The life and work of St. Paul

752 APPENDIX.
tiona on the Mosaic law. 1 In dealing with these Paul has left far behind him tne epoch
of his struggle with the Pharisaic legalists of Jerusalem. Thought moves with vast
rapidity ; systems are developed into ever-varying combinations in an amazingly short
space of time, at epochs of intense religious excitement, and as the incipient Gnosticism
of the apostolic age shows many of the elements which would hereafter be ripened into
later development, so it already shows the ominous tendency of restless speculation to
degenerate into impious pride, and of over-strained asceticism to link itself with intolerable
license. 2 These are speculations and tendencies which belong to no one country and
no one age. Systems and ideas closely akin to Gnosticism are found in the religions and
philosophies of Greece, Persia, India, China, Egypt, Phoenicia ; they are found in Plato,
in Zoroaster, in the Vedas, in the writings of the Buddhists, in Philo, in neo-
Platonism, and in the Jewish Kabbalah. In all ages and all countries they have
produced the same intellectual combinations and the same moral results. A writer of
the second century could have had no possible object in penning a forgery which in his
day was far too vague to be polemically effective. 3 On the other hand, an apostle of the
year 65 or 66, familiar with Esseno and Oriental speculations, a contemporary of Simon
Magus the reputed founder of all Gnosticism, and of Cerinthus, its earliest heresiarch,
might have had reason even apart from divine guidance and prophetic inspiration to
warn the disciples to whom he was entrusting the care and constitution of his Churches
against tendencies which are never long dormant, and which were already beginning to
display a dangerous activity and exercise a dangerous fascination. If there is scarcely a
warning which would not apply to the later Gnostics, it is equally true that there is not
* warning which would not equally apply to errors distinctly reprobated in the Epistles
to the Philippians, Corinthians, and Colossians, as well as to the Churches addressed by
St. Peter, St. Jude, and St. John. 4 Greek subtleties, Eastern imagination, Jewish
mysticism in one word, the inherent curiosity and the inherent Manicheism of unre-
generate human nature began from the very first to eat like a canker into the opening
bud of Christian faith.
Those who wish to see every possible argument which can be adduced against the
Pauline authorship of these Epistles, may find them marshalled together by Dr. Davidson
in the latter editions of his " Introduction to the Study of the New Testament." 5 To
answer them point by point would be tedious, for many of them are exceedingly
' minute ; nor would it be convincing, for critics will make up their minds on the
question on the broader and larger grounds which I have just examined. But to sum
up, I would say that, although we cannot be as absolutely certain of their authenticity
us we are of that of the earlier Epistles, yet that scarcely any difficulty in accepting
their authenticity will remain if we bear in mind the following considerations. (1) In
times like those of early Christianity, systems were developed and institutions consolidated
with extraordinary rapidity. (2) These letters were written, not with the object
i 1 Tim. L 7 ; Tit. L 10, 14 ; iii. .
1 Tim. i. 7, 19 ; iv. 2 ; 2 Tim. ii. 17 ; 111. 17 ; Tit. 1. 11, 15, 16.
The vagueness is due to the still wavering outlines of the heretical teachings. The "Gnostic-ism"
aimed at has been by various critics Identified with Kabbalism (Baumgorten) ; with
Pharisaism (Wiesinger) with Esseuism ; (Mangold) ; with Marcionism (Baur)-
"It shape it could be called which shape had none
Distinguishable in vesture, joint, or limb."
But whether Gnosticism be regarded as theological speculation (Gleseler), or an aristocratic and
exclusive philosophy of religion (Neander), or allegorising dualism (Baur), if " it is still an accomplished
task to seize amidst so much that Is indefinite, vogue, merely circumlocutory and only
partly true, those points that furnish a clear conception of it, then it is clearly idle to say that iti
undeveloped genius cannot have existed in the days of the Apostles.
PhD. iii. 18 ; 1 Cor. xv. * Vol. ii., pp. 137195.
6 I shall, however, touch on some of these In speaking of the Epistles separately. It has been
Baid that Paley uses the discrepancies between the Acts and the Epistles to prove their independence,
and the agreements to establish their truthfulness. It may certainly be said that the
Tilbingen school adduces un-Pauline expressions to prove non-authenticity, and Pauline expression!
to prove forgery.