The apostolic age; its life, doctrine, worship and polity . too, took on anew and darker hue. Lying, quarreling, back-biting, became what they were not before, sins. And so the silent but mighty social revolutionwent forwards; and in the little communities aroundthe Mediterranean were being laid the foundationsof a new conscience, a new moral order. But few ofthose who were quietly, patiently, building act onact in the face of obloquy and derision, were awareof the scope of their task. To a Paul, indeed, it 496 The Apostolic Age. was given to see the grand outline of the NewHumanity, the Body
The apostolic age; its life, doctrine, worship and polity . too, took on anew and darker hue. Lying, quarreling, back-biting, became what they were not before, sins. And so the silent but mighty social revolutionwent forwards; and in the little communities aroundthe Mediterranean were being laid the foundationsof a new conscience, a new moral order. But few ofthose who were quietly, patiently, building act onact in the face of obloquy and derision, were awareof the scope of their task. To a Paul, indeed, it 496 The Apostolic Age. was given to see the grand outline of the NewHumanity, the Body of which the Second Adamwas Head, and something of the sweep of the eternalpurpose inferred from the great Cornerstone and therudiments of the building rising under his own the rest, it was enough that amid much fore-shortening of perspective, amid many illusions ofimagination, and with not a few failures in itsmembership, the Christian Ecclesia of God. was insimple loyalty doing from day to-day what the Kingof the Ages gave to their hand to CHAPTER III. Types of Doctrine S hinted in the closing sentences of ourlast chapter, it is in Paul alone of thefirst Christian generation that we discernsuch insight into the ultimate bearings ofthe Gospel, as could relate it to the pastand future of humanity at large. And Pauls phil-osophy of history from the religious stand-point, re-mained very much his own. For his distinctive con-ceptions, styled collectively Paulinism, sprang notso much from his intellect—though that was excep-tional—as from a religious experience of extraordi-nary depth and inwardness. Other types of Chris-tian thinking were more easily assimilated by thelater Apostolic Age, well represented by ClementsEpistle, just because the religious experience behindthem was not so original. We must try, then, togather up the hints already thrown out as to thevarious aspects under which the gospel was appre-hended, and to indicate their mutual relations. The Me
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