The life and work of St. Paul

726 APPENDIX
Eusebius, who knew his writings, vouches for his perfect orthodoxy. 1 Such being ths
case, it is hardly even necessary to prove that the other churches of the second century
were in no sense anti-Pauline. It may be true that for a short time there were two
sections a Jewish and a Gentile in the Church of Borne, and even that each section
had its own bishop, the possible successors respectively of the Apostles of the circumcision
and of the uncircumcision. 2 But if so, these two sections were, at the close of the first
and even on the doubtful
century, united under the gentle and orthodox Clement ;
hypothesis that the Clementines had a Roman origin, their indirectness the cautious,
ubterranean, timid sort of way in which they attack the great Apostle is alone a
decisive proof that the forger could by no means rely on the general sympathy of the
readers into whose hands his writings fell. And yet on this very attenuated apex is built
the huge inverted pyramid of inference, which finally declares the Epistle of St. Jude to
be a specimen of one of the letters, breathing sanguinary hatred and atrocious falsehood,
which are supposed to have been despatched from Jerusalem in the name of the Apostles,
and in the composition of which, "since James and Jude probably could not speak Greek,**
they probably employed Greek secretaries 1 s Let any one read the Epistle of St. Jude,
and consider, verse by verse, how it could be possibly applied to St. Paul, and how abso
lately such a theory contradicts every really authentic fact of his relation to the Apostles,
as well as the character and bearing of the Apostles themselves, and he will be able to
estimate the validity of the criticism which calmly represents as reasonable history this
darkening fume of inferences from the narrow aperture of a worthless forgery.
EXCUESUS XIX (p. S51).
THE MAN OF Snr; OB, "THB LAWLESS,"
" figo prorsus quid dixerit fateor me ignorare." S. A0O.
THE various conjectures as to the " Man of Sin," and " that which withholdeth," may be
classed under three heads (i.) the nearly contemporary, (ii.) the distantly prophetic, and
(iii.) the subjectively general And in each of these classes the suggested antitypes are
either (a) general and impersonal, or (P) individual and special.
(i.) The opinion adopted will, of course, depend greatly on the extent to which the
destruction of Judaism in the overthrow of Jerusalem can be regarded as " a coming of
the Lord." Those who, in accordance with most of the definite temporal prophecies of
Scripture, think that St. Paul must have been alluding to something nearly contemporary
something which already loomed on the horizon, and therefore to something which
would alone have a direct bearing on the lives of contemporary Christians, explain the
Apostasy and the Man of Sin to represent, (a) generally, the Pharisees, or Gnosticism, or
1 It is no disproof of this that he borrows the Ebionite account of St. James ; and his supposed
condemnation of St. Paul for using the expression " Eye hath not seen," &c., seems to rest on an
entire misapprehension (Light/foot, Qal., p. 811).
* Some such fact may be behind the remark of Tertullian that Clemeat was ordained bishop by
Ht. Peter, whereas Iremeus places Linus and Anencletus before him.
1 "
Renan, St. Paul, p. 800. En quittant Autioohe lea agents du parti hierosolomyto jtugrent
do bouleverser lea fondatlons do Paul, de detruire les Eglises, de renverser co qu'il avait edifle aveoj
:
tant de labours. II semble qu'a cette occasion de nouvelles lettres furent ezpediees de Jerusalem.
nom des apdtres. II se peut ineme qu'un exemplaire de ces lettres haineuses nous ait ete conserve
au ;
' dana 1'Epitre de Jude, frere de Jacques, et comme lui '
frere du Seigneur,' qui fait partie du canon,"
&c. The apparent array of authorities in
quoted support of such inferences has no real bearing on
them, and upon examination dwindles into the narrow limits indicated below. Nor does M. Renan
adduce a single proof, or anything remotely resembling a proof, that by noavtia. the Apocalypse and
the Epistle of Jude imply the doctrine of St. Paul (id. p. 300), or that the relative moderation of
Michael (Jude 9) is contrasted with the impertinence of St. Paul (I), or, in fact, any other of the
utterly wild conclusions into which he has exaggerated the perverted ingenuity of Tubingen theorist*.
Bee further the Excursu* on St. John and St. PauU