23 Only in citations from the O. T. (3-^ i5^*'i^) does "the Name of God " appear in Acts. On the other hand the phrase " the Name of Jesus Christ" is quite frequent: z^s 36,(16) ^10,18,30 ^40 gi2,i6 5,14,15 gi6,27 10*3.48 1526 16I8 195,13,17 2113 22I6 269. Instances like 47.12,17 j28 (j2i^ where " the Name " or " this Name " is used more absolutely, are quite instructive from the point of view of the significance of the term. Only at 5*^ is the completely absolute use of it found.
24 Cf. Meyer on 5*1: "The absolute ro ovofia denotes the namexar^ i^o^rjv, — namely 'Jesus Messiah' (36 410) — the confession and an- nouncement of which was always the highest and holiest concern of the apostles. Analogous is the use of the absolute DK' (Lev 2^^''-''^^), in which the Hebrew understood the name of his Jehovah as implied of itself. Cf. 3 Jno 7." Cf. on the general question Giesebrecht, Die alttest. Schdtzung des Gottesnamens, riC 1901 ; G. B. Gray, B. D., ill. p. 480, and also Conybeare, J. Q. R., ix. p. 66, and Chase, J. T. S., January, 1907.
25 That the Name was simply " Jesus " is thought by Hackett and Barde: that it was " Christ," by De Wette and Gloag: that it was "the Lord Jesus Christ" is Blass' view; and that it was "the Messiah Jesus" is Wendt's, as it was Meyer's.
26Rashdall, in he.
THE CORROBORATION OF THE EPISTLES OF PAUL
In passing from the book of Acts to Paul's Epistles, we are not advancing to a new period, in order that we Relative Early iTiay observe how Jesus had come to be Date of Paul's thought of at a somewhat later date, in Letters ^j^g developing thought of Christians.^ In point of fact, none of Paul's letters are of a later date than the Acts, and the earlier of them come from a time which antedates the composition of that book by ten or fifteen years. What we are passing to is merely a new form of literature, — didactic literature as distinguished from narrative. And what we are to observe is not a later development of the Christian conception of Jesus, but only more directly and pre- cisely how the Christians of the first age thought of Jesus.
The book of Acts does indeed tell us not only how Paul and his companions thought and spoke of Jesus
1 On the witness of Paul, see in general R. J. Knowling, The Wit' ness of the Epistles, 1892; The Testimony of St. Paul to Christ, 1905. It used to be the fashion to attribute to Paul a very " primitive " chris- tology supposed to find expression in Romans, i and 2 Corinthians and Galatians; largely on the ground of this these Epistles were allowed to be his. It is now the fashion, recognizing that the christology of these Epistles too is high, to represent Paul as the author of the deifying christology which, so it is said, has spread from him through the N. T. "Paul is ever5rwhere the starting point," says Wernle {Beginnings of Christianity, II., p. 294) : " It is his Gospel which now speaks to us from the words of Jesus and the original Apostles." The Gospels, from
220
The Corroboration of Paid ill
as they presented Him to the faith of men; but also how Peter and his fellow-evangelists of the first days of the Gospel proclamation thought and spoke of Him: and to this extent the information derived from it re- flects an earlier usage. But neither in Acts nor in Paul's Epistles Is there any hint that Peter and Paul stand re-
The Value lated to one another in their thought of of their Christ as representatives of a less and
Testimony ^ more developed conception.* On the contrary in Acts the conception of the two, though clothed in different forms of speech, is notably the same: and in Paul's Epistles, though differences are noted be- tween the other Apostles and himself in other matters, there is none signalized on this central point. And it
Mark (Wernle, 251 seq., cf. Wrede, Paulus, 89) to John (Wernle, 274, Wrede, p. 96), reflect Paul's christological speculations: and the rest of the N. T. bears equally his mark. The origin of this high Pauline chris- tology is left somewhat obscure. Wrede and Weinel are, on the whole, inclined to say that Paul had as a Jew believed in a transcendent Mes- siah, such as is pictured in the Similitudes of Enoch, say, and had only, on conversion, to accept Jesus as Messiah to have an exalted christology ready at hand. But if this doctrine of a transcendent Messiah was " in the air," why was it left to Paul to invent a transcendent chris- tology for the church ? And if it was " in the air " why need it be sup- posed to be derived from the later Apocalypses? Why might not the Apocalypses and Paul alike draw from, say, Daniel 713.1*? And why may it not have been shared by Jesus Himself? It scarcely seems logical to refer all traces of a transcendent christology in the N. T. to Paul ; and then to refer Paul's doctrine to a generally active cause. The single solid result of the movement is, thus, the general recognition that the christology of the N. T. at large is " transcendent."