e world,
became now, however, a problem, the solution of which, as given by Paul,
but few were able to understand or make their own.

6. In the conviction that salvation is entirely bound up with faith in
Jesus Christ, Christendom gained the consciousness of being a new
creation of God. But while the sense of being the true Israel was
thereby, at the same time, held fast, there followed, on the one hand,
entirely new historical perspectives, and on the other, deep problems
which demanded solution. As a new creation of God, [Greek: he ekklesia
tou theou], the community was conscious of having been chosen by God in
Jesus before the foundation of the world. In the conviction of being the
true Israel, it claimed for itself the whole historical development
recorded in the Old Testament, convinced that all the divine activity
there recorded had the new community in view. The great question which
was to find very different answers, was how, in accordance with this
view, the Jewish nation, so far as it had not recognised Jesus as
Messiah, should be judged. The detachment of Christianity from Judaism
was the most important preliminary condition, and therefore the most
important preparation, for the Mission among the Gentile nations, and
for union with the Greek spirit.

_Supplement_ 1.--Renan and others go too far when they say that Paul
alone has the glory of freeing Christianity from the fetters of Judaism.
Certainly the great Apostle could say in this connection also: [Greek:
perissoteron auton panton ekopiasa], but there were others beside him
who, in the power of the Gospel, transcended the limits of Judaism.
Christian communities, it may now be considered certain, had arisen in
the empire, in Rome for example, which were essentially free from the
law without being in any way determined by Paul's preaching. It was
Paul's merit that he clearly formulated the great question, established
the universalism of Christianity in a peculiar manner, and yet in doing
so held fast the character of Christianity as a positive religion, as
distinguished from Philosophy and Moralism. But the later development
presupposes neither his clear formulation nor his peculiar establishment
of universalism, but only the universalism itself.

_Supplement_ 2.--The dependence of the Pauline Theology on the Old
Testament or on Judaism is overlooked in the traditional contrasting of
Paulinism and Jewish Christianity, in which Paulinism is made equivalen