THE reader may be interested to see collected a very few of the varying estimates of the style of the great Apostle:—
LONGINUS [Paul as master of the dogmatic style]—
Κορωνὶς δ ἔστω λόγου παντὸς καὶ φρονήματος
Ἐλληνικοῦ Δημοσθένης κ.τ.λ. πρὸς τόυτοις Παῦλος ὁ Ταρσεὺς
ὅντινα καὶ πρῶτόν φημι προῖστάμενον δόγματος ἀνυποδείκτου.
ST. CHRYSOSTOM [Paul a champion, and his Epistles a wall of adamant round the Church]—
ὥσπερ γὰε τεῖχος ἐξ ἀδάμαντος κατασκευασθὲν οὕτω τὰς
πανταχοῦ τῆς οἰκουμένης ἐκκλησίας τὰ τούτου τειχίζει γράμματα· καὶ
κάθαπέρ τις ἀριστεὺς γενναιότατος ἕστηκε κ. τ. λ. (quoting 2 Cor. 10:5).
DeSacerdotio, 1, iv. 7.
ST. JEROME [Paul’s words thunders].—“Paulum proferam quem quotiescunque lego, video mihi nonverbaaudiresed tonitrua … Videntur quidem verba simplicis et quasi innocentis hominis et rusticani et qui nec facere nec declinare noverit insidias, sed quocunque respexeris fulmina sunt. Hacret in causâ; capit omne quod tetigerit; tergum vertit ut superet; fugam simulat ut occidat” (Ep.ad Pammach. 68, 13).
DANTE—
“Vidi due vecchi in abito dispari
Ma pari in atto, ognuno onesto e sodo.
L’ un1 si monstrava alcun de famigliari
Di quel sommo Ippocrate, che natura
Agli animali fe’ ch’ ella ha piu cari.
Monstrava l’ altro2 la contraria cura
Con una spada lucida ed acuta3
Tal che di qua dal rio mi fe’ paura.,
Purgatorio, xxix. 134.
Andovvi poi lo vasd’elezione4
Per recarno conforto a quella Fede
Ch’ è principio alla via di salvazione.
Inferno, ii. 28.
LUTHER.—“Paulus meras flammas loquitur tamque vehementer ardet ut incipiat etiam quasi Angelis maledicere” (inGal. i.).
“In S. Paulo und Johanne ist eine sonderliche fürtreffliche Gewissheit und Plerophoria; sie reden davon als sey es schon allbereit vor Augen” (Tischreden, iv. 399; ed. Forstemann).
Bishop HERBERT DE LOSINGA.—“Certe, fratres, verba Pauli, non verba hominis, sed aetheris tonitrua esse videntur” (LifeandSermons, ii. 309).
ERASMUS [Paul’s style like a thunderstorm].—“Non est cujusvis hominis Paulinum pectus effingere; tonat, fulgurat, meras flammas loquitur Paulus” (adCol.iv. 16).
And again [Paul’s rhetorical skill like the course of a stream]—“Sudatur ab eruditissimis viris in explicandis poetarum ac rhetorum consiliis, at in hoc rhetore longe plus sudoris est ut deprehendas quid agat, quo tendat, quid velit; adeo stropharum plenus est undique, absit invidia verbis. Tanta vafrities est, non credas eundem hominem loqui. Nunc ut turbidus quidam fons sensim ebullit, mox torrentis in morem ingenti fragore devolvitur, multa obiter secum rapiens, nunc placide leniterque fluit, nunc late velut in lacum diffusus exspatiatur. Rursum alicubi se condit ac diverso loco subitus emicat; cum visum est miris maeandris nunc has nunc illas lambit ripas, aliquoties procul digressus, reciprocato flexu in sese redit” (Id. Paraph. Dedicat.).
CASAUBON.—“Ille solus ex omnibus scriptoribus non mihi videtur digitis, calamo, et atramento scripsisse, verum ipso corde, ipso affectu, et denudatis visceribus” (Adversaria,ap. Wolf., p. 135).
On the other hand, CALVIN, after alluding to his anakolutha, ellipses, &c., adds—“Quae sunt quidem orationis vitia sed quibus nibil majestati decedit caelestis sapientiæ quae nobis per apostolum traditur. Quin potius singulari Dei providentia factum est, ut sub contemptibili verborum humilitate altissima haec mysteria nobis traderentur, ut non humanae eloquentiae potentia, sed solá spiritus efficaciâ niteretur nostra fides.”
HEMSTERHUSIUS [Character of St. Paul’s flowers of speech].—“Eloquen tia ejus non in flosculis verborum et rationis calamistratae pigmentis … sed indolis excelsae notis et pondere rerum. … In ejus epistolis nullae non exstant oratorum figurae, non illae quidem e rhetorum loculis et myrotheciis depromptae … Verum affectus animi coelesti ardore inflammatus haec scriptionis lumina sponte sub manum praevenientia pergignebat.”5
REUSS.—“Ordinairement il débute par des phrases on ne peut plus embarrassées. … Mais dès qu’il a trouvé la bonne veine, combien son style n’est il pas le fidèle miroir de son individualité! Il est ni correct, ni classique; il lui manque la cadence sonore. Des antithèses paradoxales, des gradations pleines d’effet, des questions pressantes, des exclamations passionnées, des ironies qui terrassent l’opposition, une vivacité, enfin, qui ne permet aucun repos au lecteur, tout cela alterne avec des épanchements naifs et touchants, qui achèvent de gagner le cœur” (Théol.Chrét. ii. 11).
R. H. HUTTON.—“Who that has studied St. Paul at all has not noticed the bold soaring dialectic with which he rises from the forms of our finite and earthly thought to the infinite and the spiritual life embodied in them. “What ease and swiftness and power of wing in this indignant upward flight from the petty conflicts of the Corinthian Church; the upward flight which does not cease till the poor subjects of contention, though he himself was one of them, seem lost like grains of sand beneath the bending sky! … The all but reckless prodigality of nature which made St. Paul now and then use a stratagem, and now and then launch a thunderbolt, in the fervour of his preaching, is the spring of all his finest touches, as when he wishes himself accursed from Christ if it could save his Jewish brethren” (Essays, 321–330).
The AUTHOR of “Saul of Tarsus.”—“If he staggers under the greatness of his subject, if he is distracted by the infinity of the interests which he treats, if every word which rises to his lips suggests a host of profound and large associations, if the care of all the Churches, gives all the facts a varied but a real significance … Human speech must be blamed for its poverty; human experience, which has developed speech, for its narrowness. His life was ever in his hand, his heart was on his lips. The heart was often too great for the speech” (p. 229).
MARTINEAU.—“What can be more free and buoyant, with all their variety, than his writings? Brilliant, broken, impetuous as the mountain torrent freshly Filled, never smooth and calm but on the eve of some bold leap, never vehement but to fill some receptacle of clearest peace, they present everywhere the image of a vigorous joy. Beneath the forms of their theosophic reasonings, and their hints of deep philosophy, there may be heard a secret lyric strain of glorious praise, bursting at times into open utterance, and asking others to join the chorus. … His life was a battle from which in intervals of the good fight, his words arose as the song of victory” (HoursofThought, p. 156).
PROF. JOWETT speaks of him as teaching his great doctrines “in broken words and hesitating form of speech, with no beauty or comeliness of style.”
BAUR, after pointing out how the style is filled to overflowing with the forms and elements of thought, and that thoughts not only follow hard on thoughts, but that those thoughts succeed each other as determinations and momentaof some one conception that is greater than all of them, so that the thought unfolds itself, as it were, out of its own depths, and determines itself by taking up its own momenta, adds:— “Hence the peculiar stamp of the Apostle’s language: it is distinguished on the one hand for precision and compression; on the other hand it is marked by a harshness and roughness which suggests that the thought is far too weighty for the language, and can scarcely find fit form for the superabundant matter it would fairly express” (Paul.ii. 281).
HAUSRATH.—“Es est schwer diese Individualität zu charakterisiren in der sich Christliche Liebesfülle, rabbinischer Scharfsinn, und antike Willenskraft so wunderbar mischen. Wie wogt, strömt, drängt Alles in Seinen Briefen. Welch ein Wechsel glühender Ergüsse und spitzer Beweisführungen! Hier überwindet er das Heidenthum mit der Liebesfülle Jesu. Dort knebelt er das Judenthum, mit dessen Eigenen Gürtel rabbinischer Scriftbeiwise. Am wenïgsten hat die Phantasie Antheil an Seiner Innern Welt. Die Sprache ist oft hart und herb weil nur die Gedanke sie geboren hat. Die Bilder die er braucht sind meistens farblos. … Das est die Schranke seines Geisteslebens. Darin blieb er stets ein Rabbi” (DerApostel Paulus, 502).
RENAN [Paul’s style like a conversation].—“Le style epistolaire de Paul est le plus personnel qu’il y ait jamais eu; la langue y est si j’ose le dire, broyée; pas une phrase suivie. II est impossible de violer plus audacieusement, je ne dis pas le gènie de la langue grecque, mais la logique du langage humain; on dirait une rapide conversation stènographièe et reproduite sans corrections. … Un mot l’obsède. … Ce n’est pas de la stèrilité; c’est de la contention de l’esprit et use complète insouciance de la correction du style” (St.Paul, p. 232).
The less favourable of the above estimates shelter themselves in part under the assertion that St. Paul recognised the popular and vulgar character of his own style. But such passages as 2 Cor. 11:6 do not bear out these remarks. His language was not indeed of a class which would have gained applause from pedantic purists and Atticising professors; it bears about the same relation to the Greek of Plato as the Latin of Milton does to that of Cicero. But this fact constitutes its very life. It is a style far too vivid, far too swayed and penetrated by personal emotion, to have admitted of being polished into conformity with the artificial standards and accuracies of the schools. It more closely resembles the style of Thucydides than that of any other great writer of antiquity.6 That many defects in it can be pointed out is certain; but then in one important point of view these defects are better than any beauties, because they are due to Paul’s individuality. In whole sections of his Epistle his very want of style is his style. His style, like that of every great man, has the defects of its qualities. “Le style,” said Buffon, not (as he is usually quoted) c’estl’homme, but “c’est de l’homme.”7 He has, as every great writer has, “le style de sa pensée:” he has the style of genius, if he has not the genius of style.8
After quoting such remarkable and varied testimonies, it is needless for me to write an essay on the Apostle’s style. That he could when he chose wield a style of remarkable finish and eloquence without diminishing his natural intensity, is proved by the incessant assonances and balances of clauses and expressions (parechesis, parisosis, paromoiosis) in such passages as 2 Cor. 6:3–11. And yet such is his noble carelessness of outward graces of style, and his complete subordination of mere elegance of expression to the purpose of expressing his exact thought, that he never shrinks, even in his grandest outbursts of rhythmic eloquence, from the use of a word, however colloquial, which expresses his exact shade of meaning.9
All that has been written of the peculiarities of St. Paul’s style may, I think, be summed up in two words—Intense Individuality. His style is himself. His natural temperament, and the circumstances under which that temperament found its daily sphere of action; his training, both Judaic and Hellenistic; his conversion and sanctification, permeating his whole life and thoughts—these united make up the Paul we know. And each of these has exercised a marked influence on his style.
1. The absorption in the one thought before him, which makes him state without any qualification truths which, taken in the whole extent of his words, seem mutually irreconcilable; the dramatic, rapid, overwhelming series of questions, which show that in his controversial passages he is always mentally face to face with an objection;10 the centrifugal force of mental activity, which drives him into incessant digressions and goings off at a word, due to his vivid power of realisation; the centripetal force of imagination, which keeps all these digressions under the control of one dominant thought;11 the grand confusions of metaphor;12 the vehemence which makes him love the most emphatic compounds;13 the irony14 and sarcasm;15 the chivalrously delicate courtesy;16 the overflowing sympathy with the Jew, the Pagan, the barbarian—with saint and sinner, king and slave, man and woman, young and old;17 the passion, which now makes his voice ring with indignation18 and now break with sobs;19 the accumulation and variation of words, from a desire to set forth the truths which he is proclaiming in every possible light;20 the emotional emphasis and personal references of his style;21 the depressed humility passing into boundless exultation;22—all these are due to his naturaltemperament, and the atmosphere of controversy and opposition on the one hand, and deep affection on the other, in which he worked.
2. The rhetorical figures, play of words, assonances, oxymora, antitheses, of his style, which are fully examined in the next Excursus; the constant widening of his horizon;23 the traceable influence of cities, and even of personal companions, upon his vocabulary;24 the references to Hellenic life;25 the method of quoting Scripture; the Rabbinic style of exegesis, which have been already examined26—these are due to his training at Tarsus and Jerusalem, his life at Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome.
3. The daring faith which never dreads a difficulty;27 the unsolved antinomies, which, though unsolved, do not trouble him;28 “the bold soaring dialectics with which he rises from the forms of one finite and earthly thought to the infinite and spiritual life embodied in them;” the “language of ecstasy,” which was to him, as he meant it to be to his converts, the language of the work–day world; that “transcendental–absurd,” as it seems to the world, which was the very life both of his conscience and intellect, and made him what he was; the way in which, as with one powerful sweep of the wing, he passes from the pettiest earthly contentions to the spiritual and the infinite; the “shrinking infirmity and self–contempt, hidden in a sort of aureole of revelation, abundant beyond measure”29—this was due to the fact that his citizenship was in heaven, his life hid with Christ in God.