It is therefore a mistake to place theology, as religious thought, in contrast with raligious feel- ing, and to call the one warm and living and the other cold and dead. It is the nature of feeling to be warm, and the nature of an intellectual process to be by comparison cold. But the two things should not be opposed to each other ; they rather supplement and complete each other. They appeal to different faculties ; the one supplies material for the other. Each without the other is wanting ; and it is together that they become an activity of the Avhole man.
3. In the teaching of St. Paul there is no divorce between theology and religion. — In the teaching of St. Paul there is certainly no lack of religious emotion. And it is not fair to concentrate attention upon one side of his teaching and to ignore the other. What can be more intense or more elevated than the feeling of Ro S^^-^", or more
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exquisitely delicate than that of 1 Co 13? And passages like the first of these and Ro iP^-se are striking examples of the way in which theological thought supplies the ground for, and passes into, religious emotion. The controversial argument of Gal. is not the most attractive part of the Apostle's writings ; but how lovel}' are the pictures of Gal 5-^- -^ 6^- ^ ! And yet these pictures are in closest contact with his theology. Indeed, tlie sustained enthusiasm which is so character- istic of the Apostle is kindled directly by his convictions (2 Co 5", Ko S'-").
II. Data of St. Paul's theology.— St. Paul's theology, then, was an effort of intellectual con- struction. And the first question that meets us is, What had he to build with ?
1. Old Testament. — Like his Master, St. Paul had behind him the OT as an authoritative volume, a sacred book. He was himself to bear a part in laying the foundation of another sacred book ; but this, after all, was but a second volume in continuation of the first, and which in course of time came to be placed upon the same level with it. The OT was the religious authority from which all Christians alike started. And yet new conditions had to be met in new ways. The Master boldly laid down a new law : ' Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time . . . but I say unto you' (Mt 5-"- etc.). The disciple could not do this ; but when, at a critical stage in his career, he found himself in collision with the letter of tlie older Scriptures, he showed great skill in turning the edge of the arguments directed against him, by the use of current methods of interpretation.
2. Contemporary Judaism, Rabbinical and Apocalyptic. — Generally speaking, the Apostle was in regard to the interpretation of the OT at the common level of his time. But he rose above this tiirough his superior insight and strong grasp of religious principle. The OT really was a revelation from God and the work of inspired men ; and by virtue of his essential kinship with these St. Paul was able to elicit from it deeper truth than his contemporaries. His methods are not exactly those which the Christian exegete of to-day cannot help adopting ; but, as he had the heart of the matter, and the OT writers also had in their measure the heart of the matter, his interpretations are really in harmony with all that was best in them. We might take as an example his treatment of Abraham's faith. There are in the OT the two elements of Law and Faith ; and their ultimate relation to each other in the counsels of God is not really difterent from that Avhich St. Paul made it to be.
It was not, hoAvever, purely a question of inter- pretation. On the common basis of the OT, the contemporaries of St. Paul had developed a number of inferences and ideas which the Apostle began by sharing with them. We may distinguish — not sharply, and as though they were mutually exclusive, but rather as at one time in alliance and at another in opposition — two main streams, the Ilabbinical and the Apocalyptic. From the second century of our era onwards the former became more and more dominant, wiiile the latter dropped into the back- ground. And, even in the time of St. Paul, the official classes inclined strongly to Kabbinism ; it was chiefly the freer speculation of the time that took the shape Avhich is found in the Apocalypses. On both sides, along with much that was arid or fantastic, there was also not a little that was penetrating and beautiful : witness the Pirke Aboth on the one hand, and 4 Ezra and Apoc. Barucii on the other. St. Paul had at his command all this accumulated material, and he
used it as it suited him. But he Avas not in bondage to it, and he a^jplied it in connexion with root ideas that were peculiarly his own.
3. The teaching and life of Christ. — The touch- stone that St. Paul applied to the current ideas of his day and generation was their bearing upon his own intense faith in Christ. Tiiose which proved capable of assimilation to this he retained and worked into his own teaching ; those which were not capable of assimilation he simply let drop.