CHAPTER XII THE NEW TESTAMENT 361 They must stand or fall together. But they will stand. which is more striking in the practical than in the doctriThey represent, indeed, an advanced state of christolog- nal part, is not the resemblance between an author and ical and ecclesiological knowledge in the apostolic age, an imitator, but of two compositions of the same author, but they have their roots in the older Epistles of Paul, and written about the same time on two closely connected are brimful of his spirit. They were called forth by a new topics; and it is accompanied by an equally marked variphase of error, and brought out new statements of truth ety in thought and language. with new words and phrases adapted to the case. They 2. The absence of personal and local references in contain nothing that Paul could not have written con- Ephesians. This is, as already remarked, sufficiently exsistently with his older Epistles, and there is no known plained by the encyclical character of that Epistle. pupil of Paul who could have forged such highly intel3. A number of peculiar words not found elsewhere lectual and spiritual letters in his name and equalled, in the Pauline Epistles.1131 But they are admirably adapted if not out-Pauled Paul.1128 The external testimonies are to the new ideas, and must be expected from a mind so unanimous in favor of the Pauline authorship, and go as rich as Paul’s. Every Epistle contains some hapaxlegomfar back as Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius, and the he- ena. The only thing which is somewhat startling is that retical Marcion (about 140), who included both Epistles an apostle should speak of “holy apostles and prophets” in his mutilated canon.1129 (Eph. 3:5), but the term “holy” (άγιοι) is applied in the The difficulties which have been urged against their New Testament to all Christians, as being consecrated Pauline origin, especially of Ephesians, are as follows: to God (ἁγιασμένοι, John 17:17), and not in the later 1. The striking resemblance of the two Epistles, and ecclesiastical sense of a spiritual nobility. It implies no the apparent repetitiousness and dependence of Ephe- contradiction to Eph. 3:8, where the author calls himself sians on Colossians, which seem to be unworthy of such “the least of all saints” (comp. 1 Cor. 15:9, “I am the least an original thinker as Paul.1130 But this resemblance, of the apostles”). 4. The only argument of any weight is the alleged the Corinthians who tolerated an incestuous person in their post-Pauline rise of the Gnostic heresy, which is unmidst and disgraced the love feasts by intemperance? What of the Epistle to the Romans which contains a similar warning doubtedly opposed in Colossians (not in Ephesians, at against drunkenness (Rom. 13:13)? And what could induce a least not directly). But why should this heresy not have pseudo-Paul to slander the church at Ephesus, if it was excep- arisen in the apostolic age as well as the Judaizing heresy which sprung up before a.d. 50, and followed Paul everytionally pure? 1128 Farrar (II. 602): “We might well be amazed if the where? The tares spring up almost simultaneously with first hundred years after the death of Christ produced a totally the wheat. Error is the shadow of truth. Simon Magus, unknown writer who, assuming the name of Paul, treats the the contemporary of Peter, and the Gnostic Cerinthus, mystery which it was given him to reveal with a masterly pow- the contemporary, of John, are certainly historic perer which the apostle himself rarely equalled, and most cer- sons. Paul speaks (1 Cor. 8:1) of a “gnosis which puffeth tainly never surpassed. Let any one study the remains of the up,” and warned the Ephesian elders, as early as 58, of Apostolic Fathers, and he may well be surprised at the facility with which writers of the Tübingen school, and their successors, assume the existence of Pauls who lived unheard of and died unknown, though they were intellectually and spiritually the equals, if not the superiors, of St. Paul himself!” 1129 See the quotations in Charteris’s Canonicity, pp. 237 sqq and 247 sqq. 1130 This is DeWette’s chief argument. See his table of parallel passages in Einleitung, § 146a (pp. 313-318 of the sixth ed.). Such as αίσχρολογία (Col. 3:8), ἀνταναπληρόω (1:24), εἰπήοποιέω (1:20), ἐθελοθρησκεία (2:23), πιθανολογία (2:4); τὰ ἐπουράνια (Eph. 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12),τὰ π́ευματικά (6:12), κοσμοκράτορες (6:12), πολυποίκιλος σοφία (3:10). Even the word ἄφεσις (Col. 1:14 and Eph. 1:7) for πάρεσις (Rom. 3:25) has been counted among the strange terms, as if Paul had not known before of the remission of sins. Holtzmann has most carefully elaborated the philological argu-
ment. But the veteran Reuss (I. 112) treats it as futile, and even Davidson must admit (II 219) that “the sentiments (of Ephesians) are generally Pauline, as well as the diction,” though he adds that “both betray marks of another writer.” 1131 Such as αίσχρολογία (Col. 3:8), ἀνταναπληρόω (1:24), εἰπήοποιέω (1:20), ἐθελοθρησκεία (2:23), πιθανολογία (2:4); τὰ ἐπουράνια (Eph. 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12),τὰ π́ευματικά (6:12), κοσμοκράτορες (6:12), πολυποίκιλος σοφία (3:10). Even the word ἄφεσις (Col. 1:14 and Eph. 1:7) for πάρεσις (Rom. 3:25) has been counted among the strange terms, as if Paul had not known before of the remission of sins. Holtzmann has most carefully elaborated the philological argument. But the veteran Reuss (I. 112) treats it as futile, and even Davidson must admit (II 219) that “the sentiments (of Ephesians) are generally Pauline, as well as the diction,” though he adds that “both betray marks of another writer.”
