Wrede’s work, Paul, is written at a popular level, and gives some good discussion of key issues related to Paul.  In the book Wrede discusses Paul as a man, his work, his theology, and his place in Christian history. 

I – The Man

In his discussions of Paul as a man, Wrede argues that he is just a man and not a super-saint, but Wrede’s language and descriptions of Paul belie his belief in Paul as a Christian super hero.  But he does give a view of Paul as one having ecstatic (mystical) experiences and with an intense (often extreme or harsh) attitude about what he sees as core issues. 

II – His Life-Work 

Acts, while embellishing on actual events, still gives a general overview of his work that helps us understand the issues Paul addresses in his letters.  His mission to spread the gospel breaks into two parts: Cilicia/Syria and Asia/Europe.  The first part of 14 years is barely glossed over by Paul and in Acts, so we don’t know much about it.  But the second is thoroughly discussed in Acts and it is where Paul’s letters come from.  As an apostle to the Gentiles, Paul was an important force in preaching freedom from the Law, and much of his struggle was with traditional Jews and even the Jerusalem church over the issue of the Law and its requirements.

III – His Theology

Paul’s theology, which is at times contradictory, reflects his training as a Jewish rabbi, resorting often to allegorical and typological interpretations of the OT.  “The religion of the apostle is theological through and through: his theology is religion,” which is all based on the basic tenet that ‘Jesus is Messiah.’ (76).  Therefore “the whole Pauline doctrine is a doctrine of Christ and his work” (86).  However, the incarnation of a pre-existent Christ he perceives is more a superhero lacking the idea of personality and human individuality, than a true human.  For how could the divine enter into a true union with humanity?  But Paul’s Christ did humiliate himself for the work of divine redemption through his death and resurrection.

Redemption is the release from the whole present world and its angelic dominions (not just sin and its guilt), signified by the (personified) powers of flesh, sin, Law and death.  By entering into this world and submitting himself to the powers of this world, Christ breaks out of their control, out of their sphere, through his resurrection.  Therefore, the resurrection is not just a legitimation of Christ’s death, it is the inseparable link in the chain of redemption.  The believers experience of this is not just ethical but actually and literally but in an ‘alread’-'not yet’ sense (102-104).  The already piece is the Spirit of God with us, which is a force of good within us but not penetrating the inmost personality and becoming one with it.  This is not individual in the modern sense, but “death with Christ is a general fact, which comes to pass in all believers alike; not an event transacted in the individual soul” (114).  Believers together enter a mystic communion with Christ and form his body (119) through the operative work of the sacraments. 

The well known view of justification in Paul is just a polemical doctrine in the debate over Law that he may accomplish two main purposes: 1) the mission must be free from the burden of Jewish national custom and 2) the superiority of the Christian faith in redemption over Judaism as a whole must be assured.   Wrede concedes that Paul used sin-offering language with regards to Christ’s death and his blood, but ultimately it leads to difficulties in regards to ethics and later judgment. 

As for Paul’s sources, Wrede is happy to concede that most of Paul’s thought is thoroughly Jewish, and it is his experience of Christ and community that forms his new Christian ideas.  In regards to Christ, he did not develop the idea of Jesus becoming the pre-existent Christ from within himself.  On the contrary, “Paul believed in such a celestial being, in a a divine Christ, before he believed in Jesus” (151).  Such thoughts of a divine Christ in Judaism are evidenced in apocalyptic writings.  Beginning with an incarnate divine being, Paul can then see the universal scope of the redemption he effected. 

IV – Paul’s Place in the History of Christian Origins

Though spawning from the same Judaism, Wrede sees little connection between Paul and the historical Jesus.  In such he rebuts the ideas in Harnack and Wellhausen that Paul was just the theological expounder of Jesus.  Ultimately Jesus did not have knowledge of being a pre-existent Christ sent from God; this was a later development.  So how could Paul’s message of a redemption effected by the incarnated divine Christ be a continuation of Jesus’ message?  Since Paul did not have a historical connection with Jesus, when he received his revelation it was easy for him to develop it into something greater since he was not limited by personal experience. 

Paul’s letters spread beyond their original recipients, but his thought was not directly translated because those who read him did not have his Jewish-rabbinic understanding of the world.  But his core message of Christ and the redemption he brings through his death and resurrection have continued to influence those after him.  To be sure his view of the Law definitely influenced the quickly speading message to the Greeks and the eventual break of Christianity from Judaism.