All explanations which represent the system of doctrine [pg 248] as something arising subjectively in the Apostle’s mind may be assumed _a priori_ to be false. Only those which seek to derive it objectively from the fundamental facts of the primitive eschatological belief are to be taken into consideration. The only kind of interpretation which can be considered historical is one which makes it clear how a man who believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus and His imminent parousia was, in virtue of that belief, in a position to understand the thoughts of the Apostle of the Gentiles and to follow his arguments, and was logically obliged to accept them. And, finally, the solution must explain the enigmatic attitude which subsequent generations take up in regard to the Apostle of the Gentiles. They know him, but they owe no allegiance to him. He created no school. The theology of an Ignatius or a Justin does not attach itself to him. There is something more in this than a simple oversight. If these theologians do not turn to him for aid, though he stands like a giant among them, that must be due to the fact that it is impossible to do so, and that in the course of the natural development of things they have been led to follow quite other paths. For some reason or other, the conditions under which he created his system must be for them unimaginable. It is true they are still in the period between the death and the parousia of Jesus, but they can no longer interpret it in the same way as the Apostle did. Why are they no longer able to bring into play the forces which he assumes to be in operation when he refers everything to the dying and rising again of Christ and the believer? Which of his presuppositions is for them lacking? May it be that the intensity of the eschatological expectation has so declined that the mysticism associated therewith can no longer maintain its ground? The Ultra-Tübingen critics demanded of theology proof that the canonical Paul and his Epistles belonged to early Christianity; and the demand was justified. The question is not to be decided in the domain of [pg 249] literary history, since the only thing we have to deal with is the self-witness of the Epistles, which can neither be strengthened nor shaken by indications drawn from elsewhere.