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The Present Status '-'^^^^'^S^

Of the Inquiry concerning the

Genuineness of the Pauline Epistles

BY BERNHARD WEISS, THEOL. D.
Professor in the University of Berlin

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The Present Status

Of the Inqairy concerning the

Genuineness of the Pauline Epistles

BY BERNHARD WEISS, THEOL. D.
Professor in the University of Berlin

CHICAGO
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Reprinted from THE
AMERICAN JOURNAL
OF THEOLOGY, Vol. I,
No. 2, April 1897.

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THE PRESENT STATUS
OF THE INQUIRY
CONCERNING THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE
EPISTLES.
Since th^ end of the second century thirteen Pauline epistles
have been included in the canon of the New Testament. To be
sure at that time no one had thought, nor was anyone com
petent, to examine these letters, which had for a very long time
been read and used (even if not expressly cited) by ecclesias
tical writers, with a view to determining whether they were what
they professed to be, letters of the apostle Paul. There had
never so much as a doubt arisen on this point. Only in our
century has criticism raised the question whether all these thir
teen epistles are to be attributed to Paul. First of all Eichhorn
and De Wette denied the genuineness of the pastoral epistles ;
but doubts were also early entertained concerning the so-called
epistle to the Ephesians and the second epistle to the Thessa
lonians. Yet the only question ever discussed was whether the
epistles were to be attributed to Paul himself or to one of his
disciples. Baur was the first to reject all the shorter Pauline epistles,
accepting as genuine only the four epistles, to the Romans, Corin
thians, and Galatians ; the others, he maintained, could not have
arisen before the second century. But even in his school there
soon sprang up a reaction against his position, Hilgenfeld again
ascribing to the apostle the first epistle to the Thessalonians,
the epistle to the Philippians, and the epistle to Philemon ; and
all recent criticism, more or less independent of Baur, agreed
with him. But the reactionary movement thus begun reached
farther and farther. Holtzmann set to work to prove at least a
Pauline basis in the epistle to the Colossians ; von Soden reduced
the interpolations admitted by him in this letter to a minimum,
3

4 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
until at last he surrendered even this minimum and accepted the
whole epistle as genuine. As for the second epistle to the Thes
salonians, Paul Schmidt admitted that with the exception of the
eschatological passage of the second chapter and a few smaller
interpolations there is no ground for supposing it spurious.
But when it came to be -more and more believed that the mean
ing of that Pauliife "apocalypse" had been found, all considera
tions against it were dismissed, and critics such as Klopper and
Jiilicher {^Einleitung, 1894) without further hesitation defended
its genuineness. And though Klopper at least still maintains
the spuriousness of the epistle to the Ephesians, Jiilicher declares
the objections against it insufficient for its rejection. Recently
also Harnack in his Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur (Vol.
I, Leipzig, 1897) has treated all ten Pauline epistles which
Marcion had in his canon as genuine. To the pastoral epistles
only, as in Eichhorn's time, all recent criticism objects.
There is also, to be sure, a radical wing of recent criticism
which even outstrips Baur, declaring as it does the four epistles
unassailed by him, and thus the whole body of Pauline epistles,
to be spurious. 'When Bruno Bauer first came forward in the
middle of this century with this view it was universally rejected
as hypercriticism hardly needing refutation ; but recently sev
eral Dutch scholars have returned to the same theory. Among
German scholars Steck in his Galaterbrief (Berlin, 1888) not only
tried to prove the spuriousness of this epistle, but also rejected in
connection with it the epistles to the Romans and Corinthians.
Yet up to the present time he has been opposed, not less than
his predecessor, Bruno Bauer, by all schools of criticism. When
even a critic like Holtzmanji declares this criticism to be the
product of a mistaken exegesis and a historico-philosophical
petitio principii; it is safe to say that there is as yet no occasion
for entering into a detailed examination of it. The same holds
also respecting the attempt, which has been more and more
widely spreading of late, to prove more or less extensive inter
polations in the text of the Pauline epistles transmitted to us
i^cf. C. Clemen, Die Einheitlichkeit der paulinischen Briefe, Got
tingen, 1894). This rests, so far as it is not connected with

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 5
critical questions which we shall soon consider, upon exegetical
difficulties that exist in the text or the context of the Pauline
epistles. But it is clear that if one does not understand how
this or that passage fits into the connection, it is far more diffi
cult to conceive how an interpolator could come to interrupt a
lucid text with interpolations alleged to be so incongruous. If
one discovers, therefore, the line of thought which guided the
interpolator, then that may also have been the line of thought
of the apostle himself. It will always remain the task of exe
gesis to understand a document transmitted to us, as it lies
before us, and that this is not impossible in the case of the
Pauline letters, I believe that I have shown {cf. B. Weiss, Die
paulinischen Briefe im berichtigten Text mit kurzer Erlduterung zum
Handgebrauch bei der SchriftfectUre , Leipzig, 1896).
This history of criticistn and its present status affords abun
dant opportunity for a number of fruitful observations. I pro
pose, therefore, to go through the series of the thirteen Pauline
epistles according to their almost universally accepted order,
and discuss in detail the critical problems which have arisen in
the case of each one. In doing thus, I understand by " critical
problems" not the grounds of doubt, often very subjective,
with which, in the period of the criticism of the Schleiermacher-
De Wette school, the genuineness of this or that epistle was dis
puted, since these, like the interpolation hypotheses named
above, are mostly refuted by a careful exegesis. This it is,
indeed, which the criticism of Baur and his school achieved for
us, viz., that the critical problem is now always formulated in
the question whether the epistles under discussion can be under
stood from the conditions existing in the time of Paul, or point
to a later period. By this means only criticism gains a higher, '
more general interest, inasmuch as whatever its result may be it
leads to a deeper historical understanding of these documents
which are in any case so highly significant. We shall there
fore first of all discuss the questions pertaining to the circum
stances of their origin which appear to us not to have been as yet
sufficiently cleared up. And in this matter even the extreme
radical criticism may become of importance to us in so far as it

6 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
shows where even in respect to the Pauline epistles generally
held to be genuine historical problems still remain which
require a more thorough investigation.
I. THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.
When Baur in his Paulus (1845) declared the first epistle to
the Thessalonians spurious, the prevailing conception of the
epistle furnished a certain justification of this position. Until
that time the first three chapters of the epistle had been thought
to contain only outpourings of the apostle's heart and retrospects
of the time of his ministry in Thessalonica and of his separation
from the church ; and their purpose remained unintelligible. The
short admonitions and eschatological discussions of the fourth
and fifth chapters formed, then, in reality the essential part of the
epistle, although one could not conceive what was the purpose
of those warnings, which aimed only at keeping the disciples from
the grossest sins of heathenism, and of these discussions, which
involved only the rudiments of the Christian hope for the future.
But this conception of the epistle was even on exegetical grounds
untenable. For the transition 4 : i with a Aotirov ovv shows with
out doubt that, on the contrary, the first three chapters contain
the main subject which the apostle had to discuss with the
church, and that from 4 : i on he merely appends such admoni
tions and explanations as still remained for him to give to the
church. But if this is so, the main purpose of chapters 1-3 can
not be found in the grateful retrospect of what God had hitherto
done for the church, since all the letters of the apostle begin
with that, or in the wishes for their further prosperity, which
always follow closely on the thanksgiving (1:2-10; 3:11-13),
but only in the sections of evidently apologetic character which
stand between. The understanding of the epistle, and, conse
quently, the guaranty of its genuineness, turns accordingly on
the question whether any occasion for these apologetic sections
is perceptible. Evidently this self-defense of the apostle is directed against
slanders which had been circulated against him. The young
Christians in Thessalonica had been told that they had been led

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 7
astray by cunning, ambitious, and self-seeking impostors ; that
only thus had they been alienated from their fellow-countrymen,
from whom they were now suffering many a hardship and perse
cution. The burden of these hardships weighed heavily on the
church and evidently gave the apostle great concern, since the
young Christians had not yet proved themselves true under such
a test. These slanderers declared that the apostles, for fear of
being involved in these persecutions, had opportunely abandoned
these whom they had betrayed and given them over to their
fate ; taking good care not themselves to return to the church.
Only from this point of view does the whole section 2 : i — 3 : 10
appear in its true light and receive its right interpretation, as I
have shown in the kurzen Erlduterungen. But the question arises,
Whence did these slanders originate, from whom had they
issued? This question has not yet been as satisfactorily and
unanimously answered even by the defenders of the epistle as is
necessary for its complete understanding.
There is indeed, both in the apology of the apostle and in the
slanders which it presupposes, much that reminds us of the
attacks which Paul endured in Corinth from his Jewish-Christian
opponents. Since, however, it cannot be supposed that such
opponents were to be found in this essentially Gentile church
only recently established, Baur was right to a certain extent in
finding here only imitations of the epistles to the Corinthians.
But he neglected even to ask whether the analogous phenomena
here could not perhaps be much better explained on wholly dif
ferent grounds. Such a commentator as Hofmann and such a
critic as von Soden {Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1885, No.
2) assume, to be sure, that those slanders issued from the unbe
lieving Gentile countrymen of the Christians in Thessalonica.
But it cannot be conceived how it should come about that the
converts of Paul and his companion should be at all affected by
the opinions of those who when the Jewish missionaries were
present paid no heed to them. All becomes clear when once it
is recognized that it was the unbelieving Jews in Thessalonica
who during the presence of the missionaries had sought to bring
an accusation against them (Acts 17:5-8), and now behind

8 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
their backs endeavored to undo their work. They were able to
argue that they themselves surely knew their own countrymen
-better than these Gentiles newly converted to Christianity, and
knowing them were* in a position to affirm that they were
deceivers and betrayers.
This suggestion is, moreover, obviously confirmed by the
passage 2:15 ff. From the point of view of the current con
ception of the epistle Baur was right in declaring that the
polemic against the Jews, which here suddenly breaks up all
connection, was wholly unintelligible ; and quite recently Schmie-
del, who likewise thinks the slanders emanated rather from the
Gentiles, has proposed to strike out these verses as a gloss. If,
however, the attacks emanated from the unbelieving Jews, then
it is clear why Paul ranks these slanders here with the efforts of
the ungodly haters of' the Gentiles who had tried on all occa
sions and in eve?ry way to obstruct his work of salvation among
the heathen. Only from this point of view, naoreover, is it
possible to see why this severe polemic against the Jews closes
with the statement that they had no need still further to fill up
the measure of their sins by persecuting the messengers to
the Gentiles, the [divine] wrath having already come upon
them to the uttermost (vs. 16). So long as these words were
referred to the destruction of Jerusalem, it followed, of course,
that the epistle could not have been written by Paul, since he
did not live long enough to witness this event. Even more
recent defenders of the epistle make only random conjectures
to account for these words. And yet there is but one clear
and sure interpretation of them, and this recent critics also, like
von Soden and Jiilicher, have accepted. As Paul in Romans,
chap. I, sees the revelation of the divine wrath against the
heathen world in its surrender to the folly of idolatry, to
unnatural lust, and to a complete deadening of the moral sense,
so he sees the wrath of God poured out upon unbelieving Israel
in the judgment of hardening, of which he speaks in Rom. 11:7;
2 Cor. 3:14.
All that Paul says (chap, i) in praise of the Christian stand
ing of the Thessalonians and of the fame of their conversion to

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 9
Christianity is explained from the fact that he desires, by
reference to the divine origin of their Christianity and to the
duty of guarding their good repute, to admonish them to endure
with patience the persecutions that have bemllen them. For mani
festly their life as believers (for their perfecting in which he prays
in 3 : io) is deficient precisely in the fact that it still lacks that
joyfulness which resists the trials of misfortune and which alone
could establish their faith amid such trials. Further, the
admonitions of chap. 4 show that the church was still lack
ing in the expression of its faith in practical life ; that they
still needed the warning against falling back into the old Gen
tile sins of unchastity and avarice (4 : 3-8). But it is just this
that shows that we have here the picture of a church still young,
much admired for the enthusiasm with which it had received the
gospel, but now weighed down under the long continued perse
cutions and not yet sufficiently confirmed in moral life — a pic
ture which no imitator of the apostle could invent and which
is therefore in itself a guaranty of the genuineness of the
epistle. The eschatological discussions also (4: 13 — 5 : n) are easily
understood if the pressure of persecution had raised to the
highest pitch the desire for the return of the Lord, which alone
could bring release. Exhortations, like 5 : 19 ff. carry us into
the midst of church meetings roused to the highest pitch of
feeling through such eschatological expectations. Prophets rise
up who under a fanatical excitement declare the nearness of the
second coming, while others oppose them with sober criticism,
and, because prophecy had overstepped the bounds marked out
for it, disparage it in general. Therefore the apostle is obliged
to call attention to the fact that the day and hour of the parousia
is and will remain unknown, and that we have only to take
care that that time find us not unprepared (5:1-10). There
were those also who under the influence of unwarranted expec
tation left their daily work professedly to spend their time in
preparing for the parousia, which, as they thought, would end
all things, thus becoming a burden on the charity of the church
and even on that of their heathen countrymen. These are those

10 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
aTaxTot whom Paul (5:14) exhorts the church to admonish and
- to whom he directs his exhortation that, even when they do not
themselves believe it necessary, they shall by all means work
zealously, in order to be always gaining new means for more
extensive labors of love, and not in the eyes of their unbeliev
ing countrymen to bring disgrace upon Christianity through
their idleness and beggary (4: 10-12).
The discussion that follows (4 : 13-18), containing the most
weighty eschatological material, brings us to the last point ; and
here also the epistle can be understood only in case it is genuine.
Manifestly the church which at first, like Paul himself,, had
hoped while yet in its entirety to witness the parousia had
through the first cases of death which occurred in its member
ship been thrown into the greatest distress. Since it cannot be
supposed that a pseudonymous writer would make the apostle
speak as if he hoped himself to be alive at the parousia (whereas
he actually passed away before that event) the alarm implied in
4: 13 is wholly inexplicable as the product of a period subse
quent to that of the apostle, since the Christians of later times
must certainly in some way have come to accept the fact that
many would not survive to witness the parousia. When the
resurrection had become a permanent part of the common hope
of Christianity for the future, nothing could have been gained
by an appeal to the awakening of those who sleep preceding the
glorification of those who survive. These discussions can be
understood only on the assumption that the apostle is explain
ing these things in detail to a new church, to which he, believ
ing the parousia to be near at hand, had as yet had no occasion
to speak of the fate of those who might perhaps die before
that event, or to a congregation in which the antipathy of the
Hellenic mind to the idea of resurrection (c/ Acts 17:32; i
Cor. 15:12) had prevented their hearing or understanding his
allusions to this element of Christian doctrine. It will then also
appear what "word of the Lord" it is to which Paul appeals;
and this is all the more important because those who have
attempted to refer the epistle to a later time have taken advan
tage of the prevalent doubt regarding this "word." Inasmuch as

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES, 1 1
the apostle by no means asserts that this word of the Lord con
tains all that he set forth (vs. i6 ff.') , but only affirms on the
authority of it that those who survive will not precede those
who sleep, it is entirely sufficient to refer to Matt. 24 : 31, where
Jesus promises at his parousia to gather his elect about himself
from the four winds, hence all together. Second Thessalonians
also makes allusion to this promise (2:1).
If thus the genuineness of the epistle appears fully con
firmed, this yields from another point of view a highly impor
tant result for the criticism of the Pauline epistles in general. It
was one of the fundamental errors of Baur's criticism that a doc
trinal system based on the four epistles accepted by him was
made the standard for determining what else should be recog
nized as Pauline. But those letters indeed show a form of teach
ing so related in content and expression only because the epistles
to the Galatians and Corinthians are directed toward the same
Jewish-Christian opposition, while the epistle to the Romans rep
resents the results of that same struggle. Besides, all four were
written in a period of three and one-half years, three of them
within a period of less than a year. And yet the doctrine of
salvation characteristic of the apostle even in them varies greatly
in proportion and degree, while uniform development in other
doctrinal topics is out of the question. But it is in itself con
trary to all historical probability that Paul immediately upon his
conversion worked out an original system of doctrine, or even that
doctrine of salvation which later was developed in so profound a
way. When, in Gal. i : 23, we read that the churches of Judea had
heard say : " He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith
of which he once made havoc," it is evident that at this time
there must have been no essential difference between his type of
doctrine and that of the original apostles. It was probably
rather the struggle with the Judaizer that forced him to develop
his doctrine of salvation with such precision and sharpness, and to
elaborate all its premises and consequences, and to express it in
such bold propositions and striking terminology.
That such was in fact the case the first epistle to the Thessa
lonians proves most clearly. It is extremely interesting to see

12 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
how assiduously the most recent defenders of the epistles, Paul
Schmidt and von Soden, reject the idea that it contains an unde
veloped form of Pauline doctrine ; and yet this is unquestion
ably the fact. It is, of course, true that even here those pecul
iarities of his doctrine which are connected with the peculiar
character of his conversion come to light. Christ, of course, is
to him the exalted Lord from whom comes all salvation just as
from God himself; but there are no Christological statements
furnishing more explicit information of the nature and origin of
his person ; there is no detailed exposition of the atoning sig
nificance of his death, which is touched upon only in a general
statement, such as 5 : lO. Of course, even thus early Christianity
is to him a divine dispensation of grace, but nowhere is the
inability of the natural man to work out his own salvation, which
such a doctrine called for, explained or traced back to the power
of sin in the flesh ; of justification by faith and not by works
there is nowhere any mention ; nor is the attitude of the Chris
tian toward the law of the Old Testament and the relation of Jew
and Gentile to salvation in Christ spoken of, although the way in
which the unbelieving Jews tried to undermine Paul's work must
certainly have furnished occasion enough for it. The doctrine of
the Spirit who through the Word produces faith in the elect, and
the new life in the believer, already has, it is true, an important
place ; but of the vital fellowship with Christ, secured by the
Spirit, of the completion of salvation guaranteed by him, which
gave to the apostle's developed system of thought such a pecul
iar stamp, there is as yet no trace. So much is certain : The
critic who makes the theology of the four great doctrinal and
controversial epistles the standard for all that is to be recog
nized as Pauline cannot accept the first epistle to the Thessa
lonians as genuine. In this Baur has been more consistent than
the more recent criticism, which declares this epistle to be
genuine, and then, nevertheless, rejects as spurious other epistles
which in a much higher measure than it bear the stamp of
developed Paulinism, because they are unwilling to admit that
there was an advance beyond the point of view of the four great
epistles.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 1 3
II. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS.
It is very interesting to see how the epistles to the Thessa
lonians still show clear traces of the fact that Paul began in them
his correspondence with his churches. Even the so-called
• address of the epistles shows a form much simpler, and in many
respects peculiar, as compared with that of the later epistles
which the address of the second approaches in one particular.
In the first epistle the apostle enjoins the officers in whose
charge the letter was sent to read it to the whole body of the
brethren, consequently in full church assembly (5 :27). In the
second he hints at a misuse which had been made of letters pro
fessedly written by himself (2:2), and declares that, therefore,
he intends henceforth to certify each one of his letters with a
subscription in his own handwriting (3:17). In view of this
fact, Weizsacker, who still regards our letter as spurious, admits
that it certainly becomes thereby an actual forgery. We can
no longer speak in this case of pseudonymous writing, alleged
in Christian antiquity to have been a wholly innocuous proceed
ing; here is a shrewd forgery which endeavors, by means of
marks of genuineness borrowed from the later Pauline epistles
{cf I Cor. 16:21), to stamp a forged document as an epistle
of Paul. Recent criticism has been unprejudiced enough to acknowl
edge that, perhaps with the exception of the eschatological
section in chap. 2, there is no reason for denying the epistle to
the apostle. Since Ewald the attempt has repeatedly been made
to reverse the order of the two epistles-. In fact, however, not
only is this indefensible, but the second letter, by its relation to
the first, discloses a situation so transparent that this itself
vouches for the genuineness of the letter. It was written soon
after the first, to which 2:15 clearly refers. The church has
remained true, but the increased burden of persecution has also
increased the enthusiastic expectation of the parousia to its high
est pitch. The apostle is obliged to say to them that they appear
to have forgotten entirely what signs must necessarily precede the
appearance of the Lord. Those religious idlers whom the first

14 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
epistle more indirectly reprimands compel him, by their failure
to return to their duty, to inflict on them some disciplinary pun
ishment. No motive can be discovered which would explain
the forging of such a document in the name of an apostle. The
numerous similarities to the first epistle are explained by the fact
that the second was written very soon after the first ; but it
must be conceded that, if grounds of suspicion in other respects
are produced, these can be ascribed to imitation. And if
umbrage is to be taken at every peculiar expression the epistle
will afford opportunity for this also. Attention has been called
to the expression o^dXoixev eixapurretv, repeatedly occurring in the
second epistle (1:3; 2 : 1 3) , whereas the first epistle, like all
others, says evxapta-Tovfitv (1:2; 2:13); to 3:i5>o xupios r^s
dp^rj's, and 2:13, yiya.irqfx,hoi viro Kvpiov, instead of which the first
epistle writes 6 fleos -ri^s dp-qvifi (5 '• 23) and riyain)ii.ivoi vwo TOV Oeov;
to the anarthrous terminus technicus r\p.ipa, KvpLov (i Thess. 5:2),
which appears in the second letter as ij r\p.ipa. rdv Kvpiav (2:2) or
takes, as in the gospels, the form ^ ^p.epa iKeivrj; and these diver
gencies have often been regarded as indications of spuriousness.
This is certainly unjustified. But it is of significance that recent
critics have at length learned to take no notice of such pecul
iarities of a document. Thus, for example, both epistles have in
common the expression ipyov t^s Tria-rim (i Thess. i : 3 ; 2 Thess.
2 : 11), and the characterization of the calling as a continuing
divine work of grace (i Thess. 2:12; 2 Thess. i:ii); and
yet critics have taken no offense at the first epistle. It is
very instructive to observe how even these earliest epistles
show each their own peculiar forms of expression, in comparison
with one another as well as with the later epistles. Although
Paul certainly developed a dogmatic terminology of his own,
yet it never became anything like a fetter to his versatile spirit.
Every epistle has in this respect its own peculiarities, and it is
very perilous to make these considerations decisive in settling
the question of genuineness.
Criticism has always regarded the eschatological section
of chap. 2 as constituting the rea4 problem of the second
epistle to the Thessalonians. It must be recognized, indeed

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES I 5
that the contradictions which are alleged to exist between it and
the eschatology of the first epistle are easily explained. For
that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night (i Thess.
5 : 2) does not preclude his coming being accompanied with
signs whose appearance is as impossible to foresee as that day
itself ; and that Paul himself still hopes to witness the parousia
(i Thess. 4-15) does not demand so immediate an occurrence
of the day that the signs predicted in 2 Thess., chap. 2, could not
precede it. That, moreover, the unbelieving will be led astray by
the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2: 10 f.) in no way conflicts with the
fact that they will live until the dawn of the day of the Lord
in peace and safety, and will have no presentiment of the
approaching destruction (i Thess. 5:3); this feeling of security
only facilitates their seduction by the Antichrist. What the
apostle is aiming at is simply to call to the minds of the Thessa
lonians what he had previously said to them about the appear
ance of the Antichrist, which must precede the return of the
Lord, and about that which, as they knew, still retarded that
event. We have here, as in the Apocalypse of John and, in
a certain sense, in the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus, an apoc
alyptic picture of the form in which godlessness must reach
its highest point before the final judgment can be ushered
in ; for that this must happen first Jesus has already clearly
declared in Matt. 23:32 ff. Such apocalyptic pictures must,
however, necessarily relate themselves to existing circum
stances. Their purpose is simply to interpret the signs of the
times, searching for the point at which the hatred towards
God, which is heaping up for itself wrath against the day of
judgment, will manifest itself.
If it be assumed that we have here the same situation as in
the Johannean apocalypse, according to its usual interpretation,
then the returning Nero is here the Antichrist, and the epistle
could have been written only after his death, hence is in no
sense a writing of Paul. To Kern, who first endeavored to
establish the spuriousness of the epistle on substantial grounds,
this was the really decisive argument, and the same was true
of Baur and his followers. The more recent defenders of the

1 6 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
epistle have contested this view ; but they have not been able
to overcome it because they started from a wholly colorless con
ception of the Pauline picture. The apostle's picture of the
Antichrist e^xpected by him is said to contain only general fea
tures and such as are borrowed from Daniel and Jewish apoca
lyptic literature. There floated also before his mind, perhaps,
a picture of a Roman emperor like Caligula. But this view
takes too little account of the very concrete manner in which
the apostle describes his eschatological expectation. He speaks
of an dffoo-rao-ta out of which the man of sin rises up, to advance
to the point of blasphemous self-apotheosis. The apostle knows
of a "hindrance" which still delays this development and com
pels the avap-la. to conceal its true nature in a mystery until the
Karex*"' is removed out of the way. Then will come the full
revelation of the otvo/tos who in Satanic power leads the unbe
lievers astray with lying wonders and every sort of unrighteous
deception, but whose appearance causes the immediate return of
the true Messiah who brings to an abrupt end the career of the
Antichrist (2:3-10).
If there is no better interpretation of this picture than that
adopted by the more recent defenders of the epistle, the evi
dence of its genuineness must be acknowledged to be weak.
But there is another way. Starting with the interpretation of
the Ka.rk)(pv, it is pretty generally agreed that this term can be
understood only of the imperial and judicial power of Rome ;
and this is manifestly confirmed by the fact that the neuter of
the word "hindrance" {fcarkypv) is used interchangeably with the
masculine, 6 Kark^u>v, which can refer only to the incarnation of
that imperial power in the person of the Roman emperor
(2:6, 7). But in that case the view that finds the Antichrist,
whose appearance is retarded by "the restrainer" (o Karcxuv),
in a Roman emperor or a character copied after the picture of
such a one is excluded at the outset. If now, as is actually the
case, the Johannean Apocalypse expects the Antichrist (not to
be sure in the fabled return of Nero, but in an incarnation of the
Roman imperial power) , and if, as is clear, the reason assigned
for this is that in the Neronian persecution of the Christians the

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 1 7
Roman Empire had once already shown itself as the instrument
of the hostility to God and Christ, then it is clear that we have
here an older apocalyptic combination which can have originated
only in the time of Paul. And this is confirmed by the fact
that in the johannean Apocalypse the false prophet advances
along with the beast, which represents the Antichrist himself,
preparing the way for him by means of his lying wonders and
his deception, and inducing mankind to apostatize to him. In
Second Thessalonians, however, the Antichrist himself is the false-
prophet, who with lying wonders of Satan and fiendish decep
tion leads mankind astray (2:9, 10) — from which it is again
clear that he cannot be a Roman emperor.
What Paul's more exact thought about the appearance of
this Antichrist was is clear from the relation in which that
appearance (2:6) stands to the apostasy. It is quite out of the
question to look for such a thing in the realm of heathenism,
which neither knows nor worships God (1:8). On the other
hand our epistles nowhere show any apprehension of an apostasy
in the realm of Christianity, and certainly furnish no occasion for
thinking of such a thing in the present passage. Thus Judaism
only remains, which Paul in the first epistle (2:14—16) repre
sented as the incarnation of all enmity to God and Christ ; and
which, if it continued on this way, must inevitably in the end
apostatize wholly from God {cf. Heb. 3:12). The consumma
tion of this apostasy, however, necessarily involved not only a
persecution of the true Messiah (in his confessors) by the Jews,
but* the setting up over against him of the false Messiah.
Therefore the false Messiah must be the Antichrist. This apoc
alyptic picture connects itself immediately with the prophecy
of Jesus, which, as may be inferred from i Thess. 4:15; 2 Thess.
2:1, was already known to the apostle ; only he thinks of the
i/reuSoxpio-Tot and i^evSoTrpo^^rat of whom Christ had spoken (Matt.
24 :24 ; cf. John 5 :43) as culminating in the person of the false
Messiah, /car' iioxijv, who is identical with the false prophet.
With this view and with this only can the description in 2:4,
which plainly does not fit in with the apotheosis of the Roman
emperor, be made to agree. Never did such an one, when

1 8 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
causing himself to be numbered among the gods, set up the claim
of being higher than all the other gods, and thereby announce
his intention to contend with all others, as it is asserted that
the avTiKct/aevos xat v7rcpatpo/u,£vos eiri iravra Xc-yo/u.ei'ov Oeov rj cre/Saa-pa
does. The very fact that what the passage speaks of is rather
an assumption of equality with the one supreme God, who
endures no other gods beside him (not even the alleged Mes
siah revered by the Christians) , shows doubtless that it is in
the temple of God (at Jerusalem), where he takes his seat in
order to prove thereby that he is of divine nature. Unbeliev
ing Judaism had already found a blasphemous self-apotheosis in
the claim of Jesus to the Messiahship (Mark 14:64; cf. John
5:18; 10:33), and so the false Messiah sets up the claim that
he is the one in whom Jehovah himself comes to his people
(Luke 1:17, 76), and who, according to Mal. 3:1, appears in
his temple, the highest revelation of God, a consubstantial repre
sentative of God.
But the apostle also indicates very clearly why he expects the
Antichrist in the false Messiah, when he sees (2:7) the mystery
of the a.vop.ia already in operation. It surely cannot be that by
this the immorality of heathenism is meant, — this is well known
to everyone, — but only the Jewish hostility to Christ (i Thess.
2:15 ff.), which parades itself still under the name of zeal for
God and his law, when it persecutes the messengers of the gos
pel, and is nevertheless in its innermost essence a repudiation of
the divine will (revealed in the Messiah) . It was, moreover,
as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, the Roman judicial
power which constantly protected the apostle from the attacks
of Jewish fanaticism. But when it came to this, that the final
apostasy of Judaism culminated in the epiphany of the false
Messiah, and he with the power of Satan overthrew the imperial
power of Rome in the person of its representatives, for the pur
pose of gaining for himself and his people the world power, then
indeed a path would be made for Antichristianity to complete
the annihilation of Christianity, then would the measure of sin
be full, and then the returning of the Messiah must needs bring
this career of lawlessness to an end. Thus the apocalyptic com-

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 1 9
bination, so far from being inconceivable in the Pauline time, is
comprehensible only as proceeding from that time, when unbeliev
ing Judaism was still the sole enemy with which the apostle con
tended in accomplishing his world mission.
The only thing to be urged with plausibility against this
interpretation of 2 Thess., chap. 2, which is not only possible but
exegetically necessary is that Paul, in Rom. 11:25 f., hopes for
a complete restoration of Israel ; therefore, it may be urged, he
cannot have thought of the Antichrist as being the product of
the final apostasy of Judaism. But as these apocalyptic pictures
have always historical situations as their background, they must
also change with them. Time and hour of Christ's parousia no
one knows at all (Mark 13 :32); but it is to be expected at any
time, and each interpreter must therefore seek to determine from
the signs of his own time the form in which the highest personi
fication of the enmity to Christ will appear. Only the end of
the days will show which of these personifications is actually the
final one. Paul lived long enough to see that unbelieving Juda
ism was not able to prevent the victorious progress (2 Thess. 3:1)
of the gospel throughout heathendom, that quite other forces,
within Christianity, threatened its development ; and it is one
of the most significant signs of the time that in the epistle to
the Romans he has returned to the hope of the complete restora
tion of Israel cherished by the primitive apostles. The same was
true of the apostle John. Under the vivid impression of the
horrors of a bloody persecution he saw in his apocalypse the
personification of the hostility to Christ in a representative of the
empire restored after the days of the interregnum. But soon
it turned out that this power too was unable to cope with
Christianity, mighty in its spirituality, and in his epistles John sees
the Antichrist only in the false doctrine which, arising within
the Christian church, denied the incarnation of the Son of God
(i John 2:18; 4:3).
III. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
The epistle to the Galatians was the Archimedes' fulcrum
by means of which the critics of the Tiibingen school believed

20 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
they had overthrown the conception of the conditions of the
apostolic times, handed down from the time of the Acts of the
Apostles. It was therefore an act of courage when Steck
directed his attack against the genuineness of the epistle, and
though the positive arguments which he believed he had found
for the spuriousness of the epistle are so weak as to require no
detailed discussion, yet he has shown irrefutably that the histor
ical conditions of the epistle to the Galatians have not been
determined with sufficient clearness to justify the assurance with
which the Tiibingen school boasts of its genuineness.
This holds true, to begin with, of the question concerning
the founding of the Galatian church. In our day, as is well
known, Hausrath has revived, and others have defended, the
view first brought forward by Mynster, that the epistle was
addressed to churches in Pisidia and Lycaonia, founded on
the first missionary journey of the apostle, this region having
been, after the death of the last Galatian king, included in the
Roman province of Galatia. But the adoption of this view
carries with it the assignment of the epistle to a chronological
position different from that commonly accepted, and requires us
to suppose that in all probability it was written shortly after the
beginning of the second missionary tour of the apostle, in any
event, quite a long time before the epistles to the Thessalonians.
But although Steck maintains that the location of the Galatian
churches cannot be determined with certainty, and inclines to
the opinion of Hausrath, yet it must be regarded as very improb-
'able that Paul should have addressed the people of Pisidia and
Lycaonia as Galatians (Gal. 3:1) because they at that time
belonged politically to Galatia. The only argument for this view
having even prima facie value, namely, that he used this term
to gather together under one general name the people of various
districts, is an utterly worthless subterfuge ; for Paul, who so
very rarely addressed his readers by name, was under no neces
sity of doing so here if he had no fitting collective designation
for them. Moreover, the churches founded in company with
Barnabas, and before the so-called Jerusalem council, had, with
out question, a considerable Jewish-Christian element, while the

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 2 1
churches to which our epistle was addressed are represented as
essentially Gentile Christian in character. Nevertheless it can
be urged with a certain show of truth that although the exist
ence of churches in Galatia proper is presupposed in Acts i8 : 23,
yet of their founding we have no definite knowledge ; for, accord
ing to Acts 16:6, Paul seems to have traveled through Galatia
without stopping; so that the assertion that Gal. 4: 13 refers to
a stay there, during which these churches were founded, appears
by no means to be established.
But this is simply a case in which the flagrant carelessness,
with which it is customary to treat the statements of the Acts of
the Apostles as to the roads which the apostle traveled to Troas
is avenged. There is indeed no question that the Acts
intends to describe the apostle as. going forward, not according
to his own plan, but driven by the Spirit, and unable to tarry
anywhere in Asia Minor until he reached the seacoast at Troas,
where he received the divine intimation which directed him to
Macedonia. It is expressly said of Asia and Bithynia that the
Spirit prevented him from preaching there, although this was
plainly his purpose. But we cannot think of such an intimation
of the Spirit being wholly arbitrary ; and since Paul later repeat
edly emphasizes the fact that it is his principle- — his, that is to
say, taught him by the Spirit — not to build upon another man's
foundation (2 Cor. 10 : 15 f.; Rom. 15 : 20), with which also agrees
the fact that he regarded it as the peculiar task of his apostolic
office to found churches (i Cor. 3 : 10), we must infer that apos
tolic activity in these regions was forbidden him by the Spirit,
because there were already churches founded there by the primi
tive apostles ; and this is expressly affirmed by i Peter i : i with
respect to Asia and Bithynia. To be sure this is not admitted
by recent critics, nor even by those who acknowledge the first
epistle of Peter to be genuine, because they have committed
themselves to the opinion that the epistle was written to Gentile-
Christian churches in the province of Asia ; and yet this can be
maintained only by extreme exegetical violence to the address
of the epistle. In the entire ancient church it was never ques
tioned that the elect strangers belonging to the dispersion of

22 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
Asia Minor were Jewish Christians. If it is still insisted that we
have no knowledge of churches in Asia Minor founded by the
mother church, this overlooks the fact that outside of the
Acts of the Apostles, which, according to its plan, deals only
with the Pauline mission, we have no information at all of the
extension of Christianity. We know, however, that both the
primitive apostles and the brothers ofthe Lord had actually made
missionary journeys (naturally among the dispersion ; cf. i Cor.
9:5); besides which it must be taken into account that the seed
of Christianity might often have been scattered from Palestine
among the dispersion in other ways than by the direct mission
ary activity of the apostles themselves.
To be sure i Peter i : i excludes a Pauline mission in Gala
tia as truly as one in Asia and Bithynia; but Gal. 4:13 says
clearly enough that Paul did not go to Galatia to do there mis
sionary work, but that his stay there when he made known the
gospel to the Galatians was occasioned by physical weakness.
The intimation given to the apostle by the Spirit can be under
stood only as meaning that he must not inaugurate his apostolic
work where foundations had already been laid ; but not in the sense
that his mouth must be closed if for other reasons he stopped
anywhere. The probability is that, his sickness having made it
necessary foi" him to stay a while in Galatia, he took advantage
of this enforced delay to make the gospel known there. Besides,
Galatia was surely large enough to give him, even outside of the
larger cities in which the Jewish dispersion resided, opportunity
for an extended stay and the preaching of the gospel among the
Gentile people. It is, to be sure, very remarkable that the Acts
of the Apostles does not say of Galatia and Phrygia, in which
18 : 23 doubtless implies that there are Pauline churches, that he
was hindered from preaching the gospel there (16:6) ; but only
that he traveled through. But the reason of this is that the
writer avoids mentioning the fruit of his labors here, which fell
to him only incidentally, in order to represent Macedonia as the
real divinely designated goal of his missionary journey.
We must, therefore, still hold that Paul founded the Galatian
churches on his second missionary journey, and when he visited

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 23
them for the second time (Acts 18 : 23) he found them already
troubled over the question of the law. If ,he hoped, simply by
emphatically repudiating all efforts which had for their object to
bring them into subjection to the law to protect them against
such errors, he must have learned all too soon that his efforts
were in vain. After his departure the situation became still
more threatening, and the churches were on the point of utter
apostasy. Steck is also undoubtedly right in maintaining that
these events, as they are represented in our epistle, are difficult
to explain if it is genuine ; at least they are not made clear by
the prevailing conception of the epistle. It is commonly thought
that this first trouble of the churches came in through Jewish-
Christian agitators, who had come down from Jerusalem. But
there is not the least indication of this in the epistle, and in fact it
is difficult to explain why these Judaizers should have sought out
precisely these purely Gentile-Christian churches in so distant a
region, which offered them no vantage ground for their attack.
So far as I know Franke {^Studien und Kritiken, 1883, I) is
the only one who up to the present time has called attention to
these difficulties and sought to explain the first perplexity of the
churches, though to be sure by a very improbable hypothesis.
After what we have established concerning the founding of the
Galatian churches there is absolutely no need of any special
hypothesis whatsoever to explain this. If there were old-estab
lished Jewish-Christian communities in Galatia it was entirely
natural that these, who on their side held fast to the law, should
seek to induce the young Gentile Christians in their neighbor
hood likewise to submit themselves to the law. They had
nothing to say against the doctrine of salvation preached to
the Gentiles and the blessings received through faith. They did
not at all enter into a discussion of doctrinal differences; whether
of faith- and works or of universalism and particularism ; their
only concern was that the Gentiles should by circumcision and
acceptance of the law become Jews, it being impossible from the
point of view of Jewish Christians that the Gentile should share
in the fullness of salvation promised to Israel except on these
conditions. Paul had, however, taught that all the salvation

24 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
brought by Christ and to be expected from him is obtained
through faith alone ; and when he found them in a state of unrest
in consequence of the requirements which the Jewish Christians
urged, and defended apparently on so natural grounds, the
apostle, without entering further into the question of divine
authority, pronounced an anathema on all who should preach
any other gospel, that is, on making salvation dependent on
anything else whatsoever than faith.
If, now, one considers the apostle mainly as, a dogmatician
wholly occupied in maintaining against the primitive apostles
certain theses of his, his course in this matter is very strange.
When, however, we observe both from the speech at Athens and
from the first epistle to the Thessalonians how simple was his
preaching of salvation among the Gentiles, how far he was from
comparing this with the law and the Jewish claims, then it
is easy to conceive that he would certainly not have annoyed
the Galatians with a discussion of questions which it was difficult
to make perfectly clear to them, and that he simply pointed out
to them the fact that the gospel which deviates from- that brought
to them by their apostle was eo ipso worthy to be anathematized.
Certainly he did not accomplish his object, but almost the very
opposite. And at this point, even Franke believes, there must be
assumed an interference by Judaistic emissaries from Jerusalem,
who caused the change in the churches. But the epistle con
tradicts this most decidedly, unless 5 : lo be misinterpreted in
the most absurd way. How can Paul ask who has bewitched
them (3:1), if it was perfectly evident that it was those
emissaries ? On the contrary, it is clear (4 : 17 f.) that the peo
ple who now court them are the same that he knew of as doing
so when he was with them. In fact there need not have been any
direct interference on the part of such Jewish agitators ; but
because Paul had based his repudiation of the Jewish-Christian
demand solely on his apostolic authority, it was obvious to ask
whence he then had that authority. He could have received it,
it would be said, only from the primitive apostles, who them
selves held to the law and the promise given to Israel ; and if he
preached a gospel which refused to recognize these, then, it

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 25
was claimed, he changed the original message of salvation while
they with their demands remained true to it. Thus, therefore,
Paul was forced after all to discuss the question of the law and
to prove the divine origin of his gospel. If he had received it,
not from the primitive apostles, but through an immediate revela
tion (chap. I ) ; if the primitive apostles themselves acknowledged
that he had been entrusted with this gospel to the Gentiles ; and
if he had vindicated it successfully even against Peter (chap. 2),
then it was only necessary for him incidentally to refute the
allegation that he had received his apostleship solely from the
primitive apostles ( i : i ) , for he had been called by God himself to
the apostleship to the Gentiles (1:15). There is, moreover, no
intimation that he is reminding them only of things which he had
long ago told them, or that he is correcting misrepresentation of
these things. On the contrary he now for the first time relates
to them these historical events, certainly not in order to defend
his apostolic dignity, as is still supposed by many, but in order
to prove the divine origin of his gospel, with the preaching of
which he had been entrusted by God alone, and not by man.
The same is true of the whole subsequent doctrinal section.
The apostle's purpose is not to defend his doctrine of justifica
tion, as is so often assumed, but to show how the claim that the
promised salvation is secured only through subjection to the
law completely destroys the foundation of his doctrine of salva
tion,, which bases justification, adoption, and the inheritance of
full salvation upon faith in redemption through Christ alone ;
the whole Christian dispensation of grace is denied if the salva
tion promised in it is dependent upon any human work what
ever ; and in confirmation of this he appeals to their own Chris
tian experience (3: 1-5). He does not fail also to show how
the freedom from the law, which accordingly is to be stead
fastly maintained, does not permit continuance in sin, but only
secures in a new way the fulfillment of the will of God revealed
in the law, through the working of the Spirit given to them.
Surely if he preached these same doctrines from the beginning,
Steck is quite right in saying that it is entirely inconceivable
how his letter could at one stroke have effected what his preach-

26 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
ing had failed to accomplish. But the historical significance of
the epistle to the Galatians consists precisely in the fact that
here for the first time the apostle was under the necessity of
exposing with all logical acumen the perilous and subversive
character of the seemingly so well founded demand made by
the Judaists, and of proving that the Old Testament itself bears
witness not for but against this demand.
It is remarkable how radical criticism, which controverts
the genuineness of the epistle to the Galatians, has only served
to bring the Acts of the Apostles back again to a place of honor.
Steck shows how the assumption of the Tiibingen school, that the
Acts, in the interest of its "tendency," misrepresents the histor
ical events which Paul discusses (Gal., chaps, i, 2) is thoroughly
untenable. Granted that the Acts was insufficiently informed on
many points concerning the early career of Paul, granted that,
in accordance with the pragmatism that dominates it, it has
represented some things in a one-sided and therefore incomplete
way, yet in estimating its variations from the account given by
Paul it must not be overlooked that Paul also presents these his
torical events only from a certain historical point of view, and
touches only on those points which he can use to break the
force of the charges which had been made against him. If
it be regarded as entirely impossible that Paul should fail to
mention to the Galatians the restrictions which, according to
Acts, chap. 1 5, were imposed upon the Gentile Christians, it does
not follow that the Acts of the Apostles has invented these
things, but at most that it has erroneously combined the trans
actions of Paul with the primitive apostles, of which Gal., chap. 2,
gives an account, with transactions within the primitive church, of
which its sources treated; on which sources Acts, chap. 15, is
clearly enough based.
Still another point is made clear by Steck which is of great
significance for the criticism of the Pauline epistles. To be sure
the view that the law (3: 19) is degraded and belittled as an
imperfect institution given by angels rests upon a wholly unten
able exegesis. But so much is correct, that this statement about
the law recurs nowhere else in the Pauline epistles. And if only

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 27
that is to be accepted as Pauline for which there are analogies
in the other principal epistles of Paul, then the same considera
tions which are ufged against other shorter epistles of Paul may
also be urged against the epistle to the Galatians. And this
argument may be applied in still another direction. The epistle
to the Galatians has recently been explained as the latest of the
Pauline epistles, because here the antithesis between Paulinism
and Judaism is at its sharpest {cf. C. Clemen, Die Chronologie der
paulinischen Briefe, Halle, 1893), whereas on the contrary nothing
is more natural than that in the apostle's first daring effort to
show the incompatibility of the Jewish claims with his doctrine
of salvation he should express this antithesis as sharply as pos
sible, even if later he found reason to modify it.
It is remarkable how little it has been observed that the chief
differences between our epistle and the later ones pertain to quite
a different matter. Steck has very correctly seen that here
Judaism is in a certain sense put upon the same level with hea
thenism, though not, to be sure, in the way in which he, follow
ing the current misinterpretation of o-rotxeia, maintains, but as a
rudimentary religion such as we should look for at an early
stage in the development of mankind. But what is surprising
in this is not his judgment of Judaism, which he has all along
regarded as the preparatory step in the economy of salvation,
but his judgment of heathenism. If it be observed how in Rom.,
chap. I, he sees in the present condition of the heathen world the
judgment of divine wrath on the original apostasy of heathenism
from primitive religion, how he in the first epistle to the Corin
thians sees in heathenism an abandonment to the demoniacal
powers (10 : 20 ; 12 : 2), it must be admitted that this estimate of
heathenism is certainly wholly different from that expressed in
the epistle to the Galatians. If one is unwilling to assume a
development in the views of Paul, but feels compelled to ascribe
to the apostle a fixed and permanent dogmatic system, then
either the spuriousness of the epistle to the Galatians must be
admitted or that of the principal letters which follow it. But
indeed neither of these positions is held by recent criticism. And
so the fact of the genuineness of the epistle, which the attacks of

28 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
radical criticism have only served to establish more firmly, leads,
if we take occasion from these attacks to make a fresh investi
gation of the circumstances that gave rise to the epistle, simply
to a revision of the general principles on which all recent criti
cism works. IV. THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS.
The first epistle to the Corinthians, similar in this respect to
the epistles to the Thessalonians, contains the guaranty of its
genuineness in the fact that in it there is presented to us a pic
ture of this the first church founded on Greek soil, which shows
most vividly all the excellencies and all the weaknesses of the
Hellenic character. Hence church meetings with their wealth
of spiritual gifts, of which vanity and the passion for pre
eminence took advantage for their own ends, leading to strife
over the superiority of the various gifts, in which even the
Lord's Supper itself was profaned by the existence of cliques and
gluttony. Hence also the fondness of the Corinthian Christians
for going to law, and for associating with their unbelieving
countrymen by which they were continually entangled again in
the old Gentile sins of the luxurious commercial metropolis.
Hence also the inclination in the face of the mockery of their
fellow-men to sacrifice even the belief in the resurrection ; above
all, the excessive party spirit which engendered strife over the
boasted merits of the various teachers. But Steck is right in
maintaining that just in this matter the real state of affairs is far
from having been sufficiently cleared up to enable us to arrive at a
full historical understanding of the epistle. Even the opinion
that we have to do here with various parties within the church
is by no means dead, and cannot be refuted so long as one fails
to recognize that the so-called "Petrinists" (i Cor. 1:13) were
really pupils of Peter who had been converted under his preach
ing. This presupposes, to be sure, that Peter had at some time
come to Corinth in the course of his missionary journeys. I
have always maintained that the account given by Dionysius of
Corinth of a ministry of Peter in that city had, in spite of its
rhetorical exaggerations, an historical reminiscence as its basis.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 29
and Harnack has recently unequivocally acknowledged the very
great probability of this view.
But the so-called Christ party is, as it always has been, the
chief crux ot the exegetes, and of late they are disposed, despair
ing of its solution, to get rid of it altogether by exegetical or
critical expedients. The older theories about this party, to be sure,
being without foundation and mutually contradictory, accom
plished nothing. But Baur years ago pointed out the only right
way when he combined the party cry of certain people who
said of themselves: eyw [et/xi] Xpto-Tot) (i : 12), with 2 Cor. 10:17.
It is also being recognized more and more nowadays that accord
ing to the analogy of the party cries of the other parties this can
be put into the mouth of such only as were personal disciples
of Christ or pretended to be. But while Baur regarded them as
a party who stood for the primitive apostles in opposition to Paul,
Holsten admitted that the i/ieuSairdo-ToXoi and vTrcpXiav wKoaroXoi
whom Paul combated were, according to the context, not the
primitive apostles, but these disciples of Christ, who on the
ground of their relationship to him made the claim, as against
Paul, that they were the only true apostles ; and consequently
they who made this their cry were not members of the Christian
church, but the agitators who had come to the church from
Jerusalem. Paul does not at all say (i:ii f.) that there were
four parties in Corinth, but that disputes were there in which
each one boasted of his special teacher ; and that he meant
to include with the three others the party cry of the disciples of
Christ as one that greatly aggravated and embittered the conflict
of parties is made incontestably clear by the fact that at the
close of the section directed against these parties he deals
also with those rivi% who boasted that when such people as they
had appeared in Corinth Paul would not venture to come again
to Corinth (4 : 18; <?/ vs. 6). To be sure we gain our first definite
knowledge of these people only from the second epistle, but it
would have been very shortsighted of Paul to have begun his
polemic against them before they had disclosed their ultimate
aim and their resources for accomplishing it (yet ^/. 9: i f.).
But above all Steck is to a certain extent right in maintain-

30 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
ing that there still remains much to be done for the elucidation
of the meaning of the second epistle and of its relation to the
first before we shall have a firm basis for the proof of the
genuineness of our epistle. And at this point the criticism
which proceeds on the basis of the genuineness of the epistle has
found itself becoming entangled in a maze from which there
appears no way of escape except that of radical criticism.
Bleek was satisfied to assume a lost letter between the two that
we have, which Paul had sent by the hand of Titus and to' which
our second epistle refers. That was indeed in itself not an
impossible view, since i Cor. 5 : 9 also undoubtedly refers to a
letter now lost, sent before our first ; but it was unfortunate that
the controversy over this question, should immediately be con
nected with the question whether 2 Cor. 2 : 5-10 ; 7:12 refer to
the affair treated in First Corinthians, or to an affront either
to the apostle in person or to his messenger which was offered
on the occasion of the visit of Titus to Corinth ; on this question
the various defenders of the hypothesis of an intermediate letter
have not been able to agree. Furthermore there was a growing
inclination to place the second visit of the apostle to Corinth,
presupposed in the second epistle, between the first and second.
letters, rather than before our first epistle, as was generally held
formerly, and is still maintained by many of the defenders of
the intermediate letter, e. g., Schmiedel. But Schmiedel him
self, who in the introduction to his exposition of the epistle
in Holtzmann's Hand-Commentar zu-m Neuen Testa-m^nt has
with great acuteness made a thorough examination of every
hypothesis that has been proposed, recognized the difficulties
which beset this theory of an intermediate letter, and was com
pelled, reviving an old view, to assume still another visit of
Titus to Corinth with a letter from the apostle ; so that there
were two epistles between our first and second, both of which
have been lost.
Finally, the complication of this hypothesis reached its
highest point with Hausrath, who believed that he had found
in the last four chapters of the second epistle to the Corinthi
ans the intermediate letter so commonly assumed; in which

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 3 1
conjecture Schmiedel has recently followed him with great
positiveness, while other defenders of the intermediate letter
protest emphatically against this opinion. This was the signal
for a general attempt to dissect our second epistle. Even earlier
some had declared the section 6 : 14 — 7 : i to be spurious, while
others thought they could discover in it the epistle written
before our first. Now it was proposed to find also in chaps. 8 and
9 fragments of the two intermediate letters. Finally Halmet
thought he could extract from our epistle still another epistle
of four chapters, 2 : 14 — 6 : 10, which was written later than the
first (chaps. 10 — 13); so that only a very small part of our
epistle still remained. Thus criticism has lost itself in a
labyrinth of hypotheses, out of which there is no escape. For
it is clear that simply by newly arranging these epistles or epis
tolary fragments and journeys or missions an equal number
of new hypotheses can with a little acuteness be set up against
those already advanced, with just as good or just as bad a
foundation as they. We have here the same great fault of our
modern criticism that is manifest in other fields also, ^.,^., in the
criticism of the Acts of the Apostles and of the Apocalypse, viz.,
that it transgresses the boundaries of the scientifically derrion-
strable, and confounds the products of fancy with scientifically
established results. Had the facts been as any one of these
hypotheses assumes, it would have been impossible to ascertain
them with scientific exactness. An hypothesis is justifiable only
when the documents in hand imperatively demand it. That this
is not the case is shown by the fact that every hypothesis requires
a new supplementary hypothesis to make it conceivable. Even
Holtzmann has said that the close relationship of the second
epistle to the first must always make it doubtful whether the
interlacing and mutually contradictory hypotheses of unrecorded
journeys and lost letters, which of necessity extend the interval
between the two existing letters, can be substantiated. We are
thus driven to inquire whether after all it is" not better to reject
all these hypotheses and return to the view that the second
epistle to the Corinthians was written shortly after the first.
What originally suggested the idea of a journey of the apostle

32 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
to Corinth between the first and second letters to the Corinthi
ans was the fact that in the second epistle the visit to Corinth
which he was about to make is designated as the third, from which
it follows that in addition to the stay of a year and one-half
(Acts i8 : 1 1), during which he founded the church, he must also
have made another visit before writing the second letter. This
visit, it has been supposed, must have taken place after our first
epistle, since the latter does not mention it at all. But this
opinion is by no means necessary. If this .visit preceded the
letter mentioned in i Cor. 5 : 9, the things which he observed on
that visit — perhaps only a brief one — were doubtless discussed
in that letter, and called for no further treatment in our first
epistle. But if now there really was such a visit before this
lost letter, i Cor. 16: 7 refers to it, and shows explicitly that it
must have been only a flying visit {iv irapoSo)). In any case, in
order to explain the insinuations referred to in 2 Cor. 10: 10, we
must suppose that Paul on occasion of a visit to Corinth had had
some sad experiences, that at that time he had dealt leniently
with them, being reluctant to adopt strenuous measures (prob
ably because he had recently learned by his experience in Gala
tia how little was effected by a harsh treatment of his churches),
and that it was only in a letter written after this visit that he
recommended stern measures against certain persons. If these
events had happened in the tjme between our first and second
epistles, we should have to suppose that it was the efforts of
the Judaizers with which he was concerned, since it was they
who at that time were making the apostle the most trouble.
What he actually had to deal with, however, according to 2 Cor.
12:21; 13:2, was the sins of sensuality, as was also the case in
the letter mentioned in i Cor. 5:9; and in this letter we know for
certain that he pronounced the severest sentence of church dis
cipline upon the fornicators within the church, as he had previ
ously done upon the pious busybodies at Thessalonica. The visit
therefore not only may have been, but must have been, before the
lost letter, and with this the whole theory of a visit between our
two letters .falls to the ground.
The main argument for the hypothesis of a lost letter

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 33
between our two epistles has been the remarkable circumstance
that, according to i Cor. 4: 17, Paul sent Timothy to Corinth
and that, although he is with him again when Second Corinthians
is written (2 Cor. 1:1), not a word is said of any news brought by
him ; that, on the other hand (2 Cor. 2 : 12), Paul expects Titus
with the report from Corinth concerning the result of his letter,
and that he (7: 5 ff.) in fact meets him in Macedonia with the
news for which he was waiting. Inasmuch as all former attempts
to explain these facts were evidently unsuccessful, it seemed
as if it would be really necessary to adopt the hypothesis that
Paul, on receipt of the news brought by Timothy, sent to Corinth
by the hand of Titus another letter which is no longer extant.
It is remarkable, however, that just at the time at which, accord
ing to I Cor., chap. 4, Timothy was despatched to Corinth the
Acts of the Apostles (19 : 22) mentions only his going to Mace
donia. Still more remarkable is it that in i Cor. 16:10 Paul
speaks of Timothy's coming as a possibility only (eav8eeA.%),
although in 4 : 1 7 he had spoken of it quite positively. This
can be explained only on the supposition that while the apostle
was writing the first letter to the Corinthians the doubt arose in
his mind whether it was desirable that Timothy should go to
Corinth just at that time ; accordingly he sent another messen
ger, perhaps Erastus (Acts 19 : 22), to overtake Timothy on his
way through Macedonia in order to recall him ; but that, not
knowing whether Erastus would really find him, he expresses
(i Cor. 16: 10, 11) great anxiety as to the result in case Tim
othy should actually get to Corinth — an anxiety of which 4:14-
1 7 shows no trace. Between the departure of Timothy, there
fore, which was occasioned by the news received from the house
hold of Chloe concerning the existence of factions in Corinth, and
his recall as implied in 16 : 10, something must have happened
which created doubt in the mind of the apostle whether this mis
sion of Timothy could still be successful or whether it was now
at all expedient. This must have been the arrival of the delega
tion from Corinth (i Cor. 16:17), with the letter from the
church (7:1), and that which he himself, in consequence of
this news which they brought and in reply to the letter of

34 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
the church, wrote in our first epistle to the Corinthians, which
being carried by Titus directly to Corinth would certainly
reach them in advance of Timothy's arrival. By this letter the
commission given to Timothy had manifestly been rendered
inopportune ; and it would have been very unfortunate if Tim
othy had come to Corinth without knowing the contents of the
letter or what Paul had learned in the meantime from the Corin
thian delegation. The message to Timothy bidding him return
which was thus made necessary in fact overtook him in Mace
donia, and this explains perfectly why we find Timothy with the
apostle, and why he was expecting Titus with news concerning
the result of his letter, and renders unnecessary the hypothesis
of an intermediate letter. It has also been justly said that if
Timothy had actually reached Corinth he would certainly have
been mentioned along with Titus in 2 Cor. 12 : 18.
It has indeed been maintained that the references in Second
Corinthians to a recently written letter do not fit our First
Corinthians, and that for this reason we must assume an inter
mediate letter. But this by no means follows from the animad
versions against him to the effect that he was always commend
ing and praising himself, since the way in which he repeatedly
appeals in the first epistle to his own example and speaks of his
apostolic prerogatives, activities, and successes might easily fur
nish his malicious opponents occasion for their attacks. Indeed,
2 Cor. 1:12 seems to refer directly to i Cor. 2 : 4 f . It must
be admitted, however, that the apostle's great distress of mind
over the result of his former epistle (2 Cor. 2:13; 7:5), and
his expression concerning the state of mind in which he wrote
it (2 : 4), is at first sight somewhat surprising if the reference is
to our first epistle. But this is so only in case we concentrate
our attention on the calm doctrinal discussions of the first
epistle, to which of course these expressions do not refer. The
cutting severity and the exceeding bitterness of tone which per
meates all the polemical portion of the first epistle must not be
overlooked. Evidently the severity with which he dealt with the
case of incest (i Cor., chap. 5) would be most keenly felt in
Corinth, as he himself was aware, and he refers to precisely this

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 3 5
matter in 2 : 5 f. in connection with what he says in 2 : 4 about
the grief with which he wrote. But it is surprising how start-
lingly in i Cor. 4:7-15 also the calm discussion is succeeded
by an outburst of profound indignation over the empty pride
and complacent self-satisfaction of the Corinthians, although
severe expressions have already interrupted this discussion in
passages like 3 : 1-4, 16-18 ; 4 : 3. And it is easy to conceive
that he feared that in other passages also the church would
miss the affectionate tone of their spiritual father, and that it
was not easy for him to reproach them so severely as in this
letter he was compelled repeatedly to do.
But these hypotheses of intermediate letters and intermedi
ate journeys are not only unnecessary but untenable, since the
second letter is connected in the closest possible way with the
first. When Paul wrote the first letter he intended (16 : 5, 8) to
make a journey through Asia to Macedonia ; in the second letter
he is carrying out this intention, going by way of Troas (2 : 8,
I2f.). According to 2 Cor. i : 15 f. the church at Corinth had
been offended with him, misinterpreting his action in going
directly to Macedonia and not, according to the promise he had
made in a previous letter (see 2 Cor. 2:13) to Macedonia
by way of Corinth, and then from Macedonia back to Corinth
for a second visit. When and where he had made this prom
ise we do not know ; probably in the lost letter preceding
our first. So much, however, is certain, that when he wrote
I Cor. 16: 5 he had already made this change in his plans, and
in that passage informs them of the change. For the seem
ingly tautological repetition oilikpypp-ai (i Cor. 16: 5) has no sig
nificance whatever unless he intended by it to emphasize the
fact that he was not coming to them as his former promises had
given them reason to expect, but was on the point of starting
immediately for Macedonia. The only reason he gives for this
is that he does not wish at this time to make them a merely
passing visit as he had done before. The Corinthians themselves
could not but see that after writing this letter it would be impos
sible for him to come to them without entering into a full dis
cussion of many questions at issue between them. The deeper

36 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
reason he could not, pf course, state in this letter ; but now that
the Corinthians had so outrageously misconstrued his change of
plan, he is compelled to state it (2 Cor. i : 23 ; 2 : i ff.). Even
in the first letter ( i Cor. 4 : 18) he had intimated that if he came
before they had thoroughly reformed he should be obliged to
resort to strenuous measures, and this, for his sake as well as for
theirs, he was extremely reluctant to do. It was for this reason
that he wrote instead of coming, hoping that the result of his
letter would be that he would be able to come to them again
with joy and not with sorrow.
If, then, the second letter is so closely connected with the
first in subject-matter, intermediate journeys and letters are
absolutely excluded. Moreover, the interruption of his discus
sion of his reasons for going directly to Macedonia instead of to
Corinth (2:5-11) is utterly inexplicable unless his object was,
in connection with vss. 3 and 4, to point out that he had in fact
acted wisely in writing, since as a result of his letter the matter
which had caused him most sorrow, and in which he had been
compelled to cause them sorrow, was now happily disposed of.
In this connection the matter referred to must be something dis
cussed in the first letter. And the repeated expression 5 toioItos
(2 : 6 f.) refers as if by express intention to i Cor. 5:5, just as
in 2 Cor. 7: 12, where he is also speaking of the good result of
their temporary sorrow which he had been obliged to cause
them, he refers to the d&Kiyo-as and the dSuc^^a's. Here he must
certainly be speaking not of an insult to himself or his messenger,
but of the case of incest, and what he says is again closely con
nected not with any discussion of this matter in a lost letter, but
with I Cor., chap. 5 . In that passage he had said that he would have
preferred to deliver such an one unto Satan. But inasmuch as
he would not do this unless the church would fully concur with
him in this sentence, and the church had shown itself far too lax
and indifferent in this unhappy matter, he had contented himself
with imperatively demanding the exclusion of the offender from
the church. The majority of the church has inflicted this pun
ishment (2 Cor. 2:6), and if now they are willing to pardon the
penitent offender, he will not insist upon the minority's concurring

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 37
in the sentence, but expressly requests, for reasons given, that the
offender shall be restored to the church, this evidence of the obe
dience of the church as such being satisfactory to him (2 : 8 f.).
If the explanation of the apparent interruption in 2 : 5-1 1 is
correct, then it is clear how appropriately 2: I2ff. joins on to
2:4. The figurative expression, 2:14, has often been misun
derstood. What it means is simply that, as he has shown in
a particular case (vss. 5-11), God has once more triumphed
over him, inasmuch as by the news which Titus has brought
concerning the success of his letter he has proved that all his
anxiety had been wholly superfluous. Accordingly he brings
the introductory thanksgiving of his letter (1:3 — 2:16) to a
speedy conclusion and with 2:17 passes over to the great
apologetic section of the first part of the letter (3: i — 6: 13).
But there is no reason to regard even 6 : 14 — 7 : i as an irrelevant
interpolation. The chief defects of the church, which were due
to too intimate intercourse with their unbelieving countrymen,
could not be corrected at one stroke, however good the effect of
his letter. Accordingly he begins the hortatory portion with a
renewed warning against all fellowship with heathenism ; but in
order tp guard against their again misunderstanding him and
supposing that he was overlooking the fact tha.t they had made
a good beginning in their reformation, he speaks in chap. 7 at
length of the news which Titus had brought, and closes with an
expression of the joy and good courage which he again has
with raference to the church (7: 16). He then passes to the
matter of the collection for the saints, about which he has much
to say to the church. This interpretation of the course of thought
in chap. 7, and the continuity of the admonitions in chaps. 8 and
9, I have set forth at length in my Erlduterungen, already
referred to. If anyone is surprised that the apostle adopts so
different a tone in the third part of the letter (10: i — 12: 18),
this is because it is overlooked that here the apostle is settling
accounts with his Judaizing opponents and that he is , dealing
with the church only in so far as they have allowed these mis
erable agitators to impose themselves upon them. On the other
hand, in the concluding exhortation (12:19 — iS^io), he turns his

38 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
attention again to those individuals who had not yet really
repented, warning them not to compel him to use his divinely
given authority if he should now come.
There is, accordingly, no more occasion to break up this letter
into several pieces, written at different times, than to adopt the
hypothesis of lost letters written between our First and Second
Corinthians, which necessarily calls in question the genuineness
of both letters, inasmuch as they involve the view that as these
letters stand they cannot be explained as the product of a
clearly defined situation. v. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.
The question concerning the constituent elements of the
church at Rome to which Paul wrote may now be considered as
finally settled by the history of modern criticism. Baur, feel
ing himself compelled in the interest of his conception of the
letter to maintain the Jewish-Christian character of the church,
endeavored to disprove the traditional view that it was com
posed essentially of Gentile Christians. His view was shared
by many, even outside of his school, as for instance by Man
gold, who attempted to elaborate this view in a special treatjse
(1866). In 1876 Holtzmann was able to assert with a certain
semblance of truth that, as a result of modern investigation,
the traditional view had been abandoned. But that very same
year Weizsacker protested in the Jahrbuch fiir deutsche Theologie
against the modern view, and proved with the old ar^juments
how indisputable the fact was that Paul conceived of his readers
as Gentile Christians. From that time the tide began to move
in the opposite direction ; in vain did Mangold attempt once
more in an entirely revised edition of his book (1884) to defend
the thesis of Baur. Strangely enough there is an inclination,
especially in the school of Hofmann, to take up that view again.
But, as in the case of Baur, this is merely the result of a special
tendency, although a tendency in quite another direction. How
complete a victory the traditional view has gained, issuing from
th^ prolonged conflict freshly established, is manifest from the
embarrassment of Holtzmann in attempting to escape from the

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 39
difficulty by asserting that Paul himself would not haye been
able to answer satisfactorily the question concerning the pro
portions of the constituent elements of the church at Rome.
But that is not the question at all. For Paul must have known
whether he conceived of the readers to whom he wrote as Jew
ish or as Gentile Christians.
Steck is wholly in error when, in order to show that the
epistle to the Romans is also a patchwork made up from differ
ent treatises of the Pauline school, he asserts that at least the
portion from i : i6 — 8:39 presupposes that the minds of the
readers are still in bondage to Jewish Christianity. Even in
3:27-30 Paul argues from premises which would be unhesita
tingly accepted only by Pauline Gentile Christians; in 4: 16 he
includes the readers with himself and his people in tlie iravTwv
ij/iolv in order to imply that Abraham was the father both of
Jewish and Gentile Christians. Since the type of doctrine which
the readers have been divinely led to accept (6: 16, 17) is
shown by the connection to be that which is characterized in
vs. 14 f. by the words o^x ^o v6p.ov aXXa. vir6 x'*P"' ^'""'i ^^^ since
their past is also expressly characterized (vs. 19) by subjec
tion to aKadapa-ia Kai a.vop.ia, it is evident that these readers are Paul
ine Gentile Christians. Beyschlag, to be sure, still claims on the
ground of 7 : 1-6 that the church was composed of those who had
been Jewish proselytes. But the anarthrous use of the word "law"
and the whole connection show that the readers in 7 : i are not
designated as persons acquainted with "the law" (though even
Gentile Christians had become acquainted with it, according to
Gal. 4: 21, through the reading of the Old Testament in the
meetings of the congregation), but as knowing law. It was,
as also the epistle to the Galatians shows, just as important
to prove that the Gentile Christians were free from law as
such as that the Jewish Christians were so ; since the Gentiles
in becoming converted to the God of Israel would evidently
be subject to his law ?/ the obligation to render such obedi
ence had not been removed for the Jews as well as for the
Gentiles. The passage 7:5 f., however, does not by any means
show that the readers have been subject with the apostle to the

40 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
law, but only means that both are, by their common deliverance
from the law, free from its power to stir up in them the old sin
ful passions again and again.
But Steck is right in saying that no one has as yet sufficiently
explained what purpose the doctrinal expositions of the epistle
to the Romans have as addressed to Gentile Christians. Just
because he considered them as polemical, directed against Juda
izing tendencies, Baur was compelled to consider the readers as
Jewish Christians. No matter how much the opposition which
Paul has in view is reduced, whether one looks for it with Man
gold among the Jewish Christians or with the majority of critics
among the Roman Gentile Christians, who are supposed not to
have reached as yet the height of Pauline knowledge, the idea
that he is conducting a polemic against the views held by them,
or is seeking to rectify their views, is in manifest contradiction
to the full approval of their spiritual condition (i : 12), which
would become thereby an insincere captatio benevolentice, and
with the definite implication in 15: 14 f. that they share his
knowledge and need only to be reminded of it. Every view
which holds that the purpose of the letter is to reconcile oppos
ing elements in the church, as is maintained by the later Tiibin
gen school, men like "Volkmar, Holsten, and Pfleiderer, is dis
proved by the fact that the Jewish, Christians can have formed
only a very small percentage of the church, and that at the only
point where this opposition becomes conspicuous in the church
(15:8 f.) the matter is a practical controversy over a very spe
cific matter the treatment of which in chapter 14 excludes any
far-reaching doctrinal difference. On the other side, in oppo
sition to the very plausible view concerning the epistle defended
recently by Weizsacker, Grafe, and Julicher, according to which
the epistle aims to protect the church against invading Judaism,
Steck has shown that, except in 3:8, there is in the whole
epistle not a trace of an anti-Judaistic polemic, such as appears,
for example, in the second epistle to the Corinthians. He
might have added that Weizsacker himself admits that we
do not know that this reproach (Rom. 3: 8) was ever brought
against Paul by the Judaizers. It must be conceded, therefore,

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 4 1
that the polemical statements of the epistle cannot be explained
by any immediate exigencies of the church at Rome. This is
fully confirmed if we do not look at these statements from the
point of view of a preconceived opinion concerning the purpose
of the epistle, but ask ourselves the question whether they really
can be regarded as attacks upon Judaistic errors in any form.
None of the theories concerning the purpose of the epistle to
the Romans thus far proposed has succeeded in showing how the
exposition of the punitive judgment of God upon the heathen
world in chap, i stands related to the purpose which these
theories attribute to the apostle. When, however, Paul in 2 : i —
3 : 20 sets forth that the Jews are also subject to this judgment
of wrath in spite of their possessing the law and being circum
cised, since the opportunity which they by their unfaithfulness
furnished to God to exhibit his faithfulness in a yet clearer
light cannot secure impunity for them ; and, further, that the
Old Testament teaching concerning universal sinfulness has ref
erence to them also ; it is clear that this portion of the letter
cannot be directed against the Jewish-Christian position, since no
Jewish Christian ever denied that the Jews, if they do not ftilfiU
the law of which they boast and if their circumcision is not
accompanied by that of the heart, are likewise subject to the
judgment of God. And yet it is precisely in this part of th
epistle that the apostle's dialectical method is most marked — a
method which conveys the impression that he is establishing his
position first of all in the controversy with the Jews. Without
a trace of polemic the apostle proceeds then to show in 3:21 —
4:25 that it is only the gospel of justification by faith that can
satisfy the religious needs of man, inasmuch as it excludes all
self-righteousness and is equally available for both Jews and
Gentiles ; arid, further, that this justification by faith had in both
these respects a prototype in the history of Abraham. When he
proves, however, in chap. 5 in a doctrinal and historical exposi
tion that with this righteousness was given also life, i. e., the
completion of salvation, he has just arrived at the point on which
he differed most sharply with the Judaizers ; still there is no
reference to their conception that the promises given to the

e

42 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
people of Israel could be shared only by those who have become
incorporated with them by submitting to the law and circum
cision. The following section (6: i ff.) might perhaps under stress
be interpreted as an attempt on Paul's part to guard against the
reproach that his doctrine of justification by faith would lead
men to continue in sin. But in that case the paragraph is intro
duced in a very unskillful way by the harshest expression of the
power of the law to increase sin (5 : 20, 21). The proof, how
ever, in chap. 6, that in baptism a new life had already been
established, which would necessarily lead to freedom from sin
and to the service of righteousness, develops in a purely theoret
ical manner the consequences of the apostle's doctrine of grace.
Even such a practical application as occurs in 6: I2ff. is not
intended to correct Judaistic misconceptions, but is rather a moral
exhortation addressed to the Gentile Christians. Finally, the
exposition concerning the deliverance of the Christian from the
law, in chap. 7, does not follow the mode of argument employed
by the epistle to the Galatians, in which the apostle demon
strably deals with Judaistic opponents, but is based upon his own
experience under the law from which he has learned that the
law cannot overcome, but only stimulate, sin ; thus it is proved
that a new principle is absolutely necessary for the conquest of
the power of sin in man. That the spirit given to us through
our vital communion with Christ is this principle is clearly
stated in chap. 8, but immediately the apostle turns to the exhor
tation that the Christians should surrender themselves to this
spirit in all the affairs of life, and should find in it the pledge of
the completion of salvation, the certainty of which he sees, finally,
in the election and calling of those who have been justified.
It is an old opinion that Paul speaks of his mission to the Gen
tiles in chaps. 9-1 1, and justifies it over against Judaizing preju
dices. The problem which occupies him here is, however, merely
the question which, because of his affection for his nation — here
again so vividly and repeatedly expressed, e. g., 9: 1-5 and 10:
I — mpves him deeply : What is the reason that notwithstanding
the promises made in the first instance to Israel the majority of

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 43
the people of Israel have not obtained the salvation which was
promised to them primarily? For no Jewish Christian ever con
sidered it an injustice that God chose Isaac rather than Ishmael,
and Jacob rather than Esau, or that he hardened Pharaoh ; and
still here also in the treatment of the subject Paul's peculiar dia
lectic method appears most vividly. If Paul emphasizes strongly
the' absolute freedom of God, which is displayed in ruling over
the creatures of his power, he certainly has in mind first of all
the claims of unbelieving Jews ; but over against this he at
once states in 9 : 22 ff. the real condition of things, according to
which God has endured the vessels which have become subject
to his wrath with great patience, and has put off his final judg
ment in order to make room for the calling of the Gentiles,
promised already in the Old Testament. He proceeds to show
that the unbelieving Jews have themselves brought this fate upon
themselves, by committing the unpardonable sin of unbelief which
determines their fate (9:30 — 10:21). Did a Jewish Christian
ever doubt this? If, consequently, the majority of Israel is hard
ened at present and only a remnant is saved, as even the prophets
had foreseen (11 : i-io), Paul has nevertheless come back to the
belief that in the wonderful grace of God all Israel may finally
be saved as a nation (11 : 25-36). And when he inserts here a
practical application, it is not one intended to refute some Jew
ish-Christian error, but to warn the Gentile Christians not to
boast, but rather to endeavor, by continuing in the grace of God
through faith, to escape being themselves cast away. How little,
however, these digressions of the epistle are intended to meet
special needs of the church at Rome may be seen also from the
hortatory part in which Paul develops the whole series of Chris
tian duties in an entirely theoretical fashion, and only in chap.
14 takes up a special matter concerning which there had been
some controversy in Rome.
It is, indeed, asserted that the epistle to the Romans could
not be explained historically, and that it would be without any
analogy whatsoever among the Pauline epistles, if it were not
occasioned by existing defects and errors of the church at
Rome. But on any theory this epistle holds a unique position

44 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
among the Pauline letters and the historical occasion may very
well have been in the personal experiences of the apostle. We
must remember that Paul stood at an important turning point
of his life, since, having finished his work in the Orient, he
was now looking for a new field of activity in tHe Occident.
Just after the victorious completion of the controversy with his
Judaistic opponents in Galatia and Corinth, it must have beeli a
necessity for the apostle, having now learned to appreciate bet
ter what was defensible in the position of his opponents, to sum
up the whole matter. And this he did, following his natural
impulse as a writei', and formulating in a comprehensive treatise
his doctrine of salvation, setting forth its points of agreement
with the revelation of God in the Old Testament and with the
claims which the children of Israel have, owing to their peculiar
position in the history of the kingdom of God. The reason
why he did this in the form of an epistle to the church at Rome
was partly that this was about the only form in which he was
accustomed to exercise his ability as a writer, and partly that
just at this time he had occasion to announce to this church his
intention to visit them.
He had long ago recognized the importance of the church in
the world's capital (i:8),and it must have been a matter of
importance to him to induce this church to receive and transmit
a conception of his message of salvation adapted to end forever
the controversy between Jewish and Gentile Christians, which
he was just then engaged in allaying by his journey to the
mother church at Jerusalem for the purpose of delivering a
collection from the churches. If he had in view with this mat
ter an immediately practical purpose it could only be this, to
enable the church at Rome, where Christianity and Judaism
were both seeking to win for themselves the Gentile already
yearning after monotheism, to answer all the claims and meet
all the objections of Judaism. Let us remember, however, that
he was just at that time seriously threatened by hostile Jews
(15:31), and we shall at once see that the thought must have
come to him that this epistle might be his legacy to the church
and through it to all Christendom.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 45
Baur's rejection of chapters 15 and 16 as not genuine
was perfectly comprehensible from his point of view, since
this section too directly contradicted his views concerning the
anti-Judaism of Paul {cf 15:8), the Jewish-Christian character of
the church at Rome {cf. 15 : 14 ff.) and the unhistorical charac
ter of the Acts in those passages which tell of the first activity
of Paul in Jerusalem {cf 15: 19). That Marcion, who also of
necessity objected strongly to 15:8, did not have this section
in his Apostolos does not concern us here, if we remember how
he adapted the epistles to the necessities of his theory ; and
Baur's other reasons for rejecting the section were artificial and
far fetched. Even Lucht and "Volkmar, therefore, believed that
these two chapters contained a genuine conclusion which had
been worked over later with an irenical tendency because it
sounded too harsh, and endeavored to reconstruct it ; while
genuine Tiibingenists, like Hilgenfeld and Pfleiderer, and with
them the majority of the other more recent critics, continued to
defend their genuineness in spite of Baur. Since Mangold's refu
tation, which, with indefatigable industry, follows criticism into
all its detailed objections, this position of Baur may also be
regarded as superseded. Only the spuriousness of the doxology
(16:25-27) has been maintained by many defenders of the
remainder of the two chapters. The only reason that can be given
for this view with any semblance of truth is that in some manu
scripts the doxology is found at the end of chap. 14, in others is
in both places, and in still others is missing entirely. But this
fact is most probably the result of the omission of the concluding
chapters in Marcion. If one does not consider this omission of
any importance, the reason for the spuriousness of the closing
doxology is removed also ; if one, however, maintains this reason
it is necessary in consistency to return to the position, now for
tunately superseded, of doubting the genuineness of both of the
concluding chapters. For the internal evidence against the
genuineness of the closing doxology is at best weak. It is usually,
with Holtzmann, attributed to the auctor ad Ephesios. Those who
regard the apostle as the author of the epistle to the Ephesians
can consequently make no objection to it here.

46 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
An entirely different question which has nothing to do with
the genuineness of the Pauline epistles is whether the section
i6: 1-20 was originally a part of the epistle to the Romans or
whether it was an independent letter of recommendation for the
deaconess Phoebe to the church at Ephesus. Even among the
critics the controversy concerning this point is still going on. I
believe that in almost every verse there are such overwhelming
reasons in favor of the latter view that I cannot quite under
stand how anyone can adhere to the traditional view. The proc
ess by which this letter of recommendation got into the epistle
to the Romans is, indeed, easily enough explained. If the
deaconess went to Ephesus in order to embark thence for Rome
and to deliver our epistle, it was but natural that the church at
Ephesus should make a copy of this epistle and preserve with it
the lines of recommendation which the church had received
through the same hand that brought the precious epistle. It is
easy to suppose that later on, since this kicuaToXr) a-va-Tanic^ had no
address of its own, these lines were embodied in the epistle to
the Romans, with which they had been connected from the
beginning. VI. THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.
With the epistle to the Colossians we pass to the so-called
epistles of the captivity. Whether this was written from Rome
or from Caesarea does not affect the question of genuineness —
I myself believe that the weight of evidence is for Caesarea.
But with the question concerning the errorists whom Paul
opposes in the letter the case is different; the conception
we form of these will determine our answer to the question
whether the letter is genuine or not. And in reference to this
matter the assumption that those whose error is refuted are
partly or wholly the same as those against whom the epistle to
the Galatians is directed has not }'et received as thorough a
refutation as the case demands. What the apostle is here deal
ing with is evidently not a denial of his doctrine of salvation,
but rather the question whether for the attainment of the true
consummation of Christian life and character, and so for the

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 4?
full assurance of salvation, something more and greater be not
necessary than the simple belief of that message of salvation
and the Christian morality that comes with it, viz., a profound
insight into the secrets of the divine being and a strict regula
tion of the whole life by ascetic rules. This insight, it was sup
posed, could be attained partly through traditional theosophic
doctrines (2: 8), partly through visions (2: 18); and asceticism
was deemed necessary in order to enable one to enter into inter
course with the heavenly world, by which it would become more
and more thoroughly known. Inasmuch as the asceticism in the
Roman church, with which Romans (chap. 14) deals, and which
included abstinence from flesh and wine as well as a strict
observance of certain fast days, is to be traced to Essenic influ
ence, it is probable that this theosophic-ascetic tendency of
Jewish Christianity is also connected with Essenism.
It appears, to be sure, from 2:11 and 3:11 that this Jewish-
Christian party attached great value to circumcision ; this, how
ever, was not because, like the Pharisaic party in the church,
they held that by it one was incorporated into the Israelitish
community, to which alone belonged the attainment of salva
tion, but because through it the whole physical life was believed
to be in a higher degree consecrated to God. The Jewish fes
tivals likewise (2 : 16) were not observed because the Mosaic
law was regarded as of permanent validity, but because by such
consecration to God of certain regularly recurring days the
whole daily life was supposed to gain a higher consecration.
Moreover, the rules which were, in the stricter sense, ascetic
had, according to 2 : 20 ff., no relation whatever to the Old Tes
tament, but were based upon commandments of men regarding
all physical enjoyments ; and for this reason Paul never appeals
in his polemic to the Old Testament. Nevertheless the apostle
perceived clearly that the danger from this party was quite
as great as that from Pharisaic Jewish Christianity ; for, aside
from the conceit which such new wisdom and philosophy pro
duced (2:8, 18), it inevitably led to the idea that the fullness
of the divine essence was poured out over the entire higher
world of spirits and thereupon to the attempt by worship of

48 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
angels (2:18, 23) to enter into mysterious relation with the God
head ; which the apostle foresaw would imperil both the unique
majesty and dignity of Christ and the all-sufficiency of his redeem
ing work and mediatorship. These ascetic exercises, moreover,
tended continually to the development of a new legalism which
Paul could not but regard as a return to an obsolete stage of
religious development (2 : 20).
Nevertheless the apostle was obliged to assume toward this
tendency a very different attitude from that which he had taken
toward the Pharisaic party in the church. Inasmuch as they did
not oppose his doctrine of salvation, he could not reject their doc
trine in toto; there was a legitimate element in it, inasmuch as
it met an awakening consciousness of need of deeper knowl
edge. He himself knew that the gospel concealed in itself a
profound divine wisdom {cf I Cor., chap. 2) which was able
fully to satisfy this desire ; and the comparative restraint and
greater leisure of his imprisonment gave him abundant opportu
nity to penetrate more and more into this divine wisdom. In
his earlier letters the godlike glory of the exalted Christ had led
to the recognition of his eternal existence and activity ; all that
was lacking now was that he should be apprehended as the
foundation and the goal of all creation, all orders of the heavenly
beings included {cf 1:16), and that it should be seen that in him
all the fullness of the Godhead, of which this theosophy had so
much to say, dwelt bodily (i : 19 ; 2 : ,9) . His redemptive work
also appeared now in an entirely new light. Hitherto Paul had
regarded it only from the point of view of the human need of sal-
vati.on ; now, however, he perceived how by it the victory was
gained over the principalities and powers hostile to God (2 : 15)
and how the kingly dominion of Christ had displaced them, so
that his redemptive work acquired also a cosmic significance. In
proportion as the increasing tendency to speculation threatened
to divide the church into parties or schools, Paul was compelled
to emphasize the organic unity of the church under Christ as its
head (1:18,24; 2: 19) and the universal significance of the gos
pel by which it had been founded (i : 6, 23). To be sure he was
obliged continually to insist that the content of the gospel was

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 49
not some theosophic speculation but the mystery of salvation ;
yet at the same time that in the gospel were hid all the treas
ures of wisdom and knowledge (2: 2 f.). Now, therefore, the
difference between heathenism and Judaism is obliterated
(3: 10 f.) in an entirely different way from that employed in
the earlier letters ; by the redemptive death of Christ the law
itself, conceived of as a code of statutes, is as such abrogated
(2:14), and not simply the obligation of the individual to obey it.
Now also the destiny of the world appears in a new light ; the
great gulf which sin made in the divinely created world of spirits
is done away, and by joining them to Christ as their only head,
men and angels must again be united (i: 20). Thus in a certain
sense the antithesis between heaven and earth is even in this life
done away with (3:1 ff.) .
But lofty as were these christological, soteriological, and
eschatological speculations, yet the apostle was constantly forced
to emphasize the fact that every true advance in knowledge must
also bear fruit in the fulfillment of the divine will and in the
achievement of complete moral renewal (i:9f.; 2:9 ff.). He
I was, however; compelled also to prove how this renewal is shown
not in the carrying out of arbitrary human enactments, but in
the reorganization of domestic and social life with the duties
pertaining to it. In a more thoroughgoing way than in the
earlier letters he sought to regulate the Christian moral life
through detailed prescriptions, and the significance of the Old
Testament was revealed to 1 him in a new light, being regarded
no longer as a code, but as a typical foreshadowing of the divine
will as it was fulfilled in Christ (2: li, 17). It is the province
of biblical theology to set forth in detail this development of
Paulinism in all directions as it appears in the letters of the
imprisonment {cf my Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie des Neuen
Testaments, 6. Aufl., Berlin, 1895). I* is sufficient for criticism
to prove that there was adequate occasion for this development
in the new kind of opposition which confronted the apostle in
Colossae. To be sure if we deny to the Paul of the great doctrinal and
controversial, epistles any capacity of development in his ideas

50 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
we can hardly regard the epistle to the Colossians as his work ;
and if we hold that he was limited to a narrow vocabulary and a
stereotyped style, forced upon him by the former controversial
period, we can no longer recognize the apostle in the writer of
these letters. But what a pitiful conception of the great apostle
underlies criticism of this sort. It is, on the contrary^ only
natural that his rigid and dogmatic style of expression with its
theses and antitheses should disappear upon the cessation of the
conflict with Pharisaic Judaism ; and that when there was no
longer any opposition to his doctrine of salvation the argumen
tative exposition of it should likewise cease. Moreover, as a
wise teacher Paul would take up the technical terms of the the-
osophists, such as irXripwpa and p-vcrrriptov, as well as their specu
lations concerning the angelic orders, their demand for a higher
gnosis, and for the perfection of the Christian life ; only he
would stamp them with a meaning of his own. He was obliged
to employ in the unfolding of the entire fullness and depth of
the truth of salvation a mode of presentation different from that
required in the original exposition and substantiation of it. The
long-drawn-out sentences, overloaded with ideas, their parts
only loosely connected by relatives and participial constructions,
simply show that the same apostle is writing who in the earlier
letters shows himself unacquainted with literary Greek and on
principle indifferent to rhetorical effect. Where, however, he
assumes again a definite polemical attitude he expresses himself
in antitheses which are as pointed as in the earlier letters, though
now they often suggest more than is actually said.
In view of all this it is easy to understand how criticism
should inevitably have been in perplexity concerning the genu
ineness of this letter. Ewald, indeed, for a time went no further
than to ascribe it to Timothy, who drew it up after a preliminary
discussion of its contents with'the apostle. But the Tiibingen
school was forced to construe the expressions of the letter in
the sense of second-century gnosticism in order thus to be able
to prove by an evident circulus in demonstrando that it was influ
enced by this gnosticism and opposed it ; or to discover in the
mention of the Petrine Mark (4:10) and the Pauline Luke

THE GENUINENES'S OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 5 I
(4: 14) a trace of the reconciling tendency of the second cen
tury which was supposed to appear also in the emphasis which
the epistle lays on the unity of the church. Hilgenfeld, how
ever, dated the letter much earlier and regarded it as a polemic
against the beginnings of gnosticism in the person of Cerinthus.
In this he returned to the view of Mayerhoff, who first (1838)
controverted the genuineness of the letter from this point of
view. But it is most interesting to observe that the alleged
dependence of the letter to the Colossians upon that to the
Ephesians, on which he based his attack, was just the point at
which the reactionary movement set in. When Holtzmann in
1872 carefully investigated both letters with reference to this
point, he believed that he found interwoven in Colossians the
indications both of originality and dependence upon Ephe
sians, both of genuineness and of spuriousness. Upon this
he built the hypothesis that the genuine letter of Paul to the
Colossians was imitated by the auctor ad Ephesios and then once
more — with what purpose it is difficult to conceive — was inter
polated to suit his own views. In opposition to him von Soden
in 1885 successfully proved that the indications of dependence
and spuriousness found by Holtzmann in the letter to the Colos
sians were wholly unsubstantiated, and he regarded only a very
few verses as later interpolations. Inhis Hand-Commentar, 1891,
he admitted the genuineness even of these. Since then Jiilicher
and Harnack have emphatically declared themselves in favor of
the genuineness of the epistle as handed down by tradition.
Accordingly this letter also, having been tested by the fire of
criticism, has maintained its genuineness.
It is certain that since the personal greetings in chap. 4 are
not matters of invention they constitute an argument against the
hypothesis of pseudonymous authorship difficult to overcome.
The same is true of the canonical letter to Philemon, so insepa
rably joined to the Colossian letter by the reference in Col. 4 : 9-
It is today quite generally accepted that Baur's maintenance of
the spuriousness of this letter was one of his worst blunders.
That he should have called it the embryo of a Christian novel
sounds like a jest, not a scientific argument. Weizsacker is nearer

52 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
right in regarding it as the presentation of truth by example.
But in that case we should expect a discussion of the question
of slavery. Unfortunately, however, the letter gives no definite
instructions on the subject ; whether Philemon is to receive the
returning slave as a brother merely, or free him, or give him to
the apostle as his personal servant is purposely left undeter
mined in the letter. That Hilgenfeld, in spite of Baur, accepts the
letter as genuine is an admirable evidence of his appreciation of
the character of this document with its delicate tact and spirit of
amiable comradeship testifying in every word to its genuineness.
But this conclusion of his is not consistent. It would be a refine
ment of deception, entirely foreign to pseudonymous literature of
that period, that an author who purposed writing to the Colossians
in the name of Paul should ferret out this private letter in order
to accredit himself as the genuine Paul by the allusion to it in 4:9
VII. THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS.
When Schleiermacher and DeWette directed their criticism
against the letter to the Ephesians, their chief argument was
that the general content of the letter stood in evident contradic
tion with the special address. This argument has been abandoned
since modern textual criticism has conclusively shown that the
words ev 'E^eo-win the address are a later addition. Indeed, doubt
of this fact, though entertained by even so distinguished a com
mentator as Meyer, must be definitely given up ; as well as the
view, represented by Bleek, that the address, apparently incom
plete, was left so by Paul himself in order to issue several copies
•of it, filling in local references in each case. Why the apostle
designates his readers as " saints who also believe in Jesus Christ,"
that is, New Testament saints in contradistinction to those of
the Old Testament, cannot be understood at all if the proper
purpose of the letter receives so little consideration as is ordi
narily the case. Likewise, the identification of the letter in any
way with that mentioned in Col. 4:16 must be definitely given
up. It is excluded by the fact that Paul in 4 : 15 could not send
greetings to the Laodiceans in the letter to the Colossians, if, at
the same time, he sent to Laodicea by the same messenger one

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 53
addressed to them, or even intended also for them. We must,
however, abandon all attempt to justify the special address on the
ground that the letter, at least in the first instance, was intended
for Ephesus ; because in that case we do not at all meet the
real difficulties which criticism has from the first rightly pointed
out. Since the readers are addressed constantly as Gentile
Christians, but according to 3:2 ff.; 4:21 could not possibly
have been converted by Paul, it follows that this circular letter
was addressed to Gentile-Christian churches not founded by the
apostle, to whom it was to be carried and read publicly. Tychi
cus, the bearer of the letter (6: 21), must have received verbal
instructions to that effect. That the churches addressed were
in Asia Minor is made highly probable simply by the fact that
Tychicus carried the circular letter at the same time that he
went to Asia Minor with the Colossian letter. The simplest
explanation of the later insertion of the words Iv 'Etjiktra is that
the letter intended for the churches of Asia Minor in general
was at a later time assumed to have been addressed primarily to
the metropolis, Ephesus.
The second difficulty which the letter presents is its
extremely close relationship with the letter to the Colossians.
And this difficulty is not so easily disposed of as is generally
thought. If, to be sure, we recall the parallel passages in the
two letters to the Thessalonians and the parallels in the letters
to the Romans and the Galatians, the latter two written years
apart, we cannot wonder that two letters written practically at
the same time show so great similarity both in form and mat
ter. This becomes, however, perfectly explicable only when we
suppose that the news received from Colossi had introduced
Paul into an entirely new circle of ideas, and that as a natural
result, though writing a circular letter to a group of churches, he
was still dominated by the thoughts developed in the letter to
the Colossians. How difficult it is to prove here a strict literary
dependence of one letter upon the other appears from the fact
that although the letter to the Ephesians is generally admitted
to be dependent on Colossians, yet Mayerhoff held exactly the
opposite opinion, and a keen critic like Holtzmann maintams

54 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
that the evidence points to mutual dependence. The decisive
argument against this view will always be that it would have
been impossible for a writer who, when writing independently,
could imitate, often so strikingly, the doctrine and style of Paul
as the writer of Ephesians must have done, should, in order to
make his writings seem like Paul's, follow a Pauline letter in
other passages so slavishly, and that even in sections which have
nothing whatever to do with the main purpose of his letter. But
it is still more incomprehensible that the fiction of 6:21 f.
should be the first passage to reveal any semblance of motive
for connecting his composition so closely with a letter which,
after all, furnished him for his main purpose a very unsatisfactory
point of attachment, especially as such attachment and fiction
would be more likely to give offense than to lend the appearance
of genuineness to his composition.
The standing problem for those who maintain the genuine
ness of both letters is to present proof that as regards the paral
lel passages the same thoughts and expressions are used with
far too great freedom to permit us to speak of literary depend
ence. In respect to that, however, much remains to be done,
since the exegesis of both letters is far from having attained to
the exactness arid certainty which has been reached in the case
of many other letters of Paul. Above all it must be clearly
understood that the Pauline spirit was far too rich and free not
to be able to express the same thoughts in different ways or to
give a different application to the same expressions, even in two
letters written the one immediately after the other. So the
letter to the Ephesians in spite of its relationship to the Colos
sian letter exhibits, in accordance with its more general purpose,
a peculiar style, or, more exactly, a peculiar coloring of the whole
mode of presentation. It contains expressions like the fre
quently recurring ra l-Kovpavia and p.e6ohe.ia which is found at least
twice (4:14; 6:11); so also 8iaj8o\os, meaning " devil " (4:27;
6 : 11), which is wholly foreign both to the Colossian letter and
the other letters. Such facts are not without importance to one
to whom the close relationship of two contemporaneous letters
presents in itself no difficulty.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 5 5
It is certainly a sign of greater freedom from prejudice on the
part of criticism that Jiilicher and Harnack are again inclined
to accept the genuineness of the letter which in spite of its
peculiarities preserves in so many ways the undeniable Pauline
type. But there will still be need, in that case, of making a
somewhat more thorough exegetical investigation of many
points. I will not speak of the fact that the interpretation of
2 : 20 in its relation to i Cor. 3 : 9 f. is still unsettled, since it
can be said that the varying, application of such a figure is not
of itself remarkable, even though in this case the underlying
thought is of too fundamental a character to be irrelevant to
the question of the Pauline origin. Yet upon first glance it is
somewhat remarkable that the apostles and prophets are called
a-yioi (3-5)' if we do not observe that this explains why they,
being sent forth of God to his service, can be set over against
the sons of men. And it is certain that 4:11 according to its
usual interpretation carries us down beyond the date of the
pastoral letters, since here already the government of the church
and its instruction appear to be united in the same church officer,
the first impulses toward which appear in the pastoral letters.
This interpretation, however, cannot be correct, because the
whole context clearly shows that only gifts of speech are
meant. Accordingly the intention of the addition km. SiSdarKoXoi
must be to designate the iroi.p.kvei as those shepherds who lead the
individual churches to the right pasture {cf John 10 : 9 f.), that
is, provide them with the instruction and admonition which they
constantly require.
The Tubingen school, to be sure, advanced nothing that
strengthened the argument against the genuineness of the letter.
For their contention that here we recognize already the spirit of
the second century loses its force, since they find in the letter
elements both gnostic and Montanistic, even the same passage
(4:7-11) being interpreted by some as gnostic, by others as
Mbntanistic. But it is an altogether baseless claim that here a
unification is sought after by means of an external synthesis
of faith and love, by weakening the Pauline doctrine of justifica
tion by faith, and making concessions to the Judaistic doctrine

56 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
of justification by works. Whatever distinguishes the doctrine
of this letter from that of the earlier letters is found also in
Colossians, and is inseparably connected with the transformation
of Paulinism, which in that letter is set forth and explained.
When recent criticism, at least in the case of the majority of
its representatives, carries the compositibn of the letter back
into the first century, assuming, however, that a disciple of the
apostle might have been its author, it surrenders therewith all
definite standards by which one can decide whether this trans
formation could not have taken place in the time of Paul and in
his own person. But that which offers some ground for both
the older and the later opinion is the fact that its exact aim on
the presupposition of the genuineness of the letter has not yet
been made clear. There is in the letter no trace of heretics,
about whom so much has been said, for 4: 14 is satisfactorily
interpreted in, view of the recent experiences of Paul in the
Phrygian churches, and 5:16 does not refer to a libertine
gnosis, but to moral seduction. Since now the hortatory portion
of the letter begins with most impressive and explicit emphasis
upon the unity of the church, both earlier critics like De Wette
and recent ones like von Soden have found in this thought the
main object of the letter. But this seems to be a return to the
Tiibingen criticism, which explains the letter from the presup
position that efforts after union of the parties in the church
were made in the second century. To be sure it is not difficult
to prove that nowhere in our letter is it possible to find a trace
of the concessions which are required by this hypothesis, since
a demand for the moral preservation of Christian character is
found in all the Pauline letters and is no concession to the Juda
istic doctrine of righteousness by works. Still, neither has crit
icism of the other school as yet explained what was the occasion
of this exhortation to church unity.
Nor, to be sure, has it been recognized that in the entire
first part of the letter this exhortation has been prepared for
with ponscious purpose. If even the address indicates that the
Gentile-Christian readers were saints, as were the members of the
Old Testament covenant nation, the conclusion of the words

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 57
of thanksgiving in the introduction likewise emphasizes how
the Gentile Christians, though in a different way, had attained
to the same certainty of the promised salvation as had the
Jewish Christians (i : 13 f.; t/ vs. 12). The entire second chap
ter turns upon the thought that the Gentile Christians had been
actually received into the community of the saints in Israel,
after the law was abolished as a method of salvation and life ;
and the third chapter also begins with the statement that the
apostle was entrusted with the gospel, by means of which the
Gentiles became actually partakers in the promise to Israel
(3:6), a thing which, according to Galatians, chap. 2, even
the primitive apostles also recognized. Whereupon it may be
reasonably asked what could be the occasion of these declara
tions and the exhortations of the second part based upon them
if the churches of Asia Minor to which the letter was directed
were, as on the usual presupposition that Paul is responsible
directly and indirectly for the Christianization of the whole of
Asia Minor they must have been, altogether made up of Gentile
Christians. In the discussion of the Galatian letter we have
already seen that this presupposition is untenable. Our judg
ment, moreover, is evidently established on a broader basis by
the Apocalypse. The church at Smyrna which is persecuted
only by the synagogue of Satan, which blasphemes the name
of Christ (2:9), and the church of Philadelphia which had suc
cessfully prosecuted its work among the Jews and will continue in
it (3 : 8 f.) can only have been purely Jewish-Christian churches.
It is clear, therefore, that there were in Asia Minor not only Gen
tile-Christian churches — many of them, indeed, e.g., those in
Phrygia, shown by our letter not to have been founded by Paul
— but also from earliest times numerous Jewish-Christian churches
which probably owed their origin to the primitive apostles ; and
this being so, the old conflict between the two might here, as
was the case in Galatia, break out again and again, though the
opposition would not necessarily take the form of Pharisaic
legalism, as it had done in Galatia, but might assume that of
theosophic asceticism such as the apostle had so recently met
in Phrygia. And in view of this we can understand how the

58 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
apostle should feel constrained earnestly to admonish the Gen
tile-Christian churches of proconsular Asia that by their recep
tion into the community of the saints and by their participation
in the promises once made to Israel, itself now free from the
obligation of the law, the old antithesis between Jew and Gen
tile was once for all abolished.
From this point of view, all the admonitions of this letter,
growing out of the one chief admonition to maintain the unity
of the church, are seen in a new light. For they all turn on the
fact that Christianity necessarily carries with it the complete
putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new, the
description of which issues in the exhortation to walk in love
after the example of Christ (4 : i f.; 5:2), and on the warning
against all alliance with the old Ijieathen iniquity, even in the
form of apparently innocent association with their unbelieving
countrymen (5 : 3-20) i the perils of which Paul had formerly
learned by severe experiences at Corinth. But after his latest
experiences he was compelled to add that asceticism was as
unnecessary for this regulation of the whole life in a Christian
spirit as was legalism (5:21 — 6:9). From this there follows
yet another consequence. The remarkable literary resemblances
between the Ephesian letter and the first epistle of Peter have
indeed seemed to almost all recent critics explicable only on
the hypothesis that the former, being dependent on the latter,
was, though attributed to Paul, spurious. On my view of the
epistle of Peter, according to which it is older than Galatians,
and was known to Paul when he wrote his letter to the Romans,
it is not impossible that the epistle to the Ephesians was written
with some reference to it. And even if a spokesman of this
school of criticism like Holtzmann calls it "sheer nonsense,"
it nevertheless remains true that it accords entirely with the
aim of this letter that Paul should, with deliberate purpose
and openly, employ the language of an older apostolic letter
already in circulation in Asia Minor and held in high esteem.
He wished to show the Jewish Christians, who would learn of
a letter of the great apostle of the Gentiles which was in cir
culation in that region just as Paul and the Gentile Christians

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 59
would hear of the letter of Peter, that the Gentiles were educated
in the same Christian truth and manner of life as they them
selves. Only on this view can the obstacle on which the genu
ineness of the letter seems likely after all to be shattered be
really removed. VIII. THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS.
Concerning the epistle to the Philippians it may apparently
be said at the outset that criticism has only served to establish
anew its genuineness. Denial of its genuineness begins with
Baur, who rejected it along with the other epistles of the
imprisonment. But in order to find echoes of gnosticism in it
he was obliged to explain 2 : 6 from the history of the Valen-
tinian Sophia, and in order to assign it to its place in the concilia
tion movements of the second century he had to identify the
Clement mentioned in 4 : 3 with the disciple of Peter who
appears in the Clementine legend, and whom he regards as one
of the 01 CK T^s Koto-a/Dos oiKtas (4 : 22). Baur's pupils even inter
preted 4 : 2 as referring not literally to two women, but to two
parties which, in the guise of an appeal to his oTJv^vyos, i. e.,
in their opinion, Peter, Paul admonishes to be of the same
mind (4:2, 3). With remarkable unanimity all the leaders of
the more recent criticism have decisively rejected this opinion
of Baur and his followers, and even Hilgenfeld has recognized
that the epistle is genuine. In fact there are few cases in
which the impossibility of so much as conceiving of a letter
as the work of a pseudonymous tendency-writer is so evident
as here. And yet in the JahrbUcher fiir protest. Theologie for
1875-6 Holsten undertook to recover the position which had
apparently been lost. But at what cost ! According to his
view the epistle is no longer to be regarded as a product of
the second century, but as having arisen between 70 and 80
A. D., being written, in order, by a continuation of the concilia
tory policy which the apostle inaugurated in his epistle to the
Romans, to restore the inner unity of the Philippian church.
The personal references of the letter are all supposed to rest
upon genuine tradition ; and only a slight un-Pauline tinge is to

6o PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
be discovered in doctrine, in language, and in the appreciation
of the gift which ostensibly furnishes the occasion for the let
ter. But even such a critic as Paul Schmidt repudiated this
position (in 1880) as "New Testament hypercriticism." And
really, that at a time when everybody in Philippi knew that the
apostle was dead, and had never written a letter to the church, a
disciple of'the apostle should fabricate a letter from him to the
church, in which the apostle expresses the confident expectation
of seeing them again (1:25; 2: 24), is a theory which would
not have the faintest appearance of probability, even if the view
that the letter is genuine labored under the most serious diffi
culties. Nevertheless I cannot admit that the question has been solved
by the more recent criticism. Measured by the standard which
this criticism is accustomed to employ, the epistle to the Philip
pians must be rejected as spurious. By admitting that it is
impossible to understand this letter on the assumption of its
pseudonymous character, criticism has allowed itself to be led
into making a concession which is absolutely contradictory to
its other assumptions. Holsten is undoubtedly right in main
taining that according to the standard of the great doctrinal and
controversial epistles the doctrinal views of Philippians con
tain much that is surprising. With what triumphant assurance
criticism would, if it served its purpose, reject as spurious a let
ter alleged to be from Paul in which he declares himself "touch
ing the righteousness which is in the law blameless" (3:6), on
the ground that the real Paul everywhere proceeds on the view
that there is no such thing as righteousness under the law. It
really required no very artificial exegesis to extract from 3 : 9
the meaning that justification is involved in vital union with
Christ — a view by which, however, Paul's doctrine of salvation is
exactly reversed. A verse like 4 : 8 actually reminds one more
of the moralizing tone of the pastoral epistles than of the ethics
rooted in the facts of salvation which are characteristic of the
older letters. One is indeed quite justified in asking with Hols
ten why the title of apostle is lacking in the address, and where
the kiria-KOTToi koX BiaKovoi, of whom not a trace is to be found else-

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 6 1
where in the Pauline letters, suddenly come from. And it is by
no means easy to explain how the same Paul that in i : 23 is only
in doubt whether he shall choose to die immediately in order to
be with Christ, or to abide in the flesh for the sake of the church,
in 3 : 1 1 is apparently not even yet sure of his resurrection from
the dead. And there is no doubt that the admonition of the
two women coram publico (4:2) is altogether unparalleled in
the Pauline letters. Of course all these difficulties can be
obviated, but not so long as one retains the finicalness which
characterizes all our modern criticism.
But it is also true that the whole type of doctrine of our
letter resembles that of the letters of the imprisonment much
more closely than it does that of the great doctrinal and contro
versial letters, although when account is taken of the relatively
small amount of doctrinal material in Philippians the difference
is not so marked. There is not lacking a certain strong empha
sis on the gnosis (1:9; 3 : 8, 10). It cannot be denied that the
Christology goes beyond that of the older letters, or that empha
sis upon the connection between the doctrine of salvation
and practical life takes the place of the strong insistence on
doctrine which characterizes the older letters. In passages like
2:10 and 3 : 20 there is a clear enough reference to the cosmic
significance of the saving work of Christ. The emphatic
admonition to unity in which the exhortation 2 : 2 f . really cul
minates reminds us strongly of a characteristic feature of the
letters of the imprisonment; and what 3 : 12-16 says about the
true Christian perfection reminds us again of what the Colossian
letter intinjates about the false ways by which the theosophists
of Colossae professed to lead men to perfection. Holsten's lists
of words, by which he undertakes to distinguish what is Pauline,
un-Pauline, and anti-Pauline, need not be taken seriously ; but if,
after the prevailing fashion of modern criticism, one stumble
over every new expression and note the absence of every catch
word of the old Pauline letters, it is as easy to prove the spu
riousness of Philippians as of Ephesians. The history of the
criticism of the letter to the Philippians issues of necessity in a
dilemma - either it must be recognized that the whole previous

62 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
method of criticism has been in certain respects very faulty and
must undergo a thorough reform, or we must go back and ques
tion again the genuineness of Philippians. We have not yet
reached lOur goal, not even with respect to the letter to the
Philippians. The chief reason for this state of affairs is that criticism as a
whole has accomplished but little for the interpretation of the
epistle to the Philippians, and that the historical situation which
the letter presupposes is very far from being cleared up. Or, is it
possible that some agreement has actually been reached, at least
respecting the condition of the church which the letter presup
poses? It will be useful to recall the course which the investi
gation of this matter has taken. In the case of the epistle to the
Philippians it was the older criticism that held that the church was
troubled by reason of the Judaistic errorists that were supposed
to be referred to in chap. 3. A dark picture was painted of the
parties into which the church was divided, and Rheinwald, in
1827, represented it as threatened with extinction by the division
between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Then came a reaction,
which, however, did not lead to the discovery of the seat of the
error until Schinz in 1833 proved that the church was a purely
Gentile-Christian body, in which there were no such parties, and
that the praise which the apostle gave the church was wholly
irreconcilable with the supposition of their existence. But even
he put in the place of conflict over doctrine which was said to
have divided the church only on the one side a boastful cele
brating of their own superiority, called forth by personal dis
agreements, and on the other a jealous belittling of the merits
of others. Almost all modern interpreters have followed him.
But does this view accord any better with the praise repeatedly-
bestowed on all of the members of the church individually {cf
1:3, 7, 8; 4:1)? And what basis is there for this view?
It is simply the intolerable fashion the interpreters have of
assuming, the moment the apostle utters a word against a preva
lent sin which is inherent in us all, that his readers must be
guilty of it in a very exceptional degree. Accordingly evidence
for this must be extorted from 2 : 2 ff. But would Paul really

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 63
have felt called upon to reprove before the whole church the
quarrelsomeness of two women, which was probably due in the
two cases to similar causes, if the church was itself guilty of
exactly the same fault ? Certainly not. Accordingly both on the
side of the defenders and on that of the deniers of the genuine
ness of the letter there is more or less tendency to return to the
old view. And so again we have the theory of two parties with
a " divided Christian consciousness," or Judaizing heretical teach
ers. But I cannot discover that the new arguments in defense
of this view are any better, or that the old arguments against it
have been refuted. Of course the church which the apostle
designates as his joy and his crown is composed of human
beings. But I cannot allow myself to distort the picture which
the apostle gives of it by introducing any kind of factious dis
order. The epistle is not a letter of reproof. When he closes
the expression of his joyfulness in imprisonment, of which no
possible exigency can rob him, with the statement that it is in
their power, by standing fast in one spirit, striving for the faith
of the gospel, as well as by a harmony based on self-denying
humility, not only to promote their own spiritual welfare, but
also to increase and share his joy (i : 27 — 2 : 18), this very form
of expressing his admonition shows conclusively that he is not
endeavoring to heal a serious rupture of ,the church.
But even in respect to the situation in Rome to which refer
ence is made in 1:14-18, there is anything but clearness and
agreement of opinion among scholars. The common opinion is
that here also there is a reference to Judaizing heretics, and it
was especially natural for those to adopt this opinion who
regarded the Roman church as essentially or in large part a
Jewish-Christian body. But in that case the way in which Paul
minimizes the doctrinal differences between these people and him
self and rejoices if only Christ is made known, whatever the
method, involves so glaring a contradiction with Gal. i : 8 f. that
it would be impossible to ascribe the letter to Paul. Of what
avail is the paltry subterfuge that Paul was softened by age, or
that the church in question was not one of his own founding ?
On this point Paul could never change, could never regard

64 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
that other gospel as of equal value with his own. The latest
opponent of the epistle (Holsten) and its latest defender (Paul
Schmidt) both frankly admit this, though, to be sure, critics like
Holtzmann and Jiilicher still find no difficulty whatever in the
old opinion. Nevertheless exegetically the latter is simply
impossible, since the antithesis between the Judaizing and the
Pauline preaching cannot be expressed by Are Tcpo^axrei eke aKyjdeLq..
And where has Paul ever accused his Judaizing opponents simply
of preaching Christ from envy of him (Sta <l>66vov, vs. 15) ? He
could never have done so. These opponents must have been
personal rivals of the apostle, and in that case there is no
ground for holding that they were Jewish Christians. As long
ago as 1859 I advanced the opinion in my commentary that they
were old teachers of the church who, finding themselves forced
into the background by the unexpectedly prolonged stay of the
apostle in Rome, where, despite his imprisonment, he became
the central figure of the church, sought by redoubled zeal to
outstrip him, and by criticism of himself and of his work to
destroy his populairity. I admit that I cannot prove this to be
the case, and I am entirely ready to accept any suggestion that
is more in accord with the words ; but I cannot go back to the
old impossible views.
The hypotheses which have gathered around the passage 3 : i
furnish a sad illustration of how matters stand in the exegesis of
Philippians. Most interpreters have found here an allusion to
earlier letters to the Philippians, as even the hypothesis-spinning
criticism of the old rationalists found here the beginning of a
new letter. But the most recent criticism of the Hausraths,
"Volters, and Clemens, revels in ever new inventions of letters of
which our letter is an unskillful patchwork. And what is the
reason of all this ? Simply that they will not see that the
whole previous part of the letter has been treating of that Chris
tian joy of which Paul is, ex professo, now about to speak again.
Even the prelate Bengel long ago recognized that the epistle to
the Philippians might properly be described as epistola de gaudio.
Such a letter may not seem to modern criticism worthy of the
apostle. But it gives no evidence of having any other purpose.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 65
The flourishing Macedonian churches were just those that were
most affected by the hostility of their unbelieving countrymen.
To this was added the news of the imprisonment of their apostle,
which had lasted now for years, and of the complete cessation
of his missionary work. These things lay like a heavy burden
upon his beloved church ; and for this reason he could not better
repay the gift they had sent him than to kindle in them, despite
all the burden of the present, that profound joy in believing
which filled him, though in chains and bonds. In chap, i he
had said that they should promote and share this his joy ;
and all that he says in chap. 2 concerning the sending of
Timothy and the return of Epaphroditus has to do with the
fact that he desires to do what he can to promote their joy. Is
it to be wondered at that in 3:1 he accompanies his -^ipeTe iv Kvpm
with an apology for always writing the same thing ?
But that throughout the third chapter also he is speaking of
the ground, means, and goal of true Christian joy is not so
readily conceded. Here it has been customary to find a warning
against Jewish-Christian heretics, either in Rome or in Philippi ;
the same Paul who in 1:18 was so mild in his attitude toward
them speaking here in a tone that outdoes all the polemic
against them that we have seen in Galatians and Corinthians.
But this interpretation would require him to use p,\kireTe airo
and not ^Xen-ere with the accusative, as i Cor. 1:26; 10:18
show. The verb, three times repeated for rhetorical emphasis,
shows, moreover, that there are three separate categories of men
to whom he directs their attention, in order, by means of the
contrast which these present, to develop the ground on which
the true Christian joy rests (3:3-11), the means by which it is
to be continually promoted (3: 12-16), and what its final goal
jg f o . 1 7_2 1 ) . That the unbelieving Jews constitute^ the third
of the categories ought never to have been overlooked. Where
has Paul designated the Jewish Christians as the irepirop.-^ simply?
Least of all could he do so here, where by the substitution of
the word Kararo,^^ {cf Gal. 5: 12) he intimates that because of
their unbelief, by which they have lost all the privileges of the
ireptrop.ij, it has become a useless mutilation. Recent critics also,

66 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
like Hokstra, Holsten, Lipsius, and Paul Schmidt, opponents
and defenders of the genuineness of the letter alike, recognize
this. The privileges of which unbelieving Judaism boasts, in
which it puts its trust, and the joy with which the apostle at his
conversion gave up these things for the sake of Christ who is
his only joy, is the theme of the following paragraphs.
But furthermore the kukoI ipydrai are far from being the
kpya.To.1 SoXtot of 2 Cor. 11:13. They are those teachers in Rome
whom Paul describes in 1:15-17, who take pleasure' in envy
and strife and in making trouble for him, as they think, in his
bonds. And what can the ovx o" of 3 : 12 signify except that he
refers to the charge of these people that he imagined himself
to be already perfect ? For certainly nothing that he has pre
viously said in the passage itself furnishes the slightest oppor
tunity for the misunderstanding which he wishes here to avoid.
On the contrary it is they who by their assumption of supe
riority to him and their rivalry with him make such a claim.
True Christian joy can be attained only when the Christian is
continually pressing forward toward the goal in order ever
more perfectly to apprehend Christ, when he knows no other
perfection than to be always striving after greater perfection. The
ultimate purpose of his whole letter is that the church should
by continually pressing forward toward this goal learn to over
come the spirit of despondency which oppresses it, and its anxi
ety for the future in the midst of all the threatenings of the
present. But exegesis has done its worst in the passage 3 : 1 7-2 1
The people there described have actually been held to be Jew
ish-Christian heretics. To be sure the opinion commonly held
by interpreters down to the present day, that they were nom
inal Christians living immoral lives, is not much better. Can
such a thing be possible in the beloved and highly praised
Philippian church, for every member of which the apostle can
make his supplication with joy (1:3)? If in Christendom today
there are such nominal Christians^ God forbid that it should be
so ! — who, though they have been baptized, have never learned
what it means to be a Christian, it by no means follows that then.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 67
"When to be known as a Christian brought only disgrace and perse
cution, there were among the Christians enemies of the cross of
Christ, who with shameful indulgence practiced idolatry. On the
contrary, it can only be heathen whom in vs. 2 he designates
as K-ive% {cf. Rev. 22 : 15) in order thus to characterize their
impure; indecent way of life — persons respecting whom he had
once cherished the hope that they could be won for the gospel,
but whom now he is compelled with deep sorrow to describe as
given over to perdition. In contrast with them he shows how
the man who finds his joy in Christ alone and has his citizenship
with him to whom he belongs, in heaven, looks for him as his
deliverer from the perdition to which these others have fallen,
and having reached the goal actually attains that which the
heathen vainly seek in their wrong way — as well as the glorifi
cation of the bodily life which they think to accomplish by their
deification of the koCkLo., and the honor which they seek in their
shame. Since 1859 I have maintained this interpretation. But exe
gesis still goes on contentedly in its old impossible path. No
wonder that the criticism of Philippians, despite all the defense
of it even by recent critics, is unable to reach final conclusions.
A book must first be understood before a final judgment 'con
cerning its author can be pronounced. I believe that I have
shown that the epistle to the Philippians is still very far from
being understood. IX. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES.
The pastoral epistles have been to apologetics a perennial
source of difficulty. Criticism in all its various schools has main
tained that their spuriousness was definitively settled. But if,
as we have learned since Baur's time, the task of criticism is to be
recognized as the unfolding of the historical understanding of a
document and of its origin, then in this instance its task is still
very far from having been accomplished. One of the most sig
nificant points which apologetics has constantly urged against the
view that here is a case of purely fictitious documents passing
for Paul's was the abundance of purely personal and historical ref-

68 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
erences appearing, especially in the letter to Titus and in Second
Timothy, for the fabrication of which no intelligible reason can
be seen. Moreover we cannot quite stop with these two letters
It is true that in respect to the two men who in i Tim. i : 20 are
delivered over to Satan, Julicher as a compromise allows that
perhaps the writer has in mind as a model an event of an earlier
period. It is, however, noteworthy that both names recur in
2 Tim. 3:17; 4:14. And, to say the least, the advice which is
given to the disciple of the apostle respecting his health in
I Tim. 5 : 23, in a connection so obscure that a pseudonymous
author would surely have no occasion to bring it in just there,
appears so very strange as to be exceedingly difficult of compre
hension as a mere fabrication. Criticism has always granted with
regard to the other letters that they may be based on genuine Paul
ine elements. Second Timothy, especially, was regarded by Cred
ner in his Introduction, dated 1836, as originating by combination
and interpolation from two genuine letters of Paul, and Lemme in
1882 accepted the whole letter as genuine with the exception of
a single somewhat extensive interpolation. Knoke and Hesse
have recently (1887, 1889) attempted neatly to extract the
Pauline elements from all three letters. Even such thoroughly
positive theologians as Grau and Plitt proposed to defend the
genuineness of the pastoral letters in this sense only, and also
Kiibel believed that the letters had received an odor of ecclesi
asticism by a final redaction.
How the two most recent critics of the pastoral letters stand
on this question is well worthy of consideration. Jiilicher, quite
in the manner of Credner, seeks to show how the author of Second
Timothy had before him fragments of two different letters to
Timothy which he put together unskillfully because he incor
rectly regarded them as fragments of one and the same letter.
In his reverence for Paul he could not but give them to the
church ; but as a couple of fragments were of little service to it,
he filled them out by putting into the mouth of Paul what the
Christian community of his day needed. In the same way he
edited a fragment of a letter to Titus. Later with no such Pauline
documentary basis he wrote First Timothy entire currente calamo,

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES 69
freely gathering together his fundamental ideas which did not
yet seem to him to be clearly and convincingly set forth in the
two other letters. The critics themselves would have been pri
marily responsible for what seems to be an interpolation with a
purpose by a skillful forger, since they would have sought to
determine that which was genuine even down to single words
and syllables, and to prove with the acuteness of a modern critic
his method of using his material. Harnack says frankly that
the pastoral letters are based on Pauline letters, or, more exactly,
on fragments of such letters ; sections of Second Timothy of con
siderable extent and importance, and a scant third of the letter
to Titus, can be claimed as genuine, even if perhaps few verses
apart from the historical references are reproduced without
change; in First, Timothy, on the other hand, while Pauline
material is found, no single verse bears a clear indication of
Pauline origin.
On this basis, indeed, the spuriousness of the pastoral
epistles in the earlier sense is given up ; their case, however,
is but little strengthened, since even upon Harnack's form of
the hypothesis it may be urged, as Jiilicher rightly says of his
own, that every attempt to separate the Pauline groundwork
from the later redaction is utterly hopeless and leads only to an
idle play of individual acuteness. In that case, however, it
is obvious to remark that no clear idea of those fragments
can properly be obtained, and so it becomes utterly impossible
to decide the question how far it was still in accord with the
spirit of the times to make such use of them or, more exactly,
thus to work them over, and whether in that case the charge
of conscious forgery can be met. Harnack occasionally inti
mates that in that time epistolary material would have been
protected against interpolation ; but if so it must be held that
those Pauline fragments were not written in real epistolary
form. In confirmation of this Julicher also, although finding
in the salutations the clearest traces of Pauline diction, regards
it as incomprehensible that the apostle should designate him
self in writing to intimate friends as he does in these saluta
tions. It seems, however, very questionable whether, on this

70 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
supposition that the author used those epistolary fragments,
this is a case of that kind of pseudonymous authorship which
we describe as altogether innocent. That the author did not
wish valuable material such as words of admonition and
didactic exposition to be lost one can easily understand, but
most of these . historical or personal notes, greetings, and com
missions, which were said to account for the existence of such
epistolary fragments, cannot be said to belong to material of
this class. If, nevertheless, the author of his own preference
introduced these glosses or notes, although not in the least con
nected with the purpose of his composition, he could not have
had the intention ' to accredit them as Pauline, and no one
would hold that this method is in harmony with the character
of na'ive literary composition. My feeling is that this is the
course which would be pursued by a later writer who, as Julicher
says, was inventing a situation in accordance with which he ascribes
to the apostle the sending of instructions to renowned leaders of
the churches. To this must be added that with every expan
sion of the genuine material underlying these epistles the ques
tion recurs anew whether the style and diction of the letters
can really be so utterly un-Pauline as criticism affirms. But
we have abundantly proven above that precisely at this point
the method of the critical school is in urgent need of revision,
so that it is impossible to solve this problem by details ; fur
thermore if we abandon the attempt to separate the genuine
Pauline basis from the later additions the problem is abso
lutely insoluble.
We are thus forced, notwithstanding the new turn which the
investigation into the genuineness of these epistles seems to have
taken in recent criticism, again to propound the question whether
these letters in the recension in which we possess them abso
lutely preclude the view that they are in reality what they claim
to be. Apologetics has always affirmed this to be the case. Still
it has deprived its efforts of all success, because a large number
of its spokesmen have persisted in relating the letters to the life
of the apostle as known to us. We must, however, concede, and
that for the reason often mentioned, that this is utterly impossi-

'THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 7 1
t'le. All artificial combinations do not suffice to lend to this
assumption even a shadow of plausibility. If these letters are
to be considered as genuine, they must have been composed at
a later period of the apostle's life which is unknown to us. It
is true that only recently Jiilicher has again argued very stren
uously that in view of the fullness of our traditions the whole
notion of a later period unknown to us is improbable, being in
fact simply a precarious postulate of those who, at whatever
cost, wish to maintain something that is absolutely untenable.
It is to be said on the other side, however, that Harnack, though
maintaining that these letters in their present form are utterly
un-Pauline, holds on quite independent grounds, without such
ulterior motives, that Paul was set free from the recorded Roman
imprisonment and accordingly lived at least five years longer.
To these years (A. D. 59-64) Harnack assigns the composition
of the genuine letters underlying our present recension, or, as
he really should say according to his own exposition, the frag
ments of letters. Since even Harnack does not seem to me to
prove that the apostle's death took place during the so-called
Neronian persecution, of the Christians, these five years ought, I
think, to be extended to nine, and since no one can deny that
such a term of years gives ample space for the compositipn of
the letters, this at once breaks the force of all objections to their
authenticity. Jiilicher thinks that even if this be granted the situation, at
least of First Timothy and Titus, is incomprehensible ; but this
cannot be conceded. He overlooks altogether that the apostle
who originally intended to return shortly was, as is clearly inti
mated in I Tim. 3: 15, delayed, and that this delay sufficiently
accounts for the renewed emphasis and expansion of the com
missions given to Timothy. The intended recall of Titus (Titus
2-12) does not preclude the hypothesis of a delay, since the
apostle had been taught by ample experience how little he could
with certainty count on the execution of plans that looked so
f r ahead as spending the winter at Nicopolis, and since we can
not say, with any degree of definiteness, how long it might have
been before he could have sent Artemas or Tychicus to relieve

72 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
Titus. The passage in Titus 3:13 clearly shows that it was the
journey of Zenas and Apollos that induced him to accompany
their letters of introduction with this letter. Strong statements
such as that he describes to Titus in detail the Cretan heretical
teachers, with whom Titus certainly must have been better
acquainted than he was, prove nothing ; for a reasonably unprej
udiced exegesis will show that Paul simply justifies his instruc
tions by reference to the character of these heretics. Julicher's
arguments concerning the manner in which the Pauline pretender
talks about himself and his intimate friends carry no greater
weight. Whether here and there an occasion appears for the
apostle to refer to his own apostolic calling or his past history
can be decided only by detailed exegesis. Paul certainly does
not become a scoundrel {"ein Schandmettsch") simply because
according to i Tim. 1:15 he feels himself, on account of his
persecutions of the church, "a chief of sinners." He may
even then have served God with a clear conscience (2 Tim.
1:3), though he was still in error. That Timothy, though he
was many years older than when he became an assistant of the
apostle, was still in need of encouragement in order to be able
to represent the authority of the apostle over against the
undoubtedly aged presbyters (i Tim. 4: 12) no one can reason
ably doubt. Jiilicher explains the admonition to Timothy
(2 Tim. 2: 22) as meaning that Timothy should be careful to
conduct himself properly. But this view is rendered untenable
by the whole context, which shows the admonition to be
directed against the youthful eagerness to convert those in error
by passionate appeals and arguments, a zeal which, as is well
known, does not cease with a certain year of one's life.
It is not my purpose to add another to the many discussions
of these subjects. I have intended only to show by the exam
ple of the latest Introduction to the New Testament how criti
cism stands in relation to them. It only repeats the old argu
ments in more emphatic words ; and either does not trouble
itself about the counter-arguments which are urged against it or
scornfully sets them aside. It is for this reason that so little
progress is really made on so many points, even on those where

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 73
3-greement would be altogether within the range of possibility.
If the pastoral epistles are actually to be regarded as pseudon
ymous productions, it will still be necessary to admit that the
author had a measurably clear conception of the role which he
meant to assume. It can least of all serve the purpose of criti
cism to combine with the distinguishing characteristic of pseudo-
nymity that of absence of thought. Yet it is never weary of
conjecturing that its pseudonymous author contrived impos
sible and absurd situations, that he conceived of the relation
of Paul to his friends in an entirely contradictory fashion,
that he mixed up the present and the future, and made similar
blunders which we have still to consider. And yet the whole
plan of proposing to address the church of his time in the
name of the apostle itself testifies to a certain boldness of con
ception which must have been accompanied by at least the
simplest literary qualifications. Of course that does not in
itself prove genuineness. If the situation is conceivable, if the
apostle may have spoken as the letters speak, then naturally the
author may have carried his plan through successfully just as
the real apostle may have written them. Only the critics ought
not to spoil our pleasure in our New Testament writings by this
petty, pedantic criticism of them which only testifies to a want
of inclination to think their way somewhat more deeply into
them. The decision of the question of genuineness must be
sought in an entirely different direction.
The first question concerns the doctrinal errors which are
combated in our letters. I grant that in connecting them with
"the beginnings of gnosticism " very little has been accomplished.
But neither has criticism as yet been able to explain these
errors. A long quest was made for a definite gnostic system
that fitted the situation ; as none could be found it has been
claimed that, though the author wished to combat the whole
movement, he did so only by allusion, since he had also to keep
up the role of Paul. Whereupon the critics proceed to extract
from the most harmless passages, for which actual parallels can
be shown everywhere in the epistles of Paul, a polemic against
particular gnostic heretical teachers. But such polemic can be

74 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
found in such passages only if it has first been proved that the
pastoral letters have these heretics in mind. But that is just
what cannot be done. Harnack calls the characterization of the
heretical teachers " confused." But that is just where I hold
him to be in error. On the contrary, the presumption with
which one should first of all approach the letters is that the
author knows what he proposes to combat, and that even if he
takes the role of Paul and must therefore deal only in generali
ties, he must be fully confident of striking the evil at its heart.
In fact, however, his characterization of the then existing errors
of doctrine is always the same, even to his favorite expressions ;
the position which he takes toward them is always the same ; one
should be drawn into no discussion with them, one should sim
ply turn them off, one should set over against this unsound doc
trine the only sound system, which holds fast to the old gospel,
the truth of which the author therefore repeatedly affirms. I do
not know that at any place or time in the history of the ancient
church gnosticism was combated in this fashion.
If, indeed, the author of i Tim. 4 : 1-4, for reasons which
are clear enough in this connection, speaks of an error of doc
trine which he fears is coming in the future, but no trace of
which is to be seen in what he says elsewhere of the false doc
trines of the present {i. e., the period in which he is assumed to
have written) , and if nevertheless one finds in it a characteristic
sign of this present, then of course everything is in confusion.
If the author finds the sanctimoniousness under the cloak of
which the unhealthy zeal for teaching is concealed (2 Tim.
3 : 1-7) so dangerous on this account, because the irrimorality to
be expected in the last days will eagerly seize upon a doctrine
which keeps the religious interest active without requiring true
inner renewal, there is still in this position no untenable mixture
of present and future to be found. If the author of 2 Tim.
2: 16-18 points to the fact that to argue with these persons
incites them to more and more impious assertions, and illus
trates this fact by a single example, and if a characterization of
the false doctrines combated in the letters is then found in that
example it is impossible to gain a correct picture of it. If the

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 75
author of Titus i : 1 5 f. is giving a characterization of the unbe
lieving Jews, to whose myths and commandments of men some
are turning back (vs. 14), and if in that teaching the false doc
trines of the post-apostolic time are regarded as characterized,
then it is not surprising if the pictui-e turns out confused. It
seems at present to be granted that the ^£v8<iw/.o9 -)a.a.r« (i Tim.
6: 20) is not a catchword adopted by our author from Hege
sippus, but one which Eusebius repeated after him. But when
Julicher and Harnack cannot yet tear themselves away from the
idea that the &.vTSk<jei% refer to the famous work of Marcion they
forget that this interpretation is rendered exegetically impos
sible by the fact that this expression is joined with (Se^ykovi under
one article. After all has been said it is impossible to claim that
criticism has succeeded in really explaining the polemic of our
letters from the point of view of contemporaneous history.
The same is true respecting the internal condition of the
churches which is presupposed in our letters, or which it is their
purpose to bring about. Despite the splendid service which Har
nack has done in clearing up the history of the development of
the government of the church, I have looked in vain for any new
light from him on this question. The very first redaction of the
pastoral epistles, which is still quite distinct from additions of a
much later date, is regarded as revealing the presence of an
ecclesiastical rank with special rights and duties. It is abso
lutely impossible for me to discover anything of the sort in our
letters. When the church assures support to the presbyters who
also give themselves diligently to teaching (i Tim. 5 : 17 f.)
exactly as in i Cor., chap. 9, and, for the same reasons that are
given in that passage, I can find in that only the endeavor, per
vading all three letters, by the closest possible union of the teach
ing and ruling functions in the church, to promote the main
tenance of sound doctrine made so necessary by the evident
neglect of the charismatic gift and the spread of false doctrine.
I can find nothing of the other "rights" which are assigned to
them. Jiilicher, again, speaks of the division of the church into
clergy and laity, accomplished in fact, even if not in name,
which he founds upon a reference to the passage discussed

76 PRESENT STATUS OF THE INQUIRY CONCERNING
above. It makes strongly against this view that everywhere
only moral integrity and uprightness in family life is demanded
of the officers in the church, and that nowhere is a higher dig
nity or special grace for their office spoken of. According to
Harnack the letters assign to the disciples of the apostle a posi
tion for which no analogy can be found in the first century.
But the chief duty which is continually laid upon them is simply
that of instruction and admonition. They are to have charge of
the organization of the church and to guard against mistakes in
the selection of officers of the congregation. The qualifications
necessary for such officers are to be determined only by the
church itself. All other regulations for the church services
(l Tim., chap. 2) or the enrollment of the widows of the church
(i Tim., chap. 5) belong to the church as such.
The one thing that goes beyond that is the discipline of the
presbyters, which, according to i Tim. 5: 19 f., is assigned to
Timothy in the more mature conditions of the Ephesian church.
Well, to whom ought it to have been assigned, as long as no
monarchical episcopate yet existed ? And of this not the least
trace appears in our letters. Even here no special method of
procedure is prescribed, but on the well-known Old Testament
rule it is affirmed that no process may be instituted against the
presbyters without two or three witnesses to establish the accu
sation, since such a process, even if it should end with their
acquittal, would steadily undermine their position in the church.
But the XotTTot of vs. 20 are, as the context would lead us to
expect, not the laity in contrast with the clergy, but the other
presbyters. The so-called ordination of Timothy, in connection
with which there is repeated reference to the prophetic words
that designated him to be the helper of the apostles, cannot be
intended to introduce an ecclesiastical institution, especially as
in the case of Titus there is no reference to anything of the
kind. The -xapurpa. of which mention is made in connection with
it (i Tim. 4: 14) is, according to 2 Tim. i : 6, the charisma of
teaching, not a special grace that goes with the office. More
over, unless the Book of Acts is to be regarded as entirely
valueless, the laying on of hands is an ancient apostolic custom.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 77
ft is certain that there are to be seen in the Ephesian church —
but only there — evidences of advanced development in church
life, tendencies to confessional formulae, fragments of an ancient
church psalmody, traces of fixed liturgical formulae. What do
we know about the period when these began to take shape in
the church ?
This leads us to discuss the age in which, according to the
view of criticism, our letters must have been written. Julicher
places them ca. 125 ; Harnack, ca. 90-110; the difference is not
very significant, as Harnack also accepts still later interpola
tions which take us down beyond the age of Marcion. But Har
nack has established the fact that Polycarp already knew and
used these like other Pauline letters. The question whether
Ignatius, whose letters are essentially contemporaneous with
Polycarp, knew them is unessential, though I believe that it must
be answered in the affirmative. The Barnabas letter, which in
Harnack's view is essentially later, does not enter into the ques
tion, although I think that its knowledge of our letters can be
proved. Of the so-called first letter of Clement, Harnack himself
does not venture to maintain with Ewald that in the "undeniable
genealogical relationship" the priority belongs to it. How one
can maintain, after all has been said, that the attestation of the
pastoral epistles is less satisfactory than that of the other letters
of Paul, I -cannot understand. That Marcion did not have them
in his canon is very far from proving that he did not know them.
In the first place, they were letters to individuals, and could not
lay claim to universal acceptance in the church. The case is
somewhat different with the letter to Philemon, in so far as it was
inseparably joined to the Colossian letter, and yet Marcion has
separated it from that letter and placed it at the end of his list.
When we observe in what an artificial way even as late as the
third century justification was constantly found for having taken
into the canon of the church at large letters directed to individ
ual churches, we understand how the Muratorian canon is com
pelled expressly to declare that these letters, though directed
only to individuals, had been promoted to the position of nor
mative doctrinal writings of the church and holy books. When

78 THE GENUINENESS OF THE PA ULINE EPISTLES
now Marcion made the first attempt to limit the number of
writings which were to be regarded as normative in the church,
it was only natural, since he was restrained by no ecclesiastical
tradition, that he should exclude these private letters, which were
inconvenient for him since their polemic had been at an early
period brought to bear upon him and other gnostics. But this
implies no doubt of their coming from the apostle from whom
they purported to come and whose other letters he also corrected
to suit his purpose. The decision respecting their genuineness
therefore must be based on internal evidence.
Moreover I believe that I have shown how far short criticism
has come of being able, on the basis of the false doctrines com
bated in them, and of the condition of the church which they
presuppose, to determine with certainty a time in which they
must have originated.
I have not proposed to offer anything new in the foregoing
discussion. I have only set forth the views which are expressed
in my Einleitung in das Neue Testament, just appearing in a third
edition (Berlin, 1897), and which have long approved them
selves to me as correct. I have not hesitated where it seems to
me that I have in that work written clearly and strongly to
repeat now and then the very words. However I trust that in
this survey many things have been put in a clearer light, and
that stimulus has been given to a renewed consideration of my
view by its more thorough defense in many important points.
What I have said is based on a constantly renewed, thorough,
and detailed exegesis of the Pauline epistles, in which it is my
judgment that the criticism of the present day is altogether too
deficient. They who wish to acquaint themselves with this exe
getical work as a whole may now find it gathered together in my
Paulinische Briefe. It may be that this renewed consideration of
it will remove many prejudices and cause many critical results
claimed as final to appear exceedingly doubtful.

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