(1) Sources for Paulinism.— For our informa- tion regarding the thought and teaching of the Apostle we are almost wholly dependent on his own letters. From the Acts we learn the details of his conversf on, the course and method of his missionary activity, but concerning his teaching only what may be gathered with caution from his speeches reported there. The Letters are conveniently divided into four groups.
(a) The Epistles to the Thessalonians, written from Corinth some twenty years after his conver- sion, in which we have an echo and some record of that mission-preaching which had been the task of St. Paul's life since that event. (6) The Epistle to the Galatians may possibly be earlier still, though by most authorities it is grouped with those to the Romans and the Corinthians, written some five years later, in which we find the Apostle at the height of his intellectual energy, stimulated to the discovery and enunciation alike of the relations and of the foundations of those truths which had formed the centre of his gospel, (c) A third group, commonly known as the Epistles of the Imprison ment — those to the * Ephesians,' the Colossians, and the Philippians — belongs probably to A.D. 62- 63, and shows the Apostle responding to hostile stimulus of a diflerent kind, and carrying yet further certain of the lines of thought laid down in earlier Epistles, (d) There is a fourth group of Epistles, that known as the * Pastorals,' addressed to Timothy and Titus, written, if they were written by St. Paul, after he had been released from his imprisonment. The much-disputed question of their authenticity is hardly material to our present purpose, seeing that the Pastorals have little addi- tional to contribute to Pauline Christology. When Christ is referred to as the ' one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ' (1 Ti 2*), He is presented under an aspect which does not appear in St. Paul, though it does in the Ei)istle to the Hebrews ; but in general the Christology of the Pastorals is important rather as a criterion of
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their authorship than as adding material for the Pauline Christology.
The convictions of St. Paul regarding Christ began at the same point as those of the primitive community. Through a like experience of Jesus as Living, Risen, and Glorified, he was seized by the conviction that He was the Messiah. In his case, however, the personal recollection of what Jesus had been and taught, of the Messianic claim made by Him and for Him, was replaced by the testimony of those disciples who had already be- lieved on Him, and had sealed their belief by stead- fastness under persecution. That doubtless gave the content of St. Paul's belief ; what created it was the vision of Christ as risen : ' last of all he was seen of me also' (1 Co 15^). To St. Paul also, as to the earlier disciples, came the gift of the Spirit (Ac 9^''). And ' straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God ' (9^°), i.e. that He is the Messiah, the phrase having still its Messianic significance (of. Jn 1^"), and finding its equivalent in v.^ 'proving that this is the Christ.' It was in the Scriptures of the OT that he too sought for the proof (Ac 18^), as also for proof of the further affirmation that it behoved the Christ to suffer (17^). Like Peter and like Stephen, but by a different series of steps, he traces the history of Israel down to the manifestation of Jesus (13''*-). He preached to Jews and Greeks alike ' that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance ' (26-") ; moreover, he also connected the promise of forgiveness with the revelation of Christ (13^), and recognized in Jesus One whom God had ' appointed to j udge the world in righteous- ness' (IV^). And to this Exalted Christ St. Paul also in the Acts gives the pregnant title Kvpios. This is specially significant in his speech to the Elders at Miletus, in which there is a note of personal attachment and devotion to the One he there describes (20^"" ^^- '"'• ^'" ^) which is not struck elsewhere in the Acts, common as the title itself is throughout. This prepares us for tlie evidence of the Thessalonian Epistles, and for the subse- quent development of the implication of the name. There is thus scattered up and down the later chapters of Acts evidence as to the character of St. Paul's preacliing, which suggests that it included the same elements as are found in that of the Jeru- salem Church ; and there is so far no reason to suppose that it contained any elements peculiar to himself, with the one important exception that he claimed for the Gentile as Gentile, and not as Gen- tile become Jew, the full privileges of Christian salvation. And again this corresponds with what may be gathered from the Thessalonian Epistles.
(2) Chkistology of Epistles to the Thessal- ONIANS. — These Epistles are too commonly studied almost exclusively for the light they throw on Pauline eschatology ; but it is to be observed that the directly eschatological passage occupies only one- seventh of the First Letter, while before it is reached the letter has passed what looks like an intended close (1 Th 3"''^), and in the earlier portion the re- ferences to the Parousia are brief and wanting in elaboration. Nor are the proportion and emphasis very different in the Second Epistle.