The point which Pfleiderer raised here was after all only a particular case in relation to the general question whether a Hellenistic influence is to be recognised in the Apostle’s conceptions of the final state and the times of the End. It was in this wider aspect that Kabisch dealt with the problem in his work on the Pauline eschatology. His decision is in the negative. The much-discussed “development” of the views of I Thessalonians into those of I Corinthians xv., and of these again into those of 2 Corinthians and Philippians, is, he maintains, a delusion. The conception of the things of the End is a unity, and remains the same throughout. To oppose this view Teichmann entered the lists._(_63_)_ In his over-confident zeal he plays the part of Polos in Plato’s Gorgias. He goes much further than Pfleiderer, and seeks to show that Greek ideas actually superseded the whole Jewish Eschatology of Paul. In consequence of the [pg 075] influx of new thoughts one antinomy after another arises in the Apostle’s conception of the things of the End. To trace out and exhibit these in detail is the goal of Teichmann’s endeavour. He arrives at the following conclusions:—In I Thessalonians Paul still assumes that Christians will enter the kingdom of heaven with their _earthly_ bodies. Not before I Corinthians xv. does he introduce the idea of a “transformation.” He is then led to do so by the development of the Greek doctrine of flesh and spirit. In the second Epistle to the Corinthians he carries out this new conception to its logical issue. “The compromise which he had attempted in I Cor. is abandoned, and the result is that the conception of the resurrection of the dead is set aside.” Along with the resurrection of the dead the Apostle also strikes out from his programme of the future the parousia. “For the expectation of the descent of Christ to earth he substitutes the entry of the believer into the heavenly world. A resurrection of the dead, a descent of Christ to earth, was now no longer necessary.” Not only so, but the conception of the judgment is also abolished. In the first place, Paul draws this inference “at least so far as Christians are concerned.” That subsequently, in following out his ideas, “he should also arrive at the conception of universal blessedness, can in view of his universalism cause no surprise.” “As all men were included in Christ at His resurrection, so all must receive the Spirit, they must all be made alive.” The End does not, therefore, mean blessedness for some and destruction for others, but eternal life for all. But since eternal life depends on the possession of the Spirit, it must be assumed that those who are not believers at their death “come to faith in Christ in the period between the parousia and the delivery of all authority into the hands of God, and in consequence of this the Spirit is given to them.”