of in Gal. iii. 19, is explained as due to Gnostic influence, whereas it is certainly found in Jewish theology too (cf. Josephus, Ant. xv. 5, 3). As regards the second point, which is properly the main argument of these critics, it rests on an a priori theory of development which cannot be maintained in the face of the facts of history. New ideas are usually at their first appearance in the mind of the pioneers of thought, not more faintly, but more strongly outlined than in the case of their successors, who put the new idea into practice, a process which is not accomplished without compromises. Holtzmann rightly remarks: "What arrangement of Luther's writings would we arrive at, if the order were decided by a standard of regular development, whereas it was really determined by the incalculable impulses and reactions of the inner life! The breach of Luther with Zwingli ought not to precede the tentatives of Melancthon, Bucer, etc.,1 if the history of the Reformation is to follow the lines laid down by reason." The spuriousness of Galatians would have as its consequence that of all the Epistles of Paul hitherto accepted. It would, moreover, be impossible to explain the Pauline elements in the writings of Luke, in the First Epistle of Peter and the First Epistle of Clement, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, etc., if the epistles of Paul did not precede them. Further, a Janus-headed theology like the Pauline, which overthrows the Jewish religion by the methods of proof drawn from the Jewish schools, is perfectly intelligible in the case of the historic Paul, who was converted from a pupil of the Pharisees to an apostle of Christ; it would be 1 Viz., their efforts to promote closer relations with the Zwinglians,

wholly unintelligible in a "Pauline Christian" of the second century. Finally, the realistic features of the life of the young church, the strife of parties, the phenomena of enthusiasm, the still quite undeveloped beginnings of church organisation which meet us in the Pauline epistles, are evidently taken directly from actual experience in a way which makes it impossible to explain them as a fiction of the second century.

THE WRITINGS OF PAUL

CHAPTER X

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

THE Christian church at Rome was at the time when Paul addressed it1 a mixed community of preponderatingly Gentile character. That is evident, in the first place, from Paul's own words, since at the beginning, and again at the end, he reckons his hearers as among the Gentile peoples' which formed his special field of labour as the apostle to the Gentiles. Since he had had committed to him the office of apostle to the Gentiles, since he felt himself under obligation to them, whether Greek or barbarian, wise or unwise (namely, to the service of the Gospel

58 A.D.

1 According to the commonly accepted chronology, in the year In regard to the different chronology proposed by Harnack, I may refer to the criticism of Schürer (Zeitschr. Jür wiss. Theol., 1898, Heft 1) and of Th. Zahn (Einleitung z. N.T., ii. 626 ff.), also of Ramsay and Bacon (Expositor, March 1897 and February 1898), who are all united in rejecting it.

2 To assume that by vŋ are meant the nations in general, including the Jews, is a wholly unwarrantable expedient which is contrary to Paul's regular linguistic usage, and which completely breaks down in view of the context of the passages in question, in which they are further defined-i.e. “Greeks and barbarians, wise and unwise," and the Jews therefore certainly cannot be understood as included among them.

as

among them), he had often desired to come to the Romans also in order to obtain some fruit among them, as among other Gentiles (i. 5 f., 13 f.). This is his justification for his epistle, in which he had written to them somewhat more boldly (than would otherwise have been admissible in dealing with a church to which he was still personally unknown) in order that he might perform the functions of a priest of Christ (εἰς τὸ εἶναι με λειτουργὸν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, χν. 16) towards the Gentiles, making them an offering well-pleasing to God and consecrated by the Holy Spirit (xv. 15 f.). As he thus repeatedly bases his relationship to the Roman church on his call to be the apostle of the Gentiles, he must-the conclusion is inevitable have regarded this church regarded this essentially Gentile Christian. Besides, in xi. 13 he directly addresses his readers as Gentiles, and in xi. 17 compares them with shoots of a wild olive, which, through faith, have been grafted into the noble olive tree of Israel; in xi. 28 ff. as former unbelievers who have now attained the mercy of God, while the Jews for their sakes had now as enemies (as unloved) been shut up to disobedience. That in all these passages the apostle had in view only a small Gentile Christian party within a mainly Jewish Christian church is hardly to be supposed. How came it, in that case, that in that whole section where he deals with the relations of Jews and Gentiles to the Christian church, he never once addresses the Jewish Christian church but always the Gentile Christian minority? And would it not be very peculiar that the apostle should write at such length about the Gentiles being preferred

before Israel to a church mainly consisting of Jews, and should offer them consolation against the apparent rejection of Israel, for which their own condition gave no occasion? It is certainly much more natural to suppose that the Gentile Christians who are warned in xi. 20 ff. not to be high-minded because of their privileges, had the actual advantage, i.c. were in the majority, and that the Jewish Christians, who needed consolation on the score of their present rejection, were also really in a less favourable position, i.e. were in a minority in the Roman church.

We are led to the same conclusion by what is said in xiv. 1-xv. 9 about the two parties in the Roman church. Paul designates them as "the strong who had no scruples about eating and drinking and keeping days, because they regarded these things as indifferent, and the weak" who believed themselves obliged by conscientious motives to renounce the use of flesh and wine and to keep particular days holy. Now, it must no doubt be admitted that these contrasted parties of "strong" and "weak" are not to be identified without more ado with Gentile and Jewish Christians, since the observances about which the weak had scruples go beyond the Mosaic law and are connected with an ascetic tendency, which among the Jews was represented by the Essenes, but was also largely practised among the Gentiles at that time, as a consequence of a dualistic-spiritualistic system of thought. Thus the "weak" may have included ascetically-inclined Gentile Christians as well as Jewish Christians. On the other hand, since it is mentioned in regard to