Page:Origin of Paul's Religion.djvu/17

6 In discussing the apostle Paul the historian is dealing with a subject important for its own sake, even aside from the importance of what it presupposes about Jesus. Unquestionably Paul was a notable man, whose influence has been felt throughout all subsequent history. The fact itself cannot be called in question. But since there is wide difference of opinion about details, it may be well, in a brief preliminary word, to define a little more closely the nature and extent of the influence of Paul.

That influence has been exerted in two ways. It was exerted, in the first place, during the lifetime of Paul; and it has been exerted, in the second place, upon subsequent generations through the medium of the Pauline Epistles.

With regard to the second kind of influence, general considerations would make a high estimate natural. The Pauline Epistles form a large proportion of the New Testament, which has been regarded as fundamental and authoritative in all ages of the Church. The use of the Pauline Epistles as normative for Christian thought and practice can be traced back to very early times, and has been continuous ever since. Yet certain considerations have been urged on the other side as indicating that the influence of Paul has not been so great as might have been expected. For example, the Christianity of the Old Catholic Church at the close of the second century displays a strange lack of understanding for the deeper elements in the Pauline doctrine of salvation, and something of the same state of affairs may be detected in the scanty remains of the so-called "Apostolic Fathers" of the beginning of the century. The divergence from Paul was not conscious ; the writers of the close of the second century all quote the Pauline Epistles with the utmost reverence. But the fact of the divergence cannot altogether be denied.

Various explanations of this divergence have been proposed. Baur explained the un-Pauline character of the Old Catholic Church as due to a compromise with a legalistic Jewish Christianity; Ritschl explained it as due to a natural process of degeneration on purely Gentile Christian ground; Von Harnack explains it as due to the intrusion, after the time of Paul, of Greek habits of thought. The devout believer, on the other hand, might simply say that the Pauline doctrine