Footnote 86:[ (return) ]
It is clear from Gal. II. 11 ff. that Peter then and for long before occupied in principle the stand-point of Paul: see the judicious remarks of Weizsäcker in the book mentioned above, p. 75 f.
Footnote 87:[ (return) ]
These four tendencies were represented in the Apostolic age by those who had been born and trained in Judaism, and they were collectively transplanted into Greek territory. But we cannot be sure that the third of the above tendencies found intelligent and independent representatives in this domain, as there is no certain evidence of it. Only one who had really been subject to it, and therefore understood it, could venture on a criticism of the Old Testament religion. Still, it may be noted that the majority of non-Jewish converts in the Apostolic age, had probably come to know the Old Testament beforehand—not always the Jewish religion, (see Havet, Le Christianisme, T. IV. p. 120: "Je ne sais s'il y est entré, du vivant de Paul, un seul païen: je veux dire un homme, qui ne connût pas déjà, avant d'y entrer, le judaïsme et la Bible"). These indications will shew how mistaken and misleading it is to express the different tendencies in the Apostolic age and the period closely following by the designations "Jewish Christianity-Gentile Christianity." Short watchwords are so little appropriate here that one might even with some justice reverse the usual conception, and maintain that what is usually understood by Gentile Christianity (criticism of the Old Testament religion) was possible only within Judaism, while that which is frequently called Jewish Christianity is rather a conception which must have readily suggested itself to born Gentiles superficially acquainted with the Old Testament.
Footnote 88:[ (return) ]
The first edition of this volume could not appeal to Weizsäcker's work, Das Apostolische Zeitalter der Christlichen Kirche, 1886, (second edition translated in this series). The author is now in the happy position of being able to refer the readers of his imperfect sketch to this excellent presentation, the strength of which lies in the delineation of Paulinism in its relation to the early Church, and to early Christian theology (p. 79-172). The truth of Weizsäcker's expositions of the inner relations (p. 85 f.), is but little affected by his assumptions concerning the outer relations, which I cannot everywhere regard as just. The work of Weizsäcker as a whole is, in my opinion, the most important work on Church history we have received since Ritschl's "Entstehung der alt-katholischen Kirche." (2 Aufl. 1857.)
Footnote 89:[ (return) ]
Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus, 1893, has shewn how strongly the eschatology of Paul was influenced by the later Pharisaic Judaism. He has also called attention to the close connection between Paul's doctrine of sin and the fall, and that of the Rabbis.
Footnote 90:[ (return) ]
Some of the Church Fathers (see Socr. H. E. III. 16) have attributed to Paul an accurate knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy: but that cannot be proved. The references of Heinrici (2 Kor.-Brief. p. 537-604) are worthy of our best thanks; but no certain judgment can be formed about the measure of the Apostles' Greek culture, so long as we do not know how great was the extent of spiritual ideas which were already precipitated in the speech of the time.
Footnote 91:[ (return) ]
The epistle to the Hebrews and the first epistle of Peter, as well as the Pastoral epistles belong to the Pauline circle; they are of the greatest value because they shew that certain fundamental features of Pauline theology took effect afterwards in an original way, or received independent parallels, and because they prove that the cosmic Christology of Paul made the greatest impression and was continued. In Christology, the epistle to the Ephesians in particular, leads directly from Paul to the pneumatic Christology of the post-apostolic period. Its non-genuineness is by no means certain to me.
Footnote 92:[ (return) ]
In the Ztschr. für Theol und Kirche, II. p. 189 ff. I have discussed the relation of the prologue of the fourth Gospel to the whole work and endeavoured to prove the following: "The prologue of the Gospel is not the key to its comprehension. It begins with a well-known great object, the Logos, re-adapts and transforms it—implicitly opposing false Christologies—in order to substitute for it Jesus Christ, the μονογενης θεος, or in order to unveil it as this Jesus Christ. The idea of the Logos is allowed to fall from the moment that this takes place." The author continues to narrate of Jesus only with the view of establishing the belief that he is the Messiah, the son of God. This faith has for its main article the recognition that Jesus is descended from God and from heaven; but the author is far from endeavouring to work out this recognition from cosmological, philosophical considerations. According to the Evangelist, Jesus proves himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, in virtue of his self-testimony, and because he has brought a full knowledge of God and of life—purely supernatural divine blessings (Cf. besides, and partly in opposition, Holtzmann, i.d. Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol. 1893). The author's peculiar world of theological ideas, is not, however, so entirely isolated in the early Christian literature as appears on the first impression. If, as is probable, the Ignatian Epistles are independent of the Gospel of John, further, the Supper prayer in the Didache, finally, certain mystic theological phrases in the Epistle of Barnabas, in the second epistle of Clement, and in Hermas, a complex of Theologoumena may be put together, which reaches back to the primitive period of the Church, and may be conceived as the general ground for the theology of John. This complex has on its side a close connection with the final development of the Jewish Hagiographic literature under Greek influence.
Footnote 93:[ (return) ]
The Jewish religion, especially since the (relative) close of the canon, had become more and more a religion of the Book.
Footnote 94:[ (return) ]
Examples of both in the New Testament are numerous. See, above all, Matt. I. 11. Even the belief that Jesus was born of a Virgin sprang from Isaiah VII. 14. It cannot, however, be proved to be in the writings of Paul (the two genealogies in Matt. and Luke directly exclude it: according to Dillmann, Jahrb. f. protest. Theol. p. 192 ff. Luke I. 34, 35 would be the addition of a redactor); but it must have arisen very early, as the Gentile Christians of the second century would seem to have unanimously confessed it (see the Romish Symbol, Ignatius, Aristides, Justin, etc.) For the rest, it was long before theologians recognised in the Virgin birth of Jesus more than fulfilment of a prophecy, viz., a fact of salvation. The conjecture of Usener, that the idea of the birth from a Virgin is a heathen myth which was received by the Christians, contradicts the entire earliest development of Christian tradition which is free from heathen myths, so far as these had not already been received by wide circles of Jews, (above all, certain Babylonian and Persian Myths), which in the case of that idea is not demonstrable. Besides, it is in point of method not permissible to stray so far when we have near at hand such a complete explanation as Isaiah VII. 14. Those who suppose that the reality of the Virgin birth must be held fast, must assume that a misunderstood prophecy has been here fulfilled (on the true meaning of the passage see Dillmann (Jesajas, 5 Aufl. p. 69): "of the birth by a Virgin (i.e., of one who at the birth was still a Virgin.) the Hebrew text says nothing ... Immanuel as beginning and representative of the new generation, from which one should finally take possession of the king's throne"). The application of an unhistorical local method in the exposition of the Old Testament—Haggada and Rabbinic allegorism—may be found in many passages of Paul (see, e.g., Gal. III. 16, 19; IV. 22-31; 1 Cor. IX. 9; X. 4; XI. 10; Rom. IV. etc.).
Footnote 95:[ (return) ]
The proof of this may be found in the quotations in early Christian writings from the Apocalypses of Enoch, Ezra, Eldad and Modad, the assumption of Moses and other Jewish Apocalypses unknown to us. They were regarded as Divine revelations beside the Old Testament; see the proofs of their frequent and long continued use in Schürer's "History of the Jewish people in the time of our Lord." But the Christians in receiving these Jewish Apocalypses did not leave them intact, but adapted them with greater or less Christian additions (see Ezra, Enoch, Ascension of Isaiah). Even the Apocalypse of John is, as Vischer (Texte u. Unters. 3 altchristl. lit. Gesch. Bd. II. H. 4) has shown, a Jewish Apocalypse adapted to a Christian meaning. But in this activity, and in the production of little Apocalyptic prophetic sayings and articles (see in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and in those of Barnabas and Clement) the Christian labour here in the earliest period seems to have exhausted itself. At least we do not know with certainty of any great Apocalyptic writing of an original kind proceeding from Christian circles. Even the Apocalypse of Peter which, thanks to the discovery of Bouriant, we now know better, is not a completely original work as contrasted with the Jewish Apocalypses.