Palestinian Christianity, in spite of its reverence for Jewish law, did not escape persecution. The Christian Jews fled to Pella before A.D. 70, and re- fused to join the Bar Cochba rebellion, and finally became a sect beyond the Jordan, known as Ebionites or Nazarenes. The saint of Palestinian Christianity is undoubtedly James, the Lord's brother, already referred to (see the glowing ac- count of him by Hegesippus, preserved in Euseb. HJi! ii. 23) ; he was ' the Just,' a Nazirite in prac- tice, but consecrated to God, a typical priest of righteousness to the Jewish-Christian mind. The martyrdom of St. Stephen and that of St. James in their several ways indicate the undying influence of Christ's examijle and teaching. It is probable that in this community the oral teaching of our Lord had a wider vogue than in Pauline circles. His sayings Avere circulated and known in the sphere of His earthly ministry, and produced a new type of personality and conduct (see Dobschiitz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, 156 f.). We may sum up the features of Christian life in its earliest environment as a moral ideal, coloured and modified by loyalty to the tenets of Judaism ; but issuing, under belief in the Messianic Jesus and by the power of His Spirit, in brotherliness, sympathy, love of enemies, heroic confession of faith, and purity of life.
2. Pauline Christianity. — The conversion of St. Paul was a new departure in the Christian witness, and opened a new epoch for Christianity. His OAvn Christianity was not in essence so much a negation of or a revolt from Judaism as a fresh inspiration, the result of a moral crisis in his inner life. One of the results of the crisis, it is true, was to reveal to him Avhat he calls rb ddirvarov tov vofiov (Ro 8^), and to bring about his rejection of the Jewish ideal of sal- vation ; but his conception of Christianity was based on the positive conviction rooted in experience that newness of life consisted in a personal union with Christ. Faith in Christ transfigured a man's person- ality, and thereby gave him a new ethic, together with the power to carry it into practice. The Pauline morality is the offspring of the Apostle's doctrine of salvation by faith. ' He who was united to Christ could not help practising the Christian virtues' (Gardner, Beligious Experience of St. Paul,
202
CHKISTIAi^ LIFE
CHKISTIAA^ LIFE
159). His insistence on ethics reveals his abhor- rence of antinomianism, even wlien that abhorrence is not as expressly stated as it is in Ro 6^" and Gal 5^^'-. The difference between Pauline morality and the inoralitj' of the Judaizers who were found all over the Greek-speaking world, lay in the fact that Gentile Christianity formed an independent ethic, while the ethic of the Jewish Christian ' merely looked like an addition to the commandments, an ennobling and purifying of the rule of the pious, law-abiding Jew ' (see Weizsacker, ii. 346). This distinction arose naturally from the exalted view which St. Paul held as to the Person of Christ ; wherever the Deity of our Lord is proclaimed, as in the Fourth Gospel and 1 John, 1 Peter, and the Ignatian Epistles, we find, as McGiffert notes (see art. 'Apostolic Age' in ERE), that the Pauline idea of moral transformation by the indwelling of the Divine becomes prominent. On the other hand, elsewhere in the NT and in Clement's First Ep. to Corinthians, where the Jewish type of theology prevails, salvation is placed in the future as the reward of the faithful. For the message of the Pauline Epistles and the ethical life and problems of the Christian communities as portrayed therein the reader is referred to artt. on the individual Epistles, but a general summary of the evidence of his writings may be added here.
We may often infer from St Paul's warnings the general perils to which the Christians were liable. We see that the Christian standard is not attained at once (Ph 3'-) ; there are express references to flagrant examples of moral failure necessitating a ban of excommunication ; and the ' saints' are good men and women still in the making ; hence the hortative form .so largely adopted bj^ this Apostle. True to his essential convictions, the Apostle as- signs to the direct action of the Spirit the trans- forming of human character. He appeals not to Scripture or law, but to the Christian consciousness. Christ is the fulfilment and end of the Law (Ro 10^) and the founder of a new law of love (Gal 6-, 1 Co 9-^), in that His Spirit is a new vital power. With the truth of the Licarnation several of his greatest precepts are allied (2 Co 8», Ph 25, Gal 2'^, Col 3'^, Ro 15'^), and there is often a direct connexion be- tween his ethics and his theological and christo- logical doctrine. His distinction between ' flesh ' and ' spirit ' colours all his thought regarding per- sonal morality. His insistence on sexual chastity (in 1 Cor. he reveals his preference for celibacy, antl his sympathy with the ascetic ideal, while he de- nounces its excesses), and his warnings against sins of the flesh are everywhere prominent. The body is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Co 6"*). His memorable indictment of pagan vice in Ro \^^^- is pointed by the actual life of Corinth, the city from which he wrote the Epistle, and there is hardly an Epistle in whicli reference is not made to sexual vice (cf. Col 3''''-). The famous ' hymn of love ' (1 Co 13) places love at the head of his ethical system, and is indirectly an indictment against all forms of self-seeking elsewhere specified : e.g. covet- ousness (Col 3'), the spirit of faction and tlie love of pre-eminence (Ph 1 '5- i''), and dishonesty (1 Th 4"). In Ro 12"- we have the moral life set forth as a \oyiK7] \arp(ia, and its motive the fulfilment of God's will. The duty of prayerfulness* is frequently pro- claimed (Ro 1212, I ^o 75_ pii 46^ Col 42) The .spirit of revenge is condemned, the love of one's enemy (Ph l'") and returning of good for evil are exi)ressljnn- culcated. Ordinary conversation is to be wholesome and yet pleasing (Col 4*^). The gentler virtues which found n(^ place in pagan ethics, such as sincerity, humility, reasonableness (Ph 4^), patience, meek- ness, brotherly love, kindness (Gal 5--), are united