PAUL
AND
HIS INTERPRETERS
A CRITICAL HISTORY
BY
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
PRIVATDOZENT IN NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBURG
AUTHOR OF “THE QUEST OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS”
TRANSLATED BY
W. MONTGOMERY, BA., BD.
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1912
[pg v]
PREFACE
THE present work forms the continuation of my History of the Critical
Study of the Life of Jesus, which appeared in 1906 under the title
“Von Reimarus zu Wrede.”_(_1_)_
Any one who deals with the teaching and the life and work of Jesus,
and offers any kind of new reading of it, ought not to stop there, but
must be held under obligation to trace, from the stand-point at which
he has arrived, the pathway leading to the history of dogma. Only in
this way can it be clearly shown what his discovery is worth.
The great and still undischarged task which confronts those engaged in
the historical study of primitive Christianity is to explain how the
teaching of Jesus developed into the early Greek theology, in the form
in which it appears in the works of Ignatius, Justin, Tertullian and
Irenaeus. How could the doctrinal system of Paul arise on the basis of
the life and work of Jesus and the beliefs of the primitive community;
and how did the early Greek theology arise out of Paulinism?
Strauss and Renan recognised the obligation, and each endeavoured in a
series of works to trace the path leading from Jesus to the history of
dogma. Since their time no one who has dealt with the life of Jesus
has attempted to follow this course.
Meanwhile the history of dogma, on its part, has come to place the
teaching of Jesus, as well as that of Paul, outside the scope of its
investigations and to regard its own task as [pg vi] beginning at the
point where the undisputed and general Hellenisation of Christianity
sets in. It describes therefore the growth of Greek theology, but not
of Christian theology as a whole. And because it leaves the transition
from Jesus to Paul, and from Paul to Justin and Ignatius, unexplained,
and therefore fails to arrive at any intelligible and consistent
conception of Christian dogma as a whole, the edifice which it erects
has no secure basis. Any one who knows and admires Harnack’s “History
of Dogma” is aware that the solid mason-work only begins in the Greek
period; what precedes is not placed on firm foundations but only
supported on piles.
Paulinism is an integral part of the history of dogma; for the history
of dogma begins immediately upon the death of Jesus.
Critical theology, in dividing up the history of the development of
thought in primitive Christianity into the separate departments, Life
of Jesus, Apostolic Age, History of Dogma, and clinging to this
division as if it were something more than a mere convention of the
academic syllabus, makes a confession of incompetence and resigns all
hope of putting the history of dogma on a secure basis. Moreover, the
separate departments thus left isolated are liable to fall into all
kinds of confusions and errors, and it becomes a necessity of
existence to them not to be compelled to follow their theories beyond
the cunningly placed boundaries, or to be prepared to show at any
moment how their view accords with the preceding and following stages
in the development of thought.
This independence and autonomy of the different departments of study
begins with the downfall of the edifice constructed by Baur. He was
the last who dared to conceive, and to deal with, the history of dogma
in the large and general sense as the scientific study of the
development of the teaching of Jesus into the early Greek theology.
After him begins, with Ritschl, the narrower and more convenient
conception of the subject, which resigns its imperial authority over
the departments of study dealing with the Life of Jesus, [pg vii]
Primitive Christianity and Paulinism, and allows these to become
independent. In the works of Ritschl himself this new departure is not
clearly apparent, because he still formally includes the teaching of
Jesus, of Paul, and of primitive Christianity within the sphere of the
history of dogma. But instead of explaining the differences between
the various types of belief and doctrine, he glosses them over in such
a way that he practically denies the development of the thoughts, and
makes it impossible for a really scientific study of the teaching of
Jesus and of Paulinism to fit into the ready-made frame which he
provides.
Ritschl shares with Baur the presupposition that primitive dogma arose
out of the teaching of Jesus by an organic and logical process. The
separate disciplines which began after them have shown that this
assumption is false. Of a “development” in the ordinary sense there
can be no question, because closer investigation has not confirmed the
existence of the natural lines of connexion which might à priori have
been supposed to be self-evident, but reveals instead unintelligible
gaps. This is the real reason why the different departments of study
maintain their independence.
The system of the Apostle of the Gentiles stands over against the
teaching of Jesus as something of an entirely different character, and
does not create the impression of having arisen out of it. But how is
such a new creation of Christian ideas—and that within a bare two or
three decades after the death of Jesus—at all conceivable?
From Paulinism, again, there are no visible lines of connexion leading
to early Greek theology. Ignatius and Justin do not take over his
ideas, but create, in their turn, something new.
According to the assumption which in itself appears most natural, one
would be prepared to see in the teaching of Jesus a mountain-mass,
continued by the lofty summits of the Pauline range, and from these
gradually falling away to the lower levels of the early Catholic
theology. In reality the teaching of Jesus and that of the great
Apostle are like two separate ranges of hills, lying irregularly
disposed in [pg viii] front of the later “Gospel.” Even the relation
which each severally bears to primitive Christianity remains
uncertain.
This want of connexion must have some explanation. The task of
historical science is to understand why these two systems of teaching
are necessarily independent, and at the same time to point out the
geological fault and dislocation of the strata, and enable us to
recognise the essential continuity of these formations and the process
by which they have taken their present shape.
The edifice constructed by Baur has fallen; but his large and
comprehensive conception of the history of dogma ought not to be given
up. It is wholly wrong to ignore the problem at which he laboured and
so create the false impression that it has been solved. Present day
criticism is far from having explained how Paulinism and Greek
theology have arisen out of the teaching of Jesus. All it has really
done is to have gained some insight into the difficulties, and to have
made it increasingly evident that the question of the Hellenisation of
Christianity is the fundamental problem of the history of dogma.
It could not really hope to find a solution, because it is still
working away with the presuppositions of Baur, Ritschl, and Renan, and
has already tried three or four times over all the experiments which
are possible on this basis, without ever attaining to a real insight
into the course of the development. It has approached this or that
problem differently, has given a new version—not to say in some cases
a perversion—of it; but it has not succeeded in giving a satisfactory
answer to the question when and how the Gospel was Hellenised.
It has not even attained to clearness in regard to the condition in
which the Gospel existed prior to its Hellenisation. It has not
ventured to mark off with perfect distinctness the two worlds of
thought with which the process is concerned, and to formulate the
problem as being that of explaining how the Gospel, which was
originally purely Jewish and eschatological, became Greek in form and
content. That this could really have come about, it takes to be à
priori [pg ix] impossible. It therefore seeks to soften down the
antitheses as much as possible, to find in the teaching of Jesus
thoughts which force their way out of the frame of the Jewish
eschatological conceptions and have the character of universal
religion, and in the teaching of Paul to discover a “genuinely
Christian,” and also a Hellenic element, alongside of the Rabbinic
material.
Theological science has in fact been dominated by the desire to
minimise as much as possible the element of Jewish Apocalyptic in
Jesus and Paul, and so far as possible to represent the Hellenisation
of the Gospel as having been prepared for by them. It thinks it has
gained something when in formulating the problem it has done its best
to soften down the antitheses to the utmost with a view to providing
every facility for conceiving the transition of the Gospel from one
world of thought to the other.
In following this method Baur and Renan proceed with a simple
confidence which is no longer possible to present day theology. But in
spite of that it must still continue to follow the same lines, because
it has still to work with the old presuppositions and the weakening
down of the problem which they imply. The result is in every respect
unsatisfactory. The solution remains as impossible as it was before,
and the simplifications which were supposed to be provided in the
statement of the problem have only created new difficulties.
The thoroughgoing application of Jewish eschatology to the
interpretation of the teaching and work of Jesus has created a new
fact upon which to base the history of dogma. If the view developed at
the close of my “Quest of the Historical Jesus” is sound, the teaching
of Jesus does not in any of its aspects go outside the Jewish world of
thought and project itself into a non-Jewish world, but represents a
deeply ethical and perfected version of the contemporary Apocalyptic.
Therefore the Gospel is at its starting-point exclusively
Jewish-eschatological. The sharply antithetic formulation of the
problem of the Hellenisation of Christianity, which it was always
hoped to avoid, is proved by the facts recorded in the Synoptists to
be the only admissible one. Accordingly, [pg x] the history of dogma
has to show how what was originally purely Jewish-eschatological has
developed into something that is Greek. The expedients and evasions
hitherto current have been dismissed from circulation.
The primary task is to define the position of Paul. Is he the first
stage of the Hellenising process, or is his system of thought, like
that of primitive Christianity, to be conceived as purely
Jewish-eschatological? Usually the former is taken for granted,
because he detached Christianity from Judaism, and because otherwise
his thoughts do not seem to be easily explicable. Besides, it was
feared that if the teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles, as well as
primitive Christianity, were regarded as purely Jewish-eschatological,
the problem of the Hellenisation of the Gospel would become so acute
as to make the possibility of solving it more remote than ever.
Moreover, the theological study of history is apt, even though
unconsciously, to give ear to practical considerations. At bottom, it
is guided by the instinct that whatever in the primitive Gospel is
capable of being Hellenised may also be considered capable of being
modernised. It therefore seeks to discern in Paul’s teaching—as also
in that of Jesus—as much as possible that “transcends Judaism,” that
has the character of “universal religion” and “essential
Christianity.” It is haunted by the apprehension that the significance
of Christianity, and its adaptation to our times, is dependent on
justifying the modernisation of it on the lines hitherto followed and
in accordance with the historical views hitherto current.
Those who have faced the recognition that the teaching of Jesus is
eschatologically conditioned cannot be brought by considerations of
this kind, scientific or unscientific, to entertain any doubt as to
the task which awaits them. That is, to apply this new view to the
explanation of the transition to the history of dogma, and as the
first step in that direction, to undertake a new formulation of the
problem of Paulinism. They will naturally endeavour to find out how
far the exclusively eschatological conception of the [pg xi] Gospel
manifests its influence in the thoughts of the Apostle of the
Gentiles, and will take into account the possibility that his system,
strange as this may at first sight appear, may have developed wholly
and solely out of that conception.
As in the case of the study of the life of Jesus, the problem and the
way to its solution will be developed by means of a survey of what has
hitherto been done. At the same time this method of presentation will
serve to promote the knowledge of the past periods of the science.
Since it is impossible for students, and indeed for the younger
teachers, to read for themselves all the works of earlier times, the
danger arises that on the one hand the names will remain mere empty
names, and on the other that, from ignorance, solutions will be tried
over again which have already been advanced and have proved untenable.
An attempt has therefore been made in this book to give a sufficient
insight into what has been done so far, and to provide a substitute
for the reading of such works as are not either of classical
importance or still generally accessible.
For practical reasons the method adopted in my former book, of
attaching the statement of the new view to the history of earlier
views, has not been followed here. This view will be developed and
defended in a separate work bearing the title “The Pauline Mysticism”
(“Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus”), which will appear at an early
date.
The English and American literature of the subject has not been
included in this study, since the works in question were not in all
cases accessible to me, and an insufficient acquaintance with the
language raised a barrier.
Nor have I aimed at giving, even with this limitation, a complete
enumeration of all the studies of Paul’s teaching. I have only desired
to cite works which either played a part of some value in the
development of Pauline study, or were in some way typical. The fact
that a work has been left unmentioned does not by any means
necessarily imply that it has not been examined.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER.
19_th Sept_. 1911.
[pg xiii]
Contents
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD . . . [1]