The character of Paulinism as a redemptive religion involved a certain conception of the Redeemer, which is perfectly plain on the pages of the Pauline Epistles. Jesus Christ, Paul believed, was a heavenly being; Paul placed Him clearly on the side of God and not on the side of men. "Not by man but by Jesus Christ," he says at the beginning of Galatians, and the same contrast is implied everywhere in the Epistles. This heavenly Redeemer existed before His earthly life; came then to earth, where He lived a true human life of humiliation; suffered on the cross for the sins of those upon whom the curse of the Law justly rested; then rose again from the dead by a mighty act of God's power; and is present always with His Church through His Spirit. That representation has become familiar to the devout Christian, but to the modern historian it seems very strange. For to the modern historian, on the basis of the modern view of Jesus, the procedure of Paul seems to be nothing else than the deification by Paul of a man who had lived but a few years before and had died a shameful death.[7] It is not necessary to argue the question whether in Rom. ix. 5 Paul actually applies the term "God" to Jesus--certainly he does so according to the only natural interpretation of his words as they stand--what is really important is that everywhere the relationship in which Paul stands toward Jesus is not the mere relationship of disciple to master, but is a truly religious relationship. Jesus is to Paul everywhere the object of religious faith. [7] H. J. Holtzmann (in _Protestantische Monatshefte_, iv, 1900, pp. 465f., and in _Christliche Welt_, xxiv, 1910, column 153) admitted that for the rapid apotheosis of Jesus as it is attested by the epistles of Paul he could cite no parallel in the religious history of the race. That fact would not be quite so surprising if Paul had been of polytheistic training, if he had grown up in a spiritual environment where the distinction between divine and human was being broken down. Even in such an environment, indeed, the religion of Paul would have been quite without parallel. The deification of the eastern rulers or of the emperors differs _in toto_ from the Pauline attitude toward Jesus. It differs in seriousness and fervor; above all it differs in its complete lack of exclusiveness. The lordship of the ruler admitted freely, and was indeed always accompanied by, the lordship of other gods; the lordship of Jesus, in the religion of Paul, was absolutely exclusive. For Paul, there was one Lord and one Lord only. When any parallel for such a religious relationship of a notable man to one of his contemporaries with whose most intimate friends he had come into close contact can be cited in the religious annals of the race, then it will be time for the historian to lose his wonder at the phenomenon of Paul.