But the wonder of the historian reaches its climax when he remembers that Paul was not a polytheist or a pantheist, but a Jew, to whom monotheism was the very breath of life.[8] The Judaism of Paul's day was certainly nothing if not monotheistic. But in the intensity of his monotheism Paul was not different from his countrymen. No one can possibly show a deeper scorn for the many gods of the heathen than can Paul. "For though there be that are called gods," he says, "whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." (I Cor. viii. 5, 6.) Yet it was this monotheist sprung of a race of monotheists, who stood in a full religious relation to a man who had died but a few years before; it was this monotheist who designated that man, as a matter of course, by the supreme religious term "Lord," and did not hesitate to apply to Him the passages in the Greek Old Testament where that term was used to translate the most awful name of the God of Israel! The religion of Paul is a phenomenon well worthy of the attention of the historian. [8] Compare R. Seeberg, _Der Ursprung des Christusglaubens_, 1914, pp. 1f. In recent years that phenomenon has been explained in four different ways. The four ways have not always been clearly defined; they have sometimes entered into combination with one another. But they are logically distinct, and to a certain extent they may be treated separately. There is first of all the supernaturalistic explanation, which simply accepts at its face value what Paul presupposes about Jesus. According to this explanation, Jesus was really a heavenly being, who in order to redeem sinful man came voluntarily to earth, suffered for the sins of others on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of God, from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. If this representation be correct, then there is really nothing to explain; the religious attitude of Paul toward Jesus was not an apotheosis of a man, but recognition as divine of one who really was divine. The other three explanations are alike in that they all reject supernaturalism, they all deny the entrance into human history of any creative act of God, unless indeed all the course of nature be regarded as creative. They all agree, therefore, in explaining the religion of Paul as a phenomenon which emerged in the course of history under the operation of natural causes.