PAUL THE MYSTIC
A STUDY
IN APOSTOLIC EXPERIENCE
BY
JAMES M. CAMPBELL, D.D.
AUTHOR OF "THE INDWELLING CHRIST"
"AFTER PENTECOST-WHAT?"
"CLERICAL TYPE," ETC.
G. P. PUTNAM'S .SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1908
PREFACEIn the Lives Of Paul which have appeared, --and their name is legion,--scant justice has been done to the mystical element in his religious experience and in his teaching. And yet nothing is more characteristic of Paul than his mysticism. Although not liking him any the better for it, Professor A. B. Bruce frankly admits that "he was a man of profoundly mystical religious temperament."1 He was the kind of man who could not be content to dwell on the outside of religion, but sought to reach that which was furthest within. He is generally thought of merely as a consummate logician--a skilful system-builder. He was much more than that. He was first of all a poet, and afterwards a logician. He writes with the exuberant imagination of a true Oriental, often sublimely indifferent to logical sequence, and displaying a subtilty of thought incomprehensible to the mere grammarian or textual critic. Moreover, his dialectical temper was held in captivity to a spiritual aim which led him frequently to stop short in an argument and make his appeal from logic to life. The movement of his mind' was towards the centre. The truths which he valued, and upon which his spirit fed, were those which were mystical and vital. Out of the deep well of his mystical experience flows a stream which makes glad the city of God. At a time when there is a revival of interest in the subject of mysticism, a study of this neglected side of Paul's experience, and of the teaching which grew out of it, is certainly timely; and if reverently pursued it can hardly fail to lead to the deepening of the spiritual life.
1 St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, p. 220.
CONTENTSVII. HOW PAUL NOURISHED THE MYSTICAL LIFE
VIII. THE MESSAGE OF PAUL THE MYSTIC TO THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY