[61] See especially the Notes on Paley's Horæ Paulinæ, Vol. I. pp. 349, 252. We subjoin in this connection a just and striking remark of Mr. Jowett's. In inquiries of this sort, it is often supposed that, if the evidence of the genuineness of a single book of Scripture be weakened, or the credit of a single chapter shaken, a deep and irreparable injury is inflicted on Christian truth, and may afford a rest to the mind to consider that, if but one discourse of Christ, one Epistle of Paul, had come down to us, still more than half would have been preserved. Coleridge has remarked, that out of a single play of Shakespeare the whole of English literature might be restored. Much more true is it that in short portions or single verses of Scripture the whole spirit of Christianity is contained. Vol. I. p. 352.
[62] Was it in reference to this mere family-title to a spiritual authority that Paul says of the Jerusalem Apostles, "Whatever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth no man's person"? (Gal. iii. 6.)
[63] Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. II. 23.
[64] In proof of an essential unity of teaching, Mr. Jowett quotes Paul as declaring that what they preached against him was "not another" gospel, "for there was not, could not, be another." (I. 340.) But far from bearing this conciliatory turn, which is out of character with the whole context, Gal. i. 6 affirms that what his opponents have been preaching is (1.) another gospel; and yet (2.) not another gospel, (not so good even as that,) but mere disturbance and perversion, the negation of a gospel.
[65] Compare also Rom. xiv. 10; Phil. i. 6; 2 Tim. iv. 1. Nay, the very passage in which he renounces the "knowing of Christ according to the flesh," contains the doctrine (2 Cor. v. 10).
[66] With a curious inconsistency Mr. Stanley fixes at the Apostle's conversion the date after which he would no longer "know Christ according to the flesh"; yet in the very next note declares, that this state of mind must be referred to a more recent period than the conversion.
"απο του νυν, from the time of my conversion." It is to be presumed that this is also Mr. Stanley's interpretation of the νυν ουκετι of the next clause, which only repeats specifically of "Christ" what has just been said universally.
"ει και εγνωκαμεν κατα σαρκα χριστον, even though I have known; granting that I have known." γινωσκομεν, i. e. κατα σαρκα, "henceforth we know him no longer.... The words lead us to infer that something of this kind had once been [prior, surely, to the "henceforth">[ his own state of mind, not only in the time before his conversion, ... but since!"
How then can the "henceforth" serve as the terminus a quo, if the same state lies on both sides of it?
[67] Jowett, II. 142.