Paulus

“ The form of the work was fatal to its success, and the subsequent Exegetisches Handbuch rendered it quite superfluous. In this Handbuch Paulus really contributed much to a true interpretation of the Gospel narratives. In 1803 he became professor of theology and Consistorialrat at Würzburg. After this he filled various posts in south Germany—school director at Bamberg (1807) , Nuremberg (1808) , Ansbach (1810) —until he became professor of exegesis and church history at Heidelberg (1811–1844) . He died on the 10th of August 1851. ”

“ Quocirca admirabilis quoque Petrus: “Charissimi, inquit, obsecro vos tanquam advernas et peregrinos, abstinete vos a carnalibus desideriis, quæ militant adversus animam, conversationem vestram inter gentes habentes bonam: quoniam sic est voluntas Dei, ut bene facientes obmutescere faciatis imprudentium hominum ignorantiam; quasi liberi, et non quasi velamen habentes malitiæ libertatem, sed ut servi Dei.” [122] Similiter etiam scribit Paulus in Epistola ad Romanos: “Qui mortui sumus peccato, quomodo adhuc vivemus in ipso? ”

“ PAULUS, HEINRICH EBERHARD GOTTLOB (1761–1851) , German rationalistic theologian, was born at Leonberg, near Stuttgart, on the 1st of September 1761. His father, a Lutheran clergyman at Leonberg, dabbled in spiritualism, and was deprived of his living in 1771. Paulus was educated in the seminary at Tübingen, was three years master in a German school, and then spent two years in travelling through England, Germany, Holland and France. ”

“ He disapproves of all violent attempts at extraction, but when the placenta cannot be got otherwise removed from the womb, he approves of introducing the hand well lubricated to extract the secundines gently. He directs us when the mouth of the womb is shut to open it if possible with the fingers in a gentle manner. This is the case now incorrectly called the hour-glass contraction.
Avicenna repeats the directions given by Paulus and Aëtius, but seems to have considered the introduction of the hand into the uterus as a painful, and, in general, an unnecessary operation. ”

“ Paul, when writing to the Romans, has explained this very point: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, predestinated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised by His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God with power through the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ." [263] And again, writing to the Romans about Israel, he says: "Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever." ”

“ Up to Paul's conversion, the inspired historian of the Acts has given us a condensed statement of the growth of the Church among the Jews. Peter and John are prominent in the work. But the great message is now to issue forth from the confines of Judaism; all flesh is to see the salvation of God; and St. Paul is to be the great instrument in preaching Christ to the Gentiles. In the development of the Christian Church Paul wrought more than all the other Apostles; and therefore in Acts St. Paul stands forth, the prominent agent of God in the conversion of the world. ”

“ The Message which Paul bore to Jew and Gentile was the moving force of all his work. The starting point was the memorable day when Jesus Christ appeared to him on his way to Damascus. Paul believed that he received his commission as an apostle directly from Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:1-24) . The four main positions of Paul, set forth so plainly in his Epistle to the Romans, are: (a) All are guilty before God (Jew and Gentile) . (b) All need a Savior. (c) Christ died for all. (d) We are all (through faith) one body in Christ. Paul leaves us in no doubt as to how he regards Jesus Christ. ”

“ The pontificate of Paul III. forms a turning-point in the history of the papacy. The situation at his accession was grave and complex: the steady growth of Protestantism, the preponderant power of the emperor and his prolonged wars with France, the advances of the Turks, the uncertain mind of the Church itself—all conspired to produce a problem involved and delicate. Paul was shrewd, calculating, tenacious; but on the other hand over-cautious, and inclined rather to temporize than to strike at the critical moment. His instincts and ambitions were those of a secular prince of the Renaissance ”

“ There is one in the world whose name is Paul, he preaches and announces Christ, and we believe that many have entered into the kingdom through the virtue and sweetness of his speeches. Behold all the just men are behind me coming to meet thee, Paul, and I first come for this cause to meet them who did the will of my Son and my Lord Jesus Christ, I first advance to meet them and do not send them away to be as wanderers until they meet in peace. ”

“ But blessed art thou, O Paul, that thy generation, and those thou teachest, are the sons of the Kingdom. And know thou, O Paul, that every man who believes through thee hath a great blessing, and a blessing is reserved for him.” Then he departed from me. And the angel who was with me led me forth, and said unto me: “Lo, unto thee is given this mystery and revelation; as thou pleasest, make it known unto the sons of men.” And I, Paul, returned unto myself, and I knew all that I had seen ”

“ And Paul having gone into the house of Onesiphorus, there was great joy, and bending of knees, and breaking of bread, and the word about self-control and the resurrection, Paul saying: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; [22] blessed are they that have kept the flesh chaste, for they shall become a temple of God; [23] blessed are they that control themselves, for God shall speak with them; blessed are they that have kept aloof from this world, for they shall please God ”

“ Paul writes as the apostle of the Gentiles to the Christians of the greatest of all Gentile cities. He does so with a solemn sense of special responsibility. Profoundly impressed with the grandeur of the Roman name, the position of this promiscuous little body of converts is to him enormously significant. They are the representatives of the faith of Jesus in the capital of the world; they are the first members of a Church to which God seems to give the most magnificent of all opportunities. And the thought is scarcely absent from his mind that this may be the last Epistle he will ever send. ”

“ Paul as a grave and strong irony, by which he would make those understand, by whom he was accused of want of respect for the high priest, that this person was a man unworthy of that character, and that he did not believe, that a vicious and wicked man, such as Ananias, who had usurped the pontificate by purchasing it of the Romans, could deserve to be esteemed as the high priest of God! ”

“ He is glorifying Jesus and urging them to believe in Him. There is not one word about the indignities that have been heaped upon himself. This personal testimony in this city where Paul had been the chief persecutor was wonderful. But as the Jews had demanded the life of Christ, when he was upon earth and testified to His mission, so now they demanded the life of Paul.
Before the Jewish Council (Acts 22:24-23:10) .—Paul, rescued from the clutches of the mob, would have been scourged by the Romans had he not declared himself a Roman. ”

“ The Epistle opens with a brief introduction. Paul, the apostle of Christ, wishes to preach the gospel to those in Rome whom Christ has called. Then he begins at once to describe the set of circumstances which the gospel is intended to meet. The Gentiles have not been true to such knowledge as they had of God, and by an inevitable process they have passed on to unnatural and vicious excess (i. 18-32) . And when St. Paul turns to the Jews, he finds they are in no better case. With fuller knowledge they have sinned scarcely less. ”

“ And it is in just such a mood that, reading this paragraph of the great Epistle, he will smite upon his breast, and say, "God, be merciful to me the sinner" (Luke xviii. 13) .
{55} So doing he will be meeting the very purpose of the Writer of this passage. St Paul is full of the message of peace, holiness, and the Spirit. He is intent and eager to bring his reader into sight and possession of the fulness of the eternal mercy, revealed and secured in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Sacrifice and Life. But for this very purpose he labours first to expose man to himself ”

“ There is no doubt, no hesitation on Paul's part in delivering his message. He is a witness, testifying to the glory of his Divine Lord. He is a messenger who cannot alter or tamper with that which has been entrusted to him. To the rude inhabitants of the mountain regions of Asia Minor, to the philosophers in Athens, to the Roman governors in Cæsarea, to the dwellers in Corinth and in Rome the purport of the Message is always the same. ”

“ Paul, as he sees the high part which the church of the capital must play in the world, perceives also, in what he hears of the Roman Christians, evidences of the spirit which will enable them to fulfil it. And history verifies the apostle's anticipation. The letter of the Roman church to the Corinthians, which passes under Clement's name, and was written some forty years after {176} this letter of St. Paul's, is the very embodiment of the spirit of goodness, knowledge, and power to admonish. ”

“ If any man be in Christ, said St. Paul—that is, if any man identifies himself with Christ by attachment, so that he enters into His feelings and lives with His life—he is a new creature; he can do, and does, what Christ did.' It would be truer, surely, to say in the first of these two passages not 'the three essential,' &c., but 'the three central.' Nothing can be more truly essential to Pauline theology than the terms, calling, justification, atonement ”

“ They are all who, in Rome of old, in England now, "have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," "have the Spirit of God dwelling in them," and are living out this wonderful but most practical life in the straight line of their Father's will.
As if he could not heap the golden words too thickly together, St Paul dictates here with even unusual {337} abruptness and terseness of expression. He leaves syntax very much alone; gives us noun and adjective, and lets them speak for themselves. We will venture to render as nearly verbatim as possible. ”

“ Paul, thou hast to-day a great conflict against thy body, but God, the Father of his Son Jesus Christ, will protect thee.
When Paul had arisen, he went unto his brethren, and remained (sorrowful?) saying: What meaneth this vision? And while Paul thought upon this, he saw Hermippus coming, having a sword drawn in his hand, and with him many other young men with staves. And Paul said unto them: I am not a robber, neither a murderer. ”

“ Paul makes his appeal to the Romans, when he had given them his great exposition of the doctrines of grace and justification [1] . When he has expounded the doctrine of the resurrection to the Corinthians [2] , he concludes—'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast,' &c. The doctrine of the Epistle to the Colossians leads to two conclusions: 'mortify therefore' and 'put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion [3] .' The Epistle to the Hebrews contains similar moral appeals based on dogmatic statements. ”

“ Men however are not shocked by these impious propositions. Accustomed to regard St. Paul as inspired, it never occurs to them that so great a Saint may blaspheme. But what authority have Christians for their high opinion of St. Paul? It is the Acts of the Apostles, that is to say upon the suspected testimony of a partizan of Paul's sect, who has compiled a history of his hero, filled with contradictions, but embellished with prodigies and fable, which however serve to establish his romance. ”

“ On Paul, as on an able Teacher, He enjoined the mastership in the teaching of the Church; that is, that whom the one has instructed unto salvation, the other may receive into rest; that whose hearts Paul hath opened by the teaching of his words, to their souls Peter may open the Kingdom of Heaven. For Paul too did also in a manner receive the key of knowledge from Christ.” And St. Gregory, 1, 1 Dial. c. 12. “The Apostle Paul is brother in Apostolical preëminence (principatu) to Peter, the first of the Apostles.” ”

“ We come to know the Apostle Paul as we know scarcely any other of the world's great minds. We find in him a man of the highest intellectual and spiritual powers, equally great in passion and in action, as a thinker and a leader of men. But at every step of our acquaintance the Apostle points us beyond himself; he says, "It is not I: it is Christ that lives in me." If this Epistle teaches us the greatness of Paul, it teaches us all the more the Divine greatness of Jesus Christ, before whom that kingly intellect and passionate heart bowed in absolute devotion. ”

“ Only, there is this wonderful difference; that for St Paul the Jesus Christ of recent history is absolutely One with the Jesus Christ of his present spiritual experience. The Man of the Cross is also, for him, the Lord who is exalted to the throne of heaven, and is also so related to the writer that Paul is "in Christ Jesus," with a proximity and union which enters into everything. "In Him" are included the very actions of the disciple's mind and the experiences of his heart. ”

“ The First Epistle to the Corinthians is a magnificent refutation of such a caricature. That Epistle represents Paul as a pastor of souls, unsurpassed in his insight into the practical problems of his converts, unsurpassed in the tact with which he applied great principles to special circumstances. But the same characteristics appear everywhere in Paul. Everywhere Paul is the true friend, the true patriot, and the true man; everywhere he exhibits that careful attention to detail, that careful recognition of special relationships, which is lacking in genuinely mystical piety. ”