Thus the first great objection to Wrede's derivation of the Pauline Christology is that it is simply insufficient. The Messiah of the Jewish apocalypses is not great enough to have been the basis of the Pauline Christ. If before the conversion Paul had believed in the apocalyptic Messiah, then when he was converted he lifted his conception to far greater heights than it had before attained. But what caused him to do so? Apparently he ought to have done exactly the reverse. If Jesus was a mere man, then the identification of the Messiah with Him ought to have pushed the conception of the Messiah down instead of lifting it up. As Baldensperger significantly remarks, the Jewish apocalyptists faced less difficulty in presenting a transcendent Messiah than did their successors, the exponents of a metaphysical Christology in the Christian Church, since the Jewish apocalyptists could give free course to their fancy, whereas the Christians were hampered by the recollections of the earthly Jesus.[129] This observation, on the basis of Baldensperger's naturalistic presuppositions, is entirely correct. But the strange thing is that the recollections of Jesus, far from hampering the Christians in their ascription of supernatural attributes to the Messiah, actually had just the opposite effect. Paul furnishes a striking example. Before he identified the Messiah with Jesus, he did not really think of the Messiah as divine--not even if he believed in the transcendent Messiah of 1 Enoch. But after he identified the Messiah with Jesus, he said "not by man but by Christ." Why was it that identification with Jesus, instead of bringing the apocalyptic Messiah down to earth, lifted Him rather to the throne of God? Was it, after all, because of something in Jesus? If it was, then the eternal Son of God walked upon earth, and suffered for the sins of men. If it was not, then the fundamental historical problem of Christianity is still entirely unsolved. [129] Baldensperger, _op. cit._, p. 126.