Paul's method is beautifully exemplified when we consider as a group the letters which have been preserved to us. I name six: Galatians — Thessalonians — Corinthians — Romans — Ephesians and Colossians — Philippians. (I group Ephesians and Colossians because they are one in substance.)

In every one of these letters Paul's sole aim is to communicate the contagion of his spiritual experience. The six letters group themselves very definitely into two triangles or triads. The letters in the first triad, Galatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, are on the surface apparently occupied with some concrete problem of planetary existence, but it is nothing short of astounding to observe that in each case when his letter is finished, Paul has not so much approached the solution of the problem seemingly so important, but instead he has transcended it and substituted for it the germ of the objective truth in which alone his interest lies.

Let us take first the Epistle to the Galatians. This is addressed to the intellectual centre and is on the face of it a very elaborate argument on the question of circumcision, whether it was necessary for gentiles to be circumcized in order to become Christians. This was a question of great importance at that time and we might expect Paul to take a strong position on one side or the other. But what does he say at the end of all his elaborate argument?

Gal 6:15, "For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any importance, but a new nature." That is the same ktisis, the new creation, the new creature. That is all Paul had in his mind, and if you will read the Epistle to the Galatians in that light, it will yield a meaning which a legal tract on the question of circumcision could never yield. This is typical of Paul's method even in details. For instance, I notice that in this same chaper he gives a practical suggestion, as he so often does: "Carry one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ." But what does he say two verses down? "For every man will have to shoulder his own burden." That is not an inconsistency but it arises from Paul's recognition of what he called the body of Christ. If we are proper members of that organism, we forget our own personality; the burden of each one becomes our own burden. It has to be so, because the organism is a unit.*

Very much the same sort of phenomenon is exhibited by the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which are addressed to the emotional centre. There Paul took up the question of the end of the world, the second coming of Christ. We know that when that idea gets under our skin there is not much hope for us rationally; it is a strictly emotional question. Now what does Paul do with this problem?

In the first letter he says in substance: it is coming to-morrow; do not think of anything else. In the second letter he says: It is not coming quite so soon; go on with your work. In other words he cancels out his answer to those highly emotional questions. When he has done that I wonder if we must conclude that there is nothing left. I think rather that in the residuum we shall find just that which it was Paul's real aim to suggest. We know that later Paul expressed very distinct understanding of what the second coming of Christ really meant. I think he had it when he wrote the letters to the Thessalonians.

Now let us take the letters to the Corinthians. These are, of all the letters, practical. The Corinthian church had directed to him certain specific questions involving problens of their own and Paul answered these questions and also took occasion to make suggestion sin regard to tother things which, I think, the Corinthians hoped he did not know about. But it isn't all so practical and matter-of-fact as it seems. If you will take the second chapter of the first Epistle, verse 6 and following, you will find what Paul was really doing. The passage contains the most profound statement of what may be called esoteric wisdom that you can find anywhere. That is what is on Paul's mind all the time. He is speaking about practical things but he says:

"Yet there is a wisdom that we utter among the mature; a wisdom not belonging, however, to the present age, nor to the leaders of the present age, whose power is on the wane. We speak a wisdom of God, in a mystery—that hidden wisdom which begore the world began God purposed for our glory; a wisdom which none of the leaders of the present age has learned; for if they had learned it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But we speak, to use the words of scripture, of things which eye has not seen nor ear heard and which have not entered into the heart of man! All that God has is in readiness for them that love him. For to us God has revealed them through the spirit; for the spirit searches everything, including the depths of God."

And then after that warning he goes on to his discussion of the practical matters, but for the most part his treatment of them is much the same as in the case of circumcision: Should they eat meat offered to idols? Of course not. And then again he says; It is all right, everything is good.1 But finally, "If meat makes my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth."

And so it is through the entire epistle. Each problem presented is handled in such a way that the original question actually disappears. The discussion is lifted to such a plane that it is manifest that any answer would be meaningless.

And now let us consider briefly the second triad of epistles, Romans, Epheians-Colossians, and Philippians. In this case also each epistle is addressed to one of the three centres of man, but this time there is not even a pretense of what may be called practical or planetary purpose. The "new creation" is everything. Take the Epistle to the Romans. There was no immediate occasion which called it forth, as in the case of the correspondence with the Corinthian church, but it is spiritually a development of the higher stratum of thought which we found in the Epistle to the Galatians. Take the letters to the Ephesians, and the Colossians. They are supposed to be directed to an attack on gnostic error, and I suppose to that extent they can be said to have a practical aim. But Paul never mentions gnosticism at all. All he does is to develop the right view of cosmology, the right view of the scheme of God, the view with which he had come into contact through experience, not intellectual speculation. That in itself was an attack on the speculations of the Gnostics. The last epistle to be mentioned is Philippians. There we find the height of them all, an emotional statement, in the sense of a felt statement, a statement that comes from the being. Here we find a distinction between the popular idea of the second coming of Christ and what that second coming actually means when it occurs.

I will not say why it is that Paul's Epistles fall into this grouping,—why, as a whole, they are organically related. Suffice to say that they do exhibit these phenomena. And as the epistles as a whole constitute an organism, so also does each one constitute an organism by itself. And in the next chapter I purpose to go directly to the Epistle to the Romans, with which we are immediately concerned, and find how it was built or how it grew.


AUTHOR'S NOTE
* This passage gives a very good illustration of the way in which the church has missed Paul's meaning. The Greek uses two words for "burden," varos in the first sentence quoted and phortion in the second. As Xenophon uses phortion for a soldier's pack. a comparitively small weight, the ordinary explanation is that we are to help each other with the heavy burdens, but each man is to bear his petty annoyances himself. I can't believe that this was what Paul meant. The idea has not sufficient weight for scripture. Besides, who shall say which are the heavy burdens. It is the little foxes that spoil the vines. And in the light of eternity all our burdens are small. This was Paul's view, II Cor. 4:17. "Our light affliction which is but for a moment." Moreover, the context, verses 3 and 4, shows that in verses 2 and 5 Paul was referring to the same burdens. The idea is that when a man has measured himself by the universe and demonstrated to himself what his work is, then he sees that the burden of humanity is the burden of each one. It is not at all sure that Paul uses the word phortion as referring to a small burden. Luke in his diary reports Paul as using the word to refer to the cargo of a ship. Acts 27:10. Also in Luke 11:46 the phortion is heavy. If Paul here uses phortion as meaning a small burden, the idea undoubtedly is that the burden which seems heavy subjectively, is really light when objectively considered, that is, in Christ. If phortion conveyed the idea of knapsack to his readers, Paul may well have used the word for that very flavour. You may recall the popular phrase: Pack up your troubles in the old kid bag. You think you are shouldering the burden of the world but it's only your soldier's pack in the ordinary course of duty.


EDITOR'S NOTE
1In the original publication "he says" is followed by a semicolon: "And then again he says; It is all right, everything is good." Mr. Brown's manuscript was originally composed for public lectures, and his use of punctuation appears to the editor to reflect frequently cues for rhetorical delivery. Thus, while the editor believes this semicolon is a typo, it may instead indicate a slight pause before utterance of (the gist of) Paul's words.