RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Paul the Apostle
carried it out of its historical and constructive context. For Paul the supreme end was the religious equality of Jew and Gentile (I Thess. ii. 15). This is his great and controlling theme. Everything else is means to this end. And, considering the nature of his thought and realizing that he was not a systematic thinker but rather one who found himself only under serious pressure, the contrast between I Thessalonians and the letters to the Galatians and Romans argues for I Thessalonians, not against it. Paul's relation to Judaism is the controlling element in his life. But his mind was not academic ; he did not seek to anticipate the issues of history, but he met them as they advanced against him. The Jews of Thessalonica who subjected the Christians to humiliating social persecution were classed in Paul's mind with the Jews of the Holy Land who treated Palestinian Christians in the same way (I Thess. ii. 14-16). He did not dream that he would have to fight for his life as a Christian and an apostle, and that, too, on his own missionary field, and that his assailants would be fellow Christians who found their backing in Palestine.
II Thessalonians makes a different showing. Ever since critical study of this epistle began there has been a growing body of opinion which either denies the Pauline authorship altogether or concludes that the text of a genuine Pauline letter has suffered change. A comparison of II Thessalonians with I Thessalonians quickly reveals the reasons for the „ TITh difference in the standing of the two salonians" ^e*ters- (1) ^ Thessalonians lacks the lively monotheism which is so characteristic of I Thessalonians. Yet the former, if genuine, must have been written shortly after I Thessalonians, and the same characteristics would be expected. In defense it is alleged that II Thessalonians was called out by the demoralizing and disintegrating effects of a one-sided belief in the parousia. Naturally the letter devotes itself wholly to that one point. (2) The letter is notably lacking in the personal element, by which is meant Paul's intense self-consciousness constantly breaking out into lively expression, and bis vivid impressions of concrete situations and definite individuals. He was a born pastor, and saw men not as trees walking. His idealism was not abstract but deeply concrete. The letter contains just one personal touch (hi. 6-12), and affords no impression of the congregation at Thessalonica; it is practically in the class of Hebrews and I John — a homily rather than a letter. (3) The warning against forged letters (ii. 2, iii. 17) is a difficulty. The congregation at Thessalonica was scarcely a year old, and it is difficult to see the possibility, much more the necessity, of such a warning, at so early a date, though it might have been in place later. (4) The climax of difficulty is reached in the little apocalypse, as it is often called (ii. 3-12). There are two elements here. One is the conception of the Roman empire as a divine power holding down the Satanic forces and tendencies of history, and preventing their breaking out into God-defying anarchism. It is an audacious departure from the beaten track of Jewish and Jewish-Christian apocalyptic, which in every known case takes the raw material for the problem of evil
from the heathen world-powers. It needed the boldness of genius and a unique experience to break away from the fixed tradition. All this bespeaks Paul as author (compare his view of the Roman state in Rom. xiii. 1-7). But the second element in the passage in question raises a serious difficulty. Orthodox Judaism, persecuting Christianity (cf. I Thess. ii. 14-16), is depicted as giving birth to a monstrous power, the personification of lawlessness, that sets itself up in the Temple of Jerusalem as a deity, to be adored in the place of the true God. Could Paul, even in the white heat of argument and debate, have made such a diagnosis ? And is there a wide gulf between this view and Romans ix.-xi., where Paul hopes that all Israel may be saved ? The conservative defenders of II Thessalonians take things easily here: they say that the apostle outgrew this emotion. But the little apocalypse, taken in its context, clearly implies explicit thinking and more or less systematic teaching (verse 5), something more deeply rooted than a passing impression, a conviction as clearly thought through as Paul's view of the Roman state. Making all allowances for modern aversion to New-Testament eschatology, the question arises, could Paul have shaped this conception of Judaism ? The style of the letter is thoroughly Pauline. The passage in iii. 6-10 is characteristically Pauline in feeling. The view of the Roman state as a divine power holding evil in check suggests a date either before the Neronian persecution or long after it. May it not be that this is a genuine Pauline letter worked over by a gentile Paulinist, who incorporated in his picture the image set up by Daniel and the project of Caligula to set up a gigantic statue of himself in the temple at Jerusalem ?
3. Second. Group; the " Quadrilateral " : The second group of letters, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, is commonly caUed the " quadrilateral." The name was given by Christian apologetes to these letters after Ferdinand Christian Baur, sweeping the other Pauline letters off the board, took these four as the only indubitably Pauline documents. They are widely separated from I Thessalonians both in thought and in feeling. In I Thessalonians the apostle's mind was in close contact with the heathen world. This is the controlling mental relationship, by which the letter is shaped and colored. But in the so-called quadrilateral the apostle is engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the Judaizing tendency in Christianity. The shape and color of thought differ correspondingly.
Jewish Christianity, during the first period of its existence, and under St. Peter's leadership, had been Jewish without thinking about it. But in its second period, under the leadership of James, 1. General jt wag jewisn consciously and by in- Character- tent;on its program was the conver-
" ulse of" sion of Israel- ItS method involved Judaistic conformity to Judaism in everything Attack, that did not undo the distinctive tenet of Christianity, the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah. At the Apostolic council a concordat had been reached, which could not, however, in the nature of things, long endure, since it involved the existence of two distinct churches, each retaining its
Paul the Apostle