364
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
the possibility of any Gentile influence, and main- tain that St. raul, from first to last, lived and spoke and wrote as a Jew (Schweitzer, Paul and his Inter- prefers, pp. 94, 227, 240, etc. ). On the whole, the change which came over St. Paul's theology seems explicable simply as the natural development of an active mind constantly reconsidering the problems of Christian experience. On the other hand, St. Paul's avowed championship of the rights of Gentile Christianity may well have led him to be favourably inclined to Gentile ideas, and to loosen his aliection for purely Jewish methods of thought. But the actual proofs of non-Jewish ideas are to be seen in the gradual modification of his teaching to which we have referred above, rather than in the presence of distinctively Hellenic language. The latter may perhaps be seen in the depre(;iation of the body (2 Co 5^'^), in tlie description of transformation (2 Co 3'* 5'* ; cf. Seneca, Ep. vii. 1, 'non emendari tantum, sed transfigurari'), in the comparison of the body to an earthen vessel (2 Co 4^ 5'), and in the distinction between the l|w dvOpwiros and the e<rw dvOpcawos (2 Co 4'^ ; see Clemen, Primitive Chris- tianity and its non-Jewish Sources, p. 68 ff.). But, in so far as Greek influence is visible in these passages, it is rather due to unconscious than to conscious borrowing {ib. p. 204).
(b) Influence of the Oriental cults. — Apart from the Mysteries (see Itelow), these exercised veiy little influence on St. Paul's eschatology. The idea of being ' clothed upon ' (2 Co 5^^-) is perhaps derived from Parsiism (Clemen, op. cit. p. 174), and other parallels have been traced ; but they may be mere coincidences [ib. pp. 171-198).
(c) The influence of the Mysteries upon St. PauVs eschatology. — The Mysteries claimed to make men partakers of immortality, by means of initiatory rites and ceremonies, through which a ' sacramental grace' was conveyed to the worshippers (see Cumont, Oriental Religions in Homan Paganism, pp. 91 f., 151). It has recently been maintained (e.g. inLake's Earlier Ejnstles of St. Paul) that Christianity was commonly regarded among the Gentiles as ' a superior kind of Mystery-Keligion,' and that, to them, its central message Avas the promise of eternal life given through the Christian Sacra- ments. Thus the Sacraments were intimately con- nected with eschatology, and the Gentile-Christian gospel, like the Jewish -Christian gospel, was essentially eschatological. But there was this distinction between the two types of Christianity : ' to the average Gentile Christian in, for instance, Corinth . . . the centre of Christianity was the Sacraments. . . . On the other hand, for a Jewish Christian, the expectation of the Parousia was probably quite central' (Lake, op. cit. p. 437). Of St. Paul's own view Lake says : ' Baptism is, for St. Paul and his readers, universally and unques- tioningly accepted as a "mystery" or sacrament which works ex opere operato ' {op. cit. p. 385).
Schweitzer, in Paul and his Interpreters, adopts a line of argument which is somewhat diflerent ; but his conclusions as to the substance of St. Paul's teaching show some notable points of resemblance to Lake's view. Though he utterly denies the possibility that St. Paul was influenced by Greek thought or by the Mysteries {op. cit.
Ep. 208, 240, etc.), yet he aflirms that the Apostle eld a doctrine of ' eschatological sacraments ' which, after all, would make the sacraments not unlike the rites of a ' Mystery.' ' In Paul we find the most prosaic conception imaginable of the onus operatum (p. 213). ' Everywhere in the Pauline sacraments the eschatological interest breaks through. . . . Their power is derived from the events of the last times. They put believers in the same position as the Lord, in that they cause them to experience a resurrection a few world-
moments before the time, even though this does not in any way become manifest. It is a precursory phenomenon of the approaching end of the world. . . . The sacraments are confined to the time between the resurrection of Jesus and His parousia, when the dead shall arise ' (p. 216 f.). During this 'interim' period, the present world-era and the world to come are ' in contact,' and only while this contact lasts can men pass by means of the sacra- ments from one world to the other (p. 224). Simi- larly, of St. Paul's doctrine of baptism he says : ' The dying and rising again of Christ takes place in him without any co-operation, or exercise of will or thought, on his part. It is like a mechani- cal process' (p. 225f.). This doctrine of ' eschato- logical sacraments' can be understood, according to Schweitzer, ' entirely on the basis of Jewish primitive Christianity' (p. 240). On the other hand, Clemen {Primitive Christianity and its non- Jewish Sources, p. 266) affirms that ' it is simply false to say "that baptism as well as the Lord's Supper already within the books of the NT under- went the fateful transformation from symbolic act to sacramentum eflicax." ' But, if St. Paul's teach- ing is rightly interpreted either by Lake or by Schweitzer, it would follow that the doctrine of the sacraments was a more important factor in early Christian eschatology — and indeed, in early Christianity at large — than has commonly been supposed.