NOTES FOR CHAPTER V CRITICAL QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

87 Die Apostelgeschichte, 1850, 143 pp. Acts, it is argued, is a work of “free reflexion” in which various hands have had a part. Kritik der paulinischen Briefe, part i., The Origin of Galatians (1850, 74 pp.); part ii., The Origin of I Corinthians (1851, 76 pp.); part iii., 2 Corinthians, Romans, the Pastoral Epistles, Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians (1852, 129 pp.). The greater part of the epistles were not written until after Acts. Certainly Galatians is later. I Corinthians is earlier than Acts, and is doubtless drawn from common sources. The first to venture an attack on one of the main Epistles was Edward Evanson, The Dissonance of the four generally received Evangelists, and the evidence of their respective authenticity examined (translated into Dutch, 1796), who holds Romans, as well as Hebrews, Colossians, and Ephesians, to be spurious. Further information regarding this, as it seems, rather rare book would be desirable. Whether any great critical importance is to be attached to it remains questionable. [Evanson (1731-1805), a Cambridge graduate, vicar of Tewkesbury, adopted Unitarian views, and resigned his living in 1778. His grounds for rejecting Romans are, the difficulty about the existence of a church at Rome prior to Paul’s visit, the number of greetings in chapter xvi., and supposed references to the destruction of Jerusalem in xi. 12, 15, 21, 22. The treatment of the Epistles is much slighter than that of the Gospels, where he shows some insight into the difficulties of what is now known as the Synoptic problem. The Dissonance made some stir, and was answered by Joseph Priestley in Letters to a Young Man, 1792-93, and by T. Falconer, Bampton Lecture, 1810.—TRANSLATOR.]

88 See A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, pp. 137-159 (Eng. trans., The Quest of the Historical Jesus, pp. 137-160).

89 Christus und die Cäsaren, 1877, 387 pp. What the diffusely told story of the Roman court has to do with the origin of Christianity has certainly never been quite clear to any reader. In attempting to describe its contents one is never quite certain whether the author’s meaning has been rightly represented.

90 A spiritual descendant of Bauer’s who writes on popular lines is Albert Kalthoff (Die Entstehung des Christentums, 1904, 155 pp.). But neither as regards the problem nor its solution has he contributed anything to Pauline scholarship.

91 Allard Pierson, De Bergrede en andere synoptische Fragmenten, 1878, 260 pp.; on Paul, 98-112. With his doubt of the Epistles the author associates a doubt of the Gospels, and asks whether Christianity as they represent it can have been founded by a historical Jesus.

92 A. Pierson and S. A. Naber, Verisimilia. Laceram conditionem Novi Testamenti exemplis illustrarunt et ab origine repetierunt, 1886, 295 pp. The work gives a running analysis of the letters in the course of which very interesting questions are thrown out. Why is nothing said about the earthly life of Jesus? Why is no trace of the influence of this Paul’s thought to be found in history? Do the various characteristics and actions of his which are recorded show us a character which is at all intelligible? The authors assume that the Jewish movement which led up to “Christianity” at first had only to do with the Messianic belief in general. Only later, through the blending of Greek myths with Isaiah liii., did the belief arise that the expected Messiah had already come and had passed through death and resurrection. The analysis of the Pauline Epistles is followed by essays upon the Paul of Acts and some chapters on the Fourth Gospel. The close is formed by an essay on the gradual origin of the conception of Christ in the New Testament. The theory that Christianity developed out of an already existing Jewish movement is maintained also by M. Friedländer in his popular and unimportant work, Das Judentum in der vorchristlichen griechischen Welt, a contribution towards explaining the origin of Christianity (1897, 74 pp.). The opposition between a conservative and a freer tendency as regards the law, which appear in the primitive Church, are here held to have appeared previously in the Judaism from which Christianity originated.

93 A. D. Loman, “Quaestiones Paulinae,” Theol. Tijdschrift, 1882, pp. 141-185, 302-328, 452-487; 1883, pp. 14-51. 1886, 42-113 (Dutch). In the prologue he tells us about the first impression which Bauer’s criticism of the Pauline epistles made upon him: “With an Apage Satana! I took leave of this antipathetic critic, firmly resolved to take no further notice of him.” The order followed is to treat first the relation of Acts to Galatians, then to discuss the “necessary proofs” of the genuineness of this work, while the witnesses from the literature, and the history of the Canon, are examined later, in the second part, 1886.

94 Rudolf Steck, Der Galaterbrief nach seiner Echtheit untersucht nebst kritischen Bemerkungen zu den paulinischen Hauptbriefen (“The Epistle to the Galatians examined with Reference to its Genuineness, with critical Remarks on the main Pauline Epistles”), 1888, 386 pp. The examination of Galatians goes only as far as p. 151; the remaining chapters deal with the order of the main Epistles, the relation of Paul to the Gospels, the quotations from the Old Testament found in the Epistles, the affinities with Philo and Seneca, the marks of later authorship, the external evidences from the New Testament and from early Christian literature. In conclusion, a hypothesis of the origin and development of Paulinism is sketched. The author tells in the preface the story of his conversion to the Dutch heresy. At first he dissented from Loman, but in the course of repeatedly treating the Epistle to the Galatians in his lectures he found to his dismay that he was gradually arriving at the theory of its spuriousness. The views of Pierson, Loman, and Steck are critically examined by J. M. S. Baljon in his Exegetisch-kritische Verhandeling over den Brief van Paulus an de Galatiërs, 1899, 424 pp.

95 W. C. van Manen, Paulus, 3 vols. (see head of chapter for particulars). The author describes on pp. 9-11 how he came to reject the Pauline Epistles.

96 The first epistle of Clement mentions (xlvii. I) “the letter of the blessed Paul” to the Corinthians, has a direct borrowing from Romans (xxxv. 5 = the catalogue of vices in Rom. i. 29-32), and in other respects also frequently shows dependence on the main epistles. For the detailed attempt to place it at a later date see Steck, 294-310.

97 2 Peter iii. 15-17, “And count the long-suffering of the Lord as salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you, as in all his Epistles when he mentions these things, in which no doubt occur some things which are difficult to understand, which the unlearned and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (The German follows Weizsäcker’s rendering.)

98 As in the present context this phrase might possibly be misleading, it may be worth pointing out that it is simply an allusion to the famous “timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” Aen. ii. 49.—TRANSLATOR.

99 The puzzle in the case of Justin is that he uses Pauline phrases, and therefore seems to know the Epistles, but never mentions their author. According to Steck the explanation of this silence lies in the fact that the Epistles are, for the author of the Apology and the Dialogue, mere literary works and not as yet Church books. The Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas show no certain evidence of acquaintance with the Pauline Epistles.

100 Tertullian adversus Marcionem, bk. v., goes through the Epistles of Paul as used by Marcion in those “Antitheses” which are now lost to us.

101 Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1887, pp. 382-533. “Marcions Brief van Paulus aan de Galatiërs.” The text thus arrived at is given on pp. 528-533. Van Manen is also inclined to hold that early Church witnesses may be found for a shorter recension of Romans. See Die Unechtheit des Römerbriefs, 94-100. A reconstruction of the Marcionite text of Galatians had already been undertaken by Adolf Hilgenfeld, Der Galaterbrief, 1852, 239 pp., pp. 218-234. He holds that it was not the original but a mutilated form.

102 Even the letter consisting of chapters i.-viii. is not, according to van Manen, all of a piece, as is evident, he thinks, from the complicated opening salutation, the vacillating use of “Jesus Christ” and “Christ Jesus,” and other peculiarities of detail. One or more treatises—on justification by faith, on the equal importance of the Gospel for Jews and Gentiles, on the significance of the law, on the sense in which believers are entitled to call Abraham their father even if they are not by birth of his posterity—may have formed the basis of the longer writing. Its close was probably formed by Rom. xv. 14-33. Later on, the essays which we have in chapters ix.-xi., xii.-xiv. and xv.-xvi. were worked in. The Epistle is supposed to have undergone several successive redactions.

103 Steck in the introduction to his work gives references to the articles which had appeared up to 1888. The chronicles of the following years appear in van Manen. At the head of the counter-movement among critics in Holland stood J. H. Scholten. His work, Historisch-critische Bijdragen naar Aanleiding van de nieuweste Hypothese aangaande Jesus en den Paulus der vier Hoofdbrieven (“Contributions to Historical Criticism with Reference to the latest Hypotheses regarding Jesus and the Paul of the four main Epistles”), 1882, 118 pp., is directed against Loman’s arguments. From the German literature we may cite G. Heinrici, Die Forschungen über die paulinischen Briefe: ihr gegenwärtiger Stand und ihre Aufgaben (“The Study of the Pauline Letters; its present Position, and Task”). Lectures given before the theological conference at Giessen, 1886, pp. 69-120. Wilhelm Brückner, Die chronologische Reihenfolge, in welcher die Briefe des Neuen Testaments verfasst sind (“The Chronological Order in which the Epistles of the New Testament were written”), 1890, 306 pp. (An essay which received the prize offered for the treatment of this question by the Teylerian Society of Haarlem.) “On the Chronological Order of the Four main Epistles, pp. 174-203. Carl Clemen, Die Chronologie der paulinischen Briefe, 1893, 292 pp. By the same writer, Die Einheitlichkeit der paulinischen Briefe (“The Integrity of the Pauline Epistles”), 1894, 183 pp. In these writings Clemen makes some concessions to the Ultra-Tübingen critics. Thus, for example, he is prepared to put Galatians after Romans and Corinthians. The mediating views here offered, though sometimes interesting, need nevertheless no longer occupy us, as Clemen has in the meantime completely recovered his confidence and has contradicted himself. In the first volume of his Paulus (1904, 416 pp., examination of the sources) he pronounces that the four main epistles are to be regarded as entirely genuine, if only we may divide the second Epistle to the Corinthians into four. In addition to I Thessalonians and Philippians, even Colossians and 2 Thessalonians are to be regarded as from the Apostle’s pen. In the preface the author begs that he may not be held accountable for his views prior to his Damascus. The second volume of the work, Paulus. Sein Leben und Werken, 1904, 339 pp., is in biographical form, and does not enter further into the problems of the doctrine. A writer who takes the “Ultra-Tübingen” side is J. Friedrich (Maehliss). In his work entitled Die Unechtheit des Galaterbriefs (“The Spuriousness of Galatians”), 1891, 67 pp., he defends both the rights of radical criticism and of a “simplified orthography.”

104 See p. 128, sup.

105 See p. 128, sup.

106 See p. 129, sup.

107 See pp. 114 and 115 of the work cited above, p. 134.

108 Christian Hermann Weisse, Philosophische Dogmatik oder Philosophie des Christentums, 3 vols., 1855, 60, 62; vol. i., 712 pp. On the Pauline Epistles, pp. 144-147.

109 On Romans see also vol. iii. of the Philosophische Dogmatik (1862, 736 pp.), pp. 263, 264. The Epistle to the Ephesians, the Second to the Corinthians, and the First to Timothy, Weisse holds to be “entirely unapostolic”; in the Epistle to Titus and the Second to Timothy he is prepared to recognise as a possibility the genuineness of the personal notices.

110 In 2 Corinthians, which shows no evidence of interpolation, three different letters to this church are worked up together.

111 Christian Hermann Weisse, Beiträge zur Kritik der paulinischen Briefe an die Galater, Römer, Philipper und Kolosser (“Contributions to the Criticism of the Pauline Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, Philippians, and Colossians”). Edited by E. Sulze, 1867, 65 pp. By way of introduction the pupil prefixes an essay on the principles of his master’s “stylistic criticism.” In the reconstructed texts it is apparent that the author had spent on them, as he says in his Dogmatic, the “diligent work of many years.” It is a piece of really skilled workmanship.

112 Daniel Völter, Die Entstehung der Apokalypse, 1882, 72 pp. Die Komposition der paulinischen Hauptbriefe, 1890, 174 pp. The Epistles examined are those to the Romans and Galatians. Paulus und seine Briefe. Kritische Untersuchungen zu einer neuen Grundlegung der paulinischen Briefliteratur und ihrer Theologie, 1905, 331 pp. Here he deals with Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, and Philippians. The results arrived at in the previous book are, as a rule, taken over. Völter rejects the genuineness of 1 Thessalonians, and sees in the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians, and in the Pastorals, new “phases in the development” of Paulinism.

113 In its original form it consisted, Völter thinks, of the following sections: i. I, 5b-7, 8-17; v. I-12, 15-19, 21; vi. I-13, 6:16-23; chapters xii. and xiii.; xiv. I-xv. 6; xv. 14-16, 23b-33, xvi 21-24.

114 Völter is also able to indicate additions which have taken place subsequently to this redaction. The interpolations in Philippians relate, according to him, chiefly to Christology and eschatology. The author of these additions had before him Romans and Corinthians in their interpolated form, and was also doubtless acquainted with Galatians.

115 The well-known German religious journal.

116 The labour of making an inventory of what has been done in this kind of criticism up to the year 1894 was undertaken by C. Clemen in his work, Die Einheitlichkeit der paulinischen Briefe an der Hand der bisher mit Bezug auf sie aufgestellten Interpolations- und Kompilationshypothesen (“The Integrity of the Pauline Epistles, with Reference to the Hypotheses of Interpolation or Compilation which have been applied to them”), 1894, 183 pp. He takes account also of all contributions to the journals. This gives a special value to this laborious and unselfish work. A survey of previous work in conjectural criticism is given by J. M. S. Baljon in De Tekst der Brieven van Paulus aan de Romeinen, de Corinthiërs en de Galatiërs, 1884, 189 pp.

117 Friedrich Spitta, Untersuchungen über den Brief des Paulus an die Römer (“A Study of the Epistle to the Romans”), 1901, 193 pp. In the work Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Urchristentums, vol. iii. part i.