The life and work of St. Paul

Tit.).
EPISTLES OF THE CAPTIVITY. 589
The Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon stand in most respects,
separate from the gronp to which they belong.
1. The two letters to the Thessalonians are the simplest of all in their
matter and manner, and deal mainly (as we have seen) with the question
of the shortly-expected return of Christ. They were written about A.D. 52.
2. The next great gronp of letters may be called in one of their aspects the
letters of Judaic controversy. This group comprises the two Epistles to the
Corinthians which show St. Paul's method of dealing with questions of doc-
trine and discipline in a restless, intellectual, and partly disaffected Church ;
and those to the Galatians and Romans. They were written during the years
A.D. 57 and A.D. 58, a period pre-eminently of storm and stress in the
Apostle's life, of physical suffering and mental anxiety, which leave deep
traces on his style.
Of these, the Epistles to the Corinthians are largely occupied with the
personal question of Paul's Apostolate. His Jewish- Christian opponents had
found it easier to impugn his position than to refute his ai-guments. It became
a duty and a necessity to prove his claim to be a teacher of co-ordinate
authority with the very chiefest of the Twelve.
The Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans contain the defence of his
main position as regards the Law; a definition of the relations between
Christianity and Judaism and the statement and ;
demonstration of the Gospel
entrusted to him by special revelation. Of these, the latter is calmer, fuller,
and more conciliatory in tone, and serves as the best commentary on the
former.
The Epistle to the Philippians finds its main motive in an entirely different
order of conceptions. In it we only hear the dying echoes of the great con-
troversy, and if his one outburst of strong indignation against his opponents
(iii. 2, 18, 19) reminds us of the heat of the Epistle to the Galatians, on the
other hand he here suppresses the natural sense of deep personal injuries, and
even utters an expression of rejoicing that these very opponents, whatever
may be their motives, are still preachers of the Gospel of Christ (i. 14 20).
3. The next two Epistles, those to the Colossians and Ephesians, mark the
rise of a new phase of error. They are the controversy with incipient
Gnosticism. Hence also they are the chief Christological and Ecclesiastical
Epistles, the Epistles of Christian dogma, the Epistles of Catholicity. The
idea and constitution of the Church of Christ was the destined bulwark
against the prevalence of heresy, and the doctrine of Christ was the sole proservative
against the victory of error. The dominant thought of the Colos-
3ians is Christ over all; that of the Ephesians, the Universal Church in
Christ.
The Epistle to Philemon, a sort of appendix to the Colossians, stands alone
as a letter addressed solely to an individual friend, though
it involves the
statement of an immortal principle.
4. In the last group stand the three Pastoral Epistles, containing, as we
should have expected, the proof that there had been a development of the