Part 16 (1/2)

Of the Apostle's ht when fresh from his conversion noof a date fourteen or fifteen years later, and the report in the Book of Acts not being altogether reliable--as Mr Jowett has shown[61]--for historical accuracy But we learn from his own remarkable statement to the Galatians, that he kept aloof from the churches in Judaea, and was unknown to them by face; that it was three years before he entered Jerusalem, or saw an Apostle; that he then made acquaintance with Peter, andhis independent course, which ran through eleven years ain; that his errand, on this second visit, was to take security against being thwarted by Jewish jealousies sanctioned at head-quarters; that fro pillars” of the Church--he learnt nothing that he cared to hear; that they, on the other hand, could not gainsay the independent rights of so fruitful an apostleshi+p, and agreed with him not to cross his path, if he would leave thee, St Paul dwells on the separate sources of his own faith, and disowns any obligation to the prior Apostles, renders it certain that the biography, the discourses, the human personality of Jesus, were indifferent to him; and that with only the cross and the resurrection (contained as data in the vision of conversion) he could construct his scheme The unmistakable sarcasm of the expressions, ??

d?????te?,--d?????te? e??a? t?--?? d?????te? st???? e??a?,--betrays a state of rounds of their authority And the necessity, in order to agreeraphical beat, but a distinct religious and ethnologic ground, shows that, with externalthe inner unity of an identic faith Only in the absence of a common Gospel would each party have to take its own, and spare the other Indeed, the difference was so funda that St Paul then, and Christians noould deeion

The question was this,--”Howa Jew first, and then accepting Jesus as appointed to be the Jews' Messiah,” was the answer at Jerusalehtway,” was the reply of Paul With irresistible force he contended that, according to his opponents'

view, the Gospel opened no door at all, and was siatory For it had _always_ been possible for a Gentile to become a Jew; and if, without this step, faith in Christ was unavailing, the real efficacy ht to Christ, not in what he received froood there could be in passing on from Moses at all, or what essential difference between the unconverted and the converted Hebrew And, in truth, they were _not_ strongly contrasted in Jerusale, the twelve were probably much nearer to Gamaliel than to Paul The altercation between Peter and Paul at Antioch is full of instruction on this point; proving, as it does, that the intensest form of ritual exclusiveness--the refusal to partake at table with the uncircumcised--was retained in the parent church, and enforced with jealous vigilance In the Syrian capital the Gentile disciples were numerous, the Pauline comprehensiveness prevailed, and the intercourses of life were unhindered by cerest the as he can do so unobserved, falls in with their free ways; feeling all the while, no doubt, like the Quaker froimentals Soon, however, the strict brethren at Jerusalem send to look after hione; he is the priain, and the Gentile dishes are all unclean And who then are these neitnesses, that he should fear their report? They are deputies from James, ”the brother of the Lord,” who, on account of this affinity,[62] was the recognized head of the Judaean Christians; and of whose ascetic abstinences, and constant devotions _on the temple pavement_, till ”his knees were becoesippus preserved the tradition[63] It was clear, therefore, that Peter's association with the Gentile Christians was exceptional,--a violation of his professed rule, and of the allowed usage of the Apostolic Church To own brotherhood with the uncircumcised believer, was a forfeiture of character, probably an outrage on his own conscience, to the Christian Apostle! This was the result, a his first disciples, of nearly twenty years' belief of Christ in heaven There could be no real syile and Paul's It let hie them when made It could not resist the fact of his success, but treated his ”children in the faith” as in a doubtful case, left to Heaven's ”uncovenantedto be put in a securer state, as soon as his back was turned, and teachers could be sent to complete the task Hence the opposition that tracked the steps, and so much marred the work of the Apostle, wherever he went; and in repelling which he wrote his chief Epistles, and y Mr Jowett, whilst allowing that this opposition was systeree connived at by the twelve, is yet anxious to lay it e of their followers, and defines the relation of the two sections thus: ”Separation, not opposition; antagonism of the followers rather than of the leaders; personal antipathy of the Judaizers to St Paul, rather than of St Paul to the twelve” (I

326) These are fine distinctions, and for this very reason likely, we fear, in the rough movement of hu of a leader is ever apt to run into exaggeration a the followers; nor probably was Apostolic control over the er But the Epistle to the Galatians is written by one leader, and speaks of the others; and the ionis on permanent differences of principle, which discussion did not sanism of daily life In the altercation with Peter, as the point of Paul's rebuke? Did he simply censure his moral weakness and inconsistency? Not so, or he would have exhorted him to take whichever course he approved, and stick to it Did he find fault with his _exceptional_ act, of eating with the Gentile Christians? Not so, for he did the sa less than the rule and usage by which Peter _habitually lived_, and which, it is declared, virtually made Christ of none effect Here was a collision of irreconcilable principles, and every subsequent occasion of personal contact, under like conditions, would be as liable to produce it as the first Nor have we, in fact, any reason to suppose a closer approxie That Paul looked with any particular respect on the other Apostles, is surely not proved, as Mr Jowett iines, by his appeal (1 Cor xv 5) to their testi the _fact_ of their Lord's resurrection, or by his clai of privilege with them[64] To produce the spectators of an event as its proper witnesses, is no expression of feeling towards theht of taking their wives with them at the cost of the Church, and may not I take or decline my mere personal maintenance as I think proper?” institutes a co sentireements, of which, as well as of the personal relations of fellowshi+p, our author makes the most, amount to any substantial concurrence, e penetrate to the essence from the form On both sides, says Mr Jowett, the disciples were baptized into the _same name_ (I 340) Yes; but how different the _object naht; in the one case, the human life in its detail, with the resurrection as its crown; in the other, the cross of Christ that stands between them, and his life in heaven that passes beyond theround_ in the Old Testament (I 341) True: but the one on Moses, the tables, and the holy place; the other, on Adam's nature, and the patriarchs' freedoround to intrench the Law for ever; the other, to drive the ploughshare over its ruins, and make it a fruitful field Oncefor ”the day of the Lord,” an expectation of Christ's return to end the world within that generation (I 341) assuredly, but with such differences in the vision, that, in the apocalyptic picture of the one, Paul is not a the white-robed and crowned (Rev

xxi 14, and ii 2, 14, 20); while in that of the other, the advent will but perfect and perpetuate a union with Christ, already present to their consciousness, and open to all who live with him in the Spirit In short, twenty years after the death of Christ, the two elements that were harmonized in him, but are ever apt to part in our imperfect minds, the ethical and the mystical, the historical and spiritual, ascetic concentration and outspreading trust, fell into deter their conflict in the i their respective representatives in the twelve and St Paul

Whether, besides and beyond this general development of the Christian systeher degrees of spirituality within the mind of St Paul himself, is a question of less interest and more difficulty Both Mr Stanley and Mr

Jowett find traces of such a change in the s, and even eh excluded by no antecedent i in these voluued by Mr Jowett in his introduction to the Thessalonian Epistles; and by means of it he explains the marked absence froets rid of the objection urged on this ground to their authenticity Applied at the other end of the Apostle's career, the hypothesis accounts for the prominence, in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, of certain conceptions, doubtfully traceable elsewhere, of the place of Christ in the hierarchy of the universe, and of his union with his disciples as his ”body” The pastorals may be left out of consideration, as their mixed phenomena cannot be much used in the service of this theory The broad facts are undoubted,--that the four great central Epistles (Galatians, Corinthians, Romans) must be taken as our foci of authority for the characteristics of St Paul; that, in the earlier Thessalonians, these characteristics are overshadowed by the more Judaic doctrine of the ”day of the Lord,” and in the later Ephesians, &c, by the more Gnostic conception of a spiritual hierarchy and pleroma But these facts are quite overworked when set to prove our author's thesis In order to establish a process of personal developical and moral succession, and not mere abrupt and unrelated contrasts of subject To look for such organic indications in the sparse productions of the Apostle's pen, is to ask tooto his whole life the proportion of a dozen pages of random excerpts to a cyclopaedia If only the s may very well express, in its several parts and aspects, one siht be such as could scarcely co-exist, the cause ht as reasonably in a plurality of authors as in a succession of beliefs in the same author; and only a most delicate combination of symptoms can rescue the probleht we to forget, in weighing the probabilities, that the whole set of Epistles co the phenomena of difference ritten within nine years; and that, ere the first of them was produced, St Paul had been a convert fifteen years, and had reached the age of fifty The earlier and longer of these periods is a e than the later and shorter; especially of a change not apparent so ments and opinions, as in the whole co and idea

But, we are assured, the Apostle directly testifies to his own progress in doctrine; and intimates (2 Cor v 16) that there was a ti to the flesh,”--had preached hih ”henceforth he would know hi this much-disputed phrase, says:--

”Probably, heseen Christ in Palestine, or on their connection with him or with 'the brothers of the Lord' by actual descent; and if so, they were probably of the party '_of Christ_' But the words lead us to infer that so of this kind had once been his own state of mind, not only in the time before his conversion (which he would have condely), but since If so, it is (like Phil iii

13-15) a remarkable confession of forious knowledge”--Vol II p 106

Did St Paul then ever ”lay stress on having seen Christ in Palestine”?

or on actual blood-connection with hi of this kind”?

To personal relations with Jesus in his ministry or family he had no pretensions; and the spirit hich he had _always_ treated everything ”of this kind,” is so apparent from his narrative to the Galatians as to contradict Mr Stanley's inference Mr Jowett gives the phrase a different turn Finding (Gal v 11) the Apostle charged with at one ti circu Christ according to the flesh” (i 12) This, however, would iinally no ”Apostle to the Gentiles,” but insisted on _ the irreconcilable variance of such an hypothesis with the autobiographical notices in the Epistles, Mr Jowett lowers his phraseology, and attributes to St Paul's early teaching only such sentiht_” to make him ”a preacher of the circu of the kind” Yet at last, in the following passage, we find the critic's finger distinctly laid on the doctrine which he proposes to id entify with the Apostle's ”knowing Christ according to the flesh”

”That such a change” (in the Apostle's teaching) ”is capable of being traced, has been already intimated Both Epistles to the Thessalonians, with the exception of a few practical precepts, are the expansion and repetition of a single thought,--'the coht of the Apostle and his converts, quickened in both by the persecutions which they had suffered Not that with this expectation of Christ's kingdodoms of the earth That was far from the Apostle But there was that in it which fell short of the dom of God is within you'; but, 'Lo here, and lo there' It was defined by time, and was to take place within the Apostle's own life

The i the Jews; they were outward and visible, liable to the misconstruction of the enemies of the faith, and to the misapprehension of the first converts,--i the inward and spiritual dom which they described was not eternal and heavenly, but very near and present, ready to burst forth everywhere, and by its very nearness in point of ti to touch our actual hudom of God appeared to remove itself within, to withdraw into the unseen world The earthen vessel ht be clothed upon, that er 'waiting for the Son from heaven'; but 'desirous to depart and be with Christ' (Phil i 23) Such is the change, not so much in the Apostle's belief as in his e natural to the hue which, after it had taken place, left the vestiges of the prior state in the Montanisarded as the spirit of the first century overliving itself Old things had passed away, and, behold, all things becas--the dom--have ever been prone to return; not only in the first and second century, but in every age of enthusiasht and not by faith In the hour of trouble and perplexity, when darkness spreads itself over the earth, and Antichrist is already co for the sign of the Son ofof Christ is to ”know hi to the flesh,” St Paul assuredly did not keep his resolve ”henceforth to know him no more” For the expectation reappears, without any perceptible change, in his later Epistles; as in Ro the time,--that now is the time to awake out of sleep: for our salvation is nearer now than e first believed: the night is far spent; the day is at hand”;--and in Phil iv 5: ”The Lord is at hand”[65] Moreover, it is utterly i could be adduced in proof of his ”preaching circu to do with the question of Jew and Gentile; with the most opposite solutions of which it is equally compatible

In truth, our author has here coht on one another, and has extracted from each what neither is able to yield The words (in Gal v 11) ”if I _still_ preach circumcision,”

do not really ih in an accurate writer this senseof _his own_ for unaltered after they ought to have changed There _were_ persons who, in spite of the dispensation of the Spirit, _still_ preached circuone This did not Paul; but he was charged with doing so: and he says, ”Well, if so, I aeable with teaching that the cross of Christ supersedes the Law” The true sense is, therefore, given by the rendering, ”If I preach circumcision _still_,”--that is, as _still necessary_; and no tale is told of the Apostle's earlier teaching

The other passage (2 Cor v 16) _does_ undoubtedly refer to a fornized Christ according to the flesh” But he alludes, we apprehend, to the period when he was a ”Hebrew of the Hebrews”; and had no conception as yet of a suffering, dying, and heavenly Christ;--when he was full of the thoughts still occupying the twelve, who did not take in the significance of the cross, but carried past it their old Messianic notions ”There ht only of a national, Israelitish, historical Messiah, bound by the law of his fathers, and binding to it

Had this been the true conception of hie and pride to be near his person, to stand in natural relations with him, and be mixed up with the incidents of his local career But ever since I understood the cross, and saw that Messiah's life began in death, a far other truth has dawned upon host, all the accidents of his hue, his nationality, his earthly manifestation--were left behind and died away; and they s had collected round them,--family pride, Jewish exclusiveness, and the memories of personal colements, Christ in the spirit draws to hiation, dying to the earthly past; one with hi to heavenly union with God Thus, if any one be in Christ, it amounts to a new creation; his old self has passed away; behold, all things have become new” The Apostle, therefore, sets up the death of Christ, as cutting off, for all disciples, the prior ti the for to it, into eclipse and annihilation, and beginning a new and lu the very identity of the believer, and delivering him from the thraldom of nature into the freedom of the Spirit The cross had already done its work ere St Paul became a disciple He had never known his Lord but in the spirit; and the ”Christ,” who to the flesh,” was the Jewish Messiah of his previous and unconverted conception Mr Stanley's objection, that the Apostle could hardly have spoken of his unconverted state without stronger condeht perhaps hold, were the allusions to his fit of persecuting violence against the Church But there was no occasion for self-reproach in describing the picture of a national Messiah, on which, in coination to dwell[66]

Neither, then, from his own direct assertion, nor fros, _inter se_, do we learn anything of the alleged _development_ of the Apostle's doctrine There is no element in it, that, froned to a date of its own The breach with Judaism, especially, we conceive to have been corees; nay, to have been the initial principle of his conversion, the secretly prepared condition or tendency of mind that rendered hie in the direction of his character When first released fro in spirit with a heavenly and universal Lord, his mind would doubtless be met by a multitude of new problems, and would work freely towards their resolution, with the quickening consciousness of new light strea before him The very intensity of this inward action, however,--the thirst it sustains for its own co duration; ere fifteen years were passed, its force would be spent by having realized its work, and attained the equilibriues occurred would be of a different nature, enforced by the turn of the world's affairs; aof inward faiths, in adaptation to the altered pressures of the hour Of such round of once favorite ideas, and advance of diht, there are doubtless exa to close the world's affairs, and realize ”the kingdom,” could not but dominate at first, and pale every other interest and belief by the terror and glory of its light

But there is a li cannot be sustained; as it subsides, the present and actual recovers power, and pushes its probleains once more the eye that had looked beyond the up questions of Christian order that will not bear to be put off;--how to live in a world that, however near its dooles the disciple still in a web of difficult relations; how to touch the skirt of its idolatries, and not be tainted; how to behave to wife and child in this last generation of huht to die_ within the saints, but were not dead; how to prevent the gifts of the Spirit frohts of a dizzied es on nature; how to preserve to the woraded life, the sense of modest reverence, and the appreciation of faithful service

Day by day questions of this kind insisted on attention, and brought out a fresh type of senti to view a new side of the Christian thought and life Nor, again, could ed its whole aspect, and expanded, from a petty scruple coulative of all future history When it beca of ethnic converts,--ues; when the delay of Messiah, and the energy of Paul, gave occasion for thousands to pour in; when it seemed imminent that Palestine should be outvoted and overpowered by the growth of the foreign Gospel, the alarreat They tracked Paul's steps; their euments and doctrine became more constricted, and his more wide and free; and as the clouds visibly lowered over Israel, touching hiloom, all the more did he see the sunshi+ne flood the lands beyond; and his national trust assuht ain set the shadows lorified The Apostle died before the question settled itself by theup of the Jewish nation, and the inpouring Gentile numbers Others waited to be driven into catholicity by events; it is his glory to have surrendered himself to the inspiration that implanted in him its principle froh not the final fruit; and the grand scale on which he conducts the controversy, in his Epistle to the Ros fetched from afar out of history, and aloft out of the perfections of God, and deep out of huencies of experience, and advances to fill the whole greatness of his opportunities

There can be no doubt that the earliest Apostolic Christianity consisted ain, ”to-day, or to-morrow, or the third day” This event, with its effect on the living, was _the one only point_, Mr Stanley conceives, on which St Paul, in his great chapter on the Resurrection, professed to have a distinct revelation:--

”On one point only he professes to have a distinct revelation, and that not with regard to the dead, but to the living So fireneration of Christians possessed of the belief that they should live to see the second co, that it is here assumed as a matter of course; and their fate, as near and immediate, is used to illustrate the darker and more mysterious subject of the fate of those already dead That vision of 'the last man,' which now seems so remote as to live only in poetic fiction, was to the Apostle an awful reality; but it is brought forward only to express the certainty that, even here, a change ination can conceive”--Vol I p 398