DR. LYMAN ABBOTT ON ST. PAUL.*

Da. LYMAN ABBOTT applies to St. Paul a theory which has been accepted by all modern theologians of repute,—the theory of.. Progressive Revelation. When we use the word " modern," we do not mean that the theory is really new. In one shape or another it has always been held. The allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament was one form of it. If • The life and Letters of 8t. Paul. By Lyman Abbott. London : Jaseaslults and 0o. Oil the literal meaning of the narrative, the moral maxim, or the statement of divine attributes seemed inadequate or un- worthy, then a higher spiritual meaning was read into 'it God had taught the earlier time by parables ; to the later He

gave the light by which the parables were interpreted. It is no very great step to advance from applying this theory to the general teaching of Scripture to applying it to the teaching of a particular writer. Dr. Abbott, however, must have all the credit due to a very distinctive and courageous enunciation of the principle, carried out with much ability in a detailed exposition of the Apostle's life-history, both in thought and in action. The frankness with which he expresses himself will possibly startle some readers, for many who have long implicitly accepted this view may easily be shocked by an explicit state-

ment of it. But no one, we venture to think, will see any want of reverence, or any failure in essential faith, in Dr. Abbott's treatment of the subject. We cannot do better than let him speak for himself:— "This volume assumes that Paul grew both in grace and

In knowledge after his conversion ; that he learned much while he was teaching ; that he neither at once threw off entirely the Pharisaic traditions in which he had been reared, nor acquired at once a completed system of philosophy to take their place ; that the revelation to him of truth was not an instant revela- tion flashed upon him in the hour when the risen Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus, but was a gradual revelation growing out of that vision ; that some of the conceptions of the kingdom of God with which he entered on his ministry were subsequently modified and partly laid aside ; that conceptions of that kingdom which are to be found in his later epistles were only gradually attained ; that there are differences, and important differences, if not inconsistencies, in the teaching of the different epistles ; that his point of view underwent material changes, and that these changes can be traced in a careful study of his epistles in the order in which they were written. In short, it is assumed in this volume that, as there is a progress of doctrine discernible in the Bible, and a growth in the knowledge of God manifested in the difference between the earlier teachings of Moses and the later teachings of John, so there is, in a lesser degree, a progress of doctrine discernible in the writings of individual writers in the Bible. Such progress in the writings of Paul this volume attempts to trace."

One example of the principle here enunciated has become a commonplace of interpretation, and may be found in writers whom no one would accuse of any departure from the most conservative views. It is hardly possible to doubt that the language in which St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the character of his preaching : " I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified " (1 Cor. ii. 1-2), has a reference to his recent experience at Athens. At Athens he had begun with natural theology, and had passed on to the Resurrection, and he fails. At Corinth he plunges, so to speak, preaches Christ crucified—and what could be more astounding to his audience, whether Jew or Greek, than such a statement with- out qualification or preface 7 and he founds a flourishing Church. There have been, we believe, some remarkable instances of a similar character in the history of modern mis- sions. The preaching that appealed to common beliefs has had to give place to one that spoke to common emotions.

Dr. Abbott applies the principle with much boldness to the Epistles to the Thessalonians, put by an unfortunate arrange- ment last of the Pauline Epistles, but universally acknow- ledged to be the earliest in date. He describes the Apostle's preaching.in this city thus;

" This was his message,—the message he had given in Antioch, the message he had given in a different form in Athens : The Messiah has come ; he has been put to death ; he has risen from the dead ; he is living ; he will presently return with power and great glory ; he will bring his angels with him, and he will judge the world ; but he will not judge them by a race standard; will judge them by standards of absolute righteousness ; then 11 those who love God and look for his appearing will be gathered into his kingdom, and all those who oppose God and desire not his appear- ing will be destroyed with everlasting destruction from the presence of this coming Messiah.' He still thought that the power of this kingdom would lie in the power of an almighty King. He had yet to learn, what in our next chapter we shall see he did learn, that the secret of its power would be the love of a Father who suffers long and still is kind."

And he uses similar language to give the substance of the first letter: "It says nothing about Christ crucified, whom Prod tells the Corinthians he determined to make the subject

of his ministry ;" it contains, in short, little doctrine but much exhortation to righteousness, founded all of it on the ex- pectation of the coming of Christ. The difficulty occurs,— at what stage of the Apostle's experience was the letter written I Dr. Abbott says that it was written from Corinth, and this is the generally accepted belief. But we turn to the

chapter on " Paul at Corinth," and find the following:— "He reviewed the past, and he saw that his message of a second coming of Christ within the present generation to revolutionize the world had accomplished nothing. He looked upon Corinth, and he saw that the hope of a sensuous glory yet to come was but a poor weapon with which to attack a present sensuous glory ; that a picture of a future kingdom of heaven would have in it no power to stir the heart of a people given over to commercial and luxurious splendour in their own time. They might well have answered, had they known the proverb, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' and their answer would not have been wholly unreasonable. Moreover, he had been following the Christ, and he had received more and more the Christ spirit. He had come to see what at first he did not see, the glory of humiliation, the riches of poverty, the exaltation of abasement, the radiancy of self-sacrifice."

The postscript in our Bible says written from Athens," a statement which is distinctly contradicted by the Acts narra-

tive, and, indeed, by St. Paul's own language in the Corin- thians, but which suits Dr. Abbott's theory with curious aptitude. The second letter to the Thessalonians, in which Dr. Abbott sees the same general tone as in the first, only that the coming of Christ is postponed, accentuates the difficulty, for it must have been written far on in the residence at Corinth.

However this may be, it was at Corinth that, according to Dr. Abbott's view, the Apostle found the fuller light which shines through his later teaching. Here, again, we must let him speak for himself :—

" Along with this change comes a change in his conception of his function and his work. He begins to see now that the Roman Empire is to last. He begins to see that the Christian religion must be made the religion of the Roman Empire. He no longer goes from place to place as a mere herald of a coming king. He stays a year and a half in Corinth ; he stays two years in Ephesus. He plans also to extend his missionary tour. He resolves that he will go to Rome. A little later he resolves to go from Rome to Spain, the westernmost boundary of the Roman Empire. He has enlarged the conception of his mission,—it is to make faith in Christ the faith of the Roman Empire."

But is not this to post-date what we may call the Apostle's missionary policy I Did he pot from the first work along the lines which were, so to speak, marked out for him by the system of the Roman Empire ? The longer periods of resi- dence may, however, mark a change of method, and he may also have found that time was more profitably spent at such centres as Corinth and Ephesus than in outlying regions.

There are many things in the volume which we would gladly notice, but we must pass on at once to our author's treat- ment of Romans ix.-xi. Readers of these chapters must time after time have felt a profound relief when they reached the conclusion : " God hath concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all." After struggling through statements and arguments which look as if they asserted the

most terrible limitations of the divine mercy, they find this unexpected conclusion, and sympathise with the Apostle's rapture in asserting it :- "Roman l you are mistaken. This necessity is not a blind materialistic necessity. Greek 1 you are mistaken. This fate is not for the punishment of wrongdoing. Pharisee I you are mistaken. This is not an arbitrary choice for which no explanation can be given. The end and object of sovereignty-, the purpose which it inflexibly, maintains, the result which it will achieve, is mercy upon all.'

We are bound to say that Dr. Abbott sometimes offends our taste. When after describing how St. Paul addressed the infuriated crowd from the Temple stairs and was listened to, he goes on to say, "Henry Ward Beecher himself, in England, never won a greater triumph of oratory," we can only gasp in surprise. There is a curious error on p. 56, where what Pliny says of the greater demand for cattle for sacrifice is changed

to a greater demand for fodder for the cattle. But the volume, as a whole, is a masterly piece of work.