But how about Paul? Here is to be found one of the boldest elements in all the bold reconstruction of Bousset. Paul, Bousset believes, was not connected in any intimate way with the primitive Christianity in Palestine; what he "received" he received rather from the Hellenistic Christianity, just described, of cities like Antioch. He received, therefore, the Hellenistic conception of Jesus as Lord. But he added to that conception by connecting the "Lord" with the "Spirit." The "Lord" thus became present not only in the meetings of the Church for worship but also in the individual lives of the believers. Paulinism as it appears in the Epistles was thus complete. But this distinctly Pauline contribution, like the conception of the Lordship of Jesus to which it was added, was of pagan origin; it was derived from the mystical piety of the time, with its sharp dualism between a material and a spiritual realm and its notion of the transformation of man by immediate contact with the divine. Paulinism, therefore, according to Bousset, was a religion of redemption. But as such it was derived not at all from the historical Jesus (whose optimistic teaching contained no thought of redemption) but from the pessimistic dualism of the pagan world. The "liberal" distinction between Pauline religion and Pauline theology, the attempt at saving Paul's religion by the sacrifice of his theology, is here abandoned, and all that is most clearly distinctive of Paulinism (though of course some account is taken of the contribution of his Jewish inheritance and of his own genius) is derived from pagan sources.
The hypothesis of Bousset, together with the rival reconstructions which have just been outlined, will be examined in the following discussion. But before they can be examined it will be necessary to say a word about the sources of information with regard to the life of Paul. No discussion of the literary questions can indeed here be undertaken. Almost all that can be done is to set forth very briefly the measure of agreement which has been attained in this field, and the bearing of the points that are still disputed upon the subject of the present investigation.
The sources of information about Paul are contained almost exclusively in the New Testament. They are, first, the Pauline Epistles, and, second, the Book of Acts.
Four of the Pauline Epistles—Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans—were accepted as certainly genuine by F. C. Baur, the founder of the "Tübingen School" of criticism in the former half of the nineteenth century. This favorable estimate of the "major epistles" has never been abandoned by any number of really serious historians, and three of the other epistles—1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon—have now been added to the "homologoumena." Seven epistles, therefore, are accepted as genuine to-day by all historians except a few extremists. Of the remaining epistles, Colossians is accepted by the majority of investigators of all shades of opinion, and even in the case of 2 Thessalonians and Ephesians, the acceptance of the hypothesis of genuineness is no longer regarded as a clear mark of "conservatism," these two epistles being regarded as genuine letters of Paul by some even of those who are not in general favorable to the traditional view of the New Testament.
With regard to the Pastoral Epistles—1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—the issue is more clearly drawn. These epistles, at least in their entirety, are seldom regarded as genuine except by those who adopt in general the traditional view of the New Testament and the supernaturalistic conception of the origin of Christianity. That does not mean that the case of the Pastoral Epistles is desperate—certainly the present writer is firmly convinced that the epistles are genuine and that a denial of their genuineness really impoverishes in important respects our conception of the work of Paul—but it does mean that with regard to these epistles the two great contending views concerning the New Testament come into sharp conflict; common ground, in other words, cannot here be found, as in the case of the major epistles, between those who hold widely divergent views as to the origin of Christianity.
It would be out of place in the present connection to discuss the question of the genuineness of the Pastorals. That question is indeed enormously important. It is important for the view which is to be held concerning the New Testament canon; it is important for any estimate of Christian tradition; it is important even for a complete estimate of the work of Paul. But it is not directly important for the question as to the origin of Paulinism; for all the essential features of Paulinism, certainly all those features which make Paulinism, upon naturalistic principles, most difficult of explanation, appear plainly in the accepted epistles.
The question of the Book of Acts, on the other hand, is of vital importance even for the present investigation. Even that question, however, must here be dismissed with a word, though it is hoped that light may be shed upon it by the whole of the following discussion.
Literary evidence of peculiar strength may be adduced in favor of the view that the Book of Acts was really written, as tradition affirms, by a companion of Paul. This evidence is based primarily upon the presence in the book of certain sections where the narrative is carried on in the first person instead of the third. It is generally or even universally admitted that these "we-sections" are the work of an eyewitness, an actual traveling companion of Paul. But according to the common-sense view—according to the first impression made upon every ordinary reader—the author of the we-sections was also the author of the whole book, who when he came in his narrative to those parts of the missionary journeys of Paul where he had actually been present with the apostolic company naturally dropped into the use of the first person instead of the third. If this common-sense view be incorrect, then a later author who produced the completed book has in the we-sections simply made use of an eyewitness source. But this hypothesis is fraught with the most serious difficulty. If the author of the completed book, writing at a time long after the time of Paul, was in the we-sections using the work of a companion of Paul, why did he not either say that he was quoting or else change the "we" of the source to "they." The first person plural, used without explanation by a writer of, say, 100 A.D. in a narrative of the journeys of Paul, would be preposterous. What could be the explanation of so extraordinary a procedure?
Only two explanations are possible. In the first place, the author may have retained the "we" with deceitful intent, with the intent of producing the false impression that he himself was a companion of Paul. This hypothesis is fraught with insuperable difficulty and is generally rejected. In the second place, the author may have retained the "we" because he was a mere compiler, copying out his sources with mechanical accuracy, and so unable to make the simple editorial change of "we" to "they." This hypothesis is excluded by the striking similarity of language and style between the we-sections and the rest of Luke-Acts, which shows that if the author of the completed double work is in the we-sections making use of a source written by some one else, he has revised the source so as to make it conform to his own style. But if he revised the source, he was no mere compiler, and therefore could not have retained the first person plural which in the completed book produced nonsense. The whole hypothesis therefore breaks down.
Such considerations have led a number of recent scholars—even of those who are unable to accept the supernaturalistic account which the Book of Acts gives of the origin of Christianity—to return to the traditional view that the book was actually written by Luke the physician, a companion of Paul. The argument for Lucan authorship has been developed with great acumen especially by Von Harnack[13]. And on the basis of purely literary criticism the argument is certainly irrefutable. It can be refuted, if at all, only through a consideration of the historical contents of the book.
Such attempts at refutation have not been