PREFACE The following course of lectures was delivered at Manchester College, Oxford, during the Hilary (midwinter) term, 1920. Previous engagements had compelled the lecturer to reduce the period of his stay from the full year originally proposed to these relatively narrow limits. This drew from Principal Jacks the suggestion that the topic be made comprehensive, in order to afford a completer survey of the lecturer's understanding of New Testament Literature. With this design in view a subject was chosen which has of late received the attention of many scholars, but which seemed capable of a mode of treatment emphasizing the relation of growth rather than that of mere apposition or contrast. The transition from the gospel of Jesus to the gospel of Paul might thus be studied in a way to make it a means of relating the whole group of writings of the New Testament canon to the general movement of religious thought and life from which they sprang. The course as originally given contained but eight lectures. At its conclusion the lecturer was asked to take part in the Oxford Summer School of Theology in the ensuing August, with the suggestion that the closing lecture of the original course (on the Johannine Literature) should be expanded into two for this purpose. The suggestion was adopted, and the Lectures as printed are therefore nine in number, the added material of Lectures VIII and IX being inclosed in []. In submitting his work to the judgment of a wider public the lecturer aspires to no richer reward than to win an approval in some degree approximating the generosity of treatment accorded at the ancient seat of English culture and religious thought. New Haven, Ct., September, 1920. |