St. Paul's conception of Christianity

Prefatory Note

This book on St. PauVs Conception of Christianity is a companion volume to my work on The Kingdom of God, published five years ago. I have in view to issue a similar work on The Epistle to the Hebrews as soon as I can command the necessary leisure.

The note at p. 184 on the book recently published by Professor Everett of Boston, entitled The Gospel of Paul, is the substance of a review which appeared in the pages of The Christian World. It is reproduced here by the kind permission of the publishers.

A. B. BRUCE.

Glasgow, 1st September 1894.

CHAPTER I Chief Sources — Epistles to Galatian, Corinthian, and Roman

Churches ....

These the controversial group Contain all the leading ideas of Paulinism Even of the Christological Epistles Was there a growth in St. Paul's theology ? A priori possible ....

No proof of the fact Epistles to the Thessalonians no proof These the Primer-Epistles Analysis of their teaching

2 4 4 5

CHAPTER II Important bearing on his theology

Autobiographical hints

Conversion of Saul of Tarsus

Not so sudden as it seems

Significance of the conversion

Confirmatory notices in Galatians i.

His universalism dates from his conversion

Religious intuitions and theological formulations

Apologetic elements the latest growth

26 27 31 32 35 37 45 46 47

Vlll

CHAPTER III Origin of the controversy with the Judaists

Phases of the controversy .

Epistle deals with first phase — perpetual obligation of the Law

The earliest of the four

Occasion of the writing

Analysis of the Epistle

Main body of the Epistle

Postscript .

PAGE

49 51

52 53 55 56 59 70

Chapter IV

Second phase of the controversy — attack on St. Paul's apos

tolic standing .....

Little about it in the Eirst Epistle Yet leading points of St. Paul's apology indicated These worked out in the Second Epistle . First line of defence — He has seen the Lord Second line — The success of his work Third line — He has suffered in the cause Last four chapters .....

CHAPTER V An occasional writing, not a theological treatise

Deals with the last phase of the Judaistic controversy, the

prerogative of Israel .....

Temper of the Judaists to be dealt with . Baur's view of the Epistle ....

Who were the foe ? .....

Was the Roman Church mainly Jewish or mainly Gentile ? Influence of missionary plans ....

And of the letter being addressed to Rome

72 75 75 76 79 84 85

Chapter VI The Epistle To The Romans — The Train Of Thought

Theme of the first eight chapters, salvation through faith . 107

The sin- section ....... 108

Gentile sins ....... 109

Jewish sins . . Ill

IX

Paganism and Judaism both failures

"A righteousness of God"

Support to the doctrine

The historical argument .

The argument from experience

The Adam-Christ section .

Apologetic train of thought

Triumphant conclusion

The problem of the election (chapters ix.-xi.)

PAGE

CHAPTER VII Embraces four particulars

(1) General prevalence of sin

(2) Connection with Adam

Universal prevalence of death Imputation of Adam's sin Doctrine of the Talmud

(3) Sinful proclivity of the flesh .

Source of this proclivity

(4) The Law's action on the flesh

CHAPTER Yin

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OP GOD

A righteousness given to faith Essential significance of the doctrine Specific aspects of the doctrine Eunctions of faith Conflicting theological types What St. Paul meant to teach Justification and Christ's resurrection Theory of Mene'goz

Chapter IX

Christ's doctrine and St. Paul's Pauline logia on the subject

VKacTTripLOv .

The principle of redemption

Romans viii. 3

Objective and subjective .

165 166 167 171 172 175

Subjective identity- Vicar, Representative, Brother Professor Everett's theory

PAGE

181 184

Chapter X

No formal doctrine of the Fatherhood of God , . • . 188

Sonship in the teaching of Christ and St. Paul

Adoption as St. Paul understood it

Objective aspect ....

The filial spirit . .

Privileges of the filial state

Liberty .....

The Spirit of His Son .

Heirship .....

CHAPTER XI The Pauline apologetic, topics involved

Two aspects of his soteriology

Connection between them, various theories

True view of the matter .

The mystic element in St. Paul, its source

The faith-mysticism his own

Subjective righteousness in Romans and Galatians

CHAPTER XII Faith a guarantee for holiness

Faith good for all purposes ....

Faith energetic in all spheres of life

"Faith alone " tested by religious history

Faith establishing fellowship between the believer and Christ

Weiss' view as to faith .....

Function of baptism .....

Chapter XIII

Apologetic setting of the theme defended Holy Spirit in the primitive Church His influence chiefly charismatic .

242 243 245

XI

Charisms and grace divorced

St. Paul's view of the Spirit's influence ethical .

Transcendent action of the Spirit intermittent .

Immanent action constant

Acts through our rational powers and idea of Christ

St. Paul did not neglect the history of Christ

PAGE

247 248 251 253 254 256

CHAPTER XIV " Body " and " Flesh "

St. Paul experienced the hindrance

What is meant by the " Flesh " ?

Hellenistic theory .

Not held by St. Paul

Difficulties of Pauline anthropology

An ethical dualism taught by the apostle

CHAPTER XV Different views as to the meaning of . . . 280

Does St. Paul decide the question as to Christ's flesh being the

same as ours ? . . . . . . 283

Theory of Atonement associated with doctrine of identity of

Christ's flesh with ours ..... 286

Criticism of the theory ...... 288

Sacramentarianism involved in the theory . . . 290

CHAPTER XVI The Law in Galatians and Romans

St. Paul's view of the Law ....

Three questions as to St. Paul's view of the Law Is it in accordance with the view of the Law in the Old Testa ment ? ......

Are the functions St. Paul ascribes to the Law real ?

Is St. Paul's view of the Law exhaustive ?

St. Paul's view and that of the Epistle to the Hebrews compared

293 295 295

295 302 305 307

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CHAPTER XVII Third topic in the Pauline apologetic

The problem dealt with in two ways (Bomans ix

Hypothesis of a cancelled election

Was the election really cancelled ?

St. Paul's idea of election .

Figurative expression of it .

Relativity of biblical utterances

Last word on the subject

Chapter XVIII Page 310

Why taken up at so advanced a stage

Doctrine of Christ and doctrine of Redemption

Redemption by self-humiliation

Involves a step out of time into the Eternal

Pre-existence

Raises three questions

Christ's relation to man

Christ's relation to the universe

Christ's relation to God

Has St. Paul called Christ God ?

CHAPTER XIX Beginning of Christian life

A new creation ....

St. Paul's view compared with our Lord's

Does St. Paul recognise the idea of growth ?

Hints of it in earlier letters

Result .....

Salient features of the Christian life

Place of love ....

CHAPTER XX Church and Kingdom in Gospels and Pauline Epistles

The Church idealised by St. Paul .

Church fellowship .....

At first all on a level .

Differentiation ensues

362 366 368 370 371

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Rulers

Teachers

The Christian ministry

A " learned ministry "

PAGE

371 372 373 377

CHAPTER XXI Modern views and ancient contrasted

Salvation eschatologically conceived

St. Paul expected the irapov<ria soon

Change of mind ......

Does St. Paul teach a universal resurrection ?

Physical and ethical resurrection ....

Mr. Matthew Arnold on St. Paul's idea of the resurrection Kabisch on the same .....

The resurrection body .....

Chiliasm .......

1 Corinthians xv. — its value religious not theological .

THE TEACHING OP ST. PAUL COMPARED WITH THE TEACHING OF OUR LORD IN THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS

Summary of results

Views of Dr. Wendt stated

Chief point of contrast refers to Atonement

The question raised vital

Self-salvation and salvation by another

Adjustment of Atonement to the natural order

Faith in the teaching of our Lord and St. Paul

Chapter I

Two important questions may be asked concerning St. Paul's Christian theology: Where did he get it? and, Whence do we obtain our knowledge of it ? It is with the latter of these questions that we are now to be occupied. By " sources " is here meant the literary materials available for becoming acquainted with the great Gentile apostle's characteristic way of thinking on the leading themes connected with the Christian faith.

If we wanted to know, as far as is possible, all that St. Paul thought on any topic relating to the faith, we should have to regard all his extant Epistles as our sources, and our first task would be to ascertain to the best of our ability how many of the separate writings ascribed to him in the New Testament are authentic. If, on the other hand, our aim be, as it is, to determine the nature of the distinctively Pauline type of Christianity,

Z ST. PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY

to make ourselves acquainted with what St. Paul called his gospel, 1 or what, in modern phrase, we call Paulinism, it is really not necessary to do more than stud}?- carefully four of the reputedly Pauline Epistles, those, viz., to the Galatian, Corinthian, and Roman churches respectively. This limitation of the field to be studied, while reducing the subject to manageable dimensions, may be justified by other considerations possessing more weight than can attach to reasons of personal convenience.

Among these considerations a foremost place is due to the fact that the four Epistles referred to are generally recognised by biblical critics of all schools as indubitably genuine. 2 Apart altogether from personal convictions, even though one may have little or no doubt as to the authenticity of any one of the thirteen letters, 3 it is due to the actual state of critical opinion that in a scientific attempt to ascertain the nature of St. Paul's Christian teaching, primary importance should be attached to the

1 Bom. xvi. 25.

2 There is a school of critics possessing hardihood enough to call in question the genuineness of even these Epistles. Its best-known representative is Rudolf Steck, who has expounded his views in a work recently published on the Epistle to the Galatians (Der Gdlaterbrief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht, 1888). The assumption which underlies his criticism is that the sharp opposition to Judaistic Christianity revealed in the Epistle did not really exist in St. Paul's time, but came much later, as the result of a gradual development which reached its culminating point about the time of Marcion. On this new criticism, which I cannot bring myself to take seriously, see some remarks of Lipsius in the introduction to his Commentary on Galatians, etc., in the Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament. This school of New Testament criticism corresponds in character to that of Vernes and Havet in the Old Testament, who make the prophets post-exilian.

3 Of course the Epistle to the Hebrews is left out of account.

Epistles which command a general, if not quite universal, consensus of critical approval. Other Epistles may legitimately be cited by any writer on Paulinism who has no doubt as to their genuineness, but even in that case, if he is to pursue a strictly scientific method, only in the second place, and by way of parallels. It will be understood of course that in a homiletic use of Scripture this distinction between primary and secondary may be disregarded.

The four Epistles in question have the advantage of being more or less controversial in their nature. This is, it must be owned, not advantageous in all respects. A polemical origin is in some ways prejudicial to the quality and value of a writing. Controversy readily leads to the placing of an undue emphasis on some aspects of truth to the neglect of others not in themselves unimportant. It involves an unwelcome descent from the serene region of intuition to the lower and stormier region of argumentation. The role of the prophet or seer is replaced by that of the theological doctor. On both accounts the quality of temporariness is apt, in some measure, to characterise all controversial writings. When the occasion is past the one-sidedness to which it gave rise ceases to satisfy. Arguments which told at the time when the controversy raged lose their cogency, though the truths they were employed to defend possess perennial importance. Yet, on the other hand, the literature of a great debate, which formed a crisis in the religious history of the world, must possess an exceptional and imperishable worth. The thoughts of men at such a time are clear, for they define themselves against those of opponents. We have a twofold clue to their meaning : their own words, and the views of those against whom they contend. Then the deepest thoughts of men's minds are brought to light at such a crisis. Conflict sets their hearts on fire, and stimulates to the uttermost their intellectual powers ; they say therefore what is dear to them as life, and they say all in the most energetic manner.

These remarks have their full application to the four Epistles which we may conveniently distinguish as the controversial group among the Pauline writings. The issue involved is clear ; we have no difficulty in knowing what were the views of those against whose evil influence the apostle sought to fortify the churches to which he wrote. In other Epistles, such as that to the Colossians, we can only guess what were the unwholesome tendencies the writer desired to counteract. The issue is also vital. The controversy concerns nothing less than the nature and destination of Christianity. Here therefore, if anywhere, we may expect to learn what St. Paul deemed central and essential in the Christian faith ; to get to the very bottom of his mind and heart as a believer in Jesus, all the more that the foes he fights are not only the men of his own house, but the very impersonation of his former self. They advocate what he once held, they represent religious tendencies which formerly made him a determined enemy of Christianity, and a relentless persecutor of all who bore the Christian name. With what passion, yes and with what pathos, he must throw himself into such a quarrel ! We may expect to find in what he writes bearing thereon not merely much fresh original thought trenchantly expressed, but here and there autobiographical hints, involuntary self -revelations, the man unveiled alongside of the theologian. It will be our own fault if in our hands these writings become dry scholastic productions.

Even in reference to what is specific or peculiar in later Epistles, we may find a sufficient indication of St. Paul's view in the controversial group. So, for example, in the case of what are called the Prison Epistles, whose special characteristic is the prominence given to Christology, on which account they are sometimes distinguished as the Christological group. 1 There is quite enough Christology in the four great controversial Epistles to show us what St. Paul thought concerning the great Object of the Christian's faith and reverence. The Christological Epistles contain interesting and valuable statements concerning the Lord Jesus which repay earnest study, but the Christ-idea of these Epistles embraces little, if anything, essential in advance of what can be gathered from the relative texts in the controversial Epistles. The person of Christ is more prominently the theme of the former as compared with the latter, but the doctrine taught is not pronouncedly higher, though it is applied in new directions.

Besides these two groups of Epistles, there are other two containing respectively the earliest and the latest of St. Paul's reputed writings, preserved in the New Testa-

1 This group includes the Epistles to the Ephesian, Philippian, and Colossian churches ; also the Epistle to Philemon, which, however, possesses no doctrinal significance. Of the Christological Epistles the authenticity of Philippians is least doubted, that of Ephesians most.

b ST. PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY

ment, the one consisting of the two Epistles to the church of Thessalonica, the other of the two to Timothy and the one to Titus, called from their leading subject-matter the Pastoral Epistles. Neither of these groups yields a contribution of importance to Paulinism, if we use that term to denote not what St. Paul wrote casually on any subject whatever connected with the Christian faith, but the distinctively Pauline system of thought on essential aspects of the faith. In the former are to be found no definite specific formulations of belief, but only general and elementary statements of truth ; while the latter, in so far as they refer to matters of faith, but repeat familiar Pauline ideas as commonplaces, their proper occasion and specialty being to supply directions with reference to ecclesiastical organisation.

These four groups of letters, written at different times, the earliest separated from the latest by a period of some sixteen years, naturally suggest a question which may here be briefly touched on. Was there any growth in St. Paul's mind in relation to Christianity, or must we conceive of his system of Christian thought as the same at all stages of his history, poured out at the first in one gush, so to speak, and setting thereafter into an unchangeable rigid form? On this question opinion is greatly divided. Sabatier, e.g., earnestly contends for growth, and makes it his business to prove and exhibit it by analysis of the different groups of Epistles, beginning with the Epistles to the Thessalonians, called the mission group, and supposed to show the apostle's way of thinking before the great controversy arose, and passing in succession through the controversial and the Christo-

I logical groups to the pastoral. 1 Pfleiderer, on the other hand, inclines to the other alternative. 2 The difference between these two authors, however, does not consist in this that the one affirms and the other denies the existence of traces of advance, development, or modification of view within the range of the Epistles ascribed to St. Paul. The point of difference is that the one holds that the growth was in St. Paul's own views and teaching, and the other that the growth was not in St. Paul, but in Paulinism, that is in the conception of Christianity which took its origin from St. Paul, and in its main features was adopted by a section of the Church, and in the hands of his followers underwent expansion and modification. The facts founded on in the maintenance of the two rival hypotheses are much the same. They are such as these, that in the Epistle to the Colossians, for example, a somewhat higher view of the Person of Christ is presented than in the four undisputed Epistles, that Christ's work is there regarded from a somewhat novel point of view, that a less purely negative attitude towards the law is therein assumed than that which characterises the controversial Epistles, and that the whole subject of Christianity is contemplated in a metaphysical way sub specie cetemitatis, rather than in the

1 Vide his UApotre Paul, translated into English, and published by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton ; a most suggestive and helpful book, whatever one may think of his theory as to the development of doctrine in the mind of the apostle.

2 Vide bis Der Paulinismus. Menegoz (Le Peche et La Bedemption d'apres Saint Paul, 1882) speaks of these two works by Sabatier and Pfleiderer as best indicating the present state of thought on Paulinism.

historical manner of the earlier Epistles. The use made of the facts is very different. One says : Having regard to such facts, it is evident to me that St. Paul's mind underwent a process of vital growth as years passed, and new circumstances arose to stimulate that ever active powerful intellect to fresh thought on the great theme which engrossed its attention. The other says : Having regard to these phenomena, I have no hesitation in affirming that this Epistle to the Colossians is not of Pauline authorship, though I am sure it proceeded from the Pauline school, for the affinities between it and the undoubted writings of St. Paul are very marked.

In presence of such contrariety of opinion, and considering the importance of the issues involved, it is necessary to come to some sort of conclusion as to this question of growth. Now there is no a priori objection to the hypothesis of development as applied to St. Paul's personal apprehension of the significance of Christianity. Growth in knowledge as in grace is the law of ordinary Christian life, and there is no stringent reason why we should regard an apostle as an exception. Inspiration is no such reason. Inspiration was compatible with its possessor knowing in part and prophesying in part, for St. Paul predicates such partiality of himself. 1 But if inspiration be compatible with knowing in part at the best, it is also compatible with knowing less at one time than at another. We know, moreover, that it was not God's way to reveal all truth at one time to the agents of revelation. He spoke in many parts and in many modes by the prophets to the fathers. Why should He 1 1 Cor. xiii. 2.

not follow the same method with the apostles : not communicating to them at once a full understanding of the Christian faith in all its bearings, but simply providing that their insight should keep pace with events, so that they should always be able to give the Church such guidance as was required? The mere fact, therefore, that one of St. Paul's reputed Epistles contains teaching on any subject in advance of that found in admittedly Pauline Epistles is not of itself any proof that that Epistle is not also Pauline. Questions of genuineness must be settled on independent grounds. 1

Thus far as to the a priori aspect of the question. But how now as to the matter of fact? Is there any reason to believe, e.g., that St. Paul had a much clearer and deeper insight into the nature and destination of Christianity when he wrote the controversial Epistles, than at the time of his conversion some twenty years before, or at least during the earlier years of his missionary activity ? The supposition is in itself reasonable and credible, and the burden of proof may seem to lie on those who deny it. Much depends on the way in which we conceive the conversion and what it involved. For some that event signifies very little, for others it means almost everything characteristic in Pauline Christianity. I shall

1 Menegoz admits not only the possibility but the reality of a development in St. Paul's thought. But he holds that whatever development there was took place before the writing of the Epistle to the Galatians, which, he thinks, came next in the order of time to the Epistles to the Thessalonians. In the other Epistles, from Galatians onwards, he finds no advance in thought. It cannot be proved, he thinks, that the Christology of Bomans is behind that of Colossians, though Christology is not its specialty, as it is of the latter. Le Peche et la Bedemption, pp. 7, 9.

have occasion to state my own view in the following chapter, and must not anticipate what I have to say there. Leaving over the psychological aspect of the question till then, I can now only refer to what may be supposed to make for the hypothesis of growth in the extant Pauline literature.

The two Epistles to the Thessalonians have been supposed to furnish indisputable evidence that, previous to the great controversy, St. Paul's way of thinking was of a simpler, less developed type than is found in the controversial group. Along with the reports of Pauline discourses in the Book of Acts, they have been regarded as a source of knowledge concerning what is called Primitive Paidinism, understood to signify not merely what St. Paul thought it fitting to teach to infant churches, founded in the course of his missionary journeys, but his own way of conceiving the gospel antecedently to the great anti-Judaistic controversy. Now that these Epistles do present to our view what we may call a rudimentary gospel, interesting to note, and, as will hereafter appear, justifying an important inference, is beyond doubt. But it by no means follows that that rudimentary gospel represents all the apostle then knew, and that all the great deep thoughts found in the four controversial Epistles lay as yet beneath his mental horizon. To satisfy ourselves of this we have only to reflect when the Epistles in question were written, and what had happened before they were penned. It is not necessary to inquire into exact dates ; it is enough to say that the Thessalonian letters presuppose a Thessalonian church, and could not have been written before that church was founded, and until it had had some experiences calling for such instruction and counsel as the letters contain. Turning now to the memoirs of St. Paul's missionary activity in Acts, what do we find ? That St. Paul's visit to Thessalonica is placed after the Council in Jerusalem, at which the critical question of circumcision was discussed and provisionally settled. That is to say, the cleavage between the Apostle of the Gentiles who appeared at that Council as the enthusiastic champion of Gentile liberties, and those who took a narrow, conservative view of the question at issue, had taken place at least a year or two before the letters to the Thessalonian church could possibly have been written. How keenly alive to the issues at stake St. Paul was at the time when the Council met, we learn from his own memoranda preserved in his Epistle to the Galatians, where in language thrilling with passion he refers to " false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus." 1 If the apostle had not thought out his gospel before, here was a crisis to set him thinking, and to stimulate a very rapid theological development. It may be taken for granted that by the time he wrote his Epistles to the Thessalonians, during his long sojourn in Corinth, 2 all his most characteristic ideas had taken their place in his system of religious thought. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that he had by that time already given expression to them, if not in writing, at

1 Galatians ii. 4.

2 Such is the general opinion of critics. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are named together in the salutations. Vide Acts xviii. 5.

least in vigorous, incisive speech. The encounter with Peter at Antioch referred to in the Epistle to the Galatians is not recorded in the Book of Acts, but its proper historical place, doubtless, falls within the period of St. Paul's stay in Antioch before setting out on the long mission tour, which had for its eventful result the extension of Christianity from Asia into Europe. 1 In that memorable interview, the apostle for the first time, so far as we know, gave utterance to his distinctive conception of the Christian faith. In Galatians ii. 14-21 we have the Pauline gospel in nuce ; not the supposed primitive Paulinism of a yet undeveloped Christian consciousness, but the fully formulated Paulinism of the controversial letters, which contain nothing clearer, more definite, or more characteristic than is to be found in that remarkable utterance. But that speech to Peter was uttered many months before the Thessalonian Epistles were written. 2

If, therefore, we are to find in these Epistles the faint outlines of a rudimentary Pauline gospel, forming the Christian creed of the apostle before he understood the implications of the faith, we must disregard the historical notices of Acts, and relegate their composition to a period antecedent to the rise of the dispute about circumcision and the meeting of the Jerusalem Conference. 3

i Vide Acts xv. 35, 36.

2 The bearing of the above-mentioned facts on the question of a primitive Paulinism, supposed to be exhibited in the Epistles to the Thessalonians, is very forcibly brought out by Holsten. Vide Das Evangelium des Paulus, Vorwort, p. viii.

3 So Menegoz, who thinks the Epistles to the Thessalonians the most doubtful of all Paul's reputed writings, and that ex-

The hypothesis of a primitive Paulinism escapes in that case from the control of fact and the hazard of authoritative contradiction. Not altogether indeed, even on that gratuitous supposition ; for, from the statement St. Paul makes in his Epistle to the Galatians, that he did not meet with any of the apostles till three years after his conversion, it may very reasonably be argued that, even at that early period, his conception of Christianity was well defined. Such an inference harmonises with the aim of the statement. But of this more hereafter.

So far, then, as the earliest letters of St. Paul are concerned, there is no evidence to support the theory of a slow, gradual growth of his system of Christian thought. The phenomena they exhibit can neither prove, nor be explained by, that theory. But how, then, are they to be accounted for? Accounted for in some way they must be, for their existence cannot be denied. It is evident to every attentive reader that the statements in these early letters concerning the Christian faith are of the most elementary character. The most likely suggestion is that the Epistles to the Thessalonian church show us the form pressly on the ground that the views of the gospel they present are so unlike what we find, in the other Epistles. His idea is, that if they were really Paul's, they must have been written long before the others, at a time when Paul's particular tendency was not yet accentuated, and his system not yet in course of formation. Vide Le Peche et la 'Redemption (Vapres Saint Paul, p. 4. On the historical value of the narrative in Acts xv. , and its true place in the course of events, vide Spitta, Die Apostelgeschichte, 1891, and Weizsacker's Apostolic Age, pp. 200-216. Both these writers are of opinion that the author of Acts has antedated the decree of the Jerusalem Council, and that it belongs to a later time, later than the encounter between Peter and Paul at Antioch.

in which St. Paul judged it fitting to present the gospel to nascent Christian communities ; when he had in view merely their immediate religious needs and capacities, and had no occasion to guard them against errors and misconceptions. This view sets the apostle's character in an interesting light. It makes him appear a Paulinist, so to speak, against his will. He preached Paulinism, that which was most distinctive in his way of apprehending the faith, under compulsion ; when free from ' the constraint of false and mischievous opinions, he taught the common faith of Christians in simple, untechnical language. This point is worth emphasising at the commencement of this study, as helping us at once to appreciate the wisdom of the apostle, and to put the proper value on the developed system of thought contained in his controversial Epistles. Why is it that the earliest Epistles are not to be reckoned among the sources of what we call Paulinism ? Not because Paulinism was yet unborn, but because its author kept it in its proper place, St. Paul distinguished between religion and theology, between faith and knowledge ; and while he spoke wisdom to them that were perfect, and theology to them that needed it and could make a good use of it, he practised reserve or selfrestraint in speaking to babes in Christ, and in teaching them carefully avoided the use of abstruse ideas and technical terms,