RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Paul the Apostle
in his own Jewish inheritance and casts them away. But he has no doctrinal burden on his mind. So the letter is self-revealing to a high degree. The foundation of thought is laid bare. The supreme concern (as in I and II Cor. and Rom. xii.-xv.) is the unity of the local congregation. Paul finds the root of this unity in the incarnation. J Developing a thought struck out in II Corinthians viii. 9, he clears the ground for Christian polity (i. 27— ii. 11). The capacity for service which is the distinguishing mark of Christian fellowship has its base in the selfemptying devotion of the Son of God. /The Colossian and Ephesian epistles are so closely related in thought and language that they practically constitute a single letter in two editions. If Paul wrote them, it must be supposed 2- The Paul- that, having written Colossians, some ine Style, time later he cleared his mind by writing Ephesians. If Paul did not write them, then a distinguished though unknown Paulinist wrote them both. The history of critical opinion forcibly suggests that Colossians stands on a different footing from Ephesians. Rejected by Baur and his school, it has so far recovered its standing that its possession of a genuine Pauline nucleus is widely recognized. In that case it must be supposed that Paul's unknown disciple, having incorporated the Pauline nucleus into the Colossian letter, proceeded to clarify his mind and systematize his thinking in Ephesians. The student, before he seeks a stable opinion on this difficult question, must discuss the values to be assigned to various kinds of evidence. Beyond doubt, the large number of hapax legomena (i.e., expressions not found elsewhere) in these letters is a real difficulty. The conservative appeal to Paul's versatility has been overworked. But it is equally certain that the negative argument from the hapax legomena has been emphasized (e.g., Holzmann) to the neglect of a weighty argument from the structure of the sentence. Of the two constituent elements of language, the lexical and the structural, the latter is the more enduring and the more significant. This holds true at large; in less degree, it holds true of individuals. When once a mind of any magnitude has shaped its unit of thinking — the sentence — that sentence in its structure and internal relationships is a far more characteristic thing than single words. Now, while Paul's sensitiveness to new themes and the resulting openness to new terms has been overstressed, there is some truth in it. And it has real evidential value when it is joined to a more solid consideration, the fundamental quality of Paul's style. Characteristic sentences differ according to the degree and the manner in which they utilize and display the power of mental suspense. Paul had the power of mental suspense in large measure. This is proved by his development of the epistolary salutation into a doctrinal summary (Gal. i. 1-5; Rom. i. 1-7). But he had not been deeply schooled in Greek, and did not know enough literary Greek to become self-conscious or afraid. At times, he used Greek most nobly (e.g., I Cor. xiii.). But his characteristic sentence is not literary Greek. He piles perception on perception and clause on clause until not infrequently the sentence almost breaks down under its
own weight. When this test is applied to the Colossian-Ephesian letters, they show up strongly. Colossians abounds in Pauline sentences (i. 3-7, 9-21, 24-29, etc.). Ephesians, under this aspect, is, if anything, even more Pauline (i. 3-14, 15-21, ii. 14- 17, iii. 1-7, etc.). In fact, the style of this letter in some places appears to be almost beyond question the style of a Paul who is beginning to be victimized by his own habits of expression. It is hardly likely that there were two men in the first century who could write the sentence contained in Eph. i. 3-14. To this must be added the evidential value of unconscious feeling. The apostle had a deep sense of the richness and freshness and many-sidedness of divine grace. It reveals itself in single terms like " riches " and its cognates (Rom. ii. 4, ix. 23, xi. 33; I Cor. i. 5, viii. 2, 9, etc.) ; in an almost riotous use of compound words; in statements expressing the newness of the redeemed man's experience (II Cor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15, etc.). Seen from this angle, Ephesians is peculiarly Pauline (i. 7, 18, ii. 7, iii. 8, 16). The consciousness of revelation is deep and fervent, running clear through the letter. Of course, the supposed Paulinist would have caught something of Paul's feeling as well as his style. But the counterweight is found in two facts: (1) The pseudepigraphist was sure to have something heavy on his mind; he would be doctrinaire. (2) His standard of imitation was low. The Christian public was largely uneducated. II Peter is a convincing example of the easy way in which the pseudepigraphist carried himself. The writer takes no pains to imitate the feeling of I Peter. He argues, in a doctrinaire way, for the parousia (see Millennium, Millenarianism), though the rich feeling for it is lacking; moreover, at a critical point, the catalogue of virtue (i. 5-7), he betrays himself, — the master-word " hope " does not appear.
Colossians, if its entangling alliance with Ephesians did not handicap it, could defend itself fairly well, were it not for one thing. The writer evidently
„ n has some form of Gnosticism before his
sians " mmd's eye> and it is widely supposed that this fact by itself takes the letter, in its present text, out of Paul's hand. This is the objection urged against the Paulinity of Colossians. Indeed, the difficulty due to the hapax legomena and that due to the mental presence of Gnosticism are not two difficulties but one. Grant the possibility of Gnosticism, then the terms to describe it enter as a matter of course. There are strong reasons for the conservative position. (1) The empire was in the throes of a wide-spread religious movement, and during the last half of the first century Asia Minor was its most important strategic point. (2) Gnosticism was in full bloom in the reign of Hadrian. Basilides shaped a speculative system of great power and appeal. Historical probability requires a considerable period for a religious movement to ripen up to such a man. (3) The beginnings of schismatic mysticism are within the ken of the quadrilateral (I Cor. viii. 1- 10; Rom. xiv.). Van Manen (EB, s.v. Romans, § 17) uses this fact to cast suspicion on Romans. That path, however, is closed to the great majority of those who reject the Pauline authorship of
Paul the Apostle