As “crucial” instances for the relationship he thinks the following may safely be taken: Romans ix. shows affinity with Wisdom xii. and xv. in regard to what is said of the Divine omnipotence and mercy; in their references to heathen idolatry the two authors coincide in a remarkable way; the views regarding the relationship of body and soul which are implied in 2 Cor. v. I ff. find a parallel in Wisd. ix. 15, where there is a reference to [pg 091] the earthly tabernacle which weighs down the thinking soul. The facts do not, according to Grafe, justify the conclusion that Paul is dependent on the pseudo-Salamonian Book of Wisdom, but he does regard it as having been made highly probable that the Apostle knew and had read the book. It is not a clear “yes” that one hears in Grafe’s essay. When it is quoted, however, by writers on Paulinism it gets a push towards the positive side which makes it say exactly what Grafe did not venture to assert. Scarcely more productive is Vollmer’s cast of his net into the works of Philo._(_77_)_ He thinks that, in view of the affinities pointed out by him, “the acquaintance of the Apostle with the works of the Alexandrian writer will have become less improbable to others besides himself.” But that is not the point at all. That Paul, a scholar of the Diaspora, would have been aware of the existence of so important a work as the Wisdom of Solomon, and would not have been wholly ignorant of its contents, is really self-evident. And is it likely that none of the writings of his older Alexandrian contemporary—Philo died probably about the beginning of the forties—would have come to his knowledge? On the contrary, the most probable assumption is that he was acquainted with the whole of the earlier and later Hellenistic literature. Whether this can be more or less clearly proved by certain real or supposed parallels does not really matter. The important point is that he does not use the ideas which are here offered to him. Jewish-Hellenistic theology is so characteristic a product that it can never [pg 092] be overlooked even where it is only a subsidiary element. But in Paul no trace of it can be shown. Its problems, its speculations regarding the Logos, Spirit, and Wisdom, its ethics, do not interest him; he makes no use of its theories. On the other hand he is concerned with eschatology and with the person of the Messiah, which for it seem to have no existence. The characteristic mark of Jewish Hellenism is that it brings the different ideas into an external juxtaposition without effecting their interpenetration. Whether it is a question of philosophical or other writings, of problems of ethics, or of the doctrine of God and the Divine administration of the world, the Greek element always shows up plainly in contrast with the Jewish, and can be clearly recognised as Platonic or Stoic. It is a case of mosaic work, better or worse executed as the case may be.