ii. But there is nothing really in the Epistles themselves to bear out this assumption. St. Paul does not write as though he were a wholesale innovator. He does not write as though he were founding a new religion. On the contrary, he lays great stress in a familiar passage (1 Cor. iii. 11) on the fact that the foundation is already laid. In another place (1 Cor. xv. 11) he speaks as though it made no difference whether he were the preacher or others, the belief of Christians was the same. St. Paul has indeed his special views and his special controversies, but they do not affect the main point. He assumes that this is common to all Christians.
This brings me to some of the points on which we have to test the theory, as it is stated by Wernle.
5. Objections to the Critical Theory.
Let us think for a moment what the theory involves. It involves that the Pauline Gospel not only conquered the West, but that it came flooding back in a great reflux-wave all over the East. The East, on this theory, has no power of resistance; it surrenders at discretion. How does this accord with the evidence?
i. In order that there should be this conquest and annexation of the whole Church by the Pauline Gospel it is implied, and it is of the essence of the theory to imply, that there was a broad and well-marked difference between this Pauline Gospel and the general belief of the Church, more particularly of the Mother Church. But St. Paul himself expressly disclaims any such difference; he was anxious that there should not be any, and he took steps to guard against the possibility that serious divergence might have come between them unawares. He tells us that he compared notes with the leading apostles at Jerusalem, to make sure that he and they were preaching substantially the same thing: ‘I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute, lest by any means I should be running, or had run in vain’ (Gal. ii. 2). And again, at the end of the conferences, he tells us how James and Peter and John gave to him and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, as a pledge of their substantial agreement (ibid. ver. 9).
It is true that there were points of discussion, which in other sections of the Church amounted to controversy, between St. Paul and the Judaean Christians. But the Epistle to the Galatians allows us to see the full extent of these debatable matters; and, by defining them, it also defines the extent of the common ground of agreement. What we should call the doctrine of the Person of Christ certainly comes under the latter head, and not under the former. The Mother Church was not Ebionite, or St. Paul would have been in still sharper antagonism to it than he was.
ii. It was this substantial agreement between St. Paul and the leading Apostles that saved the Church from a formidable rupture. Such glimpses as we have of the Judaean churches do not at all give us the impression that they would have submitted meekly to Pauline dictation. No doubt there was a considerable prejudice against St. Paul personally; but it was a prejudice that turned upon other things altogether than his teaching about Christ. We have in Acts xxi. 20-5 a graphic description, which is also full of verisimilitude, of the kind of ways in which St. Paul came into collision with the Jewish Christians; but his teaching about Christ was not one of them.
iii. We have seen that the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, was common ground for all Christians. It was on this ground that St. Paul and the Judaean churches felt themselves one. They also felt themselves one in what we ought not to call the doctrine of the Trinity, but in those root-facts out of which the doctrine of the Trinity afterwards came to be formulated. There was doubtless still room for variety of speculation. There was room for different interpretation of current terms and current beliefs. The doctrine of the Church had as yet a certain fluidity. St. Paul might take one line, and Cephas another, and Apollos a third. And yet Christ was not divided. There was a consciousness of union underlying these differences. There was a sense, that could not as yet be put adequately into words, of certain great facts, of certain fundamental beliefs, by virtue of which the Church was one.
iv. It is out of this common ground, and not out of the special features of the Pauline theology, that the teaching of the Fourth Gospel really sprang. True, there are resemblances and affinities between details in the theologies of the Evangelist and the Apostle. But it does not follow that these were borrowed by the one from the other[[73]]. If they had been, we may be sure that there would have been clearer evidence of the fact. Somewhere in the group of Johannean writings there would have been a side-glance at St. Paul that we should have understood. As it is, the two great Apostolic cycles stand majestically apart. There may be a connexion between them, but it is a connexion in the main underground. There is no direct affiliation, but the parentage of both lies behind. Many a seed sprouted in the early years of the Pentecostal Church: but it was not this apostle or that who made them grow; the seeds were sown before Pentecost, and they had their watering and their growth and their increase from the same Hand.
It is true that we cannot give chapter and verse for all this. The books from which chapter and verse might have been taken were never written. Even in our own much-lettered age, how many a pregnant thought is there that is not caught and fixed in writing! And what sort of record should we have of the thought, say, of America or England for some fifteen years, if the chronicle of it were compressed into a single document of the length of the first twelve chapters of the Acts?