(a) Jewish apocali/ptic. — ' Even as a Jew, Saul believed the Messiah to be already in existence '
PEE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST 265
(H. Weinel, St. Paul, Eng. tr., 1906, p. 45). 'Jewish Messianic speculatiun had aheuuy im- agined a picture for the completion of which really nothing was wanting but the Nicene dogmas ' {ib. p. 313). It is true that such pas.sages as 2 K.i. xii. 32, .\iii. 26, xiv. 9, Kn. xlviii. 6, Ixii. 7 bear out the statement that pre-existence of the Messiah was a feature of traditional ajiocalyptic doctrine ; nor is there any antecedent improbability that the de- velopment of Christian belief may have been influ- enced from this quarter. At the same time it is to be noted that the apocalyptic tenet has its place in a connexion of ideas ([uile ditlercnt from the Christian. Since according to the cherished apoca- lyptic hope the Redemption was imminent and might arrive at any moment, it followed that the Messiah must be already in existence, waiting only to be revealed (l)almanj Words of Jesus, Eng. tr., 1902, p. 302). No such stimulus was applicable to the development of the Christian belief.
(6) Rahbinism. — According to its peculiar mode of thought, Rabbinism expressed the transcendent value of any person or thing by assigning to it a pre-existent celestial archetype. Thus, according to the Midrash on Ps 8", the Throne of Glory, Messiah the King, the Torah, ideal Israel, Repent- ance, Gehenna, were created before the world. But the inclusion of Repentance in this list sheds a significant light upon the sense in which these entities are regarded as having preternatural existence. In Rabbinism, according to the best authorities, the pre-existence of the Messiah was onl}' ideal — ' not literal, but present only in God's eternal counsel of salvation' (Weber, Jiidische Theologie, p. 355). The name of the Messiali was ideally pre-existent (ib. p. 198). 'As a matter of fact, the earlier rabbinism was content with holding, on the basis of Ps 72", the pre-exist- ence of the name only ' (Dalman, Words of Jesus, p. 301).
(c) Alexandrian Judaism. — According to Philo (Sac. leg. alleg. on Gn 2' [ed. Mangey, i. 49], de Mundi opifcio, ed. Mangey, i. 30), God created two kinds &f men — a ' heavenly ' man, made after the ijnage of God, Incorruptible and super-terres- trial ; the other formed of the dust, composed of body and soul, male and female, by nature mortal. And, with 1 Co 15''<-'9 as almost a sole support, it has been maintained by various scholars since Baur, that St. Paul has simply taken over the Alexandrian theory. That some such theory has, directly or indirectly, suggested the wording of the Pauline passage seems certain. But if there is any intentional reference, It can only be by way of refuting the Philonic view (see Bousset, Ee- ligion des Judenthums, p. 406). The ' heavenly ' man, who with Philo is the 'first,' is with St. Paul the ' second ' (as if to emphasize the point, it is expressly said, 'that was not first which was spiritual, but that which was natural ; and after- ward that which is spiritual'). When, moreover, St. Paul distinguishes the two as ' from earth ' and 'from heaven,' he points to their respective sources and qualities of being, implying nothing as to a previous state of being.
While the history of primitive Christianity proves its eclectic genius, its hospitality towards all ideas and forms of thought by which it could express its sense of the inexpressible religious value of Christ, and while there is no a priori reason to deny that it may have incidentally woven into its own web sundry hints of a pre- existent Messiah or Ideal Man, it seems impossible that the rapid Christological advance which had taken place by the time the Pauline Epistles were written can have been in any vital way influenced by the recondite speculations of apocalyptic, Rabbinical, or Hellenistic Judaism.
That this advance was connected chiefly with Panline lines of tliou^ht is purliaps su^^^ested by the fact that little or no use is nuule of the conception of pre-existence in 1 Peter. The language of in — to iv ai/ToU nvevna Xpiaroi) — SUffgests but does not ne(^essarily imply it (sec Hort's note in ioo\ To say that tile Spirit who inspired tlie propliets was the Spirit of Christ does not imply that Christ was personally coeval with the pro- plicts (cf. lie ir-*). In 1 P l'-" It is claimed that 4o«piu9tVTot nnplies pre-existence, since only that which already exists can be manifested ; but, on the contrary, the parallelism between (/jai-epw^t'cToy and irporyvbuTti^vov excludes a reference to per- sonal pre-existence. lie who was manifested is Ho who was foreknown, and the object of Divine foreknowle<l{^e must be the incarnate, not the pre-existent Christ. Nor is the present writer able to appreciate the force of the reason for whifli Cha.se (HDB iii. TH^b) regards 8i»- 10 as decisive— viz. that the ' spirit ' in which Christ was 'quickened ' and ministered to the ' spirits in prison ' is represented as something aSHutned by Him no less than the ' flesh ' in whieh He was ' put to death,' and that, therefore, Christ is conceived as having existed before the beginninjj^ of His human life. To deduce from the words iv w that Christ had a personal existence prior to His possession o'f the 'spirit' in which He acted after His death in the Mesh, seems to lay on them a greater stress than they are fitted to bear.