Is it certain that they are by Paul? Strictly examined, Baur’s assumption that they are so rests only on tradition, which in respect of the other letters he impugns. Has he then the right to rely on it so confidently as regards the main epistles? In conformity with his own principles he ought to have felt himself obliged to exercise “positive criticism” here also, and would only have had the right to regard them as Pauline after it had been proved that they really belong to primitive Christian times and have the historical Apostle of the Gentiles as their author. The assumption of the genuineness of the four main epistles is by no means so self-evident as it may seem to us in our simplicity. The Acts of the Apostles know nothing of any literary activity of Paul. It is only from Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and the Gnostics that we first hear of his Epistles. Justin and the remainder of early Christian literature are silent in regard to his writings. Supposing that the first Epistle of Clement does not belong to the first century, the earliest evidence for the Epistles comes from the second century. If the Ignatian letters are not genuine, Marcion, about the middle of the second century, is the first witness to an actual _Corpus paulinum_! For any one who has to defend the ordinary view, the position is very far from being favourable. So far as outward evidence goes it is hardly more difficult to defend the theory that the letters originated in an inner circle [pg 120] of Gnosticism and were gradually given out under the name of Paul. Moreover, Baur made larger concessions than he realised to the opinion which jeopardised his position, when he maintained that Paulinism represents a Hellenisation of the Gospel. Is it probable that a single individual belonging to the primitive Christian community, immediately after the death of Jesus, by himself achieved this result? Historical analogy is uniformly in favour of the view that developments of that kind have a gradual beginning, and are only accomplished in the course of two or three generations. It would therefore be inherently much more probable that Paulinism should be the work of a school which sought to reconcile Christianity with Hellenism. In any case a writer who regards it as Greek ought to face the difficulty of explaining it as at the same time belonging to primitive Christianity, and ought not to regard this hypothesis as self-evident, but as standing in need of proof.