(6) Pauline Epistles. — There was an impera- tive need for the single Apostle of the Gentiles to multiply his presence, as it were. This he did in part by trusted companions, but in part also by letters. Doubtless, their exact form would have been other than it is had the current models been other than they were.* But existing literary usages, whether Jewish or Gentile, gave to them no more than Rabbinism gave to his gospel — certain vehicles of thought that lay readiest to use. What his gospel adopted, it transfigured ; and nowhere more strilcingly than in the conventionalities of the epistolary form. Address, salutation, final bene- diction, all pulsate with life, and expand at his touch into clauses charged with emotion, every word of which reveals his estimate of some group of souls that were ever in his heart's prayers. One may well see in 2 Th 3" (cf. 2-) tokens that Thessalonica was not the first Church addressed by St. Paul. Yet it is equally certain that the true cause of his very first letter lay deep in the same spirit as breathes in 1 Th, the essentially ' pastoral ' instinct. His letters were indeed the life-blood of a noble spirit, ever ready to be poured forth to nourish its spiiitual offspring (1 Th 2'-*). Of a temper too ardent for the more studied forms of writing, St. Paul could yet by letter, and so on the spur of occa- sion, concentrate all his wealth of thougnt, feeling, and maturing experience upon some particular re- ligious situation, and sweep away the difficulty or danger. Such ' waiting upon Providence ' was the attitude of the apostolic age, which took no thought for a future the next event of which might be the return of Jesus Messiah in heavenly power. In this sense, likewise, the occasional epistlo was the typical form of its literature.
The Pauline letters have a style all their own — though style was far from the writer's thoughts. It was indeed the man. Hence their enormous value : first, as the data for his juumal intime and Life all in one ; and next as the immovable critical basis of historical Christianity. Just as certain of these letters articulate a unique personality, mani- fold yet mastered by one absorbing pa.-ision, so surely must all theories reckon with what they
* Renan, relying apparently on Talmudic and medieval data, aaserta that 'correspondence between synagoffues already existed in Judaism ; tne envoy charged with sucn letters waf even a dignitary drawn from the synaKOj^ues,' and he iniplie* that doubtful pointa of doctrine or practice were thus dis- cussed \st. Paul, 228, 229 and n3). But he gives no reference* Sanday speaks more guardedly, and indeed doubts if *thfl writing of doctrinal epp. would come to the first generation ol Christians as a matter of course' {Bamp. Lect. 336, S*4i.
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imply as to the origins of Christianity. Thev reflect the mood of the time and given circle with perfect vividness of light and shade, ere it fades into the neutral tints of a set narrative. No critici.sm can ignore them. But neither can Christian theology. This means that they are to be read first of all as letters, and by the canons which govern such a reading. Until any reading can be put into relation to both writer and corre- spondents, so far as yet known, it cannot be held real and valid. We must reach the theology, if we reach it truly, through the missionary and man of God. So reached, it is full of qualilication, of the flexibility that marks spirit oil' from letter. And, most valuable of all, a feeling for the practical reference of Christian truth — the ideal of 'being,' even more than ' knowing ' or even ' doing ' — can never be lacking when these writings are read as letters. To this end their very ordering contributes. For the body of the contents falls into two parts. The prophet— for herein lies their continuity with OT (cf. Jer 29) — carries the soul, on the wings of vision, to a level where the will finds its feet free to run in the ways of God, and life is seen sub specie cctemitatis, in the light of God. But then the apostle never fails to depict what this means for daily life, ere he turns the eye once more to the founts of inspiration with a closing Doxology or Benediction. It is in such applications that the actual face-to-face nature of the Pauline letter allows certain self-revelations to be elicited by the virtual dialogue. Some of these are among our most precious hints towards a theory of biblical inspiration, which by its very recognition of human limitations stands out in contrast to the pagan notion of insjiiration as uniform dictation throuf,'h a passive organ ; an idea which soon tainted tlie ecclesiastical theory from Justin onwards (see Sanday, BL 350 IT., cf. 31 fl., 391 fH.).
Finally, it may be noted, even aa regards the growth of thought marked by certain Pauline epistles, that of all literary forms the letter least professes to exhaust a writer's ideas — the limit being given rather by the reader's conditions — or commits the writer to his own past. It is, in fact, the ideal form of utterance for a spirit in which great germs are ever being quickened by the touch of practical problems.