RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Paul the Apostle
4. G-alatians.
churches of South Galatia; they were backsliding into Jewish Christianity (i. 6). (The native religion of that region delighted in sensational ritual (Cybele, the Great Mother, etc.)- Paul had won his converts by the contagion of an irresistible personality (iv. 15) rather than through the formation of solid conviction in their minds.> His splendid idealism was beyond them. ■ Now came Judaizing Christianity, with its rigid ritualism and its doctrine of tactual apostolic succession. It was near enough to their land to find them at home, yet sufficiently above their level to impress them. Hence the crisis. The Judaizers declared that Paul was a second-hand authority, deriving all that was good in his views from the original apostles (i. 1, ii. 6-7). They seem to have gone further than the Judaizers at Corinth (v. 2-12) and to have insisted on the necessity of circumcision. 'Paul's defense included three elements: (1) By careful biographical chronology (i. 15— ii. 1) he proves his independence of the original apostles; (2) his carriage in the apostolic council and in the controversy at Antioch manifested his ability to withstand the " original apostles " to their face; (3) the conversion of his followers to Judaizing Christianity is in truth a perversion. Judaism with its law is not the final religion. ^Its levitical institutes are outgrown rudiments of religion (iv. 9). "The true function of the law is not to rival Christianity, but like a loyal household servant (iii. 24-25) to guide men to Christ, who has established a splendid religious and social unity (iii. 28) that recognizes no difference between Jew and Hellene, between free man and slave, between male and female. J
The Roman letter is the logical climax of the quadrilateral, the most massive and coherent of the epistles. This fact is explained by the apostle's mood at the time of writing. He wrote from Achaia at the end of the second tour. He had carried through the first part of his magnificent missionary _ _ plan (Rom. xv. 19). Looking through
" and beyond Rome his imagination takes fire at the thought of attacking the western part of the empire (Spain, etc.). He is going up to Jerusalem, knowing that the possibility of serious peril awaits him there. But he carries in his hand the great offertory collected by his churches in Galatia, Macedonia, and Achaia (I Cor. xvi. 1 sqq.; II Cor. ix.; Rom. xv. 26-27). The letter expresses his sympathy for the Christians at Jerusalem. He also had great hope that it might prove a peaceoffering. The opposition in his own field has been for the time being put down. Writing to Rome, the imperial city, the supreme missionary opportunity (i. 13), and standing on the ground made good in the Corinthian and Galatian letters, he clears his mind. Down to a recent date the genuineness of Romans passed as certain and final in all schools of criticism. Baur and the Tubingen school valued it as a stronghold of apostolic feeling and verity. But the group of scholars constituting the so-called " Dutch school " have boldly assailed this apparently impregnable position. A considerable part of the weight of their attack is drawn from the alleged lack of unity in the letter (cf. Van Manen on Ro-
mans, EB, iv. 4127-45). But their treatment of the epistle suggests that literary analysis and literary combination, modelled after the established standards of Old-Testament criticism, have outgrown patient and deep exegesis. The letter has a truly massive unity. In the salutation (i. 1-7) the apostle asserts his right to the full apostolate; it is grounded in the creative call of God. In i. 14 he claims the entire Gentile world as his province. The Gospel has power to bestow divine righteousness, final religious standing, and perfect character on Jew and Gentile alike (i. 16-17). Both Jew and Gentile, apart from the Gospel, are totally unable to attain the divine ideal of personal and social righteousness. As for the Jew, the glory of his life under the law is that it brings him to deeper selfknowledge, to clearer consciousness of sin than the Gentile has been capable of (i. IS— iii. 20). God has set up in history the person and death of Christ as the atoning-place where man enters into the real and full presence of the divine. Through sheer mercy and grace, independent of inherited or acquired merit, God gives final standing to consciousness. So is human pride barred out and human unity made possible (iii. 21-30). Abraham's life is the classic life of the spirit. As a spiritual adventurer he made no fortune. He made his fortune as God's friend, building a perfect trust on that creative word and power of God which, even while Paul writes, is taking social and religious nothings (iv. 17), and building them into divine society (iv.). The ground of religious certitude can be found nowhere save in God's mercy and Christ's work (v.). The Antinomian is put to flight. The Pauline Gospel does not give rein to desire and lust, but reveals the power of the creative divine spirit to break the power of lust and desire (vi.-vii.). The confidence of the redeemed comes next. Fear is overcome. The holy and creative spirit lifts the human spirit to God. The divine choice takes the soul out of the world into the fellowship of the Savior (viii.). From the pean of redemption the apostle passes to the pain of contemplating his nation s unbelief. But in the end Israel shall be converted. The supreme mystery, the unity of Jew and Gentile, the unity of humanity, will express and realize the unity of God (ix.-xi.) . The ethics of Paulinism then emerges. The unity of the local congregation is the supreme aim. Moral maxims, in appearance loosely strung together, find here a deep emotional connection. The mystery of human unity must be embodied in the local congregation (xii.-xv.).
But while the genuineness of Romans is very strongly attested, there are weighty reasons for thinking that the letter in its present form is not a self-consistent unity. The letter ends with a doxology, in itself a fact that excites suspicion. The suspicion is strength- 6. Unity of ened when it appears that the Romans, doxology is placed by some manuscripts at the end of chap. xiv. Bengel's explanation, that the makers of the Greek lectionary put the doxology here because xv.-xvi. was not good material for public reading, does not satisfy. The suspicion arises that some accident befell the latter part of the epistle, analogous to the
Paul the Apostle