡμῶν περὶ ἑαυτοῦ λόγον δώσει τῷ Dew (xiv. 12), cf. Matt. xii. 86. Perhaps the Gospel used was the one recognised by the Marcionites. The friends of tradition who, following the Fathers mentioned above, would identify it with our third Gospel, are confronted with the necessity of placing the Epistle at least as late as the end of the first or the beginning of the second century, unless they have the courage to WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? 183 accept the third Gospel as a work which Luke the companion of Paul had already completed. In any case, the use of it indicates a later date than that which is traditionally assigned to the Epistle to the Romans. Books of Acts. A passage in the Epistle such as xv. 16-31 has the air, not of a real account of his work and plans by the Apostle, but of a decorated presentation of a tradition. Grace has been given to Paul, we are told, to be a priest of the Gospel among the nations, whom he is to offer as an acceptable sacrifice to God (εἰς ro elval με λειτουργὸν Χριστοῦ ᾿᾽ἸἸησοῦ, ἱερουργοῦντα τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα γένηται ἡ προσφορὰ τῶν ἐθνῶν εὐπρόσδεκτος, ἡγιασμένη ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, xv. 16). This is the language of one who knows him as the hero of a legend, and wishes to make a deep impression on the reader. What we hear about his missionary activity, its extent and its complete success (xv. 19, 28), can be similarly interpreted as an exaggeration ‘‘consecrated’’ by tradition. That the plans ascribed to him are merely put in his mouth is manifest from verses 80-31. If we do not choose to ascribe to Paul at once the art of reading the future and the desire against knowledge to rush on his own destruction without necessity, we can only explain the fear expressed in these verses by what the Pauline tradition had to tell of the dangers he ran at Jerusalem, and the ill acceptance of the contribution he brought with him. This is not, indeed, a story the knowledge of which was gained from the Acts of the Apostles, as one might be tempted at first to suppose; for the author of Acts deliberately glides over Paul’s bad reception by the ““ saints,” and adds circumstances not alluded to in the Epistle. The 184 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS outline of Paul’s future journey in this passage of Romans was no more drawn from Acts than were the statements that he and his had ‘‘ the firstfruits of the Spirit ’’ (viii. 28), and that he was specially called to preach the Gospel among the heathen (i. 1, 5) ; these prerogatives being there ascribed to quite different persons (cf. Acts ii., x.-xi., xv. 7). The traditional basis we recognise is that of the Acts of Paul, already disclosed as one of the documents that went to the composition of the canonicalActs. And that document, as we saw in Part I., was already of a legendary character, and cannot have been earlier than the end of the first century. D.—Natwonality of the Author. In spite of his positively assuring us that he is a born Israelite, the writer comes forward constantly in the character of a Greek. He speaks Greek and he thinks in Greek. His consciousness of being a Greek and not a Jew is betrayed by expressions such as the one already noted (‘‘ Greeks and barbarians,” i. 14) ; just as the writer of 1 Cor. xi. 4 reveals his nationality in holding it unfitting for a man to pray with covered head. The same explanation would remove all difficulty in the text of i. 9 (τί οὖν ; προεχόμεθα;). The question would then mean, ‘‘ Are we (Greeks) put at a disadvantage ?’’ To which the answer is, ‘‘In no wise: for we have before proved of Jews as well as Greeks, that they are all under sin.” The author forgets for ἃ moment that he is speaking in the character of one who had been a Jew. Quite 1 No doubt such assertions can be found in Acts, but (as has been shown) in the substratum detected by criticism, not in what we may call the official superstructure, referred to in the next clause above. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 185 consistent with this interpretation is the fact that he nowhere gives any sign of having consulted the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Only in two places (xi. 85, xii. 19) can there be a doubt that the Septuagint was the text he used; and even here all that is suggested is a variation in the reading, or the use of a Greek translation other than the one known to us. This is certainly not what we should expect from the former pupil of Gamaliel. It has been pointed out that ‘‘ Paul”? made much use of the Wisdom of Solomon; and clear traces of acquaintance with Philo have been detected. This again indicates contact with Alexandrian or Hellenistic Judaism rather than with the thought of the Old Testament in its original form. For we must not forget that the Wisdom of Solomon, originally written in Greek, belonged to the Septuagint. Thus, to explain the relationship between Paulinism and Judaism, there is no need to suppose that a Jew by birth was the writer of the principal’ Epistles. Of acquaintance with Hebrew there is no trace. Words like ‘‘ Abba,” ‘‘ Satanas,’’ ‘‘ Maranatha,’’ were part of the common speech of early Christianity.’ 1 With this result may be compared the conclusion reached by Mr. C. G. Montefiore in the Jewish Quarterly Review for January, 1901. While not hinting the least doubt as to the Pauline authorship of the Epistles, but, on the contrary, holding that, by the admission of his thesis, ‘‘the puzzles and difficulties of the Epistles of St. Paul would certainly be increased,” he nevertheless feels bound to say that the impression left is: ‘Either this man was never a Rabbinic Jew at all, or he has quite forgotten what Rabbinic Judaism was and is” (‘Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of St. Paul,” J. 9. R., vol. xiii., pp. 205-6). On the other hand : ‘The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels was & critic and pathologist of Judaism. His criticisms are real: they are flesh and blood..... But the author of the Epistle to the Romans fights, for the most part, in the air” (loc. cit., p. 167). 186 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS E.—Attempts at Parrying Difficulties. Many who have felt the difficulties of the Pauline authorship have tried to meet them by supposing interpolations, or a series of editions starting from a genuine Pauline basis; and attempts have been made to restore the original Epistle to the Romans. This conjectural criticism, however, when carried through to any purpose, itself ends in practically abandoning the genuineness of the canonical Epistle. And even in its extremest form it does not touch the difficulty of assuming ἃ more advanced doctrinal development than is thinkable in the lifetime of Paul. F'.—Arguments for Genuineness. The appeal to external evidence falls to the ground. For in any case it does not bring us in contact with contemporary witnesses; and the later witnesses cited, whether of the ‘‘ orthodox Church” or Gnostics, concerned themselves only with the contents and not with the origin of the writing. Adaptation to their own doctrinal or disciplinary aims, not critical research in our sense, was what they had in view. ‘Even the Tubingen school,’ it is often said, ‘‘ accepted the four principal Epistles.” This, however, means only that the critics thus named had never radically questioned the genuineness of those four, for to some extent they found it necessary to suppose interpolations in them. It does not mean that those particular Epistles had emerged triumphantly from any systematic process of testing to which they were submitted along with the rest. Critics of a later age, as is usual in the history of science, may see further by placing themselves on the shoulders of their pre- decessors. And, however this may be, the genuineness WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? 187 of a writing cannot be established simply by an appeal to traditional authority, whether of the Church or of ** science.” Those who find in the Epistle to the Romans an image of the personality of Paul have already formed their ideal of the Apostle from a study of the writings attributed to him; so that the argument is circular. And unfortunately the various ideal Pauls do not agree. There is a Catholic and a Protestant Paul; an orthodox and a free-thinking Paul; and, in fact, each interpreter has his own. No one denies that both in form and in content the Epistles are peculiar. But does this prove either individual authorship or the author- ship of the Apostle Paul? Cannot the same thing be said of the fourth Gospel, of the Apocalypse of John, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of the Epistle of Barnabas? Yet the distinctive character of those compositions is not taken for a proof of their **genuineness.” It is true that in the Pauline Epistles there is a marked unity of style, which extends to the whole collection! But mutatis mutandis this is equally true of the Johannine literature (Gospels and Epistles), of the Homeric poems, and of many other collections, earlier and later, which are thereby proved indeed to have had their origin in definite circles, but not necessarily to be the work of the persons whose names were attached to them. Not many years ago readers of the fourth Gospel could feel on every page the heart-beats of the disciple whom Jesus loved. This ought to suggest caution, especially as no one has yet been able to set forth in words an idea of the personality of Paul which has satisfied an 1 Of this collection the Epistle to the Hebrews is treated elsewhere (Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, Ὁ. 62) as ἃ somewhat outlying member. 188 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS appreciable number of students. There are in truth many voices in our Epistle. If one or other of these makes a powerful impression, does it follow that it can proceed from no one but Paul? A writer of the requisite degree of power will not fail of effect when speaking under some great name of the past instead of under his own.! That the ‘‘ Pauline” ideas were not invented by the individual writers is, of course, admitted. Like the ““ Johannine” ideas, they were common to certain groups, and arose earlier than the writings in which they were deposited. G.—Conjectural Mode of Origin. To sum up: The “ Epistle of Paul to the Romans” is a writing in the form of a letter, but not having its origin, even remotely, in a real letter. It is the product of repeated recasting, extension, and modifi- cation of a shorter ‘‘ Epistle,” and was probably, both in the earliest and in the later editions, composed with the help of pre-existing treatises on various subjects of doctrinal and ethical nature. The whole grew, in the manner of a synoptic Gospel, out of that which had preceded it in the same kind. The pre-existing ‘‘ letters’? and other pieces had this in common: that they all issued from a single circle and were composed in the interest of a single direction of religious thought, which we may call the ‘Pauline,’ because it was attached to the name of Paul as the ‘‘ Johannine’’ was attached to the name of John. 1 Some of the finest passages ascribed to the Hebrew prophets are. admittedly by unknown authors; and this is really a stronger case than that of the Pauline writings. Apart from effective short passages, Van Manen remarks (Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, Ὁ. 38), the ssthetic value of the Epistle to the Romans is not great. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 189 ‘* Paulinism ”’ was a deep-going effort, perhaps not at first conscious of its own meaning, to cut Christianity loose from Judaism and to raise it to the stage of a universal religion. It appeals, as has been said, to a new revelation of the supreme God, whom hitherto neither Israel nor the heathen world has been able to find. God the Father, now at length revealed, has sent his Son and given him over to the alien powers that rule the world, so that he may redeem the chosen ‘spiritual’? men for whom—to the temporary exclu- sion of all else in this world—God, who is himself Spirit, is alone concerned. Those who have learned to know him are as many as are called by “ grace,” through the preaching of the ‘‘ Gospel,” to ‘‘ faith.’” In the future the world too will be redeemed, and God will be all in all. The Son, according to the newly revealed ‘‘ know- ledge,’ came to earth in the apparently human form of Jesus, who, having been crucified by the hostile powers of the world, was raised by God from the dead. He will come again ; will destroy the hostile powers ; and then will resign to the Father the dominion over all things which he has temporarily assumed. What is of chief importance now is to know him not after the flesh, but after the spirit ; as the head of the com- munity of believers, as the body of which they are the members, as himself the Spirit (6 δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν, 2 Cor. ili. 17). Outside Christ, man has no means of freeing himself from the bonds of sense and rising to a “‘ spiritual ”’ life. Thus Paulinism was a new birth of the oldest Christianity. It began to teach that a salvation unattainable by the practice of moral virtue or by obedience to any law is offered gratuitously through Christ. This doctrine not unnaturally provoked fierce 140 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS opposition. To some it seemed dangerous by its teaching that man can do nothing for himself; others it offended by its contempt for their hereditary piety towards Jewish ordinances. The opposition called forth defence. Small treatises began to be written in support of its various points as they emerged. Such literary activity was the more necessary because Paulinism was already a theology, and not simply a religious preaching like that of the early disciples, for whom the spoken word might suffice. Accordingly, one wrote in defence of ‘‘ justification by faith” (Rom. v.—vili.); another set himself to demonstrate that Jews and Greeks alike are under sin and alike are to be saved by receiving the Gospel of the grace of God (i. 16—i1i. 81); another tried to show that Abraham is, indeed, the father of all the faithful, but that to descend from him according to the flesh signifies nothing (iv.) ; others wrote on the question of Israel’s rejection (ix.—xi.). Others, again, took more interest in ethical problems, personal matters, and social intercourse (xii.—xiv.). Of these representatives of Paulinism some wrote for narrower, some for wider, groups. Those who came later used in various measure the work of their predecessors. Sometimes whole passages, sentences, or parts of sentences, were taken over unaltered into the text. Of this procedure we can best form ἃ notion by considering the use made of the Old Testa- ment in the Epistle. Besides direct quotations, indi- cated as such by the author, we find, for example, in 11]. 10-20 a series of verses from different contexts introduced by a simple ‘‘ as it is written”; in other places we notice borrowing of words unaccompanied by any allusion to their source. In the case of 1 Peter it has been observed that along with this WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 141 kind of use of the Old Testament there goes similar use of Romans. The knowledge thus acquired of the way in which an Apostolic letter could be put together may be carried back and further applied to explain the composition of the Epistle to the Romans itself. And just as verses from the Old Testament were sometimes freely modified, so we may conjecture that it has been with the incorporated fragments of earlier ‘‘ Pauline ’’ treatises or epistles. One expositor would incline more to the “right,” another more to the ‘‘ left,” and each would adapt accordingly. The author of the work in its present form belongs to what may be called the ““ right ’’—that is, to the more conservative or Jewish direction. His method is to place side by side with the most decided state- ments of the new doctrine expressions of profound respect for the law and for the privileges of Israel. Not infrequently he says yes and no on the same page. We can now only just detect beneath his redaction the conception which afterwards became distinctively Gnostic, that the God of the Jews is a lower power than the Father made known by the Gospel. There is in him already something of the catholic spirit. The history of the origin of our Epistle to the Romans is, in fine, no other than that of the canon. When you have understood the latter as the bringing together and formal authorising of books that had sprung up in different circles and had somehow acquired vogue with the Christian public, you have the key to the former also." The author or 1 On the canon of the New Testament, see Oudchristelijke Letter- kunde, Appendix. The canon, as is there pointed out, was essentially a growth. A book did not become “canonical” because the writer intended that it should; nor yet by an arbitrary decree of the Church; but gradually, through the influence of the leading minds in the 142 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS redactor of the Epistle took what already had currency within limited circles, and brought it together so that it might appeal to all sides within Paulinism ; his aim being to conciliate the parties that were tending to break with one another. Just so the Epistle was afterwards made part of a collection of Epistles, and this collection brought into union with other groups of writings in a larger whole. In accordance with the literary method customary in his social and religious environment, the author ascribed the work to the Apostle Paul himself. The real unity which in his conception pervaded the apparently opposed statements of Paulinism was thus ‘more impressively enforced than it could have been in any other way. The name of Paul was at once 8, covering shield, a watchword, and an introduction of the book to the reader. The adoption of the name of Paul has been explained as due to the fact that the movement really began from Paul, though from his oral and not from his written teaching.! This explanation, however, sup- poses a more rapid development of doctrine than is historically thinkable; and the evidence available does not support the conjecture. Rather we seem to find Christian communities. The declaration that certain books were to be held for authoritative started from the ‘“left”—because the ainnovators had need of written documents to appeal to when they ‘were opposed on the ground of “tradition.” Not their texts, how- ever, were finally adopted, but texts modified to conciliate the ‘‘ right,” and worked up in the interests of ‘‘ Catholicity.” Moreover, the canon was attached to that of the Old Testament, and subordi- nated to the tradition called Catholic. 1 This is the view of Rudolf Steck (Der Galaterbrief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht, 1888). Steck appears to have been slightly in advance of Van Manen—whose generous references to his colleague are frequent—in decisively rejecting the Pauline authorship of all the Epistles. WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE? 143 - evidence, even in the traditional data of the Epistles, for the opinion already expressed that Paul had not materially advanced beyond the position of the other disciples. According to the account in Galatians, the authorities at Jerusalem, on becoming acquainted with him, raised no objection to what he taught. Even the matter said to have been afterwards in dispute was only about the kind of intercourse with the heathen permitted to a born Jew, and indicates no such deep-going modification of doctrine as is, for the rest, implied in Gal. i. 11, etc. To the strangers among whom he preached he gave milk and not solid food (1 Cor. iii. 2)—that is to say, his preaching was much simpler than the late ‘‘ Pauline” gospel.! Ought we not to see here a reminiscence of the teaching of the actual Paul? In a sense it could be said by those who put themselves under the protection of his name that he had laid the foundation (1 Cor. 111. 6-15); but it had been left for others to build upon it and to introduce the new “ spiritual” Christianity. As a matter of fact, we know no more why Pauline Christianity was called after Paul than why Johan- nine Christianity was called after John. We can only guess; and the conjecture seems reasonable that it was because of something impressive in the far- extended activity of the travelling preacher. We have no right to assert that it was through any affinity of doctrine between Paul and Paulinism. The fatherland of the new direction was undoubtedly the East—more exactly, Syria. The choice of the 1 Cf. Heb. v. 12-14.—The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as Van Manen points out (Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, p. 60), counts himself as belonging to a generation not earlier than the second (ii. 3), yet speaks of his ‘‘ brother Timothy ’’ (xiii. 23), with whom he hopes to see those he is addressing. 144 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS name of Paul points to this, for aceording to his history, so far as we can trace it, the centre of his apostolic activity was the Syrian Antioch. Syria is indicated also by the use of the name Abba (Rom. viii. 15, Gal. iv. 6); of the expression papav ala (1 Cor. xvi. 22); of the proper name Cephas for Peter: but above all by the close relationship between Paulinism and Gnosticism. Of this relationship there is no doubt. The Pauline literature, as we have seen, was first brought into repute by the Gnostics, and when the Catholics, from Irenzus onward, began to prepare a place for ‘‘ Paul” in the bosom of the Church, the Gnostics were still not to be outdone. Some of them imagined the Apostle as sitting on the right hand of Christ, with Marcion on the left; while others held that he was the Paraclete announced in John xv. 26. Now, Christian Gnosticism appeared first in Syria. From the origin of Paulinism in the East, however, it does not follow that the Epistle to the Romans received the finishing touches there. An older text may have been brought by the Gnostics from Syria to Rome, where it was perhaps modified in the sense desired by the Paulinists of the “ right.’ With or without further revision it passed, like many another writing and many a usage and doctrinal con- ception, from the hands of the Gnostics into those of the Catholics. 5.—JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION. In the light of the foregoing explanation, the Epistle becomes more transparent—the whole, in spite of its obscurities, easier to understand. Many of the usual difficulties vanish of themselves. We apprehend how it comes about that Paul seems to put himself ona JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 145 pedestal, to regard himself as a high authority before whom friend and foe must bow, and how at the same time we fail to get any clear idea of his relation to his readers. It may be well, however, to add a few more points by way of confirmation. Paul in Acts. We found in the Acts of the Apostles an authentic or historical Paul, a ‘‘ Pauline’’ Paul, and a Paul who is on the way to become a Catholic Christian. The first is the Paul of the itinerary known as the “‘ we- narrative.’ He is 8 travelling preacher in the service of the Messianic principles of Peter and other disciples of Jesus. The second is a somewhat younger Paul, who has struck out a line of doctrine of his own, and has been made the hero of Acts devoted to him. The third stands for an attempt to combine the different features in a single portrait. Paul is again approxi- mated in date to the disciples; but he has his own Gospel to advocate, and yet he teaches precisely what the other Apostles teach. We now see that the Pauline Paul is essentially identical with the Paul of the Epistles, though in the canonical Epistle to the Romans the transition to the Catholic portraiture may already be perceived. Thus there is no longer any- thing inexplicable in the legendary features of thd Apostle that appear in writings attributed to him, since, to those who wrote in his name, he was not the historical person, but the ideal figure of the Acts of Paul. We can explain also why the author of the Pauline Acts worked up by Luke into his own com- position made no use of the Epistles, which, on the assumption that they are genuine, would be inexplic- able. In reality, the Epistles came later than the first legendary narrative. L 146 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS The Younger Contemporary of Peter. According to the ordinary view, Paul was won for the new confession about three years after the imme- diate disciples of Jesus had begun to preach. How, then, does he come, at least seventeen years later, to ascribe such seniority to others in comparison with himself as we find presupposed in Gal. i. 17 (rove πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους) and in the passages of Corinthians where he numbers himself among the last of the Apostles? After that lempth of time a difference of three years would have seemed negligible. A much longer interval is presupposed by Marcion (Tert. adv. Mare. v. 1), who called him ‘‘a new disciple and not the hearer of anyone else,” by a passage of the Muratorian fragment, where he is said to have followed the example of John (Rev. i.—ili.) in writing letters to seven churches,! and by certain ‘‘Nazarenes,’”’ who, according to Jerome, spoke of Paul as ‘“‘ novissimus Apostolorum omnium.” If, however, the Paul of Paulinism was younger than the historical Paul, all this becomes explicable. In the legend he is naturally Imagined as continuing during his whole life to call Peter and those of his group ‘‘the Apostles before him.” Galilee and Jerusalem. The oldest tradition points to the assemblage of the disciples of Jesus, after his death, first in Galilee (Matt. xxviii. 7, 10, 16, 17, of. xxvi. 82; Mark xvi. 7; John xxi.). Wecan follow in Luke xxiv. and John xx. the displacement of his appearances, assigned to these days, from Galilee to Jerusalem. The actual sequence 1 John, according to ecclesiastical tradition, wrote the Apocalypse about 96. JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 147 of events we may reasonably suppose to have been this: the formation of a community in Galilee; exten- sion of activity to Jerusalem and establishment of a community there; then finally such forgetfulness of the real order that Jerusalem could be held to have been the seat of the Apostles from the first. All this would take time. For the Paul of the Epistles, however, the community at Jerusalem is unquestionably the oldest. It has the priority in spiritual gifts. This tacit acceptance of a later tradition again betrays the writer who lived after Paul. The Old Testament. The historical Paul, according to the Tubingen school, had arrived at the doctrine called Paulinism, and, therefore, met with opposition from the Judaisers. He also wrote the principal Epistles. But those Epistles purport to be addressed to communities or persons who, coming from among the heathen, have accepted his form of doctrine. How, then, can he assume that they have the knowledge of the Old Testament which is necessary to follow his argu- ments? Are we to suppose that he devoted himself first to giving them thorough instruction in that law which, according to his system, they were not to practise? Itis all unintelligible on the supposition that Paul himself wrote our Epistles. Suppose them written later, and the difficulty vanishes. The then existing Christian communities consisted of persons who, whether Jews by birth or proselytes, were nourished on the Old Testament, and were thus in the mental atmosphere required for appreciation of the Pauline literature. The writers had the edifica- tion of such communities in view, and did not stop to consider that this could not have been the mental 148 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS atmosphere of Pauline Christians who had come over without intermediary process from heathenism. Agreement and Difference. The only hypothesis that satisfactorily explains the peculiar agreement in the style of the whole collection, and at the same time the differences not merely between one Epistle and another, but between different parts of the same Epistle, is that which has been set forth —namely, that none were written by the Apostle Paul, but that all proceeded from one circle or ‘‘school.’’ To suppose ἃ genuine Pauline basis gives no help and is unnecessary, as is shown by the cases of the Epistles attributed to Peter, James, John, Ignatius, and others.!. And the critics who maintain that there is such a basis are unable to agree even approximately in their statements as to its extent. The History of the Apostolate. Since the research of Seufert (Der Urseprung und die Bedeutung des Apostolates in der Christlichen Kirche der ersten zwet Jahrhunderte, 1887), it has been known that the name of Apostle was borne by itinerant preachers till about the middle of the second century, after which time its use in the wider sense dis- appeared; and that this disappearance was in the 1 For, of course, the critics who agree in rejecting these do not find it necessary to suppose that any fragments were written by the ostensible authors. The epistolary form as a literary fiction, Van Manen remarks (Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, pp. 30-1), did not need to be invented by the Christian writers, since it had appeared already among Jews, Greeks, and Romans. The edifying composition in the form of a letter is, however, a peculiarly Christian phenomenon. In the general class he places the Epistles of Clement to the Corinthians and of Polycarp to the Philippians, and the accounts of Polycarp’s martyrdom and of the martyrs at Vienne and Lyons. JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 149 closest connexion with the strife over Paul’s claim to be called an Apostle. Now, if our Epistles were written by Paul at the time ordinarily assigned, we should have to suppose that the conception of the ‘“‘Twelve Apostles’? as a closed circle was already existent; that the right of Paul to a name which was, nevertheless, freely accorded to all kinds of persons till long afterwards was passionately contested ; and that the cessation of ‘‘ Apostles’ from the middle of the second century was the consequence of a struggle earried on a hundred years earlier. If, on the other hand, the real as distinguished from the imaginary contest was between the Paulinists of the end of the first or the beginning of the second century and their opponents, the cessation of the name was its natural result, and the whole sequence becomes intelligible. The tradition that Jesus chose ‘‘ twelve Apostles ”’ is legendary; it had at first a symbolical reference to the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Rev. xxi. 14, Matt. xix. 28). When this notion of “the Twelve”’ first arose, it did not exclude other Apostles. Gradually, however, it fixed itself; and, as the fixation became established, the enemies of Paulinism made use of it to contest the claim of the great Apostle to bear the name atall. Thus the title, in the wider sense, came to be disused ; and, though the Paulinists had no interest in facilitating the disuse, they could only maintain the claims of their own Apostle by acquiescing in it and finding the means of numbering Paul among ‘‘ Apostles” in the narrower sense. The only Apostles properly so-called were henceforth ‘‘ the Twelve” and Paul. The Revelation of John. Whatever may be the origin of the Apocalypse as a 150 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS whole, the opening and the conclusion, and of the opening especially ce. ii.—iii., bear marks of a later date. The communities addressed have evidently been in existence a considerable time, and have had a varied history. Now, it is precisely in these two chapters that we find unmistakeable traces of a hostile attitude to Pauline Christianity. The persons who call them- selves Apostles and are not (ii. 2); who call themselves Jews and are not (ii. 9, 111. 9); who teach to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication (ii. 14, 20) —that is, no doubt, to marry within the prohibited degrees of the Jewish law; who have a mysterious doctrine of their own, which is alluded to as “ knowing the depths of Satan” (ii. 24)—are evidently the authors or adherents of the teaching expounded from its own point of view in the Pauline Epistles. This teaching, then, being so sharply opposed in a late document, may be inferred to be not so old as is com- monly thought. Paul himself, it is true, does not seem to be attacked, though his name is not included among those whoalone are recognised as Apostles in the special sense—namely, ‘‘the Twelve”’ (xxi.14). What is opposed is the direction rather than the person. At the same time, while the author is no Paulinist, he is no narrow-minded ‘“‘ Jewish Christian,’ but includes along with the 144,000 sons of Israel who believe an innumerable multitude ‘“‘of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues ”’ (vii. 9).2 He is, in fact, 8 “4 disciple of Jesus,” whose ideas have widened inde- pendently of the Pauline direction of thought.® 1 Van Manen assigns the completed work, which he regards as a literary unity, though not independent of pre-existent materials, to about 140. 2 As is observed elsewhere (Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, Ὁ. 95), there is no temple in the New Jerusalem (xxi. 22). 3 The Epistle of James (perhaps about 130) is referred to also JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 151 The Fourth Gospel. The view that has been taken of the development of early Christianity derives support from the historical conception that may be found underlying the fourth Gospel. Jesus there repeatedly sets forth his claims as the Word made flesh, the Son of God; yet the disciples, even those that have most insight, never really understand anything beyond his Messiahship. If Nathanael recognises him as the ‘‘ Son of God”’ (i. 50), this means only that he is the “ King of Israel,’’ the Messiah (cf. i. 46), not that he is the Son of God in the metaphysical sense first conceived by the Pauline school. Accordingly, he tells his disciples that after his departure the Paraclete will instruct them in the truth which they do not now comprehend (xv. 26). To the author of the Gospel the true history was evidently still known, though, in accordance with his method, he throws it all back into the time of Jesus and his disciples. In reality it was a later generation which—instructed, as was held, by the Holy Ghost—had come to look upon Jesus as the Son of God, the Incarnate Logos. And the writer shows his consciousness of this by the way in which he makes all the contemporaries of Jesus without exception fail to perceive his real character as a divine person. The Preaching of Peter. In the known fragments of the Preaching of Peter (Πέτρον κήρυγμα) the name of Paul does not once (Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, p. 64) as testifying to the existence of a Christianity which has known how to universalise itself without perceptibly undergoing the influence of ‘‘ Paul.’? The allusion there to the Pauline ideas and their danger, but not to the Epistles, is another indication of the comparative lateness of the Pauline develop- ment (see Paulus, Part III., Conclusion). 152 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS occur, and there is no allusion to him. It is Peter who preaches Christianity as a universal religion. For the Tiibingen school, with its antithesis of Pauline or universal and Petrine or Jewish Christianity, this is an embarrassing fact. From the point of view here set forth, it is additional confirmation of the late origin of Paulinism. We see that, at the beginning of the second century, the universalising movement was drift not confined to one circle, and could go on without reference to Paul, and perhaps without know- ledge that elsewhere he was held to have been the father of the whole movement. So far as it aimed at setting Christianity free from the shackles of Judaism, Peter could equally well be made its apostolic repre- sentative. Philo. The writer or writers of the principal Epistles betray acquaintance with Philo, though the relation is by no means one of servile dependence.' Philo was 8 man of advanced age in the year 40. Thus the dates do not exclude acquaintance of the historical Paul with his writings; but they make it very improbable. The tent-maker of Tarsus, who had just received what he took to be a new revelation, and had zealously devoted himself to spreading it over the world, would scarcely find time to consult the recent works of the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria. And if we suppose him, before he became a Christian—that is, before 86—to 1 This point, it is noted, was made out by Carl Siegfried and Bruno Bauer, to whom Steck (Der Galaterbrief, pp. 235-248) acknowledges his indebtedness. In Paulus, Part III. (Conclusion), Van Manen is able to add H. Vollmer (Die Alttestamentlichen Citate bet Paulus, 1895, pp. 84-98), who, though accepting the genuineness of the prin- cipal Epistles as beyond doubt, finds even stronger reasons than his predecessors for thinking that they show knowledge of Philo. JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 153 have had the leisure to study those works so profoundly that he afterwards involuntarily reproduced their modes of thought and expression, the difficulty is only increased. Assume, on the other hand, that the Pauline writings are of later date, there is no difficulty. The works of Philo have had time to circulate and their ideas to become diffused, and so can have influ- enced ‘‘ Paul,’ as it is admitted by many that they influenced the authors of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the fourth Gospel. The influence was really exercised, not on men of practical missionary activity elose to Philo’s own time, but on religious thinkers among the developing Christian communities towards the end of the first or the beginning of the second century. Seneca. The affinity between Paul and Seneca is so striking that it even led to the fiction of a correspondence between them. The supposition that Seneca had read the Epistles of Paul is refuted by comparison of the dates of his works with that of Paul’s arrival (according to the story) at Rome, up to which time he can have known nothing of him. That Paul knew works of Seneca is not absolutely excluded by the dates; but as Seneca (born about 2, died 65) was some years younger than Philo, it is even more improbable that the Apostle had read the Roman than that he had read the Alexandrian philosopher. On the supposition of a later date for the writer, or writers, of the Pauline Epistles, there is, as before, no difficulty. Justin. It is disputed by no one that Justin does not mention Paul and his Epistles, and never quotes from them literally. For him ‘the Twelve Apostles ’’ are 154 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS even symbolised by the twelve bells on the robe of the high priest (Ex. xxviii. 88-34). Yet on some points his views are exactly those of Paulinism, while on others he takes the opposite view. He condemned as unchristian the eating of the sacrificial meat of the heathen, though some of his contemporaries agreed with Paul in thinking it permissible. The usual explanation is that the Epistles had not yet become canonical; hence Justin could take his own view about the points discussed in them. Still, it is difficult to think of him as treating thus lightly documents he held to have been written a century before by an Apostle. And it is curious that we should find exactly those questions about Jewish customs which are said to have been the subject of vehement controversy in Paul’s time, still actual for Justin and his contemporaries. The obvious solution is that the Epistles date only from a little before Justin’s time, and that he had read them or heard them read, but did not take them to be of Apostolic authorship. He and his friends were universalising Christianity in their own way, independently of the Pauline influence. The deeper- going thought put forth under the name of the Apostle, while in some respects they agreed with it, was, on the whole, too strong for them. Whether on one line or the other, the transformation of a Jewish sect into a world-religion did not begin in the time of Paul, but had its origin in movements of thought and feeling certainly not earlier than the destruction of Jerusalem. Ireneus. Among the writers held for orthodox, Irensus is the first of those whose writings have come down to us who treats the Epistles of Paul as canonical. This, however, is not out of any superabundance of JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 155 affection for the contents, but because he wishes to beat his Gnostic enemies with their own weapons. His aim is to prove that Paul’s old friends, the Gnostics, have not understood him. The great Apostle must be ‘‘ conveyed ’’ from the “heretics ’’ in the interests of the Catholic Church. Modern writers, however, have blamed Ireneus unjustly for failing to recognise the ‘‘ historical glory’ of Paul. In not assigning to him any special significance as compared with the older Apostles, he was simply adhering to the ordinary tradition of Christendom outside Gnostic circles. Tertullian. The attitude of Tertullian is similar. He recognises Paul, but gives him no special place, in distinction from the Twelve, as ‘‘ the great Apostle of the heathen.” He knew that the Epistles did not originally belong to the circle of the communities esteemed orthodox ; but all the same he can turn to account the authority of ‘‘the Apostle of the heretics,” as he does not scruple to call him (Adv. Marc., iii. 5), against those who first appealed to it. There is no reason whatever for accusing him of a deliberate falsification of history, with which, in our sense of the word, he is little concerned. On the “historical” side he reproduces the tradition current in his surroundings. On the doctrinal side he endeavours to show that Paul was at one with those who before him were divinely appointed to teach the true faith. Everything in his attitude, as in that of Irenzus, confirms the view that the Pauline writings arose outside of what became the orthodox Church tradition, but that that tradition found it convenient to appropriate them. And this explains, for one thing, why they were made canonical at a later period than writings like the 156 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS Gospels, which, on the ordinary modern theory, had appeared so long after them. The Clementines. In the Clementine Homiliae and Recognitiones, though the name of Paul does not occur, Paulinism is attacked. Paul, however, is not systematically caricatured as Simon Magus, who is the representative of the heretical gnosis generally. Only in one passage (Hom.., xvii. 19) does he come forward as if he were Paul, the author of the Epistle to the Galatians; and that passage is quite isolated, and would seem to be either an inter- polation or an insertion made in the definitive edition of the Homilies. Paul’s representative, ‘‘ the man who isan enemy ”’ (inimicus homo, ὃ ἐχθρὸς ἄνθρωπος), is Clearly distinguished from Simon, and is supposed to have come later; and both have been preceded in their activity among the heathen by a preaching of the Gospel in the spirit of Peter. This order of events in the Clementine romance, so far as it goes, confirms the view that has been taken as to the subsequence of the Pauline doctrine to the teaching of the original “* disciples of Jesus." Peter and Paul at Rome. The legend has been put on record by Dionysius of Corinth (Euseb. H.E. ii. 25, 8), Irensus, and a whole eloud of witnesses, that Peter and Paul jointly founded the Christian community at Rome. This does not 1 Suspicions are expressed by Van Manen that the elaborate development of the theory that Simon Magus was a caricature of the Apostle Paul is little more than a modern romance. It is an outwork of the special Tiibingen position on the relations of Petrinism and Paulinism, and becomes unnecessary if that position is rejected, being otherwise not strongly supported by the documents. JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 157 agree with earlier data, such as those of the New Testament (Acts xxviii. 15, Rom. 1. 10-18, xv. 22-24), which exclude Paul almost expressly, and Peter tacitly, as the founder. But what is the explanation of it? An explanation that has found favour with modern criticism is that it was an invention of peace-loving Catholics to cover over the actual strife that had existed between the two Apostles. This, however, would have been a rather hopeless attempt; for the partisans to be reconciled could have made the obvious. reply (in the absence of any previous tradition), ‘‘ But. neither Peter nor Paul did found the community.”’ Besides, it would not have followed from their having been joint founders that they had always been good friends. We must bear in mind that legends, while they may and do grow out of what actually happened, are not deliberately thought out in order to throw a veil over events it is desired should be forgotten. The true historical kernel of the legend is no other than this, that at the time when it arose—that is, in the second half of the second century—the community at Rome could be described as in some sense based on ‘‘Peter and Paul.” We must understand by the names, however, not the historical persons, but the two directions in which the Christian sect had been universalising itself. The legend personifies religious movements ; and, while representing them as born at the same time, it has unconsciously rescued from oblivion the true order of their appearance by always. naming Peter before Paul. This order is preserved even when both are said to have been the founders of the community at Corinth, where we should expect Paul to come first. In the Epistles attributed to Clemens Romanus (1 Cor. v.) and to Ignatius (Rom. iv.), the same order is retained when the two Apostles are 158 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS mentioned. The fact here indicated is that the ‘‘ disciples of Jesus” preceded the Paulinists, among the heathen as well as among the Jews. The Christmas Festival. Investigating the mode in which Christmas Day came to be fixed, Usener (Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, I., 1889) has shown how the idea of the Son of God, and with it the observance of festival days to commemorate his successive mani- festations on earth, arose not in the circle of strictly Jewish thought, but through the Eastern gnosis in contact with polytheistic mythologies. From the Gnostics the Catholic Church appropriated the festivals, as it appropriated so much besides.’ This evidently supports the conclusion that Paulinism was of late and not purely Jewish origin. For the prin- cipal Epistles have a developed Christology. Usener, indeed, does not recognise this, but treats them in passing as not strongly developed in the Christological sense. If, however, the foregoing expositions of the Pauline Christology are sound; if the principal Epistles contain the doctrine of a supernatural Christ the Son of God, descended from heaven and become temporarily one with Jesus of Nazareth; the admis- sion of their genuineness would overthrow his other- wise well-established conclusion that these ideas did not first arise in circles that were in close and original contact with Judaism. The admission, on the con- trary, that they were not written by Paul the Jew would confirm at a critical point the result of Usener’s investigations, as those investigations reciprocally 1 Renan, in some remarks on this procedure, notes the peculiar combination of “eclecticism and ingratitude.” JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED EXPLANATION 159 confirm the conclusion arrived at with regard to the Epistles. The Development of Christianity. It is among the enduring merits of Baur and his school that they made an end once for all of the tacit assumption that the Christianity of the first two or three centuries had no development; that it was from the first what it afterwards became. Their formula, indeed—Petrinism and Paulinism in sharp opposition during the lifetime of the Apostles, and afterwards reconciled in Catholicism—did not give permanent satisfaction ; but the attempts since made to return to the traditional view have still more completely failed. What was needed was that more stages should be recognised, and that a longer time should be allowed for the development. These conditions are fulfilled if we place ‘‘ Paulinism ”’ considerably later than the teaching of the early disciples, Paul included. The disciples, whom we may associate with Peter, remained pious Jews. They were called “saints” or ** holy ones,” not in an ethical sense, but in the Old Israelitish sense of ‘‘ consecrated to God.” They taught ‘‘ the things concerning Jesus,’’ their crucified Master, whom they held to be the Messiah. It is thus quite intelligible—their difference from other Jews being so slight—that they hardly drew attention in their own time ; that they passed unnoticed, or almost unnoticed, not only by the Greek and Roman writers of those days, but even by a Jewish historian like Josephus. In the meantime, the great events in Judxa which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem, could not be without influence on them. Some disciples, no 160 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS doubt, were already less attached to the law than others ; and increased contact with the Greco-Roman world must have accelerated the broadening move- ment, which, as we have seen, was not exclusively ‘‘ Pauline.” ‘* Paulinism’’ sprang up—as_ the Johannine direction did later and probably in another circle—in close connexion with the germinating gnosis. It was a reform of a character so deep-going that it has the appearance rather of a new creation. Some reacted angrily against it. These we call the ‘‘ Judaists.”” They are to be distinguished from the early ‘‘ disciples,” whose beliefs were of ἃ more inde- terminate character. The moderate men who took up a balancing position between the extreme Paulinists and the extreme Judaists were those who succeeded in forming Catholic Christianity. The Judaisers who went too far received, as a reward for their zeal, a place as heretical ‘‘ Ebionites.’’ Finally, ‘‘ Paul,” after a period during which he was looked upon with suspicion, though not irrevocably condemned by the Catholics along with the heretical Gnostics inspired by him, could be received into the pantheon of the great men who, as pre-eminently ‘‘ Apostles ’—‘‘ the Twelve’ with the addition of one—had been em- powered to lay down the law of faith and conduct for the present and future generations.! 1 It is interesting to observe how little, on this view, the method of the Church had changed between the second and the thirteenth century, when the newly-recovered Aristotelian writings, after being held at arm’s length just as the ‘“‘ Pauline ” writings had been, were at last placed in that position of supreme authority over natural as distinguished from “ revealed” knowledge which made them for the Renaissance so unjustly, though inevitably, the type of intellectual oppression. THE ANTIQUITY OF THE BOOK 161 6.—THE ANTIQUITY OF THE Boox. Though the date of our Epistle cannot be precisely determined, we are in a position to mark out certain sharply-defined limits within which its origin must fall. It cannot be placed before the end of the first nor after the middle of the second century. The indications of past events and movements of opinion exclude an earlier period, while the references in extant writings of known authorship exclude a later. A somewhat more precise fixation of the date can be ventured with the help of what is known as to the use made of the Epistle by Basilides and Marcion. Basilides was active at Alexandria about 125 (or 180) ; Marcion first came forward at Rome about 188; and for both Paul was the Apostle. Putting these and other circumstances together, we may conclude that the Epistle was extant at the earliest of these dates— perhaps in a shorter form than the canonical—though it may not have been extant more than a few years. It did not necessarily take long for a writing to become authoritative for certain circles.. The more exact 1 Here is indicated what seems likely to be the criterion of date generally accepted for early Christian writings by the consensus of experts. In a note, Steck (Der Galaterbvief, pp. 349-50) is quoted as adopting the position incidentally stated by Renan; that, as a rule, we may know the date of composition of a writing of the kind with fair accuracy by the first traces of reference to it in ecclesiastical literature. A case in point for a later period is furnished by the writings attributed to ‘Dionysius the Areopagite.” These are first quoted—and quoted as authoritative—early in the sixth century. By the test of their philosophical terminology, which is borrowed from the school of Proclus, they cannot be much earlier than the end of the fifth. Thus the test adopted by critical theologians is in this case verified by an independent one. In the case of Paul a similar verification may be found in what was said above on the use probably made of Philo and Seneca in the principal Epistles. M 102 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS limit, then, on this side for the undoubted existence of the Epistle being 125, we may date it approximately 120. The pieces that were taken up into it may be ten to twenty years older.! 1 This, on the whole, represents the result of the discussion of date, though I have not attempted to follow quite exactly the rather complex argument from the use of the Epistle by the Marcionites. The Pauline Epistles generally are assigned to the period between 120 and 140. Compare Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, where approximate dates—not very far apart—are conjecturally given for all, Romans being regarded as the oldest. Parr ΠῚ. THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS Aumost daily the stream increases of those who, while accepting the two Epistles to the Corinthians as ultimately Pauline in origin, cannot recognise true unity of composition in the extant texts, but split them up into letters and fragments of letters put together by editors. Others, to explain the want of unity, have recurred to the hypothesis of interpolations: J. W. Straatman, for example, in his Critical Studies on the first Epistle (1863-65), treated xi. 23-28 and xv. 8-11 as interpolations of the second century. A more radical criticism finds itself necessitated to deny altogether the Pauline origin of both Epistles. In the foregoing investigations on the Epistle to the Romans, points have already come into view which, taken strictly, decide in advance against their genuine- ness. A separate investigation, however, will not be superfluous. There remains the hope of contributing further to draw aside the veil behind which the history of the oldest Christianity is still too much accustomed to seclude itself. THE FIRST EPISTLE. 1.—TaHe Nature oF THE Work. Even apart from the title, there is no doubt that the writer of ‘‘the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians’’ meant his composition to have the form of a letter. A little examination shows, however, that 163 164 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS the epistolary form, as in the case of Romans, is merely external. The really general, as distinguished from the apparently particular, destination of the Epistle, comes out in the address: to the Church of God at Corinth ‘‘ with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours ”’ (i. 2). And the contents for the most part consist of perfectly general admonitions. This is intelligible in what we call an ‘“‘ open letter,” but not in a letter as commonly understood, addressed to a local circle of readers, even when the writer is an Apostle. The more or less extensive dissertations of which the larger part of the work consists do not apparently start from casual suggestions. Only in one case do we find a formula to indicate that the author has been asked for his opinion on the topics discussed (περὶ δὲ ὧν ἐγράψατε, vil. 1). In general he appears to be setting forth his positions without inducement of this kind ; and even the one exceptional case looks like conventional framework more than it impresses us with the reality of a correspondence between the Apostle and the Church. The Epistle has been described as a codification of rules of life for a Pauline community. Granted; but that is precisely what we should expect in a book, not in a letter, especially from one who hopes to visit his correspondents shortly and to stay with them for some time. 2.—TuHr Unity or THE Book. Notwithstanding the evidently composite character of the Epistle, abundantly made plain by critics, there is connexion between the parts. If that connexion is sometimes only by a particle (usually $4, the particle is still there. The writer is more than a THE FIRST EPISTLE 165 collector of scattered fragments. The celebration of love in ¢. xiii., for example, may seem strangely placed in the midst of a discussion of “ spiritual gifts”’ having particular reference to‘ speaking with tongues ”’; yet it is fitly introduced (xii. 31), and the transition is duly made by which the interrupted discussion is resumed (xiv. 1). The style is throughout Pauline, as distinguished from Petrine, Johannine, or Synoptic. Moreover, the Epistle shows characteristic differences within the Pauline group—as, for example, the use of wept to bring forward a topic (vii. 1, 25, vi. 1, 4, ΧΙ]. 1, xvi. 1, 12); the only instance of a similar use in the principal Epistles being 2 Cor.ix.1. Thus the book in its present form is, after all, a unity; though allowance must, of course, be made, as nearly always with ancient texts, for possible interpolations or omis- sions of words, sentences, or longer passages. But this unity is only relative. The author—if we are to call him so—was at the same time a redactor. Older documents were before him from which he incor- porated selections; or which he re-edited in a second or third edition. 8.—Its ComPosiIrTION. A.—Traces of Juncture and Manipulation. So obvious is the composition of the Epistle out of essentially independent fragments that for critical students the choice may be said to lie between the hypothesis of redaction and that of an infinite series of interpolations. The pieces into which the whole may be primarily broken up are: i. 1-3; 1. 4-9; i. 10-iii. 28; iv.; v.—vi.; vii. ; viii.—xi. 1; x1. 2-34; Xii._xiv.; xv.; [xvi. “Within these, again, there are indications of the use of different sources as well as of 166 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS the mutual adaptation of the parts. Among the more noteworthy points are the following. The double address—to the Corinthians and to all Christians—suggests a new edition of an Epistle first addressed simply to the Corinthians. The mention of Sosthenes (i. 1) was probably added in order to place by the side of the authoritative Paul a second witness to the truth, then often thought indispensable (ef. 2 Cor. xii. 1, Deut. xix. 15). As in Romans, the different formuls for the name of Christ in the Epistle indicate different sources. The praise of the Corinthians in i. 4-9 does not agree with the serious blame afterwards expressed. The connexion in i. 10 (παρακαλῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς) is mechanical ; and the Catholicising expression (διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) betrays the hand of the redactor. The defective unity in the succeeding piece becomes noticeable when we compare i. 12, where there is mention of a special party of ‘‘ Christ,” with 111. 22-28, where only parties of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas are mentioned. In 1]. 6-16 a higher wisdom of the Spirit is extolled; whereas in the preceding verses ‘‘ wisdom’”’ is depreciated, and in those that follow Paul tells the Corinthians that he cannot yet address them as ‘‘ spiritual”? men. The introduction of the passage in this place is explicable only by supposing that the redactor was here bringing together what had reference to wisdom, though it might be in different senses of the term. The view that we have to deal with passages from different original sources is confirmed by the observation that the writer of ii. 6-16 speaks in the first person plural, while in the passages that go before and after the first person singular is used. In c. iv. a difference of tone may be perceived THE FIRST EPISTLE 167 between verses 14-17 and 18-21. The substance of the chapter has little or nothing in common with the earlier part of the Epistle, as again the disquisition in cc. v.—vi. stands by itself, and is only connected in a strained and artificial manner with what goes before. The internal signs of the use of different sources are here especially numerous. To take one case: while in vy. 12-18 God is to judge the world (‘‘them that are without ’’)—with which the saints are not concerned— in vi. 2 it is the saints that are to judge the world. To the question of vi. 5 (οὐκ ἔνι ἐν ὑμῖν οὐδεὶς σοφός....... ;) the writer of 1. 26 (cf. 111. 1-3) ought to have given, not the assumed affirmative, but a decidedly negative answer. Examination of the succeeding sections leads con- stantly to the same recognition that the various discussions are connected only by an external bond, and that internally they show signs of redaction. Thus it is with the double discussion of married and unmarried life (vii. 1-16, 25-40). And, in the dis- sertation on eating meat offered to idols, contrast for example x. 14-22 (especially x. 21, οὐ δύνασθε ποτήριον κυρίου πίνειν καὶ ποτήριον δαιμονίων, οὐ δύνασθε τραπέζης κυρίον μετέχειν καὶ τραπέζης δαιμονίων) with the general drift of the preceding argument. First, all Pauline Christians know that eating things offered to heathen divinities has no real significance and is in itself blameless; but the ‘‘ weak,”’ who think otherwise, ought not to be offended (viii. 1-18). In the passage just cited those divinities have become actual ‘‘ demons ”’: to partake of what has been offered to them is flat idolatry. Then, in the next succeeding passage (x. 23-x1. 1), the old position is restated, that all things are permis- sible, but not all things are expedient, and practical directions are given accordingly. 108 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS The continuity of these disquisitions, again, is broken by matter arbitrarily brought into relation with the rest. Note, for example, vii. 17-24, ix. (with the minor insertion of verses 24—27), x. 1-18. And yet, as has been said, points of contact may be found, which prove composition as distinguished from mere juxtaposition of fragments. The verses ix. 19-23 are in support of the main argument beginning with viii. 1-18, rather than of what has been said just before in the interposed vindication of Paul’s office as an Apostle. The way in which expressions taken over from one writer are corrected by another may be seen in com- paring xi. 7-8, where the superiority of man to woman is asserted, with xi. 11-12, where the two sexes are placed on an equality from the religious point of view. The passage on the eucharist in the same chapter is quite irrelevant to the context, and is not even itself a unity. In verses 28-25 the partaking of the bread and wine is said to be a commemoration of the death of the Lord ; in 27-29 it is said to be a partaking of his body and blood (cf. x. 16). Verse 26, in spite of the γάρ, stands by itself; similarly the next verse, in spite of the ὥστε. Not before verses 88-34 does the writer return to the discussion, with which he began at verse 17, of the contentions among those who assemble at the love-feasts. The whole gives the impression of being a collection of remarks from various sources, intended to drive the love-feasts into the background because of their irregularities, and to bring forward instead the celebration of the com- munion.' The process of composition is incidentally 1 In these obscure problems of Christian ritual and myth—made doubly obscure by the later application of logic—an attempt has to be made to penetrate through the actual syncretism of the documents to THE FIRST EPISTLE 169 brought to light by the strange justification offered in verse 19 for the author’s belief, stated in the previous verse, that accusations of unseemly contentions at feasts are not without ground: δεῖ yap καὶ αἱρέσεις εἶναι, ἵνα οἱ δόκιμοι φανεροὶ γένωνται ἐν ὑμῖν. The ““ divisions”’ (called σχίσματα) spoken of in one document he confuses, by a verbal association, with party-divisions or ‘“‘schisms”’ (cf. 1. 10); then he brings in from somewhere else the expression, here out of place, about sects or ‘‘ heresies.”’ In the next series of chapters (xil.—xiv.) a new subject comes forward—namely, that of “spiritual gifts.”’ Here the direction—which has nothing to do with the context—that women are not to speak in the ehurches (xiv. 88b—86) is at variance with what is presupposed in the foregoing discussion (xi. 2-15) regarding their head-dress when praying or prophe- sying (see especially verse 5). This is evidence, however, not of interpolation, but of the presence of the same ‘“ author-redactor’’ with his customary ‘‘ sive and take.” It shows the diligent use made of pre-existing documents. The fine passage on love (c. xil.), though it stands apart from the rest, 1s, as has been said, no mere loose insertion; nor has it been taken over unaltered from one source; it bears marks of artificial juncture within as without. We seek in vain for any connexion of thought between verses 11-18 and 1-10; there is merely a verbal echo ideas that may conceivably have been those of individual minds before the whole complex fabric was imposed by authority. The New Testament writers represent the first stages of Christian reflection on adapted mythologies and imitated cults. In patristic and scholastic theology the apparently irreconcilable elements contributed from all sides were brought formally into union by taking logical distinctions ; the rite, the myth, and the reflection being alike accepted as super- natural data instead of natural growths. 170 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS (καταργηθήσεται, 10; κατήργηκα, 11). Thus the chapter, like the book, appears as an imperfect unity when contrasted with the freely wrought-out composition of an individual author. The same view applies also to chapter xv. There is no need to regard verses 3-11 (or 1-11) as an inter- polation, though undoubtedly the contents are out of harmony with what follows. The first passage may be described as an appeal to tradition in support of the resurrection ; the second (12-58) argues the case apart from that appeal. This description, however, refers only to the general drift of the argument. Neither passage is a well-rounded whole in itself. In the first, what is said about the appearance to Paul in particular can hardly have belonged to the common tradition. And we detect the process of expansion in comparing verse 5 (εἶτα τοῖς δώδεκα) with 7 (εἶτα τοῖς ἀποστόλοις πᾶσιν). In the second passage, eschato- logical ideas resembling those of the Apocalypse are mixed up with the less ‘‘ Jewish-Christian ᾿᾿ view implied in the argument for a “ spiritual’ resurrec- tion. Among minor discontinuities may be noted the insertion of verses 838-84 (with the quotation from Menander), which strangely interrupt the course of the demonstration. As the chapter on the resurrection has nothing to do with that which precedes, so, too, the concluding chapter stands by itself. Against the view that the whole of chapter xv. 18 an interpolation (from another Epistle, as has been conjectured), it may be observed, however, that chapter xvi. has just as little to do with chapter xiv. (with which, on this view, it ought to be connected). The miscellaneous topics of chapter xvi. are appropriate enough in themselves for the conclusion of a letter, but exact scrutiny reveals not a few difficulties. Verses THE FIRST EPISTLE 171 8-9 give a different impression of the Apostle’s experi- ences at Ephesus from that which we get from xv. 82. According to iv. 17, Timothy has already been sent; according to xvi. 10, his arrival is to be expected after the reception of the letter. From xvi. 12, Apollos would seem to have his sphere of activity in the immediate neighbourhood of Paul; in iii. 4,6, we hear of him as an independent worker coming after Paul. The curse which immediately precedes the close (εἴ τις ov φιλεῖ τὸν κύριον, ἤτω ἀνάθεμα, xvi. 22) is in harmony neither with the friendly tone of the conclu- sion nor with the contents of the Epistle generally. B.—Whitnesses for the Existence of a Shorter Epistle. Traces of manipulation being so numerous, the question naturally arises, Is there any evidence that a shorter form of the Epistle preceded the canonical form? In the records of Christian antiquity, only Clement of Rome! and Marcion offer anything that bears on the point. Clement (J Cor. xlvii.) refers his readers to what Paul wrote about parties among them; which, he says, were not so scandalous as those of the present day, since in the earlier time men chose for their party-badge the name of a renowned Apostle, Peter or Paul, or of one who, like Apollos, was in high repute with the Apostles. The noteworthy point here is that Clement does not mention the party calling itself after Christ; and the omission can hardly have been deliberate, for this would have furnished him with a still stronger argument. So far as Clement’s testimony 1 Van Manen places the first Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians about the year 140. (See Oudchristelijke Letterkunde, p. 78.) The authorship he finds to be completely indeterminate. Clement as bishop, “be he the first, second, or third after Peter, cannot subsist in face of the discovery that before Anicetus (156-166 2) the community at Rome had no monarchical government ’’ (ibid., p. 77). 172 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS goes, it is in favour of the existence of an earlier form of the Epistle ; as is also the omission of reference to the party of Christ in a corresponding citation by pseudo-Origen against the Marcionites. It is not certain, however, that this is from Marcion’s text. And, though other references to Marcion tend slightly to confirm the view that he read the Epistle in an earlier edition, the differences between this and the later form would seem to have amounted to very little. Thus on the whole the external testimony does not carry us far. C.—Conclusion. The hypothesis of ‘‘ composition,” as opposed to that of ‘‘ interpolation,” does not necessarily mean that the Epistle was arbitrarily put together out of discrepant fragments. How a relative independence of the writer is consistent with it may be seen by considering the use made of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Epistle. Over and above passages in which the writer has clearly had words of the Old Testament in view, many cases are to be found of textual or almost textual reproduction.! In the passages here referred to there is not the slightest indication of the actual source or of any source. If we did not possess the text of the Old Testament, there would be no means of proving that they do not belong originally to the author of the Epistle. A somewhat similar use of early Christian 1 The following parallel passages are given:—1 Cor. v. 13b, Deut. xvii. 7 (καὶ ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν); x. 20, Deut. xxxii. 17 (ἔθυσαν δαιμονίοις, καὶ οὐ θεῷ); x. 26, Ps. xxiv. 1 (τοῦ κυρίον ἡ γῆ καὶ τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς); xiv. 25b, Zech. viii. 28 (ὅτι ὁ θεὸς μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐστιν); xv. 25, ΡΒ. cx. 1 (fws ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σον ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου); xv. 27, Ps. viii. 7 (πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ); xv. 820, Is. xxii. 180 (φάγωμεν καὶ πίωμεν, αὔριον γὰρ ἀποθνήσκομε»). THE FIRST EPISTLE 173 documents by a redactor is thus rendered conceivable.’ On the other hand, the continuity of the Epistle is too great to allow of the supposition that it was put together from fragments of actual apostolic letters.? The differences of content between the parts being, in spite of this continuity, greater than is conceivable if they proceeded originally from one mind, the only hypothesis that really satisfies the conditions is that of the ‘‘ author-redactor,’’ working on written docu- ments in the manner of those who gave form to the Synoptic Gospels. For the view that our canonical Epistle is a second edition, the following grounds may be assigned : The double address; the use of different names for Jesus Christ; the mention in one place (i. 12), but not in the corresponding passages, of a party calling itself that of Christ; the remark about the household of Stephanas in 1. 16, which confuses the sense, and seems to have had its origin in acquaint- ance of an editor with xvi. 15. The main hypothesis, however, applies to the first edition also, which must have contained substantially all the dissertations composing the Epistle in its present form. 1 Previous critics, as is mentioned in the analysis of chapter xv., have detected in verses 42b, 43 the lines of an ancient Christian hymn. In Van Manen’s view, of course, they are wrong in inferring an interpolation in the ordinary sense. 2 May we not add that, were such the case, we should expect to find emerging among the critics who take this view a consensus similar to that which has gradually been arrived at in the case of Aristotle’s Politics? Here the general lines of reform were evident as soon as the logical discontinuity of the order imposed by the ancient editors had been perceived; and now Aristotelian scholars, while differing to some extent about the details of reconstruction, agree in accepting the reformed order of the books. The parallel, of course, must not be pressed too far; since the editors of an ancient philosopher, while they might make mistakes, worked in a spirit much more easily compre- hensible by modern Europeans than was possible for the redactors of documents meant to pass as sacred. 174 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 4.—WHENCE CaME THE EPISTLE? A.—Significance of the Preceding Investigation. As was said in the case of Romans, it is not in the abstract impossible that Paul himself should have put together a composition of the kind under the external form of a letter; but it will hardly be maintained that this is a probable hypothesis. Equally improbable is it, in spite of the interpretation put by many on 2 Thess. 11. 2, that any one else wrote this or any other Epistle in Paul’s name during his lifetime. Still, as in the former case, it seems desirable to examine the question again from the beginning, as if the analysis had not already in effect proved that the Epistle cannot have proceeded from Paul, and that it belongs to a later time. B.—Improbability of the Tradition. Superficially, there seems to be nothing against the accepted tradition that the Apostle, having founded a Christian community at Corinth in 52 or 58 during a residence there of about a year and a half (Acts xvii. 1-18), wrote a letter from Ephesus to his Corinthian converts about three and a half years after leaving them—that is,in 57 or58. Yetitisin entire contradic- tion to the spirit of this tradition that we should have before us, as the ‘‘ First Epistle to the Corinthians,” an authoritative document intended in great part not for a particular community, but for a wider circle of readers. Can any one find it probable that Paul, the tent-maker and travelling preacher, should in this short time, and amid all his pre-occupations, have been able to lay down the lines of the Christian life so broadly and deeply that his letters could serve as THE FIRST EPISTLE 175 text-books, not only for the particular community to which they were addressed, but for all other Christian communities wherever they might be?! As we descend to details, the improbabilities become ever more striking. The Occasion of the Writing. What was the particular inducement to write the letter? The reports of certain persons described in i. 11 as οἱ Χλόης Ὁ Or the rumour mentioned inv.1? Or the letter referred to in viil.1? Or the arrival of the triumvirate spoken of in xvi. 17? If all of these came into account, what was the relation of the subor- dinate reasons to the determining one? Critics who accept the Pauline authorship can only set up discor- dant hypotheses. A special difficulty is raised by chapter v., where Paul is represented as condemning on a mere report, and in his absence, a person whose life apparently is at stake (v. 5);? and this although he expects to visit Corinth himself speedily. If, however, 1 The paradox becomes greater when we are reminded of the apoca- lyptic expectations of the early Christians. According to the ordinary critical view, letters hastily written by men who were expecting the second coming of the Lord and the end of the world in the course of a few years, happening to be preserved by pious disciples, were found to contain such practical wisdom that they could serve as the basis of a world-wide organisation of which their authors had never dreamed. The paradox disappears when we recognise that those who drew up Epistles in the names of Peter and Paul were consciously elaborating the foundations of a new order set against that of the Roman world- State. The apocalyptic passages are part of the syncretism of floating myth and legend, and are worked up in such a way as to postpone the old expectations indefinitely. 2 According to Van Manen, the delivery to Satan for the destruc- tion of the flesh (παραδοῦναι τὸν τοιοῦτον τῷ caravg els ὄλεθρον τῆς σαρκός) Was & Major excommunication involving a death-sentence. The circumstances were, of course, imaginary, and signify only the ideal claim of the theocracy transferred to the legendary past when its miraculous powers were wielded by Peter (cf. Acts v.) or by Paul. 176 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS we look upon the epistolary form as a fiction, all becomes transparent. The vagueness of the indica- tions, and the apparent precipitancy of the Apostle’s judgment, cease to offer any difficulty. We are no longer perplexed by his writing at such length on points of discipline at a time when he is hoping to return, and when he has just sent his pupil Timothy to repeat his instructions. At most we see a fault in the form of the pseudepigraphon. The Relation between Paul and the Corinthians. How are we to reconcile the assurances of 1. 5-7 about the riches of the Corinthians in Christ (ὅτι ἐν παντὶ ἐπλουτίσθητε ἐν αὐτῷ, ἐν παντὶ λόγῳ καὶ πάσῃ γνώσει, ...... ὥστε ὑμᾶς μὴ ὑστερεΐσθαι ἐν μηδενὶ χαρίσματι) with reproaches such as that of im. 8, that they are carnal and walk after the manner of man (σαρκικοί ἐστε καὶ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον περιπατεῖτε) )ῦ In one passage they are babes to be fed with milk; in another the Apostle sets before them the wisdom that is spoken among the perfect. This alternation, which runs through the Epistle, makes it impossible to form any determinate idea of the relation between Paul as the writer and the Corinthians as readers. Parties have arisen ; only one party calls itself after Paul; and yet he seems to take it for granted that all will be willing to listen to him. Some are “ puffed up,” and raise themselves above ‘the Apostles,” from whom they have received everything. If this is their state of mind, how can Paul expect a good result from the anything but modest-sounding exhortation of iv. 16-17 (μιμηταί μου γίνεσθε....... ἔπεμψα ὑμῖν Τιμόθεον.......ὃς ὑμᾶς ἀναμνήσει τὰς ὁδούς μου τὰς ἐν Χριστῷ) Some think he will not return. Thisseems strange after an absence of only three years and a half. And in any case why THE FIRST EPISTLE 171 should they fear the threat of his return—‘‘ with ἃ rod,” as it is put almost childishly in verse 21? There is no suggestion elsewhere in the Epistle that Paul’s bodily presence was such as to excite this terror; and compare 2 Cor. x. 10. Why, again, does he insist so strongly on his right to live at the expense of the community and to marry if he chooses? It does not appear that any one has contested his right; and he has no intention of exercising it. Contrast, again, the tone of self-exaltation in some passages, such as xi. 1, where he seems to regard himself as a mediator between Christ and ordinary men, with the extreme modesty of others, such as vii. 40 (Soxw δὲ κἀγὼ πνεῦμα θεοῦ ἔχειν), where he merely claims the freedom to express his own opinion along with the rest. We no more understand the attitude of the community to him than his to the community. After so short a time, his converts have split into parties. Some have lost their belief in the resurrection of the dead (xv. 12). Even those who call themselves after Paul are not to be regarded as faithful disciples, since they are severely chidden precisely for their use of his name (1. 18-17, ill. 4-9, 22-28). All this is explicable only by assuming a wide gap between the time of Paul and the composition of the Epistle. We now understand how it comes about that the supposed writer is no tangible figure, but an image of the ideal Apostle, praising and blaming, encouraging and setting to rights—a recognised authority whose word must everywhere pass for law (cf. vii. 17, οὕτως ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις πάσαις διατάσσομαι, with the similar expressions in xi. 84, xvi. 1). The glorification of Paul no longer troubles us. We see it as we have long seen the declarations of the Johannine Christ: ‘““Tam the bread of life, the light of the world, the N 178 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS good shepherd.” The question why Paul, on receiving the disquieting news about his spiritual children at Corinth, did not immediately hasten thither, is as little enigmatical as the opinion of those who were puffed up that he would not “come.” At the time when the Epistle was written there could be no question of any coming again. Paul was no longer among the living. The Community. According to the ordinary view, the community consisted, at any rate chiefly, of ‘‘ heathen Christians.”’ And, indeed, the writer often seems to be addressing himself exclusively to such (¢.g., xii. 2, ὅτε ἔθνη Fre). Contrary to the Jewish custom, men are to pray with uncovered heads (xi. 4). Yet from other places a part may be inferred to have been Jews at their calling and ἃ part non-Jews (vil. 18, 20). The permission to eat what is sold in the market seems intended for Jewish Christians. Familiarity with the Old Testament and with the history of Israel, such as could not be possessed by new converts from heathenism, is assumed throughout. Are we, then, to suppose that the com- munity was mixed? In that case, how does it come about that in a letter directing itself to all alike (e.g., x. 14) now one part exclusively seems to be addressed and now the other? And, in the reading of the Epistle to the whole community, what impres- sion would have been made on the ‘‘ weak”’ by the bitter-sweet tone in which the ‘‘strong,” the men of ‘‘ knowledge,” are ‘advised to have patience with them? Would they not have felt wounded? The effect must have been quite other than that which was intended by the Apostle. Ina book written at a later date, the admonition presents no difficulty. The treatise was put into no one’s hands as a letter. THE FIRST EPISTLE 179 Any one who was of the ‘“‘ weak” and read it may have shaken his head and sighed; but he could take no offence, since evidently the passages in question were not addressed to him personally. Parties. Nothing tangible can be made out about the parties referred to, be they two (11. 4-5), three (111. 22-28), or four (i. 12); though the attempts of critics are endless. It appears that the factions had not actually broken up the community, since the Epistle is addressed to all its members, and their meeting together is presumed. Yet compare the question in i. 18 (μεμέρισται 6 Χριστός ;)." There is no suggestion of doctrinal difference between Paul and Apollos, who are on the best of terms, nor yet between Paul and Cephas, who is cited as the principal witness for the resurrection. He and Paul and the rest teach the same thing (εἴτε οὖν ἐγὼ εἴτε ἐκεῖνοι, οὕτως κηρύσσομεν, Kal οὕτως ἐπιστεύσατε, XV. 11). No trace is to be found of a Jewish Christian party at the head of which stands Peter. Nor do we learn why his party at Corinth—whatever it may have been— chose the Syrian name Κηφᾶς in preference to the Greek Πέτρος. The true explanation is that the parties were not historical ; or at least were not of the place and time to which they are assigned. The author himself does not treat their existence as serious. He merely wishes to point a moral against parties in his own age. Clement of Rome had a perception of this —not that he had any intention of throwing doubt on the historical character of the datum—when he said 1 Tf the words are read without the note of interrogation, the point is, of course, the same. 180 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS that Paul wrote to the Corinthians about himself and Cephas and Apollos “ spiritually ᾿ (πνευματικῶς). In fact, the writer himself tells us his aim as clearly as is possible in a pseudepigraphic work (ταῦτα δέ, ἀδελφοί, μετεσχημάτισα εἰς ἐμαντὸν καὶ ᾿Απολλὼν Ov ὑμᾶς, ἵνα ἐν ἡμῖν μάθητε κιτιλ., iv. 6). In accordance with his catholicising temper, he tries to make it appear that party-names among Christians had been assumed without real grounds. Opponents. The usual view is that the opponents of Paul in this as in other Epistles are Jewish Christians; yet no sign of it appears in the Epistle itself. The ‘ weak brethren ” who are scrupulous about eating the sacri- ficial meat of the heathen are taken under the Apostle’s protection against the more advanced. In the passage on ‘‘strifes ’’ (1. 10-111. 28) he directs his reproofs, not against any particular party, but against the forma- tion of parties in general. That which is named after himself he blames as much as the rest. If such opposition to the Judaisers as we find in Galatians is the test of ‘‘ genuineness,” then our first Epistle to the Corinthians is not genuinely Pauline. It is here the Judaising party that has need of toleration. The opponents spoken of in 1x. 1-18, who contest Paul’s right to the privileges of an Apostle, do not present themselves as members of the Christian community at Corinth, but as outsiders (see especially ix. 2). Unin- telligible from the point of view of tradition, this passage has a meaning plain enough in itself. It is not a defence of the Apostle’s rights—which he does not mean to exercise—by himself before his recent converts, but a vindication of those who regarded themselves as his successors against some who, in a THE FIRST EPISTLE 181 later age, were refusing to admit that he had really been an Apostle. This fully explains the warmth of tone. The only opponents distinctly in view within the community—if we are to call ““ opponents ’”’ those whose line of thought is disapproved—are no lagging Judaisers, but Paulinists of the extreme left—men who, in the opinion of the author, go too far in his own direction, who arrogate to themselves too much liberty, who fancy themselves superior to their teachers. The existence of such opponents is simply inconceivable in a newly-formed community consist- ing of insignificant people (i. 26-28) in the time of the actual Paul. C.—Indications of a Later Time. Paul a Power. At the time when the Epistle was written, Paul’s career could be looked back upon as a completed whole. He has planted, another has watered (111. 6). He has laid the foundation as a wise master-builder ; another builds thereon (ii. 10). He and his fellow Apostles have been made a spectacle to the world and to angels and men (iv. 9). In these and in other passages we are on the threshold of legend. Paul has fought with wild beasts at Ephesus (xv. 32). Now, rescue from the amphitheatre, if this adventure had been real, would have been no easy matter. The image of the Apostle is held up as a model of life and faith in all respects. He already stands so high that he can threaten with his coming (iv. 19-21) ; can make his spirit act at a distance (v. 8); can deliver sinners to Satan (v. 5); and can bless men with his love next after the grace of Jesus Christ (xvi. 24). 182 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS The Community no longer Young. With the passages insisting on the spiritually undeveloped state of the community, others are in contrast where the possession of knowledge (yvwere) is assumed and difficult questions of conduct are discussed. The community no longer consists, as at first, almost wholly of people who are of no account in the world; since it is now necessary to lay down the rule that all—slaves and free, and so forth—are to remain in the station in which they were called (vii. 21-24). Those who were formerly heathens have had time to become familiar with the contents of the Old Testament. The community has its traditions (τὰς παραδόσεις), imparted, as appears, ἃ long time ago (xi. 2, 28, xv. 8). The custom is that it should support its spiritual leaders and their families. This right needs vindicating, not as the general rule, but as an application of the rule to those Pauline teachers whom some would exclude from its benefit. A whole series of recognised func- tions is performed by different persons (xii. 28-80), submission to whom is insisted on (xvi. 16). There are religious services in which the members take various parts (xiv. 6, 26), and in which abuses have arisen that need setting in order. A regular discipline has become necessary. The distinction 18 known between a major and a minor excommunication. In the case of the first (v. 5), we can scarcely think of anything but a death-sentence. The second (v. 9) consists in exclusion from the society of the faithful. Christianity has won for itself a place in the world, so that the relations of its members to those outside have to be regulated (vi. 1-11). They form a new people, ‘‘ Israel after the spirit’ (cf. x. 18). THE FIRST EPISTLE 183 Doctrinal Utterances. Although in our Epistle doctrinal expressions do not come into the foreground, they are numerous enough to prove that, like the Epistle to the Romans, it belongs to a later time than that of Paul. Chris- tianity is no longer a Jewish sect, but an independent confession, standing over against those of Jews and Greeks. It expects justification neither from obedi- ence to the law nor from a conscience void of reproach (iv. 4). It knows no righteousness, no sanctification, no redemption but in “‘ Christ Jesus ” (1.80). Nothing of this is attainable by personal effort. The Christian receives all by grace through faith. Before the imparting of faith goes the preaching of the word of the Cross, of the ‘‘ Gospel of Christ ’’—that is, the glad tidings concerning Christ. But not in this sense, that faith is dependent on men. He who proclaims the Gospel does it ‘‘in Christ”’ (iv. 15), and cannot escape the necessity imposed on him (ix. 16). One point and another may be borrowed from tradi- tion (xi. 28, xv. 8); but, on the whole, the system has been made known by divine revelation to those who preach and receive it; as, indeed, continual revelations may be counted on (xii. 7, xiv. 6, 26). The organ of these revelations is the Spirit, which searches all things, even the depths of God (ii. 10). Believers are spiritual men (πνευματικοῦ, and as such can judge of spiritual things, which natural men (ψυχικοὶ ἄνθρωποι) cannot know. The Spirit of God, or the Holy Ghost, dwells in them (ii. 16, etc.). Points of contact with Gnosticism have already come into view in the discussion on Romans. In the present world, as we saw, not God, but other 184 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS powers—‘‘the rulers of this world”’ (ii. 6, 8), Satan (v. 5, vii. 5), death (xv. 26)—exercise the dominion. Men in general and man’s wisdom are opposed to God (1. 25, ii. 5). The supreme God is the God of the Christians, who are the new Israel, in distinction from the old “Israel after the flesh’’; and only for the sake of their deliverance is he concerned with this world. He calls to the fellowship of his Son (i. 9) according to his good pleasure (εὐδόκησεν ὃ θεὸς seeeee σῶσαι τοὺς πιστεύοντας, i. 21) Jews and Greeks, slaves and free. Ere long he will bring the rulers of the world to nought and give the victory to his own through Christ; and not till then shall God be in the full sense “‘ all in all’’ (xv. 98). Jesus is no longer merely what he became after his death for his first disciples—the promised Messiah, who had to suffer and die so that he might be raised from the dead and taken up into heaven, whence he shall come to establish his kingdomon earth. Though called ‘‘man’’ when set in antithesis to Adam, he is not thought of as having been a man in the ordinary sense; he is from heaven as Adam is from earth (xv. 47). This is the point of the com- parison (6 πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός, ὃ δεύτερος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ), which is not affected by the differ- ences of reading in the second clause. He is Christ, the Son of God, the ‘‘one Lord” (εἷς κύριος viii. 6), “the Lord of glory” (6 κύριος τῆς δόξης ili. 8), to the ‘“‘called’’ the power and wisdom of God (i. 24). Because ‘‘ the rulers of this world’”’ did not know him as such, they crucified him in their ignorance, thinking him an ordinary man, Jesus (ii. 8). God raised him from the dead, as through him he will also raise those who have believed in the Gospel. Baptised in his name, they have broken THE FIRST EPISTLE 185 with their guilty past, separated themselves as “saints”? (ἅγιο) from the sinful world, and are justified. These, and those that shall afterwards add themselves to them, οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, are they for whom Christ died. Although not quite put on an equality with God, Christ is for this doctrine little less.1_ Accordingly, the argument here in relation to the authorship 18 essentially the same as that which was founded on the doctrinal utterances in the Epistle to the Romans. The Christological development is far greater than can be conceived in a contemporary of the earliest disciples, who had gone over to them from Judaism. Some Special Points. Many phrases and sayings that look like common forms indicate a later time than is consistent with the genuineness of the Epistle? A passage such as iv. 17, quite incomprehensible in the mouth of the actual Apostle, betrays the late writer even in its choice of words. As Paul and Timothy are there viewed in the light of traditional figures, so also are ‘the rest of the Apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas’”’ in ix. 5. In so far as xi. 28-25 (28) and xv. 83-7 indicate a formula of communion and a closed list of appearances of the risen Lord, we are brought in contact with pieces which we cannot suppose to have existed in 57-58, not to 1 Reference is here made especially to viii.6. From a long series of passages the exalted character ascribed to his divine attributes is further shown. 2 The following in particular are noted :---κλητὸς ἀπόστολος and κλητοὶ ἅγιοι (i. 1-2); ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες (i. 10) ; καὶ οὕτως ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις πάσαις διατάσσομαι (vii. 17); οὐδὲ αἱ ἐκκλησίαι τοῦ θεοῦ (xi. 16); ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων (xiv. 88); ὃ καὶ παρελάβετε, ἐν ᾧ καὶ ἑστήκατε (xv. 1). 186 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS speak of 52-58, the assumed date of Paul’s teaching at Corinth. The custom of being baptised for the dead who had died unbaptised (xv. 29) is first heard of among adherents of Cerinthus and Marcion. It is thought that the Apostle cannot have known of it and not opposed it; yet the usage is mentioned with the approval of the writer. Hence innumerable attempts to alter the plain sense of the words or to modify the text—from our point of view, needless. A Written Gospel. To the indications of a later time belongs the use, which we may conjecture, of a written Gospel much like the Synoptics and most like Luke, but not to be identified with any of the three in the form known to us. The passage where reference is made to a command of the Lord regarding the indissolubility of marriage (γυναῖκα ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς μὴ χωρισθῆναι, 111. 10) corresponds too closely with Matt. xix. 83-9 and Mark x. 2-12 (cf. Luke xvi. 18) to have had its source in an independent oral tradition. The mention of eating and drinking (φαγεῖν καὶ πιεῖν) in ix. 4 is only explicable if we see there an allusion to what is said in Luke x.7 (ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ οἰκίᾳ μένετε, ἔσθοντες καὶ πίνοντες τὰ παρ αὐτῶν᾽ ἄξιος γὰρ ὃ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ. The ordinance of the Lord that the preachers of the Gospel should live of the Gospel, cited in ix. 14, recalls, besides the foregoing passage of Luke, Matt. x. 9-10, Mark vi. 8-9, Luke ix. 8. This is not to be explained, however, by dependence of the author of the Epistle on our third Gospel in its present form. Rather the coincidence between 1 Cor. x. 27 (πᾶν τὸ παρατιθέμενον ὑμῖν ἐσθίετε) and Luke x. 8 (ἐσθίετε ra παρατιθέμενα ὑμῖν), which can scarcely be accidental, betrays acquaintance with the Epistle on THE FIRST EPISTLE 187 the part of the author of the Gospel. For, after what has been said in Luke x. 7, the admonition of verse 8 has no sense without tacit reference to the words added in the Epistle (μηδὲν avaxplvovrec διὰ τὴν συνείδησιν, χ. 27). The faith that can remove mountains (Χ111. 2) makes us think involuntarily of Matt. xvii. 20, xxi. 21, Luke xvii. 6; the last trumpet (xv. 52) of Matt. xxiv. 81. The passages on the institution of the Lord’s supper and on the tradition regarding the resurrection support the same general view. The most probable conclusion is that ‘‘ Paul” and ‘“‘ Luke” drew from the same written Gospel.! Books of Acts. A parallel conclusion is arrived at on comparison of our Epistle with Luke’s second book, the Acts of the Apostles. Agreements and differences alike favour the view that the authors of both were dependent for their ‘‘historical’’ details on an earlier book of Acts— namely, the Acts of Paul, signs of the use of which are visible also in the Epistle to the Romans. Thus, while we cannot adduce dependence on the Canonical Acts as a proof of the relatively late origin of our Epistle, its late origin follows indirectly from the inferred relation between them. For the earlier book which served as Luke’s principal authority for the career of Paul, was of course written after the death of its hero, and probably not before the end of the first century, as has already been seen. D.—Nationality of the Author. As a Christian, the writer looks down equally on 1 Thus “ Paul’? has allusions to this Gospel, which may have been a forerunner of the Canonical Luke; while ‘‘ Luke,’’ the final redactor of the third Gospel, was slightly influenced by contact with the emergent Pauline literature. 188 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS heathens and on Jews—the “‘ Israel after the flesh.” Thus his speaking of the Israelites as ‘‘ our fathers ”’ proves nothing in relation to his own nationality. He simply regards them as the spiritual ancestors of all Christians. He thinks as well as expresses himself in Greek. If he has to struggle with language, that 18 ἃ consequence, not of using what is not his mother tongue, but of having the new thoughts of Christianity to express. It has even been shown by G. A. Deiss- mann (Die neutestamentliche Formel ‘‘in Christo Jesu,” 1892) that the ‘‘new technical term,” ἐν Χριστῷ (Incov), a favourite formula with the author of the Epistle, is rooted in the usage, not of Jewish Alexan- drian, but of “‘ profane” Greek, literature. In quoting or silently appropriating words from the Old Testa- ment, he uses the Septuagint. Only in three cases do we find divergent readings—namely, in 111. 19, xiv. 21, and xv. 54. In the first of these, another translation, or perhaps a citation by some apocryphal writer, was followed. In the second, it is known from Origen that the translation used was that of Aquila. In the third, the words as given agree with the translation of Theodotion, so that, if this is thought not to have been within the author’s reach, an earlier translation followed by Theodotion must be held to have existed. Like Philo and Josephus, the author of the Epistle read the Old Testament in Greek; where he differs from them is in nowhere showing the least trace of acquaintance with Hebrew. The passage xv. 490-48 (44), which seems to have been borrowed from an old Christian hymn, was evidently composed in Greek. The use of the word ‘‘ barbarian ” in xiv. 11 points to a writer who 18 of Greek nationality. The ascetic view about marriage has its predecessors among Greeks and Romans rather THE FIRST EPISTLE 189 than among Jews.! It would not have been easy for one who had been a Jew not merely to concede tacitly, but to urge strongly, that a man should pray with his head uncovered. In fact, no one would ever have thought of taking the Epistle for the work of a born Jew if it did not purport to have been written by the Apostle Paul. The obvious ‘‘ Jewish background ”’ of the writing is common to it with all old Christian literature. If this were a proof of the writer's Jewish nationality, then it would follow that Justin Martyr was a Jew, though he himself tells us that his father and his grandfather were heathens. E.—Attempts at Parrying Difficulties. The endeavours hitherto made to save the genuine- ness of the Epistle by concessions are not more satis- factory than they were found to be in the case of Romans; andcommonly they have met with the sharpest rejection from those who might have been supposed their natural friends. The device of ‘‘ conjectural criticism,’’ with its postulate of interpolations, and the attempt to rediscover genuine Pauline fragments put together in various editions till the form of the Canonical Epistle was reached, equally, in effect, sacrifice the Pauline character of the actual work. Moreover, they remain insufficient as against the argument from the doctrinal contents. To date the 1 It may be said that there were the Essenes, who—even if, as has been thought, they borrowed their ascetic discipline from the Pytha- goreans—were a recognised Jewish sect and preceded the historical Paul. In the Epistle, however, we find already something of the peculiar and unlovely asceticism of monkish Christianity. Like the accompanying theology, this must have taken some time to grow up. Hence its presence—though perhaps not to be traced in its specific difference to any pre-existing type, Greek or Roman any more than Jewish—still supports the theory of late origin. 190 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS Epistle merely a few years later, as has also been proposed in the case of Romans, is of no advantage at all. What gain can there be, for example, in view of such difficulties as have been set forth, in placing the composition of the four principal Epistles between the years 61 and 62 instead of between 55 and 59? F'.—Arguments for Genuineness. As in the defence of Romans, so also in that of Corinthians, the marks of the personality of Paul are appealed to. The argument, however, is of the same circular character. At its best, what is urged on the defensive amounts to acceptance of an unproved dogma till the negative shall have been demonstrated. G.—Conjectural Mode of Origin. Lost Letters of Pal. It is in the abstract possible that among the materials on which the redactor worked there were letters of the Apostle Paul; and to many it seems more probable that such letters should have been the basis than that a whole Epistle should have been ‘‘invented.”’ Invented so far as the contents were concerned, of course the Epistles were not; and the plausibility of the use of genuinely Pauline material is only superficial. To take one or more colourless letters of Paul to Rome or Corinth, and make them the vehicle of an essentially new doctrinal system like ‘¢Paulinism,’” would have been more difficult than to put forth the system under the name of some one who had not written anything. And pseudepigraphic writings among Jews or Christians are not wont to trouble themselves about the question whether the persons to whom they were ascribed had ever written anything or not. Witness the Books of Daniel, THE FIRST EPISTLE 191 Enoch, Adam, Lamech, Noah, Baruch; the Revela- tions of Elijah and of Abraham ; the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs ; the fourth Gospel in so far as it claims to be held for the work of John, the disciple whom Jesus loved; the Revelation of John; New Testament Epistles of James and of Peter; Gospels of Thomas and of Nicodemus; Epistles of Barnabas, Ignatius, and so many others. Paulinism. In the sketch that has been given of the origin of Paulinism much, it is true, remains unexplained, but not all. And we are only at the beginning of investi- gation on the lines now opened out. We have at least gained thus much: that Paulinism does not stand incomprehensibly in the immediate neighbour- hood of the first disciples of Jesus. We can think it as a reform, not of that which has scarcely seen the light, but of that which has existed at least half a century, and probably longer. There is no gap of from sixty to eighty years between a supposed vigorous withstanding of Peter by Paul and the con- tinuation of the strife by their followers. Instead of this break in the orderly course of things, there is an intelligible process of development. ‘¢ Jesus dies on the cross.! “‘ His disciples are deeply cast down, but ere long take courage, and see in him the Messiah, who had to suffer and die before he could be glorified and return to establish his kingdom. ‘‘With that preaching they go forth to Jews and heathens ; while they devote themselves to a humble, serious life, marked by religious feeling and brotherly 1 The paragraphs in inverted commas are translated in full. 192 THE EPISTLES ΤῸ THE CORINTHIANS love, in the spirit of Jesus, whose coming as Messiah they expect. ‘‘One of the first, and certainly one of the most zealous, who are active among the heathen for the preparation of his kingdom, is Paul. Although in his intercourse with non-Jews less scrupulous about the maintenance of orthodox customs, and freer than the others generally in his understanding of the law, he yet stands fundamentally on the same lines, and remains, like them, notwithstanding his new confes- sion, a faithful Jew. ‘* What we call Paulinism, and know best from the New Testament ‘ Epistles of Paul,’ arises afterwards, In connexion with the budding Christian gnosis, under the influence of the Greek Alexandrian philo- sophy.' Yet not out of the range of Judaism, and much less in independence of Christianity, already existent from fifty to seventy years as religious fellowship and confession of Jesus’ earliest disciples. Paulinism is neither more nor less than a radical reform of this early Christianity. ‘‘ But that reform is not everywhere relished. It meets with bitter opposition, with fierce antagonism by the side of warm approval—antagonism on the part of those who, although disciples of Jesus, and awaiting his coming as the Messiah (if they speak Greek, as the Christ) yet remain attached heart and soul to Judaism, its laws and precepts, institutions and usages. Their spiritual posterity become pre- sently the belated Ebionites. ‘* Almost from its starting-point, Paulinism has a right and a left wing. ΒΥ the latter its principles are 1 That is, the philosophy of Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jews, as represented especially by Philo. THE FIRST EPISTLE 198 one-sidedly developed, pushed to the limit, to divagate ere long into Marcionism. By the former those same principles are a little curtailed, pruned, modified, if possible brought into harmony with wishes and inceli- nations, dispositions and ideas, of old believers who have connected themselves with the new movement or let themselves be taken in tow by it. These help to form the broad stream of rising Catholicism, which takes up everything into itself; so far as they do not, like the Marcionites and other Gnostics, incline too much to the left, or, like the Ebionites and other Judaists, too strongly to the right. ‘* Those are the main lines.” The question whether, in the formation of Paulinism, ‘“the Christ” or ‘‘ the Alexandrian Son of God”’ is prior, offers nothing problematical, unless we feel our- selves obliged to doubt the historic existence of Jesus. If we are convinced that Jesus really existed, and that there is a historical kernel, difficult as it may be to bring to light, in the Gospel nariative, then we can answer without hesitation that it was the Christ who became the Son of God, and that, at an earlier stage, it was Jesus who had become the Christ. He became first the Christ (the Messiah); then Jesus Christ, or Christ (used as ἃ proper name); then afterwards the Son of God. The pre-existence assigned to the super- natural Christ in the theological speculations of the Paulinists does not in the least affect this historical order of Christian ideas. 1 Adoption of the mythical theory, it may be observed here, makes curiously little difference in the mode of representing the general order of the process. Though no real figure was the starting-point, yet a concrete popular myth, and not a quasi-philosophical conception, is to be placed at the beginning. First there is the story of Joshua or Jesus, the object of a cult, and afterwards of a belief that changes : 0 194 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS The Author. To return to the author of our Epistle. He was unquestionably a Paulinist, as appears from his upholding of the honour and authority of Paul. At the same time, he was a Paulinist of the right wing. He sets himself especially against the extreme ‘“‘ spiritualism ’’ of the advanced Paulinists: their making light of ‘‘ fornication ’’ out of contempt for the body; on the other side, the total opposition of some of them to marriage on ascetic grounds; their freedom in eating of everything, whereby offence is given to other Christians; the too great value they attach to spiritual gifts (ra πνευματικά), particularly to ‘‘ speaking with tongues’; their denial of the resur- rection—again in consequence of overdriven spiritu- alism. He is a practical man, with more care about life than doctrine. Doctrinal argument occupies only one chapter (xv.). He has an eye to the promotion of unity among believers and of order in their religious assemblies. Here the drift to Catholicism appears ; as no less in his urging content with the station in which each was called (vii. 12-24, xii. 18). Above with the change of the time and its ideals ; then the declaration that ‘‘this Jesus,” said to have been preached by his “ disciples,” is “the Christ”; then the superinducing of the Alexandrian and Syrian Gnostic ideas on the Messiah identified with Jesus. The popular mythical development from the ancient cult is met half way by the mediating Logos of speculative imagination. From this union spring Pauline and Johannine Christianity. The names of “ disciples” (as has been suggested in the Introduc- tion), so far as they contain a reminiscence of real persons, are names of propagandists of Messianic Judaism, imaginatively transformed into the “apostles” of a personal Jesus, who was not merely to come (like the Messiah as at first conceived), but had already come. 1 The slave, as has often been noted, is to be content with slavery, THE FIRST EPISTLE 195 all, it is seen in his quietly placing side by side divergent views on the same topic. We are no more entitled to regard this as due to interpolation than we are in the somewhat similar case of the fourth Gospel. The different utterances come to him from his different sources. His guiding aim is to further—on ἃ Pauline basis—a practical Christianity above party divisions. It cannot be stated with certainty where he lived ; but most probably it was in the East—in Syria or Asia Minor; rather in the neighbourhood of Antioch than at Rome. The use of the words Kngac and papay afd, without the translation we should expect if the work had been revised for Western readers, suggests this even as regards the final redaction. It is not probable that he was also the writer of the Kpistle to the Romans, on whom rather he appears to be dependent. Relation to Romans. If, for example, we did not know Rom. v. 12-21, we should not fully seize what underlies 1 Cor. xv. 21—22 ; compare also xv. 56 with Rom. vii. 8-9. The form in which Aquila and Priscilla (Prisca) are intro- duced in xvi. 19 (Ακύλας καὶ Πρίσκα σὺν τῇ κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίᾳ) may well be derived from Rom. xvi. 8, 5 (Πρίσκαν καὶ ᾿Ακύλαν....... καὶ τὴν κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν). If this suggestion is adopted, we partly understand how the writer could let ‘‘ All the brethren greet you’”’ (xvi. 20) follow immediately on the saluta- tion of Aquila and Priscilla ‘‘ with the church that is which, indeed, the writer—like some of the Fathers afterwards— thought to be not without its spiritual advantages: δοῦλος ἐκλήθης ; μή σοι μελέτῳ' GAN εἰ καὶ δύνασαι ἐλεύθερος γενέσθαι, μᾶλλον χρῆσαι (vii. 21). 196 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS in their house’: compare the two passages as wholes, noting in Rom. xvi. 4 the reference to ‘‘all the churches of the Gentiles.” The coincidence between the clauses of xvi. 20 and Rom. xvi. 16, of which the order is at the same time inverted, cannot be acci- dental. Stephanas and his house as the first-fruits (ἀπαρχή) of Achaia (xvi. 15) have their precursor in Epenetus (ὅς ἐστιν ἀπαρχὴ τῆς ᾿Ασίας εἰς Χριστόν, Rom. xvi. 5). A concurrence of points of this kind seems to show that the Epistle to the Romans was the model. Its ideas are presupposed, and reminiscences of its phraseology float before the author’s mind. Determination of Date. This relation helps us to fix limiting dates. Our Epistle is later than Romans (which, as was con- cluded, dates from about 120), but probably not much later. It plainly discloses its origin out of the same environment and the same direction of thought. The external evidence, as far as it goes, confirms this conclusion, testifying to its existence at a date which cannot be placed later than about 140. THE SECOND EPISTLE 1.—CHaracTER—Uniry—Composition. Like the first Epistle, the second also was un- doubtedly meant to be taken for a letter; but here again we find that the form is not in harmony with the reality. Two persons are mentioned as the writers—namely, Paul and Timothy—and the first person plural is frequently used. ‘‘ Paul,” however, THE SECOND EPISTLE 197 does not take this seriously, as appears from his con- stant recurrence to the first person singular; and in i. 19 he speaks of Timothy as if he stood quite out- side the correspondence. Again, there is the double address—to the Corinthians (i. 1, vi. 11, φῇ. i. 28) and to all the saints that are in all Achaia (i. 1, cf. ix. 2, xi. 10). The corresponding doubleness of character is preserved all through, as in the case of the first Epistle. Many things seem to refer to the special circumstances of a particular community ; yet, on the whole, the impression is that we are reading a small treatise, a book in the form of a letter—not a letter in the ordinary sense, destined for a particular circle of readers. Its composite character has been perceived from the time of Semler (1776), but we must beware of exaggerating this. The Epistle is not a mere collection of fragments—genuine or otherwise—but has an undeniable relative unity. The style is throughout ‘‘ Pauline.” Nothing of importance in the composition is of alien origin. Nothing, that is to say, is marked with any impress but that of the Pauline groups. The manner is immediately distin- guishable from that of the fourth Evangelist, for example, or of James, or of Clement. And points of contact can be found between later and earlier sentences. The whole, indeed, is much like a path- less thicket, in comparison with which the first Epistle seems a well-ordered park (as Schmiedel has it); yet the confusion is not absolute. There is a certain general sequence. After the opening (1. 1-2) there follow three parts devoted to separate subjects, and a conclusion (xiii. 11-18). The first part (i. 8- vii. 16) is an account—and a defence—of Paul and his work in view of the relations in which he stands to his readers at Corinth. The aim of the second 198 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS (viii.—ix.) is to promote a collection for the saints. The third (x.—xiii. 10) takes up the cause of the Apostle as against his opponents. And in somewhat more detail it 1s possible to give an orderly exposition of the movement of thought. At the same time, marks of the process by which the Epistle has been put together are innumerable. A.—Traces of Juncture and Manipulation. Neither the whole nor the parts have the kind of literary unity we expect in writings proceeding originally from a single hand, Yet the repetitions of phrases from part to part show the presence of one redactor. Apparent contradictions are sometimes due to omissions in the phrases transferred. For example, the Epistle generally implies that Paul’s approaching visit to Corinth is only the second (see especially i. 15). How is this to be reconciled with xiii. 1 (τρίτον τοῦτο ἔρχομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς) ὃ Quite simply, by noting the omission of part of a phrase transferred from xii. 14 (τρίτον τοῦτο ἑτοίμως ἔχω ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς). With this omission may be compared, in the second portion of xiii. 1 (ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων καὶ τριῶν σταθήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμα), the abbreviation of the words from Deut. xix. 15, which in the Septuagint run: ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων καὶ ἐπὶ στόματος τριῶν μαρτύρων στήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμαες It is to be observed that the author repeats himself, just as he quotes an Old Testament writer, without indi- cating it. Most remarkable is the contrast of tone between the first and the third parts. In the first the Apostle’s attitude is characteristically friendly ; in the third it is almost hostile. Yet even here the relative unity of the whole becomes manifest on closer study. There THE SECOND EPISTLE 199 are passages that are sharp in tone in the first part ; and in the third there are not wanting expressions of tenderness. Many verses in the third part are intelli- gible only by reference to corresponding ones in the first. If the repetition (κατέναντι θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ λαλοῦμεν) in 11. 17 and xii. 19 is not accidental, the place where the phrase is original is evidently the former passage. Dependence on earlier ‘‘ Pauline”’ writings is indicated especially by the conclusion. After one word (xarapriZeoGe, xili. 11) referring back to an earlier verse (τὴν ὑμών κατάρτισιν, xili. 9), and another perhaps to the beginning of the Epistle (παρακαλεῖσθε, cf. i. 4, 6), we have others recalling - passages in Romans (τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖτε, cf. Rom. xi. 16, xv. 5; εἰρηνεύετε, cf. Rom. xii. 18; καὶ ὁ θεὸς τῆς ἀγάπης καὶ εἰρήνης ἔσται μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν, cf. Rom. xv. 88). The greetings of xiii. 12 recall Rom. xvi. 16, 1 Cor. xvi. 20. The blessing of xiii. 18 is that of Rom. xvi. 20, 1 Cor. xvi. 28 in an extended form. B.—Witnesses for the Existence of Shorter Epistles. The oldest and best witness for earlier Pauline Epistles is the author himself in x. 9-11 (¢f. i. 18). This reference to Epistles—not merely to an Epistle, asin other passages—shows irrefutably that for the composition of our document earlier ones of the same kind may have been used; but beyond this possibility we are not entitled to go. In favour of the conjecture that the second Epistle to the Corinthians existed in a shorter form, only Marcion can be cited; and, over and above the general argument that he was accused by the Catholics of mutilating the texts—and hence 1 This echo, as is noted, shows that the passage is in place, in spite of the change of tone from the preceding verses. 200 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS presumably used shorter ones—little can be found specifically to support the opinion that he possessed a text different from ours. Modern critics, indeed, have more and more tended to the hypothesis of composition from (epistolary) fragments; but with little agreement in detail, except that they frequently coincide in a remarkable manner as to the places where the sutures are to be found. All this—like the argument for two editions which may be based on the double address of the Epistle in its present form—offers merely general confirmation of the view, arrived at by analysis, that older materials have been worked up into a new whole. C.—Conclusion. Analysis, however, makes this position in itself secure. No one writing an actual letter produces a composition such as we have before us. The probable mode of construction from the presumed ‘‘ Pauline ”’ materials may be illustrated by the use made of the Old Testament, often without any sign that the writer is quoting. Compare, for example, 11]. 7-16 with Ex. xxxiv. 29-85, and note the literal transference of phrases along with the complex re-arrangement :— 2 Cor. iii. Ex. xxxiv. ὥστε μὴ δύνασθαι ἀτενίσαι τοὺς 35. καὶ εἶδον οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ τὸ υἱοὺς Ισραὴλ els τὸ πρόσωπον | πρόσωπον Μωυσέως, ὅτι δεδόξασται. Μωυσέως (7) .... δεδόξασται (10) | καὶ περιέθηκε Μωνσῆς κάλυμμα ἐπὶ ..-ΟὌἸΜωυσῆς ἐτίθει κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὸ | τὸ πρόσωπον ἑαντοῦ.... πρόσωπον ἑαντοῦ (13)....7d δεδο- 30..... ἣν δεδοξασμένη ἡ ὄψις.. ξασμένον (10)... Μωυσῆς... ἡνίκα 84. ἡνίκα δ᾽ ἄν εἰσεπορεύετο δὲ ἐὰν ἐπιστρέψῃ πρὸς κύριον, πε- | Μωυσῆς ἔναντι xuplov...., περιῃ- ριαιρεῖται τὸ κάλυμμα (16). petro τὸ κάλυμμα.... Again, what is given in vi. 16--18 as spoken by God is a combination of words borrowed from Lev. xxvi. THE SECOND EPISTLE 201 11-12, Is. lii. 11, Zeph. iii. 20, Jer. xxxi. 9, 88, 2 Sam. vii. 14.) Still, while they throw light on the mode of compo- sition, the nature of these citations from the Old Testament makes it clear at the same time that, in the case of lost works, there can be no reasonable hope of going beyond generalities and actually reconstructing the writings on which the redaction proceeded. 2.—WHENCE CAME THE EPISTLE ? Although the analysis, in the case of this as of the former Epistles, in effect decides against the Apostolic authorship, and assigns the work with high proba- bility to a later time than that of Paul, it seems desirable, as before, to investigate the question of genuineness anew from a different starting-point. A.—Improbability of the Tradition. Let us consent to waive, as affecting only the form, the questions why Timothy is mentioned as one of the writers, though his part in the correspondence never seriously counts, and why the Epistle is said to be addressed at once to the Corinthians and to a wider circle of readers. We are still left face to face with insuperable difficulties that stand in the way of reconciling the contents with anything like the traditional assumptions. The Occasion of the Writing. Commentators have not been slow to explain how Paul came to write the letter, and what is its relation 1 Many more such transferences are noted; but these seemed to furnish sufficient illustration. Compare what is said in the cases of Rom. and 1 Cor. 202 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS to the first Epistle to the Corinthians or to supposed lost Epistles. He who possesses the power to create out of nothing can do wonders; and no doubt it is possible to imagine all sorts of circumstances that may have led Paul to write as he did. ‘All the liberty of imagination that may be conceded, however, is insufficient to avoid irreconcilable contradictions between the hypotheses elaborated and the Epistle as it stands. Connexion with our first Epistle is evident. As in 1 Cor. iv. 18-21, xi. 84, xvi. 2-7, so also in 2 Cor. 1, 15, 16, 28, 11. 1, 8, ix. 4, xii. 14, 20, xii. 1, 2, 10, Paul hopes speedily to come. It is to be his second visit (i. 15, xiii. 2). The letter indicated in ii. 1-11, vil. 7-16 is clearly no other than the first Epistle to the Corinthians, as appears even from the verbal echoes of 1 Cor. v. The Apostle has gone, according to his plan touched upon in 1 Cor. xvi. 5, from Ephesus to Troas and thence to Macedonia; see 2 Cor. 11. 12, 18, vii. 5, ix. 4. Troubled of late about the continued absence of Titus, and in connexion with it about the effect of his former letter, he is now comforted (vil. 6-7). On the other hand, Titus, referred to here as a known personage and as having reported on the effect of the former letter (vii. 6-11, cf. 11. 12-18), is not even mentioned in our first Epistle. Paul, it is true, has gone to Macedonia, but not to Greece, as we should have expected from 1 Cor. xvi. 5; the more so as in the meantime he has received satisfactory news from Titus. The fear of having to use sharpness (xiii. 10) can scarcely pass for a valid reason against coming, now that most have submitted. Above all, the case dealt with in 1 Cor. v. is an entirely different one from that which is taken account THE SECOND EPISTLE 203 of in 2 Cor. ii. 1-11, vii. 7-16. There it was for the writer πορνεία of extreme gravity, and could not have been passed over so easily on the offender’s repentance. In the first Epistle Paul stands entirely outside the case as a judge; in the second, the case is such that others might think it had touched him personally (ii. 5). The punishment inflicted in obedience to his wish (11. 6, 9) cannot have been the death-sentence hinted at in 1 Cor. v. For the person who has done the wrong (6 ἀδικήσας, vii. 12; nothing is said of πορνεία) is to be received again into the love of all. The inducement to the writing of the Apostolic letter remains unknown; not because we are imper- fectly informed, but because the particular circum- stances, apparently clear as crystal, are not much more than words. They are rooted, not directly in actual life, but in younger imaginative representations of it. They lack the solidity that can only be derived from the living to-day or the historical past. They are wavering. The Relation between Paul and the Corinthians. Directing our attention to certain passages, we might say that the Apostle is on the best and most intimate terms with the community founded by him. But how, then, has it come about that such a vehement defence of his person and work is neces- sary? What has happened in the interval? We are not told, and we are no wiser for reading the Epistle. Why need he remind his readers of the excellence of his life and conversation among them (1. 12), and dis- tinguish himself from the many who deal corruptly (of πολλοὶ καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, 11. 17) ὃ Do they not know who he is ?—that, for example, he 204 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS does not preach himself but Jesus Christ (iv. 5) ?? They have given full proof of their sorrow for what they have done amiss. The Apostle is satisfied, and endeavours to console them in their contrition ; yet he does not hasten from Macedonia to his erring and now repentant spiritual children, but writes them a letter containing some of the sharpest passages of rebuke that ever came from his hand. But now the parts are reversed. It is he who has grieved them, although with the best intentions. At the same time, he tells them that he will take nothing from them, though he has taken from others to do them service (xi. 7-12, ΧΙ, 18-18). And the whole apology is for their edifi- cation (xii. 19, xiii. 10)! Comprehend that who can. No distinct view of the relations in question can be formed unless we are content with an arbitrary selec- tion of single features to the complete ignoring of all the rest. If we bring together fairly all that the Epistle sets before us, we cannot represent to our- selves otherwise than confusedly either the relation of the Corinthians to Paul or of Paul to the Corinthians. And this wavering character of the image derived from the whole is not due to our being imperfectly informed of particulars which stood plain before the eyes of writer and readers, but to the mutual conflict of the particulars themselves. Opponents. Who are the opponents in view in the Epistle? They are generally thought to be Judaisers ; yet not even the words ‘‘law” and ““ circumcision ”’ occur. Sometimes, indeed, the author seems to have in view 1 Elsewhere a contradiction in this verse, suggestive of manipula- tion, is noted: ““ We preach not ourselves....but ourselves,’’ etc. THE SECOND EPISTLE 205 persons coming from outside with letters of intro- duction (iii. 1), by whom the other Apostles are set against and placed above Paul as having known Christ in his earthly life, and as unquestionably in the literal sense Hebrews, Israelites, the seed of Abraham (xi. 22). Yet it is difficult to conceive how, to the consciousness of the distant Corinthians, ‘‘ the Twelve,” or the chief among them, “ Peter, James, and John,” could present themselves as already a closed college, of ὑπερλίαν ἀπόστολοι (xi. 5, xii. 11), in comparison with whom Paul, the Apostle of the heathen, by whom their own community had been founded, was nothing. And, in fact, there are many strokes in the Epistle which show the opponents of - Paul in quite another light than that of Judaisers. He has to defend himself—and this in greater measure—against the accusations of those opponents that he had walked according to the flesh (i. 17) and not according to the spirit. They contrast his per- sonal insignificance (in the past) with the weightiness of his letters (x. 10, cf. i. 18, x. 1-6). They are disobedient, and regard themselves as superior to him, because they have outgrown him (x. 6, 12). Against their presumption he appeals to the visions and revelations granted him (xii. 1), and sketches his triumphal march in the service of the deepest gnosis (ii. 14-16). These are the ‘‘ hyper-Paulinists,” treated already with disapproval in the first Epistle. Now, if we allow that the existence of such a group at Corinth is at all intelligible after so short a time, how shall we explain the way in which the author mixes them up—as he does especially in 6. xi.—with those who placed the great Apostle behind the Twelve or their heads? For the ‘‘false Apostles” (ψευδαπόστολοι) of xi. 18 are not to be identified with the ‘‘ very 206 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS chiefest Apostles’ (ὑπερλίαν awdoroAo) of xi. 5. Had Paul himself been the writer, he would certainly have known how to distinguish more clearly between such different classes of opponents. We can understand it all only if we assume that many decades had elapsed between the foundation of the community at Corinth and the writing of the Epistle. The author of the work chose the form of ἃ letter; but his purpose was quite other than to preserve that form with propriety. What he aimed at was, as ἃ good Paulinist, to champion the Apostle at once against the advanced who contested his truly ‘**Pauline’’ character as a preacher of the new ' “ spiritual”? Gospel, and against those who, out of conservatism, contested his truly Apostolic character as an equal of the first disciples of Jesus. The rest was merely clothing. To furnish a pretext for the writing of what is really an apology for Paul (ὅτι ὑμῖν ἀπολογούμεθα, xii. 19) and a glorification of his career, he seized upon fragments of written and oral tradition. Had he been a greater artist, he would not have committed the faults by which he betrays his later date. As it is, more than sufficient signs are left to convince us of the incorrectness of the tradi- tion that the Epistle was written by Paul about the year 57 or 58. B.—Indications of a Later Time. Paul. Paul is no longer the well-known teacher and preacher with whose life among them his Corinthian converts have been familiar for a year and a half. The remembrance of his personality has grown dim. On the one hand, he can safely be placed in a new THE SECOND EPISTLE 207 light; on the other hand, it is necessary to draw a picture of him for those who have neither known him nor seen him at work. The founder of Christian communities among the heathen has become a high authority. ‘‘An Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God’”’ he is made to declare himself (i. 1). His life ‘‘in the world” can be looked back upon as a completed whole (ἐν χάριτι θεοῦ ἀνεστράφημεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, περισσοτέρως δὲ πρὸς ὑμᾶς, i. 12). Observe how his career is celebrated in such passages as iv. 8-10, the opening of 6. vi. and xi. 28-27. Signs and wonders and mighty deeds are appealed to as proofs of his right to the Apostleship (xii. 12). A double tradition is now current about him. On one side he is the simple preacher of the Gospel, who knew nothing of the advanced “ spiritual’’ doctrine. On the other side he is already the writer of letters circulating in his name and setting forth this doctrine. The author of our Epistle is thus impelled to show that the opposition between the two characters is due to ἃ misunderstanding ; that it was really the same Paul who preached af Corinth and who composed letters to the Corinthians. The advanced Christians of Corinth were not beyond his measure; in his preaching he came as far as to them also (ἄχρε yap | kai ὑμῶν ἐφθάσαμεν ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, x. 14). He may from time to time assume a tone of self-deprecation or of pleading with his children : usually he carries it as one clothed with the highest authority (i. 28, xiii. 2, cf. x. 2). He praises those that are obedient. He stands, as it were, above them all. Upon him, it is said in so many words, rests daily the care of all the churches (ἡ ἐπίστασις ἡ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν, ἡ μέριμνα πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιών, xi. 28). This can seem quite simple and 208 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS comprehensible only to those for whom Paul has ceased to be merely an eminent man who is still of flesh and blood, and has become an ideal figure, absent always, yet present or able to be present, directing his words nominally to a single community, but really to the whole of Christendom. The Community. No single feature brings before us the circle at Corinth as a community just called into life. A much longer existence than the five and a half years at most of the ordinary tradition is tacitly pre-supposed. Oppression has come, and consolation is needed : whole troops can be addressed as partakers of the sufferings of Christ (i. 3-7). They stand fast in the faith (1. 24). They exercise discipline, and are con- fronted with the question how far forgiveness shall be accorded to the penitent sinner (ii. 5-11). They give and receive letters of commendation (iii. 1), and can be described metaphorically as an epistle written in the Apostle’s heart, ‘‘ known and read of all men” (ili. 2,8). They are troubled: by aliens, to whom all sorts of mischiefs are attributed (11. 17, iv. 2, xi. 4, 20). Some who have undergone the influence of these have learned to respect only the older Apostles, to the ex- clusion of Paul (xi. 5, xii. 11). Some esteem them- selves superior to Paul the actual teacher, and respect only the Paul of the epistolary literature, whom they distinguish from the first. Some, again, are Paulinists after the author’s own heart, and confess the faith in subjection (cf. ix. 18, δοξάζοντες τὸν θεὸν ἐπὶ rq ὑποταγῇ τῆς ὁμολογίας ὑμῶν εἰς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ). ΑΙ] this diversity, well considered, points to a later period than the first few years after the foundation of the community. Even the supposed THE SECOND EPISTLE 209 comparison of its advantages with those of ‘‘ the other communities” (xii. 13)—if this was ever possible in the sense intended—cannot have been very early instituted. Doctrinal Utterances. Here, too, as in the first Epistle, the doctrinal expressions, though not very numerous, give suffi- cient indications of a time later than that traditionally assigned to Paul. Christianity stands over against Judaism as the new against the old, as that which endures against that which passes. The point of view of the law is so completely transcended that its very name is not mentioned; although the author does not refuse to allow the relative value of ‘‘ Moses,’”’ and makes use of the Scripture. The old, however, in his opinion, ‘is done away in Christ’’ (iii. 14). Equally decisive is the break with heathenism (ἀνομία, σκότος). The faithful are to separate themselves from ‘ un- believers ” (vi. 14—vii. 1). Far from being still first of all or exclusively a Messianic movement attached to the life and work of Jesud‘of Nazareth, Christianity comes forward as a new revelation, ‘‘ the word of God ”’ (11. 17, iv. 2), ‘‘ the knowledge of God ”’ (x. 5), ‘“‘the knowledge of the glory of God” (iv. 6). The Christian communities are.God’s Churches (i. 1). Jesus has so long been regarded as the Messiah (‘“‘ the Christ ’’) that ‘‘ Christ” has become his usual name. To the knowledge of his life on earth little or no value is now attached (v. 16). He is the Son of God, and is preached as such (i.19). He is God’s image (iv. 4), and grace and peace can come from him as from God (i. 2, xiii. 18). He is not a man who has become God, but rather a God become man, who, being rich, Ρ 410 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS became poor for the sake of men (viii. 9). God ‘* made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ” (v. 21, cf. Rom. viii. 8). He has suffered and died (i. 5, Iv. 10, v. 15). God has raised him up (iv. 14, v. 15). The believer is in him a new creature (v. 17), who partakes of his sufferings in order to live a new life with him. Those whom he has called to preach his gospel (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ) are his glory (δόξα Χριστοῦ, vill. 28). They speak ‘‘in Christ,’ ‘‘ after the Lord,’’ as Christ speaks in them (xiii. 8). Their endeavour is to bring all into captivity ‘“‘to the obedience of Christ”’ (x. 5). Acquaintance with gnosis 18 unmistakeable. Not God but Satan is ‘‘ the God of this world”’ (iv. 4). The much-discussed ‘‘ thorn in the flesh”’ (xii. 7), which evidently means some bodily suffering, is called ‘‘ a messenger of Satan” (ἄγγελος σατανᾶ) : God is nowhere said to be the cause of physical evil. The Apostle’s prayer to the Lord—that is, to Christ—that he (the ““ messenger ’’) might depart from him (xii. 8) implies that the Lord, as in the Gospels, has power to cast out demons. Paul’s recognition, after the failure of his request, that the “ buffeting ” is for his good, does not mean that it comes directly from Ged: the contrary is asserted. The antitheses of Gnosticism are found: flesh and Spirit (σάρξ and πνεῦμα, κατὰ σάρκα and κατὰ πνεῦμα) and so forth. For others in rapid succession see vi. 14-15 : δικαιοσύνη and ἀνομία, φῶς and σκότος, Χριστός and Βελίαρ. Observe the high esteem in which visions and revelations are held (xii. 1) and the making light of tradition (v. 16). The strong anti-Judaism of 11]. 6-18 is, of course, Gnostic. Knowledge (γνῶσις) is glorified (xi.6), and is placed side by side with faith and ‘utterance’ (πίστει καὶ λόγῳ καὶ γνώσει, Vill. 7). THE SECOND EPISTLE 211 Many special modes of expression also are strongly Gnostic.! The Collection. The indeterminateness of the references to the contribution for the saints (cc. viil.—ix.) shows that the author does not live in the surroundings which, as Paul, he presupposes. We learn neither who those saints are nor what is their especial claim. The particulars with which he tries to clothe his general exhortations to liberality are uncertain, wavering, and scarcely compatible mutually. The whole is intelligible only if we suppose that he had heard or read of a collection made by Paul for the Christians at Jerusalem, in return for which the Apostle had received blame instead of thanks. This he makes a peg on which to hang a vindication of the authority of Paul, and to commend to his readers the example of liberality to needy brethren in other parts of the world set by the Macedonians, Corinthians, and Achaians of the early time. Such expressions as those of viii. 18 (οὗ ὁ ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ διὰ πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν) and of the next verse (χειροτονηθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν) furnish by themselves a sufficient proof that the years in which the Gospel was first preached are in the past. Spectal Pownts. Other attempts at detailed circumstance are of the same kind. Observe how the figure of the person 1 Of these the following are cited : τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς αἰσχύνης, φανέρωσις τῆς ἀληθείας, αὐγάσαι τὸν φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ, φωτισμὸς τῆς γνώσεως τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ (iv. 2, 4, 6); λογισμοὺς καθαιροῦντες καὶ πᾶν ὕψωμα ἐπαιρόμενον κατὰ τῆς γνώσεως τοῦ θεοῦ (x. 5); οὐ γὰρ δυνάμεθά τι κατὰ τῆς ἀληθείας, ἀλλὰ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἀληθείας, (xiii. 8). The vividly gnostic phraseology in the celebration of the Apostle’s triumph (ii. 14-16) is again noted. 412 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS mentioned in ii. 1-11 floats in the vague. He is presented to the reader merely as “‘ anyone,” ‘‘such a one’’ (τις, ὁ τοιοῦτος); in short, he is a type. The author is not concerned with him in particular, but with the question for the present and the future, How to deal with a penitent sinner. The same is true of his double, the person ‘‘ that had done the wrong” (6 ἀδικήσας, vii. 12), of “the matter” (τὸ apayua) that was its subject, and of him “that suffered wrong’’ (6 ἀδικηθείς) : see vii. 6-16. The so- called historical background is a hypothetical case, nothing more. Books of Acts. The use of a written Gospel cannot be demonstrated; though the words of i. 17 (τὸ vai vat καὶ τὸ οὗ ov) suggest Matt. v. 87, and the reference to the meekness of Christ in x. 1 recalls Matt. xi. 29, while the words borrowed in xii. 1 from Deut. xix. 15 are rather closer to Matt. xvii. 16 than they are to the Septua- gint. On the other hand, dependence on Acts of Paul, as in the first Epistle, is unmistakeable. This is shown by the agreements with our Canonical Acts of the Apostles taken along with the deviations; for the phenomena are explicable by supposing use of 1 This interpretation seems to be confirmed by 1 Thess. iv. 6. Note the identity between the phrase of 2 Cor. vii. 11 (ἐν τῷ πράγματι) and that which occurs here (τὸ μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν καὶ πλεονεκτεῖν ἐν τῷ πράγματι τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ). The Authorised Version translates, ‘‘That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter”; recognising the inappropriateness of the phrase ‘in the matter ’’ by retaining it only as a marginal note. If this con- jecture is right, the definite article forms a ourious example of a ‘‘ vestige,’’ surviving where even the outline of a particular case has disappeared, and admirably illustrates Van Manen’s theory of the mode of composition of an Apostolic letter. THE SECOND EPISTLE 218 the same underlying document. The escape from Damascus, for example, is described somewhat differently in 2 Cor. xi. 82-88 and in Acts ix. 28-25. The lists of afflictions undergone by Paul (2 Cor. vi. 4-5, xi. 28-28) find no satisfactory explanation in the Canonical Acts. These, however, are perhaps also in great part independent of the Acts of Paul. In them we may see another retrospect of the great combatant’s life after its completion. C.—Aittempts at Parrying Difficulties. To meet objections against the Pauline authorship an extension of the lapse of time between the two Epistles from half a year to ἃ year and a half has been proposed. By means of this and similar sugges- tions, and by expulsion of supposed interpolations, some difficulties might be removed; but the negative case as a whole is left substantially unaffected. The hypothesis of construction from fragments in whole or in part Pauline does not save the genuineness of the Epistle as it stands. And at best it can meet only the objections that have reference to the form ; while the most important part of the case rests on the contents. Till something of more positive value is advanced in favour of the traditional view, we may, without further attention to it, goon to inquire into the origin of the Epistle. D.—Conjectural Mode of Origin. The Author and his Aim. The author was probably a Greek by birth and not 8 Jew. By inadvertence he makes Paul speak of ‘“‘ Jews ”’ (xi. 24) as if he were not a Jew himself. [ἢ no quotation of his from the Old Testament is 214 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS --- ee rm mm ce ra me en ee en ....-- ---.-ω-ὄ-.-ο-.-.-..-..-.. acquaintance with the Hebrew text presumable. He uses the Greek of the Septuagint. That his mind had been formed under the influence of Jewish modes of thought and expression is merely a part of the Christian development in general, and does not distinguish him. Among the Paulinists his position is to the right rather than to the left. He does not reject the other Apostles in the name of Paul, though in his estima- tion Paul stands higher. He places the new or Christian dispensation above the old or Mosaic, but without expressing hostility to the law as such. He is content that it should be regarded as a passing phase, which the Jews cannot understand because they take it to be permanent. His aim is to champion his Paul. The Epistle may be called an apology for Paulinism, as the author conceives it. As Paul, he assures his readers that he is not engaged in commending himself—while, in fact, he isdoing nothing else—but that he is providing them with matter for boasting in him (v.12). All this pleading for the authority of the Apostle, how- ever, has a practical aim. The writer possesses letters circulating in the name of Paul, but they seem to him to need supplementing ; otherwise, he would not have attempted a new composition. The way in which he tries to improve on the material in his hands is well seen in the case of Church discipline. This 18 to be maintained: to that purpose he had read 1 Cor. v. At the same time, he desired to show that there were cases in which it might be applied in a less rigorous manner. In the light of this softening tendency, we can read with intelligence the passages already dis- cussed that bear on the repentant sinner. THE SECOND EPISTLE 215 Relation to the First Epistle. This example is instructive also because it clearly shows that the author of the second Epistle was acquainted with the first, but that he was not the person from whose hand it proceeded. He attaches himself to it, and is dependent on it, as is evident from innumerable points of contact. His Epistle, however, has a character of its own. It does not, like the first, present the appearance of a series of small treatises ; but, while resembling 1t in its discontinuous movement, is in the main a vindication of Paul’s person for the edification of the community—that is, in reality, of any Christian community, without local reference. Acquaintance with the first Epistle to the Corinthians renders acquaintance with Romans likely; and this likelihood is confirmed by comparison of particular passages. Determination of Date. The close relation to the first Epistle makes the conclusion safe that the second was written not long after it. The author finds himself in the same circumstances of contention. He, too, lives in those days of the development of Paulinism which preceded the recognition of ‘‘ Paul’’ outside the circles of the ‘‘ heretics’ and the taking up of ‘‘ the Apostle ” into the broad stream of the growing Catholic Church. With this approximation to the date the external evidence is in agreement. Confirmation of the general view is found in the Apology of Aristides. That Apology, written probably between 125 and 130, shows acquaintance with the Pauline writings, especially with the Epistle to the Romans. Christianity, as in the Epistles, has become