the Son of God in such a sense
uggest
relation which others also actually possessed, which they were capable of attaining or destined to acquire (\>. 287).*
H. We must remember, too, that not only do a great number of English and German writers of note acknowledge the closeness of St. Paul's ac- quaintance with our Lord's life and teaching,! but that this testimony of St. Paul is materially and increasingly strengthened by the large number of Epistles which are now almost universally ac- knowledged to have been from his pen. Some sixty years ago (1845), F. C. Baur, the founder of the Tiibingen School, published his 'Life' of St. Paul, and accepted only four of the Apostle's letters, in which he believed that he could discover the notes of a fundamental diflerence between Paul and the T\\elve ; to-day at least double that number of the Epistles which bear St. Paul's name is accepted by nearly all critics alike. It would be easy to point in proof of this to Dr. C. Clemen's statements in his recent Life and Work of St. Paid (see i. pp. 6-162). We must not forget that Professor Sclmiidt is prepared to accept only the Havptbriefe and Philippians, and that he regards even the former as having suftered insertions ; thus, 1 Co IS'*-" is a later insertion (The Prophet of Nazareth, pp. 193, 200, 397). Colossians and even Philemon are rejected ; and we are tciid, in the only reference to Bishop Lightfoot in tlii.' vdluiiio, that his is the ablest defence of these two Epistlfs, Ijut that it fails to do full justice to the counter arguments (p. 194). It is not surprising after this that Professor Schmidt, following on the lines of Van Manen, rejects all the Epistles of St. Ignatius, and that he makes no reference to their acceptance by Light- foot, Harnack, Zahn.
If we turn for a moment to the little books of a popular kind which arc in course of publica- tion in Germany, at the price of a few pence each, we find that to Professor Vischer of Basle (known to us in England first of all through Dr. Harnack) is committed the volume which treats of the Epistles of St. Paul. Vischer accepts all the Epistles, nine in number, which are accepted bj- Dr. Clemen; and even when he comes to deal with Ephesians (which Clemen rejects), he frankly acknowledges, with Erich lliiuj.t in the latest edition of Meyer's Coiiiiii.iiiMiy, that the alleged objections are by no lucaiis (li(i-i\ r, and that more is to be .said for St. Paul's aiitlmrsliip than against it. In cases, moreover, in which the traditional structure of the Epistles is questioned, as in 2 Cor., it is frankly allowed that the separate letter alleged to be found in chs. 10-13 is, no less than the rest of the Epistle, the work of St. Paul ; and even in the case of the Pastoral Epistles, the existence of genuine Pauline fragments is con stantly maintdined (see, fuithei von Soden s Ui christluhc Ltteiaturgeschichto, 1905, ^p 28 162)
* See also Lep n J !,is Vessie et F h le T) ei 1 1 "9 300 2nded 1906
t See eg Zahn F nleitunn li 1 cs to
(1) the historv ( ) the words of T j,th
J. Weiss Das niteite Evana I \ nel
Paidiii 1904 p 46 ff P W s 1 rmi
1904, II pp 6 6b Bacon Slo 'ic,
Fairbaim rhe Phxl io%ky ot tie i I Chase CredbiMi f the A ' "' " 1; 1
Kennedj St Puis C t jt I I
Headiam Cr t tal Qt c t o u 110 i 1
writer would \ei ture to refer to th 1 tl 11 I t
inony of bt Pai I to Cht ut
CRITICISM
CRITICISM
' tjie testimony to our blessed Lord's life and work is so much more nearly contemporary with the events recorded than can often be shown to be the case in the Old Testament, and also so much more varied and abundant, that by an elementary principle of historical criticism it is of proportionately higher value.' * This claim to be so nearly contemporary with the events of the Gospels may fairly be made for the testimony of St. Paul ; and even if Dr. Zahn is right in refusing to follow the recent trend of criticism, which places the Apostle's conversion within a year or two of our Lord's death, it is certain that St. Paul must have been acquainted, at a very early date, with those wlio had known the Christ, and who had recognized and felt His power (Gal 1'^ ■', Ro 16'). Professor Schmidt has lately argued {The Prophet of Nazareth, p. 157) that as the distance of time increased between Jesus and the later Pauline literature, the term Son of God assumed more and more a metaphysical significance. But Professor Schmidt accepts Pliilip- pians as undoubtedly the work of St. Paul. How then does he deal with the great Christologioal pas- sage, Ph 2^"^- ? We are simply informed that this passage may easily be an interpolation (p. 195 f.).
It seems to the present writer quite beside the mark to maintain that, in investigating the facts and beliefs which lie between A.D. 30-45, we have no contemporary documents, that, in fact, none e.xist, and that our only guide is inference based on later wTitings and developments.! We have al- ready seen the inferences to be derived from tlie statements in one of St. Paul's earliest and prac- tically undoubted Epistles, 1 Th., and that these inferences of necessity presuppose a preaching and teaching considerably anterior in time to the actual date of the Epistle mentioned.