32 



REV. CANON R. J. KNOWLING, D.D., ON 



It has become a commonplace of liberal literary criticism, 

 with some few exceptions, to regard at least eight of these 

 Epistles as coming to us from St. Paul, and to contrast this with 

 the state of things in the days of Strauss and Baur. I do not 

 stop over the vagaries of men like Drews in Germany, or of 

 Van Esinga in Holland, who still persist in asserting tliat 

 St. Paul never wrote any of the letters referred to him and who 

 are prepared to go further and to refuse to admit the existence 

 of St. Paul or of his Master. 



I content myself with referring to the verdict of Dr. Harnack 

 that the man who considers himself entitled to regard the 

 Haupthriefc of St. Paul as forgeries of the second century forfeits 

 the right to be heard in the higher questions relating to literature 

 and history. I will only in passing refer to an admirable reply 

 to Drews and his followers in a recent American book by 

 Professor Case of Chicago, entitled The Historicity of Jesus, 

 1912. 



But I would ask you to consider for a moment those Epistles 

 of St. Paul which are often the subject of the most persistent 

 attack, viz., ii Thessalonians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral 

 Epistles. 



No one will accuse Dr. F. C. Conybeare of a leaning towards 

 conservative criticism. But we turn to his Myth, Magic, and 

 Morals, p. xvi, and w^e read : " Of the Epistles of St. Paul, very 

 few are now disputed by competent critics. I am disposed to 

 accept as authentic all of them, not excepting the ones 

 addressed to Timothy and Titus." (On the next page he adds 

 that the Epistle to the Hebrews is clearly anterior to a.d. 70.) 



Another point of interest which Dr. Conybeare makes in the 

 page before us is that he speaks of the Epistle to the Galatians 

 as probably the earliest of St. Paul's Epistles, and in this he 

 agrees with a growing number of scholars. 



But it is strange that Dr. Conybeare should use this Epistle 

 to show, as he thinks, how remote it was from St. Paul's 

 purpose to learn from those who had known Jesus personally. 

 Consider, e.g., the statement of the Apostle that he had gone 

 up to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and that he stayed with him 

 lifteen days. Can we doubt that during this visit he would 

 have learnt many of the details of the earthly life of Jesus ?* 

 And we need look no further than the opening verses of this 

 Epistle to see that St. Paul's Christology, his witness to the 



See, further, Dr. J. Drummoncrs little book on Paul, p. 89. 



