Division Section
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NEW TESTAMENT HOUBS
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A.D. 55 TO A.D. 64, WITH THE EPISTLES TO THE QALATIANS, FIRST AND
SECOND CORINTHIANS, ROMANS, COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON,
EPHES1AN5, PHILIPPIANS, FIRST AND SECOND
TIMOTHY, AND TITUS.
NEW YORK:
JAMES POTT & CO., PUBLISHERS,
119 West 23D St.
1905.
Copyright, 1895, by JAMES POTT & CO.
PREFACE
Phis volume completes my study of St. Paul. I have striven to keep free from traditional conceptions of any kind, and to set the Apostle and his Epistles before my readers as he and they would appear to his contem- poraries. To transfer our modern developments of ecclesiastical affairs to his age, distorts his whole story and robs it of its most valuable lessons. In theology I have simply stood behind the Apostle, and given his words and arguments without the colour of any school. As to the amplifications introduced in the texts of the Epistles, to make them more easily understood by the ordinary reader, they are seldom my own, but almost always those of the highest critical authorities of our day. I admire the surgical skill of reviewers, and am greatly obliged by their kind estimate of the volume already published, but it may be well if I put them on their guard, lest when fchey think they are launching an arrow at me, they find they have transfixed one or other of the supreme living or recent masters of New Testament literature.
I can only hope that my volumes may prove a plea- sant but reliable historv. and a new form of inviting, but
Vl PREFACE
clear and satisfying elucidation of the Apostle's writings, paving the clergy and others the painful study of prolix commentaries ; though, while " popular " in the sense of being written to be nad, they will, I trust, be found to embody the results of honest independent thought, and careful study of the literature of their subject, old and new. *' Popular" in the sense of mere compilation or surface treatment, they assuredly are not.
The chronology of the New Testament as a whole is so indeterminate, that no two systems out of twenty-five I have examined agree lliioughout. If, tlierefore, any detail in my Tables fail to win the assent of some reader, he is at full liberty, where so much is doubtful, to substitute his own figures. I have simply adopted those which are most in favour with the highest authorities.
CONTENTS
|
PAOB |
||
|
CHAP. |
NEW TESTAMENT CHRONOLOGY .... |
xi |
|
I. |
AT ANTIOCH |
1 |
|
II. |
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAN8 |
21 |
|
III. |
Paul's third missionary journey , |
66 |
|
IV. |
EPHESUS . |
82 |
|
V. |
CORINTHIAN TROUBLES |
115 |
|
VI. |
THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS . |
136 |
|
VII. |
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. |
216 |
|
VIIL |
THE INTRODUCTION OP CHRISTIANITY INTO ROME |
261 |
|
IX. |
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS .... |
287 |
|
X. |
PALESTINE IN THESE YEARS .... |
346 |
|
XI. |
PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDiEA .... |
360 |
|
XII. |
445 |
|
|
xni. |
THE VOYAGE TO ROME |
468 |
|
xrv. |
AT ROME |
503 |
|
XV. |
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIAN8 |
625 |
via CONTENTS
CHAP. PiOK
XVI. NEARINO THE END 543
XVII. THE EPISTLE TO TITUS 565
XVIII. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY . . . 679
XIX. THE CLOSING SCENE, ROME, A.D. 64 . . . 591
INDEX .... c ... 611
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAOD
Representation op SS. Peter and Paul . . .29
Qebel Musa, from the Roof of the Convent op
St. Catherine 42
Site op Ancient Ephesus 65
Temple op Diana at Ephesus on a coin op Hadrian 70
Caricature op the Crucifixion 139
Christians Praying. From the Catacombs at
Naples 157
Worship op the Sun . . . Ā« . . , 172
Cymbals 191
Ancient Hand-Mirrors 193
Ancient Musical Instruments 194
Egyptian Priestesses with the Sistrum , . . 195
Columbarium 209
In the Catacombs ...ā¢ā¢ā¢ā¢ Sll
War Tent ....... .236
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
View on the Gulp op Corinth 263
The Valley op the Meander 416
Plain of Ephesus, from Heights above it . . 425
The Bay and Mole op Pdteoli 491
The Appian Way, Rome 499
Nero, from a Bust in the British Museuu ā¢ . 593
CHRONOLOGY OF THIS VOLUME
Yum.
A.IX 64
64^7 57
68
68-60
60
61
61-68
Chbomoloot.
Paul is at Antioch. ā writes EPISTLK TO THB GaLATIANB.
ā sets out on his Third Mibsionabt Joubnst in the
autumn. ā is in Ephesus from winter of 54 to summer or ftutnmn
of 57. ā writes Fibst Epistlb to Gobinthianb, a.d. 56 or 57. ā ia in Macedonia in the autumn. Writes Sboond
Epistle to thb Gobinthianb. ā passes through Greece, by Athens, to Corinth, where
he remains till spring of 58 ā three months. Writes
Epibtle to Romans at Corinth. ā sets out for Jerusalem in the spring. Arrives before
Pentecost. Is seized in the Temple. ā is in prison two years at Csesarea. Writes thence
the Epistles to the Colosbianb, Ephbbianb, and
Philemon. ā sails in the autumn for Italy, a prisoner. ā arrives in Rome in the early spring. ā is a prisoner in Rome in the Prsdtorian barracks and
"his own hired house," till the spring of 63.
Writes Epistle to the Philippianb in 63, at Rome. ā then leaves Rome and goes to Cbbtb, where he leaves
Titus, staying only a very short time there, y, goes thence to Ephesus, where he meets Timothy,
but presently hurries on to Macedonia, whence he
writes FiBST Epistle to Timotht. ā winters at Nicopolis, in Epirus, and thenoe writes
TiTDS.
ā towards the end of the winter returns, by Troaa, to Ephesus, and starts thence, by Miletns, where he leaves Trophimus, sick, to go, by Corinth, to Spain.
xu
NEW TESTAMENT CHRONOLOGY
TlAS.
CHSOHOLOaT.
64 From Spain he is back again in Rome, perhaps as a prisoner,
before the great fire in July 64. Before this awful catastrophe, writes the Second Epistle to Timothy, after his first hearing before the High Courts. He suffers martyrdom, possibly before the Fire ; or, if not, in the persecution that followed some time later.
The details of Paul's closing months must for ever be largely conjectural, but the highest authorities are universally agreed that his death could not have taken place so late as A.D. 68, as Conybeare and Howson suppose. Twenty-five of the most eminent scholars limit the date of his martyrdom between A.D. 60 and A.D. 65, and o.' these nineteen regard it as certain that he perished not later than A.D. 6 1 ā the year of the fire ; the remain- ing six thinking it possible that he survived till the terrible persecution of A.D. 65. There seems no ground, indeed, whatever, for imagining that he escaped death till A.D. 68 ā the last year of Nero.
Readers will please note the following elucidations of the Chronological Table given in Volume I. : ā
YlAB.
68
00
62-64
68
ā¢S
04
64-66
64 or 65
Chronoloot.
Paul visits Macedonia and Greece.
Second Epistle to Corinthians.
Epistle to Romans. In the Spring of 58, Paul makes his
riFTH JOURNET tO JERUSALEM, and
is made prisoner for two years at Csesarea.
PoRoius Festus procurator. Paul sent to Rome from Csesarea. Felix had been dismissed in the winter of 60-61.
Spring of bl. Paul in Rome, Gl-63. Writes Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon and Philippians in 62 (Wieseler) ; Philippians in 63 (Meyer).
Albinus is procurator (Schurer, i. 488).
Jambs the Just, brother of our Lord, killed at Jerusalem. Epistle to Hebrews written in 64, after his mar- tyrdom (Wieseler). PHILIPPIANS
First Epistle to Timothy. Titus. Paul's journey to Spain. Burning of Rome, 19-25tli July. Second Epistle TO Timothy. Second Epistle or Peter. Peter Crucified.
Gessius Florus procurator.
Paul beheaded. 65. Seneca diea
Ck>NTEMP0RART EVENTS.
60. COLOSSIANB,
Philemon and Ephesians writ- ten at Caesarea (H o 1 1 zm a n n, Meyer, Geikie). VonSoeden thinks they were written at Rome.
Ismael, son of Phabi (H.P.) (c. 59-61).
Joseph (H. P.) (c. 61-62).
Hannas,son of Han-
nas (H. p.). Joshua, son of Dam-
nai (H. p.). Joshua, son of
Gamali (H. P.)
(o. 43-45)b
On page xv., for A.D. I read B.a 4*
NEW TESTAMENT HOURS
CHAPTER I
AT ANTIOCH BUMMER OF A.D. 54 ; PAUL's AGE, C. 44
Paul had started on his second missionary journey in the spring of A.D. 52, and was now back, among his friends at Antioch, in the spring of A.D. 55. In these three years matters had gone from bad to worse in Palestine, under the procuratorship of Felix, the freed slave of the Em- peror Claudius, and brother of the all-powerful favourite, Pallas, who, like him, was the child or descendant of poor creatures who had stood, for sale, with chalked feet, on the block of the slave-auctioneer. The reign of Felix was, apparently, the period which finally determined the character of the terrible drama begun after the death of Agrippa, in 44, and ending only with the destruction of Jerusalem, in A.D. 70. Things had been comparatively peaceful under the first two procurators, though there had, indeed, been much restlessness under Cumanus, the second of these. Still, the risings had been only passing outbreaks of individual agitators, and it was left to Felix to stir up a permanent revolt.
Like Pallas, Felix was, apparently, a freed man of m. ā²
2 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
Antonia, the mother of Clandius ; his full name being Aiitonius Felix.^ The conferring of a procuratorship, with military command, on a freedman, was an innova- tion hitherto unknown, and showed the influence which despised freed slaves possessed at the court of Claudius. Nor did Felix belie his servile origin when raised to power, for Tacitus grimly tells us that " he exercised kingly authority with every circumstance of cruelty and greed, and with the soul of a slave." ^ He was thrice married, and all his wives, of whom two are known to us, were of royal blood ; ^ the first, a grand-daughter of the Triumvir, Mark Antony, through whom Felix became connected with the Emperor Claudius ; the second, the Jewish princess Drusilla, daughter of Herod Agrippa I., and sister of Agiippa II. The way in which he got this prize confirms the judgment of Tacitus respecting him. She was about fourteen years old when Felix entered on his procuratorship, and was, soon after, married, by her brother, to the King of Emesa, a Syrian city, now Homs, about sixty miles north-east of Baalbek, with a small terri- tory round it. She had already been betrothed to a son of Antiochus, King of Commagene, a Syrian kingdom north of Antioch and east of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, but the match had been broken off, because he would not submit to the peculiar rite needed to make him a Jew. Soon after her marriage, Felix saw her, and having re- solved to get her, managed, through a sorcerer, one Simon, of Cyprus, to induce her to repudiate her husband, and, in defiance of the law, which forbade her as a Jewess marrying a heathen, gave her hand to the glorified freed-
^ Tac. Hist. V. 9 ; Suet. Clavd. 28. ā¢ Tac. Hist. V. 9. ^ Suet. Claud. 28.
PAUL Mr. e. 44 at antioch 8
man.* As his wife, she bore Felix a son, who, with his vife, perished in the first eruption of Vesuvius a.d. 79.^
The private life of this worthy was in keeping with his public career. As brother of the omnipotent Pallas, he assumed that he could do anything, however vile, without fear of punishment.* Under a ruler with such concep- tions of his office, hostility to Rome advanced by swift and terrible steps, which can still be traced clearly to his misgovernment.* Through his tyranny and oppression, the Zealots, ā as the irreconcilable and fanatical enemies of Rome were called, grew daily more numerous, filling the land with terror by constant burnings and plunder- ings of Roman mansions and of those of Jewish sympa- thisers with the abhorred intruders on the heritage of Jehovah. Murders of functionaries and of lukewarm Jews were frequent. Felix managed to entrap the chief of the Zealots, one Eleazar, by treachery, and sent him to Rome as a prisoner, with some others of his dangerous faction, but its strength grew so steadily, that the number belonging to it, whom he crucified as robbers, and of the citizens, denounced by his spies as in league with the conspiracy, and punished bitterly, was beyond reckoning. Felix had begun his rule in 52, ā the year of the confer- ence of Paul and Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem, and continued till A.D. 60, so that the years during which the Apostle had been away on his second journey had been stonry enough in Palestine.
But even the madly fanatical Zealots ā the imitators of Mattathias, father of the three Maccabee brothers, who
> Job. Ant. xix. 9, 1 ; xx. 7, 1-2 ; Acts xxiv. 24.
ā Ant. XX. 7, 2. Ā» Tac. Arm. xii. 64
ā¢ Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. 13, 2-6 ; Ant. xx. S, 6-6.
4 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
struck down the envoy of Antiochus, at the altar on which he was about to offer sacrifice to the Grecian gods ā did not go far enough for the extreme members of their party. Having apparently extirpated the " robbers," Felix found himself face to face with a new secret society ā the Sicarii, or "dagger-men," whose plan was, to get rid of their political opponents by murder. Armed with the small daggers from which they took their name, they mingled in the crowds at the festivals or at other times, and stabbed, unnoticed, every one denounced by their leaders as a friend of the Romans, raising wild lamentations when the deed was done, and thus with- drawing suspicion from themselves. No one in Jeru- salem felt safe. Among others, even the former high priest Jonathan,^ a son of the Hannas of the Gospels, fell a victim to them. Hated by the Sicarii as a half-and-half man, he was still more hated by Felix, whom he often urged to use his office better, that the people might not blame his reprover for having helped him to get it. An easy way to shake off this troublesome friend was offered by the daggers of the Sicarii, and a hint to them was enough. 2
But these various political opponents were by no means the only ones raised to madness by the enormities of Felix. Eeligious entlnisiasts, claiming a Divine mission, rose from time to time, kindling the wildest dreams in the multitude, and leading believing crowds into thu wilderness, to hail miraculous " signs " wrought by them, of the coming freedom, when Rome would be driven from the land, and the kingdom of God would be set up. The political danger from such fanaticism was quite aa
* ā². a 86, 87. " Bell. Jud. il 13, 3 : Ant. xx. 8, 5
PAUL MT. C. 44 AT ANTIOCH 6
great as that from the "robbers," and snch pilgrimagea were, hence, put down by Felix with ruthless bloodshed. An Egyptian Jew, of whom we read in Acts,^ was only a sample of other pretended Messiahs. Giving himself out as a prophet, he attracted to the wilderness a multitude, given, by Luke, as 4000, but said by Josephus to have been 30,000, and proposed to them to march to the Mount of Olives, to see him, by a word spoken thence, over- throw the walls of Jerusalem, so that they could march in and take it from the Romans, as Joshua had taken Jericho from the Canaanites. But Felix did not give the poor creature time to carry out his wondrous programme; attacking him with his troops and killing or scattering his followers. The Egyptian, however, escaped, and vanished into parts unknown.^
This energetic suppression of so threatening a move- ment, crippled the enemies of Rome for a time. But the religious and political fanatics, ere long, united in a new conspiracy, in which all should act in common. Many, hitherto quiet, were now forced into their ranks, by threats of death to all who submitted to the Roman yoke, by appeals to their love of their nation, and by intimidation of all kinds. Meanwhile, they divided the country between their bands, killed the rich sympathisers with Rome everywhere, plundered their mansions, and burned their villages, till all Judaea was paralysed by fear. The frightful misgovernment of Felix had, in fact, brought a great proportion of the people to support a chronic terrorism that, henceforth, continuously carried the nation nearer and nearer war with Rome, till, at last, it perished in the convulsion it had, itself, brought about. > xxL 88. 2 ^gii jā^ ji 135. jā^^ XX. 8, 61
6 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
Nor were the corruptions of the higher priesthood, ift these evil days, less ominous. The high priests were at open war with the lower grades of the priesthood. Thoroughly heathen in feeling, they were on the side of the Eoinans, as they had formerly been on that of Herod; receiving rich posts, in return, for their sons. Their treat- ment of their poorer brethren was shameful, for they even sent their servants to the threshing-floors, to carry off the tithes, which were for all the priesthood, for their private use; any who resisted being beaten by the plunderers, with clubs. So bitter, indeed, was their heartlessness, that Josephus tells ns they caused not a few poorer priests to die of hunger ; nothing being left for their support.^ Ladles bought even the high priesthood for their husbands,^ and some of these functiouaries were BO ashamed of their duties, that they wore silk gloves when officiating, to prevent their fingers being soiled. Their luxury was astounding. An ordinary robe of one of them cost, in a recorded case, an amount equal to over Ā£300 of our money ; another was said to be a monstrous glutton and gourmand, who gorged himself on the sacri- fices, and had his cellars full of casks of the choicest wines.^ Amidst such a welter of moral corruption and political tumult, the new faith had to make its way ! Yet Judaea was, in its own opinion, the land of saints, from which Christianity must be driven out, to keep the patrimony of God from defilement by its presence ! No wonder Paul preferred the heathen Antioch, with its cosmopolitan sympathies, its political quiet, its command- ing position, as a centre from which Christianity might
Ā» Ant. XX. 8, 8 ; 9, 2. Ā» Ant. xx. 10, 1.
Ā» Geikie's *' Life of Christ," i. 89, 345.
PAUL JET. C. 44 AT ANTIOCH 7
be made known, alike to eastern and western nations, and loved its breezy landscape, its wide streets, its spacious gardens, its stirring concourse of many nationalities, aud, more than all, its nearness to his beloved Cilicia, and to the lands where he had so valiantly laboured and triumphed for his Master, when he "jeoparded his life to the death for Him, in the high places of the field, "i
How Paul employed his restless energy during his stay in Antioch, which appears to have extended from the spring to the autumn of the year 55, is not told us, but such as he could not be for a moment idle. The districts round would probably be visited, to spread the Gospel among their teeming population, for even Antioch would hardly limit his activity. For ages past, Syria, like all the fair lands blighted by the Turk, has been a wide desolation, with, here and there, a small village or squalid town, breaking the monotony of ruin and solitude. But, in Paul's day, thriving villages, towns, and cities, and smiling landscapes supported busy and prosperous rural communities, so dense, that, in the length of a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five miles, along the richly fertile banks of the Orontes, there are still to be seen the ruins of about a hundred towns and cities ; and the Arabs have a saying that in some districts, one might sleep every night of the year, at a different ancient site once full of men. That Christianity did not, however, with all the labours of the Apostle and the local brethren, make any conspicuous progress, in proportion to the population as a whole, is certain, for at Baalbek, in the middle of the next century, the wondrous temj)les, which are still the admiration of the world, rose, in their tuagnificence.
" Judg. V. 18.
8 THE APOSTLES A.D. $4
presenting an incontestable proof that the wealth, the fashion, and the popularity of heathenism, had suffered, to that date, no perceptible eclipse, while Christianity had not, as yet, such a thing as any public place of worship, liowever humble, devoted openly to its ministrations.
Antioch, itself, however, would give abundant employ- ment to one who, like his Master, found his very " meat " in doing the will of Him who sent him, and in finishing His work.^ He would be present, of course, at all the gather- ings of the brethren ā their Sunday and other services, ā and their periodical meals together, ā the simple love- feasts of those days, but he would also, as elsewhere, visit each household, and evangelise among the poor and the outcast, to win them to the Cross.
It seems probable, besides, that he made time during these months to send off to Asia Minor the Epistle known as that to the Galatians. It has usually been regarded as of a later date, and to have been sent from Ephesus, soon after his arrival there, on his third missionary journey. But this theory, which has been adopted, one may say, by all commentators, rests on the belief that Paul's first visit to Galatia, took place on his second journey, ^ and his second visit on his third journey.^ The expressions, " the region " and " the country " of Galatia, occur for the first, and second time, in connection with his labours in these journeys, and it is certain, from the Apostle's own words, that he wrote the Epistle after his second visit, since he tells the Galatians that " they knew how, because of an infirmity of the flesh, he preached the gospel to them the first (or former) time."* But the unique knowledge of the classical geography of Asia Minor shown by Ramsay ,
^ John iv. 34. * Acta xvi. Ā«. Ā» Acts xviii. 23. * GĀ»L iv. IS.
PAUL Ml. C, 44 At ANTlOCH Ā§
in his various writirigs on the subject, appears to settle conclusively that the name Galatia was applied, in Paul's day, to the whole country travelled by him in his first journey, outside Pamphylia, and that it included Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra.^ In that case, the second visit would fall during the second journey, from which he had just returned to Antioch, after an absence of about three years.
Nor is there any reason for requiring a later date than during this temporary rest at Antioch, on the ground that the Epistle reveals sad changes for the worse in the Gala- tian churches; for the first journey, in whicli they had been brought over to Christianity by Paul and Barnabas, was as far back as the year 49, and it was now 55, so that at least five years had passed, since he had first been among them, and it was a matter of wonder to Paul, that they ** were so quickly " leaving his teaching for " a different gospel."^ I have purposely omitted any detailed discus- sion of points offering little interest to any but professional expositors, condensing the weary disputes which fill page after page in countless treatises, and giving only the essen- tials of the question as they appear to my mind. Any one who wishes to enter more fully into the minute points brought forward, on one side and the other, can satisfy himself to his heart's desire in Lightfoot, Meyer, Wieseler, Spitta, Zeller, Weizsacker, and any number of other volumes.
Between Antioch and Asia Minor, in those days, there was constant commercial intercourse, and even during the months in which travel by sea was stopped by winter, communication between the two was, necessarily, still
Ā» Acts xiiL 13-xiv. 26. Ā» Gal. i. tf.
10 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
frequent. Antioch was the point of arrival and departure for all going east and west, and thus, for profit, or plea- sure, large numbers were always coming or leaving. News from the Galatian churches would thus often reach An- tioch, and supply topics of the keenest interest in the community which had sent Paul to Asia Minor. He would hence learn, with deep sorrow, on his reaching the Syrian capital again, in the spring of 55, that troubles had broken out in the scenes of his recent labours, like those that had so bitterly tried him, years before, when the emissaries of the Judaising party in Jerusalem had come down to Antioch, maintaining, to the distress of the large proportion of heathen converts in the local church, that no one who did not submit to become in every respect a Jew, could be saved. Like the Puritan of the Cromwellian period, or the Presbyterian of the days of the Covenant, the Jew of Paul's day was dominated in every direction by his reli- gious enthusiasm, which coloured alike his public, social, and private life. Israel was the " firstborn son*' of Jeho- vah.^ God had stood in the door of Abraham's tent, communing with him, as man with man,^ and had spoken to Moses, face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.' To the Jew, He had proclaimed, through this leader, the laws of the nation, amidst the thunders, and lightnings, and terrors of Sinai, when the mountains quaked, and smoked like a furnace, as the Lord descended, in fire, and thick clouds, and the loud and long protracted voice of angelic trumpets.* Nay, Jehovah had written, with His own finger, on tablets of stone, the Ten Commands in which He Himself summed up His moral law. Indeed, He had done this twice, and had require^ Moses, to lay them,
1 Exod. iv. 22. 2 Gen, xviii. 1, 33. Ā» Exod. xxx. 11. * Exod. xix. 16 if.
PAUL iET. C. 44 AT ANTIOCK 11
sacredly, in the shrine of the nation.^ And had not God dwelt between the cherubim in the Tabernacle and the Temple, and led Israel like a flock, through all the long ages since ? ^ How could it, then, be thought that the Jew stood on the same footing before Him as the heathen, at whom He " laughed," from His throne in the heavens, holding them in derision ; whom, indeed, He had given to the Jew for an inheritance, with all their lands, to the uttermost parts of the earth, and whom He was, for the Jew's sake, to dash in pieces with His iron war-mace, like a potter's vessel ? ^ If a Hebrew accepted Jesus as the Messiah, he still remained, in all other respects, a Jew ; revering his national law, as his patent of a nobility before which the proudest families of the heathen were of yes- terday, and their highest dignities as nothing. To set aside the Law, given by God Himself, was an outrage against the express voice of Heaven ! Christianity might supplement Judaism, but could never supersede it. So deeply rooted, indeed, was this Hebrew feeling in the hearts of the Palestine Christians, that the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews, and the congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ.*
Among the many Jews who were continually passing along all the main-roads of the empire, there were, neces- sarily, not a few Jewish-Christians. The fierce controversy at Jerusalem and Antioch, respecting the new, and, as it seemed to such fanatics, revolutionary course, taken by Paul, in admitting heathen proselytes, or actual heathen, to full membership in the churches he founded, without
1 Exod. xxxi. 18 ; xxxiv. Iff. * Ps. Ixxvii. 20 ; Ixxx. 1,
Ā» PĀ«. ii. 4-9. < Gibbon, ii. 273.
12 THE APOSTLES A.D. $4
demanding, as a preliminary, that they should not only submit to the distinguishing rite by which they would become Jews, but that they should also agree to keep all the requirements of the rabbinical laws, had by no means been closed by the pacific attitude of the Jerusalem Apostles, at their conference with Paul and Barnabas. It had, indeed, been ignored by Peter himself, very soon after its promulgation, when, in his fear of some emissaries from the Judaisers of the Mother Church, he had drawn back, at Antioch, from intercourse with the heathen con- verts, separating himself even from the common meals of the brotherhood ; no longer sanctioning that Gentile and Hebrew converts should eat together, as they had done under the genial teaching of Paul. Since then, the feud had broken out more fiercely than ever, and was spread by travelling Jewish-Christians, generally men out on peddling, or other petty-trade journeys, who found a welcome in some lowly home or other, in each ghetto in the different towns they reached. Jews were, in fact, numerous in Asia Minor, Antiochus the Great ^ having settled 2000 Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia, as early as about the beginning of the second century before Christ ; a nucleus which, apart from its natural increase, would be certain to attract great numbers of a people so gregarious.
In the five years since Paul's first visit to Galatia, some of these restless propagandists had appeared among the churches he had founded, and at once set to work to counteract the great-hearted policy of the Apostle, going even the length of challenging his apostolic authority and rank. He would hear about them fully, on coming
* B.C. 223-187 : Jos. Ant. xii. 3, 4.
PAUL iET. C. 44 AT ANTIOCH 13
back to Antioch ; the inner life of churches founded by a mission sent out from it, being, naturally, matter of supreme interest to the local Christian community. Tlie accumulated news of years would thus reach him together, and a sad story it all was.
His converts, being mainly proselytes from heathenism, gained by the local Jews, had become familiar with Bible history, and Jewish modes of thought, before Paul*s arrival among them ; the lessons in the synagogue, and the daily life and conversation of their Hebrew friends, having stored their minds with Old Testament incidents, and rabbinical teachings in morals and rites. The syna- gogue had been the germ, in nearly every case, of the future Church, at once from the natural desire of a Jew to take the good news brought by the new faith, to "his kinsmen according to the flesh," and because he could best introduce such topics as the coming of the Messiah, to a Jewish audience. Converts were more easily won thus, than would have been possible by any other course ; but, at the same time, the bitterest feelings were roused against Christianity in those who remained unconvinced, and had to mourn the defection of so many from the old ways. Yet, if it was hard to see families of proselytes leave the synagogue, and ally themselves with the new preachers, it was still worse to notice, ere long, that numbers of heathen, who had not been even proselytes, joined them, and were received into the Christian brotherhood without any preliminary Jewish novitiate.^ The Galatian churches, hence, ulti- mately, consisted of a majority who had passed directly from heathenism to Christianity, some proselytes who had
1 Gal. iy. Ā«.
14 THE APOSTLES A.D. $4
joined the synagogue to the length of worshipping Jehovah, though not to any farther extent Jews, and some Jews proper, who had allied themselves with the Apostles. Communities made up of such a variety of elements, were inevitably exposed to divergence in very opposite directions, from the common path into which they had been introduced by the Apostles.
To these infant " churches " some fanatical Judaisers had come, as I have said, very soon after Paul's visit. The converts had at first been so enthusiastic in their adopted faith that Paul, applying to them a metaphor from the foot races of the age, could tell them that they ran well.^ Yet, in spite of a devotion to him, when he was among them, which would have made them, had it been possible, "pluck out their eyes and give them to him," his sight being, perhaps, for the time at least, affected, possibly by ophthalmia ā they had precipitately cooled, and even become hostile, going as far, indeed, as to leave him, and turn from his presentation of Christianity, to what even his wide charity was forced to call "another Gospel."^ The free cosmopolitan message he had delivered, had been repudiated, and, in its place, they were giving themselves up to the narrowest and most intolerant Judaism, which insisted on the vital necessity of circumcision, as a condition of salvation ; accepting, in fact, the formula of those agitators who had come down to Antioch, from James, maintaining, " Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved." * The whole ceremonial law, indeed, was now received by them as binding, with
^ Oal. Ā„.7. s GaL L Ā«.
ā¢ Acts XV. 1 ; Gal. v. 2, 11 ; vi, 12, 13.
PAUL JJT. C. 44 AT ANTIOCH 15
its observance of "days and months and seasons and years." *
The hereditary spiritual pride of the Jew, intensifying the importance of the mere rites and ceremonies of his national faith, and deepening his fanaticism for every- thing even remotely connected with it, had now developed permanently into a life and death struggle between Paul and the Jewish-Christian party. We must not forget, however, that strange as it seems to us, in these days, even the great-hearted Apostle regarded the admission of the Gentiles, that is, of any race but the Jews, to recognition by God as capable of salvation, as a mystery which needed the sanction and enforcement of a special revelation to discloseā that it was, in fact, even to him, ā " the mystery of Christ, which, in other generations, was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy Apostles and prophets in the Spirit ; to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow- members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus, through the gospel." ^ That " God had been pleased to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ā that Christ was also, for them, as well as for the Jews, **the hope of glory," ^ seemed so wonderful, so revolutionary, even to Paul, as to call forth his wonder again and again. It was natural, then, that the proclamation of such a startling change in the ways of God to the hated and despised heathen, over- throwing as it did the supremacy in His regards, of His chosen people, ā hitherto, as they fanatically held, His sole favourites among mankind, ā should have been fiercely resented. As the embodiment of this new, ' Gal. iv. 10; v. 3. ' Eph. iii. 4-6. ā¢ Ool. t 27.
16 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
and, as it appeared, ultra-broad Chur;5h innovation, the word went forth from the Jewish- Christian party, that Paul must be counterworked and put down to the uttermost.
To secure this annihilation of his influence no means were left unused. His claim to be an Apostle at all was challenged. Who was this pretender to apostolic dig- nity and authority, " unknown by face to the churches of Judfea " ā the mother-land of the faith^ ā who had not been a personal follower of Christ, and was never among those who had "companied "with the Master " from the baptism of John to the day of His being received up " into heaven, and had only joined himself to them, years after this ? He could only, they asserted, have learned about Christ's teaching at second hand, from the Apostles, and, there- fore, all questions must be settled by the authority of the " pillars of the Church," the great Apostles of the circum- cision, at Jerusalem ā Peter, James, the Lord's brother, and John, the beloved disciple. Who was this person ā a man born in Tarsus, not in the Holy Land, ā of Gentile life, if not of Gentile blood ā a renegade from the faith of his fathers, who taught " all the Jews who were among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs ? " ^ Everj^ detail of apparent inconsistency in Paul's acts, would be exaggerated and turned against him. Had he not him- self once preached circumcision ? ^ Did it not look as if he were repudiating it now, only to curry favour with the Gentiles?* Did he not admit duplicity, in his acknow- ledgment that he became a Jew among Jews ? ^ Malig-
^ Gal. i. 22 ; 1 Cor. ix. 1 ; Acts xxi. 21. ^ Acts xxi. 21.
Ā» GaL V. 11. * Gal. i. 10. Ā» I Cor. ix. 20, 22.
PAUL MT. C. 44 AT ANTIOCH 17
nant fanaticism can make much of nothing ; can twist and colour anything, to suit its end. As we see, in Corinth, even the personal appearance of the Apostle, and the cha- racteristics of his public intercourse with the churches, was pressed into the service of wholesale depreciation, for there is no hatred so bitter as theological.
Why was it, we may ask, that, when thus so unscrupu- lously assailed, Paul did not silence his enemies at once by appealing to the letter embodying "the decrees to keep, which had been ordained of the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem ; " ^ he and Barnabas having deli- vered copies of it to the Galatian churches, on their visit to them ? Yet he never alludes to it, though one would think that, in such a controversy, it would have been decisive in his favour. May it have been that the conduct of Peter at Antioch, shortly after it had been issued, had virtually cancelled it, as an expression of the permanent sentiment of the Apostles ? The foremost man among them had gone back from its letter and even from its spirit, and had thrown himself unreservedly into the hands of the Jewish party. How easily could it be said by the Judaisers in Galatia and elsewhere, that the Apostles, like Peter, had receded to the strictly Jewish position, seeing the evils their temporary liberality had involved, and that these "decrees" were therefore no longer endorsed by them? They might say that as Peter had treated the Jeru- salem compromise as non-existent, it was clearly annulled, and that the churches could not, surely, be bound by what Peter had thus publicly ignored ? Such representations would go far, I apprehend, to make an appeal to a docu- ment, otherwise so authoritative, entirely useless.
^ Acts xvi. 4. SL ā¢
18 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
The frenzied zeal, with which the Pharisee party in Jernsalera "compassed sea and land to make one pro- selyte," ^ found its match in the fury with which Paul was pursued over all the wide field of his labours by his Jewish-Christian traducers. In Galatia they seem to have consisted of a small number of Judaisers from Palestine, the central fire of bigotry having there its special crater of overflow. The apostacy from Paul's teaching evidently did not spring up among the Galatians themselves. " A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," says he, and "there be some who trouble you."^ The irreconcilables appear, moreover, to have been under a leader superior to the rest either in social position or in influence, to judge by Paul's words : " He that troubles you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be."
The type of Christianity that finds favour with a race seems to depend largely on national idiosyncracies. Thus, the Latin races have, everywhere, clung to the Roman Catholic form, with its priesthood, its rites, and its sensuousness, while the Teutonic races have as uniformly adopted the simpler models of the Reformation. Some kindred affinity must, in the same way, have in- fluenced the Galatians towards Judaism. The heathen portion of them had been accustomed to the vivid ritualism of the old native faiths and their " meritorious " bodily mortifications, which were often extreme, and were thus easily led back from the simplicity of Paul's teaching, to Jewish externalism. Nor was Paul able, so far as can be seen, to stem this corruption, for the Galatian church may be said to disappear henceforth from apostolic history, and Asia Minor became, in later days, the head-
' Matt, xxiii. 15. '^ GhU. v. 9 ; i. 7 ; iv. 17 ; vL 12.
PAUL iET. e. 44 AT ANTIOCH 1 9
quarters of heresy, especially in the Galatian provinces. From this time, moreover, bis enemies dogged the steps of the Apostle everywhere. At Corinth, before he had written his first Epistle, the party of Cephas was question- ing his authority, and in a short time, " the majority " of the teachers in the church there belonged to it. Its influence may, also, be traced in the troubles from the Jews at Ephesus, and in the disastrous tumult in the Temple at Jerusalem, which led to his imprisonment at CsBsarea and Eome, and we read of " evil workers " and the "concision," and men who "preached Christ of con- tention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to his bonds," even during his prisoner-life at Rome.^
Distressed and sorely disappointed by all he heard of churches from which he had hoped so much, Paul resolved to write to the Galatian congregations a special letter, unburdening his mind to them, and, as it were, washing his hands of further responsibility, if they neglected his warnings. How deeply their fickleness had wounded him, shows itself in the whole tone of his Epistle. No such endearing and appreciative names as "saints in Christ," or " faithful brethren," used of other churches, are granted to them. No commendations are sent them, but, instead of mingled praise and reproof, a tone of severity is maintained throughout, while all the fond personal allusions of other epistles are exchanged for a dignified enforcement of his apostolic authority, or a strenuous vindication of his teaching.
As usual, the services of one of his companions appear to have been employed to write the bulk of the letter,
^ 2 Oor. il 17 ; xi. '.^0 ; x.-xiii. ; 1 Cor. i. 1 ; ix. 1, 4 ; Acta xvii. 6; xix. 23 ; XX. 3 ; xxi. 20 ; xxviii. 21 ; Phil. i. 16 ; iii. 2, 8.
20 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
but the Apostle, as was his custom, adds a few words at the end, to guarantee its being his, though he also seizes the opportunity, in this case, to relieve his overburdened heart by repeating, in a few lines, the substance of the whole, ending by calling their attention to the very size of the letters in his postscript, as if they not only showed the well-known characteristics of his writing, but, in this instance, the vehemence of his feelings.^ The next chapter is an exact rendering of the text, with such en- largements as seemed necessary to its elucidation.
CHAPTER II
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS WKITTKN AT ANTIOCH, A.D. 54 ; PAUL's AGE, C. 44.
Salutation, worded so as to introduce the chief purpose of the letter.
I. 1. Paul, an apostle, not as Judaisers say, holding my authority from men, that is, from the apostles, ti either receiving it through the hands of any man, but called to my apostolate through the direct appointment of Jesus Christ, when He appeared to me on the way to Damascus, and set me apart as His apostle, in express words, spoken to me by His own lips, from amidst the glory round Him, and through God the Father, whose will, alone, Christ carries out, inasmuch as it was He who raised Him from the dead and thus identified Himself with Him ā 2. And all the brethren who are with me ā to the churches of Galatia : 3. Grace to you and peace, from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4. Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us, by His death, from the judgment impend- ing, at His coming, on this present evil world-age, not by our own merits but by the will of our God aiiv^ Father, 5. To whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen,
Rebuke of their apostacy, denunciation of its authors, and vindication of his own teaching.
6. I am amazed that you are so very soon, both as to time Mid completeness, changing your minds, and turning away
22 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
from Him ā that is, God ā who called you, not for your merit, but through the grace obtained for us by the work of Christ, to another gospel ; 7. A diiferent gospel did I say 7 Nay, to a gospel which is not another, for there cannot be two gospels ; only, there are some men who unsettle you, seeking to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8. But though we, ourselves, or, were it possible, an angel from heaven, should preach to you any gospel but that which we preached to you, let him be a victim of the divine wrath and of everlasting destruction. 9. I have said this before, and I repeat it now; If any man preach to you any different gospel from that which ye were taught by us, let him be thus accursed. 10. Do my words startle you ? I mean them. Will any now say, as some have hinted, that I seek to make friends of men by such speech, or not rather of God ? Or am I seek- ing to please men, as I am charged with doing? If I were still seeking the goodwill of men, and thus made myself their servant, I should not be, what I am, a servant of Christ.
He received his gospel by special revelation.
11. But I wish you to know, brethren, as respects the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man ā that is, it is not such a scheme as it would be were it man's work. 12. For neither did I any more than the other apostles receive it from any man, nor was I taught it by the apostles or by any one, but it came to me by direct revelation from Jesus Christ, after I had been won to Him, by the vision and appeal from His sacred lips, near Damascus, for I have often, since then, had revelations from the Lord.^
Nor had he learned the gospel in his Jewish years, for, in them his whole training and surroundings violently prejudiced him against it.
1 2 Cor. xii. 7.
PAUL iET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO T*iE GALATIANS 23
13. For, as to my life as a Jew, you have heard from myself, and from men coming from Jerusalem and Judaea, what it was, as regards the Jews' religion ; how I was so devoted to it that I eagerly hunted down the Church of God, and harried it to the uttermost. I could not, then, have been a disciple of Christianity in those days. 14. Moreover, I have already told you how I pressed on to ever higher attainments in Judaism ā in its lore, in zeal for it, and in diligent practice of its endless requirements; aspiring to become, and actually becoming, blameless, ā as a Pharisee of the highest grade, ā in all the righteousness it demands,^ so that I got before many of my people of my own age, being even more exceedingly zealous than they, in the observ- ance of the rabbinical laws, handed down from my fathers, as to doctrine, rites, mortifications, exposition of the Scrip- tures, the details of daily life, and the like.^
Nor could he have been taught the Gospel by the Apostles of the circumcision, for he never saw any of them till long after his conversion.
15. But when it was the good pleasure of God, who set me apart from my birth, as designed by Him to be hereafter an apostle, and in His own due time called me, through His grace, ā on the way to Damascus, ā to the apostolic office, 16. To reveal in me His Son, shedding on my spirit the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord,^ that I might, having been thus divinely instructed, preach Him among the heathen nations ā for the knowledge of Christ, in His person and work, is the sum of the Christian faith; forthwith, 1 took no counsel with any man, for man is only flesh and blood, and I had been instructed by God Himself: 17. Neither did I go up from Damascus to Jeru- salem, to those who had been apostles earlier than I; but I went off to Arabia ; and, thence I returned to Damascus.
Ā» Phil. Ui. 6. * Matt. v. 21 ; xv. 2 ; Mark vii. 3, 4. Ā» PhU. iii. &
24 THiG APOSTLES A.D. $4
When, moreover, after so long an interval, he, at last, did go up to Jerusalem, he was there only fifteen days, and saw only one Apostle, Peter, ā and James, who, though not an Apostle, was the Lord's brother, and went off without being known, even by sight, to the churches generally, in Judaea ā so that he could not have been taught the gospel then. Besides, he had, already, been long preaching it, and did not need human teaching.
18. After this, when I had to flee from Damascus,^ I at last went up to Jerusalem, to make personal acquaint- ance with Peter, but I stayed with him only fifteen days, the Jews threatening to kill me, and a vision in the temple commanding me to go off to the Gentiles. ^ 19. But I saw no other apostle, though I did see James, the Lord's brother.^ 20. Now, as regards what I thus write, whatever my slanderers may assert or insinuate ; take notice, ā I swear, as before the eyes of God, I speak the truth. 21. After this fortnight's stay with Peter, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia ā far enough, certainly, from the apostles! 22. But so completely was I a stranger in Judaea during this time of my stay in Syria and Cilicia, that I was still un- known by face to the churches there, outside Jerusalem, which were in Christ : they only heard say, ā He that used to persecute us, now preaches the faith which he once harried to the death ; 24. And they glorified God in me, for my conversion and zeal ; a lesson, I think, for you I But had I been a disciple of the apostles, I would have remained in Jerusalem, and the Judsean churches would certainly have known me.
He certainly visited Jerusalem again, but it was only after he had been preaching many years as himself, an Apostle, and, moreover, he jealously maintained his inde-
^ Acta ix. 24 f. ; 2 Cor. xi. 32 f. * Acts ix. 29 ; xxii. 17 f.
ā¢ 1 Cor. XV. 6, 7.
PAUL ^T. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 25
pendence, associating with the old Apostles as a brother with his equals, and owing nothing to them for his position.
II. 1. But, let me still further vindicate my independent apostolic of5.ce. Not till fourteen years after my receiving tlie apostolic commission did I go up to Jerusalem again, with Barnabas, taking Titus, also, with me. 2. Nor did I go up of my own motion, hut by revelation enjoining me to do so, when the church at Antioch had proposed the journey;^ and I laid before them, the brethren, that they might know, and form an opinion respecting it, the gospel which I preach among the heathen, doing so, besides, privately, to the leadmg men ā Peter, James, and John, ā in various conferences, before my public exposition of it, to secure their support in the congregation ; lest, by any means, I should be running, or had run, in vain, as would be the case if the Jewish- Christians, by insisting on all heathen converts becoming subject to the law of Moses, in all details, should wreck my efforts to establish churches on a less narrow basis. 3. But this disclosure to the congregation at Jerusalem was bo entirely without any such bad results as I had feared, that not even Titus ā a Greek ā though constantly, as my fellow-labourer, coming in contact with Jews, and though I had brought him with me ā Greek as he was ā to the church assembly, there in Jerusalem, the very centre of Judaism, was compelled to be circumcised. 4. It was, indeed, demanded by some, urged to this by false brethren, that he should be, and I might have conceded it to their weakness, but the false position taken by these men made concession impossible. I did not yield, therefore, because of such false brethren ā irreconcil- able, reactionary Judaisers ā mere Pharisees at heart, though passing themselves off as Christians ā who had got into the brotherhood, under feigned pretences, to play the spy on our liberty in our Gentile churches, in not being required to keep
' Acts XV. 2.
26 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
the Mosaic law and the ordinances of the rabbis ā that liberty which we have in Christ Jesus ā being justified by faith in Him, aparb from the works of the law, He being the end of the law, for righteousness, to every one that believes ; ^ their object being that they might bring us into bondage to it, again : 5. To whom, we, I, Paul, and Barnabas, gave way, by yielding them the submission they demanded ā no, not for an hour ; that the truth of the Gospel ā that is, the Gospel in its integrity ā might remain unmutilated, with the Gentile churches, and, among others, with you Galatians. Had we yielded to the proposal of these Jewish-Christian brethren, to have Titus circumcised, we should have given the day to the false brethren, who stood in the background and used them as tools, holding it vital to salvation, that heathen converts should be circumcised. We would not, therefore, for a moment hear of Titus undergoing the rite, that the principle of Christian freedom from Judaism might not be in any way compromised, by the readiness we should otherwise have had, to avoid wounding the scruples of the weak brethren, thus made a catspaw ā and that you Gentiles might not thus be led to corrupt the fundamental truth of the Gospel,- by mixing it up with Judaism. ^ Yet, alas! your present apostacy to that "other gospel" has sadly run counter to my action on your behalf! 6. But from those who were held great ā namely, Peter, James, and John ā though as to the exceptional and exclusive reputation in which they stand among you ā whatsoever they were ; though they had been the companions of Christ from the first, it makes no matter to me : God accepts no man's person.* He measures men not by the rank they hold, or the advantages they have had, but by what they are and what they do. Well, these leaders, so highly esteemed in Jerusalem, and by you communicated nothing new to me, either by adding to my knowledge, or differing from my views. 7. On the con-
1 Rom. iil 28 ; x. 4. Ā» Verse 14 ; Col. L 6.
Ā» Chap. L 6. < Wisd. vL 7 ; Ecclua. xxxt. It.
PAUL MT. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 27
trary, they received me as their colleague and equal, and recognised my mission as no less from God than their own, when they saw clearly that I had been intrusted by God with the preaching of the Gospel among the non-Jewish races, as incontestably, truly, and directly, as Peter, with the Gospel to the Jewish races. 8. For God who had fitted Peter for being the apostle of the Jewish race, had fitted me for being the apostle of the non- Jewish races ā having worked in us both alike, for these. His designed ends. 9. And, therefore, feeling convinced that God had given me His grace, and that, haying thus honoured me, He had thereby commissioned me as an apostle, fully worthy of the rank, and fitted for it- James, and Cephas, and John, ā they who were counted the pillars of the Church, and of the faith, gave me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, the symbol of equal brotherhood in ofQlce, of fidelity, each to the other, and of loving assent to the arrangement, that we should go to the heathen races, and they to the Jewish race ā that is, that ive should be apostles among the heathen; they, among the Jews, both they and we being, equally, apostles. 10. Only stipvdating that, though our labours would be among the heatlien, we should continue our past zeal on behalf of the poor brethren, in Jerusalem and Judsea, though they were of the circumcision ā for the local churches were sadly poor ; which very thing I was eager to do of my own accord.
So far was he, indeed, from being in any way inferior to the older Apostles, or from not acting independently, as a full Apostle, in his own right, that he publicly rebuked Peter, at Antioch, when, by yielding to the Judaisers, he was surrendering the cardinal principle of the Gospel. Thus, not only was he no disciple of the Apostles, not only was he recognised and openly acknow- ledged by them, as a fellow- Apostle, and admitted to their brotherhood, as such, but he even vindicated and
28 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
effectively exercised his apostolic authority against one of themselves, and that one, no other than Peter.
11. But when Cephas, after the convention at Jerusalem, came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned by the brethren. 12. For before the arrival of certain from James, that is, from the church at Jerusalem, the headquarters of Christian Judaism ā he sat down with the heathen converts at the love-feasts, tHe meals in which the whole brotherhood, Jewish by b'rth, or heathen, took part together, in token of mutual love and unity, without distinc- tion of origin, and in token, also, that the narrow-minded prohibition of a born Jew from eating with a converted heathen, was no longer recognised in the new faith. ^ But when these brethren came from Jerusalem he gradually with- drew from these common meals, and separated himself from any anti-Jewish intercourse with brethren who had not submitted to the Jewish rite, fearing them that were of the circumcision, that is, the Jewish- Christians ; thus striking a blow at the very root of Christian life, and that though he had been taught by his vision at Caesarea, sent, as he knew, from God, that this Jewish Pharisaic precept was no longer to be observed under Christianity,- and though he had publicly defended this Christian freedom, and his action towards Cornelius in connection with it.^ 13. The brethren from Jeriisalem had been sincere in their narrowness, but both Peter and the Jewish-born Christians at Antioch, had mixed freely with the heathen converts, till these disturbers came, so that his withdrawing and theirs, was not from principle, but in the face of it, and yet the rest of the Jewish brethren played the hypocrite, also with him, so that even Barnabas, my brother heathen-apostle,^ who, as such, could, less than any one, repudiate this fundamental article of Christian liberty, to the prejudice of heathen-Christians, was carried
Ā» Luke XV. 2 ; 1 Cor. v. 11 ; Acts. xi. 3. " Acta x. 1 f.
ā¢ Acta XT. 7 t * Verse 9.
PAUL JET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATTANS
29
awav bv the sweeping flood of their hypocrisy. So deadly was the influence of Peter's conduct ! 14. But when I saw that they were not acting straightforwardly, in keeping with the truth, as laid down in the Gospel, I said to Cephas, in a meet-
Probably the oldest representation of SS. Peter and Paul now extant. It is on a bronze medallion, about three inches across, cut Mith a die or hammer, and finished with a chiselā now in the Vatican Library. De Eossi thinks it certainly " not more modern than about the time of Alexander Severus " (born A.D. 205 or 208 ; killed by his soldiers AD. 235). One of the heads is covered with short curly hair ; the beard curled also, but clipped short; the features scmewhat rough and commonplace. The features on the other are more noble, graceful, and strongly marked : the head is bold, and the beard thick and long. The portraits, in lact, are very lifelike and natural, with a strong impress of individual character.
ing of the church, before them all, "If you, though a born Jew, discardest Jewish customs, and livest in free brotherly intercourse with other ma::, net Jovrs, as the heathen-born do, and not apart from all but your own race as the Jews do,
30 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
ā your sitting down at the common meals of the brotherhood being the proof āhow is it that you practically compel the heathen converts to live as Jews, if the church is not to be rent in pieces ? But let us look at our own case. You and I, though, both, Jews by birth, and thus heirs of the promises ā not " sinners," by heathen birth, for we call the heathen "sinners," as belonging to races "cursed" of God for not keeping the law^ ā 16. Yet, knowing that a man is not justi- fied by the works of the law, and that he cannot be justified save through faith in Jesus Christ, ā even we feeling thus about the law, ā believed on Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law : because, as we felt, by the works of the law " shall no man living be justified."^ 17. But if, in thus seeking to be justified in Christ, and thus repudiating the law, we, ourselves, committed the very sin which makes us call the heathen " sinners," and were thus found to have made ourselves "sinners" like them, ā is Christ, on this account, a minister, not of righteousness but of sin ? Away with the thought I 18. But if, after destroying the old law of ordinances, by having sought righteousness in Christ, not in them, I build up again those things which I destroyed, then I condemn myself, and show that I was a transgressor, in thus destroying them. 19. But, as to my- self, I am far from building them up again, or bringing them back, for, through the endurance of the curse of the law by Christ, on the Cross, I died to the law ; its claim against me having been paid by Christ, that I might have no more to do with it, and might, henceforth, live not to the law, but to God. 20. I have, in a true sense, been crucified with Christ, as one with Him, the curse He bore being borne for me also, so that my old sinful past may be said to have died with Him, on the tree. Yet I live, but it is a new life, for it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, ā the " old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away."^ I am a new creature ; the old things are passed away, behold, they
Ā» John vii. 49. Ā» Pa. cxliii 2, LXX. Ā» Rom. H Ā«.
PAUL MT. C. 44 KPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 31
are become new.^ Hence that life which I now live among men, I live in faith, now the vital air in which I live, and move, and grow to the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesusā faith in the Son of God, who loved me^ and gave Him- self for me. 21. 1 do not, by restoring the law, set at nought the grace of God, shown in the atoning death of Christ : for if righteousness can be attained by the law, there was no reason for Christ dying.
The conduct of the Galatians is foolish. Their own experience, in receiving the Holy Spirit, might tell them that righteousness did not come by the law.
III. 1. O simple-minded Galatians, who has turned the evil eye on you, or given you some charm, to take your wits away? ā you, the people before whose eyes, in my preach- ing to you, Jesus Christ, as the Crucified One, was displayed as plainly as the public notices on your walls ? 2. Let me ask you just this one question, Did you receive the Holy Spirit, creating the Christian life in you, and also endowing you with His gifts, by, or on account of, any works of the law which you had done, or not, rather, by your believingly hear- ing the truth preached to you ? 3. If, as you know, you received the Spirit through faith, are you really so simple, so without sense, that, having begun through the Spirit, you would now be brought to full Christian manhood through the flesh? 2 4. Have you suffered so much without being the better for it ā so much in the persecutions you have home ā so much from the slavery to ordinances imposed on you by your Judaising teachers? If, indeed, it be no worse than only of no good ā for who knows to what it may lead you ? 5. Now, let me ask you again,^ Does He, that is, God, who bestows on you the Spirit so liberally, and w^orks miracles in you, spiritually, besides endowing you with outward mira- culous gifts, bestow it because of observance of works of the
* 2 Cor. V. 17. - 2 Cor. viii. 6 ; Phil. i. 6. Ā» ā¼. 2.
32 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
Jewish. Iav7, or because of your believingly, listening to the preaching of the truth 7
Abraham was justified by his faith, and so must his true children be.
6. You cannot but answer, Because you heard, believingly. And you are right, as I may show from the case of the great founder of the Jewish nation, the patriarch Abraham. For it was with you even as it was with him. " He believed God's word, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness." 7. Know therefore, since Abraham's faith was reckoned to him for righteousness, that those only are the true sons of Abraham, who, like him are, spiritually, children of Faith ; not those who look to works of the law. 8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify not only the Jews, but also the heathen only by faith, made known, beforehand, the Gospel to Abraham, saying, "In thee shall all the nations be blessed."^ 9. So then, they who are children of Faith, whether Jews or heathen, are blessed, as sons and therefore, heirs ā with the faithful Abraham.
The law, on the other hand, only condemns, and from this condemnatioQ Christ delivers us.
10. For if it were not the children of faith who were justified and blessed with believing Abraham, then it must be those who trust to the law. But this is impossible, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse : for it is written, " Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them." 2
Having shown that those who trust for salvation in " the works of the law " are deceiving themselves, since, to be " under the law," means to be under a curse,
1 Gen. xii. 3, from the LXX., but not verbatim. See Rom. iv. 17. Deut. xxvii. 26, nearly verbatim from LXX.
PAUL iET. e. 44 EPISTLR TO TIIK GALATIAN8 33
Paul goes on to show from Scripture, how such persons can be freed from that curse and made truly righteous before God.
11. Then, again, it is evident that no man is justified by the law, that is, counted righteous, at the bar of God, whatever man's judgment may he, for it is vmtten,^ "The righteous-by-faith shall live." 12. But the law has not faith as its principle, but works, for it is written, "He that has done them, the 'ordinances,' 'statutes' and 'judgments,' will live through them."^ 13. But as no one has perfectly kept all God's judgments and statutes, the curse of the broken law rests on us all. But what the law could not do, Christ has done. For Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, by taking our place and becoming a curse for our sakes : for it is written, " Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."^ 14. Thus, then, the curse of the law is cancelled, for all who believe in Christ, ā we Jews no longer lying under it, if we be Christians ; ā and, moreover ā the demand to ohey it as a condition of salvation heing thus superseded, ā faith has become the one requirement, and this opens the door of life to heathen as well as Jews, for they can believe as readily as we Hebrews. Thus Christ annulled the law and substituted faith as the ground of salvation, that in Him, Christ Jesus, the blessing bestowed on Abraham, in his being justified by faith, should be extended to the heathen and no longer confined to us, Jews ; that we. Chris- tians, whether Jews oi heathen, might, through faith, receive, in common, the fulfilment of the promise of the Spirit, through one faith, as, indeed, we have done.
This justification by faith, not by the law, depended on the promise not having been cancelled by the law, which came later than the promise to Abraham. Paul,
Ā» H*b. iL i ; Rom. i. 17 ; Heb. x. 38. ^ Lev. xviii. 5 ; Rom. x. 6, * Deut. xxL 23, LXX., nearly verbatim.
m. 0
34 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
therefore, now shows, that the Mosaic law neither re- pealed nor altered that covenant made with Abraham.
15. Let me illustrate this, brethren, from every-day life. If a man make a solemn covenant, and duly ratify it, he cannot afterwards either add to it or make it void.^ 16. Now God's promises were made to Abraham, and to liis seed, and He, God, does not say *'and to thy seeds" as if speaking of many, but He says, 'and to thy seeJ," that is, He spoke only of one, and this seed is Christ. The covenant made with Abraham was, thus, not only solemnly given by God, so that it is permanently binding, and cannot be afterwards altered, but it was made with His seed also, and the use of the singular, *'seed," shows that Christ is meant, ā for we Jews all agree that the Messiah is the true spiritual seed of Abraham. 17. Now, as the conclusion to be certainly drawn from all this, I say, A covenant previously ratified by God cannot be set aside, and its promise cannot be cancelled or made void by the law, which did not exist till four hundred and thirty years after. 18. I have, indeed, good grounds for saying that the law cannot have annulled the promise made to Abraham, for if the inheritance of that promise of the Messiah and His salvation has come to us from the law, which must be the case if the law has annulled the covenant made with Abraham, then it no longer comes to us from His promise, whereas God granted it, the inherit- ance of the promise, as a free gift, to Abraham.
Paul, having now shown that the law could not cancel the far earlier covenant of promise, might naturally be asked, What significance and position, then, has the law? He therefore proposes the question, and proceeds to answer it. First, it witnessed against sin, and, though temporary, served the great purpose of preparing for the Gospel.
19. How is it then, as to the law, if it has not cancelled ^ EccloB. xliv. 21.
PAUL JET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 35
the covenant of God's promise? What end did it serve; what authority has it now? I answer that the law was given, in addition to the promise, because of the existence of sin, to define transgressions; for "where there is no law neither is there transgression ; " that thus it might " give the knowledge of sin," ^ till Christ, the seed to whom the promise had been made, should come, hut no longer. More- over, it was not given directly by God Himself to man, as the promise had been, but, as if to mark its inferiority, it was given forth by angels, through the hand of Moses ā an intermediary, or Mediator, as you ordinarily call him, who received the tables of the divine law, and bore them down to the people.2 20. But a "Mediator," or intermediary, implies that there are two parties, ā so that the law is like a contract between two ā God and the Jewish people ā and can, therefore, only be valid as long as both parties observe its terms. But there were no two parties in the giving of the promise, for God Himself gave it directly, and is the one party in the transaction, for it depends solely on the divine pledge, and that, we know, once given, cannot be endangered. 21. Is, then, the law, with its two parties, of great 3r weight than the promise, which comes to us through only one party ? Is it against the promises ? Does it injuriously affect them ? ^ Far be the thought from me I
i Rom. iii. 20 ; iv. 15 ; v. 20 ; vii. 7, 13.
' The tradition that the law was delivered by God through the offices of angels, is first met in the LXX. version of Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; the Hebrew, however, being doubtful. It next appears in Acts vii. 38, 53, where Stephen speaks of " the law " being " received as it was ordained by angels," and then in Hebrews ii. 2, "the word spoken by angels." It had become, indeed, the common belief of all Jews, in the time of the Apostles, that, as Josephus expresses it, they had received "the most holy part of their law by angels" {Ant. xv. 5, 3). The monstrous ampli- fications of this tradition by the Rabbis may be seen in Ofrorer Jahrh, dt* Heils, I 226 ; Eisenmenger's Judenth. Entdect. i. 309.
ā¢ As there are some three hundred explanations of this verse, I can only give what appears to me the best sense. See Meyer'i Kommentar for a list of various renderings and opinions.
36 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
The law, coming througli a mediator, as a contract "between God and man, and thus given in a way essentially different from that in which the promises were given, might, hence, appear to be leading on to the salvation granted through the Messiah in another way than the promises, and hence to be against them. But it is not so. For had a law been given which was contrary to the promises, it must have been one which could raise men from spiritual death to life, and then, in reality, and not merely in Judaising fancy, righteousness would have been secured by the law, since such a law must have enabled men to render perfect obedience to all its demands. 22. On the contrary, however, the 8ciipture which I have quoted, that is, God, has shut up all men under tlie bondage of sin, that bondage which holds them as with bolts and bars,^ in order that the promise bestowed, not for observance of the law but for faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to all them that believe, whether Jew or Gentile.
A mixed metaphor now sets the ends served by the lav/ more fully before the Galatians. Paul has described it as a jailer shutting up all men in the prison-house of sin ; he now calls it the slave who ā himself their teacher in their earliest years ā leads children to the schoolmaster. Like him, the law was a " pedagogue " ā the Greek word for such a "child-leader" ā to bring men to Christ, under whom there is no more any bondage like that imposed by the law, but a freedom, in which no class, or religious or national distinctions are recog- nised ; all being one great brotherhood.
23. But before faith in Christ came, through the preaching of the Gospel, we, Jewish- Christians, were kept in ward by the law as our over-lord, shut up in hopeless bondage to Bin, till we could be transferred to the charge of the faith
^ Rom. xi. 32.
PAUL JET. e. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAN8 37
in Christ, which should afterwards be revealed. 24. Thus since we have been kept in bondage under the law, with a view to our ultimately passing to the charga of the faith which was to follow it, the law, like the slave who leads the child to the schoolmaster, has been our guardian to bring us to Christ, that we should no longer be under the law but under Him ; that we might no longer be justified by it, but that we might be justified by faith. 25. For, now that faith is come, we are no longer under pedagogue rule.^ 26. For, now, through your faith in Christ Jesns, you are, all, Jews and Gentiles alike, sons of God, and, as such, you cannot any longer be under the old pedagogue rule. 27. For that you are all, alike, **sons of God," by your faith in Christ, is proved by the fact that as many of you as were baptized into Christ put on Christ, becoming thus, one with Him ; ā being, as it were, clothed with Him : in other words, you were placed in the same relation to God in which Christ stands to Him; ā receiving "the adoption of Sons."^ He wears, as it were, the robe of Sonshlp, and you have put on the same robe, marking your being, through union with Him, Sons of God, also. 28. Thus clothed with Christ, all differences in the external relations of life have been effaced for ever, and have no more importance, from a Christian point of view, than if they did not exist. There can, hence- forth, be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female : for you are all one in the higher spiritual unity in which Christ Jesus lives in each one of you.^ 29. But if you are, thus, Christ's, snd, as such, one with Him in all He is ; " members," in fact, of Christ, and His "body,"* then you are, also, Abraham's seed, for Christ is that seed,^ and, as the promise is the pledged inheritance of that seed, you are the heirs of it, according to God's promise.
* The paidagogue, from "pais," a hoy, and **ago," / lead, was the ā¢lave who went with a boy from home to school, and back again.
Ā« Chap. iv. 5 ; Rom. viii. 15 ; 1 Cor. vi 11 ; Tit. iii. 5. ^ Chap. ii. 20.
* 1 Cor. vL 15 ; xii. 27. ā¢ ā¼. 16.
38 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
The Apostle proceeds to explain more fnlly about this '* heirship." It could not begin before Christ's coining, for the ages till then were the period of minorship and childhood. It could first come to us, through Christ and His gospel, at the time appointed by God, when the old slave-like relation to the law was exchanged for that of son ship.
IV. 1. But, in reference to this "heirship," I would further say, that so long as the heir is a minor, he differs nothing, in his legal position, as respects his future inherit- ance from a slave, though, hereafter, he will be lord of all his father's possessions. Meanwhile, like the slave, his acts have legal validity only when done through, and with the sanction of another ā in this case, his legal representative, 2. But he is under guardians and overseers ā upper slaves, appointed to provide for his wants ā till the term has ex- pired fixed by his father, for this dependent condition to end.^ 3. So, also, we. Christians, whether Jews or heathen by birth, when we were minors ā that is, were not, as yet, Christians, were in bondage, like slaves, to the rudiments of the world, as I may call the imperfect beginnings of religious life and ideas, in the ceremonial formalities of both Judaism and heathenism. 4. But when the fulness of the time appointed by God came, God sent forth, from Himself, His Son, so that He was born of a woman, and thus was born under the law, becoming a Jew, duly circumcised, and subject to all other details of Jewish religious life, 5. In order that He might redeem them that were under the bondage of the law and its curse,^ by His death,^ that we, both Jews and heathen, might, instead of the rudiments of the world, and the slavery to sin, receive the adoption of sons. 6. And it is because we are sons that God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, from
^ Justin. Instit. i. 22 ; Plat. Lysii. c. 4.
* Chap. iii. 11. s Ohftp. iii. 18.
PAUL iET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAN3 39
Hebrew lips, "Abba," ā from heathen lips, "Father." 7. So that thou, 0 Christian, art no longer, as when not yet a Chris- tian, a slave to the rudiments of the world, but a son ; and if a son, then, also, an heir of the salvation of the Messiah, through God, who has adopted thee to be His son, by sending Christ, and by the redemption Christ has made.
8. Hovvbeit, at that time, when most of you were yet heathen not knowing God, ye were in bondage, enslaved to gods who were, in reality, no gods, but demons. 9. Now, however, that you have come to know God, by the preaching of the gospel, or rather to be known of God, by your calling, enlightenment, and conversion, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and beggarly beginnings of spiritual life ā that is, to the Jewish system to which you wish to be once more in bondage ? 10. You reverence the rabbinical law so that you observe days ā the Jewish sabbaths, fasts, and feasts, and new moons ; and have holy months ā the seventh as the "sabbath" month, and the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth as sanctified by special feasts ; ^ and seasons of holy festivals ā the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles among others ; and years, ā for though the Jubilee year has fallen into disuse since Solomon's time, the Sabbath year is still kept.^ 11. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have spent my labour on you in vain.
This anxiety breaks out into a tender entreaty to retrace their steps.
12. I beseech you, brethren, be, as I am, free from Judaism, for I, when I forsook Judaism became like you, putting myself on the footing of your non observance, in
1 Dio. Cass. Franckfort, 1592, p. 38, 666; Ewald, AlUrth. 39 i ; KeiL Arch. 368 ; Rom. xiv. 5, 6.
' Ewald, 411, 424; Keil, 371. Nothing is said of the Galatian<Ā» having as yet accepted circumcision, nor is anything said <it Jewish laws of food except so far as they were implied in the observation oi daya, &c.
40 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
your then heathen standing, of the Mosaic law. Do as much for me, in love, as I did for you. When I was among you preaching the gospel, you did not in any way treat me unkindly, but, 13. though, as you know, it was only by the fact of my then suffering from bodily infirmity, and being thus detained amidst you, contrary to my intention, that I preached the Gospel to you, on that, my first visit, 14. you neither despised nor rejected my message and appeals, on account of my feeble, suffering presence, which was a great temptation to you to do, but, on the contrary, yielded yourselves so fervently to them, that you received me as an angel of God, and indeed as one immediately repre- senting Christ Jesus Himself. 15. But where, now, is all this congratulation of yourselves as so favoured through my visit ; was it, after all, only a sentimental, passing, super- ficial excitemsnt ? For I bear you witness, that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. 16. Am I then become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? 17. They who say I am, eagerly seek to win you for their own views, in an unworthy way ; they wish to shut you out from any teacher not of their clique, that you may become zealous on their side. 18. But it is well to be abidingly zealous for the good ā that is, for the true gospel I taught you, and not merely, as in your case, when I am present with you. 19. My little children, ā as a mother's labour-pains only cease when her child is bom ā I, in my striving, amidst grief and sorrow, to bring you to the blessed Christian life, am like a mother whose trouble is on her still, and will be so till Christ be fully formed in you, ā that is, till you be brought to the full maturity of true Christians. 20. Indeed, were it possible, I would fain oe with you even now, and speak to you in a different way ā softly and gently, instead of my present tone of censure and rebuke ; for I am perplexed about you.
Paul cannot, however, get away from his subject, and iuddenly begins, at the close of the theoretical part of hia
PAUL Mr. e. 44 eptstle to the galatians 41
letter, a fresh aspect of his anti-legal controversy, bring- ing forward a learned Rabbinical argument from the law itself, designed to overthrow the false teachers with their own weapons, and to confute them on their own ground. The allusion to the readiness of the Galatians even to pluck out their eyes and give them to him, had it been possible, certainly appears to favour the idea that amidst other physical troubles, the Apostle then suffered from some disease like ophthalmia ; ^ but on the other hand it may be only a strong recognition of their unbounded devotion to him, as when we say we would willingly give our heart's blood for one we love, or use a similar outburst of tender endearment towards a sufferer. Moreover, the Apostle's figure of a " stake in the flesh" ā "a messenger from Satan," to " buffet " him, as one is beaten by the fists of a strong pugilist, hardly seems to suit an attack in the eyes. But he may have been troubled in this sad way in addition to his standing malady, whether epilepsy or something equally distressing and overpowering.
21. Tell me, ye who desire to be under the law, do ye not continually hear the law read in your assembly, and, if you already frequent it, in the Jewish synagogue also ? 22. For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl, Hagar, and one by the free-woman, Sarah. 23. But the son by the slave-girl is born simply after the flesh, like an ordinary child, whereas the son by the free-woman is born by tlie interposition of God, in fulfilment of the promise. 24. But these things contain an allegory, that is, they embody another meaning than appears on the surface : for these two women are the two covenants : one from Mount Sinai, whose children, as those of a slave-mother, inherit her condition, and me horn into bondage, representing, as Sinai does, Hagar, the slave-
^ Weizacker, 214.
42
THE APOSTLES
A.D. 54
girl. 25. For Hagar is the name given in Arabia to Mount āŗSinai ; at Isast the local name sounds like it ; and thus the allegorical meai.ing of the history is confirmed, by Sinai and the slave-girl being known by the same name, and hence Ilagar corresponds to the present Jerusalem, that is to the Jewish capital, for she, as Hagar was, is in the condition of slavery, with her children, to the Mosaic law. 26. But it is quite different with the Christian kingdom of God, the Jeru-
Gebel Musaā The Mount of Moses, or " Mount Sinai," from the roof of the Convent of St. Catherine.
salem that is above, which, in the allegory, is represented by Sarah, and, like her, the mother of us all, is free, for we are free citizens of it.^ 27. Here, indeed, is a proof from Scrip- ture, that no other than the free Jerusalem is our mother in Christ. For it is written,- ā Rejoice iltoii barren that bearest not ; break forth and cry, thou that tracalled not ; for more are the chihlren of the desolate than of her who has the husband.
1 Phil. iiL 20 ; Eph. ii. 19. 2 jsa. liv. 1, LXX.
PAUL iET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 43
The historical application of the prophecy, is a promise of the great increase of Israel after she returns from exile. The desolate, unpeopled Jerusalem, thus become like a barren wife, is summoned to rejoice because it will now become more populous than of old, when it had Jehovah for a husband. The Messianic fulfilment of the prophecy is seen by Paul in the great new people of God, which hails, as its mother, the Jerusalem that is above. Before they rose, this heavenly Jerusalem was still unpeopled and childless ; exactly like Sarah in the allegory, before she bore Isaac. But, through the Christian people of God, it has become a fruitful mother, richer in children than the Jerusalem that now is, which, till now, like Hagar, has had a husband ā God, as the Father of the outward Israel. This thought brings back the Apostle to the differeni relation of Abraham to Hagar, from that in which he stood to Sarah.
28. Now we. Christians, brethren, like Isaac, are children born not, like Ishmael, only by natural course, but of God's promise. 29. But, we, the spiritual children of Abraham, are persecuted by his fleshly children, as Isaac once was by Ishmael ; yet how great a failure this persecution will be, is clear from Scripture. 30. For what says the Scripture ?i ā Cast out the slave-girl and her son : for the son of the slave-girl shall not inherit along vnth the son of the free-woman. 31. Hence, therefore, brethren, since Scripture shows that, we are not children of a slave-girl, but of the free- woman ā V. 1. for Christ has freed us, that we may, indeed, be free, ā stand fast in your freedom from the bondage of the law, and be not entangled again in a yoke of slavery.
The Apostle now proceeds to show them in kindly warn- ing, the terrible danger with which they are threatened.
* Gen. xxi. 10.
44 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
V. 2. BelioM, I, Paul, tell you plainly, that, if ye receive circumcision, as a condition of salvation, according to your false teachers,^ Christ will profit you nothing. 3. For I once more solemnly affirm as before God, what I told you face to face when I was last with you, that every man who receives circumcision lays himself under obligation to keep the whole law, which, as you know, nobody can do perfectly, ^ and thus comes under its curse.-^ 4. In fact, if you look to the law for righteousness, you are severed from Clirist and have no more connection with Him, since those who do so, look to be justified by the law. All such are fallen away from the righteousness of God bestowed freely, of His grace ; not as due to you for your works. ^ 5. For we, on our part, who are not severed from Christ, and not fallen from grace, through the be itowal of faith, by God's Spirit, wait patiently for the realisation, at the judgment, of the hope of righteousness, thea to be declared ours, by Christ. 6. For to those who are in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any worth in the attaining righte3usness ; faith, working through love, is alone of value. 7. You were running well ; who has put a hindrance in your way that you should not still obey the truth, ā the true gospel, according to which faith alons makes us righteous ? 8. The counsel that persuaded you to this change, did not come from God, who calls you. 9. Take carel Remember the proverb, " A little leaven leavens, by-and-by, the whole lump." If these false teachers have won you over, even in a small measure, to unsound doctrine, it will end by the destruction of your entire Christian faith and life. 10. Yet I have confidence in you, resting and founded in Christ, the Lord, in whom I live and move, that, henceforth you will be none otherwise minded than I am. But he who is troubling you, will have to bear his condemnation, at the great judgment, whoever he be.
The Judaising teachers, to compromise Paul's influence
^ Acts XV. 1 ; xvi 3. ' Acts xiii. 39 ; xv. 10 ; Rom. viii. 8.
Ā» Chap, iiu 10. * Rom. iv. 11, 16 ; xi. 6.
PAUL JET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 45
in the churches he had founded, had given out falsely, perhaps because he had circumcised Timothy, that he, after all, himself, preached the necessity of circumcision, in other places. This calumny he contradicts.
11. But your false teachers actually maintain, I am told, that I myself still preach circumcision, as I did before my conversion. If so, why am I still persecuted 1 In tliat case, the stumbling-stone of the Cross being made the only ground of salvation, has been done away. 1 2. I would that they who unsettle you went further than the circumcision, and would even cut themselves off.^
13. For you, brethren, whom these men wish to enslave under the law, have been called by God, into the kingdom of His Son, not to slavery, but that ye miglit be free. Only, do not use your freedom as a pretext to indulge the desires of your lower nature, the flesh, but be bond-servants, one to another, in the fond services of mutual love. 1 4. For you will thus, in a real sense, keep the whole law, for all the law is fulfilled in honour- ing this one saying, ā I'/tou shalt love thy neighhour as tliyself. 15. But if, in your party-strifes, which now rag3 so among you, you bite and eat up each other, take heed that ye be not utterly destroyed by one another ; your Christian life being entirely ruined.
The mention of a possible contrast, so painful, between the ideal of brotherly love and the contentions now raised among them, leads naturally to fuller warnings and exhortations.
16. To avoid such a catastrophe then, I counsel you ā Walk by the Spirit of God ā the power which enables us to conquer the impulses of our lower nature ā follow Him, and, so, you shall not give way, to fulfilling the craving of the ā¢' flesh." 17. For the flesh and the Spirit are opposites in their desires : the flesh iusteth against tlie Spirit of God, and the Spirit against
^ Mutilate themselvea.
46 THE APOSTLE^ A.D. 54
the flesh ; for these two principles are contrary the one to the other ; counteracting each other so that you are, on each side, hindered from doing the things that ye would. If you wish to do good, the flesh, striving against the Spirit, opposes you ; if you wish to do evil, the Spirit, striving against the flesh, opposes. 18. But if, of these two contrary powers, the Spirit rules in you, how blessed the freedom you enjoy ! for if ye are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law, because, in that case, the law can have nothing against you.^
To illustrate this, Paul shows the essentially different spiritual results brought about in us, by the Spirit and tlie flesh ; those springing from the flesh, excluding us from Christ's kingdom, and leaving us under the curse of the law : those of the Spirit, on the other hand, being such as the law has nothing against.
1 9. Now the works of the flesh are plain to all, being these ā fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness ; 20. Idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, factions, divisions, heresies, 21. Envyings ; drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Of which I forewarn you, as I already did when with you, that they who prnctise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace of soul, and with others, long-suffering, kindness, goodness of heart, faith- fulness, meekness, self-control in all directions : against such there is no law.
The Christian has, as it were, died to the flesh, and lives through the Spirit, so that he follow the Spirit's guidance in his course.
24. But they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh, with its passions and lusts, when they believed and were baptized.
25. If, therefore, we live by the Spirit, owing our inner
^ Rom. vi. 4 ; rii. &
PAUL iET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 47
life to Him from the first, by the Spirit let us also waXk. 26. Let us not be vain-glorious, provoking one another to wider strife and contention, for triumph ; the one who is worsted, envying the other, who has worsted hinL
VI. 1. Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any lapse from right ā sin coming on him, as it were, before he could flee from itā ye virho profess that ye are spiritual, ā that is, that you are led by God's Spirit ā bring back such a one to the right, with meekness of spirit ; keeping your eyes on your- self, lest you, also, yours 3lf, like every fallen being ā be tempted and give way. 2. Bear ye one another's burdens of moral weaknesses, sympathising with each other, and helping each other's efforts after the right, and you will thus truly fulfil '<he law of Christ ā for He summed up all His commands in that of mutual love.^ 3. For if a man think himself to be something as a Christian, when, by the want of such love, he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4. But let every one test the real character of his own work, and then, if it stand the test, he will have ground for his self-satisfaction in regard to himself, and not in glorifying over his superiority in com- parison with his neighbour. 5. For each shall, after such a sell-examination, bear his own proper burden.
6. On the other hand, as members of a congregation, let him who is taught in the word, that is, in Christian truth, unite himself closely with his teacher, making common cause with him in all things that are good ā that is, in all Christian effort and activity. 7. Be not deceived, however, in this. Take care what you teach and what you do, as Christian helpers ; God cannot be mocked by appearances : for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. 8. For he who sows such seed as springs from a fleshly nature, for his own fleshly aims ā unworthy and unspiritual ā shall of the flesh reap destruction hereafter ; but he that sows ā that is, is so minded and so acts that his impelling principle is to obey and follow the lead of the Spirit, shall, from the Spirit, reap the harvest of eternal
1 Chap. V. 14 ; Matt. vii. 12 ; John xv. 12.
48 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
life. 9. And let us who thus sow to the Spirit not be tired out from keeping on in our good work ; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. 10. So then, as we have oppor- tunity, let us play the Christian toward all men, and especially toward those who are comrades in the faith ā the household of Christ
The Apostle had, to this point, dictated his letter to an amanuensis, as was his usual plan, but cannot refrain from adding the few words that remained in his own hand. His sensitive nature had been strained to the uttermost, by the moral disaster that had led to its being written. The long interval of seventeen years had passed, from his conversion, in A.D. 35, to his appear- ance, with Barnabas and Titus, at the Conference in Jerusalem, in the year 52. During most of these he had carried on his independent labours, first, at and round Damascus, and then in Syria and Cilicia, ā especially, we may suppose, in Antioch, the centre of the Pauline view of Christianity, ā in peace ; the Jewish-Christian churches of Judaea, with passive tolerance, while not committing themselves formally to the approval of his liberal views respecting the admission of non-Jews to fellowship, "glorifying God in him," for the good he was evidently doing. The reaction from the great struggle against Caligula, however, had roused the old Jewish zeal for the law, so nearly subverted by the insane " man- god," to a fanatical intensity, and this, in the churches of " Hebrews," in Judaea and Jerusalem, had gradually led to Paul's course being brought under discussion by the leaders of the new ultra-Judaising extremists. The quiet of the fourteen years from his first brief interview with Peter and James in the capital, was henceforth at an end.
PAUL MT. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 49
During all that long time Paul had been working in regions where Jews and Gentiles lived together, and had been gathering mixed churches ; not feeling it possible, as yet, to go so entirely counter to the prejudices of his race, as to found churches of heathen converts only. Strange to say, of these years we know nothing, for a single line in the letter to the Galatians is nearly all that is told us of them, and the thirteen years that still remained to the Apostle, till his death, in a.d. 65, of which four were spent by him as a prisoner, leaving only nine for his mighty labours as, distinctively, the Apostle of the Gen- tiles, furnish all the details preserved in the Acts, from the fifteenth chapter to the end, and yield us the whole of the Pauline Epistles.
But the conference at Jerusalem, which had, at last, been indispensable, if peaceful and worthy relations were to be established between the liberality of Paul and the narrowness of the Jewish-Christians, had proved essen- tially unsuccessful. He was, assuredly, sanctioned as the Apostle of the heathen, but nothing had been said of the central difficulty of circumcision, though Paul had vindi- cated his course respecting it, by stoutly resisting the de- mand of the Extremists that Titus should be circumcised ; his presence as a non-Jew, in the Church assemblies, in their opinion, defiling all who came in contact with him, and also subverting the true faith, which, they maintained, made salvation dependent on submission to the Jewish lite. The compromise finally accepted was only an illus- tration of the lines in Hudibras ā
" He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still."
The heads of the Jerusalem Church were ready to acknow-
III D
50 THE APOSTLES A.D. $4
ledge Paul as sent by God to the Gentiles, but, while giving him the right hand of fellowship, and, for the moment, even generous in their bearing towards his views, they clung, as it proved, in their hearts, to their own. The agitation raised in Paul's head church at Antioch, by some brethren who "came from James" at Jerusalem, ā that is, as his representatives, after everything appeared to be settled, opened the wretched controversy more fiercely than ever ; their influence as spokesmen for the brother of Christ, and for the voice of the mother church, carrying away even Barnabas and Peter. From that time to the close of Paul's life, the truce of Jerusalem was completely ignored. Jewish emissaries, professing to have been sent by James, as those who created such distur- bance at Antioch had been, followed the Apostle every- where, stirring up doubt and trouble in the heathen- convert churches of every province, as to the soundness of Paul's teaching, and even as to his claims to act as an Apostle at all. Independence of the old Apostles was, in their view, flat blasphemy. Strict obedience to the voice of what was glorified as that of " Authority " was a mark of orthodoxy, and essential to any office in the churches from the lowest to the highest. To differ from it, that is, from James, was heresy, and the offender was to be repudiated as a heretic. No wonder that Paul felt intensely such attacks, from brother Christians, and no wonder he fought earnestly against them, believing, as he did, that their insistence on the necessity of complete submission to the law of Moses, with all its intolerable burden of rabbinical rites and rules, as a condition of salvation, was fatal to the spirituality of Christ's religion, false in its conception of the grounds of man's hope before
PAUL JET. C 44 EPISTI.E TO THE GALATIANS 51
God, and a degradation of what was designed by Divine grace aĀ« a faith for all mankind, to the level of a mere Jewish sect.
I'aking the stylus, therefore, from the hand of his amanuensis, before liis letter to the Galatians, who had been so disturbed and misled by this Jewish propaganda, was closed, he added, in large letters, as if to impress on all the depth of his emotions, but, perhaps, also, from being little used to correspondence without an interme- diary,ā a brief pregnant summing up of the whole ques- tion, in words quivering with intensity of feeling.
11. See with what large letters I have written what follows, with my own hand ! 12. As to this rite sought to be imposed on you, they, and they alone, who wish to make a fair show of religiousness, while still living in the flesh, that is, still under the sway of their lower, sinful nature, press you to be circumcised, from the one single motive, on their part, that they may not be persecuted by the Jews, which they would be, on account of the Cross of Christ, if they were to admit that it alone, not circumcision, was necessary to salvation. 13. For, far from their aiming, through this zeal for their rite, to secure your exact and full observance of the law, not even they themselves, clamorous though they be that you receive circumcision, keep the law ā hypocrites that they are, ā but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your persons, as won over to Judaism by them, and that they may thus please the Jews, and escape persecution at their hands. 14. But ā let them glory in circumcision if they choose, ā far be it from me to glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesiis Christ, than which, indeed, I have nothing of which I could boast, for by it the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world, 15. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, as regards salvation, but only the having become a new creature, and thus being free from the
52 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
law of sin and death, and a child and heir of God ! ^ 16. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and upon all the true Israel of God ā that is, all who, like me, glory only in the Cross !
17. From henceforth let no man trouble me, by trying to thwart or annoy me, or, questioning my authority. Jesus is my Master, not James, and, as such, is with me. I bear His marks of ownership branded on my body ; the scars and other memorials of the wounds and ill treatment I have home in His service, as His apostle, proving I am His, and pledging His taking my part.
18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren ! Amen.
Thus closes, with a tender prayer for the Galatian con- verts, an Epistle which unhappy circumstances had made exceptionally severe in its tone. As to himself, it was the open proclamation of his final separation from Judaism in every sense ; a separation which had cost him, in many ways, so dear, that he could only compare it to death.^ At Jerusalem he had simply claimed freedom for the heathen-Christians ; in this Epistle, as by word of mouth at Antioch, he went further, demanding that Jewish- Christians give up the law, as contrary to the liberty and spirituality of the true Gospel. The great dispute was thus at last developed to its logical issue. When face to face with a largely heathen-Christian assembly at Antioch, Peter, representing the Apostles, had to decide if the fellowship, extended at Jerusalem to Paul and Barnabas, was to be extended to all Jewish-Christians, and after a temporary wavering he had drawn back to the Judaising position. Paul, it is to be noticed, does not say that he quite won the day at Antioch, as he would
^ Rom. viii. 2. 16, Ac ' Rom. vii, 9.
PAUL iET. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 53
no doubt have done had that been the case. He had only- justified the right of heathen converts to the freedom he had advocated, and had to grieve over the final separation of the Jewish-Christians from them. Henceforth, the truce under which he had carried out his mission with the passive goodwill of the Palestine churches, was im- possible. The new wave of Judaising zeal at Jerusalem under James, whom rumour, in the end, painted as being granted Jewish priestly rights in the Temple for his passionate Legalism,^ left him no alternative but to turn definitely to the Western world, and devote himself wholly to his special commission, received from the lips of Christ Himself. From this time we no longer read of his labouring in Syria. Asia Minor, and lands still far- ther west from Palestine, were now his one ample field. There, he might have expected to be comparatively safe from the bitter fury of the Judaisers, now roused to fana- tical intensity. But if his great heart fancied that sec- tarian hate, confounding itself, as it always does, with zeal for God, and claiming infallibility for its theology, would let him work in peace, he was soon disillusioned, as we have seen, by Jerusalem agitators following his steps to Galatia, and there turning everything into con- fusion. But Paul was not the man to give ground, even an inch, when the fundamental principles of truth were assailed. At Antioch, the question of circumcision, as I have said, had not been raised. The strife had centred round the social relations of Jewish and heathen Chris- tians. Now, however, the Apostle threw away the scab- bard, and abandoning all compromise, attacked, instead of merely defending. The law, he had boldly maintained,
^ Eu8. chap. ii. 28.
54 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
in this Epistle, was abrogated, in the Judaisiiig sense of its being obligatory on Christians and essential to salvation, and, was, indeed, incompatible with faith in Christ, and the grace promised by God through that faith. The Jew might remain a Jew, but he must abandon his old ideas. Circumcision and uncircumcision are equally valueless before God. Nothing avails with Him but a new creature ; the new creation which constitutes the Israel of God. Of this he is so certain, that he casts from him all thought of anything else. The Cross of Christ is his one glory. Outside the interests of his crucified Master, the world, Jewish or heathen, is nothing to him, any more than it would be to a dead man. With this he closes, as with a shout of triumph ; anticipating that into which he afterwards burst, when writing to the Corinthians, ā Thayiks he to God, luho gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Why should he trouble himself with the wrangle of sectaries, and effeminate questions of ritual ? Does he not bear on his person, broken and scarred as it is, the seal of Christ that he is His ? They knew what he meant. Marks of ownership were branded on household slaves, and he was of the household of God ; they were branded on the slaves of special temples, as belonging to the gods worshipped in them, and he was a willing bondman of his God and Saviour Jesus Christ ; captives were sometimes thus branded with the name of their captors, and he was proud to be led about as a captive of Christ, in His triumphal advance from land to land. Soldiers at times branded on themselves the name of a commander they loved, and he was a soldier of the Great Captain of Salvation ; so absolute in devotion to Him that he could
PAUL MT. C. 44 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 55
say, he himself no longer lived, but rather Christ lived in him !
The further course of the controversy in Galatia is not mentioned, but we know that Paul's work was not entirely subverted, for Galatia took its full share in the great collection made for the poor brethren in Jerusalem, and Gains of Derbe accompanied him on his fatal journey with it ; that journey that led to the Apostle's long im- prisonment at Caesarea and afterwards at Rome ; ending abruptly, while he was in the fulness of his powers, the vast career of usefulness for Christ, which he had bo fondly anticipated.
CHAPTER ra
haul's third missionary journey
AUTUMN, A.D. 54 TO AUTUMN, A.D. 57
A.S far as rest was possible to so fiery a spirit, Paul had rested during the summer months of A.D. 54, amidst his numerous friends at Antioch, and enjoyed the pleasure of loving intercourse with the great Heathen-Christian community which he had virtually created ; a repose and refreshment much needed after his long wanderings amidst strange peoples, the multiplied perils of travel, and the strain and exhaustion of almost overwhelming troubles and labours in his missionary work. Amidst the natural beauties of the Syrian capital, with its paradise of river, plain, and mountain, and its tide of many coloured life, so dear to the Apostle, as, in heart a man of cities, and city ways and tastes, he must have gathered renewed strength and energy, though doubtless he was never idle, for the relaxation of such a man would be, at most, only a change of work. To win new converts, to confirm weak brethren, to oppose *'the concision," and to animate all, would fill every waking moment with the occupations he most loved.
But the missionary fever in his soul knew only brief lulls and intermissions. Like Xavier, his cry, to the latest hour of his life, was '' AmjdmSj Ampliust^* " Farther on, Farther on ! " Besides, the Judaisers had
PAUL MT. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 57
not only slint him out, in great measure, from Palestine, but had been playing the wolf to the flocks he had gathered in Asia Minor. The state of things he had been forced to combat in his letter to the Galatians, just written, required his presence among the churches thus cruelly invaded. Peter, to whom Christ had appeared first, after His resurrection, had become the chief man at Jerusalem, as, indeed, was natural, even on this ground. But it was additionally so from its having been he, who, when the band of Galileans had lost heart, after Calvary, had restored the faith of the disciples in the Risen Jesus, as if in designed obedience to the command that " when once " he had " turned again " he should " stablish his brethren."^ Thus honoured as the head of the mother chLirch, he had, since the dispute at Antioch, been also recognised as the symbol of Jewish-Christianity, so that Paul, in preaching his liberal views, found this great autho- rity quoted against them.. Every consideration, therefore, impelled him to start once more to the West.
Silas had been his companion on his last journey, but appears to have remained behind at Jerusalem, on the Apostle leaving it, apparently so abruptly, for the more congenial Antioch. He was one of the leading men in the mother church, holding a place among its "prophets;" an office mentioned next that of an Apostle,^ and, though also including the inspired gift of prediction, in the main, equivalent to that of a preacher, since Paul tells us that " he that prophesies, speaks to men edification, and comfort and consolation."* Silas, nobly faithful, though difl[ering from Paul on the Jewish- Christian ques- tion, had gone with him through the second missionary
* Luke xxii. 32. - 1 Cor. xii. 28. Ā» 1 Cor. xiv. 3.
58 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
journey, had been in jail with him at Philippi, and, after remaining behind in Beroea, to establish the church there more firmly, had returned to the Apostle at Corinth, where he was his honoured fellow-worker.^ His name, indeed, is even associated with that of Paul in the greet- ing to the brethren, in the Epistles to the Thessalonians. But from the time of his return to Palestine with the Apostle, he disappears from the companions of Paul, having, probably, returned to his mission to his Jewish brethren, since we find him, afterwards, in the company of Peter, whose first letter to the churches of Asia Minor was taken to them by him ; Peter calling him "our faithful brother." 2
Timothy, however, and Titus, seem to have set out again with their beloved father in Christ.^ Erastus, in all probability not the Corinthian convert of that name, who, as treasurer of the city,* could not have travelled about with Paul, but an unknown brother of the same name, is mentioned as with him at Ephesus,^ and so, also, are two Macedonians, Gaius and Aristarchus ; the one from Derbe, in Lycaonia ; the other, from Thessalonica.^ Nothing detailed is stated of Gaius, but the exemplary devotion of Aristarchus, led him to cling to the Apostle, through all the future vicissitudes of bis career, for we find him sharing his prison at Caesarea, sailing with him to Rome, and staying at his side while a prisoner in the Praetorian camp.^
* Acts xvi. ; xvii. 10, 14 ; xviii. 5; 2 Cor. i. 19. ' 1 Pet. v. 12.
3 Acts xix. 22 ; 1 Cor. iv. 17 ; xvi. 10 ; 2 Cor. i. 1 ; Rom. xvi. 21 ā ā Acts XX. 4 ; 2 Cor. xii. 18 ; compare with 1 Cor. xvi. 11, \'2.
* Rom. xvi. 23. " Acts xix. 22. Ā« Acts xix. 20.
^ Acts xix. 29 ; xx. 4 ; CoL iv. 10 ; Pliilem. 24 ; Acts xxvii. 2 ; 2 Tim Iv. IL
PAUL MY. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 59
Nothing is said of the route taken on this new journey, beyond the bare fact that Paul and his companions " went through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, in order, stablishing all the disciples." ^ It was now about twenty years since the vision near Damascus had, on the instant, transformed the furious Jewish zealot into the most illustrious of Christian missionaries, and, during all that time, he could say he had " laboured more abundantly than all the other apostles ; " though he modestly added, " Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." ^ He had been three years preaching in Damascus, after his return from Arabia; eleven years labouring, in isolated independence of Jerusalem, throughout Syria and Cilicia,^ and since then, had made his first and second missionary journeys, with intervals of labour at his headquarters, the Syrian capital, Antioch. Clad with zeal as a cloak,* he had lived not for himself, but for Him, who for his sake had died and risen again from the grave ; ^ patient in tribulations for His name ; cheerfully suffering the loss of all things, and treating them as worthless, that he might be found in Christ at the great day ; ^ " filled," moreover, amidst all trials, " with comfort ; " and " over- flowing with joy," ^ for the " glorious hope " thus set before him.
That one so devoted to his Master, should have im- plicitly followed His instructions to the Apostles, as to their missionary work, may be taken for granted. He and his companions, . therefore, would travel poorly indeed, for they had been forbidden to take any coin in their girdles, ā the Oriental purse; ā or the bag in which
Ā» Acts xviii. 28. * 1 Cor. xv. 10. Ā« Gal. i. 18. < Isa. lix. 17.
ā¢ 2 Cor. V. 15. Ā» Rom. xii. 12 : Phil. iii. 8. '8 Cor. viu 4.
60 THE APOSTLES ' A.D. 54
Jews carried about with them their simple fare, safe from defilement ; or a second coat or pair of sandals. Staff in hand, they would walk on, from stage to stage of their long routes, seeking food and shelter as they advanced, from brother Jews, or converts willing to receive them ; the only but ample repayment they could render, being the invocation of peace on the dwelling that had welcomed them,^ and the announcement to their host and his little circle, of the great message with which they had been intrusted. Where there was a synagogue, they used the opportunity its customs afforded, of preaching to a larger audience, and thus laid the foundation, soon to be opposed, of a new Christian community.
Of the labours of the Apostle, till he reached Ephesus, we know nothing, except that they "went through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, stablishing all the dis- ciples ; " that is, over the ground of Paul's previous journeys, in his former visits to these parts. Face to face with the Juclaisers who had given him such trouble, he would, "with all boldness ^ know, not the word of them who were puifed up, but the power," vigorously using the " rod " of his keen intellect and strong emotions on the agitators, while bearing himself towards their dupes with his wonted " love and spirit of meek- ness."* We can imagine how warmly he would push aside the arguments, which had inclined so many " Gala- tians" to Judaism, telling them the real truth, and warning them of their danger, if they left Christ for the bondage of the Law. But he did not forget, even here, his promise given to the Jerusalem Apostles, to gather
1 Matt. X. 9 f. ; Mark vi. 8 f. ; Luke ix. 3 f. ā¢ Phil. i. 20. Ā» 1 Cor. iv. 19-21.
PAUL MT. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 61
contributions to relieve the deep poverty of too many of the brethren in the Holy City ; his hope, we may believe, being, that, apart from the gratification of his personal sympathy, zeal in this matter might perhaps help towards reuniting the divided parties ā the Jewish-Christians and his own followers ā and closing the wretched strife which was paralysing the work dear to both. The local churches were directed, therefore, to make free-will offerings for Jerusalem, on each first day of the week ; for our Sunday, though it had not as yet supplanted the Jewish Sabbath, by any formal ecclesiastical utterance, was already prac- tically adopted in its stead, by Christians, as sjjecially sanctified by the Resurrection of their Lord. Every one was expected to be generous, and the whole amount gathered, was, finally, to be transmitted to the mother church by trusty hands. ^
The Galatian countries, dear to Paul by so much triumph and so many sorrows, would be reached by him and his little band of fellow- workers, by the often tra- velled, and always tedious route, along which all who had to reach them from Antioch, had to travel. It ran north, through the frowning, laborious, ascents of the Syrian Gates; then, still north, along the edge of the Bay of Issus, now that of Scanderoon, with its fringe of mountains over 5000 feet high, in many of its peaks, some of which they had seen, more than eighty miles off, from the neighbourhood of Seleucia They would thus pass over the great battle-field, in which Alexander wrested the sceptre of world-dominion, for ever, from Asia, and secured Europe for Western civilisation and development ;
^ 1 Cor. xvL 1 ; 2 Cior. viil 9 ; Rom. xv. 25, 26 ; Gal ii. 9, 10 ; Actc xxiv. 17.
62 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
beating back the Asiatic despotism that had thieatened to invade it. But Paul was too preoccupied by enthu- siasm for still more glorious victories ; under the leading of a Conqueror before whom, even the wondrous Mace- donian paled away. From Issus, the track ran due west, about sixty miles, to Paul's native Tarsus, where he would find a few, including possibly some of his own family, who loved him as of old, in spite of his having gone over to the service of the Nazarene. The Jewish ghetto as a whole, must, however, by this time, have risen against so daring an innovator on the ancestral faith, and, as in other places, would not he slow, by stirring up the heathen town rabble, if other means failed, to make him realise what he put in words a few years later, that "the Holy Ghost testified to him in every city, that bonds and im- prisonments abide him."^ But his stay in the home of his childhood would be brief. He had presently to climb the pass known as the Cilician Gates, under the shadow of black peaks covered atop with snow even in June ; up narrow gorges where a vehicle could hardly pass ; along ledges equally awful above and below, till, about thirty miles from Tarsus, exhausted by the continual ascent, he and his friends at length reached the plateau of central Asia Minor.
Skirting the north foot of the Taurus, through its wild and half-civilised clans, robbers by hereditary instinct, they would come to Derbe first, then to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia ; turning aside, perhaps, here and there, to visit communities of which the names have not reached us. But these communities were not the ulti- mate object of the journey. Paul's supreme desu'e was
1 Acts XX. 23.
PAUL ^T. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 63
to preach the Gospel to every land, before Christ came, and to effect this, he could not rest long in any one region.^ Always seeking hitherto unbroken ground, in which he might sow the " good seed of the kingdom," he left it to others to reap.^ But for tlie fact that Chris- tianity had already been carried to Rome by some un- known disciples, he would, perhaps, have pushed on thither at this time, for he was eager to visit it.* He was resolved however to see it sooner or later, and, to go, thence, to Spain, the land furthest to the west. But, in the providence of God, he reached the imperial city at last, only as a prisoner, and it is a question -whether he ever got to Spain at all. Jesus had said that the Apostles would " not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come,"* and if the great event were so near, he, as the Apostle of the heathen world, could not press on too eagerly if he hoped to carry out, in time, his great commission, received from the very lips of the glorified Christ, to bring about "obedience to the faith among all nations ! " ^ How he strove to fulfil this great task is shown in each new chapter of his story.
Having at last gone over all his old stations, " in order;" soothing agitations, rebuking presumption, correcting error, cheering depression, animating zeal, ordaining the simple constitutions of these primitive brotherhoods, and in all other ways smoothing the path for them, the Apostle and his companions set out for the great pro- vince of "Asia," which he had not previously been able to enter. Ephesus, its capital, a peculiarly favour- able centre for wide influence, was the point for whict
^ Rom. i. 5. ^ John iv. 88. ^ Rom. zv. 2a
* Matt. X. 23. " Rom. I 6.
64 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
he made. The ordinary route to it from Antioch of Pisidia, was by the great Roman road which passed, south- west, between two long ranges of hills, on the north side of Lake Anava, through Apameia, Colossas, and Laodicea, and, thence, along the sweet valley of the Meander, where the track runs nearly due west. We read, however, in the Epistle to the Colossians,^ that the Christians of Colossge and Laodicea had not, when it was written, been visited by Paul, and we learn from Acts ^ that he *' passed through the upper country," instead of taking the lower route ; descending from the central plateau, only on reach- ing the coast plain on which Ephesus stood. Hence he must have travelled by a familiar and much frequented upland track, unfit for vehicles, but often preferred for journeys on foot, as shorter ; a striking undesigned coin- cidence with the statement of Acts, which goes far to shake one's faith in the free and easy criticism, which finds itself able, in many places, to seem wiser than the writer of the narrative.
The " setting in order " of established societies had ended with Antioch of Pisidia, and, from that point, the ground was new and unbroken. There would, therefore, be nothing to hinder a steady journey across the elevated mountain country of Higher Phrygia, and as the length of the road was less than that of the great lower one, while the mountain air would be much cooler, the march through the hills, which was still one of considerably over two hundred miles, would be sooner finished and less fatiguing.
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PAUL MT. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 67
stretcheB south-east from the beach, for about two miles, throwing off spurs, south and north ; two hills, one famous as Prion, with charming intervals between them, rising on the north side, somewhere about a mile back from the sea. A great inner harbour, now a swamp, stretched out north of the city, which filled in the wide spaces on the slopes of Coressus, swept round Prion, and covered the evel ground, from these higher levels, to the sides of the inner harbour. From this a broad artificial opening led to the river Cayster, about five hundred yards from its mouth, just before it began the endless sinuosities in which it twisted its slow way towards the sea. The whole scene has, indeed, been changed since Paul's day ; the elevation of the coast along western Asia Minor having filled up the mouth of the little river, leaving it to disembogue as it best may, which it has done by turning the lower levels, far and near, into a pestilential swamp.
Ephesus was the capital of proconsular Asia, but prided itself far more on having been " a holy city " from its earliest days. The honoured centre of the city, and even of the district, was the temple of Artemis or Diana, who had taken the place of the Phoenician Astarte, once wor- shipped on the same spot, by the old traders of Tyre and Sidon, sailing thither for traflBc, or settled as at a trading post. With the temple of Esculapius at Pergamos, it divided the religious enthusiasm of the regions even beyond the great province of "Asia." The pilgrims to it were innumerable, and must have derived great benefit from the goddess, if their profit was at all equal to that which the town drew from them as visitors. Nothing now remains of the mighty sanctuary, except the bases of some pillars, which have been uncovered, within the last
68 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
thirty years, by the skilful excavations of Wood. The road leading to it was found, by digging along the bounds of the cultivated spots, which, it was shrewdly suspected, must have bordered it : the conservatism of the peasant having, as it proved, clung to the old paths, even for ages after the architectural glories to which they originally led, had perished. Guided by this first discovery, and baring the ancient track to a depth of about twenty feet below the surface, the stones still left of the vast fabric were finally disclosed ; some of them, now enriching the British Museum.
The temple was four times larger than the Parthenon at Athens, and was shrouded in a forest of one hundred and twenty-eight fluted columns, each sixty feet high, resting on pedestals covered with bas-reliefs. Groups of sculpture, altars, and statues, rose on every side, amidst magnificent groves, through which one looked out to the hills. The great building itself, roofed with cedar beams, concealed an image of the goddess which was believed to have fallen from heaven, and to have remained, still unchanged and undecayed, after centuries. But a mys- tery hung round even its appearance and material, some maintaining it was of vine-wood, others that it was ebony, cedar, or even stone.^ It appears, however, really, to have been of wood, and to have shown, in its rudeness, and in its being covered with breasts, a connection with the ancient Oriental worship of the region, in which all existence was traced to the many breasts of Nature, as the common mother. We must not, therefore, imagine a graceful form, like that of the Grecian Diana, girt at the waist, and equipped, as a huntress, with bow and quiver, * Vitruv. ii. 9 ; Plin. xvi. 40 ; Xen. Anab. v. 3, 12.
PAUL iET. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 69
but a half barbaric image, terminating below, in a shape- less block, like an inverted cone, so that the whole figure resembled a mummy ; this strange terminal portion being covered with forms of mystical creatures. Such, at least, is the most probable description of the sacred emblem, which was kept in a secret shrine, like those one sees in the Egyptian temples, shrouded from all eyes by a thick veil, like the curtain before the Jewish Holy of Holies. A temple dating from remote antiquity had stood on the same site, but had been replaced about B.C. 600, by a gi'ander one, which, however, was burned down, on the night of the birth of Alexander the Great, in July B.C. 356, by a madman ; popular belief "laiming, however, that the Bacred image remained uninjured by the conflagration. The temple of Paul's day had been begun at once, after the fire, but it took over two centuries to complete the grand edifice. Built in a marsh, like the Church of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg, it rested, like it, on an elaborate foundation ; in this case, it is said, of great quantities of charcoal and wool, rammed hard, to secure solidity. All Western Asia Minor eagerly coutributed to the restoration. Women gave their ornaments, the people, far and near, brought rich gifts, and something was got from the wreck of the destroyed sanctuary. The mighty pillars enclosing the temple, were of the Ionic style, as best suited for a building in a plain, and, as Pliny tells us, were of Parian marble, each the gift of a king. Outside, the great fane measured 425 feet in length and 220 in breadth.* The pedestals of the 128 columns, as I have said, were
^ St Paul's (London) is 514 feet long and 286 feet broad ; Westminster A.bb(. y is 530 feet long and 203 feet broad. St. Peter's at Rome is, iusidai 676 feet b^ 423.
70
THE APOSTLES
A.D. 54
covered with sculptures by the greatest masters, but the shafts also, of 36, were similarly adorned. Immense stones, such, we must suppose, as one still sees at Karnak, and other Egyptian temples, ā for there is nothing similar at P^stum, or in the old Greek temples of Sicily, ā joined column to column, above ; stones ^Derhaps as huge as I saw at Baalbek, measuring over seventy feet in length. Inside, the cedar roof was borne up by columns of jasper, on bases of Parian marble ; columns precious as those of malachite which adorn the interior of the Russian St.
Tempie of Diana at Ephesus on a Coin of Hadrian.
Isaac's, or St. Alexander Newsky's. Sculptures and paint- ings by the greatest masters took the place of the monu- mental creations in our cathedrals, and the pillars glittered with votive offerings of all kinds, from the modest gift of the lowly, to the splendid presentations of kings ; as did the porches of the Temple at Jerusalem, or as is seen in Greek or Roman Catholic churches abroad, in a feeble way, still. That Athens should boast of the Palladium, or Paphos of its image of Venus, or Sicily of its Ceres, or Pes- sinus of its Cybele, or Hyettus of its Hercules, as fallen from heaven, is comprehensible, for they seem to have been
PAUL MT. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 71
meteoric stones ; but that a wooden image should have been honoured with a celestial origin, illustrates strikingly, how infinitely credulous and unreasoning is mankind, in presence of objects of its fear or superstitious reverence.
The Oriental origin of the cult transferred by the Ephesians to Diana, or Artemis, and its grossness, are impressively indicated by the fact, that its priests were required to be eunuchs ; a strange compliment to the chaste goddess. The European races abhorring mutila- tion, these wretched beings were from Phrygia or Western Asia, and, with reputedly virgin priestesses, and throngs of temple slaves, were alone permitted to celebrate the rites of the Great Mother. Paul must constantly have seen the hideous midnight processions of these functionaries. In Marc Antony's time, a century before Paul's (B.C. ? 83-30) the temple was outside the walls, but it must have been at least close to them when the Apostle was in Ephesus. With such a centre of impurity and pollution as its glory, the moral tone of the city may be imagined, but it was lowered J^till more, from the right of sanctuary having always prevailed, to a greater or less distance round the sacred building ; creating a wide riot of privileged crime and vice, within the favoured limits, and debauching the morality of the community as a whole.
Ephesus was thus, above all, the city of the great Diana, the goddess iu whose worship was finally blended, that of all other deities, honoured, during many centuries, on the same spot, ā the Assyrian Istar, the Phoenician Astarte, and the goddess of western Asia Minor known as Ma, Cybele, or Anaitis. Through century after century, its Asiatic rites and splendour had captivated the senses of the population ; alike in the city and over wide regions ;
72 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
making her temple as much to the Ephesians as that of Jerusalem was to the Hebrews. Yet their city was too favoured by its position, and as the seat of the Roman proconsul, to be exclusively given over to religious fanati- cism. Hence, apart from its temple, Ephesus was, in every sense, magnificent. At the foot of Mount Prion rose a great open-air, unroofed, concert hall, used also as a court of law ; on the top of the hill, was a temple to Olympian Jupiter ; at its eastern base, a gymnasium. Under the hill to the north of Prion, was a huge stadium, or race-course, and an open-air, unroofed theatre, which seated more than 25,000. A fine Corinthian temple and a noble market-place, sur- rounded by pillars, occupied a large space a little to the west. Great warehouses rose on the side of the inner li arbour, and, from the twin-hills to the distant quays, temples, only the names of which are preserved, on coins and medals, succeeded each other in a bewildering splen- dour; while statues, to-day in fragments, or long ago burned for lime, rose, in hundreds, along the various city avenues ; legends, as in all priest-towns, clinging round each, and indeed round every spot in the landscape ; for each bend of the hills was famous for some miracle of one or other of the gods.^ That the whole splendid vision has so utterly passed away, is due to the stones having been carried off, to construct other buildings elsewhere ; a great aqueduct, built before the advent of the Turk, having swallowed up vast quantities, while mosques and the like have been raised from smaller portions of the plunder. The soil, moreover, has been greatly raised by the alluvium of the Cayster, and doubtless still hides many substructions. As the centre of the pagan worship in Asia Minor, the temple of Diana,
^ Reclus, L'Asie Anterieure,
PAUL MT. C. 44 THTED MISSIONARY JOURNEY ^3
was one of the first objects of attack by tlie Iconoclasts of the reign of Theodosius I.; the wild fanaticism natural enough in men to whom paganism had been a living horror and a fierce foe, then destrojing it for ever.
The very favourable position of Ephesus made it the natural centre of trade, for Asia and the islands and countries to the west. Its commerce, in fact, grew day by day, till it had made it, in Paul's time, the most important business city of Asia Minor. Hence the Apocalypse, which was written about ten years later, most probably in Ephesus, may well owe its pictures of the great Koman Babylon, to the impressions made on St. John, by the vast and many-coloured commercial activity round him, in this mighty hive of men. Thus he often looks away to the sea, with its endless ships, ^ and ever and anon, sees before him the harbour, with its crowds of " shipmasters, and every one that sails any whitlier, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea."2 The wealth of its bazaars adds to the awfulness of its overthrow ā " merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet ; and all thyine wood (fragrant and costly), and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble ; and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour, and wheat and cattle, and sheep ; and merchandise of horses and chariots, and (the slaves who attended to them), and Bouls of men " ā slaves of all kinds, for lust, luxury, trades, domestic service, or field-work. Ephesus was,
' Rev. iv. 6; v. 13 ; vii. 1, 2 ; viii. 8 ; x. 2, 6 ; xiii. 1 ; xiv. 7 ; xr. 2 ; cviii. 17, 19 ; xx. 8, 13 ; xxi. 1. -' Rev. xviii. 17.
74 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
indeed, even a more famous slave-mart than Delos, where 10,000 were often sold in a day.^ Her merchants, to St. John, were "the princes of the earth." She was to perish, but, meanwhile, " the voice of harpers, and minstrels, and flute players, and trumpeters " and " the voice of the bridegroom and the bride," and the " voice of the millstone," mingled with all else, in the thousand sounds of its multitudinous life.^
A port which was the focus of trade from Italy and Greece, and the artery through which travel and com- merce spread over Western Asia, had, inevitably, a very mixed population. The district around was surpassingly rich, and wealth had accumulated to an enormous extent ; but the spirit of the community was Oriental in its servility. The inscriptions which remain, breathe the most cringing tone of submission to the greatness of Rome ; and, in keeping with this, the morality was of the lowest. The city had become a general rendezvous for courtesans and rakes. Magicians, or, as the Apocalypse calls them, sorcerers,^ swarmed ; with crowds of sooth- sayers, amulet makers, makers of little models of the Diana temple, medals, and every imaginable article sale- able as a "souvenir of Ephesus;" most of them associated with the worship of the famous goddess, or with some more or less gross superstition. There was, moreover, a peculiar local literature, smelling of the brothel ; for Ephesus, lying amidst the charms of an earthly paradise, was a favourite scene with the authors of the day, for their obscene love-stories. As at Antioch of Syria, the seductions of the climate indisposed men for anything
' Strabo, xiv. 985. Ā» Weizsaecker, 319 ; aud HaursrĀ»th, iii. 232.
' Rev. ix. 21 ; xviii. '23; xxi. 8 ; xxii. 15.
PAUL iKT. C. 44 THIIJD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 75
serious. Music, dancing, carousing, and licentiousness, were, in fact, the main occupation of the population : honest work being held worthy only of slaves, or the lowest classes. As might be expected in such a com- munity, impostures of all kinds throve so exceptionally, that it became the chosen home of not a few, of the more or less successful pretenders to miraculous powers. Astrology, exoicisms, and every form of imposture flourished. An immense sale was obtained even for bits of parchment scribbled over with unmeaning gibberish, as sovereign cures for all ailments, much as scraps of the Koran are now sold by the Mollahs of Central Asia, for turning water in which they have been steeped, into a specific for everything, from demoniac possession to toothache.
To the fervent Jew, such a city was indeed a new Sodom, or Babylon, as may be seen in the Apocalypse ; for St. John was intensely a Jewish-Christian. The " small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond " alike had the mark of the beast ā that is of idolatry, on theii* right hand, or on their fore- head, so that no man, not an idolater, could buy or sell, without being defiled.^ As a whole the citizens " repented not, . . . that they should not worship devils, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood ; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk : and they repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts." ^ On such places the Jew looked only with horror; in marked contrast to the feeling of Paul, who had been accustomed to a heathen population from his infancy, and 1 Rev. xiii. 16, 17. ' Rev. ix. 20, 21.
76 THE APOSTLES A.D. IJ4
had thus learned a charity, towards Gentiles, of which his race generally was incapable. To him Ephesus offered " an open door, great and effectual, though there were many adversaries, and therefore he would remain there till Pentecost."-^ Jewish-Christianity would, clearly, never win for Christ, a world from which it shrank as unclean and accursed.
Yet there had been a synagogue, or synagogues, in Ephesus long before the time of tlie Apostle, and the Jew had known how to propitiate the goodwill of the influential classes, so that the race lived in peace, with free permission to follow its religion. As, at Syrian Antioch, the Jews, having received the right of citizen- ship from Seleucns, were called Antiochians, those at Ephesns and the rest of Ionia, had been allowed to identify themselves with their fellow-citizens ; ^ while, having carefully sided with the Eomans, they had gained various special immunities. Thus Josephus tells us of their exemption from military service, and of the permission granted them by the proconsul Dolabella^ to use the customs of their forefathers, in assembling together for sacred purposes as their law required, and for collecting offerings needed for sacrifices at the Temple at Jerusalem ; the document recording this being addressed by him as "imperator," to "the senate, magistrates, and people of the Ephesiaus," and stating that the privileges named in it, were granted on the representations of an ambassador from Hyrcanus, the reigning high priest ā ethnarch of Palestine, " that his countrymen could not go into the army, because it was not lawful for them to bear arms, or
* I Cor. xvi. 8. Ā£. ~ ~og. cont. ^pion, ik Ā«.
* *.o. 70 ; murdered, b.o. -xo.
PAUL MT. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 77
to travel on the Sabbath-days, or to procure for them- Belves on those days the sorts of food they conld alone eat." ^ No doubt, plentiful bribery had aided Dolabella in his breadth of view.
But, in spite of all privileges, the spirit of Israel had long been sorely vexed by the abominations of " devil- worship " around, and hence we find that an Ephesian Jew had already, before the time of Paul, boldly assailed the Diana temple, in keen satire, laying bare all its hateful associations, and exalting the One God, by exposing the shame and folly of idolatry. A pretended letter of an old philosopher of Ephesus, Heraclitus, who had bitterly denounced the infamous morals of the city so long ago as about 500 years before Christ, supplied a mask from behind which the abuses of the community and of its religion could be scourged, for no bitterness would be out of keeping with the censor who, ages before, was believed to have said that the Ephesians, one and all, were only fit for hanging.^ He is especially shocked at the orgies of Cybele worship, which he, like Paul, must often have involuntarily seen, so far as they were public, in the midnight processions of her temple staff, amidst wild flute-music, and the clatter of cymbals, as the eunuch priests, the priestesses, and the crowds of temple-slaves, wheeled onwards, in obscene circling dances, with frantic shouts to the goddess ; the loose hair of the women flying every way ; the darkness scattered by blazing pine torches shaken aloft by priests and slaves, in delirious excitement : a scene never to be forgotten by the wor- ā¢hipper of Jehovah. This outrage on the Highest, the
1 Jos. ArU. xiv. 10, 12.
ā Pseudo-Heraclit. Ep. 8, 9, ed. ; Bernay*. 83 ft
78 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
Jew-H eraclitns resents and attacks, much as Paul doea in the Epistle to the Komans. The heathen philosopher was traditionally affirmed to have said that he could not laugh, in presence of the abominations he saw round him in the Ephesus of his day, and the hated idolatry which the Hebrew who wore his mask, everywhere encountered, made him, also, as saturnine. Like the Jew-Christian St. John, in Revelation, his soul was vexed by " names of blasphemy " wherever he turned, for the very titles of the emperors, "Augustus," "Divus," and " Sebastus " he regarded as blasphemous. The Roman power, em- bodied in the emperors, whom the Ephesians, and indeed the world, worshipped, " spoke great things and blas- phemies," in claiming divine honours, and "blasphemed God, His name, and His tabernacle, even them that dwell in the heaven," and, in like manner, " men blasphemed the name of God." ^ Roman Babylon, of which this great city must have seemed to St. John a prototype, has " in her hand a golden cup full of abominations ; " she is "the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth." ^ No name was too dreadful to apply to its people. He calls them "dogs," "fornicators," "murderers," and " idol-worshippers." ' The eloquence and ability with which the war against heathenism was thus waged, show that the Jews of Ephesus had no little literary culture, such as Alexandria, especially, boasted, and as the Christian, Apollos, who was of that city, but came to Ephesus, displayed. It is moreover, clear, that some Ephesian Jews by no means put their trading interests m the foreground, but rather their religious mission,
1 Rev. xiii. 1, 4-6 ; xvi. 9, 11, 21. * Eov. x?u. 4, 6.
* Rev. xxii. 15.
PAUL MT. C. 44 THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 79
Some Jewish Sybilline oracles which have come down to us show this very distinctly, in their warnings of the Divine wrath which would dismay heathenism, and by a prediction of the destruction of the Temple of Diana, which should precede the appearance of the Messiah. '* Turned to dust," we are told, "the house of Artemis, built gloriously in Ephesus, will rush, hereafter, amid shaking and trembling of the earth, into the awful flood of ocean, like a ship sucked by the whirlpool into the abyss. And downcast Ephesus weeps and laments on the strand, seek- ing its temple, in which no one will henceforth dwell ā for He who shakes the heavens brings to nought, in a moment, all the blasphemers together, by His thunder and brightness, and by the flames of His lightnings."^
The coming of the Messiah was thus the burning ques- tion with the Ephesian Jew, as with his race everywhere. One " Chaldean " of the city, Balbillus, indeed, got the ear of Nero, apparently by promising him the expected mystical throne of Jerusalem, on the ground of Old Testa- ment Messianic prophecies. 2 There was much in common, therefore, in the Jewish and Christian modes of thought of the day.
The way was further opened to Paul, by the presence in Ephesus of a small band of disciples of John the Bap- tist, who having, apparently, been roused to spiritual life by the great preacher, on the banks of the Jordan, had come back to Asia ; if indeed, they were not Palestine Jews who had, since then, wandered thither. His old friends, Aquila and Priscilla, moreover, with whom he had lodged at Corinth, had been settled in Ephesus since they left the Peloponnesus with him, and had been, as usual,
Ā» Friedlieb, 64, 70, 114- 2 Sueton. Nero, 40.
80 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54
zealous in tlieir efforts to win converts to Christianity. Their first trophy seems to have been one, Epsenetus, of whom Paul speaks as " his beloved, and the firstfruits of Asia to Christ."^ Andronicus and Junias, mentioned by him as his " kinsmen " and fellow-prisoners at Rome,^ are fancied by some to have lived at Epliesus, when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans, but this turns on the theory that the last chapter of that Epistle in reality belongs to a letter to the Ephesians ; a conjecture too bold for even some of the most advanced critics. In any case, Aquila and his wife, who, though only working people, have the singular honour of being connected with the beginnings of the churches of Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus, had gathered in EpaBuetus and the twelve disciples of John, fellow- workers, to spread the truth ; so that the soil was in some measure prepared for Paul before his arrival. Another more important addition was that of Apollos ; a man of fine parts, deeply versed in the Greek version of the Old Testament, of which Alexandria had been the birthplace, and in the philosophy of the school of Philo, which sought to reconcile Judaism with Greek culture and ideas. In rabbinical learning he had an especial name, being honoured as "mighty in the Scriptures," that is, in un- derstanding, expounding, and applying them, in accord- ance with the modes and rules of the Jewish schools. Either at Ephesus or earlier, he had met disciples of John the Baptist, who had instructed him as far as they could, "in the way of the Lord," though they were so imper- fectly acquainted with Christianity, that be was left igno- rant of there being a distinctly Christian baptism, and beard from them, only of that of John. Earnest and Ā» Rom. xvi. 5. ' Rom. xvi. 7, 11.
ā¢PAUL MT. C. 44 TITTTID MISSIONARY JOURNEY 81
energetic, even the knowledge thus obtained, partial as it was, roused him to active efforts to make more widely known, what he had learned respecting Jesus, by pro- claiming it boldly in the synagogue, and ''teaching zeal- ously " wherever he had an opportunity. He could, at least, point out that John had named our Lord as the Messiah, and evidently, himself, received Him as such. What little he knew, his fervent spirit compelled him to preach. Hearing him in the synagogue, the true-hearted Aquila, .working weaver as he was, decided, with his equally admirable wife Priscilla, that they would take him to their poor home, and " expound to him the way of God more perfectly." There is no notice, however, of his having been rebaptized ; a man so full of religious zeal clearly needing no new baptism, just as there was no new baptism of the Apostles, when they went over from John to Christ. In some cases, indeed, re-baptism was thought desirable, as we shall presently see, or was granted because desired, but we are not taught that it was essen- tial to every one.
A wish to go to Corinth, ā induced perhaps by what he had learned from Aqnila and Priscilla, of the work of Paul th( re, ā after a time, however, impelled the learned Alex- andrian to go thither, and " letters of commendation " in his favour, were therefore written ^ to the Corinthian " dis- ciples," by the brethren now gathered in Ephesus. Armed witli these credentials, he passed over the Archipelago to the great city of the Greek isthmus, where, we are told, " he helped them much who had believed, through grace ; for he powerfully confuted the Jews, and that publicly, ehowiiig by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." ^
' 2 Cor. iii. 1. Ā« Acts xviii. 24-28.
UI. 9
CHAPTER IV
EPHKSUS
I.D. 54-57; Paul's age, c. 44-47
Such being the position of things when Panl arrived in Ephesus, the twelve disciples of John, who had accepted Christ, so far as they knew Him, were naturally an object of great interest to the Apostle. Finding they had not heard that the Holy Ghost had been given to Christian disciples,^ and tliat they had received only John's baptism "to repentance, that they should believe on Him who should come after him " ā they were baptized " into the name of the Lord Jesus ; " after which, on Paul laying his hands on them, " the Holy Spirit came upon them," and they received the usual mysterious gifts of *' speaking with tongues and prophesying."
As at Corinth, Paul was an inmate of the humble shelter of Aquila and Priscilla, working with them at their craft, ^ in which there was abundant employment at Ephesus ; its famous manufactures of tent-cloths and carpets making it the headquarters of countless weavers.' Their guild appears to have occupied the close, narrow lanes, reaching from Prion, south-west, to the hill slopes of Coressus, in the heart of the city ; the mansions of the wealthy, as with us, lying outside the squalid, densely
1 Acts xix. 2-7. ' Act xx. 34.
ā Plutarch, Alcibiades, ii. ; Clough'fl editi Athenaioa, xiL 47.
PAUL MT, C. 44-47 EPHESUS 83
peopled districts, on the roads leading to the country. Christianity had its home in the artisan division of the city, which hence showed in it, in after ages, the tombs of the fathers of the Ephesian church, including that of St. John. Time was, indeed, to work strange changes, for, when paganism had fallen, a new Christian city sprang up round the slopes which boasted these memorials of the early days of the faith. Ancient Ephesus, however, was still inhabited in the fourth and fifth centuries, but neglect was gradually changing the old site into a pestilential marsh, which drove the population ever higher and higher up the hillsides, till, now, its representative is nearly a league from the Ephesus of heathenism. Its former architectural glories, as I have said, became only quarries of marble and squared stone to adorn other cities, and at last, the once busy hive of men was finally abandoned to fever and oblivion.
In the days of St. Paul, the first meeting-place of the Ephesian church was the rude work-chamber of Aquila.^ Two other groups of Christians, however, ere long gathered seemingly in the slave-quarters of the town ā if we may judge by names,^ and a fourth, in the school, or rather lecture-room, of one Tyi-annus, apparently a " professor " of philosophy or rhetoric, converted through St. Paul.3 For three months, before taking advantage of the kindness of this worthy, Paul, as usual, had attended public worship in the synagogue, but the growing hostility shown him, both there, and, outside, in the ghetto ; culminating in diffusing malignant misrepresen- tation of his aim and teaching, among the heathen popu- lation ; forced him to separate from his countrymen, ^ Rom. xvi. 6. ' Rom. xvi. 14, 16. ā¢ Acta xix, 8.
84 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54-5;^
taking with him the Christian converts, who, like himself, had till then worshipped with them.^ He was able, how- ever, to keep his place in Ephesns for two years after this crisis; working diligently in the comparatively spacious room of Tyrannns and in his other " stations," and also, as he himself tells us,^ by personal visiting, doubtless in the crowded slums and alleys and slave-quarters, as at Corinth and elsewhere. Nor was he left to labour empty-handed ; his personal exertions being, no doubt, supported by the zealous co-operation of the whole Chris- tian community ; for in those days every new Christian was a new missionary.
But the Jews were not the only opponents with whom Paul had to contend. The Judaising party, supported by having the Jerusalem Apostles on their side, so far as concerned their zeal for the law, had sadly marred his work in Galatia, and seemed to have anticipated him in his efforts at Ephesus : their opposition having, per- haps, been the cause of his having avoided the province of Asia till now. Ten years later, St. John writes, in Revelation, of the Ephesian church, " I know thy works, and thy toil, and patience, and tliat thou canst not bear evil men, and didst try them who call themselves Apostles, and they are not, and didst fmd them false." ^ This hints at men like the false apostles at Corinth,* who claimed to be directly sent by Christ ; arrogating to them- selves, very probably, a mission from the authorities at Jerusalem. Paul himself, indeed, three years later, tells the elders of the Church, when they came to Miletus to see him, that " after his departing grievous wolves would enter in among them, not sparing the flock" ā ^ Acts xix. 9. " Acts XX. 20. ^ Ylev. ii. 2. * 2 Oor. xl 13-15
PAUL MT. C. 44-47 EPIIESUS 85
strangers from without ; and that " from among them- selves, men would arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them."^ He reminds his friends that, "by the space of three years he had not ceased to admonish every one " in the Ephesian flock, "* night and day, with tears," ^ and even during his stay in Ephesus, while rejoicing that " a great door and effectual is opened to him," he has to add that "there are many adversaries."^ He speaks, moreover, of his "perils among false brethren;"* very possibly with a reference to his Ephesian experience. To Timothy, who had charge of the Christian community in the city, eight or nine years after Paul left it, he gives instructions, that he is to " charge men not to teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to fables and endless genealogies"^ and "profane babblings." He, moreover, warns him that some "will proceed still further in un- godliness, and their word will eat as does a gangrene : of whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus : men . . . who say that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of some ; " ^ words pointing to the rise of Gnostic emanation-fancies, which very soon sprang up, the strong bias of the Judaising party for Oriental systems, and the restlessness and speculative lawlessness of the Greek mind. He also warns Timothy against " Hymenaeus and Alexander," two false teachers, whom he " delivered unto Satan ā that is, excommunicated, and handed over to the arch enemy, for the disciplinary in- fliction of bodily trouble, ā " that they might learn not to blaspheme."^ Nor did all this end his anxiety, for he
^ Acta XX. 29, 30. ^ ^^ts xx. 31. Ā» 1 Cor. xvi. 9. * 2 Cor. xi, 26. * 1 Tim. i. 4. Ā« Compare Tim. ii. 17, 18. M Tim. i. 20.
86 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54-57
again warns Timothy against an *' Alexander," perhaps the same person, though, now, further described as a coppersmith. " He did me much evil," says Paul ; " the Lord will render to him according to his works : of whom be thou ware also; for he greatly withstood my words." ^ Still more, he tells Timothy that "all the converts in 'Asia/" meaning proconsular Asia, "turned away from him ; belonging to the party of Phygelus and Hermo- genes."^ There must, therefore, have been fermenting elements of schism and disturbance among the Ephesians from the first, partly from the Jewish-Christian side, and partly from Judaisers who had added half heathen ideas to their legalism. How all this degenerated, before long, into gross moral abuses will appear here- after.
Meanwhile, amidst all difficulties, the Apostle and his band of helpers and converts laboured indefatigably to extend their circle. If, as was first suggested by Ewald, and as has been since held by Lipsius, Hausrath, and others, though still an open question, ā the greetings which close the Epistle to the Romans were originally part of the Epistle to the Ephesians, these efforts were not without considerable success. It is undesirable to dogmatise on such matters, but the considerations lead- ing to such a belief merit attention. The letter of commendation to Phoebe of Cenchreae, it is thought, points rather to her having crossed to Ephesus, than gone to far-off Rome. Priscilla and Aquila were in Ephesus when Paul left, and are again there at a later date, and it is thought improbable that, in the interval, they had gone to Rome and returned from it, and it Ā» 2 Tim. iv. 14, 15. 2 2 Tim. i. 16.
PAUL MĀ£. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 87
certainly appears most natural to look for Eppenetns, "the firstfruits of Asia," in that province. Paul must have come to know many whom he could greet by name in Ephesus, but it is argued that he could hardly have been acquainted with so many as he salutes, if they were at Kome, where he had never been ; while the personal details given, of some having been his fellow- prisoners and others his fellow-workers, ā of the church in Aquila's house, ā of individual traits, and of his personal affection in some cases, certainly give a plausible colour to the theory that the passage was addressed to Ephesus rather than Rome. Yet, at Corinth when the Roman Epistle was written, the Apostle would be in constant communication with persons passing to and from Rome, nor can it be thought strange, in a race so constantly migrating from place to place, as the Jews of that day, that some who had formerly been in the one city should be very soon after residents in the other. ^
If, however, we accept this list as referring to Ephesus, we find Paul able, soon after leaving it, to salute quite a large number of Christians in the local assemblies. Aquila and Priscilla are recorded as having " for my life laid down their own necks ; " Epgenetus is his beloved, and the first convert won in the province of Asia. Mary has bestowed much labour on the community. Andronicus and Junias are not only his kinsmen, that is, fellow- Jews, but had been his fellow-prisoners. Both, moreover, are from Palestine, where they had been in high favour with the Apostles ; while they had been Christians when he himself was still an arch persecutor and enemy of the Cross. Ampliatns, and Stachys, and
1 Rom. xvi. 1-16.
S8 THE APOSTLES A.B. 54-57
Persia, are "beloved." Urbanus is his fellow-worker in
Christ. Herodion is another " kinsman." Apelles is " the approved in Christ." Some of the slaves of Aristobulus and Narcissus, members of the heathen gentry, or nobi- lity, are " in the Lord." TryphaBna and Tryphosa have laboured much in the Lord. Kufus is " the chosen in the Lord ; " very probably the son of Simon who bore the Cross for Christ, mentioned with his brother by Mark, as if known to the Christian circles.^ With him is men- tioned his mother, of whom Paul gracefully speaks as his own mother also. Then there come " Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brethren that are with them," as if they had a separate Christian assembly under their care, and ''Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are with them," as if they, too, were the centre of a special little band.^ Most of these, we may be sure, were from the lowest social layers, slaves and the like, such as we find carrying away sweat-cloths and workmen's aprons to the sick, after having touched Paul's body with them ; ^ working men in anti- quity being largely slaves, though there were many free artisans also.^ A few persons of a more substantial class would, no doubt, be included in the humble list, but we have to remember that " wool- workers, cobblers, and leather dressers " ā types of the clownish and illiterate ā were declared by Celsus, a hundred years later, to be even then, the chief men among the Christians,* and the Apostle himself tells us froui what dregs of the people most of the converts were at Corinth.Ā® Yet, that Greeks, Romans, and
^ Luke xxiii. 26 ; Mark xv. 21. ' Rom. xvi. 1-16. ' Acts xix. 12. * One is reminded of Augustus sending a slave physician to Gerinanicus. Sueton. Caligula. ^ Neander, i. 97. * 1 Cor. i. 26-28.
PAUL JET. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 89
Jews, poor and rich, slaves and slave-holders, in whatever proportions, should find themselves united in an equal brotherhood, in the Christian community, was a wonderful innovation. The great majority of the converts had been heathen, who had united themselves with the new religion, which opened its embrace to all penitents alike ; their inner sense of helplessness, and of distance from God, arraying Christianity in charms peculiarly attractive. But the difficulty of developing an ideal church from such material must have troubled the Apostle greatly, for not only did the everywhere recurring crimes of the heathen world show themselves, more or less, in those who had joined him, but special cherished forms of unworthiness were manifested in a hateful degree. Every form of extravagance of frivolity was dear to their light thought- less minds, and the confessed Ephesian quarrelsomeness, and gift of ready speech, often stood at the service of untruth and hateful dispute. The charming climate in- vited to idleness, and where wine was so plentiful, it is not a wonder that many gave way to it.^ The huge com- merce stimulated love of money, and this led to a too great frequency of cheating and stealing.^ Thus Paul found more than enough of trouble, and had to urge, with all earnestness, that the Gospel of Christ was incompatible with heathen ideas of life, and demanded an entirely new man ; that covetousness was no better than idolatry ; and that no wilful wrongdoer had any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Indeed, he even held up the by no means faultless Corinthians, as patterns to be imitated by the Ephesian brotherhood.*
1 Eph. iv. 25 ff., 29, 31 ; v. 4. Ā« Epb. iv. 28 ; t. 18.
ā¢ Eph. iv. 20 ff. ; v. 5 ; 1 Cor. i. 6.
90 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54-57
In a centre so important, Paul settled down longer than he ever did elsewhere, for he reminds the elders at Miletus that he had been among them, from first to last, for three years,^ so that nine months have to be added to the time mentioned eai-lier.^ This long stay was spent, he tells us, in labours for Christ, public and private, night and day ; his loving earnestness, to win or to reclaim, often, as he recalls to them, overflowing in tears. But he was now at the full flood- tide of his immense energy, and could not con- fine his efforts even to so great a city. Under his directions, a growing band of evangelists carried the Gospel to other places. Churches were planted in Laodicea, Colosse and Hierapolis, apparently through the efforts of a helper named Epaphras.^ His first letter to the Corinthians was written from Ephesus, but when he wrote the second, shortly after, he had left " Asia," * and was passing on, westward, through Macedonia. He may have paid a short visit to Corinth of which little is said,^ and, on his way to Achaia, he revisited Troas and Macedonia,^ but he tells us he had not seen the churches comparatively near at hand, in the province of Asia.'^ Ephesus was thus not only a centre of work in itself, but the headquarters of missionary toil in the province. Paul's stay, however, was evidently lengthened by what had happened even before his writ- ing the first letter to Corinth ; his labours having already attracted so much attention, that a prolongation of his stay was desirable.^ Besides all that his position in Ephesus entailed, however, he speaks of having the anxious over- sight of a number of churches, in different places, showing
> Acts XX. 31. * Acts xix. 8, 10. Ā» Col. ii. 1 ; iv. 12, la-
Ā« 2 Cor. i. 8. ** 2 Cor. xii. 14 ; xiii. 1. ā¢ 2 Cor. ii, 12, 13.
Ā» Col. ii. 1. 8 1 Cor. XV. 32 ; xvi. 19.
PAUL iET. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 91
how widely the Gospel had spread.* It would seem, indeed, as if it was to these eventful years that many of the multiplied trials he had to bear, and much of the extraordinary toil he underwent, must be assigned, ā labours more abundant than any other Apostle could claim ; frequent imprisonments, public floggings above measure ; many imminent escapes from death in mobs or other perils ; three scourgings with rods, by the heathen magistrates; three shipwrecks, in one of which he had floated a night and a day on the sea waves ; many jour- neyings ; perils in crossing flooded rivers, without bridges ; attacks by robbers, by his own Jewish countrymen, and by the heathen rabble ; imminent dangers in cities, in deserts, and on the sea, and among false brethren ā the fanatical Judaisers, or as we should call them, extreme ritualist High Churchmen ; ā labours and travail ; frequent watchings against dangers of one kind or other; hunger and thirst ; frequent want of necessary food, and untold misery from the bitter cold of the mountain passes and keen winter of the uplands, faced with insuflScient clothing.^
Unfortunately we have few details of this specially fruitful time in Paul's life. One incident, however, of his first stay of two years and six months is recorded. The fact that " special miracles were wrought by the hands of Paul ; " diseases being cured and demons expelled even by handkerchiefs and workmen's aprons that had touched his person, roused the opposition of the professional local exorcists, a numerous body in Ephesus. No belief was more universal in antiquity than that all diseases, whether of mind or body, were the result of demoniacal possession. * 1 Cor. xvi. 19; 2 Cor. xi. 28. * 2 Cor. iL 23-28.
90
THE APOSTLES
A.D. 54-57
In a centre so important, Paul settled down longer than he ever did elsewhere, for he reminds the elders at Miletus that he had been among them, from first to last, for three years,^ so that nine months have to be added to the time mentioned earlier.^ This long stay was spent, he tells us, in labours for Christ, public and private, night and day ; his loving earnestness, to win or to reclaim, often, as he recalls to them, overflowing in tears. But he was now at the full flood- tide of his immense energy, and could not con- fine his efforts even to so great a city. Under his directions, a growing band of evangelists carried the Gospel to other places. Churches were planted in Laodicea, Colosse and Hierapolis, apparently through the efforts of a helper named Epaphras.^ His first letter to the Corinthians was written from Ephesus, but when he wrote the second, shortly after, he had left " Asia," * and was passing on, westward, through Macedonia. He may have paid a short visit to Corinth of which little is said,^ and, on his way to Achaia, he revisited Troas and Macedonia,^ but he tells us he had not seen the churches comparatively near at hand, in the province of Asia.^ Ephesus was thus not only a centre of work in itself, but the headquarters of missionary toil in the province. Paul's stay, however, was evidently lengthened by what had happened even before his writ- ing the first letter to Corinth ; his labours having already attracted so much attention, that a prolongation of his stay was desirable.Ā® Besides all that his position in Ephesus entailed, however, he speaks of having the anxious over- sight of a number of churches, in different places, showing
Ā» Acts XX. 31. * Acts xix. 8, 10. Ā» Col. ii. 1 ; iv. 12, la-
Ā« 2 Cor. i. 8. Ā«* 2 Cor. xii. 14 ; xiii. 1. ā¢ 2 Cor. il 12, 13.
Ā» Col. ii. 1. 8 1 Cor. XV. 32 ; xvi. 19.
PAUL iET. C. 44-47
EPHESUS
91
12Q .Di
how widely the Gospel had spread.* It would seem, indeed, as if it was to these eventful years that many of the multiplied trials he had to bear, and much of the extraordinary toil he underwent, must be assigned, ā labours more abundant than any other Apostle could claim ; frequent imprisonments, public floggings above measure ; many imminent escapes from death in mobs or other perils ; three scourgings with rods, by the heathen magistrates; three shipwrecks, in one of which he had floated a night and a day on the sea waves ; many jonr- neyings ; perils in crossing flooded rivers, without bridges ; attacks by robbers, by his own Jewish countrymen, and by the heathen rabble ; imminent dangers in cities, in deserts, and on the sea, and among false brethren ā the fanatical Judaisers, or as we should call them, extreme ritualist High Churchmen ; ā labours and travail ; frequent watchings against dangers of one kind or other; hunger and thirst ; frequent want of necessary food, and untold misery from the bitter cold of the mountain passes and keen winter of the uplands, faced with insufficient clothing.^
Unfortunately we have few details of this specially fruitful time in Paul's life. One incident, however, of his first stay of two years and six months is recorded. The fact that " special miracles were wrought by the hands of Paul ; " diseases being cured and demons expelled even by handkerchiefs and workmen's aprons that had touched his person, roused the opposition of the professional local exorcists, a numerous body in Ephesus. No belief was more universal in antiquity than that all diseases, whether of mind or body, were the result of demoniacal possession.
Ā» 1 Cor. xvi. 19; 2 Cor. xi. 28. * 2 Cor. il 25-28.
92 THE APOSTLES A.D. $4-57
In the clay-tablet literature of tlie Accadians of Mesopo- tamia, the earliest known race in these earliest known settlements of civilised man, spells and formulae for driv- ing out the demons of every kind infesting humanity, are very plentiful, and in Paul's day it was a money-making art to practise exorcism of these satanic enemies. Among the Jews no less than in heathen races, pretenders to this power abounded, who used arts and spells which they gave out to have been handed down from Solomon. " God enabled Solomon," says Josephus, *' to learn the art that expels demons. . . . He composed charms also by which diseases are alleviated, and left behind him forms of exor- cisms, by which people drive away demons so that they never return." ^ The plant baaras, moreover, he tells us, was pulled up by tying a dog to it, ā the poor dog dying forthwith ; as indeed is no wonder, since *' it shoots out a Hame like lightning when approached, and shrinks from any one wishing to take it up." Once obtaiued, however, it has wondrous power ; " quickly driving away demons, that is, the spirits of the wicked, who enter men and kill them, unless they can obtain help against them." ^ To know the secret name of an angel, or of some power above, was, also, a specially potent spell, as we see constantly, in the Book of Enoch ; dating partly from the second century before Christ, partly from the time of Herod.^
Among other exorcists at the time in Ephesus, were seven sons of a Jewish dignified priest, either a former head of one of the twenty-four courses of the Temple service, or really a high-priest, in the strict sense. They were, doubtless, part of the body of wandering Jews found in those times everywhere, preying on the credulity or vices
1 Jos. Ant. viii. 2,5. 2 j^g. Bell. Jud. vii. 6, 3, ^ Schurer, ii. 429.
PAUL ^T. C. 44-47 EPHKSUS 93
of the heathen populations. These, among others, struck by the power of the name of Jesus in exorcising demons, fancied that to use it would help them, and therefore made bold to call it over those who were possessed, adjur- ing the evil spirits by it, as that by which Paul wrought such wonders, to be gone. Sceva's sons had tried this on one man in whom an " evil spirit " had got completely the upper hand, but the result was little expected, for the spirit turned on them, crying out that it acknowledged the power of Jesus and of Paul, but as for these impostors, whom neither Jesus nor Paul had commissioned it de- spised them ! Springing at the two nearest, as he thus spoke, he at once overpowered them, so that they were glad to flee from the house wounded, and with their clothes torn off their backs. Such a consequence of the unauthorised use of the name of Jesus, soon spread not only through the Jewish ghetto, but also among the general population, filling all with dread of one so mighty, and greatly magnifying His name. Not a few, moreover, were led, through this display of His power, to believe Paul's preaching respecting Him, and presently came, confessing that they had dabbled in the black art, and promising to begin, henceforth, a life becoming Christians. As already said, books of magic charms, spells, and for- mulae, in many cases made up of the mysterious words cut on the stem of the sacred image of Diana, with other magic documents, on paper or parchment, known as *' Ephesian booklets," consulted for superstition ; and also small scraps of magic characters set in lockets, as amulets, to be hung round the neck, or worn on some other part of the body ā were part of the special commodities sold in Ephesus ; owing their special worth to the belief that
94 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54-57
Diaim, as Hecate, the Moon goddess, was all-powerful in the varied forms of the black arts. Many of those now seeking Paul had bought these talismans, but now brought them to the Apostle, as a proof of their no longer honour- ing such magical rites, and, in their enthusiasm, igno- miniously piled them up and made a bonfire of them; the value of the fetishes thus destroyed, being over seven- teen hundred pounds of our money.i " So mightily," adds our narrative, *' grew the word of the Lord," in its spread, and " so powerful did it show itself in the influence it exerted.'* *
Paul had intended, before this, to have left for Mace- donia and Corinth, proposing to sail thence to Jerusalem, but this sudden expansion of the local Christian com- munity, forced him to remain some time longer in "Asia." Timothy and Erastus, however, were sent to Macedonia, and we find Timothy, at least, in Corinth when Paul at last reached it ; troubles there, as we shall see, de- manding special attention.' Before that, however, he had returned to Ephesus, for we find him with Paul in Macedonia, when the Apostle was on his way to Corinth for his third visit.* Meanwhile, he could not leave Ephesus. His plans, however, were already made for the future. He tells the Corinthians, in his first letter to them, written from Ephesus, that he proposes to pass through Macedonia to Corinth, and stay quite a time there ; per- haps even wintering in it. He will, however, remain in Ephesus till Pentecost. A great door, holding out a prospect of weighty results, had been opened, doubtless by the Sceva incident, though there were also many who
Ā« Alford. ' Acts xix. 20. * 1 Cor. xvi 10.
* Acts XX. 2 ; 2 Cor. vii. 5 ; xiii. 1.
PAUL MT. e. 44-47 EPHESUS 95
opposed him. The situation, however, as a whole, is highly encouraging; a full tide of success now, at last, bearing him on ; his words implying that this specially favourable state of affairs was of recent date. Apollos and Aquila and Prisca ā that is, Priscilla ā are with him ; Apollos proposing to return to Corinth shortly.
From these closing months of Paul's long residence in " Asia " there has come down to us an exciting incident, opening a new period of extraordinary trial, which not only, some months later, drove him from Ephesus, but apparently left him so doubtful, as to his personal safety there, even long after, that when at Miletus, on his way to Palestine from Corinth, he did not venture to return to the city, but contented himself with sending for the elders to come to him, though he knew that he was never again to see the Church he had founded and nursed with such care and tenderness. Yet want of time may have required this course.
The progress of " The Way," as Christianity was called in those days, had gradually become evident even to some sections of the heathen population, by its effect on one of the trades which flourished on the superstition of the citizens and of the countless pilgrims to the great Diana temple. The silversmiths of the city, we are told, felt their trade decaying ; especially in the demand for small silver models of the famous temple, with a miniature figure of the goddess ; which, hitherto, had been a staple article of sale. That they were so was natural, for they kept before the eye the grandeur of a sanctuary which was one of the wonders of the world, and the image of a divinity held in profound reverence, far and wide. They were worn as amulets by persons on a journey, kept as
96 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54-5/
household treasures, and offered to Diana herself, as an expression of the belief of her worshippers in her pre- sence through all nature, ā in the woods, on the foun- tains, among the wild beasts, ā as the life of all things, and the great mother, who maintained creation at large, in constantly renewed vigour and beauty. The poor bought humble shrines of terra-cotta ; the more prosperous, marble shrines, of which many still remain ; while those who could afford them, secured shrines of silver ; the god- dess accepting from her votaries, with equal favour, the lowly offering of the peasant, and the rich gift of the wealthy. " Shrines " were often also buried with the dead, to express the belief that the departed had only returned to his great mother's bosom. In processions of the temple population, moreover, they were borne aloft by special officials, so that, in one way or other, the demand for them must have been great. Irritated by the spread of *' The Way," which was checking the sale of his wares, one Demetrius, a leading shrine - maker, who employed a large number of workmen, determined, if possible, to prevent his trade from being thus crippled. Calling his men together, with others of the various crafts, makers of shrines in other materials ā artists and artisans ā for the artist in antiquity, was, as a rule, only regarded as a workman ^ ā he brought his grievance before them. They were aware, he said, that they made their money by the sale of shrines, yet, now, they saw and heard, that not only in Ephesus, but almost through all " Asia," this fellow, Paul, a wandering Jew, had persuaded and turned away many people, declaring that they were no gods that were made with hands ; the result being that their trade was in
* See Lucian's Dream.
PADL JET. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 97
danger, and, still worse, that the temple of the great god- dess Diana was like to fall into disesteem, so that she would be deposed from her pre-eminence, ā she, whom all "Asia," and indeed the whole habitable globe, now wor- shipped.
Nothing conld be more dexterous than such words, for the end sought. The guilds addressed were touched by them in their superstition, their local pride, and still morf% in their fear of pecuniary loss. They thoroughly believed that the little jBgures of the goddess were " gods ; " ^ these images, if not identified with the great mother, being in their minds, at least dwelt in, by her, as the Malays be- lieve, that idols duly consecrated become inhabited by the divinity. The temple was so intensely the glory of Ephesus that the city thought it an honour to call itself Neocorus ā a sweeper of the temple, that is, one of the lowest temple-slaves. The most menial office in the service of the goddess, was thus officially adopted by the municipality as its supreme boast : a strange servility not confined to Ephesus, for other cities also, gloried in calling themselves sweepers of the temple of their local divinity ; especially if the sanctuary were one built to the reigning emperor, as a god, by the municipality.^ The temple of Diana was, in fact, to Ephesus, what that on Sion was to Jerusalem, or what the Kaaba is now to Mecca. Moreover, even from the temple itself, there was no little business, for it had vast numbers of officials ; troops of priests of various grades ; three divisions of priestesses, ā the "sacred slaves" of the goddess, ā and vast numbers of minor officials, for all the manifold wants of the altars, the grounds, the robes, the buildings, and much else ; besides the crowds
I Acts xix. 26. ^ Mommsen. v. 31ft.
III.
98 THE APOSTLES A.D. 54-57
of temple-slaves, employed in all the humbler duties of the great establishment, down to the sweeping and clean- ing,ā and all these needed to be fed, and had a thousand personal and official requirements.
Demetrius having thus touched his audience to the quick, their rage was beyond words. In a moment, invo- cations of the goddess rose from every side, swelling to a tempest of fanatical excitement which raged for hours, with the constant repetition of the same cry to her, for help and self-defence : " Great is Diana of the Ephe- sians ! " Nor did it die out when the workmen dispersed. The streets re-echoed with it everywhere, till the whole city was afoot in wild uproar, and the tumult still grew. Presently, a rush was made to the great theatre, holding, on its open-air seats, partly cut out in the rock of Prion, not fewer than 25,000 people. It was the place for special town meetings, and there, therefore, if anywhere, the meaning of this outburst could be learned. The mob had tried to get hold of Paul, whom Demetrius had denounced by name, but had not found him ; their intention, no doubt, being to set him before the assembly, and let its wild justice make an end of him. They could, however, only secure the two Macedonian travelling companions of Paul, Gains and Aristarchus, whom they, forthwith, dragged to the theatre. Brave and true-hearted, Paul, on hearing of the search for him, would have made his way into the mob, to be beside his friends, but those with him ā perhaps Aquila and Priscilla ā would not permit him thus to throw away his life.^
The provinces of Asia Minor had officials of high rank,
1 This Gaius is otherwise unknown, Aristarchus is noticed at p. 413, vol. ii.
PAUL MT. e. 44-47 EPHESUS 99
named, after their province, Bythyniarchs, Galatarchs, Ijyciarchs, or, in "Asia," Asiarchs, who were presidents of the sacred rites, and of the public games and theat- rical amusements, exhibited, yearly, in honour of the gods and of the emperors ; providing for the vast outlay solely at their private expense. One was chosen each year, but those of past years were still associated, through courtesy, with him, or at least retained the name ; doubt- less in consideration of the great liberality implied in their office. So wide had the influence of Paul become, by this time, that some of these high dignitaries were friendly to him, and sent, beseeching him not to venture into the theatre ; knowing, perhaps, his fearlessness, and valuing his safety. Meanwhile, the excitement grew higher and higher, as it well might, with thousands shouting the name of the goddess continuously ; few knowing how the uproar had risen, and all kinds of rumours flying about among the vast mob, in and before the theatre, which it filled from the floor to the topmost benches, round all their semicircle ; which opened towards the city, and was much like the great ancient theatre one sees at Syracuse, in Sicily. Nothing could, however, be heard, but the frenzied prayer ā repeated by thousands, at the top of their voices, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians; " the roar of this tempest of voices, which continued un- abated for two hours, and in itself maddened the nerves of all, rising as did that to Baal, from his worshippers at Carmel, in the days of Elijah.
At last a man was seen trying to get through the crowd, to the stage, that he might address them. The town Jews had rushed, with other citizens, to the theatre, and this would-be speaker was in the midst of a body of
100 THE APOSTLES A.D. 5 4-5 7
them, some of whom were pushing him, while others were pulling him, forward, from selfish motives. He seems to have been a Jew-Christian, who had joined the throng, to speak, if he could, for his brethren, should he find them impugned. To get him to the front was exactly what the Jews wanted, in their eagerness to expose a Christian to danger, and perhaps to get him sacrificed by the mob. But the brave heart, doubtless knowing the probable cost, eagerly struggled forward, to make a defence, or " apology " for his fellow-Christians, to the people.^ Gaining, in the end, a favourable position, he, forthwith, beckoned to the crowd to be quiet, that he might address them. But every Jew was the natural enemy of the goddess, and at the sight of the Jewish features they drowned his voice, in louder shouts than ever, of the name of the great Diana. Whether he was of the old Hebrews, or of the new Jewish sect of Paul's followers, was indifferent. They would hear no insolent despiser of their religion. Alexander, for that was his name, had therefore to remain silent. But now a digni- tary, who commanded res^^ect, appeared on the scene ; the town clerk, an official who had charge of the muni- cipal archives, composed oflScial documents, and had the duty of reading them out to the town assemblies. Accus- tomed to address crowds, and perfectly collected amidst the din, he had no sooner taken his place before the huge multitude, and ordered silence, than every one was hushed, and all were eager to hear him. His words, they knew, had authority behind them. To give him ā¦^^rouble, would bring the rough imperial law down on them, and they knew what that meant. Quiet having
^ Acts xix. 83.
PAUL MT. C. 44-47 EPHEStTS 101
been gained, he proceeded, with clever readiness, to bring the disturbers of the peace to reason.
With infinite tact, he first soothed their religious pride and fears. Did they think any one could endanger their goddess or her temple? Did not every man know that Ephesus had the honour of being Neocorus ā temple sweeper ā to the great Diana ? for she had deigned to allow them to make this boast. Yes, they were guar- dians of the image that fell down from Jupiter. Since, then, their position was so dignified and so unchallenge- able, they ought to be quiet and to do nothing rash. They had dragged these two men to the theatre, to have them condemned, though they had neither profaned the great shrine, nor spoken insultingly of the goddess, nor robbed any temple ; a crime then not uncommon among the Jews, in their contempt of idols.^ He had made himself acquainted, beforehand, with the grievance urged by Demetrius, and reminded him and the crafts- men whom he led, that, if they had a ground of accusation against any one, the courts were open, and there were proconsuls to act as judges. They might lay their charges in legal form before these courts. Let them, however, take care that they did not attempt to take the law into their own hands ; Rome would not for a moment permit it. If, on the other hand, they had matters coming within the sphere of the municipal courts, these met three times a month,^ and would try any such private cause, if brought before them. To do anything that injured trade, as was alleged against Paul, by Demetrius, was for the imperial courts to look into;
^ Rom. il 22 ; Jos. Ant. iv. 8, 10. ^ Ghrysostom, quoted by Holtzmann.
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Rome being very careful that the public interests were not imperilled by any interference with commerce, or the commercial rights of any individual. They had exposed themselves to proceedings for the day's riot, for which it was clear there was no cause, and for which they could give no justification, and how terrible the punishment by Rome, for such tumults, was, they knew only too well. Such language completely tamed the great concourse ā first calming their fears of their goddess being in danger ; then, pointing out the rashness of their making such a riot; next, reminding Demetrius of the proper legal way of getting redress for any wrong ; and finally, bridling any remains of excitement by hinting at the Roman vengeance for disorder. He had nothing more to do. At a word, the assembly was dissolved and peace restored to the city.
The narrative in Acts is so meagre that it is hard to follow the later movements of the Apostle. We are told that " after the uproar in the theatre had ceased, having sent for the disciples and exhorted them, he took leave of them, and departed, to go into Macedonia." ^ But it is not said how long this was after the riot, and his own words in the Epistles appear to imply that, though he went off for a time to Macedonia, Greece, and other parts,* he returned for a short while to Ephesus ; circum- stances being mentioned which do not seem to have any place in his earlier residence there. The scene in the theatre had, no doubt, moved him greatly, but as he was not present at it, the perils he describes so vividly in his letter to the Corinthians, written from Ephesus, can hardly apply to it. "I think," says he, "that God has 1 Acts XX. 17. Ā» Acta xx. 2.
PAUL MT. e. 44-47 EPHESUS 103
Bet forth us the Apostles last of all, as men doomed to death ā " the closing band in the procession of a gladia- torial combat : " for we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. . . . Even to this present hour, we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are knocked about, and have no settled home ; and toil, work- ing with our own hands ; we are reviled, . . . persecuted, defamed, . . . and made as the filth of the world, the refuse of all things, even till now.^ We stand in jeopardy every hour," says he, adding, '* I die daily ; " violent death being before him day by day. He even compares his struggle against strong and embittered enemies, to the fighting of condemned men with wild beasts. " If after the manner of men " ā with only human hopes and human strength ā " I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what good is it to me, if the dead rise not ? " That this is only a strong way of expressing terrible trials seems most probable, for Paul could not be thrown to wild beasts, since he was a Roman citizen, and it is hard to imagine how he could have escaped had he been so. He does not mention this supreme horror, more- over, in his list of sufferings, given afterwards to the Corinthians,^ and metaphors of the kind are frequent with him ; as when he speaks of being " appointed last " as "a spectacle to angels and men,"^ or of being "delivered out of the mouth of the lion.'** Indeed, in an age when men were exposed to wild beasts, such a metaphor was so natural, that we find it used by Pompey, on the one hand, and Ignatius on the other.^ Yet opinions differ on the point, some thinking that Paul
1 1 Cor. iv. 9-13. * 2 Cor. xi. 24-28. Ā» 1 Cor. iv. 9.
* 2 Tim. iv. 14. Ā» Appian, Bell. Civ. 273 ; Ignat. Rom. a 6.
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actually went through this dreadful experience, and was delivered from death in a way not recorded. i But taking the words as a figure of speech, the dangers to which the tumult at the theatre subsequently exposed him, must have been great, since he looks for a special remembrance of them by Christ, and a special reward for them at the great day.^ The name of a leading enemy in these trials has been handed down to us, Alexander the coppersmith, a person allied, by his trade, with the agitation raised by Demetrius. " Beware of him," says Paul to Timothy, then in Ephesus, " for he did me much evil, and greatly withstood our words." ^ This seems, however, to point to a keen disputant, rather than to a persecutor. Is it pos- sible that we have a light thrown on it by learning that " Hymenseus and Alexander had made shipwreck of the faith and of a good conscience ? " * As a leader of a heretical sect, such as was soon to be found in all heathen-Christian churches, a keen-witted voluble Jew might do immense harm, in upsetting the faith of his fellow-Christians.
The fury of the excited populace in the theatre had been terrible, and the opposition, open and covert, from the Jews, had become hardly less so, while, in addition, there were distractions more than enough, from " false teachers ; " Judaising, or heretical. Yet the progress of the new faith continued to be most cheering, for it was. at this time he spoke of a "great door and effectual " being opened for him, which led him to stay in Ephesus till Pentecost, in spite of his having many adversaries.* But his position must have been perilous, to judge from a
1 So, Weizsiicker, 325, 6. 2 i Cor. xv. 32. Ā» 2 Tim. iv. 14, 15.
4 1 Tim. i. 20. Ā» j Cor. xvi. 8, 9.
PAUL MT. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 105
then recent incident in that very theatre to which it was Bought to drag him. A famous philosopher-hierophant, Apollonius, a Cappadocian, about four years before our (lira, and, therefore, almost exactly at the time of Christ's birth, had led an excited multitude to the theatre, and there declaimed against an old man, accused of having a devil which had brought the plague on the city, till in their wild fury, through the denunciations of the orator, they seized the poor creature, and stoned him to death ; full proof, as they held, of his having deserved his fate, being afterwards given, by their finding, as was alleged, under the stones, when they were cleared away from over the battered corpse, not the body of a man, but of a great dog, into which the devil had turned his victim. ^ Public attention had, however, been drawn to the Christians by the tumult, and this, at once, brought them more converts, and additionally infuriated the numerous enemies of the Apostle. Of this he tells the Corinthians, in his second letter, that a new outbreak of " affliction " had befallen him in *'* Asia ; " " weighing him down exceedingly, beyond his power to bear it, so that he despaired even of life, and had the feeling that he was virtually sentenced to death; that he might learn to trust not in himself, for escape from his peril, but in God who raises even the dead, and, in fact, did deliver him from so great a death, and will deliver him."^ It must have been at this time that he and others of the Christians were imprisoned ; in- cluding Andronicus and Junias, his kinsmen, ā as fellow- Jews ā older believers than himself, and men of note among the Apostles.^ That he anticipated still fui-ther dangers, is implied in his confidence that God would 1 Philostr. Ap. iv. 10. ^ 2 Oor. i. 8-10. Ā» Rom. xvi. 7.
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continue to deliver him. Very probably street riots were excited, when possible, against him, when he appeared ; for he pictures himself as like a hunted wild beast ; pressed hard on every side, though he escaped being driven hope- lessly into a corner. An unexpected opening, by God's grace, enables him to get away. He is sore perplexed by the hunt after his life, but not in despair. Though pursued by his enemies, they do not overtake him ; he is thrown down, but not killed. ^ Chased and hounded thus, perhaps, in the narrow lanes and slums of Ephesus, he must, indeed, day by day, have stood in peril of a hideous death. ^ It was very probably in some such moment of peril, that his friends of Corinth and Ephesus, Aquila and Priscilla, showed their devotion to him so fervently, that he could send them a greeting as having **for my life, laid down their own necks." ā¢
These days and weeks of continued martyrdom, seem to have been varied by temporary flights to other parts ā Galatia, Corinth, Macedonia, and even as far as "round about to Illyricum " ā which then embraced all the border lands on the east of the Adriatic, to the north of Mace- donia and round to the estuaries of the Po,* ā fully preach- ing the Gospel of Christ; these regions, where it had not been heard before, not exposing him to the charge of ** building on another man's foundation " instead of break- ing up ground for himself. But such wild regions had their own dangers, for he speaks, soon after, of his having had the shipwreck in which he floated a day and a night on the sea waves,* and encountered many other perils. Nor did he, even in Macedonia, escape the persecutions
Ā» S Cor. iv. 8, 9. Ā« 1 Cor. xv. 31 ; 2 CJor. i 10. Ā» Rom. xvi. 3.
* Rom. XT. 19. * 2 Cor. xi. 25.
PAUL iET. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 107
of his enemies ; presumably, in this case, the old Jews ; who evidently passed the word, from ghetto to ghetto, to bait and hunt him down wherever he appeared. Even there, he tells the Corinthians, he was afflicted on every hand ; " fightings " assailing him, without, and anxiety troubling him, within, so that he had no relief from his former afflictions.^ He had still to speak of " weaknesses, insults, necessities, persecutions, and difficulties of all kinds," ^ and of "much affliction and anguish of heart." ^ Yet so filled was he with Divine enthusiasm for God and man, and passionate devotion to his Lord ; so buoyed up was he with a hope quite unspeakable, for the world to come ; that he could look on all he suffered as only " light afflictions, which are for the moment, and are workiug for him, more and more exceedingly, an eternal weight of glory." * How rarely do we in all history meet so heroic a spirit !
It would be very interesting to have at least compara- tively full details, of the membership and inner working of the Ephesian church, to the care of which Paul devoted three of his best years. Nearly all that we can gather, however, is the few hints given in the list of those to whom he sends his greetings, in the close of the Epistle to the Romans, if it actually refer to the brethren at Ephesus. If it do, it would seem that there were not many Jews in the brotherhood. Besides Aquila and Priscilla, or Prisca, we fiud only three : Andronicus, Junias, and Herodion, whom Paul specifies as his kins- men ā possibly from their being Benjamites, but pro- bably only as Israelites, for all three could hardly be his blood relations. Mary, or Miriam, ā a Jewess, we may be 1 2 Cor. Til. 6. 3 2 Cor. xii. 10. Ā» 2 Cor. ii. 4. * 2 Cor. iv. 17.
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certain, ā completes the number of Hebrews, and of these, four were Christians before they came to Ephesus. All six, however, stand in the most loving relations to the Apostle, as almost the inmost circle of his friends and helpers. Yet of the others, also, he speaks with fond endearment and appreciation. Four are called "beloved." Two have been his fellow-prisoners. Four, who are all women, laboured much "in the Lord;" that is, in all modes of usefulness ; visiting the sick, helping the poor, winning back the careless, and much else. One brother is honoured as "a fellow-worker in Christ;" another is "approved in Christ" ā his sincerity being recog- nised as beyond question ; Rufus is shown, by his life and spirit, to be unmistakably "chosen in the Lord," and his mother has been so tenderly kind to the Apostle, that he calls her his own mother as well ; while as to Aquila and his wife, they "laid down their own necks for his life." A brother and sister are in the list, and the Gospel had won disciples in the slave-huts of two masters, not them- selves Christian. There are, besides, eight, whose names only are given, and, in addition, a general salutation to three different bodies of converts, whom Paul includes under the fond title of " saints." In all, nine women and sixteen men are named, but how many are included in the different groups mentioned, we have no means of knowing.
Towards the various sectional assemblies of Christians, Paul, and the brethren recognised as fellow -workers with him, stood in the relation of superintendents-in- chief, without being specially connected with them in detail. There may have been occasional reunions of all the brethren, if they enjoyed the use of a chamber large
PAUL .ET. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 109
eDOugh, but in any case, a warm sympathy linked all in the closest bonds of affectionate co-operation. But this partial isolation of sections of the Church had its dangers, exposing them to unhealthy influences which meetings in common might have averted, and making their welfare too largely dependent on the leading spirits in each little group; an evil always great in small uneducated associa- tions, but especially so among people so contentious, rest- less, and self-sufficient as Greeks and Jews.
That Paul felt uneasy, is implied in his staying three years at Ephesus, and is openly stated in his farewell address to the leaders of the various bodies of converts, at Miletus ; beyond which he could not venture, or had not time to go. After his departing, he told them, grievous wolves would enter among them, not sparing the flock. Not only would false teachers invade them from without ; some would rise from among themselves ; and both would seek to draw away the converts after them, for party ends. He had, beyond doubt, noticed seeds of trouble ready to shoot up when he was no longer there to check them. That they did so, very soon, is sadly proved, in his sorrowful confession to Timothy, six years later, that " all that are in ' Asia ' are turned away from me."^ The fury against him, of the local Jews and Judaisers, foreshadowed mortal opposition to his work, when he could no longer encounter and keep them off ; for what must have been the malignity that led Ephesian Jews, who like him had gone to Jerusalem, to the feast, to denounce him there, as soon as he appeared, and call down on him the mad frenzy of the Jerusalem mob ! ^ { )f Alexander the coppersmith, he tells Timothy to beware, Ā» 2 Tim. i. 16. Ā» Acts xxi. 27 ff.
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as one who did him much evil, probably by stirring up the Jews and Greeks to violence against him, as well as by withstanding and trying to neutralise his preach- ing ;i but he was not, we may assume, alone, in his ferocious hostility. The Apostle knew only too well, how the Judaisers and Jews would slander him, as calling himself an Apostle when he was not, and as unsound in the faith ; and he instinctively felt, from the spirit of the age, that unworthy leaders would erelong introduce wild speculations, and advocate loose views in the Church ; only too attractive to such a population.^ Apart from the grossness of Orientalism, too soon to sap the converts in their faith, and the half-heathen dreams of Gnosticism, ā the name given to that creation of Greek and Jewish fancy which claimed to be true knowledge of the higher mysteries of the faith ā the experiences of Antioch and Galatia forecast the dangers of the future. The Judaisers were too acute to push forward the grosser demands of the law, among a Greek community, so that nothing is heard in Ephesus about circumcision. At most, only the simpler demands, made from outside proselytes, were urged, and even these partial submissions, it might be argued, would end at the soon-expected coming of Christ.
The results, as a whole, are disclosed in the seven epistles of the Apocalypse, written soon after Paul's death, to the churches in the province, in which he had so long toiled. Ephesus had then felt the evils which the Apostle had anticipated. It had had to bear evil men, calling themselves, falsely, apostles. The " Nicolaitans," also, had risen among them ā apparently Jew- Christiana
1 2 Tim. iv. 14. * See the two Epistles of Timothy, passim.
PAUL ^T. C. 44-47 EPHESU8 111
who asserted that their " liberty," as believers, permitted them to act licentiously. Their name, indeed, appears to have been applied to them by St. John, in Revelation, as equivalent to Balaam, which means the " Destroyer of the People," while Nicolaos means the "Conqueror of the People." As Balaam led Israel astray by the tempta- tions of heathen feasts and impurity, Nicolaos, in his doctrine of Balaam, had turned weak Christians from the right, by making light of their joining feasts, in the colonnades and grounds of heathen temples, on the flesh of heathen sacrifices ; with the attendant unchastity. The early Church may perhaps be right, in fancying the Nicolaos who introduced this grossly sensual corruption of the faith, no other than the Nicolaos, mentioned as one of the seven " deacons ; " to whose name the signifi- cant note is attached, that he was " a proselyte from Antioch." But Nicolaos was not an uncommon name, and the hereditary sensuality of heathen -Christians only too easily went over to such looseness. Yet, the story told by Eusebius, of the excuse for their corruption, as based on the teaching of one selected for honour, at the very beginning of the Jerusalem church, shows how pru- rient natures warp truth, to vindicate their excesses.^
In the Apocalypse we read, that a church had been gathered in the rich and beautiful commercial city of Smyrna ; ^ but it was very poor, and in deep trouble, through the blasphemy of the members of the Jewish synagogue "who call themselves Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan " ā St. John owns those alone as the true Israel, who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Nor had the local Christians seen the worst of their
^ Euseb. iii. 29. 2 j^^^ jj^ yj^
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troubles, for some of them would be thrown into prison, and a time of special tribulation would follow.
At Pergamos there was a church which was specially tried. It had its home in one of the chief strongholds of idolatry, and, as such, the very seat of the " throne of Satan " : an allusion, we may suppose, to the great temple of Esculapius in the city ; a rival in fame, even of the temple of Diana, at Ephesus. Round the base of the image of the god, the serpent which was associated with his worship was represented, ā the very ideal, to a Jew, of "the old serpent, the devil," who, according to the rabbis, brought in all idolatry. This serpent ā or devil-image ā moreover, was in great repute for the miracles wrought by it ; the sick and diseased taking up their quarters beside it, till the means of cure were re- vealed to them in a dream by night, or by the lips of a priest. In such a "throne of Satan," where bands of priests and temple officials, high and low, drew their living from the superstition and open-handed gifts of the multitude ; conflicts with the knot of despised sectaries who ridiculed the gr^d, were inevitable. A martyr had already witnessed against it, to the death. But, even here, the pestilent doctrines of Balaam and of the Nicol- aitans had sapped the fidelity of too many.
The little town of Thyatira, in Lydia, from which came Lydia, the seller of purple cloths, the friend of Paul at Philippi, had, we do not know through whose agency, yielded another church, in which a woman appears as the leading spirit. She favoured the too prevalent corrup- tions of the day, however, rather than the teachings of Paul ; " seducing " the converts to give way to impurity, and " to eat things sacrificed to idols." Repentance is
PAUL ^T. C. 44-47 EPHESUS 113
demanlsd, on pain of her being cast on a sick-bed, and her children being *' killed with death."
At Sardis, the ancient capital of Croesus, matters weu little better, for " the things that remained were ready to die," though there were still "a few who did not defile their garments."
In Philadelphia, still another Lydian city, then the chief place of the province, the Church was feeble, but if it had " little power," it had " kept Christ's, word, and not denied His name." But there also, *' a synagogue of Satan, of them who said they were Jews, but were not and lied,' was fierce in ics hostility ; though the converts would be "kept from the hour of trial," and the adver- saries would not be able to shut the door which Christ had opened before them.
The strongest censures, because the most sweeping, fall on the seventh church named by John, ā that of Laodicea, a town on the western border of Phrygia, about fifty miles south-east of Philadelphia. Some of its mem- bers, at least, were "rich, and had gotten riches, and had need of nothing," but their prosperity had chilled their religious fervour, so that, at best, they were only luke- warm, and, as such, were in danger of being rejected altogether by their Lord.^
Why John selected these churches from among all that must, in ten years after Paul's residence in Ephesus, have spread through a province containing not fewer than 500 towns, it is impossible' to say. Some of the seven are mentioned by him for the first time, while Colosse and Hierapolis^ in the same region are not named. The Braallness of the district addressed, is, moreover, strange,
1 Rev. ii. iii. Ā« Ool. i. 2 ; iv. 13.
UI. H
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for it is comprised in a triangle of which Ephesus is the base, with three sides of about 90, 100, and 140 miles respectively, while Paul's church at Lystra lay about 400 miles east of the city of Diana. It is clear, however, that within a very few years after he had left Asia Minor permanently, his work had fallen into sad confusion, though even those churches named in Kevelation, which were no doubt fair samples of all, had still fire among the ashes. The ultimate history of the faith, in Asia Minor, does not, however, fall into this part of the story.
CHAPTER V
CORINTHIAN TROUBLES
MLDDLE OF A^D. 57; PAUL'S AGE, C. 47^ PAUL STILL TB
EPHESU8
Meanwhile, the shadows hanging over the future were, as yet, comparatively light, though the Apostle had trouble enough in each passing hour. "Without," he tells us, " were fightings, within were fears," ^ so that, amidst all advance of the faith in Ephesus, the whole three years of his stay in it, had seen him in tears, night and day ;* what with his many adversaries;' "the trials that befell him by the plots of the Jews ; " * perils from the heathen rabble, stirred up by men like Demetrius, or Alexander the coppersmith, or other foes, Jewish and heathen ; faith- less friends like Phygelus and Hermogenes ; premonitions that false teachers, even then rising, would end by turning "all that were in Asia away from him;^ continual, ex- hausting labours, in " teaching publicly and from house to house;"' and, "besides all this, anxiety for all the churches, which pressed on him daily." ^
But the later months of his Ephesian residence were destined to be clouded still farther, by troubles of which he now heard, as rending the church he had founded at Corinth. He had left that city in the spring of 55, while
Ā» 2 Cor. viL 6. ' Acts xx. 31. Ā» 1 Cor. xvi. 9. * Acts xx. la * 2 Tim. i. 16. * Acts xx. 2L '2 Cor. xL 28.
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the community, like all other places at the time, was in the utmost excitement, for Claudius had died on the 13th October 54, by the hands of his wife Agrippina and a poison-mixing physician, and her seventeen year old son, Nero, had become emperor, by the will of Claudius and the favour of the Pra3torian guards. The worst acts of the last reign had been ascribed to the imperious and unscrupulous Agrippina, and she now rejoiced in eaining her highest ambition, for, under cover of her son's name, she was, in fact, the reigning sovereign. Intense anxiety filled all hearts as to the future. Caligula's accession had been hailed with wild joy ; that of Nero was greeted with gloomy forebodings. The Christian conviction that " the end of all things was at hand"^ seemed well grounded. The churches were everywhere agitated by the thought, and we may well imagine that its prominence, in the preaching of the Apostle and his fellow-workers, attracted not a few from the outside heathen population ; especi- ally from the hopeless " submerged " classes ā slaves, and **the despised," who were ''beneath consideration"^ by their more prosperous neighbours.
About six months of Nero's reign had passed when Paul left Corinth, and the restraining hand, which had hitherto kept things peaceable and orderly in the Corinthian church, was thus withdrawn. But, besides Paul, Aquila and his wife, and Silas and Timothy, left, also, with him ; if, indeed, the two last had not gone to Macedonia some time before ; and thus the Corinthians were practically left to the care, more or less, of inexperienced local converts, and exposed to the arts of would-be teachers from abroad. The gap made by the absence of Paul, not to speak of that
J I Pet iv. 7. Ā« 1 Cor L 28.
PAUL JET. C. 47 CORINTHIAN TROUBLES 117
of the others, was soon felt. In his place, unfortun- ately, came a number of strangers; first, Apollos, the Alexandrian, and then, Jews from Palestine ; some of them asserting that Peter was the head of the mother church, and ought to be followed in his Jewish views of things ; while others boasted that they had known Christ personally, and had thus learned His exact teachings from His own lips. Before long, it seemed as if every one had turned preacher, insomuch that Paul tells them that *' though they should have ten thousand tutors," he only was their father, ^ and reminds them that their new in- structors too often build, on the foundation of Christ, not gold, silver, or costly stones, but wood, hay, and stubble, destined to be burned up in the fires of the judgment, so near at hand ; leaving little or nothing of the work of the builders ; who, themselves would escape, only as if through fire.^ He had spoken with the simplicity their social and moral condition demanded ā giving them milk, not meat ^ which they were not able to bear ; but these new-comers dealt in the refinements of rabbinical wisdom, rhetorical display, and Greek hair- splitting and endless disputation, amounting, as a whole, to what Paul denounced as " profane babblings, and con- tradictory expositions of (the higher) * knowledge,* which is falsely so called."* Instead of cultivating practiccfl godliness, the church was in danger of becoming a mere arena for vain-glorious declamations, logic- chopping, and idle, high-flying speculations, of no profit ; for the Jew was disputatious beyond measure, and no pleasure was comparable, in the opinion of the Greek, to hearing his
1 1 Oor. iv. 16. ā¢ 1 Cor. iii. 12-16. Ā» 1 Cor. iii. 1.
* 1 Tim. vi. 20.
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own voice.^ The Greek in his vanity was, moreover, inveterately given to form new parties, on every pre- text, as, indeed, the history of Greece shows only too plainly throughout, and not merely to split into innumer- able fractions, but to push the one he for the moment adopted, strenuously to the front ; disparaging and bitterly attacking all others.^ Like some races of our own day, they were " never at peace unless they were fighting."
Paul had attracted adherents from the synagogue, in spite of its hereditary spell over the Jew, and also from the worship of the heathen temple. Separated from old associations by the change, and unable to continue all their former life, the converts had, in many cases, in- curred the bitter persecution of their families and friends ; consoling themselves, under its bitter keenness, by the hope of being admitted into the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, which was, as they believed, to be set up almost immediately ; and by that revelation of an ideal love and spotless holiness, in their now risen Lord, by striving towards the imitation of which, they might find their present reward. But even in us, the hopes and ideals of Christianity have a sadly feeble realisation, and it is not to be wondered at that the rough material of which the Apostolic Church mainly consisted, too often cast back a fond look on what they had given up for these counter-charms. The poor slave might rejoice in the thought of his being recognised as a man, and in the hope of a life hereafter, that would blot out, in its felicity, the gloom of the present ; but to be freed, in this world, only from the yoke of sin, was hardly enough. He panted after a more tangible liberty, and even felt Ā» Job. BeU. Jud. Introd. 6. Ā» 1 Cor. xL 16, 18 ; 1 Tim. vl i.
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his slavery the more, from the visions which Christianity had kindled in his cell.^ Each heart in the Christian assemblies had, moreover, as always, its own care. There were young women and widows anxious about marriage.* Fathers were concerned as to the right course with their daughters, when asked to be wives.' Questions of every- day life are more dangerous to spiritual health than great trials, and the Corinthian Christians had many troubles of all kinds. Hence not a few lost their first enthusiasm. Could it all be wrong that their friends believed? In dull heads ideas are at best confused. An English labourer takes time, to realise a new one with any clear- ness. Not a few of the converts of the Apostle must, ere long, have asked themselves, what harm it could do them, if they obliged their family and kept friendly with their neighbours, by going, now and then, to a temple with them? The temptations of an idol-feast, or even the craving for the good meal it offered without cost, must have been all-powerful with many, who had been at the Christian meeting the night before. Idolatry coloured every act of ancient life ; how difficult for a half- enlightened brain to keep absolutely aloof, from all that was more or less tinged with it ; the offering of a fowl for the recovery of a sick child ; the procession of a bride, with a kid, crowned with flowers, to the temple of Aphrodite on the Acropolis ! A Protestant in a Roman Catholic district would find it hard to be as stern in his attitude, towards the colouring which local daily life caught from its creed, as he might be, amidst a Protestant population. To have the courage of their opinions is not given to all, even now. Some, in these ^ 1 Cor. vii. 21 ff. ; X. 10, 12. M Cor. vil 8 flf. Ā» 1 Cor. vii. 36 ff.
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old days, would salve their conscience by the thought that idols were nothing, and that if they in any way honoured them, it was only a polite form, to please the neighbours. The majority would almost inevitably give way, more or less, from apparent necessity. Paul, indeed, draws a parallel between the position of the converts, and that of the Israelites, when they left Egypt and wandered in the desert ; beset by temptation after temp- tation, which brought them, in too many cases, to a sad fall.^ The forefathers even of Israel had often lusted after evil things, and murmured, and turned to idolatry, and the impurity associated with it; and their story showed the need of unremitting watchfulness.
It was, indeed, no easy task for these hardly fledged Christians, with their sordid memories and foul surround- ings, to keep the narrow path of a high Christian life. Impurity filled the air of Corinth, and was even part of its religion. Drunkenness was so rife, that a drunkard and a Corinthian were held to mean the same thing; greed of money, leading to doubtful plans of getting it, must have been familiar to the quays and business quarters ; for, even in our Christian age, perfect straight- forwardness and frankness cannot be called universal ; and there were attorneys, stock-jobbers, keen tradesmen, unscrupulous middlemen, and joint-stock company pro- moters, then, as now.^ But such shady practices, lower- ing the whole moral tone of the city, brought another evil and discredit in their train. Corinth was a paradise for gentlemen of the long robe, for lawsuits were one of the delights and boasts of the Greek, and knavery, on one side or other, brought a plentiful crop of these before
* 1 Cor. X. and references. * 1 Cor. vL 10 ff.
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the courts, even between Christian and Christian. The sorry sight was thus offered, of those, who, as Paul tells them, were, at the last day, to judge mankind and even the angels, appearing in the Prastorium with complaints against each other ; seeking a decision, of them, from the heathen court.^ How could brethren meet in loving fellowship, in the gatherings of the Church, who had just come from a rancorous dispute about some doubtful money transaction ? The holy kiss would be spdly out of place between them, and how utterly would the old fervour of the brotherhood be chilled ! Worse almost than all, there were rumours of very loose ideas about the relations of the sexes ; a brother being accused of impurity from which even a heathen would shrink. ^ The very women of the congregation, moreover, appeared to have lost the modesty that became them ; sitting in their place in the assembly, with their heads unveiled, contrary to the custom regarded hitherto as most becoming ; and even essaying to speak in public.^ The breaking up of all the old peaceful and beautiful life of the church, by the intrusion of outside would-be teachers, had, moreover, accustomed its members to listen to the depreciation of Paul himself, by these agitators. He was now spoken of, as of inferior standing to the other Apostles,* and the public services and authority of such as Stephanas and others, who belonged to his personal following, and presided in the assemblies in his absence, were treated slightingly.^
Whether the Apostle had visited Corinth while still in Ephesus is questioned, though there seem to be good
Ā» 1 Cor. vl 1-8. * 1 Cor. v. 1 f.
Ā» 1 Cor. XL 4, 13 ; xiv. 34. * 1 Cor. ix. 1 ; iv. I 13.
Ā» 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16.
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grounds for believing that he did so.* He had, however, at least, frequent intercourse with it, through persons coming to him from the church there. The earliest hint of the troubles that had risen, was communicated by some slaves of a sister named Chloe, ā apparently a member of the Corinthian church, ā who had very pro- bably sent them to him, to let him know how things were going. Some time later, Stephanas, his first con- vert in Greece, with two brethren, Fortunatus and Achaicus, visited him from Corinth, ^ and, finally, Apollos, who had gone to that city after the Apostle had left it, was with him in Ephesus.^ Paul had, besides, written to the Corinthians, and received an answer from them,* asking his decision on questions connected with marriage. He may, further, have had messages from them, and from these, and all else, was eager to go back and compose matters by a personal visit. This, however, circum- stances imperatively hindered. It was necessary that he should stay in Ephesus till the next spring,^ but he forthwith sent Timothy, his " beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who would put them in remembrance of his ways, as he taught, everywhere, in every church." Yet, in doing so, he was anxious as to the reception his envoy would meet, and felt it necessary to ask, that "he be with them without fear ; " for, like the Apostle himself, " he works the work of the Lord," and therefore they are to " let no man despise him."^ The arrival of Stephanas and his companions fell after Timothy's departure, and may
' 2 Cor. ii. 1 ; xii. 14, 21 ; xiii. 1, 2. Weizsacker thinks there was no ā¢econd visit ; 267.
Ā« 1 Cor. xvi. 17 f. Ā» 1 Cor. xvi. 12 ; iii. Ā«.
* 1 Cor. V. 8, 9 ; vii. 1. Ā» 1 Cor. xvi. 8.
Ā« 1 Cor. iv. 17; xvi. 10.
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well be imagined to have "refreshed" not only Paurs spirit, but that of his friends among the Corinthian brethren, by its putting them once more, mutually, into possession of each other's news and thoughts.
It is noticeable that, in his Epistles, the Apostle never discloses the subjects on which his visitors had spoken ; that he might not bring personal elements into play, and thus affect the usefulness of those compromised by their communications. Yet he was greatly distressed, and at last felt constrained to relieve his mind, by writing the letter which is now known as the first to the Corinthians, though it really was not so. He had, indeed, much to pain him. If we suppose him to have paid a flying visit to Corinth when wandering through Macedonia and other parts, he had seen too many brethren playing the double part, of toying, more or less, with idolatry, while also attending the church assemblies. Some continued to use their old heathen practice of cursing ; others were too friendly with the loose women of the temples and the city, and still others, had a poor character for fair dealing or even common honesty, or had turned back to the special disgrace of Corinth, its drunkenness.^ Nor was it much better in the Church assemblies themselves, for they were torn by disunion, jealousy, passionate out- breaks, party intrigues, restless slander, whispered flat- teries, and strutting self-importance ā in fact by disorder of every kind.* He had exhorted and commanded, had threatened, and allowed time for penitence, but his word was no longer of weight.* Already, in the letter now lost, he had written strongly on the imperative neces- sity, of keeping aloof from persons of unworthy life.* 1 Cor. V. 10, 11. 3 2 Cor. xiL 20, 21. Ā» 2 Cor. xiii. 2. * 1 Cor. r. 9, 10,
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The new teachers had in fact paralysed his influence, without gaining enough of their own, to bridle the sins and follies that had resumed their old power over the converts. Among these disturbers, however, we must be careful not to class Apollos, for Paul would, assuredly, have spoken very differently of him, had he been one of his enemies and detractors. That a party called them- selves after him, points, we may readily believe, to nothing more than that his style of address, ā as more rhetorical, or, as we say, oratorical, and attractive in delivery, than that of Paul, which his Corinthian critics declared not worth lis- tening to,^ ā made some, of a race, of whom Cicero says, that they did not care half so much for what any speaker said, as for how he said it, prefer the "watering" of Apolloa to the " planting " of the Apostle.^ He may, besides, have been as pleasing in personal appearance as Paul was " weak."* Thus exactly fitted to be "popular," those who specially delighted in his characteristics may, after he left them, have boasted of him as their ideal, in contrast even to Paul himself. But the harmony of his teaching and heart with the Apostle is clear, from Paul recognising him as having continued his work on the same lines, and declaring those who had been instructed by him, as "God's husbandry, and God's building."* So far, indeed, from wishing to form a party in rivalry to the Apostle, he seems to have taken a dislike to continue in Corinth, for, when at Ephesus with Paul, he resolutely declined his recommendation to return to the Isthmus city.^ His work, moreover, is spoken of by the Apostle, as a thing of the past ; so that his admirers must have adopted his name some time after hip labours
I 2 Cor. X- 10. a 1 Cor. iii. 6. Ā» 2 Cor. x. 10.
* 1 Cor. iii. 4-9. * 1 Cor. xvi. 12.
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among tliem were over. Paul, indeed, expressly refers to his teaching, as supporting his own ; ^ urging, in common with him, that the brethren should not be puffed up, one against the other, by going beyond what is written in the Scriptures, to show off their respective gifts and parts, in rivalry to each other, and to air their vanity ; kindling fac- tion, instead of humbly seeking good. Apollos could not therefore have introduced Alexandrian subtletieSj marrying Christianity to new philosophic modes of thought ; though liis cast of mind may have originated speculations, hurtful in the end. Yet, though no blame attached to him for a party having taken his name, their doing so was not the less a trouble to the Apostle.* Apollos, as a man of foreign cul- ture, was necessarily different in his modes of thought from Paul, and would almost inevitably speak in more advanced language, than the "milk" which Paul gave, as all the Corinthians could bear.^ Perhaps he introduced the alle- gorising style in vogue in the Egyptian school from which he came, but his " excellency of speech or of wisdom ** went, in Paul's opinion, over the heads of the audience, who, the Apostle held, needed the simplest statement of the doctrine of the Cross. It may be, however, that some had been led to look with special admiration on the eloquent Alexandrian, from their hearing his disputes with the Jews, in the Corinthian synagogue,* in which he would, doubtless, introduce all the modes of Alexandrian exposition, and show himself versed in the deeper secrets of the Scripture text, which the rabbis especially honoured* as "wisdom."^ It is very probable, also, that his former connection with John may have led him to lay special
Ā» 1 Cor. iv. 6. 2 I Cor. i. 12. Ā» 1 Cor. iii. L
Ā« Acts xviii. 28. * Acts xviii. 24. ā¢ 1 Cor. ii. 8.
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stress on the rite of baptism, as a manifestation of repent- ance and moral reformation ; and this would easily induce, among such people, a new ground of self-complacency in those to whom he had administered it ; making them fancy that they had something of which to boast, beyond the old converts of the Apostle. Hence, it may be, we find Paul telling them, that " he thanks God he had baptized none of them but Crispus and Gains, lest any man might say he was baptized into his name. To be sure, when he thinks of it, he baptized also the household of Stephanas, but he does not know that he baptized any other." ^ Christ, he tells them, sent him, not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel.
The excitement respecting the near advent of the Mes- siah, which had led the Thessalonians to ask Paul, how it would fare, in that day, with those converts who had died before it came, was as keen in the church at Corinth, but took, in it, the subtler form of speculating as to the kind of body in which the dead would reappear. It is probable that the mooting such a point, was due to the tendency of the Alexandrian school to refine and spiritualise dogma ; a feature which might insensibly colour the style of Apollos ; but, indeed, the Greek was given, of his own nature, to delight in all kinds of intellectual snbtleties. The resurrection in the flesh appears to have been widely challenged,^ though the Jewish party would, no doubt, cling to the ruder and grosser ideas cherished in Judaea. Treating the thought of the dead coming out of the graves, as a mere dream of a heated brain,^ not a few dismissed the subject, but others, either in ridicule, or from natural curiosity, asked. With what kind of body they would
Ā» 1 Cor. i. 14-17. ' 1 Cor. i. 1-8, 11. * 1 Cor. xv. 29, 32.
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come back ? To imagine that they would be raised as they were, when laid in the earth, was revolting. How could flesh and blood inherit the kingdom of God?^ No questions could be better suited to keep restless tongues going, or to furnish endless material for debate. The solution given by Paul in his Epistle could, indeed, hardly be expected, with all its eloquence and force, to calm a breeze of discussion so pleasant to a race of talkers.
Other controversies were due to the Judaising party, which first brought faction to a head at Corinth. The corroding acid of Pharisaic intolerance and theological hatred, was now to be grafted on the stock of Greek vanity, and henceforth, these decomposing elements were to carry on their fatal work. The game played in the Galatian churches, was to be repeated under new con- ditions. The Jewish-Christians of Corinth must have been in close relations with their brethren in Asia Minor, where the agitation against Paul had been so violent, and they must have been, as Jews, more or less in sympathy with it, as based on supposed loyalty to the law. Num- bers of Jews and Syrians landed daily at Cenchrea, and among them, there must have been some Christians who looked to Peter, and the mother church at Jerusalem, as the representatives of the faith. Now and then, also, a brother would come who had known Jesus Himself, in Galilee, and had listened to His teaching ; and in a heart with such memories, even Peter would take an inferior place ; nothing contenting such a fortunate one, but to be known as a disciple of Christ Himself. ^ The poverty of the local Christians caused an extensive emigration from Palestine, for the money sent to the Palestine Jews by
^ 1 Cor. XV. 35, 43, 50. ' 1 Oor. xv. 6 ; 2 Cor. x, 7.
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their brethren abroad, as funds are now sent by the Iri-h in America, to their relatives at home, was not enough i o prevent many from setting off, for the lands so rich as to make this liberality possible. But poverty, however acute, in no degree abated the pride of these wanderers, or kept them from assuming the position of proselytisers to Judaism, in the Christian congregations to which they might comi% and even to claim maintenance with their wives, from the members, as teachers or " apostles." ^ Were they not disciples of Peter, the head of the old Apostles, or even converts made by Christ Himself ? From these classes, calling themselves, respectively, the parties of Peter, and Christ, was to come the bitter attack on the apostolic rank of Paul, which ere long rose to a sad height, though we must not think that all the mem- bers of either faction were equally extreme. Ther^^ were, no doubt, many Jewish-Christians, who might \iu . e been called moderate men, as there were Greeks, who, for the sake of peace, would be willing to make some concessions, on their side, to the Jews. The more fiery spirits, how- ever, were destined to do great harm, with their sharp tongues and fierce bigotry, in so inflammable a community. Paul was distressed to find their poisonous " leaven " ere long, spreading lamentably among the '* brethren ; " for nothing could have appeared more improbable, than that Greeks should be brought over, in any measure, to Judaism, even though not required to submit to the special Jewish rite, which does not appear to have been demanded from them. Indeed, it hardly could be, when even Jews were, in many cases, so ashamed of it, that they sought to efface its traces.^
Ā» 1 Cor. ix. 4 ; 2 Cor. xi. 20. ^ 1 Oor. vii. 18.
PAUL MT. C. 47 CORINTHIAN TROUBLES 120
But if there was no strife about circumcision, the (jiiestion of food gave field enough for bitter controversy. Part of the flesh offered for sale in the markets, was that of beasts which had been offered in sacrifice at the temples. When the god and the priest had received their share, the remainder was either consumed at a " feast," in the temple grounds, or taken home for private use, or sold to the butchers. Indeed, after great public sacrifices, the priests themselves sold a large part of their share, which they could not consume. This custom was a great accom- modation to the poorer classes, since this meat was at once of fine quality, and specially cheap, and as such was eagerly bought at the market, when not sent as a present, by the offerers, to friends and relations, or used by them- selves, for " dinners," to which neighbours were invited.^ Even a Christian who would not enter a temple, might thus have idol-fiesh set before him, at any of the social reunions of his heathen friends, or even of strong-minded brethren. To Paul, this was no difficulty, his broad in- telligence settling the matter for himself, by the words of the Psalmist, " The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." 2 But to Jewish-Christians, the touching of flesh that had been offered to an idol was a horror, aggravated by the fact, that the followers of Paul and A polios treated their prejudice as not worth consideration. So favourable a chance for dispute was too inviting to the Greek, to be left unused ; nor was the Jew less eager for the fray. To Paul, the whole matter seemed childish. " Meat," eaid he, " will not commend us to God ; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse ; nor, if we eat, are we the better." . Another dispute presently rose, as to the desirableness Ā» 1 Cor. *- 25-28. * Ps. xxiv. 1. Ā» 1 Cor. viii. a
in i
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of marriage. Peter could not have decided the question, for Paul tells us that he and the other Apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, were committed on it, by taking their wives with them even on their journeys.^ Possibly the disfavour expressed towards marriage was a fancy of the Christ-party, based on Jesus having lived a single life, and on the practice of the Jewish rigorists known as Essen es.^ But it was not peculiar to them ; for we find John, in Revelation, ten years later, giving a place of special honour, as the constant attendants on the Lamb, to 144,000 who had not married; and sanctioning, in doing so, the Levitical idea of marriage being a defile- ment.^ Such a notion sprang up after Paul's leaving Corinth, creating endless troubles. Here, a husband was in mortal fear that he had sinned by marrying; there, wives fancied they must leave their husbands, and a widow who sought re-marriage was looked at askance."* Wives married to heathen husbands, fretted at living amidst their heathen ways, and at the *' defilement " con- tracted from heathen surroundings. Mixed marriages were hardly thought binding, and even in unmixed ones, approaches to a celibate life were counselled. Maidens were urged to keep single, and fathers were pressed to refuse permission to their daughters to marry.^ Unfor- tunately for the future peace of the Church, Paul replied to these notions, from the point of view, that the coming of Christ being so near, marriage, on the whole, was rather undesirable than otherwise.
Ā» 1 Oor. ix. 5.
Ā« Geikie's "Life of Christ," New Test. Hours, ed. i. 342-850. Ā» Rev. xiv. 4 ; Lev. xv. 18. M Cor. vii. 3, 10, 8.
^ 1 Cor. vii. 5, 12, 13, 36.
PAUL JRT. e. 47 CORINTHIAN TROUBLES 131
The fatal loquacity and self-conceit of too many in the Corinthian Church, influenced by the narrow bigotry of the Judaisers, and not less by the familiarity of all, with the wild excitement of some forms of heathen worship round them, brought about still other confusions among the brotherhood. Special " gifts " were characteristic of the time, in these early Christian communities, and, among them, that of " speaking with tongues " was in high honour ; less, perhaps, from its spiritual indications, than as a ground of vain-glorious boasting ; each holding that he was more largely endowed than the other. I have already described this strange phenomenon, so depreciated by the Apostle/ but his words need to be carefully studied, to realise the length to which it carried too many. It rose, in fact, to a kind of dervish delirium, in which the senses of the stranger were overpowered by a wild uproar of groans, sighs, and jubilations, mingled with a whirlwind of unmeaning babble.^ Some were even BO roused to temporary insane raving, that the awful cry was at times heard, in the Christian assembly, which the rabble of Jerusalem had hurled at the Saviour before Pilate and on Calvary ā " Anathema, Jesu ! " ' the blas- phemer fancying, all the time, that he " was speaking in tho Spirit of God ; " for this frantic tumult was thought to be the work, in them, of the Holy Ghost, and, in fact, to be Ibo nign of His presence. They had, in truth, introduced into the Church the mad ravings of Oriental paganism.
Another trouble rose from the different customs of Greek and Jewish women. The different place in social affairs of the former, as contrasted with their Eastern sisters, permitted their taking a prominence in the Church
* Vol u pp. 23-26. ^ 1 Cor xiv. Ā» 1 Cor. xfl. ^
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assemblies, quite novel to those loyal to Jewish ideas. Once fairly at home in the gatherings of the converts, these Western sisters entered into the spirit of the hour, and took as active a part in what was going on, as the men. Hearing every one speak who fancied the Spirit moved him, they, also, gave their tongues free scope, in the full persuasion, no doubt, that the impulse to do so came from a higher power. Moved by the impending wonders and terrors of the expected Advent, the pre- vailing excitement thus drew them out of the comparative privacy of female life required even among Greeks, and made them play a part which did not harmonise with the usual strict subordination of the wife or daughter.^ But not only did they take the place hitherto regarded as proper for men, only ; their new Christian position ; favoured by the Messiah as much* as the other sex ; led them to cast aside the veil, hitherto regarded as an indispensable symbol of female modesty ; its mufflings hindering them in speaking, and interfering with the outward demonstra- tions of emotion, in which the assembly at large indulged so freely. The arrangements of the synagogue, of which the early churches were copies, required the women to sit behind a screen, deeply veiled, but, now, this was dis- continued, though, hitherto, the veil had been a chaste cover from the eyes of men, and also a sign of the relative position of the sexes. Only women of bad fame were accustomed to let themselves be seen thus exposed, and the introduction of so doubtful a novelty into the Church, necessarily added to the aversion felt at the new spectacle, of women declaiming, like men, their supposed inspirations, in the public assembly.
Ā» 1 Oor. xiv. 34-36 ; xl 2-16.
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Sncli apparently indecorous excitement among the sisterhood, bringing it down, as it seemed, to the level of the raving priestesses of the oracles, with their violent agitation, ecstatic elevation, and incoherent words, tended to lower the character of the Church gatherings, as a whole. But another abuse was no less hurtful, since it compromised a much-valued institution ā the frugal banquets of the collective brotherhood, known as Agapae or Love-feasts, and connected with the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Features presented themselves in these, conclusively proving that the boisterous disorder which had invaded the public church-assemblies, could not be ascribed entirely to an exces3 of moral enthusiasm or spiritual fervour. Notwithstanding the transports and raptures of the public services, many things showed that brotherly love had decayed ; some bearing themselves offensively, while others even displayed hostile feelings, to fellow-converts. This state of things had naturally shown itself in the Love-feasts, as well as in the ordinary Church gatherings, till at length the Agapas had become a libel on their name, and, in Paul's opinion, would be better dropped altogether, since " they came together not for the better but for the worse." ^ The different factions were so antagonistic, and caste and selfishness had grown so rank, that the good fellowship of the meal no longer existed. On the pretext of being hungry, and unable to wait for others, each consumed what he had brought, ostensibly, as a contribution to the common stock. ^ Rich men feasted while their poorer brethren starved, and not a few made the meal a drinking bout ; sitting till they were actually drunk.' Homeless men were put to shame, 1 1 Cor. xL 17. M Cor. xL 33, 34. 3 i Cor. xi 21.
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feeling they were not wanted, and slunk away, carrying' with them, we may be sure, feelings very different from those, to call forth which, these Love-feasts had been instituted. The Apostle states these troubles with thoughtful reserve, for the report of them had reached him, through the slaves of Chloe,^ and the poor are apt ā¦o have grudges againsc those richer than themselves. He comforted himself, however, with the thought that while divisions were inevitable, they would show who were sincere in their professions.^ He remembered, also, how too many at Thessalonica had taken advantage of such opportunities, to get their living without working.^ But, at best, there was a sad contrast between the ideal and the reality, of these social meals. The love which, hardly twenty years before, had made the first Christians hold all things in common, so that they might well be called brethren, had grown painfully cold. The abuse of the Agapas was, moreover, embittered by the thought that they were followed by the Lord's Supper, at which, consequently, one would sit down full-fed, and too often even the worse for drink, while his neighbour envied him, and bore him a grudge, for his heartlessness. One would think only of his hunger, when taking the holy bread ; another, would take the holy wine when he had already clouded his brain by drinking, and was unable to distinguish either the bread, or the holy cup, from ordinary food.*
Thus, in many ways, the Corinthian converts had fallen from the high level of their first days. Nor were they nnconscious of their shortcomings, for we find them, now,
< 1 Oor. i. 11 ; XL 18. n Cor. xi. 19. * 2 Then, iil 10, 11. * 1 Cor. xl 29.
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wishing Apollos would visit them ; then, that Paul would come ; and yet again, that even some of the Palestine Jewish-Christian teachers would do so. Every one felt that the state of affairs needed some influential leader, to restore them to a healthier condition.*
It was under these circumstances that Paul wrote, and Bent them, tne Epistle which is now the i?'irst to the Corinthians.
1 Cor. xvi. 5, 12; 2 Cor. xi. 4.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE C0RINTHT4NiĀ» A.D. 57 ; Paul's age, e. 47 Salutation.
I. 1. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by tlie will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, well known to you as one of your own number, and one with me in what I am about to write ā 2. To the church of God at Corinth, who, as such, are set apart to holiness, in Christ Jesus, called by God to be saints, now your usual name j with all, in every place in your province, who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; their Lord and ours : 3. Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pleasant words of kindly appreciation follow, but rather of the gifts of the congregation than of their moral graces, of which he would need to speak gravely. From natural courtesy, and, also, no doubt, from desire to win a ready hearing, Paul always opens his letters, or begins his speeches, in this way, praising what he can honestly commend, before passing to what may be unpleasant.
4. I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus ; 5. that in every- thing ye were enriched, in your fellowship with Him, in all modes of utterance, and in all forms of knowledge; 6. for the testimony to Christ, in my preaching, was thus confirmed in you; these gifts establishing a firm faith in Him, in your minds ; 7. so that ye come behind no other church in &ny
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izift ; waiting longingly for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; 8. Who shall also continue to confirm you to the end, that is, till He come, so that ye may be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9. God is faithful, by whom ye were called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, as partakers of His glory.
The Apostle now urges unity.
10. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, ā having no party shibboleths and *' confessions," and that there be no divisions ā that is, schisms, among you ; but that ye be whole and unbroken, and thus perfect as a church, by all having the same opinions, and the same judgment, as to the practical action.
That there are factions is too certain, and their existence is greatly to be condemned.
11. For it has been signified to me, respecting you, my brethren, by some of Chloe's household, sent by her from Corinth, to me, here, in Ephesus, that there are contentions among you. 12. I mean, that you are all broken up into parties, every one of you saying, either, I am of Paul, or, I am of ApoUos, or, I am of Cephas, or, I am of Christ. 13. Is Christ divided ? Was Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized into the name of Paul ? 14. I thank God that I baptized none of you, save Crispus and Gains : 15. lest any man should say that ye were baptized into my name. 16. And I baptized, also, the household of Stephanas : besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.^
From this point, to the end of the chapter, Paul defends the simplicity of his teaching, as best suited to the message of the Gospel. Indeed, to the twenty-first verse of the fourth chapter, he criticises the opposite
' 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 17.
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style, of the so-called party of Apollos, which he nnder- stands to be now in favour with the Corinthians ; a party, it would seem, laying special stress on baptism. By the Apostle the great end of his mission was felt to be not to baptize but to preach, baptism being left, as needing no particular qualification for its administration, to his humbler co-workers, ^ that he might not be hindered in carrying out his higher object; an arrangement at once necessary and beneficial, when we remember the number of his converts. Nor was it contrary to the practice of other Apostles, for Peter followed the same plan,^ which was, also, most probably, that of all the Apostles. Even Christ, indeed, had made preaching the chief object of the apostolic ofiice,^ while He Himself did not baptize, but left the Apostles to do so.* The Apostle, moreover, felt that the statement of the Gospel could not be too simple, and hence was careful to preach without any attempt at fine language, or the affected modes of address so dear to the Greeks. Instead of this, he eschewed everything like the rhetorical arts of the schools, either in the laboured style, the arrangement or exposition of his subject, or the preparation and composition of his addresses; to give them a philosophic form. In short, he thought nothing of the manner, but everything of the matter ; that the attention of the hearers might not be turned from the great truths he wished to impress on them, to the ornaments and elegancies of his delivery, and the skill of literary culture displayed. The Apollos party might aim at eloquence and profundity, claiming to give " meat " to their hearers, not '* milk," as Paul did ; for his
^ Acts xiii. 5. ' Acts x. 48.
^ Luke xxiv. 47 ; Mark xvi 15. * John iv. 2,
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CARICATURE OP THE CRUCIFIXION, POUND ON THE WALLS OP A CHAMBER UNDER THE PALACE OF THE C^SARS.
In 185G four rooms below the Palace of the Caesars, now at the side of the road looking over to the site of the great Circus of Rome, were opened, and on their walls many ancient inscriptions were found, such as we see on the walls of any of our own public places when such scribblings are possible.
One of them was that which is exactly copied in this illustration. It is now in the Kircherian iluscum at Rome, where I have seen it.
A figure with the head of an ass is nailed on a cross, and underneath are the words ā
AAEEAMENOC CEBETE ((refierai) OEON. Alexamenos worships (his) God.
The Christians were constantly accused of worshipping an ass, and vigorously repudiated the slander. TertuUian, towards the close of tlie next century, says, " A painting has lately appeared ā a figure with the ears of an ass, a hoof on one foot, dressed in a toga, and carrying a bookā and this is called the God of the Christians."
An ancient gem. moreover, has been found, on which an ass is engraved, teaching āapparently auotner form of the game Jibe.
140 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
part, he wished his words to be only a medium through which men looked, without conscious thought of it, at the wondrous revelation of Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, the Saviour of the world.
17. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel : and that not with wisdom which consists merely of words ; that the cross of Christ might not, by such sounding verbiage, lose any of its proper effect, and the preaching of it. thus be made void and ineffective.
18. For the word of the cross is, to them that are in the way of perdition, foolishness ; but to us, who are in the way of salvation, it is the power of Grod, and as such, is not to be put in the background by fine discourse, which attracts to itself the chief interest. 19. For it is written ā / will destroy the wisdom of the tcise, and the prudence of the prudent I tvill cast from me} 20. What this verse promises, has happened I For where is the Rabbi ? where is the Scribe learned in the law ? where is the school-disputant of this heathen age ? They can no longer keep their ground : they are cast from Him, by God. Hath not God exposed the wisdom of the world as folly? 21. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by its supposed wisdom, did not know God, it was God's good plea- sure, by what is called the foolishness of the preaching, of us, apostles, to save them that believe. 22. For they regard it as foolishness; the Jews on the one hand asking for wonders, ^ to prove that Jesus is the kind of Messiah they seek, and the Greeks asking what they call 'ā¢ Wisdom : " 23. But we preach Christ, as the crucified one : which is a scandal, causing
^ Isa. xxix. 14 : a free rendering of the Septuagint. The passage refers, primarily, to God's punishing the Jews, by the hand of the Assyrians, for their honouring Hinri only with their lips, while they try to " hide their counsel from Him " in their proposed political action. But the Old Testa- ment is always regarded by the sacred writers, and even by Christ Himself, as having a higher reference to the Messianic future. See ^lark XV. 8.
* Mark xvi. 1.
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offence and indignation to Jews and sheer folly to Greeks, who expect salvation through philosophy; 24. But to them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, we glory in preaching Christ, as the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25. For what seems to men " foolishness," which, nevertheless, is of God, is wiser than man's wisdom ; and what is called " weak- ness," which also is of God, is stronger than man's strength.
This is confirmed by the experience of the Corinthian brethren.
26. For look only at the facts of your calling to be Chris- tians, brethren ; how that not many of you are wise in this world's school- wisdom, not many of high position, not many high-born. 27. No, God chose the foolish ones of the world, not favoured by training in "wisdom," to shame those counted wise : the emptiness and worthlessness of such wisdom being shown, by God choosing, not them, but the simple ; and God chose the weak ones of the world to shame the powerful ; 28. and the low-born, and the de&pised, aye, and ones too low to be said to live, ā to make as nothing the pride and boasts of those who claim to be all important : 29. that no man should affect to be anything in himself before Grod. 30. But you have a just ground of glorifying, for it is from God that you are in Christ, as your spiritual life, for He was made to us by God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption : 31. that it might be as it is written ā He that boasts^ let him boast in the Lord.
The Apostle now applies what he has said, to his own entrance among them as their teacher.
II. 1. And I, brethren, whatever other teachers may have done, when I came to you, did not come preaching to you the mystery of God with the superior oratory of philosophic " wisdom." 2. For I determined to know nothing, fa^- less to preach anjrthing, except Jesus Christ, and Him, as the
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crucified. 3. Moreover, I felt so unworthy of the great work committed to me in Corinth that while I was with you it filled me with weakness, and fear, and even much trembling, for who is sufficient for these things ? ^ 4. And my speech generally, and specially my preaching, were not with persuasive arts of school "wisdom," but with a manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of His divine power, which moved your minds through my preaching, and convinced you of its truth : 5. That your faith should not rest on the oratory or philosophy, that is, on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God, who convinced you through my lips.
But though he abjures what is called "wisdom," he makes use of a higher, true, wisdom, among those fit to understand it ā the wisdom revealed by the Holy Spirit, which is, as such, only fit for those who are enlightened by the Spirit.
6. Yet, however simple my preaching was, I speak wisdom among those ripe in understanding, or, as we might Say, fuU- giown ā not such as may be called "babes in Christ;"^ but not that wisdom called so in this age, nor that of the rulers of this age, Jew and Gentile, who are coming to nought pre- sently, when Christ sets up His kingdom. 7. But we speak the wisdon of God as shown in a mystery ā that is, I make known the triumph of that divine wisdom, which has been hidden, by Him, from man ; which He, from before the world- ages, in eternity, preordained, to bring about our heavenly glory. 8. Which none of the rulers of this world, Jewish or heathen, have known, ā for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. 9. But we preach these things of which it may be said, as it is written ā What the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard ^ and what has not risen from the depths of the unknown, into the heart of man ā that is ā all that God has prepared for them that
^ 2 Oor. ii. 16. '1 Cor. iii. I.
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love Him.^ 10. Yet, to us, God has revealed them through the Spirit : for the divine Spirit searches into all things, even the deep things of God. 11. For the Spirit of God is, to God, what the spirit of man is, to man, and who among men knows the secret things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ] Even so, the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. 12. But we have not received the spirit of the world, that spirit which the unbelieving have, which comes from the evil one, the ruler of the darkness of this world. 2 Had we received that spirit, the knowledge of the things of God would have remained hidden from us, and, instead of speaking words inspired by God, we should have spoken the language of school-wisdom. But we have received the Spirit which is from God ; that, having thus the divine pur- pose of salvation disclosed to us, we might know the things that are freely given to us, as Christians, by God. 13. Which things, therefore, I, also, speak, not in words of reasoning, rhetoric, and the like, taught by man's wisdom, but in those which the Spirit of God teaches; explaining spiritual things to spiritual men, linking spiritual discourse to the spiritual truths revealed to us.^ 14. But the unilluminated natural man, who has not the spiritual life in him, will not receive, but rejects, the things revealed by the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness to him ; and he cannot understand them, because they are examined into, and judged of, only by the spiritual faculty, which he has not. 15. But he who is endowed with the Spirit, examines into, and judges respecting everything, but he himself cannot be judged or understood by any natural man, so high does he stand above all such ā being a mystery inexplicable to their unenlightened minds, to which the things of the Spirit are foUy! 16. For, as
^ This quotation is thought by some to be taken from a book then widely read in Jewish and Christian circles ā the Apocalypse of Elias. But a free paraphrase, in a manner not unusual with Paul, would suffice to de- rive it from Isa, Ixiv. 4.
2 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Eph. vi. 11, 12 ; ii. 2.
ā¢ I have given the two most probable explanations of this clause.
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Scripture says, WJiO has known the mind of the Lord that he should indriLct Him ? ^ But we, Christians, have the mind of Christ, for we have His Spirit, and He is in us.2
The Apostle proceeds to apply what he has been saying, to his relations towards the Corinthians. He has to teU them, to his great sorrow, that though they are thus, in name, spiritual, he is still, as in the early times of their faith, unable to communicate this " wisdom " of God^ to them * on account of their party divisions.
III. 1. And as no one else could, so, neither, could I, speak to you as I would to spiritual men, but I must speak as to men still thinking, judging, and acting under the power of your old llesliiy nature ā indeed, as to babes in Christ. For though you have received spiritual life from Him, you have not allowed yourselves to be led by the enlightening and sanctifying influences of the Spirit, so as to overcome the principles of your old life, and thus, in effect, are just where you were when you first became Christians. 2. I fed you, then, with milk, not with solid food ; for you were not able to bear it. But neither are you able even now to bear it, 3. for you are still under the power of your fleshly natures. For inasmuch as there is among you jealousy and strife, are you not still under the flesh, walkin.ix still as unconverted men do ? 4. For when one says, " I follow Paul ; " and another, " I follow Apollos," are you not acting like men still unspiritual, without the principle of divine life ?
No teacher has any ground in himself, for boasting ; and each will receive his reward at the coming of Christ, ac- cording to God's estimate of the value of his work.
5. Think of it. What, now, is Apollos 1 and what is Paul 1
^ Isa. xl. 13, LXX., quoted also in Rom. xi. 34. - Rom. v\\\. 9, 10 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 5. . Cor. ii. 6-16. * 1 Cor. i. 26-ii. 5.
J'AUL JET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 145
Nothing but sei-vants of God, through whom ye believed, and that as the Lord has granted to each of us, to be successful in bringing you to the faith. 6. I planted, for I was the founder cf the Corinthian church ; Apollos watered, carrying on the work I had begun ; but God gave the increase. 7. Therefore neither he who plants, nor he who waters, is anything; God who gives the increase is everything. 8. The planter and the waterer are, alike, only servants : and each will receive his own reward, according to his own work. 9. For we, your teachers, work with God, ā the Lord and supreme overseer of the Church, ā in a common aim, ā its advancement. You are God's tilth, which He desires, through us, to turn into a fruitful field. Or, to vary the figure, you are a building belonging to God ā which He seeks to raise by our hands.
This figure is now further carried out.
10. In your case, according to the gracious endowment given me by God, ā who has fitted me to be especially a fcnmder of churches,ā as a wise master-builder I laid a foundation, but another, whether Apollos or any one else, on this, builds higher. But let any one who does so, take heed with what material he builds on it. To speak plainly, let every one look to it, by what teaching he seeks to advance and build up, in Christian knowledge and principles of life, the church, founded on Jesus Christ. 11. For no other foundation can nny man lay, to be acceptable to God, than that which is already laid by me, which is Jesus Christ. 12. But if any man build on this foundation, ā whether it be gold, silver, costly stones, or wood, hay, or stubble; ā 13. each man's work will he brought to light ; for the day of Christ's coming will show its character, for that day will be revealed in the flaming fire, of the glory of God, shining forth from Christ, ^ and that fire, itself, will test each man s work, of what sort it is. 14. If any man's work, which he has built on this foundation, stands the fire, he shall receive a reward. 15. But if any man's
Ā» 2 Thess. i 8.
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work be burned up, he shall suffer the loss of his reward : he himself, however, shall be saved ; yet as if through the fire.
Let the brethren beware ! The party spirit to which they have given way, is a destruction of the temple of God ā their church. Let them cut off the source of this sec- tarian strife, by repudiating rhetorical and so-called philo- sophical " wisdom," and that boasting in the authority of this one or that, which is the stay of such party spirit, but utterly opposed to true Christian feeling.
16. I have said that you are a building of God ; let me now tell you what kind of a building you are. Do you not know that ye are as a church, a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you, as such ? 17. If any man destroy the temple of God, that is, defile, or desecrate, or injure it, as lie is held to do who makes it levitically unclean, or muti- lates the structure, or is even careless in watching and guarding it,^ ā him will God destroy ; for the temple of God is holy, as the temple of God, and therefore inviolable ; and you, as a temple of God, are, in the same way, holy, and not, under pain of death, to be " destroyed," as the party leaders are "destroying" you.^
18. You who boast of your " wisdom " do not surely realise that by your party strife, you are incurring this dreadful penalty, as detroyers of the temple of God ! But let no man deceive himself ; if any man think that he is specially wise, compared with the rest of you, in the wisdom of this age, let him put away this false wisdom, and become like him whom he now considers a fool, that he may become truly wise. Let him return to the simple gospel, uncorrupted by philo- sophy or speculation. 19. For the wisdom of this age, so soon to be exchanged for the new age, of the kingdom of the Mes-
^ Maimon. de JJomo Electa, i. 10 ; vii. 7.
' Even to speak against the Temple was held worthy of instant death (Acts vi. 13).
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siah, ā its sophistry, oratory, rhetoric, and the like, is foolish- ness with God ; for it is written, He that taketh the loise in their own craftiness.^ 20. And again, The Lord knows the reasoiiinris of the wise that they are vain.^ 21. Therefore, since the wisdom of this world, the ground of your boasting, is only folly in the sight of God, let no one glory in men, ā in this leader or that. . . . For all things are yours, ā everything is ordained to aid the highest interests of the saints, and is thus, in the truest sense, theirs;'^ 22. whether Paul, -n- ApoUos, or Cephas, ā for all, alike, are sent forth only to further the salvation of believers, ā or the world, which will be yours, as Christians, when subdued to your Lord, at His coming, ā or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours ; 23. But you are Christ's ; and Christ is God's.
Having shown what is wrong in their estimate of teachers, Paul now states the right way in which to view them. He will not himself, however, submit to the judgment of any man, as to his action or position ; indeed, he will not form an opinion respecting himself ; Christ only is to judge him. The Corinthians should, therefore, leave their conclusions respecting men and things, to the decision of Christ at His coming.*
IV. 1. The fitting way to regard us, your teachers, whether Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, is to consider us as servants of Christ, and stewards in charge of the mysteries of God, the Head of all ; ^ these mysteries being the secrets of His divine purpose of salvation through Christ, reveale in the gospeld. 2. In this office and position, moreover, it is required in
^ Job V. 13. Not exactly taken from the LXX., but rather expressing the sense of the Hebrew.
* Ps. xciv. 11. Varied from both the Hebrew and the LXX. by the substitution, apparently with design, of " wise" for "men."
' Rom. viii. 28 ; iv. 13.
* Chap. iv. 1-5. ** Chap, il 23.
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stewards, as the great matter, that a man be found faithful to the interests of his Lord. 3. But with me it is a very small matter indeed, that I should be criticised, and have a judgment passed on me, by you, or by any human assize : in fact, I do not pretend to form a judgment on my own self. 4. For though I know nothing against myself, I am not justified by this, my pure conscience as to my faithfulness, not being the ground of my justification ; for he who decides respecting me is Christ the Lord. 5. Therefore judge nothing before the time, till the Lord come, who will not only appear as Judge, but will both bring to light what has been hidden in darkness ā that also which has fitly veiled itself in dark- nessā and, still more, will make apparent the hitherto secret counsels of the hearts ; and then will the praise due to him be given to each man, from God, through Christ.
What he had hitherto said respecting himself and Apollos, was applicable to all teachers, and was designed to turn them from party pride. That pride he goes on to rebuke, by telling the story of his personal sufferings for Christ.
6. Now these things, just written, for your good, brethren, I have spoken in the persons of myself and Apollos, to avoid unpleasantness, though they are intended for all party leaders, that you might learn in us, that is, from what I have told you of our views respecting the office and position of teachers, not to go beyond the things that are written in the Scriptures : their requirement of humility and difS-dence in all who teach ; that none of you be puffed up for the one teacher, against another brother, who follows another leader. 7. But, after all, who makes differences in endowments, or otherwise, between man and man, between teacher and teacher ? Who, for example, makes thee, whoever thou be, differ, to thy advantage, from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive from God ? But if you received
/AXJL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE COEINTHIANS 140
it. why do yon glory as if you did not receive it ? This being the case, with both teachers and you, my brethren, how humble and modest should both you and they be ?
Having shown them how their conduct violated a funda- mental principle of all religion, the Apostle, unable to restrain himself longer to the gentleness of searching questions, shows the pain their behaviour has given him, by words of keen irony.
8. You say, do you, that you have already all the spiritual gifts you wish : that you have already become rich in them ; that without the help of me or of Apollos,i you have become kings in spiritual graces ; without having had to wait for Christ's making you so, at His ccming. I would that you did thus reign ; that we, also, as those who planted and watered you, might reign with you.
So far from such exaltation, however, we Apostles have a very different experience of profound humiliation !
9. For our position is, in my opinion, such as to make the reigning with you very desirable ! For, I think, God has set forth us, the Apostles, who, naturally, should be first, ^ like the band of men doomed to death, who come last of all into the amphitheatre. For we are made a show to the whole world, to angels as well as to men, like the victims who fight with men or beasts, in the great arena, open to the heavens : on whom all eyes are turned from the high-reaching seats around ; you Corinthians, sitting amongst the crowds, cold, unmoved, and unconcerned ! 10. You are quite superior people to us ! For, concerning ourselves, as we do, about nothing but Christ, the crucified ; knowing only Him, and hr.ving nothing to do with the wisdom of the age ; we are apparently fools for Christ's sake, while you are wise in Christ ; we are weak, but you are strong, for we rely only on
1 ā¼. Ā«. M Cor. xii. 28.
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the word of Christ, using no human helps to success, such as you boast, in your availing yourselves of the resources of " wisdom ; " you have glory, are highly honoured people, but we have only dishonour. 11. Even to this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and shiver in the cold of winter and of night, half-clothed ; and are roughly mishandled, with blows of fist, or worse, and have no settled home. 12. And we toil for our bread, working at this or that with our own hands : when men curse us, we bless them ; ^ when we are per- secuted, we bear it patiently : 13. when we are calumniated, we return soft words ; we are made, indeed, like the sweepings, the castaway refuse, of the whole world, the scrapings and ojffscouriugs of all things, even till now, and no doubt will still be so in the future.
His indignation at them has now passed away, and soft words succeed. They are to take what he has said, not as intended to shame them, but as the warnings of their spiritual father, whom they should make their pattern. He has, therefore, sent Timothy to them, but he hopes, him- self, soon to follow : is he to come with a rod, or in love ?
14. I do not write thus to shame you, but to admonish you, ns my beloved children. 15. For though you were to have ten thousand under-teachers and conductors to Christ, yet you have not many fathers ; for it was I who begat you to be in Christ Jesus, by the preaching of the gospel. 16. I beseech you, therefore, be imitators of me, in the things of which I have spoken. 17. To help you to be so, I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways ā my spirit and bear- ing in the service of Christ, even as I teach everywhere, in every church ; which will assist you in copying my example. 18. But some I hear are puffed up with self suificiency and pride, as if I were not really myself, coming to you. 19. But
1 Matt. V. 39, 44.
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I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will ; and will then know, not the word of those who are so puffed up ā how they speak, or what ā but their power in advancing Christ's king- dom. 20. For the kingdom of God is not a thing of mere words, but of power, in leading men to a new life. 21. What then do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and a spirit of gentleness 1
The censure of party contention is now ended, but Paul has, regretfully, to speak as sliarply on another abuse among them, and that nothing less than a case of the grossest immorality.
V, 1. It is, actually, widely reported that there is fornica- tion among you. and such as is not met with, even among the heathen ; that one of you has his father's wife. 2. And yet you, among whom such a scandal is found, are puffed up with pride, at your supposed high grade of Christian wisdom and perfection, and have not rather been cast down in peni- tential sorrow ; that, through this, he that has done this deed might be put away from among you. 3. This, indeed, must be done. For I, Paul, personally, being absent from you in body, but present in spirit, have already, as if I were present in person, ruling your community, decided respecting him who has thus acted ; namely thus : 4. That you hold an assembly of the congregation, and when thus gathered to- gether, I being with you in spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus, and clothed with His power, as His apostle ; and that, in this assembly, ye shall solemnly announce that I, Paul, thus spiritually present and fully authorised, 6. deliver therewith, such an one ā you know whom I mean, ā in the name of the Lord, to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh ; that his sinful body, the seat of his lusts and passions, may he struck by some illness, so as to break down and extir- pate their dominion over him ; that his spirit may be thus saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6. But, pray, think how unbecoming is your boasting of your lofty spiritual honours
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as a church, when it is necessary to take such a measure with one of your number ! Do you not know the proverb, that a liUle leaven leavens the tuhole lum]) 1 7. Purge out, tlierefore. the old leaven still remaining among you, from your state before you were Christians ; that you may be "clean," and that you may be a new lump ; being thus, now, free from this bad leaven. For Christ was sacrificed as our Passover, and you know how all old leaven is diligently put away bafore the Jewish festival.^ 8. Therefore let us keep the Christian feast, the supper of the Lord, which commemo- rates His atoning death, not with the old leaven of this offender's presence, still allowed to remain in us, nor with any of the leaven of vice and wickedness of our former life ; but with the unleavened bread of purity and truth.
A passage in a former letter of the Apostle, now lost, respecting the relations in which the brethren should stand to immoral persons, having been misunderstood, the Apostle refers to it, and explains it more fully.
9. What I have just said about the putting away of the incestuous man, and of your purifying yourselves from old leaven, reminds me of a passage in a former letter which has been misconstrued. I wrote to you in that letter, to have no company with fornicators ; 10. But I did not mean that you should keep altogetlier aloof from the fornicators of this world, outside the church, or from all defrauders, or robbing extortioners, or i;iolaters; for then you must needs go out of the world altogether. 11. What I meant, and now write to you, was in reference to brother Christians guilty of these sins ā that if any man who calls himself a Christian, be a fornicator, or a defrauder, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or a plundering extortioner ā you were not to keep company or even to eat with him. 12. That I alluded to Christians, not to non Christians, is clear, for what have i to
^ Exod. xii. 19 ; xiil 7.
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do with disciplinary judgments on those who are outside the church ? Are not those who are in the church the persons you yourselves judge, 13. whereas those who are outside it, God judges ? And, in the same way, do not I, also, judge only the hrethren ? Put away therefore from among your- selves the wicked man.
A new paragraph, dealing with another abuse, now opens. Full of litigiousness, the Corinthian brethren actually went to law with each other, before heathen judges, which not only disgraced their faith, but led to various sins. They should not act thus, but instead of fighting each other in law courts, should rather suffer wrong; considering that the unrighteous will not share in the kingdom of the Messiah, and that, as Christians, they are "washed," and "sanctified," and "justified," and should be above unworthy contention.
VI. 1. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, actually take it into court before the unrighteous, and not rather bring it before the saints P 2. Or do you not know that the saints, at the coming of Christ, ā as judges with Him, ā will judge the world ? ^ And if the world is to be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the most trifling disputes ? 3. Do you not know that we shall, hereafter, judge angels, and if so, how much more are we fit to judge things of every -day life ? 4. If, therefore, you have disputes to settle, which concern these affairs of ordinary life, why do ye set them to judge those, who, as heathen, are of no account in the church ? 5. I say this to move you to shame. Is it really so, that there is not among you even one wise man, who, in a given case, shall be able to decide between his brethren who have the dispute? 6. There cannot, I fear, be one, for brother goes to law with brother, and that before judges wb"
' ChĀ»p. L 2. 2 i^att. xix. 28 ; Luke xxii. 30 ; Wisd. ill. 8.
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are unbelievers. 7. Nay, still more, it is every way a fault in you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged ? Why not rather let your- selves be cheated ? 8. But, instead of that, you yourselves do wrong, and cheat, and that, your brethren. 9. Or do ye not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? This fundamental truth is more apt to be forgotten in Corinth than anywhere, but be not deceived : neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor sodomites, 10. nor thieves, nor cheats, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor robbing extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11. And such worthless characters were some of you : but ye washed yourselves, in symbol, from all this, in baptism; but ye were sanctified when, after baptism, ye re- ceived the Holy Spirit, and were introduced to the pure life of those separated, as Christians, to God ; ^ and, as dead to sin, but alive to God, having risen with Christ to newness of life,'^ were justified, or assoiled from the sin of your past lives, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
Among other gross ideas that had sprung up in Corinth, no doubt from new, unhealthy teaching, ā vicious ideas of Christian liberty had gained ground; some maintaining that, as all kinds of meat were free to the believer, so, also, impurity was permitted. This Paul now vigorously denounces. As Christians, says he, all things are lawful to us, so far as they are profitable to our higher interests, but we must in no case go too far. Thus, the enjoyment of food, as conformable to our nature, is permitted, and ordained by God, temporarily, till we be changed at the coming of Christ. But to give way to impurity is quite different ; that is contrary to Christianity, and to the end God has assigned to the body. The Corinthians,
1 Acts ii. 38. Ā« Rom. vi. 2 ; iv. 11.
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as heathen, had defended impurity as only indulgence of nature, and now, as Christians, too many were inclined to include it under the " all things " that were lawful. Greeks and Romans, alike, thought immorality perfectly right, ^ and such moral flotsam and jetsam as Paul had just declared numbers of the brethren to have lately been, ^ must still have had only a veneer of Christianity over the old vicious nature. The least scratch would too often show the heathen beneath. Radical moral change must always be very gradual. Habits as old as one's life, die hard, and, like ivy in a broken wall, keep constantly springing again, even when we fancy they have been quite rooted out. Yet it is striking to find "the teaching of Balaam " and ** the works of the Nicolaitans," which, Christ says, "He hates,"* making their appearance, thus, at Corinth, within, one may say, a few months after Paul's leaving, though he had laboured there so long ; for the looseness he now had to combat must have been long cherished, before it became so prominent as to be singled out for formal denunciation.
12. I have said that all things are lawful for me which are not contrary to the faith ; but, at the same time, all things are not conducive to good : all things are indeed permitted me ; but I will not let myself be brought under the power of anything, so as to become its slave. 13. Meats are designed for the belly, and the belly for meats : but God will put an end to both the belly and the meats at the day of judgment, and hence they are indifferent matters. But the body was not made for fornication, as the stomach is for food; we can- not plead any such purpose as that, designed for it; on the contrary, it was made for the Lord, and the Lord for the body ;
1 Grol ad. AeU xt. 20. Ā« Vers. 9, 10. Ā» Rev, il 6, 14.
156 t&E AfOSTLES A.D. 57
for we Christians are Christ's "body," His "members ;"^ 14. And God both raised the Lord in a glorious hody,^ and will raise up " our vile body, that it may be fashioned like that glorious body," through His power; and the body, thus glorified, will live for ever, to serve Christ, and is thus en- tirely different from the organ which receives our food now, but will be done away at our death. 15. That fornication is not indifferent, like the use of meats, but contrary to the faith, is thus proved on two grounds : for the tody belongs to Christ, and is destined to be raised again. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ ā members of His mystical body ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ's body, and make them members of a harlot's body 1 God forbid ! 16. Or do you not know that he who is (carnally) joined to a harlot, becomes one body with her ? For He, that is, Grod, says. The twain shall become one flesh. '^ 17. But he who is united to Christ, the Lord, becomes not only one body with Him, but one spirit with Him. 18. Flee, therefore, fornica- tion. Every other sin that a man does, is outside of the body ā it being the passive tool of external agency, ā but the body as a whole is the direct instrument of this sin, and there- fore, he who commits fornication sins against his whole body, ā his whole nature, physical and moral alike. 19. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, which dwells in you, and which you have from God, and that, thus, you do not belong to yourselves, but to God ? 20. For you were bought with a price, ā the blood of Christ,* ā glorify God, therefore, in your body, through chastity, since the body, as His temple, is His.
Reaction against the terrible prevalence of immorality had led some of the better spirits in the Corinthian church,
1 Col. i. 24, 15. * Phil. iii. 21.
' Gen. ii. 24. '* They twain " is not in the Hebrew, but has been added in the LXX., in the interests of monogamy. They occur also in the Sama^ ritan Pentateuch. See Matt. xix. 5 ; Mark x. 8 ; Eph. v. 31.
* Matt. ii. 28 ; Rom. iii. 24 ; Eph. i. 7 ; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19.
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 157
to an aversion from sexual relations, however pure. Mar- riage was viewed with disfavour ; celibacy being held up as the ideal for Christians ; and even among those who were already married, a disposition showed itself, in some, to live as if they were single. On these points the Apostle, who had been consulted respecting them, gives his judg- ment.
CHRISTIANS PRATINQ. FROM THE CATACOMBS AT NAPLES. * 'Lifting up holy hands" (1 Tim. ii. 8).
YII. 1. Now, concerning the things about which you wrote : as things are,^ it is good for a man to remain unmarried. 2. Yet, because of the abounding prevalence of fornications, which so tempt you to sin in this way. let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3. Let the husband, moreover, render to the wife her marriage due ; and likewise, also, the wife to her husband. 4. The wife has no right over her own body, but the husband has, and like-
1 Verse 31.
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wise, also, the husband has no right over his own body, but the wife. 5. Do not, therefore, defraud one the other of this due, except it be by consent, for a time, to be free to give yourselves to a special season of prayer, after which you may be together again ; that Satan tempt you not to fornication through your want of moral strength to continue continent. 6. This, however, I say by way of allowance for your weak- ness, not as a command, as if you were never, if you so agreed, to keep apart for longer periods. 7. Yet I wish that every man were gifted with continence, even as I myself am. Howbeit, every man has his own gift from God, one this way, the other that.
With respect to the unmarried and to widows he has a word to say.
8. But I say to the unmarried of both sexes, and to widows It is good for them if they remain as I have remained ā un- married. 9. But if they have not the gift of continency, let them marry : for it is better to marry than to be burning.^
He now discusses the difficulties of those who are married.
lo. But to the married I give commandment ; indeed, not I, but the Lord, That the wife do not separate herself from her husband ; 11. but if she has actually separated from him, let her remain unmarried, since she is still his wife ; or else let her be reconciled to her husband ; ā and I, or rather the Lord, further command. That the husband do not send away his wife, except for adultery.*
As to mixed marriages, he tells them ā
12. I have been speaking of marriages where both are Christians. As to others, who married when still heathen, and of whom only one has been converted ; ā I, not, in this
1 Present tense,
^ Matt. V. 32 ; xix. 9. But the limitation, which was the doctrine of Schammai, does not occur in Mark x, 11 ; Luke xvi. 18.
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case, the Lord, say : If any brother have a wife who is still a heathen, and yet willing to live with him, let him not leave her. 13. And the woman who has a husband who still remains a heathen, but is content to live with her, let her not leave him.^ 14. For the unbelieving husband is hallowed by his union with the believing wife, and the un- believing wife is hallowed by the believing' husband : otherwise your children would be " unclean ; " but now that one parent is Christian, they are hallowed, and the blessing which makes them hallowed, necessarily covers the non-Christian parent also. 15. Yet if the still heathen husband separate from the believing wife, let him separate ; the brother or sister, thus repudiated, is not slavishly bound to the one leaving, but is free from the marriage bond ; ^ for God has called us to be in peace, and that would be impossible in this case. 16. But yoii should make the greatest efforts to avoid breaking up even such a marriage, for how knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt not save thy husband ? or how knowest thou, O husband, whether thou shalt not save thy wife? 17. Only, use your freedom, in such circumstances, with this strict limitation, that every one is bound to remain, and conduct himself worthily, in the position in which God has placed him ; and not to break away from it without the most pressing cause ; and thus I ordain in all the churches.
This principle Paul now applies to different classes ā the cii'cumcised, and uncircumcised ; the slave, and the free man.
18. Was any man called having the mark of circumcision? Let him not efface it.* If any one was uncircumcised at the
^ Plutarch, Alctb. 8.
- Desertion, from hatred of Christianity, seems thus made a just ground of divorce ; a doctrine which is reconciled with the teaching of Christ, aa His words have no reference to cases where desertion has resulted from fidelity to Him.
' Grimm has the following note on a parallel passage in 1 Mace. i. 15: "To avoid the ridicule of born heathen in the baths and public games ā at
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time of his calling, let him not receive circumcision. 19. To a Oliristian, circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God is, alone, essential 20. Let each man, therefore, abide in that condition in which he was when he was called. 21. Wast thou called when a slave? Make nothing of it; but if thou canst become free, rather use thy present condition for the glory of Christ.^ 22. For the slave called in the Lord, is the Lord's fieedman, being freed by Him from slavery to sin and the devil ; and, so, the free man who has been called is Christ's slave. 23. Ye were all bought by Christ with a price ā His blood ^ ā to be His slaves ; see that you do not make yourselves slaves of men, in a spiritual sense, by surrendering yourselves to their vicious examples. 24. Brethren, let each man abide in the condition in which he was, when called, with God,
A new subject is now introduced ; respecting the mar- riage of maidens, and also respecting unmarried men.
25. Now concerning your maiden daughters or wards, I have no command of the Lord ; ^ yet I give my judgment as one endowed, by the mercy of the Lord, with grace to be worthy of confidence. 26. I think, therefore, that it is good, by rcRson of the present and approaching distress ā tha universal cala- mities that will precede the impending coming of Christ ^ ā that a man should remain as he is. 27. Art thou bound to a wife ? do not seek to be loosed. Art thou free ? seek not a
which all were quite naked ā many submitted to a painful operation, to efiface the marks of circumcision, and appear as if uncircumcised." See, also, Winer, art. Beschneidung, and Jos. Ant. xii. 5, 1.
^ It is impossible to say, decidedly, whether Paul means that if liberty offer, the slave is to take advantage of it, or whether he is rather to remain a slave ; thinking of his being a freeman of Christ, and of the near advent, when his bondage will pass into the full liberty of the sons of God. The next verse appears to favour this meaning, and to show that the Apostle intended to soothe the mind of the slave, urging that each man should remain in the condition in which he had been when called.
' See on vi. 20. * See vers. 10, 12. * Matt. xxiv. 19-21.
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 161
wife. 28. But, yet, if thou many, thou hast not sinned ; and if a maiden marry, she has not sinned. At the same time, such as marry shall have tribulation in the flesh, hunger, sickness, ill-treatment, misery in these darkening times, and I would fain spare you this suffering. 29. But this I impress on you, brethren, ā the time till the Advent is shortened, that, henceforth, according to Gods purpose, both those who have wives may be as though they had none ; 30. and those that weep, as though they wept not ; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not : and they that buy, as though they possessed not : 31. and those that use the world, as if they did not use it : for the whole present state of things is on the point of passing away ā at Christ's coming. Sit loosely, there- fore, to evary earthly relation. 32. But, this end of all things of the present age being so near, I would fain have you free from worldly cares, in anticipation of the future. He that is unmarried cares about the things of the Lord Christ, how he may please Him: 33. but he that is married cares about the things of the world ; how he may please his wife. 34. And as the married and the unmarried man are different in these respects, there is also a difference between the wife and the maiden. She that is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy, both in body and in spirit : but she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. 35. But this I say, only for your own good ; not that I luay cast a snare like that of the fowler over you ā by leading you to immorality, through disposing you against marriage ; but in the interest of your leading a worthy life, in all respects, and that you may de- vote yourselves to the thirjgs of the Lord, without distrac- tion. 36. But if any man think that he behaves discreditably towards his maiden daughter, or ward, if she be past the bloom of her youth, by forbidding her marrying, and thus, perhaps, tempting her to worse ; and if, therefore, it must be so, let him do what he desires, ā give her to her betrothed ; he does not sin in doing so ; let tt)em marry. 37. But he who
m. L
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is firm in his resolve, having no necessity to give the maiden in marriage, but having the power to carry out his own will, and has determined in his heart to keep her unmarried, does well. 38. So then, he who gives his own maiden daughter in marriage does right, and he who does not give her in marriage does better.
In answer, apparently, to a question from Corinth, Paul
now says a few words about second marriages.
39. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives ; but if he be dead, she is free to marry whom she will ; only, the marriage must he in the Lord, that is, to a Christian. 40. But, in my judgment, she is happier if she remain a widow, and I believe I also have the Spirit of God in giving this counsel.
Among other subjects submitted to Paul by the Corin- thians, in their letter to him, had been that of the lawful- ness of their eating flesh of an animal offered to an idol. To avoid it altogether was difficult, for even the most scrupu- lous ; its cheapness and excellent quality, as well as its exposure for sale at every stall in the markets, creating a great consumption of it ; especially among the poorer classes, of whom, mainly, the Christians consisted.^ No question caused more practical difficulty in the early Church ; some of the heathen converts, and all Jewish- Christians, except the very strong-minded, shrinking from the use of such food, as a Mahomedan or a Jew does from swine's flesh, and counting even accidental partaking of it as calamitous and revolting. Yet, there it wan, every- where. A large, part of the butcher meat sold in any country, including even Judaea, was that of beasts killed by the sacrificing priest, and such food was so universally in favour, that the same word meant, in Hebrew, either a
'ā ā On the whole subject, see p. 129.
PAUL iET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLK TO THE CORINTHIANS 163
" sacrifice " or a " feast " (n^T)^ while in Hellenistic Greek ā that of the Western Jews, ā the word meaning, in or- dinary Greek, "to kill for sacrifice," was used as simply meaning "to kill."^ The "feasts" on "sacrifices" were, indeed, the great social enjoyment alike of Jew and Gentile.^ Sacrifices, with feasts and amusements, marked every day of the year, " sacrifices and choruses, and recreation and feasts " always going together.^ " The same ox," says Libanius,* afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for their joyous votaries." Hence, rigid Jews, amidst a heathen population, not only shrank from tasting sacrificial flesh, but from wine of which some had been offered to a god, or from touching the robe of a heathen priest, or using wood from idolatrous groves or gardens. Malachi had denounced the offering of " polluted bread " on the altar of Jehovah ; Daniel and his com- panions would not taste food or wine from the table of Nebuchadnezzar ; Tobit would not eat the bread of the Gentiles, and Israel had been sorely punished for joining in feasts, connected with the service of the idol, Baal Peor.* Even a hundred years later, indeed, Trypho the Jew urges against Christianity, in his argument with Justin, that many Christians atĀ« things that had been offered to idols, and contended tha*^ there was nothing wrong in doing so.* To this knotty subject the Apostle now turns, addressing, it would seem, heatha^ converts especially, as those most troubled at the moment.
^ Acts X. 13.
* Aristotle, Ethiet, viii. 9, 6 ; Thucydides, ii. 38 ; Winer, Opfermah teiten.
ā Plato, Republic, p. 364. * Gibbon, iv. 87.
Ā» Mai. i. 7-12 ; Dan. i. 8 ; Tobit L 10, 11 ; Num. xxv. 2 ; Fa. ovi 2S.
ā¢ DiaL cum Tryphone, p. 253.
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VIII. 1. Now concerning things sacrificed to idols : I am aware that, in your own words, in your letter, we all know its true character. Do not forget, however, that knowledge, by itself, only kindles pride, but love to God and the brethren builds up the soul. 2. Hence if any man think he knows anything, it shows only his pride, and that he does not yet know as he ought to know ; 3. but if any man love God, he is known to Him, and his humility shows it to us. 4. Con- cerning, therefore, the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that, in reality, there is no such being in nature, as the god imagined to be represented by any particular idol ā such as Jupiter, Apollo, and the like, for example, and that there is no God but One. 5. For though there are what are called gods, alike in heaven and on earth ā the gods of Olympus in the sky, and Wood gods, River, and Sea gods, and so on, in the world around us ā for there are, as you know, many gods, and many superhuman powers ; 6. yet to us Christians, there is only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, ā who has made us to serve Him ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, God having, through Him, made the worlds,^ and us, also, not only as men, but, in our new life, as bslievers.^ 7. But, though we know that there is no real living counterpart of idols, in all men there is not this knowledge : but some, being used until now to an idol, and, hence, still feeling as if it represents a really existing god, eat flesh that has been offered to it, as having been offered to a false god ; and their conscience, being weak, is wounded by the belief that they have polluted themselves. 8. But meat will not commend us to God : for neither are we the worse before Him, if we do not eat, nor does our eating make us better in His sight. 9. But beware lest, in any way, this liberty of yours, become a cause of sinful stumbling to the weak. 10. For if such a weak brother see thee, who hast knowledge of the indifference of meats before God, reclining
i John i. 3 ; Eph. iii. 9 ; Col. i. 16 ; Heb. i. 2. Eph. iL 10 ; 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Gal. vi. 16.
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPTSTLK TO TTTE CORINTHIANS 1^5
at table in some out- chamber of an idol's temple, will not bis conscience ā be being tlms weak ā be emboldened to eat things which he nevertheless believes to have been sacrificed to really existing idol-gods? 11. For, by your acting thus, through thy knowledge, the weak brother comes to destruc- tionā the brother for whose sake Christ died. 12. And, more- over, in thus sinning against the brethren, and wounding their conscience, when it is w^eak, you sin against Christ. 13. Where- fore, if meat make my brother stumble, since nearly all the meat poor men can buy is that from sacrifices, I will eat no flesh whatever, all my life, that I may not make my brother thus stumble.
The Apostle, at this point, seems to have thought sud- denly of some imputations cast on him by members of the Church, as inferior to the other Apostles, from the fact that, as they said, he did not venture to claim that sup- port from the brethren, which was required by the older Apostles, or by those calling themselves Apostles ; probably as coming from the mother church at Jerusalem. The subject, moreover, fitted in with what he had been saying, of his cheerful self-denial for weak brethren, and supplied a new illustration of his spirit of self-surrender for the good of others. But the abruptness of the transition from one line of thought to another, is characteristic of his impetuous, broken, and inconsequent style ; the rush of his thoughts destroying their steady flow, and hurrying on, one after and almost over another, like the leaping waters of a swollen stream. He had expressed his willingness to make any sacrifice of personal gratification, to benefit his brethren, but now he shows how, in truth, his whole life is one long self-denial for their good.
IX. 1. Some, I hear, challenge my title to call myself an apostle. Am I under any human authority? Am I not
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free ? Am I not an apostle ? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord, once and again, and that in His heavenly glory ā not in the veil of His earthly humiliation ? ^ Are not you the fruits of my work in the Lord 1 2. If, according to others, from outside ā Jerusalem-Judaisers ā I am not an apostle, yet, at least, I am an apostle to you : for you are the seal and proof of my apostleship, since you are in the Lord as be- lievers, only through me. 3. My defence to them that call my apostleship in question, because I do not claim as much as other real or self-styled apostles, is this. 4. Have I not the right to eat and drink at the cost of the brethren ? 5. Have I not the right to lead about with me, on my journeys, a wife, as a Christian sister, as the rest of the apostles do, as a rule, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas do ?^ 6. Or have only I and Barnabas not the right to abstain from working to maintain ourselves ? 7. What soldier ever serves at his own charges 1 Who plants a vine- yard, and does not eat its fruit? Or who pastures a flock without drinking of the milk ?
But he will support his claim to support from the brethren by Scripture.
8. Do I speak thus only on the ground of a merely human rule ? Or does not the law say the same ? 9. Certainly it does, for it is written in the law of Moses : Ā® Thou slialt not, like the heathen,^ muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn. Is it only for the oxen God cares in speaking thus? 10. Or does He not give this command altogether for our sake? Yes, assuredly, it was written for our sake : that he who ploughs should do so with a hope of sharing in the yield, arid he that threshes, do so with a similar prospect. 11. If I sowed for you spiritual gifts, is it anything out of the way if
* Acts ix. 17 ; 1 Cor. xv. 8 ; Acts xviii. 9 ; xxii. 17 ; 2 Cor. xii. 1.
^ On " brethren of the Lord," see Matt. i. 26 ; Luke ii. 7 ; Matt. xii. 46 ; xiii. 55.
* Deut xxy. 4, LXX. ^ Michael, Mot. Rceht. iii. see. 130.
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I reap some share of your material gifts of God? 12. If, moreover, others enjoy this right over you, to be maintained at your charge, have not I a still greater claim to enjoy it ? Nevertheless, I did not use this right : but bear all kinds of exertion and wants, that I may cause no hindrance to the success of the Gospel of Christ.
The right of the teacher is additionally shown from the example of both the Jewish and heathen priests, and even from the direct command of Christ.
13. Do you not know that they who minister about sacred things, whether in the Jewish temple or in heathen temples, eat of the food received by the temple, either from unconsumed portions of sacrifices, or from offerings otherwise given to it,- and that they who have their place at the altar, as priests, have their share as well as the altar? 14. In exactly the same way did the Lord ordain, that they who proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel ^
As for himself, he would on no account use the right he thus has, his one glory being to feel that he serves his Master for love alone ; for which he willingly puts away all thought of himself, seeking only, by any legitimate means, however humbling, to win converts to Him whom he loves.
15. But, though I have such special claims on you, I have used none of these privileges : and I do not write thus that, henceforth, it may be so done in my case, as in that of others, by your maintaining me, hereafter : for it were better for me i-ather to die, thaii that any man should be able to make void my glorying, in preaching without earthly reward. 16. For I have nothing to glory of, if I do preach the gospel; for a necessity to do so is laid on me by God ; for woe is unto me, if I do not preach it. 17. For if I do this of my own will
^ Num. xviii. 8 ff. * Matt. x. 10 ; Luke x. 7.
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and initiative, which is not the case, since necessity is laid on me to preach as I do ā then I have a reward from God, hereafter; but if I preach not of my own choice, but because I am recLuired to do so, then I am, in effect, only, intrusted with a stewardship, to carry out for my Master, God ; and, as you know, stewards are usually slaves who receive nothing for their labour. 18. What, then, is my reward? Simply this, that, when I preach the gospel, I make it reach the hearer without any cost to him ; so as not to take advantage to the full of my right in proclaiming it. 19. For though, as an apostle, I am under no one, I have made myself a slave to all ; cheerfully accommodating myself to the wants of all, in slave-like self-negation, that I might gain the more for Christ. 20. Hence, I became as a Jew to the Jews, that I might gain Jews ; to brethren who are under the law, as under the law, though I myself am not under the law ; that I might gain for Christ them that are under the law; 21. to them ā the heathen ā that are free from the law, as myself free from the law ā by omitting Jewish observances, and suiting myself to Greek modes of thought ā though I am assuredly not free from law before God, but, by His will, under the law to Christ ā that I might gain them that are free from the Mosaic law. 22. To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak : I am become all things to all men, that I may by all fitting means save some. 23. In truth, I live for the gospel alone, for all I do is for its sake, that at the coming of Christ, I may be a joint- partaker of its harvest of blessedness, with those I have gained for my Master.
Let them follow his example, which he reinforces by a parallel drawn from the Isthmian games ; held near the city, every third year. These games were one of the four great national festivals of the Greeks, and were celebrated in honour of Poseidon, or Neptune ; the fitting patron- deity of the great maritime town. At the western foot of the Q^nean Hills, which bounded the Isthmus, on the
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 169
south, at its narrowest part, ā from its eastern edge at the Saronic Gulf, on which Cenchrea stood ; to Corinth, seven miles off, to the west, ā rose an amphitheatre and stadium, or race-course, under the shadow of the lofty Acropolis ā both, like all others in antiquity, enclosed ovals, and both built of white marble. In these the games were held ; a temple of Neptune standing near, amidst the shades of pines, giving a religious sanction to the festivities ; ^ the approach to it being through an avenue in the pine-groves, adorned with statues of the victors in the games. The fame of the contest drew vast multitudes of spectators to the various competitions of skill or strength, which in- cluded wrestling, foot-races, and all other athletic efforts, with horse and chariot racing ; more geutle contentions in music and poetry following. For victory in any struggle, however, the only prize was a garland of pine-leaves ā soon to wither away ā but the honour of a triumph was so great that, even so fading a prize was more than enough to fire the enthusiasm of all the youth of Greece, at home and abroad. Indeed, it not only made a hero of the victor, but shed lustre on his family, and even on his town. Thus, I remember a tablet built into the wall of the amphitheatre at Tauromenium, in Sicily, commemo- rating the victory of a citizen, thousands of years ago, in the Olympic games, of which the Isthmian were an equal rival. The very walls of the town were, in fact, broken through, to make a new entrance for him, and at Athens he received a reward of 100 drachmae from the city treasury, while the greatest poets celebrated his deeds.
24. Know ye not that they who run in the stadium, all
1 Strab. viii. 348, 350.
170 THE APOSTLES i^D. 57
run, and yet only one gains the prize ? Run as that one runs, that you may gain it ! 25. But remember that every man that strives in the games is self-denying in all things, for you know that for ten months before, he must keep rigidly from wine, rich food, and sensual pleasures, and that to gain a perishing crown, while we Christians, if we run well, obtain a crown that never withers. 26. Feeling how wondrous a self-restraint these runners willingly endure for so little, I, therefore, run, not like one uncertain of the prize, or where, or in what direction, to choose his course ; I fight like a boxer in earnest, not at play ā who does not strike the air instead of his antagonist : 27. but I treat my body as my foe, and bruise it, by self-denial, till I make it submit to me ; lest, after having been a herald to others, calling them to the struggle, I, myself, should be adjudged to have lost the prize.
The warning story of past ages, continues the Apostle, urges this subduing of our evil selves, if we would come off conquerors. Our fathers ran well for a time, when called from Egypt, yet temptation too soon mastered nearly all of them.
X. 1. For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, which, as Gentiles, you might easily he, how my Jewish forefathers were all under the cloud which marked God s presence, after their leaving Egypt, and showed His near protection ā and all passed safely through the Had Sea~open3d to make a path for them ; 2. and were, thus, all, as it were, baptized in the cloud and in the sea, into a recognition of Moses as the de- liverer and spokesman for God. 3. And how all ate the same manna, which, as coming from heaven, I may call spiritual food: 4. and all dr.uik the same uiiraculously given drink, which I call "spiritual," as tha direct gift of God, and, also, as both the manna and it, were types of Christian truth ; the
PAUL J&T. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 171
water being a type of Christ Himself, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.^ 5. Yet, in spite of all this, God was not well pleased with most of them ; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
The lessons of these types and warnings are now pressed. Those favoured ones perished, from yielding to sinful long- ingsā idolatry, fornication, tempting of God, and mur- muring. Let the Corinthians be on their guard, and, like himself, keep down the evil nature, which thus lost his forefathers the prize of entering the Promised Land.
6. Now these things happened as types, or fore-examples for us, to teach us that we should not crave what is evil, as they did. 7. For instance, neither let us be idolaters, as some of them were, ā as it is written ā The people sat down to eat and drink, when they had worshipped the golden calf,^ and rose up to play. ^ 8. Nor let us commit fornication, as some of them did, and there fell on one day three and twenty thousand. 9. Neither let us tempt the Lord, as some of them tempted Him, speaking against Him, and against Moses, for leading them away from the good things of Egypt, to die in the
1 Eiod. xvi. 13 flf.; Ps. Ixxviii. 24 f. ; Wisd. xvi. 20 ; John vi. 31 ;Exod. xvii. 1-6 ; Num. i. I] . Paul here makes use of the rabbinical, or ratlier, Alex- andrian, ideas prevalent in his day, respecting the water, and the rock from which it flowed. According to tliese fancies, the Messiah accompanied Israel in its journeys through the wilderness, as the Divine "Wisdom " or pre-existent '"Logos," or "Word" (Wisd. xL 4-7). The rock was not a natural one, but a " spiritual rock," possibly of heavenly origin, since it was the actual self-revelation, and manifestation, of the invisible "Logos," who was going with themā the heavenly Messiah Himself (Targ. Jerus. xvL 1). Paul sees in the rabbinical wonder, an allegorical sense ā that Christ, not the rock, as they said, followed the Israelites ā the rock being, to the Apostle, the counterpart of Christ,
=Ā« Exod. xxxii. 6, 18, LXX.
3 Singing, music, and dancing, followed, too often, by much immorality, were usual at such feasta.
172
THE APOSTLES
A.D. 57
"wilderness;^ and were destroyed by the serpents. 10. Nor murmur ye, against your leaders sent by God, as some of them murmured against Moses and Aaron,- and perished by the
destroyer ā the angel sent from God, 3 who smote the earth, and it opened, and swallowed up Corah and his company. 11. But these things happened to them by way of example; and they were written in Scripture for our warning, upon whom the ends of the ages, before the near Advent, are come. 12. Thereforo let him who thinks he stands firm and safe, take heed lest he fall. 13. No trial of your Christian steadfastness has come on you, but such as man can bear: and God is faithful to His pro- mises, and will not let you be tried beyond your power to stand ; but will, with every trial, provide also a way out of it, that you may be enabled to endure the trial, with- out yielding to it.
He now comes back to the
Worship of the Sun, under Khu-n- ā¢ i t fY> i ā¢ c i ^^ ā¢
Ateu (Amenophis IV.), c. B.C. spscial diihculties 01 the Oorin-
150U, while Israel was in Egypt. . -it
"Neither let us be idolaters, as thians, and discusses the abuses
some of them were." Ji j 1
'He gave them up to worship the that have spruDg up among
host of heaven." ā Acts vii. 42. .-, ,ā¢ ,ā¢ n i
them, respecting eatmg nesn offered to idols. He identifies the joining in idol feasts with idolatry, illustrating his doing so by the analogy of the Holy Supper, and of the eating sacrificial meat by the Jews. It does not follow, he says, that idols are
^ Num. xxxi. 4-6.
2 Num. xvi. 11 flf.
3 Exod. xii. 23.
PAITL JET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 173
gods, but they are "demons," and the Corinthian brethren could not surely have communion with these unholy spirits, and also with Christ ; which, however, they would at least, seem to have, if they partook of the Supper and of the idol feasts as well.
14. On this account, my beloved, flee from idolatry, which you countenance by joining in idol feasts. 15. I speak as to men of understanding; judge ye what I say. 16. The cup of blessing ā for the blessing of God is spoken over it ā does it not bring us into communion with the shed blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, does it not bring us into com- munion with the body of Christ ? 17. For as the bread is one loaf, so we, though many, are one body, spiritually, for we all partake of the one loaf eaten at the Holy Supper, which unites us all, as one, into communion with the body of Christ. 18. Further, ā that you may have a special example of a meal on the flesh of a sacrifice ā consider the case of Israel after the fleshā the Jews as Jews. Are not they who eat the sur- plus parts of the sacrifices, partners with the altar in consum- ing the victims offered on it? 19. What, now, do I mean by speaking thus 1 ā that a creature sacrificed to idols is anything different by having been so, or that an idol has any real exist- ence as a Divine being, such as the heathen fable Jupiter, or any other god to be ? 20. No ; I tell you, on the contrary, that the things which the heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice io demons, and not to God : ^ and I should not like you to be partners with demons, by sitting in their temples, at feasts made from flesh sacriflced to them. 21. Indeed, you cannot have fellowship with the Lord by drinking His cup, and have fellowship with demons, by drinking their cup; you cannot have a place and share at the table of the Lord, and also at the table of demons. 22. Do we really mean to provoke the Lord Christ to jealousy ? Aie we stronger than He 1
Ā» Deut. xxxii. 17, LXX.
174 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
Paul has already spoken ^ about injuring weak brethren, by eating flesh offered to idols : he now resumes the sub- ject, beginning by a repetition of his principle respecting the use of things indifferent.
23. All things not contrary to the faith are lawful : but all things are not for my good. 2 All things are lawful; but all things do not build up either the individual Christian or the Church. 24. Let no man seek his own, but every man his neighbour's good, and, to enable you to do so, act in the matter of sacrifice-meat, as follows. 25. All that is offered for sale in the flesh-market eat, the over pieces of sacrifices as well as ether meat, asking no question whether or not it be sacrifice flesh, that it may not wound your conscience ; 26. For the earth is the Lord's and tJie fulness thereof.^ 27. If, further, any heathen neighbour invite you to a feast, and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question, for conscience sake. 28. But should any one say to you, "This is sacrifice-meat," ā do not eat, for the sake of him who told you, and for conscience sake : 29. conscience, I mean, of the person who told you ; not your own conscience, for you may justly say, Why are my liberty and my independ- ence on such indifferent things, condemned by the conscience of another man, 30. and I be evil spoken of, if by the grace given me to eat innocently, I partake of what is offered me, and for which I have given thanks to God ?
31. Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God, among men. 32. Give no cause of stumbling, either to Jews, with their rigid customs, or to Greeks, watching for your sanction of idolatry, or to the Church of God, in its unity, which you may so easily disturb, or in the steadfastness of any of its members : 33. even as I strive to please all men, in all things, not seeking my own good, but the good of the many, that they may be saved. XI. 1. Be ye therefore imitators of me, as I also am of Christ,
^ ChĀ»p. Tiii. 1-13. * See vi. 12. Ā» Ps. xxiv. 1, LXX. ; Deut x. 14
PAUL JET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 175
Among the questions submitted to the Apostle by the Corinthians, one referred to the disuse, by the " sisters," of the usual Grecian female head-dress, in the public assemblies of the "church." To us, it seems strange to attach importance to such a matter ; the fashions of head-costume constantly varying among Western nations. But in antiquity, as in the East, and in some old-world portions of many European countries, still, ā each locality had its distinctive dress, which marked, not only the nationality of the wearer, but, in many cases, more or less recognised, were identified with modesty. To vary from it was as grave a revolt from propriety as similar innovations would now be in Turkey.
Among the most settled and unalterable of these fashions was that which Greece, with the exception of Lacedaemonia, honoured, in common with Oriental nations, of women appearing in public, only with their heads covered with a ''peplum," or shawl, ordinarily worn on the shoulders, but thrown over their heads in the streets, or when they went to public gatherings. The Theban " veil," and that of Tarsus, are said to have hidden the whole face, except the eyes, as one still sees in Mahomedan countries. The Jews were no less strict in this matter ; ^ but though no woman could dare to let her face be seen in public, she took off her veil, and sat with the face exposed, when in the synagogue ; the women's place being shut off from that of the men, so that no one in it could be seen from out- side. The men, on the contrary, sat in the synagogue with the head covered, to express their humility before God, as not worthy to behold Him with open face ; but no satisfactory explanation can be given why this rule
* Lightfoot on Chap. xi. 6.
176 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
was reversed in the other sex. The covering mentioned by Paul, as used by the women, is described as a mantle,^ but he, no doubt, intends the ordinary Greek peplum, which was used as a hood. It was, in fact, a large shawl, in many cases covering the whole person, so that it could easily be thrown over the head when a "veil" was re- qmred.2 The Corinthian " sisters " had, however, taken it upon themselves to dispense with the use of it as a head-covering, in the meeting of the " church ; " thinking, perhaps, that, as distinctions of sex were unknown before Christ, it was beneath the dignity of their new position, to wear, even before men, what they might regard as a badge of inferiority; however appropriate it might be to a heathen wife, or maiden. The dexterous introduction of reproof by kindly words is very striking.
2. Now I praise you that, as you tell me, you keep in mind my teachings in all things, and hold fast the precepts I gave you ā as I delivered them. 3. But I would have you realise clearly, that the head of every man is Christ ; and the head of the woman is the man ; and the head of Christ is God. 4. My own race not only pray, with their heads covered, but wear the tallith, as a veil over their faces, while Greeks bare their heads, in public exercises of religion. This Corinthian church is a Greek one, and in it, as in other Greek churches, the Greek custom has obtained, and this, I commend, as in keeping with the divinely appointed rank of man. Therefore, every man praying or discoursing in a Greek congregation, with his head covered in Jewish fashion, dishonours his head. 5. But, on the other hand, every
1 1 Cor. xi. 15, peribolaion ; see also Heb. i. 12. In Mark xiv. 72, the literal meaning, a verb akin to peribolaion being used, is, that Peter drew his halk over his head, and began to weep.
* PtfpLwm.; in Smith's Diet, of Antiquities.
PAVL JET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 177
woraan praying or discoursing in the congregation, with her
head uncovered, dishonours her head.^ She honours her
head, I say, hy covering it, in prayer or worship, for she
therehy shows that she recognises the headship of her
hushand, which the covering symbolises; hut, if she have
her head uncovered, she dishonours it, for she bears herself,
not like a modest, married woman, ā from whose head-veil
one sees, that she proclaims the man her lord, or head, but,
like a harlot, with her hair cut short, as the manner of loose
women is ; for, to have the head uncovered is the same as if
she were shaven close, to wear the false hair of a wanton.
6. For, if a woman do not veil herself, let her go a step
farther, and also be cut close : but since it is a disgrace to a
woman to be cropped close or shaven bare, let her be veiled.
7: For a man, indeed, ought not to have his head veiled, since
he is the image and glory of God, on earth ; but the woman
O'ght to have her head veiled, since she is subordinate, and
only th.e glory of the man. 8. For at the beginning.'^ and
since, the man is the lifegiver, so that the man is not of
the woman ; but the woman of the man : 9. For the man was
not created for the woman ; but the woman for the man.
10. For this cause ought the woman to have such a sign of
being under the man's authority, as the veil on her head,
because of the angels present in the assemblies of God's
people, before whom all that is beautiful in modesty is be-
coming.3 1 1. But the man has no ground for making little
of the wciian, nor is the woman to underestimate her
position, for neither man nor woman is independent of each
other, but both are united in mutual interdependence, as
Christians, in their common Lord. 12. For as the woman
was made from the man, so the man is made through the
Ā» 1 Cor. xiv. 84 ; 1 Tim. ii. 12. * Gen, ii. 21-23.
ā¢ The meaning of this most obscure expression has been very much discussed. Dean Stanley has a full note on the views advanced about it, in his Commentary ; see also Prof, Schmiedel in Holtzmann, and Meyer.
III. M
178 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
woman, but all things, man and woir.an both, included, are of God.
A second ground of forbidding women to appear in the assemblies with their heads uncovered, is now adduced ; the natural veil of her flowing hair.
13. Judge for yourselves, by your own feelings: is it seemly that a woman pray to God with her head unveiled ? 14. Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a dishonour to him? 15. But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her : for her hair is given her for a covering. 16. But if any one, after all I have said, think fit to be contentious, ā let him know that we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
In ancient times, long hair was regarded, among the Greeks, as an ornament of the free man, as we see in the constantly recurring " long-haired Greeks " in Homer ; and it was no less cherished among the ancient Romans, from the same idea. But for centuries before Christ, men cut their hair, having come to regard the long tresses of their ancestors as effeminate, so that, long before Paul's day, only the fops and macaronis of the hour affected it, and a generation or so later, it had become the butt of Juvenal's satire. In his day, the exquisite gathered his coiled-up locks into a great, golden net, like a woman.^ In the female world, the hair, as was fitting, was left at its fullest length, and arranged in different ways, as with us : at the back, or on the top of the head ; in nets, or partly in ringlets, over the shoulderB ; never loose, if we may judge from the pictures
^ Juv. Sat. ii. 9Ā«.
PAUL JET. C. 47 FIRST KPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 179
on ancient vases. When Paul, therefore, speaks of its being a " covering," using the word for " something thrown round," such as a mantle or large shawl, the figure has a perfect appropriateness.
He now passes to a more serious matter : the abuses among the Corinthians, in their observance of the Holy Supper. The earliest notice of its mode of celebration in the Apostolic Church ā a mode which, of course, would be followed as the standard of general practice ā is that " Day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people." ^ That the " breaking of bread " refers to the Lord's Supper, admits of no question, from its use immediately before ā " they continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellow- ship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers." ^ " The breaking of bread " was, in fact, evidently, the early name of the ordinance,* which is, however, connected, alike in its institution, and in the notice in the Acts, with the common daily meal, for it was observed daily, in the private homes of the disciples, and is mentioned, along with their ** taking their food," as leading to their doing so "with gladness and singleness of heart ; " as if the meal had been hallowed by this preparation, or expected close. At Troas, ** on the first day of the week," the disciples, with Paul, " were gathered together to break bread," * and that they did so at their ordinary meal is evident from what follows : ** When Paul had broken the bread, and eaten " ā literally, " made a meal " ā and had talked for a long time, even
Ā» Acts ii. 46, R.V. Ā» Acts ii 42, R.V.
* Luke xxiv. 35. * Acts zz. 7.
180 THE APOSTLES A.D. 5/
till break of day, so he departed." ^ In the same way, among the Corinthians, the Eucharist was part of a social meal, at which the hungry expected to satisfy their wants ; a supper, at the usual time, after sunset, ā the equivalent of our dinner, as the chief meal of the day ,2 and we see, from Paul's visit to Troas, that the religious service connected with it, and the meal itself, kept the assembly together, in some instances, till very late, or rather, till very early. But, in Corinth, the enthusiasm of first love had sadly cooled down, and '* the Lord's Supper"^ had sunk to a mere social gathering, for pleasant intercourse, amid table indulgence, by the well-to-do, varied, as might have been expected in disputatious Greeks, by noisy dis- putes of rival factions. It seems as if, on one point, the practice of Greek dining clubs had been followed; the richer bringing extra supplies of food and wine ; in this case, nominally to share them with the poorer brethren, as an expression of brotherly feeling and religious equality. But pride and selfishness, it would appear, had been scotched, not killed, in too many, by their conversion, and showed themselves in their making distinctions of rank, such as St. James condemns,* and in sharing among their own set, what had been professedly brought for the poor ; so that one brother was left hungry and thirsty, while another had over-eaten himself, and was even drunk ; general disorder and ill-will necessarily following. To prevent this, Paul orders that no one begin to eat till the contents of each basket, brought for the meal, was distributed on the tables.
* The same word, here translated " eaten," is used in Acts x, 1 0 ; LukĀ« xiv. 24. ' 1 Cor. xi. 20, 21, 34.
Ā« Luke xxii. 20 ; John xiii. 2-4 ; xxi. 20 ; 1 Cor. xi. 20, 21.
* Jas. ii. 1-4.
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 181
1 7. This, which I have said respecting the veiling of women, I have now finished, but there is another matter for which I cannot praise you, any more than I could for the conduct of the "sisters," namely, that you keep your love-feasts, or meals-in-common, in a way which makes you not better for them, but worse. 18. For, first, I hear that there are divi- sions among you, when you come together in the congregation ; and I partly believe it. 19. For there must be not divisions only, but rival factions among you, that those who prove tlieir worth by not being led away by these, may be clearly known among you. 20. The consec[uence is, therefore, that, when you assemble yourselves together, it is not possible, amidst such proceedings, to eat what can be called the Lord's Supper. 21. For, instead of waiting till all come, that the meal may be, indeed a " love-feast," by all sharing together, each of you takes his own " supper " beforehand ; eating what he has brought, as a private meal, and hence, one brother is, and remains, hungry, while another has not only had a full meal but has taken so much wine, professedly in- tended for all, that he is drunken when " the Lord's Supper " begins. 22. What ! Have you not your own houses to eat and to drink in ? Or, since you have houses, do you despise your brethren, the congregation of God, so that you will not eat, or share your food with them, and thus shame those who, from their poverty, have nothing 1 What shall I say to youl Shall I praise you ? In this matter I do not praise you.
He will tell them what Christ, Himself, had delivered to hitn, respecting the institution of the Supper ; and thus Bet before them the pattern after which they must hence- forth observe it.
23. I have, indeed, the right to speak, for I myself received, directly from the Lord, what I have already communicated to you, respecting the institution of the Holy Supper, ā that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, which,
182 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
alone, must touch you with deepest solemnity, ā took bread, 24. and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, " This is My body which is for you ; " ā for it will be broken ā that is, put to death, for your salvation : this do in remem- brance of Me. 25. In like manner, also, the cup, after supper, saying, " This cup is the new covenant in My blood : this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 26. For, as often as you eat this bread, and drink the cup, you make known the Lord's death for you till He come. 27. "Wherefore whoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord, un- worthily of the solemn nature of the ordinance, and in a way unbecoming its object, as you Corinthians do, shall be guilty of committing an offence against the body and the blood of the Lord. 28. To avoid drawing down this guilt on your- selves, let a man, before partaking of " the Supper," exa- mine himself, as to his feelings and moral state, and thus prove himself to be in a right frame, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29. For he that eats and drinks at " the Supper," eats and drinks condemnation to himself, if he do not make a difference between the body of the Lord, and common food. 30. This, indeed, is beyond question, for from this very cause, many among you are, at this moment, weak and sickly, and not a few have died, as a Divine judg- ment against them, for their unworthy abuse of the sacred institution. 31. But if, on the contrary, we sat in judgment on ourselves, as to our state and purpose, we should not be judged by God. 32. But, when, for unworthy abuse of this solemnity, we are visited with God's judgment, in bodily suffering, we are chastened of the Lord for our good, that we may not, hereafter, be condemned, at the great day, with the unbelieving world. 33. Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together as a congregation, to eat your love -feast, along with which the Lord's Supper is commemorated, wait one for another. 34. If any man be hungry, let him eat what he wants, beforehand, at home ; that your coming together as a body, do not lead to a judgment being sent on any of you
PAUL JET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLl: TO THE CORINTHIANS 183
from God, for conduct like that which I condemn. As to other things, I will set them in order when I come.
It is impossible for those to whom Christianity is an in- heritance, familiar from infancy, to realise the feelings of excited wonder and awe with which men must have lis- tened, for the first time, to its announcements. The whole nature of the Apostles themselves, and still more of their hearers, must have been almost carried beyond itself, by the story of the Divine incarnation, the atoning death of the God-Man, His resurrection, and ascension to heaven ; to return very soon, as the Judge of the living and the dead, and to set up a state of things so different from all that had ever been known among men, as to be called a new heaven and a new earth. ^ To heighten, if possible, the mental and spiritual excitement, the Apostles showed them- selves possessed of miraculous powers and other endow- ments, which they rightly ascribed to the Spirit of God, sent down to them from the glorified Saviour. In such an age, or indeed at any time, such extraordinary truths and predictions, supported by supernatural manifestations, must have created unbounded emotion, and strained ner- vous exaltation, among those who listened sympathetically, and saw the " signs and wonders " that accompanied the new doctrine. But, all this must have been heightened when they formally became Christians, since they pre- sently found themselves endowed with the varied spiritual gifts, which had amazed them in the Apostles. It is easy, therefore, to understand how the bighly wrought tension, induced by such experiences, too soon led to extravagances or misconceptions, in the simple minds of these first con-
* Rev. xxi. 1.
184 tHE APOSTLES A.D. $y
verts, and how abuses would creep in, with the subsiding of early fervour, and the revival of old moral weaknesses, inherent in human nature. ' It had been so in Corinth, and the Apostle has now to point out and chide this great source of confusion and corruption.
Extravagances of overwrought emotional sensitiveness are, indeed, characteristic, in many cases, of a new reli- gious movement, during the first glow of enthusiasm. They have, in fact, shown themselves, in some of the so-called " revivals " of our own day, and may almost be regarded as inevitable, from our mental and moral constitution. Our feelings, when carried away by the impulse, either of politics, philanthropy, or religion, show, at least for a time, an amazing energy and heated enthusiasm. I remember seeing incandescent lava pouring from an opening in Mount Vesuvius, swift as a Niagara rapid, but only, before long, to grow thick and sluggish, and after a time to solidify into stone. It is much the same in all popular excitements, even in religion, though, in its case, the dying away of volcanic energy, happily leaves what is real and permanent, all the more able to do its work, when the first blaze and ebullition have disappeared.
The church at Corinth was now in the first fever of ecstatic agitation. Conscious of being filled with a higher power than their own, its members seemed to have felt as if their ordinary faculties were superseded by the lofty aspirations, the direct disclosures of the Divine will, and the exercise of the amazing powers that had been granted them. The whole, or nearly the whole, "church," of both sexes, and in all social positions, were virtually endowed with supernatural "gifts," and bore
PAUL iET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 185
themselves like those of whose inspired entran cements, visions, and dreams, we read in the Old Testament. There could be no question among them, in such cir- cumstances, of the Divine origin of their faith. All were touched with the zeal of a new life, and showed it, more or less strikingly, in proportion to the gifts received, or the strength of their natural character, or their measure of natural endowments.
Three lists are furnished ^ by St. Paul, of the '* gifts " in the Corinthian church, "in none of which," he tells us, " they came short ; " having been " enriched by Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge." ^ "Apostles" stand first, but the parallel, in one list, is " the word of wisdom." The rest succeed each other, in the following order : " The word of knowledge," which is replaced, in two lists, by *' prophets ; " " teachers," mentioned in two lists, are represented only by " faith " in the third ; " gifts of healing" are used as synonymous with " miracles " in all three; "prophecy" is called, in the second, "helps;" "governments" range with "discerning of spirits;" and " speaking with different kinds of tongues," and the "interpretation of tongues," close the whole. The " gifts " thus divide themselves into two classes : those of healing, and those of teaching, and reveal a state of things peculiar to the apostolic age. Some of the brethren or sisters had more, some, fewer, but all, or nearly all, appear to have had some endowment. Yet, even so early, these strange powers had led to much disorder. The same unworthy spirit which had broken the church into factions, and turned the Lord's Supper into a display of selfish pride and low indulgence, took Ā» 1 Cor. xii. 8-10, 28-30. Ā» 1 Cor. i. 5-7.
186 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
advantage of the possession of special " gifts," to air its vanity and feed its ambition, by their display. Too many thought of their own glory ; few, of practical good. Those endowments which were most striking, were most highly honoured ; not those which were most useful. Above all, the gift of tongues attracted supreme admira- tion, though the Apostle had to depreciate it, as of very little benefit to the congregation. His estimate of any gift, indeed, is determined by its usefulness, and his aim is, not to dwell on the importance of this one or that, or to employ them as evidence of the truth of Christianity, but to urge the duty of the whole church to work to- gether in whatever tended to higher spiritual life. All the brethren are treated as equals in Christ, whatever they might be outside the Christian assembly. No such thing as caste is sanctioned in it. The " Church " is a brotherhood, embracing all classes. The slave, while in the assembly, is known only as a member of the Body of Christ. Such a homage to humanity as a whole, had never before been seen. It was a new chapter in the moral history of the world.
XII. 1. Now, respecting the question you have asked me, concerning spiritual gifts, I do not wish you to remain un- informed. 2. You know that, when you were still heathen, you were led away to the dumb idols, as any one chose ; be- lieving all that their priests told you respecting them. But, now, as Christians, a new spiritual world is opened to you, to which you are necessarily strange, and you consequently need instruction, to secure your wise and safe judgment and action. 3. I, therefore, would have you know, that no man, speaking in words inspired by the Spirit of God, says, " Jesus is accursed ! " That is, the heathen, and especially the Jewish way of naming Him ; the Christian way is to say, " Jesus is
PAUL Ml. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 187
Lord," and no man can say this, when moved to spiritual ecstasy, but when he speaks in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
What shall we think of the delirium of excitement that could carry away a " Christian " to curse our Lord, in a public gathering of His people ! And what must have been the mental and moral degradation of the poor creature, who could do so, even in the wild ravings of excitement? Can it be that Paul only states a self- evident fact, without implying that any Christian could need to be told so? But, in this case, why use such language at all ?
Yet, though the same Spirit bestows all *' gifts," there are various kinds of them.
4. Now there are diversities of gifts, but they all come from the same Spirit. 5. And there are diversities of ways of serving the church, but the same Lord, as its head, is served by them all. 6. And there are diversities of the working of miraculous power, but it is the same God who produces all the various wonders wrought by all. 7. But to each one, the particular manifestation of the Spirit's presence which he receives, is given for the good of the congregation as a whole.
The different manifestations of the Spirit are now stated.
8. For to one is given, through the Spirit, the gift of speaking the word of Wisdom : the discoursing on the truths of the faith in their practical bearing ; and to another, the word of Knowledge, in accordance with the same Spirit ā that knowledge which opens the deep things of God; 9. to another, by his communion with the same Spirit, faith in Christ, in its higher degree, fitting him to win converts to
188 THE APOSTLES A.D. $7
Him, and to brave all things for His sake ; to another, gifta of Healings ; still, through your fellowship in the one Spirit : 10. to anothei', the power of working Miracles ; to another, Prophecy ā the gift of all-powerful speech, inspired by the Spirit ; to anotlier, the Discerning of Spirits ā to decide whether any one is actuated by the Spirit of God, or by his own merely human spirit, or even by demons ; to another, varieties of Tongues ; and to another, the Interpretation of Tongues: 11. But all these gifts are the work of the one and same Spirit, dividing His gifts to each one, separately, as He pleases.
That all the various gifts come from the one Spirit, is ;iow illustrated by the analogy to our natural body, in the Church, which, collectively, is one spiritual body. This introduces the interdependence of all parts of the natural frame ; each being needed to make the organic whole, and each being indispensable to all the rest ; so that the humblest and the most dignified, can alike claim from each other equal respect. As, therefore, all the organs and members of the natural organism find their healthy worii- ing in co-operation ; each doing its own legitimate share, whether larger or smaller, in the aggregate functions of the body ; so, he tells them, it should be in the Church. Each member of it, recognising that the part assigned to a brother is that chosen for him by the Holy Spirit ; the lowliest gift ; no less than the highest, coming from above ; should hold the other in lo\dng honour ; no one feeling either cast down by the modesty of his endowments, or puffed up by their brilliancy ; as if they were due to him- self, and not mere talents with which he was intrusted for the Master's use.
12. For as the body is only one organism, though it has many members, and as all its members, though so many, form
PAUL iET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 189
only one body ; so also is Christ ; or, in other words, the whole Christian Church, in its widest sense, is the spiritual body of Christ ; He being the head, and all true believers its members, or parts. 13. For we were all baptized with the Spirit, into one body; all receiving the one Spirit at our baptism, as the sign of our admission as members of one common body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or freemen ; and were all granted to drink of one Spirit, when poured out on us at baptism. 14. Yet, as in the natural body, so in the spiritual, there are many members, for the body is not one member, but many. How foolish is it, then, to be dis- sati.^.fied with the gift, or office, in Christ's body, assigned us, or to despise any less highly endowed than ourselves ! 15. For, if the foot say, Because I am not the hand, I am not a member of the body ; it does not, because of saying so, cease to be part of the body. 16. And if the ear say, Because I am not the eye, I am not a member of tlie body, is it no longer a member of the body for speaking thus ? 1 7. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be ? If the whole were hearing, where would the smelling be ? 18. But, as it is, God Las given its place in the body to every member, as it has pleased Him. 19. And if all the parts of the body were one particular member, where would the body be, which needs all the various members to make it perfect ? 20. But, as it is, there are many members, but the whole make up only one body. 21. And, hence, the eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you ; or, again, the head, which is the noblest member, cannot say to the feet, I do not need you, though they are the humblest part of the body. 22. Nay, instead of this, those meinbers of the body which appear to be more feeble than others, are necessary ; 23. and those parts of the body, which vve think less honourable, we clothe with more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have, from dress, a special comelines.s. 24. Whereas our comely parts have no need of this adornment. But God has made up the body of different kinds of members, giving, thus, more abundant
190 THE APOSTLES A.D. $y
honour to the lowlier parts; 25. that there should be no schism or dissension in the body : but that all the members should mutually have equal care for each other. 26. And how perfectly is this purpose of God attained ! how exquisitely is it realised, in the mutual sympathy of all the members ! BO that if one member suffer, all the other members suffer with it; or, if one member be honoured, by ornament, dress, anointing, or otherwise, all the members rejoice with it.
This telling representation is now applied to the dissatis- faction in Corinth, respecting the distribution of '' gifts."
27. Now, to apply what I have thus said, to you per- sonally, you are, as a whole, the body of Christ, and, indivi- dually, members of it; each in his own assigned function. 28. For God has set some, in the church, to hold the first place, as Apostles; some, next, as Prophets; then, Teachers; then, some endowed with power to work Miracles ; then, some gifted with powers of Healing ; some Fitted to Help with the poor and sick, and generally in church work ; some, fitted for ofice as Rulers, in the congregation ; then, some endowed with different Tongues. 29. Are all Apostles ? are all Pro- phets? are all workers of Miracles 1 30. Have all gifts of Healing? do all speak with Tongues? do all Interpret? 31. But for your part, desire earnestly the spiritually greater ā not the more showy gifts. But, now, I will show you a more excellent way for attaining these, than even the earnest desire I counsel.
This more excellent way he hastens to name : the having the soul aflame with heavenly love ! This is better than even the "best gifts," which any of them so covet, for it has in it the perfecting of the whole spiritual nature, into the very image of God. It, alone, gives worth to even the greatest gifts any one can receive ; it, alone, can put an end to the evil state of things that has sprung rip
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in Corinth; it, alone, has eternal worth, for all "gifts," besides, are only for a time.
XIII. 1. Far higher than your most valued external gifts is that of which I am about to speak. For, were I so en- dowed with what you think the highest gift, that of Tongues, to such a wonderful degree that I could speak, not only the languages of men, but even those of angels, but have not Love, I would be no better than sounding brass or a clanging cymbal;
Cymbals.
the simply mechanical instrument of external impulse, of no moral worth. 2. And if I have the next highest gift in your estimation, that of Prophecy, and understand all the mysteries which, without revelation, are beyond our knowing, and have all knowledge of their depths, attainable by man : and if I have all Faith, the next in your scale of gifts, so that I could remove mountains, ^ but have not Love, I am nothintr.^ 3. And, still more, if I do the highest works of love, itself, while love is not my impelling motive ā if I sell all I have, to feed
1 Matt. xiii. 11 ; xxi. 21 ; Rom. xvi. 25 ff. ; 1 Cor. iv. 1 ; xii. 8. "^ Matt. vii. 22 ; 2 Cor. xii. 11 ; Geikie's " Life of Christ," ii. 381.
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the poor, and if I even give my body to be burnt for the faitli. like the three holy men in Daniel, but have not Love, it is vA no good to me as regards my attaining salvation in the king- dom of the Messiah.
Love alone can set right the troubles at Corinth.
4. Love, slow to anger, bears long, and is kind even to him who tries it ; love has no envy ; love knows no boasting ot itself, is not inflated with pride or vanity, 5. does not behave itself unbecomingly, does not seek its own advantage, does not give way to passion, makes light of evil done it;
6. has no pleasure in the evil deeds of others, but rejoices in the gracious works of the truth, that is, the gospel ;
7. tries to find excuse for all things; believes all things; hopes all things ; endures all things.
Love, alone, never dies !
8. Yes, and to crown all ā love never dies ! But as to the " gifts " of which you think so highly, whether they be Prophecies, they shall be done away at the coming of Christ ; or whether they be the speaking with Tongues, they also shall then cease ; or whether they be the " Knowledge " ā which sees deeply into the myoteries of God, ā it, too, shall, then, no longer needed, like Prophecies, be done away. 9. For, now, we know only imperfectly, and we prophesy imperfectly, for our Knowledge and Prophecy are alike incomplete. 10. But^ when, at the appearing of the Lord, the state comes, in which all thinofs are perfect, that which is imperfect shall be done away. The morning red will he lost in the rising of the sun. 11. It will he like passing from childhood to maturity. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child : hut, now that I am a man, I have put away childish things. 12. For, now, hefore the coming of Christ, we see divine things, not directly, hut as if in a mirror, which shows us an object, as it were, standing quito behind it, and gives only glimpses, in its narrow limits ; that
PAUL ^T. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 193
mirror being the partial revelations vouclisafed us. But, then, when Christ comes, I shall Jinow, face to face, with nothing between : now, I know imperfectly ; but, then, I shall know, even as also I have been known of God, when He looked into my soul to save me ! 13. But, now, when that which is perfect is come, though all the gifts so dear to you shall pass away, three still abide ā for Faith, Hope, Love, these three, never die ā the Faith that has saved ā the sure Hope that your felicity will be eternal, and still increase ā the Love that is
Ancient Hand -Mirrors.
the air of heaven; for God is love.^ But the greatest of these is Love.
Passing, now, to the former topics of his letter, the Apostle reverts to the gift of tongues, of which the vain Corinthians thought more than of other endowments, and shows that it is much less to be prized than that of pro-
1 1 John iv. 8.
m. N
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A.D. 57
phecy, or, as we should express it, of effective religious oratory.
XIV. 1. Follow strenuously after Love ; where she leads, do you eagerly follow her footsteps; yet, as to "gifts,"
Ancient" Musical Instruments.
desire earnestly any it may please God to bestow by His Spirit, but most of all, that you may prophesy, to the spiritual benefit of the church and the world. ^ 2. For he who speaks
1 Ver. 3.
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in a "tongue," speaks not to men, but to God, for no one understands him, speaking, as he does, through the Spirit, mysteries which remain such to the hearers. 3. But he who prophesies speaks, on the other hand, to men, edification, that is, spiritual building up, and comfort, and consolation. 4. He Avho speaks in a " tongue," edifies or builds up himself ; but he who prophesies, edifies the whole congregation. 5. Not that I would depreciate the speaking with tongues, for, indeed, I would have you all speak with them, but I would, rather, that you should prophesy ; for greater is he who pro-
Egyptiaa Priestesses with the Sistrum,
phesies than he who speaks with tongues ; unless he inter- pret, that the congregation may receive edifying. 6. But, as it now stands, brethren, if I come to you, speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you words based on a revelation, or on knowledge, or by prophesying, that is, addressing you, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit ; or by teaching you spiritual truth? 7. How useless an unintelligible harangue is, may be realised by an illustra- tion from music. Even in lifeless instruments, say, flr.tes or lyres, both well known to you in heathen worship and
196 THE APOSTLES A.D. 5/
Otherwise, how shall it be known what is played on the flute or the lyre, if they make no distinction in the time, and height, and depth of their notes? 8. If the trumpet give an uncertain voice, who will prepare himself for the battle? 9. So, when you speak in the congregation, how shall it be known what you say, unless you utter by your instrument, the tongue, discourse that can be readily understood, for, otherwise, you will be simply speaking into the air? 10. There are I do not know how many languages in the world, and none of them is without the characteristics of a language, in the order and settled meaning of its words. 11. But if I do not know the meaning of the words of a particular language, and find one speaking it, I shall be to him simply a barbarian, and he will be a barbarian to me. 12. Therefore, since you earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit, seek that you may abound in such as will build up the congregation. 13. On this ground, let him who speaks in a tongue, not knowing the meaning of what he is saying, pray that he may receive ability to interpret. 14. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit, only, prays, but my understanding is without fruit, for the building up of others. 15. What, then, is to be done 1 Let me tell you. I will shun the ecstatic condition in which the understanding is helpless, and though I will pray with the spirit in a tongue, I will follow my doing so, by praying with the understanding also, ā gfiving the interpretation, and keeping, throughout, the use of my faculties. 16. For, if you bless God only with the spirit, how shall the ungifted, newly won brother, who, as regards '* tongues," is an un- learned man, be able, from the place in the assembly assigned to such persons, to say the Amen, when you thus give thanks, ā as is always done, in keeping with immemorial Scripture custom,^ ā when he does not know the meaning of what you say ? 17. For you, no doubt, give thanks to God worthily, but the other is not built up. 18. I thank God that I have
1 Deut xxvii. 15-26 ; Neh. v. 13 ; viii. 6 ; Pa. cvi. 48 ; 1 Chron, xvi. 36; Tobit viii. 8 ; Rev. v. 14 ; vii. 12 ; xix. 4.
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tliis gift in a liigher degree than any of you, for I speak with tongues more than you all, in private devotion ; 19. yet, in the public congregation, I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a Tongue.
20. Brethren, be not children in your way of thinking, which you really are, in your overestimate of Tongues ; but while not only children, but babes, in whatever is evil, be men in your ripe sense.
He now confirms what he has said, by Scripture. The passage quoted is from Isaiah,^ but he follows neither the Hebrew nor the Greek version, making changes in both words and tenses. The prophet tells the Jews of his day, that God will speak to them by an invasion of the Assyrians, since they refuse to hear Him. The unin- telligibility of the language of the invaders is seized by Paul, as a type of that of the tongues, and the passage is adopted as a Divine foreshadowing of the gift now so abused. The Book of Isaiah is called The Law, as part of the Old Testament. 2
21. In the law it is written, By men of strange tongues^ and by the lips of foreigners, will I speak to this people ; and not even thtis will they hear Me, saith the Lord. 22. Therefore, Tongues are for a sign ā an extraordinary appearance, show- ing the divine ruling and working in Christianity ā not to those who are already believers, but to the unbelieving, that they may be won : but, in contrast to this, prophecy is for a sign, not to the unbelieving, but to believers. 23. If, there- fore, the whole congregation be assembled together, and all speak, one after another, or a number together, with tongues, and there come in one who is either newly won and not gifted with tongues, or a heathen who does not believe, will
* Is*, xxviii. 11 f. 9 Rom. iii. 19 ; John x. 24 ; xii. 34 ; xv. 26.
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they not say that you are mad t 24. But if all, successively, prophesy, and there come in a heathen, or an ungifted, newly won brother, he is convinced of his sins, by all, who thus speak, and thus, as it were, judge him ; 25. the secrets of his heart being disclosed by the penetrating words he hears, which lay bare the thoughts of his bosom; and thus con- victed, judged, and openly described, as by an inspired voice, he will fall down on his face and worship God ; declaring that God is of a truth in you, who thus "prophesy."
The Apostle has now ended his remarks on "gifts" generally, and proceeds to state what should follow ; giving rules for the proper observance of Divine worship, and appending, in conclusion, a few words of caution and recapitulation.
26. What is fitting, then, in the circumstances, brethren ? Suppose, when you assemble, each of you has either an im- provised hymn which he feels impelled to recite aloud, or an address, as endowed with the gift of Teaching, or a "tongue," which seeks to break out in ecstatic utterance, or a revelation granted to him as one gifted with Prophesy- ing, or an Interpretation of some utterance, just given in a " tongue ; " whatever gift any one has, let all be done to the building up of the cong: egation, as a whole, in its spiritual life. 27. If any man speak in a " tongue," let only two or three do so during one service, and that, not together, as has been done at times, in Corinth, through uncontrolled, hysterical excitement, but, in turn, one after the other; and let one person interpret, for one interpreter is enough, and saves time for more profitable exercises. 28. But if the speaker with tongues cannot, himself, interpret, and there be no one present who can, let the speaker with tongues keep silence in the assembly ; and let him speak the tongues, at home, to himself, and to God. 29. And in the same way let the Prophets speak by two or three, in succession, and let the other Prophets, who have not spoken, judge whether
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what has been said was really from the Holy Spirit, or not.
30, But if a revelation which he feels constrained to make known forthwith, be made to a brother sitting by the one who is then speaking, let the speaker give way, and be silent.
31. For, though he thus 3rield place for the time, you can all, one after another, prophesy, or, as I may call it, speak; that thus all may learn what God has given each to say, and, so, all may be influenced for good. 32. Moreover, the prophets have control of their own spirits, and are not carried away, like those speaking tongues, by involuntary excitement, but can, at their pleasure, be silent, as I counsel 33. And it is clear that that counsel is from God, for He is not a Grod of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
The Apostle proceeds to give directions respecting the novelty of women speaking in the public assemblies of the Christians ; forbidding their doing so.
34. Let the women keep silence in the congregations, or "churches," for it is not permitted them to speak in public; but let them be subordinate to the man, as the law itself says, Thy husband shall rule over thee} 35. And if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home : for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the public assembly. 36. What? was it from you^ Corinthians, that the word of God went forth, or did it come to you^ only, that your custom should be the standard?
A few words of recapitulation close the section.
37. If any man think he is a prophet, or otherwise spiri- tual, that is, endowed with any of the gifts of the Spirit, let him take knowledge of the things I thus write you respecting "gifts" of any kind,^ as commands of the Lord, given me by Him, directly ; ^ not learned from tradition ; for He has left no instructions respecting "gifts,'' in the memorials of His
* Gen. iii. 16. ^ ctaps. xii.-xiv. ^ Chap. vii. 25, 40.
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teachings, which we possess. 38. But if any man do not recognise this, let him alone; it is not worth while to try to convince such a person, for he cannot have the Spirit of Christ.
39. Wherefore, my brethren, as the sum of the whole matter, desire earnestly to speak by inspiration of the Spirit, that is, to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking with tongues. 40. But let all things be done decently and in order ; at the right time, in the right proportion, and within the right limits.
The usages prevailing in Corinth, in public worship, disclosed in these criticisms, reveal a simplicity very striking, when contrasted with the ideas of later times. It is, for example, curious to find that, though Pres- byters or Elders are mentioned in connection with the churches of Asia Minor and Jerusalem ; Teachers, in those of Galatia, and Rulers, in that of Thessalonica,i and though all churches appear to have been formed on the same model,^ so that the same oflScers were, pre- sumably, to be found in the Corinthian church, ā there is no indication of their having exercised any authority in its meetings, even to control the factious, and fanatical outbursts, which the Apostle so strenuously rebukes. Speakers with tongues, and, perhaps, " prophets," appear to have caused great disorder and confusion, but we are not told of these irregularities involving disrespect to their presiding officers, or being treated by them as breaches of discipline, or refusal to obey those in authority. It requires the intervention of the Apostle, to reduce matters to something like order, and he arranges to secure this, by the brethren making voluntary concessions
1 Acts xiv. 23 ; xi. 30 ; xv. 6, 22, 23 ; GaL vi. 6 ; 1 Thess. v. 12. Ā» 1 Cor. vii. 17 ; xi. 16 ; xvi. 1 ; iv. 17.
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to each other, or by direct apostolic eommands ; nothing whatever being said of submission to the established officials.
Yet, in other cases, we find, both before and after the date of the Corinthian letters, such distinct recognition of the authority committed to the heads of the different churches, that it would be a mistake to assume that, in any of them, every one was free to do as he pleased in the public assemblies of the brethren, for, in this case, all government must have been lost. The Thessalonians, for example, are " besought " by Paul ā though " beseeching " seems to imply special need, in such a case, for the ex- hortationā " to recognise those who laboured among them, and admonished them, and to esteem them ex- ceedingly highly in love, for their work's sake."^ To Timothy, his lieutenant, or representative, at Ephesus, Paul, further, writes : " Let the elders that rule well, be counted worthy of double honour ; especially those who labour in the Word, and in teaching ; " ^ and as this was written just before the Apostle's death, it shows how things stood about thirty years after the Crucifixion. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, moreover, we find, from about the same date, the similar counsel : " Eemember them that had the rule over you, who spoke to you the word of God " ā and, " Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them : for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account." ^ But, that churches fihould need such admonitions, shows the turbulent dis- order characteristic of them in those days, for no one would think of using such language to quiet and orderly congregations. The loquacity, and vanity, and love of Ā» 1 Thess. V. 12. Ā« 1 Tim. v. 17. Ā» Heb. xiii 7, 17.
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faction, among the Greek races ; the license permitted in the synagogue, in question, answer, and dispute ; and the exceptional, and utterly abnormal, nervous tension, and we may almost say, hysterical excitement, which marked possession of the "gifts," so often abused, account for a state of things, out of which subordination and order could be only very slowly created. Hence, while, in some churcheS; the authority of the appointed officers was so little respected, that apostolic commands were needed to reinforce it, that of the dignitaries of the Corinthian church seems, for the time, to have quite disappeared, under the heated anarchy of faction and mental exaltation.
An entirely new subject is now introduced, worthy of its having been reserved for the last place in the Epistle. Among other fruits of the irrepressible speculativeness of the Greek mind, the possibility of any resurrection of the dead had been called in question,^ by some of the self- constituted teachers, who aired their vanity in the assemblings of the brethren, in empty loquacity, or a show of subtle philosophy. Seven years, or so, later, when Paul had only another year to live, we find him denouncing two heresiarchs, Hymenasus and Philetus, whose " words will eat like a gangrene ; men who, con- cerning the truth, have erred, saying that the resurrec- tion is past already;" that is, evidently, that the only resurrection is that of the soul, from death to life, in conversion.* This idea, however, sprang up in the Jewish section of the church, apparently from the Oriental hatred of matter as the root of evil, adopted, afterwards, by those, who, as the " Gnostics," claimed a
1 Chap. XV. 12. '2 Tim. ii. 17.
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monopoly of the only true Gnosis, or knowledge of Divine things, and was gradually embodied in a high-sounding philosophical system, of mingled heathen, Jewish, and Christian elements, expressing its doctrines in mytho- logical forms. But, though already seen in its elements, in Paul's day, it had not developed itself formally, when the letter to the Corinthians was written. The idea to be combated in that Epistle, was, rather, that common to the Jewish Sadducees and the Greek Epicureans, as shown at Athens, when cavillers of that school "mocked when they heard of the resurrection of the dead." ^ As taught in Corinth, however, it does not appear to have challenged the essentials of Christianity, for, while warn- ing its advocates and the brethren, against its dangerous tendencies,^ Paul writes in a tone which shows that their position was not thought by him, any more than by themselves, incompatible with their religious profession. Yet, to the Apostle, the doctrine of the resurrection was of vital importance. Indeed, he speaks of it as virtu- ally the basis of all his preaching, and the great end of the believer's hope.^ Before the Sanhedrim, he says: ** Touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." Before the wretched Felix, he re- peats this, in almost the same words, and he tells King Agrippa, this was his one cause of trouble.* That he bore with the new teaching at Corinth as he did, rose, apparently, from the fact that, while it repudiated the idea of a resurrection of men at large, it accepted the truth of that of Christ, which is the one fact the Apostle
Ā» Acts xvil 18, 32. Ā« Vera. 33, 84.
Ā» Rom. vi. 8 ; viii. 11 ; 2 Cor. v. 10 ; 1 Thesa. iv. 14 * Acts xxiii. 6 ; xxiv 15, 25 ; xxvi. 8,
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adduces, to convince the doubters of their error. United with them, in common faith in Jesus, and belief that He had risen from the grave, to be their glorified Head, at the right hand of God, Paul still recognises them as his brethren ; thus giving all ages a lesson of noble Christian charity.
In opening his new theme, the accepted fact of Christ having risen, is regarded as so assuredly involving the resurrection of mankind at large, that he begins by simply reciting the fulness of proof of that supreme truth.
XV 1. I now proceed to make known to you, brethren, once more, the glad tidings which I preached to you, which also you accepted ; on which, moreover, you stand, as on an immovable foundation of immortal hope, and by which you are even already saved ; 2. if you hold it fast according to the words in which I made it known to you at first ; unless, indeed, you believed in vain. 3. For, as the first truth of all, I delivered to you what I myself, also, had learned from the treasured remembrances of those who had been with Him, and knew all the facts ; that Cluist died for our sins, according to the Scriptures ; 4. and that He was buried ; and that He has been raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures, and is now alive for evermore ; 5. and that He appeared to Cephas ; then, to the twelve ; 6. that, then, He appeared, in Galilee, to above five lumdred brethren at once, of whom the majority are still alive, but some are fallen asleep; 7. that then, He appeared to James, His brother; then, to all the apostles ; 8. and, last of all, He appeared to me also, although I was like one born before the due time. 9. For as a too-soon-born child is hardly worthy of the name of one, so I am the least of the apostles, and not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of Crod. My enemies speak of me thus, and I, in my own
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 205
sense, accept the reproach. 10. But, by the grace of God, I am what I am : and His grace bestowed on me has not been without fruit ; but I have laboured more than they all : yet not I, but the grace of God working with me, has done all. 11. Be it I, then, or they, ā the other apostles, ā who preach, we all preach what I have now recited, and this great truth you have believed.
Some, however, deny the resurrection ! Let them con- sider how fatal their position is, from the consequences it involves.
12. If, now, we preach concerning Christ, and that rightly, that He has been raised from the dead, how say some among you, that there is no resurrection of the dead ? 13. How can any one say so ? For, if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14. and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is an empty nothing, and your faith, also, is the same. 15. We, apostles, moreover, are found guilty of bearing false witness against God ; because wo have declared respecting Him, that He raised up Christ ; whom, nevertheless, He did not raise up, if it be the fact that the dead are not raised. 16. For if the dead are not raised, neither hao Christ been raised ; 17. and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is an empty nothing, you are still in the fjiiit-bonds of your sins. 18. In that case, also, those of your number who have fallen asleep have perished, instead of be*/*g saved. 19. Nor is our own position, who preach, njo*'e enviable, for if, in this life, we have only hoped in Christ, ast, hereafter, coming in glory, which we were to share, and if, when we fall asleep, that hope will vanish, and we find our- selves lost, we are of all men the most to be pitied.
But this is not to be thought for a moment. Put away these sad fancies. Christ has risen, and through His resur- rection, the whole race of man will be raised.
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20. But, SO far from this, matters stand thus : Christ has been raised from the dead, and that as the firstfruits of them that are asleep. 21. For since by one man came death, by one man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22. For, as in Adam, all die, so, also, in Christ, shall all be made alive. 23. But each in his own order : first, Christ, the first- fruits ; then, those who are Christ's will be made alive at His Coming. 24. Then, at that Coming, will be the end of the resurrection, and of this present state of things, when Christ gives over the Messianic kingdom to God the Father, after He has destroyed all oth^.r rule than His own, and all other authority and power. 25. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. ^ 26. As the last enemy to be vanquished, death itself shall be destroyed ; 27. for even death cannot be left uncrushed, since Scripture says that He hath put all things in subjection under His feet} But though He says all things are put under Him, it is evident that. He, God, who has put all things under Him, is excepted. 28. And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also. Himself, be subjected to Him who had put all things under Him, that God may be all in all, the triumph of the kingdom of Christ having brought this about. He ā the Son ā has, till then, ruled over all things,^ but, henceforth, God will do so.
Various proofs of the resurrection are now given, from the usages of the Corinthians themselves, and from the case of the Apostle.
29. If this be not so, what shall they do who let themselves be baptized for the benefit of the dead, in their room? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?*
^ Ps. ex. 1 ; Matt. xxii. 44.
' Ps. viii. 6, most nearly after LXX. ā¢ Matt, xxviii. 18.
* Chrysostom says that, among the Marcionites, when a catechumen died unbaptized, a brother concealed himself under the bed. The dead
PAUL iBT. C. 47 FIliST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 207
The voluntary sufferings of the Apostle and other Chris- tian confessors would, indeed, be foolish, if life ceased at death.
30. Why, also, do we risk our lives every hour ? 31. As to myself, I tell you solemnly, that, as truly as I boast of you, brethren, being, through me, and with me, in communion with Christ Jesus our Lord, ā I daily expect to die. 32. If I have fought, so to speak, with beasts, at Ephesus, for my enemies were like the wild beasts of the arena, with the motives ordinary men have, in braving peril ā to gain fame or reward, ā what profit have I, who, instead of either, reap only persecution and t^^hame ? If the dead are not raised, ā to quote words used in another connection, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.^ 33. Beware lest you be led
was then asked if he wished to be baptized, and on the living person answering in the aflBrmative, this proxy, or sponsor, was baptized for the dead man. (Quoted in Meyer.) Of the Corinthians, Epiphanius says (1. 1) : " This tradition has come to us, that when any among them appeared to have died without baptism, others were baptized in their name, that they might not awake, in the resurrection, to a judgment of condemnation, for having neglected baptism." Ambrose says: "He, Paul, wishes to show that the resurrection was held so sure and certain, that some, in perfect confidence of their own resurrection, allowed themselves to be baptized for any brother who had died before baptism ; fearing that, from not having been baptized, such an one might either not rise at all, or might rise to sorrow. By this example, however," says the father, ** he does not give his approval of the thing done, but simply shows the assured faith they had in the resurrection." I omit the original, which may be seen in Meyer.
^ Isa. xxii. 13, LXX. That this passage is only a strong figurative way of describing what the Apostle had endured from the Jews and others at Ephesus, is argued from the fact that his being a Roman citizen precluded his being thrown to wild beasts, and, above all, from his surviving ; for, even when the doomed man was not killed by the beasts, the executioner always killed him, unless the spectators clamoured for his pardon so fiercely, that it could not be refused. The peril encountered in the theatre at Ephesus may, however, have suggested the language used, or perhaps the thought of that deadly peril to which allusion is made in Rom. xvi. 4 Ā»nd xvi. 7.
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astray by the teachers who deny the resurrection : Einl com- pany corrupts good raorals} 34. Wake np from your besotted confusion of mind, to just thoughts, and do not sin, either in act, or by doubting the power of God ; for some of you have no right knowledge of God. I say this to move you to shame.
The discussion of the argument for the resurrection was now closed. Christ, he has said, undoubtedly rose, and one victory over death is enough to prove that the resurrection of all is not impossible. Still more, this universal resurrection is implied and involved in the rising of Christ, for He is the second Adam. In the first Adam, all the race died ; Christ, the second Adam, is the federal head of humanity, and, as such. His resurrection carries with it life from the dead, to all mankind. He is the firstfruits of the grave, and, as the Messiah, opens a "^ew era in the economy of Providence ; the reign of im- mortal life. On the fact of this future, beyond the grave, even the Corintbians rest, as shown by baptism for the dead ; and the Apostle and his fellow-workers had staked everything on it. The resurrection of Christ, moreover, is so great an event that it must bear wondrous results ; the faith built on it, the converts won by it, the hopes raised by it, the new page in the history of the world opened by it, must ripen into immortality.
A new point is now introduced : the mode of the resur- rection, and the kind of body we shall have.
35. But some one will say, How are the dead raised, and with what kind of body do they come back ? 36. Thou foolish one ! that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened into life, unless it die : 37. and in that which thou powest, thou dost not sow the body that will rise from it, but a bare grain, it
1 Seft AvnsUes, i. 88.
PAUL yET. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 209
may be, of wheat, or of some other kind ; but God gives it a body, even as it pleased Him at Creation, and, indeed, to every seed sown its own proper body. 39. But there are differences in nature : all flesh is not of the same kind ; for there is one flesh, or body, of men, and another of
COLUMBARIUM.
Repository of ashes of the dead, in small urns. The name is a play upon pigeon- holes in a dovecot: such holes covering the walls. Before the Christian doc- trine of the Resurrection was adopted, this was the way of disposing of the remains of the dead, after cremationā in the Roman world.
beasts, and another of birds, and another of fishes. 40. There are also bodies of heavenly beings, and bodies which belong to earth ā those of men and beasts ; but the glory of the heavenly bodies, fitted for a celestial sphere, differs from that of the earthly. 41. So, also, is it with the orbs of III. 0
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heaven. There is one degree of glory of the sun ; another, feebler, of the moon ; and still another, of the stars ; for one star differs from another star in glory. 42. So also is it with the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption : 43. it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44. it is sown a natural, terrestrial, human body; it is raised a spiritual body ; fitted for the pure deathless life received through the Spirit. If tliere be a natural body for our present life, there is also a spiritual body, fitted for spiritual life. 45. Hence, it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul ā the word applied also to the lower creatures, but the last Adam became a Ufe-yiving Spirit.^ 46. Yet the spiritual is not hrst, but tlie natural ; then, the spiritual. 47. The first man ā Jesus, as He lived among us ā is of the earth, earthy : the second man ā Jesus, as we shall see Him on His return ā is of heaven. 48. As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy ā all the descendants of the fiist Adam; and as is tlie heavenly, such are tliey also that are heavenly ā the risen Christians, as citizens of heaven. 49. And as we have borne, like a robe, the likeness of the earthy, we shall also bear the likeness of the heavenly.
He now gives them some details, confirming what he has said.
50. Now, lest you should think that you will enter the kingdom of the Messiah in your present bodies, if you be alive when He comes, I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither does corruption inherit incorruption. 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we
^ Gen. ii. 7, LXX., not exactly. The second half of the quotation is not from Scripture but from the rabbis, as where it is said, " Tiie last Adam is the Messiah " (Neve Shalom ix. 9), and from their contrast of the expres- sions in Genesis ā "The breath of life," and "He became a living soul." Paul intends by this, that Christ, as man, typified by Adam, had a natural body only, but after His becoming the second Adam, on His resurrection, became a life-giving Spirit.
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shall not all sleep in death, before He comes, but, at His com- ing, we shall all be changed. 52. In a moment, in the twink- ling of an eye, at the last trump ; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we, who are alive then, shall be changed. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
IN THE CATACOMBS.
Christian burial, in expectation of the Resurrection. Catacombs or subterranean burial-places extend for miles round Rome, and were common in many parts, as Christianity spread.
A triumphal conclusion, and final warning, end the discourse.
54. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall
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be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swalloioed U]) in victory. ^ 55. 0 death, where is thy victory ? 0 death, where is thy sting ? ^ 56. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law ; 57. but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58. Therefore, my be- loved brethren, be steadfast in your hope of the resurrection, unmovable by any seductions, always abounding in the work of the Lord, since you know that your labour is not fruitless in the Lord, but prepares the way for your eternal happiness.
Personal and business matters occupy the remainder of the letter.
XVI. 1. Now, respecting the collection for the poor among the saints ^ at Jerusalem, as I gave order to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye. 2. On the first day of the week let each of you set apart, at home, whatever his gains may enable him to spare, that collections may not be first made when I come. 3. And when I arrive, I will commission and send off such persons as you may, by official letters, have declared trust- worthy, to carry your bounty to Jerusalem. 4. But if the sum gathered be such as to make it meet that I, myself, as an Apostle, also go thither, they shall go with me.
He now tells them when they may expect him.
5. But I will come to you when I have first passed through Macedonia ; for I do pass through it, without making any stay there. 6. But with you, I shall, perhaps, remain for some time, or even winter ; that, when I start, you may set me forward on my journey, whithersoever I go. 7. For I do not, now, wish to see you by the way, in a mere passing visit, while on my journey to Macedonia ; to which I had intended to go
1 Isa. XXV. 8. Not exactly from either the Hebrew or the LXX. The primary reference of the prophet is to the deliverance of the Northern Kingdom from its troubles,
Ā« Hos. xiii. 14. Not exactly either from the Hebrew or the LXX.
3 Rom. XV. 26.
PAI7L MT. C. 47 FTT^ST EPISTLE TO THE COKINTHTANS 213
by way of Corinth, taking ship to your city from Ephesus ; for, when I come, I hope to remain a while with you, if the Lord permit.^ 8. But I will remain at Ephesus till Pentecost. 9. For a great and effective door, or opportunity for work, is opened to me, and there are many adversaries.
Timothy may, however, come earlier, and he bespeaks a favourable reception lor him.
10. But if Timothy, now journeying through Macedonia,^ come to you, see that he be with you without fear, for he is young, and some may slight his youth, and act overbearingly ; for he is labouring, as I am, in the Lord's work. 11. Let no man, therefore, make little of him. But set him forward on his journey in peace, that he may come to me here ; for I expect him with the brethren, his fellow-travellers.
He now passes on to speak of Apollos.
12. As regards Apollos, the brother, I begged of him very earnestly to come to you with the brethren, who are now about to return, bearing with them this letter from Ephesus ; but it was not at all his will to come at this time ; he will come, however, when he finds a convenient opportunity.
These friendly words show that Apollos, who must have been at Ephesus with Paul when this letter was sent off, was neither the head of a party, nor at variance with the Apostle, and that Paul even desired that he should return to Corinth. It is quite probable, however, that he hesitated to do so, on account of the party strife then raging, which would, perhaps, be heightened if he appeared ; since the faction which had assumed his name, might use his pre- sence to further their disputations ends.
Paul is reminded by such thoughts, of the danger to
^ Acts zx. 1 S. He stayed with them three months. ' Acts xix. 22.
214 THE APOSTLES A.D. 5/
brotherly love from party spirit, and passes on to exhort them to faith and true mutual affection ; adding earnest ccunsels that they esteem highly, all who are faithful servants of the church ; naming, especially, the three envoys who had brought the letter from it, to him at EphesuB ; particularly Stephanas and his house; very probably, as having drawn on themselves the ill-will of the Anti-Pauline factions, from having such open sym- pathy with the Apostle.
13. Be watchful, stand fast in the faith ; quit you like men, be stout-hearted under persecution. 14. Let all you do be done in love.
16. You know, brethren, that the household of Stephanas was the first-fruits of Achaia, ā the southern half of the Roman "Greece," ā and that its members have set themselves to do service to the saints, ā in journeys, conciliations, dis- charge of special commissions, nursing the sick, and much else, ā 16. I entreat you, therefore, that, on your part, you put yourselves at the disposal of such, acting on their counsels and advice, and that you do the same towards every one, who, like them, helps in the work, and labours with them.
17. I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and Achaicus:^ for they filled the void caused by your absence.
18. For they refreshed my spirit, as your representatives, and must have refreshed yours, by bringing me into renewed communion with you : give due, loving recognition, to persons who stand in such fond relations to both yourselves and me.
Now come greetings, and the conclusion.
19. The churches of the province of Asia salute you. Aquila and Prisca salute you, over and over, in the Lord
^ Stephanas may have been the head of the "house," or a slave, named after his master. Of the others we know nothing. They hardly seem to have belonged to the establishment of Stephanas.
PAUL MT. C. 47 FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 215
Jesns, with the church that meets in their house. 20. All the brethren of the different churches in all Ephesus, salute you. Salute ye one another with a holy kiss.
21. The salutation of me, Paul, with my own hand. 22. If any man love not the Lord, let him be anathema ā separated from God's favour, and delivered over to destruction. Marana atha ! ^ Our Lord comes ! 23. The grace of the Lord Jesus Chi")?'; be with you. 24. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.
^ The full Aramaic fonn.
CHAPTER VII
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS
A.D. 57 ; Paul's age, c. 47
Paul had seut Timothy to Corinth before writing the first letter to the church there/ though he expected it to reach them before his arrival,^ so that he looked forward to hearing from him the impression made b}^ it. Of the report he brought, however, we know nothing, though we learn that he was again with Paul when the second letter was written.^ That there is no mention of his communications to the Apostle, is accounted for by Paul again writing to them, on account of what he had learnt ; which, clearly, was not at all satisfactory.*
His anxiety led him, moreover, to send Titus, some time later, to Corinth, after Timothy had returned from it, to Ephesus, but his mind was not relieved by more cheering news from this second envoy, till he had reached Macedonia ā that is, apparently, Philippi ā from Troas ; as he himself was on his way to the Isthmus cily.^ llie information now, at last, obtained from Titus, seemed, however, to make a second letter advisable, to heighten the beneficial influence on the spirit and mutual relations of the Corinthian brethren, which, he rejoiced to learn, had resulted from his former Epistle. Most authoritiea
Ā» 1 Cor. iv. 17. 2 1 coj.. xvi. 10. Ā» 2 Cor I 1.
* 2 Cor. il 13 ; vlL 5 ff. "^2 Cor. ii. 12, 13, vii 6.
PAUL MT. C. 47 SECOND EPTSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 217
think this new letter was written in A.D. 58,^ but Ramsay fancies its date somewhat earlier. Everything is so uncertain in fixing exact dates to incidents in Paul's life, that this may well remain an open question. He had left Ephesns soon after Pentecost, which falls about tlie same time as our Whitsunday, and he was now on his way to Corinth, for his third visit.^ Always oppressed by his responsibilities, the events in "Asia," but, above all, his anxiety about Corinth, had almost broken him down. To bid farewell to a flock amidst which he had laboured for three years, must have been trying, for they had gone through much together, and he had a gloomy foreboding as to their future, surrounded as they were by so much opposition, and exposed to many unsound teachers.^ But no less dark a sky lowered over Corinth. What had been the result of his first letter ? * Titus was long in returning, and he dreaded the worst. Always weakly, he now sank till he " despaired even of life," and was "weighed down exceedingly."^ Timothy had brought him no comfort. Perhaps the first letter had only embittered matters ; leading to a revolt from his authority, in favour of the party leaders he had con- demned. So cloudy was everything, indeed, that we may suppose Timothy had left Corinth before the letter had reached it. Would Titus, his second envoy, bring good news? He expected to meet him at Troas, to which vessels were constantly coming from Corinth,Ā® or Neapolis.^ Not finding him there, he had not the power to avail himself of an opportunity for effective
* See table in Holtzmann, ii. 88. ' 2 CJor. xii. 14 ; xiil 1.
Ā» Acts XX. 29. * 2 Cor. i. 4, 8, 10 ; ii. 13 ; vii. 5, 6.
Ā» 2 Cor. i. 8. Ā« 2 Cor. ii. 13. ' Acts xx. 6, 6.
218 THE APOSTLES A.D. $7
work which offered itself at Troas, Imt hastily leaving it, and eagerly pressing on, sailed for Macedonia ; Neapolis, most probably, being, as before, his port of arrival, though he would doubtless hurry thence to Philippi ; so dear to him, and farther on the way to meet Titus earlier. In the midst of the tried converts in that city, so loving and true, and, apparently, in the society of Luke, his attached friend, who seems to have continued there since the earlier, troubled visit, he would, under ordinary circum- stances, have been refreshed in mind and body. But the troubles at Corinth still lay heavy on his heart. Even in a spot so attractive, "his flesh had no relief, but he was afflicted on every side ; without were fightings," ā for per- secution, presumably, from the local Jews, still assailed, both him, and the church, ā and "within were fears" about the far-away city.
At last, however, light broke through the sky. Titus, in the end, arrived with tidings which, if not in all respects satisfactory, were much brighter than they might have been. To have the loved envoy back was, itself, a "comfort," but it was doubly so when he heard from him, that he had himself been " comforted in " the Corinthian brethren, and that they were longing for a visit from the Apostle ; over whose long-continued absence they grieved, and towards whom their fidelity remained unchanged.^ There were, indeed, some shadows amidst the sunshine, but they roused him to energetic indig- nation, rather than depressed him.
The first letter had been warmly received by the more solid and worthy brethren, for whom it was especially in- tended. The favourers of loose views had been humbled,
^ 2 CJor. viL 7.
PAUL MT. e. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 219
and the church, as a whole, had submitted to his require- ments, and recognised his authority. Titus had been welcomed heartily, and had been overjoyed at their kindly bearing towards him.^ In the critical matter of the incestuous marriage, which had been denounced in the first letter, the Corinthians had expressed sorrow and shame, and, having summoned the brethren, had inflicted on the offender the church discipline commanded by Paul. Nor was there any appearance of defection from the teaching of the Apostle.^ Thus the gravest diffi- culty had been happily removed, and confidence restored between the Apostle and the church.
But the clouds were not all dispersed. In the first letter, he had alluded to the attacks of the Jewish-Chris- tians in the Corinthian Church, on his apostolic authority, but the party at that time was still weak, and the notice taken of it is only slight. It may have comprised both those who called themselves by the name of Peter, and those who asserted that they were " of Christ," for both were Jewish in feeling ; the one, apparently, claiming to represent the views of the original Apostles ; the other, to repeat the direct teaching of our Lord. Both were thus linked to Palestine, with its Hebrew exclusiveness, and both must have looked askance at Paul's laxity regarding the law, in relation to heathen converts. Tlie constant intercourse with Jerusalem, would at once deepen their hostility to the Apostle, and fortify their pride and con- fidence ; for they could at least affect to have the mother- church with them. They would, moreover, doubtless, give out that Jesus, Himself, had kept the law, and
Ā» 2 Cor. vii. 13-16. 3 2 CJoi vii. 6 8, 10, 11, 12, 16 ; ii. 9, 10 ; i. 6, 6 ; iii. 2, 3 ; vi 11.
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ordered it to be obeyed, twisting, to this end, some of the sayings now found in the Gospels,^ and extending to the ceremonial law, what He taught in these respecting the moral. Nor would Peter's repudiation of social inter- course with the heathen converts of Antioch be for- gotten, nor the strife in Galatia. Such opinions, held as beyond question or dispute, and urged continually, with Hebrew fervour, had spread only too widely. What had at first been only a little leaven, seemed likely to leaven the whole church. Perhaps new teachers, with letters of commendation from Jerusalem, as those boasted who came down to Antioch, had arrived, adding to the arrogance of the Jewish-Christians, and influencing, exceptionally, the minds of the brethren. Through whatever causes, the party had grown large and powerful, embracing the majority of the teachers.^ Moreover, even the re- putation of the Apostle was no longer spared ; his per- sonal appearance was ridiculed ; his abilities as a speaker contemned ; he was declared to be bold only when at a distance, but afraid when present ; his maintaining himself was made the ground of insinuations against his apostolic dignity ; his Hellenic birth was slighted, as contrasted with their purely Jewish descent ; his right, in short, to take the position he assumed, was treated as audacious. A-S to themselves, their connection, real or pretended, with Jerusalem and its Apostles, and in some cases, theii alleged personal relations to Christ, as His disciples, and also their letters commendatory, settled, as they main- tained, the question of theii- own rank, and warranted their
1 Matt. V. 17, 19. 1 1 Oor. ix. 1-6 ; 2 Cor. iii. 1 ; x. 12 ; L 12. 17 ; x. 1 ; xii. 21 ; ii. 17.
PAUL MT. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 221
assumption of apostolic privileges.^ On the subject of the collection, for the poor among the brethren, at Jeru- salem, the party interests of these Judaisers were strongly- opposed to the wishes of Paul. He evidently wished to show the Palestine Jews, by his activity for their poor, that he was heart and soul loyal to them : hoping thus to disarm their hostility, and win their friendship. But to succeed in this would counterwork the agitators, and, hence, we find that their machinations, in the end, overthrew all these kindly expectations ; the Ephesian Jews, at the Temple, when he reached Jerusalem, carrying out the malevolent opposition marking their race everywhere, by exciting such a tumult as virtually closed the Apostle's career, by consigning him to a prison for four of his best years.
That Paul should have felt constrained to write another letter to Corinth, after hearing this story of mingled com- fort and disappointment, which Titus had to report, was inevitable ; alike, that he might cement the respectful affection felt towards himself, by so many of the brethren, and that he might expose the haughty pretenders to apostolic authority, who were so cruelly slandering and depreciating him, as a mere pretender to apostolic dignity. His much-loved young attendant, Timothy, was with him, and could save him all labour connected with the Epistle, except that of dictation, and it was he, we may assume, who finally wrote it down, with all its strong feelings of mingled gratitude, affection, and indignation. It is, indeed, the least systematic of any of Pa^l^s letters ; the various questions agitating him being seldom long kept apart, and their introduction, on the moment, and for the
^ 2 Cor. u 24; ii 17; xi. 13, 20, 22; v. 16 ; x. 7 ; xl 28 ; zUi. 8 i xi 6 ; iiL 1 ; V. 12 J X. 12, 18,
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moment, leading to constant digressions. The document, when finished, ran as follows: ā
Second Epistlb to the Corinthians.
As the Epistle is addressed to all the saints who are in all "Achaia," we must suppose that the churches gene- rally, throughout the province, as well as that in Corinth, were more or less agitated by similar troubles. Thinly scattered, as they doubtless were, and insignificant as well, in every sense, there was, nevertheless, evidently, constant intercourse, and interchange of communications and docu- ments, between them as a whole. ** Achaia " and " Mace- donia " formed the two divisions of Roman Greece ; all that is now Modern Greece, with the Peloponnesus, being included in Achaia.
I. 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God in Corinth, with all the saints in the whole of Achaia : 2. grace to you and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Corinthians, like all the Christians of those days, had much to bear, as such, but Paul thanks God that he can cheer them amidst all : his own experience, and even the good news he has had from Corinth, showing that he and they alike, are watched over by Divine grace. The love that had sent light into b^s dark- ness, would assuredly shine on them also. The}' have trials, but having drunk a full cup of suffering him- self, he is thus, in God's providence, the better fitted, now that his anxiety and trouble about them have been removed, to comfort them in turn. He uses the
PAUL iET. C. 47 SKCOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 223
plural pronoun "we," perhaps to include Timothy, who had shared his distress.
3. Blessed be the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, tlie Father of mercies, and God of all comfort ; 4. who com- forts us ā Timothy and myself ā in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5. For as the sufferings of Christ ā that is, suflferings like His ā have come on us above measure, so our consolation, through Clirist, is no less abundant. 6. But, if we be afflicted, it is overruled by Gcd for your comfort and salvation ; or, if we be comforted, it is, in the same way, ordered for the same end. ā your comfort, since we are thus able to inspire you with taat faith which works in you the patient endurance of the same sufferings which we also endure; 7. and hence our hope for you is steadfast; for we know that, as you are partakers of the sufferings, so you partake also of the comfort.
8. I may, indeed, speak freely, and in my own person, on this matter. For I would have you know, brethren, respect- ing my affliction which befell me in " Asia," that I was weighed down by it beyond measure, so that I despaired even of life :
9. indeed, 1 myself, in my own mind, felt doomed to death ; so that I realised that I should not trust in myself for my life, but in God, who raises the dead. 10. Who, indeed, did deliver me from so great a death, and still delivers me, for persecutions still follow me wherever I go ; that God, I say, delivered me, on whom I have set my hope, that He will, also, still de- liver me : 11. you, with other congregations, helping me, by joining your supplication on my behalf, to my own, that for the heavenly gift of protection which, surely, will be thus bestowed on me, by means of the prayers of so many, thanks may be given by many persons on my behalf, for the answer to their prayers thus vouchsafed.
The Apostle now begins to vindicate himself from blame ascribed to him. The uprightness of his life generally;
224 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
his truthfulness respecting his proposals in his former letters, in connection with his coming to Corinth, and the cause of his altering his plans of travel, are successively- dwelt upon.
12. Nor are we without good reasons for confidence that your prayers for us will be helpful, for our ground of rejoicing is this ā the witness of our conscience, that we have conducted ourselves, in the world at large, and with you, in even a higher degree, than with others, with the purity of motive and trans- parent sincerity, which are of God ; not with the doubtful ways of worldly wisdom, but with the spirit wrought in us by the grace of God. 13. For my letters do not cover or misrepre sent my true thoughts, but are honest statements of them, and I write no other things to yon, than you read in them ; their plain, straightforward sense expresses our honest thoughts, which are in keeping with your knowledge of my character and convictions; my hope being, that you may think as well of me to the end, as you have thought in the past; 14. for you have, in part, acknowledged that I am your glory, just as you are mine, in the day of the appearing of our Lord Jesus.
He now refers to the insinuations made in reference to his promised visit to Corinth. He had proposed, before writing what is now the First Epistle, ā perhaps in the Epistle now lost, ā to come direct to Corinth, and pass, thence, to Macedonia,^ and had then let the brethren know his intention. But before writing his First Epistle, or while it was being written, he had been forced to change his plan, 2 and had arranged to go to them by way of Macedonia. This alteration, his enemies alleged, showed instability of purpose. A pitiful reproach from which to have to defend himself !
1 Verse 16. "1 Cor. xvi. 6.
PAUl MV. C. 4; SECOND EPISTLK TO THE CORINTHIANS 225
15. And in this confidence that you would keep to your good opinion of me, permanently, I at first wanted to come to you by sea,- not through Macedonia, that you might have a second benefit from the grace which would assuredly be made by God to accompany my visit, 16. intending, from you, to pass into Macedonia, and then to come again to you, from Macedonia, and to be set forward by you, from Corinth, on my journey to Judaea. 17. In proposing this did I show fickleness, as you say ? or when I purpose things, do I act according to the flesh, by merely human wisdom, such as guides unconverted men; that wit}i me there should be the Yea, yea, and the Nay, nay, at the same time, respecting the same thing, as if I attached no meaning to my words ?
He vehemently contradicts such a thought on the most solemn grounds.
18. But, as surely as God is a true witness, our word to you is not yea and nay, ā that is, unreliable. 19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, ā by me, and Silvanus, and Timothy ā was not a wavering between yea and nay, but the Yea only, is in Him ; ā all that His gospel promises being certain, so that our preaching Him is a guarantee for our truthfulness in all other things. 20. For, however many the promises of God in the Old Testament may be, in Him is the Yea ā the security for their fulfilment ā and, therefore, the Amen of the congrega- tion 1 is also, through Him, ā recognisin? their fulfilment, ā to che glory of God, through us, who speak for Him. 21. But this faithful God is He who makes us and you steadfast in Christ, and has, as it were, anointed us, in common, by His gracious favour; 22. who also has set His seal on us, and has given us the earnest of hereafter entering into the king- dom of the Messiah, by shedd.ng abroad the Spirit in our hearts.
^ 1 CJor. xiv. 16.
m. 9
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The ground of his change of plan, in his coming to bhem, is now given. The incestuous man had, no doubt, given him pain, but it is a question if an offence against common morality, which the conscience of the church must of itself condemn, when it was brought before them, could have been the subject of such distress to Paul as he indicates. May it not have been that, on his second brief visit to Corinth, while at Ephesus, the leading troubler of the church had attacked him openly, as not really an Apostle, and had stirred up disputes similar to those in Galatia? His gentleness in not thrusting out the agitator at once, his change of plan as to returning, and his contenting himself with stout words, in a letter, may be the explanation of the bitter taunts, about his being weak in bodily presence, and of no account in speech, but weighty and strong ^ in letters ; bold in words, but feeble in deeds. The demand to exercise discipline on this arch-offender, may have been com- municated to the church by Timothy, and the compliance with the demand only made known by Titus; thus keep- ing the Apostle in distressing anxiety, to learn whether the brethren had acknowledged his authority, or had passed over to his antagonist. To have come to them as a stern judge, arraigning the offender, officially, by apostolic authority, and inflicting deserved punishment, would have been unbearable under the circumstances. He had, therefore, waited, and changed his plan of travel, that he might hear of the matter being settled, so that he could come in love ; not " with a rod." They had at once rectified their position towards the incestuous man ; and they had, now, if the idea of a personal offence be
1 2 Cor. X. 10.
PAUL MF. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 227
entertained, done the same with the other person who had gfiven the Apostle so much pain.
23. But, respecting my not having come to yon before going into Macedonia, I call God to witness upon my soul, that I forbore to come to Corinth first,, to spare you. 24. Not that by my speaking thus I mean that I have lordship over your faith, to order it at my pleasure; I and my brethren are only helpers in securing your joy, by teaching, exhorting, and beseeching you, for your good ; for by thus becoming strong in faith, you stand. II. 1. But I resolved in myself, that I would not come again to you with matters that would cause sorrow. 2. For if I make you sorry, who is there to make me glad, but he who is grieved by me? 3. And for this very reason I tvrote this very thing in my former letter, instead of coming, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them in whom I ought to rejoice ; having confidence, as respects the whole of you, that my joy is that of you all. 4. For I wrote my letter to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart, with many tears, which I would not have shed had I esteemed you less my object being, not that you should be grieved, but that, by my fidelity, you might know the love which I have, more abundantly to you, than to most other churches.
He now turns aside to speak of the forgiveness he was ready to accord the offender, perhaps the incestuous man ; more probably, perhaps, his personal assailant.
5. But, while I did not wish to cause you grief, one of yourselves has not been as considerate. Yet, if any one has caused sorrow, he has caused it not to me alone, but, not to press blame too heavily, in part to you all. 6. As to the offender himself; this punishment, inflicted on him by the voice of the many, that is, of the congregation, is sufficient; so that you need not carry out his total excommunication, as I ordered. 7. On the contrary, ye should rather forgive
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him and comfoit him, seeing he is heartily penitent, lest he should be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow. 8. On this ground, therefore. I beseech you to express form illy, by action of the congregation, duly assembled, your love toward him, and to treat him, once more, as a brother. 9. For I wrote as I did, for tliis further end, also, that I might know the proof of your being loyal to me, whether you are in all things obedient to my authority. 10. Your forgiveness, moreover, will not be alone, but to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive it also ; for what I have forgiven, if, in any case, I have forgiven anything, I did so for your sakes, acting as the representative of Christ, as it were, in His person; 11. that no advantage may be gained over us, as a church, by Satan, through our driving a brother to despair, or by his being delivered to the evil one, as I ordered at first ; for we are not ignorant of his devices.^
Returning from a long digression, Paul now takes up asrain the thread of his narrative in the first verse, which had been broken off at verse four. He had told them with what sorrow he had written the first letter, and now adds, how this anxiety had clouded his spirits all the way from Ephesus to Troas, and still overshadowed him, even after crossing into Europe ; to which, indeed, it had driven him. So wretched, in fact, had he been on reach- ing Troas, that, though he had every inducement to begin work there, he was too troubled in mind to do so.
12. But, when I came to Troas, for the purpose of preaching the gospel of Christ, and though a door was opened to me in the providence of the Lord for doing so, 13. I had no relief for my spirit, because I did not find Titus, my brother, there :
^ Weizsacker, Bus Apostolische Zeitaltev, 294 ff. ; Holtzinann, Handm Commentar. ii. 220 ff., think the incident here dwelt upon waa not the scandal of the incestuous person, but a personal attack on the standing ftud authority -A the Apostle.
PAUL ^T. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 229
but, taking my leave of them, I went forth into Macedonia.
14. J3ut thanks be to God, who always leads us, Christian teachers, in triumph, as His captives in Christ, and makes manifest by us, in every place, as the news brouglit by Titus showed he had done in Corinth, the fragrance of the know- ledge of Him, in His mercy and love disclosed in the redeem- ing grace of Christ, wiiich spreads all around us, in every place, like odours of incense in a triumphal procession.
15. For in our overthrow of those who oppose, and in the success of our ministry, we are a sweet savour of Christ, rising up to God : this glorifying of His Son being to Him like the odour of incense, or of an offering He loves ; alike, in those who are in the way of salvation, and in those who are perishing; 16. we being, to the one, a savour of eternal death, through the spiritual death which refuses to receive Him ; to the other, a savour of eternal life, from their accept- ing the life Christ offers.
His fitness for his great office had been challenged by some in Corinth, and the sudden thought of this leads Paul abruptly to assert his special qualification, for thus serving God in glorifying His Son.
Who, then, is equal to these results, or to this work ? We, that is, I and my co-workers, are. 17. For we are not like most of the teachers among you, ā my opponents, ā who claim to be better fitted than we are for these things : we do not, like them, make a trade of the Word of God, adulterating it, for unholy profit, as tavern-keepers do their wine : we speak as those who are " in Christ," with single- minded sincerity, and no such base thoughts ; as men who are the appointed servants and mouthpieces of God, and as standing in His sight.
He needs no letter of commendation, as his opponents did.
HI. 1. Am I beginning again to commend myself to yoni
230 THE APOSTLES A.D. $7
fovourable regards, as I once before did, when I defended myself against your censures ? ^ Or do I need, as some do, my opponents among others, epistles of commendation to you, whether from Peter or James, at Jerusalem, or from noted teachers elsewhere, or from the church I last visited, or especially from you ? 2. No, indeed, for you yourselves are my epistle of commendation, written in my heart, which tells me I am commended by you, and, further, known and read by all men, through that commendation, as a true mini- ster of Christ ; 3. for it is manifest that you are an epistle of Christ, written through my ministry, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God ; and not like the old law, in tables of stone, but in tables of hearts of flesh.
Feeling this, he yet ascribes his eflSciency, not to him- self, but to God, who has made him a minister of the New Covenant ā a far grander one than the Old.
4. Hut I have such confidence as this, before God, entirely through and from Christ ; 5. not that I think I am sufficient of myself, in my own strength, so as to account anything, in my success, as due to myself ; but my sufficiency is from God ; 6. for He it is who has made me sufficient, as a minister of a new covenant ', not, like that of the Old Testament, a cove- nant of the letter, written down when given, but of tlie Spirit : for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, and God designed to fit me to he a minister of a life-giving faitL
How glorious this ministry is, compared with that of the Old Dispensation !
7. But if the ministration of Moses, in receiving the law, which tended to the reign of death, and was written in letters graven on stones, came with such glory that the chil- dren of Israel could not look steadfastly on his face, for its glory ā irradiated as it was with the splendour of God, which had shone on him on the mount ; ^ which glory, after all, was
1 1 Cor. i.-iT. ix. 14, 17 * Exod. xxiv. 16 ; xxxiv. 29.
PAUL MT. e. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 231
even then, fading away : 8. how far more glorious must the ministration of tlie Spirit ā the religion of Christ ā be? 9. For if the ministration of that which brings condemnation had glory, much more does the ministration which brings right- eousness exceed in glory. 10. For, indeed, the ministration of Moses, which had been made glorious, was not to be called so in comparison with the glory of the New Covenant, which 80 transcendently surpasses it. 11. For if that which was presently to fade away was glorious, that which is to remain for ever is so, in a far higher degree.
Having been commissioned to serve in this grand ministry, and having such a confidence in his labours being approved by God, he exercises it with boldness, speaking openly, plainly, and confidently ; not with in- sincerity, as was insinuated against him, though really marking only those who charged him with it. The veil of Moses is typical of the want of frank directness in his adversaries, but he has nothing of that kind.
12. Since, then, I have such a hope, or, rather, confidence, I use great boldness of speech, 13. and do not lay a covering over my face as Moses did, that the children of Israel might not look steadfastly, on the final disappearance of that whicli was fading away.
' The Jews were kept, by this covering, from understand- ing the real teaching of the Old Covenant, and were thus hardened : indeed, this veil is still over it, to them.
14. But, instead of realising that this glory was only a temporary appearance, their minds were hardened, in the belief that it was permanent ; for even to this very day, the same veil remains unlifted from over their understanding, at the reading of the Old Covenant in the synagogue service, and, as respects Christian-Judaisers, when it is read in the Christian assemblies ; which veil is done away in Christ, though not seen
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by them to be so. 15. But, on the contrary, as I have said, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts.
But a brighter time is coming, when they shall have turned to Christ !
16. But, as soon as their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17. Now, the Lord, to whom they shall thus turn, is not different f r m the Spirit, who is received at con- version : and where the Spirit of the Lord is, thei'e is freedom from the yoke of the Law ā the bondage of the letter ā of which I have spoken, which now hardens them. 18. But all we Christians, lefiecting from an unveiled face, as from a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are thus, step by step, trans- formed into the same likeness, tliat is, attain more and more fully the likeness of the glory of Christ, rising from glory U> glory, even as the change is wrought in us, more and more completely, from the Lord the Spirit.
He now reverts to the theme he had begun in the twelfth verse of the third chapter.
IV. 1. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry of such a glorious Gospel, even as I myself obtained mercy, and owe eternal gratitude for it, I am not faint-hearted, or cowed before any opposition : 2. but have repudiated the secret things of shame ā dishonouring those who use them ā not walking in craftiness, in my office, as my opponents do, nor falsifying the Word of God ; but by clearly setting forth the truth, as in the sight of God, commend myself to every man's conscience. 3. But if any say, after all, that my gospel is veiled, and not recognised as the truth by many, I can only say it is hid, not in me, but in them that are perishing : 4. in whom the god of this world ā the devil ā has blinded the mfnd.s of the unbelieving, making them incapable of recognising the truth, that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.^ 5. For I
1 Wisd. vii. 26.
PAUL MT. e. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 233
preach not myself, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and myself your bondsman for the sake of Jesus. 6. For it is God Himself 7rh.o has, by His illuminating Spirit, appointed us to do so, for it is He who said, Light shall shine out of dariniess, ā who has shone into my heart, that I might give forth from it to others the light of the knowledge of His glory, as revealed in tha face of Jesus Christ.
But why, it may be asked, if intrusted with so great a commission by God, was he left to suffer as he did? He shows, therefore, that his trials were designed to ad- vance his future glory, and to show that his successes were from God, not from himself.
7. But, this treasure of the light of the knowledge of God in Christ, is lodged in a frail body ā an earthen vessel ā that the transcendent greatness of the power shown in the results of my labours, in spite of all my weakness, sufferings, and persecutions, may be seen to be of God, and not from myself.
8. I am pressed by a crowd of troubles on ever}^ side, yet not straitened for room ; at a loss what to do, 3'et not in despair :
9. pursued by foes, yet not forsaken, or '?ft behind, to be overtaken by them ; struck down, yet not actually killed ;
10. always bearing about in the body a counterpart of the dying of Jesus ā exposed as I constantly am, to the end He met, that is, death for the Truth, ā that the life, also, of Jesus, in His rising from the dead, may, as it were, be manifested in my b.xly, by my daily rising from such mortal dangers. 11. For I, living though I be, am always, every hour, doomed by my enemies to die for Jesus' sake, that something like the resurrection life also of Jesus, may be displayed in my mortal flesh. 12. So, then, it may be truly said, that death, ever about to seize me, does its work in me day by day, but, since you receive spiritual life through my ministrations, that life works its glorious ends in you. 13. Yet, having the same faith-working spirit which David shows, where Scripture says,
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/ helievedf and therefore did I speaJc,^ ā I also believe, and there- fore also I speak : earnestly proclaiming the gospel ; 14. feeling urged and cheered in doing so, by knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead, will raise up me also, as one with Jesus, to share His glory, and will present me to Him, with you, as His faithful servants, amidst many trials here below. 15. "With yon," did I say? Yes; for all things you do or suffer for Christ, work for your good, and are ordered for your sakes, that the grace of God, which gives us the victory, being extended and increased by the multi- tude of the converted, may cause the thanksgiving due for it to abound mightily, to the glory of God.
Remembering all this, Paul tells the Corinthians that he will bear up against all his trials ; the gleam of heaven which these last words have brought before him, making him think lightly of death, and of all the afflictions that may precede it. It is noteworthy that, whereas he had written to the Thessalonians, four years earlier, of his expecting to be still alive at the coming of Christ,^ he now speaks of himself as to be raised from the grave, to go to Him.
16. On this account, I am not faint-hearted, whatever is before me, but, thongh my outward man, my weak and sickly body, is visibly decaying, yet my inward spiritual man is re- newed day by day, in growing strength and increasing joy 17. For my light burden of affliction, which lasts onl}^, as it were, for a moment, is working out for me, in more and more exceeding measure, an eternal weic/ht of glory ; 18. since I fix my eyes not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are not seen ; for the things that are seen are only foi our span of time, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
The contrast of the ignominy and suffering of the present, with the glory hereafter, is continued.
Ā» P8. oxTi. 10, LXX. ' 1 Thess. iv. 17.
PAUL JET. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO TflE CORINTHIANS 2o5
Y. 1. For I Jino?c, that if the earthly, tent-like house of my present body were destroyed, I have a spiritual body ā a build- in <' ā not a poor tent ā provided by God, a house not made with hands, as a te::t is, but eternal in the heavens. 2. For, indeed, even while I am still in this earthly body, I groan, in earnest longings to be clothed upon with my habitation which is of heaven, as if with a glorious robe, thrown over this dying frame : 3. that I may not be found naked ā without a bodyā at the coming of Christ, but be forthwith clothed with my heavenly body, when this earthly one snail have been destroyed by death. 4. For, in truth, we who are still in this tent-like body, groan, and are weighed down in spirit ; not because we would wish to be stripped of our earthly bodies, but because we would fain put on, over it, our hea- venly raiment ; that what is mortal in us may be swallowed up of life. 5. For this glorious change, thank God, I am ready; He who has prepared me for this very thing being God Himself, who gave me the Spirit, as the pledge that, when Christ appears, this heavenly body shall be given me. 6. Being, therefore, always of good courage, and knowing that, while I am at home in the earthly body, I am distant from the Lord ā 7. for I walk, here below, in the land of faith, not of realised sight ; ā 8. I am of good courage, I say, and wishful, rather to be away from my earthly body, and at home with the Lord. 9. Therefore, I also make it my earnest aim, whether I be at home with Him, or distant from Him, to be well-pleasing to Him ; in view of the coming judgment. 10. For we must all be made manifest ā our most secret thoughts being laid bare ā before the judgment-seat of Christ ; that each may receive his due for the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
War Tent.
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11. Knowing, therefore, the due fear of the Lord, as the future Judge of all, I seek to win men to make their peace with Him ; my deep sincerity in this being made manifest to God, whatever my opponents may say; as I hope that it is, also, in your consciences. 12. I am not again, as in earlier cases, commending myself to you, in any way to which you cannot fully assent, but write to give you occasion to glory on my behalf, on good grounds ; that you may have wherewith to reply to those, my assailants, who make an outward show of glorying, but not in their heart ; having no good grounds for it, since they only affect holiness, zeal, and love, of which their hearts are empty. 13. Yes, you have good grounds for confidence in me, and may well despise the insinuation of my opponents, that I am out of my mind, for if I be besi<le myself, it is for God's cause; or if I be of sober mind, it is for you. 14, For the love of Christ to man constrains me to shun all self-glory : because I. thus judge, that as one died for all ; all, therefore, died, in Him, as to their sinful fleshly life : 15. and that He died for all, that these who live in new spiritual life, through Him, should no longer live to themselves, but unto Him, who, for their sakes, died and rose again, and thus ga'ned them this higher life. 16. I, therefore, like my assailants, uith their self- glorifying, from this time know no one after the flesh ā as a mere man ā - but only as a brother ; one not " in the flesh " but " in the Spirit ; " indeed, even if I had known Christ, while He was in the flesh, as my opponents boast of having done, ā yet, now, neither they nor I know Him thus, any longer ; His earthly life having been exchanged for His heavenly. 17. Therefore, since no one is to be recogiiised simply as a man, he must be a new creature, if he be in Christ, who is no longer fleshly but spiritual : the old has passed away ; lo, all has become new. 18. But all, in this new creation, comes from God, who has reconciled me to Himself, through Christ, and has committed to me the ministry of the reconciliation of man to Him; 19. for God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not
PAUL M'V. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 237
reckoning to them their trespasses, and has committed to me the preaching of this reconciliation. .
20. Therefore, I am an ambassador on behalf of Christ, to spread abroad the reconciliation made through Him, as though God were entreating you through me ; and hence. I beseech men, on behalf of Christ, " 0 men, be ye reconciled to God 1 " 21. For I am, indeed, divinely warranted to do so, for Him who knew no sin, God has made to be sin on our behalf ; ^ that we might become the righteousness of God in Him ā accounted righteous by God, through our living faith in Jesus. VI. 1. Yet I do not conine myself to mere entreaty, but, as a co-worker with God, I do more ā I also entreat you to live so that the grace of God, received by you at your conver- sion, may not come to nothing, and prove to have been given in vain. 2. For God says, In a time of gracious favour I hearkened to thee, and in tl/e day of salvation I succoured thee.^ Behold, now is that time of gracious favour; behold, noia is the day of salvation ! 3. I thus entreat you, that you may give no cause of stumbling into unbelief or unchristian life, in anything ; that my ministration of the Gospel be not blamed; 4. commending myself, moreover, in everything, to your con- fidence, as a true minister of God, in much steadfast endurance; in bearing up under afflictions; in all kinds of necessities; in sore straits; 5. in scourgings; in imprisonments; in tumults; in labours with my hands, and all the toils of teaching, journey- ing, care of the churches, and much else ; in night watcliings amidst dangers, and for earnest prayer; in involuntary fastings ; 6. in pureness ; in ever-deep ar knowledge of the mysteries of God ; in long-suffering patience under slanders and injuries ; in kindness of spirit ; in the evident indwelling of the Holy Ghost in me, as shown in all my work and life ; in unfeigned
1 Isa. liiL 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24.
s These words are from the LXX. of Isa. xlix. 8, and primarily refer to the *' servant of the Lord," in whom Paul sees Christ, as the true Messiah. Our Lord is thus represented as seeking and obtaining from God, the speaker, at a time when God says He was favourably inclined to listen, the gift of mercy to mankind, shown in His grace towards us, in His Son.
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love, though you may have doubted this, from my severity against evil-doers, from the tone of my former letter, and from my continued absence ; 7. in speaking only the word of truth ; in proofs of the power of God being with me, in spite of my physical weakness and defects. This power I have, and those graces I enjoy, through my being clothed in the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the loft ā as soldiers have the sword or lance in their right hand, for attack, and the shield on their left arm, for defence ; ^ 8. amidst honour and dishonour ; evil report and good report ; slandered as a deceiver, and yet true ; 9. as an unknown pre- tender to the apostolate, and yet making myself well known ; as exposed to death day by day, and, lo, I am still alive ; as given up by God to merited chastisement, but not to death, as my enemies hope; 10. spoken of as sorrowful, yet, in truth, always rejoicing ; as poor, and yet I am all the time making many rich ; as having nothing, and yet, in reality, I find myself possessing all things 1
The Apostle has now ended his defence, and assures the Corinthians that his mind is comforted respecting them ; doubtless by the news brought by Titus. He now gives them some of the exhortations which, he had just told them,2 are part of his duty. He believes they will feel the truth of all he has said of himself, and this gives him confidence in them, and assures him of their returning it towards himself, so that he needs no longer restrain himself in writing them.
11. My maach is now open to speak freely to you, O Corin- thians, my heart is no longer oppressed with anxiety, but is lightened, and thus enlarged, for. with this restored peace, my love swells forth to you. 12 You may have thought you had little space in my heart, but you have not a small
Ā» Chap. X. 4-6 ; Eph. vi. 13-17 ; 1 Thess. v. 6-8. Ā« Verse 1.
PAUL iET. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE COUINTHIANS 239
place only, in my heart ; on the contrary, it is I who have a small place in yours. 13. Now, as a return, in kind, for this love to you ā I speak as to my children ā be your hearts en- larged also towards me.
14. Be not unequally yoked ^ with unbelievers, in their pur- suits and daily life, so as to identify yourselves with them ; for what in common have righteousness and iniquity ] or what in common has light with darkness? 15. And what concord has Christ with Belial 1 or what partnership has a believer with an unbeliever? 16. And what point of agreement has a temple of God with idols, that you should even appear to re- cognise them, by feasting in their temples ? For we Christians are ourselves a temple of the living God ; even as God has said, 2 / will dicell in them, and walk in them ; and I will he their God, and they shall he My people. 17. Wherefore, Cotae ye out from among them^ and he ye separate^ saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing ; and I will receive you, 18. and icill he to you a father, and ye shall he to Me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. VII. 1. Having therefore these promises, beloved,^ let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh ā all impurity, debauchery, gluttony, and the like, thus perfecting holiness, in the fear of God.
This eloquent exhortation ended, Paul once more throws himself on their kindly feelings, condescending to show how they need have no hesitation in doing so.
2. Open your hearts to me. I have wronged no man, I have ruined no man, either in morals or money, I have taken advantage of no one for unworthy gain, as my enemies have insinuated. 3. I do not say this to condemn you, as you may perhaps fancy, though I might well be offended at your sup-
^ Deut. xxii. 10 ; Lev. xix. 19.
' Lev. xxvi. 12, freely rendered from the LXX.
ā¢ Isa. lii. 11, very freely after the LXX. ; Ezek. xx. 84 ; compare Ezek. xi. 17 ; Zech. x. 8 ; 2 Sam. vii. 14 ; speaking of Solomon, Jer. xxzi. 9; Ho8. ii. 1 ; but all are more or less modified.
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posing me capable of such things ; for I have said before ^ that you are in my heart, to die together and to live together; if 1 am to die, as I daily expect, I will love you dying ; if I am suffered to live, I will love you while I do so. 4. Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying on your account ; I am filled with the comfort I need in my con- stant trials. I overflow with joy in all my affliction.
5. Yes, in my deepsst distress ! For even when I had come into Macedonia, my poor human nature had no relief from corroding anxiety, but I was troubled on every side ; without, were fightings with opponents, within, were fears respecting you. 6. But He wlio comforts the bowed down, even God, comforted me by the arrival of Titus, 7. and not by the joy at his coming only, but also by the comfort he had derived from intercourse with you, as he told me of your longing to see me again, your mourning for the grief you had caused me by the disorders in your church, and especially by the scandal of the incestuous brother, and by your zeal for me, to soothe me, and carry out my wishes; so that, hearing all this, I rejoiced yet more. 8. For though I made you sorry by my former letter, I do not regret it ; though I confess I did regret it for a time, and not without grounds ; for I see, from what Titus tells me, that that letter really grieved you, though only for a short while. 9. But now I rejoice, not In the fact that you were made sorry, but because your wrief led you to repentance : for ye were made sorry as God would have you, that, according to His design, ye might suffer no spiritual hurt in any way from me, whose aim and duty it is, only to promote your highest welfare. 10. For o-odly sorrow works repentance which brings eternal salvation, a repentance which causes no regret : but the sorrow which the world ā th^ profane and unbalieving ā have, works eternal death. 11. For, see, as to this very sorrow of a godly sort. which you have had, what earnest diligence to repair your shortcomings it has wrought in you ā aye ā for to say this is
1 Chap. vL 11 f.
PAUL .ET. (J. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 241
not enough, wljat clearing of yourselves you have had before Titus, and, through him, before me, of having had any blame in the scandal of the incestuous man ; yea, what indig- nation that such a scandal should have risen in the Church, yea, what fear lest I should come with a rod ; yea, what longing to see me again ; yea, what zeal against the offender ; yea, wliat firm carrying out of the required punishment on the offender. Indeed, in every respect, you have shown your- selves clear of blame, in reference to the said matter. 12. Although, then, I wrote to you severely, I did so not for his sake who had done the wrong, nor for the sake of him who suffered wrong, ā the father of the offender, whose wife the incestuous man had taken, ā but, that your zeal for me miglit be made evident to you, before God, ā I wrote as I did, in fact, that the zealous interest you cherish towards me, might show itself among you, in the sight of God. 13. On this account, tlieiefore, I am comforted, because I had no other object than that which I have attained : but to my personal comfort was added a still greater increase of joy, in seeing the joy of Titus ; for his spirit has been refreshed by you all. 14. For if, in former times, I have in any measure gloried to him, iii respect to you, whom I gathered from heathenism into a Christian church, among whom I worked 80 long, and whom I have in my heart, I was not put to shame; since you have behaved so worthily; but as I spoke all I said to you in trutli, so my glorying of you, also, which I made before Titus^ when I sent him to you ā that you would show your loyalty to me and do your duty, was found by him, when he came to Corinth, to be no less the truth. 15. His hearty affection to you, moreover, is greater than ever, since he has been among you, when he remembers the obedi- ence of all of you to him, and how you received him with fear and trembling, lest you might not be zealous enough in doing your duty. 16. I rejoice therefore that, now, I can place all confidence in you, in everything.
He now passes to the second portion of the Epistle, ni. Q
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respecting tte collection for the poor among the brethren in Jerusalem ; opening the subject by stating that the unexpectedly great generosity of the Macedonian churches, had led him to direct Titus to carry out and finish the gathering of contributions in Corinth.
VIII. 1. I would now, brethren, make known to you the
grace of God which has been given in the churches of Mace- donia ; a bounteous generosity opening their hearts towards the poor brethren in Jerusalem ; 2. so that, in spite of much trial of their steadfastness by affliction, their joy abounded, and this caused them, even in their deep poverty, to abound in a rich libeiality. 3. For, according to their power, as I can bear witness, and even beyond it, they gave, of their own accord,
4. beseeching me with much entreaty, in connection with this fruit of grace, that the favour might be granted them of taking part in the ministering to the saints at Jerusalem ;
5. and this they carried out. not as I had hoped, for little could be expected from people so poverty-stricken and tried, but they first gave their own selves to the Lord, putting aside all selfish interests, since the work was for His service, and then, by the will of God, to me, as the agent in sending the money gathered for Christ, to the sufferers. 6. Seeing such success in Macedonia, [ exhorted Titus, that as he had made a beginning of collectii^g, when at Corinth before,^ he would also complete among you this work of charity, now when he is bringing you this second letter from me, as he brought the first.
He trusts that the Corinthians may emulate the bounty of the Macedonians, leaving it to their love to do so, rather than imposing the collection on them by authority. He does not, however, expect that they should give beyond their ability ; making others rich, while themselves left bare.
^ 1 Cor. xii. 18 ; xvi. 12.
PAUL iET. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 243
7. But, as ye abound in all gifts, in the strength, depth, and activity of your faith ; in your powers of able speaking ; iri your knowledge of Christian truth ; in your many-sided ear- nestness in all forms of good works, ^ and in your love to me ; see that ye abound in this grace of liberality also. 8. I do not speak in the way of command, but to test the sincerity of your love, also, by comparison with the earnestness of others, ā I mean, of the Macedonians. 9. For, if your love be genuine, you will make yourselves poor for the sake of others, after the example of Christ, for ye know the bounty shown us by our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, before He became man,^ yet, for your sakes He became poor, by taking our nature, that ye, through His poverty, might become rich.^ 10. But in this matter I do not command you and only give my counsel, for zeal in it is good for you ; tending to promote your spiritual benefit : for ye were the first to make a beginning, a year ago; not only moving in it, but doing so with hearty goodwill, and thus showing that you need no command, but only a kindly word. 11. But now, I pray you, carry out your goodwill, and complete what yet remains to do, that as you then showed the readiness of your will, you may now finish the work, according to your ability. 12. I say, according to your means, for if the readi- ness to give is there, your gifts are acceptable to God, in their proportion to your ability ; not to what you have not got 13. For I do not say this ā urging the collection so earnestly, ā that others, at Jerusalem, may be relieved, while you are dis- tressed by giving more than you could afford : 14. my object is only to have an equality in condition, as to actual wants, througliout the brotherhood ; your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want, that their abundance may, in turn, at some other time, be a supply for your want ; that there may be an equality : 15. as it is written. He that gathered much had nothing over ; and he irJio gathered little had no lack.*
' 1 Cor. I 5. 1 John xvii. 6. ^ Phil. ii. 5-8 ; Rom. xt, 8.
* Kxod, xvi. 18, freely rendered from the LXX.
244 THE APOSTLES A.D. $y
The Apostle now passes on to speak of the mission of Titus to Corinth, with the Epistle then being written, and the special charge to finish the collection, already begun when he took the first Epistle to the church there. With him were sent two bretLren, whose names are not given, and must remain unknown ; Barnabas, Silas, Luke, Erastus, Mark, and many others, having been proposed by this or that writer, only to be rejected by all except the proposer.
16. But thanks be to God, who puts the same earnest care for you as I have, into the heart of Titus, ā who will bring you this letter. 17. For he not only consented to my ex- hortation that he should go to you, but being himself very zealous in the matter, set out for you of his own accord. 18. And I have sent, together with him, the brother whose praise in spreading the Gospel, is known through all the churches ; 19. and not only so, but who was also chosen by the churches of Macedonia to travel with me to Jerusalem, in connection with this gift to our poor brethren there of tlie help which is being raised by me, alike for the glory of the Lord, and to show my goodwill ; 20. thus, by having one so honoured with me, guarding myself from any risk of blame, in regard to the money which is collected by me : 21. for / take thought for things being honourable^ not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of man} 22. And I have sent with these two, my brother, as a third, whom I iiave many times proved earnest, in many ways, but who is now much more earnest than he has ever been, from the full trust he has in you.
A final general recognition of the three delegates follows.
23. Concerning Titus, then, he is my companion, and, as respects you, my iV How- worker ; as to my brethren, sent with him, they are "apostles," or "messengers" of the churches,^
1 Prov. iii. 4, LXX. ^ See Phil. ii. 26 ; Rom. xvi. 7 ; Acts xiv. 4, 14.
PAUL -ET. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 245
and the glory of Christ, by their zeal in His cause. 24. Show them, therefore, in the face of the churches, the proof of your love, and of the justice of our glorying on your behalf.
The collection is still the theme of the Apostle. It should be made at ouce, should be large, and given with a willing heart, and thus secure the Divine blessing, and call forth great thanksgiving from its recipients.
IX. 1. For it is needless for me to write this letter to you about the ministering to the wants of the saints at Jerusalem, now afoot : 2. for I know your hearty willingness, of which I boast on your behalf to the Macedonians, telling them that Achaia has been pi'epared for a year past, to pay over its contributions, and your zeal has stirred up very many of them. 3. But, though a letter is not needed, I have sent the three brethren, that my glorying on your behalf in this matter may not be made an empty boast, but that, rather, as I have often said to the Macedonians, you may be fully prepared ; 4. lest, peichance, any Macedonians come with me, as the custom is among us, and find you unprepared after all, I, not to say you, be put to shame, as to the confidence I have expressed in this matter. 5. I thought it necessary, there- fore, to urge the brethren to go to you before me and the Macedonians, who, perhaps, may accompany me, and make up, in advance, your bounty, already announced by me and also by you, that it might be ready as a free-gift, not as if extorted from you.
Let them give freely and joyfully, remembering God's blessing on generous liberality towards His people.
6. This, however, is to be remembered, that he who bows sparingly shall also reap sparingly ; and he who sows bounti- fully shall also reap bountifully, in the kingdom of the Messiah. 7. But I do not wish you to give largely and yet unwillingly, therefore let each act as he has purposed in his heart ; not
246 THE APOSTLES A.D. 5;
with regret to have to give, or by moral compulsion ; for God loves a cheerful giver. ^ 8. And God is able to make all good gifts of this world abound to you ; so that, having always all sufficiency of everything, you may be able to give of your abundance to every good work; 9. as it is written, He has scattered abroad. He has given to the poor ; His righteousness abideth for ever.^ 10. And He who supplies seed to the soiver and bread for food ^ will provide and increase your seel for fresh sowing; giving and increasing, the means by which you may exercise your bounty, and thus multiply the fruits springing from your righteousness; 11. you being enriched in everything needful for such liberality, which, through me, in my taking it to Jerusalem, will cause thanks to God from those who receive it.
On this thankfulness he enlarges.
12. For the service you render by this ministration of needed help ā a true offering to God ā not only fully satisfies the earthly wants of the saints, but also creates such grati- tude as overflows, through many thanksgivings, in a tribute to God ; 13. since the proof of your love, shown in this help rendered them, shows such obedience to your religious con- fession, as makes them glorify God for the Gospel of Christ, which produces such a spirit in those who follow it, and, also, for the generous warmth of your brotherly fellowship with them and with all Christians ; 14. while they themselves, also, pray for you, with earnest longings of their hearts for your good, by reason of the exceeding grace of God, in the liberality manifested in you. 15. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift in Christ, which brings about such brother- hood of Jew and Gentile, and blossoms into such fruits of love!
Paul has now reached the chief topic of his letter ; his
* Prov. xxii. 8., LXX., freely. 2 pg ^xii. 9, L2X.
Ā» Isa. Iv. 10, LXX.
PAUL ifiT. C. 47 SECOND EHSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 247
reply to the slanderers who sought to undermine him at Corinth. It Ib, however, noteworthy, that he has devoted two entire chapters to the subject of the collection for the poor brethren at Jerusalem. It was evidently a very great matter in his eyes, doubtless from his hope that such a proof of his loyalty to his race, and such brotherly kindness on the part of heathen-born brethren to Jewish-Christians, to whom, and by whom, he was so sorely misrepresented, might soften their hearts, and end the bitter strife against him ; so personally distressing, and so hurtful to the cause of Christ. That he should have kept a brother at his side continually, while engaged in gathering contributions, was in accordance with the practice of his race, in their constant collections, in each ghetto, for the local Hebrew poor. No one ever went out on this work alone ; a fact not entirely to the credit of the community. A touching glimpse of the poverty of the churches as a whole, is afforded by its requiring such efforts, from Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Corinth, ā over an immense stretch of territory ā to get enough to give any substantial help to a community so small as the church at Jerusalem, even if all the poor Christians outside the city shared in the bounty. Till now the tone of the letter had been con- ciliatory and affectionate, but an abrupt change begins at this point ; so abrupt, indeed, that it has appeared to some as if the remainder of the Epistle were a fragment of some other document inserted in this place by mistake ; an opinion, however, forbidden by a comparison of the character and details of the two portions of the letter; the resemblance between them being greater than between any other two sections of the Apostle's writings. The gravity of the matter which was now to be discussed and
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permanently settled ā tte right of Paul to assume the rank of an Apostle, and the personal integrity of his public and private life, which had been attacked only too successfully by his opponents, is, in itself, enough to account for the change of tone. Stern rebuke, command, and even threatening, through which play flashes of sarcasm and irony, were the natural language of reply to attacks so base, and so perilous to his influence and -character. He opens his attack, by advisiug his enemies to abandon the idea that he is brave only at a distance, but afraid when present, and to spare him the having to disprove it by stern action, when he arrives.
X. 1. But now, to pass to another subject, I, Paul, myself, ā not lie who is putting down my words, ā entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, which I trust you will imitate ā I, who, you say, when face to face with you, am without spirit, but when absent am courageous toward you ; 2. I beseech you, I say, to obey my counsels, that I may not be forced, when I come, to show courage with the fearless confidence in my Apostolic power, with which I am minded to deal boldly with some of you, who think of me as if I acted, like themselves, by the motives and impalses of my lower, unspiritual, fleshly nature, and not under the influence of the Holy Ghost. 3. For though I live in the flesh ā that is, have, like my enemies, a sinful human nature, I do not, like them, go out to war with its weapons. 4. For the weapons of my warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty, before God, to the casting down of the argumentative strongholds of my adversaries ; 6. overthrowing their intellectual castles in the air, and every towering bulwark of rhetoric or so-called philo- sophy, that is raised, by them, against the true knowledge of God, through the uncorrupted Gospel, and bringing every false thought, which garrisons these ancient citadels, into captivity, and winning them over to the obedience to Christ, rendered
PAUL iET. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE COTIINTHIANS 249
by His followers ; 6. though, where submission to Christ is not yielded, I am ready to avenge any such non-submission, when your obedience to Him, as a church, is made complete.
They fancy he is no true Apostle, thanks to his past humility. He will show them their mistake !
7. You foolishly look only at appearances ; at what is before your eves, when you think me weak and timid. Your self-appointed leaders speak of me as talking boldly only when at a safe distance, and yet boasting of being an ap:stle of Christ ! We, say they, not he, are the true servants of Christ ! But if any man trust in himself he is *' Christ's," as having seen and heard the Lord, let him consider, further, by his own reason, that so, no less, am I. 8. For, even if I should glory more than I have done of my authority, which the Lord gave me to build you up, and not, like my opponents, to cast you down ā I shall not be put to shame by coming short of this, when I arrive. 9. I say this, that I may not seem as if I would terrify you only b}- my letters ; nothing in keeping, following them in act. 10. For his letters, they say, are weighty and strong ; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account ā for, when actually present, he is all gentleness and softness, and his utterances are thought very bald and poor. 11. But let any one who speaks thus, assure himself that what I am in words, in my letters, I shall be in my deeds, when I am present.
His boasting is justified by the success God has granted him ; it is not hollow and groundless, like that of his assailants.
12. For I am not such as my opponents, that I should deal only in words. For I will not essay to number myself among some of those who commend themselves, or to compare myseK with them. But. since, instead of measuring themselves, as to their standing, by others who have done inor^ and better, they measure themselves by themselves, making themselves
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their standard, and compare themselves with themselves, they are wanting in understanding. 13. But I will not boast of my work outside my allotted field of labour, but only within the bounds of the sphere which God assigned to me as my province ; which extended even to you, at Corinth. 14. For I do not stretch out myself too far ā ^I do not go beyond my assigned sphere, in speaking thus ā as though I did not, in my appointed field of labour, preach to you, for I, who never go outside my own bounds, in my work, came even as far as to you, in preaching the Gospel of Christ. 15. Hence, in glorying in you, I am not glorying of what is beyond my own limits, that is, in success won by other men's labours, as my adversaries among you are doing, in Corinth ā my ground ā in the church won by my toil. I hope, indeed, that as your faith grows, I shall be still further honoured in you, b}'' your help, as regards my wide province; so as to be able, 16. to preach the Gospel even to the parts beyond you, to the West ; not glorying, like my adversaries, in another man's province, ā of things not done by myself, but ready to my hand. 17. But, as to the self-glorification in which these men in- dulge, Scripture is clear, for it says, He that boasts, let him boast in the Lord} 18. For not he who, instead of glorying only in the Lord, commends himself, is approved by God, as a true man, but he is approved whom God commends, by bless- ing his work, by delivering him from perils, and by His gracious aid.
The troublers had gone the length of saying that Paul was hardly of sound mind to act as he did. Availing himself of this, the Apostle, ironically assuming the char- acter of a fool, under which he could say what might other- wise have offended the Corinthians, tells them that, after all, he, too, has a little self-glorying in which he indulges.
XI. 1. I should like, however, that you would bear with ^ Jer. ix. 24, freely from the LXX.
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me in a little of the foolishness ascribed to me, but, indeed, I know that you will do so. 2. For you cannot deny me this favour, jealous as I am for you, even with a Divine jealousy ; for I have been the middle man who has betrothed you to one bridegroom, Christ, that I might present you to Him at His appearing, as a pure virgin, when the marriage of the Lamb shall have come, and you. His wife, shall have made yourself ready. ^ 3. But I fear, lest, by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted by the false apostles, Satan's servants, who are among you, from the single-heartedness and purity, due by you, as His betrothed, toward Christ. 4. For if he who comes to you as a teacher, preach another Jesus, different from the Jesus whom I preached, or if you are told that you, through his preaching, receive for the first time, another spirit, ā the true Spirit of God, ā different from the Spirit you received through my preaching, ā or a different Gospel, which is not the one you accepted at your conversion, through me ā do you think you do well, to let yourselves be pleased with it or him 7
The literal sense of the last words seems to be an ironical one ā " Of course you have a perfect right to he pleased with it!" but he not only did not seriously think this, but was shocked at their having been led away by these innovations, as they had been. He now, therefore, gives the reason for his thinking so.
5. For I reckon that I am not a whit behind any of these very superfine, so-called apostles, who mislead you ; nor, indeed, the genuine apostles. 6. For though, as you are told, I be like a common man in my inartificial speech, not glib and formal, like the men you admire, I am not so in deep know- ledge of spiritual truth ā the first gift of a true apostle ; but, on every point, have made my knowledge manifest, among all men, in my relations to you.
* Rev. xix. 7.
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Having defended himself as to his general qualifica- tions, and shown how the Corinthians had benefited by him, he now takes up another point in the reproaches Leaped on him ā his having preached without putting the churches to any cost, which, these supereminent apostles insinuated, was a proof that he did not venture to claim the rights of an Apostle, as they did. In fact, they made a living by tlieir preaching; and he was inflexibly deter- mined to be a contrast to them.
7. Or, to pass to an other charge, did I commit a sin, in abasing myself, that you might be exalted ā by my preaching the Gospel of God to you for nothing? ā not using my right, as an apostle, to receive support from you, but in a poor and scanty way maintaining myself? 8. Other churches I did, indeed, spoil, by taking pay from them, that I might serve you; 9. and when I was with you and was in want, I was not a burden on any man ; for the brethren, whose names you know, when they came from Macedonia, supplied my wants, and thus, in everything, I kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself. 10. As the truth of Christ is in me, I protest to you that no man shall stop me of this glory- ing, in the regions of Achaia.
The ground of this self-denial follows.
11. Do you ask why I act thus? Is it because I do not love you? God knows whether I do or not ! 12. But, what I do, I intend to continue, that I u)ay cut off the opportunity of denouncing me as self-seeking and covetous, from them ā the self-styled apostles ā who desire an opportunity of thus slandering me; and that, as regards unselfishness, in which they pretend to glory, tliey may be forced to follow my example, or be exposed as deceivers. 13. For men like them are false apostles, deceitful workers in the mission-field ; passing them- selves off as apostles of Christ. 14. And this is no wonder,
PAUL ^T. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 253
for, as the rabbis tell us, even Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. 15. It is no great thing, therefore, if his servants, also, pass themselves off as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
Under the mask of folly, so harshly attributed to him, he continues his glorying, but he shows how much such reproaches wounded him.
16. Once more, I say, let no man think me foolish ; but if you think me so, yet bear with me as foolish, that I, like my traducers, may boast a little. 17. What I now say, I do not say as if it were after the example of the Lord, for Christ-like speech knows no boasting, but as one who is foolish speaks, in thus confidently glorying. 18. Seeing, however, that many boast ā my slanderers, I mean, in human fashion, not Christian, I will boast also. 19. For you bear with fools willingly, being wise people yourselves. 20. Indeed, you give ample proof of this, for you even bear with a man, ā you know whom I mean, ā when he makes slaves of you, to his Jewish ideas, ā when he plunders you, by his greed, when he snares you, like prey, by his crafty wiles, when he lords it over you, in his pride, when he, as it were, strikes you in the face ā so insolent and contemptuous is he. Such are those you have left me, to follow !
His enemies gloried in being pure Jews ; he compares himself with them as such.
21. I cannot take these swaggering airs like them. On the contrary, I confess that I speak of myself as if I had been weak and quite their opposite. Yet, in whatever respect any one of them is bold ā I speak in foolishness ā I am, on good grounds, bold also. 22. Are they Hebrews ā sons of the chosen race ? so am I. Are tliey Israelites ā members of the ancient kingdom of God ? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham, and thus heirs of the promises ? so mu I.
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But he will go farther and test them with himself, as servants of Christ.
23. Are they servants of Christ ? ā I speak as one beside himself ā I am more truly so, for I have been in labours more abundantly than they, in prisons more frequently ; I have suffered not only the Jewish forty stripes save one, but stripes above that measure, from the Romans ; in deaths oft. 24. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one : 25. thrice was I beaten with rods by the Romans, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep.^ 26. I have been in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own countrymen, the Jews, in perils from the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ā Judaising mock-Chris- tians ; 27. in wearisome toil and travail, in watchings through the sleepless night ; often in hunger and thirst, in enforced fastings ; often, in cold and nakedness. 28. Moreover, besides those things, there is also that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the churches, tried by enemies without, by false teachers, and by human frailty. 29. For who, in any of them, is weak in faith, in conscience, or in practice, and I am not also weak, in sympathy for him? who is made to stumble in any of them, and I do not burn with indig- nation? 30. Thus, if I must needs boast, I will boast of
1 In Jewish scourging the culprit was bound to a pillar by both hands, and his breast bared by the synagogue flogger, who then mounted a stone behind, and inflicted the punishment. The scourge was made of four thongs of calf skin and two of ass skin ; the prisoner bending to receive the blows which the flogger inflicted with one hand ; thirteen on the breast, and thirteen on each shoulder, making thirty-nine ; one short of the highest number allowed (Deut. xxv. 3). In pitiful mockery of religion Ā» reader recited Deut. xxviii. 58, 59, rxix. 8, and Psalm Ixxviii. 38, while the victim was enduring the awful lashes of a strong man's full force ; lashes so terrible that death often followed (Wetstein, 208 ; Schottgen, Hot. Heh. 714). The Roman rods often killed the victim ; any number of blows being gfiven, at the pleasure of the presiding official.
PAUL ALT. C. 47 SKCONI) EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 255
matters that concern my weakness ā my sufferings, conflicts, and endurances.
The Apostle is tired, however, of speaking of these bodily trials, and turns, after a brief allusion, to a special incident in his life ; to the higher ground of glorying, or boasting, which he has, in the visions and revelations accorded him.
31. In all I have thus written, and will presently say, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed for evermore, knows that I lie not. 32. By the way, before I change the subject ; in Damascus, the governor, under Aretas the king, guarded the gates of the city of the Damascenes, in order to take me ; 33. and through a lattice window-opening, I was let down, by the town wall, in a rope-basket, and escaped his hands.
XII. 1. But if I must needs boast, ā though it is not expe- dient ; ā leaving these lower grounds, I will come to nobler ones, ā to Visions and Revelations of the Lord. 2. I know a man truly in Christ, who was caught up, fourteen years ago,^ whether in the body, I do not know ; or whether out of the body, I do not know, God knows, ā caught up, I say, to the third heaven. 3. And I know of such a man ā whether in the body, or apart from the body, I do not know ; God knows ā 4. that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard un- speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 5. On behalf of such an one I will boast; but on my own behalf I will not boast, save in my weaknesses, for in this glorious exaltation, I was, as it were, not myself, but the passive recipient of heavenly favour. 6. And yet, even if I cared to glory about other things than these weaknesses, I could do so justly ; for I should not be really foolish, though I affected to be so ; since I should speak only the truth. But I forbear, lest any one, by my telling all the
1 About the year 44.
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visions and exaltations wluch have been granted me, should estimate me above what he sees me to be, or hears from me, 7. by the extraordinary greatness of the revelations vouch- safed me ; so immeasurably surpassing any usually granted to man.
Having thus deprecated any superstitious reverence towards himself, which might easily be excited in minds like theirs, he proceeds, with touching humility, to tone down the possibly over great honour that might be paid him, on account of the wondrous disclosures and visions at which he had thus hinted, by telling them how God had, Himself, guarded against his being puffed up by them.
On this very account, that I might not be over exalted by them, what I might compare to a stake, such as is used for impalement or crucifixion, was assigned me, driven into my tiesh, a Satan's angel, that he might, as it were, beat me with his fists, that I should not be over-exalted.^ 8. And, so greatly did this affliction trouble me, that 1 besought the Lord Christ thrice, that it might depart from me. 9. But He said to me, " My grace is sufficient for thee : for spiritual power, which comes from Me, is made perfect in weakness. "^ With the greatest joy, therefore, will I rather glory in my weaknesses, instead of praying to be freed from them ā that the power of Christ may descend on me, and cover me, tent-like, round, for my protection, consolation, and strength. 10. On this account I take pleasure in weaknesses, in ill-treatments, in suffering wants, in persecutions, in difficulties, endured for Christ : for when 1 am weak, then I am strong, since what
' This "stake" has been variously imagined to have been ā blasphemous temptations, stings of conscience, unchaste thoughts, struggles with his opponents, attacks on his apostolic dignity, bodily sufferings, such as melancholy, or pains in the head, or hemorrhoids, or epilepsy, or oph< thalmia.
' Heb. iL 10 ; xi. 34 ; Matt, viil 17.
PAUL MT. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THi5 COT^INTHIANS 25?
Christ works through me, is the more effective, by contrast with my weakness.
The Apostle now pauses for a moment, and as he thinks of all he has said in commendation of himself, fancies he has been foolish in sucli glorying. He justifies himself, however, both from his readers having forced such boasting on him, and from the superiority he feels to the intruding teachers, who claimed to be " superlative apostles," and for whom they had more or less left him.
11. I have become, really, foolish, to write thus of myself, but you have compelled me to do it ; for, instead of my need- ing to speak of myself, I ought to have been commended by you. For when I was among you, I was in nothing behind the "superlative apostles" who slander me, though, before Grod, I am nothing. 12. For. assuredly, the signs of a true apostle were wrought by me among you, in steadfast endur- ance of, you know, how much, and by signs, and wonders, and miraculous powers. 13. For what is there in which you were made inferior to the rest of the churches in which I have laboured, unless it be that I myself was not a burden to you ? Forgive me this wrong !
Now that he is coming, on his third visit, to Corinth, they must bear with him, in adhering to this principle of his maintaining himself.
14. Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and, still, this time also, you must forgive me saying that I will not be a burden to you : for, unlike your super- lative apostles, I seek not yours but you ; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. 15. And I will most gladly thus spend what I earn by my hands, and be, myself, spent, for your souls. If I love you so much more than other churches, as thus to ai. R
258 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
claim no support from yon, shall I, on this account, be loved the less ?
Not only has he never, personally, made gain of them, but he has never made gain of them indirectly, through others, as some insinuated.
16. But, you may say; granted, that you never, yourself, were a burden to us ; yet, being crafty, you caught us by a trick; getting money from us by your friends. 17. But did I ever make gain of you by any of them whom I have sent to you? 18. I urged Titus to make the journey to you, and I sent the brother, whom you know, with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you? Did not he, and the brother, and I, all walk by the guidance of the same Spirit of God ? did not all of us walk in the same footsteps? But if they walked in my footsteps, who confessedly made no gain of you, how could they have done so ?
They must not think, however, that he is making them his judges ; he is responsible to God only, and he fears that, instead of their being fit to sit in judgment on him, he may find their state far from what it should be.
19. You seemingly think, all this time, that I am excusing myself to you, and making you my judges. You are utterly wrong. I speak in the sight of God, as one who is in Christ, and accountable only to Him. All that I have said, beloved, is for your building up in the Christian life. 20. For I am afraid lest, after all, when I come, I should find you not such as I would wish, and should myself be found by you, such as you would not wish me to be ; lest, in short, after all, I should find you torn by strife, jealousy, outbreaks of passion, factious cabals, open detraction, and whispered slanders, insolent swellings up of pride and vanity, and tumultuous disorder ; 21. lest, moreover, when I come again, my God should humble me in respect of you, by my finding you still needing severity,
PAUL iBT. C. 47 SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 259
and I should mourn over many who have sinned in the past, and have not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and licentiousness of which they have been guilty.
On his approaching third visit he will decide all matters with judicial strictness, and not spare offenders, since a proof is desired that Christ speaks through him.
XIII. 1. This is the third time I am coming to you, and now, everything must be finally decided. Every matter will need to be established before me at the mouth of two, or in some cases, three witnesses. 2. I have told you already, beforehand, and now, again, say beforehand, as I did, by word of mouth, when I was the second time with you ; to those who have sinned before my last visit, and to all others who have done so since, that, if I come again, I will not spare ; 3. see- ing you seek a proof, by His terrors as a judge, of its being Christ who speaks in my person. For, indeed, Christ is not weak, as you say I am, but is mighty among you, as those will feel, who demand that He display some proof of it, through me. 4. For He was, indeed, crucified through weak- ness, laying aside His glory, and humbling Himself even to be obedient to death, yet, now, He lives again by His resurrec- tion, through the power of God. And hence, though I am, in one sense, weak in Him, by so long sparing you in love, I shall show that I also live with Him, through the power of God which I shall exercise toward you.
Seeing, however, that it is so serious a thing to have Divine power let loose on them, he exhorts them to examine whether they themselves are in Christ, not whether Christ be in hhn, and prays that the result may be, that he will not need to give them any proof of his apostolic authority ; though he will do so, if unavoidable.
5. Try your own selves, not we, whether you be in the faith : test yourselves whether you are all you should be. Do ye
260 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57
not know respecting yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you 1 ā unless, indeed, you fail to stand the test, and are not genuine Christians. 6. But, I hope that, as regards me, you shall knoAv that I do not come short in the test of God's ap- proval, if you force me to show my apostolic power towards you. 7. But I pray God that you do no evil ; not that I may appear approved of Him by His judgments on you through me, but that you may do what is right, though, by your doing so, my authority will not need to be shown, and I shall thus be left as if unapproved. 8. For, if you have returned to the Gospel, I can do nothing in the way of showing my authority against those obeying the truth, but can put it forth only for defence of the truth. 9. For I rejoice when, by your Chris- tian life, I am made to appear weak and unapproved, through not having to exercise my power, and when you are strong in the faith; and for this, also, I pray, ā your restoration to blameless Christian life. 10. For this end I write these things while absent, that I may not be forced to deal sharply with you when present ; in keeping with the object for which the Lord Jesus has given me apostolic power ā namely, for build- ing you up, not for casting you down.
He now bids them farewell till he sees them.
11. In conclusion, brethren, farewell; reform what is amiss in you ; stir yourselves up ; be of one mind ; live in peace ; and the God of love and peace shall be with you. 12. Salute one another with a holy kiss.
13. All the saints here, in Macedonia, salute you.
14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.
CHAPTER VIII
THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO ROME
Some time in the year 58 ā possibly in the winter of 58-59, for it is beyond our power to be precise where data are so scarce ā Paul reached Corinth, whither the brethren of Chloe's establishment, and Titus, with two companions, who had been sent with him, had come some months ear- lier. His old and tried friends, Aquila and Priscilla, who had shown themselves ready to die for him,^ were no longer in the city, but one or two converts had joined the church from the more substantial classes. With Gains, one of these, who was in circumstances which permitted his show- ing a wide hospitality, the Apostle found a home; very dif- ferent, we may be sure, from the poor chamber in which, along with his former lowly hosts, he had toiled at cutting, or sewing, or possibly weaving, coarse or finer goat's hair cloth. He had no need now to snatch every moment he could from the labours of his mission, or the rest he so much required, to earn a scanty subsistence, by weary toil with his hands. In the mansion of Gains, he found a quiet retreat, after his long journeyings, and the excite- ments and perils of his last years in Ephesus and Mace- donia ; though love so deep, and energy so untiring as his, would find work enough, in one way or other, in any cir- cumstances. But, besides Gains, another well-to-do Corin-
* Rom. xvL 3.
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thian had cast in his lot with the Christians, ā Erastus, the treasurer of the city, an office of high responsibility and importance. That one in such a position should have joined the new faith was a striking proof of self-denying sincerity, for he could hardly retain it, after separating himself thus from his fellow-citizens, in their religious usages, which must have continually required municipal dignitaries to take part in rites from which the Christian conscience drew back. Meanwhile, with the liberality of two middle-class brethren to aid him, the Apostle would be better able to minister to the poor and sick, than he had been on his former visits, and this, itself, would cheer him.
The presence in Corinth, at least for a time, of his dearly loved young friend Timothy, his " fellow- worker," would be an additional comfort.^ Three Jews, moreover, ā his " kinsmen" in race, or, perhaps, tribe ā were specially friendly and useful ā Lucius, not the evangelist Luke, and Jason, and Sosipater ; possibly the brother named in the Acts.2 We hear, moreover, of one Tertius, who acted as amanuensis to the Apostle, and Quartus, one of the brethren ; the former being probably an Italian ā perhaps a Roman-Christian then in Corinth ; the latter entirely unknown.
The appearance of Paul had apparently been enough to win back the church to its old loyalty to him, he must have been, after all, specially dear to it as its founder. Had his victory not been decisive, we must have found laments at failure, in the Epistle to the Romans, which he was able to write while now in Corinth ; the rest, in the peaceful shelter of such a retreat as the house of Gains, * Rom. xvi. 21. - Acts xvii. 6 ; xx. i.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROMS 265
with the calmness of mind gained by the solution of all local church difficulties and the overthrow of his assailants, making its composition possible. Had his triumph been doubtful, the salutatious so freely appended to the Epistle, whether as their right place, or, as thought by some, sent, at this time, to Ephesus, in connection with a separate letter, now lost, would assuredly have been coloured by his trouble ; nor could he have had the band round him, who send these greetings, had he not been in the kindest relations to them, and, presumably, to the church as a whole. In the Roman Epistle, moreover, he predicts, more confidently than ever, the victory of heathen-Christianity over the unbelieving Jews, and takes up again old plans, telling how he would come to Rome, and go from it to Spain, in the farthest West.^ His heart had long been set on spreading Christianity over all the provinces of the empire, and this necessarily involved his visiting the im- perial capital. Here, at Corinth, which lay between seas stretching, respectively, to the remotest shores of both East and West : here, where, in Lechgeum, its western port, he saw vessels from Britain and Spain, and in Cenchrsea, its eastern, merchant fleets from Egypt and Asia ; and where he looked out, from the western quays and the girdle of lovely hills that fringe the receding bay, over waters which, far off, laved the shores of Italy, and received the stream of the yellow Tiber; he may well, even on his first visit, have longed to carry his message to the Mistress- city of the world, though, for some reason, he went to Asia Minor, instead. He may, perhaps, have felt that his advance must be regular, and that, as he had not as yet preached Christ in the province of Asia, it behoved him to
* Rom. i. 13; xv. 24, 28.
266 THE APOSTLES
turn back to it, and begin the good work in Ephesns, its capital. There, however, he had been detained, by the violence of his opponents and the greatness of his success, for over three years, having " fully preached the Gospel of Christ," not only over Macedonia, but " round about even to Illyricum," the steep coast of which looked over the Adriatic, to the hills of south-eastern Italy, before his reappearance at Corinth. His whole vast mission-field had thus, step by step, in regular advance, been appro- priated by him for his Master, from Jerusalem, to the shores nearest the Italian peninsula, and he was now free, other considerations permitting, to gratify his long- cherished dream, of proclaiming the new faith to the multi- tudes in the mighty City of the Seven Hills.
One ground of hesitation in gratifying this eager desire, no doubt, lay in the fact, that Christianity was already planted in Rome, so that, from his fundamental principle, not to intrude on the province of any fellow-worker, and thus encroach on his well-deserved honours, or, as he ex- pressed it, to reap what a brother had sown,^ Rome did not stand open to him, as Corinth or Ephesus had been. Hence, he proposed to visit it, only as the starting-point for mis- sion work still further west, though it would delight him to make a brief stay with the local brethren, in loving intercommunion with them. "Having no more place in these regions," he writes them, " now, after being hin- dered many times from coming to you, and having had a longing for many years to do so, I hope to see you, as I pass on my way to Spain, and to be brought on my way thither by you, when, first, I shall have been satisfied by (a sufficiently long enjoyment of) your company."'
Ā» Rom. XV. 20 : 2 Cor. x. 13-16. Ā» Rora. xv. 22-24.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO BOME 267
His noble independence shrank from more. He would take his place as a mere visitor, ready, of course, to be at their service in furthering the common cause, but in no way arrogating authority as their head. Yet he was not pre- pared, even now, to start at once. Judaisers had invaded his sphere of labour everywhere, during the last five years, and he had decided to go to Jerusalem with the money he had been so laboriously collecting for the poor among the brethren there ; hoping it would be received as a peace- offering, and calm down the bitterness of the Jerusalem church, which, as the fountain-head of bigoted Judaism, had done so much injury to him and to his work among the Gentiles. Man, however, proposes, and God disposes. He was to find at Jerusalem, not a happy close of the animo- sity shown him by the Jewish-Christians, but the chains of Roman jailers, and the wreck of all his schemes for fulfilling his mission to the farthest West as Apostle of the heathen.
The introduction of the Gospel into Rome is hid in im- penetrable obscurity. The church there had been long established when Paul wrote to it, for the faith of its members, he tells us, was already " proclaimed throughout the whole world." ^ Paul himself, having heard of them for "many years," longed to see them.* Their simple organisation, which the Apostle treats as complete, was, doubtless, similar to that which, in those days, obtained in all Christian communities:' including, no doubt, "pres- byters" or "bishops," and probably "deacons," though they are not specifically mentioned, as they are, for example, in the letter to the Philippians.* Who first carried the
Ā» Rom. i. 8. * Rom. i. 13; xv. 22, 23.
Ā» Rom xil 6-8. * Acts xiv. 23 ; Phil. i. 1.
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good seed to them is unknown, but it would be a great mistake to imagine that Christianity owed its spread mainly to formal missions like those of Paul and Bar- nabas, for we know of no others who followed the same systematic course. Emigration from Palestine and Syria was a feature of the times : the great West, and, indeed, all the provinces of the Eoman Empire, attracting a con- stant stream of population from the East, as America does now, from so many parts of Europe and from our own islands. But the Jew had virtues sadly wanting in his northern brethren, the Syrians ; for the valley of the Orontes, like that of the Nile, poured out, towards the west, a constant flood of moral corruption, unknown in Judasa. "All that is vile or shameful, in any part, streams to Rome, and finds a welcome," says Tacitus.^ " Greece," says Juvenal, " has poured a flood of moral sewage into Rome, but when I see what a deluge the Orontes has disgorged into the Tiber, I must own that the filth of Greece bears a small proportion to the inundation of Asiatic abominations with which we are overwhelmed, for it has sent us the language, the manners, the harp, the drum, the troops of prostitutes, of the regions it waters."^ Nor was the Jewish emigration always saintly, but among the countless petty traders, workmen, and per- sons seeking bread, from whatever source, like the pauper Jews who now invade London from Russia and Poland, there were not a few who carried with them the lofty religion of their race, and displayed in their daily lives examples of morality, virtuous self-restraint, and noble loyalty to their faith. The influence of such worthy Israelites among a corrupt heathen population, was alto-
Ā» Tacit. Annal. xr. 44. ' Juv. ScU. ill. 60-65.
CHRTSTIANTTY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 269
gether disproportion ed to their social position ; for religious zeal, which, amidst all its eccentricities, is felt to rest on great truths, always exerts a striking power on the indif- ferent, and often on the openly wicked.
Among the thousands of Hebrews thus landed in Italy, and making for Rome, some may have brought with them, even in the lifetime of Christ, the story of His sayings aud doings, in far-off Palestine, and thus have awakened loving reverence, and gained sympathy for Him, in some of their brethren already settled in the great city.^ Among the myriads of pilgrims to the great feasts, from every part of the world, not a few must, moreover, have gone from Rome ; * the number of Jews in it being immense. Even so early, indeed, as 139 years before Christ, if the account be reliable, the Chaldasans and Jews in the city were banished from it, for undermining the national re- ligion.' Eighty or ninety years later, they were again very numerous, largely from the multitudes brought to Rome as prisoners after the wars of Lucullus and Pompey, in Asia Minor, Armenia, and Western Asia, and after- wards made freedmen. Intercommunication between the East and West, by land ai^d sea, had, further, become so easy, that migration from the one to the other increased year by year. Hence, the whole region across the Tiber was mainly Jewish.* Fresh bands of Syrians and Hebrews, in fact, daily crept into a city which attracted to itself the riches of the world. Like all poor creatures eager to get a living in great communities, they were outwardly humble, to servility, and ready to win a penny in any way they could. The Aramaic-speaking Palestine Jew was rare,
> Clem. Recog. L 6. * Acta il 10.
Ā» Valer. Max. xH. 8. * Philo. I 1.
270 THE APOSTLES'
but the Hellenists who spoke Greek were countlesB, for Greeks, Asiatics, and Egyptians, all, alike, used Greek in Rome. The version of the Seventy was read in the syna- gogues, and hence, when Christianity was introduced, it, also, used it, and Greek was the language of its services and official documents. For well-nigh three centuries, indeed, all the churches of the West were, ecclesiastically, Greek. They spoke Greek ; their organisation, their writers, and their Scriptures, were Greek. Their epistolary inter- communications were in Greek, and all the teaching, also, in Rome and elsewhere, was in Greek. Hence came the singular fact, related by Sozomen, that for the first cen- turies there was no public preaching in Rome. Pope Leo the Great was the first celebrated Latin preacher, and he lived in the middle of the fifth century.^ From Marseilles to the Euphrates, except in isolated Aramaic colonies, Greek was the language of our faith. Indeed, in Rome, as a whole, it was spoken by all that was noblest, and all that was the reverse. To rhetoricians, grammarians, phi- losophers, schoolmasters, teachers of arts, servants, adven- turers, artists, singers, dancers, mechanics, preachers of new sects, religious champions ; not less than to ambas- sadors, consuls of foreign states, their retinues, and many more, it was the language of everyday life.
Seven synagogues have been identified in Rome from inscriptions, and a cemetery for Transtiberine Jews has been discovered on the highway side, at the south-east of the city, while another was found not far from it, on the Appian way, and a third, on the same road, a mile and a half from the city gate ; the inscriptions, throughout, being mainly Greek ; but often in a corrupt, almost unintelligible,
1 440-461.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 271
jargon, which pointedly marks the general social position of the race. The Jews of Rome were, in fact, as a rule, much more frequently poor than rich, for the time of great fortunes rose only after the fall of Rome before the strong Gothic races from Germany, when the new sovereigns, unused to financing, needed help in it ; which, thanks to the hatred of dealing in money and taking interest, inculcated by the Church, the Jews alone could render.^ Among themselves their life was exceptionally friendly, forming as they did, a little world by themselves, with a common faith, a common past, common rites, and common suffer- ings and sympathy. All this, strengthened by the isola- tion of exclusiveness and pride, which drew back from the food, the homes, the religion, and even the persons, of the outside world, high or low, and let them intermarry only with their own people, made them all in all to each other. The Roman oflScials rarely entered their district, leaving the synagogues to manage their little public affairs, to dispense honours, and, in fact, to carry out all municipal requirements.
As in all ages, these characteristics of the Jew ā his haughty isolation, his proneness to keep a grudge, his skill in exploiting the populations among whom he lived, and what appeared his general aversion to all but his own nation, excited against the race, in Rome and elsewhere, a strong antipathy and repulsion. The very privileges they enjoyed; theirfreedom from theconscriptiou. their permission to govern themselves, and their protection from demands which interfered with their religious laws or their exact observance of the Sabbath, must have added to this dislike of them ; for, from Ca3sar*s time, they had enjoyed these
* Renan, Apdtret, 286.
272 THE APOSTLES
great favours. They must, indeed, have seemed a kind of secret society, whose members sought its interests only, at any cost to the community at large. Their strange cus- toms, their refusal to touch the food of the people round, their filthiness, in many cases, the alleged bad smell of their persons, their contemptibleness as a class, their fana- tically minute observance of the Sabbath, and, above all, the rite of circumcision, were a perennial subject of ridicule.
Thus thrust outside the pale of respectable non-Jewish society, the Hebrews grew even more worthy of dislike, by their indifference to appearances. One met them every- where, in clothes shining with greasy dirt, passing on, before their wives and children, carrying the basket in which they had their " clean " food, and bundles of bed- clothes, which formed all their household outfit. In Rome, as in other cities, they were chiefly given up to the meanest ways of living, as beggars, ragpickers, brokers of second-hand goods, fortune-tellers, match-sellers, and other callings equally contemptible.^
But, as we have seen, if they had many to hate them, not a few were attracted by the simplicity and loftiness of their faith, so immeasurably above the old heathenism of the nations, or even the cold philosophy of the new era. Long before Christianity appeared, the sympathy for Judaism shown by many worshippers of the gods, had opened the way, to the synagogue, for a secret but wide propagandism of its monotheism ; ostensibly, and, no doubt, sincerely, to spread the worship of Jehovah, but with the fanatically cherished ulterior aim, of raising an army of proselytes in every land, to fight for the law, at
^ Juv. Sat. iii. 14, '296 ; vi. 542, 543 ; Martial, Epigr. i. 42 ; xii. 67.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 273
tlie appearance of the Messiah. The poor Jew pedlar left his miserable cellar or wretched shelter next the tiles, in the Bqualid region across the Tiber, outside the walls ; a Roman Whitechapel, bordering the city on the sonth-west; his flat basket of small wares slung before him ; but his grave air, his politeness, easy to an Oriental, his soft voice, and his essential dignity, recognised by many, as the faithful upholder of a creed so simple and so lofty compared with that of heathenism, won him respect from not a few even among the wealthy, to whose mansions he betook him- self, to sell some trifles to its slaves. Not seldom was he brought into the presence of the great man or of his lady, to tell them about his faith, on which the meanest Jew could speak like a rabbi. The Jewish lady's maid, attend- ing her mistress, became, in the same way, an effective missionary, and the trader, in his wretched booth, was no less zealous. Juvenal ^ speaks of interest in the Jewish religion, as a vice of the ladies of his time, and the New Testament shows that men of position were often favour- ably inclined to the race, from the same appreciation of its faith. The synagogue was, in fact, to the heart tired of the sin and folly of the life around it, just such a spot of calm and light, as the Chuich became, in after centuries, to the troubled spirit, in thb dark times of our own early Middle Ages. The number of " devout " men and women who at least worshipped Jehovah, though hardly proselytes, and even of those who went the length of partial identification with the synagogue, though not fully submitting to Judaism, thus rose constantly higher, in Rome, and in all the provinces.
Into the soil thus prepared, some pious hands, as I have
1 C. 40-120.
m. 8
274 THE APOSTLES
said, had cast the good seed of the Gospel, long before Paul's first visit to Corinth ; but to whom the world is indebted for this mighty service, is known only above, where the humblest of saints, unrecognised as such by his fellow-men, enjoys his immortal reward. The great number of pilgrims to one or other of the feasts at Jeru- salem, continually going to the Holy City or returning from it, must have brought to Rome, as already said, sympathetic news of the rising Christian movement. The Temple hill was, then, as holy to the Jew, as Meccah is still to the Mahommedan, and the Sanhedrim was the acknowledged high court of the race, whose commands were everywhere received with a superstitious obedience.^ Even if no one who had been won by the words and person of Jesus Himself, first whispered among his Jewish brethren at Rome his belief that he had found the Messiah promised to the Fathers, there may well have been some among the 3000 converts of Pente- cost,^ who were "sojourners, from Rome," and became eager servants of the new faith, on their return to it. Nor is it improbable that, among the Christians who fled from Jerusalem at the stoning of Stephen, ā some of them, we know, as far as Phoenicia and even Cyprus ^ ā a few may have made for Rome, where they would, at last, be safe from the narrow bigotry of Palestine. Intercourse between the most distant provinces increased yearly, from the security of sea and land under the Roman peace. The high roads had their inns, at easy stages, for travellers, and stretched from Rome, in every direction, to Syria on the east, and the Atlantic on the west. Nor were there
ā ^ Gieseler, i. sea 17, has much information on this and related poiiktĀ» " Acts ii. 10. ' Acts li. 19.
CHRISTIAN I PY INTKOOUCED INTO ROMle 275
any frontiers, with their passports and custom houses, and Greek or Latin was everywhere familiar to the trading world. Over all the Mediterranean, vessels of every class offered passage, day by day, to and from every port, east and west. By the Jews, this world-wide opening for com- merce or gain was used, as we have seen, to an amazing extent, for even in the wild and unsettled mountains of lllyricum, visited by Paul, they were so numerous that, at a later time, we find Theodosius ordering the local Prefect to put down disturbances which they excited.^ Any one who has seen the huddled crowd of deck pas- sengers, on the vessels of the eastern Mediterranean, will realise how little it would cost a poor Jew to reach any port, for gain or for work, in an age when skippers and companies were at least as numerous as they are now, and the mercantile marine was quite as eager for fares or freights. The missionary work of the humble converts who, in any such ways, carried the news of the Gospel to the imperial city, must have been very different from our modern types ; for they do not seem even to have used the facilities of the synagogue, if we may judge from the peaceful reception of Paul when in Rome as a prisoner, by the chiefs of the local Jews. They had been so little concerned about Christianity, that they listened to the Apostle as if the doctrine of Christ was new to them, and they had " neither received letters from Judaea about him, nor heard anything to his prejudice from any of their brother Israelites.^ As to the "sect," itself, all they knew was " that everywhere it was spoken against." Converts must have been gained, therefore, mainly, or exclusively, by private conversation with house- * Friedlander, iii. 508. * Acts xxviii. 17, 21, 2^
276 THE APOSTLES
holds or individuals, but the modesty of the agency perhaps increased, rather than lessened its efficiency.
Yet, though believers were thus won, it may be in considerable numbers, it would be necessary that some one familinr with Apostolic practices, if not himself an Apostle or sent by one, should organise them, before they became, in the full sense, a church.
That this formal organisation of Roman Christianity was the work of St. Peter, is, as all know, the funda- mental claim of the Church of Rome. It assures us, on the basis of tradition, that Peter, after putting down Simon Magus, came to Rome in the second year of Claudius ā A.D. 42, ā aud lived there as its first bishop, for twenty-five years, till his martyrdom. But that Peter was not in Rome at a period after that date, when Paul was in Ephesus, is certain, from that Apostle proposing to go thence, to Rome, which he would not have done had Peter been already '' bishop " there, since we know that he never intruded on another man's sphere.^ Had he, moreover, been in Rome, when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Roman Church, his name would assuredly have stood first among the greetings sent to it.^ Nor can the older Apostle have been there when Paul was brought to it a prisoner, for, as an Apostle to the Jews, Peter would, undoubtedly, have been more in contact with the local chiefs of the synagogue, if only in a hostile way, than is traceable in the narrative of Paul's interview with them.^ It is equally impossible that he could have been in Rome when the Epistle to the Philippiaiis was written, at a still later date, for Paul cannot be conceived as ignoring the presence of a fellow-Apostle, and he, one so specially
Ā» Acts xix. 21. " Chap. xri. ā Acts xxviii. 22.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 277
notable as Simon Peter, had he been really in the city. Hence, the vaunted tradition said to have come from Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth as early as A.D. 170, telling us that " the flourishing seed of the Gospel had been planted by Peter and Paul at Rome and Corinth "^ ā Peter planting the Roman Church, as Paul had planted the Corinthian, ā is clearly unhistorical and unfounded. Yet it is not to be questioned, in the face of very ancient testimony, that Peter did actually visit Rome some time after the Epistle to the Philippians was written, and shortly afterwards suffered martyrdom there ; his coming preceding the close of Paul's imprisonment by only a brief interval.
It seems almost certain that the organisation of the Roman Church dates from some time after Paul's mis- sionary zeal had carried the Gospel into Europe, since there is no trace of his finding any beginnings of Chris- tian communities either in Macedonia or Achaia, when he came to them, and a special indication of his Master's wish, that the West should be added to the sphere of His servant's labours, was necessary, before he crossed to it.^ Yet this is hardly conclusive, since Rome was in many ways exceptional, though the non-existence of a Christian brotherhood in Corinth, which was so directly on the line of travel between East and West, lessens the improbability of Rome being unexpectedly late in having an organised church. But it certainly appears very unlikely that any oflScial delegate from the great Apostle to the heathen should have visited Rome, while he, himself, was hesitating to break ground in Europe at all ; and to organise a formal church would have required such a representative, of higher ^ Eu8. Cb. Hist, ii 25. ^ Acts xri. 9 f.
278 THE APOSTLES
or lower position ; one who had been used to Paul's rules and ways in such matters ; learned from close intercourse with him. But when he had been so successful in Achaia, we may readily imagine that trusted men of his school, coming from Rome, or willing to go thither, should have been sent by him to the great city, to make a formal commencement of Christian organisation, and for general evangelical labours. The expulsion of the Jews from Rome, under Claudius, ^ may have served, in the hand of Providence, to further this end, for Christians, among others, no doubt fled at that time to Corinth, which was so easily accessible from Italy, and some of these, dis- ciples of Paul, when they returned to Rome, could act not only as evangelists, but, after associating with the Apostle, as organisers of the Roman converts. That such agents were ready to his hand is shown by the instance of Aquila and Priscilla. Being Jews ā it may be already converted to Christianity, though this is very doubtful, no hint being given to such an effect,^ ā they had made their way, after the edict of Claudius, to Corinth, where Paul lived with them for .eighteen months ; afterwards going with him to Ephesus, where he again was their guest.^ Moreover, if, as most take for granted, despite the dissent of some recent critics, the greetings at the Ā» close of the epistle to the Roman Church, were really ad- dressed to members of it, and not to brethren at Ephesus, this admirable pair had once more wandered back to Rome, before the epistle to the church there was written ; * act- ing, on their arrival, as Christian teachers, and even having a Christian meeting, or "church," in their house.* There
A Suet. Claudius, 25 ; Acts xviii. 2. ' Acts xviii. 1, 2.
' 1 Cor. xvi. 19. * Rom. xvi. 3. ' Rom. xvi. 6.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 279
may have been others among those greeted, who may have been disciples of Paul, somewhere, but the names of Aquila and Priscilla, from their standing first in the list, and from the peculiar warmth with which they are mentioned, seem to point to these two as the chief agents in establishing the local Christian congregation.
First finding favour with some of the Jews in the crowded narrow lanes of their quarter, Christianity, erelong, found comparatively easy entrance among the heathen popula- tion, from the contempt into which the existing religions had fallen, among both simple and educated.^ The leaning to monotheism had, through this, become, as we have seen, very general ; the number who, more or less, went over to the synagogue, being very great ; nothing legal preventing them doing so, as Judaism was one of the licensed reli- gions, and the Roman synagogues ā at least seven of which are known ā were never as much recognised legal institu- tions as the heathen temple.^ But if Judaism, in spite of its harshness and exclusiveness, was so attractive to the dreary heathenism of Rome, how much more so would be the generous liberality of the new faith, taught by such as Aquila and other disciples of Paul, and repudiating slavery to the Mosaic and rabbinical law ! This considera- tion, as well as the fact, that no epistle of Paul is addressed to any church not distinctly of his school, and, not less, his express approval of the teaching given to the Roman brethren,' leaves no doubt that the larger part of the church must have been heathen- Christians. Paul, indeed, expressly, and more than once, speaks of its members as
* Gieseler, i. sees. 11-14,
' Juven. Sat. xiv. 96 ff. ; Tas. Ann. xr. 44 ; ffist. t. 6 ; Job. Ani, xviii 3, 6. ' ChapB. xvi. 17 ; vi. 17.
280 THE APOSTLES
belonging to the " nations," or the " Gentiles," * and brings to bear on his words, the authority given him as the Apostle to the heathen races.^ Nor is there anything con^ trary to this, in his saying, in one place,^ that he speaks to men who know the law, or in the many references to the Old Testament, or quotations from it in his epistle, for all Christian teaching, in the Apostolic times, was enforced by appeal to the ancient Scriptures ; so that heathen-Chris- tians, as well as born Jews, must have been familiar with the Law and the Prophets, not only in Rome, but wherever churches were gathered, which was always where the syna- gogue had prepared the soil. This, then, is no ground for supposing that Jewish- Christianity was in the ascendant in the Roman Church, while a blending of Jews with con- verted heathen in the membership, would make the neces- sary appeal to the Old Testament helpful in the best sense, since, in Rome, there was no such perversion of it to Jewish views as among the Galatians. Moreover, had Jewish-Christians been the leaders of the church, and its membership largely, like them, converted Hebrews, it is inconceivable that the heads of the synagogues, whom Paul summoned to meet him, when brought to Rome a prisoner, should have spoken only in a general way of the Christians as a sect, omitting all mention of their leading presbyters, who, if Jews, would be only too well known to them. In what relation the " sect " stood to these digni- fied officials of Judaism, they contemptuously forbore to speak; a silence incomprehensible, had the bulk of its membership been deserters from the fold of Israel. We may safely conclude, therefore, that the Roman Church was mainly heathen-Christian, and of the school of Paul. 1 Eom. i. 6, 1Ā« ; i.i. 13. ^ Rom. xv. 15 flE. ; L 5 ; xvi. 4, 26. ' vii. 1,
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 281
Long before the writing of his letter to the Roman brethren, the Apostle, as we have seen, was anxious to visit them personally;^ their church holding a position of supreme influence, in relation to the spread of Christianity over the whole Western world. That it had been founded by men of his views, and that its teachers were also at one with him, lent a peculiar, loving interest to it, in his eyes. But as yet his multitudinous labours in far distant regions had made it impossible to carry out his cherished longing, to see its members face to face.^ Now, however, that he had travelled over all the vast sweep between Jerusalem and the Adriatic, in discharge of his obligation as the Apostle of the heathen nations, he saw his way, if once he had taken the collection which he had so long been raising, to Jerusalem, for the needy members of the very poor mother church, to get still farther west, and to visit Rome, on his way to the limit of his vast apostolate, where Spain looks over the Atlantic.^ He had settled in Corinth for over a year and a half, and at Ephesus for over three years, but both these cities had been first visited by himself with the Gospel, while Rome, having been the field of the labours of others in the past, and his principles forbidding him tointrude on the sphere of another, he pro- posed merely to make the acquaintance of the church there, and pass on to still virgin fields.
With the journey to Palestine before him, his eager heart, so long kept from the gratification of seeing the Roman brethren face to face, made him anxious, as an Apostle, to communicate to them fully, his views of Christian doctrine, at least in writing ; thus not only
^ Acts XV. 23 ; xix. 21 ; Rom. i. 11 flF. Ā« Rom. i. 13 ; xv. 22. Ā» Chap. xv. 23-25, 24, 28.
282 THE APOSTLES
enlightening them on points, which his correspondence with them by visitors, showed to be most needing cle^r knowledge, but also preparing them to make the most of his personal teaching, during his hoped for short stay among them. Just then, moreover, Phcebe, a " sister,'* "servant," or " deaconess," of the church at Cenchraea, the port of Corinth on the east side of the isthmus, was going to Rome, and could take a letter with her to the church there. ^ The quiet and comfort of the hospitality of Gains secured the necessary leisure, and he resolved to avail himself of the opportunity. Assuming the greetings at the close of the Epistle to have been addressed to Roman brethren, he had evidently made himself carefully ac- quainted with the condition of the church ; and, indeed, other indications are not wanting of his having done so.^
The letter thus written, in striking contrast to those sent to the Corinthians and Galatians, largely ignoring the great controversy between Paul and the Judaisers of the day ā the enemy not having as yet formally invaded the Roman community, ā ^takes its readers through a de- tailed exposition of the Apostle's teaching, in which ita leading features are illustrated at exceptional length. Yet he could not avoid exhibiting the contrast between his Gospel and the Jewish "righteousness of the law," with its presumptions self-sufficiency ; for this was de- manded by the presence of Judaism of the old type, so plentifully, in Rome. Holding, as it did, a position of supreme importance, as a centre of evangelical activity for the whole Western world, it was necessary to expound to the local church his doctrinal views, to widen the partial knowledge of them which they had already gained * Brom. xvi. 1. ' Chap. xii. 14, 15.
CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 283
from tiis aioeiples. If he could not actually preach, he would^ at least, leave the brethren a full and abiding me- morial of his teaching. Indeed, the fact that the church included both Jews and heathen converts, and, still more, the vital relation in which Christianity, as he understood it, stood towards Judaism, especially in its paramount contradiction to all " righteousness by the law," demanded an earnest and exhaustive statement, which might, here- after, be the authoritative code of true Christian doc- trine. We have, hence, in the " Epistle to the Romans," as nowhere else, Paul's matured presentation of our faith as he held it.
The class of society to which the Roman brethren, as a rule, belonged, may, with confidence, be assumed to have been very much like that of the converts in the smaller Rome of Corinth. There, Paul tells us, they included per- sons who had formerly been shamefully immoral and de- based ; sensual in all forms, even the most disgustiug ; thieves, drunkards, cheats, foul-mouthed ; in fact, the sediment of an indescribably degraded civilisation ; not a few of them literally the " submerged tenth " " beneath regard ; " the Bohemians, Cagots, Sudras, or Pariahs, of a population in which the slaves, with all their peculiar vices and miseries, vastly outnumbered the free. There would be, here and there, some representative of a higher social condition, like Gaius or Erastus, at Corinth; but we must remember, that Christianity attracted, even under Christ, mainly the poor, the publicans, and the sinners. Like the friars at their rise, while still animated by the heavenly spirit of their founder, the earliest Christians, as I have already said, carried the love and consolations of the Gospel where they were most needed, and therefore
2^4 tfiE APOSTLIiS
most appreciated ; to the poor Jew or heathen, weltering in the foul hovels of a city, where the wretched, and the slave, were so little esteemed, that they were buried with beasts ^ and all the unmentionable refuse of the town ; the human wrecks, cowering under archways, or fortunate if they could afford an empty shelter, next the tiles of any roof ; lepers, cretins, foul with sordid rags, and alive with vermin, existing, as they best might, amidst squalor, stagnant misery, hunger, and disease. The region in which the Jews crowded, lay close to the part of the Tiber lined by the great warehouses for whatever was brought to the imperial city ; timber, fuel, lead, iron, tin from Britain, marble, wine, grain, oil, honey, dried fruit, dried fish, and much else. The remains of the quay at which marble, then in immense demand, was landed, are still to be seen, with long abandoned blocks of stone here and there, on the edge of the river, opposite the Jew-region of antiquity. Close behind, were the imperial storehouses, covering no less than 800,000 square yards ;2 an area required under a system which fed more than half the vast population from the private treasury of the emperor ; the year's demand, even under Augustus, being about 145,000,000 of our bushels, and the least suspicion of the supply falling at all short, involving instant tumults and speedy revolution. But the whole border of the river, in these parts, was a continuation of warehouses, public and private, and we know what kind of streets and houses would be found in such a neighbourhood, with its swarjis of labouring slaves, and citizens very little above them ; sailors, meclianics, beggars, and the nameless drudges and idlers of a swarming proletariate. A short distance south
^ Lanciani's Ancient Rome, 65. ^ Lanciani, 248.
CnPJSTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO ROME 285
of the imperial granaries and store-houses, there rises a great hill, three-quarters of a mile round, and at least 150 feet high, which tells the story of the locality in Paul's day, better than words ; for, though now covered with soil, like a natural height, it has been found, on excavation, to be nothing but a vast mound of the piled-up fragments of clay aiivjjhorce, or jars, broken on the voyage or in landing, and once containing wine, oil, dried fruit, caviar, salt fish, and other things for the city consumption. A piece of land had been granted for depositing this wreck- age, and after the surface was covered, layer was carefully piled up on layer; the north side reaching its highest about the year a.d. 150, and the rest, theirs, within a hundred years more.^ But though still so huge, it was once much more so, for it has been for centuries a quarry for building material. When Phoebe brought Paul's letter to the room of Aquila, over the river, in this quarter, the accumulation must have been already portentous, showing, in many ways, the character and population of the locality. To a region thus similar to our Shadwell, or Mile End ; unsavoury, mean, vicious, and dangerous ; a region into which the police did not willingly enter singly, the Epistle to the Romans was, apparently, first brought ; to be read, by the hght of some poor lamp, to the church meeting in Aquila's house, if he were there, and then taken to some other equally humble room, to be read to other Christian brethren ; this being repeated we know not how often, for we cannot tell how many such house-gatherings, known as "churches." there were, though it is certain that, for a hundred years later, there was no common public place of meeting, Gibbon, indeed, assigns the datĀ« of the
y Lanciani, 251-264,
286 THE APOSTLES
earliest Christian church-structures to the reign of Alex- ander Severus,^ and till then, the Christians had no openly recognised place of assembling ; the cemetery, the sequestered grove, or the private chamber, offering the only rendezvous for their peaceful gatherings, and that, apparently, as soon as they attracted attention, only in the darkness of night. ^
1 A.D. 222-236. ^ Milman's " Christianity, " Amer. ed. 248 ; Gibbon, ii 4Sft,
CHAPTER IX
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
WINTER OF A.D. 57-58 ; PAUL's AGE, C 47-48
INSCRIPTIONS AND GREETINGS
It is striking to notice that the Apostle introdnces his official dignity, in the opening words of this letter to the Romans, with an emphasis which we do not find in any other Epistle, though it was not challenged among them, as in some other churches. Personally unknown to them, he doubtless wished to secure for his missive the respect and authority due to the voice of one clothed with the highest office in the Church, by the direct appointment of Christ Himself.
I. 1. Paul, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, called by God^ to be an apostle, separated from men at large, by deliberate purpose, to the preaching and promoting of the Gospel of God, 2 which He promised afore, by His prophets, in the holy scriptures, through the whole Old Testament, 3. concerning His Son, who was born of the race of David, according to the flesh ā His human nature, 4. and who was formally declared the Son of God, with power so great, as to make the matter Ir contestable ; in keeping with the Spirit of perfect holiness, which abode in Him ā by the resurrection of the dead ; even Jesus Christ our Lord, 5. through whom I received grace and also apostleship, to bring about obedience to the faith in TTim^ among all the heathen, for the glory of His name ; 6. among
M Oor. L 1 ; 2 Cor. i. L
288 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
whom, as heathen, you, also, are called to be Jesus Christ's : 7. to all in Rome, who, as beloved of God, have "been called to be saints ; Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanking God for their faith, he tells them how ear- nestly he desires to be with them and to work among them.
8. First, I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all, because your faith in Christ is spoken of through the whole world. 9. For God is my witness, whom I serve in my inmost soul in the Gospel of His Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you in my prayers, always 10. making request, if, by any means, now, at length, I may be prospered, by the will of God, to come to you. 11. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, through my teaching, com- forting, and strengthening, that you may be confirmed in your Christian faith; 12. that is, that I as well as you, may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and my own. 13. Nor would I have you ignorant, brethren, that I have already, often, purposed to come to you, ā though, hitherto, I have been hindered, ā that I might have some fruit in you also, even as I have had among the rest of the heathen peoples. 14. For I am under obligation to preach the Gospel, both to Greek-speaking races and to barbarians of outlandish tongues, both to the wise and to the unintelligent, 15. and, therefore, as much as in me lies, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you, also, that are in Rome.
He may well be so, considering what that Gospel is.
16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, even in your imperial city ; for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believes it ; to the Jew first, but also to the Greek; that is, to all non-Jews. 17. For in it is rev^ealed a righteousness of, and, thns, from God, realised by faith, and
I'AUL MT, C. 47-48 THE KPlSTTJ'' TO THE ROMANS 289
granted to those who have such faith : as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith.^
Proof thaf, as regards the heathen, this righteonsness cannot exist, except by the revelation to them of righteons- ness from God. They have sinned against light, having had, in some degree, the means of knowing God's will, and the wrath of God is therefore justly displayed against their unrighteousness.
18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who, in their unrighteousness, hold down the truth which they know, from its due power and influence on their hearts and lives; 19. for that which may be known of God is made plain in them ā that is, in their consciences ; for God has made it plain to them. 20. For the invisible attributes of His nature are clearly seen, since the creation of the world, being perceived through the things that are made, even His eternal power and divinity, nature in all its works proclaiming Him ; that they may be without excuse for ignoring Him ; 21. because, though they knew God, they have not glorified nor given Him thanks for His goodness, as God ; but became foolish in their reason- ings and imaginings, and their stupid heart was darkened. 22. Giving themselves out to be wise, they became fools, 23. and exchanged the glory of the unchanging, immortal Grod for the likeness of the form of mortal man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24. On this account, as a punishment for their apostasy, God gave them up to work uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, that their bodies should be dishonoured among them- selves, each dishonouring the other; 25. because they ex- changed the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rathei than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen I
* Hab. ii. 4, LXX.
III. T
290 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
26. For this cause God gave them up to vile passions ; for their women changed the natural use into that which is contrary to nature; 27. and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men working abomination with men, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their wandering from the right which was their due.
28. And, still more, as they did not think fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind ā such as God rejects ā to do those things that are not beseem- ing; 29. being filled with all unrighteousness, villainy, greed, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, strife, cunning, malignant perfidy ; secret whisperers, 30. open slanderers, hateful to God, insolently contemptuous, haughtily proud, braggarts, inventors of evil deeds, disobedient to parents; 31. without sense, breakers of agreements, without natural affection, without pity; 32. who, knowing the ordinance of God as lawgiver and judge ; the law he has written in the conscience of all men ā that they who practise such things are worthy of death, not only do these very things, but sympathise with those who practise them.
Having thus shown that the heathen know nothing of the righteousness which God demands, he proceeds to prove that this is no less true of the Jews, so that the necessity for justification hj faith, since there can be none from works, is universal.
II. 1. But, further, since these things are so, thou art without excuse, O man, whosoever thou art, that haughtily judgest the heathen rejected by God, while fancying thy- self in His favour : for, in what thou judgest the other, thou condemnest thyself ; for thou that judgest committest the same offences. 2. And we, as men, know that the judgment of God, which is according to eternal truth, is against those who commit such things. 3. Knowing, then, that God thus judges evil-doers, thinkest thou, O man, who judgest those as guilty
PAUL iET. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 291
who do such things, and yet doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? ā for you Jews, believe that only the heathen will he condemned by Him; all Israel entering, by right, into the kingdom of the Me. siah, as the first- bom of God.^ 4. Or, apart from this dream, despisest thou the holy design of ther iches of His goodness, and for- bearance, and longsuffering, not knowing, in thy self righteous folly, that the goodness of God, thus shown, leads thee, if it be read aright, to repentance ? 5. But by thy hard-heartedness and impenitence, dost thou heap up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judg- ment of God ; 6. who will render to every man according to his works : 7. giving eternal life to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek glory, and honour, and im- mortality. 8. But to those who are contentious, not following the dictates of their conscience or of God's word, but acting against them, and who, thus, obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, ā shall be indignation and wrath, 9. tribula- tion and anguish ā on every soul of man that doeth evil, first of the Jew, but also of the Greek ; 10. but glory, and honour, and peace, to every man that works good, first to the Jew, but also to the Greek : 11. for there is no respect of persons with God.2
The privileges of which the Jew boasts, as against the heathen, give him no claim to escape from the angry judgment of God.
12. For as many as have sinned without having had the Jewish law, but only the rules implanted in the conscience, shall also perish for sinning against these, without reference to the Jewish law : and as many as have sinned under the reign of Jewish law, shall be judged by that law ; 13. for not the hearers of a law, as Jews are, by the Sabbath reading of the Scriptures in the synagogues, are righteous before God,
^ fixod. It. 22 ; Jer. xxxi. 9. Bertholdt Chri$toL 206 f. Ā» Wisd. vL 7.
292 THE APOSTLES A.D. $7-$^
but the doers of a law shall be counted righteous. 14. For when the heathen, who have no revealed law of God, do by nature the things of that law, they, although they have no revealed law, like the Jew, are a law to themselves ; 15. in that they show by their lives, that the due work of the law is written in their hearts, and, hence, sincerely obeyed ; their conscience, meanwhile, bearing witness, in thsir breasts, to this honest obedience to the right ; and their secret thoughts ā as to one another, ā either accusing or excusing their actions, 16. as will be seen in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, ā bringing to light the hidden things of dark- ness, and making manifest the counsels of the hearts ^ ā by Jesus Christ, as the appointed Judge of mankind, according to my teaching of the Gospel.
Since the doers of the law, and not the mere hearers, will be justified, he now brings it home to the conscience of the Jew, how his race, in spite of all their blind pride in their fancied righteousness, sharply contradict that Divine rule.
17. But if thou art called a Jew ā the honourable name of thy race ā and restest upon the law, and gloriest in God, as thy Father, and the Guardian of Israel, 18. and kuowest His will, and appro vest the things that are excellent in practice, ā being instructed out of the law, by its being read and expounded in the synagogue, 19. and art confident that thou art, thyself, able to be a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, 20. an instructor of the dull, a teacher of babes, ā since thou regardest thyself as having in the possession of the law, ā the very embodiment of knowledge and of the truth : ā 21. how is it that thou, who thus teachest another, teachest not thyself 1 Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? 22. Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery f Thou that abhorrest
1 1 Cor. iv. 6.
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idols, dost thou rob idol temples ā for such a thing is often done by Jews ? ^ 23. Thou who gloriest in the law, dis- honourest thou God through breaking the law t 24. For the name of God is blasphemed among the heathen through your evil deeds ; even as it is written ; ^ for by such conduct you make Jehovah, your God, appear unholy, and thus lead men to blaspheme Him.
Having set the liability of the Jews to punishment in this strong light, he now shows them that the fancied special protection of circumcision is of no value, to screen them from responsibility for their actions.
25. Now as to circumcision, behind which, 0 Jew, thou thinkest thyself safe, that depends on thy observance of the law. For circumcision indeed profits, if thou keep the law ; but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made virtual uncircumcision. 26. If, therefore, the un- circumcised heathen keep the requirements of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned as circumcision 1 27. And shall not the uncircumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who, though possessing both the letter of the law and circumcision, art a transgressor of the law 1 28. For he is not a true Jew, who is only outwardly one ; nor is that true circumcision, which is outward in the flesh ; 29. but he is a true Jew, who is one inwardly, in his soul ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter ; one whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Paul, speaking as himself a Jew, might, however, be accused of making nothing of the privileges of his nation. This he refutes, but, none the less, goes on to show that not even the possession, by the Jew, of the promises of God, piotects him against punishment, if merited.
* Acts xix. 37 ; Jos. Ant. vr. 8, 10. * Isik lii. 5, LZX.
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TIL 1. What advantage, then, you will ask, has the Jew t or what is the profit of circumcision ? 2. Much every way : First of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God. 3. For what if some were faithless to the trust ? shall their want of faith make the faithfulness of God to His promise of salvation through the Messiah, of no effect ? 4. God forbid ! yea, let us feel that God shall remain true to His promises, and that every man who distrusts Him shall be proved a liar ; as it is written, That Thou mightest he justified in Thy wordsy and mightest prevail when Thou earnest into Judgment with man.^
Should any one say, from this ā " since the unrighteous- ness of man glorifies God, it cannot, righteously, be punished ! *' Paul proceeds to do away with this per- version, so contrary to his doctrine that all men must answer for their sins.
6. But if our unrighteousness establish the righteousness of Grod, what shall we say, follows ? Is God unrighteous who visits sin with wrath 1 I speak as men do. 6. God forbid I for then how shall God judge the world ? 7. But if the truthfulness of God to His promises has, through my lie, shown itself more richly, to the increase of His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? 8. And why should I not say ā as we Christians are slanderously reported to do, and as some aflSrm we do, ā *' Let us do evil that good may come," by thus increasing the glory of God I ā whose con- demnation is just.
The exposure to punishment, of Jews and heathen, is equal, for the law itself teaches that by the works of the law there can be no righteousness.
9. What, then ? Are we Jews in even worse case before Gk>d than the heathen ? No, in no wise : for I have already
^ Pb. li. i, LXX.
PAUL MV. J. 47-48 THE EPISTI.E TO THE ROMANS 295
accused both Jews and Greeks, of being, all, under sin. 10. As, indeed, it stances written, There is none righteous, no, not one ; II. there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God; 12. they have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable ; Tliere is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one; 13. their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have tised deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips; 14. ivhose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; 15. their feet are swift to shed blood; 16. destruction and misery are in their tvays ; 17. and the way of peace have they not known ; 18. there is no fear of God before their eyes.^
19. But we know that all the law says, it says to those who are under the law, as you Jews boast of being, that thus, ā the Gentiles being admittedly exposed to God's wrath, and you Jews being no less so, according to the Scripture I have just quoted ā every mouth, both of Jew and Gentile, may be stopped, and all the world brought under the judgment of God ; 20. because by the works of the law, either natural or revealed, shall no fiesh be justified in His sight,^ for through law comes only the knowledge of sin, not salvation.
To this point he has been showing that all men, both Jew and heathen, are liable to punishment, for sinfulness common to them all. Hence, if there be a righteousness they may secure, it must be one outside, alike, either of the natural law of the heathen and the revealed law of the Jew. He now shows that this righteousness, thus required, is only to be found in that which is granted by God to all, without distinction, whether Jew or Geo tile, that is, heathen, who lovingly believe in His Son, Jesus Christ.
21. But now, in these days, a righteousness which is of God, apart from any righteousness by the law, has been made
Ā» P*. xiv. 1-3, LXX ; liii. 3 ; cxL 3 ; x. 7 ; Isa. lix. 7 ; PĀ». xxxvi 1. * Ps. cxliil 2, LXX.
'>96 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57*58
known, ā a righteousness hitherto unthought of, though hoth the law and the prophets benr witness to it; 22. even the righteousness which is the gift of God, not the award of any law, ā through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe in Him ; for there is no distinction : 23. for all, hoth Jew and heathen, have sinned, and fall short of, and thus do not enjoy, the glory which man had at first, which is the gift of God to the sinless. 24. But being thus without this legal righteousness, they are justified, that is, counted righteous, freely, as a gift, by God's grace, through the redemption from the curse of His hroken law, that is in Christ Jesus ; 25. whom God has set forth publicly, to be a propitiation, through faith, by His blood, to show His, God's, righteousness, as Judge of men, which would otherwise have been obscured, because of His having, in His forbearance, passed over without punishment, the sins done before this manifestation of His righteousness ; 26. for the showing, I say, of His, God's, righteousness in the now current time ā dating from the propitiatory death of Christ, ā that He might prove Himself to be just, and might also be the righteous justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.
Having thus won the field, the Apostle asks trium- phantly, what ground remains for Jewish boasting, as to superiority before God the Judge, over the heathen ?
27. Where, then, is the glorying of the Jews ? It is shut out. By what kind of law ? Of works, no ; but by a law of faith. 28. We judge, therefore, that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29. Or, if this be questioned, is God the God of Jews only ? for He must be so, if justifica- tion depend on works of the law, since only Jews possess the law. Is He not the God of the heathen also ? Yes, He is the God of the heathen also, 30. if so be, as is admitted, that God is one, for all mankind, ā and thus He will justify ths circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.
I'AtJL JRT. t. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 297
All this is proved by the agreement of the law, itself, with the doctrine of justification by faith, as shown by what is said of that of Abraham.
31. Do we then make nothing of the law, through faith 1 God forbid. No, we, rather, establish the law.
IV. 1. What, then, shall we, Jews, say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found as the ground of his justification ? 2. For if Abraham was justified by works, as the Jews think, he has ground for boasting, but, in that case, not toward God, who had no part in his justification, ā hut only in himself. 3. I say justly " not towards God," for what says the Scripture ? And Abraham Idieved God, and it teas reckoned to him for righteousness.^ 4, Now to him who works, his wages are not granted as a gift, but are paid as a debt. 5. But to him, on the other hand, who does not work for reward, but be- lieves on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. 6. As, indeed, David, also, pronounces blessing on the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works, 7. saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covred. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.
This blessedness includes not only the Jew but the uncircumcised, for Abraham belonged, while still un- cii'cumcised, to those thus praised by David.
9. Is this blessing, then, pronounced on the circumcised only, or on the uncircumcised also ? for we say it was - Scripture telling ns, I'o Abraham his faith teas reckoned for ivjhteousness. 10. How then was it thus reckoned to him? When he was circumcised, or still uncircumcised ? Not after he had been circumcised, but while he was still uncircumcised : 11. and he received the outward sign of circumcision, as a seal or confirmation of the rightecusness he had accorded to him, 09 account of the faith which he showed while he was
Ā» Gen. XV. 6, LXX.
298 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-$ 8
yet uncircu incised : ^ the meaning of that sign being that ho might be marked out as the father of all who believe, though uncircumcised, that the same righteousness through faith might be reckoned to them, as had been to him; 12. and that he might also be the father of the circumcised to them who are not merely circumcised in the flesh, but also walk in the footsteps of that faith of our father Abraham ā father of all believers ā which he had while still uncircumcised.
How Abraham was thus the father of all, both Jews and heathen, who believe.
13. For the promise to Abraham or his seed, that he should, in a spiritual sense, inherit the world ā his inheriting Canaan being, in the opinion both of Jews and Christians, the earnest of the world-empire of the Messiah, to come through himā that promise, I say, was not through the law, but through the righteousness reckoned to him on the ground of his faith. 14. For if only the sons of the law be heirs of Abraham, as they claim, faith is made void of worth, and the promise is made of no effect. 15. For the law works wrath, not mercy, as the Gospel does ; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression of what does not thus exist ā to kindle the wrath of God. 1 6. Therefore, as the inheritance cannot depend on law, it must be the reward of faith, that it may be granted as a favour, not paid as a debt owed by God ; that the fulfil- ment of the promise may be sure to all the seed of Abraham, in the wide spiritual sense intended by God ā including both Jews and heathen ; not to that only which is of the law ā the Jews ā but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all who believe, both Jews and heathen.
He now gives a nearer definition of the faith through which Abraham became the father of all believers.
17. This he is assuredly, as it is written, A father of man%
Ā» Gen. xi. 17.
PAUL MT. C. 47-48 THE EPISTI.E TO THE ROMANS 299
nations have I made thee ^ before, that is, by the appointment of God, whom he believed, even God who quickens the dead, and calls what does not yet exist, to obey His commands, as if it were already living, and summons that which is not, into being; 18. that Abraham, who, against reasonable hope, believed, in hope that he would become the father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken by God, So shall thy seed be^ 19. And without being weakened in his faith by it, he considered his own body, now, as good as dead ā he being about a hundred years old ā and also considered the deadness of Sarah's womb. 20. But, looking to the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong in faith, giving glory to God, 21. and being fully per- suaded that, what He had promised he was able also to per- form. 22. Therefore, also, it ā this faith ā was reckoned to him for righteousness.
The reckoning righteousness of faith to Abraham is prefigurative of the righteousness by faith in the once dead but now risen Christ.
23. Now, it was not written for his sake alone, that it ā his faith ā was thus reckoned to him; 24. but for our sake also, to whom it ā the righteousness of faith ā shall, in like manner, be reckoned, who believe on Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25, who was delivered up to death for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.
Having set forth and vindicated his great doctrine of justification, as absolutely necessary,^ the Apostle has further explained its fundamental principles,* and then shown its harmony with the law.^ He now paints the blessed position of those who are justified thus, and after enlarging on this, throws it into still stronger light, by
1 Gen. xvil 5, LXX. Ā« Gen. xv. 5. Ā» Rom. L 18-iii SL
* Rom. ill 21-30. Ā» Rom. iii. 26-iv. 25.
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contrasting the salvation it secures, with the ruin that came through Adam, and is only aggravated by the law.
The righteousness which is the gift of God, he now tells the Eoman Christians, has, as its results, peace with God, deliverance from His wrath, and the hope of eternal life.
V. 1. Since, then, we are justified by faith in Christ, let us have peace with God,i through our Lord Jesus Christ; 2. through whom, also, we have had our being introduced by faith, into this state of grace wherein we stand ; and let us re- joice in hope of the glory of God. 3. And not only .this, but let us also rejoice in our tribulations ; knowing that tribulation works patient endurance ; 4. and patient endurance gives proof of fidelity ; and this proof kindles hope : 5. and this hope of glory will not deceive and thus put us to shame ; because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts, through the Holy Ghost which was given to us, when we became Christians, and is our security that our hope is not vain, but that God will fulfil it. 6. Nor can there be any doubt of this love of God, for while we were }'et weak and helpless, in our sins, not having as yet received spiritual life through the Holy Ghostā at the appointed time Christ died for the ungodly. 7. And wonderful, indeed, was it He should do so 1 For hardly for a righteous man, far less for the ungodly, will one die : though, by possibility, for the good man, some one would even dare to die. 8. But God gives proof of His own love towards us, bringing it home to us, in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The shedding abroad of the love of God in our hearts, is a pledge that our hope of eternal life is sure, that love being so great ; but our hope is made still more certain to
^ Lipsius, Meyer, and Lange read, ** we have." The R.V. and manjf authurititiB read " Let us have."
PAUL MT. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROxMANS 301
be fulfilled, from the supreme proof of Divine love shown in the death of Christ for us.
9. Much more, then, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His hfe, as risen, and alive for evermore, to see that the fruits of His death be reaped. 11. And not only is it so, that we are thus certain of salvation through His risen life, but we have this certainty in such measure, that we also even rejoice in God ā through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconci- liation.
Illustrative parallel between the derivation of righteous- ness and life to the many believers from the one Christ, and the derivation of sin and death to his many descend- ants, from the one Adam.
12. Note, moreover, that as we have received the recon- ciliation to God, and the certainty of eternal life, through Christ, His relation to us, believers, is like that of Adam to men at large. Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin ; and so death passed, from him, to all mankind, because all have sinned : 1 3. for sin was in the world from creation down to the giving of the law, but the death of those who had not like Adam, sinned against a positive command, could not have been a punishment for sins not known to be such till the law was given, ages after, for sin is not imputed to men's actions where there is nc law making such actions sinful. 14. Nevertheless, though there was no law to accuse them, death reigned from Adam to Moses, that is, to the time of the law being given, and that over men who had not sinned as Adam did, not havinĀ£ broken a specified command as he did, and in this ne u
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figure of Him, Christ, who was to come. 15. But though Adam is the type of Christ ; he heing the first head of man- kind ; Christ, the second head ; the results of their respective headships have been wholly different. For the fruits of the trespass of Adam are not like the free gift secured for us by Christ. For if by the trespass of the one man, Adam, the many, ā even all his posterity ā died, much more did the pitying grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the same many, that is, to all mankind. 16. And the gift is not as if it sprang from one that sinned : for the judgment went forth, through the sin of one, to the condemnation of man to death, but the free gift of God's righteousness came, through our many sins moving the divine pity to secure our justification. 17. And this justi- fication is beyond doubt For if, by the trespass of the one man ā the first Adam, ā death reigned through that one man ; much more shall they who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, receive the fruits of this wondrous gift, and reign in eternal life through the one Man ā Jesus Christ ā the second Adam.
18. As, therefore, through one trespass the judgment of God extended to all men, to their condemnation to death ; even so, through one act of righteousness, in Christ's dying to save us, the free gift came to all men, to justification, which is the pledge of eternal life. 19. For as through the disobedience of the one man, Adam, the many were made sinners, even so, through the obedience of the other one man, Christ, the second Adam, shall the many be made righteous.
The comparison between Christ and Adam is now con- cluded, but it is desirable to say a few words on the religious significance of the law, which the Jews regarded as the source of righteousness and life.
20. As to the law, it came in also, as well as sin, which had entered the world alreadyā came in, that sin might he shown to abound ; but where sin thus abounded, gracĀ«
PAUL JET. C. 47-48 THE KriSTLE TO THE ROMANS 303
showed that it abounded far more exceedingly ; 21. that, as sin reigned in the terrors of death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Apostle now passes to a vindication of his great doctrine of the righteousness which God gives to Chris- tians ; showing that, so far from affording a pretext for immorality, it excludes it from the Christian life, and for the first time truly restores our spiritual nature, inspiring and developing it so, that the "justified" man rises to the nobility of a moral freedom, which needs no constraint of law to enforce a godly, righteous, and sober life.
In opening this great subject he first shows how the "persisting in sin, that grace may abound," is utterly opposed to that union with Christ which comes to us through baptism, since we, by that, die to sin, and enter on a new moral life.
VI. 1. What shall we say, then ? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound 1 2. God forbid ! We who died to sin, in baptism, how shall we any longer live in it ? 3. Or are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into fellow- ship with Christ, as thenceforth His. were baptized into participation in His death, sharing in that death, morally, by putting off our former sinful life ? 4. Still more, we were not only dead with Him, but, being thus dead, we were also, therefore, buried with Him, through our baptism into His death : that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory, that is, the Majesty, of the Father, so we also, as risen with Him, might walk in newness of life, that is, in a new changed life, as He did. 5. For if we have become one with Him by the baptismal likeness of his death, we shall also be so by the likeness ot" His resurrection, in our new, and, as it were, risen life ; 6. knowing this, by experience, that
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our old sinful man was crucified with Him, that the old body, which was under the power of sin, might be done away with, so that we should no honger be in slavery to sin ; 7. for He who is dead is cleared from further obligation to serve sin, his former master, for death frees the slave. 8. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him ; 9. knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth nc more; death has no more dominion over Him. 10. For the death that He died, He died to sin, the one cause of death, thus freeing Himself for ever from its claim upon Him, once for all ; but, in contrast to this, the life He now lives, He lives to God ā the fountain of lii^e. Here, He was under the reign of death ; now, He has passed under the reign of life. 11. Even so, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead to sin, free from its lordship, and having no more to do with it, but alive to God, as your Lord, for evermore, in Christ Jesus.
12. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts : 13. neither put your members at the service of sin, as arms to win it triumphs of unrighteous- ness ; but put yourselves at the service of God, as alive from the dead, and your members as arms with which, under Him, to contend for righteousness. 14. And this you may well do, for sin shall not have dominion over you any more : for you are not under the law, which makes sin abound, and thus makes you its slaves,^ but under grace, which strengthens the justified, against sin, and breaks its power.
Since believers are, thus, no more under the law, but under grace, they have become slaves of righteousness, and no longer slaves of sin, as they had been, and receive, instead of death, which is the wages of sin, the free gift of eternal life, through grace. They have, therefore, no right to sin.
1&, What then I shall we deliberately sin, because I thus
1 Chap. V. 20 ; vii. 7-11.
PAUL JET. C, 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 305
tell you that we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid 1 16. Do ye not know, that if you give yourselves up as slaves to any one, to obey him, you become the slaves of him whom you thus obey : whether the master you choose be sin, obedience to which leads to death, or obedience to God, which leads to righteousness? 17. But thanks be to God, that, whereas you formerly were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered over, in His favour, by God, in my free Gospel ; not that taught by Judaisers; 18. and being thus set free from slavery to sin, ye became slaves of righteousness, to which, henceforth, you belong, and which, therefore, you must serve. 19. I speak after the manner of men in thus using the figure of slavery, because of the weakness of your old fleslily nature, which still needs such modes of speech, to make spiritual things clear to you : for, as you gave up your members as slaves to uncleanness, defiling your soul, and to iniquity, to heap up more iniquity, even so, 7iow, offer up your members as slaves to righteousness, to lead you to sancti- fi cation. 20. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to the service of righteousness ! 21. What spiritual fruit, then, had you at that time when you were slaves of sin, in the evil things of which you are now ashamed 1 for the end of those things is death. 22. But now, being made free from sin, and havins: become slaves to God, vou have vour fruit tending to your sa notification, and ripening, in the end, to eternal life. 23. For the wages which sin gives is death ; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Christian does not stand under the Mosaic law, but is dead to the law. through his fellowship in the death of Christ, and belongs to the risen Saviour, that, in this new union, he may Ic ad a life consecrated to God.
VII. 1. Or are you ignoraut, brethren, ā for I speak to men who know the law ā some as Jewish- Christians ; all from III. U
306 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
hearing it read in the synagogues, or quoted in your own church assembly, the law has dominion over a man only during his lifetime? 2. It is, indeed, with this as with marriage. For the married woman is bound by law to the husband while he lives; but if the husband die, she is set free from the law which bound her to him. 3. Hence, if she be joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she will be rightly called an adulteress : but if the husband die, she is free from the law which bound her to him, so that she is no adulteress, though she then be joined to another man. 4. Exactly in the same way, my brethren, you, also, were made dead to the law, by your union with the dead body of Christ ā¢ that you should be free to be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, ā the risen Christ, ā that we might bring forth to God the fruit of a holy life. 6. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were made known as sins through the enactments of the law, were active in our members, to bring forth fruit to death. 6. But now we have been set free from the dominion of the law, having died, with Christ, to that fleshly nature in which we were, till then, held as in prison ; so that we now serve in newness of spirit, that is, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter ; bound by the mere letter of the commands of the law.
The Jewish-Christian might easily, in his reverence for his hereditary law, take offence at all this, and draw the conclusion, so hateful to him, that, according to the Apostle, the law, as bringing about sin, could be worth nothing, and indeed must be sinful ! This Paul meets.
7. What shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God forbid : Yet, like men at large, I would not have known what was sin, except through the law : for I would not have known the sinfulness of coveting, had not the law said, Thou shalt not
PAUL MT. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 307
covet} 8. But sin finding in the law an opportunity, or base of operations, wrought in me, through the commandment I have CLUoted, all manner of coveting or lust : for, apart from the law, sin is dead, that prohibition being non-existent which gives it the power of transgressing. 9. In my early days, before I knew about law, I was alive, being apart from or without it, ā not aware of the death it threatened : but when the command Thou shalt not covet came to my knowledge, sin, which had till then lain merely, as it were, dead, came to full life in me, and 1 died ; things I had not before known to be sinful, now condemning me ; 10. and thus the very command, which was designed to give me eternal life, I found the occasion of my spiritual death. 2 11. For sin, finding an opportunity, deceived me through the command, exciting my sinful desires, and, thus, by its means, undid and slew me ; bringing me under its sentence. 12. So that the law is not useless or evil, but holy, and the command, holy, and right- eous, and good. 13. Did, then, that which is thus good in itself become death to me ? God forbid 1 But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was deadly to me, by working death in me through that which was good ; that, thus through the command, sin might become exceeding sinful.
That sin works death to men through the law is ex- plained by our fleshly nature, through which, in spite of better knowledge and will, we are overcome by it.
14. For we know that the law, not in its rabbinical forms, but in its essence, is spiritual, as proceeding from God and instinct with His Spirit : but I am by nature, fleshly ; sold, like a slave, by the evil in me, to sin, to be under it as my master. 15. For, like a slave, who does as he is ordered, without knowing its bearings, tliat which 1 do, I know not in its true colours ; my better nature being enslaved by my worse ; for I do not practise what I would fain do, but I do
^ Exod. XX. 17; Dent. v. 21.
* Lev. xviii. 5 ; Deut. v. 33 ; Gal. iii. 12.
308 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
what I hate. 16. But if I do what I would fain not do, I grant to the law that it is good. 17. So, now, since this is so, it is no more I that do the hated evil ; not my will, which I call myself; but sin, that dwells in me. 18. For I know that in meā that is, in my flesh ā dwells nothing good : for though to will what is good lies at my hand, and is thus in my power; to do that which is good is beyond me. 19. For the good I would fain do, I fail to do : but the evil I would fain not do, that I do. 20. But if I do what I would fain not do, it is no longer I ā that is, my will ā that do it, but the sin which dwells in me. 21. I find, then, in myself that, while my will is turned towards the law, to do good, yet evil is by me, as the master of my will. 22. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man : 23. but I see a different law ruling in my members, which are the weapons of sin, warring aLfainst the law of my mind ā my inmost, thinking, and willing self ā and bringing me into captivity to the law or rule of sin which is in my members ; enslaving me to it. 24. 0 wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me from this body of death ā for the sin reign- ing in it brings death, through the law, in spite of my delight in that law, in my inmost being. There is, indeed, no deliverance, except by my being freed from the law by which I am thus doomed to death, here and hereafter, for sin, of which my body is the seat. 25. But I thank God I have been delivered from it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself ā my inward self, ā with the mind ā my thinking and willing being, ā serve the law of God ; but with the flesh ā my lower, sinful nature, ā the law of sin.
The Apostle has recalled with horror the mental agonies he suffered while still, as a Pharisee, vainly striving after righteousness through the law. But the thought of his deliverance from it through the saving mercy of God in Christ fills him with grateful joy. He now goes on to describe the blessed position of those who are "in Christ."
PAUL ^T. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 309
In living union with the Risen One, they are free from all condemnation, because they are no longer under the rule of sin and death, being freed from it by Him ā a deliverance v^^hich the Mosaic Law could not accomplish. But they must walk after the Spirit, not after the flesh ; for the flesh briugs death, but the Spirit brings life. They are, indeed, made capable, now, of this new life, in which they may, really, fulfil the will of God.
YIII. 1. There is, therefore, now, no condemnation, to them that are in Christ Jesus,^ 2. For the law of the Spirit, the source of life, made me free, in my union with Christ Jesus, from the law of sin and of its shadow, death. 3. For God, by sending His own Son, in the likeness of our sinful flesh, and as an ofi^ering for sin, to cancel its power of death over mankind ā passsd sentence upon and condemned sin in the flesh; taking from it, henceforth, its reign of death; the offering of his life by His Son, having been accepted, as re- moving those who are in Christ Jesus from being any longer under its curse, ^ ā a result which the Mosaic law could not accomplish, because it was weak, and powerless to do so, through the flesh constantly transgressing its commands. 4. The design of God, in thus passing sentence on and condemn- ing the sin which ruled in the flesh, was, that the decree or ordinance of the law, requiring holiness in the inner man, might be fulfilled in us, who walk, not after the impulses of the sinful flesh, but after those of the Holy Spirit of God. 5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6. For the inclinations of the flesh lead to death, but those implanted by the Spirit lead to life and peace : 7. because the inclinations of the flesh involve enmity against
^ The rest of the verse, as it stands in the Authorised Version, is not found in the best MSS., and ia therefore omitted by the KV. and*l] recent editors of the Greek texfe.
* Verse 1.
310 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
God, the source of life : for it is not subject to the law of God. neither indeed can be, because in its very nature it is sinful ; 8. and, hence, they that are in- the flesh ā living as it prompts ā cannot please God. 9. But you are not, thus, in the flesh, but in the Spirit ā moved by heavenly principles, ā if so be that the Spirit of God really dwell in you. But if any man has not the Spirit of God, or, I may say, of Christ,^ he is none of His. 10. And if Christ be in you, the body, indeed, is dead, for die it must, because of sin ; but the Spirit is life eternal, because of righteousness, made ours, by Christ, "the Life" being, thus, in us. 11. But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who thus raised up Christ Jesus from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, through His, God's, Spirit, that dwells in you, which must, finally, bring to a triumph its own life-kindling might.
We are, thus, pledged not to live after the flesh, since it brings death. On the other hand, to have God's Spirit rule in us, is to attain life, since, as children of God, led by His Spirit, we are assured of future glory.
12. So, then, brethren, we are not indebted to the flesh for this glorious prospect, to call on us to live after the flesh :
13. for if you live after the flesh, you must die ; but if, through the Spirit, you kill out the deeds of the body, you shall live.
14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they, and they only, are sons of God. 15. For you did not, when the Holy Spirit was given you, receive a spirit of slavery, to be in fear again, as you formerly were under the wrath denounc- ing law; but you received a spirit of adoption by God as His sons, through which we cry, Abba ā that is ā Father ; for you use for " Father," the old holy word of the language of Canaan, from which your faith came.
The confidence of believers that the Spirit dwells in
* 2 Cor. iiL 16 ; Gal. il 20 ; Eph. iil 17 ; CoL L 27.
PAUL JET. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 31 1
them rests on His own direct witness to the soul, of His presence in it.
16. Indeed, the Spirit Himself, whom we have received, bears witness with our own spirit, ā that we are children of God, 17. and if children, then, also, heirs of the salvation and glory of the kingdom of Christ, the Messiah ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, our elder Brother ; so that, if we now suffer with Him, for he who suffers for the Gospel, suffers with Christ,^ we may also, hereafter, share His glory.
Yes ; we may well bear up under all trials, for they will be forgotten at the first sight of the bliss that awaits believers !
18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time, which will end with the close approaching Coming of the Lord, 2 are not worthy to be compared with the glory, now reserved for us in heaven,' which will then be revealed, shining on us from round about Him.
One earnest of the certainty of this future glorification is the eager expectation of it through creation.
19. For the earnest longing of the creation waits eagerly for that great event, which will bring with it the revealing of the sons of God. 20. For the creation was subjected, by man's sin, to an eclipse of its original glory, by the transitori- ness thenceforth st.impsd on it in all things ā not of its own will, for death is abhorrent to nature, but by the will of Him ā God ā who thus subjected it to vanity, in hope, on its part, 21. that when the future glory of the sons of God should bs revealel, and the curse removed, it ā the creation itself, ā as well as they, should then be delivered from bondage to corruption, and enter into freedom from its present rule of
^ 1 Pet. iv. 13 ; Matt. ix. 22 ; 2 Cor. L 5 ; Phil. iii. 10 ; CoL i. 24. ' Chap. xiii. 11,12; I Thess. iv. 17. Ā» Col. iii. 3 ; 1 Pet. i. 4.
S12 Tin-: APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
decay, by partaking of the glory of the children of God. 22. For we know that the whole creation, in the eagerness of its hope of this, groans, and is in birth-pains, till now, together with the sons of God, longing for the coming of this glorious time.
Not only so ; our own longing hope is an earnest that it will be realised, for it is implanted in us by the Holy Spirit, and is based on the ordinances of God, which grant that salvation, only to those who hope for it.
23. And not only do these pangs of nature foreshadow the certainty of our future glory, but we Christians, ourselves also, who have the wondrous gift of the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan inwardly, waiting for our formal adop tion as God's sons, and the accompanying entrance on our full inheritance, through the redemption of our body from its mortal stains and frailty. 24. For we are saved by hope : but hope for that which is seen is not hope at all : for who hopes for what he already sees? 25. But if we hope for that which we do not yet see, we wait with patience for it, trusting in God, and thus honouring His requirements.
It is a still further proof of the well-groundedness of our hope, that the Holy Spirit assists us in our weak- ness, aiding us in our prayers, and giving words to our longings.
26. And, in like manner, sympathising with our sighs, and longings, and feeble strength to persevere in our hope, the Spirit, also, helps our weak powers : for we know not even how to pray as we ought ; but the Spirit Himself makes inter- cession for us. in our hearts,^ with groaning sighs which can- not be put in words: 27. and He who searches the hearts of those who pray, knows what is the desire of the Spirit, because
Ā» Verse 27.
TAJJXj JET. C. 47 -4^ THE EPISTLE TO THE EOMANS 313
He makes this intercession for the saints in keeping with the will of God.
The last and strongest security for the realisation of our hope, is the eternal election to salvation, which has been already active in our calling and justification, and, hence, must complete itself by our being glorified.
28. And we know that to them that love God, all things work together for good ; to them, that is, who are called according to His purpose. 29. For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be made like the image of His Son, when He comes in gloryā raising them to sons also, and redeeming them from all mortal defects, and making their bodies like His own glorious body,^ that He, the Son. might be the first- bom among many brethren, adopted, as such, through Him. 30. And whom He foreordained, them He also called : and whom He called, them He also justified : and whom He ju ti- fied, them He also glorified, for though the glory be future, it stands sure, as the purpose of God.
So, then, the Christian has nothing to fear, as endanger- ing his salvation, but is certain of it, from the love of God, in Christ. The elect of God and beloved of Christ are exposed to no accusation or condemnation, and cannot be separated from loving union with God, by a*iy power.
31. What, then, shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who is able to be against us ? 32. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered even Him up to the death for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things 1 33. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is God who justifies them ; 34. who is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, who is now at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us ; and His love in dying for our sins ;
> Verse 23 ; Phil. iii. 21.
314 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
His resurrection, which glorified that love by our justifica- tion ; His seat at the right hand of God, which gives Him the power to do for His people all that His love prompts ; and His intercession for all gifts of protection and grace for them, make it impossible that any one can separate us from His heart ! 35. Who, then, shall separate us from the love of Christ towards us ? Shall tribulation, or distressful straits, or per- secution, or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? ā 36. though we may say, as it is written ^ of our fathers of old. For Thy sake we are killed all the day long ; we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37. Nay, in all these trials we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. 38. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39. nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing created, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,
An inevitable difficulty must, as Paul felt, oppress the hearts of the Jewish-Christians, in Rome and elsewhere, in the self-evident fact, that the great mass of their nation had hitherto rejected the Christian message of salvation. For if, as he taught, the believing, only, would enjoy the promised mercy, while the promise of God's favour had, undoubtedly, been given to Israel as a people, and Christianity was not accepted by Israel, an apparent contradiction seemed involved, which Paul, warmly loving his race as he did, could, least of all men, evade. He therefore sets himself to the solution of the difficulty, with all the boldness and depth of his profound insight into the mysteries of the Divine plan of redemption.
The subject is opened by his lament over the indisput>- able fact.
Ā» Pa. xliv. 22, TiXX.
PAUL Mr. e. 47-48 THE KPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 315
IX. 1. As to the relations of my nation to the Gospel, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me of my sincerity, as one who is in the Holy Spirit, 2. that I have great sorrow, and continual distress of heart. 3. For, if it would lead to their conversion, I could wish that I, myself, were banned from Christ ā separated from fellowship with Him, and devoted to eternal destruc- tion,^ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh : 4. who are Israelites ā that name of highest honour; ā whose is the adoption, for God calls Israel His son,^ and the glory which shone on the Mount and between the cherubim, and the covenants with Abraham and the Patriarchs,^ and the giving of the law through Moses, on Sinai, and the service of Jehovah, in the Temple worship, and the promises of the Messiah, over and over repeated to the nation in past days, by the prophets, on the strength of the covenants : 5. whose are the Fathers, ā Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ā and of whom is Christ, as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever, Amen ! *
The promise of God is not made untrue by the exclu- sion of a part of Israel, for it was given only to the true Israel, those chosen of God's free will, not to the natural posterity of Abraham.
6. But my grief is not as though I had to mourn that the pledged word of God had fallen through, and shown itself worthless ; my trouble is something quite different. For not all who spring from Jacob ā Israel, are the Israel of God's promise. 7. Neither, because they are descendants of Abra- ham, are they all his children, in reference to the promise,
* Gal. V. 4 ; verse 22. Ā» Hos. xi 1 ; Deut. xiv. 1 ; xxxii. 6.
' Gen. vi. 18 ; ix. 9 ; xv. 18 ; xvii. 2 ff. ; Exod. ii. 24, &c. ; Wisd. xviii, 22 ; Ecclus. xliv. 11 ; 2 Mace. viii. 15 ; Eph. ii. 12.
* Thua, Westcott and Hort., RV., Tregelles, Alford, Wordsworth, and many others with most of the Fathers and Luther.
316 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-5S
but Scripture says, In Isaac shall thy posterity he called by GodL^ 8. That is, it is not the children of the ileshā Ishmael or others ā who are children of God ; but only the children of Abraham, who sprang from the fulfilment of the promise ā Isaac, and his posterity ā are reckoned as of true Abrahamic descent, in the sense of the promise. 9. "The children of the promise," I say, for the birth of Isaac, Sarah's son, was in fulfilment of a special promise ; for this is assuredly, a word of promise, According to this season, at the due intarval from it, next year, will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.'^ 10. And not only so; but as Ishmael was shut out by this promise to Sarah, so Esau was excluded in that to his mother, for when Rebecca had conceived two sons by one husband, our father Isaac, ā 11. yea, while they were not yet born, and had done nothing either good or bad, ā that the purpose of Ood, according to electicm, might stand, ā not from works which its objects would perform, but from the purpose, only, of Him who calls one or another, 12. it was said to her, The elder shall serve the younger; ^ 13. even as it is said else- where,* Jacob I lovedf but Esau I hated.^
Paul now proceeds to justify this action of God, in ordaining such an " election " ā from the absolute freedom of the Divine will, against which man dares say nothing.
1 Gen. xxi. 12, LXX.
* Gen. xviii. 10 and 14, freely combined from the LXX.
Ā» Gen. XXV. 23, LXX. < Mai. i. 2, 3, LXX.
' The subjugation of Esau to Jacob ā the Edomite to the Jew ā is seen in 2 Sam. viii. 14 ; 2 Kings viii. 21 ; xiv. 7 ; 2 Chron. xxv. 11 ; 2 Kings xxii. 2; 2 Chron. xxvi. 2; xxviii. 17; 2 Kings xvi. 6. Joh. Hyrcanua finally crushed Edom, compelled all Edouiites to be circumcised, and in- corporated their country in the Jewish State (Jos. Ant. xiii. 9, 1). Paul, however, applies the texts to Esau and Jacob, personally ; the fulfilment of the "serving" being understood of the inferiority as regarded the covenant with Abraham, in which Esau was placed, by selling his birth- right, and by the loss of his father's blessing, through which the headship of the spiritual Abrahamic line was transferred to Jacob.
PAUL iET. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 317
1 4. What shall we say, then ? Is there unrighteous in this, in God % God forbid ! 15. For he saith to Moses, / will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on tohom I have compassion.^ 16. So then the receiving divine mercy or compassion is not the reward of him who wills, or of him who, besides willing, runs to gain them, as a racer runs for the prize, but is of God that has mercy. 17. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ^ For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might he published abroad in all the earth. 18. So, then, He has mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardens, hy giving them over to impenitence and hardness of heart.^
Man has no right to ask God why, in this case, He still blames the sinner, for man's relation to God is like that of the thing to be formed, to him who forms it, or of the potter's clay to the potter, who can, as he pleases, make, from the same lump, one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour.
19. But thou wilt say to me, " Why then does He, God, still blame the disobedient, if He has beforehand hardened him ? For who can withstand His will?" 20. Nay, but, 0 man, who art thou that repliest against God 1 Shall the thing formed say to him icho formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? 21. Has not the potter j)ower over the clay,^ from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honour, and another for dishonour ? ^
^ Exod. xxxiii. 19, LXX.
' Exod. ix. 16 ; partly from LXX., partly from the Hebrew.
3 James i. 13-17.
* Isa. xlv. 8 ā not literally either from LXX. or Hebrew ; Jer. xviL 1,
not literally.
Ā° Paul may have thought of this illustration as occurring in some of the Apocryphal books then in wide circulation among his people. Wisd. XV. "^ ; Ecclus. xxxiii. 13 ; xxxvii. 29 ; Wisd. xii. 12.
318 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
Application of this to the election made from the Jews, and to the calling of the heathen.
22. What then, if God, designing ultimately to ghow His wrath, and make His power known, bore, with much long- suffering, vessels of wrath, though destined to ultimate destruction, sparing them for a long time, from the ruin one day to overtake them ā 23. with the purpose of making known, during the continuance of this forbearance, the ful- ness of the riches of His glory, on vessels of mercy ā objects of His divine compassion and grace ā whom He had before- hand prepared and made fit for that glory; 24. such, for instance, as we, ourselves, whom He has not only prepared beforehand for this glory, but has also called to share it in the kingdom of the Messiah ā we, who spring not from the Jews only, but also from the heathen ? 25. As He says, indeed, in Hosea, / will call that My people which was not My people ; and her beloved, who was not beloved. 26. And it shall &e, that in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not My people, there shall they he called son^ of the living God.^ 27. And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel he as the sand of the sea, it is only the remnant that shall be saved ; 28. for the Lord will execute His word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short by swift fulfilment. ^ 29. And thus, as Isaiah has said before, in an earlier text, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed ā that remnant, which, like grain from which a new harvest springs, is the seed-plot of the newly founded Christian people of God ā yjQ ā that is, the whole Jewish race ā had become, like Sodom, wholly destroyed, and had been made like Gomorrah, which is utterly blotted out ā through our exclusion from the sal- vation of Christ, the Messiah.^
The guilt of their exclusion rests on the Jews them-
Ā» Hos. ii. 23 ; i. 10, LXX., almost literally. ā¢ Isa. X. 22, 23. Ā» Isa. i. 9, LXX.
FAUIi iET. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 319
selves, because they strove after righteousness by their own legal works, and not through faith; having taken offence at Christ's Gospel.
30. What shall we say, then t This fact is to he confessed ; that the believing heathen, who, not having revelation, or the moral law, strove not after the attainment of righteous- ness, have attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith : 31. but Israel, though it strove after the fulfilment of a law of righteousness, has not attained to the fulfilment of that law, so as to secure its righteousness. 32. And how was thist Because they strove to attain it, not by faith, but as if it were to be attained by works. For had they acted from faith, they would have accepted Jesus, not rejected Him ; but they stumbled at the stumbling-stone of His being a crucified Messiah ; ^ 33. even as it is written : Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence ; And he who believes on Him shall not be 2mt to shamed
The Apostle repeats his deep love for his people, and shows that the fact of Israel, in contrast to the heathen, not attaining the righteousness after which they strove, is explained by their want of insight into the Divine plan of salvation.
X. 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is, that they may be saved. 2. For I bear them witness, that they have a zeal for God, but not in keeping with right knowledge. 3. For, not knowing the righteous-
Ā» 1 Cor. i. 23 ; Luke ii. 34 ; 1 Pet. ii 6-8.
2 Isa. xxviii. 16 and viii. 14, blended, and varied alike from the Hebrew and the LXX. In the first text, the theocracy is the stone laid by God ; in the second, G'>d Himself is the stone of stumbling to His enemies. But Paul, like Peter (1 Pet. ii. 6-8), and like the rabbis, sees in both passages Messianic prophecies, and justly, since all the glory and triumph of the theocracy has a Messianic character, its future Head being the Messiah.
320 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
ness, which is the gift of God,^ and seeking to establish their own, which is of the law, through their own works, and meritorious scrupulosity, they did not submit themselves, by faith, to the righteousness of God ā ^granted to the believing.
In Christ, that righteousness by faith has taken the place of righteousness by the law.
4. For Christ is the End of the law, by the works of which the Jew sought to be justified ; it has no longer authority or validity ; He has superseded it by His death ; through which the source of righteousness is no longer the Mosaic Law, which He has brought to an end ; that every one might attain 1 it'hteousness, who believes. 5. For Moses writes that. The man who does the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby. 6. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks thus, Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? ā that is, to bring Christ down : 7. or, Who shall descend into the underworld ? ā that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.
8. But what does it ā the righteousness of faith ā say? The Word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart : ^ ā that is, the Word of Faith, which we, heralds of the Gospel, preach :
9. and it is thus revealed to thee, so that thou may est not doubt, but believe ; for it proclaims that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10. For with the heart man believes, and thus attains to righteousness, and, as the result, confession is made with the mouth to salvation.
The righteousness of faith is bestowed on all believers, whether Jews or heathen, and is therefore preached to all.
1 Rom. i. 17.
^ These quotations are from Deut. xxx. 12-14, and are spoken by Mosei of "this commandment which T command thee this day." The words Ā»r< taken, with variations from both the LXX. and the Hebrew.
PAUL JET. C. 47-48 THE KPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 321
11. For the Scripture says, W1in<oever helievps on Tlhn shall not be put to shame?- 12. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek : for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him. 13. For it says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall he saved."^ 14. But how can they, in accordance with this, call on Him in whom they have not, as yet. believed ? and how can they believe in Him of whom they have not heard ? and how can they hear without some one making Him known? 15. And how can those who make Him known, do so, unless they be sent ? As it is w^ritten, Hoio beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things! Thus, then, our being sent forth as preachers of the good news was necessary, and a fuliilment of the divine purpose, foreannounced by the prophet.^
The Gospel having thus been made known to them, the failure of Israel to attain salvation through it rises, not from their not knowing it, but from unbelief.
16. But all ā the Jews who have remained unbelieving, for example ā did not hearken to the glad tidings thus brought to them. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report .?* 17. Therefore, faith comes from hearing the preaching of those Bent forth, and hearing by the word of Christ, who commanded His Gospel to be thus proclaimed to all nations. 18. But, I ask, Is it possible that any can say tliey did not hear the preaching of the Gospel ? It is not. for all have, indeed, heard it, so that one may s:jy of its preachers as is written of "the heavens" in the Psalms,^ Their sound has gone forth into all tJie earthy and their words to the ends of the ivorld 19. But, I ask a^ain. Has Israel not known about the Messiah- ship of Christ being thus preached everywhere Certainly they must, for long ago, first Moses foretells the conversion of the Gentilas, when he says,^ / icill provoke you to jealousy with
1 Isa. xxviii. 16, LXX. 2 j.^j y^ 32, LXX.
ā¢ Isa. Hi. 7, freely from tht LXX. * I.-a. liii. 1, LXX.
Ā» Pb. xix. 4, LXX. Ā« Dtut. xxxi. -Jl, LXX III. X
o
22 THE APOSTLES iLD. 57-58
that which is no nation, With a nation void of understandivfj will I anger you. 20. And Isaiah, in later times, is very bold in his prediction of tMs, saying, / loas found of them that sought Me not : I was made known to them that asked not after Me. 21. As to Israel, however, he says. All day long I spread out My hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.^
Yet, in spite of the unbelief of the Jewish race, God has fulfilled His promise to them, in the same way in which He elects to bestow His grace on mankind at large. He has pleased to choose from Israel a remnant who re- present the true children of the Promise, while He has given over the rest to the blindness of unbelief.
XI. 1. I ask, now : Has God cast off His people t God forbid I For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2. God has not cast away His people, whom He foreknew as such, before they were in existence ; the whole future of His kingdom lying open before Him, definite and fixed. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah 1 how he complained to God against Israel. 3. Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, and digged doivn Thine altars : arid I am left alone, and they seek my life. 4. But what says the answer of God to him ? / have left for Myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.'^ 5. Even so, then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6. But if it ā the election of this remnant ā be the free gift of diTine grace, it is no more the payment of works : for, otherwise, what is called grace is no longer grace, but payment of \vhat is due. 7. What follows, then ? Since the remnant owes all to the graae of God, and thus cannot possibly boast of anything as the reward of works performed by them, it is evident that Israel has not attained that for which it
1 Isa. Ixv. 1, 2, freely from the LXX.
' 1 Kings %\x. 10 14, freely after the LXX. ; xix. 18, nearer the Hebrew than the LXX
PAUL JET. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 323
stroveā righteousness by deeds of the law; ā but that the election attained it, and the rest were hardened : ^ 8. accord- ing as it is written, God has given them a spirit of moral stupor^ eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear J to this very day.^ 9. And David says, Let their table be made a snare and a trap^ And a stumbling -blocks and a recom- pense to them: 10. Let their eyes be darkened^ that they may not see J And bow Thou doicn their back at way. ^
Now follows a solution of this enigma in the economy of Divine grace. The unbelief of the Jews will be only temporary, so that their exclusion from the kingdom of the Messiah will be only for a time, to lead the heathen to salvation, and thus disclose conclusively the aim of the purposes of God ā that all ā Jews as well as heathen ā should owe their salvation wholly to Divine grace.
11. I ask now, Did they stumble in order that, in the purposes of God, they might fall ? God forbid I It was rather that, by their fall, over the stumbling-block of Christ's Gospel, despising and rejecting it as they did, salvation might come to the heathen, to stir them ā the Jews ā my flesh, to jealousy and rivalry. 12. Now if their fall has resulted in the riches of the world at large, and their loss of precedence in the kingdom of the Messiah has resulted in the riches of the heathen nations ; how much more will their acceptance of Christ, in their fulness, as a nation, be to the advantage of the world and the heathen ?
13. But now to you who are heathen-born ā since you may fancy my office concerns you only, and that I have nothing to do with the conversion of the Jews ā I say, as apostle of the heathen, that I do not wander from my sphere, but
* 2 Cor. ui. 14.
* Apparently from Deut xxiz. 4 and Isa. zxiz. 10, LXX., thong^
varying from both. ā PĀ«. Ixix. 23, 24, nearly verbatim, LXX.
q
24 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
glorify my ministry, 14. in my efforts, by any means, to pro- voke to jealousy aud healthful rivalry my nation, my flesh, if, thus, I may save some of them, 15. For if their ā the Jews ā being cast away be the means of bringing about the reconciling of the world ā the converted heathen ā to God, what shall the receiving of them ā the Jews ā into the faith be, but their rising to life from the dead ?
The conversion of part of Israel is a pledge of the future conversion of all.
16. But if the first cake, of the dough given to the priest,^ is made holy, by this act, the whole lump of it is thus also, made holy, on its account : and if the root ā Abraham ā be holy, so are also the branches ā the Patriarchs, and their descendants, the Jews. 17. But if some of the branches be broken otf ā if part of Israel be cast away ā and thou, 0 heathen-bom, being only a wild olive ā one of the shoots growing up round the tree, and worthless, as such, wast grafted in among the branches of the olive, and became par- taker with them of the fatness which comes from the root of the tree ; 18. see that thou boast not over the branches : but if thou dost boast, bethink thyself that it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root that bears thee. 19. But perhaps thou wilt now say, " Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in." 20. Well; it is so ā but note, that they were broken off because of their unbelief, while thou standest, as a branch, by thy faith. Yet be not high- minded, but fear : 21. for if God did not spare the natural branches ā not mere grafts like thee, 0 heathen-bom. when they ceasea to bear fruit, neither will He spare thee if thou failest to do so. 22. Behold, therefore, on the one hand, the goodness ; on the other, the se\ erity of God ; His severity towards them who stumbled at Christ and fell from a share in the promise, by their unbelief; but towards thee, God 'a goodness, ā if thou continue in the enjoyment of His good-
* Num. XV. 19-21.
PAUL MT, C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE BOMANS 325
riess, and do not fall from His favour by unbelief : for other- wise, if thou do, thou also shalt be cut off. 23. And sc they also, if they do not persist in their unbelief, shall be grafted in again : for God is able to graft them in once more. 24. For if thou wast cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree ā a mere sucker and wilding, ā and wast grafted contrary to nature, into a good olive tree : how much more shall these ā God's own people, ā who are the natural branches, be re-grafted into their own olive tree?
But the apparent contradiction of the promise given to Israel, in its rejection, and the calling of the Gentiles instead, has a still more full solution ! The Jews will be converted as a people !
25. For T would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery ā disclosed, as sucQ, only by divine revelation ā lest you, being heathen born, be wise, not according to fact, but from conclusions of your own minds, thinkinj Israel permanently cast off ā I would, I say, for this reason, wish you to know, that a hardening, in part, has befallen Israel, but only till the fulness of the heathen nations ā the non-Jews as a whole ā shall have come in to the Christian fold ; 26. and this having taken place, so, in the same way, all Israel, also, shall then come into it and be saved : even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer ; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27. and this is My covenant with them,^ when 1 shall take away their sins,^ this covenant will be fulfilled. 28. As toucliing the divinely ordered course of the Gospel, they are now enemies of God for your sake ; their rejection of it. which made them so, being the means of your having the Gospel preached to you ; but, as touching the choosing of the nation by God as His people, they are beloved by Him for the patriarch- fat hers' sake. 29. For the gifts and the calling of them by the unchanging God, of old, are for ever, and are not
^ Isa. lix. 20, LXX., ahridst literally. ' Isa. xxvii. 9, LXX,. ahru-.st literally.
326 THE APOSTLES A.1). 57-58
repented of by Him. 30. For as ye, heathen-born, in time past, were, yourselves, disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy through tiieir disobedience, 31. even so have these, tha Jews, also, now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown to you, they also may now also obtain mercy. 32. For God has given over all, both Jews and heathen-born, to dis- obedience, that He might, in the end, liave mercy upon all.
This divine secret, or mystery, thus disclosed by the Apostle, as received by him through revelation, calls forth from him an enthusiastic outburst of praise, with which he concludes his doctrinal arguments, and passes to practical exhortations. The conversion of the Gentile and Jewish world, as a whole, one following the other, must, in his opinion, come about in the next few years at most, as he expected Christ to come while he himself was still alive, and with Him, the resurrection, the destruction of the un- believing, and the glorifying of the saints ; the existing state of things thus closing and disappearing.^
33. O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom, and the knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out. 34. For, as Isaiah says," wlio lias known the mind of the Lord ? or who has been His counsellor ? or, in the words of Job,^ 35. Who has first given to Him, and it shall he recompensed to him again ? The wisdom of God is high above human understanding. He needs no mortal counsel to help Him to reach His end. Nor are these counsels dependent on any human service rendered, meriting a reward.
The practical section of the Epistle now begins with Ā» general exhortation to holiness.
1 1 Thess. iv. 13-17 ; 2 Thess. I 7-10.
ā¢ Isa. xl. 13, LXX., nearly literally.
* Job xli. 11, according to the sense of the Hebrew, but not of the LXXi
PAUL ^T. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 827
XII. 1. I earnestly exhort you, therefore, brethren, by yom rf;membrance of the mercies of God, which you have received, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is the true worship of your reasonable being ā moral and spiritual. 2. And be not conformed to the ways of this age ā the time before the appearing of our Lord ā but be transformed to another ideal, by the renewing of your mind, that y?y may prove, in your blessed experience, what is the will of God ā -the good, the well-pleasing, the perfect 1
Exhortation to humility and modesty.
3. For I say, through the authority of the grace of apostle- ship that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think ; but so to think of himself as to do it soberly, according as God has dealt to each man a greater or smaller measure of faith. 4. For as ue have many members in one body, and all mem- bers have not the same ofl&ce : 5. so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, but, severally, in the relations of each to the rest, members, as it were, one of another ; our utmost powers being at the service of all, and due to each.
Humility and modesty are especially demanded in the exercise of any official gifts.
6. Since, moreover, we have spiritual gifts, varying accord- ing to the special gracious endowment that has been granted us ; if so be that one has the gift of prophecy, let him exercise it according to the measure of faith which he possesses; 7. or if it be ministering to the poor, the sick, or strangers, let him keep himself to this ministry; or if one teach os, let him keep himself to his teaching ; 8. or if one exhorts, let him keep to his exhorting : he who gives alms to the poor, let him do it in singleness of heart, with no selfish pride, vanity, or ulterior aims ; if one be the ruler or president in the church assembly, let him rule with zeal, earnestly and energetically fulfilling the duties of his ofB.ce ; if he give himself to deeds of compas-
328 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
sion, ā to comfort, counsel, and help the sufferinij or unfor- tunate, let him do it with cheerfulness, not as if unwillingly or hy constraint.
Exhortation to brotherly love, unity, and a forgiving spirit.
9. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 10. In your love of the brethren be tenderly Jiffectioned one to another ; in rendering due honour to each ether, do so hy putting your brother before yourselves. 11. Be assiduous in your zeal for Christ: fervent in spirit; in all things serving the Lord; 12. rejoicing in your hope; steadfast in tribulation; persevering steadfastly in prayer; 13. sharing in the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality. 14. Bless them who persecute you; bless, and do not curse, as others do, those who injure you. 15. Rejoice with the joyful, and weep with those who weep. 16. Be of the same mind ā the same kindly respectful love ā one towards another, that you all may he one. Do not aspire after high, ambitious aims, but stoop to what is lowly ā to humble services and humble interests. Be not wise in your own conceits. 17. Bender to no man evil for evil. Make it your care to live a good life in the sight of all men.^ 18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, be at peace with all men. 19. Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place, as your avenger, to the wrath of God; for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.^ 20. Rather, If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him dHnk ; for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head ā kind- ling in his soul hitter shame and penitence.* 21. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
The fierce love of freedom which breaks out incidentally
* A reminiscence of Prov. iii. 4, LXX., with variation. ' Deut. xxxii. 35, LXX., but not verbatina.
* Prov. XXV. 21, LXX. The metaphor seems taken from the melting of metal.
tĀ»AUL .^rr. e. 47-48 the epistle to the Romans 32i)
in the (^ospels,^ as a passion of the Jews of the day, had been intensified, if possible, since the wild insurrection of Judas of Gaulonitis, in the childliood of our Lord,^ and had led, shortly before this E}>istle was written, to disturb- ances in Rome itself.^ This greatly increased the need of civil loyalty among the Christians, including even the heathen-born brethren, since they, also, might easily be seduced by the Messianic dreams of their Jewish friends in the Church, to false ideas about their duties to the existing government. Confessedly expecting the Messiah, and regarded by the authoiities as a Jewish sect, all Christians were exposed to the suspicion of revolutionary designs, and Rome, beyond any other place, from its being the seat of world-empire, was exposed to the rise of such suspicion, so that it was especially necessary that the Roman Christians should show exemplary obedience to the laws. Hence, Paul now enforces the injunctions, met once and again in his Epistles, by express and strong inculcation of faithful submission to the authorities ; be- ginning his counsels as a new subject, having no connec- tion with what precedes.
XIII. 1. Let every one be subject to the higher powers ; for there is no authority that does not come from God ; and hence the powers tLat be are ordained of God. 2. Therefore he that sets himself against the existing authority, opposes the ordinance of God ; and they who set themselves against it will draw down on themselves the judgment of God. 3. For rulers are not a terror to the good work to which Christians devote their lives, but to the evil. Wouldest thou, then.
1 John viii. 33 ; Matt xxii. 17.
' Jos. Aiit. xviii. 1, 1 ; Acta v. 37. Geikie's "Life of Christ," i. 257* 271, 283, 297.
ā¢ Suet. Claud. 25 ; Cass. Diolx. 6 ; Acts xviii. S,
330 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
have no fear of the holder of power t do what is good, and, instead of harm, thou shalt have praise from him ; 4. for, in that case, he is an instrument of God for good to thee. But if thou do what is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not the sword of justice without a purpose ; for he is a minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath on him who does evil. 5. On this account it is imperative that you be quietly subject to the laws, not only for fear of the wrath or authority, but, also, as a moral duty, for conscience' sake. 6. For this cause, indeed, you pay government imposts also, for they, the authorities, are public servants of God, attending continually to this very thing, ā the fulfilling this service sanctioned by God. 7. Render, therefore, to all the authorities their re- spective dues; taxes, to him who collects taxes; custom- duties, to him who gathers these; reverence, to whom it should be paid ; honourable respect to him who is entitled to it from his position.
Love is the true fulfilling of the law ; Bee that they cherish it !
8, Owe no man anything, except to love one another more and more ; for though you can pay off all other debts, you can never love enough ; in that each must always be the debtor of the other ; for he who really loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law. 9. For the command of the law which says. Thou shalt not commit adultery ; Thou shalt not kill ; TTiou shalt not steal ; Thou shalt not covet; and any other command- ment there may be, is summed up in this word of the law, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.^ 10. Love does no wrong to his neighbour ; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
An all-powerful motive to zeal in acting on this and
other exhortations lies in the near approaching Return of
Christ !
Ā» Exod. XX. 13-17, LXX. ; Lev. xix. 18, LXX.
PAUL MT. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 331
11. This, indeed, it is fitting you should do, since you know the gravity of the time, with its many signs of the near end of this economy; so that, indeed, it is now high time for you to wake out of sleep : for now is salvation ā at the coming of the Lord ^ ā nearer to us than when we first became Christians ā that is, believed. 12. The night ā this time before Christ's coming, while as yet the present state of things survives ā is far spent, and the day, which the coming of the Lord brings, is at hand : let us. therefore, cast off", like the wrappings under which we slept, the works of darkness ā that is, of this present time ā and let us put on the clothing of the day, now so near ā the armour of spiri- tual light, meet for the Children of Light.^ 13. Let us walk in keeping with our profession,^ as if we were already in the day ; not in night-revels and drinking parties, not in harlotry and lewdness, not in the strife and jealousy that follow such courses. 14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, clothe your spirit with His, as you clothe your body with its garments ; live in the closest fellowship with Him, in life and thought, alike in what you do, and what you shun, and take no thought towards the satisfac- tion of the lusts of the flesh ā your sinful nature.
At Rome, as elsewhere, there were Jewish-Christians who still clung to the legalism which the new faith was designed to supersede, though they do not appear to have contended for the necessity of circumcision, nor to have taken a position of hostility to Paul, such as their brethren, in other parts, assumed. Hence the Apostle addresses them tenderly, avoiding the painful discussions which he had felt necessary in other cases. They were, in fact, not hostile, but troubled with conscientious scruples, which
ā¢ 1 These, iv. 16 ff.
ā¢ Rom. vi. 13 ; 2 Cr. vi. 7 ; x. 4 ; 1 Thess. v. 8 ; Eph. H 11-17.
ā¢ 1 Thess. iv. 12 ; 1 Cor. vii. 35 ; xiv. 40.
332 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
could not see the way to lay aside the legal austerities in use among many of their race, in Palestine. They ate no flesh, and drank no wine, and rigidly observed all the holy days of ultra-Judaism ; feeling aggrieved at brethren who were not so strict, and in turn earning their ridicule. Yet, though going beyond the rabbinical precepts, which forbade only flesh killed by heathen, and their wines,^ and copying in great measure the Nazarite ideas of the Essenes, as to strong drink, and their anxious striving after doing something more than the law required as to animal food,^ they do not appear to have separated themselves, as the Jewish-Christians of Antioch had done, from eating with their heathen- born fellow -Christians. Very possibly, among the multitudes of Jewish prisoners of war brouglit to Italy at one time or other, there had been a number of ultra-puritan Essenes, some of whom had become Chris- tians. The Apostle opens his counsels respecting these worthy but not very strong-minded brethren, by demand- ing a true brotherly feeling towards the weak, noticing the points on which the two parties differed, and then showing how each should regard these disputed matters, and on what ground they should be thus charitable ; condemning, also, any other course than he recommends, as blameworthy and forbidden.
XIV. 1. Him who is weak in faith, regarding outward observances as binding, which are indiflferent to one who has a deeper knowledge of Christianity, receive ye as a brother, yet not to trouble him with disputations on these do\ibtful points, so as, perhaps, to lead him to do what his conscience might afterwards condemn, or perhaps to excite
^ Eisenmenger, ii. 616 ff.
2 ^os. Bell. Jud., ii. 8 ; Ant. x. 8, 1.
PAUL Mr. C. 47-48 THE EPTSTT.E TO THE ROMANS 338
angry differences on non-essentials. 2. One man is con- vinced that he may eat anything : but he that is weak eats only herbs. 3. Let not him that eats all things look down on him who does not; and let not him who does not eat thus freely, judge him to act unworthily who eats without ques- tion : for God Himself has received him into His fellowship, through Christ. 4. Who ait thou that thus judgest one who is not thy servant, but the servant of anotherā of God? To his own lord he stands or falls, as to his conduct, but he will be cleared by him and made to stand ; for the Lord has power, by giving such an one grace, to make him stand firm in the Christian life. 5. One man esteems one day as holy or not holy, compared with another day : another esteems every day alike, as to that. I speak not of the universally observed festival days of the Jews, which the heathen- born disregard, but of special voluntary fast-days, and similar self-imposed holy seasons. As to these, it is enough that each person be fully persuaded, in his own mind, that he is doing rightly. 6. He that regards the day as speci- ally holy, regards it so, in the belief that it is the will of the Lord he should, and in this belief, devotes it to Him and His service : and, in the same way. he who eats all things, does so in the belief that his course is acceptable to the Lord, and that his communion with Him is not affected by his eating or not eating, this or that, for he blesses God for what he eats, before eating it. which he could not do if he thought that God had forbidden its use ; and so he who does not eat flesh refrains from it as forbidden by God. and gives thanks to Him over his vegetable meal, which, alone, he thinks divinely sanctioned.
The principle on which Paul bases his counsel is as
follows : ā
7. For no one of us lives to himself, as if his life were his own, for his own aims and interests, nnd no one of us dies to himself, for even the death of a Christian is part of his union
334 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
with Christ ā ^he dies "in the Lord/'^ 8. For if we live, we live to the Lord ; or if we die, we die to the Lord : whether, therefore, we live or die, we are the Lord's ā we belong to Him. 9. For to this end, in the divine counsels, Christ died, and was raised from the dead, that He might be Lord of both the dead ā those in the grave, ^ ā and of the living.
Any other bearing to each other than that urged is
blameworthy and forbidden,
10. But, if this be so, 0 thou who judgest thy brother, why dost thou do so? or why, again, O thou who settest at nought thy brother, why dost thou do so? for we shall all, alike, stand before the judgment-seat of God. 11. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, to Twe, as supreme Judge, every knee shall hoio, and every tongue shall give glory to God, as such.' 12. So, then, since each one of us shall give account of him- self to God, how presumptuous to judge or contemn others, instead of examining our own hearts, in prospect of this universal assize !
Christians must not sit in judgment thus on each other, but rather make it their care to give no one a cause of stumbling. This counsel is enlarged upon, and exhorta- tions to practise it are added. He speaks, now, to the strong-minded brethren.
13. Let us, therefore, not judge one another any more : but rather judge, each, himself, in this, that no one put a stum- bling-block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling. 14. I know and am persuaded, in my pondering over the teachings of the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself, by its nature ā but yet, to him who regards anything to be unclean, to him it is imclean, and may conscientiously ba
1 Rev. xiT. 13. Ā« Phil. ii. 10.
'^ Isa. xlv. 43, not exactly. The word rendered here ā¢' confess ** in thĀ« R.V., is rendered by it, "give thanks, praise, or glory,"ā as, indeed, thfl Dative after it requires, ā in Rom. xv. 9 ; Matt. xi. 25 ; Luke x. 21.
PAUL ^T. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 335
treated as such, though I, myself, hold that the food-laws of the Old Testament have been cancelled by God ; the ending of the law having come in Christ. Yet the scruples of a brother must be respected. 15. For if thy brother be troubled because of some kind of food thou eatest, and thou persistest in eating it, thou walkest no longer in love. Destroy not by thy food, him for whom Christ died, by leading him, through your example, to sin against his conscience. 16. Let not, then, your priceless good in the salvation of Christ be evil spoken of by those around, by your judging, and making little of each other about eating and drinking, which may very easily be made a ground of ridicule of Christianity. 17. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteous- ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 18. For he who in these three ways serves Christ, is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men. 19. So then, let us strive after the things that make for peace, and enable us to build each other up in the Christian life. 20. Do not, instead of this, pull down the work of God, for the sake of meat ! All things are, no doubt, clean, but, yet, anything is evil for the man who eats it against his conscience. 21. It is good not to eat flesh, or to drink wine, or to do anything by which thy brother is made to stumble. 22. The faith thou hast, as to the indifference of such outward things, keep to thyself, before God, as witness to it, but do not show it before men, lest thou harm thy weak brother. Happy is he who is so convinced of his acting rightly, as not to have to judge or condemn himself in respect to what he thus approves ; he escapes the distress of those who are in doubt as to their actions. 23. But he who, when he eats, doubts whether he be doing right, is condemned by thus eating against his conscience, because he has no faith that he is right in his eating; and whatever a man does without having this firm persuasion, or faith, is sin.
A further exhortation to the strong, to bear with the weak, after the example of Christ. Having shown the
336 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
ruinous consequences of indulging one's self contrary to conscience, the Apostle points out the obligations of the strong in faith towards a weaker brother, exposed to such a danger.
XV. 1. We, therefore, who are strong in faith, are under obligation to bear with the infirmities of those who are weak, as shown in the stress they lay on abstaining from flesh and wine, and on the observance of voluntary fasts and holy days, or on other indifferent matters ā and not selfishly indulge ourselves, without regard to the scruples of these feeble ones. 2. Let each of us, therefore, seek to please his neighbour, for his good, in building up his Christian life. 3. For even Christ did not live to please Himself ; but rather, in keeping with the words of the Psalm,i He could say. The reproaches of them that rei^roached thee fell upon Me : the rage of the enemies of God being poured out on Him, and He not shrinking from it, in His zeal for our salvation. 4. For all that was written of old was written for our instruction, that through the patient endurance of trial, and the consolation which the Scriptures supply, we might have a good hope of sharing the glory of Christ's kingdom, when He comes.
The fervour of the Apostle breaks out into an earnest prayer for their true unity of heart.
5. Now, the God who is the source of patience and of conso- lation grant you to cherish a spirit of union with each other, according to the will and example of Christ Jesus : 6. that you may all, both strong and weak, with one heart, and one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
They are, both Jews and heathen-born, strong and weak, to give themselves to mutual brotherly intercourse and fellowship ā receiving and treating each other, with all friendship and kindness, as Christ had received, and drawn
1 Ps. Hx. 9, LXX.
^AUL ^T. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 837
to His side, all of them, without distinction of race or their lesser differences of view.
7. Wherefore receive ye one another into loving brotherly coramimion, as Christ also received you into fellowship with Himself, to the glory of God. 8. To explain what I mean by Christ's receiving us, more fully, I say that Christ has been made by God a minister of salvation to the Circumcision, that is, to the Jews, for the vindication of the truthfulness of God, that He might thus confirm the promises given to the fathers ; 9. and, further, that, through their temporary rejection of the Gospel, it might be preached to the heathen, that they also might be saved, and glorify God for His mercy, in extend- ing its blessings to them ; as it is written,^ Therefore ivill I give praise unto Thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto Thy name. 10. And again, ^ Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His people. 11. And again,8 Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and let all the peoples praise Him. 12. And, again, Isaiah says,* There shall he the root of Jesse, and He that arises to rule over the Gentiles ; on Him shall the Gentiles hope.
It is thus shown that the union of the Jews to Christ was in fulfilment of their claims as the people of God ; and that of the Gentiles to Him, a free gift of Divine mercy. Hence the heathen-born Christians, with all their strong and clear faith, should look with high esteem on their weaker Jewish brethren, and walk humbly, as owing their salvation to God's pity, when the Jews had for the time turned aside. He, therefore, very appropriately, sends His blessing on all.
13. Now, the God who is the author of our hope, fill you one and all with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost, work ing in you.
1 Pa. xviii. 49, LXX. ā¢ Deut xxxii. 43, LXX.
Ā» Ps. cxvii. 1, LXX * Isa. xi. 10, LXX
in. Y
338 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
He has now closed his teachiug and exhortations, but adds, as it were, a postscript, which echoes in great mea- sure, the opening of the Epistle. In this he first testifies to his firm confidence in his readers, and justifies his some- times bold language by his office, as apostle to the heathen- born.
14. But I, for my part, am convinced respecting you, my brethren, that you are, in yourselves, full of good brotherly feeling towards each other, and of all knowle(lge of Christian truth, and well able, without any one's help, to counsel one another. 16. But I have written to you in some degree more boldly than is my wont, to remind you again of the duty of brotherly union, because of the gracious commission that was given me of God, 16. that I should be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ; ministering with full authority, the Gospel of God, that the Gentiles, converted through me, and thereby consecrated to God as belonging to Him, might be presented to Him by me, a spiritual priest of Jesus Christ, as a well-pleasing offering, sanctified, as they are, by the Holy Ghost, which they have received through my preaching.
His abundant work for Christ further entitles him to write freely to them.
17. I have, therefore, my ground for glorying in Christ Jesus, not in myself, but, as regards the relation in which 1 stand to God, for I serve His Grospel as if I were a priest, presenting to Him the Gentiles as a grateful offering. 18 For I will not make bold to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me, to lead the Gentiles to obedience, by preaching and working, 19. in the power gra.ited me of showing signs and wondiers, wrought by me through the power of the Holy Ghost, so that from Jerusalem, and
PAUL MT. e. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 339
round about even to Illyricum,^ I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ. 20. Moreover, I made it a point of honour not to preach the Gospel where Christ w&s already made known, that I might not build on another man's foundation ; 21. but, as it is written,^ They shall see, to whom no tidmys oj Him came, and they who have not heard shall understand.
The necessity for this wide missionary activity in the regions east of Italy had hitherto prevented the Apostle from coming to Rome. Now, however, having no more work in these countries ā from Jerusalem to Illyricum ā he feels able, at last, to think of visiting the West. He had preached mainly in the chief towns of the lands through which he had passed, and in the districts im- mediately round them, and had founded many churches. These would, he believed, be able, by the labours of other teachers, and especially of men trained by himself while in each locality, to spread Christianity over the whole of the various provinces, and hence, he felt that his Apostolic duties in reference to them were discharged, leaving him free to go to the farther West, where Christ had not as yet been made known ; Spain being the first country he designed to visit. It seems as if his idea, that he had no more call to stay in the lands he had, at best, so superficially evangelised, must have been connected with his expectation of the nearness of the coming of Christ, before which all the Gentiles must hear the Gospel.^
22. On this account, also. ā my work east of Italy, ā I have been hindered many times, from coming to you ; 23. but, now,
^ Gibbon makes Illyricum include the present Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia (i. 36). ' Isa. lii. 6, LXX. Ā» R<>m. xi, 25.
340 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
having no more any place in these regions, and having for many years longed to visit yon, I will at last do so, 24. as soon as 1 make my journey to Spain ā for I hope to see you on the way, and to be sent forward, with travelling companions, by you, b;& is usually done by the churches, after I have in some measure satisfied my craving for personal spiritual com- Diunion with you ; for I do not propose to do more than, as it were, go through the great city ; the faith being already established in it, so that it is another's foundation, on which I would not attempt to build. 25. But, now, I am on the point of setting out for Jerusalem, in the service of the saints there. 26. For it Jias been the kind pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are in Jerusalem, all, happily, not being poor. 27. Indeed, it has been a pleasure to them, and they are debtors to them, for the Gospel had come to them from Jerusalem, in the beginning. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them, in return, to make them a thankofFering in carnal things. 28. When, therefore, I have accomplished this, and have delivered over safely to them this fruit of true hrotherhood, I will go on, by you, into Spain. 29. And I know that, wiien I do come to you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ.
Even now, however, Paul anticipates rough treatment* from the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem,^ and possibly, also, from some of the local Jewish- Christians ā the very saints he was working so hard to benefit, ā for was he not unsound as to the necessity of all converts keeping the whole law,* and had not the collection been set on foot, and carried out, among the heathen-born churches, by him? He therefore asks in touching words for the prayers of the Eomans on his behalf,
* Acts XX. 22 flf. ; xxi. 10 ff. * Acts xiv. 2.
' Ibid.
PAUL JET. C. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 341
30. But I besoeoh you, brethren, by onr Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love in-WTonglit in us by the Spirit, that ye wrestle, along with me, in your prayers to God for me: 31. that I may be delivered from the unbelieving Jews in JudĀ£ea, and that my ministration of help, which I carry with me for Jerusalem, may be acceptable to the saints there ; 32. that I may come to you in joy, by the will of God, and be refreshed in your society by our sweet Christian intercourse. 33. The God of peace ā that peace which I, especially, and you also, need, be with you all. Amen 1
The Epistle closes with a long series of kindly greet- ings. As we have seen, tbey have been thought by some to be part of a letter to the Ephesians, accidentally misplaced by some early scribe ; although Phoebe, who is commended to the loving regards of the Koman Church, in the first verses, may well have been the bearer of the Epistle from Corinth. Nor is it wonderful to find Aquila and Priscilla again in Rome, for the Jew was always moving from place to place, as work, or prospect of business, led him. It certainly seems strange, how- ever, that Paul, although never, as yet, in Rome, should not only have known so many of the local Christians by name, even specifying some as having been his "fellow- prisoners," and giving many details respecting indi- viduals. Still, he may have heard a great deal from passers through Corinth, or Roman Christians for the time settled there. It is impossible, indeed, to speak positively for either supposition. The chapter may have been part of another Epistle, but its present position is, so far, in favour of its giving us a glance into the little community on the Tiber, though so many Ephesian coincidence s are curious.
342 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-58
XYI. 1. I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a deaconess, or servant, of the church at Oenchrese, ā ministering to the poor and the sick ; ^ 2. that ye receive her, as a fellow- Christian, in the Lord, in a manner worthy of her and of yourselves as saints, and that ye assist her in whatever matter she may need your aid ; for she, herself, had been a succourer of many, and of me, myself, among others.
3, Salute Prisca and Aquil.i, my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus at Corinth and at Ephesus, 4. who, for my life, as it were, laid down their own necks to the executioner's axe ; whom not only I, but also all the churches of the Gentiles, my creations, thank for such loving devotion. 5. Salute, also, the church that assembles at their house. Salute Epse- netus, my beloved, who is the first convert of "Asia" to Christ. 6. Salute Mary, who bestowed much labour on you. 7. Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, as Israel- ites, and my fellow-prisoners, men of Jerusalem, who are of note among the apostles, and who, also, have been in Christ before me. 8. Salute Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9. Salute Urbanus, our fellow-worker in Christ, and Stachys, my beloved. 10. Salute Apelles, the brother proved faithful in Christ. Salute those brethren who are of the household 2 of Aristobulus. 11. Salute Herodion, my kinsman as an Israelite. Salute those who are of the household ^ of Narcissus, who are in the Lord. 12. Salute Tryphsena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord. Salute Persis, the beloved, who laboured much in the Lord. 13. Salute Kufus, the chosen in the Lord, and his mother, whom I may call mine also, for her tender love and care towards me. 14. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brethren that are with them. 15. Salute Philologus and Julia, ISTereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are with them. 16. Salute one
* Bingham's Origines, i. 341-366. ā Slaves, no doubt, for " households " were made up of slaves.
PAUL ^T. e. 47-48 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 343
another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ salute you.i
Before closing, he adds a brief supplementary warning against the brethren allowing themselves to be disturbed by the " false teachers " who had created trouble in so many places. They might appear in Rome, and his few words would guard the church from their seductions. He was evidently afraid that the Judaisers, who had elsewhere so fiercely assailed his teaching, might show themselves in the imperial city.
* For a notice of Prisca, or Priscilla, and Aquila, verse 8, iee voL i. pp. 459, 507. 5. Epaenetus ; unknown. 6. Mary ; shown by her name to have been a Jewess ; apparently exemplary for her services to the sick and poor. 7. The term " kinsmen " applied to three names shows that the rest, except Aquila, his wife, and "Mary," were heathen-born. Andronicus was a common name for a Greek slave ; perhaps, in this case, of a freedman who had belonged to a Greek. Junias is a Roman name, and may mark a Roman slave ; its bearer being a Jew. These two had, perhaps, been prisoners with Paul at Ephesus. 8. " My beloved," used of several persons named, seems to imply that they were converts of Paul. Ampliatus, and most of the names that follow, were names given to slaves. 9. Urbanus is Latin ; Stachys, and Apelles, Greek. " Aris- tobulus " may point to some descendant of Herod. The government of Lesser Armenia was given to one of his great-grandsons, of that name, by Nero, in A.D. 55, and this person had, very possibly, lived, previously, in Rome. 11. The name Herodion probably indicates a freedman of some Herodian prince. Narcissus may have been the favourite of Nero, of that name. He was put to death by Galba. 12. These two names point to slaves or freedwomen ; probably sisters. 14. "The brethren that are with them " may refer to five small churches, meeting in the lowly homes of the five persons named. 15. Philologus and Julia were probably man and wife. Small churches appear to have gathered in the home of each of the persons mentioned in this verse. 16. The custom of antiquity, especially among Eastern nations, and particularly among the Jews, of saluting each other with a kiss, was the origin of the holy kiss among Christians, as expressive of holy Christian love ; a custom gradually allowed to fall out of use, as the occasion of scandal, real or alleged. Paul had doubtless told all the churches he had visited that he proposed to go to Rome, and they would all send their affectionate greethiga.
,'^44 THE APOSTLES A.D. 57-5 S
17. Now I beseecli you, brethren, mark them who are caus- ing, elsewhere, the divisions and causes of stumbling, of wliicli you have heard, contrary to the teaching which you learned from me, or from those who hold my views ; and turn away from them. 18. For these people serve not our Lord Christ, but their own stomach ā seeking only a good living out of their creel ; and by their smooth and fair speech beguile the hearts of the unsuspecting. 19. I have, indeed, every confidence that you will not be led astray, for your obedience to the Gospel, as I announce it, has made itself known every- where. I, therefore, rejoice over you, in this confidence : but yet cannot refrain from a warning note, because I fondly wish you to be wise in regard to what is sound and good, and pure towards that which is evil ; keeping your uncor- rupted faith from every de lement. 20. And the God of peace will give you a great triumph, if these disturbers appear, for He will crush down these sectaries, who, as contrary to Christ, are organs of Satan, under your feet, very shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
He has not, as yet, sent any greetings from his fellow- workers in his little circle at Corinth. Now, however, he adds their kindly messages of brotherhood.
21. Timothy, my fellow- worker, salutes you; and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, who are Jews.^ 22. I, Tertius, who write this Epistle, from Paul's dictation, salute you in the Lord. 23. Gains, whom I myself baptized, now my host, here, in Corinth, and, indeed, the host of the whole Church, salutes you. 2 Erastus, the treasurer of the city, salutes you, and Quartus, the brother.*
* There was a Jason at Thessalonica (Acts xvii. 5 ff.). Lucius is not Luke. He may possibly have been Lucius of Cyrene (Acts xiii. 1). Sosi- pater may well be him of Bercea (Acts xx. 4). The three had apparently been companions of Paul on his journeyings.
2 1 Cor. i. 14.
* Not the Erastus of Acts xix. 22. Quartus, we may presume, had been in Rome, and was known to the church th^ve.
PAUL ^T. C. 47-4 S TIIK FTISILE TO THE ROMANS 345
The Apostle ends his letter by the Doxology, commend- ing the Roman Christians tenderly to God, and embodying in his words a compendious allusion to the sum of all hifl teaching.
25. Now to Him that is able to stablish you, according to
my Gospel, and the true preaching of Jesus Christ, in harmony with the revelation of the mystery which, till now, has been kept unspoken, through times eternal, 26. but is now disclosed fully, and made known by the writings of the prophets, accord- ing to the command of the eternal God, to all the nations, to bring tliem to the obedience 27. of faith, in Him, the only wise God. through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever. Amen !
CHAPTER X
PALESTINE IN THESE TEABS A.D. 52-58; Paul's age, c 42-48
Things had been far from settled in Judaea since Panl had left it for his third missionary journey, apparently in the lat-e summer of the year a.d. 55. Some time before the fall of the procurator Cumanus,^ in the year A.D. 52, Pallas, the freedman- favourite of the Emperor Claudius, had elevated his brother Felix, likewise a freedman, to the procuratorship of Samaria, which he made a separate sub- province for the purpose. The death of Herod Agrippa, in the year a.d. 44, had closed the flattering interval of the government of the Jews by their own laws, under a pretendedly zealous Israelite, and had handed them over to the horrors of direct subjection to the woman-and-slave rule, which passed for that of the weak emperor. Twenty years of whirling confusion and commotion followed, end- ing in the final war with Rome, in which the Jewish state, and Jerusalem, its capital, sank in ruins. Having enjoyed freedom for three vears, it was intolerable to be thrust back again into the rough hands of procurators, and revolt followed revolt, till the flames burst out in a conflagration in which the nation perished.
Felix, a freedman ā and, as such, of a class on whom the lowest Roman or provincial of free-born lineage looked down with abysmal contempt, like that now felt towarda
^ See vol. L p. 29&
PAUL MT. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THERE YEARS 347
the negro in the Southern American States ā was the first instance of a manumitted slave having been intrusted with Bupreme rule over a province, with the full rights of local sovereignty. Finding Cumanus too feeble to prevent fierce attacks, by his Jewish subjects, on the hated Sama- ritans, Felix took it into his own hands to punish them, and defend his borders from their raids. Organising a Samaritan militia, and not scrupling to employ even his Roman troops against those of Cumanus, he at least secured plunder for himself, however little either procuratorsliip benefited by his energy. The soldiery stationed at Samaria had been ordered to remote and hated Pontus, as a punish- ment for their mutinous violence at the death of Herod Agrippa, but to the sore regret of the Jews this had not been acted on, and they were still in their old quarters, eager for every opportunity of gratifying the mutual hatred of the two races. The Governor-General of Syria, however, hearing, at last, of this virtual war, ordered Cumanus to bridle the lawlessness of Judaea, which he presently did, by marching his whole force from Cagsarea to Jerusalem, and telling the Jews that, if they did not cease their burnings and slaughter in Samaria, he would give up the Holy City to plunder, sell the population as slaves, and burn down the Temple. These threats awed them to quiet. The guerilla leaders disbanded their followers, and Eleazer, their generalissimo, with his hordes, slunk off to the caves in the Galilaean hills.^ The deposition of Cumanus came soon after, and Felix was promoted to his place, ā a miserable result for the Jews, against whom their new ruler had so cruelly sinned ;2 Agrippa's son, who was also
* Job. xix. 9, 2 ; Tac. Ann. xii. 54.
Ā« Jos. Ant. XX. 5, 8 ; Bell. Jud. ii. 12, 5.
348 THE APOSTLES A.D. 52-58
called Agrippa, receiving, next year, the principality of Chalcis, one of the ten subdivisions of the great Syrian province, lying between Antioch and the Euphrates,ā -in- stead of succeeding to his father's throne.
This was the position of affairs at the death of Claudius, and as Pallas retained power for two years after the murder of the Emperor, Felix continued in his fateful dignity, ā a freedman, says Tacitus, who governed with the soul of a slave.^ But Caesarism had confounded all the old Eoman distinctions of birth and dignity, for this slave, by having a brother acting as vice-emperor, waa able to marry three royal brides in succession ; ^ one of them, the grand-daughter of Cleopatra and Antony ; thug actually allying the " slave " to the imperial house ! In Palestine, he came to know Drusilla, the youngest daughter of Herod Agrippa, wife of the King of Emesa, a city and district on the Orontes, immediately north of the Lebanon range. Felix had fallen in love with the fair Jewess at first sight, and found means, by exciting her ambition through a secret agent sent to Emesa, of winning her to his purpose. The envoy, one Simon of Samaria, a " magician," ā was he Simon Magus of the Acts ? ā made skilful use of existing ill-will between Drusilla and her sister Berenice, to influence the former. That she would be far grander than Berenice, if she became sister-in- law of the mighty Pallas, by marrying Felix, decided her. Fleeing from her husband, who had stooped to be made a Jew, to get her, she hurried off and married the elderly freedman-procurator. After the wedding, more- over, she was strong-minded enough to live with Felix in the palace built by Herod the Great, in Ca^sarea, the scene Ā» Tac. ffiat. v. 9. ' Suet. Claud. 28.
PAUL ^T. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THESE YEARS 349
of the awfully sudden death of her father. The match served the public interests of Felix as well as his baser passions, by connecting him, among the troublesome Jews, with their late Jew-king, and as the marriage took place before his elevation to the procuratorship of Judaea, it may have helped him to obtain that promotion. Dru- silla was also of use to him in questions connected with Jewish law and customs.^ He had the advantage of having become brother-in-law of the young Agrippa, moreover, who was presently advanced by Nero to be successor of Herod-Philip, across the Jordan, while, as prince of Chalcis, he was president of the Jerusalem Temple autho- rities, though this serviceable relationship was dimmed by the fact that Agrippa was his rival for court favour. The great hope of the son of the dead king was, that the Roman procuratorship might be speedily ended. He had never ceased to press for the enjoyment of his rights, since, as a lad of sixteen, he had been overreached by Pallas, at the death of his father. Claudius was, himself, favourable to him, and could he have obtained access to the emperor, his suit would probably have been suc- cessful. But Pallas knew how to keep him away from the presence chamber, and jBnally, in a.d. 48, as we have seen, he was partially consoled by being made Prince of Chalcis. There, Berenice, his sister, the widow of the dead prince of that district, kept court for Agrippa ; he, himself, being often at Rome on his ambitions schemes, or in Jerusalem, attending to Temple affairs. That his eldest sister should be mistress of his house, and even more, was an arjangement to which the imperial family had accustomed the world. Caligula had made his own
* Acts xxiv 24.
350 THE APOSTLES A.D. 52-58
sister, Drnsilla, his mistress. Claudius had borne the same relation to his niece, Agrippina, and she, in her turn, did not shrink from becoming mistress to her own son. With such imperial examples before them, Agrippa and Berenice, though nominally Jews, would not come behind the fashion, and consequently lived as man and wife. The reputation of the princess and of her sisters, all beautiful women, was, indeed, so low, even before their father's death, that, as we have seen, when he died, the troops at Samaria carried off their busts from their father's palace, and set them up over houses of ill fame.^ Soon after this, a previous betrothal having been broken off, Berenice had been married to an elder brother of her father, Herod of Chalcis, and became the mother of two sons. Her husband, however, an old man, died when she was still only twenty-one, and in the height of her beauty, and Agrippa, with the kingdom, inherited her also ; every one soon being convinced that the two stood in very for- bidden relations to each other. Some lines of Juvenal show how she was regarded at Eome ; a jewel of hers, for sale in a merchant's shop, calling forth the scathing condemnation : ā
" That far-famed gem which Berenice wore, The hire of incest, and thence valued more ; A brother's present, in that barbarous state, Where kings, the Sabbath, barefoot celebrate." ā¢
The scandal having, however, become too great, Berenice agreed to marry Polemon, King of Pontus, who cared more for her fortune and influence than for herself, but he was required to submit to circumcision before so good a Jewess
* Jos. Ant. xix. 9, 1.
* Juv. Sat. vi. 230-233, Giflford's trani.
PAUL iET. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THESE YEARS 351
could wed him. She soon left him, however, prefer- riDg her brother, and facing the shame unblushingly.^ Henceforth, she became the inspiring soul of the Hero- dean family politics, at home and abroad ; her abilities giving her strange influence over even clever men. In A.D. 53 Agrippa had exchanged the small district of Chalcis for the more considerable territories of Philip and Lysanias, thus obtaining wide districts east of the Jordan and in Lebanon, and to these Nero added the Galilaean districts connected with Tiberias and Tarichaea, on the Lake of Galilee; Scythopolis, now Beisan, below Erdraelon. and Julias, in Perasa, with fourteen villages which were assigned to it.^ Berenice herself, also, was presented with a district in Galilee.^ Cgesarea Philippi, Agrippa's new capital, was now, in gratitude, called Neronias, and a theatre was built by him at Berytus, in which Nero's vanity was flattered by the performance of Greek plays, yearly, on his birthday festival. To pollute the land with heathen statues and images, and thus further propitiate the emperor, was nothing to Agrippa, though professedly so strict a Jew. Tiberias and Neronias were filled with them, but at the same time, all kinds of flatteries were paid the Pharisaic fanatics of Jerusalem, to keep them quiet. Eabbis were brought down to Tiberias, to instruct the king how he could most exactly celebrate the feast ot Tabernacles ; how the court should be regulated, so as not to compromise the law ; and, generally, to resolve religious difficulties which troubled the pious ruler, on this and that point ; as, for instance, why God had not included circumcision among the Ten Commandments.
^ Jos. ArU. XX. 7, 8. > Jos. Bell. ii. 13, 2 ; Ant, xx. 8, 4.
* Jos. Vita, 24.
362 THE APOSTLES A.D. 52-^58
since it was declared to be the weightiest of all the Divino requirements ? ^ But Agrippa speedily found that he could not in Judsea, be at once, " the friend of Caesar, the pious, and the friend of the Romans," as he called himself in numerous public inscriptions. The Zealots soon hated him and his heathen abominations, as bitterly as they did his abhorred ancestor, Herod the Great. Wars with the Parthians, moreover, were continuous in these years, and he, forsooth, was enthusiastic in taking part in them: his troops being generally put in the van, and thus suffering heavily.^ To his astonishment, therefore, in spite of his smooth hypocrisy, his people soon turned against him ; his schemes to free them by servility to Rome being treated with contempt.
But if the state of things in Galilee, under Agrippa, was sad, they were worse in Jerusalem, under Felix, whose fierce partisanship of the Samaritans, and cruel outrages on Judsea, before his promotion to govern it, had filled the popular mind with hatred of him. No sooner was he nomi- nated procurator than the bands of Zealots once more began their outbreaks. Pretended Messiahs, or heralds of the Messiah, sprang up in quick succession. Unpre- pared to resist such wide revolt, Felix temporised, inviting their chief man, Eleazer, a son of the famous Judas, the Gaulonite, to a private conference with him. The great- hearted Maccabean leader, believing the ex-slave, came, with many of his principal lieutenants, but only to be seized and sent to Rome to perish ; a success which did Felix little service in the eyes of his subjects. The sons of Hannas, in whose hands the high-priesthood was almost a family living, ā but especially Jonathan, who had been ^ Derenl/ourg, 252. ' Tac. AnncU. xiii. 7.
PAUL ^T. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THESE DAYS 353
liigh-priest, had used their influence on behalf of Felix, who, in fact, owed his elevation to them, but particularly to Jonathan. But this true friend, before long, became particularly obnoxious to him. Apparently the best of the family, ā he left it to the others to worry the procu- rator for selfish ends, ā and with a noble fidelity ventured to reason with him on his reckless crimes, ā for the brother of Pallas fancied he might act as he liked, with impunity. Wearied with his remonstrances, the bad man entered into a secret plot with some of the Sicarii, or assassins, to kill his too faithful monitor. Bribing his intimate friend Doras, Felix managed to get a band of these fanatics into the Temple, when Jonathan was worshipping. Mingling with his attendants, their daggers under their coats, and pretending to join in the devotions, they got close to their victim, and suddenly stabbing him, left him dying beside the altar. No investigation was permitted, and, hence- forth, taught by the ruler, the dagger men came openly into the city, mixed with the people, and secretly stabbed any one, whether Roman, Sadducee, or Pharisee, who had been proscribed by their leaders. Paul himself was, no doubt, saved from their daggers, when last in Jerusalem, by the Romans hurriedly carrying him out of the mob, into the castle Antonia, on the edge of the Temple grounds.^ Things were rapidly passing from bad to worse. Murders increased so terribly that every one dreaded his neigh- bour,2 as possibly a dagger-man.
Nor was the state of the city better than that of the country. Bands of robbers roamed all over the land, and enthusiasts or deceivers rose in quick succession, claiming to be the Christ, or His forerunner ; ^ stirring up the
^ Acts xxL 31. - Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. 13, 3. Ā» Matt xxiv. 22-20. III.
354 THE APOSTLES A.D. 52-58
people to a frenzy of excitement, by assurances that if they came out to them in the lonely wilderness of Judaea, they should have miraculous proofs that God would free the nation by their hands. Felix, however, was little disposed to let such embryo insurrections make head, and roughly suppressed them by his soldiery. It seemed, nevertheless, a hopeless struggle ; for, though horse aud foot scoured the country, no sooner was one rising dis- persed and the prisoners crucified, than other pretenders to the Messiahship rose, so that the people were in a con- tinual fever of excitement.
Among this crowd of false Christs, no one made so deep an impression on his contemporaries as an Egyptian Jew, who attracted to his standard, in the desert wastes of Judaea, according to Josephus, no fewer than 30,000 men, though in Acts the number is only given as 4000,^ and led them to the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jeru- salem ; declaring that its walls would fall down before them, as those of Jericho fell before the host of Joshua. All these fanatical visionaries, indeed, acted on the masses by promising to repeat Old Testament wonders. The Samaritan prophet had undertaken, like a second Moses, to discover the sacred vessels of the Tabernacle, on Mount Gerizim ; others had sought to repeat the miracles of the wanderings in the wilderness ; Theudas had affected the character of a second Joshua, declaring that he would lead them dryshod, over the Jordan ; and now, in A.D. 58, at the very time when Paul was on his way to Jerusalem from Corinth, for his fatal visit to it, or when he had just arrived, this Egyptian Jew was rousing the population to the wildest excitement, by promising that he would throw
^ Acts xxi. 88.
PAUL JET. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THESE DAYS 355
down the walls of Jerusalem, by his word, as those of Jericho fell before the blast of Joshua's horns. His plan, stripped of the miraculous, appears to have been, to kindle such an insurrection in Jerusalem as would put him in possession of the Temple, from which, as a citadel, he might overpower the Roman garrison, and proclaim him- self King of Israel. But Felix was too vigorous for his opponents. Massing troops in the valley of Kedron, below the Mount of Olives, he effectually barred the way to the host, while his soldiers, in other divisions, stormed the height and slaughtered many, besides carrying off many more, to line the roads with their crosses.^ The Egyptian himself, however, escaped, leaving the thousands who managed to get beyond the Roman sword, to cower in any refuge they could find, waiting for another oppor- tunity of revolt. Peace was, indeed, far from being re- stored, for the fugitive fanatics speedily gathered their bands, once more, in remote places, and initiated a fresh guerilla war over the whole land; plundering and burning down the mansions of the rich Sadducees and friends of Rome, murderiug the tax-collectors, as Roman officials, and even burning down whole villages.
To make the horrors of the time complete, the fiercest party-strife broke out in Jerusalem, between the partisans of rival factions in the higher priesthood ; the city being rent into hostile camps by it, as the old Italian cities, in Dante's words, were made " savage and unmanageable " by the feuds of the Capulets and Montagues, and the Filippeschi and Monaldi. Jonathan, son of the Hannas of the Gospels, had been put aside from the high priest- hood in A.D. 37, but, like his father, had retained great > Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. 13, 5 ; Ant. xz. 8, 6.
356 THE APOSTLES A.D. 52-58
influence from his former office, so that he was sent, a? late as a.d. 52, to Eorae, by the Governor-General of the day, in connection with the troubles in Judaea, which he managed to fix on the enemies of the Jews. It was then that he induced Claudius to send Felix as procurator, a service rewarded, as we have seen, by his murder, when he ventured to reason with the glorified slave on his enor- mities. Between his deposition, and the arrival of Paul in Jerusalem, in a.d. 59, six dignitaries, of this or that rival Sadducean family, had held the high-priesthood. Of these, Ananias, son of Nedebaios, seems to have reigned about eleven years, from a.d. 47 to 58, though he had been sent to Rome in chains by the Governor- General for his share in the raids on Samaritan territory, and had been set free only through the influence of Agrippa. Ismael, the son of Phabi, at last, succeeded him, and was reigning when Paul was brought before the authorities, but Ananias, through his wealth and violence, still exercised great authority. The priest-princes, reign- ing or deposed, kept the land, in fact, in wild confusion ; the Levites and dependents adhering to each, at last, often coming to murderous street fights in Jerusalem, while, to make matters worse, a furious quarrel broke out, between the dignified clergy and the inferior priest- hood. The great men of the church demanded the tithes which belonged to their humbler brethren, and sent bodies of their slaves and others, armed with clubs, to carry off the grain, forcibly, from the threshing-floors. The unfortunate poor priests, as might have been ex- pected, met violence with violence. Terrible conflicts were of constant occurrence ; the citizens largely ming- ling in the battle. Clubs and stoneB were soon the
PAUL iET. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THESE DAYS 357
weapons of both sides, but ultimately the high priests were able to crush their opponents, and coldly left the poor priests to die of hunger ; ever the sharpest spur to rebellion.^
The brutal sons of Hannas, and Ananias the son of Nedebaios, were the soul of this dreadful state of affairs. Felix hated the latter, as he had hated Jonathan, but could not murder hira, because Agrippa II. stood by him. It was he before whom Paul was soon to be brought, though he was then, perhaps, no longer the actual high- priest, or, at least, was so little known, amidst the whirl of priestly intrigues, as still holding the office, that Paul was not aware of his doing so.^ His character betrayed itself on that occasion, when he showed so unpriestly a violence, as to order the rough temple slaves who guarded the prisoner, to strike him on the mouth, for attempting to make any defence ; a brutality like that which had already earned him so infamous a name in connection with his treatment of the poorer priests.^ A little later, when it seemed as if Paul would be set free, he appears asso- ciated with some forty "Assassins," to get rid of the A^oostle by murder."* He became, in fact, a middleman between the league of secret murder and the procurator, who was not above using their sharp stilletos for his own ends, and by temporising with them thus, as well as by a lavish use of his ill-gotten wealth, the apostate priest managed to keep his influence for some years, till the last war had begun, largely through his intrigues and crimes. Then, however, his hour had struck. The dagger men having risen in force and burned his palace,
* Jos. Ant. XX. 8, 8. a Acts xxiii. 6.
Ā» Acts xxiii. 2 ; xxiv. 1 flf. Ā« Acta xxiii. 12-14
358 THE APOSTLES A.D. 52-58
and the palaces of Agi-ippa and Berenice, in the fury of long pent-up hatred, Ananias and his brother fled to one of the town sewers to hide, but being hunted down, were ignominiously murdered.^ Even the Talmud shows the vileness of this mitred ruffian, and bewails the degeneracy of the upper priesthood as a whole, in these last years. A Jerusalemite has left us a glimpse of the men who then wore on their high-priestly turban, the words, " Holiness to Jehovah ! " He denounces their spears, used to kill any who opposed their despotism ; their viper-like hissings of contempt at the people, their untold luxury in dress, the bands of pugilists sent out to enfore their wicked will, and their bodies of club- men ; their foul gluttony in some cases, and their table extravagance in others.^ It was asserted, in fact, of the high-priest, Ismael ben Phabi, who gained the tiara just about the time of Paul's seizure, that one of his outer robes cost a sum equal to about Ā£330, while a predecessor had always worn silk gloves ā then worth their weight in gold ā in sacrificing, to keep his fingers from being soiled ! Ananias was accused of using even the holy flesh, designed for offerings, in his feasts ; his name among the people being *' The Glutton."
Such was the state of Judaea, when Paul landed at Tyre, with the money he had brought from Corinth, as the gift of the Gentile churches at large, to the poor among the Christians of the Holy City. Under Felix, the Roman power was asleep, except in some spasmodic effort against successive pretended Messiahs and their fanatical dupes. The widespread confederacy
Ā» BtHl. Jud. ii. 17, 6.
* Beo Geikie's " Life of Christ," U. 827, for details.
PAUL iET. C. 42-48 PALESTINE IN THESE DAYS 359
of the great murder society, the dagger men, controlled the situation ; the poor priests, despised hy those above them, were starving ; the heads of the church were what we have seen ; the Pharisaic schools were silenced by the violence of the Irreconcilables, and Jerusalem itself torn by constantly renewed street battles, between rival religious factions. No wonder that the brethren at Tyre, or Agabus at Csesarea, should have implored the Apostle, in the name of the Holy Spirit, not to set foot in a place BO utterly abandoned to unbridled anarchy.
CHAPTER XI
Paul's last visit to jud^ea
A.D. 58 ; Paul's age, c. 48
Four-AND-twenty, or, as some think, nine-and- twenty, years had passed since the little band of Galilaeans had finally settled in Jerusalem, after their Master's death, to await His return, which they daily expected. Mean- while, they, and the converts to the new faith, had been zealous in their efforts to spread it ; Paul, especially, making it known, even in distant countries, so that the name of Jesus, as the Messiah, had been proclaimed not only along the Phoenician coast and in Syria, but also in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Illyricura, Greece, and Italy, in Egypt, Ethiopia, and other African provinces, as well as in the East ; converts, returning home from the great feasts, carrying the ''good seed of the king- dom" with them to we know not how many lands. But in Jerusalem, the position of the Christians had been passing steadily from bad to worse. They were, indeed, at one with the nation in expecting an end of the existing world-age, and the setting up in its place of " the kingdom of God," at any moment, but their conception of that kingdom, since the resurrection of Christ, was widely different from that of their race at large, and it must have been a constant terror to them ifhen they siw the multitude swarming out, time after
PAUL MT. C. 48 PAUL*S LAST VISIT TO JUDAEA 361
time, to the wilderness, to this or that impostor or fanatic who gave himself forth as the Christ ; for they had heard, from Jesus Himself, that He would come as a thief in the night, no one knowing the day or the hour, and the wild disturbances by false Messiahs threat- ened continually, to include them in the odium and penalties of schemes which they abhorred. Yet their thoughts were, necessarily, ever, more and more, occupied with the imminent nearness of Christ's return, as we may see from its constant mention in the Epistles, and from the full and richly coloured details of its glories supplied in the Apocalypse, which doubtless embodied and re- flected the conceptions of the Christians of the day. Still, the Palestine Chiistians had remained so faithful, in every respect, to their national religious system, that when Hannas, or " Ananus," during his brief three months' pontificate, while no procurator was in oflfice to sanction his act, after Paul had been sent as a prisoner from Caesarea to Rome, seized, and by the sentence of the San- hedrim, stoned James, the brother of Christ, and some other prominent Christians, it roused the indignation of the strictest of the citizens, by whom they were held in esteem, for their faithful observance of the law.^ Hannas was, in fact, deposed because of this outrage, by Agrippa II.
But though sheltered from danger by exact and will- ing obedience to the rabbinical precepts, in all their slavery and narrowness, the position of the brethren, like that of all the poor in those wretched times, was miser- able in the extreme. Hence the question had risen, whether such a contribution for their relief, as was sent
* Jos. Ant. XX. 9, 1.
362 THE APOSTLES A.D. $8
to Palestine, yearly, from the Jews scattered in all lands, could not be collected from the congregations of Christians in foreign countries, especially as the church in Jerusalem lingered in the Holy City, mainly from the universal expectation among the brotherhood everywhere, that Jesus would reveal Himself on Mount Zion, and set up His kingdom on it. Eagerly carrying out this idea, Paul, as we have seen, had been enthusiastic in gathering as large an amount as he could, in Galatia, "Asia," Macedonia, and Achaia, and now waited in Corinth through the winter months, anxious to finish his work there, and start for Palestine, with the bounty he had collected, on the opening of navigation in spring, A.D. 58.
The undertaking, however, proved to be one of no small danger, for the Corinthian Jews had never for- given him their repulse by Gallic, or his success in establishing a Christian church in the city, and were determined that the hated friend of the Gentiles, and reputed despiser of the law, should never reach Jerusalem alive ; an end easy to effect when he should have sailed from Cenchraea, in company with a crowd of local Jews, going up, like him, to the feast. He had, therefore, to give up the thought of a direct passage to Palestine, and was forced to fall back on the roundabout route by way of his old port, Neapolis, in Macedonia. He had been only three months in Corinth, but the pleasant hospitality of the well-to-do Gains, and his success in quieting the troubles in the Corinthian Church, must have cheered him at his starting.^
As usual, he did not go alone ; a band of no fewer
' Acts XX. is the only document relating to this time.
PAUL MT. c. 48 Paul's last visit to jud^ba 363
than iseven travel-companions accompanying him, as far, at least, as the Eoman "Asia," in Asia Minor. Of these, three were Macedonians, Sopater of Bercea, perhaps the same as Sosipater the Benjamite, or at least Jew, greeted by Paul in his Roman letter,^ and two from Thessalonica, ā Aristarchus, a friend who kept by him to the last,* and Secundus, of whom we know nothing ; two were Lycao- nians, Gains of Derbe, and Timothy, and two from the Roman "Asia," ā Tychiciis,* "a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord," and Trophimus,* an Ephesian, who was destined to be the innocent cause of Paul's arrest at Jerusalem, and of the abrupt close of his missionary life, by his being imprisoned in Caesarea and in Rome, when he was at the height of his eflS- ciency, not yet fifty, as it would seem, with apparently boundless power to work for his Master, in the far Western lands to which he had fondly hoped soon to pass. It is not said how the travellers got to Philippi, the first place mentioned as being reached, but it is hardly probable that they journeyed on foot, over the long circuit of well-nigh four hundred miles, when vessels were no doubt sailing constantly from Corinth, directly or indirectly, to Neapolis.
At Philippi, Paul had the great pleasure of again meeting St. Luke, who had remained there when the Apostle went on to Greece long years before.^ It was the opening of Passover week when he arrived, and he
1 Rom. xvi. 21. ' Geikie'a "Apostles," L 418.
Ā» Eph. vi. 21 ; Col iv. 7 ; 2 Tim. iv. 12 ; Tit. iii. 12.
* Acta xxi. 29 ; 2 Tim. iv. 20.
' Acts xvi. 40, shows by the resumption of the third person, that Luke stayed behind, while the resumption of the first person in xx. 6, shows that Paul and he were again together.
364 THE AP0.STLE3 A.D. 58
availed himself of the opportunity, to keep the feast in peaceful CliristiaD liberty, so that he was a week among the dearly loved ones of the local church. His seven travel-companions, however, had gone on to Troas, in Asia Minor, without waiting at Philippi ; the object perhaps being to prepare for the longer voyage before them ; Paul and Luke following, the week after. It had taken only two days to cross from Troas to Neapolis, on the Apostle's first entering Europe, but five days were spent on the passage, the opposite way, now ; ^ so uncertain was sailing, when the winds had to be relied upon. At last, however, they ran alongside one of the quays at Troas, of the now desolate site of which I have already spoken.^ In Paul's day, it must have been a splendid city, for its walls can still be traced round a great circuit ; fragments of splendid masonry lie among the trees now waving over the former course of busy streets; some huge granite pillars, which have hitberto escaped being cut by the Turks into stone cannon balls of huge size, such as one sees so often in these lands, are to be found in what was once a great harbour; an open- air theatre, like one I saw outside Athens, newly built, speaks of the games and contests of the ancient popu- lation, and arches of huge span, rising here and there amidst the fields, tell of noble buildings of which they
Ā«*rre the cniy remains.
^~ Lbis city Paul stayed seveu dB,ya , having, from one '^tijss cr other, been prevented from remaiuing with the bi'Atihron in the town, on his two former visits.^ Among *he days now passed, was the first of the week, which seems, beyond doubt, to have been even thus early re- Ā» Acts xTi. 11 ; XX. 6. Ā« Vol. 1. 874. ^ ^^ta xtI. 9 ; 2 Cor. iL 18.
PAUL JET. c. 48 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 365
garded by the Christians as specially sacred, from the resurrection of our Lord on it. The necessity of keeping a weekly Christian festival, distinct from the Jewish Sab- bath, must, indeed, have been felt as soon as Christianity began to separate itself from Judaism ; but the Jewish Christians long continued to hold their national Sabbath alsG.i As was usual, the local church assembled to hold its love-feast, on the evening of this holy day ; the place of meeting being an upper room, three storeys above the street. Addresses were given at these times, and then, after they were ended, the congregation partook of a supper together, at the conclusion of which, the presiding brother " broke bread," or, in other words, celebrated Holy Communion ; all receiving the bread and wine, which were the memorials of the dying love of their Lord.^ There were many lamps burning in the chamber, possibly in token of gladness as well as for illumination, so that, as Paul, when he had once begun to speak, found more to say than he could communicate in any moderate time, and was still speaking at midnight ; what with the heat, the lateness of the hour, and the sitting still, a poor lad who had chosen his place on the ledge of one of the win- ,dows, with the lattices open, was gradually borne down by deep sleep, and losing power over himself, fell out of the open window space, to the street, very many feet below. We may imagine the commotion and the loud wailing, in Eastern fashion, when, on being lifted up, the crowd which had rushed down to see the result, found he was dead. But Paul presently himself coming down, fell on him, as Elisha had once done on the Shunammite's son, and embraced him ; praying, we may be sure, that God * Euseb. iii 27 ^ j^ ^cts yy. 11. " Ate " is the word for taking a meal
366 THE APOSTLES A.D. 58
would revive him. Nor was it long before lie could tell the throng that they need not lament any longer, as his life was in him. This wondrous Divine sanction to his servant's commission having been granted from above, Paul once more went up to the room, and only then "broke the bread," and gave an opportunity to eat the common supper. Nor did he intermit his discourse, but from his full heart, continued speaking till daybreak, and then bade them farewell.
The little band, which had reunited at Troas, separated again, on leaving it; the seven travel- companions, with Luke, going by sea to Assos, which is about thirty miles off, by water, while Paul, who had worked in these parts in the preceding summer, chose to walk to it, over the mountains ; a distance, however, of only about twenty miles. It lay on a strongly fortified hill, the ascent of which from the sea was so steep that Stratonicus, the harper-poet, declares the climbing an easy way to die.^ Strabo gives a long account of its famous past, and tells us it had a great pier, which gave it a fine harbour. Here the friends took Paul on board, and sailed south, to Mity- lene, on the island of Lesbos, between thirty and forty miles off. Leaving the ever busy harbour of that city, the next day they passed Chios, the modern Scio, with its bold yellow hills, where I saw a whole town lying in ruins, from an earthquake ; touching, the day after, at the island of Samos, still on the way south, and anchoring for the night, under Cape Trogy Ilium, on its south side. They had passed Ephesus, where the Apostle might have been detained, and where, besides, as the Jerusalem incident of Trophimus shows, he would have been in danger of
* Strabo. xiii. vol. ii. fol. 877
PAUL MT. C. 48 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDAEA 367
violence from the Jews. Ho crossed, however, to Miletus, on the mainland, about thirty miles* sail east from Tro- q-yllium, and sent a message thence, to the elders of the Ephesian church ā presbyters is the word in the Greek ā to come to him there. In a direct line, Ephesus was only about thirty miles to the north, but this included a nearly ten miles' sail across an arm of the sea, from Priene. Not a moment, we may be sure, was lost in obeying such a summons. The vessel of the Apostle appears to have been hired specially for himself and his friends, and was probably a humble coaster, such as one constantly sees in those parts even now, ā and thus waited his pleasure ; a matter specially necessary, in order, by out of the way courses, to escape the track of the Jew pilgrims to the feast, who sought to kill him. The representatives of the Ephesian church soon found their revered teacher, who doubtless held long conference with them, hearing all the news from Ephesus, respecting the brethren and the pro- gress of the faith. The endless windings of the river Maeander, which has given a word to our language from its sinuous course, and the remains of a great open-air theatre, then close to the shore, but now ten miles from it, through the elevation of the coast and the mud de- posited by the river, were then, with the town, and a background of now far inland mountains, which then touched the waters, the leading features of the landscape, at some part of which, presumably on the shore, the meet- ing took place. Paul's closing words to the envoys are fortunately given us, and ran as follows : ā
You personally know, from the first day I set foot in ā¢Asia," the life I lived among you always, through over
368 TBE APOSTLES A.D. $8
three years, ^ 19. serving the Lord with all lowliness of mind, and with tears over backsliders,^ and with trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews : 20. you know how I did not shrink from telling you anything that was for your good, and how I taught you both publicly, in your assembly, and pri- vately, from house to house, 21. testifying to Jews and Greeks alike, their need of repentance towards God, and faith to war s oar Lord Jesus Christ. 22. And now, behold, I go by an inner impulse I cannot resist, to Jerusalem, not knowing what specially will befall me there : 23. beyond the fact that the Holy Ghost testifies to me in every city I visit, that bonds and afflictions await me in it. 24. But I do not hold my life of any account, as dear to myself, SO that I may finish the course assigned me by God ; no clinging to life hindering me : and, with my course, the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the good news of the grace of God to man. 25. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, shall see my face no more. 26. Therefore, since my farewell demands my reckoning with myself as to the past, I boldly witness to you this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. 27. For I have not shrunk from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28. As, therefore, I am thus guiltless in this matter, it is for you, who have taken my place, to take heed to your- selves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Ghost has made you bishops, or overseers, to feed the church of God, which He purchased for His own, with His own blood. ^ 29. For I know that, after my departing, last year, fierce wolves ā pitiless evil- working teachers ā now that I am no longer there to keep them off, will come in among you from without, not sparing the flock; 30. and that, from among yourselves, men will rise, speaking perverted words, to draw away the disciples from the truth, to follow themselves. 31. Therefore be watch- ful, remembering that for three whole years, I never ceased to admonish every one, night and day, with tears, to keep the
* Acta XX. 18-35. " Phil. iii. 18 ; 2 Cor. ii. 4. Ā« Eph. i. 14 ; Tit iu 14.
PAUL JET. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JVDMk 369
faith 32. And now I commend you to God, and to the word of His graceā the truth I taught you, which must be the guide of your whole life, and is able to build you \ip, and to give you the inlieritance you crave, in the kingdom of the Messiah, among all them who are sanctified. 33. I coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. 34. Indeed, ye yourselves know that these hands ministered to mv necessities, and to those of them that were with me. 35. In all thinsrs I have shown you by my example, that, labouring as I did, you ought to help the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receiva
The overflowing emotion of the Apostle had, apparently, prolonged his address till the vessel was on the eve of sailing, but he could not leave brethren so dear, without commendiDg them and the Ephesian church, in a few last words, to their common God. Kneeling down with them and his own companions, therefore, on the open shore, for Orientals are not, like us, ashamed to admit, before the world, that they have a religion, he prayed with them all. With us, silent tears would have flowed plentifully, and they were not behind in '' sore weeping; " Paul also, no doubt, sobbing out his entreaties to God, on their behalf ; but the excitableness of the East could not confine itself to tears, and doubtless broke out, as I once heard grief do in a body of men at Malta, in loud exclamations and wailing. Then, when they rose, after the last Amen ! they crowded round the loved one, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, over and over ; grieving most of all, for his having said, that they would never see him again. Nor would they leave him till he had gone on board the vessel ; lingering to see him as long as they could.
m. 2 A
370 THE APOSTLES A.D, 59
The high broad sail finally raised, the boat, probably a rough open one, like many seen now in those parts, glided south, along the coast, to the island of Cos, about forty miles away, and anchored in the harbour of the town of Cos, at the end of the island, facing the mainland, which is quite near. Next day they reached Rhodes, over seventy miles to the south-west; sailing, both days, through a labyrinth of vine-clad islands ; their hills and valleys not bare as now, but sprinkled with hamlets, vil- lages, and towns embowered in green ; the continent, on their left hand, magnificent in its succession of wild moun- tain summits, with town after town on the strip of plain at the sea edge, and vineyards, orchards, and woods climb- ing the steeps behind them ; while Rhodes, with its long central chain of mountains, was, itself, a dream of loveliness. Sixty or seventy miles more, next day, on a straight eastern course, brought them at last to Patara, on the mainland, and, there, the zigzag they had taken, to escape the Jew pilgrims to the feast, was over. Patara was then a busy seaport, with a good harbour, which is now only a swamp, choked with sand and bushes. The old town walls have long perished, but may still be traced, and there are remains of several towers guarding them in Paul's day, as well as of a castle which then frowned down from the heights on the east, while, within the walls, the wreck of temples, altars, pillars, and sculptures covers the ground more or less thickly. It was a very rising place in those days, for there are still remains of public baths raised in the reign of Vespasian,^ and of a great open-air theatre, built in that of Antoninus Pius.' Here Paul found a ship about to sail to Tyre, in Phoenicia, Ā» A.IX 89-79. ' A.D. 138-161.
PAUL JET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 37i
and having engaged places in it, he and his band went on board, and were presently gliding over the deep blue waters, to the south-east, passing along the south side of Cyprus, towards their far-off destination ; for Tyre lay at least four hundred miles off, in a straight line, and of course, was much more, by the devious course of a vessel. As the peaks of the Cyprian mountains rose from the sea, and then the terraces of vineyards on their lower slopes, the landscapes through which Paul and Barnabas had wandered ten years before, would be before the travellers. But the vessel does not seem to have put into port at the island, and its visions of serial heights would soon fade behind them. Tyre lay straight to the south-east, and after a day or two more, the anchor chains sank in the waters of that great port.
The cargo was now to be discharged, the ship going no farther ; so that Paul and his friends had to seek another vessel to carry them down the coast, but before starting again, they determined to find out the brethren in the city, and having done so, stayed with them a week. The proposal of Paul, however, to go up to Jerusalem, for Pentecost, alarmed the little community greatly, as it well might, knowing, as they did, better than the Apostle could, how fiercely he was hated by the old Jews, and how bitterly even the Jewish -Christians of the south felt towards him. Everything was done to dissuade him from his purpose. The Holy Spirit, they said, had shown them ā how, we are not told, but, presumably, by deep im- pressions on their mind, traced to this Divine source ā that he should not set foot in Jerusalem. But he re- garded himself as more fully and accurately aware of the Holy Spirit's will, and was certain that, in spite of the
372 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
bonds and troubles which the Spirit foretold him he should suffer in every city, he had no choice but to go to the feast.^ It was, hence, useless to attempt to change his mind. The week's stay over, the parting scene at Miletus renewed itself ; all the brethren, with their wives and even their children, going out from the city with them; the whole company innally kneeling on the open beach in prayer on his behalf, and then bidding him farewell, as he and his companions sailed off in a coaster bound for Ptolemais, now Acre.
At this new stopping-place they stayed only one day, spent in a delightful meeting with the brethren in the town, from which they started on foot, after this short rest, for Caesarea, about thirty miles off on the shore ; the road following the arc of the bay of Acre, then rounding the promontory of Carmel, and running due south, along the edge of the sea ; the spurs of the Carmel range coming down very near it for much of the way. It was now about the middle of May ā perhaps a little later ā and the grain harvest was largely over, for Pentecost was the harvest feast. The thin coast pastures would be well- nigh burnt up by the growing heat, but the landscape as a whole would still be much more attractive than it is at the same season now, ages of oppression having nearly depopulated the district, which was dotted with towns and villages surrounded by fields and orchards, in PauFs time.
At tesarea the band found pleasant hospitality at the house of Philip the Evangelist, formerly one of the seven appointed to care for the poor of the Jerusalem Church, but for many years past devoted to those local missionary
Ā» Acts XX. 22.
PAUL .ET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^a 373
tolls, as helper to the Apostles, which his title implies. With him lived four unmarried daughters who " pro- phesied;" two of them destined, according to Eusebius, to be subsequently married.^ A house which was the headquarters of the Christians who lived in Caasarea, or happened to visit it, must have been a pleasant change for Paul and his friends ; not a few, doubtless, who had seen Christ or had long ago become disciples, brightening the days by tender reminiscences, dear to all alike. Among others, a prophet, Agabus, apparently the same who had been, years before, at Antioch,^ came down from Jeru- salem, which was up in the hills, about sixty miles off, though only thirty-six miles back from the sea, in a straight line. Paul's determination to go up to the feast had become here, as at Tyre, the great topic of the hour, and all had done their best to turn him from it. In this loving dissuasion Agabus earnestly joined. Taking oft Paul's girdle, and using it for a symbolical lesson, like an old prophet, he tied his own hands and feet with it, as prisoners were bound, and thus helpless, declared, that the Holy Ghost had revealed to him that the Jews would bind the owner of the girdle, as they saw himself bound, and would deliver him up to the Gentiles. Such an an- nouncement, from one of such standing, deeply affected all who heard it, and, forthwith, fresh entreaties were pressed on him by his companions and by the town brethren, that he would not cast away his liberty and perhaps his life, in such a fashion ; their tears seeking to enforce their words. But it was all useless. He had
1 Euseb. Hi. 30. See notice of St Philip in Vol. i. 10, 11, 65, 66. For a description of Caesarea, see Geikie's "Life of Christ ;" "New Testament Hours," ed. i. 48. 571. - Vol. i. 10, 11, 209.
S74 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
been told by the Spirit that unknown evils awaited him, but he was irresistibly impelled to venture all, thinking it his duty to the Lord Jesus to be at the feast, and being willing to suffer not bonds only, but death, if necessary, for that dear Master's sake. All therefore that was left, was to say, the will of the Lord (if He really require you to go up) be done.
The Apostle had reached Caesarea some time before the beginning of the feast, so that he had " many days " quiet rest there, before having to leave. There was, however, a good deal to do in preparation. As a Jew he could not appear "before the Lord," unless he had pre- viously " sanctified " his person and clothes by prescribed washings and purifications.^ Every article he and hie companions were to take with them, must be levitically " clean," and garlands had to be woven for the head of each, and flowers, and green branches gathered to deck the house in which they might lodge, outside and in ; for even the streets were adorned at this festivity, with the loveliness of the garden and the field, to show the national joy at once for the harvest and for the giving of the law, which was connected with this season. All preparations being finished, and the day of starting having come, they set off afoot, with their modest equipment for their stay in the Holy City ; finding loving shelter, on reaching it, in the house of a disciple named Mnason, who had long been a Christian, and, happening to be in Caesarea during Paul's stay there, had accompanied him and his friends to Jerusalem. Beyond the name of this worthy, nothing is known of him, though from its being Greek, he was, if not heathen born, at least a Hellenist. A Cyprian by birth, he
1 Exod. xix. 10.
PAUL jĀ£,T. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^a 375
had perhaps been converted through Barnabas, but he may have lived in Palestine in Christ's day, and have been won by the Master Himself. Under the circumstances, it was only prudent that Paul should make his home with Bome other than a Jewish-Christian. The company going up from Caesarea included a number of the brethren from that town, so that, with Paul's friends, it must have made quite a goodly band.
The Christians with whom the Apostle and his com- panions found themselves in Mnason's house, gave him and them, as might have been expected, a hearty welcome. Next day came the introduction to the local brotherhood, BO far as Paul's going to St. James, with his little band, could secure this. The Lord's brother appears to have been the only one of the " pillars " of the church then in the city, for i^ Peter, or any of the other Apostles, had been in Jerusalem, they must have been mentioned. With James, all tho presbyters or elders were assembled, as if from previous iiDtice of the intended visit. Oriental salutations followed, and then Paul "rehearsed, one by one, the things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry;" the narrative giving unfeigned pleasure to every one, including James, their head.^ Yet the situation was peculiar. There were, at this season, it was wisely remarked, many^ thousand Jewish-Christians in Jerusalem, and whereas, some time ago, only a proportion of these were extreme in their Jewish ideas,^ all were now fanatically zealous lor the law. So rapidly had the extreme party in the nation spread their bitterly irrecon- cilable Judaism, even among the Christians ; for it was the time, as may be remembered, of the development of
^ Gal. i. 19. 2 Acts xv. 1, 5.
.^76 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
fclie great secret Jewish Clau-na-Gael, the Sicarii, or Stabbers. The Jewish brethren from foreign countries might, to a large extent, know better, but the Palestine- born Christians had got it into their heads, that Paul taught the Jews living among heathen races, that they should abandon the law, and even denounced it. Yet he had only insisted that salvation was not to be obtained by circumcision and observance of rabbinical rules, but simply by faith in Christ. This innovation, however, was enough for the narrow spirits who set Divine importance on the formal and external ; their furious party zeal creating from it, in their conception of the Apostle, an image of arch-apostacy and treason against the very words of God. That, under these circumstances, he did not separate altogether from the Judaisers, but even ventured into their midst, once more, in a time of such frenzied excitement for ultra-Pharisaism ; bringing, as a peace- offering, substantial help to their numerous poor, and still eager, at any personal risk, to link in one holy brotherhood, all, of every name, who looked to Christ as the Messiah, shows a greatness of soul, to which self- sacrifice for the glory of his Lord was the one thought. He had deliberately come to bear witness to the spiritua- lity and universality of the new faith, here, in the capital of the Jewish world, on the spot from which Christianity had gone forth to conquer the earth, and that, contrary to Judaism, it was not a matter of washings of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels,^ or of washing of the hands, or of clean or unclean food, or of Sabba^ih laws, or of circum- cision, or of any of the thousands of rabbinical com- mands, to fulfil which his brethren had been inflicting on
^ Mark vii. 24.
PAUL MT. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 377
themselves, all their lives, a long agonising martyrdom, in hopes of attaining *' the righteousness of the law ; " to insist, in short, that Christianity was not a thing of " meat, or drink, or feast days, or new moons, or Sabbaths/' ^ or any mere outward service, but righteousness through a crucified Saviour, and peace and joy in receiving the Holy Ghost. He knew that he would be braving his bitter foes, but he trusted, with God's favour, thus to help on the day when Israel would turn to the Man of Calvary, as the Gentiles were already turning, and the world be made ready for Christ's descent in glory, to set up His kingdom ; and for this supreme culmination of Christian hope he was willing to give himself up to the death. His going to Jerusalem, in the face of all dissuasions, for the love he bore mankind, both Jew and Greek, was, indeed, akin to that divine self-offering of our Lord, when He set His face steadfastly to go up to the same fateful centre ; a love which, in Paul's case, was a reflection of his declaration that he was willing even to lose his part in the kingdom of God, and be " anathema from Christ ā for his brethren's sake, his kinsmen according to the flesh." 2 After the self-sacrifice of Christ, I know nothing more sublime than the spectacle of Paul thus counting even life as nothing in the service of love.
The Apostle's arrival in Jerusalem would, of course, Boon be known through the town, among both old Jews and Jewish-Christians, but, while nothing could be done to abate the hatred of the former towards him, the shrewd practical sense of James and the assembled pres- byters, felt that the prejudice of the Jewish -born brethren might be greatly softened, if some proof could be given 1 Col. ii. 16. 2 Rom^ ix. 3.
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of the position of Paul towards the law having been mis- represented and misunderstood. These worthy men, we may be sure, were as anxious as Paul to remove, if pos- sible, the bitterness of the past between the two parties in the Church, that, as there was but one Shepherd, there should be only one fold. On the other hand, Paul's soul was afire with the magnificent conception of winning over the Jewish section, hitherto so rancorously opposed to him and to his teaching, to a truly spiritual Christianity, in which the extrinsic and ritual should shrink to its proper indifference. It so chanced that, at the moment, the presbytery had four brethren who had taken a temporary Nazarite vow, which had expired, and from which they desired to be formally released by the priests. Perhaps the Apostle would identify himself with them by for- mally taking their vow, and thus nominally becoming, for the moment, a Nazarite with them, in the rites of puri- fication, which, in his case, would imply only his supply- ing, more or less of the offerings and dues, but in theirs, included, besides, the cutting off their long Nazarite locks. By such a generous and charitable act, he would show the Jewish-Christians his sympathy with them, and the incorrectness of the idea that he was an enemy of their customs or peculiarities.
The cancelling of a Nazarite vow was, in fact, a costly matter. It required the presentation of a burnt-offering, a sin-offering, and a peace-offering, which meant a he- lamb, a ewe-lamb, and a ram. Ten unleavened cakes and ten similar wafers, over all which oil had been poured, were further needed, and also the usual " meat-offering " and "drink-offering," of flour, oil, and wine,"^ with,
* Num. XT. 6 ; xxviii. 9, 12.
PAUL JET. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDAEA 379
finally, a free-will offering, proportioned to the ability of the offerer.^ The cutting off the long hair, marking the vow, could be done anywhere, if the Nazarite were at a distance from Jerusalem,^ but, at Jerusalem, was done while the office of remission of the vow was proceeding ; the hair being put below the vessel in which the peace- offering was being seethed on the altar. Any one, though not a Nazarite, could, in form, become one, and then take on himself, as I have said, the whole cost, or what part he chose.^ Such a kindness towards the four men, could in no degree compromise Paul in his professed relations to the law, while it would show that, though such matters were indifferent to himself, he had a wide and tolerant charity for the scruples and prejudices of others, and was willing to meet the Jew, as far as was compatible with fidelity to his conscience, while equally broad-minded towards heathen-born converts.*
Paul, therefore, willingly acceding to the proposal of James, took the men in charge, and having assumed the vow, in the legal form required for the service he intended to render them, went with them, next day, to the priest in the Temple, announcing that the time of the vow of the four was over, and that the offerings for freeing them were alone required to end it, formally.
These, as we may well fancy from their number, took seven days to complete, and were nearly over, when, un- fortunately, some Jews from the province of " Asia," of which Ephesus was the capital, where Paul was hated so bitterly by his race, and had suffered so much from it, saw
* Num. vi ' Acts xyiii. 18. ā¢ Jos. xix. 9, 1.
* On the Nazarite vow, see Ewald, Alterth; Keil, Archalog ; Ginsburg, in Kitto's *ā¢ Cyclopaedia."
380 THK APOSTLES /L.D. 59
hira in the Temple, and as the four were beside him, came at once to the conclusion, from having seen him in the streets with Trophimus, an Ephesian convert, of heathen birth, that the four were Gentiles, brought by him into the sanctuary, in his hatred to the law, to defile the holy place. The sight of the destroyer of their religion in the very Temple, kindled their fiercest rage, for did not the gravest rabbis approve of even the secret murder of an apostate from Judaism ! ^ Proselytes from heathenism were permitted to enter an outside space on the edge of the specially sacred Jewish courts, but a balustrade ran along its inner side, on which, at short intervals, were notices ā a cast from one of which, lost at sea, is now in Paris 2 ā that only born Jews could pass further in, to the Court of the Israelites ; death being the penalty of any one, other than a Jew, neglecting this caution. A wild uproar at once rose, the Asiatic pilgrims yelling out to the excitable multitudes for help! "This is he, 0 men of Israel," screamed the fanatics, " who teaches all men, everywhere, against onr people, and the law, and this place ; and, moreover, he has brought Greeks also into the Temple, and has defiled the holy place ! '*
The clamour sounded, beyond the Temple grounds, into the streets below, and instantly a great rush was made, increasing every moment, to discover what was amiss. Out- side the Temple courts, the sacred enclosure stretched in a long broad field, to the north, where the Roman barracks of Antonia rose, above the scarped rock of the western corner ; a flight of steps leading up to it. As soon as possible, Paul was pushed and hustled out of the enclosed courts, and the gates were shut behind him, that the holy building
' Gibbon, iv. 98. 2 p^,] Explor. Fund, 1871, 182.
PAUL MT. c. 49 Paul's last visit to judjsa 381
migLt not be defiled by his murder. Meanwhile, the pil- grims in the city, and the townsfolk, ever fond of a new pretext for uproar, pressed in masses to the wide grounds, and Paul's fate seemed inevitable. Fortunately, the Romans in the barracks overlooking the crowds, had taken precautions against such an outbreak, which was the rule in these days, during the feasts. A strong force had been marched up, without its standards, from Caesarea, to overawe the tumultuous army of pilgrims, and its com- mander, the tribune Claudius Lysias, hearing the riot, in- stantly ordered out his men, who dashed down the stairs, now long gone, into the Temple close, scattered the mobs seeking to buffet the Apostle to death ; driving them off in terror, at the sight of the Roman swords. Paul, thus rescued, was, however, forthwith arrested and bound with two chains, one on each hand, each fastened to a soldier ; it being naturally supposed that he had committed some grave offence. Yet there was nothing on which to go as a charge, nor could the tribune gather anything definite from the conflicting cries of the people, when he. asked who he was, and what he had done. A tempest of confused shouts left everything vague, so that the tri- bune could only order him to be taken into the castle. Meanwhile, the crowd had gathered again, and pressed so closely on the soldiers, to get at their victim, that Paul had to be lifted up, and carried by the soldiers to whom he was bound ; the Jews surging, amidst indescribable uproar, as closely as they dared, towards the files of the soldiers ; the one cry, heard above all others, being that which had been raised against Christ, " Away with him ! " ^ The cross alone could appease their fury.
^ Luke xxiii. 18.
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Forcing their way to the castle stairs, the legionaries had, at last, carried their prisoner to the top of them, and he was about to be taken into the barracks, when Paul asked the tribune in Greek, if he might speak to him. An Egyptian Jew, as we have already seen^ had recently created a great disturbance, but had himself escaped when his people had been hewn down, outside Jerusalem, by Felix. " Do you know Greek ? " asked the tribune. " Art thou not then, as I supposed, the Egyptian, who, a short time since, stirred up to sedition, and led out to the wilderness, the four thousand men of the Assassins, many thousands more of other people meeting them there ? " ā " I am not," answered Paul ; " I am a Jew of Tarsus, in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city, and therefore only by error arrested by thee ; yet I beseech thee, give me leave to speak to the people." Struck, we may suppose, by his bearing, or wishing to gather something respecting him from what he might say, since the conjecture of his being the Egyptian had proved wrong, the tribune allowed him to address the crowd. He had been speaking Greek to the officer, and the mob might have expected him to use it now, but, to their great satisfaction, he began in the Syro- Ohaldaic, which was the speech of the Jews of Palestine, having long ago been accustomed to it as the household tongue in his father's home, as became the dwelling of a Hebrew of the Hebrews. The tempestuous fury of a Jewish outbreak was something appalling. Outside the soldiers, who were round and on the stairs, swayed thousands of wildly excited men, with long black hair, in long dark gaberdines, and black tarboosh-like head
> Page 364.
PAUL JET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^a 383
coverings ; their great eyes shining with excitement, their features convulsed and contorted by fanatical rage ; 80 frenzied, and for the time beside themselves, that their teeth gnashed at their intended victim as if they would fain have torn him in pieces, like wild beasts ; the roar- ing tempest of their outcries, varied by their casting dust into the air, tearing their clothes, or twitching at them madly in their Oriental demoniac rage.^ But at the sound of their mother tongue, the commotion was instantly hushed, for it spoke of loyalty to their race instead of apostacy, to hear the very shibboleth of their nationality, and all turned their eyes attentively towards the speaker, as he stood out of their reach, beckoning to them with his chained hands to give him a hearing.
Brethren and Fathers, that is, members of the Sanhedrim and dignitaries, he began, hear the defence I now make to you.
3. I am a Jew, born in Tarsus, but brought up in this your own city, Jerusalem, sitting, as his disciple, at the feet of the great rabbi, Gamaliel, whom we all honour, and taught by him, as well as in my father's house, according to the utmost strictness of the law received from our fathers, so that I became a zealot for God ā His cause and His honour ā as you, yourselves, all are this day. 4. And so zealous was I, as an earnest Pharisee, that I persecuted to the death this new sect, which you call the Way, hating it as you now hate it, binding, and handing over its followers, both men and women, into prisons. 5. And to this, the high priest of the day, and all the council of the elders ā the Sanhedrim of our nation ā bear witness : from whom, indeed, I received official letters to the brethren of the local Sanhedrim of Damascus, against the Christians of the city, and set out
* Mark xiv. 63 ; 2 Kings xviii. 37 ; Acts vii. 54 ; xxii. 28.
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thither, to bring them ā the many fugitives from the persecu- tion that rose after the death of Stephen, among others ā to Jerusalem, in chains, to be punished. 6. And it came to pass, as I made my journey, and drew near Damascus, suddenly, about noon, there shone from heaven a great light round about me. 7. And I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul ! tvliy persecuiest thou Me ? 8. And I answered, Who art Thou, Lord ? And He said, I am Jesus of Nazareth, ivhom thou persecutest. 9. And they that were with me saw, indeed, the light, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me. 10. And I said. What shall I do, Lord ? And the Lord said to me, Arise, and go into Damascus ; and there you loill he told of all things that are appoirvted you to do. 11. And as I could not see, for the glory of that light, I came into Damascus led by those who were with me. 12. And one Ananias, a devout man, accord- ing to the law, well reported of by all the Jews that dwelt there, and thus clearly, neither an enemy of the law, nor an unknown man, 13. came to me, and standing by me, said, Brother Saul, recive thy sight. And in that very hour I looked up on him. 14. And he said, 21ie God of our fathers has appointed thee to know His ivill, and to see the liighteous One, and to hear a voice from His mouth. 15. For thou shall he a witness for Him to all men of ichat thou hast seen and heard. 16. And now, ivhy tarriest thou ? arise and he haptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on His name. 17. And it came to pass, that, when I had returned to Jerusalem, and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance, 18. and saw Him saying to me, Make haste, and get quickly out of Jerusalem : because they will not receive thy testimony concerning Me. 19. And I said, Lord, they themselves knou that I imp)risoned and heat in every synagogue them that be- lieved on Thee: 20. and when the hlood of Stephen, Thy witness, ivas shed, I also ivas standing by, and consenting, and keeping the garments of them that slew him. 21. And He said to me, Depart : for I will send thee forth, far hence, to the Gentiles,
PAUL MT. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 385
Thus far the crowd had listened, eagerly, but the Dieiition of the heathen as Divinely favoured, roused to a flame, in a moment, their furious hatred of the Un- circumcised and their unspeakable pride as descendants of Abraham, and thus, the sole heirs of the promise of God, made to him and his posterity. That the heathen should be declared the objects of God's regard as well as the Jew, infuriated them to the last degree. Wild yells of rage and abhorrence from the vast crowd pre- cluded his saying more, and loud cries again arose, of "Away with such a fellow from the earth; it is not fit that he should live ! " They would fain have stoned him at once, and, though this was now impossible, some, in their wild excitement threw off their coats, as if to hurl the stones at him, and others cast up dust into the air, as if it were stones launched at the victim. The tribune, not knowing " Hebrew," and thus unable to judge what offerice had been given, to kindle their rage BO terribly, and thinking, perhaps, that Paul had chosen a language he did not know, to cover seditious proposals, forthwith ordered him to be brought into the barracks, and scourged, that he might thus extort some explana- tion of the hatred he excited. Tying him forthwith to the post, the men were, therefore, about to let loose the whip, or use the stick on him, when he asked the cen- turion, who, as usual in scourgings, stood by to listen to any confessions made, if it was lawful to scourge a Eoman citizen, and he uncondemned. To do so was a serious crime.^ It was enough. The punishment was delayed, and word sent to the tribune, of Paul's standing. Lysias, thus summoned, came at once, greatly surprised,
^ Cic. Verr. v. Q6.
lu. 2b
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for Paul looked only like a poor Jew. "Is it true," asked he, " that you are a Eoman ? " ā " It is," said Paul. "How can that be?" retorted the tribune; "you seem poor enough, and it cost me a great sum to get this citizenship." He was apparently a Greek or Syrian, who had obtained from Claudius, probably by bribing Pallas, the freedman vice-emperor, this coveted right, and had added the name of the author of his dignity to his own.^ Paul's answer would astonish him still more. "I," said he, "am a Roman born." Lysias was alarmed, for even to have bound a Roman to a scourging-post was an offence which might harm him greatly. He would do no more than keep the prisoner safe for the night, and bring him before the Jewish authorities the next day ; till then he was to remain chained.
Anxious to get to the merits of the case, the tribune, on the morrow, arranged for a meeting of the chief priests and all the Sanhedrim, of course in their own place of assembling, in the Temple synagogue, for they would not have dreamed of entering the barracks ā a heathen build- ing,^ and at the fixed hour he brought Paul before them. The high priesthood was still heJd by Ananias, who, by a rare chance, had kept the great office since A.D. 48, though now on the point of being superseded by Ishmael, the head of a rival faction. Rich, greedy, and, as I have said, known to t^ ? people as " the glutton," he belonged to the family of Hannas, mentioned in the Gospels ; ^ some member of which was always found on the judgment-seat, to con- demn Christians or religious reformers of any kind. It was this Ananias, it will be remembered, who, with his mob of Temple slaves, used to go from one priest's glebe
* Renan, Paulu$, 624, ^ Acts x. 28. ā John xviii. 13.
PAUL MT. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 387
to another, and cany off the poor man's grain ; a foul mockery of a high priest, destined to be murdered, at last, by the people, at the beginning of the fast approaching war.
Looking steadfastly on the council, Paul began : ā " Brethren, I have lived before God in all good conscience to this day." ā *' Smite him on the mouth," shouted Ananias to some of his slaves standing near, for he affected to hear blasphemy in the declaration of the accused that he had always led a worthy life. " God shall smite thee, thou whited wall ā (thou skin-deep saint) ; ā sittest thou to judge me according to the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law ? " ā " Revilest thou God's high priest ? " interrupted some beside him. " I did not know, brethren, that he was high-priest : for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people."^ A stranger in Palestine, he was naturally, in these times of frequent change of the high -priesthood, ignorant as to the holder of the dignity at the moment, especially as former high-priests retained permanent influence, and acted with the high-priest of the hour. 2 The bearing of the different members of the council had, however, shown him, during this momentary check, that the Sanhedrim was divided into hostile factions. The aristocratic, half- infidel Sadducees, the hereditary holders of the supreme posts in the priesthood, and the popular, high- church Pharisees, who had gradually forced their way to seat.f in the supreme court, through their hold on the people as zealots for the law and fiery nationalists, to whom Rome was an abomination, evidently retained all their fierce hatred of each other, even on the cushions of the Ā» Kxod xxii 28. Ā» John xTiii 18,
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council-cliamber, and he instantly made dexterous use of their mutual jealousies. Casting his eyes round the half- circle in which the members sat, he began, again, by call- ing out with loud emphatic fervour : " Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees ; touching the hope and resur- rection of the dead I am called in question." Nothing could be more skilful, to paralyse any hostile action of his judges, for he had put his finger on a raw sore, to touch which inevitably excited bitter controversy between them. The Sadducees ridiculed the rabbinical laws, in which the Pharisees believed as the ground of righteousness, and sneered at the Messianic dreams of the nation, of which the Pharisees were the recognised champions. Still more, they rejected the whole of the Old Testament, except the five books of Moses, and believing that the soul dies with the body, mocked at the idea of a resurrection, and scoffed at the thought of there being either angels or spirits. In fact, they were the Agnostics of their day, but differed from their successors in our time, by wanting their blameless morality and social worth.^ The Pharisees, on the contrary, had much in common with Paul, for they, like him, gloried in the expectation of the resurrection, taught the near approach of the "kingdom of God," and firmly believed in the communion of heaven with men, through angels, dreams, visions, and spirits. Thus, on the very points for which the Sadducees were eager to con- demn him as a deceiver of the people, he was at one with the popular party. His acuteness bore immediate fruit. In a moment the Sanhedrim was turned into a battlefield, and there was no more fury at him, but rather at each other. The clamour of many, seeking to be heard at once, 1 GWWJe'g "Life of Christ ;" New Testament Hours, ed. ii. p. 213.
PAUL ^T. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud.ea 389
and the wild dissension made further action against him impossible. Some of the Pharisees even declared that they found nothing wrong in him : and that it was quite reason- able and harmless if he maintained that a spirit or an angel had really spoken to him. So frantic, indeed, did the disputants become, that it seemed as if Paul would be torn in pieces, between his friends arid enemies, so that the soldiers had to take him by force from among them, and lead him back to the castle. The tribune was at a loss what to think. It was only clear that the offence committed, if any, was not one against Roman law.
Worn out in body and excited in mind, Paul had broken rest that night : his thoughts dwelling, even in sleep, on the purpose of his Master, in letting such troubles over- whelm him. But with sleep came consolation, for we are told, " the Lord stood by him," and said, " Be of good cheer : for as thou hast testified concerning Me at Jeru- salem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome."
Meanwhile, it looked as if the Apostle would get free, and the great secret murder-guild could not endure that this last victim should escape them. More than forty of their number, therefore, agreed, under a curse, that they would neither eat nor drink till he had fallen beneath their daggers. Nor did there seem much diflSculty, for the Jewish authorities were already so mixed up with the fraternity, that members of it went boldly to the Sadducee chief priests and the members of the Sanhedrim who were against Paul, and having told them of their vow, got them to arrange that they should ask Lysias to bring his prisoner down to the council-hall again, next day, on pretext of hearing the case more fully ; the conspirators lying in wait for him as he passed, and rushing out on
390 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
him, in spite of his guards, and killing him. Fortunately, the secret was so little concealed that Paul's nephew, son of his sister, heard of it, and hurrying to the barracks, told the Apostle what was afoot. The story was only too ])robably well-founded, for Ananias had been connected with the assassins on other occasions.^ Calling the cen- turion of the watch, therefore, Paul sent the young man, with him, to the tribune, to whom he privately told the plot, begging him not to yield to the request that would be made, to send Paul to the council-chamber again. Dismissing his informant, with a caution to keep it secret that he had spoken to him, Lysias at once took measures to defeat the plotters. Two centurions were instantly summoned, and ordered to get 200 heavy infantry and 70 horse soldiers ready for the march, and also, to order out 200 of the light-armed provincial auxiliary infantry, perhaps Arab javelin-men or slingers. The whole were to set out at once, with Paul in charge, to the Procurator, at CaBsarea. At nine o'clock, therefore, when it was long dark, this strong guard of 400 infantry and 70 cavalry marched out from Antonia, Paul and perhaps other prisoners in their midst, duly chained ; the centurion in charge bearing with him a letter from Lysias, to "the most excellent Governor Felix " ā the ex-slave, informing him of the circumstances of Paul's arrest, of his being a " Roman," and of the " council " accusing him only of matters of Jewish law, but of nothing deserving bonds, far less death. A plot against his life, he added, had made the writer send him on to Caesarea that his accusers might appear against him before his excellency in person.
A long march down the hills to the sea plain, brought ' Jos. AnU XX. 0, 8.
PAUL MY. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 391
them, next day, to Antipatris, a town built by Herod the Great, and named after his father, Antipater ā now known as Ras-el-Ain, on the Roman road to Caesarea, about forty miles from Jerusalem, and about twenty from the seat of the Procurator. A large mound covered with heaps of stone, old foundations, broken columns, and chiselled blocks, half buried among thorns, is now all that remains of the town, but a copious spring, bursting from the mound ā a chief source of the permanent stream Aujeh, ā shows that one great element of health and local beauty had been among the attractions that fixed its site. There being no more fear of a surprise, the infantry, after a rest, went back from this point to Jerusalem ; the cavalry going on with Paul, next day, to Caesarea, where they delivered the letter of the tribune to Felix, and brought Paul before him, to hand him over formally to his hands. The letter read, the Procurator asked the prisoner to what province he belonged, and being informed that he was a Cilician, dismissed him to confinement, not in a dun- geon, but in the prison of his own palace,^ telling him that he would hear what he had to say for himself when his accusers appeared against him.
The fierce Ananias, baulked, so far, was not the man to let his prey escape, if he could help it. Five days later, he presented himself with some members of the Sanhedrim, and a professional pleader and rhetorician, whose adequate knowledge of Roman legal forms, and law terms, and usages, might make a condemnation of Paul more easy, as well as hide the want of such know- ledge in the accusera The Apostle, meanwhile, had fared comparatively well, for his travelling companions were
* See vol. i. p. 389.
392 THE APOSTLES A.D. $g
free to visit him, and even, apparently, to live with him ; Aristarchus, it would seem, thus vohmtarily sharing his confinement, at least after a time, as he did his imprison- ment at Rome later on.^
The hired pleader, one of a class very numerous in Rome and the provinces, to the great injury of truth and justice in both, had not a high priest as client every day, or a procurator for listener, and did his mercenary best. Having to state the charge against Paul, he paved the way by trying what flattery would do. Extolling, at the cost of whatever conscience he may have had, the great peace they enjoyed, thanks to Felix, and the many benefits secured for the nation by his care for them always, in every way ; he even ventured to declare that they acknow- ledged these with all thankfulness. This, towards the very man against whom the Jews, after his deposition, a few months later, laid the most grievous charges of habitual cruelty and unrighteousness ! ^ The prisoner was a pesti- lent fellow, and an instigator of insurrections over all the empire, wherever there were Jews; a ringleader, more- over, of the sect of the Nazarenes ā a contemptuous name for the Christians, by which, in itself, as was thought, Jesus was stamped as a false Messiah. He had, besides, essayed to pollute the Temple ! Felix, by examining him, would find the truth of these accusations.
The charges having thus been laid, it was the right of the prisoner to rebut them if he could, and Felix having motioned to Paul that he might now speak, the Apostle forthwith began his reply. How different his position, as he rose to do so, from that which he enjoyed hardly a fort- night before, in this very town, amidst loving brethren, and 1 Qol. iv. 10. 2 jo3 xx^ 8^ ^
PAUL iET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^a 393
how soon had the ominous predictions of Agabus come true!
"Forasmuch," said Paul, "as I know that thou hast been for many years a judge to this nation, ^ and therefore knowest the character and peculiarities of the people thoroughly, I cheerfully make my defence ; for thou canst easily ascertain the facts, seeing it is not more than twelve days since I went up from this town, to worship at Jerusalem, and that no one can say he found me disputing with any one, or stirring up a crowd, either in the temple, or in the synagogues, or in the city. Nor can they prove to thee any other things of which they accuse me. But this T admit, that I serve the God of our fathers, after the manner of the sect which they call * The Way ; * that is, believing all that is according to the law, and written in the prophets : having hope toward God ā which these, my accusers, also have ā that there shall be a resurrec- tion both of the just and unjust. 16. And' this being my religious confession, I strive hard in accordance with it, to have a conscience, always void of offence, alike toward God and men. Now, after an absence of a number of years, I came back to Palestine, to bring alms to my nation and offerings ; in presenting which at the altar, they found me in the temple, duly purified as a Nazarite, and therefore certainly not defiling the holy house, witli no crowd, nor yet with tumult. But, though no one could say I was offending, certain Jews from ' Asia ' raised a clamour against me, who ought to have been here before thee, 0 Felix, to make formal accusation, if they had aught against me, for they, alone, say they found me doing wrong Or, if these * Asiatics ' do not appear to accuse me, let these men, my present accusers themselves, say what wrongdoing they found, when I stood before the council, unless it be that I cried, standing among them, ' Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question he/ore you this day: "
^ See page 346.
394 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
Ananias and his allies would fain have had Paul con- demned on the moment, but Felix had no intention either to gratify their hate, or to act justly to the prisoner, and lightly adjourned further action till Lysias had come down. Having been more than six years Procurator, and having thus seen the Christians, both in Judaea at large, and round him in Csesarea, in their peaceful spread and blame- less lives, he knew the real motives for which they were assailed, and was indisposed to act against them on behalf of the priests, whom he loathed, unless some clear advan- tage was to be secured for himself by doing so. More- over, he so far let his better nature prevail, as to order that Paul should only be detained, but in no way treated roughly ; his friends, disciples, and connections, being allowed free access to him.
Paul might think himself fortunate in having been transferred from the miserable surroundings of Jerusalem, that smoking crater of fanaticism and secret murder, to the fresh air and friendly comforts of Csesarea. It was the most western of all the towns of Palestine in its char- acteristics ; the headquarters of the Koman officials con- nected with the Procurator's court and the imperial services, civil and military, and, as such, had a population largely h-eathen. Indeed, it was only in these latter years that Judaism, in its final spasmodic revival, attempted to get the upper hand in the town. In the old palace of Herod, where the Apostle now found shelter, under the eyes of Felix and his wife Drusilla, he was safe from Jewish plots, though dark associations made the great building in some respects gloomy enough. Herod had here spoken Ihe death sentence of his sons. Their false betrayer, his son Antipater, had been imprisoned here, before his well-
PAUL iET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 395
deserved execution. Before its gates thousands of Jews had lain on the ground for five days and five nights im- ploring Pilate, with wild cries and lamentations, not to defile the Temple by what they called idolatrous symbols. Herod Agrippa had here ended his hypocritical life, and before his windows, the multitude, howling and weeping, in passionate sorrow, had lain or kneeled in the dust, praying for the life of their pious king ! Unholy memories pervaded the whole building, and blood, from the days of Herod, had marked every stone. Moreover, the chaos reign- ing in the land filled its walls at this time with prisoners more or less rigorously treated, according to their offence. Josephus tells us that when he was a young man of twenty-six, he was in the habit of visiting here some priests of his acquaintance, imprisoned by Felix, and put in irons on some trivial charge. Strict Pharisees, they would not touch the food provided, contenting themselves with figs and nuts, that they might keep from defilement ; a fidelity to the law that won them high admiration among their people, and moved Josephus to seek their deliverance. Like Paul, however, they were ultimately sent to Rome. Meanwhile, their being allowed to see their friends helps us to realise the position of Paul, who, perhaps, at that very time, was a prisoner in the same building.^
But Felix, interested to learn fully about " The Way," on which he had already more or less kept his eye, sent, after some days, for Paul, to hear from him about the new faith ; Drusilla, whose third husband he was, appearing with him, as a Jewess, who might help him in any delicate point that came up, and was no doubt, herself, interested
* Job. Vita, 3.
396 THE APOSTLES i..D. 59
to hear so well-known a Christian advocate. But if they reckoned on being merely entertained, they soon found their mistake, for the fearless prisoner, true to his office, illustrated his faith by a very practical use of its doctrines. Embracing the opportunity offered, he reasoned on the duty of righteousness, with the slave-ruler who thought he might do what he pleased, safe in the protection of his brother, Pallas, ex-slave like himself, but now vice- emperor ; passed on to the duty of control of the passions, while the sacrifice to his judge's lust sat by him, and, worse than either, proceeded to talk of a judgment day near at hand ! Felix, as might have been expected, was terrified, for guilt is always in dread of the future, but presently recovering himself, dismissed the brave con- fessor to his prison, telling him he would call him again when he had leisure. His secret motive for hanging up the case was, we may fancy, his having heard that Paul had brought money to Jerusalem, from which he might ultimately get a bribe to set him free. He sent once and again for him, therefore, after this, hoping to receive an overture to this end, but Paul did not think of such a thing, and hence the Apostle still lay in prison when Porcius Festus succeeded Felix " two years " later. The bad man would not dismiss what he knew to be an un- founded charge, thinking, perhaps, it might mollify the Jews, in their indictment against him, before the emperor, if he left one so hated by them in bonds.
Meanwhile, there is no ground for thinking that Paul, although a prisoner, was the less an Apostle, during this period. In free contact with his friends, he could send them on Christian work in all directions, aud make use of their services in a wide correspondence with the churches
PAUL iET. C. 49 PAUl/S LAST VISIT TO JUD^A 397
far aod near. He had come to Jerusalem with quite a number of brethren, and there is no reason to suppose that they deserted him, when matters took so unfortunate a turn. It a]-)pears, indeed, as if we owe to his detention at Caesarea, the Epistles to the Colossians, the Ephesians, and Philemon.^ Of his old friends, he had "his own son " Timothy with him, and Luke, "the beloved physician," and John Mark, " sister's son to Barnabas," now sorry enough for having deserted him in Paraphylia, and only anxious to make amends by tender fidelity, and there was the true-hearted Macedonian Aristarchus, who even shared his imprisonment, and Tychicus an Ephesian convert, who had come all the way from Corinth with him. Besides these, among others of whom we have not even the names, there were with him one bearing the now sacred name of Jesus, with the affix of Justus, the Just One ā a Jewish-Christian, and Demas, as yet faithful, though doomed to forsake the Apostle when trouble pressed on him again in Rome, " loving this present world." Two visitors from Colossge, moreover, lightened his dnlne^^s ; Epaphras, "the faithful minister" of the Colossian Church, and a poor slave, Onesimus, who had run away from his master, Philemon, a friend of Paul, and had wandered to Caesarea to get a sight
^ Wieseler thinks they were written at Rome, and Von Soden thinks this of Colossians and Philemon, rejecting Ephesians ā without adequate grounds ā as not by Paul. Holtzmann, 1872, thinks, however, that Colossians and Philemon were written at Caesarea, and Meyer, also, holds this opinion ; accepting Ephesians as by Paul, while Holtzmann thinks it manufactured by some one who had already added to the Colossians. To me, the arguments, which I have carefully studied, point to Caesarea aa the place where all three were written, and thus, from the noticea in Colossians, we can, in some measure, restore the surroundings of the Apoatle in his long detention " in bonds " (Col. iv. 18).
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of the dear face of one whose name was familiar m the slave hovels of Asia Minor. ^ The prgetorium, though in one sense a prison, would, thus practically, with so many agents devoted to Paul, become the headquarters of wide missionary activity, reaching even to distant lands.
The arrival of Epaphras, perhaps a native of Colossge, and possibly the founder of the Colossian Church, but at least their "minister," must have been a great joy to the Apostle. He had been "a fellow-servant of Christ," with Paul, perhaps at Ephesus, and could tell him about the Colossian brethren, and about the other churches of that region, so dear to both. He was, moreover, we know not on what grounds, a "fellow-prisoner" with the Apostle, so that they would have abundant opportunity for loving intercourse.
Colossae, now long vanished, lay at the lower end of a narrow glen, about ten miles long, hemmed in, on the north and east, by the rocky spurs of the great central table-land of Asia Minor, and on the west by a low stony ridge which separated it from the lower valley of the Lycus, a tributary of the river Meander, which flowed south of Ephesus till it reached the sea at Miletus. The Lycus bursts out of the earth in great springs, at the eastern end of the valley ; possibly the drainage, hitherto underground, of a large salt water lake higher up; the Lycus itself not being drinkable. On the south, Colossaa was dominated by Mount Cadmos, which rises 6000 feet above the valley and 7000 above the sea-level. The town, moreover, was on the great trade-road which stretched from Ephesus to the Euphrates, and had been a very important place in former times, though com- 1 Col. I 1, 8 ; iv. 8, 9, 10, 12 ; Philem. 24 ; 2 Tim. iv. 10.
PAUL MT. c. 49 Paul's last visit to JUDiEA 399
paratively decayed in the Apostle's day ; Hierapolis and Laodicaea, each about ten miles off, having in some measure eclipsed it. Yet it kept itself alive till the ever barbarous Turk destroyed it ; another town, miserable enough, taking its place on the crest of the hill, over the ancient site, comparatively out of reach of the spoiler.
Epaphras had, it appears, so much to tell of the dangers and needs of the brethren at Colossae, that Paul resolved to write them, though he had not been in their city, or even in the immediate neighbourhood, for he had passed Colossae, Laodicsea, and Hierapolis without visiting them, having gone on to Ephesus by the hill road behind them, perhaps as shorter. Yet his journeys through Asian Phrygia had interested him in its people, and, moreover, Philemon, to whom, also, he was about to write, was not only a personal convert of the Apostle, possibly at Ephe- sus,* but, also one of the church at Colossae, and indeed provided the brethren with a place of meeting in his house.* Epaphras, their "minister," was, besides, as we have seen, at Caesarea with Paul.
An opportunity to send the proposed Epistle was offered by the presence of Tychicus, who was willing to take it to Colossae, on his way back to Ephesus, his home, and a letter was naturally, also, given him for the brethren in his own city. He could, moreover, lead back the poor fugitive slave Onesimus, to his master Philemon, as the best thing, apparently, to be done for the unfortunate creature, since he would carry with him a private letter to Philemon, from Paul, bespeaking his Christian kind- ness for the runaway, whom he must now recognise as a brother in Christ.
> Col. iv. 9 ; PhUem. 10. ā¢ CoL ii. 19.
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Guided, no doubt, by the information received from Epaphras, Paul seeks, in the '* Colossians," not only to confirm the faith and Christian life of the church, but to warn them against false -doctrines which were being taught amongst them by some Jewish-Christians, who differed from those known to the Philippians and Gala- tians, by not pressing the observance of the whole rabbinical law, though still insisting on circumcision, and by their thrusting aside the doctrine of justification by faith, which was so vital, in the opinion of the Apostle. They had, moreover, mixed up some Oriental speculations with their Judaism, at once teaching the need of circum- cision, and of the laws as to food, and set days, and a fanciful range of speculations as to the higher world of spirits ; parading a " show of wisdom " in worship of their own invention, adoring angels, and enforcing a gloomy humility, as well as severe bodily mortification, which had no place in Christianity.^ Phrygia was, in fact, just the region for such teaching to take root : the old Pagan wor- ship of beings above man, clinging to the people so firmly, that the adoration of angels became so marked a charac- teristic of the local Christianity that we find it denounced in after times by councils, as it had been in his Epistle by the Apostle. A striking illustration of its peculiarity, shown in an inscription found at Miletus, throws light on the ideas with which the Apostle had to contend. The tablet on which this is cut had been built into the wall of the great theatre, by public permission, and commends the city to the care of the seven archangels who are over the seven planets.^
This form of superstition especially affected the re- Ā» Col ii. 20-23, ^ Ramsay, 480.
PAUL ^T. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDAEA 401
cognition of the true dignity of Christ, and the character of His mediatorial work. He was accorded the rank of being the image of God, but His proper deity was with- held. He was simply the chief of the higher orders of spirits, and an active agency in the conversion of men was ascribed to angels, who were represented as half- Divine emanations from the Godhead, and as having exercised this mediatorial activity from the Creation.* With all these vagaries, the heresiarchs did not, ap- parently, deny the resurrection of Christ, but the Eastern doctrine of the inherent evil of matter was clearly at the root of their bitter asceticism, while their dreamy philosophy of the higher orders of being, had in it the germs of the subtle pretentious Gnosticism, or " higher wisdom," which so terribly injured the Church in after years.
The Epistle to the Colossians.
Salutation.
I. 1. Paul, by official dignity, an apostle of Christ Jesus, through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2. to the saints and faithful brethrea in Christ at Colossse ; Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
Resting on sure and satisfying foundations, the Colossian church has no need of innovations.
3. We, I and Timothy, give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying, also, always for you, 4. havinir heard from Epaphras of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, 5. because of the hope laid up for you in the heavens, till Christ reveal it at His coming. And this hope is sure, for it rests not on
1 Col. i. 15-20.
III. 2 q
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fancies of your own minds, but is that of wliich you heard, before you had it, in the preaching of the trutli of the Gospol, 6. which is come to you ; even as it is also in all the world, bearing fruit and yielding increase, as it does in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in the Gospel, preached to you in truth, uncorrupted and full ; 7. for thus ye learned it of Epaphras, my beloved fellow-bond- servant of Christ, who is, indeed, a faithful servant of Christ, ministering to you the Gospel in my stead. 1 8. Who has also made known to me your brotherly love through a common possession of the Spirit of God.
That they have begun so well, impels him to still more earnest prayer for their continued progress in all Christian grace.
9. On this account, I also, since the day I heard of your faith and love, do not cease to pray and plead for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will, by His bestowing on you all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10. to enable you to walk worthily of the Lord Jesus, pleasing Him in all things ; bearing fruit in every good work, and growing, like the tree, though your increasing knowledge of God: 11. being strengthened with all spiritual power, in keeping with the glorious might of Him who gives it you, so that you may attain to all possible steadfast endurance of trouble, persecution, and the like, and all long-suffering meekness, with joy that you are counted " worthy to suflFer " for your Lord;^ 12. giving thanks to the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light at Christ's coming ; 13. who has also delivered us out of the power of darkness, and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
The glory of Christ, and His sole merit in our salvation.
14. In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of
' The balance of authorities favours this readinjj;. * Acts v. 41,
PAUL ^.T. c. 49 Paul's t,ast visit to .lUDiEA 403
OUT sins; 15. who is, to us, the image of the invisible God, tlie first-born of all creation ā the head of all. and born before all ; 16. for in Him were all things created ā as the origi- nating source of their being ā in the heavens and upon the eaith, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all things have been created through Him, and for Him, as their object and end. 17. And He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together in connected harmony and order, for He is their originating and sustaining life. 18. And He is the head of His mystical body, the Church ; He, who is the begin- ning of this new creation, also, and, as such, the first-born from the dead ; that in all things He might have the pre- eminence.
In these verses evident reference is made to the angel- worship preached to the Colossians by the new teachers. Eastern speculation, known as " Magian," in Persia, and as Gnoslicism ā the higher secret wisdom in the West ā revelled in angelology, and so did the rabbis, but there is none of this prying through the veil, in the sacred writers.^ Christ's supreme dignity is also vindicated against the teaching that He was only one of the " ema- nations" from God, and perhaps not the highest. Paul now still further proclaims the glory of his Lord.
19. Of this, indeed, there can be no doubt, for it was the good pleasure of God that in Him, not in a hierarchy of emanations, called angels or anything else, the Pleroma ā the totality of the divine powers and attributes, should have its permanent abode.^ 20. And it was also God's pleasure, thus, through Him alone, not through any supplementary mediation of these angels and emanations, to reconcile all things, spiritual and material, to Himself, by His having made
1 Rom. viii. 38 ; Eph. i. 21 ; iii. 10 ; 1 Pet. iii. 22.
' PUroma was a term of the Eastern theology used here by the Apostle,
404 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
peace throiigh the blood of His cross ; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in, the heavens.
This great truth is applied to the Colossians, among others, to excite them to steadfastness in faith, by recall- ing this mighty benefit.
21. And thus you, who, being heathen-bom, in time past, before you were Christians, were estranged from God, and enemies to Him in your mind, as shown in your evil works, yet now has He reconciled to God ; 22. in the body of His flesh, through death, in order to present you holy and without blemish, and unreprovable, before Himself ; 23. if, that is, you continue in the faith, built on its sure foundation, and thus firm, and not shifting away, through false teachers, from the hope proffered you in the Gospel which ye heard, which has been preached throughout all the earth ; of which I, Paul, was made, by God, a minister ā that is, a servant.
What this ministry, or service, had been, is now de- scribed.
24. I, who now rejoice in my sufferings at the hands of the Judaisers, for your sake, as heathen-born converts, and fill up what is yet wanting on my part of equalling the afflictions of Christ in my person, by what I endure for the sake of His mystical body, the Church ; 25. of which I was made a minister, according to the stewardship in the house of God conferred on me for your benefit ā to carry to its com- pleteness the universal preaching of the Word of God ; 26. a commission which is the mystery that has been hidden from all former ages and generations, but has now been fully dis- closed to His saints, 27. to whom God was pleased to make known among the Gentiles, how great is the riches of the glory of this mystery, now made theirs, which is nothing less than that Christ is, in yon as well as in Jews, the hope of glory : 28. whom we proclaim, admonishing every man, and
PAUL ^T. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDiEA 405
teaching every man, in all true wisdom, not demanding blind faith, as your Gnostic preachers say ā that we may present every man " perfect," to use the phrase of these men, in Christ alone ; and in no degree through any being else ; 29. towards which end, to make known to the whole Gentile world this divine mystery, I, also, labour, striving, like one in the arena, to accomplish it, not in my own strength, but according to His working which works in me mightily.
He now specially discloses his struggle on behalf, not only of the Colossian brethren, but for those also at Laodicea, and all others, who had not seen him. Laodicea lay, as I have said, within a few miles of Colossae ; Hiera- polis facing it, six miles off, on the northern side of the valley of the Lycus. Of the three, it was the most im- portant, as may even now be seen from the grand remains still left, in spite of the ruins having been used as a quarry from which to build other towns. An amphi- theatre, several theatres, an aqueduct, and much else, speak of the ancient magnificence and wealth which enabled it to rebuild itself, after it had been destroyed by the great earthquake of A.D. 61, when Colossae also perished, and needed help from the empire to reconstruct itself in part. The " Colossians " must, thus, have been written just before this catastrophe. But, though other places never recovered, Laodicea had regained its pro- sperity so completely when the Apocalypse was written, that even the Church there could boast that it was rich and had need of nothing, and it had grown lukewarm by being so well-to-do.^ Rich orchards on the hill slopes, Bparkling streams, full of fish, in the valley, a broken outline of fine hills charming the eye in every direction, with Mount Kadmos, always capped with snow, domi-
* Rev. iii. 17.
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nating all, ten miles off, on the east, made the city an earthly paradise. It was, moreover, what we might call the county town ; the Proconsular and other imperial courts of the district being held in it, and making it the centre of active municipal and political life. Like Colossse, it was threatened by Jewish-Gnostic heresies, and on this account is now mentioned.
II. 1. For I should like you to know what a great arena* like strife I endure for you Colossians, in my soul ā my bonds keeping me away from you in person ā and for them at Laodicea, and for as many in other neighbouring places, as have not seen my face in the flesh, my heart being ever with you all ; 2. that their hearts may be comforted by being knit together in love, and thus attaining to all the riches of the full certainty of clear spiritual insight, that thus they may know the mystery of God revealed in Christ ; 3. in whom are hidden all the treasures of that secret wisdom and knowledge of which you are now taught to think so much.
Warnings and exhortations, based on this.
4. I say this, that no one may sophisticate you, and lead you astray by false rhetoric, in persuasive speech. 5. For though I am absent from you in the body, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to be SO, and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
6. As, therefore, ye received the Christ ā Jesus, the Lord, so, walk in Him ; 7. rooted and built up in Him, and estab- lished in your faith, even as ye were taught it, abounding in thanksgiving.
8. Take care that no one make a prey of you, through so- called philosophy and empty deceit, void of truth, after the tradition of men, created by the rabbis, from the law of Moses, or after the elementary religious fancies of the heathen world ā the A B C of religion as compared with Christianity ā and not after Christ ; 9. for in Him dwells, as in its fixed
PAUL JET. C. 49 P4UL*S LAST VISIT TO JUDAEA. 407
abode, all the Pleroma of the Godhead ā the fulness of the divine nature in its powers and attributes, in a bodily form āincarnate, 10. and in Him, as thus possessing the divine Pleroma, you are being filled with it, so that any inter position of angels or other inferior beings in your salvation, would be as useless as it is imaginary, for He is the head of all angelic and other principality and power. 11. In Him you, also, though heathen-born, were made, as well as the Jews, "the circumcision," and thus put on an equal footing with them, as to favour, for, in becoming Christian., ye were spiritually circumcised, with a circumcision not made, like that of the Jews, with human hands, but by the stripping off from you of the whole body of your fleshly sinful nature, not a partial and outward rite ā when ye put oflf the old man with his deeds, in your union with Christ in what I may call His circumcision, His putting off the natural body in death, from which He rose with a spiritual body, as was symbolised in your baptism : 12. having been buried with Him in bap- tism, and also raised in it, with Him, through faith in the work of God, who, as He raised Him from the dead, would, you believe, also, there and then, raise you from spiritual death to newness of life, on the ground of your faith making you one with Christ. 13. And hence you, who were dead through your trespasses, and the uncircumcision, that is, the sinfulness, of your fleshly nature, you Gentiles, I say, did He then quicken into new spiritual life, together with Christ, as members of His spiritual body, having forgiven us all our trespasses; 14. and having blotted out the writing with the hand, the Mosaic law consisting in ordinances ā that law which was the bond, standing against us, which was wholly contrary to us. This He, God, has taken out of the way, so as no longer to be between us and Him, nailing it to the cross; 15. having, in doing so, put away from Himself the principalities and powers, which you are told are interme- diaries in our salvation, so that He made a sliow of them openly, as having nothing to do with that salvation,
408 triE APOSTLES A.D. 59
triumphing over them ā the ordinances of the law-ā in itā that is, in the Cross.
Warning based on this, against the Jewish views of the new teachers.
16. These ordinances heing thus hlotted out hy God, let no
man take you to task iu regard to meat, or drink, or in respect of a feast day, or a new moon, or a sabbath day ā the great feasts, the monthly festivals, or the weekly holy day, of Judaism ; 17. which things, whether distinctions of meats and drinks, or observances of special times, are only a shadow of the good things still to come when they were appointed ; while the substance, the reality, the anti-type, is Christ's ā the Christian dispensation embodying them all.
Further warning against the Gnostic errors of these intruding disturbers.
18. And, on the other hand, let no man rob you of your prize, as victors in the Christian course, through faith in Christ alone, and loving service of Him only, which the false teacher would fain do, by requiring an unauthorised humility, from you, as not worthy to approach the Godhead except through a worshipping of the angels, to whom only, you are told, man can dare to look ; he who teaches this, resting in his pride on the things he has seen in visions and the like, vainly puffed up by liis fleshly unenlightened mind, 19. and not holding fast the Head, Christ, from whom all the body, ā all true believers, being nourished and knit together, into one organism, by the junctures and ligaments ā love, faith, and all the gifts of grace, ā grows with the growth which is of God.
A further warning against the bodily privations urged by these teachers, as part of religion.
20. Why, then, if you died, with Christ, to the elementary religious teachings of the Jewish and Gentile world, do ye, as
PAUL MT. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VLSIT TO 3\JV>Mk 409
though still living in the world, when really citizens of the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah, subject yourselves to ordinances, 21. which repeat continually " Handle not." "Taste not," "Touch not;" 22. troubling you about things which all perish in the using ā these meats and drinks and the like, ā all trifling and perishatle, and without spiritual significance ā ordinances which are all based only on the precepts and doctrines of men, not on divine authority ? 23. Wliich sort of things iiave, indeed, a pretence of " wisdom " in voluntary, self-imposed, uncalled-for service, and mock humility, and hard treatment of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of fleshly sins, either of pride or passion.
An earnest exhortation to the Colossians, as raised to a new life with Christ, to walk in harmony with it.
III. 1. If, then, ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. 2. Set your heart on things above, not on the things of earth ā money, property, honour, a life of eaie, or the like. 3. For ye died to your old life, according to your own profession, in baptism, and your new, risen, eternal life is as yet hidden, with Christ, in God. 4. But when Christ, our life, shall be openly revealed at His coming, then ye, also, shall be openly revealed with Him, in glory.
What this Christian course requires them to avoid.
5. Be no longer, therefore, slaves to your sinful earthly nature, but, as it were, kill its members, which belong to earth, and have nothing in common with your true life, which is in heaven ā the foot, the hand, the eye, or any other organ, ā so far as they are the occasion of unholiness, such as fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire of any kind, and especially covetousness, for it is idolatry ; 6. for which things' sake the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience ; 7. in which sins you Colossians also, like those on whom
410 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
God's wrath will descend, walked in past days, when 3'ou lived in the practice of these things. 8. But now, notwith- standing your former lives, put ye also away all these : ā anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth ; 9. lie not one to another ; seeing ye have put off the old man with his doings, 10. and have put on the new man, who is being day by day renewed to a perfect knowledge of God, in Christ ; not the false " knowledge " set forth by the dis- turbers ; and thus re-created, after the image of Him who created him, the new man, 11. in which re-created manhood there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircum- cision, barbarian, Scythian, slave or freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
In this enumeration the Apostle had proclaimed the all-embracing charity of the Christianity he preached. The "Greek" and the "Jew" symbolised religious con- trasts and opposing exclusiveness ; the " slave " and the " free man," the opposite poles of social distinction, includ- ing all its grades and castes ; male and female spoke of the distinction of sex; the "Barbarian" personified all the races outside Greek civilisation and culture ā the pri- vileged, in contrast to the unprivileged from the Greek point of view, as the " Jew " and the " Greek " did in religion ; the " Scythian " stood for the degraded races of mankind; Barbarians not only from their ignorance of Greek, and their reputedly inarticulate speech, but from their savagery, the Scythian being the ideal of wild and sunken ferocity and repulsiveness, in antiquity, to both Jew and Greek, as the Tartar or Turk was the terror and the " hell-spawn " of the later Middle Ages. Over all, alike, Paul sees redeeming love shining down with equal favour ; its azure softness overarching all peoples, and kindreds, and nations, and tongues, while the many mansions of the
PAQL iET. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUD^A 411
Eternal Father's house, gleaming through, from beyond, ofTer an equal invitation to all. And, now, having pointed out what they had in common to avoid, he passes on to tell what positive graces they must cultivate.
12. Put on, therefore, the fitting robes of the new man, as chosen of God to inherit the kingdom of the Messiah, holy, as such, and beloved of Heaven, ā a compassionate heart, kind- ness, humility, meekness, long-suffering; 13. forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any ; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye. 14. And above all these, as your outer, all-covering garment, put on love, which keeps all together, and is thus the bond of perfectness. 15. And let the peace of Christ, which He left as a legacy to His disciples,^ rule in your hearts and decide aU disputes ā that peace, to which, also, ye were called by God, in one body, members one of another, ā the mystical body of Christ ; and be ye thankful to God, for having called you to it. 16. Let the word of Christ, the Gospel, dwell in you, individually, and as a whole, richly, in every kind of wisdom ; for, as I have said, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ ;2 teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs ; singing them to God, with grace in your hearts. 17. And whatsoever ye do, either in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Counsels now follow as to social d^.ties, in the family, and in relation to each other.
18. Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting for such as are in the Lord. 19. Husbands, love your wives, and do not treat them harshly. 20. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing in the Lord, 21. Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they be dis-
^ John xiv. 27. ' Chap. ii. 8.
412 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
couraged. 22. Slaves, obey in all things your lords and masters, as concerns your persons ; not with eye-service, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. 23. Whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not to men : 24. knowing, as ye do, that ye shall receive from the Lord, the great recompense, which consists in the inherit- ance in His kingdom, since you thus really serve as your Master the Lord Christ. 25. For he that doeth wrong, ^whether master or slave, shall receive back again, his due punishment for the wrong he has done : and there is no re- spect of persons with God. IV. 1. Masters, do what is just and due to your slaves, who, in their manhood, as brethren, are your equals ; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
Their duties to those who are not yet Christians are now briefly noticed. Their prayers will help the Apostle in his labours for them, and besides their prayers, the Colossians must seek to win them by a prudent and godly life.
2. Continue steadfastly in prayer, keeping your hearts and thoughts awake and alert in it, with thanksgiving for mercies already received ; 3. praying, as for yourselves and others, so, also for us ā Timothy, myself, and all my fellow- workers ā ā¢ also, that God may open to us a door for the word, by deliver- ing me from my imprisonment, to proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which also I am in bonds : 4. that I may make it clearly known, as I ought to speak. 5. As to your own part in winning converts, walk in wisdom^ toward them that are outside the faith, making the fullest use of the time given you. 6. Let your speech be always gracious, seasoned with the salt of wisdom, attractive and relishing, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one his questions on any point.
Personal details and greetings conclude the Epistle.
7. Tychicus, the beloved brother, and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord, will make known to you all my
1 Matt. X. 16.
PAUL iET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 413
affairs : 8. whom I have sent to you for this very purpose^ that ye may know how it fares with us, and that he may comfort your hearts. 9. I have sent along with him a run- away slave of Philemon of Colossse ā Onesimus by name, who now voluntarily returns to his master, and is one of your- selves, having become a Christian, and thus the faithful and beloved brother of us all. Tychicus and he will make known to you all that has been done or is doing here.
Friendly salutations and brief notices of some of the Apostle's fellow-labourers conclude the letter.
10. AristarchuSj my fellow- prisoner, salutes you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas ā respecting whom ye have received instructions. If he come to you, give him a hearty welcome. 11. Jesus, also, who is called Justus, salutes you. These three are all among my fellow-workers for the kingdom of God, who are of the circumcision, and they are men who have been a comfort to me. 12. Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a servant of Christ Jesus, salutes you, always wrestling on your behalf, in his prayers, that ye may stand fast, and fully persuaded in all the will of God. 13. For I bear him witness that he has much labour for you, and for them in Laodicea, and for them in Hierapolis. 14. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, salute you. 15. Salute the brethren in Laodicea, and Nymph as, and the church that is in their house. 16. And when this letter has been read among you, cause it to be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and arrange that ye also read the letter from Laodicea. 17. And say to Archippus, Q'ake heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the I ord, that thou fulfil it.
18. The salutation of me, Paul, with my own baud. Re- member my bonds. Grace be with you.
Of the worthies named in these verses the faithful Aristarchus would be well known in Proconsular Asia, as he had visited it more than once.^ Mark is named for
* Acts lix. 29 ; xx. 4 ; xxvii. 2. (See vol. i.)
414 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
the first time since his leaving Paul and Barnabas, in Pamphylia, more than ten years before, and it is delight- ful to find the past so completely forgotten. He clung touchingly, indeed, in these later years, to the Apostle, for we find him in Kome when all was nearly over, showing himself most useful to Paul in the service of the Gospel.^ The injunctions respecting him received by the Colossians from Paul, must have been sent earlier, either by letter or message, so that the Epistle was evidently not the first communication that had passed between the Apostle and the Colossian church, and the question whether Mark would visit the city at all, indicates his having been empowered to make a more or less general tour among the Asian congregations ; a momentary light in the dark- ness of these long dead ages, which reveals activities in the Christian propaganda we might not have suspected. The worthy who bears the name of Jesus, then common, but now so unspeakably sacred, appears to have owed the honourable mention made of him, to his admirable private qualities, rather than to his position, as no other notice of him is found. Justus was an ordinary surname of Jews in those days, intended, apparently, to indicate the loyalty of the bearer to the Eoman laws, under which all races then lived. We have a Joseph-Justus named for the place of Judas as Apostle,^ and a Titus-Justus, at Corinth,^ while two Jewish-Christian bishops of Jerusalem ā the third and the eleventh, according to Eusebius, bore the name,* and it often occurs in the Talmud. It was, moreover, virtu- ally given to St. James, our Lord's brother, in the Greek equivalent, Dikaios. That only three born Jews were
Ā» 2 Tim. iv. 1. (See vol. i. 11, 245, 341, 353.) Ā» Acts i. 23w
* Acts xviii. 7. * Eus. //. Ā£. iii. 35 ; iv. 5.
PAUL iET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 417
fonnd in the circle of Paul, during his imprisonment, speaks of the comparative fewness of the converts from the ancient faith, who accepted the broad-minded Chris- tianity of the Apostle. Of Epaphras, or, to give him his name in fnll, Epaphroditus, we know nothing, beyond the sweet notice of him by Paul ; so deeply shrouded from us are the lives of worthies to whom we owe our religion. Hierapolis lay, as I have said, on the north side of the broad valley of the Lycus, in sight of Laodicea ; the wide space between them, dotted with pastures, on which the many flocks of sheep, kept for their wool ā woven and dyed in both communities ā formed a charming and pro- minent sight. The limestone mountains behind the city, tunnelled by countless warm springs, which absorb the carbonic acid gas in the rocks, deposit the calcareous matter thus set free, in great cascades of white stalactites, on the slopes down which the waters finally rush, mimicking a stone Niagara, or the famous " terraces " of New Zealand. The hill side above the city is thus transformed into one of the wonders of the world, while the eye, turning from it to the landscape round, has, in the valley of the Meander which winds in sight, one of the loveliest views conceiv- able. Of the church in Hierapolis we know nothing, though Epaphras, from the indication given, must have been, if not its founder, one of its principal teachers. It was the birthplace of Epictetus, the slave philosopher ā afterwards freed, strange to say, by a master called Epaphras or Epaphroditus ā a servile favourite of Nero. This lofty moralist, in many respects, the most nearly Christian of heathen, was a grown up man in A.D. 67 ā a few years after the Colossians received their Epistle from the Apostle, and may thus have read or heard of it m. 2d
418 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
Rome, moreover, having become his early place of teach- ing, he may even have met Paul there. The social position of St. Luke can hardly be decided from his being called a "physician," as the profession, till the latest Roman times, was principally in the hands of slaves and freedmen ; not infrequently, of female slaves. Most of those practising in Rome were Greeks and Orientals, especially Egyptians. Galen, indeed, born in A.D. 131 and dying in A.D. 201, tells us, that even in his time, most of those who turned physicians were hardly able to read, and a notable practi- tioner in Nero's day, went even so far as to maintain, that half a year was enough to qualify one for the pro- fession. We constantly read, moreover, of the number of cobblers, carpenters, dyers, smiths, and other mechanics, who adopted medicine as an easy way of getting a living. Of course there are no grounds for classing St. Luke among such people, but, in any case, his being a physician does not imply as much as the same title would now. The tradition of his having also been an artist is of very late date, and utterly worthless.^ Of Nymphas, a Christian in whose house some of the brethren in Laodicea held their meetings, we know nothing farther. Archippus was, perhaps, the deputy for Epaphras in the service of the Colossian church, during his absence.
The mention of an Epistle which was to be sent to the Colossians from Laodicea, as that to themselves was to be forwarded to Laodicea, shows that other cases occurred in which apostolic letters have been lost, besides the in- stance given in the Epistle to the Corinthians.^
The short Epistle to Philemon gives us the peculiar
* Friedlander, L 320-3-24 ; Lanciani, "Ancient Rome," 76 flf. 2 1 Cor. V. 9.
PAUL MT. C. 49 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDiEA 419
pleasure of reading the only private letter of Paul which has been preserved. A native, or, at least, an inhabitant of Colossae, Philemon had been won to Christ by Paul him- self, probably, as I have said, during his long residence at Ephesus, which was only about one hundred miles west from Colossae, and was connected with it by the great high- way to the Euphrates. His worth and zeal in the cause of Christ are reflected in Paul's calling him " our beloved," and a "fellow- worker ; " a proof that he fervently aided Epaphras in his labours in their common town. His house, indeed, was opened by him as a meeting-place for the brethren, while his kindness and hospitality to his fellow- Christians generally were gratefully acknowledged by "all the saints."!
Outside this letter we have no reliable information respecting him, but it seems probable that the Apphia mentioned as " our sister," was his wife, though we do not hear of their having any children, unless we are to regard Archippus as their son, which, however, is mere conjec- ture. Like all who could afford it in those days, he owned slaves, and it is through this we know of him at all. One of these poor creatures, by name Onesimus, had run off ; an offence against the law as common then, as it was in the Southern States in the evil days of negro bondage there. Roman slavery, however, was immeasur- ably more severe, if the slave owner pleased to use his powers, than the American. Pollio, the friend of Augustus, a descendant of a freedman, used to feed his fish in his ponds at Posilippo, near Naples, with slaves, thrown into them;* and Juvenal's picture of the slave mistress, in
Ā» Philem. 1-7. ' Friedlander, L 274.
420 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
her fury, throws a terrible light on other possibilities of slavedom in those times.
"Put that slave on the cross," she cries. "Why ! what has he done to deserve it ? " asks her friend. *' What witness have you ? Who accused him ? Listen to me. No delay is ever long when the life of a man is at stake ! " ā "You fool!" screams the mistress, "is a slave a man, then ! Suppose he did nothing ; I wish it, I order it; my pleasure is reason enough ! " ^ Philemon, we may be sure, was far from anything like this ; but liberty is sweet, and Eoman law gave the slave no rights ; he Was only a chattel. So Onesimus stole off one night, taking the highway, east, for he could get, overland, by such stages as offered safety, to regions where it would be hard to discover him. The road, he knew, in his dark slave way, would lead him to Syria in the end, and thither he bent his steps, turning south when he reached the Syrian Gates, and finding himself, finally, in Csesarea. There Paul and he met, perhaps through the kind offices of some local brother, for slaves were poor, and Christian love was ever on the outlook to wipe away tears from off all faces. He may have thought at first of fleeing to Rome, but a long sea-voyage was needed to reach it, and fugitive slave- hunters were keen scented at all ports, while, in Rome, he would be at their very headquarters. Indeed, it seems as if those who suppose Paul was at Rome when the letter to Philemon was written, must be wrong, since Onesimus could never have ventured near a state prisoner, confined for Christianity. It would have been suicide to have done so.
From Paul the footsore wanderer heard words that fell
* Juv. Sat. vi. 219-223.
PAUL MT. c. 49 PAUl/s LAST VISIT TO JVDMk 421
on his heart like summer rain on the dusty hedge. The slave of Philemon became the freedman of Christ, while, to Paul himself, he became a brother beloved, both as a man and a fellow- Christian ; ^ so beloved, that he was his "very heart,' whom he " would fain have kept with him, that, in Philemon's behalf, he might minister to him, in the bonds of the Gospel." 2 But while the principles of Christianity involved the future abolition of slavery, it was no part of its mission to attack, directly, an institution rooted in the institutions of all countries, in those ages. To have done so would have roused the world at once against the new faith, and have kindled frightful but unavailing ser- vile wars. But Paul could make bondage easy by loving counsels to Philemon, and prepare the way for his manu- mitting Onesimus, and thus giving hira legal freedom. It was, in his opinion, the duty of the fugitive to go back to his master, but he took with him a letter, in which I'liilemon is asked to receive the poor man into his con- fidence again, to look on him, henceforth, not as a slave, but as a brother, and to show him the same love and con- sideration as he would have shown the Apostle himself, to whom he ā Philemon ā owed his very souL
The Epistle to Philemon.
1. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, brother of as both, to Piiilemon our beloved and our fellow- worker, 2, and to Appbia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house : 3. Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. I thank my God always, making mention of thee in my prayers, 5. hearing from Epaphras and others of thy brotherly
1 Ver. 16. Ā« Ver. 12.
422 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
love and of the faithfulness thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; 6. beseeching God that the par- ticipation by them in the loving manifestations of thy Chris- tian fidelity, shown in thy friendly offices, sympathies, and kindly deeds of charity, may become effectual in stirring up those who experience thy goodness, by the knowledge thus gained of all the Christian worth thou displayest ā to imitate it towards others, for the glory of our Lord. 7. For I had much joy and comfort in hearing of this thy love towards the saints, because their hearts have thus been refreshed through thee, 0 brother.
8. Seeing therefore that I have so much joy and comfort from thee, ā though, as an apostle, I have the right to use all boldness, in Christ, to enjoin thee to do that which is fitting; 9. yet, for love's sake, I rather beseech than command, being such an one as thou knowest me ā Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus ā 10. I beseech thee then for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus, 11. who in the past was little worth to thee, but now is of worth both to thee and to me : 12. whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, though he is my very heart, so dearly do I love him ā 13. whom I would fain have kept with me, that, in thy stead, he might minister to me in the bonds which the Gospel has brought on me. 14. But without thy consent I would do nothing ; that thy goodness in letting him serve me instead of thyself, should not be as if involuntary, but as coming of thy free will. 15, For, perhaps, he was parted from thee for a time, that thou shouldst have him for ever ; 16. no longer, however, as a slave, but as more than a slave, ā a beloved brother, most specially to me, but how much more than this, to thee, both in his person, as a man, and as a brother in the Lord. 17. If then thou countest me one with thee in close bonds, receive him as myself. 18. But if he has done thee any wrong, or is in thy debt, put that to my account; 19. this letter is my bond; I, Paul, write it with my own hand. Accept this as security :
PAUL iET. c. 49 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 423
I will repay it ; for I do not wish to say to thee that thou owest me far more than Onesimus can owe thee, ā thine own self. 20. Yes, brother, let me have a return from thee for this, in the Lord : refresh my heart in Christ. 21.1 write thee con- fiding in thy obedience, for I know that thou wilt do even more than I ask. 22. But, besides, prepare me, also, a lodging ; for I hope that through your prayers I shall be granted to you.
23. Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus, salutes you ; 24. and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-workers.
25. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
When Paul wrote the epistle to Philemon, in A.D. 60 or 61, he could not be less than fifty, and may have been older. That he should call himself "the aged" is not, however, surprising, as, even in the time of our own Elizabeth, Spenser calls the Earl of Leicester an old man, though he was not then fifty, and Lord Huntingdon re- presents Coligny as very old at fifty-three.^ Nor can we forget that our Lord, though only a little over thirty, was supposed to be approaching fifty ; 2 so worn was He with His bitter sufferings. But Paul had on his body the marks of his rough usage for his Master, and had day by day to bear so much for Him, that it seemed, even to his lowly spirit, as if he would, in the end, fill up in his personal sufferings what, before, they might have come short of equalling the afflictions of Christ.* He must, therefore, have been early made "aged." The wonder is, how he ever survived the dreadful tale of martyrdoms given in his second letter to the Corinthians.* Tychicus and Onesimus left for Colossae before the arrival of Festus, and he doubtless was expecting daily to be set free, since
* Knight's "Shakspere Hist." i. 113. 2 j^^^^ ^^u. 67.
ā¢ Ool. L 24. * 2 Cor. vi. 4-9 ; xi. 26 28.
424 THE APOSTLES A.D. 59
nothing could be established against him, even in tlie judgment of a man like Felix. Hence, in his dreams of what he intended to do, he would rejoice to ask Philemon to prepare a lodging for him ; his purpose evidently being, to go through Asia Minor to some port on the Archipelago, from which he might sail direct for Italy.
He had now closed his letters to Colossae, but Tychicus would be near Ephesus, if not going there of his own accord, and the opportunity to send a letter to the brethren at that great city, where he had laboured so long, was too precious to be missed. I assume that the epistle now standing in our version, as addressed to the Ephesians, was really so, and was neither that which, in Colossians, is spoken of as the Epistle to the Laodiceans, nor a circular letter to the churches of Proconsular Asia generally, to be passed from one to the other. To go into critical details would be out of place here, and of no real use, whatever the opinion accepted. Indeed, there are so many illustrious champions, ancient and modern, of all these views, that the only result of minutely studying the question is immeasurable confusion, profitable to no ordinary mortal. For my part, I think the arguments in support of the Epistle being unquestionably by St. Paul, and written to the Christians at Ephesus, given by Meyer, Hertzberg, Schenkel, and Braune, among others, quite outweigh those of the advanced school, represented by Yon Soden and such ultra-destructives, and I refer any reader who has a taste for dry-as-dust investigations, to them.
At least three years had elapsed since Paul's departure from Ephesus, with its mighty concourse of strangers from all parts, attracted by business, superstition, or
PAUL MT. C. 49
PAUT/S LAST VT'^TT TO JUD^A
425
curiosity; its tribe of Jews as fierce against Tliristianity as Paul, himself, had once been ; its teeming thousands of fanatical devotees of a goddess so profitable to the community as Diana; devotees so fanatical that, on the least alarm of her greatness being questioned, they would stream into the vast open-air theatre just outside the city, and pray to her, as we have seen, for hours, in one con-
Plain of Ephesus, from heights above it.
tinuous cry, ten tliousand times repeated, "Great Diana, hear us ! " ā with its crowded port, and harbour ; its long wharves ; its lofty warehouses ; its guilds of workmen ; its merchant princes ; its long display of shops of every kind ; its multitudinous temples; its rows of statues; its swarm- ing Syrian, Egyptian, Jewish, and native adventurers, who lived by their w^its on the general credulity, as exorcists, dream explainers, fortune-tellers, predictors of the future
426 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o OR 6l
from omens, magic formulae, sacred writings, and much else ā dealers in spells to pi'otect life and property, con- jurers, and mountebanks of all kinds, in all which Asia Minor everywhere abounded.^ That the faith of the Christian brethren, in such a centre of physical and spiritual danger, needed to be upheld by a letter from their Apostle, is impressively evident when we remember his solemn words at Miletus, on leaving these parts, and hence Paul would be only too glad of the opportunity of writing to them, by Tychicus. He sends them, therefore, a letter setting forth vividly the glory of the salvation Christ had obtained for them, the dignity of their position as Christians, and the life they must lead, to fortify and advance their souls in well-established faith, free from factions or divisions, and in all the Christian graces.
Epistle to the Ephesians; a.d. 60 or 61.
I. 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, througli the will of God, not by man's ordination, to the saints who are at Ephesus,2 who are also the faithful in Christ Jesus ; 2. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
^ Mommsen, v. 322 flF.
^ The Revised Version retains " at Ephesus ; '* so does the copy of the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from .the early part of the seventh century, and so do the 0. Alexandrinus of the middle of the fifth century, or earlier, the copy of the C. Vaticanus of the fourth or fifth century, the Vulgate, and most versions, but the general inscription to "The Ephe- sians " is found in the earliest copies of the Sinaitic, Alexandrian, and Vatican Codices, thus showing that the omission of the words " at Ephesus," however caused, has no weight against the reception of the Epistle as really addressed to the Ephesian church. That it was ever called an Epistle to the Laodiceans, rests on the authority of Tertullian (c. 160-245), who states that Marcion, a wild mystic of the second century (Ā«. 150-194), said it was.
PAUL iET. c. 50 01; 51 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 427
Ascription of praise to God for the Christian salvation, wtiich is enlarged upon in glowing terms.
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens ā from whence they are sent down to us ā in Christ : 4. as, indeed, is seen in that He chose us in Him before the founda- tion of the world, that we should be holy and without spot before Him, in love : 5. having foreordained us to be adopted as sons to Himself, through Jesus Christ; according to the free choice or good pleasure of His will, 6. to the praise of the gloriousness of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7. In whom we have our redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, accord- ing to the riches of His grace, 8. which He made to abound toward us, in all the wisdom and spiritual insight with which He has endowed us ; 9. since He has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, 10. with the object of introducing a new dispensation, or constitution of His kingdom on earth, to succeed that of Moses, during the age known among us as "the fulness of the times" ā the age leading on to the return of our Lord ā a dispensation which should gather together, for God Himself, into one, all things, in Christ as their head ; all things and beings, that is, whether in the heavens or on e^irth, in Him, 11. in whom we, Jewish-born Christians, also have been chosen to he made Christ's heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him, that is, God, who works out all things to the fulfilling of the counsels of His own will ; 12. that we should be the praise of Christ's glory, through this inheritance in Him as the Messiah ā we, that is, Jewish-born Christians, who had hoped for the Christ, before the appearance of our Lord. 13. In whom ye also, ā heathen- bom Christians ā having heard the word of the truth, the Gospel of your salvation ā in whom, I say, ā having further believed in Him, ye were sealed, and thus marked as His,
428 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o OR 6l
by your receiving the Holy Spirit of promise, 14. which is an earnest, or pledge, of our hereafter entering on full possession of our inheritance, this sealing by the Spirit being given by God to show His fixed purpose to carry out the full redemption of all believers at the coming of Christ, when they will enter on their full glory as the sons of God 1 ā all those who believe being God's own acquired " pos- session," purchased by the blood of Christ ^ to the praise of His glory.
The Apostle earnestly desires for his readers the reali- sation, in all its fulness, of the glorious salvation just described.
15. On this account, because you are in Christ and have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, I, further, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and which you show in its fruits toward all the saints, 16. do not cease to give thanks for you, mentioning you in my prayers; 17. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may confer on you that endowment of the Holy Spirit which will give you wisdom and revelation of higher truth which will enable you to penetrate deeply into the knowledge of Him- self: 18. the eyes of your heart being enlightened, so that ye may know what is the hope given you by God in your call to inherit the kingdom of the Messiah ā what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance, in the saints, won by His Son, 19. and what is the exceeding greatness of His power, to us who believe, by which all this is realised, as shown in the mighty working of that power 20. whicli He put forth in rela-
i Rora. viii. 18-23 ; Eph. iv. 30.
2 Acts XX. 28 ; 1 Pet. ii. 9. In Tit. ii. 14 the Church is called Christ a ā¢ā¢ possession," and- in Acts xx. 28 the words are, " The church of Ood which He purchased with His oivn hlood," as Israel was of old (Exod. xix. 5 ; Deut. vii. 6 ; xiv. 2 ; xxvi. 18). In Mai. iii. 17, LXX, the word "jewels" is the same as is rendered in our text, in the Revised Version, "own possession," and in the Authorised Version, "purchased possession;" Israel being the subject in Ma,lachi and the church in our text.
PAUL MT. c. 50 OR 51 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 429
tion to Christ, when He rnised Him from the dend, and made Him sit at His right hand in the heavenly regions, 21. far above all beings there ā all angels or archangels, whether holding the dignity of Rule, or Power, or Authority, or Dominion, and, indeed, above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. 22. And He put all tilings in subjection, under Christ's feet,^ and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, 23. which is His body, and, as such, is the fulness of Him ā its Lord ā who fills all the being of all its members, dwelling in all ; ruling, and developing their spiritual life.
The Apostle, continuing his address, specially to the heathen-born among the Ephesian brethren,^ enlarges in fuller detail on the " exceeding greatness of God's power," exhibited towards them as believers.^ In His love. He has raised them from spiritual death to be alive in Christ, and has, by anticipation, assigned them seats in heaven, designing to reveal at Christ*s coming, the full splendour of His goodness towards them, when the new cycle of world-history He will introduce will be inaugurated.
II. 1. And you, heathen born brethren, did He quicken when ye were dead ā doomed to the death eternal^ ā through your trespasses and sins, 2. in which, till then, ye walked, in keeping with the life of the present age of this world preceding the manifestation of Christ at His coming, according to the will and pleasure of the devil, the prince of the power of the air ā the beings who float round this world to work evil in men ā the spirit who now works still, in the sons of dis- obedience ; ^ 3. among whom we all, Jews as well as heathen,*
1 Ps. viii. 6, LXX. 2 See chap. i. 13. Ā» Chap. i. 19.
* Rom. viii. 10 ; 2 Thess. i. 8-10.
^ Paul, in this mode of speech, introduces into his Christian conceptions something of the rabbinical ideas of his pre-Christian life ; the rabbi? teaching that the devils had their home in the air over us (Ei-senmenger it 437). Ā« Rom. i. 18-ii. lM ; xi. 32 ; Gal. ii. 16, 16 ; Hi. 22.
430 THE APOSTLES A D. 60 OR 6l
once lived, in the lusts of our sinful flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.^ 4. But God, being rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us, 5. even when we were thus dead through our trespasses, brought us to life again with Christ in His resurrection, as one with Him ; He, the Head ; we, His body ^ ā by grace, not by merit, have ye been thus saved ā 6. and raised us up with Him, and made us sit with Him, as partakers of His exalta- tion and dominion,^ in the heavenly regions, ā and all this comes to us not merely in common tvith Christ Jesus, but by our being in Him ā part of His very self, as His '' body : " 7. that in the ages to come, after Christ's glorious return. He might show forth to the universe* the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
That all this amazing glory is the gift of free grace, not the earnings of merit, has already been brought to the minds of the readers in a passing phrase,^ but its grandeur leads the Apostle to dwell on it more fully.
8. For by grace have ye been saved, through your faith ; ā¢ and that ā your being savedā not of yourselves, so that you could boast of it as your own doing ; it is the gift of God : 9. not of works, that no man should glory. 10. For we are the work of God as Christians, so that salvation is His gift, created in Christ Jesus, at our conversion, to yield only good works, so that we can have no merit, since these good works began, in God's sense, only through and from our new crea- tion, by which God before it, had prepared us, that we should walk in them.
Since such high and unmerited favours have been shown them, the heathen-born among his readers should thank-
Ā» 1 Thess. iv. 13. Ā» CoL iii. 1. Ā» 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3.
* Chap. iii. 10. Ā» Ver. 6. ā¢ Rom. iii. 25, 30.
PAUL JET. C. 50 OR 51 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUDiEA 431
fully glory in the contrast between their hopeless past and their present position.
11. Therefore keep in mind, that once, ye, the heathen in the flesh, who are called, contemptuously, the Un circumcised, by the so-called Circumcision which is made by the hands, in the flesh ; 12. keep in mind, I say, that ye were at that time unconnected with Christ, aliens as regarded the com- monwealth of Israel, then God's kingdom on earth, and as aliens, without a share in it, and strangers as concerned the covenants of the promise, which was given to Abraham and his descendants only, having no hope of a share in them, and without the knowledge of the only true God, in the world ā to give you help, protection, consolation, or peace, either living or dying. 13. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye that once were far off from Christ, from the earthly kingdom of God in Israel, and from His great promise, are made nigh to God in the blood of Christ.
"Yes! all comes from Christ and His Cross! Let me repeat how He won it for us, through His death, and how that death has been made known to you, and made effective for your salvation ! "
14. For though Jew and Gentile were so different till He came, in their relations to God, He, Christ, is our peace, who made both Jews and heathen one, and, as it were, broke down the dividing wall which shut out Gentiles from the temple courts, 15. having abolished in His flesh, on the cross, ā thus removing the curse, by cancelling the law, and opening the way to justification by faith ^ ā the cause of the hatred between the two ā not the moral law, but the law of the commands embodied in outward ordinances ; that He might create, in Himself, of the two, the Jew and Gentile, one new man, thus making peace between them; 16. ā and might reconcile them both, now joined in one body, to God, through
1 Col. i. 21 ff. ; Gal. iii 13 ; Rom. ul 21 ff. ; viL 1 fif. ; x. 4 ff.
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the cross, having slain tliat which caused the hatred hetween them by it; 17. and, this being accomplished, He came, by the Holy Spirit, r.nd preached, through us apostles, peace with each other, and peace with God, both to you Gentiles who were far off ^ and to them ā the Jews ā who were nigh to God, as the children of the promise, and the depositaries of His revelations : 18. for, through Him, we both, Jew and Gentile, have our access, in the common indwelling new life of the one Holy Spirit, to the Father.
From this union springs the new spiritual temple of Christianity, the all-embracing charity of which, with other characteristics, are now fondly set before the Ephesians.
19. So then ye Gentiles are no more strangers and so- journers in the City of God, having no formal right of home in it ; not belonging to it, or enjoying a legal standing in it, but ye are fellow-citizens ā full burgesses ā with the saints ā the whole Christian people of God ā Jew and Gentile, alike ā and are members of the household of God, 20. being- to change the figures ā a holy temple built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, who have preached to you; Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner-stone of that preaching. 21. In whom, as uniting all, and binding all together, each several building ā each individual church ā fitly framed to- gether, grows into a holy temple, in the Lord ; 22. in whom ye, also, are thus built together for a habitation of God in the person of the Spirit ā which dwells in you, as the Shechina dwelt in the temple of old.
The Apostle is now a prisoner for his efforts to build up the Gentiles into such spiritual temples of God.
III. 1. It is on this account that I, Paul, am now, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, ā foi
* See verses 12, 13,
PAUL JET. c. 50 OR 51 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 433
had I shirked my duty to you I should have escaped persecu- tionā 2. as you must be aware if you have heard of the athiiinistration of that gracious honour of God, my apostolate to the Gentiles, which was given me, to carry out towards you.
The bestowal and object ef this apostolate.
3. How that, by revelation,^ the mystery was made known to me ā as I have written already in a few words, in this letter,^ 4. from which, when ye read them, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, in relation to the Gentile world ā 5. which, in other, past, generations, was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets ā its preachers āin the communica- tions of the Spirit ; 6. the mystery, I mean, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs with the Jews, and fellow-members with them of the mystical body of Christ, and fellow-partakers with them of the promise in Christ JesuvS, through the Gospel : 7. of which I was made a minister, that is, an apostle, according to the measure of the gift of that grace of God, which was then given me, and which has since been the passion of my life, through the divine working of His power in me. 8. Unto me, ā wondrous to say, to me! who am less than the least of all saints, was this favour granted, that I should be honoured to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; 9. and that I should make clear to all men what is the Divine plan for the realisation of the object of the mystery, which, from all past ages, from the beginning of time, has been hid in God, who created all things 10. with the design that His manifold wisdom might be made known, now, through the church, " the members incorporate in the mystical body of His Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people, '^ to the angelic principalities and powers in the heavenly regions ; 11. the man fold wisdom, I say, shown in accordance with the eteinal purpose which God purposed to carry out in the work of Christ Jesus our Lord : 12. in whom we have bold-
^ Acts xxvi. 17, 18 ; Gal. i. 12. * Chap, u 9, 10. ā¢ Communioji Servicaw UI. 2 Ā£
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ness in our souls, toward God, as assured partakers of the Divine favour, and access to Him in confidence of acceptance through our faith in Him ā that is, in Christ. 13. Where- fore, since we have this favour of God, in our Lord, I pray you not to lose heart at my sufferings for you, Gentiles, as your apostle, which are your glory.
14. For this end, that you may not lose heart, I bow my knees to the Father, 15. from whom every family, or race of beings, in heaven and on earth, gets that name of Father, as being all His children, 16. that He would grant you, accord- ing to the riches of His glory, that ye be strengthened with power, through His Spirit, in the inward man ; 17. that Christ may dwell in your hearts, through your faith ; that being rooted and grounded in love of Him, 18. ye may be able fully to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, 19. and thus to know that love, which yet surpasses full knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the gifts of God's grace, till the whole fulness of it dwell in you.
20. Now unto Him (God) that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21 unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
The practical part of the letter now begins, by an ex- hortation to live as becomes their calling.
lY. 1. I, therefore, the prisoner, in the cause of the Lord, beseeech you, since your position is so glorious, to walk worthy of the " calling " by which you were called out by God, to enter the kingdom of Christ, at your conversion, 2. with all lowli- ness, and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing patiently with each other in love ; 3. earnestly striving to maintain the unity which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you ā in the bond of peace ā that grace which, alone, secures this unity I
PAUL JET. c. 50 OR 51 Paul's last visit to jud^ea 435
Unity is the fundamental idea of the Church, which is one body, dwelt in by one Spirit.
4. There is only one body and one Spirit, just as, also, you were called in one common hope as that of your calling ā the hope of salvation through Christ ; 5. one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6. one God and Father of all believers, who is over you all, and through you all, and in you all.
But unity is not only enforced as a supreme duty by the thought that the Church, as a whole, is one " body," marked by common features which emphasise its organic oneness, but also by the fact, that each has his special sphere assigned him in it, so that there is no excuse for rivalries, or jealousies, or confusion.
7. Yet no one has been overlooked in the distribution of spiritual gifts, but to each one of us was the special kind and degree of grace he enjoys given, according to the measure apportioned to each by the gift of Christ. 8. On this account God says. When He, the Messiah, ascended in triumph on high, He led, captive the foes who had kept man in captivity to sin ā all His enemies and man's, and gave gifts to men. 1 9. Now, that word, He ascended^ what does it mean but that He also had first descended, not only to this earth, but to the depths of Hades, the parts lower than the earth ^^ thus conquering all His foes by His death and resurrection, so as to be able to lead them captive, for, 10. He that descended is the same who also ascended far above all the heavens,* that He might
^ Ps. Ixviii. 18, freely rendered from the LXX. Primarily, a triumphal song of the great doings of God ā Jah ā it is used by Paul of Christ, as the Head of the new kingdom of God.
2 Phil. ii. 8, 10 ; Luke xxiii. 43 ; Acts ii. 27 ; 1 Pet. iii. 19.
' Phil. ii. 9 ; Heb. iv. 4 ; vii. 26. The rabbis describe seven heavens : the first, below the clouds ; the second, the region of clouds and tempests, and of evil spirits ; the third, the place of the stars ā " the hosts of heaven ; " ā the four higher were assigned to the saints, the angels, and the throne of God.
436 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o OR 6 i
fill all things with His upholding, ruling, and grace -bestowing might.
Christ has given the Church teachers of differcDt orders, that all believers might attain to unity of faith and know- ledge, and while thus preserved from false doctrine, learn the truth in mutual love. They would thus all keep united to Christ, the Head, from whom the whole body, the Church universal, derives its gradual full development in grace, and its final triumph.
11. And the gifts He has thus given to ns, men, are seen among us, for He gave some, the gift, to be apostles ; some, to be prophets ; and some to be evangelists ; and some to be shep- herds and teachers, that is. to rule, teach, and guide in life, doctrine, and order, the flock of Ciirist, as overseers, that is, bishops, or presbyters ā that is, elders, ā 12. for the perfecting of the saints, for the discharge of their manifold work of minis- tering to them, and thus building up the body of Christ, ā the Church individually and collectively ; 13. till we all attain the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, that it may reach the completeness of a full-grown man; to the measure of that perfect growth which marks the posses- sion of all the gifts and graces which make up the fulness of Christ; 14. that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro on the waves of disputation, and carried about by every wind of false doctrine, sending us now in this direction, then in that, by the tongue -sleight of men, in their craftiness, to drive us into the snares of error; 15. but, confessing the truth, as it has been taught us, in its spirit of love to each other, may grow up in all things, into Him who is the Head of His mystical body, the Church universal, even Christ ; 16. from whom, as the source of grace, all the body, thus fitly framed and knit together, in unity to Him, by that which every part contributes, through the working of each part in its due measure, secures its continual growth, and builds itself UD in love.
PAUL MT. C. 50 OR 51 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JUD^A 437
Tills being so, the Ephesians must no longer live as tLey did while heathen.
17. To go back to my exhortations, then, I would ask and
adjure you in the Lord, that you no longer walk, as you once did, like the heathen, who follow the foolishness of their mind, 18. being darkened in their understanding, estranged from the life of God by their ignorance, through the hardening of their heart. 19. Who, being past feeling, abandoned them- selves to lasciviousness, giving themselves up to work all un- clean ness with greediness.
The Ephesians, however, had been taught a different morality.
20. But ye did not so learn Christ ; 21. at least if, as is beyond doubt, ye heard Him speaking to you in the preach- ing of His Gospel, and have been taught, as Christians, who are in Him, ā even as truth is in Jesus; 22. that ye put off, as to your former manner of life, the old man, which tends to growing corruptness, by the deceiving power of our desires ; 23. and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24. and put on the new man, which, after God, has been created in righteousness and holiness, bom only of the truth, as set forth in the Gospel, and ruling in the new man.
Various exhortations to put off *'the old man," based on their having been taught " the truth."
25. Therefore, putting away lying, speak truth, each, with his neighbour; for we are members, one of the other ā parts of one body ā and how monstrous for one part of the body to lie to the other. 26. As the Psalm says. Be ye angry and sin nut} let not the sun go down on your wrath : 27. neither give the devil play-room in your soul, by the violence, any more than the continuance of your anger. 28. Let liim who stole before his conversion, play the thief no more ; but rather
1 Pa. iv. 4. LXX.
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let him work with his hands at what is creditable, that ho may have something to give to the needy. 29. Let no un- worthy or idle word come out of your mouth, but only such as may serve to build up the brethren, as the need may be, that it may be of benefit to those who hear it. 30. And do not, by anything you say, grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed, as the sons of God, against the day of your final redemption at the coming of Christ. 31. Let, then, all bitterness, and wrath, and rage, and angry clamour, and railing at each other, be put away from you, with all malevolence; 32. and be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, as God, in Christ, has forgiven you.
V. 1. Be ye, therefore, imitators of God, as His beloved children ; 2. and walk in love with each other, as Christ also loved each one of you, and gave Himself for us all, an offering and a sacrifice to God, from which He smelted a sweet savour, as from Noah's sacrifice after the Flood. ^
Exhortation against various sins, till now less fully mentioned.
3. But let not fornication, or uncleanness, in any form, or
covetousness, be even named among you, as becomes saints ; 4. nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor frivolity, which are not befitting ; but, rather, let your mouth be filled with thanks- giving to God, which will shut out unworthy talk. 5. For you know and know well, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man ā who is an idolater ā has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6. Let no man deceive you with empty words ; for, whatever they may say, the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience because of these things. 7. Be not ye, therefore, partakers with them in such sins ; 8. for though you were once darkness, you are now light in the Lord : walk, therefore, as children of light ā 9. for the fruit of the light, ripened by it, is seen in all forms of goodness, and righteousness, and truth. 10. Walk worthy of it, then, test-
Ā» Gen. viii. 21, LXX. ; Phil. iv. 18.
PAUL ^T. C. 50 OR 51 PAUL'S LAST VISIT TO JTTDiEA 439
ing, by the Gospel and your conscience, what is well pleasing to the Lord, and doing only that; 11. and have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove their sinfulness. 12. For the things done in secret by the heathen, are shameful even to mention. 13. But all things that are reproved by it are made manifest, as to their character, by the light which thus falls on them : for whatever is made thus manifest is thereby brought out of darkness, and revealed in its true nature, so that, in one sense, it has become light. 14. For this reason, that reproof and bringing everything to the light, is so profitable, God says, Atvake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead^ and Christ shall shine upon thee.^
They must walk wisely; not in the sinfully foolish ways of the heathen.
15. See, then, that you walk carefully, as I have just coun- selled,^ not as unwise, but as wise ; 16. making the best possible use of the time ā as it were, making capital of it, for yourselves, ā because the times are evil, and thus confusing and deceiving, so that it needs double zeal to redeem every moment for Christ. 17. Wherefore, be not foolish, but under- stand what the will of the Lord is : ask His will, and do it.*
Drunkenness appears to have been a too common sin.
18. And, especially, be not drunken with wine, so plenti- ful among you at Ephesus, for it leads to lewd, riotous life, but be full of the Spirit of God ; V9. speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music, not with the lips only, but with your heart, to the Lord : 20. giving thanks always, for all things, in the name
* No text in the Old Testament corresponds with this quotation ; for though Isa. ix. 1, xxvi. 19, and Ix. 1 have been thought of, they do not answer to the words used by the Apostle. It seems more probable that the quotation i& from some sacred writing, then highly esteemed, bufc now lost. 2 Ver. 8. ' Acts xxi. 14 ; 1 Cor. iv. 19.
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of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father ; 21. sub- jecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
The mention of subjection introduces a series of counsels as to family obligations.
22. Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the cliurch, His body, of which He is the Saviour. 24. Yet, though this is the case, Christ's being thus the head of all believers does not lessen the obligation of wives to obey their iiusbands, as if Christ, only, were their head in every sense, but as the clinrch is sub- ject to Christ, so let also the wives be to their husbands in everything. 25. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it ; 26. that He might sanctify it, ā after He had cleansed it by the washing of water, ā with the word,^ 27. that He miglit present the church to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be lioly and without blemish. 28. In the same way as Christ has thus loved us, as being His own body, husbands, also, ought to love tlieir own wives, as being their own bodies. He that loves his own wife loves in her, only himself ; 29. for they are " one flesh," and no man ever hated his own flesh, buo nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ, also, the church ; 30. because we, its members, are members of His body. 31. For this reason shall a man leave his father and his mother ^ and shall cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'^ 32. This mystery, disclosed in these words, is great, but I quote them specially as applicable in regard to the relation of Christ and the church ; the man, in a sense, representing Christ, and the woman, the church. 33. Yet, to pursue this point no farther, ā since Christ realises the spirit of these words, in His relation to the church, let each of you, also,
^ Rom. X. 8 ; Eph. vi. 17 ; Heb. vi. 5 ; Tit. iii. 5 ; 1 Cor. vi. 11.
2 Gill. ii. 24.
PAUL iET. c. 50 OR 51 Paul's last visit to jud.ea 441
man by man, love his own wife as he loves himself; and let the wife see that she reverence her husband.
VI. 1. Children, of the "saints," brought up, as such, in Christian truth, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2. And not only obey, bub honour thy father and mother ā which is the first commandment with promise, for tihe words are added to it ā 3. tJiat it may be well with thee^ and that thou may est live lowj on the earth.^ 4. And ye fathers, provoke not youi- children to anger, by bad conduct, harsh treatment, passionateness, too great strictness, or the like : but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
5. Slaves, be obedient to those who, as regards your bodies, are your lords and owners, with such hearty zeal, that you will have fear and trembling, lest you come short of your duty ; in singleness of heart, without duplicity, regarding your obedience as rendered to their and your overlord, Christ. 6. Not in an eye-serving way, as men-pleasers ; but as slaves of Christ. ā bought by Him, and thus. His purchased possession ā doing the will of God from the heart ; 7. render- ing your service with good-will, as to the Lord and not to men : 8. knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he shall receive the same again, from the Lord, at His coming, whether he be slave or free.
Paul does not think of slavery ceasing before Christ's Ketnrn, but as he thought that would be immediate, slavery, in his view, would presently be done away for ever.
9. And ye, lords of these slaves, being now yourselves Christians, act in the same spirit to them, forbearing threaten- ing; knowing that both their Lord and yours is in heaven, ind that there is no respect of persons with Him.
A concluding admonition, full of life and energy, appeals
^ Exod. XX. 12 ; Deut. v. 16, LXX
442 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o OR 6l
to all, to arm themselves for the Christian warfare, and to fight valiantly for the Great Captain of their salvation.
10. Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. 11. Put on the full armour of Godā the " panoply " of the Christian soldier, complete as that of the heavy- armed legionary, alike for attack and defence,^ that ye may be able to keep your ground against the wiles of the devil. 12. For we struggle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers, of this present darkness ā their natural element - ā against hosts of evil spirits in the regions of the air.^ 13. On this account, take to you the full armour of God, for attack and defence, that ye may be able to withstand all assaults of these ghostly enemies, in the evil day of their final and grand outbreak, on the eve of the near-appoaching coming of Christ,^ and, after you have fought out the whole battle, to hold your ground, victorious. 14. Stand, therefore, ready, girt round with the girdle of truth, as a soldier with his broad sustaining belt, and having put on the breast- plate of "righteousness, 15. and ā as soldiers do theirs, with their heavy hob-nailed boots ā having shod your feet with the preparedness for stepping firmly out, and standing firm, which the Gospel, the proclamation, of your peace with God provides ; 16. taking to you, besides all this, the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one, for his temptations are like the huge Phalarica spear, hurled afar, with its head of flaming pitch. 17. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God ā the Gospel.
The Christian armour must be associated with habitual, fervent prayer.
* Judith xiv. 3 ; 2 Mace. iii. 25 ; Wisd. v. 17-23 ; which last passage Paul seems to have had at this time in his mind. ^ Chap. ii. 2.
Ā» 2 Thess. ii. 8 ; see "The Apostles," &c., vol. i. 498 ff.
PAUL jET. c. 50 OR 51 Paul's last visit to jud^a 443
18. Praying at all seasons with all prayer and supplication, through the aid of the Spirit, omitting no cry to God, or entreaty for help, and watching for this end, with all steadfast continuance, and with supplications for all the saints every- where, 19. and for me, also, that words may be given me when I open my mouth, so that I may he able to make known with boldness the mystery, which the Gospel reveals; 20. for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in connection with this mystery I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
A few closing words and he has done.
21. But that you also may know my affairs, as I know yours, through Epaphras and others, and how I do, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful fellow- servant in the Lord, shall make known to you all things : 22. whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that ye may know my position, and that he may comfort your hearts.
23. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ with an un- changing deathless love.
At what period of his two years* detention at Cassarea these Epistles were written, it is impossible to say, but, whether earlier or later, they show that while Felix, " with the soul of a slave," played the great man in the gilded saloons of the praetorium, and planned whatever crime of lust, or plunder, or murder, might promise to gratify his passion, his greed, or his revenge, his prisoner, ā admittedly detained without legal grounds, and, as was believed, simply in hopes of his sect raising a bribe, and opening his prison quarters with this golden key, ā remained in spite of his chains, the centre of a sleepless propaganda of the new faith, for which he had already
444 THE APOStLES A.D. 6o OR 6l
suffered the loss of all that, to most, makes life worth having. The barrack-yard would be alive with its loung- ing or busy heathen soldiery ; ā barbarian light cavalry- men, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, from what is now far- off Hungary or Austria ; or men of the Italian cohort, in which Cornelius was a centurion ā the guard of honour of the Procurator ā or, it may be, ā heavy-armed legion- aries, or some of the slingers, or bowmen, or spearmen, for all these different services were associated in each section of a legion. He may often perhaps, also, have watched some of the light-b aired, big men of the two Gaulish or Belgic regiments from beyond the Rhine, which had been in Egypt two generations before, but had been handed over as a gift to Herod, and were now quartered in Palestine. But through this rough, wild crowd, drafted from Europe, Asia, and Africa, with their many uniforms, their flashing armour, their sounding trumpets, their martial exercises, or their sauntering ease, the envoys of the pale Jewish prisoner stole forth, to carry to the little communities of believers, in every part where Christ had been preached, words of counsel, and exhortation, and eternal hope. The actual body of the sun is said to lie in darkness, under the glittering veil of light which wraps it round, its splendours being only a mantle shrouding its gloomy bulk, and like it, the great orb of Rome, with all its outward magnificence, was only a shin- ing surface beneath which lay moral chaos. Yet, hero and there, even now, the night was being lighted up, by the rays of heavenly light shed from the Gospel shining afar from the prison chamber of Paul, in his Christian love for all mankind, as the common children of the great Father, redeemed by the blood of the cross.
CHAPTER Xn
PAUL AND THE PROCURATOR FESTF3 REIQN OP FESTUS, A.D. 60-62 ; PAUL's AGE, C. 50-52
The slave-born procurator Felix had been dismissed in the winter of A.D. 60-61, things having gone from bad to worse under his rule. The Irreconcilables, as we may call the furious zealots who had joined in a secret-murder league, to win Jewish independence by the dagger, ter- rorised the land. Mingling with the crowds in the spacious Temple grounds, at the great feasts, they stabbed all whom their leaders had denounced. Over the country, more- over, they plundered and burned down the mansions and properties of the rich friends of the Romans, of whom there were many ; including the aristocratic Sadducee priest-nobility, and the upper class generally. No man's life or fortune was safe. Anarchy reigned.^ Things were rapidly drifting towards the great final war. Agrippa II., who had at last, four years after his father's death, been raised from private life, and made prince of Chalcis, on the death of his uncle Herod, had, like him, with this dignity, the right to appoint the Jewish high priest, and, also, supreme authority over the Temple. As patron of the great priestly office, he had, in A.D. 59, raised to it one Ishmael, a member of the Sadducee aristocracy, from R'hich all high-priests were chosen, and this worthy had
^ Job. Ant. xx. 8, 10 ; Bell. Jud. ii. 13, 9k
446 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
quarrelled with the heads of the popular Pharisee party in Jerusalem, with the result that daily riots took place between his followers and theirs, filling the streets with tumult and bloodshed. His slaves, moreover, were sent out to the threshing-floors, to carry off the tithes due to the priests ; grasping everything, so that many of the poorer priests actually died of want. Nor was Judea, alone, thus disturbed, for the long-simmering grudge between the heathen and Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea, the seat of Eoman government, at last broke out into wild strife. Herod the Great having built the city,^ the Jews claimed it as theirs because Herod was a Jewish king, while the Syro-Greek half of its population main- tained that it was only an enlargement of the old Greek town called Strato's Tower, which had occupied the same site, and that even Herod had designed it to be a Greek city, from his having built temples and set up statues in it, which were an abomination to the Jew. So complete was the local collapse of the imperial authority, for the time, that the two races daily encountered each other in bloody fights, in the very streets. The arrest of the ring- leaders on each side, and the frequent calling out of the soldiery, was insufficient to quiet affairs, though the prisoners taken were scourged, and thrown into jail with all its horrors. The Jews, as might have been expected, owned most of the wealth of the city, but the troops, who were either Samaritans, and thus natural enemies of the Jews, or from Syria, sympathised with their fellow "Greeks," and eagerly fraternised with them. At last, when the constant riots had become a virtual war, Felix himself appeared, one day, during a battle, and, on the Jews
1 Geikie's ** Life of Christ," i. 48.
PAUL JET. C. 50-52 PAUF. AND FESTUS 447
refusing to retire at his command, let loose the soldiers on them, slew many, took still more prisoners, and gave up the houses of some of the richest to plunder. The Jews, indeed, were the aggressors, for Josephus tells us that they "boasted of their wealth and despised the Syro- G reeks, treating them with every kind of insult to provoke them to violence." Meanwhile, Felix shipped off the lead- ing men of both sides, to Home, to get the dispute settled by the Emperor, but the main result was to bring about his own fall. His recall may, indeed, have been the work of Corbulo, the Proconsul of *' Syria," now ready to start on a campaign against the Parthian s, and hence unwilling to leave such disquiet in the rear of his army as that of the sub-province of Felix. But if the hated Procurator was dismissed, the Jews gained little on their side, for Caesarea was declared to be a Gentile city ; a decision which they did not fail to ascribe to their foes having bribed the incorruptible Burrus, the praetorian prefect of Kome, and to the influence of Pallas, the brother of Felix, who had fallen nearly six years before, and was doomed to be poisoned by Nero some months later. Yet it may have been through his relationship to this once mighty per- sonage, that the ex-Procurator escaped execution.^ His position shows us the good grounds he had, to try to *' gain favour with the Jews " by leaving Paul bound ; the chaos he had brought about, and the hatred he had excited, having determined them to send a deputation to Rome, to impeach him.
Fortius Festus, his successor, of whom we know nothing beyond the brief notices in Josephus and the Acts, was hj no means willing to let the Irreconcilables enjoy the gooa
* Jos. Ant. XX. 8, 9.
448 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6O-62
times of plunder and terror, which they had used so vigorously under Felix. Detachments of horse and foot were sent out in all directions, to put down the guerilla-war that was wrecking the land, and were able, before long, to surround the different haunts of the " patriot" bands, and scatter them for the time. But it was only to re- assemble elsewhere and add still further to the troubles, which, within eight years more, would lay the holy city and the Temple itself, in ruins, and sweep away the whole Jewish state.
To examine matters on the spot for himself, Festus started for Jerusalem three days after his arrival at Cdesarea, no doubt with a strong body of troops, for, if the state of the country needed four hundred infantry, and seventy cavalry, to guard Paul between Jerusalem and Ca?sarea, a much larger force would be sent as escort: to the Procurator. Had the journey been made a little later, the roads would have been safer, when lined with crucified "patriots," and when long trains of fanatics had been marched down to the prison and torture-chambers of Csesarea. At the capital, Festus would form his own opinion of the rival parties, which filled it with tumult. Claudius Lysias, also, would be able to enlighten him as to the various factions, and their ferocious disloyalty as a whole, in both Jerusalem and Judaea. Hence, when the famous Ishmael, the high-priest, with the leading priests and elders, or, as we may say, the Sanhedrim, sought an audience, and proceeded to demand that a prisoner, one Paul, now confined at Csesarea, should be sent back to Jerusalem, to be tried by the Jewish high court, as properly coming under its jurisdiction, Festus was prompt in his refusal to grant the request. Especially
PAUL ^T. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 449
would the Roman be fixed in this resolution, by the fact that a crowd of the city rabble had followed these dig- nitaries, and sought to browbeat him into submission to them, by a tempest of voices outside, amidst which he could hear, above all others, a cry that the denounced man was not worthy to live.^ Had they approached him in a more becoming way, he might have listened to them, as a courtesy marking his comiug to the country, but he was not disposed to give way before a mob. It was clear that the accused man could have no fair trial from the Jews, and, indeed, that the intention was to assassinate him, before he reached Jerusalem, by a sudden attack of a body of daggermen on his escort. Festus, therefore, with a spirit worthy of his office, told them that Paul being in custody, as they said, in Csesarea, and he himself being about to return thither very soon, the proper plan was, that the Jewish authorities should go down with him and accuse him, if he had committed any crime. "It was not the custom of the Romans," he nobly added, "to give up any man, before the accused had the accusers face to face with him, and had opportunity to make his defence." ^
Eight or ten days sufficed for the Procurator's visit to the Holy City, and as they co ild do no better, the chief priests and elders had to mount their riding-asses and accompany him : no doubt at sufficient distance, to pre- vent danger of defilement from coming too near an un- clean heathen, or his uncircumcised escort. Festus, on his part, was no less anxious to get rid of them, and therefore took his seat on the judge's chair, on the raised tribunal of the prsetorium, the morning after his arrival,
^ Acts XXV. 24. 2 Ver. 16.
III. 2 F
450 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
with his " council " beside him ; officials qualified to assist him in legal points, as our clerk of the court aids magistrates, who are necessarily less acquainted with legal procedure, than persons trained in the law. The accusers having been called upon for their charges, had many- crimes to allege against the Apostle, repeating the in- dictment under which he had been formerly arraigned before Felix, of haviog shown himself a heretic and an apostate by his offences against the law, as guilty of sacri- lege by defiling the Temple, and, worst of all, of high treason, by setting up Jesus as king, in opposition to Nero.^ They were, however, utterly unable to support these accusations by any evidence, and Paul, when called to defend himself, strenuously repudiated his being guilty on any of the counts advanced. It was plain to Festus that the whole question was one about Jewish bigotry and religion ; not, as he had perhaps imagined, in connection with political affairs. Clearly, Paul had done nothing worthy of death, though his enemies clamoured so eagerly for his blood. At a loss what to do, and wishing to keep on good terms with people so dangerous as the Jews, it struck him that Paul would be safe enough, if tried at Jerusalem before himself, while his being sent there might satisfy Jewish pride. But Paul, on this being proposed to him, instantly protested against having anything to do with the Sanhedrim. As a Tloman citizen he could claim a Roman trial. He was 2k- that moment before Csesar's judgment-seat, not that of the high-priest's, and if Festus thought his case should be removed to another court, it must be referred to a higher Roman one ā that of the emperor ; not to a hostile
^ Acta XXV. 8.
PAUL ^T. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 451
tribunal, which could have no power of life or death over a Roman citizen, and was only for subordinate matters of Jewish law. "I am standing," said he, "for trial, before Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged at once, and either condemned or acquitted, without being handed over to any foreign, inferior jurisdiction. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as thou, 0 Festus, very well know est. If then I be guilty of offence against Roman law, and am worthy of death, I do not refuse to die, but if none of these things, of which this band of enemies accuse me, are true, no man ā not even a Roman Procurator, ā can give me up to them. I appeal unto Caesar." He knew that Festus, honest as he might be in the intention to secure him a fair trial, would be powerless to save him from being murdered by the way, and, besides, it was altogether illegal to refer to a Jewish court, a case which had been already brought under the imperial jurisdiction, by being transferred to Caesarea. Sent to Jerusalem, the dagger awaited him ; sent to Rome, he must, as he rightly believed, be set free. The mention of the emperor brought the matter to a head. Turning to his legal assessors for counsel on the law of appeal, Festus presently informed Paul, that as he had appealed to Caesar, he would be sent to him. The Apostle was to see Rome at last, but under what different circumstances from his fond expectations, so long cherished !
Caesarea was the one port of Palestine worthy of the name, but some time necessarily elapsed before a vessel could be found, to which the Apostle, and the many prisoners to be sent to Rome in these troubled times, could be intrusted. Meanwhile, the Procurator had U
452 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6O-62
prepare a statement of the charges against him, to lay before the high court at Rome, as its ground of action in his case, and must have been not a little perplexed how to formulate it, since the prisoner, as he frankly admitted, was so wholly innocent of any offence against Eoman law, that he might have been set free, but for his appeal ; only some alleged contravention of the intricate, and, to a Roman, despicable obscurities of Jewish religious laws, being justly laid to his charge. Fortunately, at the very time he could be of use, the round of visits of ceremony from neighbouring dignitaries, to congratulate the Procu- rator on his elevation to high oflSce among them, brought King Agrippa II. to Caesarea, with his beautiful, but too well-known sister Bernice ; probably from Tiberias, for the last seven years his chief city. As the official head of the Temple, versed, from this position, in all niceties of rabbinical law, and the special adviser of the Procurator on all such questions, nothing could be more opportune than his visit. Festus, therefore, gladly consulted him about Paul's case. He had been left a prisoner, Agrippa was told, by Felix, and had been brought under the notice of the Procurator when he was at Jerusalem, by the chief priests and elders, who had demanded his sum- mary condemnation. They had been told, however, that Roman law forbade any man arraigned in the imperial courts, such as his own, to be transferred to another juris- diction, or to be condemned, till he had met his accusers openly, with a full opportunity of defending himself. No charge of such political offences as Festus had anticipated had been brought against this man ; the only indictment being about questions of the Jewish religion, and about one Jesus, who was dead, but whom Paul affirmed to be
PAUL MT. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 453
alive. In bis perplexity, from ignorance of sncli things, Festus added, he had proposed to the prisoner, that the case be tried in Jerusalem by the Jewish court, he ā Festus ā himself being present, but Paul had declined the suggestion, and had appealed to the emperor, so that he was now detained at Ceesarea only till he could be sent to Home. *' I myself," said Agrippa, " should like to hear the man." ā '* You shall do so to-morrow/* replied Festus.
Next day, therefore, the court sat again ; Agrippa and his sister Bernice attending with great pomp ; the chief military and civil dignitaries of the city, no doubt in their richest bravery, accompanying them. Presently, Paul was brought in, and his case once more briefly recapitulated by Festus. "All the multitude of the Jews, both at Jerusalem and in Caasarea," said he, "had demanded that he should be given up to them, as one not worthy to live any longer. He, Festus, however, found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, but as he had appealed to the Emperor, he was to go to Rome. Yet what to say to the imperial court about him, was a trouble. He was now, therefore, brought before this honourable company, and specially before King Agrippa, that he, Festus, might gather something to write, from the examination now to be had. For it was unreasonable to send a prisoner without specifying the (^harges against him."
Agrippa, thus made honorary president of the court, and accepting the dignity, forthwith acted on it, by telling Paul that he was permitted to speak for himself. Stretching forth his hand, therefore, as is usual with an orator, the Apostle, grateful for the opportunity, at once began his defence.
454 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
2. **I think myself happy, King Agrippa,"^ said he, "that I am to defend myself before thee to-day, touching all the things of which I am accused by the Jews ; 3. especially because thou art expert in all Jewish customs and questions. Wherefore I pray you to hear me patiently."
He has been a strict Jew, and is not guilty, as asserted^ of 'indermining or attacking the law.
4. My mode of life from my youth up, is known to all the Jews, as it was spent at Jerusalem from the beginning, among my own nation. 5. They thus know me already from the first, and can testify, if they be willing, that I lived as a Pharisee, observing the rules of that sect, ā the strictest of our religion. 6. And now, strange to say, I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers; 7. that promise, to the realisation of which, our twelve tribes, in their constant earnest service of God, night and day, hope to come. And it is concerning this hope, I am accused by the Jews, O King ! 8. Since when has it become incredible with you, 0 my people, that God should raise the dead?
He formerly persecuted the Christians, as the Jews do still.
9. Yet I hardly wonder at my nation opposing the new faith, which rests on the resurrection of one who was crucified, for I, myself, indeed, thought that I ought to do all I could against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10. And this, in fact, I did in Jerusalem itself, not only shutting up many of the saints, as we call Christians, in prisons, having asked and received authority from the chief priests to do so, but when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. 11. And, moreover, I got them often punished, by forty stripes save one, in all synagogues of the city and of Judaea, striving to make them blaspheme the name of Jesus
^ Acts xxvu
PAUL MT. C. 50-52 TAUL AND FESTUS 455
to escape the torture of the scourge. Nor did this satisfy me, but being exceedingly mad against them, I went, perse- cuting them, even to cities outside Palestine,
While thus engaged, he was miraculously converted, and honoured by a commission, given by the risen Jesus, Himself, to be an Apostle for Him, to the Gentiles.
12. On which errand, I was on my road to Damascus, with the authority and written commission of the chief priests, when, 13. at mid-day, 0 King, I saw on the track, a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and those who journeyed with me. 14. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ? it is hard for thee to kick against the goad. 15. And I said, Who art Tlioii^ Lord ? And the Lord said, / am Jesus whom thou persecutest. 16. But rise and stand upon thy feet, for to this end have I appeared to thee, to ap2ynnt thee a minister and a witness, both of the things at this time revealed, in which thou hast seen Me now, and also of the things in which I ivill appear to /Aee hereafter ; 17 delivering thee from the violence of the Jewish people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send thee, 18. to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God ; that they, as well as Jews, may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Me.
Having received such a commission, from such a source, he naturally devoted himself to its discharge, but, for this, he had incurred the hatred of the Jews.
19. Therefore, 0 King Agrippa, as a Pharisee bound to do the will of God, thus awfully expressed, I was uDt disobedient to the heavenly vision : 20. but made, known to them at Damascus first, and then at Jerusalem, and throughout all
456 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6O-62
the land of Judaea, and also to the Gentiles in foreign parts, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance. 21. For preaching these things to Jew and Gentile alike, and for this only, the Jews seized me in the temple, and tried to kill me.
Yet in nothing did he go outside the express teaching of the Jewish Scriptures, though thus treĀ£fted, and God, moreover, had been with him all through.
22. But by the help of God, who, only, could have brought me through such perils, I stand to my task to this day, testifying the great truths I was divinely commanded to preach, to both high and low, but in all I utter, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses himself did say should come : 23. that is, that Christ must suffer, and that He, as the first raised from the grave, should by this resur- rection from the dead, proclaim light both to the chosen people and to the Gentiles.
Festus had listened more or less patiently till now, but the defence was passing beyond his comprehension. " Moses " ā and the " Prophets," and " the resurrection of the dead," ā what had he, a Roman, to do with such bar- barian follies ? The prisoner was clearly a master in the moonstruck superstitions to which he had devoted his study, but they had evidently turned his brain. Breaking in, therefore, on the Apostle's address, he called out to him loudly, " Paul, thou art raving : thy much learning is turning thee mad ! " But the Apostle was equal to the occasion. He may have been intense in his study of rab- binical lore, both in his former life, and during his deten- tion in Csesarea,! but he was its master, not its slave.
1 2 Tim. iv. 13.
PAUL MT. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 457
Turning to the Procnrator, therefore, self-possessed and courteous, but intensely earnest, he replied ā
" I am not mad, as you suppose, most excellent Festus, but speak forth words of truth and soberness. That I do 80, I appen,l to King Agrippa, for the King kuows about these things, and to him, therefore, I speak freely respecting them ; for I am persuaded that none of these things is unknown to him ; for this has not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the Prophets 1 I know that thou believest."
Agrippa, as a haughty man of the world, conscious of his purple royalty, was too well bred either to be offended at this appeal to him, or to let it disturb him, and turned off Paul's burning words with icy raillery : ' You would fain make a Christian of me, with but little outlay of proof ! " But Paul was too earnest to notice such banter. " I would to God," said he, " that, whether with little or with much, not thou only, but also all who hear me this day, might become such as I am, except these chains ! " ā holding up his manacled hands as he spoke.
The King, finding things growing more serious than suited his taste, now rose, to end the scene, and, of course, the Procurator, Bernice, and the great folks there to honour royalty, followed him ; the brilliant company sweeping out of court, to the private hall of the prsetorium, where, naturally, the morning's work was the one subject of conversation. That Paul had done nothing worthy of death or even of arrest was clear to all, and Agrippa finally told Festus, that, in his opinion, the prisoner might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Caesar. But there was nothing now, either for Festus or Paul, but Eome, and as soon as a vessel could be found, the Apostle must be sent thither.
458 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
Before setting out for the imperial city, however, it may be well to linger awhile in Judaea, and follow the story of the new faith there, in these troubled days.
The calm secured by the firm action of Festus, on his arrival in his province, was of short duration. In the spring of A.D. 62, Rome suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Parthians, on the upper Euphrates, and the Consul Paetus having made a shameful peace with them, surrendered Armenia, and thus allowed Tigranes, the grandson of Archelaus, whom Rome had put over that kingdom, to be expelled from it. Triumph over Rome seemed to be coming, and the hopes of the turbulent zealots of Judaea were once more kindled. A general rising was indeed impossible, thanks to the measures of Festus, nor would it have been prudent, so long as the legions of Corbulo lay on the north-east borders of the empire. But it was clear that the first defeat he suffered, would see the Jews, and probably the Arabs, in full revolt. Meanwhile, the bands of Sicarii, or secret-murder-league men, were still more or less afoot. Every day brought news of some outrage or incendiarism. A new prophet also rose, who announced with all confidence, the speedy dawn of deliverance, and invited the people to follow him, out of reach of the Romans, into the wilderness, where the trumpets of the Messiah would presently be heard. The often deceived multitude, willing to believe what their hearts craved, once more streamed down the passes of the hills to the sunken Ghor, but only to hear too soon, instead of the herald-flourishes of the coming Messiah, the trumpets of the Roman cavalry, sent after them, and to find themselves trampled down, speared, those unablĀ« to save themselves by flight being seized and speedily
PAUL MT. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 459
crucified. The prophet himself was among the slain ; but how long would it be till another would rise, leaving FestuB to go through the same task again ?
Things might have gone more peacefully, had there been a pai*ty among the Jews, from whom the Romans could have obtained reliable counsel. Instead of this, Agrippa, the Jewish king, who was the oflScial adviser of the Pro- curator, in the distracting intricacies of religious affairs, was himself the source of endless trouble. He had de- posed Ananias-ben-Nebedai from the priesthood, but the same brutality as this dignitary had shown in the trial of Paul,^ marked his course after his degradation, for his armed slaves lorded it in the streets of Jerusalem, and by bribery or violence requisitioned whatever they fancied, for the use of his great household and extravagant luxury. In his place Agrippa appointed Ishmael-ben-Phabi, who must, at this time, have been a very old man ; his name occurring, as once before high-priest, so far back as A.D. 15-16. He was still the same voluptuary, however, as in his distant early life ; even his dress being so extravagant that he boasted of his robe of honour, embroidered long ago by his mother, having cost 100 minas, which, if silver, meant about Ā£400 ; or, if of gold, about Ā£2000.^ As already said, this worthy, among other features of his rule, partly by writs, but largely by violence, seized the tithes of the poor priests, leaving them, in many cases, to die of want. But, before long, he flew at higher game, and quarrelled with Agrippa himself. The King professed to be a Pharisee, but the re- straints of conventional propriety recognised by his party, could not curb the laxity of a Herod. Sharing his family passion for building, he brought himself into very bad repute Ā» Acts xxiii. 2. Ā» Geikie'a " Life of Christ," i. 827.
460 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
by the foreign style in which he adorned Csesarea, and by the theatre and other heathen buildings he raised atBerytus. In Jerusalem, he opposed some ambitious building projects of the aristocratic, high-priestly Sadducees, who preferred to expend the treasures of the Temple exchequer on grand erections, rather than leave them to be taken by the Pro- curator for local secular objects. But this interference drew on him opposition to a building scheme of his own, and he was not only worsted, but compromised the Pro- curator in the dispute. Agrippa had rebuilt the old palace of the Maccabees, on the western hill of Jerusalem, and thus had a view over the whole city and neighbourhood ; the Temple grounds, with their constant crowds, lying, amidst all else, under his eyes, as he rested on his couch. The eminently religious Ishmael and Ananias, however, seeing the opportunity of revenging themselves on him, declared that it was against the law that the courts of the Temple should be overlooked, and forthwith raised a huge wall to shut out the King's view, bending its course so that, in addition, it shut out the view of the courts from the fortress Antonia. Such audacity roused both the King and the Procurator. Paul had been saved from the fury of the mob at the Pentecost of the year 59, by the Romans overlooking the grounds, and it had often been of equal value in similar disturbances. Festus therefore ordered the wall to be thrown down, but the Jews at once appealed to Rome, and through the influence of Poppaea, formerly the mistress, but now, through the murder of Octavia, the wife of Nero, obtained the victory, as she favoured the Jewish faith. The royal superintendent of the Temple was thus overthrown in a matter strictly within Jiis own Province, and Festus had to bear defeat along
PAUL iET. C 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 461
with him. The only comfort was that Ishmael and Hel- kias, the Jewish deputation, were retained in Rome, as hostages, to prevent any more strifes. The wall was re- built, but Ishmael never saw Jerusalem again. On the contrary, when it was found, in the year 70, that three of his sons were among the defenders of the city, he was beheaded in Gyrene, whither he had been banished.^ A new high-priest had to be chosen, but Agrippa was unfor- tunate this time also, for Joseph-ben-Kabi, whom he ap- pointed, so openly joined the party of revolt, that he had to be deposed in the next year. Hannas, a son of the ex- high-priest before whom Jesus was first brought, was now raised to the pontificate. The father had been deposed for his ambitious schemes to become a priest-king, like the Asmongeans, but retained power enough after his fall to get all his five sons, and bis son-in-law, made high- priests, and he, himself, still, on high days, wore the bells and pomegranates, as a sign of his former dignity. Men called him the Old Vulture, from his keen-cut face, his eagle nose, his long white hair, bent neck, and sinewy hands. His son, now seated on the oflBcial chair, was one of the worst men Agrippa could have selected. Hard- hearted and greedy, he was a special intimate of Ananias- ben-Nebedai, with whom he had shared imprisonment at Rome for the Samaritan quarrels, and in whose battles with the priesthood about the tithes, he and his son Eleazer had taken part.2 A common hatred of the Christians also bound them together. As Ananias had brought Paul before the Sanhedrim, so Hannas brought St. James, the brother of Jesus.^ A few years later, when the war broke
Ā» Job. Ā£eU. vi. 2, 2. ' Job. Ant. xx. 9, 2-8.
Ā» Ant. XX. 9, 1.
462 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6062
out, Ananias fell by the dagger ; Hannas became the leader of the rebellion.^ He now, in such troubled times, held power for only a few months, but they were long enough to let him slake his thirst for the blood of the Nazarenes. Time had not dulled the edge of the reproach cast at the family of Hannas, that they had crucified the Messiah, and it is possible that the trial of Paul had drawn the attention of the priests, afresh, to the spread of Chris- tianity among the Jews of other lands. Paul's visit and arrest must, indeed, have been ominous for the local church. Hannas, therefore, took up the evil work of Ananias and Ishmael against its members, with still greater energy. Josephus tells us^ that "the younger Hannas was a man of a violent and very daring character, and belonged to the Sadducees, who were more cruel in their judgments than any other Jews. In keeping with this disposition, he fancied he now saw a favourable oppor- tunity for indulging in his ferocity, Festus having died, and his successor, Albinus, not having yet arrived. Calling together the high court, or Sanhedrim, therefore, he brought before them James, the brother of Jesus, called the Christ, with some others, and having accused them of breaking the (Mosaic) law, condemned them to be stoned to death." The cruelties of religious persecution were thus added to the horrors of anarchy, in Jerusalem. The son of " the old Vulture," true to his blood, utilised the interval between the death of Festus, who had fallen a victim to the strain of his oflSce and the effects of a foreign climate, and the coming of Albinus which was delayed for a time, to take the government entirely into his own hands, while he could. It was vain for the * JBeU. iv. 3, 9 ; 6, 2. 2 ^^, j^^. 9, 1.
PAUL iET. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 463
Pharisees to protest. The venerable old man, so long the head of the Nazarenes, and a number of their other leading men, were doomed to fall by a base legal murder. I have already quoted from the narrative of Hegesippus, given by Eusebins,^ the personal details left us of the appearance and character of the brother of our Lord,2 as preserved in the Church in the days of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius,3 to whose reigns the incidents taken from Hegesippus be- long. We are further told that, " as many of the rulers had been led by James to believe in Jesus as the Christ, a great excitement rose among the Jews, Scribes, and Pharisees, lest the people at large might accept Him as the Messiah. Coming to James, therefore, they begged him to turn back to their own faith the people who had been foolish enough to believe in Jesus. Multitudes were coming to the Passover, and they entreated him, as he had the name of a righteous man, to teach them the truth. And when the feast had come, they got him to stand on the terrace of the outer court of the Temple, that all might see and hear him, and called out to him, ' 0 thou righteous man, whom we must all believe ; since the people in their folly go after Jesus who was crucified, tell us the truth respecting Him.' Then James answered with a loud voice, ' Why do ye ask me respecting Jesus, the Son of Man ? He is now sitting in the heavens, on the right hand of the Great Power, and will presently come in the clouds of heaven.' Forthwith, those in the crowd who were already Christians, or who were persuaded by these words, cried out together, ' Hosanna to the Son cf David ! ' But the zealots, ā priests, and Pharisees, ā ' Hitt. Ecdet. ii. 23. " "Apostles," i. 300, 345. Ā» A.D. 117-169.
464 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
infuriated at their defeat, though they had drawn it on themselves, rushed on him, and threw down the righteous one from the top of the terrace, to the road outside the sacred grounds, and there the mob stoned him, for he was not killed at once by the fall. But as the stones struck him, he turned round, and sank on his knees, praying, ' I entreat thee, 0 Lord God and Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' Seeing this, one of the priests, of the sons of Eechab ā a son of the Eechabites spoken of by Jeremiah ā cried out, ' Stop ! what are you doing ! The righteous one is praying for you.* But one of them, a fuller, paid no heed, and beat out the brains of James with the club which he used to beat out clothes." This account is not contrary to the briefer narrative of Josephus, for the law of that day prescribed that one condemned to die by stoning was to be thrown down from a height by the witnesses, who, if he were still alive, were to cast a heavy stone at his heart, while the people round were to complete the stoning.^
In the time of Hegesippus his grave was still shown, on the spot where he fell, but to have stoned any one within the city, and much more below the Temple wall, was possible only if we conceive of an excitement that cast all other thoughts than murderous rage out of the mind of the crowd .Eusebius, indeed, has another shorter account 2 in which he says, "The failure of the attempt to get hold of Paul had so enraged the Jews, that they brought James before the Sanhedrim, which demanded from him that he should openly deny Christ before all the people. But when the grey-haired president of the
* ftar^edrin, cap. 16, 15. ^ Hitt. Ecclet. ii. xxiii. at the beginning.
PAUL ^T. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 465
Nazarenes, contrary to all expectation, confessed with a loud and firm voice, that he believed in Jesus as the Messiah, who was to come again speedily in the clouds of heaven, they could bear it no longer, and slew him ; taking advantage of the anarchy then reigning, partly through the death of Festus and the temporary want of A Roman governor."
Who could the others be who perished with the " Bishop " of the Church ? Papias, who was born some- where between A.D. 70 and 75, and is therefore almost apostolic in his nearness to Christ's day, tells us that John, the brother of James, was put to death by the Jews, though this is contrary to the tradition of his living longer than any other Apostle, and being the author of the Fourth Gospel and of the Apocalypse.^ In the face of so much opposing testimony, this state- ment, which is, after all, only made at second hand, as having been read, in the ninth century, in Papias, by Giorgios Amartolos, cannot be assigned great weight, though it seems as if John must, sooner or later, like his brother, have suffered a violent death, and thus drunk of the same cup as his Lord, which Jesus had foretold he would.2 In the next century, indeed, only three Apostles are mentioned as having escaped martyrdom, and thus some may well have perished with St. James, though we know not which or how many.
One point of special interest is that, according to the testimony of both Christians and Jews, the mass of the people, who were inclined strongly to the Pharisees, re- garded the outbreak of Sadducean violence against the Nazarenes as a side blow at the national expectations
* Thed. Quartalschrift, 44 Jahrg. S. 466. * Matt, xx. 22, 28.
III. 2 G
466 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60-62
and principles. No zealot certainly could be fiercer in his hate of Eome than John, in the Apocalypse, and his intensely Jewish feelings are moreover shown, by his strenuous condemnation of eating meat that had been part of an idol sacrifice,^ which he calls a doctrine of Balaam, while his ascetic Essenian tendency is re- vealed in his language respecting celibacy, which is that of the extremest sect of his race.^ The Jerusalem church, therefore, must have grown more and more de- voted to the Jewish law as ycv.rs passed, and thus more and more opposed to the liberal views of Paul. Indeed, this is seen in the fact, already quoted from Gibbon, that the first fifteen bishops of the mother church were circum- cised Jews, and also, in the tradition that James was revered as holy by the people, while a Rechabite priest ā that is, an ascetic, ā is represented as interfering to save him, and Josephus expressly tells us, that the perse- cution of the Christians was bitterly resented, by pre- cisely those who were most zealous and devoted to the law. They, in fact, presently sent a deputation to Agrippa, begging him to depose H annas, and some even set out to meet the new Procurator as he advanced from Alexandria, to denounce the high-priest for having invaded the governor's rights, by having convened a Sanhedrim without his permission ā an offence, they urged, which could only be expiated by his being set aside from his high office. Nor was this indignation without results, for Albinus at once wrote to Hannas, telling him how much he was offended, and threaten- ing to bring him to punishment for what he had done. Moreover, he induced Agrippa to take the high- Ā» Rev. ii. 14, 20. Ā» Rev. xiv. 8-i.
PAUL iET. C. 50-52 PAUL AND FESTUS 467
priesthood from him, after he had held it only three months, and to appoint Jesus, the son of DamnaBus, in his place.^ But Hannas was not easy to put down. Deposed from the primacy, he revenged himself by joining the Irreconcilables, and became a dangerous enemy to both the Eomans and Agrippa, finally even taking a leading part in the last revolt, and thus bringing on himself a tragical death. Meanwhile the Christian persecution closed with the setting aside of Hannas, though it seems as if it broke out again, three years later, at the opening of the war, for though Nebedai, the judge of Paul, had then passed off the official stage, as well as Hannas, there still remained the elder Hannas, the chief enemy of Jesus, and his son Eleazap ; the father living to an extreme age.
' J08. Ant. XX. 9, 1.
CHAPTER XIII
THE VOYAGE TO ROMK LATE AUTUMN, A.D 6o ; PAUL's AGE, C. 50
A FEW months before tLe outbreak of persecution in Jud^a, Paul left Palestine, never to return. Festus bad granted him, as a Roman citizen, his appeal to Ca3sar; that is, to the High Court of Rome ā a demand made to save himself from the certain death that awaited him if sent for trial before the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem. This turn in his affairs was evidently quite unexpected, else he would not have sent away some of his most trusty disciples on missionary work ā Timothy to Ephesus, Tychicus to Phrygia, and Mark somewhere else.^ He had intended, no doubt, to keep Luke, Aristarchus, and Demas, as travel companions, while he would meet the others as he passed on his way to the far West. Demas, who, at a later time, was to forsake the Apostle discreditably, " having loved this present world," ^ was still true to him, sharing his troubles at Caesarea, as, indeed, he did, for a time, in after days at Rome, yet he did not accompany him now to Italy, being despatched on Christian work, we know not whither. Luke and Aristarchus, however, took passage with him to Rome ; ^ Luke furnishing the detailed account of the voyage given in Acts.
^ Col. 11; iv. 7 ; Philem. 1, 24. 2 2 Tim. It. 10.
' Acts xxviL 2.
PAUL MY. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 469
Voyages, in aTitiqnity, were, as a rule, made only in spring, summer, and harvest. When the year was clos- ing, ships sought winter havens in which to lie safely till spring ; from November to the beginning of March being regarded as dangerous. On the 5th of March, however, the new sea-year was opened with great rejoicings, along all the coasts of the Aiediterranean ; processions being made in the various ports, and a vessel, solemnly conse- crated to Isis as the patroness of na\ igation, sent out to sea ; after which the waters were speedily whitened by innumerable sails. No one who could avoid it cared to face the terrors of a winter voyage, though keen love of gain to some extent braved these; fear of pirates, in earlier times, having first led to such ventures. Govern- ment vessels with despatches, or carrying officials or prisoners, must, however, have kept a number of ships out, even in the worst months, so that the sea was not entirely deserted at any time of the year.
Ships, in Paul's day, were as various in their size, within certain limits, as they are now ; that in which, on this voyage, he was wrecked at Malta, carrying two hun- dred and seventy-six persons, and a cargo of wheat; a dangerous one even now ; I, myself, having narrowly escaped shipwreck, between the Dardanelles and Malta, by its shifting. Josephus tells us^ that the vessel in which he was sailing to Italy carried 600 persons, and it, like that of Paul, was lost ; going down in the Adriatic so suddenly that Josephus and the rest " swam for their lives all that night," just as Paul had once done.^ Lucian further helps us to realise the marine of those days by the account he gives of a corn-ship of Alexandria, which ^ VUa, 3. 2 2 Cor. xi. 25.
470 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
had come to the Piraeus ā " a large, indeed an immense ship." The ship carpenter told him, he says, that it was 120 cubits ā that is, say, 180 feet long; its breadth over 30 cubits, or over 45 feet; and its depth 29 cubits, or, say, 43 feet. Its lofty mast, for he mentions only one ā was wonderful, and so was its yard ; the ropes from it to the hull were a sight to see, and so were the curved stern rising high, like a bird's neck, at the one end, and the prow, of similar shape, to balance it, at the other end. Its name ā "The goddess Isis" ā shone out on both sides of the bows, with much artistic ornamen- tation, while the top sail was of flame colour, and on the deck, the eye was attracted, in the fore part of the ship, by the anchors, the windlasses, and such like, and on the poop, by the cabins and offices.^ The great merchantmen of the Phoenicians, known as Tarshish ships, had been famous in the days of Ezekiel, and it is not probable that shipbuilding had lost its skill in the advance of 600 years,^ and hence we may safely conclude, that the docks and harbours of the first century saw vessels which, for costliness and splendour, though not in outline or scientific structure, would even now have been the pride of their owners and of their crews.
The compass, though apparently known for ages by the Chinese,^ had not been introduced in Western navi- gation, and was unknown to both Greeks and Romans. The heavens were the onlv substitute, but the stars were much more relied upon than the sun, so that sailing, in short voyages, was done as much as possible
^ Lucian, Navigium.
* Ezek. xxvii. See in full, in " Bible by Modem Light," vol. iii. 386.
ā¢ Lord Kelvin says it seems to have been known to them in B.a 2400.
PAUL MT. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 471
by night, when the steersman could look np to the Pleiades, Orion, or the Greater or Lesser Bear. The rudders were not like ours; long sweeps tied at the sides of the vessel taking their place ; most large ships having two, one before and another behind, though in rare cases there were four ā two on each side. This rude steering gear was managed by the "governor;" the two sweeps being joined by a pole, so as to move together. As a rule there was only one mast, near the middle of the ship, and carrying generally, but, as in Paul's ship, not always, only one large sail, the name of which ā artemon ā is still in use in the Mediterranean. It hung from an enormous yard, and was hoisted or lowered, as desired, by strong ropes, but the strain on the hull from this arrangement must have been very great; the force of the wind pressing on one part, instead of being distributed by several sails on different masts. To meet this danger, which often caused fatal starting of the timbers, a provision was made of what were called undergirders ā a coarse network of broad and very strong ropes, which, when necessary, were slipped under the hull, from the prow to the stern, to strengthen it.^ The bulwarks were protected from the waves in rough weather by screens of wicker-work or leather, but these would be of no use in a storm. In Paul's ship there were four anchors at the stern, and others from the bows,* and the sounding-lead was used as with us. 3 The ship's boat was tied to the stern as among the Turks on the Black Sea at present, and was hauled up on deck in rough weather. The figure-head
* Acts xxvii. 17. ' Acts xxvii. 29, 80.
ā¢ Acts xxvii. 28.
472 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60
was often the likeness of the god to whose care the vessel was committed, but an image of this protector was also, as a rule, borne on the quarter-deck. In marked contrast to ourselves, the mariner of antiquity- took care to offer prayer to this Divine guardian before the voyage began, and often made a vow to pay so much to his or her temple, or to offer a sacrifice, on his return, if all went well.^
The size of the merchantmen of these old times appears to have been from about 500 to 1000 tons, and they seem to have sailed, in a good wind, about seven miles an hour, if quick vessels. Friedlander gives a number of examples of their performances, but the average speed shown must have been somewhere about the moderate estimate I have given. Men-of-war, with their long lines of oars or sweeps, could maintain a high speed, but merchant ships were rounder in their bows, and had a deeper draught, especially when laden ; while their shape, designed for capacity rather than sailing power, made oars or sweeps practically useless, except in the still waters of a port or bay, to work into moorings. Indeed, they are not mentioned in the narrative of St. Paul's shipwreck, though all ships seem to have had provision for some, but not as in the war-ships, which- carried always for constant use, from two to five banks of oars, and even as many as ten.^ The corn fleet from Alexandria had special courier ships of great speed sent on before it, to announce its approaching arrival at Puteoli; their fine lines and the help of both canvas and oars driving them on, apparently, as fast as was usual with sailing ships in the first quarter of the * Wied. xiv. 1, 2. * Plutarch, ArUony.
PAUL MT. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 47
o
present century Cato, indeed, was able, we are told, to impress on ifje senate the necessity of their destroy- ing Carthage, by opening his mantle, and showing its members some fresh figs he had gathered only two days before, on the African coast ; a swift galley having brought him over in the brief interval.^
The vessel in which Paul and his companions left Caes.irea hailed from Adramyttium, a port of Mysia, behind the island of Lesbos, on the north-west corner of Asia Minor, only a short way south of the Dardanelles. It was starting on its home voyage, and proposed to call, on its course, at various ports, so that there would be an opportunity of coming upon some other vessel, sailing to Italy ; Alexandrian corn ships, among others, often run- ning to intermediate ports, on their course west, having freight to deliver at more places than one. It must have been of a good size, to accommodate so many prisoners, and it had started long enough before the autumn storms, according to their ordinary date, to secure a quiet voyage. But it so chanced that these tempests came earlier that year than usual, for the Fast, that is, the Day of Atone- ment, which falls on the 10 th Tisri ā part of our months of September and October, and thus some six weeks before the usual cessation of sea travel in November, ā had not passed till the Apostle had reached Crete, after his vessel had "sailed slowly many days," from Myra in Lycia, and "much time was spent." Yet the Day of Atonement is nearly coincident with the autumnal equinox ā Sep- tember 15, ā and rough weather is always associated with that season, though ships were not actually laid up for the winter till considerably later.
^ Plutarch, Cato, Ā§ 16.
474 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
There must have been some reason for choosing a round- about route by Asia i\linor; the ordinary course being to go from Caesarea to Alexandria, and take a " liner " there, bound direct for Italy ; the Alexandria ships having such a reputation of being the quickest sailers, and of having the best steersmen, that, on these grounds, Caligula ad- vised Herod Agrippa to sail by one when he was going to Palestine.^ Why the Adramyttium ship was selected, therefore, we can only conjecture.
Failing a vessel large enough to undertake the open- sea, direct course, to Italy, Paul and the detachment of prisoners to which he was assigned, sailed northwards along the coast of Palestine, reaching Sidon on the day after starting. The officer in charge of the detachment proved to be one Julius, a centurion, apparently of the imperial prae- torian troops,^ who may have been sent to Caesarea on some special mission, or have belonged to a detachment of the imperial bodyguard, sent from Italy as one of the five co- horts usually forming the garrison, to honour the imperial dignity, represented by the Procurator. Sidon was sixty- seven miles from Caesarea, so that to make it in a day was a good beginning. Coasting ships, when forced to go out of sight of land, sailed, as I have said, chiefly by night, to have the guidance of the stars, and Paul's vessel, perhaps for this reason, in preparation for striking across for Asia Minor, or for some business object, lay-to in the old
^ Philo in Place, p. 521.
^ Holtzmann thinks he belonged to the Samaritan auxiliaries, but if so,
the name of the town, Sebaste ā the August ā would not have been given, but the name of the people, turning the name into an adjective. As it stands, therefore, " the Augustan band," or cohort, must, it seems to me, mean the imperial troops. Meyer, Hausrath, Riehm, the Revised Version, and other authorities, understand it as in the text.
FAUL JET, C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 475
Phoenician seaport.^ Whether moved to think favourably of his chief prisoner, from hints dropped by Festus, orfrom instinctive perception of the worth of his prisoner, who, as he knew, was accused by the Jews only on points con- nected with what he regarded as their superstition, Julius already showed a kindly feeling to Paul, by letting him land, to see the Christians of the town ; the Apostle, no doubt, having told him that he had friends in Sidon.^ Very possibly, the centurion had seen the prayers and tears of the leave-taking at Caesarea, for we may be sure the brethren would be at the ship's side till it sailed, and Aristarchus and Luke may have told him about Paul's noble character and life, and how he would have been set free, had he not appealed to Kome. Refreshed by the loving interview with the little " church " at Sidon, the voyage would, for a time, lose somewhat of its sadness, when, perhaps the next night, they put to sea again, running briskly north till above the upper coast of Cyprus, but having constantly to tack as soon as they steered west, the wind now being against them.
Having at last, however, reached that island, they ran as close as they could under its lee ; their headway still slow ; their poor daily advance being, as hitherto, won only by assiduous tacking. They would, thus, often run close in towards Asia Minor, in full sight of the glorious range of the Taurus mountains, beyond whose snowy peaks the thoughts of the Apostle must often have wan- dered to the churches of the central tableland, which he loved 80 dearly as his children in Christ, and which he
* Those who wish exact details on all connected with Paul's voyage will find them in Smith's " Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul," 18*8.
* Acts XL 19.
476 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60
knew he would never again see. How were they faring? Had grievous wolves, entering in, troubled them ? Would they quit them like men, and, after all, be his crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus ?
The south-west wind, which, at the start, had been favourable for them, had made the voyage painfully tedious since they turned westward after running north for a time from Sidon, but at last they reached Myra, their next port of call. One of the chief towns of Lycia, it lay where the coast forms a slight bay, just before it turns north as the west face of Asia Minor, bordering the MgeskJi, or, as we say, the Grecian Archipelago. An open-air theatre, 355 feet in diameter, many fine public buildings, and numerous stately tombs, enriched with statues and elaborate carving, then attracted tbe eye on entering its port ā Andriaca, two and a half miles from the town itself, which lay on the slope of a hill, setting off its every detail. The old name is still known, though the Turks call it Dembre; but its present squalor contrasts painfully with the splendour of the ruins, which speak of what it was under the Romans. An Alexandrian corn ship, on the point of sailing for Italy, happening to be in the harbour at the time Paul's ship arrived, he and his fellow-prisoners were transferred to it, and presently were at sea again, making for the West. The course lay near the coast, and then took them north of the island of Rhodes, but only with much tacking, and very slowly; the autumn storms having now fairly broken up the weather. " Many days," indeed, were spent in working their way as far as Cnidus, on the west tip of Asia Minor, which here runs out into a long slender peninsula. Yet, to this point, the distance from Myra, in a straight line, was,
PAUL iET. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 477
after all, only about 150 miles, The wind, no longer from the west, but roaring from the north, made it impossible to land at Cnidus, a place famous for its worship of Venus, where, perhaps, they might have wintered, had they been able to gain the harbour. Failing to "make" it, they were now driven almost due south, towards Crete, the east rocky cape of which, Salmone, they passed safely, and turning westward, pressed on under the lee of the southern mountain coast of the island; the rough weather still causing them continual trouble, so that it was not without much difficulty they at last reached a bend of the shore, about half-way along the coast, known, from the compara- tive protection it offered shipping, as the Fair Havens. The " city of Lassa," then near it, apparently on a small island outside the little bay, has long disappeared.
It was now getting dangerously late in the year, for the stormy weather they had suffered had consumed "much time" since the voyage began, so that the fast of the Day of Atonement, on the 10th Tisri, which marked the season for the equinoctial gales, was already past. Feeling as one who had the bitter experience of three shipwrecks in the neighbouring seas, and had buffeted with the waves for a whole day and night, afloat on a piece of wreckage,^ how perilous it would be, after the bad passage they had made, so far, to attempt further progress, Paul now counselled the master and ship's officers to stay for the winter, where they were, telling tht m he felt sure that going to sea again would result in the loss of the ship, and perhaps even of their lives. The steersman and the captain, how- ever, were more afraid of the exposed harbourage of
Ā» 2 Cor. xi. 25, 26,
478 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
the Fair Havens, than of seemingly small risk in creep- ing along, close to land, some seventy miles, to Phoenix, the only good harbour on the south of the island, shut in at all seasons from every wind, and, as such, for ages past, a trading port of the Phoenicians, to whom it owed its name. Stretching, on one side, to the north-west, and on the other to the south-west, and covered at its opening, by the islet Aradus, they would be beyond ques- tion safe in it till spring if they could reach it. Mean- while a pleasant change of wind, blowing gently from the south, appeared to justify their views, and the anchors were weighed, to let them press on while it lasted. But their confidence was soon changed to alarm, for they had made but little way when the wind veered round to the east-north-east, coming down from the mountains over them, so fiercely, that they could not keep the ship's head to it, but had to let her drive before it. Nor could they even secure the boat, tied astern, till they had been carried under the lee of an islet named Clauda, some miles to the south of Phoenix, to gain which they had lost so much. Off Clauda, however, they were able at last to hoist it to the deck, and thus, so far, to secure the means of getting ashore, if stranded or blown on the rocks, on any coast. Mean- while, as it was to be feared that the seams of the hull would open, with the strain of the great sail and of the sea, the rope-cradle, as I may call it, for undergirding the ship, was raised from the hold and pulled under the keel along its whole length ; a task hard enough in smooth water, but very trying in a raging sea. With- out sight of sun, moon, or stars, day after day they were driven they knew not whither; it might be to
PAUL MT. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 479
the terrible Syrtis ā the deep bay stretching from Cyrene to Carthage, known as the Greater and Lesser Syrtis ā dangerous beyond measure to vessels, from its shallows, reefs, and currents ; the Lesser Syrtis, indeed, being re- garded as too dangerous to enter at all. To avoid such a catastrophe, they tied back their steering sweeps and lowered their two sails, for the ship was so large that it either had two masts, or carried a topsail, above the great one,^ and let the vessel drive before the gale. It laboured so heavily, however, and leaked so badly, that next day it was resolved to lighten it by throw- ing the wheat cargo overboard, but even this not re- lieving it enough, they presently threw out whatever was loose on the deck, the cabin and berth fittings, extra tackling ; ā anything, indeed, they could lift or tear away. And now it only remained to wait the gloomy future. For a whole fortnight they saw no sky, day or night, but weltered on amidst wild cutting rain, drench- ing waves, storm clouds above, and a pall of gloom round them, the tempest still raging as fiercely as ever, BO that their doom seemed fixed. Even with a well appointed modern steamer, a Mediterranean storm, as I know by experience, may be wild and alarming enough, but a ship built only for summer seas must have seemed certain to founder. Passengers, prisoners, soldiers, and crew, alike gave up all as lost. It was impossible to cook any meals, for fires could not be kindled where the waves were every moment sweeping over the deck. All on board had done their best in throwing out the cargo, deck gear, and fittings, and in working the pumps and bailing, but the leaks could
^ Acts xxvii. 40.
480 THE APOSTLES AD. 6o
not be overcome, and it was clear that tliey must go to the bottom very soon, if they did not reach land ; though, even then, there would be the perils of rocks or breakers. Meanwhile the presence of the soldiery, still true to discipline, kept the prisoners or crew from the excesses which too often characterise such scenes. But it is specially at such times, when social standing is for the moment forgotten, that personal worth is recognised at its full value. The officers having virtually ceased to give orders, Paul, who alone kept up his heart, set himself to reinspirit his companions in trouble. Confident that he had still a mission to fulfil, he re- tained full presence of mind. They should have taken his advice, he told them, not to leave the Fair Havens, but still, he knew there would be no loss of life. He had fallen asleep through the night, and in his dj-eams had seen an angel of the God wliose he was and whom he served, who had told him that he would yet stand before Caesar, and that no one on board would perish. They would, however, be cast upon some island, but Paul did not know anything more.
The fourteenth night since their leaving Crete was now darkening round them, and they were still the sport of the winds and waves of " Adria ; " the name in antiquity of the Adriatic and the waters to the south of it. Now, however, at last, there were signs of land being near ; perhaps the breaking of the waves on the shore, heard by the keen ears of the watch. The sounding lead was at once thrown out, and shallow water proved the belief well founded, for presently the sailor shouted, " Twenty fathoms," and soon after, *' Fifteen." The danger now was, that they should be driven ashore, perhaps on a rocky
PAUL JET. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 481
coast, but, at any rate in the darkness, and four anchorB were therefore let go from the stem, which brought the ship to, and left them to wait for the dawn. The sailors, however, eager to save their own lives, whoever perished, presently made believe that they would cast other anchors from the bows; intending, really, to heave the boat over- board, and get off in it. They had, in fact, already got it into the water, when Paul detected their purpose, and hurrying to the centurion, told him that if these men were not kept in the ship, all would perish. Julius thought too much of the Apostle to hesitate for a moment, for the design of the crew to escape was clear on the instant. A word to the soldiers, however, and the ropes holding the boat to the ship were cut, and it was let drift away, so that this peril, at least, was past. No one on board had tasted a regular meal for a fortnight, and it was all-important that they should bring up what food could be reached, and eat heartily, to be ready for what was before them. To secure this was now Paul's urgent advice, which was instantly acted on. Provisions having been got out, the Apostle set the example of manly courage and religious trust, by taking bread and calmly giving thanks to God after breaking it, as His people always did. Thus encouraged, all were soon strengthened for the morning's dangers ; the fragments being thrown into the eea when they had finished, and the deck cleared ready for the dawn.
Light having at last returned, the coast proved to be close at hand, but what place they had reached the sailors could not tell. It was seen, however, that they were at the mouth of a bay, and a spot of shelving beach close at hand decided the captain to run the ship ashore. It proved,
m. 2 B
482 THE APOSTLES * A.D. 60
afterwards, that they had run into a bay since known as "St. Paul's," about two and a half miles north-west of Valetta ; then, one may suppose, the only port used by shipping on the upper side of the island. It runs south- west, into the land, for nearly a mile, tapering to a point, from about half a mile broad at its opening. All hands were now called to cut the anchors adrift, loose the binding of the rudder- sweeps, and set the foresail ; which done, the ship was steered directly for the beach. The spots where the depth, as stated in Acts, is first twenty and then fifteen feet, are shown on the Admiralty charts, close to the islet Salmoneta, at the west side of the entrance to the bay ; their position to each other, and to the line in which a ship driven west by north, as that of Paul was, suiting the narrative with a startling exactness, while the rush of the waves in front of Salmoneta and behind it, towards the land, is well described by St. Luke as a " place where two seas met." There are, moreover, at this part, indentations in the generally rocky shore, where a ship might be safely grounded on the sandy or shingly beach, and into one of these the vessel was run; the bows fixing themselves immovably in the sand, while the stern, running out into the fierce seas, soon began to break up. Escape now seemed at hand, but a new danger threat- ened, for the soldiers were afraid lest any of the prisoners should swim off through the billows, and thus get away. Answerable with their lives for the safe detention of those under their charge, they proposed, in keeping with the savage cruelty of the age, to kill them all. The centurion, however, more than ever interested in Paul, would not permit this, but commanded that every one should get to land as he best could. The distance was short, and though
PAUL MT. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 483
the waves ran high and broke fiercely, strong swimmers were able to take advantage of the forward rush of the waters and save themselves, while others got ashore cling- ing to planks or floating wreckage ; all on board, in the end, thus landing safely.
Malta, though now so densely peopled, since it came into British hands, is largely a mass of bare, soft, cream- coloured limestone rock, which you may cut with a knife, and owes its vegetation chiefly to terraces, which keep the surface-weathering of the rock from being washed away, and retains soil brought from more favoured parts, as at Liverpool, Nova Scotia, where the only gardens are of earth brought as ballast from the West Indies. That it should ever have been wooded, except in some low-lying parts, seems improbable, but there would be enough drift- wood on the shores to serve for fuel, in a place needing so little. Its population has apparently always been very mixed, for, long before the Christian era, the fine anchorage offered at various spots had been used by the Phoenicians, and must have been equally well known to the Greek sailors of Magna Grgecia ; the two races having doubtless many a time fought as bitterly in various parts of Malta as they did in Sicily and elsewhere. Besides these civilised races, however, there would be a native population, of we know not what stock, and the island had been held by the Romans for two hundred years before Christ. But since those old days, other nationalities have helped to complicate its ethnology : the Arabs having long been its masters, while Normans, French, British, and the Levantine peoples generally, have all added some characteristics to a popu- lation already so strangely mixed. To this day, however, the Oriental traditions of the islanders, marking their
484 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
principal source of origin, still survive very distinctly ; as, among others, that of the worship of the sun ; for I have often watched the crowds of common people thronging to the piers at daybreak, to bow before the rising sun ā the Baal of their remote forefathers, though the sun- god is now d throned in favour of the Virgin, to whom the crowds direct their prayers in our day.
But in antiquity, escape to land was no guarantee of final rescue from dauger, for even as late as the reigns of Hadrian, Antoninus Pins, and Marcus Aurelius, the shore populations in many parts, in spite of all the emperors could do, plied the hateful trade of wreckers with daring and heartless cruelty. The Cyclades, on one of which Cuidus stood, which Paul's ship had striven to reach, were specially infamous for this savagery,^ so that it may have been well for the Apostle that the vessel was driven past such an inhospitable region. Those who escaped the waves, too often, on many shores, in those days, found themselves seized and sold as slaves, or if they were fortunate enough to retain their liberty, and make their way, say, to Eome, they frequently sank into pauperism, for shipwrecked sailors were numerous among the beggars of the capital, and even formed a special object of the charitable aid of the churches.^
It must, therefore, have been a great satisfaction for the crowd, now on dry land again, to find that the islanders, trooping down to the beach to learn what had happened, showed them no little kindness, lighting a fire, to warm and comfort them, for it was both cold and rained heavily. The vessel, as we know, had drifted
* Hertzberg, Gesch. Griechcrdandt, ii. 494.
ā¢ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 30.
1Ā»AUL .fir. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 4S6
to the Roman island of Melita, which was in charge of a deputy of the Praetor of Sicily, to whose district it belonged and this, no doubt, with the sight of the imperial centurion and his soldiers, accounted in part for such a friendly reception.
Yet, the kindliness shown was soon to be roughly tried. Paul, always active, had gathered a bundle of sticks for the fire and thrown them on it, when a viper, of a kind given to hiding in wood, darted out of the faggots on feeling the heat, and fastened on his hand. There are no poisonous snakes in Malta now, but a viper, such as the narrative indicates, is still found in Sicily and most of the Mediterranean islands. Know- ing that the venom was fatal, the islanders were horrified to see him thus stuug by the reptile, and at once con- cluded that he must be a murderer, whom the goddess Justice would not suffer to live, though he had escaped from the sea. When, however, he quietly shook off the snake into the fire, and took no harm, they were astonished, expecting that he would have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly, and watched him a long time to see how the matter would end. Finding that after all nothing amiss resulted, they could only account for it by thinking him more than a common man, if not, indeed, Divine. Such a wonder, repeated from mouth to mouth, would soon spread over all the island, and would predispose even its little official world favourably towards Paul and his companions. Hence, perhaps, we find him, with Aristarchus and Luke, received very kindly, and entertained for three days, soon after their landing, by the Roman sub governor himself, who would, no doubt, hear more about him from the centurion Juliua
486 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60
It happened, moreover, that the governor's fiither, who lived with him, and lay ill, at that time, with inter- mittent fever and dysentery, was cured by Paul after his praying with him and laying his hands on him ; and this was naturally followed by all the sick on the island being brought to the Apostle, so that he and his friends would gain the high position among the people, of wonderfully gifted visitors. Three months passed in the friendly relations excited by such benefits, and it is not surprising to find that the "barbarians" were lothe to lose such benefactors when the vessel at length sailed, or that they loaded them with supplies of whatever was needed for the voyage, including, perhaps, besides provisions and other necessities or comforts, the gift of money for their wants when they landed.
November, December, and January had passed away before the voyage was resumed ; months of delightful rest, after the terrors they had suffered. The island, which is only about seventeen miles long, and from nine to ten broad, had been taken from the Carthaginians by Rome as long before as B.C. 218,^ but it had been BO carelessly neglected for some generations after, that till Pompey extirpated the pirates of the Mediterranean ,2 it was one of their chief places of call, and even to a large extent their wintering place.* Before the Cartha- ginians had seized it, however, it had been held by the Greeks, till about 500 years before Christ, and now, for a century before Paul's visit, had been prosperous and peaceful, the population having made a great name for themselves by their fine stuffs, ā¢ woven from cotton grown on the island, and in great demand at Eome Ā» Liv. xxi. 61. Ā« B.a 67. * ac. Verr. iv. 46, 47.
PAUL iET. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 487
Careful terracing the limestone slopes, and keeping in its place the thin layer of mouldered rock on other parts, had then, as now, been successful in securing crops of many kinds, for in such a climate, thanks to the moisture evaporated from the porous rock below, through the pellicle of soil, even a scanty foothold for vegetation is richly fertile. The capital was then called Medina, and was in the centre of the island ; not at Valetta, as now. Charly, the inhabitants could not, in such a busy and civilised place, be called " barbarians," in our sense, and indeed, the use of the name in Acts only refers to their speaking a language different from Latin or Greek. Three months of the preaching of Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus, in every part, may have won not a few to Christ, and thus have additionally brightened the stay of the Apostle, though there is no historical ground for the tradition that Publius became the first bishop of the island.
The desire to get to Italy at the earliest possible time with a wheat cargo, was as powerful in those days, as that of winning the great ocean race with the first cargo of new tea is in the English mercantile world. The great ships laid up through the stormy months in the haven of La Valetta, were like greyhounds straining at the leash as soon as the new year had opened, and hence it was easy to get a passage after the temporary delay. Sicily was only a little more than fifty miles off, and a large ship was comparatively safe when that island was gained. The Alexandrian corn ship, Castor and Pollux, being apparently first to start, in hopes of getting the higher price of the earliest arrival of wheat in the great market of Rome, Paul, with his companions, and the rest of their former
488 THE ArOSTLES A.D. 60
fellow-voyagers, were transferred to it, and were presently once more on their way to Italy. With the images of the twin heroes ā the guardians of sailors ā whose names she bore, glittering as her figure-head or blazoned on her bows, ā youths, with spear in hand, and helmets, or pointed caps, surmounted by stars, ā the good ship soon bore the Apostle and his companions before a favouring south wind, to Syracuse, founded by Corinthians in B.C. 734 ā the time when Ahaz was reigning in Judaea,^ and when Romulus and Kemus were still alive, and Rome was a few shepherds' huts, it probably, even then, dis- placed some Phoenician trading-post. After more than five hundred years, largely of wars, and notable, especially, for the expedition of Nikias against it, rather over four hundred years before Christ, by which Athens ruined itself for ever, ā it was taken, in B.C. 212, by the Romans ; its plunder yielding a booty so vast as to have been regarded as beginning of the corruption of ancient Roman simplicity. It had been " the largest of Greek, and the most beautiful of all cities," and was thus still characterised by Cicero in his day,^ but had been so destroyed in the civil wars, after Caesar's death, that a new colony had to be sent to re-people it. Its posit ion in a region so fertile, under a sky so delicious, has enabled it, however, to survive all vicissitudes, though it is now only a very poor place of about 24,000 inhabitants, with few memorials of its great past, except such as neither time nor violence could efface. Here Paul remained three days, and, we may suppose, was allowed to go ashore. The fountain of Arethusa, with its papyrus clumps, was sparkling before the Syracusans in those times, and the ' B.a 742-726. ' B.a 106-48.
PAUL JET. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO KOMB 489
Apostle must have passed the temple, said to be that of Diana, which still remains as a Christian Church. The wonderful excavation of the Greek fort Eurvelus, which is wholly scooped out in the limestone hill ; the Roman amphitheatre ; the vast quarries in which the Athenian prisoners were confined, till the few survivors were merci- fully sold as slaves ; the great altar of Hiero II., built nearly 300 years before Christ ā a wonder still perfect ā stretching 215 yards in length, and 25 yards in breadth, and used to burn the huge sacrifice of four hundred oxen offered yearly, to commemorate the expulsion of the tyrant Thrasybulus ; the street of tombs, and the vast open-air Greek theatre, still all but perfect, were, in Paul's day, only some of the many glories of the Sicilian port. But we may be sure that he had no interest in such matters. To him, as he said, to live was Christ, and if there were brethren in the town, his time would be spent in their humble society, while, if the Gospel was still unknown, he and his companions would utilise their detention by pro- claiming it as widely as they could. Setting sail once more, about eighty miles brought them off Rhegium, our Reggio, on the bare rough slopes of the hill Aspromonte, behind which Garibaldi was wounded, in 1862. A single day only was required for the business to be done here, and then, with a south wind, they glided up, in two days, to Puteoli, now Pozzuoli ; the ship, no doubt, displaying its distinctive flag when in sight of the port, to proclaim, in advance, its name, and receiving a loud welcome of hurrahs from the crowd on the mole, at so early an arrival. Paul was now, at last, in Italy.
Puteoli lay about seven miles west of Neapolis, our Naples, on the shores of the Gulf of Raise, which is an inner
490 THE APOSTLES A.D. 60
bend of tlie famous Bay of Naples. It is now a sleepy town of about 16,000 inhabitants, covering part of the ancient site ; but its long torpor is being shaken off by the opening for work offered by the cannon and armour-plate foundry of Armstrong & Co., of Newcastle, established in it, multitudes of the previously unemployed population thus finding steady remunerative occupation. The road to it from Naples runs along the level edge of the bay, but is skirted, on the land side, by continuous hills, not a few showing their volcanic origin, in waves and strangely twisted layers of lava of many colours, and doubtless of many different eras. A short blunt cape reaches out where the bend of the inner half of the bay commences, and on this most of the present town is built, though it straggles feebly, for a short distance, up the slopes of the hills behind.
In Paul's day, Puteoli was the first commercial city of Italy, with huge docks and a great pier of bricks, bedded in the famous local cement, made from a mixture of the volcanic earth around, and lime ; a mortar not only in- tensely hard, but wholly proof against the acids of sea water, sixteen buttresses ā three of them now completely under water ā being still left of the many which sup- ported its twenty-four arches. To this Liverpool of antiquity the merchant fleets of the whole world made their way. Inscriptions show that Tyre had business rela- tions with it on a scale which required a regular trading factory, and that many mercantile houses of Berytus ā our Beirout ā had branch establishments in it. It was the depot of the iron ore of Elba, and the Spanish and African trade was immense ; but its greatest commerce was with Alexandria, and, through that port, with the East. There
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PAUL iKT. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 493
was, indeed, an Alexandrian colony in the city, by whom Oriental worship was early introduced, especially that of Serapis, their favourite deity. What is regarded as his temple still rises near the shore, a little north of the present town ā a noble building of which a number of the massive granite and marble pillars, with the marble pavement and other remains, still attract the visitor. When Paul landed on the long pier, he would see the forty-eight great pillars enclosing its spacious court ; its portico of six Corinthian columns, three of which remain, and its border or peri- style of sixteen shafts of African marble, crowned with Corinthian capitals guarding the circular temple standing in their midst on its marble platform, reached by a flight of four marble steps ; the edges of the great court being bordered by no fewer than thirty-two marble chambers, for various uses. Streams of worshippers would throng the sacred space when Paul's ship sailed in, to thank the god for its safe voyage, but it is striking to think that, while the Cross, then so despised, has now ten thousand temples in unnumbered lands, the paganism thus so triumphant in that day is represented only by deserted ruins. For ages a wreck, the Puteoli temple, even at one time sank, in part, beneath the waters of the bay ; the borings of shell-fish on its pillars showing that the sea once stood twenty feet above its present level ; volcanic action, so- ceaseless in this region, having, since, raised the land once more, though it is now once again slowly sinking. From Puteoli, Caligula had stretched his roadway, supported by vessels, across the waters to Baiae, a distance of more than three miles, that he might be able to say he had ridden upon the sea as if it were dry land. In the great amphitheatre,
494 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
on the height behind the town, seating 25,000 spectators on its open-air benches, Augustus had himself presided at the public games, and Nero, to whom Paul had now appealed, was to entertain the King of Armenia in it a little over three years later, with murderous gladiator fights, and combats of wild beasts with each other and with men.^ But all the stir of feverish business, all the crowding of the pier, and excitement of the throngs, and all the magnificence of temples and theatres, were nothing to the Apostle. Trade had brought Jews there, as to every other part of Italy where money was to be made, and among these were some Christians. Seven days were to pass before the prisoners started for Rome, and these Paul was left to use at his pleasure, though doubtless accompanied by a soldier, to whom he was, in fact, permanently chained by the arm. He and his friends, however, soon found out the " brethren," and were at once entreated by them to be their guests while detained in Puteoli. Thus, on his very landing, the Apostle was able, as it were, to set up the standard of the Cross on Italian soil, and take possession of the land for his Master.
It was 170 miles to Rome, and the journey was to be on foot, unless, indeed, advantage was taken of the canal through the Pontine Marshes to lighten part of the way The first stage was to Capua, about twenty miles to the north-east, along the Campanian way, through the richest district of southern Italy. I know nothing more lovely than the landscape round the old metropolis of Campania, nor can there be one filled with more stirring memories, for it had been the headquarters of
^ Dion. Cass Ixiii. 1-3.
PAUL MT. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 495
Hannibal in the Second Punic War, and, after being won back by Rome, had been the headquarters succes- sively of Sulla and Pompey, and it was from there that Spartacus broke away, to rouse his fellow-slaves to the Servile War. But Capua, even in an age painted so darkly by Paul, must have been especially repulsive to him, for m it the most famous " schools " of gladiators were to be found; the training in these establishments being so noted, that nothing won more votes to a candidate for high office at Rome, than his bringing forward a pair or two of gladiators from a Capuan barrack, to fight in the public shows he might give. The luxury and effeminacy of the populace, also, were as proverbial in those days as when they were believed to have ener- vated the victors of Cannae, and thus to have lost Italy to the Carthaginians.
But the glories and sins of this garden of Eden have long ago vanished. Its broad streets and low houses ; its gladiators' "schools;" its great trade in perfumes and unguents for the high society of the day ; its public build- ings, its theatre and circus, its temples and its aqueducts, which in Paul's time covered and adorned a circle from five to six miles in circumference, on the level plain, are all gone long since, leaving the antiquary only stray frag- ments from which to restore, in imagination, the walls and gates, and all they enclosed, and the busy life of a city described by Cicero as " equally large and beautiful.'' ^ So little, however, were they to the Apostle or his com- panions, that even the name of the town is not mentioned by Luke.
At Capua, the prisoners reached the Appian Way, 01 ' Cic. de Leg. Agr. 28.
496 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
great south road from and to Rome, originally ending at Capua, but continued, before the time of Horace, across the country, more than two hundred miles, to Brun- dusium, the great seaport of south-eastern Italy. It had been commenced about three hundred years before Christ, by Appius Claudius, the Censor ā who was known as **The Blind," from losing his eyesight in old age ā and still shows in its remains the vast sums and prodigious labour that must have been expended on it. Its cuttings through hills and masses of solid rock, tbe filling up of hollows, the bridging of ravines, the arches raised to lessen steep descents, and the embankments of swamps, even now excite wonder. It led from Capua by a course of 151 miles to Rome, beuding towards the coast, which was reached at Terracina, half way to the great city. Here began a long swampy stretch of thirty miles, known as the Pontine Marshes, running along the base of the Volscian Hills ; the accumulation of sand on the sea- shore, and the lowness of the land behind, damming back the streams from the mountains. A canal ran through this long morass, with at least a mule track alongside ; for the canal boats were drawn by mules. Perhaps Paul and his companions marched by this path, but it is more probable that advantage was taken of the canal. Fortunately for us, Horace had travelled by it in the year B.C. 37, when a young man of twenty-eight, on his mission from Augustus, to meet Marc Antony at Brundusium, and has left us the story of his experiences in his fifth Satire.
The first day's journey from Rome was, usually, to Appii Forum ā the market-town of Appius ā forty-three miles from the city gates. It had originally been a station, with an inn and the oflSces connected with the
lATL^T. C. 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 497
canal trade, and other miscellaneous requirements, and had gradually grown into a little town, but Horace had no good account to give of it.^ Liking to travel leisurely, he had taken two days to reach it instead of one, as was the rule, and found it stuffed with sailors and surly land- lords. I'he swampy water was so vile that he declined to take a meal where he would need to mix his wine with it, and waited with impatience till his companions had finished supper, to start with them again that night. On the company going to the barge, their slaves began to abuse the boatmen, but only to get a liberal return of bad language. " Stop here, and take us on board," shout the slaves, and the boat comes to the side, but others were eager also to get in, and the skipper, only too willing to take as many as he could get, erelong shipped such a crowd that the slaves, anxious to have plenty room for their masters, declare he is stowing in hundreds. "Hold ! no more, for goodness* sake : surely there are enough now ! " It takes an hour to collect the fares, and put-to the mule, and all this over, Horace goes on board and lies down to sleep, but the hateful mosquitoes, and the croaking frogs in the marshes, make rest impossible. Still worse, the skipper and one of the passengers, more than half drunk, vie with each other in singing the charms of " the girl they left behind them," till the passenger drops asleep, and the skipper, unable to keep awake any longer, stops the boat, loosens the mule, and after hobbling it, left it to graze, turning into his hammock presently and snoring happily till daybreak, when a passenger, waking up, and finding the boat standing still, is furious at the skipper and the mule alike. But it is again put-to, and they creep on ^ Macleane {Horace 376) says that it was thirty-nine miles from Rome.
la 2 1
498 THE APOSTLES A.D, 6o
once more, reaching at ten in the forenoon, a spot seven- teen miles from Appii Forum, called Feronia, where there were a grove and a temple; the pace of the boat having been quickened by a passenger, fierce at their slowness, jumping ashore and belabouring both the mule and its driver on head and sides with a willow cudgel. At Feronia, Horace is able to wash his face and hands ; no small comfort after his wretched night. They now breakfast, and then begin their journey afresh, by road, to Tarracina, on the top of a steep white ascent. Horace, however, had caught cold in his eyes, and has to use black colly rium ointment for them. From Fundi, where he and his friends are amused at the lofty airs of the village mayor, whose head was turned by his dignity, they pass on, twelve miles, to Formiae, where one friend gives them lodging and another invites them to dinner. Next day the party advances eighteen miles, to Sinuessa, from which, on the morning after, they set out for Oapua, where their journey, so far as it was over ground tra- velled by Paul, came to an end. Horace's companions had latterly included, among others, Maecenas, the friend of Augustus and the patron of literature, and Virgil, just on the eve of publishing his Eclogues ; so that it is no wonder he speaks of the embraces and transports, as one after another of such a company joined him.
Meanwhile Paul, a much higher type of man than either the bright, elegant poet or his illustrious friends, reached Appii Forum from the opposite direction, amidst such scenes and human surroundings as Horace so vividly paints. On gaining it, however, a pleasure awaited him which made such troubles as the frogs or mosquitoes, or the bad water, so great a plague to the Roman, in-
5>
PAUL ^T. C 50 THE VOYAGE TO ROME 501
different to him, for the news of his approach had preceded him, and a number of Christians from Rome had walked out the forty-three miles, to meet and welcome him. Striking to say, the forty-third milestone, and some frag- ments of ruin, are now all that remain of the town ; but the charms of a canal-head are poor at the best, and it would be left behind with light steps, amidst the group of friends who henceforth cheered the route. After a time came the upward slope of the Alban Hills, and at length, from the height over Aricia, sixteen miles from Rome, the Apostle would see the far-off glitter of its roofs, and the outline of some of its great buildings, famous through- out the whole world : the spot before him at last, which he had so long eagerly wished to visit !
The weary journey over the hard stone blocks of the Appian Way would take two days, but the close of the second day's march was cheered by another body of Christians, who had come out nine miles, to the last stage, at a village where travellers halted to bait their horses or to change them, hence known as "The Three Taverns," from its three inns, or posting-houses. From this point, the road was lined with the tombs of the most Dlustrious of past generations, many which still remain, showing, even in their decay, the sepulchral magnificence that lined the whole way, eighteen hundred years ago. The wondrous aqueduct of Claudius, then in its first glory, stretching mile after mile in countless arches, from the Alban Hills to the city, on the left of the road as he advanced, could not fail to strike the Apostle ; but it was only one among a thousand sights that might have impressed him. He would enter Rome through the Porta Capena, on the south of the city, picture^
502 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6o
by Javenal, perhaps fifty years later, ^ as moist and dripping from the waters of the Claudian aqueduct which passed over it, while the fountain, the grove, and the shrine of Egeria, close by, where Numa once had his nightly meetings with the goddess ā his Divine counsellor ā had been let to Jews, who could boast only a basket stuffed with hay, and the mixed results of their day's begging, from which they had to pay rent for each tree under which they crouched ; strange tenants to find their home in the grove from which the Muses had been driven out ! ^
Paul's destination was the barracks of the Praetorians, on the north-east of the city, a little more than two miles from the gate. The road passed the south-west end of the Circus Maximus, which filled the whole length of the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine hills, and was reckoned by Pliny to hold 260,000 spectators, while another estimate speaks of 385,000, and Juvenal declares it held all Rome.^ Next came the east side of the Palatine, with its amazing splendour of palaces, of which the very ruins are still a wonder. Then, climbing the Esquiline hill, past the gardens of Maecenas, the march at last brought the prisoner to his journey's end, and he was handed over to the representatives of the Praetorian prefect.
Ā» Juvenal, a.d. 38-c. 120. '^ Juven. Sat. iiL 11-16
Ā» Juven. -So*, xi. 195 ; Pliny, N.H. xxxvi. 24, 1.
CHAPTER XIV
AT ROME SPRING OF A.D. 61-63 ; PAULAS AGE, C. 5I-53
Until the time of Sejanus, the vice-emperor for Tibeiins, the Praetorian guard, originally a small force, under the Prefect, or, as we might say, the Governor of Rome, enlisted as an imperial bodyguard, like the " Cent Suisses" of the French kings, were scattered in small barracks, in different parts of the city or neighbour- hood, though they had been increased to nine or ten thousand men, and it was forbidden that soldiers should be quartered in Rome, just as they cannot, at this time, be quartered in " the City " of London. They were not, it was maintained, " regular troops," but a special metropolitan force ; first to guard the emperor, but also to keep the peace of the city. The name Praetorian was given them from the " Praetorian cohort," or select troops which guarded the Praetor or General of the Roman army.^ Augustus, indeed, who established these " household troops," had never kept more than three cohorts, or 1800 men, in the city, or at its gates; but Sejanus, in the year A.D. 23, ventured on the bold step of establishing a permanent and strongly fortified camp for them, outside the north-east angle of the
' Tac. Ann. iv. 2.
504 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6 1 -63
city, and transformed what had been virtually a civic guard into a strong force of all arms, with double pay, special privileges, and a large donation when their six- teen years of service ended. Indeed, every member of this favoured "imperial guard'* seems to have had a standing equal to that of a centurion in the ordinary aruiy, and hence they erelong assumed an authority which made them all powerful as to the succession to the throne ; its masters, in fact, rather than its guardians, like the Janissaries at Constantinopleā in recent times. The wide space occupied by the buildings and barracks of this pampered body is now only a vacant field, though still used for military exercises ; a modern wall enclosing it, instead of its ancient mounds and ditches and forti- fications ; some substructions of which, and traces of gate-openings, alone remain, for the camp was delibe- rately destroyed by Constantine.
To this stronghold Paul was brought, and formally handed over by the centurion Julius to the officer re- sponsible for the safe-keeping of provincials who had appealed to the emperor. He was not thrown into prison, however, for it was illegal to imprison a Roman citizen in the ordinary way, before trial, and was, there- fore, left in charge of a Praetorian to whom he was intrusted, and kept quite apart from the rank and file of prisoners; the safe-guard of a chain linking him by the arm to his guardian. He does not, indeed, appear to have been retained for any length of time, even in the Praetorian camp, but to have been allowed to choose a hired lodging for himself, outside ; this special favour being possibly due to the letter of Festus, virtually clearing him of any charge, and to the report of
PAUL iET. C. 51-53 AT ROME 60S
Julius as to his loyal services in connection with the shipwreck.
He was treated, in fact, in a humbler way, as Junius Gallio, a friend of Seneca the rhetorician, whose son was possibly the Gallio we met at Corinth, had been when a prisoner ; he being kept in custody in the house of a magi- strate.^ Indeed, had the Apostle been able to find bail that would have been accepted, he might not have been confined at all, for, as Cicero tells us, *'It is a crime to imprison a Koman citizen ; an enormity to scourge him ; almost murder to put him to death,^ and what shall I say of his being subjected to the cross ? " On the borders of the modern Ghetto, near Monte Testaccio and the region over the Tiber, on the south-west of the city, which we know to have been the special Jews' quarter in antiquity, there is a house which Jewish tradition has handed down as that in which Paul had his hired lodgings, whilst waiting his trial. It is an old Roman survival, as many other houses are in this ancient part of the city, and may really be associated with the story of the Apostle, for he would be certain to seek a home among his own people, if only to be able to try, once more, to win them over to accept the new Messiah. That a Christian tradition should, further, speak of his having had a place of public discussion close to the spot, on the site of the Church of St. Paolo alia Regola, tends to increase the historical probability of both being essentially correct.
It is a curious side-light on the restless energy of Paul, that in three days after his arrival in Rome, he had not only settled himself in his humble shelter with some " brother," probably in one of the foetid, narrow lanes of
* Tac. Ann. vi, 3. ' Verres v. 66.
606 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6 1 -63
the Jew quarter, but had sent out an invitation to the oflBcials of the synagogue to meet him, that he might, in accordance with his uniform custom,^ deliver his message " to the Jew first." Willing to hear what he might have to say, they accepted his invitation ; coming, presumably, in the evening, after they had finished the business of the day. The Apostle opened the conference by explain- ing how he appeared in the strange position of a prisoner sent from Palestine, on an appeal to the imperial courts. He had done nothing, he told them, against his people, nor against the Jewish law, and yet had been handed over by the Jewish authorities to the Romans, who, never- theless, after examining him, would have set him free, had he not been so persistently assailed by his accusers, that, to escape their thirst for his blood, he had appealed to Caesar. But he had done this in no spirit of disloyalty to his race or religion. Since, therefore, he wab a loyal Israelite, in chains on no criminal or unworthy ground, he had solicited this conference ; the hostility to him being solely in connection with the national hope respect- ing the Messiah, which was dear to the heart of &11 Israel. He seems, further, to have asked, whether they hj^d heard anything from Judasa against him, either in the ohape of an oflScial missive from the Sanhedrim, or from reports of Jews returning from Palestine. But the court at Jeru- salem could hardly have written to Rome about him before his appeal, and there was no time, since he left CaBsarea, for letters to have come, his vessel having sailed late in the year, when navigation was closing till spring. It is improbable, however, that no rumours should ha\ 0 reached them, from private sources, during his two years' Uikprison-
^ Rom. i 16,
PAUL iET. C. 51-53 AT ROME 507
ment in Palestine, but they evidently wished to affect ignorance, to draw him out and avoid any admissions, and therefore took advantage of nothing official having been sent, to evade the exact truth, by replying that no letters about him from the Jerusalem authorities had been received, and that no private Jew from Palestine had brought reports to his prejudice. They had come, they said, on his invitation, simply to hear what his special views as a leading " Christian " were, and how they agreed or disagreed with their own, that they might thus know what to think of " the sect," so-called, which, they knew, was everywhere spoken against. The fierce strife between Jew and Christian had not, as we see from the tone of the Epistle to the Komans, hitherto, blazed up in the capital as in some other parts, but the Christian com- munity, made up largely of Gentiles, many of whom had been proselytes to the synagogue, and also, in some measure, of Jews who had separated more or less from it, must have been well known to the Jewish quarter. The ignorance affected respecting it must, therefore, have been mere crafty Oriental diplomacy ; to hear everything, and say nothing. One interview, however, could not exhaust so wide a question, and the deputation arranged to return on a subsequent day, and listen to all that Paul had to say. A great number, true to Jewish dispu- tatiousness, gathered early at the time thus appointed ; the whole day, from morning till evening, being devoted to the discussion of the new views which Paul sought to enforce, by proofs, from both the Law and the Prophets, that Scripture was in their favour. The result might have been anticipated. Some were convinced, some re- mained obdurate, and the two parties, in the end, got
508 THE APOSTLES A.D. 61-63
into hot dispute : the majority of Paul'p visitors bearing themselves so offensively that at last he saw it was hopeless to argue with them, and abruptly closed the conference by a biting quotation from Isaiah.^ ''Well spake the Holy Ghost," said he, "by the prophet Isaiah to your fathers, Go forth to this people, and say, With your ears ye shall hear and (yet) shall in no wise under- stand; and seeing, ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive ; for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed ; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them." Having thus denounced their perversity, he dismissed them with a scornful warning that he would henceforth turn to the heathen. " Be it known to you," said he, " that this salva- tion of God is sent to the Gentiles ; they will hear ! "
But though thus finally repudiated by his own race, the Apostle was by no means left alone. The love which had sent news from Puteoli to Rome, of his arrival in Italy, and which, among the Roman Christians, had led a band of them to travel two days' journey to Appii Forum, to meet and give him a loving escort, did not diminish when he was detained in the great city. Not only the local brethren, indeed, but numbers who heard of him, habitually frequented his lowly chamber, so that he had thus, for "two whole years," the opportunity of constantly " preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ." And it is to be noted, that the conduct of the Christians and the bearing of Paul himself, were, throughout, so loyal and peaceable, that he
1 Isa. vL 9, 10, LXX,
PAUL iET. C. 51-53 AT ROME 609
was allowed to do so "with all boldness ; none forbidding him."
Of the incidents of this time we know next to nothing, for the " Acts " closes with the words I have just quoted. Yet, from his letters, we may glean some broken lights. A population held together simply by the desire for gain, in a foreign land, whose people they despised and hated as enemies of their race and idolaters, could not be very high toned. But in the Jewish community of from 20,000 to 30,000, if not more, there must always have been some spirits of an earnest and lofty type, to whom religious affairs, in their higher aspects, were the chief interest. The zealous proselytism we have already noticed, may have sprung, in most cases, from unspiritual motives, but there are always some sincerely devout men in any large body of religionists, of whatever creed.
The first Christian converts, in Rome, as elsewhere, had been won from the Jewish quarter, for Christianity seemed, as yet, only a development of the national faith, with Christ for the Hope of Israel, instead of a political Mes- siah ; if, indeed, even this had been quite realised. Round this nucleus of Hebrews a large body of Gentile proselytes had early gathered, till these heathen-born converts became largely the majority of the brethren. Still, though some unknown disciple of Paul had been the founder of the Church, and had thus created a sympathy for his teaching, the influence of Jewish surroundings and hereditary pre- judices, left a deep tinge of Hebrew feeling and bias in the community. The Jewish portion of the membership would, naturally, be drawn from the most earnestly religious of the synagogue, while those who had been Gentile proselytes had been so habituated to the hearing of the Old Testa-
610. THE APOSTLES A.D. 6 1 -63
ment in the lessons and discourses, alike of the synagogue and of the Christian assembly, that Paul felt able to quote freely from the ancient Scriptures, as thoroughly known to Jew and Gentile brethren, alike. No details are given of his intercourse, during the two years of his detention, with these humble confessors whom he had so long wished to meet,^ nor are many personal notices left of any of them. The incidental hints supplied by the " Epistle '* to them, enable us, however, in some measure, to reconstruct the little world of the Apostle, and thus realise, in some degree, his Eoman life. Zeal for the exact observance of the law had led, as we have seen, to extreme views in Palestine; colonies of Jewish Puritans ā the Essenes ā having long separated from the world, to live in rigid watchfulness against auy possible ceremonial defilement ; eating no flesh, and tasting no wine or strong driok, but living solely on herbs, and, while not prohibiting mar- riage as improper, discouraging it as far as possible.^ These ascetic ideas, borrowed in part from the vows of the Nazarites, had many sympathisers outside the communi- ties wholly devoted to them ; James, the brother of our Lord, for example, living after the same model.* But, that one so revered by all Christians, should thus have denied himself the simplest gratifications, however inno- cent, must have brought " mortifying of the flesh " into favour with large numbers in the early Church, and hence we find, even in Eome, some who were not only Nazarites in their abstinence from wine and the like, but who would eat neither what had lived or would live ; rejecting eggs, or fish, or flesh, and eating vegetables only.* Among
Ā» Rom. XV. 28, 24. * Geikie's "Life of Christ," i. 340-357.
' See "James," in index to vol. i. of this book. * Rom. xiv. 2, 16.
PAUL MT. C. 51-53 AT ROME 611
such extremists there were individuals, we may be snre, who, like their similarly ultra-brethren at Corinth, depre- ciated marriage, and raised all the delicate questions in connection with it, which Paul had discussed in his second letter to the Church in that city. Their scru- pulosity further worried itself as to days on which they should fast, and as to how many of the " holy " days named in the Jewish calendar should be honoured as such.^ Persons with such dyspeptic consciences could not fail to be on the watch to detect shortcomings from their fanciful standards, in the brethren, and hence, we may assume that there was as little peace in the Roman brotherhood as in that of other places. Paul, indeed, in his Epistle, had warned them, long before he arrived among them, against exposing their petty disputes before the heathen ; the name of God being blasphemed by unbelievers through their unworthy rancour and quarrels.^ Disputes about what should be eaten and what shunned, led many, here as elsewhere, from time to time, to dissemble and vio- late their conscience ; the liberal-minded abstaining, on occasion, against their convictions, and the narrow-minded sometimes eating when their heart condemned them.^ As in Corinth, defined rules of Christian practice had not yet been established ; no settled and recognised code of Church authority had been set up, and, in consequence of this, factions only too eagerly Jewish in their feelings, gained a constantly increasing influence, splitting up the various local meetings of the brethren, by the same wordy strife and scruples as had rent churches elsewhere.*
The strongly Jewish sympathies thus deepened or deve-
* Rom. xiv. 6. ā¢ Rom. ii. 24.
ā¢ Rom. xiv. 14 f. * Rom. xiv. 1.
512 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6 1 -63
loped in the Roman brotherhood as a whole, are constantly revealed in the tone of Paul's letter to them. He vindi- cates the right of the heathen to a share in the new king- dom of Christ, as won for them by the cross, in fulfilment of the eternal purpose of God. The brethren, as a body, are repeatedly described as heathen-born.^ Yet he shows, constantly, the most sensitive regard to Jewish feeling, and the most earnest anxiety to have it clear beyond question that he was intensely loyal to his own race. References to the Old Testament, as the proofs of his orthodoxy in proclaiming the admission of the heathen to the favour of God, are continual. He enlarges on the glories of Israel in the enjoyment of " the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, and the fathers," and as those '* through whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ, the seed of David, came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." ^ So far from being their enemy, in championing the cause of the heathen world, and thus, as the old Jews declared, taking the children's bread and casting it to the dogs, he breaks out into the agonising cry, that "his heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved,'* and declares that '' he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart" in reference to them, insomuch that " he could wish he him- self were anathema from Christ, for his brethren's sake, his kinsmen according to the flesh." * Nothing, in fact, con Id exceed the tenderness and love with which he ex- pounded his generous charity, to calm their fears, and soften all their prejudices, while, to seal his devotion to
1 Eom. I 6, 13 ; xi. 13, 40. * Rom. ix. 4, 6.
Ā» Rom. ix. 2, 8.
PAUL MT, C. 51-53 AT HOME 51?
their interests, he revealed the depths of his heart and disclosed the agony that wrung his whole nature at the thought of the nation, as such, having rejected the over- tures of salvation through Jesus.
But human nature is the same in all ages. A band of the Roman Christians, on hearing of the Apostle's approach to their city, had gone out two days' journey to Appii Forum, to meet and escort him, and one might have expected a warmth so fervent, to have ensured abiding comfort and loving fellowship for him, in all his troubles. But when the first curiosity had been satisfied, and ready intercourse with him had shown his views on the ques- tions agitated among them, they gradually fell away, and finally left him so completely, that at his "first defence" before the Roman magistrates, in his second imprisonment, "no one took his part, but all forsook him."i
It is probable that this miserable defection may have risen from his opposition to the wild political dreams of his people, in which most Christians, whether of Jewish or heathen stock, largely shared. Things were, as we have seen, going from bad to worse, in Palestine, and the ruthless sternness of the Romans in crushing the local troubles there was no doubt speedily known wherever there were Jews. Men learned in the Roman Ghetto, that even Festus was fierce against the patriots, and was crucifying them in great numbers. In A.D. 63, while Paul was still a prisoner, Josephus, then a young man of twenty-five, had reached Rome after an even more ter- rible shipwreck than that of Paul, and had, as we have seen, obtained an introduction to Poppaea, the empress, through a Jew actor in high favour with Nero, his object
> 2 Tim. iv. 16.
m. 2e
514 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6 1 -63
being to plead the cause of some priests left in prison by Felix, at Caesarea. Inclined to the Jews, the great lady, loose enough in her morals, but all the more anxious to be on the right side hereafter, soon procured their liberation from her husband, whose mistress she had been before he married her, and sent Josephus home again loaded with presents. Poppasa had been the wife of the prefect of the Prastorian troops under Claudius, then the mistress of a boon companion of Nero, then, having obtained a divorce, married him ; then became Nero's mistress, and finally induced him to murder, first, his mother, and then his wife, so as to make her empress. That one thus exalted, whatever her character, should have favoured their people, roused the wildest hopes of the Jews ^ and even of many Christians, for the excitement in the Ghetto must soon have spread to the more or less sympathetic membership of the Christian assembly. " Now," says Josephus, speak- ing of his Roman visit, " I saw that we were on the brink of a revolution, and that many were very elated at the idea of a revolt from the Romans,"^ and what he saw and heard would be seen and heard by others, for Orientals air their emotions much more demonstratively than chil- dren of colder lands. Very possibly the audible anticipa- tions to which Josephus alludes, may have first turned the popular mind, a little later, after the great burning of Rome, to the Jews, as, perhaps, its authors ; especially as the flames began close to the Jewish trade-booths, beside the Circus Maximus. Paul himself, as we have seen,* appears to have expected the very speedy breaking up of the empire, and the brethren in Rome itself, looking, day by day, for the revelation of the long-expected Messiah, 1 J08. Vit. 3, 4. Ā» Vit. i. Ā» " ApoBtles," vol. i. 498 flf.
PAUL MT. C. 51-53 AT ROME 51
amidst revolution and war, wonld naturally think, still more scrongly, that the catastrophe was near at hand. They would, moreover, be apt to underrate the powers of resistance in a State so rotten, from the throne to the proletariat, and so dead to shame, in its social and political corruption. The age was indeed ominous in every aspect. To use the eloquent language of Mazzini, " The sky was dark, the heavens void ; the peoples strangely agitated, or motionless in stupor. Whole nations disappeared. Others lifted their heads as if to view their fall. Through- out the world was a dull sound of dissolution. All trembled : the heavens and the earth. Man was hideous to behold. Placed between two infinities, he had no consciousness of either : neither of his future, nor of hie past. All belief was extinct. Man had no faith in hit gods ; no belief in the republic. Society was no more : there existed a power stifling itself in blood, or consum- ing itself in debauchery ; a senate, miserably aping the majesty of the past, that voted millions and statues to the tyrant ; Praetorians, who despised the one and slew the other ; informers, sophists, and the slavish crowd who clapped their hands. Great principles were no more. Material interests existed still. The fatherland was nc more ; the solemn voice of Brutus had proclaimed the death of virtue from its tomb. Good men departed, that they might not be defiled by contact with the world. Thrasea poured out his blood in libation to Jupiter the Liberator. The soul of man had fled : the senses reigned alone. The multitude demanded bread and the sports oJ the circus. Philosophy had sunk first into scepticism, then into Epicureanism, then into subtlety and words. Poetrj was transformed into satire."
516 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6I-63
In snch a crisis, when society, as it was, seemed dyinp", the Jew in the Roman Ghetto, thinking of the promised Messiah, as the commotions in Palestine drifted towards a final grand national revolt, was at one with his brethren in Jucl83a, in the fond trust that the future, under this heavenly leader, belonged to his race, and that he would speedily see it exalted to world-dominion on the ruins of the existing state of things. The spirit of the Zealots, heirs of the party of Judas the Gaulonite, was daily spreading through the nation everywhere, and must have had a strong hold on the Jews of Rome, both in the church and the synagogue. As a whole, both the Christian and Jewish community would be fanatically convinced, that the Israelite could acknowledge no Lord but Jehovah; that he should pay no dues to the heathen, and that he had a deadly feud with the uncircumcised idolater. Horror of the enormities of the Roman Sodom, deepened by the belief that its end was near, would show itself ever more openly. It is by the light of this state of feel- ing, that Paul's language, in some parts of his letter to Rome, can be most clearly understood. Knowing that the stern Jew- Christian, and even his Gentile brother whom he had influenced, hesitated to take the customary oath of allegiance to Caesar on the Kalends of January, since a son of Israel should have no other Lord but Jehovah, and that he stiffened his neck when the praetor, in his purple-striped toga, preceded by his lictors bearing the fasces as the sign of his authority, passed by, he tells them to " let every soul bo in subjection to the higher powers : for there is no power but of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resists the power, withstands the ordinance of God, and they
PAUL iET. C. 51-53 AT ROME 517
that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment.'*' Snch language, as the Apostle well knew, was directly opposed to the opinions of many of the brethren. And did he not say that, when homage was paid to CaBsar, the honour was not, as they held, paid to devils, but to God, since there was no power that was not ordained by Him ? Many had a strong aversion to pay taxes to the Emperor, but, in the same spirit, Paul wrote that those who received tribute or custom were ministers of God; not, as they maintained, of demons, and both were, there- fore, to be paid to them, as officials performing a sacred duty.* The Gaulonite had preached that custom should not be paid, because it made that on which it was levied unclean ; that the head-tax should be resisted, because it involved the forbidden numbering of the people, and the act of homage being evaded, because it was associated with idolatrous fancies ; but Paul bluntly ordered that tribute was to be paid to whom it was due ; " custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; honour to whom honour, for those who receive one or other were ministers of God to them for good."* If any enthusiast felt stirred at the thought of the blood shed daily in Palestine by the Pro- curators, in their conflicts with the bands of zealots and assassins, his warmth was chilled by the words of the Apostle ā '' Rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wouldst thou have no fear of them, do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of them ; for they are ministers of God to thee for good. But if thou do evil be afraid ; for they bear not the sword in vain, for they are ministers of God, avengers, for wrath to him that doeth evil."* The bearingr of the Aoostle was, is ^ Rom. xiii. 1, 2. Ā» jtiil 6, 7. '^ xiiL 4, 7. * xiii. 8, 4.
518 THE APOSTLES A.D. 61-63
fact, the same towards existing authority, as that, for maintaining which, and refusing to join in the national frenzy against the political situation, Jesus had been proscribed and crucified at Jerusalem. Nor could His recent experiences have failed to turn him still more, against the perverted patriotism of his nation, fresh as he was from the violence of its champions in the Temple courts, from his perils by the daggers of the Sicarii, and from the evident fact that this zeal for the law had so divorced morality from religion, that murder and all other crimes were forgiven, if covered with the mantle of an Irreconcilable. But while this attitude would cool the zeal of Jewish-Christian brethren for him, it would seem to the heathen - born section, almost unfeeling irony, to be told, in the Rome of Nero and Tigellinus, that rulers were not a terror to the good work but to the evil. The Roman Church must have felt very differently from him in this matter, for, in his case, the Jews had everywhere hunted him down, whereas the imperial authorities had protected him. Personal intercourse, moreover, instead of softening the opposition between his and their views on some points, would probably, as in many other cases, only exasperate them, and lead to active contradiction and intensified bitterness ; some going so far as to "preach Christ, even of envy and strife," "from faction, not sincerely, thinking to raise up afiliction for him in his bonds." ^ Too many, also, were so far from honouring Christianity in their lives, that the Apostle calls them the enemies of the Cross ; perhaps from their immorality, but not improbably from their offensive ā¢jxclusiveness in food, their avoidance of intercourse with
1 PhiL i. 15, 16.
PAUL iET. C. 5 1-53 AT KOME 61G
liberal-minded brethren, or their insistence od scrupulous obedience to rabbinical precepts and even to Judaipm in its entirety, for he puts no check on his indignation in speaking of them, declaring that their end is perdition, their belly their god, their glory in their shame, and their heart set on earthly things, not on the heavenly citizen- ship in the spiritual kingdom of Christ, which was to be realised when He retT^raed. All this looks as if it pointed to trouble about meats and drinks, and circumcision, and from ^ross Jewish views of the kingdom of the Messiah, to be brought about by revolution. So keenly, indeed, did the lonely prisoner feel, that in his letter from his imprisonment at Rome, to the Philippians, he warns them "to beware of the dogs, the evil workers, the man- mutilators," a fiercely bitter epithet for the fanatical apostles of circumcision.^ We can understand how some would even wish to add to his trouble rather than stand by him, whe matters had gone thus far, for the fury of Jewish religious animosity against him, as against his Master, colours every page of the Epistles.
In the midst of all his disappointments and chagrins, however, the much-tried Apostle had the comfort of one or two of his old companions who remained true to him, and found an outlet for his unwearying energy in cor- respondence with the churches he had founded, or to such beloved helpers, and one might say, sons, as Timothy and Titus. To the documents of this gloomy time which have come down to us, we are, indeed, indebted for any glimpses of him, amidst its otherwise hopeless obscurity. How many of these priceless letters he may have written can never be known, but we fortunately have that sent to his much
Ā» Phil. iii. 2, 8, 19.
520 THE APOSTLES A.D. 61-63
loved friends at Philippi, and the personal raissivet addressed to Timothy and Titus. Modern criticism has displayed its subtlety in finding objections to the whole of these, but even Lipsius, in his summary of all that has been suggested against the Philippians, dismisses it as of little weight. That that Epistle comes to us with the warranty of the whole ancient Church, from Polycarp, the disciple of St. John onwards, is assuredly sufficient to justify our cordial acceptance of it as genuine, especially in connection with the clear stamp of authenticity in its oneness with Paul's other writings, in spirit, affectionate outbursts, delicate references and turns of speech, and the whole tone of its doctrine, no less than its language and mode of statement.
With regard to the Epistles to Timothy and that to Titus, the doubts of their being really Paul's may be summed up under three heads : the difficulty of assigning dates at which they could have been written by him, in keeping with the supposed facts of his life ; the supposed allusion to matters of a later time than that of his death, and even the discussion of them ; and, finally, the peculiarity of their mode of thought and forms of expression, compared with those of the acknowledged letters of the Apostle.
The first of these difficulties rises only if we presuppose that Paul was not set free after his first imprisonment at Kome, and that, hence, the first letter to Timothy and that to Titus must have been written before that period, and the second letter to Timothy during it. But as there are no satisfactory grounds for thinking that he was not set free, and afterwards once more seized, this ground of objection vanishes, with the admission that a second imprisonment followed the first.
fAtJLiBT. C. 51-53 AT ROME 621
The second class of objections needs a more detailed notice. Allusions are alleged to be made to heretics who rose only at a later period than during the life of the Apostle, bat, in reality, nothing is said which implies that the epistles are post-apostolic. I append below, a list of the passages cited as involving t\it they are so, and it will be seen that there is nothing beyond such general expressions, as might have Deen suggested by the shadow, which departures from received ideas, and from the high morality of Paul's teaching, must, for a long time in advance of their full development into formal systems, have cast before them.^ It will be hard, indeed, for ordinary readers to detect anything in the single words, or in the general phrases, to which so much importance is attached, beyond what might well have been said in a time of such religious excite- ment and ferment, from which whole groups of heresies might be feared, in the nearer or more distant future.
Hierarchical tendencies which belong to a later time than that of the Apostle, are another discovery of the acute minds which have dissected these epistles. In genuine letters of Paul, it is said, we find no trace of special official leaders of the congregations, while bishops, presbyters, and deacons, appear in Timothy and Titus. But apart from the fact that the Apostle speaks, in "Romans," of "rulers," and in "Corinthians," of "governments," 2 it is clear that we find allusion, in the Epistles criticised, to only the simplest form of Church organisation. " Deacons " were already in existence in
Ā» 1 Tim. i. 3-7, 19 ; iv. 2, 3, 7 ; vl 3-6, 20, 21 ; Titui i. Ā»-ll, 14, 1Ā« | UL 9-11 ; 2 Tim. ii. 18, 26 ; iiL 6, 8, 18. ' Rom. xii. 8 ; 1 Cor. xil 2d.
522 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6I-63
the beginning of the apostolic times, and if we do not know when the Presbyteriate began, and how it was introduced, all the evidence of the Acts shows that it must have risen very early, and, indeed, this is in- volved in the admitted fact that the first churches were organised on the mo-lel of the synagogue, which had a bench of elders or presbyters. Moreover, all the "charges" in these epistles, respecting deacons or presbyters, are confined to enjoining that only such men should be appointed to these oflSces, as had shown themselves worthy of them, and were fitted to benefit the brotherhood by holding them. But anything hier- archical in this would be hard to discover. The pres- byter and bishop, moreover, are treated as identical throughout these letters, while there is no mention of a single official over the others, and, in Titus, there is not even a reference to deacons at all. If it be still urged that allusions to officials of any kind, mark these letters much more than the others which are admittedly Paul's, it is an easy reply, that, as his life drew near a close, it must have seemed specially necessary to the Apostle, in the face of the growing tendency to false teachers intruding on the churches, that trustworthy men should be secured, to take his place when he should be no longer with them ; men able, and in every way fitted, to defend and advance the truth, and main- tain the rules of life and practice which he had ordained in all the churches.^
The sharp eyes of critics have found another ground of thinking the Timothy Epistles of a later date than
Ā» 1 Cor. iv. 17; vii. 17 ; 2 Cor. xi. 28; Acts xx. 17-35 ; xi. SO; xt. 4, 6, 23 ; xvi. 4 ; xx. 17.
VkVL MT. a 51-53 AT ROME 623
the Apost/e's life, in their references to widows ; * the idea being, that a special order of helpers is meant, analogous to deaconesses, but known, in Church history, only in the second century. It is even suggested that the name of widow did not really mean what it implies, but was only official, and included even unmarried women ; both classes forming a sisterhood for Church work. All this, however, is surely an artificial difficulty ; no reason being possible why widows should not, from the first, have been admitted, at the specified age of sixty, to the charitable aid of the community ; their claim rest- ing on their past usefulness towards the poor and sick, their Christian character, and their having lived chastely ā each keeping honourably to her husband alone.
That Timothy should be described in both Epistles as still young, has been urged against their authenticity. It is contended that he must have been at least thirty- five when Paul was imprisoned at Rome, but it is quite uncertain how young he was when the Apostle first knew him, and he may have been no more, at most, than twenty-five at this period, for the Apostle had first met him, as a mere lad, hardly ten years before.^
The question of Paul's authorship on the ground of peculiarities of thought and expression hardly requires serious notice, for each of his epistles has words peculiar to it, Ephesians having fifty, and Galatians 140, which do not occur in any of the others. It would, indeed, be strange if different communities, in different circum- stances, and different private friends, should not have brought different thoughts and modes of expressing them, to a mind so fertile as that of PauL
Ā» 1 Tim. V. 9, * Vol. i, 8W.
524 THE APOSTLES A..D. 61-63
The three pastoral letters, then, seem to me to be challenged on very insufficient grounds, and I therefore rejoice to look on them as priceless mementos of the Apostle. What documents indeed, submitted to the critical skill of subtle minds, could not have a world of doubts and demurs raised, not only as to their author, hut as to their date, object, and endless other points?
CHAPTER XV
THE EPISTLB TO THE PHILIPPIAN8 WEITTEN AT ROME, C A.D. 62 ; PAUL's AGE, C. 52
Philippi, it will be remembered, was the first point at which Christianity struck root in Europe, about ten years before Paul wrote to the brethren there the Epistle which bears their name. He had crossed from Troas to Neapolis in Macedonia, or, rather, in Thrace, ā the port of Philippi ā moved to do so by a vision in his sleep, in which a Macedonian had prayed him to come over and help his people.^ Philippi, with its hills rich in gold mines, and so noted for their copious springs, that the old name of the town ā Krenides ā was given it on account of them, and with its wide plain beneath, famous for the rout of Brutus and Cassius, which paved the way for the Empire, had been raised, by Augustus, to the "dignity of a Roman "colony," with the "jus Italicum" ā a law or right, which was granted only to favoured provincial cities, and gave them, as communi- ties, freedom from taxes, the municipal constitution of Italian towns, and special privileges in connection with the tenure of land. Named after its second founder, the father of Alexander the Great, it was now a frontier defence of the empire ; a dignity which the steady, solid character of its population fully justified.
' For Ā» description of Philippi, see toL L 888 &
526 THE APOSTLES C. A.D. 62
Along with the natives and the Roman military colonists, largely ecgaged in the mines, or in tilling the rich plain, there were some Jews, though very few ; for if there had been ten men they would have had a synagogue, whereas they appear to have had no more than a place of prayer, on the banks of the stream outside the city. To this, as may be remembered, the Jewish women and female proselytes from heathenism resorted, and to them Paul and his companions came on the Sabbath, and discoursed respecting the new faith, gathering from among them various converts, of whom the first and most important was Lydia, a seller of purple cloth, who had come to Philippi from Thyatira, a city of Lydia, a Roman province of Asia Minor. Women, indeed, appear to have been prominent in the local church, presently founded ; Euodia and Syntyche being expressly named ; with three men, presumably out of a much larger number, Epaphroditus, whom Paul calls his "brother, and companion in labour, and fellow -soldier," who brought the contribution of the Church to the support of the Apostle to him at Rome, while he was a prisoner,^ Syzygos, of whom Paul says, he was rightly named "a yoke fellow,^ and Clemens, his fellow-labourer, whose name with those of others who also had been faithful helpers to him, "was in the book of life." Ā«
Troubles, which I have already noticed, finally drove Paul from the city, nor did the animosity of the genera) population, stirred up, probably, by some Jew, cease with his departure, for he writes, ten years later, in his Epistle, that he knows of the Church having " the same conflict Ā» PhiL ii. 25-30 ; iv. 18. Ā« Phil. iv. 3. Ā» PhiL iv. 8.
PAUL JET. C. 52 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 527
which they saw in him ; " a proof of their enduring mnch violence, since he had spoken of being shamefully treated when there.^ This referred to his first visit in the year 53, when on his second missionary journey, but in 58, when he came a second time to Macedonia, from Ephesus. he had to strengthen the faith of the local Christians, in- cluding, doubtless, those at Philippi, ''giving them much exhortation ; " ^ and he tells the Corinthians that when in these parts, his " flesh had no relief, but he was afflicted on every side ; with fightings without and fears within," ^ though it is not said who were the special assailants.
Returning to Macedonia in the spring of 59, from Corinth, Paul remained at Philippi, among his dear ones, till after the Passover ; setting out when it was over, on his last, fatal journey to Jerusalem.'* But his heart was still so tenderly with the Philippi an congregation, that, in his letter to them, expecting to be set free before long, and to carry out still farther his work for Christ, he looks forward with joy to their "glorying abounding, in Christ Jesus, in him, through his presence with them again." ^
The Church at Philippi, so far as we know, was the only one founded by Paul, in which his opponents never got a footing ; his letter to it showing no trace of the Judaisers having been able to disturb it. For once, he was free to rejoice in "the fellowship" of a congregation "in the furtherance of the Gospel, from the first day till now,"^ and to express his confidence that "He who began a good work in them will perfect it till the day of Jesus Christ ; " then believed to be so near at hand. He glories in them as having been always obedient, whether he was with thera
1 Phil. i. 29 ; 1 Thess. il 2. Ā« Acts xx. 2. Ā» 2 Cor. vii. 5.
* Acts XX. 6. Ā» Phil. i. 26. ā¢ Phil. i. 6, 6.
528 THE APOSTLES C. A.D. 62
or absent, and calls them his joy and crown.^ The Epistle, in harmony with this, is, throughout, a song of rejoicing, in which he invites his dear ones to join.^ So true and close, indeed, was the love on both sides, that the Philip- pians were the only Church from which Paul accepted contributions toward his support, and that once and again ; his boast, in respect to other churches, being that to keep any one from saying he had been a burden to them, he maintained himself by his manual labour.^ Even while he was imprisoned at Rome, in fact, the loving care of these warm hearts followed him with their bounty ; one Epaphroditus having made the long journey to him there, with the gift of their affection, for which he returns them his tenderest thanks.*
Still, as in all human affairs, the Apostle had to speak of shadows mingling with the light. He has to exhort them to stand fast in unity of spirit, to avoid faction or vainglory, to cultivate humility, and to strive more and more after the pure unselfishness of true Christian love.''
The kindly mission of Epaphroditus gave the Apostle an opportunity of sending them our " Epistle," which is, really, a letter of thanks for many expressions of un- changing love. He had already been long confined at Rome, for he speaks of his loneliness; the friends who had so eagerly gathered around him at first, having so cooled in their Christian zeal that " all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ ; " Timothy only, " caring truly for their state." The long months in which he had worn a chain had sorely depressed him, but the loyalty of the
1 PhU. ii. 12 ; iv. 1. Ā« Phil. i. 4, 18 ; ii. 17 ; iv. 10 ; ii. 18 ; iii. 1 ; iv. 4.
* Phil iv. 16 ; 1 Thess. ii. 9 ; 1 Cor. iv. 12 ; ix. 4-18 ; 2 Cor. xL 7-12.
* Phil. ii. 25 ; iv. 10-19. ^ phji. i. 27 ; ii. 1-5, 12-16 ; iii. 16 ; iv. 6-9.
PjLUL mi. C. 53 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 529
Philippians lighted up his gloom, and filled his sonl with a joy all the greater, for his previous anxiety. We must, therefore, apparently, assign the date of the Epistle as late in the year A.D. 63.
This delightful letter runs as follows :ā
Epistlb to the Philippians Greeting.
I. 1. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,^ to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. 2. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Timothy is associated with the Apostle as his closely connected helper, but it is not said who was the amanu- ensis. The simplicity of the church organisation, as yet, shows itself in the plurality of bishops, or overseers, and in their being included with the saints and deacons, with no lofty distinction of position. It brings one in mind, indeed, of the expression ā "The Jews with their rulers," ^ for the "bishops" or "presbyters" of the churches were, in fact, the counterpart of the " rulers of the synagogue." In writing to a Gentile church, the usual word for over- seers^ was adopted instead of "presbyter," or "elder," which was more familiar to Jewish converts, but the two are once and again employed interchangeably ; thus confirming the identity of " bishop " and " presbyter," in the humble churches of apostolic times.* At Miletus, for example, Paul sends for the " presbyters," or " elder men," from Ephesus, but presently calls them episcopoi, that
^ The Greek in this and all similar passages is " slaves." * Acts xiv. 5. ' Episeopoi. * Acts xx. 17, 28.
III. 2 L
530 THE APOSTLES A.D. 6$
is, "bishops," or "overseers ; "^ and the fact of a number being found in the single church of Philippi, further illus- trates this identity. He now passes on to give thanks to God for their loyalty to him, as fellow-workers for the Gospel, and to assure them of his abiding affectionate remembrance of them all.
3. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4. always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you all, making that supplication with joy, 5. for your fellowship in further- ance of the Gospel from the first day till now. 6. Being con- fident of this very thing, that He who began such a good work in you will perfect it till the fast coming day of Jesus Christ. 7. Indeed it is only right for me to have this feeling of confidence with respect to you all, because I have you in my heart, since, both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel, you, by suffering as you have done, and by your fidelity to Christ, are all partakers with me of God's grace ; for it is indeed " grace," to be permitted to suffer or to work for our Lord.^ 8. God is my witness how lovingly I long after you all, in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus, as if His heart were itself beating in my breast.*
What Paul has asked for them from God.
9. And this is what I pray for, on your behalf, that your love towards each other, that " fellowship " to which I have referred, may abound yet more and more, in knowledge of divine truth, and all discernment of right and wrong ; 10. so that you may clearly recognise and approve what is good, and may be sincere ; able to stand the test of the searching light
1 See vol. L 290. ^ gee verse 29.
' This is the true force of Paul's words, " In the tender affections of Christ Jesus." The viscera were regarded by the ancients as the seat of the affections. In Prov. xii. 10, the words "tender mercies" are, in the Hebrew, "bowels," and so, in Luke L 78, the "tender mercy" of our God, is in Greek, the '* bowels of mercy," just as, in the present verse, we read literally, " the bowels of Christ Jesus."
PAUL iET. C. 53 TFiE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 531
of the sun, and thus not fall into sin till the day of the appear- ing of Christ ; 11. being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
He now proceeds to speak of his own position, in Eome, and his prospects in the future.
12. But, as to myself, I should like you to know, brethrei), that what has befallen me, in being kept a prisoner, has tended rather to the furtherance than, as you might have feared, to the hindrance of the Gospel ; 13. so that my chains have become well known throughout the whole barracks of the Praetorian guard,i and to all others, as the chains, not of a criminal, but of one whose only fault is the being in Christ ; 14. and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord, through the sight of my chains, under which they believe me protected by God, ā instead of losing heart, are more abun- dantly bold to speak the Word of God without fear. 15. Some Judaisers, indeed, preach Christ from envy at my success, and a spirit of strife against me; and some ā the majority ā also of good will 2 to me. 17. These do it of love, knowing that I am appointed by God, to this position, for the defence of the Gospel; 16. but the others proclaim Christ from party spirit, not sincerely, thinking to raise up additional trouble to me in my chains, by stirring up faction and lowering my standing. ^ 18. What then is the state of the case ? Only, that, though the motives be so different, ā inevery way of preaching, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed ; and in this I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice, 19. For I know that this wide preaching of the Gospel shall turn to my salvation, through your prayer, and the supply of the help and comfort of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20. according to my earnest expectation and hope, that in no respect shall I be put to shame, but that with all boldness of heart, as always, so
^ See p. 503. 2 Verse 14.
I have put verse 17 before 16, to make the connection more clear.
532 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63
now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death. 21. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Which to choose is a diflScult question ! He expects to visit Philippi again.
22. But if I am to live in the flesh, ā if this with its further apostolic work is the earnest of the future fruit of my labour, ā then I know not what I shall choose ā to live or to die. 23. But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is very far better ; 24. yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake. 25. And being convinced of this, I know that I shall abide, yes, and remain with you all, you and I being spared together, for your advance and joy in the faith ; 26. that your glorying may abound in Christ Jesus, in connection with me, through my presence with you again.
The spread of the Gospel through the Praetorian barracks seems to show that Paul was not living in " his own hired house " when he wrote, though the succession of soldiers guarding him there, and perhaps won over to Christianity, may have diffused the good feeling among their comrades and others. But, after all, he would fain be with Christ, of whom he constantly speaks as in heaven, at the right hand of God ; so that he did not expect to go to " Paradise," respecting which Christ, after having been there while yet unrisen, says " that He had not yet ascended to His Father." Meanwhile he presses on the Philippians the need of unity and humility, whether he comes or does not ; directing them to the example of Christ as their pattern.
27. Only, if you wish me, should I come to you, to be able to advance your faith and joy, and increase your glorying on
PAUL JET. C. 53 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILTPPTANS 533
my account, take heed to let your Christian life as a church, in which you are fellow-citizens of the heavenly kingdom, with laws of citizenship, be worthy of the Gospel of Christ: that, wheti er I come and see you, or be absent, I may hear of your state, that you stand fast in one spirit, as a whole, with one soul contending earnestly, side by side, for the faith of the Gospel, against all who threaten it, Jews or heathen ; 28. and in no respect frightened by the adversaries, whether by insinua- tions about the need of keeping the Jewish law, or by threats of violence ; a calmness which for them is a clear sign of perdi- tion, but for you of salvation at the coming of Christ, and that from God.i 29. For to you it has been granted, for the honour of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf, 30. since you fight the same battle that you saw in my case, at Philippi, and now hear me to be bearing, at Eome.
Under these circumstances their duty is clear.
II. 1. If there be therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of brotherly love, if any common participation of the Holy Spirit, if any deep affection and sympathy between you, 2. make the joy I have in you complete, which is, that you be of the same mind, truly one, having the same love to each other, being one in soul, one in mind ; 3. doing nothing from party-spirit or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting the other better than himself ; 4. looking, each of you, not to his own interests, but each of you also to those of others.
This exhortation is enforced by the example of Jesus.
5. Cherish among you this spirit of lowly concern for others rather than for yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus : 6. who, being already in the form of God, sharing His glory, in which He coexisted with the Father, before the world was,^ thought it not an undue assumption to be equal with God in His essential nature, as well as in ' form," or out-
1 2 ThesB. i. 6 ff. ; Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Tim. ii. 12 ; Luke xii 32. ' John xvii. 5.
534 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63
ward manifestation, 7. but yet stripped Himself of all this, and taking the form of a slave, appeared in the likeness of men ; 8. and being found like a man in appearance, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to tlie length of death, yes, even to the death of the Cross 1
This great example is the more comforting and inspir- ing when we think of the exaltation that followed.
9. For this self-forgetting humiliation, and perfect sub- mission to the Divine will, God also has supremely exalted Him, and has given Him tlie name which is above every name ; 10. that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of all in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth ā angels, and men, and departed spirits, 11. and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Of all this the practical application is : ā
12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed my Gospel, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not as you would do in my presence only, but, now, much more, in my absence ; 13. for it is God who works in you both the will to work and the work itself, through His kind feeling to you. 14. Do all things without murmurings and disputings ;
15. that you may be blameless and without guile, children of God, without spot, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world,
16. raying forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain, or labour in vain. 17. Yea, should I not live till that day, and if I be poured out, in my shed blood, like a drink-offering, on the sacrifice you offer to God, of your faith, I joy, in myself, and rejoice with you all, as safe in Christ; 18. and, in the same way, if my life is poured out thus for Christ, do ye also joy, as to yourselves, since it will have happened for your faith, and rejoice also with me, who will have made so glorious ftn end 1
PAUL JET. C. 53 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 535
Meanwhile, some personal details may interest tbem. He will tell them his intentions and hopes with respect to them.
19. Yet I do not regard my death for the faith as either certain or near, but I hope in the Lord Jesus, if it please Him, to send Timothy shortly to you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know all about you ; as you will be, when you learn all about me from him. 20. For I have no man likeminded, who will care sincerely for your interests; watching, correcting, encouraging, in word and deed; 21. for all seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's. 22. But you know his tried worth, that, as a child serves his father, he has served me in the interests of the Gospel, 23. Him, therefore, I hope to send forthwith, as soon as I shall see how it will go with me : 24. but I trust in the Lord that I shall soon be set free, so that I myself, also, shall come to you shortly.
Not to keep them anxious, however, he has already sent back Epaphroditus.
25. But I thought it necessary to send back to you Epa- phroditus, my brother, and fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need ; 26. since he longed after you all, and was sore troubled, because you had heard that he had been sick. 27. For he was indeed sick nigh unto death : but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. 28. I have sent him, therefore, sooner than I should have liked, that, when you see him again, you may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful, when relieved of the thought of your anxiety about him. 29. Receive him there- fore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such men in honour ; 30. because, for the work of Christ, in travelling hither with help to me, and other service, he came near dying, risking his life to supply by personal service, what you, from your distance, eould not yourselves do for me.
536 tHE APOSTLES A.D. 63
He is now approaching the end of his letter, but must say a word about the opposition to his teaching, that seeks to get a footing even among them.
III. 1. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write again the same warnings to you as I wrote in my former letter ^ is not tiresome to me, and it is safe for you. 2. These warnings are ā beware of the dogs, for so I may call the Jew enemies of the Gospel in Philippi ; dogs in their unworthy teaching and in their attacks on you ā beware of them as evil workers, with their false teaching, building with hay, straw, stubble, and the like ; not truth ā beware of them as men- mutilators : their only idea of circumcision being that in the flesh. 3. For we Christians are the true circumcision, who worship through the quickening of the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, as Him through whom we have attained righteousness, and have no confidence in the flesh, either as to circumcision or Jewish descent, or observance of legal forms.
Yet Paul might boast, if any one could, of having such claims to " righteousness " in the " flesh." But he had utterly repudiated ' any thought of salvation through his Jewish nationality and zealous fulfilment of the require- ments of the law, even in their widest Pharisaic amplifi- cation ; putting all his hope in that faith in Christ Jesus which was "reckoned " or "imputed" by God for right- eousness to those having it.*
4. Though, indeed, I, myself, might well have confidence even in the flesh. If any other man think he has ground for confidence in the flesh, I have it yet more : 5. for I was circum- cised on the eighth day, and am of the stock of Israel, ā descended from Jacob, ā of the tribe of Benjamin ; a Hebrew, the child of
^ The Apostle's words seem intelligible only on the supposition of hia having written " the same things " before, as he was about to write again, the letter thus formerly sent not having come down to us,
* Rom. ill. 22 ; chap. iv. throughout.
PAUL JET. C. 53 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPriANS 537
Hebrews ; as tou ching the law, a Pharisee ; 6. as touching zeal for it, I was a very Zealot, for I persecuted the Church ; as touching the righteousness which is in the fulfilment of the law in the Pharisaic sense, found blameless. 7. But what was thus gain to me, I have counted loss, not gain, for Christ, since they hindered my looking to Him only for salva- tion, 8. Yes, truly, and I even now count all these things to be a loss to me, for the excellency ā the surpassing worth ā of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord ; which casts all things else into the shade ; for whom I have suffered the loss of all these once highly prized things, and count them as worthless,^ that I may gain Christ, 9. and be found in Him ā as a member of His mystical body ā not having a righteous ness of my own attaining ; I mean that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith ; 10. that I may thus know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship or par- ticipation of His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, by my martyrdom for His sake ; 1 1 . if , by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
He would not, however, have the Philippians suppose he thought himself able to boast of Christian perfection, but in his lowly estimate of his position, gives them a touching lesson of humility in judging of their own.
12. I do not say that I have already grasped the prize, or that I am already an ideally perfect Christian ; but I strain onwards in the course, if so be I may finally lay hold of that prize, to win which, indeed, I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13. Brethren, I count not myself to have laid hold of it yet; but this one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind, and stretching forward to what lies before me, 14. I strain onward, in the strength of Christ Jesus, towards the winning-post, to the victor's prize, of the calling or summons, of God, from heaven.
* oKv^aXov, the word used here means " what is thrown to the dogs," ā refuse, dregs, dross, offal, excrement.
538 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63
He applies this to the case of the Philippians.
15. Let as many of us, then, as are mature in Christian knowledge 1 be thus minded ā thinking little of ourselves, and ceaselessly pressing on ; and if in anything you be of a different way of thinking from me, God will reveal even this to you, and enlighten you: 16. only, let us keep up to what we have already attained ; all stepping forward as one.
17. To secure this, brethren, let one and all of you copy me, and note those who walk according to my example. 18. For many walk, of whom I have often said to you, and now tell you even with tears, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ ; 19. whose end is perdition, whose God is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
Thus, even in the Philippian Church, there were " many" whose lives were very far from recommending Christianity to those outside. Yet, if we look closely at their short- comings, we find these amount only to a low-toned idea that they should make the best of both worlds, and secure a paradise at least here, in case of not finding one here- after. They had no ambition to be martyrs by any " fellow- ship in the sufferings of Christ," such as Paul craved ; they liked good eating and drinking, and gloried in easy self-indulgence, and having things comfortable. This is all that is urged against them, but it amounted, in the Apostle's judgment, to their hearts being set on the things of this world, and that, he declares, means their destruction by the "terrors of the Lord " at His coming.* " Citizenship " of the state or community to which one belonged was a matter of course in antiquity, and im- plied the most loyal identification with its constitution, laws, and interests. But such worldly minded Christians Bhowed, hy their being so, that they were citizens of this ^ 1 Cor. ii. 6. * 2 Then, i 9.
PAUL ^T. C. 53 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHTLTPPIANS 539
world only, whereas the Apostle and those like minded with him, gloried in being citizens of the heavenly Jeru- salem,^ or, in other words, of the kingdom of the Messiah, to be revealed at the Advent of our Lord. It may be that some of the Philippians expected an earthly kingdom of Christ, such as the Jews anticipated would be set up by their Messiah on the ruins of the existing political institutions of Rome and of the nations at large, and thus injured Christianity by raising against it the suspicions of disloyalty to the empire, already felt towards the constantly plotting and hostile Jews.
20. For our citizenship is in heaven : from whence, also, we wait for the Lord Jesus Christ, as a Saviour from all our trials and struggles : 21. who shall change the form and appearance of the present body of our humiliation, to one like His body of heavenly glory, by the power through which He can make all things subject to Himself.
IV. 1. Wherefore, my brethren, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, stand fast in the Lord, my beloved.
Two " sisters " are now specially exhorted to harmonious co-operation in Christian work. They may have been deaconesses at Philippi, but this is not stated.
2. I exhort Euodias, and I exhort Syntyche, to be of one mind in the Lord. 3. Yea, I beseech thee, also, Syzigos, rightly named so, for thou art a true yokefellow, and co- worker with me, help these women, for they laboured with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow- workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Human nature was much the same in the early Church as it is in the Church now. Even excellent women, who had been exemplary for their assistance of the Apostle,
1 Gal. iv. 26.
540 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63
had quarrelled so bitterly that he must write about their petty feud! I have adopted the old opinion that the word translated " yokefellow " in our version, is a proper name. If it be not, we have no means of knowing to whom the Apostle refers, and it would be apt to look invidious for any one of Paul's " fellow- workers " to have claimed such commendation as specially intended for himself. Further exhortations follow.
4. Rejoice in the Lord always ; yes, again I will say, Re- joice I 6. Let your patient and peace-loving bearing be known to all men ; whether brethren or those outside ! The Lord is AT HAND ! 6. Do not worry yourselves about anything ; but in everything let your desires be made known to God, in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, 7. and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and your thoughts, undisturebi and undistracted, in Christ Jesus.
8. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever deserves respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is worthy of love, whatever has a good name ; if there be any moral good, and if there be any credit to your profession, in it ā think on it and strive after it. 9. What you both learned, and received, and heard, and saw, in me, copy : and the peace of God shall be with you.
He now reverts to the kindness he has received from the Philippians, and once more expresses his grateful thanks.
10. It was, indeed, a great joy to me in the Lord, that your interest in me has once more, after so long an interval, blossomed afresh, though, indeed, you have always cherished this kind feeling towards me, but had no opportunity of showing it. 11. I do not wish you to think, however, that I speak thus from having been in want, from which your bounty has freed me : for I have learned to be contented with my circumstances, whatever they be. 12. I know how to be brought low, through want or misfortune, and I know
PAUL MT. C. 53 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 541
also how to enjoy abundance ; in everything and in all things I have learned the secret of how both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer want. 13. I can bear all things, plenty, or want, or trouble, in Him who strengthens me. 14. Nevertheless, you have done well in showing sym- pathy with me in my affliction. 15. But, indeed, you your- selves know, 0 Philippians, that at the very beginning of my preaching the Gospel among you, some ten years ago, when I left Macedonia, no church, but you only, showed loving fellowship with me, by giving me aid, in return for the good I had rendered to you. 16. For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent once and again to supply my wants. 17. Not that I crave the gift, but I do crave the fruit which it bears abundantly to your account. 18. But, as to myself, I have everything I want, and even more ; I am fully supplied since I received from Epaphroditus what you sent me, which is a?i odour of a sweet smelly^ a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to God. 19. But my God will satisfy to the full every need of yours, in keeping with His surpassing riches, by the glory He will grant you, in Christ Jesus, at His so-near coming ! 20. Now unto our God and Father be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
21. Salute every saint, in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me salute you. 22. All the saints salute you, especially those who are of Caesar's household.
23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
That there were brethren with Paul, who salute the Philippians, shows, that however short of his standard of Christian life most of those near him might be,^ some had not left him, but ministered to him, visited him, and laboured, under his directions, in Christian work. Moreover, his great-hearted charity delights to include all the Christians of Rome in his loving saluta- tions; the brethren, as a whole, however imperfect, ^ Gen. viii. 21, LXX. Ā» Chap. ii. 20.
542 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63
having, nevertheless, kindly sympathy for their fellow- believers far away, who were so thoughtfully kind and true-hearted. That the new faith had found its way into the imperial household is not wonderful ; the universal pervasion of society by Jewish propagandists, under cover of occupations and services, ā as a rule, of the humblest kinds, ā must have opened the way for Christian Jews, in their calls at the palaces, to whisper words to the slaves, which may have led some of them to seek out the meetings of the Church. The number of bondsmen of higher or lower degree, in the vast imperial residences, must have been equal to the population of a small town, and it may be assumed that the converts to Christianity were from the humbler ranks of these. That there should have been any conversions in the imperial connections themselves is not to be supposed, since such triumphs would certainly have been handed down to us, and, moreover, the immediate family of Nero was very limited. Among the guards at the Praetorian barracks, there may also have been converts, but this would not be in " Caesar's household.'* All that can be said is, that persons connected with the vast imperial domestic establishments had become Christians, and through visiting St. Paul more or less frequently, had become interested in the Philippians.
The Apostle's day was now far spent, and the night was at hand. He was still to write the First Epistle to Timothy before he was released, but I must leave to another chapter the few glimpses we have of the parts to which he went; the places from which he wrote "Titus" and "Second Timothy;" and his subsequent movements.
CHAPTER XVI
NEARING THE END A.D. 63-64 ; Paul's age c 53-54
With the statement of Acts that St. Paul ** abode two whole years in his own hired house " in Rome, " receiving all who went in to him, preaching the " speedy coming of the *' kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him " ā the curtain falls on his story, and the point of light that has glimmered across so many centuries to us, suddenly vanishes in the thick darkness of long dead ages.
From his settling thus in Rome, in the custody of a soldier-guard, to whom he was linked by a chain from his arm or wrist, to prevent possible escape, all we know of him beyond the verse I have quoted, must be gleaned from incidental remarks in his letters to Timothy and Titus, and some brief sentences of writers of later date.
If we may construct from the hints in these latest Epistles, a skeleton-outline of the Apostle's course after his being set free from his first imprisonment in Rome, it would seem as if he had gone first, perhaps, to Crete, leaving Titus there, to organise and superinterd churches in the island, staying a very short time on it himself.^ Thence we may think of him as passing to Ephesus, where
* Titos iii. 12.
544 TIIK APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
he meets Timothy, but presently hurrying on to Macedonia^ where he writes his First Epistle to Timothy.^ This filled up the months till the close of a.d. 63, or nearly so. In the early winter, it appears as if he had settled down at Nicopolis, in Epirns.^ Thence, we may suppose, he wrote the Epistle to Titus, but in his anxiety to get to the west, he seems to have left Nicopolis before the winter was over, pressing on to Troas, where he inadvertently left behind him a thick cloak or outer coat, which he would be sure to miss sadly in the bitter cold weather he would at times meet, and some parchment or papyrus rolls, pos- sibly some of the Jewish Apocalyptic books of the time, then very numerous and in great vogue, and useful to Paul, as showing the ideas of his opponents on matters vital to Christianity. From Troas, he hastens to Ephesus once more, and after staying as long in that city as he could, sets out, by Miletus, where he left Trophimus sick, to Corinth.^ From Corinth he hastens on to Spain, but is back again in Rome, and once more a prisoner, before the great fire in July 64 ; there being no allusion whatever to it in the Second Epistle to Timothy, which was written at Rome while he was " suffering unto bonds as an evil doer ; " words terribly suggestive of his having been ar- rested after the cry had risen, through the machinations of the Jews, that the Christians were enemies of the State, which would expose him, in a special degree, as one of their chief leaders, to a criminal charge. So gloomy, in- deed, were his prospects that he appears to have expected to be soon condemned to death.^ No one of all his old associates, except Luke, was now with him, to cheer and
1 1 Tim. i. 3. ' Titus iii. 12. 3 1 Tim. iv. 13 ; 2 Tim. i. 18 ; iv. 13, 20.
ā¢Ā» 2 Tim. ii. 9 ; iv. 6.
FAUL iET. C. 53-54 NEARTNG THE END 545
keep him company, and he felt his solitude deeply ; so like the loneliness of his Master, at and after Gethsemane ! He was hence very anxious that Timothy should come to him with all speed, from Ephesus, and bring Mark with him ; as both had been with him at Caesarea, and Timothy had further been at his side in his first Roman imprison- ment.^ It is a matter of utter uncertainty, at what precise time he won the crown of martyrdom for which he had longed, as uniting him in a " fellowship of suffer- ing " with his Lord, but it was, most probably, in the close of A.D. 64 or in 65, at latest.
The earliest testimony, outside the New Testament, respecti^ig the last days of the Apostle, is that of Clement, who lived in the first century, and is even believed by many to be identical with the saint of that name men- tioned by St. Paul himself, in his Epistle to the Philip- pians.* He tells us ^ that Paul received the reward of his patience in the martyr's crown, after having been " seven times in bonds." After being " driven from land to land, stoned, and having been a herald (of the Gospel) both in the East and in the West, he received the illustrious glory of his faith ; who having taught the whole world righteous- ness, and having come to the ends of the West, and having been martyred by the authorities, thus departed from the earth and went to the holy place, being the supreme example among men of patience." Some think that by the "ends of the West" only Italy, or, rather, Rome, is meant; a rhetorical flourish making it the far West to
' Col. i. 1 ; iv. 10 ; Philem. 24 ; Phil. i. 1 ; 2 Tim. iv. 9-12.
2 Phil. iv. 3.
ā¢ dementis ad Corinthios, v. 6, 7, ed. Gebhardt and Harnack, 1878. In this learned edition the whole question of Clement's meaning is dis- cussed in great detail.
III. ^M
546 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
the first Christiaus; Jerusalem being the ideal of the Christian East, and Rome of that towards the setting sun. Clement, moreover, undoubtedly assigns Rome as the scene of the Apostle's martyrdom, and yet he does not distinguish it from "the extreme West," or mention it by name, at all. It is possible, however, that Spain might be intended by the expression, since Paul's intention to go thither is recorded by himself.^ His having travelled to Spain is also hinted at in a fragment of Christian author- ship dating from about A.D. 170, and known as Muratori's Canon, discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan by Muratori in the earlier part of last century, but, unfor- tunately, the text is exceedingly corrupt.^ Eusebius, who lived from about A.D. 270 to a.d. 340, informs us that after his first Roman imprisonment Paul was set free and went forth again preaching, but after a second visit to Rome was put to death ; Nero being guilty of his martyrdom.^ Chrysostom, who died in a.d. 407, speaks of it as a recog- nised fact that the Apostle, " after his residence in Rome, departed to Spain," and Jerome, who died in A.D. 420, says that " Paul was dismissed by Nero, that he might preach Christ's Gospel in the West." *
With such an evident belief by the earlier Christians that the Apostle actually carried his message to the limits of the ancient West, it is hardly safe at this late day to question his having done so, though, apart from Paul's declared intention, everything, it will be seen, hangs on the meaning of the words of Clement, from which all the other allusions to such a journey could,
1 Rom. XV. 24-28.
^ A good account of this fragment is given in Herzog. vii. 282.
ā¢ Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ii. 22. * Hieron. Catal. Script,
PAUL JET. C. 53-54 N EARING THE END 547
naturally, be derived. While, therefore, there may be room for criticism of the evidence, it can do no harm to regard it as, perhaps, authentic, since it has the support of Paul's known purpose, and since time enough is left for Spain to have been visited, even though he may have fallen in the outburst of rage against the Christians, after the burning of Rome.
We are free, then, to imagine that on the close of his first imprisonment in Rome, he set out with Titus to Crete, a great island, sixty miles to the south-east of Greece; 160 miles in length, but only from twenty to thirty in breadth. Paul had touched at it on his terrible voyage to Malta, and would fain have persuaded the captain to have stayed at the bay of Fair Havens for the winter, but failed ; the attempt to leave it for better quarters, bringing on the vessel all its subsequent troubles. Titus was with him now, the object of the visit being to introduce him to the Cretan churches, and leave him, as an Apostolic deputy, to " set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders," or, to use the Greek word, presbyters, " in every city." ^ At what time the new faith had been carried to Crete we are not told, but its having gained a footing there without any visit from an Apostle or having its converts organised into churches, is another illustration of the activity of Christians as a whole, in the first age, in spreading the Gospel mainly by what we should now call lay agency. Some brother, on a business journey, perhaps, or looking out for employment, had come to the island, and, as a matter of course, had done his best to win disciples for his Master ; the effort being so Buccessful as to bring Paul, with Titus, to give corporate
1 Titua L 6.
548 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
shape to a movement so widely spread, and thus secure its permanence and orderly development. The Apostle, however, did not stay any time in Crete, but, having left Titus for a specific work, set off for Ephesus, where he met Timothy ; only, however, to start almost immediately for Macedonia, leaving his much-loved friend once more.^ He would now have the delight of meeting his favourite Church of Philippi, and discussing at full length the various subjects to which he could only allude in his letter to them.
While in this region of fond memories he took an opportunity of writing to his still young friend, f^om whom he had been, no doubt, most .unwilling to part so abruptly, the letter which forms our First Epistle to Timothy ; designed to counsel him in the difficult position in which he found himself in the great city. It reads as a whole as follows : ā
The First Epistle to Timothy A.D. 63 ; Paul's Age, e, 53
Inscription and salutation.
I. 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Saviour, and Christ Jesus, our hope ; 2. to Timothy, my TRUE CHILD IN FAITH I GracB, mercy, peace, from God the Father, and Christ Jesus our Lord.
The unsound teaching which Timothy has been placed in Ephesus to oppose, by preaching and practising tlie truth, as it is in Christ.
3. I exhort thee, now, again, as I did when I was setting out for Macedonia, when I saw thee in Ephesus, on my comiiig
1 1 Tim. i. 3.
PAUL ^T. C. 53-54 NEARING THE END 649
from Crete, to remain there, that thou mightest charge cer- tain persons not to teach what is other than the truth as I taught it. 4. Nor, if they be hearers, and not teachers, to give heed to dreaming myths about the nature of the God- head, and endless genealogies and ranks of emanations from it, ā fanciful hierarchies of higher and inferior essences sent forth from the Divine nature, which the Judaising lovers of Oriental speculation talk about, furnishing matter for dis- putation, rather than a ministration of God's plan of salvation, in accordance with true faith. 5. But the end of the com- mandment, which W3 are to carry out for God, is not to teach such myths and emanation fancies, but to preach that true religion is love to God and man, through Christ, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith ; 6. from which some having swerved, have turned aside to vain talking; 7. desiring to be teachers of the Law in their philosophising way, though they understand neither what they say, nor about the things of which they so confidently speak.
The true worth of the law is very different from their views of it.
8. But we know that the law is good, if one use it lawfully; that is, in accordance with its object, 9. and as knowing that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the impious and sinners, for the unholy and pro- fane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10. for fornicators, for sodomites, for men-stealers,* for liars, for false swearers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine ; 11. according to the Gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
The mention of his commission as an Apostle leads him to dwell on it more fully, in gratitude for the favour thus shown one so unworthy.
12. I do indeed thank Him who has given me the ability Sxoa. xxi. id ; iJeut. xxiv. / (not " smve'tioiuers " as Bucai,
550 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
to hold this trustā Christ Jesus our Lord ā that he counted me faithful ; appointing to His service me, 13. who, before, was a blasphemer and a persecutor, and malignant ; but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief, 14. and indeed the grace of our Lord to me, rose above even all this, bringing with it faith, instead of my unbelief, and the love which is in Christ Jesus. 15. Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am chief. 16. Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me, as thus chief of sinners, Jesus Christ might show forth all His long-suffering, for a pattern, or illustration, of those who should hereafter believe on Him, unto life eternal. 17. Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
18. This charge, to oppose unsound teaching, and to preach the love of God in Christ, 1 commit to thee, my child Timothy, in accordance with the prophecies in the past respecting thee, that in harmony with them, thou mayest fight the good fight ; 19. holding fast to faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them, have made shipwreck concerning The Faith ; 20. of whom are Hymenseus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan, that, by painful disci- pline of sickness, they may learn not to blaspheme.^
The Apostle now passes from general counsels to Timothy, to directions for his bearing as to the details of his duties.
II. 1. I exhort, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings, be made for all men ; 2. for kings and all that are in high place ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life, in all godliness and all worthiness, in every relation. 3. This all embracing prayer I urge on you, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of
1 1 Cor. V. 5. The Corinthian on whom an identical sentence wa9 pronounced, was restored to Church fellowship in a short time.
PAUL JET. C. 53-54 NEARING THE END 551
God our Saviour ; 4. who wills that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, 5. For there is one God of all men, and hence the same divine love towards all mankind, and one Mediator, also, between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, acting, as man, for man, 6. who gave Him- self a ransom for all ; the testimony to which is borne by ns in these, its own times ; 7. for which end I was appointed a preacher-herald, and apostle ā I speak the truth, and lie not ā AS A TEACHER OF THE heathen NATIONS in the faith and truth.
8. I desire, therefore, as I have said, that men pray every- where, lifting up holy hands,i with hearts without anger towards man, or doubting towards God.
Having thus counselled the men, Paul addresses the " sisters " as to their bearing in the church assemblies and elsewhere.
9. In like manner, also, I desire that women adorn them- selves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness, and sober- mindedness; not with fancifully braided hair, and gold or pearls, or costly raiment, 10. but, as beseems women professing godliness, with good works. 11. Let a woman learn in the church assemblies, in quietness, listening, not speaking, with all subjection at once to the brethren and to church-order.
12. But I do not permit a woman to teach, or to have autho- rity over the man, by acting as his teacher, but to be silent.
13. For Adam was first formed, then Eve; 14. and Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled fell into transgression, her weakness in this showing that it is not fitting she should have authority over the man 15. Yet she shall be saved through the child-bearing which has given us our Lord,2 if they continue in Christian faith and love, and purity of heart and life with sober-mindedness.
He now proceeds to give directions as to the internal
^ Ps. xxviii 2 ; xliv. 20 ; Ixiii 4 ; 1 Kings viii. 22, 38 ; Luke zviv. 50, &C. &C. > Gen. iii. 15.
552 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
arrangements of the congregation, and naturally speaka first of the qualifications Timothy should require in those who aspired to be its leaders or presidents. As yet, the synagogue continued to be the model of the humble Christian " Church ; " both words meaning, simply, a gathering or assembly,^ and hence, in his Epistle to the Philippians, written only a few months before, Paul had spoken of the chiefs of the Church there in the plural. In the synagogue these were known, among the Hellenist Jews, as "presbyters," the Greek word for the Hebrew zekani7n, or elders ; but this name was supplemented in the churches gathered among the heathen races, by the word episcopos, as more familiar to them, and very suit- able, from meaning, in their every-day life, an overseer, watcher, or guardian. From this word, by the loss of its beginning and end, and the modifications introduced by the Monk-Latin of the earlier Middle Ages, the Old-English created our word " bishop," as other languages of Christen- dom have adopted other variations of the original Greek title.* Thus the "presbyters" of the Philippian Church were addressed by Paul as episcopi, which is rendered in our version, from the later ecclesiastical abbreviation, " bishops," though we must carefully guard against trans- ferring to the humble senate of the Philippians, the lofty associations in after ages gradually connected with the once lowly name. That the Apostle speaks, in the pre- sent Epistle, only of " a bishop," in the singular, does not involve the appointment of only one such oflicer over a
^ Synagogue is from a-vvdyu), " to gather together ; " eedesia, the New Testament word rendered " church," is from e/c and icaX^w, " to call forth to an assembly ; " an eedesia being an assembly of the citizens summoned by the crier. I repeat this point above, from its great importance.
^ " Episcopos " became "ebiscopns," then "biscop," then bishop.
PAUL MT. C. 53-54 NEARING THE END 553
churcli, for he who desired the position might wish to be one of the "presbytery,'* or body of bishops over each congregation, which was the customary usage, in imitation of the " rulers of the synagogue," to whom the first Chris- tians, as Jews, or proselytes were accustomed, and not only was to be seen at this very time at Philippi, but had existed in the Church memorable to Timothy himself as having seen his ordination, "by the laying on of the hands of " this very humble " presbytery." *
III. 1. Faithful is the saying, If a man seek the office of a bishop or overseer, he desires a good work. 2. The bishop, as one presiding over the congregation, must, therefore, be free from reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate^ sober- minded, circumspect, given to hospitality, apt to teach ; 3. not sitting long by his wine,^ no striker, but gentle; not conten- tious, not keen for money ; 4. one that rules his own house- hold well, having his children obedient, and thoughtful, and well conducted ; 5. for if a man does not know how to be the head of his own house, how shall he take charge of the church over whicli he may be set, which is the " house " of Grod 1 6. Nor must he be a novice, newly brought into the church, lest, being blinded with pride, he fall under the sin which was the condemnation of the devil. 7. Moreover, he must have good testimony from them that are outside the church; lest he fall into the reproach and the snare-net of the devil.
He passes on to speak of the other class of churcl- officers ā the deacons, whose position seems to have been
^ 1 Tim. iv. 14. It is beyond dispute that the "bishop" and "prei- byter" of the Epistles were identical. In Acts xx. 17, 28, for example the presbyters of one verse are called bishops in the other. So it is alio in Titus i. 5 compared with i. 7, and in 1 Pet. v. 2, 4 ; PhiL L 1. See "Neander Planting," &c., Germ. ed. 2, vol. i. p. 187, &o. Gieseler, K. 0. I. c. i. 8. 30, n. a; s. 33 n. h; Geikie's "The Apostles," && v. ii. p. 521.
- Tlie Apostle's exact meaning is to be seen in Isa. v. 11, 12.
554 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-^4
the counterpart of the subordinate officials in the syna- gogue ; the word meaning only " one who serves," in whatever way, being, at one place, used of the servants at the marriage at Cana, and at another, of Paul himself and of Timothy.i They were evidently younger brethren, who had devoted themselves, in what leisure they had from their daily occupations, to the details of Church work ; faithfully carrying out which, they would natur- ally gain a position opening to them the higher office of "presbyters" or "bishops" ā that is, "rulers" of the Christian assembly, as members of the " presbytery " or senate of "bishops " in the little gathering.
8. Deacons, in the same way, must be grave, commanding respect, as such, for their office, not double tongued, saying one thing and meaning another, not given to much wine, not greedy of unworthy gain, from misuse of their office or other- wise ; 9. holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. 10. And let these also, as well as the "bishops," first be proved hy their past life ; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless. 11. Even so must women,^ employed in Church work, be grave ; not slanderers ; temperate, faithful in all things. 12. Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own households well. 13. For they who have served well as deacons gain to themselves a good standing, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
He has closed his directions as to office-bearers, but pauses to impress on Timothy his object in writing, not- withstanding his expectation to return to Ephesus shortly, and see him there.
14. I write these things to you though I hope to come to you shortly; 15. but in case I delay long, I write that you
* John ii. 6. Ā» ; Col. i. 23 ; 1 Thess. iii. 2. ^ R. V. " their wives."
PAUL iET. C. 53-54 NEARING THE END 655
may know how men ought to conduct themselves in the house- hold of God,i wliich is the church, or congregation, of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth, Ifi. And as to Christ, the Truth, the mystery of godliness is confessedly great ; He, as God, and its source and vital element was mani- fested in the flesh, justified in the spirit ā proved to be all He claimed for Himself by the spirit of His divine life ā seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
The teachers whom Timothy is to oppose are again mentioned.
IV. 1. But the Spirit says expressly, that in later times, but before the appearing of Christ, and therefore while we still live,- some will fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, wliich have entered into them to lead them astray, and to the teachings of these demons ; 2. being thus corrupted by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, and give them forth as the ''mind of the Spirit" of God, being branded in their own conscience with the seal of the demons to whom they belong, as if with a hot iron ā like the stamp branded on the brow of offending slaves, or of other criminals; 3. forbidding to marry, as opposed to a holy life, and commanding to abstain from meats, ^ which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that be- lieve and know the truth. 4. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving; 5. for it is made holy food through the word of God, wliich at creation declared all things good,* and by the thanksgiving prayer.
This prohibition of " meats " appears to have been an arbitrary distinction of some as clean and others as
1 Heb. iii. 2, 5, 6 ; x. 21 ; 1 Pet. iv. 17 ; 2 Tim. i. 16 ; Tit I 11. 3 1 Thess. iv. 16-17 ; 2 Thess. chap. ii.
' Acts XV. 29 ; Rom. chap, xiv. ; 1 Cor. chap, viii ; Tit. L 14, 15 1 Col. u. 16, 21. * Gen. L 31.
556 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
UDclean, in connection with nltra-Jewish ideas. But Paul now turns from the innovators to Timothy himself, and counsels him as to his bearing towards their errors, and towards themselves.
6. If thou impress the brethren at Ephesns with these things, making them, as it were, a firm standing ground for their faith, thou wilt be a good minister, or deacon, of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith ā those words that embody it ā and in those of the sound teaching which thou hast followed till now. 7. But reject profane and silly myths ā fables of wild unhcly speculation in divine things ā and strenuously give yourself, as an athlete does to his training, to practical godliness. 8. For the training of the body is of little projfit, l^ut godliness is profitable in every way, having promise of the life that now is, and of that, also, which is to come. 9. Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation. 10. For in confidence of godliness having this promise we, Christians, labour and strive, as we do, to attain and promote it, because we have our hope of its being fulfilled, set on the sure word of the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe^ the actual Saviour of these, and ready to save all, if they make it possible. 11. These things command and teach.
Special counsels to Timothy as to his relations to the brethren.
12. Let no man despise thy youth,^ but be thou an example to them that believe, in thy speech, and in thy manner of life, which should display itself in love, in faith, in purity. 13. Till I come again to Ephesus, give thyself to the reading of the lessons, in th3 congrsgation, and also of the Scriptures in private, for they are the true food of the " man of God," ^ to exhortation, to teaching. 14. Do not make little of the
* See oh&jp^ ii. 4. ' Timothy appears to have been still under 25.
Ā» 2 Tim. iii. 15-17.
PAUL .ET. C. 53-54 NEARTNG THE END 557
gift of f tness for such a position as thou now holdest, which is in thee, and was given thee, from the Holy Spirit, by the Word of prophecy, along with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery ā the bishops or presbyters of the church before which thou wast ordained to thy work.^ 15. Be diligent in these things ; give thyself wholly to them ; that your advancement may be manifest to all. 16. Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching. Continue in these things of which I have spoken ; for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee.
How Timothy should bear himself to both old and young, of both sexes, in the Church, or assembly of the Christians.
V. 1. Do not reprove an old man, but, thou being young, ā exhort him as a father, if he have done wrong ; the younger men exhort as brethren; 2. the older women, as mothers; the younger, as sisters, in all purity.
The position of widows was an important matter in the early Church ; the question of their being supported, of their helping in Christian work, of their remarrying, and much else, being involved. Some of this class, moreover, were exposed to special danger from the wiles of the innovating teachers. Christianity had from the first cared tenderly for the widow, and granted her certain rights, while it imposed on her certain duties.^
3. Honour widows who are widows indeed, by seeing them duly cared for by the Church. 4. But if any widow have
* The word here rendered "presbytery" occurs thrice in the New Testament ; in Luke xxii. QQ^ "The elders of the people;" Acts xxii. 5, "All the estate of the elders ; " and in the present text. Elders in Christian churches are mentioned in Acts xiv. 23, " Ordained elders in every church," XV. 2, 4, 6, 22, 2:3 ; xvi. 4 ; xx. 17 ; xxi. 18; 1 Tim. v. 17 ; Tit i. 5 ; Jas. v. 14 ; 1 Pet. v. 1, 5. I have omitted the singular, dder.
* Acts vi. 1 ; ix. 39, 41 ; Jas. i. 27.
558 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
children or grandchildren, let these first be called upon to maintain her, and learn to behave piously towards their own family, and to requite their parents, for all they owe them ; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. 5. Now, such, a widow indeed, and desolate, is one who has her hope set on God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. 6. But she who lives for pleasure ^ is dead while she lives ; the true widow lives in God ; the widow who gives herself to the gratification of this world's life, follows the opposite of the true life. 7. These things, now written re- specting widows, further command to be the rule that they may be without reproach. 8. But if any child or grandchild, or, indeed, any brother, provideth not for his own, and spe- cially for his own household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. 9. Let none be entered on your list as a widow who is under sixty, having lived chastely as the wife of one man, 10. well reported of for good works ; as, for example, if she has brought up children, her own or others, if she has practised hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the feet of the saints,^ if she has relieved the distressed, if she has diligently followed every good work. 11. But younger widows refuse, for when they have waxed wanton, by indulging thoughts contrary to Christ, they desire to marry, 12. incurring self-condemnation, and that of others, because they have broken the promise given by them at first, when they were accepted on the list, of henceforth devoting them- selves to Christian work. 13. And, withal, they learn also to be idle, going about from house to house ; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. 14. I desire, therefore, that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the household, giving no occa- sion to the unbelieving adversary of Christianity, to revile it : 1 5. for some have already turned aside from the Christian idea of life, after Satan, who tempts them. 16. If any Christian
^ In Jas. V. 6 the same word is rendered " to take one's pleasure." 2 Luke vii. 44 ; John xiii. 5, 14,
PAUL iET. C. 53-54 NEARING THE END 559
woman, who has a household, have widows in her connections, let her relieve them, and let not the Church be burdened ; that it may relieve, the more easily, them that are widows indeed, with no one to care for them.
Counsels with respect to presbyters. Paul is writing to Timothy about Ephesns, and speaks of *' elders " in the plural, as he had done in writing to the congregation at Philippi, where he calls them, not "presbyters," but, as addressing a Macedonian town,"episcopoi," or " overseers," our word bishop, which, as I have noticed, is an abbreviated form of episcopi, being, hence, retained in our Version. At Ephesus, then, as well as at Philippi, the " church," or *' congregation," was superintended, as late as the closing months of Paul's life, in exact imitation of the Jewish synagogue, by a board of "presbyters," or "bishops."
17. Let those elders in the preshytery, who are over you in the Lord,^ who rule well, be counted worthy of double honour ; especially those of them who labour in speaking the word and in teaching, as more " apt " to do so than their brethren. 18. For the Scripture says, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn^ and our Lord has said. The labourer is worthy 0/ his hire.^ 19. Against an elder, or presbyter, receive not an accusation except on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 20. But any members of the pres- bytery who do wrong, rebuke before all the rest, that the others also may be in fear of acting hlameworthily.* 21. I charge thee before God, and Christ Jesus, and the elect angels,
1 1 Thesa. v. 12.
"^ Deut. XXV. 4. See also 1 Cor. ix. 9, in which the LXX is followed.
' Luke X. 7.
^ Deut. xix. 5 ; 2 Cur. xiii. 1. Our Lord gives the same counsel as to oflfending brethren generally ; requiring the offence, however, to be made known to the congregation when assembled, and not, as here, in the casĀ« of a presbyter, to the presbyters only (Matt, xviii. 16, 17).
560 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
that thou observe these instructions, respecting presbyters, without prejudging any one, and that thou do nothing by favour: keeping equally from dislike or partiality. 22. Lay hands hastily on no man, to appoint him a presbyter, and make not thyself a partaker in the sins of other men, by thus, perhaps, ordaining unworthy persons ; keep thyself blameless in this as in other matters. 23. Be no longer a water-drinker only, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities.
Some of the unsound teachers enforced, as a religious duty, abstinence from certain foods and from wine, not on the ground of an example to the weak, but as the obser- vance of Mosaic, or rather Essene, ideas respecting " the mortification of the flesh," but we cannot imagine Timothy abstaining on this ground from wine. He may, how- ever, have given up its use, in self-denying anxiety not to shock the scruples of some weak brother, ^ or to secure more influence to reclaim any who indulged in it beyond moderation.
The Apostle passes on to a general reflection.
24. In thy decisions remember that the sins of some men are evident, as it were, going before them, to ready condem- nation; but there are also, some, whose sins, done secretly, follow behind them, coming to light afterwards. 25. In like manner also there are good works that are evident ; and there are such as, though not thus manifest, cannot, in the end, remain hidden. On the one hand, therefore, take heed not to judge hastily in favour of any candidate for office, and on the otber, beware lest you condemn without grounds.
The position of the very numerous section of Christians drawn from the servile population is next considered.
1 1 Cor. viii. 13.
PAUL iET. C. 53-54 NEAIIING THE END 561
Slavery is always very terrible, even where kind treat- ment tempers the calamity, but while some masters so endeared themselves that, as in a case mentioned by Plutarch, a slave had been known to let himself be mur- dered that his master might have time to escape, servile life, as a rule, was inexpressibly hard. They could be killed or tortured at the will of their owner ; for any laws passed to protect their class were little honoured. A slave could have no property, and could not marry. The conscription had drawn off the free peasants so largely to the wars, that agriculture and pastoral work was mainly in slave hands, and the country-slaves were treated less kindly than the beasts they tended. In the cities, the number of domestic slaves became immense in the later republic, from the multitude of prisoners taken in war. Social position was determined by the largeness of a man's slave establishment.^ Horace seems to think ten as few as any one in a fair position could keep,^ and from this minimum of respectability, the numbers rose to thou- sands in some households. Nearly all the working men, in Paul's day, were slaves, except perhaps in some provincial towns ; the fact of slaves following the various arts and trades, making these below the dignity of a free-man. Immense numbers of slaves, moreover, were required as gladiators, for the cruel shows of the amphitheatres, and for all menial offices in connection with them. Hence, while the lot of the higher classes of these bondsmen, as librarians, bankers, agents, overseers, and in other simi- larly favoured positions, might be more or less easy, that of the vast majority was inconceivably wretched. Their misery was, moreover, intensified, by their not being poor
^ Juv. iii. 141. Ā» Hor. Sat. i. 3, 12.
m. 2 N
562 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
degraded blacks, as now, but mainly white men and women, dragged off as prisoners of war, in many cases from positions of honour and wealth, in European or Asiatic lands; though, of course, we must not transfer to their age the ideas of human rights that mark our own. Writing of the class as a whole, Paul never broaches revolutionary ideas by directly assailing an institution now so abhorrent in all civilised countries. Far more wisely, he contents himself with inculcating principles which would free the last slave, as soon as the moral pro- gress of society had made such a thing possible ; for there must be sympathy with a principle before it can bear fruit in common life. That a slave was a brother carried all else with it in due time, when the public conscience had realised what that relationship involved. Meanwhile he shows how deeply he feels for those " under the yoke " ā an expression fitted for oxen rather than for men !
VI. 1. Let those brethren who are under the yoke of slavery esteem the masters who own them worthy of all honour as such, that the name of God and the teaching given by the Gospel be not blasphemed by them, in their heathenism, as disreputable, through your conduct as Christians. 2. Those, moreover, who have Christian masters must not despise them, by forgetting their own place, because they ā the masters ā are "brethren;" but let them serve them the more faithfully and humbly, because they who enjoy this willing service are believing and beloved ; not, as hitherto, feared, but thought- ful for the good of the Church and of their other slaves. These things command and exhort.
The unsound teachers are once more characterised.
3. If any one teach other doctrine than I do, and consent not to sound words, that is, those of our Lord Jesus Christ,
PAUL iET. C. 53-54 NEA.RING THE END 563
and to the doctrine which is in accordance with godliness ; 4. he is blinded with empty pride, understanding nothing rightly, but with a diseased fondness for speculations and disputes about words, from which come envy, strife, angry revilings, hurtful suspicions, 5. continued angry friction be- tween men corrupted in mind, and despoiled of the truth by the evil one, who look on the profession of godliness as a good trade. 6. But true godliness, with contentment, is great gain, though in a very different sense from theirs; 7. for it reminds us that we brought nothing into the world, and yet have been cared for thus far, and can carry nothing out of it, so that it is useless to lay up as if we could per- manently hold ; 8. and, thus, that if we have food and cover- ing, we should be content with them. 9. But those who crave to be rich fall into temptations and the devil's net, and many foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in de- struction and perdition. 10. For the love of money is a root of evil of all kinds : and hence, some striving to gain it, have been led away from the faith, and have pierced themselves through, as with a sword, with many sorrows, by the sting of conscience, at having fallen from the faith by using it for gain.
As he comes near the end, the Apostle tenderly appeals to Timothy to be true to his Christian profession and oflBce. He calls him, in endearment, a " man of God," the usual name of prophets in the Old Testament, and also applied to them by St. Peter. ^ But there is no reason to suppose that a name so fitting Christian character at large, is used here as an ofEcial title ; an idea suggested by Romanist theologians, to justify the restriction of the study of Scripture to theology alone. ^
11. But thou, 0 man of God, flee these tilings; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meeknesa * 2 Pet L 21. * Comp. 2 Tim iii. 17.
564 THE APOSTLES A.D. 63-64
12. Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold as victors in the Christian race on the prize of eternal life, held out in the hand of the judge, that life eternal to which thou wast called by God, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses at thy ordination to the ministry. ^ 13.1 charge thee in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, here, and eternal life to the saints hereafter, and in the sight of Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confes- sion of the truth, by word, by suffering, and by dying ; 14. that thou keep the commandment, that is, the Christian faith, with- out spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15. which will be disclosed in its own times, by Him who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords ; 16. who, only, hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable ; whom no man hath seen, or can see ; to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
A few last words defer the closing.
17. Charge those who are rich in this present world, that they be not high-minded, and that they do not set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; 18. that they do good, that they be rich in good works, bountiful and generous ; 19. laying up in store for themselves a good foundation a<:ainst the time to come, that they may lay hold on the prize ā the life which is life indeed.
A final exhortation to Timothy.
20. 0 Timothy, keep guard over that which is intrusted to thee, turning out of the way of the unholy babblements and doctrinal oppositions of the falsely named " knowledge ; " 21. which some professing, have missed the mark as respects the faith.
Grace be with you I
1 1 Tim. i. 18 j iv. 14.
CHAPTER XVn
THE EPISTLE TO TITUS
A.D. 64 ; Paul's age, c. 54
Having finished his visit to his beloved Philippians, St. Paul, as the winter approached, went back tlirongh Mace- donia, no doubt taking the opportunity to see the brethren again, in the various cities and towns in which he had founded churches. Instead, however, of turning south from Thessalonica, he journeyed on, across western Mace- donia, to the regions of Illyricum, of which the lower portion was then, as it is still, known as Epirus, and there took up his abode for some time, at the city of Nicopolis, exactly on a line with the extreme south of Italy, and on the north side of a narrow inlet, facing what is now the northern edge of Greece. The inlet, however, opened into a spacious gulf ā Nicopolis, standing on a hilly neck of land that almost cut off the waters of the gulf from those of the open sea. It was quite a new place, having been founded by Augustus in commemoration of his victory at Actium, fought off the coast, outside a place of that name on the top of the southern corner of the inlet. His tent had been pitched on one of the heights of the isthmus, and in gratitude for the triumph he had witnessed from it, the spot was consecrated by a temple built by him to Neptune and Mars. Nicopolis, " the city of victory," was, further, made a Roman ** colony," with
566 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
the special immunities which that dignity secured, and great games once in five years in memory of the battle : these varied imperial favours quickly raising it into the chief city of western Greece.
Even now, after a modern city has been built mainly from its ruins, Nicopolis still attests its ancient dignity by extensive remains. When Paul visited it he would see a large and a small open-air theatre, a circus, a race-course, a grand aqueduct, thirty miles in length, and much else. But he never cared for such matters ; his whole nature being absorbed by the supreme interests of his great commission. That he had founded a church in the city, may be assumed from his coming, for the winter, to a place otherwise so out of the way ; his visit to it, so nearly at the close of his life, incidentally illustrating what is implied in his statement that he had preached the Gospel round about unto Illyricum.^ He would thus have abundant work while he remained in the neighbourhood, but of this we know only the one glimpse afforded by the Epistle to Titus, which seems to have been written in Nicopolis.
The worthy who was thus to be honoured by a place in the Sacred Writings is not mentioned m the Acts, but comes before us incidentally, in the Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Galatians. We learn from these that he was by birth a Greek, and, as such, a heathen,^ but there is no hint of the place, or circumstances, of his embracing Christianity. Yet the date to which the notice carries us back, and the allusion to the Conference at Jerusalem, show that Titus had been won over to the faith at least thirteen years before the letter was written which bears his name, though he may have for- 1 Rom. XV. 19. 2 Qal. ii. 3.
PAUL MT. C, 54 THE EPISTLE TO TITUS 667
saken heathenism much earlier. That he was a convert of Paul is implied in the Apostle's calling him his *' true " or " own " child, after a common faith ; ^ lan- guage that binds the two together by the most endear- ing ties, both personal and religious. Paul had been in Syria as early as the year 39, twenty-five years before the apostolic letter was written to Titus, and he may have won him even at that time in Antioch, to which, doubtless, the Apostle betook himself, as the centre of all Christian effort in " Syria." We have no notice of him, however, till his visit with Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, but then we find that he had fully adopted the liberal views of the former, as to the right of heathen- bom Christians to dispense with the observance of spe- cially Jewish rites, and stood out as thoroughly on Paul's side, in his fierce controversy with the Judaisers.^
From that time, however, we lose all sight of him for six years, till A.D. 57, but he then reappears as one of the bearers of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, from Ephesus to Corinth.^ His involuntary delay in return- ing had caused Paul great anxiety, but at last he came to him in Macedonia, bringing news which cheered the spirits of the Apostle.* Very soon after he set off, once more, to Corinth, with the Second Epistle, to let the Church in that city know how greatly the tidings brought by him had comforted St. Paul, and also to collect help for the poor brethren in Jerusalem ; an
1 Titus L 4. Ā« GaL iii. 2.
* 1 Cor. xvi. 11, 12 ; comp. 2 Cor. xii. 18. Dean Stanley and Bishop Lightfoot argue from these and other texts that Titus must have been one of the " brethren," to whom the Corinthian letter was intrusted. {Stanley's Corinthians, second edit., 348, 492 ; Cambridge Jour, of Class and Sacred Philology, ii. 201, 202.) * 2 Cor. vii. 6, 7, 13-16.
568 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
object on which the heart of the Apostle was intensely set. In connection with this and Christian work generally, Titus receives the highest commendations for his uprightness and a zeal for the Corinthians, which led him to identify himself with all their interests so enthusiastically that Paul fondly recognises him as his "partner and fellow- worker in their behalf." They themselves, he adds, knew his integrity, and straight- forwardness, and unselfish devotion, and he could say of him that he " walked by the same spirit, and in the same steps" as himself.^ From 57 to 64 he again dis- appears, but he must, one would think, have accompanied Paul in his second missionary journey, which began in 52, as he was well known to the Galatian churches.^ Yet though with the Apostle, afterwards, in Ephesus, and employed by him in multifarious Christian work, we hear no more of him till he reappears in the Epistle bearing his name, which tells of his having been taken with the Apostle to Crete, and left there, to organise and superintend the local churches. There is no mention of him as accompanying Paul on any journey after that of A.D. 52, and the subsequent years, nor does his name occur in reference to the last visit of Paul to Jerusalem, or as present at any time, during the years of his imprisonment at Csesarea or when first a prisoner at Kome. Yet he must have been in com- munication with the Apostle, at least towards the close of his earlier Roman detention ; his setting out for Crete with him, on his release implying this. The task imposed on him there was far from a light one, though Paul, like other supreme minds, was able not only to 1 2 Cor. viii. 16, 17, 23 ; xii. 17, 18. * Gal. ii. 1.
PAUL ^T. C. 54 THE EPISTLE TO TITUS 569
choose the right men for any work, but to quicken and intensify their powers by impressing on them his own individiiaUty. The commission of Titus was therefore to teach with implicit loyalty exactly what he had learned from the Apostle, and to carry out the fixed regulations he had prescribed for the internal govern- ment of the separate churches. To have sat at the feet of such a master was an all-suj0ficient preparation for the work Titus had before him, in Crete ; but all that he had learned was greatly needed, for even Paul had to speak very disparagingly of the islanders, formally endorsing the declaration of one of their own " prophets," that they were habitually untruthful, " evil beasts and idle gluttons," and, as such, very poor material from which to develop a Christian Church. In such a com- munity Titus would, indeed, need to " set in order the things that are wanting,'* to " exhort and convince gain- sayers," to " stop the mouths of unruly and vain talkers," to ''rebuke sharply," to "speak the things that become sound doctrine," to " show himself a pattern of good works," to preach "obedience to magistrates," and to " reject heretics." ^ Paul must have thought him at once energetic, firm, sensible, and marked by force of character, to have left him in charge of such a post.
After the Epistle there is no reliable information re- specting this honoured father of the Church, except the statement in Second Timothy that he had gone to Dalmatia, which seems to intimate that he had started for that province from Rome ; Paul sadly intimating that, of the band with him for a time, only Luke still remained at his side.2 This is in striking agreement with the wish
Ā» Titus i. 12, 6, 9, 11, 13 ; ii. 1, 7 ; iii. 1, 10. Ā« 2 Tim. iv. 10.
570 THE APOSTI.es A.D. 64
expressed by the Apostle in his Epistle to Titus, that he should " give diligence to come to him to Nicopolis ; " for there he had determined to winter. Doubtless, he at once obeyed, and may have accompanied his master on his further journeys ; this particular mission being required, to complete work previously begun from Nicopolis as a centre. Dalmatia lay immediately north of Epirus, in- cluding not only the long strip of coast still known by the name, but the wide sea of hills, behind and to the south, which forms modern Albania. In Paul's day the general name of Illyricum was given to all that region, and thus that Titus had gone to Dalmatia, not only implies his having hurried to Paul at Nicopolis, which he had to pass on his way north, but also the success of the labours of Paul, in his mission ''round about to Illyricum," with its endless mountains, and wild, half-lawless tribes, who bad for ages been a trouble to Eome, as, indeed, they have been to all their neighbours almost ever since. The mists of ecclesias- tical tradition affect to reveal some later glimpses of Titus, but these rest on no historical basis. When he died, or where, or how, is known to God and the angels, not to man. He is called by Eusebius the "Bishop of Crete," and in the lowly primitive sense, he undoubtedly was, from the super- intendence committed to him by Paul, but we must guard against transferring modern ideas of the Episcopate to these early times, just as we must take care not to fancy the "kings" of small communities, so numerous in the days of Joshua,^ as monarchs like those of our own times.
^ Josh. X. 6, &a
PAUL iKT. e. 54 THK EPISTI.E TO TITUS 671
Thb Epistle of Paul to Titus.
A.D. 64 ; Paul's Aok, e. 54 Salutation.
I. 1. Paul, a slave of God,^ and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to proclaim His Gospel, in accordance with the faith of God*s elect, and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness ; 2. and to preach, in Him, the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised through His prophets, from the earliest times ; ^ 3. but has now, in His own pre- determined times, made kriovm by His word, in the message to all mankind, with which I was specially intrusted, accord- ing to the commandment of God our Saviour; 4. to Titus, my true child in a common faith : Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.
He formally recalls to Titus the duties with which he had already verbally intrusted him, first giving him direc- tions as to the choice of presbyters or bishops.' Paul had preached in the island, but having sailed for Ephesus before he had been able to organise the infant churches, left Titus for the special purpose of doing this.
5. I left you behind me in Crete, that you should set in order the matters which I had not time to settle, and, in addition, that you should appoint presbyters * in every city, as I gave thee charge when with you. 6. As to those you may appoint, if any man be blameless in character, the hus-
* DouloSy the word used habitually by Paul of himself in this connec- tion, means a slave, and is the only one for " servant" in the New Testa- ment. Indeed, our word servant is only the Latin for "slave," though \U meaning now, thank God, is very different. But "servants," in our sense, were unknown to the ancient world. A *' dervish " still calls himself " a slave of God." ' Rom. i. 2.
ā¢ Compare rerses 5 and 7, where the officer called "elder," or ** pres- byter," is also called bishop.
^ This is the word used by Paul.
572 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
band of one wife ā one who lives, or has lived only with his lawful wife,^ having children true to the faith, who are not accused of loose living, or unruly as citizens ā you may appoint him. 7. For the bishop must be blameless in character and conduct, as God's steward over H's house, like the slave steward over that of his lord, to whom he is accountable ; ^ not self-willed, not soon angry, not sitting too long at the wine, no fighter, not keen for unworthy gain ; 8. but given to hospitality, a lover of all that is good, sober-minded, just to his neighbour, holy before his God, master of himself every way, 9. holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict the gainsayers of their unsoundness.
I*} is to be noticed that St. Paul, in these instructions, says nothing of an election of the elders, or, as he calls them, presbyter-bishops, by the brethren, or of any other preliminary or subsequent action, apart from his own, such as we find in the election of Matthias to the vacant apostle- ship by the 120 disciples, after the defection of Judas,^ or as
^ The idea that a second marriage of a widowed presbyter is forbidden rose only in the age r fter the apostolic, when the idea of the superior purity of a single life was spreading : Jewish Essen ism, and the Eastern notion of the sinfulness of matter, as such, exalting celibacy and depreciating marriage. Yet the germs of such an opinion are visible in the Revelation, where celibacy is assigned as a ground of special favour in the kingdom of the Messiah (Rev. xiv. 4). St. Paul, moreover, tells the "unmarried and widows " that it was good for them to continue as he was (1 Cor. vii. 8), and praises single life as leading to the desire to please the Lord, instead of a wife or husband (1 Cor. vii. 27, 28, 40). The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, moreover, feels constrained to defend marriage as honour- able in all, if virtuous (Heb, xiii. 4), which implies its being unfavourably regarded by some. But, while Paul, in conformity with his broad views, left all free to remarry, he certainly leans to the other side as regards the case of those who wish to devote themselves specially to an active religious life. It seems difficult, however, to draw from his words about presbytt rs being the husbands of one wife, any prohibition against their having a second wife after the death of the first.
2 1 Cor. iv. 1 f. ; 1 Pet. iv. 1 0 ; Luke xii. 42 ; xvi. 2. ^ ^cts i. 1 5, 26.
PAUL JET. C. 54 THE EPISTLE TO TITUS 573
ill other cases in the history of the early churches,^ but the fact that even in the election of the Bishop of Rome, popular suffrage prevailed for at least 500 years, though with temporary civil war in some cases, and wide corrup- tion in all, and further, that the custom of the synagogue, from which the constitution of the first churches was closely borrowed, demanded the consent of the congrega- tion to any one's appointment to office in it, leaves no doubt that, while a veto, or the right of nomination, was assigned to Titus, to guard against unworthy persons being chosen, the brethren had some part in the confir- mation of the selected official. Clearly, it was not per- mitted that any brother should nominate whom he chose, or that the vote of the Church should be decisive, without recognised limitations, on compliance with which, only, to the satisfaction of some presiding authority, such as that of Titus at Crete, the accepted candidate could be formally elected by the brethren. The Apostle now goes on to give reasons for imposing such rules on Titus and the Cretan churches.
1 0. For there are many unruly men, refasing to submit to evangelical doctrine, empty, sophistical talkers, who confuse the brain, specially they of the Circumcision ā the Jew- Chris- tians,ā though not without allies even in the heathen bom brethren; 11. whose mouths must be stopped and silenced ; men who turn upside down whole families, by introducing their false doctrine into them, teaching thinofs which they ought not, for the sake of sordid gain, in gifts wormed out of the household.
These unworthy persons, it seems, were Cretans, whether of Jewish or heathen blood, so that the Gospel must
^ Acts xiv. 23 ; 2 Cor. viii. 19 ; 1 Tim. iv. 14 ; Heh. n 2.
674 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
already have made extensive progress in the island, though we know nothing of its story.
12. One of themselves, indeed, a prophet of their own race, Epimenides, who lived 600 years before Christ, and is re- garded as a prophet ^ by the world at large, said, long ago, "Cretans are always liars, beasts of prey, idle gluttons." 13. This testimony is true. For which cause reprove sharply the deceiving teachers, and the simple minds who have listened to them, that they may be sound in the faith, firm, pure, and true, in Christian life and doctrine, 14. not accept- ing Jewish myths or fables, and commandments which are only those of men who turn away from the truth. 15. As to these commands, indeed, which have to do with clean and unclean foods, and the like, to those who are pure in heart, everything is clean in the Levitical sense : but to the morally impure and unbelieving, nothing is clean, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. 16. They profess that they know God ; but by their works they deny Him, being abomin- able, before God, and disobedient to the truth, and worthless as concerns any good work.
This picture of the Cretan first Christians is far from a poetical ideal, but it is instructive to see the poverty of the material with which Titus had to work. Hereditary beliefs die hard. A New Zealand chief who had been refused baptism because he had two wives, fancied, a year later, that he was at last qualified to receive it, as he now had only one wife. Unfortunately, however, on Bishop Selwyn asking what had happened to his other wHe, his artless reply was that he had eaten hei.^ To get rabid Pharisees to clear their minds wholly from the super- stitions and prejudices of Judaism was impossible, and, in
* Cicero de Divinat. i. 1, 18.
' Sir George Bowen told me this story at Florence ; adding that he had it from Bishop Selwyn himself.
PAUL JET. C. 54 THE EPISTLE TO TITUS 575
the same way, heathen-born Christians inevitably ching to some of their old paganism. There must undoubtedly have been noble exceptions, but completely Christian modes of thought would be the product of a second or third generation rather than of the first. The story of the irregularities and excesses at Corinth, of the disorderly behaviour of some in the church at Thessalonica,^ or of the furious party strife in the churches of Galatia, speak of communities which, though unquestionably displaying many sweet Christian graces, still bore sad proofs of the diflSculty of breaking entirely with the ignorance, super- stition, fanaticism, and low morality of the past. "The new man," like the natural, has his long infancy, child- hood, and youth, before he comes to spiritual maturity. The Apostle now, therefore, instructs Titus how, under these circumstances, to counsel the various members of the Christian households.
II. 1. But do thou, in contrast to these misleading teachers, Bpeak the things befitting the sound doctrine thou hast learned from me ; 2. that the old men be temperate, grave, sober- minded, sound in faith, in love, in patience under trial : 3. that aged women likewise show reverend gravity, as befits those employed in holy works, that they be not slanderers, nor slaves to much wine, and that they be teachers of all that is good ; 4. that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5. to be sober-minded, cliaste, good house-wives, kind to those under them, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not suffer reproach by their inconsistent conduct. 6. The younger men, in the same way, exhort to be sober-minded ; 7. showing thy- self, in all things, an example of good works ; in thy teaching, showing purity of doctrine, with becoming seriousness of
* 2The88. iiL 11.
576 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
manner in its delivery; unlike the light disputatious w?ys of the false teachers, 8. and sound in matter, that cannot be challenged ; that he who may be opposed to Christianity may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of us. 9. Exhort slaves to be obedient to the masters who own them, pleasing them well in all things; not speaking back, 10. not purloin- ing, but showing all trustworthiness ; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
These various counsels are, indeed, in accordance with sound teaching ; the characteristics of Christianity being proof of this.
II. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, not to the Jew only, or to the possessor of so- called knowledge, 12. teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present time; 13. looking for that blessed hope ā the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, 14. who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a people, all His own, zealous in good works.
15. These things speak, and exhort, and reprove, with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
Instructions as to the proper bearing of Christians to the heathen authorities, and community.
III. 1. Put them ā the members of the churches ā in mind to give loyal submission to public authorities and magistrates, to obey them, to be ready to every good work they may com- mand, 2. to speak evil of no man, to avoid strife, to be gentle, showing all tender forbearance toward all men. 3. For we, also, were once without understanding as to divine things, disobedient to God, astray from Him, the slaves of divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 4. But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and His love toward man appeared, in the coming
PAUL MT. C. 54 THE EPISTLE TO TITUS 677
and work of Clirist, 6. He saved us, not by works which we ourselves might do, in righteousness, but in keeping with His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,^ 6. which He poured out on us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7. that, being justified by His (God's) grace, we might be made, then and there, according to our hope, heirs of eternal life.
Recapitulation of his previous words ; to impress Titus the more.
8. Faithful is the saying just delivered, and I desire that thou bear strong witness respecting the things it proclaims, that they who have believed God as their source, may give their heaits to practise good works. Tiiese things are good and profitable to men : 9. but shun foolish speculations and discussions about orders of spirits, and wordy disputes, and f ghtiiigs about rabbinical observances and precepts of the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. 10. A man who is heretical, that is, who causes divisions in the Church, by erroneous teaching, after a first and second admonition- refuse fellowship; 11. knowing that such a one, having with- stood these admonitions, is hopelessly perverted, and sins while self-condemned in his own conscience for doing so.
Some personal details conclude the Epistle.
12. When I shall send Artemas to thee, or Tychicus, give dili- gence to come to me to Nicopolis : for there I have determined to winter. 13. Set forward Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey, diligently, helping them, and looking after their preparations, that nothing be wanting to them. 14. And let our people, as a whole, learn to practise good works for the necessary requirements of their journey, that they be not without the fair fruits of Christian love.
Of the worthies mentioned in these closing lines, Arte- mas is not known except by this notice of him. Tychicus,
1 Rom. vi 3 ; Gal. iii. 27 ; Col. ii. 12 ; Acts ii. 38 ; xix. 6, ft.
III. 2 0
578 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
as I have said, was a convert won in '* Asia," and accom- panied Paul on his last journey to Jerusalem; shared voluntarily his imprisonment at Caesarea, and finally carried the Epistles written in Caesarea, to Ephesus and Colossae. Now, we find him in Crete. Late tradition makes him the Bishop of Chalcedon, in Bithynia. Zenas is unknown beyond the mention here. Being called a " lawyer," he may have been at one time a Jewish scribe, but it is more probable, from his name, that he was a Koman juris-consult. ApoUos we have often met before. When he came to Crete is not told us, but with this mention of his honoured name it vanishes from ns into the silent night. Conclusion.
15. All that are with me salute thee. Salute them that iove UB in faith.
Graoa be with you all.
Who they were that were with Paul is not toldj.
CHAPTEK XVm
THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY
A.D. 64 ; Paul's age, c. 54
After spending part of the winter of 63-64 at Nicopolis, Paul seems to have turned once more to the east, and crossing Macedonia, to have started for Ephesus, by way of Troas, where he left behind him, doubtless forgetting them in the bustle of setting out, a cloak, or as the word is rendered by some, a case for book rolls, and also some books, or, rather, papyrus rolls, probably Greek manu- scripts on subjects interesting to him, ā Jewish religious compositions in Greek, chiefly apocalyptic, being then very numerous, ā and also some parchments, which we may suppose to have been rolls of portions of the Old Testa- ment, which the Jews wrote on skins and parchments ; unless, indeed, they were, as some fancy, mere rough notes, accounts, and the like. Passing south to Ephesus, he then hurried to Miletus, whence, we may believe , he sailed for Corinth, on his way from that city to Spain; Trophimus, his travel -companion in " Asia," having, how- ever, been left behind in Miletus sick.^ When he reached Spain is not told, nor do we know how long he was allowed to remain there, but it seems as if trouble had met him almost as soon as he landed, resulting^ in his being once more arrested, and sent bn/>k, a prisoner, to Rome. Thas
s Tim. It. 12, 13, 20.
580 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
again in bonds, he had the additional sorrow of being soon left almost alone. Deraas, who had been with him at Caesarea, and also, for a time, in this last trying season, at Rome, forsook him, "having loved this present world ; " Crescens had started for Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia, leaving none with the Apostle but Luke. Under these circumstances the Second Epistle to Timothy was written, urging that special friend to come as quickly as he could to Rome, bringing Mark with him, as he was very useful for Christian work.^
Things looked very dark. His first defence before the magistrates bad saved the Apostle thus far, but it would seem as if he had been afraid before it came on, that he would be sentenced to be thrown to the lions, though a Roman citizen, ā if, indeed, the expression be not merely figurative,^ ā nor could he doubt that, in some way, *'the time of his departure was at hand." Life was a thing of the past to him. He had fought the good fight, he had finished the course, he had kept the faith, and now there was laid up for him the crown of righteousness, to be given him by Christ, the righteous judge, at His appear- ing.^ The suspicions roused by their Jewish enemies against the Christians, had brought him, as the foremost of the abhorred sect, into imminent peril ; the report being sedulously spread, notwithstanding the splendid loyalty of his Epistles, which might well be assumed to be the moral code of the churches, that the Christians were plotting political revolution in favour of their Messiah, whom they expected to come down, they knew not how soon, from heaven. Yet, the fact was, that only the Jews
1 2 Tim. iv. 9-11. Ā» 2 Tim. iv. 17.
Ā« 2 Tim. iv. 6-8.
PAUL iET. C. 54 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY 581
were conspiring to overthrow the Empire ; the Christians had no such thoughts.
The Second Epistle to Timothy must have been written immediately after Paul's first hearing before the magis- trates. On the night of the 19th July a great fire broke out in Rome, raging till the 24th, and destroying a great part of the city. No such awful catastrophe had smitten it for centuries. In every province, from Spain to the Euphrates, and from Britain to Ethiopia, the excitement was intense. In Rome, itself, it knew no limits. Had Paul's Epistle been written after such an overpowering disaster, it is inconceivable that there should have been no allusion to it; and, hence, since it is not even remotely noticed, we must suppose that the Apostle wrote before the end of June 64, at latest.
The Second Epistle to Timothy.
I. 1. Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in accordance to the promise of the heavenly life which is in Christ Jesus, 2. to Timothy, my beloved child : Grace, mercy, peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. I thank God, whom I serve as my forefathers have done, in a pure conscience, not paltering with His Word as the false teachers do, remembering thee unceasingly in my prayers, night and day, 4. longing to see thee, recollecting thy tears at parting, that I may be filled with joy at the thought of thy love, when we once more meet. 5. For 1 call to mind thy unfeigned iaith which dwelt first in thy grandmtjther Lois, and thy mother Eunice, and, I feel sure, dwells in thee also.
Exhortation to Timothy, in respect to his personal bearing; the strong motive he urges being the claims of the faith and the example of the Apostle himself, which are to be remembered continually.
582 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
6. For this reason, since I have such confidence in thy true godliness, I remind thee of the past, that thou stir up to flame the gift of God, fitting thee by the graces of the Spirit, for thy work in the service of Christ ā that gift which is in thee through the laying on of my hands, when the hands of the preshytery, also, were laid on thee.^ 7. For God has not given us a spirit of faintheartedness ; but a spirit of manly courage and of love and of sober discipline of mind.^ 8. Be not ashamed, therefore, of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner : but suffer afflictions that come with the gospel as I do, and thou also canst and shouldst, in accord- ance with the power of God, given thee to support them ; 9. tluit God who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not dealing with us according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before eternal ages ā that is, in eternity. 10. But has now been disclosed by the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life, and incorruption, to light through the gospel; 11. for the spread of which I was appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher. 12. On this account, indeed, it is that I suffer also these things ā my imprisonment and wrongs. Yet I am not ashamed ; for I know Him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep safely that which I have committed to Him against that day of Christ's return, when I shall receive my immortal crown. ^ 13. Hold, therefore, to the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard from me, in faith, and love which is in Christ Jesus. 14. That passing good ā the sound teaching which was committed to thee, keep safe and incorrupt, through the Holy Ghost which dwells in us.
Timothy may well guard against forsaking the form of sound words intrusted to him since so many have proved unfaithful ; deepening Paul's wish that his young
^ 1 Tim. iv. 14. ^ Lit. of discipline, making sober-minded, oorreotion.
' Chap. iv. 8.
PA.UL JET. C. 54 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY 583
friend should come to him quickly. Yet some had been true-hearted, and the loved one may feel stimulated by their fidelity. When, however, we read of " all that are in Asia " having turned away from the Apostle, he could not mean all the Christians in that province, but, rather, a section of them who had allied themselves with the two otherwise unknown leaders he mentions ā Phygelus and Hermogenes. May it be that these unfaithful ones had been in Rome, with others not named, when Paul was again imprisoned, and, after standing by him for a time, had left him, and returned to "Asia"?
15. Thou already knowest that all that are in "Asia** turned away from me ; of whom are Phygelus and Her- mogenes. 16. The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus ; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; 17. but when he was in Rome, he sought me out diligently, and found me ā 18. the Lord grant to him to find mercy of the Lord in that day ā and his many services at Ephesus thou knowest better than L
That the household of Onesiphorus, rather than himself, is mentioned, seems to imply that he was no longer alive; though, in that case, the hope that he may find mercy from God would be a prayer for the dead. He seems to have been a prominent member of the Church at Ephesus.
Timothy now receives additional counsels as to his personal bearing in his work.
II. 1. Thou, therefore, my son, be strong, like Onesiphoms, in the grace that is in Christ Jesus ; 2. ami those things which thou hast heard from me among many other witnesses, the same do thou commit to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
584 THE APOSTLES ā¢ A.D. 64
This instruction to Timothy shows that the abuses re- sulting from all who chose assuming the part of teachers, had evidently led the Apostle, before his death, to require that those only who had been approved by some representa- tive of his apostolic authority, ā should be recognised as accredited to instruct the churches. Thus, within about thirty years after Christ's death, we have the institution of a special order of public teachers : the germ of the clerical order, though still, no doubt, and for many years more, composed of men busy, like the Jewish rabbis, in ordinary callings during the week to earn their living; though an apostle, or his representative, was entitled to humble support from the churches without secular work.
3. Take thy share with me in suffering hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4. No soldier on service entangles himself in the affairs of civil life, to gain money or support himself; that, by entire devotion to his calling, he may please Him who enrolled him as a soldier ā that is, in our case, Jesus Christ. 5. And, moreover, if a man contend in the games, he is not crowned as victor, unless he has contended according to the prescribed rules, and it is the same in our seeking the prize of eternal lifeā one rule of our contending for it being, that we give ourselves wit^ our whole heart to Christ's work. 6. The husbandman who toils on the glebe must, as a moral right, be the first to partake of the fruits ; if, therefore, thou wouldst enjoy the fruits, bend thyself to the work ! 7. Ponder what 1 say ; for, if thou do so, the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things.
To get the needed strength for the task, Timothy must keep his thoughts on Christ's being raised from the dead, and now crowned with glory and honour; in which we, as His members, shall hereafter share, if we be faithful to the end.
8. Remember Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, of the
PAUL MT. C. 54 THK SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY 585
seed of David, according to my gospel, 9. for preaching which J suffer hardship even to chains, as a malefactor ; our religion being now declared an offence against the State ; a pestilent and criminal superstition ; ^ but, thank God, the word of God is free, though I lie bound ! 10. Therefore, knowing that the gospal is still free, I bear patiently all that befalls me for the sake of the chosen of God ā Ciiristians now and hereafter ā that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 11. Faithful is the saying that they shall do so, For if we have died with Him^ we shall also lire ivith Him : 12. if we endure to the end we shall aho reign with Him ; if we deny Him, He also will deny tis ; 1 3. if we be faithless. He abides faithful ; for He cannot deny Himself but will assuredly fulfil alike His promises and His wrath. ^
How Timothy should bear himself, especially in relation to the false teachers.
14. Of these things, just said, put them in remembrance, especially those persons thou art appointing to be teachers, charging them in the sight of the Lord, not to carry on a strife of words about empty speculations, which is no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. 15. Strive earnestly to stand before God as a workman approved by Him that needs not be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth. 16. But shun unholy and empty disputations; for they who glory in these will go on farther and farther in ungodliness, 17. and their talk will eat like a gangrene, corrupting and rotting the sound flesh round it : among whom are Hymanseus and Philetus; 18. men who have erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.
These two heresiarchs are unknown beyond their names, and their idea respecting the resurrection is equally
^ Suet. Nero 16 ; Tac. Ann. xv. 44 ; Plin. Ep. x. 97. ' Rom. vi. 8 ; Matt. x. 33 ; Luke xii. 9. It is possible that these words, M quoted by St. Paul, may have been used as a Ubrititiau hymn.
586 THE APOSTLKS A.D. 64
unknown, but it may have been like the fancy of some visionaries in all ages ā that he who believes in Christ will never die, and can never, therefore, need resurrection. 1 I once met a small sect at Niagara, who believed their faith made them immortal. Or they may have held that to believe in Christ was a moral resurrection, and that there would be no other.
19. Nevertheless the foundation-stone on which God has built His house stands sure and unshaken, having this signet- stamp of God on it, The Lord knows them that are His : and, Let every one that names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.^ 20. Now, in a great house like that of God ā that is in the Church, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth ; some ā the gold and silver ones ā for honour, and some for dishonour ā the wooden and earthen ones; and so, in the Church some members are true and worthy ; others, the reverse ; some true and worthy members, moreover, are destined to uses which bring honour to them; others, no less true and worthy, to uses which bring them discredit and dishonour. 21. If a man therefore purge himself from the teaching of these heresiarchs, as one cleanses a vessel from impurities poured into it, he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, meet for the Master's use, fitted for every good work.
Personal counsels to Timothy.
22. But, as to thyself, flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23. But shun foolish disputations on matters beyond man's knowledge, knowing that they gender strifes. 24. But a servant of the Lord, holding office in the church, and also any Christian, must not strive, but be gentle
^ John xi. 26.
' Num. xvi 6, LXX. Tho second quotation is not from the Old Testamentk
PAUL MT. C. 54 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY 587
towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, 25. in meekness in- structing those who oppose themselves, either by unruliness or as to doctrine ; if, peradventure, God may give them repentance, that they may gain knowledge of the truth, 26. and may recover themselves from the snare-net of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will,^
That there is abundcant need for these exhortations is shown by the dark outlook for the future of the churches.
III. 1. But know this, that in the last days, before the near coming of the Lord, grievous times shall come ; the wicked one putting forth all his power, though he will be overcome by the descending Christ.^ 2. For men shall be self-seeking, money-loving, braggarts, haughty, foul-mouthed, disobedient to parents, unthankful, without principle, 3, with- out natural affection, implacable, tempters to evil, the slaves of their evil natures, fierce, haters of the good, 4. traitors, hastily headstrong, blinded with self-conceit, pleasure-loving rather than God- loving ; 5. maintaining the outward form of godliness ā a mask of the skin of religion ā but denying it by lives not under its power : from such turn away. 6. For to these they belong who worm themselves into households, and take captive silly women laden with sins, led away by divers lusts, 7. ever learning, and never able to come to the know- ledge of the truth.
The heresiarchs knew what was their best huntings ground; women being always represented in the early Christian writers as especially the prey of the Gnostic teachers ; the assertion of hidden and wonderful Tctww-
^ The Revised Version renders these words " liaving been taken cap- tive by the Lord's servant unto the will of God." In this case, however, they would not recover themselves, but would be taken from the devil's nei into that of the Gospel, which seems a confused metaphor. Yet both readings are permissible.
2 2 Thess. iii. 3-8 ; 2 Pet iii. 3 ; Jude 18, &a
588 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
Itdge peculiar to them, attracting at once tlie vanity anG the curiosity of the softer sex. These troublers are do\v more fully described.
8. But as, according to Jewish tradition, Jannes and Jambres, the Egyptian "magicians," withstood Moses, so do these men withstand the truth ; men corrupt in mind, who can- not stand the test as concerns the faith. 9. But they shall make no further advance : for their folly, as airy talkers, shall be evident to all men, as that of Jannes and Jambres, in their day, came to be. 10. But thou hast followed, as thy guiding star, my teaching, conduct, purpose of life, my faith, my lon<^'-suffering, my love, my patient endurance. 11. Thou hast shared or sym- pathised with me in my persecutions, my sufferings, such as befell me at Antioch of Pisidia, at Iconium, at Lystra, on my first missionary journey, when I won thee for Christ,^ and what similar persecutions I endured elsewhere ; and yet, out of them all, the Lord delivered me ! 12. Yes, and, indeed, all who set themselves to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecu- tion.2 13. But wicked men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14. But abide thou in the things which thou hast learned from me, and of the truth of which thou hast been firmly convinced, knowing from whom thou hast learned them; me, and thy mother, and grand- mother, especially ; 15. and that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings ā the Holy Scriptures ā which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16. All Scripture ā each portion of it ā is inspired of God, and, as such, is profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correcting what is wrong, for training up the soul in right- eousness ; 17. that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
IV. 1. I charge thee, therefore, in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and I also charge thee, by His appealing and His kingdom; 2.
* Acts xiii. 50 ; xiv. 1-20. 2 j^)^^ xv. 20 ; Matt. x. 32, 38.
PAUL MV. C. 54 THE SKCOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY 589
preach the word ; be urgent in season and out of season, wel- come or not welcome, convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long- suffering and unwearied teaching. 3. For the time will come when they will not endure the sound teaching, but having ears itchinj^: after novelty and excitement, will heap to them- selves numbers of teachers after their own tastes, 4. and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside to fables. 5. But be thou sober-minded in all things ā in thought and act ā suffer inevitable wrongs, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil in all things the service of the Master. 6. This, indeed, is especially required of thee, for I am already being offered as a libation, poured out on the *' sacrifice" of Christian faith laid on God's altar ā my blood being the wine of the libation,^ ā and the time of my departure is at hand. 7. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith : 8. henceforth only ona thing fills my thoughts, that there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which Christ the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day ā the day of His coming : and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved His appearing.
Personal details and requests end the letter.
9. Do thy utmost to come to me speedily; 10. for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has gone to Thessalonica,^ Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11. Of my old companions only Luke is with me. Take iSIark, and biing him with thee : for he is useful to me for personal and Christian service. 12. But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus. 13. The cloak, or book-bag, that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, espe- cially the parchments. 14. Alexander, the coppersmith,* did me much evil ; the Lord will render to him according to his
1 Phil. ii. 17. Ā« Philem. 24 ; Col. ir. 14.
ā 1 Tim. i. 20. Alexander may have come from Ephesus as a witnet against Paul, returning thither after bis injurious evidence at Paul's firsk arraignment
590 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
works ; 1 5. of whom be thou ware also : for he greatly opposed my words in my defence. 16. At my first examination, before the magistrates ā for a second appearance awaits me ā no man of my friends here took my part, or stood by me, but all forsook me : may it not be laid to their charge. 17. But the Lord Christ stood by me, and strengthened me ; that through me, when once more free, the proclamation of the message of the Gospel might be accomplished in full measure, and that, by my visiting them, all the nations might hear it : and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. 18. Yes, the Lord will deliver me from every evil work of my enemies, and will save me, till He bring me to His heavenly kingdom : to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
19. Salute Priscilla and Aquila, and the house of Onesi- phorus. 20. Erastus remained at Corinth ; but Trophimus I lef< at Miletus sick. 21. Do thy utmost to come before winter Eubulus salutes thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.
22. The Lord be with thy spirit. Grace be with you.
CHAPTER XIX
THB CLOSING SCENE, ROME A.D. 64
The Second Epistle to Timothy, to be soon followed by the death of the Apostle, gives us the last glimpse we have of him. He has still friends round him, though they were too faint-hearted to brave the perils of publicly coming forward in his favour, before the magistrates. Of Eubulus we know nothing beyond the name. Linus may have been the brother who afterwards was the humble bishop of the Roman church, worthy of his name being mentioned by Irenasus and Eusebius, as its head, at one time, in sub-apostolic days. Of Pudens and Claudia an interesting conjecture has been raised, from the men- tion of the two names in two epigrams of Martial, written between A.D. 66 and 100. The poet speaks of Pudens as a distinguished Roman, married to a British lady called Claudia, and, curiously enough, a marble was dug up in 1723, at Chichester, bearing the name of a British king called Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus ā ^very nearly that of a king Cogidunus, mentioned by Tacitus. This prince, we are told, had territories assigned him by Claudius for fidelity to Rome ā the full name of the emperor being Tiberius Claudius Nero. A daughter of this prince would be called Claudia, and, strange to say, on the Chichester inscription, the name of Pudens also is found. It may thus be, that Paul had the friendship of this British
592 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
princess and her husband, but it is at best a pleasing fancy. Besides those named by him in his last epistle, however, he could send Timothy the salutations of "all the brethren," so that even if Timothy and Mark did not reach him before all was over, he was not left alone. One true friend ā Aristarchns, ā who had been with him in his former imprisonmeDt, is not found now at his side, nor do we know anything of the cause of his absence, though he was, no doubt, labouring for the common aim, in som'^ part or other.^
Yet, notwithstanding the loving sympathy of distant friends, shown in such visits as that of Onesiphorns,2it was a time of great anxiety and gloomy anticipations of the worst ; though like all of us, the Apostle was hopeful and the reverse, with the changing hours. At one moment he feels sure that God will preserve him from the perils that crowd round him, and will permit him to go forth once more, to make the message of heavenly love known among all the heathen nations,^ but this confidence imme- diately follows his farewell to the world, as one whose blood was about to be poured out as a libation, and the time of whose departure was at hand ; whose conflict was over; whose course was run, and who had nothing be- tween him and the crown, lying ready for him in the heavens.* At one moment he could not realise that all was over in his earthly labours ; the next, he looked for death ā it might be in a few days.
Things, indeed, had darkened for the Christians since his last imprisonment. About four or, possibly, five years had elapsed, between his sending off the Epistle to the
* P. 468 ; see Index. For the others named in the Epistle see Index. Ā« Chap. i. 16. ' Chap. iv. 17. * Chap. iv. 0-8.
PAUL ^.T. C. 54
THE CLOSING SCENE
503
Pvoman brethren from Corinth, and his arrival in the great city in chains, from Csesarea. It was then the early spring of A.D. 61,^ and the next two years had been spent in at least nominal confinement.
Nero, from a bust in the British Museum.
But these years had been the turning-point in the evil reign of Nero; marking the beginning of its deepest
1 The date of St. Paul's arrival in Rome is usually assumed to have been a.d. 62, but as he was two years imprisoned, and then went on hia journey to Spain, from which he was sent back to his second iniprison-
III. 2 P
594 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
darkness. He had, indeed, always been a villain, for he had, in A.D. 55, at the age of eighteen, murdered his brother Britannicus, to have the throne to himself, and in A.D. 59 he had murdered his mother. But, in 62, he divorced and murdered his wife Octavia, to marry her rival, who had long been one of his many mistresses, and this crime was followed by his poisoning the nobly upright Burr us, the Prefect of the Prastorian Guards, and as such practically the vice-emperor, though, with Seneca, he had been his tutor and guardian from childhood, and though he owed his accession to the empire to him. Seneca, himself, was involved in the ruin of his colleague, but he was allowed to live on till 65, when he was ordered to put himself to death, and did so by opening his veins.
Freed from the restraint of Burrus, who would neither stoop to excuse his crimes nor be associated with them, Nero*s downward course was rapid. The great position of the murdered prefect was given to Tigellinus, a man of the meanest extraction, who owed his rise to his hand- some person and unscrupulous character, and was ready to humour the Emperor in any freak of insane folly or deed of villainy. Life at court became a succession of wild excesses and mad extravagance, to support which the wealth of provinces was poured out in millions, and the estates of the rich confiscated and sold, after mock accusations of their owners, whose only offence was having property which would help to keep up the imperial satur-
ment, and as the Second Epistle to Timothy, written during this period, makes no allusion whatever to the great fire, of July A.D. 64, it must have been written before it. To make this possible, however, the year of his arrival must have been 61. But the whole subject of the chronology of this period is hopelessly difficult, and any attempt to fix it exactly is necessarily more or less conjectural.
PAUL JET. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENE 595
nalia. The being rich was fatal, moreover, from another cause ; the coveting of estates or villas by infamous favour- ites. It seemed to many as if the gods had forsaken the world, and that the end of all things was imminent. While rumours of the shameful defeat of Pastus by the Parthians, in A.D. 63, alarmed the empire, Nero was con- tending with senators and discreditable women in the artistic contests of the circus, and even in those of a lower grade. Men saw the Caesar displaying himself before the rabble as a singer, an actor ā even in female charac- tersā and in the dishonourable colours of a charioteer, the equivalent in those days of a disreputable jockey. Nor was the social degradation to which he stooped so pitiful, as the senseless follies of his public entertain- ments, in which he gloried in exhibiting, as a special attraction, every excess and monstrosity of vice. Tacitus gives an account of a feast arranged by Tigellinus, which may be taken as a sample of many others.^ It was held on a lake in the gardens of Agrippa, near the site of the Pantheon, which was not yet built. A great raft, mag- nificently decorated, formed the banqueting hall ; galleys covered with silver and ivory drawing it hither or thither as desired. The rowers were actually chosen from among the hangers-on at court, for their special fame as past masters in every kind of Sodom and Gomorrah abominations. To create an illusion of the scene being in a foreign country, not in Italy, strange birds and beasts had been brought from many lands, and strange sea-creatures from distant oceans, gamboled in the lake. On one side of it, there stretched a row of bagnios, filled, either voluntarily or by order, with high-born Eoman ladies, and on the * TacituB, Annal. xv. 87 ; ed. Brotier, ii. 263.
596 THK APOSTLES A.\). 64
other side, companies of Cyprians, more or less nude, ministered to the public entertainment by dances and pantomimes. After dark, the groves in the gardens, and the buildings around, sparkled with innumerable lamps, and resounded with song and music. Nero, fouled by every imaginable sensuality, seemed already, during the festivities, to have exhausted the possibilities of infamy, but he outdid himself presently, choosing a paramour from the crowd of rakes, his companions, and going through the form of marriage to him, with all the most solemn rites, before the multitude. He even accepted the marriage veil of bright yellow, for his pretended bride, and neither the consultation of the auspices, nor the marriage gifts, nor the nuptial torches were omitted. That such a display was possible, reveals the immorality of the age.
At such hideous shamelessness, even the Rome of that day was horrified, and we may feel sure that the Christian community grew more and more convinced, as they heard of it, that the Antichrist had appeared, and that Christ must be close at hand. We do not know how much of these unspeakable horrors may have reached Paul in his cell, but he would no doubt learn enough to make the Christians, in whom he had seen so many things to reprove, seem almost faultless in comparison with such immorality ā " children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom they were seen as lights in the world." ^
Hitherto, though they had increased in numbers, they had escaped any public attacks, but a frightful public catastrophe suddenly brought them into imminent danger.
* Phil. iL 15.
PAUL JET. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENK 597
Of this Tacitus gives a vivid account, in effect as follows : On the night of the 18th July 64, fire suddenly broke out in the traders* booths of the Circus Maximus, which lay between the Palatine and the Ccelian hills. The wind blew the flames farther and farther with incredible rapidity, so that new fires burst out continually in fresh quarters; and as the calamity had begun in the night, in the hottest time of the year, and in a locality where count- less stalls of boards or canvas were filled with all that was most inflammable, everything contributed to spread the conflagration with a stupefying rapidity. Licking up the tinder-like material on every side, a sea of fire soon girt in whole blocks of the narrow confused streets of the division of the city in which it had begun, so that hundreds who had tried too long to save their goods, found escape barred by flames wherever they turned. Beyond this district the fire-storm first swept into the lower places, and then, advancing from all sides, climbed the hills. Morning broke only to find the flames still spreading, and they continued to do so, with ever wilder fury, day after day. A calamity so overwhelming might have been expected to sober all minds, and turn them, for the time, from evil ; but, instead of this, it dissolved all restraint, as has been seen in other similar cases, exliibitiug humanity in its worst aspects. Thieves plied their trade with audacious boldness amid the bewildering confusion, and not a few were caught wilfully kindling fresh fires, main- taining that they had been paid to do so by persons of position. Nero was for the moment at Antium, a town on the coast, thirty-eight miles south of Rome, but when the flames approached his palace at the gardens of Mgecenas, he hurried back, and in person issued orders designed to
598 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
check the advance of the conflagration, which, however, still defied all efiForts to subdue it. Meanwhile the rage of the populace, clamouring for some one to accuse as the author of this ruin, denounced the emperor as the incen- diary; nor could the most elaborate arrangements organised by him, to shelter and feed the homeless and hungry multitudes, abate their fury. Some asserted thai he had been seen in a theatrical dress, watching the flames from the tower of Maecenas, and that he kept reciting "The destruction of Troy," as he saw them overwhelming acre after acre of the city ; others declared they had themselves heard him, when the fire was at its height, speak of the " splendour of the glowing heavens," as if the whole scene was only a fine sight. Suetonius^ asserts that he had hinted his intention beforehand to burn Rome down, and that he did so, not to get rid of the ugliness of so many old buildings, and the narrowness and windings of the streets, but to clear the ground round his great palace ā the Golden House. The flames held unchecked sway for six days and seven nights, during which, besides a vast number of ordinary dwellings, the mansions of many of the great nobles were destroyed, with the numerous trophies of ancient wars which adorned them, besides many temples, built either by the ancient kings, or after the Punic and Gallic wars. Almost all, indeed, that had come down from antiquity, and was most treasured by the city, was con- sumed.2 It was not till the sixth day that the flames were stayed, at the foot of the Esquiline Hill, by the pulling down of a great many houses, so that the fire died out there for want of food. But now, in some unaccountable way, the conflagration again broke out on the property of 1 Bom about A.D. 70 ; died after 117. ^ Suet. NeroĀ» 3&
PAUL JET. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENE 599
Nero*B tool, Tigellinus, and raged for three days and three nights more, so that the full extent of the destruc- tion wrought, could only be discovered when this second outburst had been extinguished. It was then found that of the fourteen wards of the city, only four had escaped, though in seven there were wrecks of half-burned houses. The three others showed only smoking heaps of ashes. The oldest temples and religious monuments were con- sumed, and the number of lives lost was beyond knowing. The sensation made throughout the whole empire, that is, the whole civilised world, by this awful catastrophe was profound. No similar misfortune had smitten the State since the storming of Rome by the Gauls. The provinces foresaw that the cost of the restoration of the city would, in the end, fall on them, but even at once, the effect was disastrous from the disturbance of all business rela- tions. St. John, in Lesser Asia, sees, in Revelation, the merchants who traded with Rome weeping and mourning at the awful news.^ To Jew and Christian alike, it was the judgment of God on the mighty city, for its sins. We have pictures, in words I have already quoted, of the scene which must have been presented on the quays of all the great ports of the empire, when the tidings reached them, and of the horror excited even in the mansions and palaces of the nobles and kings of its many provinces, at a disaster so appalling. " The kings of the earth, who committed sin and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning; and the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buys their merchandise any more ; merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious
^ Rev. xviii. 16.
OOO THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet ; and all thyine wood ā that of the African citron, ā and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble ; and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep ; and merchandise of horses, and chariots, and slaves ; and souls of men ! Woe, woe, for tlie great city ! for in one hour so great riches is made desolate ! And every shipmaster, and every one that saileth any whither, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood afar off, and cried out, as they looked upon the smoke of her burning ā 'What city is like the great city ! ' And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, ā ' Woe, woe, for the great city ! for in one hour is she made desolate ! ' " When this was written, the false charges spread assiduously against the Christians, by the officials of Nero, laying the guilt of the awful conflagration on them, had borne their hideous fruit, and it is only the just outburst of indignation at this, and all its other sins, which had so long cried to heaven for vengeance, when St. John breaks out, at the thought of such ruin ā " Eejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles ; for God has judged your judgment upon her."i
In Eome, the engrossing question naturally was whether the fire was accidental, or the work of incendiaries, as tools of higher criminals. That Nero should have almost immediately put forward grand plans for creating a new magnificent Rome, while the ashes of that which had been so famous, still smoiildered, and the citizens were
* Rev. xviii. 9-20.
PAUL MT. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENE 601
Btill paralysed by tlie transcendent catastrophe, easily roused the suspicion that he himself had sacrificed the city to an insane craze he was known to entertain, of rebuilding it in unimagined splendour, and calling it after himself when thus transfigured and glorified. There was, indeed, much to lead men to think him guilty, for he was bad enough for any crime, but how far the charge was justified must remain unknown. Meanwhile, the belief that the torch had been applied by his orders, grew daily more widely and deeply rooted among the masses, and murmured in threatening fury that imperilled his throne. However absolute when Rome was quiet, he knew, that in reality, he was Emperor only by favour of the city mob. A revolution on the Tiber was vir- tually the loss of the whole empire, as, in later times, the triumph of the faubourgs of Paris has constantly changed the dynasty or constitution of France. The sovereign multitude must, therefore, before all things, be pacified. The Sibylline books were s; arched for light on the catastrophe: processions and imposing re- ligious services were ordered, to turn the public rnind from human to ghostly fears. Public prayers, with high ceremonial pomp, were ordered to be made to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina; penitential sacrifices were offered on the Capitol by matrons to Juno, and pilgrimages were made by them to the sea, to bring back water with which to sprinkle her images, wlule they further honoured her by religious feasts and de- votional watchings and fastings. But neither public charity, nor the immense sums expended by Nero him- self, in providing food and shelter, nor the laborious propitiation of the gods, silenced the growing belief that
602 THE APOSTLES A,D. 64
the Emperor was the incendiary.' Meanwhile, amidst snch thoughts in the hearts of all, the cry rose, ever louder, to seek out the authors of the conflagration, and at last the prefect set about the task.
The fire had broken out at the Circus Maximus, which, in part, was in the hands of Oriental dealers. The Jews were intensely hated, and the popular rage could easily be turned against them. It was noticed, more- over, that their quarters had escaped the general de- struction, for, of the four wards that remained uninjured, one was the low-lying district of the Porta Capena, at the south-west end of the great Circus ; the other, that across the Tiber ; both the special Jewish regions. ^ This, in itself, appeared suspicious. Very possibly, moreover, the ruin of the great Babylon, which would seem to the Jews like the beginning of the fulfilment of the curse of God, may have kept them from showing as much distress as their heathen fellow-citizens, at the over- whelming calamity. But however fierce the ill-will thus kindled, it was impossible to carry out revenge on the whole Jewish population, which numbered many thousands.
The question would, therefore, soon rise, in what section of these hated Orientals, the dark anticipation of coming judgment on the heathen world was most cherished, and this would presently turn men's thoughts to the Christians, whose eager expectation of the return of their Lord from the heavens must have been well known. It is very probable, moreover, that the old Jews strove to avert danger from themselves, by de- nouncing the new sect, which, on every ground, they so 1 Taa Annal. xv. 44. > Schiller's Nero, 172, 178, 425 ff., 484.
PAUL MT. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCKNE 603
bitterly hated. Tacitus shows that the Christians were already furiously maligned ; the excitements and dis- turbances that had led to the expulsion of the Jews under Claudius, having, perhaps, risen from strife in the synagogues about the Messiah, respecting whom the Christians differed so fundamentally from their brethren. The historian brands them as hated for their crimes ; an evil reputation for which we may feel sure they were indebted to their brother Jews. Eepressed for the time, he tells us, by the execution of Christ by Pilate, this " execrable superstition " had " broken out again, not only in Judaea, its birthplace, but even in Rome, to which all things infamous or shameful flow, from every part."^ Hated, already, as a Jewish religion, Christianity was now still more so, from the prominence in its teachings, of the awful future imminent for the world at large. Its prophecies of judgments soon to break forth, of fire that would fall from heaven and destroy the nations, of famines, pesti- lences, and earthquakes, in this and that province,^ must have been more or less widely known, and would seem proof enough, to minds already prejudiced against them, that the Christians wished the ruin of the empire. The popular antipathy thus denouncing them in advance, might thus very easily suggest to Tigellinus the idea of screening Nero, by affecting to have good grounds for oelieving that the new sect had indeed been the incendL-iries, in order to turn their predictions to dismal reality. If it were impossible to exterminate all Jews, it was at least easy to wreak vengeance on the Christian sec- tion of the abhorred race, whom the very Jews themselves Ā» Tac. Armal. xv. 44. Ā« Matt xxiv. 6-8 ; 29-31.
604 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
denonnced as all that was vile. A general proscription of its members was, therefore, proclaimed, and the work of the executioner began. Those known as the most prominent among them were first arrested, and some of these, when put to the torture, denounced "a great multitude," who, says Tacitus, were convicted, not so much for the incendiarism, as for " hatred of the human race." The jails were very soo\i filled, and the rack and other agonies wrung out weak admissions, as they always do ; too often mere idle words, to get remission of insupportable suffering. The preliminary inquiry finished, Tigellinus was astute enough to make capital for the Emperor, by turning the execution of the multitudinous victims into a public spectacle for the rabble. Accustomed to the hideous cruelty of the amphitheatre with its human slaughter, the more revolt- ing this could be made, the better: it would please a populace that gloated on seeing men thrown to the lions, and hundreds of gladiators killing each other for public amusement. Where so many were to be destroyed, it was, moreover, necessary, that there should be variety in the modes of execution, to prevent the scene be- coming monotonous. Nor was there any law or pity to restrain whatever forms of cruelty might be invented ; for the Christians were of low social position, and thus, without claim of exemption from even the most dread- ful punishments. The sufferings of prisoners and of the condemned in these old times, under any circumstances, are vividly brought before us in a passage in Plutarch,^ in which he speaks of the weight of the fetters, and the angry sores, and the mortified gangrenes and pinch-
* ** Superstition,"
PAUL iET. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENE 605
ing tortures of the prisoners. And what a picture of the terrors of death by wild beasts is that in the medita- tions of Marcus Aurelius, when he speaks of " those poor wretches in the amphitheatre, who, when they are half-devoured and have nothing but wounds left them, beg to be respited till to-morrow ; though they know they will only be reserved for the same teeth to tear them again." ^ But the Christians were doomed to special torments, and those escaped most leniently who were crucified ; perhaps in ridicule of their Master's death.
In the hollow below the Vatican Hill, on the north- west of the city, Nero had made a circus which he used sometimes, as a riding-school, but often for orgies of wickedness vile beyond imagination ; only courtesans and his satellites being, at first, admitted. Before long, however, the public at large were allowed to be present, and could revel in the displays of Sodom-like wickedness which he had provided; members of the highest families, now sunk to poverty, being forced by him to degrade themselves by taking part in them. On this spot he now caused some of the Christians to be crucified, perhaps round the obelisk of Caligula, which stands in front of St. Peter's, but was then at the one end of the circus.^ Others were sewed in skins of wild beasts and turned out at the '' morning shoj^," to be torn to pieces by dogs; the roll of drums and the clash of cymbals drowning their shrieks. The gardens of Agrippa, immediately south of the circus, were the scene of this part of the " entertainment," to make which still more sensational Nero utilised the ^ Book X. Ā» Tac AnnuL xiv. U.
606 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
intervals in the executions, while the bodies of previous victims were being dragged, with hooks, to the Tiber, in showing off as a charioteer, before his subjects ; this being his first public appearance since the fire. As evening fell, great torches shone out. They were Christians, who, after being wrapped in tow, smeared thickly with pitch, had been chained by the throat to pine-wood posts, and set on fire. Juvenal, a young man of about twenty-five at the time, may have seen this frightful spectacle, for he speaks of it, long after, in his first satire.^ Tigellinus, the moving spirit in this carnival of hell, had been forced to kill himself, six years after it, so that his name could now be safely used to point the moral of the poet. " Dare to write the name Tigellinus," says he, " as if you, like others, suspected him of haviug set Eome on fire, and you yourself will be seized as one of the incendiaries, and will blaze at those pitch-pine stakes, where the alleged criminals serve for torches, standing chained to the post by the throat, burning, and sending up heavy smoke, and this over, you, like them, will be dragged away with hooks, making a broad furrow in the middle of the arena sand."
Nor were these torments all the Christians had to endure. Tacitus says, "he added games, with those who were being put to death." What this meant we may judge from the account of some of his exhibitions, given by Suetonius;* the list including gladiatorial fights, in which he forced four hundred senators and six hundred knights to take part, and also made men 6ght with wild beasts. Nor was this enough, for Le Ā» Juv. Sat. L 155-157. 2 q^^^^ ^^^ jg.
PAUL Mr. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENE 607
had the most revolting legends of Grecian mythology represented in the arena, in all their details, by willing or involuntary performers, with every accompaniment of scenery and dress. It is quite possible that many Christians were compelled to take part in these shame- ful scenes. Indeed, in the end, even the hardened Roman mob shuddered at such accumulated horrors. "Though these sufferers were criminals, deserving the worst punishments," says Tacitus, " compassion was excited for them, since they were destroyed, not for the good of the State, but for the savage cruelty of one man."^ Seneca, no friend to the Jews, breaks into laments at the fury of the monster. "Tyranny," says he, " has round her, steel, and flame, and chains, and a herd of wild beasts, to be hounded on to tear the bodies of men. Dungeons, the cross, instruments of torture, iron hooks to drag off the corpses, rise before the mind, and the impaling stake, which, forced up through a man, comes out at his mouth, ā and limbs torn one from the other by chariots driven opposite ways, and that shirt soaked in whatever would bum most fiercely, and all else that hideous cruelty has devised." *
No names of any who perished in this awful time have been preserved, for the Christians were " the offscourings of the world " to the Roman population, and any among themselves who could have recorded the story would, from their superiority to the rest, be the nrst to be seized. That St. Paul was then in prison at Rome seems unques- tionable, and hence it appears as if the tradition that he did not perish till two years later must be unhistorical.
> Tm. AnnaL zv. 44. ' Seneca, De Supent, iii. 427.
608 THE APOSTLES A.D. 64
Darkness rests over his end. But it is hardly possible that, at such a time, the best known of all the Christians, already imperilled by the malignity of the Jews and Juda- isers ā rousing even the imperial authorities against him ā could have escaped.
Aquila and Priscilla had providentially left Eome again before the fire, but we hear no more of Paurs tried friend Aristarchus. Was he burnt as a living torch ? We have, indeed, only the faintest light respecting the Roman Church, in these dreadful months, nor did it venture to worship in any special building for very many years. In fact, as I have said, the earliest Christian church-building used openly in Rome dated only from about a hundred and fifty years later.^ For a time, however, the terror of their great trials must have made the surviving breth- ren shrink from notice, for a common martyrdom had overtaken all classes among them ; the friends and the enemies of Paul ; the strong in faith and the weak ; those who preached Christ of goodwill, and those who preached Him of envy and strife. All had been united in a bloody death.
Nor did the persecution in Rome remain without dis- astrous imitation elsewhere. The example of violence, so fearfully shown, was, henceforth, to be too often repeated. In Pergamus, the faithful Antipas had sealed his faith with his blood when Revelation was written, a few years later, and we read of some who were to be cast into prison in Smyrna,^ while, under the altar, at the opening of the fifth seal, " the souls of them who had been slain for the word of God and the testimony which they held, cried with a great voice, saying, How long, 0 Master, the Ā» P. 286. ' Rev. ii. 10, 18.
PAUL ^T. C. 54 THE CLOSING SCENE 609
holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? '* ^
Kemembering Paul's words, that the time of his depar- ture was at hand ; that he felt thankful to have been delivered from the jaws of the lion on his first examination, and that he felt as if his blood were already poured out on ''the sacrifice" of faith, laid by his fellow-Christians and disciples on the altar, as an offering pleasing to God, he may well have been one of the victims of " the great tribulation ! " Tradition speaks of his having been be- headed and buried on the Ostian road, but what reliance can be put on the exactness of reports centuries later than his death, and how difliicult would it be to know the facts at the time amidst such a panic, and universal proscrip- tion ? That he was a Roman citizen may have saved him from a meaner death than beheading, but what was law at such a time? Had he outlived the persecution we must surely have had some writing of his, telling his work after he had been a second time set free. And in the same way, the silence of St. Luke, who was with Paul when Second Timothy was written, speaks of his having, in all probability, perished with his master. But at what time soever the Apostle died, it was a triumphant close of a grand life. This mortal put on immortality, and this corruptible put on in corruption, and death was swallowed up in victory, when the headsman's sword or the agonies of the arena had done their work. He had indeed fought the good fight ā kept the faith ā finished the course, and the crown of righteousness was his for evermore I
* Sev. vi 9, 10, E.V.
m. 2q
INDEX
A.BRAHAM, justification of, 82
covenant with, 34-36
ā allegory of children of, 41, 42
Adramyttium, 473
Agabus, endeavours of, to keep Paul
from Jerusalem, 373 Agrippa II., reign of, 349-352
hears Paul, 452
Alexandrian ships, 474
Ananias, high-priest, character of,
357
murder of, 358
Paul brought before, 386
seeks Paul's life, 391
Antioch, importance of, 9, 10
dissensions in church at, 50
Apollos, teachings of, 80, 81, 213,
578 Apostles, method of journeying,
59, 60 Apphia, 419 Appian Way, 495, 501 Appii Forum, 497 Aquila, the weaver, 82, 285 Archippus, 418, 419 Aristarchus, 485, 487, 592 Artemas, 577
Bern ICE, history of, 350, 351, 452 Bishops and presbyters identical in
the early Church, 529 election of, 572, 573
Oasab'b household, converts in, 548
Csesarea, Jewish [tnmolts at, 44<l|
451 Capua, 494
Catacombs, picture of the, 211 Cephas, condemnation of, 28-30 Christianity, dissemination of, 60,
174-176
diflficulty of development of, 8S
progress of, at Ephesus, 95
awe at first teachings of, 183
progress in Rome, 279
wide spread of, 360
for all men, 410
Christians, picture of, praying, 187
assembly, places of, 285, 286
injunctions against lawlessness
to, 329
conscientious scruples of, 331
judgment of each other by, 334
sufferings of, after the fire of
Rome, 604-609 Christs, false, 458 Circumcision, necessity of, 61
views as to, 159
Claudius, expulsion of Jews by, 278
Clergy, germ of order of, 584
** Cloak and parchments " left by
Paul at Troas, 579 Cnidus, 484
Collections for the poor, 212 Colossae, topography of, 398 Colossians, Paul sends Epistle to,
399 religion of the, 400, 403
INDEX
611
Colotsians, Epistle to the, 401
warnings to the, 406
Columbarium, representation of,
209 Corinth, church at, 115-117
dissensions at, 118-122
return of Paul to, 123
ApoUos' teachings at, 125
factions at, 127, 128
gift of tongues in church at,
131
condition oi converts at, 134
simplicity of public worship
at, 200 authority of heads of churches
at, 201
Paul at, 261
Paul's brethren at, 262
view in gulf of, 263
Corinthians, First Epistle to the,
136-215
Second Epistle to, 216-260
confidence of Paul in the,
238-241 Cretans, low character of, 574 Crucifixion, caricature of the, 139 Cumanus the procurator, 1 Cymbals, figures of, 191
Dalmatia, 570
Demas, 580
Diana, description of statne, 68, 69
priests of, 71
destruction of temple, 73
worship of, assailed, 77
orgies of worship of, 77
prophecies of destruction of
temple, 79
servility towards, 97
tumult of worshippers of,
96-102
Divine worship, rules for observ- ance of, 198
Drusilla, history of, 2
Earlt Church, not ideally perfect,
638, 574 Eleazer the Zealot, capture of, 3 Epaphras, a fellow-prisoner of Paul,
398, 399, 417 Epaphroditus, 536 Ephesians, Epistle to, 427-443
when written, 443
Ephesus, journeying to, 64
description of, 64-68
temple at, 68-70
right of sanctuary, 71
religious splendour, 71
buildings of, 72
wealth of, 73
population of, 74
superstition and idolatry of,
75
synagogue at, 76
missionaries in, 79-81.
superstitions and exorcism at,
92-94 troubles at, after departure of
Paul, 112-114 meetings of Christians at, 83,
84, 424, 425
Faib Havens in Crete, 477, 478 False Messiah, appearance of,
353, 354 suppression of, by Felix, 864,
355
teachers, dangers of, 44, 45
Fanatics, religious, 4, 5
stoning of an Ephesian by, 105
Felix, marriages of, 2, 348
private life of, 3
conspiracies against, 5
rule of, 347
Paul delivered to, 391
examination of Paul by, 892
interest of, in Paul's teachings
395, 396 Judca under, 445-447
612
Festni, procQrator, 447
INDEX
Galatia, route to, 61, 62 Galatians, theory of Epistle to the,
8.9
Epistle to the, 19-52
Games, Isthmian, 168
prizes at, 169
lessons of, 170
Gifts, spiritual, of Corinthian
Church, 185-190 Gladiators of Capua, 495
Haib, methods of wearing, 178 Hannas, high-priest, pontificate of,
361
picture of, 461, 466
Head-veil, disuse of women's, in
church, 175 Heirship, explanation of, 38 Hierapolis, 417
High-priests under Festus, 469 conflict of, with Agrippa IL,
460 Holy Supper, abuses of observance
of, 179-181 Divine instructions regarding,
181, 182 Horace, journey to Brasdusium,
497, 498
Idol-flesh, distribution of, 129
prejudice against, 129
Idolatry, decay of, at Ephesus, 95,
96 Paul's counsel against, 172,
178
James, St., legalism of, 53
before Kaunas, 461
trial and martyrdom of, 462-
464 Christians martyred along
with, 465
James, respect for, among the Jews,
466 Jerusalem, prophetic increase of, 43
conference at, 48, 49
condition under Felix, 352
Jewish - Christians, rejection of
Christian message of salvation
by, 314
in Rome, 510
Jews, domination of, 10, 11
opposition to, 11
settlements of, 12
rights of, at Ephesus, 76
temporary unbelief of, 323
pledge of conversion of, 324,
325
suspected of firing Rome, 514
Jonathan, murder of, 4, 353 Josephus at Rome, 514 Judaea, lawlessness in, 347
morality in, 350
condition of, on arrival of Paul,
358
under Festus, 458
Judaism, converts to, 13, 14
rites, &c., of, 15
decrees of, 17
position of Peter towards, 62
secession of Paul from, 52
Justification by law, 33 by faith, 33
Laodioka, importance of, 405 Law, Rabbinical, observance of,
39 Liberty, vicious ideas of Christian,
154 Life, length of, formerly, 423 Litigation of Corinthian brethren,
153, 154 Love-feasts, abuses of, 138 Luke, St., Paul meets, at Philippi,
363, 418, 485, 487. 580
INDEX
613
Maokdoitia, generosity of churches
in, 242 Malta ill Paul's dAy, 483-486 Mark, 580
Marriage, disputes as to, 130 Paul's views on, 157, 168,
160-162
of presbyters, 672
apostolic ideas respecting,
672, n. Meander, valley of the, 414 Melita, 465 Messiah, excitement as to advent
of, 126 Mirrors, ancient hand, cuts of, 193 Mosaic law, relation of Christians
to, 305 Moses, veil of, 231 Musical instruments, pictures of,
194 Myra, 476
Nazabits, cancelling vows of a, 378 Nero, 116, 593, 594
public feast of, in Rome, 695
foul vices of, 596
suspected of having set Rome
on fire, 600
cruelty of, 607
Nioolaitans, rise of the, 110, 111 Nicopolis, 566, 666 Nymphas, 418
Offebinos, freewill, for Jerusalem,
61 Onesimus, 419-421 (.>ne8ipboru8, 583 Orontes, populous valley oi, 7
Palestine, condition of, 346-369 Paradise in the Gospels, 532 Paul, second missionary journey, 1
preference of, for Aotioch,
6,7
Paul in Galatia, 8
antagonism to, 16-19
vindication of office, 26-27
rebuke of Peter, 27
medallion of, 29
labours of, 48-49
work in Asia Minor, 58
stand against Judaism, 64
third missionary journey, 66
companions of, 58
journeys of, 59
ambition of, 62, 68
at Ephesus, 82
opponents of, 84
counsel to followers, 84-86
co-workers at Ephesus, 86-88
immense energy of, 90, 91
special miracles of, 91
perils of, in Ephesus, 102-
104
Jewish enemies to, 104
tribulations of, in Asia, 106-
107
kinsmen of, 107
fellow- workers with, 108
farewell advice, 109
departure from Corinth, 116
special aims of mission, 1 38-
148 relations towards Corinthians,
144
as a foonder of churches, 145
his views of teachers, 147
rebukes pride, 1 48
censures immorality, 151, 152
ā imputations cast on, 165, 166
exhortations to brethren, 214
anxiety of, over Corinth, 216,
217
third visit to Corinth, 217
attacks on Apostolic authority,
219-221 sends cheering news to Corinth,
222
614
INDEX
Paal, vindication of, 224
cause of return to Oorinth,
226
at Troas, 228
fitness for office, 229
sufferings of, 233
contrasts present suffering
with future reward, 234-238
justification of success, 249
self-denial of, 252
comparisun with his enemies
as Jews, 258
as servants of Christ, 254
glories in revelations accorded
him, 255, 256 maintenance on journeys, 257,
258 to decide church matters at
Corinth, 259 plans of, for spreading Ohriflo
tianity, 265-267 anxiety to visit Rome, 128
sets forth the advantages of
the Church, 308
exhortations to Roman brethĀ«
ren, 326-328
preparations of, to visit Spain,
&c., 339
anticipates harsh treatment,
340
salutations to Roman breth>
ren, 341-344
start of, for Jerusalem, 362
companions of, 363
journeyings by sea, 366
address to Ephesian envoys at
Miletus, 367-369
at Tyre, 371
at Csesarea, 872
preparations for entering Jem- sal em, 374
arrival in Jerusalem, 376
Jewish idea of teachings of.
tit
Paul, rescue of, from mob, by Roman
soldiers, 381, 382
address of, to the rabble, 383
ordered to be scourged, 385
ā ā brought before Ananias, 387
defence of, 388
plot against life of, 389
removal of, to Caesarea, 39^
defence of, before Felix, 393
treatment of, by Felix, 394
imprisonment at Caesarea, 395
visitors to, in prison, 397
co-workers with, 413
age of, 423
ā ā at Csesarea, 444
before Festus and Jews at
Cssarea, 449
appeals to Caesar, 451
before Agrippa II., 452-457
hatred of him one cause of
the persecution in which St.
James fell, 466 intentions of, while at Caesarea,
as to the future, 468
sails for Rome, 469, 478
at Sidon, 474, 475
at Myra, 476
encounters stormy weather,
477. 478
reaches Malta, 466
at Fair Havens, 477
lands at Malta, 481
incident of viper, 485
leaves for Italy, 487
at Appii Forum, 498
entry to Rome, 501
in Praetorian camp, 502
a prisoner in Rome, 505
Hired house of, 505
conference Mrith Jewish chief
uitjn, 506
and Roman brethren, 570-672
change of feeling towards,
in Roman Church, 518
INDEX
615
Paal Tisited by the Philippian Epa- phrodituB, 528
ideas of, of state after death,
682
life after the first Roman im- prisonment, 542
his bearing towards slavery,
562
at Ephesus and in Spain, 579
again prisoner at Rome, 580
at Rome, 680, 592
writes Second Timothy, 591
date of his last arrival in
Rome, 693 death of, 607-609
Pergamos, Christian church at, 112 Peter, opposition of, to Jewish
Christians, 12
medallion of, 29
head of Jewish Church, 57
first bishop at Rome, 276
Philemon, Epistle to, 418-423 Philippi, 525
story of church at, 526-528
Philippians, Epistle to the, written
by Paul, 520, 529-541 Physicians, social position of, in
antiquity, 418 Polemon, marriage of, to Bemice,
360 Pontine marshes, oanal through,
496 Poppaea and the Jews, 613, 614 PrĀ«torian Guard, 502 Priesthood, corruptions of, 6
factions amongst the, 365
conduct of the, 358
Puden^ and Claudia, 591 Puteoli, 489-494
Resubbsction, importance of doc. trine of, 203, 204.
denial of, 205
of Christ, 20Ā«
Resurrection, argument for, 208
mode of, 208-212
Revivals, impulses of religious, 184 Rhegium, 489
Roman Christians, feelings of, to* wards Rome, 516-519
distastefulness to, of Paul's
counsels, 576 Roman Church, organisation of, 277
status of, 280
Paul's letter to the, 282
class of congregation of, 283
world, picture of, by Mazzini,
515 Romans, power embodied in em- perors, 78
Epistle to the, 287-346
desire of Paul to be with
them, 288 Rome, introduction of Christianity into, 267
emigration to, 268
Jews in, 269-273
Greek language in, 270
spread of Jewish religion in,
273
Jewish quarter in, 284
imperial storehouses in, 284
great fire of, 581, 597-599
St. John on the fire, 599,
600
penitential services on account
of, 601 Jews suspected as the incen- diaries, 603
Christians charged with tbĀ«
crime, 604
proscription and tortures of,
604
martyrdom of, 605
SAOBiricES, use of, for food, 189- 165, 174
616
INDEX
Seneoa'a death, 594
Serapis, temple of, at Puteoli, 493
Ships and sailing, in antiquity, 469-
472 Sicarii, methods of, 4 Silas, oflBce of, 67 Sigtrum, Egyptian priestesses with,
195 Slavery, Roman, 419
in antiquity, 661
Sun, worship of, 172
Synagogue, uncovering head in,
176-177 Syracuse, 488 Syria, desolation of, after the civil
wars, 7
Tacitus, opinion of Felix, 2 Tarsus, Paul at, 62 Teachers, rights of, 167
rewards of, 167, 168
Temple, riot in, at sight of Paul,
880 Tigellinus, 694
Timothy at Corinth, 94
and Titus, Epistles to, wiittea
by Paul, 520-5-23
Second Epistle to, 581-590
Titus meets Paul at Philippi, 218
life of, 566-570
Epistle to, 671-578
Troas, Paul at, 384
miracle performed at, 366
things left behind by Paul at,
544 Trophimus, 679 Tychicus, 677
War tent, cut of, 285 Women, their part in synagogue exercises, 132
unveiling of, in public, 132, 176
to keep silent in churches, 199
"Wreckers" in antiquity, 484
Zealots, growth of the, 8 Zenas, 678
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Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library
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