salvation. Materials for the proof of his gospel might come to him from ordinary sources of information, but his gospel itself was given to him directly by Christ. Thus Paul does not directly attest any indifference on his part toward tradition about the life of Jesus. But is not such indifference revealed by the extreme paucity of references in the Pauline Epistles to what Jesus said and did? In answer to this question it must be admitted that direct citations in the Pauline Epistles of words of Jesus, and direct references to the details of Jesus' life, are surprisingly few. In 1 Cor. vii. 10, Paul appeals to a command of the Lord about divorce, and carefully distinguishes such commands from what he himself is saying to the Corinthians (verses 12, 25). In 1 Cor. ix. 14, he calls attention to an ordinance of the Lord to the effect that they that proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel. In these passages it cannot be doubted that the commands of "the Lord" are commands that Jesus gave during His earthly ministry; they are certainly not commands given to Paul by the risen Christ. For the words which Paul himself wrote to his churches, by virtue of his apostolic authority, themselves constituted commands of the Lord in the broad sense, in that the authority of the Lord was behind them (1 Cor. xiv. 37); here, therefore, when such apostolic commands are distinguished from commands of the Lord, the commands of the Lord must be taken in a narrower sense. They can only be commands given by Jesus during His earthly ministry.[80] [80] Compare Knowling, _The Witness of the Epistles_, 1892, pp. 319f. These passages show that Paul was in the habit of distinguishing what Jesus said on earth to His disciples from what the risen Lord said to him directly by revelation. They show, moreover, that Paul was in possession of a fund of information about the words of Jesus. It may be a question why he did not draw upon the fund more frequently; but at any rate, the fund was there. In 1 Thess. iv. 15, the assurance that those who are alive at the Parousia shall not precede those that have died is grounded in a word of the Lord ("For this we say to you in a word of the Lord").[81] Here again the "word of the Lord" is probably to be regarded as a word which Jesus spoke while He was on earth, rather than as a revelation made by the risen Lord directly to Paul. If this interpretation be correct, then this passage contains another incidental reference to a fund of information about the words of Jesus. [81] τοῧτο γάρ ὑμῖν λέγομεν ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου.