It is remarkable that the two Epistles bearing the name of Peter do not refer to the Law. The Second Epistle obviously dates from a time when the question regarding the Law had given place to other controversies, and, at all events, it is con- cerned with a libertinism and a doctrine that lie beyond the purview of Jewish legalism. It is a striking fact that even the First Epistle, the
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autlienticity of which is open to no decisive objec- tion, does not so much as mention the Law, but speaks from a quite unstudied and non-legalistic point of view. As the writer implies that, e.g., the OT conception of the priesthood was first properly realized in the NT Church, and describes the latter as the true Temple of God (2^*-), it would seem that tiie OT legal system as a whole had for him only a typological value. This would certainly be strange if the Epistle was written, as B. Weiss and Kiihl suppose, to Jewish Christians, i.e. prior to the time of St. Paul, but is quite intelligible if it was addressed to Gentile Christian, Pauline communities, and written under the influence of Pauline Epistles, as Romans and Ephesians — a hypothesis to which, in view of the editorial col- laboration of Silvanus, the follower of St. Paul, no exception can be taken.
i. The view of St. Paul.— In point of fact, the first to decide the question of the Law upon grounds of principle was the Apostle Paul himself, though others had already pointed the way. In conformity with what has been said of St. Peter's views, it is perfectly credible that, as related in Acts, St. Peter was the first to baptize a heathen, and that he should make reference thereto in his address to the Apostolic Council (Ac IS'""). Here, however, tiie most outstanding name is that of the martyr St. Stephen, who anticipated St. Peter in divining the essentially non-legalistic character of the gospel. St. Stephen, as a Hellenist, could of course more easily than St. Peter discern the merely relative validity of the Jewish legal system, and especially of the Temple ritual ; and although his adversaries, in charging him with having in his preaching attacked the Holy Place and the Law, were undoubtedly doing him an injustice, yet the accusation was not altogether unfounded. His trenchant speech (Ac 7) not only attacks the Jews for their persistent rejection of the Prophets, but also pointedly criticizes their over-estimation of the Temple : * the Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands' (T''^'^"). His general plea is that Divine revelation is in- dependent of any particular holy place, and he honours Moses less as the Law-giver than as the prototype of Jesus, and as the one who foretold His coming (cf. 7^^^"). The very Law to which the Jews appealed they had not kept (v.^).
It was no mere accident that in particular the personality and preaching of St. Stephen should have wrought powerfully on the young Pharisee Saul (7^^). Saul probably belonged to the Cilician synagogue, whose members had disputed with St. Stephen, and in any case tlie latter's great vindica- tory speech must have still further opened the eyes of the zealous Pharisee to the inherently non-legal nature of the gospel, and rekindled his persecuting zeal against the followers of Jesus (cf. 6^'-).
Even before his conversion Saul must have been sensible of the great alternative which he sets forth in Gal 2^^"^' : either righteousness is through the Law, and Christ died for nought ; or else the Cruci- fied Jesus is truly the Christ, and righteousness is to be attained through faith alone. It need, tlierefore, occasion no surprise that in his con- version Saul had become convinced of the univer- sality of Christianity, or that thereafter he main- tained that the Law was not in a religious sense binding upon either Gentile or Jewish Christians (Gal 1.^2).
According to Gal V^^- St. Paul saw at once that he was called to be a missionary among the heathen, and he seems to have laboured as such for a time without any interference whatever — a circumstance which will hardly seem strange when we remember that certain Hellenists who had been driven out in con- sequence of the persecution connected with Stephen
had preached the gospel in Antioch even to the Gentiles, and that the numerous converts whom they had won from heathendom were recognized as brethren by the community in Jerusalem (Ac ir-"'^'*). Nor does the Apostle make the slightest reference to the question of the Law in his earliest Epistles, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. It was in reality the aggression of certain Christian Pharisees — Judaizers (Ac 15^- ^, Gal 2*) — that forced him into a thorough-going discussion of the significance of the Law, and this is his special theme in his Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans. In seeking to delineate here the Pauline doctrine of the Law, however, we must also draw upon the Epistles of the Imprisonment and the Pastorals.
(a) Mis use of the term ' Law.^ — In discussing the Pauline conception of the Law, we note that the Apostle uses the term v6ixos in somewhat difi'erent senses. It may mean the whole Pentateuch — the Torah in the wider sense — as in Ro 3'-^ (the Law and the Prophets), Gal 4^1, 1 Co 14*^, and even the entire OT, which might be thus designated aparte potiori, as in Ro 3"* (the Psalms also included under the term), 1 Co U-^ (Is 28i'^-)- As a rule, however, vofios is applied by St. Paul to the Law delivered by Moses, as recorded in the Mosaic Books from Exodus to Deuteronomy (cf. Ro 5^^- ^* : dxP' vbixov = /u^/)i Moxrews, Gal 3": the Law given 430 years after the promise). Further, St. Paul sometimes uses the terra with, sometimes without, the definite article, and the distinction must not be ignored. It is true that v6no^, even without the article, may mean the historically-given Law of Moses, the possession of which was the special prerogative of the Jews as distinguished from tiie Gentiles (Ro 212-u s'juf. 5i3f. 20), xhe omission of the article, how- ever, generally points rather to ' law ' as a principle ; thus what is so said of ' law ' would hold good of any other positive ordinance of God — if such ex- isted at all (cf. Ro 2'^"^* : ' For not the hearers of law are just before God, but the doers of law shall be justified ; for when Gentiles who have not law do by nature the things of the law, these having no law are law to themselves,' etc., and 5'^: 'For prior to law sin was already in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law '). In both of these passages it is ol>vious that v6ixos and 6 v6ixos equally refer to the Mosaic Law, but it is no less obvious that they assert principles, not merely historical facts; cf. also Gal 5^^- '^'\ 1 Ti pf- ('The law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing that law is not made for a righteous man '). On the other hand, when St. Paul wisiies to make a his- torical, statement regarding the Law of Moses, he uses the phrase 6 vS/jlos. The extent to which he can abstract from the conci'ete historical sense of vo/j-os, however, is seen in the fact that he occasion- ally uses vd/xos, virtually as a purely formal con- cept, as equivalent to norma, 'rule': Ro 3-^ (the law of faith, i.e. the Divine ordinance which en- joins faith, not works ; cf. P 9^1 10^ I6-«), 7"^ (the law of sin), 8^ (the law of life = natural law), Gal 6- ; cf. 1 Co 1421 (the law of Christ).