The Faith of St. Paul and the Faith of the Primitive Church

Irish Church Quarterly

The Faith of St. Paul and the Faith of the Primitive ChurchAuthor(s): J. H. KennedySource: The Irish Church Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 13 (Jan., 1911), pp. 28-38Published by: Irish Church QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30067199 .

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28 ST. PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

THE FAITH OF ST. PAUL AND THE FAITH OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

THE widespread interest manifested in England, as well as in Germany, concerning the controversy raised by writers like Dr. Wrede and Dr. Meyer, about the relation of St. Paul to Christianity, is not difficult to understand. The extent of St. Paul's influence on the religion of Chris- tians has varied in different ages and in different countries; but all agree that it has been very great. He was a man of strong and marvellous personality. From. the very beginning of his missionary work, he seems to have attracted passionate affection, and met with fierce opposition. And his influence has been lasting.

Men are also struck by the remarkable difference between the path by which he was brought into the Christian Church, and that which was travelled by the earlier Apostles. There were varieties of mind and character among the Twelve. They were far from being men of one uniform type. Indeed, our Lord seems purposely to have selected men of various gifts, and chosen them from different sects, from Matthew the Publican, who belonged to what might be called the extreme left of Judaism, to Simon Zelotes,, who must have belonged to the extreme right, to that stern sect of Zealots which would regard a Jew who acted as tax-gatherer for the Roman Government as being altogether outside the pale of Judaism. But these various minds and characters were submitted to the same course of training under the wisest as well as the gentlest olf masters. They were drawn to Him, believed in Him, and loved Him. They probably understood more than they could put into words, and, like Philip, could say " Come and see " when they were met by objections. But they were slow in learning some parts of their lesson; and, when they saw their Master die upon the cross, their faith was overthrown, and was not restored till after His resurrection.

The difference between this experience and that of Saul the Rabbi and Pharisee is startling. He was still breath- ing out threatenings and slaughters, and was starting with



ST. PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 29

characteristic energy on a new campaign against the persecuted Christians, when he was suddenly arrested in his course by the risen and glorified Jesus, who called him to join the ranks of those whom he was persecuting, and wrought on him such a change of his whole inward being as divided his life into two very different parts.

The experiences through which he had passed naturally had an influence on his spiritual life and on his writings; and, when we begin to compare his letters with the synoptic Gospels, the points of difference lie upon the surface, and at once attract our attention. The Pauline Epistles contain few explicit references to the circumstances of our Lord's ministry in Galilee and Jerusalem. There is no mention of His controversies with the Scribes and Pharisees, nor is there a single instance of a reference to any of His parables or miracles; and in one passage, quoted again and again, he says (writing to the Corinthians), " Where- fore we henceforth know no man after the flesh; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more."' This passage has been supposed to imply that Paul took no pains to acquaint himself with the history of our Lord's life on earth.

Dr. Wrede thus states his theory: " The life-work and life-picture of Jesus did not determine the

Pauline theology. . He, indeed, felt himself to be a disciple of Jesus, and felt it an honour to be so; he was not conscious of his innovations. But in view of the facts this is far enough from proving that he was only a continuator of Jesus' work, and that he understood Jesus; and besides, the Being whose disciple and apostle he wished to be was not actually the historical man Jesus, but another."

And again he says: " Those who take Jesus for what He was, an historical human

personality, perceive an enormous gulf between this man and the Pauline Son of God. Not a generation had passed away since the death of Jesus, and already His form had not only grown into the infinite, but utterly changed."

Here, according to Wrede, " we see the great importance of the fact that Paul had not known Jesus. Intimate friends could not so readily believe that the Man with whom they had sat at table in Capernaum, or sailed on the lake of Galilee was the Creator of the world. But in Paul's way there was no such obstacle." 2

1 2 Cor. v. i6. 2W. Wrede, Paul (Eng. tr.), p. 165 f.




According to Dr. Wrede, the alternative, "Jesus or Paul," characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological warfare of the present day; and another writer of the same school, Dr. Arnold Meyer, of Breslau, has written a book which has been translated into English with this very title Jesus or Paul. In Meyer's opinion,

" Between the Christ, as St. Paul conceives of Him, and regards Him as having appeared in Jesus, and the actual Jesus of Nazareth, there exists a difference like that between a con- stellation which is supposed to represent a person and the actual person."

St. Paul's experience had, indeed, been very different from that of the other disciples. It was the risen and glorified Jesus who had first called him; and there is, therefore, little cause for wonder if we find that his peculiar experience influences his thought, and that he loves to think of Jesus, as he had then learned to know Him, as a presence rather than a memory, as the source of new life and power for himself and for all men. This was St. Paul's great message to the Church. But the Jesus whom he knows is still the same Jesus who taught by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and died on Calvary. He is not another. Indeed, when we consider the great contrast between the way by which the earlier Apostles were led, and the way by which Saul of Tarsus was brought to Christ, the unity and solidarity of their faith and his becomes the more striking. This unity and solidarity appears to me to be illustrated by the very critics who are to-day attacking it, for they attribute our Gospels, as we have them now, partly to Pauline influence. Professor Wrede tells us that it must be borne in mind that only the earliest stratum of our first three Gospels existed before the elaboration of the Pauline theology. " A great part of it," he tells us, " came into being alongside, and even, here and there, under its 'influence.'" He is here speaking of the synoptic Gospels, but when he comes to the Johannine Gospel he makes a still stronger assertion. He admits, indeed, that " this writing cannot be entirely explained, in the peculiar stamp of its own thoughts, by means of Paul," "but," he adds, "Paul is, without doubt, its foundation." The situation thus created is rather a curious one. These critics begin by asserting that there is a wide divergence

1 Jesus or Paul, p. 81.




between the Christ of Paul and the Christ of the Gospels, but, when proofs to the contrary are brought forward from these very Gospels, they waive them aside as interpolations made under Pauline influence.

But, if the Pauline theology is thus alleged to have been the source of the transformation of the Gospels, the question arises, What was the source of the Pauline theology ? This question cannot be evaded, and Professor Wrede confesses that he is confronted by the problem of the origin of Paul's conception of Christ. He admits that for those who see in Jesus what Paul saw-a supramun- dane Divine Being-no problem arises; but those who think with him perceive an enormous gulf between Jesus of Nazareth and the Pauiline Son of God. How then did this gulf come into existence?

As Wrede rejects the idea of its having originated in an impression of the personality of Jesus, there remains, he tells us, only one alternative:

" Paul believed in such a celestial Being, in a divine Christ, before he believed in Jesus. Until he became a Christian, it seemed to him sacrilege to call Jesus the Christ. But, in the moment of his conversion, Paul

identified Him with his own

Christ, and straightway transferred to Him all the conceptions which he already had of the celestial Being-for instance, that He had existed before the world, and had taken part in its creation. "1

Dr. Wrede, then, must agree with us in holding that Paul believed and preached the doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God from the time of his conversion. The difference between us lies in this-that Wrede believes that this doctrine was false, and was a complete innovation; while we believe that it was true, and that it was the faith of the primitive Church as well as of St. Paul. The narrative in the Book of the Acts confirms the belief that Paul preached this doctrine from the first; for we read, "And straight- away in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that He is the Son of God."2 If this doctrine was an innovation, how is it possible that no shock should have been felt, that no friction should have arisen between Saul and the primitive Church, if he, a novice, ventured to introduce what they must, in that case, have regarded as a portentous heresy ? But, according to the narrative in the Acts, it caused confusion only among the unbelieving Jews.

1Wrede, p. 151. * Acts ix. 20.




If, however, the narrative in the Book of the Acts stood alone, our critics would have little hesitation in rejecting it; but the Epistle to the Galatians is, with them, a different matter, for few critics deny its authenticity.

In the controversy about the value of St. Paul's witness to the Lord Jesus, which is now being forced upon the Christian Church, the information which Paul himself gives to us about his relations with the original Apostles is of critical importance; for here we stand on ground which is common to us with our opponents. In the introductory chapter of the work from which I have so often quoted, Professor Wrede opens with the statement that " in the age when Christianity was coming into the world, Paul is the clearest, even in a certain sense the only clear figure." "For Paul," he adds, " we possess in a true sense original authorities . . . . in his letters we catch to-day the tones of h,is voice." 1

Now, in his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul tells us of a visit which, three years after his conversion, he paid to Peter at Jerusalem; the word which he uses to describe this visit is lcrroprpraL, the same root from which our word 'history' comes. It suggests inquiry, and Grimm's lexicon translates it as meaning "to gain knowledge by visiting." The visit lasted fifteen days, and Paul tells us that, during that time, he also saw James, the Lord's brother.2

Now, in the case of a man so outspoken as Paul, and so intensely interested in all that concerned the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus, is it possible to imagine that anyone could live in the same house with him for fifteen days without learning what he believed about his Master? If there was divergence of belief on that subject it must have come out. Yet his narrative shows that there was none. He tells us that during that time the Churches of Judaea knew one thing, and one thing only, about him, "that he that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith of which he once made havock;" " and," he adds, " they glorified God in me."3 These words implicitly assert the identity of the faith which he was now preaching with the faith which they previously held while he was still persecuting them. He then gives us a short account of a conference held at Jerusalem fourteen years

I Op. cit., p. xi. 2 Gal. i., 18 f. 3 Ibid. 22 ff.




later, at which he laid before the leaders of the Church the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, and he tells us that, when he had done so, James, Cephas and John-- they who were reputed to be pillars-gave to him and Bar- nabas the right hand of fellowship.' Do we realize the importance and interest of this ? Cephas is none other than that Simon who was casting a net into the waters of the Sea of Galilee on that memorable morning when he heard a voice saying, " Follow thou me," and, looking up, saw the face of Jesus of Nazareth. The John, too, whom we meet here is no shadowy figure, but the real John, the son of Zebedee, who, on the same morning, was mending his net in the boat with his father and his brother James.' It cannot be denied that these men were the personal fol- lowers of Jesus of Nazareth, who sat with Him at table, and sailed with Him in boats, and travelled with Him on foot through country districts, and through the towns of Galilee and Judaea.

But the first name mentioned here carries our thoughts still further back, past even the time of our Lord's public ministry, to those earlier years over which there hangs a veil which is very seldom lifted in our Gospels. The inti- macy of those earlier years in the poor home at Nazareth must clearly have been of a different character from that which was afterwards shared by the Twelve. In such home life character must manifest itself in a different way from its manifestation in public life, and, if there be any little flaw or infirmity in the character, it is not likely to escape notice. If there is great contrast, as Wrede truly says there is, between the experience of Paul and that of the Eleven, the contrast between Paul and James is greater still.

But though James, Cephas and John, on hearing Paul's account of his doctrines, gave him the right hands of fellowship, and though Paul, writing to the Corinthians, asserted the identity of their message with his by saying, "Whether then it be I or they, so we preach and so ye believed,"3 yet there is an objection which cannot here be passed over; for, writing in the Hibbert Journal in 1909, Dr. Schmiedel tells us that the Epistle of James "defends a form of Christianity in which the person of Jesus plays

1 Ibid. ii. I ft. r St. Mark i., 18 ff. SI Cor. xv. II.

C



V= ST. PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

practically no part." In speaking thus, he gives expres- sion to a very prevalent opinion: we must therefore look at this letter.

Even at the first glance, we see that it was written by an inhabitant of Palestine. It is full of local colouring; we have an incidental reference to the early and the latter rain.' And people are here portrayed for us as well as pecu- liarities of soil-and climate. What a vivid, if somewhat unromantic, sidelight is cast on the commercial enterprise and habits of the Jews of the Dispersion by the rebuke administered to'those who say, " To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain."2 The picture is drawn from the life. At the same time the early date of this Epistle is revealed by its denunciation o;f the tyranny of the rich Jews,3 which completely harmonizes with the account given by contemporary writers of the oppressive rule of the wealthy Sadducean faction, whose power was at its height in the generation before the destruction of Jerusalem. That tremendous catastrophe swept away the state of things which is here depicted.

It is also most significant that the Christian assembly is, in this letter, still spoken of as a synagogue. "If there come into your synagogue a man--"4; and the relations which are here described as existing between the Christian Israelites and their unbelieving fellow countrymen are such as did not exist at a later period. At the same time, there is no reference to the controversy about the obser- vance of the ceremonial law by Gentiles; circumcision and the ceremonial law are never once mentioned. This omission might indicate a date as early as that of the Epistles to the Thessalonians or earlier still.

A very important fact about this Epistle is the way in which it is coloured by teaching of our Lord, which was afterwards embodied in the synoptic Gospels. The parallelism in the passages which rebuke swearing is very remarkable.5 The references to prayer are made less striking in their resemblance by the translation, which speaks of "not wavering" in the Epistle, and of "not doubting"

1James v. 7. Ibid. ii. 6.

" Ibid. ii. 6. 4 Ibid. ii. 2. s St. Matt. v. 34 ff., James v. 12.




in the Gospel, though it is the same Greek word in both places.1 There are, indeed, so many resemblances that we may yet see the theory advocated of a reconstruction of the Gospels having taken place under Jacobean influence to supplement the theory of a Pauline reconstruction.

We are told that, in striking contrast to St. Paul's writings, this primitive epistle defends a form of Christianity in which the person of Jesus plays practically no part.

Yet, Paul and James both agree in describing them- selves as servants

o'f God and of the Lord Jesus Christ;

and it is scarcely necessary to remind the readers of this Journal that the word here translated " servant "2 does not mean one who has made a contract with an employer, but a bond-servant-one who is bought with a price. To James also, as to Paul, the Parousia of the Lord Jesus is the hope of his Church waited for as the husbandman wait for the precious fruit of the earth;3 and, when he speaks of the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is not content even with that title of honour, but adds words of passionate adoration-" The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory."4 Strangely different as their life experiences had been, James of Nazareth, as well as Saul of Tarsus, had learned to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.,

The fact that St. James in this Epistle is not teaching dogmatic theology, but enforcing the duties of practical religion, increases instead of diminishing the significance of his words. He is plainly convinced that he is not pro- pdunding a new doctrine, but appealing to one which is already: firmly established. If he does not give dogmatic instruction, it is because he knows that it has been given already. He feels that he is reminding them of a glory so great.and so high that all earthly distinctions vanish in its presence, and all partiAlities ;founded on differences of rank or wealth are rebuked and condemned. There would be no use in appealing for such a purpose to any doctrine which his readers could regard as uncertain, or of little importance. Men do not use twigs or reeds for the construction of levers when they desire to raise a weight or remove an obstacle.

1 St. Matt. xxi. 21 f., James i. 6. 2AoIXos. 3 James v. 7. * Ibid. ii. I. 5 2 Cor. iv. 6.




It seems to be at times forgotten that the epistles of the New Testament were addressed to persons who had already received Christian instruction, so that subjects might be briefly referred to, or even omitted altogether, not because they were of little importance, but because they were not disputed, so that it did not appear necessary to state them at length. If in the first century there had been no disorders in the Church at Corinth, and no irregu- larities in the celebration of the Lord's Supper there, requiring rebuke and instruction, we would now, in the twentieth century, be met with the confident assertion that Paul knew nothing of any institution of that Sacrament by Christ, and that his silence was absolutely inconsistent with the belief that it had been instituted by Him as the Gospels record. It is a happy result of those early troubles that we have in his first Epistle to the Corinthians a detailed account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, which St. Paul declares that he had received of the Lord, and had delivered to the Corinthians. In the same Epistle we have a prohibition of the departure of the wife from the husband, or of the husband from the wife, in entire agree- ment with the teaching of our Lord as we have it recorded in the Gospels, and prefaced by the words: "' But unto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord."'

Dr. Knowling has observed3 that if, as has been urged, the language of St. Paul's Epistles had seriously affected the alleged facts and the language of the Gospels, it is strange that St. Paul's essential principles should not have been more directly enunciated in the Gospels, rather than that they should have been left to be inferred from them. Their omission to supply any direct references to these principles would certainly be remarkable if the Gospels have been reconstructed under Pauline influence; but still more remarkable, on that hypothesis, is the luxuriant rich- ness of details which the same critics represent them as having invented to illustrate single texts in St. Paul's writings. Thus, the celebrated critic, Pfleiderer, maintains that the stories of the incarnation and infancy were composed from a single text in the Epistle to the Gala- tions: " God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law."4

i r Cor. xi. 17 ff. *i Cor. vii. xo. SThe Testimony of St. Paul to Christ, p. 218. SGal. iv. 4.




Undoubtedly, St. Paul's reference here is in harmony with the narrative in the Gospels, and suggests that he was not so careless about the history of our Lord as he has been represented. In this connexion Dr. Dalman has called attention to the significance of St. Paul's assertion in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans that our Lord "was born of the seed of David according to the flesh."' This was a matter which Saul of Tarsus was likely to have examined in a very different spirit from the original Apostles; and he must have had opportunities, which they had not, of learning what could be said against it. Some of the scribes were specialists in questions of this kind, and from the records to which they had access, and from their own previous studies, could bring a searching light to bear on a false claim to Davidic descent. Their special knowledge and their acuteness of research must have been alike at the service of the young Rabbi, who had come 'forward as their champion against the assertion of the Messiahship of Jesus. The disproof of our Lord's descent from David would have been regarded as so crush- ing a refutation of this claim that it is inconceivable that Saul could have overlooked the matter, or could have prose- cuted his inquiry in a half-hearted manner. The result of the inquiries which he then made could not have been forgotten by him when he made a deliberate assertion on this subject in his letter to the Christians at Rome.

But if the disproof of our Lord's Davidic descent would have been a telling weapon for the opponents of the Christian Faith when it was first preached in Jerusalem, accusations against His life would have been still more telling. The acts of that life must have been fresh in the memnories of men at the very time when Saul was putting forth the whole of his marvellous energy, and all the respurces of his keen intellect, to crush His cause.

Albert Schweitzer, of Strasburg, in the introductory part of a work in which he has lately reviewed the principal attempts which have been made in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century to produce a history of the life of Jesus which shall effectually eliminate the supernatural element,2 tells us that the historical investi- gation into the life of Jesus did not originate from a

iRom. i. 3. s Von Reimarus as Wrede, eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu,

Fiqschung, p. 4.



$3 ST. PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

purely historical interest, but that it sought for the Jesus of history as a help in the campaign for freedom from dogma; and a little lower down he maintains that the greatest of these lives are those which were written with hatred, the one by Reimarus, the Wolfenbiittel Fragmentist, and the other by David Frederick Strauss. It was not, he adds, so much a hatred against His person as against the supernatural halo with which it was surrounded. They wished to represent Him as a mere man, to tear from off Him the stately raiment with which He had been robed, and to clothe Him again in the ragged dress in which He had wandered in Galilee. Because they hated, they saw clearest into the history, and have advanced the investiga- tion more than all the others put together.

There is grave reason for doubting the value of hatred as an inspiration -for a critic, if his office is to be regarded as that of a sagacious and impartial judge. It may shar- pen his perception with regard to one kind of evidence, but it will blind him to evidence of another kind. He who is under this influence will receive some things too readily; other arguments or facts he will either ignore or endeavour to explain away. Schweitzer himself begins his apprecia- tion of Strauss by saying that one must love Strauss in order to understand him. However, for the work of special pleader against a cause, hatred certainly is likely to stimulate a man's exertions, and give a one-sided keenness to his vision.

It may well be doubted if either of the authors specially mentioned by Schweitzer can have surpassed Saul of Tarsus in the keenness of his hate, or in the intensity of his desire to tear the supernatural halo from the brow of Jesus of Nazareth. Saul had also one great advantage over them; for he was a contemporary, and for him the country was full of persons from whom he might obtain information at first hand. If at Nazareth, Capernaum or Jerusa- lem he could substantiate one accusation against Him whom he then hated, he would have regarded it as a sacred duty, as well as a pleasure, to placard it everywhere. When, therefore, we read such a statement as this, " He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin,"' we should remember that Paul must have scrutinized the life and character of the Lord Jesus from two very opposite points of view.

J. H. KENNEDY, 1 2 Cor. V. 2 1.



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The Faith of St. Paul and the Faith of the Primitive Church