The life and work of St. Paul

432 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
dication of his Apostolic authority becomes manifest. 1 In the Epistles toj
the Thessalonians he had adopted no title of authority; but since those j
Epistles had been written, the Judaists had developed a tendency to limit thei
term Apostle almost exclusively to the Twelve, and overshadow all others j
with their immense authority. The word had two technical senses. lu the!
lower sense it merely meant a messenger or worker in the cause of the Gospel,
and as an equivalent to the common Jewish title of Sheliach, was freely
bestowed on comparatively unknown Christians, like Andronicus and Junias.*
Now Paul claimed the title in the highest sense, not from vanity or selfassertion,
but because it was necessary for the good of his converts. He had
the primary qualification of an Apostle in that he had seen Christ, though
for reasons which he explained in the last Epistle he declined to press it. He
had the yet further qualification that his Apostolate and that of Barnabas
had been publicly recognised by the Church of Jerusalem. But this claim
also he wished to waive as unreal and even misleading ; for his Apostolato
was derived from no merely human authority. Writing to the Corinthians,
some of whom had impugned his rights, he had intentionally designated him-
self as " a called Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." Writing to
these weak and apostatising Galatians it was necessary to be still more explicit,
and consequently he addresses them with his fullest greeting, in which ha
speaks both of his own authority and of the work of Christ. By impugning
the first they were setting temporary relations above spiritual insight ; by
errors respecting the hitter they were nullifying the doctrine of the Cross.
"
Paul, an Apostle, not from men, nor by the instrumentality of any man, but
by Jesus Christ and God our Father, who raised Him from the dead, and all ths
brethren with me, 3 to the Churches of Galatia. Grace to you and Peace from God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins that He may
1 The general outline of the Epistle is as follows : It falls into three divisiots 1.
Personal (an element which recurs throughout) ; 2. Dogmatic ; 3. Practical. In the first
part (i., ii.) he vindicates his personal independence (a) tveya&ively, by showing that b.
vas an Apostle before any intercourse with the Twelve (i. 17, 18) ; and () positively,
since he had secured from the Apostles the triumphant recognition of his own special
principles on three occasions, viz., (i.) in an association on perfectly e