iated by faith. The law (that is the Old Testament
religion) in its literal sense is of divine origin, but was intended
from the first only for a definite epoch of history. The prerogative of
Israel remains, and is shewn in the fact that salvation was first
offered to the Jews, and it will be shewn again at the end of all
history. That prerogative refers to the nation as a whole, and has
nothing to do with the question of the salvation of individuals
(Paulinism: universalism in principle and in practice, and Antinomianism
in virtue of the recognition of a merely temporary validity of the whole
law; breach with the traditional religion of Israel; recognition of the
prerogative of the people of Israel; the clinging to the prerogative of
the people of Israel was not, however, necessary on this stand-point:
see the epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of John). (4) The Gospel
has to do with Jews and Gentiles: no one need therefore be under
obligation to observe the ceremonial commandments and sacrificial
worship, because these commandments themselves are only the wrappings of
moral and spiritual commandments which the Gospel has set forth as
fulfilled in a more perfect form (universalism in principle and in
practice in virtue of a neutralising of the distinction between law and
Gospel, old and new; spiritualising and universalising of the law).[87]

_Supplement_ 3.--The appearance of Paul is the most important fact in
the history of the Apostolic age. It is impossible to give in a few
sentences an abstract of his theology and work; and the insertion here
of a detailed account is forbidden, not only by the external limits, but
by the aim of this investigation. For, as already indicated (Sec. 1), the
doctrinal formation in the Gentile Church is not connected with the
whole phenomenon of the Pauline theology, but only with certain leading
thoughts which were only in part peculiar to the Apostle. His most
peculiar thoughts acted on the development of Ecclesiastical doctrine
only by way of occasional stimulus. We can find room here only for a few
general outlines.[88]

(1) The inner conviction that Christ had revealed himself to him, that
the Gospel was the message of the crucified and risen Christ, and that
God had called him to proclaim that message to the world, was the power
and the secret of his personality and his activity. These three elements
were a unity in the consciousness of Paul, constituting his conversion
and de