The criticism which seeks to disintegrate the New Testament writings and set the apostles against one another is founded on a revival of the claim of the Judaizers that their propaganda had the sanction of Peter and the other original apostles. In a Handbook like this it is impossible to discuss at any length the Tübingen Theory. But some of its points are silently met in the text; and the whole theory is answered by an attempt to give a view of the course of the controversy which covers all the facts. The distinction drawn in paragraphs 159 ff. between the central question in dispute and a subordinate aspect of the controversy will be found to clear up many intricacies. Compare Sorley's Jewish Christians and Judaism.
This chapter is full of references to passages in Acts and Galatians, which pupils ought to be asked to produce.
CHAPTER X
Viewpoints for lessons on details omitted or only lightly referred to in the text:
Acts xx. 4-16. Paul the Hirer of Laborers for Christ's Vineyard: the
Unwearied Preacher (Troas).
" " 17-38. The Man of Heart (Miletus).
" xxii. Final Effort to save his Country.
" xxiii. 1-10. In the Dock where he had placed others.
" xxiii. 22-27. The Preacher of Righteousness.
" xxvi. The Inspired Student.
" xxvii. Paul as a Ruler of Men.
" xxviii. The benevolence of Nature and that of Grace (Malta).
171. See notes on ch. iv., p. 141.
The authenticity of Ephesians and Colossians can only be denied by ignoring the impression of majesty and profundity which they have made on the greatest minds. (See the Introductions in Meyer and Alford.) What other mind of those ages except Paul's could have erected a structure so magnificent on the very foundations of the Epistle to the Romans? or in what other mind was there such a union of the doctrinal and the ethical?
In John's writings the relation of believers to Christ is illustrated by a far higher comparison: it is compared to the union of Father and Son in the Deity.
172. See Ernesti: The Ethic of Paul; also Juncker.
174. See Smith's Voyage of St. Paul; also Sir William Ramsay's article on Roads and Travel in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. v.