(d) The more that the stress of Jewish opposition to the missionary sphere of Paul was broken in the later period of his life, the more in his mixed churches had the power of the Christian spirit and the need of organizing a new common rule of life set the Jewish Christians gradually free in a more comprehensive manner from the customs of their fathers, as Paul himself had in principle from the first urged (comp. § 87, 6), the more easily does the altered position to the law become evident, which our Epistles show. For the more that the law lost its significance in its literal form even for the Jewish Christians, all the more had Paul to seek elsewhere a reason for abiding significance suitable to it as the divine law; and for this the typical interpretation presents itself, of which, moreover, there are hints in the earlier Epistles (comp. § 73, c). According to this interpretation, as it is in principle formulated, Col. ii. 17, the legal institutions are but the σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, i.e. the shadowy patterns of the institutions of the Messianic age; they picture, to be sure, their outer form, but do not contain their essence. The body itself, i.e. the concrete realization of them, belongs to Christ (Tò δὲ σῶμα Χριστοῦ), inasmuch as He is their author and imposes them. His atoning sacrifice, given of His free will, is the real atoning sacrifice acceptable to God (Eph. v. 2); the circumcision wrought by Him, which consists in the putting off in baptism of the owμa, ruled by the σáp, completed in the fellowship of His life, is the true circumcision not made with hands (Col. ii. 11). Christians are therefore those really circumcised; their λarpela, wrought by the Spirit of God, is the true service of God (Phil. iii. 3; comp. Rom. xii. 1), and the exercise of Christian love (iv. 18) and the discharge of the apostolic office (ii. 17; comp. Rom. xv. 16) are the real sacrifices. In this way the law in its deepest sense is fulfilled in Christianity, so far as its ordinances image in a shadowy way the nature of the law of Christian life; and it is self-evident that its commandments continue regulative in Christianity, its chief good in the Lord, as the ground of all confidence and of all joy. The polemic against giving value to abstinence from meats and drinks, or the observance of particular feast-days (Col. ii. 16), comes in only from the point of view of dependence on ordinances, as these in general belong to the immature stage of the religious development of pre-Christian times (ver. 20; comp. moreover, Gal. iv. 3, 9).

where they directly reveal God's will regarding the natural relationships of life (Eph. vi. 2; § 101, 6).3

§ 106. Christianity as the Principle of Fellowship.

It is the task of the Church to realize ever more completely by unanimity the oneness objectively given to her, a oneness which is not destroyed by the variety of her gifts, which have in view the one goal of real perfection (a). But this can only be fulfilled by an unselfish and humble love, which by meekness and long-suffering, as also by kind and yielding gentleness, renders all contention impossible (b). Instead of unprofitable asceticism is to come not only abstinence from heathenish lusts, but also from such words as disturb the fellowship of love; and, in general, social intercourse is to be consecrated even in word to the service of love and the praise of God (c). More especially those natural duties, which the fundamental forms of human social life require, are to be fulfilled in Christianity to the fullest extent (d).

(a) On the removal of the opposition between Jew and Gentile, the Church becomes conscious only in an original way of what her task is, namely, to realize unanimity (eipńvn), and thus to be in her sphere what Christ in a more comprehensive sense is for the whole universe. On that very account is she one body, in this organic unity is already * It is a mistake when Baur, p. 275 ff., supposes that Judaism and Christianity are drawn more closely together in our Epistles than in the earlier ones. By the special emphasizing of the principle of the typical character of the Old Testament institutions, the significance which these have in themselves is rather evidently put in the background. In the earlier Epistles the significance is strongly maintained which circumcision as such had (§ 71, a); here, where the typical significance of circumcision seems to be fulfilled in baptism (Col. ii. 11, 12), the circumcision made with hands in the flesh is designated as a λsyoμívn, i.e. as something not real (Eph. ii. 11; comp. Pfleiderer, p. 436 [E. T. ii. 167]); it is even a naratoμń (Phil. iii. 3), a mutilation without a purpose (comp. Gal. v. 12). Circumcision has lost any significance in itself, since it has been fulfilled in a typical sense. What Paul has said in the earlier Epistles, therefore, of the original significance of circumcision, is not taken away, but attention to that is put purposely in the background. In the foreground of his Christian consciousness is put the view, that everything of real good which Judaism possessed must now be regarded by him as not only useless, but hurtful, in so far as it is a hindrance to seek and find in Christ the highest good; it must even be regarded as folly (Phil. iii. 7, 8). To Judaism abiding in unbelief, all its holy institutions, as all its blessings, have become perverted into worthless, even hurtful possessions.

intimated her calling for the realization of eipývn (Col. iii. 15: εἰς ἣν ἐκλήθετε ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι). Τo the ἓν σῶμα there also corresponds the êv πνеûμа (Eph. iv. 4), the one Spirit, which is given to the Church by Christ, and assures her of the common saving blessings (vv. 5, 6). But the Christian hope established in the Church is proclaimed to her in the gospel (Col. i. 5), and stress was laid on the universal character of the gospel at a time when alien speculations would press into the Church and endanger her unity (§ 59, c). But this unity of the gospel is also guaranteed in this way, that it is the same instruments called of God and endowed with His Spirit (Eph. iii. 5 : οἱ ἅγιοι ἀπόστολοι καὶ προφῆται) which proclaim it. On the foundation laid and established by them, of which Christ is the corner-stone, as He forms the central point in the proclamation of salvation, is each community, and therewith each Church, built up into the one temple of God (comp. § 92, a), in which God in Christ or in His Spirit dwells (ii. 20-22). To this unity of the Church objectively

1 As the Spirit is the earnest of the one hope (§ 101, c), each member is so added to the Church, that one and the same hope is quickened in him at the same time in this calling (καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθετε ἐν μιᾷ ἐλπίδι τῆς κλήσεως i). But the oneness of the hope rests again on the oneness of Christ as xúpios, as also of faith on Him, and of baptism into Him by which the calling is subjectively and objectively perfected (ver. 5); and on the oneness of God as the Father of all believers, in whom their relation to God, intended in the plan of the world and of redemption, is realized in their fellowship with Christ (ver. 6; comp. § 105, a). But the unity of the Spirit can be preserved only if the Church, kept firmly bound together by the bond of unanimity, resists (Eph. iv. 3) the entrance and influence of every other (devilish) spirit; she can only stand fast in the one spirit, if she contends with one heart for the faith in the gospel (Phil. i. 27), and looks with one heart at the one goal (ii. 2: cúμYuxa Tò iv Opovouvres), which is presented in the hope set before her.

* To regard the apostles and prophets as themselves the foundation, in opposition to 1 Cor. iii. 11 (Pfleiderer, p. 446 [E. T. ii. 178]; Immer, p. 377), is therefore irreconcilable with the designation of Christ as the corner-stone, because the Epistle to the Ephesians could least so co-ordinate the head of the Church with its members (even the most important of them). To be sure, in the earlier Epistles it is the apostolic activity in the founding of churches which is alone presented (§ 89, c); but here it is their upbuilding (iwoxodoμuīv) which is specially treated of, wherein even in 1 Cor. iii. 10-14 the fellowlabourers of the apostle are also noticed, but only in so far as this ensues by the preserving and conforming of the foundation laid by the apostles, it is called at the same time the foundation of the prophets. These particularly are noticed on this account, because in our Epistles the contents of the Epistles are regarded essentially as the mystery made known (§ 102, c) through divine revelation; and

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considered the manifoldness of the gifts of grace stands in no contradiction, by which grace is given to each individual member of the Church according to the measure of the gift of Christ (iv. 7; comp. ver. 16). Along with apostles and prophets, who are even in the earlier Epistles the first and the most eminent possessors of gifts, appear, ver. 11, also evangelists, who, though not by name, yet really occurred before (§ 89, c), pastors and teachers, and, as possessors of the gift of government and of service (§ 92, d), the πíσкоTO καὶ διάκονοι Kai Siákovo (Phil. i. 1). But, however manifold these gifts might be, they had yet all but one object, to fit saints for the work of the ministration, which each had to discharge for the development of the Church (Eph. iv. 12, 16).5

the prophets, like the apostles, speak (Eph. iii. 4, 5) xar' áxoxáλvým (§ 92, b, footnote 8). But there is presented no reason to find in this, with Pfleiderer, a placing of the Spirit as an independent principle of truth on a footing of equality with Christ, and to see in it a strengthening of the Church consciousness.

3 If, in contrast with § 92, b, footnote 7, Christ is here expressly designated as He who, after His ascension, has given gifts to men (vv. 8-10), with that has to be connected the thought that from Him, as the head of the Church, everything proceeds which helps to the increase of His body.

By the current supposition that here two distinct possessors of gifts are united with the three others, it is yet not clear that the gifts of government and teaching occurring separately in the earlier Epistles were already wont to be united in the same persons, since the possessors of gifts belonging to single churches might also be put in contrast to those serving the whole Church. But it is by no means without more ado established that the figure of a shepherd, following the example of Peter (§ 47, a, footnote 1), is to be referred to the office of the bishop, as Acts xx. 28 cannot be regulative for the use of the word by the apostle (comp. on the other hand, Phil. i. 1), and the figure may refer to the feeding the Church with the word of truth, and may be but a figurative term for teacher. But that the words, Eph. iv., refer chiefly and perhaps exclusively to gifts of teaching, gives likewise no ground for holding that in our Epistles the main stress lies on the advancement of knowledge (§ 102, c).

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* If this is designated an oixedoμń from the point of view of the human partnership in it, there is also implied the image of a temple of God (Eph. ii. 20-22), just as in § 92, b; while, according to § 105, a, from the point of view of the help given by Christ (as the Head), the growth of the body is suggested. It is peculiar that in our Epistles both images have come to be, for the apostle, so much termini technici, whose figurativeness is hardly felt by him, that he mixes them up one with another in many ways (ii. 21, iv. 12, 16). The uniform end of this development is, however, the rλórns, which is more closely defined, ver. 13, as the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of Christ (§ 102, c), in contrast to the spiritual (unripeness, which is blown about by any wind of doctrine in the misleading deceit of human wisdom (ver. 14); and, Col. i. 28, as the manhood (comp. iv. 12) in fellowship of

(b) The Church can reach her goal only when she ever more completely realizes her true being in unanimity, and this takes place by love. The uniform striving of all towards one goal can be realized only when all are animated by the spirit of similar love, have the same love (Phil. ii. 2). Only when all Christian virtues are perfected and bound together into a unity by love as the one bond of perfection, can unanimity rule in the heart (Col. iii. 14, 15; comp. Eph. iv. 2, 3; Phil. iv. 2). And hence love is that in which hearts are united (Col. ii. 2), forming the element of life in which each healthy growth of the body of Christ is effected (Eph. iii. 18, iv. 15). Even in the earlier Epistles love is the cardinal Christian virtue (§ 93, b), and here from this point of view its significance as such is more accurately established. But the love which is alone capable of sustaining unanimity is, according to Phil. ii. 3, 4, an unselfish love, which seeks not its own (comp. 1 Cor. xiii. 5, x. 24), and therefore forms the contrast to all selfish party striving (èpıðeía),—a humble love also, which, far from vain ambition, readily and willingly subjects self to another (comp. Eph. v. 21). And thus here, as in the earlier Epistles (§ 93, a), humility is connected with love (iv. 2; Col. iii. 12),— a humility which in both passages is associated with a meekness which is not easily provoked (comp. Eph. iv. 26; Col. iii. 8), and with a long-suffering which bears patiently with the weakness or the wrongs of others, and thus passes over again to love (Eph. iv. 2 : ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπῃ ; comp. Col. iii. 12, 13), with which we formerly found both united. Here also, as formerly, the love of which Christ Himself, Eph. life with Christ, which is reached by right practical instruction, in contrast to the perverse method in which a higher perfection of Christian life was striven after at Colosse. To this perfection no one is ever to believe that he has already attained (Phil. iii. 12-14); rather ought he, according to the beautiful oxymoron of the apostle, to seek perfection in this way, never imagining himself perfect, but always striving after perfection (iii. 15; comp. § 26, d).

Love is the special fruit of righteousness (Phil. i. 11), the result of Christ dwelling in our hearts (Eph. iii. 17, 18); for it inquiries are first made (Col. i. 8; Philem. 5), it is first prayed for (Phil. i. 9), exhortations to it before everything else are made (Eph. v. 2). If it appears (as § 62, b) to be co-ordinated with faith, Eph. i. 15, Col. i. 4 (when as love to all the saints, it depends on the hope common to them, ver. 5), and perhaps Philem. 5, this happens only when inquiries are made after principal points in which the position of the Church shows it deserving of praise; but Eph. vi. 23 proves that there can be no actual co-ordination by which faith would become a virtue alongside of love.