ars
to come. Besides, critical theology has made it difficult, to gain an
insight into the great difference that lies between the Pauline and the
Catholic theology, by the one-sided prominence it has hitherto given to
the antagonism between Paulinism and Judaistic Christianity. In contrast
with this view the remark of Havet, though also very one-sided, is
instructive, "Quand on vient de relire Paul, on ne peut meconnaitre le
caractere eleve de son oeuvre. Je dirai en un mot, qu'il a agrandi dans
une proportion extraordinaire l'attrait que le judaisme exercait sur le
monde ancien" (Le Christianisme, T. IV. p. 216). That, however, was only
very gradually the case and within narrow limits. The deepest and most
important writings of the New Testament are incontestably those in which
Judaism is understood as religion, but spiritually overcome and
subordinated to the Gospel as a new religion,--the Pauline Epistles, the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Gospel and Epistle of John. There is set
forth in these writings a new and exalted world of religious feelings,
views and judgments, into which the Christians of succeeding centuries
got only meagre glimpses. Strictly speaking, the opinion that the New
Testament in its whole extent comprehends a unique literature is not
tenable; but it is correct to say that between its most important
constituent parts, and the literature of the period immediately
following there is a great gulf fixed.

But Paulinism especially has had an immeasurable and blessed influence
on the whole course of the history of dogma, an influence it could not
have had, if the Pauline Epistles had not been received into the canon.
Paulinism is a religious and Christocentric doctrine, more inward and
more powerful than any other which has ever appeared in the Church. It
stands in the clearest opposition to all merely natural moralism, all
righteousness of works, all religious ceremonialism, all Christianity
without Christ. It has therefore become the conscience of the Church,
until the Catholic Church in Jansenism killed this her conscience. "The
Pauline reactions describe the critical epochs of theology and the
Church."[137] One might write a history of dogma as a history of the
Pauline reactions in the Church, and in doing so would touch on all the
turning points of the history. Marcion after the Apostolic Fathers;
Irenaeus, Clement and Origen after the Apologists; Augustine after the
Fathers of the Greek Church;