[138] the great Reformers of the middle ages
from Agobard to Wessel in the bosom of the mediaeval Church; Luther after
the Scholastics; Jansenism after the council of Trent:--Everywhere it
has been Paul, in these men, who produced the Reformation. Paulinism has
proved to be a ferment in the history of dogma, a basis it has never
been.[139] Just as it had that significance in Paul himself, with
reference to Jewish Christianity, so it has continued to work through
the history of the Church.

[Footnote 46: The Old Testament of itself alone could not have convinced
the Graeco-Roman world. But the converse question might perhaps be raised
as to what results the Gospel would have had in that world without its
union with the Old Testament. The Gnostic Schools and the Marcionite
Church are to some extent the answer. But would they ever have arisen
without the presupposition of a Christian community which recognised the
Old Testament?]

[Footnote 47: We here leave out of account learned attempts to expound
Paulinism. Nor do we take any notice of certain truths regarding the
relation of the Old Testament to the New, and regarding the Jewish
religion, stated by the Antignostic church teachers, truths which are
certainly very important, but have not been sufficiently utilised.]

[Footnote 48: There is indeed no single writing of the new Testament
which does not betray the influence of the mode of thought and general
conditions of the culture of the time which resulted from the
Hellenising of the east: even the use of the Greek translation of the
Old Testament attests this fact. Nay, we may go further, and say that
the Gospel itself is historically unintelligible, so long as we compare
it with an exclusive Judaism as yet unaffected by any foreign influence.
But on the other hand, it is just as clear that, specifically, Hellenic
ideas form the presuppositions neither for the Gospel itself, nor for
the most important New Testament writings. It is a question rather as to
a general spiritual atmosphere created by Hellenism, which above all
strengthened the individual element, and with it the idea of completed
personality, in itself living and responsible. On this foundation we
meet with a religious mode of thought in the Gospel and the early
Christian writings, which so far as it is at all dependent on an earlier
mode of thought, is determined by the spirit of the Old Testament
(Psalms and Prophets) and of Judaism. But it is already