by passing a fanatical verdict of condemnation upon the whole remaining world of thought and feeling. It would appear that St Paul formed it in controversy with the Jews about the Old Testament, or, rather, that he indirectly borrowed it from the Jews. But even in this controversy the disastrous consequences are revealed which have since been indissolubly attached to this theory.

Now what is the object of the Pauline gnosis?

It is itself again the Spirit-i.e. the revelation of God. Gnosis is the revealed understanding of the divine revelation, the re-discovery, by means of the Spirit, of the Spirit that is hidden from all other men.

All the oracles of the Christian prophets would be included under the conception of revelation, especially the revelation by means of Jesus. There is, in fact, an especial art of interpreting the words of the prophets, which is inspired by the Spirit, the judging or discerning of spirits. But this is not called gnosis by St Paul. Nor, again, is Christ the revealer of God's word for him, as it is the Cross and Resurrection, and not His sayings, that are the divine acts of salvation in St Paul's meaning of the word. So, then, there remains finally only one great object for the Pauline gnosis-the Sacred Scriptures of the Jews.

St Paul introduced the Old Testament in all his Churches as the sacred canon, the only divinely inspired book. This was an event of the very greatest importance in the history of Christianity. The Jewish national literature is declared to be divine, and is to become the sacred book of the Greek and Roman converts to Christianity, whilst at the same time it is the sacred book of the Jews, the bitter

opponents of the new religion. How is this possible? The Pauline gnosis furnishes the answer. Great portions of the Old Testament were, to be sure, accessible to the heathen Christians, and inestimably precious to them as it was. Here was a text-book of monotheism, of morality, of hope, which excelled almost every other. Now, by means of the gnosis, even the national Jewish portions can be read as Christian, and, generally speaking, Christianity can be discovered everywhere in the old book. It becomes the means, partly even before St Paul, of the Christianization of the Old Testament.

The divinely inspired character of the Old Testament in every one of its parts is a firmly established fact. There is no dispute between Jews and Christians as to this point. St Paul accepts the teaching of the Rabbis, that the whole of the Old Testament is a collection of divine oracles, and that every text, even apart from its context, is a word of God. He personifies Scripture, speaking of it as of a divine being: "the scripture foresaw," "the scripture hath shut up all things." He does not indeed speak of the Spirit that inspired the Old Testament, perhaps because he considered the Spirit to be a gift of the last days. On the other hand, he appears in certain passages to have arrived at the conclusion that Christ is the inspirer and revealer in the Old Testament. Here he abandons his Jewish standpoint altogether, and his action is attended with important consequences. If Christ spoke in the Old Testament, then it is certainly a Christian book.

But the inspired book demands an inspired exegesis. For this purpose the Jews had the order of the

Rabbis, who were especially endowed by God with gifts of the Spirit, in order to interpret the Scriptures. Here is the source of the Pauline theory of knowledge. He denies the spiritual endowment of the Rabbis, and proclaims himself and the Christian teachers to be inspired. It is evident that one of the two parties must be in the wrong: the former prove from the Old Testament that Jesus was a criminal, the other that He is the Messiah. The Christians must be in the right, because, generally speaking, the Spirit is poured out amongst them in richest measure. For the endowment with the gnosis is only one amongst many gifts of the Spirit. The Christian interpretation therefore of the Old Testament is the only one that has any authority. Yes, the Old Testament must be interpreted according to the spirit of the Christians. The Jews-even the Rabbis-understand nothing about it. The veil of Moses is upon their hearts when they read it. They are natural,' not 'spiritual.' Satan hath blinded their minds.

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It is therefore proved that the canon of the Old Testament is to be interpreted by the canon of the Christian conscience. And so the task set to the interpreters of Scripture is endless. By reason of its divine origin, every word in the Bible is written for all eternity. In each a divine meaning is contained, often more than one. Being intended for all time, each word has likewise an application for the age of the interpreter. Here, in this present age, it has to accomplish its direct purpose. Thus, e.g., the chastisements of the patriarchs in the wilderness were written for our warning, upon whom the ends of the ages are In fact, everything that was written aforetime

come.

was written for our learning. St Paul's exegetical methods are naturally simply those of the Jews as Philo and the Rabbis employed them. This applies to the proof by prophecy, the use of types and allegory, and the practical application. The only new feature is the use of the Christian consciousness, the Spirit, as the canon of all exegesis. But the very circumstance that Jews and Christians alike used the same methods, combined with the fact that St Paul stands under the influence of the tradition of the Rabbis for his matter, as well as for his style, contradicts the apostle's artificial separation between the Spirit and human knowledge.

The exegesis of the passage concerning the oxen whose mouth is not to be muzzled is the best example of the Pauline gnosis made to serve the practical needs of the missionary. The canon of exegesis, which the Rabbis likewise accepted, runs: Nothing unworthy is to be ascribed to God. The Christian spirit forthwith discovers that the passage can be applied suitably to the missionaries. But for the most part the apostle's gnosis serves the purposes of his anti-Jewish apologetic. It was only necessity that caused the Christians to invent the proof from prophecy properly so-called. As the patriotic prophecies of a Messiah applied to Jesus in a very small number of instances, the Christian gnosis had now to discover in the Old Testament new proofs for the Messiahship of Jesus. Few excelled St Paul in the art of finding such passages. He did not hesitate to undertake the proof that all the promises of God were 'yea' in Jesus-i.e. had been fulfilled in Him.

How great a skill in exegesis that

presupposes! It is a trifle indeed for such an interpreter to prove from the use of the singular instead of the plural in the passage, "To thee (Abraham) and thy seed" that the words are intended to apply to Christ. We have already pointed out how the annulling of the law, justification by faith, and the rejection of Israel, were proved out of the Old Testament. At bottom, the whole of this apologetic gnosis is of course a mere theological fabrication whereby we are transplanted into an artificial kind of world. If anywhere it would be in Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah that a real starting-point for the Gospel would have been found. But it was just the great prophecy of the earliest age that was entirely unknown to the Rabbis. However, St Paul as well as the other Christian teachers had one valid excuse. They acted under the compulsion of necessity and from genuine conviction. And the lucky find which St Paul made, while conducting this enquiry, is, after all, the mark of a man of genius : -the law is a later addition: the great age of the religion of Israel preceded the origin of the law. like manner he successfully brings to light again many passages in the Old Testament of a universalist tendency which had been hidden away by the Rabbis.

In

Of greater importance, however, than either of these results was the fact that, thanks to this Old Testament gnosis, the Christian and the Jewish Church were continually placed side by side. The history of Israel is interpreted in a Christian spirit. Even the Christian Sacraments, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, are discovered in the pillar of