Usteri wishes to show the subjective imprint and [pg 010] enrichment which ordinary Christianity received at the hands of the Apostle, and he sees in the Epistle to the Galatians the outline of his whole doctrine. He does not, however, venture to give full recognition to the idea of a real antithesis between the Pauline conceptions and those of the primitive Apostles, and consequently is led to soften down the peculiarities of the former so far as possible. The spirit of Schleiermacher, which tended to level down everything of a historical character, influences the book more than the author is aware._(_17_)_ A peculiar interlude in the investigation of Paulinism was due to the Heidelberger H. E. G. Paulus._(_18_)_ He published, in the year 1831, a study of the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, which was in reality an essay on the Apostle’s system of doctrine. The work is undertaken entirely in the interests of a rationalism bent on opposing the reaction to orthodoxy. According to the arguments of Paulus it is not the case that the letters speak of expiatory suffering and imputed righteousness. Paul cannot have upheld “legality” as against “morality” and have maintained an “unpurified conception of religion.” The “chief sayings,” the characteristic terms, are to be given a purely moral interpretation. The Apostle means that “faith in Jesus” must become in us “the faith of Jesus,” and the narrower conception of righteousness must be enlarged into the [pg 011] conception of “the righteousness of God.” The “righteousness of God” betokens righteousness such as it exists in God, and is demanded by Him in man’s spirit as its “true good,” “the only real atonement which brings us into harmony with the Deity.” Thus a proper interpretation enables us to discover in these writings “the agreement between the Gospel and a rational faith.” The book appeared two or three decades too late. The rationalism which it represents had had its day. But there is something imposing in this determined wresting of the Apostle’s views. It is parallel to that which was practised by the Reformation. The latter interpreted the whole of Paulinism by the passages on the atoning death, and ignored the other thoughts in the Epistles. The Heidelberg rationalist starts from the conceptions connected with the “new creature,” which were later to be described as the ethical system of the Apostle, and interprets everything else by them.