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PAUL PAUL
candid Protestants or thinking Roman Catholics. Noerror
committed by a younger generation can ever maketo he true anything
in the opinions of an older genera-tion which has once been
discovered to have been false.
Still less does the criticism with which we are nowdealing
cherish hopes from any mediating policy of'give and take.' It has
found that it does not avail,in estimating the Tiibingen theory, in
one point oranother, to plead ' extenuating circumstances ' in
favourof tradition whether churchly or scientific, and to offerhere
or there an amendment on the sketch drawn byBaur (or others after
him) of the state of schools andparties in Old Christianity, or to
extend the number ofthe ' indisputably genuine ' epistles of Paul
from four tosix or seven (the ' principal epistles
'+Philippians,Philemon and I Thess.). eight ( + 2 Thess. or
Col.),nine (+both 2 Thess. and Col.), ten (+Eph. ), if noteven
augmented by genuine Pauline fragments in thePastoral Epistles. Th
e defects of the 'tendency
sm' passed upon the N T writings and otherdocuments of early
Christianity which have come downto us, whether the criticism in
which Baur led the wayor that of others like Volkmar, Holsten. S.
Davidson,Hatch (who followed Baur, while introducing into
hiscriticism corrections more or less far-reaching), demandamore
drastic course. I t is needful to break notonly with the dogma of
the principal epistles' in the
order suggested by Baur and afterwards accepted byHatch
-
Gal., I and 2 Cor., Ram.-
but also with thedogma of there being four epistles of Paul in
anyorder with regard to the genuineness of which noquestion ought
to be entertained. It was a greatdefect in the criticism of the
Tubingen school thatit set out from this assumption without
thinking of
justifying it. It can be urged in excuse, that at thetime no one
doubted its justice ; Evanson was forgottenand Bruno Bauer had not
yet arisen ; but none the lessthe defect cannot be regarded as
other than serious. Ithas wrought much mischief and must be held
responsiblefor the song of triumph now being prematurely
utteredeven by those whose opposition to criticism is by nomeans
trenchant, the burden of which is, 'Tiibingenitself has alleged
nothing against these epistles.' Th e
latest school of advanced criticism has learned not torejoice
over this but t o regret an unfinished piece ofwork that ought to
have been taken in hand long agoand demands to be taken up now. It
regrets that Baur
and his followers should not have stopped to considerthe origin
of the 'principal epistles.' It holds thatcriticism should
investigate. not only those books whichhave been doubted for a
longer or shorter period, hutalso even those that hitherto-it may
even be, byevery one-bave been held to be beyond all doubt,whether
they be canonical or uncanonical, sacred orprofane. Criticism is
not at liberty to set out from the
genuineness-or the spuriousness-of any writing thatis to be used
as evidence in historical research as longas the necessary light
has not been thrown upon it,and least of all may it do so after
some or manywritings of the same class have already been
actuallyfound to be. pseudepigrapha. It was and is in thehighest
degree a one-sided and arbitrary proceeding togo with Baur upon the
nm~m~nphonof the genuinenessof the ' principal epistles' as fully
established, and inaccordance with this to assume that Acts must
take asubordinate place in comparison with them. It is not
apriori established that Paul cannot be mistaken, at
least as long as we do not know with certainty whetherhe and the
writer of the epistles that have come downto us under his name are
indeed one and the same.
The investigation of Acts must be carried on independ-ently of
that of the Epistles, just as that of the Epistlesmust be
independent of that of Acts. This rule must
be applied in the case of every epistle separately as wellas in
connection with the other epistles which we havelearned to
recognise as belonging to the same group.
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The four 'principal epistles ' are not a fixed datum bywhich
Acts and other Pauline writings can be testedunless one is
previously able to prove their genuineness.This point has not been
taken into account by theTubingen school-greatly to their loss. As
soon a s itis observed, it becomes th e task of criticism to
subjectto a strict examination the principal epistles one by
one,from this point of view. What, then, is the criterionwhich may
be employed in this investigation? Noneof the so-called external
evidences. These do not availhere, however valuable may he what
they have to tellus often as to the opinion of antiquity concerning
thesewritings. So much Baur and his followers had alreadylong ago
learned to recognise. Th e ' critical school 'had confessed it,
even by the mouth of those among itsadherents who had found
themselves nearest to thethorough-going defenders of tradition.
Where thenmust the determining consideration he looked for ? In
the direction where in such circunistances it is alwayswont t o
be found : in the so-called ' internal' evidence.I t is internal
criticism that must speak the last, the sofar as possible
conclusive, word.
The demand seemed to many too hard, as regardedthe ' principal
epistles.' Th e Tiibingen school and the' critical' school alike
shrank from making it. The' progressive' criticism which had
meanwhile come intobeing, submitted to the inevitable. It addressed
itself
to the task imposed. T o the question, with whatresult? the
answer, unfortunately, cannot be said to bewholly unanimous. True ,
this is a disadvantage under
arty labours no less than the other.in the judgments of which no
trace
can be found of what can be called a subjective side.Viewed
broadly, and with divergences in points of
detail left out of account, what the recent criticism now3 Its
view described has to say regarding Acts is inof lLets. substance
as follows. The book professesto be a sequel to the third
canonical
gospel, designed in common with it to inform a certainTheophilus
otherwise unknown to us, or in his personany recent convert t o
Chris tianity, more precisely withregard to the things in which he
has been instructed(ActslI-5. cp Lk. 11.4 2436-53). We find in it
inaccordance with this , a by no means complete, yet atthe same
time (at leas t, in some measure) an orderlyand continuous sketch
of the fortunes ofthe disciples ofJesus, after his resurrection and
ascension; of their
appearances in Jerusalem and elsewhere ; and in par-ticular, of
the life and work of Peter , in the first part(Acts 1-12), and more
fully and amply of the life andworkofPaul, in the second part
(13-28).
Even leaving aside any comparison with the Paulineepistles, we
cannot regard the contents of Acts, viewedas a whole, and on their
own merits, as a true andcredible first-hand narrative of what had
actuallyoccurred, nor yet as the ripe fruit of earnest
historicalresearch-not even where, in favourable circumstances,the
author might occasionally have been in a conditionto give this. Th
e book bears in part a legendary-historical, in part an edifying
and apologetical character.The writer's intention is to instruct
Theophilns concern-ing the old Christian past, as that presented
itself to hisowii mind after repeated examination, to increasethe
regard and affection of his readers for Christianity,and a t the
same time to show forth how from the first,although hated by the
Jews, this religion met withencouragement on the part of the
Romans. Of a
'tendency, ' in the strict sense of the word, as under-stood by
the Tubingen school, there is nothing to beseen. Th e book does not
aim at the reconciliation ofconflicting parties, Petrinists and
Paulinists, nor yet atthe exaltation ofPaul or at casting his
Jewish adversariesinto the shade, or at placing him on a level with
Peter.
Of the substantia l unity of the work there can be noquestion.
We have not here any loose aggregation of
fragments derived from various sources. Still less,
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