E. Sell and D. S. Margoliouth.
PAUL. — It is fortunate that our subject is limited for us at the outset. We are not called upon to consider the life and theology of St. Paul per se and in all their bearings, but only in that particular relation which belongs to a Dictionary of 'Christ and the Gospels.' That aspect alone is momentous enough. The figure of St. Paul looms so large and fills so much of the NT that he may well seem to stand between Jesus Christ and the history of the Christian Church. ' The Apostle ' was the name given in the early Church to the corpus of thirteen (or fourteen) Epistles called after him. And in the NT at least he does throw the other Apostles — or all but one — into the shade. The Epistle to the Hebrews, if not actually his, is allied to him in spirit. Even 1 Peter is impregnated with his teaching, how- ever this has come about. If we are to believe many modern critics, we should have to number among his disciples the author of the Fourth Gospel and the three Johannine Epistles. The only two really independent books are James and the Apocalypse.
It is indeed well to remind our.selves that this state of things is in part appearance. We are always at the mercy of our evidence, i.e. of such evidence as survives. And while St. Paul has ample justice done to him, the Judsean Apostles and tlie Judfean Church have not. Still even this is a testimony to the energy and widespread influence of the Apostle of the Gentiles.
The fact remains that the dilated figure of St. Paul seems to bar the way between the sub- sequent history of Christianity and its Founder. And we are compelled to asli ourselves whether that history may not have undergone a certain amount of deflexion. In other Avords, Christianity in its first stage appears to have passed through a powerful medium ; and the question is, whether that medium left it substantially unchanged, whether it still is what its Founder intended it to be. Two things strike us at once. One is, that the teaching of St. Paul, as compared with that of his Master, is highly theological. The apparent simplicity of the Gospels has given place to elaborate arguments and statements of doctrine. We shall consider the significance of this fact shortly ; but in the meantime it rather forces itself upon our attention. And the second point is, that this Apostle whose influence has been so great was not one of the original Twelves and was not himself a personal companion of Christ.
These considerations are enough to make the question before us one of some urgency. We shall
need to examine with all the closeness in our power the nature of the relation between St. Paul and Christ, or — what almost amounts to the same thing — between the Epistles (as represented by their central group) and the Gospels, as the two main divisions of the Christian half of the Bible. To do this methodically, we will break up our inquiry into the following heads :
I. General character of St. Paul's teaching. II. Data of St. Paul's theology.
III. Genesis of St. Paul's theology.
IV. St. Paul's knowledge of Christ. V. Outlines of the Pauline theology.
VI. Comparison with the teaching of Jesus. VII. Legitimacj' of the Pauline construction.
1. General character of St. Paul's teaching.
— 1. St. Paul the first Chi'istian theologian on a larger scale. — It is true broadly to say that St. Paul is the first Christian theologian in the more technical sense of the word. He is i!ie first to formulate doctrine on any considerable scale. The first Christians had their simple formulations : such as that 'Jesus is Lord' (1 Co 12^), 'Jesus is the Christ' (Ac 5*^ W), 'Jesus is the Son of God' (Ac 9'^'^), ' He died for our sins according to the scriptures' (1 Co 15^), 'Christ rose from the dead the third day' (1 Co 15-*), 'The Lord is at hand' (Ja 5**, 1 P 4''). Many of these occur in Pauline contexts, but in such a way as to show that St. Paul took them over from the common stock of Christian teaching. He no doubt added to and ex- panded these simple formulae. In his hands they became a theology — not exactly a system, in the sense in which {e.g.) Aristotle's Ethics or Calvin's Institutes are systems ; for such coherent logical construction is alien to the Semitic mind, and St. Paul was thoroughly Semitic — but yet, at least, a body of reasoned and elaborated doctrines. In other words, the teaching of St. Paul is a great constructive eftbrt of thought.
2. Place of theology in religion. — Now it is also true that at the present day, in certain wide circles, theology in this technical sense has a bad name. It is regarded as something hard, cold, and formal, possessing, perhaps, a certain relative truth for the age to which it belongs, but hardly beyond this, and in our own age only a stumbling- block and hindrance to religion.
But this is just one of those idola tribus that exaggerate a certain element of truth so far as to make it untrue. Theology is a necessity of life — for the few, consciously ; for the many, uncon- sciously. It is like philosopliy. Every man really has his philosophy, expressed or implied. It is inevitable that thought should play upon subjects of such supreme interest ; inevitable that it should try to formulate its beliefs, and to bring them into relation with one another. And if it does not do this upon right lines, it will do it upon wrong ones.