See other formats

Full text of "Dictionary of the apostolic church"

/\ 







Dictionary 

of the 

Apostolic Church 



Dictionary 



of the 



Apostolic Church 



"K'e.f 
440 

EDITED BY / f Jj 

. n q- 

JAMES HASTINGS, D.D. 



WITH THE ASSISTANCE OP 

JOHN A. SELBIE, D.D. 

AND 

JOHN C. LAMBERT, D.D. 



VOLUME I 
AARON-LYSTRA 



/<? 



NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK 

1916 




an 



BS440 
-H4 



COPTBIGHT, 1916, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 






H 



The above copyright notice is for the protection of articles copyrighted in the United States. 



Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, have the sole right of publication of this 
DICTIONARY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH in the United States and Canada. 



PREFACE 



IT has often been said that the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels is of more 
practical value than a Dictionary of the Bible. From all parts of the world has 
come the request that what that Dictionary has done for the Gospels another 
should do for the rest of the New Testament. The DICTIONARY OF THE APOSTOLIC 
CHURCH is the answer. It carries the history of the Church as far as the end of 
the first century. Together with the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, it forms a 
complete and independent Dictionary of the New Testament. 

The Editor desires to take the opportunity of thanking the distinguished New 
Testament scholars who have co-operated with him in this important work. 



AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME 



ALLEN (WILLOUGHBY CHARLES), M.A. 

Archdeacon of Manchester ; Principal of 
Egerton Hall, Manchester ; author of ' The 
Gospel according to St. Matthew' in The 
International Critical Commentary. 
Anointing, Children of God, Gospels, 
Kingdom of God. 

ALLWORTHY (THOMAS BATESON), M.A. (Camb.), 

B.D. (Dublin). 

Perpetual Curate of Martin-by-Timberland, 
Lincoln ; Founder and First Warden of S. 
Anselm's Hostel, Manchester. 
Ampliatus, Andronicus, Apelles, Aristo- 
bulus, Asyncritus, Epaenetus, and other 
proper names. 

BANKS (JOHN S.), D.D. 

Emeritus Professor of Theology in the 
Wesleyan Methodist College, Headingley, 
Leeds ; author of A Manual of Christian 
Doctrine. 
Christian, Contentment. 

BATIFFOL (PIERRE), Litt.D. 

PrStre catholique et prelat de la Maison du 
Pape, Paris ; auteur de Tractatiis Origenis 
de libris scripturarum (1900), Les Odes de 
Salomon (1911), La Paix constantinienne et 
le Catholicisme (1914). 
Ignatius. 

BECKWITH (CLARENCE AUGUSTINE), A.B., A.M., 
S.T.D. 

Professor of Systematic Theology in Chicago 
Theological Seminary ; author of Realities 
of Christian Theology ; departmental editor 
of the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of 
Religious Knowledge. 

Beast, Blindness, Blood, Dysentery, 
Fever, Gangrene, Lamb, Lion. 

BERNARD (JOHN HENRY), D.D. (Dublin), Hon. 

D.D. (Aberd.), Hon. D.C.L. (Durham). 
Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin ; some- 
time Archbishop King's Professor of 
Divinity, Dublin, and Dean of St. Patrick's 
Cathedral. 
Descent into Hades. 

BOYD (WILLIAM FALCONER), M.A., B.D. (Aberd.), 

D.Phil. (Tubingen). 

Minister of the United Free Church of Scot- 
land at Methlick. 

Alexander, Crown, Desert, Gog and 
Magog, Israel, Jew, Jewess, and other 
articles. 



BROOKE (ALAN ENGLAND), D.D. 

Fellow, Dean, and Lecturer in Divinity at 
King's College, Cambridge ; Examining 
Chaplain to the Bishop of S. Alban's; 
author of A Critical ana Exegetical Com- 
mentary on the Johannine Epistles. 
James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, 
John (Epistles of). 

BULCOCK (HARRY), B.A., B.D. 

Minister of the Congregational Church at 
Droylsden, Manchester. 
Anger, Care, Cheerfulness, Comfort, 
Commendation, Fool, Grief, and other 
articles. 

BURKITT (FRANCIS CRAWFORD), M.A., F.B.A., 

Hon. D.D. (Edin., Dublin, St. And.), D. 
Theol. h.c. (Breslau). 

Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge ; author of The Gospel 
History and its Transmission. 
Baruch (Apocalypse of). 

BURN (ANDREW E.), D.D. 

Vicar of Halifax and Prebendary of Lichfield ; 
author of The Apostles' Creed (1906), The 
Nicene Creed (1909), The Athanasian Creed 
(1912). 

Confession, Hallelujah, Hymns, Inter- 
cession. 

CARLYLE (ALEXANDER JAMES), M.A., D.Litt., 

F.R. Hist. Soc. 

Lecturer in Economics and Politics at Univer- 
sity College, Oxford. 
Alms, Community of Goods. 

CASE (SHIRLEY JACKSON), M.A., B.D., Ph.D. 

Professor of New Testament Interpretation in 
the University of Chicago ; author of The 
Historicity of Jesus, The Evolution of Early 
Christianity ; managing editor of The 
American Journal of Theology. 
Allegory, Interpretation. 

CLARK (P. A. GORDON). 

Minister of the United Free Church at Perth. 
Divination, Exorcism, Lots. 

CLAYTON (GEOFFREY HARE), M.A. 
Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. 

Corinthians (Epistles to the), Eucharist, 
Love-Feast. 



Vlll 



AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME 



CLEMENS (JOHN SAMUEL), B.A., Hon. D.D. (St. 

And.). 

Governor of the United Methodist College at 
Ranmoor, Sheffield. 

Bondage, Constraint, Liberty, Lord's 
Day. 

COBB (WILLIAM FREDERICK), D.D. 

Rector of the Church of St. Ethelburga the 
Virgin, London ; author of Origines 
Judaicce, The Book of Psalms, Mysticism 
and the Creed. 

Antipas, Balaam, Euphrates, Hymenseus, 
Jannes and Jambres, Jezebel, and other 
articles. 

COOKE (ARTHUR WILLIAM), M.A. 

Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church 
at Wallasey, Cheshire ; author of Palestine 
in Geography and in History. 
Elamites, Galilee. 

COWAN (HENRY), M.A. (Edin.), D.D. (Aberd.), 

D.Th. (Gen.), D.C.L. (Dunelm). 
Professor of Church History in the University 
of Aberdeen ; Senior Preacher of the Uni- 
versity Chapel ; author of The Influence of 
the Scottish Church in Christendom, John 
Knox, Landmarks of Church History. 

Apphia, Archippus, Epaphras, Epaphro- 
ditus. 

CRUICKSHANK (WILLIAM), M.A., B.D. 

Minister of the Church of Scotland at Kinneff, 
Bervie ; author of The Bible in the Light of 
Antiquity. 

Arts, Clothes, Games, Jerusalem, Key, 
Lamp, and other articles. 

DA VIES (ARTHUR LLYWELYN), M.A. 

Siracox Research Student, Queen's College, 
Oxford. 

Ascension of Isaiah, Assumption of 
Moses, Enoch (Book of). 

DEWICK (EDWARD CHISHOLM), M.A. (Camb.). 

Tutor and Dean of St. Aidan's College, 
Birkenhead ; Teacher of Ecclesiastical 
History in the University of Liverpool ; 
author of Primitive Christian Eschatology. 
Eschatology. 

DlMONT (CHARLES TUN NACLIFF), B.D. (Oxon.). 

Principal of Salisbury Theological College ; 
Prebendary of Salisbury; Chaplain to the 
Bishop of Salisbury. 

Business, Labour. 

VON DOBSCHUTZ (ERNST), D.Theol. 

Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the 
University of Breslau. 

Communion, Fellowship, Hellenism, 
Josephus. 

DONALD (JAMES), M.A., D.D. (Aberd.). 

Minister of the Church of Scotland at Keith- 
hall and Kinkell, Aberdeenshire. 

Dispersion, Gentiles, Heathen, Libertines. 

DUNCAN (JAMES WALKER), M.A. 

Minister of the United Free Church at Lass- 
odie, Dumfriesshire. 
Canaan, Haran. 

DUNDAS (WILLIAM HARLOE), B.D. 

Rector of Magheragall, near Lisburn. 
Authority, Dominion. 



FAULKNER (JOHN ALFRED), B.A., B.D., M.A., 

D.D. 

Professor of Historical Theology in Drew 
Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. 
Benediction, Doxology. 

FELTOE (CHARLES LETT), D.D. 

Rector of Ripple, near Dover ; sometime 
Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge ; author 
of Sacramentarium Leonianum, The Letters 
and other Remains of Dionysius of Alex- 
andria. 

Akeldama, Candace, Chamberlain, 
Ethiopians, Ethiopian Eunuch, Judas 
Iscariot. 

FLETCHER (M. SCOTT), M.A., B.D., B.Litt. 

Master of King's College, University of 
Queensland, Brisbane, Australia ; author of 
The Psychology of the New Testament. 
Edification, Enlightenment, Exhortation. 

FREW (DAVID), D.D. 

Minister of the Church of Scotland at Urr. 
Barnabas, Esdras (The Second Book of), 
Herod. 

GARVIE (ALFRED ERNEST), M.A. (Oxford), D.D. 

(Glas.). 

Principal of New College, London ; author of 
The Ritschlian Theology, Studies in the 
Inner Life of Jesus, Studies of Paul and his 
Gospel. 

Evil, Fall, Good. 
GORDON (ALEXANDER REID), D.Litt., D.D. 

Professor of Hebrew in M'Gill University, and 

of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis 

in the Presbyterian College, Montreal ; 

author of The Poets of the Old Testament. 

Judgment-Hall, Judgment-Seat, Justice, 

Lawyer. 
GOULD (GEORGE PEARCE), M.A., D.D. 

Principal of Regent's Park College, London ; 
Ex-President of the Baptist Union of Great 
Britain and Ireland. 

Berenice, Drusilla, Felix, Festus, Lysias. 

GRANT (WILLIAM MILNE), M.A. 

Minister of the United Free Church at 
Drumoak, Aberdeenshire ; author of The 
Religion and Life of the Patriarchal Age, 
The Founders of Israel. 
Assembly, Building, Day-Star, Founda- 
tion, Genealogies, Gospel, and other 
articles. 

GRENSTED (LAURENCE WILLIAM), M.A., B.D. 
Vice-Principal of Egerton Hall, Manchester ; 
joint-author of Introduction to the Books of 
the New Testament. 

Colossians (Epistle to the), Ephesians 
(Epistle to the). 

GRIEVE (ALEXANDER JAMES), M.A., D.D. 

Professor of New Testament Studies and 
Christian Sociology in the Yorkshire United 
Independent College, Bradford. 
Form, Friendship, Fruit, Image. 

GRIFFITH- JONES (EBENEZER), B.A. (Lond.), D.D. 

(Edin.). 

Principal, and Professor of Dogmatics, Homi- 
letics, and Practical Theology, Yorkshire 
United Independent College, Bradford ; 
author of The Ascent through Christ, Types 
of Christian Life, The Economics of Jesus, 
The Master and His Method, Faith and 
Verification. 

Abiding, Abounding, Acceptance, Access, 
Account, Answer. 



HAMILTON (HAROLD FRANCIS), M.A., D.D. 

Ottawa, Canada ; formerly Professor in the 
University of Bishop's College, Lennoxville, 
Quebec. 
Barnabas (Epistle of). 

HANDCOCK(P.S.P.), M.A. 

Member of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at- 
Law ; Lecturer of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund ; formerly of the Department of 
Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the 
British Museum ; author of Mesopotamian 
Archaeology, Latest Light on Bible Lands. 
Dog, Eagle, Goat, Hospitality, Locust, 
and other articles. 

HOOKE (SAMUEL HENRY), M.A. (Oxon.), B.D. 

(Lond.). 

Professor of Oriental Languages and Litera- 
ture in Victoria College, Toronto. 
Heaven, Immortality, Lake of Fire. 

JAMES (JOHN GEORGE), M.A., D.Lit. 

Author of Problems of Personality, Problems 
of Prayer, The Coming Age of Faith, The 
Prayer-Life. 

Cross, Crucifixion, Custom, Dream. 

JORDAN (HERMANN), Ph.D. 

Professor of Church History and Patristics in 
the University of Erlangen. 
Catholic Epistles, Epistle, Letter. 

LAKE (KiRSOPP), M.A. (Oxford), D.D. (St. And.). 
Professor of Early Christian Literature in 
Harvard University ; author of The Earlier 
Epistles of St. Paul. 

Acts of the Apostles, Acts of the Apostles 
(Apocryphal), Luke. 

LAMBERT (JOHN C.), M.A., D.D. 

Fenwick, Kilmarnock ; author of The Sacra- 
ments in the New Testament. 
Antichrist, Body, Conscience, Flesh, Life 
and Death, Light and Darkness, and 
other articles. 

LAW (ROBERT), D.D. (Edin.). 

Professor of New Testament Literature in 
Knox College, Toronto ; author of The Tests 
of Life : A Study of the First Epistle of St. 
John. 



Covetousness, Formalism, 
Generation, Glory, Hour. 



Fulness, 



LlGHTLEY (JOHN WILLIAM), M.A., B.D. 

Professor of Old Testament Language and 
Literature and Philosophy in the Wesleyan 
College, Headingley, Leeds. 
Epicureans. 

LOFTHOUSE (WILLIAM F.), M.A. 

Professor of Philosophy and Old Testament 
Language and Literature in the Wesleyan 
College, Handsworth, Birmingham ; author 
of Ethics and Atonement, Ethics and the 
Family. 

Conversion, Creation, Forgiveness, Free- 
dom of the Will. 

MACKENZIE (DONALD), M.A. 

Minister of the United Free Church at Oban ; 
Assistant Professor of Logic and Meta- 
physics in the University of Aberdeen, 
1906-1909. 

Abstinence, Feasting, Fornication, 
Harlot, Lust, and other articles. 



MACLEAN (ARTHUR JOHN), D.D. (Camb.), Hon. 

D.D. (Glas.). 

Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness ; author 
of Dictionary of Vernacular Syriac ; editor 
of East Syrian Liturgies. 
Adoption, Angels, Ascension, Baptism, 
Demon, Family, and other articles. 

MAIN (ARCHIBALD), M.A. (Glas.), B.A. (Oxon.), 

D.Litt. (Glas.). 

Minister of the Church of Scotland at Old 
Kilpatrick ; examiner in Modern and Ecclesi- 
astical History and in Political Economy in 
St. Andrews University ; member of the 
Examining Board of the Church of Scot- 
land. 
Cymbal, First-Fruit, Harp. 

MARSH (FRED. SHIPLEY), M.A. 

Sub- Warden of King's College Theological 
Hostel and Lecturer in Theology, King's 
College, London ; formerly Tyrwhitt and 
Crosse Scholar in the University of Cam- 
bridge. 

Clement of Rome (Epistle of), Galatians 
(Epistle to the), Hebrews (Epistle to 
the). 

MARTIN (A. STUART), M.A., B.D. 

Formerly Pitt Scholar and Examiner in 
Divinity in Edinburgh University and 
Minister of the Church of Scotland at 
Aberdeen ; author of The Books of the New 
Testament. 
Grace, Justification. 

MARTIN (G. CURRIE), M.A., B.D. 

Lecturer in connexion with the National 
Council of Adult School Unions ; formerly 
Professor of New Testament at the York- 
shire United College and Lancashire College. 
Hell. 

MATHEWS (SHAILER), A.M., D.D. (Colby, 

Oberlin, Brown). 

Dean of the Divinity School, and Professor of 
Historical Theology, in the University of 
Chicago ; President of the Federal Council 
of the Churches of Christ in America ; 
author of The Messianic Hope in the New 
Testament. 
Assassins, Judas the Galilsean. 

MAUDE (JOSEPH HOOPER), M.A. 

Rector of Hilgay, Downham Market ; 
formerly Fellow and Dean of Hertford 
College, Oxford; author of The History of 
the Book of Common Prayer. 
Ethics. 

MITCHELL (ANTHONY), D.D. 

Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney ; formerly 
Principal and Pantonian Professor of 
Theology in the Theological College of the 
Episcopal Church in Scotland. 
Hermas (Shepherd of). 

MOE (OLAF EDVARD), Dr. Theol. 

Professor of Theology in the University of 
Christiania. 
Commandment, Law. 

MOFFATT (JAMES), D.Litt., Hon. D.D. (St. 

And.), Hon. M.A. (Oxford). 
Professor of Church History in the United 
Free Church, Glasgow ; author of Th 
Historical New Testament, The New Testa* 
ment : A New Translation. 
Gospels (Uncanonical). 



AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME 



MONTGOMERY (WILLIAM), M.A. (Cantab.), B.D. 

(London). 

Lecturer in Divinity in the University of 
Cambridge ; author of St. Augustine. 
Book of Life, Book with the Seven Seals, 
James the Lord's Brother, James 
(Epistle of). 

MONTGOMERY (W. S.), B.D. 

Minister of the Presbyterian Church in 
Ireland at Ballacolla, Queen's County. 
Beating, Buffet, Chain, Fire, Jailor. 

MORGAN (WILLIAM), M.A., D.D. (Aberd.). 

Professor of Systematic Theology and Apolo- 
getics in Queen's Theological College, King- 
ston, Ontario ; Kerr Lecturer for 1914. 
Judgment. 

Moss (RICHARD WADDY), D.D. 

Principal, and Tutor in Systematic Theology, 
Didsbury College, Manchester ; author of 
The Range of Christian Experience. 
Aaron, Aaron's Rod, Anathema, Condem- 
nation, Curse, Levite. 

MOULTON (WILFRID J.), M.A. (Cantab.). 

Professor of Systematic Theology in the 
Wesleyan College, Headingley, Leeds; 
author of The Witness of Israel. 
Covenant. 

MUIRHEAD (LEWIS A.), D.D. 

Minister of the United Free Church at 
Broughty - Ferry ; author of The Terms 
Life and Death in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, The Eschatology of Jesus. 
Apocalypse. 

NlCOL (THOMAS), D.D. 

Professor of Biblical Criticism in the Univer- 
sity of Aberdeen ; Moderator of the General 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1914. 
Assurance, Education, Election, Fore- 
knowledge, and other articles. 

NIVEN (WILLIAM DICKIE), M.A. 

Minister of the United Free Church at Blair- 
gowrie ; co-examiner in Mental Philosophy 
in the University of Aberdeen. 
Cerinthus, Doctor, Ebionism, Emperor- 
Worship, Essenes, Gnosticism. 

PEAKE (ARTHUR SAMUEL), M.A., D.D. 

Rylands Professor of Biblical Exegesis in the 
University of Manchester and Tutor in the 
Hartley Primitive Methodist College ; some- 
time Fellow of Merton College and Lecturer 
in Mansfield College, Oxford ; author of 
The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testa- 
ment, A Critical Introduction to the New 
Testament, Christianity : its Nature and its 
Truth. 

Cainites, Jude the Lord's Brother, Jude 
(Epistle of). 

PLATT (FREDERIC), M.A., B.D. 

Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology 
in the Wesleyan College, Handsworth, Bir- 
mingham ; author of Miracles: An Outline 
of the Christian View. 
Atonement. 

PLUMMKR (ALFRED), M.A., D.D. 

Late Master of University College, Durham ; 
formerly Fellow and Senior Tutor of Trinity 
College, Oxford ; author of ' The Gospel 
according to S. Luke ' in The International 
Critical Commentary, and other works. 
Apostle, Bishop, Church, Deacon, Evan- 
gelist, and other articles. 



POPE (R. MARTIN), M.A. (Cantab, and Man- 
chester). 

Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church 
at Keswick ; author of Expository Notes on 
St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy and Titus, 
and other works. 

Abba, Christian Life, Conversation, 
Gifts, Judging. 

REID (JOHN), M.A. 

Minister of the United Free Church at Inver- 
ness ; author of Jesus and Nicodemus, The 
First Things of Jesus, The Uplifting of Life ; 
editor of Effectual Words. 
JEon, Age, Aged, Honour. 

ROBERTS (JOHN EDWARD), M.A. (London), B.D. 

(St. Andrews). 

Minister of the Baptist Church at Manchester; 
author of Christian Baptism, Private 
Prayers and Devotions. 

Apollo s, Aquila and Priscilla, Bar-Jesus, 
Gallic, and other articles. 

ROBERTS (ROBERT), B.A. (Wales), Ph.D. (Leipzig). 
Rhuallt, St. Asaph. 
Expediency. 

ROBERTSON (ARCHIBALD THOMAS), M.A., D.D., 

LL.D. 

Professor of Interpretation of the New Testa- 
ment in the Southern Baptist Theological 
Seminary, Louisville, Ky. ; author of A 
Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the 
Light of Historical Research, and other 
works. 

Bond, Debt, Deliverer, Destruction. 

ROBINSON (GEORGE L.), Ph.D., D.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Biblical Literature and English 
Bible in M'Cormick Theological Seminary, 
Chicago. 
Caesarea. 

ROBINSON (HENRY WHEELER), M.A. (Oxon. and 

Edin.). 

Professor of Church History and of the 
Philosophy of Religion in the Baptist 
College, Rawdon ; sometime Senior Kenni- 
cott Scholar in the University of Oxford ; 
author of ' Hehrew Psychology in Relation 
to Pauline Anthropology' in Mansfield 
College Essays, The Christian Doctrine of 
Man, The Religious Ideas of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

Adorning, Ear, Eye, Feet, Hair, Hand, 
Head. 

SANDAY (WILLIAM), D.D., LL.D., Litt.D., F.B.A. 
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and 
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford ; Chaplain 
in Ordinary to H.M. the King. 
Inspiration and Revelation. 

VON SCHLATTER (ADOLF). 

Professor of New Testament Introduction and 
Exegesis in the University of Tubingen. 
Holy Spirit. 

SCOTT (CHARLES ANDERSON), M.A., D.D. 

Professor of the Language, Literature, and 
Theology of the New Testament in West- 
minster College, Cambridge ; author of The 
Making of a Christian, and other works. 
Christ, Christology. 

SlDNELL (HENRY CARISS JONES), B.A., B.D. 

(London). 

Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church 
at Ilkley. 

Admonition, Chastisement, Discipline, 
Excommunication. 



AUTHORS OF AETICLES IN THIS VOLUME 



SMITH (SHERWIN), M.A., B.D. 

Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church 
at Burnley. 
Abomination, Clean and Unclean. 

SOUTER (ALEXANDER), M.A., D.Litt. 

Regius Professor of Humanity and Lecturer 
in Mediaeval Palaeography in the University 
of Aberdeen ; formerly Professor of New 
Testament Greek and Exegesis in Mansfield 
College, Oxford ; author of A Study of 
Ambrosiaster, The Text and Canon of the 
New Testament. 

Augustus, Caesar, Caligula, Citizenship, 
Diana, Domitian, and other articles. 

SPOONER (WILLIAM ARCHIBALD), D.D. 

Warden of New College, Oxford ; Hon. Canon 
of Christ Church, Oxford ; Examining 
Chaplain to the Bishop of Peterborough. 
Lucius. 

STEVENSON (MORLEY), M.A. 

Principal of Warrington Training College ; 
Hon. Canon of Liverpool ; author of Hand- 
book to the Gospel according to St. Luke, and 
other works. 

Author and Finisher, Circumcision, 
Divisions, Forerunner, Heresy, Judaiz- 
ing. 

STEWART (GEORGE WAUCHOPE), M.A., B.D. 

Minister of the Church of Scotland at Hadding- 
ton (First Charge) ; author of Music in the 
Church. 

King, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, 
Lord. 

STEWART (ROBERT WILLIAM), M.A., B.Sc., B.D. 
Minister of the United Free Church at Duthil 
(Carr Bridge). 
Apostolic Constitutions. 

STRACHAN (ROBERT HARVEY), M.A. (Aberd.), 

B.A. (Cantab.). 

Minister of the Presbyterian Church of 
England at Cambridge. 
Consecration, Fast (The), Holiness, Holy 
Day. 

STRAHAN (JAMES), M.A., D.D. 

Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Criticism in 
the M'Crea Magee Presbyterian College, 
Londonderry ; Cunningham Lecturer ; author 
of Hebrew Ideals, The Book of Job, The 
Captivity and Pastoral Epistles, 
Abraham, Colours, Elements, Galatia, 
Hypocrisy, and other articles. 



THUMB (ALBERT). 

Professor of Comparative Philology in the 
University of Strassburg ; author of Hand- 
book of the Modern Greek Vernacular. 

Hellenistic and Biblical Greek. 
TOD (DAVID MACRAE), M.A., B.D. (Edin.). 

Minister of the Presbyterian Church of 
England at Huddersfield ; formerly Hebrew 
Tutor and Cunningham Fellow, New College, 
Edinburgh. 

Faith, Faithfulness, Ignorance, Know- 
ledge. 

VOS (GEERHARDUS), Ph.D., D.D. 

Charles Haley Professor of Biblical Theology 
in the Theological Seminary of the Presby- 
terian Church at Princeton, N. J. 

Brotherly Love, Goodness, Joy, Kind- 
ness, Longsuffering, Love. 

W ATKINS (CHARLES H.), D.Th. 

Minister of the Baptist Church at Liverpool ; 
Lecturer in the Midland Baptist College 
and University College, Nottingham ; author 
of St. Paul's Fight for Galatia. 
Ambassador, Blessedness, Brethren, 
Conspiracy. 

WATT (HUGH), B.D. 

Minister of the United Free Church of Scotland 
at Bearsden ; Examiner for the Church 
History Scholarships of the United Free 
Church of Scotland. 
Didache. 

WELLS (LEONARD ST. ALBAN), M.A. (Oxon.). 
Vicar of St. Aidan's, South Shields ; sub- 
editor of the Oxford Apocrypha and Pseud- 
epigrapha. 
Alpha and Omega, Amen. 

WILLIS (JOHN ROTHWELL), B.D. 

Canon of St. Aidans, Ferns, and Rector of 
Preban and Moyne. 

Angels of the Seven Churches, Collec- 
tion, Contribution. 

WORSLEY (FREDERICK WILLIAM), M.A., B.D. 

Subwarden of St. Michael's College, Llandaff ; 
author of The Apocalypse of Jesus. 
Areopagite, Baal, Babbler, Calf, Damaris, 
Dioscuri, Idolatry, Jupiter. 

ZENOS (ANDREW C.), D.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Historical Theology in the 
M'Cormick Theological Seminary, Chicago. 
Dates. 

ZWAAN (J. DE), D.D. (Leiden). 

Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the 
University of Groningen. 
Acts of Thomas ' in Acts of the Apostles 
(Apocryphal). 



LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 



I. GENERAL 



App. = Appendix. 

Arab. = Arabic. 

art., artt. = article, articles. 

A. S. = Anglo-Saxon. 

Assyr. = Assyrian. 

AT = Altes Testament. 

AV = Authorized Version. 

A Vm= Authorized Version margin. 

Bab. = Babylonian. 

c. = circa, about. 

cf . = compare. 

ct. = contrast. 

ed. = edited, edition. 

Eng. = English. 

Eth.= Ethiopia 

EV, EW = English Version, Versions. 

f. =and following verse or page. 

ff. = and following verses or pages. 

fol. = folio. 

fr. = fragment, from. 

Fr. = French. 

Germ. = German. 

Gr.= Greek. 

Heb. = Hebrew. 

Lat. = Latin. 



lit. = literally, literature. 

LXX = Septuagint. 

m., marg. = margin. 

MS, MSS = manuscript, manuscripts. 

n. =note. 

NT = New Testament, Neues Testament. 

N.S. =new series. 

OT = Old Testament. 

pi. = plural. 

Sv., qq.v. =quod vide, quce vide, which see. 
hem. =Rhemish New Testament, 
rt. - root. 

RV Revised Version. 
RVm Revised Version margin. 
Sem. = Semitic, 
sing. = singular. 
Skr. = Sanskrit. 
Syr. = Syriac. 
Targ. = Targum. 
tr. = translated, translation. 
TR = Textus Receptus, Received Text, 
v. = verse. 

v.l. varia lectio, variant reading. 
VS, VSS = Version, Versions. 
Vulg., Vg. = Vulgate. 



II. BOOKS OF THE BIBLE 



Old Testament. 



Gn= Genesis. 

Ex = Exodus. 

Lv = Leviticus. 

Nu = Numbers. 

Dt = Deuteronomy. 

Jos = Joshua. 

Jg= Judges. 

Ru = Ruth. 

1 S, 2S = 1 and 2 Samuel. 

1 K, 2K = 1 and 2 Kings. 

1 Ch, 2 Ch = l and 2 

Chronicles. 
Ezr=Ezra. 
Neh = Nehemiah. 
Est = Esther. 
Job. 

Ps = Psalms. 
Pr= Pro verbs. 
Ec=Ecclesiastes. 

Apocrypha. 

1 Es, 2 Es=l and 2 To = Tobit. 

Esdras. Jth= Judith. 



Ca= Can tides. 
Is = Isaiah. 
Jer = Jeremiah. 
La = Lamentations. 
Ezk = Ezekiel. 
Dn = Daniel. 
Hos = Hosea. 
Jl = Joel. 
Am = Amos. 
Ob = Obadiah. 
Jon = Jonah. 
Mic=Micah. 
Nah = Nahum. 
Hab = Habakkuk. 
Zeph = Zephaniah. 
Hag=Haggai. 
Zee = Zechariah. 
Mal = Malachi. 



Ad. Est = Additions to Sus = Susanna. 

Esther. Bel = Bel and the 

Wis Wisdom. Dragon. 

Sir = Sirach or Ecclesi- Pr. Man = Prayer of 

asticus. Manasses. 

Bar = Baruch. 1 Mac, 2 Mac = 1 and 2 

Three = Song of the Three Maccabees. 

Children. 

New Testament. 

Mt = Matthew. 1 Th, 2 Th = l and 2 

M k Mark. Thessalonians. 

Lk = Luke. 1 Ti, 2 Ti=l and 2 

Jn = John. Timothy. 

Ac = Acts. Tit = Titus. 

Ro = Romans. Philem = Philemon. 

1 Co, 2 Co = 1 and 2 He = Hebrews. 

Corinthians. Ja= James. 

Gal = Galatians. 1 P, 2 P = 1 and 2 Peter. 

Eph = Ephesians. 1 Jn, 2 Jn, 3 Jn = l, 2, 
Ph = Philippians. and 3 John. 

Col = Colossians. Jude. 

Rev = Revelation. 



XIV 



LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 



III. BIBLIOGRAPHY 



^iG ! G r =Abhandlungen der Gbttinger Gesellschaft 

der Wissenschaften. 

A JPh= American Journal of Philology. 
AJTh= American Journal of Theology. 
ARW = Ajtchiv fiir Religionswissenschaft. 
AS=Act& Sanctorum (Bollandus). 
.BJ"=Bellum Judaicum (Josephus). 
.B.L = Bampton Lecture. 
BW= Biblical World. 
CE Catholic Encyclopedia. 
CIA = Corpus Inscrip. Atticarum. 
CIG = Corpus Inscrip. Graecarum. 
CIL= Corpus Inscrip. Latinarum. 
C1S= Corpus Inscrip. Semiticarum. 
CQR= Church Quarterly Review. 
CR = Contemporary Review. 
CSEL = Corpus Script. Eccles. Latinorum. 
DB=Dict. of the Bible. 
DCA=Dict. of Christian Antiquities. 
DCS = Diet, of Christian Biography. 
DCG=Dict. of Christ and the Gospels. 
DGRA = Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 
DGRB = ~Dict. of Greek and Roman Biography. 
DGRG = Diet, of Greek and Roman Geography. 
EBi= Encyclopaedia Biblica. 
JE.Br= Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
EGT= Expositor's Greek Testament. 
ERE= Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. 
Exp = Expositor. 
ExpT= Expository Times. 
6?.4P=Geograpbie des alten Palastina (Buhl). 
GB= Golden Bough (J. G. Frazer). 
GGA = Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen. 
GGN= Nachrichten der konigl. Gesellschaft der 

Wissenschaften zu Gb'ttingen. 
G ! 7F'=Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes (Schiirer). 
Grimm-Thayer = Grimm's Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the 

NT, tr. Thayer. 

HDB = Hastings' Diet, of the Bible (5 vols.). 
ffJ=Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.). 
HGHL = Historical Geography of the Holy Land 

(G. A. Smith). 

HI= History of Israel (Ewald). 
HJ= Hibbert Journal. 
HJP= History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of 

OJV). 

HL = Hibbert Lecture. 
#.A/"=Historia Naturalis (Pliny). 
ICC= International Critical Commentary. 
ISS= International Science Series. 
JA = Journal Asiatique. 
JBL= Journal of Biblical Literature. 
JE= Jewish Encyclopedia. 
JHS= Journal of Hellenic Studies. 
JPh= Journal of Philology. 

JPTh= Jahrbiicher fiir protestantische Theologie. 
JQR= Jewish Quarterly Review. 
JRS= Journal of Roman Studies. 
JThSt Journal of Theological Studies. 
^r^4T 2 =Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament* 

(Schrader, 1883). 
/JL".4jr 8 =Zimmern-Winckler's ed. of the preceding 

(a totally distinct work), 1902-03. 



KIB= Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. 

iC5/=Literarisches Centralblatt. 

LNT=Int,Tod. to Literature of the New Testament 

(Moflatt). 
LT = Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 

(Edersheim). 
M G WJ= Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissen- 

schaft des Judentums. 
NGG = Nachrichten der konigl. Gesellschaft der 

Wissenschaften zu Gottingen. 
Nene kirchliche Zeitschrift. 
= Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (Holtz- 

mann and others). 
OED = Oxford English Dictionary. 
OTJC=Old Testament in the Jewish Church (W. 

R. Smith). 
Pauly-Wissowa = Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyklo- 

padie. 

PB = Polychrome Bible. 
PC= Primitive Culture (E. B. Tylor). 
PEF= Palestine Exploration Fund. 
PEFSt = Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly 

Statement. 

P.R.=Realencyklopadie fiir protestantische Theo- 
logie und Kirche. 
PSBA= Proceedings of the Society of Biblical 

Archaeology. 

RA = Revue Archeologique. 
RB = Revue Biblique. 
REG = Revue des Etudes Grecques. 
RGG = Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. 
RHR= Revue de 1'Histoire des Religions. 
Roscher=Roscher's Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der 

griech. und rbm. Mythologie. 
RS = Religion of the Semites (W. Robertson 

Smith). 
5.8,4 W=Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie 

der Wissenschaften. 
SBE= Sacred Books of the East. 
Schatf-Herzog=The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclo- 
pedia (Eng. tr. of PEE). 
SDB = Hastings' Single-vol. Dictionary of the 

Bible. 

SEP = Memoirs of Survey of Eastern Palestine. 
ff"=Studien und Kritiken. 
S WP = Memoirs of Survey of Western Palestine. 
ThLZ= Theologische Litteraturzeitung. 
7Vir=Theol. Tijdschrift. 
TS= Texts and Studies. 
TU=Texte und Untersuchungen. 
Wetzer-Welte = Wetzer-Welte's Kirchenlexikon. 
WH = Westcott-Hort's Greek Testament. 
ZATW = Zeitschrift fur die alttest. Wissen- 

schaft. 
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenland- 

ischen Gesellschaft. 

ZKG = Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte. 
ZKWL = Zeitschrift fiir kirchl. Wissenschaft und 

kirchl. Leben. 
ZNTW = Zeitschrift fur die neutest. Wissen- 

schaft. 
ZTK= Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche. 

Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie. 



DICTIONARY 
OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH 



AARON. By name Aaron is mentioned in the 
NT only by St. Luke (Lk 1 B , Ac 7 40 ) and by the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (5 4 7 U 9 4 ), 
and in his personal history very little interest is 
taken. Officially, he was represented to be the 
first of a long line of high priests, specifically 
appointed such (Ex 28 lf> ) in confirmation of the 
status already allowed him in Arabic usage 
(Ex 4 14 ) ; and, though his successors were prob- 
ably not all in the direct line of descent, they 
found it convenient to claim relationship with 
him (Ezr 2 61fi ), and gradually the conceptions in- 
volved in high-priesthood were identified with the 
name of Aaron. That continued to be the case 
in the apostolic period ; and it became a familiar 
thought that the nigh priest was a type of Christ, 
who was viewed as the antitype of all true sacer- 
dotal persons and ministries. 

In this typical relation between Aaron as the 
embodiment of priestly ideas and Christ as their 
final expression, an attempt was made to trace 
differences as well as correspondences. Christ was 
thought of, not as identical with His prototype, 
but as invested with higher qualities, of which 
only the germ and promise are to be found in 
Aaron. 

1. In regard to vocation, both were appointed 
by God (He 5 4 ) ; yet to the priesthood of Christ no 
Aaronic (7 11 ), or Levitical (7"), or legal (9 9 ) measure 
may be put. He was a man like Aaron (2 16t ), 
capable of sympathy both by nature and from 
experience (4 1B ) ; yet His priesthood is distinctly 
of a higher and eternal order (5 9 ), limited neither 
to an earthly sanctuary (9 24 ), nor to the necessity 
of repeating the one great sacrifice (&**), nor in 
efficiency to the treatment of offences that were 
chiefly ceremonial or ritual (9 s ' 14 ). 

2. In the consecration of the high priest the 
supreme act was anointing with oil (Lv 8 12 ), from 
which, indeed, the designation Messiah ('anointed 
one') arose. Yet such was the lofty position of 
Jesus, and such was His consciousness, that He 
could say, ' I consecrate myself ' ( Jn I? 19 ), on the 
very eve of His priestly sacrifice. 

3. In function Aaron stood between God and 
the congregation, representing each to the other. 
On the one hand, not only were the priests 
gathered together into an embodied unity in him, 
but in his annual approach to God he brought a 
sacrifice even for the 'ignorances' of the people 

VOL. I. i 



(He 9 7 ), and purified the sanctuary itself from any 
possible defilements contracted through the sins 
of its frequenters (9 19ff> ; cf. Lv 16 18 ). As the repre- 
sentative of God, he wore the sacred Urim and 
Thummim in the pouch of judgment upon his 
heart (Ex 28 30 ), indicating his qualification to com- 
municate God's decision on matters that tran- 
scended human wit ; and through him and his order 
the blessing of God was invoked. In the Chris- 
tian thought of the apostolic age all these functions 
pass over to Jesus Christ, with modifications em- 
phasizing their ethical effect and the intrinsically 
spiritual benefit that follows. One of the most 
general statements is He 2 17 , where the phrase 
' things pertaining to God ' covers both sides of the 
relations between God and man, though promin- 
ence is given, as in the passages that speak of 
Christ as our Advocate with God, to the work 
done by Him as representing men. Much the 
same is the case with the great passage on medi- 
atorship (1 Ti 2 s ). As He is the Saviour, so He is 
the High Priest, of all men, 'specially of them 
that believe' (1 Ti 4 10 ). In virtue of His imma- 
nence as God, as well as of His priestly rank and 
sympathy, He fitly represents all men before God, 
while for those who have put themselves into a 
right attitude towards Him He acts as Paraclete 
(1 Jn 2 1 ), promoting their interests and completing 
their deliverance from sin. On the other hand, 
as representative of God, He bestows gifts upon 
men (Eph 4 8 ), communicating to them the will of 
God and enriching them with every spiritual bless- 
ing. He is not only the Revealer of the Father ; 
but, just as He offers His sacrifice to God in the 
stead of man, so He represents to man what God 
is in relation to human sin, and what God has 
devised and does with a view to human redemption. 
Between God and man He stands continuously, 
the medium of access on either side, the channel 
of Divine grace and of human prayer and praise. 
See, further, art. MELCHIZEDEK. 

LITERATURE. See art. ' Aaron ' in HDB, DCG and JE, and 
Comm. on Hebrews, esp. those of A. B. Davidson and B. F. 
Westcott, A. S. Peake (Century Bible), E. C. Wickham 
(Westminster Com.) ; also Phillips Brooks, Sermons in English 
Churches, 1883, p. 43 ; J. Wesley, Works, vii. [London, 1872] 
273. R. W. MOSS. 

AARON'S ROD. Aaron's rod is mentioned only 
in He 9 4 , which locates the rod in the ark. An 
earlier tradition (Nu 17 10 ; cf. 1 K 8 9 ) preserves it 



ABADDON 



ABBA 



'before' the ark, on the spot on which it had 
budded (see HDB i. 3 b ). In either case the object 
was to secure a standing witness to the validity of 
the claims of the Aaronic priesthood (so Clement, 
1 Cor. 43). The rod has sometimes been identi- 
fied as a branch of the almond tree ; and both 
Jewish and Christian fancy has been busy with it. 
For early legends associating it symbolically with 
the cross, or literally with the transverse beam of 
the cross, see W. W. Seymour, The Cross in Tradi- 
tion, History, Art, 1898, p. 83. B. W. MOSS. 

ABADDON. The word is found in the NT only 
in Rev 9 11 . In the OT text 'dbhaddon occurs six 
times (only in the Wisdom literature), AV in each 
case rendering 'destruction,' while RV gives 'De- 
struction' in Job 28 22 31 12 , Ps 88 11 , but 'Abaddon' 
in Job 26 6 , Pr 15" 27 20 , on the ground, as stated by 
the Revisers in their Preface, that ' a proper name 
appears to be required for giving vividness and 
point.' Etymologically the word is an abstract 
term meaning ' destruction,' and it is employed in 
this sense in Job 31 12 . Its use, however, in paral- 
lelism with Sheol in Job 26 6 , Pr 15 11 27 20 and with 
' the grave ' in Ps 88 11 shows that even in the OT 
it had passed beyond this general meaning and 
had become a specialized term for the abode of the 
dead. In Job 2S 22 , again, it is personified side by 
side with Death, just as Hades is personified in 
Rev 6 8 . So far as the OT is concerned, and not- 
withstanding the evident suggestions of its deriva- 
tion (from Heb. 'dbhadh, 'to perish'), the connota- 
tion of the word does not appear to advance be- 
yond that of the parallel word Sheol in its older 
meaning of the general dwelling-place of all the 
dead. In later Heb. literature, however, when 
Sheol had come to be recognized as a sphere of 
moral distinctions and consequent retribution, 
Abaddon is represented as one of the lower divi- 
sions of Sheol and as being the abode of the wicked 
and a place of punishment. At first it was distin- 
guished from Gehenna, as a place of loss and de- 
privation rather than of the positive suffering 
assigned to the latter. But in the Rabbinic teach- 
ing of a later time it becomes the very house of 
perdition (Targ. on Job 26 tf ), the lowest part of 
Gehenna, the deepest deep of hell (Emek Ham- 
melech, 15.3). 

In Rev 9 11 Abaddon is not merely personified in 
the free poetic manner of Job 28 22 , but is used 
as the personal designation in Hebrew of a fallen 
angel described as the king of the locusts and ' the 
angel of the abyss,' whose name in the Greek 
tongue is said to be Apollyon. In the LXX 
'dbhadddn is regularly rendered by diruXeia ; and 
the personification of the Heb. word by the writer 
of Rev. apparently led him to form from the 
corresponding Gr. verb (diroXXtfw, later form of 
dw6\\vfu) a Gr. name with the personal ending <av. 
Outside of the Apocalypse the name Abaddon has 
hardly any place in English literature, while 
Apollyon, on the contrary, has become familiar 
through the use made of it in the Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress by Bunyan, whose conception of Apollyon, 
however, is entirely his own. Abaddon or Apoll- 
yon was often identified with Asmodseus, ' the evil 
spirit' of To 3 8 ; but this identification is now 
known to be a mistake. 

LITERATURE. The artt. s.m. in HDB and&Bi; art. 'Abyss' 
in ERE ; ExpT xx. [1908-09] 234 f. J. C. LAMBERT. 

ABBA. Abba is the emphatic form of the Aram, 
word for 'father' (see Dalman, Aram. Gram. p. 
98, for 3* and its various forms ; also Maclean, in 
DCG, s.v.). It is found only in three passages in 
the NT, viz. Mk 14 38 , Ro 8 15 , Gal 4 6 ; in each case 
6 ir<x7/> is subjoined to 'A$3, the whole expres- 
sion being a title of address. [The use of 6 var^p, 



nominative with the article, as a vocative, is not a 
Hebraism, as Lightfoot thought, but an emphatic 
vocative not unknown to classical Greek and com- 
mon in the NT : ' nearly sixty examples of it are 
found in NT ' ; see Moulton, Gram, of NT Greek, 
Edinburgh, 1906, p. 70.] 

Lightfoot on Gal 4 6 argues that the bilingual 
expression is a liturgical formula originating with 
Hellenistic Jews, who, while clinging to the original 
word which was consecrated by long usage, added 
to it the Greek equivalent ; but he supports an 
alternative theory that it took its rise among Jews 
of Palestine after they had become acquainted with 
the Greek language, and is simply an expression 
of importunate entreaty, .and an example of that 
verbal usage whereby the same idea is conveyed 
in different forms for the sake of emphasis. As 
illustrations of this repetition, he quotes Rev 9 11 
('AiroXMwv, 'Aj3a8duv) 12 9 20 2 (Zaravas, Aid^SoXos). 
Thayer, in HDB (s.v.), points out that, though de- 
votional intensity belongs to repetition of the same 
term (e.g. ictipie, Kvpie), it is also expressed by such 
phrases as val d-^v, ' Hallelujah, Praise the Lord,' 
where the terms are different. The context of each 
passage where 'Abba, Father' is found appears to 
prove that the Greek addition is not merely the 
explanation of the Aramaic word, such as, e.g., 
St. Peter might have added in his preaching a 
custom to be perpetuated by the Evangelists, as 
suggested by the passage in Mk. ; but is rather an 
original formula, the genesis of which is to be 
sought further back, perhaps in the actual words 
used by our Lord Himself. Thus Sanday-Headlam 
on Ro 8 15 (ICC, 1902) remark : 

'It seems better to suppose that our Lord Himself, using 
familiarly both languages, and concentrating into this word of 
all words such a depth of meaning, found Himself impelled 
spontaneously to repeat the word, and that some among His 
disciples caught and transmitted the same habit. It is signifi- 
cant however of the limited extent of strictly Jewish Christi- 
anity that we find no other original examples of the use than 
these three.' 

Thus, the double form is due to the fact that the 
early Christians were a bilingual people ; and the 
duplication, while conveying intensity to the ex- 
pression, ' would only be natural where the speaker 
was using in both cases his familiar tongue.' F. H. 
Chase ( TS I. iii. 23) suggests that the phrase is due 
to the shorter or Lucan form of the Lord's Prayer, 
and that the early Christians repeated the first 
word in the intensity of their devotion, coupling a 
Hellenistic rendering with the Aramaic A bba. He 
argues that the absence of such a phrase as 8 t<rriv, 
or 8 fori /judep/j.rjvevotJ.ei'ov, in Mk 14 36 is due to the 
familiarity of the formula ; and that, while the 
Pauline passages do not recall Gethsemane, they 
suggest the Lord's Prayer as current in the shorter 
form. Moulton (op. cit. p. 10), combating Zahn's 
theory that Aramaic was the language of St. Paul's 
prayers a theory based on the Apostle's 'Abba, 
Father ' remarks that ' the peculiar sacredness of 
association belonging to the first word of the Lord's 
Prayer in its original tongue supplies a far more 
probable account of its liturgical use among Gen- 
tile Christians.' He mentions the analogy (see 
footnote, loc. cit. ) of the Roman Catholic ' saying 
Paternoster,' but adds that ' Paul will not allow 
even one word of prayer in a foreign tongue with- 
out adding an instant translation ' ; and further 
refers to the Welsh use of Pader as a name for the 
Lord's Prayer. 

It seems probable (1) that the phrase, 'Abba, 
Father,' is a liturgical formula ; (2) that the duality 
of the form is not due to a Hebraistic repetition 
for the sake of emphasis, but to the fact that the 
early Christians, even of non- Jewish descent, were 
familiar with both Aramaic and Greek ; (3) that 
Abba, being the first word of the Lord's Prayer, 
was held in special veneration, and was quoted 



ABEL 



ABOMINATION 



with the Greek equivalent attached to it, as a 
familiar devotional phrase (like Maran atha [1 Co 
16 22 ], which would be quite intelligible to Chris- 
tians of Gentile origin, though its Greek transla- 
tion, 6 Ki/ptos tyyts [Ph 4 s ], was also used ; cf. Did. 
10", where ' Maran atha' and ' Amen ' close a public 
prayer) ; and (4) that our Lord Himself, though 
this cannot be said to be established beyond doubt, 
used the double form in pronouncing the sacred 
Name, which was invoked in His prayer. 

In conclusion, it should be noted that, while the 
phrase is associated with the specially solemn occa- 
sion of the Gethsemane agony, where our Lord is 
reported by St. Mark to have used it, both ex- 
amples of its use in the Pauline writings convey a 
similar impression of solemnity as connected with 
the Christian believer's assurance of sonship and 
sonship (let it be noted) not in the general sense 
in which all humanity may be described as children 
of God, but in the intimate and spiritual connota- 
tion belonging to vlof)e<ria, or ' adoption,' into the 
family of God. 

LITERATURE. See art. Abba ' in HDB, DOG, and JE, an art. 
in ExpTxx. [1909] 356, and the authorities cited above. 

K. MARTIN POPE. 

ABEL. Abel ("AjSeX) has the first place in the 
roll of ' the elders' (ol irpeafitrepoi, He II 2 ), or men 
of past generations, who by their faith pleased 
God and had witness borne to them. It is recorded 
of him that he offered unto God a more excellent 
sacrifice (vXeiova ffwiav) than his elder brother 
(He II 4 ). In the original story (Gn 4 1 ' 7 ) his offer- 
ing was probably regarded as more pleasing on 
account of the material of his sacrifice. It was in 
accordance with primitive Semitic ideas that the 
occupation of a keeper of sheep was more pleasing 
to God than that of a tiller of the ground, and 
accordingly that a firstling of the flock was a 
more acceptable offering than the fruit of the 
ground. The ancient writer of the story (J) 
evidently wished to teach that animal sacrifice 
alone was pleasing to God (Gunkel, Genesis, 38 ; 
Skinner, 105). The author of Hebrews gives the 
story a different turn. The greater excellence of 
Abel's sacrifice consisted in the disposition with 
which it was offered. The spirit of the worshipper 
rather than the substance of the offering is now 
considered the essential element. Abel's sacrifice 
was the offering of a man whose heart was right. 
Through his faith he won God's approval of his 
gifts, and through his faith his blood continued to 
speak for him after his death. In a later passage 
of Heb. (12 24 ) that blood is contrasted with ' the 
blood of sprinkling,' by which the new covenant 
is confirmed. The blood of Abel cried out from 
the ground for vengeance (cf. Job 16 18 , Is 26 21 , 
2 K 9 s8 ; also Rev e 9 - 10 ) ; it was such a cry as is 
sounded in Milton's sonnet, ' Avenge, O Lord, thy 
slaughtered saints ' ; but the blood of the eternal 
covenant intercedes for mercy. 

St. John (1 Jn 3 12 ) uses the murder of Abel by 
his brother to illustrate the absence of that spirit 
of love which is the essence of goodness. The 
writer indicates that the new commandment, or 
message (ayyeXla), which has been heard from the 
beginning of the Christian era, was also the funda- 
mental law of the moral life from the beginning of 
human history. Cain was of the evil one (K rov 
v), and slaughtered (ftr^a^ev) his brother. 



LITERATURE. Besides the artt. in the Bible Dictionaries, see 
W. G. Elmslie, Expository Lectures and Sermons, 1892, p. 164 ; 
J. Hastings, Greater Men and Women of the Bible, vol. i. 
[1913] p. 53 ; G. Matheson, The Mepresentative Men of the 
Bible, L [1902] 45 ; A. P. Peabody, King's Chapel Sermons, 
1891, p. 317 ; A. Whyte, Bible Characters, L [1896] 44. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

ABIDING. As in the Gospels, so in Acts and 
Ephesians we find both the local and the ethical 
connotations of this word, which in almost every 



case is used to render pfru or one of its numerous 
compounds (&rt-, Kara-, irapa-, irpos-, VTTO-). With 
the purely local usages we have here no concern ; 
but there is a small class of transitional meanings 
which lead the way to those ethical connotations 
which are the distinctive property of the word. 
Among these may be mentioned the several places 
in 1 Co 7, where St. Paul, dealing with marriage 
and allied questions (? in view of the Parousia), 
speaks of abiding in this state or calling. In the 
same Epistle note also 3 14 'If any man's workafiicfe,' 
and 13 13 ' And now abide faith, hope, love.' * Simi- 
larly we are told of the persistence (a) of Mel- 
chizedek's priesthood (He 7 3 ), (b) of the Divine 
fidelity even in face of human faithlessness (2 Ti 
2 13 ), and (c) of the word of God (1 P I 23 ). 

It is, however, in the 1st Ep. of John, as in the 
Fourth Gospel, that we get the ethical use of 
abiding most fully developed and most amply pre- 
sented. But, while in the Gospel the emphasis is 
laid on the Son's abiding in the Father ana Christ's 
abiding in the Church, in 1 Jn 2 s4 - 27 the stress is 
rather on the mutual abiding of the believer and 
God (Father and Son). Note the following ex- 
perimental aspects of the relation in question. 

1. The believer as the place of the abiding. 
A somewhat peculiar expression is found in 1 Jn 
2 27 , where we read : ' The anointing . . . abideth 
in you.' By x/M<r/*a is meant the gift of the Holy 
Spirit (cf. 2 Co I 21 ), whose presence in the heart 
gives the believer an independent power of testing 
whatever teaching he receives (cf. ' He shall take 
of mine and shall show it unto you,' Jn 16' 8 ).f In 
1 Jn 2 14 it is said that the word of God abideth in 
' young men ' ; but it is also the meaning in v. 24 ; 
while in S 24 Christ is mentioned as abiding in them 
' by the Spirit.' In each passage we have a subtle 
instance of the perfectly natural way in which the 
operation of the risen Christ on the heart is identi- 
fied with that of the Spirit. The believer's soul 
is thus mystically thought of as the matrix in 
which the Divine energy of salvation, conceived 
of in its various aspects, is operative as a cleansing, 
saving, and conserving power, safeguarding it from 
error, sin, and unfaithfulness. 

2. The abiding place of the believer. In 1 Jn 
2 M we have the promise that ' if the [word] heard 
from the beginning' remains in the believer's 
heart, he shall ' continue in the Son ' and in the 
Father (cf. 3 8 ). This reciprocal relation between 
the implanted word and the human environment 
in which it energizes is peculiarly Johannine. 
Secondary forms of the same idea are found in 2 10 
('he that loveth his brother abideth in the light'), 
and in 3 14 ( ' he that hateth his brother abideth in 
death '). In 2 s we have the fact that the believer 
abides in Christ made the ground for a practical 
appeal for consistency of life, and in y. 28 the reward 
of such living is that the believer ' abideth for ever,' 
i.e. has eternal life. As a general principle, in the 
use of this word we find a striking union of the mys- 
tical and the ethical aspects of the Christian faith. 

LITKRATURB. G. G. Findlay, The Things Above, 1901, p. 237 ; 
G. H. Knight, Divine Uplifting*, 1906, p. 85 ; F. von Hugel, 
Eternal Life, 1912, p. 365 f . ; and also the art. ' Abiding ' in 
DOG, and the literature there cited. 

E. GRIFFITH-JONES. 

ABOMINATION (pdfrvyna). Like the word 
' taste ' originally a physical, then a mental term, 
' abomination ' denotes that for which God and 
His people have a violent distaste. It refers in 
the OT to the feeling of repulsion against pro- 
hibited foods (Lv II 10 , Dt 14 s ), then to everything 

* Popular opinion, based on a well-known hymn (Par. 49 lsr ), 
very erroneously makes faith and hope pass away, only love 
abiding. 

t As indicated in HDB \. 101>, the words of 1 Jn27 gave rise 
to the practice of anointing with oil at baptism. 



ABOUNDING 



A.BHAHAM 



connected with idolatry (Dt 7 125 , Ko 2 22 [Gr.]).* 
Thence it acquires a moral meaning, and together 
with fornication stigmatizes all the immoralities 
of heathendom (Rev 17 4 - *). Its intensest use is 
reserved for hypocrisy, the last oti'ence against 
religion (Lk 16 16 , Tit I 18 , Rev 21 27 ). 

SHERWIN SMITH. 

ABOUNDING. The English word 'abound' in 
the Epistles of the NT is the translation of the Gr. 
words irXeovdfa and irfpura-evw. There is nothing of 
special interest in these terms ; perhaps the former 
has the less lofty sense, its primary connotation being 
that of superfluity. As used by St. Paul, however, 
there seems little to choose between them, although 
it is worth noting that, where he speaks (Ro 5-) 
of the ' offence ' and ' sin ' abounding, he uses 
ir\eovdeiv. Yet lie employs the same term in Ro 
6 l of the ' abounding of grace,' and in Ph 4 17 of the 
fruit of Christian giving. His favourite term, 
however, is irepicrffevu (in one case inrepirepiffffetiw, 
'overflow,' Ro 5 20 ), whether he is speaking of the 
grace of God (Ro 5 1S ), the sufferings of Christ (2 Co 
I 5 ), or the Christian spirit that finds expression in 
liberality (2 Co 8 7 9 8 ), contentment (Ph 4 12 - ls ), hope 
(Ro 5 15 ), service (1 Co 15 58 ). This list of references 
is not exhaustive, but it is representative. These 
words and the way in which they are used give us 
a suggestive glimpse into 

1. The religious temperament of the Apostle. 
His was a rich and overflowing nature, close-packed 
with vivid, ever-active qualities of mind and heart. 
His conception of the gospel would be naturally in 
accordance with the wealth of his psychic and 
moral nature ; he would inevitably fasten on such 
aspects of it as most thoroughly satisfied his own 
soul ; and he would put its resources to the full 
test of his spiritual needs and capacities. It is 
fortunate that Christianity found at its inception 
such a man ready to hand as its chief exponent to 
the primitive churches, and that his letters remain 
as a record of the marvellous way in which he 
opened his heart to its appeal, and of the manifold 
response he was able to make to that appeal. In 
all ages our faith has been conditioned by the 
human medium in which it has had to work. The 
ages of barrenness in Christian experience have 
been those which have lacked richly-endowed per- 
sonalities for its embodiment and exposition ; and 
vice versa, when such personalities have arisen 
and have given themselves wholeheartedly to the 
Divine Spirit, there has been a wide-spread efflor- 
escence of religious experience in the Church at 
large. Ordinary men and women are pensioners 
religiously, to a peculiar degree, of the great souls 
in the community. St. Paul, Origen, Augustine, 
Bernard. Luther, Wesley, etc., have been the focal 
points through which the forces of the gospel have 
radiated into the world at large, and lifted its life 
to higher levels. 

2. The superabundant wealth of the gospel as 
a medium of the Divine energies of redemption. 
The Christian faith is full of spiritual resources 
on which the soul may draw to the utmost of its 
needs. In the teaching of our Lord, the prodigality 
of His illustrations, their varied character, and the 
frequency with which He likens the Kingdom to a 
' feast,' with all its suggestions of a large welcome 
and an overflowing abundance of good things, are 
very characteristic of His own attitude towards 
the gospel He preached ; and St. Paul is pre- 
eminent among NT writers for the way in which 
he has grasped the same idea, and caught the 
spirit of the Master in his exposition of spiritual 
realities. (Cf. 'How many hired servants of my 
father's have bread enough and to spare ' [Lk 15 17 ] 

* Cf. the well-known expression, ' abomination of desolation,' 
applied to a heathen altar (Dn 12" ; cf. 1 Mac 154, Mt 241", 
Mk IS"). See art. ' Abomination of Desolation ' in HDB. 



with ' the grace of God, which is by one man, Jesus 
Christ, hath abounded unto many' [Ro 5 16 ; also 
vv. 17 - 1M - -- 21 ], and many other passages.) 

3. The call for an adequate response on the 
part of believers to the varied and abundant 
resources of the gospel. Here, again, St. Paul 
exhausts the power of language in urging his con- 
verts to allow the Divine energies of salvation to 
have their way with them. The normal type of 
Christian is not reached till his nature is flooded 
with the grace of God, and he in turn is lifted into 
a condition which is characterized by an abounding 
increase of hope, grace, love, good works, and fruit- 
fulness of character. ' Therefore, as ye abound in 
(everything), see that ye abound in this grace also ' 
(2 Co 8 7 ) expresses one of his favourite forms of 
appeal. He was not satisfied to see men raised to 
a slightly higher plane by their faith in Christ ; 
they were to be ' transformed in the spirit of their 
minds' (Ro 12 2 ) ; they were always to 'abound in 
the work of the Lord v (1 Co 15 58 ; cf. 2 Co 9 8 ) ; and, 
as ' they had received ' of him how they might walk 
and ' to please God,' they were exhorted to ' abound 
more and more' (1 Th 4 1 ), and that especially 
because they knew what commandments ' had been ' 
given them by the Lord Jesus ' ( 1 Th 4 2 ). It was 
a subject for joy fulness to him when he found his 
converts thus responding to the power of God (see 
2 Co 8"-). As regards his realization of this Divine 
abundance in his own experience, we find him 
breaking out into an ecstasy of thanksgiving at 
the thought of what God has done for him, and 
of the sense of inward spiritual abundance which 
he consequently enjoys, so that he feels quite in- 
dependent of all outward conditions, however hard 
they may be (cf. Ph 4 11 ' 13 ). This is the language 
of a man who enjoys all the resources of the God- 
head in his inner life, and who can, therefore, be 
careless of poverty, misfortune, sickness, and even 
the prospect of an untimely end. 

LITBRATURK. See Sanday-Headlam, and Ligfhtfoot (especi- 
ally Notes on Epistles of St. Paul), on the passages referred to, 
also Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World, 1891, p. 140, and 

viii. [1897] 5i4. E. GRIFFITH-JONES. 



ABRAHAM ('A/3/>ad/t). Addressing a Jewish 
crowd in the precincts of the Temple, St. Peter 
emphasizes the connexion between the Hebrew and 
the Christian religion by proclaiming that ' the God 
of Abraham . . . hath glorified his servant (iraiSa ; 
cf. RVm) Jesus ' (Ac 3 1S ). This Divine title, which 
is similarly used in St. Stephen's speech (7 32 ), was 
full of significance. All through the OT and the 
NT the foundation of the true religion is ascribed 
neither to the Prophets nor to Moses, but to 
Abraham. Isaac (Gn 26 24 ) and Jacob (31 42 ) wor- 
shipped the God of Abraham, but Abraham did 
not worship the Elohim whom his fathers served 
beyond the River (Jos 24 4 14 - 15 ). He was the head 
of the great family that accepted Jahweh as their 
God. Jews, Muslims, and Christians are all in 
some sense his seed, as having either his blood in 
their veins or his faith in their souls. To the Jews 
he is ' our father Abraham ' (Ac 7 2 , Ro 4 12 , Ja 2 21 ), 
'our forefather (rbv TrpoTr&Topa) according to the 
flesh' (Ro 4 1 ). To the Muhammadans he is the 
'model of religion' (imam, or priest) and the first 
person 'resigned (muslim) unto God' (Qur'an, ii. 
115, 125). To the Christians he is 'the father of 
all them that believe ' (Ro 4 11 ), ' the father of us 
all' (4 16 ). Taking the word Abraham to mean 
(according to the popular word-play, Ro 4 17 1| Gn 17 s ) 
' a father of many nations,' St. Paul regards it as 
indicating that Abraham is the spiritual ancestor 
of the whole Christian Church. 

1. In the Epistles of St. Paul. As Abraham 
was the renowned founder of the Jewish nation 
and faith, it was crucially important to decide 



ABRAHAM 



ABKAHAM 



whether the Jews or the Christians could claim 
his support in their great controversy on justifica- 
tion. The ordinary Jews regarded Abraham as a 
model legalist, whose faith in God (Gn 15 5 '-) con- 
sisted in the fulfilment of the Law, which he knew 
by a kind of intuition. According to the Jewish 
tradition (Bereahith Rabb. 44, Wiinsche), Abraham 
saw the whole history of his descendants in the 
mysterious vision recorded in Gn 15 lff -. Thus he 
is said to have ' rejoiced with the joy of the Law ' 
(Westcott, St. John [in Speaker's Com.], 140). In 
the philosophical school of Alexandria there was 
a much higher conception of faith, which was re- 
garded as ' the most perfect of virtues,' ' the queen 
of virtues,' ' the only sure and infallible gooa, the 
solace of life, the fulfilment of worthy hopes, . . . 
the inheritance of happiness, the entire ameliora- 
tion of the soul, which leans for support on Him 
who is the cause of all things, who is able to do 
all things, and willeth to do those which are most 
excellent' (Philo, Quis rer. div. her. i. 485, de 
Abr. ii. 39). In these passages faith, in so far as 
it expresses a spiritual attitude towards God, does 
not differ much from Christian faith. Nor could 
anything be finer than the Rabbinic Mechilta on 
Ex 14 31 : ' Great is faith, whereby Israel believed 
on Him that spake and the world was. ... In 
like manner thou findest that Abraham our father 
inherited this world and the world to come solely 
by the merit of faith whereby he believed in the 
Lord ; for it is said, and he believed in the Lord, 
and He counted it to him for righteousness ' (Light- 
foot, Galatians, 162). But the ordinary tendency 
of Judaism was to give Abraham's life a pre- 
dominantly legal colour, as in 1 Mac 2 52 ' Was not 
Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was 
reckoned unto him for righteousness ? ' 

To St. Paul faith is the motive power of the 
whole life, and in two expositions of his doctrine 
Bo 4, Gal 3 he affirms the essential identity of 
Abraham's faith with that of every Christian. He 
does not, indeed, think (like Jesus Himself in 
Jn 8 s8 ) of Abraham as directly foreseeing the day 
of Christ, but he maintains that Abraham's faith 
in God as then partially revealed was essentially 
the same as the Christian's faith in God as now 
fully made known in Christ. Abraham had faith 
when he was still in uncircumcision (Ro 4 11 ), faith 
in God's power to do things apparently impossible 
(4 17-19 ), faith by which he both strengthened his 
own manhood and gave glory to God (4 20 ). 
Abraham believed ' the gospel ' which was preached 
to him beforehand, the gospel which designated 
him as the medium of blessing to all the nations 
(Gal 3 8 ). And as his faith, apart from his works, 
was counted to him for righteousness, he became 
the representative believer, in whom all other 
believers, without distinction, may recognize their 
spiritual father. It is not Abraham's blood but 
his spirit that is to be coveted (3 2 ) ; those who are 
of faith (ol K irlffreus) are ' sons of Abraham,' are 
' blessed with the faithful Abraham ' (3 7 - 9 ) ; upon 
the Gentiles has come ' the blessing of Abraham ' 
(3 14 ) ; all who are Christ's, without any kind of 
distinction, are 'Abraham's sons,' fulfilling, like 
him, the conditions of Divine acceptance, and in- 
heriting with him the Divine promises. 

St. Paul uses the narratives of Genesis as he finds them. 
Before the dawn of criticism the theologian did not raise the 
question whether the patriarchal portraits were real or ideal. 
To St. Paul Abraham is a historical person who lived 430 years 
before Moses (Gal 3 17 ), and who was not inferior to the great 
prophets of Israel in purity of religious insight and strength of 
inward piety. It is now almost universally believed that the 
faith ascribed to the patriarchs was itself the result of a long 
historical evolution. But, while the maturer conceptions of a 
later age are carried back to Abraham, the patriarch is not dis- 
solved into a creation of the religious fancy. ' The ethical and 
spiritual idea of God which is at the foundation of the religion 
of Israel could only enter the world through a personal organ 



of divine revelation ; and nothing forbids us to see in Abraham 
the first of that long series of prophets through whom God has 
communicated to mankind a saving knowledge of Himself ' 
(Skinner, Genesis [ICC, 1910], p. xxvil). 

2. In the Epistle of St. James. St. James (2 s1 - 23 ) 
uses the example of Abraham to establish the 
thesis, not that 'a man is justified by faith apart 
from the works of the law ' (Ro S 28 ), but that ' by 
works a man is justified, and not only by faith' 
(Ja 2 M ). While the two apostles agree that 
Christianity is infinitely more than a creed, being 
nothing if not a life, they differ in their conception 
of faith. The meaning which St. James attaches 
to the word is indicated by his suggestion of 
believing demons and dead faith (2 19 - w ). St. Paul 
would have regarded both of these phrases as con- 
tradictions in terms, since all believers are con- 
verted and all faith is living. Asked if faith must 
not prove or justify itself by works, he would 
have regarded the question as superfluous, for a 
faith that means self-abandonment in passionate 
adoring love to the risen Christ inevitably makes 
the believer Christlike. St. James says in effect : 
' Abraham believed God, proving his faith by 
works, and it was counted to him for righteous- 
ness.' With St. Paul righteousness comes between 
faith and works ; with St. James works come 
between faith and righteousness. Had St. James 
been attacking either Galatians or Romans, and 
in particular correcting St. Paul's misuse of the 
example of Abraham, his polemic would have been 
singularly lame. Such a theory does injustice to 
his intelligence. But, if he was sounding a note 
of warning against popular perversions of evangeli- 
cal doctrine, St. Paul, who was often ' slanderously 
reported ' (Ro 3 8 ), must have been profoundly grate- 
ful to him. See, further, art. JAMES, EPISTLE OF. 

It is interesting to note that Clement of Rome co-ordinates 
the doctrines of the two apostles. Taking the typical example 
of Abraham, he asks, ' Wherefore was our father Abraham 
blessed ? ' and answers, ' Was it not because he wrought right- 
eousness and truth through faith ? ' (Ep. ad Cor. 31). If the 
two types of doctrine could be regarded as complementary sets 
of truths, justice was done to both apostles. But the difference 
assumed a dangerous form in the hard dogmatic distinction of 
the Schoolmen between fides informis and fides formata cum 
caritate, the latter of which (along with the ' epistle of straw ' 
on which it seemed to be based) Luther so vehemently re- 
pudiated. 

3. In the Epistle to the Hebrews. The writer 
of Hebrews bases on the incident of Abraham's 
meeting with Melchizedek (He 7 ; cf. Gn 14) an 
argument for a priesthood higher than the Aaronic 
order (v. llff -). To the king -priest of Salem 
Abraham gave tithes, and from him received a 
blessing, thereby owning his inferiority to that 
majestic figure. As Abraham was the ancestor 
of the tribe of Levi, the Aaronic priesthood itself 
may be said to have been overshadowed in that 
hour and ever afterwards by the mysterious order 
of Melchizedek. This is the conception of the 
writer of Ps 110, who identifies God's vicegerent, 
seated on the throne of Zion, not with the Aaronic 
order, but with the royal priesthood of Melchizedek. 
When the Maccabees displaced the house of Aaron, 
and concentrated in their own persons the kingly 
and priestly functions, they found their justifica- 
tion in the priestly dignity of Melchizeaek, and 
called themselves, in his style, ' priests of the 
Most High' (Charles, Book of Jubilees, 1902, pp. 
lix and 191). Finally, when Christ had given a 
Messianic interpretation of Ps 110, it was natural 
that the writer of Hebrews should see the Aaronic 
priesthood superseded by an eternal King-Priest 
after the ancient consecrated order of Melchizedek. 

For divergent critical views of the Abraham-Melchizedek 
pericope of Gn 14 see Wellhausen, Comp.t, 1889, p. 211 f. ; 
Gunkel, Genesis, 253 ; Skinner, Genesis, 269 f. Against 
Wellhausen's theory that the story is a post-exilic attempt to 
glorify the priesthood in Jerusalem, Gunkel and Skinner argu 
for an antique traditional basis. 



ABSTINENCE 



ABSTINENCE 



The writer of Hebrews illustrates his definition 
of faith (II 1 ) by three events in the life of Abraham. 
(1) The patriarch left his home and kindred, 
and ' went put not knowing whither he went ' 
(He II 8 ). His faith was a sense of the unseen and 
remote, as akin to the spiritual and eternal. In 
obedience to a Divine impulse he ventured forth 
on the unknown, confident that his speculative 
peradventure would be changed into a realized 
ideal. The doubting heart says, ' Forward, though 
I cannot see, I guess and fear ' ; the believing 
spirit, ' Look up, trust, be not afraid.' (2) Abraham 
remained all his life a sojourner (ir&poiicos ical 
ira.peirldr)/j.os=3v'in} na, Gn 23 4 ) in the Land of Promise 
(He II 9 ). He left his home in Chaldsea, and never 
found another. Wherever he went he built an 
altar to God, but never a home for himself. He 
was encamped in many places, but naturalized in 
none. His pilgrim spirit is related to his hope of 
an eternal city a beautiful conception transferred 
to Genesis from the literature of the Maccabsean 
period (En. 90 28 - 2fl , Apoc. Bar. 32 s - 4 etc.). (3) By 
faith Abraham offered up Isaac, ' accounting that 
God is able to raise up, even from the dead' 
(He II 19 ). Here again the belief of a later age 
becomes the motive of the patriarch's act of 
renunciation. The narrative in Gn 22 contains 
no indication that the thought of a resurrection 
flashed through his agonized mind. 

LITERATURE. F. W. Weber, Syst. der altsyn. palastin. 
Theol. aus Targum, Midrasch, u. Talmud, 1880, ch. xix. ; J. B. 
Lightfoot, Galatians, 1866, p. 158 ff. ; Sanday-Headlara, 
Romans*, 1902, p. 102 ff. ; W. Beyschlag, NT Theology, 
1894-96, i. 364 ff. ; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christi- 
anity, 1896, p. 116 f. ; G. B. Stevens, Theology of the NT, 
1901, p. 289 ; B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT, 1882-83, L 

*37 ff. JAMES STEAHAN. 

ABSTINENCE. Introduction. The whole of 
morality on its negative side may be included 
under Abstinence. Christian moral progress 
(sanctification) includes a holding fast (KaTtyecrOai.) 
of the good, and an abstaining from (&irx.eff6u) 
every form of evil (1 Th 5 21L ). While Christianity 
has general laws to distinguish the good from the 
bad, yet for each individual Christian these laws 
are focused in the conscience, and the function of 
the latter is to discriminate between the good and 
the bad it cannot devolve this duty on out- 
ward rules. With it the ultimate decision rests, 
and on it also lies the responsibility (Ro 14 8 , He 5 14 ). 
The lists of vices and virtues,* of 'works of the 
flesh' and 'fruits of the spirit,' given in the NT 
are not meant to be exhaustive, out typical ; nor 
are they given to make needless the exercise of 
Christian discernment. The NT is not afraid to 
place in the Christian conscience the decision of 
what is to be abstained from and what is not, 
because it believes in the indwelling of the Holy 
Spirit, and because it exalts personal responsibility. 
It is necessary to make this clear, because, as we 
shall see, the ultimate tribunal of appeal in mat- 
ters of abstinence in the ordinary sense (i.e. in 
the sphere of things indifferent) is the Christian 
conscience. The ideal of Christian conduct is 
sometimes said to be self-realization, not self- 
suppression ; consecration, not renunciation. These 
antitheses are apt to be misleading. In the self 
with which Christianity deals there are sinful ele- 
ments that have to be extirpated. Christian sanc- 
tification takes place not in innocent men, but in 
sinners who have to be cleansed from all filthiness 
of the flesh and spirit (2 Co 7 1 ). To purify oneself 
(1 Jn 3 3 ) is not simply to realize oneself; it is to 
do no sin. 

In all moral conduct there is suppression ; in 
Christian conduct there is extirpation. This nega- 

See Dobschutz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, 
Eng. tr., 1904, p. 406 ff., for lists. 



tive side of Christian conduct is abstinence. It is 
the crucifying of the flesh death unto sin and 
it is the correlative of 'living to righteousness,' 
' being risen with Christ,' etc. Abstinence in this 
sense is an essential and ever-present moment in 
the Christian life. 

More narrowly interpreted, abstinence is a re- 
fraining from certain outward actions as eating, 
drinking, worldly business, marriage, etc. It is 
thus applied to outward conduct, while continence 
((y/rpdreia) is used of inward self-restraint. Cicero 
makes this distinction, though, from the nature of 
the case, he cannot always consistently apply it 
(see Lewis and Short, Lat. Diet., s.v. ' Abstinentia'). 

We may look first at the outward side of absti- 
nence, and then try to find out what the Christian 
principles are (as these are unfolded in the apos- 
tolic writings) that determine its nature and its 
limits. 

I. ASCETIC PRACTICES. 1. Fasting. (a) Fast- 
ing, or abstinence from food and drink, may be un- 
avoidable or involuntary (e.g. Ac 27 21 - M , 1 Co 4 11 , 
2 Co 6 8 * II 27 ,* Ph 4 12 ). Such fastings have a re- 
ligious value only indirectly. They may overtake 
the apostate as well as the apostle. If they are 
caused by devotion to Christian service, they are, like 
all other privations so caused, badges or fidelity; 
and they may be referred to with reasonable pride 
by Christ's ministers (2 Co 6 1 "- II 28 ). They ought 
to silence criticism (cf. Gal 6 17 , where St. Paul 
speaks of his bruises as arty/mra rov 'IijaoO), and 
they enforce Christian exhortation (Col 4 18 , Eph 4'). 
On the principle that he who chooses the end 
chooses the means, such fastings are real proofs of 
fidelity to Christ. They are like the scars of the 
true soldier. 

(b) An absorbing preoccupation with any pursuit 
may be the cause of fasting. The artist or the 
scientist may forget to take food, in the intensity 
of his application to his work ; or any great emo- 
tion like sorrow may make one 'forget to take 
bread.' Such a fast we have in Ac 9 9 , where St. 
Paul, we are told, was without food for three days 
after his conversion. As Jesus fasted in the wil 
derness (Mt 4 1 ' 11 ), or at the well forgot His hungei 
(Jn 4 311 -), so the ferment of the new life acted on 
St. Paul thus also. Fasting is not the cause of 
such pre-occupation, but the effect ; and so its value 
depends on the nature of the emotion causing it.f 
Such involuntary privations, however, are not fast- 
ing in the proper sense. In themselves they are 
morally indifferent, as they may overtake any one 
irrespective of moral conditions ; but, when borne 
bravely and contentedly in the line of Christian 
duty, they are not only indications of true faith, 
but in turn they strengthen that faith (Ro 5 8 ' 8 , 
Ph 4"). 

(c) Real fasting is purposive and voluntary. It 
is a total or partial abstinence from food for an 
unusual period, or from certain foods always or at 
certain times, for a moral or religious end. Such 
a fast is mentioned in Ac 13 2 - 8 14 23 in connexion 
with ordination. It is associated with prayer. 
Some hold that it was the form to ' be permanently 
observed ' in such cases (Ramsay, St. Paul, 1895, 
p. 122). There is no mention, however, of fasting 
at the appointment of Matthias (Ac I 24 ), or of the 
seven (6"). We cannot, therefore, take it as inher- 
ently binding on Christian Churches at such solem- 
nities. It is rather the survival of ancient religious 
practices (like the fasting on the Day of Atone- 
ment), which on the occasions referred to were 
adopted through the force of custom, and served 

* These are sometimes explained as voluntary fasts to use 
Hooker's expression (Ecc. Pol. v. 72. 8) but the contexts seem 
decisive against that view. 

t This was probably what Jesus had in view in the saying in 
Mt 9i. 



ABSTINENCE 



ABSTINENCE 



to solemnize the proceedings. The Atonement fast 
(Ac 27 9 ) is mentioned only as a time limit after 
which navigation was dangerous. It is not said 
that St. Paul fasted on that day, though probably 
he did. 

These Jewish survivals were conserved without 
investigation by the Palestinian Church, though, 
after what Jesus had said on fasting, we may be- 
lieve that the spiritual condition of- the believer, 
rather than the performance of the outward rite, 
would be the essential element. Pharisaism, how- 
ever, follows so closely on the heels of ritual that 
in some quarters it very early influenced Christi- 
anity (cf. Did. i. 3 : ' Fast for those who persecute 
you' ; and Epiph. Hcer. Ixx. 11 : 'When they {i.e. 
the Jews] feast, ye shall fast and mourn for them ' ; 
cf. also Poly carp, vii. 2 ; Hernias, Vis. iii. 10. 6 ; 
and, in the same connexion, the interpolations in 
the NT [Mt 17 21 , Mk Q 29 , Ac 10 s0 , 1 Co 7 s ]). Even 
the Pharisaic custom of fasting twice a week 
(Monday and Thursday) was adopted in some 
quarters, though these days were changed to Wed- 
nesday and Friday (Did. viii. 1). These are the 
later dies stationum or crdcretj (cf. Clem. Alex. 
Strom, vii. 12, p. 877). See ERE v. 844 b . 

To evaluate the practice of fasting, we must look 
to the end aimed at and the efficacy of this means 
to attain that end. (1) In many cases it would be 
mainly a matter of tradition. On any eventful 
occasion men might practise fasting, to ratify a 
decision or induce solemnity, as those Jews did 
who vowed to kill St. Paul (Ac 23 12 ). Under such a 
category would fall the Paschal and pre-baptismal 
fasts. Though not mentioned in the NT, they 
were early practised in the Christian Church (Eus. 
HE v. 24 ; Did. vii. ; Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 61). 
There can be no doubt that ordination and bap- 
tismal and Paschal fasts may serve to solemnize 
these events, yet there is no warrant for making 
them an ecclesiastical rule. In such traditional 
fasting there is often, consciously or unconsciously, 
implicated the feeling that God is thereby pleased 
and merit acquired, and the result in such cases 
is Pharisaic complacency and externalism. Jesus, 
following the great prophets (Is 58 5 ' 7 , Zee 8 19 ), had 
relegated outward rites to a secondary place. He 
demanded secrecy, sincerity, and simplicity in all 
these matters, and the Apostolic Church never 
wholly lost sight of His guidance. St. James, 
while emphasizing the value of prayer (5 17 ' 20 ), 
says nothing of fasting, and be makes real ritual 
consist in works of mercy and blameless conduct 
(I 27 ). Even when fasting was enjoined, the danger 
of externalism was recognized (Hermas, Sim. v. 1 ; 
Barn. ii. 10 ; Justin Martyr, Dial. 15). St. Paul 
had to prove that such fastings could not be re- 
demptively of any value, that they were not bind- 
ing, that they did not place the observer of them 
on a higher spiritual plane than the non-observer, 
that even as means of discipline they were of 
doubtful value, and that they were perpetually 
liable to abuse (Col 2 20ff -). 

(2) Fastings were used in certain cases to induce 
ecstatic conditions. This is a well-known feature 
in apocalyptic writings. Perhaps the Colossi an 
heretics did this (cf. & e6pa.Kev ^u/3arei;a>', Col 2 18 ). 
St. John and the other Apostles with him are said 
to have fasted three days before writing the Fourth 
Gospel (Muratorian fragment). The Apocalypse, 
however, though a opacrw (vision), is lacking in 
the usual accompaniments of a vision, viz. prayer 
and fasting (contrast Hernias, Sim. v. 1). St. 
Peter's vision (Ac 10 9 ' 18 ) was preceded by hunger, 
but it was not a voluntary fast ; nor is there any 
reference to fasting in the case of St. Paul's visions 
(Ac 16 9 18 9f -, 2 Co 120, and the reference in the 
case of Cornelius (Ac 10 30 ) is a later interpolation. 
It was more when direct prophetic inspiration be- 



came a memory rather than when it was a reality 
that men resorted to fasting in order to superin- 
duce it. 

(3) Fasting was resorted to also that alms might 
be given out of the savings. 

1 If there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and 
they have not an abundance of necessaries, they fast for two or 
three days, that they may supply the needy with necessary 
food ' (Aristides, Apology, xv.). Cf. also Hermas, Sim. v. 3. 7 : 
' Reckon up on this day what thy meal would otherwise have 
cost thee, and give the amount to some poor widow or orphan, 
or to the poor.' 

Origen (horn, in Levit. x.) quotes an apostolic 
saying which supports this practice : 

'We have found in a certain booklet an apostolic saying, 
"Blessed is also he who fasts that he may feed the poor"' 
(' Invenimus in quodam libello ab apostolis dictum Beatus est 
qui etiam jejunat pro eo ut alat pauperem '). 

This saying might legitimately be deduced from 
such passages as Eph 4 28 and Ja 2 16 , but the prac- 
tice easily associated itself with the idea of fasting 
as a work of merit. 

' More powerful than prayer is fasting, and more than both 
alms.' 'Alms abolish sins' (2 Clem. xvi. 4 ; cf. Hermas, Sim. 
v,3). 

Fasting done out of Christian love to the brethren 
is noble ; but, when done to gain salvation, it be- 
comes not only profitless but dangerous. ' Though 
I give all my goods to feed the poor and have not 
love, it profateth me nothing' (1 Co 13 3 ). 

(4) Again, fasting may have been viewed as 
giving power over demons (cf. Clem. Horn. ix. 9 ; 
Tertullian, de Jejuniis, 8 : ' Docuit etiam adversus 
diriora demonia jejuniispraeliandum ' ; cf. Mt 17 21 , 
Mk O 29 ). Some find this view in the narrative of 
the Temptation (see EBi, art. ' Temptation '). This 
view of fasting, grotesque as it appears to us, is 
akin to the truth that surfeiting of the body dulls 
the spiritual vision, and that the spiritual life is a 
rigorous discipline (cf. 1 Co 9 s4 ' 27 ). 

What strikes one in the apostolic writings gener- 
ally, as contrasted with later ecclesiastical litera- 
ture, is the scarcity of references to fasting as 
an outward observance. Nowhere is the tradi- 
tional Church ascetic held up to imitation in the 
NT, as Eusebius ( HE ii. 23) holds up St. James, or 
Clement of Alexandria (Peed. ii. 1) St. Matthew, or 
the Clem. Horn. (xii. 6, xv. 7) St. Peter, or Epiph- 
anius (Hasr. Ixxviii. 13) the sons of Zebedee. 

In the NT the references to fasting are almost 
all incidental, and apologetic or hostile. It is 
regarded as due to weakness of faith, or positive 
perversion. Neither St. John, St. James, St. 
Jude, nor St. Peter once mentions it as a means 
of grace. This silence, it is true, ought not to be 
unduly pressed ; yet it is surely a proof that they 
considered fasting as of no essential importance. 
Its revival in the Christian Church was due to 
traditionalism and legalism on the one hand, and 
to ascetic dualism (Orphic, Platonic, Essenic) on 
the other. In the NT the latter influence is 
strenuously opposed (Colossians and Pastorals), 
and the former is as vigorously rejected when it 
makes itself necessary to salvation, although it is 
tenderly treated when it is only a weak leaning 
towards old associations. The whole spirit of 
apostolic Christianity regards fasting as of little 
or no importance, and the experience of the 
Christian Church seems to be that any value it 
may have is infinitesimal compared with the evils 
and perversions that seem so inseparably associ- 
ated with it. According to Eusebius (HE v. 18), 
Montanus was the first to give laws to the Church 
on fasting. The NT is altogether opposed to such 
ecclesiastical laws. The matter is one for the indi- 
vidual Christian intelligence to determine (Ro 14 s ). 

St. Paul's language in 1 Co Q 24 *- has been ad- 
duced in support of self-torture of all kinds ; but, 
while we must not minimize the reality of Christian 



ABSTINENCE 



ABSTINENCE 



discipline, nothing can be legitimately deduced 
from this passage or any other in favour of fasting 
or flagellation as a general means of sanctification, 
nor is the Apostle's view based on a dualism which 
looks on matter and the human body as inherently 
evil. It may be said that interpolations like 
1 Co 7" (cf. Ac 10 30 , Mt 17 21 , Mk 9 29 ) reveal the 
beginnings of that ascetic resurgence which 
reached its climax in monastic austerities, and 
that there is at least a tinge of ascetic dualism in 
certain Pauline passages (e.g. Ro 8 1S , 1 Co 5 5 7 1 " 8 
O 27 , 2 Co 4 1U - ", Col 3 8 ) ; but even those who hold 
this view of these Pauline passages admit 'that there 
is very little asceticism, in the ordinary sense, in 
St. Paul's Epistles, while there is much that makes 
in the opposite direction ' (McGiffert, Apostol. Age, 
1897, p. 136). We shall see, however, when we 
come to deal with the principles of abstinence as 
unfolded by St. Paul, that even this minimum 
residuum has to be dropped. 

We may conclude, then, that, according to the 
NT, fasting is not enjoined or even recommended 
as a spiritual help. The ideal is life with the Risen 
Christ, which involves not only total renunciation 
of all sinful actions but self-restraint in all conduct. 
When the individual Christian finds fasting to be a 
part of this self-restraint, then it is useful ; but one 
fails to find any proof in the NT that fasting is 
necessarily an element of self-restraint. When it 
is an effect of an absorbing spiritual emotion, or 
when practised to aid the poor, or involuntarily 
undergone in the straits of Christian duty, then it 
is highly commendable. 

2. The use of wine. While drunkenness as 
well as gluttony is sternly condemned, nowhere is 
total abstinence, in our sense, enforced. In one 
passage it has even been contended that St. Paul 
indirectly opposes it (1 Ti 5), but his words in our 
time would be simply equivalent to medical advice 
to the effect that total abstinence as a principle 
must be subordinated to bodily health. Thus, while 
total abstinence is in itself not an obligatory duty, 
it may become so on the principle that we ought 
not to do anything by which our brother stumbles, 
or is offended, or is made weak (1 Co 8 13 ). This 
principle, which is equally applicable to fasting, 
must be considered in deciding the Christian at- 
titude towards all outward observances. While 
Christianity recognizes the indifferent nature of 
these customs, while its liberty frees Christians 
from their observance, yet cases may arise when 
this liberty has to be subordinated to love and the 
interests of Christian unity. In 1 Co 8 the Apostle 
is dealing with the conditions of his own time ; our 
conditions did not engage his attention. Christian 
abstainers can find an adequate defence for their 
position in the degrading associations of strong 
drink in our modern life. On the other hand, total 
abstinence from strong drink is no more a univer- 
sally binding duty than fasting is, nor are ecclesi- 
astical rules called for in the one case more than in 
the other.* Both these customs fall within the 
sphere of things indifferent, and are to be deter- 
mined by the individual in the light of the nature 
of the Christian life, which is 'neither meat nor 
drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost ' (Ro 14 17 ). 

3. Marriage and celibacy. We are not here 
concerned with the NT doctrine of marriage (q.v.) 
in its totality, but with the question as to whether 
celibacy is commanded as a superior grade of living, 
and as to whether this is based on a dualistic view 
which regards the sexual functions as in their very 
nature evil. To begin with, marriage is viewed by 
St. Paul as being in general a human necessity, as 

The ' water-folk ' found in the Eastern Church in the 3rd 
cent, (who objected to wine at the Lord's Supper), cannot 
appeal to NT principles for a Justification of their actions. 



indeed a preventive against incontinency. It is a 
' part of his greatness that, in spite of his own 
somewhat ascetic temperament, he was not blind 
to social and physiological facts' (Drummond, 
quoted in EGT on 1 Th 4 4 ). He recommends those 
who can to remain single as he is himself. In view 
of the approaching world-end in which he believed, 
marriage meant the multiplication of troubles that 
would make fidelity to Christ more difficult ; and 
perhaps in this light also the propagation of the 
race was undesirable. It is possible also that he 
may have been here influenced unconsciously by 
his Rabbinical training, and that he interpreted 
his own case as too generally applicable. He was 
a celibate for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake (Mt 
19 10 " 12 ), and he may have made the mistake of de- 
siring to universalize his own exceptional case. 

Yet there is no ground for the view that celibacy 
in itself is a superior form of life. * St. Paul does 
not say that it can produce that life or is necessary 
to it, but when it is a consequence of it, then it is 
of value. It is the supremacy of single-hearted 
devotion to Christ that ne holds out as an ideal, 
and his view is that in some cases marriage en- 
dangers this. Again, marriage is not to him 
simply a preventive against uncleanness (see art. 
SOBERNESS). It is also the object of sanctification, 
and its relations have their own honour (1 Th 4 4 ; 
see MARRIAGE, VIRGINITY). He uses it as an 
illustration of the highest relationship ; he opposes 
those who prohibit it (1 Ti 4 2 ) owing to a false 
asceticism. It is true he does not there give 
reasons, as he does in the case of abstinence from 
food, because the same principle applies to both 
cases. While, then, we may admit that on this ques- 
tion his view was narrow, we may say with Sabatier 
(The Apostle Paul, Eng. tr., 1891, p. 164) that ' this 
narrowness, for which he has been so greatly 
blamed, does not arise from a dualistic asceticism. 
There is no dualism to be found in Paul's doctrine.' 

4. World-flight is not encouraged in the NT. 
Slaves even are warned to abide in their situations, 
knowing that they are God's freemen (see art. 
ABUSE). The necessity of labour is unfolded in 
the Thessalonian Epistles, against the practice of 
those who had given up work under escnatological 
influences. World-flight is not conquering the 
world, but rather giving up the idea of conquering 
it, abandoning the battlefield, and, as such, is 
contrary to the apostolic view. St. Paul did not, 
it is true, expatiate after the manner of modern 
moralists on the dignity of labour, t but he did 
insist on 'the divineness of those obligations and 
ties which constitute man's social life. . . '.' The 
institutions of society 'marriage, the state, the 
rights of possession are of Divine appointment, 
and must De upheld and honoured, however short 
the time before the order to which they belong 
shall pass away forever ' (Stevens, Theol. of NT, 
1899, p. 454). 

II. ASCETIC PRINCIPLES. Abstinence is wider 
than fasting or outward observances ; it implies 
principles by which these external actions are 
determined, and it keeps in view also the inner 
reality of which they are the expression. It in- 
cludes character as well as conduct. Indeed, it is 
this inward reality which is mainly of value in the 
Christian ideal of abstinence. 

1. The verb OKTKCIV occurs only once in the NT 
(Ac 24 16 ), in this sense of a life whose activities are 
explained, in the way both of omission and com- 
mission, by an inner principle. St. Paul was 
accused of deliberately offending Jewish legal sus- 

* Harnack (on Did. xi. 8) thinks Eph 532 recommend* 
celibacy as a higher life for the Christian. See, however, 
Schaff, The Oldest Church Manual, 1885, p. 202. 

t See Harnack's What is Christianity? (Eng. tr., 1904, p 
123 ff.) for remarks qualifying the idea underlying the phrase, 
' the dignity of labour.' 



ABSTINENCE 



ABSTINENCE 



ceptibilities. He denies the charge. While he 
adheres to the heresy of 'the Way,' he does so 
without intentionally corning into collision with 
the customs or prejudices of others. Not only so, 
but his plan is a studied attempt to conform to 
all customs of Jew and Gentile, of ' weak ' and 
'strong,' consistently with his faithfulness to God 
and his being under law to Christ. This is his 
dffK-rjffis for the gospel's sake (1 Co 9 19 ' 22 ). His 
whole life is an illustration of this. He yielded to 
Jewish susceptibilities (Ac 16 3 18 18 21 26 ), and bore 
with Gentile immaturity (1 Th 2 7 ' 12 ). This con- 
duct was not due to fickleness or guile (1 Co 2 16 , 
1 Th 2 3 ), but to love (2 Co 5 13 '-), and it was done 
in simplicity and godly sincerity of conscience 
(2 Co I 1 -, Ac 24 16 ). It was different from the love- 
less superior liberty of Corinthian liberalism, and 
from the servile man-pleasing of weak Judaism 
(Gal 1. 2). It was, in short, a reproduction of that 
/c^wcrts of self (so different from selfish human ac- 
quisitiveness) which was the great feature of the 
life of Christ (Ph 2 8 ). 

To St. Paul this involved very real asceticism. 
In striking language he figures himself as in the 
course of his Christian race undergoing privations, 
abstinences, and self-discipline as great as any 
runner for the Isthmian prize or as any pugilist. 
It is not simply that this asceticism involved 
abstinence from sin Christianity demands that 
from all ; it involved also the giving up of privi- 
leges and rights, and the denial to self of anything 
that would hinder his being sure of the prize or 
that would weaken others or cause them to stumble. 
It is a warning to Christian liberalism in Corinth 
not to degenerate into licence and so to fall. 
Christian asceticism is the remedy against this. 
We are not to infer that St. Paul practised bodily 
torture, that he went, as it were, out of his way to 
invent austerities, self-imposed fastings, or flagella- 
tions. What he refers to here is the effect on his 
whole life of his absorbing passion for men's salva- 
tion. That was the expulsive power which made 
him an ascetic in this sense, which made him 
abnegate his rights of maintenance at Thessalonica 
and Corinth, which made him work at night though 
preaching through the day, which overcame his 
bodily weaknesses, which brought him into dangers 
by land and sea without being deterred by the fear 
of pain or privation. 

Nor was this &rio;<rts of his a superior form of life 
which was binding only on a few choice souls. St. 
Paul has no double morality. No one can empty 
himself too much for Christ or endure too much 
for Him. In this way must we explain the mani- 
fold passages where the Christian life is compared 
to a race, to an athletic contest, to military life and 
warfare. Just as these involve abstinence, so also 
does Christianity. This asceticism is, however, not 
arbitrarily imposed or cunningly invented ; it is 
the consequence of fidelity to Christ's cause. It 
arises out of the very nature of the Christian life. 
Its outward manifestation is accidental. What is 
essential is the presence of the self-denying spirit, 
which spends and is spent willingly out of love to 
Christ. It is a complete perversion to suppose that 
outward austerities can create this spirit. Out- 
ward hardships of any sort must be effects, not 
causes. This Christian asceticism is not due to 
any disparagement of the body or undervaluation 
of earthly relationships or a false view of matter. 
The asceticism born of these is at best only a 
ffa/j-ariKTi yvnvacria* (1 Ti 4 7 *-), while Christian as- 
ceticism is one whose end is piety. The one is of 
little profit, the other of eternal worth. This 
gymnastic for holiness arises out of the provi- 

* This o-ujuariKi) yv/nvowria is not athletics in our sense ; it is a 
bodily discipline dictated by a philosophico-religious view of 
the body a dualistic view o! things (cf. 1 Xi 43). 



dential disciplines furnished copiously by a strict 
adherence to the line of Christian duty. It is the 
Koiriav KO.I 6veidie<r6ai, the exhaustive labouring, and 
the abuse (or earnest conflict [d.ywifcffBa.i]) of the 
man who sets his hope on the living God (1 Ti 4 10 ). 

2. What, then, are the principles that determine 
the nature and limits of Christian abstinence? 
We may learn these by considering the general 
word for ' abstinence ' (a.ir-)(fa6a.i) in the NT 
(Ac 15 20 - M , 1 Th 4 s 5 23 , 1 Ti 4 3 , 1 P 2 n ). These 
principles did not disengage themselves all at once 
in the Church's consciousness. The first real 
attempt at such a disengagement is found in the 
so-called Apostolic Decree (Ac 15). This was 
nothing more than a working compromise to ease 
the existing situation. Attempts have been made 
often and early to moralize it and so find in it a 
valid basis for Christian abstinence. Thus ' blood ' 
was explained as ' homicide,' and ' things strangled ' 
were omitted, as in Codex D ; but such attempts 
are beside the point as surely as the attempts to 
judaize the document completely by making ' forni- 
cation' mean 'marriage within the prohibited 
degrees.' For our purpose the Decree is valuable 
historically rather than morally. It is a land-mark 
in the liberating of Christianity from ceremonial 
Judaism, similar to the evangelizing of Samaria 
by Philip and his baptizing of the eunuch, or the 
dealing of St. Peter with Cornelius. It does not, 
however, supply a logical or lasting basis for 
abstinence. Such a basis is furnished by St. Paul 
(1 Th 4 1 ' 8 , 1 Co 6 1 '- 20 , Gal 5 18 etc. ; cf. 1 P 2 11 ). 
The ground of Christian abstinence is found in the 
nature of the Christian life, which is a holy calling 
a fellowship with the Holy One whose animat- 
ing principle is the Holy Spirit. The Christian 
man body, soul, and spirit is in union with 
Christ. Hence the very nature of the Christian 
life gives a positive principle of abstinence. Every- 
thing carnal is excluded. 'The carnal mind is 
enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can be' (Ro 8 7 ). This deter- 
mines positively what is of necessity to be avoided, 
and lists of these sins are given in the NT (see 
above, Introduction). These are ' the works of the 
flesh.' At the very lowest foundation of the 
Christian life there must be personal purity. 
ayia<r/j.6s is wholly opposed to aKadapffia (1 Th 4 7 ). 

Some have maintained that St. Paul tends to 
regard sanctification as mainly absence from 
sensual sin (Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, 
Eng. tr., 1904, ii. 334), and others that he, possibly 
from his own bitter experience of this sin, empha- 
sized this aspect of sanctification (A. B. Bruce, 
St. PauVs Conception of Christianity, 1894, p. 264). 
But St. Paul's view of sanctification includes the 
whole personality. He was keenly alive to the 
' inconceivable evil of sensuality, although he 
himself had the charism of continence (1 Co 7 7 ). 
The reason for his emphasis on personal purity is 
found in the immoral state of Grecian cities ' the 
bottomless sexual depravity of the heathen world ' 
(Schaff, op. cit. p 202) and in the sensual bias of 
human nature. Christians had to learn this grace 
of purity (1 Th 4 4 ). 

The Christian life, then, is a positive life a life 
that is being sanctified ; and this includes all along 
a negative element, for Christianity does not deal 
with innocent men, but with sinners. Hence the 
crucifying of the flesh, with its affections and lusts, 
and the mortifying of the bodily members are just 
the negative side of advance in holiness. 

It is sometimes held that at first St. Paul's 
teaching on this point was tinged with dualism, 
and that he tended to regard the body itself as 
essentially evil, and that it was only later on, when 
the full consequences of his early views were carried 
into effect, as in Colossians and the Pastorals, 



10 



ABSTINENCE 



ABSTINENCE 



that he came to repudiate this dualistic asceticism 
(Baring Gould, A Study of St. Paul, 1897 [see 
Index, under 'Asceticism']), or it is maintained 
that his attitude towards the flesh changes that 
at times he views it as something to be extirpated, 
while at other times and oftener ' his exhortations 
to his Christian readers have reference commonly 
not to the Christian's attitude towards his fleshly 
nature, but to his relation to Christ or the Divine 
Spirit within him' (McGiffert, Apostol. Age, p. 
137 f. ). The truth is that the change was not in 
St. Paul's principle, but in the circumstances and 
conditions with which he happened to be at any 
time dealing, and that this opposition between a 
negative and a positive attitude is not a contra- 
diction, but only exhibits the opposite sides of the 
one Christian principle of sanctification. Abstain- 
ing and retaining, pruning and growth, are not 
contradictories but complements. Even McGiffert, 
as we have seen, admits that ' there is very little 
asceticism, in the ordinary sense, in Paul's epistles, 
while there is much that makes in the opposite 
direction ' (op. cit. p. 136). These distinctions, 
however, are largely irrelevant. To St. Paul the 
Christian life was a life of sanctification, and this 
included both aspects. 

This positive principle, then, of Christian abstin- 
ence is found in the very nature of the Christian 
life, which includes the affirmation of all the per- 
sonality and its relationships as instruments of 
the spirit, and also the negation of the flesh and the 
world, or of personality and its relationships as 
alienated from the Spirit of God. 

This principle, just because it contained these 
two moments, was apt to be misunderstood. Its 
twofold unity was apt to be disrupted, and we may 
well believe that the later Gnostic dualism and 
licentious libertinism may both have appealed to 
the authority of St. Paul. The Apostle, however, 
had a second principle of abstinence which helps us 
to correct this antagonism. He clearly distin- 
guished between those things that in their very 
nature were hostile to the Christian life and those 
things that were indifferent. The neglect or abuse 
of this principle is apt to confuse the whole ques- 
tion of abstinence. The difficulty is intensified by 
the fact that in this region of the indifferent we are 
dealing with the application of a universal principle 
to changing conditions, so that, to use logical 
language, while the major premiss is the same, 
the minor premiss varies, and thus the right con- 
clusion has to be discovered from the nature of the 
conditions with which we are for the moment deal- 
ing. Thus we find that the conditions at Rome 
and Corinth were not the conditions present in 
Colossians or the Pastorals, and accordingly St. 
Paul deals with each according to its merits. His 
general principle in regard to indifferent things is, 
'All things are lawful.' This is universally ap- 
plicable only inside this universe of discourse. It 
is not applicable to our relation to those things 
that by their very nature are inimical to the 
Christian life. To apply the principle to the 
latter sphere is to degenerate into libertinism such 
as St. John, St. Jude, and St. Peter had to face. 

While St. Jude and St. Peter are content with 
combating this libertinism mainly by denunciation 
and exhortations to Christians, St. John applies 
St. Paul's positive principle of abstinence to refute 
it. He points out the inadmissibility of sin ( 1 Jn 
2 28f> )- By this neither he nor St. Paul means per- 
fectionism, nor yet are they speaking ideally of the 
Christian life. It is not true, as the Gnostics say, 
that the gold of Christianity is not injured by the 
mud of impurity (Irenaeus, c. Hcer. i. 6. 2). Some 
so explained the saying ascribed to Nicholas (cf. 
Rev 2*- 15 ), SeTv ira.pa.\pr)aOa.i. TTJ (rapid ( ' the flesh must 
be abused'). According to Clem. Alex. (Strom. 



ii. 20), ' abandoning themselves like goats to 
pleasure, as if insulting the body, they lead a life 
of self-indulgence.' It is this that St. John is con- 
futing in these perfectionist passages, just as St. 
Paul confutes ascetic severity towards the body in 
Colossians, by pointing to the nature of the new 
life the Christian has in Christ. 

This Christian principle of abstinence, then, 
' All things are lawful,' does not apply to sin. It 
has further limitations. These are unfolded in 
1 Cor. and Romans. The abstainers in both these 
cases were in the minority. They did not base 
their views on a material dualism. They were 
under the influence of an atmosphere rather than 
a system, and they were apt to be treated in a 
high-handed fashion. They were not endangering 
the very basis of Christianity as a free service of 
God, as the Galatians were. Hence they had to 
be defended rather than condemned. St. Paul 
says all he can in their favour, although he ranges 
himself in principle on the other side. He tells 
the advocates of liberty that love is superior to the 
Christian's freedom towards things indifferent, that 
it makes liberty look as much on the weakness of 
others as on its own strength. The interests of 
brotherly love and Christian unity make liberty 
impose restraints on itself. This restraint is a 
noble asceticism. ' The liberty of faith is found 
in the bondage of love ' (Sabatier, Paul, p. 163). 
He warns the advocates of liberty also that they 
may apply this principle to matters that are 
essential and not indifferent. This warning was 
necessary, because idolatry was so identified with 
all social functions that it was difficult to escape it. 
Why not to advert to the coming conditions 
adore the image of the Emperor ? Why not throw 
incense into the fire ? Just because by so doing 
the first and major principle of Christian abstin- 
ence was destroyed, viz. that it was a holy life in 
fellowship with the risen Christ ; and its second 
principle of freedom in things indifferent did not 
consequently apply. 

Yet this second principle was distinctly valuable. 
It was a great step in advance to have it clearly 
enunciated. For the weak brother, as in Galatia, 
might become intolerant ; he might become the 
victim of false views, which would look on the ob- 
servance of indifferent rites as a necessary quali- 
fication of full salvation and Christian privilege. 
Then Christian liberty in its fullness must be 
maintained (Gal 5 1 ). This liberty rightly under- 
stood contains in itself the real principle of ab- 
stinence from what is sinful. Nowhere have we 
fuller lists of the works of the flesh given than in 
the Galatian Epistle. 

Or, again, as in Colossians and the Pastorals, 
a false asceticism might be present which re- 
garded matter and body as evil, in which case 
both principles would be used to destroy such a 
view. 

(a) In regard to indifferent matters like food 
and drink God has given freedom. The argument 
is the same as that used by Jesus when He purified 
all meats (Mk 7 19 ). These minutiae of fasting are 
human inventions, not Divine commands ; and to 
respect them casuistically is to blur the distinction 
between the essential and the indifferent. We get 
what God meant us to get from perishable meats 
when we joyfully use them with a thankful spirit 
towards God. They, like the bodily appetites 
which they satisfy, do not belong to the eternal 
world, but to the natural. Yet the natural world 
and its relations to us, our bodies and their re- 
quirements, are of God and can all be used to His 
glory. Our bodies, souls, and spirits are His. It 
is not by using severity towards the body or by 
abstaining from marriage or leaving our earthly 
callings that we can gain further sanctification. In 



ABUSE, ABUSEES 



ABYSS 



11 



fact, St. Paul says that this d<f>eidla o-w/uaros 
severity towards the body is of little practical 
value (Col 2 28 ). Its aim is to destroy the body, not 
to fit it for God's service. Logically carried to its 
issue, this false asceticism would not only enfeeble 
the soul by debasing the body, but would destroy 
the body and matter altogether. But God's ideal 
for the body is different (cf. Ph 3 21 ), so that what 
is to be aimed at by the Christian is the destruc- 
tion of the flesh (<rdp|), not of the body as such 
(ffufw.). 

But (b) the Apostle uses the primary principle of 
Christian abstinence to refute this dualistic asceti- 
cism. He shows that Christianity is not a matter 
of prohibitions, but of a renewed life a walking in 
the Spirit. Asceticism at its best leaves the house 
empty. It is doubtful from history and physiology 
if it can even do that, but the new life in Christ 
has an expulsive power against sin and a construc- 
tive power of holiness. 

These, then, are the principles that govern Chris- 
tian abstinence: (1) The Christian life as a 'holy 
calling ' demands abstinence from all sin. This pro- 
hibits not only sinful actions but sinful thoughts. 
This is what may be called essential abstinence. 
(2) Besides this, there may be abstinence in in- 
different matters, but it rests with the individual 
conscience to determine when this is necessary 
for the furtherance of the new life in Christ. 
This sphere by its very nature is not subject to 
obligatory ecclesiastical rules, nor must such ab- 
stinence be made the basis of salvation or of a 
higher moral platform, nor must it be based on a 
false view of matter or of the human body or of 
human relationships. 

See also artt. SELF-DENIAL and TEMPERANCE. 

LITERATURE. Consult the books referred to in the article and 
the various Commentaries. See also J. B. Ligrhtfoot, C'olos- 
siantf, 1879, p. 397 ff. ; C. E. Luthardt, Christian Ethics 
before the Reformation, tr. Hastie, Edinburgh , 1889 ; O. 
Zockler, Kritische Gesch. der Askese, Frankfurt am M., 1897 ; 
A. Harnack, History of Dogma, Eng. tr., 1894-99; H. J. 
Holtzmann, NT Theologie, Tubingen, 1911, bk. iv. ch. vii.; 
A. B. D. Alexander, The Ethics of St. Paul, Glasgow, 1910 ; 
A. Ritschl, Entstehung der altkathol. Kirche, Bonn, 1857, p. 
173 f. ; E. Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages 
upon the Christian Church (Hibbert Lecture, 1888), London, 
1890, Lecture vi. DONALD MACKENZIE. 

ABUSE, ABUSER3. The Latin abiltor means 
either (1) ' use badly,' ' misuse,' or (2) ' use to the 
full.' In this second sense Cicero uses the word 
of spending one's whole leisure time with a friend 
(see Lewis and Short, Latin Diet., s.v. ' Abutor '). 

The Greek verb Karaxpao/JMi had both these mean- 
ings. Thus in Plato (Menex. 247 A) it means 
' use wrongly ' ; and Clem. Alex. Peed. i. (p. 142, 
Potter) speaks of ' using fully every device of wis- 
dom.' In older English the verb had both mean- 
ings. Cranmer's Bible has ' abuse ' = ' use to the 
full ' in Col 2 22 . In both 1 Co 7 S1 and 9 18 KaraxpdofMi 
means ' use to the full.' The RV translates it so in 
9 18 and marginally so in 7 S1 . 

(a) i Co 7 31 . The connexions (e.g. marriage), 
circumstances (e.g. sorrow and joy), and concerns 
(e.g. business and wealth) of life have in Christianity 
an emotional interest. Stoicism would expel these 
emotions and leave the soul empty. Christianity 
determines them eschatologically (cf. 1 Co 7 29a 3lb ). 
To avoid abuse of the world is to use it sub specie 
finis. Abuse here borders on our meaning of 
misuse (cf. French abuser on abuse celui qui se 
laisse captiver ; and Mark Pattison's note on Pope's 
Essay on Man, ii. 14) ; and that perhaps is why 
RV retains 'abuse.' Texts like this apply in 
their original freshness and strength to times of 
crisis (cf. Luther's hymn, ' Gut, Ehre, Kind, und 
\Veib . . . lass fahren dahin '), when the dissolu- 
tion of society seems imminent, but in essence they 
are applicable to all time, as human life is always 



uncertain. They do not, however, encourage aloof- 
ness from or slackness in social duties (cf. St. Paul's 
attitude towards the non-workers in Thessalonica, 
2 Th 3 lom ). 

(6) 1 Co 9 18 . One phase of St. Paul's accommodat- 
ing conduct (irvyKardpaffis) for the gospel's sake 
was the voluntary abridgment of his rights of 
maintenance by the Corinthians ( 1 Co 9 7 " 14 , 2 Co II 8 ). 
This accommodation must be distinguished from 
men-pleasing (cf. Gal I 10 ). As the height of right 
may be the height of injury (summum ius summa 
iniuria), so conversely the abnegation of Christian 
rights for the gospel's sake enhances the power of 
both Evangelist and Evangel (cf.. Mk lO 2911 ). 

Summary. A lawful use of the world (1 Co 7 S1 ) 
or even of Christian rights (9 18 ) becomes harmful 
when dissociated from eternal issues, or pursued 
without regard to others. The lower planes of life 
gain significance in subordination to the highest. 
Rights legally due may, if pressed without regard 
to love, become injurious. 

(c) In 1 Co 6 9 and 1 Ti I 10 apffevoKotrat is translated 
' abusers of themselves with mankind ' (cf. Ro I 27 
written from Corinth). This unnatural vice is that 
known in Greek literature as ircuSe/jacrWa. In St. 
Paul's view sins of uncleanness were the inevitable 
Divine penalty of forgetfulness of God a view 
strengthened by the association between unclean- 
ness and the worship of Aphrodite in places like 
Corinth. 



LITERATURE. Grimm-Thayer, *.. (caraxpao/iai ; HDD, 
vol. i. art. 'Abuse'; the Comm. on above passages, e.g. 
Edwards in EGT and Hand-Corn. ; cf. also C. J. Vaughan, 
Lemons of Life and Godliness, London, 1870, Sermon xix. ; 
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, vol. iii. sermon xiv. ; W. G. 
Blaikie, Present Day Tracts, no. 4, 'Christianity and the 
Life that now is.' On irauSepaorio. consult W. A. Becker, 
Charikles, 3 vols., Berlin, 1877-78, voL ii. p. 252 ff. 

DONALD MACKENZIE. 

ABYSS. This is the RV rendering of the word 
<J/3i/er<ros which occurs in Lk 8 S1 , Ro 10 7 , Rev 9 U * " 
II 7 17 8 20 L 3 . In Lk. and Rom., A V translates 'deep'; 
in Rev., ' bottomless pit ' no distinction, however, 
being made between rb <f>ptap rijs afifaffov in 9 1 - 2 
(RV ' the pit of the abyss ') and i) afivo-cros simply 
in the remaining passages (RV 'the abyss'). 
&fiv<rffos (from a intens. and ^3u<r<r6j, Ion. for fivQ&s, 
' the depth ') occurs in classical Greek as an adj. 
meaning ' bottomless,' but in biblical and ecclesi- 
astical Greek almost invariably as a substantive 
denoting ' the bottomless place,' ' the abyss.' The 
word is found frequently in the LXX, usually 
as a rendering of the Heb. t'hdm, and primarily 
denotes the water-deeps which at first covered the 
earth (Gn I 2 , Ps 103 (104) 6 ) and were conceived of 
as shut up afterwards in subterranean storehouses 
(32 (33) 7 ). In Job 38 16f - the abyss in the sense of 
the depths of the sea is used as a parallel to 
Hades ; and in 41 23 (LXX) the sea-monster regards 
the Tartarus of the abyss as his captive. In Ps 
70 (71) 20 ' the abyss' is applied to the depths of the 
earth, and is here evidently a figurative equiva- 
lent for Sheol, though it is nowhere used in the 
LXX to render the Heb. word. In the later Jewish 
eschatology, where Sheol has passed from its OT 
meaning of a shadowy under world in which there 
are no recognized distinctions between the good 
and the bad, the wicked and the weary (cf. Job 3 17 , 
EC 9*), and has become a sphere of definite moral 
retribution, the conception of the abyss has also 
undergone a moral transformation. The Ethiopian 
Book of Enoch is especially suggestive for the 
development of the eschatological conceptions that 
appear in pre-Christian Judaism ; and in the earliest 
part of that book the fallen angels and demons are 
represented as cast after the final judgment into 
a gulf (xdos) of fire (10 13 - 14 ), while in 21 7 the chasm 
(Sia/coTn?) filled with fire (cf. TO <f>pap in Rev 9 1 - 3 ) is 
described as bordered by the abyss. Apparently 



12 



ACCEPTANCE 



ACCEPTANCE 



the abyss was conceived of as the proper home of 
the devil and his angels, in the centre of which 
was a lake of fire reserved as the place of their 
final punishment. 

The previous history of the word explains its use 
in the NT. In Ro 10', where he is referring to Dt 
30 13 , St. Paul uses it simply as the abode of the dead, 
Sheol or Hades a sense equivalent to that of Ps 70 
(71 P. In Lk 8 31 the penal aspect of the abyss conies 
clearly into view ; it is a place of confinement for 
demons. In Rev. we are in the midst of the visions 
and images of apocalyptic eschatology. In 9 1 - 2 
' the pit of the abyss ' sends forth a smoke like the 
smoke of a great furnace. The abyss has an angel 
of its own whose name is Abaddon (q.v.) or Apoll- 
yon (v. 11 ). From it 'the beast' issues (II 7 17 8 ), 
and into it ' the old serpent which is the Devil and 
Satan ' is cast for a thousand years (20 1 ' 3 ). 

LITERATURE. The Commentaries and Bible Dictionaries ; art- 
'Abyss' in ERE. J. C. LAMBERT. 

ACCEPTANCE. The noun itself is not found in 
the AV of the NT, though we come very near it in 
'acceptation' (dirodoxri), 1 Ti I 15 4 9 . Instances of 
the verb and adjective are frequent, and are mostly 
equivalents of d^xonat and its derivatives, as the 
following list shows: 3^xA, 2 Co 6 1 8 17 II 4 ; 
5eT<k, Ph 4 18 ; dTrddexros, 1 Ti 2 3 5 4 ; Tr/wo-S^o/tai, 
He II 35 ; fv-n-p&ffdeKTos, Ro 15 16 - 31 , 2 Co 6 2 8 12 , 1 P 2 5 . 
We also find \a/j.pdvw, Gal 2 s ; cMpevTos,* Ro 12 1 - a 
14 18 , 2 Co 5 a , Eph 5 10 , Ph 4 18 , Col 3 M , Tit 2 9 , He 13 21 , 
nndevapdffTus,* He 12 28 ; x<i/>is, 1 P 2' 20 ; and xapir<5w, 
Eph I 6 . It should be noticed that in the RV the 
adjective ' well-pleasing ' often takes the place of 
the AV ' acceptable ' ; and that in Eph 1" the 
familiar expression ' (his grace) wherein he hath 
made us accepted in the Beloved' gives place to 
the more correct ' which he freely bestowed upon 
us,' etc. See the commentaries of Westcott and 
Armitage Robinson, in loc. 

2 Co 8 17 (Titus 'accepted the exhortation') and 
He II 89 ('not accepting deliverance') do not call 
for comment. With 2 Co II 4 on the non-accept- 
ance of another gospel than that of Paul, compare 
1 Ti 1 s and 4 1 , 2 Ti I 15 4 10 ; see also for the ' accepted 
time' (the day of opportunity for accepting the 
Divine message) 2 Co 6 1 ' 2 (cf. Lk 4 19 ). In Ro 15 31 
St. Paul hopes that the collection for the Jerusalem 
poor may be acceptable to the saints ; and, refer- 
ring to the same project in 2 Co 8 12 , lays down the 
principle that contributions are acceptable in pro- 
portion to the willingness with which they are given. 

We are now left with the passages which speak 
of God's acceptance of man. Christians are ' child- 
ren of light,' are to 'prove what is acceptable (or 
well-pleasing) to the Lord' (Eph 5 10 ; cf. Col 3-'), to 
test and discern the Lord's will (Ro 12 2 ). They are 
'to make it their aim,' whether living or dying, 
' to be well-pleasing to him ' (2 Co 5 9 ). 

What then are the principles and practices that 
ensure this happy consummation ? We may first 
notice the familiar negative proposition set forth 
in Gal 2 15 and Ac 10 34 'God accepteth no man's 
person ' (i.e. the mere outward state and presence) ; 
and over against it the comprehensive declaration 
of Ac 10 35 ' In every nation he that feareth God 
and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him.' 
This furnishes a starting-point for a detailed enum- 
eration of the courses which are ' well-pleasing ' to 
God, and which may be set forth as follows : the 
offering of our bodies as a living sacrifice (Ro 12 2 ) ; 
the serving of Christ by not putting stumbling- 
blocks before weaker brethren (14 18 ) ; missionary 
work the ' offering up J of the Gentiles ( 15 16 ) ; the 
gift of the Philippian Church to St. Paul in prison 

* On the use of these words in inscriptions see A. Deissmann, 
Bible Studies, 214 f. The use of ipeords, ' pleasing,' and the 
verb apeVicw in the NT should also be noted. 



(Ph 4 18 ; cf. Mt 25 31 ' 46 ) ; filial affection to a widowed 
mother (1 Ti 5 4 ) ; supplication and intercession for 
all men (1 Ti 2 3 ) ; undeserved suffering patiently 
endured (1 P 2-'). All these may be looked upon 
as examples of the 'spiritual sacrifices' (1 P 2 s ), 
the offering of ' service with reverence and awe ' 
(He 12 28 ; cf. 13 16 ), which are 'acceptable' to God. 
He it is who ' works in us that which is well-pleas- 
ing in his sight through Jesus Christ ' (He 13-'). 

It is interesting and instructive to compare the 
grounds of ' acceptance ' in the circle of OT thought 
with those in the NT. In the former these grounds 
are partly ceremonial (Lv 22*), and partly ethical 
(Is I 12 ' 15 , Jer 6' JO etc.), though here and there a 
higher note is struck (cf. Pr 21 3 , Mic 6 8 , Dt 10 4 ) ; 
in the latter the ceremonial association has entirely 
vanished except in a metaphorical sense, and be- 
come purely ethico-spiritual, as the above references 
prove. It was largely due to the prophets that the 
old ceremonial ground was gradually ethicized ; 
and, though it never died out under the earlier 
' dispensation ' (which, indeed, reached its most 
rigid and mechanical development in the degener- 
ate Pharisaic cult of NT times), the way was 
effectually prepared for the full proclamation of 
the spiritual message of the gospel by Jesus, who 
was Himself the perfect embodiment of all that was 
acceptable and well-pleasing to God (cf. Mk I 11 , 
Mt 17 5 , JnS^etc.). 

There is a theological problem of importance 
raised by these passages What is it that consti- 
tutes the ground of our acceptance with God ? The 
full treatment of this problem must be sought 
under the art. JUSTIFICATION, but the following 
considerations may be properly adduced here. 
Unquestionably the Christian religion is a religion 
of Grace, as contra-distinguished from Judaism and 
other faiths, which are religions of Law. Salvation, 
according to the NT throughout (explicitly in the 
writings of St. Paul, more or less implicitly else- 
where), is of God, and not of man ; not our own 
doings, but willingness to accept what He has done 
for us, and what He is ready to do in us, is the 
condition of initial inclusion within the Kingdom 
of Divine love and life. This is the watershed 
which determines the direction and flow of all 
subsequent doctrinal developments in Christian 
theology ; it is what settles the question whether 
our thoughts and practice are distinctively Christian 
or not. There are, however, two alternative perils 
to be carefully avoided antinomianism, on the 
one hand, which assumes our continued acceptance 
with God irrespective of our moral conduct after- 
wards ; and the doctrine of salvation by works, on 
the other, which makes moral conduct the condi- 
tion of acceptance, thus surreptitiously introduc- 
ing the legal view of religion once more. This 
' Either Or ' is, however, a false antithesis, from 
which we are saved by the recognition of the 
' mystical union ' of the believer with God in Christ. 
By that act of faith, in virtue of which the sinner 
' accepts ' Christ and appropriates all that He ia 
and has done, he passes from a state of condemna- 
tion into a state of grace (Ro 8 1 ), and is henceforth 
'in Christ' organically united to Him as the 
member is to the body (1 Co 12 12L ), as the branch is 
to the vine (Jn 15 1 "*). This 'justifying faith' is, 
however, not an isolated act ; it is an act that 
brings us into a permanent relation with the source 
of spiritual life. Now, ' good works ' in the 
Christian sense are a necessary proof and outcome 
of this relation, and as such are well-pleasing or 
' acceptable' to God, because (a) they are a mani- 
festation of the spirit of Christ in us (Gal 2 20 ; cf. 
v. 21 ) ; and (b) a demonstration of the continuance 
of the believer ' in Christ' (Jn 15 8 ; cf. Mt 5' 6 , Ph 
jiof.j T ne re l a tion of the believer to Christ, in 
other words, while it is religious in its root, ia 



ACCESS 



ACCESS 



13 



ethical in its fruit, and the quality and abundance 
of the latter naturally show the quality and potency 
of the faith-life of which it is the expression and 
outcome. Thus our ' works ' do not constitute our 
claim for acceptance with God after entering the 
Kingdom of Grace any more than before ; but they 
determine our place within the Kingdom. There 
is an aristocracy of the spiritual as well as of the 
natural life ; the saved are one in the fact of salva- 
tion, but not in the magnitude of their attainments 
or the quality of their influence ; and they are more 
or less acceptable to God according to the entireness 
of their consecration and the value of their service. 
There is thus an adequate motive presented to us 
for perpetual striving after perfection, and St. 
Paul s spiritual attitude ' not as though I had 
already attained, but I follow after' (Ph 3 12 ) is 
the normal attitude of every true believer (cf. Col 
I 10 " 12 , 1 Th 4 1 ' 3 , 1 Jn S 22 ). It was given only to One 
to be altogether well-pleasing to God ; but it is the 
unfading ideal, and the constant endeavour of His 
true disciples to follow in His steps, and in all 
things to become more and more like Him, as well 
as ' well-pleasing ' to Him. 

See, further, artt. JUSTIFICATION, etc. , and Litera- 
ture there specified. E. GRIFFITH- J ONES. 

ACCESS. This word in the Epistles of the NT 
is the translation of the Greek word irpoffayuyti 
(Ro 5 2 , Eph 2 18 3 12 ; cf. IP 3 18 , where the verb is 
used actively). It has been treated very thoroughly 
in DCG (s. v. ). Here we shall confine ourselves to 

1. The connotation of the word. In classical 
Greek, the term irpo<ray(ayeijs was used primarily 
for ' one who brings to,' ' introduces to another as 
an intermediary,' mainly in a derogatory sense (cf. 
irpoffayuyetis X^/u.yu.d.roH', one who hunts for another's 
benefit a jackal [Dem. 750. 21 ; cf. Aristid. ii. 
369, 395] ; the spies of the Sicilian kings were 
called irpocrayuyeis, ' tale-bearers ' [Plut. ii. 522 D]). 
It was, however, used later in a technical sense, 
the court irpocraywyeijs being a functionary whose 
business it was to bring visitors or suppliants into 
the king's presence, irpoa-ayuy^ came thus to mean 
access to the royal presence and favour. It is 
from this association of ideas that the word derives 
its religious connotation in the NT. God is con- 
ceived in the kingly relation (as frequently in the 
OT), as one whose favour is sought and found, 
and Christ as the irp<xraywyevs who introduces the 
sinner into the Divine presence. It is thus a form 
of words representing Him in the light of a Mediator 
between God and man ; and it throws light on the 
relation of the three parties in the transaction. 

2. The light thrown on the character and 
attitude of God towards man. The kingly con- 
cept represents God as supreme, one to whom all 
allegiance is due, and who has the power of life 
and death over all His subjects. In the OT, 
Jahweh, especially in the Psalms, is often repre- 
sented as the King of His people Israel (cf. Ps 10 16 
248-10 44 4 472 eg* etc- ) j t ia noticeable, however, 
that in most of these passages the Oriental awe in 
which all potentates were habitually held is suffused 
with a sense of joy and pride in God as Israel's 
King ; His power, favour, and victorious character 
are mainly dwelt on. The idea which lies behind 
the NT references, however, is rather that of the 
difficulty of approach to the King's presence, not 
merely on account of His loftiness and majesty, 
but of His alienation, which demands a process of 
reconciliation. It suggests that the normal relation 
of the King and His subjects has been disturbed 
by rebellion or wrong-doing. The Divine dignity 
has been outraged, and His claim to obedience set 
at defiance. There is thus no longer a right of 
admittance to the Divine presence, unless the wrong 
is righted and the lost favour restored ; and, till 



that has been secured, the protection and kindly 
attitude of God can no longer be relied on. 

3. The light thrown on the condition and 
attitude of man towards Gcd. The suggestion is 
that man is conscious of being alienated from God 
by sin ; that he has no confidence in approaching 
God in consequence, being uncertain of his recep- 
tion ; that he knows of nothing which he can do 
to restore the lost relation ; and that he is deeply 
sensible of the shame and peril of his condition. 
The conception of the effects of evil-doing as 
separating God and man is one that runs through 
the priestly ritual of Judaism (cf. also the pro- 
phetic declaration in Is 59 2 ' your iniquities have 
separated between you and your God '), and corre- 
sponds to a fact in the consciousness of P 1 ! awakened 
sinners. In the earlier experience of k,*.. Paul this 
feeling was evidently poignantly emphasized ; and 
the sense of deliverance that came to him through 
the gospel may be taken as the measure of the 
pain and sorrow from which he had been delivered. 

4. The function fulfilled by Christ as the One 
through whom the renewal of the lost relation 
between God and man was accomplished. 
The word irpoffayuy-f) is insufficient to represent this 
function. In itself it stands for the work of a 
functionary whose r61e is to act as a merely official 
link between the two parties, having no active 
part in the process of reconciliation, and having 
therefore no claim to the gratitude of the bene- 
ficiary in the process. On the other hand, the 
apostolic use of the word in its reference to the 
person and work of Christ includes the suggestion 
that the 'access' to God referred to has been 
accomplished by Christ Himself, and an over- 
whelming sense of gratitude is awakened by this 
fact. This appears in the four passages in which 
the word is used, especially in the last (1 P 3 18 ). 
According to this, the bringing of man to God is 
effected through the work of Christ in His Passion ; 
'because Christ also suffered for sins once (airaZ, 
meaning here 'once for all' = a fact accomplished), 
the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might 
bring us (ir poo-ay dyy) to God,' i.e. restore us to 
His favour, and lead us to the benefits of the 
Divine reconciliation. In Ro 5 2 , again, the ' access ' 
receives its meaning and privilege through its 
consummation in and by Christ, 'through whom 
we have also (ical, ' copulat et auget ' [Toletus], 
' answering almost to our " as might be expected " ' 
[Alford]) got (^ffx^Kafifv) our (ryv) access (introduc- 
tion) by our (TV) faith, into this grace wherein we 
stand ' (see DCG i. 13*). Here the Person of the 
irpoffaytayefo is chiefly thought of ( ' this has come to 
us through Him ') ; and the resulting benefit is urged 
as a reason for holy exultation, since it means 
justification as a ground for ' rejoicing in the hope 
of glory.' In Eph 2 18 a slightly different emphasis 
is suggested : 'for through Him we both (i.e. Jew 
and Gentile) have our access in one spirit unto the 
Father.' Here that revelation of God, not as uni- 
versal King but as the All-Father, which came 
through Jesus Christ, is included in the benefit 
secured by Him for mankind at large, and the 
reconciliation of humanity at variance with itself 
as well as with God is brought into the circle of 
mediation (cf. v. 14 'for he is our peace [i.e. He 
is the peace-maker, the irpoirayuyevs between us, 
Jew and Gentile, who were once far off from each 
other] who hath made both one' by His blood 
[v. 13 ]). Through this word we are thus led into the 
deep places of the gospel as the reconciling agency 
of God to man, man to God, and man to man. 

LITERATURE. To the literature in the DCG add John Foster, 
Lectures, 1853, ii. 69 ; R. W. Dale, The Jeurish Temple and 
the Christian Church, 1877, p. 205 ; A. J. Gordon, The Twofold 
Life, 1886, p. 175 ; W. M. Macgregor, Jesus Christ the Son oj 

God, 1907, p. 175. E. GRIFFITH-JONES. 



14 



ACCOUNT 



ACHAICUS 



ACCOUNT. It will be sufficient merely to 
mention the use of the verb ' account ' (Xoytfopai) 
in the sense of ' reckon,' ' deem,' ' consider ' (Ro S 36 , 
1 Co 4 1 , He 1 1 19 , 2 P 3' 5 ). Simple uses of the noun 
are found in Ac 19 40 , when the 'town-clerk' (q.v.) 
of Ephesus warns his fellow-citizens of the difficulty 
of giving ' account (\6yos) of this concourse ' : and in 
Ph 4 17 ' the fruit that increaseth to your account.' 
The only significant passages where the word is 
found are those dealing with the Judgment. 

The declaration in Ro 14 12 , ' Each one of us 
shall give account of himself to God,' must be 
studied in the light of the paragraph (vv. 7-12 ) of 
which it is the conclusion. Those who are them- 
selves liable to judgment must not set themselves 
up as judges or one another, either to make light 
or sincere scruples or to reprove laxity. For one 
man to judge another is to usurp the prerogative 
of God, to whom alone (as universal sovereign and 
object of worship) man is answerable. The passage 
should be compared with 2 Co 5 10 , where the 'judg- 
ment-seat' is called Christ's; see also 1 Co 4 6 . St. 
Paul applies this doctrine, which is found in the 
Synoptic Gospels and was an integral part of 
primitive Christian teaching, to Jew and Gentile, 
to himself and his converts, to those who have 
died before the Parousia and those who are alive 
at it. The life in the body provides the oppor- 
tunity for moral action, and by the use they have 
made of it men are sentenced (cf. Gal 6*). A. 
Menzies (Com. on 2 Cor.) calls attention (a) to this 
aspect of the Judgment in contrast with that which 
represents the saints as judging the world and 
angels (1 Co 6 21 -; cf. Mt 19'*); (b) to the incon- 
sistency between the doctrine of justification by 
faith alone, and the doctrine of final judgment of 
men according to their actions. There is, however, 
in the present writer's opinion, no inconsistency 
here. The NT generally represents the saved as 
judged as well as the unsaved. The judgment of 
the latter, however, is retributory and involves 
rejection ; that of the former is for a place, higher 
or lower, within the heavenly Kingdom ; and this 
place is in accordance with the faithfulness and 
quality of their service while in the body. St. 
Paul, as the above references prove, is emphatic as 
to the fact and nature of this judgment (cf. 1 
Co 3 12 " 15 ), and shows that, however true it is that 
salvation is by grace, there will be gradations in 
standing and in reward in the after-life. This is 
in harmony with the teaching of our Lord in the 
Synoptics, especially in the parables of service and 
reward (Lk 19 18 ' 20 etc. ; cf. Mk 10 40 ). Cf. also, as 
to the fact of the saints having to give an account 
of their earthly stewardship, He 13 17 , 1 P 4 5 : ' [evil- 
doers and slanderers of Christians] shall give 
account to him that is ready to judge the quick 
and the dead' (in 1" to the Father, in I 18 and 5 4 
to Christ). These may be regarded as special 
instances of the General Judgment already referred 
to. The expression diro5i56vau \6yov generally im- 
plies that defence is not easy. 

LITERATURE. See lit. on art. JUDGMENT ; the Comm. in loce. ; 
W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theol., 1898, p. 459 ft. 

E. GRIFFITH-JONES. 
ACCURSED. See ANATHEMA. 

ACCUSATION. See TRIAL-AT-LAW. 
ACELDAMA. See AKELDAMA. 

ACHAIA. Achaia ('A^aSa) was, in the classical 
period, merely a strip of fertile coast-land stretch- 
ing along the south of the Gulf of Corinth, from the 
river Larisus, which separated it from Elis, to the 
Sythas, which divided it from Sicyonia, while 
the higher mountains of Arcadia bounded it on the 
south. Its whole length was about 65 miles, its 



breadth from 12 to 20 miles, and its area about 
650 sq. miles. 

The Achaeans were probably the remnant of a Pelasgian race 
once distributed over the whole Peloponnesus. Though they 
were celebrated in the heroic age, they rarely figured in the 
great Hellenic period, keeping themselves as far as possible 
aloof from the conflicts between the Ionian and Doric States, 
happy in their own almost uninterrupted prosperity. It is not 
till the last struggle for Hellenic independence that they 
appear on the stage of history. 

The cities which formed the famous Achaean 
League became the most powerful political body in 
Greece ; and, when the Romans subdued the country 
(146 B.C.), they at once honoured the brave con- 
federation and spared the feelings of all the Hellenes 
by calling the new province not Greece but Achaia. 
As constituted by Augustus in 27 B.C., the province 
included Thessaly, ^itolia, Acharnania, and part 
of Epirus (Strabo, XVII. iii. 25), being thus almost 
co-extensive with the modern kingdom of Greece. 
As a senatorial province Achaia was governed by 
a proconsul, who was an ex-prsetor. In A.D. 15 
Tiberius took it from the Senate, adding it to 
Macedonia to form an Imperial province under the 
government of a legatus ; but in 44 Claudius re- 
stored it to the Senate. ' Proconsul ' (dvOuwa.*, 
Ac 18 la ) was therefore the governor's correct official 
title at the time of St. Paul's residence in Corinth. 
Nero, as ' a born Philhellene,' wished to make 
Greece absolutely free. 

' In gratitude for the recognition which his artistic contribu- 
tions had met with in the native land of the Muses . . . [he] 
declared the Greeks collectively to be rid of Roman govern- 
ment, free from tribute, and, like the Italians, subject to no 
governor. At once there arose throughout Greece movements, 
which would have been civil wars, if these people could have 
achieved anything more than brawling ; and after a few months 
Vespasian re-established the provincial constitution, so far as it 
went, with the dry remark that the Greeks had unlearned the 
art of being free ' (Mommsen, Provinces, i. 262). 

To the end of the empire Achaia remained a 
senatorial province. The administrative centre was 
Corinth (q.v.), where the governor had his official 
residence. During a prolonged mission in that 
city, St. Paul was brought into contact with the 
proconsul Gallic (q.v.), the brother of Seneca. 
The rapid progress of the gospel in Achaia is partly 
explained by the fact that Judaism had already 
for centuries been working as a leaven in many of 
the cities of Greece. Sparta and Sicyon are named 
among the numerous free States to which the 
Romans sent letters on behalf of the Jews about 
139 B.C. (1 Mac 15 23 ), and Philo's Legatio <ad Gaium 
( 36) testifies to the presence of Jews in Bceotia, 
./Etolia, Attica, Argos, and Corinth. Only three 
Achaean cities are mentioned in the NT Athens, 
Corinth, and Cenchreaa but the address of 2 Cor. 
to ' all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia,' 
and the liberality of ' the regions of Achaia ' (2 Co 
9 2 1 1 10 ), prove that there must have been many other 
unnamed centres of Christian faith and life in the 
province. While 1 Co 16 16 refers to the house of 
Stephanas as 'the firstfruits of Achaia,' Ac 17 84 
rather indicates that the Apostle's brief visit to 
Athens had already borne some fruit, ' Diouysius, 
Damans, and others with them' being Achaean 
believers. Athens (q.v.) was either reckoned by 
itself or else entirely overlooked. 

LITERATURE. The Histories of Polybius and lavy ; A. Holm, 
History of Greece, Eng. tr. London, 1894-98, vol. iv. ; T. Momm- 
sen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire*, Eng. tr., London, 
1909, i. 260 ff. ; J. Marquardt, Rom, Staatsverwaltung, newed., 
Leipzig, 1885, i. 321 f. ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Eng. 
tr. 1.2 [London, 1897] p. 303 ff. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 
Edinburgh, 1897, p. 256 ff. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ACHAICUS. One of many worthies whose 
character adorned the early Church, and whose 
service edified it, but whom we know only by a 
casual reference in the NT. In 1 Co 16" St. Paul 
rejoices 'at the coming of Stephanas and Fortu- 
natus and Achaicus.' Probably they formed a 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



15 



deputation from the Corinthian Church ; they 
may have been bearers of the letter of inquiry 
which St. Paul answers in ch. 7 ff. His language 
suggests that their coming somewhat reassured 
him after the disquieting news brought by Chloe's 
household, and other ugly rumours (1 Co 5 1 ). 
Perhaps they represented the parties in Corinth ; 
yet they must have been trusted by the Church 
and must also have shown themselves loyal to the 
Apostle. Achaicus is such a rare name that some 
authorities call it 'Greek,' others ' Koman.' The 
suggestion that Achaicus was a slave either of 
Stephanas or of Chloe does not comport either 
with his position as a delegate or with St. Paul's 
appeal to the Church to 'acknowledge such,' i.e. 
to recognize the quality of their service and to 
treat them with becoming deference. 

LITERATURE. Artt. in HDB on 'Achaicus,' and 'I. Corinth- 
ians,' i. 487 ; Comm. on 1 Cor. by Findlay (.EG Z 1 ), 950, and by 
Godet, ii. 467 ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, i. 2 [London, 
1897] pp. 113, 305, 319, ii. [do. 1895] p. 320 ; Expositor, 8th ser. 
L [1911] 341 L J. E. ROBEBTS. 

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 

L Text 

1. Greek MSS. 

2. The Latin Versions. 

3. The Syriac Versions. 

4. The Egyptian Version*. 
6. Secondary Versions. 

6. Early Quotations. 

7. Textual theories : Westcott and Hort, Rendel Harris, 

Chase, Blass, von Soden. 
II. Tradition as to authorship 

1. In favour of Lucan authorship. 

2. Against the tradition. 

III. The date of Acts and reception in the Canon 

1. The date of the Lucan Gospel. 

2. The abrupt termination of Acts. 

3. Knowledge of Josephus in Acts. 

4. Reception in the Canon. 
IV. The composition of Acts 

1. The obvious facts. 

2. The purpose of the whole narrative 

8. The sources used in Acts. 

(1) The we-clauses. 

(2) The earlier chapters. 

(a) The Antiochene tradition. 

(b) The Jerusalem tradition. 

V. Historical value of the various traditions 

1. The Gospel of Luke and Ac 1. 

2. The Jerusalem and Galilaean traditions. 

VI. Chronology of Acts 

1. The death of Herod Agrippa. 

2. The famine in Judaea. 
8. Gallio's proconsulate. 

4. The expulsion of the Jews from Borne. 
6. The arrival of Festus in Judasa. 
VII. The theology of Acts 

1. Christology. 

2. Eschatology. 

3. The OT and Jewish Law. 

4. The Spirit 
6. Baptism. 

I. TEXT. The text of the Acts is preserved in 
Greek MSS, in Latin, Syriac, Sahidic, Bohairic, 
Armenian, and other secondary Versions, and 
quoted extensively, though not nearly so fully as 
the Gospels, by the early Fathers. 

1. Greek MSS. The most complete study of the 
whole mass of Greek MSS is that of von Soden 
in his Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Berlin, 
1902-10). As his grouping of the MSS is almost 
entirely independent of his theories as to the 
early history of the text, and represents facts 
which cannot be overlooked, it is best to give the 
main outlines of his classification, dividing the 
MSS into H, K, and /recensions, and following his 
numeration ; in the brackets are given the numbers 
of these MSS in Gregory's Prolegomena to Tischen- 
dorf's Editio Major octava. It has not seemed 
necessary to give also Gregory's new numeration, 
as this is not any better known than von Soden's, 
and does not belong (and apparently will not 
belong in the immediate future) to a full critical 
edition. 



(1) B. This is represented by 61 (B), 82 (X), S3 (C), 64 (A), 86 
(i//), 848 (13), 74 (39), 1008 (Pap. Amh. 8. saec. v.-vi.), 103 (25), 
162 (61), 257 (33). Of these MSS 81 and 82 represent a common 
archetype 81-2, which is much the best authority for H. 81 is 
better than 82, which is, however, somewhat better in Acts, apart 
from scribal errors, than it is in the Gospels. 74 and 162 are 
specially good representatives of H, but no single witness is 
free from K or 1 contamination. There is a special nexus be- 
tween 848 and 257, but 848 is considerably the better of the two. 

(2) K. It is impossible to give here the full list of K MSS ; 
roughly speaking, 90 per cent of the later MSS belong to this 
type. Two groups may be distinguished from the purer K 
MSS : K r , a mediaeval revision of K for lectionary purposes, 
critically quite valueless ; and K", a text with enough sporadic 
/ readings to raise the question whether it be not an 1 text 
which has been almost wholly corrected to & K standard ; it is 
called K <= because MSS of this type seem to be represented in 
the Complutensian edition. 

(3) /. The / recension is found in three forms : / 7 b /. I*- 
is best represented by 85 (D= Codex Bezse*), 1001 (E= Codex 
Laudianus t) ; by three pairs of connected MSS, 7 (Apl. 261)-264 
(233), 200 (83)-382 (231), 70 (505)-101 (40) ; and by a few other 
MSS which have suffered more or less severely from K con- 
tamination. It is also well represented in the text of the com- 
mentary of Andreas (A ff P). l b is found in two branches, / M 
and /b2. The best representatives of />>i are 62 (498), 8602 (200), 
365 (214=a scr )and a few other minuscules ; the best representa- 
tives of /*>2 are the pair 78 (' von der Goltz's MS ') and 171 (7) 
which are almost doublets, and 157 (29). 1^ is also found in two 
branches ^ci and 1<&. The best representatives of Y<=i are 208 (307X 
370 (353), 116(-), 551 (216) ; the best representatives of 1<* are 
364 (137) t and a series of other MSS contaminated in varying 
degrees by K. 

2. The Latin Versions. The Old Latin or ante- 
Hieronymian text is not well represented. As in 
the Gospels, it may be divided into two main 
branches, African and European. 

(1) The African is represented by Codex Floriacensis (h), now 
at Paris, formerly at Fleury, containing a text which is almost 
identical with that of Cyprian ; it is in a very fragmentary 
condition, but fortunately the quotations of Cyprian and 
Augustine (who uses an African text in Acts, though he 
follows the Vulgate in the Gospels) enable much of the 
text to be reconstructed. (The best edition of h is by E. 8. 
Buchanan, Old Latin Biblical Texts, v. [Oxford, 1907].) Accord- 
ing to Wordsworth and White, a later form of the African text 
can be found in the pseudo-Augustinian de Divinis Scripturis sive 
Speculum (CSEL xii. 287-700), but the character of this text 
is still somewhat doubtful. 

(2) The European text is best represented by g (Gigas) at 
Stockholm, which can be supplemented and corrected by the 
quotations in Ambrosiaster and Lucifer of Cagliari (see esp. 
A. Souter, ' A Study of Ambrosiaster,' TS vii. 4 [1905]). A branch 
of the European text of a Spanish or Provencal type is found 
in p, a Paris MS from Perpignan, and in w, a Bohemian MS 
now in Wernigerode, but in both MSS there is much Vulgate 
contamination. Other primarily European mixed MSS are s, a 
Bobbio palimpsest (saec. v.-vi.) at Vienna, x in Oxford, and gj in 
Milan. 

A Spanish lectionary of perhaps the 7th cent, known as the 
Liber Comieus, which has many early readings, has been edited 
by G. Morin from a Paris MS of the llth cent, and is quoted 
by Wordsworth and White as t. 

(3) Besides these purely Latin MSS, we have the Latin sides 
of the Grace-Latin MS 85 (D) or d (Codex Bezas), and of the 
Latino-Greek MS 1001 (E) or e. The latter of these agrees in 
the main with the European text as established by g-Ambro- 
siaster-Lucifer, but the text of d is in many ways unique, and 
may possibly have been made for the private use of the owner 
of 85, or perhaps of the archetype of 85. 

(4) The Vulgate. It is impossible here to enumerate the 
hundreds of Vulgate MSS of the Acts. Their study is a special 
branch of investigation, which has little bearing on the Acts, 
and for all purposes, except that of tracing the history of the 
Vulgate, the edition of Wordsworth and White may be regarded 
as sufficient. 

3. The Syriac Versions. It is probable from 
the quotations in Aphraates and Ephraim that 
there existed originally an Old-Syriac Version of 
Acts, corresponding to the Evangelism da-Mephar- 
reshe represented by the Curetonian and Sinaitic 
MSS ; but no MS of this type has survived. 

* This MS is adequately described by F. G. Kenyon (Handbook 
to the Textual Criticism of the XT*, 88 ff.) or in other well- 
known handbooks. 

t Besides the details noted in the handbooks, it should be 
observed that this MS, after being used by Bede in North- 
uinbria, passed to Germany, whence it was probably obtained by 
Laud, who gave it to the Bodleian Library. 

t As an instance of the advance in knowledge which von 
Soden's labours have produced, it should be noted that this MS 
used to be regarded as one of the principal authorities for the 
' Western ' text, and was at one time deemed worthy of a 
separate edition. 



16 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



(1) The oldest Syriac Version of the Acts is therefore the 
Peshifta, probably made by Kabbula, Bishop of Edessa (411- 
435) (see F. O. Burkitt, '8. Ephraim's Quotations from the 
Gospel,' TS vii. 2 [1901] p. 57 f.). (N.E. The Peshijjta is quoted 
by Tischendorf as Syr**.) 

(2) Besides the Peshitta we have the Harklean made by 
Thomas of Heraclea. This was based on an earlier Syriac 
text, made in 506 by Polycarp for Philoxenus, Bishop of 
Mabug (Hierapolis, the modern Membij on the Euphrates), 
which is no longer extant for Acts. Thomas of Heraclea 
revised the Philoxenian with the help of Greek MSS in the 
Library of the Enaton at Alexandria, and enriched his edition 
with a number of critical notes giving the variants of these 
Greek MSS which often have a most remarkable text agreeing 
more closely with Codex Bezae than with any other known 
Greek MS. (N.B. It is quoted by Tischendorf as SyrP.) 

(3) There is also a lectionary of the so-called ' Palestinian ' 
type, which was probably in use about the 7th cent, in the 
neighbourhood of Antioch. (On the nature of the ' Palestinian ' 
Syriac literature see F. 0. Burkitt, JThSt ii. [1901] 174-185.) 

4. The Egyptian Versions. The two Versions, 
Bohairic and Sahidic, which are extant for the 
Gospels, exist also for Acts, and there are a few 
fragments of Versions in other dialects. The re- 
lative date of these Versions has not been finally 
settled, but the opinion of Coptic scholars seems 
to be increasingly in favour of regarding the Sahidic 
as the older form. The Bohairic agrees in the 
main with the H text, but the Sahidic has many 
/ readings (see E. A. W. Budge, Coptic Biblical 
Texts, London, 1912, for the best Sahidic text). 

5. Secondary Versions. Versions of Acts are 
also found in Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, 
Georgian, Persian, and other languages ; but none 
of them is of primary importance for the text. 

6. Quotations in early writers. The earliest 
quotations long enough to have any value for de- 
termining the text are in Irenaeus, Tertullian, and 
Clement of Alexandria, who may be regarded as 
representing the text of the end of the 2nd cent, in 
Gaul, Africa, and Alexandria. For the 3rd cent, 
we have Origen and Didymus, representing the 
Alexandrian school ; Cyprian for Africa, and No- 
vatian for Italy. For the 4th cent. Athanasius 
and Cyril represent the later development of the 
Alexandria text ; Lucifer, Jerome, and Ambrosi- 
aster represent the text of Rome and Italy ; 
Augustine, that of Africa ; Eusebius and Cyril of 
Jerusalem the Palestinian text, which according to 
von Soden is /; the later Church writers mostly 
use the K text, though they sometimes show traces 
of probably local contamination with H and /. 

7. Textual theories. As soon as textual criticism 
began to be based on any complete view of the 
evidence, it became obvious that the chief feature 
to be accounted for in the text of Acts was the 
existence of a series of additions in the text in the 
Latin Versions and Fathers, usually supported by 
the two great bilingual MSS 55 and 1001 (D and E), 
frequently by the marginal readings in Syr Harcl , 
and sporadically by a few minuscules ; opposed to 
this interpolated text stood the Alexandrian text 
of 51, 52 (B K), and their allies; while between the 
two was the text of the mass of MSS agreeing 
sometimes with one, sometimes with the other, 
and sometimes combining both readings. 

(1) The first really plausible theory to meet even 
part of the facts was Westcott and Hort's (The 
New Testament in Greek, vol. ii. [Cambridge, 
1882]), who suggested that the later text (K) was 
a recension based on the two earlier types. They 
regarded 55 (Codex Bezae) as representing the 
' Western ' text, and 51 and 52 as representing as 
nearly as possible the original text. The weak 
point in their theory was that they could not 
explain the existence of the Western text. 

(2) Founded mainly on the basis of their work, two 
theories were suggested to supply this deficiency. 

(a) Rendel Harris (' A Study of Codex Bezae in 
TS ii. 1 [1891], and Four Lectures on the Western 
Text, Cambridge, 1894) and F. H. Chase (The Old 
Syriac Element in the Text of Codex Bezce, London, 



1893) thought that retranslation from Latin and 
Syriac would solve the problem ; but no amount 
or retranslation will account for the relatively 
long Bezan additions. 

(b) F. Blass (Act a Apostolorum secundum formam 
quae videtur Romanam, Leipzig, 1897, and also in 
his commentary, Acta Apostolorum, Gottingen, 
1895) thought that Luke issued the Acts in two 
forms : one to Theophilus (the Alexandrian text), 
and the other for Rome (the Western text) ; but 
his reconstruction of the Roman text is scarcely 
satisfactory, and the style of the additions is not 
sufficiently Lucan. 

(3) More recently von Soden (Die Schriften des 
Neuen Testaments, 1902-1910, p. 1834 ff.), using 
the new facts as to the MSS summarized above, 
has revived Blass's theory in so far that he thinks 
that the interpolated text witnessed to by 55 and 
the Latin Versions and Fathers really goes back 
to a single original ; but, instead of assigning this 
original to Luke, he attributes it to Tatian, who, 
he thinks, added a new recension of Acts to his 
Diatessaron. The weak point in this theory is 
that the only evidence that Tatian edited the Acts 
is a passage in Eusebius * which states that he 
emended ' the Apostle.' This may refer to Acts, 
but more probably refers to the Epistles. Accord- 
ing to von Soden, the / text did not contain all 
the interpolations, K contained still fewer, and H 
contained none. He thinks that in the 2nd cent, 
there existed side by side the Tatianic text and a 
non-interpolated text which he calls I-H-K. From 
these two texts there arose the Latin Version 
predominantly Tatianic and most of the early 
Fathers were influenced by Tatian. Later on, in 
the 4th cent., three revisions were made : (a) H, by 
Hesychius in Alexandria, which preserved in the 
main the texit of I-H-K without the Tatianic ad- 
ditions, but with a few other corruptions ; (b) K, 
by Lucian, in Antioch, which had many Tatianic 
corruptions, as well as some of its own ; (c) /, in 
Palestine, possibly in Jerusalem, which preserved 
many Tatianic additions, though in a few cases 
keeping the I-H-K text against H. 55 (D) is the 
best example of this text, but has suffered from 
the addition of a much greater degree of Tatianic 
corruption than really belongs to the / text, owing 
to Latin influence. 

The general relations of the various forms of the 
text, according to von Soden, can be shown roughly 
in the following diagram : 

I-U-K 




i A A 



Obviously this complicated theory cannot be 
dismissed without much more attention than it 
has yet received. It may prove that the 'text 
with additions ' is not Tatianic but is nevertheless 
a single text in origin. It is also very desirable 
to investigate how far it is possible to prove that 
there was an / text, derived from I-H-K, which 



* TOW 8' airo<rr6Aov <a<rt TO\HTJ<r<il nvaf aMtv firrai^paa-ai <!><avdt 
W? eiriSiopSovfitvov avrotv T^V Trjs <p<wrecos tnJiraf iv (Eus. HE iv. 
29. 6). This scarcely sounds as though a series of interpolation! 
was intended. 



AUTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



17 



nevertheless did not possess, in its original state, 
all the ' Bezan ' interpolations.* If it were possible 
to say that the interpolations were a connected 
series (whether Tatianic or not is of minor im- 
portance), the text in which they are imbedded 
would become extremely valuable, and we should 
have no right to argue, as is now often done, that, 
because the interpolations are clearly wrong, there- 
fore the text in which they are found is to be 
condemned. For instance, in Ac 15 28 the Latin 
text interpolates the Golden Rule into the Apos- 
tolic decrees. That is no doubt wrong. But it 
does not follow that the text omitting WIKTOV, in 
which this interpolation is placed, is not original. 

LITERATURE. The general textual question can be studied 
in H. von Soden, Die Schri/ten des NT, Berlin, 1902-1910, esp. 
pp. 1649-1840 ; F. G. Kenyon, Handbook to the Textual Criti- 
cism of the NT*, London, 1912 ; E. Nestle, Einfuhrung in das 
griecfi. NTS, Gottingen, 1909 (the Eng. tr. is from an older 
edition of the period before von Soden) ; K. Lake, The Text oj 
the NTS, London, 1911. Important for the study of the Latin 
are von Soden, ' Das lat. NT in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians,' TU 
xxxiii. [Leipzig, 1909]; and Wordsworth- White, Nov. Test. 
Dom. nost. les. Christi secundum edit. S. Hieronymi, vol. ii. 
pt. i. [Oxford, 1905] which also gives a clear statement of the 
best editions of the separate MSS of the Old Latin and the 
Vulgate (pp. v-xv). 

II. TRADITION AS TO AUTHORSHIP. So far 
back as tradition goes, the Acts is ascribed to St. 
Luke, the author of the Third Gospel, and com- 
panion of St. Paul (see, further, LUKE). This 
tradition can be traced back to the end of the 2nd 
cent. (Clem. Alex. Strom, v. 12; Tertull. de Jejuniis, 
10; Iren. adv. Hcer. I. xxiii. 1, in. xii. 12 ff., 
IV. xv. 1 ; and the Canon of Muratori). If the 
connexion with the Third Gospel be accepted, as 
it certainly ought to be, the fact that Marcion 
used the Gospel is evidence for the existence of 
Acts, unless it be thought that the Gospel was 
written by a contemporary of Marcion who had 
not yet written Acts. Farther back tradition does 
not take us : there are no clear proofs of the use 
of Acts in the Apostolic Fathers (see The New Testa- 
ment in the Apostolic Fathers, Oxford, 1905) or in 
the early Apologists. (For the later traditions 
concerning Luke and his writings see LUKE. ) 

The value of this tradition must necessarily de- 
pend on the internal evidence of the book itself. 
The arguments can best be arranged under the 
two heads of favourable and unfavourable to the 
tradition. 

1. In favour of the tradition of Lake's author- 
ship is the evidence of the ' we-sectibns,' or pass- 
ages in which the writer speaks in the first person. 
These are Ac 16 10 " 17 20 4 21 18 27 1 28 18 . They form 
together an apparent extract from a diary, which 
begins in Troas and breaks off in Philippi, on St. 
Paul's second journey ; begins again in Philippi, 
on his last journey to Jerusalem ; and continues 
(with only the apparent break of the episode of St. 
Paul and the Ephesian elders [20 18 " 38 ] which is told 
in the third person) until Jerusalem is reached and 
St. Paul goes to see James ; then breaks off again 
during St. Paul's imprisonment in Jerusalem and 
Csesarea ; begins again when St. Paul leaves 
Csesarea ; and continues until the arrival in Rome, 
when it finally ceases. 

It is, of course, theoretically possible that these 
sections are merely a literary fiction, but this 
possibility is excluded by the facts (a) that there 
is no conceivable reason why the writer should 
adopt this form of writing at these points, and 
these only, in his narrative ; (b) that by the 
general consent of critics these passages have all 
the signs of having really been composed by an 
eye-witness of the events described. It is, tnere- 

* The de Rebaptismate has not yet been sufficiently studied 
from this point of view. A monograph analyzing its evidence 
on the lines of F. C. Burkitf a Old Latin and the Itala might 
be valuable. 

VOL. I. 2 



fore, only necessary to consider the other possi- 
bilities : (1) that we have here from the writer of 
the whole work the description of incidents which 
he had himself seen ; (2) that the writer is here 
using an extract from the writing of an eye-wit- 
ness and has preserved the original idiom. 

The only way of deciding between these two 
possibilities is to make use of literary criteria, and 
this has been done in recent years with especial 
thoroughness by Harnack in Germany and Hawkins 
in England. For any full statement of the case 
reference must be made to their books ; the prin- 
ciple, however, and the main results can be 
summarized. 

If the writer of Acts is merely using the first 
person in order to show that he ia claiming to 
have been an eye-witness, the writer of the ' we- 
clauses' is identical with the redactor of the 
Gospel and Acts. Now, in the Gospel we know 
that he was using Mark in many places, and, by 
noting the redactorial changes in the Marcan sec- 
tions of Luke, we can establish his preference for 
certain idioms. If these idioms constantly recur 
in the ' we-clauses,' it must be either because the 
' we-clauses ' were written by the redactor, or be- 
cause the redactor also revised the 'we-clauses,' 
but without changing the idiom. As a fact we 
find that the ' we-clauses ' are more marked by the 
characteristic phraseology of the redactor than 
any other part of the Gospel or Acts. We are, 
therefore, apparently reduced to a choice between 
the theory that the redactor of the Gospel and Acts 
wrote the ' we-clauses,' and the theory that he 
redacted them with more care than any other part 
of his compilation, except that he allowed the first 
person to stand. The former view certainly seems 
the more probable, but not sufficient attention has 
been paid to the observation of E. Schiirer (ThLZ, 
1906, col. 405) that the facts would also be ex- 
plained if the writer of the ' we-clauses ' and the 
redactor of Acts came from the same Bildungs- 
sphdre. It would be well if some later analyst 
would eliminate from both sides the idioms which 
are common to all writers of good Greek at the 
period, for undoubtedly an element of exaggera- 
tion is introduced by the fact that in the Marcan 
source there were many vulgarisms which all re- 
dactors would have altered, and mostly in the same 
way. It should also be noted that there are a 
few ' Lucanisms* which are not to be found in the 
'we-clauses.' 

The details on which this argument is based will be found 
best in J. C. Hawkins, H orce Synopticce*, Oxford, 1909, pp. 174- 
193; A. Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, Leipzig, 1906, pp. 19-85. 
There is also a good resume in J. Moffatt, LNT, p. 294 ff. 

2. Against the tradition it is urged (1) that the 
presentment of St. Paul is quite different from 
that in the Pauline Epistles, (2) that on definite 
facts of history the Acts and Epistles contradict 
each other ; and it is said in each case that these 
facts exclude the possibility that the writer of 
Acts was Luke the companion of St. Paul. 

(1) The presentment of St. Paul in the Epistles 
and in Acts. It has been urged as a proof that 
the writer of Acts could not have been a companion 
of St. Paul, that whereas St. Paul in the Epistles 
is completely emancipated from Jewish thought 
and practice, he is represented in the Acts as still 
loyal to the Law himself, and enjoining its observ- 
ance on Jews. The points which are really crucial 
in this argument are (a) St. Paul's circumcision of 
Timothy (Ac 16 3 ), as contrasted with his teaching 
as to circumcision in the Epistles ; (|3) his accept- 
ance of Jewish practice while he was in Jerusalem 
(Ac 21 21ff< ), as contrasted with his Epistles, espe- 
cially Galatians and Romans ; (7) the absence of 
' Pauline ' doctrine in the speeches in Acts ; (S) St. 
Paul's acceptance of a compromise at the Apostolic 



18 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



Council (Ac 15), as contrasted with the complete 
silence of the Epistles as to this agreement. 

If these four propositions were sound, they would 
certainly be strong evidence against the Lucan 
authorship of Acts. But there is much to be said 
against each of them on the following lines. 

(a) In Ac 16 3 , St. Paul circumcises Timothy, but 
the reason given is that he was partly Jewish. 
There is no evidence in the Epistles that the 
Apostle would ever have refused circumcision to a 
Jew : it was part of the Law, and the Law was 
valid for Jews. The argument in the Epistles is 
that it is not valid for Gentiles ; and, though 
logic ought perhaps to have led St. Paul to argue 
that Jews also ought to abandon it, there is no 
proof that he ever did so. It is also claimed that 
the incident of Titus in Gal 2 3 shows St. Paul's 
strong objection to circumcision ; but in the first 
place it is emphatically stated that Titus was not 
a Jew, and in the second place it is quite doubtful 
whether Gal 2 3 means that Titus, being a Greek, 
was not compelled to be circumcised, or that, 
being a Greek, he was not compelled to be circum- 
cised, though as an act of grace he actually was 
circumcised. () It is quite true that in Ac 21 21ff> 
St. Paul accepts Jewish custom : what is untrue is 
that it can be shown from his own writings that 
he was likely to refuse, (y) There certainly is an 
absence of ' Pauline ' doctrine in the speeches in 
the Acts, if we accept the reconstructions which 
are based on the view that in the Epistles we have 
a complete exposition of St. Paul's teaching. But, 
if we realize that the Epistles represent his treat- 
ment by letter of points which he had failed to 
bring home to his converts while he was with 
them, or of special controversies due to the arrival 
of other teachers, there is really nothing to be 
said against the picture given in the Acts. (5) If 
the exegesis and text of Acts be adopted which 
regard the Apostolic decrees as a compromise 
based on food-laws, it is certainly very strange 
that St. Paul should have said nothing about it in 
Galatians or Corinthians, and this undoubtedly 
affords a reasonable argument for thinking that 
the account in Ac 15 is unhistorical, and that it 
cannot have been the work of Luke. But it must 
be remembered that there is serious reason for 
doubting (i.) that the text and exegesis of Ac 15 28 
point either to a food-law or to a compromise, 
(ii.) that Galatians was written after the Council 
(see G. Resch, 'Das Aposteldecret,' TU xxviii. 
[1905] 3 ; J. Wellhausen, ' Noten zur Apostel- 
geschichte,' in GGN, Gb'ttingen, 1907 ; A. Harnack, 
Apostelgeschichte, Leipzig, 1908, p. 188 ff. ; K. Lake, 
Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, London, 1911, pp. 
29 ff., 48 ff.). 

(2) Rather more serious are the objections raised 
to the accuracy of certain definite statements, in the 
light of contrasting statements in the Epistles, and 
the conclusion suggested that the writer of Acts 
cannot have been a companion of St. Paul. Many 
objections of this kind have been made, but the 
majority are trivial, and the serious ones are really 
only the following : (a) the description of glossolalia 
in Ac 2 as compared with 1 Co 12 ff. ; (b) the 
account of St. Paul's visits to Jerusalem in Acts 
as compared with Gal 2 ; (c) the movements of St. 
Paul's companions in Macedonia and Achaia in 
Ac 17 15 18 5 as compared with 1 Th 3 lf -. 

(a) The account given of glossolalia in 1 Co 14 
shows that it was in the main unintelligible to 
ordinary persons. ' He that speaketh in a tongue 
edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth edifieth 
the congregation ' (1 Co 14 4 ; cf. vv. 6 - " *) ; 'If any 
man speaketh in a tongue let one interpret' 
(1 Co 14 27 ). On the other hand, the narrative in 
Ac 2 describes the glossolalia of the disciples as a 
miraculous gift of speech that was simultaneously 



intelligible to foreigners of various nations, each 
of whom thought that he was listening to his own 
language. It is argued that this latter glossolalia 
is as unknown to the historian of psychology as 
the glossolalia described in 1 Cor. is well known ; 
and it is suggested that Luke or his source has 
given a wrong account of the matter. In support 
of this it must be noted that the immediate judg- 
ment of the crowd, on first hearing the glossolalia 
of the disciples, was that they were drunk, and 
Peter's speech was directed against this imputa- 
tion. It is not probable that any foreigner ever 
accused any one of being drunk because he could 
understand him, and so far the account in Acts may 
be regarded as carrying its own conviction, and 
showing that behind the actual text there is an 
earlier tradition which described a glossolalia of 
the same kind as that in 1 Co 12-14. But, if so, 
is it probable that a companion of St. Paul would 
have put forward so ' un-Pauline ' a descriptioi of 
glossolalia ? There is certainly some weight in this 
argument ; but it is to a large extent discounted 
by the following considerations. (a) It is not 
known that Luke was ever with St. Paul at any 
exhibition of glossolalia. Certainly there is no- 
thing in Acts to suggest that he was in Corinth. 
(8) In all probability we have to deal with a tra- 
dition which the writer of Acts found in existence 
in Jerusalem more than twenty years after the 
events described. Let any one try to find out, by 
asking surviving witnesses, exactly what happened 
at an excited revivalist meeting twenty years ago, 
and he will see that there is room for considerable 
inaccuracy. (7) To us glossolalia of the Pauline 
type is a known phenomenon and probable for that 
reason ; it is a purely physical and almost patho- 
logical result of religious emotion, while glossolalia 
of the ' foreign language ' type as described in Acts 
is improbable. But to a Christian of the 1st cent, 
both were wonderful manifestations of the Spirit, 
and neither was more probable than the other. 

The whole question of glossolalia can be studied in H. Gun- 
kel, Die Wirkungen des neiligen Geistes, Gottingen, 1899 ; H. 
Lietzmann's Commentary on 1 Cor. in his Handbuch zum NT, 
iii. 2, Tubingen, 1909 ; J. Weiss, ' 1 Cor.' in Meyer's Krit.-Exeg. 
Kommentar, Gottingen, 1910 (9th ed. of ' 1 Cor. 1 ). 

(b) The accounts given in Acts and Galatians of 
St. Paul's visits to Jerusalem. The points of 
divergence, which are serious, are concerned with 
(a) St. Paul's actions immediately after the con- 
version ; (B) his first visit to Jerusalem ; (7) his 
second visit to Jerusalem. 

(a) St. PauVs actions immediately after the con- 
version. The two accounts of this complex of in- 
cidents are Ac 9 10 ' 80 and Gal I 16 - 24 . The main 
points in the two narratives may be arranged thus 
in parallel columns : 

GALATIANS, 

1. Visit to Arabia immediately 

after the conversion. 

2. A ' return ' to Damascus. 

8. A visit to Jerusalem ' after 
three years.' 

4. Departure to the 'districts 
of Syria and Cilicia.' 

The difference between these accounts is obvious, 
and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Acts is 
here inaccurate. It should be noted, however, 
that the inaccuracy apparently consists in tele- 
scoping together two visits to Damascus and omit- 
ting the Arabian journey which came between them. 
St. Paul, by spealking of his ' return ' to Damascus, 
implies that the conversion had been in that city, 
and in 2 Co H S2f - ('in Damascus the ethnarch of 
Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damas- 
cenes to take me, and I was let down in a basket 
through a window ') we have a corroboration of the 



ACTS. 

1. Visit to Damascus immedi- 

ately after the conversion. 

2. Escape from Damascus and 

journey to Jerusalem. 

3. Retreat from Jerusalem to 

Tarsus in Cilicia. 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



19 



escape mentioned in Acts, though it clearly must 
come after the visit (probably of a missionary 
character) to Arabia, in order to account for the 
hostility of Aretas. Thus, so far as the enumera- 
tion of events is concerned, the inaccuracy of Acts 
resolves itself into the omission of the Arabian 
visit, and the consequent telescoping together of 
two visits to Damascus along with a proportion- 
ate shortening of the chronology. 

(/3) St. Paul's first visit to Jerusalem. The de- 
tails of this visit are a more serious matter, and 
Acts and Galatians cannot fully be reconciled, as 
is plain when the narratives are arranged in 
parallel columns. 



Ac 926-30. 

' And when he was come to 
Jerusalem, he assayed to join 
himself to the disciples : and 
the? were all afraid of him, 
not believing that he was a 
disciple. But Barnabas took 
him, and brought him to the 
apostles, and declared unto 
them how he had seen the 
Lord in the way, and that he 
had spoken to him, and how 
at Damascus he had preached 
boldly in the name of Jesus. 
And he was with them going 
in and coming out at Jeru- 
salem, and he spake and dis- 
puted against the Hellenists ; 
but they went about to kill 
him.' 



GAL 118-28. 

' After three years I went up 
to Jerusalem to become ac- 
quainted with Cephas, and 
tarried with him fifteen days. 
But other of the apostles saw 
I none, save James the Lord's 
brother. Now touching the 
things which I write to you, 
before God, I lie not. Then I 
came into the districts of Syria 
and Cilicia. And I was still 
unknown by face unto the 
churches of Judaea which were 
in Christ : but they only heard 
say, He that persecuted us 
once now preacheth the faith 
of which he once made havoc.' 



No argument can alter the fact that Acts speaks 
of a period of preaching in Jerusalem which 
attracted sufficient attention to endanger St. 
Paul's life, while Galatians describes an essentially 
private visit to Peter ; probably both documents 
refer to the same visit, as they place it between 
St. Paul's departure from Damascus and his 
arrival in Cilicia, but they give divergent accounts 
of it. 

(7) St. Paul's second visit to Jerusalem. It is 
possible that the difficulties here are due to a mis- 
taken exegesis rather than to any real divergence 
between Acts and Galatians. If we start from the 
facts, it is clear that St. Paul describes in Gal 2 1 ' 10 
his second visit to Jerusalem. In the course of this 
he held a private interview with the apostles in 
Jerusalem, in consequence of which he was free 
to continue his preaching to the Gentiles without 
hindrance. It is also clear from Ac H 27ff - 12 25 that 
St. Paul's second visit to Jerusalem was during 
the time of the famine. If we accept the identi- 
fication of the second visit according to Acts with 
the second visit according to Galatians, there is no 
difficulty beyond the fact that Acts does not state 
that St. Paul and the other apostles discussed their 
respective missions when they met in Jerusalem ; 
but, since this discussion altered nothing the 
Gentile mission had already begun there was no 
special reason why Luke should have mentioned 
it. Usually, however, critics have assumed that 
the visit to Jerusalem mentioned in Gal 2 1 ' 10 is not 
the second but the third visit referred to in Acts, 
so that the interview with the apostles described in 
Gal 2 is identified with the ' Apostolic Council ' in 
Ac 15. Great difficulties then arise : it is obviously 
essential to St. Paul's argument that he should 
not omit any of his visits to Jerusalem, and it is 
not easy to understand why, if he is writing after 
the Apostolic Council, he does not mention the 
decrees. There would seem to have been a party 
in Galatia which urged that circumcision was 
necessary for all Christians ; this point had been 
settled at the Apostolic Council. If the Council 
had taken place, why did St. Paul not say at once 
that the judaizing attitude had been condemned 
by the heads of the Jerusalem Church ? 



These difficulties have been met in England since 
the time of Lightfoot by assuming that the Apos- 
tolic decrees had only a local and ephemeral import- 
ance, in which case it does not seem obvious why 
they are given so prominent a place in Acts. In 
Germany this difficulty has been more fully ap- 
preciated, and either the account in Ac 15 iaenti- 
fied with Gal 2 has been abandoned as wholly 
unhistorical, or the suggestion has been made that 
the account in Gal 2 is really a more accurate 
statement of what happened during St. Paul's 
interview with the apostles, which probably 
took place during the famine, while the ' decrees ' 
mentioned in Acts really belong to a later period 
perhaps St. Paul's last visit to Jerusalem and 
have been misplaced by Luke. 

All these suggestions (and a different combination 
is given by almost every editor) agree in giving 
up the accuracy of Ac 15. On the other hand, if 
the view be taken that Gal 2 refers to an interview 
between St. Paul and the Jerusalem apostles 
during the time of the famine, and that it settled 
not the question of circumcision, but that of 
continuing the mission to the Gentiles which had 
been begun in Antioch, there is no further diffi- 
culty in thinking that Ac 15 represents the dis- 
cussion of the question of circumcision which 
inevitably arose as soon as the Gentile mission 
expanded. It is, therefore, desirable to ask 
whether the reasons for identifying Gal 2 and 
Ac 15 are decisive. The classical statement in Eng- 
lish is that of Lightfoot (Epistle to the Galatians, 
p. 1 23 ff. ), who formulates it by saying that there 
is an identity of geography, persons, subject of 
dispute, character of the conference, and result. 
Of these identities only the first is fully accurate ; 
and it applies equally well to the visit to Jerusalem 
in the time of the famine. The persons are not 
quite the same, for Titus and John are not 
mentioned in Acts. The subject is not the same 
at all, for in Galatians the question of the Law 
is not discussed (and was apparently raised only 
by St. Peter's conduct later on in Antioch), but 
merely whether the mission to the uncircumcised 
should be continued,* while in Acts the circum- 
cision of the Gentiles is the main point. The 
character of the conference is not the same at 
all, for in Galatians it is a private discussion, 
in Acts a full meeting of the Church ; and the 
result is not the same, for the one led up to the 
Apostolic decrees, while the other apparently did 
not do so. Lightfoot to some extent weakens 
these objections by suggesting that St. Paul de- 
scribes a private conference before the Council, 
but in so doing he weakens his own case still more, 
for he can give no satisfactory reason why St. 
Paul should carefully describe a private conference, 
but omit the public meeting and official result to 
which it was preliminary. 

Thus, if the identification of Gal 2 and Ac 15 
be abandoned, the objections which are raised 
against the account in Acts fall to the ground, 
and the resultant arguments against the identi- 
fication of the writer of Acts with Luke are 
proportionately weakened. 

The question may be studied in detail in C. Clemen, Paulus, 
Giessen, 1904 ; A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christianity in 
the Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897 ; A. Haruack, Apostel- 
gesch., Leipzig, 1908; J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians, Cambridge, 
1865 ; K. Lake. Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, London, 1911 ; C. 
W. Emmet, Galatians, London, 1912. 

(c) The movements of St. Paul's companions in 
Macedonia and Achnia in Ac 17 16 18 5 compared 
with 1 Th S lt - 6 . The difference between these 
narratives is concerned with the movements of 
Timothy and Silas. According to Acts, when St. 

* From the context it is clear that TO evayye'Aioi/ TTJJ d/cpo/3vorta{ 
. . . TTJS irepiTo/iiTJs means the gospel for the Uncircumcision (t.*. 
the Gentiles) and the Circumcision (i.e. the Jews). 



20 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



Paul went to Athens he left Timothy and Silas in 
Bercea, and sent a message to them either from 
Athens or from some intermediate point, asking 
them to rejoin him as soon as possible, but they 
did not actually join him until he reached Corinth 
(Ac 18 s ). This arrival of Timothy at Corinth is 
mentioned in 1 Th 3 6 , but, according to the im- 
plication of 1 Th 3"-, Timothy (and Silas ?) had 
already reached Athens and been sent away again 
with a message to Thessalonica. In this case Acts 
omits the whole episode of Timothy's arrival at 
and departure from Athens, and telescopes together 
two incidents in much the same way as seems to 
have been done with regard to St. Paul's visits to 
Damascus immediately after the conversion. This 
is the simplest solution of the question, though it 
is possible to find other conceivable theories, such 
as von Dobschiitz'ft suggestion that 1 Th 3 1 need 
not mean that Timothy came to Athens, as the 
facts would be equally covered if a message from 
St. Paul had intercepted him on his way from 
Beroea to Athens and sent him to Thessalonica. 

The best account of various ways of dealing with the question 
is given by E. von Dobschutz, ' Die Thessalonicherbriefe,' in 
Meyer's Krit.-Exeget. Kommentari, Oottingen, 1909. 

Summary. The general result of a consideration 
of these divergences between Acts and the Epistles 
suggests that the author was sometimes inaccurate, 
and not always well informed, but it is hard to 
see that he makes mistakes which would be im- 
possible to one who had, indeed, been with St. 
Paul at times but not during the greater part of 
his career, and had collected information from the 
Apostle and others as opportunity had served. On 
the other hand, the argument from literary affini- 
ties between the ' we-clauses ' and the rest of Acts 
remains at present unshaken ; and, until some 
further analysis succeeds in showing why it should 
be thought that the ' we-clauses ' have been taken 
from a source not written by the redactor himself, 
the traditional view that Luke, the companion of 
St. Paul, was the editor of the whole book is the 
most reasonable one. 

III. DATE OF ACTS AND RECEPTION IN THE 
CANON. The evidence for the date is very meagre. 
If the Lucan authorship be accepted, any date after 
the last events chronicled, i.e. a short time before 
A.D. 60 to c. A.D. 100, is possible. The arguments 
which have been used for fixing on a more definite 

Kint are : (1) the date of the Lucan Gospel, which 
v the evidence of Ac I 1 is earlier ; (2) the abrupt 
termination of Acts ; (3) the possibility that the 
writer knew the Antiquities of Josephus, which 
cannot be earlier than A.D. 90. 

1. The date of the Lucan Gospel. 1 1 has usually 
been assumed that this must be posterior to the 
fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, but it is doubtful 
whether there are really any satisfactory proofs 
that this was the case. The only argument of 
importance is that in the apocalyptic section of 
Mark (ch. 13) expressions which might be supposed 
to refer to the fall of Jerusalem have been altered 
to correspond with the real facts of the siege. 
Actually, however, the most striking change is 
merely that the vague Marcan reference to Daniel's 
' abomination of desolation ' has been replaced by 
a description of Jerusalem surrounded by armies. 
Of course, if we knew that Luke was later than 
the fall of Jerusalem, it would be a rational 
assumption to think that the change was due to 
the influence of the facts on the writer ; but the 
force of the argument is not so great if we reverse 
the proposition, for to explain ' the abomination of 
desolation ' as a prophecy of a siege is not specially 
difficult. The most, therefore, that can be said is 
that this argument raises a slight presumption in 
favour of a date later than A.D. 70. 

2. The abrupt termination of Acts. Acts ends 



apparently in the middle of the trial of St. Paul : 
he has been sent to Rome, and has spent two 
years in some sort of modified imprisonment, but 
no verdict has been passed. From this Harnack 
has argued (Neue Untemuchungen zur Apostel- 
geschichte, p. 65 ff.) that the Acts must have 
been written before the end of the trial was 
known. 

This argument would be important if it were the 
only explanation of the facts. But two other 
possibilities have to be considered. In the first 
place, it is possible, though perhaps not very 
probable, that Luke wrote, or intended to write, a 
third book beginning with the account of St. Paul's 
trial in Rome. In the second place, it is possible 
that the end of Acts was not so abrupt to the ears 
of contemporaries as it is to us, for the two years 
may be the recognized period during which a trial 
must be heard, and after which, if the prosecution 
failed to appear, the case collapsed. The case of 
St. Paul had been originally a prosecution by the 
Jews, and probably it still kept this character, 
even though the venue was changed to Rome. 
But the Jews, as Luke says in Ac 28 21 , did not put 
in an appearance, and therefore the case must 
have collapsed for lack of a prosecution, after a 
statutory period of waiting. What this period 
was we do not know, but a passage in Philo's in 
Flaccum points to the probability that it was two 
years. According to this, a certain Lambon was 
accused of treason in Alexandria, and the Roman 
judge, knowing that he was dangerous, but that 
the evidence was insufficient to justify a condem- 
nation, kept him in prison for two years (dieriav), 
which Philo describes as the ' longest period ' (rbv 
n.i]Kiarov xp6vov). If this be so, Luke's termination 
of Acts is not really so abrupt as it seems, but 
implies that St. Paul was released after the end 
of the two years, because no Jews came forward 
to prosecute ; it is easy to understand that, as 
this was not a definite acquittal, Luke had no 
interest in emphasizing the fact. 

3. The knowledge of Josephus shown in Acts. 
The evidence for this is found in the case of 
Theudas. The facts are as follows. In Ac 5 s5 
Gamaliel is made to refer to two revolts which 
failed first, that of Theudas, and after him that 
of Judas the Galilaean in the days of the Census 
(i.e. A.D. 6). Both these revolts are well known, 
and are described by Josephus ; but the difficulty 
is that Judas really preceded Theudas, whose re- 
volt took place in the procuratorship of Fadus (c. 
A.D. 43-47). 

The revolt of Theudas was thus most probably 
later than the speech of Gamaliel, and the refer- 
ence to it must be a literary device on the part of 
Luke, who no doubt used the speeches Avhich he 
puts into the mouths of the persons in his narrative 
with the same freedom as was customary among 
writers of that period. But the remarkable point 
is that Josephus in Ant. XX. also mentions Judas 
of Galilee after speaking of Theudas ; * and the 
suggestion is that Luke had seen this and was led 
into the not unnatural mistake of confusing the 
dates. He apparently knew the correct date of 
Judas, and remembered only that Josephus had 
spoken of him after Theudas, and was thus led 
into the mistake of thinking that Theudas must 
have been earlier than Judas. 

If the case of Theudas be admitted, it is also 
possible that in the description of the death of 
Herod Agrippa some details have been taken by 
Luke from the description of the death of Herod the 

* After describing Theudas' revolt, Josephus continues : jrpbs 
TOUTOIS 6e KOI oi TrtuSes 'lovSa TOV PoAiAaiou a.trjx6ri<ra.v, T v T v 
Aabv airb 'Poo/ouu'uii' aTroonyirai'TOs Kvpivi'ov rijs 'lovJat'as rtiiifrt- 
VOI'TOS, cos tv Toil Trpb TOVTOJV efiijAwtra/nei', 'Idiao/3os (cat ^.ifuav of 
dvaoTavpaxrai TrpotreVafei' 6 'AAe'av6po (Ant. XX. V. 2). 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



21 



Great as given by Josephus. But the evidence is 
here much less striking, and, if Theudas be not 
conceded, has no real strength. The case of 
Theudas is, however, very remarkable ; it falls 
short of demonstration, but not so far short as the 
other arguments for dating the Acts. 

So far it has been assumed that Luke was the 
writer of Acts ; and in this case the probable 
length of his life gives the terminus ad quern for 
dating his writings, i.e. c. A.D. 100. If his author- 
ship be disputed, the terminus ad quern is the 
earliest known use of the book or of its companion 
Gospel. This is to be found in the fact that 
Marcion (c. A.D. 140) used the Gospel of Luke. It 
is, of course, possible that some of the isolated 
Evangelical quotations in the Apostolic Fathers 
may be from Luke ; but no proof of this can be 
given. As, however, Marcion's text is a redaction 
of the canonical text, and Luke's Gospel was 
taken into the Four-Gospel Canon not long after- 
wards, it must have been in existence some time 
previously, so that, even if the Lucan authorship 
be doubted, A.D. 130 is the latest date that can 
reasonably be suggested. Even this appears to be 
very improbable if attention be paid to some of 
the characteristics of Acts. For instance, Acts 
never uses the triadic formula : baptism is always 
in the name ' of the Lord,' or ' of Jesus' ; there is 
no trace of the developed Docetic controversy of 
the Johannine Epistles or of Ignatius ; xP lffT ^ is 
habitually used predicatively, and not as a proper 
name, and in this respect Acts is more primitive 
than St. Paul. 

On the other hand, the weakening of the eschato- 
logical element, and the interest in the Church, as 
an institution in a world which is not immediately 
to disappear, point away from the very early date 
advocated by Harnack and others. The decennium 
90-100 seems, on the whole, the most probable 
date, but demonstrative proof is lacking, and it 
may have been written thirty years earlier, or 
(but only if the Lucan authorship be abandoned) 
thirty years later. 

4. Reception in the Canon. There is no trace 
of any collection of Christian sacred books which 
included the Four-Gospel Canon, but omitted the 
Acts. That is to say, throughout the Catholic 
Church within the Roman Empire, Acts was uni- 
versally received as the authoritative and inspired 
continuation of the Gospel story. 

It appears also probable that in the Church of 
Edessa Acts was used from the earliest time as the 
continuation of the Diatessaron, for the Doctrine of 
Addai specifies as the sacred books 'the Law and 
the Prophets and the Gospel . . . and the Epistles 
of Paul . . . and the Acts of the Twelve Apostles,' 
of which the last item probably means the canon- 
ical Acts (see F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Chris- 
tianity, London, 1904, p. 59). 

Moreover, the Marcionites and other Gnostic 
Christians do not appear to have ever used the 
Acts. Later on the Manichaeans seem to have 
used a corpus of the five Acts of Paul, Peter, John, 
Andrew, and Thomas, as a substitute for the 
canonical Acts ; and the Priscillianists in Spain so 
far adopted this usage as to accept this corpus as 
an adjunct to the canonical Acts. (For the more 
detailed consideration of these Acts, both as a 
corpus and as separate documents, see ACTS OF 
THE APOSTLES [Apocryphal]. ) 

IV. THE COMPOSITION OF ACTS. The ques- 
tion of the composition of this or any other book 
is one partly of fact, partly of theory. In the 
sense of determining the arrangement of the sec- 
tions, and the relations which they bear to one 
another, it is a question of fact and observation ; 
but, when the question is raised why the sections 
are so arranged, and how far they represent older 



sources used by the writer, it becomes a question 
of theory and criticism. 

1. The obvious facts. The first point, there- 
fore, is the establishment of the facts, and in the 
main these admit of little discussion. Acts falls 
immediately into two chief parts the Pauline, 
and the non-Pauline parts with a short inter- 
mediate section in which St. Paul appears at in- 
tervals. The Pauline section, again, falls into the 
natural divisions afforded by his two (or three) 
great journeys ; and a cross-division can also be 
made by noting that the author sometimes uses 
the first person plural, sometimes writes exclu- 
sively in the third person. The earlier sections 
in tne same way can be divided though the 
division is here much less clear into those in 
which the centre of activity is Jerusalem, and 
those in which it is Antioch, while a further series 
of subdivisions can be made according as the chief 
actor is Peter, Philip, or Stephen. Finally, still 
smaller subdivisions can be made by dividing the 
narrative into the series of incidents which com- 
pose it. 

The table on p. 22 serves to give a general 
conspectus of the facts ; a somewhat more minute 
system of subdivision has been adopted in the 
earlier chapters, which are especially affected by 
the question of sources, than in the from this 
point of view more straightforward later chap- 
ters. This analysis is sufficient to show that the 
writer must have been drawing on various sources 
or traditions for his information, and we have to 
face three problems : What was the purpose with 
which the writer put together this narrative ? How 
far is it possible to distinguish the sources, written 
or oral, which he used ? What is the relative value 
of the sources which he used ? 

2. The purpose with which the whole narrative 
was composed. It is, of course, clear that the 
writer has not attempted to give a colourless story 
of as many events as possible, but is using history 
to commend his own interpretation of the facts. 
This is corroborated by his own account at the 
beginning of the Gospel, in which he defines his 
purpose as that of convincing Theophilus of the 
certainty of the ' narratives in which he had been 
instructed ' ('iva. ^TTLJVI^S irepl &v KaTijx 1 ?^* \6ywv ryv 
dff<f>d\fiav [Lk I 4 ]). In other words, he wishes to 
tell the story of the early days of Christianity in 
order to prove the Christian teaching. 

If we consider the narrative from this point of 
view, we can see several motives underlying it. 
(a) The desire to show that the Christian Church 
was the result of the presence of the Spirit (irvevfia, 
rb irvevfM, rb dyiov Trj/eC/xa are the usual expressions, 
but Trvev/M KvpLov in 5 9 8 39 [the text is doubtful], 
ri> TTvevfj.a 'lrj<rov in 16 7 ), which is the fulfilment of 
the promise of Jesus to send it to His disciples 
(Ac I 5ff - ; cf. Lk 3 16 24 481 -). The Spirit manifested 
itself in glossolalia, in the working of miracles of 
healing, and in the surprising growth of Christi- 
anity. This is perhaps the main object of Luke's 
writings, and to it is subordinated, both in the 
Gospel and in Acts, the eschatological expectation 
which is most characteristic of Mark and Matthew ; 
though many traces of this still remain. (b) The 
desire to show the unreasonableness and wicked- 
ness of Jewish opposition is also clearly marked, 
and is contrasted with the attitude of Roman 
officials. It is, therefore, not impossible that the 
writer desired to dissociate Christianity from 
Judaism, and to defend Christians from the im- 
putation of belonging to a sect forbidden by the 
State. If we knew the time when Christianity 
was, as such, first forbidden and persecuted, this 
might be a valuable indication of date, but at 
present all that is known with certainty is that 
(cf. Pliny's correspondence with Trajan) it wae 



22 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



forbidden by the beginning of the 2nd cent., and 
that in 64 it was probably (but not certainly) not 
forbidden, as the Neronic persecution was not of 
the Christians as such, but of Christians as 
suspected of certain definite crimes. It is, how- 
ever, in any case clear that this feature of Acts 
supports the view that one purpose cherished by 
the writer was the desire to protest against the 
view that Christians had always been, or could 
ever be, regarded as a danger to the Empire. 
(c) As a means towards the accomplishment of his 
other purposes, the writer is desirous of showing 
how Christianity had spread from Jerusalem to 
the surrounding districts, from there to Antioch, 
and from Antioch through the provinces to Rome. 
He also explains in what way the Christians came 



Church, and the early history of the Church in 
Jerusalem. In discussing them it is simplest to 
begin with the most marked feature the ' we- 
clauses ' and then work back to the earlier 
chapters. 

(1) The ' we-clauses.' As was shown above, the 
balance of evidence seems at present to be strongly 
in favour of the view that the writer of these 
sections intended to claim that he had been a 
companion of St. Paul, and that he was himself 
the editor of the whole book. If this be so, we 
have for the rest of the ' Paul ' narrative a source 
ready to our hand the personal information 
obtained by Luke from St. Paul himself, or from 
other companions of St. Paul whom he met in his 
society. This may cover as much as Ac 9 1 ' 30 ll 27 - 30 



BEFKRENCE. 


PLACB. 


GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 


CHIEF ACTORS. 


11-11. 


Jerusalem. 


The Ascension and promise of the Spirit. 


Jesus and the Twelve. 


112-26. 


_~ 


Choice of Matthias. 


Peter and the Twelve. 


21-47. 




Speech of Peter. 
Gift of the Spirit. 


Peter and the Twelve. 






Glossolalia. 








Speech of Peter. 




81-28. 


m 


Healing miracle by Peter and John. 


Peter [and John]. 






Speech of Peter. 




41-23 


ti 


Imprisonment of Peter and John. 


Peter [and John]. 






Speech of Peter. 




433-81. 


ti 


Their release. 


Peter [and John]. 






Meeting of the Church. 








Gift of the Spirit. 




432-518. 


m 


Communism in the Church. 


Peter, Barnabas [Ana- 








nias, Sapphira] . 


617-48. 


ti 


Imprisonment of Peter and John. 


Peter [and John]. 






Speech of Gamaliel. 




61-7. 


ti 


Appointment of the Seven. 


The apostles. 


68-18. 




Preaching of Stephen. 


Stephen. 






His arrest. 




71-88. 




Speech of Stephen. 


Stephen. 






His death. 




84-28. 


Samaria. 


Philip's preaching. 


Philip, Peter [and John]. 






Simon Magus. 


Simon Magus. 


826-10. 
91-81. 


The road to Gaza. 
The road to Damascus. 


Philip's conversion of the Ethiopian. 
Conversion of Saul, and extension of 


Philip. 
Paul. 






the Church. 




088-1048. 


Lydda, Joppa, Casarea. 


Peter's journey through Lydda, Joppa, 


Peter. 






Caesarea. 








Conversion of Cornelius. 








Speech of Peter. 




111-18. 
1119.88. 


Jerusalem. 
Antioch. 


Peter's speech on Cornelius* conversion. 
Foundation of Gentile Christianity. 


Peter. 
Hellenistic Jews, Barna- 








bas, Paul. 


1127-80. 




Collection for Jerusalem. 


Barnabas, Paul. 


121-24. 


Jerusalem. 


Herod's persecution. 


Peter. 






Peter's imprisonment. 








Death of Herod. 




1238. 




Be turn of Barnabas and Saul to 


Barnabas, PauL 






Antioch. 




181-1438. 


Journey. 


First missionary journey. 


Paul. 


151-88. 


Jerusalem. 


Apostolic Council. 


Peter, James, PauL 


1536-1822. 


Journey. 


Second missionary journey. 


Paul. 


18232118. 




Third missionary journey. 


Paul. 


2117-2311. 


Jerusalem. 


Paul's dealings with James. His arrest. 


PauL 






Speech to Sanhedrin. 




2313-2633. 


Caesarea. 


Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea. Felix. 


PauL 






Festus. Agrippa. 




271-2816. 


Journey. 


Journey to Borne. 


PauL 


2817-81. 


Borne. 


Paul and Jews in Rome. 


Paul. 



to preach to Gentiles without insisting on the 
Jewish Law, and how this had been perceived to be 
the work of the Spirit by the Jewish apostles who 
recognized the revelation to this effect to St. Paul 
and to St. Peter (Ac 9 15ff - 22 21 ll 18 15 lft ). 

3. The sources used in Acts. The most super- 
ficial examination of Acts shows that it is divided 
most obviously into a ' Peter ' part and a ' Paul ' 
part ; it is, therefore, not strange that the critics 
of the beginning of the 19th cent, thought of 
dividing Acts into narratives derived from a 
hypothetical ' Acts of Peter ' and a hypothetical 
'Acts of Paul.' But further investigation has 
gone behind this division : it has been seen that 
important questions are involved in the relation 
of the ' we-clauses ' to the rest of the narrative 
relating to St. Paul, the story of the Antiochene 



1225-si or even more> There is nothing in these 
sections which cannot have come from St. Paul 
or his entourage, and the inaccuracies in the 
narrative, as compared with the Epistles, do not 
seem to point to any greater fallibility on the part 
of the writer than that to be found in other 
historical writers who are in the possession of 
good sources. At the same time, this does not 
mean that the assignment of these chapters to a 
' Paul ' source is final or exclusive of others. Some 
sections within these limits (e.g. Ac 15) may come 
from some other Jerusalem or Antiochene source, 
and some sections outside them (e.g. the story of 
Stephen's death) may have come from the ' Paul ' 
source. 

If, on the other hand, it should ultimately 
appear that the evidence from style has been 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



exaggerated or misrepresented, it will be necessary 
to regard the ' we-sections ' as representing a 
separate source, and consider the question whether 
the rest of the chapters mentioned above came 
from one or several sources. At present, however, 
no one has shown any serious ground for thinking 
that we can distinguish any signs of change of 
style, or of doublets in the narrative, to point in 
this direction. 

(2) The problems presented by the earlier 
chapters are much more complicated. The chief 
point which attracts attention is that in the first 
half of these chapters the centre of interest is 
Jerusalem, or Jerusalem and the neighbourhood, 
while in the second half it is Antioch. Here again 
it is easier to begin by taking the later chapters 
first, and to discuss the probable limits of the 
Antiochene tradition, together with the possibility 
that it may have lain before the writer of Acts as 
a document, before considering the Jerusalem 
tradition of the opening chapters. 

(a) The Antiochene tradition. The exact limits 
of this tradition are difficult to fix. It is clear 
that to it the section describing the foundation of 
the church at Antioch and its early history 
(Ac H 19ff -) must be attributed ; but difficulties 
arise as soon as an attempt is made to work either 
backwards or forwards from this centre, as the 
later sections, which can fairly be attributed to 
Antiochene tradition, can also be attributed to the 
Pauline source, while the earlier sections of the 
same kind might be attributed to the Jerusalem 
tradition. It is obvious that the ol /*>> ofo 
Siaffiraptvres of Ac II 19 picks up the narrative of 
8 1 " 4 . In 8 1 - 4 the story of Stephen's death is brought 
to a close by the statement that tytvero d tv ^Keiv-g 
Ttj i}fdp<?. du*>y/j.bs /j,tyas tiri rty KK\r)(rlav r^v tv 
'lepoffoXtifJUHr irdvres 8t difftr<ip-r]ffav KO.TCI ras xdpas 
. . . ol fiitv oftv diacrwap^vres SiijXdov etia.yye\i6/j.fvoi 
rbv \6yov. Then the writer gives two instances of 
this evangelization by Philip and Peter in Samaria, 
and by Philip alone on the road to Gaza. Next 
he explains how the conversion of St. Paul put 
an end to the persecution, and how the conversion 
of Cornelius led to the recognition of preaching to 
Gentiles by the Jerusalem community. Finally, he 
returns to where he started from, and picks up his 
story as to the Christians who were dispersed after 
the death of Stephen, with the same formula 
ol ptv oZv SiacriraptvTes in II 19 . 

Thus there is an organic unity between 8 4 and 
II 19 . But 8 4 is the end of the story of the 
Hellenistic Jews, their seven representatives, and 
the persecution which befell them ; and the begin- 
ning of this story is in 6 8 . Between 6 6 and 8 4 there 
is no break unless it be thought that the whole 
speech of Stephen is the composition of the editor, 
as may very well be the case. Is, then, 6 6 -8 4 to 
be regarded as belonging to the Antiochene tradi- 
tion ? Harnack thinks so, and it is very probable. 
But it is also true that 6 6 -8 4 might have come 
either from Jerusalem or from St. Paul himself, 
and it is hard to see convincing reasons why the 
Antiochene source which Harnack postulates should 
not have come from the ' Paul ' source. 

The same sort of result is reached by considering 
the sections following II 19 ' 24 . Is ll 26 ' 30 ' Pauline' 
or ' Antiochene ' ? The following section, 12 1 ' 24 , 
is clearly part of the Jerusalem tradition, but 
what follows, ^^-IS 3 , might again be either 
Pauline or Antiochene, and the same is true of 
15 1 ' 35 , in which the account of the Council might 
be Antiochene or Pauline, but is less likely to 
represent Jerusalem tradition. These exhaust 
the number of the passages which are ever likely to 
be attributed to the Antiochene source. To the 
present writer it seems that, unless it prove 
possible (so far it has not been done) to find some 



literary criterion for distinguishing between the 
' Pauline ' and ' Antiochene ' sources, it will remain 
permanently impossible to draw any line of de- 
marcation between what Luke may have heard 
about the early history of Antioch from St. Paul 
and what he may have learnt from other Antiochene 
persons. It also seems quite impossible to say 
whether he was using written sources. This, of 
course, does not deny that the so-called ' Antiochene 
source ' represents Antiochene tradition. All that 
is said is that this Antiochene tradition may have 
come from St. Paul quite as well as from any one 
else. On the merits of the case we can go no 
further (for the possibility that Luke was himself 
an Antiochene see LUKE). 

(b) The Jerusalem tradition. It is obvious that 
Ac P-5 42 represents in some sense a Jerusalem 
tradition, and it is scarcely less clear that 8 5 ' 40 9 31 - 
II 18 12 1 ' 24 represent a tradition which is divided 
in its interests between Jerusalem and Csesarea. 
It is, therefore, necessary to deal first with the 
purely Jerusalem sections, and afterwards with the 
Jerusalem-Csesarean narrative, before considering 
Avhether they are really one or more than one in 
origin. 

(a) The purely Jerusalem sections. The most 
important feature of Ac P-5 42 is that 2 1 ' 47 seems to 
contain doublets of S 1 ^ 35 , and that the suggestion 
of a multiplicity of sources is supported by some 
linguistic peculiarities. 

21-13 The gift of the Spirit, accompanied by the shak- 4*1 
ing of the house in which the Apostles were. 

214-36 A speech of Peter. 31-26 

237-41 The result of this speech is an extraordinarily 44 
large number of converts (5000, 3000). 

242-47 The communism of the Early Church. 434. SB 

Of this series of doublets the twice-told story of 
the early ' communism ' of the first Christians and 
the repetition of the shaking of the house at the 
outpouring of the Spirit are the most striking, but 
the cumulative effect is certainly to justify the 
view that we have two accounts, slightly varying, 
of the same series of events. 

This result finds remarkable corroboration in 
certain linguistic peculiarities of Ac 3 f . as com- 
pared with ch. 2. In the former the word dpcwnfa-as 
is used in the sense ' raised up to preach ' (S 26 ; cf. 
S 22 ), and ijyeipe is used of the Resurrection, but in 
the latter d^acmjo-as is used of the Resurrection. 
In Ac 3 f. Jesus is described as a TTCUJ 8eou (3 13 - 26 
427. 30^ k u k i n cfo 2 as &vdpa dirodedety/jL^vov cbr6 rov 
Oeov. In Ac 3 f. Peter is almost always accompanied 
by John (3 1 - 8-4> u 4 19 ), but in ch. 2 he appears alone 
or 'with the other apostles.' 

That Ac 2 and 3 f. are doublets is thus probable ; 
moreover, as the linguistic characteristics of 3 f . are 
peculiar and not Lucan, it is more probable here 
than anywhere else in Acts that we are dealing 
with traces of a written Greek document under- 
lying Acts in the same way as Mark and Q underlie 
tlie Lucan Gospel. To this branch of the Jerusalem 
tradition Harnack has given the name of ' source 
A,' and to Ac 2 the name of ' source B.' According 
to him, the continuation of A can be found in 5 1 ' 16 , 
and he also identifies it with the Jerusalem- 
Csesarean source (see below). B is continued in 
517-42 A C i more probably, he thinks, belongs to 
B than to A, but may have a separate origin. 

If A be followed, we get a clear and probable 
narrative of the history of the Jerusalem Church, 
but it begins in the middle. According to it, Peter 
and John went up to the Temple and healed a lame 
man ; in connexion with the sensation caused by 
this wonder Peter explained that he wrought the 
cure in the name of Jesus, whom he announced as 
the predestined Messiah. As the result of this 
missionary speech a great number of converts were 
made (about 5000 [4 4 ]). Peter and John were 
arrested, but later on released after a speech by 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



Peter, and a practical defiance of the command of 
the authorities not to preach in the name of Jesus. 
Then follows a description of the joy of the Church 
at the release of Peter and John, and an account of 
their prayer 56s rots SoiJXou <rov ftera irappTjcrias ir&crris 
\a\fiv rbv \6yov <rov. In answer to their prayer, the 
Spirit was outpoured amid the shaking of the room 
in which they were, after which they were able, 
as they had asked, to speak the word /nerd Trapprfffias. 
Finally, a picture is drawn of the prosperity of the 
Church, and of the voluntary communism which 
prevailed. 

The narrative gives an intelligible picture of the 
events which led to the growth of the Jerusalem 
Church and of an organization of charitable dis- 
tribution that ultimately led to the development 
described in Ac 6. Moreover, it has several marks 
of individuality, and an early type which suggests 
that we have here to do with a source used by Luke, 
probably in documentary form, rather than a Lucan 
composition. This applies especially to Peter's 
speech, which is in some ways one of the most 
archaic passages in the NT. Peter does not 
describe Jesus as having been the Messiah, but 
as a irals Oeov (more probably ' Servant of God ' than 
' Child of God,' and perhaps with a side reference 
to the ' Servant of Jahweh ' in Is 53, etc.) a phrase 
peculiar to source A, 1 Clement, the Martyrdom 
of Polycarp, and the Didache. He then goes on 
to announce that God has glorified this iratj by the 
Resurrection, and that He is the predestined 
Messiah (rbv TrpoffKfxeipifff^fov ~KpiffT6v), who will 
remain in the Heavens until the 'restoration of 
all things.' Recent research in the field of eschato- 
logy and Messianic doctrine has brought out clearly 
the primitive character of this speech. The same 
can also be said of the prayer of the Church in 
4 24 ' 1 , in which the phrase rbv &yiov iraidA <rov 'Ir)ffovi>, 
5i> txP lffa -s (' made Christ ' ?) is very remarkable. 

Thus source A commends itself as an early and 
good tradition, but it begins in the middle ana tells 
us nothing about the events previous to the visit of 
Peter and John to the Temple. Apparently it was to 
fill up this gap that Luke turned to source B, which 
seems to relate some of the same events, but in a 
different order ; and, though Harnack doubts this, 
it seems, on the whole, probable that Ac 1, or at 
least vv. 6 " 12 , ought to be regarded as belonging 
to it. According to this narrative, the disciples 
received the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost amid 
the shaking of the room, after which Peter made 
a speech, in many points resembling that in Ac 3, 
but without the characteristic phraseology of A, 
and with the addition of many more ' testimonia ' 
as to the Resurrection. A great number of converts 
(about 3000) were made ; and, in the enthusiasm 
which prevailed, a spirit of voluntary communism 
flourished, and an organization of charitable dis- 
tribution came into being. 

This narrative does not seem so convincing as 
that of source A. But if Ac 1 be regarded as 
belonging to it, it has the advantage of connecting 
the story of the Church at Jerusalem directly with 
the events that followed the Crucifixion a period 
on which A is silent. Now, it is tolerably clear 
that A was a written Greek source used by Luke, 
just as he used Mark in the Gospel ; for, although 
it has been ' Lucanized,' it still retains its own 
characteristic expressions. Presumably, therefore, 
a copy of this document came into Luke's possession, 
and he supplemented it at the beginning with B ; 
but, whether B was a written source or oral tradi- 
tion, it is impossible to say. The question presents 
in this respect a remarkable parallel to the state of 
things in the last chapters of the Gospel of Luke. 
Here also the writer made use of a Greek document 
Mark and supplemented it with a Jerusalem 
tradition whether written or oral it is impossible 



to say either because the Marcan narrative broke 
off, as it breaks off in the existent text of Mark, or 
because he desired to correct the Marcan tradition. 
It is, moreover, plain that this Jerusalem tradition 
at the end of Luke is the same as that in source B 
of the Acts. The question then suggests itself 
whether source A the written source of Acts 
may not belong to the same document as ' Mark ' 
the written source of the Gospel. If we suppose 
that the original Mark contained a continuation of 
the Gospel story down to the foundation of the 
Church in Jerusalem, and either that Luke dis- 
liked the section referring to the events after the 
Crucifixion, or perhaps that his copy had been 
mutilated, the composition of this part of Acts 
becomes plain ; * but it also becomes a question 
whether the John who accompanies Peter in source 
A (and nowhere else) is not John Mark, rather 
than John the son of Zebedee. 

All this, however, is hypothetical. The actual 
existence of the source A in ch. 3f. and of the 
supplementary source B in ch. 2 is a point for 
which comparative certainty may be claimed. 

The problem then arises, how far these sources 
can be traced in the following chapters of Acts. 
Harnack is inclined to see in 5 17 ' 41 a doublet of 
4 1 ' 23 , and to assign the latter to A, the former to 
B. This is not improbable, but it is not so certain 
as the previous results. It is, for instance, by no 
means improbable that the apostles were twice 
arrested, and, as the story is told, 5 17 seems a not 
unnatural continuation of ch. 4. It is, however, 
true that the characteristic ' Peter and John ' is 
not found in 5 17ff> ; but, on the other hand, the 
rather curious phrase dpx'77 '' is applied to Jesus 
in 3 18 and 5 31 (elsewhere in NT only in He 2 10 12 2 ), 
which militates somewhat against the view that 
these chapters belong to different sources. In the 
same way the story of Ananias and Sapphira in 
Ac 5 1 ' 11 would fit quite as well on to B as on to A, 
with which Harnack connects it. Linguistically 
there is no clear evidence, but it may be noted 
that 0<fy3os is a characteristic of the Christian com- 
munity in B in 2^, and is repeated in S 5 - u . It is 
not found in A, though from the circumstances of 
the case not much weight can be attached to this. 
It therefore must remain uncertain whether Ac 5 
ought to be regarded as wholly A, wholly B, or be 
divided between the two sources. 

(/3) The Jeritsalem-Ccesarean sections. These are 
Ac 8 8 ' 40 9 s1 -! I 18 12 1 ' 23 , which describe Philip's evan- 
gelization of Samaria, followed by the mission of 
Peter and John, Philip's conversion of the Ethiopian 
on the road to Gaza, and his arrival in Caesarea, 
Peter's mission to Lydda, Joppa, and Csesarea, 
and return to Jerusalem, Peter s arrest, imprison- 
ment, and escape in Jerusalem, and Herod's death 
in Csesarea. Harnack thinks that all these pas- 
sages represent a Jerusalem-Caesarean tradition, 
which he identifies with source A. It is certainly 
probable that 8 14 ' 25 belongs to A, owing to the 
characteristic combination of Peter and John, and 
it may be regarded as reasonable to think that 
this also covers the rest of the section, so that 
8 5 -* may be attributed to A. It is more doubtful 
when we come to the two other sections. If, how- 
ever, any weight be attached to the suggestion 
that A is connected with Mark, it is noteworthy 
that 12 1 ' 23 is also very clearly connected with the 
house of Mark and his mother. 

The section 9 31 -! I 18 remains. This is much more 
clearly Csesarean than either of the others, and 
might possibly be separated from them and as- 

* See Burkitt, Earliest Soureet of the Gospels, London, 1911, 
p. 79 f., where the suggestion is made that the early part oi 
Acts may represent a Marcan tradition, though the bearing 
on this theory of the double source A and B in Acts is not 
mentioned. 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



25 



cribed to a distinct Csesarean source. If so, the 
suggestion of Harnack and others that the source 
might be identified with the family of Philip, 
which was settled in Caesarea, is not impossible ; 
from 21 8 (a ' we-clause ') we know that Luke came 
into contact with him there. It is also obvious 
that the information given by Philip might be the 
source of much more of that which has been ten- 
tatively attributed to source A, or on the other 
hand might conceivably be identified with source 
B ; the truth is, of course, that we here reach the 
limit of legitimate hypothesis, and pass into the 
open country of uncontrolled guessing. 

The result, therefore, of an inquiry into the 
sources of the Jerusalem tradition is to establish 
the existence of a written Greek source, A, in 
Ac 3f., with a parallel narrative B apparently 
the continuation of the Lucan Jerusalem narrative 
in the Gospel ; and these two sources, or one of 
them, are continued in ch. 5. In 8 5 ' 40 is a further 
narrative which has points of connexion with A. 
Ac 9 31 -!! 18 is a Csesarean narrative, probably con- 
nected with Philip, and this raises difficulties in 
relation to A, for 8 3 ' 40 has also points of connexion 
with Philip. Finally 12 1 ' 23 is a Jerusalem narrative 
connected with Peter and Mark ; but here also the 
possibility of a connexion with Csesarea remains 
open. 

V. HISTORICAL VALUE OF THE VARIOUS TRA- 
DITIONS. So far as the ' we-clauses' and the prob- 
ably Pauline tradition are concerned, this question 
has already been discussed. While there are traces 
of probable inaccuracy, there is no reason to doubt 
the general trustworthiness of the narrative. The 
Antiochene narrative and the Jerusalem-Caesarean 
narrative (the ' Philip ' clauses) can be judged with 
more difficulty, as we have no means of comparing 
the narratives with any other contemporary state- 
ments. Here, however, we have another criterion. 
It is probable that Luke is dealing with traditions, 
and, at least in the case of A, with a document. 
We cannot say how far he alters his sources, for 
we have no other information as to their original 
form, but we can use the analogy of his observed 
practice in the case of the Gospel. Here we know 
that he made use of Mark ; and we can control his 
methods, because we possess his source. In this way 
we can obtain some idea of what he is likely to 
have done with his sources in Acts. On the whole, 
it cannot be said that the application of this 
criterion raises the value of Acts. In the Gospel, 
Luke, though in the main constant to his source 
Mark, was by no means disinclined to change the 
meaning of the story as well as the words, if he 
thought right. It is possible that he was justified 
in doing so, but that is not the question. The 
point is that he did not hesitate to alter his source 
in the Gospel ; it is therefore probable that he 
did not hesitate to do so in the Acts. 

Besides this, on grounds of general probability, 
various small points give rise to doubt, or seem to 
belong to the world of legend rather than to that 
of history for instance, the removal of Philip by 
the Spirit (or angel ?) from the side of the Ethiopian 
to Azotus ; but the main narrative offers no real 
reason for rejection. The best statement of all 
the points open to suspicion is still that of Zeller- 
Overbeck (The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., Lon- 
don, 1875-76), but the conclusions which Zeller 
draws are often untenable. He did not realize 
that in any narrative there is a combination of 
really observed fact and of hypotheses to explain 
the fact. The hypotheses of a writer or narrator 
of the 1st cent, were frequently of a kind that we 
should now never think of suggesting. But that 
is no reason why the narrative as a whole should 
not be regarded as a statement of fact. The exist- 
ence, in any given narrative, of improbable ex- 



planations as to how events happened is not an argu- 
ment against its early date and general trust- 
worthiness, unless it can be shown that the ex- 
planation involves improbability not only in fact 
but also in thought it must not only be improb- 
able that the event really happened in the manner 
suggested, but it must be improbable that a narra- 
tor of that age would have thought that it so hap- 
pened. Judged by this standard, the Antiochene 
and Jerusalem-Caesarean traditions seem to deserve 
credence as good and early sources. 

The same thing can be said of source A in the 
purely Jerusalem tradition. But the problem 
raised by source B is more difficult. If it be as- 
sumed that Ac 1 does not belong to it, it can only 
be compared with source A. To this it seems in 
ferior, but on the whole it narrates the same events, 
and it would certainly be rash to regard B as 
valueless. No doubt it is true that, if the events 
happened in the order given in A, they cannot 
have happened in the order given in B, but it is 
quite possible that many details in B may be cor- 
rect in spite of the fact that they are told other- 
wise or not told at all in A. 

If, on the other hand, Ac 1 be assigned to B, 
the question is more complicated. According to 
Ac 1, the Ascension took place near Jerusalem 
forty days after the Resurrection, and the infer- 
ence is suggested that the disciples, including 
Peter, never left Jerusalem after the Crucifixion. 
That this was Luke's own view is made quite plain 
from the Gospel, except that there does not appear 
to be any room in the Gospel narrative for the forty 
days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. 
The problems which arise are therefore : (1) How 
far can the Gospel of Luke and Acts 1 be recon- 
ciled? (2) Is it more probable that the disciples 
stayed in Jerusalem or went to Galilee ? 

1. How far can the Gospel of Luke and Acts 1 
be reconciled ? Various attempts have been made 
to find room in the Gospel for the ' forty days.' 
They have not, however, been successful, as the 
connecting links in the Gospel narrative are quite 
clear from the morning of the Resurrection to the 
moment of the Ascension, which is plainly intended 
to be regarded as taking place on the evening of 
the same day. According to Lk 24 8ff -, the sequence 
of the events was the following. Early on Sunday 
morning certain women went to the tomb, and to 
them two men appeared who announced the Resur- 
rection ; the women believed, but failed to con- 
vince the disciples. Later on in the same day (tv 
avrrj rfj rifdpq.) two disciples saw the risen Lord on 
the way to Emmaus, and at once returned to Jeru- 
salem to tell the news (dvaa-Tdvres afrry r% &pg.). 
While they were narrating their experience the 
Lord appeared, led them out to Bethany, and was 
taken up to heaven. The only place wnere there 
is any possibility of a break in tne narrative is v. 44 
(elirev 5), but this possibility (in any case contrary 
to the general impression given by the passage) is 
excluded by the facts that elirev St is a peculiarly 
Lucan phrase (59 times in Luke, 15 times in Acts, 
only once elsewhere in the NT), and that it never 
implies that a narrative is not continuous, and 
usually the reverse. Moreover, that Lk 24 s2 , what- 
ever text be taken, refers to the Ascension is 
rendered certain by the reference in Ac I 2 . Thus, 
there is no doubt that the Gospel places the Ascen- 
sion on the evening or night of the third day after 
the Crucifixion. It is equally clear that Acts 
places the Ascension forty days later, if the text 
of I 3 (Si ij/Li^puv reffffapdKovra) is correct ; and, though 
there is, it is true, some confusion in the text at 
this point, it is not enough to justify the omission 
of ' forty days ' (see esp. F. Blass, Acta Apostolorum 
secundum formam quce videtur Romanam, Leipzig, 
1896, p. xxiii). The only possible suggestion, 



26 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



therefore, is that the writer found some reason to 
modify his opinions in the interval between writ- 
ing the Gospel and the Acts. Whether he was 
right to do so depends on the judgment passed on 
various factors, which cannot be discussed here, 
but may be summed up in the question whether 
the evidence of the Pauline Epistles does not sug- 
gest that the earliest Christian view was that 
Ascension and Resurrection were but two ways of 
describing the same fact, and whether this is not 
also implied in the speeches of Peter in Ac 2 and 
3 * (cf. especially Ro 8 24 , Ph I 23 , Ac 2 W 3 13 ' 18 ). The 
evidence is not sufficient to settle the point, but it 
shows that the problem is not imaginary. 

2. Is it more probable that the disciples stayed 
in Jerusalem or went to Galilee? The evidence 
that the disciples went to Galilee is found in 
Mark.f The end of Mark is, of course, missing, but 
there are in the existing text two indications that 
the appearances of the risen Christ were in Galilee, 
and therefore that the disciples must have returned 
there after the Crucifixion, (a) Mk 14 m , ' All ye 
shall be offended : for it is written, I will smite the 
shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. But 
after I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.' 
This seems intended to prepare the way for the 
flight of the disciples after the arrest in Geth- 
semane ; the meaning of the second part, ' I will 
go before you into Galilee,' is obscure, but in any 
case it implies a return to Galilee, (b) Mk 16 7 (the 
message of the young man at the tomb), ' Go, tell 
his disciples and Peter that he is going before you 
into Galilee, there shall you see him.' Here it 
is quite clearly stated that the first appearance of 
the risen Christ to the disciples is to be in Galilee, 
and once more it must be urged that this implies 
that the disciples went there. 

On the other hand, the evidence of Luke and 
the Acts is that the disciples did not leave Jeru- 
salem,' and that, so far from the risen Lord announ- 
cing His future appearance to the disciples in Galilee, 
He actually told them to remain in Jerusalem. 

That the two traditions thus exist cannot be 
questioned, nor can they be reconciled without 
violence. If, however, we have to choose between 
them, the Galilaean tradition seems to deserve the 
preference. It is in itself much more probable 
that the disciples fled to Galilee when they left 
Jesus to be arrested by Himself, than that they 
went into Jerusalem, if they were, as the narra- 
tive says, panic-stricken, Jerusalem was the last 
place to which those who were not inhabitants of 
that city would go. Moreover, it is not difficult 
to see that the tendency of Christian history would 
have naturally emphasized Jerusalem and omitted 
Galilee, for it is certainly a fact that from the be- 

S inning the Christian Church found its centre in 
erusalem and not in Galilee. Why this was so 
is obscure, and there is a link missing in the 
history of the chain of events. This must be 
recognized, but what either source B or Luke 
himself (if Ac 1 be not part of source B) has done 
is to connect up the links of the chain as if the 
Galilaean link had never existed. So far as this goes, 
it is a reason for not accepting Ac 1 as an accurate 
account of history ; and this judgment perhaps 
reflects on source B and certainly in some measure 
on Luke. It must, however, be noted that it ought 
not seriously to affect our judgment on Luke's 
account of later events. The period between the 
Crucifixion and the growth of the Jerusalem 
community was naturally the most obscure point 
in the history of Christianity ; and, even if Luke 

* Of course, if this be so, there is a contradiction between 
Ac 1 and 2, and it becomes more probable (a) that Ac 1 is from 
a separate tradition from source B ; (6) that source B, like A, 
was a written document when used by. Luke. 

t Secondary evidence is to be found in Mt 28, Jn 21, and the 
' Gospel oi Peter,' but Mark is the primary evidence. 



went wrong in his attempt to find out the facts at 
this point, that is no special reason for rejecting 
his evidence for later events when he really was in 
a position to obtain sound information. All that 
is really shown is that, unlike Mark, he was never 
in close contact with one of the original Galilaean 
disciples. 

VI. CHRONOLOGY OF ACTS. There are no 
definite chronological statements in the Acts, 
such as those in Lk 3 1 . But at five points syn- 
chronisms with known events can be established 
and used as the basis of a chronological system. 
These are the death of Herod Agrippa I. (Ac 12 23 -) ; 
the famine in Judaea (ll' 7ff 12 a3 ) ; Gallio's pro- 
consulate in Corinth (18 12 ) ; the decree of Claudius 
banishing all Jews from Rome (18 2 ) ; and the 
arrival of Festus in Judaea (25 1 ). 

1. The death of Herod Agrippa. Agrippa I., 
according to the evidence of coins* (if these be 
genuine), reigned nine years. The beginning of 
his reign was immediately after the accession of 
Caligula, who became Emperor on 16 March, A.D. 
37, and within a few days appointed Agrippa, who 
was then in Rome, to the tetrarchy of Philip, with 
the title of king ; to this in 39-40 the tetrarchy of 
Antipas was added. Later on, Claudius added 
Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee. The difficulty is that 
Josephus says that Agrippa died in the seventh year 
of his reign. This would be between the spring of 
43 and that of 44, but it does not agree with the 
evidence of the coinage, unless it be supposed that 
Agrippa dated his accession from the death of Philip 
rather than from his appointment by Caligula. 

2. The famine in Judaea. Our information for 
the date of this event is found in Josephus and 
Orosius. Josephus (Ant. XX. v.) says that the 
famine took place during the procuratorship of 
Alexander. Alexander's term of office ended in 
A.D. 48, and this is therefore the terminus ad quern 
for the date of the famine. His term of office 
began after that of Fadus. It is not known when 
Fadus retired, but he was sent to Judaea after the 
death of Herod Agrippa I. in A.D. 44, so that 
Alexander's term cannot have begun before 45, 
and more probably not before 46. Thus Josephus 
fixes the famine within a margin of less than two 
years on either side of 47. 

Orosius (VII. vi.), a writer of the 5th cent., is 
more definite, and fixes the famine in the fourth 
year of Claudius, which, on his system of reckon- 
ing (see Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem ? 
London, 1898, p. 223, which supplements and 
corrects the statement in St. Paul the Traveller 
and the Roman Citizen, do. 1895, p. 68 f. ), was prob- 
ably from Sept. 44 to Sept. 45, or possibly from Jan. 
45 to Jan. 46. This statement has, of course, only 
the value which may be attributed to the sources 
of Orosius, which are unknown ; but it supports 
Josephus fairly well, and it is not probable that 
Orosius was acquainted with the Antiquities, so 
that his statement has independent value. 

3. Gallio's proconsulate. This date has recently 
been fixed with considerable definiteness by the 
discovery of a fragment of an inscription at Delphi t 
which contains a reference to Gallio as proconsul 
(which must be proconsul of Achaia), and bears 
the date of the 26th ' acclamation ' of the Emperor 
Claudius. This acclamation was before 1 Aug. 
A.D. 52 (CIL vi. 125b), as an inscription of that 
date refers to the 271h acclamation, and after 25 
Jan. 51, as his 24th acclamation came in his llth 
tribunician year (i.e. 25 Jan. 51-24 Jan. 52). More- 
over, it must hare been some considerable time after 
25 Jan. 51, as the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th acclamations 

* See F. W. Madden, Coins of the Jews, London, 1881, p. 130. 

t First published by A. Nikitsky in Russian, in Epigraphical 
Studies at Delphi, Odessa, 1898, and now most accessible in 
Deissmann's Paulus, Tubingen, 1911. 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



27 



all came in the llth tribunician year, and the 
25th acclamation has not yet been found, so that 
really the end of 51 is the earliest probable date 
for the 26th acclamation. Thus the Delphi in- 
scription must be placed between the end of 51 
and 1 Aug. 52. At this time Gallic was in office. 
The proconsul usually entered on his office in the 
middle of the summer (cf. Mommsen, Bom. Staats- 
recht 3 , ii. [Leipzig, 1888] 256), and normally held it 
for one year only, though sometimes he continued 
in it for another term. According to this, Gallic 
must have come to Corinth in July 51. Twelve 
months later is not absolutely impossible, though it 
is improbable, for we do not know whether Claudius 
had been acclaimed for a long or a short time before 
1 Aug. 52, merely that by then his 27th acclamation 
had taken place. According to Ac 18 12 , St. Paul's 
trial took place TaXXtuvos d dvOwirdrov 6vTos, and 
this is usually taken to mean 'as soon as Gallic 
became proconsul.' Probably this is correct exe- 
gesis, though scarcely an accurate translation ; 
and, if so, St. Paul's trial must have been in the 
summer of 51, or, with later date for Gallic, in the 
summer of 52. 

4. The expulsion of the Jews from Rome. Ac- 
cording to Ac 18", the Emperor Claudius banished 
all Jews from Home. The same fact is mentioned 
by Suetonius (Claudius, 25), who says: ' ludeeos, 
impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes Roma 
expulit,' but no date is given. Tacitus does not 
mention the fact ; nor does Josephus. Orosius 
(VII. vi. 15) states that it was in the ninth year of 
Claudius, which probably means Sept. 49-Sept. 50. 
He states that this date is derived from Josephus, 
which is clearly a mistake, unless he is referring 
to some other writer of that name (cf. Deissmann, 
Paulus), but the date agrees very well with that of 
Gallio's proconsulate ; for, if the trial before 
Gallio was in Aug. 51, and St. Paul had been in 
Corinth 18 months (Ac 18 12 ), the Apostle must 
have reached Corinth in April 50, at which time 
Aquila had just arrived in consequence of the 
decree of Claudius. 

5. The arrival of Festus in Judaea. This date 
is unfortunately surrounded by great difficulties. 
The facts are as follows : Eusebius, in his Chroni- 
con, places the arrival of Festus in the second year 
of Nero, which probably means not Oct. 55-Oct. 56 
the true second year of his reign but, accord- 
ing to the Eusebian plan of reckoning, Sept. 56- 
Sept. 57. Josephus states that Felix, whom Festus 
replaced, was prosecuted on his return to Rome, 
but escaped owing to the influence of Pallas his 
brother. But Pallas was dismissed, according to 
Tacitus, before the death of Britannicus, and 
Britannicus was, also according to Tacitus, just 
14 years old. Britannicus was born in Feb. 41, 
so that Festus must have entered on his office, 
according to this reckoning, before A.D. 55. 
Nevertheless, Josephus appears to place the 
greater part of the events under Felix in Nero's 
reign, and this can hardly be the case if he retired 
before Nero had reigned for three months. It is 
thought, therefore, either that Tacitus made a 
mistake as to the age of Britannicus, or that 
Pallas retained considerable influence even after 
his fall. Various other arguments have been used, 
but none is based on exact statements or has any 
real value. Thus, in view of the fact that the 
combination of statements in Josephus and Taci- 
tus seems to give no firm basis for argument, we 
have only Eusebius and general probability to use. 
General probability really means in this case con- 
sidering whether the Eusebian date tits in with 
the date of St. Paul's trial by Gallio, and has, 
therefore, most of the faults of circular reason- 
ing. Still, the Eusebian date comes out of this 
test fairly well. St. Paul was tried by Gallio in 



Aug. A.D. 51. We may then reconstruct as 
follows : 

Trial by Gallio Aug. 51. 

Corinth to Antioch end of 51. 

Arrival at Ephesus summer of 52. 

Departure from Ephesus and arrival at Corinth autumn of 64. 

Arrival at Jerusalem and arrest summer of 55. 

Two years' imprisonment 55 to summer 57. 

Trial before Festus summer 57. 

In view of the evidence as to Gallio, this is the 
earliest possible chronology, unless we suppose 
that two years in prison means June 55-summer 
56, which is, indeed, part of two years, though it 
is doubtful whether it could have been described 
as dierlas TrXrjpuBeiffTjs the phrase used in Ac 24* 7 . 

Summary. These are the only data in. Acts for 
which any high degree of probability can be 
claimed. The date of Gallio is by far the most 
certain. If we combine with them the further 
data in Galatians, we obtain a reasonably good 
chronology as far back as the conversion of 
St. Paul. The second visit to Jerusalem in 
Galatians is identical either with the time of the 
famine or with that of the Council. If the 
former, it can be placed in +46, if the latter, in 
+ 48 ; and the conversion was either 14 or 17 years 
before this, according to the exegesis adopted for 
the statements in Galatians; though, owing to 
the ancient method of reckoning, 14 may mean a 
few months more than 12, and 17 a few months 
more than 15. Thus the earliest date for the 
conversion would be A.D. 31, the latest 36. 

It should, however, be remembered that the 
period of 14 years reckoned between the first and 
second visits of St. Paul to Jerusalem depends 
entirely on the reading AIAIAGTOON in Gal 2 1 , 
which might easily have been a corruption for 
A I A AGTOO N ( = ' after 4 years '), and that the 14 
years in question are always a difficulty, as events 
seem to have moved rapidly before and after that 
period, but during it to have stood relatively still. 
The possibility ought not to be neglected that the 
conversion was 10 years later than the dates 
suggested, i.e. in 41 or 46. This is especially 
important, in view of the fact that the evidence 
of Josephus as to the marriage of Herod and 
Herodias suggests that the death of John the 
Baptist, and therefore the Crucifixion, were later 
than has usually been thought (see K. Lake, ' Date 
of Herod's Marriage with Herodias and the Chron- 
ology of the Gospels,' in Expositor, 8th ser. iv. 
[1912] 462). 

LITBRATURB. For literature on the subject see A. Harnack, 
Chronologic, Leipzig, 1897-1904, i. 233-9 ; the art. in H DB on 
'Chronology' by C. H. Turner (older statements are almost 
entirely based on K. Wieseler's Chronol. des apost. Zeitalters, 
Hamburg, 184S) ; C. Clemen, Paulus, Giessen, 1904. 

VII. THE THEOLOGY OF ACTS. The theology 
of Acts is, on the whole, simple and early, showing 
no traces of Johannine, and surprisingly few of 
Pauline, influence. In common with all other 
canonical writings, it regards the God of the 
Christians as the one true God, who had revealed 
Himself in time past to His chosen people the 
Jews ; and it identifies Jesus with the promised 
Messiah, who will come from heaven to judge the 
world, and to inaugurate the Kingdom of God 
on the earth. There is, however, just as in the 
Third Gospel, a noticeably smaller degree of 
interest in the Messianic kingdom than in Mk. 
and Mt., and a proportionately increased interest 
in the Spirit. This may probably be explained 
as due to the fact that the writer belonged to a 
more Gentile circle than those in which Mk. and 
Mt. were written. It is strange that in some 
respects Acts is less ' Gentile ' or ' Greek ' than the 
Epistles. This is partially explained by the fact 
that much of so-called Paulinismus has been read 
into the Epistles ; but, even when an allowance 



28 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



has been made for this fact, the difficulty re- 
mains. The points on which the theology of Acts 
requires discussion in detail are its christology, 
eschatology, attitude to the OT and Jewish 
Law, doctrine of the Spirit, and doctrine of 
baptism. 

1. Christology. In Acts Jesus is recognized as 
the Christ, but the Christology belongs to an early 
type. There is no suggestion of the Logos-Christ- 
ology of the Fourth Gospel, or even of the Epistles 
of the Captivity. ' The Christ ' appears to have 
the quite primitive meaning of ' the king of 
the kingdom of God, who is appointed by God to 
judge the world' (cf. ^ffryaev Ttfutpav tv y /d\\ei 
KpLveiv TTJV obcavfttrqr lv diKaiocrvvg iv dvdpi $ wpurev, 
TTICTTIV irapaffx&v iraviv dvaffTr/ffas a.vrbv (K veicp&v, 17 31 ). 
At what point Jesus became Christ, according to 
Acts, is not quite clear. Harnack (Neue Unter- 
suchungen zur Apostelgesch., p. 75 ff.) thinks that 
Luke regarded the Resurrection as the moment, 
in agreement with one interpretation of Ro I 4 . 
In favour of this view can be cited Ac 13 32f- (St. 
Paul's speech at Antioch in Pisidia), TO.VT-IJV \i.e. 
4vayye\iav] 6 6fbs ticjreirXiripwKev TOIS T^KVOIS rip-Civ 
dvaffTrjffas 'Iijffovv, ws ical iv T$ \f/a\/j.(^ ytypairTai T<$ 
dfvrtpy w6? fj,ov elffu, tyw o"/i/j,epov yeyevvrjKd <re, which, 
strictly interpreted, must mean that Jesus became 
God's Son at the Resurrection, for in the context 
dvcurrricras can be given no other translation. On 
the other hand, it must be remembered that many 
critics think that this same quotation from Ps 2 
is connected with the Baptism in Lk S 22 ,* in which 
case the further quotation in Lk 4 18 , trvev/M Kvpiov 
ir' ifi^, ov e'ivfKev ^xp lff ^ v P e > KT *- > acquires increased 
force, for the connexion of ?xP iffev with X/w<rr6s is 
obvious. This, again, reflects light on Ac 10 38 (us 
fXP iffev ivTbv 6 #eds irvev/jiaTi ayltp Kal Svvdfiei) and the 
similar phrase in 4 27 . It must remain a problem 
for critics how far this difference between Ac 13 32f - 
and 10 38 and & 1 is accidental (or merely apparent), 
and how far it is justifiable to connect it with the 
fact that Ac 13 (which agrees with Ro I 4 ) belongs 
to the Pauline source, while Ac 4 and 10 belong to 
the Jerusalem source A and the closely connected 
or identical Jerusalem-Caesarean source (which 
agree with at all events one interpretation of the 
meaning of the Baptism in Mk 1). 

The possible difference must, however, in any 
case not be exaggerated. The whole of early 
Christian literature outside Johannine influence 
is full of apparent inconsistencies, because Xpto-r6s 
sometimes means ' the person who is by nature 
and predestination the appointed Messiah,' some- 
times more narrowly ' the actual Messiah reigning 
in the Kingdom of God.' In the former sense it 
was possible to say elvai rbv 'KpurTbt>'l7)<rovv f (Ac 18 28 ), 
or that (dei vaBelv rbv Xpia-rdv (17 s ). In the latter 
sense it was possible to speak of Jesus as rbv -n-po- 
Ke\eipurp.tvov vp.lv ~KpiffTov (3 20 ), where, in the light 
of the whole passage, the rbv irpoKex fi P iff P^ vov vp.lv 
most probably has reference to the Resurrection, 
though other interpretations are possible ; or to 
say Kvpiov avTbv Kal TLpiffTbv tiroirjffev 6 6ebs TOVTOV rbv 
'l-rizovv (2 s6 ), which with less doubt may be referred 
to the Resurrection. The point seems to be that, 
on the one hand, Luke wishes to say that Jesus is 
the Christ, and that, on the other, he does not 

* The text_is doubtful : the editors usually give <ri> el 6 vios pot 
o ayaTnjros, iv <roi ijiSoKijcra with N 15 L 33 fam 1, fam 13, and the 
mass of MSS (i.e. the H and K texts, and at least two im- 
portant branches of 7 [J and fl>]), but Harnack prefers to read 
the quotation from Ps 2 with D a b c ff al. Aug. Clemale*- (thus 
possibly the text of / and certainly of a text coeval with I-H-K 
[if such a text existed]) ; probably he is right. 

t This must mean that the Messiah (of whom all men know) 
is Jesus (of whom they had previously not heard) ; and em- 
phasizes the fact that, whereas Christology means to most 
people of this generation an attempt to give an adequate 
doctrinal statement of Jesus, it meant for the earliest genera- 
tion an attempt to show that Jesus adequately fulfilled an 
already existing doctrinal definition of the Messiah. 



wish to say that the life of Jesus was the Messianic 
Parousia or ' Coming,' and does wish to say that 
by the Resurrection Jesus became the heavenly, 
glorious Being who would come shortly to judge 
the world. 

It should be noted, as an especially archaic 
characteristic, that in Acts 'Irjffous X/MCTTOS is not 
used as a name except in the phrase rd 6vo/M 'Ir)<rov 
XpiffTov (2 s8 3 6 4 10 8 12 10 48 15 26 16 18 ) ; elsewhere X/>r7-6s 
is always predicative. In this respect Acts seems 
to be more archaic than the Pauline Epistles. 

The death of the Christ has in Acts but little 
theological importance. In one place only (20 28 
TTJV tKK\r)ffiav TOV Kvpiov [but deov & B vg, a few other 
authorities, and the TR] ty Trepieiron?)ffaro did TOV 
a'tfj-aTos TOV idiov) is there anything which approaches 
the Pauline doctrine, and it is noticeable that this 
passage is from the speech of Paul to the Ephesian 
elders. In the speeches of Peter and Stephen, the 
death of the Christ is regarded as a wicked act of 
the Jews rather than as a necessary part of a plan 
of salvation. The most important passage is 3 17ff - : 
Kal vvv, dde\<pol, olda OTI KO.TO. ayvoiav eirpda.Te, &crirep 
Kal ol apxovTes vp.C)v. b 5k 6fbs & irpoKO.T'fiyyeiXev did 
ffTOfj.a.Tos irdvruv ruv irpotpriT&v ira,6elvTbv XpiffTdv avrov 
tw\fip(i)<rev otfrwj. p.eTa.voijffa.Te ovv, na.1 
irpbs rb ta\ei<p0rjvai v/jiwv Tds dfj.apTLas, oirws dv 
Kaipol dva\j/vi-e<as dirb irpoffdnrov TOV Kvpiov Kal diroffTeiXy 
rbv irpOKexfipifffJ-tvov vp-lv XpiffTdv 'Iijffovv, ov Sei ovpavbv 
pv d^affffai &xpi y_pb v(av diroKaTaffTdcreus irdvTUiv, KT\. 
Here there is a verbal connexion between the suffer- 
ing of the Christ and the blotting out of sins, but 
no suggestion of any causal connexion. The writer 
says that the Jews put the Messiah to death, as 
had been foretold, but they did it in ignorance ; 
and, if they repent, this and other sins will be 
blotted out, and Jesus will come as the predestined 
Messiah. The cause of the blotting out of sins is 
here, as in the OT prophets, repentance and change 
of conduct (tiriffTptyaTf) ; nothing is said to suggest 
that this would not have been effective without 
the suffering of the Messiah. 

2. Eschatology. There is comparatively little 
in Acts which throws light on the eschatological 
expectation of the writer. As compared with 
Mark or St. Paul, he seems to be less eschato- 
logical, but traces of the primitive expectation are 
not wanting. In I 11 the Parousia of the Messiah 
is still expected : ' This Jesus who has been taken 
up into Heaven shall so come as ye have seen him 
go into Heaven ' ; and, though it is not here stated 
that the witnesses of the Ascension shall also live 
to see the Parousia, this seems to be implied. The 
same sort of comment can be made on 3 20 '- and 17 al ; 
but otherwise there is little in Acts to bear on the 
eschatological expectation. This was, indeed, to 
be expected in a book written by Luke, who in 
his Gospel greatly lessened the eschatological 
elements found in Mark and Q. 

3. The OT and Jewish Law. For the writer of 
Acts the OT was the written source of all revela- 
tion. The sufficient proof of any argument or 
explanation of any historical event was to be found 
in the fact that it had been prophesied. Like all 
Greek-writing Christians, he uses the LXX and 
does not stop to ask whether it is textually 
accurate. 

But a distinction must be made between the 
OT as prophecy and the OT as Law. In the latter 
sense tne position taken up in Acts is that the Law 
of the OT is binding in every detail on Jewish 
Christians, but not binding at all on Gentile 
Christians. The most remarkable example of 
this is the picture given in ch. 25 of St. Paul's 
acceptance of the Law in Jerusalem, and the cir- 
cumcision of Timothy. Whether this can be re- 
conciled with the Apostle's own position is a point 
for students of the Epistles to settle ; the present 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



29 



writer believes that in this respect Acts gives 
a faithful representation of St. Paul's own view 
(see the admirable discussion in Harnack, Apostel- 
gesch . , pp. 8 and 2 1 1-217) . The reason for thinking 
that the Law was still binding on Jews but not on 
Gentiles must be sought in a distinction between 
the Law as source of salvation it was not this for 
any one and the Law as command of God this 
it was for the Jew, but not for the Gentile. ^ 

As prophecies, the OT books are accepted without 
question, and there is no trace of the Jewish con- 
troversy which raised the dispute as to the correct 
exegesis of the OT. This controversy can be traced 
in the Epistle of Barnabas, and found its extreme 
result in the attitude of Marcion, but in Acts it 
cannot be found, and apparently this is because 
the dispute had not yet arisen. (For the best 
summary of this question see Harnack, Apostel- 
gesch.,r>. 8 n.) 

4. The Spirit. It is not <juite clear whether 
Acts regards all Christians as inspired by the Holy 
Spirit, but it is at least certain that it regards this 
as true of all the leaders, and of all who were fully 
Christians. It would appear possible, however, 
from such episodes as that of the Christians in 
Ephesus who had been baptized only in John's 
baptism, that a kind of imperfect Christianity was 
recognized ; these Ephesians are described as fMOirrAs, 
even before they had been baptized. On the other 
hand, the inadequacy of their baptism was dis- 
covered by St. Paul because they had not received 
the Spirit, so that even from this passage it would 
seem that Christians were regarded normally as 
inspired by the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is 
usually referred to as rb wev/jui rb Hyiov or rb dyiov 
irvtv/j.0. (21 times), or as rb irceO/xa (9 times), or as 
irvtviM &yu>v (16 times), once as irvevfM xvplov, once 
as rb Trvevfjut Kvpiov, and once as rb irvevpa "IrytroO. 

A problem which has as yet scarcely received the 
attention which it deserves is, whether the Spirit 
was regarded as one or many (or, in other words, 
what is the difference between rb irvevpa and 
irvevfM). The exact meaning of the very import- 
ant phrase rb irvev/M 'Iiyo-oO is also obscure. Was 



it the Spirit which had been in Jesus, with which 
God had anointed ( XP"") Him ? Or was it the 
Spirit-Jesus, as He had become after the Resur- 
rection, in agreement with the Pauline phrase 
'The Lord is the Spirit' (2 Co 3 17 ) ? In any case 
it is clear that the gift of the Spirit was regarded 
as in some sense the work of the exalted Jesus 
(Ac 2 33 ; cf . Lk 24 49 ) but ultimately derived from 
God. 

A further development is found in Acts that 
the gift of the Spirit can be ensured either by 
baptism (see 5) or, more probably, by the ' laying 
on of hands' of the Apostles (tirtOfins x e< -P&v', cf. 
gi7t. 917 196^ though this power, if one may judge 
from 8 17ff -, was not shared by all other Christians. 

This developed doctrine of the Spirit is the 
most marked feature of Acts, and the Lucan 
Gospel is clearly intended to lead up to it. The 
Christians were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and 
the Resurrection and Ascension of the Christ are 
related to this fact, rather than, as seems to be the 
case in Mark, to the coming of the Messianic 
kingdom. It is true that in Ac 2 the gift of the 
Spirit and the consequent glossolalia are explained 
as a sign that the last days are at hand, but the 
whole tendency of the Acts is to look on the 
possession of the Spirit as the characteristic of the 
Church, rather than of an eschatological kingdom, 
and the work of Christ is already regarded as the 
foundation of this inspired Church in the world, 
rather than as the inauguration of the Kingdom 
of God instead of the world. In some respects 
Luke is more archaic than St. Paul, but not in 

this. ** Copyright, 1916, by 



5. Baptism. There is no doubt tbat the writer 
of Acts regarded baptism as the normal means of 
entry into the Christian Church. There is also no 
doubt that he represents an early stage of Christian 
practice in which baptism was 'in the name of 
the Lord Jesus' (or 'of Jesus Christ'), not in the 
triadic formula (Ac 2 38 8 16 10 48 19 5 ). This agrees 
with the practice of St. Paul so far as it can be 
discovered (Ro 6 3 , Gal 3 27 ; cf. 1 Co I 14ff -), with 
Didache 8 (but not 7), Hermas, Sim. ix. 17. 4, and 
the Eusebian text (if that refer, as is probable, 
to baptism) of Mt 28 19 (but not with the usual text 
of this passage, or with the later Christian practice). 
Difficulty is, however, raised by the question 
whether the writer (or his sources) makes the 
gift of the Spirit depend on baptism or on the 
laying on of hands, either invariably or as a general 
rule. It is, on the whole, most probable that he 
regards baptism as a necessary preliminary to the 
gift of the Spirit, but not as the direct means by 
which the Spirit was given, whereas the ' laying on 
of hands' was the direct means of imparting this 
gift ; though, under some exceptional circum- 
stances, the gift was directly conferred by God 
without any ministerial interposition. 

The passages which seem at first to identify 
baptism with the gift of the Spirit are especially 
Ac 2 38 and 19 2 ' 6 - In 2 38 St. Peter says: 'Repent 
and be baptized . . . and ye shall receive the gift 
of the Spirit.' This seems decisive, but in the con- 
text we are not told that those baptized received 
the Spirit only that they were added to the 
Church. Was this the same thing for the writer? 
Or did he mean that after reception into the 
Church they would receive it? In the same way 
in Ac 19 2 ' 6 St. Paul asks the Ephesians whether 
they have not received the Spirit ; and, hearing 
that this is not so, he inquires further into their 
baptism. Nevertheless, in the end, the gift of 
the Spirit in then* case is directly connected with 
the 'laying on of hands.' This conclusion is, of 
course, supported by the other passages in which 
baptism and the gift of the Spirit are distinguished : 
of these 8 12ff - and 10 47 are the most important. (A 
full discussion will be found in ERE ii. 382 ff .) 

LITERATURE. See at the end of the various sections and 
throughout the article. KlRSOPP LAKE. 

**ACTS OP THE APOSTLES (Apocryphal). 
I. INTRODUCTORY. The most important of the 
Apocryphal Acts are the five (Peter, Paul, John, 
Andrew, Thomas) which sometimes are referred to 
as 'the Leucian Acts,' because they are supposed 
to have been composed by a certain Leucius. Before 
they can be discussed separately, it is therefore 
necessary to deal with the problem of the Leucian 
corpus, and inquire whether such a collection ex- 
isted in early times, what was its nature, and how 
far the name of 'Leucian' may be applied to it. 
The direct source of the later tradition that there 
was a Leucian corpus is no doubt a statement of 
Photius (Bibliotheca, cod. 114) : 



/3i/3Ai'ov, at Aeyo/iei'ru Ttov oirotrroXiov rrepioSoi, ev 
as irepieixovro Jrpof f is Hfrpov, 'luidvvov, 'Av&pfov, &ta/j.a, Ilau'Aoir 
ypai^ei. Se auras, wj SrjAoi TO aviTO /3i/3Ai'o>', Aeviaos Xapti'os. 

From this it is plain that Photius had seen a 
corpus of Acts, and interpreted some passage in 
the text to mean that the five Acts were all written 
by Leucius Charinus. It is therefore desirable to 
examine earlier literature for (1) mention of Leucius, 
(2) mention of the five Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, 
Thomas, and Paul, either as a corpus or as separate 
writings. 

1. Keferences to Leucius. i. IN THE EAST. 
Epiphaniua (Panar. li. 6), when speaking of the 
Alogi, mentions as famous heretics Cerinthus and 
Ebion, Merinthus and Cleobius or Cleobulus, 
Claudius, Demas, and Hermogenes, and says they 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



30 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



were controverted by St. John Kal T&V &/n.<j>l avr6v, 
ACVKIOV Kal &\\uv iroXX&i*. Presumably, therefore, 
Epiphanius was acquainted with some book in 
which Leucius appeared as a companion of St. 
John, but it will be noted that he does not suggest 
that Leucius was in any way heretical, but rather 
that he controverted heretics. Apart from this 
solitary mention there is no trace of Leucius in 
Greek Christian writings until Photius. 

ii. IN THE WEST. It is quite different in the 
West ; here there is a series of witnesses to Leucius. 
(1) Parian (f c. 390), bishop of Barcelona. In Ep. 
iii. 3 Pacian writes to Semp. Novatianus concerning 
the Proclan party of the Montanists, * who claimed 
some connexion with Leucius, which Pacian denied; 
and the natural interpretation of his words seems 
to be that he regarded Leucius as an orthodox 
Christian to whom the Montanists tried to attach 
their origin ; but the passage is obscure : 

'Et primum hi plurimis utuntur auctoribus ; nam puto et 
Graecus Blastus ipsorum est. Theodotus qupque et Praxeas 
vestrps aliquando docuere : ipsi illi Phryges [i.e. Montanists] 
nobiliores, qui se animates mentiuntur a Leucio, se institutes a 
Proculo gloriantur." 

(2) Augustine. In the contra Felicem, ii. 6, 
written ear her in the 5th cent., Augustine says : 

'Habetis etiam hoc in scripturis apocryphis, quas canon 
quidem catholicus npn admittit, vobis autem [i.e. the Mani- 
chseans] tanto graviores sunt, quanto a catholico canone 
secluduntur ... in actibus scriptis a Leucio (codd. 'Leutio') 
quos tamquarn. actus apostolorum scribit, habes ita positum : 
"etenim speciosa figmenta et pstentatio simulata et coactio 
visibilium nee quidem ex propria natura procedunt, sed.ex eo 
nomine qui per seipsum deterior factus est per seductionem."' 

As is shown later, Augustine was acquainted 
with the Apocryphal Acts of Peter, Andrew, 
Thomas, John, and Paul, of which the first four 
were accepted only by Manichseans, the last (Paul) 
probably by Catholics also. There is nothing, 
however, to show from which he is quoting here, 
and the passage is not in any of the extant frag- 
ments. Thomas is excluded, as we probably have 
the complete text, and the passage is unlike what 
we possess of the Acts of Peter or Paul. It is there- 
fore probable, as Schmidt argues (Alte Petrusakten, 
p. 50), that he is referring to Andrew or John the 
two Acts for which the Leucian authorship is other- 
wise most probable. But the point is not certain, 
and the possibility remains that he is referring to a 
Manichaean corpus of Acts, collected by Leucius. 

(3) Euodius of Uzala. In the de Fide contra 
Manichceos, ch. 38 (printed in Augustine's works [ed. 
Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. xlii.]) ? written by 
Euodius, the contemporary of Augustine, the Acts 
of Andrew is attributed to Leucius. The full quota- 
tion is given by Schmidt (p. 53), who thinks that it 
probably, though not certainly, implies that Euodius 
also regarded Leucius as the author of a corpus of 
Acts, but argues that this opinion was probably 
based only on an interpretation of the passage of 
Augustine quoted above. However this may be, 
it remains clear that Euodius regarded the Acts of 
Andrew as Manichsean and the work of Leucius. 

(4) Innocent I. Inarescriptof405toExsuperius, 
bishop of Toulouse, Innocent says : 

' Cetera autem quae vel sub nomine Matthiae vel sub nomine 
lacobi minpris, vel sub nomine Petri et Johannis quae a quodam 
Leucio scripta sunt [vel sub nomine Andreae quae a Nexo-; 
charide et Leonida philosophis], vel sub nomine Thomae et si 
qua sunt alia (y.l. talia), non solum repudianda verum etiam 
noveris damnanda.' 

The words enclosed in brackets are probably an 
interpolation (see Zahn, Acta Joannis, 209), and 
Nexocharides and Leonidas the philosophers are 
otherwise unknown persons. The text is certainly 
not quite in order, but Leucius is clearly indicated 
as the author of the Acts of Peter and of John. 

* From pseudo-Tertullian, Refut. omn. Haer. viii. 19, x. 26, 
it appears that some Montanists were Kara UpoK^ov, others 
Kara A.i<r\i.vriv (see Th. Zahn, Acta Joannis, p. Ixvi, n. 4). 



(5) The Decretum Gelasianum (6th cent.). After 
rejecting as apocryphal the Acts of Andrew, 
Thomas, Peter, and Philip, the writer goes on to 
give a list of Apocryphal Gospels, and then con- 
tinues : 'Libri omnes quos fecit Leucius discipulus 
diaboli, apocryphi.' __ As there follow several Mani- 
chsean writings, it is tolerably certain that here, 
as elsewhere, 'disciple of the devil' means 'Mani- 
chsean,' but it is not clear to which books reference 
is made. There is a slight presumption that the 
books made by Leucius are not identical with any 
already mentioned, and this would suggest either 
the Acts of John, which are not otherwise men- 
tioned, or possibly the Acts of Pilate, which in the 
Latin version are connected with the name of 
Leucius Charinus. Schmidt, however, while think- 
ing that the Acts of John are certainly intended, 
is inclined to believe that the writer may have 
meant the whole Manichsean collection. 

(6) Turribius of Astorga (c. 450). In a corre- 
spondence with his fellow-bishops, Idacius and 
Creponius, Turribius discusses the literature of 
the Manichseans and Priscillianists. Among 
these he mentions 'Actus illos qui vocantur S. 
Andreae, vel illos qui appellantur S. loannis, quos 
sacrilego Leucius ore conscripsit, vel illos qui 
dicuntur S. Thomae et his similia, etc.' Here 
clearly Leucius is regarded as the author of the 
Acts of John, and presumably not of the others 
though, if a certain laxity of syntax be conceded, 
the Acts of Andrew might be added certainly not 
of the Acts of Thomas. 

(7) Mellitus. The writer of a late Catholic 
version of the Acts, who took to himself the name 
of Mellitus, probably intending to identify himself 
with Melito of Sardis (c. 160-190), says: 'Volo 
sollicitam esse fraternitatem vestram de Leucio 
quodam qui scripsit apostolorum actus, loannis 
evangelistae et sancti Andreae vel Thomae apostoli, 
etc.' ; so that he must have regarded Leucius as 
the author of these three Acts, but there is no 
suggestion of the full corpus^ of five. Schmidt 
thinks that he probably derived his knowledge 
from the letter of Turribius and a list of heretical 
writings, which was once annexed to it, though 
it has now disappeared; the letter was probably 
taken up into the works of Leo, with whom Turri- 
bius corresponded (see Schmidt, p. 61). It does 
not appear probable from internal evidence that 
Mellitus had any first-hand knowledge of the 
Apocryphal Acts. 

(8) Further traces of Leucius, under the corrupt 
form of Seleucus, can perhaps be traced in pseudo- 
Hieronymus, Ep. ad Chromatium et Heliodorum, 
and in literature dependent upon it (see Schmidt, 
p. 62) ; but no importance can be attached to this 
late and inferior composition. 

It would appear from these data that (a) the 
earliest traditions connected Leucius with St. John, 
and did not regard him as heretical. (6) A quite 
late tradition regarded him as the author of the 
corpus of five Acts Paul, Peter, John, Andrew, 
and Thomas which the Manichseans used as a 
substitute for the canonical Acts, and the Priscil- 
lianists in addition to the canonical Acts, (c) Ex- 
ternal evidence suggests that Leucius was probably 
the author of the Acts of John, and, with less 
clearness, of Andrew, but not of Peter, Paul, or 
Thomas; and this conclusion is supported by in- 
ternal evidence. 

2. The evidence for the Acts as a collection. 
i. IN THE WEST. (1) Philastrius of Brescia (383- 
391). In his Liber de Hasresibus, 88, we have the 
earliest evidence for a corpus of Apocyrphal Acts. 
He begins by referring to those who use ' apocryfa, 
id est secreta,' instead of the canonical OT and NT, 
and mentions as the chief of those who do this the 
'Manichaei, Gnostici, Nicolaitae, Valentiniani et 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



31 



alii quam plurimi qui apocryfa prophetarum et 
apostolorum, id est Actus separates habentes, 
canonicas legere scripturas contemnunt.' Later 
on he gives more details in a passage where the 
text is unfortunately clearly corrupt : 

'Nam Manichaei apocryfa beati Andreae apostoli, id est 
Actus quos fecit yeniens de Ponto in Greciam [quos] conscrip- 
serunt tune discipuli sequentes beatum appstolum, unde et 
habent Manichaei et alii tales Andreae beati et Joannis actus 
evangelistae beati et Petri similiter beatissimi apostoli et Pauli 
pariter beati apostoli : in quibus quia signa fecerunt magna 
et prodigia, etc.' 

Whatever may be the true text of this passage, 
it clearly implies (a) that the Manicha3ans used a 
corpus of Apocryphal Acts in place of the canonical 
Acts of the Apostles ; (6) that this corpus contained 
the Acts of Andrew, John, Peter, and Paul ; (c) the 
Acts of Thomas is not mentioned (Schmidt [p. 44] 
thinks that this is merely accidental) ; (d) Leucius 
is not mentioned. 

(2) Augustine. In the controversial writings of 
Augustine against the Manichaeans there are many 
allusions to the Apocryphal Acts. Reference may 
especially be made to (a) the de Sermone Domini 
in Monte (i. 20, 65), in which allusions can be traced 
to the Acts of Thomas ; (b) the contra Adimantum, 
17, where allusions to the Acts of Thomas and 
Acts of Peter can be identified; (c) the contra 
Faustum Manicheum (lib. xiv. and xxx.) ; (d) 
the contra Felicem; and (e) the de Civitate Dei. 
Schmidt (44 ff.) has shown, from the consideration 
of these passages, that the Manichaeans used the 
five Acts of John, Andrew, Peter, Thomas, and 
Paul, while the Catholics rejected the first four, 
but accepted the Acts of Paul. The crucial pass- 
age for this conclusion is c. Faustum, xxx. 4, in 
which Faustus the Manichee says : 

' Mitto enim ceteros eiusdem domini nostri apostolos, Petrum 
et Andream, Thomam et ilium inexpertum veneris inter ceteros 
beatum Johannem . . . sed hos quidem, ut dixi, praetereo, 
quia eos vos [i.e. the Catholics] exclusistis ex canone, facileque 
mente sacrilega yestra daemoniorum his potestis impqrtare 
doctrinas. Num igitur et de Christo eadem dicere poteritis aut 
deapostoloPaulo, quern similiterubiqueconstatetverbo semper 
praetulisse nuptis innuptas et id opere quoque ostendisse erga 
eanctissimam Theclam ? quodsi haec daemoniorum doctrina non 
fuit, quam et Theclae Paulus et ceteri ceteris adnuntiaverunt 
apostoli, cui credi iam poterit hoc ab ipso memoratum, tam- 
quam sit daemoniorum voluntas et doctrina etiam persuasio 
sanctimonii ? ' 

As Schmidt says, it is clear that Faustus gave up 
the use of the Acts of Andrew, John, Peter, and 
Thomas, because his opponents refused to recognize 
their authority, but relied on a Pauline document 
relating to Thekla. Before the discovery of the 
Acts of Paul it was possible to think that this might 
be the so-called Acts of Paul and Thekla. It is 
now, however, fairly certain that this latter docu- 
ment in its present form is merely an extract from 
the older Acts of Paul ; there is no reason, there- 
fore, to doubt that Augustine and Faustus both 
recognized the Acts of Paul, which had not yet 
been entirely deposed from the Canon. 

(3) Innocent I. and Exsuperius. A correspond- 
ence (in A. D. 405) between Innocent I. and Exsup- 
erius, bishop of Toulouse (see the quotation above), 
shows that the Apocryphal Acts were used in Spain 
not only by Manichaeans but also by Priscillian- 
ists. It is not quite clear to which Acts Innocent 
refers. Besides mentioning the Acts of Peter and 
John (of which certainly the latter and probably 
the former also are ascribed to Leucius), he refers 
to Acts of Matthias and of James the less, which 
do not elsewhere appear in the Manichaean corpus, 
as well as to those of Andrew, which in some texts 
(see Zahn, Gesch. des NT Kanons, Leipzig, 1888- 
92, ii. 244 ff .) are ascribed to Nexocharide (v.l. 
Xenocharide) and Leonidas; Fabricius (Codex 
Apocryphus, ii. 767) thinks that these names are a 
corruption of Charinus and Leucius. 

(4) Leo the Great and Turribius (440-461) . Forty 



years after the time of Innocent, the correspond- 
ence between Leo and Turribius, bishop of Astorga 
in Spain, throws more light on the use of the 
Apocryphal Acts by the Priscillianists. Leo com- 
plains that the Priscillianists 'scripturas veras 
adulterant ' and ' f alsas inducunt .' Turribius found 
that the Priscillianists and Manichaeans were mak- 
ing great progress in Spain, and for this reason had 
elicited a letter of condemnation from Leo. He 
also expressed himself further in his letters to 
Idacius and Creponius, and apparently annexed a 
selection of heretical passages from the Apocryphal 
Acts to justify his disapproval. This selection is, 
however, unfortunately no longer extant, but it is 
plain that he was acquainted with the Acts of 
Thomas, Andrew, and John (for text see above, 
1. (6)). He also refers to a Memoria Apostolorum, 

'in quo admagnam perversitatissuae auctoritatem doctrinam 
domini mentiuntur, qui totam destruit legem veteris Testa- 
ment! et omnia quae S. Moysi de diversis creaturae f actprisque 
divinitua revelata sunt, praeter reliquas eiusdem libri blas- 
phemias quas referre pertaesum est.' 

This Memoria Apostolorum is also mentioned by 
Orpsius (Consultatio ad Augustinum, in Pair. Lai. 
xlii. 667), and Schmidt (p. 50) thinks that it is the 
source of a quotation from a Manichaean writing 
which Augustine could not trace : 

' Sed Apostplis dominus noster interrogantibus de Judaeprum 
prophetia quid sentiri deberet, qui de adventu eius aliquid 
cecinisse in praeteritum putabantur, commotus talia eos etiam 
nunc sentire respondit ' Demisiatis vivum qui ante vos est et 
de mortuis fabulamini.'" 

ii. IN THE EAST. (1) Eusebius. In HE iii. 25. 6 
the Acts of John and Andrew are mentioned to- 
gether with 'those of the other apostles,' and are 
regarded as books used by heretics. In iii. 3. 2 the 
Acts of Peter are mentioned, and in iii. 3. 5 and 
iii. 25. 4 the Acts of Paul. The Acts of Thomas are 
not quoted, nor is any reference made to Leucius. 

(2) Ephraim Syrus (c. 360) . In his commentary 
Ephraim says that the apocryphal correspondence 
between Paul and the Corinthians was written by 
the followers of Bardesanes, 'in order that under 
cover of the signs and wonders of the Apostle, 
which they described, they might ascribe to the 
name of the Apostle their own godlessness, against 
which the Apostle had striven. This apocryphal 
correspondence was contained in the Acts of Paul, 
but it also circulated in some Syriac and Armenian 
NT MSS; no doubt it was an excerpt from the 
Acts, but it is not clear whether Ephraim knew 
the Acts or the excerpt. It is, however, ^much 
more probable that Ephraim is here referring to 
the Acts, as the correspondence alone does not 
seem ever to have been regarded by the Syriac 
Church as heretical. 

(3) Epiphanius. In the Panarion Epiphanius 
mentions the Acts of Thomas, Andrew, and John 
in connexion with the Encratites (Pan. xlvii. 1), the 
Apostoh'ci (ib. Ixi. 1), and other heretics (cf. xxx. 
16, Ixiii. 2). But there is no sign of any con- 
sciousness that there was a Manichaean corpus, or 
that there was any connexion with Leucius. At 
the same time a note in Photius (Bibl. cod. 179) 
states that Agapius used the Acts of Andrew, so 
that the Eastern Manichaeans must have used at 
least some of the Acts. 

(4) Amphilochius of Iconium (c. 374). At the 
Second Council of Nicaea (787) a quotation was 
read from Amphilochius' lost book irepl T&V \[/ei>5- 
emypd<j><i}v ruv irapb. alperiKois, in which he proposed 
det%o/jiev 5t T A /3i/3Xfa TO.VTO. , & irpo^povcrivrj/juv ol facbara.- 
TO.I TTJS KK\i)fflas, oi>xl T&V diroffr6\(i}i> irpcieis dXXct 
dai/ji6vwv ffvyypdnnaTa. It also appears from the 
Acts of the Council that the Acts of John was 
quoted and condemned. It was resolved that no 
more copies were to be made and those already 
existing were to be burnt. 



32 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



(5) John of Thessalonica (c. 680) .In the preface 
to his recension of the reXe/wcm Maplas (M. Bonnet, 
ZWT, 1880, p. 239 ff.), John explains that the 
Acts of Peter, Paul, Andrew, and John were hereti- 
cal productions, but seems to argue that they made 
use of genuine material, just as had been the case 
with the re\eita<ris. 

From this evidence, which is given with a full 
and clear discussion in his Alte Petrusakten (cf. 
also his Ada Pauli, 112 f .), C. Schmidt draws the 
following conclusion : (a) The Manichseans had 
formed a corpus of the five Acts, but were not them- 
selves the authors of any of them. They used 
this corpus instead of the canonical Acts, -and the 
Priscillianists used it in addition to the Canon. 
(b) In the course of the struggle between the Mani- 
chseans and the Church the view was adopted that 
the corpus was the work of a certain heretical 
Leucius. (c) The name of Leucius originally be- 
longed to the Acts of John alone, and was errone- 
ously attributed to the other books, (d) In this 
way the Acts of Paul, which was originally recog- 
nized as orthodox if not canonical, came to be 
regarded as heretical. 

On the evidence as we have it no serious objec- 
tion can be made to these propositions ; it might, 
however, be a matter for investigation whether the 
corpus of the Manichseans was also used by the 
Eastern Manichseans, or was the peculiar possession 
of the Western branch. 

II. THE INDIVIDUAL ACTS.!. The Acts of 
Paul. By far the most important discovery con- 
cerning the Apocryphal Gospels in recent years 
was the Coptic text of the Acts of Paul found by 
C. Schmidt in the Heidelberg Papyrus 1, and pub- 
lished by him in his Ada Pauli, Leipzig, 1903 (and 
in a cheaper form without the facsimile of the text, 
in 1905). This is not indeed complete, and there 
are still minor problems connected with the order 
of the incidents, but the main facts are now plain ; 
and the general contents of the Acts may be re- 
garded as roughly established, with the exception 
of certain rather serious lacunse, especially at the 
beginning and in the middle. The contents, as we 
have them, can be divided most conveniently as 
follows : 

(1) In Antioch. Paul is in the house of a Jew 
named Anchares and his wife Phila, whose son is 
dead. Paul restores the boy to life, and makes 
many converts ; but he is suspected of magic, and 
a riot ensues in which he is ill-treated and stoned. 
He then goes to Iconium. 

(2) In Iconium (the Thekla-story) . Here the 
well-known story of Thekla is placed, and on the 
way to Iconium we are introduced to Demas and 
Hermogenes, who are represented as Gnostics with 
a peculiar doctrine of an &vdffTa<ns not of the flesh. 
In Iconium Paul was entertained by Onesiphorus, 
and preached in his house on Avda-racris and tjKpd- 
reia, with the result that Thekla, the daughter of 
Theokleia, abandoned her betrothal to Thamyris 
and vowed herself to a life of virginity. Theokleia 
and Thamyris therefore raised persecution against 
Paul and Thekla. Paul was scourged and banished 
from the town ; Thekla was condemned to be 
burnt. From the flames she was miraculously 
preserved, and went to Antioch, where she found 
Paul. In Antioch her beauty attracted the atten- 
tion of Alexander, a prominent Antiochian, and 
her refusal to consent to his wishes led to her con- 
demnation to the wild beasts. A lioness protected 
her, but ultimately, after a series of miraculous 
rescues, she was forced to jump into a pond full of 
seals and committed herself to the water with the 
baptismal formula. Ultimately the protection of 
Queen Tryphsena and the sympathy of the women 
of Antioch secured her pardon. She returned to 
the house of Tryphasna and converted her and her 



servants, and then followed Paul in man's clothing 
to Myrrha. Then she returned to Iconium, and 
finally died in Seleucia. The text of this whole 
story is very defective in Coptic, but it is preserved 
separately in Greek, and enough remains in the 
Coptic to show that the Greek has kept fairly well 
to the original story. 

(3) In Myrrha. Thekla left Paul in Myrrha. 
Here he healed of the dropsy a man named Hermo- 
krates, who was baptized. But Hermippus the 
elder son of Hermokrates was opposed to Paul, 
and the younger son, Dion, died. The text is here 
full of lacunse, but apparently Paul raised up Dion, 
and punished Hermippus with blindness, but after- 
wards healed and converted him. He then went 
on to Sidon. 

(4) In Sidon. On the road to Sidon there is an 
incident connected with a heathen altar, and the 
power of Christians over the demons or heathen 
gods, but there is unfortunately a large lacuna in 
the text. In Sidon there is an incident which 
apparently is concerned with unnatural vice, and 
Paul and other Christians were shut up in the 
temple of Apollo. At the prayer of Paul the 
temple was destroyed, but Paul was taken into 
the amphitheatre. The text is defective, and the 
manner of his rescue is not clear, but apparently 
he made a speech and gained many converts, and 
then went to Tyre. 

(5) In Tyre. Only the beginning of the story- 
is extant, but apparently the central feature is 
the exorcism of demons and the curing of a dumb 
child. After this there is a great lacuna, in which 
Schmidt places various fragments dealing with the 
question of the Jewish law ; and it appears possible 
that the scene is moved to Jerusalem and that 
Peter is also present. 

(6) Paul in prison in the mines. In this incident 
Paul appears as one of those condemned to work 
in the mines (? in Macedonia), and he restores to 
life a certain Phrontina. Presumably he ultimately 
escaped from his imprisonment, but the text is 
incomplete. 

(7) In Philippi. The most important incident 
connected with Philippi is a correspondence with 
the Corinthians, dealing with certain heretical 
views, of which the main tenets are (a) a denial 
of the resurrection of the flesh; (6) the human 
body is not the creation of God ; (c) the world is 
not the creation of God ; (d) the government of 
the universe is not in the hands of God ; (e) the 
crucifixion was not that of Christ, but of a docetic 
phantasm ; (f) Christ was not born of Mary, nor 
was he of the seed of David. 

(8) A farewell scene. The place in which this 
scene is laid cannot be discerned from the frag- 
ments which remain, but it contains a prophecy of 
Paul's work in Rome, placed in the mouth of a 
certain Cleobius. 

(9) The martyrdom of Paul. The last episode 
gives an account of the martyrdom of Paul, and 
the text of this is also preserved as a separate docu- 
ment in Greek. According to it, Paul preached 
without any hindrance, and there is no suggestion 
that he was a prisoner. On one occasion, while he 
was preaching, Patroclus, a servant of Nero, fell 
from a window and was killed. Paul restored him, 
and he was converted. When Nero heard of this 
miracle, Patroclus acknowledged that he was the 
soldier of the /3a<rt\ei>s Irj<rovs Xpwrij. Nero caused 
him and other Christians to be arrested, condemned 
Paul to be beheaded, and the other Christians to 
be burnt. In prison Paul converted the prefect 
Longinus and the centurion Cestus, and pro- 
phesied to them life after death. Longinus and 
Cestus were told to go to his grave on the next 
day, when they would be baptized by Titus and 
Luke. At his execution milk spurted from his 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



33 



neck instead of blood, and afterwards he appeared 
to Nero, who was so impressed that he ended the 
persecution. The narrative ends with the baptism 
of Longinus and Cestus at the grave of Paul. 

The testimony of early writers to the Acts of 
Paul. Since the discovery of the Coptic Acts, 
which show that the 'Acts of Paul and Thekla' 
is an extract fcdm the Acts of Paul, there is no 
justification for doubting that Tertullian refers to 
the Acts of Paul in de Baptismo, 17 : 

'Quodsi qui Pauli perperam inscripta legrunt, exemplum 
Theclae ad licentiam mulierum docendi tinguendique defendunt, 
sciant in Asia presbyterum, qui earn scripturam construxit 
quasi titulo Pauli de suo cumulans, convictum atque confessum 
se id amore Pauli fecisse loco decessisse.' 

This statement is extremely valuable, because it 
gives us clear evidence as to the provenance of the 
Acts, proves that it is not later than the 2nd 
cent., and shows that it was composed in the 
great Church, not in any heretical or Gnostic 
sect. 

Origen quotes the Acts in de Principiis, i. 2, 3, 
and in in Johannem, xx. 12. In both cases he 
gives the Acts of Paul definitely as the source of 
his quotation, but neither passage is found in the 
extant texts. He apparently regards the Acts as 
only slightly inferior to the Canonical Scriptures. 

Eusebius in HE iii. 25 ranks the Acts of Paul, 
with the Shepherd of Hermas, Ep. of Barnabas, 
the Apoc. of Peter, the Didache, and possibly the 
Johannine Apocalypse, as among the vt>6a.. But 
he does not appear to place it with the Acts of 
Andrew and John and 'the other apostles' (per- 
haps the Acts of Peter and Thomas) which are 
&TOTTO. irdiri) teal dv<r<repi]. Hence he probably did 
not regard the Acts of Paul as heretical. 

In the Claromontane list of books of the OT 
and NT the Acts of Paul comes at the end in the 
company of ' Barnabae epistula, Johannis revelatio, 
Actus Apostolorum, Pastor, Actus Pauli, Revela- 
tio Petri,' which suggests somewhat the same judg- 
ment as that of Eusebius. 

From the Commentary of Hippolytus on Dn 3' 
it seems clear that he regarded the Acts of Paul 
as definitely historical and trustworthy. Com- 
bating those who doubted the truth of the story of 
Daniel in the lions' den, he says : 

el yap irt<rrevo/aev on ITavAov eis firjpi'a KaToocptSeiTOS a^e 
cir' avrbv 6 Ae'tov eis TOVJ 7ro6a? a.va.ire<riav jrepie'A.eix 6 *' ainov, ir<os 



This incident is not extant in the Coptic texts, 
but a full account, stated to be taken from the 
UeptoSot UatiXov, is given by Nicephorus Callistus 
(cf . Zahn, Gesch. d. NTKanons, ii. 2. p. 880 ff.), and 
there is therefore no doubt but that Hippolytus re- 
garded the Acts of Paul as little less than canonical. 

Finally, the passage quoted above from Augus- 
tine, c. Faust, xxx., makes it clear that in the 
Church of Africa, as late as the time of Augustine, 
the Acts of Paul was accepted as authoritative 
and orthodox, even if not canonical. 

The date of the Acts of Paul. The testimony oi 
early writers furnishes a safe terminus ad quern 
The Acts must be earlier than Tertullian's de 
Baptismo. The precise date of this tractate is 
uncertain, but at the latest it is only a few years 
later than A.D. 200, so that the Acts must at al" 
events belong to the 2nd century. The question 
is whether it is a great deal or a very little 
earlier. Schmidt is influenced by the frequent use 
of the canonical Acts and the Pastoral Epistles to 
choose a date not much earlier than 180 ; on the 
other hand, Harnack thinks that the complete 
silence as to the Montanist movement, or anything 
which could be construed as anti-Montanist po- 
lemics, points to a date earlier than 170. Between 
these two positions a choice is difficult t probably 
we cannot really say more than that between 160 
VOL. i. 3 



and 200 is the most likely period for the compo- 
ition of the Acts of Paul. (See especially C. 
Schmidt, Ada Pauli, 176 ff., where the whole 
question is thoroughly discussed, and reference 
made to the literature bearing on the subject.) 

The theology of the Acts of Paul. From the theo- 
ogical point of view the Acts of Paul has excep- 
;ional value as giving a presentment of the ordinary 
Christianity of Asia at the end of the 2nd cent., 
undisturbed by polemical or other special aims. 

So far as the doctrine of God is concerned, the 
reaching of the Acts is quite simple it is that 
there is one God, and his Son, Jesus Christ,' 
which is sometimes condensed into the statement 
:hat there is no other God save Jesus Christ alone, 
tt is thus in no sense Arian or Ebionite, but at 
;he same time distinctly not Nicene. It is also 
definitely not Gnostic^ for the Supreme God is also 
the Creator, and the instigator if not the agent of 
redemption. The general view which is implied is 
that the world was created good, and man was 
;iven the especial favour of being the son of God. 
This sonship was broken by the Fall, instigated 
by the serpent. From that moment history be- 
came a struggle between God, who was repairing 
the evil of the Fall, through His chosen people 
Israel and through the prophets, and the prince 
of this world, who resisted His efforts, had pro- 
claimed himself to be God (in this way heathen re- 
ligion was explained), and had bound all humanity 
to him by the lusts of the flesh. The result of 
this process was the existence of dyvaxria. and ir\dvi) 
followed by tf>0opd t &Ka.6ap<rla, fjSov^ J and Bdvaros, and 
the need of an ultimate judgment of God, which 
would destroy all that was contaminated. But 
in His mercy God had sent His Holy Spirit into 
Mary, in order in this way, by becoming flesh, to 
destroy the dominion of evil over flesh. This Holy 
Spirit was (as in Justin Martyr) identical with the 
spirit which had spoken through the Jewish 
prophets, so that the Christian faith rested through- 
out on the Spirit, which had given the prophets to 
the Jews and later on had been incarnate in the 
Christ who had given the gospel. It should be 
noted that there is no attempt to distinguish be- 
tween the Logos and the Spirit. 'Father, Son, 
and Spirit' is a formula which seems to mean 
Father, Spirit or Logos, and the Son or Incarnate 
Spirit. It is clear that this is the popular theolo-jy 
out of which the Sabellian and Arian controversies 
can best be explained. For the reconstruction of 
late 2nd cent. Christology in popular circles the 
Acts of Paul is of unique value. There is also 
a marked survival of primitive eschatological 
interest : the expectation of the coming of Christ, 
and the establishment of a glorious kingdom in 
which Christians will share, is almost central. 
The means whereby Christians ensure this result 
are asceticism and baptism. The latter is prob- 
ably the necessary moment, and is habitually 
called the <r<pa7/j; but asceticism is equally 
necessary, and involves an absolute abstinence 
from all sexual relations, even in marriage. 
There is no trace of any institution of repentance 
for sin after baptism; for this reason, baptism 
appears usually to be postponed, and in these re- 
spects the Acts of Paul agrees more closely with 
Tertullian than with Hermas. ^The Eucharist is 
primarily a meal of the community, and the theol- 
ogy underlying it is not clearly expressed : the 
most remarkable feature is that here, as in all the 
other Apocryphal Acts, water takes the place of 
wine. This feature used to be regarded as Gnostic, 
but in view of more extended knowledge of the 
Acts as a whole this opinion is untenable. 

Far the best statement of the theology of the Acts is in C. 
Schmidt's Acta Paidi, 183 ff. This also gives full references to 
earlier literature. 



34 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



2. The Acts of Peter. The Acts of Peter is 
no longer extant in a complete form. ' But, apart 
from late paraphrastic recensions, which re-edit 
older material in a form more agreeable to Catholic 
taste, three documents exist, two of them in a 
fragmentary form, which probably represent por- 
tions of the original Acts. These are (1) a Coptic 
text of a Ilpdfeiy Hirpov, (2) the Codex Vercellensis, 
or A d us Petri cum Simone, and (3) a Greek text of 
the Martyrium Petri. 

(1) The Coptic IIpdeis Tltrpov. This fragment 
was found by C. Schmidt at the end of the Gnostic 
Papyrus P. 8502 in the Egyptian Museum at 
Berlin (Sitzungsber. d. K. Preuss. Akad. xxxvi. 
[1896] 839 ff .), and published by him in Die alien 
Petrusakten, Leipzig, 1903. This relates the story 
of Peter's paralyzed daughter. At the beginning 
of the incident, Peter, who had been twitted with 
the paralysis of his daughter in spite of his powers 
of miraculous healing, cured her for a short time, 
and then restored her paralytic condition. Having 
thus shown his power, he explained that she had 
originally been paralyzed in answer .to his own 
prayer, in order to preserve her virginity, which 
was threatened by a certain Ptolemaeus. By this 
miracle Ptolemseus had been converted to Christi- 
anity, and dying soon afterwards left land to 
Peter's daughter, which Peter sold, giving the 
proceeds of it to the poor. 

(2) The Codex Vercellensis (Bibliothec. capitul. 
Vercellensis, cviii. 1). This MS contains either an 
extract from or a recension of the last part of the 
Acts. It begins by describing Paul's departure from 
Rome to Spain, and the arrival of Simon Magus, 
who makes Aricia his headquarters. Meanwhile, 
however, Peter, who had finished 'the twelve years 
which the Lord had enjoined on him' (on this 
legend see esp. Harnack's Expansion of Christian- 
ity, i. [1904] 48 n.) ? was directed to go to Rome to 
oppose Simon. Simon, who was first in Rome, 
perverted Marcellus, a convert of Paul; and, as 
soon as Peter arrived, a contest was waged for his 
faith on the question of the respective powers of 
Simon and Peter to raise the dead. In this con- 
test, which is long drawn out, Peter was successful, 
and Simon retreated. Later on, the latter made 
an effort to restore his reputation by flying in the 
air, but the prayer of Peter caused him to fall and 
break his thigh. He was carried to Aricia and 
thence to Terracina, where he died. 

The story then relates the events which led up 
to the martyrdom of Peter. The main reason was 
the decision of the converted concubines of Agrippa 
the prefect to refuse any further intercourse with 
him, and the similar conduct of Xanthippe the 
wife of Albinus, a friend of Nero, and of many 
other wives who all left their husbands. Peter 
was warned of the anger of Agrippa, and at first 
was persuaded by the Christians to leave Rome. 
At this point the Codex Vercellensis is defective, 
but the missing incidents can be restored from the 
Martyrium Petri, which overlaps the Codex Ver- 
cellensis. From this it appears that Peter on his 
departure from Rome was arrested by a vision of 
Christ going to Rome and saying, 'I am going to 
Rome to be crucified.' Peter therefore applied 
this vision to himself, and went back to Rome, 
where he was crucified by the orders of the prefect 
Agrippa. Here the Codex Vercellensis is again 
extant, and runs parallel with the Martyrium to 
the end. Peter at his own request was crucified 
head downwards, in order to fulfil the saying of 
the Lord, 'Si non feceritis dextram tamquam 
sinistram, et sinistram ut dextram, et quae sunt 
sursum tamquam deorsum, et quae retro sunt tam- 
quam ab ante, non intrabitis in regna coelorum' 
a saying which is also found in the Gospel of 
the Egyptians. After Peter's death Marcellus took 



down his body and buried it in his own tomb, after 
costly embalming. But Peter appeared to him in 
a vision and rebuked him for not having obeyed the 
precept ' Let the dead bury their dead.' Finally, 
the narrative explains that Nero was angry with 
Agrippa because he wished to have inflicted worse 
tortures on Peter, but, while he was planning 
further persecution of the Christians, he was de- 
terred by a vision of an angel, so that Peter was 
the last martyr of that persecution. The Codex 
ends with the obviously corrupt line 'actus Petri 
apostoli explicuerunt cum pace et Simonis amen.' 
Lipsius (Acta Apocrypha, p. 103) suggests with 
great probability that 'et Simonis' is a misplaced 
gloss. In this case the 'actus P. apostoli explicu- 
erunt. Amen,' would be the conclusion of the 
original Acts of Peter, of which the Codex Ver- 
cellensis is an extract, giving the Roman episode 
and martyrdom. 

(3) The Martyrium Petri. The text of this early 
extract from the Acts of Peter is preserved in two 
MSS. (a) Cod. Patmiensis 48 (9th cent.). .This 
was copied by C. Krumbacher in 1885 and published 
by Lipsius in 1886 in the Jahrbucher fur Protest. 
Theologie, pp. 86-106. (6) Cod. Athous Vatoped. 
79 (lOth-llth cent.). This was copied by Ph. 
Meyer and published by Lipsius in his Ada 
Apocrypha. There are also Slavonic and Coptic 
(Sahidic) versions, the latter preserved directly in 
three fragments and indirectly in Arabic and 
Ethiopic translations (see further Lipsius, Act. 
Apocr. h'v f.). Lipsius thinks that the Patmos 
MS is the best. The contents of the Martyrium 
are the same as the second part of the Codex 
Vercellensis, beginning with Simon's flight hi the 
air, and from the comparison of the Codex with 
the Greek Martyrium it is possible that the 
original form of this part of the ancient Acta can 
be reconstructed with some probability. 

The place of origin of the Acts of Peter. There 
is no unanimity among critics as to the community 
in which the Acts of Peter was first produced. 
There is of course a natural tendency to consider 
in the first place the possibility that the document 
is Roman. In favour of this view the most com- 
plete statement is that of Erbes (' Petrus nicht in 
Rom, sondern in Jerusalem gestorben,' ZKG xxii. 
1, pp. 1-47 and 2, pp. 161-231). He lays special 
emphasis on the fact that the writer is acquainted 
with the entrance to Rome both from the sea and 
by road, and knows that the paved way from 
Putepli to Rome is bad to walk upon and jars the 
pilgrims who use it. He also emphasizes the 
correctness of the narrative in placing the contest 
between Peter and Simon Magus in the Forum 
Julium, on the ground that, according to Appian 
(de BeUo Civili, ii. 102), this forum was especially 
reserved for disputes and closed to commerce. He 
makes other points of a similar nature, but not of 
so striking a character. 

Against this it is urged by Harnack (AUchristl. 
Lilteraturgesch. ii. 559) and Zahn (Gesch. des NT 
Kanons, ii. 841) that the local references to Rome 
are really very small, and do not give more know- 
ledge than was easily accessible to any one in the 
2nd or 3rd century. For instance, that Aricia and 
Terracina are towns not far from Rome is a fact 
which must have been quite generally known. 

Other arguments seem to point to Asia rather 
than Rome for the composition of the Acts. Apart 
from the OT and NT, the books which clearly 
were made use of by the redactor of the Acts of 
Peter are the Acts of Paul and the Acts of John. 
Now we know with tolerable certainty that the 
Acts of Paul was written in Asia, and it is usually 
thought that the Acts of John came from Ephesus 
or the neighbourhood. It is, therefore, not im- 
probable that the Acts of Peter came from the 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



35 



same district. Other possibilities are Antioch or 
Jerusalem, but there is less to be said in favour of 
these than either Rome or Asia. 

The date of the Acts of Peter. The terminus ad 
quern is some time earlier than Commodian the 
African Christian poet, who was clearly acquainted 
with both the Acts of Paul and the Acts of Peter, 
probably in a Latin version, and appears to have 
regarded them as undoubted history (cf. esp. 
Commodian, Carmen Apologeticum, 623 ff .) . Com- 
modian is generally supposed to have written c. 
A.D. 250, so that some years earlier than this (to 
allow for the spread of the Acts, their translation, 
and the growth of their prestige) is the earliest 
possible date. The terminus a quo is more diffi- 
cult to find. It is generally conceded that the 
date 165 adopted by Lipsius (Apokr. Apostel- 
gesch., ii. 1, p. 275) is too early, and opinion usually 
fixes on the decennium either side of the year 200 
as the most probable for the writing of the Acts. 
Harnack thinks that early in the 3rd cent, is the 
most probable time (Altchr. Lit., ii. 553 ff .), but 
Erbes and C. Schmidt incline rather to the end of 
the 2nd century. The most important argument 
is concerned with the compassionate attitude to- 
wards the lapsi, which is very marked in the 
Acts. Harnack thinks that this is not intelligible 
until 230, while Erbes and Schmidt maintain that 
in the light of the Shepherd of Hermas a much 
earlier date is possible. Obviously this sort of 
reasoning is somewhat tentative, and it is ap- 
parently not possible at present to say more than 
that 180-230 seems to be the half-century within 
which the composition ought probably to be placed. 

The sources used by the Acts of Peter. Apart 
from the OT and NT, both of which the writer 
uses freely and accepts as equally inspired, the 
use can clearly be traced of the following books, 
(a) The Acts of Paul. Apart from various smaller 
points of contact, the whole account of the martyr- 
dom of Peter is clearly based on the martyrdom 
of Paul. The whole subject is worked out in 
full detail by C. Schmidt in his Petrusakten 
(p. 82 ff .) ; but it should be added that there is per- 
haps still room for doubt whether that portion 
of the Codex Vercellensis which deals with Paul 
really belongs to the Acts of Peter, and is not an 
addition made by the redactor who formed the 
excerpt, rather than by the author of the Acts 
itself. The fullest statement of this possibility is 
given by Harnack (TU xx. 2 [1900], p. 103 ff .), 
and a discussion tending to negative his conclu- 
sions is to be found in Schmidt's Petrusakten, 82 f . 
(6) The Acts of John. The frequent verbal 
dependence of the Acts of Peter on the Acts of 
John is demonstrated by the long list of parallel 
passages given by M. R. James in Apocrypha 
Anecdota, ii. p. xxivff. James, however, thought 
at that time that this list proved the identity of 
authorship of the two books; but Schmidt has 
shown conclusively that the facts must be ex- 
plained as due to dependence rather than to 
identity of authorship. His most telling argument 
is the large use of the OT and NT made by the 
Acts of Peter as contrasted with then 1 very limited 
use in the Acts of John. (c) Schmidt also argues 
that the Acts used the K-f/pvyfM Hh-pov. Probably 
he is right, but our knowledge of the TL-fipvy/M is 
too small to enable the question to be satisfactorily 
settled. 

The theology of the Acts of Peter. In general 
the account given above of the theology of the 
Acts of Paul will serve also for the Acts of Peter. 
But in some passages which depend on the Acts of 
John there is an appearance of a pronounced 
Modalism or almost of Docetism. Lipsius and 
others, who believed, with Zahn and James, that 
the Acts of Peter was written by the author of 



the Acts of John, used to think that these passages 
pointed to a heretical and Gnostic origin. But 
Harnack (Altchr. Lit. ii. 560 ff.) and Schmidt 
(Petrusakten, p. Ill ff.) have argued very forcibly 
that this is not the case, and that the Acts of 
Peter represents the popular Christianity of the 
end of the 2nd cent, rather than any Gnostic 
sect. 

No complete edition of the text exists : the Codex Vercellensia 
and the Greek text of the Martyrium are critically edited by 
R. A. Lipsius in Acta Apocrypha, i. [Leipzig, 1891] ; the Coptic 
IIpa eis IleTpou by C. Schmidt, Die alien Petrusakten (TU xxiv. 
1) , Leipzig, 1903. Very important is the treatment of Harnack 
in his Chronologie, 1897, i. 559 ff., and the article of Erbes in 
ZKO xxii. 1, p. 1 ff. and 2, p. 161 ff. under the title 'Petrua 
nicht in Rom, sondern in Jerusalem gestorben.' 

3. The lets of John. Recent research has 
added much to our knowledge of the Acts of John ; 
and, though the text is fragmentary and uncertain, 
it is now possible to reconstruct the greater part 
of the original. No single MS is complete, put, 
from the comparison of many, the following inci- 
dents can be arranged : 

(1) In Ephesus. John comes from Miletug to 
Ephesus and meets Lykomedes, with whom he 
lodges. Here Cleopatra, the wife of Lykomedes, 
dies, and her husband also falls dead from grief, 
but John raises both to life. Lykomedes obtains 
a picture of the Apostle, and worships it in bis 
room until John discovers it and shows him his 
mistake. The next episode at Ephesus is in the 
theatre, where John makes a long speech and 
heals many sick. John is then summoned to 
Smyrna, but determines first to strengthen the 
Ephesian community. On the feast day of Artemis 
he goes to the Temple, and after a speech inflicts 
death on the priest. He then encounters a young 
man who has killed his father because he had 
accused him of adultery. John raises the father, 
and converts both father and son ; he then goes to 
Smyrna. 

(2) Second visit to Ephesus. John returns to 
Ephesus to the house of Andronicus, who had 
been converted during his first visit. Drusiana, 
the wife of Andronicus, dies from the annoyance 
caused her by a young man Kallimachus. but 
after her burial John goes to the tomb and sees 
Christ appear as a young man ; he is instructed to 
raise up Drusiana and also a young man, Fortun- 
atus, who has been buried in the same place. 
Fortunatus is, however, not converted, and soon 
dies again. 

(3) The most important fragment of the Acts is 
that which seems to follow upon the episode of 
Drusiana, as she remains one of the chief persons. 
This was discovered in 1886 by M. R. James in 
Cod. Vind. 63 (written in 1324) and published in 
1897 in TS v. 1. It gives a long and extremely 
Docetic account of the Passion of Christ, and of a 
revelation which the true Christ made to the 
disciples while the phantasmal Christ was being 
crucified, and includes a hymn which was used, 
among others, by the Priscillianists (Augustine, 
Ep. 237 [253]). 

(4) The death of John. During the Sunday 
worship John makes a speech, and partakes with 
the brethren of the Eucharist. He then orders his 
grave to be dug, and after prayer, and emphasis 
on his virgin life, lies down in the grave and either 
dies or passes into a permanent trance. 

The testimony of early writers, and the date of 
the Acts of John. The earliest writer to use the 
Acts of John is Clement of Alexandria. In the 
Adumbrationes to 1 Jn I 1 (ed. Potter, p. 1009) he 
says: 

' Fatur ergo in traditionibus quoniam Johannes ipsum corpus 
quod erat extrinsecus tangens manum suam in profunda 
misisse et ei duritiam carnis nullo modo reluctatam ease sed 
locum 111:1 imi tribuisse disciouli.' 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



This is a certain reference to the Acts of John (ed. 
Bonnet, 195 f.), and these Latin ' adumbrationes ' 
are generally recognized as derived from the 
Hypotyposes. A similar reference, but less cer- 
tain, is in Strom, vi. 9. 71 : 



aAV jri p.ev TOV <r<uTT)pos rJ> trwjjia a 
ayicouas iiTrrjpeeri'as eis Sai/j.ovrii' ye'Atos av 
' * 



v ()5 <r<o|sux rr av- 
<J>ayei/ yap ov Sia. TO 

\iJ.vov ayt'a, aAA* ws fiij rovy (TWOi^ra? aAAws 
irepl avrov </>pOfeip {iireio-eAOot, ixnrep ane'At ticrrepoj' SoKiJirei Tivc? 

CLVTOl' TT$Ht.Vpti)tJ'0<H. VTTt'Aa/SoV, CLVTO? OC CtTTa^dTrAaJS CtTTCt^T^S TfP tS 

Sp ou^ei- TrapenriueTai K(.Vi)/j.a iradijTiKOC, KxA. 

Perhaps later than Clement, but probably early 
in the 3rd cent., is the writer of the Monarchian 
Prologues, in which the statement as to John, 
'qui virgo electus a Deo est quern de nuptiis 
yolentem nubere vocavit Deus,' clearly refers to 
the Acts of John (ed. Bonnet), p. 212 : 6 0f\ovri poi 
tv vfbrrfTi yfj/Mi lir travels ical elp-rjicdis /, Xpi/fw ffov, 
'Iwdwrj. It is noteworthy that neither Clement 
nor the author of the Prologues seems to have any 
consciousness that he has used a source of doubtful 
orthodoxy. 

Later on, Augustine and other writers against 
the Manichaeans make tolerably frequent mention 
of the Acts ; a full collection of all the quotations 
is given by Lipsius, Apokr. Apostelgesch. i. 83 ff. 
Here, of course, there is no longer any doubt as to 
the heterodoxy of the book, which is condemned 
together with the other Acts, with the sole excep- 
tion of the Acts of Paul. 

The evidence of Clement is the chief, if not the 
only, testimony as to the date of the Acts of John. 
It proves that it belongs to the 2nd cent., but 
there is really no evidence to say how much earlier 
than Clement it may be. Twenty years either 
side of 160 seem to represent the limits. 

The provenance of the Acts of John. This 
remains quite uncertain. The only evidence is 
that the centre of the Acts is Ephesus, and this 
points to Asia as the place of origin. _ Nor is there 
any serious argument against this view, for there 
is certainly no connexion between the destruction 
of the temple of Artemis by the Goths in 282 and 
the attack on this temple attributed to John and 
his friends in the Acts. Probably, therefore, 
Ephesus, or more generally Asia, may be taken as 
the place of composition, but not much should be 
built on this view. 

The theology and character of the Acts. The 
theology of the Acts appears to be markedly 
Docetic and Gnostic. It represents Jesus as 
possessing a body which varied from day to day 
in appearance, and was capable even of appearing 
to two observers at the same time in quite different 
forms. His feet left no mark on the Aground. 
This certainly seems Docetic, but it is curious that 
Clement of Alexandria quotes part of this passage 
as historical without any hesitation in accepting 
it, and Clement was not a Docete. The fact that 
at the moment of the Crucifixion Jesus appears to 
John on the Mount of Olives is also prima fade 
Docetic, but it is hard to say where mysticism 
ends and Docetism begins. 

The Gnosticism of the document is chiefly 
supported by the reference in the great hymn to 
an Ogdoad and a Dodecad, but it is not certain 
that this is really a reference to a Gnostic system. 
The Ogdoad is sun, moon, and planets, and the 
Dodecad is the signs of the zodiac. The distinc- 
tion between Gnosticism and Catholicism was not 
that one believed in an Ogdoad and the other did 
not, but in the view which they took of it. In 
just the same way the Valentinians and others 
explained that the Demiurge had made seven 
heavens above the earth, and while Irenaeus re- 
sisted this teaching, he never denied the existence 
of the seven heavens, as is shown by his ' Apostolic 
Preaching.' 



The best statement of the case against the Gnostic theory is 
in C. Schmidt, Petrusakten, 1 19 fi. The case for a Gnostic origin 
is best given, though very shortly, by M. R. James in Apocrypha 
Anecdota, ii. (TS y. 1), Cambridge, 1897, p. xviii ff., and for a 
definitely Valentinian origin, by Zahn (NKZ x. 211 ff.). 

Apart from the suspicion of Docetism and 
Gnosticism, the theology of the Acts is not unlike 
that of the Acts of Paul. Especially noticeable is 
the ascetic objection to marriage; in this respect 
the Acts of John is quite as stern as the Acts of 
Paul or of Thomas. But in other respects the Acts 
of John seems to come from a far higher mystical 
religion, and is altogether finer literature than 
the Acts of Paul. Some of the mystical passages 
reach a magnificent level, and may be ranked 
with the best products of 2nd cent, religion. 

The Acts of John may be studied best in Lipsius and Bonnet, 
Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ii. 1, Leipzig, 1898. This is the 
only complete text of all the known fragments. See also M. R. 
James, Apocrypha Anecdota, ii. (TS v. 1) ; Th. Zahn, Ada 
Joannis, Erlangen, 1880, and E. Hennecke, Neutest. Apok- 
ryphen, Tubingen, 1904, and Handbuch zu den Neutest. 
Apokr., do. 1904. Especially important is the section on the 
Acta of John in C. Schmidt, Die alien Petrusakten (TU 
xxiv. 1), Leipzig, 1903, p. 120 ff. 

i. The Acts of Andrew. No MS is extant which 
gives even as good a representation of the original 
Acts as^ is found in the other early Acts. We 
possess in quotations of Euodius of Uzala (end of 
the 4th cent.) some valuable fragments, of which 
traces are also found in Augustine; from these, 
and on the grounds of general resemblance to the 
Acts of John, it appears probable that a fragment 
in Cod. Vatican. Gr. 808 (lOth-llth cent.), deal- 
ing with Andrew in prison, belongs to the early 
Acts ; and from a variety of sources it is also 
possible to reconstruct with some accuracy the 
story of the martyrdom of Andrew. 

The text of the fragment in Cod. Vat. 808 begins 
in the middle of a speech of Andrew, who is in 
prison in Patras. The general situation is that 
the Apostle is being prosecuted by a certain 
^Egeates which is perhaps 'an inhabitant of 
^Egea' rather than a personal name because he 
perverted his wife Maximilla by Encratitic doctrine 
against married life. A prominent part is also 
played by Patrocles the brother of ^Egeates but 
a friend of the Apostle. The fragment ends, as it 
begins, abruptly in the middle of a speech by 
Andrew. 

The death of Andrew was by crucifixion, but 
the legend ascribing an unusual shape to the cross 
used seems to be of later origin. For three days 
and three nights he remained on the cross exhort- 
ing the multitude ; at the end of this time a crowd 
of 20,000 men went to the proconsul to demand 
that Andrew should be released. ^Egeates was 
obliged to comply, but Andrew refused, and prayed 
that having once been joined to the cross he might 
not be separated from it. He then died, and was 
buried by Stratolles and Maximilla. 

The date and provenance of the Acts of Andrew. 
These points depend largely on the view taken 
of the authorship of the Acts. If, as is usually 
thought, the Acts of Andrew is really Leucian, 
i.e. written by the same author as the Acts of 
John, Asia is the most probable place for its 
origin, and the end of the 2nd cent, the most 
probable date. If this view be given up, Greece, 
in which the scene of the Acts is laid, becomes 
the most probable place, and the date must be 
decided by internal evidence, for the Acts 
appears not to be quoted before the time of Origen 
(Eus. HE iii. 1). At present the Leucian hypothesis 
perhaps holds the field (see esp. James, Apocrypha 
Anecdota, ii. pp. xxixff.), but it is not at all 
certain. 

The theology of the Acts. So far as the frag- 
ments preserved enable us to discover, the theology 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



37 



of the Acts of Andrew resembles most closely that 
of the Acts of John, and thus supports the Leucian 
theory. There is the same emphasis on asceticism 
even in marriage, and the cross also plays a large 
part. 

The text is given in Lipsius and Bonnet, Acta Apocrypha, 
ii. 1, and valuable discussions are given in Harnack, Chronol. ii. 
175, and by M. R. James in Apocrypha Anecdota, ii. p. xxix ff. 
Somewhat out of date, but still valuable in some respects, ig 
R. A. Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, Brunswick, 
1883-87, i. 543 ff. 

5. The Acts of Thomas. (1) Contents. Judas 
Thomas is sold by Jesus to the messenger of an 
Indian prince. At the wedding-feast of the 
daughter of the king of Andrapolis he is dis- 
covered to be an inspired person and forced by 
the king to pray over the bride and bridegroom. 
On entering the inner room Jesus is found sitting 
with the bride. He explains to the bridegroom 
that He is not Thomas, and converts the couple 
to a complete abstinence from sexual relations 
(Act i.). Thomas is ordered by his master, King 
Gundaphorus, to build a palace. Spending the 
money on alms, he erects a palace in heaven which 
is shown to the disembodied soul of the king's 
deceased brother, who is afterwards restored to 
life and receives the Eucharist with his brother, 
both being 'sealed' with oil by the Apostle. On 
this occasion the Lord appears as a youth bearing 
a lamp. Having preached to the people, Thomas 
is ordered by the Lord to depart (ii.). Thomas 
finds a youth killed by a dragon, which forthwith 
appears, acknowledging Thomas as 'twin of the 
Christ,' and professes to be the serpent from para- 
dise. The dragon is summoned to suck the venom 
again out of the body, after doing which it 
perishes. The youth is restored to life, and says 
that he saw Thomas as a double person : one 
exactly like him standing by and telling him to 
resuscitate the body (iii. ) . While this happens, the 
colt of an ass addresses the Apostle as the 'twin 
of the Christ,' and invites him to ride on its back 
to the town (iv.)- A woman is delivered from a 
demon that had been doing violence to her for five 
years. To protect her for the future, she is 
'sealed' and partakes of the Eucharist (v.). At 
this moment a young man's hands are withered in 
the act of taking the Eucharistic bread. He con- 
fesses that he has murdered a woman for repudiat- 
ing him after her conversion by Thomas. Restored 
to life, she recounts horrible visions from the lower 
world. After a general conversion, Thomas's final 
words culminate in an exhortation to abstinence 
from marriage and in emphasis on the permanence 
of spiritual possession (vi.). All India being evan- 
gelized, a general of king Misdseus visits Thomas 
and prays him to deliver his wife and daughter 
from a cruel pair of demons (vii.). On the road 
the Apostle asks the general to command some 
wild asses to draw his carriage. One of these is 
afterwards ordered by the Apostle to summon the 
demons from the house. In the courtyard this 
same ass preaches a sermon to the multitude, and 
exhorts the Apostle to give the bodies of the 
women back to life, since they had died as the 
demons were leaving them (viii.). Mygdonia, a 
relative of the royal family, comes to hear Thomas 
preaching. The same night her husband Charisius 
has a dream which contains a foreboding of the 
consequences of this preaching for the married 
life. On the next day and night this comes true. 
His wife flees from his embraces. In the morning 
Thomas is arrested, and while in prison sings the 
' Hymn of the Soul.' At home, however, Charisius 
finds his fervent supplications again scorned. His 
wife escapes to receive the 'seal,' and encounters 
Thomas on her way proceeding as a prince with 
many Ii ghts (ix . ) . Thomas follows her and returns 



to prison, having administered the sacraments 
to her and her foster-mother. That morning 
Mygdonia preaches a sermon to her husband on 
Jesus as the heavenly bridegroom. Thomas is 
now ordered by the king and besought by Charisius 
to make Mygdonia alter her conduct ; but his 
feeble commands are refuted by her from his own 
teaching (x.). Tertia the queen pays a visit to 
Mygdonia and returns convinced (xi. ) . Thomas is 
again imprisoned, and converts Vazanes the king's 
son. An attempted torture being miraculously 
frustrated, he is conducted back and speaks a long 
prayer (xii.). Jesus, mostly in the form of Thomas, 
leads the converts and with them Mnesara, the 
wife of Vazanes, to the prison. They enter 
Vazanes' house, where they are 'sealed' and 
baptized by Thomas. After the Eucharistic meal, 
Thomas returns to the prison (Martyrium). The 
Apostle, followed by a multitude, is taken to 
a mountain and there pierced with swords. On 
the mountain Sifor the general and Vazanes 
receive orders as presbyter and deacon (xiii.). 

(2) Original language. After Schroter (ZDMG, 
1871, p. 327 ff .), Noideke (ib. 670-679 and in Lipsius, 
Apokr. Apostelgesch. ii. 2 [1884] 423^25), and 
Macke (Th. Quartalschr., 1874, pp. 3-70), Burkitt 
has settled the question (JThSt i. [1900] 280-290). 
The existence of a Syriac original is proved by a 
series of errors in the Greek arising from Syriac 
idioms or writing. 



(3) Text.- (a) The Syriac (ed. Wright, Apocr. Acts, Lond. 1871, 
i. 172-333, text ; ii. 146 ff., translation) is preserved in Br. Mus. 
Syr. Add 14645 (A.D. 936). Another MS is at Berlin : Sachau 
222, a double of this at Cambridge (P. Bedjan, Act. Mart, and 
Sanct. iii. Paris, 1892, gives variants from the Berlin MS). 
Fragments from the 6th cent, in a Sinai palimpsest, Syr. Sin. 30, 
have been published by Burkitt(<S<ud.Sira., Cambridge, 1900, vol. 
ix. app. 7). Search should be made in the East for MSSof this 
text and its Oriental and Greek versions. Our present text is 
not always superior to the Greek version. On the text of the 
hymns (in Acts i. andix.), cf. A. A. Bevan, 'The Hymn of the 
Soul,' TS v. 3 [1897] ; Hoffmann, ZNTW, 1903, pp. 273-309 ; 
E. Preuschen, Zwei gnost. Hymnen, Giessen, 1901 ; but see 
Burkitt, TViT.Leyden, 1905,pp. 270-282 ; Duncan Jones, JTASf 
vi. [1905] 448-451. 

(6) The Greek version (ed. Bonnet, Acta Apost. Apocr., ii. 2, 
Leipzig, 1903). The 13 'Acts' + the Martyrium exist as 
a whole in two MSS. The best text is Cod. U (Rome, 
Vallicell. B 35, llth cent.). This is the only Greek MS of the 
' Hymn of the Soul' (Actix.chs. 108-113). On the text of this 
Hymnin Nicetas of Salonica, cf . Bonnet, Preface, p. xxiii. The 
other complete MSis P (Paris, grsec. 1510, 12th or 13th cent.). 
The (19) other MSS give but selections. We must, therefore, 
review separately the MSS for part (A) = Acts i.ii., part (B) = 
Actsiii.-xii., part (C) = Act xiii. -\-Martyrium. Besides UP, 15 
copies preserve (A), of which CXBHTG have no trace of (B) or 
(C), while V gives here only the exordium of (A) ; 9 copies 
preserve (B), of which VYRD have no selections beyond Act 
viii., while SFQZL give here no more than the 'prayers ' of Act 
xii., which, against the order of these MSS and P, Bonnet has 
inserted here, following U + Syr. ; 11 copies preserve (C), of 
which KOM omit (A) and (B) altogether, while Q gives here 
only the exordium of Act xiii. Identical selections : FRCX 
(pp. 99-146 20 Bonnet), BH (99-145 24 ), SFZL (251 1 -258 a) , see 
Pref. p. xxii), SFZ (275>-288). The genealogy is still obscure. 
In part (A) Bonnet distinguishes two types of text : T and A. 
The r text=GHZ and B (1st half). The A text =A (Paris, 
grsec. 881, 10th cent.) + fam. * ( = the rest of the MSS, U andP 
i ncluded). Both types have several unimportant variationsin 
common, which must derive from a not very distant ancestor. 
But, as they more often differ on serious points, the tradition 
of the Greek text appears to be not very reliable. In part (C) 
again two types occur, viz. A + fam. O ( = KORUV) and P + 
fam. 2 ( = FLSZ) . All these MSS belonged to the A text in part 
(A), Z only excepted (Petersb. imp. 94, 12th cent.) ; cf. 'identi- 
cal selections' above. In part (B) the MSS are grouped on their 
textual merits and in a descending order : U VYR, P, D. On the 
MSS neglected by Bonnet cf . _Pref . p. xxiv ff . A Brussels MS 
(ii. 2047) might be of some interest. Several MSS are still 
hidden in Smyrna, Jerusalem, Athos (the catalogues of the 
most important libraries, Lavra and Vatopedi, are still un- 
published) . Bonnet's text might be improved. Only from pp. 
197-250 could due influence be allowed to the Syriac and its 
ally, Cod. U, Burkitt having then convinced the editor that 
the Greek was but the version of a Syriac original (Pref. p. xxi) . 

(c) The Armenian version should be better known. A MS exists 
at Paris (Bibl. nat. fonds arm. 46 III), which Vetteris expected 
to publish in the Or. Christ. The ' Hymn of the Soul ' is not in it. 
Preuschen (Hennecke, Neutest. Apokr. ii. 563) was impressed 
by its variations, not by the quality of its text. In Conybeare's 
opinion the Arm. version derives from the Syriac (op. cit. i. 475). 



38 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



(d) Of other versions, the Ethiopia is wholly, the Latin not 
entirely, useless (cf. Fabricius, Cod. apocr. NT-, Hamburg, 1903, 
ii. 687 f. ; Bonnet, Acta Thomas, 1883, p. 96 ff.). 

(4) Provenance and date. For the history of 
opinion, cf. Harnack, Altchr. L/it., ii. 1 (1897), 545 
549 with ii. 2 (1904), 175-176. Early Gnostics and 
Eastern Christianity have appeared to differ less 
in vocabulary than in other regards. Moreover, 
several coincidences with Gnostic phraseology have 
been intensified in the Greek, or are even due to 
wrong translation. The intellectual pursuits of 
the Gnostic mind are absent, while the rigoristic 
ethics have close parallels in early Syriac Christi- 
anity. All this exactly suits Bardesanes (A.D. 
154-222) and his school (see Burkitt, Early Eastern 
Christianity, London, 1904, pp. 170 n., 199, 205 ff., 
and Nau, Diet. Theol. Cath., Paris, 1907, ii. 391- 
401, artt. 'Bardesane' and 'Bardesanites'; also 
Kriiger, GGA, 1905, p. 718, and Noldeke, #>. p. 82). 
The language (with the proper names) points to 
Syria, the figure of Thomas to Edessa, the char- 
acter and style ('Acts' ixf., the 'Hymn of the 
Soul' in thia 'Act') to the literary capacities 
of Bardesanes' environment. R. Reitzenstein 
(Hellenist. Wundererzdhlungen, Leipzig, 1906, p. 
104 ff .) raises the question whether the material of 
the story was created in Edessa or imported. He 
points out that miracle-stories (' aretalogies') were 
a literary genre, spread by several petites religions 
from Egypt on the waves of universal syncretism. 
The pagan theology of Hermetic monotheism has 
left its traces among the mediaeval Sabians of 
Carrhse (near Edessa). It seems, however, that 
he is over-stating the importance of the existing 
analogies. 

The date of the Acts is fixed by Lipsius (LCBl, 
1888, no. 44, p. 1508, Apokr. Apostelgesch., ii. 2, 
p. 418 note [on i. p. 225 f .]) as the time of the 
translation of the relics of Thomas to Edessa (A.D 
232). It is impossible to clench this argument, 
but it is certain that one of the component parts 
of Act ix., the 'Hymn of the Soul,' was composed 
before the rise of the Sasanid power in A.D. 226, 
since 'Parthian kings' are mentioned in 1. 38 (ed. 
Bevan, TS v. 3). Therefore we must not go much 
beyond that time, and may reserve the middle 
quarters of the 3rd cent, as the latest probable 
date for the whole. 

(5) Integrity. Suspicions are raised by the fact 
that most MSS of the Greek version give but 
selections. If this should occur also in the Oriental 
tradition, our collection of 13 Acts might seem the 
result of a process of agglomeration. Noldeke 
(GGA, 1905, p. 82) suspects interpolations and 
detects a nucleus in Acts i. and ii. (except the 
Andrapolis episode) . He supposes a rather intricate 
genesis for pur collection. Following this line of 
literary criticism, the vigorous style of Acts ix.-xii. 
causes them to stand out as another unit. Acts 
iii.-viii. and the remaining parts might come in as 
later accretions. It seems, however, unsafe to in- 
dulge much in literary criticism before a more ade- 
quate knowledge of the original text is available. 
Reitzenstein has emphasized (op. tit.) the proba- 
bility of literary sources. One author may have 
composed the whole by adapting pagan stories to 
Thomas's name. In this case the different shades 
of style may be due to close adherence to or free 
expansion of such sources. Future criticism may 
even see its way to combine this point of view 
with the first. Possible sources certainly de- 
serve serious consideration (cf . Gutschmid, Kleine 
Schriften, ii. [Leipzig, _ 1890] 332 ff ., advocating 
Buddhism ; Preuschen in Hennecke, i. 477, Parsi- 
ism; Hilgenfeld, ZWT, 1904, p. 240, Persian 
influences). 

(6) Hymns. The Bridal 'Ode' (ch. 7, 1st Act) 
is in our Syriac a mystic song of the Church. It 



is not safe to abandon this ancient exegesis, since 
its Gnostic astrology and scenery do not differ in 
degree from the rest of the Acts. It does not even 
go much beyond the Apocalypse or the Patristic 
comments on the Song of Songs. Excision from 
its context is impossible without leaving scars. 
The 'Hymn of the Soul' (Greek, 'Psalm') in chs. 
108-113 (and also a long doxology after ch. 113; 
only Syriac and for the largest part omitted by 
Sachau 222 ; cf. Hennecke, i. 592-594) is omitted 
in most MSS. It is a document of the religious 
life, not of the metaphysics of Gnosticism (Bevan, 
p. 7). An orthodox bishop of Salonica, Nicetas, 
explained it in the llth cent, without any suspicion 
(cf . above (3) and Burkitt, Early East. Christianity, 
p. 227). This proves that its character is not 
obtrusively Gnostic. Preuschen (op. tit., but cf. 
recensions in ThT and JThSt, quoted under (3)) 
defines the character of both hymns as Ophite or 
Sethian. Apart from this should be considered 
his exegesis of the 'psalm' of chs. 108-113 as a 
'Hymn of the Christ.' Reitzenstein supports his 
views (for the Bridal Ode with less decision : op. 
tit. 142). He explains its curious implications 
Christ cheated by demons, defiled by communion 
with them, serving the Lord of this world, plunged 
in a sleepy forgetfulness of His heavenly origin 
and supreme task by assuming a 'fast ratselhaft' 
strong influence of pagan literature (op. tit. 122). 
On the 'sleepy forgetfulness' cf. Conybeare, JThSt 
yi. 609-610. Identification of the soul and Christ 
is present in the Odes of Solomon. Hilgenfeld 
(ZWT, 1904, pp. 229-241) advocates a Greek 
original ('the Son of the King and the Pearl') 
sprung from a pagan Gnostic movement in the 
new Sasanid empire. 

All critics with this last exception, but Preu- 
schen included (cf., however, his art. in Hennecke, 
i. 479), agree in ascribing the 'Hymn of the Soul' 
to Bardesanes or to his school. Bevan (op. tit. p. 
5 f .) has shown that it contains just those ' heresies ' 
for which Bardesanes, according to Ephraim, was 
excluded by the Edessene Church. With regard 
to its inclusion in the Acts, Burkitt remarks (Early 
Eastern Christianity, p. 212 note) : 

' I_ cannot help expressing a private opinion that the Hymn 
was inserted by the author himself, just as he used the Lord's 
Prayer in a later prayer of Judas Thomas. That the Hymn 
itself is independent of the Acts is certain, but it is not so 
clear that the Acts is independent of the Hymn. It may, in 
fact, have become a part of the recognised teaching of the sect 
to which the author of the Acts belonged (cf. Ephraim's Com- 
mentary on 3 Corinthians, p. 119).' 

(7) Theology of the Acts. The Acts presupposes 
the universal acceptance of a theology counting 
only the supernatural world as real, and individual 
salvation as the chief end of man. Asceticism, 
especially abstinence from sexual relations even in 
marriage, is urged as self-evident. Even before 
meeting the Apostle, Vazanes had seen this (Act 
xiii.). Mygdonia shows a firmer grasp of the 
implications of his doctrine than Thomas himself 
(Act x.). The supernatural world is not described : 
the Gnostic cosmogonies and esoteric doctrines are 
absent. Against this fact coincidences in phrase- 
ology seem to carry little weight. Perhaps it is 
only its reckless Puritanism which separates the 
Acts of Thomas from the B'nai Q'yama, Aphra- 
ates.and other leaders of early Syriac Christianity 
(cf. Burkitt, Early East. Christianity, pp. 118-154; 
Schwen, Afrahat, Berlin, 1907, pp. 96-99, 130-132). 

The Church and its dignitaries are practically 
absent (cf. Acts v. vi. and the Martyrium). The 
sacraments are much in evidence as the only means 
of attaining to the life among the inhabitants of 
the world of light (chs. 121, 132, 158). Baptism 
immediately followed by the Eucharist is the rule. 
It occurs in the story of the woman in Act v. (ch. 
49), Mygdonia, Act x. (ch. 121), Siphor, Act x. 



ACTS (APOCRYPHAL) 



ADAM 



39 



(ch. 132), Vazanes, Act xiii. (chs. 153-158). In 
the story of Gundaphorus and Gad, Act ii. (chs. 
25-27), the Greek and Syriac differ ; both omit the 
Eucharist. 

(8) Ritual. (a) Instruction (132) ; (b) prayer (25, 
156) ; (c) consecration of the oil (157) ; (d) imposi- 
tion of hands (49) ; (e) outpouring of oil on the 
head (27 Gr. et rell.) ; (f) unction (27 Gr. 157) ; 
(g) prayer over the unction (27 Gr. 121, 157) ; (h) 
immersion (27 Syr. 121, 132, 157) ; (i) chrism (27 
Syr.) ; (j) prayer over the chrism (27 Syr.) ; (k) 
prayer for the Eucharist (49, 121, 132, 158) ; (0 
allocution before partaking (49, [121], 132, 158) ; 
(m) partaking of the bread (49, 121, 132, 158) ; (n) 
of the cup (121, 158). A response from heaven 
occurs in ch. 121, and a Christophany in chs. 27, 
153. The fullest* acc9unt is that of chs. 153-158. 
The whole act of unction and immersion is called 
'sealing' (121), therefore in chs. 49 and 27 (Gr.) 
the immersion may have been omitted. Outpour- 
ing and unction constitute a double act (157). 
Unction may have extended to more parts of the 
body for exorcistic purposes (cf. ch. 5 and JThSt, 
i. 71; F. E. Brightman, The Sacramentary of 
Serapion of Thmuis, p. 251 ; Hennecke, Neutest. 
Apokr. ii. 565). While the Greek in 27 has a 
double unction (JThSt i. 251) or, perhaps, unction 
and chrism, the Syriac has baptism followed by 
chrism. Elsewhere the Eucharist seems always to 
occupy the place of the last part of later baptismal 
ritual, viz. the confirmation and 'sealing' by the 
chrism. Renunciation in a formal way is absent, 
renunciation from sexual intercourse is understood 
(promised, 152). Consecration of the water is not 
found, though running water is but once used 
(121). Trinitarian formulae and Logos-terminology 
are used rather indiscriminately. Gnostic phrase- 
ology occurs side by side with it. The baptismal 
formula is always Trinitarian. Ordinary bread 
and water appear as Eucharistic elements. The 
bread seems to be more essential (body and blood 
in ch. 158). 

(9) The most impressive element in the Acts is 
Thomas's character as a twin of the Christ (see 
above (1)). W. Bauer (Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter 
der neutest. Apokr., Tubingen, 1909, p. 445, note 3) 
takes this as proof that the Acts wishes to reduce 
the Virgin birth ad absurdum, and quotes ch. 2 : 
'I, Jesus, son of Joseph the carpenter.' ^This 
would be quite a solitary cloud of scepticism in an 
atmosphere saturated with syncretistic thought. 
Reitzenstein seems to open a field where Rendel 
Harris (The Dioscuri in the Christian Legends, 
London, 1903, and Cult of the Heavenly Twins, 
Cambr., 1906) had already found a way. That, in 
fact, Dioscuric attainments are ascribed to Thomas 
is evident, and just here a parallel between Bar- 
desanian literature and our Acts comes in (cf. 
Burkitt, 170 note and 199) . The name Thomas = 
'twin' has been the point de depart, the cult of 
Aziz (the morning star) a presupposition. Prob- 
ably it was this Dioscuric god, whose month of 
free-markets (cf. Harris, Cult of the Heavenly 
Twins, p. 158) and whose place as a patron of 
Edessa Thomas was honoured with (cf . Jn 1 1 16 20 24 ; 
Pauly-Wissowa, i. 2644 [Cumont] ; R. Duval, His- 
toire politique, relig. et litt. d'Edesse, Paris, 1892, 
p. 74 ff .). The ways and by-paths of syncretistic 
monotheism are still obscure to us, but research 
in this field is certainly destined to cast light on 
the dark places of the Acts of Thomas. 



u\e neuenisnscnen jtiysierienrengtonen, i^eipzig, j.iu, aisc 
Poimandres Stud. z. griech.-agypt. u. frilhchristl. Lit., do. 




* The sacramental usage in the Acts is not fixed: the 14 points 
occur in various combinations. 



1904 ; F. J. Dolger, Sphragis, eine altchr. Taufbezeichnung in 
ihren Beziehungen zur prof, und relig. Kultur des Altertums, 
Paderborn, 1911 ; F. Haase, Zur bardesanischen Gnosis, 
Leipzig, 1910. 

6. Later Acts. Besides the five Apocryphal 
Acts which have been discussed, there are several 
others of later date, but they are comparatively 
unimportant. The most valuable is the 'Acts 
of Philip,' which is edited by Bonnet in Ada 
Apocrypha, ii. 2. It describes the adventures of 
Philip in Phrygia, Asia, Samaria, etc., in the 
company of his sister Mariamne. It may be as 
early as the 3rd cent., and belongs either to a 
mildly Gnostic sect or to the same Modalistic 
Christianity as the Acts of Peter. It is discussed 
by Lipsius in Die apok. Apostelgeschichten, Supple- 
ment, pp. 65-70, and by Zahn, Forschungen, 
vi. 18-24. Besides this a series of Acts, growing 
ever^shorter and less valuable, can be found 
attached to the name of every Apostle or Teacher 
in NT times in the Ada Sanctorum, arranged 
under the date assigned in the calendar to the saint 
in question. 

7. Catholic recensions. In the course of the 
Manichsean controversy the view was adopted 
that the miracles in the 'Leucian' Acts were 
genuine, but that the doctrine connected with 
them was heretical. This view finds its clearest 
expression in the Prologue of pseudo-Mellitus : 

' Volp sqllicitam ease f raternitatem vestram de Leucio quodam 
qui scripsit Apostolorum actus, Ipannis evangelistae et sancti 
Andreae vel Thomae apostoli qui de virtutibus quidem quae 
per eos dominus fecit, plurima vera dixit, de doctrina vero 
multa mentitus eat.' 

The result was a series of Catholic recensions 
which left out, speaking generally, the speeches, 
and preserved or even added to all the miracles. 
Of these Catholic recensions, which are very 
numerous, the most famous are the 'Prochorus' 
edition of the Acts of John (the text is best given 
by Zahn, Ada Joannis, Erlangen, 1880), and the 
so-called 'Abdias' collection. The disentangle- 
ment of various recensions of the separate Acts is 
very difficult, and not very profitable. 

The materials for a more detailed statement of the Catholic 
recensions can be found in Harnack, Geschichte der altchrist- 
lichen Litteratur, Leipzig, i. [1893] p. 123 ff ., and in R. A. Lipsius, 
Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, 1883-87. 

KIRSOPP LAKE and J. DE ZWAAN.* 
ADAM ('ASd/a). Adam was the lirst man (D = 
man) and the parent of the human race. 1. When 
the writer of Jude (v. 14 ) thinks it worth noting 
that Enoch (q.v.) was 'the seventh from Adam' 
(/35o/ow>j dirb 'ASdfj.), he probably has in mind the 
sacredness of the number seven. It seems to him 
an interesting point that God, who rested from 
His work on the seventh day, found a man to 
walk in holy fellowship with Him in the seventh 
generation. 

2. In 1 Co H 9f - and 1 Ti 2 13f - the doctrine of the 
headship of man and the complete subjection (ird<ra 
vworay-^) of woman is based upon the story of 
creation. Man was not created for woman, but 
woman for man; Adam was created first and 
sinned second, Eve was created second and sinned 
first ; therefore let woman ever remember that she 
is morally as well as physically weaker than man, 
and let her never attempt either to teach or to 
have dominion over him (aMftnelv dv8p6s). With 
the premisses of this argument one may compare 
the words of Sirach (25 24 ) : ' From a woman was 
the beginning of sin (d-n-6 ywaiKbs dpx'h afutprias), 
and because of her we all die.' St. Paul did not 
take pleasure in this quaint philosophy of history, 
as many of the Rabbis did ; but, with all his 
reverence for womanhood, he felt that the accepted 

* The section on the Acts of Thomas is from the pen of 
de Zwaan ; the rest of the art. is by Kirsopp Lake. 



40 



ADAM 



ADAM 



belief in woman's creation after and her fall before 
man's clearly established her inferiority. It was 
not a personal and empirical, but a traditional and 
dogmatic, judgment. 

3. St. Paul had, and knew that many others 
had, a religious experience so vivid and intense 
that ordinary terms seemed inadequate to do it 
justice. It was the result of a Divine creative act. 
If any man was in Christ, there was ' a new crea- 
tion' (Kaivi) KTiins) ; old things were passed away; 
behold, they were become new (2 Co 5 17 ). Not 
legalism or its absence, but 'a new creation' 
(Gal 6 1B ) was of avail. Reflexion on this profound 
spiritual change and all that it involved convinced 
the Apostle that Christ was the Head and Founder 
of a new humanity; that His life and death, 
followed by the gift of His Spirit, not merely 
marked a new epoch in history, introducing a new 
society, philosophy, ethics, and literature, but 
created a new world. ' Bliss was it in that dawn 
to be alive.' As St. Paul brooded on the stupen- 
dous series of events of which Christ was the cause, 
on the immeasurable difference which His brief 
presence made in the life of mankind, there inevi- 
tably took shape in his mind a grand antithesis be- 
tween the first and the second creation, between the 
first and the last representative Man, between the 
intrusion of sin and death into the world and 
the Divine gift of righteousness and life, between 
the ravages of one man's disobedience and the 
redemptive power of one Man's perfect obedience 
' 



It is to be noted that the Apostle does not 
advance any new theory of the first creation. He 
knew only what every student of Scripture could 
learn on that subject. He had no new revelation 
which enabled him either to confirm or to correct 
the account of the beginning of things which had 
come down from a remote antiquity. He no doubt 
regarded as literal history the account of the origin 
of man, sin, and death which is found in Gn 2-3. 
He did not imagine, like Philo, that he was read- 
ing a pure allegory ; he believed, like Luther, that 
Moses 'meldet geschehene Dinge.' It is remark- 
able, however, with what unerring judgment he 
seizes upon and retains the vital, enduring sub- 
stance of the legend, while he leaves out the 
drapery woven by the old time-spirit. He says 
nothing of a garden of Eden, a miraculous tree of 
life, a talking serpent, an anthropomorphic Deity. 
But he finds in the antique human document these 
facts : the Divine origin and organic unity of the 
human race ; man's affinity with, and capacity for, 
the Divine ; his destiny for fellowship with God 
as an ideal to be realized in obedience to Divine 
law ; his conscious freedom and responsibility ; the 
mysterious physical basis of his transmitted moral 
characteristics ; his universally inherited tendency 
to sin ; his consciousness that sin is not a mere 
inborn weakness of nature or strength of appetite, 
but a disregard of the known distinction between 
right and wrong ; the entail of death, not as the 
law obeyed by all created organisms, but as the 
wages of his sin. The narrative which blends 
these elements in a form that appealed to the 
imagination of primitive peoples has a 'depth of 
moral and religious insight unsurpassed in the OT ' 
(Skinner, Genesis [ICC, 1910] 52). 

The teaching of St. Paul with regard to sin and 
death does not materially differ from that of his 
Jewish contemporaries and of the Talmud, in 
which the same sense of a fatal heredity is con- 
joined with a consciousness of individual responsi- 
bility. 'O Adam, what hast thou done? For if 
thpu hast sinned, thy fall has not merely been 
thine own, but ours who are descended from thee' 
(2 Es T 48 ). Yet 'Adam is not the cause of sin 
except in his own soul ; but each of us has become 



the Adam of his own soul ' (Bar 54 lfl ). According 
to the Talmud, 'there is such a thing as trans- 
mission of guilt, but not such a thing as transmis- 
sion of sin' (Weber, System d. altsyn. palastin. 
Theol., Leipzig, 1880, p. 216). 

The ' immortal allegory ' of Genesis cannot now 
be regarded as literal history. ' The plain truth, 
and we have no reason to hide it, is that we do 
not know the beginnings of man's life, of his 
history, of his sin ; we do not know them histori- 
cally, on historical evidence ; and we should be 
content to let them remain in the dark till science 
throws what light it can upon them' (Denney, 
Studies in Theol., London, 1894, p. 79). Science 
knows nothing of a man who came directly from 
the hand of God, and it cannot accept the pedigree 
of Adam as given by Moses or by Matthew. Its 
working hypothesis is that man is 'a scion of a 
Simian stock,' and it is convinced that man did 
not make society but that society made man. Be- 
yond this it has not yet done much to enlighten 
theology. ' We do not know how Man arose, or 
whence he came, or when he began, or where his 
first home was ; in short we are in a deplorable state 
of ignorance on the whole subject ' (J. A. Thomson, 
The Bible of Nature, Edinburgh, 1908, p. 191). 

4. Art has made it difficult to think of our first 
parents without adorning them with all graces and 
perfections. ' But when we get away from poetry 
and picture-painting, we find that men have drawn 
largely from their imaginations, without the war- 
rant of one syllable of Scripture to corroborate the 
truth of the colouring' (F. W. Robertson, Cor- 
inthians, 242). To St. Paul (1 Co 15 48 - 49 ) the 
primitive man was of the earth, earthy (xoi'/cis), a 
natural as opposed to a spiritual man, crude and 
rudimentary, with the innocence and inexperience 
of a child. ' The life of the spirit is substantially 
identical with holiness ; it could not therefore 
have been given immediately to man at the time 
of his creation ; for holiness is not a thing imposed, 
it is essentially a product of liberty, the freewill 
offering of the individual. God therefore required 
to begin with an inferior state, the characteristic 
of which was simply freedom, the power in man to 
give or withhold himself (Godet, Corinthians, ii. 
424). St. Paul's conception is that, while ' the 
first man Adam,' as akin to God, was capable of 
immortality -potuit non mori his sin made him 
subject to death, which has reigned over all his 
descendants. Cf. 2 Es 3 7 : ' And unto him (Adam) 
thou gavest thy one commandment : which he 
transgressed, and immediately thou appointedst 
death for him and in his generations.' Formally 
as a deduction from the story of Adam, but really 
as his own spiritual intuition, the Apostle thus 
teaches the unnaturalness of human death. This 
is apparently opposed to the doctrine of science, 
that death is for all organisms a natural law, 
which reigned in the world long before the ascent 
of man and the beginning of sin a debt which, as 
it cannot be cancelled, man should pay as cheer- 
fully as possible. And yet his sense of two things 
his own greatness and God's goodness convinces 
him that it is radically contra rerum naturam. 

' He thinks he was not made to die, 
And Thou hast made him, Thou art just ' 

(Tennyson, In Memoriam). 

Christianity confirms his instinctive feeling that 
death is in his case a dark shadow that should 
never have been cast upon his life. Acknowledg- 
ing that it is not the mere natural fate of a 
physical organism, but the wages of sin, the 
Christian believes that it is finally to be abolished. 
'In Christ shall all be made alive.' 'The last 
Adam,' having vanquished death, 'became a life- 
giving spirit' (1 Co 15 22 ' 48 ). See also artt. LIFE 
AND DEATH, SIN. 



ADJUEE 



ADOPTION 



41 



LITERATURE. B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT, 1882-83, 
i. 331 ff., 409 ff. ; W. Beyschlag, NT Theology, 1894-96, ii. 48 ff. ; 
C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, 1894-95, i. 149 ff. ; G. B. 



tion of Christ, 1897, p. 86 ff. ; Sanday-Headlam, Romans^, 1902, 
p. 136 ff. ; A. Deissmann, St. Paul, 1912, pp. 59, 107, 155 ff. ; H. 
Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 1911, p. 

ii2ft. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ADJURE. See OATH. 

ADMINISTRATION. The word occurs in the 
AV in two places, 1 Co 12 5 and 2 Co 9 12 , in both 
of which the RV has substituted 'ministration,' 
just as in 2 Co 8 19f - 'administer' (AV) has given 
place to ' minister ' (RV ; Gr SiaKovtu). In 1 Co 
12 5 and 2 Co 9 12 the word is the tr. of Gr. SiaKovla, 
which originally means ' the service (or duty) 
rendered by a SiAxovos,' i.e. a servant, particularly 
a waiter at table (Lat. minister), who pours out 
wine to the guests individually. In 1 Co 12 the 
aspect alluded to is especially that of practical 
service rendered to a master [including that of 
' deacon ' rendered to our ' Lord '], whereas in 
2 Co 9 12 it is particularly the concrete form of that 
service which is intended, in its Godward and man- 
ward aspects. 

The administration of the Roman Empire is 
never directly referred to in the NT, and is best 
considered under its various aspects (CAESAR, 
PROCONSUL, etc.). A. SOUTER. 

ADMONITION. Obedience to God's law and 
submission to His will are essential for progressive 
spiritual life. Human nature being what it is, 
there is need for constant admonition (2 P I 10 ' 21 ). 
In the NT reference is made to this subject in its 
family, professional, and Divine aspects. 

1. vov0Tc'<i> and vovSeo-ia (a later form for vovOf- 
r-rjffis) are not found in the NT outside the Pauline 
Epp., except in St. Paul's speech, Ac 20 31 . For 
the former see Ro 15 14 , 1 Co 4 14 , Col I 28 3 18 , 
1 Th 5 12 - 14 , 2 Th 3 15 ; for the latter 1 Co 10", Eph 6 4 , 
Tit 3 10 ; cf. Is 8 16 30 8ff -, Hab 2 21 -, Dt 31 19ff -. The 
terms are used in classical Greek (e.g. Aristoph. 
Ranee, 1009), but are more common in later Greek 
(Philo, Josephus). The root idea is ' to put in mind ' 
(ff T ? rifftvai), to train by word, always with 
the added suggestion of sternness, reproof, remon- 
strance, blame (cf. vEsch. Prom. 264 ; Aristoph. 
Vesp. 254 ; Plato, Gorg. 479A). The implication is 
' a monitory appeal to the vovs rather than a direct 
rebuke or censure ' (Ellicott). To admonish is the 
duty of a father or parent (Eph 6 4 ; cf. Wis II 10 , 
Pss.-Sol. 13 8 ), or brother (2 Th 3 15 ). The object 
and reason of such admonition must be realized if 
it is to be a means of moral discipline. The ad- 
monition and teaching of Col I 28 correspond to the 
' repent and believe ' of the gospel message. 

2. irapaive'w signifies 'recommend,' 'exhort,' 'ad- 
monish ' (Ac 27 9 - 22 ; cf . 2 Mac 7 25 - - 6 , 3 Mac 5 17 7 12 A). 
This word is common in classical Greek, and is also 
found in the Apocrypha. St. Luke would be familiar 
with it as a term used for the advice of a physician. 
Its presence in a ' We ' section is suggestive. St. 
Paul as a person of position and an experienced 
traveller gives advice in an emergency, as a skilled 
doctor would admonish a patient in a serious ill- 
ness (see Hawkins, Horce Synopticce, 1899, p. 153). 

3. xP T l( AaT ' w i n the active signifies 'transact 
business ' (xpij^a), ' give a Divine response to one 
consulting an oracle,' ' give Divine admonition ' 
(cf. Jer 25 30 31 2 , Job 40 s ). The passive is used of 
the admonition given (Lk 2^ ; cf. xP /t 1/ J - aTlff f JI -6s, 
Ro II 4 , 2 Mac 2 4 ), and of the person thus admon- 
ished (Mt 2 12 - 22 , Ac 10 22 ; cf. II 26 and Ro 1 s where 
'called' is the translation; He 8 5 II 7 ; cf. 12 25 ). 
This meaning of ' Divine oracle ' is found chiefly 



in the NT, with the underlying idea that the mind 
and heart must be suitably prepared for its re- 
ception. For private and public exhortation by 
preachers, teachers, and communities, see Gal 2 14 , 
1 Th 2 2 , 1 Ti 4 13 , 2 Ti 4 2 . See also CHASTISEMENT 
and DISCIPLINE. H. CARISS J. SIDNELL. 

ADOPTION 1. The term. The custom of 
adopting children is explicitly alluded to by St. 
Paul alone of biblical writers ; he uses the word 
'adoption' (vloQeala, Vulg. adoptio Jiliorum, Syr. 
usually simath b e naya) five times : Ro 8 18 - ^ 9 4 , 
Gal 4 5 , Eph I 6 . This Greek word is not found in 
classical writers (though 6erbs vl6s is used for ' an 
adopted son ' by Pindar and Herodotus), and it 
was at one time supposed to have been coined by 
St. Paul ; but it is common in Greek inscriptions of 
the Hellenistic period, and is formed in the same 
manner as voftoOeo-ta, 'giving of the law,' 'legisla- 
tion' (Ro 9*; also in Plato, etc.), and bpoSecrla., 
'bounds,' lit. 'fixing of bounds' (Ac 17 26 ). It i? 
translated 'adoption' in Rom., but 'adoption of 
sons ' in Gal., ' adoption as sons ' (RV ; AV ' adop- 
tion of children ') in Ephesians. The classical Greek 
word for ' to adopt ' is eio-iroie'iffOai, whence elffvolijffis, 
' adoption.' 

2. The custom. St. Paul in these passages is 
alluding to a Greek and Roman rather than to a 
Hebrew custom. Its object, at any rate in its 
earliest stages, was to prevent the dying out of a 
family, by the adopting into it of one who did not 
by nature belong to it, so that he became in all 
respects its representative and carried on the race. 
But, though the preventing of the extinction of a 
family was thought important by the Israelites, 
and though adoption was a legal custom among 
the Babylonians (Box, in ERE i. 114), it was not 
in use among the Hebrews. With them childless- 
ness was to some extent met by the levirate, or in 
the patriarchal period by polygamy (cf. Gn 16 lff> ), 
or at a later date by divorce. The few instances of 
adoption in the OT (e.g. Moses by Pharaoh's daughter, 
Esther by Mordecai) exhibit a different reason for 
the act from that stated above, and are the result 
of foreign surroundings and influence. On the 
other hand, the custom was very common among 
both Greeks and Romans. It was at first largely 
connected with the desire that the family worship 
of dead ancestors should not cease a cultus which 
could be continued only through males (Wood- 
house, in ERE i. 107 and 111). In Greece it dates 
from the 8th cent. B.C. It was afterwards used as 
a form of will-making. If a man had a legitimate 
son, he could not make a will ; but, if he had no 
legitimate son, he often adopted one that he might 
secure the inheritance to him rather than to rela- 
tives, who would otherwise be heirs. The adopted 
son at once left his own family and became a mem- 
ber of that of his adopter, losing all rights as his 
father's son. If he was adopted while his adopter 
was still living, and sons were afterwards born to the 
latter, he ranked equally with them ; he could not be 
disinherited against his will. Roman adoption was 
founded on the same general ideas ; it was called arro- 
gatio if the person adopted was suijiiris, but adoptio 
if he was under his own father's potestas (Wood- 
house, loc. cit. ). In the latter case he came under the 
adopter's potestas as if he were his son by nature. 

It appears, then, that St. Paul in the five pass- 
ages named above is taking up an entirely non- 
Jewish position ; so much so that some have 
doubted whether a Jew, even after he had become 
a Christian, could have written Epistles which con- 
tained such statements (cf. Ramsay, Galatians, p. 
342). This, however, is one of the many instances 
of the influence of Greek and Roman ideas on St. 
Paul. W. M. Ramsay has endeavoured to show 
that, in so far as these differed from one another 



ADOPTION 



ADOPTION 



in the matter under discussion, it is to Greek 
custom rather than to ' the Roman law of adoption 
in its original and primitive form ' that the Apostle 
refers in dealing with Gal 3 6ff -, but that he uses a 
metaphor dependent on Roman law when writing 
to the Romans in Ro 4 11 (ib. pp. 339, 343 ; see also 
art. HEIR). But this has been disputed. 

3. St. Paul's metaphor of adoption. The Apostle 
applies the metaphor to the relation of both Jews 
and Christians to the Father, (a) Somewhat em- 
phatically he applies it to the Jews in Ro 9 4 . The 
adoption, the glory [the visible presence of God], 
the covenants [often repeated], the giving of the 
Law, the service [of the Temple], the promises, the 
fathers, all belonged to the Israelites, ' my kinsmen 
according to the flesh,' of whom is Christ concern- 
ing the flesh a passage showing the intense Jew- 
ish feeling of St. Paul, combined with the broader 
outlook due to his Greece-Roman surroundings 
(see above, 2). Here the sonship of Israel, for 
which see Ex 4- 2 (' Israel, my son, my first-born'), 
Dt 14 1 32 s - 19f -, Ps 68 8 103 18 , Jer 31 9 , Hos II 1 , 
Mai 2 10 , etc., is described as 'adoption.' It is 
noteworthy that the adoption is before the Incar- 
nation, although it could only be ' in Christ.' 
Lightfoot (on Gal 4 5 ) observes that before Christ's 
coming men were potentially sons, though actually 
they were only slaves (v. 8 ). Athanasius argues 
that, since before the Incarnation the Jews were 
sons [by adoption], and since no one could be a son 
except through our Lord [cf. Jn 14 8 , Gal S 26 , 
Eph I 5 , and see below, 5], therefore He was a Son 
before He became incarnate (Orat. c. Arian. i. 39, 
iv. 23, 29). 

(b) But more frequently St. Paul applies the 
metaphor of adoption to Christians. ' Sonship in 
the completest sense could not be proclaimed be- 
fore the manifestation of the Divine Son in the 
flesh' (Robinson, Eph., p. 27 f.). We Christians 
' received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 
Abba, Father,' for 'we are children of God' 
(Ro 8 15fi ). It was not till the fullness (rb 



for the word see Robinson, pp. 42, 255) of the time 
came that God sent forth His Son that we might 
receive adoption (Gal 4 4t ). In its highest sense 
adoption could not be received under the Law, but 
only under the Gospel. The context in these 
passages shows that the Spirit leads us to the 
Father by making us realize our sonship ; He 
teaches us how to pray, and puts into our mouth 
the words ' Abba, Father ' (cf. Kpa^ov Gal 4 6 with 



Ro 8 15 ). We notice that St. Paul, though 
addressing those who were not by any means all 
Jewish Christians, but many of whom, being 
Gentiles, had come directly into the Church, yet 
seems at first sight to speak as if Christ's coming 
was only to give adoption to those whom, being 
under the Law, He redeemed. But, as Lightfoot 
remarks (Com. in loc.), the phrase used is TOI>S birt> 
v6fj.oi>, not 71-6 rbv vofjiov ; the reference is not only 
to those who were under the Mosaic Law, but to 
all subject to any system of positive ordinances 
(so perhaps in 1 Co 9*). The phrase 'redeem . . .' 
is thought to reflect the Roman idea that the 
adopter purchased a son from the father by nature ; 
adoption was effected before a praetor and five 
witnesses, by a simulated sale. 

(c) Just as the adoption of Jews was inferior to 
that of Christians, so that of Christians is not yet 
fully realized. Adoption is spoken of in Ro 8^ as 
something in the future. It is the redemption 
(dTroXirr/jwcm) of our body, and we are still waiting 
for it ; it can be completely attained only at the 
general resurrection. The thought closely re- 
sembles that of 1 Jn 3 2 ; we are now the children 
of God, but ' if he shall be manifested, we shall be 
like him ' ; the sonship will then be perfected. 

4. Equivalents in other parts of NT. Although 



no NT writer but St. Paul uses the word ' adop- 
tion,' the idea is found elsewhere, even if expressed 
differently. Thus in Jn I 12ft those who 'receive' 
the Woru and believe on His name are said to be 
given by Him the right to become children of God. 
On this passage Athanasius remarks (Orat. c. 
Arian. ii. 59) that the word ' become ' shows an 
adoptive, not a natural, sonship ; we are first said 
to be made (Gn I 28 ), and afterwards, on receiving 
the grace of the Spirit, to be begotten. As West- 
cott observes (Com., in loc.), 'this right is not in- 
herent in man, but "given" by God to him. A 
shadow of it existed in the relation of Israel to 
God.' This passage is closely parallel to Gal 3 26 , 
where we are said to be all sons of God, through 
faith, in Christ Jesus. So in 1 Jn 3 1 , it is a mark 
of the love bestowed upon us by the Father that 
we should be called children of God [the name 
bestowed by a definite act K\t]dG>fj.et>, aorist] ; and 
(the Apostle adds) 'such we are.' The promise 
of Rev 21 7 to ' him that overcometh ' equally im- 
plies adoption, not natural sonship : ' I will be his 
God, and he shall be my son ' ; and so (but less 
explicitly) do the sayings in He 2 10 12 9 that Jesus 
'brings many sons unto glory' (see below, 5), 
and that Goa deals with us 'as with sons.' The 
figure of adoption appears as a 're-begetting' in 
1 P I*- 38 ; we are begotten again unto a living 
hope by 'the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ by means of the resurrection of Jesus (see 
below, 8), and therefore call on Him as Father 
(v. 17 ). And, indeed, our Lord's teaching implies 
adoption, inasmuch as, while He revealed God as 
Father of all men, He yet uniformly (see next 
section) differentiates His own Sonship from that 
of all others. 

5. A Son by nature implied by the metaphor. 
The use by St. Paul of the figure of adoption in 
the case of Jews and Christians leads us by a 
natural consequence to the doctrine that our Lord 
is the Son of God by nature. In the same con- 
text the Apostle speaks of Jesus as God's 'own 
Son ' (rbv iavrov vl6v), sent in the likeness of sinful 
flesh, therefore pre-existent (Ro 8 3 ; cf. v. 82 TOV 
ISlov vlov). In Gal 4 4f - he says that God sent forth 
His Son (rbv vlbv afrrov) . . . that we might receive 
adoption; Jesus did not receive it, because He 
was God's own Son. And so our Lord explicitly 
in Jn 20 17 makes a clear distinction between His 
own sonship (by nature) and our sonship (by adop- 
tion, by grace): 'my Father and your Father,' 
' my God and your God.' He never speaks of God 
as 'our Father,' though He taught His disciples 
to do so. Athanasius cites the ordinary usage of 
our Lord in speaking of ' My Father ' [it is so very 
frequently in all the Gospels, and in Rev 2 OT 3 s ; 
cf. also Mk 8 s8 ] as a proof that He is ' Son, or 
rather that Son, by reason of whom the rest are 
made sons' (Orat. c. Arian. iv. 21 f.). The same 
thing follows from the language of those NT 
writers who use phrases equivalent to those of St. 
Paul. If Christians become children of God ( Jn I 12 ; 
see 4 above), Christ is the Only-begotten Son of 
God, who was sent into the world that we might 
be saved, or live, through Him (Jn 3' 6 " 18 , 1 Jn 4 9 ). 
If we are the sons brought to glory by Jesus 
(He 2 10 ), He is emphatically 'a Son over [God's] 
house' (He 3 6 RVm ; cf. Nu 12 7 ). St. Peter speaks 
of God as the Father of Jesus in the very verse in 
which he speaks of our being begotten again by 
Him (IP I 8 , see 4 above). It is this distinction 
between an adoptive and a natural sonship which 
gives point to the title ' Only-begotten ' (q.v.) ; had 
Jesus been only one out of many sons, sons in the 
same sense, this title would be meaningless (for 
endeavours to evacuate its significance see Pearson, 
On the Creed*, art. ii. notes 52, 53). The distinc- 
tion of Jn 20 17 is maintained throughout the NT. 



ADOKNLNG 



ADEIA 



43 



As Augustine says (Exp. Ep. ad Gal. [4 B ] 30, 
ed. Ben. iii. pt. 2, col. 960), St. Paul 'speaks of 
adoption, that we may clearly understand the 
only-begotten (unicum) Son of God. For we are 
sons of God by His lovingkindness and the favour 
(dignitate) of His mercy; He is Son by nature who 
is one with the Father (qui hoc est quod Pater).' 

6. Adoption and baptism. We may in conclu- 
sion consider at what period of our lives we are 
adopted by God as His sons. In one sense it was 
an act of God in eternity ; we were foreordained 
unto adoption (Eph I 8 ). But in another sense St. 
Paul speaks of it as a definite act at some definite 
moment of our lives : ' Ye received ( Ad/3rre : aorist, 
not perfect) the spirit of adoption ' (Ro 8 1B ). This 
points to the adoption being given on the admis- 
sion of the person to the Christian body, in his 
baptism. And so Sanday - Head lam paraphrase 
v. 1 * thus : 'When you were first baptized, and the 
communication of the Holy Spirit sealed your ad- 
mission into the Christian fold,' etc. We may 
compare Ac 19 2 RV : ' Did ye receive (Adhere) the 
Holy Ghost when ye believed (irwreifo-avrej)?' a 
passage in which the tenses 'describe neither a 
gradual process nor a reception at some interval 
after believing, but a definite gift at a definite 
moment ' (Rackham, Com. , in loc. ; cf . Swete, Holy 
Spirit in NT, 1909, pp. 204, 342). The aorists can 
mean nothing else. In the case of the ' potential ' 
adoption of the Jews (to borrow Lightfoot's 
phrase), it is the expression of the covenant be- 
tween God and His people, and therefore must be 
ascribed to the moment of entering into the cove- 
nant at circumcision, the analogue of baptism. 
Yet in neither case is the adoption fully realized 
till the future (above, 3 (c)). In view of what 
has been said, we can understand how ' adoption ' 
came in later times to be an equivalent term for 
'baptism.' Thus Payne Smith (Thesaur. Syr., 
Oxford, 1879-1901, ii. 2564) quotes a Syriac phrase 
to the effect that 'the baptism of John was of 
water unto repentance, but the baptism of our 
Lord [i.e. that ordained by Him] is of water and 
fire unto adoption.' And in the later Christian 
writers vloQeaLa. became a synonym for ' baptism ' 
(Suicer, Thes.*, 1846, s.v.). 

LITERATURE. Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, passim 
(the general subject of this magnificent work is the Sonship of 
Christ) ; J. Pearson, On the Creed (ed. Burton, Oxford, 1864), 
art. i. p. 49, art. ii. note 57, p. 250 ; W. M. Ramsay, Hist. 
Com. on the Galatians, London, 1899, xxxi. ; G. H. Box, in 
ERE, art. 'Adoption (Semitic)' ; W. J. Woodhouse, ib., artt. 
' Adoption (Greek) ' and ' Adoption (Roman) ' ; J. S. Candlish, 
in HDB, art. 'Adoption'; H. G. Wood, in SDB, art. 'Adop- 
tion.' See also J. B. Lightfoot, Com. on Galatians (1st ed., 
1865, many subsequent edd.) ; Sanday- Headlam, Com. on 
Romans (1st ed., 1895); J. Armitage Robinson, Com. on 
Ephesians (1st ed., 1903). A. J. MACLEAN. 

ADORNING. Simplicity of personal attire has 
been no infrequent accompaniment of moral and 
religious earnestness, even when not matter of pre- 
scription. Two passages of the NT (1 Ti 2 9 - 10 , 
1 P 3 s - 4 ) warn Christian women against excessive 
display in dress, fashion of the hair (see the art. 
HAIR), and use of ornaments, and contrast it with the 
superior adornment of the Christian virtues. At 
the end of the 2nd cent, both Clement Alex. (Peed. 
ii. 10 f. [Eng. tr. 11 f.]) and Tertullian (de Cultu 
Feminarum) found it necessary to protest in much 
detail against the luxurious attire, etc., prevalent 
even amongst Christians of their day. The better 
adornment is frequently named in the intervening 
literature. The righteous, like their Lord, are 
adorned with good works (1 Clem, xxxiii. 7), and 
with a virtuous and honourable life (ii. 8). Ignatius 
contrasts the adornment of obedience to Christ with 
that of a festal procession to some heathen shrine 
(Eph. ix.). 

The reference to the subject in 1 P 3*- * has some 



psychological interest. The adornment which is 
praised is that of 'the hidden man of the heart,' 
the meek and quiet spirit which is precious in God's 
sight, and incorruptible. This use of ' man ' in the 
sense of personality suggests the well-known Pauline 
contrast between the inner and the outer man (2 Co 
4 16 ; cf . Ro 7 22 , Eph 3 16 ), and may be a further 
example of that dependence of 1 Peter on Pauline 
writings which is now generally recognized (Moflatt, 
LNT*, p. 330). It has often been maintained (e.g. 
by Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der NT Theol. ii. 14, 15) 
that this contrast is aproduct of Hellenistic dualism. 
But it can be adequately explained from that Heb- 
rew psychology which is the real basis of the Pauline 
and Petrine ideas of personality. The heart (or, 
in Pauline terminology, the ' mind ' [Ro 7 23 ]) is the 
inner personality, as the apparelled members are 
the outer personality. Both are necessary, accord- 
ing to Hebrew thought, to make the unity of the 
whole man. See further on this point the article 
MAN. H. WHEELER ROBINSON. 

ADRAMYTTIUM ('Adpantmov ; in the NT only 
the adjective ' A5pa/j.vrTT)t>6s [Ac 27 2 ] is found ; WH 
'Adpapwrqvds). This flourishing seaport of Mysia 
was situated at the head of the Adramyttian Gulf, 
opposite the island of Lesbos, in the shelter of the 
southern side of Mt. Ida, after which the Gulf was 
also called the ' Idaean.' 

Its name and origin were probably Phoenician, but Strabo 
describes it as ' a city founded by a colony of Athenians, with 
a harbour and roadstead* (xin. i. 61). Rising to importance 
under the Attalids, it became the metropolis of the N.W. 
district of the Roman province of Asia, and the head of a 
conventus juridicus. Through it passed the coast-road which 
connected Ephesus with Troy and the Hellespont, while an 
inland highway linked it with Pergamoa. 

It was in ' a ship of Adramyttium ' larger than 
a mere coasting vessel probably making for her own 
port, that St. Paul and St. Luke sailed from Caesarea 
by Sidon and under the lee (to the east) of Cyprus 
to Myra in Lycia, where they joined a corn-ship 
of Alexandria bound for Italy (Ac 27 2 * 8 ). The 
modern town of Edremid, which inherits the name 
and much of the prosperity of Adramyttium, is 5 
miles from the coast. 

LITERATURE. Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, 1877, ii. 881 f. ; 
J. Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul*, 1880, p. 62 ff. ; 
W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman 
Citizen, 1895, p. 316. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ADRIA (6 'Adplas [WH'Afyfej], ' the Adrias,' RV 
' the [sea of] Adria'). The name was derived from 
the important Tuscan town of Atria, near the 
mouths of the Padus, and was originally (Herod, 
vi. 127, vii. 20, ix. 92) confined to the northern 
part of the gulf now called the Adriatic, the lower 
part of which was known as the ' Ionian Sea.' In 
later times the name ' Adria ' was applied to the 
whole basin between Italy and Illyria, while the 
' Ionian Sea' came to mean the outer basin, south 
of the Strait of Otranto. Strabo, in the beginning 
of our era, says : ' The mouth (strait) is common 
to both ; but this difference is to be observed, that 
the name " Ionian" is applied to the first part of 
the gulf only, and " Adriatic " to the interior sea 
up to the farthest end ' (vn. v. 9). Strabo, how- 
ever, indicates a wider extension of the meaning 
by adding that ' the name "Adrias " is now applied 
to the whole sea,' so that, as he says elsewhere, 
' the Ionian Gulf forms part of what we now call 
" Adrias " ' (II. v. 20). Finally, in popular usage, 
which is followed by St. Luke (Ac 27 27 ), the term 
'Adria 'was still further extended to signify the 
whole expanse between Crete and Sicily. 

This is confirmed by Ptolemy, who wrote about the middle of 
the 2nd cent. A.D. 'With the accuracy of a geographer, he 
distinguishes the Gulf of Adria from the Sea of Adria ; thus, in 
enumerating the boundaries of Italy, he tells us that it is 



44 



ADULTERY 



JEON 



bounded on one side by the shores of the Gulf of Adria, and 
on the south by the shores of the Adria (iii. 1) ; and that Sicily 
is bounded on the east by the Sea of Adria (4). He further 
informs us that Italy is bounded on the south by the Adriatic 
Sea (14), that the Peloponnesus is bounded on the west and 
south by the Adriatic Sea (16), and that Crete is bounded on the 
west by the Adriatic Sea (17)' (Smith, Voyage and Shipurreck oj 
St. Paul*, 163 f.). 

The usage current in the tirst and second 
centuries is similarly reflected by Pausanias, who 
speaks of Alpheus flowing under Adria from 
Greece to Ortygia in Syracuse (viii. 54. 2), and of 
the Straits of Messina as communicating with the 
Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian Sea (v. 25. 3). Pro- 
copius (Bel. Vand. i. 14) makes the islands of 
Gaulos and Melita (Gozo and Malta) the boundary 
between tlie Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian Sea. 
The meaning of the term 'Adria' was the debat- 
able point of the once famous controversy as to 
whether St. Paul suffered shipwreck on the lllyrian 
or the Sicilian Melita, i.e. on Meleda or Malta 
(see MELITA). His ship was ' driven through 
Adria' (dia<f>epofj.evwv i]/jiwt> ev T<$ 'Adpla, Ac 2T 27 ) ; 
perhaps not ' driven to and fro in the sea of Adria ' 
(RV) (unless St. Luke made a landsman's mistake), 
but slowly carried forward in one direction, for 
probably ' she had storm sails set, and was on the 
starboard tack, which was the only course by 
which she could avoid falling into the Syrtis ' 
(Smith, op. cit. 114). An interesting parallel to St. 
Paul's experience is found in the life of Josephus, 
who relates that his ship foundered in the midst 
of the same sea (xarA neaov rbv 'Adpiav), and that 
he and some companions, saving themselves by 
swimming, were picked up by a vessel sailing 
from Gyrene to Puteoli ( Vit. 3). 

LITERATURE. J. Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. 
Paul*, 1880, p. 162 ff. ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller 
and the Roman Citizen, 1895, p. 334. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 
ADULTERY. See MARRIAGE. 

ADVENT. See PAROUSIA. 

ADVERSARY. This renders three Greek words 
in the NT : 1. avrfSiicos, properly an adversary in 
a lawsuit, and used of an earthly adversary in 
Mt 5, Lk 12 58 18 s all these with a legal reference. 
It is used of an enemy of God in 1 S 2 10 (LXX), 
and in 1 P 5 8 of ' the enemy,' Satan ; in this last 
passage didfioXos is anarthrous, as a proper name, 
while dvrldiKos has the article (see DEVIL and 
SATAN). 

2. dvTtKifivos, used in Lk 13 17 of our Lord's 
Jewish opponents, and in 21 18 of all adversaries of 
the disciples, is employed by St. Paul to denote 
those who oppose the Christian religion, probably 
in all cases with the suggestion that the devil is 
working through them. Such are the ' adversaries ' 
of 1 Co 16 9 , Ph I 28 ; in 1 Ti 5 14 Chrysostom takes 
the ' adversary ' to be Satan, the ' reviler ' (cf. v. 15 ), 
or he may be the human enemy as prompted by 
Satan. In 2 Th 2 4 ' he that opposeth ' (6 dvTiKtl/j.evos) 
is Antichrist (q.v.), whose parousia is according to 
the working of Satan (v. 9 ) ; and it is interesting to 
note that the letter of the Churches of Vienne and 
Lyons (Euseb. HE V. i. 5) uses this expression 
absolutely of Satan, or of Antichrist, working 
through the persecutors, and ' giving us a fore taste 
of his unbridled activity at his future coming.' 

3. virevavrios is used in He 10 27 of the adver- 
saries of God, apostates from Christ, probably with 
reference to Is 26 11 , where the LXX has the same 
word. A similar phrase in Tit 2 s is ' he that is of 
the contrary part,' an opponent, 6 <? tvavrias. In 
Col 2 14 the word virevavrlos is used of an inanimate 
object : ' the bond . . . which was contrary to us.' 

A. J. MACLEAN. 
ADVOCATE. See PARACLETE. 



JENEAS (A.lveas). The name occurs only once in 
the NT (Ac 9 s3 - 34 ). The person so called was a 
dweller in Lydda or Lod, a town on the plain of 
Sharon about ten miles south of Joppa, to which 
many of the Christians had tied after the persecu- 
tion which dispersed the apostles and the church 
of Jerusalem. On a visit of St. Peter to tSe place, 
^Eneas, who had for eight years been confined to 
bed as a paralytic, was healed by the Apostle. 
The cure seems to have had a very remarkable 
influence in the district, causing many of the 
dwellers in Sharon and Lydda to accept Christi- 
anity. Nothing further is known of the man. 
Probably he became a Christian at the date of his 
cure. W. F. BOYD. 

JEON (a.l(S>v, alwves, 'age,' 'ages'). There is 
some uncertainty as to the derivation of the word 
aldjv. Some relate it with &r)fj.i, ' to breathe,' but 
modern opinion connects it with del, aiet ( = alF&v), 
and finds as other derivatives the Latin cevum 
and the English 'aye.' In the LXX aiuv is used 
to translate cViy in various forms, as o^iyo, Gn 6 4 ; 
D^iy ny, 1 K I 31 '; oViy "?x, Gn 21 s3 ; nViyn, Ec3". It is 
of frequent occurrence in the NT. The instances 
number 125 in TR, and 120 in critical editions. 
Following these, it is noteworthy that in the 
Gospels and Acts, where it occurs 34 times, it is 
only once used in the plural (Lk I 33 ). In the rest 
of the NT the use of the plural predominates (54 
out of 86 instances). In Rev. the word occurs with 
great frequency (26 times). In every case it is 
used in the plural, and, except in two places, in the 
intensive formula els robs alwvas T&V aiwvuv a form 
which is never found in the Gospels or Acts, aluv 
is variously translated as ' age,' ' for ever,' ' world,' 
'course,' 'eternal.' It expresses a time-concept, 
and under all uses of the word that concept remains 
in a more or less definite degree. 

1. It expresses the idea of long or indefinite past 
time, dir alwvos, ' since the world began ' (EV ; Lk I 70 , 
Ac 3 21 15 18 ; cf. oV-iyD, Gn 6 4 , Is 64 4 , tic rov alwvos, Jn 
9 s2 ). In these instances, the phrases express what 
we mean when, speaking generally and indefinitely 
of time past, we say ' from of old ' or ' from the 
most ancient time.' 

2. The common classical use of aidiv for ' lifetime' 
is not found in the NT ; but there are instances 
where the phrase els rbv aluva seems to have that 
significance ; e.g. ' The servant abideth not in the 
house for life, but the son abideth for life,' Jn 8 s5 
(also Mt 21 19 , Jn 13 8 , 1 Co 8 13 ). 

3. Tlie phrase els rbv alCiva. or robs al&vas is 
frequently found in the NT as a time-concept for 
a period or 'age' of indefinite futurity, and may 
be translated 'for ever.' Strictly speaking, in 
accordance with the root idea of al&v, the phrase 
indicates futurity or continuance as long as the 
' age ' lasts to which the matter referred to belongs. 
The use of the intensive form els TOVS aldvas ru>v 
aMvuv (Gal I 5 , Eph 3 21 , He 13 21 , and Rev. passim) 
indicates the effort of Christian faith to give 
expression to its larger conception of the ' ages ' as 
extending to the limits of human thought, by- 
duplicating and reduplicating the original word. 
The larger vision gave the larger meaning; but it 
cannot be said that the fundamental idea of ' age,' 
as an epoch or dispensation with an end, is lost. 
In the Fourth Gospel the phrase is sometimes 
employed as a synonym for ' eternal life ' ( Jn 6 S1> M ). 

4. The plural aiuwes expresses the time-idea as 
consisting of or embracing many ages aeons, 
periods of vast extent ' from all ages' (RV, Eph 
3 9 ), ' the ages to come ' (Eph 2 7 , etc.). Some of these 
' ages ' are regarded as having come to an end ' but 
now once in the end of the world ( ' at the end of the 
ages' RV) hath he appeared to put away sin' (He 
9'-' 6 ). The idea of one age succeeding another as 



AGABUS 



45 



under ordered rule is provided for in the suggestive 
title 'the king eternal' (EV ' the king of the ages') 
(1 Ti 1" ; cf. D^iy ^x, Gn 21 83 ). In He I 2 ' through 
whom also he made the worlds' (ages), and He II 3 
'the worlds (ages) were made by the word of God,' 
we have the striking conception of the ' ages ' as ' in- 
cluding all that is manifested in and through them ' 
(Westcott,(7om. inloc. ). ( In Wis 13 9 there is a curious 
instance of aidv as referring to the actual world, 
' For if they were able to know so much that they 
could aim at the world [ffTOX<iffa<r8ai rbv aluva], how 
did tliey not sooner find out the Lord thereof?') 

5. There is also attached to the word the signifi- 
cance of ' age ' as indicating a period or dispensa- 
tion of a definite character the present order of 
'world-life' viewed as a whole and as possessing 
certain moral characteristics. It is unfortunate 
that there is no word in English which exactly 
expresses this meaning. The general translation 
in AV and RV is ' world,' though ' age ' appears 
always in RVm and in the text at He 6 5 . There is 
undoubtedly at times a close similarity of connota- 
tion between aluv and /c6<r/tos as indicating a moral 
order. In the Gospel and Epp. of John aldiv is 
never used in this sense, but K6<r/j,os is employed 
instead : e.g. ' Now is the judgment of this world ; 
now shall the prince of this world be cast out ' 
(Jn 12 3i , also 15 19 etc.), 'If any man love the 
world' (1 Jn 2 15 etc.). They are almost, if not 
altogether, synonymous in ' Where is the disputer 
of this world ('age,' al<!>v)'. Hath not God made 
foolish the wisdom of this world (Kooyxos) ? ' (1 Co I 80 ). 
That St. Paul recognized a distinction between 
them is evident from the phrase /card rbv alwva rov 
Kofffj.ov TOI'TOV, which is translated both in AV and 
in RV ' according to the course of this woi'ld ' 
(Eph 2 2 ). Plainly aldiv describes some quality of 
the Koo-pos. We have no term to express it exactly, 
but our phrase ' the spirit of the age ' comes very 
near to what is required. 

6. This ' world ' or ' age ' as a moral order includes 
the current epoch of the world's life. It is an 
epoch in which the visible and the transitory have 
vast power over the souls of men, and may become 
the only objects of hope and desire. It is described 
simply as atwv, ' the world ' (Mt 13 22 , Mk 4 19 ), and 
its end is emphatically affirmed (Mt l3=.-< 24 3 
28 20 ). But more frequently it is referred to as in 
contrast to a coming age. It is described as 6 aiwv 
ofo-os, ' this world ' (Mt 12 32 , Lk 16 8 , Ro 12 2 , 1 Co 
I 20 , etc.) ; as 6 vvv aliLv (1 Ti 6 17 , etc.) ; as 6 alwv 6 
tveffrws, ' the present . . . world ' (Gal I 4 ). The 
future age is described as 6 aluv fj.t\\uv, ' the world 
to come' (Mt 12 3 '\ He 6 5 ) ; 6 tpx^evos, 'the world 
to come' (Mk 10 30 , etc.) ; and as 6 al&v ^Ketvos, ' that 
world' (Lk 20 38 ). The present 'age' has its God 
(2 Co 4 4 ), its rulers and its wisdom (1 Co 2 s ' 8 ), its 
sons (Lk 16 8 ), its fashion (Ro 12 2 ), and its cares 
(Mt 13 22 ). Men may be rich in it (1 Ti 6 17 ), and 
love it (2 Ti 4 10 ). It is an evil age (Gal I 4 ), yet it 
is possible to live soberly, righteously, and godly 
in it (Tit 2 12 ), and it has an end (Mt 13 40 ). In the 
future 'age' there is 'eternal life' (Mk 10 30 , Lk 
18 30 ). Those who are counted worthy of it ' neither 
marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they 
die any more' (Lk 20 35f -). It has 'powers' that 
may be ' tasted' in the present age (He 6 B ). 

The contrast is regarded as that which is de- 
scribed in Jewish writings as mn ahty and Kjn oViy, 
'this age' and 'the age that is to come.' These 
are identified with the age before and after the 
coming of the Messiah. There is much uncertainty 
as to the time when this contrast first arose. 
Dalman says that ' in pre-Christian products of 
Jewish literature there is as yet no trace of these 
ideas to be found' (The Words of Jesus, p. 148). 
It is difficult to believe that a nation which ex- 
pected so much from the advent of the Messiah did 



not form some idea, at a date before the days of 
Jesus Christ, of the vast changes which would be 
produced when He did come, and look upon the 
age which was so marked as one to be contrasted 
with the age in which they were living. We can- 
not follow Dalman when he says : ' It is not un- 
likely that in the time of Jesus the idea of "the 
future age," being the product of the schools of 
the scribes, was not yet familiar to those He 
addressed ' (ib. p. 135). Dalman apparently doubts 
whether Jesus used the term Himself, but says : 
' The currency of the expressions "this age," " the 
future age," is at all events established by the end 
of the first Christian century.' He makes the 
reservation that ' for that period the expressions 
characterised the language of the learned rather 
than that of the people' (ib. p. 151). 

7. Among the Gnostics (see GNOSTICISM) the 
^Eons were emanations from the Divine. But this 
meaning of the word belongs to a time when the 
Gnostic ideas and terminology were more fully 
developed than in the first century of the Christian 
era. It is enough to quote the opinion of Hort in 
his Judaistic Christianity, ' There is not the faint- 
est sign that such words as ... alwv . . . have 
any reference [in the NT] to what we call Gnostic 
terms '(p. 133, also p. 146). 

LITERATURE. G. Dalman, The Words of Jesus, Eng. tr. 
Edinburgh, 1902, pp. 147ff., 162 if. ; HDD, art. 'World'; 
Westcott, Com. on the Epistle to the Hebrews, in loeis ; F. Ren- 
dall, Expositor, 3rd ser., vii. [1888] 26-278 ; Wilke-Grimm, 
Clavig Novi Testamenti, s.v. ; ERE, artt. ' ^Eons ' and ' Ages of 
the World ' ; F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Christianity, Cambridge 
and London, 1894, pp. 133, 146; H. B. Swete, Gospel according 
to St. Hark, London, 1902, pp. 65, 217; J. T. Marshall, ExpT, 
x. [1898-99] 323 ; Ligrhtfoot, Com. on Colossians and Philemon*, 
London, 1879, p. 73 ff.; C. Geikie, Life and Words of Christ, 
do. 1877, p. 625 ; J. Agrar Beet, Last Things, do. 1913, pp. 70 f., 
132 f. ; Sanday-Headlam, Romans* (ICC, 1902). 

JOHN REID. 
AFFLICTION. See SUFFERING. 

AGABUS ("Ayapos, a word of uncertain deriva- 
tion). The bearer of this name is mentioned on 
two separate occasions in the Acts (II 27 - 30 21 10 ' 11 ) 
and also by Eusebius (HE ii. 3). He is described 
as a prophet who resided in Jerusalem, and we 
find him in A.D. 44 at Antioch, where he predicted 
that a great famine (q. v.) would take place 'over 
all the world,' i.e. over all the Roman Empire. 
The immediate effect of this prediction was to call 
forth the liberality of the Christians of Antioch 
and lead them to send help to the poor brethren 
of Judaea (Ac II 29 ). The writer of the Acts tells 
us that this famine took place in the reign of 
Claudius. Roman historians speak of wide-spread 
and repeated famines in this reign (Sueton. 
Claudius, xviii. ; Dion Cass. Ix. ; Tac. Ann. xii. 
43), and Josephus testifies to the severity of the 
famine in Palestine and refers to measures adopted 
for its relief (Ant. III. xv. 3, XX. ii. 5, v. 2). 
Though Syria and the East may have suffered 
most on this occasion, the whole Empire could not 
fail to be more or less affected, and it is hyper- 
critical to accuse the author of the Acts of 
' unhistorical generalization ' for speaking of a 
famine 'over all the world,' as is done by Schurer 
(GJV* i. [1901] 543, 567 ; cf. Ramsay, 'St. Paul, 
1895, p. 48 f., and Was Christ born at Bethlehem ?, 
1898, p. 251 f.). 

Again in A.D. 59 we hear of Agabus at Csesarea, 
where he met St. Paul on his return from his 
third missionary journey. Taking the Apostle's 
girdle, he bound his own hands and feet, and in 
the symbolic manner of the ancient Hebrew 
prophets predicted that so the Jews would bind 
the owner of the girdle and hand him over to the 
Gentiles (Ac 21 10 ' 11 ). The prophecy failed to move 
St. Paul from his resolve. There is no means of 
ascertaining whether Agabus was a prophet in the 



46 



AGE 



AIR 



higher NT sense a preacher or forth-teller of the 
Word ; or whether he was merely a successful 
soothsayer. It is difficult to see what good end 
could be served by the second of his recorded 
predictions. Tradition makes him one of the 
' seventy ' and a martyr at Antioch. 

W. F. Bo YD. 

AGE. The general significance of ' age ' is a 
period of time, or a measure of life. Specially, it 
expresses the idea of advancement in life, or of 
oldness. Several Greek words are employed in 
NT for 'age.' (1) al&v (see ^EoK). (2) yevea, 'a 
generation, loosely measured as extending from 
30 to 33 years. In Eph 3 s - a RV rightly puts 
' generations ' for 'ages.' (3) TAeios, 'full -grown' 
or ' perfect.' In He 5 14 for AV 'to them that are 
of full age ' the RV substitutes ' fullgrown ' in the 
text, and 'perfect' in the margin (cf. 1 Co 2 s , 
where the R V has ' perfect ' in the text, and ' full- 
grown ' in the margin). (4) T)\uda. is the most 
exact Greek term for ' age,' and especially for full 
age as applied to human life. It includes also the 
ideas or maturity or fitness, and of stature, as 
when a person has attained to full development of 
growth. In Eph 4 18 ' the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ ' (EV) is somewhat diffi- 
cult to interpret. The phrase is co-ordinate with 
the words 'a perfect (or fullgrown, rAeios) man,' 
which precede it in the text. Both phrases 
describe the ultimate height of spiritual develop- 
ment which the Church as the body of Christ is to 
reach. The latter phrase explains what the former 
implies. The general line of interpretation is that 
the whole Church as the body of Christ is to grow 
into ' a fullgrown or perfect man,' and the standard 
or height of the perfect man is the stature of Christ 
in His fullness (see Comm. of Meyer, Eadie, Ellicott, 
in loc. ; Field, Notes on the Tr. of the NT, 1899, p. 
6 ; Expositor, 7th ser., ii. [1906] 441 ff.). In Gal I 14 , 
where the compound awtjXtKitlrras is used, the word 
has its primary meaning of 'age' ( = ' equals in 
age'). 

The question of age was of importance as regards 
fitness for holding office in the Church (see NOVICE). 
In later times the canonical age varied, but in 
general it was fixed at thirty (see Cathol. Encyc. 
art. ' Age '). It was also considered in relation to 
the dispensing of the charity of the Church, at 
least in the case of widows. In 1 Ti 5 9 it is said : 
' Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore 
years old.' The question naturally arises, Were 
only widows of advanced years eligible for assist- 
ance ? It is possible that younger widows might 
be in greater need of help. Because of this it is 
supposed by some (Schleiermacher, etc.) that the 
reference is to an order of deaconesses a supposi- 
tion that becomes an argument for a late and un- 
Pauline date for the Epistle. Others think that 
the reference is to an order of widows who had 
duties which somewhat resembled those of the 
presbyters (Huther, Ellicott, Alford). De Wette 
believes that probably there were women who 
vowed themselves to perpetual widowhood, and 
performed certain functions in the Church ; but 
evidences of such an order belong to a later date in 
the Church's history. On the whole, and especially 
if the Epistle belongs to an early date, it is best to 
regard the instruction as a direction about widows 
who were entirely dependent on the charity of the 
Church. Younger widows would receive help 
according to their need, but were not enrolled like 
the older widows as regular recipients of the 
Church's charity. The age limit for an old age 
pension is not a new idea. It is impossible to 
determine if the widows who were enrolled were 
bound to give some service in return for the 
assistance which they received. The probability 
is that they were not, assuming, of course, the early 



date of the Epistle (see H. R. Reynolds, in Expos., 
1st ser., iii. [1880] 382-390; HDB, art. 'Widows'). 

The dispensing of charity to widows was a great 
and grave problem in the early Church. The rule 
about enrolment only when the threescore years had 
been reached was evidently intended to restrict 
the number of those who were entitled to receive 
regular help. Nestle calls attention to ' the 
punning observation in the Didascalia ( = Const. 
Apost. iii. 6) about itinerant widows who were so 
ready to receive that they were not so much x%>cu 
as Trrjpai' (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient 
East, p. 109, note). The pun may be rendered in 
English as ' not so much " widows " as " wallets." ' 

In 1 Ti 5 1 and 1 P 5 8 'elders' (wpefffiijTcpoi) has 
the primitive signification of ' men of advanced 
age.' Cf. also the following article. 

JOHN REID. 

AGED. In Philem'the writer speaks of himself 
as IlaOXos irpeo-jStfnjj (AV and RV ' Paul the aged,' 
RVm 'ambassador'). In strictness the transla- 
tion 'ambassador' requires irpeo-jSeuriJs, a word 
which does not occur in the NT. The two forms 
may have been confused in transcription or in 
common use. The translation 'ambassador' is 
more fitting because Philemon, as father of Archip- 
pus, who was old enough to hold some 'ministry* 
in the Church (Col 4 17 ), must have been the equal, 
or nearly the equal, of St. Paul in age ; and there 
would be little or no ground for an appeal based 
on considerations of age. It is also to be noticed 
that the phrase ' ambassador and . . . prisoner of 
Jesus Christ' is practically repeated in Eph 6 20 , 
'an ambassador in bonds.' Taking the word as 
meaning 'ambassador,' the appeal would have in 
it a note of authority. It is not a relevant objec- 
tion to say that St. Paul is beseeching Philemon 
'for love's sake' (v. 9 ). It is the peculiarity of 
the Christian ambassador that he beseeches those 
whom he addresses. Love and authority are com- 
mingled in his mission, as in 2 Co 5 14 - 20 . The 
likelihood of 'ambassador' being the right trans- 
lation is strengthened by the fact that here as 
elsewhere (2 Co 5 20 , Eph 6 20 ) St. Paul uses a verbal 
and not a noun form to express his position as an 
ambassador. See J. B. Lightfoot, Com. on Col. and 
Philemon 3 , 1879, in loc. ; and cf. art. AMBASSADOR. 

JOHN REID. 

AGRIPPA. See HEROD. 

AIR. The apostles, like other Jews of their 
time, regarded the air as a region between earth 
and the higher heavens, inhabited by spirits, 
especially evil spirits. In Eph 2 2 the air is the 
abode of Satan (see below) ; in Eph 6 1S ' the 
heavenlies' (rd, tirovpdvia) a vague phrase used 
also in Eph 1 s - * VP 3 10 to denote the neavenly or 
spiritual sphere, the unseen universe* is where 
the wrestling of the Christian against the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness takes place, and is apparently 
in this case equivalent to 'this darkness' (ci. 
Lk 22 s3 , Col I 18 'power of darkness,' i.e. tyranny 
of evil). In Rev 12 7 the war between Michael and 
the dragon is in 'heaven.' This can hardly refer 
to the first rebellion of Satan, nor yet can we with 
Bede interpret ' heaven ' as the Church ; but rather 
the fighting is in the heavens, a struggle of Satan 
to regain his lost place, ended by his final expul- 
sion. ' As the Incarnation called forth a counter- 
manifestation of diabolic power on earth, so after 
the Ascension the attack is supposed to be carried 
into heaven' (Swete, Com. in loc.). But the con- 
ception is not unlike that of St. Paul as noted 
above. 

There are several parallels to these passages in 
that class of literature which is thought to be a 

The Peshitta renders It in heaven,' except in <P* where it 
significantly has ' under heaven.' 



AKELDAMA 



ALEXANDRIA 



Christian rehandling of Jewish apocalyptic writ- 
ings. In the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs 
(q.v.) we read of the ' aerial spirit Beliar ' (Benj. 3). 
In the Ascension of Isaiah (q.v.) there is described 
an ascent ' into the firmament,' where were 
Sammael and his powers, and there was a great 
fight (vii. 9) ; Christ descends from the lowest 
heaven to the firmament where was continual war- 
fare, and takes the form of the angels of the air 
(x. 29). In the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch the 
apostate angels are suspended in the second heaven 
awaiting the Last Judgment ( 7 ; see Thackeray, 
Relation of St. Paul to Contemp. Jewish Thought, 
London, 1900, p. 176 f.). These works in their 
present form probably date from the latter part 
of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd cent. A.D. 
The ideas seem to have had much currency among 
Christians, for we find Athanasius (de Incarn. 25) 
speaking of the devil having fallen from heaven 
and wandering about 'our lower atmosphere,' 
'there bearing rule over his fellow-spirits . . .,' 
' while the Lord came to cast down the devil, and 
clear the air and prepare the way for us up into 
heaven.' 

The prince of the power of the air (Eph 2 2 ) is 
Satan. That he had authority over the evil spirits 
whose abode is in the air was the general Jewish 
belief, except among the Sadducees. St. Paul 
does not, however, here say 'powers of the air,' 
i.e. evil spirits, but the ' air-power' or ' air-tyranny ' 
(for this meaning of Qowrla see Lightfoot's note on 
Col I 13 ). Satan is the arch-tyrant whose abode is 
in the air. 

LTTBRATURB. See art. DBMON. A. J. MACLEAN. 



AKELDAMA ('AiceXSa^x WH, 'AiccX5aAi TR). 
Akeldama is said to be equivalent to xwpiov afyiaroj 
in Ac I 19 , and to d-yp6y ai/taros in Mt 27 8 : in that 
case the word represents Aram, xzpn 'jpq and the 
final x (which is retained also in the best Vulg. 
text, acheldemach) transliterates K (which is only 
rarely so found). It has, therefore, been suggested 
as possible that the second part of the word repre- 
sents Aram. TKH = Koin-ynfipiov, 'cemetery,' which 
accords better with St. Matthew's explanation, 
though not with St. Luke's. It is difficult to 
avoid the conclusion that we have here an instance 
of the occasional discrepancies and inaccuracies 
which have from an early period crept into the 
text of the NT. It would certainly seem as if the 
explanation of the title 'field of blood' given in 
Mt 27 8 is radically different from that suggested 
in Ac I 19 , and that the former is more in accord- 
ance with the facts, though still an incorrect trans- 
lation of the Aram, title, while it is probable that 
the whole section w. 18 - 19 (with or without v. 20 ) of 
the latter passage is not part of St. Peter's speech, 
but a comment or gloss either by the author of 
the book (St. Luke) himself or even by some later 
editor or transcriber, who has incorporated a less 
trustworthy tradition in the text. 

The site of Akeldama is the modern ffakk ed- 
Dumm, on the south side of the Valley of Hinnom. 
See, further, art. t.v. in HDB and DC'G. 

C. L. FELTOE. 

ALEXANDER flMEfcyfaa* 'helper of men'). 
This name is found in the NT in five different 
connexions, and possibly designates as many 
different individuals. 

1. The son of Simon of Gyrene, who bore the 
cross to Calvary (Mk 15 21 ), and the brother of 
Piuf us. In all probability Alexander and his brother 
were well-known and honoured men in the Church 
of Rome (cf. Ro 16 U and art. RUFUS), to which 
the Gospel of Mark was addressed, as St. Mark 
identifies the father by a reference to the sons. 
We may regard the allusion as an interesting in- 
stance of the sons being blessed for the father's sake. 



2. A leader of the priestly party in Jerusalem 
at the period subsequent to the death of Christ. 
After the healing of the impotent man we are told 
that Alexander was present at a meeting of the 
Jewish authorities along with Annas, Caiaphas, 
and John, and ' as many as were of the kindred of 
the high priest' (Ac 4"). It is probable, though 
not quite certain, that this indicates that Alex- 
ander belonged to the high-priestly class ; and it is 
impossible to identify him with Alexander the 
' alabarch ' of Alexandria and brother of Philo. 

3. A leading member of the Jewish community 
at Ephesus (Ac 19 33 ), who was put forward by the 
Jews at the time of the Ephesian riot to clear 
themselves of any complicity with St. Paul or his 
teaching, but whom the mob refused to hear. He 
may have been one of the ' craftsmen,' though en 
the whole it is unlikely that a Jew would have 
any connexion with the production of the symbols 
of idolatry. There are, however, slight variations 
in the MSS of Ac 19 33 , and different views have 
been taken with regard to Alexander and the in- 
tention of the Jews. Meyer holds that Alexander 
was a Jewish Christian who was put forward 
maliciously by the Jews in the hope that he might 
be sacrificed (cf. Com. in loco). The omission of 
T, ' a certain,' before his name has been regarded 
as an indication that Alexander was a well-known 
man in Ephesus at the time. 

4. A Christian convert and teacher, who along 
with Hymenaeus (q.v. ) and others apostatized from 
the faith, and was excommunicated by the Apostle 
Paul (1 Ti I 19 - 20 ). 

5. Alexander the coppersmith, who did St. Paul 
much evil and whom the Apostle desires to be 
rewarded according to his worts (2 Ti 4 14 * 18 ). This 
Alexander has been identified with both 3 and 4. 
We are able to gather certain facts regarding him 
which would seem to connect him with 3. (1) His 
trade was that of a smith (see COPPERSMITH), a 
worker in metal, originally brass, but subsequently 
any other metal, which might associate him with 
the craftsmen of Ephesus. (2) The statement re- 
garding him was addressed to Timothy, who was 
settled in Ephesus. On the other hand, we are 
told that Alexander greatly withstood St. Paul's 
words a reference which seems to indicate a bitter 
personal hostility between the two men, as well as 
controversial disputes on matters of doctrine which 
might rather connect him with 4, the associate of 
Hymenaeus. It is possible that 3, 4, and 5 may 
be the same person, but Alexander was a very 
common name, and the data are insufficient to 
allow of any certain identification. Those who 
hold the Epistles to Timothy to be non-Pauline 
regard the statement in Ac 19* 3 as the basis of the 
references in the Epistles, but the only thing in 
common is the name, while there is no indication in 
Acts that Alexander had any personal connexion 
with St. Paul. 

LITKRATURK. R. J. Knowling-, EOT,' Acts,' 1900 ; Comm. of 
Meyer, Zeller, Holtzmann ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul, 1895, 
p. 279 ; artt. in HDB and EBi. W. F. BOYD. 



ALEXANDRIA (' AXe^dvSpta). The city of Alex- 
andria almost realized Alexander the Great's dream 
of ' a city surpassing anything previously exist- 
ing' (Plutarch, Alex. xxvi.). Planned by Dino- 
crates under the king's supervision, and built on a 
neck of land two miles wide interposed between 
the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mareotis (Mariut), 
about 14 miles from the Canopic mouth of the 
Nile, it became successively the capital of Hellenic, 
Roman, and Christian Egypt, ' the greatest mart 
in the world' (fidyurrov ifLvitpiov TTJS olKovfutvi)*, Strabp, 
xvn. i. 13), and next to Rome the most splendid 
city in the Empire. About 4 miles long from E. 
to W., nearly a mile wide, and about 15 miles in 



48 



ALEXANDRIA 



ALEXANDRIA 



circumference, it was quartered like so many of 
the Hellenic cities of the period by two colon- 
naded thoroughfares crossing each other at a great 
central square, terminating in the four principal 
gates, and determining the line of the other streets, 
so that the whole city was laid out in parallelo- 
grams. The three regions into which it was divided 
the Regio Judceorum, Brucheium, and Rhacutis 
corresponded generally with the three classes of 
the population Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians 
while representatives of nearly all other nations 
commingled in its streets (Dio Chrys. Orat. 32). 
Diodorus Siculus, who visited it about 58 B.C., 
estimates (xvii. 62) its free citizens at 300,000, and 
it probably had at least an equal number of slaves. 

Its fine air,' says Strabo, is worthy of remark : this results 
from the city being on two sides surrounded by water, and 
from the favourable effects of the rise of the Nile,' one canal 
joining the great river to the lake, and another the lake to the 
sea. 'The Nile, being full, fills the lake also, and leaves no 
marshy matter which is likely to cause exhalations ' (xvii. i. 7). 

The name of the city does not occur in the NT, 
but ' Alexandrian,' as noun and adj. ('A\ea'5pe!5s, 
' A\eavdpLv6s), is found 4 times in Acts. There 
was a synagogue of Alexandrians in Jerusalem 
(6 9 ), fanatical defenders of the Mosaic faith, roused 
to indignation by the heresies of Stephen. Apollos 
was ' an Alexandrian by race, a learned man (arty 
\oyios ; AV and RVm, 'eloquent'), mighty in the 
scriptures' (18 24 ). In one Alexandrian ship St. 
Paul was wrecked at Melita (27 8 ), and in another 
he continued his voyage to Puteoli (28 11 ). Here 
are references to the three most striking aspects of 
the life of Alexandria her religion, culture, and 
commerce. We invert the order. 

1. Commerce. Alexandria was built on a site 
uniquely adapted for maritime trade. Served on 
her northern side by the Great Harbour and the 
Haven of Happy Return * (ftivoa-ros), which were 
formed by a mole seven stadia in length the Hepta- 
stadium flung across to the island of Pharos, t and 
on her southern side by the wharves of Mareotis, 
Alexandria entered into the heritage of both Tyre 
and Carthage, and drew to herself the commerce 
of three continents. Under the Ptolemys Egypt 
largely took the place of the lands around the 
Euxine as a grain-producing country, and ' corn in 
Egypt ' became as proverbial as it had been in the 
days of the Pharaohs. 

'The corn which was sent from thence to Italy was con- 
veyed in ships of very great size. Prom the dimensions given 
of one of them by Lucian, they appear to have been quite as 
large as the largest class of merchant ships of modern times ' 
(Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul*, 1880, p. 71 f. ). 

The cruisers and coasters of Alexandria traded 
with every part of the Mediterranean, and it was 
an ordinary occurrence to find vessels bound for 
Italy in the harbours of Myra and Malta (Ac 27 s 
28 n ). Seneca gives a vivid picture of the arrival 
of the Alexandrian fleet of merchantmen at Puteoli 
(Ep. 77). The trade which came to Lake Mareotis 
from the Nile and the Red Sea was equally im- 
portant. 

' Large fleets,' says Strabo (xvii. L 13), are dispatched as 
far as India and the extremities of Ethiopia, from which places 
the most valuable freights are brought to Egypt, and are thence 
exported to other places, so that a double amount of custom is 
collected, arising from imports on the one hand, and from ex- 
ports on the other.' 

2. Culture. It was the great ambition of the 
Ptolemys to make their capital not only the com- 
mercial but the intellectual centre of the world. 
Alexandria really succeeded in winning for herself 
the crown of science, and was for centuries the 
foster-mother of an international Hellenic culture. 

* Its inner basin, Kibotos, greatly enlarged, forms the modern 
harbour. 

t On the eastern point of the island was the famous Light- 
house, one of the ' Seven Wonders ' of the world. 



The proofs of her devotion to letters were seen in 
the Brucheium, or central quarter of the city, which 
contained not only the mausoleum * of Alexander, 
the palaces of the Egyptian kings, the Temple of 
Poseidon, and, at a later date, the Csesarium t in 
which divine honours were paid to the Roman 
emperors, but the Museum, which in many ways 
resembled a modern university, with lecture halls 
and State-paid professors, and the Library, in 
which were accumulated the books of Greece, Rome, 
Egypt, and India, to the number (according to 
Josephus, Ant. XII. ii. 1) of more than half a 
million. In this home of endowed research the 
exact sciences flourished ; Alexandria had on her 
roll of fame the names of Euclid in geometry, 
Hipparchus in astronomy, Eratosthenes in geo- 
graphy ; and her physicians were the most cele- 
brated in the world. For literature her savants 
did a noble work in collecting, revising, and classify- 
ing the records of the past. On the whole, how- 
ever, her literary school was imitative rather than 
creative ; her poets trusted more to learning than 
to imagination, and the muses rarely visited the 
Museum. The artificial atmosphere of literary 
criticism, which was the breath of life to gram- 
marians, philologists, and dialecticians, chilled 
rather than fostered original genius. Alexandria's 
most brilliant scholars, detached from the realities 
of life, immured in academic cloisters, were con- 
noisseurs, not writers, of classics. 

In the Roman period ' numerous and respectable labours of 
erudition, particularly philological and physical, proceeded from 
the circle of the savants "of the Museum," as they entitled 
themselves, like the Parisians "of the Institute"; but ... it 
was here very clearly apparent that the main matter was not 
pensions and rewards, but the contact ... of great political 
and great scientific work' (Mommsen, Provinces 2 , ii. 271 f.). 

3. Religion. While the eclecticism of Alex- 
andrian religion was represented in its pagan 
aspect by the cultus of the Serapeum, the most 
famous of the city's temples, in which the attempt 
was made to blend the creeds of Greece and Egypt, 
the grafting of Judaism on Hellenism flowered into 
a system which had far more influence upon the 
permanent thought of the world. The migration 
of the Jews to Egypt, which began at the time of 
the downfall of Jerusalem (Jer 42 14 ), increased 
rapidly under the Ptolemys, who welcomed them 
as colonists, giving them equal civic rights with 
the Macedonians and Greeks rights which both 
Julius Caesar and Augustus confirmed to them. 
Occupying their own quarter of the city the 
north-eastern and forming, under their ethnarch 
or 'alabarch,'a community within a community, 
they were yet profoundly influenced by their en- 
vironment, and developed not only a genius for trade 
but a passion for learning. In the beginning of 
our era they amounted to an eighth part of the 
population, and nowhere else was the scattered 
race so wealthy, so cultured, or so influential. 
Alexandria became the greatest of Jewish cities, 
the centre of Semitism as well as of Hellenism (q. v. ). 
Naturalized in a foreign city and inevitably breath- 
ing its spirit, the Jews showed themselves at once 
pliant and stubborn. Glorying in the retention of 
their monotheistic faith, they yet dropped their 
sacred Hebrew language. Their Scriptures, trans- 
lated into Greek $ for their own use, came into the 
hands of their Hellenic neighbours, who gave them 

* Near the centre of the city, perhaps represented by the 
present mosque Nebi Daniel. 

t Near it were ' Cleopatra's Needles,' one of which is now in 
London, and the other in New York. 

J The legend of the composition of the Septuagint, contained 
in the Letter of Aristeas, is probably based on facts. The ini- 
tiative seems to have been taken by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who 
doubtless wished to promote the use of Greek among the Jewish 
population of the city. The Law was translated in the 3rd 
cent. B.C., the Prophets (probably) in the 2nd, and most of the 
' Writings ' in the 1st, while Ecclesiastes and Daniel were not 
translated till the 2nd cent. A.D. 



ALEXANDRIANS 



ALIEN 



in exchange the classics of Athens. Alexandria 
thus became the meeting-place of Eastern and 
Western ideals. Both races were sensitive to im- 
pressions : while the Jews felt the subtle influence 
of a rich civilization and a lofty philosophy, the 
Greeks were attracted by a strange note of assur- 
ance regarding God. In an eclectic age and city, 
the endeavour was consequently made to harmonize 
the religion of Moses with that of Plato. Mommsen 
remarks that they were the clearest heads and the 
most gifted thinkers who sought admission either 
as Hellenes into the Jewish, or as Jews into the 
Hellenic, system (Provinces 2 , ii. 167). With perfect 
sincerity, if by faulty exegesis, the Jewish men of 
culture made their Scriptures yield up the doctrines 
of the Academy and the Stoa. The literary ex- 
ponent of this spiritual rapprochement is Philo(g r .v. ), 
who probably did little more than give expression 
to the current opinions of his countrymen in the 
time of our Lord. While not a little of his Neo- 
Judaism must, on account of his persistent allegor- 
izing, be regarded as pseudo-Judaism, he had the 
supreme merit of combining the highest Eastern 
with the highest Western view of the universe ; of 
identifying the Hebrew ' wisdom ' with the Greek 
' reason ' ; of developing Plato's conception of the 
world as the 6eiov yevvjjrdv, the elK&v rov iroiifrov, the 
fj-ovoyev-^s (the Divine Child, the Image of its Maker, 
the Only- begotten) into that of the KoVitoj voijrds or 
\6yos, which is the Invisible God's irparbyovos or 
TT/jwroYo/cos, His airatiycurfjui or x a P aKT ^P 5 and of thus 
facilitating that fusion of Hellenism and Hebraism 
out of which so much Christian theology has 
sprung. Alexandrian thought provided the cate- 
gories in themselves cold and speculative into 
which Christianity, as represented by the writers 
of Colossians, Hebrews, and the Fourth Gospel, 
poured the warm life-blood of a historic and 
humane faith. And if the Alexandrian exegetical 
method was often unscientific as Avhen it made 
Moses identify Abraham with understanding, 
Sarah with virtue, Noah with righteousness, the 
four streams of Paradise with the four cardinal 
virtues yet the writer of Hebrews could scarcely 
have built a bridge between Judaism and Christi- 
anity unless he had been trained in a school which 
taught its disciples to pass from symbols to ultimate 
realities. Apollos (q.v.), the learned and eloquent 
(Xctyios, Svvarb? iv rats ypa<f>ais), was a true Alex- 
andrian, not impossibly ' of the Museum ' ; and 
Luther was happily inspired in suggesting that he 
may have been the writer who used the Hebrew- 
Hellenic theology of Egypt to interpret the manger 
of Bethlehem. See also the following article. 

LITERATITRK. Art. 'Alexandria' in HDB, SDB, EBi, and in 
Pauly-Wissowa ; H. Kiepert, Zur Topog. des alien Alex- 
andria,, Berlin, 1872; J. P. Mahaffy, Alexander's Empire, 
London, 1888, and The Silver Age of the Greek World, do. 
1906 ; T. Mommsen, Prov. of Rom. Emp.^, 2 vols., do. 1909 ; J. 
Drummond, Philo -Judceus, 2 vols., do. 1888; cf. also 
W. M. Ramsay's art. 'Roads and Travel (in NT)' in HDB, 

v. 375 a. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ALEXANDRIANS. Among the active opponents 
of St. Stephen were 'certain of them that were 
of the synagogue called the synagogue ... of the 
Alexandrians ' (' A\f%av8p<,>v, Ac 6 9 ). 

Grammatically the sentence is not in good form, and admits 
of a variety of interpretations. Some exegetes (Calvin, Bengel, 
O. Holtzmann, Kendall) assume that the Libertines, Cyrenians, 
Alexandrians, Cilicians, and Asiatics residing in Jerusalem all 
worshipped in one synagogue. Others (Wendt. Zockler, Sanday, 
Knowling, Winer-Moulton) think that the first three classes of 
Jews had one synagogue and the last two another an idea 
favoured by the riav . . . rStv after rives. T. E. Page groups 
the Libertines in one place of worship, the men of Alexandria 
and Cyrene in a second, and those of Cilicia and Asia in a third. 
Finally, some scholars (Schiirer, Meyer, Weiss, Hackett) be- 
lieve that each of the five classes had its own distinctive syna- 
gogue in the holy city. A synagogue of the Alexandrians in 
Jerusalem is mentioned in Jerus. Alegilla, 73d, where it is also 
said that there were in all no fewer than 425 synagogues in the 
VOL. I. 4 



city a statement which Schiirer (HJP 11. ii. 73) dismisses as an 
insipid Talmudic legend, but which Renan (The Apostles, Eng. 
tr., 113) is disposed to accept as ' by no means improbable.' 

The Jews of Alexandria (q.v. ) were in a very 
different position from the people of any modern 
Ghetto. They were amongst the most opulent and 
influential citizens. They formed a distinct muni- 
cipal community, and possessed extensive political 
privileges. At the foundation of the city Alexander 
gave them equal rights with the Greeks (I5w;ce rb 
neroiKeiv Kara r^v ir6\w ifforifj-tas irpbs "EXA^pas), and 
the Diadochoi permitted them to style themselves 
Macedonians (Jos. BJ II. xviii. 7). Of the five 
quarters (fioipai) of the city, named after the first 
five letters of the alphabet, two were called 
'Jewish' ('lovda'iKal \tyoi>rai [Philo, in Flac. 8]). 
While one quarter, known as Delta, was entirely 
peopled by Jews (BJ II. xviii. 8), many more of the 
race were scattered over all the other parts (iv rais 
fiXAcuj oi>K 6\lyoi ffiropddes [Philo, loc. cit.]), and none 
of them were without their house of prayer (Philo, 
Leg. ad Gaium, 20). The special Regio Judceorum 
lay in the N.E. of the city, beyond the promontory 
of Lochias, in the neighbourhood of the royal palace. 
Till the time of Augustus the Jews were presided 
over by an ethnarch, who, according to Strabo 
(quoted by Josephus, Ant. XIV. vii. 2), ' governs the 
people and administers justice among them, and 
sees that they fulfil their obligations and obey 
orders, just like the archon of an independent city.' 
Augustus instituted a council or senate (yepowla), 
which was entrusted with the management of 
Jewish affairs, and over which a certain number 
of apxovres presided. The reign of Caligula was 
marked by the first rude interruption of the policy 
of toleration. The governor Flaccus issued an 
edict in which he termed the Jews of Alexandria 
'strangers,' thus depriving them of the rights of 
citizenship which they had enjoyed for centuries. 
He ordered 38 archons to be scourged in the 
theatre, and turned the Jewish quarters into 
scenes of daily carnage (Philo, in Flac. 6-10). 
But one of the first acts of Claudius was to re-affirm 
the earlier edicts, and Josephus states that in his 
own day (c. A.D. 90) one could still see standing in 
Alexandria 'the pillar containing the privileges 
which the great Ceesar (Julius) bestowed upon the 
Jews' (rty onfXiji' . . . rh diKaiu/jura irepifyovo-av a 
Kaiffap 6 jnyas rots 'lovdaiois l-duicev [c. Apion. ii. 4 ; 
cf. Ant. XIV. x. 1]). Some Alexandrian Jews held 
responsible positions as ministers of the Ptolemys, 
and others were in the service of the Roman 
Emperors (c. Apion. ii. 5). Philo's brother Alex- 
ander and others filled the office of ' alabarch ' (see 
Schiirer, HJP II. ii. 280). 

For a time the 'Alexandrians' were doubtless 
bilingual, but ultimately they forgot their Hebrew 
or Aramaic, and adopted Greek as the language of 
the home and the synagogue as well as of the 
market. Living in a great university town, many 
of them became highly educated ; the school of 
Philo in particular assimilated many elements of 
Greek philosophy ; and the Judaism of Egypt was 
gradually differentiated from that of Palestine. 
Even before becoming a Christian, the Alexandrian 
Apollos had doubtless a breadth of sympathy, as 
well as a richness of culture, which could not have 
been attained among the Rabbis of Jerusalem. 
Yet in the great mass of the ' Alexandrians,' as 
throughout the Dispersion generally, the Jewish 
element predominated, and it need occasion no 
surprise that those of them- who chose to reside in 
the Holy City were as zealous for the Mosaic 
traditions, and as strenuously opposed to innova- 
tions, as any Hebrew of the Hebrews. 

LITERATURE. See list appended to preceding article. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 
ALIEN. See STRANGER. 



50 



ALLEGORY 



ALPHA AND OMEGA 



ALLEGORY. The word is derived from the 
Greek d\\i]yopla, used of a mode of speech which 
implies more than is expressed by the ordinary 
meaning of the language. This method of inter- 
preting literature was practised at an early date 
and among different peoples. When ideas of a 
primitive age were no longer tenable, respect for 
the ancient literature which embodied these ideas 
was maintained by disregarding the ordinary im- 
port of the language in favour of a hidden meaning 
more in harmony with contemporary notions. The 
word ' allegory ' has come to be used more particu- 
larly of a certain type of Scripture interpretation 
(q.v. ) current in both Jewish and Christian circles. 
Its fundamental characteristic is the distinction 
between the apparent meaning of Scripture and a 
hidden meaning to be discovered by the skill of the 
interpreter. In allegory proper, when distinguished 
from metaphor, parable, type, etc., the veiled 
meaning is the more important, if not indeed the 
only true one, and is supposed to have been 
primary in the intention of the writer, or of God who 
inspired the writer. Jewish interpreters, particu- 
larly in the Diaspora, employed this means of 
making the OT acceptable to Gentiles. They 
aimed especially at showing that the Jews' sacred 
books, when properly interpreted, contained all 
the wisdom of Greek philosophy. This interest 
flourished chiefly in Alexandria, and found its 
foremost representative in Philo (q.v.), who wrote 
early in the 1st cent. A.D. His Allegories of the 
Sacred Laws is one of his chief works, though all 
his writings are dominated by this method of 
interpretation. Similarly Josephus (q.v.), a half- 
century or so later, says that Moses taught many 
things ' under a decent allegory' (Ant. Procem. 4). 
Allegory was used freely also by Palestinian inter- 
preters, though less for apologetic than for horni- 
letic purposes. They were less ready than Philo to 
abandon the primary meaning of Scripture, but 
they freely employed allegorical devices, particu- 
larly in the Haggadie midrasMm. 

When Christians in the Apostolic Age began to 
interpret Scripture, it was inevitable that they 
should follow the allegorical tendencies so prevalent 
at the time. Yet the use of this method is far less 
common in the NT than in some later Christian 
literature, e.g. the Epistle of Barnabas (q.v.). St. 
Paul claims to be allegorizing when he finds the two 
covenants not only prefigured, but the validity of his 
idea of two covenants proved, in the story of Hagar 
(q.v.) and Sarah (Gal 4 2 *- 80 ). Allegorical colouring 
is also discernible in his reference to the muzzling 
of the ox (1 Co 9 91 -), the following rock (10 4 ), and 
the veil of Moses (2 Co 3 13ff -). The Epistle to the 
Hebrews is especially rich in these features, which 
are much more Alexandrian in type than the 
writings of St. Paul (e.g. 8 2 - 8 Q 23 10* II 1 - 8 12 27 '-)- 
Certain Gospel passages also show allegorical traits, 
where in some instances the allegorical element 
may have come from the framers of tradition in 
the Apostolic Age (e.g. Mk 4 liW =Mt 13 18 - 2B =Lk 
8 u-i5. M k i2 1 - 1 2=Mt21 83 - 46 =Lk20 9 - 18 ; Mt IS 24 ' 30 - a*- 43 , 
Jn lO 1 ' 16 15 1 " 8 ). 
LITBRATCRB. See list appended to art. INTERPRETATION. 

S. J. CASK. 
ALMIGHTY. See GOD. 

ALMS. The duty of kindliness to and provision 
for the poor is constantly taught in the OT ; 
in the later Jewish literature, and especially in 
Sirach and Tobit, it is even more emphatically 
asserted. It is clear that our Lord and the Apos- 
tolic Church taught this as a religious obligation 
with equal force. In the Sermon on the Mount, 
almsgiving is assumed to be one of the duties of 
the religious life (e.g. Mt 6 1 -*), and in several places 
the principle is expressed directly. Our Lord says 



to the rich young ruler, ' Sell whatsoever thou hast, 
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure 
in heaven' (Mk 10 a ) ; in the parable of the Judg- 
ment, the place of men is decided on the ground 
that they have or have not helped and relieved the 
Lord's brethren (Mt 25 s4 ' 46 ), and in St. Luke our 
Lord is reported as saying : ' Sell that ye have, 
and give alms ; make for yourselves purses which 
wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth 
not'(Lk 12 33 }. 

We find the same principles assumed in the 
literature of the Apostolic Church. In the Acts 
we read of the Church of Jerusalem : ' All that 
believed were together, and had all things common ; 
and they sold their possessions and goods, and 
parted them to all, according as any man had 
need ' (Ac 2 44 - ; cf. 4 s2 - }. What relation this 
may have to the community of goods is considered 
elsewhere (see art. COMMUNITY OF GOODS) ; but it 
is at least clear that the Church in Jerusalem 
recognized the paramount obligation of the main- 
tenance of the poor brethren, and it is worthy of 
notice that the first officers of the Christian com- 
munity of whose appointment we have direct 
mention are the Seven who were appointed to 
carry out the ministrations of the Church to the 
poor widows of the community (Ac 6 1 " 4 ). 

In the letters of St. Paul we have frequent refer- 
ences to the obligation of helping the poor (e.g. 
Ro 12", Eph 4*. 1 Ti 6 18 ), and in certain letters we 
find him specially occupied with the collections 
which were being made for the poor Christians in 
Jerusalem (Gal 2 10 , Ro 15 25 - *, 1 Co 16 1 - 2 , 2 Co 8 
and 9). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
speaks of such deeds of charity as being sacrifices 
well-pleasing to God (He 13 16 ). It is in the First 
Epistle of St. John, however, that the principle of 
the responsibility of Christian men for the main- 
tenance of their brethren is most emphatically 
expressed : ' Whoso hath this world's goods, and 
beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his 
compassion from him, how doth the love of God 
abide in him?' (1 Jn 3 17 ). For St. John the notion 
that any man can love God without loving his 
brother is a falsehood (1 Jn 4 20 ). 

The Christian literature of the end of the 1st 
cent, carries on the same principles. The Teach- 
ing of the Twelve Apostles (iv. 8) says : ' Thou 
shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but 
shalt share all things with thy brother, and shalt 
not say that they are thine own : for if ye are 
sharers in that which is immortal, how much more 
in those things which are mortal.' The Epistle 
of Barnabas contains almost exactly the same 
phrases. We have thus in the NT and the sub- 
apostolic literature the clearest enunciation of the 
principle whose effect and practical applications 
we have to study in the history of the Early 
Church and of Christian civilization. There can 
be no doubt that our Lord and the writers of the 
NT looked upon the maintenance of the poor as a 
primary obligation of the Christian life. 

LITERATURE. Art. 'Almsgiving' in HDB; 'Alms' in EBi 
and Smith's DB* ; 'Charity, Almsgiving: (Christian)' in ERE; 
G. Uhlhorn, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, Eng. tr., 
Edinburgh, 1883; A. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity^, 
London, 1908, i. 147; A. F. W. Ingram, Banners of the 
Christian Faith, London, 1899 ; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels 
of Faith and Practice, do. 1894; B. F. Westcott, The Incar- 
nation and Common Life, do. 1893; J. L. Davies, Social 

A. J. 



Questions, do. 1886. 



CARLYLE. 



ALPHA AND OMEGA. These are the first and 
last letters of the Gr. alphabet ; cf. Heb. 'Aleph to 
Tau ' ; Eng. ' A to Z.' The title is applied to God 
the Father in Rev I 8 21 6 , and to Christ in Rev 22 U 
(cf. 2 s ). The ancient Heb. name for God, m,T, has 
been very variously derived, but its most probable 
meaning is the ' Eternal' One' I am that I am' 



ALTAR 



ALTAE 



51 



(Ex 3 U ). This idea of uie Deity, further emphasized 
in Is 41 4 43 1U 44 6 , is expressed in the language of the 
Apocalypse by the Greek phrase ' A and Q,' which 
corresponds to a common Heb. expression 'Aleph 
to Tau,' of which the Talmud and other Rabbinic 
writings furnish many examples. 11. H. Charles 
adduces similar phrases in Latin (Martial, v. 26) 
and Greek (Theodoret, HE iv. 8) to express com- 
pleteness. To those who believe in a Jewish 
original for the NT Apocalypse, its presence there 
will cause no surprise, and its application to Christ 
will constitute an instance of the Christian re- 
modelling which that book has undergone. More- 
over, Jewish writers (e.g. Kohler) have given 
another explanation of its use as a title for God, 
calling it the hellenized form of a well-known 
saying, ' The Seal of God is Emeth (ncg = ' truth'), 
a word containing first, middle, and last letters of 
the Heb. alphabet (cf. Gen. Rab. Ixxxi. ; Jerus. 
Sank. i. 18a ; Sank. 64a ; Yoma 696). Josephus 
(c. Apion.) probably refers to this saying (cf. also 
Dn 10 21 rc 3n??, ' the writing of truth'). Similar 
is the use of Justin (Address to Greeks, xxv.). 
Whatever may be the origin of the phrase, its 
chief significance for Christians lies in its constant 
application to Christ, of which this passage in the 
Apocalypse supplies the first of countless instances. 
Charles and Miiller agree that Patristic comment- 
ators invariably referred all these passages to the 
Son, and in so doing they plainly claimed the 
Divine privilege of eternity for the Person of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and established the claim set 
forth in the later creeds that ' the Word of God 
was equal with God.' 

Not only was this the universal opinion of the 
earliest commentators, as of the Christian author 
or editor of the Apocalypse ; it was an opinion 
deeply rooted in the convictions of the Christian 
congregations. We hear of no attempt to dispute 
it ; and, relying on this as an established fact, the 
Gnostic teachers sought to deduce by various means 
and numerical quibbles the essential identity 
of all the Persons of the Trinity (cf. Iren. adv. 
Hcer. I. xiv. 6, xv. 1). Among others, Tertullian 
(Monog. v.), Cyprian (Testimon. ii. 1, 6), Clem. 
Alex. (Strom, iv. 25, vi. 16), Ambrose (Exp. in septem 
Vis. i. 8), emphasized this view of the matter ; and, 
before the last persecution of Diocletian was over, 
many inscriptions had been put up on tombstones, 
walls of catacombs, etc., in which these two letters 
stood for the name of Christ. At a subsequent 
period the practice became universal all over the 
Christian world, and countless examples are still 
extant to prove the general popularity of this 
custom. 

In most cases the letters are accompanied by 
other symbols and titles of the Master, e.g. 
yjf' ; in a few examples they stand alone as a 
reverent way of representing the presence of the 
Redeemer. Most numerous in the period from 
A.D. 300-500, they decline in number and import- 
ance during the early Middle Ages, and are rare, at 
least in the West, after the 7th and 8th centuries. 
It is significant to note that in none of those 
hundreds of examples do the letters (often rudely 
scrawled by poor peasants) refer to any one but 
Jesus Christ. It is hard to conceive of any fact 
more suited to emphasize the deep-rooted belief of 
the early Christians in the true Divinity of their 
Lord and Master, who had created the world, 
existed from the beginning, and was still alive and 
ready to succour His faithful followers. 

LITERATURE. R. H. Charles, art. in EDB ; B. W. Bacon, 
art. in DCG ; K. Kohler, art. in JE ; W. Miiller in PR2 
(full account of extant inscriptions); C. Schoettjren, Hor. Heb., 
Leipzig, 1733. L. ST. ALBAN WELLS. 

ALTAR. In the NT, as in the LXX, the usual 



term for ' altar ' is dwiaffTripiov a \vord otherwise 
confined to Philo, Josephus, and ecclesiastical 
writers while PU/J.OS, as contrasted with a Jewish 
place of sacrifice, is a heathen altar. The most 
striking example of the antithesis is found in 1 Mac 
I 54 ' 5 ". Antiochus Epiphanes erected a small altar 
to Jupiter ' the abomination of desolation ' (v. 64 ) 
upon the 0vffia<rr^piov of the temple, and ' on the 
twenty-fifth day of the month they sacrificed upon 
the idol-altar (^wyttoj) which was upon the altar 
of God (6v<ria<rTripioi>).' The NT contains only a 
single distinct reference to a pagan altar the 
^w/xos which St. Paul observed in Athens bearing 
the inscription 'AyvuffTy Gey (Ac 17 23 ). 

1. The altar on which sacrifices were presented 
to God was indispensable to OT religion. Alike in 
the simple cultus of patriarchal times and the ela- 
borate ritual of fully developed Judaism, its posi- 
tion was central. The altar was the place of 
meeting between God and man, and the ritual of 
blood the supposed seat of life was the essence 
of the offering. Whatever details might be added, 
the rite of sprinkling or dashing the blood against 
the altar, or allowing it to flow on the ground at 
its base, could never be omitted. The Levitical 
cultus was continued in Jerusalem till the destruc- 
tion of the Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70, and 
the attitude and practice of the early Jewish- 
Christian Church in reference to it form an interest- 
ing and difficult problem. It has been generally 
assumed that, when our Lord instituted the New 
Covenant in His own blood (Mk 14 24 , Lk 22 20 ), He 
implicitly abrogated the Levitical law, and that, 
when His sacrifice was completed, the disciples 
must at once have perceived that it made every altar 
obsolete. But there is not wanting evidence that 
enlightenment came slowly ; that the practice of 
the Jewish-Christian Church was not altered sud- 
denly, but gradually and with not a little misgiving. 
Hort observes that ' respecting the continued ad- 
herence to Jewish observances, nothing is said 
which implies either its presence or its absence' 
(Judaistic Christianity, 42). But there are many 
clear indications that the first Christians remained 
Jews McGitfert (Apostol. Age, 65) even suggests 
that they were ' more devout and earnest Jews 
than they had ever been ' continuing to worship 
God at the altar in the Temple like all their 
countrymen. ' They had no desire to be renegades, 
nor was it possible to regard them as such. Even 
if they did not maintain and observe the whole 
cultus, yet this did not endanger their allegiance. 
. . . The Christians did not lay themselves open to 
the charge of violating the law' ( Weizsacker, Apostol. 
Age, i. 46). They went up to the Temple at the 
hour of prayer (Ac 3'), which was the hour of sacri- 
fice ; they took upon themselves vows, and ottered 
sacrifices for release (21 ao - 21 ) ; and even St. Paul, 
the champion of spiritual freedom, brought sacri- 
fices (irpoff<popfa) to lay on the altar in the Holy City 
(24 17 ). The inference that the New Covenant left no 
place for any altar or Mosaic sacrifice is first expli- 
citly drawn by the writer of Hebrews (see TEMPLE). 

2. Apart from a passing allusion to the altars 
which were thrown down in Elijah's time (Ro II 3 ), 
St. Paul makes two uses of the dva-iaa-T^piov in the 
Temple. (1) In vindicating the right of ministers of 
the gospel to live at the charge of the Christian 
community, he instances the well-known Levitical 
practice : ' those who wait upon the altar have their 
portion with (<rvfj./j.eplfoi>Tai) the altar ' (1 Co 9 13 ), part 
of the offering being burnt in the altar tire, and part 
reserved for the priests, to whom the law gives the 
privilege 'altaris esse socios in dividenda victima' 
(Beza). Schmiedel (in loc.) thinks that the refer- 
ence may be to priests who serve ' am Tempel der 
Heiden wie der Juden,' but probably for St. Paul 
the only Owiaffrfyiov was the altar on which sacrifice 



52 



AMBASSADOR 



AME:N T 



was offered to the God of Israel. (2) In arguing 
against the possibility of partaking of the Eucharist 
and joining in idolatrous festivals, St. Paul appeals 
to the ethical significance of sacrifice, regarded not 
as an atonement but as a sacred meal between God 
and man. The altar being His table and the sacri- 
fice His feast, the hospitality of table-communion 
is the pledge of friendship between Him and His 
worshippers. All who join in the sacrifice are par- 
takers with the altar (KOIVUVOI TOV 6vffia.ffTr)plov), one 
might almost say commensals with God. ' Accord- 
i ng to antique ideas, those who eat and drink together 
are by the very act tied to one another by a bond 
of friendship and mutual obligation ' ( W. R. Smith, 
Rel. Sem. 2 , 247). How revolting it is, then, to pass 
from the altar of God or, by parity of reasoning, 
from the rpairtfa TOV Kvpiov, to the orgies of pagan 
gods, the Tpairefa Saifj-oviuv. 

3. The writer of Hebrews refers to the old Jewish 
altar and to a new Christian one. (1) Reasoning 
somewhat in the manner of Philo, he notes the 
emergence of a mysterious priest from a tribe which 
has given none of its sons to minister at the altar, 
and on this circumstance bases an ingenious argu- 
ment for the imperfection of the Levitical priest- 
hood, and so of the whole Mosaic system (He 7 13 ). 
(2) Against those Christians who occupy themselves 
with (sacrificial) meats the writer says : ' We have 
an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who 
serve the tabernacle ' (13 10 ). Few sentences have 
given rise to so much misunderstanding. '"Exojw 
can only denote Christians, and what is said of them 
must be allegorically intended, for they have no ry 
ffKijvy \arpevovTes, and no Ovciacrr^piov in the proper 
sense of the word ' (von Soden). The point which 
the writer seeks to make is that in connexion with 
the great Christian sacrifice there is nothing corre- 
sponding to the feasts of ordinary Jewish (or of 
heathen) sacrifices. Its TI/ITOS is the sacrifice of the 
Day of Atonement, no part of which was eaten by 
priest or worshipper, the mind alone receiving the 
benefit of the offering. So we Christians serve an 
altar from which we obtain a purely spiritual ad- 
vantage. Whether the writer actually visualized 
the Cross of Christ as the altar at which all His 
followers minister, like \eirovpyoi in the Tabernacle, 
as many have supposed is doubtful. Figurative 
language must not be unduly pressed. 

The writer of Rev., whose heaven is a replica of 
the earthly Temple and its solemn ritual, sees 
underneath the altar the souls of martyrs the 
blood poured out as an oblation (cf. Ph 2 17 , 2 Ti 4 6 ) 
representing the life or ^i/x^? and hears them cry- 
ing, like the blood of Abel, for vengeance (Rev 
6 9 - 10 ; cf. En. 22 5 ). In 8 3 and 9 13 the tfi/o-icKmfciov is 
not the altar of burnt-offering but that of incense 
(see INCENSE). In 14 18 the prophet sees an angel 
come out from the altar, the spirit or genius of fire, 
an Iranian conception ; and in 16 7 he personifies 
the altar itself and makes it proclaim the truth and 
justice of God. 

LITERATURE. I. Benzinger, Heb. Arch., Freiburg, 1894, p. 
378 f. ; W. Nowack, Heb. Arch., Freiburg, 1894, ii. 17 f . ; 
A. Edersheim, The Temple, its Ministry and Services, London, 
1874; Schurer, HJP, 11. i. 207 f. ; W. R. Smith, Rel. Sern.2, 
London, 1894 ; J. Wellhausen, Regie arab. Heidenthums, 
Berlin, 1887, p. 101 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostol. Age, Edinb. 
1897, p. 36 f.; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostol. Age, 2 vols., London, 
1894-95, L 43ff. JAMES STRAHAN. 

AMBASSADOR. Although this word occurs 
twice (2 Co 5 20 and Eph 6 20 ) in the EV of the NT, 
the corresponding Greek noun (irp(cr^evr^s) occurs 
nowhere. Instead, we find the verb irpffffievu, ' to 
be an ambassador,' while the cognate collective 
noun (RV 'ambassage') is used in Lk 14 32 19 14 .* 

* >rpe(r/3<rv'ui and jrpeo-0evr>J9 were the recognized terms in the 
Greek East for the Legate of the Roman Empire (Deissmann, 
Light from the Ancient East*, 1911, p. 379). 



In the OT the idea behind the words translated 
' ambassador ' (generally mal'dkh) is that of going 
or being sent, and of this the etymological 
equivalent in the NT is not ' ambassador ' but 
'apostle' (&w6o-To\os, 'one sent forth'); but both 
the OT terms and the NT oTroVroXos have to be 
understood in the light of use and context rather 
than of derivation. In this way they acquire a 
richer content, of which the chief component ideas 
are the bearing of a message, the dealing, in a re- 
presentative character, with those to whom one is 
sent, and the solemn investiture, before starting 
out, with a delegated authority sufficient for the 
task (cf. Gal I 15 '"). 

The representative character of ambassadorship 
is emphasized by the repeated virtp, ' on behalf of,' 
in 2 Co 5 20 , with the added ' as though God were 
intreating by us.' The same preposition (inrtp) 
occurs in Eph 6 20 ; thus irpeo-pevu is never found 
in the NT without it. So also in Lk 14 32 19 14 the 
context shows that the irpeo-pela. is representative. 

There is no very marked difference between 
'ambassador' and 'apostle.' irpeo-pevu, having 
n-pto-fivs (' aged') as its stem, does suggest a certain 
special dignity and gravity, based on the ancient 
idea of the vastly superior wisdom brought by 
ripeness of years. Probably, however, St. Paul 
was not thinking of age at all, for irpeo-pevu had 
lived a life of its own long enough to be independ- 
ent of its antecedents. His tone of dignity and of 
pride springs not so much from his metaphor as 
direct from his vividly realized relation to God : 
inrtp is more emphatic than irpeo-ftevu. It is in 
exactly the same tone that he claims the title 
'apostle' (see, e.g., Gal I 1 , 1 Co 9 1 IS 9 ' 10 ) ; cf. Gal 
I 15 '-, where his ' separation to preach ' expresses the 
same thought in yet another form. Nevertheless, 
his is a humble pride, for only grace has put him 
in his lofty position (cf. 1 Co 15 9 *-). Moreover, his 
commission is not to lord it over others, but to 
' beseech ' them ; nay, God Himself only ' intreats ' 
(2 Co 5 20 ). It is He who seeks ' arrangements for 
peace' with men (cf. Lk 14 32 ). On the n-peo-^vT-rjy 
of Philem 9 (AV and RV 'the aged,' RVm 'an am- 
bassador') see art. AGED. C. H. W ATKINS. 

AMEN. The lack of a common language has 
always been a barrier to the mutual knowledge and 
intercourse of the great nations of mankind, all the 
more that the days when the educated men of 
all European nations were wont to converse in 
Latin have long since passed away. To a certain 
extent the gulf has been bridged for men of science 
by a newly-invented vocabulary of their own, and 
a general use of Latin and Greek names for all the 
objects of their study. In the world of religion 
it still remains a great obstacle to all attempts to 
realize a truly catholic and universal Church. The 
Latin of the Roman Catholic missal, which seems 
so unintelligible to the mass of the worshippers that 
a sign language (of ritual) is largely the medium 
by which they follow the services when not ab- 
sorbed in the reading of devotional manuals in 
their ow r n mother tongue, is but a caricature of 
such a general medium of interpretative forms of 
worship. It is, therefore, a matter of great interest 
to study the use of those few words of ancient 
origin which have taken root in the religious lan- 
guage of so many great Christian nations, and 
have come to convey, in all the services where they 
are used, the same or a similar meaning. Of these, 
perhaps the most familiar are the words ' Amen ' 
and ' Hallelujah.' These old Heb. phrases were 
taken, of course, from the Bible, where, save in 
the case of Luther's edition and the LXX version 
of the earlier books of the OT, no attempt has been 
made to replace them by foreign equivalents. 
They have a deep interest for Christians, not 



AMEN 



AMEN 



53 



merely as a reminder of their essential unity and 
their ancient history, and as a recollection of the 
debt which we owe to a race so often despised, but 
as a reminiscence of the very words which came 
from our Lord's own mouth, in the days when He 
was sowing the seed of which we are reaping the 
fruits. 

A brief examination of the history of the word 
' Amen ' will be sufficient to prove the meaning 
which it had, the way in which it acquired this 
meaning, and the certainty that it was one of the 
very words which fell from the Master and had 
for Him a message of rare and unusual signifi- 
cance. The original use of the word (derived from 
a Heb. root JDK, meaning ' steadfast,' and a verb, 
' to prop,' akin to Heb. nag, ' truth,' Assyr. tenienu, 
'foundation,' and Eth. amena, 'trust' [Arab, ami- 
nun=' secure ']) was intended to express certainty. 
In the mouth of Benaiah (1 K I 36 ) and Jeremiah 
( Jer 28 6 ) it appears as first word in the sentence, 
as a strong form of assent to a previous statement. 
It was not till after the Exile that it assumed its 
far commoner place as the answer, or almost the re- 
frain in chorus, to the words of a previous speaker, 
and as such took its natural position at the close 
of the five divisions of the Psalms. It is uncertain 
how far this formed part of the people's response 
in the ritual of the Temple, but it is certain that 
it acquired a fixed place in the services of the syna- 
gogues, where it still forms a common response of 
the congregation. This was sometimes altered 
later, in opposition to the Christian practice, and 
' God Faithful King ' was used instead. The ob- 
ject of this use of ' Amen ' was, in Massie's words, 
'to adopt as one's own what has just been said' 
(HDR i. 80), and it thus finds a fitting place in the 
mouth of the people to whom Nehemiah promul- 
gated his laws (Neh 5 13 ). To express emphasis, 
in accordance with Hebrew practice the word was 
often doubled, as in the solemn path of Nu 5 22 (cf. 
Neh 8 s ). This was further modified by the inser- 
tion of ' and ' in the first three divisions of the 
Psalter. ' Amen ' later became the last word of 
the first speaker, either as simple subscription as 
such it stands appended to three of the Psalms 
(41, 72, 89), and in many NT Epistles, after both 
doxologies (15 times) and benedictions (6 times in 
RV) or as the last word of a prayer (RV only 
in Prayer of Manasses ; but 2 others in Vulgate, 
viz. Neh 13 31 , To 13 18 ). In two old MSS of Tobit 
(end), as in some later MSS of the NT, it appears by 
itself without a doxology. The later Jews were 
accustomed to use ' Amen ' frequently in their 
homes (e.g. after grace before meals, etc. ), and laid 
down precise rules for the ways of enunciating and 
pronouncing it. These are found in the Talmudic 
tract B e rakhoth ('Blessings'), and are intended to 
guard against irreverence, haste, etc. So great 
was the superstition which attached to it that 
many of the later Rabbis treated it almost as a 
fetish, able to win blessings not only in this life 
but in the next ; and one commentator, Eliezer ben 
Hyrcanus, went so far as to declare that by its 
hearty pronunciation in chorus the godless in 
Israel who lay in the penal fires of Gehenna might 
one day hope for the opening of their prison gates 
and a free entrance into the abode of the blessed, 
though Hogg suggests that this sentiment was 
extracted from a pun on Is 26 2 (Elijahu Zutta, xx. ; 
Shab. 1196; Siddur B. Amram, 136; cf. Yalk. ii. 
296 on Is 26 2 ). 

' Amen ' would naturally have passed from the 
synagogues to the churches which took their rise 
among the synagogue-worshippers, but the Master 
Himself gave a new emphasis to its value for Chris- 
tians by the example of His own practice. In this, 
as in all else, He was no slavish imitator of con- 
temporary Rabbis. He spoke ' as having authority 



and not as the scribes' (Mk I 22 ), and in this capa- 
city it is not surprising that He found a new use 
for the word of emphasis, which neither His pre- 
decessors nor His followers have ventured to imi- 
tate, though the title applied to Him in Rev 3 14 is 
founded upon His own chosen practice. In His 
mouth, by the common evidence of all the Gospels 
(77 times), the word is used to introduce His own 
words and clothe them with solemn affirmation. 
He plainly expressed His dislike for oaths (Mt 5 s4 ), 
and in Dalman's view (Words of Jesus, 229) and 
no one is better qualified to speak on the subject 
He found here the word He needed to give the 
assurance which usually came from an oath. But 
in doing this ' He was really making good the word, 
not the word Him,' and it is therefore natural that 
no other man has ever ventured to followHis custom. 
That it was His habitual way of speaking is doubly 
plain from a comparison of all four Gospels, even 
though St. Luke, who wrote for men unacquainted 
with Hebrew, has sought where possible to replace 
the word by a Greek equivalent (dXijfltDj, etc. ). St. 
John has always doubled the word, probably for 
emphasis, since Delitzsch's explanation from a 
word 'DK= ' I say ' is shown by Dalman (p. 227 f.) 
to be wrong and based on a purely Babylonian 
practice. 

The rest of the NT presents examples of all the 
older uses of the phrase, though the earliest is 
found only in the Jewish Apocalypse (Rev 7 12 19 4 ) 
which has probably been worked up into the Chris- 
tian Book of ' Revelation,' and in one passage 
(22 30 ) christianized from it. Here it is perhaps a 
conscious archaic form, brought in to add to the 
mysterious language of the vision, which may 
originally, like the Book of Enoch or Noah, have 
been ascribed to some earlier seer. The language 
of St. Paul in 1 Co 14 16 shows that the synagogue 
practice of saying ' Amen ' as a response early be- 
came habitual among the worshippers of ' the 
Nazarene,' even if we had not been led to infer 
this by the growing reluctance of the Jews to em- 
phasize this feature of their service. The use 
(? Jewish) in Rev 5 14 corresponds with this custom 
(cf. Ps 106 48 ). It is plain that the complete abserce 
of the word in Acts itself a link with the Third 
Gospel must be ascribed to the peculiar style and 
attitude of the author, and not at all to the actual 
practice in the churches. 

Twice in the NT (2 Co I 20 , Rev 3 14 ) the word 
' Amen ' is used as a noun implying the ' Faithful 
God,' but it is hard to tell whether this is to be 
understood as a play on words based on Is 65 16 
(nag, 'truth,' being read as JEN, 'Amen'), or 
whether it is connected w r ith the manner in which 
the Master employed the phrase as guaranteed by 
His own authority and absolute ' faithfulness.' 

The Church of the Fathers made much of the 
word ' Amen ' in all its OT uses, and introduced it 
into their services, not only after blessings, hymns, 
etc. (cf. Euseb. iv. 15, vii. 9), but after the reception 
of the Sacrament a custom to which Justin refers 
in his [the earliest] account of the manner in 
which this service was conducted (Apol. i. 64, 66). 
This is confirmed by Ambrose. The practice is 
still in vogue in the Eastern Church, was adopted 
in the Scottish Liturgy of 1637, and dropped only 
in the 6th cent, by the Western Church. Some- 
times the 'Amen' was even repeated after the 
lesson had been read. From the Jews and the 
Christians it passed over to the Muhammadan 
ritual, where it is still repeated after the first two 
suras of the Qur'an, even though its meaning is 
wholly misunderstood by the Muslim imams who 
guess at various impossible explanations. In the 
Book of Common Prayer it appears in various 
forms as the end of the priest s prayer, as the 
response of the people, or as the unanimous assent 



54 



AMETHYST 



ANANIAS 



of both priest and people. Curiously enough, 
among Presbyterians it is said by the minister 
only. One relic of the Gospel language is retained 
in the Bishops' Oath of Supremacy, which com- 
mences almost in the style of one of Christ's 
famous declarations. In legal terminology the 
term has been introduced to strengthen affirmation, 
and formed an item in the ' style ' of proclamations 
until the 16th century. Hogg notes that in Eng- 
lish, as in Syriac, it has come to mean ' consent,' 
and has been enabled thus to acquire the sense of 
'the very last,' even though it commenced its 
career as first word in the sentence. 

The foregoing remarks may enable the reader 
to judge of the strange changes to which the mean- 
ing of this word has been subjected, the important 
part it has played, and the historical interest which 
attaches to its every echo. 

LITERATES. The artt. in HDB, DOG, EBi, and JE; G. 
Dalman, The Words of Jesus, Eng. tr., Edinb. 1902, p. 226 ff. ; 
H. W. Hogg, in JQR ix. [1896] 1-23; Oqf. Heb. Lex., s.v. 
JDK; Grimm-Thayer, s.v. a^v, artt. in ExpT viiL [1897] 190, 
by Nestle, and xiii. [1902] 563, by Jannaris. 

L. ST. ALBAN WELLS. 

AMETHYST (d/^0wrros, Rev 21 20 ). A variety 
of quartz of rock-crystal, of purple or bluish violet 
colour. Derived from d, 'not,' and p^dvaKeiv, 'to 
intoxicate,' it was regarded as a charm against the 
effects of wine. Quaffed from a cup of amethyst, 
or by a reveller wearing an amulet of that sub- 
stance, the vine-juice could not intoxicate. This 
wa^s doubtless a case of sympathetic magic, wine 
being amethystine in colour. In the LXX (Ex 28 19 , 
etc. ) ' amethyst ' stands for ahlamah, a stone which 
was regarded as a charm against bad dreams. The 
amethyst was used as a gem-stone by the ancient 
Egyptians, and largely employed in classical an- 
tiquity for intaglios. Naturally it was often en- 
graved with Bacchanalian subjects. Being com- 
paratively abundant, it is inferior in price to true 
gems, and is not to be confounded with the oriental 
amethyst, a variety of corundum, or sapphire of 
amethystine tint, which is a very valuable gem of 
great brilliancy and beauty. JAMES STRAHAN. 

AMOMUM (Afitafj-ov, perhaps from Arab, hamma, 
' heat '). An aromatic balsam used as an unguent 
for the hair, made from the seeds of an eastern 
plant which has not been identified with certainty. 
Josephus (Ant. XX. ii. 2) speaks of Harran as 'a 
soil which bare amomum in plenty,' and Vergil 
(Eel. iv. 25) predicts that in the Golden Age 
'Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum.' The word 
came to be used generally for any pure and sweet 
odour. In Rev 18* 3 AV (with B K c ) omits the word ; 
RV (with X *AC) accepts it and translates 'spice' 
(RVm ' Gr. amomum '). The term is now applied 
to a genus of aromatic plants, some species of which 
yield cardamoms and grains of paradise. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

AMPHIPOLIS (A.n<t>liro\u). This Macedonian 
city played an important part in early Greek 
history. Occupying an eminence on the left bank 
of the Strymon, just below the egress of the river 
from Lake Cercinitis, 3 miles from the Strymonic 
Gulf, it commanded the entrance to a pass leading 
through the mountains into the great Macedonian 
plains. It was almost encircled by the river, 
whence its name ' Amphi-polis.' 

Thucydides (i. 100) says that the Athenians 
' sent 10,000 settlers of their own citizens and the 
allies to the Strymon, to colonize what was then 
called the "Nine Ways" ("EiWa odoi), but now 
Amphipolis.' It was the jewel of their empire, 
but they lost it in 422 B.C., and never recovered 
it. It was under the Macedonian kings from 360 
till the Roman conquest of the country in 167 B.C. 
The Romans made it a free city and the capital of 



the first of four districts into which they divided 
Macedonia. It lay on the Via Egnatia, which 
connected Dyrrachium with the Hellespont. From 
Philippi it was 32 miles to the south-west, and 
1 this was one of the most beautiful day's journeys 
Paul ever experienced ' (Renan, Saint Paul, Eng. 
tr., p. 91). The Apostle and his fellow-travellers 
evidently remained in Amphipolis over night, and 
next day went on to Apollonia (Ac 17 1 ). It is now 
represented by Neochori. 

LITERATURE. W. M. Leake, Northern Greece, London, 1836, 
iii. 181 f. ; G. Grote, Hist, of Greece, new ed., do. 1870, iii. 284 ff. ; 
Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, do. 1872, i. 374 ff. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

AMPLIATUS ('A/MrXtaTos [Ro 16 8 X ABFG], a com- 
mon Lat. name of which AV Amplias ["A/uirXfas, 
DELP] is a contraction). Saluted by St. Paul and 
described as ' my beloved in the Lord ' (rbv ayairrtrov 
fj.ov iv Kvplip). The only other persons described in 
Ro 16 as ' my beloved ' are Epaenetus (v. 6 ) and 
Stachys (v. 9 ). A woman is saluted perhaps with 
intentional delicacy as ' Persis the beloved ' (v. u ). 
The precise phrase ' my beloved in the Lord ' does 
not occur again in the NT. The special term of 
Christian endearment might suggest that Ampli- 
atus was a personal convert of St. Paul's or closely 
associated with him in Christian work. Such 
friends, however, are referred to as ' beloved child ' 
(Timothy, 1 Co 4"), ' beloved brother ' (Tychicus, 
Eph6 21 ), 'beloved fellow-servant' (Epaphras, Coll 7 ), 
etc. (cf . art. BELOVED). Nothing whatever is known 
of Ampliatus beyond this reference. 

Assuming the integrity of the Epistle and the 
Roman destination of these salutations, he was 
perhaps a Roman, whom St. Paul had met on one 
of his missionary journeys, and who was known by 
the Apostle at the time of writing to be residing 
in or visiting Rome. It is interesting to find the 
name Ampliatus several times in inscriptions be- 
longing to the Imperial familia or household (see 
Lightfoot, Philippians*, 1878, p. 174, and Sanday- 
Headlam, Romans 6 , 1902, p. 424). Sanday-Headlam 
also refer to a Christian inscription in the catacomb 
of Domitilla belonging to the end of the 1st or 
beginning of the 2nd cent, in which the name 
occurs, possibly as that of a slave or freedman 
prominent in the Church. If the view be held 
that the salutations in Ro 16 were part of a letter 
to the Church of Ephesus, Ampliatus must have 
been a Roman, resident in Ephesus, with whom 
St. Paul became acquainted during his long stay 
in that city. It is possible that he was a Jew 
who had taken a Latin name (cf . the names Paulus, 
and Lucius a 'kinsman,' i.e. a Jew, Ro 16 21 ). 

T 15 -Alii \voTiTFrv 

ANANIAS (Gr. 'Avavtas ; Heb. ' Jjn, ' Jahweh' is 
gracious'). A very common name in later Jewish 
times, corresponding to Hananiah or Hanani of the 
OT. We find it occurring frequently in the post- 
exilic writings and particularly in the Apocrypha. 
In the history of the Apostolic Church, we meet 
with three persons bearing this name. 

1. An early convert to Christianity, best known 
as the husband of Sapphira (Ac 5 1 ' 5 ). Along with 
his wife, Ananias was carried into the early Church 
on the wave of enthusiasm which began on the 
day of Pentecost, but they were utterly devoid of 
any understanding or appreciation of the new 
religion they professed. In this period of early 
zeal many of the Christians sold their lands and 
handed the proceeds to the community of be- 
lievers (cf. BARNABAS, COMMUNITY OF GOODS). 
Ananias and his wife, wishing to share in the 
approbation accorded to such acts of generosity, 
sold their land and handed part of the price to the 
community, pretending that they had sacrificed 
all. When St. Peter rebuked the male offender 
for his duplicity, Ananias fell down dead, and was 



ANANIAS 



ANATHEMA 



55 



carried out for burial ; his wife also came in and 
was overtaken by the same fate. The narrative 
does not indicate that the two were punished 
because they had in any way violated a rule of 
communism which they had professed to accept. 
The words of St. Peter, ' Whiles it remained, did 
it not remain thine own, and after it was sold, was 
it not in thine own power ? ' (Ac 5 4 ) at once dispose 
of any view of the incident which would regard 
communism as compulsory in the early Church. 
The sin for which Ananias and Sapphira were 
punished is described as 'lying unto God' (v. 4 ). 
It was, says Knowling, ' much more than mere 
hypocrisy, much more than fraud, pride or greed 
hateful as these sins are the power and presence 
of the Holy Spirit had been manifested in the 
Church, and Ananias had sinned not only against 
human brotherhood, but against the Divine light 
and leading which had made that brotherhood 
possible. . . . The action of Ananias and Sapphira 
was hypocrisy of the worst kind,' an attempt to 
deceive not only men but God Himself. Most 
critics admit the historicity of the incident (e.g. 
Baur, Weizsacker, Holtzmann, Spitta), while it is 
undoubted that in the narrative the cause of death 
is traced to the will and intention of St. Peter, 
and cannot be regarded as a chance occurrence or 
the effect of a sudden shock brought about by the 
discovery of their guilt. Much has been written 
on the need in the infant Church of such a solemn 
warning against a type of hypocrisy which, had 
it become prevalent, would have rendered the 
existence of the Christian community impossible. 

LITERATURE. F. C. Baur, Paulus, Leipzig, 1866, i. 28 ff. ; 
A. Neander, Planting of Christianity, ed. Bohn, i. [1880] 27 ff. ; 
C. v. Weizsacker, Apostol. Age, i. [1894] 24 ; R. J. Knowling, 
EGT, 'Acts,' 1900, in loco; Comm. of Meyer, Zeller, Holtz- 
mann, Spitta. 

2. A Christian disciple who dwelt in Damascus, 
and to whom Christ appeared in a vision telling 
him to go to Saul of Tarsus, who was praying and 
had seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming 
in and laying his hands on him that he might 
receive his sight (Ac 9 10 ' 17 ). On hearing this com- 
mand, Ananias, knowing the reputation of Saul 
as a persecutor, expressed reluctance, but was 
assured that the persecutor was a chosen messenger 
of Christ to bear His name to the Gentiles and 
kings and the children of Israel. Thus encouraged, 
Ananias went and laid his hands on Saul, who 
received his sight and was baptized. In his speech 
before the multitude at Jerusalem (Ac 22 12 '* 8 ) St. 
Paul describes Ananias as ' devout according to 
the law,' and as one ' to whom witness was borne 
by all that dwelt ' at Damascus. 

Later tradition has much to say regarding Ananias. He is 
represented as one of the ' Seventy,' and it is possible he may 
have been a personal disciple of Jesus. He is also described as 
bishop of Damascus, and reported to have met a violent death, 
slain by the sword of P61, the general of Aretas, according to 
one authority (Book of the Bee, by Solomon of Basra [1222], 
ch. xxix., ed. Wallis Budge), or, according to another (see Acta 
Sanctorum, Jan. 25 [new ed. p. 227]), stoned to death after 
undergoing torture at the hand of Lucian, prefect of Damascus. 
His name stands in the Roman and Armenian Martyrologies, 
and he is commemorated in the Abyssinian Calendar. 

3. The high priest who accused St. Paul before 
Claudius Lysias in Jerusalem (Ac 23 lff- ), and who 
afterwards appeared among the Apostle's enemies 
before Felix at Caesarea (Ac 24 lff> ). He is not 
to be identified or confused with Annas (q.v.) 
of Ac 4 6 , Lk 3 2 , or Jn 18 13 . He was the son of 
Nedebseus, and is regarded by Schiirer (GJV* ii. 
272) as the twenty-first high priest in the Roman- 
Herodian period. He retained his office, to which 
he had been appointed by Herod of Chalcis, for 
about twelve years (A.D. 47-59). During the time 
of his administration, bitter quarrels broke out 
between the Jews and the Samaritans, which led 
to a massacre of some GalUseans by Samaritans 



and to the plundering of Samaritan villages by 
Jews. Ananias was summoned to Rome and tried 
for complicity in these disturbances, but, at the 
instigation of Agrippa the younger, was restored 
to office. He ruled in Jerusalem with all the 
arbitrariness of an Oriental despot, and his violence 
and rapacity are noted by Josephus (Ant. XX. ix. 
2), while his personal wealth made him a man of 
consideration even after he was deprived of his 
office. He did not scruple to make frequent use 
of assassins to carry out his policy in Jerusalem, 
and his Roman sympathies made mm an object of 
intense hatred to the national party. When the 
war broke out in A.D. 66, he was dragged from his 
place of concealment in an aqueduct and murdered 
by the assassins whom he had used as tools in the 
days of his power (Josephus, BJ II. xvii. 9). 

LITERATURE. Josephus, Ant. xx. ix. 2, BJ n. xvii. 9 ; E. 
Schiirer, GJV* ii. [1907] 256, 272, 274. 

W. F. BOYD. 

ANATHEMA. The transliteration of a Gr. word 
which is used in the LXX to represent the Heb. 
herem, 'a person or thing devoted or set apart, 
under religious sanctions, for destruction' (Lv 
2728. 2 } j os 6i7) 4 i^ i s ca pable of use in the good 
sense of an offering to God, but was gradually 
confined to the sense of ' accursed,' which is the 
rendering adopted in AV in all NT passages except 
1 Co 16 22 . Around the Heb. term there gathered 
in course of time an elaborate system of excom- 
munication, with penalties varying both in amount 
and in duration, the purpose being sometimes 
remedial of the offender and sometimes protective 
of the community ; but these developments are 
mainly later than our period. They may have 
suggested lines on which a system of official 
discipline in the Christian Church was afterwards 
constructed, but it would be an anachronism to 
read them into the simpler thoughts of the aposto- 
lic literature. In patristic times the word de- 
noted some ecclesiastical censure or form of 
punishment, for which a precedent may have been 
sought in the teaching or practice of St. Paul. 
To the Apostle, the OT allusion would be predomin- 
ant, and his chief, if not his only, thought would 
be that of a hopeless spiritual condition, from 
which emergence could be effected, if at all, only 
with extreme difficulty and by special forbearance 
on the part of God. 

In the Pauline Epistles the word 'anathema' 
occurs four times, once in reference to the Apostle 
himself, and on the other occasions in reference 
to the maltreatment of his Lord. 

1. The personal passage is Ro 9 s , where there 
is no serious difficulty to those who do not look 
for strict reasoning in the language of the heart. 
St. Paul has just expressed (8 39 ) his belief that 
nothing conceivable could separate him from the 
love of God ; and now, in his yearning over his 
fellow-countrymen, he announces that for their 
sakes he would be willing, if it were possible, 
to be even hopelessly separated from Christ. 
Clearly ' anathema ' need not, and does not here, 
carry any sense of formal excommunication ; it 
denotes a spiritual condition of which the two 
features are exclusion from the redemption in 
Christ and permanent hopelessness. 

2. Greater difficulty attaches to Gal I 8 , where 
the Apostle, again under strong emotion, impre- 
cates anathema upon others. The case he imagines 
is one that would warrant extreme indignation, 
though the language is that of justifiable passion 
and not to be interpreted literally. St. Paul 
would be the last of Christian teachers to with- 
draw all hope from a man, and it is possible that 
in this case he thought of anathema as being 
remedial and temporary. He was the bond- 
servant of Christ, and as such he resented entirely 



56 



ANATHEMA 



ANCHOE 



any conduct or teaching that dishonoured his 
Lord. That such teaching reflected also on him- 
self would be a matter of little consequence ; but 
Christ was sacred to him, and the preacher of 
another gospel, whether one of his own colleagues 
or even ' an angel from heaven,' was not to be 
tolerated. His teaching made and proved him a 
person set apart for destruction ; but whether 
that destruction was final or only corrective would 
depend upon the man's impenitence or reform. 
Free association with him would be no longer 
possible, and to that extent the beginnings of a 
system of discipline may be traced in the phrase, 
as in 1 Ti I 20 and 1 Co 5 5 , where the ultimate 
restoration of the man is distinctly in view. But 
the reference to ' an angel from heaven ' is suffi- 
cient to prove that ecclesiastical censure, carry- 
ing finality with it, was not the main thought. 

3. and 4. Twice in 1 Cor. the word ' anathema ' 
occurs in the course of the sharp conflict excited 
by the extreme party among converted proselytes 
to Judaism ; and the great idea is that everything 
in the religion of a professed Christian is deter- 
mined by his real relationship to Christ. Over 
against the party of which the watchword was 
' Jesus is Lord,' was a party whose irreligion was 
manifested by their cry 'Jesus is anathema' 
(1 Co 12 s ). They were in a sense within the 
Christian community, and conscious therefore of 
certain obligations to Christ ; but they were so 
provoked by the attempt to set Jesus on the same 
level with the supreme God, and by the apparently 
absolute incompatibility of that belief with their 
fundamental conviction of the unity of God, that 
they were prepared to renounce Jesus and even to 
denounce Him rather than to confess His Godhead 
and submit to His claims. Or, introduced into 
the Church from some form of paganism, they had 
been so familiar with the evil inspiration that 
swept them along to the worship of ' dumb idols ' 
( 12 2 ) as to be disposed to plead inspiration for any 
tongues or doctrines of their own, to whatever 
extent Jesus was degraded therein. In response 
St. Paul sets up the great antithesis between real 
inspiration and counterfeit. The Spirit of God is 
the author of any confession that Jesus is Lord ; 
ecstasy or even demoniac possession may be pleaded 
for the assertion that Jesus for His teaching is 
destined to Divine destruction, but never the 
breath of the Holy Spirit. Between those two 
extremes there are many halting-places, and the 
insecurity of each of them is in proportion to its 
remoteness from the confession or Jesus Christ as 
Lord. So much is the Apostle affected by this 
dishonour done to his Lord, that it recurs to his 
memory as the Epistle is being closed, and suggests 
the footnote of 1 Co 16 22 . He adopts the word 
used by the men of whom he was thinking, and 
condenses his indignation into a curt dismissal, 
' If any one loveth not the Lord, let him be 
anathema. Maran atha.' In such a place again 
the word cannot denote official ecclesiastical cen- 
sure. It is really an antithesis to the prayer for 
grace in Eph G 24 , the handing over of the unloving 
man to Satan, the refusal to have anything more 
to do with him until at least some signs of a 
newborn love for Christ are given. 

As to the addition of Maran atha, both the 
meaning of the words and their relation to the 
context have been subjects of controversy. For a 
discussion of the Aramaic phrase, with related 
questions, see HDB iii. 241 ff. It is either an 
assertion, ' Our Lord cometh' (so RVm), or, more 
probably, an ejaculatory prayer, ' O Lord, come,' 
with parallels in Ph 4 s , 1 P 4 7 , Rev 22 20 , devotional 
rather than minatory in its character and inten- 
tion. If it be taken as an assertion, it may mean, 
' Let those who do not love the Lord fear and be 



quick to amend, for He is at hand in triumph,' 
though the expected Parousia is not a recurring 
feature of the Epistle. Or the idea may be, ' The 
Lord is coming soon, and there is no need to trouble 
further with these men, for with greater wisdom 
thought may be given to Him.' But the term is 
better detached entirely from the reference to 
anathema, and considered simply as a little prayer, 
in which the normal yearning of the Apostle 
expresses itself, before he closes a letter or group 
of letters, in the writing of which his pastoral 
heart must have been pained again ana again. 
The sudden way in which the expression is intro- 
duced suggests that it had already become a 
popular form of something like greeting in common 
use among the disciples, and had supplanted the 
earlier ' The Lord is risen,' unless both were 
used, the one on meeting and the other on parting. 
That would explain the absence of any attempt to 
translate it from the vernacular, and is confirmed 
by the usage of the next generation; cf. Didache, 
x. 6, where also the word follows a warning ; and 
Apost. Constitutions, vii. 26, where any thought 
of enforcing a penalty is rendered impossible by 
the jubilant tone of the section. 

In course of time 'anathema' came to mean 
excommunication, for which sanction was found 
in the Pauline use of the word, which again was 
carried back to our Saviour's teaching (Mt 18 17 ). 
Such men as are referred to in 1 Co 16 22 would of 
necessity find themselves excluded from associa- 
tion with disciples, and rules for their treatment 
were prescribed (1 Co 5 9 , Tit 3 10 , 2 Jn 10 - 11 ), and 
eventually expanded in great detail. But, while 
this kind of ostracism was a natural accompani- 
ment of anathema from the beginning, the word 
itself implied a certain relation to God, a spiritual 
condition with which God alone could deal, and 
with which He would deal finally or remedially. 
Execration and not official discipline is the dominant 
idea, with the censure of the Church as a corollary. 
See also artt. DISCIPLINE, EXCOMMUNICATION. 

LITERATURE. See artt. ' Curse,' ' Excommunication,' ' Mara- 
natba,' in HDB; Grimm-Thayer and Cremer, s.v. avaQt^a.; 
and the NT Conim. on the passages cited. 

R. W. Moss. 

ANCHOR (figurative).' In He 6 19 the writer 
describes the hope set before the Christian, to 
which he has just referred in the preceding verse, 
as ' an anchor of the soul.' The use of an anchor 
as a figure of hope was not new, for it is found in 
pre-Christian Greek and Latin authors, and an 
anchor appears on ancient pagan medals as an 
emblem of hope. The figure would naturally 
suggest itself to any one who reflected on the 
nature and power of the faculty of hope. For it 
is of the essence of hope to reach into the future 
and lay hold of an invisible object, as an anchor 
drops into the sea and catches hold of the unseen 
bottom. Hope has power to keep the soul from 
wavering in times of storm and stress, just as an 
anchor by its firm grip keeps the ship from drift- 
ing with the winds and tides. But Christian hope 
reaching out towards the eternal world is some- 
thing much greater than our familiar human hopes 
of blessings yet unrealized ; and the use which this 
writer made of an anchor to represent the hope of 
the Christian soul at once transformed the figure 
(as the Catacombs bear witness) into one of the 
dearest symbols of the Christian religion. 

Simple and beautiful as the figure is, however, 
some exegetical difficulties have to be faced in 
determining the extent of its application in the 
passage. These difficulties are reflected in the 
various renderings of AV and RV. In the original 
the word 'hope of v. 18 is not repeated in v. 19 . 
Strictly rendered, the verse runs, ' which we have 
* For anchor in the literal sense see art. SHIP. 



AKDKONICUS 



ANGELS 



57 



as an anchor of the soul both sure and stedtast 
and entering into that within the veil ' a state- 
ment which has been understood in two different 
ways. AV, by supplying ' hope ' at the beginning 
of the verse, makes ' sure and stedfast ' apply to 
the anchor, and by introducing a comma at this 
point leaves it doubtful whether the anchor is also 
to be thought of as entering within the veil. RV, 
by inserting ' a hope ' immediately after ' soul,' 
limits the figure to a declaration that hope is an 
anchor of the soul, and makes the three epithets 
' sure,' ' stedfast,' and ' entering ' apply to hope 
itself and not to its symbol the anchor. The most 
obvious construction of the Gr. vindicates RV in 
making the three epithets hang together as all 
relating to one subject. On the other hand, AV 
is so far supported by the fact that dirQaXrj and 
Pepalav (lit. 'not failing' and 'firm') suggest that 
the idea of an anchor was immediately in the 
writer's mind. It is probably right, therefore, to 
conclude that he means to say that the anchor is 
sure, steadfast, and entering into that which is 
within the veil, viz. the Holy of Holies. This is 
really a mixture of metaphors the metaphor of 
an anchor entering into the unseen world to which 
Christian hope clings, and another metaphor by 
which the Holy of Holies becomes a type of that 
world unseen. But, in view of what the writer 
says at a later stage about the Most Holy Place 
with its ark of the covenant and cherubim of glory 
overshadowing the mercy-seat (9 4t ) as a pattern of 
heaven itself where Christ appears before God on 
our behalf (v. 24 ), the figurative faultiness of the 
language is more than atoned for by its rich 
suggestiveness as to the Christian's grounds of 
hope with regard to the world to come. It is the 
appearance of our great High Priest ' before the 
face of God for us,' he means to say, that is the 
ultimate foundation of the Christian hope. Cf. 
John Knox on his death-bed calling to his wife, 
' Go read where I cast my first anchor ! ' with 
reference to our Lord's intercessory prayer in Jn 17. 
Cf. also his answer, when they asjced him at the 
very end, ' Have you hope ? ' ' He lifted his finger, 
"pointed upwards with his finger," and so died' 
(Carlyle, Heroes, 1872, p. 140). 

LITERATURE. The Comm. on Hebrews, esp. A. B. David- 
son's ; Expotitor, 3rd set. x. 45 fl. J. C. LAMBERT. 

ANDRONICU8 fAvSpoVt/cos, a Greek name). 
Saluted by St. Paul in Ro 16 7 , his name being 
coupled with that of Junias or Junia.* (1) The 
pair are described as ' my kinsmen ' (TOI>J ffvyyeveTs 
pov), by which may be meant fellow-Jews (Ro 9 s ), 
possibly members of the same tribe, almost cer- 
tainly not relatives. This last interpretation has 
given rise to one of the difficulties felt in deciding 
the destination of these salutations. Another 
' kinsman ' saluted is Herodion (v. 11 ), and saluta- 
tions are sent from three 'kinsmen' in v. 21 . The 
only relative of St. Paul known to us is a nephew 
(Ac 23 16 ). 

(2) Andronicus and Junia(s) are also described 
as 'my fellow-prisoners' (o-waix/J-a^drovs /not;, lit. 
' prisoners of war '). The meaning may be that 
they had actually shared imprisonment with St. 
Paul (the only imprisonment up to this time known 
to us was the short confinement at Philippi [Ac 
16 23 , but see 2 Co II 23 ]). Possibly they may not 
have suffered imprisonment with the Apostle at 
the same time and place ; but, as enduring persecu- 
tion for Christ's sake, they were in that sense 
' fellow-prisoners.' The only other mention of 
' fellow- prisoner ' is in a description of Aristarchus 
(Col 4 10 ) and Epaphras (Philem }. The meaning in 
these cases is evidently literal, both sharing the 

* It is impossible, as this name occurs in the accus. case, to 
determine whether it is masculine or feminine. See art. JUNIAS. 



Apostle's captivity at Rome, whether compulsorily 
or voluntarily. 

(3) The pair are further described as ' of note 
among the apostles' (&r(<n)/*oi tv rots a.Troffr6\ois). 
Two interpretations of this phrase are possible : 
(a) well-known and honoured by the apostles, (b) 
notable or distinguished as apostles. The latter, 
although a remarkable expression (and all the more 
so if the second name is that of a woman ), is probably 
to be preferred. This makes Andronicus and 
Junia(s) apostles in the wider sense of delegated 
missionaries (see Lightfoot, Gal. 6 , 1876, p. 92 ft', and 
note on p. 96). 

(4) Lastly, Andronicus and Junia(s) are said to 
have been ' in Christ before me ' (oJ ica.1 irpb ^toO 
ytyovav iv Xpior<p), i.e. they had become Christians 
before the conversion of Saul. Seniority of faith 
was of importance in the Apostolic Church. It 
brought honour, and it may have also brought 
responsibility and obligation to serve on behalf of 
the community (cf. Clement, Ep. 42 ; and see 1 Co 
16 1M - ; also art. Ep^NETUS). Note the prominence 
given to Mnason (q.v.) as an 'early' or 'original' 
disciple in Ac 21 16 . 

The name Andronicus occurs in inscriptions be- 
longing to the Imperial household (see Sanday- 
Headlam, Romans 6 , 1902, p. 422). 

T. B. ALLWORTHY. 

ANGELS. 1. The scope of this article. The 
passages in the apostolic writings in which angels 
are mentioned or referred to will be examined ; 
some of them are ambiguous and have been inter- 
preted in various ways. The doctrine of the OT and 
of the apocryphal period on the subject has been 
so fully dealt with in HDB that it is unnecessary 
to do more than refer incidentally to it here ; and 
the angelology of the Gospels has been treated at 
length in DCG (see Literature below). But the 
other NT writings have not been so fully examined, 
and it is the object of this article to consider them 
particularly. Of these the Apocalypse, as might 
be expected from the subject, calls for special 
attention ; no book of the OT or the NT is so full of 
references to the angels, and it is the more remark- 
able that the other Johannine writings have so few. 
The Fourth Gospel refers to angels only thrice 
(li 12 29 20 12 ; 5 4 is a gloss [see below, 5 (b)]), and the 
three Epistles not at all. There are frequent refer- 
ences to the subject in Hebrews, and occasional 
ones in the Pauline and Petrine Epistles and in 
Jude. 

2. The literal meaning of ayyeXos. &yye\os= 
' messenger,' is found only once in the NT outside 
the Gospels : in Ja 2 20 , it is used of Joshua's spies 
(in Jos 6 2B [LXX], which is referred to, we read 
TOVS KaraffKOTrevffdvras oOj 4ar4ffrei\ev'Ii]ffovs), In the 
Gospels &yye\os is used of John Baptist in Mt 
lli, Mk I 2 , Lk 7 27 (from Mai 3 1 but not from LXX, 
which, however, also has tfyyeXos), of John's mes- 
sengers in Lk 7 M , and of Jesus' messengers to a 
Samaritan village in Lk 9 s2 . In Ph 2 215 , 2 Co S 28 
dir6ffTo\os is translated 'messenger.' 

3. The angels as heavenly beings. From the 
earliest times the Israelites had been taught to 
believe in angels, but after the Captivity the doc- 
trine greatly developed. Yet some of the Jews 
rejected all belief in them, and this sharply divided 
the Pharisees from the Sadducees, who said ' that 
there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit ' ; 
the Pharisees confessed both (Ac 23 s ). 

Angels are creatures, as the Jews had always 
taught (Thackeray, Relation of St. Paul to Jewish 
Thought, p. 150). They were created in, through, 
and unto Christ (Col I 16 ), who is the beginning as 
well as the end of all things (cf. 1 Co 8 8 ). They are 
not inferior deities, but fellow-servants (fftvdov\oi) 
with man (Rev 19 10 22 9 ). Therefore they may not 
be worshipped (ib.) ; the worship of angels was 



58 



ANGELS 



ANGELS 



one of the grave errors at Colossae (Col 2 18 ). So 
idolatry is described as a worshipping of demons 
(Rev 9 s "). 

Much emphasis is laid, lest it should be thought 
that angels were of the same degree as our Lord, 
on the fact that Jesus is immeasurably higher than 
they ; as in He I 4 *- (no angel is called ' the Son ' ; 
angels worship the Firstborn), I 13 (no angel set at 
the right hand of God), 2 6 (the world to come is not 
made subject to angels, but to man v. 8f - shows 
that the Representative Man is meant, who con- 
descended to be, in His Incarnation, made a little 
lower than the angels). In 1 P 3 22 ' angels and 
authorities and powers' are made subject to the 
ascended Christ ; and so in Eph I 21 . In Col 2 15 
(an obscure verse), we may understand either that 
our Lord, putting off His body, made a show of 
the principalities and the powers, triumphing over 
them in the cross (so the Latin Fathers) ; or, with 
the Greeks, that He, having stripped off and put 
away the principalities, made a show of them, etc. 
i.e. that He repelled their assaults. Here the evil 
angels are spoken of. But the complete subjection 
of the powers of evil to Jesus will not take place 
till the end of the world (1 Co IS 23 *-)- 

Angels are spirits (He I 7 - 14 ); cf. Rev 16 14 , ' spirits 
of demons.' In Ac 23 sf - they seem to be differen- 
tiated from 'spirits' ('no resurrection, neither 
angel, nor spirit . . . what if a spirit hath spoken 
to him or an angel?'). But this is not so. The 
'angel' is the species, the 'spirit' the genus 
(Alford). All angels are spirits, though all spirits 
are not angels. In v. 8 the Pharisees are said to 
confess ' both,' i.e. both the resurrection and angel - 
spirits ; only two categories are intended. We 
must also remember that in v. 9 non-Christian Jews 
are speaking. 

But, though they are spirits, angels are not 
omnipresent or omniscient, for these are attributes 
of Deity. For their limited knowledge cf. Eph 3 10 
(whether good or bad angels are there spoken of) ; 
it is implied in 1 P I 12 (the angels desire to look 
into the mysteries of the gospel) and in 1 Co 2 6ff -, 
if ' rulers of this world ' are the evil angels (see 
DEMON). It is explicitly stated in Mt 24 s6 , Mk 13 32 . 
The limitation of the angels' knowledge is also 
stated in Ethiopia Enoch, xvi. 3 (2nd cent. B.C. ?), 
where the angels who fell in Gn 6 2 (so ' sons of God ' 
are interpreted) are said not to have had the hidden 
things yet revealed to them, though they knew 
worthless mysteries, which they recounted to the 
women (ed. Charles, 1893, p. 86 f. ). In the Secrets of 
Enoch (Slavonic), xxiv. 3 (1st cent. A.D. ?), God says 
that He had not told His secrets even to His angels. 
Ignatius says that the virginity and child-bearing 
of Mary and the death of the Lord were hidden 
from (tXadev) the ruler of this age (Eph. 19 ; for this 
idea in the Fathers see Lightfoot's note). 

The good angels are angels of light, as opposed 
to the powers of darkness (2 Co II 14 ; ct. Eph 6 12 ) ; 
so, when the angel came to St. Peter in the prison, 
a light shone in the cell (Ac 12 7 ). The name 
' seraph ' perhaps means ' the burning one,' though 
the etymology is doubtful ; cf. also Ps 104 4 . 

They neither marry nor are given in marriage ; 
and so in the resurrection life there is no marrying, 
for men will be 'as angels in heaven' (Mt 22 30 , 
Mk 12 25 ), 'equal to angels' (lffdyye\oi, Lk 20 36 ). 
Some have thought that they have a sort of counter- 
part of bodies, described in 1 Co lo 40 as ' celestial 
bodies' (Meyer, Alford), though this is perhaps im- 
probable ; St. Paul's words may refer to the 
' heavenly bodies ' in the modern sense (Robertson- 
Plummer), or to the post-resurrection human 
bodies (cf. v. 48 ) ; not to good men as opposed to bad 
(Chrysostom and others of the Fathers). 

They are numberless (Rev 5 11 [from Dn 7 14 ], 
He 12 22 , ' myriads ' ; in the latter passage they are 



perhaps described as a ' festal assembly ' [RVm, 
d-yyAwv ira.vriyvpeC\). 

The unfallen angels are holy (Rev 14 10 , Mk 8 s8 , 
Lk 9 26 , and some MSS of Mt 25 31 ; so perhaps 
1 Th 3 13 , Jude 14 [see below, 5(a)J; cf. Zee 14 8 'all 
the holy ones '). This is the meaning of ' elect ' 
angels in 1 Ti 5 21 not angels chosen to guard the 
Ephesian Church ; they are mentioned here be- 
cause they will accompany our Lord to judgment 
or (Grimm) because they are chosen by God to rule. 

4. Ranks of the angels. There was a great 
tendency in later Jewish writings to elaborate the 
angelic hierarchy. In Is G 2 - B we had read of sera- 
phim ; in Ezk 10 of cherubim. But in Eth. Enoch, 
Ixi. 10 (these chapters are of the 1st cent. B.C. ?), 
the host of the heavens, and all the holy ones 
above, the cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim 
( = ' wheels'; cf. Ezk I 15 ), angels of power, angels of 
principalities, are mentioned (cf. Ixxi. 7) ; in the 
Secrets of Enoch (20) we read of archangels, incor- 
poreal powers, lordships, principalities, powers, 
cherubim, seraphim, 'ten troops.' The 'gene- 
alogies ' of 1 Ti I 4 and Tit 3 9 are thought by some 
to refer to such speculations. St. Paul shows some 
impatience at the Colossian fondness for elaborat- 
ing these divisions ; yet in the NT we find traces of 
ranks of angels. In Jude 9 the archangel (Michael) 
is mentioned ; so in 1 Th 4 16 , where Michael is 
doubtless meant. In Romans, Colossians, and 
Ephesians no organized hierarchy is mentioned ; 
and sometimes the reference seems to be to the 
whole angelic band, sometimes to the evil angels, 
when principalities, powers, dominions, thrones are 
referred to (Col I 16 6p6voi, Kvpibnfres, dpxai, ov<rlai ; 
2'- 15 dpxt, etowria ; Eph I 21 apxt, tfrvela, d6va/us, 
Kvpi6r-r)s ; 3 10 6 12 dpxai, ti;ov<rlai ; Ro 8 s8 S-yyeXoi, dpxai, 
8w6.iJ.eis ; 1 Co 15 24 apxtf, t&vala, dvva/Ms). In the 
passages in Col. and Eph. St. Paul takes the ideas 
current in Asia Minor as to the ranks of the angels, 
but does not himself enunciate any doctrine ; in- 
deed, in Eph I 21 he adds, ' and every name that is 
named [dco/ctdfercu, i.e. reverenced] both in this age 
and in that which is to come.' Some have thought 
that he refers to earthly powers ; but, though 
these may perhaps in some cases be included, there 
can be little doubt that he is speaking primarily of 
angelic powers, good and bad. ' Whatever powers 
there may be, Christ is Lord of all, far above them 
all.' In Eph 3 10 only evil angelic powers are re- 
ferred to they are in the heavenly sphere (tv rols 
tTTovpaviois) ; and so in 6 12 , where they are contrasted 
with ' flesh and blood ' (see also below). With 
these passages we may compare 1 P 3 22 ' angels and 
authorities and powers'; and possibly 2 P 2 10 '-, 
where the 'lordship' (RV 'dominion'), 'glories' 
('dignities'), and angels are thought by some to 
refer to ranks of angels ; if so, the highest rank is 
'angels,' who are 'greater in might and power' 
than the 'glories.' The cherubim of the ark 
(Ex 25 18 ) are mentioned in He 9 5 . 

The Christian Fathers and the heretical teachers 
greatly elaborated the angelic hierarchy ; of these 
perhaps the writer who had most influence was 
pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (de Ccel. Hier. 
vi.-ix., c. A.D. 500), who divided the heavenly host 
into three divisions, with three subdivisions in 
each: (1) thrones, cherubim, seraphim ; (2) powers 
(^ovffiai), lordships (Kiy>i6r7rres), mights (dvvdfieis) ; 
(3) angels, archangels, principalities (dpxai). On 
the analogy of this list, the Syriac-speaking 
Churches divided the Christian ministry into three 
classes, each with three sub-classes. For other 
divisions of angels in post-apostolic times see 
Lightfoot's note on Col I 1 *. 

Very few names of angels occur in the NT. Of 
the holy angels only Gabriel (Lk I 19 - M ) and Michael 
(Jude 9 , Rev 12 7 ) are named (from Dn 8 16 9 21 10 18 - ?1 
12' ). We also have the proper names Satan (thirty- 



AtfGELtt 



ANGELS 



59 



one times, nineteen outside the Gospels), Beelzebub 
(Gospels only, six times), and Belial or Beliar (2 Co 
& 15 ). See DEVIL, BELIAL. In the Apocrypha we 
have Raphael in To 12 1B , Uriel in 2 Es 4* 5 20 10 28 , and 
Jeremiel in 2 Es 4 s6 (the last book perhaps is to be 
dated c. A.D. 90). Many other names are found in 
Jewish writings ; see D. Stone, Outlines of Chr. 
Dogma, London, 1900, p. 38 ; Edersheim, Life and 
Times, App. xiii. ; Eth. Enoch, 20 (Uriel, Rafael, 
Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel ; the Gr. frag- 
ment [Charles, p. 356 i.] has Sariel for Saraqael, 
and adds Remiel [ = Jeremiel]). 

5. Function of the angels. The NT represents 
the angels as having a double activity, towards 
God and towards man. Both these aspects are 
found in He I 14 (see below), as in Is 6 1 ' 7 , where the 
seraphim worship before God, and one of them is 
sent to the prophet, and in Lk I 19 , where Gabriel 
is said to stand in the presence of God, and to be 
sent to Zacharias. 

(a) Towards God. The angels are 'liturgic spirits' 
(\eirovpyiKo. irve<j/j.aTa, He I 14 ; cf. Dn 7 10 tXeirovp- 
yow avTip [Theodotion ; the version in our Gr. OT] 
for nxv3V\, ' ministered unto him ' ; the Chigi LXX 
has eOepdirevov avr6v) ; their ministry is an ordered 
one, before the throne of God : ' the whole host of 
His angels . . . minister (\eirovpyovffiv) unto His 
will, standing by Him ' (Clem. Rom. Cor. 34 ; cf. 
the 4th cent. Ignatian interpolator, Philad. 9, 'the 
liturgic powers of God '). They worship God in 
heaven (Rev 5 11L 7" 8 1 ' 4 ; cf. Job I 6 2 1 ), and on 
earth (Lk 2 13f -) ; they worship the Firstborn when 
He is brought into the world (He I 6 ), and are 
witnesses of the Incarnation (1 Ti 3 18 'seen of 
angels' but Grimm interprets dyy\ois here as 
the apostles, witnesses of the risen Christ, and 
Swete thinks the reference is to the Agony in 
Gethsemane [Ascended Christ, 1910, p. 24]). To this 
heavenly worship there seems to be a reference in 
1 Co 13 1 'tongues of angels.' In Jewish thought 
there were 'angels of the presence,' the highest 
order of the hierarchy, who stood before the face 
of God, within the veil (Edersheim, Life and Times, 
i. 122 ; To 12 15 ; Eth. Enoch, 40). There may be 
a reference to these in Rev I 4 ' the seven spirits 
which are before his throne ' (Swete interprets this 
of the sevenfold working of the Holy Spirit) ; 8 a 
' the seven angels which stand before God (cf. v. 4 ) ; 
Mt 18 10 ' in heaven [the little ones'] angels do always 
behold the face of my Father which is in heaven ' ; 
and in Lk I 19 (see above). 

They will attend on the Son at the Last Judg- 
ment (1 Th 4 16 , 2 Th I 7 , Rev 3 s ) ; and this seems to 
be the most probable reference in 1 Th 3 13 'with 
all his saints ' (or ' holy ones ' TWV aytuv afrrov) and 
in Jude 14 'with ten thousands of his holy ones' (or 
'with his holy myriads,' 4v ayiais fj.vpia.viv atirov), 
where the words are quoted from Enoch, i. 9, the 
text of the latter in the Gizeh Greek fragment 
being <riiv TOIS (sic) pvpidviv ai/roO KO.I rots ayiois a&rov. 
The words in Jude are certainly to be understood 
of the angels, and this makes the similar interpre- 
tation of 1 Th 3 13 more likely. But Milligan (Com. 
in loc. ) thinks that the latter reference is to ' just 
men made perfect,' who are said to judge, or to be 
'brought with' Jesus at the Judgment (1 Th 4 14 , 
Mt 19 28 , Lk 22 30 ; cf. Wis 3 8 ; for 1 Co 6 3 see 7 
below). No doubt the saints will rule with Christ 
(Rev 2 26f< 20 4 etc.) ; but, as all men will them- 
selves be judged (Ro 14 10 , 2 Co 5 10 ), the interpre- 
tation of the above passages as implying that the 
saints will themselves be judges at the Last Day 
is somewhat doubtful. The attendance of the 
angels on the Great Judge is mentioned in all four 
Gospels (Mt 13 41 16 27 24 31 25 31 , Mk S 38 13 27 , Lk 9* 
12*S and Jn I 81 [where the reference is to Gn 28 12 ]). 
(b) Towards man. The angels do service 
to man as heirs of salvation (He I 14 ). 



They ministered to our Lord on earth, in His 
human nature, after the Temptation in the wilder- 
ness (Mt4 u , Mk I 13 , not in || Lk.), and at Gethsemane 
(Lk 22^ : this may not be part of the Third Gospel, 
but is certainly part of a 1st cent, tradition ; it 
could not have been invented by the scribes [see 
"VVestcott-Hort, NT in Greek, ii. App., p. 67]. The 
present writer has argued for its being older than 
Lk., and reflecting the same stage of thought as 
Mk. [DCG ii. 124 b J). In Mt 26 s3 Jesus says that 
angels would have ministered to Him, had He so 
willed, when Judas betrayed Him. 

The angels are spectators of our lives : 1 Co 4 9 ' a 
spectacle (Otarpov) to angels ' ; 1 Ti 5 21 ' in the 
sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels ' ; 
1 P I 12 , the angels ' look into ' ' glance at,' or 
perhaps 'pore over' (see Bigg, Com. in loc.) the 
Church and its Gospel ; they rejoice over the 
sinner's repentance (Lk 15 10 ). 

They are messengers to man. This is the office of 
angels which is mos t prominent in the NTjseeAc? 38 - 38 
(Moses) 8 28 (Philip) 10 3 - 7 - ** (Peter, Cornelius) II 13 
(Peter) 12 7 ' 11 (Peter in prison) 23 9 (Paul) 27 23 (Paul 
on his voyage), He 13 2 (reference to Abraham, Gn 
18), and frequently in Rev. (e.g. I 1 22). St. Paul 
alludes to this work of the angels in Gal I 8 , which 
suggests that they must be proved, as spirits must 
be (1 Co 12 10 , 1 Jn 4 1 , etc. ; see DEMON, 2), to see 
whether they are true or false, and in Gal 4 14 , 
where there is a climax : ' as an angel of God, 
nay, as one who is higher than the angels, as 
Christ Jesus himself.' For this function in the 
Gospels see Mt I 20 2 13 - 19 28 2 - 8 , Mk 16 8 ' 7 , Lk 
jii. 6. i. 28. so. 35 2 . 21 24^ Jn 12 29 20 12 ; here we 
note that the ' angel of the Lord ' in the NT is not 
the same as the ' angel of Jahweh ' in the OT : it 
merely means an angel sent by God. This office 
of the angels does not exclude the Divine message 
coming directly to man (Ac 9 s 22 s 26 14 , Gal I 12 ). 

They are helpers of our worship. They offer the 
' prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar ' 
(Rev 8 3f -)- Their presence at Christian worship is 
a reason for decorum and reverence (1 Co II 10 : a 
woman should be veiled in the assembly of the 
faithful ' because of the angels ' ; this seems to be 
the meaning, not ' because of the clergy who are 
present,' as Ambrose, Ephraim Syrus, Primasius, 
nor ' because of the evil angels,' with a reference 
to Gn 6"-, as Tertullian [de Virg. Yd. 7 ; cf. 17], 
nor yet ' because the angels do so,' i.e. veil them- 
selves before their Superior [Is 6 2 ] ; see Robertson- 
Plummer, Com. in loc.). For the presence of angels 
at worship cf. Ps 138 1 LXX and Vulg., To 12 la - 16 , 
Three . 

They fight for man against evil, under Michael 
(Jude 9 , Rev 12 7f - 19 14 - la 20 1 - 8 ); they are 'armies' 
(urpa.Tfiina.Ta., Rev 19 14 ) and a ' host ' (ffrparid, Lk 2 13 ; 
not in He 12 2a RV where pvpidffiv is translated 
'innumerable hosts'). They are the 'armies ' sent 
out by the King in the Parable of the Marriage of 
the King's Son (Mt 22 7 ). 

They were the mediators of the Law (Ac 7 68 , 
Gal 3 1B , He 2 2 ) ; i.e. they assisted at the giving of 
the Law. St. Paul and the writer of Hebrews 
argue from this the superiority of the Gospel as 
being given without the interposition of created 
beings (Lightfoot on Gal 3). The presence of 
angels is not mentioned in Ex 19, but cf. Dt 33 2 , 
Ps 68 7 ; it was emphasized by the Jews as extolling 
the Law (see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 162), and this 
is perhaps the meaning in Ac 7 s3 . 

At death the angels carry the faithful departed 
to Abraham's bosom (Lk 16 22 ). This was a common 
Jewish belief (DCG i. 57 a ). 

At the Judgment they will be the reapers of the 
harvest (Rev 14 17 ' 19 , Mt 13 39 - ). 

They are messengers of punishment (Ac 12 a 
[Herod], Rev 14 10 ), and of judgment (Rev 8 6ff ' 



60 



ANGELS 



ANGELS 



19 11 ' 14 ; cf. the pouring out of the bowls, 16 1 ' 17 , and 
the seven angels having seven plagues, 15 1 ). In 
1 Co 10 10 the ' destroyer ' (6\o8pevT^s) is not Satan, 
but the angel sent by God to smite the people (the 
reference is to Nu 16, where no angel is mentioned ; 
but cf. Ex 12 23 , 2 S 24 16 ). Satan is sometimes 
called 'the destroyer' (airoXXtiw, Rev 9 11 ), but 
oXodpevrfy is not used elsewhere in the Bible (see 
Robertson-Plummer on 1 Co 10 10 ). 

They intervene on earth to help man : an ' angel 
of the Lord ' releases the apostles (Ac 5 19 ) and 
Peter ( 12 7 ) ; and, according to an ancient gloss, 
probably African, originating before the time of 
Tertullian, who quotes it (de Bapt. 5), ' an angel of 
the Lord ' also ' troubled ' the water of Bethesda 
(Jn 5 4 ). (Tertullian applies this text to Christian 
baptism, over which he says an angel presides.) 
Generally, the angels guard men from evil. This 
leads us to the question of guardian angels. It is 
an ancient idea that each human being, or even 
every creature animate and inanimate, has allotted 
to it one or more special angelic guards. This 
idea is to some extent confirmed by the words 
of our Lord about the 'angels of the little ones' 
in Mt 18 10 . It was a popular belief that these 
guardians took the form of the person guarded, 
and the people assembled in the house of Mary the 
mother of Mark thought that Peter, when escaped 
from prison, was 'his angel' (Ac 12 1S ). This 
Jewish conception was long retained by the Chris- 
tians. Tertullian thought that the soul had a 
'figure,' a certain corporeity, an 'inner man, differ- 
ent from the outer, but yet one in the twofold 
condition' (de Anima, 9); this is not quite the 
same idea, but we find it more clearly in the 4th 
cent. Church Order, the Testament of our Lord (i. 
40), where all men have 'figures of their souls, 
which stand before the Father of Light,' and which 
in the case of the wicked ' perish and are carried 
to darkness to dwell.' Similarly there are angels 
of fire (Rev 14 18 ), of water (16 3ff - ; cf. 7 lf - and Jn 
5 4 ), of winds (Rev 7 1 ; cf. Ps 104 4 ), of countries 
(Dn 10 13 ' 20 ; cf. Sir 17 17 ) ; and the angel of the abyss, 
Abaddon (q.v.) or Apollyon (Rev 9 11 ; cf. 20 1 ). For 
Rabbinical ideas see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 168, and 
Edersheim, op. cit. App. xiii. 

6. Angels of the Churches. In Rev I 20 2 1 - 8 - 12 - 18 
31. 7. 14 ^1^ g e ven Churches are said each to have 
an ' angel.' These angels represent the Churches ; 
what is said to them is said to the Churches (3 22 ; 
cf. I 4 ) ; things done by the Churches are said to be 
done by them. Various interpretations have been 
offered, (a) They are said to be angels as in the 
rest of the book. The strongest arguments for 
this view are the writer's usage elsewhere, and the 
mention of Jezebel (2 20 : ' thy wife ' in some MSS), 
which is clearly symbolic. The difficulty is the 
sin ascribed to these angels, as in any case a good 
angel must, if this interpretation be taken, be 
meant ; if so, the meaning must be that the angels 
bear the sins of the Churches as representing and 
guarding them, (b) They are thought to be earthly 
representatives of the Churches, either delegates 
to Patmos or the bishops or presbyters of the 
Churches. This view accords better with the later 
than with the earlier date assigned to Rev., with 
the time of Domitian than with that of Nero. 
(e) They are thought to be ideal personifications 
of the Churches. On the whole the first view 
seems to be the most probable. Compare and con- 
trast the following article. 

7. Fallen angels. In the NT both good and evil 
angels are mentioned ; but when the word ' angel ' 
occurs alone, a good angel is to be understood 
unless the context requires otherwise, though 
perhaps 1 Co 6 s is an exception (see below). The 
fall is mentioned in Jude 6 , 2 P 2 4 ; and probably 
in 1 Ti 3 s , where it is ascribed to pride (see DEVIL, 



2). The Incarnation was not intended to help 
the angels. Jesus did not ' take hold ' of, to help, 
the angels (or, as AV, did not take hold of their 
nature) ; see Westcott on He 2 16 . Yet in Col I 20 
God is said to reconcile through (the death of) 
Christ ' all things ' to Himself the whole universe 
material and spiritual (Lightfoot) ; but it was not 
by delivering them from death (Alford) : the fallen 
angels are not saved by Christ's death. Accord- 
ing to some interpretations, St. Paul says that 
angels will be judged by men (1 Co 6 s ). Robertson- 
Plummer interpret this verse, tentatively, as mean- 
ing that, as Christ judges, i.e. rules over, angels, 
so will saints, who share in that rule ; but, if the 
Last Judgment is intended, then fallen angels 
must be meant here, for good angels, not having 
fallen, cannot be judged. For 1 Th 3 13 see above, 
5 (a). In the end Satan is bound, and Babylon 
falls (Rev 18 and 20) ; nothing is said of his angels, 
but the inference is that his angels fall with him, 
and this is expressly said in Mt 25 41 . See further, 
ADVERSARY, AIR, BELIAL, DEMON, DEVIL. 

Metaphorically the 'stake in the flesh' is called 
an angel (messenger) of Satan (2 Co 12 7 ). See art. 
PAUL. 

8. Comparison of apostolic and other teaching. 
(a) Comparison with that of our Lord. Oesterley 
(SDB, 32) contrasts Jesus' teaching with that of the 
Evangelists and other NT writers, and says that 
our Lord taught that the abode and work of the 
angels are in heaven, not here below, while His 
disciples taught (as the Jews did) that they are 
active on earth. On the other hand, Marshall 
(DCG i. 54 a ) maintains the complete identity of 
teaching between Jesus and the Evangelists. To 
the present writer the latter view seems to be the 
right one. It is true that in our Lord's words the 
work of angels on earth is not prominent. But in 
Jn I 01 (our Lord is speaking) the order ' ascending 
and descending' shows that the angels are ' already 
on earth, though we see them not' (Westcott, Com. 
in loc.). The account of the angelic ministry at 
the Temptation, like that of the Temptation itself, 
could by its very nature have come only from our 
Lord's own lips. Moreover, in Jesus' teaching, 
the angels come to the earth to fetch Lazarus' soul 
(Lk 16 22 ) and to reap the Harvest (Mt 13 39 - ). 

(b) Comparison with the doctrine of false teachers. 
In Colossians we find an elaborate angelology, 
taught by professing Christians whom St. Paul 
attacks. Their heresy was partly Jewish, partly 
Gnostic, though some think that two different 
sects are meant. The Gnostic element shows it- 
self in the tendency to put angels as intermediaries 
between God and man, and to make angels emana- 
tions from God with an elaborate hierarchy of 
powers, dominions, etc. Against such teaching St. 
Paul asserts that Christ is the only mediator (Col 1 18 ~ 22 
2 9 ' 15 ), and forbids the worship of angels because it 
denies this. In the unique mediation of our Lord 
lies the significance of the repeated phrases ' in the 
Lord,' ' unto the Lord ' (3 18 - ^ a ). Jesus is the one 
apx^i, or ' beginning' (I 18 ; cf. Rev 3 14 ), of creation, as 
against the idea of angelic intermediaries when 
the world was made (see Lightfoot's essay on the 
Colossian heresy [Col., p. 71 ff.]). Perhaps also in 
the assertion of the unique mediation of Christ 
lies the significance of the rhetorical passage in 
which St. Paul says that no heavenly powers, 
good or bad, can separate us from the love of God 
(Ro S 38 ). Passages in Eph. (above, 4) seem to show 
that the Colossian heresy was known also on the 
Asian seaboard. 

A later stage of angelological error is found at 
the end of the 1st cent, in Cerinthus' teaching, 
which resembled that of the Colossian heretics. 
Cerinthus (q.v. ) taught that the world was not 
made by God, but by an angel, or by a series of 



ANGELS 



ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES 61 



powers or angels, who were ignorant of God ; the 
Mosaic Law was given by them (cf. above, 5 (&)). 
Cerinthus is the link between the Gnosticism at 
Colossse and the developed Gnosticism of the 2nd 
century (for his doctrine see Irenseus, Hcer. i. 26 ; 
Hippofytus, Refut. vii. 21, x. 17). He claimed to 
have had angelic visions, and was a millenarian 
of the grossest sort (Caius in Eusebius, HE iii. 28). 
See also Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 106 ff. 

Speculations such as those attacked by St. Paul 
found a congenial soil in ' Asia ' and Phrygia. 
Even in the 4th cent, at the Council held at the 
Phrygian Laodicea (c. A.D. 380), Christians are 
forbidden to leave the Church of God and invoke 
(6i>o/jLdfeiv) angels (can. 35 ; see Hefele, Councils, 
Eng. tr., iii. 317). It is the proper jealousy for the 
One Mediator, on the other hand, which has led 
many moderns to reject the doctrine of the exist- 
ence of angels altogether. But both heavenly and 
earthly beings can help man without being medi- 
ators, as we see when one man helps another by 
intercessory prayer. The NT teaching about 
angelic helpers, so potent an antidote to material- 
ism, in no way asserts that we are to pray to God 
through the angels, or contradicts the doctrine 
that Christ is the only Mediator between God and 
man. 

(c) Comparison with current Jewish teaching and 
that of the later Rabbis. The apostolic teaching 
is quite free from the wild speculations of Jewish 
angelology. (For differences between it and cur- 
rent Jewish ideas see Edersheim, op. cit. i. 142 
and App. xiii.) Of Jewish speculations the most 
elaborate were those of the Essenes (q.v.), which 
had a decided Gnostic tinge. This Jewish sect had 
an esoteric doctrine of angels, and its members 
were not allowed to divulge their names to out- 
siders (Jos. BJ H. viii. 7 ; Lightfoot, Col., p. 87 ; 
Edersheim, i. 330 f.). A few Jewish speculations 
may be mentioned. It was thought that new 
angels were always being created an idea derived 
from a wresting of La S 23 (Thackeray, op. cit. p. 
150). The angels taught Noah medicine (Book of 
Jubilees, 10). The righteous will become angels 
(Eth. Enoch, li. 4). An angel troubled the waters of 
Bethesda for healing (gloss in Jn 5 4 ). An elaborate 
hierarchical system and numerous names were in- 
vented for them (above, 4). Contrasted with these 
ideas, we have in the NT a wise reserve, which 
refuses to go beyond the things which are written. 

One Jewish speculation must be noticed more 
fully. The Rabbis taught that none of the angels 
was absolutely good, that they opposed the crea- 
tion of man and were jealous of him (Edersheim, 
ii. 754). Thackeray (p. 151 f.) considers that St. 
Paul also makes them all antagonistic to God. If 
so, he contradicts the teaching both of our Lord 
and of the other NT writers (above, 3). But this 
view, based on St. Paul's language about princi- 
palities, powers, etc., and on the idea that all the 
angels are the enemies who must be put under 
Christ's feet (1 Co 15 25 ), appears to be untenable. 
St. Paul, while affirming that some ' powers ' are 
evil, does not say that they all are so. See 
above, 4. 

9. Nature of NT angelophanies. It is unprofit- 
able to ask whether angels took material bodies 
when they appeared to men or whether they 
merely seemed to do so. At any rate, they took 
the form of men to the mind, though in some cases 
there was something about them that produced 
wonder or fear (Lk I 12 , Mt 28 4 , etc.). The accounts 
of the angels who were seen after the Resurrection 
vary. In Mt 28 2 the angel who rolled away the 
stone was like lightning, his raiment white as snow. 
In Mk 16 s we read only of a young man in a white 
robe. In Lk 24 4 there are two men in dazzling 
apparel (cf. v. 28 'vision of angels'). In Jn 20 12 



there are two angels in white, sitting. In Ac I 10 
there are 'two men ... in white apparel.' To 
Cornelius the angel was 'a man ... in bright 
apparel ' (Ac 10 30 ). Stephen's face was filled with 
superhuman glory, ' as it had been the face of an 
angel ' (Ac 6 1S ; so we reflect, as in a mirror, the 
glory of the Lord, 2 Co 3 18 ). For an argument that 
the appearance of the angels was 'objective' see 
Plummer on Lk I 11 ; but this is largely a matter of 
definition. At the death of Herod (Ac 12 23 ) no 
appearance of an angel is necessarily intended. 

10. The immediate successors of the apostles. 
Angelology was a favourite topic of the time ; 
but, the literature of the sub-apostolic period 
being very scanty, the references are few. For 
Clement of Rome see above, 3 (a). Ignatius says 
that the knowledge of angelic mysteries was given 
to martyrs (Trail. 5) : ' heavenly things and the 
dispositions (ro7ro0e<rtas) of angels, and musterings of 
rulers (o-vo-rdo-eis apxovriicds), seen and unseen' (cf. 
Col I 16 ). The ' dispositions ' would be in the seven 
heavens. The apxovres, 'rulers,' would be St. 
Paul's dpxai, i.e. angels (Lightfoot, Ign. ii. 165). 
In Smyrn. 6 it is said that the angels, if they 
believe not in the blood of Christ, are judged ; 
this seems to imply that their probation is not yet 
ended. See also above, 3. Papias (quoted by 
Andreas of Csesarea, in Apoc., ch. 34, serm. 12 ; 
Lightfoot-Harmer, Apostol. Fathers, p. 521) says 
that to some of the angels God ' gave dominion over 
the arrangement (Sia/cooT^o-ews) of the universe . . . 
but their array (rdit>) came to naught, for the 
great dragon, the old serpent, who is called the 
Devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole earth, 
was cast down, yea, was cast down to the earth, 
and his angels ' (quotation from Rev 12 9 ). Papias 
seems to date the fall of the angels after the 
creation of the world. Hermas (for his possibly 
early date see Salmon, Introd. toNT, xxvi.) describes 
the building of the tower [the Church] upon the 
waters by six young men (cf. Mk 16 s ), while 
countless other men bring the stones ; and the 
former are said to be the holy angels of God, who 
were created first of all ; the latter are also holy 
angels, but the six are superior to them (Vis. iii. 
1, 2, 4). In the Martyrdom of Poly carp, 2, martyrs 
are said to become angels after death (see above, 
8). In the Epistle to Diognetus, 7, God is said to 
have sent to men a minister (virT)pn}v) or angel or 
ruler (apxovra). Justin interprets Ps 24 7 - 9 [LXX] 
as addressed to the rulers appointed by God in the 
heavens (Dial. 36). To angels was committed the 
care of man and of all things under heaven, but 
they transgressed through the love of women (Apol. 
ii. 5, referring to Gn 6 lff< ). Angels, like men, 
have free will (Dial. 141). 

LITERATURE. A. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the 
Messiah^, London, 1897, i. 142, ii. 748 (Appendix, xiii.), etc. ; 
H. St. J. Thackeray, The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary 
Jewish Thought, do. 1900; A. B. Davidson in HDB, art. 
'Angel' (almost entirely for OT); W. Fairweather in HDB, 
voL v., art. ' Development of Doctrine in the Apocryphal 
Period,' iii. ; J. T. Marshall in DOG, art. ' Angels ' ; and the 
Commentaries, esp. H. B. Swete, Apocalypse of St. John, 
London, 1906; B. F. Westcott, Hebrews*, do. 1906; G. 
Milligran, Thessalonians, do. 1908 ; J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians 
and Philemon, do. 1900 (1st ed. 1875) ; A. Robertson and A 
Plummer, 1 Corinthians, Edinburgh, 1911. 

A. J. MACLEAN. 
ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES. The 

general practice of NT writers points to the con- 
clusion that the word ' angels,' used in this con- 
nexion, is employed to denote superhuman and 
celestial personalities. We are not, however, 
without examples of its being used to indicate 
ordinary 'messengers' (cf. Lk7 24 9 B2 , Ja 2 25 , etc.). 
In this case it would be equivalent to the dir6<rro\oi. 
iKK\i)ffi!av (2 Co S 28 ; cf. Ph 2 s5 ), who were in some 
sense the official, if temporary, delegates of one 
Church to another. The fact that in the Apocalypse 



62 ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES 



ANGER 



these ' angels ' are to such a degree the recipients 
of praise and blame would seem to put both these 
simple interpretations out of court. 

Many ingenious attempts have been made to 
employ the expression as a collateral or subsidiary 
proof that episcopacy had already been established 
within the lifetime of the Johannine author. The 
passages adduced from the OT in support of this 
view are certainly irrelevant ; for, while it is con- 
ceivable that the chief minister of a Church should 
be styled AyyeXos Kvpiov (cf. Hag I 18 and Mai 2 7 ; 
see also Is 44 s88 and Mai 3 1 ), it is difficult to under- 
stand the application to him of the designation 
&yye\os tKK\Tjffias (Rev 2 1 , etc.). Nor, again, can the 
contention be sustained that the expression had 
its origin in the office of the sh f liah zibbur, the 
messenger or plenipotentiary of the synagogue 
for, as Schiirer has pointed out, these ' messengers ' 
were not permanent officials (see HJP II. ii. 67), 
but persons chosen for the time by the ruler to 
pronounce the prayer at public worship (cf. Light- 
foot, Dissertations on Apostol. Age, 1892, p. 158). 

In supporting the contention that by the ' angels ' 
of the Churches are meant the bishops, the strange 
conclusion has been maintained that in the words 
rty ywaiKa [<rov] ' lefd^eX (Rev 2 20 ) the author is re- 
ferring to the Thyatiran bishop's wife (see Grotius, 
Annotationes in Apoc., ad loc.). It ought to be 
pointed out that this theory is as old as Jerome, 
who in his commentary on 1 Ti 3 2 adopts a similar 
interpretation ; and Socrates (HE iv. 23) describes 
Serapion as ' the angel of the church of the 
Thmuitae' (cf. Jerome, de Vir. illustr. 99, where 
he mentions Serapion as ' Thmueos Egypti urbis 
Episcopus '). The same conception is attached to 
the expression by the 6th cent, commentators, 
Primasius the African (Com,, in Apoc.) and Cassi- 
odorus the Italian ( Complexiones in Apoc. ) in their 
reflexions on Rev I 20 . 

An examination of the use of the word &yye\os 
in the NT Apocalypse, apart from its connexion 
with the Churches, shows that the author invari- 
ably employs it to describe a spiritual being 
attached to the service of God or of Satan. We 
are, therefore, confronted with the difficulty of 
accounting for its presence here in a sense so 
completely different as the episcopal theory in- 
volves. There is, indeed, no valid reason to sup- 
pose that the author, even in a work as highly 
symbolical as this is, attaches an essentially differ- 
ent idea to the word when he speaks of ' the 
Angels of the Seven Churches.' 

If we can accept the textual purity of the Ascen- 
sion of Isaiah, iii. 15, there is a remarkable parallel: 
' the descent of the angel of the Christian Church, 
which is in the heavens, whom He will summon in 
the last days.' Even on the supposition that the 
Ethiopia version, supported by some Greek MSS, 
is a correct translation of the original, and the 
simple word ' Church ' is substituted for ' angel of 
the Christian Church,' we are confronted by the 
primitive identification of the Church and its angel 
(see Charles, Asc. of Isaiah, ad loc.). 

Perhaps the most curious feature of the letters 
to the Asian Churches is the way in which the 
writer expresses himself in terms of stern reproof 
or of encouragement to their 'angels.' The objec- 
tion to this difficulty is considered by Origen, 
who finds cause for marvel at the care shown by 
God for men : ' forasmuch as He suffers His angels 
to be blamed and rebuked on our behalf ' (horn, in 
Num. xx. 3 ; cf. in Luc. xiii. ). 

As we have already seen, however, it is difficult 
to suppose that the writer intended the words to 
be understood as referring literally to angels who 
presided over the Churches. There is, no doubt, 
a natural inclination to see in his use of the phrase 
a reminiscence of the ' princes ' of the Apocalypse 



of Daniel (6 &px<av fjcunXelas TLepv&v, Dn 10 13 ; cf. 
Mtx a ^A o fiyyeXos, v. 21 ). A similar belief with re- 
spect to the guardianship of individuals is referred 
to incidentally as held by Jesus (Mt 18 10 ), and we 
need not be surprised to find it applied to Churches 
in their corporate capacity by a writer whose 
teaching on the activity and functions of angels is 
so advanced. 

Taking into account the symbolism of the whole 
book and the obviously symbolic mention of Jeze- 
bel (Rev 2* ; cf. Milligan on Rev 10 1 ' 3 in SchatFs 
Pop. Com. on the NT), there seems to be no inter- 
pretation more in harmony with the spirit of the 
writing than that which sees in this expression the 
personification of the characteristic spiritual tone 
and genius of each Church. 

If we accept this conclusion as being most con- 
sonant with the general trend of thought through- 
out the writing, it may not be amiss to refer to the 
remarkable parallel in the fravashis, or ' doubles,' 
of Parsiism. Whatever the connexion between 
Persian and Jewish angelology and it is not 
necessary to insist on a direct borrowing it seems 
to be certain that, in the period immediately sub- 
sequent to the Captivity, Parsi influence shaped, 
at least indirectly and remotely, the development 
of Hebrew thought. 'Thefravashi of a nation or 
community is a conception found in three Avestan 
passages. . . . The fravashi is no longer a being 
necessarily good, but becomes a complete spiritual 
counterpart of the nation or the church, and cap- 
able therefore of declension and punishment ' (HDB 
iv. 991 b ; cf. JThSt iii. 520 ff.). The nexus may be, 
and probably is, not so mechanical and direct as 
J. H. Moulton seeks to establish. On the other 
hand, it seems as if a relationship of some kind 
between the allied forces of Magianism and Zoro- 
astrianism, as they were refracted by the medium 
of Hellenistic culture and Hebrew thought, must 
be regarded as inevitable. It is enough to say 
that the ' angel ' is the personified embodiment of 
the spiritual character and ethos of the Church. If 
this use of the word by the author has led to con- 
fusion and obscurity, the reason lies probably in 
the limitations of that symbolism which was the 
characteristic vehicle of Jewish apocalyptic litera- 
ture (see W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven 
Churches, 1904, pp. 57-73). Compare and contrast 
6 of the preceding article. 

LITERATURE. See the works referred to throughout the art., 
and the Commentaries on the Apocalypse. 

J. R. WILLIS. 

ANGER. 1. Human anger. Except by the 
stoical mind which finds no place x for strong 
emotion in a moral scheme, anger has been recog- 
nized as a quality which, under certain conditions 
and within certain limits, may not only be per- 
missible but commendable. Its ready abuse nas, 
however, led to its being commonly placed among 
the evils of human nature. The teaching of the 
early Christian Church recognizes both aspects. 
Condemnation of the abuse of anger is not wanting 
in the apostolic writings. Among the manifest 
works of the flesh are enmities, strife, jealousies, 
wraths (Ovpol), factions (Gal 5 20 ). St. Paul fears lest 
he shall find these evils in the Church when he comes 
to Corinth (2 Co 12 20 ). One of the marks of the 
greatest of Christian virtues is that it ' does not 
blaze forth in passionate anger ' (ov irapotyverai. [1 Co 
13 5 ]). In Christian circles, all bitterness and wrath 
and anger must be put away (Eph 4 S1 ; cf. Col 3 8 ). 
The holy hands lifted up in prayer must be un- 
stained with anger and strife (1 Ti 2 s ). The 
1 bishop ' must be blameless, as God's steward, 
not self-willed, not soon angry (Tit I 7 ). St. James 
bids his readers be swift to hear, slow to speak, 
slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not 
the righteousness of God (I 19 - "K ' Be not prone to 



ANGEE 



AKGEK 



63 



anger,' says the Didache (iii. 2), 'for anger leadeth 
to murder : nor a zealot, nor contentious, nor 
quick-tempered, for murder also is the outcome of 
these.' 

On the other hand, Christian morality recognizes 
a righteous anger. The section of the Sermon on 
the Mount which teaches that whosoever is angry 
with his brother is in danger of the judgment (Mt 
5 21 *-) is primarily aimed at something other than 
passion it is an emphatic condemnation of the 
spirit which despises and seeks to injure a brother. 
The violation of the law of brotherly love, manifest 
in the anger of Mt 5 W , might, indeed, provoke a 
legitimate wrath, e.g. in the series of woes, terrible 
in intensity of language, pronounced by Jesus 
against the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 23 13ff -}. We 
should hesitate to acknowledge a man as morally 
and spiritually great who could remain unmoved 
in the presence of the world's wrongs. The early 
preachers would have been poor souls had they 
been able to hide their indignation at the mur- 
derers of Jesus (Ac 3 13 - 14 5 30 7 51L ). Could Peter well 
have been calm with Ananias and Sapphira (Ac 5 1 ), 
and later, with the commercially-minded, religious 
adventurer, Simon Magus (8 20 '-)? A certain prin- 
ciple of discrimination seems, however, to have been 
observed. Anger at personal insult or persecution 
was discouraged. Anger provoked by personal in- 
jury niay have a protective value in a lower stage 
of the world's life, but the attitude of Christian 
ethics to this type is governed by the law of non- 
resistance laid down by the Sermon on the Mount. 
Man must return good for evil, show kindness to 
his enemy, leave retribution to God (Ro 12 19 - M ). 
St. Paul claims that, ' when reviled, we bless ; when 
persecuted, we bear it patiently ; when slandered,we 
try to conciliate' (1 Co 4 12 ), thus following the 
example of Jesus (1 P 2 23 ). One is tempted to 
regard the apology which followed the momentary 
outburst of St. Paul's passion against the high 
priest (Ac 23 3 ) as an expression of the Apostle's 
principles of non-resistance rather than as an ac- 
knowledgment of priestly rights. But there is an 
altogether different attitude when that which is to 
be defended is a righteous principle, a weaker 
brother, or the faith or ethical standard of the 
Church. Elymas, the sorcerer, seeking to hinder a 
work of grace, provokes a vigorous anger (Ac 13 10 - n ). 
On behalf of the purity of faith St. Paul resists St. 
Peter to the face (Gal 2 11 ). The Epistle to the 
Galatians is a piece of passionate writing, and a 
note of indignation runs through the later chapters 
of 2 Cor. (cf. 1 Co I 14 5 5 , etc.). The man who does 
not love the. Lord Jesus, or the one who preaches 
a false gospel, let him be accursed dvddefjui(l Co 
16 22 ). The indignation (dyavdKrrjffis) of the Cor- 
inthian Church against the guilty person in the 
case of immorality, to which St. Paul has drawn 
attention, is commended by him (2 Co 7 11 ). Simi- 
larly, the Church at Ephesus is congratulated on its 
hatred of the Nicolaitans (Rev 2P). St. Paul 
' burns ' if another is ' made to stumble ' (2 Co II 29 ). 
In these instances, anger seems to have been re- 
garded as compatible with, and indeed expressive 
of, Christian character. The obvious danger of 
mistaken zeal for a cause or creed must, however, 
be kept in mind. The case of St. Paul's early life 
provides an illustration (Gal I 13 , Ph 3 6 ). There 
may be a zeal for God, not according to knowledge 
(Ro 10 2 ). 

But even legitimate anger may readily pass 
into a sin. Passions beyond the control of the 
rational self can hardly be justified, whatever the 
cause. Self-control is a cardinal Christian virtue. 
Hence the apostolic caution of Eph 4- 16 , 'Be ye 
angry and sin not,' i.e. if angry, as one may rightly 
be, do not allow the passion to become an evil by 
its excess. The wrath against which the warning 



is given seems indicated by the following clause 
' let not the sun go down on your tra.popyicrtj.6s ' (' a 
noun which differs from 6pyri in denoting, not the 
disposition of anger, or anger in a lasting mood, but 
exasperation, sudden violent anger' [Salmond]). 
There is no reference to deliberate indignation on 
a matter of principle, such as the resentment which, 
the author of Ecce Homo claims, was felt by Jesus 
towards the Pharisees to the end of His life. 

2. Divine anger. Most minds must have felt 
the objection expressed by Origen, Augustine, and 
the Neo-Platonist theologians generally, that we 
cannot treat the Supreme as a magnified man and 
attribute to Him such perturbation of mind as is 
suggested to us by the term ' anger.' But we may 
allow and must do so unless we are prepared to 
deny personality in God that the quality, which 
we find expressed under human conditions as the 
righteous anger of a good man, must exist in God, 
although in a form which we cannot adequately 
conceive, owing to our inability to realize absolute 
conditions. We may be helped to some extent by 
recognizing that behind the human agitations of 
personality in love, pity, indignation, etc., there are 
certain principles and attitudes which no more 
depend for their quality on the element of agita- 
tion than the existence of steam depends upon the 
appearance of white vapour which we ordinarily 
associate with it. This underlying quality we 
may attribute to the Deity, in whom life and per- 
sonality, here expressed only in finite and con- 
ditioned forms, have their perfect and unconditioned 
being (Lotze). 

The objection that anger, unlike love, is un- 
worthy of the highest moral personality (Marcion) 
may be met by the answer that Divine love and 
anger are not two opposing principles, but ex- 
pressions of the one attitude towards contrary 
sets of human circumstances. The Divine anger 
is actually involved in the Divine love (Tertullian, 
Martensen, etc.). The one Lord whose name is 
Truth and Love is, because of this, a consuming 
flame to wrong (He 10 31 12 29 ). 

The idea of the ' Divine anger ' this attitude of 
Deity towards certain courses of human life is a 
justifiable inference from the intuitions of con- 
science, but another and an unsound argument 
played a part in the historical formation of the doc- 
trine. In the early stages of religious thought the 
conception of the wrath of God would naturally 
come to men's minds from contemplation of the ills 
of human life. The chieftain punished those with 
whom he was angry, either by direct action or by 
withholding his protection. Did not, then, physical 
calamities, pestilences, reverses of fortune, defeat 
in battle, indicate the displeasure of Deity (Jos 7, 
2 S 21 1 24, etc.)? Such misfortune, when no 
ethical cause could be recognized, would en- 
courage the doctrine of unwitting and non-ethical 
offences (e.g. the violation of tabu) and of non- 
ethical propitiation. The ills of life especially 
death suggested later a world lying under a curse, 
due to Adam's sin. Against the popular doctrine 
that misfortune indicated Divine displeasure, the 
Book of Job is a protest. Human suffering has 
educative values, and does not necessarily indicate 
the disapproval of God (He 12 5 '-). 

Yet even in early times the idea of the Divine 
anger did not rest wholly on the facts of human 
suffering. Men realized that the world, as they 
found it, was not in harmony with their conceptions 
of the Highest, and thus in times of prosperity, 
which, according to this theory, would indicate 
God's contentment with His people, prophets such 
as Amos argued for coming doom. From the con- 
sciousness of the holiness of God it was inferred 
that there must be Divine displeasure. 

The turning away of the Divine anger. Two 



64 



ANGER 



ANGER 



attitudes in regard to this problem appear among 
the Hebrews, even as early as the 8th cent. B.C. 
The prophets of that period ' do not recognize the 
need of any means of reconciliation with God 
after estrangement by sin other than repentance ' 
(Hos 14 2 , Am p 22 ' 24 , Is I 13 - 17 , Mic 6 6 ' 8 ). On the 
other hand, while repentance was always insisted 
upon by Israel's religious teachers, there was a 
tendency to assert the need of supplementary 
means in order to bring about the reconciliation of 
God and man. The conception may have origin- 
ated in the practice of offering a propitiatory gift 
or legal compensation to an outraged person 
(Gn 20 18 32 13 ; cf. 1 S 26 19 , 2 S 24 18 '-), or in the 
primitive view of sin as having a material exist- 
ence of its own which called for an appropriate 
ritual treatment beyond the mental change of 
repentance, or in the customs of Levitical 'sin- 
offerings, 5 which, although originally made in view 
of ceremonial faults, for which ethical repentance 
was strictly impossible, must have come to suggest 
that, in addition to repentance, a sacrificial opera- 
tion was needful even in cases of moral trans- 
gression. 

From the period of the Exile, prayer, fasting, 
almsgiving, and especially the sufferings of the 
righteous, were regarded as substitutes for material 
sacrifices (see art. ' Atonement ' in JE). Is 53 is 
the 'earliest expression of a conception [viz. the 
atoning value of the sufferings of pious men] which 
attained wide development in later times and con- 
stantly meets us in the teaching of the Jewish 
synagogues' (O. Whitehouse). One of the seven 
brothers, during the persecutions of Antiochus 
Epiphanes, prays that 'in me and my brothers, 
the wrath of the Almighty may be appeased' 
(2 Mac I 38 ). 4 Mac G 29 gives a prayer, ' Let my 
blood serve for purification, and as an equivalent 
for their life (avrtyirxov) take my own ' (cf. 4 Mac 
I 11 9 24 17 20 ' 22 18 4 ). These passages supply an inter- 
esting link between the old Leviticism and the 
NT doctrine of the sacrificial death of Jesus. 

The doctrine of propitiation receives no support 
from the teaching of Jesus as given in the Synoptics. 
Repentance and new life are the conditions of the 
restoration of the Divine favour. Jesus does not 
appear to have ever taught that reconciliation 
depended upon His own death as a propitiation 
(see DOG, art. ' Sacrifice '), although He did teach 
that the spiritual ministration involved suffering 
and sacrifice, so that the death of Jesus might 
be figuratively regarded as a ' ransom for many ' 
(Mk 10 35 ' 45 ). Moreover, the teaching of Jesus is 
not favourable to the view that legal right claims 
a compensation beyond repentance, before the 
Father will forgive. The moral of the parables of 
the Prodigal and the Labourers (cf. Lk 23 43 ) is that 
forensic conceptions are altogether inappropriate 
in the religious sphere. Harmony with God is a 
matter of attitude, not of purchase or compensation. 
The teaching of the Acts of the Apostles agrees 
with that of the Synoptics. There is no hint in 
the early preaching of the Church, as recorded in 
this work, of a propitiatory value in the death of 
Jesus. Jesus is, indeed, described as a ' Saviour,' 
but in the sense that He gives ' repentance to 
Israel and remission of sins (Ac 5 81 ), i.e. He is 
able to bring about a change in the hearts of men, 
and, in accordance with prophetic teaching, pardon 
follows repentance (cf. the description of the 
preaching of the Baptist, as that of ' repentance 
unto remission of sins,' Mk I 4 ). 

But, with the exception of the authors of the 
Synoptics, the Acts, and the Epistle of James, 
the writers of the NT are strongly influenced by 
the propitiatory theory of the death of Jesus. The 
passage of the ' Suffering Servant' (Is 53 4( - lof -) sug- 
gested a doctrine which seemed to throw light 



upon the ignominious death of Jesus upon the 
Cross. The ' stumbling-block ' to the Jewish mind 
became the Christian's boast. How the sacrifice 
was regarded as operating is not clear the analogy 
of Levitical blood sacrifices was evidently some- 
times in the mind of the writers (Ro 3 25 , 1 P I 19 , 
Jn I 29 , etc. ). St. Paul also holds the idea that the 
death of Jesus is a sign of His human submission 
to the elemental world-powers of darkness, who, 
since Adam, have hela the world under their 
grievous rule (HDB, art. ' Elements' ; also Wrede, 
Paul, Eng. tr., 1907, p. 95). But, being more 
than man, He rises from the dead. The Resur- 
rection is a sign that Death one of the elemental 
principalities and powers, and representative of 
the rest has no longer dominion over Him 
(Ro 6 9 ), or over those in ' faith' union with Him. 
But these ' world-powers of darkness,' whose dues 
the death of Jesus was conceived as satisfying, are 
but a thinly disguised form of God's retribution 
for Adam's sin. Ultimately the propitiation is 
still made to God, although the emphasis is drawn 
from the wrath of God to the love which inspired 
the propitiatory action (cf. Jn 3 16 , Ro S 25 5 8 , etc.). 
From this point, St. Paul follows the anti-legal 
teaching of Jesus in asserting that ' justification 
right relations with God depends on the new 
attitude of ' faith,' not on ' works ' ; but legalisrn 
with St. Paul must be satisfied by the prior trans- 
action of Jesus on the Cross. 

The difficulty in the doctrine of propitiation does 
not lie in the fact that no ultimate distinction can 
be made between the Power to whom propitiation 
is offered and the God of love who offers it. Inde- 
pendently of the interests of this particular doctrine, 
we must accept the paradox that the same God 
who works under the limitation of law ordains the 
law which limits Him. But we cannot accept the 
interpretation of the death of Jesus as an exalted 
Levitical blood sacrifice, or as a transaction with the 
' world-powers of darkness,' nor can we be satisfied 
with a presentation of an angry God, who needs 
compensation or some mollifying gift before He will 
turn away the fierceness of His wrath. The sacri- 
fices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and con- 
trite heart He will not despise (Ps 51 17 ). It would 
seem more satisfactory to follow the suggestions 
of the Synoptics and the Acts, and find the recon- 
ciling work of Jesus, as directed not towards God, 
but towards men, bringing about in them a repent- 
ance which makes possible their harmonious rela- 
tions with the Father. 

The death of Jesus may be regarded partly as a 
vicarious sacrifice of the order recognized in the 
Synoptics suffering and self-denial for the sake of 
the Kingdom of God, for conscience, and men's 
uplifting. The justification of this law of sacrifice 
(' Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good 
have its birth of pain ' [Whittier, The Preacher}) 
is that it makes possible the expression of moral 
qualities. In order that love may have significance, 
it must pay a price must be written upon a hard 
resisting world, as labour and self-denial. This 
demand of law is obviously not indicative of Divine 
displeasure or opposition. 

The death of Jesus may also be regarded as part 
of the penalty of human sin. If men had not been 
selfish, hypocritical, apathetic to goodness and 
justice, there would not have been the tragedy on 
Calvary. In virtue of race solidarity, the sins of 
an evil and adulterous generation fell upon Him. 
This dark law that the innocent must suffer the 
results of transgression along with the guilty has 
an educative value in demonstrating the evil and 
disastrous nature of sin, which is doubly terrible 
since the suffering which it creates falls upon the 
just as well as upon the unjust, sometimes even 
more upon the former than upon the latter. The 



ANGEK 



AtfOLNTLNG 



65 



penalty of sin indicates the Divine displeasure 
towards sin, but not necessarily towards those who 
pay the penalty, for obviously God cannot be con- 
ceived as being angry with innocent sufferers, 
involved in the results of others' sins. Neither 
must we regard God as angry with a repentant 
sinner because he continues to reap what he has 
sown. The forgiveness of sin is distinct from 
the cancelling of its results, which, in accord- 
ance with educative moral law, must run their 
course. 

One's trust in the forgiveness of God rests upon 
the sense of the divinity of human forgiveness 
' By all that He requires of me, I know what God 
Himself must be' (Whittier, Revelation). If we 
must judge the anger of God from the righteous 
indignation of a good man, we cannot think of 
His cherishing any vindictiveness, or needing any 
propitiation to induce Him to forgive, when the 
sinner seeks His face. Nor can a view of recon- 
ciliation held by the most sternly ethical of the 
OT prophets, and by the purest soul of the NT, 
be considered as weakening the sense of sin, and 
minimizing the grace of pardon. 

The Day of Wrath. From the time of Amos, 
OT prophetism had conceived a darker side to 
Israel's still more ancient conception of the Day 
of the Lord. It would be a time when human 
wrongdoing, much of which was apparently over- 
looked in this age, would receive its sure reward, 
although genuine repentance would apparently 
avert the coming anger (Jl 2, Am 5^-, Jer 18 8 ). 
That 'great and notable Day' (Ac 2 20 ), with its 
darker aspects, entered largely into NT thought 
(Mt 3 7 T 22 , Lk 10 12 , 2 Th I 8 '-, etc.). It is to this 
coming Dies Irce that the actual term ' wrath of 
God ' ((fy>yfy TOV 0eoC) is almost uniformly applied by 
NT writers. Some of the Divine indignation may 
be manifested in the present operation of moral 
law the penalties experienced by the ungodly 
heathen seem to be part of the Divine wrath 
which ' is being revealed ' (diroKaMTTTerai) from 
heaven (Ro I 18t ) ; and, according to 13 4 , the 
temporal ruler punishing evil-doers is ' a minister 
of God, an avenger for (Divine) wrath,' i.e. a 
human instrument carrying out in this age the 
Divine retribution. But the emphasis is upon 
'the wrath to come.' In the present age, moral 
law only imperfectly operates. The sinner is 
treasuring up for himself 'wrath in the day of 
wrath ' (Ro 2 5 ), when upon every soul that worketh 
evil shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation 
and anguish (v. 9 ; cf. Rev II 18 6 16 - 17 , where the 
Divine anger is spoken of as ' the wrath of the 
Lamb'). Repentance before the Day of Wrath 
will save one from the coming doom (Ac 2 21 - ** *, 
Eph 2 s ), and the provision of these days of grace 
modifies the conception of the Divine sternness 
(Ro Q 22 ). The 'Law,' in making transgression 
possible, ' worketh wrath ' (Ro 4 1S ), but Christ, by 
His reconciliation of man and God, delivers the 
believer from the 'wrath to come' (1 Th I 10 5 9 ). 
The NT significance of 6pyJ; Oeov is illustrated in 
Ro 5 9 , where St. Paul argues from the fact of 
present reconciliation with God that the saints 
will be delivered from the 'wrath of God.' Even 
where the Divine anger is described as having 
already had its manifestation, the reference may 
really be eschatological (Ritschl). The aorist of 
1 Th 2 16 (t<j>9affev 8t iir afootis ^ 6pyi) els rAos) seems 
to indicate that, in the Apostle's judgment, some 
historical manifestation or God's wrath upon the 
Jews has already taken place, but St. Paul may 
regard such an indication of the Divine anger as 
the preliminary movements of the Day of Wrath. 
The clouds were already gathering for that con- 
summation which the Apostle was expecting in 
his own lifetime (1 Th 4 16 ). 
VOL. i. 5 



LITERATURE. A. Ritschl, de Ira Dei, Bonn, 1859, Justifica- 
tion and Atonement, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1900; R. W. Dale, 
The Atonement"*, London, 1878 ; D. W. Simon, Redemption o) 
Man'*, do. 1906 ; O. Lodge, Man and the Universe, do. 1908, chs. 
7 and 8 ; P. Gardner, Exploratio Eoangelica, do. 1899, chs. 29, 
31. For human anger : J. Butler's Sermong, 8 and 9 ; J. R. 
Seeley, EcceHomo, 1866, pp. 21-23 ; Tolstoi, Essays and Letters, 
Ch. 12. H. BULCOCK. 

ANNAS (Gr. 'Avvas, Heb. j:n, 'merciful' [in 
Josephus, Ananos]). Annas the son of Sethi, ap- 
pointed high priest by yuirinius in A.D. 6 or 7, 
retained office till he was deposed by Valerius 
Gratus in A.D. 15 (Jos. Ant. xvill. ii. 1, 2). 
Josephus tells us that he was regarded as the most 
fortunate of men, for he had five sons who all held 
the office of high priest (Ant. XX. ix. 1). From 
the Fourth Gospel we learn that Joseph Caiaphas, 
the high priest at the date of the Crucifixion, was 
a son-in-law of Annas (Jn 18 13 ). His removal from 
office in A.D. 15 did not by any means diminish his 
influence. Being extremely wealthy, he was able 
to exert the powers of high priest long after he 
was deposed. His wealth and that of his sons 
was acquired by the institution of the ' booths or 
bazaars of the sons of Annas,' which enjoyed the 
monopoly for the sale of all kinds of sacrificial 
requirements. These booths were situated either 
in the temple court (Keim, Jesus of Nazara, v. 
116; Edersneim, LT iii. 5) or on the Mount of 
Olives ( J. Derenbourg, Essai sur Fhistoire . . . dela 
Palestine, 1867, p. 465). The words of Jesus re- 
garding the unholy traffic (Mt 21 13 , Lk 19 46 ) aroused 
the hostility of the priestly party and led to His 
arrest and examination by Annas ( Jn 18 13 "- 4 ). The 
Talmud accuses the sons of Annas of ' serpentlike 
hissings' (or whisperings [Pes. 57]). Probably 
the meaning is that they exerted private influ- 
ence on the judges and perverted justice for their 
own ends. Their attitude towards Jesus and the 
apostles as revealed in the NT seems to bear out 
this interpretation. Although, as we have seen, 
Annas was deposed from the high-priestly office in 
A.D. 15, he retains the title all through the NT. 
Both Josephus and the writers of the NT uniformly 
give the title ' high priest ' not only to the actual 
occupant of the office at the time, but to all his 
predecessors who were still alive, as well as to all 
the more influential members of the families from 
which the high priests were selected. The phrase 
in Lk 3 a ' in the high-priesthood of Annas and 
Caiaphas' is unique, and may be accounted for 
by the fact that the combination had become so 
familiar in connexion with the history of the 
Crucifixion that St. Luke couples the two to- 
gether here (Ewald, HI, vol. vi. [1883] p. 430, 
n. 3). 

The important and influential position held by 
Annas even after his deposition is proved by the 
fact that it was to him that Jesus was first sent 
before He appeared at the more formal tribunal of 
the Sanhedrin ( Jn 18 1S ). The interview with Annas 
(Jn 18 19 " 23 ) determined the fate of the prisoner, and 
probably Annas was the chief instigator in com- 
passing the death. In Ac 4 8 Annas again appears 
as the head of the party who tried the apostles 
and enjoined them to keep silent about the 
Resurrection. 

LITERATURE. Josephus, Antiquities, passim; A. Eders- 
heim, LT i. [1886] 263 ; T. Keim, Jesus of A'azara, 1867-1882, 
vi. 36 ff. ; E. Schiirer, GJV* ii. [1907] 256, 270, 274, 275. 

W. F. BOYD. 
ANNIHILATION. See ESCHATOLOGY. 

ANOINTING. Anointing was used in antiquity 
in three chief connexions : (1) as a part of the 
toilet, to beautify, strengthen, and refresh the 
body ; (2) medicinally ; (3) as a part of religious 
ceremonial. From the last-named sprang (4) the 
use of terms of anointing in a metaphorical sense 



66 



ANOINTING 



ANSWER 



to signify, e.g., the imparting of the Divine Spirit, 
whether to the Messiah or to the Christian dis- 
ciple. 

1. So far as the first use is concerned, examples 
within our period may be found in the anointing 
of the Lord's feet (Lk I 36 - *>, Jn 12 3 ) and in Mt 6 17 
' anoint thy head, and wash thy face.' 

2. Instances of the second occur in Jn 9*' n , 
Rev 3 18 ' eyesalve to anoint thine eyes,' and are 
generally found in Mk 6 13 ' they anointed with oil 
many that were sick, and healed them,' and Ja 5 14 
' Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders 
of the church ; and let them pray over him, anoint- 
ing him with oil in the name of the Lord.' The 
commentators on these texts generally quote pass- 
ages to prove that the use of oil was well known 
in medicine, and leave it to be understood that the 
apostles in the Gospel and the elders in the Epistle 
are thought of as making use of the simplest heal- 
ing remedy known to them. This method of in- 
terpretation does not seem satisfactory, because 
the parallels quoted do not bear out the point. In 
Is 1* and Lk 10 34 oil is used as a remedy for 
wounds, not for internal sickness. Herod in his 
last illness was placed in a bath of warm oil (Jos. 
BJ I. xxxiii. 5), but this was only one amongst 
several methods of treatment used in his case, and 
was no doubt employed because of the open and 
running sores on his body. Galen (Med. Temp., 
bk. ii. ) speaks of oil as the ' best of medicines for 
withered and dry bodies,' but that does not mean 
that he would have advocated the indiscriminate 
use of oil in cases of sickness due to various causes. 
Philo's praise of oil for imparting vigour to the 
flesh (Somn. ii. 8) must not be pressed into an advo- 
cacy of it as a panacea against all forms of dis- 
ease. It must remain doubtful whether the two 
NT passages can be reasonably understood to mean 
that oil was used as a simple medical remedy with- 
out deeper signification. 

3. The use of anointing in religious ceremony 
was very varied. It was applied both to persons 
as, e.g., to the kings and high priests and to in- 
animate things. 1 his is not the place to investi- 
gate the original signification of the act of anoint- 
ing in religious ceremonies (see Robertson Smith, 
Eel. Sem. 2 , 1894, pp. 233, 383 ; ERE, HDB, SDB, 
EBi, art. 'Anointing'), but it seems clear that it 
came to signify the consecration of persons and 
things to the service of God, and also the com- 
munication to, e.g., the kings, of the Divine Spirit 
(see E. Kautzsch, in HDB v. 659). That is to say, 
anointing had in part the nature of a sacrament. 
And it seems probable that something of this sort 
underlies the passages Mk 6 13 , Ja 5 14 . The anoint- 
ing oil was not merely medicinal, but consecrated 
the patient to God, and, together with prayer, was 
the means of conveying to him the Divine healing 
life. We may compare a passage in the Secrets of 
Enoch (22 s ), where Enoch, when carried into the 
presence of God, is anointed with holy oil, with 
the result (56 4 ) that he needs no food, and is purged 
from earthly passions. 

4. Instances of the metaphorical use of anoint- 
ing to signify the communication of the Divine 
Spirit are to be found in 1 Jn 2 1>0 - a ' ye have an 
anointing from the Holy One,' ' his anointing 
teacheth you all things.' ' Anointing' here means 
the material, not the act, of anointing, and so the 
grace of the Holy Spirit. The same metaphorical 
use is found in 2 Co I 21 , ' He that hath anointed 
us is God ' ; and in the passages in which Christ is 
spoken of as having been anointed, Ac 4 s7 10 38 , 
He I 9 (OT quot.). A passage in the recently dis- 
covered Odes of Solomon (36 5 ), ' He hath anointed 
:ue from his own perfection,' may be referred to 
here. It is uncertain whether the speaker is Christ 
or the Christian. Allusions to a custom of anoint- 



ing dead bodies are found in Mk 14 s and the 
parallels, and in Mk 16'. 

Lastly, reference should be made to the absten- 
tion from anointing by the Essenes (Jos. BJ II. 
viii. 3). This is explained by Schiirer (HJP II. 
ii. 212) as a part of an attempt to return to the 
simplicity of nature ; by Bousset (Rel. des Jud. 2 , 
Berlin, 1906, p. 442) as a protest against the priest- 
hood, whose authority rested upon anointing. 

LITERATURE. See the artt. 'Anointing' in ERE, HDB, and 
EBi ; and, for the development of the doctrine of Extreme 
Unction in the Church, J. B. Mayor on Ja 514 (Ep. of St. 
James*, 1910); see also ExpT xvii. [1900] 418 ff., and the 
literature there cited. WlLLOUGHBY C. ALLEN. 

ANSWER. Passing over the very large number 
of occurrences of this word in the common sense of 
'reply ' (diroKpivo/j.ai., d.jr6/c/3icris), there are one or two 
interesting usages to note before we come to the 
most theologically significant use of the term. 
Thus in Tit 2 9 slaves are enjoined not to ' answer 
again' (AV; RV 'gainsay,' avriXtyw) ; in Gal 4 M 
' this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answer- 
eth to (i.e. ' corresponds with,' ffvo-roixtu) the Jeru- 
salem that now is' ; in Ro II 4 St. Paul, discussing 
the despair of Elijah, asks ' What saith the answer 
(XpTwaTUTfids, ' Divine oracle ') of God unto him ? ' 

The passages with which we are most concerned, 
however, are those which speak of the Christian 
answer or 'defence' (so usually in RV) against 
critics from within or without the Church (diro- 
\oy{ofj.at, da-oXoyi'a). In the life of St. Paul we have, 
e.g., his 'answer' or apologia before Felix (Ac24 loar> ), 
before Festus (25 8ff> ), and before Agrippa (26 ia ). 
The charges brought against him were that he had 
incited the people to sedition (24 s 25 s ), that lie had 
profaned the Temple (24 8 ), and that he was a ring- 
leader of the Sect of the Nazarenes (24 5 ). His 
defence was skilfully directed in each case to the 
rebutting of the charges, to the conciliation of his 
judges, and to the demand that as a Roman citizen 
he should be tried before Caesar. Before Agrippa 
and Festus he defended himself so successfully that 
they agreed that, if he had not appealed to Caesar, 
he might have been set at liberty, but having made 
the appeal he could no longer withdraw. In 2 Ti 
4 16 St. Paul is represented as complaining that at 
his 'first answer' (before Caesar) no man took his 
part, but that ' all men forsook him ' (cf. I 16 ). With 
these instances may be compared the remarkable 
' answer ' of St. Stephen before the Sanhedrin (Ac 7). 

Of probably even greater interest than these 
defences before civil tribunals are St. Paul's 
answers to those who denied his Apostleship, 
the Judaizers who followed him from place to 
place and attempted to undermine his teaching 
and influence among his converts in his absence 
a fact to which we largely owe the letters to the 
Galatians and the Corinthians, or at least the 
most characteristic and polemical portions of them. 
The same or other enemies charged him with 
inconsistency (1 Co 10 2 ' 11 etc.), and brought other 
charges against him (II 7 - 8 - 9 , 1 Co 9 2 ), such as 
the charge of being mean in appearance (10 7 ' 10 ), 
of being rude of speech (11"), of being a visionary 
(12 7 ), and of other things not mentioned, whicii 
evidently inspired certain obscure references 
throughout these chapters. St. Paul's apologia 
meets these charges with a vehement assertion of 
his innocence, of his full Apostleship, of his com- 
petency to utter forth the gospel from fullness of 
knowledge (II 6 ), and of his abundant sufferings and 
self-denial for the sake of his converts. The large 
space given to these apologies and personal re- 
joinders is remote from our modern habit of 
mind, but it should be borne in mind that every 
educated man in these days was expected by the 
Greeks to be ready to take free part in polemics 



AimCHKIST 



AKTICHEIST 



67 



of this kind, and to defend himself vigorously 
against attack. In 1 P 3 1S we have the well-known 
injunction to be ' ready always to give answer to 
every man that asketn you a reason concerning 
the hope that is in you,' whether before a judge or 
in informal conversation which should probably 
be interpreted in this sense. In v. 21 of the same 
chapter ' the answer (AV) of a good conscience 
towards God' is a difficult phrase, and the com- 
mentaries should be consulted. 4-irepwTrifj.a. can 
hardly mean 'answer,' and the RV translates 
' interrogation ' (see a long note in Huther in 
Meyer's Com. pp. 192-197). C. Bigg (ICC, in loc.) 
interprets it of the baptismal question or demand. 
The Epistle to the Hebrews has been called ' the 
first Christian apology,' in the sense of a definite 
and reasoned defence of the Christian faith and 
position. It had its forerunners in the speeches of 
St. Paul already referred to, and its successors in 
the long line of Ante-Nicene 'apologies,' of which 
those of Justin Martyr and Tertullian are two 
outstanding examples. 

LITERATURE. Comm. on the passages cited; E. F. Scott, 
The Apologetic of the flew Testament, 1907; H. M. Gwatkin, 
Early Church History, 1909, ch. xi., and similar works ; W. M. 
Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, St. Paul 
the Traveller and Roman Citizen, 1895 ; T. R. Glover, The 
Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 1909. 

E. GRIFFITH JONES. 

ANTICHRIST (dvT/xpwros). The word is found 
in the NT only in 1 Jn 2 18 - 4 8 , 2 Jn 7 , but the 
idea further appears in the Gospels, the Pauline 
Epistles, and above all in the Apocalypse. It 
is not, however, an idea original to Christianity, 
but an adaptation of Jewisn conceptions which, 
as Bousset has shown (The Antichrist Legend), 
had developed before the time of Christ into a 
full-grown Antichrist legend of a hostile counter- 
part of the Messiah who would make war against 
Him but whom He would finally overthrow. The 
NT references to the subject cannot be rightly 
appreciated without some previous consideration 
or the corresponding ideas that were present in 
Judaism before they were taken over by Chris- 
tianity. 

1. The Antichrist of Judaism. Although the 
word ' Antichrist ' does not occur till we come to 
the Johannine Epistles, we have many evidences 
in pre-Christian Jewish literature, canonical and 
extra-canonical, that there was a widely spread 
idea of a supreme adversary who should rise up 
against God, His Kingdom and people, or His 
Messiah. The strands that went to the composi- 
tion of the idea were various and strangely inter- 
woven, and much obscurity still hangs over the 
subject. But it seems possible to distinguish 
three chief influences that went to the shaping of 
the Jewish conception as it existed at the time of 
Christ. 

(1) Earliest of all was the ancient dragon-myth 
of the Babylonian Creation-epic, with its represent- 
ation of the struggle of Tiamat, the princess of chaos 
and darkness, against Marduk, the god of order 
and light. The myth appears to have belonged 
to the common stock of Semitic ideas, and must 
have become familiar to the Hebrews from their 
earliest settlement in Canaan, if indeed it was not 
part of the ancestral tradition carried with them 
from their original Aramaean home. In any case, 
it would be revived in their minds through their 
close contact with the Babylonian mythology 
during exilic and post-exilic times. Traces of 
this dragon-myth appear here and there in the 
OT, e.g. in the story of the Temptation in Gn 3, 
where, as in Rev 12 9 20 2 , the serpent=the dragon; 
and in the later apocalyptic literature a dragon 
represents the hostile powers that rise up in 
opposition to God and His Kingdom (Pas. Sol. ii. 
29). But it was characteristic of the forward look 



of Prophetism and Messianism that the idea of a 
conflict between God and the dragon was trans- 
ferred from cosmogony to eschatology and repre- 
sented as a culminating episode of the last days 
(Is 27 1 , Dn 7). 

(2) Side by side with the dragon-myth must be 
set the Beliar (Belial) conception, a contribution 
to Jewish thought from the side of Persian dualism, 
with its idea of an adversary in whom is embodied 
not merely, as in the Babylonian Creation-story, 
the natural forces of chaos and darkness, but all 
the hostile powers of moral evil. In 1 Ch 21 1 
Satan is evidently represented as God's adversary, 
just as we find him in later Jewish and primitive 
Christian thought. And in the interval between 
OT and NT Beliar is frequently used as a synonym 
for Satan, the Devil or arch-demon (e.g. Jubilees, 
15 ; cf. 2 Co 6 18 ). The Beliar idea was a much 
later influence than the dragon-myth, for Baby- 
lonian religion offers no real parallel to a belief in 
the Devil, and Cheyne's suggested derivation of 
the name from Belili, the goddess of the under 
world (EBi, art. ' Belial '), has little to recommend 
it. But a subsequent fusion of Beliar with the 
dragon was very natural, and we have a striking 
illustration of it when in Wis 2 124 and elsewhere 
the serpent of the Temptation is identified with 
the Devil. Cf. Rev 12 9 20 2 , where ' the dragon, 
the old serpent,' is explained to be ' the Devil and 
Satan.' 

(3) But the development of the Messianic hope in 
Judaism was a more determinative influence than 
either of those already mentioned. The Jewish 
Antichrist was very far from being a mere pre- 
cipitate of Babylonian mythology and Iranian 
eschatology. It was, above all, a counterpart of 
the Messianic idea, as that was derived from the 
prophets and evolved under the experiences of 
Jewish national history. Ezekiel's prophecy of 
the overthrow of Gog and Magog (Ezk 38) ; 
Zechariah's vision of the destruction of the de- 
stroyers of Jerusalem (Zee 14) ; above all, the repre- 
sentation in Daniel, with reference to Antiochus 
Epiphanes, of a world-power that waxed great 
even to the host of heaven (Dn 8 10 ), and trod the 
sanctuary under foot (v. 13 ), and stood up against 
the Prince of princes until it was finally ' broken 
without hand (v. 28 ) all contributed to the idea 
of a great coming conflict with the powers of a 
godless world before the Divine Kingdom could 
be set up. And when, by a process of synthesis, 
the scattered elements of Messianic prophecy 
began to gather round the figure of a personal 
Messiah, a King who should represent Jahweh 
upon earth, it was natural that the various utter- 
ances of OT prophecy regarding an evil power 
which was hostile to God and His Kingdom and 
people should also be combined in the conception 
of a personal adversary. Ezekiel's frequent re- 
ferences to Gog (chs. 38, 39) would lend them- 
selves to this, and so would the picture in Daniel 
of the little horn magnifying itself even against 
the prince of the host (8 U ). And the preoccupa- 
tion of the later Judaism with utterances like 
these, sharpened as it was by hatred of the 
heathen conquerors not merely as political enemies 
but as enemies of Jahweh and His Kingdom, 
would render all the easier that process of per- 
sonalizing an Antichrist over against the Christ 
which appears to have completed itself within the 
sphere of Judaism (cf. Apoc. Bar. 40, Asc. Is. 4 9 - 11 ). 

2. Antichrist in the NT. Deriving from Judaism, 
Christianity would naturally carry the Antichrist 
tradition with it as part of its inheritance. That 
it actually did so Bousset has shown by a com- 
prehensive treatment of the later Christian exe- 
getical and apologetic literature, which evidently 
rests on a tradition that is only partially dependent 



ANTICHRIST 



ANTICHRIST 



on the NT (op. cit. ; cf. EBi i. 180 iff.). But, so 
far as the NT is concerned, the earlier Antichrist 
tradition is taken over with important changes, due 
to the differences between Judaism arid Christianity, 
and especially to the differences in their conception 
of the Messiah Himself. At the same time it must 
be noticed that nothing like a single consistent pre- 
sentation of the Antichrist idea is given by the 
NT as a whole. Elements of the conception appear 
in the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Apocalypse, 
and the Johannine Epistles ; but in each group of 
writings it is treated differently and with more or 
less divergence from the earlier Jewish forms. 

(1) In the Gospels. In the Synoptic Gospels it 
is everywhere apparent that Jesus recognized the 
existence of a kingdom of evil under the control 
of a supreme personality, variously called the 
Devil (Mt 4 1 13 39 , etc.), Satan (Mt 4 10 12 26 , Lk 10 18 , 
etc.), or Beelzebub (Mt 12 34ff -||), who sought to 
interfere with His own Messianic mission (4 1 '" 16 23 !!), 
and whose works He had come to destroy (Mk I 24 - ** 
311. 12. is ) g tc . cf.He 2 14 ). But from all the crude and 
materialistic elements of the earlier tradition His 
teaching is entirely free. In the reference to the 
' abomination of desolation ' standing in the holy 
place (Mt 24 1S ; cf. Mk 13", Lk 21 20 ), which occurs 
in the great eschatological discourse, some critics 
have seen a parallel to 2 Th 2 1 ' 12 and an evident 
allusion to the Jewish Antichrist tradition ; but 
they do so on the presumption that the words 
were not spoken by Jesus Himself and are to be 
attributed to a redactor of the original source. If 
they were uttered by our Lord, it seems most pro- 
bable that they portended not any apocalypse of a 
personal Antichrist, but the destruction of Jerusalem 
by the Roman armies a calamity which He had 
already foreshadowed as coming upon the city 
because of its rejection of Himself (23 m ). For the 
adversaries of the Son of Man, the real representa- 
tives of the Antichrist spirit in His eyes, were the 
false Christs and false prophets by whom many 
should be deceived (24 5 - w ) in other words, the 
champions of that worldly idea of the coming 
Kingdom which He had always rejected (Mt 4 1 *- 
16 23 , Jn 6 16 ), but to which the Jewish nation 
obstinately clung. 

(2) In the Pauline Epistles. A familiarity on 
the part of St. Paul with the Antichrist tradition 
is suggested when he asks in 2 Co 6 15 , ' What con- 
cord hath Christ with Belial ? ' and when he speaks 
in Col 2 15 of Christ triumphing over 'the princi- 
palities and powers.' This familiarity becomes 
evident in 'the little apocalypse' of 2 Th 2 1 ' 12 , 
where he introduces the figure of the 'man of sin,' 
or more correctly ' man of lawlessness.' Nestle 
has shown (ExpT xyi. [1904-5] 472) that the 
Beliar-Satan conception underlies this whole 
passage, with its thought of an opponent of Christ, 
or Antichrist, whom the Lord at last shall 'slay 
with the breath of his mouth and bring to nought 
by the manifestation of his coming ' (v. 8 ). But the 
distinctive character of this Pauline view of the 
Antichrist is that, while features in the picture 
are evidently taken from the description of 
Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel (cf. v. 4 with 
Dn 7 25 II 36 ), the Antichrist is conceived of, not 
after the fashion of the later Judaism as a heathen 
potentate and oppressor, but as a false Messiah 
from within the circle of Judaism itself, who is to 
work by means of false signs and lying wonders, 
and so to turn men's hearts away from that love 
of the truth which brings salvation (v. 9 ). See, 
further, MAN OF SIN. 

(3) In the Apocalypse. As follows naturally both 
from its subject and from its literary form, the 
Apocalypse is more permeated than any other book 
in the NT with the id>a of the Antichrist. For 
its subject is the speedy return of Christ to subdue 



His enemies and set up His Kingdom (Rev I 7 2 16 3 11 , 
etc.), and its form is an adaptation to Christianity 
of the ideas and imagery of those Jewish Apoca- 
lypses, from Daniel onwards, which were chiefly 
responsible for the growth of the Christian Anti- 
christ conception. It would be out of place to 
enter here into any discussion of the conflicting 
interpretations of the symbolism of the dragon and 
the beasts that appear and reappear from ch. 11 
to the end of the book (see artt. APOCALYPSE, 
DRAGON). But in ch. 11 'the beast that coineth 
up out of the abyss ' was evidently suggested by 
the dragon-myth as embodied in the Jewish Anti- 
christ tradition, while the 'great red dragon' of 
12 3 , who is also described as ' the old serpent, he 
that is called the Devil and Satan ' (v. 9 ), and who 
is clearly represented as the Antichrist (vv. 4 - 5 - 17 ), 
reproduces both the mythical dragon and the later 
Beliar-Satan conception, now fused into one ap- 
palling figure. Again, the scarlet-coloured beast 
of 13 1 '* and the realm of the beast in ch. 17 are 
described in language which recalls the apocalyptic 
imagery of Daniel (see esp. ch. 7), and clearly 
applies to a hostile and persecuting world-power 
represented by its ruler. In Daniel that power 
was the kingdom of the Seleucidoe under Antiochus 
Epiphanes ; here it is very plainly indicated as 
the Roman Empire (17 8 - 8 - 18 ) with the Emperor 
at its head (13^ 8 ). But to these pre-Christian 
forms of the Antichrist tradition the dragon, 
Satan, and a hostile world-power the Apocalypse 
contributes two others which are peculiar to 
Christianity and which play a large part in the 
Christian tradition of later times. 

The first of these is found in the application to 
Christian ideas of the Antichrist of the con- 
temporary Nero-saga, with its dream of a Nero 
Redivivus who should come back to the world from 
the realms of the dead (cf. Sib. Or. iv. 119ff. ; 
Suetonius, Nero, 47 ; Augustine, de Civ. Dei, 
xx. 19). That Nero is referred to in 13 18 is most 
probable, the number 666 being the equivalent 
of Nero Caesar (NEPiiN KAISAP) when written in 
Heb. characters (nop p-u). And the legend of his 
return from the under world of the dead explains 
in the most natural way the healing of the beast's 
death-stroke (13 3 - 12 ) and the statement that it 
' shall ascend out of the bottomless pit . . . and 
they that dwell on the earth shall wonder when 
they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not, 
and shall come' (17 8 ). See also art. APOCALYPSE. 

The second contribution was the idea of the false 
prophet (16 13 19 20 20 10 ), who is to be identified with 
' another beast ' of 13 11 ff -. It is most probable that 
the false prophet represents the Imperial priesthood 
as propagandists of the Caesar-cult, but it seems 
not unlikely that elements in the representation 
are taken from the legend that had grown up 
around the name of Simon Magus (cf. Justin 
Martyr, Apol. i. 26, 56 ; Irenaeus, c. Hcer. i. 23). 
To the early Church, Simon with his magic arts 
and false miracles was the arch-heretic and the 
father of all heresy, and suggestions of his legend- 
ary figure loom out from the description of the 
second beast (13 13 ' 18 ), even while the author attri- 
butes to it functions and powers that belong more 
properly to the ministers of the Emperor-worship 
(v.i 2 ). 

(4) In the Johannine Epistles. In these writings, 
where the word ' Antichrist ' appears for the first 
time, the idea is spiritualized as nowhere else in 
the NT except in the teaching of Jesus. The 
Antichrist is not, as in the Apocalypse, a material 
world-power threatening the Church from without, 
but a spirit of false doctrine rising up from within 
(1 Jn 2 19 ). It is true that Antichrist is spoken of 
as still to come (2 18 4 s ), so that some culminating 
manifestation is evidently expected probably in 



ANTINOMIANISM 



ANTIOCH 



69 



a definite personal form. But even now, it is said, 
there are many antichrists (2 18 ; cf. 2 Jn 7 ), and the 
spirit of Antichrist is already in the world (1 Jn 4 3 ). 
And the very essence of that spirit is the denial of 
'the Father and the Son' (2 22 ), i.e. the refusal to 
acknowledge the Son as well as the Father ; more 
explicitly it is the refusal to confess that Jesus 
Christ is come in the riesh (4 s - 3 , 2 Jn 7 ). The 
spirit of Antichrist, in other words, is a spirit of 
heresy such heresy as flourished in Asia Minor 
towards the close of the 1st century through the 
doctrines of Cerinthus (q.v.). 

When the NT utterances regarding the Anti- 
christ are looked at in their variety and as a whole, 
it is difficult to derive from tliem any justification 
for the view that the Church should expect the 
advent of a personal Antichrist as an individual 
embodiment of evil. The NT authors were evi- 
dently influenced in their treatment of the subject 
by contemporary situations as well as by an inherit- 
ance of ancient traditions. To St. Paul, writing 
out of his own experience of Jewish persecution 
and Roman justice and protection, Judaism was 
the ' man of lawlessness,' and Rome the beneficent 
restraining power. To the Apocalyptist, writing 
to a Church which had known Nero's cruelty and 
now under Domitian was passing through the 
flames once more, Antichrist was the Roman 
Empire represented by a ruler who was hostile to 
Christianity because it refused to worship him as 
a god. In the Johannine Epistles, Antichrist is 
not a persecuting power but a heretical spirit, 
present in the world already but destined to come 
in fuller power. The ultimate authority for our 
thoughts on the subject must be found in the words 
of Jesus when He teaches us to pray for deliver- 
ance from 'the evil one' (Mt 6 13 ), and warns us 
against false Christs and false prophets who pro- 
claim a kingdom that is not His own (24 24 ). 

LITERATURE. H. Gunkel, Sehopfung und Chaos, Gottingen, 

1895 ; W. Bousset, The Antichrist Lerjend, Eng. tr., London, 

1896 ; W. O. E. Oesterley, The Evolution of the Messianic 
Idea, do. 1908 ; C. Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its 
N on- Jewish Sources, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1912; artt. 'Anti- 
christ ' in PRE 3, ERE, and EBi, and ' Man of Sin ' in HDB ; 
H. Cremer, Bib.-Th.eol. Lex., s.v. ; J. Moffatt, ' Revelation ' in 
EOT; ExpT xvi. [1904-5] 472, xxiii. [1911-12] 97. 

J. C. LAMBERT. 
ANTINOMIANISM. See LAW. 

ANTIOCH ('AjTioxeta). 1. In Syria. About 20 
miles from the Mediterranean, the Orontes, turning 
abruptly westward, enters a fertile plain, 10 miles 
long and 5 wide, which separates the great Lebanon 
range from the last spurs of the Taurus. Here 
Seleucus Nicator, after his defeat of Antigonus at 
Issus in 301 B.C., discovered an ideal site for the 
capital of his Syrian kingdom, the Asiatic portion 
of the vast empire of Alexander the Great, and here 
he built the most famous of the 16 Antiochs which 
he founded in honour of his father Antiochus. 
Planned by Xenarius, the original city occupied 
the level ground between the river and Mt. Silpius, 
and, like all the Hellenistic foundations in Syria, 
it had two broad colonnaded streets intersecting at 
the centre, or Omphalus. The Seleucid kings vied 
with one another in extending and adorning their 
metropolis. A second quarter was added on the 
eastern side, perhaps by Antiochus I. ; a third, the 
' New City,' was built by Seleucus Callinicus on an 
island similar to the island in the Seine at Paris 
which has since disappeared, probably owing to 
one of those seismic disturbances to which the 
region has always been peculiarly subject ; .and a 
fourth, on the lowest slopes of Silpius, was the 
work of Antiochus Epiphanes. Henceforth the 
city was known as a Tetrapolis, or union of four 
cities (Strabo, XVI. ii. 4). Such was the magnificent 
Greek substitute for the ancient and beautiful but 



too essentially Semitic capital of Syria Damascus. 
A navigable river and a fine seaport Seleucia of 
Pieria made it practically a maritime city, while 
caravan roads converging from Arabia and Meso- 
potamia brought to it the commerce of the East. 
It attained its highest political importance in the 
time of Antiochus the Great, whose power was 
shattered by the Romans at Magnesia. In 83 B.C. 
it fell into the hands of Tigranes of Armenia, from 
whom it was wrested by the Roman Republic in 
65 B.C. Thereafter it was the capital of the pro- 
vince of Syria, and the residence of the Imperial 
legate. Pompey made it a civitas libera, and such 
it remained till the time of Antoninus Pius, who 
made it a colonia. The early emperors often visited 
it, and embellished it with new streets and public 
buildings. 

During the Jewish wars (69 B.C.) ' Vespasian took with him 
his army from Antioch, which is the metropolis of Syria, and 
without dispute deserves the place of the third city in the 
habitable world that is under the Roman Empire, both in 
magnitude and in other marks of prosperity ' (Jos. BJ in. ii. 4). 
In the 4th cent. Chrysostom estimated the population at 200,000, 
of whom 100,000 were then Christians, and probably he did 
not reckon slaves and children. 

Antioch was called ' the Beautiful ' (ij KO.\-^ 
[Athen. i. p. 20]), but its moral repute was never 
high. ' In no city of antiquity was the enjoyment 
of life so much the main thing, and its duties so 
incidental, as in "Antioch upon Daphne," as the city 
was significantly called' (Mommsen, Prov. z , 1909, 
ii. 128). The pleasure-garden of Daphne, 5 miles 
from the city, 10 miles in circumference, with its 
sanctuary of Apollo, its groves of laurel and cypress, 
its sparkling fountains, its colonnades and halls 
and baths, has come down through history with 
an evil name. Daphnici mores were proverbial, 
and Juvenal flung one of his wittiest jibes at his 
own decadent Imperial city when he said that the 
Orontes had flowed into the Tiber (Sat. iii. 62), 
flooding Rome with the superstition and immorality 
of the East The brilliant civilization and perfect 
art of the Greek failed to redeem the turbulent, 
fickle, and dissolute character of the Syrian. In- 
stead of either race being improved by the contact, 
each rather infected the other with its characteristic 
vices. Cicero flattered Antioch as a city of ' most 
learned men and most liberal studies ' (pro Arch. 
iii. ), but the sober verdict of history is different. 

' Amidst all this luxury the Muses did not find themselves at 
home ; science in earnest and not less earnest art were never 
truly cultivated in Syria and more especially in Antioch. . . . 
This people valued only the day. No Greek region has so few 
memorial-stones to show as Syria ; the great Antioch, the third 
city of the empire, has to say nothing of the land of hiero- 
glyphics and obelisks left behind fewer inscriptions than many 
a small African or Arabian village ' (Mommsen, op. cit. 130, 131f.). 

No city, however, after Jerusalem, is so closely 
associated with the Apostolic Church. From its 
very foundation it had in its population a strong 
Jewish element, attracted by the offer of ' privileges 
equal to those of the Macedonians and Greeks ' (Jos. 
Ant. XII. iii. 1). The Jewish nation ' had the great- 
est multitudes in Antioch by reason of the size of 
the city. . . . They made proselytes of a great 
many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after 
a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own 
body ' (BJ\ll. iii. 3). While the Judaism of Antioch 
did not assimilate Hellenic culture so readily as that 
of Alexandria, and certainly made no such con- 
tribution to the permanent thought of the world, it 
yet did much to prepare the city for the gospel. 
' Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch,' who was early 
won to Christianity, and is named among the Seven 
of the Jerusalem Church (Ac 6*), was evidently one 
of that great number of Antiochene Greeks who had 
previously felt the spell of the Jewish faith. And it 
was the mixture of national elements in the Church 
of Antioch pure Greeks with Greek-speaking Jews 
that peculiarly fitted her to play a remarkable 



70 



AXTIOCH 



ANTIOCH 



part in the Apostolic Age. Her distinction was 
that, while unquestionably the daughter of the 
Jewish Christian community at Jerusalem, full of 
filial gratitude and devotion, she became the first 
Gentile Church, and the mother of all the others. 
The diaspora that followed the death of Stephen 
brought many fugitive Jewish Christian preachers 
to Antioch, and some Cypriotes and Cyrenians 
among them inaugurated a new era by going beyond 
the Hellenist Jews for an audience and preaching to 
'the Greeks also' (Ac II 20 ). icai irpbs TOI>S "EXXijcas 
is probably the correct reading, in spite of ' many 
ancient authorities' who have 'EXX^ttrrds ; other- 
wise the historian's words would be singularly point- 
less. The new evangelism resulted in many con- 
versions (II 21 ), and the vigilant Church in Jerusalem 
sent Barnabas down, if not to assist in the work, at 
least to supervise it. It was the merit of Barnabas 
that he could not be a mere onlooker. Grasping 
the situation, and flinging himself impetuously 
into the novel movement, he went, apparently 
without consulting anybody, to Tarsus to summon 
Paul to his lifework. In Antioch the two men 
exercised a united and fruitful ministry for a year 
(H22-28) jt was a t thj s time and in this place that 
'the disciples were first called Christians' (II 26 ), 
the designation probably coming from the lively 
populace, who quickly noted the new phenomenon 
in their midst, and justified their reputation for 
the invention of nicknames. Their wit never spared 
anybody who seemed worthy of their attention. 

' The only talent which indisputably belonged to them their 
mastery of ridicule they exercised not merely against the 
actors of their stage, but no less against the rulers sojourning 
in the capital of the East, and the ridicule was quite the same 
against the actor as against the emperor.' While Julian ' met 
their sarcastic sayings with satirical writings, the Antiochenes 
at other times had to pay more severely for their evil speaking 
and their other sins ' (Mommsen, Provinces, ii. 134, 135). 

But the ' Christians ' gratefully accepted the 
mocking sobriquet bestowed upon them, changing 
it into the most honourable of all titles (cf. 1 P 4 16 ). 
And the first Gentile Church was now to become 
the first missionary Church. While Antioch was 
never wanting in respect for Jerusalem, contribut- 
ing liberally to its poor in a time of famine, and 
consulting its leaders in all matters of doctrine 
and practice, her distinguishing characteristic was 
her evangelistic originality. Her heart was not 
in Judaea but in the Roman Empire. The fresh 
ideas of Christian liberty and Christian duty, 
which the mother-Church at Jerusalem was slow 
to entertain, found ready acceptance in the freer 
atmosphere of the Syrian capital. That the 
victory over Judaism was not easily won even 
there is proved by the fact that not only Peter 
but Barnabas vacillated under the alternate in- 
fluence of cosmopolitan liberalism and Judaean 
narrowness, till Paul's arguments and rebukes 
convinced them of their error (Gal 2 4 ' 14 ). But 
contact with the great world and sympathy with 
its needs probably did more than the force of 
reason to lighten the Antiochene Church of the 
dead-weight of Judaism. Christians of Hellenic 
culture and Roman citizenship taught her a noble 
universalism, and it was accordingly at the in- 
stance of the Church of Antioch that the Council 
of Jerusalem sent to the Gentile converts a circular 
letter which became the charter of spiritual freedom 
(Ac 15 23 " 29 ). Above all, it was from Antioch that 
Paul started on each of his missionary journeys 
(Ac II 1 - 8 15 86 18 28 ), and to Antioch that he returned 
again and again with his report of fresh conquests 
( 14 28 18 22j "j t was tne master-minds of Christian 
Antioch who at length changed the pathetic dream 
of ' a light to lighten the Gentiles ' into a reality. 

Antioch gave rise to a school of Christian 
thought which was distinguished by literal inter- 
pretation of the Scriptures and insistence upon the 



human limitations of Jesus. Theodore of Mop- 
suestia was one of its best representatives. Be- 
tween the years 252 and 380, ten Councils were 
held at Antioch. Antakiyeh is now but a meagre 
town of 600 inhabitants, though its environs ' are 
even at the present day, in spite of all neglect, a 
blooming garden and one of the most charming 
spots on earth' (Mommsen, ii. 129). 

LITERATURE. C. O. Millie r, Antiquitates Antiochence, 
Gottingen, 1839 ; Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, London, 1872, 
i. 149 ff. ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and Reman 
Citizen, dp. 1895, also Church in Rom. Emp., do. 1893, chs. 
ii.-vii., xvi. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897; 
C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Eng. tr., London, 1897. 

2. In Pisidia ( Ac 13 U RV, 'A. T> ILundiav, ' Pisidian 
Antioch,' which is the correct reading, instead of 
'A. T^J n.tffi5ias). This city was probably founded 
by Seleucus Nicator (301-280 B.c.) about the same 
time as Syrian Antioch, being another of the many 
cities which he called after his father Antiochus. 
It was intended as a garrison town and a centre 
of Hellenic influence in the heart of Asia Minor, 
commanding the great trade route between Ephesus 
and the Cilician Gates. Guided by Strabo's de- 
scription of the place (XII. viii. 14), as standing 
' on a height ' to the south of a ' backbone of 
mountains, stretching from east to west,' Arundell 
identified it in 1833 with the extensive ruins of 
Yalowatch, on the skirts of the long Sultan Dagh, 
about 3600 ft. above sea-level, overlooking the great 
plain which is drained by the river Anthios. 

After the battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.), which 
cost Antiochus the Great the whole of his dominions 
north of the Taurus, the Romans made Antioch a 
free city. In 39 B.C. Mark Antony gave it to king 
Amyntas, after whose death in 25 B.c. it became 
a city of the vast Roman province of Galatia. At 
some time before 6 B.C., Augustus raised it to the 
rank of a colony Pisidarum colonia Ccesarea 
(Pliny, HN v. 24) and made it the governing and 
military centre of the southern half of the province. 
Its importance increased when the first emperors 
found it necessary to pacify the ' barbarian ' high- 
landers of Pisidia. ' In the mountain-land proper 
no trace of Hellenistic settlement is found, and 
still less did the Roman senate apply itself to this 
difficult task. Augustus did so ; and only here 
in the whole Greek coast we meet a series of 
colonies of Roman veterans evidently intended 
to acquire this district for peaceful settlement ' 
(Mommsen, Provinces, i. 336 f.). Roman roads 
connected Antioch with all the other colonies 
founded in the district Olbasa, Comama, Cremna, 
Parlais, and Lystra. The work of pacification was 
in especially active progress during the reign of 
Claudius (A.D. 41-54), in which St. Paul visited 
Antioch. The city was not yet ' Antioch in 
Pisidia' (AV), being correctly styled by Strabo 
' Antioch towards Pisidia ' f A. ^ irp6s Hiaidia KO\OV- 
fdrq [XH. viii. 14]), in distinction from Antioch 
on the Maeander ; but St. Luke already calls it 
' Pisidian Antioch,' to differentiate it from Antioch 
in Syria. The boundaries of Pisidia gradually 
moved northward till it included most of Southern 
Phrygia, and then ' Antioch of Pisidia ' became 
the usual designation of the city. At a still later 
period Pisidia was constituted a Roman province, 
with Antioch as its capital. 

On the South-Galatian theory, in the form ad- 
vocated by Ramsay (Church in Bom, Emp., 74 ff.), 
Antioch is regarded by St. Luke as belonging to the 
Phrygio-Galatic region (T-JJK Qpvylav ical TaXcm/d?? 
X<*>pa-v> Ac 16 6 ), Phrygian being a geographical term 
and Galatic a political, the one used by the Greeks 
and the other by the Roman government. In 
Ac 18 23 the region is simply called ' Phrygian,' and 
if, as many think, fyvyiav is here to be taken as a 
noun, the sense is still much the same (see GALATIA 
and PHRYGIA). St. Paul's first mission to Antioch 



ANTIPAS 



APOCALYPSE 



71 



was so successful that the whole political regio of 
which this colony was the centre soon heard of the 
new faith (Ac 13 49 ). In no other Asian city, except 
Ephesus, was the influence of his preaching so far- 
reaching. His success was no doubt in great 
measure due to the strong Jewish element in the 
population, even though it was Jewish persecution 
that compelled him to leave the city for a time 
(Ac IS*- 80 ). The early Seleucid kings settled 
Jews in many of their cities, and gave them the 
same civic rights as the Greeks, finding them to 
be trusty supporters and often real Hellenizers. 
Antiochus the Great settled 2000 Jewish families 
in Lydia and Phrygia (Jos. Ant. xn. iii. 4), many 
of whom must have found a home in Antioch. 
Trade doubtless attracted others to so important 
a centre, and thus the Jewish leaven had been 
working for a long time before Christianity was 
introduced. Ramsay thinks that ' the Jews are 
likely to have exercised greater political power 
among the Anatolian people, with their yielding 
and easily moulded minds, than in any other part 
of the Roman world ' (Hist, Com. on Gal., 193) ; and 
their spiritual influence was at least as great. 
St. Paul found many ' devout proselytes ' in 
Antioch (Ac 13 43 ), and his presence attracted ' the 
whole city' to the synagogue (13 44 ). While the 
native Phrygian type of religious feeling was 
more eastern than western, and thus had a certain 
natural affinity with the Semitic type, the Phrygian 
Jews, whose laxity gave deep offence to the rigidly 
orthodox, no doubt increased their power among 
their neighbours by their freedom from bigotry. 
The attraction of the Jewish faith for Gentile 
women (rds <rej3ofjivas ywalKas, Ac 13 60 ) was a 
familiar theme in ancient writings (Juvenal, vi. 
543 ; Jos. BJ II. xx. 2) ; and the influence of 
' women of honourable estate ' (T&J etf<7x^/*oi'as), not 
only in Antioch but in Asia Minor generally, is 
one of the most striking features in the social life 
of the country (Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, i. 
219; Ramsay, Church in Rom. Emp., 67). Strabo 
(loc. cit.) mentions another fact which may help 
to explain the rapid progress of Christianity in 
Antioch : ' In this place was established a priest- 
hood of Men Arcseus, having attached to it a 
multitude of temple slaves and tracts of sacred 
territory. It was abolished after the death of 
Amyntas by those who were sent to settle the 
succession to his kingdom.' This drastic action 
of the Romans had removed one of the greatest 
obstacles to the new faith the vested interests of 
an old and powerful hierarchy. 

LITERATURE. F. V. J. Arundell, Discoveries in Asia Minor, 
London, 1834, i. 281 f. ; Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, do. 
1872, i. 204 f. ; W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Com. on Gal., do. 1899, 
pp. 196-213, Church in Rom. Emp., do. 1893, passim ; J. R. S. 
Sterrett, Wol/e Expedition to Asia Minor, Boston, 1888, 



p. 218 L 

ANTIPAS. See HEROD. 



JAMES STRAHAN. 



ANTIPAS (shorter form of Antipater [Jos. Ant. 
XIV. i. 3 : ' this Antipatros was at first called 
Antipas'] as Hermas is of Hermodorus, Lucas of 
Lucanus, and Silvas of Silvanus). Antipas, other- 
wise unknown, is mentioned in Rev 2 13 . Later 
Greek tradition made him bishop of Pergamum, 
martyred under Domitian by being thrown into a 
brazen bull which stood at the temple of Diana, 
and so roasted alive.* The name has been allegor- 
ized as anti-pas ( = ' against all ') or anti-papa. The 
character of the Apocalypse, again, admits the 
hypothesis that the name refers to the God Pan. 
Pan was worshipped at Ephesus and in many 

* Neumann (Der Rom. Stoat M. die allgemeine Kirche, 1890, i. 
15) suggests that Antipas was the only martyr who suffered in 
Pergamum, but Ramsay (Letters to the Seven Churches, 288) 
maintains that he was the first of a long series. 



cities in Asia Minor no record of his worship at 
Pergamum is extant under the strong influences 
of Arcadian and Peloponnesian cults. It is not 
impossible, therefore, that the Christian Church 
at Pergamum is praised for its opposition to the 
heathen Pan. Cf. BALAAM, NlCOLAlTANS. 

LITERATURE. AS, April, ii. [1866] 3ff., 961; Roscher, iii. 
1369; H. B. Swete, Apocalypse, ad loc. ; H. Alford, Gr. Test., 
ad loc. ; W. M. Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire^, 1897, 
Letters to the Seven Churches, 1904 ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic 
Age, Eng. tr. 1894 ; A. C. McGiffert, Hist, of Christianity in 
the Apost. Age, 1897. W. P. COBB. 

ANTIPATRIS (' AvTlTrarpis). Antipatris, a Hel- 
lenistic town of Palestine, stood at the eastern 
edge of the Plain of Sharon, where the military 
road from Jerusalem to Caesarea left the hills. 
Under the protection of a body of Roman cavalry 
and infantry, St. Paul was brought thither by 
night, and thence, with a diminished escort, to 
Ceesarea (Ac 23 31< 32 ). Antipatris was a border town 
between Judaea and Samaria (Neubauer, Geogr. du 
Talm., 1868, p. 80 f.), and after it was reached there 
would be less danger of a Jewish attack. Josephus 
(Ant. XVI. v. 2) gives an account of its foundation : 

' Herod erected another city in the plain called Kapharsaba, 
where he chose out a fit place, both for plenty of water and 
goodness of soil, and proper for the production of what was 
there planted, where a river encompassed the city itself, and 
a grove of the best trees for magnitude was round about it : 
this he named Antipatris, from his father Antipater.' 

The historian elsewhere identifies it with Kaphar- 
saba (Ant. XIII. xv. 1), and Robinson (Biblical 
Researches, iv. 139 f.), followed by Schiirer (II. i. 
130 f.), naturally concludes that the site must be 
the modern Kefr Saba ; but, as the latter place 
cannot be described as well-watered, Conder, 
Warren, G. A. Smith, and Buhl all favour Ras- 
el-'Ain, a little farther south, at the source of the 
Aujah. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ANTITYPE. See TYPE. 
ANTONIA. See CASTLE. 
ANXIETY. See CARE, CAREFUL. 

APELLES (' A.irf\\Tjs, a Greek name possibly con- 
tracted from Apollodorus, and apparently common 
among Jews of the Dispersion [cf. Hor. Sat. i. 5. 
100 : credat ludceus Apella, and Gow's suggestion, 
ad loc., that, as modern Jews take a Gentile name 
which closely resembles their Hebrew name, so in 
ancient times a Jew called Abel might choose the 
name Apelles]). Apelles, saluted by St. Paul in Ro 
16 10 , is called ' the approved in Christ' (rbv SbKipov 
tv X/>IOT). The phrase may indicate that he had 
been specially tested and tried by affliction or per- 
secution, or that he was a Christian who had gained 
the approbation of the Church, sufficiently perhaps 
to be called to the ministry (cf. 1 Ti 3 10 ). Nothing 
is known of Apelles beyond this reference. 

Assuming the Roman destination of these saluta- 
tions, he was probably a Jewish convert residing in 
Rome as a member of the Imperial household. 
As the salutation which follows is that to ' the 
household of Aristobulus,' it has been suggested 
that Apelles' Christian activity may have lain in 
that direction. If Aristobulus (q.v. ) was the grand- 
son of Herod, Apelles would no doubt find in his 
' household ' many members of his own race. The 
name Apelles is known to have belonged to the 
Imperial household. It was borne by a famous 
tragic actor in the time of the Emperor Caius (see 
Lightfoot, Philippians 4 , 1878, p. 174). 

T. B. ALLWORTHY. 

APOCALYPSE. I. INTRODUCTION. 1. The 
word 'apocalypse' in the NT. diro/cdXi^ts ('re- 
velation ') occurs some eighteen times in the NT. 
The general sense is ' instruction concerning Divine 



72 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



things before unknown especially those relating 
to the Christian salvation given to the soul by 
God or the ascended Christ, especially through 
the operation of the Holy Spirit (1 Co 2 10 ) ' (Grimm- 
Thayer). The word was important to St. Paul 
when he wished to express his independence of the 
Krst apostles in reference to his knowledge of the 
gospel and even to the steps taken to come to an 
understanding with them (Eph 3 3 , Gal 2 2 ). The 
object of diro/cdXu^is is, therefore, a mystery 
(Ko 16 25 ). The gospel without it would remain 
unknown, with it it is an 'open secret.'* The 
source, as also the end or object, of diroK<i\vif/is is 
God or Jesus Christ, and the mode may be vision 
or ecstasy (2 Co 12 1 ). It may also be, however, 
events which strike the general eye, e.g. ' the 
righteous judgment of God' (Ro 2 5 ) ; ' diroKdXv^w 
of the sons of God' (8 19 ), i.e. 'the glory that is 
manifestly given to some, showing them to be sons 
of God ' ; ' dTi-o/cdXi^ij of the glory of Christ '(IP 4 13 ), 
t.e. ' the glory with which He will return from 
heaven ' (Grimm-Thayer). The return is called the 
' dTTo/cdXv^is of the Lord Jesus Christ' (2 Th I 7 , 
1 Co I 7 , 1 P I 2 - 13 ). As a prophet is one to whom 
truth comes not from man but from God, what he 
utters may be called an dxoAcdXi^is, and he himself 
may be said to ' have an dTro/cdXw^j,' or to speak 
fr diroKaXtfi/' (1 Co 14 26 ; cf. v. 6 ). It is a fact of 
much suggestiveness for the subject of this article 
(see below) that, so far as the NT is concerned, 
the prophet and the apocalyptist may be considered 
one and the same. 

2. The NT Apocalypse of John as the type of 
apocalyptic writings. Though in the sense of the 
Christian creed the whole Bible is by pre-eminence 
the literature of apocalypse or revelation, there is 
only one book in each Testament to which the 
name has been given. In the NT we have the 
Apocalypse of John and in the OT we have the 
Book of Daniel, which is unmistakably both in 
style and substance of the same literary genus. 
The latter is apart from what may be called 
apocalyptic fragments in the older prophetical writ- 
ings, e.g. Is 24 the oldest known Apocalypse, and 
has served as a model for subsequent writings of 
the class. Daniel and the Apocalypse of John 
mark respectively the beginning and the end of 
what may be called the apocalyptic period, which 
thus covers upwards of 260 years (say 168 B.C. to 
A.D. 96).t It thus appears that, while there is an 
apocalyptic element in practically all the books of 
the NT (see below), there is only one writing be- 
longing to the Apostolic Age which is as a whole 
of the apocalyptic class, and which, despite much 
controversy in the early centuries,^ has held its 
place among the books of authority recognized by 
the Christian Church. This circumstance alone 
might warrant the almost exclusive devotion of 
this article to an account of this book, but such 
concentration offers, besides, the advantage of 
showing the leading features of the apocalyptic 
style as they appear, so to speak, synthetically, 
interwoven with an actual situation a crisis on 
which the mind of the apocalyptist reacts. In 
regard to the uncanonical apocalypses, if one may 
not say, after studying the Apocalypse, ' Ex uno 
disce omnes,' one may remember the attention 
paid to the lesser apocalypses during the last half- 
century, and say that the creepers have not 
suffered from the overshadowing of the cypress. 

* Denney, et al. 

t Daniel belongs to the time of the persecution of the Jews 
under the Greek-Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes (168-165 B.C.) ; 
the Apoc. of John probably to the persecution of the Christians 
under the Roman emperor Domitian (A.D. 81-96). 

* The canonicity of the Apocalypse was controverted, esp. in 
the Eastern Church, and it was not till A.D. 215 that the 
Western Church, under the leadership of Hippolytus, accepted 
it. The East finally yielded to the West. 

Verg. Ed. i. 25 f., quoted by Moffatt (EGT v. 295). 



3. Non-canonical apocalypses of the Apostolic 
Age. As, however, both the Apocalypse and the 
other books of the NT contain implicit references, 
and, in at least one case,* an explicit reference to 
other apocalypses, a list may here be given of the 
non-canonical apocalypses, either wholly or partly 
extant, and of others whose existence may be in- 
ferred from quotations of them found in the early 
Fathers. They may be classified under three 
heads : (A) Jewish, (B) Jewish - Christian, (C) 
Hellenic or Gentile. 

(A) Under this head fall : (a) The cycle known as Enoch, which 
includes : (a) The Ethiopia Enoch, so called because it survives 
chiefly in an Ethiopic Version. It includes : (1) chs. 1-36, 72-108 
(c. 100 B.C.) ; (2) chs. 37-71 (' Book of Similitudes '), which be- 
longs probably to the early days of the Herodian dynasty, and is 
therefore close to the Christian era. In this book't occur those 
references to the pre-existent Messiah under the title ' Son of 
man,' which Hilgenfeld and others have ascribed to Christian 
interpolation, but whose direct debt is probably only to Daniel 
(see esp. Dn 7 )3 ). (ft) The Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, before A.D. 
70. (b) Assumption of Moses (q.v.) not later than A.D. 10. (c) 
Apocalypse of Ezra, usually cited as Fourth Ezra (2 Esdras 
[q.v.] of English 'Apocrypha,' chs. 3-14), after A.D. 90. (d) 
Apocalypse of Baruch (q.v.), about the same time as U Ezra. 
(e) The Testament of Abraham, perhaps the 1st cent. A.D. (f) 
The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs (q.v.), probably the 1st 
cent. A.D. (a), (b), (d), and (f) are best accessible to the English 
reader in the careful editions of R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1893, 
1897, 1896, 1908. In regard to (c), we have, in addition to the 
scholarly editions of James and Bensly, G. H. Box's The 
Ezra-Apocalypse (London, 1912). For (e), we have the edition 
of M. R. James (Cambridge, 1892). N.B. See now also R. H. 
Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the OT, Oxford, 
1913. 

Closely related to the apocalyptical books are : (g) The 
Psalms of Solomon, 64-40 B.C., edited by Ryle and James 
(Cambridge, 1891) under the alternative title Psalms of the 
Pharisees. (h) The Book of Jubilees, probably before Christ. 
See Charles' translation in JQR vi. [1894] 710, vii. [1895] 297. 
(i) The Ascension of Isaiah (q.v.) Jewish part=the Martyrdom 
of Isaiah (21-312 and 52-14), Charles' edition (London, 1900). In 
addition to these extant books are 4, which are known to us 
only through citations in Origen and other Fathers : (j) The 
Prayer of Joseph (k) The Book of Eldad and Medad ; ([) The 
Apocalypse of Elijah ; (m) The Apocalypse of Zephaniah. 

(B) Under this head would fall not so much apocalypses 
written independent^' by Jews who were Christians for, if we 
except the Apocalypse of John, such books are hardly known 
to have existed as (a) Selections from Jewish apocalypses 
of matter embodying beliefs common to Jews and Christians ; 
and (6) Christian interpolations of Jewish apocalypses. Of 
these (a) are by far the more frequent. The OT was the Bible 
of the early Christians, and such an example as that of Jude 14f ' 
(cf. En. 19), taken along with the implicit references to apoca- 
lyptic writings which are found in the Apocalypse and other 
books of the NT (see below), reveals a tendenc3' among the 
Christians to extend the range of the Canon ; it points at the 
same time to the large amount of matter, both within and be- 
j ond the Canon, that was common to Jews and Christians. It 
is, indeed, a fact worthy of special notice that at an early period, 
which we may date roughly from the fall of the Jewish State 
in A.D. 70, apocalyptic literature begins to lose interest for the 
Synagogue in proportion as it gains it for the Christian Church. 
This fact invests the apocalyptic literature with a peculiar 
interest for the student of the Apostolic Age. There is the 
general question as to how that age of early Christians came to 
value and even to produce apocalyptic books, which we convert 
here into the more concrete question, How could it produce the 
Apocalypse of John? There is the dogmatic question, What are 
the elements in this book which entitle it to the position of 
authority it holds to this day ? For (b), examples of Christian 
interpolation may be found in The Ascension of Isaiah, which 
is Christian in all but 21-312 and 52- ; and in chs. 1 and 2, and 
15 and 16 of A Ezra which are sometimes quoted as 5 and 6 
Ezra respectively. 

(C) Hellenic apocalypses. The Sibylline Oracles (q.v.), 
' Jewish works under a heathen mask ' (Schiirer), are the best 
instance under this head. They are the work of Hellenistic' 
Jews, and are written in Greek hexameters for Gentiles, under 
names which have authority for such readers. The fact that 
they have been subjected to considerable Christian interpolation 
testifies to the extent of their circulation. Much the best edition 
of them, based on 14 MSS, is that of Rzach (flracvla Sibyllina, 
Vienna, 1891). English readers may consult Schiirer's HJP n. iii. 
288-92; Edinb. Review (July 1877); Deane's Pseudepigrapha 
(1891), 276ft.; Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii. 

As an example of distinctively Christian work, produced 
under more decidedly Hellenic influence than is to be found in 
works of Jewish origin, may be mentioned the Apocalypse of 
Peter, a large part of which was edited for the English readr 
in 1892. Strong claims to canonicity were made for it in early 
times, and its teaching largely influenced later Christian ideas 



* Jude "f. ; C f. Eth. En. 1. 

t 482f 622 etc. See L. A. Muirhead, The Times of Christ, 
Edinburgh, 1905, pp. 141 f., 147. 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



73 



of heaven and hell. ' It is as strongly Greek as Revelation [the 
Apoc. of John] is Jewish, having a close relation to the Greek 
Orphic Literature. It concerns the lot of souls after death, 
whereas Revelation, like the Jewish apocalypses, is more con- 
cerned with the course of world-history' (Porter, from whose 
Messages of the Apoc. Writer*, 7ff., these lists are mainly taken). 

4. Period and general characteristics of apoca- 
lyptic literature. Before passing to an account of 
the Apocalypse of John we must try to form a 
definite idea of the characteristic features of apoca- 
lyptic literature its design, form, and leading 
ideas. From the point of view of the student of 
the NT, apocalypse must be considered as of purely 
Jewish growth.* As we have seen, the period 
within which apocalyptic literature was produced 
occupied over a century and a half before the 
birth of Christ and about a century after. It is 
thus the accompaniment and interpretation of the 
last great struggle of the Jewish people for that 
political independence with an implicit idea of 
supremacy which seemed to be due to the Chosen 
People. Within this period fall the comparative 
victory (Maccabsean triumph), varying fortunes 
(political importance, accompanied with decline of 
religious fervour ; dissensions between the lax 
hellenizing and the puritanical patriotic party), 
and the ultimate seeming extinction (capture of 
Jerusalem by Titus A.D. 70) of this ideal. The 
apocalyptists are the instructors and encouragers 
of the people in the name of God in reference to 
that Kingdom which, in spite of the greatness of 
the world-powers that are their rivals and the 
enemies of Jahweh, is yet to come to them from 
God and to be realized in the world. In Daniel, 
which belongs to the period of the Maccabsean 
struggle, we may see the high-water mark of 
spiritual faith reached by this ideal ; in the fact 
that after the fall of the Jewish State, the kernel t 
of the nation, the Jews of the stricter synagogue, 
ceased to cherish the apocalypses and perhaps 
even suppressed J them, we have an index of the 
limitations of the ideal. The Kingdom, however 
loftily conceived by the seers of the nation, was 
still in the actual thought of the orthodox Jew too 
much of this world and of his own nation. Be- 
tween this flow and ebb lies the history of apoca- 
lypse, as it is to be read within the limits of 
Judaism. It is a record of great hopes and fideli- 
ties, but also of great disappointments and of 
failures both in conception and fulfilment. The 
great apocalypses were written in periods of stress. 
Judging from Daniel, we may say, perhaps, the 
greater the stress the truer the inspiration of the 
apocalyptist. The leading ideas are simple but 
great ; the tribulation is real. It will last for a 
measured while, and even increase. The troubling 
powers are tierce and violent. They rage like wild 
beasts and seem to be of great power ; but their 
power passes, and the Kingdom comes to the faith- 
ful and the patient. Death does not end every- 
thing either for the faithful or for the lawless, and 
there is special bliss for those who lose life for 
righteousness' sake. 

As to the literary form of the apocalypses, the 
most salient distinguishing feature is a certain 

* That is to say, questions as to the affinities of its phrase- 
ology and conceptions with those of heathen mythology belong 
rather to the study of the OT. Long before ' John ' writes, the 
mythological conceptions have passed through the mill of the 
spirit that is distinctive of the Jewish faith. " What further re- 
finement they need is supplied by the mill of the Christian 
fulfilment. 

t Yet what is here said is not altogether true of the Jews of 
the Dispersion. 

* The apocalypses survive for the most part not in their 
native Hebrew or Aramaic but in Greek, and in the dialects of 
the districts where they were received, and where they were 
read more by Christians than by Jews. 

Dn 12 2 . is fairly cited as probably the only passage in the OT 
that clearly teaches a bodily resurrection for individual Israel- 
ites. The resurrection would seem to be universal as regards 
Israel (though this is doubtful), but nothing is said of the 
heathen. 



obscurity of imagery, which sometimes takes the 
form of a grotesqueness, and of an incongruity in 
details, which are excusable only upon the supposi- 
tion that the awkward imagery was capable of the 
twofold task of conveying the meaning to those 
for whom it was intended, and of veiling it from 
others. 

This obscurity of style is connected with the 
fact that apocalypses were, so far as we know, in 
nearly every case pseudonymous. Daniel was not 
written, like the prophecies of Isaiah or Jeremiah, 
to be spoken. It was written to be read. Prob- 
ably in the case of the author of Daniel, the 
pseudonymity was due, not so much to the feeling * 
that he would not be accepted by his fellow- 
countrymen as a prophet, as to the necessity of 
eluding the hostility and even the suspicion of the 
Syrian authorities. A prophet might be arrested 
in the street, a living author might be traced to his 
desk. But what could the Syrian do with the 
influence of writings that were three centuries 
old ? The example of the author of Daniel 
made pseudonymity a fashion. Writers who had 
no cause to fear arrest, but some perhaps to fear 
neglect, wrote in the names of prophets or saints 
of bygone days. It is difficult for us to conceive, 
how any one able to handle a pen could have been 
deceived by such fictions. On the other hand, 
there is a certain impressiveness in the fact that 
questions regarding the real state of matters (in 
the literary sense) do not seem to have emerged. 
Readers and interpreters of the apocalypses were 
concerned with their message for their own time. 
If an interpreter had thoughts of his own regarding 
the literary structure of an apocalypse, he sup- 
pressed them. His instinct told him, as its equiva- 
lent tells the modern preacher, that a text does 
not become the word of God until it is released 
from bondage to its historical meaning. At the 
same time their artificial literary style takes from 
the spiritual value of the apocalyptic writings. If 
real history, in so far as it deals with the past, is 
a veil though a transparent one between God 
and the spirit of the reader, the fiction of history, 
behind which the apocalyptic writer found it 
necessary (even were it in the interest of his 
message) to conceal himself, becomes, at least for 
later readers, a veil that is opaque. Parables that 
are puzzles can hardly be edifying. Some of the 
parables of Daniel are puzzles to this day. It is a 
question of some moment how far such criticism 
applies to the canonical Apocalypse of the NT. 

Besides community in general ideas and in 
pseudonymity, apocalypses have a certain com- 
munity in imagery. There is, as it were, a sample 
stock of images always accessible to the apoca- 
lyptist. 

On the side of good, we have (to take great 
examples) God and His throne, angels such as 
Michael and Gabriel, or angelic beings resembling 
men (of whom the chief, when he appears at all, is 
the Messiah), books written with the names of the 
saints, the paradise of God with its trees of healing 
and nourishment, the new creation with its wonders 
specialized in the new city and temple. On the 
side of evil, we have Satan, the opposer, deceiver, 
accuser, the monster of the deep (dragon or croco- 
dile), wild beasts of the land, which, however, rise 
out of the deep, t a ' man of lawlessness ' who 

* The feeling was, however, undoubtedly present. The 
author's appeal to ' books ' is a confession of it (Dn 9 2 ; cf. Jer 
25 11 '-). See L. A. Muirhead, The Escltatology of Jesus, London, 
1904, p. Tiff. 

t Cf. Rev 13'ff-, Dn 73^-, 4 Ezr. ISi^. In the last passage the 
figure of ' one like a man ' (the Messiah) rises from the sea, and 
then flies among the clouds, and the explanation is given : ' As 
none can find out what is in the depths of the sea, so none of 
the inhabitants of the earth can see my Son and his companions 
save at the hour of his day' (v.Sf.). The depth of the sea 
rather than the height of heaven seemed to 'Ezra' the surest 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



embodies all blasphemy, a ' great whore ' who 
incarnates all the abominations of the heathen 
world. In view of this sameness of the underlying 
imagery, the originality of an apocalyptist is to be 
seen more in the use of his material than in the 
material itself. The forces of good and evil remain 
the same, the general aspect of conflict between 
them the inherent strength of God's rule and the 
imminent collapse of the devil's remains to the 
prophetic eye the same, but persons and events 
change. The apocalyptist of truly prophetic spirit 
has his eye fixed on God and his own time ; and, 
while he uses what, abstractly considered, seems a 
cumbrous and partly alien literary form, he does 
so not to exercise a literary gift but to convey a 
message, the urgency of which lies on his spirit as 
a ' burden ' of the Lord. An obvious criterion of 
the rightfulness of his claim to be a prophet will be 
the ease and freedom with which he is able to 
adapt the material, imposed by his choice of the 
apocalyptic form, to the purpose of his message. 

Judged in this way, the Apocalypse of John 
shines in a light which no student of early Chris- 
tian literature can call other than brilliant. 
Whatever difficulties were felt by the early Fathers 
in giving it a place in the Canon, there is no book 
of the NT whose claim, once admitted, has been 
less a matter of subsequent doubt. Until less 
than a century ago, the Apocalypse was supposed 
to contain a forecast* of the entire career of 
the Church in time, but the modification, of this 
view through the clear perception that both pro- 
phets and apocalyptists wrote for their own time, 
attaching to its needs and prospects a certain 
finality, has not altered the belief of Christians 
in the permanent spiritual value of this unique 
book. 

II. THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. I. Scheme of 
the book. It is not possible to supply in this 
article anything like a Commentary or even an 
adequate Introduction to the Apocalypse. Yet it 
may be useful to precede a discussion of some of 
its salient features with the following scheme of 
its contents, which is an abbreviated version of 
that given by F. C. Porter in his invaluable 
manual (op. cit. 179 f.). 

Superscription, 11-3. 

A. The messages of Chrisfc to His Churches represented by 
the Seven Churches of Asia, 14-3 22 . 

(a) Introduction, including salutation, theme, attestation, 

14-8. 

(6) The Seer's Call, 19-20. 
(c) The Seven Messages, chs. 2 and 3. 

B. Visions of Judgment, composing the body of the book 
(chs. 4-20) intersected at chs. 7, 11, 14, and 19, with visions of the 
victory and bliss of the faithful. 

(o) Visions of God and Christ respectively performing and 
revealing, chs. 4 and 5. 

(6) First stages of the Judgment, including the opening of 
six seals,t the salvation of the faithful, and the destruc- 
tion of one-third of mankind at the sounding of six 
trumpets, chs. 6-9. 

(B) Last stages of the Judgment, issuing in the final overthrow 
of Satan and Borne, especially the imperial cultus (the 
' Beast '), and in the General Resurrection and Judgment. 
The Seer receives a new commission. He describes the 
conflict between the worshippers of the Beast and the 
followers of the Lamb, and his vision of the wrath of God 
in seven bowls, chs. 10-20. Note that a large portion of 
this section consists of assurances to the faithful and of 
songs of triumph, and much the greater part of the 
judgment portion (chs. 12, 17, 18, and 19) describes the 
fall of Rome. 

0. The Blessed Consummation, including the coming of God 



stronghold of secrets that should be inaccessible to men. On 
the representation of this idea in the Genesis narratives of 
creation and the relation of the latter to the Babylonian myth 
of M&rduk and Tiamat, see Gunkel, Schopfung u. 'Chaos, 1895. 

* In an obvious sense, of course, the book did contain such a 
forecast. As with every prophet, the end is within the vision 
of the writer. In his case it is to come ' shortly ' i.e. most 
likely within his own generation. 

t There are pauses after the 6th seal and the 6th trumpet. 
The 7th seal contains, as it were, the 7 trumpets, and the 7th 
trumpet contains the 7 bowls. 



to dwell with men and the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem, 
chs. 21 and 22. Note that both the Epilogue and the Prologue of 
the book solemnly emphasize the claim to be considered ' pro- 
phecy ' (22i8f. ; C f. 13). 

2. Examples of the problems. A few specimens 
may be given of the many fascinating problems 
which emerge for the student regarding: (1) the 
literary structure of the Apocalypse ; (2) the sig- 
nificance of some of its more prominent details. 

(1) In spite of its being, more than almost any 
other book of the NT (see below), saturated with 
reminiscences of books of the OT (esp. Dan., Ezek., 
Is., Jer., Joel, and generally all the portions of 
the OT which describe visions of God or offer 
pictures of bliss or woe), the book leaves the 
reader with a strong impression of its spiritual 
unity. The writer is a Christian and a prophet. 
His central positive theme is Christ Crucified, 
Risen, and Ascended (l m - 5 6 - 12ff -). The warrant, 
substance, and spirit of his prophecy are 'the 
testimony of Jesus,' a phrase in which the of seems 
to include both a subjective and an objective 
meaning* (19 10 ; cf. l lff -). The world to come is 
imminent, and its inheritors are the worshippers 
of God and the Lamb (I 8 '- 7 9ff - etc.). 

It is evident, however, as a few examples will 
be sufficient to show, that this general unity goes 
along with great looseness in the assimilation of 
borrowed material. 

Examples : (a) Ch. U is made up of portions of two apoca- 
lypses, one of which (represented by vv.i- a ) belongs to the 
time of the siege of Jerusalem (c. A.D. 70), and the other 
embodies a portion of the Antichrist legend, which related how 
Antichrist would slay Enoch and Elijah, returned from heaven, 
who would, however, be raised up by God or His angels 
Gabriel and Michael (see Bousset's Antichrist ; and Tert. de 
Anima). In the Apocalypse, Enoch becomes Moses, and what 
was previously described (v. 2 ) as the ' holy city ' becomes ' spiritu- 
ally Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was crucified ' (v.8). The 
general purpose to teach that the worshippers of the true God 
are safe (vv.i- 2 ), and that the powers of wicked men will not 
prevail against the testimony of law and prophecy to the true 
God (vv.3-12) is evident. But it is equally evident that the 
author is hampered in the expression of this message by a 
superabundance of borrowed and not quite congruous material. 
Though the time of the testimony of the two witnesses in v.3 
corresponds with that during which the holy city is to be 
trodden under foot by the Gentiles (cf. vv.2-3), the situation 
of the city at v.is does not correspond with that indicated at 
v. 2 any more than the holy city of the latter verse corresponds 
with ' Sodom and Egypt ' of v. 

(6) An example of composite structure, better known to 
modern students of the Apocalypse (through Gunkel's Schopf. 
u. Chaos), but more difficult to exhibit with precision, is the 
vision in ch. 12 of the Messiah-mother and the Dragon seeking 
to devour her child. The teaching of ' John ' is, again, evident 
enough. Satan has been overthrown by the birth and ascension 
of the Messiah. He has been cast down from heaven, but he is 
still permitted to persecute the Messianic community on earth. 
If his wrath is fierce, it is because his time is short. Let the 
persecuted lend their ear to the loud voice saying in heaven : 
Now is come salvation and the Kingdom of our God* 
(vv.17. 12. 10). it is clear, however, that, apart from a desire to 
use materials which lay to his hand in fragments of Jewish apoca- 
lypses, which borrowed and combined Babylonian, Egyptian, 
and Greek myths, he would not have expressed his meaning in 
the way we find in this chapter. The scene begins in heaven, 
and the woman is described (v. 1 ) in language appropriate to a 
goddess. Then she appears (v.), without explanation, on the 
earth, where she finds refuge and nourishment in the wilder- 
ness. The Dragon is then cast out of heaven to the earth (v. 9 ), 
although this ejection seems already to be assumed at v. 4 , and 
on the earth he pursues the woman to her retreat in the wilder- 
ness. A Christian meaning can doubtless be put into it all, but 
no one narrator could ever spontaneously have told the story 
in this way. For a brief and lucid attempt to conceive the 
possible process through which the immediate and remote 
materials passed in the hands of ' John," see Porter, op. cit. 
236 ff. 

(2) Of problems turning on more special points 
we have good instances in ch. 13. We may feel 
satisfied that the first Beast is, in general, the 
Roman Empire embodied in the person of the 
Emperor, while the second (the lamb that ' spake 
as a dragon,' v. 11 ) is the priesthood of the Imperial 

* The words ' the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy ' 
are a gloss (see the Commentaries), but they are entirely true 
to the writer's thought (I 1 ), and form with 1 Co 12 3 an interest- 
ing witness to the test applied to prophets in the early Church. 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



75 



cultus exercising a lamb-like office with all the 
ferocity of dragon-like tyrants. We may be satis- 
fied also that under the imagery of the first Beast 
the author must have thought both of Nero and 
Domitian. Still the questions remain : (a) What 
is the ' deadly wound ' that was healed (v. 12 )? (b) 
Who is the ' man ' whose number is the number 
of the Beast (v. 18 )? (c) Is the 'number' 666, or, 
as in some MSS, 616? These three questions are 
closely interdependent. It has been argued that, 
as the Beast is rather the Empire than an individual 
Emperor, the wound should refer to some event 
of public rather than of personal import. To 
the objection that v. 18 speaks expressly of the 
' number of a man,' it is replied that, on the 
analogy of 21 17 , this may simply mean that the 
number is to be reckoned in a human and not in 
a heavenly or angelic way. It is found that the 
Greek letters * of the phrase meaning ' the Latin 
Kingdom ' give the number 666, while the value 
of the letters in ' the Italian Kingdom ' is 616. 
Against the identification of the Beast with Nero 
it is further argued that the Hebrew equivalent of 
'Nero Caesar,' rightly spelt (i.e. with the yod ['] 
in ' Caesar '), f gives not 666 but 676. Accepting this 
point of view, we should still have to ask, What were 
the events that were respectively the inflicting and 
the healing of a deadly wound, and we are pre- 
sented with the alternative theories : assassina- 
tion of Julius Caasar (wound), accession of 
Augustus (healing) ; end of the Julian dynasty in 
Nero (wound), rise of the Flavian dynasty (heal- 
ing). On the other hand, it is contended that, 
apart even from v. 18 , the whole passage is too 
intense and too definite in its reference to exclude 
particular Emperors from the view of the author 
or his readers. He must have thought of Nero. 
Almost as certainly he must have thought of 
Domitian, whom he conceived as Nero Redivivus 
(17 11 ), and, not improbably, he also thought of 
Caligula, to whose attempt to set up his own statue 
in Jerusalem the Apocalypse of the blasphemous 
beast (considered as material borrowed by 'John ') 
might be supposed to have originally referred.:}: 
This might explain the variant 616, which is the 
number of Caligula's name. The omission of the 
yod in writing the Hebrew form of Caesar is not a 
serious difficulty (see Moffatt, op. cit.). Finally, 
Gunkel, finding the Bab. original of the Beast in 
the chaos-monster Tiamat overcome (in the crea- 
tion myth) by Marduk, has shown that the Heb. 
words njjiDnp a-\ni?(T e hdm kadhmdmyah='the primi- 
tive monster ') give the number 666. It might be 
supposed, therefore, that what struck 'John' was 
that the number of this primaeval beast, tradition- 
ally familiar to him, was also the number of a 
man, viz. Nero. There are serious linguistic 
objections to this view (see Moffatt), but it may 
suggest to us that the number containing three 
sixes had a traditional meaning. It may have 
meant the constant effort and failure of what is 
human to attain the Divine perfection, of which 
the number 7 was the symbol : so near yet so far 
off, ' O the little more, and how much it is.' 

All these varying views of ' John's ' meaning 
cannot be true in every particular. Yet we are, 
perhaps, nearer the truth in saying that portions 
of all of them must have passed through his mind 
than in deciding dogmatically in favour of one of 

The letters of both the Greek and the Hebrew alphabets 
have each a numerical value. 

t np'p not ipp ', cf. art. ANTICHRIST. 

J Cf. v. 5 with the description of Antiochus Epiphanes in 
Dn Il36ff. it seems to the present writer that ' John ' may 
have thought of Domitian as combining Caligula and Nero in 
himself in much the same way as the Beast, which is Rome 
(133), combines in itself all the ferocities of Daniel's first three 
beasts (lion, bear, leopard, Dn 7 4ff -). Like U Ezr. 12Wff. he 
would consider Daniel's fourth beast to be Rome. 



them. It seems to the present writer that the 
loose way in which the prophet and pastor who 
wrote the Apocalypse dealt with the traditional 
material that lay to his hand was probably as 
intentional as the frequent grammatical anomalies 
and harsh Hebraisms of his text, which no Greek 
scholar supposes to be due to inadvertence. The 
man who had the literary genius and the prophetic 
inspiration to write the songs of triumph and the 
hortatory portions of the Apocalypse may be be- 
lieved to have had a method in his carelessness. 
He was certainty capable of adopting a fixed style 
of writing and carrying it through in the way 
that style on the whole required. If he left some 
strings flying for his readers to cut or fasten up as 
the spirit might lead them, may it not be a sign 
that he considered himself and his companions in 
the ' kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ ' to 
occupy a sphere wnich, just because it was 
supreme and Divine, was not hermetically sealed 
to the rest of the world, but was open, like the 
New Jerusalem, to receive testimony and tribute 
from every quarter ? 

3. The Apocalypse of John as a product of the 
Apostolic Age, and a testimony to Jesus as the 
Christ. Enough has perhaps been said to show 
that questions regarding the importance and 
function of apocalyptic literature in the faith and 
life of the Apostolic Age are best answered in 
connexion with a study of the Apocalypse of John. 
No known apocalyptic writing of the same or 
greater bulk is comparable with it in vitality of 
connexion with primitive Christianity ; and there 
is no likelihooa that any such writing existed. 
Attention may be fastened on three matters : (a) 
the historical situation, (b) the relation of apoca- 
lypse to prophecy, (c) the hortatory and dogmatic 
teaching of the Apocalypse. 

(a) The historical situation. We have seen that 
the period of apocalyptic literature is roughly the 
250 years of the last struggles of the Jewish people 
for political and religious independence. The first 
apocalypse of the OT is contemporaneous with the 
great sacrifices made by the 6lite of the Jewish 
people to maintain the national testimony to Jah- 
weh. The sacrificial spirit passed into the com- 
munity that confessed Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, 
risen, and ascended, as Lord and Messiah. Very 
early the sacrificial spirit was called forth. But 
the first persecutors were not heathen in name. 
They were the representatives of the city which 
' spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also 
the Lord was crucified' (Kev II 8 ; cf. 1 Th 2 14ff -, 
2 Th 2 1 ' 12 ). To St. Paul the power of Antichrist 
lay in the jealousy of the Jewish synagogue, and 
it would seem from the passage in 2 Th 2 that the 
power ' that restrains ' (6 Karfywv, ri> Kar^xo") is the 
Roman Empire. Certainly the representation 
in the Acts of the Apostles favours this view 
(16 37 21 32 22 -25ff - 25 10 '-). Between the ministry of 
St. Paul and the time of the Apocalypse a change 
had taken place. In the Apocalypse the Roman 
Empire is clearly the instrument of Antichrist. 
The Dragon gives power to the Beast (13 4 ), and it 
is obvious that in ' John's ' time, and especially in 
the province of Asia, Christians were persecuted 
under Imperial authority simply because of their 
Christian profession. Christianity was a crime pun- 
ishable with death, in so far as it was inconsistent 
with the worship of the Emperor (I 9 13 16f -). Doubt- 
less there were differences in the administration of 
the law, but the tone of the Letters to the Seven 
Churches (chs. 2 and 3) and of the whole Apoca- 
lypse indicates a time when the worst might be 
apprehended. The beginning of this Imperial 
attitude to the Christians may perhaps be found 
in the summer of A.D. 64, when, as Tacitus in- 
forms us (Ann. xv. 44), Nero sought to fasten on 



76 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



the Christians the odious charge of incendiarism, 
and it has been held that the Apocalypse belongs 
to the time of the Neronic persecution. This view 
may now be regarded as superseded. Nero is cer- 
tainly a figure in the Apocalypse (see above), but 
he is a figure of the past. The Beast is alive in 
his bestial successor Domitian, whom 'John' con- 
siders Nero Redivivus * (cf. 13 3 with 17 11 )- 

It was under Domitian that persecution of the 
Christians first became a part of the Imperial 

Eolicy. It is this legalized persecution and the 
ict that the centre of the storm lies among the 
Churches of Asia that rouse the spirit of prophecy 
in the author of chs. 2 and 3, and, as we venture 
to think, of the whole Apocalypse. And, assuredly, 
it ivas the spirit of prophecy, and not of delusion, 
that gave him the certainty that the Lord Jesus 
would ' come quickly ' to deliver His people from a 
situation in which the choice lay between death 
and unfaithfulness to Him. Every prophet is an 
eschatologist. He sees the end of what is opposed 
to the will of holiness and love. It is only for a 
moment though the moments of God and history 
may be long that cruelty and violence can reign 
or the meek and righteous be oppressed. 

13 17 seems to indicate an edict actually in force 
or about to be issued, under which ordinary con- 
tracts of exchange should not be legal apart from 
vows of allegiance to the Emperor as a Divine 
person. This meant that Christians were excluded 
from the business of the world, and so from the 
world itself, and to 'John' it seemed justly a 
challenge of God's supremacy, which God and His 
Christ could not delay to take up. Quite apart 
from the peculiar genius of its author, the Apoca- 
lypse must have been to its first readers a message 
of comfort and power. Its appeal lay in its in- 
evitableness. In the situation as described, no 
message short of that contained in the Apocalypse 
could have seemed worthy of God or a ' testimony 
of Jesus Christ.' Prophecy is never in vacua. 
God's word is in the mouth of His prophet because 
it is first in the events which His providence or- 
dains or permits. It would be difficult to rate too 
highly the literary and spiritual genius of ' John,' 
yet the authoritativeness of his message for his 
own time and ours lies not in this but in its corre- 
spondence with a situation of crisis for the King- 
dom of God. So long as it is possible for a situa- 
tion to emerge in which we cannot obey man's 
law without dishonouring God's, the Apocalypse 
will be an authority ready for use in the hands of 
the godly. 

(b) Apocalyptic and prophecy. If this view is 
just, it contains the answer to two closely related 
questions: (1) Is the writer, as he represents 
himself, a ' companion in tribulation ' of those to 
whom he writes (I 9 ), or does he, like other apoca- 
lyptists, including Daniel, write under the name 
of some great personage of the past? (2) Is he 
really a prophet as well as an apocalyptist ? 

(1) The former question should be kept apart 
from the question whether the writer can reason- 
ably be identified with the Apostle John. There 
is nowhere in the book the slightest hint of a 
claim to apostleship ; 21 14 and 18- suggest rather 
that the author distinguished himself from the 
' holy apostles and prophets ' and from the ' 12 
apostles.' We do not know enough regarding the 
Churches of Asia in the 1st cent, to say with 
confidence that only one who was as highly 
esteemed as John the Apostle (Ramsay) or John 
the Presbyter (Bousset) could be confident that 
his message would come with authority to those 

* The ' seven kings ' of l7Wff. are the seven emperors exclusive 
of the usurpers Galba, Otho, and Vitellius from Augustus to 
Nero. The ' eighth that is of the seven ' (v.H) is Domitian, con- 
sidered as Nero Redivivus. 



to whom it was addressed. On the other hand, 
it is more than possible, in view both of the liter- 
ary apocalyptic convention of pseudepigraphy and 
of the probability that concealment of the author's 
name was an act of warrantable prudence, that 
' John ' was not the author's real name, and that 
(almost by consequence) the banishment in Patmoa 
was, so far as he was concerned, fictitious. But 
the matter of real importance is not the question 
whether the names of person and place are 
fictitious ; it is the fact that supposing them to 
have been fictitious here the fiction ends. The 
writer is a Christian. He is in the same situation 
with those he addresses. He neither desires nor 
attempts to place himself in the distant past. The 
Christian Church has its own prophets. Our 
author solemnly claims to be one of them, and the 
Church since the beginning of the 3rd cent, has 
taken him at his own estimate. * 

(2) But is not an apocalyptist, ipso facto, only 
a pale shadow of a prophet ? Must not ' John ' be 
conceived, as regards inspiration, to stand to a 
speaking prophet, say of Ephesus, as ' Daniel ' 
stands to the real Daniel or to some prophet of the 
time of Nebuchadrezzar ? It seems to the present 
writer that the entire absence from the Apocalypse 
of such a fiction as that in Daniel, in which the 
past is in one part (the alleged writer's time) 
adorned with legendary features, and in a much 
greater part (the centuries between the Exile and 
the Syrian Persecution) is treated fictitiously as 
future, separates it longo intervallo from apocalyptic 
writings of the purely Jewish type, or even from 
Christian apocalypses like the Apoc. of Peter, which 
resemble the Jewish type in the feature of imper- 
sonation. It may be probable, though it is far 
from certain, that 'John' conceals his real name, 
but the suggestion that he tried to personate any 
one, or sought any authority for his message other 
than what belonged to it as the testimony of Jesus 
given to himself, seerns to be as destitute of proba- 
bility as of proof. 

What, we may ask, is a Christian prophet but 
one who has an dwoKd\v\f/a (revelation) from God 
through Jesus Christ concerning matters pertain- 
ing to His Kingdom (1 Co 14 24ff -, esp. v. 26 ; cf. 
Rev 19 10 ) ? If a Christian could speak so as to 
bring home to his brethren the reality of the 
promised Kingdom, or so as to flash the light of the 
Divine judgment on the darkened conscience of an 
unbeliever, he had the x&pwi*- - or gift of prophecy 
(1 Co 14 22 - 24 '-). St. Paul himself must have pos- 
sessed the gift in an eminent degree. We judge 
so not simply from what is told in the Acts or 
from what he himself tells regarding the source 
from which he derived the contents and manner of 
his preaching or the directions necessary for his 
missionary journeys. We judge so rather from 
the correspondence existing between his claim to 
direct access to this source and the still operating 
influence of his personality upon the conscience 
and conduct of mankind. If it be said that St. 
Paul was a preacher, and ' John ' was, so far as we 
know, only a writer, it may be asked in reply : 
What do we know of Paul the preacher that we do 
not learn best from his own writings? No com- 
panion of 'John ' has told us (as Luke did of Paul) 
how he preached, but surely we may say that no 
one could write as 'John does without being, 
under favourable conditions, a preacher, and that 
probably as much in proportion of ' John's ' Apoca- 
lypse as of St. Paul's Epistles might have been 

Porter (op. tit. 183) asks whether the Apocalypse is 'a 
iirect or a secondary product of that new inspiration ' [Chris- 
;ian prophecy], and he replies, rather disconcertingly : ' Our 
mpression is that it is secondary.' No one has a better right 
XJ speak with authority than Porter. But if the inspiration of 
ihe Apocalypse is secondary, what measure have we by which 
;o judge of that which is primary ? 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



77 



preached as it stands to his own contemporaries. 
When it is remembered how apocalypses incom- 
parably inferior in spiritual quality to the Apoca- 
lypse were cherished by the early Church and even 
quoted as Scripture, it will not seem hazardous to 
assert that in the Apostolic Age the distinction 
between apocalypse and prophecy, which is marked 
in the pre-Christian period by the separation of 
Daniel in the Hebrew Canon from ' the Prophets,' 
has ceased to exist. Two things, unnaturally 
separated (through the spirit of artifice), have come 
together again. The prophet is the man who has 
a 'revelation,' and the man who has a 'revelation,' 
whether he speak it or write it, is a prophet. If 
our argument is sound, we may venture to say 
that once at least this ideal unity of apocalypse 
and prophecy has been realized. It is realized in 
the Apocalypse of John. 

(c) The hortatory and dogmatic teaching of the 
Apocalypse. The best proof of the soundness of 
the above argument lies in the abundance of 
hortatory and dogmatic material of permanent 
value to be found in the Apocalypse. ' John ' is, 
in a sense, the Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel of 
the NT. This is eminently true of the messages 
to the Seven Churches (chs. 2 and 3). Ramsay's 
Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (Lond. 1904) 
probably exaggerates the extent to which the 
writer may have had in his mind facts of geography 
and history relating to the places mentioned ; 
but such a book from the pen of an unrivalled 
authority on the antiquities of Asia Minor could 
not have been written of the messages in chs. 2 
and 3 of the Apocalypse did they not proceed from 
one who was thoroughly conversant with every- 
thing in the environment of the Churches of Asia 
which had a bearing on their spiritual condition. 
A writer who closes each message with the formula, 
'he that hath ears, etc.' (2 7 - " " 3 6 - I3 - 22 ; 
cf. Mt 13 9 - **, etc. ), claims to stand to those whom 
he addresses in the relation of a speaking prophet 
to his hearers. Those who remember the function 
these chapters still serve in that best type of 
Christian oratory in which preaching is prophesy- 
ing, may justly feel that the onus probandi rests 
with those who deny the claim. But the immedi- 
ately edifying elements of the Apocalypse are not 
confined to these chapters. The book is written, 
as it claims to be, in an atmosphere of worship.* 
The inspiration came to ' John ' on the day in 
which Christians remembered the Resurrection of 
the Lord. The book is a message from the Lord 
in heaven. Those who read and obey are blessed 
because the time of their deliverance is at hand. 
The sense of holy omnipotent power, not domin- 
ated by but manifested through suffering for 
the power is redemptive pervades the book. Its 
refrain is Glory to God and to the Lamb (I 5 *-), and 
the note of the triumphant thanksgiving of the 
faithful sounds, throughout, loudly behind the 
curtain of judgment that shrouds the wicked 
world (5 4 ' 14 6 9ff - 7 3 ' 7 8 3f - l! 15ff - 12 10 ' 12 13 9f - 14 1 ' 7 - I2f - 
151-4 191 -9. n-i6 20" 21.22). The worship-element 
in the book is exquisitely beautiful as literature, 
but it was too vital to the spiritual situation to 
be intended as ornamental. The crucial element 
in the situation is the liberty of worship. His- 
tory has proved that the day of martyrs is emi- 

* HO. The opinion of scholars is against the rendering : ' I 
was, through the Spirit, in the Day of the Lord (or the Day of 
Judgment),' though this rendering cannot be said to be gram- 
matically impossible ; and though it has the advantage of 
attaching a good traditional meaning to 'Day of the Lord,' 
which would thus retain its OT sense (Is 2i 2 , Am 5 2 , etc.). .vet it 
is hardly likely that tv would be used both in the instrumental 
and the local sense in one short sentence ; and the analogy of 
173f. 2110 suggests that, had the author intended this meaning, 
he would have used a verb of transference (' I was carried by 
the Spirit to, etc.'). The ' Day of the Lord' is, therefore, the 
Christian Sabbath, the day of worship. 



nently the day when this liberty is denied or 
ignored. 

The ethical teaching of the book is perhaps best 
seen in such passages as 6 9 ' 11 13 8 ' 10 14 11 " 13 20 7f -. The 
essential virtues of the saints are patience and 
courage. The weapon of force is not permitted 
to them (13 10 ; cf. Mt 26 52 ), but patience and faith 
prevail. On the other hand, patience is not mere 
passivity. The command to worship the Beast 
must be courageously disobeyed. Compliance is 
fatal. First among those who have their part in 
the ' second death ' are ' the fearful ' (21 8 ). The 
vital connexion of this teaching with the situation 
is obvious. Not less but even more obvious is its 
connexion with the dogmatic teaching of the book. 
As we have seen, the Apocalypse must be con- 
sidered, so far as the Apostolic Age is concerned, 
a thing of Jewish origin and growth.* There are, 
indeed, few direct quotations from the OT in the 
Apocalypse ; but there are more OT reminiscences 
in it than in almost any other book of the NT.f 
This, no doubt, is due largely to the comparatively 
stereotyped character of the apocalyptic imagery. 
But, in view of the emphasis in some cases 
excessive which many scholars have laid on the 
Jewish character of the Apocalypse, a word seems 
necessary on the question of how far the distinc- 
tive Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah has 
modified the type of teaching peculiar to a Jewisn 
apocalyptic book. 

At first sight the change seems more formal 
than real. The Apocalypse comes from Jesus 
Christ (I 1 ), but, beyond the features of His death 
and resurrection, there is nothing in the descrip- 
tion of the sublime Personage who overwhelms 
' John' with His manifestations (I 17 ) suggestive of 
any feature distinctive of the human Jesus of the 
Gospels. The description of the Figure in I 7 - 13ff - 
and in 19 nff - owes more to Daniel, J Zechariah, 
and Isaiah || than to anything that is original in 
the Gospels. Such a fact gives a certain colour 
to the view, propounded by Vischer in 1886, that 
the book is a Jewish Apocalypse set in a Christian 
framework (chs. 1-3, and 22"- 21 ), and slightly inter- 
polated. This extreme view has, however, yielded 
to the strong impression of its unity and Christian 
character, which, in spite of its eclectic form, the 
book produces on the mind of the critical no less 
than of the ordinary reader. As to the alleged 
absence of the features of the Christ of the Gospels, 
two considerations seem specially relevant. The 
one is that the absence of the human features of 
Jesus is scarcely more marked in the Apocalypse 
than it is in every other book of the NT outside 
the Gospels. Are references to the human Jesus 
frequent or marked in the Acts of the Apostles, 
though that book was written by a man who also 
wrote a Gospel ? Are they marked or even, in 
the latter case, at all present in the Epistles which 
bear the names of Peter and John ? Notoriously 
they are so little marked in the known writings 
of the greatest figure of the Apostolic Age that 
their absence has supplied its one position of 
apparent strength to the 'modern Gnosticism' 
associated with the names of Jensen and Drews, 
and has made the effort to exhibit real points of 
contact between St. Paul and Jesus of Nazareth 
a main task of modern Apologetics. Yet one of 
St. Paul's companions was Mark, and another was 
Luke. We do not know all that St. Paul either 

* That is to say, its affinities with pagan mythology may be 
ignored, as belonging to the sphere of OT research. 

t According to Huhn, Matthew has 37 direct quotations from 
the OT against 3 in the Apocalypse. But the latter has 453 
reminiscences against 437 in Matthew. Thus Matthew comes near 
the Apocalypse in this respect ; Luke, with 474 reminiscences, 
goes beyond it. All the other books are much behind it 
(Alttegt. Citate u. Reminiscenzen im ST. 1900, p. 269 ff.). 

:Dn73l05ff-. Zee 1210. || Is ]!* 63iff-. 



78 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



spoke or wrote, but we do know that, contempo 
raneously with the accomplishment of his mission 
to the Gentiles, or, at least, well within the Apos- 
tolic Age, a demand for written reminiscences of 
Jesus arose both in the Jewish and in the Gentile 
portion of the Church. Men possess reminiscences 
of personalities who have exercised a determinin| 
influence upon them long before they think o 
committing them to writing, and often, if not 
usually as witness the cases of Matthew and 
Mark the task of writing is undertaken only by 
request (-Euseb. HE iii. 39). If, then, the silences 
of St. Paul, the contemporary of Jesus (who yet 
possibly never saw Him in the flesh), do not, on 
fair consideration, surprise us, why should those 
of a man some thirty years younger, a Chris- 
tian prophet of the time of Domitian, offend 
us? 

The other consideration is more positive in char- 
acter. It is that of what may be called the 
eschatological outlook of the Apostolic Age. It 
was believed by all the NT writers of the first 
generation that the return of Christ to His own 
in glory and power would be witnessed by some in 
their own time while they were yet in the flesh. 
The expectation appears in the Gospels (Mk 9 1 13||), 
and it is a matter much discussed how far it is due 
to convictions definitely entertained and expressed 
by our Lord Himself. It was certainly entertained 
by St. Paul (1 Co 15 61 , 1 Th 5 13ff -) ; and, though on the 
whole it hardly aft'ected, and never un wholesomely,* 
his ethical teaching, it surely explains why letters 
to fellow-Christians, who had been for the most 
part his own converts and catechumens, in so far as 
they were not occupied with matters of immediate 
perplexity and duty, should be concerned rather 
with prospects of the Lord's coming and glory than 
with reminiscences of the days of His flesh. If 
St. Paul had been asked to state his essential creed 
as briefly as possible, he might fairly be conceived 
to reply : For the past, Christ died in the flesh for 
our sins ; for the present, Christ rose and lives for 
our justification ; for the future, Christ will come 
to confirm and receive His own to Himself in the 
glory of God. Would the modern religious man, 
whose creed has any title to be associated with the 
NT, say anything, even in regard to the future, 
that is really different from this ? 

Whatever worth may belong to these considera- 
tions in reference to St. Paul belongs to them a 
fortiori in reference to a writer whose express aim 
is to show to the servants of God the ' things that 
must shortly come to pass' (I 1 ). Even if we put 
out of account the limitations of apocalyptic 
literary method, the last thing we shall expect 
such a writer expressly to deal with will be 
reminiscences of the historic Jesus. If we assume 
that the Apostolic Age, whatever may be its 
defects, supplies the norm of the religion which 
is final, we shall require of the Christian prophet 
'John' only that he accomplish his declared 
purpose in a manner conformable both to the 
situation he has in view and to the spirit and 
teaching of the apostolic faith. No critic con- 
tends that chs. 2 and 3 do not indicate a writer 
who is in the matters of main account in close 
touch with the communities he addresses, and 
who writes to them in prophetic vein, on the 
whole just as he might be conceived to speak. In 
the rest of his book, he drops special reference 
to the Asiatic Churches, devotes himself to the 
recounting of visions, mainly of final judgment, 
which are of account for the whole Church and 
world of his time, and makes, as the nature of his 
theme requires, larger use of material that is more 
or less common to all imaginative religious speech 

* 1 Co T 29 ^ seems to the present writer an illustration rather 
than an exception. 



or literature.* He has the definite belief that 
the last instrument of Antichrist is the Roman 
Imperial system, and that with the removal of 
the 'Great Whore' (19 2 ) the 'Babylon' which is 
Rome especially the cult of the Emperor, the 
last obstacle to the glorious advent of the Kingdom 
will be taken away. It is true there is nothing 
in his general estimate of the situation of the 
worshippers of the true God, suffering from the 
Roman persecution, that might not have been 
conceived by 'Daniel' or any other OT prophet. 
There is scarcely a detail in the wonderful lament 
of triumph over the fall of the Roman Babylon 
(ch. 18) that has not its close parallel in Isaiah 
and Jeremiah (for the details see Porter, op. tit. 
267). 

But what significance has such a fact other 
than that of illustrating, in general, the claim of 
Christianity to fulfil OT prophecy, and, in par- 
ticular, the claim of this Christian seer to be in 
the succession of the prophets (1 s 10 7ff - 19 10 22 18ff -)? 
Once it is seen that it is the work of a Christian, 
and that every detail in it has to the author's 
own mind a significance, determined by his own 
attitude and that of his readers to the Messiah 
who was crucified (1 5L II 8 12 11 ), the book must be 
allowed to possess a unique value for edification 
both in itself and in reference to the place assigned 
it by Christian authority that or closing the 
canonical record of revelation contained in the 
Bible. 

* A good instance of the author's eclecticism, acting 1 under 
control of spiritual insight, is his combination of an earthly 
and a heavenly view of the Consummation. The binding of 
Satan and the thousand years' reign of the martyred saints 
precedes the final destruction of the Antiehristian power and 
the descent of the Heavenly City (ch. 20 ; cf. with chs. 21 and 
22). Why does the prophet not close his book at 19N>? It is 
the poorest conceivable answer to say that he continues his 
text for literary reasons, having a desire to utilize traditional 
material that was too good to be neglected. But the reason 
may well be that, while the destruction of the colossal im- 
posture of the Roman Imperial cult is the last preliminary to 
the Consummation that comes within his definite conviction, 
a complex instinct, which we may consider part of his prophetic 
equipment, warns him against the danger of confounding 
definiteness of result with definiteness of time and manner. 
The large doings of God permit of fluctuation in detail, and 
the prophet is practical as well as inspired. One matter that 
genuinely concerned him as a prophet, and had concerned 
brother-prophets before him (cf. Dn 121^-, En. 91i2ff., Bar 40^, 
and, for a Christian example, 1 Co 15 208 -), was the question what 
special reward would be granted to those who had maintained 
their faithfulness to God at the cost of their lives. And here 
the traditional idea of a reign of the saints preliminary to the 
Final Consummation came to his aid. In En, 91 12f - (cf. Bar 40 3 ) 
we find a scheme according to which all human history, in- 
cluding the reign of the Messiah, is divided into heavenly 
weeks. In U Ezr. T 28 the period of the reign of the Messiah is 
400 years a number which, as the Talmud (Sank. 99) explains, 
is obtained by combining Gn 15 3 with Ps 90 1 *. The 1000 years 
of our prophet would be obtained in a somewhat similar fashion 
by combining Gn l lff - (the 'day* of the Creation-narrative) 
with Ps 90*. The 'day ' (=1000 years) is the rest-day of God's 
saints, who are in particular the martyrs. In the Jewish tradi- 
tion (cf . Jub. 4 30 and Secrets of Enoch 33 lf -) the seventh ' day ' 
was the reign of the Messiah. With 'John' it is the reign of 
the Messiah with His faithful martyrs, and of course neither 
they nor He die at the end of it, as in k Ezr. T 28 . Satan, however, 
is unbound and leads the powers of evil in a final assault upon 
the saints of the earth. He is overthrown and cast into the 
'lake of fire" with the Beast and the False Prophet. Then 
follows the General Judgment, in which those whose names are 
not found in the ' book of life* are cast into the lake of fire, and 
the rest who are faithful join the saints of the Millennium in 
the final bliss. It is obvious that these details are not strictly 
reconcilable with those of the Apocalypse that ends at 19 1U , 
and again at 1921. But surely we may credit the prophet with 
being aware of the inconsistency. He handles his manifold 
material freely. What is important to him is not to reconcile 
discrepant details, but to express through them ideas of destiny 
that are worthy of God and His Messiah. And it was mani- 
festly important to him, as it was also, in part, to St. Paul, to 
express the ideas : (1) that believers who died before the Advent 
suffered no disadvantage above others (1 Th 4 13ff - ; cf. Rev &B-) ; 
(2) that the earth needed to be prepared for the final glory by 
the prevailing presence in it of the saints (1 Co lo^f- 62 f - ; cf. 
Rev 20-1-10) ; (3) that there were special rewards for those who 
made special sacrifices, in particular the sacrifice of life, for the 
sake of the Kingdom (2 Ti 2"& ; cf. Mk lO^tr.n, and passages in 
Rev. above cited). 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



The following examples may be given of the 
teaching of the Apocalypse on definite articles 
of the Christian creed. (1) The Messiah is the 
historical Person of the seed of David, who was 
crucified at Jerusalem (5 5 II 8 ). (2) Grace and 
peace come from Him equally with Him who ' is 
and was and is to come' and with the 'seven 
spirits which are before the throne' (manifest 
apocalyptic equivalents for the Father and the 
Spirit). He is the 'faithful witness,' the 'First- 
begotten of the dead, the Prince of the kings of 
the earth ' (I 4 *- 7 10 ). (3) The ' revelation ' contained 
in the book is not only mediated by Jesus Christ, 
it is the revelation of Him (I 1 ). The prophets 
are those who have the ' testimony of Jesus, and 
the latter is the 'spirit of prophecy' (19 10 ). The 
prophet is a fellow-servant and companion of all 
faithful believers in Jesus. For they also have 
the testimony. They are made prophets as well 
as priests and kings (I 6 - 9 ). (4) The fundamental 
work of the Messiah is the redemptive self -sacrifice. 
No doubt the 'Lamb' is a leader and a warrior, 
whom His servants follow. His 'wrath' is the 
destruction of His enemies. Yet even in the glory 
of His power 'in the midst of the throne He 
remains for the Christian seer a ' Lamb as it had 
been slain,' and the innumerable multitude of the 
glorified faithful in heaven are those whose robes 
have been 'made white in the blood of the Lamb.' 
The motive of service even in heaven is the 
gratitude of those who have been forgiven and 
cleansed (14 1 * 4 19 llff - T 9 *-)- Agreeably with this, 
the fundamental virtues of the saints are ' patience 
and faith ' ; though, as there is a ' wrath of the 
Lamb,' so there is a certain fierceness in the 
conflicts and triumphs of the saints. Those who 
find fault with the vindictiveness of the Apocalypse 
should make allowance for the dramatic style of 
the book and should not forget that at bottom 
the battle between the saints and their oppressors 
is a battle between patience and violence (18 20 

13 9f. U I2), 

(5) The conception of Christian duty and bliss, 
similarly, is profoundly ethical ana spiritual. 
The saints must show no half-hearted timidity 
in resisting the order that is supreme in the world. 
The resistance is to be maintained in the sense in 
which maintenance is victory. The promise is to 
' him that overcometh,' and no sacrifice is too 
great (2 10 21 7t ). The reward of this holy sacrificial 
attitude of the will is complete union with Christ, 
and participation in all the privileges of sonship. 
The sun that lightens the city of pearls and makes 
its splendours real is none other than God Himself 
and the Lamb. Its bliss is the life of its citizens 
(7 lsff - 19 7ff - 22 3ff -). The guests at the marriage- 
supper of the Lamb do not wear jewellery. They 
wear the 'crown of life,' and the 'fine linen of 
the righteousness of the saints' (2 10 19 8 ). In 
reference to the fidelity of the servants of God, 
the emphasis laid on worship is noticeable. It is 
not accidental. It is due to the twofold fact that 
the book reflects a situation in which liberty of 
worship was denied, and that worship in spirit 
and in truth is the loftiest expression of the soul's 
loyalty. The emphasis is negative as well as 
positive. Twice over, the seer is warned not to 
worship him that showed him these things. The 
worship of angels was a heresy not unknown in 
the Asiatic Churches. Perhaps 'John' felt that 
the elaboration of the conception of angelic agency 
and mediation, however inevitable in apocalyptic 
literature or even in the thoughts proper to 
true religion, had its dangers (19 10 22 9 ; cf. Col 
2 18ff -). 

(6) Finally, the spirit of gracious evangelism 
that finds expression in 22" deserves acknowledg- 
ment. Evangelism is scarcely to be expected in 



a book announcing finalities, and concerned so 
largely with the Judgment. 'John' does not 
believe that there is much more chance of repent- 
ance for the rank and file of those who nave 
yielded to the apostasy of his time than for the 
Beast and the False Prophet who have led it. 
There is not much chance, for there is not much 
time (1 7 22 1M -). Yet the last word of the hook- 
as from the Spirit (in, say, the prophet himself), 
as from the Church, already the ' Bride,' as from 
the chance hearer, and as from the Nameless who 
is above every name is ' Come ' : ' whosoever will, 
let him take the water of life freely.' On all 
these points and others might be named the 
close touch of the Apocalypse with the teaching 
of the other books of the NT is obvious. 

III. THE APOCALYPTIC ELEMENT IN OTHER 
BOOKS OF THE NT AND IN CHRISTIANITY. 
Though it is impossible to treat the subject here 
in detail, a word may be said in conclusion regard- 
ing what is commonly called the ' apocalyptic ele- 
ment' : (1) in the other books of the NT ; (2) in 
Christianity itself. We use the phrase 'apoca- 
lyptic element ' with reserve, because it may well 
appear from our study of the Apocalypse that the 
whole of Christianity is an apocalypse or revela- 
tion whose containing sphere is the Person of Jesus 
Christ (Col 2 s - 9 ). The view of the NT and of 
the early Fathers (see Didache, 11) regarding the 
Christian prophets is that expressed by St. Paul 
(1 Co 12 28 , Eph 4 11 ), viz. that they are next in 
rank to the apostles. Yet what distinguished the 
apostles from the prophets was accidental. The 
apostles were received as witnesses of Jesus at 
first hand, men who had 'seen the Lord' (1 Co 9 1 ). 
They moved from place to place, and founded 
churches. In the sub-apostolic Church these 
functions probably passed over largely to the 
prophets, who in any case were one with the 
apostles in the essential qualification of having 
received their commission not from man but from 
God and who spoke and acted by dTro/cdXu^ts (Ac 4 19 
202*. 21101., Ga i ji 2 2). The expression ' apocalyptic 
element' indicates phrases, sentences, or longer 
passages in the apocalyptic style occurring in writ- 
ings that do not on the whole bear the literary 
character of apocalypses. It is obvious even at a 
superficial glance that, so understood, the apoca- 
lyptic element in the NT is considerable ; and 
when we remember that it includes phrases directly 
relating to the order that already exists in heaven 
or to the processes through which it will come to 
earth, we shall, perhaps, feel that apocalypse is a 
leaven rather than an ingredient in the NT. The 
life reflected in the NT is saturated with the super- 
natural. 

1. The Gospels. Besides words and phrases, the 
Synoptic Gospels contain long passages of alleged 
discourses of Jesus notably, e.g., Mk 13|| which 
are entirely in the apocalyptic style. In view of 
the fact that Jesus, when before Caiaphas, de- 
clared Himself the Messiah in words that were 
virtually a quotation of Dn 7 13 (Mk 14 62 ||), it can- 
not be said to be impossible that He spoke the 
contents of Mk 13|| substantially as they are re- 
ported. On the whole, however, it is probable 
that the Evangelists incorporated in their texts a 
Jewish-Christian apocalypse which gave the sub- 
stance of our Lord's utterance in a form adapted 
to the case of the Christians in Jerusalem at the 
time of the Jewish- Roman war (A.D. 66-70). It 
may surely be said with truth and reverence that 
our Lord Himself was the best example of a speak- 
ing apocalyptist, or of the union between apoca- 
lypse and prophecy. The saying recorded in 
Lk 10 18 would alone be sufficient to prove the 
point. 

In the Gospel of John matters lie in a different 



80 



APOCALYPSE 



APOCALYPSE 



perspective. The heavenly has come rather than 
is corning. That does not mean, however, that 
there is no room for apocalypse. It means that 
all is apocalypse. The Gospel is an account of the 
manifestation in the flesh of the Word that was 
God (I 1 - 14 ). 

2. The Acts of the Apostles. Just as to John 
(the Evangelist) the appearance and action of 
Jesus in the world are themselves an apocalypse, 
so to Luke in the Acts the events that mark the 
progress of the gospel are largely sensible apoca- 
lypses of the Divine favour or power. Ch. 2 
(wind, and tongues of fire), 3 (healing), 4 (earth- 
quake), 5 (strokes of judgment, death by a word), 
7 (transfiguration, 6 1S ; cf . 7 55 ), 10 (coincident visions), 
12 (deliverance through an angel) are conspicuous 
instances. 

3. The Epistles. (a) In general, the expecta- 
tion of the Lord's coming, and coming soon, is 
dominant in all these writings, except (for wholly 
accidental reasons) Philemon and 2 and 3 John. 
Even in the later writings, where the colour of the 
expectation may be supposed to be more sober, 
the sense of the imminence of the coming glory 
is not lost. Even John is confident that it is the 
'last time' (1 Jn 2 18 ). The difference between 
earlier and later appears chiefly in the choice in 
the later writings of phrases indicating the mani- 
festation of a Divine reality already existing rather 
than the coming from heaven of something new 
(Col 3 lff - ; cf. Epli 5 8 - 14 , 1 Jn 3 lff -). The apocalyptic 
element, even in the literary sense, in 2 Peter 
perhaps the latest writing in the NT is sufficiently 
obvious (2 P 3 3 - 13 ). 

(b) Of special interest are the earlier Epistles of St. 
Paul, 1 and 2 Cor., Gal., and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. 
The passages 1 Co 7 29a 15 21ff - have already been 
referred to. Those in 1 Co 12 lff - and U 28 * on the 
tests of prophecy (cf. Did. 11) and on its value for 
edification and conversion are of peculiar interest 
to the student of Christian prophecy as manifested 
in the Apostolic Age (M*"***^ In the enu- 
meration in 14 26 , the prophet is clearly the person 
who ' has an <iiroK<i\v\f/is.' Prophecy and 'tongues' 
might be alike in respect of impermanence (13 8 ), 
but prophecy, while it lasted, was by far the more 
valuable gift (14 39 ). St. Paul probably believed 
that prophecy, exercised under proper self-control, 
would last until the Advent, whereas the rational- 
istic spirit, however little it deserved to be en- 
couraged, would quench the inspiration of the 
tongues (cf. U 29 *- with 13 9 <- and 1 Th 5 19f -). In 
our study of the Apocalypse we have seen some- 
thing of the difficulty or even impossibility of find- 
ing an eschatological scheme of perfect consistency 
in detail even in so purely apocalyptical a writer 
as 'John.' The eschatology of St. Paul is beyond 
the range of this article. Yet it is pertinent to 
make two remarks. The one is that St. Paul is as 
certain of the need and value of prophesying and 
of the reality of the supernatural nappenings with 
which prophecy is concerned as any apocalyptical 
writer could be. We prophesy, indeed, in part ; 
still we must prophesy so long as we believe. The 
other is that, where St. Paul enters, so to speak, 
upon the sphere of the apocalyptist, as he does 
so markedly in the Corinthian and Thessalonian 
Epistles,* his practical motives are clear and 
cogent. They are the same as the motives of 
' John,' viz. to encourage believers to continue in 
patience and hope. The proposition will bear 
examination that in practically every case where 
believers are addressed in the NT regarding the 
final glory that is to come soon presumably with- 
in their own life-time a leading motive of the 
utterance is to insist that other important things 

* Low. eitt. in 1 Cor., also 2 Co 5ir. 121T-, 1 Th 4i3ff. 2 Th 
2lff.. 



must happen first.* This is a paradox, but it ia 
true as true as the more comprehensive paradox 
that the Bible is the most eschatological book in 
the world and, at the same time, the most ethical. 

4. In Christianity. May we extend the paradox 
to Christianity itself as the spirit and power of 
the religion of the 20th century? Or are those 
' modernists ' right who say that the Christianity 
of the future must be stripped of ' eschatological 
delusions ' ? The question, perhaps, cannot be 
answered with perfect satisfaction to the mind 
without the aid of psychology and metaphysics ; 
and possibly the new ' intuitionalism ' of our day, 
associated with the name of Bergson, may help 
some religious men, whom mental training has 
fitted to desire and receive such aid. We could 
hardly be satisfied with the impossibility of search- 
ing out God to perfection unless it were permis- 
sible, or, for some, even necessary, to attempt the 
task. Yet, on the whole, the moral and spiritual 
life of mankind goes its own way independently 
of philosophy. But it does not proceed independ- 
ently of God. He ' is and was and is to come,' and 
He ' reveals ' Himself to those who trust and obey 
Him. Our situation in reference to Him is para- 
doxical. We rest in Him, yet cannot rest, for His 
promise leads us forward to horizons that vanish 
and enlarge as we approach. We suffer, yet we 
hope. We are disappointed, yet we are comforted ; 
for the fulfilment is greater than the hope. Life 
is an experiment, not a theory, and the object of 
the experiment is God. Those who thus think 
will look rather to history and to personal and 
social religious experience than to philosophy for 
a solution of the eschatological question. 

Could Jesus be the Revealer of God and of Son- 
ship with God and yet be under illusion as to the 
end of the world? Yes, because human life in- 
volves this ignorance, and the Son of God was 
made flesh. And yes, again, because the illusion 
was to Him the transparent veil of the certainty 
that the Righteous Father lived and reigned. 

But what of the religion of the future? Must 
we not leave eschatology and put evolution in its 
place? No, because these are not alternatives. 
Evolution no more excludes eschatology than 
science excludes religion. No, again, because one 
cannot have religion without eschatology. To the 
religious man human history is not a mere spectacle. 
It is a work in which he is involved as a partner 
with God. It is the working out of God's purpose. 
And it must have an end, because God must fulfil 
Himself. Only, let our eschatology be a thing of 
dignity and freedom. Let it be reserved even 
when it speaks with effusion. Let it never be 
separated from the spirit of moral discipline and 
religious worship. Let it be ' in the spirit on the 
Lord's Day,' and go with Him to a height where 
we see more than ' all the kingdoms of the world 
and the glory of them ' because we see Him. Let 
it be ' a companion in tribulation ' with the hum- 
blest of men and women, who are the servants of 
God and the redeemed of Jesus Christ. Fulfilling 
these conditions, it will recover (should it have 
lost it) the note of authority that is struck in the 
NT and attains such lofty expression in the Apoca- 
lypse of John. If we do not call this note science, 
it is because we must use a greater word and call 
it prophecy. The heart of Christian prophecy is 
the ' testimony of Jesus.' It is the confidence 
gained not from man but from God, that history has 
no other end than the reconciliation of sinful man 
to God through Jesus Christ, and the reign of holi- 
ness and love in their hearts. The ' Lamb ' is also 

This point is clearly and admirably brought out in reference 
to our Lord in C. W. Emmet's article (Expositor, 8th ser. xxiii. 
[1912] 423) entitled, ' Is the Teaching of Jesus an Interims- 
ethikl' 



APOLLONIA 



APOLLOS 



81 



' the Lion of the tribe of Judah ' who has prevailed 
to open the book of human destiny. ' John ' used 
largely the language of primitive religious im- 
agination to convey his prophecy, and who will 
say that in his hands the language has not shown 
itself tit ? If the modern Christian prophet thinks 
he can do better with the language of evolution, 
let him put his belief to the test of experiment. 

In its passage seawards, the river of life is 
joined by innumerable tributaries. But there is 
only one force of gravity, and only one main 
stream. The tributaries reach the ocean only by 
first reaching the main stream. There is some- 
thing in God that is akin to everything that is 
human, yet it may well be that nothing human 
reaches the end or fulfilment of God nothing, as 
' John ' might say, receives the ' crown of life ' or 
finds its ' name written in the Lamb's book of life ' 
save through the channel of the sacrificial will 
and the heart of faith. These do not come by 
evolution or any involuntary process. They come 
through the travail of self-discipline and prayer 
and sympathy with our fellows. And, when they 
come, it is by vision and revelation. It may 
surely be claimed that the abiding and the loftiest 
witness to this in literature is the Apocalypse of 
John. 

LITERATURE. The handbooks, C. A. Scott's ' Revelation,' in 
the Century Bible, London, 1905, and F. C. Porter's The 
Messages of the Apocalyptical Writers, do. 1905, will be found 
(esp. the latter) extremely helpful. Of the larger commentaries 
ma3 f be mentioned : J. Moffatt (EGT ; see esp. ' Literature ' in 
the Introduction) ; Liicke-deWette, Bonn, 1852 (epoch-making 
for the modern method of interpretation); W. Bousset, 
Gottingen, 1906 ('Excursuses' and history of the interpretation 
of the Apocalypse specially valuable) ; J. Weiss, in Sehriften 
d. NT neu ubersetzt u. fur d. Gegenwart erklart, do. 1908. 
For Biblical Eschatology may be noted : A. Titius, Die neutest. 
Lehre von der Seligkeit, Tubingen, 1895-1900 ; E. Haupt, Die 
eschat. Aussagen Jesu in den syn. Evang., Berlin, 1895 ; and 
L. A. Muirhead, Eschatol. of Jesus, London, 1904 (the two 
last for the Gospels). For the Epistles of St. Paul : H. A. A. 
Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, do. 1904 ; 
R. Kabisch, Esch. d. Paulus, Gottingen, 1893. On Jewish Eschat- 
ology in general, see the great relative works of W. Bousset 
and P. Volz, and the still valuable work of A. Hilg-enfeld, Die 
jud. Apokalyptik, Jena, 1857. On the mythical groundwork of 
eschatology : H. Gunkel, Schopfung u. Chaos, Gottingen, 1895 ; 
H. Gressmann, Der Ursprung der israel.-jud. Eschatologie, do. 
1905. 

Readers of German will find readiest and fullest access to the 
texts of most of the extra-canonical apocalypses in the invalu- 
able work, representing many scholars, Die Apokryphen u. 
Psetidepiffraphen des Alien Testaments, 2 vols., ed. E. Kautzsch, 
Tubingen, 1900. The texts are given in German translations. 
There are critical introductions and notes. 

LEWIS A. MUIRHEAD. 

APOLLONIA ('AiroXXw^a). A town of Myg- 
donia in Macedonia, S. of Lake Bolbe (Athen. 
viii. 334), and N. of the Chalcidian mountains. 
It lay on the Via Egnatia, and St. Paul ' passed 
through ' Amphipolis and Apollonia on his way 
from Philippi to Thessalonica (Ac 17 1 ). The 
intermediate towns were probably remembered by 
him as resting-places. According to the Antonine 
Itinerary, Apollonia was 37 Roman miles from 
Amphipolis, and 37 from Thessalonica. Leake 
identifies it with the modern village of Pollina. 

J. STRAHAN. 

APOLLOS. In Ac 18 24 - 25 Apollos is described as 
' a Jew, an Alexandrian by race, a learned man, 
mighty in the Scriptures, instructed in the way of 
the Lord, fervent in spirit,' who came to Ephesus 
when Aquila and Priscilla had been left there 
by St. Paul to do pioneering work pending the 
Apostle's return. Apollos ' spake and taught care- 
fully the things concerning Jesus ' ; but his know- 
ledge of Jesus was limited, for he knew ' only the 
baptism of John.' 

It is not easy to elucidate the meaning of the 
rather obscure phrases in 18 25 - 26 . Schmiedel cuts 
the knot by making IS 280 - ^^ later accretions. 
Wendt throws out the whole of v. 26 , regarding 
Apollos as a Jew having no connexion with John 
VOL. i. 6 



or with Jesus. McGitfert is of opinion that the 
description of Apollos as ' instructed in the way 
of the Lord ' and as teaching ' the things con- 
cerning Jesus ' is erroneous; v. 25 * must have been 
added by St. Luke. ' We are to think of Apollos as 
a disciple of John who was carrying on the work 
of his master and preaching to his countrymen 
repentance in view or the approaching kingdom of 
God' (Apostolic Age, 291 f.}. Harnack says: 
' Apollos would appear to have been originally a 
regular missionary of John the Baptist's move- 
ment ; but the whole narrative of Acts at this 
point is singularly coloured and obscure ' (Expan- 
sion of Christianity, i. 331 n.). 

Without falling back on any of these somewhat 
contradictory explanations, we gather that Apollos 
had an imperfect hearsay acquaintance with the 
story of Jesus, though enough to convince him of 
His Messiahship. If the twelve men found in 
Ephesus by St. Paul (Ac 19 1- 2 ) may be treated as 
disciples of Apollos, he had not heard ' whether 
the Holy Ghost was given.' His bold eloquence in 
the synagogue attracted Aquila and Priscilla (q.v.), 
who ' took him unto them and expounded the way 
of God more carefully.' This indefinite expression 
does not carry us very far. It seems unlikely that 
Apollos was baptized at Ephesus, for the twelve 
disciples are still ignorant of baptism, nor was 
there a Christian Church in Ephesus until after St. 
Paul's return later. In this connexion, the West- 
ern reading is interesting : that ' the brethren ' who 
encouraged Apollos to go to Achaia were Corin- 
thian Christians. Perhaps they recognized the 
need of fuller instruction than could be given in 
Ephesus for such a promising disciple, who was 
likely to become a powerful Christian teacher. 

The work of Apollos in Corinth is described as 
' helping them much which had believed through 
grace ' (Ac 18 27 ). St. Paul's mission must have left 
a number of uninstructed Christians in Corinth. 
These converts had been persuaded to ' believe 
through grace.' But the Christian life of some 
was undeveloped ; and the powerful preaching of 
Apollos did much to help them. 

This conception of the work of Apollos in Corinth 
is in accord with St. Paul's words in 1 Co 3 6 , ' I 
planted ; Apollos watered.' It is justifiable also to 
recognize Apollos in St. Paul's reference to men 
who 'build on the foundation' he had laid (3 11 - 12 ), 
and to ' tutors in Christ ' (4 1B ) in contrast to him- 
self as their 'father.' Evidently Apollos' work 
was not so much preaching the gospel to the un- 
converted as buttressing the faith of Christians, 
partly by an eloquent exposition of the OT, and 
partly by a powerful apologetic which silenced 
opponents and strengthened believers. 

But this confirming work done by Apollos in 
Corinth had other effects which were less useful. 
It appears to have been influential in determining 
the subsequent character of the Church. Preach- 
ing to recent converts whose intellectual equipment 
was slender and whose Christian knowledge must 
have been elementary, Apollos, whose own instruc- 
tion had been imperfect, would inevitably put the 
impress of his own mode of thinking upon them. 
Thus there arose a party in the Corinthian Church 
with the watch-word ' I am of Apollos.' Although 
some of these had been converted by St. Paul's 
preaching, they had been ' much helped ' by Apollos. 
Under the influence of their ' tutor in Christ,' their 
interpretation of Christian truth and duty took on 
the hue of Apollos rather than of St. Paul. 

The distinctive elements in the preaching of 
Apollos may be gauged from two considerations. 
(1) He was ' a Jewish Christian versed in the Alex- 
andrian philosophy,' whose ' method of teaching 
differed from that of Paul, in the first place in 
being presented in a strikingly rhetorical form, 



82 



APOLLOS 



APOSTLE 



and also by the use of Alexandrian speculation and 
allegorical interpretation of Scripture. . . . Apollos 
sought to reinforce the Gospel which was common 
to both [Paul and himself], by means of the 
Alexandrian philosophy and methods of exegesis ' 
(Pfleiderer, i. 145 f.). It is questionable, however, 
whether the gospel he preached was in all respects 
' common to both Paul and himself.' It cannot be 
without significance that St. Paul has to emphasize 
the work of the Holy Spirit so definitely as he does 
in 1 Cor. (cf . 2 10 ' 16 3 18 12 1 ' 4 ). Apollos when he arrived 
in Ephesus did not know of the giving of the Holy 
Spirit. Even in Corinth his efforts were to show 
by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ (Ac 
18 28 ). It seems likely that his preaching had this 
Jewish tone all through, and lacked the spiritual 
note so dominant in St. Paul's preaching. It was 
not Judaistic ; it was ' a middle term between 
Paulinism and Judaism ' (Pfleiderer, i. 148). 

The last NT reference to Apollos (Tit 3 18 ) con- 
nects him with ' Zenas the lawyer,' probably a 
convert from the Jewish scribes. This confirms 
the idea that Apollos maintained a Hebraistic type 
of preaching, though his Alexandrian training 
differentiated him from the ' Judaizers ' who pur- 
sued St. Paul so relentlessly. Apollos did not 
recognize that he was anti-Pauline. But the in- 
evitable result of his preaching was to produce a 
different type of Christian from the type St. Paul 
desired. 

(2) Despite Weizsacker's disclaimer, some of the 
results of the teaching of Apollos can be recognized 
in those irregularities in the Corinthian Church to 
which St. Paul refers in 1 Corinthians. Would not 
his eloquence, his philosophical bent, and his re- 
iterated emphasis on Jesus as the Christ, lead to 
imperfect conversions ? And may not the prefer- 
ence for the gift of tongues, or the difficulties about 
marriage, be traced naturally to this eloquent 
ascetic ? In Corinth, St. Paul resolved ' not to 
know anything save Christ, and him crucified' (1 
Co 2 2 ). Apollos was less conscious of the dangers 
of another mode of preaching ; and his convincing 
eloquence might win converts who had not ' believed 
through grace.' This judgment is in harmony with 
St. Paul's references to Apollos. They scarcely 
justify the remark of Pfleiderer that St. Paul and 
Apollos were ' on the best of terms ' (L 146). The 
relations were correct, but hardly cordial. The 
two men were friendly ; but they occupied different 
standpoints, and could not always agree. St. Paul 
was very anxious to avoid friction in Corinth. 
Therefore he wrote about ' the parties ' in a con- 
ciliatory spirit, acknowledging generously the work 
of Apollos. In the same spirit, Apollos did not 
accept the invitation of the Corinthians (1 Co 16 12 ). 
But there are hints that St. Paul did not reckon 
Apollos among the great Christian teachers. He 
is not mentioned among the founders of the Church 
in 2 Co I 19 . In 1 Co 16 12 he is referred to only as 
' the brother,' where other people's work is de- 
scribed with enthusiasm. St. Paul's references to 
his own preaching ' not in wisdom of words ' ; to 
'wood, hay, stubble' as possibly built on the 
foundation he has laid ; to ' ten thousand tutors in 
Christ ' who may conceivably mislead : these are 
compatible at least with St. Paul's fear lest the 
work of Apolios might be somewhat subversive of 
his own. Then in Tit 3 13 St. Paul links Apollos 
with Zenas in a kindly spirit, but not as if he were 
an outstanding leader. Probably, whilst sincerely 
respecting each other, they recognized frankly the 
differences between them ; and in a very creditable 
manner each man went on his own way. Like St. 
Paul, Apollos tried to avoid fomenting the party 
spirit in Corinth ; and the NT leaves him in Crete, 
as a travelling preacher. 

Several scholars favour the theory, suggested by 



Luther, that Apollos was the author of ' Hebrews.' 
Probably we must accept Bruce's summing up : 
' Apollos is the kind of man wanted. With this 
we must be content ' (HDB ii. 338 a ). 

LITERATURE. Artt. in HDB and EBi on ' Apollos,' ' Corinth,' 
'Corinthians'; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and 
the Rorrum Citizen, London, 1895, pp. 252, 267 ff. ; O. Pfleiderer, 
Prim. Christianity, do. 1906, i. 145-160; C. v. Weizsacker, 
Apostolic Age, i.2 [do. 1897] 319-322, ii. [1895] 97 ; A. Harnack, 
Expansion of Christianity'*, do. 1908, i. 79 ; A. C. McGiffert, 
Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 290 ff. ; A. Wright, Some 
A'T Problems, London, 1898, p. 309 ; A. Deane, Friends and 
Fellow- Labourers of St. Paul, do. 1907, p. 20; F. J. A. Hort, 
JThSt, Oct. 1905; and Schaff-Herzog, art. 'Apollos. 1 For 
authorship of ' Hebrews," see Comm. on Heb. by M. Dods 
(EGT), 229, and art. in HDB on ' Hebrews, Epistle to.' 

J. E. ROBERTS. 
APOLLYON. See ABADDON. 

APOSTASY. The Gr. word dtroo-rao-ta (apostasia) 
is found twice in the NT, but in neither case does 
EV render 'apostasy.' In Ac 21 21 a charge is 
brought against St. Paul of teaching all the Jews 
who are among the Gentiles 'to forsake Moses' 
(lit. ' apostasy from Moses'). In 2 Th 2 3 St. Paul 
assures the Thessalonian disciples that the day 
of the Lord shall not come 'except the falling 
away (lit. ' the apostasy') come first, and the man 
of sin (marg., with better textual justification, 
'lawlessness') be revealed.' It is sometimes as- 
sumed that the word 'first' indicates that the 
revelation of the ' man of sin ' must be preceded 
in time by the apostasy (cf. art. MAN OF SlN, 
and HDB iii. 226) ; but the relation of v. 2 to v. 8 
makes it more natural to understand ' first ' as 
signifying that the apostasy and the revelation of 
the ' man of sin,' regarded as contemporaneous, 
must come before the day of the Lord. This is 
confirmed if we accept Nestle's contention (ExpT 
xvi. [1904-1905] 472) that r) airoo-Tao-la in this passage 
should be taken as a translation of the Heb. ^$3 
(Belial [#..]) a rendering that occurs frequently 
in Aquila's version and also in 3 K 21 18 in the 
Cod. Alexandrinus. In any case the Apostle's 
reference is to the wide-spread expectation in the 
primitive Church (Mt 24 24 , 1 Jn 2 18 ; cf. Dn 12 11 ) 
that the return of Christ would be preceded by 
such a revelation of the power of the Antichrist 
(q.v.) as would lead to apostasy from the faith on 
the part of many professing Christians. 

J. C. LAMBERT. 

APOSTLE. The term ' Apostle ' (Gr. d^oroXos) 
is more definite than ' messenger' (Gr. 4776X0$) in 
that the apostle has a special mission, and is the 
commissioner of the person who sends him. This 
distinction holds good both in classical and in 
biblical Greek. There is no good reason for doubt- 
ing that the title ' apostle ' was given to the Twelve 
by Christ Himself (Lk 6 13 = Mk 3 14 , where 'whom 
he also named apostles ' is strongly attested). That 
the title was used in the first instance simply in 
reference to the temporary mission of the Twelve 
to prepare for Christ's own preaching is a conjecture 
which receives some support from the fact that, in 
the Apostolic Church, Barnabas and Paul are first 
called ' apostles ' (Ac 14 4 - 14 ) when they are acting 
as envoys of the Church in Antioch in St. Paul's 
first missionary journey. On this hypothesis, the 
temporary apostleship, though not identical with 
the permanent office, was typical of it and pre- 
paratory to it (Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, 1897, 
p. 28 f.). 

There is fundamental agreement between the 
work of the apostles during Christ's ministry and 
their work after the Ascension : their functions 
undergo no radical change. But the changes are 
considerable. Christ chose them in the first in- 
stance (Mk 3 14 ) 'that they might be with him,' 
to be educated and trained, ' and that he might 
send them forth to preach ' and do works of mercy 



APOSTLE 



APOSTLE 



83 



Instruction is the main thing, and ' disciples' is the 
usual designation ; mission work is secondary and 
teinporary. After the Ascension their mission 
work becomes primary and permanent. Apostle- 
ship is now the main thing ; in Acts ' apostles ' is 
the dominant appellation, and in the Epistles 
' disciples ' are not mentioned. Instead of being 
led and guided, the Twelve now become leaders 
and guides ; or rather, instead of having a visible 
Guide, they now have an invisible one instead of 
Jesus, ' the Spirit of Jesus ' (Ac 16 7 ), who helps 
them to lead others. The guidance of the Spirit 
is the dominant idea in the Apostolic Church. 
Nevertheless, the other way of stating the change 
is true ; they have become teachers rather than 
disciples. But the purpose is the same ; their 
mission is unchanged. With enlarged experi- 
ence, with powers greatly augmented at Pente- 
cost, and with an enormously extended sphere of 
work, they have to make known the Kingdom of 
God. Cf. art. DISCIPLE. 

This extension of sphere is one of the special 
marks of the transfigured apostleship. It is no 
longer restricted to ' the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel,' but is to embrace ' all the nations ' through- 
out 'all the world.' The tentative mission to the 
inhabitants of Palestine at a peculiar crisis has be- 
come one which has no limitations of either space 
or time (Mt 28 19 , Lk 24 47 , Ac I 8 ). But this uni- 
versality of sphere was not the only or the most 
important characteristic of the new mission. The 
chief mark was the duty of bearing witness. The 
Twelve seem to have been selected originally be- 
cause of their fitness for bearing witness. They 
were not specially qualified for grasping or ex- 
pounding theological doctrines ; nor were such 
qualifications greatly needed, for the doctrines 
which the Master taught them were few and simple. 
Yet they had difficulty in apprehending some of 
these, and sometimes surprised their Master by 
their inability to understand (Mk 7 18 8 17 9 s2 ). But 
because of their simplicity they were very credible 
witnesses of what they had heard and seen. They 
had been men of homely circumstances, and their 
unique experiences as the disciples of Christ made 
a deep impression upon them, especially with re- 
gard to the hopeless sense of loss when He was put 
to death, and to the amazing recovery of joy when 
their own senses convinced them that He had risen 
again. They were thus well qualified to convince 
others. They evidently had not the wit to invent 
an elaborate story, or to retain it when it had been 
elaborated, and therefore what they stated with 
such confidence was likely to be true. They were 
chosen to keep alive and extend the knowledge of 
events that were of the utmost importance to man- 
kind the knowledge that Jesus Christ had died 
on the Cross, and had risen from the grave. That 
He had died and been buried was undisputed and 
indisputable ; and all of them could testify that 
they had repeatedly seen Him alive after His 
burial. This was the primary function of an 
apostle to bear witness of Christ's Resurrection 
(Ac I 22 4 s - 33 ), and the influence of the testimony 
was enormous. The apostles did not argue ; they 
simplystatedwhat they knew. Every onewho heard 
them felt that they were men who had an intense 
belief in the truth of what they stated. There is 
no trace in either Acts or the Epistles of hesitation 
or doubt as to the certainty of their knowledge ; 
they knew that their witness was true (Jn 21 24 , 
1 Jn I 1 " 3 ). And the confidence with which they 
delivered their testimony was communicated to 
those who heard it all the more effectually because, 
without any sign of collusion or conspiracy, they 
all told the same story. They differed in age, 
temperament, and ability, but they did not differ 
when they spoke of what they had seen and heard. 



Nay, this still held good when one whom they had 
at first regarded with fear and suspicion (Ac 9 26 ) 
was added to their company. Greatly as Saul of 
Tarsus differed from the Twelve in some things, 
he was entirely at one with them respecting funda- 
mental facts. He, like them, had seen and heard 
the risen Christ (1 Co 9 1 15 8 - " ; Latham, Pastor 
Pastorum, 1890, pp. 228-230). 

It was probably owing to St. Paul's persistent 
claim to be an apostle, equal in rank with the 
Twelve (Gal I 1 , 1 Co 9 1 ), that it became customary 
from very early times to restrict the appellation 
of ' apostle ' to the Twelve and the Apostle of the 
Gentiles ; but there is no such restriction in the 
NT. It is certainly given to Barnabas, but perhaps 
primarily as being an envoy from the Church of 
Antioch (Ac 13 1 - 2 14 4< 14 ), rather than as having 
a direct mission from Christ. St. Paul seems to 
speak of him as a colleague, recognized by Peter 
and John as equal to himself in the mission to the 
Gentiles (Gal 2 9 ), and as one who, like himself, 
used the apostolic privilege of working for nothing, 
although he had a right to maintenance (1 Co 9 6 ). 
We need not doubt that Barnabas continued to 
be called an apostle in a general sense after the 
mission from Antioch was over. 

Perhaps the simplest and most natural way of 
understanding Gal I 19 is that James, the Lord's 
brother, had the title of 'apostle' in the wider 
sense. It may be regarded as certain that this 
James was not one of the Twelve. But 1 Co 15 7 
ought not to be quoted as implying either that 
there was a company of apostles larger than the 
Twelve or that James was a member of this larger 
company. ' Next he appeared to James ; then to 
the whole body of the apostles.' There is no 
emphasis on 'all,' implying an antithesis between 
' to one, then to all.' Such an antithesis, as well 
as the idea that James was in some sense an 
apostle, is foreign to the context. The ' all ' prob- 
ably looks back to ' the twelve' in v. 10 , which is an 
official and not a numerical designation, for only 
ten were there, Thomas and Judas being absent. 
' Then to all the apostles ' probably means that on 
that occasion the apostolic company was complete 
(for Thomas was present) rather than that some were 
there who were called apostles although they were 
not of the original Twelve. It is highly probable 
that James, the Lord's brother, was such a person, 
but 1 Co 15 7 ought not to be quoted as evidence of 
this. It is after the murder of James the son of 
Zebedee that James the Lord's brother comes on 
the scene. He may have taken the place of his 
namesake in the number of the Twelve. 

That Silvanus and Timothy were regarded as 
apostles in the wider sense is not improbable. In 
both 1 and 2 Thess. they are associated with St. 
Paul in the address, and in both letters the first 
person plural is used with a regularity which is not 
found in any other group of the Pauline Epistles : 
' our gospel,' i.e. ' the gospel whicli we apostles 
preach,' is specially remarkable (1 Th I 5 , 2 Tli 2 14 ). 
Still more remarkable is the casual addition, 
' when we might have been burdensome as apostles 
of Christ '(1 Th2 6 ). 

Ko 16 7 probably means that Andronicus and 
Junias were distinguished as apostles ; but there 
are two elements of doubt : tirio-rj/jioi tv rots dTnwrdXots 
might mean ' well known to the apostles,' but it 
more probably means that among the apostles they 
were illustrious persons ; and'Iowtev may be masc. 
or fern., Junias or Junia. If Junia is right, the 
probability that Andronicus and Junia (?man and 
wife) were distinguished members of the apostolic 
body is lessened. But Chrysostom does not shrink 
from the thought that a woman may be an apostle. 
He says that to be an apostle at all is a great thing, 
and therefore to be illustrious amongst such persons 



84 



APOSTLE 



APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 



is very high praise ; and ' how great is the devotion 
of this woman, that she should be even counted 
worthy of the appellation of apostle ! ' (Sanday- 
Headlam, ad loc.). 

The fact that there were people who claimed, 
without any right, the title or 'apostle' (2 Co II 13 , 
Rev 2 2 ) amounts to proof that in the Apostolic 
Church there were ' apostles ' outside the Twelve 
with the addition of St. Paul. It is incredible that 
there were people who claimed to belong to a body 
so well known as the Twelve, or any who tried to 
personate St. Paul ; and ' it would be unprofitable 
to waste words on the strange theory that St. Paul 
is meant by these false apostles ' (Hort, Judaistic 
Christianity, 1894, p. 163). Very soon, though not 
in the NT, the title of ' apostle ' was given to the 
Seventy. It is not likely that Joseph Barsabbas 
and Matthias were the only persons among the 120 

fathered together after the Ascension (Ac I 15 ) who 
ad the apostolic qualification of having seen the 
Lord ; probably most of them had been His personal 
disciples. All of those who took to missionary work 
would be likely to be styled ' apostles ' ; and it is 
not impossible that the ' false apostles ' who op- 
posed St. Paul had this qualification, and therefore 
claimed to have a better right to the title than he 
had. 

The cumulative effect of the facts and probabili- 
ties stated above is very strong so strong that we 
are justified in affirming that in the NT there are 
persons other than the Twelve and St. Paul who 
were called apostles, and in conjecturing that they 
were rather numerous. All who seemed to be 
called by Christ or the Spirit to do missionary work 
would be thought worthy of the title, especially 
such as had been in personal contact with the 
Master. _ When it is said that this reasonable 
affirmation, based entirely upon Scripture, is con- 
firmed by the account in the Didache of an order 
of wandering preachers who were called ' apostles,' 
we must be careful not to exaggerate the amount 
of confirmation. There is no proof, and there is 
not a very high degree of probability, that the 
'apostles of the Didache are the same kind of 
ministers as those who are called ' apostles ' in the 
NT, although not of the number of the Twelve. 
We must not infer that they are the lineal de- 
scendants, officially, of workers such as Silvanus, 
Andronicus, and Junias. But the fact that in the 
sub-Apostolic Age there were itinerant ministers 
called ' apostles does give confirmation to the 
assertion that in the NT there were, outside the 
apostolic body, ministers who were known as 
' apostles.' Chief among these were Paul, Barnabas, 
and James, of whom Paul certainly, and the other 
two probably, were regarded by most Christians 
as equal to the Twelve. Like the Twelve, Paul 
and Barnabas had no local ties : they retained a 
general authority over the churches which they 
founded, but they did not take up their abode in 
them as permanent rulers. They trained the 
churches to govern themselves. The Twelve are 
to be twelve Patriarchs of the larger Israel, twelve 
repetitions of Christ (Harnack, Expansion of Chris- 
tianity, Eng. tr., 1904-5, i. 72), and at first they 
were the whole ministry of the infant Church. 
The first act of the infant Church was to restore 
the typical number twelve by the election of 
Matthias ; and it is worthy of note, as indicating 
both the undeveloped condition of the ministry 
and also the germs of future developments, that in 
Acts all three terms, ' diaconate ' ( 1 " w ), ' bishopric ' 
(1 s0 ), and ' apostleship ' (I 26 ), are used in connexion 
with the election of Matthias. There is no good 
ground for the conjecture that the choice of 
Matthias did not receive subsequent sanction, that 
he was set aside, and that St. Paul was Divinely 
appointed to take his place. It is true that he 



subsequently falls into the background and is lost 
from sight ; but so do most of the Twelve. 

The absence from Christ's teaching of any state- 
ment respecting the priesthood of the Twelve, or 
respecting the transmission of the powers of the 
Twelve to others, is remarkable. As the primary 
function of the Twelve was to be witnesses of what 
Christ had taught and done, especially in rising from 
the dead, no transmission of so exceptional an office 
was possible. Even with regard to the high author- 
ity which all apostles possessed, it is not clear that 
it was a jurisdiction which was to be passed on from 
generation to generation. Belief in the speedy 
return of Christ would prevent any such intention. 
The apostles were commissioned to found a living 
Church, with power to supply itself with ministers 
and to organize them. 

LITERATURE. In addition to the works already cited, see 
J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians, ed. 1892, pp. 92-101 ; E. Haupt, 
Zum Verstandnis des Apostolatt im AT, Halle, 1896 ; H. 
Monnier, La Notion de I'apostolat, Paris, 1903 ; P. Batiffol, 
L'Eglise naissante't, do. 1909, pp. 46-68 ; also art. ' Apostle,' 
in EDB, DCG, EBi, and EBr&. ALFRED PLUMMER. 

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS AND CANONS. 
This work (of the 4th or 5th cent. A.D., but based 
on more ancient materials) is divided into eight 
books, dealing, in rambling and hortatory fashion, 
with the problems of church life and discipline. 
The chief interest of its contents lies in the mis- 
cellaneous information afforded regarding the 
customs of an early period ; the theological lean- 
ings, if definitely present at all, are difficult to 
determine ; the copious Scripture quotations often 
support 'Western readings. At the end of the 
eighth book come 85 'Apostolic Canons,' which 
have attracted special attention. 

The claim made by its title (Aiarayal rwv aytuv 
&iroffT6\<i)v diit KX^AteJTOs Tod'Pta/mlwv tiri.a'Kbirov re Kal 
iroXLrov. KadoXiK^i SiSacricaXla.) is re-stated in the 
conclusion and amplified in vi. 14, 18 : ' We now 
assembled, Peter and Andrew, James and John, 
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, 
James the son of Alpheeus, and Lebbaeus who is 
surnamed Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 
and Matthias who instead of Judas was numbered 
with us, and James the brother of our Lord and 
bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul . . . and have written 
to you this catholic doctrine [which] we have sent 
by our fellow-minister Clement.' The direct 
authority of Christ is also adduced in ii. 1 : ' Con- 
cerning bishops we have heard from our Lord ' ; 
and in v. 7 : 'We teach you all these things which 
He appointed by His constitutions.' The collective 
apostolic authorship is recalled to the reader's 
mind from time to time by casual phrases such as 
' we twelve,' ' Philip our fellow-apostle ' ; while by 
a curious device, from time to time, without any 
break in the discourse, one or other of the apostles 
takes the word out of the common mouth and 
speaks in his own name, especially at points where 
the reference is to his personal experience ; as ii. 
57 : ' Read the gospels which 1, Matthew and John, 
have delivered unto you,' and v. 14 : ' I arose up from 
lying in His bosom.' Near the end the apostles 
in turn each deliver one or more 'constitutions.' 

For any modern reader a cursory glance will 
dispose of these claims. The detailed injunctions 
about ordinations and festivals, the triumphant 
proof of the possibility of the Resurrection by a 
reference to the phoenix, do not strike the apostolic 
note ; and it is easy to remark definite points such 
as the reference to the heresy of Basilides (vi. 8), 
and the conversion of the Romans (vi. 24), which 
show the suggestion of the title to be unwarranted. 
The author, however, found the apostolic claim 
made in the sources he used ; his own contribution 
to the fiction is the assertion that Clement was tha 
channel of communication. 



APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 



APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 85 



In 692 the Trullan Council of Constantinople 
repudiated the ' Constitutions ' as having been 
tampered with by heretics, but accepted the 85 
Canons ; while, although in the Gelasian Decree 
they are called apocryphal, Dionysius Exiguus (c. 
A.D. 500) had translated 50 of the Canons into 
Latin, and thus these 50 obtained acceptance in 
the West. The 85 Canons were translated into 
Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic ; and, though the 
' Constitutions' was not translated as a whole, and, 
in the West, remained unknown, we find Nicetas 
(A.D. 1154) quoting books v. vi. vii. in his book 
contra Latinos. After the first publication of the 
Greek text at Venice, in 1563, by the Jesuit 
Turrianus from a good Cretan MS, the spuriousness 
of their authority soon came to be recognized. The 
convenient edition of W. Ultzen (Schwerin and 
Kostock, 1853) is based on this text. 

Modern criticism, it may be said summarily, 
has shown that the ' Apostolic Constitutions ' is a 
compilation made by a single writer, often referred 
to as pseudo-Clement, who seems identifiable with 
the author of the spurious Ignatian epistles ; that 
it is of Syrian origin, and that it must be dated in 
the 4th or early in the 5th century. One leading 
consideration is the absence of a polemical theo- 
logical note, which demands a period sufficiently 
subsequent to the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). 
Interest is thus transferred to the task of dis- 
tinguishing the older materials present, and tracing 
in them, and in the modifications made by the 
compiler, and by still later hands (especially in 
book viii., which, being most in practical use, was 
subject to current alteration), the flux of ecclesi- 
astical usages a task in which the Church historian 
still waits to some extent for the textual critic. 

Books i.-vi. are based on the Didascalia, a book 
originally written in Greek, but known only 
through a single MS of the Syriac version, now in 
Paris, published as Didascalia apostolorum syriace 
by P. Lagarde (Leipzig, 1854), by M. D. Gibson 
with Eng. tr. in Horce Semiticce, L, ii. (Cambridge, 
1903), by H. Achelis in TU xxv. 2 [1904]. This 
document is to be placed in Syria about the 
middle of the 3rd century. It contemplates a large 
city-church attended by all sorts and conditions, 
conscious of the gulf between Christians and 
pagans, yet apparently neither persecuted nor 
unpopular. After some general exhortations to 
men and women, the subject of the bishop and 
his duties is treated in detail. Remarkable 
emphasis is laid on a ready and kindly reception 
of the penitent. We hear of Church courts for 
civil cases between Christian disputants, which are 
to meet on Monday, so that feeling may be cooled 
before the days of worship. The church building 
lies eastwards in the direction of the earthly 
Paradise and is arranged with special seats for 
the Presbytery and the different sexes and ages in 
the congregation. Deacons, sub-deacons, deacon- 
esses, widows, orphans, martyrs, readers, are 
mentioned as special classes. By a strange chron- 
ology of the Passion, a foundation is ottered for 
Easter regulations evidently requiring defence, 
whether as new or as in conflict with neighbouring 
custom. There are some Jewish-Christian mem- 
bers, and at the close these are specially addressed. 
The style throughout is homiletic, with copious 
citations from Scripture. A short account or this 
book is given in Harnack, The Mission and Ex- 
pansion of Christianity* (tr. Moffatt, London, 1908), 
ii. 157, 158. 

The work of the compiler of the ' Constitutions ' 
is seen in the additional Scripture references, moral 
reflexions and exhortations. He makes, for ex- 
ample, an unhappily conceived attempt at an 
elaborate analogy between a well-arranged church 
and a ship, the deacons being the sailors, the congre- 



gation passengers, and so forth. He revises the 
account of the Passion referred to, in the interests 
of the shorter fast of his day (v. 14). He boldly 
reverses the direction to follow the Jewish com- 
putation for Easter (ib. 17). He refers to the 
Koraan adoption of Christianity (vi. 24), where 
instead the Didascalia mentions persecution. 

Book vii. consists of an amplification of the 
Didache (q.v.) with modifications. An injunction 
to fear the king (ch. 16) and pay taxes willingly is 
inserted. The permission of warm water at baptism 
is omitted (ch. 20). The rule about weekly fast- 
days is taken to apply to the Easter fast. The 
connexion of Eucharist with Agape, apparent in 
the Didache, is avoided. A number of liturgical 
forms are appended, among which the baptismal 
symbol in ch. 41 has been doubtfully attributed to 
Lucian of Antioch a suggestion winch might, as 
Achelis points out, connect the 'Constitutions' 
with his congregation. For a comparison of book 
vii. with the Didache see Harnack, ' Didache,' in 
TU ii. 2 [1884], and art. DIDACHE below. 

Behind book viii. are various sources. The first 
two paragraphs are thought by Achelis to be 
founded on Hippolytus' lost work vepl xapifffjidruv. 
After there treating of the diversity of spiritual 
gifts, the writer goes on to 24 chapters, in which 
the apostles, gathered in council, deliver singly, 
in turn, ' constitutions ' concerning the choice and 
ordination of bishops and other officers ; concerning 
presbyters, deacons, sub-deacons, readers, widows, 
exorcists, and their functions ; concerning tithes 
and offerings, the reception of catechumens, holy 
days, church services and prayers. The main 
source is thought to be the ' Egyptian Church 
Order,' originally in Greek, but known through 
its Coptic and Ethiopic versions, this in turn being 
based upon the ' Canons of Hippolytus ' (c. A.D. 
220). Both of these may be compared with the 
' Constitutions ' in TU vi. 4 [1891], pp. 39-136. The 
dependence of the ' Constitutions' on these Canons, 
though not noted in the complete MSS (unless, 
indeed, the old conjecture were revived that in the 
title, after KXTJ/^JTOJ . . . tTrurKbirov should be read 
xal'IinroXtfrov, instead of re ical iro\Lrov), is pointed 
out by the title Atard^ets rCiv ayluv dirocrr6\uv vepl 
XeipoToviuv Sia ' iTTTroXi/roi;, in excerpts from book 
viii. Whether, however, the ' Egyptian Church 
Order' needs to be inserted as a link oetween book 
viii. and the 'Canons of Hippolytus' has been 
disputed. 

The most noteworthy sections of book viii. are 
those containing a complete liturgy for the cele- 
bration of the Lord's Supper. The catechumens, 
hearers, unbelievers, and heterodox are to depart. 
Mothers are to ' receive ' their children that is, to 
keep them quiet, else they would continue straying 
to and fro between the women's seats and their 
fathers, as may still be seen in Eastern Christian 
worship. Two deacons are to fan away flies from 
the cups. The high priest consecrates, the service 
proceeds with responses and prayers. First the 
bishop, then the presbyters and deacons partake, 
and then the people, who after further prayer are 
dismissed with the benediction ' Depart in peace.' 
To the older source the compiler of the ' Constitu- 
tions ' adds that the high priest puts on ' his 
shining garment' and crosses himself; and, after 
the deacons, adds a long list of classes of partakers, 
ending with the children ; and orders Ps 33 to be 
said while the distribution takes place. 

In comparison with its sources, book viii. shows 
a hardening of ecclesiastic rule, e.g. in the decision 
that a confessor must not on any account be dis- 
pensed from the need of being ordained if he 
proceeds to office. A still later change is seen in 
the suppression of all mention of porters in this 
book. This cannot be due to pseudo-Clement, 



86 APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 



APPIUS, MAEKET OF 



for he names them in the preceding books ; when 
they had disappeared in practice, the references 
must have been deleted from the familiar book 
viii., but left unnoticed elsewhere. 

The 85 'Canons' at the end of book viii. 
gained, as we have seen, a partly independent 
currency : 20 are derived from the Synod of 
Antioch (A.D. 341) ; at least 24 repeat regulations 
from the ' Constitutions ' ; the others are likelier to 
be taken from various sources than to be original 
inventions. They are to be put a little later than 
the ' Constitutions.' The most remarkable is that 
which enumerates the canonical books of Scripture, 
omitting the Apocalypse from the NT canon, but 
inserting the two epistles of Clement and the 
'Apostolic Constitutions,' and, after this audacity, 
with an artistic touch modestly placing ' the Acts 
of us Apostles ' at the bottom of the list. 

Other matters contained in the ' Apostolic 
Constitutions' may be briefly noticed. In the 
'bidding prayers' in book viii. a touching light is 
thrown on the composition of the Church by the 
reference to those in bitter servitude (viii. 10 ; cf. 
the instruction to admit a slave concubine to 
membership if faithful to her master [ib. 32]). A 
different aspect of affairs is revealed by the list in 
iv. 6 of those whose gifts should not be received 
adulterers, cruel employers, idol-makers, thieves, 
unjust publicans, drunkards, usurers. A strange 
piece of advice follows that, if such contribu- 
tions have to be taken, they shall be expended 
in fuel for the needy rather than in food, as the 
putrid sacrificial meat is ordered iu Lv 19 s to be 
burnt. 

The transition from ' Sabbath ' (Saturday) to 
' the Lord's day ' (Sunday) as the day of worship is 
seen in process. Book ii. 36 enjoins observance of 
Sabbath ; in ch. 47 the language suggests both days, 
although the thought has in view perhaps only one ; 
ch. 59 shows the hesitancy of a time of change, 
saying first ' principally on the Sabbath,' then ' on 
the Lord's day meet more diligently.' Bk. v. 20 
enjoins both days ; vii. 23 enjoins first both, then 
says ' there is one only Sabbath to be observed in 
the whole year,' that before Easter, as a fast, for 
then Christ was in the tomb. Book viii. 33 enjoins 
rest for slaves on both days. As regards other 
holy days, Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Week, are 
mentioned (v. 14, 15) ; further, Pentecost and St. 
Stephen's Day (viii. 33). 

Baptism ritual is elaborate. Before and after 
immersion there is anointing. Presbyters can 
baptize, though not ordain (iii. 10, 11). Deacon- 
esses are useful, especially in the baptism of 
women (ib. 15). Canon 50 orders trine immersion. 

The bishop is to be ordained by two or three 
bishops after he is chosen by the people, who are 
to be repeatedly asked for their consent to pro- 
cedure (viii. 4). A chief duty of his, requiring 
acuteness and tact and honour, is the charge of 
the almsgiving (ii. 4). Exorcists are recognized 
as doing good work, though they are not to be 
ordained. 

In public worship (ii. 57) the bishops and presby- 
ters sit, the deacons stand near, the congregation 
are seated according to age and sex, children 
may stand beside their parents. Deacons walk 
about to check whispering, laughing, or sleeping. 
Lessons from the historical and poetical books of 
the OT respectively are followed by a Psalm sung 
solo, the congregation joining ' at the conclusions 
of the verses ' ; then comes a lesson from the Acts 
or Epistles, and after this all stand at the reading 
of the Gospel. If visiting bishops, presbyters, or 
deacons are present, they are to be recognized as 
such, and, especially visiting bishops, are to be 
asked to speak. There is daily morning and 
evening service (ii. 59, viii. 34, 35), and temptation 



both to neglect it and to attend heathen and 
Jewish services. 

Curiosities of thought and diction are : warn- 
ings to males against dressiness they may thus 
snare the frail fair (i. 3) ; warnings to women not 
to paint the face, ' which is God's workmanship ' 
(ib. 8) ; the reason in favour of secrecy in alms- 
giving, that thus comparisons and grumbling are 
prevented among the recipients (iii. 14) ; an elabo- 
rate comparison of spiritual and physical healing 
(ii. 41), which gives a vivid picture of contemporary 
medicine and surgery, at least as it appeared to 
the author's imagination : 

' If it be a hollow wound or great gash, nourish it with a suit- 
able plaster ; ... if foul, cleanse with corrosive powder, that 
is, words of reproof ; if it have proud flesh, eat it down with 
a sharp plaster threats of judgment ; if it spreads, cut off the 
putrid flesh ; . . . but if there is no room for a fomentation, or 
oil, or bandage, then, with a great deal of consideration, and 
the advice of other skilful physicians, cut off the putrefied 
member, that the whole church be not corrupted. ... Be not 
hasty with the saw, but first try lancing.' 

A quaint story is told by Peter (vi. 8 f.) about 
Simon Magus, wno, to recommend his heresies, flew 
in the air in a Roman theatre supported by demons, 
till Peter exorcized them and Simon fell and broke 
his legs, whereupon the people cried out : ' There 
is only one God, and Peter rightly preaches the 
truth/ 

LITERATURE. In addition to the references already given, 
full notes will be found in H. Achelis" valuable art. ' ApostoL 
Konstitutionen u. Kanones ' in PRE* i. [1896]. The ' Ante-Nicene 
Library* (vol. xvii.) contains an Kng. translation. See also the 
notices in A. Harnack, Gesch. der altchristlichen Litteratur, 
pi. i. [Leipzig, 1893] ; A. J. Maclean, Recent Discoveries illustrat- 
ing Early Christian Life and Worship, London, 1904 ; W. E. 
Collins, art. ' Apostol. Constitutions' in EBr^ ii. [1910]. 

R. W. STEWART. 
APPEAL. See TRIAL-AT-LAW. 

APPEARING. See PAROTTSIA. 

APPHIA (in some MSS and VSS Aphphia or 
Appia). A Christian lady of Colossse, designated 
by St. Paul (Philem 2 ) as 'sister' (d5e\00, so K ADE), 
in the Christian sense. AV, following inferior MS 
testimony, substitutes 'beloved' (ayairijTjj) ; some 
MSS have both words. Grotius regards the name 
as a softened and hellenized form of the Latin 
Appia; but Lightfoot (Col. and Philem. 3 , 1879, 
p. 306) and Zahn (Introd. to NT, 1909, i. 458) show 
that the name is Phrygian and is found in numerous 
ancient Phrygian inscriptions. 

Most commentators (following Chrysostom and 
Theodoret) regard Apphia as Philemon's wife, since 
otherwise her name either would not have been in- 
troduced at all in a private letter, or at least would 
have been put after the name of Archippus (q.v.), 
who was an office-bearer. As the wife of Philemon, 
Apphia would have some claim to be consulted in 
such a matter as the forgiveness and emancipation 
of a slave. The possibility, however, of her being 
the sister (literally) of Philemon is not grammatic- 
ally excluded if the reading ' sister ' be accepted. 

The ancient Greek Martyrology represents 
Apphia (along with Philemon) as suffering martyr- 
dom under Nero on Nov. 22 (see Mencea for 
November). 

LITERATURE. See under PHILEMON. HENRY COWAN. 

APPII FORUM. See APPIUS, MARKET OF. 

APPIUS, MARKET OP fAira-fcu <f>&pov, Ac 28 1S ; 
AV Appii Forum). A town on the Via Appia, 
the usual resting-place for travellers from Rome at 
the end of the first day's journey, though Horace 
says of himself and his companion : 'Hoc iter ignayi 
divisimus' (Sat. I. v. 5). The site of the town is 
marked by considerable ruins, near the modern 
railway station of Foro Appio, where the 43rd 
ancient milestone is still preserved. It was the 
northern terminus of a canal (fossa), which ex- 



APRON 



AQUILA AND PRISCILLA 87 



tended, parallel with the line of road, through the 
Pomptine marshes as far as the neighbourhood of 
Tarracina. Strabo says that travellers from the 
South usually sailed up the canal by night, ' em- 
barking in the evening, and landing in the morning 
to travel the rest of their journey by road ' (v. iii. 
6). Pliny mentions Appii Forum among the muni- 
cipal towns of Latium (III. v. 9). Horace (loc. cit. 
4-15) sets down his vivid recollections of a place 
' crammed full of boatmen and extortionate tavern- 
keepers,' where 'the water was utterly bad,' where 
at night ' the slaves bantered the boatmen and the 
boatmen the slaves,' where ' troublesome mosqui- 
toes and marsh frogs ' kept sleep from his eyes. 
St. Paul and St. Luke remembered it gratefully as 
the first of two places Tres Tabernce (see THREE 
TAVERNS), 10 miles further north, being the other 
whither brethren came from Rome to greet them 
and escort them on their way. J. STRAHAN. 

APRON. The word ffifUKlvdia. (pi.), a modified 
form of the Latin semicinctia, occurs only in Ac 
19 12 , where it is translated 'aprons,' and placed in 
an alternative relation to crovddpta. (see HANDKER- 
CHIEF). The two articles are not to be identified. 
The a-ifj-ucivOiov is, as the derivation suggests, a half- 
girdle, or forecloth ; not an essential of dress, like 
the girdle itself, but an accessory, worn by artisans 
and slaves for protection of their clothes during 
work. Presumably the material was linen or cotton. 
Still there is some doubt as to its precise nature 
(see L. S. Potwin, Here and There in the Greek New 
Testament, New York, 1898, p. 169, where a parallel 
from Martial, xiv. 151 ff. is quoted). 

It is not said that the aprons were the property 
of St. Paul ; but, judging from the word used for 
body (awb rov x/>wr<5s), this is not impossible. The 
deduction has been made that he used them in pur- 
suing his craft as a tentmaker. All that was needed, 
however, was that the articles should have touched 
his person, and thereafter those suffering from dis- 
ease (cf. Lk S 44 ). For the usage, and belief under- 
lying, cf. Ac 5 1B , and for modern instances, HDB 
(s.v.), and S. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion 
To-Day, London, 1902, p. 91 f. 

W. CRTJICKSHANK. 

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA (or PRISCA). * The 
references to this husband and wife are Ac 18, 
Ko 16 s , 1 Co 16 19 , and 2 Ti 4 19 . These passages 
suggest that Aquila and Priscilla were, in St. 
Paul's eyes, people of importance in the early 
Church, though ecclesiastical tradition has little 
to say about them. The careful description of 
Aquila as ' a Jew, a man of Pontus by race ' (Ac 18 2 ), 
rather implies that Priscilla his wife was not a 
Jewess ; because her name is usually put first, it 
is thought that she was of higher social standing 
than her husband. Evidence has been offered by 
de Rossi that Priscilla was a well-connected Roman 
lady. Discussing this evidence, Sanday and Head- 
lam suggest that both Aquila and Priscilla ' were 
freedmen of a member of the Acilian gens ' (Romans 6 , 
420). But they admit the possibility of Priscilla 
being 'a member of some distinguished Roman 
family.' Ramsay strongly urges this theory, and 
it explains much in the story their social position, 
their command of money, their influence in Rome, 
their freedom from Jewish prejudices, etc. Another 
explanation of why Priscilla's name comes first may 
be that she was the more vigorous and intelligent 
Christian worker. Thus Harnack describes them 
as ' Prisca the missionary, with her husband 
Aquila ' (Expansion of Christianity 3 , i. 79). 

Aquila and Priscilla came from ftaly to Corinth, 
'because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to 
depart from Rome ' (Ac 18 2 ). Suetonius says the 

* St. Luke uses the form Priscilla (in Acts), St. Paul the 
form Prisca (in his Epistles). 



expulsion was caused by a series oi disturbances 
'due to the action of Chrestus' (Claud. 25); i.e. 
Christian ferment was one cause of the edict. It 
is probable, therefore, that Aquila and Priscilla 
had been influenced in Rome by Christian teaching, 
though it cannot be decided wnether they were al- 
ready converts to Christianity. For this reason 
they were compelled to leave the country, though 
the edict was not rigidly enforced on all Jews. 
Priscilla accompanied her Jewish husband to 
Corinth, where they followed their trade as tent- 
makers. They seem always to have been able to 
maintain a fair position, for their house was a 
meeting-place for the Church both in Ephesus and 
in Rome. Probably, then, they were people of 
considerable means, though their expulsion from 
Rome limited their resources for a time. Com- 
radeship in trade is given as the reason why St. 
Paul lodged with Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth ; 
but their favourable attitude to Christianity must 
have been a strong inducement on both sides. 
Under St. Paul's influence they became not only 
earnest Christians, but also enthusiastic helpers of 
the Apostle. Writing to the Corinthian Church 
in after years, the Apostle says : ' Aquila and 
Priscilla greet you much in the Lord' (1 Co 16 la ). 
This is a warm personal greeting, in the way not 
merely of friendship bat of love and service to 
Christ a suitable greeting from those who had 
helped St. Paul to found the Church. 

When St. Paul went to Ephesus, Aquila and 
Priscilla went with him and remained there to do 
pioneer work whilst he visited Jerusalem. They 
shrank from the responsibility, and wanted the 
Apostle to remain (Ac 18 20 ). But he urged them 
to stay, promising to return. So the initial work 
in Ephesus was done by Aquila and Priscilla. 
They tried to prepare the ground before St. Paul 
returned, and to sow the seed of Christian teach- 
ing as far as they were able. During this time 
Apollos (q.v.) came to Ephesus, with his imperfect 
apprehension of Christianity. Aquila and Priscilla 
admired his learning and his earnestness ; and, re- 
cognizing that such a man must either be a strong 
supporter of the cause or an influential opponent, 
they did their best to instruct him more carefully 
(Ac 18 26 ). Subsequent events throw doubt on the 
ability of this couple, who were themselves recent 
converts, to educate the eloquent Alexandrian in 
the Pauline interpretation of the gospel. Would 
not his presence overshadow Aquila and Priscilla, 
tending to make their work more difficult? The 
elementary and even chaotic state of things in 
Ephesus at this period is shown by the incident of 
the twelve men ' knowing only the baptism of 
John ' whom St. Paul found when be returned to 
the city (Ac 19 lff< ). As nothing is said about the 
baptism of Apollos, and as the twelve men 'had 
not heard whether the Holy Spirit was given,' it 
seems unlikely that there had been any Christian 
baptism in Ephesus before St. Paul came to super- 
intend the work. Nevertheless, Aquila and Pris- 
cilla seem to have fulfilled their mission with skill 
and courage ; and, when a Church was gathered, 
the members met in their house (1 Co 16 19 ). This 
may explain their presence in Rome when the 
Epistle to the Romans was written. As St. Paul 
left them in Ephesus to do pioneering work, so he 
seems to have sent them to Rome to prepare the 
way for his coming there. The decree or expul- 
sion was not enforced permanently ; their con- 
nexion with a leading Roman family made it 
more possible for them to return to Rome than 
for Jews with no influence ; whilst their know- 
ledge of the city, their social standing, as well as 
their experience in Corinth and in Ephesus, with 
their devotion to himself, fitted them pre-eminently 
for such work as St. Paul contemplated. 



88 



AEABIA 



ARABIA 



The recognition of the social position of this 
devoted couple, and of their valuable pioneering 
work, invests them with special interest as having 
assisted St. Paul in his missionary labours in a 
unique way. Their devotion to the Apostle was 
signalized in some remarkable fashion, apparently 
when he was in danger. His description of them 
as ' my fellow- workers in Christ Jesus, who for my 
life laid down their own necks ; unto whom not 
only I give thanks but also all the churches of the 
Gentiles' (Ro 16 3 - 4 ), sets them side by side with 
the Apostle. They have laboured along with him 
in a pre-eminent manner, and have attested their 
worth as independent workers (cf. Weizsacker, i. 
394). ' They furnish the most beautiful example 
known to us in the Apostolic Age of the power 
for good that could be exerted by a husband and 
wife working in unison for the advancement of 
the Gospel' (McGiffert, 428). 

The references to Aquila and Priscilla have been 
used as arguments against the historicity of parts 
of Acts and in favour of treating Ro 16 as not part 
of that Epistle. But the two reasons relied on are 
not strong enough to carry the conclusions. It is 
supposed that both were Jews (so Weizsacker, 
McGiffert ; cf. Lightfoot on Phil*, 1878, p. 16) 
though Priscilla was probably a Roman ; and their 
migratory life is fully explained if they were people 
of means, who became enthusiastic helpers in St. 
Paul's missionary labours, and whom he selected to 
do pioneering work in Ephesus and in Rome. In 
particular their return to Ephesus at a later period 
(2 Ti 4 19 ) is quite comprehensible. Not only would 
they have trade connexions with the city, but also 
their presence would be specially welcome because 
they had been actually the founders of the Church. 

Aquila and Priscilla have been selected by some 
scholars as likely authors of ' Hebrews.' Harnack 
has argued strongly for this suggestion, and Rendel 
Harris favours it. M. Dods says : ' All that we know 
of Aquila seems to fit the conditions as well as any 
name that has been suggested ' (Com. on ' Hebrews ' 
[EGT], 234). It has to be said, however, that the 
suggestion implies a closer intimacy with Judaism 
than seems likely in their case. The influence of 
the Roman wife probably preponderated over the 
Jewish influence of the husband. They were not 
Christians of the Judaistic type, but cordial 
workers on Pauline lines among Gentiles. At the 
same time, the discussion of a Jew's difficulties by 
such a vigorous mind as Priscilla possessed may 
have qualified Aquila to write ' Hebrews ' with 
his wife's help. It is a question, however, whether 
their authorship would harmonize with the inde- 
pendent use of Pauline thoughts characteristic of 
the Epistle (cf. Expositor, 8th ser., v. 371 ff.). 



. Artt. in HDB on ' Aquila,' ' Priscilla,' ' Corinth,' 
' Corinthians ' ; in EBi (by Schmiedel) on ' Acts ' and ' Aquila ' ; 
and in Schaff-Herzog on 'Aquila'; Sanday - Headlam, 
Ramans*, Edinburgh, 1902, Introd. 3, and p. xl, also pp. 418- 
420 ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Raman 
Citizen, London, 1895, pp. 253ff., 267 ff. ; A. Harnack, Ex- 
pansion of Christianity^, do. 1908, i. 75 and 79; C. v. 
Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age, i.2 [do. 1897] 307 ff. ; O. 
Pfleiderer, Primitive Christianity, i. [do. 1906] 246; A. C. 
McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, pp. 273, 427 f. ; 
EOT, 'Hebrews,' Introd. p. 228, 'Acts of Apostles,' p. 383, 
'Romans,' pp. 560, 718 f. J. E. ROBERTS. 

ARABIA. Arabia (*Apa/3fa, from a-^), which now 
denotes the great peninsula lying between the Red 
Sea and the Persian Gulf, was in ancient times 
a singularly elusive term. Originally it meant 
simply 'desert' or 'desolation,' and when it became 
an ethnographic proper name it was long in ac- 
quiring a fixed and generally understood meaning. 
' Arabia ' shifted like the nomads, drifted like the 
desert sand. It did not denote a country whose 
boundaries could be defined by treaty, shown by 
landmarks, and set down in a map. Too vast and 



vague for delimitation, it impressed the imagina- 
tion like the steppe, the prairie, or the veldt, while 
it had a character and history of its own. To the 
settled races of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine, 
it meant any part of that hinterland, skirting the 
confines of civilization, which was the camping- 
ground of wandering tribes for ever hovering around 
peaceful towns and spreading terror among their 
inhabitants. It was the dim oorder region, not so 
wholly unproductive as to be incapable of support- 
ing life, interposed between cultivation and the 
sheer wilderness. So uncertain was the applica- 
tion of the term, that there was no part of the semi- 
desert fringe extending from the lower Tigris to 
the lower Nile which was not at one time or another 
called Arabia. To the prophets of Israel the word 
had one meaning, on Persian inscriptions another, 
and to Greek writers (Herod, ii. andiii. ; Xenophon, 
I. v. 1, VII. viii. 25) still another. Every one used 
it to denote that particular hinterland wnose tribes 
and peoples were more or less known to him ; that 
was his Arabia. 

But by the 3rd cent. B.C. the Arab tribe of the 
Nabatseans had become a powerful nation, with 
Petra as their capital, and from that time onward 
Arabia began to be identified, especially in the 
Western mind, with the Nabatsean kingdom. 
While 1 Mac. still distinguishes the Nabataeans 
from other Arabs (5 a 9 s8 ), 2 Mac. speaks of Aretas, 
the hereditary king of the Nabatseans, as ' king of 
the Arabs' (5 8 ). In the time of Josephus this 
people 'inhabited all the country from the Eu- 
phrates to the Red Sea' (Ant. I. xii. 4). Soon 
after taking possession of Judaea, the Romans sent 
an expedition, under Marcus Scaurus, against the 
Nabatseans (59 B.C. ) ; and, though their subjugation 
was not accomplished at that time, it must have 
taken place not much later. From the days of 
Augustus the kings of the Arabians were as much 
subject to the Empire as Herod, king of the Jews, 
and they had the whole region between Herod's 
dominions and the desert assigned to them. To 
the north 'their territory reached as far as 
Damascus, which was under their protection, and 
even beyond Damascus, and enclosed as with a 
girdle the whole of Palestinian Syria' (Mommsen, 
Provinces 2 , Lend. 1909, ii. 148 f . ). The Arabians who 
were present at the first Christian Pentecost (Ac 2 11 ) 
were most likely Nabatseans, possibly from Petra. 

The Nabatsean kings made use of Greek official 
designations, and St. Paul relates how 'the gov- 
ernor ' (6 iffvApxyt) of Damascus ' under Aretas the 
king' was foiled in the attempt, probably made at 
the instigation of the Jews, to put him under arrest 
soon after his conversion (2 Co ll* 2 *-). This 
episode, which has an important bearing on the 
chronology of St. Paul's life, raises a difficult his- 
torical problem. Damascene coins of Tiberius 
indicate that the city was under direct Roman 
government till A.D. 34 ; and, as the legate of Syria 
was engaged in hostilities with Aretas till the close 
of the reign of Tiberius, it is very unlikely that this 
emperor yielded up Damascus to the Nabatsean 
king. But the accession of Caligula brought a 
great change, and the suggestion is naturally made 
that he bought over Aretas by ceding Damascus to 
him. The fact that no Damascene coins bearing 
the Emperor's image occur in the reigns of Cal- 
igula and Claudius is in harmony with this theory 
(Schiirer, HJP I. ii. 357 f . ). The view of Mommsen 
(Provinces?, ii. 149), following Marquardt (Rom. 
Staatsverwaltung, Leipzig, 1885, i. 405), is differ- 
ent. Talking of the voluntary submission of the 
city of Damascus to the king of the Nabatseans, 
he says that 

probably this dependence of the city on the Nabatsean king! 
subsisted so long as there were such kings [i.e. from the begin- 
ning of the Roman period till A.D. 106]. From the fact that the 



ARAMAIC 



AEEOPAGITE, AKEOPAGUS 



89 



city struck coins with the heads of the Roman emperors, there 
follows doubtless its dependence on Rome and therewith its self- 
administration, but not its non-dependence on the Roman vassal- 
prince ; such protectorates assumed shapes so various that these 
arrangements might well be compatible with each other.' 

See, further, ARETAS. 

In the Galatian Epistle (I 17 ) St. Paul states that 
after his escape from Damascus he ' went away into 
Arabia,' evidently for solitary communion with 
God ; but he does not further define the place of 
his retreat, and Acts makes no allusion to this 
episode. When he quitted the city under cover of 
darkness, he had not a long way to flee to a place 
of safety, for the desert lies in close proximity to 
the Damascene oasis. Possibly he went no further 
than the fastnesses of Hauran. Lightfoot (Gal. 
87 f.), Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, Lond. 1877, 
p. 50), and others conjecture that he sought the 
solitude of Mt. Sinai, with which he seems to show 
some acquaintance in the same Epistle (Gal 4 25 ). 
But he could scarcely have avoided specific refer- 
ence to so memorable a journey, which would have 
brought him into a kind of spiritual contact with 
Moses and Elijah. Besides, the peninsula of Sinai 
was about 400 miles from Damascus ; and, as 
military operations were being actively carried on 
by the legate of Syria against Aretas in A.D. 37 
the probable year of St. Paul's conversion it 
would scarcely have been possible for a stranger to 
pass through the centre of the perturbed country 
without an escort of soldiers. 

In A.D. 106 the governor of Syria, Aulus Cornelius 
Palma, broke up the dominion of the Nabataean 
kings, and constituted the Roman province of 
Arabia, while Damascus was added to Syria. For 
the whole region the change was epoch-making. 

1 The tendency to acquire these domains for civilisation and 
specially for Hellenism was only heightened by the fact that the 
Roman government took upon itself the work. The Hellenism 
of the East . . . was a church militant, a thoroughly conquering 
power pushing its way in a political, religious, economic, and 
literary point of view ' (Mommsen, op. cit. ii. 152). 

Under the strong new regime the desert tribes were 
for the first and only time brought under control, 
with the result that no small part of ' the desert ' 
was changed into ' the sown. ' Home won the 
nomads to her service and fastened them down in 
defence of the border they had otherwise fretted 
and broken. . . . Behind this Roman bulwark there 
grew up a curious, a unique civilisation talking 
Greek, imitating Rome, but at heart Semitic 
(G. A. Smith, HGHL, London, 1894, p. 627). 

LITERATURB. E. Schiirer, HJP i. ii. 845 ff. ; J. Eating:, 
Nabataische Inschriften aut Arabten, Berlin, 1885 ; H. Vincent, 
Leg Arabea en Syrie, Paris, 1907 ; G. A. Cooke, North-Semitic 
Inscriptions, London, 1903 ; and the art. ' Arabs (Ancient),' by 
Th. Noldeke, in ERE L 659. JAMES STBAHAN. 

ARAMAIC. See LANGUAGE. 
ARATUS. See QUOTATIONS. 
ARCHANGEL. See ANGEL. 

ARCHIPPUS ("Apx"nros). An office-bearer of 
the Apostolic Church referred to in Col 4 17 as exer- 
cising a ministry 'in the Lord,' .. in fellowship 
with, and in the service of, Christ. He is addressed 
by St. Paul as ' fellow-soldier ' a designation pos- 
sibly occasioned by some special service in which the 
two had been engaged together during St. Paul's 
three years' abode at Ephesus, where the Apostle 
had severe conflicts with assailants (1 Co 15 82 ). 
More probably, however, the expression refers to 
the general fellowship of the two men in evangel- 
istic work (cf. Ph 2 2 ). The military figure may 
have been suggested by the Apostle's environment 
at Rome. 

Archippus may have been a presbyter bishop, a 
leading deacon, an evangelist, or a prominent 
teacher at the time when St. Paul wrote. From 



Philem 2 he appears to have been a member of 
Philemon's household, and he is regarded by most 
commentators (after Theodore of Mopsuestia) as 
his son. Accordingly, it is generally supposed 
(after Chrysostom) that Archippus was an office- 
bearer of the Colossian Church. Against this 
inference Lightfoot adduces (1) the mention of 
Archippus in Col. immediately after a reference to 
Laodicea ; (2) the alleged unlikelihood of Archippus 
being addressed in Col 4 17 indirectly instead of 
directly, if he were himself an official of the Church 
to which St. Paul was writing; (3) the tradition 
(embodied in the Apost. Constitutions, vii. 46) that 
Archippus became ' bishop,' or presiding presbyter, 
of Laodicea. Lightfoot infers that Archippus ful- 
filled his ministry at Laodicea, which was not many 
miles from Colossse : and the mention of him in 
Philem. is accounted for by supposing that St. 
Paul (through Tychicus, the bearer of his letter to 
Philemon) might have suggested that Onesimus 
should be employed not in the city where he had 
lived as a slave, but in the Laodicean Church under 
Archippus. The usual supposition, however, that 
Archippus lived with Philemon at Colossse and also 
laboured there, appears, on the whole, more natural 
and probable. 

The message conveyed to Archippus (' Take heed 
[look] to the ministry,' etc. ) is held by Lightfoot 
(Colossi 42 f.) to imply a rebuke, as if Archippus 
had been remiss or unfaithful in the discharge of 
official duty ; and Lightfoot, believing that Archip- 
pus held office at Laodicea, compares the admonition 
to him with the censure on account of lukewarm- 
ness administered in Rev 3 to the angel and church 
of the Laodiceans. The message, however, to 
Archippus can hardly be regarded as necessarily 
suggesting more than that his work was specially 
important and arduous, demanding from himself 
earnest watchfulness, and from an older 'fellow- 
campaigner,' like St. Paul, the incentive of sympa- 
thetic exhortation and warning. Theophylact, in 
his commentary, supposes that the apostolic 
message is purposely made public, instead of being 
conveyed in a private letter, not so much to suggest 
Archippus' special need of admonition, as to enable 
him, without offence, to deal in like manner with 
brethren under himself. 

In the Greek Martyrology, Archippus appears 
(in the Mencea under Nov. 22) as having been 
stoned to death, along with Philemon, at Chonae, 
near Laodicea. His alleged eventual ' episcopate ' 
or presiding presbyterate at Laodicea is at least 
possible, and even probable ; but the inclusion of 
his name in the pseudo-Dorothean list (6th cent.) 
of the Seventy of Lk 10 is quite incredible. 

LITKRATURB. J. A. Dietelmaicr, de Arehippo, Altdorf, 1751 ; 
J. B. Lightfoot, Colossian^, 1879, pp. 42 f., 308 ff. ; see also 
Literature under PHILEMON. HENRY COWAN. 

AREOPAGITE, AREOPAGUS. In Ac 17 34 the 
title ' the Areopagite ' is given to one Dionysius, a 
convert to the Christian faith at Athens, imply- 
ing that he was a member of the council of the 
Areopagus. 

Areopagus (Ac 17 W AV and RV; v. 22 AV 
'Mars' Hill,' RV 'Areopagus'; the RV is correct 
in rendering ' Areopagus ' in both places, as it pre- 
serves the ambiguity of the original). (a) The 
name denominated a rocky eminence N.W. of the 
Acropolis at Athens, which was famous in the his- 
tory of the city. Between the hill and the Acro- 
polis was a narrow declivity, now largely filled in. 
On the N.E. the rock is precipitous, and at the foot 
of the precipice the worship of the propitiated 
Furies as the Eumenides was carried on, so that the 
locality was invested with awesome associations. 
It is approached from the agora, or market-place, 
by an old, worn stairway of sixteen steps, and 



90 AREOPAGITE, AKEOPAGUS 



AKETAS 



upon the top can still be seen the rough, rock-hewn 
benches, forming three sides of a square, upon 
which the court sat in the open air, in order that 
the judges should not be under the same roof as 
the accused. (6) The expression was also used of 
the court itself (Cicero, ad Att. i. 14. 5; de Nat. 
Deor. ii. 74 ; Hep. i. 27). From time immemorial 
this court held its meetings on the hill in question, 
and was at once the most ancient and most revered 
tribunal in the city. In ancient times it had su- 
preme authority in both criminal and religious 
matters, and its influence, ever tending to become 
wider, afi'ected laws and offices, education and mor- 
ality. It thus fulfilled the functions of both court 
and council. Pericles and his friend Ephialtes (c. 
460 B.C.) set themselves to limit the power of the 
court (Aristotle, Const. Ath. 25), and it became 
largely a criminal court, while religious matters 
seem to have been controlled, at least in part, by 
the King Archon. But the reforms of Ephialtes 
mainly concerned interference in public affairs ; 
and the statements of ^Kschylus in the tragedy 
Eumenides, which appeared at the time in defence 
of the court, appear to be exaggerated. In any 
case, in the Roman period it regained its former 
powers (Cicero, ad Fam. xiii. 1. 5 ; de Nat. Deor. 
ii. 74). As to the origin of the court, according to 
popular legend Ares was called before a court of 
the twelve gods to answer for the murder of 
Halirrhotius (Paus. I. xxviii. 5), but ^Eschylus 
(Eum. 685 ff. ) attributes its foundation to Athene. 

The questions which arise out of the narrative 
of Acts are these : Was St. Paul taken before the 
council or to the hill? Or did he appear before 
the council sitting in the traditional place ? Was 
he in any sense on trial ? 

The King Archon held his meetings in the Stoa 
Basileios, and it was there that Socrates had been 
arraigned on a matter similar to that which exer- 
cised the minds of the philosophers in the case 
before us. It seems probable that this Stoa became 
identified with the discussion of religious questions, 
and that, when the council of the Areopagus re- 
gained its full powers, it held its meetings here, 
reserving its om judgment-seat for cases of murder 
(so Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Berlin, 
1894, ii. 528 f., Stadtgesch. von Athen, do. 1891, p. 
262 f. ; but Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, Lend, 
and N.Y., 1909, p. 108, remarks: 'Curtius' ex- 
planation seems to me untenable ' ; see also Cony- 
beare, in HDB i. 144). The whole picture, indeed, 
is in favour of this view. There is no reason why 
the Stoics and Epicureans should have carried 
away the Apostle, to an isolated spot. Further, 
Ramsay truly remarks : ' The Athenians were, in 
many respects, flippant ; but their flippancy was 
combined with an intense pride in the national 
dignity and the historic glory of the city, which 
would have revolted at such an insult as that this 
stranger should harangue them about his foreign 
deities on the spot where the Athenian elders had 
judged the god Ares and the hero Orestes' (St. 
Paul the Traveller, Lond. 1895, p. 244). Moreover, 
the Apostle's speech was not a philosophical dis- 
quisition but rather a popular oration, suited to 
the general populace of idle Athenians and dilet- 
tante Roman youths whose education was not 
considered complete until they had spent some 
time in the purlieus of the ancient university. If 
the council happened to be sitting, as was evidently 
the case, it was a most natural impulse to hurry 
the newcomer, who ' babbled ' apparently of two 
new deities, Jesus and ' Resurrection ' (for so they 
would understand him), to its meeting-place, that 
the question might be settled as to whether or not 
he was to be allowed to continue. Yet it can 
hardly be said that the proceedings were even re- 
motely connected with a judicial inquiry. It was 



no anakrisis, or preliminary investigation, though 
the philosophers may have hoped that something 
of the sort would be the outcome. It is of little 
importance whether the phrase ' they took him 
and brought him ' implies friendly compulsion or 
inimical intent. The feelings of the listeners 
would be very mixed, and they would quite 
naturally be excited by the curious message of the 
new preacher. The professing teachers were all 
interested in new ideas and yet resented un- 
warranted intrusion. The council was in the habit 
of making pronouncements on the subject of new 
religious cycles of thought, and it was no doubt 
felt that, if their attention was drawn to the sub- 
ject, official proceedings would follow. It is evident 
that there was much in the address of St. Paul that 
awoke sympathy in his audience. One member of 
the council, at least, was converted, to wit, Diony- 
sius. There may have been others. But the 
general effect produced by the mention of the 
Resurrection was contempt. A few were ready to 
hear more on the subject, possibly a minority sug- 
gested a more formal examination ; but the result 
of the hearing, as of the visit, outwardly and 
visibly, was failure. The council of the Areopagus 
made judicial procedure impossible, by refusing to 
treat the matter seriously, and the Apostle left 
them, a disappointed, ana no doubt a somewhat 
irritated man. 

LITERATURE. Besides the authors quoted, see W. M. 
Ramsay, in Expositor, 6th ser. ii. [1895] 209, 261, also x. [1899] ; 
E. Renan, St. Paul, Eng. tr. 1890, p. 193 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, 
History of the Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 257 ff. ; EBr, 
art. 'Areopagus'; R. J. Knowling, in EGT ii. [London, 1900] 
368 f. F. W. WOKSLEY. 

ARETAS CANTOS, Arab, garitha). The Gr. 
form of a name borne by several rulers of the Na- 
bataean Arabs, whose capital was Petra in Arabia. 

1. The first known to history, ' Aretas, prince of 
the Arabians,' is said to have had the fugitive high- 
priest Jason shut up at his court (2 Mac 5 8 ; the 
Gr. text is doubtful). His designation as ' prince ' 
(rtfpaj'j'os) indicates that the hereditary chieftain of 
the tribe had not yet assumed the dignity of king- 
ship. The royal dynasty was founded by Erotimus 
about 110-100 B.C., when the Greek kings of Syria 
and Egypt had lost so much of their power, ' ut 
adsiduis proeliis consumpti in contemptum finiti- 
morum venerint praedaeque Arabum genti, im- 
belli an tea, fuermt* (Trog. Pomp. ap. Justin., 
xxxix. 5. 5-6). 

2. The second Aretas, called 6 'A.pdf3uv j3cwt\e<5s, is 
mentioned by Josephus (Ant. XIII. xiii. 3) in con- 
nexion with the siege of Gaza by Alexander Jan- 
nseus in 96 B.C. 

3. Aretas ill., who reigned from about 85 to 60 
B.C.,is known as ' Aretas the Philhellene,'this be'ng 
the superscription of the earliest Nabatsean coins 
that are known. Under him the mountain fortress 
of Petra began to assume the aspect of a Hellenistic 
city, and the Nabateean sway was extended as far 
as Damascus. He incurred the displeasure of the 
Romans by interfering in the quarrel of Hyrcanus 
and Aristobulus, but the war which Scaurus waged 
against him left his power unbroken (Ant. XIV. v. 
i. ; BJ I. viii. 1). He could not, however, prevent 
Lollius and Metellus from taking possession of 
Damascus (Ant. XIV. ii. 3 ; BJl. vi. 1), which there- 
after was permanently under the suzerainty of 
Rome. 

4. Aretaslv.,Philopatris,thelastand best-known, 
had a long and successful reign (c. 9 B.C.-A.D. 40). 
He was originally called ./Eneas, but on coming to 
the throne he assumed the favourite name of the 
Nabatsean kings. He soon found it necessary to 
ingratiate himself with Rome. 

Augustus ' was angry that Aretas had not sent to him first 
before he took the kingdom ; yet did .^Eneas send an epistlt 



AK1STAKCHUJS 



AKK 



91 



and presents to Caesar, and a crown of gold of the weight of 
many talents.' . . . The Emperor ' admitted Aretas's ambassa- 
dors, and after he had just reproved him for nis rashness in 
not waiting till he had received the kingdom from him, he 
accepted his presents, and confirmed him in the government ' 
(Jos. Ant. xvi. ix. 4, x. 9). 

This Aretas' daughter became the wife of Herod 
Antipas, who divorced her in order to marry 
Herodias (Mk 6 17 ). Border disputes gave the in- 
jured father an opportunity of revenge. Again 
acting, at this new juncture, without consulting 
Eome, he attacked and defeated Antipas (A.D. 28) ; 
and again fortune smiled on his daring disregard 
of consequences. The belated expedition which 
Vitellius, governor of Syria, at Tiberius' command, 
led against Petra, had only got as far as Jerusalem, 
when the tidings of the Emperor's death (A.D. 37) 
caused it to be abandoned. 

There is circumstantial evidence, thoughperhaps 
too slender to be quite convincing, that Tiberius' 
successor Caligula favoured the cause of Aretas. 
St. Paul was converted probably about A.D. 36 (so 
Turner), and, some time after, the Jews of Da- 
mascus conspired to kill him (Ac 9 m ). In recall- 
ing this fact he mentions a detail (2 Co II 82 ) which 
the writer of Acts omits, namely, that it was the 
governor (tdvdpxrp) under Aretas the king who 
doubtless at the instigation of the Jews guarded 
the city to take him. The question is thus raised 
when and how Aretas became overlord of Damascus. 
It is inconceivable either that he captured the city 
in face of the Roman legions in Syria, or that 
Tiberius, who in the end of his reign was strongly 
hostile, ceded it to him. But it is probable that 
Caligula favoured the enemy of Herod Antipas. 
One of his first imperial acts was to give the 
tetrarchy of Philip and Lysanias to Agrippa (Ant. 
xvill. vi. 10), and he may at the same time have 
given Damascus to Aretas as a peace-offering. It 
was better policy to befriend than to crush the 
brave Nabatreans. Antipas was ultimately de- 
posed and banished in 39. 

It was only for a short time, however, that Rome 
relaxed her direct hold upon the old Syrian capital. 
There are Damascene coins with the figure of 
Tiberius down to A.D. 34, and the fact that none 
has been found with the image of Caius or Claud- 
ius is significant of a change of regime ; but the 
image of Nero appears from 62 onwards. To the 
view of Marquardt (Bom. Staatsverwaltung, 1885, 
i. 405) and Mommsen (Provinces 3 , 1909, li. 149), 
based on 2 Co II 32 , that Damascus was continuously 
in subjection to the Nabatsean kings from the be- 
ginning of the Roman period down to A.D. 106, 
there are the strongest objections (see Schiirer, HJP 
I. ii. 354). Cf. art. ARABIA. 

More coins and inscriptions date from the time 
of Aretas rv. than from any Nabataean reign. 
While the standing title of Aretas ill. was *t\A- 
Xiyvoj, that which the last chose for himself was Dm 
noy, Lover of his people.' He set country above 
culture ; he was a Nabatsean patriot first and a 
Hellenist afterwards. It was probably this success- 
ful reign that Josephus haid in view when he 
\vrote of the extension of the Nabataean king- 
dom from the Euphrates to the Red Sea (Ant. I. 
xii. 4). 

LITERATURE. In addition to the authorities cited in the body 
of the art., see Literature appended to art. ARABIA, and P. 
Ewald, art. 'Aretas,' in PRE*. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ARISTARCHUS ('Apforapxos). A Macedonian 
Christian and a native of Thessalonica who became 
one of the companions of St. Paul on his third 
missionary journey. He is first mentioned on the 
occasion of the riot in Ephesus, where along with 
another companion of the Apostle named Gaius 
(q.v.), probably of Derbe, he was rushed by the 
excited multitude into the theatre (Ac 19 29 ). He 



seems to have been an influential member of the 
Church of Thessalonica, and was deputed along 
with Secundus (q.v.) to convey the contributions of 
the Church to Jerusalem (Ac 20 4 ). He was thus 
present in the city at the time of St. Paul's arrest, 
and seems to have remained in Syria during the two 
years of the Apostle's imprisonment in Coesarea, 
for we find him embarking with the prisoner on 
the ship bound for the West (Ac 27 2 ). It is not 
certain that he accompanied St. Paul to Rome. 
He may, as Lightfoot supposes (Phil.* 34), have dis- 
embarked at Myra (Ac 27 5 ). On the other hand, 
Ramsay (St. Paul?, 316) believes that both Aris- 
tarchus and St. Luke accompanied the Apostle on 
the voyage as his personal slaves. In any case Aris- 
tarchus was present in Rome soon after St. Paul's 
arrival, and it is not impossible that he came later 
with contributions from the Philippian Church to 
the Apostle. When the Epistles to the Colossians 
and to Philemon were written, Aristarchus was 
with the Apostle in Rome. In the former (Col 4 10 ) 
he is called the 'fellow-prisoner* (trwcuxAuiXwTos) 
of the writer, and we find the same term, which 
usually indicates physical restraint, applied to 
Epaphras (q.v.) in Philem 23 . While the idea in 
the Apostle s mind may be that Aristarchus, like 
himself, was taken captive by Jesus Christ, it is 
more probable that Aristarchus shared St. Paul's 
prison in Rome, either as a suspected friend of the 
prisoner or voluntarily as the Apostle's slave a 
position which he and Epaphras may have taken 
alternately. In Philem 84 he is called 'fellow- 
labourer' of the writer. Nothing is known of his 
subsequent history. According to tradition he 
suffered martyrdom under Nero. 

LITERATURE. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller 2, 
London, 1897, pp. 279, 316; J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians and 
Philemon*, do. 1879, p. 236, Philippiant*, do. 1878, p. 34 ; artt. 
in HDB and in EBi ; R. J. Knowling, in EGT ii. [1900] 414. 

W. F. BOYD. 

ARISTOBULUS ('AptoT<5j3ovXoy, a Greek name 
frequently adopted by Romans and Jews, and 
borne by several members of the Maccabsean and 
Herodian families). In Ro 16 10 St. Paul salutes 
' them which are of the household of Aristobulus ' 
(TOI)J tic T&V 'Aptoro/SotfXoi;), i.e. the Christians in his 
familia or establishment of freedmen and slaves 
(perhaps known as Aristobuliani, for which the 
Greek phrase would be equivalent). Lightfoot 
thinks that Aristobulus was a grandson of Herod 
the Great, and brother of Agrippa and Herod. 
This Aristobulus lived and died in Rome in a 
private station (see Jos. BJ II. xi. 6, Ant. XX. i. 
2). After his death it is supposed that his ' house- 
hold ' passed over to the Emperor, but retained the 
name of their former master. The ' household of 
Aristobnlus' would naturally include many Ori- 
entals and Jews, and therefore probably some 
Christians. The name Herodion (q.v.), which 
immediately follows, suggests a connexion with 
the Herodian dynasty. If Lightfoot is right, the 
reference to the ' household of Aristobulus ' is 
strong evidence for the Roman destination of 
these salutations. The Christians in the ' house- 
hold' would naturally form one of the distinct 
communities of which the Church at Rome was 
apparently made up (cf. v. 11 and the phrases in 
vv. 8 - 18 ). We have no knowledge as to whether the 
master himself was a convert. See Lightfoot, 
PhUippianst, 1878, p. 174 f. 

T. B. ALLWORTHY. 

ARK. The LXX and the NT use //3wr6j=a 
wooden chest or box, as a terminus technicus both 
for Noah's ark (-178), and for the ark (pig) of the 
covenant. 

1. An interesting account of the successive phases 
of modern opinion regarding the former ark will be 
found in EBr 11 (s.v.). The writer of Hebrews (II 7 ), 



92 



AEMAGEDDON 



AKMOUK 



taking the story as he finds it, refers to Noah's 
forethought as a supreme instance of that faith 
which is the conviction of things not seen a faith 
by which he not only virtually condemned the 
world, bringing its careless infidelity into strong 
relief, but became heir of that righteousness which 
is faith's crown and reward (r?)s /card Trtariv diKaio- 
<rtrns). St. Peter (1 P 3 18a ), supplementing a tradi- 
tion which is found in the Book of Enoch (6-16 ; 
cf. Jubilees, 5), imagines Christ, as a bodiless spirit, 
preaching, in the days between His Passion and 
His Resurrection, to the spirits in prison. These 
are the disobedient and, to St. Peter (himself like a 
spirit in prison during those three days), unhappy 
children of the unlawful union between angels and 
the daughters of men, condemned rebels who in 
vain sought the intervention of Enoch on their 
behalf in that time of Divine long-suffering when 
Noah was preparing the ark in which he saved 
himself and his family (see R. H. Charles, Bk. of 
Jub,, Lond. 1902, p. 43 ff.). 

2. The writer of Hebrews mentions the ark of 
the covenant (rriv Kiftwrbv TT)J 3ia0?J/o;s) as the inner- 
most and most sacred piece of furniture contained 
in the Tabernacle. His description of it as ' com- 
pletely overlaid with gold ' (TrepiKeKaXvfj.fj.tvTjv irdvrodev 
Xpvffly) corresponds with the directions given in Ex 
25 11 (kcrudfv Kal Zw9ei> xpw&w-* avr^v). The desig- 
nation ' the ark of the covenant,' which was pro- 
bably coined by the writer of Deut., was historically 
later than ' the ark of Jahweh,' and ' the ark of God ' 
( JE), and earlier than ' the ark of the testimony ' 
(P). It was a contraction for ' the ark containing 
the tables of the covenant,' the Decalogue being a 
summary of the terms which Israel accepted on 
entering into covenant with God. In Kautzsch's 
Heilige Schrift it is rendered die Lade mit dem 
Gesetz, ' the ark with the law.' When the Deca- 
logue came to be known as ' the testimony,' the 
new name ^ Kifiurbs TOV paprvplov was introduced, 
but it did not displace the older phrases. The 
golden pot of manna (the adj. is an embellishment 
upon Ex 16 33 ) and Aaron's rod that budded, which 
in the original narratives were laid up before the 
Lord (fvavrlov TOV Oeov, Ex 16 s3 ; tv&inov TU>V 
fjMprvpi(ai>, Nu 17 10 ) are supposed by the writer of 
Hebrews to have been within the ark. 

The ultimate fate of the Kij3wr6j is involved in 
obscurity. The popular imagination could not 
entertain the idea that the inviolable ark was irre- 
coverably lost, and there arose a tradition that 
before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the 
Tabernacle with all its sacred furniture was hidden 
by Jeremiah (or, according to the Talmud, by 
Josiah) in a cave of Mt. Nebo (2 Es 10 22 ; cf. 2 Mac 
2 5 ), whence it was to be miraculously restored to its 
place at the coming of the Messiah. In the second 
and third Temple the Holy of Holies contained no 
ark. 'In this was nothing at all,' is Josephus' 
emphatic testimony (BJ V. v. 5). Pompey, on 
entering, found ' vacuam sedem et inania arcana ' 
(Tac. Hist. v. 9). The thought of that emptiness 
oppressed the minds both of devout Jews and of 
Jewish Christians, and in Rev II 19 , when the 
seventh angel has sounded, and the temple of God 
in heaven is opened, the ark of the covenant is 
there. ' All we have willed or hoped or dreamed 
of good shall exist ; not the semblance but itself.' 

LITERATURK. Besides the artt. in HDB (J. Macpherson and 
A. R. S. Kennedy), SDB(A. R. S. Kennedy), and especially 
ERE (R. H. Kennett), see R. Kraetzschmar, Die Bundesvor- 
stellung, Marburg, 1896 ; H. Couard, ' Die religiose nationale 
Bedeutung der Lade,' in ZATWxu. [1892] ; Volck, art. 'Bun- 
de8lade,'lnP^3. JAMES STBAHAN. 

ARMAGEDDON. See HAR-MAGEDON. 

ARMOUR. As Jews, the disciples of our Lord 
not to speak of Himself were exempt from mili- 



tary service. They had the privilege of da-rpareia, 
which Lentulus conceded to the Jews of Asia (Jos. 
Ant. xiv. x. 13 f.), and Julius Csesar to those of 
Palestine (ib. x. 6). The Roman auxiliaries who 
garrisoned Judaea were recruited wholly from the 
Greek cities of Palestine, such as Sebaste and 
Caesarea. Probably, therefore, none of the dis- 
ciples ever wore armour, or, with the possible 
exception of Simon the Zealot, became skilled in 
the use of weapons. St. Peter once carried a sword, 
but made a very blundering use of it (Mk 14 47 , 
Jn 18 10 ). The only sword of which Christianity 
approves is that which is the symbol of the puni- 
tive ministry of the magistrate (Ro 13 4 ). Never- 
theless, it was impossible for Christians not to be 
profoundly interested in the brave men who were 
taught that it was dulce et decorum pro patria mori, 
and Christ Himself sanctioned the use of illustra- 
tions drawn from the warfare of kings (Lk 14 S1 ). It 
is not surprising, therefore, to find that St. Paul 
regards the valour and endurance of the world's 
conquerors and the Empire's defenders as worthy 
of emulation, and that he transfigures the armour 
of the Roman legionary into the panoply of the 
Christian soldier (Eph 6" tt ). 

Descriptions of tne equipment of soldiers are 
frequent in Greek authors. (1) Homer lets us see 
his Trp6fMx oi arming before they go forth to battle. 
Paris (//. iii. 328 ff. ) cases his limbs in greaves 
(icviifudes) ; a splendid cuirass (Otiipai-) covers his 
breast ; a baldrick sustains the sword (l-i<j>os) that 
glitters at his side ; his great round shield (<rd/toj) 
is then displayed ; over his brows he places his 
helmet (jcvdq) with nodding plume ; and last of all 
he grasps his spear (Zyx*) i Q hi 8 hand (cf. II. iv. 
132 ff., xi. 15 ff., xvi. 130 ff., xix. 364 ff.). 'The 
six pieces of armour are always mentioned in the 
same order, in which they would naturally be put 
on, except that we should expect the helmet to be 
donned before the shield was taken on the arm' 
(Leaf's Homer, i. 106). (2) Polybius (vi. 23) de- 
scribes the armour of Roman soldiers in the time 
of the Punic wars. The heavy-armed carried an 
oblong shield (dupe&s, scutum), 4 feet by 2J, incurved 
into the shape of a half-cylinder ; the helmet (irept- 
Ke<pa\ala) of bronze had a crest of three feathers; and 
a greave protected the right leg. The wealthier 
soldiers wore a cuirass of chain-armour (lorica), the 
poorer a bronze plate 9 inches square. For de- 
fence they all carried a Spanish sword (fj.dx ai P a ) 
straight, double-edged, and pointed, which was 
used for both thrust and cut; and two long 
javelins (ixra-ol, pila), which were either hurled at 
a distance or used at close quarters like modern 
bayonets. (3) Josephus (BJ ill. v. 5) describes the 
equipment of Roman soldiers under the Empire. 
The neavy-armed had a helmet (Kpdvos), a cuirass, 
a long sword worn on the left side and a dagger on 
the right, a pilum (var6v), and & scutum (6vpe6s). 
The detachment which attended the commander 
had a round shield (do-irls, clipeus) and a long spear 
(\6yxi)). The cavalry wore armour like that of the 
infantry, with a broadsword (/tdxatpa), a buckler 
slung from the horse's side, a lance, and several 
javelins (dKovres), almost as large as spears, in a 
sheath or quiver. 

In his enumeration of the weapons of spiritual 
warfare St. Paul omits the spear, and by implica- 
tion adds girdle and shoes (facrr-ftp and caligce). 
The complete equipment consists of six pieces, 
defensive and offensive the girdle of truth, the 
breastplate of righteousness, the sandals of readi- 
ness to carry good tidings, the shield of faith, the 
helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. 
The Christian soldier is clad cap-a-pie in super- 
natural armour the panoply which is the gift of 
God. There is no defence for the back, which 
should never need any. 



AEMY 



ARTEMAS 



93 



' The next day they took him [Christian] into the armoury, 
where they showed him all manner of furniture, which the Lord 
had provided for pilgrims, as sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, 
all-prayer, and shoes that would not wear out. And there was 
enough of this to harness out as many men for the service of 
their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for multitude' 
(Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress). 

In 1 Th 5 8 the breastplate (0vpe6s) is faith and 
love. In the realm of the imagination a happy 
idea will present itself in various aspects to differ- 
ent minds, and even to the same mind at different 
moments. Isaiah (59 17 ) had already suggested the 
thought of a panoply in which God Himself is 
clothed, and the writer of Wisdom had worked 
it out thus (5 17 " 20 ) : ' He shall take His jealousy as 
complete armour ; . . . He shall put on righteous- 
ness as a breastplate, and shall array Himself with 
judgment unfeigned as with a helmet ; He shall 
take holiness as an invincible shield, and He shall 
sharpen stern wrath for a sword.' 

LITERATURE. In addition to the sources cited in the article, 
see art. 'Anna,' in Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Ant.3, 
London, 1891, and art. ' Armour, Arms ' (A. R. S. Kennedy), in 

SDE. JAMES STEAHAN. 

ARMY. This term occurs in Ac 23 27 , Rev 9 16 
1914. iy (jjj ne i as t nree instances referring to 
armies [orpaTetfytaTo] of apocalyptic vision). On 
the outbreak of a tumult in the Temple at Jeru- 
salem, the chief captain of the band came on the 
scene, as he afterwards reported, trfo rtf crTpare^naTi 
(AV 'with an army,' RV 'with the soldiers'). 
The little force thus described (Ac 23 27 ) was a frac- 
tion of the vast army which maintained law and 
order throughout the Roman Empire. In the first 
month of 29 B.C., a year after the battle of Actium, 
the gates of the temple of Janus at Rome were 
closed for the first time in 200 years. That signifi- 
cant act was the beginning of the Pax Romana. 
The Civil War was ended, and the State had no 
more foreign foes to fear. Augustus found himself 
master of three standing armies, his own and those 
of Lepidus and Antony, amounting to 45 legions. 
He at once undertook that task of military re- 
organization which was perhaps his greatest and 
most original achievement. By ruthlessly elim- 
inating inferior elements he obtained a thoroughly 
efficient force of 25 legions. The time for great 
field forces, such as Scipio and Caesar had wielded, 
was now past. An army that could be swiftly 
mobilized was no longer a necessity, and might 
easily become a menace, to the Empire. Augustus 
initiated the policy, which was respected by his 
successors down to the time of the Antonines, of 
' maintaining the dignity of the Empire, without 
attempting to enlarge its limits' (Gibbon, Hist., 
ch. 1). His conservative policy determined his 
use of the army. Distributing the legions in the 
frontier provinces of the Empire which had the 
Atlantic as its boundary on the west, the Rhine 
and the Danube on the north, the Euphrates on 
the east, and the deserts of Arabia and Africa on 
the south he charged them to guard the borders 
which were exposed to the attacks of restless bar- 
barians. Italy itself was garrisoned by the Prae- 
torian cohorts (see PR^ETORIUM). 

The legions were recruited from the Roman citi- 
zens of Italy and the provinces. Each consisted 
of 6000 heavy infantry divided into ten cohorts, 
with a troop of 120 horsemen to act as dispatch 
riders. The legion was no longer under six tribunes 
commanding by turns. The supreme authority 
was now entrusted to a legatus legionis, who was 
the deputy of the Emperor as commander-in-chief 
of the whole army. The efficiency of the soldiers 
depended largely upon the 60 centurions, who 
formed the backbone of the legion. The term of 
service was 20 years, and on discharge the legion- 
ary received a bounty or land. Many colonies 



were formed for the purpose of providing homes 
for veterans. Each legion bore a title and a 
number, e.g. , ' VI. Victrix ' stationed at York, ' III. 
Gallica ' at Antioch. 

But the legions were not the only guardians of 
the peace of the Empire. Augustus developed 
a new order of auxiha. Regiments of infantry 
(cohortes) or cavalry (alee), 500 to 1000 strong, 
were recruited from the subjects, not the citizens, 
of the provinces, and formed a second force equal 
in numbers if not in importance to the first. It is 
estimated that the two forces together made up a 
regular, long-service army of 400,000 men. The 
auxiliaries were more lightly armed than the 
legionaries (see ARMOUR) ; they were not so 
well paid ; and on their discharge they received a 
bounty or the Roman franchise. 

As Judaea was a province of the second rank, 
governed by a procurator, it was not (like Syria) 

garrisoned by legionaries, but by auxiliaries, who 
ad their headquarters in Caesarea. The cohortes 
and alee were recruited from the Greek cities of 
Palestine, from which they derived their names, 
such as ' Cohors Sebastenorum,' or ' Tyriorum.' 
The Jews were expressly exempted from military 
service under the Roman banners and eagles, which 
they regarded as idolatrous. Julius Caesar's edict 
granting this privilege is preserved by Josephus 
(Ant. XIV. x. 6). 

At the time of the death of Herod Agrippa 
(A.D. 44), an ala of cavalry and five cohorts were 
stationed at Caesarea (Jos. Ant. XIX. ix. 1-2). 
Probably they had once belonged to the army of 
Herod the Great, and had been taken over by the 
Romans after the deposition of his son Archelaus 
in A. p. 6 (Schurer, HJP I. ii. 51). They are often 
mentioned in the period A.D. 44-66 (Ant. XX. vi. 1, 
viii. 7), and they were finally drafted into Vespa- 
sian's army in A.D. 67. The relation of the Italian 
and Augustan cohorts (see AUGUSTAN BAND 
and ITALIAN BAND) to these auxiliaries is a 
difficult question. The cohort (airelpo.), military 
tribune (xMapx*) and centurions (^/caTOjrdpx *) 
mentioned in the story of St. Paul's arrest at 
Jerusalem and transference to Caesarea (Ac 21- 
23) certainly belonged to the Judaean auxilia. A 
single cohort formed the normal garrison of the 
Holy City (Jos. BJ V. v. 8, where rdy/j.a is used 
instead of the more correct ffTretpa). The barracks 
(irope/u^SoXiJ, used six times in the same narrative) 
adjoined the fortress of Antonia, close to the 
N.E. corner of the Temple area (see CASTLE). At 
the Jewish festivals a stronger body of troops was 
drafted from Caesarea for the purpose of keeping 
order among the pilgrims in the crowded Temple 
precincts, as the Turkish soldiers now do at Easter 
among the Christian sects in the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre. St. Paul was escorted from 
Jerusalem to Antipatris by 200 foot-soldiers, 70 
horsemen (lirireis), and 200 spearmen (5eioXdJ3ot), 
and thence to Caesarea by the horsemen alone. 
The precise function of the 5eioXdj3ot (an exceed- 
ingly rare word, meaning apparently ' those who 
grasped their weapons with the right hand') is 
very doubtful ; see Schurer, I. ii. 56, and Meyer, in 
loco. 

LITERATURE. Art.' Exercitus' in Smith's Diet. ofGr. and Rom. 
Ant.Z, London, 1891 (by W. Ramsay), and in Pauly-Wissowa, 
(by Liebenam) ; E. Schurer, HJP i. ii. 49 ff. ; E. G. Hardy, 
Studies in Roman History , London, 1906-09 ; and art. 'Army' 
(A. R. S. Kennedy) in SDB. JAMES STRAHAN. 

ARTE M A S. Artemas is mentioned only in Tit 3 12 . 
St. Paul urges Titus to ' give diligence to come to ' 
him, ' when I shall send Artemas unto thee, or 
Tychicus.' This implies that Artemas was capable 
of relieving Titus in the oversight and organization 
of the Church in Crete. Therefore he must have 



AETEMIS 



AKTS 



been a Christian of considerable experience and of 
high character, and free to devote himself to Chris- 
tian work ; one of St. Paul's companions from whom 
the 'apostolic legates' were selected. The name 
is Greek ; but that tells nothing about his 
nationality. 

LITERATURE. Artt. in HDB on 'ArtemaB,' 'Titus,' and 
' Titus, Epistle to ' ; EGT on Tit 3*2. J. E. ROBERTS. 

ARTEMIS. See DIANA. 

ARTS. This article surveys the industrial arts of 
the Apostolic Age, from data furnished by the NT, 
the Gospels excepted. ' Art ' may be co-ordinated 
with ' craft,' which, however, has been replaced by 
'trade,' 'business,' in RV (see Ac 18 s 19 25 ' ) ; 
' craftsman,' ' craftsmen' being retained (Ac 19 24 * *, 
Rev 18 22 , where 'craft' also survives). 

In the writings of St. Paul are numerous indica- 
tions of the close contact of the Apostle with the 
artisan class, which is to be expected in view of what 
is known concerning his own manner of life. This 
point is emphasized by Deissmann (Light from the 
Ancient East 2 , London, 1911, p. 316 ff. ; but cf. Re- 
view of Theology and Philosophy, viii. [1912-13] 
p. 317). 'Work,' 'works' (and derivatives) figure 
prominently in the Pauline vocabulary (Eph 2 1U 4 28 , 
Col S 28 , 1 Th 4", 2 Ti 2 15 , Tit 3 5 , etc. ). Many social 
relationships proceed upon a work-basis, e.g. 
masters, servants (slaves), bond, bondmen (Eph 6 8 ' 6 , 
Col S 22 , etc. ; cf. 1 P 2 18 - 18 , Rev 6 1B 13 16 ). 

1. About one-half of the references to labour 
within the apostolic writings refer to agriculture, 
which, in the widest sense of the term, also belongs 
to the industrial arts. In so far as these references 
are quite general, or purely metaphorical, and such 
as are common to literature in all ages, we shall 
omit them. Toilers on the land are here regarded 
more in their relation to craftsmen of whatsoever 
craft (Rev 18 22 ). The time had passed when agricul- 
ture was a self-contained industry ; there were now 
many departments, and much subdivision of labour. 
Behind the actual tillers of the soil stood those who 
were owners of land, such as are mentioned in Ac 
437 5 iff. (c f. Josephus, Life, 76). The care of the 
crop and of animals occupied so much time that 
commerce in grain (Ac 27 , Rev 18 1S ) and in stock 
had to be made over to others. The workers with 
agricultural implements could not at the same time 
fashion them, at least to advantage. Thus it came 
about that the carpenter, the smith, the worker in 
leather, found their customers largely among the 
agricultural community. The plough, the yoke (so 
frequent in St. Paul's metaphors : 2 Co 6 U , Gal 5 1 , 
Ph 4 s , 1 Ti 6 1 ; cf. Ac 15 10 ), the goad (Ac 26 14 ), in- 
struments for reaping (e.g. the sickle, Rev 14 14 ) 
and for threshing, the muzzle (1 Co 9 9 , 1 Ti 5 18 , 
only in quotation), the bridle (Ja 3 s ), and harness in 
general, millstones (Rev 18 2l> 22 ), weights and 
measures (Rev 6 6 ) all these more or less called for 
the skill of the artisan proper. In rural parts mill- 
ing and baking may indeed have continued to be 
woman's work in the house (or tent), but in towns 
there had arisen millers and bakers, the latter in 
particular exercising their craft in shops, many of 
which were found in the same district or quarter, 
as is still the practice in the East to-day. 

We read once of the shambles (fjuiKeXXov = 
macellum, 1 Co 10 25 ), which in reality was a meat 
and provision market, with many booths or shops, 
such as every great city of the time could boast. 
The market-place (&yopd, forum, Ac 17 17 ), although 
put to many other uses, was not without signifi- 
cance as a trade centre. 

Specialized forms of agriculture, relating to the 
vine, the olive, and the fig, are less frequently 
alluded to (Ja 3 ia ; cf. Ro ll' 24 , 1 Co 9 7 , Rev 6 1S II 4 
14 18t ), but the products of wine and oil are named 



as matters of common knowledge (Rev 6 8 18 1S ). 
The importance of the olive in particular has been 
shown by Deissmann (St. Paul, London, 1912, p. 
39 ff. ; cf. Ramsay, Pauline and other Studies, do. 
1906, p. 219 ff. ). It maybe noted that the palm figures 
only in Rev 7 9 , although at this time it was also an 
important culture (Jos. Ant. XIV. iv. 1). Certain 
articles of commerce enumerated in Rev 18 13 
cinnamon, spice, etc presuppose at some point or 
other an activity in intensive arboriculture. For 
basket-making, see art. BASKET. 

The rearing of cattle, sheep, horses, etc. is but 
slightly referred to (1 Co 9 9 , Ja 3 3 , 1 P 2 25 , Rev 18 18 ), 
but products come to light in the industries of tan- 
ning and weaving. From the prevalence of sacrifice, 
pagan (Ac 14 13t 18 is 2 ^ 29 etc.) no less than Jewish, 
we may also infer that this gave support to several 
important branches of industry. 

2. Next to the arts concerned with food supplies 
come those connected with clothing and shelter. 
Spinning and weaving were fundamental industries, 
then, as aforetime, embracing the coarser fabrics 
involved in the tent-cloth (see TENT, TENT-MAKING) 
made of goat's hair, for which Cilicia was famed, 
and at the making of which St. Paul and his 
companions, Aquila and Priscilla, wrought (Ac 18 s 
20 34 , 1 Co 4 12 , 2 Co II 9 , 1 Th 2 9 , 2 Th 3 8 ), and the 
finer sorts for human wear, culminating in articles 
embroidered, inwrought with gold and silver, 
adorned with precious stones and pearls, such as the 
royal apparel of Ac 12 21 (cf. 1 Ti 2 9 , 1 P 3 s , Rev., 
passim). The treatment of the material, probably 
while in the raw state, with dye (producing purple, 
scarlet, etc.), and with minerals for bleaching (i.e. 
the process of fulling), was an allied industry (see 
especially Ac 16 14 and cf. art. CLOTHES, etc.). The 
art of the tailor was less in evidence, perhaps, his 
place being taken by the weaver and by the women 
in the home (cf . Ac 9 39 ), although in Talmudic times 
he figures among other artisans. 

3. The care of the person was then carried to a 
great degree. The elaborate system of baths which 
prevailed must have provided work for many, 
including the apothecary, who supplied unguents 
and salves (Rev 3 18 18 13 ). The barber (Ac 18 18 21 24 , 
1 Co H 8f< ) had also a well-established position. 

4. The tanner has been brought into prominence 
by one instance (Simon [?..], Ac 9^ 10 fi- 3a ). While 
an important craft, this was a despised one, and 
the fact of Simon's house having been by the seaside 
was due as much to enforced separation from the 
town as to the necessities of business. The prepara- 
tion of leather for foot-wear (see SHOE, SANDAL) 
was but a small part of the tanner's occupation. 
He was a necessary coadjutor of the maker of 
articles for house-furnishing, and also of the 
harness-maker. 

5. Building arts. The first part of the Apostolic 
Age witnessed great activity in building within 
Palestine, notably the completion of Herod's ambi- 
tious projects. The Temple was finished, only to 
be demolished again by the Romans. The con- 
querors took up the like work for themselves, but 
along lines of their own. References to building 
in the Apostolic writings are, however, few. The 
work of the mason underlies such passages as Ro 
15 20 , 1 Co S 9 *, 2 Co 5 lf S 1 P &*-, He 3 3 '-. Specific 
parts of buildings are named in the ' middle wall of 
partition ' (Eph 2 14 , perhaps reminiscent of the 
Temple), the ' foundation ' and ' chief corner-stone ' 
(Eph 2 20 ). The builder's measuring-rod (reed) is 
mentioned in Rev II 1 . Carpentry appears only 
metaphorically in 1 Co 3 12 , and in the figure of 
speech employed in Col 2 14 . 

6. Workers in metal. The numerous references 
to arms within the apostolic writings show that 
the art of the smith must have been familiar in 
those days. No doubt it was largely extraneous 



ABTS 



ASCENSION 



95 



to Palestine, being maintained, however, for behoof 
of the conquering Romans. There and elsewhere 
it was an industry that affected the early Christians 
adversely, being associated for the most part with 
prisons and detention, e.g. spearmen, etc. (Ac 
23 23 ), chains (Ac 12 6 21 33 28 2ti , Eph 6 20 , 2 Ti I 16 ), iron 
gate (Ac 12 1U ). The Apocalypse is especially rich 
in warlike imagery : breast-plates of iron (9 9 ), 
chariots (9 9 18 13 ), sword (I 16 2 12 etc.). See also Eph 
G' 3ff -, 1 Th 5 s . Cf. art. ARMOUR. 

In connexion with ships and boats the smith's 
(and carpenter's) art must also have been largely in 
evidence : anchor (He 6' 9 ), rudder (Ja 3 4 ) ; cf. the 
narrative of St. Paul's voyage. It must be remem- 
bered that navigation was itself an art, requiring 
a shipmaster and mariners (Rev 18 17 ), a steersman 
(Ja 3 4 ), etc. But, as in the case of arms, this 
activity stood largely apart from the life of the 
early Church. 

Thus far the crafts have been regarded on a 
large scale. But iron-work (see IRON) took finer 
forms (Rev 18 12 ) : e.g. certain parts of the warrior's 
equipment ; also the balance, if made of this 
metal (Rev 6 5 ). This is equally true of Avorking in 
wood : idols (Rev 9 20 ) ; thyine wood, most precious 
wood, in juxtaposition to ivory (Rev 18 12 ) ; foot- 
stool ( Ja 2 3 ) ; vessels (2 Ti 2 20 ). The coppersmith 
(q.v.) is expressly named in 2 Ti 4 14 . With the 
free use of iron at this time it is probable the copper- 
smith worked mostly on ornamental lines, being 
skilled in alloys, refining, engraving, burnishing 
(Rev I 15 2 18 ). Mirrors (1 Co 13 12 , 2 Co 3 18 , Ja I 23 ) 
were among the articles produced (see MIRROR). 
'Brass' should in all probability be replaced by 
' bronze ' or ' copper ' throughout the NT. 

Still finer was the work done in gold, silver, and 
precious stones. The silversmiths of Ephesus (Ac 
19 24 ) were a powerful gild, working at a particular 
craft, viz., the making of silver shrines or models 
of the Temple of Diana (see Ramsay, The Church 
in the Roman Empire, London, 1893, p. 112ff. ; 
and art. DIANA). This was part of a wider 
practice of fashioning idols in the precious metals 
(Ac 17 29 , Rev Q' M ). These elements entered into 
dress and personal ornament (1 Ti2 9 , 1 P 3 s , Ja2 2 ), 
as also into house furniture (2 Ti 2 20 ). The refer- 
ences in Rev. are too numerous to mention, includ- 
ing garments (girdle, etc.), articles for food and 
drink (bowl, cup, etc.), and even altar and throne. 
Although these here appear as seen in vision, they 
were all of them possible to antiquity. 

The use of gold, silver, etc., in coinage should 
not be overlooked. See artt. GOLD, SILVER. 

7. There were also workers in stone and clay 
(including terra-cotta) along artistic lines. When 
graven by art and device of man (Ac 17 29 ), stone, 
especially marble, took high value (Rev 9 20 18 12 ). 
Tablets of stone were also fashioned for commem- 
orative purposes (Ac 17 23 , 2 Co 3 s - 7 , Rev 2 17 ), 
attached to statues, tombs, etc., and the inscrip- 
tions in certain cases remain, yielding welcome 
archaeological evidence. 

The potter's art (see POTTER) was as necessary 
as ever for household use (2 Co 4 7 , 2 Ti 2 20 , Rev 2 27 ). 
It provides St. Paul with a well-known metaphor 
(Ro 9 21 ). Interesting details regarding Jewish pot- 
tery of this period are to be found in Conferences 
de Saint- fitienne, 1909-10, p. 99 ff. Glass appears 
only figuratively (Rev 21 18 - 21 ; cf. 4 6 15 2 ). But it 
was quite a common article of manufacture at this 
time (see, further, art. LAMP, etc. ). 

A whole system of trade (Ac 12 20 2T 2 - 6 , Ja 4 13 , 
Rev 18 llf> ) was built upon the practice of such arts 
as have here been passed in review, giving a liveli- 
hood to merchants, money-lenders, and also tax- 
collectors. The correspondence necessitated by 
trade and by the diffusion of knowledge must also 
have given occupation to many who prepared the 



materials for writing (parchment, papyrus, pen, 
ink, etc.). 

8. Serious as most arts were, we yet learn that 
many spent their lives in following after pseudo- 
arts, e.g. the ' curious arts ' (rd irepiepya) of Ac 19 19 ; 
cf. Simon Magus (Ac 8 9ff< ), Elymas (Bar-Jesus; 
Ac 13 6ff -), and the masters of the Philippian maid 
(Ac 16 19 ). As seriously taken as any were the 
gymnastic arts : running, boxing (1 Co 9 24ff< ), and 
wrestling (Eph 6 12 ). See art. GAMES. 

LITERATURE. The art. ' Arts and Crafts ' in SDB may be con- 
sulted. An exhaustive list of authoritative works will be found 
in HDB v. 57 b , appended to the art. ' New Testament Times.' 
Another very complete list of a specialized order appears in S. 
Krauss, Talmud. Archaolngie, Leipzig, 1910-11, ii. 249. This 
work is very important. M. B. Schwalm, La Vie privee du 
peuple juif a i'epogue de Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1910, written 
from the sociological standpoint, is useful. The works of W. 
M. Ramsay and A. Deissmann are also helpful. 

W. CRUICKSHANK. 

ASCENSION. 1. NT statements. The his- 
torical account of the Ascension is given in Ac 
I 2 " 12 , for the Gospel story does not carry us so far. 
The Ascension, the last of the series of the post- 
Resurrection appearances, is a new subject, and 
the description of it begins a new book. This is 
the case whatever view we take of the text of Lk 
24 51 , as that in any case is no detailed description 
of the event, but only a brief summary of the in- 
cidents. The First and Fourth Gospels end before 
the final departure, and so probably did the Second, 
the conclusion of which (after 16 8 ) we have lost. 

The place of the Ascension was Olivet (Ac I 12 , 
'EXatuv so, according to some editors, we ought to 
read the word in Lk 19 29 21 37 ), usually called the 
Mount of Olives. It was ' over against Bethany ' 
(Lk 24 80 ), and therefore on the far or S.E. side of 
the hill, looking down on Bethany, which lies in 
a hollow ; the reputed site overlooks Jerusalem, 
and is unlikely to have been the real one (Swete, 
Appearances, p. 103 ; but see C. Warren, in HDB 
iii. 619). As they were talking, Jesus lifted up 
His hands and blessed the disciples (Lk 24 50 ), and 
in the act of blessing He was taken up, and a 
cloud received Him out of their sight (Ac I 8 ). 
Two angels (' men in white apparel ') appeared and 
assured them of His future return to earth, and 
they went back to Jerusalem (v. 10tt ) with great 
joy (Lk 24 52 ). There had been no record of angelic 
appearances when the risen Jesus was seen by the 
disciples, as we might have expected from Jn I 51 ; 
the angels appeared only to announce the Resurrec- 
tion and to explain the Ascension. The account 
in Lk 24 50 ' 52 can hardly apply to any other parting 
than the Ascension, even if with ' Western ' author- 
ities (DA, some Old-Lat. MSS, Augustine *) we 
omit the last half of v. n : ' was carried up into 
heaven.' On no other supposition can the 'joy' 
of the disciples be understood. At any rate, the 
person who inserted the words, whether the 
Evangelist or a scribe, so took them. 

The NT is full of references to the Ascension. 
It is called an 'assumption' (dvd\r)\f/ts), in the 
hymn quoted in 1 Ti 3 16 (' received up [dveXfaOr)] 
in glory'), in the Appendix to Mk. (16 19 , dve\ri<f>0rj) 
and Lk 9 51 (' the days of his assumption,' dfaXij^ews), 
as in Ac I 2 - " ^ (cf. virtXafiev, v. 9 ). The same verb 
is used of Elijah (2 K 2 11 LXX, Sir 48 9 ) and of 
Enoch (Sir 49 14 ), and also of the vessel received up 
into heaven in St. Peter's vision (Ac 10 16 ). On the 
other hand, we read of an ' ascension ' (avdpiwis) in 

* Augustine inserts the words once, and omits them once. 
Syr-sin is also quoted for the omission ; it reads : ' when he 
blessed them, he was lifted up (ettrim) from them,' which 
seems to be an abbreviation of the fuller text, and, if so, to be 
a witness against the omission (the tr. 'taken away" is pos- 
sible but less probable ; D-lat has ' discessit '). Syr-sin also 
omits ' and they worshipped him,' with ' Western ' texts. 
The Peshitta Syriac has the full text (with elhpresh, 'wa* 
separated,' for the first verb), as has the Latin Vulgate. The 
omission may be due to homoioteleuton. 



96 



ASCENSION 



ASCENSION 



Jn 6 62 20", and in Eph 4^-, where Ps 68 18 is quoted, 
the first clause nearly following the LXX, the 
latter differing from it. St. Pan! was probably 
guided by an old Jewish interpretation (Robinson, 
Com. in loc. ) ; so in Ac 2 s4 St. Peter says that 
David did not ascend (dvtpy) into the heavens. 
The word ' ascension ' has less of a mystical mean- 
ing than 'assumption,' and emphasizes the his- 
torical side of the matter; 'assumption' may be 
misinterpreted in a Docetic sense, as it is in the 
Gospel of Peter, 5, where our Lord's death is so 
called (a.ve\T)<j>Ori) by the Docetic author. For this 
reason Irenseus speaks of the Ascension as an 
' assumption in the flesh ' (tva-apKov dvdXrj^iv [Hcer. 
I. x. 1]; see also Swete, Ap. Creed, 70). Other 
words are used elsewhere in the NT. Jesus is the 
High Priest who has ' passed through ' (5ie\T)\v06ra) 
the heavens (He 4 14 ) the reference is to the idea 
of seven heavens (cf. T 26 ' made higher than the 
heavens'); He 'entered' (e&riJXdc) within the veil 
as a forerunner on our behalf (6 20 ), not into a holy 
place (&yta) made with hands, but into heaven itself 
(9 12 - M ). The Ascension was a ' departure ' ( Jn 16 7 , 
&irf\Bw), a ' parting ' (Lk 24 81 , &Arn;), according to 
many MSS a ' carrying up ' into heaven (ib. , dve<f>{- 
pero [see above], a verb used of the taking up of 
the disciples to the Mount of Transfiguration, Mt 
17 1 , Mk 9 2 ), a 'lifting up' (Ac I 9 , <M/>017, a verb 
used of lifting up the eyes to heaven, Lk 18 18 , Jn 
17 1 ), and a 'journey* (1 P S 22 , iropevdett, used of 
the nobleman who went into a far country, a par- 
able looking forward to the Ascension, Lk 19 12 ). 

The Ascension of our Lord was not a death. 
David did not ascend, though he died and was 
buried (Ac 2 29 - **). So in Jn S 6 those who had died 
had not 'ascended.' This verse would hardly 
have been recorded if the Evangelist had not as- 
sumed the Ascension of Jesus as a historical fact, 
and it is in effect a prophecy of that event ; it 
asserts the pre-existence (Ka.Ta.pds), and points for- 
ward to the Ascension, though it does not assert 
that our Lord had at that time actually ascended 
(dva.pt fiTjicev). 

The Ascension is implied by the expected return 
or ' descent ' of our Lord, 1 Th 4 18 (/corajS^crrrat), a 
return called a 'revelation' (diroKd\v\j/is) of the 
Lord Jesus in 2 Th I 7 , 1 Co I 7 . The disciples did 
not look for any other appearance such as had 
taken place in the Forty Days, until He should 
come at the end of the world. 

2. Session and exaltation of our Lord. In the 
passages given above, the Ascension is described 
as the parting of Jesus from the disciples at the 
last of the Resurrection appearances ; for there- 
after there were no such manifestations as those 
in which Jesus had been touched by the disciples 
and had eaten in their presence (Mt 28 9 , Lk 24^ 
and probably vv. 80 - , Jn 20 27 though St. Thomas 
perhaps did not actually touch the Lord when in- 
vited to do so and possibly 20 17 ) ; the appearances 
to St. Paul at his conversion and to St. John in 
Patmos were of quite another nature. In the de- 
scription of the parting a symbolical tinge is seen. 
The glorified body is received by a cloud as it 
gradually vanishes from the disciples' eyes. But 
' up ' and ' down ' are symbolical words ; heaven is 
not a place vertically above the Mount of Olives, 
nor is it a place at all, but a state ; the Ascension 
is a transition rather from one condition to 
another than from one place to another (Milligan, 
The Ascension, p. 26). The fact that men were 
accustomed to speak symbolically of heaven being 
' above ' was doubtless the reason of the last dis- 
appearance taking the form that it did ; it would 
seem that when Jesus disappeared on former occa- 
sions during the Forty Days (for the Gospels de- 
scribe His Resurrection body as being not bound 
by the ordinary laws of Nature) He did not vanish 



by an apparently upward movement. In the 
statements about the ascended life of our Lord 
symbolism has to be still more freely employed, 
as no human language can adequately describe 
the new conditions. Just as symbol was neces- 
sary to describe the Temptation of our Lord, or 
the overthrow of Satan by the efforts of the 
Seventy disciples (Lk 10 17f> ), or the eventual triumph 
over evil foretold in the Apocalypse, so was it 
necessary in describing the heavenly life of Jesus. 
The use of symbolism, of which the Bible from 
beginning to end is full, does not mean that the 
incident or condition described is mythical, but 
that it cannot be expressed in ordinary human 
words. Sanday, in his striking lecture on ' The 
Symbolism of the Bible ' (Life of Christ in Recent 
Research, Oxford, 1907), defines it as 'indirect 
description.' 

The symbolism used to describe our Lord's 
ascended life is that of Ps HO 1 , which is quoted 
directly in Mk 12 88 , Mt 22", Ac 5PS 1 Co 15 28 , He 
I 18 10 12 % and indirectly in numerous passages which" 
speak of Jesus being, sitting, or standing, on God's 
right hand till all His enemies are subdued. In 
some passages it is said that He ' sat down' 
He I 3 8 1 10 12 , ' Mk ' 16 19 ) or ' hath sat down' 
He 12*, inferior MSS <?/cd0wej>) ; so in Eph I 20 it is 
said that God 'made him to sit' (jca0l<ras), and in 
Rev 3 21 Jesus says ' I sat down (l/i0ra) with my 
Father in his throne ' (cf. 12 5 ). In other passages 
Jesus is said to ' be sitting,' as in Col 3 1 (i<rriv . . . 
KO(HIIJXVQS) ; so in Mk 14 M and || (see below). While 
the former method of expression emphasizes the 
historic fact of the Ascension on a certain day, the 
latter denotes that the Session was not an isolated, 
but is a continuous, action. The latter point of 
view is seen also in Ro S 34 , 1 P S 22 (' who is at the 
right hand'), and in Ac 7 Mt where Stephen sees 
the Lord ' standing ' at the right hand of God 
ready (such seems to be the meaning) to help His 
martyr (cf. also Rev 5 6 14 1 ). And we note that in 
Ps HO 1 [LXX] the imperative 'sit' (KO.OOV) marks 
the continuance of the Session ( Westcott on He 1 1S ). 
This variation in biblical usage is reflected in the 
use of both ' sitteth ' and ' sat down ' (sedet, sedit) 
in different Creeds. The former is the usual form, 
e.g. in the 'Constantinopolitan' form of the Nicene 
Creed (Kaffetfpcvov ; cf. Tertullian, de Virg. Vel. 1, 
'sedentem nunc'). But the latter is sometimes 
found, especially in the 4th cent., as in the Creed 
of Jerusalem (Cyr. Jer. Cat. xiv. 27, Ka.0iira.vTa. tic 
detu>v TOV Ha.Tp6s) ; in the Testament of our Lord (ii. 
8) ; the Verona Latin fragments of the Didascalia 
(ed. Hauler, p. 110) ; the Egyptian and Ethiopic 
Church Orders ; and in the Creeds of the Abbot 
Pirminius (8th cent.), of the Bangor Antiphonaru 
(7th cent.), of the Gallican Sacramentary (7th 
cent. ; Codex Bobiensis), and of the Missale Galli- 
canum (Mabillon) ; cf. also Tert. de Prcescr. 13, 
'sedisse.' 

The Session is 'at the right hand of God' either 
Ac d(iun> or 4v deiq. ; the former in Ps HO 1 [LXX] 
('at my right hand') and in the quotations of it 
in Mt 22 44 , Mk 12 38 , Ac 2 s4 , He I 13 , also in the 
allusions to it in Mk 14 62 and || Mt 26 64 (both 'of 
power') and || Lk 22 s9 ('of the power of God') and 
' Mk ' 16 19 , Ac 7 Mt twice ('of God '). But St. Paul, 
St. Peter, and the writer of Hebrews prefer iv 8tt$ . 
Ro S 34 , He 10 12 (though v. 18 is a quotation from 
Ps HO 1 ), Col 3 1 , 1 P S' 22 (all these have 'of God') ; 
so He 1 s ('of the Majesty on high') 8 1 ('of the 
throne of the Majesty in the heavens') 12 2 ('of the 
throne of God '), Eph I 20 (' his right hand '). With 
these phrases cf. Ac 2 s8 ('being therefore by the 
right hand of God exalted,' MuOeb) 5 S1 ('him did 
God exalt with his right hand'), in both of which 
places RVm reads ' at ' for ' by ' or ' with.' 

The symbolism of Session, according to Pearson 



ASCENSION 



ASCENSION 



97 



(On the Creed, art. vi.) and Westcott (Historic 
Faith 4 , 1890, p. 52), is that of perfect rest from all 
pain, sorrow, disturbance, and opposition. Yet, 
as Swete points out (Ascended Christ, p. 14), this 
is, at best, incomplete. The seated monarch on 
earth is not idle, and so the seated Christ ' rests 
not day nor night from the unintermitting energies 
of- heaven.' The symbolism of the right hand is 
unmistakable. It expresses the exaltation and 
glory of the Ascended Christ as Man. Jesus did 
not merely return to His former glory (cf. Jn 17 5 : 
'which I had with thee before the world was'), but, 
in addition, was glorified in His human nature. 
For the exaltation see Lk 24 s6 ('to enter into his 
glory ' the glory which was His due), Jn 7 s9 12 18 , 
Ac 2 s6 ( ' God hath made him caused him to be re- 
cognized as both Lord and Christ ' ; with reference 
to the Session), 2 Co 3 13 ' 18 , Ph 2 s (a.Mv hrepfywe, 
' highly exalted him,' in consequence of the self- 
emptying and self-humiliation), 1 Ti 3 16 ('received 
up in glory'), He 2 9 ('crowned with glory and 
honour '), and the passages given above. The ex- 
altation or ' lifting up ' (vij/ua-is) is spoken of by our 
Lord in immediate reference to the Crucifixion 
( Jn 3 14 S 28 12 32 - >*), but doubtless with the further 
thought that death leads to glory (cf. Jn 13 31 ; see 
also Milligan, op. cit. p. 78 f . ). It is not improbable 
that the period of Forty Days was one of increasing 
glory, of which the Ascension was the consumma- 
tion. In Jn 20 17 our Lord says to Mary Magdalene, 
' I ascend ' (ava^aLvu), that is, not ' I shall ascend,' 
as our looser English use of the present tense may 
suggest, but ' I am ascending.' ' The Resurrection 
had begun the great change ; from Easter morning 
He was already ascending ' (Swete, Holy Spirit in 
NT, p. 374). But the last parting was the definite 
act of Ascension. 

3. The work of the ascended Christ. (a) Jesus 
has ascended to make intercession for us as our 
Priest, Ro 8**, He 7 20 (a perpetual intercession). 
The High-Priesthood of Christ is one of the great 
themes of Hebrews, and Ps HO 14 is quoted in He 
56. 10 TIT. 21^ Jesus is High Priest for ever after the 
order of Melchizedek, not of the Aaronic order (see 
below). He is our 'great priest' (10 21 ). One of 
the meanings of ' Paraclete ' is ' Advocate ' or 
' Intercessor,' and Jesus is our Paraclete (1 Jn 2 1 ), 
as He Himself implies in calling the Holy Ghost 
'another Paraclete' (H\\ov napd/cXijrop, Jn 14 16 ). 
His very presence in heaven is the intercession 
which He offers. He 'appears before the face of 
God for us' (He 9 M ). This is the meaning of the 
references in Hebrews to the high priest entering 
into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement 
( 4 i4-i6 6 2o 727 8 3 97.12.24 etc.). g ut we must no tice 

two differences between the type and the antitype. 
The earthly high priest stands to offer (10 n ), while 
Jesus is usually (though not always) depicted as 
sitting (above, 2). And the earthly high priest 
enters into the Holy of Holies alone, leaving the 
people outside, while Jesus carries the people with 
Him within the veil and gives them access to the 
Father (vv. 1 *- 22 ). Jesus is the Mediator (8 6 12 24 ), 
and on His mediation all human intercession is 
based (1 Ti2 ltfi ). Mediation and intercession are 
not, indeed, quite the same thing. A mediator 
brings the contending parties together. But our 
ascended Mediator goes further, and offers inter- 
cession for all men (see Swete, Asc. Christ, p. 93). 
In this connexion we must notice that there is no 
contradiction between the intercession of the Holy 
Ghost and that of our ascended Lord. St. Paul 
speaks of both intercessions in the same context 
(Ro S 28 *- M ). The two are not to be separated ; they 
are really one act, though the insufficiency of 
human language makes them seem two. The 
intercession of our Lord in heaven and that of the 
Spirit in the hearts of believers are one. Christ in 
VOL. I. 7 



heaven sends the Holy Ghost to intercede within 
us. This double conception is parallel with that 
of the Holy Spirit coming down to us here on earth 
at the same time that we are taken up to ' the 
heavenlies' with Jesus (Eph 2 s ). 

It has long been disputed when the High-Priest- 
hood of Christ began. He was the Priest- Victim 
on the Cross, and some passages in Hebrews point 
to a Priesthood on earth, while others point to one 
in heaven only. Westcott (Hebreivs 3 , p. 229, Add. 
Note on 8 1 ) says that Christ fulfilled two types, 
and that there are two aspects of His Priesthood, 
one as fulfilling the Levitical High-Priesthood on 
earth before the Session, and the other as fulfilling 
that of Melchizedek thereafter. The priesthood 
was thus, as it were, completed by the Ascension. 
But Milligan (op. cit. p. 72 ff.) denies the two types 
of priesthood, and says that our Lord's Priesthood 
began with His glorification, and that the Death 
was part of this glorification, falling in the sphere 
of tne heavenly Priesthood. There seems to be 
much truth in both views. The Priesthood of 
Christ is one, but as the earthly high priest only 
fulfilled his priesthood when he brought the blood 
of the victim within the Holy Place, so Christ did 
not fulfil His Priesthood till the Ascension (see 
J. H. Bernard, in ERE ii. 157). 

(b) Jesus has ascended to rule over and to fill all 
things ; He is our King. This is specially empha- 
sized in Rev (1 5 llf - 11 1B 19 12 - 20 4 ). Jesus is the 
ruler of the kings of the earth, and is worthy to 
receive the power and the might ; the kingdom of 
the world is become the Kingdom of our Lord [the 
Father] and of His Christ ; Jesus has many diadems 
on His head, and is King of kings and Lord of 
lords ; He reigns with His saints for a thousand 
years. St. Paul also emphasizes the Kingship of 
the Ascended Christ. He must (Set) it is fitting 
that He should reign till His enemies are con- 
quered (1 Co 15 25 ). He is seated far above all rule, 
authority, and power, both in this and in the coming 
age (Eph I 21 ) ; He ascended that He might fill all 
things (Eph 4 10 ; cf. 3 19 ). His rule is with a view to 
the restoration of the universe to order, and is not 
only over Christians, but over all. He was exalted 
that in His name every knee should bow throughout 
the whole universe (Ph 2 91 -), i.e. in the name which 
the Father gave Him (v. 9 ), namely, the Divine 
Majesty : to the Divine Jesus all shall do homage 
(see Lightfoot's note). He is the Head of the 
Church, and in all things has the pre-eminence 
(wpurevuv), for in Him all the fulness dwells (Col 
ji8f. . f or a-x-fipufj.a, see Robinson, Ephesians, p. 255) ; 
cf. Eph 4 1Wt a" 23 . So St. Peter speaks of angels and 
authorities and powers being made subject to the 
Ascended Christ (1 P 3 22 ). All authority in heaven 
and earth has been given to Him (Mt 28 18 ). He is 
the Priest- King, the 'priest upon his throne' of 
Zee 6 13 ; and His Kingship assures us that good 
will triumph over evil. 

(c) The office of the Ascended Jesus as Prophet 
is not so explicitly mentioned in the NT as His 
Priesthood and Kingship. Yet it is clearly im- 
plied. His prophetic or teaching office did not 
cease at the Ascension ; on the contrary, He there- 
after teaches more plainly ; not, as formerly, in pro- 
verbs ( Jn 16 25 ) ; the teaching is through the gift of 
the Spirit, who was to teach us all things (14 26 ), 
and guide us into all the truth, not speaking from 
Himself, ' for he shall take of mine and shall 
declare it unto you' (16 13t ). This is illustrated by 
the outpouring of the gift of prophecy upon the 
infant Church ; ' the testimony of Jesus is the 
spirit of prophecy' (Rev 19 10 ). Now the Ascension 
is intimately connected with the gift of the Spirit. 
The Ascension was not a mere spectacle to reassure 
the disciples, but the mode by which we are given 
a new lire. Until Jesus was glorified it was not 



98 



ASCENSION 



ASCENSION 



possible for the new mode of His presence to take 
effect ( Jn 7 39 16 7 ; cf. Lk 24 49 ). Hence the necessity 
of our Lord's death : otherwise the grain of wheat 
could not bear fruit ( Jn 12 24 ). The Ascended Christ 
became a life-giving Spirit (1 Co 15 45 ). The con- 
nexion between the Ascension and the gift of the 
Spirit is also seen from the fact that the last words 
or Jesus (Ac I 8 ) were that the disciples should re- 
ceive power when the Holy Ghost should be come 
upon them, and so they would be Jesus' witnesses 
in all the world. This explains to us the purport 
of the words ' after he had spoken to them, in the 
Appendix to Mk. (16 19 ). 

(d) Another work is referred to in He 6 20 . The 
Ascended Christ has entered within the veil on 
our behalf as a Forerunner (irp65po/*os [see FORE- 
RUNNER]), to prepare a place for us (Jn 14 2 ; for 
the ' many resting-places,' see Swete, Asc. Christ, 
105 ff. ), that we may sit with Him on His throne 
(Rev 3 al ). 

4. Interval between the Resurrection and the 
Ascension. In Ac I 3 Jesus is said to have appeared 
to the disciples ' by the space of forty days ' ( Si r)/j.epuv 
TeatrapdKovra). This interval has been usually taken 
as exact, and when the Festival of the Ascension 
was instituted, in the 4th cent. , the sixth Thursday 
after Easter was selected for the purpose (Ap. Const. 
v. 20 ; cf. viii. 33, ed. Funk), and has been so ob- 
served ever since. But St. Luke's words do not 
necessarily imply an exact period of forty days, 
and there have been other calculations. In the 
Third Gospel he describes all the events which took 
place after the Resurrection till the ' parting ' of 
24 51 (see above, i), without any note of time, and 
the deduction has been drawn that when he wrote 
the Gospel he supposed that all the post-Resurrec- 
tion appearances which he describes took place on 
Easter Day itself, but that he learnt a more ac- 
curate chronology before he wrote Acts (cf. art. 
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, V. 1). This is scarcely 
credible, and assumes that the Gospels are what 
they never claim to be chronological biographies, 
like modern 'Lives.' This view makes St. Luke 
get in all the events which happened after the 
evening meal at Emmaus (v. 29 ), including the return 
journey of the two disciples 7 or 8 miles to Jeru- 
salem, before nightfall, for none of the authorities 
suggests that the Ascension took place at night. 
In Lk 24 we have a series of events foreshortened 
(probably because the author had already planned 
Acts), and no note of time is suggested. 

There are, however, some indications that the 
words ' forty days ' were not always taken exactly. 
' Barnabas ' makes the Ascension take place on a 
Sunday ( 15) ; but he does not say that it was the 
same Sunday as the Resurrection ('the eighth 
day ... in which also Jesus rose from the dead, 
and, having been manifested, ascended up to 
heaven'). He mentions the 'eighth' rather than 
the ' first" day because it follows the seventh day 
or Sabbath, of which he is treating ; he hints at the 
replacement of the Jewish Sabbath by the Christian 
Lord's day, but only obscurely. With this we may 
compare the fact that in the Edessene Canons 
(4th cent.) the Ascension was commemorated on 
Whitsunday, and so in the Pilgrimage of ' Silvia ' 
( Etheria), though in that work the fortieth day after 
Easter was observed for another purpose ; see the 
present writer's art. ' Calendar, The Christian,' in 
DCG i. 26 l a . This is some confirmation of the 
suggestion that the Ascension took place on a 
Sunday. There are also some speculations of an 
extravagant nature, such as the valentinian idea 
that the interval between the Resurrection and the 
Ascension was 18 months, or that of certain Ophites 
that it was 11 or 12 years, or that of Eusebius in 
one place (Dem. Evang. viii. 2) that it was as long 
as the Ministry before the Crucifixion ; see Swete, 



Ap. Creed, p. 69 f. All that we can deduce from 
these facts is that, while the Ascension may have 
taken place on the Thursday, it may also have 
happened on the following Sunday, or on any day 
between or close to these dates. 

5. Modern objections to the Ascension. The 
present article is mainly concerned with the facts, 
and the reader may be referred for an answer to 
objections from a philosophical point of view to A. 
S. Martin's article in DCG i., which is very full on 
this head. Here it is enough to say (a) that the 
objection that it is impossible for a body to disobey 
the laws of gravity and to ascend instead of fall, 
presupposes that the Resurrection body of our 
Lord was under the same material conditions as 
His body before Easter Day, which all the Evan- 
gelists' accounts show not to have been the case. 
Objections on this head are therefore really objec- 
tions to the Resurrection, not to the Ascension. 
(b) It is impossible to regard the account in Ac 1 as 
a myth unless we adopt the now exploded theory 
that the whole gospel story is such. The narrative 
bears the same stamp of truth as the evangelical 
records. For example, Sanday well points out the 
authentic touch about the disciples desiring the 
restoration of the earthly kingdom of Israel (v. 6f - ; 
see HDB ii. 643 a ). However we may interpret the 
narrative, there can be little doubt that it repre- 
sents what the eye-witnesses believed to have taken 
place. 

But an allegation of Harnack must be briefly 
noticed here, as it deals with the facts. He says that 
the special prominence given to the Ascension in 
the Creeds is a deviation from the oldest teaching, 
and that in the primitive tradition the Ascension 
had no separate place (Dasapost. Glaubensbekennt- 
niss, Berlin, 1892). He alleges the silence of the 
Synoptists, of St. Paul in 1 Co 15 3ff< , and of the 
chief sub-apostolic writers ; the placing, in some 
old accounts, of the Session after the Resurrection 
as if they were one act ; and the discrepancy noted 
above as to the interval between the Resurrection 
and the Ascension. These allegations have been 
ably answered by Swete (Ap. Creed, ch. vi.). The 
argument from silence (always precarious) is invalid 
in the case of Mt. and Mk., which do not carry the 
narrative so far as the Ascension (the end of Mk. 
is lost) ; at best it hardly applies to Lk. (see above, 
1), and the mention of the Ascension in 1 Co 
15 3ff - would have been irrelevant to St. Paul's argu- 
ment. Moreover, the Ascension belongs to the 
history of the Church rather than to the gospel 
narrative, and therefore it is not to be expected 
that it should be found there except in allusion. 
It is hard to see any force in the argument from 
St. Paul's silence in one place when elsewhere he 
so emphatically states his belief in the Ascension. 
As to the sub-apostolic writers, the Ascension is 
explicitly mentioned by 'Barnabas' ( 15), by Justin 
(Dial. 38), and is probably referred to by Ignatius 
(Magn. 7). The allegation that the Session and the 
Resurrection were regarded as one act may be 
tested by Ro S 34 , where St. Paul names successively 
the Death, Resurrection, Session, and Intercession 
of Christ. If the second and third of these are 
one act, why not also the first and fourth? The 
argument from the interval has already been dealt 
with (above, 4). For fuller details, see Swete, Ap. 
Creed. It is quite intelligible that those who believe 
that our Lord is mere Man should find difficulties 
in the doctrine that He ascended ; but it is not 
really possible to maintain that the disciples did 
not believe it. 

6. Importance of the Ascension for the practical 
life. This has been indirectly pointed out above 
( 3). The Ascension shows that the work of Christ 
for man has never ceased, but is permanent, 
although He has never needed to repeat His sacri- 



ASCENSION OF ISAIAH 



ASCENSION OF ISAIAH 



99 



fice. It has brought Jesus into closer touch with 
us ; He has never ceased to be Man, and in the 
heavenly sphere is not removed far away from us, 
but is with us until the end of the world (Mt 28 30 ). 
He raises our ideals from earthly things to heavenly; 
and, giving us through the Spirit the new life 
which enables us to follow Him, by His Ascension 
teaches us the great Sursum Corda : ' Lift up your 
hearts ; we lift them up unto the Lord.' 

LJTBRATURB. W. Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly 
Priesthood of our Lord (Baird Lecture), London, 1892 ; H. B. 
Swete, The Apostles' Creed, Cambridge, 1894, The Holy Spirit 
in the New Testament, London, 1909, Appendix E, The Appear- 
ances of our Lord after the Passion, do. 1907, The Ascended 
Christ, do. 1910 ; J. Pearson, On the Creed, art. vi. ; J. 
Denney, art. ' Ascension,' in H DB i. ; W. Sanday, art. ' Jesus 
Christ/ ib. ii. ; A. S. Martin, art. 'Ascension,' in DCG i. ; J. G. 
Simpson, art. ' Ascension,' in SDB ; J. H. Bernard, art. 
' Assumption and Ascension,' in ERE ii. ; B. F. Westcott, 
Com. on Hebrews, London, 1906; R. L. Ottley, The Rule of 
Faith and Hope, do. 1912, p. 82fl. ; A. J .Tait, The Heavenly 
Session of our Lord, do. 1912 ; S. C. Gayford, elaborate 
review ol foregoing, in JThSt nv. [1913] 458. 

A. J. MACLEAN. 

ASCENSION OF ISAIAH. This is an apocryphon 
now extant in a complete form in the Ethiopia 
Version alone. It is composite in structure, and 
contains three separate parts of different author- 
ship, one being of Jewish and two of Christian 
origin, but all alike apparently composed during 
the 1st cent. A.D. It is thus of considerable im- 
portance in the light which it throws upon the 
views held in certain circles of the Christian Church 
of the apostolic period with regard to the doctrines 
of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, 
the Seven Heavens, the Antichrist, angels and 
demons. It adds, moreover, to our knowledge of 
the internal and external conditions of the Church, 
and of the stage which had been reached in the 
development of its organization. In phraseology 
and ideas it presents interesting parallels with the 
New Testament. 

1. Composite character. The title ' Ascension of 
Isaiah ' is strictly appropriate only to the latter part 
of the work, chs. 6-11, in which Isaiah is success- 
ively led through the firmament and six lower 
heavens to the seventh heaven, and receives dis- 
closures regarding the descent, birth, works, cruci- 
fixion, and ascension of the Beloved. The first five 
chapters deal in the main with Manasseh's wicked- 
ness and Isaiah's martyrdom, with a curious inser- 
tion (3 13b -4 18 ) which claims to be a vision foretelling 
the life of Christ and the fortunes of His Church, 
awkwardly introduced as explaining the wrath of 
Beliar which occasioned the martyrdom of Isaiah. 
A careful examination of the diction and subject- 
matter of each section leads to the clear discrimina- 
tion of three distinct sources. 

(a) The Martyrdom of Isaiah (H-a^eb-Ua 2 i_ 3 i2 
Sib-u). This narrates how in the twenty-sixth year 
of his reign Hezekiah called Manasseh to receive 
accounts of visions which he had seen ( I 1 - *). Isaiah, 
who is present, warns the king of Manasseh's future 
wickedness, and foretells his own martyrdom (I 7 " 18 ). 
After Hezekiah's death, Manasseh, as foretold, for- 
sakes the service of God and serves Satan, whereupon 
Isaiah withdraws first to Bethlehem and then to 
the desert with his companions (2 1 * 11 ). Meanwhile 
Belchira, a brother of the false prophet Zedekiah, 
son of Chenaanah, accuses Isaiah and his fellow- 
prophets to the king, of prophesying evil against 
Jerusalem, and claiming to have seen God, and 
calling Jerusalem Sodom, and the princes the people 
of Gomorrah (2 12 -3 10 ). Manasseh seizes Isaiah and 
has him sawn asunder with a wood -saw. Isaiah 
dies with wonderful firmness and constancy, com- 
muning with the Holy Spirit till the end. This 
narrative is mainly historical in form, and contains 
nothing specifically Christian. In its outlook it 
might well be Jewish, and this supposition is con- 
firmed by the Patristic references (e.g. in Origen 



and Jerome) which attribute the account of the 
sawing asunder of Isaiah to Jewish traditions, and 
also by the fact that the Talmud contains a similar 
account of Isaiah's death. Further, the original 
was probably written in Hebrew. In 2 1 a play upon 
words appears when the passage is re-translatea in- 
to Hebrew (nyj n^jJj). The name ' Malchira' in I 8 is a 
transliteration of n '?^>?, as S. A. Cook has observed. 
Above all, the curious term ' a wooden saw ' can 
hardly be explained except as a misrendering of 
YZ "wo, ' a wood-saw.' 

(b) The Vision of Isaiah (6-11). In the twentieth 
year of Hezekiah, Isaiah, in the presence of the 
king, when speaking in the Holy Spirit, is taken up 
in mind (cf. 2 Co 12 2 "*) through the firmament and 
each of the six lower heavens in turn, and finally 
arrives at the seventh heaven, to which he is ad- 
mitted by special command of the Lord Christ. 
There he sees all the righteous from the time of 
Adam, including Abel, Seth, and Enoch, stript of 
the garments of the flesh, not sitting on their 
thrones nor as yet wearing their crowns of glory, 
until the Beloved has descended to earth (9 12 - a ) and 
ascended again (9 18 ). He sees the Great Glory, and 
on His right the Lord (the Beloved) and on His left 
the Holy Spirit. He worships the three, and his 
Lord and the Holy Spirit worship the Great Glory. 
The Father commissions the Son to descend to earth, 
and tells of His ascension and final judgment. The 
Son descends through each heaven in turn, assum- 
ing in each the form of the angels who dwell in 
them, and finally passes through the firmament and 
then the air to the earth. There Isaiah beholds His 
wonderful birth, miracles, and crucifixion, resurrec- 
tion, mission of the Twelve, ascension, and session 
on the right hand of the Great Glory. Isaiah returns 
to his body and binds Hezekiah to secrecy concern- 
ing the vision. 

The date of this narrative is probably in the 1st 
cent. A.D. The vision is quoted not only by Jerome, 
Com. in Isaiam, Ixiv. 4 (Vallarsi, iv. 761), but also 
by the Actus Petri Vercettenses, ch. xxiv. (p. 72, ed. 
Lipsius), and by Hieracas the heretic, according to 
Epiphanius, Hcer. Ixvii. 3. There is also a remark- 
able parallel between Ignatius, Ep. ad. Ephes. xix. 
and Asc. Is. 1 1 16 . There appears to be a reference 
to the sawing asunder in He 1 1 87 . The author wrote 
in Greek, and was a Christian with a Docetic tend- 
ency and a crude conception of the Trinity. 

Tne title ' A 80608 * 011 f Isaiah ' properly belongs 
to this section of the work. Jerome so quotes it. 
Epiphanius . refers to it as rb ' kvapariicbv 'Ho-atov. 
The Ethiopia, Slavonic, and Latin texts of 6 1 imply 
the title ' Vision of Isaiah,' and so does Montf aucon s 
Canon. 

(c) The Testament of Hezekiah, a Christian Apo- 
calypse (S 181 "-* 18 ). This title is given in Cedrenus 
i. 120-121 (ed. Bonn), and is appropriate only to the 
above section. As Charles observes : ' that such a 
work was incorporated in the Ascension might also 
be inferred from I 2b ^*, which describe the contents 
of Hezekiah's vision.' It describes, briefly string- 
ing together various details in the manner of an 
epitome, the coming and death of the Beloved ; the 
descent of the angel of the Christian Church ; the 
ascension ; the falling away of the Church, and the 
prevalence of error, impurity, strife, and covetous- 
ness ; the coming of Beliar in the likeness of a law- 
less king, a matricide, who claims to be God, and 
demands Divine worship, and persecutes the saints 
for three years, seven months, and twenty-seven 
days. This persecution is ended by the second 
coming of the Lord, who drags Beliar into Gehenna, 
and gives rest to the godly, sets up a kingdom of the 
saints, who afterwards are transformed, and ascend, 
apparently, to heaven. The final judgment follows, 
and the godless are annihilated. 

The date cannot be later than A.D. 100, for 4" 



100 



ASCENSION OF ISAIAH 



ASCENSION OF ISAIAH 



presupposes that there were a few still alive who 
had seen the Lord in the flesh. The fusion of the 
three originally distinct conceptions of the Anti- 
christ, of Beliar, and of Nero Eedivivus cannot well 
be put earlier than A.D. 88 (see Charles, Asc. Is. pp. 
li-lxxiii). So the date of this section falls between 
A.D. 88 and 100. . 

2. Importance for New Testament study. (a) 
The Trinity. i. The First Person is called ' the 
Great Glory' (9 s7 10 16 II 32 ), ' the Most High ' (6 s 7 23 
10 6 - 7 ), and ' Father ' (8 18 ; cf. 7 8 10 6 - 7 in Charles' 
restored text). 

ii. The Second Person is generally referred to as 
' the Beloved ' ( I 4 - 8 - 7 - 18 3 18 - 18 4 3 - 8 - " 18 - 21 5 1S 7 17 - 23 

8 18. 28 QI2) Qr < my Lord ' ( 8 13 9 37 1Q 7. 16. 17) > an( J a ] so once 

as ' Lord of all those heavens and these thrones ' (8 9 ). 
His name is as yet unknown. He is ' the Only- 
Begotten, . . . whose name is not known to any 
flesh ' (7 s7 ), ' the Elect One whose name has not been 
made known, and none of the heavens can learn His 
name ' (8 7 ). The title ' Christ,' and the phrase ' who 
will be called Jesus ' (see 9* note in Charles' ed. ) are 
probably original to the work. The title ' Son of 
Man' in the Latin and Slavonic versions of II 1 is 
probably original, and was excluded by the editor of 
the present Greek version for doctrinal reasons (see 
Charles, Asc. Is. p. xxvi). 

It is noteworthy that the title ' the Beloved ' is 
bestowed on Christ by the Bath Qol in Mk I 11 9 7 , 
and it is used by St. Paul in Eph I 6 . As Armitage 
Robinson (HDB ii. 501) points out, it was probably 
a pre-Christian Messianic title. It is used in the 
OT of Israel, and so would naturally be trans- 
ferred from the people to the Messiah, like the 
titles ' Servant' and ' Elect.' It was, moreover, a 
term interchangeable with the Messianic title ' the 
Elect,' as Luke (9 35 ) substitutes 6 4K\e\eyfj.tvos (K B, 
etc.) for 6 dyaTnjrck (Mt 17 6 , Mk 9 7 ). In early 
Christian writings also the title is applied to 
Christ, e.g. Ep. Barn. iii. 6, iv. 3. 8 ; Clem. Rom. 
lix. 2 f. ; Ign. Smyrn. inscr. ; Herm. Sim. ix. 12. 5. 
No doubt the writer thought the term most appro- 
priate in a work claiming to be an ancient Jewish, 
prophecy of Christ, but its vagueness also betrays 
the undeveloped Trinitarian conceptions of the 
period. The Son and the Holy Spirit receive 
worship (9 s3 ' 36 ), but they in turn worship the Great 
Glory (9 40 ). They stand, one on His right hand 
and the other on His left (9 s8 ). (We may compare 
the Hieracite doctrine in Epiph. Hcer. Ixvii. 3.) 
The command to descend to earth is given by the 
Father (10 8 ). The conception of the gradual 
descent from heaven to heaven, with corresponding 
transformation in form, suggests a Gnostic colour- 
ing, and possibly a Docetic tendency, as do also 
the statement that the Beloved escaped recognition 
at each stage, and the miraculous appearance of 
the born babe two months after the Virgin's con- 
ception. The Protev. Jacobi and the Actus Petri 
have interesting parallels to the narrative here 
(II 8 ' 14 ), while we can hardly doubt that it is the 
source of Ignatius' words in ad. Ephes. xix., Kal 
^XaOev rbv dpxovra rov alu>vos rovrov TJ irapOevla ~M.aplas 
Kal 6 To/crrds avrr)*, 6fj.oLws Kal 6 Bdvaros rov Kvplov. 
' The concealment of the real nature of Christ is 
the entire theme of lO 8 -!! 19 .' He is, however, 
really crucified, and descends to the angel of Sheol 
(II 19 - 20 ; cf. 10 8 ). In His ascension He has resumed 
His proper form, and all the angels of the firma- 
ment and the Satans see Him and worship Him 
(II 23 ; cf. 10 18 ). On arriving in the seventh heaven, 
He sits down (not stands, as in 9 38 ) on the right 
hand, and the Holy Spirit on the left (II 32 - * 8 ). 
His session Avith God, however, will not be realized 
by the angels of the world until the final judgment 
(10 12 ). 

The significance of the crucifixion is nowhere 
noticed, but in 9 18 the ' plundering of the angel of 



death ' (cf. Ign. ad. Magn. ix. ; Mt 27 52> M ; Evang. 
Nicodemi, i. i, xi. 1 [ed. TLsch.J) is regarded as the 
result of the descensio in inferno, (cf. 1 P 3 19 4 e ). 
In the Test. Hez. (i.e. 3 13b -4 18 ) His work include* 
the founding of the Church ('the descent of the 
angel of the Christian Church,' 3 1S ), and, after 
coming forth from the tomb on the shoulders of 
Gabriel and Michael, the sending out of the Twelve. 
Those who believe in His cross will be saved, and 
many who believe in Him will speak through the 
Holy Spirit. The Ascension, not the Resurrection, 
is the distinctive object of faith to the believer in 
2 9 3 18 . At His second coming the Lord will Him- 
self drag Beliar into Gehenna (4 14 ), and give rest to 
the godly still alive in the body (cf. 2 Th I 6 - 7 , 1 
Th 4 17 ). The saints (i.e. the departed) will come 
with the Lord (1 Th 3 18 4 14 ) and descend and be 
present in this world (4 16 ), and the Lord will minister 
to those who have kept watch in this world (cf. Lk 
12 37 ). Apparently an earthly Messianic Kingdom 
is implied (cf. Rev 20 1 ' 8 ). It is followed by a 
spiritual translation to heaven, the body being left 
in the world (4 17 ). Then follows ' [a resurrection 
and] a judgment,' and the godless are entirely de- 
stroyed by fire from before the Beloved (4 18 ). 

iii. The Third Person is spoken of as an angel, 
the angel of the Spirit (4 21 9 39 - 40 10 4 II 4 ) or the 
angel of the Holy Spirit (3 18 7 23 9 s8 II 83 ). In com- 
munion with Him, Isaiah endures his martyrdom, 
and also is carried in spirit to the third heaven. 
The Holy Spirit stands (9 s8 ), and after the Ascen- 
sion sits (II 33 ) on the left hand of the Great 
Glory. The angel of the Holy Spirit in 3 16 must 
be regarded as Gabriel, and in II 4 He performs 
the part of Gabriel in the Annunciation. 

(b) The Resurrection is apparently a spiritual 
one. The 'garments,' i.e. spiritual bodies, are 
reserved for the righteous, with the robes and 
crowns in the seventh heaven (4 16 7 s2 8 14 - x ). These 
garments are received at once after death (8 14 9 1] ), 
the thrones and crowns not till after the Ascension 
of Christ (9 12 - 13 ). The living whom the Lord finds 
on His return will be 'strengthened in the gar- 
ments of the saints.' There is a temporary 
Messianic Kingdom, and (?) a feast (4 16 ), followed 
by a spiritual consummation in heaven (cf. Ph 3 21 , 
1 Co 15 62 - 63 ). The righteous from Adam downwards 
are already in the seventh heaven, stript of the 
garments of the flesh, though not yet seated on 
their thrones and crowned (9 9 ). The Final Judg- 
ment is referred to in 4 18 and 10 12 . 

(c) Beliar. The idea of demonic possession is 
very prominent in the Martyrdom of Isaiah. 
Beliar is regarded as served by Manasseh and 
ruling in his heart (I 8 - u 2 1 - 4 - 7 3 11 5 1 - 18 ), and as 
aiding Belchira (5 s ). The name ' Beliar ' is absent 
from the Vision, and in the Test. Hez. it has quite 
another meaning, the Beliar Antichrist appearing 
in the form of a man Nero (4 2 - 14 - 16t 18 ). In the 
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs Beliar appears 
in both meanings, at times as the source of immoral 
deeds, and at times as the Antichrist (see Charles, 
Asc. Is. I 8 n.). In the Sibylline Oracles, ii. 167 he is 
to come as the Antichrist, working signs ; in iii. 
63-73 to proceed from the Roman Emperors, deceive 
the elect, and finally be burnt up. He is also 
called Matanbuchus (2*) and Mechembechus (5 3 ). 
His relation to Sammael is puzzling. In part the 
two seem identical ; both dwell and rule in the 
firmament (7 9 4 2 ), take possession of Manasseh 
(2 l I 9 3 11 5 1 ), are wroth with Isaiah for his visions 
(5 18 3 13 5 1 ), and cause Isaiah to be sawn asunder 
(II 41 5 18 ). But in part Sammael seems to be sub- 
ordinate. He exerts himself to win Manasseh as 
the subject of Beliar (I 8 ). Beliar has kings under 
him (4 16 ), and is the prince of this world (I 3 4 2 ; 
cf. 4 18 ). He will finally be cast into Gehenna with 
his armies (4 14 ). In 2 Co 6 18 St. Paul .asks ' What 



ASCENSION OF IS AT AH 



ASCENSION OF ISAIAH 101 



concord hath Christ with Beliar?' Here eithe 
meaning of Beliar is possible. In 2 Th 2 1 " ls! th 
two ideas appear to be fused with yet a third tha 
of a human sovereign wi v h miraculous powers 
The ' man of lawlessness ' is possibly a translation 
of ' Beliar ' (cf. LXX : Avdpes irapdvofjioi in Dt 13 1 
etc.). In Asc. Is. 2 4 Beliar is the angel of lawless 
ness, and makes Manasseh strong in apostatizing 
and lawlessness (cf. 2 7 ). The sins specified ar 
witchcraft, magic, divination and auguration 
fornication, and the persecution of the righteous 
The ' falling away ' of 2 Th 2 3 is referred to in 
Asc. Is. 3 21 : 'on the eve of His approach, Hi 
disciples will forsake . . . their faith and thei 
love and their purity.' Cf. ' few in those days wil 
be left as His servants ' (4 13 ; cf. Lk 18 8 ). 

(d) The Antichrist and Nero Redivivus. In 4 
we are told : 



at ruler, the king of this world [cf. Jn 1231 1 4 3( 
16"J will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being 
yea he will descend from his firmament [cf. Eph 22 fti2] i n thi 
likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother [i.e 
Nero; cf. Sib. Or. iv. 141, v. 145. 363, viii. 71] ... will persecute 
the plant which the Twelve Apostles . . . have planted [i.e. the 
Church]. Of the Twelve, one [i.e. Peter] will be delivered into 
his hands. . . . There will come with him all the powers of this 
world [cf. Rev 16" 207-9]. ... At his word the sun will rise at 
night [cf. Rev 13" 1920, 2 Th 28J. . . . He will say " I am God ' 
[cf. 2 Th 2<] ... and all the people in the world will believe in 
him, and they will sacrifice to him [cf. Rev 134. 8. 12]. . . . Anc 
the greater number of those who shall have been associated 
together to receive the Beloved, he will turn aside after him [cf 
Mt 2424, Mk 1322 ; contrast 2 Th 2N>-12]. . . . And he will set up 
his image ... in every city [cf. Rev 1314].' 

The time of his sway will be 3 years, 7 months, 
and 27 days (4 12 ). This period points back to Dn 
7 a> 12 7 (cf. Rev 12 14 ) ; but in 4 14 the time is given as 
(one thousand) three hundred and thirty-two days. 
During this period the few believers left flee from 
desert to desert (4 13 ; cf. Rev 12 6 - 14 ). Beliar is finally 
destroyed, not by Michael but by the Lord Him 
self (4 14 ). 

(e) Angels. While there is no reference to the 
functions of good angels as mediators or inter- 
cessors, spiritual powers are conceived of as the 
true cause of all action. Manasseh and Belchira 
are only agents of Beliar and Sammael and Satan. 
Nero Redivivus is only an embodiment of Beliar 
(4 2 ). Angels, authorities, and powers rule in this 
world under Beliar their prince (I 3 ; cf. Eph I 21 3 10 
6 12 , Col l' 2">- 1*, 1 P 3 22 ). The angel of the Chris- 
tian Church (cf. Rev 2 1 - 12 etc. ) descends from 
heaven after our Lord's passion. The Holy Spirit 
and the angel of the Holy Spirit (see under 
' Trinity') are identical, except perhaps in 3 16 and 
II 4 . There is an angel of death (9 16 10 14 ), and an 
angel of Sheol (II 19 ). Each heaven has its angels, 
with the superior ones to the right of the throne. 
The sun and the moon also have each an angel (cf. 
Rev 19 17 ). The judgment of the angels is referred 
to in 1 s 4 18 10 1 '-. 

(/) The Seven Heavens. The conception of the 
seven heavens which we find e.g. in the Testaments 
of the Twelve Patriarchs and in Slavonic Enoch is 
not to be found in the Asc. Is. Evil is found only 
in the firmament and the air ; it is entirely absent 
from all the heavens. Nor is there any reference 
to natural phenomena or heavenly bodies in them. 
Each heaven is merely a duplicate of the one abovej 
with no distinction, except of glory, until the 
sixth and seventh are reached (8 1 - 7 ). The sixth is 
not under any subordinate angel or 'throne,' but 
is ruled by the Great Glory i n the seventh. There 
is an angel over the praise-giving of the sixth 
heaven, however, who challenges Isaiah when pro- 
ceeding to the seventh (9 1 - 4 ). In the seventh are 
the Patriarchs, the righteous, the crowns and 
thrones and garments of the righteous, the Great 
Glory, the Beloved, and the angel of the Holy 
Spirit. 

(g) The Christian Church and its circumstances. 



The angel of the Christian Church which is in the 
heavens will be summoned by God in the last days 
(3 15 ). The Church is the plant planted by the 
Twelve Apostles (4 s ). It consists of those who are 
' associated together to receive the Beloved ' at His 
Second Coming (4 s ). A great persecution is re- 
garded as imminent, in which the few faithful 
remaining will ' flee from desert to desert, awaiting 
the coming of the Beloved.' For the expectation 
of the Coming, cf. 1 Th I 10 , 1 Co I 7 , Ph 3* u , He 9 W . 
The Neronic Antichrist is regarded as destroying 
one of the Twelve Apostles (4 3 ), and deceiving 
many of the faithful (4 9 ). In 3 21 " 31 we have a con- 
temporary picture of the Christian Church regarded 
as guilty of serious declension from its high calling 
Church organization is not yet developed. We 
have mention of pastors and elders (S 24 - w ). There 
is a general disbelief in the Second Coming and in 
prophecy generally (3 28 - 31 ), but prophecy is still 
existent, though there are 'not many prophets 
save one here and there in divers places.' The 
'faith' (3 21 ) is spoken of objectively, as in the 
Pastoral Epistles (e.g. 1 Ti l i9 ). Faith, love, and 
purity are the distinctive Christian virtues (as in 

1 Ti 4 12 ). There are lawless elders (S 24 ), and much 
hatred exists among the Church leaders (3*). 
Covetousness and slander are common vices (cf 

2 Ti 3 1 - 2 ). The 'spirit of error' (3 a8 ) is at work 
amonjj Christians (cf. 1 Jn 4 6 , 1 Ti 4 1 ). Caesar- 
worship is already a difficulty (4 7 ' 11 ). 

(h) Apocryphal work. The only reference to 
another apocryphon occurs in 4 22 , where the book 
' Words of Joseph the Just ' is probably to be 
identified with the Hpoo-e^ TOV 'Iwfi<t> (Fabricius 
Cod. Pseud. V.T. i. 761-769 ; see HDB ii. 778). 

3. The text. (a) In its complete form the 
Asc, Is. is found only in the Ethiopic Version, and 
even this needs to be corrected and at times supple- 
mented by other authorities. Of this Version 
there are three MSS, one at the Bodleian, and two 
inferior ones in the British Museum. 

(b) There are two Latin Versions. (i.) The fuller 
of the two was printed at Venice in 1522 from a 

VIS now unknown, and reprinted by Gieseler in 
1832. (ii.) The other version occurs in two frag- 
ments discovered by Mai in 1828 in the Codex 
Rescnptus of the Acts of Chalcedon, Vat. 5750 of 
*he 5th or 6th century. 

(c) The Greek Versions are likewise twofold : (i.) 
a lost Greek text on which the Greek Legend was 
based; (ii.) the Greek text from which the Slav- 
onic and the fuller Latin Versions were derived. 
Of this text 2 4 -4 4 have been recovered in the 
Amherst Papyri by Grenfell and Hunt. 

The Greek Legend was found by O. von Gebhardt 
n a Greek MS of the 12th cent. (no. 1534, Biblio- 
-heque Nationale, Paris). This work is really a 
ection for Church use, and so takes liberties in 
he way of rearranging and abbreviating the text, 
"he Martyrdom is brought to the end, and other 
etails are added. It is, however, very valuable 
or correcting and restoring the text. 

(d) The Slavonic Version is extant in a MS in 
he Library of the Uspenschen Cathedral in 

Moscow. It belongs to c. A.D. 1200. 

In all these authorities two recensions may be 
raced. The Greek Papyri, the Ethiopic, the 
lavonic, and the fuller Latin Version follow the 
econd recension of the Greek ; the Greek Legend 
nd the Latin fragments support the first Greek 
ecension. Charles in his edition of the Asc. Is. 

900) has produced a critical text founded on all 
hese authorities. To this work the present writer 
rould express his deep indebtedness. 

LITERATURB. I. CRITICAL INQUIRIES. R. Laurence, Atcen. 
o Isaice Vati, Oxford, 1819, pp. 141-180 ; K. I. Nitzsch SK 
830 pp. 209-240 ; G. C. F. Luck*, Einlett. in die Offenbdrunc, 
s Johannes*, Bonn, 1852, pp. 274-302; A. Dillmann, Ascensio 



102 



ASCETICISM 



ASIAECH 



Isaice, Leipzig, 1877, pp. v-xviii ; G. T. Stokes, art. ' Isaiah, 
Ascension of/ in DOB iii. [1882] 298-301 ; W. J. Deane, 
Pseudepigrapha, Edinburgh, 1891, pp. 236-275 ; A. Harnack, 
Geseh. der altchristl. Litteratur, Leipzig, 1893 ff., i. 854-856, ii. 
573-579, 714; C. Clemen, Die Himmelfahrt des Jesaja,' Z WT, 
1896, pp. 388-415, also 1897, pp. 455-465 ; J. A. Robinson, art. 
' Isaiah, Ascension of,' in H DB, ii. 499-501 ; G. Beer.in Kautzsch's 
Apok. und Pseudepig., Tubingen, 1900, ii. 119-123; R. H. 
Charles, Ascension of Isaiah, translated from the Ethiopia 
Version, which, together with the New Greek Fragment, the Latin 
Versions, and the Latin Translation of the Slavonic, is here pub- 
lished in full, London, 1900, also Apocrypha and Pseudepi- 
grapha, Oxford, 1913, ii. 155-158 ; E. Littmann, JE vi. [1904] 
642 f. 

II. EDITIONS. (a) Ethiopia Version. R. Laurence, A. 
Dill maim, and R. H. Charles, opp. cit. supra, (b) Latin 
Versions. {i.) J. K. L. Gieseler, in a Oottingen programme, 
1832; (ii.) A. Mai, Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, Rome, 
1825-38, iii. 238 f. ; both are given in the editions of Dillmaun 
and Charles as above, (c) Greek Versions. (i.) The Greek 
Legend a free recension : O. v. Gebhardt, in Hilgenfeld's 
ZWT, 1878, p. 330 ff.; R. H. Charles, Asc. of Isaiah, pp. 
xviii-rxxiii, 141-148; (ii.) Papyrus fragment: Grenfell and 
Hunt, Ascension of Isaiah, London, 1901 ; R. H. Charles, 
Asc. of Isaiah, pp. xxviii-xxxi, 84-05. (d) Slavonic Version, 
R. H. Charles, Asc. of Isaiah, pp. xxiv-xxvii, 98-139. 

A. LL. DAVIES. 
ASCETICISM. See ABSTINENCE. 

ASHER. See TRIBES. 

ASHES. See HEIFER and MOURNING. 

ASIA ('Aala). Asia had a great variety of mean- 
ings in ancient writers. It might denote (1) the 
western coast-land of Asia Minor ; (2) the kingdom 
of Troy (poetical) ; (3) the kingdom of the early 
Seleucids, i.e. Asia Minor and Syria (frequent in 1 
and 2 Mac.) ; (4) the kingdom of Pergamum (Livy) ; 
(5) the Roman province Asia ; (6) the Asiatic conti- 
nent (Pliny). In Strabo's time the beginning of 
the 1st cent. A.D. the province was i) Idlus Ka\ovfdi>i) 
'Ao-la (Geog. p. 118), and in the NT (where the 
name is found 22 times 15 times in Acts, 4 times 
in the Pauline Epistles, once in 1 Peter, twice in 
Rev.) Asia almost invariably denotes proconsular 
Asia. St. Paul the Roman citizen naturally as- 
sumed the Imperial standpoint, and made use of 
Roman political designations, while the Hellenic 
Luke, though he frequently employed geograph- 
ical terms in their popular non-Roman sense, was 
probably to some extent influenced by St. Paul's 
practice of using the technical phraseology of the 
Empire. 

The province of Asia was founded after the death 
of Attains ill. of Pergamum (133 B.C.), who be- 
queathed his kingdom by will to the Roman Re- 
public. The province was much smaller than the 
kingdom had been, until, on the death of Mithri- 
dates (120 B.C.), Phrygia Major was added to it. 
Cicero indicates its extent in the words : ' Namque, 
ut opinor, Asia vestra constat ex Phrygia, Caria, 
Mysia, Lydia' (Flac. 27); but the Troad and the 
islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Patmos, and Cos 
should be added. Pergamum, so long a royal city, 
naturally became the capital of the province, and 
officially retained this position till the beginning 
of the 2nd cent. A.D. ; but long before that time 
Ephesus (q.v.) was recognized as the real adminis- 
trative centre. When the provinces were arranged 
by Augustus in 27 B.C., Asia was given to the 
Senate ; it was therefore governed by proconsuls 
(dvdviraToi, Ac 19 38 ). Its beauty, wealth, and culture 
made it the most desirable of all provinces. 

The only passage in which St. Luke certainly 
uses 'Asia' in the popular Greek sense is Ac 2 9 , 
where he names Asia and Phrygia together as 
distinct countries, whereas in Roman provincial 
language the greater part of Phrygia belonged to 
Asia. In such an expression as ' the places on the 
coast of Asia ' (Ac 27 2 ) the sense is doubtful ; but 
it is probable that, where the historian refers to 
Jews of Asia (Ac 6 9 21 27 24 18 ), to all the dwellers 
in Asia'(19 10 ; cf. ig 3 "-), and to St. Paul's sojourn 



in Asia (19 32 20 16- 18 ), he has the province in view. 
St. Paul almost certainly uses the word in its 
Roman sense when he speaks of ' the firstfruits of 
Asia ' (Ro 16 s RV), the churches of Asia (1 Co 16 19 ), 
afflictions in Asia (2 Co I 8 ), apostates in Asia (2 Ti 
I 18 ). 

Though the Roman meaning of Asia is generally 
assumed by adherents of the S. Galatian theory, it is 
not incompatible with the other view. Thus Light- 
foot, an advocate of the N. Galatian theory, holds 
that, while St. Luke usually gives geographical 
terms their popular significance, ' the case of Asia 
is an exception. The foundation of this province 
dating very far back, its official name had to a 
great extent superseded the local designations of 
the districts which it comprised. Hence Asia in 
the NT is always Proconsular Asia' (Gal. 6 , 1876, 
p. 19, n. 6). Only those who find ' the Phrygian 
and Galatic region ' (Ac 16 6 ) in the north of Pisidian 
Antioch are obliged (like Conybeare-Howson, i. 324) 
to assume that Asia ' is simply viewed as the west- 
ern portion of Asia Minor, for the Paroreios be- 
longed to proconsular Asia, in which preaching 
was expressly forbidden (Ac 16 6 ). See PHRYGIA 
and GALATIA. 

1 P I 1 is a clear instance of the use of geograph- 
ical terms in the Roman administrative sense. 
The four provinces named Bithynia and Pontus, 
though here separated, being really one sum up 
the whole of Asia Minor north of Taurus. The 
Seven Churches of Revelation were all in pro- 
consular Asia (Rev 1 4 - U ), and it is possible that 
the so-called ' Epistle to the Ephesians ' was an 
encycla to a group of churches in that province. 

For the ' Asiarchs ' (RVm) of Ac 19 81 , see following 
article. 

LTTBRATURB. F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter, 
London, 1898, p. 157 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edin- 
burgh, 1897, p. 273 f.; W. M. Ramsay, Church in Roman 
Empire, London, 1893, and St. Paul the Traveller and the 
Roman Citizen, do. 1895, passim. JAMES STRAHAN. 

AST ARCH. In Ac 19 31 RVm reads 'Asiarchs' 
for RV ' chief officers of Asia ' and A V ' chief of 
Asia.' The word is a transliteration of the Gr. 
'Ao-idpx-qs, derived from 'A<rla, ' province of Asia,' 
and apxeiv, ' to rule,' and belongs to a class of 
names, of which "BiOwidpx^, TaXardpxn^, KeMrjra3o/c- 
dpx 7 ? 5 ! AvKidpxns, llovTapxys, 2upidpx'?s are other 
examples. The titles are peculiar to Eastern, 
Greek-speaking, Roman provinces. As the real 
rulers of these provinces were the Roman Emperor 
and the Roman Senate, with their elected repre- 
sentatives, it is clear that such titles must have 
been honorary and complimentary. With regard 
to the duties and privileges attached to the dig- 
nities thus indicated there has been much discus- 
sion. The titles occur rarely in literature, much 
more often in inscriptions ; and the lessons we 
learn from inscriptions are in direct proportion to 
their number. Several scholars of repute have 
held the view that the term 'Ao-idpx 1 ?* is equivalent 
to dpxtepcbs 'A<rias ('high priest of Asia'), the pre- 
sident of the Diet of Asia (KOIVOV rrjs 'Afffas, com- 
mune Asioe). This Diet of Asia was a body 
composed of a number of representatives, one or 
more of whom were elected by each of a number 
of cities in the province. The principal duty of the 
president of this body was to supervise the worship 
of Rome and the Emperor throughout the province 
(see under art. EMPEROR - WORSHIP). Certain 
considerations, however, militate against the view 
that the terms ' Asiarch ' and ' high priest of Asia ' 
are interchangeable. The word A<ridpxi}s is never 
feminine, whereas the title ' high priestess of Asia' 
is often applied to the wife of the high priest. 
There was only one dpxiepei>s'Ao~lat (without further 
designation) at a time, whereas there were a 



ASP 



ASSASSINS 



103 



number of Asiarchs. Another (civil) office could 
be held concurrently with the Asiarchate, but not 
with the chief priesthood of Asia. Further, the 
title ' Asiarch ' was held only during a man's 
period of office (probably one year*), but he was 
eligible for re-election. The origin of the view 
that ' Asiarch ' and ' high priest of Asia ' are two 
convertible terms is to be found in the Martyrdom 
of Poly carp (A.D. 155), where two separate persons 
named Philippos have been confused : (1) Philip of 
Smyrna, Asiarch, who superintended the games ; 
(2) Philip of Tralles, who was high priest of Asia 
(the latter had been an Asiarch a year or two be- 
fore). It is clear, therefore, that the honorary 
position of Asiarch was inferior to the office of 
high priest of Asia. Yet there was a connexion 
between the two. The high priest presided over 
the games, etc. , but the Asiarchs did the work and 
probably paid the cost. Their election by their 
fellow-citizens to this honorary position was re- 
warded by games and gladiatorial shows. Both 
the Asiarchs and the high priest disappear after 
the early part of the 4th cent., for the obvious 
reason that, as the Empire was henceforth offici- 
ally Christian, the machinery for Emperor-worship 
had become obsolete. 

When we come to study the connexion of the 
Asiarchs with the Acts narrative, we are puzzled. 
It seems at first sight so strange that men elected 
to foster the worship of Rome and the Emperor 
should be found favouring the ambassador of the 
Messiah, the Emperor's rival for the lordship of 
the Empire. This is only one, however, of a 
number of indications that the Empire was at first 
disposed to look with a kindly eye on the new 
religion. Christianity, with its outward respect 
for civil authority, seemed at first the strongest 
supporter of law and order. Artemis- worship, 
moreover, bulked so largely in Ephesus as perhaps 
to dwarf the Imperial worship. Thus St. Paul, 
whose preaching so threatened the authority of 
Artemis, may have appeared in a favourable light 
to the representatives of Caesar-worship, as likely 
to create more enthusiasm in that direction. 

See also artt. DIANA and EPHESUS. 

LITERATURE. C. G. Brandis, s.vo. ' Asiarches,' ' Bithyni- 
arches,' ' Galatarches,' in Pauly-Wissowa, Stuttgart, 1894 ff . ; 
J. B. Lightfoot, Appendix, ' The Asiarchate ' in his Apostolic 
Fathers, pt. ii. vol. iii., London, 1889, p. 404 ff. ; W. M. Ram- 
say in Classical Review, iii. [1889] 174, and St. Paul the 
Traveller and the Roman Citizen, London, 1895, p. 280 f . 

A. SOUTER. 

ASP (cb-irfs). The Greek word occurs in the 
classical writings of Herodotus (iv. 191) and 
Aristotle (de Anim. Hist. iv. 7. 14), and generally 
represents the Heb. jri? (pethen) in the LXX (pethen 
is translated ' asp ' in Dt 32 s3 , Job 20 14 - 16 , and Is II 8 , 
but ' adder' in Ps 58 4 91 13 ). In the NT the ' asp' 
is mentioned only once (Ro 3 18 : 'The poison of 
asps [tos dffvlduv] is under their lips'). Here it is 
introduced in a quotation from Ps 140 s (139 4 ), where 
the Heb. word used is aiega (a &ira Xe-y. and prob- 
ably corrupt, perhaps read e^y, 'spider'), but 
the LXX word is eunrfs, as in Romans. The 
general meaning of the passage is obvious (cf. 
Ja 3 s : ' The tongue can no man tame a restless 
evil full of deadly poison'), and the position of 
the poison-bag of the serpent is correctly described. 

The serpent referred to is without doubt the 
Naja haje, or small hooded Egyptian cobra, 
which, though not found in the cultivated parts 
of Palestine, is well known in the downs and 
plains S. of Beersheba (cf. Tristram, Natural 
History of the Bible, p. 270), and frequents old 
walls and holes in the rocks (cf. Is II 8 : 'And the 
sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp'). 
It does not belong to the viper tribe (Vipendce) 
but to the Colubridce, which includes the ordinary 
* But see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. ii. voL iii. p. 412 ff. 



British grass-snake. The chief peculiarities of 
cobras are : (a) a clearly defined neck, which they 
can dilate at will, and (b) the equality in size of 
the scales on the back with those on the other 
parts of the body. There are about ten different 
species, of which the Naja haje, or Egyptian asp, 
and the Naja tripudians, or Indian cobra, are the 
best known. The latter is the species upon which 
Indian snake-charmers usually practise their skill, 
while the Naja haje is used for this purpose in 
Egypt. 
See also SERPENT, VIPER. 

LITERATURE. H. B. Tristram, Natural History of the 
Bibleio, London, 1911, p. 270 f. ; SWP viL 146; R. Lydekker 
in The Concise Knowledge Natural History, 1897, p. 424 ; Bae- 
deker's Palestine and Syria?, 1912, p. Ivi ; W. Aldis Wright, 
The Bible Word-Bool^, 1884, p. 50, for the use of the word ; 
cf. also Sanday-Headlam, Romans?, 1902, p. 79 ; Driver, 
Deuteronomjft, 1896, p. 372 ; HDB, vol. iv. p. 459 ; EBi, voL iv. 
col. 4394 ; Murray's DB, p. 67; SDB, p. 837. 

P. S. P. HANDCOCK. 

ASSASSINS (or, more properly, Sicarii [cf. Ac 
21 38 ], 'dagger-men'). The name given, according 
to Josephus, to a body of radicals in the Jewish 
Messianic agitation which culminated in the out- 
break of A.D. 66. The name was derived from the 
short daggers worn by the members of the body 
(sica, a short, curved, possibly Persian sword), 
which they kept concealed in their clothing and 
used to stao people among the crowds. The Sicarii 
seem to have appeared first during the procurator- 
ship of Felix, although Josephus in BJ VH. viii. 1 
might be interpreted as ascribing their origin to 
a somewhat earlier period. He has a number of 
references to these men, whom he describes as 
follows (BJ U. xiii. 3) : 

' There sprang up another sort of robbers in Jerusalem who 
were called Sicarii, who slew men in the daytime in the midst 
of the city, especially at the festivals, when they mixed with 
the multitude, and concealed little daggers under their gar- 
ments, with which they stabbed those that were their enemies ; 
and when any fell down dead, the murderers joined the by- 
standers in expressing their indignation, so that from their 
plausibility they could by no means be discovered. The first 
man who was slain by them was Jonathan the high priest, after 
whom many were slain every day, and the fear men were in of 
being so treated was more harassing than the calamity itself, 
everybody expecting death every hour, as men do in war. So 
men kept a look-out for their enemies at a great distance, and 
even if their friends were coming, they durst not trust them 
any longer, but were slain in the midst of their suspicions and 
precautions. Such was the celerity of the plotters, and so 
cunning was their contrivance against detection.' See also BJ 

VII. X. 1. 

It is difficult to say whether these Sicarii at 
first constituted an organized body, although such 
a view would seem to be implied by Josephus (BJ 
VII. viii. 1). They joined the Zealots (ib. ii. xvii. 
7), and inaugurated the reign of terror which filled 
Jerusalem after the outbreak of the Revolution. 
Subsequently they seized the great fortress of 
Masada (ib. IV. vii. 2), and there maintained them- 
selves by plundering the neighbouring country, 
until they were besieged by the Romans under 
Flavius Silca. Their commander was one Eleazar 
(ib. vii. viii. 1), whom Josephus describes as an 
able man and a descendant of that Judas who had 
led the revolt against the census under Quirinius. 
After a considerable siege the Romans were on 
the point of taking the fortress when the Sicarii 
massacred themselves, one old woman alone 
escaping. 

In Ac 21 88 they have 'the Egyptian* as a leader. 
Josephus mentions this Egyptian as having ap- 
peared during the procnratorship of Felix, but 
does not connect the Sicarii with him (Ant. XX. 
viii. 6 ; BJ II. xiii. 5). The Sicarii seem to have 
dispersed after the Roman war and to have dis- 
appeared from history, the references to Sicarii 
in the Mishna (Bikkur. i. 2, ii. 3 ; Gittin v. 
6 ; Machsh. L 6) probably being to robbers In 
general. 



104 



ASSEMBLY 



ASSOS 



LITBRATURB. See E. Schiirer, GJV* i. [Leipzig, 1901] p. 674, 
n. 31 (HJP L il. 178), where further references will be found. 

SHAILER MATHEWS. 

ASSEMBLY. In the Acts and Epistles (AV 
and RV) the English word 'assembly' occurs as 
follows, but in each instance a different Greek 
noun is translated by it. 

1. In Ac 19 32 - 89 - 41 'assembly' (^KX-qyla) stands 
for the tumultuary mob gathered by Demetrius 
and his fellow-gildsmen in Ephesus to protest 
against the teaching of St. Paul, which was 
destroying the business of the shrine-makers. 
Though 4KK\i)<rla strictly denotes an assembly of 
the citizens summoned by the crier (Krjpv^), this 
was a mere mob, with all a mob's unreasonable- 
ness : ' Some cried one thing, and some another, 
for the assembly was confused, and the more part 
knew not wherefore they were come together.' 
So runs St. Luke's 'logical, complete, and photo- 
graphic ' narrative. (For a similar description of 
a Roman gathering, cf. Virgil, &n. i. 149 : ' Saevit- 
que animis ignobile vulgus. ) In Ephesus the man 
revered for his piety and worth was the Secretary 
of the City (ypay,/J.refo [see TOWN CLERK]), who 
calls the gathering a riot (ordo-is), and a concourse 
(ffv<TTpo(f>Ji). If Demetrius and his gildsmen had 
just ground of complaint, they should have carried 
their case before the proper court, over which the 
proconsul presided, for the present gathering was 
outside the law, and had ' no power to transact 
business.' He, therefore, referred them to the 
lawful (AV) or regular (RV) assembly (17 Iwojttos 
fKKXijffia), which is ' the people duly assembled in 
the exercise of its powers ' (Ramsay). The Re- 
visers' change of ' lawful ' into ' regular ' is perhaps 
hypercritical ; for in practice, under the Roman 
rule, the distinction is not appreciable. 

2. Ac 23 7 : ' The assembly [RV ; AV the multi- 
tude] was divided ' (^xf<r0i? rt> irX??0os). The refer- 
ence is to the council (Trav rt> ffvvtdpiov, 22 30 ) 
summoned by Lysias the tribune of the Roman 
garrison in the tower of Antonia, consequent upon 
the tumult in the Temple, and St. Paul's arrest. 
We are not to understand a regular sitting of the 
Sanhedrin, but an informal meeting for what is 
known in Scots Law as a precognition ( ' a meeting 
of the councillors, aiding the Tribune to ascertain 
the facts ' [Ramsay]). As Lysias called the meet- 
ing, he probably presided and conducted the busi- 
ness. This would account for St. Paul's ignorance 
of the fact that Ananias was the high priest, and 
explains his apology. As to the charge made 
against him, the Apostle conducted his defence 
in a way that won for himself the sympathy of 
the Pharisees. It is a needless refinement to find 
here difficulties of an ethical kind. ' Luke saw 
nothing wrong or unworthy in this, and he was 
best able to judge. Paul was winning over the 
Pharisees not merely to himself but to the 
Christian cause. Paul states the same view more 
fully in 26 6 ' 8 where there is no question of a clever 
trick, for there were no Pharisees among his 
judges' (Ramsay, Pictures of the Apostolic Church, 
1910, p. 283). the result of this defence was that 
rb ffvvtSpiov became rb TrXrjOos. 

3. Ja 2- : ' If there come into your assembly ' 
(AV and RVm ; RV and AVm 'synagogue': els 
rty a-waywy^v). James, writing 'to the twelve 
tribes scattered abroad,' uses the old familiar 
word 'synagogue,' which had become hallowed in 
the ears of the Dispersion by associations of 
worship and fellowship. This usage is a delicate 
indication (unintentional on the writer's part, of 
course) that the Christian meeting had its ties not 
with the Temple, but with the synagogues which 
for ages had nourished the faith of Israel. 

4. He 12 23 : ' Ye are come ... to innumerable 
hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church 



of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven ' (RV ; 
fj.vpLa.ffiv &yy\uv, iravi)yijpei Kal ^KK\if]ffl<f. irptarorbKUv 
diroyeypafj,^vwv iv otpavois). In classical usage 
iraviiyvpis is the festal assembly of the whole nation, 
gathered for some solemnity, such as the Olympic 
Games. But the word occurs only here in the 
NT, though it is found in LXX Ezk 46", Hos 
2 11 9 s , Am 5 21 . The passage has given rise to 
considerable variety of interpretation, indication 
of which may be seen in RV text and margin. 
The difficulty is to determine how many classes are 
referred to. 

(a) A. B. Davidson ('Hebrews,' Bible Class 
Handbooks, in loco) holds that the only subject 
is angels, and translates : ' to myriads of angels, 
even a festal assembly and convocation of first- 
borns enrolled in heaven.' In this interpretation 
he is followed by A. S. Peake (Century Bible, 
'Hebrews'). 

(b) On the other hand, Westcott (Hebrews) con- 
tends for two classes angels and men ; and 
renders the passage : ' to countless hosts of angels 
in festal assembly, and to the Church of the first- 
born enrolled in heaven.' So also Farrar ( Cambridge 
Bible for Schools) and Edwards (Expositor's Bible). 

Against this latter interpretation, it may be 
pointed out that men are mentioned separately 
'and to the spirits of just men made perfect' 
and it is improbable that the groups occur twice. 
' Tens of thousands ' is an almost technical term 
for angels ; and, though ' firstborn ' is not elsewhere 
applied to them, it is a quite natural name for the 
sons of God. Besides, if living Christians are 
referred to, as this interpretation seems to imply, 
it is awkward 'to speak of their coming to a 
company which includes themselves ' (A. S. Peake). 
On the whole it appears better to abide by the first 
interpretation. It is the picture of noble souls 
returning home to God, and welcomed with the 
'joy that is in the presence of the angels of God.' 
Students of Dante will compare the corresponding 
passage in the Convivio : ' And, as his fellow- 
citizens come forth to meet him who returns from 
a long journey, even before he enters the gate of 
his city ; so to the noble soul come forth the 
citizens of the eternal life.' Bernard's great hymn 
(Neale's translation) 'Jerusalem the Golden' may 
also be cited as instinct with the spirit of He 12 28 . 

W. M. GRANT. 

ASSOS ("Affffos). An ancient Greek city on the 
Adramyttian Gulf, in the south of the Troad. 
Originally an JEolic colony, it was re-founded, 
under the name of Apollonia, by the Pergamenian 
kings, whose dominions were converted into the 
Roman province of Asia in 133 B.C. Its situation 
was one of the most commanding in all the Greek 
lands. 'It is a strong place,' says Strabo, 'and 
well fortified with walls. There is a long and 
steep ascent from the sea and the harbour. . . . 
Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, was a native of 
this place. . . . Here also Aristotle resided for 
some time ' (xm. i. 58). The walls are still well- 
preserved, and the harbour mole can be traced by 
large blocks under the clear water. The summit 
of the hill was crowned by the Doric temple of 
Athene (built c. 470 B.C.), the panels of which 
now mostly in the Louvre are among the most 
important remains of ancient Greek art. The 
modern town, Behram Kalessi, is still the chief 
shipping-place of the southern Troad. 

On a Sunday afternoon, probably in the spring 
of A.D. 56, St. Paul, having torn himself away 
from the Christians of Troas, walked or rode the 
20 miles of Roman highway which connected that 
city with Assos, first passing along the western 
side of Mt. Ida, then through the rich Valley oi 
the Tuzla, and finally reaching the Via Sacra, or 
Street of Tombs, which still extends a great dis- 



ASSUMPTION OF MOSES 



ASSUMPTION OF MOSES 



105 



tance to the N.W. of Assos. In the haven he 
joined his ship, which had meanwhile taken his 
companions round the long promontory of Lectum 
(Ac20 13f -). 

LITERATURE. J. T. Clarke, Assos, 2 vols., Boston, 1882 and 
1898; C. Fellows, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, 
London, 1852 ; Murray's Handbook of Asia Minor. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

ASSUMPTION OF MOSES. A curious state of 
affairs exists with regard to the so-called ' Assump- 
tion of Moses.' The title is incorrectly applied to 
what is really the ' Testament of Moses, a work 
which is extant in a more or less complete form in 
a Latin fragment discovered by Ceriani in a 6th 
cent. MS in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and 
published by him in 1861. The true ' Assumption ' 
survives only in quotations and references in the 
NT and early Christian writers ; but from certain 
facts it appears that it was at a very early date 
appended to the ' Testament.' For example, in 
Ceriani's Latin MS in 10 12 we have the reading 
'From my death [assumption] until His advent.' 
Here the duplicate reading ' assumption ' would 
appear to be an attempt to prepare for the account 
of the Assumption appended to the Testament. 
Moreover, as early as St. Jude's Epistle, we find 
quotations from both works in close juxtaposition. 
Under these circumstances, the present article in- 
cludes an account of both works. 

Both works alike must have been written in the 
1st cent. A.D., and the former, if not the latter, in 
Hebrew, between the years 7 and 29. A Greek ver- 
sion of both, of the same century, is presupposed by 
the quotations and parallels in Ac 7 s6 , Jude 9 - 16t ", 
2 Baruch, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. 
The author was a Pharisaic Quietist. His silence 
with regard to the Maccabaean rising and its leaders 
is most significant. There could be no severer 
censure on the political and bellicose Pharisees of 
Ids time. For him Eleazar and his seven sons had 
been the true heroes,and not Judas and his brethren. 
He expects the ultimate triumph of Israel, but this 
is to be brouglit about by Divine intervention and 
not by the sword, and the human conditions pre- 
requisite are a stricter observance of the Law and 
a national repentance. 

The work is of great value in the stress it lays on 
spiritual religion and quietism. In this and in its 
singular freedom from the Jewish doctrine of merit 
it affords a parallel to NT teaching. ' On the other 
hand, it is thoroughly Judaic in its exaltation of 
the person of Moses, which seems to be set up as a 
Jewish counterpart to that of our Lord, while the 
pre-existence of Moses and Jerusalem is expressly 
asserted in I 14 - 17 . 

1. Contents (historical and other allusions are 
explained in brackets). i. In the 2500th year from 
the Creation, after the Exodus, Moses calls Joshua 
and appoints him his successor as minister of the 
people and of the tabernacle of the testimony, at 
the same time committing to his charge certain 
books which were to be preserved in the place which 
God had made from the beginning of the world 
(Jerusalem). ii. After Joshua has secured to Israel 
their inheritance, the people are to be ruled for 
eighteen years (i.e. the fifteen judges, and the three 
kings, Saul, David, and Solomon) by chiefs and 
kings, and for nineteen years (the nineteen kings 
of Israel) the ten tribes shall break away. The two 
tribes maintain the Temple worship for twenty years 
(reigns), of which, however, four are evil and idola- 
trous. iii. Then a king from the East (Nebuchad- 
rezzar) shall come and burn their ' colony ' (Jeru- 
salem ) and the Temple and remove the sacred vessels. 
The two tribes are carried into captivity, and con- 
fess their punishment to be just, as also do the ten 
tribes. iv. At the end of the 77 years' captivity, 
one who is over them (Daniel) will pray for them. 



A king (Cyrus) has compassion on them, and parts 
of the two tribes return, while the ten increase 
among the Gentiles in their captivity. v. Even 
the faithful two tribes sin, and are punished through 
the kings who share in their guilt (the Seleucids). 
They are divided as to the truth, and pollute the 
altar with their non-Aaronic priests, ' not priests 
but slaves, sons of slaves' (Jason and Menelaus). 
viii. A ' second visitation ' follows. The king of 
the kings of the earth (Antiochus Epiphanes) 
crucifies those who confess to circumcision, and 
compels them to blaspheme the law and bear idols, 
and persecutes them with tortures. ix. Thereupon 
a man of the tribe of Levi, named Taxo ( = Eleazar), 
exhorts his seven sons to fast for three days and on 
the fourth to go into a cave and die rather than 
transgress the commands of the Lord of lords. vi. 
Next there are raised up kings bearing rule who 
call themselves priests of the Most High God (the 
Maccabees). They work iniquity in the Holy of 
Holies. They are succeeded by an insolent king 
not of the race of the priests (Herod), who will carry 
out secret massacres and rule for 34 years. His 
children are to reign for shorter periods. A power- 
ful king of the West (Varus, governor of Syria) in- 
vades the land, burns part of the Temple, and cruci- 
fies some of the people. vii. The times shall then 
be ended. Destructive and impious men (Sadducees) 
shall rule treacherous, hypocritical, gluttons, op- 
pressing the poor, and lawless. Though unclean in 
hand and mind, they say, ' Do not touch me, lest 
thou shouldest pollute me.' x. Then God's king- 
dom shall appear, and Satan shall be no more, and 
the angel who has been appointed chief (Michael) 
shall avenge them of their enemies. The earth is 
shaken, the sun and moon fail, and the sea and 
the waters dry up. The Gentiles are punished, and 
Israel is happy, and triumphs over the Eagle 
(Rome), is raised to the stars.and beholds his enemies 
in Gehenna and rejoicesover them. Until thisadvent 
of God there shall be 250 times from Moses' death. 
xi. Joshua mourns that he is not able to take 
Moses' place as guide and teacher, prophet and 
advocate. The Amorites will assail Israel when 
Moses is not among them. xii. Moses replies by 
placing Joshua in his own seat, and assures him 
that all is foreseen and controlled by God. 

At the end of ch. vii. and again at the end of ch. 
xii. the MS breaks off in the middle of a sentence. 
Chapters viii. and ix. are read between v. and vi., as 
Charles suggests in his edition (pp. 28-30). They 
obviously refer to the Antiochian persecution, and 
are quite out of place after ch. vii., which describes 
the Sadducees who were contemporaries of the 
author. Burkitt argues (HDB iii. 449) that 'the 
Theophany in x. comes in well after the story of 
the ideal saint Taxo in ix., but very badly after the 
description of the wicked priests and rulers in vii.' 
But ch. vii. is mutilated at the end, and we cannot 
argue from the last reference which happens to be 
preserved in it. He suggests that the author ' filled 
up his picture of the final woes from the stories of 
the Antiochian martyrs.' But surely he would not 
need to borrow his picture of the ideal saint of the 
last times (and his name) from the same period. 

2. Date. The date of composition is clearly fixed 
by the words in & ' and he (Herod) shall beget 
children who succeeding him shall rule for shorter 
periods.' As this is a prediction which was falsified 
by the event, for Antipas reigned forty-three yeara 
and Philip thirty-seven (while Herod reigned thirty- 
four), we must postulate a date earlier than thirty- 
four years from Herod's death, i.e. A.D. 30. A date 
nearer to the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6, 
which would suggest the impending deposition of 
his brothers, would be still more suitable. 

3. Author. The author is generally supposed to 
have been a Zealot (so Ewald, Wieseler, Dillmann, 



106 



ASSUMPTION OF MOSES 



Schiirer, Deane, and Briggs). But, while well aware 
of the Maccabsean movement, he shows his aversion 
to Maccabsean methods by his silence in regard to 
the exploits of Judas and his brethren. His hero, 
Taxo, instead of taking up arms, withdraws into a 
cave to die, with the words ' Let us die rather than 
transgress.' It is not militancy but God's direct 
and personal intervention that will bring in the 
kingdom. 

The same arguments prove that he was no Sad- 
ducee. His was no earthly ideal, but that of a 
heavenly theocratic kingdom (10 M> ). A Resurrection 
is not taught, it is true, but it is implied in the con- 
summation of Israel's happiness in these verses. 
The Sadducees are attacked, and in 7 3 - 6 there is a 
play on their name and their claim to be just (o'p'ix 
and D'pns). 

He was not an Essene. He is a strong patriot 
and keenly interested in the fortunes of the nation. 
The Law is of perpetual obligation and is itself 
sufficient. The Temple is built by God Himself 
(2*) in the place He prepared from the creation ( 1 18 ). 
Its profanations are often mentioned (2 8 - 9 3 2 5 3 - 4 
6 U 8 ). The sacrificial system is regarded as valid 
(2 s ), and its cessation is a cause of lamentation (4 8 ). 
The altar is polluted only by injustice (5 4 ). The 
Essenes did not value the Temple sacrifices, and 
objected to animal sacrifice altogether. The future 
heavenly abode of the righteous, and the future 
punishment of Israel's enemies in Gehenna, are dis- 
tinctively Pharisaic ideas. The pre-existence of 
Moses in I 14 is regarded as a unique distinction. 
The Essenes believed in the pre-existence of all 
souls alike. 

We must conclude, therefore, that the author was 
a ' Pharisee of a fast-disappearing type, recalling 
in all respects the Chasid of the early Maccabean 
times, and upholding the old traditions of quietude 
and resignation' (Charles, 1897, p. liv). 

4. The Latin text. The Latin text presents a 
difficult task to the critical recpnstructor of the 
original Hebrew text. To begin with, Ceriani's 
MS is a palimpsest, in which whole verses are at 
times indecipherable. In the next place, it is not 
the original Latin translation but a copy, in which 
the Latin itself has been corrected and corrupted. 
Thus in 5 8 we have six lines of duplicate rendering, 
and there are dittographies also in 6 s 8 5 II 18 . In 
II 2 the copyist has misread 'eum'as 'cum,' and 
corrects ' Mouses ' into ' Monse ' accordingly. The 
version, however, is very literal, and, in spite 
of corruptions and carelessness, its Greek source is 
occasionally evident ; and the original Hebrew 
idiom is frequently preserved. Greek words like 
dibsis ( = 6\tyis, 3 7 ) and heremus ( = eprjfj.os, 3 11 ), and 
even a reading like ./mem in 2 7 , which presupposes 
8pov in Greek [corrupt for SpKov], suffice to prove 
translation from the Greek ; while corrupt passages 
like 4 9 5 s 10 4 II 12 (see Charles' text) require re-trans- 
lation into the original Hebrew in order to explain 
the corruption. In 7 3 we have a play on the name 
Sadducees (D'pnx) 

' dicentes se esse justos (D'p'ix) ' 

which is possible only in Hebrew. An Aramaic 
original postulated by Schmidt, Merx, and others 
is not necessitated by the order in I 10 3 2 (see 
Charles, 1897, pp. xxviii-xlv). 

5. The original 'Assumption of Hoses.' The 
subject-matter of the extant work (preserved 
largely in Ceriani's Latin MS) proves it to be a 
Testament of Moses, as it deals with the dying pre- 
dictions and charges of Moses as related to Joshua, 
quite in the manner of the Testaments of the Twelve 
Patriarchs (q.v.). It nowhere describes his 'As- 
sumption,' and only in an interpolation (10 12 ) re- 
fers to it. The opening words have been thus re- 
stored by Charles to fill the gap in the MS ' Testa- 
mentum Moysi | Quae praecepit ano vi|tae eius 



Cmo et xxmo.' Throughout the work Moses is to 
die an ordinary death (e.g. V s 3 18 10 12 - 14 ). In a 
Catena quo ted in Fabricius (Cod. Pseud. Vet. Test. 
ii. 121, 122), and again in Section xiii. of Vassiliev'a 
Anecdota Grceco-Byzantina (pp. 257-258), we find 
references to a natural death 01 Moses, which may 
be derived from the original ending of the ' Testa- 
ment.' In Vassiliev's work the words that follow 
seem to be derived from the true 'Assumption,' 
while Josephus (Ant. IV. viii. 48) seems to be aware 
of the new claims put forth for Moses' Assumption, 
while explaining the Scripture statement of his 
death as a precaution against deification of the 
national hero : vt<povs aiipviSiov virtp ai/roG crravTos, 
dfiavifercu icard rtcos <f>dpayyos. Tfrypatfte 8' avrbv tv 
rats lepcus /3t/3Xots reBveura, 8ei<ras U.T) di uTrepfioXrjv TTJS 
irepi afrrbv operas irpis rb 6eiov adrbv dca^wp^crat 
T0\fid}ffti3<ru> eliretv. 

The fragments of the true ' Assumption of Moses ' 
preserved in various sources are as follows. We 
read in Jude * : ' But Michael the archangel, when, 
contending with the devil, he disputed about the 
body of Moses, durst not bring against him a rail- 
ing judgment, but said, " The Lord rebuke thee." ' 
Clem. Alex, quotes this verse in Adumbrat. in 
Ep. Judce (Zahn's Supplement. Clementin., 1884, 
p. 84), and adds : ' Hie conlirmat Assumptionem 
Moysi.' Didyraus Alex, in Epist. Judce Enarratio, 
and the Acta Synodi Niccen. ii. 20 also refer to 
St. Jude's words as a quotation from 'Moyseos 
Assumptio ' or ' A.vd\i)\f/ts MWWJ^WJ. The Devil's claim 
which Michael thus rebutted was (1) that he was 
lord of matter (Sri inbv rb ffu/jia. wj TTJJ V\TJS deo-irdfovri 
[Cramer's Catena in Ep. Cath., 1840, p. 160 : also 
Matthaei's edition of Sept. Epp. Cathol. , Riga, 1782, 
pp. 238, 239]) ; (2) that Moses was a murderer. 

The answer to the second claim is not given, but 
the answer to the first is in fuller form than in 
St. Jude, in Acta Synodi Niccen. ii. 20 : dirb yap 
irvetiiMTos aylov O.VTOV Trdires licrLffO-rjuev, thus claiming 
all creation as the handiwork of God's Holy Spirit. 
Origen (de Princip. iii. 2. 1) adds a reproach uttered 
by Michael to the serpent : ' a diabolo inspiratum 
serpentem causam exstitisse praevaricationis Adae 
et Evae.' 

The Assumption finally ' takes place in the 
presence of Joshua and Caleb, and in a very peculiar 
way. A twofold presentation of Moses appears : 
one is Moses "living in the spirit," which is carried 
up to heaven ; the other is the dead body of Moses, 
which is buried in the recesses of the mountains ' 
(Charles, p. 106). So Clem. Alex., Strom, vi. 15; 
Origen, horn, in Jos. ii. 1 ; Euodius, Epist. ad. 
Augustin. 258, vol. ii. p. 839 (Ben. ed. 1836). This 
' twofold presentation would appear to be due to 
an attempt to reconcile Dt 34 M - with the Jewish 
legend. Cf. Josephus, quoted above. 

6. Yalue for New Testament study i. Paral- 
lels in phraseology. These are confined to five 
passages : (a) Stephen's speech in Ac I 36 , where the 
words 'in Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the 
wilderness forty years' are the same as in Ass. 
Mos. 3 U . Cf. also Ac 7 s8 - with Ass. Mos. 3 12 . 
(b) Jude 16 : cf. Ass. Mos. 7 7 'complainers' ; 7 9 'and 
their mouth will speak great things ' ; 5 s ' respect- 
ing the persons of the wealthy.' Jude 18 'in the 
last time '=Ass. Mos. 7 1 'the times shall be 
ended.' (c) With 2 P 2" cf. Ass. Mos. 1* ' lovers of 
banquets at every hour of the day,' and with 2 3 
cf. 7 6 ' devourers of the goods . . . saying that 
they do so on the ground of justice (or mercy).' 

The signs of the end in sun, moon, and stars in 
Ass. Mos. 10 5 resemble those in Mk 13 24 - *, while 
the phrase in 8 1 ' there will come upon them a 
second visitation and wrath, such as has not be- 
fallen them from the beginning until that time,' 
is nearer Mt 24 21 than Dn 12 1 and Rev 16 18 . 

There is also the well-known reference to the 



ASSUMPTION OF MOSES 



ASSURANCE 



107 



lost 'Assumption ' in Jude 9 (generalized in 2 P 2 1(Kn ) 
' Yet Michael the archangel,' etc. 

ii. Parallels in doctrine and ideas. (a) The 
parallels with the NT doctrine of Christ are re- 
markable. Moses appears to fill the place which 
would be taken by Christ in Christian belief, as a 
Divinely appointed mediator, bound by no limita- 
tions of time or space, interceding on behalf of 
God's people. His pre-existence and mediatorship 
are asserted in I 14 . He was ' prepared before the 
foundation of the world (cf. Mt 25 34 ) to be the 
mediator of His (God's) covenant' (cf. Gal 3 ia ). 
Christ, too, was ' before all things ' (Col 1", Jn I 1 S 58 
17 8 ), and was the Mediator of a new and better 
covenant (He 8 6 9 18 12 34 ). Baldensperger sees in 
II 7 a definite attack on Christian views. The 
body of Moses would know no local sepulchre, nor 
would any dare to move his ' body from thence as 
a man from place to place.' This seems to imply 
the Jewish view that not only was Christ buried, 
and His body moved from the cross to the grave, 
but that His disciples had removed it from the 
sepulchre (Mt 28 13 ). In II 9 Joshua says: 'Thou 
art departing, and who will feed this people [cf. 
the commission to Peter in Jn 21 16 ' 17 ], or who is 
there who will have compassion on them, and . . . 
be their guide by the way (cf. Mt 9 s8 ), or who 
will pray for them, not omitting a single day?' 
cf. II 17 (Ro 8 M , He 7 25 ). But not only is Moses 
regarded as shepherd, compassionate guide, and 
intercessor; in II 16 he is described as 'the sacred 
spirit who was worthy of the Lord (cf. Wis 3 5 7 2a ), 
manifold and incomprehensible, the lord of the 
word, who was faithful in all things (He 3 5 ), God's 
chief prophet throughout the earth, the most per- 
fect teacher in the world.' * Cf., in regard to Christ, 
Jn 3 2 ' Thou art a teacher come from God,' G 68 
' Thou hast the words of eternal life.' For the 
'manifold Spirit,' cf. 1 Co 12 11 - 13 , and for Christ 
as Spirit, 2 Co 3 17 'the Lord is that Spirit.' In 
12 8 Moses is 'appointed to pray for their (Israel's) 
sins and make intercession for them ' (cf. He 7 2S ). 
Moses also was the appointed revealer of God's 
hidden purpose (I 12 - "). God had 'created the 
world on behalf of his people ' (a common Jewish 
view ; contrast He I 2 , Col I 16 , Ro 11 s8 , Jn 1 s where 
Christ is the final cause of creation). 'But he 
was not pleased to manifest this purpose of crea- 
tion from the foundation of the world in order 
that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted' (by 
their own false theories). Cf. Ro 16 28 - * '. . . the 
preaching of Jesus Christ . . . the revelation of the 
mystery which hath been kept in silence through 
times eternal, but now is manifested . . . unto all 
the nations unto obedience of faith.' In Eph I 9 - 10 
the mystery of God's will, ' according to his good 
pleasure, which he purposed in him, is not Israel 
but Christ as the goal of all creation. In Eph 
3 4 ' 11 it includes the bringing in of the Gentiles into 
the scheme of final restoration. In 1 Co 2 1 , Eph 
3 9 , Ro 16^ the purpose precedes the creation of 
the world. 

(b) Justification and good works. The Rabbinic 
doctrine of man's merit is entirely absent. Cf. 12 7 
' Not for any virtue or strength of mine, but in His 
compassion and long-suffering, was He pleased to 
call me.' Cf. Tit 3 s , 2 Ti I 9 . 

(c) Day of repentance. Jerusalem is to be the 
place of worship till ' the day of repentance in the 
visitation wherewith the Lord shall visit them in 
the consummation of the end of the days' (I 18 ). 
This repentance in Mai 4* and Lk 1* 17 is to be 
brought about by Elijah. It is the theme of John 
the Baptist (Mk I 4 ) and of Christ (l u ). It is to 
usher in the 'visitation,' or the establishment of 
the theocratic Kingdom by God Himself in person. 

(d) Michael is regarded as the chief antagonist 
of Satan and of Israel's foes. In 10 2 he is ap- 



pointed chief, and ' will forthwith avenge them of 
their enemies.' Cf. Rev 12 7 . 

(e) Gehenna is still the place, not where the 
wicked and immoral suffer, but into which Israel's 
foes, the Gentiles, are cast. The dividing line be- 
tween the future blessed and accursed is a national 
and not a moral one. 

(f) Messianic Kingdom. There is no Messiah. 
In 10 7 we are told 'the Eternal God alone . . . 
will . . . punish the Gen tiles.' The Kingdom will 
come upon a general repentance (I 17 ) 1750 years 
(10 12 ) after Moses' death, i.e. between A.D. 75 and 
107. The ten tribes share in the promises (3 9 ) and 
in the final restoration (10 8 ) Israel is finally ex- 
alted to heaven (10 8f -) and beholds its foes in Ge- 
henna (10 10 ). 

LITERATURE. (a) CHTKF EDITIONS OF THB LATIN TEW. 
A. Ceriani, Mnnumenta sacra et prof ana, I. i. [1861] 55-64 ; A. 
Hilgenfeld, A'T extra Canonem receptum?, 1876, pp. 107-135 ; 
G. Volkmar, Mose Prophetic und Hirnmelfahrt, Leipzig, 1867 ; 
Schmidt-Merx, ' Die Assumptio Mosis . . .' (Archivf. urissen. 
Erforsch. des AT, ed. Merx, 1868, I. ii. 111-152); O. F. 
Fritzsche, Libri Apocryphi V.T., 1871, pp. 700-730; R. H. 
Charles, The Assumption of Motet . . . the unemended Text 
. . . together with the Text in its . . . critically emended Form, 
London, 1897 ; C. Clemen, The Assumption of Moses, Cam- 
bridge, 1904. (6) CHIEF CRITICAL INQUIRIES. Ronsch, ZWT, 
ad. [18(38] 76-108, 466-468, xii. [1869] 213-228, xiv. [1871] 89-92, 
xvii. [1874] 542-562, xxviii. [1885] 102-104 ; F. Rosenthal, Vier 
apoc. Biicher, 1885, pp. 13-38; E. Schurer, HJP n. iii. 73-83; 
W. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 1888, pp. 
25-31 ; W. J. Deane, Pseud epigrapha, 1891, pp. 95-130 ; E. de 
Faye, Les Apocalypses juives, 1892, pp. 67-75 ; R. H. Charles, 
op. cit. xiii-lxv ; C. Clemen, in Kautzsch's Apok. und Pseud., 
ii. [1900] 311-331 ; F. C. Burkitt, in HDB iii. 448-450 ; R. H. 
Charles, Apocrypha and Pseuaepigrapha, Oxford, 1913, ii. 

407-424. A. LI. DAVIES. 

ASSURANCE. 1. The word and its Greek 
equivalents. 'Assurance' (with the kindred forms 
' assure,' ' assured of,' ' assuredly') is employed in the 
EV to render several Gr. words expressing certi- 
tude, or setting forth grounds of certainty. (1) In 
Ac 17 31 it is used to render ir/orts, 'faith,' which 
has the meaning here of 'pledge' or 'guarantee,' 
the Resurrection of Christ being taken by St. Paul, 
in addressing the Stoics and Epicureans of Athens 
on Mars' Hill, as warranting the faith, or impart- 
ing certainty to the conviction, of judgment to 
come. (2) It is used in He II 1 (RV) to translate 
biroo-rao-is, 'substance,' 'confidence,' where irlo-ris 
itself is defined as ' the assurance of things hoped 
for, the proving (IXeyx *) of things not seen.' (3) 
In 1 Jn 3 19 we find the verb employed to translate 
ireto-0/j.ev from irelOetv : ' Hereby shall we know that 
we are of the truth and shall assure our heart 
before him,' where irfLo-o/j.ev, translated ' shall 
assure,' signifies the stilling and tranquillizing of 
the heart that has been agitated by doubts, mis- 
givings, or fears. (ireLo-ofj^v is only once again 
employed in the NT in this sense : in Mt 28 14 , where 
it is rendered 'persuade,' and where Tindale's 
quaint translation is ' pease ' [appease], the object 
of the persuasion being the Roman governor at 
Jerusalem. ) (4) In 2 Ti 3 14 the passive form of 
the verb is found as the rendering of tirurruOris, 
' thou hast been assured of,' referring to Timothy's 
training in the knowledge of the ' sacred writings 
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.' 
(5) In Ac 2 a8 we find the adverb 'assuredly' em- 
ployed to translate do-^aXwj, 'surely,' 'certainly,' 
recalling dff<j>a\ciav in Lk I 4 . (6) In Ac 16 10 the 
word ffvupifi&Suv, ' combining,' ' putting this and 
that together,' is translated in AV 'assuredly 
gathering,' which in RV has given place to the 
word of logical inference, ' concluding. 

(7) The word, however, of which ' assurance ' is 
the definite and specific rendering is ir\ijpo<popla (1 
Th I 5 , Col 2 2 , He 6" 10 22 ), with which may be taken 
the kindred verb r\ijpo<popfiv, passive ir\ijpo0o/>er0at. 
In determining the precise meaning of the Gr. 
original we receive no help from Gr. literature in 



108 



ASSURANCE 



ASSURANCE 



general, where the word is not found at all till a 
Fate period. The word ir\r)po(popelv, however, has 
been found in papyri signifying ' to settle fully an 
account,' ' to give satisfaction as to a doubtful 
matter,' 'to be completely satisfied with regard to 
something that was owing' (A. Deiasmann, Light 
from the Ancient East, London, 1910, p. 82). It 
occurs once in LXX (Ec 8 11 ). Otherwise its use is 
exclusively NT and Patristic. (a) Tr\Tjpo<j>opia is 
used absolutely in 1 Th I 5 , and, though RVm 
gives ' much fulness ' as the translation of iro\\r) 
Tr\t)po<popia, this is weak and inadequate, and ' full 
assurance' of AV and RV brings out the proper 
torce of the word and really expresses the Apostle's 
thought. The second term of the composite word 
(-<f>opia, -ipopelv, -ei<r8ai) seems to carry with it a sub- 
jective force both in the noun and in the verb, as 
may be gathered from examples in the NT and in 
the Fathers. To this 2 Ti 4 5 and Lk I 1 may be ex- 
ceptions. We are justified, therefore, in rendering 
in Col 2- ' full assurance of the understanding ' ; in 
He 6 11 'full assurance of hope' ; and in 10 22 'full 
assurance of faith.' In 1 Clem. xlii. 3 /xerci 
ir\-ripo(t>opias Trveu/j-aros aylov is ' with full assurance 
produced by the Holy Spirit,' although it might be 
'with full reliance upon the Holy Spirit.' This 
Clementine passage has the verb also (ir\-qpo<pop-q- 
Otvres) and is peculiarly instructive as to the nature 
of the ' assurance ' which possessed the apostles 
as they went forth to be ambassadors of Christ : 
' Accordingly having received instructions and 
having attained to full assurance (w\r)po<j>opr)0tvTes) 
through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ 
and having been put in trust with the word of God, 
they went forth in full reliance upon the Holy 
Spirit, preaching the glad tidings that the kingdom 
of God was about to come.' (b) TrXrjpo^opelffdai has 
the subjective force we have attributed to it in 
most of the Pauline and Patristic examples of its 
use. Of Abraham it is said that he was 'fully 
assured' (ir\fipo<f>opridis) that what God had promised 
he was able also to perform (Ro 4 21 ). In regard 
to doubtful questions in the Apostolic Church, St. 
Paul bids each man be 'fully assured' in his own 
mind (Ro 14 B RV). The prayer of St. Paul and 
his friends for the Colossian Christians is that they 
may stand perfect and 'fully assured' (ireir\^po- 
4>opi}[jitvoi) in every thing willed by God (Col 4 12 ). 
In the Epp. of Ignatius, who contends so strenu- 
ously against Docetic views of the Person of Christ, 
we find the saint and martyr employing the verb 
in the same sense as St. Paul. He bids his readers 
be on their guard against the seductions of error 
and be fully assured (ireir\T}po<popfja6ai) of the Birth, 
Passion, and Resurrection as historical facts, for 
these things were truly and certainly done by Jesus 
Christ 'our Hope, from which hope may it never 
befall any of you to be turned aside' (Magn. 11). 
Elsewhere, speaking of the OT prophets, Ignatius 
declares that they were inspired by the grace of 
Christ Jesus ' to the end that unbelievers might be 
fully assured (els rt> ir\ripo<j>opri07jva<.) that there is one 
Goa who manifested Himself through Jesus Christ, 
His Son ' (Magn. 8). 

2. The doctrine in the teaching of the apostles. 
From an examination of the words employed by 
the NT writers to express Christian certainty, with 
the illustrations, which might easily be added to, 
from the Apostolic Fathers, we can gain a clear 
outline of the character of 'assurance.' It em- 
braces a conviction of the truth of the Christian 
history, of the historical reality of the Birth, 
Passion, and Resurrection of Christ ; trustful re- 
liance upon the promises of God in Jesus Christ 
His Son ; the exercise of the intelligence and the 
reasoning powers to know without doubt what God 
requires of His people ; and the consciousness of a 
personal interest in Christ and His great redemp- 



tion, wrought by the Spirit in the individual soul. 
This outline we are able to fill in from the apostles' 
teaching in passages where the word itself is not 
employed. Assurance, as an experience of the 
apostolic writers and their readers, meets us in 
nearly every one of the Epistles. St. James, in 
his Epistle, negatively urges it when he dwells 
upon the evils of the divided mind, and he has 
words of commendation for the perfected faith of 
Abraham (Ja I 6 - 8 2 at -). St. Jude knows the secret 
when he commends the readers of his brief Epistle 
to Him that is able to keep them from falling and 
to present them faultless before the presence of His 
glory with exceeding joy (Jude M ). The writer of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he bids his 
readers show diligence to the full assurance of hope 
unto the end (He 6 11 ), means ' that your salvation 
may be a matter of certainty, and not merely of 
charitable hope' (A. B. Bruce). And pointing to 
the blood of sprinkling, and the rent veil, and the 
new and living way, and the heavenly High Priest, 
he bids them keep approaching ' with a true heart 
in full assurance of faith' (1C 22 ). But St. Peter, 
St. John, and St. Paul have teaching on the sub- 
ject whicli may be a little more fully drawn out. 

( 1 ) St. Peter's teaching is given in Acts and in the 
Epistles that bear his name. St. Peter s speeches, 
on the day of Pentecost and afterwards, set forth 
the grounds of the assurance of the Resurrection and 
Ascension of Jesus which possessed the apostles and 
their believing hearers. These grounds are (a) the 
prophetic words of Scripture finding their fulfil- 
ment not in David or any other, but in Jesus ; (b) 
the personal testimony of the apostles to the things 
which they had seen and heard ; (c) the manifesta- 
tion of the risen Lord's presence and power in the 
miracles wrought in His name ; (d) the inner wit- 
ness of the Spirit ' we are witnesses of these things 
and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to 
them that obey him ' (Ac 5 s2 ) ' the historical wit- 
ness borne to the facts and the internal witness of 
the Holy Ghost bringing home to men's hearts the 
meaning of the facts' (Knowling, ad loc. ; cf. 2 16 " 34 
4 20fr> ). It is this assurance which the Apostle holds 
forth to the sojourners of the Dispersion in his First 
Epistle (1 P I 3 ' 9 ), whom the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ had begotten again to a living 
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead ; ' who by the power of God are guarded 
through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed 
in the last time.' Whether 2 Peter be the produc- 
tion of St. Peter or of some disciple writing in his 
spirit at a later time, it is the voice of full assurance 
we hear when the author says : ' We did not follow 
cunningly devised fables, when we made known 
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty' 
(2 P I 16 ). Thus convincingly does the external and 
the internal witness blend in St. Peter's doctrine of 
assurance. 

(2) St. John's teaching in his Epistles lays the chief 
stress upon the ethical tests, and has less to say of 
the inner witness. Not that the latter is overlooked. 
'The anointing which ye received of him,' he says, 
referring to the Holy Spirit or a function of the 
Spirit, ' abideth in you, and ye have no need that 
any one teach you ' ( 1 Jn 2 27 ). But St. John's 
doctrine of assurance embraces great Christian 
certainties. ' We know and have believed the love 
which God hath in us ' (1 Jn 4 16 ). ' We know that 
we havepassed outof death into life, because we love 
the brethren ' (3 14 ). ' Hereby shall we know that 
we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before 
him ' (3 19 ). ' We know [being the children of God 
and recipients of redeeming love] that, if he shall be 
manifested, we shall be like him ; for we shall see 
him even as he is ' (3 2 ). ' We know that we have 
come to a knowledge of him, if we keep hia 



ASYNCRITUS 



ATHENS 



109 



commandments ' (2 3 ). ' Hereby we know that we 
are in him ; he that saith he abideth in him ought 
himself also to walk even as he walked ' (2 M> ). 

Law aptly characterizes St. John's doctrine of personal assur- 
ance when he says : ' With St. John the grounds of assurance 
are ethical, not emotional ; objective, not subjective ; plain and 
tangible, not microscopic and elusive. They are three, or, rather, 
they are a trinity : Belief, Righteousness, Love. By his belief 
in Christ, his keeping God's commandments, and his love to the 
brethren, a Christian man is recognised, and recognises himself 
as begotten of God' (Tests of Life, Edinburgh, 1909, p. 297). 

St. John applies his doctrine of assurance to 
prayer. ' Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we 
have boldness toward God ; and whatsoever we ask, 
we receive of him, because we keep his command- 
ments ' (3 21f< ). ' And this is the boldness which we 
have towards him, that, if we ask anything accord- 
ing to his will, he heareth us ' (5 14 ). And while this 
assurance gives boldness and confidence in prayer, 
it also gives boldness in the Day of Judgment : 
' Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may 
have boldness in the day of judgment; because as 
he is, even so are we in this world. There is no 
fear in love : but perfect love casteth out fear ' (4 17L ). 

(3) St. Paul's teaching lays the stress upon the 
inner witness which we desiderated in St. John. 
And yet in his enumeration of graces under the 
designation of ' fruit of the Spirit ' we have sure 
evidences of the Spirit's indwelling whereby to 
'assure our hearts' before Him. St. Paul's assur- 
ance rests also upon a broad basis of fact in the 
Person and work of Christ : ' I know him whom I 
have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able 
to guard that which I have committed unto him 
against that day ' (2 Ti I 12 ). When, however, he 
uses the expression ' we know,' uttering his assur- 
ance of personal immortality, he attributes it to 
God who gave him the earnest of the Spirit (2 Co 
5 lff< )' 1 two great passages, Rom 8 14ff - and Gal 4 6f> , 
St. Paul sets forth the witness of the Spirit to the 
sonship of the believer, which is the ground of his 
full assurance, by the childlike confidence which it 
works and the perfect liberty which it brings. A nd 
so he can exclaim : ' We know that to them that 
love God all things work together for good, even to 
them that are called according to his purpose. . . . 
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord ' (Ro S 28 - ) 

But, although St. Paul cherishes this assurance 
and has no doubt or misgiving as to his personal 
salvation, this assurance does not cause him to 
slacken in the fulfilment of service and the pursuit 
of the eternal prize. Even he is moved oy the 
wholesome fear lest he who had preached to others 
should yet himself become a castaway (dSoKipos, 

1 Co 9 s7 ), and be cast out of the lists as one who 
had not contended according to the rules. 

' We must remember,' says a Christian writer before the middle 
of the 2nd cent., ' that he who strives in the corruptible contest, 
if he be found acting unfairly, fouling a competitor in the race, 
or trying with guile to overreach his antagonist, is taken away 
and scourged and cast forth from the lists. What then think ye ? 
If one does anything unseemly in the incorruptible contest, what 
shall he have to bear ? ' (2 Clem. vii. ). It is in the same spirit that 
the author of the Didache, writing before the close of the 1st 
cent., says : ' For the whole period of your faith will profit you 
nothing unless ye be found fully perfected at the last ' (Did. xvL 

2 ; cf. Ep. of Barn. iv. 9). 

LITERATURE. F. H. R. von Frank, System of Christian Cer- 
tainty, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1886 ; W. J. Townsend, H. B. 
Workman, and G. Eayrs, New Hist, of Methodism, London, 
1909 : R. Seeberg, in PRRi vi. 160 ; the art. ' Assurance,' in 
HDB, SDB, and DCG ; art. 'Certitude,' in CE, and art. ' Cer- 
tainty (Religious),' in ERE, with the literature there cited. 

T. NlCOL. 

ASYNCRITUS ('Ao-ityrprros, or 'Ao-^/cpiroy, a Greek 
name). The first of a group of five names (all 
Greek) of persons ' and the brethren with them ' 



saluted by St. Paul in Ro 16 14 . Nothing is known 
of Asyncritus or of any member of this group. It 
is suggested that together they formed a separate 
tKK\T]ffia, or church, within the Church of Rome. 
That such little communities existed in Rome, 
each with its own place of meeting, would appear 
from other similar phrases in Ro 16 :' the church 
that is in their house ' (v. 5 ), ' all the saints that are 
with them' (v. 15 ), and from the references to the 
Christian members of the ' households ' of Aristo- 
bulus and Narcissus (vv. 10 - u ). This, of course, 
assumes the Roman destination of these saluta- 
tions. If the Ephesian destination be preferred, 
there is evidence of similar house-churches at 
Ephesus in 1 Co 16 19 , and perhaps in Ac 20 20 (see 
art. PATROBAS). The name Asyncritus has been 
found in an inscription of a freedman of Augustus 
(see Sanday-Headlam, Roman**, 1902, p. 427). 

T. B. ALLWORTHY. 

ATHENS ('AGrjvai). Athens, which St. Paul 
visited in the autumn of A.D. 48 (Harnack), or 50 
(Turner), or 51 (Ramsay), was now in some respects 
very different from the city of Pericles and Plato. 
Her political and commercial supremacy was gone. 
Greece had for two centuries been the Roman 
province of Achaia, of which Athens was not the 
capital. The governor had his residence at Corinth, 
and the merchant-princes had forsaken the Pmeus 
for Lecheum and Cenchrese. But Athens was still 
the most beautiful and brilliant of cities, the home 
of philosophy, the shrine of art, the fountain-head 
of ideals. As the metropolis of Hellenism she had, 
indeed, a wider and more pervasive influence 
than ever, which the Roman conquerors, like 
the Macedonians before them, did their best to 
extend. ' From the Philhellenic standpoint, doubt- 
less, Athens was the masterpiece of the world' 
(T. Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire 2 , 
London, 1909, i. 258). To be among her citizens 
was to breathe the atmosphere of culture. Her 
Lyceum by the Ilissus, her Academy by the groves 
of Cephissus, her Porch in the Agora, and her 
Garden near at hand, were still frequented by 
Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, and Epicureans. 
Her University drew to itself a host of foreign 
students, especially from Rome, and became the 
model of the younger foundations of Alexandria, 
Antioch, and Tarsus. 

Neither the Republic nor the Empire ever fully 
applied the subject-relation to Greece, and the 
Athenians were always treated with special kind- 
ness. ' The Romans, after their conquest, finding 
them governed by a democracy, maintained their 
independence and liberty ' (Strabo, IX. i. 20). Even 
in the Mithridatic war, when an ordinary town 
behaving as Athens did would have been razed to 
the ground, 'the citizens were pardoned, and, to 
this time, the city enjoys liberty, and is respected 
by the Romans ' (ib. ). 

The outward aspect of Athens was little altered 
in St. Paul's time. Plutarch, who wrote half a cent- 
ury later, says in regard to Pericles' public edifices : 
' In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable 
as soon as it was built ; but even at the present 
day the work looks as fresh as ever, for they bloom 
with an eternal freshness which defies time, and 
seems to make the work instinct with an unfading 
spirit of youth ' (Pericles, xiii. ). Cicero conveys the 
impression which the city made upon every cul- 
tivated mind in his time : ' Valde me Atnenae 
delectarunt, urbe dumtaxat et urbis ornamento, 
. . . sed multum ea philosophia' (Ep. ad Att. v. 
10). The Philhellenism of the Empire surpassed 
that of the Republic, and of all the Roman bene- 
factors of Athens the greatest was Hadrian, who 
not only completed the temple of Zeus Olympius, 
which had remained unfinished for 700 years, but 
embellished the city with many other public build 



110 



ATHENS 



ATONEMENT 



ings, and gave the name of Hadrianopolis to a new 
quarter. 

But, though Athena was outwardly as splendid 
as ever, she was inwardly decadent, being, in philo- 
sophy, letters, and art, a city living upon tradi- 
tions. Her first-rate statesmen and orators, poets 
and thinkers, did not outlive the nation's freedom. 

' The self-esteem of the Hellenes, well-warranted in itself and 
fostered by the attitude of the Roman government . . . called 
into life among them acultus of the past, which was compounded 
of a faithful clinging to the memories of greater and happier 
times and a quaint reverting of matured civilisation to its in part 
very primitive beginnings. . . . The bane of Hellenic existence 
lay in the limitation of its sphere ; high ambition lacked a cor- 
responding aim, and therefore the low and degrading ambition 
flourished luxuriantly" (Mommsen, op. cit. i. 280, 283). 

The decay of Athens was due less to the exhaus- 
tion of her creative energy, with the substitution 
of imitative for original work, than to the simple 
fact that the thought and art of her citizens were 
no longer wedded to noble action and brave endur- 
ance. Full of aesthetes and dilettantes, loving the 
reputation more than the reality of culture, letting 
a restless inquisitiveness and shallow scepticism take 
the place of high aspiration and moral enthusiasm, 
she became blind to the visions, and deaf to the 
voices, which redeem individual and collective life 
from vanity. 

The devouring appetite of the Athenians for 
news had long been one of their best-known traits. 

Demosthenes (Phil. i. p. 43) pictures them bustling about the 
Agora inquiring if any newer thing is being told (irvvOavonevot 
Kara. TTJV ayopdv el Ti Aeyerai veuirepov) , the tragedy being that, 
while they were talking, Philip was acting. Thucydides (.iii. 38) 
makes Cleon say to them : ' So you are the best men to be im- 
posed on with novelty of argument, and to be unwilling to follow 
up what has been approved by you, being slaves of every new 
paradox, and despisers of what is ordinary. Each of you wishes 
above all to be able to speak himself. ... In a word, you are 
overpowered by the pleasures of the ear, and are |ike men sitting 
to be amused by rhetoricians rather than deliberating upon 
State affairs.' 

Among the philosophers of St. Paul's time the 
penchant for news took the form of an eagerness 
to hear the latest novelty in speculation or religion 
which any ffirepfj,o\6yos (picker-up of scraps of infor- 
mation) might have to publish (Ac 17 21 ), in order 
that they might exercise their nimble wits upon it, 
and most probably hold it up to ridicule. 

Though St. Paul spoke the language of Hellas, 
and acknowledged himself a debtor to the Hellenes 
(Ro I 14 ), yet Athens does not seem to have 
exercised any fascination over him. She did not 
beckon him like Rome : he did not see her in his 
dreams, or pray that he might be prospered to 
come to her ; he never exclaimed, with a sense of 
destiny, ' I must see Athens.' That he ever visited 
her at all was apparently the result of an accident. 
He was hurried away from Berosa before he had 
time to mature his plans of future action, and he 
merely waited at Athens for the arrival of his 
friends, Silas and Timothy (Ac 17 15f -). To picture 
hun wandering among temples and porticos, lost in 
admiration of works of genius, and 'perhaps wit- 
nessing the performance of a play of Euripides,' is 
to misunderstand him. He did not spend his 
leisure in Athens, any more than Luther in Rome, 
in appraising the masterpieces of plastic and dra- 
matic art. They were both 'provoked'* by what 
they saw as they passed by. They were consumed 
with the prophetic zeal which seeks to replace a 
false or imperfect religion with a true and perfect 
one. St. Paul, indeed, knew the Hellenic world 
too well to imagine that, while the city was 'full 
of idols' (Ka.Tel8u\ov'), its men of culture were given 
to idolatry. In their case the worship of the gods 
survived only in that cultus of physical beauty to 
which innumerable sculptured forms bore silent 

* irapof vvoy.ai is often used in the LXX to express a burning 
Divine (and prophetic) indignation against idolatry (Hos 8' 



Zee 103). 



witness, while such spiritual faith as they still re- 
tained found expression rather in altars 'Ayv<i><rT<p 
0e< ; to the existence of which Pausanias (i. i. 4) 
and Philostratus (Vit. Apollon. vi. 2) testify (see 
UNKNOWN GOD). 

St. Paul's address before the court or council of 
Areopagus (q. v.) is a noble attempt to find common 
ground with the Athenian philosophers, an ap- 
preciation of what was highest in their religion, 
an expression of sympathy with their sincere 
agnosticism, an appeal to that groping, innate 
sense of spiritual realities, that universal instinct 
of monotheism, which lead to the true God who is 
near to all men, and who, though unseen, is no 
longer unknown. Renan suggests that St. Paul 
was 'embarrassed' by all the wonders that met 
his eyes in Athens, as if Athene herself had per- 
haps cast her spell upon him and made him some- 
what doubtful of the Galilsean; but there is no 
sort of foundation for such a fancy. It is certain, 
however, that the Apostle had a new experience 
of a different kind in Athens. Faced by an 
audience half-courteous and half-derisive, he was 
first ridiculed and then ignored, when he would 
have preferred to be contradicted and persecuted. 
Not driven from the city by hostile feeling, but 
quitting it of his own accord, too unimportant 
to be noticed, too harmless to be molested, he 
departed with a crushing sense of failure, and, 
apparently as a consequence, began his mission in 
Corinth 'in weakness and fear and much trem- 
bling' (1 Co 2 3 ). It is possible that he felt he had 
made a mistake. All that he said to the philo- 
sophers of Athens was true, but ineffective. It 
did little or nothing to storm the enemy's citadel. 
In a modern phrase, it was magnificent, but it 
was not war. Another power was needed to 
humiliate the wise, as well as to end the long reign 
of the gods of Greece. It is significant that in 
Corinth the Apostle determined not, indeed, for 
the first time, but certainly with a new emphasis 
not to know anything save Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified (1 Co 2 2 ), who was for both Jews 
and Hellenes the power of God and the wisdom of 
God (I 24 ). 

The Athenian synagogue (Ac IT 17 ), in which St. 
Paul met some 'devout persons' ffe^6fjxvoi, Gen- 
tiles more or less influenced by Judaism was pro- 
bably small, for the university city did not attract 
his compatriots like Corinth, the seat of commerce. 
His reasoning 'in the Agora every day with those 
who met him' naturally recalls those Socratic dis- 
putations in the same place, of which Grote gives 
a lively account in his History of Greece (London, 
1869, yiii. 211 f.). That the address before the 
Council of the Areopagus was not entirely fruitless 
is proved by the conversion of a man holding so 
important an official position as Dionysius the 
Areopagite (q. v.). 

LITERATURE. W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Life 
and Epistles of St. Paul, new ed., London, 1877, i. 405 f . ; W. 
M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, 
London, 1895, p. 237 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edin- 
burgh, 1897, p. 257 f. ; E. Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, 
Berlin, 1894, ii. 528 f. ; A. Mommsen, Athence Christianas, 
Leipzig, 1868 ; J. P. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, London, 
1887, and The Siher Age of the Greek World, do. 1906 ; A. 
Holm, History of Greece, Eng. tr., London, 1894-98. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

**ATONEMENT. Although found only once in 
the NT (Ro 5 n ) and there in the AV alone, this 
word has become the elect symbol in theological 
thought to indicate the doctrine in the Apostolic 
Church which placed the death of Christ in some 
form of causative connexion with the forgiveness 
of sins and with the restoration of men to favour 
and fellowship with God. The development of a 
doctrine of atonement in the NT is almost entirely 
the product of the experience and thought of the 



** Copyright, 1916, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



111 



Apostolic Church. It moved along two lines; 
these were neither divergent nor exactly parallel, 
nor is it probable that one was precisely supple- 
mentary to the other ; they are best considered as 
converging towards an ultimate point of unity in 
which Godward and manward aspects are merged. 
They have been contrasted as objective and sub- 
jective, juridical and ethical, substitutionary and 
mystical. They correspond also to two definitions 
of the word itself. Originally and etymologically 
the word means ' at-one-ment ' ; it is a synonym 
for 'reconciliation' as an accomplished fact. His- 
torically its usage signifies 'a satisfaction or 
reparation made by giving an equivalent for an 
injury, or by doing or suffering that which is 
received in satisfaction for an offence or injury' 
(Imperial Diet., s.v.). Here its synonym is 
'expiation' as a means to reconciliation. Theo- 
logically it has been chiefly used in this latter 
sense, to indicate 'the expiation made by the 
obedience and suffering death of Christ to mark 
the relation of God to sin in the processes of human 
redemption.' A decided modern tendency is to 
return to the more original use of the word. It 
will probably be seen that both uses are required 
to state the fullness of the apostolic doctrine. 

The literature preserved in the NT witnesses to 
the undoubted fact that the Apostolic Church had 
very early established a close connexion between 
the death of Jesus the Messiah and the redemp- 
tion of men from their sins. Within seven years 
of His death or probably considerably less a 
'doctrine of the cross' was freely and authorita- 
tively preached in the Christian community ; it 
appears to have been distinctly Pauline in general 
character ; it held a primary place in the apostolic 
preaching ; it was declared to be the fulfilment of 
the OT Scripture ; it was set forth as the essence 
of the gospel, and was definitely referred to the 
teaching of Jesus for its ultimate authority. This 
much seems to be implied in what is probably the 
earliest testimony, if regard be had to the date of 
the writings in which it occurs, concerning the 
apostolic doctrine of the atonement. It is St. Paul's 
confident assertion, ' I deli vered unto you first of 
all that which also I received, how that Christ died 
for our sins according to the scriptures' (1 Co 15 3 ). 
This is undoubtedly typical of the teaching accepted 
by the primitive Church ; whatever St. Paul's 
differences with other apostolic teachers on other 
matters may have been, agreement seems to be 
found here. The confidence of this common wit- 
ness so early in the Apostolic Church raises many 
interesting questions, some of which must be con- 
sidered. To what extent can we find the more 
elaborate Pauline doctrine, which we shall find 
elsewhere in his writings, presented in such frag- 
ments of the teaching of the first Christians as we 
possess? How far is the apostolic interpretation 
of Christ's death sustained by appeal to the experi- 
ence and teaching of Jesus Himself? By what 
means had the swift transition been made by the 
apostolic teachers themselves from the state of 
mind concerning the death of Jesus which is pre- 
sented in the Synoptic Gospels to the beliefs 
exhibited in their preaching in the Acts? How 
was the unconcealed dismay of a bewildering dis- 
appointment changed into a glorying? It is clear 
from the contents of the Synoptic Gospels that, 
whatever the confusion and distress in the minds 
of His disciples which immediately followed the 
death of Christ, they were already in possession of 
memories of His teaching which lay comparatively 
dormant until they were awakened into vigorous 
activity by subsequent events and experiences ; 
these, together with the facts of their Lord's life 
and the incidents of His death, may be spoken 
of as the sources of the apostolic doctrine of the 



atonement, as to its substance. For the forms 
into which it was cast we must look to the religious 
conceptions legal, sacrificial, ethical, and eschato- 
logical which constituted their world of theologi- 
cal ideas, and the background against which was 
set the teaching of Jesus. 

I. SOURCES. 1. In the Synoptic Gospels. Briefly 
summarized these are: (1) The intense and con- 
sistent ethical interpretation that Jesus gave to 
the Kingdom He came to establish, and to the 
conception of the salvation He taught and pro- 
mised as the sign of its establishment in the indi- 
vidual soul and in the social order. It was no 
mere change of status; it was a becoming in 
ethical and spiritual character sons of God in like- 
ness and obedience ; it was actual release from the 
selfishness of the unfilial and unbrotherly life, and 
access into living communion in holy love with His 
God and Father. 

(2) The Baptism and the Temptation of Jesus, 
which initiated Him into the course of His public 
ministry, were events associated in the minds of 
those who preserved the Synoptic tradition with 
the voice from heaven, ' Thou art my beloved Son ; 
in thee I am well pleased' (Lk 3 22 ). Apparently 
the consciousness of Jesus as He realized His 
vocation, judging from what He afterwards taught 
His disciples of its inner meaning, was aware of 
this combination of Ps 2 7 with Is 42 lff the Son of 
God as King, and the suffering Servant of the Lord. 
The inference Denney draws, though obviously 
open to keen criticism from the eschatological 
school, has a suggestive value : the Messianic con- 
sciousness of Jesus from the beginning was one 
with the consciousness of the suffering Servant ; 
He combined kingship and service in suffering from 
the first.* This finds support in the accounts of 
the Temptation, which was supremely a tempta- 
tion to avoid suffering by choosing the easy way. 

(3) All the Synoptics assure us that, when Jesus 
received the first full recognition of Messiahship 
from His disciples, He instantly met it by the open 
confession that His suffering and death were a 
necessity. ' The Son of Man must (Set) suffer 
must go up to Jerusalem and be killed' (Mk 8 31 , 
Mt 16 21 , Lk 9 22 ) . Henceforth His constant subject 
of instruction was concerning His death, which, 
when 'the Son of Man was risen from the dead,' 
His disciples were to interpret. The necessity 
associated with His death was not merely the 
inevitable sequence of His loyalty to His ideal of 
righteousness in face of the opposition of His 
enemies. It was that, but it was more. In the 
career of one such as Jesus the violent and unjust 
death to which He was moving could not be separ- 
ated in thought from the Father's will to which 
He was so exquisitely sensitive, and which He 
came perfectly to fulfil. What was in His Father's 
will was appointed and could not be the mere 
drift of circumstances into which He was cast and 
from which the Divine purpose was absent. The 
necessity was inward, and identical with the will 
of God as expressed in Scripture ; to His disciples 
it was incomprehensible. 

(4) Jesus described His death as for others and 
as voluntarily endured. Definite terms are selected 
in which the meaning more than the fact of the 
death is set forth. ' The Son of Man came ... to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom (Mrpov) for 
many ' (Mk 10 45 ) . Whether we approach the mean- 
ing of this term (see RANSOM) from Christ's con- 
ception of His life-work as a whole, or by closer 
exegetical or historical study of the word itself, it 
is clear that the giving of His life was to Jesus 
much more than the normal experience of dying ; 
it was a dying which was to issue in largeness and 
freedom of life for mankind it was probably even 

* Death of Christ, 14 f. 



112 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



more than 'on behalf of,' 'in the service of; it 
was 'instead of (dirt) men. From what He is to 
release them, however, is not definitely stated. 
The objection often made that the term is an 
indication of Pauline influence on Mark is part of 
the general problem of Paulinism in the Gospels, 
too large for discussion here. The saying is in 
perfect harmony with its setting. 

(5) The other selected term is connected with 
the critically difficult passages recording the in- 
stitution of the Supper. ' This is my blood of the 
covenant [possibly the 'new' covenant] which is 
shed for many unto remission of sins' (Mt 26 28 ). 
Here the purpose or ground of the death of Jesus 
is set forth. It is only just to say that Matthew 
alone makes the reference to 'remission of sins.' 
The earliest account of the Supper St. Paul's 
(1 Co ll 23 - 26 ) omits this reference ; he is followed 
by Mark and Luke. Questions also turn on the 
sacrificial significance of 'blood of the covenant.' 
The reference is obviously to the solemn ratifica- 
tion by blood-sprinkling of the covenant of Sinai 
(Ex 24 8 ). Whether this was strictly sacrificial 
blood with expiatory value is debated. Robertson 
Smith* and Driver f may both be quoted in favour 
of the view that 'sacrificial blood was universally 
associated with propitiatory power. 'J Whilst too 
much should not be built upon a single authority 
for the precise word of Jesus, the criticism does 
not touch the value of the citation as an index to 
the mind of the Apostolic Church. 

(6) The awful isolation of the cry of Jesus on 
the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me ? ' (Mk 15 34 ) cannot easily be separated 
in the experience of the sinless Son of God from 
some mysterious connexion with the sin He clearly 
came to deal with by His death. It is at least 
capable of the suggestion that for a time His con- 
sciousness had lost the sense of God's presence, 
whose unbroken continuity had hitherto been the 
ethical and spiritual certainty of His spirit. , 

To complete the material provided for the apos- 
tolic doctrine in the Synoptics there should be 
added to the points already mentioned the minute- 
ness and wealth of detail quite without parallel 
in the presentation of other important features of 
His life with which the death of Jesus is recorded, 
and also the extent to which the writers insist 
upon the event as a f ulfilment of the OT Scriptures. 
We have, therefore, in the Synoptics, whatever 
view may be taken of the position largely held, 
that they were the issue of ' the productive activity ' 
of the early Church under the stimulating influence 
of redemptive experiences attributed to the death 
of Christ, at least the starting-point of the ethical 
and juridical views of the atonement subsequently 
developed in the primitive community ; they lack 
doctrinal definiteness, and distinctly favour the 
ethical more than the legal view of the process 
of redemption ; they are also accompanied by evi- 
dences that the disciples listened unintelligently 
or with reluctant acquiescence to the* words of 
Jesus concerning His death. This last feature 
indicates the dependence of the apostolic doctrine 
upon another source. 

2. The apostolic experience. The doctrine of 
atonement arose out of the Christian experience ; 
it was the issue of a new religious feeling rather 
than a condition of faith. The springs of this new 
spiritual emotion must be sought, if the doctrine 
which is its result in the Apostolic Church is to 
be rightly appreciated. In this way also we shall 
provide a statement of the transition from the 
desolation wrought by the death of Jesus in the 
hopes of His followers to the triumphant temper 

* Rel. Sem.*, London, 1894, p. 319 f. 
t HDB, art. 'Propitiation,' iv. 132. 
j Denney, Death of Christ, 53. 



and abounding joy of the primitive faith and 
preaching. The elements of this experience are : 

(1) The Resurrection. This is the starting-point 
of the new experience : the ultimate root of the 
apostolic doctrine of atonement was the presence 
of the Risen Christ in the consciousness of the 
primitive Christian community; for it was the 
secret of the restoration and enrichment of per- 
sonal faith, the re-creation of the corporate con- 
fidence of the community, which 'was begotten 
again unto a living hope by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead' (1 P I 3 ). It was 
also the revealing light that brought meaning into 
the mystery of His death. Now and for always 
these two -death and resurrection stood together. 
When the apostles stated the one, they implied 
the other ; the Resurrection was the great theme 
of the apostolic preaching because it interpreted 
the significance of the Death. _ Both were closely 
and instinctively connected with the forgiveness 
of sins : ' The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, 
whom ye slew, hanging him upon a tree. Him 
did God exalt with his right hand to be a Prince 
and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and 
remission of sins' (Ac S 301 -). The redeeming virtue 
issues from the Death and Resurrection as from a 
common source, though the cross ultimately be- 
came its chosen symbol. Beginning to search the 
Scriptures to discover whether death had a place 
in the prophetic presentation of the Messiah, the 
disciples were surprised into the apprehension of 
the meaning of the words of Jesus spoken whilst 
He was yet with them ; they thus came to see 
that the Death was only the shadow side of an 
experience by which He passed to the exaltation 
and authority of His redeeming work ; the catas- 
trophe was seen to have a place in the moral 
order of God, and the scandal of the cross was 
transfigured into the glory of the Divine purpose 
of redemption. This experience was followed by 

(2) The Great Commission. The terms of this 
are influential for discerning the apostolic doctrine. 
As they appear in Mt. (28 19f -) and in Mk. (16 15f -) 
associated with baptism, which in the primitive 
Church was always connected with remission of 
sins, they are suggestive, but not free from criti- 
cal difficulties. As they appear in Lk. (24 44ff ), 
from an excellent source, they have their chief 
significance; they are there bound up with 'my 
\\*ds which I spake unto you while I was yet 
with you ' ; with the f ulfilling of the Scriptures 
concerning the necessity that 'the Christ should 
suffer and rise again from the dead the third day ; 
and that repentance and remission of sins should 
be preached in his name'; and especially with 
the opening of the minds of those who were to be 
'witnesses of these things' that they might under- 
stand them. The historicity of this as conveying 
the experience and convictions of the Apostolic 
Church is strong, and it affords exactly the link 
needed to unite what we find in the Synoptics 
with what appears as preaching and teaching in 
the primitive society. The illumination of the 
apostolic mind for its construction of a doctrine of 
atonement resulting from the Resurrection and the 
Great Commission was perfected by the experi- 
ences of 

(3) Pentecost. The coming to abide with them 
of the Holy Spirit, 'the promise of the Father' 
(Ac I 4 ), 'the Spirit of Christ,' was for the Apostolic 
Church the ultimate certainty of guidance into 
all the truth, and the supreme authority for its 
adequate utterance. The work of the Spirit as 
Jesus had defined it was : 'He shall take of mine 
and shall declare it unto you' (Jn 16 14 ). To the 
fullness of His ministry the Apostolic Church 
owed the interpretation of the cross, the inspira- 
tion of its preaching, the construction of its doc- 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



113 



trine, and especially the moral and spiritual results 
in the life of the individual and of the community 
which were the living verification of its power, 
and also the justification of the moral grounds on 
which the declaration and experience of remission 
of sins were based. The meaning of the words of 
Jesus is understood through the works of His Spirit ; 
the significance of His death can be apprehended 
only in the light of the experience it creates. 
Only so can an adequate soteriology be reached. 
From first to last the apostolic doctrine of the 
atonement is the effort to interpret this experience 
in the relations in which it was conceived to stand 
to the Christian conceptions of God and man. 

II. THE DOCTRINE'PREACHED. i. In the Acts 
of the Apostles. The early chapters of the Acts 
contain the one particular account of the earliest 
form the doctrine of atonement took in the Apos- 
tolic*T?hurch ; for it is generally admitted that 
some source of considerable value underlies the 
speeches of Peter. _ Both their christology and 
soteriplogy are primitive in type it is surely not the 
doctrine of the 2nd century. In this account the 
sufferings and death of Jesus the Messiah have a 
fundamental place. The cross is now more than 
a scandal; the 'word of the cross' is more than 
an apologetic device for getting over the difficul- 
ties of accepting a crucified Messiah. Although 
the great feature of the apostolic preaching is 
not the explanation of the death of Christ in re- 
lation to the remission of sins, but its power in 
spiritual renewal, it contains much which enables 
us to perceive how the primitive community was 
taught to regard it. Summarized, this is (1) 
The death of Christ was a Divine necessity, ap- 
pointed by God's counsel and foreknowledge, it 
was a crime whose issue God thwarted for His 
redeeming purpose (Ac 2 23 3 18 ). (2) Jesus as the 
Messiah is identified: with the suffering Servant of 
the Lord (4 27 8 32 ~ 35 ). This conception, abhorrent 
to the Jewish mind and a sufficient ground for 
rejecting the Messianic claims of Jesus ? is the 
assertion of the vicarious principle of the righteous 
one suffering for the unrighteous many and also 
the sign of a Divine fellowship. (3) The great 
gift of the gospel remission of sins is set in 
direct relation to the crucified Jesus (2 s8 3 19 5 31 
10 43 ). The prominence given to this in every 
sermon suggests that this connexion cannot be 
considered accidental. (4) Reference to the fra- 
quent observance of the Lord's Supper (2 42 ). 
When it is remembered that nothing in the Apos- 
tolic Church is more primitive than the sacra- 
ments, and that both of them bear implications 
of Christ's relation to the remission of sins, this 
reference is significant. (5) Christ's death is not 
distinctly represented as the ground of forgiveness, 
by setting forth the Messiah's death as a satisfac- 
tion for sin or as a substitute for sin's penalty. It 
is set forth as a motive to repentance and a means 
of turning men away from sin, but its saving 
value is not more closely defined. It is certain, 
however, that the early Apostolic Church attached 
a saving significance to the death of Christ. 

2. In 1 Peter. It is usual to associate with the 
indications of the doctrine in the early chapters of 
Acts the constructive tendencies found in 1 Peter. 
The Epistle of James i^ too uncertain in its date 
and authority, and its aim is too purely practical 
to warrant appeal to it on the apostolic doctrine 
of atonement. Indeed^l Peter is far from being 
free from difficulty when used for this purpose. 
The signs of Pauline influence are too strong for 
its use as a source of primitive Christian ideas with- 
out some hesitation. Still, the fact that St. Paul 
and St. Peter are represented as^n harmony on the 
significance of the redemptive worK of Christ, when 
they are manifestly at variance in other important 
VOL. i. 8 



factors of the primitive faith, is not without its 
value ; it is possible also that their similarities may 
be accounted for by their common loyalty to the 
accepted Christian tradition. Taken as it stands, 
St. Peter's contribution may be epitomized thus : (1) 
Whilst the suffering death of Christ holds, as else- 
where in apostolic writings, the central place, its 
strongest appeal is made in regard to the moral 
quality of the sufferings. The patience and inno- 
cence of the Sufferer for righteousness' sake control 
its theological presentation. The exhortation to 
suffer with Christ by expressing His spirit in the 
life of discipleship obviously emphasizes the ethical 
appeal of His example, but this is based upon a 
due appreciation of His sufferings on our behalf. 
Quite a procession of theological ideas thus emerges. 
(2) The covenant idea with its sacrificial implica- 
tion in 'sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ' is 
present (I 2 ), possibly reminiscent of the words at 
the Supper. (3) Ransomed ' with precious blood, 
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, 
even the blood of Christ ' (I 19 ), combines the idea of 
the sacrificial lamb with possibly an echo of the 
'ransom' of Mk 10 45 . (4) The close connexion of 
Christ who 'suffered for you, leaving- you an 
example, that ye should follow his steps]* and its 
ethical appeal, with the clear interpretation of the 
Passion as a sin-bearing, 'who his own self bare 
our sins in his body upon the tree' (2 24 ), and its 
profound moral issues, 'that we having died unto 
sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose 
stripes ye were healed' shows how intimately 
what are termed the objective and subjective con- 
ceptions of the atonement are associated in the 
writer's thought^ the end is moral and dominates 
the means, but the means are clearly substitution- 
ary, to the extent that the obligations to righteous- 
ness involved in 'our sins' are assumed by the 
sinless Lamb of God. (5) The writer once again 
glides with simple ease and familiarity from the 
force of the example of Christ to the abiding fact 
of His sin-bearing (3 18 ) : ' Because Christ also 
suffered for sins once (tra, 'once for all'), the 
righteous for (virtp) the unrighteous, that He might 
bring us to God.) Access to God is regarded as a 
high privilege obtained by a great self-surrender 
and not as a native right to be taken for granted. 
Of course these ideas, which the writer of 1 Petet 
discusses in this apparently incidental way, are 
closely akin to those of the righteousness by faith 
and ethical obedience 'in Christ' which St. Paul 
discusses so fully and of set purpose in Rp 3 and 6 
respectively, and this may suggest his influence. 
If so, then the evidence of 1 Peter will fall into the 
later Pauline period of apostolic doctrine, which 
we shall now consider at length; but that would 
not depreciate its value as a witness to the faith of 
the Apostolic Church in its wider range. 

III. THE DOCTRINE DEVELOPED. 1. The 
Pauline type. It will be obvious to any reader of 
the literature of the Apostolic Church that its 
doctrine of atonement was the subject of consider- 
able development in form. In tracing this the 
Pauline writings must be our main source. Of all 
NT writers, St. Paul goes into the greatest detail 
and has most deliberately and continually reflected 
upon this subject. Indeed, the abundance of the 
material he provides is embarrassing to any one 
seeking a unified doctrine. In St. Paul we find for 
the first time a philosophy of the death of Christ 
in relation to the forgiveness of sins, which is ulti- 
mately based upon an analysis of the Divine 
attributes and their place in the interpretation of 
the doctrine of the cross. At the same time the 
emphasis he lays upon this is regarded by him as 
in accordance with the belief and teaching of the 
primitive community ; it is the centre of his gospel 
and theirs. It may be assumed, therefore, that 



114 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



we are as likely to learn from him as from any 
other source what was the inner meaning of the 

Erimitive Christian belief. He declared that what 
e preached concerning the dying of Christ for our 
sins according to the Scriptures he 'received' (1 Co 
15 3 ) . Whilst it is possible that this statement finds 
a fuller definition in his further assertion, ' Neither 
did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but 
it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ' 
(Gal I 12 ), it seems clear that St. Paul's doctrine 
rested upon the common apostolic data given in (1) 
the words of Jesus respecting the necessity of His 
death on man's behalf ; (2) the very early Christian 
idea that it was included in the Divine purpose ; (3) 
the conception of the vicarious sufferings of the 
righteous and their merit founded on Is 53 which 
had been elaborated in later Jewish thought.* 
Although it seems clear that this late Jewish doc- 
trine was a source of St. Paul's theory, it under- 
went partial transformation at his hands ; it was 
ethicized ; moreover, it was probably the vicarious 
idea, as it was associated with the prophetic rather 
than with the priestly or legal conceptions, that he 
appropriated ; it was not the literal legal substitu- 
tion and transfer, but the vicariousness of a real 
experience in which the righteous bear upon their 
hearts the woes and sins of the sinful, f 

(1) St. Paul's early preaching. The earliest 
indication of St. Paul's view of atonement would 
naturally be sought in his preaching during the 
fifteen or more years before he wrote the letters in 
which he sets forth more deliberately and with ob- 
vious carefulness his matured doctrinal judgments. 
The author of the Acts gives little light on St. 
Paul's method of setting out his interpretation of 
the death of Christ in his discourses ; how he was 
accustomed to place it in relation to forgiveness of 
sin in his earliest preaching does not definitely 
appear. The discourse at Antioch in Pisidia may 
illustrate the character of his reference to it : 
'through this man is preached unto you forgive- 
ness of sins' (Ac 13 38 ) ; but nothing is defined more 
closely. To the Ephesian elders at Miletus he 
speaks about 'the Church of God, which he pur- 
chased with his own blood ' (20 28 ) . St. Paul himself 
gives us the only valuable account of his preaching. 
Its dominant topic was the crucifixion 'the 
preaching of the cross' (1 Co I 18 ) ; 'I determined 
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ 
and him crucified' (2 2 ). No explanation is given. 
But the fact that he made the cross supreme when 
it was regarded as a direct antagonism and provocat- 
ive by those he sought to win a scandal to Jews 
and foolishness to the Gentiles implies that it was 
associated with an interpretation that made it 
something different from a martyrdom. Such a 
martyrdom neither Jew nor Greek would have 
regarded with the scorn they exhibited for the 
interpretation St. Paul gave them in order to meet 
then* challenge for explanation. 

(2) The Pauline Epistles. On the whole, St.Paul' s 
preaching carries us no further towards a know- 
ledge of any reasoned doctrine of atonement than 
the position reached in the preaching of his fellow- 
apostles that 'Christ died for our sins according 
to the Scriptures.' Of course this is in itself a vast 
doctrinal implication. Still, for the structure of 
the Pauline doctrine we are shut up to his teach- 
ing in his Epistles. In his earliest writings 
the Thessalonian Epistles we practically get no 
further towards his doctrine than in his preaching, 
except perhaps that the idea emerges that in some 
way Christ identifies Himself with our evil that 
He may identify us with Himself in His own good 
(1 Th 5 9f -)- We meet the organized body of his 

* Cf. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 59, 122. 
t Cf. G. A. Smith, Mod. Crit. and Preaching ofOT, London, 
1901, p. 120 ff. 



doctrine in the well-authenticated group of his 
writings to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinth- 
ians, with a supplementary view in the Imprison- 
ment Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. 
We may differentiate this teaching, but it has 
throughout most important underlying principles 
in common. It falls conveniently into five divisions 
Atonement and Law ; Atonement and Righteous- 
ness; Atonement and Personality; Atonement 
and Newness of Life ; Atonement and the Universe. 
In briefly reviewing these, it should be remembered 
that according to St. Paul the love of God is the 
first and last motive of redemption, and that none 
of the atoning processes is separable from the full 
activities of the Divine Personality. 

(a) Atonement and Law. This is the form in 
which St. Paul construes his doctrine in the Galatian 
Epistle, which deals more exclusively than any 
other NT document with the significance of the 
death of Christ. 'Christ redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, having become a curse for (virtp) 
us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that 
hangeth upon a tree' (Gal 3 13 ). The conception 
here is distinctly juridical ; whether it is also penal 
will depend upon the definition of 'penal.' If 
punishment implies guilt, the sufferings of Christ 
were not strictly penal, for He is always set forth 
as guiltless ; moreover, guilt cannot be transferred 
as guilt. His sufferings did, in St. Paul's judgment, 
serve the end of punishment ; they were representa- 
tively penal ; Christ took the place of the guilty 
as far as it involved penal consequences ; for special 
emphasis is laid upon the instrument of death the 
cross and upon its curse, though there seems 
nothing to justify the attributing to Christ of the 
position suggested by the allusion to Dt 2 1 23 of one 
' accursed of God ' which has at times been pressed 
by expositors. That He endured the consequences 
of such a position and in this sense was 'made a 
curse on our behalf' is the Apostle's application of 
it. This endurance is regarded as the recognition 
of the just requirement of the law of God not the 
ceremonial law alone, but also the moral demands 
arising out of God's holy and righteous nature, 
and especially those which empirically St. Paul 
had put to the test in vain in his seeking after 
personal righteousness. St. Paul does not deny 
the authority of this law; he asserts it, but the 
fact that it was added to the promise for 'the sake 
of transgression ' resulted in its making men sinful; 
it brought a curse : ' Cursed is every one which con- 
tinueth. not in all things that are written in the 
book of the law, to do them ' (3 10 ) . With this curse 
in its consequences Christ identifies Himself, as in 
the Apostle s thought He had identified Himself 
with mankind in being 'born of a woman, born 
under the law' (4 4 ). By thus making Himself 
absolutely one with those under ban, absorbing 
into Himself all that it meant, He removed the 
obstacle to forgiveness in the righteous attitude of 
God towards sin which could not be overcome until 
sin had been virtually punished. It was thus that 
the way was opened for man to identify himself by 
personal faith and living experience with Christ's 
death, so that St. Paul was justified in saying: 
'For I through the law died unto the law, that I 
might live unto God. I have been crucified with 
Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer I, but Christ 
liveth in me' (2 1 "-) 

This conception of St. Paul's adds the ethical 
idea of atonement to the juridical, which other 
passages reiterate (5 24 6 14 ). It is, however, essenti- 
ally Pauline to regard the ethical as depending 
for its possibility and efficacy in experience upon 
the juridical; otherwise 'Christ died for nought.' 
God must vindicate His law so that He may 
justly forgive ; the operation of grace is connected 
with the assertion of justice. But ultimately St. 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



115 



Paul's conception really transcends these contrasts ; 
for it is God Himself who in His love provides 
the way to be both just and gracious ; He, not 
another, provides the satisfaction. In the last 
analysis God is presented as removing His own 
obstacles to forgiveness; the death in which His 
righteous law is exhibited is the provision of His 
antecedent love ; the commending of His love is 
the prior purpose resulting in Christ being 'made a 
curse on our behalf.'* Consequently the whole 
Christian life is resolved into a response to God's 
love exhibited in the death of His Son ; it does 
away with the hindrance to forgiveness in God's 
law, and at the same time inspires the faith which 
conducts into ethical conformity to Christ in man's 
experience. 

(6) Atonement and Righteousness. This is dealt 
with exhaustively in the Epistle to the Romans ; 
the great question the Epistle discusses is How 
shall a sinful man be righteous with God ? and the 
answer is By receiving 'a righteousness of God' 
which is 'revealed from faith to faith.' In the 
interpretation of this answer we reach the heart 
of the apostolic doctrine, and upon it the great 
bulk of later historical discussions has turned. 
For more than the briefest hints here given of the 
points of exegesis involved, reference should be 
made to commentaries on the Epistle. St. Paul 
distinctly states the two sides of the meaning 
of atonement referred to in the beginning of this 
article. But his interest is primarily absorbed 
by the efficient cause of at-one-ment as the ideal 
end, viz. the atonement, the Divine provision of 
the satisfaction which the Divine righteousness 
requires to be exhibited in order that forgiveness 
of sins may be bestowed and a restoration of 
fellowship between God and man achieved. To 
this he devotes his utmost strength; he regards 
it as primary in the order of thought as well as in 
the redemptive process. Still he is nobly loyal to 
both conceptions, if, indeed, they were for him 
really two ; for he thinks of the unity of the pro- 
cess with the end as exhibiting the perfectnesa of 
the Divine purpose of grace. This point will be 
discussed lat er . M eanwhile it must be pointed out 
that the strong divergencies revealed in the inter- 
pretation of the apostolic doctrine have frequently 
resulted from regarding one or other of these 
phases of the Pauline doctrine as in itself adequate 
to explain the whole. Ethical theories have sought 
to ignore the juridical means ; juridical theories 
have often stopped short of the ethical end. The 
Pauline doctrine does neither. Both are met in 
the conception, essential to his doctrine, of the 
ideal and actual identification of Christ with man 
in his sin, and of man with Christ in newness of 
life ; and also in the identification of both with 
God in His unchanging righteousness and in His 
eternal love ; for St. Paul with ceaseless loyalty 
carries all the processes of redemption in time up 
to the initiative and executive of the Divine pur- 
pose. 

Righteousness is the starting-point of his discus- 
sion ; it is seen in ' the wrath of God revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men' (Ro I 18 ). God can never be at 
peace with sin. Law brings no righteousness ; ' by 
the law is the knowledge of sin' (3 20 ). All have 
sinned ; not one is righteous ; the necessity for a 
righteousness apart from the law is obvious. 
The provision of this, 'even the righteousness of 
God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them 
that believe' (3 22 ), is the Divine atonement. This 
implies, of course, in its completion a great moral 
and spiritual change in the nature and character 
of those who 'have received the atonement' ; that 

* Cf. P. Wernle, Anfange unserer Religion, Tubingen, 1901, 
p. 146 ; Steveiia, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 67. 



end does not yet receive St. Paul's attention ; his 
mind is preoccupied with the means. He is not even 
at present intent on demonstrating the necessity 
of this ethical transformation ; he is in subjection 
to the arresting fact that all ungodliness and un- 
righteousness of men was exposed to the Divine 
wrath, and is constrained to show how the wrath 
was withheld . This was not primarily to be sought 
in the measure in which men might be arrested by 
the fact and cease to sin ; they must and would do 
that in proportion as they received the atonement. 
But for the time being St. Paul is confining his 
thought entirely to the 'objective' work of Christ 
in the atonement, whereby was provided and set 
forth the means by w r hich the 'subjective' work of 
Christ in personal union with the believing soul 
might be possible ; indeed, in some respects it had 
been actual also in the past, for sins had already 
been remitted by God. ' Being justified freely by 
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, 
through faith, by his blood, to show his righteous- 
ness, because of the passing over of the sins done 
aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the 
showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present 
season : that he might himself be just, and the 
justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus' (3 24ff -). 

Thus St. Paul conceived the method of deliver- 
ance from the wrath of God which was inevitable in 
the presence of unrighteousness ; it is an objective 
work and is in response to faith, however full of 
personal renewal in righteousness its ethical impli- 
cations may eventually become ; for the destruction 
of sin and the gift of life are regarded as depending 
upon a free bestowal on sinners of a righteousness 
of God. The interpretation of this crucial passage 
and its context depends upon the meaning assigned 
to the terms 'righteousness of God' and 'propitia- 
tion.' The idea expressed in the former term 
occupies the central place in St. Paul's conception 
of atonement. Righteousness was his passion ; its 
quest the summum bonum of his life ; ' he had 
sought it long in vain, and when at length he found 
it he gave to it a name expressive of its infinite 
worth to his heart: the righteousness of God.'* 
To this title ' a righteousness of God ' he firmly 
adheres ; it is distinctive ; to him it is something 
belonging to the Christian man, yet it is not his 
personal righteousness of character ; he receives it. 
It also belongs to God, but it is not His personal 
righteousness which is imparted to the believer. 
St. Paul's conception of it does not occur in the 
Gospels, where the term stands for the righteous- 
ness of which God is the centre, which is His 
essential attribute. The nearest approach to the 
Pauline sense in the teaching of Jesus is the grace 
of God in the free pardon of sin. In St. Paul, 
righteousness is a 'gift' from God to him who 
believes in Christ. He is dealt with as righteous. 
To regard the righteousness of God as essentially 
self-imparting, taking hold of human lives and 
filling them with its Divine energies, without any 
reference to the problem sin has created, is not 
Pauline. To St. Paul, as well as to all NT teaching, 
God's righteousness was the affluent, overflowing 
source of all the goodness in the world, but he felt 
that sin made a difference to God ; it was sin against 
His righteousness ; and His righteousness had to 
be vindicated against it ; it could not ignore it. 

Any view which failed to appreciate this problem 
would miss the characteristic solution that St. Paul 
unceasingly presents in the 'propitiation' in the 
blood of Christ, 'whom God had set forth to show 
his righteousness in passing over sins done afore- 
time.' Ritschl's view, that always in St. Paul the 
righteousness of God means the mode of procedure 
which ia consistent with God's having the salva- 

* Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, 146. 



116 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



tion of believers as His end, * overlooks the emphatic 
contention of the Apostle, that it is the ungodly to 
whom God is gracious rather than the faithful 
within the covenant privilege ; this latter is the 
class referred to in the Psalms and Second Isaiah, 
to whom God exhibited His righteousness in pres- 
ence of the wrongs done them by their enemies. 
Ritschl's conception is an attractive presentation of 
the meaning of the term in other relations, but it 
is irrelevant to St. Paul's distinctive meaning. The 
suggestive view of the term expounded by Seeberg 
in Der Tod Christi, that the righteousness of God 
means simply His moral activity in harmony with 
His true character, the norm of which is that He 
should institute and maintain fellowship with men ; 
that if He did not do so He would not be righteous 
and would fail to act in His proper character, leaves 
unanswered in any distinctive Pauline fashion the 
question what means God takes to secure fellowship 
with sinful men so that He may act towards the 
ungodly in a way which does justice to Himself. 
St. Paul does not leave the presentation of Christ 
as a means by which this fellowship may be 
instituted, without a much closer definition; he 
clearly relates it to the vicarious principle lying for 
him in his elect word 'propitiation,' whether it be 
taken as a strictly sacrificial term or not (see, in 
addition, art. PROPITIATION). 

Denney, who discusses these views at length, t 
maintains that the righteousness of God has not 
the same meaning throughout this passage (3 21ff -) ; 
it has ' in one place say in v. 22 the half -technical 
sense which belongs to it as a summary of St. 
Paul's gospel ; and in another say in v. 26 the 
larger and more general sense which might belong 
to it elsewhere in Scripture as a synonym for God's 
character, or at least for one of His essential at- 
tributes.' But these two views are not unrelated ; 
they cannot be discussed apart ; we see them har- 
monized as complements in the true meaning of 
'propitiation.' Christ is set forth by God as a 
propitiation to exhibit their unity and consistency 
with each other. When the Pauline view of ' pro- 
pitiation,' as 'relative to some problem created by 
sin for a God who would justify sinners,' is accepted 
in a substitutionary sense and the argument of the 
passage reaches its climax, the two senses of the 
righteousness of God in it 'have sifted themselves 
out, so to speak, and stand distinctly side by side.'t 
God is the Just in His own character ; and at the 
same time, in providing a righteousness of God 
through faith, which stands to the good of the 
believing sinner, He is the Justifier. That both 
these meanings are present in atonement and are 
there harmonized with one another, is what St. 
Paul seeks to bring out. 

St. Paul would show God righteous in His 
forbearance in 'the passing over of sins done 
aforetime.' But, as he defines the effects of the 
propitiation, he leaves the wrath of God in the 
background ; the forbearance of God becomes the 
centre of his thought ; that is a gracious fact and 
must be accounted for. Why has God never dealt 
with sinful men according to their sins? He has 
always been slow to anger and of great kindness, a 
gracious God and merciful ; sins done aforetime were 
passed over. Does the doing of this impugn His 
righteousness? St. Paul finds his apology for, and 
explanation of, the universal graciousness of God in 
the propitiation which He has set forth in Christ 
by His blood. God cannot be charged with moral 
indifference because He has always been God, the 
Saviour. Sin has never been a trivial matter ; any 
omission to mark it by inflicting its full penal con- 
sequences has been due to forbearance, which now 
in the propitiation justifies itself to His righteous- 

* R echtfertiffung und Versdhnung, ii. 117. 

t Death of Christ, 164 ff. J Ib. 165. 



ness. If, apart from this, God had invested with 
privilege those whose sin deserved the manifesta- 
tion of His wrath, He would, St. Paul thinks, have 
suppressed His righteousness. To show the Justi- 
fier, whether ' in respect of sins done aforetime ' or 
'at this present season,' to be Himself just, St. Paul 
holds the setting forth of His righteousness by the 
propitiation in the blood of Christ to be necessary. 
Christ's death, therefore, was something more than 
a great ethical appeal of the love of God in suffer- 
ing for sin to the heart and conscience of men ; it 
had been rendered necessary by the remission of 
sins in ages before the Advent, as well as to justify 
the readiness and desire of God to remit the sins of 
any man who 'at this present season' 'hath faith 
in Jesus.' 

This exaltation of the forbearance of God as the 
ultimate explanation of the propitiation is intended 
to make known the ultimate fact that the wrath of 
God against sin lies within the supreme constraint 
of the love of God 'His own love' which He com- 
mendeth toward us in that while we were yet sinners 
Christ died f or us (5 6ff ) . Christ was set forth by God 
Himself ; His love provided the propitiation ; there 
was no constraint upon Christ. He gave Himself up 
for us; there was no conflict between the Divine 
wrath and the Divine love ; they were reconciled in 
God, and their reconciliation set forth in the pro- 
pitiation in the blood of Christ. The wrath is the 
expression and minister of the love ; mere self-con- 
sideration is unknown in the Divine activity. More- 
over, where the love has prevailed, the wrath fails, 
' While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ; much 
more then being now justified in his blood shall we 
be saved through him from the wrath. 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 life' (5 8ff -). The achieve- 
ment of redemption in its ethical value proceeds 
from the death of Christ as the supreme demonstra- 
tion of the Divine love, by evoking in sinful souls 
the response of a personal surrender to the newness 
of life to which it constrains. This may introduce 
the classical passage in St. Paul's writings on the 
doctrine of atonement. 'All things are of God, 
who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, 
and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation ; to 
wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself, not reckoning unto them their tres- 
passes, and having committed unto us the word of 
reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on 
behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by 
us ; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye 
reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin he made 
to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the 
righteousness of God in him' (2 Co 5 1811 -). The 
Pauline doctrine receives its most satisfying and 
probably its most permanent interpretation in the 
restoration of acceptable personal relations between 
God and man, and the perfecting of these in a 
fellowship of holy love. 

(c) A tenement and Personality. Love, the perfect 
expression of the Divine Personality, constrained 
God to identify Himself in Christ with us, and con- 
strains us to identify ourselves in Christ with God. 
Personality finds its perfection in fellowship ; self- 
identification with others is the ultimate of fellow- 
ship. Identification is the principle on which an 
interpretation of reconciliation most easily proceeds 
(see RECONCILIATION). Love is essentially self-im- 
partation. Reconciliation is an exchange, the giving 
and receiving of love; ' at-one-ment ' is its issue. 
This is based in the Pauline thought upon the Divine 
initiative. God ' made him who knew no sin to be 
sin on our behalf,' that there might be identification 
of righteousness as well as of love in the reconcilia- 
tion, ' that we might become the righteousness of 
God in him,' 'not reckoning unto men their tres- 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



117 



passes.' These words suggest the idea of such an 
identification of men 'in Christ' that there is on 
God's part a general justification of mankind in the 
form of a non-imputation of sins, on the purely 
objective ground of God's satisfaction by self -giving 
in Him who knowing no sin was made sin on our 
behalf. Individual identification of man will follow, 
as, in response to God's entreating, each man is 
reconciled to God. 'For the love of Christ con- 
straineth us ; because we thus judge, that one died 
for all, therefore all died ; and he died for all, that 
they which live should no longer live unto them- 
selves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose 
again (2 Co 5 14f ) As the race died in Christ, His 
death is a true crisis in every man's history ; there 
is a new creation, which includes both a new status 
and a new creature. That all died in Christ is 
neither wholly subjective nor wholly objective. 
St. Paul's full doctrine requires both ; their death is 
died by Him, and His death is died by them. But in 
the order of thought He must first die their death, 
that they may die His. We never read that God 
has been reconciled ; He reconciled Himself to the 
world in Christ, but men are reconciled or ' receive 
the reconciliation.' St. Paul's judgment is that the 
atonement is a finished work, but that the 'at-one- 
ment' is progressive ; reconciliation is first a work 
wrought on men's behalf before it is wrought within 
their hearts ; it is a work outside of men, that it 
may be a work within them ; there is objective 
basis for the subjective experience. 

Some interpreters, e.g. Denney, * would limit the 
reconciliation to what God in Christ has done out- 
side of us ; others, e.g. Kaftan, f hold that nothing 
is to be called reconciliation unless men are actually 
reconciled. St. Paul's doctrine is consistent with the 
view that reconciliation is both something which is 
done and something which is being done. The ex- 
pression of that which is done and the source of that 
which is being done are seen in the solemn assertion 
that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on 
our behalf. No exegesis is more than a halting in- 
terpretation of the profound significance of this say- 
ing. At least the words mean that He died for our 
sin in regard to its consequences. They seem, how- 
ever, to mean more ; but in what sense God's love 
in the gift of Christ can be said to be identified 
with 'sin on our behalf,' it is impossible to say. 
Certain it is that St. Paul had other and more usual 
ways of saying that the sinless One was a sin-bearer 
in the sense of an offering for sin. The strength of 
the saying is that He died to all that sin could mean, 
and that, in this dying unto sin once for all, the 
race with which He identified Himself in His suffer- 
ings and death died with Him ; it is a death which 
contains the death of all, rather than solely a death 
which would otherwise have been died by all ; in it 
then* trespasses are not imputed unto them, and by 
the constraint of its demonstration of love they live 
not unto themselves but unto Him who died for them 
and rose again. The statement that all this was 
the work of ' God in Christ ' suffices to refute any 
reading of the process of reconciliation which sug- 
gests a contrast that approaches competition be- 
tween the righteousness of God and the love of 
Christ. It is identification which is supreme here. 
For, while it is no doubt true that the conception of 
Christ as substitute suits the interpretation of His 
death as sacrificial, the idea of representation best 
accords with the whole group of passages from which 
by induction St. Paul's law of redemption is to be 
gathered. In these, Christ appears as a central 
Person, in whom the race is gathered into an ethical 
unity, having one responsibility and one inheritance. 
In this identity even those realities usually regarded 
as inseparable from personality, such as sin and 
righteousness, are treated as separable entities pass- 

* Death of Christ, 145. t Dogmatik, $ 52 ff. 



ing freely from the one participant in the identifica- 
tion to the other sin to the Sinless One, righteous- 
ness to the unrighteous. An objective identity of 
this order, however, does not permanently satisfy 
so keen a thinker as St. Paul ; he cannot rest short 
of subjective identity between Redeemer and re- 
deemed. Not only in virtual oneness by Divine ap- 
pointment, but in actual union by living experience, 
is identification to be achieved. This provides the 
basis for St. Paul's teaching on 

(d) Atonement and Newness of Life. The work 
of redemption was not wholly a matter of juridical 
substitution and imputation. Another line of 
thought of great importance is pursued, besides 
the freeing from the curse and the deliverance 
from wrath. The relation of men to the salvation 
of Christ is not purely passive. * They must enter 
into intimate union of life with Him. They must 
die in effect with Christ to sin on His cross, and 
rise with Him in newness of life. Through then* 
faith they constitute His mystical body; they 
have corporate identity with Him in 'the life 
which is life indeed'; they are saved from the 
power as well as the guilt of sin ; freedom from 
the law of sin and death completes the release from 
its condemnation ; the release from past sin in the 
atonement in Christ's death does not exhaust its 
aim ; it involves the actual renunciation of the 
selfish life and the realization of the life of holy 
love. 

Although this conception is not wholly out of 
mind in chs. 3 and 4 of Romans and elsewhere (cf. 
Gal 2 19f -. Col 2 20 3 3 , Phj3 9f -), in which the juridical 
view of Christ's death is developed, it finds its full 
presentation in reply to an imaginary objection to 
the juridical view in Ro 6 and the following three 
chapters. The question, Shall we continue in sin 
that grace may abound? starts St. Paul upon an 
exposition of the essential relation between the 
righteousness which is by faith in Christ as 'pro- 
pitiation,' and the righteousness which is personal 
and real, through vital fellowship with His death 
and resurrection ; 'crucified with him, buried with 
him, raised with him,' believers also walk with 
Him 'in newness of life.' There is something in 
the experience of Christ which they repeat so far 
as its ethical implications can be realized in their 
own experience ; for the closest of links exists be- 
tween the saving deed of Christ and the ethical 
issues of the salvation it has brought about. Al- 
though St. Paul does not make any direct use of 
the spotless holiness and perfect obedience of 
Christ save in so far as they issue in His death, 
still these ethical qualities of the Redeemer be- 
come the ethical demand in the redeemed as then* 
union of life with Him is unfolded. The great 
Pauline conception ' in Christ ' is required to com- 
plete on its ethical side the salvation which is 
'through Christ' on the legal side. 

In recent exposition the relation between these 
two the 'subjective-mystical' view of salvation 
and the 'objective-juridical' has been much dis- 
cussed. Is the former an addition, a supplement, 
a correlative, or a transformation of the latter? 
'Probably a majority of recent scholars hold that 
the conception of freedom from sin through a new 
moral life is primary in the thought of the 
Apostle' ;t others reverse this relation. J Denney 
strongly maintains that Christ's substitutionary 
death is primary, and that the ethico-mystical 
views are directly deduced from it; the latter 

* A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 120. 

t E.g. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 70 ; W. 
Beyschlag, NT Theol., Eng. tr., 1895, ii. 198-201 ; C. v. 
Weizsacker, Das apostolische Zeitalier, Freiburg i. B., 1890, p. 
139 (Eng. tr., London, 1895, ii. 104 f.). 

t E.g. O. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, Berlin, 1887, p. 229 ; 
E. Menegoz, Le Peche et la Redemption d'apres St. Paul, 1882, 
ii. 251 ff. 



118 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



indicate the inevitable result of a true appropriat- 
ing faith in the substitutionary death of Christ, 
the sole object of which was to atone for sin ; 
gratitude to Christ for this redemptive act of love 
being sufficient to evoke the whole experience of 
salvation on its ethical side. St. Paul's thought 
has only one focus Christ's 'finished work,' His 
'atonement outside of us.'* A. B. Bruce fears 
that the practical schism between these two ex- 
periences of faith in the objective work of Christ 
and personal union in His death and resurrection 
is too real for such a view; he thinks that the 
doctrine of an objective righteousness wrought 
out by Christ was first elaborated, that this 'met 
the spiritual need of the conversion crisis,' and 
that 'the doctrine of subjective righteousness 
came in due season to solve problems arising out 
of Christian experience' ; consequently they are 
'two doctrines,' two revelations serving different 
purposes, but not incompatible with or cancelling 
one another, f Lipsius regards the two lines of 
thought as parallel or interpenetrating, t H. J. 
Holtzmann makes the interesting suggestion that 
the expiatory doctrine is built up by St. Paul's use 
of popular Jewish conceptions and sacrificial cate- 
gories applied to Christ's death, while the ethico- 
mystical view is the more direct product of his 
experience interpreted through Hellenistic ideas, 
especially the contrast of flesh and spirit. Whilst 
the two doctrines lie side by side within the same 
Epistle, it is difficult to regard them as separate 
doctrines representing quite distinct epochs of 
thought or experience in St. Paul. His teaching 
elsewhere on the work of the Holy Spirit should 
not be ignored in making adjustments between 
the two sides of his view of the atonement. It is 
on the interpretation of the place of St. Paul's 
ethical teaching on this doctrine that most marked 
differences exist ; his doctrine of expiation is ex- 
pounded with substantially the same results by 
scholars of the most divergent theological ten- 
dencies. || 

(e) Atonement and the Universe. In two of the 
Epistles of the Imprisonment those to Eph. and 
Col. (Phil, repeats the same circle of ideas as Rom. 
and Gal.) St. Paul extends the reconciliation 
wrought by the death of Christ from the human 
race to the universe as it sustains moral relations 
to God ; it is the cosmic view of the atonement, 
and is a result of seeking to provide a basis for the 
ruling idea of the absoluteness of his gospel. The 
'world' for which Christ died is no longer the world 
of sinful men, as in 2 Co 5 19 and Ro 3 19 ; it is vaster 
(cf. Ro 8 19ff ) ; it includes angelic and possibly 
super-angelic beings, 'things in (or above) the 
heavens ' (Eph I 10 ) ; God has been pleased ' through 
him to reconcile all things unto himself, having 
made peace through the blood of his cross, through 
him, whether they be things on earth, or things 
in heaven ' (Col 1 *) . Here we pass from the region 
of the historical and experimental into that of 
vision and spiritual imagination. How far the 
categories of juridical and ethical, into which St. 
Paul's doctrine has been cast elsewhere, may be 
applied to the processes of the restoration of the 
whole universe to perfect unity with God in Christ, 
it is difficult to say. R. W. DaleU argues that 
they are fulfilled in removing the objective cause 
of estrangement ; but it is evident that, if this is 

* Death of Christ, 179-192. 

!St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, 214 ff. 
Dogmatik 3 , Brunswick, 1893, p. 510. 
NTTheol.Ji. 117 f. 
E.g. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, pt. i. ch. iv. ; 
Denney, Death of Christ, ch. iii. ; Pfleiderer, Paulinismus*, 
Leipzig, 1890, ch. iii. (Eng. tr., 1877) ; Menegoz, Le Peche, etc., 
ii. ch. iii. ; H. J. Holtzmann, NT Theol. ii. 97-121 ; H. Cremer, 
Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre 2 . Giitersloh. 1900, pp. 
424-448. 

H The Atonement*, 253 ff. 



in itself inadequate for the realized salvation of 
the human race, it will not be likely to suffice for 
a higher race of moral intelligences ; the personal 
union of sympathy and life implied in the subjec- 
tive and mystical view will still be necessary for 
at-one-ment. 

The Pastoral Epistles, though probably much 
later than St. Paul's earlier group in which his 
doctrine is chiefly stated, add no fresh ideas to his 
interpretation. This may imply that his doctrine 
had already become fixed in form and could be 
taken for granted, or that it is unwise to lay stress 
upon the view that it was a slowly developed teach- 
ing. The influence upon other NT writers of St. 
Paul's doctrine of the relation of the death of Christ 
to the forgiveness of sins should be carefully con- 
sidered ; the subject goes beyond the scope of this 
article. 

2. The type presented in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. This is distinctive. Some suspect 
possible affinities with the thought of the apostolic 
group in the Church at Jerusalem. The writing 
exhibits many resemblances in language to the 
Pauline type, but the same terms are used with a 
different connotation, and there is an absence of 
many of St. Paul's characteristic forms of thought; 
the Pauline principle of substitution prevails, but 
it is presented more in the spirit and method of 
the Alexandrine exegesis and philosophy of religion 
the relation of shadow to reality or in the sym- 
bolism of the Jewish sacrificial system. Although 
one of the most theological of all the NT writings, 
it assumes rather than states a philosophy of the 
Christian redemption. The death of Christ is re- 
garded as exclusively sacrificial. As atonement 
it is presented mostly on the objective side ; even 
more than St. Paul, the writer emphasizes the work 
Christ does outside us, 'on our behalf.' St. Paul's 
supplement to this view in his ethico-mystical 
doctrine is only slightly considered. The term 
'in Christ' does not occur; the circle of ideas it 
represents is absent; ethical implications of the 
vicarious view are found, but they are different 
and slighter. The idea of finality is the character- 
istic conception which dominates the presentation 
of Christ's redeeming work ; it is 'eternal' in this 
sense. The ethical value of a sinless Offerer in 
perfect sympathy with His sinful brethren, for 
whom He presents His sacrifice perfect and with- 
out blemish, is a prominent characteristic in the 
doctrine of the atoning work. The perfect human- 
ity implied makes it possible to start the interpret- 
ation of the doctrine of atonement in the Epistle, 
with Westcott, from the Incarnation; or, with 
Seeberg, from the Passion of the Offerer as identi- 
cal with the historic Jesus. As His perfect Priest- 
hood, which is almost identical with the latter, 
also includes the former, both in the historic fact 
and in the mind of the writer of the Epistle, it is 
more satisfactory to adopt it as the ruling idea. 

(1) Priesthood. Priesthood is the clearest way 
of access to the writer's main teaching ; it unifies 
the distinguishable orders of sacrifice sin-offering, 
burnt-offering, etc. in the one characteristic 
function of the priest, which is to offer sacrifice 
and so to establish and to represent the fellowship 
of God with man, which is the root-idea of atone- 
ment. Such fellowship is visible and incorporate 
in the priest's person ; through him the people 
draw near to God themselves, have their fellowship 
with Him, and become His people. The necessity 
for a priest and his mediation is that sin stands in 
the way of this fellowship ; it cannot be ignored ; 
its defilement is the acute problem in thought and 
experience which constrains the writer to set forth 
the Divinely appointed way for its removal. For 
this end God has appointed His own Son a High 
Priest for ever, that He may make ' propitiation' 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



119 



for the sins of His people (He 2 17 ) . This is possible 
in only one way sacrifice. The OT conception, 
upon the analogy of which this NT structure is 
built, is that propitiation must be made for sin, if 
sinful men are to have fellowship with God at all ; 
the only propitiation known is the shedding of 
blood in sacrificial offerings. A root-principle, 
therefore, of the writer's theory is: 'Apart from 
shedding of blood there is no remission ' (9 22 ) . This 
sacrifice Christ provides in His blood ; He is at 
once Priest and Sacrificial Offering ; He is on this 
account capable of dealing effectively with sin as 
the obstacle to the fellowship of God and man ; 
'once (#7ro 'once for all') at the end of the ages 
hath he been manifested to put away sin by the 
sacrifice of himself' (9 26 ). 

(2) Sacrifice. This offering of Himself is illus- 
trated from the three elements of the Levitical 
system (a) the sin-offering, (6) the covenant- 
offering, (c) the offering on the great Day of Atone- 
ment. As sin-offering, Christ's death was a final 
sacrifice for sins (10 12 - 18 ), it made propitiation for 
the sins of the people (2 17 ), it put away sin (9 26 ). 
As a covenant sacrifice, it ratified the new cove- 
nant, of which He was the mediator, by ' blood of 
sprinkling' (12 24 ) ; for this covenant also, that it 
might become operative, His death was necessary. 
As the high priest entered every year into the 
Holy Place, Christ has entered into the heavenly 
sanctuary to appear before the face of God for us 
(9 24 ). He also suffered without the camp (13 llf -). 
The writer dwells much upon the fact that all 
these were only symbolic and morally ineffective as 
types. Only in Christ's sacrificial offering of Him- 
self and in the functions of His changeless Priest- 
hood could be provided the eternal reality (see 
SACRIFICE). The writer also further defines all 
that Christ did and suffered in its relation to God 
and especially to His love. It was by the grace 
of God that He tasted death for every man (2 9 ). 
God is not conceived in any sense as a hostile Being 
who is to be won over by sacrificial gifts to be 
gracious to man; these are never said to 'recon- 
cile' God. The Priesthood of Christ was God's 
appointment and calling (5 4 ). Christ's supreme 
ministry was 'to do thy will, O God' (10 7 ). The 
same will was fulfilled ' through the offering of the 
body of Jesus Christ once for all' (5to-a|, 10 10 ). 
Christ's life and death are in perfect obedience to 
God, and are a revelation of the mind and love of 
God ; such is God's gracious way of making it 
possible for the sinful to have fellowship with Him, 
of 'bringing many sons unto glory' (2 10 ) ; it was 
entirely congruous, the writer asserts, with God's 
perfect ethical nature and with man's sinful state. 
It is in the latter sense that the writer defines 
further the relation of the sacrifice of Christ to sin. 
His work is described as ' having made purification 
of sins ' ( 1 3 ) . He was offered to bear the sins of many 
(9 28 2 17 lO 125 -) . By whatever sacrificial illustrations 
His offering of Himself in His blood is set forth, the 
expiatory significance is common to them all ; they 
represent the Divinely appointed way of deal- 
ing with sin as a hindrance to communion with 
God. 

(3) Theory. Beyond the relation to God and sin 
referred to, it is not easy, without going outside 
the pages of the Epistle, to state a doctrine which 
explains to the reason the grounds on which the 
sacrificial ministry of Christ as Priest and Offering 
becomes available for the establishing of the fellow- 
ship with God which is plainly set forth as its 
object. It is said 'to sanctify' men (2 U 10 10 - 14 
13 12 ) ; to enable them 'to draw near to God' (4 16 
7 i 9 ff. 10 22 ); < to make perfect' (2 10 7 19 10 14 ) ; 'to 
purify' (9 14 ). It is difficult, however, to give a 
close definition of these terms. Primarily they 
refer to status ; men's relation to God is altered 



rather than their character changed into ethical 
states befitting these terms as symbols of personal 
qualities ; the immediate effect upon men is religious 
rather than ethical. But ultimately this effect 
is inadequate. As much as this was acknowledged 
to have been accomplished by the ancient priest- 
hood and sacrifices, and it is the persistent plea of 
the writer that these ceased because they were in- 
adequate : the blood of bulls and of goats can never 
take away sin or serve for the purification of the 
conscience. Christ's Priesthood and Offering were, 
on the other hand, 'better/ 'perfect,' 'eternal,' or 
final ; they did what others could not dp. In the 
end, therefore, those who shared their benefits 
would enter into possession and enjoyment of the 
ethical realities for which they were the surety; 
such persons were to become partakers of Christ 
(3 14 - 1 6 4 ). Identification was to follow the more 
strictly vicarious rektion. Meanwhile, however, 
the writer is Pauline to this extent that, whilst 
not excluding the ethical from the results of 
Christ's substitutionary work, he emphasizes first 
and strongly the objective benefits. He holds that 
eventually conscience and character will share in 
the blessings assured by access to God, but the 
ethical change is considered as the outcome of the 
change in the religious and juridical relation. 
Before the 'sanctified' become sinless or the 
'perfect' faultless or the 'purified' pure, they 
have the status towards God of these, which is 
expressed in the privilege of fellowship. This is 
the effect of Christ's 'finished work' in His death : 
it is primary ; and the moral renewal, though 
assured as its outcome, is secondary. Christ's 
death has done something in regard to sin once for 
all, and by one offering has brought men for ever 
into a perfect religious relation to God. That 
such an objective result is thus brought about 
seems clear from the Epistle, but what it is pre- 
cisely which in God is related to this work is not 
stated by the writer, nor what constitutes the 
necessity in God for the Divinely appointed death 
of Christ. He does not go behind the Divine 
appointment ; that God wills it is sufficient ; this 
is for him axiomatic ; in what its absoluteness lies 
is not stated. How far it is legitimate to read 
into the Epistle the Pauline ideas is doubtful ; it 
has only the value of inference. The efficiency of 
the fact that Christ's death is the putting away of 
sin is the writer's contribution to the apostolic 
doctrine of atonement rather than its explanation. 
Denney finds the one hint of an attempt at explana- 
tion in 'Christ, who through the eternal Spirit 
offered himself without spot to God' (9 14 ). The 
sinlessness of Jesus gave to His offering an absolute 
and ideal character beyond which nothing could 
be conceived as a response to God's mind and 
requirements in relation to sin. The ideal 
obedience even unto death may be the clue the 
spiritual principle of the atonement that gives the 
work of Christ its value. The Epistle lays great 
stress on Christ's identification of Himself with 
man. 

3. The Johannine type. This is a sufficiently 
definite term to stand for a characteristic view of 
the atonement in the Apostolic Church found in 
the Fourth Gospel, in the three Catholic Epistles 
bearing the name of John, and in the Apocalypse. 
Criticism still leaves the problem of authorship in 
much uncertainty, but tends to greater agreement 
in ' ascribing all these writings to the same locality, 
to pretty much the same period, and to the 
same circle of ideas and sympathies.'* Reflecting 
probably the thought and experience of the last 
quarter, or even the last decade of the first century, 
they are later than all our other sources ; and, 
being dominated by theological interest, they are 

* Denney, Death of Christ, 241. 



120 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



of particular importance for judging the views 
taken of the death of Christ and its relation to 
sin towards the close of the Apostolic Age. 

Whilst the Epistle which deals with the death 
of Christ presents a more reflective interpretation 
of it than is found in the Gospel, both unite in 
dwelling upon the ethical and spiritual results of 
Christ's death in the experience and possibilities of 
the Christian sanctification rather than upon its 
relation to the satisfaction of the Divine law of 
righteousness. But the latter is by no means 
overlooked ; it is present frequently by implica- 
tion, it is occasionally explicitly referred to. The 
Johannine type is distinctly more favourable to 
the conception of 'at-one-ment' than to that of 
atonement ; it is ethical and mystical rather than 
juridical. So much is this so that selected sayings 
could be collected which would easily weave them- 
selves into a theory that Jesus saves by revelation, 
by the illumination of Divine light which becomes 
the light of life and the assurance of our fellowship 
in the life eternal. Redemption by revelation 
would be a fair interpretation, say, of the Prologue 
to the Gospel and of those portions of it in which 
the ideas of the Prologue rule. Salvation is in 
Christ's Person: 'this is life eternal, that they 
should know thee the only true God and him whom 
thou didst send, even Jesus Christ ' (Jn 17 3 ) . Jesus 
redeems men by revealing to them the truth about 
God in Himself; His work is supremely that of 
the Prophet of God, who so redeems His people 
into fellowship with God. Knowledge of God as 
He is draws men from sin. Christ dies, but this is 
inevitable because He is the Word made flesh, and 
must therefore share the end of all flesh and die, 
and 'so fulfil the destiny of a perfect man by a 
perfect death as by a perfect fife/* Broadly speak- 
ing this is true, but it is certainly not the only 
Johannine view of the saving work of Christ. It 
may be suggestive to discern the contrast between 
the Pauline view that revelation is by^ redemption, 
and the Johannine that redemption is by revela- 
tion, but it is not exhaustive ; for the Johannine 
writings are also pervaded by a conviction of the 
necessity and saving value of Christ's death ; He is 
as truly 'propitiation' as 'revelation.' St. Paul's 
view that, apart from His purpose of dying for 
redemption, Christ would not have come in the 
flesh at all, is not avowed by St. John, but it is not 
contradicted by him ; bis main interests are much 
more with the realities and issues of redemption 
than with its presuppositions and processes. Sin 
is the real problem for him as for St. Paul, and the 
death of Christ is the only means of removing it. 
This is stated in Gospel and Epistle with a wealth 
of variety. Whether they afford material for a 
full theory of expiation, as some expositors assume, 
may be questioned ; but that they clearly state a 
connexion between the death of Christ and the 
cleansing away of sin, and indicate a theory of 
this relation which has affinities with the Pauline 
view and with that of the writer to the Hebrews, 
cannot reasonably be doubted. 

Whilst in the very brief review of these references 
we must refrain from reading the Pauline meaning 
into the Johannine ideas and terms, we must not 
decline to recognize such similarities as we find are 
present in the writings. 

(1) References in Gospel. These fall into char- 
acteristic groups : (a) The references to the Lamb 
of God. Whether the saying put into the mouth 
of the Baptist (Jn I 29 ) be critically valid or not, it 
is good evidence of the Johannine thought. We 
accept the saying as referring to Jesus who ' taketh 
away the sin of the world.' Its chief value is the 

* Cf. B. F. Westcott, Epistles of St. John, London, 1883, p. 
34 ff., Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1889, p. 293 ff. ; H. 
Schultz, Die Gottheit Christi, Gotha, 1881, p. 447. 



use of the sacrificial symbol, ' the lamb ' ; Jesus 
takes away sin by the sacrificial method. The re- 
ferences in the Apocalypse to 'the Lamb' as it had 
' been slain ' (Rev 5 6 - 12 ), to ' those who have washed 
their robes in the blood of .the Lamb' (7 14 ), who 
overcame ' because of the blood of the Lamb ' (12 11 ), 
indicate that the power and purity of the new 
life in Christ were definitely associated with the 
shedding and sprinkling of His blood in the sacri- 
ficial sense. The phrase 'in the Lamb's book of 
life' (13 8 ), though it may not bear the strain of the 
idea of an eternal redemption, since 'from the 
foundation of the world' belongs grammatically to 
'written' (see art. BOOK OP LIFE) rather than to 
' slain,' indicates nevertheless that there is salvation 
in no other. (6) The references to 'the lifting up' 
(Jn 3 14 12 32 ). These are best expounded by the 
comment of the writer himself. ' This said (Jesus) . 
indicating by what kind of death he was to die 
(12 33 ). They refer to the lifting up on the cross, 
though the exaltation that followed may be implied, 
in order that men might see Him in order to live 
and be drawn to Him by the appeal of His cross. 
If there be any expiatory idea here, it is implicit ; 
it is not stated. (c) The references to eating His 

sh in Jn 6. Alone these might well be satisfied 
by the ethical interpretation of a spiritual appro- 
priation of Christ ; this conception is natural in the 
context ; but, as it is scarcely possible at the late 
period of this writing to deny a reference to the 
' Supper ' and its connexion with remission of sins, 
the expiatory idea is most probably involved. In 
the exposition of any Johannine writings the place 
held by the sacraments in the Apostolic Church 
should never be ignored. (d) The references to the 
laying down of His life. 'The Good Shepherd' 
(Jn 10 11 ), the prophecy of Caiaphas (II 50 ), the com 
of wheat (12 23ff -), life laid down for friends (IS 13 ) 
these with distinction of aspect show the applica- 
tion to Jesus of the vicarious principle ; in the first 
and last instances the voluntary character of the 
self-sacrifice is important, whilst in the context of 
the third the soul-troubling of Jesus in presence of 
death suggests that the death was neither ordinary 
nor accidental. But there is no indication of a 
theory of how His death avails for the benefit of 
others. The one explanation that is sure is that 
He lays down His life in obedience to the constraint 
of love's necessity. This love is regarded by the 
writer both as Christ's own love and as the 
Father's. 'God so loved that he gave.' Love in 
each case is the gift of self. 

(2) References in Epistle. In passing from the 
Gospel, where the Johannine writer has emphasized 
the fact of the self -surrender in the death of Christ, 
obviously bringing it in wherever possible without 
attempting a definition of its relations, to the 
Epistle, we find a closer definition of these realities 
awaiting us. But here also the stress is laid upon 
the correlation of the death of Christ with the 
actual cleansing from sin rather than with the 
cancelling of guilt or the satisfaction of the law. 
Still, whilst the realization of purification, and not 
merely a provision of the means of its cleansing, is 
the primary meaning of the references to the re- 
demptive work of Christ as the bearer of light and 
salvation, the latter is set forth in terms so inti- 
mately allied with the sacrificial terminology of 
the writers of the earlier apostolic Epistles, that 
the contention that there lies behind the passages 
the assumption of a judicial satisfaction for sin 
cannot be fairly evaded. The passages are : ' The 
blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin' 
(1 Jn I 7 ); 'And if any man sin, we have an 
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right- 
eous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; and 
not for ours only, but also for the whole world' 
(2 lf -) ; 'Your sins are forgiven you for his name's 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



121 



sake' (2 12 ) ; 'And ye know that he was manifested 
to take away sins; and in him is no sin' (3 5 ) ; 
'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that 
he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation 
for our sins' (4 10 ). With these it is convenient to 
associate the strongest saying in the Apocalypse 
on the subject: 'Unto him that loveth us, and 
loosed us from pur sins in his blood' (Rev I 5 ). 
That the immediate interest in these references is 
to the ethical and spiritual results issuing from the 
death of Christ in its relation to sin will not be 
doubted. The question at issue is how far the 
inference from them, that they assume an ante- 
cedent value belonging to the death of Christ in 
putting away the judicial obstacle to the cleansing 
in the law and righteousness of God, can be estab- 
lished. The cleansing obviously depends upon the 
'death' and the 'blood' of Christ. 

We need not draw the distinction made by West- 
cott,* between the blood in the double sense of a 
life given and of a lif e liberated and made available 
for men, in order to justify a backward as well as 
a forward look in the symbol. The main burden 
of proof that the Johannine doctrine includes an 
objective as well as a subjective work of Christ is 
upon the use of 'propitiation.' It is not the same 
word (l\a.<r/j.fc, not l\aa-T^piov) as is used in the 
Pauline Epistles, but it is very closely akin. Is it 
likely, in being applied here to the same object, to 
have a different meaning? Used in the same 
Christian community within approximately the 
same period, and dealing with the same element in 
a common faith, is not the term probably used in 
the same accepted sense by the Johannine writer 
as by the writer to the Hebrews and St. Paul ? If we 
are to interpret it, these usages are the only means 
at our disposal unless the Johannine literature 
itself provides others. This is not done. On the 
contrary, other terms are used that suggest that 
the place of iXacr/ic6j is in the same system of re- 
demptive ideas that we find in the other apostolic 
writings. It is, for instance, co-ordinated with 
Jesus Christ as 'the righteous,' standing thereby 
in some relation to the moral order of the world, 
and with 'an Advocate,' which touches the judicial 
system of ideas ; it is connected also with ideas of 
sacrifice and intercession which relate it to a 
system of mediating priesthood ; the marked con- 
trast between 'loveth' and 'loosed' in the opera- 
tion of the love of Christ, which is the source and 
efficient cause of redemption in His blood from our 
sins in Rev I 5 , may also suggest a combination 
between the progressive liberation from our sins 
and the achievement once for all of our redemption 
in Him. ^ The further statement that the 'propi- 
tiation* is not for our sins only but also for 'the 
whole world,' is not satisfied by the merely personal, 
and therefore for the present partial, experience of 
a subjective salvation. These are only inferences 
and nothing more, but they are of value in con- 
struing the Johannine witness into terms of the 
general apostolic teaching. The supreme value, 
however ? of this witness is the matchless grace 
with which the writer relates 'propitiation' to the 
love of God. St. Paul had taught this as the ulti- 
mate source of redemption, but had associated with 
its expression the righteousness of law and the 
wrath of God against sin. The Johannine writer 
transcends these in dwelling with holy joy upon the 
issues of the propitiation, not only in actual cleans- 
ing from sin, but in lifting men into the presence 
of an eternal reality in which propitiation is an 
interchangeable term with the Divine love itself. 
In 4 10 he defines propitiation in terms of love : 
'He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitia- 
tion for our sins ' ; in 3 16 he reverently identifies 
love with 'propitiation' 'In this have we known 

* Epistles of St. John, 34 S. ; Epistle to the Hebrews, 293 ff. 



love, in that he (iKeTvos) for us (virtp TJ/JLUV) laid 
down his life.' The contrast such love implies 
is the ultimate of the apostolic doctrine of the 
atonement it is the perfect expression of what the 
writer means when he declares that ' God is love.' * 
4. The sub-apostolic period. In the age im- 
mediately succeeding the apostolic, the Church 
appears to have exhibited no desire to interpret 
the relation of the death of Christ to the forgive- 
ness of sins either with greater fullness than, or by 
any divergence of view from, that found in the 
apostolic writings ; the forms exhibited there were 
found sufficient. The early Fathers treated the 
atonement as a fact, without any attempt to ex- 
plain its grounds. They had no theory: they 
describe it mostly in the actual words of Scripture, 
with little or no comment ; the types of interpreta- 
tion given were sufficient to satisfy their intelli- 
gence concerning the experience of forgiveness of 
sins which so richly satisfied their heart. Clement 
of Rome in his First Epistle exhorts the Corinthians 
to 'reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood 
was given for us' (xxi.), who 'on account of the 
love He bore us gave His blood for us by the 
will of God ; His flesh for our flesh and His soul 
for our souls' (xlix.). There is no clear statement 
as to the reasons that moved the will of God. 
The ethical appeal of the death of Christ is pre- 
dominant ; it is the supreme motive to gratitude, 
humility, and self-sacrifice. The references in the 
writings of Ignatius are chiefly that the death of 
Christ on the cross reveals His love, and that through 
His death we become partakers of spiritual nourish- 
ment in His body and blood (cf. Trail, viii. and 
Rom. vi.)- Polycarp reminds his readers that 'the 
earnest of their righteousness' is Jesus Christ, who 
' bore our sins in His own body upon the tree ; who 
did not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, 
but endured all things for us, that we might live 
in Him' (Phil. yiii.). The Epistle ascribed to 
Barnabas deals with the subject in its relation to 
the sacrifices of the Jewish Temple, which are 
abolished in order that 'the new law of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of neces- 
sity, might have a human oblation' (ii.). The Son 
of God is spoken of as One who 'suffered that His 
stroke might give us lif e ' ; 'let us therefore believe 
that the Son of God could, not have suffered except 
for our sakes' (vi.). Our Lord's sufferings were 
necessary; why, it is not said. (For catena of 
quotations, consult R. W. Dale, The Atonement, 
270 ff. ; Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 
326 ff . ; Scott Lidgett, Spiritual Principle of Atone- 
ment, 420 ff .). 

. IV. CONCLUSION. 1. Is there an apostolic 
doctrine of the atonement? Clearly the passages 
we have examined, which form the data for a 
doctrine of atonement, are brief and fragmentary 
in character. It is frequently pointed out that the 
books from which they are taken are in no strict 
sense a unity, and were not written with the object 
of being related to each other to form a unified 
volume ; that they are only parts of a larger and 
richer whole which interpreted the faith of the 
Apostolic Age; that their unity is factitious.! 
This view is plausible. It must be admitted that 
the doctrine of atonement found no uniformity of 
expression in the Apostolic Church ; but there is 
little room for doubt that there existed a central 
unity around which varied statements consistently 
moved; the latter were not a mere fortuitous 
grouping ; they were orderly, and their movements 
were organized in response to a central gravity. 
The fact that the death of Christ had a direct re- 
lation to the forgiveness of sins and to the restora- 
tion of fellowship between God and man is funda- 

* Cf. Denney, Death of Christ. 276. 
t Ib. p. 2, for typical illustrations. 



122 



ATONEMENT 



ATONEMENT 



mental to the most divergent interpretations of the 
fact. The occasion of the reference, the purpose 
of the writers, and especially their immediate 
conception of the character of God and His relation 
to the moral order of the world, largely account for 
the varying forms of expression and illustration. 
For, taken apart, the aspects in which the death of 
Christ is viewed in the apostolic writings give 
sufficient warrant for the main types legal and 
ethical which mark the history of the doctrine in 
the subsequent thought of the Church. 

But the most critical survey of these aspects does 
not sanction the contention of some recent writers 
that an apostolic doctrine of the atonement can- 
not be constructed.* A perfect doctrine may be 
so deeply grounded and so many-sided that no 
personal or corporate thought can completely ex- 
pound it, and there may be many theories each 
having its value. The judgment expressed by 
R. F. Horton, ' The NT has no theory about the 
Atonement,'t is too easy a release from the in- 
tellectual necessity of seeking an interpretation of 
the profound fact which dominated the whole of 
the apostolic experience and teaching. The mate- 
rials are certainly present in the apostolic litera- 
ture for the construction of a theory and more, 
a theory itself is potentially present and virtually 
expressed in the common experience and preaching 
of apostolic times where it is not formally defined.} 
It is quite contrary to the spirit and attitude of 
the Apostolic Church to speak of the atonement, 
as Coleridge does, as 'the mysterious act, the 
operative cause transcendent. Factum est : and 
beyond the information contained in the enuncia- 
tion of the FACT, it can be characterized only by 
the consequences. '$ The apostolic writers regard 
fact and theory as permanently inseparable ; *re- 
conciliation' involves its 'logos,' and they attempt 
an explanation of the great fact which had become 
the ground and appeal of their evangel ; a fact of 
such a kind as the death of Christ, so rich in ra- 
tional, ethical, and emotional content, and appealing 
to the whole ethical and spiritual being of man, 
could not be left without a ' meaning.' The simple 
connexion in any degree of causal relation between 
the fact of the death of Christ and the experience 
of forgiveness of sins is itself a profound theory as 
well as the mother of theories. 

2. General character of the apostolic doctrine. 
This, as presented in the literature of the Apostolic 
Age, is a unity in diversity. The diversity is ap- 
parent ; it emerges as the stress of the interpreta- 
tion of the death of Christ falls upon that which is 
accomplished by it objectively to man's inner ex- 
perience and moral desert, in contrast with the effects 
subjectively achieved in the spiritual history of the 
individual believer and of the Christian community. 
The former represents what God does in and of and 
by Himself which, as exhibited in the life and death 
of His Son, justifies to Himself and in Himself the 
manifestation of His grace in the remission of sins ; 
the latter is what man experiences in actual cleans- 
ing from sin and in conscious reconciliation with 
God in Christ ; the former is represented as accom- 
plished once for all in the sacrificial obedience of 
Christ even unto death ; the latter is realized in the 
self-surrender of man under the constraint of the 
love of God in Christ, so that he enters into an in- 
ward spiritual fellowship with the suffering death of 
Christ, and in the power of his resurrection experi- 
ences the reality of ethical union with Christ ; the 
former is regarded as a finished work, the latter as 
a progressive achievement; the former is atone- 
ment, the latter is ' at-one-ment.' The presence of 
this diversity of view in the faith of the Apostolic 

* Cf. Life and Letters of Dean Church, London, 1895, p. 274.' 
t Faith and Criticism', London, 1893, p. 222. 
j Aids to Reflection, ed. London, 1913, Com. six. 



Church seems undeniable. Both aspects are dwelt 
upon ; neither appears to be adequate alone. Each 
is carried back to the abiding purpose of God and 
regarded as the interpretation of His eternal love ; 
the juridical stands for a reality in His nature as 
truly as the ethical ; much in the apostolic doctrine 
is not covered by the conception of atonement which 
represents it as a perfect confession of sin on behalf 
of man by Christ as man's Representative; the 
juridical conception is not fairly stated as an argu- 
mentum ad Judceos, or as the mere inheritance of 
Jewish thought. For, although the idea of literal 
substitution lay so near to hand in later Jewish 
theology and was everywhere enriched for them by 
historic and Divinely-appointed ritual observance, 
the apostolic thinkers so deepen and transfigure it 
that it no longer tolerates the superficial conven- 
tional idea of an easy or mechanical transfer of man's 
guilt and penalty to another so that the sinner is 
exempt from further responsibility. 

An objective view of atonement exaggerated into 
a system of imputations and equivalents is not found 
in the teaching of the Apostolic Church, neither is 
it ever set forth as a device for overcoming God's 
reluctance to forgive sins. We are presented rather 
with an intensely ethical conception of God's re- 
quirements and with a mystical view of man's rela- 
tion to Christ as the Representative of the race. 
Substitution is thus deepened into moral identifica- 
tion and solidarity ; even the outstanding feature 
of the apostolic view of atonement as ' propitiation ' 
is explicitly correlated with the ethical nature of 
God; behind the figures of speech and juridical 
phraseology the redeeming work of Christ is pre- 
sented as concerned primarily with personal rela- 
tions and moral realities. In this reference in 
the processes of reconciliation to the Divine purpose 
and activity ' God in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself' and, still further, in the recogni- 
tion of the fact that the sufferings of the righteous 
benefit the unrighteous, the unity of the apostolic 
doctrine is found. Objective and subjective views 
being thus regarded as manifestations of the self- 
imparting love of God, originating in Him, not 
in Christ apart from Him, justice and mercy as 
contrasted attributes in the Divine nature are tran- 
scended. The apostolic mind also rests more upon 
the declaration of the Divine righteousness in the 
blood of Christ than upon its satisfaction thereby. 
God declares Himself reconciled by something He 
had done whilst men were yet sinners. On Christ's 
part the reconciliation takes pkce through an act 
of self -emptying prior to, but manifest in, the Incar- 
nation, with its obedience unto death, even the death 
of the cross. The unity of 'objective' and 'sub- 
jective' is verified also in the true experience of 
personal redemption, which is never regarded in 
the apostolic teaching as adequate apart from an 
ethical surrender of the self to God in Christ by 
the obedience of faith. Union with God in Christ 
is in the apostolic teaching a closer definition of 
having 'received the reconciliation.' 

3. Finality and authority of the apostolic doc- 
trine. The interesting question whether the apo- 
stolic doctrine of the atonement is final for the 
thought of the Church and binding upon her teach- 
ers, is a phase of the living controversy respecting 
the permanent place of apostolic teaching in Chris- 
tian thought, and lies beyond the scope of this 
article. It must suffice to point out that the teach- 
ing of the Apostolic Church gives no sanction for 
the view that the illumination of the minds of men 
respecting the significance of the death of Christ is 
limited to one type of interpretation or to one 
generation of men. It is possible to recognize a 
distinction between the contingent thought-forms 
of the Apostolic Age and the essential spiritual life 
with its fundamental certainties in an experience 



ATONEMENT 



AUGUSTAN BAND 



123 



of reconciliation, made real by God in Christ, which 
these thought-forms sought to express. This ex- 
perience in the Apostolic Age, as in every other, 
was something more than a composite of the terms 
used in its interpretation, even when these terms 
were the coinage of the apostolic mind. The usual 
conditions for the discovery of truth which satisfies 
the intellectual nature will prevail here as else- 
where. The one way in which truth, which is the 
only reality having authority for the mind, reveals 
its authority is in taking possession of the mind 
for itself.* Truth justifies itself in the mind that 
receives it ; it derives its authority in the realm of 
the moral and spiritual by the experience it creates. 
The mind, once it has come to know itself, cannot 
submit to receive its convictions on blank authority ; 
even when that authority is an utterance of the 
apostolic mind, it must commend itself to the 
Christian consciousness by its power rationally to 
justify the facts to which that Christian conscious- 
ness knows it owes its existence. The question, 
therefore, whether the forms of the apostolic ex- 
planation of the relation of the death of Christ to 
the forgiveness of sins are final and binding upon 
faith, will depend upon their adequacy permanently 
to interpret the experience that Christian men will 
always owe to their knowledge of those facts in 
which the Christian experience first originated. The 
conviction that those facts have been mediated to 
the world through the Apostolic Church, will prob- 
ably always suggest that the apostolic explanation 
of them will antecedently be regarded with atten- 
tion commensurate with the unique value of its 
source. It seems fair, therefore, to expect that 
where the modern mind finds the unity of the apo- 
stolic doctrine of the atonement, it will also find 
its finality ; and, where finality is found, permanent 
authority is readily acknowledged. But finality is 
in the living truth of the doctrine, not in its human 



LITERATURE. I. More directly on the apostolic doctrine: A. 
B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, Edinburgh, 
1894 ; A. Cave, The Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice and 
Atonement*, do. 1890 ; T. J. Crawford, The Doctrine of Holy 
Scripture respecting the Atonement*, London, 1874 ; R. W. 
Dale, The Atonement, do. 1875 ('< 1892) ; J. Denney, The Death 
of Christ: its Place and Interpretation in the NT, do. 1902 ; 
R. J. Drummond, The Relation of the Apostolic Teaching to 
the Teaching of Christ, Edinburgh, 1900 ; C. C. Everett, The 
Gospel of Paul, Boston, 1893 ; J. Scott Lidgett, The r Spiritual 
Principle of the Atonement, London, 1897 ; E. Menegoz, Le 
Peche et la Redemption d'apres St. Paul, Paris, 1882, and La 
Theologie de I'Epitre aux Hebreux, Paris, 1894 ; G. Milligan, 
The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, 1899 ; 
G. F. Moore, art. 'Sacrifice' in EBi; A. Ritschl, Rechtferti- 
gung und Versohnung*, Bonn, 1895-1902 (Eng. tr. The Chris- 
tian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, by Mackintosh 
and Macaulay, 1902) ; W. Sanday, Priesthood and Sacrifice, 
London, 1900 ; A. Seeberg, Der Tod Christi, Leipzig, 1895 ; 
G. Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement as taught by the 
Apostles, Edinburgh, 1870 ; G. B. Stevens, The Christian Doc- 
trine of Salvation, do. 1905; W. L. Walker, The Gospel of 
Reconciliation, do. 1909 ; relevant sections in (a) Bible Diction- 
aries, (6) NT Theologies (esp. those of H. J. Holtzmann [1911], 
B. Weiss [ 3 1880], G. B. Stevens [1899]), (c) Commentaries on 
the Apostolic Epistles (esp. Sanday-Headlam and B. Jowett 
on Rom., and Westcott on Hebrews and the Johanuine 
writings). 

II. Dealing with the doctrine generally: Anselm, Cur 
Deus Homo f, 1098 ; E. H. Askwith, in Cambr. Theol. Essays, 
London, 1906, p. 175 ff. ; Athanasius, de Incarnatione (c. 360) ; 
A. Barry, The Atonement of Christ, London, 1871 ; A.B. Bruce, 
The Humiliation of Christ 1 *, Edinburgh, 1881, pp. 317^00 ; 
H. Bushnell, The Vicarious Sacrifice, London, ed. 1891 ; J. 
McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement*, do. 1878; 
R. S. Candlish, The Atonement : its Efficacy and Extent, do. 
1867 ; A. B. Davidson, OT Theology, Edinburgh, 1904, div. iii. 
ch. 2; D. C. Davies, The Atonement and Intercession of Christ, 
do. 1901 ; J. Denney, The Atonement and the Modern Mind, 
London, 1903 ; C. A. Dinsmore, Atonement in Literature and 
Life, Boston, 1906 ; A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in 
Modern Theology, London, 1893 ; P. T. Forsyth, The Crucial- 
ity of the Cross, do. 1909 ; C. C. Hall, The Gospel of the Divine 
Sacrifice, New York, 1896 ; T. Haring, Zur Versohnungslehre, 
Gottingen, 1893 ; W. Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mil 



* Cf. Denney, The Atonement and the Modern Mind, 6 ff. ; 
W. L. Walker, The Gospel of Reconciliation, 60 ff. 



Gott (Eng. tr. The Communion of the Christian with God, 
London, 1906) ; F. R. M. Hitchcock, The Atonement and 
Modern Thought, do. 1911; A. A. Hodge, The Atonement, 
Philadelphia, 1867; J. T. Hutchinson, A View of the Atone- 
ment, New York, 1897 ; T. W. Jenkyn, The Extent of the Atone- 
ment in its Relation to God and the Universe, Boston, 1835; J. 
Kaftan, Dogmatik, Tubingen, 1897, p. 531 ff. ; G. Kreibig, Die 
Versohnungslehre, Berlin, 1878 ; W. F. Lofthouse, Ethics and 
Atonement, London, 1906 ; A. Lyttelton, 'Atonement' in Lux 
Mundi 1 *, 1891, p. 201 ff. ; F. D. Maurice, The Doctrine of 
Sacrifice, new ed., London, 1893 ; R. C. Moberly, Atonement 
and Personality, do. 1901 ; W. H. Moberly, 'The Atonement* 
in Foundations, A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of 
Modern Thought, do. 1912; H. N. Oxenham, Catholic Doc- 
trine of the Atonement, London, 1865; E. A. Park, The Atone- 
ment, Boston, 1863 ; L. Pullan, The Atonement, London, 1906 ; 
J. Riviere, Dogme d# laredemption, Paris, 1905 ; A. Sabatier, 
La Doctrine de I'expiation et son evolution historique, do. 1903 
(Eng. tr., London, 1904) ; D. W. Simon, Reconciliation by In- 
carnation, Edinburgh, 1898 ; Turretin, On the Atonement of 
Christ, Eng. tr., New York, 1859 ; T. V. Tymms, The Chris- 
tian'Idea of the Atonement, London, 1904 ; W. L. Walker, The 
Cross and the Kingdom, Edinburgh, 1902; R. Wardlaw, The 
Extent of the Atonement, Glasgow, 1830; B. F. Westcott, 
The Victory of the Cross, London, 1888; G. C. Workman, At 
Onement, New York, 1911 ; The Atonementin Modern Religious 
Thought: a' Theological Symposium, London, 1900; relevant 
artt. in Bible Dictionarie&and sections in Systematic Theologies, 
e.g. W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, Edin- 
burgh, 1898, pp. 321-362 ; J. A. Dorner, A System of Christian 
Doctrine, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1880-82, iv. 1-124 ; C. Hodge, 
Systematic Theology, London, 1873, ii. 464-591 ; W. B. Pope, 
A Compendium of Christian Theology, ii. [London.1877] 141- 
316; W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ii. [Edinburgh, 
1889] 378 ff. ; A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, Philadelphia, 
1907, ii. 713 ff. FREDEKIC PLATT. 

ATTALIA ('ArraXefa, Tisch. and WH -la). This 
maritime city of Pamphilia was founded by, and 
named after, Attalus II. Philadelphus, king of 
Pergamos (159-138 B.C.), who desired a more con- 
venient haven than Perga (15 miles N.E.) for the 
commerce of Egypt and Syria. It was pictur- 
esquely situated on a line of cliffs, over which the 
river Catarrhactes rushed in torrents or cataracts 
to the sea. Attalia differed from its rival Perga, 
a centre of native Anatolian religious feeling, in 
being a thoroughly Hellenized city, honouring the 
usual classical deities Zeus, Athene, and Apollo. 
Paul and Barnabas sailed from its harbour to 
Antioch at the close of their first missionary tour 
(Ac 14 25 ). Both politically and ecclesiastically it 
gradually overshadowed Perga, and to-day it is 
the most flourishing seaport, with the exception of 
Marsina, on the south coast of Asia Minor. It 
has a population of 25000, including many Chris- 
tians and Jews, who occupy separate quarters. 
The name has been slightly modified into Adalia. 

i-/rrERATtrRE. W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor, 
London, 1890, p. 420 ; C. Lanckoronski, Villes de la Pamphylie 
et de la Pisidie, i. [Paris, 1890J. JAMES STRAHAN. 

AUGUSTAN BAND. During his voyage from 
Csesarea to Italy, St. Paul was in the charge of the 
centurion Julius, of the <nreipa 2eJa,<rn7, or ' Augus- 
tan cohort ' (Ac 27 1 RVm). Two widely different 
views prevail as to the composition of this body 
of soldiers. 

1. The theory of Schurer (HJP i. ii. 51 f.) is 
mainly based on data supplied by Josephus. 
While legionary soldiers, who were Roman citizens, 
were sent only to provinces of the first order, 
governed by legati, those of the second order, 
administered by procurators e.g. Judaea were 
garrisoned by auxiliary cohorts of provincials, each 
from 500 to 1000 strong, usually attended by an 
ala of cavalry, and each named after the city from 
which it was recruited, e.g. 'cohors Sebastenorum.' 
At the time of the death of Herod Agrippa (A.D. 
44) there was an ala of Kawapets and 2epa<rTT)vol 
with five cohorts stationed in Csesarea (Jos. Ant. 
xix. ix. 1 f.). For their indecent demonstrations 
of joy at the king's death, they were at first 
threatened with banishment, but were ultimately 
forgiven and taken over by the Romans. They 
are frequently referred to during the period A.D. 



124 



AUGUSTUS 



AUGUSTUS 



44-66 (Ant. XX. vi. 1 || BJ II. xii. 5 ; Ant. XX. viii. 
7 || BJ II. xiii. 7). In A.D. 67, Vespasian finally 
drafted from Ciesarea into his army five cohorts 
and one ala of cavalry (BJ III. iv. 2). Sclmrer 
holds that the ' Augustan cohort ' is undoubtedly 
one of these five cohorts. He does not, however, 
regard aireipa Se/ScwnJ as synonymous with ffireipa. 
2ej3offriivu>v. 2e/3a<mJ is rather a title of honour, 
equivalent to Augusta, and the full name of the 
cohort in question would probably be cohors 
Augusta Sebastenorum (HJP I. ii. 53). 

2. Mommsen, followed by Ramsay, attempts to 
connect the ffirelpa. 2ea<mJ with a body of officers 
detached from the foreign legions and known as 
frumentarii, who were employed under the Empire 
not only, as their name indicates, in connexion 
svith the commissariat, but as agents maintaining 
communications between the central government 
and the distant provinces. As they were con- 
stantly passing backwards and forwards, it was 
natural that prisoners should be entrusted to them, 
and in time they became hated as police-agents 
and spies. When Julius (q.v.), who on this theory 
was one of these couriers, arrived in Rome, he 
handed over his charge (Ac 28 16 , AV and RVm) to 
the ffTparoireSapxTis, which is commonly translated 
'captain of the Praetorian Guard.' Mommsen, 
however, thinks that the prcefectus prcetorio can- 
not have had laid upon him the humble duty of 
receiving prisoners, and prefers another interpreta- 
tion based upon the term princeps peregrinorum, 
which appears in an Old Lat. version (called Gigas) 
as the equivalent of ffTpaToveddpx^. Peregrini, 
' soldiers from abroad,' was the name given to the 
frumentarii while they resided at Rome, and their 
camp on the Caelian Hill was called Castra Pere- 
grinorum. It is suggested (1) that Luke, who as 
a Greek was careless of Roman forms and names, 
used the Greek term ffirelpa. 2e/3aaT^ not as the 
translation of an official Roman designation, but 
as 'a popular colloquial way of describing the 
corps of officer-couriers' (Ramsay, St. Paul 3 , 
London, 1897, p. 315) ; and (2) that his ffTparoired- 
dpxrjs is an equally unofficial title, for which the 
Latin translator, being more at home in Roman 
usages than Luke, was able to supply the correct 
technical term. It is admitted that 'this whole 
branch of the service is very obscure. Marquardt 
considers that it was first organized by Hadrian ; 
but Mommsen believes that it must have been 
instituted by Augustus' (ib. 349). The chief ob- 
jection to the present theory is that the foundation 
.seems too slender for the superstructure. There 
is no clear evidence that the title princeps peregri- 
norum came into use before the time of Septimius 
Severus (193-211). On the other hand, St. Paul's 
case would seem to be on all fours with that of an 
appellant mentioned in the correspondence of 
Trajan and Pliny (Ep. 57), regarding whom the 
Emperor gives this rescript : ' vinctus mitti ad 
praefectos praetorii mei debet.' 

LITERATURE. On the one side, Th. Mommsen, SitzungB- 
beriehte d. Berl. Akad., 1895, p. 495 f. ; W. M. Ramsay, loe. cit. 
supra; F. Rendall, Acts, London, 1897, p. 340. On the other 
side, Schiirer, loc. cit. ; Th. Zahn, Introd. to NT, Eng. tr., 
Edinburgh, 1909, i. 60, 551 ff. ; A. C. Headlam, art. ' Julius' in 
HDB ; P. W. Schmiedel in EBi i. 909. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

AUGUSTUS. 1. The name. The Lat. name 
Augustus occurs only once in the RV of the NT, 
namely in Lk 2 1 . The word, cognate with augur, 
had a sacred ring about it, having been applied 
(a) to places and objects which either possessed by 
nature or acquired by consecration a religious or 
hallowed character ; (b) to the gods. It was a new 
thing to apply it to a human being, and the Sen- 
ate felt and intended it to be so, when it conferred 
the title upon Octavian on 16 Jan., 27 B.C. By 
this title they went as near to conferring deifica- 



tion upon a human being as robust Italian common- 
sense would allow. ' It suggested religious sanctity 
and surrounded the son of the deified Julius with a 
halo of consecration ' (Bury, A History of the Roman 
Empire, 1893, p. 13). The official Gr. equivalent 
of Augustus was Se/3cwT6s. It is noteworthy that 
Luke in his own Greek narrative keeps the Latin 
word, whereas he puts the Greek Ze/3curr6s into the 
mouth of Festus(Ac 25 21 - 28 ; AV ' Augustus,' RV 
' the emperor,' RVm ' the Augustus '). The differ- 
ence is important. A Greek Christian like Luke 
could only use the word Sey3aor6s (which meant ' to 
be worshipped,' ' worthy of worship ') of God 
Himself : being a Greek, writing his own language, 
he had not the same objection to the foreign word 
Augustus, and he had to be intelligible. The 
absence of 6e6s (' god,' diuus), with the name of the 
deceased and deified Emperor in Lk 2 1 , is also 
perfectly consistent with the Christian attitude 
(on Ac 27 1 , see AUGUSTAN BAND). 

2. Life. The Emperor of whom we commonly 
speak as Augustus was originally named Gaius 
Octavius [Thurinus], like his father, and was born 
on 22 Sept., 63 B.C., the year of Cicero's consul- 
ship. The ancestral home of his race was Velitrse 
(modern Veletri) in the Volscian country, at no 
great distance from Rome. The family was 
equestrian and rich, the father of the future 
Emperor being the first of his race to enter the 
Senate. He had an honourable and successful 
official career, attaining to the praetorship and 
the governorship of the province of Macedonia. 
He died suddenly, and left three children, one of 
them the future Emperor (aged 4), whose mother 
was Atia. This Atia was the daughter of M. 
Atius Balbus and Julia, the sister of the great 
dictator Julius Caesar. Augustus was thus the 
grand-nephew of the dictator. He received the 
dress of manhood at 15, and was allowed to 
accompany his grand-uncle to Spain (47 B.C.), 
where he already showed the quality of courage. 
Soon after he was sent to Apollonia on the other 
side of the Adriatic, to pursue his studies. He 
was still there when the dictator was assassinated, 
on 15 March, 44 B.C. It was then that he re- 
vealed what was in him. Though only eighteen 
and a half years of age, he, having been adopted 
into the Julian family by the will of his grand- 
uncle, whose heir he was at the same time con- 
stituted, took the name Gaius Julius Caesar 
Octavianus, and immediately left for Italy, to 
claim not only the private out also the public 
inheritance of his grand-uncle. His great career 
is best followed in the next section. His private 
and family history may be summed up here. As 
a young man he was betrothed to a daughter 
of P. Servilius Isauricus, but he broke oft' this 
engagement, and for political reasons married 
Claudia, step-daughter of Mark Antony, in her 
extreme youth. Her he immediately divorced, 
and afterwards Scribonia, his second wife. Im- 
mediately after the second divorce he robbed 
Tiberius Claudius Nero of his wife, Livia Brasilia 
(38 B.C.), and with her he lived all the rest of his 
life. His immediate household consisted of her, 
her two sons by her previous husband, the future 
Emperor Tiberius (q.v.), and Drusus, as well as his 
own daughter Julia, Scribonia's child. Julia bore 
five children to the second of her three husbands, 
M. Vipsanius Agrippa, namely Gaius, Lucius, 
Agrippa, Julia, and Agrippina. Gaius and Lucius 
were adopted by their grandfather, but died early. 
All his direct descendants in fact died early or 
disgraced him, and he was forced to fall back on 
his step-son Tiberius for the succession. Drusus 
having perished in 9 B.C., Tiberius was compelled 
in his turn to adopt his nephew Germanicus. 
Augustus died 19 August, A.D. 14. 



AUGUSTUS 



AUTHORITIES 



125 



3. Official career. The stages in Augustus' 
official career may be summed up as follows. 
He was recognized by the Senate in 44 B.C. ; re- 
ceived pra?torian imperium against Antony, on 19 
August made consul (though hardly twenty years 
of age), elected triumuir rei publicce constituencies 
(with Antony and Lepidus) for five years, 43 ; 
appointed augur, 37 (or later) ; first conferment of 
tribunicia potestas, 36 ; between 37 and 34 elected 
XVuir sacris faciundis; 30, fourth consulship 
(hence annually, with certain exceptions, until 
the 13th was reached in 2 B.C.) ; 27, title Augustus 
and imperial powers ; 23, the tribunicia potestas 
conferred on him for life ; 22, a special cura 
annonce ; 18, imperial powers renewed for 5 years ; 
16 (before this date), elected septemuir epulonum ; 
15, coinage of gold and silver for the Empire 
reserved to Emperor ; 12, elected pontifexmaximus ; 
8, imperial powers renewed for ten years ; 2, 
received title of pater patrice ; A.D. 3, imperial 
powers renewed for ten years, and again in A.D. 
13. The 'deification ' took place on 17 Sept., 14. 

4. Achievements. This bare enumeration marks 
the steps by which the power of Augustus was 
gradually consolidated, and with it the Empire 
itself. The achievements of Augustus which led 
to this result can only be briefly enumerated. 
Amongst the most important, because without 
them nothing further could have been attained, 
are his military achievements. His military career, 
with few exceptions, was continuously successful. 
It began by the driving of Antonius into Gallia 
Transalpina (43 B.C.), and was followed up by the 
defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi (42), the 
defeat of Sextus Pompeius (36), and the defeat of 
Cleopatra and Antonius at Actium (31). At this 
point civil war ends, all his Roman enemies and 
rivals are removed, and he can give attention to 
frontier problems. A succession of frontier wars 
ends in victory for the Romans : in 19 the Cantabri 
were exterminated, in 15 the Raeti and Vindelici 
were conquered. The German wars gave great 
trouble throughout the later part of his reign, in 
which most valuable help was rendered by his 
step-sons Tiberius and Drusus. In the earlier 
period Augustus was most fortunate in possess- 
ing such an able lieutenant as M. Vipsanius 
Agrippa. 

In other respects also Augustus was extremely 
active in the spheres of law, religion, architecture, 
and building. He did all he could to restore the 
sapped virtue of the Italians by his encouragement 
of family life and his attempts to recover the 
simplicity of the ancient Italian religion. He 
was a patron of literature, and was greatly helped 
in his aims by the writings of Virgil and Horace. 
In all his schemes for the betterment of Rome, 
Maecenas, an Etruscan knight, himself a patron 
of literature, was his right-hand man. Among 
the important statutes passed were the Lex lulia 
de adulteriis (18 B.C.), the Lex de maritandis 
ordinibus, and the Lex Papia Poppcea all in the 
interests of a worthy family life, which Augustus 
recognized to be the indispensable foundation of a 
truly great State. The Lex JElia Sentia (4 B.C.) 
regulated the status of manumitted slaves, a large 
class of growing influence in the State (see 
CLAUDIUS). Augustus' interest in religion was 
shown by his acceptance of several sacred offices, 
as well as by the restoration of many decayed 
temples and rituals. His boast that he had found 
Rome made of brick and left it made of marble 
probably means no more than that he faced the 
(regular) brick core of buildings with marble slabs, 
but he certainly spent vast sums on building. 
Among the most important monuments of his 
reign are the Portus lulins (37 B.C.), the Tern plum 
Diui luli (29), the temple of Apollo on the Palatine 



Hill, equipped with public libraries of Greek and 
Latin literature (28), and the theatre of Marcellus 
(11). The personal ability of Augustus is some- 
times unjustly depreciated. It may be questioned 
if he owed more than inspiration to his grand- 
uncle. 

5. Administration. The Emperor's administra- 
tion covered not only the whole of Italy, but the 
imperial (or frontier) provinces, where an army 
was required. He had financial agents also in the 
senatorial provinces. The great achievement of 
Augustus was that he ruled the Roman Empire as 
a citizen (though the chief citizen, princeps), under 
constitutional forms. In theory the Empire ceased 
with the death of the Emperor, but under these 
constitutional forms he laid the foundations of a 
lasting despotism. Luke refers in 2 1 to a census 
of the whole Empire ordered by him. This was 
one of his administrative reforms, and the census 
recurred every 14 years. A census of Roman 
citizens, as distinguished from subjects of the 
Empire, was taken twice in his reign, in 28 and 
8 B.C. Cf. art. C.ESAR. 

LITERATURE. There are many vexed questions connected 
with the career of Augustus, which will make one always regret 
that T. Mommsen did not write the fourth volume of his 
Romiscfie Geschichte, which was to cover Augustus* reign ; cf., 
however, the second edition of the Hes Gestce Dim Augusti 
(Berlin, 1883), edited by him; V. Gardthausen's Augustus und 
seine Zeit, Leipzig, 1891 ff. (2 parts, each in three volumes, 
first part text, second part notes), has not filled the gap. 
Chronology of chief events is best given by J. S. Reid in A 
Companion to Latin Studies (ed. J. E. Sandys, Cambr. 1910), 
129 ff. The theory of the Empire is best expounded in the same 
writer's chapter in the Cambridge Mediaeval History, i., Cambr. 
1911 ; a splendid account is found also in H. F. Pelham, Out- 
lines of Roman History, London, 1893 ; A. v. Domaszewski's 
Gesch. der ram. Kaiser, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1909, vol. i. pp. 11-250, 
by a master of Roman history and antiquities ; etc. The chief 
ancient authorities are the MonumentumAneyranum,8ueiomuB' 
Life of Augustus, Velleius Paterculus, Appian, Dio Cassius, and 
the early chapters of Tacitus. A. SOUTER. 

AUTHOR AND FINISHER. In He 12 2 Jesus is 
called the ' author (AV and RV ; AVm ' beginner,' 
RVm ' captain ') and finisher ( AV ; RV ' perfecter ') 
of (our) faith.' The Gr. word rendered 'author' 
(<*PXTy<fr) occurs in three other passages, viz. Ac 3 18 
5 S1 and He 2 10 . It is translated ' captain ' in He 2 10 
(AV; but RV 'author'); in Ac 3 15 'prince' (AV 
and RV ; AVm and RVm ' author ') ; in Ac 5 81 
' prince.' In classical Greek it is used for a ' leader,' 
one who precedes others by his example, and so for 
an ' originator.' 

The reference in He 12 2 is to the previous chapter. 
The writer, in summing up the list of heroes of faith, 
bids us look unto Jesus, who is pre-eminently the 
Leader in that great company, and the Perfect 
Example of that virtue of which to a certain extent 
they have been witnesses. The insertion of the 
word ' our ' in the E V obscures the meaning. ' The 
faith ' refers to that which has been the main theme 
of ch. 11. 

Alford, Bleek, Ebrard, Wordsworth, and A. B. 
Davidson translate dpx?ry6s in He 12 2 by ' leader ' ; 
Wyclif has ' the maker ' ; but Tindale, Cranmer, 
the Geneva and the Rheims all have ' author.' 

As Jesus is the Leader in the great army of the 
Faith, so is He also the Finisher or Perfecter 
(reXetornfc). Therefore we run the race looking 
unto Him as our Leader and the only one who can 
sustain us to the end and perfect that which He 
has begun (cf. Davidson, in loc.). 

MORLEY STEVENSON. 

AUTHORITIES. The word occurs thrice in the 
English NT: Lk 12" RV (AV 'powers'; Gr. 
^ovo-lai), Tit 3 1 RV ( AV ' powers ' ; Gr. eowrtei), and 
1 P 3 22 (Gr. ^ovffiai). This is by no means a com- 
plete list of the occurrences of ^ovtria (sing, and 
plur.) in a quasi-concrete sense in the NT. It is 
characteristic that in the first and second of these 
places the word should be united with dpxal, and 



126 



AUTHORITY 



BABBLER 



in the third with dwdfiea. This collocation of 
words denoting power in some manifestation or 
other is due to the later Jewish theology, which 
postulated the existence of a number of spiritual 
powers (cf. artt. DOMINION, POWER, PRINCIPALITY, 
THRONE, etc.) inhabiting the air. These powers 
were denned in Greek under the various aspects of 
56va/jus (physical force), tipxt (magisterial power), 
and ^ovffla (moral authority). At first each of the 
words was, no doubt, intended to carry a precise 
signification, and the complete list would comprise 
every sort of spiritual power man could conceive ; 
but later the enumeration became so familiar as to 
be repeated without any clear distinction between 
the individual terms (so 1 P 3 M ). The frequency 
of the use to indicate spiritual powers has a reflex 
effect. The word ov<rlai is used in the first and 
second passages with reference to earthly powers. 
It does not seem possible to say precisely what 
powers are intended, but in the Gospel passage 
(where the wording is peculiar to Luke) it is prob- 
able that the Sanhedrin and the Roman procurator 
of Judaea would be included, while in the Titus 
Epistle the reference is to all those set in authority 
over the people the Emperor, the governor and his 
suite, as well as the local magistrates. See also 
the following article. A. SOUTER. 

AUTHORITY. This word, which occurs much 
more frequently in RV than in AV, in most cases 
represents the Gr. ov<ria. It is used of delegated 
authority in Ac 9 14 26 10 - 12 ; of the authority of an 
apostle in 2 Co 10 8 and 13' (RV) ; of earthly rulers 
('authorities') in Tit 3 1 (RV), cf. Lk 12"; and in 
RV of Apocalypse is substituted frequently for AV 
' power ' ; cf. Rev 6 8 12 10 13 4 ' 12 17 ia (in 17 U it replaces 
AV ' strength '). Yet in many places RV still re- 
tains 'power ' as the translation of ^ova-la ; cf . Ac 
8 19 , Cofl", Ro 13 1 ' 3 , Rev 9 10 11 etc. In 1 Co II 10 
f^ovffla. is used in a peculiar sense ( ' for this cause 
ought the woman to have ovfflav on her head, 
because of the angels'), where a veil appears to be 
meant. Here AV gives ' power,' RV ' a sign of 
authority,' with 'have authority over* in the 
margin. 

In several passages tfrwla. is used to designate a 
created being superior to man, a spiritual potentate, 
viz. 1 Co 15- 4 , Eph I 21 , Col 2 10 , and, in the plural, 
Eph 3 W 6 u f Col I 16 2", 1 P 3 ffl . In 1 Co 15 2 * and 1 P 



3 W , AV and RV render ' authority ' and RV also in 
Eph I 21 , the reason probably being that StvafM also 
occurs in these verses for which the word ' power ' 
was needed. In the other references the transla- 
tion is 'power' or 'powers.' Seeing that f^ova-iai 
appear to be a class of angelic beings distinct from 
duvd/jieis, it would have been conducive to clearness 
if the word ' authority' had been used in all these 
passages. In Eph 6 1 * evil principles are obviously 
referred to (cf. 2 2 ) ; in 1 Co 15- 4 both good and evil 
angels may be included (Lightfoot, Col.* 1879, p. 
154). See, further, under PRINCIPALITY, and cf. 
the preceding article. 

In a few places 'authority' in AV represents 
other Gr. words, viz. Ac 8 -J7 AV, RV, ' a eunuch of 
great authority' (SwdorT/s) ; 1 Ti 2 2 AV ' for kings 
and for all that are in authority' (iv virtpoxy), RV 
' in high place ' ; 1 Ti 2 12 A V ' I suffer not a woman 
. . . to usurp authority over the man' (aMevreTv 
dvdp6s), RV ' to have dominion over ' ; Tit 2 18 ' re- 
buke (AV reprove) with all authority ' (fwirayTj^). 

W. H. DUNDAS. 

AVENGING. See VENGEANCE. 

AZOTUS (*Af WTO j). Azotus, the Gr. form of 
' Ashdod,' occurs often in 1 Mac. (4 15 S^IO 77 - etc. ), 
and once in the NT. St. Philip met the Ethiopian 
on ' the way that goes down from Jerusalem to 
Gaza,' and, after baptizing him, ' was found at 
Azotus ' (Ac 8 26> 40 ). Ashdod was the most import- 
ant of the Philistine cities which formed the Penta- 
polis. Situated midway between Joppa and Gaza 
about 25 miles from each it passed through 
many vicissitudes. It appears often in the histori- 
cal and prophetic books of the OT, in the Assyrian 
records, in the Maccabaean annals, and in Josephus. 
Herodotus (ii. 157) says that the siege which Azotus 
endured before it was subdued by Psammeticus, 
king of Egypt, was the longest on record, lasting 29 
years. Ashdod survives in the modern Esdud, a 
village on the slope of a wooded artificial mound (tell) 
once, no doubt, a strong fortress about 3 miles 
from the sea-coast, where the traces of a harbour 
have been found. The ancient city lies beneath the 
sand-drift that now threatens to bury the mud 
hovels of the village, among which some remains 
of old stone buildings are to be seen. The wide 
plain to the east is exceedingly fertile. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 



B 



BAAL. Baal (Ro 11, in a quotation from 1 K 
19 18 ) was a generic name for a god among Semitic 
peoples, the literal meaning being 'owner' or 'lord.' 
Attempts have been made to show that this was the 
original name of the Sun-god, or that it represents 
the Supreme Being worshipped by the Canaan- 
ites. Neither of these contentions can be proved ; 
indeed it is evident that the Baal of one place 
differed from that of another. Thus the reference 
in the text is to Melkart, the Baal of Tyre. The 
feminine article (ry BadX) in the Greek of Ro 1 1 4 
is due to the frequent substitution of bdsheth 
(in Greek ato*^), 'shame,' for Baal by the 
Hebrews.* 

HTBRATURK. A. S. Peake, art. 'Baal' in HDB; G. F. 
Moore in BBi ; L. B. Paton in ERE W. R. Smith, RS*, 
London, 1894, p. 93 ff. p. \y. WORSLEY. 

* Hence frequently in LXX ^ BooA (=^ OMFXVITJ), though in 
1 E 1918 the reading is T<? BooA. 



BABBLER (Ac IT 18 ). Augustine and Wyclif 
wrongly derive the word ffirep/M>\6yos from ffiretpw 
\6yow and translate it ' sower of words.' It is 
properly derived from ffirtpjM, ' seed,' and \&yeii>, 
' to gather.' Originally an adjective, the derived 
substantive was used of small birds gathering 
crumbs (Aristophanes, Av. 233, 580). It was after- 
wards applied to loafers in the market-place who 
gained a precarious livelihood by what they could 
pick up, and it thus connotes ' a vulgar fellow,' ' a 
parasite.' Greek writers used it as a term of con- 
tempt for plagiarists and pseudo-philosophers (cf. 
Eustathius on Homer, Odyss. v. 490), and Zeno 
thus names one of his followers. W. M. Ramsay 
(St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, 1895, 
p. 242) speaks of the word as ' characteristically 
Athenian slang, clearly caught from the very lips 
of the Athenians.' The word thus contemptuously 
implies one who is an outsider and yet wishes to 
pose as one of the inner circle, and probably does 



BABBLINGS 



BAJS r D 



127 



not refer to anything that the Apostle had said. 
It would seem, therefore, that the expression was 
used by the philosophers who have just been 
mentioned rather than by the populace in general. 
They resented the intrusion of one who had no 
credentials, and from the first viewed him with 
hostility (see, further, Ramsay, ' St. Paul in Athens,' 
in Expositor, 5th ser., ii. [1895] 262 ff. 

F. W. WORSLEY. 

BABBLINGS (1 Ti 6 20 , 2 Ti 2 16 jSe^Xous K evo$wvlca). 
The ' profane babblings, and the oppositions of 
the knowledge which is falsely so called' are all 
profitless speculation and empty religious talk 
which only minister questions, but have no value 
in the equipment of a man of God, or in the build- 
ing up of the Church. The implied contrast is 
between intellectualism in religion and genuine 
piety in heart and life (cf. F. Godet, Expositor, 
3rd ser., vii. [1888] 45 ff.). 

Some have seen in ' the oppositions (iuniOeffeis) 
of the knowledge which is falsely so called,' a 
reference, covert or open, to Marcion's Antitheses ; 
but this has scarcely been made out, and it is better 
to take the words as pointing to an incipient 
Gnosticism, hardly yet conscious of itself, against 
which the writer be he St. Paul or a Paulinist 
warns his readers (cf. M. Dods, Introd. to NT, 
London, 1888, p. 174). The Greek mind was always 
desirous of being saved by dialectic, and ready to 
hear or to tell some newer thing (cf. Ac 17 M ). In 
the fermenting vat of the Greek cities in the Apos- 
tolic as well as in the sub-Apostolic Age there were 
frothy, windy men who knew everything about 
religion except ' the practick part ' (cf. Didache, 
ii. 40-45 : OVK to-rat 6 \6yos ffov ^ei/Sifc, ou Kerbs, dXXd 
pefj.effrwfj.tvos irpdei ' Thy speech shall not be false, 
nor empty, but filled with doing '). Practical piety 
is the writer's theme, and he calls Christians to 
cultivate simplicity as it is in Jesus; not to lose 
themselves in a cloud of words, but to be direct 
and devout. Cf. A. Rowland (1 Tim., London, 
1887) : ' It is easier to quibble over Christ's words 
than to imitate His life.' To the same effect, 
Butler (Charge to the Clergy) advises them 'not to 
trouble about objections raised by men of gaiety 
and speculation,' but to endeavour to beget a prac- 
tical sense of religion ' upon the hearts of the 
people ' (cf. EBi iv. 5094). 

The standing type of the religious babbler is 
Bunyan's ' Talkative,' who will ' talk of things 
Heavenly or things Earthly . . . things sacred or 
things profane, things past or things to come, 
things more essential or things circumstantial.' 
To this masterly characterization ' of the evil ex- 
cesses of some of the prophets, lunatic preachers, 
and loquacious hypocrites ' in Puritan times may 
be added R. H. Hutton's description (Contemporary 
Thought and Thinkers, London, 1894, i. 257) of a 
certain rampant sceptic of yesterday as a man 
'hurling about wildly loose thoughts over which 
he has no intellectual control.' These are the 
profane babblers of the Pastoral Epistles. They 
were not only unsettling to the Church ' If I had 
said " I will speak thus," I should have been faith- 
less to the generation of thy children,' Ps 73 16 
but the unreal words corrupted the babbler himself, 
as the writer not obscurely hints. His nature 
is subdued to what he works among (cf. Emerson : 
' I cannot listen to what you are saying for thinking 
of what you are '). 

To use unreal words, to be constantly dealing 
with the greatest things, and yet to be too shallow 
or flippant to realize their majesty, was, in the 
Apostolic Age, and ever since has been, the peculiar 
snare and peril of religious speakers, and gives 
point to the taunt of Carl vie : ' When a man takes 
to tongue-work, it is all over with him.' The 
Carthusian student who went to a teacher and got 



the text ' I will take heed to my ways that I sin not 
with my tongue,' found that enough for a lifetime. 
On the whole subject Newman's lines (' Flowers 
without Fruit,' in Verses on Various Occasions) are 
an apt and instructive commentary : 

' Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control 
That o'erthee swell and throng.' 

LITERATURE. In addition to the works cited above, see 
A. Whyte, Bunyan Characters, i. [Edinburgh, 1895] 180 ; J. 
Kelman, The Road, i. [do. 1911] 180 ; Joseph iiutler, Sermons, 
ed. Gladstone, Oxford, 1896, no. 4. W. M. GRANT. 

BABYLON. See APOCALYPSE and PETER, FIRST 
EPISTLE OF. 

BACKBITING. See EVIL-SPEAKING. 

BALAAM. The somewhat prominent place 
that Balaam holds in the Apostolic Age may be 
appraised by the three references to him in the 
NT (2 P 2 18 , Jude ", and Rev 2 14 ) ; by the legends 
which grew round his name in Hellenistic and 
Haggadic literature, and later in Muhammadanism ; 
and perhaps by the apparent popularity of the dis- 
cussion of the ' Blessings of Balaam ' by Hippolytus. 
Balaam has become the representative of false 
teachers and sorcerers, and we may suspect a play 
on his name in Rev 2 14 (perhaps = ' lord of the 
people'), in order to brand certain Gnostic teachers 
as making gain for themselves out of the simple 
folk by the use of magic and by the teaching of a 
gnosis which tended to laxity of practice. (It is 
not improbable that in the Nicodemus of Jn 3 is 
enshrined a counter-play of words the Jewish 
party also, it is hinted, had a false and carnal 
doctrine of their own. ) Balaam becomes in legend 
a counsellor of Pharaoh ; he and his two sons 
Jannes and Jambres (q.v.) were compelled to flee 
from Egypt to Ethiopia, where Balaam reigned as 
king till conquered by Moses. On this he and his 
sons returned to Egypt and became the master- 
magicians who opposed Moses. Finally, Phinehas 
attacked Balaam, who by his magic flew into the 
air, but was killed by Phinehas in the power of the 
Holy Name. See NICOLAITANS ; also JE ii. 468 f . 

W. F. COBB. 

BALAK. Balak is named in Rev 2 14 along with 
Balaam. Like Balaam (q.v.), Balak is to be re- 
garded here as a typical figure. The former 
teaches doctrine which is false in itself, corrupt in 
its motive, and immoral in its fruits ; while Balak 
is, as in the OT, the heathen power which thrusts 
Balaam's sorceries on the faithful. It is difficult 
to resist the conclusion that, if Balaam is the 
teacher of Gnosticism, Balak is the Roman power 
which has adopted syncretism and seeks to compel 
the Christians to adopt its ways also, and so makes 
them fall into the corruptions attendant on pagan 
worship. W. F. COBB. 

BAND (ffireTpa, always 'cohort 'in RVm). As a 
province of the second rank, governed by pro- 
curators, Judaea was not garrisoned by legionaries, 
who were Roman citizens, but by auxiliaries, who 
were levied from subject races. Each cohort, vary- 
ing from 500 to 1000 infantry, usually strengthened 
by an a/a of cavalry, was named after the Greek 
city from which it was recruited ' cohors Sebas- 
tenorum, Ascalonitarum,' etc. The Jews them- 
selves were exempted from military service. 
Various data supplied by Jpsephus (see the refer- 
ences in Schiirer, HJP I. ii. 51 f.) indicate that 
the Judsean forces were originally the troops of 
Herod the Great, which were taken over by the 
Romans after the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6. 
At ordinary times Jerusalem was garrisoned by 
one cohort called by Josephus a rdy/jM (BJ V. v. 8) 
which was stationed at the tower of Antonia, on 



128 



BAPTISM 



BAPTISM 



the north side of the Temple, under the com- 
mand of a chiliarch (Ac 21 31 ). Part of this cohort 
200 infantry, 70 horsemen, and 200 3eioX<ifot, an 
obscure term translated 'spearmen' (see Schurer, 
op. cit. 56) formed St. Paul's protecting convoy 
when he was transmitted by Claudius Lysias to 
the governor Felix in Caesarea. 

JAMES STRAHAN. 

BAPTISM. 1. Christian baptism in the NT. 
It will be convenient at the beginning of this article 
to collect the narratives of and allusions to Chris- 
tian baptism in the NT. The command of our 
Lord to make disciples of all the nations by bap- 
tism (Mt 28 19 ; see below, 4 and 8) was faithfully 
carried out by the first disciples. Actual bap- 
tisms are recorded in Ac 2 s8 - tt (the 3000 converts), 
gizf. 36 (Samaritans, men and women, and Simon), 
8 36. ss (the Ethiopian eunuch), 9 18 22 16 (Saul),