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to the more probable interpretation of πρεσβύτητ) about the year 61.
A. Harnack in his great work, Chronologie d. alt- christl. Litteratur bis Eusebius (Band 1, ‘Chrono- logie d. Paulus,’ pp. 234-239), disposes Paul’s Chris- tian career between 30 and 64 A.D. He thus finds | all the Epp. written as the rejected Pastorals) | by the year 59, when Paul was acquitted at Rome. In this way Harnack makes room for St. Paul’s release from the first Roman captivity, and for the mission to Spain, before the Neronian persecution. He refers the Council of Ac 15 and Gal 2 (in his view identical) to the year 47, so reckoned as 14+3 years (Gal 2'and 1’) after the conversion. The ‘few months’ which Harnack allows at the beginning for the progress of events sketched in Ac 1-9 will not easily be accepted as suflicient; at the other end, Harnack rejects the authority of Euse- bius’ Chronikon for the date of St. Paul’s death, though he builds upon it confidently for the time of Festus’ accession to the procuratorship (55-56), which supplies the pivot of his scheme. Schiirer, however, following Anger, Wieseler, and Wurm amongst earlier investigators, shows strong reasons (not shaken by Harnack) for abiding by the con- clusion generally accepted hitherto, that Eusebius was mistaken in this particular, and that Felix re- mained governor for some years after the disgrace of his brother Pallas at Rome in 55. Schiirer prefers 60 A.D. for the date of Felix’ recall, but admits (after Wurm) that the conditions of the case allow of any year from 58 to 61 (see his HJP τ. ii. 174-187; also Ramsay v. Harnack in Expositor, V. v. 201). On the calculation here mg hea Festus succeeded Felix in the year 59, and St. Paul appeared before the latter in A.D. 57. This allows 7 years for Felix’ procuratorship, and 3 for Festus’—periods adequate to the events assigned to each by Josephus. The ‘many years’ of rule credited to Felix in Ac 9410 must surely have meant more than the two (before Paul’s trial) allowed in Harnack’s chronology. Felix became procurator in A.D. 52 (Schiirer, as above, p. 174).
On the whole subject see art. CHRONOLOGY OF NT, with which the conclusions here reached largely agree.
ii. THE DocTRINE.—The Apostle Paul’s writings | (the Ep. to the Romans like the rest) are occasional letters, piéces de circonstance. He was a mission- | ary preacher, who brought everything to bear on his work in the salvation of souls and the edification | of the Church. But from the make of his mind St. Paul’s thinkings and teachings took a logical mould; they grew spontaneously into a great fabric of eprivue truth. There is unity, method, rational coherence in the theology of the apostle, notwithstanding its incidental and homiletic form, the unity that belongs, not toa compendium drawn up for abstract study, but to the conceptions of an orderly mind possessed by a single master-principle of truth and striving incessantly to apprehend and realize in life and action ‘that for which? it ‘was pperennced by Christ Jesus.” We must ascertain the point of departure of Paul’s Christian logic, and take account of the growth and advancement evident in his system of thought as in every living structure. We must allow for his rare versatility and lively susceptibility of temperament, for the love of paradox natural to his bold intellect, as well as tor the variety of topics in his letters, for the discordant and variously blended elements with which they deal and which coloured their composi- tion. Recognizing the ‘changes of voice’ thus occasioned, we discover harmony and correlation throughout the 13 writings that bear Paul’s name. The same accent is heard ; the stamp of the same powerful idiosyncrasy is set on them all, though not with equal emphasis of distinction. Em-
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bedded in these discursive missionary letters, with their abrupt transitions, their glancing allusions, their warps play of emotion and argument, there is a body of solid Bape a theological system, as large and original in conception as it has proved enduring and fruitful in application.
The fertility of the apostle’s genius, and the numerous and tempting points of view which the documents afford, render the analysis of his teach- ing difficult. Theologians differ widely, even within the same school, as to the order and inter- dependence of the Pauline ideas. The old mode of analysis, which iter the ready-made cate- gories of scholastic theology to the various books of Scripture and catalogued their texts under these headings, is discredited. The dogmatic point of view is exchanged for the historical and psycho- logical. We have been taught to interpret St. Paul’s teaching in the light of his times and under the conditions of his life. The various i of NT doctrine are distinguished, and the lines of connexion, sympathetic or antipathetic, are traced out by which Pauline theology is related to earlier or contemporary thought. But here a new danger arises, he prepossessions of historical theory may be equally warping with those of dogmatic system ; the focus of the pens may be displaced and its colours falsified by philosophical no less than by ecclesiastical spectacles.
Modern Analyses.—With F. C. Baur of Tiibingen, ‘ Paul’ stood for the antithesis to the Judaic legal- ism in which it was ries that the first dis- ciples of Jesus were held fast. The Paulinism so conceived Baur found in the four major Epp., erat as the work of imitators touched by other influences, everything that was not covered by this formula. Baur set out from the true Lutheran standpoint. St. Paul’s doctrine he con- ceived as asystem of experimental religion, deducing it from the apostle’s conversion, of which, however, he took too narrow and cold a view. Saul of Tarsus underwent a complete reaction from the Pharisaism of his youth, and his subsequent career Baur explained by that revulsion. Developing this antithesis with subtlety and clearness, and with unrivalled historical learning, Baur gave a power- ful restatement in modern terms of the Pauline err dp of justification by faith and drew out its