om the first to the complete emancipation of
Christianity from Judaism. But it was inevitable that he did not at
first realise all that he had undertaken. And, fortunately for us, the
most rapid evolution in his thought took place daring the ten years to
which his extant letters belong. It is exceedingly interesting to trace
his gradual progress away from Apocalyptic Messianism to a position very
near that of the fourth Gospel. The evangelist whom we call St. John is
the best commentator on Paulinism. This is one of the most important
discoveries of recent New Testament criticism.

In the earliest Epistles--those to the Thessalonians--we have the naive
picture of Messiah coming on the clouds, which, as we now know, was part
of the Pharisaic tradition. In the central group the Christology is far
more complex. Besides the Pharisaic Messiah, and the records of the
historical Jesus of Nazareth, we have now to reckon with the
Jewish-Alexandrian idea of the generic, archetypal man, which is
unintelligible without reference to the Platonic philosophy. Philo is
here a great help towards understanding one of the most difficult parts
of the Apostle's teaching. We have also, fully developed, the mystical
doctrine of the Spirit of Christ immanent in the soul of the believer, a
conception which was the core of St. Paul's personal religion, and more
than anything else emancipated him from apocalyptic dreams of the
future. We have also a fourth conception, quite distinct from the three
which have been mentioned--that of Christ as a cosmic principle, the
instrument in creation and the sustainer of all his in the universe. We
must again have recourse to Philo and his doctrine of the Logos, to
understand the genesis of this idea, and to the Fourth Gospel to find it
stated in clear philosophical form. In this second period, these
theories about the Person of Christ are held concurrently, without any
attempt to reconcile or systematise them. The eschatology is being
seriously modified by the conception of a 'spiritual body,' which is
prepared for us so soon as our 'outward man' decays in death. The
resurrection of the flesh is explicitly denied (1 Cor. xv. 50); but a
new and incorruptible 'clothing' will be given to the soul in the future
state. Already the fundamental Pharisaic doctrine of the two ages--the
present age and that which is to come--is in danger. St. Paul can now,
like a true Greek, contrast the things that are seen, which are