56. LIII. Dr. Deissmann on the Letters of Paul as Literature

LIII. Dr. Deissmann on the Letters of Paul as Literature

According to the opinion expressed by many theologians, a chapter bearing the above title might be completed in one sentence, viz., there is no literary character in the letters. This is most sharply put by Professor Deissmann of Berlin in his recent book, St. Paul, a Study in Social and Religious History, 1912 (translated from the German). He speaks repeatedly of “the non-literary character” of the letters: see e.g. pp. 12, 14, 78. He says that “they are not the products of literary art, but of actual life” (p. 12); and from this he draws the inference which he elaborates through many pages, that the letters have no literary quality or power, and that they are produced by an uneducated person, a horny-handed son of toil, whose handwriting was “the clumsy, awkward writing of a workman’s hand deformed by” labour, and who dictated by preference because writing was so difficult for him. (St. Paul, a Study, p. 51 f.) This opinion carries with it many inferences, which are diametrically opposite to the views which we have advocated; and, if it were correct, I should have to reconsider my whole attitude in judging the nature of Paul’s teaching. It is therefore necessary to say something in criticism of a theory which, if our view be right, involves a wholly erroneous estimate of the position and aims, the work and nature of the great Apostle. The opinion of Dr. Deissmann is not new; it is common, and is on the whole the most prevalent in ordinary circles, and my opinion was formed with full knowledge of it. In the present section I shall set before the reader for his judgment a part of one letter as a specimen of literary art. Then I shall examine Dr. Deissmann’s statement that Paul in each letter addressed one single individual or church without any thought of a wider public. Finally, I shall mention some reasons which may perhaps have contributed to lead the distinguished Berlin professor to an opinion which seems to me so erroneous.

One need hardly say a word about the antithesis which Professor Deissmann states between literature and actual life. He thinks that literature and life are mutually exclusive. He sees, as every one sees, that Paul’s letters spring out of actual life; but his inference therefrom that they have no rank or quality as literature is worse than meaningless: it suggests an erroneous view regarding the letters, and it leads to a misconception of the Apostle’s whole life and method.

There is no opposition between literature and actual life. The highest literature springs from life, and deals with real life. But Dr. Deissmann compares the details of Egyptian letters of the period with the letters of Paul, and because the arrangement as regards address and thanksgiving to God at the beginning and some other matters is the same in both classes and is evidently customary, therefore “the nonliterary character of the Pauline texts “is” clearly shown”. Let any one who possesses literary feeling compare the exordium in such a letter as First Corinthians or Ephesians with the stereotyped and commonplace forms in the Egyptian letters to which Dr. Deissmann compares them, and he will see what grandeur and elevation Paul could impart to the customary forms of epistolary communication. The differences are world-wide, just as great as between the mastery of speech which characterises Paul’s letters and the difficulty in expressing thought along with the superficiality of the thought, that mark most of those papyri (so far as I have read them). In Paul the thought is natural and deep, in those Egyptian letters it is natural and shallow.

If one be required to select any one passage calculated to serve as a specimen and proof of Paul’s power in pure literature, it would probably be well to offer the first four chapters of First Corinthians. These four chapters form a special section of the whole letter; they were written (or dictated) in all probability at one effort and are clearly divided from the next section, which was apparently written after an interval. I should take this passage, not as one of the most famous or the most exquisite pieces in his letters; it has not the continuous and lofty dignity and beauty of 1 Corinthians 13, or of 1 Corinthians 15:12-49, or of Ephesians 1-4; but it is eminent in respect of the great variety of feeling and effect which it exhibits. Most of the devices for attaining literary effect are here brought into play, not with any purpose of ostentation, but simply because the alternations of feeling dictate and demand them. The dominant emotion changes rapidly back and forward between thankfulness, hope, protective love, disappointment, and the keenest irony, or even sarcasm. The tone is sometimes one of affection, sometimes of congratulation, sometimes of sharp rebuke, sometimes of deep thankfulness. At one moment Paul writes in the elevated and remote spirit of the mystic, at others in the anxious spirit of the careful pastor. In these chapters we should direct special attention to the marvellous dexterity with which Paul plays on the famous Stoic doctrine, a saying which often lies in his mind and guides his expression, (Some examples are given in Section XXVIII.) that the philosopher, the truly wise man, is always superior to circumstances, master of his fate, rich, contented, in short, a king. This paradox was familiar then to almost every one except the lowest and the absolutely illiterate, who rejected all care for literature; (It is doubtful whether any such class ever existed among the Greeks. Even at the present day the poorest, rudest, and most uneducated Greek has an inborn respect for education and a belief in the absorbing interest of historical study and literature.) and it is not Paul’s knowledge of the paradox, (For the moment let us grant that he might, as his Corinthian readers mostly did, learn it as a popular saying.) but the use which he makes of it, that demonstrates his education. He could calculate that his Corinthian audience knew it. They were not of the lowest class. Although not, as a rule, trained in the schools, they had some philosophic interest and pretensions; they were quite eager to reform others; and in their letter, to which Paul replies in First Corinthians, they had stated some ideas for reforming the world, and some thoughts about the rights and duties of men; and they had displayed a marked spirit of self-confidence and satisfaction with their knowledge of things divine and human. Paul saw that this spirit was not good, and his letter is designed to show them a better way. (See1 Corinthians 12:31.) The intention of the whole letter is disclosed fully in 1 Corinthians 13; but the thought and spirit of that chapter are latent in his mind from the first, and occasionally reveal themselves for a moment, as for example in .

He begins by expressing his thankfulness that he has a Corinthian Church, so rich in knowledge and in power of expressing its knowledge. Here there is not the faintest touch of irony: (The opening words after the address are purely thankful, and devoid absolutely of irony; but the irony soon after begins, very faintly at first, but gradually increasing, though the increase is in successive waves, and not continuous.) Paul was profoundly thankful that he has children in Corinth, and that they are interested in higher thoughts and schemes for the good of the world and the church, and that they are in the brotherhood and fellowship of Christ. This “is something; nay ʼtis much”. This complimentary exordium is not merely demanded by custom and courtesy: it springs from the writer’s heart. These children of his are, in a sense, rich and wise and enlightened: they have the grace χάρις): “I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace . . . which was given you . . . that in everything ye were enriched in Him in all utterance and all knowledge . . . so that ye fall short in no gift . . . waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus . . . through whom ye were called into the fellowship”.

After gently rebuking their tendency, a truly Greek tendency, to split into factions and parties (the cause of which was largely emulation and competition in quick success), (1 Corinthians 1:10-13: this fault is alluded to subsequently from time to time, and the rebuke is thus suggested as an inference which they shall draw from the line of argument: see 3:4 ff. 22; 4:6.) Paul begins to show the ironical turn which is working in his mind. Generally in his letters he contrasts true and false knowledge as verbal and real, in word and in power; but here he contrasts them as foolishness and power. (1:18 ff.)

There is in his mind the idea that the beginning of true philosophic thought is to strip off all assumed and conventional knowledge and to penetrate to some deep, simple and certain first principle. So Descartes began his Method of Using the Reason Aright by getting down to the initial and simple truth, which came to him not through convention or dogmatic assumption, but through direct perception: “I think, therefore I am”. All assumed and second-hand knowledge is to Paul mere verbal quibbling, as he calls it to Timothy, or foolishness, as he calls it here. The true knowledge with power is God’s knowledge, and the way to reach it is through Jesus and His Cross, as a compelling idea that takes possession of the mind and dominates the will. In calling this simplicity “foolishness,” and in contrasting it with the pretentious “knowledge” of the Corinthians, lies the irony of the situation.

He is gradually being led up to the point that the knowledge on which the Corinthians pride themselves is false, assumed, and not really their own; but to this his train of thought has not yet conducted him. It is, after all, through the preaching of Jesus that they had learned their knowledge, such as it is. There are among them few that possess philosophic education, or official position and authority, or nobility of birth; (1:26: it is however implied that there are some even of these higher classes in society.) and therein lies his hope of them. God has chosen to reveal His knowledge in them, who are the uneducated and the humble and who lack formal training and official dignity and high birth. The way which had been shown them was the way of Jesus. This way was never put before them in learned language, or by finely-chosen rhetoric, or through authoritative announcement, but in the simple placarding before their eyes of Christ and His death on the cross. (1:27-2:4.) The plain fact was that the Corinthian Church in the main was drawn from the artisan and industrial class, and that its members were rarely educated in the teaching of the schools; and Paul puts this very delicately in 1 Corinthians 1:26 to 1 Corinthians 2:5, so as to make it a compliment to them, while he expresses it almost as a disparagement of himself. (This is the spirit of the whole letter: where Paul speaks of defect he puts it in the first person usually (13:1-3, 11-12), where he speaks of excellence he uses the third person (13:4-8, 13).) They, the uneducated, learned through one who spoke simply and humbly the Spirit and power of God.

Yet Paul would not be quite true to himself and his Gospel if he conveyed the impression that this was all that should be said. It is his part also to preach a true wisdom among those who are advanced and perfected in training; but the wisdom that he teaches is not the wisdom (i.e. the philosophy) of this world or of the demonic powers of this world, who are in process of being done away. (2:6, 8.) This wisdom is the deep truth of the plan which God has had in view from the creation for working out the glory of mankind. It is the mind of Christ that he interprets. The deepest and the highest truth of the world is what Paul claims to deliver. (2:6-3:17.) In this claim for himself Paul intermingles skilful and exquisitely courteous recognition of the real advance in knowledge that the Corinthians have made, (3:6, 9 f.) toning this with the reminder of the great future that remains before them as a hope. (3:6, 16 ff.) This is no humble claim. These are not the words of the unlettered, untrained, illiterate man. The Greek in which the claim is expressed is so direct, so perfect, so comprehensive, and so simple, that one can only wonder how Dr. Deissmann can compare it with the stumbling, halting, dull, unselected words of those letters in Egyptian papyri, which for the most part express in rudest Greek the superficial ideas of the really illiterate peasant or workman. In the paragraph beginning 1 Corinthians 3:18, Paul writes in the lofty spirit of the true mystic. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; and you should voluntarily strip off your affectation of wisdom and philosophy, and acknowledge your “foolishness,” in order to begin afresh with God and in God. Then comes the Stoic paradox set in the words of the Christian mystic: “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s”. Dr. Deissmann can rightly appreciate that this is the exquisite greatness of religion, but he does not understand that this Greek is the exquisite and natural greatness of literature. And now Paul’s tone gradually changes to something like impatience with these children of his, who cannot see what is before their eyes, blazoned and placarded, — who are blind to the glory and the beauty and the riches that are theirs, if they will only stretch out their hands to grasp and strain their eyes to see and their minds to know — who are competing with one another as to which has learned most and chosen the better teacher, forgetful that what they have learned and what they have attained is nothing in comparison with the splendour of the knowledge that lies before them. They are proud of what they have, as if it were gained by themselves, and not received as a gift. (4:6 f.) As he thinks of this, Paul’s tone changes to keen irony and even sarcasm, and he contrasts in 1 Corinthians 4:8 ff. these men, so wise and so rich in their own esteem, with the Apostles and himself, who had projected and carried out the task of preaching the Gospel to them: “Already are ye filled to satiety; already ye are become rich; without help from us ye have become kings. And indeed I would ye were kings, that we too might be kings along with you.” You are the successful ones: you are the blessed and favoured of God; and we Apostles who know our unworthiness, would fain be helped along to heaven by you. “For, I think, God hath exhibited us the Apostles last in the race, as men doomed to death; for we are made a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; you have glory, but we have dishonour.” (Paul uses few rhetorical devices in this passage; but the chiasmus is here noteworthy.) He continues in a marvellous picture of the Apostles “as the filth of the world,” wandering forlorn, ill-treated, in sore need, working to earn their bread, answering curses with blessings.

Then follows a word of apology for the vehemence into which he feels himself to have been betrayed. (4:14.) The irony had hardened almost into sarcasm, and in the sarcasm he might seem to be holding the Corinthians up to ridicule: “Yet I write not these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children”. The spirit that moves in this letter is a spirit of love, of allowance for the weakness of others, of eager desire to benefit, never to chastise or punish. It is the spirit that is fully expressed in 1 Corinthians 13.

Much has been made of the fact that in writing to the Corinthians, Paul calls himself “a layman in speech,” (ἰδιώτης τῷ λόγῳ,2 Corinthians 11:6.) contrasting their confident assumption of “wisdom,” i.e. philosophical knowledge with his own “foolishness”; and the cleverness in speech on which they plume themselves with his own simplicity and want of wit. But this interpretation misses the irony that lies in the words.

What does the term “layman in speech” mean? A “layman in speech” is one who does not practise the rhetorical devices of the schools, who does not seek effect by the arts and verbal tricks of rhetoric, who speaks about a plain topic in simple words such as all may understand, and does not employ artificial or learned technical terms, which are intelligible only to the few.

Now there are two reasons why a speaker chooses simple language and does not employ learned terms or elaborate devices of rhetoric. One reason is that he is himself not educated enough to use them. The other is that he refuses to use them, because they are unsuitable to his purpose and his subject. Without any consideration. Dr. Deissmann assumes that Paul employs simple language and an unadorned style, because he is an uneducated man, who has never learned the tricks of the schools, and is conscious of his inferiority in this respect. The uneducated man does not know what he has missed; he has only a vague feeling that those other better educated speakers possess some resource or some power which is wanting to him; but he cannot tell exactly what it is that he lacks. Now that is not the case with Paul. On the contrary, he knows well what he is doing and what it is that he refrains from using, and he states clearly that he has deliberately resolved to use a plain style suitable to a single and simple topic: “I came not with excellence in oratory or in philosophy, proclaiming to you the testimony of God; for I determined not (οὐmust be taken closely withτι, as in the Authorised and the Revised English and American editions. Some doubt this.) to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified . . . and my talk and my preaching were not expressed in persuasive philosophic terms, but in open exhibition of the Spirit and of power, with the intention that your conversion should not be founded on human philosophy but on God’s power”. (1 Corinthians 2:1-2;1 Corinthians 2:4.)

Nothing can be clearer than this. Paul’s style and method were deliberately chosen, and he had a good reason and purpose in his choice. The subject did not suit human verbal skill; and the result which he desired, even if attained by the devices of human education, would be unstable and liable to be overthrown by similar devices, whereas if it were attained by the simple manifestation of God’s power, unaided by alluring tricks of style, it could not be affected by any skilful rhetoric hereafter. Also Paul knows quite well what it is that he refrains from using. The few contemptuous words in which he hits off the character of those rhetorical tricks show that he understood their nature. Finally Paul goes on to say that he possesses the philosophic knowledge though he has not spoken it to the Corinthians: “We speak philosophy, however, among the mature; but our philosophy is the philosophy of God, got through direct intuition and revelation of the highest divine truths; and this philosophy we set forth, not in skilful elaborate rhetoric, but in the words that the subject, i.e. the Spirit of God, prescribes”. (1 Corinthians 2:6-7;1 Corinthians 2:10;1 Corinthians 2:13.) In that paragraph, from which I have quoted a few words, Paul expresses with the sure hand of a master in thought and an artist of the highest order in the use of words, his purpose, his subject, and his choice of a style, viz., the style which the subject imperatively demanded. The subject expressed itself through his mouth: it clothed itself in its own words. “It was not I that spoke, but the Spirit spoke through me:” such might almost be given as the fair statement of Paul’s meaning.

I have spoken only of the movement of the thought, and of that general quality which can be gathered through a translation; and have refrained from taking the Greek text phrase by phrase. To do so would need too much space, but it can be done by others better than by me. Every one can appreciate the simple directness of the Greek, and the skill with which everything is expressed in the language of contemporary society. There is no need to look for rare and to coin new words to express delicate shades of meaning, as in 1 Corinthians 13. The common words are the best for this purpose. All this every one can appreciate for himself, provided that he knows Greek as a speech, an instrument for communicating thought, and not as a lexicon of words. Paul never sought after literary style. In him the thought makes the style. He never aimed at rhythmical effect after the rules taught in the schools of rhetoric. The late Professor Blass felt that there is a rhythm in his expression; and, being familiar with the studied rhythm of the rhetoricians, he tried to show that Paul observed the rules. Deissmann was right in maintaining against Blass that Paul had no thought of rhythmic effect, but wrote as the spirit and the subject moved him, freely, simply, and naturally. When, however, he proceeds to infer that there is no rhythm in Paul’s sentences and no flow in his paragraphs, he shows defective ear and sense for the finest effects of rhythm. In reading the letters of Paul, one is not readily struck with the excellence of the literary style. That is not because there is no style, as Dr. Deissmann maintains, but because the style suits so perfectly with the subject as to be entirely natural. The words are so unstudied and so harmonious with the thought that they are by the reader readily taken for granted, as inevitable, as if the writer could not help using them. There are no others that he could use when he had such thoughts to express. Hence we forget the art in the perfection of the art, for the art has lost itself in the thought. Where the skill of a writer obtrudes itself on the reader, where the reader finds himself called on to admire the perfection of the art, the variety of literary devices employed and the skill with which words are harmonised and selected for the effect that is desired, there the work is after all only of the second class, and not of the supreme quality. The last thing that a reader should notice is the art with which a great thing is said: the first thing he should notice is the thing itself. If the style strikes the reader forthwith as specially delicate and effective and careful, or as possessing any other marked quality, the writer may be a great stylist, but he cannot be ranked among the supreme artists in literature.

Yet, inasmuch as the literary style of Paul is never obtruded, but seems to be the natural and inevitable dress for the thought to wear, therefore it has been inferred by many modern theological scholars that there is no style at all in his writings. (“St. Paul does not write literary Greek,” says Dr. Deissmann, St. Paul, p. 53. He quotes Nageli, whose work is useful, though his opinions and conclusions are antiquated. He concedes, however, that in spite of the clear predominance of the colloquial tone, Paul’s Greek “is not really vulgar to the degree that finds expression in many of the contemporary papyri” (ibid. p. 53). This concession means little, for those papyri which he means are the letters of uneducated persons and children.) Such an error is not made by a scholar like Harnack, who in his remarkable paper on Paul’s “Hymn of Heavenly Love,” (The paper was published in the Expositor, June and July, 1912, in an authorised translation from the original German of the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy.) devotes special attention to the linguistic devices through which the marvellous dignity and harmony and literary quality are attained. Such an error is far from the trained and delicate Greek sense of Wilancourt, who, in words which I would fain have quoted exactly, (I have to write with very few books at hand.) speaks of the relief which it gives, after the wearisome artificialities of the Hellenistic period, to come once more on the true and natural Greek expression of Paul, a great master of Hellenism.

Again, Professor Deissmann draws a quite arbitrary distinction between “literary art” and “actual life,” as if life were set over against and irreconcilable with literature. (St. Paul: a Study, p. 12.) He is betrayed into this by his perception, correct in itself, that Paul was careless of the formal rules prescribed for the artificial Greek literature of the later Hellenistic and the Roman age; and he presses this truth to the fatally false conclusion that what was written in contempt of such artificiality was not and could not be literature. He reasons with terms to which he gives artificial meanings. Literature to him means something quite different from what it means to us in the English-speaking world; and I doubt whether the German-speaking world would accept such cast-iron distinctions. Thus, for example, he puts the dilemma that the letter to Philemon must be either a letter or “a tractate on the attitude of Christianity towards slavery”. (The English of the translation is often bad: words are used in a sense which they do not possess in our language: I have substituted “attitude” for “position” in the text. It is unpleasant to criticise a book without having the German before me. In some cases I doubt whether the English fairly represents the German; but as the translation is authorised and revised by Dr. Deissmann, and as I write at a distance of 4000 miles from Germany, I must take the translation as it stands.) If it were a tractate, he seems to imply it would be literature; but, inasmuch as it is a true and beautiful and natural letter, “a delightful document,” therefore it cannot be literature. “The doctrinaire and literary theory,” as he says, “fails completely in this case.”

I do not with certainty know what “the doctrinaire theory” is; but I doubt if even the dullest and stupidest of commentators ever described this letter simply and solely as “a tractate on the attitude of Christianity towards slavery”. Some commentator might use those words to bring out one point of view from which we may contemplate the letter. It is, in fact, possible, as we shall show, to find in the letter a statement of universal principles that ought to guide the judgment and action of the contemporary Church in the difficult problem of slavery; but that is only one single aspect of a many-sided composition.

First and foremost, this composition is a letter, written from heart to heart, from Paul to Philemon, on a particular occasion, for the special situation at that moment. Dr. Deissmann sees this correctly and clearly, and he sees nothing else than this. The letter is and remains for him a letter. Like the primrose to Peter Bell, the letter was a letter, “and it was nothing more”. But this letter is far more than a letter; and the dry-as-dust commentator, who could find in it something further that made him call it, in rather ill-chosen phrase, “a tractate,” saw something that is really there. That “delightful document” is written on the basis of, and penetrated with, the consciousness of certain wide principles, fully and carefully thought out, regarding slavery and the attitude which the Church should take towards slavery. It does not state those principles as such, but it decides the special case on general conceptions, and in so doing it reveals what those principles are.

Further, I am not concerned to controvert Dr. Deissmann’s dictum: “St. Paul cannot have intended that these confidential letters should be still extant after centuries, nor did it ever occur to him that they would be”. (St. Paul: a Study, p. 12.) No one who thinks rationally would fancy that Paul wrote intending his letters to be in use after the lapse of centuries. He thought of the present and in the present. But when Dr. Deissmann proceeds to treat this dictum as implying that Paul’s letters were sent for the use of one single congregation in a single copy on a special occasion without any thought of Christendom as a whole, he is taking a narrow and, as I venture to think, hasty view. Those early Christian letters were true letters, written for a special occasion; but they stated profound and world-wide principles with full deliberation, in a way that applied to the whole contemporary Church.

We know from Paul himself that he intended his Colossian letter to be read aloud in the congregation of the Laodiceans. (Colossians 4:16: the Laodicean letter was intended likewise for Colossae (and for the Christian world).) He was conscious that he was stating principles for the whole Church of God. He wrote, as he spoke, with authority, i.e. universal authority. He is in the position of an Emperor issuing a rescript (if I may compare that smaller fact with the great religious document): the Emperor replied in his rescript to a question of detail on which an official or a city had consulted him, but his rescript stated or implied general principles, and became an embodiment of law and procedure to guide and regulate future progress. (Something of this is demonstrated in my Letters to the Seven Churches, in an opening chapter, where this subject is touched.)

Further, I do not hesitate to affirm that Paul was not writing only for a single correspondent like Titus, Philemon, or Timothy, or for a single Church like Corinth or Thessalonica. Dr. Deissmann, when he contends that the Apostle wrote solely with an eye to the single correspondent, is wholly mistaking the spirit of Paul. The Apostle was conscious of the true nature of his letters, and thought of a wider public than a single Church or a single man. He had in mind all who were in like difficulties. He thought of Christendom as a whole, or at least of all his Churches, and not of one. He was writing to the individual, and yet he was writing universal principles for the whole world.

Take the first Corinthian letter. (In what follows I follow the text of Westcott and Hort simply, and pay no attention to diversities of reading among the manuscripts. The reader can readily add the diversities of MS. authority, which are not important, except in one case.) It is sent (1 Corinthians 1:2) to “the Church of God, which is at Corinth . . . with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place”. When it ends with a double benediction, 1 Corinthians 16:23 and 1 Corinthians 16:24, I should be inclined to understand that 1 Corinthians 16:23 may be for the Corinthians primarily and especially: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you”; but 1 Corinthians 16:24 is addressed to the wider audience of 1 Corinthians 1:2, the whole of Christendom: “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.”

Exactly the same remark applies to Second Timothy. In 2 Timothy 4:22 the first part is for Timothy: “The Lord be with thy spirit”; the second part is for the whole of Christendom (or for a smaller audience associated with Timothy, as some scholars would maintain): “Grace be with you” (plural). The same applies to Titus. In Titus 3:15 the first part is for Titus: “All that are with me salute thee”; the second part is for the world of Christ: “Grace be with you all”. (Like many others, Professor Vernon Bartlet in the Expositor, February, 1913, p. 162, quotes the last words in First Timothy and Titus as proof that each of them was an “open letter; fit for quotation so far as might seem needful in order to silence challenge of Timothy’s authority and win over local public opinion”. He contrasts this with “the more intimate and personal second epistle to Timothy,” where he rejects the ending (which Westcott and Hort accept). As is shown below, all Paul’s letters, however personal, were also in a sense almost as much “open letters” as First Timothy and Titus.)

First Timothy is, of course, intended primarily for one individual, and the charge which forms the main message of the letter is expressed in the singular, “thee” and “thou”; but the plural is used in the final salutation, 1 Timothy 6:21, “Grace be with you”. A similar width of intention animates Philemon, the very letter which Dr. Deissmann selects as most specially and markedly a letter from one man to another. In this he is altogether right. It is a private letter on a private matter. Yet, when this is said, the case is not exhausted. There is more to say, for there is more than this in the letter. In the first place, the writer has in view a wider audience than Philemon in his private house. The last sentence but one conveys greetings from Paul’s companions to Philemon individually: they “greet thee”. The last sentence, however, is expressed in the plural: “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit”: the benediction is to many readers, not to one.

There are therefore but two alternatives. Either the letter is intended to be read also by the Colossian Christians generally, or the thought of all Christians, “all who call upon the name of our Lord,” lies in Paul’s mind (just as he utters that thought in 1 Corinthians 1:2). In either case the exclusively private character of the letter is done away. It concerns Philemon primarily, but others in the second place. So it is with First Corinthians. That letter is as thoroughly personal to one individual Church as Philemon is to one individual person; but in the former by express address and in the latter (as I think) by implication, the whole body of Christians in the world is included. In the second place, it is not permissible to cut away the last sentence as a gloss attached in later ages to the letter. Such a farewell sentence is customary and could not be omitted. Moreover, the plural is used in the body of the letter in an instructive way. The letter is formally addressed to Philemon and Apphia (probably his wife) and Archippus (some relative or friend) and to the Church which assembles in Philemon’s house. All these are included in the opening address, as in the conclusion all are meant. Moreover, although the business which occasions the letter is certainly a quite private and personal matter; and the main body of the letter is expressed in the singular, “thou” and “thee”; and although the Epistle was certainly intended first of all to be meditated over by Philemon privately, and to move his individual conscience: “Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say: but withal do thou prepare me also a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers [plural] I shall be granted unto you” [plural]; yet Paul was not writing for Philemon alone. It was not even the prayers of the Colossian Church alone that he knew to be working for him and with him. He was here thinking of the prayers of the whole body of Christians: the same was the case when Peter was in prison: (Acts 12:5.) all who knew were praying for his release. This observation gives the clue to the right and full comprehension of 2 Corinthians 1:11 : “Ye also helping together on our behalf by your supplication”. This letter is formally addressed, not merely to the Church in Corinth, but to “all the saints that are in the whole of (the province) Achaia”. In 2 Corinthians 1:11, however, I feel no doubt that Paul for the moment was thinking not of Achaia simply, but of the whole Christian world.

It would be easy to pick out passages throughout the letters where Paul for a short time forgets the person or the Church to which his letter is addressed, and feels himself writing for the whole of Christendom; but this would seem speculative and fanciful to those who have no insight into the nature of Paul, and I confine myself to the cases where the reference is plainly marked as wider than the nominal addressee. In Philippians the instruction in Php 4:21, “Salute every saint in Christ Jesus,” is not restricted to Philippi: Paul has before him in a secondary view the entire Christian world. There are in this letter three concentric circles over which Paul’s view extends. The narrowest contains one man alone, Paul’s “true yoke-fellow” (Php 4:3). A wider circle embraces the whole Philippian Church, and the address is sometimes expressly restricted to them, as in the initial words and in Php 4:15. The widest circle extends to include “every saint in Christ Jesus”. Philippians 3 in general is addressed to the widest circle. There were hardly any Jews in Philippi: there was no synagogue there; hence it was unnecessary to warn the Philippians alone against the Jews. That warning is for all the saints, and is suggested by extra-Philippian events more than by anything that was happening in Philippi. (The argument (and a right argument) is that a letter is suggested by the special circumstances of the Church addressed; but this chapter is suggested by events outside of Philippi.) In Php 3:1 the words, “Rejoice in the Lord,” are universal. Professor Deissmann, surely, cannot doubt the wide reference in this instance. In Ephesians 6:24 the reference is explicitly universal: “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ”. The man who wrote like this was not restricting his counsel to the Ephesians, nor to the Asian cities: he knew and meant it to be universal. In passing, we note that there need be no difficulty regarding the address of this letter. It is to Ephesus and it is to all Asia, just as is. the case with Second Corinthians. (2 Corinthians 1:1.) There is no necessity to call Ephesians a “circular letter,” any more than Second Corinthians. Both letters include the whole province: in Asia, Ephesus was the commercial capital, and Pergamum the religious capital, and both cities (like Smyrna) claimed (and had legal justification in claiming) the title “First (city) of Asia”: in Achaia, Corinth was the administrative and commercial capital, while Athens was the educational capital of the whole civilised world. There is less reference to occasional matters in Ephesians than in Second Corinthians, but there is some such reference even in Ephesians, as was shown formerly by Professor Rendel Harris; (He published an ingenious and penetrating article on this subject in the Expositor about ten years ago.) and the presence or absence of such individual concern is not really so important as it might seem. Both epistles are letters at once to a capital city and to a whole province, even though the name of the province is formally mentioned only in one of the two. (We need not repeat the familiar facts about the readingἐν Ἐφέσῳin the address. The bearing is obvious.) In Byzantine lists of equivalent names Ephesus is mentioned as equivalent to (the province) Asia. The Epistle to the Romans was not suggested by any circumstances that had arisen in Rome and were known to the writer, for he had never been there and had not been brought into direct relation with the Roman Church. It consists mainly (apart from the initial address and the concluding chapters, Romans 15:14 to the end) in a statement of universal principles, applicable not to any particular situation and occasion whether at Rome or elsewhere, but expressed in the widest terms as general truths of religious thought and of practical administration. (The rules of practical administration are all put at the end together, 13:1-14:13.) This has been generally recognised; and I take the latest theory as expressed by the Rev. J. Ironside Still. It is to the effect that, (The Early Gentile Christian Church, 1913, p. 113.) when we deduct and Romans 15:14 to Romans 16:27, there is left “a document which without the alteration of a single word, could be sent to any or all of the churches of the Gentiles” (with Jews in small numbers mingled in each congregation). This “treatise (for it is a treatise)” is intended to “set forth the way of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, from the points of view of both the Jew and the Gentile, showing the historical, doctrinal, and practical bearings of this teaching,” together with certain “general rules for the settlements of such questions of conduct as had already arisen, e.g., obedience to civil government, eating certain meats, and fellowship between Jew and Gentile in the Church”.

If I am not mistaken, Dr. Deissmann in a former statement of his theory, recognised the difference between Romans and most of the other letters so fully that he put the former in a separate class as an “Epistle” rather than a letter. (I have not beside me his older works to refer to, as I write 4000 miles from home.) Now, in his latest work, (St. Paul: a Study, p. 22.) he withdraws in great part this recognition: “That also is a real letter, not an ‘Epistle’; there are parts in it, certainly, that might find a place in an ‘Epistle,’ and it might here and there be called an epistolary letter; but all the same it is a letter . . . he addresses himself to a handful of people resident in the more modest quarters of Rome, of whose existence the public knew practically nothing”.

We ask what sentence or phrase or word marks the correspondents as persons specially unknown or as “resident in the more modest quarters of Rome”? Rome is specified in Romans 1:6; but I see nothing that points to “the more modest quarters” of the city, or to the rank of the readers. In Romans 13:1, “Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers,” does not imply humble rank: “all men must obey the magistrates and the law “is a free paraphrase of the thought. Statius gives a different expression of the same truth in a fine passage of the Silvae, where he says that obedience is a rule of universal application, that each must serve the power above him, that even the Emperor is a servant, and that sun and stars obey a higher law. (The germ of Statius’ words is found, concisely but far less finely expressed, in Horace: Region timendorum in proprios greges: reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis.) There is here no suggestion of humble station in those addressed, but only the statement of universal principle in the conduct of the whole Church. “Render unto Cæsar what is Cæsar’s.”

Dr. Deissmann’s touch about the “handful of people in the more modest quarters” is a purely theoretic and subjective and wholly unauthorised addition, justified by nothing in the letter, and founded only on his own views (which, of course, are largely right): he inserts this touch almost unconsciously, because he is trying to impart to the letter an individual character, which it does not in itself possess.

He maintains that Paul sent this letter “only to Rome,” and did not “send copies to the gatherings of Christians at Ephesus, Antioch and Jerusalem”. In this contention he pointedly contradicts a view expressed by others, and most fully worked out by Rev. J. Ironside Still in the little book quoted above. In the form which the latter has given it, the body of the letter was general. A copy sent to Rome had the address Romans 1:6 prefixed, and the conclusion appended: these are personal to the Roman congregation. Another copy with appropriate address and with the conclusion was sent to Ephesus or to the whole province of Asia. (Mr. Still is disposed to conjecture that 16:17-20 may belong, not to the Ephesian copy, but to a Corinthian copy.) A third copy was sent to Macedonia with the conclusion . As to , Mr. Still considers that this “Doxology, an unusual ending for a letter of Paul’s,” may be the conclusion of the treatise proper, Romans 1:18 to Romans 15:13, placed after the special conclusions to individual copies of the letter.

Dr. Deissmann carries his advocacy so far as to maintain that “the decreased prominence of personal detail is no evidence that the letter to the Romans is epistolary and literary in character; it is the natural consequence of the letter-like and non-literary situation underlying it”. Everything is pressed by Dr. Deissmann into subservience to his purpose. First Thessalonians is “thoroughly letter-like,” because it “is full of personal reminiscences”; Romans is equally letter-like, because it contains hardly any “personal detail”.

He began with an observation which is entirely correct and instructive, viz., that true letters differ in quality and character from literary Epistles, which are written with an eye to the public; but this observation he carries out with a relentless and one-sided thoroughness that can see nothing except these two classes. There is much in the world of letters besides these two classes. Only for a moment is he disturbed, when he speaks of Romans as in parts “an epistolary letter”; but even here, in place of recognising a third category, he sees only a chance blend of the initial two, and he does not stop to explain what “an epistolary letter” is. In “an epistolary letter” had Paul in his mind any thought of a public? If not, why is the letter “epistolary”? If he had such thought, it cannot be right to assert so positively that the letter was written only to a single small and humble Roman audience and was not intended to be known to Ephesian or other readers.

If we are to judge from the positive indications which Paul gives of his outlook towards a larger audience than the single Church or individual whom he addresses, we must allow that he was usually conscious that his letters applied to the whole of Christendom. I would make an exception in the case of the letter to the Galatians, which seems to have poured forth from his mind in one effort, like a flood of lava from a volcano. That however was his first letter, and it was partly from it that he learned how powerful an instrument the letter was, and what important effect it might exercise in the consolidation of the Church as a whole.

It is in this last respect that the great fault of Dr. Deissmann’s theory lies. It hides from him the perception of Paul’s constructive power, which he minimises in an unilluminative fashion. (St. Paul, p. 186 ff.) He concedes that Paul made “the modest beginnings of an external organisation”; but maintains that he “cannot be called the father of the constitutional church”. His reason seems to be only that these “modest beginnings were fairly obviously suggested by the needs themselves, but could also be adopted from the various models of associations that existed in antiquity, especially from the religious unions of the pagan world and the synagogues among the Jews of the Dispersion”.

He does not, however, see how much is implied in the fact that these “modest beginnings” are beginnings. From the first Paul saw that something was required, and he furnished it. The fact that these “modest beginnings were suggested by the needs” does not prove (as Dr. Deissmann infers) that they were not the first steps in organisation: it is because they were imperatively demanded by the needs of the case that they became the germ of a great constitutional system. As Dr. Deissmann truly says, they could be adopted from existing models. Paul took what was vital and germinative in the existing associations and unions; but it was this adaptation to the time which made them fit to grow and enlarge. It was, as he rightly says, “the personality behind them all,” that quickened them into a living organism; but they did not die with him; they developed into a vast system, which became a power in the world (not always a power for good, as every one must grant, but still a great power, and generally a beneficent power). (We may acknowledge and regret the faults of the constitutional Church in all its branches, and yet recognise its essentially good quality and its apostolic origin.)

Dr. Deissmann maintains that Paul had no “conception of the church,” a phrase that he quotes from some authority. “His churches were all assemblies summoned by God.” He gives no reason for holding, but simply assumes, that the “church” in Paul’s letters is not the germ “of the constitutional church”. I do not know if anyone has ever gone quite so far as this in ignoring the constructive ability and purpose of Paul. As to the term “church” (or assembly as Dr. Deissmann restricts it), Paul began in his first letters by speaking of “the churches of Galatia,” and “the church of the Thessalonians,” where “assembly” would probably quite fairly cover the thought. In Philippians, Colossians and Ephesians, the term is avoided in the address, which speaks of “the saints that are at Philippi,” etc. In Romans the phrase is “all that are at Rome”. The word might be, perhaps, quite adequately expressed by “assembly” or “congregation” in such passages as Romans 16:5, Colossians 4:5, Philemon 1:2, 1 Timothy 5:16, and many others. The unity of the universal Church, however, was a thought that Paul already had in his mind; and this unity was necessarily an organisation consisting of many members with diverse functions, co-ordinated into a single body, which he describes with remarkable emphasis in Colossians 2:19 and Ephesians 4:11-16, Ephesians 2:20. This unified and universal and single Church, the body of which Christ forms the head, is clearly meant in Ephesians 1:22, Ephesians 3:10, Ephesians 5:23-25, Ephesians 5:27, Ephesians 5:29, Ephesians 5:32, Colossians 1:18, Colossians 1:24, Romans 16:23, etc,; and those other passages of those letters and Philemon would be better interpreted as implying the “portion of the universal church, which is at Colossae,” etc.

It is no wonder that an ardent and devoted scholar like Dr. Deissmann grows enthusiastic about the olive-tree, “the tree of civilisation” (as I have called it in one of my studies on the subject). But in scientific statement greater exactitude is needed. He is too apt to take book results for certainties. Fischer’s map of the olive zone he assumes to be complete, forgetting that Strabo speaks of the olive-planted plain of Synnada, high among the Phrygian mountains. (I formerly proposed to readἀμπελόφυτονforἐλαιόφυτον(Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1887, on Synnada): recently I have been disposed to withdraw this conjecture.) If Strabo is right, Fischer’s restrictions are far too narrow.

Dr. Deissmann quotes from Philippson a contrast between the “scarcity of rain” on the plateau of Asia Minor and the “ample winter rainfall” of the west coast. So far as my experience goes, there is a very large fall of moisture, both rain and snow, on those parts of the plateau which I know best.

Pisidian Antioch and Afiom-Kara-Hissar enjoy an abundant rainfall. What is wanted on the plateau for agriculture is not so much a greater rainfall, as means of storing the moisture. When he finds no difficulty in supposing that Paul visited Angora, is he reasoning on the same principle as on p. 18, where he estimates the time of a runaway from Colossae to Ephesus by his own railway journey between Laodicea and Ephesus? He could leave Ancyra one day, sleep in the German inn at Dorylaion, and reach Iconium the next day. Nothing can be easier. From these hasty and unstudied geographical generalisations springs much of the error into which, as I believe, Dr. Deissmann has fallen. But I am glad to agree with him that geography is so important in Pauline study. This unity of the whole Church was certainly in Paul’s mind in 1 Corinthians 10:17; and I should interpret generally the word “church” in the two Corinthian letters conformably to this conception, (This sense is compulsory in1 Corinthians 12:28.) although it is quite feasible, and in some cases preferable, to take it in the sense of “assembly,” as Dr. Deissmann takes it.

It is clear from this brief enumeration that in his letters Paul moved towards, and reached, the full conception of the unified and organised Church of God in the whole world. I do not see how this conception can be distinguished from a “constitutional church,” though I do not profess to determine whether or not Paul’s conception “would satisfy a lawyer,” as Dr. Deissmann requires. There are, however, many “constitutions” that, as people say, would not satisfy a lawyer; and perhaps it is not the highest quality of a constitutional Church that it should fulfil the rigid requirements of the pure lawyer.

What is clear is that from the beginning of his missionary work as described in Acts 13, and in his early Thessalonian letter, (The Galatian letter is inconclusive; and from its character it furnishes no evidence.) Paul had the idea before his mind that the foundation of a church was not completed by the conversion of a certain number of individuals, who might come together in an “assembly”. Zahn rightly distinguishes between the mere conversion of many individuals and the formation of a church. A simple missionary progress through a country was not enough. When Paul was suddenly expelled from Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, he had to return and complete his work by appointing presbyters, whose function, as we know from the Pastoral Epistles and from other sources, included both teaching and business management in the congregation. Each congregation needed persons to discharge various functions; the fundamental requirement always was the charisma, the revelation through the grace of God of His will and counsel. All had not the charisma, but every example of it should be encouraged and should also be tested whether it was true. All had not the same power in teaching, but all ought to bear this purpose in mind. All were not equally good in managing the common business and duties. To each his proper function; and the co-ordination of all in a unified life made the constitutional church in a city; and the co-ordination of all the scattered churches was the universal and single Church, the body whose head was Christ. (See an article, “What were the Churches of Galatia?” in the Expository Times, 1912-13, § i.)

There was no such deep chasm dividing a charismatic from a constitutional Church, as Dr. Deissmann thinks. (St. Paul: a Study, p. 186, where he dates “this charismatic age before the days of the church”.) In the earliest church there was charisma and there was also teaching, and there were regular instructors and managers of business. The collection and storing of the weekly contributions for Jerusalem, which continued for months, and probably for years, (This was, as I doubt not, planned from the inception of the third journey, and was ordered in Galatia (Acts 18:23).) was a financial affair of some magnitude. Enterprises like that are business; and some business ability is needed to plan and to manage them. The early Pauline Church was charismatic, and it was also constitutional.

One of the great difficulties in the unification of the Church was to overcome the obstacle of distance. The only way to solve this problem, as has been emphasised in all my earlier books, lay in frequent inter-communication by visit and by letter. Paul and the whole Church fully recognised this from a very early time. The letter became the true and the most characteristic expression of the Church unity. Paul’s letters were felt by him to be individual, and yet universal. This is the great and vital truth which Dr. Deissmann has cast away. His error seems to be due to a tendency towards hasty geographical generalisations. True! he rather prides himself on being no “layman in geography”. Travel in the Pauline cities is the “new teacher,” to whom he owes so much. He has, “with some small exceptions, visited all the places of importance in the primitive history of Christianity,” and expresses in his Preface a gentle compassion for those who have not had this advantage.

He does not enable us to judge what are the exceptions to his knowledge. He speaks in general of seeing Galatia and Lycaonia. Doubtless this implies more than Iconium and Ancyra, and the line of the railways. He cannot have omitted Lystra, which is only eighteen miles from a station, and Pisidian Antioch, which is about twenty by horseroad, and Derbe; or Pessinus, and the other churches of North Galatia (as he holds), and Philippi, which are all within very easy reach of railway stations. When he states (p. 36) the height of Pisidian Antioch as 3936 ft., I should be glad to learn what is his authority, and what the figure means. This is a point which deeply interests me, and on which I should be glad to learn from a great geographical authority. Is the elevation taken at the modern town, or the ancient? Is it taken at the lowest or the highest point of the ancient city, if it refers to that? These are questions involving a difference of more than 200 ft. Is the height estimated from his own observation, or taken from some authority? If it is based on some published authority, it probably refers to the modern town. If it depends on his own observation, what instrument did he use? I have only employed an aneroid, and know how far from exact are the results which it gives. All these questions arise, when one tries (as I have tried) to learn from this book. He says that he was at Antioch (p. xi), without specifying whether he means the Syrian or the Pisidian; and naturally one understands that the greater city, the Syrian, is intended. Moreover, as he tells us elsewhere, he visited Syrian Antioch. Are we then to suppose that, when he was making these extensive journeys in the Pauline world, he omitted the places which are not railway stations? Must we conclude that the heights which he states are all borrowed estimates, and that the importance of such facts are learned only from books? One can learn them without a journey along the railway. His experience of Phrygia, Galatia and Lycaonia was quickly gained in 1909: he tells us that he was in a snowstorm on a Phrygian pass in March of that year, and two days later saw peach trees blooming in an orchard. Yet on 13 March he travelled from Ephesus to Laodicea (both railway stations), (He did not visit Colossae, twelve miles from the station at Laodicea, and only two from the line of the railway.) and on 15 March back to Ephesus; and 16-19 March he spent on a steamer, where he learned a great deal “about the modern (and ancient) popular life of the East, observing Russian and other pilgrims on the way to Palestine via Messina” (where he stopped to study Cilicia).

Formerly I imagined that Dr. Deissmann had travelled by road from Iconium or Cybistra to Tarsus, and that the reference on p. 36 to “a violent snowstorm at the top of a Phrygian pass,” pointed to the pass leading from Pisidian Antioch to Ak Sheher, and that the peach gardens which he passed next day at noon might be those of Ak Sheher. (I doubt, however, if peach gardens blossom at Ak Sheher in March. Dr. Deissmann gives statistics of days and visits in a sporadic way, just so much as to make a zealous disciple like myself wish for much more.) Is Lystra so much as 4034 ft. above the sea? (St. Paul: a Study, p. 36.) I should have thought this an over-estimate. The height of Iconium is, of course, taken from the railway survey, and is printed on the wall of the station according to the admirable German custom (which I would that other railways imitated).

Dr. Deissmann lays great stress on such points: “these facts,” he says, “are at least as interesting to me as the question about the addressees of ‘Galatians’” (p. 36); but, if he wishes to make his statements into facts available for reasoning, he must give more information regarding the authority on which they rest.

He says that “the zone of the olive-tree, if we leave out Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, coincides almost exactly with the map of St. Paul’s missionary work” (p. 41). We must leave out a great deal more: we must leave out Spain, (Perhaps Dr. Deissmann holds that Paul was not condemned on the so-called “first trial” in Rome, in which I should gladly find him as an associate, and that the journey to Spain was actually performed.) France, the southern Alpine slopes, all the islands of the western Mediterranean, and many other districts where Paul never penetrated. On the other hand, we must remember that there were no olives in Lycaoniaand in North Galatia (where Dr. Deissmann places Pauline churches). What is the use or value of a generalisation which requires so much restriction on one side, and so much widening on another? It would be almost as true to say that Paul’s mission work does not coincide with the olive zone, because it embraces much where olives are unknown and leaves out many large Mediterranean countries where olives are cultivated.