It was in this frame of mind that Pfleiderer prepared the second edition of his “Primitive Christianity.”_(_118_)_ Whereas he had formerly taken for granted the influence of the Greek world upon Paul, as being something self-evident, he now feels obliged to offer proof of it, in a newly inserted chapter upon Hellenism, Stoicism, and Seneca, in order to arrive at the result . . . that his Greek education was in any case “a problematical possibility.” While he had previously held that the combination of the Alexandrian Platonic doctrine of immortality with eschatology was the great work accomplished by the Apostle of the Gentiles, he now is inclined to see a spiritualisation of the future-hope already prepared for in Judaism, and quotes the Apocalypse of Ezra and Jewish Hellenistic literature in testimony of this._(_119_)_ Fate willed that about the same time theology should be seized by the impulse of popularisation, and now found itself in the position of being obliged to offer assured, absolutely assured, results in reference to Paulinism. The most important works of this character are Paul Wernle’s “Beginnings of Christianity” and Heinrich Weinel’s “Paul.”_(_120_)_ [pg 155] The efforts of these writers are directed to bring the author and his thoughts into close relations with our time. It is not his theology in its subtleties and its contradictions that they seek to grasp and to portray, but his religion—what lies behind the system and the formula. In this way they hope to escape many difficulties over which Holtzmann had laboured, and to be able to bring out the fundamental and intelligible elements which in him had been rather to seek. Wernle makes Paul discourse in the character of the great missionary apologist; Weinel draws him as the preacher of the religion of inwardness, who as “Pharisee,” “Seeker after God,” “prophet,” “apostle,” “founder of the Church,” “theologian,” and “man,” was all things in one. The lively portraiture, quite different from the conventional works on the subject, found a ready welcome, and incited others to imitation. In consistently emphasising the apologetic aspect of Paul’s teaching Wernle brought up many ingenious ideas for discussion. Weinel, on his part, brought again to the consciousness of both theologians and laymen the poetic and emotional element in the Apostle’s world of ideas. But they found no new way of grasping and understanding him. They walk in a shady path which runs parallel to the main road. But its pleasantness is associated with certain dangers, which they themselves, and those who followed them, have not always escaped. When earlier writers on the subject modernised, they did so unconsciously. Wernle and Weinel, however, do [pg 156] so on principle, and have no scruple about throwing light on what is obscure in Paulinism by the use of more or less appropriate catchwords of the most modern theology.