HKB
it really was becomes fully apparent only in the 'Christological Epistles.' But we must study the opposition to appreciate how differently the idea of Redemption had developed on Greek soil.
That aspect of Judaism which was most conspicuous to the outsider in Paul's day was not the legalism of the scribes and the Palestinian synagogue, perpetually embalmed in the Talmud and orthodox rabbinism of to-day. It was the superstition and magic which excite the contempt of satirists like Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, and call forth descriptions like that of the letter of Hadrian to Servianus, characterizing the Samaritans, Jews and Christians dwelling in Egypt as "all astrologers, haruspices, and quacksalvers." It is this type of Jew who is most widely known in the contemporary Hellenistic world; whose spells and incantations, framed in Old Testament language, are perpetuated in the leaden incantation rolls and magic papyri of the Berlin collection; whose portrait is painted in the Simon Magus of Acts viii. 14-24, the Elymas the sorcerer of Acts xiii. 6-12, the "strolling Jews, exorcists," and the "seven sons of Sceva" of Acts xix. 13-20. A Christian writer early in the second century is so impressed with this characteristic of contemporary Judaism that he even distinguishes as the third type of religion, besides idolatry and Christianity, "the Jews, who fancy that they alone know God, but do not, worshipping angels and archangels, the moon and the month," and seeks to prove his case by citing the Old Testament festal system. Indeed this idea of Judaism is the predominant one among the second-century apologists. Jewish "superstition" is a notorious fact of the time. The transcendentalizing of Jewish theology after the Persian period had led inevitably to an elaborate angelology and demonology. When as part of this process a more and more supernatural character was attributed to the Law it could but have a two-fold effect. The learned and orthodox would treat it soberly as a revelation of the divine will. This is the legalistic development we see in the Talmud and the Palestinian synagogue. The ignorant and superstitious, especially in the Greek-speaking world, would use it as a book of magic. This is what we see among many Jewish sects, particularly in Samaria, Egypt and among the Greek-speaking Jews. The tendency was marked even in Galilee. Jesus Himself stigmatizes the morbid craving of His countrymen for miracles as the mark of an "adulterous" generation, because the power invoked was not divine, but always angelic, or even demonic. Paul alludes to the same trait (1st Cor. i. 22). But while there is a singular absence both from the Pauline and the Johannine writings of any reference to exorcism, the typical miracle of Synoptic story, it has been justly remarked that no element of Paul's thought has been so little affected by that of Jesus as his angelology and demonology. Paul's world-view, like that of the apocalypses of his time, is a perfect phantasmagoria of angels and demons, "gods many and lords many." His conception of the redemption conflict is not a wrestling against flesh and blood, but against "world-rulers of this (lower region of) darkness," against "archangels," "elements," "principalities," "powers." The one thing which takes away all harmful influence from this credulity (if we must apply an unfairly modern judgment to an ancient writer) is his doctrine of the Son ship and Lordship of Jesus, with whom the redeemed are "joint-heirs" of the entire creation and thus superior to angels. In this respect Paul has imbibed the mind of Christ. Jesus' remedy for superstition is not scientific but religious. It does not deny the popularly assumed relation to "spirits" good or evil, but affirms a direct relation to the Infinite Spirit, which reduces all angels and demons to insignificance save as "ministers." Paul's world-view starts with the creation of man to be lord and heir of the world (Gal. iv. 1; 1st Cor. iii. 22; cf. Gen. i. 28). The "purpose of God, which he purposed in Christ Jesus, before the creation, unto a dispensation of the fulness of the ages" is "to our glory." It would be frustrated if the "Second Adam" did not become the Heir, in whom the redeemed creation would find the goal of its long expectancy. Paul has a cosmology as well as "Enoch." He could not be a worthy follower of Jesus--he could not even be a loyal "son of the Law" without holding to the accepted doctrine of the Inheritance intended for Messiah and his obedient people. It did not make him less firm in this conviction when as a Christian he thought of Jesus as the Messiah, and of Jew and Gentile united in his kingdom; only the starting-point is not the subjection of the sons of Abraham under Gentiles, but the subjection of the sons of Adam under "world-rulers of this darkness." When he combines Ps. viii. and Ps. cx. in his depiction of the reign of Christ in 1st Cor. xv. 24-27, it is a sure indication of its scope as Paul understood it. He included in the lordship over creation, and the subjection of all "enemies" which the exalted Christ is awaiting "at the right hand of God," the subjection of "angels, and principalities, and powers and every name that is named, whether of beings in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth." Paul pursues, then, the method of the apocalyptic writers in making his doctrine of Redemption and the Kingdom transcendental. By making it cosmic he undermines its Jewish particularism. He avoids the superstition by holding firmly to Jesus' doctrine of Son ship by moral affinity with God.