The genuineness of the principal Pauline epistles is among the most generally accepted conclusions of what may be called modern critical opinion.[1] The evidence for this acceptance is usually regarded as exceptionally good. For instance, Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians in the last decade of the first century A.D., not only calls Paul a "notable pattern of patient endurance" but exhorts his readers to peruse again "the epistle of the
[1] The status of present opinion is too well known to need detailed statement here. The extreme views of B. Bauer and of the Dutch school are quite generally discarded. Steck (Der Galaterbrief, Berlin, 1888), though he admits the possibility of a few Pauline fragments in Romans, has not won adherents for his skeptical opinions. The partition hypotheses of, e.g., Volter (Die Komposition der paulinischen Briefe, Tübingen, 1890) and R. Scott (The Pauline Epistles, New York, 1909), are not looked upon with even partial favor among specialists in this field. The results of the Tübingen criticism, reworked to meet the requirements of later investigation, leave not only Galatians, I and II Corinthians, and Romans as unquestionably Pauline, but also Philippians and I Thessalonians. Colossians, Ephesians, and II Thessalonians are nowadays less widely rejected than formerly, and even the Pastorals are thought to contain some Pauline elements.
179
blessed Paul" which he wrote them in "the beginning of the gospel," and in which he charged them to avoid all party spirit.[1] Here is clearly a reference to our canonical First Corinthians. Furthermore, Clement's letter often shows in thought and language very strong resemblances to Paul's writings.[2] The evidence of Ignatius, from the first quarter of the second century, is less specific; but Marcion, a few years later, is a most significant witness. He attached so much value to the principal Pauline letters that he would make them his main scriptural authority; and the rest of the church, while it regarded Marcion as a heretic, did not dispute his high estimate of these writings, although it did not hold to them quite so exclusively as Marcion did. By the end of the century several available sources of information
[1] Clem. 5:5 ff.; 47:1 ff.
[2] As an example compare Paul's thought and phraseology in I Cor., chap. 13, with Clem. 49:1-5: O ecwn agaphn en Cristw poihsatw ta tou Cristou paraggelmata. ton desmon ths agaphV tou qeou tis dunatai exhghsasqai; to megaleion ths kallonhV autou tiV arketoV exeipein; to uyoV eiV o anagei h agaph anekdihghton estin. agaph kolla hmaV tw qew: agaph kaluptei klhqoV amartiwn: agaph panta anecetai, panta makroqumei: ouden banauson en agaph, ouden uperhfanon: agaph scisma ouk ecei, agaph ou stasiazei, agaph panta poiei en omonoia: en th agaph eteleiwqhsan pantes oi eklektoi tou qeou: dica agaphs ouden euareston estin tw qew.
180
bear similar testimony to the Pauline authorship of this part of the New Testament.
Yet this external evidence which appeals so strongly to many investigators is easily set aside as itself spurious by those who deny the genuineness of the literature traditionally connected with Paul's name. Doubtless this procedure seems arbitrary and subjective to one who is accustomed to weigh all the historical evidence with care, nevertheless the type of argument which is usually directed against the historicity of Jesus and of Paul does not seem sensitive to statistics of this sort. Consequently any attempt to meet this skeptical argument on its own ground must proceed mainly from considerations, perhaps more or less general and a priori, based upon the content of the literature in question. Here lie before us certain documents which purport to belong to a definite historical setting. On the strength of the internal evidence do the probabilities seem to favor the genuineness of this representation, or does close examination show that the picture is a later fabrication depicting an idealized period in the past? We may present a few considerations which seem to us to turn the scales decisively in favor of genuineness.
181
One of the first canons of a pseudonymous writer is that the individual impersonated shall take the point of view and think the thoughts of the actual writer, and of the age to which he belongs. His primary motive is to claim the support of a great name for his own opinions. Now the Pauline literature contains elements which do not answer to this situation. In the first place, the realistic eschatology credited to Paul, whose active career is pictured as belonging near the middle of the first century A.D., will hardly have been invented at a later date when subsequent history had proved the falsity of such expectations. Yet this idea is pervasive in the writings which are assumed to be put forward here in Paul's name. The Romans are told that the night is far spent and the day is at hand when all shall stand before the judgment seat.[1] Marriage is discouraged among the Corinthians because of the shortness of the time;[2] they are commended for their attitude in "waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ," and are exhorted to refrain from judging one another in view of the near approach of the final judgment"judge nothing
[1] Rom. 13:12; 14:10; cf. II Cor. 5:10.
[2] I Cor. 7:29ff.
182
before the time, until the Lord come."[1] In the closing words of the first letter they are reminded of the immediateness which characterized the primitive hope as expressed in the phrase marana tha. Speaking of the Philippians, Paul is confident that God who has begun a good work in them "will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ," further Paul expects them to remain "void of offence unto the day of Christ" and encourages them to stand fast confident that "the Lord is at hand."[2] The Thessalonians are called to serve the true God and to "wait for his son from heaven which delivereth us from the wrath to come," and they are advised to live a holy life that they may stand blameless before God "at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints," for his coming will be sudden like that of a thief in the night. The hope is for those that are now alive who are to be caught up in the air to meet the Lord, and Paul closes his letter with the pious wish that their "spirit and soul and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."[3] History
[1] I Cor. 1:7 ff.; 4:5.
[2] Phil, 1:6, 10; 4:5.
[3] I Thess. 1:10; 3:13; 4:15-18; 5:2, 23.
183
proved that these vivid expectations of the end of the world were not to be realized, and an impersonator will hardly have created for his hero ideas that would discredit him in the eyes of a later generation.[1]
Against the hypothesis of pseudonymity we may set also the minute biographical details of the epistles. Sometimes data are given purposely to tell the story of Paul's life, as when the
[1] Belief in the immediateness of Jesus' return gradually became less vivid as time wore on. Even within the New Testament period this change is marked. Paul looks for the coming soon, expecting, until toward the close of his life, at least, to see it in his own day. Mark thinks "some" of Jesus' personal followers will live to see the day (9:1; 13:30), but before it comes the gospel must be preached to all the nations (13:10). Though no one may know the exact time, the tribulation attending the siege and fall of Jerusalem is a premonition of the end which is to come suddenly (13:24-37). The writers of Matthew and Luke have a similar idea, though a little farther postponed. The former changes Mark's "in those days after that tribulation" to "immediately after the tribulation of those days" (Matt. 24:29), while in Luke a period of some length subsequent to the fall of Jerusalem must be awaited "until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). The writer of II Peter 3:8-10 apologized for the delay by asserting that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." In the Fourth Gospel the idea of a literal return has disappeared and the coming of Jesus in spiritual form as the Paraclete has taken its placean idea which later interpreters have often tried to read back into the Synoptic Gospels and the Pauline letters. This whole progression of thought throws an interesting light on the primitive character and the genuineness of the notions credited to Paul.
184
Galatians are informed of his career from the time of his conversion until the meeting at Jerusalem;[1] but more commonly the mention of his doings is entirely subordinate to the main line of thought. For example, he briefly notes in closing his letter to the Romans that he is on the point of going up to Jerusalem with a gift for the saints, and after fulfilling this mission he hopes to proceed to Rome.[2] He also tells the Corinthians in a few closing words that he hopes to come to them by way of Macedonia, though at present he is in Ephesus where he will remain until Pentecost.[3] The list of these details could be enlarged, if necessary, and they are all the more significant because they usually come in quite incidentally and show no disposition on the part of the author to give a full account of the apostle's career. Had an impersonator wished to make Paul tell his own life-story we can easily imagine that he may have been sufficiently skilful to invent details, but under those circumstances the information would surely have been more uniformly distributed and its lifelike quality less pronounced. The very incompleteness of
[1] Gal. 1:152:1.
[2] Rom. 15:25.
[3] 1 Cor. 16:5-9.
185
the material as a whole, together with the exactness of detail at certain points, even where the information conveyed is relatively unimportant, seems a strong credential for the genuineness of these letters.
A similar inference may be drawn from the realistic elements in the general historical situation. How strongly one feels the heartthrob of reality in Paul's passionate appeal to the Galatians not to apostatize from the true faith; or in the more extensive Corinthian correspondence regarding living problems in the primitive church! The personal element is particularly pronounced. One has only to place the Pauline epistles beside Acts, to feel the difference in spirit between Paul's own representation of the events and the description of his activity by a subsequent narrator. Having once met Paul in his capacity as a Christian missionary in Acts one knows what to expect of him on all future occasions; he moves on with stately tread, always presenting to view the same somewhat stereotyped features. There is variety, to be sure, but it is the type of variety one finds in the colors of a portrait rather than in the changing aspects of real life. In Paul's letters, on the other hand, there is
186
no conventionalized portrait of his personality. He appears there as one who is vitally influenced by actual experience, making a normal response through the free play of changing moods.
To illustrate this point, according to Acts he goes up to Jerusalem at the instigation of the church in Antioch to discuss the problem of the gentile Christians' obligations to the law; the facts of the gentile mission are calmly rehearsed, the decision is made in favor of Paul's position, he retires to Antioch, and then moves on quietly to further evangelization. We are given no hint of the anxiety he felt on this occasion, nor do we appreciate the personal energy he expended on the problem. But turn to Galatians and how different is the situation! Anxiety for the future welfare of his brethren in the gentile churches prompts him to push the question to a decision in Jerusalem; in order to make the problem pointed, and thus to avoid future misunderstandings, he puts Titus forward as a test case; with nervous energy he presses the issue almost to the point of belligerence; he wins the decision, but his joy is short-lived, for, on returning to Antioch, new conditions develop which result not only
187
in a break with Peter but in the severance of relations with his friend and former traveling companion, Barnabas. We are left at last with no picture of an ideal victory for Paul but with a very realistic situation: his efforts had at first seemed successful, in the flush of victory new troubles broke out, the result was not only the antagonism of the Jerusalem church but separation from Peter and Barnabas, and to what extent Paul was able still to hold the sympathies of the Antiochian church may be questioned. Here is no idealization in favor of either party, but a break which shows its raw edges just as we are wont to find them in real life. So it is throughout Paul's entire career as portrayed in his letters.
To a remarkable degree his personality, as revealed in these writings, rings true to reality. He represents himself as possessing a strongly emotional temperament; he is exceptionally efficient in speaking with tongues, he is on occasion caught up into the seventh heaven, visions and revelations of the Lord are often his privilege. And this is the type of person he proves to be in the ordinary relations of daily life. On hearing of the trouble in Galatia his emotions are deeply stirred, he calls down
188
anathemas upon the disturbers and upbraids the Christians for their fickleness, then he pleads in gentle tones with his "little children" for whom he is again in travail. The same interplay of feelings is even more strongly marked in the story of his relations with the Corinthians. Now he threatens the rod, but in the next breath he expresses the hope that they will permit him to come to them "in love and a spirit of gentleness"; and when the crisis becomes exceptionally critical instead of visiting them in severity he writes a letter "out of much affliction" and "with many tears." At one time he commends himself in extravagant language, and then his sensitive nature seems to recoil and he pleads with his readers to bear with him "in a little foolishness," since circumstances compel him to defend his rights as an apostle. Later in his career, when his own fate seems to be hanging in the balances, he alternates between despair and hope in truly normal fashion and, as he reflects upon the possibilities for the future, two conflicting desires rise within him: to depart and be with Christ is better for him, yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for the churches. In all this one sees not a made-up character of the stage but an
189
actual person who traversed wide ranges of human experience.
Finally, the realistic character of Paul's work, the vigor of his thought, and the uniqueness of his letters show him to have been a genuinely vital factor in the propagation of the new religion. If the Pauline letters are spurious, we must assume a character of the past known to the real author and to his constituency as worthy of the role here assigned Paul; or we must suppose the real author possessed a creative genius which would surely leave its mark on the life, as well as on the literature, of the time. But where do we find all this more fittingly than in a genuine Paul himself? The task of fabricating the material which lies before us in chapter after chapter of these letters, where the definiteness and vividness of an actual situation show behind every sentence, is quite inconceivable.[1] The force
[1] Speaking of the failure of the extreme negative criticism to supply an adequate historical setting for the phenomena, J. Weiss says: "Woher diese Stoffe und Gedanken, wer hat denn die Person des Paulus und seine Briefe ersonnen, wer war dieser Genius? Eine plotzliche anonyme Produktivitat erhebt sich, ein Konfluxus von Geist und Begeisterung wachst aus dem Boden, man weiss nicht, woher er kommt. Und das alles muss in wenigen Dezennien fertig geworden sein, denn es ist dann da und lasst sich nicht mehr ableugnen." Further: "Man sollte einmal diesen Radikalen die Aufgabe stellen, ein oder zwei Kapitel, etwa 2. Kor. 4 oder 10, aus der Seele eines Falschers heraus Wort fiir Wort zu erklarendann wiirden sie schon merken, wie unmoglich das ist, wie ganzlich unschablouenhaft und ungekiin-stelt, wie springend und augenblicksmassig hier alles ist."Jesus von Nazareth, pp. 94 and 100.
190
of one strong and distinctive personality predominates throughout the main part of the Pauline literature, whether this individual is viewed from the standpoint of his activity, or in his capacity of thinker and writer. That an impersonator should create a character so unique, and yet so verisimilar in all the relations of life, that minute yet sometimes insignificant details about him should be told without any attempt to depict his career in full, that he should be assigned some phases of thought which history in the next generation was compelled to set aside, is scarcely within the range of possibility. The historicity of Paul and the genuineness of the principal Pauline letters are supported by the data of both external and internal testimony; and if, say, only the letter to the Galatians, or one of the Corinthian epistles, is genuine, the existence of a historical Jesus would seem to be amply attested. But it may be urged that Paul had no personal
191
knowledge of the earthly Jesus, and that his contact with the early Jerusalem community of Christians was so slight that he would not really know whether their preaching about Jesus concerned a historical person or an anthropomorphized god. In fact it is asserted that Paul himself is the real founder of Christianity, which, on this view, is essentially a speculative system paying little attention to the earthly Jesus. This opinion, as illustrated in Wrede's Paulus,[1] is triumphantly reiterated by those who wish to depreciate the significance of Paul as a witness to Jesus' existence.
Certainly Paul claimed to be preaching a gospel which looked to no human source for its authentication, but which had been received by him directly from the heavenly Christ. Yet this bold claim to independence was made at a time when the apostle was under fire from his opponents who were ready on the slightest pretext to interpret his contact with earlier Christians as evidence of inferiority. Here clearly it is doctrine and practice as taught by Paul, and not the amount or reliability of his information about an earthly Jesus, that are the subject of discussion, and there is nothing
[1] Tübingen, 1904; English tr., Paul, (Boston, 1908).
192
in Paul's assertion of independence to exclude the possibility of his having derived a large stock of information about Jesus from the first disciples. His debt to them may have been much greater than he himself realized, since whatever he received had been thoroughly assimilated by means of his own vigorous spirituality. For the first seventeen (or fourteen) years of his career as a Christian he seems to have lived in harmonious relations with the earlier Christians, and he certainly was well enough aware of their way of thinking, and of the value attached by Christendom to their teaching, to realize the desirability of coming to an understanding with them on missionary problems.
Yet it is said, If he had information about Jesus why did he not use it? How do we know that he did not? The occasions which called forth his letters were not such as to demand detailed exposition of the life of Jesus. Wrede takes Paul's failure to appeal, in his controversy with opponents, to Jesus' free attitude toward legalism, as evidence that Paul knew nothing of Jesus' antilegalism. This inference is hardly justified. Jesus' criticism of rabbinism was not aimed primarily at the abolition
193
of traditional ordinances, and in fact the real precedent of Jesus on the question in debate in Paul's day was against Paul, who knew and made it an item in his interpretation that Jesus had been subject to the requirements of the law. Paul may indeed have felt that he was following a line of conduct which harmonized with the true spirit of Jesus' ethical criticism of current legalism; but on the practical issue, as it came up on the missionary field, Paul was breaking new ground. Unquestionably his type of dogma in general, and the needs his epistles were written to serve, did not call for emphasis upon the life-history of the earthly Jesus, but to interpret this silence as meaning utter ignorance is not justified. A similar argument would make the author of Acts ignorant of Jesus' earthly career, but we happen to know that this same writer composed the Gospel of Luke.
And is Paul so completely silent? Drews thinks so, and goes to the extreme of saying that a reader who had not prejudged the question would not be likely to suppose that the apostle ever thought of an earthly Jesus. A few passages from the more important Pauline writings may show the impropriety of this
194
statement. Sometimes "the Lord" is referred to in a way that suggests knowledge of events and teachings in the lifetime of Jesus.[1] Furthermore Paul speaks of Jesus as "born of the seed of David, according to the flesh."[2] In contrast with Adam, whose disobedience brought condemnation upon his descendants, Jesus is the "man" through whom God's grace abounds toward believers.[3] He was crucified, and this fact became for Paul the cornerstone of interpretation.[4] Specific events in connection with his deaththe last meal eaten with his disciples and his betrayalwere remembered.[5] Paul also knew of a company of followers whose sadness was turned into joy by an experience which they regarded as evidence of Jesus' resurrection;[6] and these events had taken place in recent times, Paul having personal acquaintance with relatives and friends of this Jesus.[7] The reality of an earthly Jesus, according to these sample passages, seems to be an indisputable presupposition of Paul's thinking, a reality both for him and for his contemporaries.
[1] 1 Cor. 7:10, 12, 25; 9:14; 11:23; 1 Thes. 4:15.
[2] Rom. 1:3.
[3] Rom. 5:12 ff.
[4] I Cor. 2:2.
[5] I Cor. 11:23 ff.
[6] I Cor. 15:5 ff.
[7] Cf. I Cor. 15:6; Gal., chap. 2.
195
Although he speculates boldly upon the question of Jesus' significance, emphasizing on the one side his pre-existence and on the other his heavenly exaltation, nevertheless Jesus' appearance upon earth in truly human form, the lowliness and naturalness of his life, and his submission to death on the cross are basal historic facts without which Paul's interpretation of Jesus would have been impossible.
But may not Paul have been misled by his predecessors in the new faith, and so have wrongly imagined that they spoke of an earthly Jesus? Notwithstanding alleged independence on Paul's part, his life touched that of the primitive community at too many points to allow us to suppose that he was not accurately acquainted with their belief on this point. The evidence of this contact is furnished by Paul's own letters, and this testimony is all the more significant because it comes for the most part from a time when his relation to the primitive church was being taken by his opponents as prima facie proof of his inferiority. As Paul tells us, before his conversion he had persecuted the Christians most bitterly, a fact which implies his familiarity with their life and
196
thought. It has sometimes been inferred that his claim to have "seen Jesus our Lord"[1] and his incidental remark to the Corinthians that "we have known Christ after the flesh"[2] are proof that he had actually seen the earthly Jesus.[3] This of course is not intrinsically impossible, but Paul will hardly have claimed authentication for his apostleship (I Cor. 9:1) from acquaintance with Jesus at that time; while "we have known Christ after the flesh" may imply no more than such knowledge of Christ's earthly career as Christians in general possess.
Paul's first friendly contact with the early followers of Jesus was probably in Damascus. There he seems to have remained for some time, in association with those Christians who had previously been prominent enough to attract his attention as a persecutor. Then followed his first journey to Jerusalem, where for two weeks he visited with Peter in particular and the Jerusalem church in general. When later he moved on into the regions of "Syria and Cilicia" his connections with the Palestinian community
[1] I Cor. 9:1.
[2] II Cor. 5:16.
[3] J. Weiss, in his Paulus und Jesus (Berlin, 1909; English tr., Paul and Jesus, London and New York, 1909), contends vigorously for this interpretation of II Cor. 5:16.
197
were by no means entirely severed. The Judean churches learned of and rejoiced in his work. Later he was associated in missionary activity with Barnabas who seems to have been intimately connected with the first disciples. Then Silas, another member of the early Jerusalem church, became Paul's traveling companion. The Jerusalem council and Peter's visit to Antioch again brought Paul into intimate contact with those who had known Jesus personally. John Mark, whom tradition connects so closely with Palestine, was also Paul's fellow-worker at a later date. With these individuals of note, and a host of others unknown to us by name, Paul came into most intimate contact, a contact which must not only have given him an intimate acquaintance with the early tradition, but which must also have made it impossible for him to mistake a primitive doctrine about an anthropomorphized god for belief in the actual existence of a historical individual.
We must admit that Paul stood too near to the age which professed to know Jesus, to be successfully hoodwinked on the historical question. If Jesus never lived it is not at all probable that even the most enterprising propagandists could have succeeded in persuading
198
Paul of the reality of this mythical person within the generation to which Paul himself belonged. But another possibility presents itself. Did he not deliberately create this historical character to suit his own scheme of interpretation; instead of being deceived was he not playing the part of a myth-maker? The absence from his letters of any effort to argue for the historicity of Jesus, which would surely be a matter of dispute at least with the opponents of Christianity, together with the prevailing acknowledgment that a historical person had been known by certain leaders of the new movement before Paul's conversion, seems an overwhelming objection to this supposition. Not only does Paul everywhere take for granted the existence of a Jesus whose memory is fresh in men's minds, but a good part of his attention is given to resisting opponents who claim superiority over him because they have been, or have received their commission from men who had been, personal companions of Jesusa fact which Paul never denies, though he disputes the legitimacy of the inference regarding superiority which they deduce from the fact. Paul would scarcely have engaged so seriously in the controversy
199
with the legalists, or have had so much anxiety for the possible outcome of the Judaizers' efforts to undo his work on gentile soil, if the chief credential of the "pillars," namely, their claim to have known Jesus personally, was all a fiction.
Another important fact, bearing upon the present problem, has been brought out by the recent Paul versus Jesus controversy. We can no longer treat Paul as a theologian only, nor was his Christianity merely an elaborate scheme of dogma. Beside these we must place Paul the religious individual, and the Christian life of personal piety in which the apostle and his predecessors share a common heritage from Jesus' own personal life.[1] Indeed in the pious life of Jesus' first disciples may Paul have seen for the first time the demonstration of that power which ultimately conquered his Pharisean hatred and won the devotion of his heart and life. To cite Wellhausen, whom the radicals are fond of quoting as a champion of skepticism in matters of gospel criticism:
Jesus continued to live not only in the dogma but also in the ethics of his community, and their pious life in imitation of him had perhaps even more attracting
[1] Cf. Jülicher, Paulus und Jesus (Tübingen, 1907); A. Meyer, Wer hat das Christentum begründet, Jesus oder Paulus? (Tübingen, 1907); J. Weiss, op. cit.
200
power than the preaching about the crucified and risen one. Before this one appeared to him at Damascus, Paul had, no doubt from the impression which the persecuted Christians made upon him, already in his heart the goad against which he was vainly trying to kick.[1]
From all these data we are able to deduce but one conclusion. Not only is Paul a genuine personality who strongly impressed himself upon the life of his time, and some of whose thoughts are preserved for us in fragments of correspondence with his churches, but the historicity of Jesus is also a prerequisite to Paul's Christian life and work. While the apostle freely interpreted, and at times no doubt greatly idealized, the person of Jesus, there never was a time when to deny the reality of Jesus' earthly career would not have been a fatal shock to Paul's entire interpretative scheme. But such a disaster was in that day out of the question, for the age to which Paul belonged held the generation which had witnessed the career of Jesus and had experienced the force of his personality in its own life. Consequently his personal conduct became the model and the inspiration for conduct in the new community. Nor was this influence confined
[1] Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien (Berlin, 1905, p. 114).
201
to those who had associated with him on earth; it was felt by future converts, of whom Paul was a conspicuous example. He strenuously emulated this type of life himself and strove constantly to inculcate it among the new converts to the faith. His exhortation to the Corinthians, in speaking against the self-seeking spirit, "be ye imitators of me even as I also am of Christ,"[1] is expressive of that spirit of service for "the profit of the many" which characterized Christianity from the first, and which was consistently traced back to the life of its founder who, on calling disciples, had not offered them enticing rewards, but had given them an opportunity to become fishers of men, and had inspired them with the ideal of self-giving service: "Whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister, and whosoever would be first among you shall be servant of all."
[1] I Cor. 11:1.
Go to The Historicity of Jesus by S.J. Case table of contents.