Full text of "The earlier epistles of St. Paul : their motive and origin"

THE LIBRARY

of
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

Toronto

THE EARLIER EPISTLES
OF ST. PAUL

THE

EARLIER EPISTLES
OF ST. PAUL

THEIR MOTIVE AND ORIGIN

BY
KIRSOPP LAKE

SECOND EDITION

RIVING TONS

34, KING STREET, CO VENT GARDEN

LONDON

1914

U i 1 1 H
THEOLGCiCAL CO

l_3

1914

TO
THE SENATUS ACADEMICUS

OF THE

UNIVERSITY 01 ST. ANDREWS

PREFACE

nn HE difficulty which undoubtedly attends any attempt
-* to understand the Epistles of St. Paul is largely due
to the fact that they are letters ; for the writer of a letter
assumes the knowledge of a whole series of facts, which are,
as he is quite aware, equally familiar to his correspondent
and to himself. But as time goes on this knowledge is
gradually forgotten, and what was originally quite plain
becomes difficult and obscure ; it has to be rediscovered
from stray hints and from other documents by a process of
laborious research, before it is possible for the letters to be
read with anything approaching to the ease and intelligence
possessed by those to whom they were originally sent. It is
necessary to reconstruct the story of the motive and origin of
the letters, and create a picture of the background of thought
and practice against which they were set in the beginning.

The following pages are an attempt to do this for the
earlier Epistles of St. Paul. I have not tried to give a
description of St. Paul s own thoughts I trust that I may
attempt this task later but to reconstruct the background,
a knowledge of which renders it possible to read the Epistles
with intelligence ; and for this purpose two main types of
problems have been attacked.

viii THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

In the first place, an effort has been made to deal with
the literary and critical questions introductory to these letters,
concerning their integrity, destination, and history. These
problems are often somewhat tedious, but they acquire
interest if they are seriously studied, and in any case they
cannot be neglected by those who desire to have a real grasp
of the nature of early Christian literature.

Secondly, attention has been given to the intricate
question of the world of religious thought to which the
earliest Gentile Christians belonged the world of the
Hellenistic Mystery Religions. This is much more difficult,
and much more important, but has as yet been much less
adequately studied than the more purely literary questions.
Students of the New Testament have been somewhat slow
to grasp its importance, or to make use of the rich material
which has been given by classical and archaeological scholars,
such as (if I may mention two names out of a great number)
Cumont and Reitzenstein.

Nevertheless, I have no fear but that the immediate
future will make good the remissness of the past. The
study of the religious life of the Graeco- Roman world as a
whole is now fully recognized to be absolutely necessary
if we do not wish our notions about early Christianity to be
a mere caricature of the truth.

There is, however, one subsidiary point to which I have
drawn attention in more than one chapter, and desire to
emphasize once more, the psychological aspect of religion.
To understand the history of religions we must understand

PREFACE IX

the psychology of religious men. I have endeavoured in the
following pages to use what knowledge of psychology I
possess, but I am confident that this method ought to be
extended far more widely. The difficulty is due to our
ignorance of co-ordinated facts, and this again is partly
caused by the unnatural limitation of the modern study of
theology.

We desire to arrive at an intelligent understanding of
religion ; we grow old and weary in the study of texts and
inscriptions, and we do well, for they have much to teach
us ; but we forget that religion is to be found in men, not
in manuscripts, and we need to take a lesson from our
brothers the doctors. They are the students of the body,
as we are of the soul ; they make the centre of their work
the study of the body as it is found here and now, and their
use of the books of past generations is always subsidiary to
that study. It is the fatal mistake of the theologian to think
that he can do otherwise, and understand the soul from the
study of ancient books. Our great need at present is the
study of the living soul, and I venture to say this, because it
is, among other more important things, very necessary for
the study of those Epistles on which I am writing.

KIRSO1T LAKE.

LEIDKN, September, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER FACE

I. THE OUTLINE GIVEN IN ACTS OF EVENTS IN ST. PAUL S

LIFE

II. THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY, THE GENTILE CONVERTS,

AND THE BACKGROUND OF GENTILE CHRISTIANITY . 14

APPENDIX THE TEXT OF THE APOSTOLIC DECREES . 48

III. THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS 61

IV. CORINTH 102

APPENDIX I. THE APOCRYPHAL CORRESPONDENCE

OF ST. PAUL WITH THE CORINTHIANS . . . 236

APPENDIX II. GLOSSOI.ALIA AND PSYCHOLOGY . . 241

V. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 253

APPENDIX I. GALATIA, KINGDOM AND PROVINCE . . 309

MAP SHOWING THE BOUNDARIES OF GALATIA To face page 316

APPENDIX II. THE TEXT OF ACTS xn. 25 . . .317

APPENDIX III. ST. PAUL S JOURNEY TO ARABIA . . 320

VI. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 324

APPENDIX THE TKXTUAL EVIDENCE OF THE GROUP

DEFG 4U

VII. CONCLUSION 421

INDEX 449

CHAPTER I

THE OUTLINE GIVEN IN ACTS OF EVENTS
IN ST. PAUL S LIFE

FT needs no argument to show that the problems 7
1 concerning the Pauline Epistles can only be stated,
much less solved, in connection with the evidence of the
Acts. In the Acts we have not, indeed, any attempt
to give an account of all St. Paul s work, but we have an
outline of a great part of it, and in some places detailed
information as to his journeys, which it is impossible to
overvalue. This outline of the course of events is the
necessary basis of any attempt to reconstruct the back
ground of the Epistles. Fortunately, it is quite easy to
follow, and presents in itself hardly any serious difficulties.
The writer of Acts takes us from city to city with St. Paul,
and often gives us some indication of the time spent in
each, so that with surprisingly few exceptions we can
reconstruct St. Paul s route, and (though here the degree
of certainty is markedly less) the duration of his work in
various districts.

Nevertheless, the matter is occasionally complicated by
a series of critical questions, some of which in turn depend
on the Epistles. Therefore we are to some extent dealing,
in connection with St. Paul, with a problem involving two
factors, one of which must always be assumed as certain
when the other is under discussion, though neither can

i B

2 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS

really be finally treated as possessing its assumed stability.
Ideally the proper method is first to assume one factor,
and afterwards to consider the necessary correction to be
allowed for, owing to the possible range of error in the
assumption. But in practice certain limitations can be
usefully observed in carrying out such a plan. It is
neither necessary nor desirable to fight all over again the
battle of the Acts in the spirit of Zeller, or of his immediate
opponents. Zeller x is still worth reading, but even though
half a century of criticism has not been able to settle
all the problems which have been raised in connection
with the Acts, it has gone some way towards reducing them
to manageable dimensions, so that for the purpose of the
present book, which is concerned primarily with the
Epistles, it is possible within very short limits to present
a sufficient statement of the subject, showing the points
on which there is especial room for doubt, and the
general position which most commends itself to those who
have fully investigated the Acts.

It would be generally admitted that the central point
of all study of the Acts is the " we-clauses," in which the
writer speaks of himself and St. Paul in the first person
plural. These clauses, by an almost unanimous consent, are
regarded as the work of a companion of St. Paul ; and
there is scarcely less agreement in tracing most of the
important facts of the " Pauline " half of Acts to the same
source. The contentious points are concerned with the
relation of this writer to the redactor, and with the earlier
or " Petrine " half of the book. Many critics, by no means

1 Die Apostelgeschichte nach ihrem Inhalt und Ursprung kritisch unte rsucht,
1854. Published in English by Williams and Norgate in 1875 as The Contents
and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles.

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 3

belonging to an extreme school, think that the " we-clauses "
and the source to which they belong which is very
commonly recognized to have been the work of St. Luke,
the friend of St. Paul ought to be distinguished from the
final redactor, who may have lived in the last days of
the first century, and have compiled the Third Gospel and
Acts from earlier documents. Others think that the writer
of the " we-clauses " was himself the redactor, whom they
identify with St. Luke, and consider that he used the first
person in order to indicate the occasions on which he
had been actually present at the incidents described.
Professor Harnack s studies on the question 1 have done
much to commend the latter opinion, but he has not yet
succeeded in obtaining such a measure of agreement as to
justify a writer on the Epistles in disregarding the alter
native view. 3 This question is not, however, of the first
importance for the present subject, as there is in any case
something approaching unanimity in assigning a high
value to the " Pauline " half of Acts, though its accuracy is
still questioned on some individual details ; these will be
considered, so far as is necessary, when they are met with
in discussing the Epistles. Far more serious is the problem
raised by the " Petrine " half of the Acts. Here it is
conceded generally that the redactor, whether he was St.

1 Untersuchungm ju den Schriften des Luk&gt;is, Hiurichs, 1906-8. These
studies were originally published in three volumes, under the titles of Lukas
der Arzt, Spr uche und Reden jbsu, and Die Apostelgeschichte. They have been
published in English by Williams and Norgate, as Luke the Physician, The
Sayings and Words of Jesus, and The Acts of the Apostles.

2 No special book more recent than Ilarnack can be cited ; but very impor
tant articles will be found in the Theol. Literaturzeitung, vol. xxxiii. pp. 172-6,
by Schiirer ; in the Theologische Rundschau, vol. xi. pp. 185-205, by Bousset ;
in the American Journal of Theology* vol. xi. pp. 454-474, by Bacon ; and in
\heZcitschrift fur wiss. Theologie, vol. 1. pp. 176-214, by Hilgenfeld. Bousset s
article gives a full account of all recent studies of the Acts of any importance.

4 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS

Luke or a later writer, was using various sources ; but there
is no agreement as to whether these sources were written
or oral, or, if they were written, Greek or Aramaic. It is also
generally conceded that these sources were not all of equal
value, and that some difficulties in the opening narratives
can best be explained on the hypothesis that the redactor, or
one of his sources, had misunderstood the narrative. The
importance of this fact for the Pauline Epistles is chiefly in
connection with the Judaistic controversy. If, for instance,
we assume that the redactor of Acts, as redactors are wont
to do, made two incidents out of two narratives of the
same incident, we have to face the possibility that Acts has
multiplied the visits of St. Paul to Jerusalem, and this is
an important factor in considering the problem of the
relation between the visit mentioned in Gal. ii. and the
Apostolic Council.

It will be seen that it will be necessary in the end to
consider several points of this nature in relation to the
Epistles ; but the clearest method seems unquestionably to
be found in starting with the narrative of Acts as we have
in the ordinary Greek text, using this as the working
hypothesis from which a study of the historical side of the
Epistles must begin, and taking into consideration in the
course of this study the modifications rendered possible
by the criticism of the Acts. The narrative of the Acts,
which it is proposed to use in this way, is familiar to
every one, but for convenience it is perhaps not super
fluous to state in the shortest possible summary the facts
w hich it contains relating to St. Paul.

The Acts describe St. Paul as a Roman citizen, 1 a Jew of

1 Acts xxii. 25-29.

ST. PAULS CONVERSION 5

Tarsus, 1 called Saul in Jewish circles, who had been
educated in Jerusalem under the guidance of Gamaliel. 2
He was a zealous defender of a strict Pharisaic Judaism, 3
and took part in the persecution of Christians. 4 He was
at his own request employed in this connection by the
High Priest to go to Damascus in the interests of the
anti-Christian Jewish propaganda, 5 but on the way to that
city he was suddenly converted by a vision of the risen Lord
to believe the doctrine, which he had hitherto repudiated,
that the Messiah was Jesus, and became as zealous a
defender of Christianity, as he had previously been a
persecutor of it. 6

After his conversion he went first to Damascus, 7 where
he was cured of the temporary blindness which had be
fallen him, and was baptized by Ananias, a Christian of
Damascus, 8 who had been told in a vision to do this.
Here he stayed for some time, preaching Christianity in
the Jewish synagogues, but when the Jews became enraged
at his gospel 9 he escaped to Jerusalem, where the disciples
were at first afraid of him, but afterwards accepted him
on the recommendation of St. Barnabas. 10 He then spent
some time in Jerusalem arguing with the Greek-speaking
Jews, but when a plot was formed to kill him the disciples
sent him to Caesarea and thence to Tarsus. 11 How long he
stayed in Tarsus is not stated : but it is probable that he
spent his time in energetically preaching the gospel, for
the next that is heard of him is that St. Barnabas, who had
been sent from Jerusalem to Antioch to investigate and

1 Acts xxi. 39 ; 22-3. 2 xxii. 3. 3 xxii. 3 ; xxiii. 6.

4 vii. 58 ; viii. 3 ; xxvi. 9-10. ix. 1-2 ; xxii. 5; xxvi. 12.

6 ix. 3-8; xxii. 6-10; xxvi. 13-19. 7 ix. 8.

8 ix. 10-19. i x - 1 9~ 2 5- 10 x - 26-27.

11 ix. 2^-30.

6 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS

supervise the growing Christian community in that city,
fetched St. Paul from Tarsus to assist him. 1

From this point onwards our information becomes much
fuller. The first important incident was the sending of St.
Paul and St. Barnabas from Antioch to Jerusalem in order
to bring help in the time of the famine. 2 This is the
second visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem that is mentioned in
the Acts : what happened beyond the distribution of alms
is not stated, and when it was finished St. Paul and St.
Barnabas returned to Antioch. 3

At Antioch the Church decided to take the important
step of sending St. Barnabas and St. Paul, accompanied by
John Mark, on a missionary expedition outside the province
Syria Cilicia in which they had hitherto worked. 4 They
first went to Cyprus, 5 and then crossed over to Perga in
Pamphylia, where John Mark appears to have been reluctant
to go any further and returned to Jerusalem. 6 From Perga
St. Barnabas and St. Paul went to Antioch in Pisidia, 7
Iconium, 8 Lystra, 9 and Derbe, 10 passing in this way from
the province of Pamphylia to that of Galatia, which is,
however, not actually mentioned by name, and then retraced
their steps to Perga. 11 From Perga they went to the neigh
bouring port of Attalia, and thence sailed to Antioch in
Syria, whence they had started. 12

In Antioch they found that the peace of the community
was disturbed by the arrival of merribers of the Church at
Jerusalem who insisted on the necessity of circumcision, 13
and in order to settle the disputes which arose it was
arranged that St. Paul and St. Barnabas should go up to

1 Acts xi. 22-26. * xi. 27-30. * xii. 25.

4 xiii. 1-3, 5. * xiii. 4-12. * xiii. 13.

* xiii. 14-50. 8 xiii. 51 xiv. 5. 9 xiv. 6-2O. 10 xiv. 20-21.

11 xiv. 21-25. I2 x i v 2 5 2 6. l3 xv. I.

THE FIRST JOURNEY AND THE COUNCIL 7

Jerusalem to confer with the Apostles and elders, and
represent the Antiochene point of view. 1 The result was
the famous "Council of Jerusalem" which decided, after
hearing St. Paul and St. Barnabas, various Christians of
the Pharisaic party, and finally St. Peter and St. James,
that circumcision ought not to be demanded from Gentile
Christians, but that they should be exhorted to keep them
selves from "the pollutions of idols, and from fornication,
[and from things strangled], and from blood." 2 This deci
sion, the text of which is doubtful (see pp. 48 ff.), was made
the substance of a letter to the Christians of Antioch and
its Province, Syria Cilicia, and entrusted to Judas Barsabbas
and Silas to take to Antioch, whither St. Paul and St.
Barnabas also returned. 3

In Antioch they remained for some time ; after which
St. Paul and St. Barnabas formed the plan of revisiting
the communities which they had established already. But
as St. Paul would not agree to take again John Mark, who
had turned back on the first journey, they separated, and
St. Barnabas went to Cyprus, while St. Paul went with Silas
through Syria Cilicia, and ultimately reached Derbe, Lystra
(in which Timothy joined them), and Iconium. 4 What next
happened is a matter of dispute. The text of Acts says :
" And they went through the Phrygian and Galatian
Region (r&gt;)y Qpvyiav KOI FoXariKiiv ywpav) having been
prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the word in Asia,
and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed
to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them
not, and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas," -
but exactly what this means is not quite certain, and, as

1 Acts xv. 2. 2 xv. 4-21. 3 xv. 22-32.

* xv. 36 ; xvi. 2. 8 xvi. 6-8.

8 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS

it has some bearing on the Epistle to the Galatians, it will
be discussed later in connection with that Epistle (see
Chap. V.).

In any case, whatever route St. Paul may have
followed, in the end he reached Troas and thence went
to Neapolis (the modern Cavalla), Philippi, where he was
imprisoned and beaten, 1 Thessalonica, 2 and Beroea, 3 (in both
of which Jewish opposition put an end to his work,) and
thus founded the Christian Churches of the Province of
Macedonia. From Beroea, leaving Timothy and Silas
behind, he went, partly by sea, to Athens 4 and then to
Corinth where Timothy and Silas rejoined him. Here he
stayed a year and six months, and founded the Church in
that city, living with Aquila and Priscilla, Jews of Pontus
who had recently come from Rome, and teaching first in
the synagogue, and afterwards in the house of Titus 5 Justus
who lived next to it. He was here also brought before
the Roman magistrate, Gallic, but acquitted. 6

From Corinth he went for a short time to Ephesus, and
then returned, possibly after a short visit to Jerusalem,
to Antioch. This is generally regarded as the end of the
second missionary journey. 7

After an interval, spent in Antioch, St. Paul started
on his third missionary journey, returning through the
" Galatic Region and Phrygia," along the hill country of
the province of Asia, to Ephesus. 8 In Ephesus he preached
for three months in the synagogue, and afterwards for two
years in the " school of Tyrannus," with the result, according
to St. Luke, that " all they which dwelt in Asia heard the

1 Acts xvi. 11-40. s xvii. 1-9. xvii. 10-14.

4 xvii. 15-34. * Or Titius ; the text is doubtful.

xviii. 1-17. * xviii. 18-22. 8 xviii. 23.

THE SECOND AND THIRD JOURNEYS 9

word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks." l Towards the
end of the period St. Paul formed the plan of going to
Jerusalem, after paying a visit to his converts in Macedonia
and Achaia, and then extending his field of preaching to
Rome. 2 It would also seem, from an allusion in his speech
before Felix, that the reason for his desire to visit Jerusalem
was the bringing of alms to the poor of the community. 3
As a preliminary to this journey he sent Timothy and
Erastus into Macedonia shortly before the time when he
intended to leave Ephesus. 4 His last days in Ephesus
were rendered unpleasant by a riot raised against him by
Demetrius, a silversmith, and worshipper of Artemis, who
thought that St. Paul s teaching was derogatory to his
goddess, and harmful to his trade. 5

After the agitation raised by Demetrius had died down,
St. Paul went through Macedonia to Achaia 6 probably
Corinth is intended and formed the plan of sailing direct
to Syria, but finding a plot among the Jews, changed his
mind and returned over land through Macedonia to
Philippi, 7 whence after the Passover he crossed, in the
company of the writer of the we-clauses, to Troas,
where Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius of Derbe,
Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus joined him. 8 Here they
waited seven days, and the main body of the party then
went in a coasting vessel to Assos, where St. Paul, who had
gone by road, was again taken up. 9 From Assos they sailed
in stages to Mitylene, Chios, Samos, and Miletus, where St.
Paul bade farewell to the Ephesian Presbyters, who came to
see him. 10 From Miletus they sailed to Cos, Rhodes, and

1 Acts xix. i-io. * xix. 21. l xxiv. 17.

4 xix. 22. 5 xix. 23-41. tf xx. 1-2. " xx. 3-6.

8 xx. 4-6. " xx. 6, 13. lo xx. 14-38.

io ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS

Patara, and then changing ships sailed south of Cyprus
to Tyre, where the ship stopped seven days, thence to
Ptolemais, and Caesarea. 1

In Caesarea they stayed for some time with Philip
the Evangelist, who, it is mentioned, had four prophetess
daughters, 2 and during this stay Agabus prophesied that
St. Paul would be imprisoned by the Jews, in Jerusalem. 3
This made both his own party, and also the Caesarean
community, urge him not to go to Jerusalem ; but he
held to his plan and insisted on going. 4

On his arrival at Jerusalem St. Paul was received by
St. James, 5 who told him that the Jews regarded him as a
renegade who preached to the Jews of the Diaspora that
they should not circumcise their children nor " walk after
the customs." He suggested, therefore, that St. Paul
should show his respect for the Jewish law by taking part
in a vow which four men of the community had taken, and
by paying their expenses. St. Paul agreed to do this, but
before the week of the vow was completed Jews from Asia
saw him in the temple and raised a tumult by accusing him
of teaching against the law and of introducing Greeks into
the temple. 7 He was violently turned out of the temple,
and only saved from being lynched by the interposition of
Lysias, the tribunus militum in charge of the Roman
garrison at Jerusalem, who arrested him. 8

This arrest was the beginning of a long imprison
ment. St. Paul was tried four times without any decisive
verdict being given. (i) By the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem. 9
(2) By the Governor Felix in Caesarea, where he had been

1 Acts xxi. 1-8. 2 xxi. 8-9. 3 xxi. 10-11.

11 xxi. 12-14. 5 x *i- J 8. e x?i- 19-24.

7 xxi. 25-29. 8 xxi. 33 ; xxiii. 26. xxii. 30; xxiii. io.

ARREST, TRIAL, AND VOYAGE 11

sent by Lysias in consequence of a Jewish plot which
rendered it unsafe to keep him in Jerusalem. 1 (3) After
two years, when Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus,
St. Paul was brought before Festus, who proposed that he
should go to Jerusalem and there be tried. St. Paul, how
ever, stood on his rights and demanded to be tried by
Caesar s tribunal, and Festus determined to send him to
Rome. 2 (4) A short time after this Herod Agrippa II.
was staying in Caesarea, and Festus brought St. Paul before
him. The result of this trial before Agrippa was favourable
to St. Paul, but having appealed to Caesar (whose repre
sentative Agrippa was not) he could not be released, 3 and
soon afterwards was sent off by sea, accompanied, it would
seem, by St. Luke and by Aristarchus of Thessalonica. 4
Thus ended the first period of imprisonment, at Caesarea,
which seems to have lasted rather more than two years. 5

St. Paul s voyage to Rome was adventurous : he started
from Caesarea in a ship of Adramyttium which was going
to the coast of the Province of Asia. After touching at Sidon
they sailed across, leeward of Cyprus, to Myra. Here they
changed into a ship of Alexandria, bound for Italy, and
made their way with difficulty to Fair Havens, near Lasea
in Crete. It was now the late autumn, and sailing became
dangerous, but the captain tried to push on, and being
caught in a strong north-easterly wind was wrecked on the
island of Malta. 7 Here St. Paul, his friends, and escort spent
the winter, 8 and after three months sailed in another Alex
andrian ship, called the Dioscuri, to Syracuse, Rhegium, and

1 Acts xxiii. 12-27. 2 xxv - 1-12. * xxv. 13 ; XXYI. 32.

4 xxvii. 1-2. " xxiv. 27. * xxvii. 2-5.

7 xxvii. 6-44. It is sometimes disputed if the island was really Malta, but
the point is immaterial for the present purpose.
* xxviii. i-io.

12 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS

finally Puteoli, 1 where they landed, and, after a week s rest,
made their way to Rome, being met at Appii Forum and
Three Taverns by members of the Christian community
at Rome. 2

On his arrival, St. Paul was lodged by himself, pos
sibly in an inn 3 (cf. ttviav, xxviii. 23), in the custody of a
soldier. 4 After three days he summoned the Jews to hear
him, and on two separate occasions they came. On the
first the main issue of the meeting was the charges brought
against him : of these the Jews professed complete ignorance,
and said that no instruction had reached them from Jeru
salem. 5 On the second occasion St. Paul explained his
teaching, and when the Jews, with some exceptions, would
not believe, he announced to them, with a quotation from
Isaiah, his intention of preaching to the Gentiles. 6

At this point the narrative in Acts is closed by the state
ment " And he abode two full years in his own hired dwelling,
and received all that went in unto him, preaching the king
dom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him," 7 a
curious and enigmatic conclusion, which has often been
discussed, and leaves us doubtful whether St. Paul was
acquitted, condemned, or dismissed for lack of evidence. 8

Such is the sequence of events with which the Acts
provide us. For the present purpose it is invaluable as
affording the outline of the missionary activity of St. Paul

1 Acts xxviii. 11-13. - xxviii. 14-15.

3 This is the traditional view : but the evidence of the Papyri points to the
probability that fvla means " hospitality" ; see Moulton and Milligan in the
Expositor, March, 1910, p. 286, who regard this view as "practically certain."

4 xxviii. 16. 5 xxviii. 17-22. a xxviii. 23-28. " xxviii. 30-31.

8 In favour of the view that the trial was quashed because no hostile
witnesses appeared, see Interpreter, 1909, pp. 147 ff. and 438 f., What was the
end of St. Paufs trial?

THE END OF THE ACTS 13

which is one of the chief features in that background of the
Epistles which it is proposed to reconstruct. It is no doubt
imperfect ; St. Paul must have done much more than St.
Luke recorded, and, therefore, the mention in the Epistles
of events which find no place in the Acts is not surprising.
But, imperfect though it be, it covers most fully precisely
that period to which all the Epistles, except the Pastorals,
belong. As will be seen, we are able to fix with tolerable
certainty the time when the Epistles were written, even
though the degree of certainty is by no means always the
same, and this result is chiefly owing to the record of the
sequence of events in the Acts. It is, of course, obvious that
the statements in the Acts are not always plain, and so
far as this is the case they will be discussed fully in con
nection with the Epistles on which they have a bearing, but
on the whole, and considering the character of the book,
Acts is a first-rate historical document, and singularly easy
to understand, so far as the mere enumeration of events is
concerned.

The enumeration of events, however, is only the begin
ning of historical research, and it is far more difficult, as
well as more important, to discover from the Acts that
development of tendencies and ideas which produced the
controversies and problems that called forth the Pauline
Epistles. For this purpose it will be necessary to consider
the real meaning of the Judaistic controversy, of which the
Council at Jerusalem was the culminating point, but by
no means the end, and the results which sprang from the
ensuing propagation of Christianity in the Graeco-Roman
world.

CHAPTER II

THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY,
THE GENTILE CONVERTS, AND THE BACK
GROUND OF GENTILE CHRISTIANITY.

THE earliest Christian community was in Jerusalem : the
fact that it was here and not in Galilee is perhaps
a curious problem, but it cannot be denied. Moreover it
was a community within the limits of Judaism rather than
one clearly separated from it. The disciples frequented the
Temple, observed the Jewish Law, and believed all the articles
of the Jewish faith. That which distinguished them from
other Jews was that to the usual Pharisaic belief that in
the last days the Messiah the Lord s Anointed would
appear on earth, to break the powers of evil and to establish
the kingdom of God, they added the assurance that they
knew who the Messiah was. He was Jesus, who had
appeared already as Son of man that is, as Messiah in per
sonality, but not yet in function, 1 had been crucified and
buried, and had been raised again by God to the glorified
existence of the heavenly Messiah who would soon come in
the clouds of heaven to inaugurate in power that Kingdom
of God of which He was already the proleptic 2 head, and

1 This fact is to be found most clearly expressed in Professor Burkitt s The
Earliest Sources for the Life of/esus, p. 66.

- The use of this technical term of the grammarians may be excused by the
difficulty of finding any expression to convey the required meaning. The point

THE CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM 15

the Christians were already the proleptic members, and as
such had received the Holy Spirit which was to be given
in the " last days." This was the point en which Jews and
Christians differed, the identification or the non-identifi
cation of the Messiah, whom they both expected, with
Jesus ; and they found their common ground for argument
in the Law and in the Prophets, which each regarded as
the infallibly inspired word of God. Probably there was
a dispute between them as to the interpretation of the
Old Testament, for it is likely l that the Christians explained
passages such as Isaiah liii., in which allusion is made to
a suffering servant of Jahweh, in relation to the Messiah,
while such a view did not obtain among the Jews. Never
theless, this was relatively a matter of domestic difference
of opinion, and could scarcely be regarded, except in the
heat of controversy, as unfaithfulness to the hope of Israel.
Christians in no sense felt that they had ceased to be Jews,
and the question of the admission of the Gentiles was not
raised. It is true that there had been an open rupture
between Jesus and the Galilaean synagogues, and that the
Priests had conspired to put Him to death, but the disciples
clung to the Temple, and never accepted the situation.
Perhaps the most instructive parallel to their position
(though of course only in this respect) is afforded by
that of Catholic Modernists, who have been frequently

is that the kingdom was not yet come, and therefore there could not yet be
any king ; but it was quite certain that it was coming, and that Jesus would be
the King. Thus Christians lived in a constant anticipation of the future, a
"prolepsis " of things to come.

1 The point is, however, not quite certain ; see H. Gressmann, Der Ursprung
der Israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie. References to other books on the
subject are given by Bousset, Religion des Judentums, p. 266. The most
important authority for the view taken above is Dalman, Der leidende und
iterbende Mcssias der Sj nagoge.

16 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

disavowed by Catholic authority, yet have never accepted
the situation.

That there was more or less severe, but probably
intermittent rather than continuous persecution of the
Christians by the Jews is probable in itself, and corrobo
rated by the accounts in Acts iv. and v. 1 But there is no
suggestion that either the Jews or the Christians felt that
the latter were in any way outside the Jewish Church. 2
The Christians held that the crucifixion of their leader
had been a crime, and the Jews believed that it was a
necessary incident in the development of political life, but
the former did not think themselves outside the covenant
or the service of the Temple, and the latter were not pre
pared to drive out those whose only fault was an erroneous
belief that they knew who the Messiah was, for it must
be remembered that the strong eschatological and Messianic
belief of the Christians was apart from the question of
the identity of the Messiah shared by many of the Jews,
and especially by those who were most enthusiastic for the
" Hope of Israel "). 3

Nevertheless, looking back on history, it is clear that
this situation could not last. If Christianity had re
mained unchanged it would have died out, as indeed it
did among the Jews, so soon as the eschatological expecta
tion was clearly falsified, for to the Jews who had already

1 It seems unnecessary to discuss Harnack s suggestion that these two
accounts may be " doublet " narratives of one event. Possibly he is right ;
(see his Apostelgeschichte, chap, v.), but it is also possible that there were two
attempts by the Jews to suppress Christianity. What is here important
is merely the fact that the attempts (or attempt) were unsuccessful and not
vigorously carried out.

* Jewish "Church " is of course an anachronism, but it is too convenient
a phrase to abandon.

3 Cf. Acts xxiii. 6. The Pharisees immediately accepted St. Paul s state
ment that " for Hope and a resurrection of the dead am I being judged."

I
THE CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM 17

a divinely instituted Church it was impossible to adopt the
point of view which identified or confused the Kingdom with
the Church, and put into the background the expectation
of the Parousia. It was impossible for Christianity to
flourish for long within the limits of the Judaism of
Jerusalem. But already partially distinct from the Judaism
of Jerusalem there was a Judaism in the Diaspora which
offered a far more hopeful prospect, and from the beginning
it was the Hellenistic Jews belonging to this who were at
tracted. Apart altogether from questions as to the accuracy
of the account given in Acts of the day of Pentecost, it is
clear that the point which St. Luke wishes to emphasize, in
addition to the inspiration of the Church, is the Hellenistic
character of the converts. They were Jews, but they were
Jews of the Diaspora, " Jews, devout men . . . Parthians, and
Medes, and Elamites " and St. Luke exhausts language
in his attempt to make plain their diversity of nationality. 1
The introduction of this new element could not but
profoundly affect the development of the community.
The first sign which we find of its influence is in Acts
vi. 1-7, which describes how there was friction between
the Hellenist and Palestinian Christians as to the distri
bution of alms among their " widows." The result of
this was the introduction into the community of a new
element of organization. Up till now the leaders had
been "the Twelve." They had been promised by Jesus
positions of authority in the Kingdom, and were to be the
Judges over the twelve tribes of Israel. 2 Among other

1 Just as a Jew of to-day can call himself an Englishman or a German, a
Jew of the first century could call himself a Parthian, a Mede, or even a
Roman if he were fortunate enough to possess the right to do so, as St.
Paul did.

2 This statement belongs to the oldest stratum of the Gospels. It is

i8 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

things they had apparently undertaken various social and
financial arrangements which at the least were regular and
organized charity, at the most, something approaching
communism it is probably impossible to define them
more accurately. But now a great part, or perhaps all,
of this work was handed over to " the Seven," who seem
mostly to have belonged to the Hellenist section. 1 Accord
ing to St. Luke, then, the duties of " the Seven " were
primarily practical and internal to the community ; but
they also seem to have attracted attention by their
development of certain lines of thought which were probably-
present in the teaching of Jesus Himself, but were not
taken up by the original Jerusalem community. These
lines were concerned with the Temple and the official
class connected with it, which was treated by St. Stephen
in a manner which seems to find no parallel in the teaching
of the Twelve, and certainly not in that of other Jewish
Christians.

This new development of Christianity met with active
hostility from the orthodox Hellenists in Jerusalem ; St.
Stephen was summoned before the Sanhedrin, and stoned to
death, while other Hellenists were forced to leave Jerusalem.
It appears, however, that this persecution did not extend

found in Matt. xix. 28 and Luke xxii. 30, and probably no one would
dispute that it belongs to Q.

1 Harnack thinks that they were in some sense rivals of the Twelve. The
evidence for this view is small, but if one does not regard rivals as implying
an unfriendly attitude there is something to be said for it (see Harnack s
Kirchenverfassung, p. 23). The whole question of " The Seven " is obscure,
and we have no sufficient evidence to help much in dealing with it. The
point is that we need some explanation of the fact that those who were
appointed in order to relieve the Twelve from the practical and charitable
side of their work, and to set them free to preach, nevertheless only appear
in the capacity of missionaries and controversahsts, and as such seem to have
attracted more attention than the "Twelve."

CHRISTIAN HELLENISTS 19

to the original disciples, for St. Luke expressly excepts
the Apostles, by which he probably means the Twelve.
Probably, therefore, we ought to consider that the perse
cution connected with the death of St. Stephen was primarily
a persecution of Hellenists by Hellenists, and did not
largely affect the original Palestinian Christians.

The Christian Hellenists scattered ; St. Philip among
others preached in Samaria, and on one occasion returning
to Judaea converted an Ethiopian probably a proselyte.
Ultimately he went farther north, and settled in Caesarea.
Thus a Christian propaganda began to spread among the
Hellenist Jews outside Jerusalem. What form their teach
ing took we do not know in any detail, but we may be
sure that it varied to some extent from that of the original
disciples, and the account given in the Acts of the teaching
of St. Stephen seems to show that it was perceptibly less
attached to the Temple and to the Law, an attitude which
was probably not uncommon among Hellenists entirely
apart from Christianity. In answer to this propaganda
a persecution was instituted among the orthodox Hel
lenists, with the support of the priests at Jerusalem,
and among those who took part in it was Saul of
Tarsus.

Obviously the original Jewish community could not
stand entirely outside this movement. Possibly some
of its members doubted whether it ought to meet with
approbation. At all events, some of the leaders felt
compelled to investigate it ; among them St. Peter and
St. John the son of Zebedee, who went to Samaria where
Philip had been preaching. What they saw led them
to approve, so that they joined in the work of evange
lization outside Jerusalem, and thus began careers which

20 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

ultimately led both of them 1 far afield into the Roman
Empire.

The result of this development was that the history of
the Church began to divide into two branches. On the one
hand, there was the propaganda of the Hellenists, ever spread
ing further and further from the centre ; and on the other,
the preaching of the members of the Jerusalem community,
for the time, at least, confined to a circle of a smaller radius.

Turning first to the Jerusalem community, two facts are
of outstanding importance. The absence of St. Peter, and
probably of other members of the " Twelve " led to a change
in organization. Instead of the Twelve being the rulers,
we find James, the brother of the Lord, apparently becoming
the head of the community. Whether this took place 2 in
consequence of a definite arrangement, or more or less
imperceptibly in consequence of the absence of the Twelve,
we do not know, but it probably marks the acceptance
of the Sf(T7ro&lt;Tuvof the family of the Lord as having in
some sense a claim to the headship of the community in
Jerusalem. St. James appears to have belonged to the
original type of Christianity, and was for many years
unharmed ; indeed, tradition represents him as enjoying
the general respect of the Jews. 3 Thus a conservative

1 If tradition may be trusted, St. Peter went to Rome and St. John to Ephesus.
But, of course, there is considerable doubt as to this. The evidence in neither
case is quite convincing, and in the case of St. John there is some evidence
(that of Papias but in a doubtful passage) that he was put to death by the Jews.
See Schwartz, Uberden Todder So/me Zebedaei, and Sanday, The Criticism of the
Fourth Gospel, pp. 103 ff.

2 Tradition says that it took place twelve years after the Ascension, i.e.
c. 42. It may have been connected with the persecution of the Christians
under Herod ; but I think it was more probably the result of the absence of the
Twelve.

3 See Eusebius, Hist. EccL ii. 23, for a long account of St. James, taken
from Hegesippus.

CHRISTIAN GENTILES 21

and essentially Jewish type of Christianity became fixed in
Jerusalem.

On the other hand, St. Peter, the leader of the Twelve,
was induced to take a new and profoundly important step,
which he was successful in commending at all events to the
theoretical approbation of the Christians in Jerusalem.
This was the conversion of Cornelius. 1 Cornelius was a
centurion stationed in Caesarea, not a proselyte but a
" God-fearer " who desired to hear the teaching of St.
Peter. St. Peter hesitated whether he might go to a
Gentile, but was convinced by a vision that he ought to
do so, and after hearing his gospel Cornelius visibly received
the gift of the Spirit.

St. Peter interpreted this fact to mean that he might at
once be formally admitted by Baptism into the Christian
community. It is important here to notice how central
was the belief that Christians were men who were inspired
v/ith a Holy Spirit : there are many problems in con
nection with this fact for instance, its relation to Baptism
but as to the fact itself there can be no doubt. When,
therefore, St. Peter found that Cornelius and his house
hold presented all the signs of being " filled with the
Spirit," he naturally was forced to the conclusion that
Cornelius, Gentile though he was, had been placed within
the Christian Community.

The great importance of this decision of St. Peter was
that it forced him, and the Church of Jerusalem with
him, to acknowledge that it was both theoretically and
practically possible for a Gentile to become a Christian,
or in other words, a proleptic member of the Messianic
Kingdom. It did not, however, settle the further question,

1 Acts x. For the importance of the God -fearers, see pp. 37 ff.

22 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

which was sure to arise, whether Gentiles who became
Christians were free from the obligation of the Jewish Law.
St. Peter himself does not seem at the moment to have
seen clearly that this question must arise, and his action in
baptizing Cornelius was to some extent a confusion of
thought. Before the incident of Cornelius he had held
that the Christian community was open to Jews only, and
that the method of entry was Baptism. From the gift of
the Spirit he concluded that Cornelius had been divinely
admitted into the Church, and therefore that the limitation
of Church membership to Jews was untenable. By a strict
parity of reasoning he ought to have decided that it also
proved that Baptism was not the only method of entry
into the Church, for Cornelius was, by the evidence of the
Spirit, among its members, though he had never been
baptized. But this reasoning was not followed by St.
Peter, who baptized Cornelius, opening, as it were, the
door after the guest was already in the house. It was
therefore possible for the Jewish Christians to argue that
even if Gentiles had been admitted into the Church, they
ought to be circumcised as well as baptized. If they
followed the reasoning which led St. Peter to admit Gentiles,
and to reject the limitation to Jews because of the evidence
of the Spirit, naturally they would not require circumcision ;
but if they followed the reasoning which led him in spite
of that evidence to baptize Cornelius, they would logically
demand circumcision as well. That this attitude was actu
ally adopted is clear from the course of events, though it is
not actually stated in connection with the case of Cornelius.
Thus the result of the incident of Cornelius may be
stated to have been that the Christians in Jerusalem and
Palestine generally recognized the admission of Gentiles to

THE ANTIOCHEXE MOVEMENT 23

the Christian Church, but that the exact conditions imposed
on them remained undetermined.

Meanwhile events of equal importance had happened in
the circle of the Hellenists. St. Paul, the enthusiast for
orthodoxy had seen a vision on the road to Damascus, had
joined the ranks of the Hellenist Christians whom he had
previously persecuted, and was engaged in preaching in
Cilicia in the district of which Tarsus, his native city, was
the centre. Moreover, some of the Hellenists who had
been driven out of Jerusalem according to St. Luke they
were Cypriotes and Cyrenaeans had settled in Antioch,
and had taken the epoch-making step of preaching to
the Gentiles, no doubt chiefly among the God-fearers, with
immediate and great success, without insisting on their
adopting the Law or practices of Judaism. 1 Obviously this
raised in an acute form the same question as the incident
of Cornelius, and it was impossible here to regard the cir
cumstances as exceptional they represented a fixed policy.

The Church at Jerusalem therefore decided to send St.
Barnabas to investigate the situation. He was admirably
fitted for the task, for he was himself a Hellenist from
Cyprus, but had always belonged to the Jerusalem com
munity, and had relations in the city.

St. Barnabas was completely persuaded, by the facts
which he saw, that the new movement was desirable,
threw himself into the work, and called St. Paul from Tarsus
to help him. In this way a vigorous Christianity grew
up among the Gentiles, which recognized neither the
circumcision nor the ceremonial law of the Jews.

If this had been a wholly new doctrine in Judaism it

1 This is not stated in Acts, but is clear from the context of the events
implied by the Council, see Acts xv.

24 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

would be almost inconceivable that St. Paul and St.
Barnabas would have started it without further discussion,
but, as a matter of fact, they were only following a line of
thought which had already found supporters among a
minority of the Jews, not only in the Diaspora, but even in
Jerusalem. It is, for instance, related by Josephus that
when Izates, King of Adiabene, was converted to Judaism,
the merchant Ananias l whom he consulted urged him not
to be circumcised, because of the offence which he would
give to his subjects, but to content himself with a general
observance of the Jewish Law, and adherence to the Jewish
creed. This was almost exactly contemporaneous with the
teaching of St. Barnabas and St. Paul in Antioch. But
perhaps the most important witness to the existence
of a "liberal" school among the Jews of the first century
is Philo. In his book De Migratione Abrahami? he refers
definitely to a class of Jews who attached only a symbolic
importance to the Law. " There are persons," he says, " who
regard the traditional law as a symbol of spiritual life ; the
symbolic meaning they seek with every care, but despise the
literal meaning. Such laxness I can only deprecate. They
ought to be zealous for both, both the exact search for
the hidden meaning as well as the punctilious observance
of the literal sense. . . . Although it be true that the law
of the Sabbath contains the deeper meaning that the
Creator (TO ajtrrjTov) is active and the Creation (TO yvjjroi&gt;)
is passive, we have no right to ignore the command to

1 The words of Ananias are important enough to be quoted : ...
Svvd/u.fvov 5 av-rbv, f&lt;pr), Kal x&lt;)pty rrjs irep&lt;TO/u.7js rb dtiov atfitiv, eiyt TTCIPTWS
KfKpiKf i]\ovi&gt; TO. TTcirpLa Twv lovScuW TOUT eli at KvpKarfpov TOV irepnfjjLVfjQai
. . . Ultimately, however, Izates listened to his other Jewish adviser, Eleazar,
nncl was circumcised. See Josephus, Antiquit., xx. 2. 4.

"* Ed. Mangey, I. 450, and Colin and Wendland, II. p. 285 ff.

LIBERAL JUDAISM 25

keep it holy. . . . Even though the Feast is a symbol of
the joy of the soul and of thankfulness to God, we have
no right to give up the annual festivities, and though the
circumcision signifies the cutting away of every passion
and lust, and the destruction of all godless thoughts . . .
we are still not justified in departing from the law of
circumcision which was laid upon us."

It is plain that Philo, who, of course, fully accepted the
symbolic or allegorical meaning of the law, was acquainted
with Jews who went further than he did, and regarded this
not as the hidden meaning, but as the only valid meaning,
so that they abandoned Circumcision, Sabbath, Feasting and
Fasting, and, in a word, the whole of the ceremonial law.

If Jews were inclined in Alexandria to doubt in this
manner whether the law was, in its literal sense, really valid
for themselves, it is not surprising that some of them did
not insist on its observance by Gentiles who desired not
to be excluded from the Kingdom of God. Thus we find
a few years later than Philo that the Jewish writer of the
fourth book of the Oracnla Sibyllitia * promised entry into

1 The Oracula Sibyllina are a curious collection of Jewish and Christian verse,
written in a bad imitation of Homeric Greek, giving a series of Apocalyptic
prophecies. They vary in date from the first century before Christ to the third
century after Christ. The best text is that of GefYcken in the Berlin edition of
Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte. The
best introductions are probably those of Alexandra (the first edition, of
1841-56, not the second of 1869, which is less valuable), and of Geflcken,
Komposition und Enstekungnat tier Oracula Sibyllina in Texte und Unter-
suchnngen, xxiii. I ; but sufficient for all except special purposes will be found in
Schtirer s Geschichte dcs Jiidise/ien Volkes, ed. 4, iii. pp. 555~59 2 - This is one of
the places in which Schurer s fourth edition is considerably fuller than the third.

In the fourth book the Sibyl is supposed to be speaking to the first genera
tion of mankind, and gives a prophetic sketch of the successive dominations of
Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, up to the flight of Nero and
the destruction of Jerusalem, and apparently mentioning the eruption of Vesuvius
in 79 A.D. It then goes on to foretell that Nero will return from the East, and

26 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

the Messianic kingdom to all of the heathen who accept
the true God, abandon idolatry, murder, theft, fornication,
and sodomy, generally lead a good life, and are baptized. 1
Nothing whatever is said of circumcision or the Jewish
Law.

Less well attested, and much less important, is the story
of the Babylonian Talmud ( Yebkamoth, f. 460) that in the
first century Rabbi Joshua maintained that Baptism without
circumcision was sufficient for the admission of a proselyte,
and was opposed by Rabbi Eliezer who argued in favour of
circumcision without Baptism. Thus the more advanced
position held among the Christians at Antioch as to the
method by which a Gentile might be admitted was only
the continuation of a discussion which had already arisen
among the Jews. Neither the admission of Gentiles, nor
omission of circumcision were quite new things in the
history of Judaism, but both represented the adhesion of
the Christians at Antioch to the more liberal principles
of a minority, probably found chiefly in the Diaspora, and
the rejection of the narrower and stricter point of view
which was dominant in Jerusalem.

Moreover, this latter view was dominant not only among
the Jews but also among many of the Christians at Jeru
salem, who probably still held fast to their original point of
view, and had not grasped the importance of the incident

history will close with the judgment, resurrection, and establishment of the
righteous.

It is clear from this summary that the book was written during the time after
the fall of Nero when his death was still doubled and his return expected at the
head of a Parthian army. This might be at any time after the death of Nero, and
before about 90 A.D. (the last false Nero appeared in 88), but the reference to
Vesuvius narrows the range of possible dates to 79-90 A.D.

1 The important passages are Or. Sib., iv. 24-33 an ^ 162-170. The text is
quoted on pp. 56-7.

THE ANTIOCHENE CHURCH 27

of Cornelius, so that in this way Antioch became in a few
years the centre of a type of Christianity which really
differed from that in Jerusalem, and was adopted chiefly by
Gentiles rather than by Jews. The importance of it was
that, although it may possibly have been the view of St.
Barnabas and St. Paul that their converts were made
members of the true Jewish Church by their Baptism, this
rapidly ceased to be true of the Gentile Christians them
selves. They had accepted much of the Jewish theology,
and especially the doctrine of the Messiah, but the com
munity which they desired to enter was the Messianic
kingdom, not the Jewish Church, and to their mind it was
plain that membership in this kingdom was the privilege of
those who accepted the Messiah, and was independent of
the Law, which was an exclusively Jewish possession. Let
the Jews keep their own Law, they were themselves free.
Either they argued like this, or else they accepted the
teaching of the liberal Jews, whom Philo reprobated, to
the effect that the Law had only a symbolical meaning.
We find, for instance, that the writer of the Epistle of
Barnabas, who may have lived in the first century, 1
took exactly this standpoint, and regarded a literal
exegesis of the Old Testament as the invention of an
Evil Angel. 2

We cannot reconstruct the precise standpoint of the
Gentile converts, indeed, we may be certain that they had
more than one but it is at any rate plain that under the
leadership of St. Barnabas and St. Paul the new type of
Christianity which rejected the Law for Gentile Christians

1 The probable range of date is about 90-135.

4 Cf. Barn. ix. 4, irtpiTO/x^jj/ 70^ ttpT]Ktv ov aapKus ytvTjBrivai oAAu impt fit] a a.v,
Ti &y~yf\os iroyi)pus

28 THE JU DA IS TIC CONTROVERSY

grew rapidly. It was clearly inevitable that it should come
into collision with the older type at Jerusalem ; sooner
or later, if the unity of Christians was to be preserved, some
sort of an agreement had to be reached as to the conditions
of membership to be demanded from Gentile Christians ;
and any occasion on which the representatives of Jerusalem
were brought into close relations with those of Antioch was
likely to give rise to discussion on this point.

Of such occasions we have in the Acts several good
examples, and the effect of what may be called the
Antiochene movement is quite plain. The first is the
mission of St. Barnabas and St. Paul from Antioch to
Jerusalem with assistance for the sufferers in the time of
the famine. The writer of Acts somewhat exaggerates the
universality of this famine, but it was undoubtedly wide
spread and particularly severe in Jerusalem. 1 It is
impossible to fix the date with absolute certainty, but
45 A.D. is not probably more than one year wrong in either
direction. In Acts it is not stated that St. Barnabas and
St. Paul discussed the treatment of the Gentile converts, or
even that they saw the leaders of the Jerusalem Church,
but it is improbable that at such a time St. James would
have left Jerusalem (the question of St. Peter is more com
plicated (see Chap. V.), though one would be inclined to think
that the need of the community would be the best reason
for bringing hirrf back to Jerusalem, if he had left it
already), and just as a mission of help from Antioch to
Jerusalem was an unsuitable opportunity for any public

1 For this we have the evidence of Josephus, who narrates that Queen
Helena, the mother of Izates, was in Jerusalem at the time, and endeavoured
to relieve the distress by distributing corn and figs among the poor, and that
Izates himself sent money to Jerusalem for the same purpose ; see Josephus,
.^ xx. 2. 5.

I
JERUSALEM AND AXTIOCII 29

discussion as to the Antiochene movement, so it was
admirably fitted for a private and friendly discussion among
the leaders, and for a spirit of general concession on both
sides. One of the main problems in connection with the
Epistle to the Galatians is whether the meeting described in
Galatians ii. may not in reality refer to some such meet
ing at this time, but even if this view be rejected, it still
remains a priori probable that St. Peter and St. James
were in Jerusalem, and that they talked with St. Barnabas
and St. Paul about the question of Gentile converts and
their desirability.

Probably partly as a result of their intercourse with the
Church at Jerusalem, in any case immediately after it, St.
Barnabas and St. Paul undertook their first missionary
journey. This was so successful that the question of
Gentile Christians obtained increased importance, and the
Jerusalem Church took fright at a movement the true
significance of which was perhaps now for the first time fully
realized, and sent out a rival mission, to which reference is
made both in Acts and in Galatians, 1 in order to convince
Christians of Gentile origin that circumcision and the Law
were binding on them.

The result of this conflict of propaganda was, according
to the Acts, the Council at Jerusalem, which was practi
cally a meeting between representatives of the Antiochene
Church and the Jerusalem leaders. .

According to St. Luke s account, speeches were made by
St. Barnabas and by St. Paul representing Antioch, and after
wards by St. Peter and St. James representing Jerusalem.
St. Peter and St. James recognized the force of the Antiochene
arguments, and the latter proposed an eirenicon, which was

1 Acts xv. i ; Gal. ii. 12.

30 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

drawn up in writing and circulated among the Gentile
Churches by St. Barnabas, St. Paul, Silas, and Judas. 1

As to the historical value of this narrative opinions differ
widely. What may be called the extreme right wing of
criticism treats it as if it were a stenographic report, while
the extreme left regards it as the purely imaginary product
of the writer of Acts. Probably both extremes are wrong ;
there seems no good reason to suppose that the exact form
of the speeches of St. Peter and St. James is anything more
than St. Luke s view of the way in which they would
naturally have spoken, though the substances of what they
said may very probably have been communicated to him by
St. Paul or Silas, or some other of those present. 2 Similarly
the decrees have a distinct a priori probability if the Lucan
authorship of Acts be accepted, and it may be said with
apparent reasonableness that it is far more probable that
St. Luke was in a position to give the actual words of a
document than of a speech. It is, of course, by no means
impossible that St. Luke had heard that there was such a
document, and in the usual manner of historians of his day,
gave a reconstruction of it when modern writers would have
been content with a description ; but it is also quite possible
that he may have seen a copy of it. Unless one disputes
the Lucan authorship of Acts, or the general historical value

1 Silas ultimately joined the Antiochene mission, but Judas returned to
Jerusalem, if the Bezan text of Acts xv. 34 be trusted.

In speaking in this way I am assuming that the Acts were probably written
by St. Luke the companion of St. Paul. In so doing I am certainly open to
the accusation of arguing in a circle. But it is unfortunately almost always
necessary to start by assuming something. In this case my position is that
if we assume the Lucan authorship there is nothing in Acts xv. which he
would not have known on good authority, and that if we turn round and treat
the Lucan authorship as the question to be discussed, there is also nothing in
Acts xv. which he could not have written, though this is disputed by many
critics.

I
THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM 31

of the book, every a priori probability is in favour of the view
that a decision was come to, and issued by the Council at
Jerusalem in the form, or very nearly in the form, given
in Acts xv. If there is nothing wholly unacceptable in
the account given by St. Luke, we ought to follow it. Is
there anything of this kind ? In attempting to answer this
question we are faced with one of those complexes of
historical and textual difficulties which can only be dis
cussed profitably at some length. To do so at this point
would cause too great a break in the narrative, and the
detailed consideration has therefore been postponed to an
appendix (pp. 48 ff.). The main points are these. The
ordinary text of the Acts says that the letter of the
Apostles demanded that the Gentiles should keep them
selves from "things offered to idols, from blood, from
things strangled, and from fornication." Now, it is said,
this is a food law, and was a compromise between the
two parties : why is it never referred to in the Pauline
Epistles? The answers which have been given are mani
fold but they may be divided into two main classes. On
the one hand, it is said that St. Paul never mentions the
compromise because it was a failure from the beginning, 1
or was only intended for the Churches of Syria Cilicia. 2

1 So Sanday, The Apostolic Decree (published by Deichert in Leipzig,
1908), p. 15 f. The objection to this view is that it makes it an insoluble
mystery why St. Luke writing twenty years later, should have made such a
"dead letter" (to use Dr. Sanday s expression) as the decrees had become,
into a document of such importance. Surely St. Luke was too good a historian
to make so wrong a selection of facts.

2 So Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 127. There is less to be said against this view,
but it is improbable because on the theory that the decree was a compromise
it was not a question of geography but of nationality, and was just the same in
Galatia as it was in Syria. Besides, on the South Galatian hypothesis
(Chap. V.) the decrees were actually delivered to the Galatians (Acts xvi. 4).
A third view is that the decrees are genuine but antedated by St. Luke.
This view was formerly held by Ilarnack, and is to be found (in various forms)

32 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

On the other hand, it is argued that it is inconceivable that
the decrees should not be mentioned by St. Paul, and
therefore the account in Acts must be abandoned as
unhistorical-. So the matter stood for a long time, more or
less at a deadlock, for the explanations given of St. Paul s
silence were quite unsatisfactory, and the abandonment of
the narrative in Acts as unhistorical seemed to be insuffi
ciently justified. Recently, however, a third view has been
propounded, to the effect that the whole difficulty may be
solved by textual and historical criticism, which shows that
the words " things strangled " are a gloss, and that the
decree was not a food law. 1 It is discussed at length in the
Appendix on pp. 48 ff.

This last view is, I believe, correct. It seems to
me to be the only solution enabling us to hold the
accuracy of the Lucan account, and at the same time to
explain St. Paul s silence, which is perfectly intelligible if
the decrees were not a compromise but a victory for his
party. For with this text of the Acts " that they should
abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, and from
fornication " there was no compromise, but the decrees were
the concession by the Jerusalem party of the main conten
tion of the Antiochene movement that converts ought to
be admitted to Christianity without being compelled to
observe the Jewish Law as to circumcision and ritual obser
vances. It was not a compromise, for in a compromise
each party concedes something, and if the Apostolic decrees
be not a food law, but moral requirements, the Antiochene
party had conceded nothing to abstain from idolatry in any

in Weizsacker, Das apostolische Zeitalter t p. 180 f. ; McGifFert, Apostolic ASS,
p. 213 f . ; and v. Dobschiitz, Die urchristlichen Gemdnden, p. 274.

1 G. Resch, Das Aposteldecret, and Harnack s chapter on Das Aposteldecret

in his Die Afostclgeschichte, pp. 188-198.

THE RESULT OF THE COUNCIL 33

form, or from idolatry, murder, and fornication, was not a
concession. 1

We ought thus to regard the result of the Apostolic
Council as the decision of the leaders of the Church at
Jerusalem to admit the contention of the Antiochene move
ment, and to accept Gentile converts to Christianity without
the condition of observing the Jewish Law. It was not a
compromise, it was a triumph a triumph of the most far-
reaching consequences for Christianity, and Judaism. For
the success of Christianity and the failure of Judaism in
their attempts to conquer the Roman Empire largely
depended on it. Christianity had been originally a part
of Judaism, and in selecting a method for carrying its
propaganda among the Gentiles it had, along with the other
sects of Judaism, to choose between the liberal spirit of the
Diaspora represented by Antioch and the strictness of
the dominant school of Jerusalem. Christianity at the
Council of Jerusalem chose aright Judaism both then,
and after the fall of Jerusalem, chose wrongly, for though
the Sibylline oracles bear witness to the survival of the
broader spirit in Judaism, it was only found in a small
minority, never became typically Jewish, and soon dis
appeared, just as the narrower spirit survived in some parts
of Jewish Christianity, but never became dominant, and
ultimately died out. The result was that Christianity gained
all those of the Graeco-Roman world who had felt the
attraction of Jewish monotheism, Jewish ethics, and
Jewish eschatological hope, while Judaism failed to do so.

It is now necessary to ask what was the general effect

1 It is doubtful whether " flSta\&lt;^9vra, cfyio, and iropvtlA " means "idolatry,
murder, and fornication," or "sacrificial food, sacrificial blood, and fornication
in connection with worship " ; but in neither case does it imply a compromise.

34 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

of this Antiochene triumph. That it was not the end of
the Judaistic controversy need scarcely be said ; in
such a struggle the minority is defeated without being
either convinced or destroyed. Even if we had no proof
we should be justified in assuming that there remained a
party which continued to unite Christian propaganda with
a strict adhesion to the Jewish Law, and regarded the
Council as a lamentable mistake. Moreover, it is obvious
that the Jews would regard this new development of
Christianity with increased dislike : for it was no longer
merely the identification of the Messiah with Jesus, but a
definite denial of the universal validity of the Jewish Law
and cultus the participation by the Christians, already
heretical enough, in the dangerous latitudinarianism which
Ananias had so lamentably suggested to Izates, and the
Jews of the Diaspora had occasionally been so weak as to
encourage. At the other end of the scale, also, human
nature suggests the probability that some of the Antiochene
Christians, or their converts, would rush to extremes and
introduce a dangerous antinomianism in the name of
liberty, and force the Antiochene leaders to protest, and
to contend against extravagant perversions of their teaching.
It is therefore natural to expect to find that the Jeru
salem propaganda continued among Christians, though
now rather as a protesting and reactionary conservatism ;
that the opposition of the Jews to Christianity was
strengthened and embittered ; and that a new school of
thought soon arose which exaggerated the plea for liberty
which had been so successfully put forward by Antioch,
and threatened to convert liberty into libertinism. As a
matter of fact, the two first of these phenomena can be traced
in the Acts, in the events of St. Paul s final visit to Jerusalem,.

I
THE CHRISTIANITY OF JERUSALEM 35

and the last, though it can scarcely be found in the Acts,
can clearly be traced in several of the Pauline Epistles.

On the occasion of St. Paul s visit to Jerusalem, St.
James, while reaffirming his acceptance of the Apostolic
Decrees, emphasized the existence of " many myriads " of
Christian Jews, who were all zealous for the Law and were
afraid that St. Paul was not content with absolving the
heathen who became Christians from the obligation of the
Law, but was also teaching the Jews that it was no longer
binding on them and their children. It is for our purpose
immaterial whether this be accepted as really an utterance of
St. James, or as representing St. Luke s idea of the attitude
of the Jewish Christians and of their leader. In either
case, it is good evidence of the Jewish Christians position,
and of their attitude towards St. Paul and the Antiochene
movement generally. Equally instructive is St. Paul s
conduct : he at once agreed to show by his actions that
he recognized the validity of the Law for Jews. The
Jewish Christians honestly believed that the direct result
of his writing and preaching must be the abandonment of
the Law even by- Jews ; and St. Paul s action was intended
to convince them that, although the observance of the Law
was not demanded from Gentiles, it was nevertheless
recognized as binding on Jewish Christians. At the same
time, the seriousness with which both St. James and St.
Paul faced the situation suggests that some of St. Paul s
adherents were pushing his principles further, and denying
that circumcision and the Law were binding on any one.
We may also assume with much probability that this
question was connected with a certain vagueness as to
whether it was possible to say that the Messiah was
already come or not. The original position was no

36 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

doubt that Jesus was the Messiah, but it was equally
clearly held that He had not yet come as Messiah. The
Parousia which means "coming," not "return" was still
future, and the Messianic kingdom did not yet exist,
except in a certain proleptic sense. But until the Messiah
came not until it was known who He was the Law was
binding. This was probably the original position, so far
as it was consciously thought out at all, but almost from
the first amongst Gentile Christians the " proleptic "
element began to be forgotten, more and more importance
came to be given to the actual work of Jesus, His life to be
regarded as really a "coming" of the Messiah, and the
concept of the Kingdom to gain a somewhat different
meaning. With such a position the Law naturally seemed to
be entirely superseded. Over against this extreme Gentile
position stood the mass of Jewish Christians, who werje
zealous for the Law, had not St. James s personal knowledge
of St. Paul, but identified him with the extreme position of
some of his followers, and so came more and more to stand
aloof, and to dislike the whole Antiochene movement.

The increased hostility of the non-Christian Jews is
equally well shown by the Pauline Epistles and by the
Acts. According to these, St. Paul s most determined
enemies were the Jews. In Galatia, Asia, Macedonia
and Achaia Jewish hostility was strong and irreconcile-
able, and in Jerusalem it was the direct cause of his
imprisonment. It is clear that the Jews in the capital
tolerated St. James and his party, even though their
toleration was tempered with contempt and dislike : after
all, they seem to have argued, though these people have
foolish ideas as to the identity of the Messiah, they
nevertheless observe the Law, and are otherwise orthodox.

THE GOD-FEARERS 37

But for St. Paul nothing was bad enough he was a
renegade and a traitor, and as such worthy of death.

Moreover, this Jewish hatred of St. Paul was especially
stimulated by a fact which also was prominent in pro
ducing the antinomian extremists, and later on in intro
ducing other problems into the life of the Gentile Churches.
This fact was the existence in the Graeco-Roman world
of the class of " God-fearers " whom the synagogue had
attracted towards itself by much careful preparation, and
hoped ultimately to convert into proselytes. This class is
often mentioned in the New Testament, 1 and a more
accurate understanding of its position is one of the
great steps forward which have been made of recent
years in the interpretation of early Christianity. The
source of most statements on the subject was formerly
the essay of Deyling, De S/3o^ ; votc rbv 0ov in his
Observations Sacrae, ii. pp. 462-69, in which he identified
them with the " proselytes of the gate " mentioned in the
Talmud. On this view the theory was based that the Jews
recognized two sorts of proselytes those "of the gate"
and those " of righteousness," of whom the former stood in
a less close relation to the Jews than the latter and
that " God-fearers " is a synonym for the former. This
view will be found expressed at length in the first edition
of Schiirer s Geschichte des jiidiscJien Volkes in Zeitalter
Jesu Christi, and it was long the dominant opinion.
But, in the light of further study, in his third, and still
more completely in his fourth edition (1909), Schurer
completely gave up this theory, and showed convincingly

1 They are referred to in the following places : as " (pofiovfifvoi rbv 0eoV,"
in Acts x. 2, 22, 35; xiii. 16, 26; as " &lt;rf Polevoi rbv Qe6v," Acts xvi. 14;
xviii. 7 ; as " ffe/36/j.e voi " in Acts xiii. 50; xvii. 4, 17; and as " o-ejSo juei/oi
-irpoa-f]\vroi " in Acts xiii. 43. Cf. Josephus, Antiquit., xiv. 7. 2.

38 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

that "proselyte of the gate" is a purely mediaeval term,
of which the meaning is doubtful, but probably is " Gentiles
living among Jews," and that the God-fearers were not
proselytes at all. His conclusion is based on inscriptions,
both in Latin and Greek, 1 and is that "Almost every- (
where in the Diaspora there was a fringe of God-fearing \
heathen round the Jewish Church. They adopted the
Jewish form of worship, with its monotheism and absence
of images, and frequented the Jewish synagogues, but
confined themselves with regard to the ceremonial law
to certain cardinal points, and thus could not be reckoned
as actually belonging to the Jewish Church. . . . When we
ask which points of the ceremonial law were thus observed,
the clearest indications are afforded by Josephus, Juvenal,
and Tertullian. 2 These three all agree that it was especially

1 Cf. especially, C.I.L., v. I, n. 88. Ephem.Epigr., iv. iSSi, p. 291, .
838 ; C.f.L., vi. n. 29759, 29760, and 29763. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten,
326 f. Schiirer, Die Juden tin bosporanischen Reiche und die Genossenschnften
der ffe^^evoi fbi&gt; vtywrov ebendaselbst (Sitzungsberichte der konigl. preussischen
Academie zu Berlin, 1897) ; and F. Cumont, Hypsistos in the Supplement to the
Revue de I instruction publique en Belgiqite, 1897.

2 The passages indicated are the following: Jos., Contra Ap., ii. 39:
"KOI Tr\f)9effiv TySr; TTO\VS tf^os yeyovev CK paKpov rr/s rj/j.eTfpas eiwe/Se tas, ou8
ftrnv ov tr6\ts E,\\-i]yeiij&gt; ovSririffovi oi;8e ffapPapov ouSe kv edvos, fvQa /j.$] TO Trjs
r;fiSo/J.d$os, fy apyovfj,ei ijfj.e is, Tb tOos [5e] $LTre(po iT-r]Kei KCU al i/rjaTt iaL Kal Kv^vtav
avaKavcffis Kal iroAA.a riav fls ftputnv TJJJUV ov vevo^ifffji.ivuii TrapaTeT^p^rai."
Tertullian, Ad A T at tones, i. 13 : " Vos certe estis, qui etiam in laterculum septem
dierum solem recepistis, et ex diebus ipso priorem praelegistis, quo die lavacrum
subtrahatis aut in vesperam differatis, aut otium et prandium curetis. Quod
quidem facitis exorbitantes et ipsi a vestris ad alienas religiones. Judaei enim
festi sabbata et coena pura et Judaici ritus lucernarum et jejunia cum azymis
et orationes litorales, quae utique aliena sunt a diis vestris." Juvenal, Sat.,
xiv, 96-106

" Quidam sortiti metuentem sabbata patrem
nil praeter nubes et caeli numen adorant,
nee distare putant humana carne suillam
qua pater abstinuit ; mox et praeputia ponunt.
Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges
Judaicum ediscunt et servant ac metuunt jus

THE GOD-FEARERS 39

the observance of the Sabbath, and the food law which
most generally obtained in these circles. . . . Their
adherence would vary in degree, and it is improbable that
there were fixed limits." l To this statement of Schiirer s no
exception can be taken on the ground of what it says, but
it ought to be added that the evidence of Philo shows that
there were Jews who regarded the Law as merely allegorical,
and that the Sibylline Oracles (see pp. 25 f. and 56 f.) show
that there were also circles among the God-fearers in which
the food law and even the sabbath were disregarded, and
that monotheism and the moral law alone were observed.
This would no doubt vary in different places, and would
be influenced by the type of Judaism which was dominant :
in places, for instance, where the extreme allegorizing party
had representatives, and the Law was explained in the
manner which the Epistle of Barnabas tried to popu
larize among Christians, the observance of the ceremonial
law would naturally sink into the background among the
God-fearers.

It does not need the testimony of Juvenal to convince
us that it was from this circle of God-fearers that the Jews
drew their proselytes, and the Acts give us superabundant
proof that it was in the same circle that St. Paul met with
the greatest success in making converts ; it is therefore easy
to understand the bitterness of Jewish feeling against St.
Paul and other Christians of the Antiochene school, for it
is not in human nature to regard with equanimity the sight

tradidit arcano quodcunque voluminc Moses :
non nionstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colcnti
quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos.
Sed pater in causa cui septima quaeque fuit lux
ignava et partem vitae non attigit ullam."

1 Geschichte des jiidischen Volkcs, ed. 4, iii. 173 ff.

40 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

of heretics successfully reaping a harvest which the orthodox
had sown, had seen grow up, and had expected to gather,
and the rapid passing over of God-fearers to the ranks of the
Christians was in the eyes of the orthodox Jews a triumph
for heresy as bitter as it was unexpected.

In this way the existence of the God-fearers helps to
explain the increased hatred of the Jews ; it also explains
the existence of the extreme antinomian party of which
Acts tells us nothing, but the Epistles more than a little.
For the God-fearers brought Christianity into the troubled
world of thought of the Roman Empire. They represent
to a large extent the general attitude of the " religious man "
of the first century. He was, as a rule, dissatisfied with
the ancestral forms of culture, as well as with the traditional
theology. It was an age of religious unrest and theological
inquiry. The propaganda of Judaism and Christianity were
only two of the many efforts which were being made to
answer this intellectual curiosity and to satisfy the yearnings
of unhappy souls, and, on the whole, we can distinguish two
main currents to one or the other of which these efforts
usually belonged. Those whose interest was primarily
intellectual, or, at all events, demanded a theology which
was intellectually acceptable, were strongly influenced by
the metaphysics of the Neo-Platonists, and the ethics of the
Stoics. In them they seemed to find a reasonable explana
tion of the universe, a " Weltanschauung " which corresponded
to facts, and a rule of life which satisfied the conscience and
seemed to offer a lasting happiness. On the other hand,
those whose interest was chiefly religious, in the narrower
sense of the word, were attracted by the Oriental " Mystery
Religions," so diverse in detail, yet so similar in essentials,
which held out the offer of happiness in this world and

I
SYNCRETISM AND THE MYSTERIES 41

salvation in the next to all who by initiation into their
sacraments joined in the risen life of a redeemer God, and
thus secured a knowledge of the great secret, which would
guard the traveller when he passed hence through the gate
of death on his long and dangerous journey, and bring him
safely to the eternal life which he desired. Finally, we can
see in such a man as Plutarch the curious combination of
these two currents which fully accepted all these mysteries,
but by a vigorous use of allegory and symbolism brought
them in agreement with philosophy, and felt that whether
the God whom they celebrated was called Isis, or Attis, or
Mithras, or any other name, it was, nevertheless, the divine
Logos, " the Word," who was working in them all the Logos
who is the source of all life and all wisdom, though he be
called by different names in different lands.

Plutarch was, we may be sure, no exception, save in so
far as he was of exceptional ability, and doubtless there were
many in the Roman Empire who, in some such way as he
had done, united the practice of the mysteries with the
philosophy of the Stoics or Platonists. But in the lower
and less educated classes this syncretism must have been
less common. Men felt that spiritually they were ill, and
needed a physician, nor were they able to see, as Plutarch
did, that all the physicians offered the same prescription,
though they varied the exact form of its composition. No
doubt, they had their own syncretism, but it was not the
philosophic syncretism of Plutarch, but rather a tendency
to modify the practices of the various cults, to borrow
attractive features from others, and to give up objectionable
even though characteristic customs.

This influence of the Oriental "Mystery Religions" was
increased by the fact that not only the Jews, but every

42 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

Eastern nation had its "Diaspora" in the Roman Empire.
We are apt to overlook this because, for obvious reasons, it
is the Jewish Diaspora of which we hear most, but after all
it was the Orontes, not the Jordan, which seemed to the
Roman eye to be flowing into the Tiber, and we ought to
remember that just as there was a Jewish Diaspora, with its
proselytizing propaganda, there were Egyptian, Syrian,
Persian, and other Diasporae, in which the various cults
were taught, though each probably with more or less
pronounced variations from the native type.

Each Diaspora of this kind was a centre for a wider
circle, corresponding to the God-fearers of the Jewish com
munity, composed of those who were interested in what
they saw and heard, but were only prepared to accept the
cult partially, eclectically, and in combination with features
taken from other cults, of which they had obtained
knowledge in a similar way. An excellent example of
this type of syncretism is to be found in the cults, 1 found
in Asia Minor, which combined Judaism with the worship
of Zeus Hypsistos and of Attis the Phrygian Redeemer-
God whose worship united an originally local cult with
that of the Magna Mater and her mysteries. 2 But it is
safe to assume that for one form of eclecticism which
endured long enough to crystallize into a definite shape
there must have been many which were purely ephemeral,
or, even if they lasted longer, failed to be preserved in
any inscription or literary reference which has survived.

1 See F. Cumont s Hypsistos, in the Supplement to the Revue de f instruction
publique en Belgique. 1897.

2 For a further description reference may be made to F. Cumont s Les
Religions orientales dans le Paganisme remain. This book affords an indis
pensable introduction to the study of the Oriental side of the background of
early Christianity. It has, also, the advantage of being more easily intelligible
and more interesting than most works of fiction.

SYNCRETISM AND THE MYSTERIES 43

It is easy to see how these influences must have worked
in the case of those who were brought into contact with
Judaism as well as with the " Mystery Religions." In the
Jewish theology they found a monotheism which satisfied
their intellects. The Messianic expectation presented no
difficulties to those who, since the time of Augustus, had
learnt to believe that the world-cycle was approaching its
completion, and that a Deliverer 1 would soon appear to lead
mankind into the glories of the golden age of which the
poets sang and the Sibyl prophesied. 2 In the deeply
ethical and spiritual austerity of the synagogue they found
a satisfaction and a stimulus for their religious life. 3 Some
of them also appreciated the moral and practical value of
the observance of the sabbath, and felt that there was an
element of truth in the distinction between clean and
unclean foods a distinction which is, indeed, more obviously
valuable in hot climates than in Northern Europe. But
the rest of the ceremonial law, circumcision, and the
national pretensions of the Jew to the especial favour of
God, had no value in their eyes, so that they either re
jected them, or accepted the position which changed their
meaning by allegory and symbolism. But they were very
unlikely to stop at this point ; the metaphysics of the
Neo-Platonists, and the ethics of the Stoics agreed with and
supplemented the teaching of the Old Testament and the

1 It is remarkable that the title of SOIT^J/) was actually given to Augustus ;
Cf. Deissman, Licht vom Ocsten, p. 248.

2 Cf. Bousset, Religion des Judentums, p. 576; and Wend land, Die
Hellenistisch-Romuche Kttltitr, pp. 87 f.

3 That this was the strength of Judaism has often been unfairly over
looked by Christian writers, who have judged Judaism by the polemics of early
Christian literature and the subtleties of the Talmud, rather than by the ethical
spirit of, for instance, the Testaments of thf Twelve Patriarchs, or the many
noble sayings of Philo.

synagogue, while the " Mystery Religions," with their
elaborate and impressive ritual, made a reiterated appeal to
the sympathy of those who found in the stern and cold
worship of the Jews, bracing though its atmosphere might
be, insufficient scope for the permanent satisfaction of an
aesthetic and mystical imagination.

Such must have been the result of the contact of this
type of eclectic mind with Judaism a result which doubt
less caused the synagogue to ponder long and anxiously
over the problem of such God-fearers but what kind
of impression must have been made by Christianity on
those who belonged to such a circle ?

They must have been but little attracted by Christianity
of the original Jerusalem school, except in so far as it
accentuated the doctrine of the Messiah and His kingdom,
and introduced an element of superior certainty by being
able to give the name of the Messiah, nor, as a matter of
fact, is there any evidence to show that the Jerusalem school
ever obtained any very important or permanent hold in the
Graeco-Roman world. It was very different with the
Antiochene movement. In this the eclectic Gentile found
all the features which he most admired in Judaism, set
free from the ceremonial law and from the custom of circum
cision which had repelled him. But he saw more than this :
in the teaching of St. Paul as to the meaning of the death
of Jesus he saw every reason for equating the Lord with the
Redeemer-God of the Mystery Religions, with the advantage
that this Redeemer possessed an historic character which
could scarcely be claimed for Attis or Mithras. Similarly in
Baptism and in the Eucharist he found " mysteries " which
could immediately be equated with the other "mysteries,"
offering eternal life to those who partook of them. In other

SYNCRETISM AND THE MYSTERIES 45

words, many of the Greeks must have regarded Christianity
as a superior form of " Mystery Religion."

The importance of this fact is not easily exhausted ; it
will be found to be one of the most important elements in
the situation at Corinth, which led to the Epistles, and in
the wider sphere of the history of doctrine it can scarcely be
over-estimated. It is, for instance, of enormous importance
in considering the course of the development of Christian
doctrine from the belief that the Messiah was Jesus, and
that He was speedily coming to set up the Kingdom of God,
to the creed in which the original meaning of the word
" Messiah," or " Christ," was almost wholly forgotten, Jesus
was regarded as a Redeemer-God, and the Sacraments
became the real centre of Christianity. That we find one
type dominant in Jerusalem in the middle of the first
century, and the other type dominant in Rome in the
middle of the second seems incontrovertible, but the exact
course of the development is outside the present purpose : it
is sufficient to call attention to the fact that the existence of
the eclectic type of God-fearer is an extremely important
factor in the situation.

Or, again, the existence of this type is of enormous
importance in considering the origin of Gnosticism.
Formerly it was the custom to regard Gnosticism as a
development from Christianity under the influence of Greek
thought. We have now, however, learnt 1 that it was
in basis neither Christian nor Hellenic, but eclectic and
Oriental. It comprised an almost infinite variety of sects
which combined parts of various Oriental religions, including
Christianity, and united the fragments by the more or less
intelligent application of originally Greek philosophy. It

* See especially Bousset s Hauptprollemt der Gnosis.

46 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

will be seen that such a movement was independent of
Christianity, and this point is of importance because it
used to be argued that documents such as some of the
Pauline Epistles which imply a point of view similar
to that of the Gnostics, must be late, because time must
be allowed for the development of Gnostic "heresy" from
Christianity. The argument is unsound : Gnostic ideas are
earlier, not later, than Christianity, and to prove that any
given document is engaged in controverting a Gnostic
point of view, shows merely that it was addressed to the
eclectic circles described in the preceding paragraphs it
has no necessary bearing on the question of date.

Putting aside, however, these larger questions it is clear
that the attitude which regarded Christianity as a " Mystery
Religion " inevitably must have led men to exaggerate and
misinterpret the Pauline doctrine of freedom, to regard
the cleansing from sin gained by the Christian as giving him
permission henceforth to do as he liked without incurring
guilt, and to consider Baptism as an opus operatum which
secured his admission into the Kingdom apart from the
character of his future conduct. Thus there was from the
beginning an antinomian and unethical spirit which offered
the most difficult problem for St. Paul and other Christians,
who would naturally reject with horror this licentious liberty
of conduct so different from the ethical standards of
Judaism, and we can imagine though I do not know that
there is any extant" example of it that it was often flung
by the Jewish Christians in the face of the Pauline school
of Christianity as the natural result of its mistaken freedom.

Such are the main characteristics of the background
which we must expect to find in the Pauline Epistles. The
chief feature is the large confused mass of unsatisfied seekers

CHRISTIANITY A MYSTERY RELIGION 47

after religious truth, who were testing all the various offers
made to them by the preachers of diverse cults, and were
inclined to combine select features of them all in a strange
medley of ritual and doctrine. And emerging from the
struggle fully to convert this class a struggle in which con
vinced Jews, Christians of Jerusalem, Christians of Antioch,
worshippers of Isis and other Oriental cults, magicians,
astrologers, and wizards jostled each other in a theological
confusion to which no parallel can be found we can
distinguish the endeavours of St. Paul to preach freedom
without libertinism, and his constant efforts against the
hatred of the Jew for a renegade Rabbi, against the scarcely
less fierce opposition of Christians who held firmly to the
principles of the stiffly conservative party at Jerusalem, and
against the even more serious danger of a tendency to mis
understand his teaching of Christian freedom, to misinter
pret the nature of Christianity, and to regard him as a
narrow-minded preacher, who had little appreciation of the
mysteries of the spirit, and was scarcely better than the Jews
whom he had deserted.

It will be one of the tasks of the following chapters ta
trace more fully the details of this background in connec
tion with each of the Epistles, so as to render it possible for
them to be read with a somewhat better appreciation of the
circumstances which caused them to be written.

LITERATURE. Besides the references which have been for special points,
the following books will be found generally valuable : E. Schiirer, Gcschichte
des jiidischen Volkes (ed. 4), vol. iii., Das Jitdcnlum in der Zerstreuung und die
fudische Literatur. W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums (ed. 2). W. M.
Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, and St. Paul the Traveller and
Roman Citizen. R. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen, ihre
Gmndgedanken und IVirkungen. J. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion, chap, x., The Orphic Mysteries. L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek
States, vol. v. chap. v. Dionysiac ritual. T. R. Glover, The Conflict of
Religions in the Early Roman Empire. F. Cumont, Les Religions orientales.
dans le Paganisme remain.

APPENDIX

THE TEXT OF THE APOSTOLIC DECREES

HPHE textual variants in the Apostolic Decrees are
^ numerous and complicated : they can be found most
fully in G. Resch s Das Aposteldecret, pp. 7-17, and the
material in the later Greek MSS. will no doubt be in
creased when von Soden s new critical edition is published.
But for the purposes of all except students of the later
history of the text the facts may be stated as follows :

The text of all the manuscripts which represent the
dominant Greek tradition N ABCP, etc. supported by
the Alexandrian Fathers Clement and Origen, states that
the Apostles told the Gentile converts to keep themselves
from things offered to idols, from blood, from things
strangled, and from fornication. Thus there is a four-
clause text of which the first three clauses seem, when
united in this way, to give a food law, 1 to fix, as it were,
the conditions of intercourse between Jewish and Gentile
Christians, while the last clause against fornication
seems to have nothing to do with food, but to belong to a
different category altogether.

Over against this reading is the evidence of D, the Latin
version, Irenaeus (in Greek as well as in the Latin translation),

1 For a different interpretation, see p. 60.
48

TEXTUAL EVIDENCE 49

Tertullian, Cyprian, and other Latin writers, who omit
" things strangled," generally l insert after the reference to
fornication, " and do not do to others what you would not
that they should do to you," and at the end of all add, "Ye
shall do well, being carried along by the Holy Spirit."
Thus it is plain that a widely received text of the decrees
ran somewhat as follows : inrtxtaOai eiSwAoflurwv K
*cai Tropvfiat, , Kal ocra /i/ OiXtre tauroic yivttrOat
firj TTOtstv afi &v Sianipovvrtg ev Trpa&re [or Tr/Qa^arc?]
(f&gt;po/ntvoi Iv TM ity iM TTVEvfiaTi, and was opposed,
ultimately successfully, by a rival form which ran inri^taQai

tl&l)\O&VT&V KCtl oV/tOTOC Ktt\ TTVIKT&V KOL TTOpViia^ is &V

cia.Tr)povvTt favrovg tv Trpa^tTt.

Now, the evidence of Irenaeus and Tertullian on the one
hand, and of Clement on the other, shows that both these
readings are very old. Moreover, the history of exegesis
confirms them. For in Alexandria the Apostolic Decrees
were always interpreted as a food law, but in Africa (up to
the time of Augustine) and in Europe as referring to the
three deadly sins. Irenaeus and Tertullian were, it is true,
acquainted with a food law, but they did not connect it with
the Apostolic Decrees.

Nevertheless, the three-clause text, in its entirety, cannot
be maintained. Among modern critics there is an almost
-complete 2 agreement that the additions of the negative
form of the golden rule, and the reference to the Spirit
.cannot be original : partly because the former introduces a
very harsh parenthesis or change of thought, 3 but chiefly

1 Tertullian is the extremely important exception.

* G. Resch, whose work on the subject entitles him to great respect, is the
most important exception.

3 "From which if ye keep yourselves ye shall do well," reads awkwardly
.after the golden rule.

50 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

because if the golden rule had been in the text from the
beginning, the interpretation of the decrees as a food law
would have been impossible. This consensus of opinion has
prejudiced critics against the omission of "things strangled, *
which is supported by much the same witnesses, and Dr.
Sanday in particular has argued that as D and Irenaeus have
made a mistake in adding the golden rule, they ought not
to be trusted where they omit " things strangled." His view
is that the same people left out "things strangled" and
inserted the golden rule in order to change a food law into
a moral enactment.

Against this argument serious objections can be brought.
In the first place, it is not the case that the evidence for
the golden rule is quite the same as that for the omission of
"things strangled"; Tertullian omits "things strangled,"
but does not insert the golden rule. There is, therefore,
important if not extensive evidence that the two readings
are independent of each other. In the second place, there
is no historical evidence whatever that the circles which
can be shown to have read a text which omitted "things
strangled " had any objection to a food law. On the con
trary, in the second century Gaul, in which Irenaeus lived,
observed a food law, and Tertullian, the other earlier witness
for the omission, observed a food law which actually
mentioned " things strangled " (suffocatis})- Thus there is no
possibility of alleging any motive for the change of text.
Finally, it is difficult to suppose that any scribe of Acts in
the second century deliberately changed the obvious meaning
of an important passage. No doubt redactors may have
treated their sources in this way, but the scribes who copied
the Gospels and Acts confined themselves to elucidating the

1 See p. 58.

THE THREE-CLAUSE TEXT 51

meaning of the text. They made additions, alterations, and
omissions, but their intention was to explain, not to alter.
Of course they made many lamentable mistakes, but where
is the evidence that they consciously set to work to change
the manifest meaning of the text which they read ? When
ever, therefore, we find a considerable variety of readings,
we ought, if possible, to look for an original text offering
some ambiguity which scribes would seek to clear up, first
by notes in the margin, and afterwards by their insertion in
the text.

Such a text would be excellently provided by the read
ing of Tertullian, which omits "things strangled," but does
not insert the golden rule. 1 This three-clause text presents
just the ambiguity necessary to account for the early
diversity both of text and of exegesis.

The first clause (aSwAo0i&gt;ra) means "things offered to
idols," and may be as well taken in a narrow sense, a literal
command not to eat that sort of food (which was often sold
in the market), as in the wider sense of a synonym for
idolatry. 2 In the former case it is a food law, in the latter
it is a moral or ethical rule. The next clause " from blood,"

1 The insertion of the reference to the Spirit in the last clause seems to have
no bearing on the question. Supposing it to be (as I am inclined to believe) an
insertion, it neither negatives nor affirms the other readings. To be " carried
along by the Holy Spirit " was a general characteristic of the early Christians.

2 I Cor. x. 14 ff. is an instructive commentary on the word. It is part of
the answer to the question of the Corinthians irep! tlSwXoQvriav. In the first half
(vv. 14-22) of the passage, til&gt;ta\&9vTov is treated as an act of idolatry, the actual
sacrifice to a false god, and is forbidden : in the second half (vv. 23-33) it is
treated in the sense of merely food which, after having been used in sacrifice, was
sold in the shops and used for an ordinary meal, and this is in principle allowed,
though St. Paul makes practical reservations because of the chance of giving
offence to the weaker brethren. It is clear that in this chapter, St. Paul is
either deliberately ignoring the Apostolic Decrees, or interpreting them as
forbidding idolatry, not as establishing a food law. Cf. G. Resch, Aposteldxret,

52 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

, is equally ambiguous, and was probably the cause
of the later confusion. To any one who had already inter
preted the first clause in the sense of an ethical forbidding
of idolatry it would either mean " murder," l or possibly
blood as used ritually in sacrifices in the temples (see p. 60),
but if the first clause were taken in the stricter sense of a
literal command not to eat that sort of food, the second
would naturally be interpreted as a reference to the Jewish
objection to the use of blood as food. It is plain that the
tendency of scribes would be to clear up this ambiguity, and
in some way to indicate which interpretation was correct.
Those who favoured the sense of a food law made it clear
by adding " things strangled " first perhaps as a gloss in
the margin, afterwards in the text itself thus explaining
blood as " meat in which the blood had been retained,"
" sanguine suffocato " as the Vulgate (in some manuscripts)
puts it. 2 Those, on the other hand, who regarded the
decrees as a moral law made their meaning plain by adding
the negative form of the golden rule. It is possible that
the addition of the reference to the Spirit was made at the
same time, and for the same purpose, but the evidence of
Tertullian (who has it, but has not yet adopted the golden
rule) suggests that it is an earlier interpolation, and probably
has nothing to do with the addition of the golden rule, or

1 Probably few will doubt that aljuo can be used in the sense of murder
blood-guiltiness but G. Resch has met any such objection by a convincing list
of quotations in his Aposteldecret, p. 42. The passages he quotes are: Lev.
xvii. 4; Num. xxxv. 27; Eccles. xxxiv. 21; Matt, xxiii. 30; Rev. vi. 10.
Demosthenes, In Afeidiam, 548; Pausanias, v. I, 6; yEschylus, Eumen. t 203.
Plato, Laws, 872, DE, and others of less importance.

2 It is significant also that Origen (In Matthaeum, ii. 837), though he seems to
have known the ordinary four-clause text, also quotes the decrees in a three-clause
form with TTVIKTOV instead of afyiaror. Methodius, too, has the same curious
text. This may be a slip, or may be an instance of the gloss replacing the word
glossed.

HISTORICAL ARGUMENT 53

the omission of "things strangled," but is merely one of
the edifying remarks which the early scribes loved and
sometimes allowed to pass into the text.

Each of these two ways of altering the text rendered the
meaning unmistakable that is exactly the reason why
neither can be original. But the short three-clause text
used by Tertullian is ambiguous ; it adequately explains
the origin of both readings, and is implicitly borne witness
to by both of them. It would no doubt be foolish to claim
that the textual question can be solved with certainty ;
there must be an element of doubt in a text on which
second-century evidence two hundred years before our
best manuscripts was sharply divided, but reflection is
likely to convince all who concede that our most famous
uncials only represent an Alexandrian recension of the
third or fourth century, that the argument on purely
textual grounds is against the four-clause text, and in
favour of the shorter form.

To the textual argument can be added a far stronger
historical argument, to show that the Apostolic Decrees
were originally of the nature of moral requirements rather
than a food law. This historical argument is contained in
the answers given to the questions : Which is really more
likely to have been the decision of the Council ? Which is
more consistent with the subsequent course of events ?
Which is implied more probably by the Pauline Epistles?

Taking the two last questions first, the superiority of
the three-clause form of the decree is as follows : (l) It
removes the obvious difficulties of the sudden association
of a food law with fornication ; (2) the absolute silence
of St. Paul on the decrees in I Cor. x., when he is discuss
ing " things offered to idols," and in Rom. xiv., when he

54 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

is discussing food in general, is almost unintelligible if we
suppose that the decrees were a food law. Even more
difficult is the statement in Gal. ii. 6, that the Jerusalem
Apostles added nothing (oi/ Sti; Trpoaavttitvro) to St. Paul,
that is to say, made no additions to his gospel. If we
suppose 1 that Gal. ii. refers to the Apostolic Council, and
that the Council enacted a food law, it would be hard for
St. Paul to say that the Apostles had made no additions
to his gospel : for it is plain from all his Epistles that a food
law was widely removed from his thoughts. On the other
hand, it would be quite true if the decrees were merely a
moral requirement to abstain from idolatry, murder, and
fornication. There is no evidence that St. Paul ever con
doned these offences or needed an Apostolic Decree to
persuade him to require his converts to abstain from them.
The remaining question which form of decree is in
itself more likely to. have been adopted by the Council ?
is more difficult to answer, but again there is a decided
balance of argument in favour of the three-clause text.
Generally speaking, commentators have been inclined to
argue that a food law is a probable decree, because the
Jews placed so much importance on such regulations. It
is probably true that this argument is partly based on the
very unfair attitude which so many Christian theologians
have adopted towards Jewish religion always emphasizing
the ritual and legalist elements in it, and ignoring the
ethical and religious basis. Still, when all possible allow
ance has been made for this factor, it remains true that
the outward side of religious life had great importance for
the Jews of the first century. So much must be admitted.

1 Personally I do not think so (see Chap. V.), but in deference to a widely
spread opinion I adopt the view for the moment.

JEWISH FOOD LAW 55

But when one goes on to ask for proof that " things
strangled " was a point on which the Jewish element in
the Christian Church at Jerusalem would probably have
laid stress, it is simply not forthcoming. There is no
evidence earlier than the fifth century after Christ that
the Jews regarded the command not to eat blood as mean
ing more than that they were not to collect and use for
cooking blood which was shed in the act of slaughtering an
animal. 1 Even if we concede that in some circles the
Jews had this custom in the first century, and that this is
the origin of the later Christian practice, it is at least
obvious that this rule was not likely to have been so
crucial a point at the Jerusalem Council, that the Jewish
party would have given way on the question of circumcision,
but have held firm on the question of extracting blood from
slaughtered animals. Moreover, the suggestion which is
sometimes made that the Apostolic Decrees correspond
to the so-called Noachic regulations, which on the basis of
Gen. ix. 4 were supposed to be binding on Gentiles living
in Palestine, is unfortunately negatived by a comparison
of the seven Noachic commands with the Apostolic Decrees.
The seven commands a were: (i) on the foundation of
courts (BctJi din] ; (2) against blasphemy ; (3) against
idolatry ; (4) against shedding of blood ; (5) against incest ;
(6) against robbery ; (7) against cutting flesh from a living

1 Once more reference must be made to Resell, who collects all the evidence
(Das Apostddecret, pp. 21 ff.). It would seem that the present Jewish custom
of extracting all blood from meat (the "Kosher" meat) can only be traced
back to the tractate Chullim of the fifth or sixth century. The matter is, of
course, one on which only Rabbinical scholars have a right to speak, but I
do not gather that Rcsch s view is disputed by them.

2 Sanhedrin, 56 a. ft". I am indebted to my friend Prof. Oort for the verifica
tion, and correction, of the reference. Cf. bchiirer, GeschicliU dcs judischcn
Votkcs (Fourth Edition), III. p. 178. note 77 (Third Edition, p. 128).

56 THE JU DA IS TIC CONTROVERSY

animal. It is also said l that the last of these commands
is a later addition. It is clear that there is here if anything
a closer resemblance to the three-clause than to the four-
clause form of the Apostolic Decrees. 2

Thus there is no reason to think that the Jewish feeling
of the first century would have been inclined to accept a
food law as the basis of a compromise with the Antiochene
movement. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the
evidence of the advice given to King Izates, the statement
of Philo (see above, pp. 24-26), and the fourth book of the
Sibylline Oracles are the proof that the requirement of
the moral law alone would have been nothing unique in the
history of Judaism. Moreover, a comparison of the text of
the Sibyllines raises the question whether the actual formula
of the three-clause text of Acts xv. does not go back to
some Jewish form of which there is also a trace in the
Oracles.

The two passages which are important are as follows :

(i) Or. Sib., iv. 24-34

oXptOt aVUpWTTMV Ktll Ol KOTO JUIC11 IGOVTdl,

oaraoi 81) &lt;rrtp%ovai

TTpiv iriif.iv &lt;j&gt;aytiv

Oit vrjoi/f, 1 fj.lv airavrug inrapvi iaovrai

KOI /3(iyuowe, cticeua \t6wv u^icfnifiara Kdxjtwv,

tttfuurat t/j.\l/v\wv fjLtfjuaafjLiva KOI Bvalyaiv

XtiHTOvtri c ti oc Otrw tltj fjiiya Kvc
p$a,VT&lt;; aniaBaXov OVTS K\OTT&lt;UOV
HTTt/iTroXtovrec , ^ ? ptytora

9ebv

1 By Hamburger, Realencyclopaedie, in the article on " Noachiden."

2 The fact probably is that the Noachian rules are a later crystallization
of the primarily moral requirements of the early Jewish Propaganda in the
Diaspora.

SIBYLLINE ORACLES AND THE ACTS 57

Ol&gt;C up" 7r aX\OTpl&gt;J KOlTtJ 7TO0O1 ttlfT^pOV CYOVTtV,

ovS 7r apfftvoc; vfipiv aire\0a re arvyfpiiv n. 1
(2) &lt;?;-. /., iv. 162-170

a fjilXeot, ptTaOtaOs, fiporoi, raSe, //jjSt irpbg opyfiv
Travronjv ayayrj-e $eoi fiiyav, aXXa fJitQivrtc;
tyaayava KOI &lt;rrova\ag avSpOKTacriag re KOI v
tv iroTa/uLOuj \ovaaaQt oXov St^uac dtvaoiaiv,
Kravu(rai rc &gt; i^ alOipa T&V irapog
aiTfTrrBt KOI tvXoyiaiq dasfiuav
iXacrKtaOe 0t&gt;c Swcrtt
6Af&lt;TH iravcrti SE x^ 01 *
TrepiTt/nov tin fypidiv

It is surely very remarkable that here, as in the Apostolic
Decrees, if the three-clause text be followed, abstinence
from idolatry, blood-shedding, and immorality (it is highly
probable that (J/3/cmc in 1. 164 has a sexual significance,
cf. 1. 33) should be selected as the characteristics of a good
life. It is very unlikely that there is any literary connection
between the Oracles and the Acts, and the only possible
suggestion seems to be that both are to be traced back
to antecedent Jewish expression.

So far, therefore, there is a decided balance of argument
in favour of the three-clause form of the Apostolic Decrees.
The one argument which at first seems seriously to weigh
against it on historical grounds is that there existed at the
end of the second century in the Christian Church a food
law which certainly did refer to meat with the blood in it.
The earliest evidence for this is probably the letter of the
Churches of Lyons and Vienne (A.D. 178), in which Biblis,
one of the martyrs, is stated to have refuted the accusation

1 Geffcken rejects this line, as the construction is harsh, and it is not found
in the fl recension. But it is doubtful whether this ij sufficient reason.

58 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

of cannibalism by saying, " Those who are not allowed to
eat the blood of irrational animals, how should they eat
children?" 1 A little later in his Apology* and elsewhere
Tertullian refers to the food law of the Christians as
commanding them to abstain from " suffocatis " ; and
Clement of Alexandria 3 also bears witness to the same
practice. This seems certainly strong evidence that " things
strangled " were forbidden by a Christian food law. But
it is weakened to unimportance by the fact that none
of these writers except Clement connect the custom with
the Apostolic Decrees. For Irenaeus (who even if not
the writer of the letter of Lyons and Vienne, was the
bearer of the letter to Rome, and was afterwards Bishop
of Lyons 4 ) used the three-clause text of the decrees, and
Tertullian not only used the three-clause text, but ex
plained it as a reference to the three deadly sins. More
over, writers earlier than the end of the second century say
nothing of any food law, and mention " things offered to
idols " in the same way as St. Paul, as an incident in idolatry
and communion with demons, 5 while the Didache^ knows
so little of a food law that it says, " Concerning food, bear
what thou canst, but keep strictly from idol-sacrifice
t;), for it is the service of dead gods."

1 Eus., H. ., v. i. 26 (ed. Schwartz, p. 412). The Latin of Rufinus has
" flesh " instead of " blood," but the Greek is probably right.

- " Erubescat error vester Christianis, qui ne aiiimaliuni quidem sanguinem
in epulis esculentis habemus, qui propterea suffocatis quoque et morticinis
abstinenius, ne quo modo sanguine contaminemur vel intra viscera sepulto."
Af&gt;ol., 9 ; cf. also de Monogain, 5 ; de Jcjun, 4 and 15 ; de Sped. 13 ; and see
Resch. op. cit., p. 148, where these passages are collected.

3 Paid., 2, 7 ; Strom., 4, 15.

4 One copy went to Asia, another to Rome; cf. Ilarnack, Did altckristliche
Literatiir, p. 262 ; and Chronologic, pp. 3 Iff. 323.

* Aristides, Apjl., 15; Justin, Dial. c. Try ph., 35.
a Did., 6.

CONCLUSION 59

Thus while there is evidence for a Christian food law
before the end of the second century, it is not certain that
it existed earlier, and it is in no case, except in Alexandria,
connected with the Apostolic Decrees.

Hence the evidence to be derived from the early
Christian food law is really in favour of the three-clause
text. The theory that the four-clause text is original, and
refers to a food law, necessitates the hypothesis that it
was altered to the three-clause form because a food law had
become repugnant or obsolete. When we find, therefore,
that the writers who quote the decrees as a moral require
ment, nevertheless did possess exactly the food law which
the four-clause form represents, and that it was neither
obsolete or offensive to them, we are debarred from accepting
this hypothesis. There is clearly no reason whatever why
they should have changed the decrees from a food law, if
they had ever known them as such ; or, in other words, the
three-clause form is presumably primitive, and the existence
of the four-clause form is due to the reaction of the food
law in Alexandria, first on the exegesis and afterwards on
the text of the decrees. It is natural that this corruption
should have taken place in Alexandria, because the text in
that Church, although sometimes corrupt, escaped the great
inundation of glosses one might almost say commentary
which overwhelmed the text of Acts elsewhere. It was,
therefore, free from that addition of the golden rule, which,
though textually corrupt, was exegetically not far from the
truth, and protected the text elsewhere from the smaller but
more pernicious gloss of " things strangled," which by so
small an addition converted moral requirements into a food
law.

There is one point more to be considered. So far it has

60 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY

been more or less assumed that the choice must necessarily
be between a food law and moral requirement illustrated
by abstention from idolatry, murder, and fornication. Per
haps this is correct, but a few scholars 1 take a different
position. They explain all the clauses of the decrees as
references to various forms of idolatry. They have thus
taken " things strangled " as meaning sacrifices in which
there was no shedding of blood. It is, however, obvious
that the same exegesis could be applied to the three-
clause text. The advantage of this line of interpretation
is that it avoids the historical and critical difficulties con
nected with the view that the decrees were a food law, and
this argument ought to weigh heavily with those who, on
textual grounds, are reluctant to accept the three-clause
text. Moreover, as applied to the three-clause text, it avoids
explaining blood as meaning murder, and brings it into
connection with idolatry. There is, therefore, considerable
attractiveness in this theory, and it is very far from im
probable that it is right. The disadvantage is that there is
no trace in early Christian literature that this interpretation
was ever adopted. It is, however, not necessary to discuss
this point further, as, whichever view of the meaning of the
three-clause text be taken, it does not affect the general
view which has to be held of the position of the decrees in
the Judaistic controversy. 2

1 The best statement of their case may be found in Prof. H. Oort s Hat
besluit der Apostelsynode, in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, vol. 40, pp. 97 ff.
Cf. also Sanday, The Apostolic Decrees, p. n.

2 A very full discussion of the whole problem summing up in favour of the
"food-law" theory has been published by Dr. K. Six, S.J., Das Aposteldecret,
seine Entstehiing mid Geltung tn den ersten vier Jahrhnnderten, Innsbruck,
1912.

CHAPTER III
THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

T^HE chronological position of the First Epistle to the
-- Thessalonians is indicated by St. Paul s reference to
Athens in I Thess. iii. I ff. in which he states that he had
sent Timothy to Thessalonica, and was writing to his
converts in consequence of the report which Timothy had
brought back. It is thus plain that the letter was written
during St. Paul s stay in Achaia on his second missionary
journey. Moreover, though 2 Thessalonians contains no
similar reference to a fixed point of chronology, it so
closely resembles i Thessalonians that it is usually con
ceded to be indisputable that, if it be genuine, it must have
been written at the same time as, or immediately after
the former Epistle. There is, however, some legitimate
room for doubt whether it ought to be accepted as
authentic.

These facts define the points which require treatment
for the historical introduction to the Epistles. It is neces
sary to consider the narrative in the Acts which describes
the doings of St. Paul at Thessalonica together with the
parallel passages in the Epistles, and the light which is
thrown on the movements of Timothy before he delivered
his report to St. Paul. After this an attempt must be
made to reconstruct from the Epistles Timothy s report,

62 THE EPISTLES TO THE TH ESSALONIANS

and, as a necessary preliminary to this attempt, the ques
tion must be faced whether 2 Thessalonians may be legiti
mately used for the purposes of this reconstruction.

I. ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA.

When St. Paul and his companions left Philippi
they took the Via Egnatia, which led through Amphipolis
and Apollonia to Thessalonica. 1 It is usually thought
that the text tmtzvaavrtq c Tijv AfJify nroXiv Kal ri}i&gt;
\\7roX\dDviav implies that Amphipolis and Apollonia were
the two stages at which he broke his journey. But the
distance from Philippi to Amphipolis is thirty-three Roman
miles ; 2 from thence to Apollonia is thirty miles ; and the
final stage is thirty-seven miles. This, while not physi
cally impossible, would be extraordinarily rapid travelling ;
if it be accepted as the meaning of Acts, it must be taken
to imply that St. Paul was able and willing to pay well
for exceptional speed. 3 Therefore, it is quite probable that
SioStvvavTtz ought to be taken as meaning that St. Paul
broke his journey at Amphipolis and Apollonia in order to
preach in those towns, though St. Luke knew of no inci
dents worth recording in connection with this work. This
use of StoStuen is parallel to the constant use of Sitp^taOat,
which almost always means " to make a missionary journey,"
and it is to some extent covered by Luke viii. I
SfwStuev KUTU iroXiv KOI KW/UIIV Kupvvtfvtv, ic.r.A. The same
comments apply with even more force to the Bezan text

Of ActS Xvii. I - d/O^tlJCTO ! C T\]V \\fjKplTTO\lV [fCOl] KCtri}A0O)&gt;

1 Acts xvii. I.

* Slightly less than English miles.

3 Conditions are no doubt worse now in Macedonia than they were in the
first century, but the difference for travelling cannot be very great, and nothing
would induce me to attempt such a pace, unless life and death depended.

ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA 63

EiC A/roAAwi / Ser KUKtiOsv fit,- OftTaaXoi f Ki/i . Either this text
means, "They made a missionary journey to Amphipolis,
came down to Apollonia, and thence to Thessalonica," or
it means something impossible that is, that St. Paul went
from Philippi to Thessalonica in two stages, "passing
through " Amphipolis. 1

However this may be, the important point of the narrative
both to St. Luke and ourselves is the arrival of St. Paul
and his companions at Thessalonica. It is not quite clear
who ought to be reckoned as certainly among the latter.
In Philippi St. Paul had been accompanied by Silas,
who had come with him from Antioch, presumably by
Timothy, whom he had brought from Lystra, 2 and accord
ing to the implicit testimony of the " we-sections " by
St. Luke. Of these St. Luke according to the same
implicit testimony remained in Philippi, and Silas, accord
ing to Acts xvii. 4, came on with St. Paul. The case of
Timothy is more doubtful : he is not directly mentioned
in Acts between Philippi and Beroea, but in the latter
place he is spoken of as though his presence was natural,
so that he probably came with St. Paul to Thessalonica. 3

1 It seems to me to be probable that the Bezan text is here clearly secondary.
The redactor thought that SioSftjfiv meant "to pass through," and altered the
text to bring out this meaning. As a matter of fact, the emphasis is not on
the 8ia but on the &$bs implied in the verb. I suspect that St. Luke used
SioSevfiv here instead of Siepxfff6ai because he wished to indicate that St. Paul
went along the great 6S6s, the Via Egnatia, and that a similar shade of meaning
can be traced in Luke viii. I.

2 Acts xvi. 1-3.

3 The comment of von Dobschtitz is here very much to the point. "To
conclude from Acts xvii. 4 that Timothy did not come to Thessalonica with St.
Paul, as has often been done, is to ignore the fact that Timothy is not men
tioned in Philippi, where, however, he must have been (so also John Mark in
xiii. 7), and is alluded to in xvii. 14 (Beroea) only because the narrative is here con
cerned with the party of travellers, not with the mission as such " (p. 8, note 3).

64 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

The procedure of the missionaries and its result is
described in Acts xvii. i-io : "Now when they had passed
through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessa-
lonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews : and Paul, as
his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath
days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and
alleging, that the Messiah must needs have suffered, and
risen again from the dead ; and that the Messiah is this
Jesus, whom I preach unto you. And some of them
believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas ; and of the
God-fearing Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief
women not a few."

The obvious meaning of this passage is that St. Paul
preached for three weeks in the synagogue and among
those who congregated in the synagogue, i.e. the Jews and
the " God-fearers." Whether the words rpm cra/3/3ara ought
to be translated " three weeks " or " three sabbath days/ is
for this purpose unimportant. Similarly it is really not
important whether the ordinary text be read or the Bezan
text which distinguishes between the " God-fearers " and
the " Greeks." x It is, however, to be noted that this dis
tinction is precisely one of the points in which the Bezan
text most clearly fails to commend itself, for the " God-
fearers " were " Greeks " in any case, and it seems as though,
in this respect, the Bezan text was so far removed from
the spirit of the first century as not to recognize this fact.

If, then, we follow the plain meaning of the Acts, we
must suppose that St. Paul s activity in Thessalonica
lasted three weeks, and the result was a few Jewish con
verts, and a great success among the God-fearers. It is,

1 It reads : /col irpo(reK\ripta6-t]ffav rtf Tlav\y KCU T&lt;J&gt; 2t\oia TT? SiSaxf iro\\ol rui&gt;
tft^rifjifi uv KOJ. EA.A^cwi , Kal yvvaiicfs TUV TrpilntDV OVK o\iyai.

ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA 65

however, argued by many commentators that i Thessalonians
implies a degree of success which is incompatible with
so short a period of preaching. They therefore consider
that St. Paul must have spent a much longer time in
Thessalonica than the three weeks mentioned in Acts,
and that the truth must be that he gave up three sabbaths
to the synagogue, after which there was an unrecorded
quarrel with the Jews, followed by a longer period, probably
some months, of preaching outside the synagogue to the
God-fearers and possibly to others. There is, of course,
no reason to suppose that St. Luke is infallible ; in other
places he has certainly omitted incidents. But here the
suggestion of a more prolonged preaching in Thessalonica
seems psychologically as unnecessary as it is certainly
historically unvouched for. Christianity did not succeed
through the slow and laborious efforts of hard-working
missionaries, but by the contagion of an enthusiasm which
spread from St. Paul to his hearers. St. Paul and Silas
must not be compared to men who preach to a heathen
population tolerably well satisfied with its creed, or seek
to convince minds which are not especially interested, and
do not share in the general point of view of the mission
aries, but rather to " revival preachers " such as Wesley
or Whitefield, who understood and were understood by
their hearers, and had a definite message for a clearly
felt want. For such men three weeks is long enough
for anything ; certainly it is long enough to create a
considerable body of fervent believers among men who
are dissatisfied with their own position and that is exactly
what the God-fearers were. Furthermore, although it is
possible that St. Luke accidentally omitted any reference
to the preaching outside the synagogue, which is supposed

to be necessary, it is remarkable that in Corinth, Ephcsus,
and Rome St. Luke is careful to mention the conditions
of St. Paul s preaching, and to indicate with some precision
the point at which he broke with the Jews. Probably,
therefore, there is insufficient reason for deserting the
testimony of Acts, and we ought to conclude (though with
considerable reserve) that St. Paul s visit to Thessalonica
was only three weeks * or, more accurately, only included
three sabbaths, during which he met with some slight
success among the Jews, and great success among the
God-fearers. As was pointed out on pp. 37 ff., this was
exactly what was to be expected ; the God-fearers pro
vided, as it were, soil specially fitted for the sowers of the
Christian word.

Here is also, perhaps, the best place to draw attention
to a small side-light on St. Paul s life in Thessalonica
given by the Epistles. In I Thess. ii. 9 he says that he
supported himself by working night and day, but it would
seem that this was not his only source of livelihood, for
in Phil. iv. 16 he mentions that the Philippians more
than once sent help to him at Thessalonica, and this point
may fairly be used by those who think that St. Paul s
preaching in Thessalonica must have lasted longer than

3aTa in xvii. 2, is taken by Zahn (EinL, p. 152) to mean weeks rather
than sabbaths. Of course, three Sabbaths imply three weeks, more or less, but
I do not think rpia &lt;ra/3/3oTa is likely to mean anything except " three sabbaths."
St. Luke uses the plural in Luke iv. 31 ; vi. 2 ; xiii. 10, each time in the sense
of "sabbath day." At the same time, the point is far from certain, for the
genitive, either singular or plural, is used, with a numeral prefixed, to give
the days of the week. It is possible that an extension of this use gave the
meaning of week to ffd&fiarot&gt;, but I know no evidence in favour of this
(generally accepted) view. Als rot) aa.pfia.Tov is the nearest approach, but here
also it is the genitive. See E. Schiirer, Die siebent dtige IVoche in the Zeitschrijt
fur die naitestamentliche Wissenschaft, vi. (1905) p. 8.

THESSALONIAN CONVERTS 67

three weeks, for it is possible to argue with much plausi
bility that the Philippians are not likely to have sent
more than once in so short a time.

The names of some of the converts at Thessalonica
have been preserved. Jason seems to have been the host
of St. Paul and Silas in Thessalonica, and in Acts
xx. 4 Aristarchus and Secundus are mentioned as two
of the Thessalonians who went with St. Paul to Jerusalem
on his journey with alms for the poor. To these some
editors add a fourth Gaius. Their method of reaching
this result is as follows : in Acts xix. 29 in the scene
in the theatre at Ephesus we are told that the crowd
seized " Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, comrades
of Paul (P. KCU A. MaKcSovac, &lt;ruvK ^uoue Ilau/Vou), and
it is thought that this Gaius ought to be identical with
the Gaius in Acts xx. 4. The difficulty is that in xx. 4
Gaius is described as a native of Derbe, and therefore
Blass emends the text from KOI Fcuoe AepjSaio?, KCU TifioOtoQ
into KOI Fa tog, AfjO/3aioc Se Ti/nuOtoQ. If this were correct,
Qaius was a Thessalonian, for the preceding words are,
"And of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus,"
to which would now be added " and Gaius, and the
man of Derbe, Timotheus." The objection to this is that
in Acts xvi. I Timothy seems to be a Lystran. It is
therefore probably better either to make the neat emenda
tion (which is actually found in some MSS.) in xix.
29 of MaiceSova for MaicfSoi/ac, explaining the usual
reading as a dittography of the initial o- in &lt;ruvKS//Moue, in
which case it would be possible to regard Gaius in xix. 29
as identical with the Gaius of Derbe in xx. 4, or merely to
accept the view that there was a Gaius in Macedonia as
well as in Derbe. This latter view has no more difficulty

68 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

than there is in thinking that there is a Smith in London
as well as in Glasgow, and seems to gain in probability
if we remember that there was in any case another Gaius
at Corinth (i Cor. i. 14 and Rom. xvi. 23). If this be
so, and Gaius was a Macedonian, it is, of course, possible
that he was a Thessalonian, though the epithet "Mace
donian " may refer to some other town. It is not possible
to say with any degree of certainty whether these converts
were all of them drawn from the ranks of the God-fearers,
or belonged to the Jewish element ; but Jason is at all
events a name often used by Jews, and in Col. iv. 10
St. Paul speaks of an Aristarchus as belonging to the
circumcision, and he may quite well be the Thessalonian
who had gone with St. Paul to Jerusalem.

Further tradition as to these Thessalonians is probably
valueless, though the Synaxarion and similar works have
various details. Jason, for instance, is identified with the
Jason of Rom. xvi. 21. His further labours are placed in
Tarsus or in Thessalonica, and he is described as bishop
of both these places in various sources. According to
Clement of Alexandria, he was the protagonist in the
Dialogue between Jason and Papiscus. Aristarchus is
sometimes described as suffering martyrdom together with
St. Paul, sometimes as Bishop of Apamea, sometimes of
Lydda or Diospolis in Syria. Secundus seems not to be
noticed. Gaius was, according to Origen (In Rom. xvi. 23),
the first Bishop of Thessalonica ; according to the Apostolic
Constitutions (vii. 46, 9), Bishop of Pergamum ; and accord
ing to other tradition, either Bishop of Ephesus or a martyr
in the neighbourhood of Antioch.

None of these traditions seem to be valuable. Full
references will be found in Th. Schermann s Proplieten- imd

DEPARTURE FROM THESSALONICA 69

Apostellegenden in Texte und Untersuchungen, xx\ i. 3, and
the same writer s Prophetarnm Vitae Fabulosae in Teubner s
Bibliotkeca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum.

It is not surprising to find that St. Paul s success aroused
the enmity of the members of the synagogue who saw those
who were reckoned as already half converted being led
astray to a sect of which they profoundly disapproved, and
the form which they gave to their resentment is shown in
the next paragraph of the Acts, xvii. 5-10 : " But the Jews
which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain
agitators 1 of bad character, and gathered a company, and
set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of
Jason, and sought to bring them out to the crowd. And
when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain
brethren unto the Politarchs, crying, These that have turned
the world upside down are come hither also ; whom Jason
hath received : and these all do contrary to the decrees of
Caesar, saying that there is another Emperor, Jesus. And
they troubled the people and the Politarchs, when they
heard these things. And when they had taken security of
Jason, and of the others, they let them go. But the brethren
immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Beroea :
who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews."

This account is tolerably plain, but a few points call
for some comment. It is not possible at present to be
certain what was the exact nature of the crowd in xvii. 5
(rov ?}/K&gt;I&gt;), though we may guess that it practically
amounted to something like an " indignation meeting." 2

1 The Greek is ayopaitav. That it means "agitators" and not " loafers," is
probably shown by Plutarch, Aemil. Paul., 38, av9pu&gt;irovs ayeweis /cal SeSouAeu-
KoVas, ayopaiovs 5e Kal SuvaiAevovs 6x^- ol&gt; &lt;rvva.ya.yfiv, K.T.\.

2 I cannot help thinking that it is possible to read too much into this phrase.
Surely the STJUOS here is not a special juridical body, but merely the meeting or

70 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

In this case it is easy to understand that St. Paul and
Silas were prudent in avoiding such an ordeal, for what
began as an indignation meeting might easily end as a
lynching party. At the same time, their absence had its
drawback : it meant that the Jews could bring the case
at once before the Politarchs, who were the local, not the
Imperial magistrates, and formulate a charge of the
greatest gravity, for which colourable evidence could be
produced, and that the absence of the defendants
appeared conclusive proof of their guilt. The result was
so Acts certainly implies that judgment went against
St. Paul by default, security was taken from Jason not
to harbour these suspected persons, and most important
of all legal ground was afforded for presuming Christianity
to be a punishable offence. Fortunately, however, the
jurisdiction of the Politarchs 1 was only local, so that their
decision did not form an Imperial precedent, and that is
probably the reason why St. Luke is careful to mention
their exact title ; it was essential to the apologetic side of
the Acts that he should point out that the Imperial
authorities, when they understood the facts, always acquitted
St. Paul in Philippi, Corinth, and Caesarea and that when
he was condemned or punished it was either by a local
magistrate, imperially unimportant, as at Thessalonica, or
through a mistake which was afterwards rectified, as at
Philippi.

Thus St. Paul and his companions had remained in
hiding ; but after the decision of the Politarchs it was

crowd, whichever we may choose to name it, which had been called into
existence by the ayopawi.

1 For the epigraphic evidence for the title, see de Witt Burton, in the
American Journal of Theology for 1898, pp. 598-632.

BE ROE A 71

necessary for them to escape. They were therefore sent
off by their friends to Beroea under cover of night.

In Beroea, according to Acts xvii. 10 ff., St. Paul and
Silas again began to preach in the synagogue of the
Jews, and at first met with a better reception than in
Thessalonica, for " they received the word with all readi
ness, searching the Scriptures to see if these things were
so." Thus many Jews believed, "and of Greek ladies
of position and men, 1 not a few." But when the report
of this success reached Thessalonica, the Jews there sent
to Beroea and broke up the Mission. The result was
that it was decided that St. Paul must leave Beroea, 2
and some of the Christians undertook to accompany him
to the coast, where he would be able to sail to Athens.
Temporarily, however, Silas and Timothy were left behind.

If we may press the exact words of the Acts, when
Beroea was left, the plans of St. Paul and his friends were
uncertain. Ultimately they went with him as far as
Athens, presumably by sea. In this way Thessaly was
passed over and St. Paul went directly from Macedonia
to Achaia. Probably the reason for this omission is that
at this time Thessaly belonged to Macedonia. 3 No doubt
the Politarchs decision was only valid in Thessalonica,
but it would probably be known to and have influence
with the Imperial authorities. Events at Beroea had shown

1 Or possibly " of their husbands."

2 Is it possible that the local authorities in Thessalonica had some power
of fetching him to their jurisdiction ?

3 This is probable but not certain. Ptolemy regards Thessaly as
Macedonian, and possibly Strabo does so also (this is Mommsen s view, but
the point is doubtful). There is, however, no doubt but that it was formerly
Achaean. Ramsay thinks it was given to Macedonia in 44. Others suggest
a later date, which, if true, is of course fatal to the suggestion made above.
(See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 234.)

72 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

that St. Paul was a marked man in Macedonia, and if
Thessaly was part of the province it was wiser not to
touch it, but to pass on to Achaia.

The omission to preach in Thessaly has made its mark
on the text. Codex Bezae adds to v. 1 5 : " But he passed
by Thessaly, for he was prevented from preaching the
word to them." l Prof. Zahn thinks that this is part of the
original text, and moreover deduces from the verb " passed
by " (TretjorjAflev) that St. Paul went from Beroea to Athens
by land, for he argues, that had he gone by sea, St. Luke
would have written " sailed past " (TraptTrXeuo-fv). This
argument is, however, not very probable. It is far more
likely that the reading of Codex Bezae is merely the
comment of some early reader who was struck by the
omission of Thessaly. It may be noted that a similar
gloss is found in the Armenian catena on the Acts, 2 which
reads, "But the Holy Spirit prevented him from preach
ing, lest they should slay him." In any case, St. Paul and
the Beroeans reached Athens, and the latter then returned
home, taking a message to Silas and Timothy to join
their leader as soon as possible.

It is not necessary for the present purpose to follow
the details of the history of St. Paul in Athens. He was
not especially successful, and after a time went on to
Corinth. Still he was presumably a week or ten days in
Athens, and we should expect to find that Silas and
Timothy had joined him before he left, but as a matter
of fact, we hear nothing more of them in Acts, until in
xviii. 5, when St. Paul is in Corinth, we are told that
" Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia."

1 Traprj\0ev 8e ryjv etrcraAia^ (Kia\v(&gt;r) yap els avrovs Kripv^ai TOV \6yov.
9 See Kendel Harris, Four Lectures on the Western Text&gt; p. 47.

A THENS 73

It is at this point that it is possible to turn to the
Epistles to the Thessalonians and begin to consider the
problem of fitting the historical information which they
supply into the frame-work of the narrative in the Acts.

This information is contained in two passages in
i Thessalonians. In the first (i Thess. iii. 1-2, 5) St.
Paul says : " Wherefore when we could no longer forbear,
we thought it good to be left at Athens alone ; and sent
Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our
fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you,
and to comfort you concerning your faith : for this cause,
when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith,
lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and
our labour be in vain."

It is tolerably plain that here St. Paul is referring to the
same incident in both verses, but in vv. 2 and 3 he
speaks in the plural and in v. 5 in the singular. It is, there
fore, impossible to be certain whether any use ought to be
made of the plural as a proof that Silas and Timothy
were present when the decision was arrived at, and that
Silas also went away to some unmentioned destination.
Usually, however, it is argued that the passage proves that
Silas and Timothy did, as a matter of fact, join St.
Paul while he was in Athens, an incident of which there is
no mention in Acts. As i Thessalonians goes on in iii. 6, 1
to narrate Timothy s return with good news from Thessa-
lonica, it is usually supposed that this verse corresponds to
Acts xviii. 5, which describes the coming of Timothy and
Silas to join St. Paul in Corinth, and from this the

1 " But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good
tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us
always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you."

74 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

conclusion is drawn that I Thessalonians, which was clearly
written directly after Timothy s return, was sent from
Corinth. According to this theory, St. Luke entirely
omitted to mention that Timothy and Silas joined St. Paul
at Athens, and that Timothy was sent thence to Thessa-
lonica, and only narrates his return, not to Athens, but to
Corinth. From the fact that Acts says that Silas and
Timothy, not Timothy only, returned to Corinth, it is also
generally thought that Silas must have been sent to some
town in Macedonia, probably to Philippi. Thus according
to this view the table of events can be drawn up as follows :

1. St. Paul leaves Silas and Timothy in Beroea and goes
to Athens, sending a message back to them to join him
at once. Acts xvii. I4f.

2. Silas and Timothy join St. Paul in Athens.
Implied by I Thess. iii. I, not in Acts.

3. St. Paul sends Timothy to Thessalonica [and Silas
elsewhere]. I Thess. iii. 1-5, not in Acts.

4. St. Paul goes to Corinth. Acts xviii. i, not in I Thess.

5. [Silas and] Timothy return from Macedonia to
Corinth. Acts xviii. 5 ; I Thess. iii. 6.

6. St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians from Corinth.
This theory has the advantage of combining both Acts

and I Thessalonians without doing violence to either. At
the same time, interpretations are probably to be deprecated
which attempt to maintain that this is what St. Luke meant,
and that he intentionally omitted the arrival of Silas and
Timothy at Athens. It is undeniable that a cursory read
ing of Acts xvii. 14-18 creates not merely the impression
that St. Luke omits the return of Silas and Timothy,
but also that his narrative definitely implies that their arrival
at Corinth is the fulfilment of St. Paul s command, sent to

them at Beroea, and if this be so it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that St. Luke is here inaccurate in his account,
and that he has confused the arrival of Silas and
Timothy from Beroea which was really at Athens with
the return of Timothy from Thessalonica. Personally, I
am inclined to think that this much ought to be conceded,
but the point is not of very great importance for the study
of the Epistle, as in any case the fact remains apparently
certain that it was to Corinth that Timothy returned,
and therefore from Corinth that the Epistle was written. It
is surely gratuitous to suppose that St. Luke made the
further mistake of saying Corinth instead of Athens, and
that the Epistle was really written from Athens. 1 The fact
that St. Paul says that he was willing to remain alone in
Athens is no decisive evidence that he was or was not still
there when he wrote, though it makes it slightly more
probable that he was elsewhere. 2

Whatever view may be taken of this complicated little
problem, the fact stands out undisputed that Timothy
was sent to Thessalonica. Apart from his general desire to
know something of the development of his converts, St.

1 Though this view is not inconceivable, it ought not to be forgotten that
the view that Thessalonians was sent from Corinth depends on the theory that
" Corinth " in Acts is correct ; probably it is but it is only one word, and no
one can be trusted not to go wrong on these details.

2 It need scarcely be said that there have been many other attempts to solve
this problem of the difference between Acts and I Thessalonians. For instance,
it has been suggested that St. Paul returned to Athens for a short time after he
had gone to Corinth, intending to go to Thessalonica ; or, that Timothy never
reached Athens because St. Paul sent a message to tell him to go first to
Thessalonica (so von Dobschiitz). Of all these it can be said that they are not
impossible, but they seem more complicated and less probable than the usual
view. The whole problem defies a final decision, because we have not sufficient
data, and opinions are likely to continue to differ as to the greater or less
probability of various not impossible solutions.

76 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

Paul had a special reason for anxiety in their case. When
he and Silas left Thessalonica without appearing before the
Politarchs he no doubt took the wisest course ; but he also
incurred the disadvantage that he allowed the question of
the treasonable nature of his preaching that is, of Christi
anity to be settled against him by default. It is obvious
that as neither he nor Silas appeared, the Politarchs
were forced to decide between the conflicting accounts of
Jason and of the Jews, and the failure to appear of the parties
chiefly implicated must have been used with unanswerable
effect by the Jews to show that they were right, and that
Christianity was a treasonable movement. That was a
serious matter for every Christian in Thessalonica, and St.
Paul must have knoun that it was so; it meant that the
Jews had succeeded, for the time at least, in persuading the
Greeks to persecute the Christians. Therefore, St. Paul was
naturally anxious for his converts, and wished to know in
the first place whether, as there was every reason to fear, they
were suffering persecution, and in the second place whether,
if that were the case, they were remaining steadfast. This
is exactly what we find stated in I Thess. iii. 2 f. " We
sent Timothy, our brother, and God s minister in the gospel
of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning
your faith ; that no man be moved by these afflictions. . . .
For this cause I also, when I could no longer forbear, sent
that I might know your faith, lest by any means the tempter
had tempted you, and our labour should be in vain." It is
plain that St. Paul foresaw that there must be persecution ;
he was anxious to know to what extent it would be pushed,
and how far the Christians would stand firm.

Under these circumstances, then, Timothy went to
Thessalonica. What report did he bring back ? That

I
THE AUTHENTICITY OF 2 THESSALONIANS 77

question can only be answered by reconstructing his report
from the hints given in the Epistles, and it is, therefore,
first necessary to face the problem of the authenticity of
2 Thessalonians, in order to see whether we are justified in
using it, as well as i Thessalonians, for this purpose.

II. THE AUTHENTICITY OF 2 THESSALONIANS.

Ever since the modern criticism of the Pauline Epistles
beean, this letter has been one of those as to the authen-

ticity of which it has been most generally conceded by
impartial scholars that there is legitimate room for doubt,
and though the tide of opinion has ebbed and flowed,
there has never been any practical unanimity, such as has
been reached in favour of I Thessalonians. A good
account of the various writers who have contributed to the
discussion of the question may be found in von Dobschutz s
Commentary, pp. 32-36, but the main arguments against
the Pauline authorship may be reduced to two: (i) the
view that the Apocalyptic passage in the second chapter
refers to events later than the life of St. Paul, or is incon
sistent with the eschatological teaching of i Thessalonians ;
(2) a comparison with i Thessalonians as to literary style,
and as to the general characteristics of the community
implied by the Epistles.

The argument derived from the Apocalyptic section
in 2 Thessalonians has taken, in the main, two forms.

(a) It has been said, in the first place, that it is, whatever
it means, irreconcilable with I Thessalonians. In the first
Epistle St. Paul describes the Parousia as imminent ; in the
second he protests against those who maintain that the day
of the Lord " \vior\\\if." and says that it will not come before

78 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

the revelation of the " Man of Lawlessness." Moreover, in
I Thessalonians St. Paul, though speaking of the Parousia as
imminent, says that it will come as a thief in the night,
i.e. suddenly and unexpectedly whereas in 2 Thessalonians
he says that he had told the Thessalonians of the Apostasy,
and the revelation of the Man of Lawlessness which would
be the signs of the Parousia.

These arguments do not seem to bear investigation. It
is true that in I Thessalonians St. Paul implies that the day
of the Parousia is imminent, but 2 Thessalonians does not
contradict this ; tvlarijKs does not mean " is imminent," but
" has come," and St. Paul never meant that the day of the
Lord was not future, to however close a future he might
assign it.

() In the second place, some critics have maintained
that this passage contains the so-called Nero Saga, which is
of course later than St. Paul. The main points of this
legend are well known : when the Emperor died in A.D. 68,
the first feeling of the populace was joy at their deliver
ance from the tyrant, but in a short time doubts began to
arise as to whether the report of his death was not a piece
of news too good to be true. The result was that pretenders
appeared who gave themselves out as Nero. The first of
these appeared in 69, and was speedily destroyed. Another
eleven years later, in the reign of Titus, was, according to
Zonaras, recognized as Nero by Artabanus, the King of the
Parthians ; and still later in 88 another impostor almost
succeeded in raising the Parthians in revolt against
Domitian. After 88 the fact of Nero s death was recog
nized : but a belief arose that he would rise from the dead
and lead the armies of the East against Rome. 1 Finally,

1 For the history of the Nero Saga in its early stages the main source is

THE ANTICHRIST LEGEND 79

the figure of Nero himself became obscure, and there
remained that of a partly human, partly diabolic Antichrist.

It used frequently to be thought that the Nero Saga
was in this way the source of the whole Antichrist legend,
and it was argued that in this case 2 Thessalonians, which
shows clear traces of the Antichrist legend, cannot be earlier
than the death of Nero, and therefore cannot have been
written by St. Paul. This argument, or something like it,
certainly played a great part in the commentaries on
2 Thessalonians in the nineteenth century. But it is un
necessary to discuss it in detail, because W. Bousset to
his many services to the study of the New Testament has
added this, that he has shown the true history of the Anti
christ legend to be independent of the Nero Saga, and far
older than the time of St. Paul.

The history of the Antichrist legend is far too com
plicated to be dealt with here : the main outlines alone
can be given. There seems to have been current among
the Jews, and among other Eastern peoples, the belief that
the " end shall be as the beginning." The sign that the
New Age is near at hand will be the repetition of the events
preceding the creation. Now, these events comprised a
struggle between God and a daemonic being who strove to
take the place of God. This is the old Babylonian myth
of the strife between Marduk and Tiamat, of which there

Tacitus, Hist., ii. 8f. ; Suetonius, Nero, 40 ; 47 ; 57. Zonaras, XI 15 ; 18. (Dio
Cassius, LXIV); for the later stage of the belief in Nero redivivus the Oracula
Sibyllina, books IV and V, and the canonical Apocalypse of St. John. The
chief modern literature on the subject is T. Zahn, Apokalyptische Stitdien III. in
the Zeitschrift filr kirchliche Wissenschaft, 1886 ; Geficken, Studiert zur dlteren
Nei-osage, in the Nachrichien von der konigl. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Gottingen, 1899 ;
and Bousset s commentary on the Apocalypse, in Meyer s Kritischexegetischet
A omm. ii. d. N. T., 6th ed., 1906, pp. 411 ff.

So THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

are many traces in the Old Testament. It was believed
that at the end of this age the struggle would again be
renewed, and the victory of God would be the inauguration
of a New Age, as it had formerly been of the Creation.
Thus we find in Jewish and in Early Christian sources a
certain amount of confusion of thought as to whether the
Antichrist would be a human or a daemonic figure, and
sometimes even a duplication in which a human Antichrist
is accompanied or followed by a still more terrible super
natural apparition. 1

So much is now generally accepted : it still leaves
almost as difficult as ever the problems connected with the
exact exegesis of St. Paul s words. We are still incapable
of giving a decisive answer to the questions whether St.
Paul expected a Jewish or a Gentile " Man of Lawlessness,"
and whether " he that letteth " (6 icarc xwv) was a supernatural
being or the Roman Empire. But these problems may be
left on one side for the present purpose. What is important
is that the result of the last fifteen years of research is
decisively to remove the eschatological argument from the
list of possible objections to the authenticity of 2 Thessa-
lonians.

It is, therefore, not surprising that there was in the
last years of the nineteenth century a strong reaction
in favour of 2 Thessalonians. In 1903, however, this reaction
was checked and reversed by the extremely able mono
graph of the late Prof. Wrede, Die Echtheit des zweiten

1 The two really indispensable books on this subject are Gunkel s Schbpfung
und Chaos and W. Bousset s Der Antichrist Legends, translated by A. H.
Keane, The Antichrist Legend. The latter book gives very full references to the
scattered and confused sources from which the outlines of the myth can be
built up. Much the same ground is covered, in a more compressed form, by
the article by Bousset on " Antichrist " in the Encyclopedia Biblica.

pRd LESSOR iv. WREDE 81

Thessalonicherbriefs)- In this it was freely admitted that
the apocalyptic section could not be used as the basis of
any discussion either of the date or of the authenticity
of the Epistle, but the attention of scholars was recalled
to the literary problem afforded by the comparison of
I and 2 Thessalonians. This may shortly be described
as a remarkable combination of similarity and difference :
the language is largely the same so much so that it
would, if found in two writers, completely justify the
theory of literary dependence but the general tone is
quite different so that no one would, apart from the tradi
tion, ever have suggested that both letters were written
by the same author to the same community. The extent
of this similarity, which is at once felt on reading the
Epistles rapidly through one after the other, may be seen
best in the tables given by Wrede 2 (pp. cif., pp. 3-36).
The dissimilarity can also be felt on a cursory reading
of both Epistles, though it is more difficult to analyze,
but the main points are : (i) I Thessalonians is full of
the deepest and most heartfelt sympathy and friendship,
but 2 Thessalonians is much cooler, and, as it were, official
in tone ; (2) I Thessalonians seems to imply a purely
Gentile community, while 2 Thessalonians shows no trace
of Gentile thought, and contains no reference to anything
implying Gentile origin, but, on the contrary, shows a
strongly Jewish colouring, with in spite of the absence of
definite quotations 3 perhaps a more strongly marked

1 In Texte und Untersuchungcn, N. F. ix. 2. (der ganzen Reihe xxiv. 2).

1 Holtzmann considers that the only passages in 2 Thessalonians for which
no parallel can be found in \ Thessalonians are 2 Thess. i. 5, 6, 9, 12 ; ii. 2-9,
&lt;:i, 12, 15; iii. 2, 13, 14, 17 (Einleitung in das Neue Testament, p. 214).

3 It should be noted that St. Paul s quotations from the Old Testament are

82 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

resemblance to the thought and language of the Old
Testament than any book in the New Testament except
the Apocalypse. 1 There are other points in which a contrast
can be observed, 2 but these are the most noticeable, and
are the main reasons for the difficulty, so ably expressed
by Wrede, of believing that the two Epistles could have
been written by the same writer, to the same community,
at the same time. If both had been written by the same
writer, and the identity of language were explained merely
as due to the fact that the same ideas were in his mind
when he wrote both letters, it would be almost impossible
to doubt that they were written at the same or almost the
same time. But the community cannot have changed
from Gentile to Jewish, and it is very improbable that
St. Paul s tone can have so suddenly altered ; if therefore,
so Wrede argued, we accept the tradition connecting
the Second Epistle with Thessalonica, we are bound to
doubt the Pauline authorship. It is then important to
notice that the one passage which presents no parallelism
to the First Epistle is the apocalyptic section. Wrede,
therefore, suggested that we ought to regard the Second
Epistle as the work of some unknown writer, who found
that the Thessalonians were too much imbued with an
immediate expectation of the Parousia, and therefore wrote
a warning that the Parousia could not come before the
Antichrist, of whom, it is implied, no sign has yet been
seen, while in order to secure attention for his warning

mostly in his polemical passages, and are not due to the nationality of his readers,
but to the character of his letters.

1 Bornemann, in his commentary (p. 461), adds the Epistle of St. James.

2 See especially the list of twelve points given by Harnack in his Das
Problem des zweiten Thessalonicherbnefs, in the Sitzungsberichte der kon. preus.
Akademie, 1910, p. 562 f.

PROFESSOR A. HARNACK 83

he surrounded it in a mosaic of Pauline phraseology from
I Thessalonians, and issued it as an Epistle of St. Paul.

This theory of Wrede, set out, as it was, in his own
clear and most attractive style, immediately met with a
friendly reception, and swung the pendulum back again
against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians. Nor was it
for a long time satisfactorily answered : even von Dobschiitz,
in the /th edition of Meyer s commentary (1909), did not
really make any decisive reply, though he emphasized with
truth the strange fact that it is only because we possess

1 Thessalonians that any one doubts the authenticity
of the Second Epistle, for there is nothing un-Pauline
in it, and the only reason for disputing its authorship is
the difficulty of finding room for it alongside of i Thessa
lonians. This may be described as a plea which is perhaps
sufficient for a stay of execution, but scarcely adequate
for a reversal of judgment.

Recently, however, Prof. Harnack has read a paper to
the Berlin Academy which throws a new light on the
question. He does not dispute Wrede s contention that

2 Thessalonians cannot have been written at the same
time, by the same writer, to the same community as i
Thessalonians, but, instead of solving the problem by
denying the identity of the writer, he does it by a closer
consideration of the circumstances of the Church at Thessa-
lonica, and by the suggestion that alongside of the Gentile
community implied by the First Epistle there was a smaller
and earlier Jewish community to which the Second Epistle
was directed.

It is, of course, plain that this suggestion takes the force
out of most of the objections to the authenticity of the
Epistle, and Harnack s reconstruction of the circumstances

84 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

which led up to its being sent is extremely attractive.
St. Paul ends the First Epistle by adjuring its recipients
to see that it was read by all the Christians ; and in the
immediately preceding verse there seems to be a similar
emphasis on the idea of all the brethren. It would therefore
seem that he was aware of a division at Thessalonica which
justified the fear that his letter would not be read to all
the community unless he insisted on it. In view of the
obviously Gentile character of those whom he is addressing
in I Thessalonians, the only probable view as to the minority
whom he wished to reach is that they were Jewish Christians.
But, suggests Harnack, there is nothing in I Thessalonians
which would be especially agreeable to Jewish Christians,
and several points which might be obnoxious to them.
Therefore, immediately after the First Epistle the Second
was despatched for the benefit of the Jewish Christians. In
support of this theory one other piece of corroborative
evidence can be alleged, though the point is complicated
a little by the uncertainty of the text. In 2 Thess. ii.
13 St. Paul says that he is bound to thank God on
a Xaro vfjias 6 Gtoc cnrapxfiv etc ad)TY\piav, if we follow the
text of BFGP 17 al f vg syr hl Did. Dam. Amb., etc., or
ort . . . air apxfis tte vwrripiav if we follow NDE KLal pier,
d e g syrP esh boh. arm. aeth. Chr., etc. Merely as a matter
of textual criticism, there is about as much to be said for
the one reading as the other probably, if it were merely
a question of evidence and lexical probability, most critics
would choose airapxnv, because it is the more Pauline
expression (see Lightfoot s note ad loc.) t but in practice
air ap\iig has been followed because of the difficulty of
giving an adequate meaning to airap\r]v " God chose you
as a first-fruit,"- for in what sense could the Thessalonians

PROFESSOR A. HARNACK 85

be regarded as first-fruits ? The expression seemed not to
be true to history in any sense, for they were neither St.
Paul s earliest converts, nor were they the first in Macedonia.
Therefore interpreters have preferred to think that the
passage is a reference to predestination rather than to the
facts of history, and to read cnr apxfa- If, however,
Harnack s suggestion be followed, the matter appears in
a new light, for the Jewish Christians in Thessalonica were,
according to the Acts, the first-fruits of St. Paul s preaching
in that city, though they were soon surpassed in numbers
by the Gentile converts.

The obvious objection to which this theory is liable
is that the address given in 2 Thess. i. i is " To the
Church of the Thessalonians," just as it is in I Thess.
i. i, and Harnack suggests that we ought to regard this
as probably not original. He points out that the address
of Ephesians, (and, it might be added, of Romans) shows
signs of having been tampered with, and that that of the
Epistle to the Hebrews has been wholly lost. He thinks
that the original address may have been ry iKKArjcrtp T&V
0&lt;T0-aAovKtov TWV sic TT}C TrEjotro/^Tjc, an d that the last four
words dropped out early in the tradition of the Epistle.
An alternative suggestion might be that the bearers of
the Epistle were given special instructions, or that the name
of the individual to whom it was sent secured that it would
reach the Jewish Christians ; it may have been inexpedient
in the letter itself to emphasize the difference between the
two classes of Christians.

As Harnack himself admits, his theory is open to some
objections, but on the whole it seems to be far more
acceptable than any other which has yet been put forward,
and whereas before its publication the balance of argument

S6 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

seemed to be in favour of some such hypothesis as that
of Wrede, and against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians,
the situation is now reversed, and there is sufficient justifica
tion for accepting the Epistle as a genuine document
belonging, together with I Thessalonians, even if not so
certainly, to the earliest period of Christian life in
Thessalonica. In any case, however, the point which it is
most desirable to emphasize is that the main argument
against the Epistle is the difficulty of imagining circum
stances to account for its curious combination of likeness
to and difference from the First Epistle and such an
argument is too negative to be ever quite decisive; while,
on the other hand, the main argument in favour of it is
traditional ascription, which, however highly it be valued,
is insufficient to give absolute confidence, if it be impossible
to present a probable reconstruction of the circumstances
under which the letter was written. Harnack has suc
ceeded in producing a reconstruction which is, at the least,
not impossible, and therefore we are justified in using
2 Thessalonians in reconstructing Timothy s report, even
though it must be conceded that points derived exclusively
from it have not the same certainty as those derived from
the First Epistle.

III. THE REPORT BROUGHT BY TIMOTHY
FROM THESSALONICA.

It is very probable, on general grounds, that Timothy
brought back with him a letter from Thessalonica to
St. Paul, and that I Thessalonians is in part an answer
to it. Nor are hints wanting in the Epistle that this was
actually the case. Far the most cogent of these is the

TIMOTHY S REPORT 87

expression in I Thess. ii. 13 Sm roOro KOI ? j,uac
in which the proper force of the KCU ii^tig can be given
only if we assume that St. Paul means, " we give thanks
just as you say that you do." Besides this the analogy
of I Corinthians (see p. 136) suggests that the paragraphs
beginning, ou Qi\ofjitv SE vfiaq dyvotlv, a&A$of, TTE/H T&V
Koi/Lnofjitvwv, K.T.\. (i Thess. iv. 13), and Trtpl & T&V xp^ v(t)l&gt;
Kai rwv Kdip&v, K.r.X. (i Thess. v. i), may be direct refer
ences to questions in a letter. 1 Thus it is probable that
Timothy s verbal report was supplemented by a letter from
the Thessalonians, though it is clearly impossible and
fortunately not very important to distinguish with any
certainty between items derived from the various sources
of information with which St. Paul was thus supplied.

On the subject of persecution and the attitude of the
Christians it proved that St. Paul s forebodings were correct.
The persecution had been serious, so that it could fairly
be compared to that of the prophets of old, 2 and of the
Christians in Palestine. " For ye, brethren," is St. Paul s
comment 3 on, or, one might almost say, quotation from the
report, " became imitators of the Churches of God which
are in Judaea in Christ Jesus, for ye also suffered the same
things of your own countrymen as they did of the Jews,
who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and drove
out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men."
It is clear from this passage that St. Paul is addressing

1 The most complete exploitation of this theory will be found in Dr. Rendel
Harris s article, " A Study in Letter-writing, : in the Expositor for September,
1898.

2 I am not sure that this is a right interpretation ; the " prophets " may
refer to Christian prophets, such as St. James the son of Zebedee, or St.
Stephen.

i Thess. ii. 14 f.

88 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

a Gentile community, and that they were suffering perse
cution from their fellow Greeks, even though the burst
of indignation against the Jews shows that St. Paul recog
nized that the latter were as Acts explains ultimately
responsible. Probably we shall not be wrong if we go a
step further, and say that this persecution had already led
to the martyrdom of some Christians. This is certainly
suggested by the reference to the death " of the Lord Jesus
and of the prophets," and perhaps also by the difficult
expression in I Thess. iv. 13, TOVQ KoipqOtvTag $ia roO Irjaou.
It is extremely probable that here &a row Irjtrou ought
to be taken closely with Koi/mnOtvraQ, but it is less certain
(though, on the whole, I believe it to be probable) that it
means martyrdom rather than (as the R.V. takes it) a
natural death in the faith of Jesus. 1

So far the news brought back by Timothy was
distressing enough ; but it was partly compensated for by
the fact that the Christians were standing firm, so that
their constancy under persecution was famous among all
the brethren in Macedonia and Achaia (i Thess. i. 2-8,
which describes, not only the original conversion of the
Thessalonians, but also the permanent effects of it, up to
the time when the Epistle was written).

I Thessalonians is primarily comment on and answer
to Timothy s report as to the Gentile Christians ; in
2 Thessalonians 2 we can probably see what he had to say

1 The objection that Koi/j.r]6fvras implies a peaceful death, and therefore not
martyrdom, is unsupported either by literary or psychological criticism. The
same word is used of the death of St. Stephen (Acts vii. 60), and a martyr s
death is, as a rule, pre-eminently peaceful. There is no doubt disturbance and
distress, but it is not the martyr who feels them. The real difficulty is rather
the curious genitival phrase, Sia rov IrjcroD in what sense Sid ?

2 The warning on p. 86 must be repeated that this, and all other refer
ence to 2 Thessalonians, is based on the hypothesis that the Epistle is genuine,

TIMOTHY S REPORT 89

as to the persecution of the Jewish Christians. They also
were suffering from persecution, and it is possible that the
reference in 2 Thess. i. 8, to the persecutors as those who
"know not God," ought to be taken as a sign that they
were Gentiles. Moreover, St. Paul repeats perhaps one
may say, is careful to repeat the commendation given to
the Gentile Christians for their steadfastness ; the Jewish
Christians were not their inferiors in this respect.

Thus the news brought by Timothy was consoling,
both as to Gentile and Jewish Christians so far as their
constancy under the pressure of persecution was con
cerned ; but if we piece together the indications in the
Epistles we can see that on some other points his
information was less satisfactory.

Timothy reported that there was a line of cleavage
between the Gentile and Jewish parts of the community. 1
So much was this the case that it was necessary for St.
Paul to insist strongly when writing to the Gentile half (in
I Thessalonians) that his letter should be read by all the
brethren, and that his readers should greet all the brethren
with a holy kiss (i Thess. v. 26 f.). Possibly also traces
of the same anxiety for the unity of the community may
be found in the emphatic injunctions " to abound in love
to each other and to all" (i Thess. iii. 12), and "ever to
pursue that which is good for each other and for all "
(i Thess. v. 15). Conversely it is possible to see a trace
of the same feeling in 2 Thessalonians in the notice drawn

and that Harnack s theory is correct. But this is by no means so certain as the
authenticity of I Thessalonians ; and to this extent the whole of the reconstruc
tion of Timothy s report varies in probability according to the Epistle on which
it is based.

1 This, again, is based on Harnack s theory of 2 Thessalonians, and cannot
be regarded as certain.

go THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

to the signature guaranteeing the letter, as if the Jewish
Christians were suspicious of anything coming from the
Gentile community. Possibly we ought even to agree with
Harnack that the Epistles imply that the Jewish and Gentile
parts of the community rarely or never met together for
common intercourse.

To this separateness of the Jewish and Gentile
Christians from each other must be ascribed the fact that
2 Thessalonians was ever written. Obviously it was not
necessary to instruct Jews, who believed in a Messiah, in
the doctrine of a Resurrection, nor is it in the least pro
bable that their conversion had led them to adopt a lax
standard of morality, such as would justify St. Paul in
urging them to abstain from fornication. Moreover, St.
Paul s statement as to the Parousia was, no doubt, defec
tive l from the Jewish point of view in that it omitted a
statement of the necessary development of evil in the days
immediately preceding the coming of Messiah. St. Paul
seemed to have felt these objections, and to have perceived
that his first letter, in spite of his personal good will, might
actually tend to increase the division in the community,
and, therefore, he wrote 2 Thessalonians, immediately after
the First Epistle, repeating much of what he had already
said, but omitting that which might be offensive to Jewish
Christians, or was in any case unnecessary, and adding the
section about the Antichrist in order to show that he did
not intend to give teaching contrary to the general faith of
the Jews as to the Parousia.

1 Bousset s work is here the necessary complement of Harnack s : if we did
not know that an expectation of an Antichrist was common among the Jews,
we should be unable to understand why St. Paul s teaching as to the Tarousia
in I Thessalonians could be regarded as defective.

TIMOTHY S REPORT 91

Timothy had to report that the main subject of
interest in the community at Thessalonica was eschato-
logical ; St. Paul s preaching l had, no doubt, been that of
all the earliest Christians that the kingdom of God, with
its sudden dramatic judgment, and the catastrophic end of
society as it was then, was close at hand, and that it was
the especial privilege of Christians that their master would
be the King in this kingdom. So emphatic had been this
preaching of the immediate coming of the kingdom, that
it had, no doubt, given colour to the accusation of treason
brought against St. Paul, and it had driven the thought of
death and its relation to the kingdom out of the minds of
the Gentile converts. When, therefore, some of the brethren
died possibly as martyrs the question arose what their fate
would be. Such is clearly the question implied by I Thess.
iv. 13, "Now we wish you not to be ignorant, brethren,
concerning those that sleep, in order that you may not
mourn, as do the others that have no hope." But the
implications of this fact are not so simply seen.

It is difficult to realize that there was a period in the
early history of Christianity when convinced and enthusi
astic believers did not necessarily look forward to the
resurrection of the " faithful departed," and that this subject
was so much at or beyond the circumference rather than the
centre of Christian preaching that St. Paul was obliged to
supplement his teaching on the point by written instruc
tion. Yet it is intelligible if we consider that the hope of
the first Christians was not that they should pass through

1 Cf. the summary which he gives himself in I Thess. i. 9, as to the result
which he regards as satisfactory of his preaching : " Ye turned to God from
idols, to become the servants of a living and real Godj and to await His Son
from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who saves us from the
coming wrath."

92 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

death to life, but that they should pass, without dying, from
life temporal to life eternal, when the kingdom of God was
established, and death, which was the result of sin, not an
essential feature of man s nature, was abolished. The hope
and belief of the first Christians was that they were proleptic
members of that kingdom, and that it was but a short time
before its glories would become manifest. It was, more
over, just at this point that there was originally a funda
mental difference between Christianity and the "Mystery
Religions." The latter also offered men eternal life, and
a proleptic participation in its blessings ; but they offered
its full realization only through the Way of Death, along
which the traveller was guarded by the magic formulae com
municated to him in Mysteries. The Oriental mysteries
offered a " medicine of immortality," but it was an im
mortality through death, and not over death. Thus the
fact that the Gentile Christians in Thessalonica were dis
tressed by the question of the " faithful departed " is a
proof that they had accepted Christianity as something
different from the Mystery Religions. In this respect they
offer a contrast to some of the Corinthian Christians (see
pp. 215 ff). When, therefore, cases of death were found
among them, the survivors began to ask whether they ought
to add to their eschatological hope a further, or alternative,
promise of life through death, similar to that of the Greek
Mysteries, or to accept the Jewish doctrine of a resurrection
of the dead at the Parousia a view which was still strange
to Gentile minds.

It was therefore necessary for St. Paul to point out to
his converts that the latter was the true answer, even
though he makes it plain that he regards as the norm
survival until the coming of the kingdom, rather than

THE PAROUSIA AND RESURRECTION 93

death and resurrection into the kingdom (cf. I Thess.
vi. 15).

In this case we probably have another side-light
on the clash of opinion between three factors. First, the
really primitive point of view of the first Christians who
expected a triumph of Life over Death, by which they would
pass directly into the Kingdom without dying ; secondly,
the natural expansion of this view along Jewish lines which
postulated a physical resurrection x for those who died
before the coming of the Kingdom : and thirdly, an
expansion along Hellenistic or rather Graeco-Oriental lines,
which treated the promise of Christianity for those who
died as parallel to that of the Mysteries which offered
eternal life through death, and so left no room for the
idea of a resurrection. It is interesting to note that the
development of Christian doctrine united the two last
factors. The belief in an ultimate, though remote, day of
judgment and of resurrection represents the originally
Jewish factor, and the belief in a Paradise of rest and joy
for the faithful departed until the Great Day represents
the weakened survival of the originally Greek factor which
emphasized the idea that eternal life is given by the Sacra
ments, and that for the initiated Dying is not Death but
the passage into a wider and a freer life.

Among the Jewish part of the community, if we may
take 2 Thessalonians as a guide, there was as indeed
might have been expected an equal interest in the
eschatological expectation of the coming of the Kingdom,
though it is not easy to define it exactly. The passage

1 The Apocalypse of Baruch shows that the Jewish idea, at least in some
circles, was a resurrection of the dead in the form in which they died, followed
by a speedy transfiguration into a more glorious condition.

94 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

which is important is 2 Thess. ii. 2 : " Now I beseech
you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and our meeting with Him, that ye be not quickly moved
in your mind, or shaken, either by a spirit (of prophecy)
or by a saying/ or by a letter, as though from me, to
the effect that the day of the Lord has set in (^VCOTJ/KEV)."
The meaning of ivtorrjicev is here a difficulty. It cannot be
denied that it means "is present" as distinct from "is
future " (cf. the usual antithesis between ra ivetr-wra and
ra /ue AAovra, Rom. viii. 38 ; I Cor. iii. 22 ; Gal. i. 4), but
it is impossible to think that any one believed that the
Day of the Lord was already come in the sense of the
last judgment. The answer to these difficulties is, how
ever, found in the more accurate consideration both of the
linguistic and of the dogmatic point. The meaning of
EVEOTIJKEV is " is present " not " is future," or even " is
imminent," and also not " is already past " ; and the " Day
of the Lord " meant not merely the last judgment, but
a whole complex of events leading up to the final d/noue-
ment it was a " day " in the sense of a " period of
time." Thus the meaning of IvforjjKEv 17 -h/uipa rou Kvptov
may be paraphrased as " we are living in the day of the
Lord," and St. Paul s answer is that he rejects this view,
and that nothing which he has written must be interpreted
as giving it any support, because before the day of the
Lord the Man of Lawlessness must be revealed. His posi
tion is that the Day of the Lord is imminent it will, he
imagines, come before his own death but it has not yet
come.

What were the reasons which made it necessary for
St. Paul to emphasize this point ? Two explanations are
possible, and it is hard to say which of the two is the

FORGERIES OR MISUNDERSTANDING 95

more probable. They turn on the interpretation of Si
tTnoroATje wq $&gt;i iju&v in 2 Thess. ii. 2.

It is possible that Timothy reported that there were
in circulation forged letters, purporting to be from St.
Paul, stating that the Day of the Lord had already
begun. If so, we must connect with this passage 2 Thess.
iii. 17, in which St. Paul draws attention to his hand
writing as a guarantee of the genuineness of the letter.
"The greeting is in my own Paul s hand. This is the
sign of genuineness in all my letters my own hand
writing." It must be remembered that letters were, as a
rule, dictated (e.g. Tertius was the actual scribe of the
Epistle to the Romans), so that, unless it was known that
some part of the letter was in the actual hand of the
sender, identity or difference of script was no proof for
or against the genuineness of a communication. It is,
however, difficult to see why St. Paul should have written
in this way to the Jewish part of the community, rather than
to the whole Church, and this view is therefore less accept
able if Harnack s theory be adopted, than on the older (and
probably untenable) theory that 2 Thessalonians was written
a little later than i Thessalonians to the whole community.

The alternative view, which Harnack recommends, is
that after St. Paul had written I Thessalonians, either
before or immediately after sending it, he noticed that
his remarks on the Day of the Lord in i Thess. v. I ff.
were open to misconstruction, and that this misconstruc
tion would be especially obnoxious to the Jewish Christians.
In this case the reference in St tTnorroArfc WQ St fip&v is to
an erroneous interpretation of i Thessalonians, not to the
possible existence of forged letters. 1

1 The fact that neither of these alternative views is quite satisfactory is in

96 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

If this view be adopted Timothy must have reported
to St. Paul that there was a tendency among the Thessa-
lonians to regard the " Day of the Lord " as having already
begun, and pointed out as a criticism on I Thessalonians,
after it had been already dictated, that it might seem to
encourage this mistake. If so we have here a curious
parallel to Hymenaeus and Philetus (in 2 Tim. ii. 18),
who said that the Resurrection had already taken place,
and it is instructive to compare this point of view with
that implied in the reference in i Cor. xv. to those who
doubted if there would be a resurrection.

It is also possible that in connection with the danger
of a misinterpretation of I Thessalonians Timothy was
obliged to report that among the Gentile Christians there
was a tendency to throw doubt on St. Paul s motives. The
suggestion is that when St. Paul wrote in I Thess. ii. 5 ff.,
"For neither at any time were we found using words of
flattery, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness, God is
witness. . . . For ye remember, brethren, our labour and
travail : working night and day, that we might not burden
any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God," he
was hinting that there were some who suggested that he had
been animated by the motives which he disclaims and had
forgotten the unselfish conduct to which he refers. This is
by no means improbable, though we have no means of
extracting any further information from the Epistle, and
it is possible that St. Paul is not rebutting accusations

itself an argument for Wrede s opinion that 2 Thessalonians is not genuine.
Certainly he can explain this particular difficulty better than it is possible to
do on the theory of its Pauline authorship. But, then again, he fails, as these
views do not, to explain the other features in 2 Thessalonians which seem to be
strikingly Pauline. The whole problem is very difficult. No theory is without
its weak point, and certainty is unattainable.

IMMORALITY IN THE CHURCH 97

against himself, but hinting that his conduct and preaching
affords a pleasant contrast to that of other teachers to
whom the Gentile Christians were inclined to listen. In
either case we have a hint that tendencies were at work at
the community of which St. Paul did not approve, and
that he endeavoured to find the antidote by reminding his
readers of his own example. The question then arises
whether we can identify these tendencies.

The first point which attracts attention is the emphatic
warnings against immorality in I Thess. iv. 3 ff. It is pos
sible that this is merely a general warning against the
weakness of human nature ; but it is more probable that it
is connected with a tendency to regard Christianity as an
opus operatuui after which no material act can affect the
spiritual welfare of the believer. Such an attitude would be
natural if there were any tendency to regard Christianity
solely as a Mystery Religion, and its influence can be traced
in several of the Pauline Epistles. In this case we have
to consider that in Thessalonica a tendency (more fully
described on pp. 176 ff.) was already at work, which
pressed in an illegitimate manner the preaching of freedom,
and regarded St. Paul as weak and narrow-minded in his
attitude towards what was regarded as a merely carnal
morality unworthy of attention from the truly spiritual.

Besides this danger of immorality St. Paul warns his
readers against neglecting their ordinary work. It is not
plain what was the cause of this tendency to idleness :
it has often been suggested that it was due to the vivid
expectation of the Parousia, which made men regard it as
unnecessary to busy themselves with the affairs of a world
which would so soon cease to exist. That a vivid expec
tation of the end has sometimes led to this result is

98 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

undeniable : Hippolytus l narrates the story of a bishop in
Pontus who announced that the Parousia would come before
the end of the year, with the result that many Christians,
who had sold their possessions, were in the end reduced to
beggary. But there is no special reason for thinking that
this was the case in Thessalonica. In the First Epistle 2
St. Paul says : " But we exhort you, brethren, that ye
abound more and more, and that ye study to be quiet and
to do your own business and to work with your own hands,
even as we charged you, that ye may walk honestly
towards them that are without, and may have need of
nothing." If this passage followed the eschatological
section it might be legitimately supposed that the rest
lessness described was the result of the expectation of
the Parousia, but as a matter of fact it precedes it, and
therefore there is no decisive reason for supposing that
St. Paul is speaking of "eschatological restlessness and
idleness " if the expression may be used.

A comparison with other passages in early Christian
literature suggests a different explanation. It is clear from
I Corinthians (see p. 223) as well as from I Thessalonians
and 2 Thessalonians, that St. Paul found it desirable to avoid
slander by never being indebted to his converts, and that
there were other Christians who by no means followed his
example. Moreover, in the later literature, especially in
the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, there are traces
in abundance of an unpleasant type of "professional
Christian" who lived on the community. It is not
impossible that Timothy s report roused St. Paul s
suspicion that this danger was present in Thessalonica,

1 Commentary on Dan. iv. 19.
8 i Thess. iv. 4 f.

IDLENESS AND RESTLESSNESS 99

and that this rather than any " eschatological restlessness"
was the source of the idleness against which he warns
his hearers.

However this may be and the data are insufficient to
allow of a decision in 2 Thessalonians more emphasis
is laid on this question. In 2 Thess. iii. 6-12 he says:
"Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every
brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition
which they received of us. For yourselves know how ye
ought to follow us : for we behaved not ourselves dis
orderly among you ; neither did we eat any man s bread
for nought ; but wrought with labour and travail night and
day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you :
not because we have not the right, but to make ourselves
an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we
were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would
not work, neither should he eat. For we hear of some
which walk among you disorderly, who work not at all,
but are busybodies. Now them that are such we com
mand and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with
quietness they work, and eat their own bread."

This passage cannot be said to add anything to the
information given in I Thessalonians : nor does it help
us to decide whether we have to do with "eschatological
unrest," or an undesirable "professionalism," which led
men to spend all their time in exciting religious dis
cussions, and to neglect their own affairs. But it puts
far more stress on the whole question, and if Harnack s
theory be adopted, we are obliged to conclude that this evil
was especially present in the Jewish rather than the Gentile
part of the community. There is no reason for rejecting

loo THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

this conclusion, even though one would perhaps have
rather expected to find restlessness and idleness in Gentile
circles. At the same time, it is only fair to notice that
this again is one of the strong points against the genuine
ness of 2 Thessalonians. The natural conclusion from a
comparison of the passages in i and 2 Thessalonians is
that there was a development of the evil in question ; but
this implies an interval between the two Epistles, and it is
generally conceded that if both Epistles are Pauline they
must have been written almost at the same time.

Thus Timothy s report may be summed as covering
the following points : (i) The persecution of the Christians
in the community. (2) The division between the Jewish
and Gentile Christians. (3) The anxiety in the community
concerning the Parousia, and the fate of those who died
before it. (3) The existence of either forged letters, or
the probability of doubt as to the meaning of i Thessa
lonians. (4) The evil tendencies in the community to
immorality (especially in the Gentile section) and to an
idle restlessness especially, but not exclusively, in the
Jewish section.

The two Epistles are the comment of St. Paul on this
report, and were presumably written soon after Timothy
joined St. Paul, according to Acts, in Corinth. The
order of events which the foregoing discussion has made
appear the most probable may finally be summarized as
follows :

1. St. Paul arrived at Thessalonica in the company of
Silas (and possibly Timothy).

2. Three weeks preaching in Thessalonica with the
synagogue as headquarters, some success among the Jews,
and much among the God-fearers.

CONCLUSION ioi

3. The Jews accuse the Christians, before the Politarchs,
of treason to the Roman Emperor ; security is taken from
Jason, and St. Paul and Silas are condemned by default.

4. St. Paul and Silas (and Timothy ?) go to Beroea.

5. The Jews from Thessalonica force St. Paul to leave
Beroea.

6. The Beroeans take St. Paul to Athens: Silas and
Timothy remain.

7. St. Paul sends a message back to Silas and Timothy
to join him in Athens.

8. Silas and Timothy come to Athens.

9. Timothy is sent to Thessalonica, Silas probably to
Beroea or Philippi.

10. St. Paul leaves Athens and goes to Corinth.

11. Timothy and Silas join St. Paul at Corinth.

12. On hearing Timothy s report, St. Paul sends
i Thessalonians to the Gentile Christian community in
Thessalonica.

13. Almost immediately after sending I Thessalonians
St. Paul sends 2 Thessalonians to the Jewish Christian
community in Thessalonica.

LITERATURE. The best commentaries are those of E. von Dobschiitz, in
Meyer s Kritischexegetisch kommentar iiber das Neue Testament, 1909 ; G.
Milligan, 1908; W. Lueken inj. Weiss Schriften des N. Ts. ; P. W. Schmiedel,
in Holtzmann s Handkommentar (1891) ; and J. B. Lightfoot, in his posthumous
Notes on the Pauline Epistles. Older and only slightly less valuable works are
fully given by E. von Dobschiitz (pp. 49-56) in his chapter Zur Geschichte der
Aushgung. Apart from commentaries, attention may especially be called to
Lightfoot, The Churches of Macedonia, and The Church of Thessalonica in his
Biblical Essays; W. Liitgert, Die Enthnsiasten in Thessalonich, in Beitriige zur
Forderung christlicher Theologie, xiii. 6 (1909) ; W. Wrede, Die Echtlicit des
ziveiten Thessalonicherbritfs, in Texte und Untersuchungen, xxiv, 2 ; A. Harnack,
Das Problem des zweiten Thessalonic her briefs, in the Sitzungsberichte der konigl.
preuss. Akademie zu Berlin, 1910.

CHAPTER IV.
CORINTH.

NONE of the Epistles of St. Paul afford us such ample
material for reconstructing the general outlines of
Christianity among converts from heathenism as do I and 2
Corinthians. There are, of course, many points which will
always remain doubtful ; but the main difficulty is rather
an embarras de richesse, and the danger of obscuring the
main picture by too close an attention to details. The in
vestigator has two main tasks : first, to trace the course of
the current of incident which flows through the Epistles ;
and secondly, to discover the various points of view which
explain the obvious clash of opinions which gave rise to these
incidents. Both tasks can only be accomplished by a series
of discussions of small problems, followed by the welding
together of the results in the form of general conclusions.

The clearest way of proceeding seems to be to divide
the discussion into the following divisions :

I. The foundation of the Church at Corinth.

II. A short preliminary statement of the series of

incidents which explain the existence and cha
racter of the Epistles.

III. The critical problems connected with these incidents.

IV. The conditions of thought and practice revealed by

the Epistles.

THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 103

THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
AT CORINTH.

The story of the foundation of the Church in Corinth
circles round three points St. Paul, Apollos, and St. Peter
and can best be told in connection with them.

St. Paid. In Acts xviii. 1-18 we have an account of
the work of St. Paul at Corinth, which it is possible to
supplement in a few details from information in I Corin
thians. The facts are these : after St. Paul left Athens
he went to Corinth and joined the family of Aquila,
a Jewish tent-maker St. Paul s own trade who, though
originally belonging to the province of Pontus, had settled
in Rome, and only left it in consequence of the decree of
Claudius banishing all Jews from Rome. Of this decree we
know something more from Suetonius, who connects the
riots which led to it with " Chrestus." This must at least
mean that a Messianic movement, such as that of the disciples
of St. John the Baptist, had reached Rome, and may even
mean that Christians had made their way there. 1 It is there
fore exceedingly probable either that Aquila and his wife
be^nged to this type of Messianic Jews, or that they were
actually Christians before they met St. Paul. The second
alternative is supported by the fact that St. Luke does not
state that they were converted by St. Paul s preaching,
though it is of course possible that this is merely an accident.
In any case, it was with Aquila that St. Paul lodged.

The centre of his preaching was at first, as usual, the

1 See Chap. VI. ; the whole question is naturally more important in connection
with the foundation of the Church in Rome, and is discussed under that heading.

104

CORINTH

synagogue, and he converted Crispus, the "archisynagogue."
This title probably means a rank more or less corresponding
to the " Elders " of Protestant churches. 1 But the Jews, as
a whole, rejected his teaching, and after a stormy scene he
abandoned his preaching in the synagogue and took a room
for the purpose next door in the house of Titus Justus, a
God-fearer. It must be admitted that he chose a position
which was not likely to avoid trouble, though it had the
advantage of being easily found by the God-fearer who had
previously frequented the synagogue.

St. Paul s preaching met with considerable success
among the Corinthians, and continued, apparently without
any serious hindrance, for one year and six months, during
which time, as has been shown (pp. 73 ff.), the Epistles
to the Thessalonians were written. But then the Jews
brought an accusation against St. Paul that -rrapa TOV vo/uov

aVCtTTtldzi OVTOQ TOV ClvOpWTTOVQ Gtfti-GVaL TOV QtVV. The

accusation clearly was that his preaching was illegal, and
the illegality seems to be connected with the manner of his

1 Apxicrwdywyos is found in Mark v. 22, 35, 36, 38 ; Luke viii. 49 ; xiii.
14 ; Acts xiii. 15 ; xviii. 17. In Mark v. (and the parallel Luke viii.) and Acts
xiii. 15, it is clear that there was more than one apxivwdycayos. Luke xiii. 14
seems to point only to one, but it may quite well mean " the a.px iff - who was
presiding." The position of the apxiffwdywyos is discussed by Schurer,
Geschichte des judischen Volkes, ed. 3, II. 436 ff. and III. 49 ff. A distinction
must be made between the apxavres, who were the chief members of the
synagogue, roughly corresponding to what we should call the "governing
body," and the apxiffwdyuyos or a.pxi-o vt dyiayoi, who were responsible for the
arrangements for the services of worship. Probably in small communities there
was one, in larger communities several. The parallel drawn above between
the "elders" of a Protestant church and the apxttrvvdycayoi is quite rough, for
the functions of the two classes are not precisely the same, and in the Jewish
synagogue there was no "minister." The title of apxifwdyiayos was also used,
at all events later, as a purely honorary title, and even given to women and
children. Schurer also gives copious references to inscriptions and articles
in technical periodicals. Cf. also his Die Gemeindeverfassung d&- fiiden im Rom
in der Kaiserszeit.

THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 105

preaching rather than with the form of worship referred to.
St. Luke says, " he is persuading men contrary to the Law,"
not "to worship God contrary to the Law." Moreover,
&lt;rc/3E&lt;r0cu TOV 0tov has so usually the meaning "to be a
1 God-fearer, " that it is preferable, if possible, to take it in
that way here. If so, we ought to say that the accusation
was that "he was making an illegal attempt to persuade
men to become God-fearers." It is, so far as I can dis
cover, impossible to see any Roman law which could be
invoked to support this accusation. Perhaps Blass s 1 sug
gestion is right, that it is a reference to the privilege con
ceded by Julius Caesar to Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander,
that he and his family should hold all the privileges
"according to their own laws." 2 If so, it is intelligible that
Gallic, the Proconsul before whom the matter came, dis
missed it with contumely, for this decree had no possible
bearing on the question at issue. Gallic regarded the
whole affair as a squabble between two sets of Jews, in
which he had neither interest nor jurisdiction. After his
decision there was a curious incident. "They all took
Sosthenes, the archisynagogue, and beat him before the
bench." Who beat him ? and why ? The Bezan text
thinks that the Greeks did so, 8 in which case the scene
must be explained as an act of triumphant violence on the
part, if not of St. Paul s Gentile converts, at least of anti-
Judaic Greeks, who would scarcely have intervened if they
had had no leanings towards St. Paul s teaching. Such an act
would be entirely in accordance with human nature, though

1 See Blass s Commentary, ad loc.

2 Josephus, Antiqnit., xiv. 10. 2.

3 [oJTToAa/So/uei Oi 5e iravrfs 01 t\\rji&gt;fs /jLtra. (jvV) ffcca-dev^f rov apxtivvvzyjiyov.
The Latin of Codex Bezae (the Greek is illegible) has an interesting paraphrase
ot oiiStv TOVTWV T&lt;p7&lt;xAAiWt efj.e\fv " turn gallio (ingebat cum non uidere."

106 CORINTH

scarcely with Christian principles. It was no doubt the
latter fact which led the scribes of a few late MSS. to
read louccuot instead of "EAArjvtc. as an explanation of
Travrec, and gave rise to the usual exegesis of the common
text that Sosthenes was the successor of Crispus, and that
the Jews beat him for mismanaging the case. This
explanation is almost certainly wrong in so far as it
assumes that the archisynagogal office was monarchical,
and has otherwise not much to recommend it. The fact is
that all we know is that Sosthenes was beaten, but whether
by Greeks or Jews, and whether because he was an unsuc
cessful leader of the prosecution or as a convert of St. Paul,
it is impossible to determine. 1 It is, however, interesting to
note that a Sosthenes is joined with St. Paul in the open
ing salutations of I Corinthians ; this may be pure accident,
or it is possible that the Sosthenes who was beaten was
already a convert, or, as later legend would have it, that he
was afterwards converted by St. Paul.

Other converts of whom we hear are Gaius (i Cor. i.
14), with whom St. Paul stayed on a later visit to Corinth
(Rom. xvi. 23), Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus, and
perhaps Chloe, all of whom play parts of importance in
the period of the history of the Church at Corinth im
mediately after its foundation. To these must be added
Erastus the olKovo/uog of the city (Rom. xvi. 23), and
possibly also Lucius, Jason, Sosipater, Quartus, and Tertius
(Rom. xvi. 21 ff.).

It will be seen from the above facts that the Corinthian

1 So also thought Ammonius: *H Sia rovro HrvTrrovrbv "SuaQevriv, eirnS^ Kal
avrbs iiv yuaAXov irpoaTidt/j.ei os T&lt;p Hau\tp, us Kal Kptairos 6 ap^irrvvdycayos, /) fls
Toaovrov e\r)\aK6~res fj.a.vias on airoruxovres TOV CKOTTOV favrtav, K.T.\. exhaust
ing all possibilities without choosing between them (see J. A. Cramer, Catena
Graecorum Patrutn, iii. p. 306).

APOLLOS

107

Church was, like all the Pauline Churches, partly Jewish,
partly Gentile, with the latter element predominating, and
the question discussed on pp. 37 ff. of the position of the
God-fearers is here also of the greatest importance. It is
extremely probable that this class of Gentiles, interested
in and influenced by Judaism, supplied in Corinth as else
where the fruitful soil on which the Christian mission was
able to sow its seed successfully.

Apollos. As the " second founder " of the Corinthian
Church, Apollos must be named. According to St. Paul
himself (i Cor. iii. 6), he sowed and Apollos watered, and
Acts xviii. 24 ff. gives us the following account of Apollos
conversion and journey to Achaia, which, in the light of
the Epistles to the Corinthians, obviously means Corinth :
" And a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race,
an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to
Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord ;
and being fervent in the Spirit, he spake and taught
accurately the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the
baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the
synagogue : but when Aquila and Priscilla had heard him,
they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the
Way [of God] more perfectly. And when he was disposed
to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the
disciples to receive him : who, when he was come, helped
them much which had believed through grace : for he
powerfully confuted the Jews in public, showing by the
Scriptures that the Messiah was Jesus."

The obvious difficulty of this passage is the apparent
contradiction between "teaching the things concerning
Jesus" and "knowing only the baptism of John." For
this reason some critics have given up the whole story as

loS CORINTH

hopelessly corrupt, but there is no need for such drastic
measures, and the difficulty lies chiefly in the fact that the
background of the incident is a state of things which is so
different from anything existing now, or indeed ever exist
ing except among Jewish Christians, that it is hard for us
to realize it.

What is the most natural meaning of "knowing only the
baptism of John " ? Surely it is that Apollos had come into
contact with the disciples of St. John the Baptist, and had
been baptized with his baptism. We are apt to overlook
the fact that not all St. John s disciples became Christians,
and that he had a distinct message. His preaching was
primarily eschatological : the day of the Lord was at hand,
the Messiah was coming, and His kingdom would shortly be
established ; it was therefore urgently incumbent on every
one to repent and to accept the as yet unrevealed Messiah.
That was his message : and it would seem from the synoptic
Gospels that St. John did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah,
whose coming he had foretold, until after his public career was
finished, for the Baptism of Jesus is in the synoptic Gospels
a sign to Jesus, not to St. John, and it is only in the later form
of the tradition in the Fourth Gospel that the baptism
becomes a sign to St. John and to his disciples. The point
in common between the disciples of St. John and Christians
was their belief in the immediate coming of the Messiah,
and the gospel which both of them preached was " to serve
a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven."
The difference between them was that the disciples of St.
John did not identify the coming Messiah with any one who
had ever yet appeared, while the Christians identified Him
with Jesus, who had been raised from the dead, and had
been manifested after His resurrection as that heavenly

APOLLOS 109

Being who would carry out the judgment of God, and in
augurate His glorious kingdom. Apollos, then, ought to be
regarded as one of the disciples of St. John, who held all the
common Christian doctrine of that day, so far as the coming
of the Messiah was concerned, but had never heard that
there were those who identified this Messiah with the Jesus
who had lived and died in Palestine, and had been glorified
by God through His resurrection. The common proof both
for disciples of St. John and for Christians for their belief in
the coming Messiah was the Jewish Scriptures ; and to
the latter the Messianic passages in these Scriptures were
TO. irtpt Irjo-oi/, " the things concerning Jesus," just as they
are in Luke xxiv. 27. (" And beginning from Moses and from
the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself (TO. Tripl tavrov)") It is of
course true that the phrase need not mean this : it might
mean " the history of Jesus," as it does in Luke xxiv. 19.
But when a phrase can be shown by the exhibition of
parallel passages to be susceptible of two meanings, it is
usually the best exegesis to take that which makes the con
text intelligible. Now, it is certain that with the exegesis
in Acts xviii. 25, that TO. Trtpi IjjtroO means the history of
Jesus, the whole story is unintelligible ; whereas, it is quite
intelligible, if we take the phrase to mean the Messianic
passages in the Old Testament, which to the Christian writer
of Acts were ret irtpl Irjo-oi/, though, as a matter of fact,
Apollos did not, until he met Aquila, know to whom they
referred except that he, whoever he was, was the Messiah.
With this interpretation l the rest of the story presents
no difficulties. Apollos came to Ephesus preaching the

1 Expounded at length by J. II. Hart, in \\\z Journal of Theological Studies
for October, 1905, in his article on "Apollos."

i io CORINTH

eschatological gospel of John the Baptist, and Aquila and
Priscilla said to him in effect that all that he said was quite
true, but that they were able to add to it the important fact
that the Messiah was none other than Jesus, who by His
resurrection had become a heavenly being, whose glorified
nature had been attested by many witnesses. This was an
addition to, but in no sense a contradiction of Apollos pre
vious teaching ; all his arguments remained unchanged, but
he was able to add to them " that the Messiah was Jesus." It
must be noted that a lack of appreciation of the real situa
tion has led both to a change in the text, in the Bezan text,
and to a mistranslation even in the Revised Version. The
Bezan text is that Apollos taught rbv Irjcrouv ilvaL Xjotarov,
and the Revisers wrote " that Jesus was the Christ," but the
text is civet TOV Xpicrrbv Irj&lt;rovv, which must be " that the
Messiah is Jesus." The same mistake, for it really is
nothing less, on the part of the Revisers may be seen in Acts
xviii. 5, when they render the same formula in the same
way : and the reason in both cases is an imperfect appreci
ation of the part played by the Messianic belief among the
Jews. It is of cardinal importance to recognize that the
Christology of the first Christians was, in the main, a body
of doctrine well known to the Jews and to the God-fearers
before the days of Jesus, and that many of them believed in
a Christ a Messiah before they ever came into contact
with a Christian preacher. St. Paul, Apollos, and the other
Christian missionaries were to a large extent 1 on ground

1 The exception to this is probably the Christian teaching in a crucified,
suffering, and dead Messiah. There is little or no proof that this was ever a
Jewish doctrine, and that is why the Christian exegetes soon made a new set of
" Testimonies " to cover this point, introducing a Messianic interpretation of
the passages referring to the suffering servant. The Jews have never accepted
this exegesis, which indeed can scarcely claim to be e tnente aitctoris (see further,
Chap. VI.).

APOLLOS in

common to them and their audience when they preached a
Messiah, and starting from this generally conceded doctrine,
they proceeded to identify this Messiah with Jesus. In
this respect they differed absolutely from all modern mis
sionaries, for these usually begin at the other end, and
starting from the fact of Jesus argue that He and His history
can best be explained in the terms of Messianic doctrine
which is often wholly strange to their hearers.

When Apollos had in this way received the completion of
his teaching from Aquila, he appears, according to the usual
text, to have formed the desire to go and preach in Achaea.
According to the Bezan text, he received an invitation to
do this from some of the Corinthians who were then in
Ephesus. " And certain Corinthians who were staying in
Ephesus besought him to come with them and pass into
their country, and when he agreed, the Ephesians wrote to
the disciples in Corinth to receive him." Both here and in
the ordinary text the word translated "pass into" (SteA&iv)
has the almost technical meaning of making a missionary
journey.

Apollos must have had much success in Corinth, for in
I Cor. iii. 6 St. Paul speaks of him as having watered where
he had planted. The information given in Acts and just
discussed makes it tolerably certain that his preaching was
primarily eschatological ; but it is also noteworthy that he
came from Alexandria, the headquarters of the allegorical
and philosophical Judaism represented by Philo. It is not
impossible, therefore, that the tendency to seek for philosophy
which St. Paul seems to reprove in the Corinthians in I Cor.
i.-iv., ought to be connected with the party of Apollos to which
he also refers. 1 But it must be remembered that this is

1 The most extreme statement of this possibility will be found in the article

112 CORINTH

merely guess-work. It does not follow because Apollos
was an Alexandrian that he was a disciple of Philo ; all
that we know is that he was a disciple of St. John the
Baptist, and it is a far cry from St. John the Baptist to
Philo, even though we must admit that if the desire for
philosophy, to which St. Paul alludes, must be connected
with one of the parties mentioned in I Corinthians, Apollos
is the most likely person, of those whom we know, to have
consciously or unconsciously started such a movement.

Apollos does not, in spite of his success, appear to have
stayed very long in Corinth, for when St. Paul wrote
I Corinthians, Apollos was with him in Ephesus, and it was
doubtful when he would return to Greece, though he in
tended to do so when a suitable opportunity could be found.

St. Peter. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth in the second
century, maintained in a letter to Rome that St. Peter also
visited Corinth. 1 It is usual to think that this is merely a
deduction which he made from the mention of Cephas in
I Cor. i. 12. It is quite possible that this is the case, but
even so it is doubtful whether it is quite so certain that his
deduction was wrong. After all, the existence of a party of
Cephas in Corinth, alongside of those of Apollos and St.
Paul, does suggest very strongly that Cephas, like the
others, had actually been in Corinth. It is no doubt
possible that the party of Cephas was one which had only
heard of St. Peter ; but the question is whether we have any
reason for supposing that this was the case. Personally, I

quoted above on "Apollos" by J. H. Hart in the Journal of Theological
Studies for October, 1905 ; see further on, p. 231.

1 TaCra /cal vfj.fls Sia TTJS -roaa.{iTi}s vovQf&lt;ria.s rrjv curb Utrpov /cai nav\ov tpvTftav
fevrjOeiffav Pca/j.a(u&gt;v re KCU Koptvdluv avvfKfpdffdTf. Kou yap &/u.&lt;pc&gt;&gt; nal fls TTJV
i]/j.erepav KopivQov &lt;j&gt;vTfucrai&gt;T(s tyuas 6/j.oius e8/8a|aj&gt;, K.T.A., quoted by Eusebius,
Hist. EccL, II. 25, 8.

ST, PETER 113

am very doubtful whether we have, and I think that in this
respect we are too much under the influence of Tubingen
criticism, or criticism which has unconsciously absorbed
much of the principles of Tubingen, even when consciously
opposing them. The result has been an exaggeration of
the Judaism of St. Peter, and this has in turn created a
strong prejudice against any tradition which ascribes to
St. Peter missionary activity outside the circle of Palestinian
Judaistic Christianity. Nevertheless, this prejudice is not
supported by facts. What do we know from the Acts about
St. Peter ? It is not difficult to summarize our knowledge.
He appears, first of all, as the leader of " the Twelve "
in Jerusalem ; at Pentecost he preaches with success to
Hellenistic Jews ; he comes into conflict with the Jewish
authorities, but in the end succeeds in maintaining his
position. He next appears as supporting and following up
the work of the Hellenist " Seven," outside Jerusalem, in
Samaria and elsewhere, and takes the serious step of admit
ting a Gentile without insisting on his becoming a proselyte
and undergoing circumcision. So far from appearing to be
the leader of a Judaistic type of Christianity, he is steadily
depicted by St. Luke as favouring expansion and liberality.
Going on still further, he is represented as supporting the
claims of the Antiochene movement at the Apostolic Council.
He then disappears from the pages of Acts, but it is note
worthy that later, when St. Paul returns to Jerusalem for
the last time, St. Peter is apparently not present. The
fact is that for some reason of his own St. Luke did not see
fit to tell the further story of any of the Apostles labours
except St. Paul s. The silence of Acts as to St. Peter after
the Council does not imply in any sense that he stayed in
Palestine, or did not preach either to Hellenistic Jews or to

ii4 CORINTH

Gentiles. Did St. Luke intend to return to the story of St.
Peter in that third book which he surely proposed writing ?

But, it used to be alleged, the Acts is a "mediating"
book ; we have here not St. Peter as he was, but a Paulin-
ized version of him ; the Epistle to the Galatians gives us
truth shows us that St. Paul and St. Peter were opponents,
not allies, and that the latter only preached to Jews.

This contention seems to be greatly exaggerated so far
as Acts is concerned. No doubt St. Luke saw history in
the light of later events ; no doubt, also, he was writing with
a purpose, and not merely in order to chronicle facts. But
the whole tendency of criticism is to show that he was,
according to the standards of his day, a competent and
honest historian. It is absurd to treat him as infallible, or
to find a deep significance in every change of expression,
but it is equally absurd to look for apologetic reasons for
every statement, and to ignore the probability that the main
reason for most of them is that he believed them to be true.
Moreover, the conclusion drawn from Galatians cannot
stand investigation. All that St. Paul says is that when
St. Peter was in Antioch he gave up his usual intercourse
with the Gentile Christians under pressure from the emis
saries from St. James of Jerusalem, and that St. Paul
rebuked him. So far from implying that St. Peter was the
consistent antagonist of Paulinism, or of the Antiochene
movement, he is represented as friendly to it, and only
yielding under pressure to the extremists from Jerusalem.
Nor does the statement that it was agreed at Jerusalem
that St. Paul should preach to the Gentiles, 1 and the others

1 Whether the scene at Antioch was before or after the Council, and whether
the agreement at Jerusalem was at the Council, or earlier, are points which are
here unimportant (see Chap. V.).

.ST. PETER 115

to "the circumcision," in the least imply that St. Peter
should not travel in the Roman Empire. " The circum
cision " covers the Diaspora, as well as Palestinian Jewry,
and even if we suppose that St. Peter always wished to
keep strictly and literally to this compact, there is nothing
to show that he did not travel all over the Roman Empire,
as tradition says that he did, preaching to the Jews in the
Diaspora, and finally reaching Rome. But if he did this it
is practically certain that he would be brought into contact
with Gentile God-fearers, just as St. Paul was, and so in the
end would be obliged to preach to Gentiles, however much
his original plan may have been to confine his teaching to
Jews.

In this case we have to repeat the question, why
should we not think that St. Peter really was in Corinth,
and that the party of Cephas was composed of those
who had been converted by him, just as the other parties
were composed of the converts of St. Paul and of
Apollos ?

The real objection is probably the feeling that if St.
Peter had been in Corinth, St. Paul would have said more
about him. No doubt he would have done so had he been
writing for our benefit, but in writing to the Corinthians
the necessity was not so clear ; in writing letters no one
expatiates on points well known to his correspondent,
but on those which are unknown or disputed. We can
see this in the precisely parallel case of Apollos ; he had
been prominent in Corinth, and also had a party of followers,
yet we should hear nothing of him in I Corinthians, apart
from the existence of his party, if it had not been for the
accidental fact that he was in Ephesus when St. Paul
was writing. Thus, the absence of further references in

n6 CORINTH

I Corinthians is no proof that St. Peter had not been in
Corinth. 1

Probably, then, St. Peter ought to be regarded, along
with St. Paul and Apollos, as one of the founders of the
Church at Corinth, 2 and, at least, we must suppose that some
of his disciples had visited the city. It is, moreover, not
inconceivable that the use of the name Cephas, not Peter,
implies that St. Peter was here also preaching to the Jews
rather than to the Gentiles, but this is probably too subtle,
for, unless the text in Galatians is corrupt, it would seem
that St. Paul used " Cephas " and " Peter" indifferently, and
on no fixed principle (cf. Gal. i. 18 ; ii. 7, 8, n, 14).

More important, however, than any of these points, and
much more certain, is the fact that there is no trace in these
Epistles that the party of Cephas (or any other party) was
Judaistic, or represented the principles of the stiff Jerusalem
Church. This is equally important for the understanding
of the Epistles to the Corinthians, and as a corroboration
of the view expressed above that the figure of a Judaizing
St. Peter is a figment of the Tubingen critics with no basis
in history. 3

1 It is true that St. Paul says, " I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave
the increase," and does not mention Cephas. Still this can scarcely be regarded
as a very serious point.

* It is curious that Silvanus, according to i and 2 Thessalonians, was in
Corinth with St. Paul ; that he then disappears from the Pauline circle ; and that
he reappears later (if it be the same Silvanus) in the company of St. Peter
(I Pet. v. 12). Is this because the three Apostles, St. Paul, St. Peter, and
Silvanus, met in Corinth ?

3 I should be sorry if these remarks seemed to imply disrespect of the
Tubingen critics. There is no school to whom we are so much indebted ; and
Baur s Paulus is a work of genius. But they were not infallible, and in some
respects their methods had the roughness of pioneers. Largely owing to their
efforts we are able in many respects to improve on their results ; but those
who speak most evil of the Tiibingen school have usually never read their
books.

THE OUTLINE OF THE EPISTLES 117

In this way the Corinthian Church was founded and
built up, first by St. Paul, afterwards by Apollos, and either
by St. Peter or some unknown disciple of St. Peter. 1 For
our knowledge of the next period in the history of the com
munity we are dependent on the Epistles, and it is now
necessary to turn to them and try to extract from them the
history which is behind them.

II.

THE INCIDENTS WHICH EXPLAIN THE EXISTENCE
AND CHARACTER OF THE EPISTLES.

The general outlines of these incidents can be stated in
a very few words it is the history of a quarrel. To us the
principles which lie behind this quarrel are more important
than the actual course of its development ; but neither the
one nor the other is intelligible, unless the fact be grasped
that the Epistles were not written by St. Paul to illustrate
general principles, or to give an expose of Christian practice,
but as definite attempts to deal with extremely concrete
questions, which gave rise to a violent quarrel between St.
Paul and the Corinthians. Of this quarrel we can see the
beginnings in I Corinthians, the middle and the end in
2 Corinthians. Who the persons were who opposed St.
Paul must be discussed at length later, but it is clear that
the difference of opinion was partly doctrinal, partly
practical.

1 There is a curious reference to St. Barnabas in I Cor. ix. 6. It is difficult
to think that it hints that St. Barnabas had been in Corinth, though there is no
reason why he should not have been ; perhaps the best suggestion is that it is a
reference to the first missionary journey (see J. Weiss, Der t rste fCorintherbrief,
P- 235)-

uS CORINTH

What was the general course of the quarrel ? To
answer this question shortly the results reached in pp. 120-
175 must be assumed for the moment, in the hope that
the appearance of undue certainty with regard to much-dis
puted passages may be counteracted by the later paragraphs
in which the difficulties are discussed in detail.

The first step which we can distinguish is a letter, no
longer extant (it is convenient to call it the " previous
letter"), sent by St. Paul to the Corinthians, warning them
against associating with immoral persons. No doubt this
letter was led up to by information which he had received
from Corinth that such a warning was necessary.

After this he was told by members of the household of
Chloe, an unknown person who had some relations with
Corinth, that the practical question of immorality in the
community remained, that it was complicated by a spirit
of partizanship and litigiousnes?, and perhaps also that his
letter had not been fully understood. At the same time,
or almost immediately afterwards, three Corinthians,
Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, arrived at Ephesus
bearing a letter for St. Paul, asking him a series of
questions on practical and doctrinal problems. No doubt
they also supplemented their letter in conversation.

In consequence of these communications St. Paul wrote
i Corinthians, dealing in the first half with the informa
tion given by Chloe, in the second with the Corinthians
letter and the information of Stephanas and his comrades.
But before sending the Epistle St. Paul instructed Timothy,
who was just starting for Macedonia, to go on to Corinth,
and to do his best to remedy the scandals in the Church.
He also announced his intention half hopefully, half
threateningly of himself coming before long to Corinth.

THE OUTLINE OF THE EPISTLES 119

Timothy returned, with the unpleasant news that the
situation was worse instead of better, and St. Paul himself
hurried across to Corinth. Even this failed, and the crisis
appeared desperate. As a last resort he wrote a severe ^

letter to the Corinthians, and sent it by Titus, warning the
disobedient members of the Church that he proposed to
come again, and this time would know how to secure their
submission. It is probable that 2 Corinthians x.-xiii. is
part of this severe letter.

Soon after this St. Paul left Asia, and made his way
overland through Macedonia to Corinth, greatly longing for
the report of Titus as to the Corinthian crisis. Titus met
him in Macedonia, and was able to report a complete
success. The disobedient had been disowned and punished
by the majority and had submitted, the crisis was over, and
peace restored, though there was a stern minority which
still pressed for severer punishment.

St. Paul was overjoyed, and 2 Corinthians i.-ix. is the
outpouring of gratitude and relief which he at once wrote,
and sent back by Titus to Corinth, commissioning him at
the same time to take charge of the arrangements for a
contribution for the poor which St. Paul hoped to be able
to take to Jerusalem.

Such is the outline of the history of the quarrel which
lies behind the Epistles. It will be necessary in the
following sections to go through it in detail, to discuss the
various points of which it is composed, and to attempt
the reconstruction of a picture of the community, or, at all
events, of the opposition in it to St. Paul, and the practical
questions which were agitating it.

1 20 CORINTH

III.

THE CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL PROBLEMS
CONNECTED WITH THE EPISTLES.

These problems may best be treated in two subdivisions,
according as they belong to I or 2 Corinthians, because
whereas those belonging to I Corinthians are comparatively
simple, those belonging to 2 Corinthians form a complex of
difficulties which is not surpassed in intricacy by anything
in the New Testament.

i CORINTHIANS.

The points connected with I Corinthians are:

(1) The " Previous Letter " of St. Paul to the Corinthians.

(2) The information given to St. Paul by " those of
Chloe."

(3) The mission of Timothy.

(4) The letter of the Corinthians to St. Paul, and the
supplementary information given by its bearers.

(5) The time and place of the writing of the Epistle.

(i) The Previous Letter.

According to the Acts St. Paul was eighteen months in
Corinth, and, when he left it, he went in the company of
Aquila and Priscilla as far as Ephesus, and afterwards alone
to Antioch and possibly Jerusalem, 1 returning thence to

1 This is at least a possible interpretation of Acts xviii. 22, /cat Karf\0wv els
Kaiffapiav, aifafias Kal a.&lt;Tira.&lt;ra.fj.vos r^v e/c/cA.Tja iaJ , Karf@r) tls Avrioxfiav, in
which Ramsay thinks that " going up " means going up to Jerusalem. This
seems at first sight far-fetched : the natural meaning is that he went up from
She harbour to the town ; but the same view seems to have been held by the
Bezan scribe, who makes St. Paul gives as his excuse for not staying in Ephesus,
" I must at any rate keep the coming feast at Jerusalem." Perhaps it is right.

THE PREVIOUS LETTER 121

Ephesus, where he stayed for three year?. 1 It is during these
three years that the letters to the Corinthians were written,
and that the crisis in the Corinthian Church developed.

The first stage probably was that St. Paul was in
formed by some friend that the Corinthian Christians had
a somewhat low standard as to the morality which they
expected to find in their associates, and that he wrote them
a letter the " previous letter" warning them against this
failing.

This Epistle is no longer extant, but the fact that it was
written and the nature of at least part of its contents is
revealed by I Cor. v. 9-11, "I wrote to you (t y/xr^n) in my
letter not to have company with fornicators, not that I
meant literally (Travrtoe) with the fornicators of this world,
or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters ;
for then must ye needs go out of the world, but now I write
(typa-^a) unto you not to keep company with any man that
is called a Brother if he be a fornicator," etc. In the trans
lation just given there is, of course, no room for doubt, but
the English, unfortunately, does not convey a point of
ambiguity which is present in the Greek. A Greek said
iypa-^a, " I wrote," equally of a letter which he had penned
ten years previously, and of one which he actually was
writing in referring to which we should say " I am
writing " because he regarded it from the standpoint of
the recipient. It is therefore grammatically possible that
St. Paul, in I Cor. v. 9, is referring to the letter he is
actually writing, but this grammatical possibility is ex
cluded in practice by the fact that there is nothing in
i Corinthians to which he could be referring, and also by

1 Possibly "in Ephesus" ought not to be taken too strictly. It may
include the district of which Ephesus was the centre (see p. 142 f.).

122

CORINTH

the general drift of the passage. The translation of the
first ijpu^a is therefore certain ; as will be seen the second
iypaipa gives rise to more doubt.

It is therefore universally recognized that the Corinthians
must have received a letter from St. Paul, enjoining on them
circumspection in their relations to immoral persons.

That this letter is, in its entirety, lost, is of course obvious,
but there is nevertheless some degree of probability in the
theory, which has often been put forward, that a fragment
of it is imbedded in 2 Cor. vi. 14 vii. I, which runs as
follows : " Be ye not unequally yoked together with un
believers : for what fellowship hath righteousness with
iniquity ? or what communion hath light with darkness ?
And what concord hath Christ with Beliar? or what
part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? And what
agreement hath a temple of God with idols ? for ye are
a temple of the living God ; as God hath said, I will
dwell in them, and walk in them ; and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from
among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch
not the unclean ; and I will receive you. And I will be a
Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises,
beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

This passage would clearly be exactly the sort of advice
which afterwards would necessitate the explanation given in
I Cor. v. 9 ; and the theory that it really is a fragment of
the lost first letter of St. Paul, is materially supported by the
facts that it has no apparent connection with the immediate
context before or after in 2 Corinthians, and that if it be
removed, 2 Cor. vii. 2 fits on to 2 Cor. vi. 13 in the

THE PREVIOUS LETTER 123

most natural manner. If the suggested interpolation be
removed, we obtain the text : " O ye Corinthians, our
mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not
straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections.
Now for a recompence in like kind, (I speak as unto my
children,) be ye also enlarged. J Open your hearts to us;
we wronged no man, we corrupted no man, we de
frauded no man. I speak not this to condemn you : for
I have said before, that ye are in our hearts to die and live
with you." No one who did not know would ever guess
that anything had been removed from the middle of this
passage.

Although therefore this theory can from its nature never
be regarded as more than a probable guess, it must at least
be conceded that the guess is attractive; and its probability
is enhanced, if the theory be accepted that 2 Corinthians
shows signs in other places of not being originally a single
letter (see pp. 155-164). V

Besides this hypothesis, J. Weiss, in his commentary on
the Epistle, has made the suggestion that other fragments of
the "previous letter" are embedded in I Corinthians. He
thinks that there is so great a difference of tone between
i Cor. x. 1-22 (23) and the remainder of the section as to
" things offered to idols," that he attributes it to a different
source, probably the " previous letter," and thinks that
vi. 12-20, as well as possibly ix. 24-3(7 and xi. 2-34,
belong to the same document. It must be admitted that
there is a difference of tone, but an alternative suggestion
(and I think a preferable one) is that St. Paul is address
ing two different parties in Corinth (see pp. 199-202), partly
agreeing with and partly differing from both, and that this
explains the change of tone and emphasis in the various

124 CORINTH

sections. However this may be, the fact that a " previous "
letter was written seems to be clearly established. 1 But it
must remain permanently uncertain at what time it was
sent, though, if it be conceded that it was probably written
in consequence of information which St. Paul had received
from Corinth, it is clearly almost certain that it was written
after his return to Ephesus from Syria.

It is not certain how much of the passage in I Cor. v.
9 ff. ought to be considered as a quotation of the " previous
letter," nor can we be sure of St. Paul s precise motive in
referring to it. The context is the case of the incestuous
person (see p. 131), and St. Paul emphasized the enormity
of the offence by a reference to the " previous letter," but
as to the exact meaning of this reference there are two
possibilities. In the first place, it is possible that it had
been reported to St. Paul, either by " those of Chloe " or
by others, that his letter had been misunderstood, and taken
to imply a degree of seclusion for Christians which was
practically impossible ; in the second place, it is possible
that it is really only quoted by St. Paul to strengthen his
argument, by showing that he is, in the case of the incestu
ous person, only asking for the particular application of a
rule which he had previously stated and the Corinthians
had recognized as generally valid. Between these possi
bilities a decision cannot be made. It would of course
be better, if possible, to treat the two e-ypa^a s in the
same way, and it is clear that the first one means " I
wrote. This supports the view that the whole passage
(v. 9-11) is a quotation, or more probably a paraphrase,
from the "previous letter," and ought to be translated, "I

1 This was seen by the writer of the Ada Fault, who invented an apocryphal
correspondence between St. Paul and the Corinthians ; see Appendix I.

"THOSE OF CHLOE" 125

wrote to you in my previous letter not to associate with
evil livers not literally the evil livers of the world, . . .
for then I admit (apa) you would needs go out of the world
altogether. But I meant under existing circumstances (vi&gt;v
Of typa-^a) not to associate with professing Christians who
were evil livers," etc. This translation does justice to the
double typa^a, but it strains the meaning of vm&gt; e. There
fore it is possible that we ought to think that St. Paul is
correcting a misunderstanding, that only the first few words
are quotation, and* that the rest is correction. In this case
vvv St typa-^a must be taken as an instance of the common
epistolary aorist, and translated, "but now I write." This
is the view which is more generally adopted ; if it be
correct, it is probable that part of the information given
by " those of Chloe " (though conceivably by some one
else) was that the "previous letter" was not fully under
stood, and perhaps that it had been adversely commented
on as practically impossible.

(2) The Information given by " Those of Chloe."

Of Chloe herself nothing is known : the most probable
hypothesis is that she was a rich lady, either widowed or
unmarried, who had a household of slaves or dependents,
some of whom were acquainted with St. Paul and probably
had been converted by him. But there is nothing to show
whether Chloe lived in Corinth or in Ephesus, for the
general conditions of the problem are equally well fulfilled
by the view that she was an Ephesian connected in some
way perhaps by business of some kind with Corinth, as
by the more usual guess that she was a Corinthian who had
relations with Ephesus. The only point certain p,nd also

126 CORINTH

the only one important is that " those of Chloe " were in a
position to give St. Paul valuable information about the state
of things among the Christians in Corinth.

The extent of their information cannot be accurately
defined, but it is at least certain that it laid emphasis on
the growth of party feeling among the Christians at Corinth.
This is shown by I Cor. i. 11-12: "It has been told me,
brethren, by the [representatives] of Chloe that there are
divisions among you. I mean that each says I am of
Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. "
The view which has to be taken of the information implied
by these verses depends on the exegesis given to them, and
this is unfortunately by no means clear. The most simple
viewis that * thoseof Chloe " reported that the community was
split up into the parties of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ,
and in some form this view is now generally taken. The
difficulties in it are : (i) the curious statement in i Cor. iv. 6,
" Now these things, brethren, I have transferred in a figure to
myself and Apollos for your sakes " ; (2) the difficulty of
understanding who the Christ party can have been.

The statement in i Cor. iv. 6 has sometimes been inter
preted as implying that St. Paul had throughout used the
names of himself and Apollos as screens for the real party
leaders : but this exegesis, 1 though not impossible, is
improbable. The natural meaning is that in the previous
section (iii. 18 iv. 5), in which St. Paul warns the Corinthians
against an excessive estimate of the importance of himself
and other leaders, who are after all merely the " ministers of
Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God," his intention
was really to warn his readers against a similarly excessive

1 Made popular by Chrysostom and dominant until the time of Beza, who
rejected it.

THE CORINTHIAN PARTIES 127

estimate of their spiritual gifts and personal importance.
He does not in the least mean that the parties of St. Paul
and Apollos did not exist.

The difficulty of identifying the " Christ party " is greater.
In no other passage in i Corinthians does St. Paul ever
refer to any party which regarded itself as especially that of
Christ. And in iii. 2I, 1 while purposely, as it seems, mention
ing the other parties of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas he
says nothing of a " Christ party," but continues " and ye are
Christ s, and Christ is God s." Influenced by this fact
Rabiger 2 has suggested that tyw ?t X/xorof in i Cor. i. 12
is not co-ordinate with the other phrases. In a writer who
pays regard to stylistic propriety such a suggestion would
be absurd ; but St. Paul s style is far from being formally
correct, and I am not sure that the least difficult solution
to an exceedingly difficult problem is not to translate and
punctuate thus : " I mean that each says I am of Paul, and I
of Apollos, and I of Cephas, but/ am of Christ ! Is Christ
divided ? was Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized
into the name of Paul ? " The advantages of it are that it
adds to the force of /utjutpKr-ai o Xpiaruf; ; and changes it from
a most difficult phrase to an intelligible and well-pointed
question, and that it brings the whole passage into line
with i Cor. iii. 4 (cf. iii. 11) and I Cor. iii. 21-23, in which
the Paul, Apollos, and Cephas parties are mentioned, but
Christ appears only as the bond of common unity in which
all the parties ought to sink their differences. It is also
supported by the fact that Clement in his epistle to Corinth

1 " For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; all are yours,
and ye are Christ s, and Christ is God s."

Kritische Unttrsiichunven iiber den In halt der beiden Brief tn an dif
korinthischc GemeinJe. Second edition, 1886.

128 CORINTH

(xlvii. 3) mentions the parties of Paul, Cephas, and Apollos,
but not the Christ party. The objections are, first, that it
makes the tyw in tyw St X/JIOTOU mean something different
from what it means in the precisely parallel phrases IJM
t Krj^a and tya&gt; Si ATroAAw, and, secondly, that there seems
to be a possible reference to the Christ party in 2 Cor. x. 7,
u If any man trusteth in himself that he is Christ s, let him
consider this again with himself, that, even as he is Christ s,
so also are we." This last passage is not absolute proof
that the phrase in the First Epistle really refers to a definite
party, for, after all, the claim to be Christ s was the ultimate
contention of all the parties, and in an inclusive sense was
admitted by St. Paul ; it is not impossible that St. Paul here
means no more than an appeal to the fact that he and his
opponent both relied, in the end, on their spiritual experience
the conviction that they were Christ s. Nevertheless, it
certainly is the strongest argument that exists, and perhaps
turns the scales of probability against the ingenious and
otherwise attractive suggestion of Rabiger. A still more
radical suggestion, commended among others by J. Weiss, is
that tyo St Xpiarov is an interpolation, and due to an original
marginal interjection by a pious scribe. This is possible,
though personally I prefer Rabiger s hypothesis.

If these views be rejected, and the existence of a Christ
party be accepted, we must clearly take as referring to it
2 Cor. x. 7, which practically means that the Christ party
was that against which St. Paul fulminates in 2 Cor. x.-xiii.
The characteristics of this party will have to be discussed
later (see pp. 219 ff.).

There is comparatively little room for profitable discus
sion as to the parties of Cephas and Apollos. As was said
.above (p. u 6) it has been suggested that the party of

THE CORINTHIAN PARTIES 129

Cephas represents Judaizing propaganda. This is quite
improbable, and rests partly on an unnecessary inference
from the use of the name Cephas instead of Peter, partly
on a largely antiquated theory of Church history, which
invented a double stream in early Christianity under
the leadership of St. Peter and St. Paul. That there was
opposition to St. Paul is unquestionable, but that it was
inspired by St. Peter is more than doubtful. Moreover, if
there really had been definitely Judaizing propaganda at
this time against St. Paul, it is surely more likely to have
taken to itself the name of St. James rather than that of
St. Peter.

It has also been suggested that the party of Apollos
was especially addicted to an exaggeration of Alexandrian
philosophy. This theory is partly based on facts, but it is
not clear that reference is especially made to Apollos or his
party. The point is that immediately after his direct rebuke
of partizanship, St. Paul passes, in i Cor. i. 17 iv. 21, into
a long section in which it may be said that two themes are
interlaced, the relation of his gospel to " wisdom," and
a renewed deprecation of partizanship. Certainly it is
clear that the partizan spirit in Corinth was in some way
connected with an exaltation of " wisdom," and the bear
ing of this fact will have to be considered when the oppo
sition to St. Paul is discussed (see pp. 231 ff.) ; but there is
no real evidence for thinking that the " exaltation of
wisdom" was especially the characteristic of the party of
Apollos. It may have been so ; and, if so, it may have
been due to his Alexandrian associations, but there is
nothing to prove it.

Moreover, if we may judge from the obviously friendly
relationship between St. Paul and Apollos (cf. i Cor. xvi. 12)

130 CORINTH

it is, in any case, improbable that the latter was, any more
than St. Paul himself, the conscious cause of partizanship.
It was not the leaders or at least not those whom St. Paul
mentions who were responsible for the parties, but their
rash and imperfectly instructed followers. This, no doubt,
did give rise among other things to an undue exaltation of
"wisdom," and, as will be seen in connection with 2 Corin
thians, helped to produce a very critical situation in the
Christian community at Corinth.

This information as to the partizanship in the Church at
Corinth seems to have been the chief information given to
St. Paul by "those of Chloe." It is evident from I Corin
thians that he regarded it very seriously, and foresaw the
possibility that it might give an unpleasant character to
the visit to Corinth which he contemplated. 1 " Some," he
says, 2 " are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.
But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and I will
know, not the word of them which are puffed up, but the
power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in
power. What will ye ? Shall I come unto you with a rod,
or in love and a spirit of meekness ? " To avoid this possi
bility he sent Timothy 3 to try to bring the Corinthians into
a better frame of mind. But before discussing this visit
of Timothy, it is desirable to consider certain points which
"those of Chloe" may have told St. Paul, and with
which Timothy would certainly have had to deal on his
arrival.

These points are indicated in I Cor. v.-vi., and may be
shortly described as (a) an instance either of incest or of
incestuous marriage ; (/3) a tendency to litigation among

1 As will be seen (pp. 149 ff.), his forebodings were probably realized.

2 I Cor. iv. 18. 3 I Cor. iv. 17.

INCEST AND LITIGATION 131

Christians in the heathen courts ; (y) a tendency to immo
rality.

(a) The Case of Incest. What precisely was the question
at issue is not clear. St. Paul merely says, " It is actually
reported that there is fornication among you, and such
fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of
you hath his father s wife." Whether this was incest or an
incestuous marriage is not stated, nor is it possible to say
whether it was "those of Chloe " who brought the report,
or some one else. In any case it would seem that the com
munity had not treated the matter seriously enough. "And
ye," said St. Paul, 1 " are puffed up, and did not rather
mourn, that he that hath done this deed might be taken
away from you." He therefore reminds them of the prin
ciples laid down in the "previous letter," and adjures them
to adopt a firm attitude in this matter, and exclude the
offender from their midst.

()3) The Tendency to Litigation. From I Cor. vi. I ff., it
would seem that there was a tendency in Corinth to litiga
tion in the heathen courts between Christians, and St. Paul
suggests that these matters ought to be settled by the
Christians among themselves. This much is certain ; but
no hint is given as to the nature of the questions which had
led to litigation. It is, of course, plain that the preceding-
incident the man who had taken his father s wife can,
whatever it may have exactly been, have easily led to litiga
tion of more than one sort ; but there is nothing to prove
that this was or was not the case.

The chief importance of the incident is that it is by far
the most weighty, if not the only, evidence in the Epistle
as to the vexed question whether the Christian Churches

1 i Cor. v. 2.

132 CORINTH

were organized on a Jewish or Gentile model. There is
no evidence in the earlier Epistles of St. Paul which really
enables us to sketch, even in outline, the organization of
a Christian community at this time, not because there
probably was no organization, but because it was not yet
a matter which had given rise to polemical discussion.
St. Paul says nothing about it, because it was not contro
versial, and his Epistles are controversial letters, not general
statements of universally accepted facts. But here, in the
question of litigation, we are given a single valuable hint
as to the attitude of the Corinthian Christians. Clearly
there was a party which held that disputes ought to be
settled by the Church, and another which held that they
might be brought before the Roman courts. Apparently
the latter was in the majority, though this is not quite
plain. Now, this is just one of the points which dis
tinguishes Greek from Jewish ideas. The Jews always
claimed that the synagogue was a competent court for all
disputes. 1 The Greek Olaaoi, on the other hand, never
seem to have entertained the idea (which would certainly
have had a short life at the hands of Roman lawyers) that
they had any general jurisdiction over their members. An
initiate in the mysteries of Isis went to law with another
initiate about ordinary disputes (St. Paul s /3twrtca), without
any hesitation. The fact that some of the Corinthians were
taking the Greek line is therefore important and interesting. 2

1 See Josephus, Antiquit., xiv. 10. 2; cf. Schiirer, Geschichte des jiidischen
Volkes, ed. 4, III. 113 ff., and Mommsen in the Zeitschrift f. d. N. Tliche Wiss.,
1901, p. 88 ff.

2 The whole question of the growth of organization belongs rather to the
investigation of the background of the later Epistles ; but an admirable resume,
with references to other literature, will be found in J. Weiss Der erste Komi-

ft pp. xvi. ff.

IMMORALITY AT CORINTH 133

(7) The General Tendency to Immorality. Much the same
must be said of the third point. In I Cor. vi. 12-20, St. Paul
is clearly warning the Corinthians against a laxity of morals,
of which he has heard either from " those of Chloe " or from
some other source. Obviously it is possible that this is con
nected with the case of incest, which might not unnaturally
have given rise to inquiries by St. Paul from his informanton
this subject as to the general level of morality among the
Corinthian Christians, while it is, on the other hand, equally
possible that there is no connection between the two
sections. The view to be taken of the question depends
largely on that adopted towards the previous point. If
there was a connection between the case of incest dealt with
in i Cor. v., and the tendency to litigation reproved in the
following passage, it is extremely probable that the third
section is still connected with the same incident ; if, on the
other hand, there was no such connection, it is less probable
that St. Paul, after dealing with the case of incest and going
on to another topic, should turn back once more to his
original subject.

Further than this it is impossible to go : we only possess
a letter written for the edification of the Corinthians
not to give information to historians, and it is unreason
able to expect that we can reconstruct out of it all the
circumstances to which it refers. Much, no doubt, can be
done,--but there remains much which can never be entirely
cleared up. The question as to the possible relation
between this moral difficulty and the doctrinal disputes in
Corinth is discussed on pp. 176 ff.

I 3 4 CORINTH

(3) The Mission of Timothy.

Closely connected with the information given by "those
of Chloe " is the mission of Timothy. In consequence of
the reports as to the partizan scandals in Corinth, St.
Paul sent Timothy to see if he could reduce th^ evil,
especially as he heard that his own absence was having a
bad effect.

"I have sent 1 Timothy," he says, in I Cor. iv. 17, "for
this very purpose to you, ... to remind you of my
behaviour in Christ," etc. And in I Cor. xvi. 10, he
returns to the subject, and says, " If Timothy come, see
that he be with you without fear ; for he worketh the work
of the Lord, as I also do : let no man therefore despise
him. But set him forward on his journey in peace, that he
may come unto me, for I expect him with the brethren."
From these two passages it would seem that Timothy was
sent off from Ephesus after St. Paul had received the
information given him by "those of Chloe," and before
the departure of the bearers of I Corinthians : but in the
second passage St. Paul seems strangely uncertain whether
Timothy would really reach Corinth, or, if he did, whether
he would not arrive later than the bearers of his letter,
in spite of the fact that he had started first.

Further information is not given in I Corinthians, nor
is the visit of Timothy mentioned in 2 Corinthians, but in
Acts xix. 22 it is stated that St. Paul "sent into Macedonia
two of them that ministered unto him, Timothy and Erastus,"
and it is generally supposed that this refers to the mission
of Timothy referred to in I Corinthians. The obvious

1 Surely the aorist must be so translated.

TIMOTHY THE CORINTHIANS LETTER 135

advantage of this theory is that it explains why St. Paul
thought that Timothy might possibly reach Corinth later
than I Corinthians. This becomes intelligible if Timothy
went round through Macedonia, while the bearers of the
letter went by sea. On the other hand, it is true that it is
strange to describe a journey from Ephesus through Mace
donia and Achaia, merely by a reference to Macedonia.
But the possibility of a slight inaccuracy in the Acts ought
not to be lost sight of, or it may be that St. Luke wrote
Macedonia, because in practice Macedonia was further
from Ephesus than was Corinth. On the evidence we can
go no further than to say that the visit of Timothy in
I Corinthians may be identical with that in Acts xix. 21,
but that this is not proved, and that the two visits may be
separate. As will be seen, the matter is chiefly important
in connection with the dating of i Corinthians.

(4) The Letter of the Corinthians to St. Paul,
and the Information of its Bearers.

It would appear from the preceding discussion that
I Cor. i. vi. is probably based in the main on the informa
tion given to St. Paul by those of Chloe. The rest of the
Epistle (vii. xvi.) seems to rest on a different basis. In
i Cor. xvi. 17, St. Paul says, " I rejoice at the arrival of
Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for that which was
lacking on your part they supplied " ; and in vii. I, he
refers to a letter which he had received from the Corin
thians. It is obvious, putting these two references together,
that St. Paul used the verbal communications of Stephanas,
Fortunatus, and Achaicus to supplement the Corinthians

136 CORINTH

information, and it is not unlikely that they were them
selves the bearers of the letter.

To distinguish exactly between the information given
by the letter and the supplementary matter added by the
three Corinthians is neither possible nor really important.
But it seems as though the greater part of I Cor. vii. xvi.
is directly based on the letter, the various points in which
are indicated by a more or less regularly recurring formula.
This is to be found as follows :

i Si &v lyptyare ... ... vii. I

SE T&V Traptfsvwv ... ... vii. 25

e T&V EtSwAofluTwv ... ... viii. I

l Si T&V TTVEUyUcmtcwi; ... ... xii. I

irtpl Si Trjg Xoyiag ... ... ... xvi. I

irepl Si ATToXXw ... ... ... xvi. 12

It will be seen at once that these introductory formulae
take with them the greater part of I Cor. vii. I xvi. 12,
that is, the whole of the second half of the Epistle ; but
there are a few important paragraphs which present
difficulties. It is clear that there is no break between
vii. i and vii. 24, the section concerning marriage, or
between vii. 25 and vii. 40, concerning "virgins," or between
viii. I and viii. 13, concerning things offered to idols, but
the next section, ix. I x. 13, is not so easy. At first
sight it seems to have nothing to do with things offered
to idols, but to deal with the question of St. Paul s own
behaviour, and it is sometimes regarded as primarily an
answer to attacks made upon his authority. It is possible,
indeed probable, that there is some reference to these
attacks but if this be taken as the main object of the
section it is hard to find any satisfactory explanation for

THE CORINTHIANS LETTER 137

the references to the Jews who were " baptized in the sea
and the cloud" in x. 1-13, or for the fact that in x. 14
St. Paul returns to the question of idolatry in such a way
as to suggest that he regarded the section ix. i x. 13 as
contributing to the solution of the question raised by the
things offered to idols. It is therefore much more prob
able that the point which explains the relation between
the different parts of the whole answer to the question
about "things offered to idols," covering viii. I x. i, is that
some of the Corinthians defended the custom of eating such
things, partly on the ground that they were free and had
authority to eat them which St. Paul controverts by
means of his own example in other matters and partly
on the ground that having been baptized and become
Christians they were safe from all evil which St. Paul
controverts by the example of the Israelites who fell in
the wilderness in spite of the privileges which they had
received. 1

Thus, from vii. I to xi. I is entirely given up to
questions raised by the Corinthians letter. The next
section is more doubtful. The beginning (" Now I praise
you that ye remember me in all things," xi. 2) seems to
be a quotation from, or a reference to, an assurance given
in their letter, and it is probable that this led up to
questions concerning the behaviour of men and women in
the Church. Thus, xi. 1-16 is probably directly inspired
by the Corinthians letter, but xi. 17-34, dealing with the
question of the celebration of the Eucharist, is introduced
by a different formula : St. Paul says, " But in giving this
instruction (as to men and women), I do not commend
the fact that your meetings are deteriorating instead of
1 See pp. 178 ff. and 200 ff.

I3 3, CORINTH

improving; for I hear," etc. That is to say, he is not
commenting on their letter, but on information given to
him orally, presumably by Stephanas and his companions.
This section, therefore, is only indirectly connected with
the Corinthians letter, and was inspired by the verbal
communications of Stephanas.

In the next section, xii. I xiv. 40, dealing with
irvtvfiariK&v ("spirituals") the introductory formula shows
that St. Paul is dealing with the letter, and for the present
purpose there are no difficulties to discuss. Chap. xv. is
more difficult : it discusses the Resurrection, and begins
with the formula "yvwpi^w 8e vfM v " "I would have you
to know " is perhaps the best translation. Although this
is not the same formula as St. Paul elsewhere uses in
connection with the letter, it is probable that it is never
theless a reference, and that we ought to conclude that
the Corinthians asked a question concerning the resurrection
of the dead. The alternative is to suppose that Stephanas
and his friends reported that there were doubts on the
subject.

The remaining chapter is less difficult: xvi. i-li is
concerned with a question in the letter relating to a
collection for the poor, and with the projected arrivals of
Timothy and St. Paul in connection with it: xvi. 12 is also
concerned with a simple question in the letter as to the
plans of Apollos, and the remaining verses, xvi. 13-24, are
the final greetings and advice of St. Paul, in which he
expresses his pleasure at having seen Stephanas, Fortunatus,
and Achaicus, and apparently thinking once more of the
parties advises the Corinthians to follow the guidance of
Stephanas.

Thus, the letter of the Corinthians was a series of

THE DATE OF i CORINTHIANS 139

questions about practical and doctrinal points as to which
the community was in doubt. The fact that there was at
that time controversy, or at least uncertainty, on those
points is of the greatest importance for the understanding
of the general position of Christianity in Corinth, and must
be discussed later. It is for the moment sufficient to set
out the probable list of questions, together with the
references to the places in I Corinthians in which St. Paul
deals with them.

Marriage, sexual relations, and divorce r Cor. vii. 1-24

"Virgins" i Cor. vii. 25-38

Re-marriage of widows ... ... i Cor. vii. 39-40

Things sacrificed to idols ... ... i Cor. viii. i xi. i

Customs during worship ... ... I Cor. xi. 2 xi. 16

The Eucharist (arising out of sup
plementary information) ... ... i Cor. xi. 17-34

"Spirituals" ... ... ... ... i Cor. xii. i xiv. 40

The resurrection of the dead ... i Cor. xv. 1-58

The collection for the poor ... ... i Cor. xvi. i-n

The plans of Apollos ... ... i Cor. xvi. 12

(5) The Time and Place of the Writing oj i Corinthians.

It has been seen that i Corinthians is partly comment
on information given by those of Chloe, and partly an
answer to a letter sent by the Corinthians to St. Paul.
Tne questions are, when and whence did he send it?

By the first question is meant not so much the absolute
date of the Epistle, as its relative position in the three years
that St. Paul spent in Asia.

The general opinion is that it was early in the year

1 40 CORINTH

(according to our reckoning) in which St. Paul left Ephesus
and came to Corinth on his way up to Jerusalem for the
last time. This view is based on I Cor. xvi. 3 ff. : " When
I arrive, whomsoever ye approve, them will I send with
letters to carry your bounty to Jerusalem ; and if it be
meet for me to go also, they shall go with me. But I shall
come unto you, when I have passed through Macedonia ;
for I do pass through Macedonia; but with you it may
be that I shall abide, or even winter, that ye may set me
forward on my journey whithersoever I go, for I do not
wish to pay you merely a passing visit. But I shall wait
at Ephesus until Pentecost ; for a great door and effectual
is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries." The
suggestion is that these verses show that St. Paul wrote
not long before Pentecost, and that the visit which he states
that he proposes to pay to Corinth is identical with that
which, according to Acts xx. 2, he actually paid after he
left Ephesus and had travelled through Macedonia. In
this case the letter was written in the spring of the year
in the autumn of which St. Paul left Ephesus ; and if the
intended visit mentioned in I Corinthians must be identified
with the actual visit described in Acts, no other conclusion
can be possible. This identification can be controlled by
references to a collection in 2 Cor. viii. 10 and ix. I ff,
as compared with the First Epistle. In I Cor. xvi. I ff.,
St. Paul says, " Now, concerning the collection for the
saints, as I gave order to the Churches of Galatia, so also
do ye. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you
lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections
be made when I arrive." It is impossible with any straight
forward exegesis to explain this as meaning anything except
that the collection was not ready probably scarcely begun

THE DATE OF \ CORINTHIANS 141

at the time when St. Paul wrote. But in 2 Cor. ix. i ff.
he says, " For as touching the ministering to the saints,
it is superfluous for me to write to you, for I know your
readiness, of which I glory on your behalf to them of
Macedonia, that Achaia has been ready since last year " ;
and in 2 Cor. viii. 10 he gives the same _ reference to time:
"This is expedient for you, who were the first to make a
beginning last year, not only to do, but also to will." In
both these places the R.V. translates aVo -jrspvcn, "a. year
ago," which means, in ordinary English, twelve months,
but the more accurate rendering is " last year." Now, for
St. Paul, as a Greek Jew, the year must have begun in
October, and therefore, if he be writing 2 Corinthians
after that date, last year could mean in the previous spring
assuming, that is to say, that I Corinthians was written in
the spring before Pentecost. If, however, he was writing
before October, the date of the Epistle must be put back
a full year. The evidence of Acts suggests that the former
alternative is the more probable, though it scarcely enables
us to form a decisive opinion. According to Acts xx. 6,
St. Paul left Philippi on his last journey to Jerusalem in
the spring (after the days of unleavened bread). He had
reached Philippi from Corinth, where he had stayed three
months (Acts xx. 3), so that he must have reached Corinth
about the beginning of January. He had come to Corinth
from Ephesus through Macedonia, where he must have
been in December and probably also in November, as Acts
states that he gave them " much exhortation." He was,
however, already in Macedonia when he wrote 2 Cor. viii.
referring to "last year," and the impression given by
2 Corinthians is that he had already been there some
time. Thus the probability certainly seems to be that

1 42 CORINTH

2 Corinthians was written during November, early in the
Jewish new year ; so that I Corinthians and the arrange
ments made in the spring for the collection at Corinth
would naturally be described as "last year."

Thus the probability is that I Corinthians was written
about nine months before St. Paul s visit to Corinth,
narrated in Acts xx. 2, to which he was looking forward
when he wrote the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians. It
will be noted that this implies that he stayed in Ephesus
after Pentecost, which he had not originally intended to do.
This must be granted on any theory which does not
abandon the trustworthiness of Acts.

So far it has been assumed that the Epistle was written
from Ephesus. Probably this assumption is correct ; but
there is one objection which deserves statement. In I Cor.
xv. 32, St. Paul says : " If after the manner of men (K.O.T
tivOpwnov) I fought with beasts at Ephesus/ etc. ; and in
xvi. 8, he says, " But I shall wait at Ephesus until Pente
cost." Would he have spoken in this way, especially in
xv. 32, if at the time of writing he was still at Ephesus ?
J. Weiss 1 thinks this extremely improbable, and is inclined
to believe that the Epistle was written in Macedonia.
Apparently he interprets I Cor. xvi. 5, MaK^oviav yap
Sie jo^o^cu, to mean, " I am now passing through Macedonia."
Curiously enough, however, although he draws this con
clusion from xv. 32, he does not accept it for xvi. 8, which
he considers to have been really written in Ephesus, and
he attributes xvi. 7^-9 and 15-20 to the " previous letter."
Admitting, however, that there is a superficial difficulty,
I cannot see that this partition is here necessary. Aiepxofjiai
may refer to a future plan : or it may be that I Corinthians
1 J. Weiss, ZVr erste Korintherbrief, pp. xl. ff. and 366.

THE PLACE WHENCE ST. PAUL WROTE 143

was really written from Macedonia, but that St. Paul
regarded Ephesus as his centre to which he meant to
return after his Macedonian journey. In this case, how
ever, the " greetings of the Churches of Asia " are a difficulty.
Or again, taking ctepxo^ai as a reference to future plans, it
is possible that the letter was written from some other town
in Asia : we need not suppose that St. Paul actually stayed
in Ephesus during the whole of the three years that he
made that city his headquarters. 1 The admission that there
is a certain difficulty in the usual view that the Epistle was
written from Ephesus is therefore the most that can be
granted. The difficulty is not, after all, insurmountable :
it is possible to say, " If I had fought with the beasts at
Ephesus," 2 even in Ephesus, though it would be more
natural to say "here" instead of "at Ephesus," and the
alternative theories seem to raise more difficulties than they
solve. Probably, then, the Epistle was written from Ephesus
in the last spring which St. Paul spent in that city.

1 According to DEFG al pane., St. Paul stayed at Ephesus with Aquila
and Priscilla, for they add to I Cor. xvi. 19, after the mention of the Church in
their house, Trap oTy KO.\ ftlofuu.

- A further problem, which it is not necessary to discuss at length, is quite
definitely raised by this verse. When was St. Paul ever in danger of this kind
at Ephesus ? Either he is alluding to some incident at Ephesus, which can
scarcely be that connected with Demetrius the silversmith (Acts xix. 23 ff.),
unless St. Luke has greatly understated the situation, or he is stating a wholly
imaginary possibility. I think the former is somewhat the more probable,
and that St. Paul must have passed through some form of persecuiion, and
presumably imprisonment, of which Acts says nothing. The importance of
this is twofold: (i) It corroborates (or is corroborated by) 2 Cor. xi. 23,
which, among other trials, wholly unmentioned in Acts, mentions imprison
ment. (2) It suggests that critics are perhaps a little rash in thinking that
the " Epistles of the captivity," which certainly were written from prison, must
necessarily have been written either from Rome or Caesarea. If there be any
truth in this view, the 0\tyis 77 yevontvi) lv Airia (2 Cor. i. 8) is probably a
reference to this, not to the incident of Demetrius ; but the further discussion
of the point belongs to the history of Ephesus rather than Corinth.

144 CORINTH

Such are the main critical problems introductory to the
study of i Corinthians : it will be seen that they prepare
the way for a consideration of the far more interesting
questions as to the reasons why the Corinthians were
divided in their opinions as to things offered to idols,
marriage, the resurrection of the dead, and the other points
on which they consulted St. Paul.

2 CORINTHIANS.

It is far more difficult to reconstruct the events implied
by 2 Corinthians than those underlying the earlier Epistle.
In the latter, though there are difficulties as to details,
the main point that it was called out by the information
given by "those of Chloe" and by a letter from the Corin
thians has never been in dispute ; but in 2 Corinthians
more than one point of great importance is likely always
to be a matter of controversy.

Starting with the state of affairs which obtained when

1 Corinthians was written and sent off, we know that St.
Paul was in Asia, and that Timothy had been sent to
Corinth in order to deal with the spirit of partizanship. It
was this spirit which had especially distressed St. Paul,
especially since it was coupled in practice, if not in origin
with a low level of morality, and by personal attacks on
his own position. The question is how this situation
developed in the period, probably only about six months,
between the two Epistles. What sort of report did Timothy
bring back, and what further circumstances gave rise to

2 Corinthians ?

In so controversial a subject the fairest, and in the end
probably the clearest, method is to begin by stating the

2 CORINTHIANS 145

facts, and afterwards to discuss the various interpretations
which seem possible.

The indisputable facts, then, may be summarized thus :

(1) The Mission of Timothy. There is an absolute
silence on this subject in 2 Corinthians : it is certain that he
had returned, for he is joined with St. Paul in the opening
salutation (2 Cor. i. i), but there is nothing to say whether he
had ever reached Corinth, much less any positive evidence
as to his reception there.

(2) A Visit of St. Paul to Corinth. Reference is made to
a visit of St. Paul to Corinth, unrecorded in the Acts, and
unmentioned in I Corinthians. This is proved by 2 Cor.
xii. 14, " Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come
to you," and 2 Cor. xiii. i, 2, " This is the third time I am
coming to you." The former of these passages might
possibly be explained as referring merely to an intention,
and meaning, " This is the third time that I have formed
the plan of coming to you," though this interpretation is
not at all natural, but the latter is quite definite and must
mean that St. Paul had visited Corinth twice before his final
visit, recorded in Acts xx. 2, which he was on his way to
make when he wrote the opening section of 2 Corinthians.
There is, however, nothing to show unmistakably whether the
"second" visit ought to be placed before or after i Corinthians.

(3) A Severe Letter of St. Paid to the Corinthians. In
2 Cor. ii. 4, St. Paul says, " Out of much affliction and
anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears," and in
2 Cor. vii. 8, " Though I made you sorry with my Epistle,
I do not now regret it, though I did so once." These
descriptions can only apply to a letter which, written under
the pressure of circumstances, was so severe that St. Paul
was at one time inclined to think that it had been too

I 4 6 CORINTH &lt;

harsh. There is no definite proof that it is not identical
either with I Corinthians or with the " previous Epistle " (see
pp. 120-125), but there is a general consensus of opinion
that neither of these possibilities is probable, and that the
" severe letter" was sent off subsequently to I Corinthians.

(4) The Visits of Titus. It is clear that Titus had been sent
to Corinth, and that he had rejoined St. Paul in Macedonia.
In 2 Cor. ii. 12, St. Paul says, " When I came to Troas . . .
I found not Titus, my brother, but taking my leave of them,

1 went forth into Macedonia," and in 2 Cor. vii. 5, " For even
when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no relief,
but we were afflicted on every side. . . . Nevertheless God
comforted us by the coming of Titus," etc. Moreover, from
the context of these passages it appears that Titus mission
was successful, for St. Paul expresses both in 2 Cor. ii. and

2 Cor. vii. his satisfaction at the result, and says (in vii. 13}
that the spirit of Titus "hath been refreshed by you all,"
and in vii. 15, that "his (i.e. Titus ) inward affection is
more abundantly toward you, whilst he remembereth the
obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye
received him." It would also appear that Titus, after thus
rejoining St. Paul, went back to Corinth. His return and
St. Paul s expression of hope for his good reception form
the substance of 2 Cor. viii. I ix. 15.

Thus we have clear evidence that Titus paid two visits
to Corinth, one before and one after 2 Corinthians ; that
between these two visits he had an interview with St. Paul
in Macedonia ; and that he then reported his experiences
on his first visit.

(5) The Report of Titus to St. Paul. Titus was success
ful in his first visit to Corinth, but what was the report which
he brought from Corinth to Macedonia ? Three points are

TITUS AND HIS REPORT 147

plain, but each of them gives rise to a further problem
which is by no means clear. In the first place, it may be
stated with positiveness that the difficulty at Corinth
centred in a personal dispute. There were two persons
whom St. Paul calls in 2 Cor. vii. 12, "he who did the
wrong " (o aSiKnaas), "he who suffered the wrong" (6 aSt/c/jfet e).
We can even go further and identify him who did the
wrong with the person who is described in 2 Cor. ii. 6 ff.
as condemned, punished, and penitent. 1 But there is
nothing whatever to throw any direct light on the identity
of the persons referred to, or on the nature of the offence
committed. In the second place, it is clear that the guilty
person was condemned to some form of punishment, but
there is nothing to show what the nature of this punishment
was. Finally, it is in the third place clear that this punish
ment was inflicted, not by the unanimous vote of the
whole community, but by that of a majority. It is described
in 2 Cor. ii. 6 as 77 cTnri/ut a aurrj ?j UTTO T&V Tr\i&lt; f &gt;vii)v, which
cannot mean as the R.V. text reads, " this punishment
which was inflicted by the many," but must be, as it is put in
the margin, " by the more," or, as we usually say in modern
English, "by the majority." But it is uncertain whether the
corresponding minority, which this phrase implies, consisted
of those who wished for a severer punishment, or of those
who desired greater leniency, or sided with the offender.

Tnese, then, are the facts for which room has to be
made in any reconstruction of the events leading up to
2 Corinthians, a "severe letter" from St. Paul to the
Corinthians, and a successful visit by Titus.

" Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the
majority, so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him,
lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his overmuch
sorrow " (2 Cor. ii. 6 ff.).

148 CORINTH

The problems which must be faced are

(1) The significance of the silence of 2 Corinthians

on the mission of Timothy.

(2) The position of the "second " visit of St. Paul.

(3) The possible identification of the " severe letter "

with 2 Cor. x.-xiii.

(4) The visits of Titus to Corinth.

(5) The reconstruction of the report of Titus.

It will also be noticed that, just as the consideration of
the critical problems in I Corinthians leaves for further
discussion the really important question of the point of
view of the Corinthian Christians, as implied by their
questions to St. Paul, so also the consideration of the
critical problems in 2 Corinthians leaves over the question
of the character of the party opposed to St. Paul.

(i) THE MISSION OF TIMOTHY.

The silence of 2 Corinthians as to the mission of
Timothy has been explained in two ways. Either Timothy
never reached Corinth which explains why St. Luke
describes his journey as "to Macedonia" or he was
thoroughly unsuccessful in his object of bringing the
Corinthians to a better frame of mind, and when, after all,
peace was made between St. Paul and his converts, it
was neither necessary nor tactful to refer to his visit.
Between these two possibilities final judgment is im
possible, but the latter seems much the more probable, and
the supposition that Timothy returned to Ephesus, not
long 1 after i Corinthians was sent, with an extremely un
pleasant report, to the effect that the Corinthians would
not listen to his counsels, and that the troubles continued,

ST. PAUL S UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT 149

fits in very well with the most probable solutions to the
other problems, 1 while as much can scarcely be said for the
view that Timothy never reached Corinth at all.

(2) THE VISIT OF ST. PAUL TO CORINTH.

Ought the "second " visit of St. Paul to be placed before
i Corinthians, or inserted between it and 2 Corinthians ?
The points which have to be taken into consideration are
these: (a) I Cor. iv. 21, "What will ye ? shall I come unto you
with a rod, or in love and a spirit of meekness ? " supported
by I Cor. xi. 34, " The rest will I set in order when I come,"
seems to prove that he not only contemplated a visit, but
doubted whether it would be an entirely peaceful one,
owing to the parties in the Church. (/3) 2 Cor. ii. I, " But
I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you
with sorrow again," seems to show that he had, when he
wrote, the memory of an unpleasant visit, and it should be
noted that in the undoubtedly best text 2 the "again" is
closely connected with the " with sorrow." Moreover, in the
immediate context of this verse St. Paul s meaning clearly
is that some one, who had opposed him originally, had now
been punished by the majority. The whole passage 2 Cor.
ii. i-n must be studied from this point of view.

" But I determined this with myself, that I would not

1 As a matter of method it should be noted that complicated questions
of this kind can only be satisfactorily handled by reducing them to a number
of subordinate problems. Each of these problems is capable of alternative
solutions, and in choosing between these the critic has to be guided by
considering which is consistent with the solutions of other co-ordinate problems.
The solutions not consistent with any of the alternatives must be struck out.

2 "Exptva 8i f/j.avrw TOVTO, Tb ft.}) -naXiv tv \VTTT) irpbs v/j.as 4\6tiv,
S ABCDEFGKLOP al plu., latt.,, syrr. . . . iv \virr,, post i\Qw min. pauc.
. . . otn ird\w boh. aeth.

I $3 &gt; .CORINTH

come again to you with sorrow. For if I make you sorry,
who is he then that maketh me glad, but he that is made
sorry by me ? And I wrote this very thing unto you, lest,
when I came, I should have sorrow from -them of whom
I ought to rejoice ; having confidence in you all, that my
joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and
anguish 1 of heart I wrote unto you with many tears ; not
that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love
which Ihave more abundantly unto you. But if any have
caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part (that
I may not press too hardly) you all. Sufficient to such a man
is this punishment, which was inflicted by the majority. So
that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort
him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with
overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would
confirm your love toward him. For to this end also did
I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be
obedient in all things. To whom ye forgive any thing,
I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, what I forgave
for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ ; that
no advantage be gained over us by Satan : for we are not
ignorant of his devices."

Is it not plain that this passage implies a recent visit
which had ended so unpleasantly that St. Paul had determined
not to come back if he was likely to undergo similar experi
ences, and that he was, at the moment of writing, delighted
to find that such action had been taken by the community
that he was able to return without fear, since the leader of the
opposition had been punished by a vote of the majority ?
It was a party question of some sort which had rendered
his previous visit unpleasant, and the removal of this question
took away his fear for a repetition of this experience. The

ST. PAULS UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT 151

natural corollary from these conclusions is that St. Paul s
forebodings in I Cor. iv. 21, that the party divisions at
Corinth would prevent him from having a pleasant visit,
had been painfully well fulfilled during a visit between the
times of writing I and 2 Corinthians.

That this is the natural view is universally conceded ; but
many interpreters of Corinthians have felt obliged to
reject it, because they think that there is no room fbrva
visit of St. Paul to Corinth between I and 2 Corinthians.
Some of them, therefore, fall back on the very unnatural
exegesis of 2 Cor. xii. 14 and xfii. I, which
St. Paul means that he has already been twice
and regards him merely as saying that he h
times intended to come. Others admit the fact of
visit, but place it before I Corinthians.

The main reason for this view is that on the hypothesis
(certainly the most probable) that I Corinthians was written
in the early spring, and 2 Corinthians in the early winter
of (according to our reckoning) the sarao^ear, we have to
assume more rapid travelling backwanMtond forwards on
the part of Timothy, St. Paul, and Titus^bn is thought to
be probable. The objection to it is that^fere is no trace in
i Corinthians of this second unpleasant visit, nor is it easy
to sec that I Corinthians supplies one with any material for
imagining the cause of this unpleasantness. It cannot have
been the partizanship, or the case*q| incest, or tendency to
litigation, or immorality, for on all these points St. Paul
seems to be dependent fo r his knowledge on the recent
information of "those of Chloe"; in short, it may be said
that, while the topics dqalt with in I Corinthians supply
ample reason for tanking that St. Paul might have (as
he says himself in I Cor. iv. 21) an unpleasant visit in the

152 CORINTH

immediate future, they give no reason whatever for thinking
that he had had one in the past.

Under the influence of these facts Dr. Kennedy has urged
that the usual dating of I Corinthians is wrong, and that it
ought to be placed a year earlier ; the main argument for
this view is the necessity for finding room for the visit of
St. Paul, and, secondly, the belief that a/ro Tripvai in 2 Cor.
ix. 2 implies that I Corinthians was written twelve months
previously. The reasons for not holding this latter opinion
are given on p. 141 ff., and though I quite admit that the
evidence seems to be irresistible in favour of a visit of
St. Paul to Corinth between I and 2 Corinthians, I am not
convinced that the time available on the ordinary view of the
date of I Corinthians is really insufficient. From Corinth to
Ephesus was one of the most frequented routes in the whole
of the Mediterranean, and owing to the prevalence through
out the summer of north or north-westerly winds (usually
more north than west) the journey could be made in either
direction with the wind fairly well on the beam ; an average
passage would scarcely last longer than a week. Thus, all
that the supposed difficulty of finding room for St. Paul s visit
to Corinth really amounts to, is that we must suppose that
between the spring and autumn he was absent from Ephesus
perhaps for four weeks, possibly only a fortnight. Timothy,
we know, had already started for Corinth via Macedonia,
before St. Paul wrote I Corinthians. Let us suppose that
Timothy returned early in May (there is no special reason
why it should not have been earlier), with depressing news
from Corinth. St. Paul immediately decided to go himself,
and returned without any success. He would be back in
Ephesus in July, and, as he does not seem to have left there
until the autumn, this gives at least two months for him

ST. PAUL S UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT 153

to write the "severe letter" and send it to Corinth with
Titus.

In some such reconstruction (which assumes for the
moment the results of the discussion as to the mission of
Titus, see pp. 164-173) there seems to be nothing impossible.
It is surely clear that 2 Corinthians implies a severe crisis
in Corinthian affairs of such a nature as to call for energetic
action on the part of St. Paul, and it is really harder to
imagine that it was long drawn out than that it actually all
took place between the early spring and the late autumn of
one year.

The objection may of course be made that in I Corinthians
St. Paul announces his intention of leaving Ephesus at
Pentecost, and that the reconstruction given above implies
that he stayed on until the summer was over. This
objection has, however, little force, for in 2 Cor. i. 15-17
St. Paul shows plainly that he had to some extent changed
his plans, even though it may not be easy to see exactly
what they were, so that there is no longer any presumption
in favour of the view that he left Ephesus at Pentecost in
accordance with the intention expressed in I Cor. xvi. 8, to
be set against the fact that, using the data given in Acts, he
seems to have stayed on longer. Moreover, it is not quite
accurate to say that St. Paul announced his intention of
leaving Ephesus at Pentecost. What he says is, that he will
not be able to leave sooner (" I shall stay at Ephesus until
Pentecost ") ; his desire is to see the Corinthians, but until
then it is impossible. It is common experience that that
sort of plan, when made by a busy man, often has to be
emended in the direction of postponement. If in the early
spring St. Paul saw no chance of leaving Ephesus before
Pentecost, it is not surprising that in the actual event he

154 CORINTH

could not manage to do so before the autumn, especially if,
as is suggested, he gave up three weeks or a month to a
flying visit to Corinth.

Thus the various events seem to fit into one another,
and justify the view that after sending i Corinthians, and
probably after the return of Timothy with unpleasant news,
St. Paul paid a short and unsuccessful visit to Corinth.

(3) THE SEVERE LETTER.

Can the "severe letter" be identified either with the
" previous letter" or with I Corinthians ? If not, is it to be
found either in whole or in part in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. ?

To the former of these two questions a negative answer
must certainly be given. It is, in the first place, almost
impossible that it should be the lost "previous letter,"
because St. Paul clearly speaks of himself in 2 Cor. vii. 5.
as only learning from Titus what the effect of his letter
had been. This excludes the " previous letter " unless we
suppose (a) that it had been sent off before either " those
of Chloe" or Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus arrived
at Ephesus, but had not yet reached Corinth ; (/3) that the
references to it in I Corinthians do not mean that St. Paul
had heard that it had been misunderstood, but only that
he was afraid that it might be ; and (y) that when St. Paul
wrote i Corinthians it had not yet struck him that his
former letter was so severe that he regretted it. This com
bination of improbabilities excludes the "previous letter"
from serious consideration.

Similarly, i Corinthians itself is excluded by the de
scription of the letter given in 2 Cor. ii. 4. Can any one

THE SEVERE LETTER 155

believe that St. Paul wrote I Corinthians " out of much afflic
tion and anguish of heart, with many tears " ?

It is therefore practically certain that the severe letter
referred to in 2 Corinthians is really a Third Epistle, other
than I Corinthians, or the " previous Epistle." But many
critics urge that this hypothetical Third Epistle is not
really lost, but may, either in whole or in part, be identified
with 2 Cor. x.-xiii.

This view depends on somewhat complicated arguments,
and can best be stated in the form of two propositions.

(1) There is not only no connection between 2 Cor. i.-ix. and
2 Cor. x.-xiii., but there is an absolute break between them.

(2) Internal evidence shows that 2 Cor. x-xiii. was written
before 2 Cor. i.-ix., and that it corresponds to the "severe
letter " mentioned in 2 Cor. ii. and 2 Cor. viii.

(i) The break between 2 Cor. i.-ix. and x. xiii. The
general tone of 2 Cor. i.-ix. is of joy and sudden relief from
great anxiety. The typical passage is 2 Cor. vii. 4-7,
which describes the whole in a few words. " Great is my
boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you :
I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our
tribulation. For, when we were come into Macedonia, our
flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side ;
without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless
God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted
us by the coming of Titus ; and not by his coming only,
but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you,
when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your
fervent mind toward me ; so that I rejoiced the more."
And the same tone may be marked in the concluding words
of 2 Cor. ix. 15, "Thanks be to God for His unspeakable
gift." Indeed, if 2 Cor. i.-ix. stood alone, we should have no

156 CORINTH

difficulty in agreeing that the situation which it implies is
that St. Paul had sent a letter to Corinth in order to bring
the Church there to a better frame of mind, and that he had
just heard, to his great relief, that this letter, combined with
the presence of Titus, had been entirely successful. " In
everything," he writes in 2 Cor. vii. n, "ye approved your
selves pure in the matter . . . therefore we have been com
forted : and in our comfort we joyed the more exceedingly
for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you
all. For if I have boasted anything to him of you, I was
not put to shame ; but as we spake all things to you in
truth, even so our boasting, which I made before Titus, was
found a truth. And his inward affection is more abundant
toward you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you
all, how with fear and trembling ye received him."

If we turn to 2 Cor. x.-xiii., we see a wholly different
picture. The general tone is one of defending his own
position, and threatening severe action against a dis
obedient Church. The opening words strike this note,
which is never completely dropped until the final sentence.
" Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and
gentleness of Christ, who in presence am lowly among you,
but being absent am bold toward you : yea, I beseech you,
that I may not be bold when I am present with that con
fidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which
think of us as if we walked according to the flesh " is the
introduction which leads up to chap. xiii. 2, " I have said,
and do say beforehand, as I did when present the second
time, and now when I am at a distance, to those who
have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come
again, I shall not be lenient."

Thus there can be, and never has been, any dispute but

2 COR. I -IX. AND X.-XIIL 157

that the whole tone of the Epistle changes suddenly at
chap. x. i, and that, if 2 Cor. x.-xiii. had existed in a
separate form, no one would ever have dreamt of suggest
ing that it was the continuation of 2 Cor. i.-ix.

(2) The internal evidence showing that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is
earlier than 2 Cor. i.-ix., and that it is the severe letter
mentioned in the latter portion)-

This evidence may be described as a series of cross-
references from 2 Cor. i.-ix. to 2 Cor. x.-xiii. These re
ferences are of two kinds : the first consists of general
descriptions in 2 Cor. i. ix. of the " severe letter " to which
2 Cor. x.-xiii. is seen to answer; the second, of special
allusions to the contents of the severe letter, all of which
correspond to definite phrases in 2 Cor. x. xiii.

The general descriptions of the severe letter are the
following :

(a) In 2 Cor. ii. 4, St. Paul says that he had written the
" severe letter " " out of much affliction and anguish of
heart beset with many tears."

(/3) In 2 Cor. vii. 8, he says, " Though I made you sorry
with my letter I do not regret it, though I did regret it,"
that is to say, the letter was so severe that after sending
it he was inclined to doubt whether it was not, after all,
excessive.

(y) In 2 Cor. iii. i, he says, "Do we begin again to
commend ourselves ? " implying that in the previous letter
there had been a marked element of self-commenda
tion.

(g) In 2 Cor. i. 23, he says, " I call God for a witness

1 This section is almost entirely based on the masterly statement of Dr. J.
H. Kennedy in his The Second and Third Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians,
pp. 79-94-

158 CORINTH

upon my soul, that to spare you I did not come again to
Corinth/ 1 and in 2 Cor. ii. I, "I determined this for my
self, that I would not come to you again with sorrow."
That is to say, at the time of writing the severe Epistle, the
possibility of paying a punitive visit was present to his
mind, but was temporarily postponed in order to see what
the effect of the letter would be.

Now, if one turn to 2 Cor. x.-xiii., these four general
characteristics are all easily discovered. It is impossible
to read these chapters without recognizing the intensity of
feeling which inspires them, or to fail to agree with Dr.
Kennedy that there are "many passages which we can
believe to have been blotted with tears." It is similarly
obvious that there is (with the possible exception of
Galatians) no other passage of the same length in the
Pauline Epistles of which it is so easy to believe that its
author may have been doubtful as to the propriety of such
powerful invective. Still more strikingly is self-commenda
tion the subject of a large part of 2 Cor. x.-xiii. It may
indeed be fairly called the central theme of 2 Cor. x. 7
xii. 10. Finally, that St. Paul when he wrote 2 Cor. x.-xiii.
was hesitating whether he would come to Corinth, and that
this hesitation was due to his fear that if he came he would
not be able to spare the Corinthians, is clear from the whole
passage, 2 Cor. xii. 20 xiii. 2. " For I fear, lest, when I
come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall
be found unto you such as ye would not : lest there be

1 The Greek is oy/ceVt ^\Qov eis KopivQov. This can only mean, " I came not
again " (or " not any more") to Coriuth : though the A.V. and the R.V., apparently
under the influence of the exegesis which refused to recognize a "second
visit," translate it, " I came not as yet " (A.V.), which is an impossible mean
ing to get out of ovKfn, or " I forebare to come " (R.V.), which is scarcely
better.

2 COR. I -IX. AND X.-XIII. 159

debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings,
swellings, tumults : lest, when I come again, my God
will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many
which have sinned already, and have not repented of the
uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they
have committed. This is the third time I am coming to
you. At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every
word be established. I have said, and do say beforehand
as I did when I came the second time, and now when I am
at a distance to them which heretofore have sinned, and to
all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare." A more
accurate description of the frame of mind revealed by this
passage could scarcely be given than that which St. Paul
gives in 2 Cor. i. 23, of his feelings at the time when he
sent off the severe Epistle.

Besides these general descriptions of the severe letter in
2 Cor. i.-ix., to which 2 Cor. x.-xiii. certainly answers in
every respect, there are three pairs of passages which seem
to amount to definite and verbal cross-references. These
can best be shown in parallel columns.

(a) " For this cause I write " And I wrote this same

these things from a distance, thing that when I came I

that I may not when I come might not have sorrow."-

deal sharply." 2 Cor. xiii. 2 Cor. ii. 3.
10.

The obvious parallelism between these two passages is
increased by the fact that the context shows that " might
not have sorrow" in 2 Cor. ii. 3 is an euphemism for
"deal sharply." "For if I make you sorry," he says in
the preceding verse, "who then is he that maketh me glad,
but he that is made sorry by me ? "

!6o CORINTH

(|3) " If I come again " To spare you I came

1 will not spare." 2 Cor. not again to Corinth."
xiii. 2. 2 Cor. i. 23.

(y) " Being in readiness to " For to this end also did

avenge all disobedience when I write that I might know

your obedience shall be ful- the proof of you, whether ye

filled." 2 Cor. x. 6. are obedient in all things."

x 2 Cor. ii. 9.

These three pairs of passages are very striking, and gain
in force if each be read in its context ; it seems difficult
to deny that St. Paul, in each case, is referring to the same
thing, in the passage from 2 Cor. x.-xiii. in the present
tense, and in that from 2 Cor. i.-ix. in the past.

Moreover, this argument is not only a very strong
reason for seeing the " severe letter " or rather part of it
in 2 Cor. x.-xiii., but it greatly strengthens the case for
maintaining that in any case there is no unity between

2 Cor. i.-ix. and x.-xiii. Any theory which maintains that
2 Corinthians is a simple letter, all written at one time,
must explain not only why there is a sudden change of
tone in the middle (which is generally done by assuming
that St. Paul is writing to his friends in one part and to his
opponents in the other), but also why there is this remark
able appearance of cross-references from one part to the
other, and always of such a nature that the chapters which
come at the end of the Epistle, as it is now arranged, refer
in the present sense to events which are alluded to in the
past tense in the earlier chapters.

This is the case for identifying 2 Cor. x.-xiii. with part
of the " severe letter " : it can be supported by various
subsidiary arguments. For instance, in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. a

2 COR. I -IX. AND X-XIIL 161

characteristic feature is the use of the word icau\ao-0ou
(" boast " or " glory ") in connection with St. Paul s claims
to consideration. " Though I should glory somewhat abun
dantly concerning our authority, I shall not be put to
shame " (2 Cor. x. 8) ; " Let no man think me foolish ; but
if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a
little. That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord,
but as in foolishnes?, in this confidence of glorying, seeing
that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also" (2 Cor. xi.
16-18); "If I needs must glory, I will glory of the things
that concern my weakness " (2 Cor. xi. 30) ; and the list of
passages could be extended.

Compare this with 2 Cor. i. 12 ff, "For our glorying is
this, the testimony of your 1 conscience ... we are your
glorying, even as ye are ours," or with 2 Cor. vii. 4, " Great
is my glorying on your behalf." Do not these passages
obtain a heightened significance if we regard them as
delicate allusions to the forcible claim to authority in the
previous letter, taking the sting out of the "glorying" by
giving it a changed application ? Similarly, when St. Paul
says (vii. 16), "I have confidence in you" (QappG) / vfjiiv), is
he not thinking of his earlier statement in 2 Cor. x. I, " I
have confide/ice against you" 2 (Qappu els v/udg) ? Or again,
when he says, in i. 15, "And in this confidence (-Tre-rotOi iasi) I
was minded to come to you," is he not deliberately using
again, in a pleasant sense, the phrase which he had used

1 Exegetically the reading vpuv is surely preferable, and it seems to have
been the reading of $*B*, though it has been corrected in both MSS. by very
early hands. The value of MSS. evidence is at its lowest in distinguishing
between fyicDj/ and Tjfiwv. The pronunciation is, and probably was, quite
identical.

This is the natural meaning of the words, though they are weakened in
the R.V. into " I am of good courage toward you."

1 62 CORINTH

unpleasantly in x. 2, " I beseech you that I may not, when
present, show courage (Oappfiffai) with the confidence (rrtTroi-
Oi iafi) wherewith I count to be bold against some " ?

At the same time, it must be recognized that it is im
possible to maintain the older form l of this theory which
suggested that these four chapters are the whole of the
" severe letter." The sufficient proof of this is that it is
plain, from 2 Cor. ii. 5-10, that the "severe letter" had
been largely directed against some definite person at
Corinth, and there is no trace of this in 2 Cor. x.-xiii,
This fact was rightly used as a decisive argument against
Hausrath, but it has no force against Kennedy s hypo
thesis that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is not the whole, but only the
concluding part of the " severe letter," and that the earlier
chapters which are now lost dealt with the case of St. Paul s
opponent.

Thus the result of this complicated argument is to
establish the great probability of the view that 2 Corinthians
is not a single Epistle, but fragments of at least two Epistles,
the last four chapters representing the end of the "severe
letter" which was really St. Paul s Third Epistle to the
Corinthians and the first nine being the letter which he
wrote from Macedonia in joy at the success which had
attended the " severe letter " and its bearer, Titus. But
when one accepts this fact, and couples it with the hypo
thesis (see p. 122 ff.) that 2 Cor. vi. 14 vii. I belongs to
neither of these two letters, but to the " previous letter " of
St. Paul, it seems necessary to pause. To some extent, of
course, the very strongly supported theory which divides
2 Cor. x.-xiii. from 2 Cor. i.-ix. lends strength to the much

1 Best known through Hausrath s Der Viercapitelbrief des Paulus an die
Korinther, 1870.

EXPLANATION OF THE COMBINATION 163

more doubtful hypothesis that 2 Cor. vi. 14 vii. I is an
interpolation ; but the question must be faced whether it
be possible to suggest any theory to make plausible the
view that 2 Corinthians is composite to a degree which is
not probable in any other of the Pauline Epistles.

This theory is presented by Dr. Kennedy. He suggests
that whereas I Corinthians was from the beginning regarded
by the Corinthians as a valuable document, which laid down
the law on many important points, the letter written from
Macedonia (2 Cor. i.-ix.) was not more than the expression of
St. Paul s gratitude for the favourable turn which affairs had
taken, and the "severe letter" (2 Cor. x.-xiii.) was of such
a nature that they would not be likely to wish to remember
it. It was only as St. Paul s letters began to be regarded as
" Holy Scripture," and to be valued for their authorship
rather than their contents, that either of the two last letters
to Corinth became important. By this time they had
probably fallen into a bad state of preservation ; it was not
clear whether the fragments belonged to one or several
letters ; and the scribes who copied the autographs put
together, as best they could, the various pieces of papyrus
into one connected whole.

It must be remembered that we have no textual evidence
at all for the first stage of the growth of the Corpus
Paulinum. What we have is a collection of Epistles, from
all Churches which had any, in the form in which it came
to be generally recognized in the great Church. But there
was an earlier period in which the individual Churches
were busy in collecting Pauline material from their own
archives, and in supplementing this from other com
munities. The combination of the "severe letter" and
the " grateful letter " must have been made in the very

164 CORINTH

beginning, as soon in fact as any copy of them existed at
all. 1 Dr. Kennedy suggests that this may have been at
the time when Clement wrote to the Corinthians, and drew
their attention to their Pauline archives. This is, of course,
merely a suggestion of what may have, not what must have
happened, but it serves to show that imaginable circum
stances may well have arisen which called the attention of
the Corinthians to fragments of Pauline letters, which had
long lain unheeded in their archives so that no one remem
bered exactly what they were, and scribes, copying for the
first time these new treasures, combined into the form of a
single complete letter, what were really the fragments of at
least two incomplete ones. 3

(4) THE VISITS OF TITUS TO CORINTH.

The three passages in which the visits of Titus to
Corinth are referred to in 2 Corinthians are the following :

(a) " For even when we were come into Macedonia . . .
God comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not by his
coming only, but also by the comfort wherewith he was
comforted in you, while he told us your longing, your

1 Dr. A. C. Clark has pointed out to me that there is a somewhat similar
instance of combination in Cicero s letters. It appears that there were two
drafts of Ad Fam. v. 8, and that these have been joined together as a single
letter, perhaps by Tiro (see Bardt, in Hermes, xxxii. (1897), pp. 267-70).

- J. Weiss (see p. 123) goes further, and argues that if we admit the pro
bability that 2 Corinthians is composite, we ought also to recognize the same
fact as valid for I Corinthians. He would argue that I and 2 Corinthians
represent the Corinthian edition of St. Paul s correspondence, put together from
more or less dilapidated papyri many years after they had been received.
There is nothing intrinsically impossible or improbable in this theory ; but to
my mind Dr. Kennedy s view is preferable. I can see clear evidence for a
partition theory in 2 Corinthians, but I am not convinced of the necessity of
such a view for I Corinthians.

THE VISITS OF TITUS 165

mourning, your zeal for me ; so that I rejoiced yet more.
. . . Therefore we have been comforted : and in our
comfort we joyed the more exceedingly for the joy of
Titus, because his spirit hath been refreshed by you all"
(2 Cor. vii. 5-13).

From this passage it is plain that Titus joined St. Paul
in Macedonia, and brought a good report. Those who take
the view advocated above as to the "severe letter" will
probably also agree that the most natural interpretation of
the facts is afforded by the supposition that Titus was
the bearer of the " severe letter," and that the welcome
change in the attitude of the Corinthians was effected by
the combined influence of the letter and of its bearer.

(]3) A further reference to this visit is sometimes found in
2 Cor. xii. 17 ff. : " Did I take advantage of you by any one
of them whom I have sent unto you ? I asked Titus to go, 1
and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take any
advantage of you ? Walked we not by the same Spirit, in
the same steps ? " That this passage is in some way con
nected with the visit of Titus from which he returned to
Macedonia is not disputed, but the nature of the connection
differs according to the view taken of the relation of
2 Cor. x.-xiii. to 2 Cor. i.-ix.

On the assumption that these two sections are both part
of the same letter, written after Titus had joined St. Paul
in Macedonia, the most probable and generally held hypo
thesis is that St. Paul is referring to Titus conduct on
the visit from which he had just returned, and perhaps that
the chance of " taking advantage " of them, from which he
refrained, is in some way connected with the " collection for

1 This is surely all that the Greek means. "I exhorted Titus" (R.V.)
gives a wholly artificial sound to a simple phrase.

166 CORINTH

the saints " which figured so largely in St. Paul s programme
at this period. This latter part is, as will be seen, very
doubtful, but for the rest this is the only possible theory for
those who reject the partition theory.

If the partition be accepted, and 2 Cor. x.-xiii. be iden
tified with the " severe letter," clearly the reference in this
passage cannot be to Titus conduct during the visit from
which he returned to Macedonia, for ex hypothesi this visit
had not yet been made. In this case, St. Paul is rather
seeking to commend Titus as his representative, who will
be the bearer of the " severe letter." The meaning, then, of
the whole passage from xii. 15 is that he himself never was
pecuniarily burdensome to the Corinthians, and that the
same was true of his representative, Titus. He says in
effect, "You know that from the beginning of my inter
course with the Corinthians, I have never had a penny s
profit from them, and the same is true of my representatives.
Titus, who is now coming to you, has never made any
profit. Can you deny that he always behaved in this
respect in exactly the same way as I did myself ? "

(7) In viii. 6 ff. : "We asked Titus that as he had made
a beginning before, so he would also complete in you this
grace also. . . . But thanks be to God, which putteth the
same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus ; for
indeed he granted our request, yea, being himself very
earnest, he went forth unto you of his own accord." From
the context it is clear that "this grace," which Titus was
to complete, was the " collection for the saints," i.e. for the
poor Christians in Jerusalem, for this is the subject of the
whole of 2 Cor. viii.-ix. Thus it is in any case certain that
the return of Titus from Macedonia to Corinth was con
nected with the " collection for the saints." The question is,

THE VISITS OF TITUS 167

however, whether we ought to conclude from St. Paul s lan
guage that Titus had been busy with the same question on
his previous visit. Purely linguistic exegesis does not give
much help on this point. The expression, " this grace also "
(KOI rrjv \dpiv raurrp&gt;), seems to suggest that Titus is going
to do something which has not been done previously, and
the repetition of the phrase in the next verse points in
the same direction. 1 On the other hand, it may be urged,
when Titus was asked to "complete" (cTnrfAt o-cu) some
thing, it is implied that he had already made a beginning
in the same direction. This is, however, not necessary, and
the truth is that the sentence is ambiguous because " this
grace also " may be regarded as explaining the addition
which Titus had to make to that which he had begun
(irpotvfipZaTo) different in kind from his previous work,
which needed this addition to complete it (iTm-aXco-at) ; or
it may be regarded merely as indicating the point at which
his work fully begun already needed carrying out a
little further in the same direction in order to be perfected.
Thus the nicer lexical criticism gives no certain answer
to the question, and we are driven back on general con
siderations, and our knowledge of the "collection for the
saints" from other sources. We know from both the Epistles
and the Acts that St. Paul was busy with a collection from
all his Churches which he proposed to send or take up to

1 Dr. Kennedy is surely right in his contention that the construction of the
Greek in viii. 6 ff. is continuous : eis rb irapaKa\fffai 7jfj.as TITOV, "iva. KaQais
irpoei&gt;ripaTo OVTWS Kal iirnt\4ffri els vacis Kal r^v xfy LV TOUTTJV, a\\ uxrirfp iv
iravrl TTfpiff(TfvfTe, iriareL Kal \6y!p Kal yvuxrei Kal iraffr) ffirovSfj Kal ry t r)/j.iaf
fv v/j."iv aydirr], Lvo. Kal tv ravrr; rj7 x c / )1Tt **jW&lt;T*tfl|T. The rendering of the
R.V., which puts a stop after x&lt;*-P lv ravr-riv, and treats "va. irtpicr&lt;Teur]Tf as the
equivalent of an imperative, though it may be paralleled in later fireek, is
harsh and quite unnecessary.

J68 CORINTH

Jerusalem. He had already arranged with the Corinthians
to take their proper share in his work (i Cor. xvi. I ff.),
and was therefore able to boast in 2 Cor. ix. 2 that Achaia
had been ready the previous year. At the same time, it is
clear that he felt by no means sure that this boast was
based on strict fact, if Achaia had really been ready, there
would have been no need to send Titus, or to exhort
the Corinthians not to fail him. So far, then, there is no
doubt but that the Corinthian collection had already been
begun ; but it is exceedingly probable that the period of
general disturbance in the Church at Corinth, to which
2 Corinthians testifies, reduced the work of collection to a
standstill. Is it conceivable that St. Paul would have sent
Titus at this crisis to reduce the Corinthians to subjection,
armed with the " severe letter," and at the same time told
him to collect subscriptions ? It is far more likely that
St. Paul left the whole financial question in abeyance until
he knew whether the combined effect of Titus visit and
his own severe letter would bring the Corinthians to a better
frame of mind.

If we accept the view that the " severe letter " which
Titus took with him to Corinth is either lost, or to be
identified with 2 Cor. x.-xiii., there is no difficulty in believ
ing that Titus returned to Corinth in connection with the
collection, and that he had not previously taken any measures
in its direction.

Those, however, who hold the view that the "severe
letter " was I Corinthians, are bound, in the light of i Cor.
xvi. I, to assume that Titus dealt with the matter on his
first visit, and they then naturally explain 2 Cor. xii. 18
(" Did Titus take any advantage of you ? ") as a reference
to his conduct in this connection. For such an opinion

THE REPORT OF TITUS 169

there is little valid argument ; but it is, of course, found
in all commentaries or introductions which identify the
" severe letter " with i Corinthians, as well as in some
others which, though they have abandoned this identifica
tion, still think that Titus dealt with the matter of the
collection on his first visit not seeing that this view is
merely the result of an identification which they do not
any longer accept, is in itself contrary to the probabilities
of the case, and is not required by the verbal exegesis of
the passages in 2 Corinthians germane to the question.

(5) THE REPORT OF TITUS.

The report of Titus, so far as it is known to us, may
be represented thus : " There was a meeting of the com
munity, and under the influence of the severe letter the
offender was condemned, and sentenced to a punishment
which was approved of by the majority."

The first question is, who was the offender, and what
was his offence ? The one thing which is here certain is
that no confident answer can ever be given. Various lines
of probability can be marked out, but the choice between
them is almost impossible. It is obviously possible that
the partisanship mentioned in i Corinthians contains the
germ of many of the factors in the situation described
in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians especially chaps, x.-xiii.
seems largely occupied with the defence of St. Paul s
authority, and this may have been impugned by any of
the parties mentioned in the First Epistle. If the existence
of a " Christ party " be accepted, it is possible that a
reference to it may be seen in 2 Cor. x. 7, "If any man

i;o CORINTH

trusteth that he is in Christ, let him consider this again
with himself, that even as he is Christ s, so also are we."
If so, we must suppose that the main cause of the dis
sensions was the development of the Christ party, and
possibly that the leader of it was the offender who was
punished.

Another line which has often been suggested is that
the offender was the man who had taken his father s wife,
and the father is sometimes regarded as the offended party.
This also is not impossible, but there is no evidence to
prove it : it is merely a guess.

Or it might be thought that the root of the evil is to be
sought in the tendency to litigation mentioned in I Cor.
vi. i ff., and that the meeting of the community mentioned
in 2 Cor. ii. 6 represents the final submission of both parties
to St. Paul s opinion that the community ought to judge
matters of dispute, and not allow them to be brought before
the heathen courts. Once more, the suggestion is not un
attractive, but unsupported by evidence.

Still less is it possible to form any clear view as to the
nature of the punishment inflicted on the offender : the
only thing certain is that it was not exclusion from the com
munity, because St. Paul speaks of the desirability of receiv
ing him with kindliness.

More light can perhaps be thrown on the question of
the relationship of the majority who fixed the punishment
of the offender to the minority who disapproved of their
decision. According to the view, formerly so generally
held, that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. was addressed to a rebellious
minority, which had not been convinced by Titus, there is no
alternative to the interpretation which regards the majority
as St. Paul s friends, and the minority as his opponents.

THE REPORT OF TITUS 171

But on the partition theory of 2 Corinthians this exegesis is
unnecessary, and a closer consideration of the exact word
ing of the crucial passage points rather to the view that
the minority was the party of St. Paul, or at all events wished
for a severer treatment of the offender than the majority
had voted. This passage is 2 Cor. ii. 5-7, " If any hath
caused sorrow, he hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in
part (that I press not too heavily) to you all. Sufficient
to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by
the majority, so that ye should contrariwise rather forgive
him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should
be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I
beseech you to confirm your love toward him." The most
natural exegesis, and that which gives the most force to
the separate phrases of this passage, is that the offender
had been unanimously condemned, he had caused sorrow
to them all, that the majority had fixed an appropriate
penalty, and that St. Paul is addressing the minority, he
distinguishes "the majority" from "you," who still
cherished angry feelings towards the offender, in order to
persuade them to acquiesce in the sentence of the majority,
and not to press for heavier punishment. It is also fairly
plain that the reason why this minority was still unsatisfied
was a feeling of loyalty to St. Paul, who therefore emphasizes
his own satisfaction with the action of the majority, in
other words, the " minority " of 2 Corinthians is most
probably to be identified with the "party of Paul" of
i Corinthians. This conclusion is supported by the fact
that St. Paul says nothing at all about the justice of the
sentence, but only defends its adequacy (t/c a vov TM rotoviv.*,
K.T.X.). No one, then, denied that it was just, but there
were those who doubted that it was adequate. Finally, the

172

CORIXTH

rovvavriov (contrariwise) is only intelligible if we suppose
that those of whom St. Paul is speaking did not propose
to adopt a forgiving attitude.

Thus the most straightforward exegesis of this passage
is that the minority were the Pauline party, who thought
that their master s position demanded a severer sentence
than that which the majority had inflicted. On the sup
position that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. does not belong to 2 Cor. i.-ix.,
but is really part of the severe letter, which helped to bring
about that state of feeling in the community which led up
to the general condemnation of the offender and his punish
ment by the vote of the majority, there is no difficulty in
accepting this exegesis. On the other hand, it is almost
impossible of acceptance by those who reject the partition
theory, and regard 2 Cor. x.-xiii. as addressed to a still
rebellious minority. They are forced to adopt the view
that the majority, not the minority, were the party of
St. Paul, that the "you" spoken of directly after "the
majority "(...?) twiTi/nia ?j VTTO r&v ir\fi6v&lt;ji)v, wort
vfiag, ic.rA., 2 Cor. ii. 6 f.) is to be identified with, not
distinguished from the majority, and that when St. Paul
said that the sentence was sufficient, he meant that the
majority (thus identified with the " you ") might now be
content to forgive the offender, as the minority wished
them to do.

This exegesis seems in several points unnatural and
forced : it is, however, perhaps not absolutely inadmissable,
and is probably the only possible view if 2 Cor. x. xiii. be
regarded as directed against a rebellious minority.

It is perhaps not unfair to point out that it is an indirect
argument of considerable value in favour of the " partition
theory " that it enables a natural and easy exegesis to be

SUMMARY 173

given in so many places which are obscure and difficult on
any other hypothesis.

It is now possible to piece together the results of this
examination of single problems, and by using the results
which seem most probable, either in themselves or in
relation to other points, to give a connected description
of the course of events from the sending of I Corinthians
to the second mission of Titus with 2 Cor. i.-ix.

Soon after I Corinthians had been sent, Timothy re
joined St. Paul, and reported the result of his mission and
the general condition of the community at Corinth. It was
not a pleasing story which he had^ to tell : the partizanship,
which " those of Chloe " had mentioned, instead of dis
appearing had increased ; there was an open hostility to St.
Paul s personal authority ; possibly the case of incestuous
marriage continued to be a scandal, and the disagreements
which had led to litigation continued. It was plain that
energetic measures were called for, and St. Paul went over
to Corinth as soon as he could find an opportunity that is
to say, probably within two or three days. Even this failed :
the Corinthians would not listen, and St. Paul, seeing that
he was doing no good, and probably also knowing that he
was needed in Ephesus, went back, declaring that if
he came again he would not spare, but would adopt strong
measures. At Ephesus he penned a severe letter, of which
2 Cor. x.-xiii. is the latter portion, and asked Titus to take
it, and at the same time to try to bring the Corinthians to
a better state of mind. Titus went, and the combination
of his words with St. Paul s letter was successful. A general
meeting of the community was held, and St. Paul s authority
was recognized. It was agreed that the offending member,

i 7 4 CORINTH

who was the cause of the trouble, was to be condemned,
but there was a difference of opinion as to the punishment
which should be meted out to him. In the end, however,
the majority inclined to mildness, leaving a minority still
demanding severer measures, or at all events not prepared
to treat the offender with friendliness. This was no doubt
lamentable, but there can be no doubt but that in the main
the situation had been enormously improved, and that
Titus mission and the "severe letter" had been completely
justified by their results. Titus, therefore, left Corinth
to return to St. Paul.

In the meantime St. Paul had left Asia possibly we
ought to put, at this point, the uproar in connection with
Demetrius and the worshippers of Artemis and made his
way first to Troas, and afterwards to Macedonia. Here
Titus found him, and relieved his fears by his favourable
report. Immediately he wrote 2 Cor. i.-ix., and sent Titus
once more back to Corinth with it, to urge his over-zealous
friends to forgive the offender, and also to pick up the
threads of the organization for the "collection for the
saints," which the troubles in the Church had broken off.
St. Paul himself was busy in the work for this collection
in Macedonia, and he hoped that Titus would act as his
representative in Achaia, to work up the methods which
he had suggested in I Cor. xvi. I ff., so that when he reached
Corinth himself there would be no further delay.

To complete the story we must turn to Acts xx. 3. From
this we learn that St. Paul reached Corinth in the winter, and
that he stayed there three months. He intended to sail
thence to Syria, but at the last moment a plot was laid
Against him by the Jews, and he returned through Mace-
denia. What was this plot? Was it entirely apart from

THE PROBLEMS AT CORIXTH 175

the previous troubles in the Church ? We are absolutely
ignorant, and with this sinister episode the curtain falls on
the Christian community at Corinth, not to rise again until
forty years later, when fresh quarrels drew forth remon
strances from the Church at Rome in what we usually call
the First Epistle of Clement.

Here, then, we have the skeleton of the story of St. Paul
and the Corinthians : to clothe it with flesh it is now neces
sary to consider the real nature of the problems raised by
the Corinthians in I Corinthians, and the character of the
opposition to St. Paul which is revealed in 2 Corinthians.

IV.

THE PROBLEMS OF THOUGHT AND PRACTICE
REVEALED BY THE EPISTLES.

These problems may in general be described as being
concerned with the questions put before St. Paul by
the Corinthians. We have to ask in each case, why such
questions were raised, and to deal with the much-disputed
question of the nature of the opposition to St. Paul.

The points at issue may conveniently be divided into
the following classes :

(1) Sexual questions.

(2) Questions relating to Inspiration by the Holy Spirit

(3) The Resurrection of the Dead.

(4) The opposition to St. Paul.

The second of these headings covers three of the ques
tions put to St. Paul as to things offered to idols, as to

1 76 CORINTH

spiritual gifts, and as to the arrangement of worship, includ
ing the Eucharist but they are all so closely connected
by the idea of inspiration, that they are best treated
together.

(i) SEXUAL QUESTIONS.

Nothing is more natural than that questions of sexual
morality should be important in Corinth, 1 for it was famous
both for the opportunities which it afforded for every sort of
immorality, and for the manner in which these were brought
into connection with cultus (especially in the worship of
Aphrodite) of an originally Oriental and frequently obscene
nature. Thus it is not strange that we find the Epistles
revealing a series of practical problems connected with sex,
and pointing to the existence of two divergent lines of
thought, one ascetic and the other libertine.

These practical problems may be divided into two classes,
relating to fornication and to marriage ; and the latter
subdivided into the questions of (a) Marriage in general.
()3) Divorce ; (y) Re-marriage ; (S) Virgins.

Fornication. In three places in I Corinthians St. Paul
deals with the question of fornication: i Cor. v. 1-13 ; vi. 12-
20 ; x. 8. In the first of these three he is dealing with a special
case, which would apparently be more correctly described as
incest. What exactly it was is a problem which belongs

1 It is perhaps scarcely necessary to point out that the Corinth of the first
century is not the original Greek city. This was destroyed by Mummius in
146 B.C., and it remained for a long time in ruins and deserted. It was
rebuilt about a century later by Julius Caesar, under the name of Laus Julia
Corinthus, as a Roman colony, and in 27 B.C. became the capital of the pro
vince of Achaia under a Proconsul. See further, W. M. Ramsay on " Corinth "
in Hastings Dictionary rf the Bible, and J. Weiss on Griechenland in der
apostolische Zeit in Ilerzog s Rcalencyclopczdic, ed. 3, vol. vii., pp. 1 60 1 68.
The latter gives a valuable series of references to other books and authorities.

FORNICA TION 177

rather to the exegesis of the Epistle ; it is not for our pur
pose very important. In the second and third, however, he
speaks generally, and it is clear that fornication was really
a serious evil in the Christian community. The problem
for us is to understand how this can have been the case. It
is obviously not simply an instance of human weakness ;
but that the Corinthians really had a low standard of
morality on the subject, and defended their practices as not
incompatible with Christianity.

The solution is to be found in I Cor. vi. 12 and x. 8.
On the one hand, some of the Corinthians had argued that
"all things were lawful," and that fornication is as much a
purely physical, morally indifferent action as eating and
drinking are. This is clearly the background of the argu
ment, " Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats," which
is probably a reference to, if not a quotation from, the
statements of the Corinthians. St. Paul combats this
argument, and maintains the permanence of the " body," as
against the impermanence of the "belly" (t Cor. vi. 13 ff.).
The whole contention of St. Paul is only intelligible if we
grasp the fact that he is reasoning with people who say,
" The body does not matter : what we eat and drink does
not affect the soul : and the same thing is true of all physical
functions." l

A slightly different, but cognate point of view is revealed
by I Cor. x. 8. Here St. Paul is speaking primarily of
things offered to idols, and chapter x. is explicable only if
we see that it is a warning against the view that Christians

1 It is worth noting in this connection that this sort of argument, or rather
the necessity for meeting it, was one of the reasons why early Christianity was
so anxious to hold the doctrine of a resurrection of the flesh. The opposite
view was frequently connected with a low standard of morality. A study of
Athenagoras is instructive on this subject.

1 78 CORINTH

are safe because they have been initiated into the Christian
mysteries. St. Paul combats this view by showing that
safety was not obtained by the Israelites, who were the
types of Christians, although they also had, typically,
enjoyed the mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist.
Therefore, he argues, we must avoid the things which, as
the history of the " types " shows, can be fatal to us as they
were to them.

The importance of these facts, simple and short though
their description may be, is considerable. They are the
proof that over against a scrupulous and ascetic party there
was another which went to the other extreme, regarding the
Christian as a " spiritual " person, who by initiation into the
mysteries was raised above carnal considerations, and could
not be affected by anything which he did with his body.
To modern minds there is something extraordinary in the
suggestion that the spiritual freedom of the Christian could
be so extended. But it must be remembered that the
Graeco-Roman point of view was quite different. Not only
was fornication for men considered a matter of small or
no importance, but it actually was regarded in some cases as
possessing a religious value. The prostitutes in the temple
of Aphrodite at Corinth were not, in their own opinion,
immoral ; nor were they influenced* by immoral motives, but
by a religious impulse.

Corruptio optimi pessima ; and it is in the twentieth
century, in the West of Europe, difficult to realize the
possibility of a religious impulse expressing itself in
immoral acts, but the fact is nevertheless indisputable that
it has formerly done so. The point is that cultus the
ritual expression of religious impulse is not a measure of
religion only, but also of other elements in the nature of

PRIMITIVE RELIGION 179

the person who is trying to express this impulse. Go back
two thousand years and you will find that the nature of
many men was such that they attempted to express, and
to stimulate, 1 their religious life by sexual excesses : or, if
you will travel in space instead of in time, the same thing
can be found to-day in Africa, or even in some of the lower
Indian cults. Go back still further in time, or penetrate
to still lower depths of primitive human nature, as it still
survives in Africa, and you will find men arousing and
satisfying their religious instincts by human sacrifice ; and
if you reach to the last depths, you will find that there is a
religious basis even to the horrid rites of cannibalism.
Primitive man is not only religious, but he is also obscene,
cruel, and superstitious, and these evil characteristics always
show themselves in combination with his religious rites.

Nothing comes out more clearly in the history of re
ligions, than that religion, in the attempt to work out forms
of worship, has had to deal with three enemies cruelty,
obscenity, and superstition. The first of these had been
practically conquered, for civilized nations, before our era ;
the conquest of the second was the especial task of primitive
Christianity. It was necessary for the Church, which
inherited the high moral standard of Jewish cultus, to fight
over again in the West the battle for a pure worship, which
the prophets of Israel had won for the Jews six hundred
years b efore. The struggle is so remote from our generation,
that it is hard to realize that our forefathers had to fight hard
to prevent Christian culture from becoming corrupted, but
clear traces of the struggle can be found in the Apocalypse,

1 The two things always go together : cultus was defined above as " the
ritual expression of religious impulse." It might equally well be called the
" ritual stimulation of the religious impulse."

i So CORINTH

in Jude, in 2 Peter, in Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alex
andria, Epiphanius, the Pistis Sophia, and minor authorities.
In all of them we can see the struggle against various forms
of obscene heresies, 1 and only when we realize how wide
spread these heresies were, can we understand how it is that
Justin Martyr, while repudiating the charges of immoral
feasts, admits that they may be based on the deeds of
heretical Christians who bring discredit on a name which
they have no right to use, just as false philosophers -bring
discredit on philosophy. 2 How well Christianity suc
ceeded 3 can be seen by the difficulty which we experience
in realizing that the task ever existed, and part of the
importance of I Corinthians is that it gives us a glimpse of
the beginning of the struggle.

Marriage. (a.) Marriage in General. As to marriage
itself, it is not difficult to see the background from which
the questions, which St. Paul answers, must have arisen.
Some of the Corinthians were opposed altogether to mar
riage (cf. i Cor. vii. I, 2) ; and some were anxious to
deprive it of any sexual significance (cf. I Cor. vii. 3-7).
Yet there was no unanimity on the question, and therefore
it was necessary to consult St. Paul, who adopted the inter
mediate position of recognizing the propriety of marriage,
and that in the fullest sense, though he recommended the

1 Few people are aware of the horrible nature of the ritual practices of
some of the Gnostics. The description, for instance, ol the Carpocratians in
Clement of Alexandria, or some of the allusions in the Pistis Sophia, would be
wholly untranslatable.

2 Justin, I. Api l. 26.

3 It would of course be unfair to say that it was only the Church which made
the attempt. Many of the Cynic-Stoic philosophers preached an ethical gospel
of the highest kind, and no doubt their efforts did much good. Still, in the
end, they ceased to exist, and the Church survived. In this sense the triumph
of higher morality was the triumph of Christianity.

MARRIAGE 181

ascetic life to those who could endure it, whether married
or unmarried.

To reconstruct with precision the arguments of the ascetic
party is impossible, but we shall probably not be wrong in
holding that two considerations played the main part. In
the first place, there was the feeling that the " time was
short," and that the Kingdom of God would belong to those
who " neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are
as the angels." J This view was very strong in early
Christianity, and in some circles was carried so far as to
exclude the permanence of sex in the kingdom. It is
possible that some of St. Paul s own teaching may have
been interpreted in this way. When, for instance, he said
that in " Christ Jesus there was neither male nor female," 2
the conclusion might be drawn that he meant that sex
would not exist in the Kingdom. 8 This is also the view
which probably lies behind the apocryphal saying of Christ
in II. Clement 12, " For the Lord Himself being asked by
some one, when His kingdom should come, said, When the

1 Matt. xxii. 30 = Mark xii. 25 = Luke xx. 34 ff. It is true that this phrase
is actually connected in St. Mark with the resurrection, not with the Kingdom,
but only because the resurrection is, for the dead, the means of entry into the
Kingdom. It is instructive to note how St. Luke s version of the section is
really intended to bring out this fact : " The sons of this -world (alwvos) marry
and are given in marriage, but they who are permitted to attain to that world, and
the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, /or neither
can they die any more, for they are as if angels (lffdyy\oi), and are sons of
God, because they are sons of the resurrection." The words in italics are St.
Luke s additions. It is unimportant for the present purpose, but it is note
worthy that this passage in Luke is singularly full of interesting and very early
variants.

* Gal. iii. 28 ; cf. also p. 209 for another use to which a strained exegesis
of this view may possibly have been put.

1 Cf. Clem. Alex., Paed., i. 4, " lv yap raj aluvi TOVT$&gt;," &lt;^i\aiv, "ya/uoDiri
Ko.1 yafilffKovrai," 4v $ STJ /u&lt;W rb 6rj\v rov &pptvos tuutflrtrcu, " lv txtivif 6e
OUK6TJ," and according to Hippolytus the Naassenes regarded Aclamas, the
" &v6pa&gt;iros," as a sexless person, or rather as &p(rtv60ri\vs, cf. Refut., v. 7.

1 82 CORINTH

Two shall be One, and the Outside as the Inside, and the
Male with the Female, neither Male nor Female," though
the writer of II. Clement himself gives a different explana
tion. 1 In the second place, there was undoubtedly a strong
ascetic feeling, at all events partly and, perhaps, chiefly
due to reaction against the general immorality of the Greek
world, and of Corinth in particular. This feeling was not
specifically Christian ; it was found among the Essenes,
who were absolutely celibate, and also among the Thera-
peutae, whose headquarters were in Alexandria. Especi
ally important, however, are the Stoics, whose doctrine on
the question of marriage was that it was an association for
the mutual comfort of husband and wife, who stood on an
equality of rights. Against the low level of morality in the
Empire the Cynics and Stoics protested and preached as
strongly as Jews or Christians. 2 It is doubtful whether
they can be said to have encouraged celibacy, but certainly
they enjoined continence. It is, therefore, quite natural that
there was a celibate party in Corinth.

In the same way, it is easy to understand the existence
of the party, to which St. Paul refers in I Cor. vii. 3-7, hold
ing that marriage in the full sense was undesirable, and
recommending that those who were already married should
wholly abstain from marital relations. 3 This feeling was,

1 He says that it means Iva. aSe\&lt;pbs iS^y a8e\&lt;V ovSev (ppovf; irepl avrrjs
6i]\vK6v, yOtrjSe &lt;ppovrj ri trepl avrov apveviKdv, a fine example, it seems to me,
of the way in which eschatological expectation was transformed into ethical
precepts. It does not seem necessary here to discuss the relation of this
"saying" to the Gospel of the Egyptians. See Preuschen, Antilegomena, p. 2,
for the text of the latter.

2 See especially Musonius IK. rov ri /ce^aAaioj/ ydpov, ed. Hense, p. 67, quoted
in Lietzmann s Commentary on I Corinthians, p. 160. Cf. Wendland, Die
Helknistisch-Romische Kultus, pp. 18 and 39-53.

3 There is a large literature on this subject in early Christian and Jewish

DIVORCE 183

no doubt, the natural outcome of the general belief, 1 both
among Jews and Greeks, that all sexual relations were in
themselves, if not sinful, at least "not holy," so that they
demanded ritual purification before a state of "holiness"
could be regained. It was part of the general Christian
position that Christians are, and must remain " holy " (uyioi
is almost a technical name for Christians), so that those who
still retained the semi-physical conception of holiness
naturally were inclined to regard all sexual intercourse as
forbidden to Christians.

(j3) Divorce. This question arose, so far as we can see,
from two reasons. In the first place, there was the ascetic
tendency mentioned above, which led some Christians to
regard marriage as immoral, and, therefore, to regard divorce
as desirable for Christians. Against this St. Paul quotes
the absolute prohibition of the Lord for husbands and wives
to leave each other. 2 In the second place, there was the
question of mixed marriages, or, rather, of married couples
of which only one was converted to Christianity. Some of
the Corinthians were inclined to think that it was the duty
of Christians, under such circumstances, to separate from
all association with the heathen, and it is easy to imagine
that St. Paul s "previous letter" (see pp. 120 ff.) had seemed
to support this opinion. St. Paul s advice is that, unless the

writings. Cf. the note in J. Weiss Commentary , p. 174, and there is much
more in the later documents of the Byzantine Church.

1 Cf. Exod. xix. 15 ; Lev. xv. 18 ; I Sam. xxi. 5, etc. Further references are
given by Wetstein. Also cf. Dittenberger, Syll., ii. 566 (p. 264 ff.) and 567
(p. 267), and Leitzmann s Commentary, p. 105.

2 It is interesting to notice that he shows no trace of any knowledge of an
exception to this prohibition. See further Expositor, November, 1910, on
"Early Christian Teaching as to Divorce," in which I have explained my
reasons for thinking that primitive Christianity only recognized divorce in the
sense of a separation, and did not regard the " exception " in Matt. v. 32 as
giving any sanction to re-marriage.

1 84 CORINTH

heathen husband or wife desires separation, the marriage
tie holds good. It should, however, be noted that neither
he nor the Corinthians appear to contemplate re-marriage
for the Christian separated from his wife, or the possibility
of any one who is already a Christian desiring to marry a
heathen.

(y) Re-marriage. From I Cor. vii. 39 ff., it is plain that
the question of a second marriage for widows had been
raised. But it does not appear that it was a point on which
there was any very lively controversy.

() Virgins. In i Cor. vii. 25-38, St. Paul discusses
the question of "Virgins." There are many difficulties in
reconstructing from his language exactly what or who these
virgins were, and the question will probably always be
obscure. The best way of approaching the subject is to
take the crucial passages from St. Paul, and note the
exegetical difficulties. A translation is here insufficient by
itself, as it has a tendency to obscure the points at issue.
I therefore give Greek and English in parallel columns :

TWV Trapdivwv tin- " Now concerning the vir-

Kujoi ou ovKt\w, jv(jjfj.r]v gins, I have no command-
St ^iDfjLi we tAaj/zfcVoe viro ment of the Lord, but I give
Kvpiov TTiaTog tuvat. N(tyttw my judgment as one that
ovv 7OVTO KaAov vTrap^iv Bia hath obtained mercy of the
r/)v tvtar&aav avaytii]v, OTL Lord to be faithful. I think,
KoXov avOpwirq TO OVTWQ elveu. therefore, that this is good,
tJt&a-a* yvvaiKi; JULI] /JTH \vaiv by reason of the present
ctTro ywaiKoe ; /i?) necessity, that it is good for
ywa iKa. lav t KCU yet- a man to be as he is. Art
, KOL tav thou bound unto a wife?
ov\ Tj/jiapTtv Seek not release. Art thou
. . ei CE rig da\r}}j.oviiv tin released from a wife ? Seek

VIRGINS

185

irapOtvov avrov
\t inr[paKfj.og, KOL

not a wife. But even if thou
married, thou didst not sin ;

n/v

cov

6(j)i\u yivtaOai, o OtXti TTOI- and if the virgin married, she

tiTu oix a/napravti ja/md- did not sin. . . . But if any

rwaav. 6e St carijicei Iv ry

tSpai

og,

man think that he is un-
seemly towards his virgin,

, tZovaiav Se t ^et irepl if he be passionate, and it
must be so, let him do what

e, KOI TOVTO

tv T?I tSi\t KapSt ot, he wishes : he doth not sin :
riji; tavrov irapQivov, let them marry. But he that
irou iaei. wore icat 6 standeth stedfast in his heart,
V rrjv tavrou irapBivov having no necessity, but hath
Trotft, KOI 6 pi!} ya/it^wv power over his own will, and

hath determined in his own
heart to keep his virgin, shall
do well. So that also he
that giveth his virgin in
marriage, doeth well, and
he that giveth her not shall
do better." 1

It will be noted that the translation here given departs
in three important points from that of the usual English
version, (i) The word "daughters" after "virgins," is
omitted in vers. 36 ff. (2) v-n-tpaK/uos is translated " passion
ate " instead of " pass the flower of her age," and is made to
apply to the man, not to the virgin. (3) In ver. 38 wore KOI
b yafj.i%(Dv is translated " so also he that giveth in marriage,"
instead of " so both he that giveth in marriage," and it is
further suggested in the footnote that ya/it wv perhaps
means " marries," not " gives in marriage."

1 Or, "so that both he that marrieth his virgin doeth well, and he that
marrieth her not, shall do better."

186 CORINTH

These differences may fairly be said to sum up the
problem. The English version, following a tradition, which
is at least as old as Chrysostom, conceives that the situation
of which St. Paul is speaking is merely that of a father with
unmarried daughters, whom he may or may not give in
marriage. The suggestion is that the Corinthians were
divided in opinion as to whether it was ever desirable to
allow daughters to marry, and that St. Paul expressed the
opinion that the matter was one for the individual conscience
of the father in question, but that the better course, when no
scruple was felt, was to prevent marriage.

The difficulty of this interpretation is in ver. 36. Here
yajuirw(rav must mean " let them marry." Who ? The
virgin is one of the parties to the marriage, and the natural
view is that the man in question is the man who " thinks
that he is unseemly l towards his virgin," and that it is he
who is vTrtpaKfioQ. In this case, vTrtpaK/uog means " over-
passionate," taking aK/urj in the sense, which it has in Con-
stitutiones Apostolicae, iii. 2, 2 of passion, not that of youth.
Furthermore, the view that inrtpaK/uog refers to the man is
supported by the parallelism of the sentences.
Ei St rtc acr^ij/zovav CTTI rr)v og Si eorrjKEv Iv Tr) KapSiq

irapOtvov avTov vofj.i%tt, avrov ibpalog,

lav TI virtpaKfJLOg, fii] E^cav avajKr^v,

\ i \ / Q P &lt;Jiv " v ^i&lt;V

KCU OVTWQ o&lt;pe&lt;Aet -ytvfcraai, t^ouo-mv oe t^tt TTS/H TOV iciov

OtXi ijuaToz, etc.

It is clear here that there is a correspondence between the
two cases, and that the antithesis is between the man " who
can " and the " man who cannot." St. Paul is not always

1 ao x jwoj elV is frequently used with a sexual reference. Cf. Rom. i. 27.

2 ir/&gt;o&lt;J&gt;a(rei TOV yur; SvyaffBai Kparfiv TTJS d/c/ir)s errt Seyrepoya.jiuai f\dfTv t It
is remarkable that virepa.Kfj.os is apparently an absolute unique word.

VIRGINS 187

attentive to details of style, but the point is certainly not
without importance. It is not, however, essential to the
argument ; we do not really know what vTrlpaK/aoQ means,
and its translation cannot be the real basis of the argument.
The main point is that St. Paul says, that under certain
circumstances the virgin and some one else may marry ; as
the circumstance which he puts in the foreground is the
frame of mind of the man whose virgin she is, presumably
he is the " some one else."

But if it be conceded that ya^usfrwo-av must mean " let the
virgin and the man who cannot/ marry," it is plain that
the man in question is not the father of the virgin, and that
the translation " virgin daughter" must be abandoned. It
will presently be shown what the relation between the man
and the virgin probably was ; but it is first desirable to
consider the question of ya/*t w. The difficulty is that the
word is not found outside the New Testament. Strictly
speaking, it ought to mean, as the old grammarians 1
recognized, "give in marriage," according to the rule by
which verbs in -/ ^w are causative. But there are many
exceptions ; yvwpi^w, for instance, means " I know," \Tr&lt;Kd&gt;
means " I hope," ^poviZ,^, " I tarry," vflpiZu, " I insult," etc.
Some of these words are, indeed, possibly not degenerated
causatives, but doublets formed by a false analogy from aorists
in -taa ; so, eya/uTjaa (in pronunciation indistinguishable from
might give rise to a false present, ya/mt^w. 2 If it means

1 Apollonius, De Syntaxi, iii. 31, quoted by Lietzmann, p. in, says,
rb 8e "yo/uifw " " yd/jov Tivl /u6To5i 8u&gt;jta."

2 Modern Greek seems here to be no help, except in so far as it is perhaps
noteworthy that ya/j.fli has lost its meaning, and is now an almost or quite
disreputable word. Lietzmann (p. in) also suggests that yayuffco may mean to
"celebrate a marriage." Many verbs meaning " to celebrate " end in -/a&gt;.
It is of course plain that Mark xii. 25 and Luke xvii. 27 throw no light on the
difficulty. The verb can there be equally well translated in either way.

1 88 CORINTH

" marry," then the meaning in this passage is clear, and the
reference is still to the question, whether a man shall marry
a " virgin " or not. If it means " give in marriage," it
implies that the man is in a position to give his "virgin " in
marriage to whom he will. Obviously, this agrees better
with the traditional exegesis that irapOtvoe is a " virgin
daughter." It does not, however, absolutely require it, for it
is not impossible St. Paul is considering here the further
case of a man who does not wish to marry his " virgin "
himself, but to give her to some one else. If so, the first
KCU is not to be translated " both," but " also," for it is not
parallel to the second KOI, but introduces a new problem.
It must, however, be admitted that this seems less natural,
and therefore if the "daughter" hypothesis be abandoned,
probably we ought to take ya/xt^w as meaning " marry," not
" give in marriage."

The question has then to be faced, in what other relation
could the man in question stand to his " virgin," so that he
had not married her, but could do so if he wished. The
answer is probably to be found in the institution of " spiritual
marriage," which existed among the Therapeutae and among
Christians for at least 300 years, but was gradually driven
out, in consequence of the scandals to which it had given
rise. The best statement of the whole of the literary
evidence on the subject can be found in the Virgines
Subintroduclae of Prof. H. Achelis. The main points are
these : Among the Therapeutae, 1 men and women lived

1 Described in Philo s De Vita Contemplativa. Doubts have been thrown on
the genuineness of this by Lucius, Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der
Geschichte der Askese ; his view is also supported by Schiirer, Geschichte d. Jud.
Volkes, ed. 4, iii. p. 687 ff.), where a full bibliography is given. But Bousset,
Cohn, Drummond, Friedlander, Dieterich, and Conybeare regard the book as
genuine. The best statement of the case for the genuineness is F. C. Cony-
beare s Philo about the Contemplative Life, 1895.

VIRGINS 189

together in a colony arranged on the same lines as the later
"lauras" of Christian monasticism, so that each lived apart
as a hermit, or something similar, but all came together at
intervals for worship. The details of the arrangement of
this colony are obscure, but the fact that men and women
lived together, and that marriage was excluded is apparently
indisputable. In the desert country, in which the original
Therapeutae colony was placed, this "living together" did not
imply any very close association, but one can easily imagine
what it may have led to, if the attempt was made to adapt
it to the circumstances of life in the great cities. If,
however, we pass over I Corinthians, we find no evidence
that this step was taken until the second century. But in
the second and succeeding centuries, we find abundant proof
that the custom had already been adopted by Christians.
It is not necessary here to rewrite a well-known chapter of
Church history ; it is sufficient to note that the evidence of
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and perhaps Hermas, 1 show
that the custom of " spiritual marriage " with " virgins " was
common in the Christianity of the second and third
centuries, though it was possibly always regarded with
dislike by the leaders of the great Church. After the fourth
century it is still widely found, but is treated as a definite evil,
and was gradually stamped out. 2

It is extremely probable that this curious side-track of

1 Hennas is always quoted ; I do not feel personally quite so certain that
the famous passage in Sim. ix. n, is really a direct reference to virgines subin*
troduetae to use the later name for them but it is at least an indirect reference.

2 See especially the Councils of Elvira, Ancyra, and Carthage, and, in
addition to the work of Achelis, H. Koch s Virgines Ckristi, in Texte und
U liter suchungen, xxxi. 2, pp. 59-112. It is also interesting to note the fore
shadowing of modern results in a forgotten treatise of Muratori De Synisactis et
A^apetis (written about 1709), recently pointed out by F. C. Conybeare, in Myth,
Magic, and Morality, where the whole question is discussed (pp. 210 ff.).

igo CORINTH

history leads us to the true explanation of I Cor. vii. The
suggestion is that men and women had made a practice of
living together under a vow of virginity, and that, in some
cases, the situation was proving too great a strain for human
nature. Under these circumstances, St. Paul s advice was
sought. His answer is, "Let them marry." At the same
time, he does not agree with those who apparently had
doubted as the later Church also doubted the desirability
of the custom altogether ; for those who can keep to their pur
pose he regards it as good. But the question is, How many
cases does he distinguish ? Clearly, in ver. 36, ending with
"let them marry," he deals with the case of a man and a
"virgin" who are neither of them contented with a spiritual
marriage, and desire to join in wedlock with each other.
In the earlier verses, however, he seems to be dealing with
the case of possible marriage, for the man or the virgin,
with some third party ; possibly we can also conclude from
this passage that this " spiritual marriage " was regarded,
at least by some of the Corinthians, as not incompatible
with a real marriage. Here, also, St. Paul clearly sides with
those who admitted marriage both for the man and for the
"virgin." The final case is, perhaps, contained in v. 38,
and alludes to the possibility of giving the "virgin" in
marriage to some one else.

That the details of any solution to the problem presented
by I Cor. vii. 25-38 are uncertain, will be admitted by all who
have really considered it at all closely ; but the view that has
been presented by Achelis seems to present fewer difficulties
than any other, and recent commentaries all show a tendency
to accept it. If so, we have to consider that the back
ground of the chapter is the existence of a class of men
and women who vowed themselves to live together not in

VIRGINS 191

wedlock, but in virginity. Such an institution was clearly
the result of the ascetic tendency mentioned on p. 182, and
the problem arose from the conflict between this institution
and human nature.

The controversy as to the relation of Christianity to
sexual questions lasted for many generations, and it would
be far from the truth to suppose no false steps were made
by the Church on this extremely difficult question. The
institution of " spiritual marriage " was clearly a false step,
and was comparatively soon retracted. It would be out of
place here to discuss the later course of development on
other points, but it is worth noting that the ascetic element
in early Christian teaching is being shown more and more
clearly by modern research to have been far more wide
spread and to be far more primitive than comparatively
recent writers have allowed. The view that marriage is a
concession to human weakness, and incompatible with the
highest Christian ideal, is probably primitive. It was
clearly the view of St. Paul when he wrote to Corinth
(even though a somewhat more liberal opinion is perhaps
expressed in the Epistle to the Ephesians, of which, how
ever, the authenticity is doubted by many quite cautious
critics), and there was clearly a party in Corinth who
thought that he conceded too much. If we go on to the
succeeding centuries we find the extremest asceticism con
sistently preached as the counsel of perfection. I cannot
see how it is possible to deny that the general teaching of
the Christian Church from St. Paul to the Reformation is
that the life of the celibate is higher qua tails than that of
the married Christian.

1 92 CORINTH

(2) QUESTIONS RELATING TO INSPIRATION
BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.

The questions of the Corinthians concerning things
offered to idols, spiritual gifts, and the regulation of worship,
including the Eucharist, all depend on the general belief
as to the spirit-world which obtained in the first century.

According to popular opinion, the world was full of
spirits (7rvu/iara or Sat^ovec) good and bad, which were able
to take possession of, or to obsess, not only human beings,
but even inanimate objects. One of the main reasons for
which the ordinary man took part in religious ceremonies
was to avoid obsession by evil daemons and to secure obses
sion or inspiration by good spirits. The various Mysteries
were largely regarded from this point of view. Moreover,
when this inspiration had once been obtained the religious
services remained valuable, because they afforded the means
by which the inspired person allowed the spirit which was
in him to speak to others, and communicate the will of
the gods.

These spirits or daemons were beings intermediate
between gods and men. Some of the gods even had origin
ally been daemons, and some of the daemons were the spirits
of the dead men who had gained promotion by the distinction
of their careers on earth. 1 The spirits were especially the
intermediaries between the higher gods and men, and
thus corresponded almost exactly to the angels of Jewish

1 The best statements as to the daemons may be found in Plutarch in many
passages ; an excellent resume of them is given in Glover s The Conflict of
Religions in the Early Roman Empire, p. 94 ff. It must, however, be remem
bered that Plutarch represents the opinion of an educated theologian; the
importance of the daemons for the general mass of people is indicated by the
magical papyri.

SPIRITS AND DAEMONS 193

theology. But, just as in Jewish theology, there was not
a sharp line of definition between the angels of God and
the Spirit (Ruach) of God, so also in the Greek world the
idea of the daemon sent by the god passed imperceptibly
over into that of the spirit of the god, which was, in
one sense, the god himself. Hence the confusion in
practical affairs between the daemon of the emperor, and
the emperor himself. Probably the average Roman citizen
was quite vague as to whether the divinity of the emperor
was due to a daemon or spirit who inspired him, or to some
special property of the man who was emperor. In the
same way he would probably have found a difficulty in
distinguishing between the daemon who had helped
Augustus, and the Divus Augustus who had been deified.
Was it the daemon or the man, or both ? 1

So also in the Mysteries, what did the initiate receive ?
A daemon ancillary to the god, or an "effluence " from the
god, his spirit, which was in some sense the god himself?
Probably there was a general vagueness on these points.

In any case, the view that the world was full of these
daemons or spirits was undoubted. Moreover, the difference
between Greek and Jewish doctrine was really small. The
Jew in the Diaspora, at all events, may be said to have
distinguished three factors : (i) The angels, the ministers of
Jahveh on earth, who looked after all the details of human
life. (2) The Spirit of Jahveh, which inspired the prophets,
and was believed by the Christians to have been especially
given to them. (3) The Scufioma, or devils. These were the

1 Ultimately, of course, the Roman empire settled down to a belief in the
actual divinity of the reigning emperor, as such. But this was the end of a
development of thought which deserves more detailed treatment than it has at
present received.

:94 CORINTH

ghosts of the "giants" who had perished in the Noachian
deluge, and the "giants" were the progeny of the dis
obedient angels who had neglected their duty, and entered
into wedlock with women. 1 Part of the work of the Messiah
was to be their destruction, but until the " Kingdom " came
they wandered through the world, seeking re-incarnation,
and causing sickness, but yielding to the power of exorcism. 2
Of these three points the first affords an exact parallel
between the angels and the beneficent daemons. The
second affords a parallel in so far as the "Spirit of Jahveh"
is parallel to the "spirit" of the god imparted in the
Mysteries, or speaking through the oracles and prophets.
It is also remarkable that just as the distinction in Jewish
theology between Jahveh and the Spirit of Jahveh is not
consistently sharply drawn, so too, in the magical papyri,
the distinction between the god and his spirit is sometimes
made and sometimes ignored. 3 Moreover, just as the Greek
was vague as to the distinction between a daerrion ancillary
to the god, and the spirit effluent from the god himself, so
among the Jews there was probably a tendency to confuse
the Spirit of Jahveh with the Angel of Jahveh, and the
Angel of Jahveh with the angels in general. Thus in
Jewish and Christian circles, there was at first a tendency

1 Full descriptions of their misdeeds and fate are given in Enoch vi.-xix.,
and in Jubilees iv.-v. References to the same belief are found in Matt. viii. 29 ;
xii. 24-28 ; Luke xi. 24-26 ; Jude 6 ; 2 Peter ii. 4.

2 Hence the point in Matt. viii. 24: the devils ask, " Art Thou come to
torture us before the time?" They do not question the Messianic personality of
Jesus, but only protest that He has not yet received the active functions of
the Messiah.

3 Cf. Reitzenstein, Hellenistiche Mysterien Keltgionen, p. 137. It is very
important to notice how completely Reitzenstein succeeds in showing the error
of the view formerly adopted by some theologians, that the concepts jri/eC/xa,,
weDyua 0eoO, are exclusively Biblical.

SPIRITS AND DAEMONS 195

to hesitate whether to speak of " The Spirit " or the
" Spirits." So far there is a very close resemblance between
Jewish and Greek thought. The difference is really only
to be found in connection with the doctrine of God. For
the Jahveh of the Jews was not parallel with the gods of
the Greeks, as, for instance, Plutarch conceived them, but
with the Absolute, or with the Logos, who was above them
all, and from whom all being, divine, daemonic, or human,
derived its origin.

According, then, to the ancient view of the universe the
world was full of spirits, good and bad. How was man to
avoid the bad and gain the good ? The universal answer
was that there were various acts or ceremonies by means of
which intercourse with the spirits was rendered possible.
These acts belonged in the main to every kind of human
function. Eating and drinking were especially regarded
from this point of view. There was always a danger that
an evil spirit would be attracted by food and drink, and
endeavour to enjoy it by obsessing the person who ate it.
Hence, according to Porphyry, the symptoms of indi
gestion. " Every house," says he, " is full of them, and on
this account when they are going to call down the gods,
they purify the house first and cast those daemons out.
Our bodies also are full of them, for they especially delight
in certain kinds of food. So when we are eating they
approach and sit close to our body ; and this is the reason
of the purifications, not chiefly on account of the Gods, but
in order that these evil daemons may depart But most of
all they delight in blood and impure meats, and enjoy these
by entering into those who use them. For universally the
vehemence of the desire towards anything, and the impulse
of the lust of the spirit, is intensified from no cause thai?

196 CORINTH

their presence, and they also force men to fall into inarticu
late noises and flatulence by sharing the same enjoyment
with them." x For this reason food had to be protected by
being given up to the power of some more powerful and bene
ficent being ; it was consecrated sacrificed to some god,
and then it was safe : no evil spirit would dare to touch it
Or, in the alternative, it was possible to consecrate and
protect the eater ; for in the same way, if he were already
in the power of some god, no evil spirit would be able to
approach him. Those who had been initiated in the
Mysteries were safe from evil spirits. In this way evil
spirits could be avoided.

How could good spirits be gained ? This was especially
the object of the Mysteries, and just as evil spirits entered by
means of food, so also did the good ones. The sacrificial
meals of the Mystery Religions were, at least from one point
of view, means of gaining obsession by a good spirit con
nected with or even identified with the god of the Mystery
in question. Men and women ate with the god in order to
be taken possession of; or they went to the temple and
lived there for the same purpose. Nor was this all : not
only could they eat with the god, but they could actually
eat food in which the god was, and so eat the god himself.
Probably there was much vagueness of thought as to
whether the god was in the food, or was joining in the
eating of it : but there is ample evidence for both points of
view in the Greek world. The former theory is especially

1 Porphyry, quoted by Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, iv. 23. It is
noteworthy how very nearly daemonic possession played the same part in
ancient pathology as bacterial infection does in modern ; disease was regarded
as due to a daemon; if you could drive him out you could cure the disease.
The same sort of thing is now said of bacilli, which, however, have the advan
tage that they can be seen under the microscope.

THEOPHAGY 197

common, and hence it was customary to speak of the
"table" (TPUTT^O) of the god, and of "laying a place for
him " (K\IVIIV (TTpwaai Ty 0e&lt;). Moreover, from the story of
Paulina x it would seem that invitations to dinner in the
temple of Isis sometimes included passing the night there.
The still cruder theory that the god is present in the sacri
ficial food, and thus passes into the being of the worshipper
is less widely, but quite sufficiently, attested. For this
custom it is not easy to quote single passages, but the
collected evidence from all sources provides overwhelming
testimony for the view that one period in the development
of cultus comprised two central beliefs : first, that the god
was incarnate in various persons, especially royal persons ;
secondly, that the divine nature in them could be assimilated
by eating them. Thus far back in the history of mankind
it is probable that every race has passed through a period
of the religious cannibalism which still survives in some
parts of Central Africa. But many centuries ago among
the Greek and Roman races, this savage rite was superseded
by the custom of eating the representative of the god,
either in the form of an animal, or of some other form of food
in which he was regarded as incarnate. As civilization
advanced the details became less and less crude, but the
rite of " eating the god " still remained, and was, no doubt,
inextricably mixed up with the cognate idea mentioned
above of eating with the god." The exact point of view of

1 Josephus, Antiquitt., xviii. 3, 4. Paulina was, under these circumstances,
seduced by her lover, who had bribed the priests to allow him to appear as the
God Anubis. There appears to be no reason to doubt Paulina s bona fides.

The subject may be studied in Frazer, Golden Bough, 2nd edition, vol. ii.
pp. 318-366. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. v. cap. v., on Dionysiac
ritual, especially pp. 164 if. ; and Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek
Religion, cap. x., on the Orphic Mysteries, especially the section on the

( 9 8 CORINTH

individuals was no doubt as "foggy" and confused as it
always was on subjects of this nature which are concerned
partly with a real spiritual experience and partly with an
artificial intellectual explanation.

The signs of possession by a good spirit were various : no
doubt they were usually unobtrusive, the worshipper merely
felt convinced that he had received benefit. But some
times plainer symptoms could be observed in the form of
ecstasy, prophecy, glossolalia, i.e. unintelligible speech, and
visions. All of them differed very little from the signs of
possession by an evil spirit, and it was often a matter on
which opinion differed sharply whether the obsessed should
be congratulated on his spiritual endowment, or exorcised
to save him from the clutches of a daemon.

The Things offered to Idols. It is not difficult to see
how completely the belief in spirits or daemons is the back
ground of this section. To reconstruct the precise opinions
of St. Paul is indeed more difficult than to understand what
he is discussing.

" Things offered to idols " (aSwAoflura) x might be taken
in at least two senses. From one point of view the greater
part of the meat sold in the shops was " offered to idols,"
as the animal from which it was taken had usually been
consecrated to some god, even if it were only by the

Omophagia, pp. 478-500. In all these a long series of references will be found
to passages in original documents and to modern treatises on special points.
Other references to German books will be found in Lietzmann s Commentary
on I Corinthians, pp. 124 ff.

1 This is apparently the Christian and possibly Jewish term. The usual
expression was lepdOuTov or Qeodvroi . See J. Weiss on I Cor. viii. I (p. 214).
He gives references, among others, to Plutarch, Moralia, p. 729 C. ; Pollux,
Onomast., i. 29. According to Phrynichus, Ecloga, p. 159 (Lobeck s edition),
Qf6Qvrov is the older term, which he recommends to the exclusion of

ifpi&VTOV.

THL\GS OFFERED TO IDOLS

199

ceremonial burning of a few hairs. Thus, in this strict
sense, to avoid eating things offered to idols was difficult, if
not impossible. It would, however, appear that it was not
quite impossible, for St. Paul implies that by making
inquiry the Corinthians might be able to avoid such meat.

But besides this, it was possible to use etSwAoflura with
a restricted reference to actual participation in the sacri
ficial meals. As to these meals a misconception is easy.
We are inclined to look on them as solemn religious services.
Some of them no doubt were : but others probably resem
bled a dinner-party more closely than a church-service. It
was the custom to issue invitations to dinner in the temple,
and the fiction was that the god was himself the host. 1
Thus " things offered to idols " had a social as well as a
religious importance, and an attempt was made to combine
physical satisfaction with " spiritual" edification. To avoid
them altogether was difficult, and certainly would hinder
social intercourse to an enormous extent.

Apparently, there were two opinions on the matter in
Corinth : one party maintained that an idol was nothing,
and that therefore things offered to idols had no import
ance : they thought that the whole matter was indifferent,
and that Christian freedom justified them in doing as they
wished. Another party held the opposite opinion and
thought that, cost what it might, Christians ought to
abstain absolutely from the contamination of things offered

1 Cf. Pap. Oxy., i. IIO: eptoro ere Xatpi)/j.tav Seivfrjffai els K\eivi\v (KAU/TJJ/)
TOV nvptov 2apairi5os ev T Sapcureiy adpiov ?)Tjy e&lt;nli&gt; it, upas . See also Pap.
Oxy., iii. 523 epwra (re Avrtavios Tlro\ffj.aiov Siwrja a.i trap avri? els K\eimjv
TOV Kvptov 2apa7T(5os ev rots K\avSiov Sapa-mWos Trj is aTrb &pas 6 . Cf. Aristides,
In Serapidem (Or., viii. p. 93 f., Dind.) : ical TO IVVV KOI 6vcnuv povif rovrtf Oetf,
tiia(pep6vTias KOIVUVOVCTLV &v8punroi ryv a.Kpi0fi Koivuviaf, Ka\ovvres re t&lt;$&gt; eario.v
Ko.1 irpoi&lt;na.iJ.evoL SatTVfj.6fa avrbv /ecu etmaropa. The fullest note on the subject
will be found in Lietzmann s Commentary on i Corinthians, p. 124.

200 CORINTH

to idols. 1 The strict school argued that to eat things
offered to idols was a form of idolatry, and dangerous
because of the daemons. 2 The " enlightened " school argued
that idols had no real existence, that the food was not really
affected by being consecrated to the non-existent, and
therefore that it really did not matter if Christians bought
it in the market, or took part in meals at which it was
eaten. But besides this the " enlightened " school also
argued that, even admitting the possible influence of con
secrated food on others, they were themselves safe because
through the Christian Mysteries they had gained the pro
tection of a higher power. This argument is implied by
i Cor. x., where St. Paul retorts that they are no more
safe than were the Israelites, the type of the Christians.
The Israelites had all received the types of Baptism and
Eucharist, in the crossing of the Red Sea, in the feeding

1 This much is clear from i Corinthians on any hypothesis. The difficul
ties in the section I Cor. viii. i x. 33, are not in seeing what were the
different points of view among the Corinthians, but in answering the questions
(i) Did St. Paul deal with both of them at the same time ? or did he, as J. Weiss
thinks (see p. 123), deal with one in the "previous letter," and the other later
on in consequence of a misunderstanding of his advice ? (2) Can the point of
view of St. Paul in viii. 1-13 be regarded as really consistent with that in
x. 20? Personally, I doubt if it can; but complete consistency is never
reached by any one. The solution to the difficulty is psychological, not literary.

2 There is a constant confusion of thought in early Christian thought as to
idols. On the one hand, there was the argument, derived from the Jewish
prophets, that an idol was only an image made by man, and wholly powerless,
and that the gods of the Greeks were not gods at all, and had no existence in
fact. On the other hand, was the identification of the gods with daemons and
fallen angels, and the belief that in some way these daemons were connected
with the images of the gods and with the temples. A very instructive passage is
Ps. Apuleius, Asclefius, xxxvii. : " Quoniam ergo proavi nostri multum errabant
. . . invenerunt artem qua efficerent deos, cui inventae adjunxerunt virtutem de
inundi natura convenientem eamque miscentes, quoniam animas facere non
poterant, evocantes animas daemonum vel angelorum, eas indiderunt imagi-
nibus sanctis divinisque mysteriis, per quas idola et benefaciendi et male vires
habere potuissent."

THINGS OFFERED TO IDOLS 201

on manna in the wilderness, and in drinking from the rock.
Nevertheless, they fell, and the fall should be an example to
Christians not to commit the same mistakes. The whole
of this section in its context is only intelligible as directed
against the argument that those who have been initiated
into the Christian Mysteries may safely do anything they
like, they have attained safety (o-omj/jfa), which was the
object of all the Mysteries.

This difference of opinion between two parties in
Corinth is clearly reflected in St. Paul s advice, and ex
plains its strange turns and apparent inconsistencies. This
is especially marked in I Cor. x. 14 ff. Here St, Paul is
conceding to the scrupulous party the correctness of their
objection to idolatry ; but he is thinking all the time of the
effect his words will have on the party of freedom, and
therefore he turns to them and invites them to consider
accurately the exact force of his admission. 1 He quite
accepts the propositions of the party of freedom that an
idol is nothing, and that food sacrificed to idols has no
especial value, but he does admit, as a concession to
the scrupulous, that the sacrificial meals do contain the
possibility of " infection " from daemons. The position is
not wholly logical, for the Christian word EiSwXudvrov, as
compared with the true Greek phrase hpuOvrov or QtoBvTov,
implies the view that the heathen gods are illusions with
out any real existence. But this sort of inconsistency is
common to humanity. All of us must be aware that on
many points our position is a wholly illogical combination

1 J. Weiss sees no difference between tpijul and \tyea. Surely this is inaccu
rate ; of course, $i}&lt;j\ and &lt;f&gt;affl are neutral expressions, but I suggest thai &lt;pjj/ul
always implies some degree of assent to a proposition, explicit or implicit, and
so often comes to mean " I admit."

202 CORINTH

of half-belief, half-scepticism, which we cover but do not
justify by calling it an "open mind."

Do the Apostolic Decrees also lie behind this difference
of opinion in Corinth ? Certainly they are not quoted ;
but I see no reason to state definitely that they cannot
have been known in Corinth. On the contrary, I think it
is quite possible that they had been appealed to by the
stricter party, and that St. Paul s answer is intended as
giving his view of the justification and meaning of the
decree so far as things offered to idols are concerned.
Still, this cannot be proved, and all that can be said as to
the existence or non-existence of the decrees in Corinth is
that neither can be established.

" Spiritual persons" (or "gifts" ?}. When St. Paul
begins I Cor. xii., TTE^I t TWV Trvtujucmk-div, does he speak of
persons or gifts ? x Obviously Trveu/iariKwi may have either
meaning, but since in the immediate context St. Paul is
discussing persons, not gifts, and the way to distinguish
the true from the false Tri Ei^utmicoe, it is probably better to
treat it as masculine 2 "spiritual persons," or what the
Germans more conveniently term pncumatiker. But at all
properly to appreciate the meaning of the word in the
ancient world of thought, we must grasp the fact firmly
that the Spirit was a concrete " something " or " some one."
Judged by modern standards, one might almost say it was
material, and in popular thought it was probably regarded
as belonging to the same category of substance as air, or
sometimes as light. 3 The point is that we are apt to use

1 In I Cor. ii. 15; iii. I ; xiv. 37, irvfv l u.riKos is used of persons, almost as
the equivalent of a substantive ; in ix. 1 1 ; xiv. I ; xv. 46, the neuter is used, but
in each case with a distinct reference to a substantive in the context.

* So thinks J. Weiss, p. 294.

3 The Germnn word gives the meaning far better Lichtstoff.

OBSESSION BY SPIRITS 203

" spiritual " and " spirit " in the sense of a " frame of mind "
(stimmung) which pays no special attention to carnal or
material objects, and is busy with ideals. That is not what
irvtvfjLaTtKog meant in the first century ; it meant a man who
was obsessed by a -vti^ua which was not his own, but had
come into him from without.

The signs of this spiritual obsession were various, but
they were chiefly ecstatic. That is to say, the proof of the
existence of the spirit within was that the man did things
which he otherwise could not do. This supernatural power
might manifest itself in act or in word. The inspired person
might develop powers of healing or do other miraculous
deeds ; the magical papyri show that this was as common
in heathen circles as it was among Christians, 1 and even
extended to the resuscitation of the dead. 2 But more im
portant than these were the gifts of prophecy and glosso-
lalia. The "prophet" was a familiar figure in the ancient
world, and the explanation given of his utterances was the
same in all nations. The Spirit was speaking through
him. He was only an instrument by means of which God
revealed His will to the world. The prophets of the
Old Testament were regarded by the first Christians as
verbally and literally inspired, and the Christian prophets
belonged to the same class. "For among us," says Justin
to the Jew Trypho, " prophetic gifts (x^o/o^ara) still exist,
which shows that the privileges formerly belonging to your
nation have been transferred to us," 3 and in the first

1 Cf. I Cor. xii. 29 ff.

* Cf. Reitzenstein, p. 137 : dpxlfa (re, irvfv/LLa. tv afpi (poiTw/.ift ov, eureA.06, eV-
TTV(Vfjid.T&lt;a(Tov, Svvd/j.eaffoi , Siatyfipov TJJ Svvdfj.fi rov cdiaviov Beov roSe crcDjua. The
irvtvfjLaTiKos, himself inspired, is here appealing to the Spirit to restore a corpse.
The train of thought is not perfectly logical, but there is not much doubt as to
what it was. 3 Dial. c. Tryph., 82.

204 CORINTH

Apology he explains that prophets are those "through
whom the prophetic Spirit has foretold the future." : In
the same way the prophetic speaker in the Odes of Solo
mon says, " As the hand plays on the harp, and the strings
sound, so speaks the Spirit of the Lord in my members." z In
the same way Epiphanius tells us that Montanus 3 claimed
that he was used by the spirit as a man plays on the lyre,
and the same image is found in Ps. Justin s Cohortatio ad
Gentes, " The divine plectrum comes down from heaven,
using righteous men as a harp or lyre in order to reveal to
us the knowledge of divine and heavenly things." 4

But this belief that divine spirits spoke through men
was not specifically Jewish or Christian : men like Apol-
lonius of Tyana or Alexander of Abonoteichos were regarded
not as exceptionally gifted men, but as men through whom
the god spoke. The prophet was the instrument by which
God revealed Himself. It was naturally only a step further
to confuse the inspired person with the divine spirit, and so
reach the Greek concept of the 0aoe avOpwirog.

Thus the language of these inspired persons was not
ordinary language. Sometimes it was intelligible, and
sometimes it was unintelligible ; in the former case it was
prophecy, in the latter glossolalia. The difference between
glossolalia and prophecy was only that glossolalia was
unintelligible ; it was a language which could only be
understood by those to whom the Spirit gave the power of
interpreting it. The picture of glossolalia given by St.

1 Apol. I. 31. " Odes of Solomon, 6.

3 Epiph., Ilaer. 48, 4 : &lt;5 livdpuiros uicrel \vpa, Kayw ecfu wrauot wfffl TrKriKrpov.
& avdpwiros Ko^uarai, Kayu ypriyopce ISoit Kvpios e&lt;rriv 6 e^Kj-Tavtav /caoSias
a.i Opuirciit , K.T.A..

4 Cohortatio ad Graecos, 8 ; cf. also Athenagoras, Pro Christianis, 9 :

THE SIGNS OF OBSESSION 205

Paul in i Cor. xiv. can be compared with hostile pictures
drawn by Celsus of Palestinian Christian prophets, and
by Irenaeus of Marcosian prophetesses. 1 In the strange
words in the magical papyri we probably have references to
glossolalia in heathen circles. 2

Besides these manifestations of the spirit through the
acts and speech of the obsessed, there were also visual
manifestations in which the Trvev/aariKo^ saw visions reve
lations or awoKa\v^ti in which he was taken in the spirit
to the hidden world. Here, again, there is no difference
between the Christian and the heathen belief. St. Paul
knew a man who was taken up into the third heaven, and
Apuleius describes the experiences of Lucius in the Mys
teries of Isis. " I drew near/ says Lucius, " to the confines
of death ; I trod the threshold of Proserpine ; I was borne
through all the elements and returned. At midnight I saw
the sun flashing with bright light ; gods of the world above,
gods of the world below, into their presence I came."
Whether Apuleius and St. Paul are either or both giving
their own experience is questionable, but undoubtedly both
believed in the genuineness of what they described. 3 Nor
did the Christians ever suggest that the heathen experience
was different from their own ; 4 they only urged that it was
due to an evil spirit instead of to a good spirit.

1 Cf. Origen, Contra Ct lsum, vii. 8, 9; and Irenaeus,. Adz&gt;. ffaer. i. 13, 2
(ed. Massuet).

2 See Weinel, Die IVirkungen da Gcistes, p. 77, and see Appendix on p. 241.

3 2 Cor. xii. I ff.

4 This seems to be the meaning of the difficult passage (I Cor. xii. 2). The
text (olSore STI ore eOvrj fire irpbs ra ei5o&gt;A.a TO. &&amp;lt;pwva us kv tfyevOf a.TrayS/J.fi Oi) is
certainly corrupt, and probably cannot be emended ; but, as Chrysostom saw
(cf. Cramer s Catena, ad /of.), it is a reference to the experiences of obsession
among the Corinthians before their conversion, and is intended as the basis of
the following argument.

2o6 CORINTH

This last point explains the importance of the first
question which the Corinthians propounded. How were
they to distinguish the TrvtvpariKbg who was inspired by a
holy spirit, from the TrvevjuaTiKoz who was inspired by an
evil spirit ? Both did much the same things, but whereas
he who was inspired by a holy spirit deserved the implicit
obedience due to the infallible voice of God, or a good
daemon, the other must be avoided, and attempts made to
rid him of his obsession. It is also easy to see how fruitful
a soil this general belief supplied for the later development
of Christological doctrine. The Christian, especially the
Christian prophet, was inspired and possessed by a holy
spirit. This holy spirit came from his Lord and Saviour, 1
Jesus. That seemed wholly natural : if Jesus was a Re
deemer-God, of course His Spirit was given to those who
shared in His mysteries. But was this Spirit a spirit which
had inspired Jesus? or had Jesus become a spirit or
daemon ? or had He from the beginning been a spirit ?
and similar questions were at first not asked, 2 though the
development of Christian doctrine showed that they were
raised later.

Thus the practical question arose how the TrvtviuiaTiKOG
who was inspired by the " Spirit of Jesus " could be dis
tinguished from the Trvsu^artKoc who was inspired by an
evil spirit. That is the problem which St. Paul had to
face, and he solved it by saying that if the

1 Just as the initiate in the Osiris Mysteries spoke of Osiris as Lord and
Saviour : it does not, of course, follow that the words meant quite the same,
but it explains why there was no difficulty in persuading the Graeco-Roman
world of the propriety of these expressions. They are not specifically Christian,
but are common to the Mystery Religions.

2 Each of these questions might have been asked about Osiris or any of the
other "redeemer-gods," but, so far as I am aware, there is no evidence that
they were raised.

SPIRITUAL GIFTS 207

recognized Jesus as Lord, he was inspired by a holy spirit ; l
but that if he said "Jesus is accursed," he was not inspired
by a spirit of God. There he leaves the question ; but it is
obvious that this simple test was likely to prove insufficient,
and it is not surprising that the next century reveals other
solutions. The same problem, for instance, is faced in the
Johannine Epistles. "Try the spirits," says the writer,
" because many false prophets have gone out into the
world" (i John iv. i) ; and he gives a doctrinal test which
goes a little further than St. Paul s. " Every spirit," he
says, " which confesses Jesus as a Messiah come in flesh is
of God." Parallel with this doctrinal test is another, found
in the Didache and the SJiepherd of Hermas, which sug
gests that conduct is the test of inspiration ; and Ignatius 2
proposed to leave the decision of the question to the Bishop,
and this method ultimately became general.

The other question which the Corinthians propounded
was concerned with the relative value of the gifts
(^ap iafj.ara) by which the Spirit manifested itself. It is not
necessary now indeed, it is outside the scope of this book
to consider the details of St. Paul s answer. The question
is, What light can be thrown on the situation at Corinth ?
It is important to notice that practically all distinction in
the community is regarded as a gift of the Spirit. To this
are ascribed healings, miracles, prophecy, the power of
distinguishing spirits, glossolalia, and the interpretation of
glossolalia. The question which agitated the Corinthians
was the relative value of these gifts, and St. Paul s answer,
though given at some length, and rising to the most

1 It is worth noting that St. Paul says rrj/eiVioTi ayi&lt;p, not rf irvfv/j.aTi iyly,
but I am not sure whether the point will ultimately prove to be really important
Chronologically earlier than Hermas, or (probably) the Didacht.

208 CORINTH

eloquent heights, is comparatively simple, he states that
social not individual value is the standard by which the
gifts must be measured, and that none of them are useful
without sympathy (uyaVij). But it is also quite plain that
this is not exactly the point which the Corinthians had
proposed. Their question was inspired by a divergence of
opinion as to the more ecstatic gifts, prophecy and glos-
solalia ; some thought that they were of supreme import
ance ; others regarded them as undesirable. The former
type is more fully dealt with by St. Paul, but the existence
of the latter is vouched for by the advice, " Forbid not to
speak with tongues." The importance of this will become
plain in the next paragraph.

The Regulation of Worship. It is clear from St.
Paul s statement that the great respect claimed for the
gifts of the Spirit was the main reason for difficulties
connected with religious services. St. Paul says in I Cor.
xiv. 23-35: "If therefore the whole Church be come
together into one place, and all speak with tongues,
and there come in those that are unlearned, or un
believers, will they not say that ye are mad? But if
all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not,
or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of
all : and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest ;
and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and
report that God is in you of a truth. How is it then,
brethren ? when ye come together, every one of you hath
a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a revelation, hath a tongue,
hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto
edifying. If any man speak in a tongue, let it be by two,
or at the most by three, and that in turn ; and let one
be an interpreter. But if there be no interpreter, let

THE REGULATION OF WORSHIP 209

him keep silence in the church ; and let him speak to
himself, and to God. Let the prophets speak two or
three, and let the others judge. If any thing be revealed
to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For
ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and
all may be exhorted. And the spirits of the prophets
are subject to the prophets ; for God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
Let your women keep silence in the churches : for it is not
permitted unto them to speak ; but let them be in sub
jection, as also saith the Law. And if they will learn any
thing, let them ask their own husbands at home : for it is
shameful for a woman to speak in the church."

The picture drawn of the state of things in Corinth
is plain enough: everything was being sacrificed to the
"gifts" of prophesy and glossolalia. The prophets all
spoke at once, and even women claimed to be heard. It
is not unnatural that, under these circumstances, there was
a party which was ready to " quench the Spirit," and " forbid
prophecies " ; and that there was considerable friction
between the ecstatic and the more sober members of the
community.

The question of the women is a little more complicated.
It appears that there was a party, no doubt composed
largely of women, who thought that women were in no
respect inferior to men. It must be admitted that they
could appeal with some force to St. Paul s own teaching
that in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.
Therefore they insisted that women should be allowed the
same freedom of prophecy in the community as men
enjoyed. Against this party we can imagine that it was
argued that, although it might be true that in Christ Jesus

210 CORINTH

there is no difference between male and female, this does
not apply in practice to life in this world, and a protest
was raised against behaving as though the kingdom of
God were already come. A further point was concerned
with dress. From I Cor. xi. 3 ff., it appears that the
general custom was then as now for women to have
their heads covered in church, and for men to be bare
headed. It is the task of the interpreter of St. Paul to
explain the justification which St. Paul gives of this custom :
it is by no means plain, and ver. 10 in particular, " For this
cause ought the woman to have power on her head because
of the angels," provides a problem which is likely to remain
insoluble. But it is quite simple to see the situation which
called forth his remarks. The point which is remarkable is
that the custom to which the Corinthian women objected, and
St. Paul adhered, was the Greek, not the Jewish practice. 1

The Eucharist. The Eucharist is so closely connected
with controversies of every kind that it is desirable to
define somewhat closely precisely what points belong to the
present discussion. Regarded as an historical problem, it
may be said to confront the student of Christian origins
with the following questions : (l) What is the value of the
account in the Synoptic Gospels of the institution of the
Eucharist, and what was (supposing the historical nature
of the story to be accepted) the real meaning of Jesus ?
(2) What was the view held by the Corinthian Christian as
to the meaning of the Eucharist, and in what form was it

1 Cf. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom., 84, p. 2670: awyQfaTepov Se TCUS pfv yvva.i$v
4 r yKfica\v/j.fj.evais, Tols 8e avSpdtriv a.Ka.\vtrrots f JS rb Srj/J.ocnoi irpoievai. Cf. also
Dio Chrysostom, who (Or., 33, 48 ff.) rebukes the degeneracy which in Tarsus
began to allow women to walk in the streets without a veil covering the face,
and points out the dangers of daemons entering by the ears or nose. See also
Lietzmann s note, p. 128.

THE EUCHARIST 211

celebrated? (3) In what direction did St. Paul think it
desirable to amend the Corinthian practice or doctrine?
(4) How far did the Christian custom of the next gene
ration agree with or differ from the lines laid down or
sanctioned by St. Paul ? Of these four problems the
second is that which is necessary for the present purpose ;
the first and fourth are scarcely germane to it at all ; and
the third only quite partially.

We have, then, to ask what was the form in which the
Corinthians celebrated the Eucharist, and what doctrine
they attached to it. This can best be discussed under the
two heads of form and doctrine.

The form of celebration is indicated by St. Paul s
comments in I Cor. xi. 20-21, and his advice in I Cor.
xi. 33. In the former passage he says, " Now when you
assemble together it is not possible to eat a Lord s supper,
for each takes his own supper at the meal, and one is
hungry and another is drunken." 1 In the latter he says,
" therefore, when ye assemble, wait for each other at the
meal."

From this material two points are clear. First, the
" Lord s supper " was a true meal, not merely a ceremonial
or symbolical eating, that the custom was for individuals to
bring food for this meal, and secondly, that owing to the
bad habit, which St. Paul rebukes, of each eating what he
brought himself, there was an undesirably unequal distri
bution of the provisions, and an unseemly tendency not to

1 Two points are doubtful in this translation, (o) Does firl T*&gt; avrb really
go with ffvvepxonevtov, or with oi/K i&lt;niv ? Commentators are almost unanimous
in favour of the former view, but I am not sure that the point is quite certain.
()3) What is the meaning of irpo\an&avei ? Most commentators say, " takes in
advance," but the evidence of the papyri (see the Expositor for March, 1911)
goes to show that it probably only means "take."

212 CORINTH

wait until the whole community was present. It also
seems, from the way in which St. Paul introduces the
whole question by a reference to the divisions in the
Church, 1 that the secret cause for this behaviour was
the partizanship of the Corinthians : instead of there being
one meal for the whole community, there was a tendency
to divide into groups and cliques which did not sHare their
food with each other.

It is sometimes thought that this meal ought to be
separated from the Eucharist, and be identified with the
Agape. This view is untenable for two reasons. In the first
place, it is clear that St. Paul is speaking of the Eucharist
in i Cor. xi. 23 ff., and there is no trace of any break in
his argument between this passage and the preceding
section, in which an actual meal is clearly being discussed.
In the second place, it is extremely doubtful whether there
was a distinction between Agape and Eucharist. In the
letters of Ignatius the words are clearly synonyms, and
Batiffol has gone far towards proving that the supposed
difference between the two elsewhere is based on no solid
foundation. 2

The doctrine of the Eucharist, 8 as it was held by the
Corinthians, is primarily illustrated by I Cor. x. 16-20.
In this passage St. Paul says, " The cup of blessing which
we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ ? The
bread which we break, is it not a sharing of the body
of Christ? . . . but what they (i.e. the heathen) sacrifice,
they sacrifice not to God, but to daemons : I would not have

1 i Cor. xi. 18 fl.

2 Batiffol, Etudes cThistoire et de Theologie positive, pp. 277-311.

3 See especially Heitmiiller s Taufe und Abendmahl bet Paulus. This book
is so clear and so thorough that it has an importance out of all proportion to
its size.

EUCHARISTIC DOCTRINE 213

you share in daemons. You cannot drink the cup of the
Lord and the cup of daemons ; you cannot share the table
of the Lord and the table of daemons." The importance
of this passage is that St. Paul is here not discussing
doubtful points in the Eucharist, or giving instruction con
cerning it, as he is in i Cor. xi. 17-34, but is using the
general and undisputed belief of Christians as to the
Eucharist in order to establish his position with regard to
things offered to idols. He clearly means that the Corin
thians know quite well that the Eucharist is a rite which
really conveys that which the heathen erroneously thought
to obtain in their sacrificial meals that is, the participation
in the Divine nature.

A further light on the doctrine of the Eucharist is
thrown by I Cor. x. 3 ff. Here St. Paul speaks of the
manna which the Israelites ate in the wilderness as " spiritual
food," and the water from the rock as " spiritual drink. *
His argument is, "the Israelites like you had spiritual
food and drink, yet they fell." He can scarcely be refer
ring to anything except the Eucharist ; and if so, he implies
clearly that in the Eucharist Christians received the " Spirit "
in the form of food and drink. When we remember that
to St Paul " the Lord is the Spirit," and that His body was
" spiritual," it is plain that the only conclusion we can draw
is that the Corinthians regarded the Eucharist as food and
drink, by eating which they enjoyed communion, or partici
pation, in the life of Jesus, as a Spirit ; l or, to express it

1 We have to guard against an obscurity of thought due to a change in the
meaning of words. "Spirit" is not always a translation of irvevna. One can see
this by considering how the ordinary phrase "he has the spirit of St. Paul"
would be translated into New Testament Greek. Probably one would write
TO TOV Tlav\ov typovtl : the obvious x e * T ^ wevna. Hav\ov would mean some
thing different "he is inspired by the same supernatural being which was in
Paul," or perhaps, "which Paul has now beccme."

-214 CORINTH

differently, by it they became tvOeoi tv XjotortS just as the
participants in the Eleusinian Mysteries believed that they
became tvQtoi, by means of a meal, in which they partook,
in some mysterious manner, of the body of Dionysus.

Whether there was any special service of consecration
for the elements is not clear, but the expressions " the cup
of blessing which we bless," and "the bread which we
break," 1 in I Cor. x. 16, probably point to some liturgical
formula, which was regarded as endowing the bread and
wine with its miraculous properties.

The question remains whether the Eucharist was gene
rally regarded as a commemoration of the death of Jesus.
That St. Paul so regarded it is, of course, proved by I Cor.
xi. 26 : " For so often as ye eat this bread and drink the
cup, ye show forth the Lord s death." It is, however, just
possible, though not, I think, probable, that this was not
part of the general Corinthian faith, but that St. Paul was
reminding them of a point which they had overlooked. It
would, in any case, be an idea which would seem to Gentile
minds quite natural, and precisely similar to one of the
most frequent forms of sacrificial meal. This was the sacri
ficial meal instituted by the testament (StaOnKn ; cf. Mark
xiv. 24) of some rich and pious person who left instructions
that a meal should be held in his memory in the temple of
one of the gods. These meals were thus commemorative of
a dead person ; but they were also sacraments, by means
of Whlcha union witH Divine life wa^ accomplished. 2

1 -|The question is raised by this expression whether the common phrase in
^.ctsj \ K&a&lt;m rov &prov$ refers to the Eucharist. Personally, I incline to think
that it does, but the question is scarceTy within the limits of the present work.

2 jf!f. the long Est of quotations in Leitzmann s Commentary, pp. 160-164,
of r wrfifch the rriosij important ar eVtIG. ii. 2448; CIL. xiii. 5708; CIL. vi.
10,234; CIL. JOT. 2112.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 215

The importance of these points is considerable. It is
impossible to pretend to ignore the fact that much of the
controversy between Catholic and Protestant theologians
has found its centre in the doctrine of the Eucharist, and
the latter have appealed to primitive Christianity to support
their views. From their point of view the appeal fails : the
Catholic doctrine is much more nearly primitive than the
Protestant. But the Catholic advocate in winning his case
has proved still more : the type of doctrine which he de
fends is not only primitive, but pre-Christian. Or, to put
the matter in the terms of another controversy, Christianity
has not borrowed from the Mystery Religions, because it
was always, at least in Europe, a Mystery Religion itself.

(3) THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

It is clear from I Cor. xv. that there was a party at
Corinth which denied that there would ever be a resurrec
tion of the dead. It is also plain that there was nevertheless
no dispute as to the resurrection of Christ, for the whole
argument of St. Paul is based on the fact that there was a
general consent on that subject. It has sometimes been
thought that this implies that the Corinthians had no hope
of any future life beyond death. But this view is an un
justifiable conclusion from I Cor. xv. 17-19. St. Paul is
here arguing that there must be a resurrection, because a
future life is impossible without one, and that the hope of
the Christian to share in the life of Christ necessitates that
he should rise from the dead just as Christ did. Moreover,
the idea that there was no future life is as wholly foreign
to the point of view of the "Mystery Religions" of the
Corinthian world, as it was to that of Jewish theology.

216 CORINTH

The question was not whether there would be a future
life, but whether a future life must be attained by means
of a resurrection, and St. Paul s argument is that in the
first place the past resurrection of Christ is positive evidence
for the future resurrection of Christians, and in the second
place that the conception of a resurrection is central and
essential in Christianity, which offers no hope of a future
life for the dead apart from a resurrection.

As was said in connection with the similar question in
Thessalonica, the situation is only intelligible if we take
into consideration the general views associated with the
Mystery Religions. These religions all made the same offer
life through death, given by mysteries which secured
association with a divine saviour, who had himself also
passed through death. But even though some of these
mysteries notably those connected with Attis and Osiris
spoke of an actual resurrection of the dead god, they
rarely seem to have conceived the idea of a general resurrec
tion of the dead on the lines of Jewish belief. 1 The point
of difference is this : the Greek expected that after death
the spirit, which was divine, at all events after initiation into

1 The only Mystery Religion which had quite certainly anything of this
nature was Mithraism. In this there was, alongside of the more typical teaching
of the journey of the soul through the heavens, the doctrine of a resurrection of
the dead, at the return of Mithra. " Mithra," says M. Cumont (Les Mysttres
de Mithra, p. 121 ), " will redescend and raise up mankind. They will all come
forth from their tombs, resume their former appearance, and recognize each other.
The entire race will be reunited in a great assembly, and the god of truth will
separate the good from the bad. Then, as a last sacrifice, he will slay the
divine bull, will mix its flesh with the consecrated wine, and offer to the just
this miraculous beverage, which will give them immortality." But it is not
probable that Mithraism was widely spread in Corinth in the first century.
The rise of Mithraism was contemporaneous with that of Christianity, and both
owed their success greatly to the fact that they stood out from the other Mystery
Religions by their ethical character.

THE GREEK AND JEWISH TEACHING 217

the mysteries, was set free from the trammels of the flesh,
which it left behind. The flesh remained in the grave,
and was gradually dissolved into the elements of which it
had been composed : the spirit went through the heavens
armed with the secret knowledge (yvGxns) which enabled
it to pass the various doors and their guardians, and as it
went it left behind at each stage something more of the
things which limit or defile. For it is not only the flesh
which is bondage : the intellect, the emotions, the desires,
all belong to the lower spheres of being, and each is cast
aside as the realm to which it belongs is passed through. 1

The Jewish doctrine, on the other hand, found its centre
in the idea of a resurrection. It did not always postulate a
permanent resurrection of the flesh as such, but a resurrec
tion which was preliminary to a change from flesh into
spirit. 2 On the other hand, there were some Jewish schools
which looked for a resurrection of the flesh, and its immor
tality as such in the kingdom of God. So, for instance, the
writer of the fourth book of the Sibyllines says

aXX orav ?}S&gt;; iravra Te&lt;ppr] CTTroSoErro-a yivijrai
KOI TTup KOifj.i]frri 0oc Offirerdv waTTtjO avfji//Ei&gt;,

&gt;/ \ ^ v * \ O * * \ "^

oarta KCU (TTrocir]v avrog aeoc E/miraAiv avcpiov
/uop^riVet, ari/aa Se fipoTovg iraXiv, we Trapoq ? )&lt;rav.
Kcti TOTE // K/oierte t cnTEr , y &IKCHTEI Otog O.VTUQ

KplV(t)V (jUTTa\t KOfTfJlOV . . .

c evmptovfft, iraXiv Zfitrovr Iwl

1 Cf. Bousset, " Die Himmelsreise der vSeele," in the Archiv fur Religions-
wissenschaft, iv. (1901), pp. 136-169 and 229-273. This is a most learned
article, and its study is essential to any thorough appreciation of this question.

Cf. \heApocalypse of Baruch, chaps, xlix.-li. Baruch does not actually say
that the dead will become spirits, but he says that they will be transformed
into the splendour of the angels ; and the angels were certainly not flesh.

2iS CORINTH

irvtv/bia Otov SOVTOQ l ^w/yv ci/za KOI X**P LV
tvatfltatv, K.T.A. 2

Thus it is natural that at Corinth there was a division of
opinion among the Christians as to a resurrection of the
dead. It was not that any one questioned the immortality
of the soul, or doubted that Jesus had conquered death. But
there were some who did not think that this implied a
resurrection of the flesh, and did not believe that the flesh
could become incorruptible or immortal ; on the other hand,
those who had been more closely in contact with Jewish
Apocalyptic teaching regarded a resurrection as a necessary
part of the coming of the Kingdom.

It is easy to see St. Paul thinking first of one party and
then of the other as he writes I Cor. xv. On the main
issue he agrees with the Jewish point, insists on the
parallelism between Christ and the Christian, and combats
the objection as to a resurrection of the flesh by arguing
that a " body " may be of " spirit." Then he turns round
and recognizes the element of truth in the Greek position.
"I admit," he says (&lt;j&gt;nni), "that flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God," and proceeds to adopt the
doctrine of a change of substance at the moment of resur
rection. If we may freely paraphrase his words, what he
says is : " The Jewish party is right in thinking that those
who die before the coming of the kingdom do not pass
individually and separately into heaven. They will sleep
until the resurrection, and then this is the Christian
mystery they will be raised up as spiritual bodies. On
the other hand, the Greek party is right in thinking that

1 I think that this means breath, or spirit, but is hardly equal to a change
into a spiritual nature.
8 Or. Sib., iv. 179-190.

ST. PAUL S OPPONENTS 219

there is no resurrection of the body as flesh : flesh and
blood have no part in the kingdom of God ; it is right in
thinking that our flesh belongs to the corruptible world,
and cannot pass into the world of eternity and incorrupti
bility. Nevertheless, the Greeks do not understand the true
nature of the Christian mystery ; it is not, like the heathen
mysteries, a promise of a passage into an eternal but incor
poreal life ; it is the promise of a change of substance which
will affect both living and dead, when the Parousia comes,
so that our bodies, instead of consisting of corruptible flesh
and blood, will become spiritual, and consist of the same
substance as do God and His attendants." It will be noted
that the question of the period after death and before resur
rection does not seem to have been discussed. This was,
no doubt, due to the immediate expectation of the Parousia.

(4) THE OPPOSITION TO ST. PAUL.

Since the modern investigations of early Christian
history were taken in hand, there have been two main
lines of opinion as to the nature of the opposition to St.
Paul in Corinth. According to one view it was a new
manifestation of the Judaizing propaganda, which had
its centre in Jerusalem and was controverted in the
Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans. Accord
ing to the other it was inspired by a desire to go still
further than St. Paul in the direction of freedom from
the Law, and to lay even greater stress on the spiritual
nature of Christianity. Each of these opinions rests on the
prima facie obvious meaning of one or two passages, and
the real difficulty is that, whichever view be taken, either
an exegesis has to be adopted for some passages which is

220 CORINTH

not the most natural, or a position of affairs has to be sup
posed to exist for which no direct evidence can otherwise
be adduced.

In favour of the view that St. Paul s opponents were
Judaizers, are, in the main, two references in 2 Corinthians,
with each of which various less important references may
be grouped.

(a) In 2 Cor. xi. 5, and again in 2 Cor. xii. 1 1, St. Paul
refers to his opponents as the " ultra apostles " (ol virepMav
aTTooroAot). The most natural interpretation is that this
refers to the leaders of the Church at Jerusalem, to the
" Twelve " in particular, and that it ought to be especially
connected with the mention of a Cephas party in I Cor. i. 12.
With these may be grouped the reference in I Cor. ix. 4 ff.
to Cephas and to the " brothers of the Lord." " Have we
not a right to eat and to drink ? Have we not a right to
take about a Christian wife, as do the other Apostles and the
brothers of the Lord and Cephas ? " The exegesis of this
passage is doubtful, but it is at least certain that the general
meaning is that St. Paul did not do the same as the other
Apostles, and that from this fact the conclusion had been
drawn that he had not the same rights as they had. It
cannot be denied that the mention of Cephas and still more
of the brothers of the Lord is prima facie evidence for a
Judaizing movement of the Jerusalem type.

(|3) In 2 Cor. xi. 22, St. Paul says, "Are they Hebrews ?
So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am I. Are they the
seed of Abraham ? So am I." This undoubtedly proves
that at least some of his opponents were Jews, and there is
a prima facie probability that Jews may have belonged to
the Judaizing school of Jerusalem. With this passage may
be grouped 2 Cor. xi. 14 ff., " Even Satan fashioneth himself

ST. PAULS OPPONENTS 22 i

into an angel of light. It is no great thing, therefore, if his
ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteous
ness." It is considered that Stoicovoc ciKaioauvriQ is the
claim made by Judaizers, and is, as it were, the other side
of the accusation which they brought against St. Paul, that
he reduced Christ to the position of a SIOKOVOQ a/napriai;
(Gal. ii. 17). But this is not really a very strong argument,
for St. Paul would certainly have claimed that he was in
actual fact a minister of righteousness. His point is that
the appearance of being ministers of righteousness, which
his opponents, in common with all other Christians, pre
sented to their hearers, was delusive and due to the deceits
of Satan, rather than to the grace of God. 1 His statement
is probably no guide as to the nature of the opposition to
his teaching. Much the same can be said of 2 Cor. xi. 4, in
which St. Paul refers to " another Jesus," " another spirit,"
and " another gospel " in connection with his opponents.
It is of course natural to compare this with Gal. i. 6, in
which he says, " I marvel that you are so quickly perverted
... to another gospel " ; but, entirely apart from the
extreme difficulty of the exegesis 2 of both passages, the most

1 It is interesting to note that this opinion is characteristic of Early Christi
anity, and is found in many forms. For instance, the explanation given in
I John of false prophets, is not that they are swindlers or charlatans, but that
they are inspired by the wrong sort of spirit. So also says Hermas. Similarly,
the Apologists explain the resemblances between Christian and heathen
cultus and theology to the imitations of the daemons (who are identical with the
gods of the heathens), intending to present misleading and false fulfilments of
the prophecies of the Old Testament. (Cf. especially Justin Martyr s Apology t
and Tatian s Oratio ad Graecos.) The doctrine that the daemons were the
source of many mythological stories is not in itself specifically Christian ; it is,
for instance, found in Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, p. 360^). But in Justin
Martyr, Tatian, Tertullian, and other Christian writers the view taken was in
so far somewhat different in that all the gods of the Gentiles were identified
with daemons, and these again with fallen angels.

2 A full discussion of these passages is here impossible ; but I incline to

222 CORINTH

that really follows is that both in Corinth and in Galatia,
St. Paul regarded the teaching of his opponents as different
from his own ; it is wholly uncertain whether the difference
was in each case in the same direction.

Such is the main case for the view that St. Paul s
opponents were Judaizers : it may be and often has been
expanded at great length, 1 but it has not gained in
strength in the process. Similarly, the great objection to it
can be stated in one sentence, there is from the beginning
to the end of the Epistles to the Corinthians not the faintest
trace of any controversy as to that insistence on circum
cision and on the Law, which we recognize as cardinal in
those to the Galatians and Romans. One asks whether, in
face of this silence, there is no other preferable exegesis of
the passages which seem to point to Judaizing, and there is
every reason for giving consideration to the other view, which
does not identify St. Paul s opponents with Judaizers.

According to this view, the opponents of St. Paul were
an antinomian and libertine type, who laid great emphasis
on the " Spirit " which they had received, and regarded
themselves as irvtv/uaTiKoi, raised in consequence of their gift

the view that, as a matter of fact, there is a real difference between 2 Cor. xi. 4
and Gal. i. 6. In the latter St. Paul seems to say that there really is a difference
between his gospel and that of his opponents. In the former he seems to be
arguing that his opponents can make no real claim to superiority, because, as
a matter of fact, they do not preach a different Jesus, or spirit, or gospel. But I
should be sorry to build anything on this view, or indeed on any other inter
pretation of these passages.

1 The classical statements are F. C. Baur, " Die Christuspartei in der Korinth-
ischen Gemeinde," in the Tubingen Zeitschriff, 1831, part 4, pp. 61 ff. Also in
his Paulus, 1845, pp. 260 ff. ; C. Holsten, Evangelium des Paulus, 1880, pp.
196 ff. ; and C. Weizsacker, Apostolische Zeitalfer(2T\& edition), pp. 299-311. It
is also adopted in the main in the commentaries of A. Klopper and G. Heinrici.
I do not know of any outstanding work in English which defends this position
at length, though it is adopted without much discussion by several writers.

ST. PAUL S OPPONENTS 223

above the weakness of other men. The main evidence for
this view is to be found in the references contained in
2 Cor. x.-xiii. 1 The most important of these is at the very
beginning (2 Cor. x. 2), where St. Paul speaks of those who
" regard us as walking according to the flesh." The impli
cation is clear that his opponents regarded themselves as
walking according to the Spirit, as Trvev^ariKoi. In com
plete agreement with this are traces which we can recover
of the reasons for which they impugned St. Paul s aposto-
late and maintained their own superiority. These reasons
seem to have been four, (a) He did not work sufficient
miracles : this is implied in 2 Cor. xii. 1 1 ff., " For in nothing
was I inferior to the ultra-apostles, even if I am of no
importance. The signs of an Apostle were wrought among
you in all patience, by signs, and marvels, and miracles."
(/3) He did not enjoy the same visions and revelations :
this is implied by the whole section on visions (2 Cor. xii.
i-io). It is here not plain whether St. Paul means himself
or some one else, by the man who was " taken up into the
third heaven," but it is certain that he is defending himself
against those who lay great stress on visions, and claim a
superiority to him on this point. (7) He did not take the
proper position of an Apostle, and live at the expense of the
community : this accusation is clearly the background of
the section 2 Cor. xi. 7-11, in which St. Paul defends his
practice of taking nothing from the Corinthians. (S) From
2 Cor. x. 3-18 a we have to conclude that contempt was

1 The value of this evidence is of course increased if, as has been argued
above (p. 157), 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is part of the "severe letter" ; but it remains of
only slightly less importance if it is St. Paul s attack on a still rebellious
minority.

2 The text of x. IO is rather important : should we read iprja-t or tpaffl ? If
the former, there is a clear reference to some individual opponent. The

224 CORINTH

cast on St. Paul s personal appearance. It must not be
thought that this was merely vulgar abuse : the point was
that it was argued that St. Paul had not got the impressive
powers which resulted from the gift of the Spirit. 1

The view that St. Paul s opponents were Trv^v/mariKoi, who
regarded him as walking according to the flesh, may
probably be supported by the difficult passage 2 Cor. v. 16.
St. Paul says, " Even if we have known Christ according to
the flesh, yet now know we Him so no more." In this part
of 2 Corinthians he is, it is true, not attacking his oppo
nents, but rather acknowledging the correctness of the
action of the community, and urging his own friends not to
ask for more ; but the influence of the controversy can still
be traced, and the most natural exegesis is that St. Paul is
referring to some accusation of having only a knowledge of
Christ according the flesh. He admits that there was a time
when this was true, but says that that time is now past :
he is, in the best and truest sense of the word, a Tri-eujuem/coe
quite as much as his late opponents. If this exegesis be
right, it supports the view that St. Paul s opponents were
TTViv/nariKoi, and it certainly seems to be the most simple and
natural interpretation. 2

evidence is not decisive : &lt;p-r}ffl is found in NDEFGLKP d e boh. aeth.PP ;

in B f g, Vulg. Syrr. Personally, I am more impressed by the combination

ND boh.

1 In this connection the meaning of "delivering to Satan" (i Cor. v. 5)
is interesting. A full discussion of the point is outside the scope of the present
book, but it certainly means something concrete and realistic, and by no means
merely the reading of a sentence of excommunication.

" On the theory that the opponents were Judaizers, it is suggested that the
passage means that they had urged that St. Paul had once held the same
opinions as themselves. I cannot regard this as at all probable. St. Paul clearly
admits that the accusation which he defines as knowing Christ according to
the flesh was once true. Now, he had once been an anti-Christian Jew, but
when had he ever been a Judaizing Christian? The passage seems to me quite

ST. PAUL S OPPONENTS 225

The general result of a consideration of these passages,
if they stood alone, would be sufficient to show that St.
Paul s opponents were Tri/ciymrtKoi rather than Judaizers. 1
But unfortunately they do not stand alone, and they have to
be considered in connection with the passages previously
discussed, which seem to point to Judaizers.

Certainty is probably not to be reached, but various
lines which the discussion must always follow can be in
dicated. It is quite clear, for instance, that the passages
pointing to Judaizing derive their force not from direct
statements, but from the conclusions drawn (i) from the fact
that St. Paul s opponents were Jews, (2) from the fact that
they claimed a superior apostolate. Neither of these facts
is the equivalent of a statement that they were Judaizers,
and on the other hand have to be set what amount to direct
statements that they were TTVEVUCLTIKOL. The problem is, Can
there have been Jews who claimed to be -jrvtvpariKoi, and to
be, as apostles, superior to St. Paul, who were nevertheless
not Judaizers ? or, in the alternative, Can there have been
Judaizers who were irvtvfj.aTiKoi, but did not preach either
the circumcision or the Law ?

To some extent u he matter depends on the definition of
terms. What, in the first place, do we mean by a Judaizer?

unintelligible, except on the hypothesis that St. Paul is dealing with an accusa
tion that he lacked something which his opponents possessed. This is easy to
understand if these opponents were vi&gt;tvfj.ariKol t not if they are Judaizers. The
question as to when St. Paul knew Christ according to the flesh remains.
Personally, I think he means before the Conversion, but the point is not of
crucial importance for the present purpose. See J. Weis, Paulus und Jesus,
pp. 24-26.

1 Long and more or less partisan treatments of the problem from this point
of view may be found in Schenkel, D&lt;: cedes ia Corinthia primaeva factionibus
turbata, Bale, 1838, in Godet s Commentary, and far the best statement in
\V. Lutgcrt s Freiheitspredigt und Schwarmgeister in Korinth, though the identi
fication of the wrei/juariKoi with the Christ party is very doubtful.

226 CORINTH

The classical definition is given us by St. Luke in Acts
xv. i: "And some who came down from Judaea began
to teach the brethren that unless you are circumcized
according to the custom of Moses you cannot be saved. " *
Galatians and Romans are clearly an answer to such a
propaganda. 2 But do we find that type of Judaizing else
where ? I see no evidence for it. 3 If therefore we use
"Judaizing" to mean the same tendency as that combated
in Galatians and Romans, we have to admit that it is not
an appropriate name for the opponents of St. Paul in
Corinth, and are driven to seek some other explanation for
the facts that these opponents were Jews, and that they
claimed a superior apostolate.

With regard to the fact that they were Jews, it is neces
sary to disabuse ourselves of the idea that all Jews in the
time of St. Paul quite apart from Christianity were in
agreement with the strictly legalistic point of view of
Jerusalem. There is a far too general tendency to forget
that the Talmudic literature is in some respects not only
no help, but positively a hindrance to the correct under
standing of Judaism in the first century, because it repre
sents the one-sided survival of a single element in that
Judaism to the exclusion of others. In this respect the
New Testament is a superior authority to the Talmud,
though its evidence is no doubt often warped by partizan
feelings. Philo is in some ways the best source which we

1 Cf. also Acts xv. 5.

8 As is shown later (sec pp. 300 ff. and 361 ff.), it is possible that both these
Epistles may originally belong to the period before the Council ; but in any case
the longer recension of Romans does not do so, and shows that a truly Judaiz
ing spirit existed in Rome, contemporaneously, or almost so, with 2 Corinthians.

3 Probably the K.O.TO.TO^ in Philippians refers to Jews, not to Judaizing
Christians.

DIFFERENCES OF THOUGHT AMONG JEWS 227

possess, and is certainly so for the Diaspora with which
we are at present concerned. Now, as was said on pp. 24 f.,
the evidence of Philo is explicit that there were Jews who
had entirely abandoned the practical observance of the
Law, and gave it a wholly symbolical meaning. They
were to an even greater extent than Philo himself imbued
with a Greek spirit, and consciously or unconsciously they
were syncretistic. We have, so far as I am aware, no
evidence that there were Jews of this type in Corinth ; but
since they existed in Alexandria, it is more probable than
not that they were also found in Greece. If so, we have an
easy solution to the problem afforded by the existence of
opponents of St. Paul, who were Jews, but Tri/eujuart/cot, not
Judaizers. We have to deal, in fact, in Corinthians and
Galatians, with two streams of development in Judaism,
both of which were attracted by Christianity, but both pre
served after their conversion their own peculiarities. In
Galatians we have the stream of strict legalism, which had
its centre in Jerusalem : it regarded St. Paul as a dangerous
innovator, who was introducing into Christianity one of the
unhappy heresies from which the Diaspora suffered. In
Corinthians we have the stream of antinomism, which pos
sibly had its centre in Alexandria, and certainly was a
peculiarity of the Diaspora ; it regarded St. Paul as an
inconsistent weakling, imperfectly influenced by the Spirit,
and not yet completely loose from the legal bondage of
Jerusalem. That this hypothesis is probable can be seen
most clearly if we compare Corinthians and Galatians with
regard to the mutual attitude of St. Paul and his opponents.
In Galatians he appeals to his converts "after beginning
in the Spirit not to end in the flesh." Thus he makes by
implication the accusation that his Judaizing opponents

228 CORINTH

were " walking according to the flesh " ; but in 2 Corin
thians it is his opponents who make this accusation against
him the situation is reversed. In Galatians he defends
the right of teachers to be supported by the community ;
but in Corinthians he was apparently himself attacked for
not exercising this right. 1 In Galatians the contrasts are
the Law and Christ, Works and Faith, Merit and Grace ; in
Corinthians they are Power and Weakness, Self-confidence
and Modesty, Pride and Humility, Wisdom and Ignorance,
Spirit and Flesh. Nothing could be plainer than that the
situations in the two Epistles are quite different.

So far, however, nothing has been said of the question
of the apostolate. If the " ultra-apostles " were not the
leaders of the Jerusalem Churches, who were they? At
first sight this seems an insurmountable difficulty, but I
believe that it is largely unreal, and due partly to the influ
ence of comparatively early changes in the meaning of the
word " apostle," such as only recent discoveries enable us
to appreciate, partly to the influence of the incorrect views
of early history, which were brought into currency in the
nineteenth century.

What was an " apostle " in the early Church ? He was
a missionary. The Twelve were Apostles because they had
been given a mission among the villages of Galilee by
Jesus ; they were the Apostles par excellence. But they
were not the only Apostles : St. Paul was an Apostle, St.
Barnabas was an Apostle, and the evidence of the DidacJie
is conclusive that at the beginning of the second century
" apostle " was not the name of a small and select body of

1 The contrast between Galatians and Corinthians is admirably worked
out, at considerable length, by Liitgert, Frdheitspredigt und Schivarmgeister
in Korinth, pp. 70, 73. He also gives a long discussion of all the various
attempts which have been made to explain the contrast.

APOSTLES

229

men, but of all those who were fulfilling certain definite
functions. A probably mistaken exegesis of i Cor. ix. I
has done something to obscure this question. In the con
text of this passage St. Paul has been discussing the ques
tion of things offered to idols, and has said that he would
rather never eat meat again than give offence to weaker
brethren ; he then goes on, " Am I not free ? am I not
an Apostle ? have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? are
not ye my work in the Lord ? If I am no Apostle for
others, at least I am to you, for ye are in the Lord my
seal of fellowship." It is customary to regard this passage
as the answer to an attack on St. Paul s apostolate : in
directly it may be so, for the troubles in Corinth broke
out soon afterwards ; but directly and principally it has
to do with the question of things offered to idols. It is
a mistake to think that all the qualifications mentioned in
ix. i ff. are intended to prove that he was an Apostle. The
main point is the argument that he, in spite of his privileges,
prefers not to use them lest he should give offence, and that
the Corinthians ought in the same way to consider the
feelings of others in relation to things offered to idols. It
is only incidentally that he puts in a parenthesis defending
his apostolate. If this be so, the three clauses, " Am I not
free? am I not an Apostle ? have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? "
are three separate claims to distinction, and it is an exagge
ration to say that St. Paul only regarded as " apostles "
those who had seen Jesus. If this had been the meaning
of " apostle," there could have been no apostles in the second
century, and very few at the end of the first. 1 Yet, as a

1 One can form some idea of the real nature of the facts if we ask how many
of those who took part in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832 survived to
1890-1900.

230 CORINTH

matter of fact, apostles were sufficiently numerous for it to
.be necessary for the Didache to make rules for their recep
tion, and for distinguishing between true and false. 1

A consideration of this fact shows that the existence of
" apostles " among St. Paul s opponents, is not the proof
that they were Judaizers. Of course the expression,
" ultra-apostles " (ol virtpXtav aTro oroAot), undoubtedly
suggests to our minds the original Apostles, whose followers
might have been supposed to emphasize their superior
claims. Yet it need not be so ; there is nothing in the
Epistles to the Corinthians to show that the question of
" originality " was discussed, and therefore I do not believe
that, in the face of the other facts, we have any right to
assume that the "ultra-apostles" were the Jerusalem
Apostles, or that the party which appealed to them was that
of Cephas. They were probably merely those who advanced
arrogant claims on the ground of their apostleship.

A final and decisively certain result is probably unattain
able. I have tried to show why it seems to me probable
that St Paul s opponents were TrvtvpariKoi, and not
Judaizers. I hope I have also adequately drawn attention to
the points in favour of the view which I reject, though it is
notoriously impossible to be really quite sympathetically
fair to opinions which one does not hold. So far, however, I
have chiefly discussed the evidence of 2 Corinthians, which
in any case belongs to the time when the differences
between St. Paul and his opponents had developed and
been made plain, and is therefore the proper basis of any

1 Has Se a.Tr6&lt;TTO\os epxo^uevos irpbs vfj.as 8e;#TJTco us Kvptos ov [j.ei&gt;ei 8^ ej [ify
ft/j-fpav /J-iav tav Se T? XP e la Ka ^ T ? J/ tf^Arji Tpets Se eats pe ivy \j/evSoirpo&lt;p-f)rris
tffriv epx6/j.eyos Sf & dirocTToAos fj.r)5fi&gt; \a.[jL$a.veTia tl /ijj/ &prov, eus ov av^tffdy
tar 8e apyvpiov alrp fyfvf&gt;oirpo&lt;pr)Ti)s tori. Did., xi. 4-6.

THE BEGINNINGS OF OPPOSITION 231

investigation. It now remains to ask how far the undeveloped
form of this opposition can be traced in I Corinthians.

The main point is the relation of the opponents of St.
Paul to the persons aimed at in i Cor. i.-iv. It would be
outside the present purpose to discuss the light which these
extraordinarily important chapters throw on St. Paul s own
teaching l ; but it is clear that he is protesting against an un
due desire for "wisdom," that he maintains that his converts
are showing by their quarrels that they are not truly spiritual
(irvfvfjiaTiKoi), and that it is for this reason that he has been
unable to give them the " wisdom " which they desire, or to
regard them as they do themselves as "spiritual." If it
be conceded that the opponents of St. Paul were Trvcu/mriKot ,
it is impossible not to think that they were identical with
the persons to whom he refers in the opening chapters of
I Corinthians. But, if one goes further, and asks if this
enables us to identify these persons with the parties of
Apollos, or Cephas, or Christ (if there was such a party), the
answer must be indeterminate. Everything is possible.
Apollos may have been incautiously inclined to philo
sophize, or he may have belonged to the extreme alle
gorizing sect of Alexandrian Jews, or the Christ party may
have consisted of those who claimed that they were inspired
by the Spirit of Christ, and that nothing else mattered. But
there is no proof, and there can never be anything, because
there is no evidence. More or less imaginative sketches
can be found in almost all the books cited on pp. 222 and 225.
Personally, I do not see how it can ever be possible to say
more than that the general tone of i Cor. i.-iv., coupled with
the Alexandrian history of Apollos, makes the party of

1 Let me, however, draw attention to the very valuable contribution of Prof.
Rtitzenstein, in his Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligioncn.

232 CORINTH

Apollos not improbable as a " spiritual " party, but that, if
2 Cor. x. 7 be regarded as a reference to a " Christ party,"
then it is more probable that it was this party which
was dealt with in I Cor. i.-iv., and that from it the hostility
to St. Paul was chiefly developed.

Much the same can be said of the parties revealed by
the considerations of the questions discussed in the later
chapters of I Corinthians, and especially by the points
dealt with on pp. 175 ff. Clearly there was a party in Corinth
which pressed the importance of the Spirit in connection
with sacrificial meals, the Eucharist, and the regulation of
worship; and St. Paul, in dealing with these questions, had
leaned decidedly more to the side of their opponents. This
would be an adequate explanation of the rise of really
serious opposition to his authority, such as is indicated in
2 Corinthians.

On the whole, therefore, I Corinthians not only does
nothing to impugn the conclusion reached from 2 Corin
thians, that St. Paul s opponents were 7ri&gt;ujuemicoi, but it
definitely supports it, by the proof which it gives that there
were TrvcvfiaTiKol in Corinth, and that St. Paul had treated the
differences of opinion between them and the rest of the
community in a manner which was extremely likely to
rouse opposition.

******

The consideration of the Epistles to the Corinthians has
led us to a mass of small but mutually related problems, many
of them excessively dull to all except those who find that
literary criticism offers the same kind of interest as a game
of chess. But, if we view the mass of details from a little
distance, we can trace the general appearance of the
Christian community at Corinth, and the picture thus

COXCLUSIOX 233

presented is of the greatest importance, for there is in the
first century no presentment of any other Church on the
same scale.

The majority of the Church was no doubt drawn from
the God-fearers, though there were some Jews, probably
belonging to the "liberal" type, which then existed in the
Diaspora. But the main feature was that they all accepted
Christianity as a Mystery Religion, which really could do
what the other Mystery Religions pretended to do. Jesus
was to the Corinthians the Redeemer-God, who had passed
through death to life, and offered participation in this new
life to those who shared in the mysteries which He offered.
These mysteries were Baptism and the Eucharist, and there
was unanimity in Corinth as to their central importance. 1

But differences began to be manifested so soon as prac
tical conclusions were drawn from this belief. The mysteries
gave eternal life because in them the Spirit was received :
,but were those who manifested the more striking gifts of
the Spirit necessarily better than other Christians? Here
there was a difference of opinion. Or again, did this
inspiration abolish the distinction, and put women on an
equality with men in the Church ? Here, again, was differ
ence. Or once more, was the Christian bound to a strict
abstinence from all that is carnal, because he had become

1 Otherwise St. Paul would not have been able to use them as the founda
tion of his arguments as he does in I Cor. x. (cf. Rom. vi.). It is impossible to
over-estimate the importance of realizing that, if we want to discover the central
points of early Christian doctrine, we must look not at those to which St. Paul
devotes pages of argument, but at those which he treats as the premises
accepted equally by all Christians. It is from neglecting this principle and
constructing a " Paulinismus " exclusively on the basis of the long controversial
passages in the Epistles, that critics have found themselves faced by the fact that
they can find no other traces of this" Pauline Christianity" in the early Church.
The fact that they cannot do so is really the reductio ad absurJnm of their
reconstructive arguments.

234 CORINTH

spiritual ? or was he set free to do as he liked with his body ?
Asceticism or Libertinism : which was it to be ? And from
this Maelstrom of cross-currents of opinion arose the quarrel
between St. Paul and those Trveu^em/cot who pushed their
arguments to an extreme, and drew wrong conclusions from
the gift of the Spirit.

So much we can see : those are the main features of the
picture. If we look again we can note the absence of other
things which we should have expected. There is no trace of
any Judaistic controversy as to Circumcision or the Law,
no trace of any question as to " Israel after the flesh," and
no trace of any controversy as to the meaning of the death
of the Messiah. The last point seems the strangest ; but
it is really natural enough. The death of the Redeemer
was as common an idea among the Greeks as the death of
the Messiah was strange among the Jews. That St. Paul
preached " Christ crucified " is certain. No doubt many
Greeks regarded it as foolishness, because they did not
believe that Jesus was a Redeemer-God, or because they
allegorized all similar stories, and found no reason to believe
in an historical Redeemer. But for those Greeks who did
accept Christianity the redeeming death of the Divine Being
seemed natural, and, so far as these Epistles show, there was
as yet no discussion in Corinth as to the reason why this
death had been necessary, or how it came to be efficient.

LITERATURE. Much information will be round in commentaries on the
Epistles to the Corinthians. Of these there is nothing in English to be com
pared with the commentaries of Lietzmann in the third volume of Lietzmann s
Handbuch zum neuen Testament ; J. Weiss s Der erste Korintherbrief is. Meyer s
Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar iiber das Neue Testament, gth edition ; P. W.
Schmiedel in Holtzmann s Hand-commentar zum neuen Testament ; G. Heinrici
(on the Second Epistle) in Meyer s 8th edition ; and W. Bousset in
J. Weiss s Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments. Besides these there are
important articles in the Encyciopcedia Biblica by W. Sanday, and in Hastings

CONCLUSION 235

Dictionary of the Bible by A. Robertson. Both these articles ought to be
studied as representing the strongest presentment of the case against the
division of 2 Corinthians into two letters, and with them should be read
A. Menzies commentary on 2 Corinthians. On the other side the most
thorough book in any language is J. H. Kennedy s The Second and Third
Epistles to the Corinthians. On special points the following books are import
ant : H. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach derpopuldren Anschau-
ung der apostolischen Zeit, und der Lehre des Apostels Paidus ; W. Heitmiiller,
Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus ; M. Goguel, L Eucharistie (gives a valuable
account of recent work, as well as new suggestions) ; R. Reitzenstein, Die
hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen ; W. Lutgert, Prtiheitsfredigt und Schwann-
geister in Korintfi.

APPENDIX I

THE APOCRYPHAL CORRESPONDENCE
OF ST. PAUL WITH THE CORINTHIANS

IN the Armenian canon there was a correspondence
between St. Paul and the Corinthians, of which many
MSS. are extant, and the quotations of Aphraates and
Ephraim show that this was derived from the Old Syriac,
which was the basis of the Armenian text. The same
correspondence was found by Berger in Milan (1891) and
Bratke in Laon (1892) in two Vulgate Latin MSS. Finally,
C. Schmidt discovered the same correspondence in the
Coptic version of the Acta Pauli, and showed that an acute
suggestion of Zahn was correct, that the correspondence
was originally an extract from this ancient apocryph, which
probably was written in Asia late in the second century
(see Tertullian, De Baptismo, 17).

It would be beyond the province of the present book to
discuss the importance of this document. It is plain that
its presence in the Syriac canon (from which the Armenian
cannot be separated), and in two local texts in Latin,
points to the time when the Corpus Paulinum was not
yet completely closed. Moreover, the bearing of the
correspondence on the controversy with second century
Gnosticism is very clear : it is in this respect an excellent
example of the way in which in apocryphal books there was

236

THE APOCRYPHAL LETTER TO ST. PAUL 237

no half-hearted tendency to make Apostles contribute to
contemporary polemics.

The translation below is based on Harnack s reconstruc
tion of the text in H. Lietzmann s Kleine Texte, 12, in which
is given a critical apparatus of the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian,
and Latin, together with the text of Berger s Latin MS.
Recent literature of importance is C. Schmidt, Acta Pauli
(1905), and Harnack, Untersuchungen uber den apokryphcn
Brief wechsel der KorintJier mit dem Apostel Pauhis. A full
account of earlier books is given by Zahn, Geschichte des
Neutest. Kanons, ii. 2, pp. 592 fif.

THE EPISTLE OF THE CORINTHIANS TO PAUL.

Stephanus and the elders who are with him, Daphnus
and Euboulos and Theophilos and Xenon to Paul, greeting
in the Lord.

There have come to Corinth two men, Simon and
Cleobios, who are turning aside the faith of some by harm
ful words, which do thou test, for we have never heard such
things either from thee or from the other Apostles, but we
hold fast to that which we received from thee and the rest. As
then the Lord had mercy on us, come to us, that while thou
art still in the flesh we may again hear these things from
thee ; for we believe, as it was revealed to Theonoes, that
the Lord has saved thee from the hand of the lawless.
Now what they say and teach is this : it is not, they say,
necessary to use the prophets, that God is not Almighty,
that there is no resurrection of the flesh, that man is not
the creation of God, that Christ has not come in the flesh,
and was not born of Mary, and that the world belongs not
to God but to angels. Therefore, brother, make all haste

238 CORINTH

to come to us, that the Church of the Corinthians be not
made to stumble, and that the folly of those men be brought
to nought. Farewell in the Lord.

THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ to the brethren, who are
in Corinth, greeting. In my many troubles I do not wonder
that the teachings of the Evil One make such progress ; but
my Lord, Jesus Christ, will hasten His coming, bringing to
nothing those who corrupt His word. For I delivered to
you in the beginning that which I received from those who
were Apostles before me, who had been all the time in the
company of Jesus Christ, that our Lord Jesus Christ was
born of Mary, of the seed of David, when the Spirit had
been sent from heaven from the Father to her, that He should
come into this world, and set free all flesh through His flesh,
and raise us up in the flesh from the dead, as He had shown
Himself an example for us ; and that man was created by
the Father, for this cause also he was sought when lost, that
he might be made alive by the adoption as a son. For God
Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, first sent the
prophets to the Jews that they might be torn away from
their sins ; for His plan was to save the house of Israel, for
this cause he sent a portion of the Spirit of Christ into the
prophets who announced the true worship at many tiraes.
But the Prince of the world (6 St apx Mvl ) being unrighteous,
because he wished to be God, laid hands on them, and slew
them, and thus bound all flesh of men to his will. But
God Almighty, being righteous, did not wish to reject His
creation, but had pity on it, and sent His Spirit into Mary,

1 The actual Greek is here given in the Coptic.

ST. PAUL S ANSWER 239

in order that the evil one might be shown to be conquered
through the flesh, in which he had boasted. For through
His own body did Jesus Christ save all flesh, making mani
fest the temple of righteousness in His own body, by which
we were saved.

For be well assured that those men are not the sons
of righteousness, but of wrath, who reject the plan of God,
saying that heaven and earth, and that which is in them,
are not the work of God, for they hold the faith of the
accursed serpent. Therefore put them from you and fly
from their teaching. But for those who say there is no
resurrection of the flesh there shall indeed be no resurrection,
for they do not believe that the dead (i,e. the Lord) thus rose.
For they ignore, O Corinthians, the grains of wheat, or of
other food, which are cast bare into the ground and after
they have decayed spring up, having obtained a body
according to the will of God. And He raises up not only
that which was sown but, by His blessing, many times as
much. But if we ought not to make a parable from the
seeds, understand how Jonah the son of Amathai, when he
would not preach to the Ninevites, was swallowed by the
whale ; and after three days and three nights God heard
the prayer of Jonah from the depths of Hades, and nothing
of him was hurt, neither hair nor eyebrows. How much
more will He raise up us who believe on Christ Jesus, as He
also rose ? and if the dead man let down by the children of
Israel on to the bones of the prophet Elisha rose from the
dead in his body, how much more shall you, who are let
down on the body and bones and spirit of Christ, be raised
up in that day, and keep your flesh ?

If then ye receive anything else, let no man trouble me,
for I bear these bonds, that I may gain Christ, and I carry

240 CORINTH

in my body His marks, that I may attain to the Resurrection
of the dead, and whosoever shall walk in the rule, which he
received from the blessed prophets and the holy Gospel,
shall receive a reward : but he who trangresses these, the
fire is for him and for those who thus run, who are genera
tions of vipers, whom do ye reject in the power of the Lord,
and peace shall be with you.

APPENDIX II

GLOSSOLALIA AND PSYCHOLOGY

ON page 204 it is stated that glossolalia is unintelligible
speech. The statement is sufficiently correct, and to
discuss it in the text would have been a needless dis
cursiveness, but the point deserves some further expla
nation.

That glossolalia was in the main unintelligible is clear
from St. Paul s words in I Cor. xiv. : " He that speaketh
in a tongue edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth edifieth
the congregation " (xiv. 4). " He that prophesieth is greater
than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret"
(xiv. 5). " If I pray in a tongue my spirit prayeth, but my
understanding is unfruitful " (xiv. 14). " If all speak with
tongues and there come in men unlearned or unbelieving,
will they not say that ye are mad ? " (xiv. 23). " If any man
speaketh in a tongue ... let one interpret " (xiv. 27). These
passages are meaningless if glossolalia was not a form of
generally unintelligible speech. At the same time, certain
other facts have to be considered which tend to show that in
some cases glossolalia took a different form.

In the first place, the evidence of St. Paul throws a little
further light on the question. It is significant that in
I Cor. xiii. I he further defines "tongues" as "tongues of
men and angels." It is therefore probable that some forms
of glossolalia were regarded as the speech of a spirit,

241 R

242 CORINTH

speaking through a human being, but using angelic, not
human, speech. Moreover, the mention of interpreters in
I Cor. xiv. suggests that some people were able to under
stand the otherwise unintelligible speech of those who used
glossolalia.

Secondly, the narrative of the day of Pentecost in
Acts ii. shows, at the least, that St. Luke was acquainted
with some form of glossolalia which was intelligible, though
not the usual language of the speaker. This narrative
presents several difficulties, but for the present purpose the
points of importance can be shortly presented. Taking the
narrative as it stands, it presents the difficulty that some of
those who heard the Christians speak with tongues thought
that they were drunk, and St. Peter s speech is directed
against this accusation. Others, however, were amazed to
hear them speaking foreign languages. Now, it is quite
certain that intelligible speech in a foreign language showing
forth the wonderful work of God has never been regarded as
the effect of strong drink. Two explanations are possible :
either St. Luke has misunderstood the situation, and has
converted what was originally an ordinary instance of glos
solalia, into speech in a foreign language, or the Apostles
really did use language which, to those who knew it, was in
telligible, but to others appeared to be gibberish the sort of
verdict which St. Paul actually warned the Corinthians that
an outsider would pass on their glossolalia. It is unneces
sary to discuss these possibilities, for even if we take the
view that St. Luke misunderstood the situation, this implies
that he was acquainted with glossolalia which took the form
of speaking a foreign language, otherwise why should he
have misunderstood the original narrative? Thus, what
ever critical view we take of the narrative in Acts it

GLOSSOLALIA 243

has to be admitted that it points to glossolalia in foreign
languages.

The questions now arise: (i) Can we trace anything
similar to this glossolalia in other times ? (2) Can we at all
explain what it is?

Traces of glossolalia in other circles than that of
Apostolic Christianity, though not common, are sufficient
to show that it existed at other times, and to throw some
light on its nature.

A very remarkable light on " the tongues of angels " is
thrown by the Testament of Job. 1 In this (chap, xlvii.)
Job is represented as showing his three daughters a wonder
ful girdle which had been divinely given him. This, he
says, will bring them into " the greater world " (TOV priZova
al&va), to live in the heavens. When his daughters put it
on they each received a new heart, and began to speak in
superhuman language. According to Dr. James text, the
first, called Hemera, spoke the angelic tongue (ayyt Auo/
SiaXeKTq), the second, called Kasia, spoke in the tongue of
"principalities" (apx&v), and the third, Amalthia, spoke in
the tongue of " those on high " (TWV iv U^EI), or, as it is also
called, the tongue of the cherubim.

The magical papyri also go far towards clearing up the
problem. Part of the magic consisted of the use of strange
words which might be equally regarded as magical charms
to affect a spirit who would understand and be compelled
by their hidden meaning, and as the language which was
used by the spirit who was in possession of an inspired
person. Some of these words appear to be taken from
Semitic languages, some to be merely gibberish. For

1 Texts and Studies, v. I, Apocrypha AnecJofa II. by M. R. James, pp. 104 ft .

244 CORINTH

instance, in the often-quoted Leiden papyrus Hermes is
invoked, 1 iraa-g &lt;wvy KOL Tracry StaXlicry . . . a^j3ouK/owjUU, o
TOV 0Xoya icai TJ}V aicriva dv f) Soa aaa rjr/ij
rbv fcooyiov ta aaa www, i&gt; &lt;jj St tarjjcrae ra
era/3aw0 a/o/SaS law Zayouprj, K.r.X., and in cod. Paris.
2316 a hymn of Moses begins /SfXwv Oafiwp aitarOu vapsiXa
XajujSaXa api/uiaal ^fffaacr/za, K.r.X.

That glossolalia continued for a long time among
Christians can be seen from Irenaeus and Tertullian.

Irenaeus says, " Propter quod et Apostolus ait : Sapien-
tiam loquimur inter perfectos ; perfectos dicens eos qui per-
ceperunt Spiritum Dei, et omnibus linguis loquuntur per
Spiritum Dei quemadmodum et ipse loquebatur. Quemad-
modum et multos audivimus fratres in ecclesia, prophetica
habentes charismata, et per Spiritum universis linguis lo-
quentes (cai TravroSaTraFe XaXouvrwv Sta rou irvsvfjiaTOQ
y\u)aaraig, the Greek is quoted by Eusebiils, Hist. EccL,
v. 7, 6)." Tertullian challenges Marcion to equal the deeds
of the Church, and says, " Edat aliquem psalmum, aliquam
visionem aliquam orationem, dumtaxat spiritalem, in ecstasi,
id est amentia, si qua linguae interpretatio accessit ; . . .
haec omnia a me facilius proferuntur." 3

1 See J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, p. 338 ff.

* Iren., Adv. ffaer., v. 6, I. Tert., Contra Marc., v. 8. Cf. also Justin
Martyr, Apol. II. 6, and other passages mentioned by Harvey in his note on the
passage from Irenaeus ; but they do not exactly cover glossolalia so much as
prophecy and other miraculous x a p ia f JLa7 a *iSftrawli Attention may also be
drawn to the hostile account of Palestinian prophets given by Celsus (Origen,
Contra Celsum t vii. 9) : oj 5e . . . eiricj&gt;oiTa&gt;vres TroAetrtj ^ ffTparoirfSots, KIVOVVTO.I
8?i6ei&gt; us Qfffiri^ovTfS irpo^eipo/ S fKaffry Kal &lt;rvvt]6es elite iv, e-yw & Qeds fiui, ti
Qeovirats, ^ Tn/fv/j.a ilov . . . ravra t TravaTfivd/j.fi&gt;oi irpocmBeacri f&lt;f&gt;frjs &yvcaffra,,
Kal TrdpoiffTpa, Kal irdfTri fiSrjAa, &v vb fifv yvu/j.a ouSels &i/ e^cov vovv eupeiV
Siivano, K.T.A., and the equally hostile account of Gnostic glossolalia given by
Irenaeus (Adv. IJaer., I. xiii. 3(Massuet)) "... concalefaciens animam a suspicione
quod incipiat prophetare, cum cor ejus multo plus quam oporteat palpitet, audet,
et loquitur deliriosa, et quaecunque evenerint omnia, vacue et audacter," etc.

THE CAMISARDS

245

By the time of Chrysostom, however, glossolalia and
prophecy were apparently unknown in the Church, and he
expresses his difficulty in explaining what it was. 1

In later generations glossolalia has appeared spasmo
dically at times of great religious excitement. Probably
research would show that no " revival " has been without
something like glossolalia, but the two clearest and most
famous examples have been supplied by the history of the
Camisards in France and the Irvingites in England.

The most remarkable instances of glossolalia in recent
times are supplied by the Camisards and the Irvingites,
and, curiously enough, while the one illustrates glossolalia
of the kind which resulted in unusually clear speech, the
other illustrates the purely unintelligible form.

The Camisards were a sect of French Protestants among
the peasantry of the Ce" vennes, who, in the beginning of the
eighteenth century, carried on a fierce resistance to the
persecution which ensued on the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. A full account of their remarkable psychological
characteristics will be found in D. A. Bruey s Histoire du
fanatisme, 1737, vol. i., especially pp. 148 ff. The main points
are that various persons, sometimes children, were seized
with slightly convulsive attacks, ending in unconsciousness,
during which they uttered exhortations in good French,
although, in their ordinary state of consciousness, they were
incapable of speaking anything but the Romance patois
of the Cevennes. It should be noted that they were
acquainted with French through their devotional use of the
Huguenot Bible.

1 ToDro airav rb -% u p lov ff(f&gt;^Spa iff-rlv arraipfs. fty 8e aadtifiav TI rcav
xi&gt;a.-Yft,a.Tuv &yvoid re /cai eAAeuf ts iro TWV r6re pfv (Tvu.$aiv6vr&lt;av, vvv 8* ow
-/tfOfitvoiv. Cramer s Catena, v. p. 223.

246 CORINTH

The Irvingites are a still better known instance. In the
early years of the nineteenth century the glossolalia in
Edward Irving s chapel was notorious, and attracted the
curiosity of, among others, George Greville. 1 His account
is that the voice of the speaker, "after ejaculating three
Ohs, one rising above the other in tones very musical, burst
into a flow of unintelligible jargon, which whether it was in
English or gibberish I could not discover. This lasted five
or six minutes, and, as the voice was silenced, another
woman, in more passionate and louder tones, took it up.
This last spoke in English, and words, though not sentences,
were distinguishable. . . . She spoke sitting under great
apparent excitement, and screamed on till, from exhaustion
as it seemed, her voice gradually died away, and all was
still."

The parallel to the account of glossolalia at Corinth
could scarcely be closer, and Greville adequately represents
the ctTTtoroe ?1 t&twrjjf, against whose unfavourable judgment
St. Paul warned the Corinthians.

Turning to the question of the immediate cause of glos
solalia as a psychological phenomenon, it is important to
notice that two main types can be recognized : (i) Intelli
gible speech in a foreign language ; (2) Unintelligible
speech in a known or unknown language. The connecting
link between these two classes is that in neither case is the
speech under the complete control of the speaker, though
sometimes the lack of control is partial, sometimes absolute.
It is this lack of control which is the further connecting link
with prophecy in which intelligible speech is used in a known
language, but the speaker says, not what he wishes, but

1 Memoirs, III. chap. xxii. I am indebted to Mr. Conybeare for showing
me this passage. Cf. Myth, Magic, and Morals, p. 93.

THE "SPEECH CENTRE" 247

what he feels that he must. Thus the psychologist, just as
the early Christian did, regards prophecy and glossolalia as
cognate phenomena ; the difference is in the explanation
which he offers.

So far as the consideration of the immediate cause of
the phenomena is concerned, these cases do not present
much difficulty to those who are in any degree acquainted
with modern pathological psychology. They are merely three
instances of the disturbance of the speech centres of the brain
under stress of emotion, and of the influence of the subliminal
consciousness as soon as the normal working of the mind
has been temporarily impeded. One of the real advances
of knowledge in pathology has been the certain establish
ment of the fact that the intelligent exercise of human
functions, such as movement, sight, and speech, is under
the control of definite parts of the brain. If you impede
the part of the brain, known as the speech centre, which
controls language, you produce either dumbness or, if the
centre be not wholly destroyed, aphasia, that is, an inability
to use certain words, or paraphasia, that is, a tendency to
confuse words. These are common phenomena in some of
the most ordinary types of paralysis, in which the imme
diate cause of the disease is a lesion of some sort affecting
the speech centre. For instance, if a man has an apoplectic
fit caused by the breaking of a small blood-vessel in the
brain, if the blood be effused at the speech centre, his
speech will be destroyed or impaired, until the blood be
absorbed. If the absorption be complete, his speech will
recover completely ; if not, he will speak badly for the rest
of life, unless, which is believed sometimes to happen,
another "centre" takes over the work of the injured part of
the brain.

248 CORINTH

In the same way anything which, generally speaking,
increases the activity of the speech centre 1 will increase
the power of speech. This is what is actually accomplished
by some forms of education, and still more by some pro
fessions. Forms of teaching which constantly demand
quick and ready answers mvd voce develop the speech
centre, and so do the professions of barristers, or of
clergymen.

The most important point, however, for the present
purpose, is that the speech is readily though temporarily
affected, in a precisely similar manner, by the stress of
emotion, of whatever kind. The exact form of the affection
depends on two variables, the degree of the emotion, and
the nature of the person. In some cases it works favourably :
emotion seems to stimulate the speech and cognate centres,
and the result is that the speaker is conscious that he is
speaking well. He enjoys the comfortable assurance that,
whereas under normal conditions he has scarcely enough
words to say what he wishes, under the stimulus of slight
emotion he is temporarily blessed with the power of seeing
synonyms at once, and of being able to pick and choose his
expressions without either haste or hesitation. In other

1 By increasing the activity of the speech centre I include, of course, both
the quickening of the connections with other centres, and also the removal of
the normal inhibition. The latter point is rather interesting. One of the factors
in controlling, and sometimes hindering speech, is the normal inhibitory
influence of such things as instinctive caution, perception of the possibility of
misunderstanding, etc. If this be removed an unusual freedom of speech
ensues. One of the first symptoms of alcoholic intoxication is this removal of
inhibition. Hence in vino veritas, and hence the fact that a glass of champagne
produces fluency (in some persons), while a bottle produces incoherence.
Psychologically, what happens is that a small quantity of alcohol tends to
remove the normal inhibition, while a large dose disturbs and ultimately
paralyzes the working of the speech centre.

" THE SPEECH CENTRE " 249

cases (and almost always if it be carried too far), emotion
works unfavourably. It disturbs the speech centre by an
excess of stimulus, and the result is confused expression,
obscure utterance, and in the end temporary paraphasia.

These effects are produced by any emotion : they prove
the presence of emotional disturbance, but not its character.
Love or hate, pathos or humour, the highest spiritual
religion or the lowest immorality, all have their emotional
side ; and the emotions which they arouse produce in the
end the same symptoms.

It is plain that this is the explanation of that type of
glossolalia which consists of unintelligible language. It
was, in more or less technical language, temporary para
phasia induced by religious emotion. In the same way,
some forms of prophecy are to be explained as a temporary
and favourable excitement of the speech and cognate centres,
induced by religious emotion.

But this does not explain the other features of some
cases. It does not explain the belief that the prophet
utters things which he did not previously know ; nor does
it explain the rare cases of speech in a foreign language.

It is here that the much discussed and often exaggerated
"subliminal consciousness" helps us to the outlines of an
explanation. The point is this : besides our ordinary wak
ing consciousness there is a wider sphere, which only occa
sionally comes into the field of our observation. Roughly
speaking, one may say that reason, memory, and effort,
work in the sphere of the ordinary, or supraliminal, con
sciousness, while instinct and habit work in the sphere of
the subliminal consciousness. Usually speech, and most
of the actions of daily life, are under the control of the
supraliminal consciousness. But when we act instinctively

250 CORINTH

our actions are controlled by the subliminal consciousness.
For instance, an Englishman riding a bicycle on the Con
tinent for the first time knows that he ought, contrary to
his usual practice, to keep to the right ; but if a sudden
emergency arises, and he acts instinctively, he will certainly
swerve to the left, in spite of his consciousness that this is
wrong. Some actions, again, especially in the world of
sport, are an extremely complicated mixture of instinct and
reason, or of the supraliminal and subliminal consciousness ;
very interesting, for instance, is the psychological analysis
of the act of bowling at cricket.

What the precise relations are between the supraliminal
and subliminal consciousness, psychologists have apparently
not yet determined. It is, however, an established fact
that, by the exertion of strain on any given centre of the
brain, the supraliminal consciousness can be partially or
completely "thrown out of gear," and that in such cases
people do and say exceptional things of which neither they
themselves nor any one else ever thought them capable.

The importance of this for the present purpose is that it
sometimes happens in such cases that when the supra
liminal consciousness has been "thrown out of gear," the
person affected suddenly develops a power of expressing new
thoughts, and shows a knowledge of facts which no one,
even himself, thought that he possessed. It is obvious that
this covers tolerably well the facts of prophecy ; especially
does it illuminate the difference between prophecy and
preaching. The preacher announces to the best of his
ability the truths which he has learnt : he knows beforehand
what he is going to say, and the limits of his message are
those of his own ordinary supraliminal consciousness. The
prophet does not always know beforehand what he is going

THE "SUBLIMINAL CONSCIOUSNESS" 251

to say : his words are only partly under his own control :
sometimes he is as much surprised as any one else at what
he says : for the limits of his message are those of his
subliminal consciousness, which in ordinary circumstances
is in abeyance, and as little known to his own ordinary
intelligence as to that of other persons.

Quite rare, but still quite sufficiently attested, are excep
tional cases in which, under the influence of strain bringing
the subliminal consciousness into active working, persons
have suddenly begun to speak and understand foreign
languages ; usually it has been possible to show that they
had either in childhood or in some other way had oppor
tunities of learning them. This covers the indications that
among the early Christians glossolalia sometimes took the
form of speaking foreign languages.

The importance of these results is that they tend to
show that prophecy and glossolalia, which the early Christians
connected so closely with each other, are really cognate
psychological phenomena due to stress caused by religious
emotion. In this way psychology really does explain the
symptoms, and explains them better than did the ancient
hypothesis of obsession by spirits. At the same time, it must
be remembered that the question remains, what is the cause
of the religious emotion which gives rise to these symptoms ?
Psychology explains the immediate cause of the phenomena ;
but what is the ultimate cause? that is to say, what is
religion ? To discuss this problem would be outside the
limits of the present book, which have perhaps been already
passed, but I cannot refrain from saying that if I do not
mistake the signs of the times the really serious controversy
of the future will be concerned with this point, even among
those who are agreed in assigning the highest value to

252 CORINTH

religion, and that the opposing propositions will be: (i) that
religion is the communion of man, in the sphere of the
subliminal consciousness, with some other being higher than
himself; (2) that it is communion of man with his own
subliminal consciousness, which he does not recognize as
his own, but hypostasizes as some one exterior to himself.
Those who wish to prepare for this controversy will do well
to study on the one hand the facts of religion not of
theology and on the other the principles of psychology.

LITERATURE. The best treatment will be found in J. Weiss, Der erste
Korintherbrief, pp. 335-339, but according to him a book will shortly be
published on Das Zungenreden by Edison Mosiman, giving a full history of the
phenomena in all ages. Important also are Feine s article on Zungcnrede in the
Realencyclopccdie filr prot. TAeologie, ed. 3, and Reitzenstein s Poimandres (esp,
p. 55). The psychological facts are clearly stated in James little Textbook of
Psychology or in his larger Principles of Psychology, as well as in more technical
books written from a more exclusively medical standpoint.

CHAPTER V
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

THE problems connected with the background of the
Epistle to the Galatians are almost the exact opposite
of those in the Epistles to the Corinthians. In the latter, the
questions of place and date are tolerably certain, and of
quite subordinate importance, but it is both difficult and
important to determine the nature of the controversy which
called forth the Epistles. In the former, on the other hand,
the nature of the controversy is quite plain, but it is
extremely hard to fix the places from which and to which
St. Paul wrote, or the time at which he sent the letter.

The nature of the controversy is clearly fixed by the
whole trend of the Epistle. From beginning to end, it is en
gaged in controverting the proposition that Gentile Christians
ought to be circumcised and observe the Jewish Law ; it is
also obvious that this proposition had been set up by
Christian teachers who had come to Galatia after St. Paul
had left his converts, and we can scarcely be wrong in
identifying these teachers with those of the Jerusalem pro
paganda described on pp. 29 ff. So much is plain, and it is
only subordinate points which will later require further dis
cussion. But the difficulties begin when one asks (what is,
after all, in reality the previous question) where did the
Galatians live, and when did St. Paul write to them ? It

253

254 THE EPISTLE TO THE CALATIANS

is, therefore, necessary to discuss these questions at some
length.

I. WHERE WAS GALATIA &gt;

There are two meanings which can conceivably be given
to the word " Galatia." It may mean the comparatively
small district which was once the Kingdom of the Galatae,
a Celtic people, generally supposed to be identical with the
Galli of Western Europe, 1 who are also called TaXorat
by Greek writers ; or it may be the much larger district
which the Romans made into the Province of Galatia.

The Galatians invaded Asia in the third century before
Christ, and ultimately occupied a district towards the north
of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia. Later on they came
more or less under the domination of Pontus, and played an
important part in the wars between the Romans and Mith-
ridates. Ultimately, in the first century before Christ, the
kingdom of Galatia passed into the possession of Amyntas,
King of Pisidia, together with other territory. Amyntas was
the tributary of the Romans, and on his death in 25 B.C. the
Romans took over all his possessions as a new Province of
the Empire, and gave it the name of Galatia, because the
ancient kingdom of Galatia was the most important part, and
contained Ancyra, the capital of the whole. Thus, politically,
all the inhabitants of the Province, which included Derbe,
Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch, the cities visited by
St. Paul on his first journey, were Galatians, while ethno-
graphically only the inhabitants of a comparatively small

1 It is amusing to note that various writers, whom it is kinder not to
mention, have waxed eloquent on the permanence of national characteristics, as
illustrated by the fickle Galatians in the first century and the French in the
nineteenth .

WHERE WAS GALATIA ? 255

district to the north could be so called. 1 The question is
whether St. Paul means "political Galatians," or "ethno
graphical Galatians."

To form a choice between these two possibilities a very
important preliminary question is whether the Acts repre
sents St. Paul as founding Christian communities in the
Kingdom or in the Province of Galatia. For this purpose
two passages in the Acts have to be considered, in which
there is a reference to " Galatia."

(l) Acts xvi. 6 : A/jA0oi&gt; Se T\\V t&pvytav KU\ FaXaruajv
"Xjupav K.n)\vQivTtQ WTTO rov ajiov TTViv/naroQ XaArjcrat TOV \o-yov
tv ry Acri a t\6ui&gt;Ttc; oe Kara r/)i&gt; Mvtriav Irreipa^ov HC TT)V
TTOpsvBfivai, KOI OVK tYacrev avToi&gt;c TO Trvtv/ma bjaoi),
t TJJV Mvffiav Karlpijaav tic T/otjaoa.

The question here is, What is the district described as
Galatian ? The answer is not simple, and such authorities
as Lightfoot and Ramsay 2 arc found to give different
answers.

There is, unfortunately, a small but important variant in
the text concerning the first word Sii]\0ov. The text given
is that found in NBCDE d e, and some others against the
mass of late MSS., which read SieXOovTig. There can
be no doubt but that on purely manuscriptal grounds
&lt;Si}A0ov deserves the preference ; but Lightfoot, Ramsay, and
Askwith 3 all show a certain preference for SieXOovrsy,
mainly on the ground that SifiXOov is the easier reading

1 See further Appendix I. and the map accompanying it.

2 See Ramsay s Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 77 ft"., and Lightfoot s
Epistle to the Galatians, p. 22.

* E. H. Askwith, The Epistle to tlu Galatians : art Essay on its Destination
and Date (Macmillan and Co., 1902). This is by far the most thorough state
ment of the questions concerned, which has as yet been made, either in English
or German. It does not, however, seem to be sufficiently well known, perhaps
because it is too thorough and too scientific to attract superficial attention.

256 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

grammatically, and may have been introduced in order to
simplify the long and awkward string of participles which
SisXOovTtr; introduces. It is hard to think that there is much
real weight in this argument ; but in view of the fact that the
opinion exists, it is desirable to follow Askwith s example
and consider both forms.

If SitXOovrtg be read, we have a series of participles
(SteA^ovrte . . . KW\vdtvTtc . . . tXOovrtg) qualifying tTreipa^ov.
The only natural interpretation is that these three participles
represent three stages which led up to the attempt to enter
Eithynia. In other words, the writer means to say, " First
they went through rrjv typvyiav KOI FaXartic/jv \u&gt; pav, secondly
they were prevented from preaching in Asia, finally they
came opposite Mysia and tried to enter Bithynia." The
important point is that it implies that the Qpvyia jcai
raAem/07 x^P a was traversed before Asia was reached.

If in\0ov be read, the matter is not so plain : KuXvOtvreg
may be retrospective, and in that case the sentence means
" they passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region,
because they had already been prevented from preaching in
Asia." In that case the region in question was reached
after Asia had been found to be shut against their preaching.
But this meaning is not necessary. It is a grammatical
heresy to suppose that the Greek aorist participle must
imply a temporal relation : it is strictly timeless, and the
context determines whether the relation between the acts
implied in the main verb precedes, follows, or is simultaneous
with those implied in the participle. So here ii)\0ov
K(i)\vdtvTG means " they passed through, in a state of in
ability to," etc., and nothing is said as to whether this state
of inability was reached before, after, or during the passing
through. Moreover, it is a general rule of Greek grammar

PHRYGIA GALA TIC A 257

that the participle rather than the main verb is emphatic ;
the stress is not on the " passing through " (which probably
implies preaching, as SitpxivQat has almost the technical
sense of " to make a missionary journey "), but on the fact
that they were hindered from preaching in Asia. Thus,
though KM\vOvrt maybe retrospective, it need not be taken
in this sense.

It is, therefore, necessary to ask whether the phrase, rrjv
Qpvyiav KOL TaXaTiKi}v \wpav, is more easily interpreted as a
place reached after the frontier of Asia, or as one which had
already been passed through.

It is first desirable to notice the exact meaning of the
Greek phrase. It cannot mean " Phrygia and the Galatian
district," which would be r?)v Qpvytav KOI rr\v TaXanKr\v \wpav
a reading which is actually found in later MSS., and was
certainly introduced in the interest of the belief that two
districts were indicated. Nor can it mean " the Phrygian
and Galatian districts," which would require rc Qpvytag KOL
FaXariKUQ %wpa. In fact, it can only mean one thing
the x^P a which is Phrygian and Galatian, or more shortly
the Phrygo-Galatic x^pa. 1 This much is common ground
to Lightfoot and Ramsay. But at this point they differ :
Lightfoot thinks that the phrase means " the country which
was once Phrygia and Galatia," or alternatively the parts of
Phrygia bordering on Galatia. Ramsay thinks that it means
the district in the Province of Galatia which had originally
been Phrygian, and was probably known in Latin as Regio
Phrygia Galatica.

To appreciate this question it is necessary to take into

1 Zahn s explanation (Kommentar turn N.T., bd. ix. p. 16), that St. Luke
means " Phrygia, and a part of Galatia," seems to me to be linguistically
impossible. Qpvyiav must be an adjective and co-ordinate with raAaTi/CTJp.

258 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

consideration the really great change in our knowledge of
the political geography of Asia, and of the nomenclature
applied to it, made by the recent researches of archaeologists,
especially Ramsay. The main point is that by the time of
St. Paul an enormous province had been created in the
middle of Asia Minor, with the old Kingdom of Galatia as
its centre. 1 Among the parts of other kingdoms which
had been attached to it were ethnologically Phrygian
districts, including Antioch and Iconium, and Lycaonian
districts, including Lystra and Derbe. Other parts of
Phrygia belonged to the Province of Asia, and other parts
of Lycaonia to the Regnum Antiochi, which was not yet
incorporated into any province. Thus it would be natural
to describe the part of Phrygia which was in Galatia as
Phrygia Galatica, in contrast to Phrygia Asiana, and the
part of Lycaonia as Lycaonia Galatica in contrast to
Lycaonia Antiochiana.

In the light of these facts it is clear that the most
probable explanation is that 17 &lt;&pvyia KOI FaXartfoj X^P a
means the district of Phrygia recently added to the Pro
vince of Galatia, Phrygia Galatica. It is indeed hard
to see what other district could be meant, for the fact that
Galatia proper had two hundred years previously been
Phrygian would hardly justify us in applying to it the phrase
" Phrygo-Galatic district"

Moreover, consideration of the map shows that a nice
discrimination between "retrospective" and other exegesis
of KwXvOtvreg is unnecessary. The hindrance to St. Paul s
preaching was probably just before or just after he entered
the Phrygo-Galatic region, and in consequence of this
hindrance he continued his journey across it, instead of
1 Sec further Appendix I. and map facing p. 316.

PHRYGIA GALA TIC A 259

immediately passing into Asia. In the end he must enter
Asia, but as he could not preach in it, he postponed his
entry as long as possible.

In Acts xvi. I ff. St. Paul is in Lystra in Lycaonia
Galatica, and it is implied in xvi. 2 that he went on to
Iconium, which was either the last city in Lycaonia Galatica,
or the first in Phrygia Galatica, a long day s journey (30
miles) from the frontier of Asia, and less than 20 miles from
the great road to Ephesus. Here St. Paul would naturally
have passed into Asia, and I understand St. Luke to mean
that, as he found it impossible to preach in Asia, he went
round to the south of the Sultan Dagh, through Antioch,
to Kinnaborion, and so up to Kotiaion, or perhaps by a road
branching off just before Kinnaborion to Dorylaion. Here
he was Kara, rijv Mu&lt;riav, and intended to go straight on to
Nicomedia Bithynia can scarcely mean any other town
but being hindered by the " Spirit of Jesus," he turned to the
left and went to Troas. I take $irj\0ov TJJV Qpvyiav Kal FaXa-
T&lt;KTjy -^wpav to mean merely that he kept to the south of the
Sultan Dagh instead of going to the north of it through
Phrygia Asiana, which would have been the more natural
route. Probably the reason which influenced St. Paul was
the desire to see Pisidian Antioch again, when he found it
was impossible to preach in Asia, i.e. in Philomelium, to
which he would have naturally gone from Iconium vid
Laodicea and the main route ; for preaching in Asia means
preaching along the main road to Ephesus.

This view is, of course, hypothetical, and the evidence at
our disposal is quite insufficient to enable us to say exactly
which route St. Paul took. The important point is that the
phrase, 17 typvyia KOL TaXartKTj xupa, seems most naturally
to refer to Phrygia Galatica in which was Antioch and

260 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

possibly Iconium. If so, the suggestion is that the Churches
in Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch might
naturally be described as Galatian Churches, and in this case
the foundation of Christianity in Galatia must be dated in
St Paul s first missionary journey, when he and St. Barnabas
visited these towns.

(2) Acts xviii. 22, 23 : KOL KareA0(t&gt;i&gt; etc Katcrapfav, ava|3ac
KOI aa-TracrajUEVoe rrjv eicicArj(7tav, icarj3&gt;? fig Avrtoxetav, KCU
Troo /aae yjpovov rtva e^rjXOsv &EJOXOJUEVOC KaOf^f/e rrjv PaXartK^v
X^joav KOL Qpvyiav arrjpi^wv iravrag roue fJ.a6t]TaQ Cf. also
Acts xix. I : E-ylvero Se . . . IlavXov SieXBovra ra avwre/Jtica julpT?

It is clear that these two passages describe a journey
from Antioch to Ephesus, covering again the ground which
St. Paul had previously gone over. Nor is the first part of
the route, which is not described, difficult to identify. St.
Paul must have gone from Antioch, through the Syrian
Gates, through Tarsus and the Cilician Gates, across
Lycaonia Antiochiana, and so to Derbe, where he entered
Lycaonia Galatica, and thence through Lystra to Iconium,
where he entered Phrygia Galatica ; after this he would visit
Pisidian Antioch, and finally the reference to the avwrf/otKa
/ueprj probably means that, instead of taking the main road
along the south banks of the Lycus and Maeander valleys,
he took a smaller road to the north, passing in the end to the
north of M. Messogis. When one grasps these facts, the mean
ing of the change of expression in Acts xviii. 23 from that in
xvi. 6 becomes plain. In the latter place, St. Luke says rrjv
fypvyiav KOI raXartiojv \wpav because he means that one single
district was Phrygian-Galatian. In the former place he
says rr/v FaAtmic^i/ ^wpav KOI Qpvyiav, because he means two
districts, namely the Galatic region of Lycaonia, and Phrygia.

ACTS XVIII. 22, 23 261

Moreover, the fulness of expression in the one case and not in
the other is adequately explained by the circumstances. In
xvi. 6 St. Paul is at Iconium, and he has the choice between
the northerly road to Laodicea and the Phrygian-Asiatic
district on the one hand, and the southerly road to Antioch,
continuing in the Phrygian-Galatian district, on the other
hand. To have said Qpvyiav here would have been am
biguous, for the whole point was that he stayed in one part
of Phrygia instead of in another. Nor would raXcmK7ji&gt;
XOJ/OQV without further definition have been enough. At
Iconium he was on the borders of the Phrygian-Galatian
and the Lycaonian-Galatian districts. It is true that the
latter would really have been sufficiently excluded by the
context ; but the point is that St. Luke had just described
a check in St. Paul s journey, and the simplest and best
style of expression was one which defined the district
accurately, and did not leave it to the context to decide
whether Phrygian or Lycaonian Galatia was intended. In
Acts xviii. 22 the situation is different. If he started from
Antioch and went straight ahead, as Kade^g implies, after
passing through Lycaonia Antiochiana and no other route is
possible he would necessarily come to the Galatian district
of Lycaonia, and after that to Phrygia first Phrygia
Galatica and afterwards Phrygia Asiana. The route is thus
sufficiently indicated, and there was no check at any point
to render further definition necessary.

Thus the meaning of the two passages in Acts in which
a reference to " Galatian " is found, points to the Churches
of Derbe and Lystra as those covered by the expression
?j FaXortk-i? xupa in xviii. 23, and Iconium l and Antioch as

1 Though in the case of Iconium the reservation must be made that it
possibly belonged to Lycaonia Galatica (see Appendix I.).

262 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

those covered by 77 Qpvyia KOI FdXaTiKri \wpa in xvi. 6.
There is nothing in the Acts which need point to any other
" Galatian " Churches, and the theories which make St. Paul
travel into the middle of the old Kingdom of Galatia are un
supported by the strict interpretation of Acts, and make St.
Paul undertake long and dangerous journeys to sparsely popu
lated regions, instead of keeping, as is far more probable, to the
great roads and main centres of the Greek-speaking population.

The only weak point in the view here adopted is the
insufficiency of inscriptional evidence for the forms used.
But this is not a serious matter : the attempt to make St
Luke or St. Paul always use correct official language has been
pressed too far. Whether Phrygia Galatica/Lycaonia Galatica,
Phrygia Asiana, and Lycaonia Antiochiana were official
terms or not, there is no doubt that Phrygia was divided
between the Province of Galatia and the Province of Asia,
and that Lycaonia was divided between the Province of
Galatia and the Kingdom of Antiochus. The districts
existed, whatever the official names may have been, and St.
Luke s expressions indicate them with sufficient precision.
Whether he was using the names which a Roman official
writing Greek would have used is a point of secondary
interest, and, after all, it must not be forgotten that, so far
as there is any inscriptional evidence, it supports the Lucan
phraseology.

Turning to the Epistle itself, the question is one based on
the consideration of two probabilities, (i) Is it probable
that St. Paul made important missionary journeys outside
the districts covered by the narrative in Acts ? (2) Is it
probable that he would refer to the inhabitants of Derbe,
Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch as Galatians ?

The answer to the first question is, on the whole, in the
\

ST. PAUL S USE OF "GALATIAN" 2 6 3

negative. It is, of course, true that it is fairly clear from the
Epistle that St. Luke only gives the outline of St. Paul s
journeys, but it is impossible to see any point in the three
great journeys at which a visit to the old Kingdom of
Galatia can be interpolated, and there is, therefore, a con
siderable improbability against any theory which identifies
the Galatia of the Epistle with a district outside those
which the Acts state that he visited.

To the second question diametrically opposed answers
have been given. German writers especially have thought
it improbable that the inhabitants of Lycaonia or Phrygia
would care to be addressed as Galatians, since their only
connection with Galatia was derived from the political
arrangements of a conquering nation. But these arguments
largely rest on the wholly unproved assumption that the
recipients of the Epistle must have been ethnographically
Phrygians or Lycaonians, if the Churches of Iconium and
Lystra were intended. It is far more probable that they
were, or (what is here the important point) preferred to think
that they were, Greek or Roman, and identified themselves
with Greek and Roman civilization, rather than with the
Phrygians, whose name was a synonym for slave, or with
the Lycaonians, whose name had become the general title
of brigands.

Moreover, one may fairly ask what other generic title
than " Galatians " St. Paul could have used, if he was seeking
a common name for inhabitants of Lystra and Iconium.
The Lystrans were ethnologically Lycaonians, and the
inhabitants of Iconium were ethnologically Phrygians.
Both were politically Galatians ; l but was there any other
name which could be applied to both ?

1 JUlicher tries to ridicule the suggestion that St. Paul would use the name of

264 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Thus, there is good reason for thinking (i) that Acts
refers to the inhabitants of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium,
Derbe, and Lystra, as belonging to Galatia ; (2) that Acts
does not narrate any visit of St. Paul to the old Kingdom of
Galatia ; (3) that " Galatian " is the term which St. Paul
would naturally use to describe these Churches.

Taken together, these facts seem to afford extremely
strong evidence in favour of the " South Galatian " view.
Nor is this impression weakened by considering the " North
Galatian " arguments. I am unable to find that any argu
ment of importance has ever been put forward in support of
the " North Galatian " view, except that Acts xvi. 6 must
mean that St. Paul passed first through Phrygia and then
through Galatia, after he had been prevented from preaching
in Asia. This view is subject to the objection that it sacri
fices the proper meaning of rrjV &lt;frpvyiav KOI FaAartic^v x^P av &gt;
reads into the aorist participle KwAu&Wcc a meaning which,
though possible, is not necessary, and makes St. Paul wander
wildly through some of the most desolate tracts of Asia,
instead of keeping to the main roads and centres of the
Greek-speaking population. The first of these objections is
remedied by Lightfoot s suggestion, that rjv Qpvyiav KOI
FoAemio/V \wpav means the country, which was Phrygian
before the Galatians conquered it. This is grammatically
possible; but it is not likely that St. Luke would have
plunged in this way into references to events which had
happened two centuries previously.

a province, by saying that no one would refer to the inhabitants of Frankfort-
on-the-Main as men of Hesse Nassau. Such arguments are surely valueless. I
might equally well say that no one would refer to inhabitants of Natal as
\Zulus, or of Cape Town as Kaffirs, but might quite well refer to both as South
Africans. Both arguments seem to me to darken counsel by specious but
falsfc analogies.

GAL. IV. 13 265

Thus the balance of evidence in favour of the South
Galatian theory seems to be overwhelmingly strong, and the
answer to the question, " Where was Galatia ? " must be that
it was the Roman Province, and that the Galatians to whom
St. Paul was writing were the inhabitants of Pisidian
Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra.

II. WHEN WAS GALATIANS WRITTEN ?

On the South Galatian hypothesis the earliest date for
the Epistle is St. Paul s return from his first missionary
journey. The choice of a date after this point depends on
the view taken of the indications supplied by the Epistle
itself. These indications are found in the interpretation of
two passages: Gal. iv. 13 and Gal. i. n ii. 14.

THE MEANING OF GAL. iv. 13.

In Gal. iv. 13 St. Paul says : " Ye know that on account
of physical infirmity I preached to you formerly." The
Greek for " formerly " is TO Trporspov, and the suggestion has
been made, notably by Lightfoot, that this must mean "on
the former of two visits " ; that is, after St. Paul had been
twice to Galatia, and before a third visit. Assuming for the
moment that ro TrpoTtpov must have this meaning, it is
important to decide what is its chronological significance.
On the North Galatian theory, followed by Lightfoot, it
means that the Epistle was written after the visit recorded in
Acts xviii. 23, for the visit mentioned in Acts xvi. 6 was the
first, and that in Acts xviii. 23 the second, visit to Galatia.
On the South Galatian theory the interpretation is less
simple. St. Paul visited the Galatian Province for the first
time on his first missionary journey, and for the second time

266 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

on his second journey. Therefore, it would at first seem that
Galatians must have been written after the visit on the second
journey ; but the matter is complicated by the fact that on
the first journey St. Paul paid two visits to each of the Gala-
tian Churches, except, perhaps, Derbe, which was the turning-
point. Thus, if St. Paul was thinking of the individual
Churches rather than of the locality as a whole, he might
have said, " the former of my two visits," at any time after
the second visit on the first journey ; and the first, not the
second, missionary journey, becomes the terminus a quo for
the dating of the Epistle.

But it is much more probable that this view, that
r&lt;5 Trportpov means on the former of two occasions, is incorrect.
It can equally well be used with no comparative sense,
beyond that involved in a contrast between past and present,
in the sense of " originally." It is in the " Koine " Greek more
common in this sense than in the more classical significance,
and in the New Testament this is almost indisputably its
meaning in all the ten passages l in which it is found.

It is, therefore, more than hazardous to base any theory,
or objection to any theory, as to the chronology of Gala
tians on the view that TO irportpov implies that St. Paul had
already paid two visits to the Galatians, for it probably
makes no such implication. There is even much to be said
for Askwith s contention (p. 75 ff.), that eu^yytAto-a/^jv in
Gal. iv. 13 has more point, if it be supposed that St. Paul,
when he wrote, had only once been in Galatia ; but the
point is too fine to be made the basis of an argument.

1 John vi.62; vii. 50 ; \x. S ; 2 Cor. i. 15 ; Eph. iv. 22 ; I Tim. i. 13 ;
Heb. iv. 6 ; vii. 27 ; x. 32 ; I Pet. i. 14.

GAL. I. ii II. 14 267

THE MEANING OF GAL. i. n n. 14.

The interpretation of Gal. i. n ii. 14 is more difficult,
and affords one of the most intricate problems connected
with the historical background of the Pauline Epistles. It
may be divided into two main questions, (i.) Does St. Paul
mean that all the events described took place before the
conversion of the Galatians, or before the sending of the
Epistle ? In other words, does the plan of this section involve
his giving a sketch of his relations with the Apostles at
Jerusalem up to the time of his converting the Galatians,
or up to the time when he wrote to them ? (ii.) With what
narratives in the Acts can we identify the events mentioned
in the Epistle ? and, if we cannot identify them at all, when
are they likely to have happened ?

(i.) The plan of the opening sections of Galatians is to
offer a defence against the attacks of Christian missionaries
belonging to the Jerusalem or Judaizing party, who had
thrown doubt on St. Paul s claim to be an Apostle of
Christianity.

St. Paul probably admits in Gal. i. 6 that there was a
difference between the gospel preached by himself and his
opponents, 1 but he claims that his mission was direct from
Christ and God the Father, not from men, i.e. not from the
Church at Jerusalem. This he states in i. I, and repeats at
greater length in i. 1 1 ff. : " For I make known to you,
brethren, that the gospel preached by me is not according

1 The exegesis of the verse is difficult : . . . fls ertpov tvayyt\iov t&gt; OVK ttrrlr
&\\o fl /AT) Tivts flffiv ol Tapaffffovres vfj.as, K.T.A., may be explained by
taking erepov and &\\o in antithesis to each other and it then becomes a nice
question what the two words mean or by taking &\\o with i ph in the sense
" nothing else but that there are some who," etc.

268 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

to man : for neither did I receive it from man, nor was I
taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus
Christ." He then goes on to show that this contention,
that he has received a direct commission from Christ, not
from the Church at Jerusalem, is borne out by his history,
and he especially explains the nature of his relations to the
Church at Jerusalem during two visits to that city.

The question is whether this plan entailed his giving a
sketch of all the occasions when he came into contact with
the Apostles of Jerusalem up to the time of his visit to
Galatia, or up to the time of his writing the letter. It is
clear that it is impossible to dogmatize on this point. It
is possible that he did neither the one nor the other, but
merely discussed the incidents which had been fastened
upon by his opponents as proving his subordination to
Jerusalem. It is too often overlooked, in considering this
question, that we have to deal with a controversy of which
one side only is extant. St. Paul is not writing in a calm
scientific spirit for the good of future historians, but is
doing his best to pulverize an opponent. Now, in con
troversy, it is the business of a writer to answer arguments
advanced against him, not necessarily to meet them before
hand, and we have no real right to assume that St. Paul
discusses every occasion which brought him into contact
with the Jerusalem Apostles : he may have limited himself
to those incidents which had been attacked. This last
point is, in fact, the one which can be advanced with most
probability the incidents dealt with are those which, at
least in the opinion of the opposing party, could be used
against St. Paul, or, on the other hand, were necessary to
St. Paul s purpose of answering attacks.

Thus with regard to the plan of this part of the

THE PLAN OF THE EPISTLE 269

Galatians, we can only say that it is intended to answer
attacks on the character of St. Paul s apostleship, but it
remains more or less uncertain whether he meant to give an
account (a) of all his interviews with the Church at Jerusalem
up to the time of his conversion of the Galatians, (|3) of all
his interviews up to the time of writing the Epistle, or (y)
only of those interviews which had been used against him in
controversy.

It must, however, be admitted that while all three of
these interpretations are possible, there would be more
logical force in St. Paul s argument if he gave an account
of all his visits to Jerusalem at least up to the time of the
conversion of the Galatians, and that this interpretation has
therefore a superior probability, if it be found to be con
sistent with the other factors which influence a decision as
to the date of the Epistle.

(ii.) Bearing this conclusion in mind, it is now possible
to consider in detail the events narrated in Gal. i. 13 ii. 14.
These events can be summarized as follows : (a) St. Paul s
life to his conversion (i. 13-16) ; ()3) his action immediately
after the conversion (i. 16, 17); (7) a visit to Jerusalem
(i. 18-20)^; (8) visit to Syria Cilicia (i. 21-24) ; (e) a second
visit to Jerusalem (ii. i-io) ; () St. Peter s visit to Antioch
(ii. 11-14).

(a) St. Pauts Life up to his Conversion (i. 13-16). In
Gal. i. 13-16 St. Paul says, "For ye have heard of my
manner of life in time past in the Jews religion, how that
beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and made
havoc of it: and I advanced in the Jews religion beyond many
of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceed
ingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it
was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my

270 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

mother s womb, and called me through His grace to reveal
His Son in me, that I should preach Him among the Gentiles,
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood," etc. This
account presents no real difficulty in connection with Acts,
which agrees with the Epistle in representing St. Paul as a
persecutor up to the time of his conversion. It is true that
St. Paul (1-9) says nothing about the sudden vision described
in Acts ix., but it is an exaggeration of exegesis to pretend
that the phrase "to reveal His Son in me " can be regarded
as contradictory to the narrative in Acts.

(j3)&gt; (T)&gt; () These passages present more difficulty. The
sequence of events in Acts and Galatians can best be
shown in parallel columns.

ACTS. GALATIANS.

(1) Visit to Damascus (i) Visit to Arabia im-
immediately after the con- mediately after the conver-
version. sion.

(2) Escape from Damas- (2) A " return " to Da-
cus, and visit to Jerusalem. mascus.

(3) Retreat from Jeru- (3) A visit to Jerusalem
salem to Tarsus in Cilicia. " after three years."

(4) Departure to the "dis
tricts of Syria and Cilicia."

The difference between these accounts is obvious, and
one cannot entirely escape the admission that either one or
both are incomplete or inaccurate. There are, however,
two points which are especially worth notice. In the first
place, the expression in Galatians, " I returned (VTT tarpon) to
Damascus," implies that he had previously been there. It
would seem as though St. Paul, for the moment at least.

GALATIANS AND ACTS 271

regarded his conversion, or the complex of events of which
his conversion was the centre, as having taken place at
Damascus, and this more or less corroborates the narrative
in Acts, according to which the conversion took place on
the road to Damascus, and was followed immediately by a
period of temporary blindness passed through in Damascus.
In the second place, the statement in Galatians that St. Paul
departed to the "districts of Syria and Cilicia" after the
first visit to Jerusalem, corroborates the statement in Acts,
that, owing to a plot of the Greek-speaking Jews, he was
taken by the Christians to Caesarea and sent to Tarsus,
his native town in Cilicia.

But the points in which Acts and Galatians wholly fail
to corroborate each other are the visit to Arabia and the
description of the visit to Jerusalem. With regard to the
visit to Arabia, whatever may have been its nature, room
can only be found for it if we suppose that St. Luke has
telescoped together two visits to Damascus, consciously or
unconsciously, and that the events described in Acts ix.
19-25 really cover three years. It should also be noted
that the account of St. Paul s escape from Damascus in a
basket is corroborated by 2 Cor. xi. 33 (" In Damascus the
ethnarch of Aretas the king guarded the city of the
Damascenes to take me, and I was let down in a basket
through a window "), and is brought into relation with Aretas,
the King of the Nabatean kingdom of Arabia. But for the
present purpose the question is not of primary importance. 1
The events at Jerusalem are a more serious matter.
The two accounts are best placed in parallel columns.

1 See further Appendix III. p. 320.

272

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

ACTS ix. 26-30.
"And when he was come
to Jerusalem he assayed to
join himself to the disciples :
and they were all afraid of
him, not believing that he
was a disciple. But Bar
nabas took him and brought
him to the Apostles, and de
clared unto them how he
had seen the Lord in the
way, and that He had spoken
to him, and how at Damas
cus 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
disputed against the Greek-
speaking Jews, but they went
about to kill him. And
when the brethren knew it,
they brought him down to
Caesarea. . . ."

No amount of 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 says that he was unknown by face unto the
Churches of Judaea. Considerations which may be allowed
to tell on the other side are the possibilities that St. Paul

GAL. I. 18-20.
" After three years I went
up to Jerusalem to become
acquainted with Cephas, and
tarried with him fifteen days.
But other of the Apostles
saw I none, save James the
Lord s brother. Now touch
ing the things which I write
unto 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 ; and
they glorified God in me."

ACTS AND GALATIANS 273

never spoke to any one except the Apostles and Greek-
speaking Jews, and that Judaea means "with the exception
of Jerusalem." But to most minds this seems very forced
and improbable. The general impression made by Galatians
is that this visit was a purely private one, during which
St. Paul only met St. Peter and St. James of the leaders,
while Acts suggests a rather stormy career of preaching in
the company of the Apostles and St. Barnabas, who in the
Epistles is spoken of as an Apostle (cf. Gal. ii. 9 ; i Cor.
ix. 5, 6).

Thus there is a real and essential difference between
Acts and Galatians. Probably both documents refer to the
same visit, as both place it between St. Paul s departure from
Damascus and his departure to Tarsus in Cilicia ; but they
give divergent accounts of the character of the visit. This
is possibly to be explained by defective information on the
part of St. Luke, but probably a more important factor is
the different purposes for which the two accounts were
written. St. Paul is controverting the accusation that he
was disloyal to the authorities at Jerusalem, and that he
had derived his commission to preach from them. St.
Luke is either giving a merely historical account, or is
chiefly concerned to show that St. Paul s gospel was not
essentially different from that of Jerusalem. St. Paul
wishes to show his independence ; St. Luke, to make plain
his agreement.

The importance of this fact is not so much direct as
indirect. It shows that we cannot expect St. Luke and
St. Paul to agree closely in their accounts of the same
events, and that their disagreement in descriptions is not
really any proof that they do not refer to the same things.
To what extent this is due to the pressure of controversy

274 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

influencing St. Paul in one way, and the necessity of
omitting irrelevant details affecting St. Luke in another, is
impossible to say; the fact remains that when they are
relating the same events they sometimes differ so widely that
it is only the context which enables us to be sure that they
are not referring to different incidents.

(E) The Second Visit to Jerusalem. This is placed by
St. Paul "after fourteen years." It is somewhat doubtful
whether he means fourteen years after his conversion, or
fourteen years after the first visit. Probably the latter is right
(see p. 288 f.), but the point is for the present purpose im
material. Really important is the omission of any state
ment as to the reason why he ever left Tarsus and came to
Antioch. According to Acts xi. 25, this was at the desire
of St. Barnabas, the delegate from Jerusalem, and when
St. Paul appears in Acts at Antioch there is no suggestion
that he is in any way superior to St. Barnabas ; indeed,
until the two reach Cyprus St. Paul always is mentioned
in the second place. Why did St. Paul say nothing about
this? If the account in Acts is accurate it seems admirably
calculated to have afforded a weapon for those who main
tained that he was subordinate to the Apostles at Jerusalem.
One can only suppose that there were some other facts
which prevented this incident from being used by St. Paul s
opponents, but were either unknown to St. Luke or seemed
to him to be immaterial for his purpose. Once more it is
plain that one cannot safely assume that either Acts or
Galatians gives a complete account of all the occasions when
he came into contact with the original Apostles.

The further course of events is most important and
difficult. St. Paul says that he went up to Jerusalem, and
that various incidents took place. What exactly were

TITUS

275

these incidents, and to what narratives in Acts do they
correspond ?

Probably the least confusing manner of dealing with
these very complicated and perhaps insoluble questions is
to adopt a somewhat artificial division of the material, not
entirely justified by the text, and say that there are two
problems: (i) the circumcision of Titus, and (2) the
interview with St. James, Cephas, and St. John ;
and it is disappointing, even if honest, to be obliged
to admit at the outset that no satisfactorily high degree
of probability can be claimed for any solution to either
problem.

(l) The Circumcision of Titus. As so often happens in
passages which present exegetical difficulties, the text is
uncertain. The ordinary text found in all critical editions
and in all translations of modern times is : aAX ouSt TtVoe
EXXTjv wv ifvayKcitrvf) TT^piTfja\ui\veu. oia ot roic
TJjtv$a$t\(}&gt;ov(;, otrtvce TrapttOTjXflov

TTJV tXtvQtpiav -n/uL&v i}v S\Ofiev lv XjOtoTVo IrjcroC, tva
Karae)ouX(tiCTOU&lt;nv, otc ooSt TT/OOC, w/oav EtajUEV ry vTrorayy, iva
f] aXi iOtia TOV tiiajjfXiov oiafifivg Trpoc u/ioy. " But not even
Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to
be circumcised, but because of the false brethren privily
brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty
which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us
into bondage, to whom we yielded in subjection, no ! not
for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue
with you."

This text is found in all Greek MSS. (including sB)
except D, but not in the Old Latin version, or in the
Peshitto Syriac. It has in so far a claim to recognition
that it has not merely much manuscript support, but

276 THE EPISTLE TO THE CALATIANS

provides a sentence so impossible to construe and difficult
to explain that it invites alteration.

The serious rival to this text is found in D, Irenaeus,
Victorinus, Tertullian, Ambrosiaster, Primasius and the Old
Latin version : aXX ouSl Tn-oe . . . fivajKaadr) Tre
m SE roue TraptiaaKTOvc; ^tuSaSfA^oue . . . Trpoe wpav
ry vTTOTajij iva 17 aX/j0fa, K.r.X., omitting the words olg ouSt
before Trpog a&gt;pav.

Intermediate stages between these two readings are
found in Marcion, some Greek MSS. known to Victorinus,
and the Peshitto Syriac, who read, ovSc TT/OOC w/jav iajui&gt;,
K.r.X. but without olg, and in Jerome s Commentary on
Galatians, which reads olg irpog wpav ia/jv without OU^E.
The question is whether these stages represent emendations
of the ordinary text or of that found in D, etc. Undoubtedly,
Tertullian and Irenaeus represent an older type of text than
anything found, as a whole, in our extant MSS., but in
any given instance there is always the chance that they
have a purely Western corruption, and that the great MSS.
are right. The crucial point of the textual argument is to
be found in the reading of the Peshitto and Marcion. This
seems to be certainly an emendation ; but it may be
explained equally well as an emendation of the one text
as of the other. If we assume the text of the MSS. to have
been the original, it is possible that Marcion and Rabbula
(the maker of the Peshitto) struck out oTe to improve the
grammar ; if we assume the text of Tertullian and Irenaeus,
they may have inserted a negative in order to exclude the
exegesis that St. Paul really did "yield in subjection."

It will be seen, therefore, that the real difficulty is not
that the textual authorities are equally balanced, but that
it is so difficult to see which of the variants is really the

TITUS

277

lectio ardua which explains the others. The question is,
Which is more likely to have seemed ardua to early scribes,
and so to have first invited alteration ? Would they have
been more shocked by the suggestion that St. Paul had
circumcised Titus, or by an anacoluthon in his statement
that he did not do so ? Personally, I think that they would
have been more tolerant of anacoluthon, and therefore am
inclined to prefer the text of Irenaeus and Tertullian ; but
it must be admitted to be a point on which a decision is
impossible.

The matter is complicated rather than elucidated by
the fact that the verse is, whatever reading be adopted,
susceptible of meaning either that Titus was or was not
circumcised. The meaning depends entirely on the em
phasis placed on the words. " Titus was not compelled to
be circumcised " is as possible as " Titus was not compelled
to be circumcised," and the meaning of one is the opposite
of the other. Both interpretations (and, in fact, many
variations of each type) have often been suggested, but it
is unnecessary for the present purpose to discuss them ; the
truth is that it is quite impossible ever to decide from
the actual wording what really happened. This is one of
the results which spring from the fact that Galatians is
really a letter, dealing with facts which were well known
both to the writer and to his correspondents, though not to
us. St. Paul was not writing for our benefit, but for the
Galatians, who knew all about Titus, and therefore it
was unnecessary for him to make plain the fact that Titus
had or had not been circumcised what he had to do was to
discuss the importance of the fact.

When, however, we look at the question in this light, no
longer as a question of exegesis, but as one of general

278 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

probability, the point assumes a somewhat different aspect,
though it still remains obscure. St. Paul is here defending
himself against attack : there is, therefore, a probability
that the incidents with which he deals are those which his
opponents had used to prove that he was subordinate to
the Apostles at Jerusalem. Certainly this is the case with
the first visit to Jerusalem, and with the interview with the
Apostles on the second visit ; clearly these were facts out of
which St. Paul s opponents had tried to make capital, and
had thus forced him to give his own account of what had
happened. If we might assume that this is also the case
with the episode of Titus, it would follow that he had been
circumcised, that St. Paul s opponents had used this as an
argument, and that St. Paul, therefore, found it necessary to
explain that, though Titus had been circumcised, it was not
under compulsion, but as an act of grace, perhaps of misplaced
concession to false brethren, whose true character he did
not at the time perceive. At first sight this seems con
vincing, but it may be argued, on the other hand, with equal
plausibility, that the incident of Titus is only mentioned in
order to prove that the interview at Jerusalem was not really
a permanent submission, as could be seen from the fact that
Titus (who was a Gentile) was not circumcised, in spite
of the pressure exercised by the false brethren, to whom he
yielded only on matters of temporary importance, not on
those of principle. 1 Nor is it possible to base a decision
between these two lines of argument on our knowledge of
what St. Paul is likely to have done. St. Paul argues in his
Epistles against the necessity of circumcision, but on the

1 Or, if another text be followed, " to whom we did not yield even for a
moment," or with still another exegetical possibility, " to whom we did not yield
even for a moment in any real subjection."

THE INTERVIEW AT JERUSALEM 279

other hand, he circumcised Timothy, who was, after all, a
Greek, even though his mother was a Jewess, and we may
safely say that no one after reading Gal. v. would ever have
expected such a concession to Jewish feeling, though v. 1 1
(" If I preach circumcision, why am I persecuted ? ") may be
taken as implying that in some way he had given rise to
the statement that he did recommend circumcision.

Thus the only possible summing up of the whole point
seems to be that a verdict of " not proven " ought to be
returned. It is possible to make attractive statements in
the spirit of an advocate for either side, but if a judicial
attitude is to be observed, no other verdict is conceivable.
If, however, I were obliged to take sides, I should say that
there is a balance of argument in favour of the view that
Titus was circumcised.

(2) The Interview with St. Peter, St. James, and St. JoJm
at Jerusalem. The main question here is whether this
interview can be placed at the time of the Apostolic Council
described in Acts xv., or at that of the visit during the famine
described in Acts xi. 30 and xii. 25.

The popular view is the identification of the visit with
the Apostolic Council, and the arguments in favour of this
view are best set out in the additional note to chap. ii.
in Lightfoot s Commentary, pp. 123-128. The other view
has been defended by Ramsay, Weber, and Bartlett, and
still more recently by C. W. Emmet. 1 It will probably be
simplest to begin by stating shortly the main arguments for
both views, and afterwards discussing them in more detail.

The case for the Identification of the Interviciv in Gal. ii.
with Acts xii. The main argument for this view will

1 Expositor, March, 1910, reprinted in The Eschatological Question in tht
Gospels, and other Studies, pp. 191 ff.

280

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

always be found in the fact that St. Paul s reasoning seems
to imply that this interview took place on his second visit
to Jerusalem, and the second visit to Jerusalem according
to Acts was that in the time of the famine. A priori this
raises a presumption in favour of the view that St. Luke
and St. Paul refer to the same visit, and the onus probandi
is really on those who deny it.

Secondary arguments in favour of this view are not
wanting. It is plain that if St. Paul intended to give an
account of the occasions on which he came into contact
with the Apostles, it would have seriously injured his argu
ment to omit a visit to Jerusalem. Moreover, two striking
parallels can be found between the account given of the
second visit in Acts and Gal. ii. These can best be shown
in parallel columns :

" I went to Jerusalem with
Barnabas . . . And I went
up by revelation" Gal. ii. i.
"Only they would that we
should remember the poor,
which very thing I was also
zealous to do." Gal. ii. 10.

" There stood one [of the
prophets] named Agabus,
and signified by the Spirit that
there should be a famine over
all the world . . . and the
disciples determined to send
relief unto the brethren that
dwelt in Judaea, which also
they did, sending it to the
elders by the hand of
Barnabas and Saul" Acts
xi. 27-30.

Galatians and Acts speak of a visit to Jerusalem made
by St. Barnabas and Saul, in accordance with prophetic
instructions, and connected with the relief of the poor, and

GALATIANS II. AND ACTS XV. 281

both describe this visit as the second which St. Paul paid
to Jerusalem after his conversion.

Such is the main case in favour of the identification of
St. Paul s interview with the Apostles with the visit at the
time of the famine. To my mind it is extremely strong.

The case for the Identification of the Interview in Gal ii.
with Acts xv. Lightfoot has stated the case as follows : l
" The geography is the same. In both narratives the com
munications take place between Jerusalem and Antioch :
in both the head-quarters of the false brethren are at the
former place, their machinations are carried on in the latter :
in both, the Gentile Apostles go up to Jerusalem apparently
from Antioch, and return thence to Antioch again. The
time is the same, or at least not inconsistent. St. Paul
places the event fifteen or sixteen years after his conversion :
St. Luke s narrative implies that they took place about the
year 5i. 2 The persons are the same: Paul and Barnabas
appear as the representatives of the Gentile Churches,
Cephas and James as the leaders of the circumcision. The
agitators are similarly described in the two accounts : in the
Acts, as converted Pharisees, who had imported their dogmas
into the Christian Church ; in the Epistle, as false brethren
who attempt to impose the bondage of the Law on the
Gentile converts. The two Apostles of the Gentiles are
represented in both accounts as attended : certain other
Gentiles (e aurwv) are mentioned by St. Luke ; Titus,
a Gentile, is named by St. Paul. The subject of dispute

1 In his Epistle to the Galatians, pp. 123 ft.

- Lightfoot explains in a footnote that " this is calculated by a back reckon
ing of the time spent from the Apostolic Council to the appointment of Festus,
the date of which is fixed independently at A.D. 60." A modern writer would
probably speak less certainly : see Turner s article on Chronology in Hastings
Dictionary of the Bibk.

282 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

is the same ; the circumcision of the Gentile converts.
The character of the conference is in general the same ; a
prolonged and hard-fought contest. The result is the same ;
the exemption of the Gentiles from the enactments of the
Law, and the recognition of the apostolic commission of
Paul and Barnabas by the leaders of the Jewish Church."

Such are the positive arguments for the two identifica
tions. It remains to compare them, and see which seems
to give the best explanation of the facts and to be least
susceptible to serious criticism.

It is plain that Lightfoot s argument as to the geography
applies equally well to either identification, and that so far
as the persons engaged are concerned the representatives of
Antioch were on both occasions St. Barnabas and St. Paul.
Thus the points which really have to be considered are:
(i) the probability or reverse of the presence of St. Peter
and St. James in Jerusalem during the famine relief; (2) the
character of the meeting ; and (3) the result of the meeting.
In considering all these points it must be remembered that
the task of those who think that the private interview of
Gal. ii. took place during the famine relief is to show on
the one hand that such an interview is not improbable
during that time, and on the other hand that the account
in Gal. ii. does not agree with that in Acts xv. ; while those
who regard this interview as having been a preliminary to
the Apostolic Council, have to reverse this process, and
show that Gal. ii. does agree with Acts xv., and implies a
state of affairs which was improbable during the famine
relief.

(i) The probability of St. Peter s and St. James presence
during the Famine Relief. It has to be admitted that St.
Luke does not state that these Apostles were present in

ACTS XL AND XII. 283

Jerusalem, still less that they discussed the nature of the
preaching of St. Paul, but this objection really resolves
itself into the question of the presence or absence of the
Apostles, for it must be remembered that St. Barnabas
the Cypriote had been sent to Antioch to investigate the
preaching of the Cyrenaeans and Cypriotes, and that this
visit was his first return to Jerusalem since he had taken
the serious step of approving of this preaching and fetching
St. Paul from Tarsus to help in carrying it on. If, therefore,
the Apostles were present in Jerusalem they must have
discussed, at least in private, as St. Paul says in Gal. ii.,
the nature of" this preaching. Thus everything turns on the
question of the presence or absence of the Apostles. It is,
therefore, desirable to consider the circumstances of the
visit to Jerusalem in the time of the famine with somewhat
greater closeness.

In the middle section of Acts St. Luke has had to
attempt the most difficult task which is ever laid on a
historian, the narration of the history of events in two
separate places. The interest passes backwards and
forwards between Jerusalem and Antioch.

In xi. 19-30 the centre is Antioch ; St. Luke describes
how the Cyrenaeans and Cypriotes preached to the Gentiles,
how St. Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to investigate,
how he approved of their teaching, and called St. Paul from
Tarsus to help in carrying it on, and how at the time of the
famine St. Barnabas and St. Paul took relief to Jerusalem.
Thus he brings the history down to the time of the famine,
which was in 46 A.D.

Then he goes back, takes up the history of Jerusalem
for the same period, and in xii. 1-25 describes the death of
St. James and the imprisonment of St. Peter, the death

284 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

of Herod Agrippa I., which took place in 44 A.D., ending with
the statement that after this the "word of the Lord increased
and multiplied." He then adds a verse (xii. 25) referring
to the ministrations of St. Barnabas and Saul, thus bringing
the Jerusalem narrative up to the time of the famine, and
connecting it with Antiochene section. Whether this verse
is intended to represent the beginning or the end of the
relief work depends on the text followed * a problem which
will never be settled with complete certainty but it is at
least clear that St. Barnabas and St. Paul are represented
as in Jerusalem during the period of quiet which followed
the death of Herod Agrippa I. This means that St. Peter
was out of prison ; but the question is whether he was not
also out of Jerusalem. This depends on the exegesis of
Acts xii. 17, which says that St. Peter ceA0wv (from the
house of Mary) iiroptvOri ae trspov TOTTOV. It has been
argued that this means " went to another town." But the
truth seems to be that TOTTOC is almost exactly the equivalent
of "place," and that whether it is "town" or "house"
depends entirely on the context. For instance, in Acts iv. 31
(ecraXEu^n 6 TOTTOC iv o&gt; r\vav avvriyntvoi) it certainly means
either "house" or "room." In the present case the only
guide which is given to the meaning is in the adjective
fVfjOov. This means " another of two " (Lat. alter), and thus
connects TOWOV with the place from which St. Peter went
out. Now, the place from which he went out (lE,e\Owv) was
the house of Mary, the door of which he had with some
difficulty succeeded in having opened. Therefore the strict
interpretation of the passage is that he went to another
house. There is nothing in the context to suggest any
thing else. The most probable view, therefore, is that

1 See Appendix II. p. 317.

APOSTLES AXD PRESBYTERS 285

St. Peter remained in Jerusalem, and is perhaps supported
by the fact that in Acts xv. St. Luke clearly states that
St. Peter was in Jerusalem at the time of the Council. It
is indeed probable that St. Luke has omitted some, perhaps
a whole series, of St. Peter s incidental absences from
Jerusalem between Acts xii. and xv., but he shows no
consciousness of having taken him out of Jerusalem and
never brought him back.

Even if this argument be rejected, it remains clear that
St. Luke regards the mission of St. Barnabas and St. Paul
with relief for the famine as at all events ending later than
the peace of the Church which followed Herod s death, and
we certainly have no reason to believe that St. Peter, if he
had left Jerusalem until the storm was past, did not return
when quiet was re-established. There is, therefore, no
justification in the history of St. Peter for the view that he
could not have seen St. Paul during the famine visit, and if
the identification of the private interview of Gal. ii. with
this visit appears to be otherwise probable, no reasonable
objection can be made from any theory that St. Peter was
not at that time in Jerusalem.

A minor objection of the same nature has, however,
been based on the phrase in Acts xi. 30 to the effect that
St. Barnabas and St. Paul took alms to the presbyters,
not to the Apostles. Hence, it is argued, we must conclude
that there were no Apostles in Jerusalem at that time.
This objection rests partly on a misapprehension of the
difference between an Apostle and a presbyter. The
Apostles were the active founders of Churches ; the pres
byters were the administrative officers of Churches after
they had been founded. It is also partly due to ignoring
the importance of the narrative in Acts vi., in which St.

286 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Luke describes how the Apostles in Jerusalem were set
free from relief work by the appointment of the " seven."
St. Barnabas and St. Paul, therefore, would be likely to
take alms to the presbyters rather than to the Apostles,
but to discuss the nature of their preaching with the latter
rather than with the former.

(2) The Subject under Discussion, and the Character of
the Meeting at Jerusalem. Lightfoot s statement that the
subject of discussion was the circumcision of the converts,
and that the character of the conference was in general a
prolonged and hard-fought contest, is open to dispute.
Certainly the subject of discussion at the Apostolic Council
was the circumcision of the converts, and their general
relation to the Jewish Law ; but this is not exactly the
description which St. Paul gives of his conference with the
Apostles. He says they had a private discussion as to "his
gospel." This is surely a different matter. He had already
been preaching to the Gentiles : the question was whether he
should continue to do so, and he says that the Apostles
agreed that he should go on as he had begun. It is, to my
mind, more probable that this represents something anterior
to the great missionary activity which called out the protests
from Jewish Christians and so led up to the Council. The
question of circumcision may have been discussed, but St.
Paul seems anxious to give the impression that this was not
the question which he discussed at Jerusalem. Moreover, it
must be remembered that it is quite doubtful whether St.
Paul did or did not allow Titus to be circumcised, and
that if a text and interpretation be adopted which means
that Titus was circumcised, the matter is really settled
such a concession is unthinkable at the time of the Council,
though, perhaps, possible at the earlier date.

THE RESULT OF THE COXFEKEXCE 287

Nor is it at all clear that Lightfoot was right in saying
that the character of the conference was in general a hard-
fought contest. So far as the conference itself is concerned,
St. Paul does not hint at any fighting, and the whole idea of
contest is based on the doubtful text and doubtful inter
pretation of Gal. ii. 3. If we follow the most ancient text,
that of Irenaeus and Tertullian, St. Paul states that he
yielded for the moment, and whether that statement refers
to the circumcision of Titus (as I am inclined to believe)
or to something else, it is inconsistent both with Lightfoot s
description and with Acts xv.

Moreover, it is in any case true that on the main point
there is more discrepancy than agreement between Acts xv.
and Gal. ii. St. Paul says that he had a private meeting
which settled the matter. He does not breathe a word as
to this private meeting having been merely preliminary to
a public meeting, which had had epoch-making consequences
for Christianity, and really settled the question of circum
cision ; and he observes this silence, in any case curious, in
spite of the fact that this same question is one of the two
main topics of the Epistle, in which he is at pains to argue the
point against adversaries whose leaders had, on Lightfoot s
theory, already conceded it to him.

(3) The Result of the Conference. The end of the last
paragraph holds equally good as a criticism of Lightfoot s
statement that the result of the interview in Gal. ii. was the
same as that in Acts xv. So far as St. Paul tells us, the
only result of the private interview was that the Apostles
agreed that he was doing good work. If they had gone on
to draw the no doubt logical conclusion that St. Paul s
converts were not obliged to be circumcised, surely St. Paul
would have said so ? The fact is that the result of the

288 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

interview was, according to St. Paul, merely that he was
encouraged to go on preaching to the Gentiles ; which, if
the interview be placed at the time of the famine, is what
he actually did immediately afterwards on an hitherto
unprecedented scale. The result of the Council was that a
letter was written to at least some of his converts, dis
claiming the necessity of following the Jewish Law, and
asking them to observe either the main precepts of the
moral law, or a food law. If the three-clause text which
implies the former (see pp. 48 ff.) be taken, it is perhaps just
possible that this is formally covered by St. Paul s expres
sion, " they imparted nothing to me " (irpoaaviB^vTo), but if
the four-clause text implying a food law be adopted, it is
impossible to make his words agree with the facts as stated
in Acts xv. In either case he is omitting facts of the first
importance, and relating those of subordinate importance
which led up to them. It is this which, on the hypothesis
that Acts xv. and Gal. ii. must refer to the same event, has
led so many of the ablest German scholars to regard the
account in Acts xv. as wholly unhistorical.

So far the balance of argument seems to be decidedly
against the identification of the private interview with the
Apostolic Council, and therefore in favour of the suggestion
that it took place during the visit to Jerusalem in the time
of the famine. It is, however, necessary to examine two
important objections which are brought against the latter
theory.

(i) A Chronological Objection. In Gal. ii. I St. Paul says
that he went up to Jerusalem "after fourteen years." If
this be taken to mean fourteen years after his first visit, 1

1 This view is taken by Lightfoot, Zahn, and Bousset ; the other interpreta
tion is followed by Ramsay and McGiffert.

OBJECTIONS 289

it implies seventeen years after the conversion, and if the
famine was in 46-7, this would place the conversion in the
year 30, which, though not impossible, is at least very early,
though it has been adopted by Harnack. It is possible that
St. Paul means fourteen years after his conversion, not
after his first visit ; this would give 33 as the year of the
conversion, and no difficulty would then exist. But it must
probably be admitted that this is the less natural interpre
tation, which ought not to be adopted unless it is quite
impossible to fit the other view into the chronology of St.
Paul s life. Nevertheless, in view of the other arguments in
favour of not identifying the interview in Gal. ii. 6-10
with Acts xv., I am prepared to think either that the
conversion did really take place in 30 (31 even is just within
the possible limits), or that the fourteen years ought, after
all, to be taken as from the conversion ; but I feel that this
chronological difficulty is real, and the only serious objection
to placing the interview at the time of the famine.

(2) The Objection that such an Interview would have
rendered the Apostolic Council unnecessary. This objection is
best stated by McGiffert * in the form that it is impossible
to think that St. Barnabas and St. Paul twice went to
Jerusalem with the same object, and that from the Epistle
it is clear that the main object of the second visit was to
secure the recognition of Gentile Christianity. This objec
tion has already been partly discussed ; it does not gain
strength on examination, for it really assumes all that it
ought to prove. The whole point is that the journey
described in Galatians ii. had not the same object as that
in Acts xv. The truth is that St. Paul does not defi
nitely state what the real purpose of his visit was in any

1 History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, pp. 172 IT.

290 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

indisputable manner. What he does definitely say is that
his interview with the Apostles was a private conversation,
secondary to the main object of his journey ; but what this
main object was he does not directly state, though he very
probably alludes to it when he says that he was zealous to
" remember the poor." In fact, a very plausible paraphrase
of Gal. ii. would be " I did, I admit, describe my teaching
to the Gentiles, but I did not do this with any idea of
recognizing a superior authority, and I only discussed the
matter in a private conversation, secondary to my main
purpose, because I valued the opinion and experience of
the men of high position in the Church. They never
suggested any change in my method, but only begged me to
continue my care for the poor which was the main object
which I had in hand at the time."

The main result of the above discussion is to show a
balance of probability in favour of the identification of the
" interview " in Gal. ii. with an interview unrecorded by
St. Luke during St. Paul s visit to Jerusalem at the time of
the famine. Against this has to be set the chronological
difficulty. The more popular identification with the Apos
tolic Council, or more accurately with a conference preced
ing it, has been seen to be open to many objections, of
which the most important are: (i) that Gal. ii. seems to
imply that this was St. Paul s second visit, whereas accord
ing to Acts it was really his third ; and (2) that it is very
hard to think that St. Paul would mention a private dis
cussion without mentioning the result of the official meeting.
It is now desirable to consider two lines of argument by
means of which the attempt has been made to meet these
objections.

OTHER SOLUTIONS 291

The only at all satisfactory answer, if Acts be regarded
as a trustworthy source of information, is that St. Paul is
not describing his visits to Jerusalem, but to the Apostles.
This view has partially been dealt with above (pp. 282 ff.).
It implies that the Apostles were all absent from Jerusalem
during the famine. There is certainly no evidence that
they were absent sufficient to render this a positive argu
ment in favour of the identification of Gal. ii. with Acts xv.,
but, on the other hand, there is no evidence that they were
present, and therefore this is a possible answer to the
objection, though it must be noted that St. Paul, in
describing the object of his visit, does, in fact, say that he
went to Jerusalem, and does not say that he went to the
Apostles.

Some scholars, however, who maintain the identification
of the interview with the preliminaries to the Apostolic
Council, are dissatisfied with this method of dealing with
the difficulty. They attempt to solve it by postulating
more or less serious inaccuracy in the Lucan narrative. Of
these attempts the best is that of McGiffert, who maintains
that Acts xv., Gal. ii., and the visit in the time of the
famine, are all one and the same. St. Luke was misled by
the fact that he found in his sources two accounts one
describing especially the philanthropic side of the mission,
the other its controversial aspect. These accounts differed
so much that he thought that they really belonged to
different occasions. There is nothing intrinsically im
probable in this suggestion, for early writers were certainly
liable to make two incidents out of two varying accounts
of the same event. But it has several disadvantages : it
avoids the actual difficulty of making St. Paul describe as
his second visit to Jerusalem what was really his third, but

2Q2 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

it removes none of the other objections to the identification
of the " private interview " with Acts xv., and adds to
them the one serious difficulty that of chronology
attached to the alternative theory, for the famine provides,
on McGiffert s view, the fixed date for this meeting in
Jerusalem.

Still more radical is the view of Schmiedel (Enc. BibL,
" Council of Jerusalem "), which represents the mass of
advanced German criticism ; he thinks that Gal. ii. must
refer to the same incident as Acts xv, but that the two
accounts are so divergent as to prove that the account in
Acts is quite inaccurate in describing an official meeting of
the Church, and in imagining the existence of the Apostolic
Decrees. According to this criticism there was never either an
Apostolic Council or Apostolic Decrees. Some critics of this
school go further, and think that the account of a visit to
Jerusalem for the relief of the famine is also unhistorical.
Such views have, however, of recent years, found less and
less support, and are not likely ever to regain their position.
It is, however, quite legitimate to use the penetrating and
in many ways really moderate criticism of Schmiedel, to
show the difficulties of accepting the view that Gal. ii. and
Acts xv. refer to the same situation.

To sum up : each of the rival views has its own diffi
culties. The identification of Gal. ii. with a supposed
interview during the time of the famine has to meet the
two objections that there is no proof that the Apostles were
at that time in Jerusalem, and that it is more difficult to fit
into the general chronology of St. Paul s life. The alterna
tive view is liable to the objection that it appears to
describe as St. Paul s second visit to Jerusalem, what
according to Acts was really his third ; and that it makes

ST. PETER AT A NT IOC H 293

St. Paul omit the ultimate decisions of the Council,
which were, in any case, most important for the purpose of
his Epistle, while giving an account of a private interview
which it is assumed had been held previously.

The question is, Which set of objections can be most
easily answered ? It is here that opinions have differed, and
probably will continue to differ : my own view is that the
objections placing Gal. ii. at the time of the famine are
much the less serious, but I recognize that they are real,
and prevent one from claiming the right to feel quite
certain on the subject. Probably many of those who take
the opposite view would be prepared, mutatis mutandis, to
say the same.

() St. Peter s Visit to A ntioch. According to the Epistle
St. Peter came down to Antioch, and was at first willing to
move freely in Gentile circles, but after a time messengers
from St. James l came from Jerusalem to Antioch, and
persuaded St. Peter and the other Jewish Christians
to draw back and separate themselves from the Gentile
Christians. Against this St. Paul protested, and he quotes
the incident here in order to show that he never had accepted
any position of subordination to Jerusalem, or had altered
the character of his own teaching.

The questions of historical importance are whether this
visit of St. Peter ought to be placed chronologically after
St. Paul s interview with the Apostles in Jerusalem, and
what its relation is to the Apostolic Council of Acts xv.

Lightfoot and Lipsius both think the visit of St. Peter

1 Or was it only one messenger ? The Latin evidence is in favour of viva, not
rmis.and NBDFG latt. Orig. read 9i\6fv, not fi\Qov, in the next clause. Origen,
who read TIVO.S and faOtv, explained it as meaning that St. James himself came to
Antioch.

294 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

to Antioch took place after the Council, on the ground that
St. Paul is giving a series of events arranged in chrono
logical order. Probably every one will agree that this is
the most obvious view to take ; but the difficulty has been
felt that the incident described is most improbable at
that time. In the first place, supposing the Apostolic
Decrees were a food law, it is difficult to imagine both St.
Peter and St. Paul ignoring them until St. James sent to
remind them of the agreement, and almost harder to think
either that St. Paul objected to keeping the agreement
which he had just made, or, in the alternative, that St.
James was trying to insist on more than the Council had
conceded ; and one or other of these alternatives seems to
be necessarily implied. In the second place, if the Council
did not prescribe a food law, but agreed to recognize the
Antiochene position, which only asked for moral require
ments, it is equally hard to imagine that St. James should
so soon afterwards have encouraged a movement which, at
the Council itself, he failed to support.

These difficulties have led Zahn and Turner l to suggest
that St. Paul does not here follow the chronological order
of events, but passes, after considering the two occasions
on which he came into contact with the Apostles in Jeru
salem, to deal with the single occasion when St. Peter came
down to Antioch ; it is not stated definitely that St. Peter
did this before or after the events previously mentioned,
but historical probability points clearly to an occasion
anterior to the Council. In support of this conclusion it is
urged that in the previous section St. Paul indicates the
chronological order by beginning each sentence by tirtira
(i. 18, 21 ; ii. i), and that when in ii. n he omits to insert

1 See article on " Chronology " in Hastings Dictionary of the Biblf.

ST. PETER AT ANTIOCH 295

, he implies that he is no longer following the chrono
logical order.

There is a sufficient amount of weight in this reasoning
to render the theory just possible ; it is, indeed, to my
mind, the preferable form of the interpretation which places
the "interview" in Gal. ii. in the time of the Apostolic
Council. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the
straightforward view is that St. Paul is throughout follow
ing the chronological order, and that when he says, " But
when Peter came," etc., he means that this happened after
the meeting in Jerusalem, which he had just described.

It is, therefore, no small advantage for the view that
Gal. ii. ought to be placed in the time of the famine, that it
avoids all these difficulties. It is then possible to take
Gal. ii. as giving the chronological order of events, and at
the same time not to read into the account of the " inter
view" in Jerusalem details only derived from Acts xv. If
we confine ourselves to Gal. ii., we know nothing of any
agreement as to the conditions of intercourse between
Jewish and Gentile Christians. All we know is that the
Apostles approved of St. Paul s teaching, and agreed that he
should continue to preach to Gentiles, while they kept to
the Jews ; and, so far as we know, nothing was said as to
what the members of the Jerusalem school should do if
they happened to be in the province of the mission to the
Gentiles. But, if this be recognized, the account of St.
Peter s visit to Antioch becomes intelligible. After he had
agreed that St. Paul should continue his work on his

previous lines, he came to Antioch, and at first fell in with the
custom of the Antiochene Christians, and mixed freely with
the uncircumcised Gentile Christians who did not obey the
Jewish Law. Afterwards, other members of the Church at

296 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Jerusalem came to Antioch, who were shocked at this
laxity, persuaded both St. Peter and St. Barnabas to adopt
a stricter line, insisted that it was one thing to encourage
preaching to the Gentiles, but quite another to derogate
from the sacredness of the Law, or to excuse converts from
all observance of it, and were stoutly resisted by St.
Paul.

Moreover, it is noticeable that this tallies very closely
with the account which St. Luke gives of the scene at
Antioch before the Council, and the TIVO.Q OTTO Io/cwj3ou in
Galatians correspond exactly to the nvlq KaTtXOov-ts am
TJ}C lovSafoc in Acts.

Thus, on the view that the " interview " in Gal. ii. refers
to an incident in the time of the famine, this section must
be taken to mean that, just before the Apostolic Council, St.
Peter was in Antioch, and was somewhat vacillating in the
presence of the conflicting claims of the local Church and
of the representatives of the Church in Jerusalem. This
must have been directly after St. Paul s and St. Barnabas
return from the first missionary journey, as described in
Acts.

On this theory, the incident really presents no special
difficulties ; it falls naturally into place as one of the events
which made the Council necessary ; that this is historically
probable has been recognized by Zahn and Turner, but
inasmuch as they still hold to the view that the "inter
view " belongs to the time of the Council, they are obliged
to accept the exegetical improbability that St. Paul has
deserted the chronological order of events. The other view,
placing the " interview " in the time of the famine, enables
us to follow the lines both of historical and of exegetical
probability at the same time. Thus regarded, the incident

CONCLUSIONS 297

of St. Peter s visit to Antioch is a valuable though secondary
argument in favour of the early date of the " interview."

In order to apply the results of the preceding investiga
tion to the date of the Epistle, the main point is to
establish the latest date mentioned by St. Paul. As to
this it is obvious that three views are possible, (i) On the
theory that the " interview " must be placed at the time of
the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem, and that St. Paul in
Gal. ii. follows the chronological order of events, the visit
of St. Peter to Antioch is the latest date mentioned. (2) On
the same view, but with the amendment that St. Paul is
not following the chronological order, the latest point is
the proceedings in Jerusalem immediately preceding the
Council. (3) On the view that the "interview" belongs to
the time of the famine, the latest date is the visit of St.
Peter to Antioch, which must be placed either immediately
before, or far more probably immediately after, the first
missionary journey, just before the Apostolic Council, when
the Judaic controversy was at its height.

Whichever view be adopted to my mind the third is
the most probable it is clear that this latest date men
tioned in the Epistle gives us the terminus a qtio, before
which it cannot have been written. The question which
remains is to fix a terminus ad quern. This cannot be done
even with the same degree of probability as the earlier
date : it depends on the view taken of the general plan of
the Epistle, and on the consideration of probabilities which
appeal with very varying force to different minds. The
main lines of discussion may be stated thus : First, it may
be argued that St. Paul in Gal. i. and ii. is giving an
account of the events not up to the time when he visited

298 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

them, but up to the time of his writing ; in this case the
terminus a quo established above is actually the date of
the Epistle, and we must regard it as written either just
before or just after the Apostolic Council, according to the
view adopted. Or, secondly, it is possible to hold that St.
Paul is only giving an account of events up to the conversion
of the Galatians. It should be noticed that for those who
hold the South Galatian view that the Epistle was sent to
Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe the second
of these alternatives is only possible if we suppose that
St. Peter s visit to Antioch preceded the first missionary
journey. Ramsay seems to have overlooked this point
when he argues in one place (Paul the Traveller, p. 187)
that St. Paul omits the Council of Jerusalem, because
it was held after the conversion of the Galatians, and in
another (p. 160) that the visit of St. Peter to Antioch took
place on St. Paul s return from his first journey, and finally
(p. 191) dates the Epistle during St. Paul s visit to Antioch
after the second journey. This is inconsistent reasoning ;
if St. Paul omitted the Council because it was posterior to
the conversion of the Galatians, he ought also to have
omitted St. Peter s visit to Antioch, and the fact that he
does not do so shows that the omission of the Council must
be otherwise explained.

Or, thirdly, it may be that he is merely giving an
account of the events in his career which played a part
in the campaign between him and the Judaizers, either for
attack or defence, apart from any question as to their
chronological relation to the conversion of the Galatians.
The third possibility is, to my mind, the most generally
probable, but can obviously neither be proved nor dis
proved : it is only serviceable in so far as it raises a

GALATIANS AND ROMANS 299

presumption that if St. Paul omits all mention of events
which would certainly have been of use either to himself or
to his opponents in the Judaic controversy, this must have
been because the events in question had not yet taken place.

The adoption of the North Galatian theory, which
holds that St. Paul did not found the Churches in Galatia
until his second journey, leaves us free to think that St.
Paul, in Gal. i. and ii., describes only events anterior to the
foundation of the Churches. In this case, when combined,
as it always is, with the identification of the "interview"
in Gal. ii. with the Apostolic Council, the North Galatian
theory gives us no help in fixing the terminus ad quern of
the dating of the Epistle. It is necessary to look for other
indications. These can be found in one direction only the
connection of the Epistle with that to the Romans.

The relationship of Galatians to Romans is extra
ordinarily close. It is similar to, though possibly slightly
less marked, than that of Colossians to Ephesians, and
i Thessalonians to 2 Thessalonians. This has been worked
out in detail by Lightfoot, in his edition of Galatians,
pp. 45 ff., and the conclusion which he draws is that, if
we are to judge from literary affinity, Galatians must have
been written just before Romans. The same view is
adopted by Askwith, who does not, however, adopt the
North Galatian hypothesis. According to Lightfoot, there
fore, Galatians was most probably sent from Corinth, just
before St. Paul s last journey to Jerusalem.

On the North Galatian theory this view seems to me
to be the most probable, 1 and it is important as drawing

1 The alternative, which, until the coming of the South Galatian theory, was
the most popular in Germany, is that it was written from Ephesus. This view
is based on the ideas (i) that the rb irpiirfpov in Gal. iv. 13 implies two visits to

3co THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

attention to the evidence afforded by the relation of
Galatians to Romans.

On the South Galatian theory the position is different.
The earliest date to which the Epistle can possibly be
ascribed is the one which seems to me the most probable.
If we adopt this view the dispute with St. Peter at Antioch
is the latest incident mentioned in the Epistle, and St. Paul
wrote immediately afterwards, just before the Council, on
receipt of the news that the Jerusalem mission, which had
caused trouble in Antioch, had also disturbed the Galatian
Church. This hypothesis accounts satisfactorily for the
absence of any mention of the Apostolic Council and its
decrees in a manner which no other hypothesis does r 1 it is,
of course, only possible if the conflict with St. Peter be
regarded as earlier than the Council. It is best fitted to
the view which identifies the " interview " in Gal. ii. with
an incident of the visit to Jerusalem in the time of the
famine. It is just possible, on the more usual identification
of that interview with the preliminaries of the Council, if
we suppose (with Zahn and Turner) that the conflict with
St. Peter happened earlier, and think that the Epistle was

Galatia thus the Epistle was written after the visit in Acts xviii. 23 and (2)
that it was written very soon after this visit, because St. Paul says, " I marvel
that you are so quickly removing," etc. (Gal. i. 6). Thus it is thought that St.
Paul must have heard of the Galatian defection soon after his arrival in Ephesus,
and then wrote the Epistle before writing to the Corinthians.

1 It is desirable to notice that on the North Galatian theory no theory can
explain the absence of any reference to the Apostolic Decrees. If we think that
the Galatians lived in North Galatia, we cannot avoid the fact that the Apostolic
Council took place, not only before the Epistle was written, but also before
the Galatian Church was founded, and it is extraordinarily hard to understand
St. Paul s silence as to the decrees. It is, therefore, not surprising that German
critics, who hold the North Galatian theory, mostly reject the historical character
of the decrees. I must confess that if I held the North Galatian theory I should
do the same, and regard the Apostolic Decrees as Lucan rather than historical.

ANTIOCH TO JERUSALEM 301

written from Jerusalem during the visit at the time of the
Council, but before it had actually held its official meeting
as described in Acts xv. But this seems unlikely : if for
no other reason, because the way in which Jerusalem is
mentioned suggests that St. Paul was not at the time of writ
ing in that city. On this view, then, the Epistle was writtenX
shortly before the Council, after St. Paul s return from
the first missionary journey. Was it, in this case, written
from Antioch ? This is the most obvious place, but the
objection is that St. Paul refers to Antioch without saying
or implying that he was writing there. This is not a very
serious objection, but those who feel it to be important can
suppose that the Epistle was written at some time during
St. Paul s journey from Antioch to Jerusalem described/
in Acts xv. 3. It is a point in favour of this view that
St. Luke s words "they passed through ($u ip\ovTo) both
Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion (tirurTpotyii)
of the Gentiles." &itp\ta9ai is the usual word for a journey
of propaganda, and St. Luke seems to imply that St. Paul
and St. Barnabas went more or less slowly to Jerusalem,
gathering adherents as they went. Moreover, if the Epistle
was written during this journey it would give a better ex
planation of the absence of all greetings from a definite
Church, and would throw an interesting light on the phrase
in Gal. i. 2, " all the brethren who are with me" which would
be more appropriate as a reference to his companions on
the way up to Jerusalem, than as a paraphrase for the
Church at Antioch.

Thus, to my mind, the most probable view is that
Galatians was written while St. Paul was going from Antioch
to Jerusalem, just before the Apostolic Council. It is,
however, necessary to point out that the one serious

302 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

objection to this view is that it does not account for the
resemblance of Galatians to Romans, if the traditional date
of Romans, written from Corinth before St. Paul s de
parture for Jerusalem, be accepted. The only possible
view seems to be that St. Paul wrote Galatians after his
return from the first missionary journey during the con
troversy which led up to the Council ; that there was then
a temporary lull in the Judaistic controversy, or that the
Judaizing propaganda passed over Macedonia and Achaia,
and that when it broke out in Rome, St. Paul sent a longer
and fuller statement of the arguments which he had used for
the Galatians. This is possible : at the same time, there is
no other evidence that the controversy had first a lull and
afterwards a recrudescence. The choice seems to be between
Lightfoot s date, which satisfies the literary problem caused
by the resemblance of Galatians to Romans, but fails to
meet the historical difficulties raised by St. Paul s silence
as to the Council and its decrees, and the theory placing
Galatians before the Council, which satisfies these historical
difficulties, but fails to meet the literary problem. Personally,
I find the historical difficulties greater than the literary
ones, and thus prefer the early date, but there will probably
always be those who take the opposite position : what is
desirable is that the adherents of both views should re
cognize that there is a real weakness, as well as a real
strength, in their own position, and that it is just this
weakness which is their opponents justification. The
possibility of another date for Romans is discussed in
this connection on pp. 363 ff.

It is, of course, hardly necessary to say that there are
other views which demand respect, if only because of the

PROFESSOR ZAHN 303

authority which years of study have lent to the names of
those who support them, but they seem, on the whole, largely
to partake of the weakness of both the theories already
mentioned, without having the really strong points of either.

Perhaps the best example of this type is the view
advocated by Zahn. 1 He has taken the view which was
traditional in Germany among those who maintained the
North Galatian theory, that is to say, that the Epistle must
have been written soon after St. Paul s; second visit to the
Galatians, taking TO -rrportpov in Gal. iv. 13 necessarily to
mean "on the former of two occasions." On the North
Galatian theory this meant after Acts xviii. 23, but Zahn is
a " South Galatian," and therefore regards Acts xvi. 6 as
the second visit of St. Paul to the Galatians. Therefore the
question resolves itself for him into an attempt to ascertain
how soon after this, and at what place, St. Paul is likely to
have had news of Galatia. Zahn decides that it must have
been at Corinth, and probably before the arrival of Timothy
and Silas from Macedonia (see pp. 72 ff.). Thus Galatians
is, also according to Zahn, the earliest of all the Pauline
Epistles.

In many ways this is an attractive theory, and in Zahn s
hands its strong points are made very clear, but it plainly
suffers from all the disadvantages of dating the Epistle
as contemporaneous with Romans, and also from those
attaching to the system which dates it before the Council,
for it gives no adequate explanation of St. Paul s silence as
to the Apostolic Decrees on the one hand, nor of the close
resemblance to Romans on the other. It sacrifices the
historical probability that St. Paul would have mentioned

1 Kommentar zum N. Testament. IX. Dcr Brief des Pattlus an die Galater.
Cf. his Einleitungin das Neue Testament^ I. pp. 138 ff.

304 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

the decrees had he known them, to the probably erroneous
view that TO irportpov must mean the " former of two visits " ;
and it sacrifices the literary probability that Galatians is
contemporaneous with Romans to the supposed necessity
of interpreting TCI XCWC in Gal. i. 6 as "within a few months of
my last visit." It is, therefore, so far as I can judge, inferior
in probability to either of the other theories.

III.

ST. PAUL S OPPONENTS AMONG THE GALATIANS.

The foregoing discussion, dry and full of tedious details
as it necessarily has been, was essential if any thorough
attempt was to be made to fix the position of the Epistle
to the Galatians in the history of the Judaistic controversy
by a comparison of the chronological data supplied by
itself, by Acts, and by Romans. The result has been to
show that it may, at the earliest, belong to the period
immediately preceding the Council, or at the latest to the
la^t visit of St. Paul to Corinth when he sent the Epistle to
the Romans. It now remains to take up a different side of
the question, and ask what light the Epistle throws on this
controversy itself.

On any view of the date of the Epistle two things stand
out clearly. In the first place, there was a divergence of
opinion between St. Paul and the Jewish school as to the
relation of Christians to the Jewish Law. In the second
place, there was an attack on St. Paul s apostolic authority.

The Judaizers clearly maintained that every Christian
was bound to observe the Jewish Law, and to be circumcised
(cf. especially iv. 21 ; v. 2 ; vi. 12). Probably they argued that

ST. PAUL S OPPOXEXTS 305

the promise of the Messianic kingdom was made to the
seed of Abraham (cf. especially iii. 16 ff. ; iii. 29 ; iv. 21 ff., in
which St. Paul is clearly combating this argument), and
that therefore those who wished to belong to the kingdom
must become members of the family of Abraham by means
of circumcision, and observe the Law which God had given
to this family. This kind of teaching had been propagated
at Antioch by preachers who were, or at any rate claimed
to be, the representatives of St. James, the brother of the
Lord, and the head of the Church at Jerusalem. It is
extremely important to understand the attitude of mind
which this Judaizing teaching implies. But as it is also
the theme of the greater part of the Epistle to the Romans,
its discussion is better postponed, as is also the considera
tion of the question whether the controversy with the
Judaizers belongs to one period only, or broke out at
intervals throughout St. Paul s career, a question which is
of course intimately associated with the respective dates of

Galatians and Romans.

Peculiar, however, to Galatians is a subordinate point
in the controversy : the accusation made that he was in
reality an advocate of circumcision. This is certainly implied
by Gal. v. n, " But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision,
why am I still persecuted ? " Clearly St. Paul had done
something to give colour to this accusation. Either it must
have been his treatment of the episode of Titus, if, as 1
believe, Titus really was circumcised, or, if a later date be
given to the Epistle, it may have been his treatment of
Timothy whom he circumcised in Lystra. 1 It is difficult
or impossible to discover exactly what the facts were, but it
is not impossible that St. Paul did actually recognize circum-

1 Acts xvi. 3.

306 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

cision for Jews, and that at first he was prepared, in the
spirit which said, " neither is circumcision anything nor un-
circumcision," to admit it as expedient for Gentiles such as
Titus, who were otherwise likely to offend Jewish Christians.
On the whole, however, the point probably belongs to the
comparatively unimportant category of those rather silly
accusations of inconsistency which can always be made
with some show of correctness against any prominent man.
In any controversy the little men are always ready to shout
"inconsistency" against the leaders of the opposite side
usually with some degree of speciousness. It never matters
very much, for truth triumphs over tactics, and it is not
finally hindered by the small mistakes of great men. The
controversy in which St. Paul was engaged is in this respect
no different from many others.

It is also possible that the danger of a forged letter pur
porting to be from St. Paul, was present to St. Paul s mind
when he wrote at the end of his Epistle, " See with how
large letters (TrrjAucote) I have written to you with mine own
hand " (Gal. vi. 1 1). In this case the obvious comparison
is to the situation in Thessalonica (see p. 95), but it is clear
that the inference is by no means necessary. The whole
passage is obscure. Ur]\iKoig certainly ought to mean "how
large," but it is far from unlikely that it had, in St. Paul s
time, a greatly weakened meaning : it is doubtful whether
the emphasis ought not rather to be placed on the ry t/uy
\tipi, and the sentence explained as implying that St. Paul
had written the whole letter himself, instead of using an
amanuensis. In this case it is unimportant for the explana
tion of the situation in Galatia. The question can never be
cleared up entirely, as the sentence is necessarily as obscure
to us, as it was plain to those who saw the original letter.

SI . PAULS OPPONENTS 307

It serves in this respect to illustrate the true epistolary
character of the letter.

Besides this, a bitter attack seems to have been made
on St. Paul s personal authority. St. Paul nowhere formu
lates its character, but we can easily see what it was. His
opponents claimed that the leaders of the Church at Jeru
salem had special authority ; that St. Paul was an Apostle
a delegate from them, and that if he taught contrary to
their commission, his doctrine had no validity. That this
was the view promulgated by the Judaizers is as certain as
it is, according to St. Paul s evidence, that it was not really
based on the actual attitude of the leaders at Jerusalem
themselves. Knowing even only the little which we do of
the life of Jesus, we can see how such a view may have
been justified. The " Twelve " had been appointed by
Jesus. He had given them a commission to prepare men
for the coming of the Kingdom. They had visibly received
the gift of the Spirit. Authority was theirs : and if St. Paul,
or any one else, also had authority, he had it only in a
secondary degree, because the leaders at Jerusalem had
given it to him. It is important to contrast this with the
attack made on St. Paul s apostolate at Corinth, for the
difference is typical of the Greek and Jewish standpoints.
The Jewish mind sought for authority and order. It asked
for a properly constituted governing body. The Greek
mind, on the other hand, asked for inspiration. Validity
for the Jew meant the possession of the proper commission
from the proper people, and the delivery of the proper
message in the proper way : for the Greek it meant inspira
tion by the Holy Spirit, the revelation through man of the
hidden things of God. Thus, among St. Paul s opponents
the Jew said, his mandate is irregular ; the Greek, his

3o8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

message is inadequate. No doubt this would be an unjust
statement if it were taken as a characterization of all Jews
or all Greeks, but it does seem fairly to represent the
extremes to which the majority of Greeks and Jews were
liable.

The antithesis which is thus implied between constituted
authority and the freedom of inspiration goes deeper and
lasted longer than the controversies between St. Paul and
his opponents on either side. It is, indeed, an antithesis
which will never be resolved ; it can be traced through all
history, and both factors are ultimately beneficial. The use
of the factor which emphasizes authority, and demands a
proper mandate from the proper source, is to give stability :
its abuse leads to stagnation. The use of the other factor,
which seeks truth, freedom, and inspiration, is to ensure
progress : its abuse leads to anarchy.

LITERATURE. The best commentaries are those of J. B. Lightfoot, 1865 ;
Th. Zahn, in his Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, 1905 ; R. A. Sieffert, in
Meyer s Kritischcxegetisch Kommen tar fiber das Neue Testament, 1899; F. Lipsius,
in Holtzmann s Handkommentar, 1892 ; \V. Bousset, in J. Weiss Die Schriften
des Neuen Testaments, 1908 ; and W. M. Ramsay, Historical Commentary on
the Galatians, 1899. Other important contributions are W. M. Ramsay, The
Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, and St. Paul the Traveller and Roman
Citizen, 1895 &gt; E. H. Askwith, The Epistle to the Galatians, 1902 ; O. Zockler,
in Studien und Kritiken, for 1895, pp. 51-102 ; V. Weber, Die Adressaten des
Galaterbricfes, 1900 ; and the articles in the Encyclopedia Biblica, Hastings
Dictionary of the Biblt\ and the Realencycloptfdie fur Theologie, ed. 3.

APPENDIX I

GALATIA, KINGDOM AND PROVINCE

THE population of Asia Minor in the first century after
Christ was an extremely complicated mixture of
various nationalities, representing different invasions and
conquests. One of the lowest strata, representing either an
aboriginal population, or one of the earliest invasions, was
the Lycaonians, in the district of Lystra, Derbe, and further
eastwards. A most recent, but still very ancient stratum,
was the Phrygians, who had invaded Asia Minor at the
beginning of the first millennium before Christ, or even
earlier, and had conquered and settled in the valley of
Sangarios, the country near the Hellespont, and the
adjacent districts, pressing on as far as Iconium. Originally
a fierce and warlike race, they gradually degenerated, and
passed under the domination of the Persian Empire, and
afterwards under that of Alexander of Macedonia. A
disturbed period followed the death of Alexander, and
ultimately, after the fall of Seleucus in 281, Antiochus I.
became nominal ruler of Phrygia, but was faced with the
rivalry of Mithridates of Pontus in the north. Probably the
northern part of Phrygia, bordering on Pontus, was more
or less completely under Pontic control. At this point,
about 278 B.C., a new invasion began ; the Gauls, who had
been ravaging all the Mediterranean lands, entered Bithynia,

309

3io THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

and after some vicissitudes occupied and settled in the
north-eastern part of Phrygia, with Ancyra as their chief
town. This is the Kingdom of Galatia ; its population
consisted of at least three superimposed and more or less
coalesced strata, Gauls, Phrygians, and earlier inhabitants,
perhaps related to the Lycaonians. The history of this
kingdom up to the beginning of the second century B.C. is
a series of wars and alliances with its neighbours, but in
189 B.C. the Galatian interference with commerce, and the
alliance of the Galatians with Antiochus against Rome at
the battle of Magnesia, led to a Roman expedition in which,
as Livy narrates, an enormous number of Galatians were
killed or captured. Further wars with the Pergamene and
Pontic kings nevertheless followed, and probably to this
period ought to be assigned an expansion of Galatia to the
South at the expense of the Lycaonians, probably extending
as far as Iconium and Lystra. This is the new territory
which Ptolemy calls the " added " land, and Pliny a tetrarchy
taken from Lycaonia. 1 The two authorities do not wholly
agree, for Ptolemy excludes Iconium, and Pliny says that
the tetrarchy included Iconium and fourteen cities ; but
probably Pliny is right. This explains why, although in
189 B.C. Lycaonia belonged to the Pergamene kingdom,
it was not part of the Roman Province of Asia which was
made in 133 B.C. out of that kingdom. Nevertheless Galatia

1 Pliny says (Nat. Hist. \. 25), " IIos includit Lycaonia in Asiaticam juris-
dictionem versa, cum qua conveniunt Philomelienses, Tymbriani, Leucolithi,
Pelteni, Tyrienses. Datur et tetrarchia ex Lycaonia, qua parte Galatiae con-
termina est, civitatium xiiii urbe celeberrima Iconic." Ptolemy says (Geogr. v. 4),
TTTO 8e TO. elptj/JLeva tdvr\ Sti^Kovai Hpo&lt;rei\ri[i./j.tv iTai, virb Se TOVTOVS ol fiifavol
Koi pfpos AvKaovias, K.T.A.., \vhile to Lycaonia (Geogr. v. 6) he reckons Iconium
and six other towns, and to Av-rioxfavT] Derbe, Laranda, and two others. Lystra
he does not mention.

GALATIA 311

was never fully the equal of the Pontic kings in the north,
and by 121 Galatia was probably the point is not quite
clear more or less subordinate to Pontus.

In that year the Romans declared Galatia free which
meant free from Pontus, and practically, if not nominally,
under Roman control ; but the Mithridatic wars followed,
and it was not until 73 B.C. that it was really free from
Pontus. In 64 B.C. Pompey reorganized the East. Galatia
was placed under three chiefs, and part of the tetrarchy of
Lycaonia, including Iconium and Lystra, was taken away. 1
Of the three tetrarchs Deiotarus was the ablest, and in the
last two years of his life was the sole King of Galatia.
Dreading the horrors of a disputed succession, Deiotarus
put to death all his sons but one, but either this son died
prematurely or was overlooked, for on the death of Deiotarus
in 40 B.C. Antony appointed Castor in his place. Mean
while Pisidia and the rest of the Lycaonian territory of
Galatia had formed part of the Province of Cilicia. Antony
now found this arrangement undesirable. It was a disturbed
district, and Roman soldiers could not be spared. Antony
therefore appointed Amyntas, who had been secretary to
Deiotarus, as King of Pisidia and Pisidian Phrygia ; Antioch
was probably his capital. Similarly, Polemon was made
King of part of Lycaonia and Isauria and other districts.
His capital was Iconium. 2 Thus in 40 B.C. the centre of
Asia Minor was divided between Castor King of Galatia,
Amyntas King of Pisidia, with a capital at Pisidian Antioch,
and Polemon, with a capital at Iconium.

In 36 B.C. Castor died, and a new arrangement was

1 In this way Ramsay explains the difference between Pliny and Ptolemy.
He thinks that 1 Iiny represents the older, and Ptolemy the later facts.
* Strabo, p. 568 IT. 577. Appian, Bell. Civ. v. 75.

312 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

made. Amyntas was given Galatia, and Lycaonia, which
was taken from Polemon, who was moved northwards to
Pontus, and the Cilician part of Polemon s kingdom was
given to Cleopatra.

The fall of Antony only disturbed this arrangement in
so far that Pamphylia and Cilicia Tracheia were added to
the kingdom of Amyntas, who finally conquered Derbe,
which had previously been an independent stronghold under
Antipater. Thus the Kingdom of Amyntas became ex
tremely large and important. Its final extent is indicated
on the map facing p. 316.

In 25 B.C. Amyntas was killed, and the Romans decided
to take over his kingdom as a new province. Pamphylia,
however, was again separated from it, and made into a
distinct province, and part of Lycaonia, including Derbe,
was given to the Kingdom of Archelaus of Cappadocia.
This district went through various changes, but in A.D. 41 a
kingdom containing part of Lycaonia and Cilicia Tracheia
was confirmed to Antiochus of Commagene, who was given
the title of King of the Lycaonians. This kingdom lasted
until 72 A.D., when it was absorbed into the Empire. In
41, therefore, the boundary of the Province of Galatia was
Derbe, which was restored to it, and Lystra and Antioch
had been made into coloniae probably because they were
important in connection with the dangerous mountain
district in which they were situated.

Such is the outline of the history of the change from the
Kingdom of Galatia to the Province of Galatia. It will be
noted that, except in a strictly ethnological sense; the
whole district, including Iconium and Antioch, had been
Galatian since the time of King Amyntas.

The name of the whole province was Galatia. This was

GALATIA 313

at one time disputed by Schiirer and others who preferred
the North Galatian view ; but In the face of the evidence of
inscriptions and of Pliny and Ptolemy, they have abandoned
this position. The various districts in the province would
naturally be described as Galatic, because they belonged to
the Galatic Province, but their exact names, and precise
proof of them, present many difficulties.

The districts important for the present purpose are those
which Ramsay calls Phrygia Asiana, Phrygia Galatica,
Lycaonia Galatica, and Lycaonia Antiochiana. The actual
evidence for these is as follows :

Phrygia Asiana is mentioned by Galen, who says . . .
AojOuAcu, 7] &lt;rrt fJitv to^ari} rrj AmavriQ fypvyiucj irnXic. (FltjOi
Tpo&lt;p6)v Svya/icwc \},cd. Ku hn, vi. p. 515-

Phrygia Galatica is probably mentioned in the Meno-
logium Sirletianuin, " Hi sanctt martyres fuerunt sub Dio-
cletiano imperatore in urbe Antiochiae Pisidiae ex regione
Phrygiae Galaciae sub praeside Magno," where Galaciae
may be emended to Galaticae or Galatiae ; Ramsay prefers
Galaticae, but Galatiae is palaeographically more probable
(A. SS. Sept. vol. vii. p. 562 A.).

Lycaonia Antiochiana is mentioned in CIL v. 866O, 1 an
inscription of 166 A.D. ; and Ptolemy, v. 6, 17, speaks of
Avrtoxfmrj/, though he nowhere supplies Lycaonia as the
substantive belonging to this adjective.

This is not very strong evidence, but one must not
expect to find overwhelming proof for the details of pro
vincial nomenclature. In any case it is noticeable that the
terms Phrygia Galatica, Phrygia Asiana, etc., are exactly
parallel in formation to Pontus Galaticus, just as Lycaonia

1 It should be noted that a widely copied misprint in one of Ramsay s later
statements attributes this inscription to CIL. x, instead of CII-. v.

314 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Antiochiana is parallel to Pontus Polemoniacus, both of
which names are used by Ptolemy.

That x&gt;i a means " regio " is probably not susceptible
of proof: but x w ; a 1S certainly not the usual Greek for
" province " (l-n-apx^a), and the use of the adjective FaXemKoe
in a political rather than an ethnographical sense is the usual
Roman practice. FaXarm might conceivably mean the land
which in the second century before Christ was the Kingdom
of Galatia ; but the proper title of the province would be
77 FaAcmKJ) t7rap\ta. " The province which is named after
the Galatian part of it," and in the same way 17 FaXariKi]
\wpa means a district belonging to this province. As
Ramsay has pointed out, ?j FoXarueq \upa can no more mean
" the Kingdom of Galatia " than " the British district " could
mean England. It means the district attached to the
Province of Galatia, as distinct from a neighbouring district
attached to something else.

That " regio " was a name used in Galatia for a district
of the province is shown by an inscription from Antioch
which mentions a tKctKovrapxiiv ptytwvapiov, discovered by
Sterrett, though he found the second word so strange that
he was inclined to amend it into XtyEwvoptov. 1 x^P a wou ld
be the natural translation of " regio." It only remains to
point out two smaller problems connected with Antioch and
Iconium.

Antioch was really a Phrygian city : it was called
Pisidian because it was close to Pisidia, and Strabo actually
called it as such. 2 It was given to Amyntas as King of

1 Sterrett, Epigraphic Journey in Asia Minor, p. 92.

2 Sliabo refers on pp. 569 and 577 to Antioch as ^ trpbs TlicriSla. The
meaning of this phrase is shown on p. 566, where he says of Phrygia Magna,
*.v j? tonv 77 re vapupttos \(yo/J.fvr] Qpvyta. /col ^ npos TlHriSia, K.T.\.

GALATIA 315

Pisidia in 39 B.C., 1 and Augustus made it a colonia and the
military centre of the district. Strabo s evidence shows
that before 20 A.D. the Phrygian character of the country
was not forgotten : later on, as Ptolemy shows, it was
regarded as Pisidian.

Iconium also was really Phrygian. It is described by
Xenophon 2 as the most easterly town in Phrygia, and Pliny
also speaks of it as Phrygian. So also in the trial of Justin
Martyr Hierax says that he aTro I/cov/ou -f}c 3&gt;pv-yiag aTroo-Trao-
Oiig IrOdcs t\i)\vOa. 3 During the changes of Roman
administration it was usually connected with Lycaonia :
thus it went in 39 B.C. to Polemon, 4 not to Amyntas, but in
36 B.C. it passed with part of Lycaonia to Amyntas. 5 It was
in this way a border town which politically was probably
Lycaonian and nationally probably Phrygian. It is not
quite clear whether it belonged to Lycaonia Galatica or
Phrygia Galatica. St. Luke, however, seems to regard it in
Acts xiv. 6 as Phrygian, for he says that the Apostles fled
from Iconium to "the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra, and
Derbe." In Acts xvi. 2-6, however, his meaning is less
plain. In xvi. 2 he says that Timothy was well spoken of
by those in " Lystra and Iconium." Does not this imply
that St. Paul was already in Iconium ? Then, in xvi. 6
he says that they " passed through the Phrygian and
Galatian region." Does this imply that they entered this

1 Appian says of Antony, "OTTJ tie iry Kal f}a&lt;n\tas, ot&gt;s SoKifidfffifv. . . .
AyUiWcw 5e TluriScai , Kal no\fpcava utpovs KiAiK/or, K.T,\. Cir. \. 75 ed.
Mendelssohn, II. p. 1123).

2 Xenophon, Anab. I. 2, 19.

3 Acta Martyrii Justini et Sociorum, 4.

4 Strabo, p. 568.

* DioCassius, xlix. 32, 6 V o(iv A.i&gt;Tu&gt;t&gt;ios . . . SwaffTtias A./j.vvra/j.fv ToAoTiat,
KaiTfp ypafj.ULO.Tfl TOV ArjiOTapov yero/teVy, e5a Kf , KO.} Avxaovtas naua&gt;i&gt;\&lt;as rt rira
OUT irpocrBeis, K.T.\.

3*6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

region after leaving Iconium ? If so, Iconium is here
regarded as Lycaonian. But the assumption is not necessary.
Af$X0ov does not necessarily mean that they only then
entered the region.

Probably, therefore, St. Luke ought to be taken as
regarding Iconium as Phrygian, and in so far as evidence
that Iconium belonged to the region of Phrygia Galatica
rather than to that of Lycaonia Galatica. But it would
not be wise to press the point. In any case, the argu
ment on p. 259 holds good, that St. Luke s meaning may be
that at Iconium St. Paul had to choose between the road
going into Phrygia Asiana or that passing through Phrygia
Galatica, and that he chose the latter because he found that
he would not be able to preach in Asia.

The accompanying map, based on the work of Ramsay,
shows the Kingdom of Galatia, the Kingdom of Amyntas,
and the Province of Galatia, together with the towns and
roads which are important for the history of St. Paul s work.

Those who wish to study further this very complex
question will do well to begin by reading the first part of
Ramsay s Historical Commentary on the Epistle to the Gala-
iians, and his articles on the various towns and provinces in
Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, and to look up for them
selves the passages which he quotes. The omission of the
latter task results in a wholly wrong impression that the
matter is, after all, quite simple which is emphatically not
the case.

ast 32 o Greenwich

The extent of the original Kingdom

of Ga/atia shown thus:-

Boundary of the Kingdom of Amyntas
Boundary of the Province of Galatia
Boundaries of other Provinces
Roads

9e; of Marmora

To face p. 316.

Hmcry \\*a]k-;r

Emery Walker s&lt;i

APPENDIX II

THE TEXT OF ACTS xn. 25

THE text of Acts xii. 25 is so uncertain and so interesting
that it cannot be passed by without comment. The
text usually printed is Bapvaflac Se KCU Sau
aXi m, TT\i]pw&lt;ravTeg TTJV Staieoviav, (r
TOV tTriK\iiOivTa Mapicov. But the phrase e ( lE/oouo &gt; oX^/i
is uncertain. There are three main variants in the text.

(1) e ItpovaaXi ip, found in A 13 69 and many minuscules:

(2) OTTO lepovaaXi iiu, found in (B) 1 D (E) and some minuscules ;

(3) etc lepovrraXi ip, found in K (B) H L P 61 Syr-hl-mg. Chrys. ;
together with (4), a subvariant of (2), OTTO Ifjoouo-oX)}^ etc
^Avrto^etav, found in E syr-pesh sah, and many minuscules ;
and (5) a subvariant of (3), e?c Avrto\tav, found in a fe\v
minuscules. Variant (i) may be condemned as an Alexan
drian emendation of (3) not essentially different in character
from (5). It is condemned not only by the weakness of
the evidence, but by the fact that vTroarpfyttv followed by
the place whence a return is made, is not elsewhere found
with i in the Lucan writings, but always with TTO. The
choice, therefore, is really between arro and etc. Considering

1 The scribe of B wrote els, but seems to have begun to write airb. I think
that this shows that dirb must have been known to the scribe, though it may
have been merely a slip, for it is noteworthy that viroffrpt^tiv th I*p&lt;&gt;i/&lt;roAj;u
is a common phrase which would come naturally to the scribe s pen, while awlt
ltpovffa\)]/j. is relatively rare.

317

3i8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

the exceedingly important evidence which B gives, the
purely manuscriptal evidence is about equally divided.
But there is no question but that eJ? Itp. is the lectio ardiia
which explains the others. The natural feeling of any one
who reads the whole passage from xi. 27 to xiii. I, is that
xi. 30 describes the arrival of St. Barnabas and St. Paul at
Jerusalem, and that xii. 25 ought to describe their departure.
This would account for a tendency to change etc IipovaaXrifi
into some phrase giving the opposite meaning. E
Itpov(ra\ri[i and etc AvTi6\iav are both attempts to
accomplish this purpose ; is it not probable that O.TTO
IfpovffaXrifj. is an earlier effort of the same kind? In
this case etc ItpovaaXrifj. must be regarded as the earliest
known reading. It remains, however, open to doubt
whether it is not a "primitive corruption," which might
be explained by Bartlett s suggestion * of an original
text which said viroarpifaiv without any mention of
Jerusalem at all, and was erroneously filled up by some
scribe who did not pay much attention to the history,
but was familiar with the expression {/Trooyjt ^Etv etc
lepovaaXi ifi (cf. Luke ii. 45 ; xxiv. 33 ; xxiv. 52 ; Acts
i. 12; viii. 25; xiii. 13; xxii. 17), and was influenced by
the fact (though no doubt he could not have formulated
it) that vTrovrpifyuv is found in the Lucan writings fifteen
times with mention of the place whither (etc), and only
twice with mention of the place whence (:ro).

It is, nevertheless, not quite so certain as is often
maintained that a? ItpovaaXiifj. is not the original text.
llAr7|oa&gt;&lt;ravrc means not so much " after having fulfilled " as
"in fulfilment of" (just as ao-Traerajuevoi in xxv. 13 means not
" after having greeted " but " with greetings for "), and it is

1 In the Century Bible Commentary on Acts.

319

possible that St. Luke really meant " St. Barnabas and St.
Paul returned to Jerusalem, which was the centre from
which St. Barnabas, at all events, had started, in fulfilment
of the ministration (which has been already mentioned)."
By this means he linked on the Jerusalem-narrative to the
Antioch-narrative, and showed, what is historically certain,
that the famine came after, not before, the death of Herod.
The objection is that, in this case, he does not explain how
St. Barnabas and St. Paul come in the next paragraph to
be back in Antioch. It is, however, not impossible that he
omitted to state that they went back to Antioch, regarding
this as obvious : such a view is certainly harsh, but it is
too much to say that it is impossible, for it has the
advantage of giving a statement of the facts which is
historically more probable. The death of Herod was in
44, and the famine was in 46. It is not probable that
famine relief was sent from Antioch before the famine,
and thus the mission of St. Barnabas and Saul probably
took place after the death of Herod. In this case, Acts xii.
25 must be taken merely as a chronological warning, given
by St. Luke to show that the famine, which the exigencies
of his narrative had forced him to put before the death of
Herod, because it belonged primarily to the Antioch narra
tive, really took place later. It is as though he said to his
readers, "You must understand that the incident of the
Famine, and the visit of Saul to Jerusalem, to which I
alluded when tracing the history of Antioch, must be
inserted at this point." Either this view or Dr. Bartlett s
seems to me to be preferable to adopting the usual reading
(t), which is so unmistakably condemned by all the rules
of textual criticism.

ST. PAUL S JOURNEY TO ARABIA

reference in Gal. i. 17 to a visit of St. Paul to
-*- Arabia raises several difficulties, which may be conveni
ently summarized in the questions : (i) Why did he go to
Arabia ? (2) What does Arabia mean ? (3) What is the
connection of the incident with the ethnarch of King Aretas
(of Arabia) mentioned in 2 Cor. xi. 32 ?

(i) Why did St. Paul go to Arabia ? The usual explana
tion is that he went away to meditate in the desert, perhaps
on Mount Sinai. This exegesis is not impossible, and can
be expanded to any length by references to the psycho
logical influence of solitude, and historical parallels to
Moses and Elijah. The alternative, which meets with hardly
any support at present, is that he went to Arabia to preach
the gospel. It is of course quite obvious that certainty on
this point is unattainable, but I would urge that on the
whole the balance of probability is that St. Paul means to
imply missionary activity in Arabia. He is arguing that he
received a commission to preach to the Gentiles direct from
God, not from man, and that he therefore had no need to
confer with man, or to go to Jerusalem, before beginning to
preach the gospel. The antithesis is not between con
ferring with flesh and blood in Jerusalem, and conferring
with God in the desert, but between obeying immediately

ARABIA 321

the commission of God to preach to the Gentiles, and going
to some human source in Jerusalem in order to obtain
authority or additional instruction. St. Paul s argument
seems to me to require the sense "As soon as I received
my divine commission, I acted upon it at once, without
consulting any one, and began to preach in Arabia." More
over, it is, to my mind, psychologically more probable that St.
Paul, once converted, lost no time before beginning to carry
out what he felt to be his duty, but this consideration is too
subjective to be valuable, and other minds will no doubt feel
differently on the point.

(2) What does Arabia mean ? The names " Arab " and
" Arabian " were used in ordinary Graeco-Roman language
of the Kingdom of the Nabataean Arabs, which in the first
century was almost at the highest point of its power under
Aretas IV. The best statement on the history of this
kingdom will be found in Schiirer s Geschichte des jildiscJien
Volkes, I. pp. 726-744.

The point which is important for the present purpose is
that the Nabataean Arabs had established themselves by
the beginning of the first century as the rulers over a large
tract of country stretching from the Euphrates to the Red
Sea, with Petra as their capital, and bordering on the
Province of Syria. At one time they captured Damascus,
but from the time of Pompey this city belonged to the
Province of Syria, though even in the second century it was
recognized as in some degree Arabian. 1 Their territory was,
of course, largely desert, but it contained several towns, of
which Petra in the south and Bostra in the north were the
most important. When St. Paul says that he went to

1 Cf. Justin Martyr, Dial. 78 : AojucwKos TT}S Appa0iKr)s yrjs fy KO.\ fffnv,
xol vvv Trpofff(Vf/ji.r)rai rrj "ZvpoQuiviKri \(yofj.ivp.

322 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Arabia the impression which he would make on Graeco-
Roman readers, in Galatia or elsewhere in the Empire,
would be that he went to this Nabataean kingdom, ruled over
from 9 B.C. to 40 A.D. by Aretas IV.

(3) The meaning 0/2 Cor. xi. 32 ff. St. Paul says, "In
Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king guarded the city
of the Damascenes to take me, and I was let down through
a window in the wall in a basket, and I escaped from his
hands." Apparently this is the same incident as that
described in Acts ix. 24 ff., in which St. Luke says that
the Jews in Damascus "guarded the gates day and night to
kill him, but the disciples took him by night and let him
down through the wall in a basket." No doubt St. Paul s
own version must be taken as the more accurate, but the
reference to the ethnarch of Aretas causes difficulty. It is
known that Damascus in the first century before Christ
belonged to the Nabataean king, but Pompey gave it to
Syria, and the evidence of coins shows that as late as the
year 34 A.D. it was Roman. There are, however, no coins
from this date until 62 A.D. in other words, there is no
evidence that Damascus was Roman under Caligula or
Claudius. The suggestion has therefore been made (and
accepted by Schurer) that, at the death of Tiberius, Aretas
was made responsible for Damascus. If so, this incident of
St. Paul s life must be dated not earlier than 37 A.D., and
it is not easy to fit this into the general scheme of chronology.
But the whole basis of this suggestion is extremely frail : it
consists entirely of the assumption that if Aretas had an
ethnarch in Damascus, Damascus was in his kingdom.
What are the facts concerning the word " ethnarch " ? It came
in time, as Schurer says, to mean some one a little more than
a tetrarch, and less than a king, but the really important

ARABIA 333

point is that in the first century it was used as the name of
the governor of the Jews in Alexandria. 1 No one con
cludes from this that therefore Alexandria belonged to the
Jews. It is more probable, then, that the ethnarch of
Aretas was a representative of the Nabataean king who
looked after the Arab element in Damascus, just as the
ethnarch of the Jews in Alexandria looked after Jewish
interests. In this case the chronological difficulty of the
passage is removed.

It is not, I think, impossible to combine the results of this
inquiry into a reasonably probable hypothesis. St. Paul
immediately after the conversion went into the Nabataean
kingdom and preached to the Arabs, perhaps in Bostra.
He was not especially successful, but roused the enmity of
the Jews, and attracted the hostile attention of Aretas. He
returned to Damascus, where both the Jews and the ethnarch
of Aretas endeavoured to put an end to his career, but he
managed to escape in a basket let down through a window
in a house built on the wall.

This view is of course largely imaginative, but it may
claim the advantage of giving a reasonable explanation of
the difference between Acts ix. and 2 Cor. xi. The objec
tion that St. Luke says nothing about this visit to Arabia
of course remains : but it is, I think, sufficiently answered
by the fact that St. Luke is only concerned with Christi
anity within the Empire, and Arabia was outside its limits.

i 5* Ka\ IGvdpxns O.VTWV, bs Sjoj/teT re ri&gt; tQvos KO! Siai-rf Kpiffets
fes &PXVV avroTt\ovs. Strabo, quoted in Josephus, Antiq. xiv. 7, 2.

CHAPTER VI
THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

/ "~T % HE problems concerned with the Epistle to the Romans
may conveniently be divided into three main groups :
(i) the critical questions relating to the integrity and
destination of the Epistle ; (2) the foundation and character
of the Church at Rome ; (3) the doctrinal and other con
troversies which called forth the Epistle.

The questions of a purely historical and critical character
connected with this Epistle seem at first sight to be
few in comparison with those raised by the Galatians and
Corinthians. Indeed, if we could take the text of the
Epistle as it stands, the question of date, and of the place
to which it was sent points which are so complicated in
connection with Galatians would be so plain as hardly to
admit of discussion.

In Rom. xvi. i St. Paul refers to Phoebe as the " servant "
of the Church at Cenchreae, the eastern port of
Corinth on the Saronic gulf, and commends her to his
readers. This is in itself almost enough to justify us in
saying that St. Paul was writing from Corinth. Moreover, in
Rom. xv. 25-27 there is a clear reference to the " collection "
for Jerusalem which St. Paul had made in Achaia and
Macedonia.

"But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints.

324

ROMANS XVI. 1-23 325

For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make
a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at
Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily ; and their debtors
they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of
their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto
them in carnal things."

From this it is plain that St. Paul has finished the collec
tion and is just starting for Jerusalem. This can scarcely
refer to any place except Corinth, and as this agrees so
exactly with the inference derived from the mention of
Phoebe, there is no reason for the slightest hesitation in
saying that the evidence decisively indicates Corinth as the
place, and the last visit to Corinth as the time of the
writing of the Epistle to the Romans.

Unfortunately, at this point it is necessary to face^ two
problems which disturb this apparently clear indication.
In the first place, it is alleged that chap. xvi. the com
mendatory letter for Phoebe was really intended for
Epjiesus, not for Rome. In the second place, there is clear
evidence of the existence of a shorter form of the Epistle,
which omitted chaps, xv. and xvi. and made no mention of
Rome in chap. i. If this cannot be shown to be a later
recension, the argument based on chap. xv. only holds good
for the longer text, and the possibility that the short form
is the original has to be considered.

Thus, two distinct problems have to be investigated,
(i) The destination of chap. xvi. 1-23; (2) the short
recension of Romans.

THE ORIGINAL DESTINATION OF ROM. xvi. 1-23.
There is no trace of any external evidence for doubting
that this section has always belonged to the Epistle. But

326 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

on internal grounds the double objection has often been
made that it is quite unsuitable as a communication to the
Church of Rome, and that it bears signs of having really
been intended for Ephesus.

The negative argument that it is unsuitable for Rome
is primarily concerned with the large number of personal
greetings which it contains, far larger than in any other
Epistle. Is it probable that St. Paul had in a Church which
he had never visited more friends than in any other place ?
Or, if it be thought that this is an unwarrantable inference
from the greetings, is it probable that he would have known
so many persons in Rome ? It must be admitted that there
is some force in this argument, even though it is hardly
conclusive.

Besides this it must be noted as a secondary argument
of a negative kind that Rom. xvi. 17, 18 seems out of place
in an Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul says, " Now I beseech
you, brethren, mark those who cause divisions and offences
contrary to the teaching which ye have learned, and avoid
them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus
Christ, but their own belly ; and by good words and fair
speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." By the " teach
ing which ye have received " does not St. Paul naturally
mean his own teaching? And does not the description
given of the false teachers fit much more the unethical
teaching of " advanced " Christians, such as obtained in
Greece and Asia, 1 than the narrow, but certainly ethical
teaching of Judaizing Christians against whom Romans is
directed ? Again, it cannot be denied that there is some
force in this argument, though it is not so strong as the

1 According to the testimony of the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Epistles
of the Captivity, and the Pastoral Epistles.

P RISC A AND AQUILA 327

other, because there are some other places in the Epistle
which are at least capable of bearing the meaning that
there was a tendency to an imperfect appreciation of the
ethical obligations of Christianity among some of the
Gentile Christians (see pp. 380 ff.), though there is no place
which points to a propaganda of this nature, such as
Rom. xvi. 17 seems to imply.

The positive argument in favour of Ephesus is based
on the mention of Epaenetus, and of Prisca and Aquila.

Epaenetus is described as the firstfruits of Asia, 1 just
as Stephanas in I Cor. xvi. 15 is called the firstfruits of
Achaia. It is possible that Epaenetus had left Asia ;
but there is much more force in the description if he was
still in Asia, and St. Paul was writing to the Church of
which he was the earliest member. At the same time, not
much emphasis can be put on this argument, because we
know nothing of the history of Epaenetus.

Far more important is the question of Prisca and Aquila.
The point is that, although they originally came from Rome,
all our information points to the probability that their settled
abode at this time was in Ephesus, and that, therefore, when
St. Paul sends greetings to them, and to the Church in their
house, it is far more probable that he is writing to Ephesus
than to Rome.

In connection with this question it will perhaps be
best to collect shortly all that we know from the New Testa
ment as to Prisca and Aquila. 2 They are first mentioned

1 The reading " firstfruits of Achaia " in the A.V. is condemned decisively by
the facts (i) that it is not found in any of the best MSS. ; (2) that it contradicts
I Cor. xvi. 15, where the text is undisputed.

2 It is curious, though probably unimportant, that St. Luke seems always
to have written Priscilla, and St. Paul Prisca. It is also remarkable that St.
Luke, according to the text of the best MSS., seems always to have written

328 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

in Acts xviii. 2, when we read that after St. Paul s arrival in
Corinth he "found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in
Pontus, lately come from Italy, and his wife Priscilla ;
(because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart
from Rome :) and came unto them. And because he was
of the same trade, he abode with them, and they carried
on a business : for by trade they were tent-makers." *

The question may be raised whether they were already
Christians, or were converted by St. Paul. As St. Luke
makes no statement on the subject, certainty is not attainable,
but the probability is somewhat in favour of the view that
they were already Christians when they came to Corinth, as
Stephanas, not Aquila or his wife, is quoted as the airapx^i
Ax al/a c&gt; an d from I Cor. i. 16 it would seem that Stephanas
was a Corinthian. 2 It is true that Aquila is referred to as a
Jew, but it is by no means clear that " Jew " was to St. Luke
the contradictory of " Christian."

In Corinth they remained until St. Paul s departure, when
they went with him to Ephesus (Acts xviii. 18), and they

Priscilla and Aquila putting the wife in the first place. St. Paul does the
same in Rom. xvi. 3 and 2 Tim. iv. 19, but not in I Cor. xvi. 19. From this
fact the conclusion has been drawn that Prisca was the more important person,
either from social standing or from influence in the Church. The supposition
has been made that Prisca was a Roman lady who had married a Jew ; and
Harnack has given much notoriety to the suggestion that she was the
authoress of the Epistle to the Hebrews. All these hypotheses are more
ingenious than probable, though no doubt there must have been some reason
(now irrevocably lost) why Prisca was so often mentioned before her husband.

1 There are many variants in the text of this passage, though they do not
seriously alter the sense. Cf. Harnack s Uber die beiden Recensionen der
Geschichte der Prisca und des Aquila in Act xviii. 1-27 in the Sitzungsb eric hie
des k bnigl. preuss. Akademie zu Berlin, 1900, pp. 2-13.

2 Zahn, however, thinks that he must have been converted in Athens, which
was also in Achaia, since he was the " firstfruits," and St. Paul s preaching in
Athens was not wholly unsuccessful ; still, Athens plays so small a part in the
early history of Christian Achaia that I think St. Paul probably meant Corinth.

P RISC A AND AQUILA 329

were still in Ephesus when St. Paul wrote I Corinthians, as he
refers (i Cor. xvi. 19) to the Church in their house ; indeed,
if the tradition preserved in the text of the group of Graeco-
Latin MSS. (DEFG), in I Cor. xvi. 19 could be trusted,
he lodged in their house at Ephesus (see p. 143). Thus it
would appear that they had settled more or less permanently
in Ephesus. Finally, in 2 "^im. iv. 19 greetings are sent. to
Prisca and Aquila at Ephesus. It is of course doubtful
whether 2 Timothy is a genuine Epistle of St. Paul, but at the
least this reference points to the existence of a tradition
connecting Aquila with Ephesus, for the Epistle is certainly
intended to convey the impression that it was written from
Rome to Ephesus, and if it be genuine it shows that about
eight years after their first arrival in Ephesus Aquila and his
wife were in that city.

Thus, apart from Rom. xvi. 3, all the evidence suggests
that Aquila and his wife settled permanently in Ephesus, and
this gives real support to the theory that Rom. xvi. is actually
a short letter of commendation given to Phoebe for her
use in Ephesus, not in Rome. It is not very probable that
Aquila and Prisca left their settled home in Ephesus soon
after St. Paul had written I Corinthians, that a year later
their house in Rome was the centre of a Church, and that
they later on returned to Ephesus, and once more took up
the same position in the Christian community.

This argument is not lightly to be set aside, and if Rom.
xvi. 1-23 were a loose fragment, with no context, I do not
doubt that it would have been regarded as quite certainly a
letter sent to Ephesus to commend Phoebe. The difficulty
is in explaining how in this case a commendatory note (for
it is really nothing more) to Ephesus, ever got into the
Epistle to the Romans. This difficulty has led to many

330 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

attempts at a fresh analysis of the greetings, intended to
show that they really point to Rome, and to more or less
ingenious efforts to find traces of Prisca and others in the
early history of the Church of Rome.

The general analysis of the greetings has drawn attention
to the fact that there is more evidence for the various names
in inscriptions from Rome than in those from other places,
and considerable weight has been attached to this point
by those who support the Roman hypothesis. I doubt,
however, whether they are quite justified in their conclu
sions. Our knowledge of Roman inscriptions has been, until
recently, much greater than that of those in other places,
and as our information has grown, the number of names
which really are peculiar has decreased. It is true, as
Lightfoot pointed out, 1 that many of the names in the
salutations can be paralleled in Roman inscriptions referring
to the household of Caesar, but these inscriptions are not
contemporary, and most of the names are found in other
places as well as Rome. For instance, without any full
research into the Corpus Inscriptionum, a glance at Thieme s
Inschriften von Magnesia am M dander und das Neue Testa
ment shows that Stachys and Philologus, both of which
Lightfoot regarded as rare, and therefore adding weight to
his argument, are found in inscriptions in Magnesia 2 and in
the island of Thera. 8 The mere fact that many of the
names in the greetings in Rom. xvi. are found in Roman
inscriptions connected with the imperial household is of
very little weight unless it can be shown either that the
names in question are, as a whole, so rare that their combina
tion in the greetings, and again in the imperial household can

1 Epistle to the Philippians, pp. 171-178. 2 See Thieme, op. tit. p. 41.

3 I Gr. xii. 3. 339, 671, 1527.

ARISTOBULUS AND NARCISSUS 331

only be explained by their reference to the same persons,
or that there is some reason for making this identification
on other grounds. The former can certainly not be main
tained ; there is perhaps more ground for supporting the
latter view.

This support is found in connection with the " household
of Aristobulus," and the "household of Narcissus." 1 It is
suggested that the phrase translated "the household of
Aristobulus " ot A/otoroj3ouXou means the slaves in the
Imperial household whom the Emperor inherited from
Aristobulus, the grandson of Herod the Great. This
Aristobulus is known to have lived in Rome, and to have
been a friend of the Emperor Claudius. 2 The suggestion is
that if, as is probable, he was dead by the middle of the
first century, he had bequeathed his slaves to the Emperor,
and that they were known as Aristobuliani ot rou A/otoro-
jSouXou in the Imperial household. This is possible, for it
was not uncommon for slaves to pass in this way into the
Imperial household, and to have a distinctive name. But,
of course, it is pure assumption. There is no proof
either that such Aristobuliani existed, or that Aristobulus
left his slaves to the Emperor. A stronger case, of the same
kind, can be made out for an identification- of the " house
hold of Narcissus." There was a well-known freedman
named Narcissus who was put to death by Agrippina at the
beginning of Nero s reign. 3 It is suggested, with much
probability, that after his death his slaves were confiscated
by the Emperor. This is quite likely, and, if so, these
slaves would be called Narcissiani. There are, however,

1 Rom. xvi. lof.

Josephus, Bell. Jud. II. II, 6 ; Antiq. xviii. 5, 4 ; xx. I, 2.

3 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. \\. 29-38 ; xii. I ; xiii. I ; Suetonius, Claudius, 28.

332 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

two objections to this theory, though neither is fatal. In
the first place, Narcissus is quite a common name ; in the
second, there is no proof that Narcissiani must be trans
lated into Greek as ol Nap/aWou. Words like Herodiani
were transliterated directly. Would not St. Paul have
said ol Na/oK/o-crmvo/ if he had meant Narcissiani ? It seems
to me more probable that ol NapKiaaov means " the family
of Narcissus," and that it refers to some living person named
Narcissus. 1 At the same time, there is undoubtedly force
in the contention that it is remarkable that in the Imperial
household, among which we know that there were Christians, 2
it should be possible to show that there may probably have
been at this time two sub-groups connected with the names
of Aristobulus and Narcissus. My own feeling is that if it
were certain that Rom. xvi. 1-23 really was sent to Rome,
I should regard it as probable that ol ApiuToflovXov and ol
No/oKto-o-ou should be explained in this way. But I feel less
prepared to accept this exegesis as a decisive argument in
favour of the Roman hypothesis, when this is in dispute.

The attempt to find definite traces of Prisca and others
in the early tradition of the Roman Church, is chiefly the
work of de Rossi, the famous investigator of the catacombs
in Rome. 3 He maintained in the first place that the Church
of St. Prisca, on the Aventine hill, was founded on the site
of the house of Prisca and Aquila. De Rossi was a very
great man, but here it cannot be said that his arguments
are impressive. It is sufficient to say that there is no real

1 So Ambrosiaster thought. He describes Narcissus as a "Presbyter" (see
Souter s Ambiosiaster^ p. 199). This at least shows that if the Narcissus in
Romans was the freedman, no tradition survived in Rome.

2 Phil. iv. 22.

* Aquila e Priscilla et gli Acillii Glabrioni in the Bull, di Archeologia
Crist iana, 1888, pp. 129 ff. See also Sanday and Hcadlam s Romans, p. 418.

DE ROSSI S ARGUMENTS 333

evidence at all for proving that the site of St. Prisca s was
that of the house of Prisca and Aquila, and no evidence
for thinking that the church was called SS. Aquila et Prisca
before the eighth century.

A far more serious argument was based by de Rossi on
the coemeterium Priscillae in the catacombs. It is apparently
probable that this cemetery was originally that of the Acilia
gens, and Priscilla was a common name among the women
of this gens. Thus it is suggested that the cemetery of this
family was called after their distinguished member, Prisca
the wife of Aquila. Dr. Hort 1 goes further and thinks
that as Prisca is usually mentioned before her husband she
may have been of more distinguished birth than her
husband. Why not go further still, and suggest that Aquila
was a freedman of the gens Pontia, in which Aquila was a
common name ? Is it not possible that TTOVTIKOV r ytvu is
a misunderstanding of this fact ? It seems to me that such
suggestions are dangerously fanciful, and that there is not
really any sufficient evidence for connecting the coemeterium
Priscillae with Prisca the wife of Aquila.

Similar use has been made of the presence of the name
of Ampliatus in inscriptions in the cemetery of Domitilla. 2
The name is found twice : but it is not uncommon, and
though these inscriptions show that in the second century
there were Christians of that name in Rome, there is not
much reason for thinking that the Ampliatus mentioned by
St. Paul must necessarily have lived there.

The same can also be said of Nereus. This name is
celebrated through the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, 3 who

1 Romans and Ephesians, pp. 12-14.

* De Rossi, Bull, di Archeologia Cristiana, 1881, pp. 57-74.
3 See Acta SS. Nerei et Achilla by H. Achelis in Ttxte und Unter-
suchungntf XI. 2.

334 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

according to the legend were eunuchs in the household of
Domitilla. The name is quite common, and the Acts
seem to contain much legend and little or no history.

Apart from the tradition of the Epistle there is thus a
comparatively weak case for the Roman hypothesis. Still,
the fact always remains that Rom. xvi. 1-23 is an integral
part of all MSS. of the Epistle which we now possess. Thus
the earliest tradition which we have connects it with Rome,
not with Ephesus. This is not everything, but it is a great
deal. Probably it is enough to prevent the Ephesian
hypothesis from ever being unanimously accepted, and rightly
so, for it can never be proved fully. Still there seems to me
to be a distinct balance of argument in favour of Ephesus,
though I must admit to vacillation on the question, and I
should not like to say that I shall never come back to the
Roman hypothesis. To some extent I have been influenced
by the growing conviction that the text of the Corpus
Paulinum is not always the same as the text which St. Paul
wrote. If, as seems to me certain, 2 Corinthians is a
combination of parts of two letters, whose union has left
no trace in the textual tradition, clearly there was an
important interval in the history of the text of the
individual letters, and of the small collections of Pauline
material made by individual communities, before the
Corpus Paulinum was defined and its text established.

If the Ephesian hypothesis be adopted, it is clear that
Rom. xvi. 1-23 must be regarded as a letter of introduction
sent by St. Paul to Ephesus for Phoebe, a servant of the
Church at Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth. Whether it
was sent by St. Paul on the eve of his departure to Jerusalem
must remain doubtful. There is nothing in its contents to
help us, but it is at least the most probable moment, unless

THE SHORT RECENSION 335

we assume that St. Paul visited Corinth again after he was
set free in Rome.

The importance of the question in relation to the history
of the Epistle as a whole can naturally only be discussed
after the more serious problem of the existence of a short
recension has been dealt with.

THE SHORT RECENSION.

The proof of the existence of a short recension of the
Epistle resolves itself into the treatment of the textual
evidence for the reference to Rome in the first chapter, and
of that for the two last chapters. It is probably best to begin
by showing why there is reason to believe that there was once
a text which omitted the two last chapters, and then to go
on to give the reasons for thinking that this shorter form
contained no reference to Rome.

The most widespread evidence for the omission of the
two chapters can be found in the ordinary Latin chapter
headings (or breves) given in the Codex Amiatinus of the
Vulgate and in many others (Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate,
p. 357, mentions at least 48). This system gives Romans
as divided into 51 chapters: the last but one (No. 50) is
entitled, De periculo contristante fratrem mum esca sua, et
qitod non sit regnum del esca et potus sed justitia et pax et
gaudium in spiritu sancto. This clearly covers Rom. xiv.
15-23. The next and last (No. 51) is De mysterio dei ante
passionem in silentio habito post passionem veroipsius revelato.
This equally clearly covers Rom. xvi. 25-27 and nothing
else. In other words, it implies a text of the Epistle which
ended with chapter xiv. plus the doxology which we usually
read at the end of the Epistle.

336 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Moreover, corroboration is not wanting that this conclu
sion is just. There is found in some MSS. a sort of con
cordance or harmony of the Pauline Epistles, which arranges
under reference to the chapter numbers the parallel passages
which deal with the same questions. The references to
Romans are usually missing; but it is possible that the
full text is preserved in a MS. at Murbach (Codex
Morbacensis) which gives 43 headings from Romans. These
are given according to the Amiatine chapter divisions, and
the two last are Quod regnum del non sit esca et potus, ad
Rom. L., ad Cor. pr. XL, and De abscondito sacramento a
saeculo, ad Rom. LI., ad Eph IX., ad Coloss. III., ad Tit. /.,
ad Hebr. II. This can scarcely be explained except on the
hypothesis that a short recension was used. There is, it is
true, some ground for thinking that possibly Corssen is
wrong, and that the Murbach MS. is not the original form
of the capitulatio, but a later edition of it. The reason for
this is that whereas the other MSS. omit all reference
both to Romans and Hebrews, the Murbach MS. contains
both. The references to Hebrews are probably an accre
tion, and it is open to argument that the same is true of
Romans. It is not, however, necessary to discuss this point
here, 1 for in any case, whether the Murbach MS. represent
original capitulatio or an interpolated version of it, it is
based on a short text of Romans.

For myself I cannot see any possible answer to this
argument, and the attempts of Zahn and Riggenbach to
maintain that the Amiatine system of breves is defective have

1 Those who find the point important should read not only Corssen s
articles, Ziir Uberlieferungsgeschichte des R bmerbriefes in the Zeitschrijt fur
die N.T.-liche. Wiss., 1909, l and 2, but also Dom Donatien de Bruyne s Une
concordance biblique d origine p. lagienne in the Revue Biblique, 1908, pp. 7S"^3-

THE SHORT RRCEXSION 337

little or no strength. 1 It is not as though the Amiatine
system was only found in a few MSS. ; those mentioned by
Berger are probably not a twentieth of the whole number,
and there seems to be no reason to doubt the obvious con
clusion drawn from the facts by a whole series of scholars,
who have agreed in thinking that the Amiatine system of
breves points to a short recension, though they have differed
widely enough in their explanation of the fact.

It is obvious 2 that the Latin version implied by the
Amiatine breves is not the Vulgate, but is ante-Hierony-
mian. Further traces of the existence of the short text
can be found in Latin in Cyprian, and in Tertullian.

In the case of Cyprian, the evidence is merely the
dangerous argumentum e silentio, but is a strong example of
its kind. In his Testimonia he gives a collection of texts
from every possible source, arranged according to their
community of meaning, so as to serve as an arsenal of
proof texts for various dogmas. It is certainly a fact that
he does not clearly quote anything from chaps, xv. and
xvi. of Romans, and each must judge for himself whether
this can be accidental. The main point is, that in Test.
III. 68, 78, 95, Cyprian musters the passages enjoining the
duty of avoiding heretics, under the three headings ; 68.
Recedendum ab eo qui inordinate et contra disciplinain vivat,

1 Zahn, Einkilung in das neue Testament, i. 280 f. (3rd ed.), and Riggenbach
in the Neue Jahrbucher fiir deutsche Theologie, 1892, pp. 526 ff., on Die Text-
geschichte der Doxologie Rom. xvi. 25-27. The Murbach text of the "concord
ance " can be found in Vezzosi s edition of the works of J. M. Thomasius, i. 489,
the Amiatine breves in Tischendorfs edition of the Codex Amiatinus, pp. 2406.,
and the shorter form of the concordance or capitidalio on pp. 237 ff.

2 This was first pointed out by Lightfoot (Biblical Essays, p. 362), who drew
attention to the fact that section 42, de temporc serviendo, implies a reading (i&gt;
Kaipcji instead of ry tcvpiy in Rom. xii. il) which Jerome expressly condemns.
See also further in Riggenbach, of. cit. pp. 531 ff.

338 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

2 Thess. iii. 6. 78. Cum hereticis non loquendum, Tit. 3,
10 f., i Job. ii. 19, 2 Tim. ii. 17. 95. Bonis convivendum
malos autem vitandos, I Cor. xv. 33. Why does he not
quote Rom. xvi. 17 : " Now I beseech you, brethren, mark
them which are causing the divisions and occasions of
stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned,"
etc. ? It is instructive to note that in the spurious De
Singularitate Clericorum (Cyprian, ed. Hartel, appendix,
p. 212), 2 Thess. iii. 6 is quoted, and a few lines further
down Rom. xvi. 17, which shows how naturally any one
who knew Rom. xvi. would have used it in this connection.
It seems to me exceedingly probable that Cyprian had the
same short text as the Amiatine breves, and that this text
must be provisionally regarded as having obtained in Africa
in the third century.

Going still further back, the evidence of Tertullian
is, if anything, stronger ; for not only is there the same
argumentum e silentio in the fact that he nowhere quotes
chaps, xv. and xvi., but in Adv. Marcionem, 5, 13, he quotes
Rom. xiv. 10, and says that this verse comes in clausula,
i.e. in the closing section of the Epistle. It is true
that he is contrasting the end with the beginning, and
Hort (cf. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 335) argued that
this need not imply the absence of the two last chapters.
This might be admitted if it were not for the other evidence
for a short recension ; as it is, the natural interpretation of
the facts is that Tertullian, like Cyprian, used a short
text of Romans. Moreover, though it be true that the
argumentum e silentio is much less strong in the case of
Tertullian than in that of Cyprian, because he quotes so
much less, it is noteworthy that Rom. xv. and xvi. are so
full of passages opposed to the doctrine of Marcion, that

THE SHORT RECENSION 339

it is suggested (by Sanday and Headlam, and by Corssen)
that the short recension is a Marcionite production ; yet
Tertullian never alludes to these passages, either to throw
at Marcion or to comment on his excision of them and he
was by no means disposed to pass over Marcion s emen
dations (real or supposed) in silence, even though he
endeavoured to answer the heretic out of his own text.

Thus there is good reason for believing that, in Africa,
in the second as well as in the third century, the Epistle to
the Romans was used in a short text which omitted chaps,
xv. and xvi. The Amiatine breves were made for a similar
text, and suggest that this recension was closed by the
doxology which we usually read in Rom. xvi. 25-27.

It is, however, improbable that the Amiatine breves
represent an originally African text. Riggenbach has shown
that in the summaries given the text of the Epistles is
sufficiently closely followed to enable us to identify its
character. It is not African, and it is not Vulgate ; but
represents the European type which was current in Italy
before the days of Jerome. Thus we have European as well
as African evidence for the short recension. 1 It is at present
impossible to say whether there was originally one or more
Latin versions ; so that we do not know whether this agree
ment between African and European Latin ought to be taken
as representing one or two Greek originals. It is, however,

1 I can hardly think that the short recension was used in Rome itself : can
we regard this as suggesting that the " European version " is, in origin, not
Roman? Or shall we perhaps find that the " European " Latin ought to be
divided into two, a Roman and a non-Roman, and that the Breves belong to
the non-Roman type? There is a real difficulty here, and I do not see a
satisfactory solution on any hypothesis yet known to me. To regard the Breve. !
as Marcionite is the simplest suggestion, but the other objections to this view
seem to me to be too great.

340 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

in any case certain that the evidence takes us back to the
second century.

Another witness, but a suspected one, to the same short
text, is Marcion. For our knowledge of this fact we are
indebted to Rufinus translation of Origen s Commentary
on Rom. xvi. 25-27. He says, Caput hoc Marcion, a quo
scripturae evangelicae atque apostolicae interpolataesunt, de hac
epistola penitus abstnlit ; et non solum /we, sed et ab eo loco
itbi scriptum est omne autem quod non est ex fide, peccatum
est (xiv. 23) usque ad fine m cnncta dissecuit. The meaning
of this passage is one of two. Clearly it implies that
Marcion removed the doxology altogether (abstulif), but
there is room for doubt as to what he did with the rest of
the Epistle. What is the meaning of dissecuit? The obvious
meaning, which is nearly always adopted, seems to be " cut
away," but the objection, first made, I think, by Hort, is
that this is not the true meaning either of dissecuit, or of
the Greek (which it may be supposed to represent) Sit-tfjtv ;
it ought rather to be translated " separated off." 1 This
argument gains strength if we try to distinguish between
abstulit and dissecuit. It is, perhaps, impossible to decide
the point ; if dissecuit be used loosely it means that Marcion
cut away not only the doxology, but also Rom. xv. and
xvi. ; if it be taken strictly it means that Marcion separated
Rom. xv. and xvi. from the rest of the Epistle, and cut
out the doxology which came at the end of chap. xiv.
Probably the former view is right, and the difference between
abstulit and dissecuit is to be explained as merely due to a
desire for variation.

1 Zahn (Einleitung, i. p. 280) thinks that cuncta dissecuit means that Marcion
* hat alles . . . zerschnitten, durch Ausmerzungen zerstiimmelt." But this
does not seem to me to be at all a natural interpretation of the Latin, and still
less of the presumable Greek, irdvra Sie re^o/.

THE SHORT RECENSION 34I

No MSS. in any language preserves the short recension.
Corssen, it is true, thinks that in a certain limited sense
this may be claimed for the group DEFG or rather for
their ancestor Z (see Appendix I.). He argues that the
character of the text in Rom. xv. and xvi. differs from that
in the other chapters to such an extent that the only
possible solution is that the scribe of Z, or of an ancestor
of Z, used two exemplars, of which he followed one for
Rom. i.-xiv. and the other for Rom. xv. and xvi. In this
case it would be probable that the former exemplar
belonged to the short recension, and that the scribe passed
on to the latter MSS. because he knew that a long recension
existed, and he had the usual scribe s preference for the
longer text. It would, however, be wrong to regard this as
quite decisive, for though the argument is quite reasonable,
it is too complicated to be wholly final. Moreover, the
complete analysis of the text is still unedited. So far as I
can see, Corssen is right, but the proof of his thesis demands
a rather fuller treatment than he or any one else has yet
given to it.

Apart, however, from direct MS. evidence, the traces of
the textual influence of the short recension are tolerably
plain.

In the Epistle to the Romans as it stands at present in
critical editions the arrangement of the contents of the last
three chapters is as follows : (i) Rom. xiv. 1-23 is devoted
to the question of the propriety of observing a distinction
between lawful and unlawful food ; (2) Rom. xv. 1-13
continues the argument on more general lines ; (3) Rom. xv.
T 4-33 is chiefly concerned with St. Paul s plans for the
future; (4) Rom. xvi. 1-20" is a list of greetings to members
of the Church to which he writes, and a commendation of

342 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Phoebe of Cenchreae ; (5) Rom. xvi. 2O b is a benediction ; (6)
Rom. xvi. 20-23 is a postscript of greetings from companions
of St. Paul ; and (7) Rom. xvi. 25-27* is a closing benediction.
It is clear that there is no serious break in thought between
xiv. 23 and xv. I, and that the doxology is in its correct
place at the end of everything. Yet in the Antiochene
text, represented by the great majority of Greek MSS., the
doxology comes not at the end, but between chaps, xiv.
and xv. Moreover, it is certain that this represents an
early text, which was adopted, to use Westcott and Hort s
expression, by the " Syrian Revisers," because we have the
distinct evidence of Origen that this reading was that of
some of the texts which had not been corrupted by Marcion :
In nonnullis etenini codicibus post eum locum quern supra
dixitmis, hoc est Omne autem quod non est ex fide peccatum
est, statim coliaerens habetur Ei autem qui potens est, etc.,
though he was also acquainted with others which put the
doxology at the end of the Epistle, and, like modern
critical editors, believed that this was the right place for it.
The same text was used by Chrysostom, Theodoret,
Oecumenius and Theophylact, so that, leaving out the
Latin version for the moment, it would seem as though the
Eastern text originally had the doxology after chap, xiv.,
and that in Alexandria it was moved to the end of chap,
xvi., though in the time of Origen the MSS. known to him
still differed on the question.

The history of the Latin text on this point is not easy
to follow, owing to our almost complete ignorance of the
Old Latin text of the Epistle. The known facts, however,
seem to be these ; there were in the Latin versions before
Jerome three types of reading : (i) with the doxology at

1 Rom. xvi. 24 is omitted by the R.V. and all critical editors.

THE DOXOLOGY 343

the end of the Epistle, found in D and used by Pelagius and
Ambrosiaster, possibly owing to Alexandrian influence ; (2)
with the doxology after xiv.23,found in Codex Guelferbytanus

(T 2 \
cod ) , and (3) without
9 J
any doxology, used by Priscillian and found in FG and

Cod. Ambrosianus E 26. It is also probable that Z, the
archetype of the Graeco-Latin MSS. DEFG, ought to be
added either to the second or third of these categories. 2

The most probable solution of these facts seems to me to
be that the earliest type of Old Latin had the doxology
after xiv. 23 and that the texts of Priscillian 3 and
Ambrosiaster represent Spanish and Italian attempts to
emend an obviously difficult reading. It is, I think, an
illustration of the fact that, with the exception of the
Alexandrians, the Greeks were less apt to be struck by
textual difficulties than the Latins.

It is now possible to sum up the probabilities of the
case with regard to the doxology. It is very unlikely that
this was originally anywhere else than at the end of the
Epistle, wherever that was 4 : therefore all the MSS. which

1 For the fullest statement of the facts about this MS. see Dom Bruyne,
Des deuxderniers chapitres de la lettre aux fiomatns,in Revue Benedictine, 1906,
p. 423 fi.

See Appendix, pp. 4140".

J The agreement between Priscillian and FG suggests that Y, the arch
of FG, may have had Spanish elements, and possibly this may even b&lt;
of Z, and would account for the agreement with Spec, to which C
drawn attention. D is, I fancy, more like the text of Lucifer and of Ambn
aster than was that of Z, but the question requires investigation.

Zahn, it is true, in his commentary (see esp. pp. 620 ff) arg&gt;
doxology is really best in place between chaps, xiv. and xv.
that he succeeds in explaining away the break which it then makes in tt
I agree that, on transcriptional grounds, xiv. 23 is the most prob
the doxology, but I regard this as only possible if we assv

344 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

insert it after xiv. 23 are really evidence for the existence
of the short recension, and confirm the witness of Tertullian,
Cyprian, and the Latin Breves and Capitulatio.

Moreover, it is not probable that the doxology belongs
to the long recension, or rather to chap. xvi. of the long
recension. For, if we assume that it did so, we have to
imagine that its presence in the short recension is due to
the fact that some scribe, who knew both the short and the
long recensions, took the doxology and the doxology
only from the long recension in order to add it on to the
short recension. This is exceedingly improbable ; and
even more improbable is it that, if the doxology had been
found at the end of the long recension, it would ever have
been taken out of its place and put in the middle of the
connected argument of chaps, xiv. and xv. Thus the
assumption that the doxology belonged originally to chap,
xvi. in the long recension renders it impossible to explain
either (i) the short recension pins the doxology, or (2) the
long recension plus the doxology after xiv. 23.

On the other hand, if we assume that the doxology
really belonged originally to the short recension, or to one
form of the short recension, and the long recension had no
doxology at all, but ended with the " Grace " (or with a
postscript after the " Grace," according to the view taken of
the textual question of the " Grace "), the textual history

originally to the shorter recension. Zahn is perhaps right in believing that the
" Grace " originally came in xvi. 24 only. Itthas been displaced in the long
recension when the doxology was moved from xiv. 23 to xvi. 25. It is curious
to note that Dom de Bruyne is rather inclined to think that the "Grace"
originally preceded the doxology in the short recension. It appears to have
done so in the Monza MSS. The matter is complicated, but not sufficiently
important for the present purpose to warrant the rather long discussion of
details which would be necessary to deal with it fully.

THE DO XO LOGY

345

seems to admit of a reasonable reconstruction, as the result
of attempts of scribes to combine these two forms. The
simplest method was simply to add on to the complete
short recension the added matter of the long recension,
i.e. chaps, xv. and xvi. This was the method that the
Antiochene text adopted. It had the disadvantage that it
made the doxology appear to be intrusive and in an
impossible position. An attempt to remedy this was the
method of passing from one text to the other before the
doxology : this would give a text indistinguishable from
the original long recension, and is found in Priscillian and
probably in Z, the archetype of DEFG. A third course
taken in Alexandria, or at least in circles known to Origen,
consisted in moving the doxology to the end of chap, xvi.,
and this was also adopted by Pelagius, Ambrosiaster, and
Jerome.

The most important conclusion from these results is that
there are no longer extant any pure MSS. either of the short
or of the long recension. It is of course obvious that the
short recension does not exist now, as no extant MSS. omit
Rom. xv. and xvi. Similarly, the existence of the doxology
is the proof that the long recension has been, at least so far,
contaminated with the short recension. The only possible
witnesses which we have to the pure long recension are the
MSS. known to Jerome which had not the doxology, and
possibly also those used by Priscillian. 1

In any case, though many of the details are uncertain,

1 It is, however, quite possible that Priscillian s text is really the short
recension without the doxology, but with the addition of chaps, xv. and xvi.
The same thing may be said of Z, and in this case is certain if it be true as
Corssen thinks I believe rightly- that there is sufficient textual difference
between the text of Rom. i.-xiv. and xv.-xvi. in Z to show that :
archetype was used for xv. and xvi. (see above, p. 341).

346 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

and the history of the text is obscure, there is, I think,
sufficient evidence to justify the statement that in the
second century there was a short recension of Romans, and
that traces of the process of its gradual abandonment in
favour of the long recension can be found in the third and
fourth centuries.

It is now necessary to go on to show that the short
recension probably omitted the reference to Rome in i. 7
and i. 15. For these omissions there are three direct
witnesses : Origen, Ambrosiaster, and Cod. G here pro
bably representing the archetype Z.

The evidence of Origen is given directly in Cod. Athous
Laurae 184, a MS. which E. von der Goltz discovered
in I897 1 to contain a text of the Epistle to the Romans
made from the lost Greek of the commentary of Origen.
This MS. gives, it is true, the words tv Pw/*p in Rom. i.
7 and 15, but the scribe has been honest enough to add a
note to the effect that this was not in his original, row Iv
Pwyuy ovre Iv rp e^rjyjjcrtt ovre Iv rtu /OJJTVO (i.e. the section
of text at the head of the comment) /uvtiiuovtvti. The
unexpressed subject of this sentence 2 is of course Origen.
Von der Goltz is, however, probably mistaken in thinking
that this reading is not confirmed by the Latin text of
Origen made by Rufinus. It is true that the words in
dispute come in the text, but as Lightfoot pointed out
long ago in Biblical Essays, p. 287, the comment does
not imply them.

It is possible that Origen knew MSS. containing the

1 E. von der Goltz, Eine textkritische Arbeit des zehnten beziv. sechsten
Jahrhundcrt, in Gebhardt and Harnack s Texte und Unlersuchungen neiie
Folge, ii. 4, 1898.

2 The same note, but without any explanation, is found in MS. Bodl. Roe
16 (Cod. Paul. 47).

THE MENTION OF ROME 347

words lv P&lt;i|up, but it is at least certain that he preferred
to follow others which omitted them.

The evidence of Ambrosiaster is contained in his
commentary. 1 He says, according to the existing MSS.,
" omnibus qui sunt Romae in caritate (v.l. dilectis) Dei
vocatis sanctis, quamvis Romanis scribat illis tamen se
scribere significat qui in caritate dei sunt." It is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that the comment here implies a
different text from that printed, and that Ambrosiaster s
Bible omitted lv Puytp and read-sv ay airy (or in caritate)
instead of ayairiiTolg. This view is taken not only by
Zahn but also by Lightfoot, 2 and the fact is notorious that
in patristic commentaries the Biblical text has often been
regularized by scribes who are betrayed by the comments
which they did not understand and therefore copied
faithfully.

The evidence of G agrees exactly with that of the
commentary of Ambrosiaster, that is to say, it reads TO?C
ova n tv ay airy OEOU. It is probable (see Appendix) that
this was the reading of Z, the archetype of DEFG. If, as
is probable, the reading of D was rolg ovaiv lv Pcojup iv
07071-9 GEOU, this provides an exact parallel to the text of
the MSS. of Ambrosiaster, just as G is a parallel to the
commentary of Ambrosiaster. The same reading is also
found in the Vulgate MSS. Amiatinus and Fuldensis.

1 According to the information supplied to Prof. Zahn by Dr. Brewer, who is
editing the text of Ambrosiaster for the Vienna Corpus, there are in existence
three recensions of this commentary (cf. the parallel features in the text of the
Quaestiones, mentioned by Souter in his edition in the same Corpus). These are
apparently all the work of " Ambrosiaster " himself; but in the passage quoted,
the only difference is that I and 2 read dilectis Dei, 3 in caritate Dei. All three
read in caritate in the comment, and dilectis is probably merely textual
corruption (see Zahn, Comm. p. 616.)

* Biblical Essays, p. 288.

34S THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Thus we have early evidence in Europe and in
Alexandria for the omission of the words tv Pa&gt;/iy.
African evidence, on either side, I have been unable to
find. This is, however, quite sufficient to prove the early
existence of a recension which did not mention Rome. But
was this recension the long or the short recension ? I believe
that it must have been the short recension, because the
Latin version used by Ambrosiaster is textually closely
related to the version used in the Latin Brevts which
are one of the primary witnesses to the short recen
sion. Moreover, Z appears in the evidence both for
the short recension and for the omission of tv Pwjup.
Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Marcion remain. As to
Tertullian and Cyprian, it is unknown whether they did or
did not read lv Pwjup. Marcion s reading is also unknown.
Origen used a text omitting iv r Pw/jy, yet possessing Rom.
xv. and xvi. ; but the evidence which he gives as to the
doxology shows his text was not that of the pure long
recension, but a contaminated form, so that the omission
of Iv Pw/jiy may be an eclectic reading from the short
recension quite as probably as one from the long recension.
Thus there seems to be a great preponderance of evidence
in favour of connecting the omission of lv Pw^r? with the
short recension.

The result of the preceding rather long and tedious
inquiry seems to establish the fact that in the second
century there was in existence a short recension omitting
chaps, xv. and xvi. and the mention of Rome, and probably
ending with the doxology. Indeed, there is, strictly speak
ing, earlier evidence for the short recension than for the
long. I do not know of any quotations from Rom. xv. and
xvi. in writers of the second century, whereas Marcion and

THE SHORT RECENSION 349

Tertullian both seem to have used the short recension. It
would, however, be wrong to base any serious argument on
this fact, because the chapters in question were not likely
to be quoted. Moreover, there is no reason to doubt the
Pauline authorship of chap, xv., which is closely connected
with chap. xiv. Thus there is no justification for any
theory that chap. xv. is a later, non-Pauline, addition to
the original short recension. Nor is it easy to think that
chap. xv. was written by St. Paul for some other purpose :
the connection of thought between Rom. xiv. and xv. is
far too clear. Otherwise, the most attractive theory would
be that just as 2 Corinthians represents two or more
fragments of Pauline letters, which were pieced together
and thus formed one letter in the Corpus Paulinum, so
also Romans consists of one main document with a few
fragments of Pauline letters, found in the Roman archives
perhaps, pieced on at the end.

This theory seems to me to be rendered improbable so
far as Rom. xv. 1 is concerned by the clear connection in
thought between it and Rom. xiv. It would perhaps
be too much to call it impossible, but it does not seem
to do justice to all the facts. Thus we have to face the
existence of the long recension as genuinely Pauline,
in the sense that St. Paul is responsible not only for
the words, but also for the arrangement of the contents,
and that he meant chap. xv. to be the continuation of
chap. xiv.

How, then, is the existence of the short form to be
explained ? Two main theories are possible : (i) St. Paul
wrote the long recension, and some one else issued the
short recension later on. (2) St. Paul himself wrote both,

1 The question of chap. xvi. is of course separate.

350 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

issuing the letter in two forms, either simultaneously or
successively.

At the present time the former of these theories is the
more popular, and it is widely held that the short recension
was made for dogmatic reasons by Marcion.

THE MARCION HYPOTHESIS.

This hypothesis, that the short recension was made
by Marcion, has been best defended by Sanday and
Headlam, Corssen, and von Soden.

Sanday and Headlam argue that Marcion excised
chaps, xv. and xvi. because they, or rather chap, xv., con
tained passages contrary to his teaching. " To begin with,"
they say (p. xcvii.), "five of these verses (i.e. Rom. xv. 1-13)
contain quotations from the Old Testament ; but further,
ver. 8 contains an expression At yw yap Xptorov Stajcovov
ypyfvfjo-Sai TrcptTOjitrjc virlp a\i)Oda.G 0ou which he most
certainly could not have used. Still more is this the case
with regard to ver. 4 (o&lt;ra yap TT poty pafyri etc TIJV r)/j.tTtpav
SfSaa-KaAi av lypa^r\), which directly contradicts the whole
of his special teaching." The point is that Marcion
rejected the general Christian view that the Old Testament
was a special revelation from the supreme God, whom he
distinguished from the God of Creation worshipped by
the Jews, and did not recognize that Christianity was
in any sense the legitimate outcome or fulfilment of
Judaism. f In order to support this theory he altered the
text of the Gospel of St. Luke and the Pauline Epistles,
which constituted his Scriptures, accommodating them to
his teaching.

Corssen uses a somewhat different argument. In the

THE MARCION HYPOTHESIS 351

first place, he argues that the doxology cannot be regarded
as Pauline, and is tainted with Marcionism. Therefore,
even if it be true that it did not figure in the text of
Marcion s edition, it must be regarded as the product of
the Marcionite Church, and thus the short recension,
which contained the doxology, must be regarded as
the work of Marcion. Probably this reasoning, in spite
of its ingenuity, will make few converts ; but much more
importance belongs to another argument which Corssen
also set forward, not knowing that he had, in the main
points, been anticipated by Dom de Bruyne. 1 This is the
fact that the Latin prologues to the Epistles, which are
found in many Vulgate MSS. including many of those
which have the Latin Breves, are undoubtedly of Marcionite
origin. Thus it is impossible to argue that it is incredible
that Marcion should have so much influence on the
canonical text ; for, although there is no sufficient ground
for connecting the Prologues and the Breves, it is neverthe
less a suspicious fact that they should be found, at least
partially, in the same MSS.

Von Soden s 2 advocacy of the Marcionite hypothesis is
bound up with his general position, and it is probably
desirable to state this in outline, as, owing to a variety of
reasons, his book on the text is not yet widely read (at all
events in England), even by those who are interested in
textual criticism.

He thinks that in the fourth century there were in
existence three main types of the text of the Epistles, to

1 In the Revue Benedictine {or January, 1907, pp. I ff., Prologues Bibliques
d origine Marcionile.

2 DicSchriffen des Ncucn Testaments in Hirer dltesten erreichbaren Textgestalt t
i. 3, pp. 2028 ff.

352 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

which he assigns the symbols K(otvtj), H(ai&gt;xios), and
/(fjOoixroX? /^t). The K type corresponds more or less to
Westcott and Hort s Syrian text and is subdivided into
K* and K\ It is found in the mass of MSS., and K T is the
Greek text of the Middle Ages. The H type covers both
the Nentral and the Alexandrian texts of Westcott and
Hort s system. It is best represented by NBACH ^ 17 ;
of these manuscripts xB are the most important, both
being descended from a common archetype (not much
older, but better than either), called by von Soden S 1 - 2 .
The / type is subdivided into the three families, 7 a , 7 b ,
and 7 C ; of these, 7 a is best represented by the Graeco-
Latin MSS. 1 DEFG, 7 b by the "Origen" MS. found by
von der Goltz 2 on Mt. Athos (von Soden s a 78, not
known to Tischendorf), and 7 by various MSS. which had
never hitherto attracted special attention. Of these three
families, 7 a is no doubt the best, though 7 b has often valu
able readings. It seems natural to think that, just as K is
Westcott and Hort s Syrian text, and H the Neutral and
Alexandrian texts, so 7 is Westcott and Hort s Western
text ; but this is only quite partially true, for von Soden
rejects many readings in DEFG as due to the influence
of the Old Latin, which he regards as earlier than 7, whereas
Westcott and Hort think that the Old Latin and DEFG
belonged to the same type.

Turning from MSS. to patristic evidence, the H text was
used in Alexandria by Athanasius and Cyril, the 7 text in
Palestine by Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and, with less
accuracy, by Epiphanius, and the K text in Syria by
Theodoret and Chrysostom. In the same way the Bohairic

1 See Appendix, pp. 414 ff.
8 See p. 346.

PROF. VON SODEN 353

version represents the H text and the Syriac Peshitta the
K text.

This only takes us back to the fourth century, and so
far it is probable that von Soden s results will prove in the
main to be sound. His view does not seriously differ from
Westcott and Hort s : both he and they recognize the
existence of three great types of text, and von Soden has
enriched our knowledge of the various MSS. of a later date
to an enormous extent without impugning this classifica
tion. The difference begins when we try to go further.
Neither Westcott and Hort nor von Soden can find evidence
for the K text earlier than the fourth century, and both
agree in thinking that it is connected with the recension of
Lucian, but whereas Westcott and Hort think that Lucian
made use of two older texts, the Neutral and Western,
roughly corresponding to von Soden s H and /, von Soden
thinks that the two types //"and /are co-ordinate recensions,
made in Alexandria and Palestine respectively, and that
the three, H, /, and K, are all based on the same text, to
which the symbol is given of I-H-K.

So far as the Epistles are concerned, von Soden thinks
that this I-H-K text can be traced in the quotations of
Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen,
and in the European and African Latin versions. At the
same time, there are many places in which I-H-K (as
reconstructed by a comparison of the three separate texts,
/, H, K} is deserted by these authorities. He thinks that
this is generally due to the influence of Marcion s text.

His method is to take Zahn s reconstruction of Marcion s
text, and to compare it with the texts of the separate autho
rities for the I-H-K text. He then arrives at the conclusion
that in many of the places where the separate authorities

2 A

354 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

desert the true I-H-K type they agree with Marcion.
Especially is this the case with the Old Latin, with the
special readings of / (i.e. the archetype of DEFG)
and with K.

In view of these considerations it is not wonderful that
the Marcion hypothesis with regard to the short recension
is exceedingly popular, and I should hesitate to say that
it is an improbable view. At the same time, there are
certain objections which are perhaps too little noticed.

In the first place, if it be conceded that the "short
recension" omitted lv Pw/xy it is necessary to show that
Marcion cut these words out of his text. It is, therefore,
argued that Marcion desired to convert the Epistle into a
general treatise on Christian doctrine, and in pursuance of
this plan omitted all local references. Unfortunately, the
recently discovered Marcionite Prologues overthrew this
theory. From these it is plain that he described the
Epistle as " to the Romans " in the usual way. This is of
course no proof that Marcion read tv Pw/^p in i. 7, but it at
least shows that he did not try to treat the Epistle as a
general treatise. Therefore, supposing that Marcion used
the short recension, it is, so far as the omission of Iv Pw/uy
is concerned, more probable that he used it because he
found it already existing, than that he manufactured it.

Moreover, in the Marcionite Prologues there is a differ
ence of reading between the various manuscripts as to the
place from which Romans was sent. The majority say from
Corinth, as is the usual tradition, but some say from Athens.
Corssen is inclined to regard the latter reading as original,
and I believe that he is right, for it is easy to understand
how Athens came to be altered to Corinth, but the reverse
process is unintelligible. The tradition naming Corinth is

SANDAY AND HEADLAM 355

generally recognized to be an obvious and correct deduction
from chaps, xv. and xvi. ; if this be so, is it not probable
that the tradition mentioning Athens is based on a text,
known as it is to have existed, which omitted these
chapters ? In this case it would seem more likely that
Marcion, the author of the Athens tradition, used the short
recension because he found it already in existence, than
that he fashioned it for the first time. If he had known
even though he rejected chaps, xv. and xvi. he would
surely have chosen Corinth rather than Athens.

More important, however, than the question of \v

is that of chaps, xv. and xvi. An answer has to be given rV
to Sanday and Headlam s theory of Marcion s omission on
doctrinal grounds, to von Soden s textual theory, and to
Corssen s argument about the doxology.

Sanday and Headlam. In one sense this argument is
unanswerable. It cannot be denied that chaps, xv. and
xvi. contain statements to which Marcion would have
objected. But this truth is beside the point if it be possible
to show that the short recension existed so widely at such
an early period that it cannot be due to the doctrinal
excisions of Marcion. If it be true that the short recension
was used by Tertullian, can it be purely Marcionite ? This
view is only tenable if we accept the theory, which has
many advocates, that the existence of a Pauline canon is
altogether due to Marcion. But this seems to me inaccept-
able because I believe in the genuineness of the Ignatian
Epistles, and it seems on the whole probable that the
authority of the Pauline Epistles is recognized in them.
Moreover, the recognition of the scriptural character of the
Epistles is found in 2 Peter, and is one of the most im
portant reasons for rejecting its Petrine authorship ; but

356 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

can 2 Peter be later than Marcion ? Thus, while admitting
that Marcion might have produced the short recension for
doctrinal reasons, it seems to me possible to go behind this
argument, and claim probability for the view that the short
recension existed, before or at the same time as Marcion, in
Catholic circles.

Von Saden. With regard to von Soden s position it is
necessary to state a theory of the history of the text which
may be taken as an alternative to his view. The starting-
point is the same as his, the existence in the fourth century
of three recensions, but it is plain that three recensions may
represent three attempts at standardizing a great variety of
local texts, and that the suggested I-H-K text may never
have existed. It is well to remember that we have to deal
with two separate questions ; the original text of each
individual Epistle, and the original text of the canonical
collection of Pauline Epistles. Of course, the former is
what we desire, but it is quite certain that it is not what we
possess, and we can only reach it by establishing, as a pre
liminary, the text of the canonical collection or collections
of Epistles.

The first question, therefore, is whether we possess
traces of one or more collections of Epistles. Our main
guide here must be the order of Epistles, though any indirect
information which can be gathered as to the text has, of
course, an important bearing on the point.

The earliest collection of which we can establish both
the order and contents, is that of Marcion

(1) Galatians (5) Laodiceans (=Ephesians)

(2) Corinthians (6) Colossians

(3) Romans (7) Philippians

(4) Thessalonians (8) Philemon

THE ORDER OF THE EPISTLES 357

Little if at all later in origin is the list in the Canon of
Muratori

(1) Corinthians (6) Thessalonians

(2) Ephesians (7) Romans

(3) Philippians (8) Philemon

(4) Colossians (9) Titus

(5) Galatians (10) Timothy

It also appears probable" that this list, though it contains
the Pastoral Epistles, draws a distinction between them and
the Epistles to the Churches, not in the sense that their
authenticity was doubted, but as though the Epistles were
divided into two groups according as they were intended
for Churches or persons. According to the generally
received opinion, this represents the canon of the Church
in Rome before the end of the second century.

Going on a little later, and passing from Rome to
Africa, Tertullian probably supplies us with a similar, but
still distinctly different, list, so far as the following Epistles
(of which alone we can speak with certainty) are concerned

(1) Corinthians (4) Thessalonians

(2) Galatians (5) Ephesians

(3) Philippians (6) Romans

The position of Colossians and the Pastorals cannot
be determined, though there is no reason to doubt that
Tertullian knew them. Probably this ought to be taken as
the African canon, and though the order of Cyprian s Bible
cannot be accurately determined, it at least appears from
the order of the quotations in the Testimonia that Corinthians
was probably the first and Romans the last of the "Epistles
to Churches."

Moving from Africa to Alexandria, the nearest approach

358 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

which we can find to a list of the Pauline Epistles before
the end of the third century is in Origen, who seems to
give the order 1

(1) Corinthians (4) Thessalonians

(2) Ephesians (5) Philippians

(3) Colossians (6) Romans

Finally, in the fourth century in Alexandria, we find
Athanasius insisting, with an emphasis which suggests
opposition, on the order which is found in the great uncials, 2
and was made familiar by its adoption in the ecclesiastical
texts of the fifth and following centuries. The small
variations, some of which are probably due to the influence
of earlier orders, are not important for the present purpose. 3

Moreover, we find that this variety of order in the list of
the Epistles is accompanied by variations in the text, and the
most natural conclusion is that we have to deal with various
collections of the Pauline Epistles, so that if we confine
ourselves to the reconstruction of the text of the Corpus
Paulinum, as distinct from that of the separate Epistles, we
have to recognize that there never was any single " original "
text, but that various Churches had their own collections,
each with its own text. No doubt from the beginning there

1 Here again it is necessary to add that of course there is no suggestion
that Origen was unacquainted with the other Epistles, but merely that we
cannot say in what order they came in his Bible.

2 It is hard to realize at first that there seems to be no evidence for this
order, with which we are so familiar, before the fourth century. Probably it
was part of the textual and critical revision which the New Testament under
went, chiefly, but not exclusively, at the hand of Alexandrian scholars, in the
fourth century.

3 All the facts given above are discussed fully in Zahn s Geschichte des
Neiitestamentlichen Kanons, ii. pp. 344 ff., but I cannot think that he is
successful in reducing all the early lists to one original collection.

PROF. CORSSEN 359

was an interchange of documents, and thus each text
influenced the others in turn.

The reconstruction of these local texts is probably
impossible, except in a few details. Marcion s text is
sometimes recoverable, and so is Tertullian s, but we cannot
claim to know anything about the second century text of
Rome or of Alexandria. When, however, we find Marcion
and Tertullian apparently agreeing in using the short
recension of Romans, it seems more natural to accept this
as evidence that the Corpus Paulinum in Carthage and
that used by Marcion agreed on this point, than to suggest
that Tertullian, whose Corpus was, as the order shows,
quite independent, borrowed on this point from Marcion.
The order of the Epistles shows that the Catholic Corpus
or Corpora were from the beginning distinct from that of
Marcion.

Corssen. The main point of Corssen s theory, apart
from the Marcionite prologues, which have already been
discussed, is the doxology. He presents two propositions :
(i) that it is not genuine; (2) that it is a Marcionite
addition.

That it is not genuine I am inclined to accept. It is
true that there are various doxological passages in the
Epistles, but none of such length, and none at the end,
after the salutations. Moreover, Corssen s arguments seem
to me very powerful. St Paul, no doubt, preached that
the " mystery " of Christianity had been unrecognized in
past ages ; but he nowhere else says that it was never
announced. There was "a veil on the faces" of the Jews
when they read the Scriptures, and their meaning was
hidden from them, but the writings of the prophets were
a revelation spoken by God. The Israelites had not

360 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

understood, but God had not kept silence. 1 Thus it is
scarcely true to argue, as Sanday and Headlam do, that
the doxology can only be rejected by those who reject the
Epistles of the captivity and the Pastoral Epistles. The
doxology goes beyond and even is contrary to anything in
any Epistle.

But to admit that the doxology is probably not Pauline
does not take us all the way to regarding it as Marcionite.
In the first place, we have the definite evidence of Origen
that Marcion did not have the doxology, and presumably
he was speaking of the Marcionite text of the third century.
In the second place, the facts concerning the order of the
Epistles suggest an alternative theory.

It is generally recognized as a characteristic of scribes
that they were inclined to add doxologies at the end of the
books or collection of books which they copied. If, there
fore, the doxology is not genuine, it is possibly to be
attributed to this cause, and if so it is most probable that
it arose in some collection of Epistles in which Romans
was the last. Now, it is remarkable that the Muratorian
Canon suggests that the Epistles were divided into two
groups, letters to Churches and letters to persons, and that
both in this list and in those of Tertullian and Origen, the
last Epistle in the group of letters to Churches is Romans.
This is not the case in Marcion s collection, and the suggestion
is obvious that the doxology was the close of the Catholic
collection of letters to Churches. If Marcion knew it he left
it out because he recognized it as not part of the letter, but
it is quite probable that he really had, from the beginning,
a different collection. It is surely a striking combination of
facts that (i) the doxology belongs to the short recension ;

1 See Corssen in the Zeitsckr. fiir N.-Tliche Wissenschaft, 1909, p. 32 ff.

ALTERNATIVE THEORIES 361

(2) Doxologies generally come at the end of books ; (3)
Tertullian probably had the short recension ; (4) the canon
of Muratori shows that a distinction was made between
letters to Churches and letters to persons ; and (5) in
Tertullian s Bible, as well as in the canon of Muratori
and in Origen s Bible, Romans is the last of the letters to
Churches.

To say that these facts afford a proof would be ridiculous :
we are on the very borders of the history of the canon, and
certainty is unattainable. All that can be said is that
evidence points in the direction of one hypothesis rather
than another, and I submit that, on the whole, and with our
present knowledge, it points away from the Marcionite
hypothesis and in favour of the primitive existence of a
short recension, which originally belonged to a Catholic
Corpus, closed by a doxology, in which it was the last of
the Epistles to Churches.

ALTERNATIVES TO THE MARCIONITE HYPOTHESIS.

Of these there have been many, but for the most part
their days have been few and evil, and they now arc
interred with but short epitaphs in the pages of Zahn s
Einleitung.

One of the simplest which deserves attention was
supported by Bishop Lightfoot. 1 He thought that St. Paul
may have made the short recension himself in order to
give a general account of his position in the controversy
between Jewish and Gentile Christians. To this theory the
decisive objection is the improbability that any one who
was not animated by dogmatic prepossessions, as Marcion

1 Journal of Philology, 1869-71. Reprinted in Biblical Essays, pp. 287 S.

362 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

is supposed to have been, would ever have split the Epistle
at xiv. 23.

The natural divisions are after xi. 36 ; xiii. 14 ; or
xv. 13. Moreover, it is doubtful whether it is on general
grounds so likely that an originally local letter was turned
into a general treatise, as that the reverse took place.

Perhaps more attention ought to be paid to the possi
bility that the short recension is the original form of the
text which was afterwards expanded. This view was sug
gested, in a complicated and somewhat fantastic form, by
E. Renan in the introduction to his Uapotre Paul, and was
decisively criticized by Lightfoot in the essay just mentioned.
Yet, after all, Lightfoot only answered Kenan s form of the
hypothesis, and a hearing may be asked for a simpler one,
as an alternative to the popular Marcionite hypothesis.

The main features of the problem which must be taken
into account are two : (i) there was, from as early a time as
evidence on textual points reaches, an Epistle to the Romans
which stopped at Rom. xiv. 23, with or without the doxology,
and without any reference to Rome in chap. i. ; (2) never
theless, chaps, xv. and xvi. are clearly genuinely Pauline,
and are never found except as a continuation of the other
chapters. I suggest that it is not impossible that the short
recension represents a letter written by St. Paul at the same
time as Galatians, in connection with the question of Jewish
and Gentile Christians, for the general instruction of mixed
Churches which he had not visited. It had originally
nothing to do with Rome. Later on he sent a copy to
Rome, with the addition of the other chapters to serve, as
we should say, as a covering letter.

The arguments in favour of this hypothesis may be
formulated somewhat as follows. Assuming that St. Paul

ALTERNATIVE THEORIES 363

first wrote an Epistle which in i. 7 read, rote ovviv lv
ayainiTois Ofov, jcArjrofe ayioig (or possibly iv ay airy, ic.r.A.),
and ended with xiv. 23, what are the probabilities as to its
date, the place from which it was written, and the community
to which it was addressed ? Dealing with the last point
first, it is clear that there is nothing whatever to justify us
in singling out any one community, though the general
indications point to those hitherto unvisited by St. Paul, in
which Jewish and Gentile Christians came into contact with
each other. We have to deal with a general Epistle, devoid
of address or of greetings. Those are exactly the same
phenomena as are found in the best text of Ephesians. In
that Epistle there are no greetings, and the words Iv E^tV^
are omitted by the critical editors, and the generally
received explanation is that it (which we call Ephesians, and
Marcion called Laodiceans) was originally designed exclu
sively for neither of these Churches, but was a circular
Epistle, in which the name could be filled in according to
circumstances. As companion letters to Ephesians we have
Colossians.and Philemon, and it would seem that Ephesians
is the general Epistle to the Christians in Asia, Colossians
an Epistle to a special Church in that province, and Philemon
a private note to an individual Christian either in Colossae
or a neighbouring town.

The connection in thought between Ephesians and
Colossians is scarcely plainer than that between Romans and
Galatians, and if we take the short recension the parallel is
almost perfect. Why should it not be, then, that " Romans "
was originally a general Epistle written by St. Paul, at the
same time as Galatians, to the mixed Churches which had
sprung up round Antioch and further on in Asia Minor ?
In that case we should have another instance of St. Paul s

3^4 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

custom of writing a general Epistle, and supporting it by
a series of letters to the separate Churches, or groups of
Churches, in the district for which it was intended.

The strength of this position can be best seen if we
suppose that all copies of the long recension had been lost,
and that we only possessed the shorter form. It cannot be
doubted that in this case we should have been unanimous
in saying that the Epistle belonged to the same period as
Galatians. No one would have suggested that it was
written after 2 Corinthians and sent to Rome. Even if the
superscription " to the Romans " had existed, we should
have said, as is, mtitatis mutandis, so commonly said in con
nection with Ephesians, that this only means that the arche
type of existing MSS. comes from Rome ; and it would have
been popularly argued that " Romans " means " Roman
citizens," not necessarily inhabitants of Rome, and that it
was probably used by courtesy of man}- who were not
actually citizens.

Thus if we were justified in assuming that the short
recension was the original form of the Epistle, the theory
that the Epistle is a general letter contemporary with Gala
tians, and directed to the Gentile Christians in general,
would have very strong arguments in its favour.

Unfortunately this is just the point which we cannot
assume without argument. As Sanday and Headlam pointed
out long ago, no theory is satisfactory which does not recog
nize the organic connection between Rom. xiv. and xv. ;
there is a definite line of argument which runs on from one
to the other, and this continuity, which justifies the argument
that texts inserting the doxology between the two chapters
really point to the existence of the short recension, also
proves that no hypothesis is satisfactory which fails to do

ALTERNATIVE THEORIES 365

justice to its existence. Sanday and Headlam argued that
this must mean that the long recension is prior in origin to
the short recension, and up to the present this view has held
the field. If, therefore, the priority of the short recension
is to be rendered even a subject for discussion, it is necessary
to produce some theory which will nevertheless account for
chaps, xv. and xvi., and their organic connection with the
preceding chapter.

Such a theory would be that St. Paul had sent a copy of
the short recension to Rome from Corinth, and added the
last chapters as an expansion of the practical exhortations,
and as greetings to the individual members of the Church.
A more or less imaginative reconstruction of the circum
stances would be the following : St. Paul was in Corinth,
on the point of departure for Jerusalem, and, influenced by
the information of Aquila and Priscilla, sent a copy of
his " Anti-Judaistic Letter " to the Roman Christians, 1
adding at the end a few more paragraphs continuing the
thoughts of his original writing, probably because Aquila
had told him that this was desirable.

The only objection that I can see to this hypothesis is that
St. Paul ought to have described in his covering letter the
contents of his enclosure. It is true that this would have
been more natural, especially if he had been using modern
paper and envelopes. But I take it that what happened
was that St. Paul told a copyist to make a copy of the
"short recension," and then dictated the remainder. If
the Romans wished to know any more about the form of
the document, they must ask the bearers.

1 If, after all, Rom. xvi. 1-23 was really sent to Rome, the desire to give
an introductory letter to Phoebe no doubt also played a part, inducing him to
write to a Church which he had not yet visited ; but I doubt if this section really
belongs to Romans, and therefore must make no use of this argument.

366 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

The history of the Epistle after it reached Rome is, in
any case, a problem which can never be solved with certainty,
yet on the theory of the priority of the short recension, we
can form quite as possible a reconstruction as the Marcionite
hypothesis. The growth of the Corpus Paulinum is practically
unknown to us. All that we know is that in the second
century the process of collecting Pauline Epistles was going
on in more than one place, so that in one locality there was
one order, in another something different. That is to say,
at an early period Churches began to exchange copies of
St. Paul s Epistles, not because of their intrinsic value as
letters, but because they were Pauline. It was for that
reason that the Epistle to Philemon came into the canon.
Considerably earlier than this must have been the time
when the letters were copied, not simply because they were
Pauline, but because they dealt with important subjects.
During this time no Epistles are more likely to have been
copied than Romans in the short form and Ephesians,
and as a matter of fact there is no Epistle, except, perhaps,
I Corinthians, which is so well attested in the sub- Apostolic
period as these two. During this period the short recension
of Romans would be more likely to attract attention than
the longer form, though in Rome the latter would naturally
be perpetuated. Probably to this period must be assigned
the genesis of the collection of " Epistles to Churches,"
ending with Romans, and the addition of the doxology.
As soon, however, as the emphasis of interest came to
fall not on the contents, but on the authorship of the
Epistles, the tendency was to copy and circulate every
thing which was Pauline, and so the longer texts made
in Rome with the addition of the " covering letter " would
be more popular, and the original form of the " long

COMPARATIVE PROBABILITIES 367

recension " would come into circulation, copies of the
short recension would be amplified by the addition of
the fresh material, and the complicated textual process
described on p. 345 would begin. A parallel to this process
may probably be found in 2 Corinthians. The internal
evidence is here much stronger than it is in Romans, but,
on the other hand, there is no trace of any textual evidence.
It is perhaps interesting to ask why the textual tradition
should be less strong in the case of 2 Corinthians, than in
that of Romans. Probably the answer is to be found in the
independent circulation of the short form of Romans, and
in the fact that 2 Corinthians seems to come into general
use much later than I Corinthians. Dr. Kennedy suggests
that it did so only after the Epistle of Clement drove the
Corinthians to look at their archives and find various frag
ments of an almost forgotten correspondence.

That the theory which is here suggested, as to the
history of the Epistle to the Romans, can never become
more than a possible hypothesis, is of course obvious, nor
would I venture to claim that it has any self-evident
probability. But the fact that a " short form " did exist
in the second and third centuries is certain, and has to be
dealt with somehow.

The Marcionite hypothesis is of course a simpler view,
and in so far deserves the preference which it enjoys at
present, but the alternative will demand serious consideration
from those who do not think that so general a depravation
of the text by Marcionite influence is entirely probable.
This, then, is the point which at the moment ought to be
studied by those who desire to carry research further ; is it
reasonable to suppose that the text used by the anonymous
maker of the Latin Breves, by the text behind the

368 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Antiochene recension, and by Tertullian, 1 was influenced by
Marcion? In other words, a serious attempt must be made
to deal with the facts and theories presented by von
Soden. To do this will require much fresh research, and
I must rest content with saying that if he prove to be right,
the correctness of the Marcionite hypothesis as to the short
recension will become overwhelmingly probable. But if
it be shown that the influence of Marcion on the text of
the Epistles was not so great, the Marcionite hypothesis
becomes improbable, for the evidence for the short recension
is too wide and too early. In this case the hypothesis of a
short form, written by St. Paul, earlier than the long recension,
contemporary with Galatians, and not intended for Rome,
must be seriously considered ; and such an hypothesis has of
course the advantage of, to some extent, freeing the Epistle
from the objections that it is improbable that St. Paul, at
the end of the quite different controversy at Corinth, should
have worked over on a larger scale the arguments used in
Galatians, and sent them to a Church which he had never
seen. If St. Paul really heard from Aquila that the Judaiz-
ing Christianity was making progress in Rome, he is quite
likely to have used over again an Epistle which had
formerly been of use in Syria, but he is not so likely to
have re-modelled in a new and more elaborate form argu
ments which he had once used in Galatians in the course
of a controversy of which there is no trace in Corinth.

It is now necessary to return once more to the question
of Rom. xvi. 1-23, and ask what its relation is to the

1 That is, of course, if it be conceded that Tertullian used the short recension.
Opinion is likely to differ on this point. Personally, I believe that the balance
of evidence inclines in that direction, but it is not decisively clear, and others
take a different view.

CONCLUSIONS 369

problem of the short recension. It was seen above that this
section is probably Ephesian, and this fact adds to the com
plication of the situation. Of course, if this conclusion be
wrong, there is no difficulty : l the section is part of the long
recension, and helps to explain why St. Paul wrote to Rome.
But if the conclusion reached be right, how did the section
in question find its way into the long recension ?

To this question no answer seems possible. Anything
in itself improbable may actually have happened to bring
together the Ephesian letter and the long recension, but it
is idle to guess on a point as to which we have no evidence.
All that we know is that the evidence points to Ephesus
for Rom. xvi. 1-23 and to Rome for the rest of the long
recension. Whether the junction was made in Rome
or in Ephesus or somewhere else will always remain
uncertain.

The result of the foregoing discussion has been to show
that the original destination and date of the Epistle is not
so certain as it at first seems, and it may fairly be charged
with belonging to that unsatisfactory though necessary class
of investigations which raise problems which cannot be
solved. What remains clear is that the long recension,
probably without Rom. xvi. 1-23, was sent by St. Paul
from Corinth to Rome, and that it belongs in the main
to the same controversy as Galatians, that with Judaizing
Christians, though it also contains some allusions to the

1 I wish I could honestly have reached the result that it is wrong. The
whole question of the short recension is much more easy en my hypothesis if
Rom. xvi. 1-23 was really always part of the longer recension and a truly
Roman Epistle. Therefore, I should be delighted to be convinced that the
Ephesian destination of Rom. xvi. 1-23 is a mistake, but at present lam unable
to put aside the force of the arguments in its favour.

2 B

3?o THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

struggle with the " spiritual " Gentile Christianity which is
the background of the Corinthian Epistles.

It is, therefore, necessary to ask in more detail what was
this Judaizing Christianity, and what was the history of the
foundation of the Church at Rome.

II. THE CHURCH AT ROME.

There was throughout the nineteenth century much
controversy as to the nature of the Roman Church. Was
it originally Jewish or Gentile ? The traditional view was
that it was Gentile. Baur, 1 however, attacked this view,
and maintained that it was primarily Jewish. This conten
tion was taken up and elaborately defended by Mangold, 2
and remained the prevalent view in critical circles until
Weizsacker 3 returned more or less to the older view, and was
only ready to recognize a Jewish element in the form of
proselytes.

The points in which a Gentile origin is implied for the
readers of the Epistle are the following : (i) In Rom. i. 5, 6
St. Paul says that he is an Apostle "to all the Gentiles . . ,
among whom ye are also," etc. ; and in Rom. i. 13 he ex
presses the hope that he may " have some fruit in you also,
even as in the rest of the Gentiles." 4 (2) In Rom. xi. 13
St. Paul says, " But I speak to you who are Gentiles."

These two passages are definite proof of the existence
of Gentiles in the Church, and as they are mentioned with

i. 343 ft.

- In 1866 in Der Romerbrief und die Anfange der romiscken Gemeinde, and
in 1884, in Der R omerbrief und seine geschichtliche Voraussctzungen.

1 Apostolische Zeitalter, Ed. 2, pp. 407 f.

4 The word here and in i. 5 is r * s fQvtai, which regularly means
"Gentiles." In Jewish Greek the Jews are 6 \a6s, and the Gentiles are ra
0f7j. It is curious that the R.V. translates the first passage as "nations."

THE CHURCH AT ROME 371

such emphasis in the opening salutations, they must have
been an important party.

A Jewish origin, on the other hand, is implied in
passages in which St. Paul, by using the first person plural,
seems to assume a Jewish nationality for his readers as well
as for himself. The chief of such passages are : Rom. iv. I,
" What shall we say that Abraham, cuir forefather according
to the flesh, hath found ? " Rom. vii. 6, " But now we have
been discharged from the Law, having died to that wherein
we were holden " ; Rom. ix. 10, " Isaac, our father." 1

There is no sufficient answer to the arguments based on
these texts. The existence of both elements in Rome
must be recognized, and therefore it is now generally con
ceded there was a measure of truth in both the earlier
contentions.

The reason for this rapprochement is not merely the
consideration of definite allusions in the Epistle. It is
on general grounds so probable that all early Christian
communities were based on converts from the synagogue,
and from the God-fearers, who were more or less loosely
connected with the synagogue, that any other suggestion
would need strong evidence before it would deserve con
sideration.

Especially is this true of a city like Rome, in which
both elements were numerous. The Jews in Rome had
already a long and interesting history 2 by the time that St.
Paul wrote. There was probably a settlement of Jews
early in the first century before Christ, but it first attained

1 A list of other arguments with the objections to them, on either side, is
given in a concise manner in H. Holtzmann s Einleitung in das neue Testament,
pp. 235 ff. Those given above are only those which seem decisive.

For more detailed information and references to special books, see
Sc.hiirer, Geschichte des jiidischm Volkes, Ed. 4, iii. pp. S7~ 6 7&gt;

372 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

really large dimensions when Pompey in 63 B.C. brought
an enormous number of Jews to Rome as prisoners of war,
who were sold into slavery. 1 Many of them, however, were
set free, as they proved unsatisfactory as slaves, owing to
their inflexible adherence to the Law. They then settled
on the other bank of the Tiber, where a colony of Jews
existed until 1556, when they were brought across the
river to the spot which is still known as the Ghetto, though
it was abolished as such after the incorporation of Rome
into the Italian kingdom. There were also originally other
colonies in Rome, in the Subura, and the Campus Martius.
The numbers of these settlements must have been very
great, for though Tiberius appears to have tried to abolish
them, in consequence of frauds committed on a certain rich
proselyte lady named Fulvia, 2 he seems to have failed,
even though he drafted four thousand into the Sardinian
police in order to put down the brigands, " et, si," says
Tacitus, " ob gravitatem coeli interiisent, vile damnum."
Later, after the fall of Sejanus, Tiberius became more
friendly to the Jews, and the colony was firmly established
in the time of Caligula, when Philo came to Rome on behalf
of the Alexandrian Jews. Claudius began by being tolerant,
but later on the riots of the Jews (see p. 374 f.) led to the
decree of banishment which is mentioned in Acts xviii. 2.
Probably this decree proved impracticable : it is not easy
to banish a population of many thousands if it sit still,
unless measures of deportation on a large and expensive
scale are carried out. Certainly there is no hint in any

1 It seems to me probable that this treatment, so reminiscent of Nebuchad
nezzar, is at least partly the origin of the half-apocalyptic custom of calling
Rome Babylon.

2 She was induced to subscribe largely towards the Temple, and her subscrip
tions were never forwarded to Jerusalem. See Josephus, Ant. xviii. 3, 5.

THE CHURCH AT ROME 373

writing that the Jewish colony was seriously diminished,
though a scholiast to Juvenal l says that many of them went
to Aricia.

Thus there were probably few Gentile cities in which
Jews were so numerous as in Rome, and no doubt they
would be some of the first to hear of Christianity.

A mixed community is therefore the type which would
naturally be expected, and as this type is also indicated by
the definite allusions in the Epistle, 2 we have no reason for
doubting its accuracy. We have, however, but little in
formation as to the foundation of this Church.

All that we know with certainty is that it was in exis
tence before St. Paul wrote. It is therefore clear that one
or more Christians had already made their way to Rome,
and had met with some success in propagating their faith.
If Rom. xvi. 1-23 be really an Epistle to Rome, and if the
suggestion be right that " those of Narcissus " and " those of
Aristobulus" can be identified with the slaves of the freed-
man Narcissus and of Aristobulus, the member of the Herod
family, we can go a step further, and say that the circle of
Christians in Rome included some of the Imperial slaves,
and that St. Paul is referring to them when he speaks in
Phil. iv. 22 of " Caesar s household." If, as seems to me
more probable, this section of Romans was intended for

1 Juvenal, Sat. iv. 117, " Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,"and the
scholiast (quoted by Schiirer) says, " qui ad portam Aricinam rite ad clivum
mendicaret inter Judaeos, qui ad Ariciam transierant ex Urbe missi."

2 To some extent this statement must be modified if the view be adopted
that the short recension, which contains all these allusions, was originally sent,
not to Rome, but to some other Gentile Church in the neighbourhood of Antioch.
But the modification necessary is slight and unimportant. Probably all early
Gentile communities were mixed with a strong Jewish-Christian element. All
that the "short recension" theory necessitates is the theory that St. Paul
recognized that the situation in Rome resembled that in Antioch.

374 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Ephesus, this argument cannot be used. It remains true,
on the authority of Philippians, that when St. Paul was in
Rome there were Christians in the Imperial household ;
but it becomes open to doubt whether these converts to
Christianity had been made by St. Paul or existed before
his arrival.

There are only two other pieces of evidence in really early
writers which throw light on the question. The first of
these is the evidence of Aquila and Priscilla. If they were
Christians when St. Paul first met them, they must have
been converted before they came to Corinth. The point is,
of course, open to question, but St. Luke says nothing about
their conversion, and as a rule (though not always) he
mentions the conversion of important people by St. Paul.
The narrative in Acts seems to imply that Aquila and
Priscilla were already Christians when St. Paul went to stay
in their house.

The second point is the curious evidence of Suetonius l
as to the causes which led to the banishment of the Jews
from Rome. He says of Claudius, "Judaeos impulsore
Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit." This is no
doubt the decree referred to in Acts, 2 in consequence of
which Aquila and Priscilla left Rome. There are two diffi
culties in connection with this narrative.

In the first place, some doubt has been thrown on
the statement that Claudius actually banished the Jews,
because Dio Cassius simply says that Claudius prohibited
their meetings and societies. 3 This point is, however, not

1 Suetonius, Claudius, 25.

2 Acts xviii. 2.

1 Dio Cassius, Ix. 6 : rovs 5e louSo/mu irXfovaffavrts avBis ucrre xa\fTrws Uv
&vtv rapax^s vwb TOV ox^ov a&lt;p&lt;av TTJS ir6\f&lt;s flpxOrivai, owe e|^\a&lt;re fnev, T&lt; 5e Si]

THE ORIGIN OF ROMAX CHRISTIANITY 375

really of great importance for the present purpose, as it is
clear that in any case some change of regulation was made
adversely affecting the Jews. Much more important is the
question of the meaning of " Chresto " in Suetonius. The
most probable view must surely be that there is some
connection between it and the word " Christ " in the sense
of Messiah. The spelling " Chrestus " instead of " Christus "
is quite common, and is without any importance.

. If this be so it is difficult to avoid the conclusion
that the "constant tumults" among the Jews were due to
Messianic controversy, and there is no reason for think
ing that this cannot have been due to Christian pro
paganda. Against this it is argued that Chrestus is a
common slave name, and that he was probably the actual
leader of some political trouble. The point cannot be
settled ; but personally I think that it is extremely probable
that we have here a reference to the first introduction of
Christianity into Rome and the opposition of the Jews. If
so, the evidence of Suetonius, of the Acts (with the
suggestion that Aquila and Priscilla were Christians before
they reached Corinth), and of the Epistle to the Romans,
all points in the same direction, and indicates that there
was a Christian community in Rome during the reign of
Claudius (41-54 A.D.) and probably at least as early as the
year 50.

Probably it is quite impossible to go any further or to
identify the Christians who first brought Christianity to
Rome. The later tradition is of course well known.
According to this St. Peter was Bishop of Rome for twenty-
five years, and was martyred in 67 A.D. He therefore reached

ftiep xp/i&0v&gt; 6/ceAeiKre /*TJ crvvaOooi^fffBai, ras rt tratoftat
uiru TOV Taiov 5it\u&lt;Tfv.

376 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Rome in 42. This tradition is found in Eusebius Chronicon
in which (in Jerome s version) the arrival of St. Peter in Rome
is attributed to the year 42 A.D., and his death to 67.
Probably the tradition is derived from Hippolytus. 1

The line of argument by which " radical " critics dispose
of this tradition of St. Peter s presence in Rome is unsatis
factory. In the first place, they argue that the evidence is
insufficient ; and the statements in I Peter, Clement of
Rome, Ignatius, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and others are
explained away or dismissed as not authentic. Of course,
the evidence is not demonstrative if it were a hanging
matter I should not claim a verdict but for the question
in hand it seems to me to raise a real presumption in favour
of St. Peter s presence in Rome, and because the evidence
is, as every one admits, insufficient to give certainty, to
claim that, therefore, the opposite conclusion ought to be
accepted, is to ignore the limitations and the method of
historical research. Mathematicians and jurists may look
for the attainment of demonstration ; historians can only
hope for the establishment of probability.

In the second place, they argue that the whole tradition
of St. Peter s presence in Rome was invented in order to
account for the Roman teaching as to St. Peter s primacy
in the Church. This is, of course, not in itself impossible.
Tradition is as often the child as it is the parent of doctrine.
But neither tradition nor doctrine come quite spontaneously
into existence, and a theory is scarcely probable which
leaves both hanging, as it were, in the air without any means

1 The whole question is mixed up with that of the early lists of bishops,
from which the idea of a twenty-five years episcopate for St. Peter is probably
derived. See the discussion, which is the basis of all modern investigation, in
Harnack s Chronologie der altchristlichen Litter at ur bis Eusebius, \. 70-230
and 703-7.

ST. PETER L\ ROME 377

of support, which is in reality the net result of " radical "
criticism with regard to St. Peter in Rome. For what is
the basis of the Roman doctrine of the primacy of St. Peter ?
" Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I found My Church,"
is the obvious answer. To those who accept this text as
authentic it is a sufficient answer, and they are entitled to
argue that we have here the doctrinal source, combined with
the metropolitan rank of the city of Rome, which produced
the tradition of St. Peter. But the irony of the situation is
that " radical " critics, as a rule (and here I believe that they
are probably right), regard this text as one of the late
Matthaean additions to the original Marcan text. But, if
so, why was it added ? To support, they say, the Roman
tradition of the episcopate of St. Peter, i.e. his presence in
Rome. But it has been argued that the tradition of St.
Peter s presence in Rome is the result of the Roman doctrine
of St. Peter s primacy. This is perilously near a rednctio
ad absurdum of the whole argument, and is clearly an
illegitimate reasoning in a circle. It is permissible to
explain the tradition as due to the doctrine, or the doctrine
as due to the tradition, but it is not permissible to argue in
both ways at once, and it is this logical crime of which
" radical " criticism seems sometimes to be guilty. The
truth is that with the rejection of the authenticity of " Thou
art Peter," the last reason has also been rejected for doubting
the tradition that St. Peter was in Rome. If "Thou art
Peter" is a Roman invention, it was invented because St.
Peter was already recognized as historically connected with
Rome.

It is, therefore, very difficult to doubt that St. Peter
was in Rome, and that he played a prominent part in the
early history of the Christian Church. But it is quite a

378 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

different thing to say that he was actually the first to
preach in that city, or that he reached it as early as 42 A.D.
Against this two facts must be set. In the first place, the
release of St. Peter from prison l in Jerusalem seems to be
synchronized by St. Luke with the death of Herod, which
was not earlier than 44 A.D. ; in the second place, if it be
the case, as I believe, that St. Peter visited Corinth soon
after St. Paul left it, the suggestion certainly is that c. 52
A.D. he had not yet reached so far West as Rome. Never
theless, these arguments are not conclusive, and personally
I am not at all convinced that St. Peter was not the founder
of the Roman Church perhaps he came to Corinth from
the West but the evidence is insufficient in either direction.
In any case, it seems to me much more doubtful than is
generally admitted, whether any great importance ought to
be attached to St. Paul s silence as to St. Peter in Epistles
which were presumably written to or from Rome.

An adverse argument has sometimes been found in
Rom. xv. 20. Here St. Paul says that he has made it his
aim " so to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already
named, that I might not build on another man s founda
tion." From this it has been argued that St. Paul would
not have gone to Rome if it had been St. Peter s foundation,
and that in some way the Roman Church must have been
his own foundation, probably because it had been established
by his own converts. This exegesis is incorrect. St. Paul
clearly implies that the Roman Church was another man s
foundation, and that he had hitherto refused to preach in
such places where others had made a beginning ; this was the

1 According to traditional exegesis the erepoj/ T^TIOV to which St. Peter went,
after his release, was Rome. This is not justified by the text, and is clearly an
after-thought. See p. 284 for a disscussion of the meaning of r6iros.

THE CONTROVERSIAL MOTIVES OF THE EPISTLE 379

reason why he had never yet been to Rome. " Wherefore,"
he says, " I was greatly hindered (tyek-on-rojuiji; -a TroXXa)
from coming to you." The "you " implies that the Church
was some one s else foundation, and the " wherefore "
explains that this was his reason for not coming. He then
goes on to explain why he now proposes to depart from
his principle : there is now " no place left for him in these
districts," i.e. from Jerusalem to Illyria. Thus with a
proper exegesis the meaning of this passage is that the
Church of Rome was founded by some one else, and the
question will always remain, why not St. Peter ?

III. THE CONTROVERSIAL MOTIVES OF THE EPISTLE.

In some ways the Epistle to the Romans stands mid
way between Corinthians and Galatians. Corinthians is con
cerned almost exclusively with the problems which arose in a
Gentile city in which a Greek-thinking population accepted
Christianity. Even though there was a Jewish element in
Corinth, it belonged to a Judaism which turned its face to
Greece rather than to Palestine. Galatians, on the other hand,
is almost exclusively concerned with the controversy between
the more liberal Christianity supported by St. Paul and
the stiff Judaistic Christianity of Jerusalem. But Romans,
as compared with the other Epistles, has more of the Greek
element than Galatians, and more of the Judaic element
than Corinthians. There is, however, a further distinction :
the specially Greek elements are clearer and more im
portant in Corinthians, and their treatment in connection
with those Epistles leaves it here only necessary to add a
few details. On the other hand, the Judaizing element
controverted by St. Paul is much more exhaustively

3So THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

discussed than in Galatians, and the full treatment of the
general point of view which it implies falls naturally into
place at this point. These considerations justify a division
of the present section under the two heads of (i) Gentile
problems, and (2) Judaic problems.

(i) Gentile Problems. So far as these are concerned,
the general situation at Rome, as manifested by the prac
tical problems which arose, was apparently much like that
in Corinth, except that there was not the same contro
versial and partisan tension ; the result is that we can
see the details much less clearly, for St. Paul is not forced
to define and distinguish with the same careful exactitude.
But three points stand out, in which there is a marked
resemblance to the situation in Corinth.

(a) A Tendency to dispute as to the Relative Value of
"Gifts" This is the background of Rom. xii. 3-21. It
strikingly resembles the more detailed exposition in i Corin
thians, both in the actual statements and in the manner in
which it passes into a general discussion of virtues whichought
to be found in a Christian community. The most important
verses for the present purpose are 3-8 : " For I say through
the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think ;
but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every
man the measure of faith. For as we have many members
in one body, and all members have not the same office ; so
we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another. Having then gifts differing accord
ing to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy,
let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith : or
ministry, let us wait on our ministering : or he that
teacheth, on teaching : or he that exhorteth, on exhortation :

"GIFTS" AND FOOD 381

he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity: he that
ruleth, with diligence : he that sheweth mercy, with cheer
fulness." It is plain that this passage is a short and general
description of the problems dealt with at length in i Cor.
xii.-xiv.

(j3) A Difference of Opinion as to Food. This question is
discussed by St. Paul in Rom. xiv., and is continued in a
more general manner in Rom. xv. What is clear is that
that there was a strict party which limited the food lawful
for Christians, and a more liberal party which imposed no
restrictions. Between these parties there was some ill feeling.
"One man," says St. Paul, "hath faith to eat all things : but
he that is weak is a vegetarian." Obviously the liberal
argument was that all things were indifferent in themselves.
This is implied by St. Paul s admissions. " I know, and am
persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself,"
and " All things indeed are clean." He recognizes that the
liberal view is, in itself, correct, though he argues (i) that it
does not justify those who have any scruples, 1 (2) that it is
not justifiable in practice to offend the prejudices of the
weaker brethren. 2 It is clear that this implies very much
the same type of thought and practice as is found in
I Corinthians, and the liberal party must have had the same
standpoint as the " spiritual " party in Corinth.

It is more difficult to identify the stricter party. The
points which are clear are that they (or some of them)
abstained from meat and wine, and that they observed
" days," 8 which in this context can scarcely mean anything
except " fast and feast days." 4 Whether however they were

1 Rom. xiv. 14, 20, 23. 2 Rom. xiv. 13, 15, 21.

3 Rom. xiv. 2,21, and xiv. 5 ft.

* It is obviously impossible to say whether these were the weekly fast Jays,

382 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Jews or Gentiles, and what was their doctrine, is impossible
to settle finally.

The oldest view is that the strict party were Judaizers.
The serious objection to this view is that the Jewish Law
objected to various forms of food, but was neither teetotal
nor vegetarian. A popular view among later critics has
been that the strict party was Essene. Here, again, the
objection is that there is no evidence that there were Essenes
in Rome, and that though Jerome ascribes vegetarianism to
them, this is not supported by the evidence of Philo and
Josephus.

A different solution is sought by others in a reference
to the vegetarian ascetics mentioned by Seneca. This is,
of course, not impossible, but there is no evidence that these
ascetics observed special fast days. The truth appears to
be that the question is insoluble. We know that there were
both Jews and Gentiles in the Roman Churches, and we
know also there were " strict " and " liberal " Christians :
but whether these divisions coincided or crossed each other,
we do not know. Only on general grounds can we support
one or the other view, and on these grounds it is more
probable that they crossed each other.

It remains to notice that there is no trace that the
question of food was connected with the belief in demons,
and the consequent danger of things offered to idols, as it
was in Corinth. It does not, however, follow that this
element was absent The argumentiim a silentio from St.
Paul would be here peculiarly dangerous.

(7) A Low Standard of Morality. A tendency to moral
and ethical laxness is probably indicated by Rom. iii. 7.

which the Jews in some circles observed on Mondays and Thursdays, and the
early Christians (cf. the Didache] transposed to Wednesdays and Fridays.

ETHICAL LAXNESS 383

" If the truth of God abounded to His glory by my lie, why
am I still judged as a sinner, and not, (as \ve are traduced,
and some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may
come ? " but it is most clearly part of the implication of the
sixth and twelfth chapters. For instance, the question at the
beginning of Rom. vi., " Shall we remain in sin, that grace
may abound ? " and the warning in vi. 12, " Let not therefore
sin reign in your mortal body," are not only the reply to a
Jewish propaganda which regarded Gentile Christianity as
ethically insufficient, but are directed against Gentiles who
were really inclined to adopt an unethical view of Sacra
mental Christianity. It is clear that just as some
Corinthians had argued that, because they had been
baptized, and partook of spiritual food and drink, they
were safe, and might do anything they liked, so also some
of the Gentiles to whom St. Paul sent Romans, seem to
have argued that Baptism carried with it the privilege of
salvation, without the responsibility of morality.

The same implication is clearly made in Rom. xii. I, 2 :
" I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present
your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
your spiritual (\OJIKTJV) service. And be not conformed to
this world, but change your nature (^ra/noptpovaOe) with the
renewal of your mind (rou vooe), to prove what is the will
of God that which is good, and acceptable and perfect."
The suggestion here is clearly made that the Gentile Chris
tians were in danger of insufficiently recognizing the moral
and ethical requirements of the new spirit l which they had
received.

From Rom. vi. it is obvious that this unethical view of

1 This is, I take it, the meaning of the avaKaivains rov voot. It is another
variant of the naiv^ itrlais of Galatians and 2 Corinthians.

384 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Christianity, with its accompanying evils, was connected
with Baptism, in so much as St. Paul argues that its obliga
tions have been misunderstood. At the same time, this
the question of the ethical obligations of the Sacraments
is the only point which he treats as in any way contro
versial. For the rest Baptism and its significance was
common ground to him and all other Christians, and he
only refers to it as the basis not as the subject of con
troversy. For this reason the direct references to Baptism
in the Epistles, essentially controversial as they are, are few
and short ; but they are for that very reason extremely
important, and it has seemed best to bring them together
and to discuss them at this point.

The most simple and primitive conception of Baptism is
that of a cleansing from sin. This is clearly referred to by
St. Paul in I Cor. vi. 1 1, " Ye were washed, ye were sanctified,
ye were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and in the Spirit of our God." But it appears that the
" cleansing " is here not regarded as in any way purely
negative or preparatory ; it is closely connected with the
more positive conception of the gift of being " made holy,"
and of receiving the Spirit, and it is important to notice
that it is directly bound up with " the Name " of the Lord.

Still more clearly is the idea of the gift of the Spirit
through Baptism to be found in I Cor. xii. 12: "For as
the body is one and has many limbs, and all the limbs of
the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For
in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body." The
whole argument in this chapter is that the Christians, what
ever may be their obviously differing gifts, are united by
the fact that they are all the separate channels by which the
one Spirit, who for St. Paul and his hearers is scarcely, if at

BAPTISM 385

all, distinguishable from the risen Christ, manifests Himself
in the Church. St. Paul says that the relation between
Christians and the Spirit is actually parallel to the relation
between "limbs" and "body," and by this he does not
mean anything merely symbolic or allegorical. The unity
of the Spirit did not mean to the first Christians an intel
lectual unanimity in matters of controversy, or ecclesiastical
organization, but a common inspiration by the same Divine
Spirit, which was different from anything to be obtained by
natural means.

The same kind of idea, though here expressed in terms
of "the Lord" instead of in those of "the Spirit," is found
in Rom. vi. 3. " Are ye ignorant that all we who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death ?
We were buried with Him through baptism, into death, that
like as the Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of
life." In the same way in Gal. iii. 27 he says, " As many
of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ."
Baptism is here clearly indicated as effecting the union
with Christ, and there is no reason for trying to minimize
the force of this fact. Baptism is, for St. Paul and his
readers, universally and unquestioningly accepted as a
" mystery " or sacrament which works ex opere operate ; and
from the unhesitating manner in which St Paul uses this
fact as a basis for argument, as if it were a point on which
Christian opinion did not vary, it would seem as though this
sacramental teaching is central in the primitive Christianity
to which the Roman Empire began to be converted.

There were apparently three factors which were regarded
as essential. The Water, the Name, and the Spirit, though
the last gives rise to some difficulty. The water was the

2 C

386 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

actual "efficacious sign" used in the mystery; the Name
was the power which enabled the water to be used in this
way ; and the Spirit was the Divine life (or living being ?}
which made a " new creature " of the initiate.

The importance of the water to the mind of a Gentile
of the first four centuries was by no means a simple concep
tion, and may have varied in different circles. The idea of
washing corresponds to the idea of removing sin and any
other impediment to initiation ; but the idea of " life " was
also frequently bound up with the idea of water, especially
flowing or " living " water, 1 and Tertullian 2 regards it as a
commonplace that there was an affinity between water and
spirits, for just as evil spirits haunt springs, and thus make
men " nympholept," so also the Holy Spirit (as was the case
at the Creation) is especially connected with water. The
idea is not the modern one of symbolism, which was almost
unknown to the ancients, but rather that the water was
really the instrument by which the act of initiation was
performed. The same thing, imttatis mtitandis, could be
shown of other initiatory rites in which blood or oil was
used instead of water.

The water, however, was insufficient in itself. It was
necessary to use it in the power of the " Name." 8 The
underlying conception is one common to almost every
early religion. 4 Certain beings are supposed to have

1 In early Christian literature (e.g. the Didache] &gt;i&gt; is the technical name
for running water, and its use was enjoined, if possible, in Baptism.

2 De Baptismo, especially chapters 3-6.

3 There is a dispute as to the original Christian formula. At a very early
time the formula of Baptism was "in the name of the Father, of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit," but the evidence of Acts, supported by other subordinate
arguments, suggests that the most primitive formula was " in the name of
Jesus," or " in the name of the Lord." See further Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics, vol. ii. pp. 380 ff.

* Cf. also I Cor. i. 13, " Were ye baptized in the name of Paul? "

WATER AND THE NAME 387

supernatural power over the forces of nature, and over the
spirit-world which in the ancient view of the universe was
sometimes identified with, sometimes distinguished from,
natural phenomena. Now, not only these beings them
selves could use this power, but also all those who knew
how to make use of their name, with which their authority
was bound up. This is the origin of all magical formulae
of exorcism, and it seems to me impossible to deny that
the formula of Baptism belongs to the same category.

Psychologically, the use of names in magical formulae is
extremely interesting, and shows why the doctrine was so
universal. One of the most frequent uses of exorcism was
the cure of what we now should unhesitatingly diagnose as
nervous trouble. In these cases nothing is so likely to
succeed as treatment in which the patient believes. " Sug
gestion " and " faith " are the most important therapeutic
agents known ; it is comparatively immaterial whether the
patient s belief is reasonable ; what is important is that he
should believe it unhesitatingly. This condition was admir
ably fulfilled by the old "magical" exorcism : the patient
believed in the power of the " name," and recovered. It
seemed strong evidence that the cure was really effected
objectively by the " name." The reason why we are justified
in rejecting this view is the fact that no formula and no
name can claim an exclusive or consistent record of success,
and that whereas cases are frequent in which a cure has
been effected by " faith " or "suggestion " without a magical
formula, there is no sufficient evidence of cure by a magical
formula without " faith " or " suggestion."

The "Spirit" was the result of Baptism. Such, at least,
seems to have been the normal view, shared by St. Paul.
It is, of course, true that St. Paul says a great deal about

388 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

41 faith " and very little about Baptism. But it is equally
true that he speaks so much about the one, and so little
about the other, because the one was disputed and the other
was not. " Faith " was, no doubt, the necessary preliminary
to Baptism, and was the condition of salvation. I imagine
that this conception was probably common to the Hellenist
mysteries, and was probably not really disputed by Jewish
Christians : the reason why it was controversial was that
the latter thought that faith ought to include the acceptance
of the Jewish Law, and the Gentile Christians, with St. Paul,
believed that the acceptance of Jesus as the Redeemer was
sufficient to justify initiation into the Christian mysteries.
At the same time, it is probable that there were from the
beginning exceptional instances in which the signs of
possession by the Spirit preceded the act of Baptism. In
this case logic would have suggested omitting Baptism as
unnecessary, but human nature loves regularity, and pro
bably Baptism was nevertheless administered. Moreover, it
is doubtful whether the gi-ft of the Spirit was connected with
the act of Baptism in the strict sense of the word, or with
the "laying on of hands," of which St. Paul does not speak
except (and it is very doubtful if the reference is to
Baptism) in the Pastoral Epistles. The evidence of Acts
points to the connection of the Spirit with the act of " laying
on of hands," l and we have not really sufficient evidence to
be certain of St. Paul s position. Without anything further
one would say that he connects the Spirit directly with
Baptism ; yet he says nothing at all comparable to the clear
statements in which Tertullian connects the Spirit with the
water, and nevertheless, vVhen it becomes necessary to be

1 Cf. especially Acts viii. 12 fif. and x. 47 ff. ; the point is discussed at greater
length in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. ii. pp. 282 ff.

THE SPIRIT IN BAPTISM 389

precise, Tertullian is quite positive that the gift of the Spirit
comes from the laying on of hands immediately after the
catechumen rises up out of the water, not from the water
itself. Thus there is here a difficulty ; but, if we take
Baptism in the wider sense as possibly covering also a rite
of laying on of hands, there is no reasonable doubt but that
the primitive Churches to whom the Epistles were sent
regarded the Spirit as the gift received in Baptism.

So far, I do not feel that there is real room for doubt ;
even though it is impossible to ignore that many critics of
the highest standing among Protestant theologians would
deny the soundness of the views enunciated, and maintain
that primitive Christianity was not centrally sacramental.
Such theologians believe that a purely symbolical and
subjective doctrine of Baptism and other sacraments is noc
only desirable for the present day, but also true to primitive
thought. I incline to the view that this position has received
its death-blow from the modern study of the history of
religions ; and the theologian of the present and future will
be obliged to distinguish more clearly than his predecessors
between the primitive origin and the permanent validity of
the various factors of thought and practice which constitute
historic Christianity.

To return to the historical question : it is, as has been
said, extremely probable that the world of Christianity to
which the Epistles were sent held strongly sacramental
views of Baptism. It is easy to understand that such a
presentment of Christian Baptism offered no obstacle but
rather a great attraction to Gentile converts : it was precisely
parallel to the teaching and practice to be found in the
Hellenistic Mysteries in general. In them in exactly the
same way the initiate was washed with water (sometimes

also with blood) ; in exactly the same way use was made of
the magic power of a name or some other formula ; and in
exactly the same way the result was regarded as salvation,
or new birth, and was explained as due to the union of the
initiate with the god. Moreover, it is equally easy to
understand the danger, which was the starting-point of this
discussion, of an unethical * conception of sacramental grace,
and the constant efforts of the Church from the beginning
to deal with this evil 2 can be clearly traced in the later
Christian literature.

Strictly speaking, the establishment of these facts is all
that lies within the province of this book ; but a serious
problem is just over the border. It is quite plain that a
sacramental or even magical view of Baptism would be an
attraction to Gentiles : it was exactly what they expected
to find in religion. But did the same view obtain among
the Jewish Christians, and in what relation does it stand to
the teaching of Jesus?

It is quite possible that these problems are insoluble,
but it is permissible to indicate in outline the kind of theory
which seems to be the most probable.

In the first place, it is very doubtful whether we can lay
down any fixed rules about Jewish Christians. But reducing
the question to the stricter type of Jew, it seems, on the
whole, probable that they regarded Baptism primarily as a
part of the eschatological preparation for the coming of the
Kingdom. Whether they can be said to have regarded it

1 " Unethical " and " magical " are not synonyms : in the scientific sense of
the word much Christian sacramental doctrine was and is magical, but it is
not necessarily unethical.

2 The beginnings of an attempt to follow out this line of thought will be
found in an article on the Shepherd of Hermas in the Harvard Theological
Review for 1911, and in the article on Early Christian Baptism in Hastings
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

BAPTISM AND JESUS 391

sacramentally or not is difficult to say ; certainly there was
some difference between the Jewish and the Greek view,
but it is often over-stated.

The relation of Baptism to the teaching of Jesus is still
more obscure. There is very little on the subject in the
Gospels, and nothing which is not open to grave doubt.
Personally, I believe that St. John the Baptist preached a
Baptism for the remission of sins, and that the custom was
kept up perhaps by Jesus, 1 and certainly by His followers,
who added the Christian formula. At the same time, the
apparent confusion in the earliest documents as to the rela
tion between Christian Baptism, the Baptism of John (which
seems to have been connected with the Messiah), and the
gift of the Spirit may possibly (it is far from certain) point
to an original conflation of two things. The point is very
obscure, and any one who can clear it up a little more will do
good work, but we can see enough, if we trust our documents,
to show that Baptism is probably a primitive Christian rite,
practised by the immediate hearers of Jesus in Palestine,
and that even if it were not a " mystery " or " sacrament"
to them in quite the Greek sense, it was sufficiently nearly
so to render inevitable and natural its adoption as a
"Mystery" in the earliest Gentile circles, and among the
more " Greek-minded " Jews in the Diaspora.

(2) Judaic Problems. The main problem for Jewish
Christians was, of course, that which is conveniently summed
up as the Judaistic controversy, but before discussing this,
it is desirable to notice another small question which seems
to have affected the Jewish rather than the Gentile Christians.
This concerns the relation of Christians to the civil powers,

1 On one occasion Jesus almost (but perhaps not quite) implies that the
Baptism of John was from heaven. How far does that take us ?

392 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

and, though there is room for some hesitation, it seems to
be best explicable in connection with Jewish thought.

This point is without parallel in the Epistles to Corinth. In
Corinth, so far as we can see, there was no tendency to dis
regard the magistrates of the Empire, and St. Paul rather
protests against a tendency to make use of the Roman
courts in case of quarrels among Christians. But the
implication of Rom. xiii. is that there was a disposition to
disregard the magistrates the "powers that be" and to
resist their decrees. The whole chapter is clearly directed
against this tendency.

It is easier to see that this is the case than to know
what conclusions ought to be drawn from it. If it is re
garded as certain that Romans was originally written to
Rome, it is possible that purely local circumstances may
sufficiently account for the facts. There was undoubtedly
a lawless disposition among the Jews at this time, who,
for whatever reason, had been " assidue tumultuantes."
It is not impossible that St. Paul was afraid that the same
spirit would spread to the Christians. But there is another
possibility which deserves attention, and is especially im
portant if it be thought that " Romans " was originally
written for Syrian or Cilician Christians. This is the belief
in a " Messianic war."

It is impossible to discuss at length this intricate
question, 1 but certain main points are important and
tolerably certain. There was a general belief among the
Jews that the Messianic Kingdom would be inaugurated
by means of a war. As to the nature of this war opinions
differed. There was one party which maintained that it

1 The best monograph on the question is the very interesting treatise of Dr.
II. VVindisch, Der Alessianische Krieg und das Ur-Christentiiin.

THE MESSIAXIC WAR

393

would be carried out by the miraculous and unaided efforts
of the Messiah. Another party thought it would be the
work of Jahveh Himself. Still another placed all the
emphasis on a supernatural conflict with evil spirits. But
politically the most important was the view that the King
dom must be prepared for by the victorious effort of the
pious in a rebellion against the enemies of Israel, and it was
held that in this rebellion supernatural assistance would be
given at the proper moment. It was not a warfare under
the leadership of the Messiah, but a warfare in preparation
for the Messiah. As Windisch has pointed out, this is the
real difference between the rising of Judas and the earlier
propaganda of the Zealots on the one hand, and the re
bellions of Theudas and of Bar Kochba on the other. But
obviously the distinction between a Messianic war under
the leadership of a Messiah, and a Messianic war in pre
paration for a Messiah, though historically important, is
politically negligible, and the repressive methods of the
Romans differ in degree rather than in kind from those
which any conquering nation of our own time would
adopt.

What was the relation of Christianity to this movement?
There seems to me little doubt but that the teaching of
Jesus was directly opposed to that of the Zealots, and with
but slightly less certainty I should feel inclined to argue
that the Zealot teaching is the background against which
we ought to place such sayings as " Resist not evil," " Love
your enemies," etc. No doubt they were intended to have
a wider application, but they were spoken with a special
meaning. The Zealots said, " The Kingdom will not come
unless you prepare the way by waging war on the enemies
of Israel." Jesus said, "Not so: the Anavim, " the

394 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

" poor " of the Psalms " are the true guide ; in your suffer
ing, not in your victory, do you gain your lives, and final
salvation is with him who suffers to the end." Like all one
sided generalizations, the statement that the preaching of
Jesus was anti-Zealotic * would be an exaggeration and a
distortion. Yet it contains an important element of truth.
There is, however, another side to the question. Neither
Jesus nor His disciples contemplated taking up arms, but
they probably did believe that the existing kingdom, that
of Rome, would be destroyed in the final catastrophe which
would inaugurate the Kingdom of God. In this sense Jesus,
as the Messiah, really was the rival of the Emperors, and it
is easy to see how hard it would be to persuade a Roman,
especially a magistrate, that Christians were nevertheless
not meditating a violent revolution. They could not deny
that they expected the annihilation of the Roman power,
and the sovereignty of their own Master, in consequence of
a Messianic war. Who would believe them when they said
that they only meant a supernatural war, and that they
themselves did not propose to take part in it ?

When we realize this it is easy to understand that there
was a double reason for St. Paul s advice that Christians
should obey the " powers that be." On the one hand, there
was the necessity of proving by the evidence of deeds that
the Christians, though believing in the speedy Parousia of
the Messiah, did not intend to hasten his coming by a re
bellion, such as the Zealots advocated. On the other hand,
there was probably (though this cannot be proved) the
danger that Christians might be infected with the Zealot
spirit, and think that they could combine the belief that

1 And for that reason the presence of a Zealot among His followers was
deserving of mention.

THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY 395

their Master was the Messiah with the Zealot view that His
Kingdom could only be established by the self-sacrificing
and warlike enterprise of His followers. 1

It is now time to consider the main controversy between
St. Paul and Jewish Christians of the strict Jerusalem
school the so-called Judaistic controversy and the clearest
method is to begin by considering what was in all proba
bility the point of view of the ordinary Palestinian Christian
in the middle of the first century.

In the first place, such a Christian accepted the -
"good news " which Jesus had preached, so far as he under
stood it. What this "good news " was we can find in the
Marcan narrative and in those passages of Matthew
and Luke which belong to O ; it is summed up in
Mark i. 15 : "The Time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom
of God is at hand ; repent, and believe the good news."
The tvayytXiov here is clearly the announcement which
has just been made "the Kingdom is at hand." This
was the message of Jesus with regard to the immediate
future ; His message with regard to the present was equally
definite : " Repent, otherwise the Kingdom is not for you,
and believe what I tell you." This message was accepted by
His followers ; they did believe that the Kingdom was at
hand, and they did repent. They also went a step further, and
they identified the Jesus who announced the coming of the
Kingdom with the Anointed King who should judge, reign,
and rule in the Kingdom when it came. I do not doubt
but that in doing this they had the authority of Jesus. It
seems to me certain that Jesus did regard Himself as the
future Messiah, or, to put it somewhat differently, as the

1 Some aspects of the Crusades arc a curious and belated example of a fervid

Christianity with Zealot principles.

396 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

Messiah in personality though not yet in function. Never
theless, this was not part of His general message which He
proclaimed publicly, it was the secret which He shared with
disciples. However much it be true that the centre of the
gospel of the first Christians was " the Messiah is Jesus," it
is equally true that the centre of the gospel of Jesus was
not this, but " the Kingdom of God is at hand, believe it,
and repent." He went through the villages of Galilee, He
preached on the hillside and by the shore of the lake, and
He went up to die in Jerusalem, not to convince men that He
was the Christ, but to call them to repent, to amend their
evil lives, lest when the Kingdom came they should be
left in outward darkness. His gospel was eschatological
and ethical all the more ethical because it was eschato
logical but it was not Christological in the sense that it
did not, as Christian preachers did from the beginning,
make the identification of the Messiah with Jesus the
central point of teaching.

Why, in the mind of a Jew, was repentance so necessary
if the Kingdom was coming ? Because the Kingdom was
to be the inheritance of the righteous : sinners would be
excluded. In the Kingdom there would indeed be no more
sin, for the condition of nature lost by man at the begin
ning of history would be restored, and this belief can be
amply illustrated from Jewish literature.

In Enoch there is no exception to the view that
righteousness will be a characteristic of the members of the
Kingdom. "And I will transform the earth and make it a
blessing, and cause My elect ones to dwell upon it, but the
sinners and evil-doers will not set foot thereon." x Or, in
an earlier passage, "And all the children of men shall

1 Enoch xlv. 5.

RIGHTEOUSNESS AND REPENTANCE 397

become righteous, and all nations shall offer Me adoration
and praise, and all will worship Me, and the earth will be
cleansed from all corruption, and from all sin, and from all
punishment and torment," etc. 1

So also in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in
the great prophecy of Levi of a priestly Messiah : " In his
priesthood sin shall disappear, and the lawless (avo^uot) shall
fall into evil, but the righteous shall rest in him." a

Still more clearly in the Psalms of Solomon : " And
he shall purify Jerusalem in sanctification, as at the begin
ning, . . . and in the midst of them there is no unrighteous
ness in his days, for all are holy (aytot), 3 the Lord Messiah
is their King." 4

It is unnecessary to multiply references : probably no one j
will ever dispute the fact that the Jewish conception of the
Kingdom was that the righteous would enjoy it, and that it
would be free from sin. But who were the righteous ? And
how could a sinner become righteous ? To these questions
also Jews had quite definite answers.

The righteous were those who kept the Law of God. No |
doubt there were differences of attitude towards the Law.
At the one extreme there was the purely formal legalism
against which Jesus so constantly protested, but at the other
there was the truly spiritual appreciation which speaks
through the Psalms and Prophets, and as the Testaments

1 Enoch x. 21 ft.

2 Tat. Lev. xviii. 9. I have followed the text of e in reading icarairtcr,
rather than Karairavffovcnv. It seems to give the right meaning, and the evidence
of e is always important. Whether, as Charles thinks, the following words
ought to be omitted (also with e) seems to me doubtful. I cannot see that the
parallelism is clearly against them. See Charles G&gt;eek Text of the

of the Twelve Patriarchs, p. 63.

3 Note that this is St. Paul s favourite designation for Christians.

4 Pss. Sal. xvii. 33-36.

398 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

of the Twelve Patriarchs and many of the Sayings of the
Fathers show, was still a force in Judaism. We are too apt
to forget that the Pharisees and lawyers who are held up
to reprobation in the New Testament were only one side
of Judaism. The question, therefore, which the Jewish
Christian was obliged to put to himself was whether the
teaching of Jesus abrogated the Law, or called on him
to be " righteous " in his careful observance of it. Obviously
he decided that the latter was the right answer. It is
difficult for us to reconstruct his position fully, because the
Gospels are either the product of Gentile, not Jewish,
Christianity, or at least of Jews who had adopted Gentile
thought, and the position of Liberal Judaism in the Diaspora.
Nevertheless, we can see even now that the Jewish posi
tion was not wholly unjustified. Jesus had inveighed against
the Pharisees : but had He not claimed that the " righteous
ness " of those who would enter the Kingdom must be greater
than theirs ? Had He not said, " Till heaven and earth
pass away, no jot or tittle shall pass from the Law " ? Had
He not said, u The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses
seat : do therefore and observe whatsoever they say unto
you, but do not according to their deeds ; for they say,
and do not perform"? What was the meaning of His
advice to the rich young man, " Thou knowest the command
ments," if He did not mean that the righteousness which
leads to life is to be found in the Law ? It is easy enough
for us to say that such questions imply a narrow and
unintelligent attitude ; but the question of the attitude of
Jesus to the Law has never yet been satisfactorily discussed
in the light of modern researches into the Synoptic Gospels.
It is, however, tolerably plain that such a discussion, when
it takes place, will lead to the recognition of the fact that

PURIFICATION FROM SIN 399

the Judaizing Christians had something to say for them
selves when they claimed to be the interpreters of the
mind of Jesus.

Thus "the righteous" meant for the Jewish Christian those
who observed the divinely given Law, and were opposed to
sinners who neglected it. But the problem which had especi
ally to be faced was how a sinner who had neglected the Law
was to be set free from sin. Here also the Jew naturally
thought along the lines of his inherited theology. More,
than one factor can be distinguished. In the first place,
there was the doctrine, which finds an especial emphasis
in Ezekiel, that by repentance, that is to say, turning back
and observing the Law, righteousness can be obtained. 1

This view is common to all Jewish thought, 2 but it does
not stand alone. Alongside of it is the doctrine that former
sin must be cleansed away. Sometimes, as in some parts of
Ezekiel, there is the view that present righteousness cancels
and abolishes past sin, but more frequently a doctrine of
purification was added. This purification was by sacrifice
and lustration, or ceremonial washing, and it was thought
that part of the preparation for the Messianic Kingdom
would be a general purification. This idea is expressed
clearly in such passages as Ezek. xxxvi. 25 : . And I will
sprinkle clean water upon your, and ye shall be clean, from
all your foulness, and from all your idols will I cleanse
you." And in Enoch x. 20 the duty is given to Michael of

1 It is not without importance that the word for "repentance" in the C
Testament is usually mB&gt;, which means a change of conduct. It is generally
translated in the LXX by ^tarp^y, but in Ecclesiasticus
apparently represented by nettv^w, and in the later translations tl
(or iiroarp^iv) of the LXX is usually replaced by ^ravo^. \
Taufe ttnd Sunde im dltesten Ckristentum, p. 8 flf.

Cf. Ez. xviii. 21 ff. ; Isa. i. 16 ; Ps. xv. ; Ecclus. xvii. 25 ; tst. XII. Patr.,
Reub. 4, etc. ; cf. Windisch, op. cit. pp. 8-34.

400 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

cleansing the earth from sin. 1 The preaching of St. John
the Baptist is obviously connected with this doctrine. He
announced the coming of the Kingdom, and offered a
baptism of purification from sin in combination with his
message of repentance, of turning back to the paths of
righteousness. This view was taken over by the Christians,
and in Jewish Christian circles Baptism was probably
regarded as the "Messianic" purification necessary for
entering into the coming Kingdom. 2 The incident in Acts
xix. 1-6 when St. Paul met Christians who had been baptized
with the Baptism of St. John, seems to be the proof that in
some circles, which must have been Jewish in origin, there
was no Christian Baptism as distinct from that of St. John
the Baptist.

It is now necessary to consider another element in the
situation, partly connected with the Jewish doctrine of sin,
partly with that of the Messianic expectation. Alongside of
the view that sin consists in disobedience, and righteousness

1 An interesting problem is raised by this passage in connection with the
place of Michael in this passage by the strange confusion which obtains in the
Shepherd of Hermas between Michael and the Messiah. The last word has by
no means been said on the history of the figure of Michael : the best introduction
to the subject is W. Lueken s Michael, eine Darstellung tind Vergldchung der
judischen und der morgenlandisch-christlichen Tradition vom Erzengel Michael.

It should be noted that Charles assigns this function to Gabriel, as he
regards the reference to Michael as an interpolation. I cannot see that there
is sufficient reason for this emendation.

2 To Gentile Christians Baptism had from the beginning a somewhat
different aspect. It was the entry into the Kingdom, in the same sense in
which the Mysteries gave entry into eternal life. It was a "regeneration to
eternity." It is even probable that some Jewish circles had similar views, for
parallel phrases were used of the Proselytes ; but, on the whole, it is probably
true that to the Jewish mind the emphasis was on the concept of cleansing, and
to the Gentile on that of " regeneration." There is a real difference between
the two, even though in practice they no doubt always had a tendency to
coalesce, and when we distinguish them clearly we introduce a sharpness of
contrast which is not historically justifiable.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 401

in obedience to the Divine Law, there was the parallel I
doctrine that sin was due to evil spirits, and righteousness /
to a holy spirit. The former view found its historical
justification in the story of the Fall, and the latter in that
of the intercourse between women and angels (Gen. vi.),
and is the more usual in the Apocryphal literature.

The complement of this view of sin was the belief that\L.
part of the work of the Messiah would be the destruction of
the evil spirits and the inspiration of the members of the
Kingdom by the Holy Spirit. This view is found in some *
passagesinthe Old Testament in connection with thelastdays,
and it was, apart from this eschatological view, developed in
the Diaspora, as may be seen in Philo. 1 According to him,
purification from sin is accomplished by the Spirit. So far
as man is really under the control of the Spirit he is sinless,
and Philo explains the sins of the " perfect " by the curious
theory that the Spirit is, as it were, occasionally absent. In
Philo this "spiritual" view is associated with a strongly
ethical theory of repentance, not essentially different from
the usual Jewish one, but it is easy to see that in circles
which went further than he did, the " spiritual " view might
become quite unethical in practice, and might explain the
existence of Jews in the party of the Trveujuari/coi described
in the last chapter (pp. 222 ff.). It was part of the bridge
between Judaism and Hellenism.

There can be no question but that Christians, certainly
not excluding Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, regarded
themselves as having received the Spirit, and were inclined
to give an eschatological significance to this fact. It is
not less certain that they also regarded themselves as, for
this reason, holy and righteous. The question of the

1 See especially Windisch, Taiife und Suniit, pp. 61-70.

2 D

402 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

position which they assigned to Baptism in this connec
tion is more doubtful (see pp. 384 ff.). The evidence of the
Acts suggests that there may have been a difference of
opinion from the beginning as to whether the gift of the
Spirit was directly given in Baptism or separately. But
in some circles the doctrine certainly obtained that the Spirit
was given in Baptism, and Christian Baptism was regarded
as differentiated by this from the Baptism of St. John.
^X The really important point in this complex of facts is
that there was in this way a double series, (i) Looking at
the facts of life from the point of view of Law, sin was
regarded as the transgression of the Law, righteousness as
the observance of the Law, and repentance as the change of
conduct from transgression to observance. (2) Looking at
the facts from the point of view of spiritual experience,
interpreted in the language which explained it as due to the
influence of spirits and demons, sin was regarded as the
power of an evil spirit, righteousness as the power of a holy
spirit, and repentance as the passage from the control of
one to that of the other.

Probably no school of Judaism thought exclusively from
either point of view ; but the Palestinian Jew was more
inclined to take that of Law. Thus to such a mind a belief
that Jesus was right in His message, " The Kingdom of
heaven is at hand, Repent ! " and that He was right in His
belief that He would be the King in the Kingdom, made him
all the more anxious to "repent" to turn round and to
observe the Law, and in this way to secure the righteous
ness which was essential for members of the Kingdom.

But a Jew of the Diaspora, and still more a Gentile convert
to Christianity, took the other line. To him his "righteous
ness" was secured by the possession of the Spirit, not by

JEWISH AND GENTILE CHRISTIANITY 403

the works of the Law. When he was contradicted on this
point he began to go still further, to ask pertinent questions
concerning the history of the Law, and to react against
its claims. To do this successfully he had to explain more
fully what faith and righteousness were, and what the Law was,
and this is the task which St. Paul attempts in Rom. i.-viii.
and in the dogmatic .parts of Galatians. The minute exegesis
of these passages is extremely difficult, but in the main the
meaning of St. Paul is tolerably clear. He is arguing that
the Law did not and could not give righteousness, that this
contention can be proved alike by the history of Israel
and by individual experience ; that, on the other hand, the
Christian who has the Spirit has obtained righteousness, and
that the true interpretation of the prophetic history of
Abraham shows this to have been always the intention of
God.

Moreover, if we look a little more closely, we can recon
struct, even though only in dim outlines, some of the \
objections which the strict Jewish Christian, in his turn,
alleged against the positive side of this " spiritual " con
ception of righteousness, and cognate questions. These
objections lie behind some of the questions which St. Paul
puts, half rhetorically, in the course of his argument in the
earlier chapters of Romans, and they can be reduced to
three main propositions. (i) The "spiritual" conception I
of righteousness was unethical. It encouraged men to
sin by the promise of an abundance of pardoning grace.
(2) It ignored the special position of the Jews as the
people of promise. (3) It failed to recognize the Law as ^
Divine.

The former of these propositions is clearly adumbrated
in such passages as Rom. vi. 15: "What then? shall we

404 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

sin because we are not under law but under grace ? " or
still more plainly in Rom. iii. 8 : " Why not, (as we be
slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let
us do evil that good may come ? " Obviously the back
ground of these questions is the contention by Jewish
Christians that their opponents were preaching an unethical
and even immoral gospel. We have seen already that the
history of the Thessalonian and Corinthian communities
shows that the Jewish Christians were so far right that in
purely Gentile circles there was a danger of Christianity
being regarded as a means of obtaining eternal life by
sacramental means, devoid of ethical obligations.

The second proposition of the Jewish Christians, that
the position of the Jews was not recognized, and their
privileges set aside, is the background of some " asides " in
the earlier chapters of Romans ; for instance, Rom. iii. i,
" What advantage then hath the Jew ? " but is especially
treated in chaps, ix.-xi. 1 To a Jew this was of course a
matter of really vital importance. It was held that to the
family of Abraham special blessings had been given and
promised, and the Christian Universalism seemed to deprive
these promises of all real meaning.

One must admit that, from his point of view, the Jewish
Christian was perfectly correct. Neither by St. Paul nor
by later Christians was the Jewish position answered in any
manner which could possibly shake a Jew s conviction.

i The question has sometimes been raised whether this section is the genesis
of the whole Epistle, or, on the other hand, whether it is not really independent
of the rest. Personally, I cannot see the justification for either question. The
Epistle is often difficult to interpret, but each part of it seems to correspond to
some tendency among the Jewish Christians, and as a whole it is perfectly
intelligible as a contribution to the controversy described above ; indeed, I
would add that only as such is it intelligible at all.

THE LAW 40-

The Jew was right when he maintained that the Old 1
Testament in many places made promises to the Jews and \
excluded the Gentiles, and that the writers of the Old ^
Testament meant this. Exegesis was on the side of the
Jew : but exegesis is a poor thing when it conflicts
with the facts of experience, and these facts were on the
side of the Gentile. He had received the Spirit ; and there
fore a doctrine which excluded Gentiles was condemned by /
experience. The really logical attitude for Christians to
have adopted would have been to deny the validity of the
argument from the Old Testament, 1 but instead of doing
this they impugned the Jewish exegesis. 2 Probably it was
just as well that they did so : Christianity had need of the
Jewish ethical element to balance the dangers of the
Gentile movement, and too radical a break with the Jewish
view of the Old Testament might have been disastrous.

The third objection of the Jewish Christian dealt with
the question of the Law. Was it not true, he said in
effect, that the Law had been given to the Jews as a Divine
instruction in the way of righteousness ? It ought to be
observed. If not, what was the Law ? Here, again, there
was probably a difference of opinion between Jews in
Palestine and those in the Diaspora as to the binding
character of the Law on all nations. It is easy to under
stand the position which argued that the Law was eternal
as Jesus Himself seems to have said and that it was

1 Later on Mnrcion did so; but his heretical opinions tended to confirm
opinion against him.

2 It is impossible to read the Epistle of St. Barnabas or the Dialogue of
Justin Martyr with Trypho without leeling that, regarded from the point of
view of actual historical correctness, the early Christians are at their worst when
they are dealing with the Old Testament, and, though it is a shock to our feelings
to have to admit it, it cannot be denied that the arguments from the Old
Testament in St. Paul s Epistles are not essentially clitrerent.

406 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

universal. Against this was the narrower view which
regarded the Law as purely preparative for the Kingdom,
and only valid for the Jews, and until the coming of the
Messiah. According to the one party, the Law and the
Promise were identical : the Kingdom would be the rule of
God, under whom the Law would be perfectly obeyed.
According to the other, the Law was later than the
Promise, and was only ad interim until the Kingdom
should come. Moreover, although in one sense the
Kingdom was still future, Christians were already even
though proleptically members of it, and lived under its
conditions as ayioi, holy. They had passed beyond the
sphere of the Law. 1

St. Paul appears in Romans to have definitely accepted
this narrower view of the Law. The greater part of the
opening chapters are devoted to supporting it, and contro
verting the stricter Jewish position. He did not deny the
Divine origin or purpose of the Law, as his Judaizing
opponents accused him of doing, 2 but he asserted that they
mistook the nature and scope of this Divine purpose.

These are the main elements of the dispute about the
Law and Righteousness, which was the most important,
or at least the most obvious element of the controversy
between the stricter Jewish Christians and the more liberal
Jewish and Gentile Christians of the Diaspora. But there
seems to have been another important element which

1 It is, of course, obvious that this sort of argument led directly to the
identification of the Kingdom and the Church, and to the view that the life of
Jesus was a preliminary parousia, the "first coming " of the Messiah, an idea
originally quite foreign to Jewish thought.

2 It is doubtful whether there were any Christians who really did reject the
Law, as distinct from limiting the scope of the Law, until Marcion : but it is
possible that he had predecessors of whom we know nothing, and that St. Paul
was in this respect not the extremist which he is sometimes painted.

THE SUFFERING MESSIAH 407

demands attention. It is quite plain that St. Paul is arguing
in many places in Romans that the death of Jesus was
important for the salvation of the individual Christian. It
is unnecessary here to ask precisely what this importance
was, for such an inquiry belongs rather to the exegesis of
the Epistle ; but from the controversial emphasis laid upon
it is clear that St. Paul was contending for the truth of
teaching which was disputed by his immediate opponents,
the Judaistic Christians, and it is desirable to find out, so
far as possible, what was the attitude of those who to speak
somewhat loosely saw no " atoning " work in the death of
Jesus.

The Jewish doctrine of the Kingdom of God l did not
include that of a suffering Messiah. The doctrine of a
Messiah was a complex of originally separate factors.
Probably the original idea of Messiah was merely that of
the anointed King who reigned over Jahveh s people. 2
Perhaps in monarchical periods there was no further develop
ment. Later, probably under Babylonian influence, promi
nence was given to the belief in a heavenly " Man " who
would ultimately appear to inaugurate the kingdom, and
this figure was conflated with that of the original royal
Messiah. This process appears to be complete in the Book
of Enoch, and it is very doubtful whether Jewish thought
in the first century or later ever added new elements.

Nevertheless, the material for a new element already

1 Indeed, it seems sometimes not to have included a Messiah at all.

2 Modern researches have thrown a curious light on this question. It is
not clear what was, according to ancient conceptions, the relation between
kingship and divinity, but certainly they were closely connected. In some
places probably the king was the god, and the god was the king (cf. J. G. Frazer,
The Origin of Kingship). Clearly this is of great importance for the history of
the early stages of the Messianic belief among the Jews, but it has not yet
been fully worked out.

408 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

existed in the Old Testament, in the figure of the Ebed
Jahveh or the Suffering Servant, who appears in Isaiah liii.
and cognate passages. Here there is undoubtedly the idea
of vicarious suffering ; but whatever the origin of the figure
may be, there is a complete lack of proof that Palestinian
Jews ever connected it with the figure of the Messiah. 1

Under these circumstances what is likely to have been
the meaning attached by Jewish Christians to the death
and resurrection of Jesus ? On general principles one
would expect to find that the Resurrection was regarded
either merely as the proof that the Christian view of Jesus
was correct, and the Divine confirmation of His message,
or as the means whereby He had attained (or, possibly,
resumed) the heavenly nature of the " man " who was to
appear at the coming of the Kingdom as the divinely
appointed King. There would be no suggestion that the
Resurrection had a personal importance for individual
Christians, for it was not expected that the individual
Christian would die before the coming of the Kingdom.
This is exactly what is implied by the speeches in the early
chapters of Acts. The Resurrection is always referred to
as evidence for the truth of the message of Jesus, and the
correctness of the Christian view of His Messianic nature.

In the same way it is on general principles probable
that the Crucifixion was in such circles regarded merely as
one of the long list of crimes against the Messengers of
God, of which the Jewish nation was guilty. This, again,
is exactly what we find in the discourses in the early chapters
of Acts. " Him," says St. Peter on the Day of Pentecost,
" being delivered up by the determinate counsel and fore-

1 Cf. H. Gressman, Der Ursprung der Israelitisch-jiidischen Eschatologh t
PP- 301-333-

THE SUFFERING MESSIAH 409

knowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did
crucify and slay, whom God raised up, having loosed the
pangs of death, because it was not possible that He should
be holden of it. ... Let all the house of Israel therefore
know assuredly that God hath made Him both Lord and
Messiah, this Jesus whom ye crucified." 1

Quite in the same spirit St. Stephen says at the end of
his speech, " Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit ; as your fathers
did, so do ye. Which of the prophets did not your fathers
persecute ? and they killed them which shewed before the
coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers
ye are now become." 2 Clearly St. Stephen did not regard
the death of Jesus as differing in quality from that of the
prophets whom previous generations of Jews had murdered.

It is true that the matter is not so simple as the fore
going statement would make it appear : the question remains
how far the Jews of the first century may have seen the
power of an atoning sacrifice in the death of the prophets
and of the righteous in general. This question really belongs
largely to the province of Old Testament exegesis, and I
hesitate to speak on a subject so far outside the limits of
my own knowledge, and apparently so far from having been
settled by expert study, but my impression is that it is
quite probable that some such teaching did exist, and that
it was especially connected with the Suffering Servant of
Isaiah liii. and cognate passages. If so, this would provide
a natural bridge for the development of Christian teaching
as to the death of Jesus. It appears to me quite likely that

1 Acts ii. 23-24. Cf. with this passage Acts iii. 14 " &gt; iv - IO v - 28 ff -
x. 39.

Acts vii. 51-53.

410 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

in limiting l the atoning efficacy of a martyr s death to the
one case of the Christ, and in enhancing its importance,
Christianity was narrowing, even though heightening, a
doctrine of which the Jews had already learned the
rudiments.

At the same time, however much importance may ulti
mately be attributed to this side of Jewish teaching, it is
quite clear that all the evidence which we possess shows
that some Jewish Christians were not in the least inclined to
see in the death of Jesus a unique atoning sacrifice, just as
it is equally clear that St. Paul did assign this value to it.

It is for this reason that in Romans, devoted as it is to
dealing with the views of Jewish Christians, St. Paul is at
such pains to explain the real meaning of the death of
Jesus. If there had been no difference of opinion on the
subject St. Paul would not have been at such pains to argue it
out, any more than he argues out the fact of the Resurrection,
or of Baptism. The Epistles are not academic treatises, and
we may be sure that when St. Paul is at pains to discuss a
point at length it is because he knew that it was disputed.

It remains to ask why Gentile Christians were more
ready to find a special significance in the death of Jesus.
That this was the case is sufficiently proved by the fact that
St. Paul never discusses the point in writing to them. It is
inconceivable that he did not preach this doctrine, and it
must have been accepted by them without any demur or
surprise. Why did they believe easily what Jewish
Christians hesitated to accept? Because such teaching
agreed exactly with what they expected to find in any form
of religion. The death of the god, and its intimate

1 If they really did so ; here, again, there is, I fancy, real need for a fresh
investigation into the history of the Catholic doctrine of martyrs.

CONCLUSIONS 411

connection with the Mysteries by which the initiate shared
in his risen life, is as central in Hellenistic religion as it is
peripheral or outside the periphery in Jewish religion. This
does not mean that there was any " borrowing " from one of
the Mystery Religions, but that this conception was in the
air of Hellenistic thought, and a Greek, when he became
a Christian, naturally continued to think along the lines
already familiar to him. The spiritual experience of
Christianity was no doubt the same among Jews and Greeks,
but when it was a question of translating this experience
into the language of the intellect, and stating its connection
with the historical fact of Jesus, His life and death, each
thought in the manner familiar to him. 1

Such seem to be the main outlines of the general
picture of Christian life revealed by the Epistle to the
Romans. Perhaps the really surprising point is, that it
should appear that the Judaic problems were, on the whole,
more important than the Gentile problems. To some
extent this fact is modified if the hypothesis (see p. 362) be
adopted, that the short recension of Romans was originally
sent to Churches in the neighbourhood of the Syrian
Antioch at the time of, or before, the Council of Jerusalem.
In that case it is easily intelligible why Judaic problems
were the most important, and why the Gentile problems

1 I would deprecate attempts too nicely to distinguish between the value of
Greek and Jewish thought ; neither are the same as our own, which is partly the
offspring of both, partly something really new. The important point is that human
religious experience, and human intellectual thought are both imperfect and both
progressive ; each generation is constantly engaged in a proce.&gt;s of re-adjustment.
One of the first duties of the theologian is not to confuse separate things.
Religious experience is valuable in proportion to its spiritual elevation.
Theological expression must, above all, be true to logic, historical research
demands fidelity to fact, and irp os ravra rls IKUVUS ;

4i2 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

seem to be less developed than in Corinth. It is, more
over, easier to understand why there is no reference to the
Apostolic Decrees, though if these represent a moral law,
not a food law, there was in any case no special reason why
they should be quoted. Still, even if this hypothesis of an
early date for the short recension be adopted, we have to
face the fact that St. Paul thought it desirable to send a
copy to Rome, and this must mean that there was a stronger
Judaic element in the Roman Church than in Corinth.

It is desirable to note precisely what is the import of
this fact. It does not imply that there was a majority of
Jewish Christians in Rome, but that there were Jewish
Christians who preached strongly the position of the
Jerusalem school of thought, and did not accept the
teaching of the liberal Antiochene movement. This propa
ganda was clearly in existence in Galatia, but there is no
trace of it in Macedonia (in the Epistles to the Thessa-
lonians) in which St. Paul s enemies were Jews, not Jewish
Christians, or in Corinth, in which, though his opponents
may have been of Jewish nationality, they belonged not
to the Jerusalem school, 1 but to an exaggeration of

1 I do not think that St. Peter, even if he was in Corinth, can be
regarded as belonging to the Jerusalem school. He was, according to the
evidence which we possess, if we treat it fairly, much more in real sympathy
with St. Paul. A scarcely justifiable use has been made in this connection of
the phrase in Galatians that St. Paul " withstood him to the face because he
was Ka.Teyvcafffj.fi os." That only means " clearly wrong," for though Kare-yj/axryueVos
may no doubt be translated by a stronger expression, this would be untrue to
English idiom. Languages have different methods of contradiction : writing in
English I have begun this criticism of a view which I reject by calling it
"scarcely justifiable" ; had I been using Dutch, I should probably have said,
"zeer ten onrecht," or in German "ganz falsch." I would ask those who
build much on Galatians, whether they have never described any one as
" clearly wrong," who in the main, or afterwards, belonged to their
own party ?

CONCLUSIONS 413

the Antiochene movement. It is probable that in
Philippians we can see signs of the presence of the
Judaizing school in Macedonia at a later date. The
importance of these facts is that they suggest that whereas
the Antiochene movement was the first to establish itself
in Macedonia and Achaia, the Jerusalem propaganda
passed over these districts and went first to Italy. No
doubt "Antiochene" Christians were soon met with in
Rome, but the important point is that if we regard
Christianity as making its way across Europe in two waves,
the Antiochene wave seems to have been highest in Achaia,
while the Jerusalem wave reached its height in Syria and
Italy, and passed by, at least relatively, the intervening
districts of Macedonia and Achaia.

LITERATURE. General information will be found in the introductory
sections of the commentaries of Meyer, Holtzmann, Leitzmann, Zahn, and
Sanday and Headlam. For the problem of the short recension the most
important contributions are the articles of Corssen and de Bruyne quoted on
p. 336. For the question of Baptism indispensable books are W. Heitmuller s
Tanfc nnd Abendinahl bd Pau. us and 1m Namen Jesu.

APPENDIX

THE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE OF THE GROUP DEFG

evidence of the group DEFG as to the short re-
*- cension is important, and complicated. The MSS.
of the group, and their relations to each other, are as
follows :

D is Codex Claromontanus, of the sixth century, in the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. It is a Graeco-Latin MS.,
written colometrically, not in stichoi, that is to say, the size
of the lines is regulated by the sense, not by the number of
the letters. It represents two MSS., not merely a text with
a translation, but the Greek text belongs to the same type,
on the whole, as the original of the Old Latin version, though
it has almost certainly been accommodated in many places to
a more usual type. It is also famous for possessing the so-
called Claromontane stichometry, one of the oldest lists of
canonical books, representing, according to Harnack, an
Alexandrian document of the fourth century. It was in
modern times first used by Beza, who says that it came from
the monastery of Clermont Beauvais.

E is Codex Petropolitamis Muralti xx., formerly
belonging to the convent of St. Germains in Paris. When
the convent was burnt the MS. was bought by Dobrowski
at the end of the eighteenth century, and taken to St.

414

THE GROUP DEFG 4x5

Petersburg. It is a copy of D made in the ninth century,
and is only valuable in places where D is no longer extant.
F is Codex Augiensis, of the ninth century, a Graeco-Latin
MS. formerly the property of the monastery of Augia Dives
or Reichenau, and now in the library of Trinity College,
Cambridge. The Greek text greatly resembles that of G,
but the Latin is that of the Vulgate written in a separate
column and not between the Greek lines.

G is Codex Boernerianus, of the ninth century, a Greek MS.
with an interlinear Latin translation of an Old Latin type. It
was probably written by an Irishman in the Monastery of
St. Gall, and is now in Dresden. The text belongs to the
same type as D, but is inferior in value and has been much
more contaminated with the usual type of late text.

The most important points in connection with these
MSS. are concerned with the relations subsisting between F
and G, and those between D and the archetype of F and G.

The relationship between F and G. There has always
been a dispute among critics whether F is a copy of G or of
the archetype of G, and it is not even now possible to say
that any general agreement has been reached. The only
way in which such a point can be settled is by a comparison
of the places where there are differences of reading. If two
MSS. make the same mistakes it is certain that they are
closely connected, but it is not necessary to conclude that
one is a copy indeed, absolute proof of this point is almost
impossible. If, however, the mistakes can be arranged in two
classes, (a) those common to both MSS., and (/3) those found
in one alone, and the second can all be explained most
naturally as mistakes made by the scribe of the second MS.
in copying the first, the case for a direct derivation of one
from the other is very strong. If, on the other hand, it appears

416 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

that the MS. which is suspected of being a copy has never
theless the right reading in some places where the supposed
original has a mistake, then the theory of a direct derivation
must be abandoned in favour of a common ancestry, unless
it can be shown that these right readings are natural
corrections made by the scribe. For instance, if it be found
that a MS. which is supposed to be the original of another
reads dvOuTrq instead of dvOpwTrq, nothing is proved by the
fact that the supposed copy has correctly avOpwirq), because
the correction is obvious. It will, however, be seen that the
application of this canon of criticism is very much more
difficult than its statement, for who is to decide as to the
limits of " natural corrections of obvious mistakes " ?

This is just the point on which everything turns with
regard to G and F. There are a number of places in which
G and F have mistakes in common, and a much smaller
number where F has a right reading against a mistake in G.
Zimmer believes that all of this latter class are "natural
corrections of obvious mistakes " in G, while Corssen thinks
that this explanation fails, and that F and G are two copies
of the same original, G being the more accurate.

It is impossible to reproduce the arguments of these two
scholars, for they turn on the nice consideration of a number
of small points. Personally, I think that Corssen is right,
and that F and G are independent witnesses to a common
archetype, Y.

The relationship between YandD. On this point there is
less theoretical difficulty. It is generally recognized that D
is a better example of its type than Y, but there are sufficient
places in which Y seems to have the family reading as
against D to show that D is not the archetype of Y, but that
D and Y are the representatives of a common ancestor, Z.

THE ARCHETYPE OF THE GROUP 417

The reconstruction of Z is not yet complete, and is one
of the most obvious needs of textual criticism. But Dr.
Corssen s researches have gone some way to establishing
various interesting points. He thinks that Z represents a
Graeco-Latin edition of the fifth century, written in cola (i.e.
in lines arranged according to the sense, rather than merely
according to a fixed number of letters), and that it represents
largely the European or Italian type of Latin found in
Ambrosiaster and Victorinus. This result is supported by
Dr. Souter s investigations {Ambrosiaster, in Texts and
Stiidies, p. 214), which show that the text of D is especially
close to that used by Lucifer of Cagliari in Sardinia.

In working out the problem of the text of Z the ideal
would be to publish an edition of the three MSS. D, F, G \vith
a reasoned critical commentary establishing the text of Y
and of Z. Until the time when this edition appears it is
necessary to attempt to anticipate its results for individual
passages.

For the present purpose two such passages are necessary :
&lt;i) The words ci&gt; PwVp in Rom. i. 7 and 15; (2) the
Doxology.

(i) iv Pwjwy in Rom. i. 7 and 15. The facts are these :
G reads

I"IACI TOIC OUCIN N AfAHH 06OU KAHTOIC ATIOIC
omnibus qui sunt in caritate dei vocatis sanctis.

As F does not exist at this point, we must assume that
this was the reading of Y.

D is not fully extant the MS. begins with the words
icXrjrotc oyfotc, but d (the Latin version of D) reads qui sunt
Romae in caritate dei vocatis sanctis, with a sign against in
referring to a marginal note which has perished. Tischendorf

2 F.

4i8 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

thought that this note was probably a reference to the
Vulgate reading dilectis instead of in caritate, but E, the copy
of D which is later than D, and has adopted all the correc
tions in it, reads -rraoiv TOLQ ovaiv lv Pw/jy, icXrjrotc ayt ot?. It
is therefore more probable, as Zahn suggests (Commentary,
p. 617), that the note stated that \v ayd-ny was an alternative
to tv Pw/*rj, and E has acted on this and chosen EV Pt^uy.
In this case the evidence of (D)E goes to support the
omission of h&gt; Pw/uy, which must be credited to Z as well
as to F; and it remains an open point whether Z may not
even have omitted lv oyoVy Bcot as well as lv P^/ny. But this
last point, on which no final decision is possible, is not
nearly so important as the establishment of the fact that
Iv PtvfJLri was not in Z.

In i. 15, where the words iv Pwfjiy recur, G omits them,
and is probably to be regarded as the representative
of Z, though D F have been accommodated to the usual
text.

The Doxology (Rom. xvi. 25-27). Either Z omitted
the doxology altogether, or it placed it after xiv. 23. This
result is reached by the following considerations. D has
the doxology at the end of the Epistle, but F omits it
altogether, and G leaves a blank space. It is clear that
Y either omitted it or placed it after xiv. 23. The blank
space in G may point to the scribe s objection to the
position of the doxology in xiv. 23, in spite of the fact
that he found it there in his exemplar, or to his knowledge
of the fact that xiv. 23 was the usual place in which to
insert it, in spite of the fact that it was not there in his
exemplar, and therefore he did not feel justified in inserting
it. In any case, Y did not insert the doxology after xvi. 23.
The question therefore only remains, whether D or F best

THE TEXT OF Z 419

represents Z. While admitting that there must always be
an element of doubt on the subject, I think that Y must
be regarded as transcriptionally more probable ; the
doxology is obviously in a more natural place at the end
of the Epistle, and the tendency must have been to move
it from xiv. 23 to xvi. 23, rather than the reverse. The
fact that the Antiochene text as a whole kept to xiv. 23
is no answer to this fact, but merely shows that the Antiochene
text preserved, on this point, an early text.

Whether the text of F really had the doxology at
xiv. 23, or omitted it altogether, is more doubtful. I am
inclined to think that there is a slight balance of probability
in favour of omission : the tendency of scribes was to invent
and insert doxologies and other liturgical additions, not
to omit them, and therefore the omission is transcriptionally
slightly the more probable reading.

The question remains whether, supposing that F omitted
the doxology, it did so because it disturbed the sense, or
because it was already omitted by Z. Here unfortunately
the evidence will not take us, and it is useless to indulge in
guesses.

Dr. Corssen, however, argues that the text of Z in chaps.
xv. and xvi. belongs to a different archetype from the rest of
the Epistle. His argument is that in these two chapters
there are almost as many singular readings which may be
attributed to Z as in all the other chapters put together.
On this point he seems to be right, and though of course
his explanation of the fact is not the only one possible, it is a
plausible theory that behind Z was a copy of the Epistle
which omitted chaps, xv. and xvi. and ended with xiv. 23,
with or without the doxology, and had no reference to Rome
in the opening verses of the Epistle. But the scribe of Z was

420 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

acquainted with the tradition which had the concluding
chapters, and he added them from another MS.

If this be so, the archetype of Z must have been a pure
copy of the short recension. This result, though, of course,
it cannot be regarded as certain, is important as evidence
for the short recension, and also is textually important as
tending to show that in the text of the group represent
ing Z the considerable differences from the other early
uncials are really due to its representing a different collec
tion of Epistles.

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

THE purpose of the preceding pages has been to discuss
the critical questions which belong to the " introduc
tion " to the earlier letters, and to throw some light on the
general background of thought and practice which is so
important a factor in explaining the motives leading to the
origin of the Epistles.

With regard to the critical questions, two points have
been omitted. No treatment has been offered of the actual
chronology of St. Paul, as distinguished from the relative
chronology of the Epistles. Nor has anything been said
as to the authenticity of the earlier letters.

As to chronology, it has seemed better to postpone its
treatment until the later Epistles are dealt with, in which
connection I hope to discuss the whole question. So
far as the earlier Epistles are concerned, the more or less
fixed point is the famine of c. 46 A.D. The first missionary
journey began soon after it, from which a rough reckoning
can be made of the time occupied by the various journeys,
and each Epistle dated according to the point in the
journey to which it is assigned. 1

The genuineness of the Epistles which have been dh
cussed has, with the exception of 2 Thessalonians, been

i See especially the article on " Chronology" in Hastings Dictionary oftfu
Biblt, by C. H. Turner.

421

422 CONCLUSION

assumed without discussion. This has been done because I
believe, in common with the enormous majority of all who
have studied the question, that the authenticity of these
documents, and their comparative freedom from serious
interpolations, is quite unassailable by any reasonable
criticism, and the best argument in favour of this view is
the fact that, assuming the authenticity of the Epistles as
genuine letters written by St. Paul, it is possible to place
them satisfactorily against a background of thought and
practice consistent with what we know of the first century.

It is, however, common knowledge that the authenticity
of the .earlier Epistles was rejected by W. C. van Manen,
and respect for the memory of my predecessor at Leiden,
coupled with the recognition that truth is not always on the
side of the majority, impels me to give a short statement of
my reasons for disagreeing with his teaching.

The really serious arguments which are brought forward
by those who reject the Pauline authorship of these Epistles
are : (i) they are not really letters but theological treatises in
the form of letters ; (2) they presume an impossibly rapid
development in Christian doctrine ; (3) they imply a writer
who has no resemblance to the historical St. Paul described
in the Acts. These three arguments call for further con
sideration.

I. So far as the argument that the Pauline Epistles are
not really letters is not a confusion of thought it seems to
mean that the Epistles are theological treatises, for which
the writer desired to claim superior authority by attributing
them to an Apostle. Largely, however, it is really based on
nothing but a confusion of thought.

There are really two distinct questions. First, whether
the documents in question are properly described as letters;

THE GEXU1XEXESS OF THE EPISTLES 423

secondly, whether they were, whatever may be their proper
description, written pseudonymously. The former question
is actually very insignificant, but it has obtained a spurious
importance, because it is sometimes so stated as to suggest
that, if it could be shown that the documents in question
are treatises in epistolary form rather than letters, they
must necessarily be spurious which is absurdly illogical.
The really serious question is whether the theory of pseudo-
nymity gives a satisfactory explanation of the Epistles.

The suggestion is that the letters are the work of a
circle of " Pauline " writers in the second century, who put
into epistolary form a series of treatises dealing with the
main points of Christian doctrine, and serving as manuals
for ecclesiastical instruction and liturgical reading ; their
survival no less than their composition proves that they
represent a dominant type of Christianity. That is in itself a
possible and reasonable hypothesis: but does it correspond
to the known facts ? In treatises of this kind the greatest
emphasis is laid on the most important points ; we ought
to be able to reconstruct from the documents a tolerably
good picture of the main doctrines of early Christianity.
Many such attempts have, of course, been made, notably in
Pfleiderer s Paulinismus* and have profoundly affected
modern theology. But what is the outcome ? the monstrous
result that no further trace of this alleged Paulinismus
can be found anywhere except in Marcion, and that the
question can be raised in vain, " How is it that the
Gentile Christianity in Asia, Greece, and Rome became so

1 Pfleiderer, of course accepted the greater Epistles as genuine ; but he
always handled them as theological treatises, and in so far he was naturally the
forerunner of the Dutch school, who saw as he did not that if the Epistles
are treatises they represent a Christianity which is not that of the first century.
Therein I entirely agree ; hut the mistake is in ever regarding them as treatises.

424 CONCLUSION

thoroughly unpauline ? Where did Paulinismus survive,
except in Marcion ? " l There is no answer, for though
critics have sought long and carefully they can nowhere
find their " Paulinismus, 3 but have to be content with tracing
a faint and occasional influence in isolated passages. This
is the reductio ad absurdum of the whole argument ; it is
impossible to believe that in the second century some
unknown persons forged a series of letters which, by hypo
thesis, represented their own views, not those of the historic
Paul, that they were so influential that these documents were
soon accepted as Holy Scripture, and that simultaneously
the Paulinismus, which the letters represent and were written
to encourage, disappeared from off the face of the earth,
and left scarcely a wrack behind.

The theory does not work : the historical facts are not
intelligible at all on the hypothesis of forged letters support
ing a system of Paulinismus. But they seem to be quite
satisfactorily intelligible if we accept the Epistles as genuine
letters, dealing with definite questions, and implying a
background which in the main is recognizable as possessing
precisely those features of which we have a more developed
form in the second century. Treat the Epistles as letters ;
recognize that in letters the subjects discussed are not tho. c e
on which all parties are agreed, but those on which there is
difference of opinion, so that the really central points are not
those which are supported by argument, but those which
are assumed as generally believed, and it will appear that
the Christianity of St. Paul did not really differ from that of
the Catholic Church as we find it at the beginning of
Christian history. 2

1 Harnack, Lukas der A&gt;-zt, p. 101.

* I was much interested lately to hear fot obiter dictum of one of the foremo~t

THE GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLl .s 425

I submit that this is strong evidence in favour of the
authenticity of the Epistles, and of the general correctness of
the view of the "background of the Epistles" which has
been taken in the preceding chapters.

2. A second line of argument is that the Epistles
represent a much greater amount of development than can
possibly have taken place before the second century. The
answer to this contention is twofold. In the first place, the
" Urchristentum " with which the Pauline Epistles are
compared is a figment of the imagination. According to
the extreme radical school of criticism, we possess no docu
ments of the first century or even of the early second
century. The Urchristentum which they postulate has no
documentary evidence, on their own showing. It may,
indeed, in one sense, be admitted that they understate the
case with regard to development ; if the original early
Christianity had had the character they suggest, it could
never have produced the early Christian literature ; but
instead of concluding from this that no early Christian
literature is genuine until the second century, that even
then it is grossly interpolated, and that all the evidence of
Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny is a forgery, it might be well
to ask if it is not possible that the fault lies in the conception
of early Christianity. In the second place, critics of this
school seem to under-estimate the speed at which develop
ment takes place in a young movement. A comparison with

representatives of the Dutch school to the effect that the Epistles were imlmed
with the Catholic spirit, and (it was implied), therefore, could not be primitive.
The Dutch school represents a keen and independent criticism of the Protestant
view that Catholic Christianity is a degenerate form of Primitive Christianity.
It sees that the Epistles belong to Catholic Christianity, nnd argues that thi-y
are, therefore, late. The true conclusion is that Ca holic Christianity is, there
fore, primitive.

426 CONCLUSION

the history of the Salvation Army, or of Babiism in Persia,
in the nineteenth century shows that so far as the general
possibilities of development are concerned the most suspected
parts of the Pastoral Epistles, to say nothing of the earlier
Epistles, might well have been written within thirty years of
the Crucifixion.

3. A far more important argument than either of the
preceding is that the historical St. Paul, who is revealed by
the Acts, could never have written the Epistles. Apart from
the critical question, whether the Acts ought to be preferred
to the Epistles, this objection really means that the
Epistles cannot have been written by a Jew of the first
century. Now it must be admitted that it is very hard to
believe that the Epistles could have been written by the
Rabbinical Jew whom critical fancy has read back from the
Talmud into the first century ; and if we accept the criticism
which identified the Judaism of the first century with that
of two centuries later, van Manen s criticism is not only
proper, but perhaps unanswerable. So far, however, from
its appearing to be true that all Jews, or even all Pharisees,
in the first century were of the later Rabbinical type, it is
becoming more and more plain (a) that we know compara
tively little about the various parties, sects, and tendencies in
Judaism before the fall of the Temple ; (/3) that many Jews,
especially in the Diaspora, were of a liberal and ethnicizing
disposition. There is a general tendency to discount Fried-
lander s work on Judaism, and probably he may have
exaggerated his case, but the quotations in his writings
cannot be wholly brushed aside, and even though many of
them be inaccurate, there is enough amply to cover St. Paul,
and to show that his letters might well have been written
by a Tarsiote Jew of the first century. It is true that St.

THE GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLES 427

Paul in the Acts says that he was a pupil of Gamaliel, but
the importance of this fact maybe over-estimated. For this
view two reasons may be alleged ; in the first place, sup
posing that it is quite certain that St. Paul was, before his
conversion, a strict Pharisee, it does not follow that the
change which his thoughts underwent did not include a
change to the more liberal point of view with which he
surely must have been acquainted in Tarsus and elsewhere.
In the second place, it does not follow that pupils always
follow the doctrine of their teachers. Saul of Tarsus may
have been a pupil of Gamaliel, and been profoundly affected
by him, and yet have afterwards succumbed to other
influences. We do not always follow all the opinions of our
teachers, and it would be scarcely suggested that our books
are not authentic because they do not agree with the teach
ing which we received at our Universities or Theological
Colleges.

For these general reasons it seems to me that the attack
on the authenticity of the Epistles has completely failed.
It is unnecessary to go into further details ; those who
desire more will find that the works of Deissmann and
Clemen have dealt faithfully with all the arguments which
were brought forward by van Manen. 1 His premature
death removed the possibility of his making any full
rejoinder ; one cannot say what he would, have written had

1 The most important literature on the subject is : W. C. van Manen, Paulus
and his article on " Old Christian " Literature in the Encyclopaedia Biblica; ami
R. Steck, Der Galaterbrief, impugning the authenticity of the Epistle ; and A.
Deissmann, Bibelstttdien and Keue Bibehtudicn (translated in a single volume as
J3ible Studies) ; Th. Zahn, Einleitung, i. pp. 108 ff. ; C. Clemen, Paulus, se
Leben ttnd Wirken, i. pp. 6-114- This section is valuable not only fo
merits, but also for its full reference to other literature. I believe that there u
also a full treatment in Knowling s Witness of the Efistles, but this I
been accessible to me.

428 CONCLUSION

he lived ; but none of his followers have shown any power
of refuting the German scholars who criticized his position.

However important critical questions may be, they
are merely preliminary ; and the main purpose of the
preceding chapters has been to discover the general
characteristics of the Gentile Christianity in the Churches
to which St. Paul wrote. The necessity for discussing
critical and literary problems has lengthened the process,
but it is, after all, the world of religious life and thought
implied by the Epistles which is really important. Of
this world each Epistle gives us a glimpse: it is never
a clear vision, but enough is revealed to show that, in spite
of local differences, the general background is in the main
the same. It is, moreover, a background very different
from that of our own time, and it is, therefore, desirable
to give a little space to a concluding discussion of the
permanent importance of the principal points.

As was said in the second chapter, the circle of Gentiles
who accepted Christianity was chiefly that of the God-
fearers, who were already imbued to some extent with
Jewish ideas, as well as with the general conceptions of the
Mystery Religions which were practically the only cults
which were really alive at that time. Thus, quite apart
from the influence of Jewish converts, there were from the
beginning Jewish and Graeco-Oriental strains in early
Christianity, and the difference between various communities
is partly to be explained as due to the varying proportions
in which these strains were mingled, and the consequently
varying point of view from which the original Christian
preaching 1 was regarded.

1 Thai this factor also affected Church organization is probable, but there is

SACRAMENTAL RELIGION 429

The general basis of Christian life seems to have been
the assurance of salvation, the belief that this salvation was
obtained by the " mysteries " or sacraments, through which
the believer was united to the Redeemer-God Jesus, and
the expectation that this same Jesus would speedily come
to destroy the power of evil and establish the kingdom of
God on earth. The point in this complex which was debated
was the relation of sacramental salvation to ethical and
moral obligation ; the Greek element was, on the whole,
liable to ignore the necessity of moral life, and to regard
the mysteries or sacraments as magical, while the Jewish
element introduced a legalistic conception of morality and
regarded obedience to the Law as the source of salvation.
Looked at in this way, we can see that the problems faced
by St. Paul in Corinth and in Rome or Galatia, are really
very closely related. It is in each case the relation of
ethical to sacramental religion which is the central question,
and the difference in the Epistles is due to the fact that
while in the more purely Greek circles at Corinth the
danger was an unethical sacramentalism, in Rome, under
the influence of Jewish propaganda, an unspiritual and
legalistic conception of morality was the more prominent
evil.

The task which we have to face is not that of giving an
expost Q{ St. Paul s arguments against his opponents, or of
proving the undesirability of a religion which is unethical
on the one hand or legalistic on the other. The former I
hope to discuss more fully on another occasion, the latter
is so generally recognized as to require no further

so little evidence as to organization at the time of the earlier Epistles that no
definite information of importance can be gained. The most important point
is the evidence of the litigious tendency in Corinth (see pp. 131 fi.).

430 CONCLUSION

exposition. It is more important to direct attention to the
psychological basis of the two types of imperfect Christi
anity which are revealed in the background of the Epistles.

It will be convenient to refer to the two types as Greek
and Jewish ; such a nomenclature is of course unfair, if it
be pressed, for many Greeks had the finest ethical percep
tion, and many Jews were deeply spiritual, but it does not
inadequately represent the weak sides of the two nations.

The Jewish type of religion is connected with a special
way of regarding life. According to it life is a series of
acts ; it is conduct. Now, it is often very hard to do what
is right, and thus for the Jew the primary importance of
religion is that by its means man obtains information as to
what he ought to do he is given a law. It makes, for the
psychology of the question, no difference whether this law
be given once for all in an inspired code, or communicated
by degrees directly or indirectly. The point is that men
wish to know what to do, and religion tells them. Such
men think in terms of action or conduct. Their conception
of salvation as well as that of sin and repentance is expressed
in the same terms. Sin is, to such persons, wrong-doing ;
and this definition remains true, whether they do or do not
add the qualification that it must be conscious wrong-doing
the act of choice which sees the good and takes the evil.
Repentance, again, is (as the Jew always was inclined to
express it) a " turning back and walking in the right direc
tion," and a state of safety or salvation is that which is
reached by the man who walks in the way of the Lord, and
" doeth that which is lawful and right." It needs no argu
ment to show that for such a type institutional religion
appeals in so far as it offers a code of righteous conduct by
which " he who doeth it shall live," and personal religion

JEWISH AXD GREEK RELIGIOX 43,

is valuable so far as it is a means whereby help is obtained
in the difficulty of choosing the right and rejecting the
wrong course of action.

The Greek type, on the other hand, regards life as
"being" rather than conduct. What a man is, not what he
does, is important. Obviously, this affects the whole series
of religious ideas. For such men sin is not doing wrong,
but being wrong. It is, with such a conception of life,
possible never to do anything wrong, and still to be the
greatest of sinners ; for sin is a leprosy of the soul, which is
deadly in itself, even though it never manifest itself in
action. Repentance similarly is not a change of conduct, but
rather the desire for a change of nature ; and salvation is a
new nature, or " regeneration," a " new creation " or a trans
figuration to a different being. Obviously, for such natures
religion is valuable in so far as it offers, either as an institu
tion or as the result of personal communion with a higher
power, the means of obtaining, here or hereafter, this " new
life," which ensures salvation, and brings us nearer to the
ideal which we sometimes see and never attain.

That these two types are rarely found in an unmixed
state needs no demonstration. A purely " Greek " or purely
" Jewish " form of experience is exceptional, and therefore
the foregoing statement is unduly sharp, and neglects the
existence of a long series of intermediate types. Never
theless, most people are inclined to one or the other extreme,
even though their natures contain some degree of mixture
of the other sort.

Each type has its own strength and weakness. The
"Jewish" type develops a high morality, but it is liable
to degenerate into a hard legalism, and to give rise to
hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Allowing for the usual

432 CONCLUSION

inaccuracy of generalizations, it is the source of all that is
best and all that is worst in Protestant Puritanism. 1

The Greek type, on the other hand, takes a deep and
sympathetic view of life ; it recognizes that life is some
thing more than a series of acts, that human nature, as it
is, is unsatisfactory, and longs for some new development
which will raise it to something higher. Its strength is
spiritual ; but in some natures it is accompanied by a some
what feeble sense of morality, or of right and wrong as such.
Thus, there is often a danger of moral failure, a tendency
to despise conduct, and to think slightingly of " mere
morality."

To some extent, these two types are the same as William
James s, or rather F. W. Newman s, " Once born " and
"Twice born." 2 The "Jewish" type is "once born." It
seeks for no change of nature. The Greek type is "twice
born " ; it is dissatisfied with its nature and seeks (and
obtains) in religion a "new birth." Or to use a different
nomenclature, also from William James, the "Jewish " type
is in the main the " healthy-minded " and the " Greek " a
is the " sick soul." The ethical, " Jewish " type of nature
can quite well be contented with things as they are. The

1 Not, of course, of all Puritans. Indeed, I imagine that the leaders of
Puritan movements have sometimes belonged to the other type ; but the average
Puritan has always been inclined to lay great stress on conduct, to regulate it
according to a code, and to be distinctly intolerant and unintelligent towards
other people.

2 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 80 ff. James
calls attention to and quotes from F. W. Newman s The Soul ; its Sorr&lt;nvs
and its Aspirations, 3rd ed., 1852.

3 I am quite prepared to believe that this statement would be ridiculous if
applied to classical Greek religion ; but it seems to be true of the Greek elements
in early Christianity. The truth is, of course, that in Christian times the word
" Greek " had gained a different connotation, and a Greek was more Oriental
than Hellenic in his religious feelings.

SACKAMEXTS A.\D MAGIC 433

spiritual " Greek " can scarcely be happy before he has
gained access to a new life. Until he has done this he is
a " sick soul," though the degree of his suffering may vary
from occasional unrest to the greatest agony of spirit. The
classical description of his experience in the New Testament
is Rom. vii.-viii. ; for St. Paul, though by blood a Jew, was by
nature a " Greek/ who had passed through the misery of
the " sick soul " to the peace of the " twice born."

When we consider the facts in this way it is fairly clear
why the religion of the Greek tends to become a " Mystery
Religion," and that of the Jew a " religion of legalism," while
the ordinary " mixed type " of man combines something
of each. More difficult is the question why the "Mystery
Religions " really succeed in supplying by means of their
sacraments the regeneration which is sought. For that
they are actually successful is not open to dispute.

The theory which has been dominant in Christianity
may be called the sacramental theory. According to this
God has ordained various acts which the Christian must
perform under various conditions, and if he does so he will
receive a blessing of Divine grace which he would not
otherwise obtain, and which cannot be gained in any other
way.

The difference between this and Magic is that a Sacra
ment implies that the worshipper obtains certain benefits
by fulfilling a covenant made with him by God, while
Magic implies that he obtains them because he knows how
to compel the deity to grant them. The difference is real, 1
but not superficially obvious, and in every age has been
ignored or misunderstood by the adherents no less than by

1 My impression is that, in this sense, many of the heathen Mystery Religion*
ha:!, by the first century, ceased to be magical and become sacramental.

2 F

434 CONCLUSION

the opponents of Catholic Christianity ; so that it is true
both that to many uneducated Catholics the Sacraments
are merely Christian magic, and that the educated Catholic
is justified in protesting that the true orthodox doctrine is
not magical.

Much more confusion of thought has, however, been
produced by the feeling that "magic" is a delusion, and
therefore that sacramental religion, which is, at the least,
akin to magic, must also be a delusion. This reasoning
fails to distinguish between the facts which the sacramental
theory seeks to explain, and the theory itself.

The facts of experience, to confine the question to one
side of research, are that certain persons habitually receive
the Sacraments of the Church and habitually are conscious
that they derive benefit after doing so. On this is based
the theory that they derive this benefit because they receive
the Sacraments. It is held that it is propter hoc as well as
post hoc.

The theory is, of course, open to argument : it is im
possible to deny the efficacious working of sacramental
religion, but whether the sacramental theory is correct or not
is a matter of evidence. If the Catholic theory of Sacra
ments prove in the end to cover all the facts, and to be the
only theory which does cover them, it will in the end be
universally accepted, and the more it is discussed the sooner
will this end be reached. At present, however, the difficulty
is that Catholics argue too much as though "Catholic"
experience really were " universal " experience, and up till
now no final answer has been given to three anti- Catholic
statements.

First, there exists in contemporary Protestantism a body
of Christians, who can produce the same experiential

VARIOUS TYPES OF RELIGION 435

evidence of "grace" as can the Catholic Church, and do
not attribute it to the Sacraments, which some of them
reject entirely. It is, for instance, hard to deny the evidence
of spiritual life among the Quakers in England, and yet
they have neither Baptism nor Eucharist.

Secondly, the student of religions is inclined to dispute
the exclusive claim of the Christian Sacraments on the
ground that the same claims can be substantiated by other
Mystery Religions. This is a comparatively new point, but
it is likely to obtain increasing importance in the discussion
of this subject.

Thirdly, the students of psychology suggest to us that
there is a rival explanation in the facts of " suggestion " and
in the working of the " subliminal consciousness " which
seems to be in a marked degree the seat of religious life.

To discuss these points at length would be outside the
province of the present book, but it is probably safe to say
that they serve to indicate the main lines which research
into sacramental religion will follow in the immediate future.

To return to history. One of the most important factors
in the development of early Christianity was the preponder
ance of the " Greek " or " twice born " type in the first
generation, and the gradual increase of the "Jewish" type
(though not of Jewish nationality) in those which followed.
That the first generation should be " Greek " is obviously
natural ; it is the " sick souls," not the " healthy minded,"
who wander in the search for help in religion. The latter
are not irreligious, but they generally remain in the cult
in which they were born, or if they change it is for in
tellectual or social reasons. Thus in all new religious move
ments the first generation is usually "Greek," and "twice
born." The majority of mankind, however, belongs rather

436 CONCLUSION

to the other type, and therefore, as Christianity grew older,
the second generation, born in the Church, began to be
more and more "Jewish," "healthy-minded," and "once
born." The fact is of enormous importance for the history
of doctrine. It explains why the Church so soon adopted
a " law," almost as strict and quite as externalized as any
thing the Synagogue ever knew. It also explains how
Christian doctrine, which was originally the expression of
religious experience, came to be regarded as a model to
which all experience must conform, and its centre was
shifted from the soul to the intellect. But to deal with
these facts is the office of the historian of a later period,
and I must not here pursue their study any further.

It remains to consider the eschatological element. There
is at present much controversy among theologians as to the
amount of eschatological teaching which can really be
traced back to Jesus Himself. Personally, I think that the
Synoptic Gospels give us a correct account of the facts, and
I see no reason for the excision of Mark xiii., or of parts
of it, as a Jewish interpolation. But it is unnecessary to
discuss this point, for probably no one denies that a strong
eschatological expectation, that the Parousia of the Messiah
was imminent, was one of the most fundamental parts of
early Christianity. The critics who deny that this view was
that of Jesus may possibly be right, but at all events the
Synoptic Gospels were largely written to prove the opposite,
and whether we trust the Evangelists l or not as to their

1 It is to my mind a most remarkable fact that many scholars who haggle
and dispute over the exact meaning of an obscure phrase in the Gospels, spend an
infinity of trouble in discussing the precise Aramaic of the phrases used by
Jesus, and are shocked at the suggestion of doctrinal corruption in the text,
are nevertheless quite ready to believe that the disciples wholly misunderstood
Jesus and that the eschatological expectation of the first Christians was not

ESCHATOLOGY 437

report of Jesus teaching, they are absolutely contemporary
evidence as to the view of the first Christians, and the
indirect testimony of the Epistles supports them.

It is quite certain that the first Christians expected the
immediate coming of the Kingdom, and they believed that
Jesus would be the anointed King, the representative of
God/ in that Kingdom. This is what was meant by saying
that Jesus was the Messiah. So far there is probably no
dispute among students of the New Testament. Nor is it
disputed that this belief is found in the Pauline Epistles ;
the point which is seriously doubted is whether it is central
or peripheral. That it was absolutely central to the average
Gentile Christian in, for instance, Corinth, I do not believe ;
for the centre of Christianity for him was the Sacraments
rather than the expectation of the Parousia, even though
the latter was a very prominent part of his creed. On the
other hand, for a Jewish Christian, the expectation of the
Parousia was probably quite central. I believe that it was
so for St. Paul himself, and the reason why there is compara
tively so little in the Epistles on the subject is because it
was not a subject for controversy among Christians, but an
undisputed hope, which all cherished. St. Paul found it
necessary to devote pages of argument to the discussion of
the Law, as against Jewish Christians, and to that of" Spirits"
as against Gentile Christians, but he never stopped to argue
that " that day " was coming, this was a common element
of belief. Similarly, he never gives any reason to Thessa-
lonians or Corinthians for believing in the Parousia ; he
only assures them that death which they had not expected

based on His own sayings. If the Gospels are trustworthy, let us trust them,
and if not let us confess our ignorance. The choice is not between eschatology
and ethics, but between history and myth.

438 CONCLUSION

could not exclude Christians from the company of Christ
when He came. The manner and the consequences of the
Parousia were open to further discussion. The fact that it was
imminent was generally conceded.

Most of the foregoing statement is generally accepted ;
nevertheless, there is a strong tendency among theologians
to dislike the eschatological element in early Christianity, to
under-estimate its importance, and to reduce its dimensions
by a free use of the critical knife. The reason for this
tendency is worth consideration, because the process of
discussion is the best means of emphasizing the real nature
of eschatological thought, and showing that much of the
reluctance which is shown to accepting the fact of its
early importance is based on a misconception of its
implications.

Perhaps the antipathy to a full recognition of early
Christian eschatology may be summed up in two pro
positions : (i) Eschatological hope is, and was, an illusion ;
(2) eschatological thought is unethical. Of these the first
is a half-truth, the second is wholly untrue.

The eschatological expectation of the first Christians has
undoubtedly been falsified by history. They expected that
Jesus would return within their lifetime, and that the
Kingdom of God would be established by a dramatic
catastrophe, abolishing sin, suffering, and death, and
raising to life the righteous dead. That did not happen :
in the sense that the Christian hope of the Parousia was
disappointed, the eschatological expectation was an illusion.
Nor is it possible to say that the Christians were only
wrong as to the time. There are, it is true, still some
Christians who cherish the hope of a "second coming";
but there are many more, though they are largely a silent

ESCHATOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 439

majority, to whom this hope is altogether strange. I do not
doubt but that they are right. The eschatological hope of
the first Christians, in the exact form in which they held
it, has undoubtedly been falsified ; there is no reason to
suppose that it will be fulfilled in some inexact form, and
the more we study the history of religions, the more plainly
we can see that the eschatological prognostication of a
dramatic judgment of the world, the sudden inauguration of
a Kingdom under the rule of the Messiah, and the change of
human nature to an original, but lost, perfection, is a legacy
from older speculations, and has no real claim to our accept
ance. As a prophecy of the future the eschatological hope
has not been justified, and all that distinctly belongs to it,
in that sense, has to be given up. There is nothing gained
by attempting to gloss over this fact. As a prognostication
of the course of history Christian eschatology has proved to
be an illusion. It does not in this respect differ from other
prognostications.

Nevertheless, to consider the matter from this point of
view alone is narrow and erroneous. An eschatological
expectation is strange and repulsive to many minds at the
present, because they do not see that it is much more than
a prognostication of the course of history : it is the last
chapter in a complete view of the universe a catastrophic
Weltanschauung which stands directly opposed to the
evolutionary system which we all usually employ. It is
opposed to the strong points of the latter, but it is also
opposed to its weak points.

The strong point of an evolutionary Weltanschauung is
that it does justice to the elements of progress, of continuity,
and of consequence in the universe. There is, no difficulty
with an evolutionary system in recognizing that the whole

440 CONCLUSION

of history is a progress of steadily increasing complication, 1
or in showing that this formula can be applied with con
siderable justice to the spiritual and intellectual as well as
to the material and economic sides of life.

But progress, continuity, and consequence are not the
only elements in life. There are also present catastrophic
factors. On the one hand, progress which is life is apt
after a period of scarcely perceptible growth to burst out into
a sudden efflorescence of production by which more seems
to be accomplished in a single generation than in the
fifty which preceded it. So it happened in the domain of
art in the time of Pericles, and so it has happened in our
own time in the domain of natural and mechanical science.
In such an efflorescence there is something catastrophic,
which is usually overlooked by the votaries of evolution.
On the other hand, degeneration the passing away of life
from institutions and nations which have served their
purpose is apt to end in a cleansing conflagration of
disaster. So it was in the fifth century in the Roman
Empire, and in such a conflagration there is always some
thing sudden, decisive, and catastrophic, which overwhelms
what has previously seemed to be the strongest and best
elements of the existing organization of society.

It would be unfair to say that an evolutionary weltan-
schauung cannot do justice to this catastrophic element in
history : in the hands of its masters it can be made to
express this as well as the elements of steady and consistent

1 If the earlier writers had seen this as clearly as their successors do, we
should probably have been all talking about involution rather than evolution.
The two things have come to mean the same : it is evolution so far as it is a
movement from an original type, it is involution so far as it results in something
containing, not so%iuch anything new, as old elements involved in each other,
and reacting on each other in ever-increasing complexity.

ESCHATOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 44I

growth. But it expresses them with more difficulty, and in
the hands of smaller men frequently does not express them
at all. The catastrophic Weltanschauung, on the contrary,
expresses admirably the catastrophic element in history,
but at the expense of other sides. It recognizes and
explains the value of the sudden efflorescence, of the
"golden ages" of history, and does equal justice to those
great conflagrations of disaster which are necessary to
cleanse the world from its accumulation of putrefying
degeneration, or to use a more Biblical metaphor to
burn up the chaff, and prepare the threshing-floor for the
next harvest.

If the eschatology of early Christianity be regarded in
this way as part of a Weltanschauung rather than as a prog
nostication of the future, all questions of illusion or
anything of the kind are seen to be beside the mark. No
view of the universe, or Weltanschauung^ is perfect : it is an
attempt to see as much as possible of the facts of life from
one point of view. But although some points of view are
better than others, it is certainly not at present possible to
see all the facts from the same point of view, nor can it be
denied that different facts can be best seen from different
points. Few really large landscapes can be seen com
pletely from a single point. The fact that the traveller has
to move from point to point, and from each point sees
something new, is not regarded as proving the desirability
of never moving, nor, because the accidents of one point
of view may produce an appearance which the greater
facilities of another point show to be an illusion, is any one
prepared to argue that the first point has no advantages.

So it is with an eschatological Weltanschauung. It
provides us with a point of view from which we see certain

442 CONCLUSION

features of life the catastrophic features to the greatest
advantage ; other elements the slow, constant progress
we cannot see at all ; and others again the probable
course of future history we see distorted and in a false
perspective. It is therefore, on the whole, a good thing
that we have moved on to another point of view, and
generally adopted the evolutionary Weltanschauung, which
enables us to see to advantage what was formerly obscured.
But we should not forget that in losing the disadvantages,
we have also lost the advantages of our former position ; it
is not necessary to deny what we could see there ; and it is
certainly desirable to reflect that a prognostication of the
course of history based exclusively on evolutionary thought,
is quite as certain to prove a distortion and an illusion
as that which was once based on a catastrophic or
eschatological foundation.

The objection that an eschatological gospel is unethical
is often made, and more often implied. It must in the
first place be claimed that, even if this were true, it would
not justify the historian in arguing that therefore early
Christianity had not an eschatological gospel. Our business
is to interpret our evidence, to find out what the witnesses
really do say, not to make them say what we wish that
they had said. Nothing has retarded the progress of
research into the history of early Christianity more than
the subconscious feeling that the first Christians cannot
have been really influenced by ideas foreign to the thought
of the present generation. It is an unkind parody of the
truth to say that much " Liberal " criticism has gone on
the system of thinking that its own special brand of
Protestant theology is identical with the Gospel of Luther
in the sixteenth century, and of St. Paul in the first : it is

ESCHATOLOGY AXD ETHICS * 443

an unkind parody, and the men against whom it is directed
have taught us all ten times more than any other school of
criticism, nevertheless, there is just a sufficient element of
truth in it to point a warning to ourselves.

But, as a matter of fact, it is not in the least true that
an eschatological gospel is or must be unethical. The
earliest Christian gospel that of Jesus Himself was two
fold : (l) The Kingdom is at hand ; (2) Repent. The first
half is eschatological ; the second half is ethical. Of the
two most ancient sources in the Synoptic Gospels Mark
is inclined to emphasize rather the eschatological side, and
Q the ethical side, but both contain both elements. The
fact is that, so far from eschatology being unethical, ethical
teaching of the highest kind can be given better in the
terms of an eschatological Weltanschauung than in the lan
guage of evolution. The Sermon on the Mount, which may
be taken as the typical example of Christian ethics, is not a
code which can be applied directly and simply to our ordinary
daily life. It is impossible not to resist evil, it is undesirable
to lend, distrusting no man, and it is ruinous to give to every
one who asks. You cannot base a code of conduct on the
literal observance of the Sermon on the Mount, if society is
to continue, and human nature remain as it is. That is
exactly the point ; early Christianity assumed that society
was not going to continue, and that human nature was going
to be changed. With that assumption Christians were in a
position to see and to appreciate the absolute principles of
life at its highest. The effect of their eschatological belief was
that they were enabled to see ethical problems in isolation
in an unnatural isolation, if you like and to reach nearer
to reality than they could ever otherwise have done. That
" the world is passing away " and the " Kingdom of God is

444 CONCLUSION

at hand " was the very clear and vivid eschatological belief
of the first Christians, and it enabled them to produce an
ethical gospel which is permanent, just because it can never
be a practical code for the world as it is, but is the eternal
possession of the children of the Kingdom. 1 That is
what the eschatological assumption rendered possible. The
evolutionary assumption 2 has not yet proved equally valu
able in enabling us to state the law of spiritual life, as
distinct from economic and social life. This is not to deny
that in other respects evolution is probably an hypothesis
much nearer the truth than was the eschatological hope, or
the catastrophic Weltanschauung.

The marked contempt shown in so many liberal circles
for anything to do with eschatology is as little justifiable as
would be a similar attitude on the part of a soldier to the
bows which were used at Cregy. We cannot afford to
despise or to patronize the arms by which our fathers won
their victories, even though we do not propose to use them
ourselves. It is more desirable to ask what were actually
the disadvantages and advantages to the early Church
entailed by the eschatological point of view.

Some disadvantage there certainly was : the eschato
logical hope was the main reason why Christianity stood
apart from the general life and culture of the Roman

1 The truth about the ethics of the Gospels seems to me best expressed in
paradox. It was an "interim " ethic, for the Kingdom of God was coming in
which it would be impossible to love one s enemies, because there would be no
enemies left. It was an absolute ethic, because it expressed principles derived
from the world of reality, not from the imperfect society in which we live.

2 It is unnecessary to remind those who know anything of the history of
physical science that the value of an assumption for experimental purposes does
not depend on its actual truth. The truths of physical laws have often been
established by experiments involving assumptions either known to be mathe
matically untrue, or afterwards found to be so.

THE EFFECT OF ESCHATOLOGY 445

Empire, and the Dark Ages, in which the Empire fell but
the Church remained, are partly due to this cause. It is
always lamentable when any large part of the best men are
excluded, or exclude themselves, from the public service of
organized society. This is what happened with regard to
Christians in the Empire, and it was not entirely and only
the fault of the Empire. Moreover, the mass of Western
Christianity stood largely apart from the best culture and
the best philosophy. 1 Of course it would be unfair to say that
this was wholly the fault of Christian teachings. Primarily,
it was due to the defect of character in the best intellectual
life of the day which made men shrink from anything new,
and from the sterner side of religious or ethical truth.
But, secondarily, it was due to an unjustifiable tendency on
the side of Christians to regard the whole fabric of society
as irredeemably evil and its culture as sinful. 2 It cannot be
doubted that this was largely due to the eschatological
hope which made men regard the Empire and the whole of
existing human society as doomed to a speedy extinction
by the judgment of God.

On the other hand, the eschatological hope worked for
good in two ways. Christianity began during a time of
efflorescence. The first century was the efflorescent period
of law and organization which produced the Empire.
Roughly speaking, this period was the culminating point of
seven hundred years of preparation, and it lasted rather less
than two centuries. By the second century the signs of

1 It is impossible to read Plutarch on the subject of Isis and Osiris and
contrast him with Justin Martyr s Apology for Christianity and not
intellectually Plutarch stands higher.

2 There were, of course, exceptions on some points. Justin, fo
says that Socrates was inspired by the Logos, but by no means all
admitted this.

446 CONCLUSION

decay were obvious, with startling rapidity the process of
degeneration set in, and the catastrophic fall of the culture
of the Empire followed. The one thing which survived to
be the source of another civilization was the Church ; and
the Church survived largely because her eschatological hope
had kept her from entirely identifying her life with any single
form of social organization.

Nor was this the only way in which the eschatological
hope, illusion though it was as a prognostication of the
future, worked for good in the development of Christianity.
The first Christians had expected the coming of a Kingdom
of a state of society in which everything would be
different, and this expectation enabled them to accept a
method of life and a series of commands which were only
permanently possible if society underwent a radical change.
It is true that society did not undergo a radical change, and
that the main problem for the succeeding generations of
Christians was to accommodate to a society which showed
no signs of passing away beliefs and doctrines which had
been based on the expectation of its transitoriness. Instead
of entering a new world, Christians found themselves busy
with the task of improving the old one. Not only is this
true, but it is one of the most important factors in early
Church history ; on the success with which the readjust
ment was made depended the existence of the Church.
Nevertheless, it is equally true that the driving power which
enabled the Church to succeed was largely due to the
expectation which she had once cherished. The Messianic
Kingdom, its laws and its teaching, ceased to be an expec
tation, but survived as an ideal. Though men gradually
ceased to look for the coming of a Kingdom in which sin,
suffering, and death would miraculously be abolished, they

THE EFFECT OF ESCHATOLOGY 447

never wholly forgot that they had enjoyed the vision of the
time when these things would happen, and they pressed
forward to make the world in which they were living
correspond somewhat more closely to the city of God
which they had seen.

I. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS

Abraham, 305, 403, 404

Achaia, 9, 36, 61, 71, 72, 88, 107,

in, 168, 174, 302, 328
Achaicus, zoO, 118, 135* *3 8 *54
Achehs, H., 188-190, 383
Acilia gens, 333
Acts, 1-13, 1 6, 28, 34!., 88, 408 L

, we-clauses in, 2 f., 9, 63

Adiabene, 24
Adramyttiujn, n
Aeschylus, 52
Africa, 49, 179, 197

African-Latin Version. See Versions Apamea, 08

Antioch in Syria, 5-8, 24, 28 f ., 33 f .,
47, 68, 114, 120, 260, 274, 281,
283, 293-297* 3l. 35. 317-3 V.
3^&gt; 4

Antiochene Movement, 23, 27 29,

32-36 ./

Antiochene Text. S Texti
Antiochi Kegnum, 258, 262
Antiochus, 309 f., 312
Anti pater, 312
Antony, 311
Anubis, 197

Aorist, Epistolary, 121 f., 125
Participle, 256 L

Agabus, 10

Agape, 212

Agrjppa. See Herod A&rippa II.

AJiexander, 105

of Abonoteichos, 204

of Macedonia, 309

Alexandras, C-, 25
Alexandria, 1 1, 25, 49. 59

182, 227

Alexandrian Text. See Texts
Amalthia, 243
Ambrosiaster, 276, 332, 417
Ajniatinus. See Codex AmiatJnus
Ammonius, 106
AmphipoLis, 62 fL
AmpHatus, 333

Amyntas, 254, 31 1 f-. 3 J 4-3 I&
Ananias (of Damascus), 5
Ananias (The Merchant), 24, 34
Anavina, 393
Ancyra, 189, 254, 310
Angels, 181
Anticljiist, 79 f .
AnUnomisuj, 37, 227
Autioch of Pisidia, 0, 254, 258-205.

Aphrodite, 176, 178
ApocaJyse of Jiarucb, 93, 217
Apocalyi/se of St. John, 79, 82,

179

Apollonia, 62 ff.
Ajxllonius, 187
Ajx&gt;llonius of Tyana, 204
107, Apollos, 107-112, 115-117, 126-

129, 138, 139,231
Apollos, party of. See Connth
Apostasy, 78
ApostJe (meaning of), 228-230

, Jerusalem, 54

, ultra, 220, 223, 228, 230

298, 311-3*4

Appian, 315

Appii Forum, 12

Apuldus, 205

Aquila, 8, 103, 107, MO L, I*o,

327-33. 333. 374
Arabia, 270 f., 320-323
Arabia, Nabatean lungdom of, 271
Archelaus, 312
Archisynagogue, 104 L
Aretas, 271, 320, 322
Aristarchus, 9. . 7
Aristides, 58

44V

45" THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Aristobulus, 331, 373

Artabanus, 78

Artemis, 9, 174

Asceticism, 191, 182, 234, 381 f.

Asia, 8, ii, 36, 144, 174, 256 f.

Minor, 42, 309

, political geography of, 258

, province of, 7, 8, 256-259,

262, 264

Askwith, E. H., 255 f., 266, 308
Assos, 9
Astrologers, 47
Athenagoras, 177, 204
Athens, 8, 61, 72-75, 101, 103, 354 f.
Atoning sacrifice, 410
Attalia, 6

Attis, 41 f., 44, 216
Augiensis. See Codex Angiensis
Augustine, 49
Augustus, 43, 193, 315

Babiism, 426
Babylonian myth, 79
Bacilli, 196
Bacon, W., 3
Baptism

Entry to Christian Church, 22, 27

Formula of, 386, 391

Jesus by John, of, 108

John, of, 107 f., 402

" Mystery," as a, 44, 46, 178, 200,
2 33. 383-391

Name, use of, in, 380, 385-387

Spirit, gift of, in, 21, 384, 388,
39i

Teaching of Jesus as to, 391

Unethical views as to, 383 f., 390

Water, use of, in, 385 f., 388-390
Bardt, A. G. W. C., 164
Bar Kochba, 393
Barnabas, St., 5, 24, 27 f., 117, 228,

260, 273 f., 283, 289, 296, 318 f.

. , Epistle of, 27, 39, 405

Barsabbas, Judas. See Judas Bar-

sabbas

Bartlett, V., 279, 318 f.
Baruch, Apocalypse of. See Apo
calypse of Baruch
Battifol, F., 212
Baur, F. C., 116, 222, 370

Bcrger, S., 236 f., 3^5

Beroea, 8, 63, 69, 71 f. f 74 f., IOI

Beza, Theodore, 414

See Codex Bezae

Biblis, 57

Bithynia, 7, 256, 309
j Blass, F., 67, 105
I Blood, 52

j Boernerianus. See Codex Boerneri
anus

Bohairic Version. See Versions

Bornemann, W., 82

Bostra, 321, 323

Bousset, W., 3) 15, 43, 45( 47 , 79 ,
80, 90, 188, 217, 234, 288, 308

Bratke, E., 236

Breves, 336, 339, 367

Brewer, J., 347

Brothers of the Lord, 220

Bruey, D. A. de, 245

Bruyne, Dom Donatien de, 316, 34*

Burkitt, F. C., 14

Burton, E. de Witt, 70

Caesar, 69

, Julius, 105, 176
Caesar s Tribunal. See Tribunal
Caesarea, 5, 10 1., 19, 21, 70, 143,

272

Caligula, 372
Camisards, 245
Campus Martins, 372
Cannibalism, 179, 197
Canon, Muratorian, 357, 360
, Syriac, 236

Cappadocia, 312
Carpocratians, 180
Carthage, 189, 359
Castor, 311
Catena, Armenian, 72
Cavalla, 8
Celsus, 205, 244
Cenchreae, 324
Cephas. See Peter
Cevennes, 245
Charles, R. H., 397, 400
Cherubim, 243
Chios, 9

Chloe, 106, 118, 124-133, 135,
J 54. !?3

/. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS

Chloe, information given by those

of, 120, 125-133
Chrestus, 103, 375
Christ. See Jesus

, party of. See Corinth

Christian, meaning of word, 328
Christianity, professionalism in, 98
Christology, no, 396, 407 f., 410 f.
Chrysostom, 126, 186, 245, 342
Churches, Epistles to the, 357, 360 f.,

366

Cicero, 164
Cilicia, 7, 23, 31, 311
Cilicia Tracheia, 312
Circumcision, 25 f., 32, 43, 234

, party of, 281

Clark, A. C., 164

Claromontanus. See Codex Claro-

montanus
Claudius, 331, 372
Clemen, C., 427
Clement of Alexandria, 48 f., 58,

68, 180 f., 353

of Rome, 127, 164, 175, 181

Cleobios, 237

Cleopatra, 312

Codex Amiatinus, 335, 337

Augiensis, 415

- Bezae (D), 30, 50, 62 ff., 72,
105, no f., 120, 126

Boernerianus, 415

Claromontanus, 414

Guelferbytanus, 343

Morbacensis, 336

Petropolitanus, 414

Cohn, J. R., 188

Collection for the poor. See J erusalem

Colossians, Epistle to, 299

Commagene, 312

Consciousness, subliminal, 247-252

, supraliminal, 247-252

Constitutions, Apostolic, 68
Conversion. See Paul
Conybeare, F. C., 188 f., 246
Corinth, 8, 66, 68, 70, 72 f., 75, 100

f., 103, 112-117, J 5 2 3 O2 &gt; 34

307, 354. 412

, asceticism in, 182

, Apollos in, 107-112

, Apollos, party of, at, 126 f.,

129 f

, celibate party in, 182

, Christ, party of, at, 126-128,

169 f., 231 f.

451

Corinth, Ephesus, route to, from
152

- , Epistle to Romans written at.
See Romans

, Epistle to Thessalonians
written at. See Thessalonica
, foundation of Christian com
munity at, 103-117
, immorality at, 133, 176
, Jews in, 103-106, 219 f.
, majority and minority in
Church at, 170-172, 174
, opponents at, 129, 175, 219-
232, 307

, Paul, St., in, 8, 9, 66, 70. 72,
73, 101, 103-107, 304
, Paul, St., party of, at, 126, 128,
171

, Peter, St., at, 112-117
, Peter, St., party of, at, 112,
126-129, 231
, Timothy at. See Timothy

, Titus at. See Titus

, visit (unrecorded) of St. Paul
to, 149-154

, women s party at, 209 f.

Corinthians, Apocryphal correspon
dence with, 124, 236-240

, Canonical Epistles to, 102-

252, 253, 379

, letters of, to St. Paul, 135-

139, 235 f.

, " Previous Letter " to, 120-

125, 142, 146, 155, 162, 183

, " Severe Letter" to, 119, 145,

J 4 8 . 153-164. 165 f-. 168, 172-174,
223

I. Corinthians, 103-144

, date and place of writing,

I39-M3. 152

II. Corinthians, 144-172

, integrity of, 154-164

Cornelius, 21 ff.

Corpus Paulinum. See Paul

Corssen, P.. 336, 339, 341, 359, 416.
419

Cos, 9

Council, Apostolic. See Jerusa
lem, Council of

of Jerusalem. See Jerusalem

Cramer, J. A., 100, 205

Crete, n

Crispus, 106

Cumont, F., 38, 42, 47

452

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Cynics, 180, 182
Cyprian, 49, 189, 337
Cypriotes, 23, 283
Cyprus, 6 f., 10 f., 274
Cyrenaeans, 23, 283

Daemons, 192 ft, 213

Dalman, G., 15

Damascus, 5, 23, 270 f., 273, 321-323

DapTmus, 237

David, 238

Day of the Lord, 94 ff., 437

Death, 41

Decrees, Apostolic, 31, 35, 48-60,

202, 292, 294, 300
Deiotarus, 311 f.
Deissmann, A., 38, 43, 427
Demetrius, 9, 143, 174
Demosthenes, 52
Derbe, 6 f., 67, 254, 258, 260-264,

266, 298, 309 f., 312, 315
Deyling, S., 37
Diaspora, 10, 17, 24, 33 f., 38, 42, 56,

115, 193, 227, 405
Didache, 58, 98, 207, 228, 230, 386
Dieterich, A., 188
Dio Cassius, 79, 374
Dio Chrysostom, 210
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria,

112

Dioscuri, n

Diospolis, 68

Divorce, 139, 176, 183

DobschUtz, E. von, 32, 63, 75, 77,

83, 101
Domitian, 78
Domitilla, 333
Dorylaion, 259
Doxology, 340, 342-345, 359-361,

418 f.
Drummond, J., 188

Ebed Jahveh, 408-410
Ecstasy, 198
Edison Mosiman, 252
Egyptians, Gospel of, 182
Eleazar, 24
Elijah, 320

Elisha, 239

Elvira, Council of, 189

Emmet, C. W., 279

Emperor, divinity of, 193

Empire, Persian, 309

, Roman, 20, 33, 40, 80, 115,

193. 3 J 2

Roman, treason to, 101

Enoch, Book of, 407
Epaenetus, 327
Ephesians, Epistle to, 299

, address of Epistle to, 85

Ephesian Presbyters. See Presby
ters
Ephesus

Apoilos at, 107

Chloe, connection with, 125

Gaius, Bishop of, 68

Mission of Timothy from. See
Timothy

Mission of Titus from. See Titus

Paul at. See Paul

Road to, 259
Epiphanius, 180, 204
Epistle of Barnabas. See Barnabas
of St. James. See James

Epistles of the Captivity, 143

, Pastoral, 12 f.

Pauline, 35, 422

Erastus, 9, 106, 134
Eschatology, 436-447
Essenes, 182, 382
Ethics, Jewish, 33

, Stoic, 43

Ethiopian eunuch, 19

Ethnarch, 322

Euboulos, 237

Eucharist, 44, 137, 139, 178, 200,

210-215, 232 f.
European Old Latin Version. See

Versions
Eusebius, 20, 196, 376

Fair Havens, n

Famine at Jerusalem, 6, 28, 279-

293, 421

Farnell, L. R., 197
Fasting, 25

Fathers, Sayings of the, 398
Feasting, 25
Feine, P., 252

/. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS

453

Felix, 9 f.

Festus, Porcius, n, 281

Food, 381 f.

Food-law. See Law

Fornication, 33, 48 f., 54, go, 176-

180

Fortunatus, 106, 118, 135, 154
Frazer, J. G., 197, 407
Friedlander, M., 188, 426
Fulvia, 372

Gabriel, 400

Gaius, 9, 67 f., 1 06

Galatia, 6, 36, 140, 268, 306, 311 f.,

3I4 4 12

, kingdom of, 254, 258, 262, 264

, opponents to St. Paul in,

274. 34-3 8

, position of, 254

, province of, 254, 262, 265
Galatian Region. See Region
Galatians, Epistle to, 8, 114, 226-

228, 253-323, 379
Galilee, 14, 228
Galli, 254
Gallic, 8
Gamaliel, 5, 427
Gates, Cilician, 260

, Syrian, 260

Gaul, 50

Gauls, 309 f.

Geffcken, J., 25, 57, 79

Ghetto, 372

Gifts. See Spirit

Glossolalia, 198, 204, 207, 209, 241-

252

Glover, T. R., 47. J 9 2
Gnostics, ritual practices of, 180

Gnosticism, 45 f., 236

Godet, F., 225

God-fearers, 21, 23, 37 f., 4. 4 2 . 44
64-66, loo, 104 f., 115, 371. 4 28

Goguel, M., 235

Goltz, E. von der, 346

Greece, 112, 227

Greek, modern, 187

Gressman, H., 15, 408

Greville, George, 246

Guelferbytanus. See Codex Guel
ferbytanus

Gunkel, H., 80, 235

Harnack, A., 3, 16, 18, 32, 58, 82 ff.,
86, 89 f., 95, 99, 237, 289, 328, 376,
414, 424

Harris, Rendel, 72, 87

Harrison, J., 47, 197

Hart, J. H., 109, 112

Hausrath, A., 162

Hebrews, address of Epistle to, 85

Hegesippus, 20

Heinrici, G., 222

Heitmuller, W., 212, 235, 413

Helena, Queen, 28

Hellenists. See Jews of Diaspora

Hellespont, 309

Hemera, 243

Hermas, Shepherd of, 98, 189, 207,
221, 400

Hermes, 244

Herod Agrippa I., 284, 319
Agrippa II., II

Hiera, 315
Hilgenfeld, A., 3
Hippolytus, 98, 180 f., 376
Holstein, C., 222
Holtzmann, H., 371, 413
Huguenot Bible, 245
Hymenaeus, 96
Hyrcanus, 105

Iconium, 6 f., 254, 258-265, 298,

309-316

Idolatry, 33, 5 2 . 54. 57. 2O
Idols, things offered to, 51-53. 123,

136 f., 139, M4. r 75. *9 2 , 198-202.

229

Ignatius, 355
Illyria, 379
Immorality, 57, I5 1
Immortality of the Soul, 218
Imperial household, 374
Incest, 130 f., 133, 15*. *73
Indian cults, 179
Inhibition, 248
Involution, 440
Irenaeus, 48-5. 5$, 3o. 189, 205-

276, 353

Irvingites, 245 f.
Isaiah, 15

454

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Isauria, 311

Isis, 41, 47, 197

Italy, ii

Izates, 24, 28, 34, 56

Jahveh, 193-195

, spirit of, 193 f.

James, St. (Brother of the Lord), 7,

10, 20, 2830, 35 f., 129, 272 f.,

275, 281-283, 293 f., 305

, Epistle of, 82
, the son of Zebedee, 87, 283

, M. R., 243

, William, 252, 432

Jason, 67-70, 101, 106

and Papiscus, 68

Jerome, 276
Jerusalem

Barnabas, mission to Antioch
from, 5, 23

Christian community in, 14-23,
26 f., 29, 33, 87, 220, 268 f., 305,

37
Collection for poor, at, 67 f., 119,

139142, 165-168
Council of, 4, 7, 13, 23, 29-34, 4^-

60, 113 f., 226, 279-301
Famine at, 6, 26, 28
Garrison at, 10

Judaistic mission from, 6, 219
Jesus

Ascension of, 20
Birth of, 238
Death of, 16, 215 f., 407
Jews and, 15
Messiah, as, 15, 45, 64, 107 f., 109-

iii, 396
Parousia of, 17, 77 f., 82, 90, 92,

97, 218, 394, 406, 436
Paul s knowledge of, 225, 229
Resurrection of, 108, 218, 239,

385, 4 8
Redeemer God, as, 45, 206, 388,

410 f.

Spirit of, 7, 206
Teaching of, 17 f., 391, 396, 405,

445

Zealots, relation to, 393 f.
Jews

Alexandrian, 231, 372
Asiatic, 10

Jews Continued,

Corinthian. See Corinth
Diaspora, in, 10, 17, 19, 23, 34, 45
Law of, 10, 14, 19, 25-27, 33-36,

43. 34. 397-4. 4 02 -46
Palestinian, 115
Roman. See Rome
Thessalonian. See Thessalonica
John, St., son of Zebedee, 19 1.,
275

, St. (the Baptist) , 108-110, 112

, baptism of. See Baptism

Mark. See Mark, St.

Jonah, 239

Jordan, 42

Josephus, 24, 28, 38, 132, 331, 372

Judaea, Churches of, 272 f.

Judaism

Antioch, in, 23

Diaspora, in, 24, 33 f., 38-40, 42-
44, 56, 227

Ethics, of, 43, 46

Food law, of, 55

Jerusalem, in, 14-18, 26, 227

Liberal, 24-26, 227, 398
Judaistic controversy, 4, 13, 14-64,

129, 219-221, 224, 226 f., 230, 234,

304-308, 368
Judas, 393

Barsabbas, 7, 29

Jude, St., Epistle of, 180

Julicher, A., 263

Justin Martyr, 58, 180, 203, 221,

315, 321, 405, 445
Justus, Titus. See Titus Justus
Juvenal, 38, 39, 373

Kasia, 243

Keane, A. H., 80

Kennedy, J. H., 152, 157, 162, 163

1, 167, 235, 367
Kinnaborion, 259
Klopper, A., 222
Knowling, R. J., 427
Koch, H., 189
Kotiaion, 259

Laodicea, 259, 261
Laranda, 310

L L\DEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS 455

Lasea, n

Latin, Old, Version, 275 f., 337-

340, 414, 417

Law, food, 31 f., 48 ff., 54, 57, 59, 294
Lawlessness, Man of, 78, 80, 94
Laying on of hands, 388 f.
Legalism, 227. Sec also Judaistic

controversy
Lietzmann, H., 182 f., 187, 198 f.,

214, 234, 237, 413
Lightfoot, J. B., 31, 84, 101, 255,
264 f., 279, 281, 287 f., 293, 299,
302, 308, 330, 361
Lipsius, R. A., 293, 308
Litigation, 130 f., 133, 151. T 73
Livy, 310
Logos, 41, 195
Lucian, 353
Lucifer, 417
Lucius, 1 06, 205
Lueken, W., 101, 400
Luke, St., ii, 17, 19, 30-3 2 . 35. 62 1-,
65 f., 72, 74 f- i3. IJ 3 f -&gt; J 35,
263!, 273, 296, 315, 319
Lutgert, W., 101, 225, 228, 235
Lycaonia, 310-312, 315
Lycaonia Antiochiana, 260-262, 313

. Galatica, 258-262, 313, 315.

316

, Tetrarchy of, 311

Lycaonians, 263, 309 f.
Lycus, 260
Lydda, 68
Lyons, 57. 5 8
Lysias, 10

Lystra, 6, 7, 63, 67, 254, 258-
"298, 305, 309-312, 315

Macedonia, 8 f., 36, 85, 88, 118 f.,
134 f., 140-143, 146-148, 152,
155, 162, 165 f., 174. 3 02 f- 4 12

Maeander, 260

Magic, 433

Magicians, 47

Magna Mater, 42

Magnesia, 310, 330

Malta, ii

Man, heavenly, 407 f.

Manen, \V. C. van, 422, 426 f.

Mangold, W. J., 37

Marcion, 276, 339, 35. 353- 45

Marcionite Prologues, 351, 354

Marduk, 79

Mark, St., 6 f., 63, 377

Marriage, 136, 139, 144, 176, iSo-

IQI

Marriage, spiritual, 190
Mary, St., 238

, mother of John Mark, 284
Mass, 434

McGiffert, A. C., 32, 288 f., 291 f.
Meals, sacrificial, 213, 232
Messiah, 14-16, 27, 34-36, 44 f.

64, 90, 107-111, 395-397. 4 01 .

407
, death of the, 234, 407-411

Messianic Kingdom. 14, 17, 21, 25
1, 36, 44-46, 91-93. i8, 181, 217.

35, 37
War, 392

Messogis, Mt., 260
Methodius, 52
Michael, 400
Miletus, 9
Milligan, G., 101
Mithras, 41, 44, 216
Mithridates, 254, 309
Mitylene, 9
Modernists, 15
Mommsen, E., 71
Monotheism, 33
Montanus, 204

Morbacensis. See Codex Morba-
censis

Moses, 320

Mummius, 176

Muratori, 189. See also Canon,
Muratorian

Murder, 33, 5 2 , 54. 57. 6o

Musonius, 182

Myra, n

Mysia, 7, 256

Mystery-religions, 40-46, 92 f. 97.
178, 193, 196. 215. 233. 433-435

Mystery of Christianity, 200. 201,

359, 433-435

Naassenes, 181
" Name," The, 385-387
Nantes, Edict of, 245
Narcissus, 331, 373

Neapolis, 8
Neo-Platonists, 40 f., 43

456

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Nero, 25 1 ., 78 f.
Neutral Text. See Texts
Newman, F. W., 432
Nicaea, 259
Nicomedia, 259
Noachic Commands, 55 f.

Obsession, spiritual, 203

Oecumenius, 342

Old Latin Version. See Version,

Old Latin
Old Testament, 80
Oort, H., 60
Oracula Sibyllina, 25 f., 33, 39, 43,

56 f., 217 f.

Origen, 48, 52, 68, 205, 293, 353
Orontes, 42
Osiris, 206, 216

Pamphylia, 6, 312

Papias, 20

Papyri, magical, 203, 243

Paradise, 93

Paralysis, 247

Paraphasia, 247

Parousia. See Jesus

Parthians, 78

Pastoral Epistles. See Epistles,

Pastoral
Patara, 10
Patriarchs, Testaments of the

Twelve, 397
Paul, St.

Acts of Paul, 124, 236

Conversion, 23, 289

Conversion, lite before, 269 f.

Corpus Paulinum, 163, 237, 334,
349. 355/358, 366

Council at Jerusalem. See Jeru
salem

In Achaia, 61

In Antioch, 6-8, 114, 120, 260,
274, 283, 293-297, 301, 317-

319
In Antioch of Pisidia, 6, 259-262,

262, 265

In Arabia, 270 f., 320-323
In Beroea, 69, 71 f., 74, 101

Paul, St. continued

In Caesarea, 5, 10, n, 70, 143,

272

In Corinth. See Corinth
In Ephesus, 8 f., 66, 112, 115,
118, 120 f., 124, 140-143,
152 f., 173, 260
In Galatia, 6, 140, 268, 315
In Jerusalem

Education in, 5, 427
First visit, to, 5, 272-274
Second visit (during famine), 6,

28, 274-293, 317-319
Visit during Council. See Jeru
salem, Council of
Visit after second missionary

journey, 8, 120
Last visit, 9-11, 34 f., 141
In Philippi, 8, 9, 63, 70, 141
In Rome, 9, n, 12, 66, 143
In Syria and Cilicia, 269 f.
In Tarsus, 5 f., 23, 270, 273 f.
In Thessalonica, 8, 62-77, 85, 91,

101

Journey of, to Arabia, 320-323
Journey, first missionary, 6 f.,
296. See also separate places

second missionary, 8. Sea

also separate places

third missionary, 8. See also

separate places

Opponents in Galatia. See Ga
latia

at Corinth. See Corinth

Party of Paul at Corinth. See

Corinth

Route, i, 6-12, 255-262
Trials, 10 f.
Visions of, 223
Voyage to Rome, 1 1
Paulina, 197
Pauline Canon. See Corpus Pau-

lium, under Paul
Pausanias, 52
Pelagius, 345
Pentecost, 15, 17, 113, 140-142,

153, 408
Perga, 6

Pergamenian kingdom, 310
Pergamum, 68

Peter, St., 7, 19-22, 28-30,
112-117, I2 9, 272, 273, 275,
282 f., 294, 296, 375, 408,
412

/. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS 457

Peter, St. continued

Antioch, visit to, 293-298, 300
Cornelius conversion, 21 f.
Corinth, at, 112-117

, party of, at. See Corinth

Herod Agrippa I., imprisonment

by, 283 f.
Jerusalem, first meeting with St.

Paul at, 272 f.
, at Council of, 7, 29 f., 275,

282, 294

, absence from, 20, 282-286

, meeting with St. Paul at,

(Gal. ii.), 275, 279-293
-, during the famine at, 28 f.,

Pontia gens, 333
Pontus, 8, 98, 254, 309, 312
Pontus Galaticus, 313
Polemoniacus, 314

282-286

Judaizing party, relations to,
113 f., 412

Pentecost, speech at, 408

Rome, in, 20, 375-379

Visit to Samaria, 19
Pericles, 440
Peshitta Version. See Version,

Peshitto.
Petra, 321
Petropolitanus. See Codex Petro-

politanus
Pfleiderer, O., 423
Philemon, Epistle to, 366
Philetus, 96

Philip the Evangelist, 10, 19
Philippi, 8 f., 62 f., 70, 101, 141
Philippians, Epistle to, 226
Philo, 24 f., 27, 43, in f., 227, 372,

401

Philomelium, 259
Philostratus, 204
Phoebe, 324
Phoenicia, 301
Phrygia, 254, 309
Phrygians, 263, 309
Phrygia Asiana, 258, 261, 313, 316
Phrygia Galatica, 258-262, 313, 316
Phrygian Region. See Region
Pisidia, 254, 311
Antioch of. Sec Antioch of

Pisidia

Pistis Sophia, 180
Plato, 52

Pliny, 310 f., 313, 315
Plutarch, 41, 69, 192, 195. 2IO 445
Polemon, 311 f., 315
Politarchs, 69-71, 76, too
Pompey, 311, 372

Porcius Festus. See Festus
Porphyry, 195 f.
Preaching, 250
Presbyters, 285
-, Ephesian, 9

Preuschen, E., 182

Primasius, 276

Priscilla, 8, 107, no, 120, 327, 374

Priscillian, 343

Prognostication, 439, 442

Prophecy, 198, 204, 209, 250

Prophets of O. T., 203

Prophets, Christian, 87, 203, 205,

209

Prophetesses, Valentinian, 205
" Proselyte of the Gate," 38
Proserpine, 205
Psychology, 246-252
Ptolemais, 10
Ptolemy, 71, 313 f.
Puritanism, Prostestant, 432
Puteoli, 12

Q (source of synoptic Gospels), 18,

443

Quakers, 435
(Juartus, 106

Rabbi Eliezer, 26

Joshua, 26, 56

Rabbula. See Peshitto, 276

Rabiger, J. F., 127, 128

Ramsay, W. M., 47, 69, 7 1 . 1 7&&amp;gt;

255, 279, 288, 298, 308, 311. 312,

316
Redeemer God, 41, 45. 2 6 . 2 33,

234
Region, Phrygian and Galatian, 7f..

256 f.

Regulations of Worship, 192
Reitzenstein, R., 47. *94. 20 3- 2 3 1 .

235, 2 5 2
Religion, Jewish, 54, 43~433

458

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Renan, E., 362
Repentance, 399, 430, 431
Resch, G., 32, 48 f., 51 1, 55, 58
Resurrection

Christ, of, 108, 215, 239, 385,
408

Dead, of, 91, 139, 144, 175, 177,
215-219

Flesh, of, 217-219, 239

Jewish belief in, 90, 93, 216

Mystery-religions, belief of, in,

216

Revisers, Syrian, 342
Rhegium, n
Rhodes, 9

Riggenbach, E., 336 f.
Robertson, A., 235
Romans, Epistle to

Destination of, 85, 335, 346-348

Judaistic controversy in, 219,
226, 302

Meaning of word, 364

Relation of, to Galatians, 299,
302, 304

Short recension of, 335, 346-348

Written by Tertius, 95
Rome

Asceticism in, 381 f.

Church in, 103, 175, 370-379

Ethics and Sacraments in, 382-

39i

Gentile problems in, 380-391,
411

Jews in, 371 f. 374 f.

Judaic problems in, 391-411

Paul in, See Paul

Spiritual gifts in, 380 f.
Rossi, G. B. de, 332
Runnus, 58
Rule, golden, 49-52, 59

Sabbath, 25

Sacraments, 41, 45

Salvation Army, 426

Samaria, 19, 113, 301

Samos, 9

Sanday, W., 20, 31, 50, 60, 234, 332,

339, 355 f-. 364 f-. 4 J 3
Sangarios, 309
Sanhedrim in Jerusalem, 10
Sanhedrin (Tract), 55

Schenkel, D., 225

Schermann, Th., 68

Schmidt, C., 236 f.

Schmiedel, P. W., 101, 234, 292

School of Tyrannus. See Tyrannus,

School of

Dutch, 422-428

Schiirer, E., 25, 37-39, 47, 55, 66,

104, 132, 188, 313, 321, 371
Secundus, 9, 67 f.
Sejanus, 372
Seleucus, 309
Seneca, 382
" Seven," the, 18, 113
Sexual questions, 139, 175-191
Sibylline Oracles. See Oracula Si-

byllina
Sidon, ii
Sieffert, F., 308
Silas, 7 f., 29 f., 63, 64 f., 67, 69-

74, 76, 100, 101, 303
Silvanus, 116
Simon, 237
Sin, 430 f.
Sins, deadly, 49, 58
Sinai, Mount, 320
Socrates, 445
Soden, H. von, 350-354, 356-359,

368

Solomon, Psalms of, 397
Son of Man, 14, 407 f.
Sopater, 9
Sosthenes, 105 f.
Sosipater, 106
Souter, A., 347
Speech-centres, 247 f.
Spirit, Spirits. See also Prophets
and Prophecy

Baptism, in, See Baptism

Belief in, 192-198, 402 f., 437

Eucharist, in, 232

Food, in, 195

Gifts of, 139, 175, 202-208, 380 f.
See also Glossolalia

Inspiration by, 21, 207, 251, 307

Pentecost, at. See Pentecost

Persons inspired by, 138, 178,

202-208, 222-230, 232
Steck, R., 427

Stephen, St., 18 f., 87 f., 409
Suffering servant. See Ebed Jah-

veh

Sultan Dagh, 259
Synagogue, 15, 64 f., 132

/. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PERSONS

459

Synaxarion, 68

Syracuse, n

Syria, 124 174

Syria and Cilicia, districts of, 270-

272

Stephanas, 106, 118, 135, 138, 154
Sterrett, J. R. S., 314
Stoics, 40 f., 43, 180, 182
Strabo, 71

Strangled, things, 49 ft., 55, 59 f.
Subura, 372
Suetonius, 79, 103, 331, 374

Tacitus, 79, 331, 372

Talmud, 26, 37, 226

Tarsus, 5 f., 19, 23, 68, 210, 260,

270, 273 f.
Tatian, 221
Temple, 14-16, 19
Tertius, 95, 106
Tertullian, 38, 49-53, 58, 189, 221,

2 76, 337. 353. 367
Testament, 214

, Old, exegesis of, 27

Testaments of the Twelve Patri
archs, 43
Testimonies, no
Text, Alexandrian, 352

, Antiochene, 345, 368

, Neutral, 352

, Syrian, 352
Theodoret, 342
Theonoes, 237
Theophagy, 197
Theophilus, 237
Theophylact, 342
Thera, 330

Therapcutae, 182, 188 f.
Thessalonians

Epistles to, 61-101

Apocalyptic section of II. Thess.
77-80, 82, 95

Authenticity of II. Thess. 77-86
Thessalonica

Converts in, 66-69

Eschatological expectation in,
91-94

Gentile Christians in, 88-93, 96 f.

God-fearers in. See God-fearers

Idleness in, 97-100

Immorality in, 97

Thessalonica continued
Jews in, 64 f., 69 f., 76
Jewish Christians in, 85 ff., 90 f.,

93 f-. 99 f-
Mission of Timothy to. See

Timothy

Paul at. See Paul
Report of Timothy from. See

Timothy-
Resurrection belief in. See Re
surrection
Thessaly, 71 f.
Theudas, 393
Thieme, E., 330
Thomasius, J. M., 337
Three Taverns, 12
Tiamat, 79
Tiber, 42, 372
Tiberius, 372
Timothy

Athens, at, 73 f.
Beroea, at, 8, 63, 71
Circumcision of, 279, 305
Corinth, at, 272-275, 303

arrival at, from Macedonia,
73 * ioi

Lystra, at, 7, 67, 305, 315
Mission to Corinth from Ephesus,
118, 130, 134 f., 138, 144 f.,
148!

to Macedonia from Ephesus,

- -to Thessalonica from Athens,
61, 73 f., 76

Report from Corinth, 119, 144,
152, 173

from Thessalonica, 61, 76,

86-101

Thessalonica, with Paul at, 63
Tiro, 164

Tischendorf, C., 417
Titus

Circumcision of, 275-279, 305 f.
Jerusalem, in, 281
Mission to Corinth, first, 119,
146

second, 119, 146, 148, 164
169

Report from Corinth, 119, 146 f..
148, 155 f., 162, 165. 109-175

1 Titus Justus, 8, 104
Titus (The Emperor), 78
Troas, 7-9, 146, 174, 259
Trophimus, 9

460

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Trypho, 203
Tubingen, 113, 116
Turner, C. H., 296, 300, 421
"Twelve," the, 17, 19-21, 113,

307

Tychicus, 9
Tyrannus, School of, 8
Tyre, 10

Universalism, Christian, 404
V

Version, African-Latin, 353

, Bohairic, 352

, European-Latin, 353

, Old Latin, 354

, Peshitto, 275 f., 353

Vesuvius, 25 f.

Via Egnatia, 62 f.

Victorinus, 276, 417

Vienne, 57 f.

Virgins, 139, 176, 184-191

Volter, J., 75

Vulgate, 52

Weber, V., 279, 308

We-clauses. See Acts, \ve-clauses

Weinel, H., 205

Weiss, J., 75, 101, 117, 123, 128,
132, 164, 176, 183, 198, 201 f.,
225, 234, 244, 252

Weizsacker, C. von, 32, 222, 370

Wendland, P., 43, 182

Wesley, J., 65

Whitefield, G., 65

Widows, 17, 139, 176

-, remarriage of, 139, 176, 184

Windisch, H., 392, 399, 401
" Wisdom," 129 f.
Wizards, 47
Women, veiled, 210
Worship, customs during, 139

, regulation of, 208-215

Wrede, W., 80-83, 86, 96

Xenon, 237
Xenophon, 315

Zahn, Th., 66, 72, 79, 236, 257, 288,
294, 296, 300, 303, 308, 336 f.,

34. 343. 353, 35%, 4*3, 4*8
Zealots, 393 f.
Zeller, E., 2
Zeus Hypsistos, 42
Zimmer, F., 416
Zonaras, 78 f.

II. REFERENCES TO PASSAGES QUOTED

Gen ix. 4 . . .

PAGE !
5=5

Luke xiii. 10

PACK

... 66

Exod. xix. 15 .
Lev xiv 1 8 . .

... I8 3

183

xiv 3 ...

. . . 66

xvii. 27 .
xviii. 20
xx. 34 . . .
xxii. 30 .

... 187
... 398
. . . 181
. . . 18

Num. xxxv. 27

. . . 52

183

^og

300

109

liii .

15, 408

xxiv. 27

. . . 109
. . . 266

Ezck xviii 21 f

aqo

200

. . . 266

Ecclus. xvii. 25
xxxii. 5 .

399
399

ix 8 ...

. . . 266

Acts ii

242

ii 23 f. .

409

xxxiv. 21

. . . 5 2

. 49

Maff V T&

^08

iv ^i

. 284

v. 5 .

. . . 6q

^08

v. 28 ff. . . .

409

I 8 3

vi. 17 .

v. 32 . .
viii. 24 .

. . . 194

IQJ.

vii. 51-53 . .
vii. 60 ...

. . . 409

. . . 88

xii. 2428

. 194

388

ix. 19 .

270

181

ix. 1925

. . . 271

^98

ix. 24 ...

. . 322

xxiii. 30

... 52

272

x. ....

104

X. 2 . . . .

. . . 37

IO.1

X. 22 ...

. . - 37

v - 35

104

X. ^"&gt; -

. . . 37

v. 30 .

IO4.

X. ^Q ...

. . 49

181 187

x. 47 ff. . . .

... 388

xii. 25

. . 43^

xi. 25 . . .
xi. 27-30 . .
xi. 30 ...

... 274
. . . 280
... 285

441

iv. 31

TO A

xii. 17 ...

. . . 284

viii. i
viii. 49 .
xi. 24-20

. . . . 62 f.
104

. . . . 194

xii. 25 . . .

284, 317, 319
. . . 104

462

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

PAGE

Acts xiii. 26 37

xiii. 43 37

xiii. 50 37

xv. 23, 31, 289, 291 ff., 295, 301
xv. I .... 29, 56, 226

xv. 3 301

xv. 5 226

xv. 34 30

xvi. i ff 259

xvi. 1-3 63

xvi. 2 315

xvi. 2-6 315

xvi. 3 305

xvi. 4 32

xvi. 6 . . 2601,265,303,315

xvi. 14 37

xvii. i-io 64

xvii. i 62

xvii. 4 37, 63

xvii. 5-10 69

xvii. 10 ff 71

xvii. 1418 74

xvii. 17 37

xviii. i 74

xviii. 1-18 103

xviii. 2 ... 328, 372, 374

xviii. 5 7 2 -74

xviii. 7 37

xviii. 17 104

xviii. 18 328

xviii. 2223 .... 260

xviii. 22 261

xviii. 23 .... 265, 303

xviii. 24 ff, 107

xviii. 25 109

xix. i 260

xix. 16 400

xix. 21 135

Xix. 22 134

xix. 23 ft 143

xix. 29 67

XX. 2 ... 140, 142, 145

xx. 3 141, 174

xx. 4 67

xx. 6 141

Rom. i. 5 f 370

i. 7 346, 4 J 7

i. 13 37

i. 15 34 6 &gt; 4 J 7

iii. i 404

iii. 7 382

iii. 1 8 404

iv. i 371

PAGE

Rom. vi 233, 383

vi. i 324, 3 8 3

vi. 3 385

vi. 12 383

vi. 15 403

vii. 6 371

viii. 38 94

ix.-xi 404

ix. 10 371

xi. 13 37

xii. 1-2 383

xii. 3-21 380

xii. ii 337

xiv 53

xiv. 1-20 . . . . . 341

xiv. 2 381

xiv. 5 ff 381

xiv. 13 381

xiv. 14 381

xiv. 15 381

xiv. 20 381

xiv. 21 381

xiv. 23 ... 340, 381, 418

xv. 1-13 341

xv. 14-33 34!

XV. 20 378

xv. 25-27 324

xvi. 1-20 341

xvi. 1-23 . 325, 329, 365, 368

xvi. 3 329

xvi. 10 f. 331

xvi. 17 338

xvi. 17 f 326

xvi. 21 68

xvi. 21 f 106

xvi. 23 . . . .68, 106, 418

xvi. 24 342

xvi. 25-27 .... 340, 418
i Cor. i.-iv. . . . in, 231 f.

i. 6 135

i. 11-12 126

i. 12 ... 112, 127, 22O

i. 13 386

i. 14 68

i. 16 328

i. 17 129

i. 21 129

ii. 15 202

iii. i 202

iii. 4 127

iii. 6 107, in

iii. ii 127

iii. 21 127

II. REFERENCES TO PASSAGES QUOTED 463

PAGE

I Cor. iii. 21-23

... 127

iii. i8-iv. 5 .

126

iii. 22 ...

. . . 94

iv. 6 ...

126

iv. 17 ...

3. T 34

iv. 21

. 149, 151

v.-vi.

. . 130

v. 1-13 . . .

176

V. 2 .

... 131

v. 9 . . . .

122

v. 9 f

. . . 124

v. 9-11 .

. 121, 124

vi. i ff. . . .

131 f., I7O

vi. ii

... 384

vi. 12 ...

177

Vi. 12-20

123, 133. 176

vi. 13 f t .

177

vii

I9O

vii. xvi.

135 f-

vii. i ix. i .

137

vii. I ...

135 f-

vii. 124

. . . 139

vii. 3-7 . . .

. . 180, 182

vii. 25 ...

... 136

vii. 25-38 .

. 184, iqo

vii. 25-40 .

... 136

vii. 36 1 86

vii. 38 190

vii. 39 f 184

viii. i-xi. i .... 139
viii. i-x. 33 .... 200

viii. i 136, 198

viii. 1-13 .... 136, 200
ix. i-x. 13 . . . . .136 f.

ix. i 229

ix. 4 ff 220

ix. 5-6 273

ix. 6 117

ix. ii 202

ix. 24-37 123

x. ... 53. *77. 200, 233

x. 1-13 137

x. 1-22 123

x. 3 ff 213

x. 8 176 f.

X. 14 ff 137. 201

x. 14 f 51

x. 14-22 51

x. 16 214

X. 16-20 212

x. 23-33 51

xi. i-io 137

xi. 2 137

I AflK

1 Cor. xi. 3 ff 210

xi. 2-34 123

xi. 10 210

xi. 17-34 .... 137. 213

xi. 18 ff 212

xi. 20 f 211

Xi. 23 ff 212

xi. 26 214

xi. 33 211

xi. 34 149

xii 202

xii. i 136

xii. i-xiv. 40 ... 139, 381

xii. 12 384

xii. 29 ff 203

xiii. i 241

xiv 205, 241, 242

xiv. i 202

xiv. 4 241

xiv. 5 241

xiv. 14 241

xiv. 23 241

xiv. 23-35 208

xiv. 27 241

xiv. 37 202

xv 138, 218

xv. 17-19 215

xv. 32 142

xv. 33 338

XV. 46 2O2

xvi. i 136, 168

xvi. i ff. . 140, 168, 174

xvi. i-ii 138 f.

xvi. 3 ff 140

xvi. 5 142

xvi. 8 142, 153

xvi. 10 134

xvi. 12 . . .129, 136, 138 f.

xvi. 13-24 138

xvi. 15 327

xvi. 17 135

xvi. 19 329

2 Cor. i.-ix. 119, 155, 157, 159, 162 f.,

165, 172-174

i. i 145

i. 8 143

i. 12 fl 161

i. 15-17 153

i. 15 266

i. 23 157. 159

ii M 6 &gt; *55

ii. i 149. 158

ii. i-n 149

464

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

2 Cor. ii. 3 .
ii. 4 .
ii. 5-7 .
ii. 5-10 .
ii. 6 .

ii. 6 fi. . .
ii. 9 . .
ii. 12
iii. i .
v. 16 . ,
vi. 13

vi. i4~vii. i
vii. .
vii. if.,
vii. 2

PAGE

. . . 159

145, 154. 157

. . . 171

. . . 162

. 170
. . I 4 7, I 7 2

160
146

157

224

122
.122, 162, 163

146
. . . I 80

122

vii. 4 161

vii. 4-7 155

vii. 5 146, 154

vii. 5-13 165

vii. 8 145, 157

vii. ii 156

vii. 12 147

vii. 13 146

vii. 15 146

vii. 16 161

viii 141, 155

viii.-ix 1 66

viii. i-ix. 15 . . . . 146

viii. 6 ff 166 f.

viii. 10 140 f.

ix. i ff 140 f.

ix. 2 152, 168

ix. 15 155

x.-xiii. . 119, 128, 154-166,

168-170, 172 f., 223

x. i 157, 161

X. 2 162, 223

x. 3-18 223

x. 6 160

x. 7 169, 232

x. 7-xii. 10 158

x. 8 161

xi. 4 221 f.

xi. 5 . . 220

xi. 7-11 223

xi. 1 6-1 8 161

xi. 22 220

xi. 23 143

xi. 30 161

xi. 32 . . . . 320, 322 f.

xi. 33 271

xii. i ff 205

xii. i-io 223

PAGE

2 Cor. xii. ii 220

xii. ii ff 223

xii. 14 *45&gt; 151

xii. 15 166

xii. 17 ff 165

xii. 18 168

xii. 2o-xiii. 2 . . 158

xiii. i 151

xiii. if 145

xiii. 2 1 60

xiii. 10 159

Gal. i.-ii 297, 299

i. 2 301

i- 4 94

i. 6 . . . .221, 267 f., 304
i. n-ii. 14 . . . . 265-297

i. ii 267

i. 13-16 269

i. 16-17 269

i. 18-20 269, 272

i. 18 116, 294

i. 21 294

i. 21-24 269

ii 4, 29, 289300

ii. i-io 269

ii. i . . . . 280, 288, 294

" 3-5 275

ii- 3 287

" 6 54

ii. 7 116

ii. 8 116

ii. ii ...... 116

ii. 14 116

" 9 273

ii. 11-14 269

ii. 12 29

ii. 17 221

iii. 16 ff 305

iii. 27 385

iii. 28 181

iii. 29 305

iv. 13 ... 265 f., 299, 303

iv. 21 ff 305

iv. 21 304

v. 2 304

v. ii 305

vi. ii 306

vi. 12 304

Eph. iv. 22 266

Phil. iv. 16 66

iv. 22 332, 373

Col. iv. 10 68

i Thess. i. i 85

II. REFERENCES TO PASSAGES QUOTED 465

FACE

. . 88

Ps. Apuleius, Asclepius, xxxvii.
Apollonius, De Syntaxi, iii. 31
Aristides, Apol. 15 ...
in Serapidem, Or. viii.
(p. 93 f., Dind.) .
Athenagoras.Pro Christianis, 9,

PACK
2OO
187
58

204
127

181
181
58
58
1 86
52
58
230

315
79

210
194

397

too

.204

112

224

i .6
313

98
.181

ii. 5 fi. . . . .

. 96
. . 66

ii 14 f. . . .

. . 87

74.

i Clement, xlvii. 3 ...
2 Clement, xii
Clement Alex., Paed. i. 4 .
Paed. ii. 7
Strom, iv. 15
Constitutiones Apostolicae, iii. 2
Demosthenes, In Meidiam, 548
Didache vi

. . 76

73 * i

. . 89

87 f QI

. 87

Dio Cassius, xlix. 32 .
Ixiv.
Dio Chrysostom (Or. xxxiii. 48)
Enoch vi. xix

. . 89

. . 81

X. 21

i- 5

i A

81 xiv. s

. . 81

Epiph. Haer. xlviii. 4 .
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 23 .
Hist. Eccl. ii. 25, 8 . . .
Hist. Eccl. v. i, 26 . .
Hist. Eccl. v. 7 . . .
Praepuratio Evangelica, iv.

. . 81

94 f&gt;

. . 81

ii. 13

Si, 84
. . 81

Galen (ed. Kiihn), vi. 515
Hippolytus, Commentary on
Daniel, iv. 19 ...

. . 81

iii. 6 ....

338

iii. 6-12 ....

99
. . 81

Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 13. 3
Adv. Haer. i. vii. 2

205

244
243
37
105
132

197

28
33i

194

315

180

iii. 17 ....

. -81,95

i Tim. i 13 .
2 Tim. ii. 17
ii 18 ...

. - 338
. 96

Job, Testament of, xlvii. . .
Josephus, Antiquit. xiv. 7, 2 .
Antiquit. xiv. 10, 2 .
Antiquit. xiv. 10 . . .
Antiquit. xviii. 5, 4 .
Antiquit. xviii. 65 ...
Antiquit. xx. i, 2 . . .
Antiquit, xx. 2, 5 . .
Bel. Jud. ii. ii, 6 . . .
Contra Ap., xi. 39
Jubilees iv.-v
Justin, Ada Martyni Justint
et Sociorum, 4
I Apol. 26 .
i Apol. 31
2 Apol. ii. 6 . . . .
Dial. c. Tryph. 35
2 H

. 329

. 338

Heb. iv. 6 ....

. . 266
. . 266

x. 32 ....

266
. . 266

. . 116

2 Pet. ii. 4 -

. 194
. 221

. 33 b

iv. I ....

. . 207
. . 194

Rev. vi. 10 .
Aeschylus, Eumen. 302
Appian, Bell. Civ. v. 75

. 52
. 52
. 3". J&gt;5

466

THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

Justin continued. PAGE

Dial. c. Tryph. 82 ... 203
Ps. Justin s Cohortatio ad

Graecos, 8 204

Origen, Contra Celsum, vii. 8, 9 205

Contra Celsum, vii. 9 . . 244

In Matthaeum, ii. 837 . . 52

In Rom. xvi. 23 ... 68

Oracula Sibyllina, iv. v. . 79

iv. 2324 26

iv. 24-33 56

iv. 162-170 .... 57

iv. 179 218

Pap. Oxy. i. no .... 199

iii. 523 199

Pausanias, v. i, o . . . . 52

Philo, De Vita Contemplative^ 189

Phrynichus, Eel. 159 . . . 198

Plato, Laws, 872 D. K. . . 52

Pliny, Nat. Hist. \. 24 . . 310
Plutarch De I side et Osiride,

p. 360 d 221

Aemil. Paul. 38 ... 69

Mor. p. 729, C. . . . 198

Quaest. Rom. 84, 2670 . 210

Pollux, Onomast. i. 29. . ,. 198

Ptolemy, Geogr. v. 6, 17 .

Geogr. v. 4 .

Geogr, v. .
Solomon, Odes of, 6
Strabo, Antiq. xiv. 7, 2

568 ff. . . . 311,

xii. 3, 31 ....

xii. 6, i . . .

xii. 6, 4

Suetonius, Claud. 28 .

Nero, 57 ....
Tacitus, Ann. xi. 29-38 .

Ann. xii. i .

Ann. xiii. i .

Hist. ii. 8 . . . .
Tertullian, Apol. 9

de Baptismo, 3-6 .

de Baptismo, 17

de Spect. 13 ...

de Jejun. 4 ....

de Jejun. 15 . .

de Monogam. 5 .

Contra Marcionem, v. 8
Xc-nophon, Anab. i. 2, 10
Zonaras, xi

313

310

204

323

315

33i

331

33i

331

386

236

244

315

8019