I will not, indeed, deny, but I cannot hold it to be probable. The differences are so considerable that they are more easily explained as coming from the mind of some follower of Paul who was in close contact of time and place with gnosticism. This writer need not on that account necessarily have composed the whole of the Epistle to the Colossians, for he may have adapted and extended an original Pauline letter with a view to the needs of his contemporaries. Of such an adaptation another variant, whether from the same or from another hand, was the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is doubtless deutero-Pauline, and is so nearly related to Colossians that it gives additional weight to the argument of adaptation in the case of the later. Just as the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians is a later redaction of the first, recast to suit a different period, and as Romans certainly, and Philippians probably, contain later elements, and as 2 Timothy is probably worked up from older genuine fragments, so also, I believe, in the canonical Epistle to the Colossians we should see a church-gnostic adaptation of a Pauline original intended to oppose gnostic heresy; but the reconstruction of the original does not appear to me possible.

THE THEOLOGY OF PAUL

CHAPTER XIII

THE NATURAL MAN

In his anthropology Paul is a dichotomist: man, he holds, consists of two parts-of the outer and the inner man, body and soul, or flesh and spirit. The outer man is called "body" in reference to its form as an organism, "flesh" in reference to its material substance: the two conceptions are, it is true, not identical, inasmuch as there are heavenly or spiritual bodies which do not consist of earthly material, or flesh, but of a supernatural light-substance, and are therefore not, like earthly bodies, subject to corruption a distinction which has its importance, as we shall see, for Paul's eschatology. But since in the case of man on earth the body exists only as organised matter, or flesh, the distinction of the two conceptions is not here maintained. In point of fact, form and material coincide; therefore the terms "body" and "flesh" are for the most part used interchangeably. Paul speaks of "the flesh of sin" and of "the body of sin"; of the "body of death" and of "mortal flesh "; of "crucifying the flesh and its lusts" and of "mortifying the deeds of the body"; of the "purity of the body" and of "defilement of the

" 1

flesh." Just as body and flesh are thus merely two names for the outer man, so are "soul and spirit" for the inner; the "spirit" of the natural man (which is to be distinguished from the supernatural or divine Spirit which is given to the Christian) is not something really different from the soul, but designates the inner man as the ego or subject of consciousness (1 Cor. ii. 11) in contradistinction to his outward manifestation or body; for example, in the formulæ "holy in body and spirit," "defilement of flesh and spirit," "absent in the body but present in spirit" (1 Cor. v. 3, vii. 34; 2 Cor. vii. 1). But soul is also used for the whole man, "every soul" for every soul" for "every man (Rom. xiii. 1), Adam was made a "living soul" (1 Cor. xv. 45); but in this concept stress is laid, not so much on the distinction of the inner from the outer man (as in the case of spirit), but rather on their connection, for the soul is the principle which animates the body and makes the living man; as the life which dwells in the material body, it is not contrasted with the latter but thought of as constituting in combination with it a united whole, so that the formulæ "every soul" and "every flesh,” the "soulish man" and the "fleshly man," are used as interchangeable terms for the natural man in general, in contrast with the spiritual man (1 Cor. xv. 45 f. ; ii. 14 with iii. 1 and 3). We must not conclude,

1 Cf. Rom. viii. 3 and vi. 6; vii. 24 and 2 Cor. iv. 11; Gal. v. 24 and Rom. viii. 13; 1 Cor. vii. 34 and 2 Cor. vii. 1. The critical objection to the last passage (καθαρίσωμεν ἑαυτοὺς ἀπὸ παντὸς μολυσμοῦ σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος) is removed when we observe that it is a mistake to assume that Paul makes a strict distinction between the σápέ and the oôua and its members in reference to the seat of sin. See Orello Cone, Paul, p. 228.

however, from this intimate connection of body and soul that Paul thought of the latter as a purely animal principle with the exclusion of spiritual functions; rather, he uses "soul" as well as spirit for the subject of personal states of consciousness, especially feelings, in which the whole undivided man is concerned.1 It must therefore be maintained that soul and spirit are not different parts, but only different names for the one human being, between which we can only distinguish to the extent that in the former it is rather the unity of the outer and inner man, in the latter rather their contrast, which comes into view.3

While body, or flesh, and soul, or spirit, designate the two parts of man, outward and inward, mind, heart, and conscience are the factors by which the life of the inner man is carried on. Mind (vous) is the power of theoretical and practical judgment; in 1 Cor. xiv. 14 it is used of the reflective consciousness in general in contradistinction to immediate unreflective feeling. According to Rom. vii. 15–22 the mind of the inner man is the subject of the ethical will which is in sympathy with the law of God. There is a law of the mind, that is, an ethical 1 Cf. Rom. ii. 9; 2 Cor. i. 23; Phil. i. 27; Col. iii. 23.

2 Even 1 Thess. v. 23 is not inconsistent with this, since here the apparent trichotomy πνεῦμα, ψυχή and σῶμα is only a rhetorical emphasising of the completeness of the man, just as in Phil. i. 17 ἑνὶ πνεύματι, μιᾷ ψυχῇ, and in Luke i. 46 ἡ ψυχή μου, τὸ πνεῦμα μου, are placed in rhetorical parallelism without any reference to different subjects being intended.

3 Cf. Simon, Psychologie des Ap. Paulus, p. 37: "Man's inner being is called yuxý as dwelling in the σápέ and closely united with it; the name veûμa is applied to it in so far as, in spite of that, it still shows freedom and independence of the rápέ.”

impulse of the mind, which stands in contrast with the law (impulse) of sin in the members. Similarly, the mind is the religious sense by which the being of God is recognised from the works of creation (Rom. i. 20). Inasmuch as the mind thus possesses a moral and religious tendency towards the divine, it would be possible to speak of a certain relationship of the mind to God. But according to Paul the natural mind of man is not in itself an effective power of knowing and willing the good; he makes it only a mere form which can take up into itself a content of a contrary nature, and which, in the case of the natural man, is determined by the flesh in a direction contrary to God. Therefore, he speaks of a "mind of the flesh" (Col. ii. 18), of a "reprobate mind" (Rom. i. 28), the thoughts of which are blinded by the world-spirit (2 Cor. iv. 4), and his judgment on the soulish (natural) man who does not yet possess the mind of Christ is that he is incapable of discerning the things of the spirit (1 Cor. ii. 14). Hence the natural mind needs, in the first place, renewal through the divine Spirit which finds in it a receptive point of connection (Rom. xii. 2). The heart (kapdía) is also, it is true, in harmony with the Hebrew usage of , the theoretical and practical capacity of apprehension and evil, but especially the seat of feeling; in the heart the love of God is poured out, joy and fear are experienced, faith is formed (Rom. v. 5, x. 9 f.; 2 Cor. ii. 4). Like the mind, the heart can be darkened, impenitent (Rom. ii. 5, i. 21). On the other hand, he speaks of the work of the law as written on the hearts of the heathen (Rom. ii. 14), which means the same thing