chapter vi

. proclaims the Pauline doctrine “only in a still more corporeal fashion.”

In the Evangelist, bread and wine are—as is evident to anyone who will take the trouble to acquaint himself with his presuppositions in the spiritually related works of Ignatius, Justin, and Tertullian—not the body and blood of Christ, but the flesh and blood of the Son of Man. In this change in the expression lies the logic of the thought. The elements of the Lord’s Supper perpetuate the appearance of the Son of Man in the world inasmuch as they, as being the flesh and blood of that historic Personality, possess the capacity of being vehicles of the Spirit. As a combination of matter and Spirit which can be communicated to the corporeity of men, they execute judgment. The elect can in the sacrament become partakers of that spiritual substance, and can thus be prepared for the resurrection; others who are not from above, and are not capable of receiving the Spirit, receive simply earthly food and drink, and fall a prey to corruption. Therefore the Evangelist makes the Lord close His discourse about the eating and drinking of the flesh and blood of the Son of Man with the words, “It is the spirit that giveth life.”

This is the language of the early Greek theology, which explains the working of the sacraments by the combination of the Spirit with matter which takes place therein. The Fourth Evangelist projects this later view back into the discourses of the historic Jesus, and makes Him prophetically announce that after His exaltation a time will come when the Spirit which is now in Him will unite itself [pg 201] with the bread which, by the miracle of the loaves, has just been raised in a significant way out of the category of simple earthly elements, and will subsequently manifest its power in preparing men for the resurrection.

In this sense, as vehicles of the Spirit, the elements carry on the manifestation of the Son of Man; in this sense it is possible to speak of eating and drinking His flesh and blood, and to regard this as necessary to life. But all this is not thought of “corporeally” in the naïve sense of an eating and drinking of the body and blood of Jesus, but can only be understood on the basis of the doctrine of the working of the Spirit in the sacraments. Apart from the Spirit, there is in the Supper no body and no blood of Christ.

That is for the Fourth Evangelist so much a fixed datum that he is obliged to omit the account of the historic Last Supper of Jesus with His disciples. That the Lord could have so designated the bread which was eaten and the wine which was drunk on that occasion, is for him unthinkable. As long as He Himself is alive there is certainly no Spirit; it is only on His exaltation that the Spirit is liberated from the historic personality of the Son of Man and becomes separated from the Logos as the Holy Spirit, in order in the sacraments to lead a new existence—and this time an existence capable of being communicated to others. From this moment onwards bread and wine become, in the Church’s celebration of the sacrament, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man in the sense explained above. Previously this had by no means been the case, any more than there had been a Christian baptism which effected regeneration. The Spirit who associates Himself with the water and produces this effect, did not as yet exist in this form of being. Jesus cannot, therefore, on this view, have baptized, any more than He can celebrate the Supper with His disciples. Therefore, the Fourth Evangelist, in order to guard against possible misunderstandings, definitely asserts that even if the disciples did baptize—a mere baptism with water [pg 202] which is incapable of working regeneration—the Master Himself made no use of water in this fashion._(_165_)_ His task consisted only in marking out water for this use by the miracle at Cana of Galilee, and, by His discourses about the water of life and regeneration by water and the Spirit, pointing men’s minds to the thought that in the future, water, in association with the Spirit, would be necessary to life and blessedness. In that day “out of his body shall flow rivers of living water” because the Spirit will be present (John vii. 37-39).

The students of Comparative Religion are so far in the right as against ordinary theology that they make an end of the unintelligent spiritualising of the Johannine doctrine, and try to give due weight to the “physical” element in its conception of redemption. They are mistaken, however, in regarding this “physical” element as something primitive, and in thinking to explain it by analogies drawn from the primitive nature-religions.

The Fourth Gospel represents the views of a speculative religious materialism which concerns itself with the problem of matter and spirit, and the permeation of matter by Spirit, and endeavours to interpret the manifestation and the personality of Jesus, the action of the sacraments and the possibility of the resurrection of the elect, all on the basis of one and the same fundamental conception.

According to this theory, Christ came into the world in order to accomplish in His own Person the as yet non-existent union of the Spirit with the fleshly substance of humanity. In consequence of this act the elect among mankind can in the future become partakers of the Spirit. Jesus Himself, however, cannot as yet impart this to them either as the Spirit of knowledge—that is why the disciples are portrayed as so “unintelligent”—or as the Spirit of life. The Spirit always needs, in the world of sense, to [pg 203] be connected with material vehicles. He cannot work directly, in the sense of communicating Himself from Jesus to believers. He must, therefore, in order to enter into the elect, be received by them in combination with some material element. The material media chosen for this purpose are made known by Jesus by means of miracles and by references to the future.

The naïve—and unhistorical—conception that Jesus instituted the sacraments is not recognised by the Johannine gnosis. According to it He did not establish them, but created and predicted them.

By His incarnation the possibility of the union of humanity and Spirit upon which the working of the sacraments depends, is provided. By His action in regard to the food and wine and the words He spoke in connexion therewith, He pointed to a mystery which was to be revealed in connexion with these substances; by His death, resurrection, and exaltation He abolished His earthly mode of existence and set the Spirit free for the new method of working, in virtue of which He was able to prepare men for the resurrection. Jesus, according to this view, came into the world to introduce the era of effectual sacraments. It was thus that He became the Redeemer.

The teaching of the Johannine theology, therefore, rests upon the two principles, that the Spirit can only work upon men in combination with matter, and that it only becomes present in this state as a consequence of the exaltation of the Lord. Anyone who has once recognised these presuppositions will give up once for all the search for a primitive element which is to be explained from the nature-religions. On the other hand, it is certain that Christianity here presents itself as the most highly developed Greek Mystery-religion which it is possible to conceive.

Now for Paul again. Anyone who ascribes to him the conception of a sacramental eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ does violence to his words. [pg 204] But admitting that he really thought in this way, that would prove nothing. It would first need to be shown that it really was a cultus-conception drawn from the primitive nature-religions which came to life again in him. Now, for the Mystery-religions the necessary presuppositions might appear to be present, since they arise out of ancient cults which sprouted and grew up again in later times. Paul, however, is a Jew, and even as a believer in Christ he stands, in spite of his polemic against the law, wholly and solely on the basis of the absolute, transcendent Jewish conception of God. Any relation on his part to the nature-cults cannot be proved and ought not to be assumed. By what wind were the seeds of this primitive conception wafted to his mind? And how could they suddenly sprout and grow in the stony soil of a Jewish heart? The Apostle would certainly be the first and the only Jewish theologian to fall under the spell of the primitive conception of eating the god! And where was such a conception at that time to be found?

But what matter such prosaic considerations when it is a question of great ideas, of ideas, moreover, fathered by Comparative Religion?

When Heitmüller in the spring of 1903 appeared before the members of the Clergy Theological Society_(_166_)_ in Hanover to give them the latest information about baptism and the Lord’s Supper, he led them abroad, after an introduction on the “physico-hyperphysical” in Paul, first to the Aztecs, then in the clouds of night, by the torch’s gleam, to the Thracian mountain sides, and thence to Sinai._(_167_)_ And when they had assisted at the slaughtering and devouring of the prisoners of war, the ox, and the camel, he expressed himself to the following effect: “Little as the _δεῖπνον κυριακόν_ of Paul might seem to have in common with these . . . proceedings, and [pg 205] loth as we at first are even to name the Lord’s Supper in the same breath with them, as little is it to me a matter of doubt that, when looked at from the point of view of Comparative Religion, the Lord’s Supper of primitive Christianity has the closest connexion with them. Those pictures supply the background from which the Lord’s Supper stands out; they show us the world of ideas to which the Lord’s Supper belongs in its most primitive, and therefore perspicuous, form.”

Entering more into detail, this “Hylic”_(_168_)_ of the Comparative method explains that the primeval concrete and sensuous conception of the _communio_ established by partaking of the flesh and blood of the animal in which the divinity itself dwelt, comes to light again in the primitive Christian Lord’s Supper, at the highest stage of the development of religion, and under this new form acquires a new life._(_169_)_ It would be precarious, he further observes, in view of the fragmentary condition of the sources to attempt to prove a direct dependence on definite phenomena—on the cultus feast of the Mithra-mysteries, for example: “It will be safer to point to the general characteristics of the time, which abounded with ideas of that kind. The infant Christianity lived in an atmosphere which, if I may be allowed the expression, was impregnated with Mystery-bacilli, and grew up on a soil which had been fertilised and made friable by the decay and intermixture of the most various religions, and [pg 206] was specially adapted to favour the upgrowth of seeds and spores which had been long in the ground.”

Now, there is no such thing as an atmosphere impregnated with bacteria. Medical science has long since shown that this conception rests on an error, the air being practically free from germs. In theology it is more difficult to get rid of fantastic imaginations, since historical proofs are only available for those who are capable of thinking historically.

It must not be overlooked that the eating and drinking which establishes communion with Christ is only one side of the Pauline conception of the Supper. Alongside of it there exists the other, which sees in the feast a confession of faith in the death and the parousia of the Lord, and is quite as significant as the former. It is—in I Cor. xi.—developed in connexion with the repetition of the historic words of Jesus; on it is based the argument that a careless partaking is a transgression against the body of the Lord. And on the basis of this conception, cases of illness and death in the church are to be understood as a warning chastisement pointing to the Last Judgment. This conception must be somehow or other eschatologically conditioned.

The communion which is established in the Lord’s Supper is a communion of the eagerly-waiting man with the coming Lord of Glory. The only thing which remains obscure is how this is brought about. The confession of faith in the death and parousia which is combined with the act of eating and drinking does not suffice to explain this further effect. Further, it remains inherently obscure how by eating and drinking the dying and return of the Lord can be shown forth, especially as the Early Christian celebration consisted only in a common meal, and in no way reproduced, as present-day celebrations do, the actions and words of Jesus at the Last Supper.

What are the results to which the students of Comparative Religion have to point in regard to the Lord’s Supper? They are obliged at the outset to give up the [pg 207] attempt to explain it from the Mystery-religions, or even to point out in the latter any very close analogies. In place of this they attempt to make intelligible both the meal which formed part of the mystery-cults, and that of Pauline Christianity, as growths which, from scattered seeds of ancient conceptions of the cultus-eating of the divinity, spring up from the soil of syncretism in two different places at the same time. Neither in the one case nor the other, however, can they render this even approximately probable. Up to the present, therefore, neither a direct nor an indirect connexion between the cultus-meal of Paul and those of the Mystery-religions has been shown. The only thing which is certain is that in both cases a cultus-meal existed. About that of the Mysteries we know almost nothing; about that which Paul presupposes we have more information, but not such as to enable us at once to understand it.

The question regarding baptism took from the first a simpler form, since the hypothesis of a renascence of primitive cultus-conceptions has not to be considered.

Both Paul and the Mystery-religions attach a religious significance to washings. That, however, does not suffice to establish a peculiarity which would connect them together, since the attachment of this significance to lustration is bound up with the elemental symbolism of cleansing and is found more or less in all religions.

The real question is whether Paulinism and the Mystery-religions, when they go beyond the most general notions, and advance from the symbolic to the effectively sacramental, follow the same lines and present the same views.

Once again, Paul’s view is the more fully, that of the Mystery-religions the less fully known. Developed baptismal doctrines and rites seem only to have been present in the Egyptian cults. These distinguish between the bath of purification and baptism, the latter consisting [pg 208] in a sprinkling with a few drops of a consecrated and consecrating fluid._(_170_)_

The advance beyond the idea of purification, where it is to be observed, moves in the direction of the idea of Re-birth, Regeneration. A clear formulation of this developed view—comparable in definiteness with the Early Christian reference to the “bath of regeneration” _(_171_)_ —does not occur. The thought remains hovering between purification and renewal.

That is as much as to say that, so far as our information goes, no typical points of contact with Paulinism present themselves.

The Apostle implies a baptism in the name of a divine person. Of a baptism performed in the name of Osiris, Attis, or Mithra we know nothing, though no doubt the assumption naturally suggests itself that the lustrations and baptisms practised in these cults were considered to be at the same time acts of confession of faith in the divinity with whose worship they were associated. But this character was by no means so distinctly stamped on them as was the case in Christian baptism—as is, indeed, readily intelligible. In the Mystery-religions the confession of the god is naturally implied; in Christianity there is the special confession of faith in the Messiahship of Jesus. To this there was nothing analogous.

As regards the utterance of the name of the divinity and the magical efficacy attaching thereto according to ancient conceptions, many illustrations can be adduced from Comparative Religion. But the really important point, the association of the utterance of the name with a baptismal rite, cannot be directly shown to have existed in the Mystery-religions._(_172_)_

[pg 209]

In order to arrive at his sacramental view Paul does not follow the natural method of advancing by way of the thought of purification to that of renewal by regeneration, but follows a different route, which leads him to an estimate of it that has nothing to do with the fundamental conception of purification, and therefore remains without analogy in the Mystery-religions. This is a fact of great significance.

The Mystery-religions speak, as Paul also does, of the _pneuma_ and its workings, but the possession of the _pneuma_ is never represented as an immediate and inevitable consequence of baptism.

With the Mystery-religions are associated speculations about the renewal of man’s being, represented as taking place in regeneration, which they bring into some kind of relation, closer or more remote, with baptism. But when Paul speaks of the new creature which comes into being in the sacrament, the thought of regeneration does not for him come into view, for he makes no use of it at all. Instead of that he asserts in Rom. vi. that in baptism there is an experience of death and resurrection in fellowship with Christ, from which results newness of life and the new ethic associated therewith. How the act and the result are logically connected he does not explain. He is content to place them side by side.

[pg 210]

So far as we know, there exists in the Mystery-religions no analogue to this dying and rising again effected solely by the use of water. To interpret Rom. vi., as Dieterich does, as referring to a spiritual death and “new birth” is not permissible, since the text says not a word about that. The post-Pauline theology, that is the Johannine and Early Greek theology, explain baptism as regeneration, and seek to find a logical basis for this effect in the doctrine that the Spirit unites with the water as the generating power. Paul has nothing of all this.

Nor does he show any knowledge of the idea that Christian baptism arose out of the baptism of Jesus as an imitative reproduction of it. He never, in fact, mentions the baptism of Jesus. Nowhere does he suggest that in baptism the new man, the “Child of God,” is born in the believer, as Jesus was in this act raised to His Messianic office.

There is in fact no evidence from the earlier literature which suggests the existence of views of that kind regarding the origin and significance of Christian baptism. In early Christianity it is as far from being an imitative reproduction of the baptism of Jesus as the Church’s Lord’s Supper was from being an imitative reproduction of the historic Last Supper. The conception of an “imitative reproduction” was first introduced by modern theology.

To cite the _taurobolium_ as an analogue of Paul’s baptism, with the death and resurrection which it effects, is not admissible. In the first place, the _taurobolium_ is a baptism of blood; in the next place it is closely connected with a sacrifice; in the third place, the burial and rising again are actually represented. The sacramental significance is thus derived from the many-sided symbolism. In Paul there is no trace of all this. “Plain water” effects everything.

One point in regard to which great hopes had been placed on the Mystery-religions was the solution of the enigma of I Cor. xv. 29. Wernle regarded it as self-evident that the Apostle in permitting and approving [pg 211] baptism for the dead had allowed himself to become infected by the heathen superstition of his Corinthian converts, and took him to task for this lapse in his book on the “Beginnings of Christianity.” In his zeal he forgot to enquire whether the heathen had any superstition of the kind._(_173_)_

Those who tried to supply this omission did not meet with much success. The heathen showed themselves better than their reputation and less “superstitious” than the Christians! Of a baptism for the dead, or anything at all of this nature, they show no trace.

Failing more relevant evidence, some have quoted Plato, who in the _Republic_ (ii. 364-5) makes Adeimantos say, appealing in confirmation to the Orphic writings, that by means of offerings and festivals, atonement and purification for past misdeeds is effected for whole towns as well as for single individuals, for the living and also for the dead.

This passage, however, does not refer at all to personal dedications with a view to “renewal,” such as the baptism practised in the Mystery-religions and in Christianity, but to expiatory sacrifices in the ancient Greek sense._(_174_)_

In the _Taurobolia_, representation of one living person by another is supposed to have been possible, but there is no mention of a representation of the dead._(_175_)_

[pg 212]

The baptism _of_ the dead which is attested by a papyrus is not a baptism _for_ the dead._(_176_)_

That living persons went through the ceremonies of initiation for the dead is not known.

Thus baptism for the dead has not, so far at least, proved susceptible of explanation from heathen sources, but must be regarded as a peculiarity of Christianity!

The outcome of the study of the sacraments from the point of view of Comparative Religion is a very curious one. The Apostle thinks sacramentally; in fact his doctrine is much more “mysterious” than that of the Mystery-religions. But the nature of the sacramental conception is quite different in him from what it is in them; it is as if they had grown up on different soils.

The difference relates both to the conception of the supernatural working of the sacraments, and also to the position which the sacramental element takes in the doctrine as a whole.

In the Mystery-religions the sacramental idea arises by way of an intensification and materialisation of the symbolic. The act effects what it represents. The result can in a sense be logically understood when once the thought is grasped that the world of appearance and the world of reality stand in mysterious connexion with one another.

In Paul we have an unmediated and naked notion of sacrament such as is nowhere else to be met with. Symbolism is no doubt involved in the most general significance of the act. In this sense baptism is a “cleansing” and a “consecration,”_(_177_)_ and the sacred feast establishes [pg 213] fellowship among the partakers. But the assertions which go beyond this show not the faintest connexion with the outward significance of the rite. Contact with the water is supposed to effect a dying and rising again with Christ, a partaking in His mystical body, and the possession of the Spirit. The eating and drinking at the Lord’s Supper is a confession of faith in the death and the parousia of Christ, and is also fellowship with Him.

The sacramental is therefore non-rational. The act and its effect are not bound together by religious logic, but laid one upon the other and nailed together.

With that is connected the fact that in Paul we find the most prosaic conception imaginable of the _opus operatum._ In the Mystery-religions there is a mysterious procedure surrounded by imposing accessories. The impressive appeal of symbolism is brought to bear in every part. Every detail is significant, and lays hold upon the attention.

In Paul everything is flat and colourless. While some of his references might suggest the impression that his conception of Christianity bore some kind of analogy to the Mystery-religions, yet as a whole it entirely lacks the corresponding atmosphere. There is nothing of the effective _mise en scène_ characteristic of the Greek sacramental beliefs. How lacking in solemnity must have been the method of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, when it could degenerate into an ugly and disorderly exhibition of gluttony! How little does the Apostle think of the external act of baptism, when he founds a church in Corinth and himself performs the rite only in the case of one or two individuals!_(_178_)_ He preaches sacraments, but does not feel himself to be a mystagogue; rather, he retains the simplicity in regard to forms of worship which belongs to the Jewish spirit.

There were no long preparations for the cultus ceremonies, and nothing is known of a distinction between higher and lower grades of initiation, such as form an [pg 214] essential part of the Mystery-religions. The first ceremony of initiation confers at once final perfection. Among those who are admitted there prevails the most complete equality. The conception of the “mystes” does not exist.

In the Mystery-religions everything centres in the sacred ceremonies. They dominate thought, feeling, and will. If they are removed the whole religion collapses.

In Paulinism it is otherwise. The doctrine of redemption is no doubt closely connected with the sacraments, but the latter are not its be-all and end-all. If baptism and the Lord’s Supper are taken away the doctrine is not destroyed, but stands unmoved. It looks as though the weight of the building rested upon these two pillars, but in reality it does not totter even if these supports are withdrawn.

The Johannine and the early Greek doctrine are conceived as real Mystery-religions. The Fourth Evangelist and Ignatius know no other redemption than that which is bound up with the sacraments. In Paul the redemption can be thought of apart from them, since the whole mystical doctrine of fellowship with Christ rests upon the single conception of faith. Nevertheless he allows it to be closely bound up with the external ceremonies, and seems to have no consciousness of the fact that this connexion is unnecessary and illogical.

The remarkable duality in Paulinism lies, therefore, in the fact that the sacramental idea is intensified to an extreme and unintelligible degree, while at the same time the necessity of the sacred ceremonies does not logically result from the system as a whole, as this would lead us to expect.

The sacramental views of the Apostle have thus nothing primitive about them, but are rather of a “theological” character. Paul connects his mystical doctrine of redemption with ceremonies which are not specially designed with reference to it. It is from that fact, and not from a specially deep love for Mysteries, [pg 215] that the exaggeratedly sacramental character of his view of baptism and the Lord’s Supper results. It is in the last resort a question of externalisation, not of intensification.

It is therefore useless to ransack the history of religions for analogies to his conceptions. It has none to offer, for the case is unique. The problem lies wholly within the sphere of early Christian history, and represents only a particular aspect of the question of Paul’s relation to primitive Christianity. The fact is, he did not introduce the sacramental view into the sacred ceremonies, but found already existing a baptism and a Lord’s Supper which guaranteed salvation on grounds which were intelligible from early Christian doctrine. He, however, transformed the primitive view of salvation into the mystical doctrine of the dying and rising again in fellowship with Christ. Since the connexion between redemption and the sacraments was given _a priori_, he draws the inference that the sacraments effect precisely that wherein, according to his gnosis, the inner essence of redemption consists. How far they are appropriate to the effect which, on the ground of his mystical doctrine, he holds to take place, does not for him come into question.

In the sacraments the believer becomes partaker in salvation. Therefore, he concludes, in them that happens which constitutes redemption, namely, the dying and rising again with Christ.

Paul therefore takes the sacraments by storm. He does not theorise about the ceremony, but ascribes to it without more ado the postulated effect. That is not a procedure which could have been followed either by a Greek or by a modern mind.

Paulinism is thus a theological system with sacraments, but not a Mystery-religion.

This may be confirmed by a further observation. The Apostle occupies a strongly predestinarian stand-point. Those who are “called” inevitably receive salvation; those who are not, can never in any way obtain it. There [pg 216] is no analogue to this in the Mystery-religions. They can only conceive of election in the sense and to the extent of holding that there is a calling and predestination to the receiving of the initiation which confers immortality. And there are actually some beginnings of such a conception._(_179_)_

But Pauline predestination is quite different. It is absolute, and seems inevitably to abolish the necessity and meaning of the sacraments. Anyone who belongs to the number of the elect becomes _ipso facto_ partaker of the resurrection. At the end of all things a great company from the generations of long-past times will arise to life without ever having received baptism or partaken of the Lord’s Supper. That being so, what becomes of the sacraments? In what respect are they necessary?

A good deal of energy has been expended in seeking analogies from other religions for the Corinthian baptism for the dead; it would really have been much more to the point to enquire why baptism for the dead was considered desirable. If the dead are among the elect, they have no need of it; if not, they could not have inherited life, even if they had received the sacrament during their sojourn on earth. To what end, then, is this baptism for the dead?

The most important point to notice is that everywhere in the Pauline sacraments the eschatological interest breaks through. They effect, not re-birth, but resurrection. That which in the near future is to become visible reality, they make in the present invisibly real by anticipation. The Greek Mysteries are timeless. They reach back to primitive antiquity, and they profess to be able to manifest their power in all generations. In Paul the sacraments have temporal boundaries. Their power is derived from the events of the last times. They put believers in the same position as the Lord, in that they [pg 217] cause them to experience a resurrection a few world-moments before the time, even though this does not in any way become manifest. It is a precursory phenomenon of the approaching end of the world.

Separated from the eschatology, the Pauline sacraments would become meaningless and ineffectual. They are confined to the time between the resurrection of Jesus and His parousia, when the dead shall arise. Their power depends on the present, and also on the future, fact. In this sense they are “historically” conditioned.

While therefore in the Mystery-religions and in the Johannine theology the sacraments work of themselves, in Paul they draw their energy from a universal world-event, from which it is, as it were, transmitted.

It now becomes clear why the Apostle cannot describe as a “Re-birth” the condition brought about by baptism. The renewal consists in the fact that the coming resurrection-life is, for the short period which remains of the present course of the world, received by anticipation. Re-birth, on the other hand, implies an uneschatological system of thought in which the individual reckons more or less on a normal span of life, for which he seeks an inner divine being which shall subsist alongside of or above the earthly. It is only at a period when eschatology is falling into the background that the Greek conception of re-birth, such as is associated with the Mysteries, can supersede the old mystico-eschatological conception of the proleptic resurrection. Accordingly it presently appears in Justin and the Fourth Evangelist. From that point onwards baptism brings re-birth. In Paul it produced only an antedated dying and rising again.

The sacramental conception of the Apostle is therefore derived from an entirely different world of thought from that of the Mystery-religions.

It is a different question, however, in what relation his “physical”_(_180_)_ mysticism in itself, apart from the [pg 218] sacraments, bears to the world of ideas associated with the Greek Mystery-religions.

To this question Reitzenstein, the “pneumatic”_(_181_)_ among the students of Comparative Religion, devotes a careful study. He avoids conventional catchwords and rash conclusions, and endeavours to discover the conceptions and ideas which are common to both, and to follow them out in detail.

With this purpose he brings together everything which he can find in the language of the Mysteries and the Hermetic literature relating to such ideas as “service” and “military service” of God, “justification,” “pre-existence,” “gnosis,” “spirit,” “revelation,” “pneumatic,” “heavenly garment,” and “transformation.”

For the first time the material for a study of Paul from the point of view of Comparative Religion is brought together with a certain completeness, and the impression which it makes is very powerful. The theologian who reads these passages with an open mind will be lifted out of the ruts of conventional interpretation. It is as if a flood of new thought had streamed into the channels of ordinary exegesis, whether critical or otherwise, and swept away the accumulations of rubble.

Whether all the explanations are sound, and whether many expressions, such as _e.g._ “servant” and “prisoner” of Christ, and imagery—for example, that taken from the military life—could not be just as well explained directly as by the roundabout way of their use in the Mystery-religions, may be left an open question. What is certain is, that Reitzenstein has made an end of the cut-and-dried conception that Paul simply translated his theology from Jewish thought into Greek language, and proves that [pg 219] he knows the scope and exact application of the words of the religious vocabulary, and along with the terms and expressions has taken over suggestions for the presentation of his ideas. Without the possibilities and presuppositions supplied by the religious language of the Greek Orient it would have been more difficult for him to create his mysticism. He found in existence a tone-system in which the modulations necessary for the development of his theme offered themselves for his disposal._(_182_)_

Reitzenstein remarks with much justice that particular words and phrases do not of themselves prove very much, but that what is really of importance is the connexion of the passages. Are there sets of ideas in Paul which are allied with those of the Mystery-religions? What realities stand in the two cases behind the references to the mystical doctrine of the miraculous new creation of the man while in his living body?

The description and paraphrasing which commentaries and New Testament theologies bestow upon the Apostle’s assertions do not suffice for Reitzenstein. He wants to understand and come to grips with the thought, and to arouse in others the same discontent.

The possibility that the Pauline mysticism might be capable of being explained from within appears to him excluded. With all the reserve which he imposes upon himself he nevertheless believes himself to have proved that the central conception of “the deification and [pg 220] transfiguration of the living man is derived from the Mysteries.” The conviction of a miracle of transformation taking place in his own person, is, he pronounces, not Jewish. Therefore he thinks that Paul represents a kind of ancient Jewish prophetism modified by the influence of the Hellenistic Mystery beliefs.

The “history of the development” of Paul’s thought he conceives as follows: The influence of Greek mysticism, with which he had already a literary acquaintance, helped to prepare the way for that momentous inner experience which eventually caused a rupture between the Apostle and his ancestral religion. “This influence,” he thinks, “increased in the two years of solitary struggle for the working out of a new religion.” A renewed study of Greek religious literature became necessary “from the moment when the Apostle dedicated himself to, and began to prepare for, his mission to the _Ἕλληνες_.”

By the method which he applies, Reitzenstein is necessarily driven to adopt this far-reaching view. He makes no effort to take into the field of his argument the Late-Jewish eschatology, as preserved in the post-Danielic literature, in the discourses of Jesus, and the Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra. Whatever is not self-explanatory, and cannot be explained from the Old Testament, is, according to him, derived from the world of thought associated with the Mystery-religions.

The proper procedure would really have been to examine the conceptions drawn from apocalyptic thought and those from the Mystery-religions independently, and then to decide which of them rendered possible the better explanation. The best way would have been for Reitzenstein to discuss the matter step by step with Kabisch, who had sought to derive the fundamental conceptions of the Pauline mysticism from eschatology.

The total neglect of eschatology forces him to some curious conclusions. After showing, in opposition to a canonised confusion of thought, that there is not the slightest connexion between Paul’s doctrine of the first [pg 221] and second Adam in I Cor. xv. 45-49 and Philo’s theory about the two accounts of the creation in Genesis, since in that case the pneumatic heavenly man would be the first, and the psychic earthly man the second,_(_183_)_ he comes to the conclusion that the view set forth in I Corinthians must have underlying it “the belief in a god ‘Anthropos,’” who came to be identified with Christ.

This hypothesis naturally suggests itself to Reitzenstein, because in _Poimandres_ he believes himself to have discovered a myth about Anthropos._(_184_)_ But is this, even if it were held to be proved, of such a character that the Pauline conception of the first and second Adam could without more ado be derived from it? Is the complicated hypothesis necessary?

Paul’s conception can be explained without the least difficulty on eschatological grounds. The first Adam brought mankind under the dominion of death. Christ is the Second Adam because He by His resurrection becomes the founder of a new race, which in virtue of that which has taken place in Him becomes partaker of an imperishable life, and acquires a claim to the future possession of the pneumatic heavenly body which He already bears. The Second Man comes from heaven because the pre-existent Christ, in order to become the founder of the “humanity of the resurrection,” must appear upon earth and assume fleshly corporeity. He is “life-giving spirit” because the _pneuma_ which goes forth from Him as the glorified Christ, works in believers as the power of the resurrection. This being so, what purpose is served by bringing in the very doubtful myths about the god Anthropos, especially as Paul, though he certainly thinks of his Second Adam as a heavenly being, never anywhere speaks of Him as God.

[pg 222]

This is typical of a series of similar cases._(_185_)_

On the other hand, it is just this one-sidedness which makes the charm and the significance of the book. Reitzenstein shows, both positively and negatively, how far the analogies from the Mystery-religions will take us. Ordinary theologians—since Kabisch had remained without influence—had simply designated as Greek everything which they could not understand from Late Judaism, and described as Late-Jewish whatever they could not understand as Greek. Reitzenstein, the—unconscious?—antipodes of Kabisch, would like to make an end of this simple game and compel people to choose one horn or other of the dilemma. Instead of entering on theoretic discussions, full of “not only, but also,” and “either . . . or,” he goes straight forward as far as he thinks he can feel firm ground under his feet, and has thus contributed, to an extraordinary degree, to the clearing up of the situation.

Contrary to his intention and conviction, however, the outcome is not positive but negative.

Like Dieterich and others, Reitzenstein takes it for granted that Paulinism makes use of the conception of Re-birth, and he feels that that is in itself a sufficient reason for not regarding it as a product of Judaism._(_186_)_

The assumption being unsound, all the discussions and arguments based on it fall to the ground. In particular, the fine parallels from the Hermetic literature must be given up. Further, it is not legitimate to treat the [pg 223] mysticism of the Mystery-religions and that of Paul as directly corresponding to one another. The former is a God-mysticism, the latter a Christ-mysticism. The resulting differences are greater than at first sight appears. In the Graeco-Oriental conception, what is in view is the “deification” of the individual man. As the divinity of the particular Mystery which is being celebrated is always thought of as the highest divinity, the mortal enters into union with the being of God as such.

The Pauline Christ, however, even though He is called the Son of God, is not God, but only a heavenly Being. The renewal which is effected by fellowship with Him is not a deification—the word never occurs in the Apostle’s writings—but only a transference into a state of super-sensuous corporeity, which has to do with a coming new condition of the world.

Greek thought is concerned with the simple antithesis of the divine world and the earthly world. Paulinism makes out of this duality a triplicity. It divides the super-earthly factor into two, distinguishing between God and the divine super-earthly, which is personified in Christ and made present in Him. God, and therein speaks the voice of Judaism, is purely transcendent. A God-mysticism does not exist for the Apostle—or, at least, does not yet exist. A time will come no doubt in the future, after the termination of the Messianic Kingdom, when God will be “all in all” (I Cor. xv. 28). Until then there is only a Christ-mysticism, which has to do with the anticipation of the super-earthly life of the Messianic Kingdom.

To treat Graeco-Oriental and Pauline mysticism as corresponding factors, is to perform a piece in two-four time and a piece in three-four time together, and to imagine that one hears an identical rhythm in both.

Another point of difference is that Graeco-Oriental mysticism works with permanent factors; the Pauline with temporal and changing ones. The Messianic-Divine drives out the super-earthly angelic powers which [pg 224] previously occupied a place between God and the world. It is in the very act of coming. But in proportion as it advances, there passes away not only the super-sensuous angelic element, but also the earthly and sensuous. Christ-mysticism depends upon the movement of these two worlds, one of them moving towards being, the other towards not-being, and it continues only so long as they are in touch with one another as they move past in opposite directions. The beginning of this contact is marked by the resurrection of the Lord, the end by His parousia. Before the former it is not yet possible to pass from one to the other, after the latter it is no longer possible. A mysticism which is thus bound up with temporal conditions can hardly be derived from the Greek timeless conceptions.

The act, moreover, by which the individual becomes partaker in the new being is in the two cases quite different. The Mystery-religions represent the “transfiguration” of the living being as effected by his receiving into himself a divine essence, by means of the gnosis and the vision of God. It is thus a subjective act. According to Paul’s teaching the “transfiguration” is not brought about by the gnosis and vision of God. These are rather the consequence of the renewal, the efficient cause of which is found, not in the act of the individual, and not in the inherent efficacy of the sacrament, but in a world-process. So soon as the individual enters by faith and baptism into this new cosmic process he is immediately renewed in harmony therewith, and now receives spirit, ecstasy, gnosis, and everything that these imply. What according to the Greek view is the cause, is for Paul the consequence. Thus, even though the conceptions show a certain similarity, they do not correspond, because they are connected with the central event of the mysticism in each case by chains which run in opposite directions.

A figure which exactly illustrates one’s meaning may claim pardon even for somewhat doubtful taste. In the Mystery-religions, individuals climb up a staircase step [pg 225] by step towards deification; in Paulinism they spring in a body into a lift which is already in motion and which carries them into a new world. The staircase is open to all; the lift can only be used by those for whom it is especially provided.

So far as Comparative Religion is concerned, therefore, the case is exactly the same in regard to the “physical” element in the mystical doctrine of redemption as it was in regard to that of the sacramental doctrine. On close examination the historico-eschatological character of the Pauline conception is in both cases so all-pervading that it invalidates any parallel with the Mystery-religions, and leaves them with nothing in common but the linguistic expression. The mystical and sacramental aspects of the “physical” element in redemption do not for him stand on the same footing with the eschatological, which is immediately given with the conceptions of transformation and resurrection, but must be in some way capable of being derived from it. Only when that is done will the Pauline doctrine of redemption be explained.

It is to be noted that Reitzenstein tries in vain to render intelligible either the connexion of the soteriological mysticism with the facts of the death and resurrection, or the fellowship which is therein presupposed between the believer and the Lord. In his exposition of Rom. vi. the parallels with the Mystery-religions force him into a wrong line, and compel him to think of the objective process as a subjective one. He assumes that everything becomes clear and simple if once the Apostle is understood to speak of a _voluntary_ dying, which is neither purely physical nor merely metaphysical, but is based upon the thought that we must not sin any more because we have taken upon us Christ’s person and lot, and have crucified our natural man.

But in Paul it is not a question of an act which the believer accomplishes in himself; what happens is that in the moment when he receives baptism, the dying and [pg 226] rising again of Christ takes place in him without any cooperation, or exercise of will or thought, on his part. It is like a mechanical process which is set in motion by pressing a spring. The minute force employed in pressing the spring bears no relation to that which thereon comes into play; only serves to release a set of forces already in existence.

In the Mystery-religions the thought is: We desire not to sin any more, therefore we will undergo initiation. Paul’s logic is the converse of this, and takes the objective form: Christ’s death and resurrection is effectually present in us; therefore, we are no longer natural men and cannot sin any more.

The whole distinction lies in the fact that the mysticism of the Apostle of the Gentiles is based on historico-eschatological events, whereas the Mystery-religions are in their nature non-historical. Where they make use of myths they use them in the last resort merely as pictures of that which the “mystes” performs or undergoes, not as events charged with a real energy, as the death and resurrection of Jesus are for Paul.

But the fact of the far-reaching outward and inward resemblances of language between the Graeco-Oriental and the Pauline mysticism are not affected by that. As though by a pre-established harmony in the history of religion, it came about that the mysticism which developed out of eschatology was able to find complete representation in the language of the Mystery-religions, and found there ready to its hand conceptions and expressions which facilitated, suggested, and in some cases were even indispensable to its fuller development.

Reitzenstein’s merit is that of having determined exactly and unmistakably the meaning of Paul’s language, and having at the same time shown that Jewish Hellenism and Greek philosophy had practically no part in him.

Of course, it is not possible to decide how much of this [pg 227] religious language Paul found already in existence, and how much he created for his purpose. It must not be forgotten that the Oriental Mystery-religions did not receive their complete development under Greek influence until a considerable time after the appearance of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that he and they found in existence the same Greek religious vocabulary, laid hold of it, and perfected it.

One error of the students of Comparative Religion deserves particular mention, for it is typical. In consequence of the parallelism which they maintain between the Mystery-religions and Paulinism, they come to ascribe to the Apostle the creation of a “religion.”_(_187_)_ Nothing of the kind ever entered into his purpose. For him there was only one religion: that of Judaism. It was concerned with God, faith, promise, hope and law. In consequence of the coming, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it became its duty to adjust its teachings and demands to the new era thus introduced, and in the process many things were moved from the shadow into the light and others from the light into the shadow. “Christianity” is for Paul no new religion, but simply Judaism with the centre of gravity shifted in consequence of the new era. His own system of thought is certainly for him no new religion. It is his belief, as fully known and worked out in its implications, and it professes to be nothing else than the true Jewish religion, in accord both with the time and with the Scriptures.

Another remark that has to be made is that the students of Comparative Religion are inclined to make an illegitimate use of the word eschatology when it suits their purpose. They think themselves justified in applying it wherever in the Mystery-religions there is mention of death, judgment, and life after death, but they forget that in doing so they are using it in a much more general sense than that which we have to reckon with in the Pauline [pg 228] doctrine. The term eschatology ought only to be applied when reference is made to the end of the world as expected in the immediate future, and the events, hopes, and fears connected therewith. The use of the word to designate the subjective future end of individuals, in connexion with which no imminent catastrophe affecting all mankind is in question, can only be misleading, since it creates the false impression—_exempla docent_—that the Pauline eschatology can be paralleled and compared with an eschatology belonging to the Mystery-religions. Of eschatology in the late Jewish or early Christian sense there is not a single trace to be found in any Graeco-Oriental doctrine._(_188_)_

Therefore, the Mystery-religions and Paulinism cannot in the last resort be compared at all, as is indeed confirmed by the fact that the real analogies both in the mysticism and the sacramental doctrine are so surprisingly few. Reitzenstein’s attempt has not succeeded in altering this result, but only in confirming it. What remains of his material when the circle of ideas connected with the thought of “re-birth” is eliminated, and the all-pervading eschatological character of the fundamental ideas and underlying logic of Paulinism are duly considered in making the comparison?

Finally, the question may be permitted, What would have been the bearing of the result if Dieterich and Reitzenstein had really proved the dependence of the Apostle’s doctrine upon the Mystery-religions? The simple declaration of the result would have been only [pg 229] the beginning of things, for immediately the problem whether, understood in this way, the Apostle’s doctrine could still have belonged to primitive Christianity would have arisen and called aloud for solution. The theory that Paul personally transformed the Gospel on the analogy of the Graeco-Oriental Mystery-religions is menaced by the same difficulties which previously brought about the downfall of the theory held by the Baur and post-Baur theology, that he Hellenised the Gospel. The hypothesis advanced by the students of Comparative Religion is only a special form of that general theory, and can do nothing to minimise the _a priori_ difficulties, or those raised by the history of dogma in connexion with it.

How does Paulinism as understood by Dieterich and Reitzenstein fit into the history of the development of Christianity?

If the Apostle during the first generation had introduced such a tremendous innovation as the Greek “physical” mysticism of redemption and the sacraments into primitive Jewish Christianity, could the latter have permitted this and continued to keep him in its midst? How was it possible for it to admit without a struggle, indeed unnoticed, something so entirely alien, and to raise no objections either to the Christology or to the mysticism or to the sacramental doctrine of the Apostle, but simply and solely to his attitude towards the law?

And how, on the other hand, could the later Hellenising theology pass over in silence the man who had been its precursor in uniting the conceptions of Graeco-Oriental religion with the Gospel? The inexplicable fact that Paulinism played no part in the subsequent development, but is left to lie unused and uncomprehended, becomes still more inexplicable if Dieterich and Reitzenstein are right. They assert that the Hellenising force did not issue from philosophy but from the Graeco-Oriental religious movement, and found expression in Paul not less than in the Johannine and early Greek theology. [pg 230] Why, then, are the results so different in the two cases that they have no kind of outer or inner relation to one another? If the same force is applied at different times to the same object and in the same line, can the resultant movement vary so much in direction? How is it possible that Paul represents a Hellenisation of Christianity which is so unique in character and so unnoticed by others? How could two different types of Greek transformation of the Gospel come into existence, and in such a way, moreover, that the second discovered nothing Hellenic in the first?

According to the theory of Dieterich and Reitzenstein, Paulinism ought to be detached from early Christianity and closely connected with Greek theology. The contrary is the case. It stands in undisturbed connexion with the former, whereas it shows no connexion whatever with the latter.

Any one who thinks of the Apostle’s doctrine as in any sense a Hellenisation of the Gospel, whether he owes allegiance to ordinary theology or to Comparative Religion, has gone over to the radicalism of the Ultra-Tübingen party, and must, like it, go forth with his Paul out of primitive Christianity into a later period, unless, indeed, as the Comparative method admits, he is prepared to consider the faith of the early Church as Graeco-Oriental, or Paul as the founder of Christianity.

In any case the hypothesis of a Hellenising of the Gospel in early Christianity carried out by Paul as an individual is a historic impossibility. From the dilemma, either early Christian or Greek, there is no escape, however one may twist and turn.

If the students of Comparative Religion had been better acquainted with the attempt of the Ultra-Tübingen critics, and had had a more accurate understanding of the difference between Paulinism and the Johannine and early Greek theology, they could hardly have retained the open-mindedness necessary to the commencement of their undertaking; for in that case they would have been [pg 231] forced to reflect on the inconvenient consequences of their possible victory.

Since they did not enter on such considerations it was difficult for them to do justice to Harnack. Here and there they took occasion to accuse him of being behind the times and reproach him with having given too much importance to the influence of philosophy in relation to the Hellenising of Christianity, and too little to that of the Mystery-religions. They are not wholly wrong in this. He does not give sufficient recognition to the “physical” and sacramental elements in Paulinism, and does not work out sufficiently fully the parallel between the Mystery-religions and the Johannine and early Greek theology. In laying the foundations of his history of dogma he is too exclusively interested in the development of the Christology, instead of starting from the curious complex of Christology, soteriology, and sacramental doctrine which is characteristic of the Pauline as well as of the Johannine and early Greek theology, and determines the course of the history of dogma.

But this somewhat one-sided view of primitive and early Christianity is far from affording the complete explanation of his attitude of reserve in regard to the results arrived at by the students of Comparative Religion. If he forms a low estimate of the influence of the Mystery-religions upon Paul and the earliest period of Christianity, he is led to that result by pressing considerations from the history of dogma, by which the consequences of the theory put forward by the students of Comparative Religion are made clear to him. Like Anrich, he recognised from the beginning the weaknesses of the theory, which remained hidden from the champions of the method.

It is not possible for any one who holds that Paulinism shows the influence of the Mystery-religions to stop half-way; he has to carry his conclusion back into primitive Christianity in general and to explain even the genesis of the new faith as due to syncretism. The latter [pg 232] stand-point is taken up by Hermann Gunkel_(_189_)_ and Max Maurenbrecher._(_190_)_

They hold that the belief in a redeemer-god, such as was present in Jewish Messianism, was also widely current in the Graeco-Oriental religions, and that subsequently, in consequence of the historic coming of Jesus, these two worlds of thought came into a contact which generated a creative energy. From the process thus set in motion primitive Christianity arose. This account of its genesis also explains, they think, why it goes much beyond the “teaching of Jesus” and the religious ideas which formed the content of Late Judaism, and includes mystical and sacramental beliefs.

The historic Jesus did not, according to Gunkel and Maurenbrecher, hold Himself to be the “Redeemer.” Therefore, the real origin of Christianity does not lie with Him but with the disciples. They, having been laid hold of by the power of His personality, and finding themselves compelled to seek a solution of the problem of His death, referred to Him the already existing myth of the Saviour-God, and thereby gave to the set of ideas which had hitherto only existed as such a point of historical attachment, both for Orientals and Jews. From this time forward the religious ideas which attached themselves in the one case and the other to the conception of a redeemer-god flowed into a common bed and formed the stream which, as Christianity, overflowed the world.

Maurenbrecher, who seeks to work out the hypothesis in rather fuller detail, holds that in Galilee, which in view of its history had certainly not always been a purely Jewish country, the Messianic idea and the non-Jewish belief in redemption were already present and had to some extent intermingled, and that it was, therefore, no accident that the new religion which after the death of Jesus took [pg 233] its rise in the revelation made to Peter should have gone forth from Galilee. The advantage, he goes on to explain, which the young Christianity possessed among a purely heathen population in comparison with the other competing Oriental religions, arises from the Jewish element, “which in consequence of the peculiar intermixture of which Christianity was the outcome had entered into the universal Oriental religion of redemption.” “Conversely, however, it was precisely the non-Jewish element in the Christian faith which for the Jews made this new religion a really new and higher stage of their religious life.”

This hypothesis is unable to recognise any unique character in Paul. What Dieterich and Reitzenstein claim for him, it finds already completely realised in the primitive community. The result is that Maurenbrecher hardly knows what to make of him, and emphasises his Jewish side much more strongly than his Graeco-Oriental aspect.

The solution of the problem worked out by Gunkel and Maurenbrecher is not based purely on Comparative Religion, but, as the latter writer justly points out, is a kind of synthesis between the views of liberal theology and that of its opponents. The fundamental idea comes from the latter; but in agreement with the former the existence of a historical Jesus is retained.

The retention of this remnant of critical history is, however, unnecessary and illogical. If the origin of Christianity essentially depends on the intermixture of an Oriental belief in a redeemer with the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, and, given a contact and interpenetration between the two, must necessarily have arisen, it is not obvious why the rôle of a historical Jesus should be—or whether it can be—retained in connexion with it.

In Gunkel and Maurenbrecher it is only a stop-gap, which is brought into a wholly external connexion with the growth of the new religion. They retain His coming as the phenomenon by which the contact of the two religious worlds is set up, but not as a fructifying element.

[pg 234]

There is no obvious reason for continuing to take into account this by no means indispensable auxiliary force. If the Oriental belief in a redeemer and the Jewish Messianic hope were inherently adapted to one another, and destined to produce by their fruitful union a new religion, then, after all, any kind of impulse, even a mere train of thought, might have set the process in motion. The assumption of the existence and the death of the Galilaean Rabbi becomes superfluous if once it ceases to supply the efficient cause for the arising of Christianity. Since Comparative Religion finds the latter in the mutual interpenetration of Jewish and Graeco-Oriental elements, it can get along just as well with myth as with the questionable history of the Synoptists. Such is the teaching of William Benjamin Smith,_(_191_)_ and Arthur Drews.

Both these writers make a rather extravagant use of the privilege of standing outside the ranks of scientific theology. Their imagination leaps with playful elegance over obstacles of fact and enables them to discover everywhere the pre-Christian Jesus whom their soul desires, even in places where an ordinary intelligence can find no trace of him.

Smith takes it for granted that the “Naasenes, whose origin goes back to the most remote antiquity, worshipped a Jesus as a divinity.” How Christianity grew out of this cult he does not tell us, but consoles us with the promise of later revelations. In the preface he betrays the fact that he is now only publishing “the first quarter of the evidence which he has collected,” and intends to go on quietly collecting and arranging his material “until [pg 235] the whole irresistible host can take the field together,” and further, that it is not the—inevitable—victory which is his main concern, but the stimulus imparted to others.

Drews_(_192_)_ does not play the amateur quite so completely, but endeavours on the basis of his belief in the pre-Christian Jesus to present a coherent picture of the way in which Christianity arose; and he makes Paul its creator. “The Jesus-faith,” so runs his thesis, “had long existed in numerous Mandaean sects in Western Asia, in many respects distinct from one another, before the belief in the Jesus-religion acquired a fixed form and its adherents became conscious of their religious _differentia_ and their independence of the official Jewish religion.” This ancient faith first meets us as a new religion in the letters ascribed to Paul. The citizen of Tarsus, trained as a Pharisee, heard of a sect-god named Jesus, and brought this conception into connexion with the belief in the death and resurrection of Adonis and the thought of the suffering “servant of the Lord” in Isaiah liii., and thus arrived at the idea that a god had appeared in human form, and had by his death and resurrection become the Redeemer, and had enabled men “to become God.” This was the birth-hour of Christianity. For a historic personality, “to serve, so to speak, as the living model for the God-man,” there was no need in order to produce this Jesus-religion, which then entered on its world-wide career of victory.

Drews’ thesis is not merely a curiosity; it indicates the natural limit at which the hypothesis advanced by the advocates of Comparative Religion, when left to its own momentum, finally comes to rest.

Paulinism, in the judgment of the adherents of this much-vaunted method, is to be regarded as a synthesis between primitive Christianity and the conceptions current in the Mystery-religions. If this be taken as the starting-point, it is necessary to proceed to the conclusion—since the synthesis cannot be conceived as [pg 236] accomplished by an individual—that Christianity itself is a product of syncretism. And if the constitutive factor in the new faith is seen in the combination of the Jewish Messianic expectation with a Graeco-Oriental belief in a redeemer-god who dies and rises again, the assumption of the existence of a historic Jesus who was not Himself touched by Hellenic ideas becomes a worthless subsidiary hypothesis. It becomes quite a natural step to leave it on one side and to regard the synthesis as either developing gradually, by an impersonal process, or as coming to birth in the brain of the author of the Pauline Epistles, who thus becomes the creator of early Christianity. Drews is justified in appealing to Gunkel, and asserting that he is only offering his ideas with a logically necessary correction.

Of course, every further logical step in this direction involves further sacrifice of historical understanding and an increasing necessity to indulge in imaginary constructions. But all these consequences are already present in germ in the mere assertion that Paul is to be understood from the Mystery-religions, even though those who maintain this view do not want to proceed any further than the facts which have to be explained seem to them to warrant. As between the students of Comparative Religion and Drews the relation is similar to that between the legitimate and illegitimate Tübingen schools. Here, too, the alternative lies between “scientific and inconsistent, and consistent and unscientific.” That means that an absolute antinomy appears between the logic of the attempted solution and that of the data of fact; which is as much as to say that the problem has been wrongly grasped, and that this way, whether it be followed for a certain distance only, or right to the end, can never lead to the goal of a satisfactory solution.

[pg 237]

VIII

SUMMING-UP AND FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM

THE study of Paulinism has nothing very brilliant to show for itself in the way of scientific achievement. Learning has been lavishly expended upon it, but thought and reflection have been to seek.

Writers went to work with an almost inconceivable absence of plan, and wanted to offer solutions before they had made clear to themselves the scope of the problem. Instead of seeking a definite diagnosis, they treated the symptoms separately, with whatever means happened to come to hand.

It was inevitable, therefore, that the study of the subject should move along intricate and continually recrossing paths, and engage in long and devious wanderings, only, in some cases, to arrive back again at the point from which it started. That Paul’s doctrine of redemption was thought out on the lines of a physical nature-process had been asserted by Lüdemann as long ago as the year 1872. Nevertheless, theology hit on the plan of “spiritualising” it, and took very nearly thirty years to get back to this discovery.

The account which we have given of the history of the subject has revealed the structure of the problem and given it room to develop itself. The inner connexion of the questions determines in advance what the individual solutions can and cannot effect, and at the same time [pg 238] shows what must be provided for in any solution which professes to offer a really historical explanation.

To neglect this structure, this schematism of the problem is not permissible. It has not been independently invented and imposed from without upon the past history of research, but represents its actual results, and points the way for all subsequent attempts at a solution.

The problem consists in the two great questions: what Paul’s doctrine has in common with primitive Christianity, and what it has in common with Greek ideas.

It is complicated by the fact that our only information about the beliefs of the primitive Church comes from Paul. His writings are the first—and indeed the only—witnesses which we possess upon the point, since the First Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of James give us information at best about a non-Pauline, certainly not about a pre-Pauline Christianity.

The standard by which the primitiveness of Paul’s Christianity has to be measured and tested has, therefore, in the first place to be arrived at by the method of arguing backward from itself. Nevertheless, the difficulty is not so great as it appears when thus theoretically stated. The most general features of the earliest dogma can be found without difficulty in the Epistles. These consisted in the belief in the Messiahship of the Jesus who had died and risen again, and in the expectation of His parousia in the immediate future.

Moreover, the problem as a whole is simplified by the fact that the second of the fundamental questions has been clearly answered by the history of Pauline study. The answer is this: Paulinism and Hellenism have in common their religious terminology, but, in respect of ideas, nothing. The Apostle did not Hellenise Christianity. His conceptions are equally distinct from those of Greek philosophy and from those of the Mystery-religions.

The affinities and analogies which have been alleged cannot stand an examination which takes account of their real essence and of the different way in which the ideas [pg 239] are conditioned in the two cases. Neither Baur nor the theology which owes allegiance to him, nor the students of Comparative Religion, have succeeded in proving their assertions. It is also interesting to observe that those who undertake to explain Paul by the aid of the Graeco-Oriental Mystery-religions, entirely deny the philosophic Hellenism which a more conventional theological opinion has found in him; so that it is a case of Satan’s being driven out by Beelzebub. On the other hand, the Comparative study of Paulinism has the merit of having made an end of the “spiritualising” and “psychologising” which were practised for a whole generation.

The impossibility of anything in the nature of a Hellenic gospel being present in Paul appears from the fact, that every view of this kind when thought out in its logical implications must arrive at a point where it has to do violence to historical tradition. It became apparent that it is impossible for a Hellenised Paulinism to subsist alongside of a primitive Christianity which shared the Jewish eschatological expectations. One must either, as the Ultra-Tübingen critics did, transplant the Epistles and the doctrine from the primitive period to the second century, or, as some of the votaries of Comparative Religion have endeavoured to do, explain primitive Christianity as a product of Graeco-Oriental syncretism.

That only a very few investigators have drawn these inferences is not due to the fact that they are not justified. It was want of courage, of logical consistency, and of the necessary contempt for the rest of the facts which prevented them from making the venture. So they offered compromises, imposingly dressed out in words but inwardly untenable, and talked themselves and others into believing the impossible, namely, that a Hellenisation of the primitive Christian belief effected by Paul as an individual is really conceivable.

The half-and-half theories which represent Paulinism as consisting partly of Greek, partly of Jewish ideas, are [pg 240] in a still worse case than those which more or less neglect the former element. Encumbered with all the difficulties of the Hellenising theory they become involved in the jungle of antinomies which they discover or imagine, and there perish miserably.

The solution must, therefore, consist in leaving out of the question Greek influence in every form and in every combination, and venturing on the “one-sidedness” of endeavouring to understand the doctrine of the Apostle of the Gentiles entirely on the basis of Jewish primitive Christianity. That implies, in the first place, that the Pauline eschatology must be maintained in its full compass, as required by the utterances of the letters. But merely to emphasise it is not everything. The next point is to explain it. What was the scheme of the events of the End, and what answer was given by eschatological expectation to the fundamental questions which could not be avoided? Are there two resurrections or one; one judgment or two? Who are to rise again at the parousia? Does a judgment take place then? On whom is it held? What are its standards and its subject? Wherein do reward and punishment consist? What happens to the men of the surviving generation who are not destined to the Messianic kingdom? What is the relation between judgment and election? What is the fate of believers who are elect and baptised but who have fallen from grace by unworthy conduct? Can they lose their final blessedness, or are they only excluded from the Messianic kingdom? Does Paul recognise a general resurrection? If so, when does it take place? Is it accompanied by a judgment, or do only the elect rise again? When does the judgment take place at which the elect judge the angels?

Not until Pauline eschatology gives an answer to all the “idle” questions of this kind which can be asked will it be really understood and explained. And it must be somehow possible, by the discovery of its inner logic, to reconstruct it from the scattered statements in the documents. [pg 241] We have no right to assume that for Paul there existed in his expectation manifest obscurities, much less that he had overlooked contradictions in it.

Is there, then, any possibility of explaining the mystical doctrine of redemption and the sacramental teaching on the basis of the Jewish eschatological element?

The attempt is by no means so hopeless as it might seem in view of the general consideration that Judaism knew neither mysticism nor sacraments. It is not really a question of Judaism as such, but of apocalyptic thought, which is a separate and independent phenomenon arising within Judaism, and has special presuppositions which are entirely peculiar to it.

We saw in analysing the “physical” element in the doctrine of redemption and the sacraments that the conceptions connected therewith are conditioned by the underlying eschatology which everywhere shows through._(_193_)_ It needs no special learning to make this discovery. Any one who ventures to read the documents with an open mind and pays attention to the primary links of connexion will soon arrive at this conclusion. That Paul’s mystical doctrine of redemption and his doctrine of the sacraments belong to eschatology is plain to be seen. The only question is in what way, exactly, they have arisen out of it. The future-hope, raised to the highest degree of intensity, must somehow or other have possessed the power of producing them. If the impulse, the pressing need to which they were the response, is once recognised, then Paulinism is understood, since in its essence it can be nothing else than an eschatological mysticism, expressing itself by the aid of the Greek religious terminology.

Theoretically, too, it is possible to form an approximate idea how the intensified expectation of the future might take a mystical form. In apocalyptic thought sensuous and super-sensuous converge, in such a manner that the former is thought of as passing away into the latter. Thus [pg 242] there is present in it the most general presupposition of all mysticism, since it is the object of the latter to abolish the earthly in the super-earthly. The peculiarity of the mysticism which arises out of Apocalyptic is that it does not bring the two worlds into contact in the mind of the individual man, as Greek and medieval mysticism did, but dovetails one into the other, and thus creates for the moment at which the one passes over into the other an objective, temporally conditioned mysticism. This, however, is only available for those who by their destiny belong to both worlds. Eschatological mysticism is predestinarian.

That a mysticism of this kind existed before Paul is not known. It may be conjectured that the conditions under which it could develop were not present until after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

But sacramental tendencies already make their appearance in the future-hope which was to lead up to Christianity. The usual view is to the effect that Paul was the first to introduce the mystical element into baptism and the Lord’s Supper. There is nothing to prove that. How can we possibly tell that these ceremonies were previously purely symbolic acts? Any one who reads with an open mind the Synoptic accounts of John’s baptism must recognise that it was not only a symbol of purification on repentance, but is thought of as in some way or other guaranteeing salvation._(_194_)_ A transaction, however, which itself gives and effects such a result is to be regarded as a sacrament.

The manner in which Paul speaks of early Christian baptism and of the Lord’s Supper does not make the impression that he is asserting for the first time the effectual working of the ceremony; it is rather as if he took it for granted as something given and self-evident. This would agree with the observation noted above that the baptism of John, from which primitive Christian [pg 243] baptism was derived, was already thought of as a sacrament.

Whether the Lord’s Supper in the intention of Jesus Himself directly conveyed something to the partakers, or whether it only became a sacrament in primitive Christian times, must be left undecided.

That the intensified eschatological expectation should go so far as to produce sacramental conceptions is in itself intelligible. Those who stood on the threshold of the coming glory must have been eagerly anxious to gain an assurance that they themselves would be partakers therein and to obtain tangible guarantees of “deliverance” from the coming judgment. The conception of “marking out” and “sealing” plays in apocalyptic thought a very important part. Similar provisions are a characteristic product of any intense expectation of the future.

It is, therefore, highly probable that the Baptist, and primitive Christianity, created eschatological sacraments which, as already established and accredited, Paul had only to take over.

The bearing of these statements and considerations must be shown from the Epistles. How far it is possible to trace the genesis of the mysticism and the sacramental doctrine from the eschatological beliefs of the Apostle cannot be determined _a priori_. The one thing certain is that no other way of explanation is possible than that which leads from the circumference of his future-hope to the central idea of his “theology.” All other interpretations hang in the air.

Theology has heretofore found itself rather helpless in presence of the votaries of Comparative Religion. It could not accept their results as correct, but on the other hand it was not in a position to explain Paul’s sacramental views, because it had never taken into consideration the possibility that they might have arisen out of the Jewish and primitive Christian future-hope. There was thus no course open to it but to engage in an inglorious guerilla warfare with the new science and skirmish with [pg 244] it over particular passages and statements. It is only the acceptance of the fact that the Apostle’s doctrine is integrally, simply and exclusively eschatological, which puts it in a position to assume the offensive in a systematic way and with good prospect of success.

The Apostle’s most general views must be taken as the starting point from which to explain how he arrives at the paradox that the believer is united with Christ, experiences along with Him death and resurrection, and becomes a new creature, emancipated from fleshly corporeity. The assertion that these statements are meant in a “physical” sense does not carry us very far. The reason which explains their “reality” must be shown. Simply in and by themselves they are not explicable. What has been advanced regarding the solidarity of Jesus with the human race is far from sufficing to make it in any degree intelligible, especially as Paul has not in view Christ and humanity, but Christ and the elect.

The mistake in the attempts at explanation hitherto made consists in the fact that they seek to argue from the facts of the death and resurrection of Jesus, simply as such, directly to that which takes place in the believer. In reality, it can only be a question of a general event, which in the time immediately preceding the End brings about this dying and rising again in Jesus and believers as together forming a single category of mankind, and thus antedates the future into the present. For that which happens both to the Lord and to the elect it must be possible to find some kind of common-denominator which exactly contains the factors, the forces which are at work in the two cases. Since those which produce their effect in Christ are the first to become manifest, Paul can cast his theory into the form that the believers have died and risen again with Him.

The general fact which comes into question must result from the condition of the world between the death of Jesus and His parousia. The Apostle asserts an overlapping of the still natural, and the already supernatural, [pg 245] condition of the world, which becomes real in the case of Christ and believers in the form of an open or hidden working of the forces of death and resurrection—and becomes real in them only. The doctrine of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the mystical doctrine of redemption are alike cosmically conditioned.

It is not sufficient, however, to explain the mystical doctrine and the sacramental doctrine which is bound up with it. To the problem of Paulinism belong other distinct questions which have not yet found a solution. The primary questions are the relation of the Apostle to the historical Jesus, his attitude towards universalism_(_195_)_ and towards the law, and the nature of his compromise between predestinarian and sacramental doctrine.

Will his views on these points, which it has hitherto been impossible to grasp clearly, similarly admit of explanation on the basis of the unique cosmic conditions obtaining between the death of Christ and the parousia? It is to be noticed that the Apostle does not advance his assertions with reference either to earlier or to subsequent times, but simply and solely for this short intervening period. Their explanation is therefore doubtless to be looked for here.

Paul must have had more knowledge about Jesus than he uses in his teachings and polemics. His procedure is deliberate. He does not appeal to the Master even where it might seem inevitable to do so, as in regard to the ethics and the doctrine of the significance of His death and resurrection; and in fact declares that as a matter of principle he desires no longer to “know Christ after the flesh.” Psychological considerations are quite inadequate to explain these facts. It is as though he held that between the present world-period and that in which Jesus lived and taught there exists no link of connexion, and was convinced that since the death and resurrection of the Lord conditions were present which [pg 246] were so wholly new that they made His teaching inapplicable, and rendered necessary a new basis for ethics and a deeper knowledge respecting His death and resurrection.

The case lies similarly in regard to the Apostle’s views about universalism and the law.

It was not by his experiences among the Gentiles that he was led to universalism. And the thought is not simply that mission work among the heathen ought to be _permitted._ He maintains the view that there is a pressing necessity to carry the Gospel abroad. It is under the impulsion of this thought that he becomes the Apostle of the Greeks.

The sole and sufficient reason for this view he finds in the peculiar condition of the world between the death and the parousia of Christ. To it are due the conditions in consequence of which a share in the privileges of Israel is open to the Gentiles without their being obliged, by taking upon them the law and its sign, to enter into union with Israel. In saying this it is not the Apostle’s meaning that they merely do not _need_ to do so; they _must not_ do so, on pain of losing their salvation.

Since Ritschl, the representatives of the history of dogma have been concerned to obscure the problem of the law in Paul and to turn theology into paths of easiness. They assert that it was a purely practical question, which did not touch doctrine in the strict sense. This was the expedient by which they escaped from the difficulty when it was raised by Baur. It is time that it should be given up.

When Paul proclaims that the Greeks do not need to submit to the law, he is not led to do so by the experience that this was reasonable and practical. He declares them free because the logical implications of his doctrine compel him to do so. What Jesus thought about the matter is just as indifferent to him as His opinion regarding the legitimacy of preaching to the Gentiles. The peculiar conditions of the time between His death and [pg 247] His parousia forbid any extension of the law to believers outside of Israel. On the other hand, these conditions require that believers belonging to the Chosen People must continue to practise it as before. The assertion of the non-validity of the law is never intended by Paul in a sense which would justify the inference of its total abolition for all believers. It has received its death-blow, but retains its position outwardly up to the time of the parousia. For this limited period the watchword is: he who is under the law shall continue to observe it; he who is free from it shall on no account place himself under it. From one and the same fact two diametrically opposite conclusions are drawn; for so the unique character of the time demands.

What is the relation between predestination and the sacraments? Why do the elect of the final generation need a provision which was not made for those of earlier generations? This too must result from the unique character of the time. The only logical assumption is that to this special provision corresponds a special blessedness, going beyond the ordinary blessedness involved in election as such, which is reserved for the final generation and cannot be obtained otherwise than through baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But wherein does it consist?

All these questions are, like the mystical doctrine, to be answered by reference to the special conditions of the period between the death of Jesus and the parousia. It must be possible to refer back the whole of the teachings to one and the same fundamental fact. It follows that there must be no more talking about the “uniqueness of the event at Damascus” and psychologising about Paul’s “religious experience,” no more spiritualising and modernising, no making play with the distinction between religion and theology, or with the discovery or concealment of contradictions and antinomies, or other similar exercises of ingenuity.

All explanations which represent the system of doctrine [pg 248] as something arising subjectively in the Apostle’s mind may be assumed _a priori_ to be false. Only those which seek to derive it objectively from the fundamental facts of the primitive eschatological belief are to be taken into consideration. The only kind of interpretation which can be considered historical is one which makes it clear how a man who believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus and His imminent parousia was, in virtue of that belief, in a position to understand the thoughts of the Apostle of the Gentiles and to follow his arguments, and was logically obliged to accept them.

And, finally, the solution must explain the enigmatic attitude which subsequent generations take up in regard to the Apostle of the Gentiles. They know him, but they owe no allegiance to him. He created no school. The theology of an Ignatius or a Justin does not attach itself to him. There is something more in this than a simple oversight. If these theologians do not turn to him for aid, though he stands like a giant among them, that must be due to the fact that it is impossible to do so, and that in the course of the natural development of things they have been led to follow quite other paths.

For some reason or other, the conditions under which he created his system must be for them unimaginable. It is true they are still in the period between the death and the parousia of Jesus, but they can no longer interpret it in the same way as the Apostle did. Why are they no longer able to bring into play the forces which he assumes to be in operation when he refers everything to the dying and rising again of Christ and the believer? Which of his presuppositions is for them lacking? May it be that the intensity of the eschatological expectation has so declined that the mysticism associated therewith can no longer maintain its ground?

The Ultra-Tübingen critics demanded of theology proof that the canonical Paul and his Epistles belonged to early Christianity; and the demand was justified.

The question is not to be decided in the domain of [pg 249] literary history, since the only thing we have to deal with is the self-witness of the Epistles, which can neither be strengthened nor shaken by indications drawn from elsewhere.

Argument and counter-argument must be drawn from the contents. The theological scholarship which had to meet the attacks of Steck and van Manen had no solid arguments to oppose to them. Its Paulinism was so complicated, Hellenised and modernised, that it could at need find a place in theological text-books, but not in primitive Christianity. On the other hand, an explanation which shows that the Apostle’s system is based on the most primitive eschatological premises, and at the same time makes it intelligible why subsequent generations could not continue to follow the road on which he started, thereby demonstrates his primitive Christianity and, to this extent, also the genuineness of his chief Epistles. The possibility that they might be primitive-Christian, and yet not written by the historic Apostle of the Gentiles, hardly calls for serious consideration.

Any one who works out this solution is the true pupil of Baur, however widely he may diverge from him in his views and results. By unequivocally determining the date of the writings in question on internal grounds and excluding all other possibilities he is exercising “positive criticism” in the sense intended by the Tübingen master, and justifies him in the face of the adversaries against whom he can no longer defend himself.

It may no doubt prove to be the case that this “positive” criticism will appear distressingly negative to those who look for results which can be immediately coined into dogmatic and homiletic currency.

Their opinion, however, is of small importance.

It is the fate of the “Little-faiths” of truth that they, true followers of Peter, whether they be of the Roman or the Protestant observance, cry out and sink in the sea of ideas, where the followers of Paul, believing in the Spirit, walk secure and undismayed.

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INDEX

Ammon, C. F. von, 3 n. Anrich, Gustav, 179, 189, 231 Aratus, 94 Aubertin, Charles, 95 n. Augustine, 95 n. Aurelian, 181

Baljon, J. M. S., 117, 118, 125, 148 n. Bauer, Bruno, 24, 28, 117, 120 ff. Baumgarten, Michael, 96 n. Baumgarten, S. J., 1, 3 Baur, F. C., 12 ff., 20 f., 25, 33, 81, 118 f. Baur, F. F., 20 n. Beyschlag, Willibald, 22, 26, 41 Bousset, W., 48 n., 151, 152, 162 Brandt, W., 24, 60 n. Brückner, Martin, 152, 171, 179, 193 n. Brückner, Wilhelm, 118, 134 n. Bruston, E., 24, 74 n.

Caligula, 184 Calvin, 33 Claudius, 183 Clemen, Karl, 118, 179, 189 n. Clement of Rome, 119, 128, 135 Cumont, Franz, 179, 181, 183 n., 185 n., 192 Curtius, Ernst, 24, 87, 94 n.

Dähne, A. F., 2, 10 n. Deissmann, Adolf, 23, 60 n., 153, 172 n., 179, 189 n. De Jong, H. E., 181 Delitzsch, Franz, 23, 47 De Wette, W. M. L., 2, 10 n. Dibelius, Martin, 152, 162 n. Dick, Karl, 151, 155 n. Dieterich, Albrecht, 179, 186 ff., 190, 193 n., 194, 195, 228 n., 230 Dobschütz, Ernst von, 152, 169 Domitian, 128 Drescher, A., 151, 153, 159 n. Drews, Arthur, 179, 234 f.

Eichhorn, Albert, 179, 205 Eichhorn, J. G., 1, 8 f., 15 Epictetus, 95 Ernesti, Fr. Th. L., 23, 95 n. Ernesti, J. A., 1, 3 f. Evanson, E., 117, 121 n. Everling, Otto, 23, 55 f.

Feine, Paul, 151, 152, 156 ff., 165 Fleury, Amédée, 95 n. Friedländer, M., 117, 124 n. Friedrich (Maehliss), 117, 135 n.

Gass, J. C., 7 Gass, W., 24, 95 n. Geffken, J., 179, 189 n. Gennrich, P., 179, 191 n. Gloël, J., 23, 78 n. Godet, F., 22, 26 n. Goguel, M., 152, 159 f. Grafe, E., 23, 44, 90 f., 111 Gressmann, H., 152, 162 n. Grotius, Hugo, 1, 2 Gruppe, Otto, 179, 181 n., 193 n. Gunkel, H., 23, 78 f., 111, 179, 189 n., 232 f., 236

Hadrian, 122 Harnack, Adolf, vi, 25, 63, 69, 81 f., 83, 84, 90, 113, 114 f., 151, 152, 160, 173, 180, 189 n., 231 Hatch, Edwin, 25, 82 Hausrath, Adolf, 22 Haussleiter, J., 152, 172 Havet, E., 23, 54, 63 Hegel, 15, 16, 21 Heinrici, G. F., 24, 45, 63 n., 67, 80 n., 87, 93, 117, 151, 162 n. Heitmüller, W., 152, 165, 180, 204 ff., 208 n. Heliogabalus, 181 Hepding, H., 180, 182, 184 Hilgenfeld, A., 129 Hofmann, C. K. von, 22, 41 Hollmann, G., 151, 211 n.

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Holsten, K., 22, 23, 35, 38 f., 63, 66 ff., 105, 113, 114 f. Holtzmann, H. J., 22, 24, 25 f., 100, 116, 149 f., 153, 163 f., 221 n.

Ignatius, v, vi, vii, 80, 82, 119, 127, 135, 200, 248

Jacoby, Adolf, 180, 193 n. Jakoby, Hermann, 151, 160 f. Jerome, 95 n. Josephus, 51 Julian, 181 n. Jülicher, Adolf, 22, 152, 170 n. Juncker, Alfred, 152, 160 f. Justin Martyr, v, vi, vii, 80, 82, 119, 128, 132, 135, 136, 200, 217, 248

Kabisch, R., 23, 58 ff., 74, 76, 108, 111, 168, 174,222 Kalthoff, A., 117, 123 n. Kant, 112, 118 Karl, W., 81 n., 152 Kautzsch, E. F., 23, 88 Knopf, R., 152, 172 ff. Kölbing, P., 152, 170 ff. Kreyer, J., 95 n.

Lechler, G. V., 12, 18 Lightfoot, John, 48 n. Lipsius, R. A., 12, 19 f., 24, 64 n. Loman, A. D., 117, 124 f., 140, 153 Loofs, F., 63 n., 173 n. Lüdemann, H., 23, 28 ff., 34 f., 62 f., 66, 71, 86, 163 Luther, 33, 50

Manen, W. C. van, 117, 125, 129 ff., 140, 153 Marcion, 113, 128 f. Marcus Aurelius, 96 n., 98, 122 Mau, Georg, 180, 181 n. Maurenbrecher, Max, 180, 232 f. Mehlhorn, Karl, 38 n. Ménégoz, L. E., 23, 31, 35 Meuschen, J. G., 48 n. Meyer, Arnold, 152, 170 n. Meyer, G. W., 2, 9 n. Michaelis, J. D., 1, 5 n., 7 Müller, Iwan, 181 n. Müller, J., 153, 172 n. Munzinger, Karl, 152, 154 n.

Naber, S. A., 123 Neander, J. A. W., 2, 10 n. Nork, J., 48 n.

Olschewski, W., 152, 171 n.

Paulus, H. E. G., 2, 10 f. Pfleiderer, Otto, 22, 23, 31, 34, 35, 63, 66 ff., 76, 80, 90, 111, 114 f., 151, 154 Philo, 51, 91, 98, 110 Pierson, Allard, 117, 123 Plato, 211 Preuschen, E., 82 n. Ptolemy Soter, 184

Rambach, J. J., 1, 3 Reinach, S., 180, 181 n. Reitzenstein, R., 180, 188 n., 208 n., 212 n., 216 n., 218 ff., 225, 230 Renan, Ernest, 22, 35 Resch, A., 23, 42 n. Reuss, E., 22, 24, 31, 35 Ritschl, Albrecht, 12, 16 f., 23, 40 f., 43, 83, 84 Rohde, E., 180, 181, 185 n. Roscher, H. R., 180 Rothe, R., 56

Sabatier, A., 22, 32, 35 Schettler, A., 152, 172 n. Schläger, G., 117 Schlatter, A., 152 Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 1, 7 f. Schmidt, Ernst, 182 n. Schmiedel, P. W., 24, 63, 88, 103 Schnedermann, G., 45 n. Schniewind, J., 153, 172 n. Scholten, J. H., 117, 134 n. Schopenhauer, 118 Schöttgen, C., 48 n. Schrader, Karl, 2, 10 n. Schürer, Emil, 24, 45 Schwartz, E. E., 180, 219 Schwegler, A., 12, 16 Schweitzer, A., 170 Seeberg, R., 152, 173 Semler, J. S., 1, 4 f., 148 Seneca, 95 f., 122 Siegfried, K., 24, 91 n. Simon, Theodor, 24, 96 n. Smith, W. B., 180, 234 f. Sokolowski, E., 151, 160 n. Soltau, W., 180, 189 n. Spiegelberg, W., 212 n. Spitta, F., 52 n., 118, 149 Steck, Rudolf, 117, 125, 128 n., 129 ff., 140, 141, 153 Sulze, E., 118, 143 Surenhus (Surenhuys), W., 48 n.

Teichmann, Ernst, 24, 74 ff. Tertullian, v, 95, 128, 129, 200 Titius, Arthur, 151, 156 ff., 165

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Usener, H., 180, 181 Usteri, L., 2, 9 f.

Vischer, E., 152, 153, 172 n. Volck, W., 26 n., 41 n. Volkmar, G., 23 Vollmer, H., 24, 48 n., 88, 91 Völter, Daniel, 118, 143 ff. Volz, Paul, 152, 162 n.

Walther, W., 152, 170 n. Weber, F., 24, 45 Weinel, Heinrich, 151, 154 f., 165 n. Weiss, Bernhard, 22, 27 n., 35, 41, 54, 64, 66, 69 Weiss, Johannes, 152, 170 n. Weisse, C. H., 24, 28, 118, 141 f. Weizsäcker, Karl von, 23, 35, 64, 65 f., 69, 128 n. Wellhausen, J., 46 n., 152, 159 n. Wendland, P., 180, 189 n. Wendt, H. H., 23, 30 n. Wernle, P., 24, 60 n., 151, 154 f., 180, 210 f. Wieseler, K., 12, 15 Windisch, H., 152, 161 n. Wobbermin, G., 180 Wolf, J. C., 1, 3 Wrede, William, 100, 152, 166 ff., 177 Wünsch, R., 187 n.

Zahn, Theodor, 22, 25, 96 n. Zeller, E., 20 n. Ziegler, Theobald, 24, 95 n. Zwingli, 33

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_.

FOOTNOTES

NOTES FOR PREFACE

1 Sub-title: _“Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung.”_ English translation “The Quest of the Historical Jesus.” London, A. & C. Black, 1910, 2nd ed. 1911.

NOTES FOR