Thus the Pauline Epistles contain not the slightest trace of any conflict with regard to the person of Christ. About other things there was debate, but about this point Paul appears to have been in harmony with all Palestinian Christians. Even the Judaizers seem to have had no objection to the heavenly Christ of Paul. But if the Judaizers, who were Paul's bitter opponents, had no objection to Paul's view of Christ, it could only have been because the original apostles on this point gave them not even that slight color of support which may have been found with regard to the way of salvation in the apostles' observance of the Law. The fact is of enormous importance. The heavenly Christ of Paul was also the Christ of those who had walked and talked with Jesus of Nazareth. Let it not be said that this conclusion involves an undue employment of the argument from silence; let it not be said that although the original apostles did not share Paul's conception of the heavenly Christ, Paul did not find it necessary to enter into the debate in his Epistles. For on this matter Paul could not possibly have kept silent. He was not in the habit of keeping silent when the essential things of his gospel were called in question--the anathemas which he pronounced against the Judaizers in Galatia and the sharp rebuke which he administered to the chief of the apostles at Antioch are sufficient proof of his fearlessness. But what can possibly be regarded as essential to his gospel if it was not his doctrine of Christ as divine Redeemer? That doctrine was the very warp and woof of his being; without it he was less than nothing. Yet the historian is asked to believe that Paul submitted tamely, without a word of protest, to the presentation of a purely human Jesus. The thing is unthinkable. Paul would not have submitted to the preaching of such a Jesus if the preachers had all been angels from heaven.