Epistles Paul Best
Epistles Paul Best
Epistles Paul Best
https://archive.org/details/lifeepistlesofst0102cony
THE
ST. PAUL.
BY
AND
very meet, right, and our bounden duty that we should at all times and in all places giv"
It ia
ihanks unto Thee, 0 Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God. through Jesus Christ our Jjord,
according to whose most true promise the Holy Ghost came down from heaven, Jghting upon tlw
Apostles, to teach them, and to lead them giving them boldness with fervent zeal con-
to all truth ;
stantly to preach the Gospel to all nations whereby we have been brought out of darkness and error,
;
into the clear light and true Knowledge of thee, and of thy Son Jesus Christ." Proper Preface to tht
Trisagium for Whitsunday.
'*
'A0evTf Tovg ul2,ovg uTravrag, ILavTiOV TrpoaTTjaufieda fiovov rov Xoyov avvLaropa^
K.dv TovTio ^ecopi^aufiev olov egtl ipvx(^v eTrifxiTisia. 'S2f dv 6^ ^daTa tovto yvoir/fieVf t1
nav?.oc avToc irepi llav7i,ov <p7]aiv aKovcu/nev. . . . 'No/j.oderel 6ov?Mig Kal deaTzoTai^^
IpXCVGi KOI dpxo/ievocg, dvdpdai koX yvvai^iv, GO<})ia Koi d/j.a6ici' Ttdvruv "bitepfiaxtl
rrdvTfJV vnepsvx^rai . . . KTjpv^ kdvuv, 'lovdaiuv irooordTjjc.'^ Greg. Naz. Gratia
^pologetica.
VOL.1. r -
^ \
33
JSCS'
;
mTEUDUCTlOlV.
rounded.
The biography of the Apostle must be compiled from two
sources first, his own letters, and secondly, the narrative in the
;
slaves and masters, which he not vainly sought to imbtie with the
Wing spirit of the Gospel the quality and influence, under the
;
fountains cold" in the ravines below, and those " flowery brooks
beneath, that wash their hallowed feet ;" the capes and islands of
the Grecian Sea, the craggy summit of Areopagus, the land-
locked harbour of Syracuse, the towering cone of Etna, the volup-
tuous Campanian shore; all these remain to
loveliness of the
us, the imperishable handiwork of nature. We can still look
upon the same trees and flowers which he saw clothing the moun-
tains, giving color to the plains, or reflected in the rivers ; we
may think of him among the palms of Syria, the cedars of Leba-
non, the olives of Attica, the green Isthmian pines of Corinth;,
whose leaves wove those "fading garlands," which he contrasts'
1 2 Cor. xi. 25, " thrice have I suffered shipwreck ;^ and this was before he was
wrecked upon Melita.
" The hills stand about Jerusalem ; even so standeth the Lord round about Mi
people." Ps. cxxv. 2.
3 1 Cor. Ix 25.
INTEODUCnOK-.
witlj the " incorru^jtible crown," the prize for which he fought
N^ay we can even still look upon some of the works of man which
filled him with wonder, or moved him to indignation. The tem-
ples " made with hands which rose before him ^the very apo-
theosis of idolatry on the Acropolis, still stand in almost im-
diminished majesty and beauty. The mole on which he landed
at Puteoli still stretches its ruins into the blue waters of the bay.
The remains of the Baian Yillas whose marble porticoes he then
beheld glittering in the sunset ^his first specimen of Italian lux-
ury still are seen along the shore. We may still enter Eome as
he did by the same Appian Road, through the same Capenian
Gate, and wander among the ruins of " Cgesar's palace " ^ on the
Palatine, while our eye rests upon the same aqueducts radiating
Dver the Campagna to the unchanging hills. Those who have
visited these spots must often have felt a thrill of recollection as
they trod in the footsteps of the Apostle ;
they must have been
conscious how much the identity of the outward scene brought
fehem into communion with him, while they tried to image to
themselves the feelings with which he must have looked upon the
objects before them. They who have experienced this will feel
how imperfect a biography of St. Paul must be, without faithful
representations of the placeswhich he visited. It is hoped that
the viewswhich are contained in the present work, and which
have been drawn for this special object, will supply this desidera-
tum. And it is evident that, for the purposes of such a biogra-
phy, nothing but true and faithful representations of the real
eicenes will be valuable ; what is wanted, and not ideal
these are
representations, even though copied from the works of the great-
est masters for, as
;
it has been well said, "nature and reality paint-
r,d at the time, and on the spot, a nobler cartoon of St. Paul's
n
;
mTKODUCTION. xix
For his speeches recorded in the Ads, characteristic as they are, would by theia-
gelves have been too few and too short to add much to our knowledge of St. Paul
but illustrated as they now are by his Epistles, they become an important part of hit
personal biography.
2 Cor. X. 10.
Luther, as quoted in Archdeacon Hare's "Mission of the Comforter,'- p. 449.
:
XX TNTKODrCTION.
faithful even unto this day, yea and all the saints who are yet to
be born, until Christ's coming again, both have been and shall
^e blessed." His Epistles are to his inward life, what the moun*
^
fifiiv fiovov, uXkd Tvapd lovdaiotg, koI "^ll'qaL iiakig-a Tvavruv Qavjidt^erai ; ovk dni
T^f Tuv 'EiTKroXuv aperrjc ; At' j)c ov rovg rove fiovov Ttig-ovc, aXka rot)f kKuvav
UEXP'- "^7? aij/upov yivo/ievovg, rovg fieHovrag 61 kaeaBai juexpt Ttjg eaxarrjg tov Xpig-ov
napovGiag d)(pe?iiiae re d(j)eX7]aei ' ov iravaeTai tovto ttoiuv, log dv to tuv dvOpunav
diafxivri yhog, '^lairep ydp Tslxog ddajxavrog KaTauKsvaa^ev, ovto Tag rcavTaxov r^i
oiKOVfiEVTjg Y.KKlrjdLag tcL tovtov Teixi^ei ypd/Li/LiaTa. Kal KaduTvep Tig dpig-evg yevvaio-
raro^ i^rjKe vvv fieaog, aixfialuTi^uv rcuv vorjfia elg r^v viraKo^v tov Xpig-ov, koI
xadaiouv loyia/iovg Kal rruv v^ufia kTraipofievov KaTcL Trig yvuaeug tov Qeov. Tavrc
TzdvTa kpyd^ETaif 6C wv vfilv KUTelmev Y.i:Lq-o7i)v riov '&avfiaaLUV Ikblvuv, 4 T^i
them ;
^ that refined courtesy which cannot bring itself to blame
till it has first praised,'' and which makes him deem it needful
almost to apologize for the freedom of giving advice to those who
were not personally known to him ^ that self-denying lave ;
which " will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest he make
his brother to offend ^
that impatience of exclusive formalism
with which he overwhelms the Judaizers of Galatia, joined with
a forbearance so gentle for the innocent weakness of scrupuxous
consciences ;
^
that grief for the sins of others, w^hich moved him
to tears when he spoke of the enemies of the cress of Christ, " of
whom you even weeping;"^ that noble freedom fron.
I tell
Jealousy with which he speaks of those who out of rivalry to
himself, preach Christ even of envy and strife, supposing to add
affliction to his bonds, " Yv^hat then ? notwithstanding every way,
1 1 Thess. ii. 9.
* Compare the laudatory expressions in 1 Cor. i. 5-7, and 2 Cop. i. 6-7, with lh
heavy and unmingled censure conveyed whole subsequent part of these Epistles.
in the
3 Rom. XV. 14, 15. " And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ya
ftlBO are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to
admonish one another
Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as put
ting you in mind."
4 1 Cor. viii. 13. 1 Cor. viii. 12, and Rom. xiv. 21. phil. iii. 18.
ll
INTEODUCTIOK. xxm
that which cometh upon him daily, the care of all the
churches,"'^ as he pours forth his warnings or his arguments in a
stream of eager and impetuous dictation, with which the pen of
the faithful Tertius can hardly keep pace.^ And above all, we
trace his ]3resence in the postscript to every letter, which he adds
as an authentication in his own characteristic handwriting,
" which is the token in every epistle so I write." ^ Sometimes ;
which bind him to the soldier who guards him,^ " I Paul salute
you with my own hand, ^remember my chains." Yet he always
ends with the same blessing, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you," to which he sometimes adds still further a few last
words of aifectionate remembrance, " My love be with you all in
^
Christ Jesus."
But although the letters of St. Paul are so essential a part of
his personal biography, it is a difficult question to decide upon
the form in which they should be given in a work like this. The
object to be sought is, that they may really represent in English
what they were to their Greek readers when first written. "Now
this object would not be attained if the authorized version were
adhered to, and yet a departure from that whereof so much is in-
terwoven with the memory and deepest feelings of every reli-
gious mind should be grounded on strong and sufficient causo,
t is hoped that the following reasons may be held such.
1 2 Tim. iv. 9. 2 2 Cor. xi. 28.
Rom. XYL 22. " I, Tertius, who wrote this Epistle, salute you in the Lord."
* Gal. vi. 11, "Ye see the size of the characters {TTTjUnoig ypdiifiaaiv) in whioh I
xxiv INTIiODUCTlON.
as it is, this one translation has been all but unanimously received for three centuries.
3 In the translation of the Epistles given in the present work it has been the especial
INTKODUCTION. XXV
the dates of the Epistles, are stated (so far as seems needful) in
the body of the work or in the Appendix, and need not be fur-
by the faith of the Son of God, who died and gave Himself for
him." " To believe in Christ crucified and risen, to serve Him
^
aim of the translator to represent these transitions correctly. They very often depend
upon a word, which suggests a new thought, and are q-uite lost by a want of attention
to the verbal coincidence. Thus, for instance, in Eom. x. 16, 17. Tig kivL^evGe ry
iKC^ rjixuv f 'Apa r] m^i.g uKorig, " Who hath given faith to our telling 7 So then
faith Cometh by telling how completely is the connection destroyed by such inatten'
tion in the authorized version; " Who hath believed our report? So th^n faUh
tometh by hearing.'' Gal. ii. 20.
xxyi INTEODUCTIOK".
highly we exalt these in our estimate of his work, the larger share
we attribute to them in the performance of his mission, the more
are we compelled to believe that he spoke the words of truth and
soberness when he told the Corinthians that Mast of all Christ
was seen of him also,' that by the grace of God he w^as what
^
'
P. S. It may he well to add^ that while Mr. Conybeare and
Mr. Howson ha/ue wndertaken the joint revision of the whole
worlc^ the translation of the Epistles and Speeches of St. Paul is
contributed by the former.^ (viid the Historical and Geographical
portion of the work principally by the latter j Mr. Howson ha'ii-
ing written Chapters I., H., HI., lY., Y., YI., YH., YHI., IX.,
X., XL, XII., XIY., XYL, XX., XXI., XXH., XXIH., XXIY.,
with the exception of the Epistles and Speeches therein contained^
Wild Mr. Conybea/re having witten the Introduction and Appeni*
dix, and Chapters XHI., XY., XYH., XYHL, XIX KXY.8 ,
CONTENTS
OF
TAOl
Ijmu)DucmoN - - -
CHAPTER 1.
CHAPTER n.
xxviii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER ni.
PAGB
Funeral of St. Stephen. Saul's continued Persecution. Flight of the
Christians, Philip and Saul's Journey to Damasciis.
the Samaritans.
Aretas, King of Petra. Roads from Jerusalem to Damascus.Neapolis.
History and Description of Damascus.The Narratives of the Miracle.
was a Vision of J
It real Three Days Damascus.Anar
esus Christ. in
Baptism and
nias. Preaching of Saul.He
first Arabia. retires into
CHAPTER
IV.
CHAPTER T.
CHAPTER VI.
CONTENTS. xxix
CHAPTER YIL
Weak Conduct
the Letter. Peter
of St.Antioch,He rebuked by
at is
CHAPTER Vni.
IV.
phylia. Y. Pontus.YI. Cappadocia.YH.
Calatia. Cilicia.
CHAPTER IX
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
FAOB
Arrival on the Coast o? Attica. Scenery round Athens.The
and Pirseus
the " Long Walls."The Agora.The Acropolis.The " Painted Porch "
and the " Garden." The Apostle alone in Athens. Greek Religion.
The Unknown God. Greek Philosophy. The Stoics and Epicureans.
Later Period of the Paul the Agora.The Areopagus.
Schools. St. in
CHAPTER. XI.
CHAPTER Xn.
The Isthmus. Early History of Corinth. Its Trade and Wealth. Corinth
under the Romans. Province Achaia.
of Gallio the Governor. Tumult
at Corinth. Cenchreaj.Yoyage by Ephesus to Csesarea. Yisit Jeru-
to
salem. Antioch - - - 409
CHAPTER Xm.
The Spiritual Gifts, Constitution, Ordinances, Divisions and Heresies of the
Primitive Church in the Lifetime of St. Paul - ... - 427
M-Jte 0)1 the Origin of the Heresies of tlie later Apostolic Age - 456
LIST OF ENGRAVIKGS IN THE FIRST VOLUME.
Pagb
Coin of Herod the Great ... 2 Coin of Antioch in Pisidia -
TA.au
Coins of Amphipolis
-
....
.
.
.
.
- 291
. 315
- 3I8
View of Jerusalem prom the Amphipolis
Bridge over the Jordan S. of
N".
Lake Tibe-
E. . . 73
Thessalonioa from the Sea ... 320
323
EiAS - 84 Coin of Thessalonioa - - - - 333
-
-
-
-
-
144
155
160
Coin of Corinth
Ditto
Ditto
.
-
.....
. -
.....
- . - 408
413
415
Coin of Antioch in Pisima - - - 170 Ditto . . 420
Page Pagb
Coin of Ephesus 17 Coin op C^sarea 279
Ditto - - - - - - - 25 C^saeea - 298
Ditto _ . 69 Compass 304
View of the Site of Ephesus from the Coin of Commodtts (Corn-Ship) - - - 308
North 72 Coin of Sidon 811
Coin of Ephesus - 76 Coin op Myra 315
,
Ditto 89 Fair Havens 32?
Corihthian Coin representing Cenchre;e 195 Ancient Ship (anchored by the Stern) 330
Ruins at Thessalonioa - - - 202 St. Paul's Bay
. 344
Gateway of Assos - - - - 209 Coin of Syracuse
- - - - 348 -
Paoi
Map of the Countries adjacknt to thk Mbditereanban, illustrating thb Earlt
Travels of St. Paui, Frontispiece.
Paob
Flan OF Romb Frontispiece.
TE
ST. PAUL.
CHAPTER I.
** And the title was written in Hftbrew, and Greek, and Latin." Job. six. 20.
tho past :
these are the colossal figures of history, which stamp with th
impress of their personal greatness the centuries in which they lived.
The interest with which we look upon such men is natural and inevi-
table, even when we are deeply conscious that, in their character and
their work^ evil was mixed up in large proportions with the good, and
when we find it difficult to discover the providential design which drew
the features of their respective epochs. But this natural feeling rises into
a work was the first preaching of the Gospel and such a man was Paul :
of Tarsus.
Before we enter upDn the particulars of his life and the history of his
cumstances in the state of the world, whicn seem to bear the traces of a
providential pre-arrangement.
Casting this general view on the age of the first Roman emperors,
which was also the age of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, we find our
attention arrested by three great varieties of national life. The Jew, the
Greek, and the Roman appear to divide the world between them. The
outward condition of Jerusalem itself, at this epoch, might be taken as a
type of the civilised world. Herod the Great, who rebuilt the Temple,
had erected, for Greek and Roman entertainments, a theatre within the
same walls, and an amphitheatre in the neighbouring plain.' His coins,
and those of his grandson Agrippa, bore Greek inscriptions :^ that piece
of money, which was brought to our Saviour (Matt. xxii. Mark xii. Iiuko
KX.), was the silver Denarius, the "image" was that of the emperor, the
" superscription " was in Latin : and at the same time when the common
crn'rency consisted of such pieces as these, since coins with the images
of men or with heathen symbols would have been a profanation to the
"Treasury," there might be found on the tables of the money-
changers in the Temple, shekels and half-shekels with Samaritan letters,
minted under the Maccabees. Greek and Roman names were borne by
multitudes of those Jews who came up to worship at the festivals. Greek
and Latin words were current in the popular " Hebrew" of the day : and
while this Syro-Chaldaic dialect was spoken by the mass of the people
with the tenacious affection of old custom, Greek had long been well-
known among the upper classes in the larger towns, and Latin was used
in the courts of law, and in the official correspondence of magistrates.^
On a critical occasion of St. Paul's life,^ when he was standing on the
stair between the Temple and the fortress, he first spoke to the com.mander
of the garrison in Greek, and then turned round and addressed his coun-
trymen in Hebrew ; while the letter ^ of Claudius Lysias was written, and
the oration 4 of Tertullus spoken, in Latin. We are told by the historian
Josephus,^ that on a parapet of stone in the Temple area, where a flight of
fourteen steps led up from the outer to the inner court, pillars were placed
at equal distances, with notices, some in Greek and some in Latin, that no
ahen should enter the sacred enclosure of the Hebrews. And we are told
1 V&l. Max. ii. 2. Magistratus vero prisei quantopere suam popuhque Romani ma-
jestatem retiaentes se gesserint, hinc cognosci potest, quod inter ca3tera obtinendaj gra-
vitatis indicia, illudquoque magna cum perseverantia custodielbant, ne Graecis unquam,
nisi Quinetiam ipsa Unguse volubilitate, qua plurimum valent,
Latine responsa darent.
excussa, per interpretem loqui cogebant non in urbe tantum nostra, sed etiam in
;
Graecia et Asia quo scihcet Latinae vocis honos per omnes gentes venerabilior ditfun-
:
dcretur. Nec ilhs deerant studia doctrine, sed nulla non in re pallium togas subjici
dobere arbitrabantur indignum esse existimantes, illecebris et suavitate literarum
:
- Acts xxiii. The letter was what was technically called an Elogium, or certificate,
and there is hardly any doubt that it was in Latin. See De Wette and Olshausen,
in loc.
^ Acts xxiv. Mr. Milman (Bampton Lectures, p. 185) bas remarked on the peculi-
arly Latin character of Tertullus's address and the preceding quotation from Valerius
:
by tv/0 of the Evangelists,' that when our blessed Saviour was ciucifiecl^
"the superscription of His accusation" was written above His cross "ic
letters of Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin."
made ready in fitting places for the seed of the Gospel. He sees in the
spread of the language^ and commerce of the Greeks, and in the high
perfection of their poetry and philosophy, appropriate means for the rapid
communication of Christian ideas, and for bringing them into close con-
nection with the best thoughts of unassisted humanity. And he sees in
the union of so many incoherent provinces under the law and government
of Rome, a strong framework which might keep together for a sufi&cient
period those masses of social life which the Gospel was intended to per-
vade. The City of God is built at the confluence of three civilisations.
We recognise with gratitude the hand of God in the history of His world
and we turn with devout feelings to trace the course of these three streams
of civilised life, from their early source to the time of their meeting in the
Apostolic age.
We need not linger about the fountains of the national life of the Jews.
We know that they gushed forth at first, and flowed in their appointed
everything in tljeir collective and private life was connected with a revealed
religion : their wars, their heroes, their poetry, had a sacred character,
their national code was full of the details of public worship, ^theii
of the heathen world, a creed which could not be the common property of
the instructed and the ignorant. It was neither a recondite philosophy
5-hich might not be communicated to the masses of the people, nor a weak
superstition, controlling the conduct of the lower classes, and ridiculed by
the higher. The religion of Moses was for the use of all and the benefit
of all.' The poorest peasant of Galilee had the same part in it as the
wisest Kabbi of Jerusalem. The children of all families were taught to
claim their share in the privileges of the chosen people.
And how different was the nature of this religion from that of the con-
temporary Gentiles ! The pious feelings of the Jew were not dissipated
and distracted by a fantastic mythology, where a thousand different
ness faith in His word was the power which raised men above their
:
natural weakness : while even the divinities of Greece and Rome were
often the personifications of human passions, and the example and sanction
of vice. And still farther :
the devotional scriptures of the Jews express
that heartfelt sense of infirmity and sin, that peculiar spirit of prayer, that
real communion with God, with which the Christian, in his best moments,
has the truest sympathy.^ So that, while the best hymns of Greece ^ are
only mythological pictures, and the literature of heathen Rome hardly
produces anything which can be called a prayer, the Hebrew psalms
1 oTvep /c ^Lloao^iagrrig 6o k i /x u r dr tj g irepiytverai rote o^ilrjralg uvrrj^y
TovTo 6 L(l V 6 nuv K ai E 6 o)v 'lovdaiotg, eTrLorrjfir] rov uvututov koI TTpeaBvTUTW
ndvTuv, rbv eirt rolg yevrjrolg d-eoig Tc'kdvov uTruGajuivoig. Quoted with other passages
from Philo by Neander, General Church History, vol. i. pp. 70, 71. (Torrey's transla-
tion, Edinburgh, 1847.)
^ Neander observes that it has been justly remarked that the distinctive peon'' ntj
(dia auszeichnende Eigenthumlichkeit) of the Hebrew nation from the very first, was,
that conscience was more alive among them than any other people. Pflanzung und
Leitung, p. 91, ed. 1847. See also the Eng. Trans, of the former edition, vol. i. p. 61.
3 There are some exceptions, as in the hymn of the Stoic Cleanthes, who was born
at Assos 350 years before St. Paul was there yet it breathes the sentiment rather ol
;
iiave passed into the devotions of tlie Christian church. There is a h'ght
on all the mountains of Judaea which never shone on Olympus or Parnas^
5us : and the "Hill of Zion," in which "it pleased God to dwell," is the
type of " the joy of the whole earth," i
while the seven hills of Home are
the symbol of tyranny and idolatry. " He showed His word unto Jacob,
His statutes and ordinances unto Israel. He dealt not so with any
nation ;had the heathen knowledge of His laws." ^
neither
But not only was a holy religion the characteristic of the civilisation
of the J ews, but their religious feelings were directed to something in the
future, and all the circumstances of their national life tended to fix their
thoughts on One that was to come. By types and by promises, their eyes
were continually turned towards a Messiah. Their history was a con-
tinued prophecy. All the great stages of their national existence were
accompanied by effusions of prophetic light.^ Abraham was called from
his father's house, and it was revealed that in him " all families of the
earth should be blessed." Moses formed Abraham's descendants into a
people, by giving them a law and national institutions but while so ;
rather as a barrier than a link between the educated and the ignorant,
with morality divorced from theology, the whole Jewish people were
unit ed in a feeling of attachment to their sacred institutions, and found iu
the facts of their past history a, sure pledge of the fulfilment of theii
national hopes.
It is true that the Jewish nation, again and again, during several cen-
turies, fell into idolatry. It is true that their superiority to other nations
consisted in the light which they possessed, and not in the use which
they made of it ;
and tliat a carnal life continually dragged them down
from the spiritual eminence on which they might have stood. But t^e
divine purposes were not frustrated. The chosen people was subjected to
the chastisement and discipline of severe sufferings : and they were fitted
which preceded and followed the birth of Christ, those Greeks or Romans
who visited the Jews in their own land where they still lingered at the
portals of the East, and those vast numbers of proselytes whom the dis-
persed Jews had gathered round them in various countries, were made
familiar with the worship of one God and Father of all.^
The influence of the Jews upon the heathen world was exercised mainly
through their dispersion: but this subject must be deferred for a few
pages, till we have examined some of the developments of the Greek
and Koman nationalities. A few words, however, may be allowed in
passing, upon the consequences of the geographical position of Judaea.
The situation of this little but eventful country is such, that its inhab-
itants were brought into contact successively with all the civilized nations
of antiquity. Not to dwell upon its proximity to Egypt on the one hand,
and to Assyria on the other, and the influences which those ancient king-
doms may thereby have exercised or received, Palestine lay in the road ot
Alexander's Eastern expedition. The Greek conqueror was there before
ne founded his mercantile metropolis in Egypt, and then went to India, to
return and die at Babylon. And again, when his empire was divided, and
Greek kingdoms were erected in Europe, Asia, and Africa, Palestine lay
between tne rival monarchies of the Ptolemies at Alexandria and tkj
Seleucidse at Antioch, too near to both to be safe from the invasion of
their arms or the influence of their customs and their language. And
finally, when the time came for the Romans to embrace the whole of the
Mediterranean within the circle of their power, the coast-line of Judaes
was the last remote portion which was needed to complete the fated cir-
cumference.
The full effect of this geographical position of Judaea can only be seen
by following the course of Greek and Roman life, till they were brought
80 remarkably into contact with each other, and with that of the Jews :
and we turn to those other two nations of antiquity, the steps of whose
progress were successive stages in what is called in the Epistle to the
Ephesians (i 10) "the dispensation of the fulness of time."
' Humboldt has remarked, in the chapter on Poetic Descriptions of Nature (Kosmos,
Sabine's Eng. Trans., vol. ii. p. 44), that the descriptive poetry of the Hebrews is a
quick perception ^indefatigable inquiry all these enter into the very
idea of the Greek race. This is not the place to inquii*e how far these
qualities were due to an innate pecuharity, or how far they grew up, by
gradual development, amidst the natural influences of their native country,
the variety of their hills and plains, the clear lights and warm shadows
of their climate, the mingled land and water of their coasts. We have
only to do with this national character so far as, under divine Providence,
it was made subservient to the spread of the Gospel.
We shall see how remarkably it subserved this purpose, if we consider
the tendency of the Greeks to trade and colonisation. Their mental
activity was accompanied with great physical restlessness. This clever
people always exhibited a disposition to spread themselves. Without
aiming at universal conquest, they displayed (if we may use the word) a
remarkable catholicity of character, and a singular power of adaptation to
those whom they called Barbarians. In this respect they were strongly
contrasted with the Egyptians, whose immemorial civilisation was con-
fined to the long valley which extends from the cataracts to the mouths of
the Nile. The Hellenic tribes, on the other hand, though they despised
foreigners, were never unwilling to visit them and to cultivate their
of its strength, had received the name of Greece itself. To all these
places they carried their arts and literature, their philosophy, their my-
thology, and their amusements. They carried also their arms and theii
trade. The heroic age had passed away, and fabulous voyages had given
place to real expeditions against Sicily and constant traffic with the Black
Sea. They were gradually taking the place of the Phcenicians in the
empire of the Mediterranean. Tiiey were, indeed, less exclusively mercan-
tile than those old discoverers. Their voyages were not so long. But
their influence on general civilisation was greater and more permanent.
The earliest ideas of scientific navigation and geography are due to tha
Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausapias and Strabo, v/ill be our
hfxt pources of information on the topograph/ of St. Paul's journeys.
r
With this view of the Hellenic character before us^ we are prepared tc
appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests. ^ He took up the
meshes of the net of Greek civilisation, which were lying in disorder on the
edges of the Asiatic shore, and spread them over all the countries which
He traversed in his wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were
suddenly brought together. Separated tribes were united under a common
government. New cities were built, as the centres of political life. New
lines of communication were opened, as the channels of commercial
activity. The new culture penetrated the mountain ranges of Pisidia and
Lycaonia. The Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The lan-
guage of Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia ; and
a Grecian Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt, and called by his
name.
The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of his campaigns
and poUcy did not cease. The influence of the fresh elements of social life
was rather increased by being brought into independent action within the
spheres of distinct kingdoms. Our attention is particularly called to two
of the monarchical lines, which descended from Alexander's generals,
the Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt, and the Seleucidae, or tne
Greek kings of Syria.' Their respective capitals, AlexoMdria and Antioch,
became the metropolitan centres of commercial and civilised life in the East
They rose suddenly and their very appearance marked them as the cities
;
of a new epoch. Like Berlin and St. Petersburg, they were modern cities
built by great kings at a definite time and for a definite purpose.^ Their
^ Plutarch, paraphrasing Alexander's saying to Diogenes, remarks that his mission
was TO, (iap&apLKa rolg 'EXlrjVLKolg Kepdaai, kol ttjv *E2,?M6a airetpat : Orat. i., de
Alex. Virtute s. fortuna, 11.
' This coin, with the portrait of Antiochus (lY.) Epiphanes, is from the British
Museum (whence much other assistance has been obtained for this work, chiefly through
the kindness of C. Newton, Esq., student of Ch. Ch.). Portraits on coins began with
Alexander. For their historical importance, see K. 0. Miiller's Handbuch der Archi-
ologie der Alten Kunst, For the
162, p. 169, Welcker's edition, 1848. series of the
Seleucidaj, see Vaillant, " Seleucidarum Imperium, sive Historia Regum Syrias ad f deia
Numismatum accommodata :" Paris, 1681. (2nd Ed. Hag. 1732.)
3 An account of the builcJing of Autioch will be given hereafter. For tbat r f Ales
ApoUos the other directly, as the scene of some .f the most important
;
passages of the Apostle's own life. ])Oth aboun^ icd in Jews from their
first foundation. Both became the residences of Roman governors, and
both were patriarchates of the primitive Church. But before they had
received either the Roman discipline or the Christian doctrine, they had
served their appointed purpose of spreading the Greek language and
habits, of creating new lines of commercial intercourse by land and sea,
and of centralising in themselves the mercantile life of the Levant. Even
the Acts of the Apostles remind us of the traffic of Antioch witii C}^rus
and the neighbouring and of the sailmg of Alexandrian corn-ships to
coasts,
on all the face of the earth, and determined the times before appointed
and the bounds of their habitation." '
Miilria, see ]\Iiiller, 149, pp. 153, 154. Ammianus calls it vertex omnium civiiatum
The architect was Dinocrates, who renewed the temple at Ephesus (Acts xix.).
We do not forget that the social condition of the Greeks had beec
falling, during this period, into the lowest corruption. The disastrous
quarrels of Alexander's generals had been continued among their succes-
sors. Political integrity was lost. The Greeks spent their life in worth-
side, and those who lived in domestic and ignorant seclusion on the other.
And it cannot be denied that all these causes of degradation spread with
the diffusion of the race and the language ;
like Sybaris and Syracuse,
Antioch and Alexandria became almost worse than Athens and Corinth.
But the very diffusion and development of this corruption was preparing
the way, because it showed the necessity, for the interposition of a Gospel.
The disease itself seemed to call for a Healer. And if the prevailing evils
of the Greek population presented obstacles, on a large scale, to the
progress of Christianity, yet they showed to all future time the weakness
of man's highest powers, if unassisted from above ; and there must have
been many who groaned under the burden of a corruption which they
could not shake off, and who were ready to welcome the voice of Him,
who " took our infirmities,
and bare our sicknesses." The " Greeks,'^
who are mentioned by St. John as coming to see Jesus at the feast, were,
we trust, the types of a large class and we may conceive His answer to
;
Such was the civilisation and corruption connected with the spread of
the Greek language when the Roman power approached to the eastern
parts of the Mediterranean Sea. For some centuries this irresistible force
had been gathering strength on the western side of the Apennines.
Gradually, but surely, and with ever-increasing rapidity, it made to itself
a wider spac-e northward into Etruria, southward into Campania. It
passed beyond its Italian boundaries. And six hundred years after the
building of the city, the Roman eagle had seized on Africa at the point of
0*\rthage, and Greece at the Isthmus of Corinth, and had tuv.'ied its eye
''EX?^i]VEg, xii. 20. It ought to be observed here, that the word " Grecian " in the
Eiiglish translation of the New Testament is used for a Hellenist, or Grecising Jew
CETiATjVLarric) as Acts vi. 1. ix. 29
^while the word " Greek " is used for one who
was by birth a Gentile (JEX/irjv), and who might, or might not, be a proselyte to Juda*
ism, or a convert to Christianity. It is agreed by the moc'arn critics (Griesbachi,
Scholz, Lachmann, De Wette) that in Acts xi. 20, the true leadipg is "E/.Xjyj/aK no<
'P.'K7,tj>iaT(lc, " Greeks " not " Grecians."
towards ohe East. The defenceless prey was made secure, by craft or bjF
war ; and before the birth of our Saviour, all those coasts, from Ephesus tc
Tarsus and Antioch, wid round by the Holy Land to Alexandria and
Cyrene, were tributary to the city of the Tiber. We have to describe
in a few words the characteristics of this new dominion, and to point
out its providential connection with the spread and consolidation of the
Church,
In the first place, this dominion was not a pervading influence exerted
aqueducts, which still remain in the Campagna, were some of them new
when he visited Rome. Of the metropolis itself it may be enough to say,
that his life is exactly embraced between its two great times of renovation,
that of Augustus on the one hand, who (to use his own expression) having
found it a city of brick left it a city of marble, and that of Nero on the
other, when the great conflagration aff'orded an opportunity for a new
arrangement of its streets and buildings.
These great works may be safely taken as emblems of the magnitude,
strength, grandeur, and soUdity of the empire ; but they are emblems, no
SOCIAL CONDmoN OF Tto icOMAN EMl^IElS. 13
Wjf^, of the tyranny md craelty which had presided over its formation, and
0* the general suffering which pervaded it. The statues, witli which th
metropolis and the Roman houses were profusely decorated, had been
brought from plundered provinces, and many of them had swelled the
triumphs of conquerors on the Capitol. The amphitheatres were built
^or shows of gladiators, and were the scenes of a bloody cruelty, which
had been quite unknown in the hcentious exhibitions of the Greek theatre
The roads, baths, harbours, aqueducts, had been constructed by slav&'
their disastrous results behind them. 'No country recovers rapidly from the
effects of a war which has been conducted within its frontier ; and therf
was no district of the empire which had not been the scene of some recen:
campaign. None had suffered more than Italy itself. Its old stock of
freemen, who had cultivated its fair plains and terraced vineyards, was
utterly worn out. The general depopulation was badly compensated by
the establishment of military colonies. Inordinate wealth and slave
factories were the prominent features of the desolate prospect. The words
of the great historian may fill up the picture. " As regards the manners
and mode of life of the Romans, their great object at this time was the
acquisition and possession of money. Their moral conduct, which had
been corrupt enough before the social war, became still more so by their
systematic plunder and rapine. Immense riches were accumulated and
squandered upon brutal pleasures. The simplicity of the old manners and
mode of living had been abandoned
Greek luxuries and frivolities, and
for
late as thd time of Strabo (vi. p. 253), there was scarcely any town in
that country whiieh was not in ruins. But worse things were yet to
come."
This disastrous condition was not confined to Italy. In some respects
the provinces had their own peculiar sufferings. To take the case of Asia
Minor. It had been plundered and ravaged by successive generals, by
Scipio in the war against Antiochus of Syria, by Manlius in his Galatian
together. The emperor was deified, because men were enslaved. There
was no true peace when Augustus closed the Temple of Janus. The
empire was only the order of external government, with a chaos both of
opinions and morals within. The writings of Tacitus and Juvenal remain
to attest the corruption which festered in all ranks, alike in the senate and
the family. The old severity of manners, and the old faith in the better
part of the Roman rehgion, were gone. The licentious creeds and prac-
Pliny points out the connection of these conquests with the development of Roman
'
luxury " Victoria iWa.- Pompeii primum ad margaritas gemmasque mores inclinavit."
:
H. N. xxxvii. 6. See what he sa3^s on the spoils of Scipio Asiaticus and Cn. Manlius,
xxxiii. 53. xxxiv. 8. cf. Liv. xxxix. G.
Cicero's c(!lebrated " Speeches against Verres," and his own " Cilician Correspondence,"
"
to which we shall again have occasion to refer. His " Speech in Defence of Flaccus
throws much light on the condition of the Jews under the Romans. We must uo(
place too much confidence in the picture there given of this Epbesian governor.
MISERY OF ITALY AND THE FEOVmCES. 15
fciccs of Greece and the East had inundated Italy and the West : and the
Pantheon was only the monument of a compromise among a multitude of
effete superstitions. It is true that a remarkable religious toleration was
produced by this state of things : and it is probable that for some short
time Christianity itself shared the advantage of it. But still the tempei
of the times was essentially both cruel and profane ;
and the Apostles
were soon exposed to its bitter persecution. The Roman empire was
destitute of that unity which the Gospel gives to mankind. It was a
kingdom of this world ; and the human race were groaning for the better
peace of " a kingdom not of this world."
Thus, in the very condition of the Roman empu'e, and the miserable
mixed population, we can recognise a negative preparation for
state of its
the Gospel of Christ. This tyranny and oppression called for a Consokr^
as much as the moral sickness of the Greeks called for a Healer a Mes- ;
siah was needed by the whole empire as much as by the Jews, though not
looked for with the same conscious expectation. But we have no difficulty
in going much further than this, and we cannot hesitate to discover in the
how widely, and how permanently this Greek influence prevailed, and how
deeply it entered into .the mind of educated Romans, we know from their
surviving writings, and from the biography of eminent men. Cicero, who
was governor of Cilicia about half a century before the, birth of St. Paul,
speaks in strong terms of the universal spread of the Greek tougue among
the instructed classes ; ' and about the time of the Apostle's martyrdom,
Agricola, the conqueror of Britain, was receiving a Greek education at
Marseilles.'^ Is it too much to say, that the general Latin conquest was
providentially delayed till the Romans had been sufficiently imbued with
the language and ideas of their predecessors, and had incorporated many
parts of that civilisation with their own ?
And if the mysterious wisdom of the divine pre-arrangements is
Cicero, in his speech for Archias (who was Tborn at Antioch, " celebri iirbe et
copiosa, atque eruditissimis hominibus liberalissimisque studiis afflueiite"); says, in
reference to this spread of the Greek literature and language,'' Erat Italia tunc
plena Gra^carura artium ac disciplinarum and again; " Graca leguutur in omnibus
fere gentibus Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur."
:
the Roman government was now prepared to help the progress even of
that religion which it persecuted. The manner in which it spread through
ihe provinces is well exempHfied in the life of St. Paul : his right of
citizenship rescued him in Judaea and in Macedonia ; he converted one
governor in Cyprus, was protected by another in Achaia, and was sent
from J erusalem to Rome by a third. The time was indeed approaching,
when all the complicated weight of the central tyranny, and of the pro-
vincial governments, was to fall on the new and irresistible religion. But
before this took place, it had begun to grow up in close connection with
we had shown how the intellectual civilisation of the Greeks, and the
organising civihsation of the Romans, had, through a long series of
of the Hebrews ; it remains that we point out that one pecuharity of the
Jewish people, which made this contact almost universal in every part of
the empire.
Their dispersion began early ;
though, early and late, their attachment
to Judsea has always been the same. Like the Highlanders of Switzer-
land and Scotland, they seem to have combined a tendency to foreign
settlements with the most passionate love of their native land. The first
scattering of the Jews was compulsory, and began with the Assyrian
exile, when, about the time of the building of Rome, natives of Galilee
and Samaria were carried away by the Eastern mouarchs and this was ;
followed by the Babylonian exile, when the tribes of Juclah and Benjamin
were removed at different epochs, when Daniel was brought to Babylon,
and Ezekiel to the river Chebar. That this earliest dispersion was not
without influential results may be from these
inferred facts : that, about
2
the time of the battles of Salamis and Marathon, a Jew was the
mmister, another Jew the cupbearer, and a Jewess the consort, of a
Persian monarch. That they enjoyed many privileges in this, foreign
country, and that their condition was not always oppressive, may be
gathered from this,- that when Cyrus gave them permission to return, the
majority remained in their new home, in preference to their native land,
Thus that great Jewish colony began in Babylonia, the existence of which
may be traced in Apostolic times, ^
and which retained its influence long
after in the Talmudical schools. These Hebrew settlements may be
followed through various parts of the continental East, to the borders of
the Caspian, and even to China.^ We however are more concerned with
the coasts and islands of Western Asia. Jews had settled in Syria and
Phoenicia before the time of Alexander the Great. But in treating of
this subject, the great stress is to be laid on the policy of Seleucus, who,
in founding Antioch, raised them to the same political position with the
other citizens. One of his successors on the throne, Antiochus the Great,
established two thousand Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia. From
hence they would spread into Pamphyha and Galatia, and along the western
coasts from Ephesus to Troas. And the ordinary channels of communi-
cation, in conjunction with that tendency to trade which already began to
characterise this wonderful people, would easily bring them to the islands,
Acts ii. 10. The second book of Macca1)ees is the abridgment of a work writt<
VOL. I.
18 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Archipelago which, as Humboldt has said, were like a bridge for the
'
journey of the proselyte Lydia from Thyatira to Philippi (A. xvi. 14),
and the voyage of Aquila and Priscilla from Corinth to Ephesus (A. xviii.
18), are only specimcLS of mercantile excursions which must have begun
at a far earlier period. Philo mentions Jews in Thessaly, Boeotia, Mace-
donia, ^tolia, and Attica, in Argos and Corinth, in the other parts of
Peloponnesus, and in the islands of Eubcea and Crete : and St. Luke, in
uhe Acts of the Apostles, speaks of them in Philippi, Thessalonica, and
Beroea, in Athens, in Corinth, and in Rome. The first Jews came to
Rome to decorate a triumph but they were soon set free from captivity,
;
and gave the name to the " Synagogue of the Libertines"* in Jerusalem.
They owed to Julius Caesar those privileges in the Western Capital which
they had obtained from Alexander in the Eastern. They became influ-
ential, and made proselytes. They spread into other towns of Italy ; and
in the tim.e of St. Paul's boyhood we find them in large numbers in the
we have previously seen them established in that
island of Sardinia, just as
of Cyprus.3 With regard to Gaul, we know at least that two sons of
Herod were banished, about this same period, to the banks of the Rhone ;
but, after a few words on the proselytes, we must return to the earliest
scenes of the Apostle's career.'*
The subject of the proselytes is sufficiently important to demand a
separate notice. Under this term we include at present all those who were
attracted in various degrees of intensity towards Judaism, from those
who by circumcision had obtained full access to all the privileges of the
temple-worship, to those who only professed a general respect for the
Mosaic religion, and attended as hearers in the synagogues. Many pros*
mate See Tac. Ann. ii. 85. Suet. Tib. 36. Jos. An. xviii. 3, 5.
4 The history of the Jewish dispersions will be found in an excellent little essay de-
voted to the subject, Joh. Rcmond's " Versuch einer Geschichte der Ausbreitung dea
^udenthums von Cyrus bis auf den g'anzlichen Untergang des Jiidischen Staats;"
-.elpzig, 1789 ; in the introductory chapter of Wiltsch's Handbuch der Kirchlichea
rcographie," Gotha, 1843, which has been principally used here and in a chapter ia ;
lie second volume of Jost's larner work, -the " Geschichte der Israeliten," 1820-28.
:
elytes were attached to the Jewish communities wherever they were dis-
persed.' Even in their own country and its vicinity, the nujiber, both in
early and later times, was not inconsiderable. The Queen of Sheba, in the
Old Testament ;
Candace, Queen of Ethiopia, in the New ;
and King
Izates, with his mother Helena, mentioned by Josephus, are only royai
representatives of a large class. During the time of the Maccabees, some
alien tribes were forcibly incorporated with the Jews. This was the case
with the Iturseans, and probably with the Moabites, and, above all, witl
the Edomites, with whose name that of the Herodian family is historically
tribes called Arabians, v/e can only conjecture from the curious history of
the Homerites,^ and from the actions of such chieftains as Aretas (2 Cor.
xi. 32). But as we travel towards the West and North, into countries
better known, we find no lack of evidence of the moral effect of the syna-
gogues, with their worship of J ehovah, and their prophecies of the Mes-
siah. "Nicolas of Antioch" (Acts vi. 6) is only one of that ''vast
multitude of Greeks" who were attracted in that city to the Jewish
doctrine and ritual.'* In Damascus, we are even told by the same author-
ity that the great majority of the women were proselytes ; a fact which
receives a remarkable illustration from what happened to Paul at Iconium
(Acts xiii. 50). But all further details may be postponed till we follow
him into the synagogues, where he so often addressed a mingled audience
of " Jews of the dispersion " and " devout " strangers.
This chapter may be suitably concluded by some notice of the provin-
ces of Cilicia and Judcea. This will serve as an illustration of what has
been said above, concerning the state of the Roman provinces generally
it will exemplify the mixture of J ews, Greeks, and Romans in the east ol
the Mediterranean, and it will be a fit introduction to what must immedi-
ately succeed. For these are the two provinces which require our atten-
tion in the early life of the Apostle Paul.
Both these provinces were once under the sceptre of the line of the
Seleucidae, or Greek kings of Syria ; and both of them, though originally
1 Tlie following are the testimonies of prejudiced Heath^s
'H x^P(^ 'lovSttLa Koi avrol 'lovdaiot tovojuudarat . . . fj 6^ hi^iKT^Tjaig avrjf . . . <pepei
.... Kal IttI Tovg aX2,ovg dvOpuiTOvg, booi rd vofit^a dvTciv, Kaiizep dXloedvelg ovrec,
^lovai. Dio. Cas. xxxvii. 16, 17.
Transgress! in morem eorum (Judaeorum) idem usurpant. Nec quicquam prius im
bttunter quara contemnere Deos, exuere patriam, parentes, liberos, fratres vilia habere
-TVc. H. V. 5.
the country of promise and possession to the chosen people, but a Roman
province in the time of the Apostles.
Cilicia, in the sense in which the word was used under the early Roman
emperors, comprehended two districts, of nearly equal extent,^ but of very
different character. The Western portion, or Rough Cilicia, as it was
called, was a collection of the branches of Mount Taurus, which come
down in large masses to the sea, and form that projection of the coast
which divides the Bay of Issus from that of Pamphylia. The inhabitants
of the whole of this district were notorious for their robberies the north-
ern portion, under the name of Isauria, providing innumerable strongholds
for marauders by land ; and the southern, with its excellent timber, its
cliffs, and small harbours, being a natural home for pirates. The Isaurians
maintained their independence with such determined obstinacy, that in a
later period of the Empire, the Romans were willing to resign all appear-
ance of subduing them, and were content to surround them with a cordon
of forts. The natives of the coast of Rough Cilicia began to extend their
piracies as the strength of the kings of Syria and Egypt declined. They
found in the progress of the Roman power, for some time, an encourage-
ment rather than a hindrance ; for they were actively engaged in an
extensive and abominable slave trade, of which the island of Delos was the
groat market ; and the opulent families of Rome were in need of slaves,
and were not more scrupulous than some Christian nations of modern times
about the means of obtaining them. But the expeditions of these buc-
1 Mannert says (Geographie der Griechen und Romer, " Kleinasien," 1801) that the
seemed innumerable ;
tlieir connexions were extended far beyond tlieir owii
And peace.
The Eastern, or Flat Cilicia, was a rich and extensive plain. Its
prolific vegetation is praised both by the earlier and later classical writers,'^
and even under the neglectful government of the Turks, is still noticed by
modern travellers.^' From this circumstance, and still more from its pecu-
liar physical configuration, it was a possession of great political import-
1 A similar case, on a small scale, is that of Philippeville in Algeria and the pro- ;
gress of the French power, since the accession of Louis Philippe, in Northern Africa,
is perhaps the nearest parallel in modern times to the history of a Roman province.
As far as regards the pirates, Lord Exmouth, work of Pompey
in 1816, really did the
the Great. It may be doubted whether Marshal Bugeaud was more lenient to the
Arabs, than Cicero to the Eleuthero-Cilicians.
Chrysippus the Stoic, whose father was a native of Tarsus, and Aratus, whom St
Paul quotes, lived at Soli. Cf. Mannert, p. 69.
* For instance, Xen. Anab. i. 2. Ammian. Marc. xiv. 7.
3 Laborde's illustrated work on Syria and Asia Minor contains some luxuriant spd-
cimens of the modern vegetation of Tarsus but the banana and the prickly pear ver<3
5
nently arrest them and the letters of Cicero are among the earliest and
:
period which intervened between Xerxes and Alexander, and under the
Roman sway, when it name of Metropolis, rand long after
exulted in the
Hadrian had rebuilt it, new coinage with the old mythologi-
and issued his
cal types.^ In the intermediate period, which is that of St, Paul, we have
the testimony of a native of this part of Asia Minor, from which we may
infer that Tarsus was in the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean, almost
what Marseilles was in the Western. Strabo says ^ that, in all that
relates to philosophy and general education, it was even more illustrious
than Athens and Alexandria. From his description it is evident that its
main character was that of a Greek city, where the Greek language was
spoken, and Greek literature studiously cultivated. But we should be
wrong in supposing that the general population of the province was of
Greek origin, or spoke the Greek tongue. When Cyrus came with his
1 Ataj'jf)el uvTT/v jueuTjv 6 Kvdvof -^vxpov re Kal taxi) to ^ev/ad iariv, Strabo,
xiv. 5.
* This coin was struck under Hadrian, and is preserved in the British Museum.
Anazarbus on the Pjrramus was a rival city, and from the time of Caracalla is found
assuming the title of Metropolis but it was only an empty honour. Eckhel says of
;
it (p. 42) " Hoc titulo constanter deinceps gloriabatur, etsi is pra3ter honorem illi
:
nihil addidit nam quod ad juris contentionem attinebat, id omne ad Tarsum veram
;
Cilicia) mctropolim pertinuit, ut existimat Belleyus." The same figures of the Lion
^ nd the Bull appear in a fine series of silver coins assigned by the Due de Luyne-8
(Numismatique des Satrapies) to the period between Xerxes and Alexander.
" Bk. xiv. ch. 5. The passage will be quoted at length hereafter.
TARSUS. 2S
army from tlie Western Coast, and still later, when Alexander penetrated
into Cilicia, they found the inhabitants " Barbarians." Nor is it likelj
that the old race would be destroyed, or the old language obliterated,
especially in the mountain districts, during the reign of the Seleucid kings.
We must rather conceive of Tarsus as like Brest in Brittany, or like Tou-
lon, in Provence, a city where the language of refinement is spoken and
vfritten, in the midst of a ruder population, who use a different language,
and possess no literature of their own.
If we now to
turn consider the position of this province and city undeT
the Romans, we are led to notice two different systems of policy which
they adopted in their subject dominions. The purpose of Rome was to
Judsea. In Asia Minor they were so irregularly combined, and the terri-
whose sons espoused the cause of Antony and finally to Archelaus by Augustus.
;
Some part of the coast also was at one time assigned to Cleopatra, for the sake of the
timber for shipbuilding. See Mannert's Geographic, " Kleinasien," pp. 45, 46.
* The territories of Amyntas were brought down to the coast of Pamphylia, rc as to
include the important harbour of Side. There is no better way of studying the history
ol Asia Minor than by means of coins, with the assistance of Eckhel, Mionnet, Sestini,
&c. The writer of this is desirous to acknowledge his obligations to many conversa'
tions with the gentlemen who are occupied in the Medal Room of the British Museum<
Burgon, Mr. Newton, &c.
24 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
t)f the Indus, in connection with our wars against Scinde and the Sikhs.''
For some time the whole of Cilicia was a consolidated province under the
first emperors : but again, in the reign of Claudius, we find a portion of
the same "Western district assigned to a king called Polemo II. It is
needless to pursue the history further. In St. Paul's early life the politi-
cal state of the inhabitants of Cilicia would be that of subjects of a Roman
governor : and Roman officials, if not Roman soldiers, would be a familiar
sight to the Jews who were settled in Tarsus.'^
allude to the information which may be gathered from the writings of that
distinguished man, who was governor of Cilicia a ftw years after its first
I This has bcrn the case with the Rajah of Bahawalpoor. See the articles on Indian
ner^ s in the newspapers of 1848.
* Tarsus, as an Urbs Libera, would have the privilege of being garrisoned by itaowu
wldicrs. See next Chapter.
a See Hor. 1. Ep. vi. 39 :
were engaged in trade ; he treated tlie local Greek magistrates wilh due
consideration, and contrived at the same time to give satisfaction to the
Publicans. From all this it may be easily inferred with how much cor-
ruption, cruelty, and pride, the Romans usually governed and how mi^ ;
That Polemo II., who has lately been mentioned as a king in Cilicia,
was one of those curious links which the history of those times exhibits
between Heathenism, Judaism, and Christianity, He became a Jew to
marry Berenice,^ who afterwards forsook him, and whose name, after once
We might say that when Judaea was not strictly a province, but a mon-
archy under the protectorate of Rome, it bore the same relation to the
contiguous provmce of Syria, which the territories of the king of Oude^
bear to the presidency of Bengal. Judaea was twice a monarchy : and
thus its history furnishes illustrations of the two systems pursued by the
Romans, of direct and indirect government.
two provinces. In the Greek period of Judaea, there was a time of noble
and vigorous independence. Antiochus Epiphanes, the eighth of the line
See Jost's "Allgemeine Geschichte des Israelitisclien Yolks," vol. ii. p. 18-21
where a good and rapid sketch of the events is given.
* This beautiful coin, preserved in the British Museum, is given here, in consequence
of the head of Jupiter which appears on the obverse, in place of the portrait usual in the
Alexandrian, Seleucid, and Macedonian scries. Since such emblems on ancient coins
have always sacred meanings, very probable that this arose from the religious
it is
were the Rois Faineants of Palestine, and he was the Maire du Palais
In the midst of the confusion of the great civil wars, the Herodian familj
succeeded to the Asmonsean, as the Carlovingian line in France succeeded
that of Clovis. As Pepin was followed by Charlemagne, so Antipater
prepared a crown for his son Herod.
At first Herod the Great espoused the cause of Antony ;
but he con-
trived to remedy his mistake by paying a prompt visit after the battle of
Actimn, to Augustus in the island of Khodes. This sirgular interview of
the Jewish prince with the Roman conqueror in a Greek island was the
beginning of an important period for the Hebrew nation. , An exotic
rival, so Samaria was called Sebaste after the Greek name of Augustus,
and the new metropolis, which was built by Herod on the sea-shore, was
called Csesarea in honour of the same Latin emperor : while Antipatris,
^ Pompey heard
of the death of Mithridates at Jericho. His army crossed at Scy-
by the ford immediately below the lake of Tiberias. (See Herod, i. 105.)
thopolis,
' Antiochus Epiphanes (who was called Epimanes from his mad conduct) is said to
have made himself ridiculous by adopting Roman fashions, and walking about the
itreets of Antioch in a toga.
3 say that there is much controversy about the real origin of these re-
It is right to
mains. Dr. Robinson believes that they were part of a bridge connected with the Tem-
ple,but strangely refers them to the time of Solomon : Mr. Williams holds them to be
a fragment of the grea"^ Christian works constructed in this southern part of the Tem
pie-area in the age of JustinianMr. Fergusson conceives them to be part of the bridge
:
which joined Mount Zion to the Temple, but assigns' them to Herod.
28 THE LIFE AJSB EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
on the road (A. xxiii. 31) between the old capital and the new, still com*
memorated the name of the kin^ Idumaean father. We must not suppose
^hat the internal change in the minds of the people was proportional t^J
made busy and prosperous, and communication with the civilised world
wonderfully increased, but where the mass of the people has continued tc
be miserable and degraded.
After Herod's death, the same influences still continued to operate in
Judaea. Archelaus persevered in his father's policy, though destitute of
his father's energy. The same may be said of the other sons, Antipas and
Philip, in their contiguous principalities. All the Herods were great
builders, and eager partizans of the Roman emperors : and we are famihar
in the Gospels with that Ccesarea (Caesarea Philippi), which one of them
built in the upper part of the valley of the Jordan, and named in honour
of Augustus, and with that Tiberias on the banks of the lake of Genne
sareth, which bore the name of his wicked successor. But while Antipas
and Philip still retained their dominions under the protectorate of the
emperor, Archelaus had been banished, and the weight of the Roman
power had descended still more heavily on Judasa. It was placed under
the direct jurisdiction of a governor, residing at Caesarea by the Sea, and
we have seen above, on the governor of Syria at Antioch
depending, as
And now we are made familiar with those features which might be adducea
as characterising any other province of the same epoch, the prsetorium
(Joh. xviii. the publicans (Lukeiii.
28), 12. xix. 2), the tribute-money
(Mat. xxii. 19), and centurions
soldiers recruited in Italy (Acts x. 1),^
C^sar the only king (Joh. 15) and
xix. the ultimate appeal against
the injustice of the governor (Acts xxv. 11). In this period the ministry,
death, and resurrection of J esus Christ took place, the first preaching of
his Apostles, and the conversion of St. Paul. But once more a change
came over the political fortunes of Judaea. Herod Agrippa was the friend
of Caligula, as Herod the Great had been the friend of Augustus ; and
when Tiberius died, he received the grant of an independent principality
1 There are many points of roscmblance between the character and fortunes of Herod
and those of Mahomet Ali the chief differences are those of the times. Herod secured
:
his position by the influence of Augustus ]\[ahomet Ali secured his by the agreemeui
;
which now embraced the whole circle of the territory ruled by his grand
father. By this time St. Paul w^as actively pursuing his apostolic career.
election ;
two for things temporal, and one for things eternal. Yet eyen
in the things eternal they were allowed to minister. Greek cultivation
and Roman polity prepared men for Christianity." ^ These three peoples
stand in the closest relation to the whole human race. The Ciiristian,
when he imagines himself among those spectators who stood round the
cross, and gazes in spirit upon that " superscription," which the Jewish
scribe, the Greek proselyte, and the Roman soldier could read, each in
his own tongue, feels that he is among those who are the representatives
of all humanity.^ In the ages which precede the crucifixion, these three
1 He obtained under Caligula, first, the tetrarchy of his uncle Philip, who died ; and
then that of his uncle Antipas, who followed his brother Archelaus into banishment.
' Dr. Arnold, in the journal of his tour in 1840 (Life, ii. 413, 2d edit.). The passage
continues thus :
" As Mahometanism can bear witness ; for the East, when it aban-
doned Greece and Rome, could only reproduce Judaism. Mahometanism, six hundred
years after Christ, proving that the Eastern man could bear nothing perfect, justifiea
the wisdom of God in Judaism."
' This is true in another, and perhaps a higher sense. The Roman, powerful but not
happy the Greek, distracted with the enquiries of an unsatisfying philosophy the
Jew, bound hand and foot with the chain of a ceremonial law, all are together round
the cross. Christ is crucified in the midst of them crucified for all. The " super
icripti on of His accusation " speaks to all the same language of peace, pardon, and
love.
so THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
of the young in the greatest nations of the earth. And how deep and
pathetic is the interest which attaches to the Hebrew ! Here the thread
seems to be broken. "Jesus, King of the Jews," in Hebrew characters.
It is like the last word of the Jewish Scriptures, the last warning of the
chosen people. A cloud henceforth is upon the people and the language
of Israel. " Blindness in part is happened unto Israel, till the fulness of
the Gentiles be come in." Once again Jesus, after His ascension, spake
openly from Heaven "in the Hebrew tongue" (Acts xxvi. 14) : but the
words were addressed to that* Apostle who was called to preach the
Gospel to the philosophers of Greece, and in the emperor's palace at
Rome.
ENGAAE KEI
TAI ^AYCTINA
1 A Christian tomb with the three languages, from Maitland's " Church in the Gata^
jombs," p. 77. The name is Latin, the inscription Greek, and the word Shalom ci
.Veaee " is in Hebrew.
JEWISH ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH. 81
CEAPTEE n.
" Die Jnden waren daselbst fiir die Heiden dasselbe, was Johannes der Tilufer fhi
iie Jaden in ihrem Lande wsiT."(Wiltsch, Handbuch der Kirchlichen Geographic^
JEWISH ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH. SECTS AND PARTIES OF THE JEWS. PHAR-
ISEES AND SADDUCEES. ST. PAUL A PHARISEE. HELLENISTS AND ARA-
M^ANs. ST. Paul's family Hellenistic but not hellenising. his
INFANCY AT TARSUS. THE TRIBE OF BENJAMIN. HIS FATHER'S CITIZEN-
SHIP. SCENERY OF THE PLACE. HIS CHILDHOOD. HE IS SENT TO
JERUSALEM. STATE OF JUDAEA AND JERUSALEM. RABBINICAL SCHOOLS.
GAMALIEL. MODE OF TEACHING. SYNAGOGUES. STUDENT-LIFE OF ST,
PAUL. HIS EARLY MANHOOD. FIRST ASPECT OF THE CHURCH. ST.
STEPHEN. ^THE SANHEDRIN. ST. STEPHEN THE FORERUNNER OF ST. PAUL.
and the Jewish remnants are now as the sha^peless fragments which remain
of the block of marble when the statue is completed. When we look back
at the Apostolic age, we see that growth proceeding which separated the
husk' from the grain. We see the image of Truth coming out in clear
J
Some of these works have furnished us with useful suggestions, and in some cases
the very words have been adopted. There is much in such Jewish wiitings which nc
Drdinary Christian can read without deep pain ; but the pain is not so deep as when
the same things are suggested, or borrowed, by those who call themselves Christians.
32 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
i>-jcpressiveness, and the useless fragments falling off like scales, under the
careful work we are to realise the earliest
of divinely-guided hands. If
appearance of the Church, such as it was when Paul first saw it, we must
view it as arising in the midst of Judaism and if we are to comprehend :
all the feelings and principles of this Apostle, we must consider first the
Jewish preparation of his own younger days. To these two subjects the
present chapter will be devoted.
We are very famihar with one division which ran through the Jewish
nation in the first century. The Sadducees and Pharisees arc frequently
mentioned in the New Testament, and we are there informed of the tenets
of these two prevailing
parties. The belief in a future state may be said
to have been an open question among the Jews, when our Lord appeared
and " brought life and immortality to light." We find the Sadducees
estabhshed im the highest office of the priesthood, and possessed of the
greatest powers in the Sanhedrin : and yet they did not beheve in any
future state, nor in any spiritual existence independent of the body. The
Sadducees said that there was no resurrection, neither Angel nor
Spirit." ^ They do not appear to have held doctrines which are commonly
called licentious or immoral. On the contrary, they adhered sti^ctly to
the moral tenets of the Law, as opposed to its mere formal technicalities.
They did not overload the Sacred Books with traditions, or encumber the
duties of life with a multitude of minute observances. They were the dis-
ciples of reason without enthusiasm, they made few proselytes, their
numbers were not great, and they were confined principally to the richer
members of the nation.'^ The Pharisees, on the other hand, were the
enthusiasts of the later Judaism. They " compassed sea and land to make
one proselyte." Their power and mfluence with the mass of the people
was immense. The loss of the national independence of the Jews, the
gradual extinction of their political life, directly by the Romans, and in-
mained to them. Those, therefore, who gave their energies to the inter-
pretation and exposition of the Law, not curtailing any of the doctrines
which were virtually contained in it, and which had been revealed with
more or less clearness, but rather accumulating articles of faith, and inul-
uevTOL npuTovg rolg d^iu/xaci. Updaaerat re utt' avruv ovdev ug iiTrelv orrore yap Itt '
dpX^Q rrapeTidoiev, uKovatug fxev kol Kaf dvd^iKag, rcpoax^'ipovoL 6* ovv olg 6 ^apiaalos
AeyeL, 6id rd /ur) uXlug uveKroijg yeveadaL rolg 7:7\,i]BeaLv. Ant. xviii. 1, 4. And again ;
Twv \ilv IiaddovKaiuv roijg evTVopovg /lovov neidovruv, rd <^e drjfxoriKbv ovx kizofievw
avroig kxovruv, ruv 6^ ^apiaaiuv rd Tilijdog avfifiaxov txovruv, xiii. 10, 6. See the
questioa asked, John vii. 48.
3
details of conduct ;who consecrated, moreover, their best zeal and exer
tions to the spread of the fame of Judaism, and to the increase of the
nation's power in the only way which now was practicable, could not
fail to command the reverence of great numbers of the people. It was no
longer possible to fortify J erusalem against the heathen : but the Law
could be fortified like an impregnable city. The place of the brave is on
the walls and in the front of the battle : and the hopes of the nation
rested on those who defended the sacred outworks, and made successful
tures of Judaism and their relation to the Church, we can hardly help
glancing at St. Paul. He was "a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee."'
and he was educated by Gamahel,^ " a Pharisee Both his father and
his teacher belonged to this sect. And on three distinct occasions he tells us
that he himself was a member of it. Once when at his trial, before a mixed
assembly of Pharisees and Sadducees, the words just quoted were spoken,
and his connection with the Pharisees asserted with such effect, that the
feelings of this popular party were immediately enlisted on his side. " And
when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the
Sadducees ; and the multitude was divided. . . . And there arose a great
cry ; and the Scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose, and strove,
saying, We find no evil in this man."^ The second time was, when, on a
calmer occasion, he was pleading before Agrippa, and said to the king, in
* Acts xxiii. 6. a
Acts xxii. 3. s Acts v. 84.
* Acts xxiii. * Acts xxvi. e Pliiiip. iii.
4, $
VOL. I.
THE LIFE AHT> EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
spirits was a reality to him. The resurrection of the dead was an article of
Ms faith. And to exhort him to the practice of religion, he had before him
the example of his father, praying and walking with broad phylacteries,
scrupulous and exact in his legal observances. And he had, moreover, as
it seems, the memory and tradition of ancestral piety : for he tells us in one
of his latest letters,^ that he served God " from his forefathers." All in-
fluences combined to make him " more exceedingly zealous of the tr^di-
ti'ons of his fathers,'' ^ and " touching the righteousness which is in the
But in this mention of the Pharisees and Sadducees, we are far from
exhausting the subject of Jewish divisions, and far from enumerating all
those phases of opinion which must have had some connection with the
growth of rising Christianity, and those elements which may have contrib-
uted to form the character of the Apostle to the Heathens. There was a
sect in Judasa which is not mentioned in the Scriptures, but which must
have acquired considerable influence in the time of the Apostles, as may
be inferred from the space devoted to it by Josephus and Philo.^ These
were the Essenes, who retired from the theological and political distrac-
tions of Jerusalem and the larger towns, and founded peaceful communities
in the desert or in villages, where their life was spent in contemplation,
and in the practices of ascetic piety. It has been suggested that John the
Baptist was one of them. There is no proof that this was the case : but
we need not doubt that they did represent religious cravings which Chris-
tianity satisfied. Another party was that of the Zealots,^ who were as
politically fanatical as the Essenes were religiwsly contemplative, and
whose zeal was kindled with the burning desire to throw off the Roman
yoke from the neck of Israel. Yery different from them were the Herod-
ians, twice mentioned in the Gospels,^ who held that the hopes of Judaism
rested on the Herods, and who almost looked to that family for the fulfil-
4 See the long details given by the former writer in book "Jewish ii. ch. 8 of the
Wars and by the latter in the treatise Quod omnis probns liber and in the frag-
ment from Eusebiiis, in Mangey's Philo, ii. p. 632. The Essenes lived chiefly in the
neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. Pliny says of them Ab occidente litora Esseui
:
fugiunt, usque qua nocent gens sola, et in toto orbe prseter casteras mira, sine uUa
:
fcemina, sine pccunia, socia palmarum. In diem ex jcquo convenarum turba rcnascitur,
large frcquentantibus, quos vita fessos ad mores eorum fortunaj fluctus agitat Ita per
FKiCulorum millia (incredibile dictu) gens (Eterna est, in qua nemo nascitur. Tarn foe*
rmnda illis aliorum vita) poenitentia est." N. H. v. 15.
ing chapter.
We have seen that early colonies of the Jews were settled in Babylonia
and Mesopotamia. Their connection with their brethren in Judaea was
continually maintained :and they were bound to them by the link of a
common language. The Jews of Palestine and Syria, with those who
lived on the Tigris and Euphrates, interpreted the Scriptures through the
also had occasion to notice that other dispersion of the nation through
those countries where Greek was spoken. Their settlements began with
Alexander's conquests, and were continued under the successors of those
who partitioned his empire. Alexandria was their capital. They used
the Septuagint translation of the Bible ; and they were commonly called
Hellenists, or Jews of the Grecian speech.
The mere difference of language would account in some degree for the
mutual dislike with which we know that these two sections of the Jewish
race regarded one another. We are all aware how closely the use of a
And in this case the Aramaean language was the sacred tongue of
Palestine. It is true that the tradition of the language of the Jews had
been broken, as the continuity of their political life had been rudely inter-
rupted. The Hebrew of the time of Christ was not the oldest Hebrew of
the Israelites ; but it was a kindred dialect ; and old enough to command
a reverent affection. Though not the language of Moses and David, it
was that of Ezra and Nehemiah. And it is not unnatural that the Ara-
Bee Winer's Realworterbuch. There were two main dialects of the Aramaean stock, the
eastern or Babylonian, commonly called Chaldee (the " Syrian tongue " of 2 Kings
xviii. 26. Isai. xxxvi. 11. Ezr. iv. 7. Dan. ii. 4) and the western, which is the parent
;
of the Syriac, now, like the former, almost a dead language. The first of these dia-
lectsbegan to supplant the older Hebrew of Judaaa from the time of the captivity, and
was the Hebrew " of the New Testament, Luke xxiii. 38. John xix. 20. Acts xxi.
iO. xxii. 2. xxvi. 14. Arabic, the most perfect of the Semitic bn^ages, has horn
generally overspread those regions.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
maeans sliould have revolted from the speech of the Greek idolaters and
vhe tyrant Antiochus, a speech which they associated moreover with inno-
vating doctrines and dangerous speculations.
For the division went deeper than a mere superficial diversity of speecli
It was not only a division, like the modern one of German and Spanish
Jews, where those who hold substantially the same doctrines have acciden-
tally been led to speak different languages. But there was a diversity of
religious views and opinions. This is not the place for examining that sys-
tem of mystic interpretation called the Cabbala, ^ and for determining how
far its origin might be due to Alexandria or to Babylon. It is enough to
gay, generally, that in the Aramaean theology, Oriental elements prevailed
rather than Greek, and that the subject of the Babylonian influences has
more connection with the life of St. Peter than that of St. Paul. The
Hellenists, on the other hand, or Jews who spoke Greek, who lived in
Greek countries, and were influenced by Greek civilisation, are associated
in the closest manner with the Apostle of the Gentiles. They are more
than once mentioned in the Acts, where our English translation names
them Grecians," to distinguish them from the Heathen or Proselyte
" Greeks." ^ Alexandria was the metropohs of tbeir theology. Philo was
their great representative. He was an old man when St. Paul was in his
maturity : his writings were probably known to the Apostle ; and they
'have descended with the inspired Epistles to our own day. The work of
guage express the mmd of the Jews. The Hebrew principles were " dis-
engaged as much as possible from local and national conditions, and pre-
sented in a form adapted to the Hellenic world." ^ All this was hateful
to the zealous Aramaeans. The men of the East rose up against those of
the West. The Greek learning was not more repugnant to the Roman
Cato, than it was to the strict Hebrews. They had a saying, " Cursed be
he who teacheth his son the learning of the Greeks." ^ We could imagine
1 Basnage devotes many chapters to this subject : see his third hook.
' See Chap. 1. p. 12, note.
3 " L'ohjct principal des Juifs hellenistes ou Alexandrins, consistait a initier les
bommes instruits dcs populations etrangeres a la sagesse des livres sacres. lis se diri-
tendre, comme la grossc pluie sur la plante avancee.' (Deut. xxxii. 1, 2.) De la vient
que les ecrivains de cctte ecole s'appliquaient a degager les principes hebraiques de la
plupart des conditions nationales et locales ; a les presenter dans la langue et sous lea
formes appropriecs an moude grec ils ^ablissaient des rapprochements plus ou moina
:
Bpecicux avec les doctrines des autres peuplcs, et ilsmettaient en opposition la morality
profonde de leurs lois constitutives avec les tendances vraimcnt immorales qui regnaient
alors en tons licux." Salvador, J. C. &c., vol. i. pp. 131, 132.
4 This rc^^ignance is illustrated by many passages in the Tahiradio writings. Rabhl
1
HELLENISTS AND AiiAM^ANS. 37
tnem using the words of the prophet Joel (iii. 6), " The children of Judah
and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye
might remove them from their border and we cannot be surprised that
even in the deep peace and charity of the Church's earliest days, this in=
veterate division re-appeared, and that, " when the number of the disciples
was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the
Hebrews." ^
Alexandria, the emporium of Greek commerce from the time of its founda-
tion, where since the earliest Ptolemies, literature, philosophy, and criticism
had never ceased to excite the utmost intellectual activity, where the
Septuagint translation of the Scripture had been made, and where a
Jewish temple and ceremonial worship had been established in rivalry to
that in Jerusalem,^ there is no doubt that the Hellenistic element largely
prevailed. But although (strictly speaking) the Alexandrian Jews were
nearly all Hellenists, it does not follow that they were all Hel?enizers. In
other words, although their speech and their Scriptures were Greek, the
theological views of many among them undoubtedly remained Hebrew.
There must have been many who were attached to the traditions of Pales-
tine, and who looked suspiciously on their more speculative brethren and :
Levi Ben Chajathah, going down to Caesarea, heard them reciting their phylacteries in
Greek, and would have forbidden them which when Rabbi Jose heard, he was very
;
thousand boys in my father's school, of whom five hundred learned the law, and five
hundred the wisdom of the Greeks and there is not one of the latter now alive, ex-
;
cepting myself here, and my uncle's son in Asia." See Lightfoot, Heb. & Talm. Ex
on Acts (vi. 1), Biscoe quotes from Lightfoot in his History of the Acts confirmed,
ch. iv. 2. Josephus implies in the passage quoted below (Ant xx. 11, 2), that a know
ledge of Greek was lightly regarded by the Jews of Palestine.
1 Acts vi. 1.
* This temple was not in the city of Alexandria, but at Leontopolis. It was buill
(or rather was an old heathen temple repaired) by Onias, from whose family the
it
high priesthood had been transferred to the family of the Maccabees, and who had fled
into Egypt in the time of Ptolemy Philopator. It remained in existence till destroyed
hj Vespasian. See Josephus, B. J. i. 1, 1. vii. 10, 3. Ant. xiii. 3.
3 "Helen's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem," published in German in 1820, translated iau
English in 1824.
38 THE LD^E AND EPISTLES CF ST. PAUL.
munity in that city, ^ the majority of the Jews were " Grecians " rather
than " Hebrews." In Asia Minor we should at first sight be tempted to
imagine that the Grecian tendency would predominate : but when we find
and when ApoUos came from Alexandria to Ephesus,^ he would find him-
self in a theological atmosphere not very different from that of his native
city. Tarsus in Cilicia will naturally be included under the same class of
literature and philosophy, its fame exceeded that of Athens and Alexan-
dria. At the same time, we cannot be sure that the very celebrity of its
heathen schools might not induce the famihes of J ewish residents to retire
That such a seclusion of their family from Gentile influences was main-
tained by the parents of St. Paul, is highly probable. We have no means
of knowing how long they themselves, or their ancestors, had been Jews
of the dispersion. A tradition is mentioned by Jerome that they came
lus Apostolus, qui ante Saulus, extra numerum duodecim Apostolorum, de tribu Ben-
jamin et oppido Judsese Gischalis fuit, quo a Romanis capto cum parentibus suis Tarsuna
commigravit a quibus ob studia legis missus Hierosolyman, a Gamaliele viro
Ciliciffi ;
iloctissimo, cujus Lucas meminit, eruditus est." And again he alludes to it with more
doubt in the Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon, in reference to the passage
where Epaphras is called his " fellow-piisoner." " Quis sit Epaphras concaptivus
Pauli, talem fabulam accepimus. Aiunt parentes Apostoli Pauli de Gischalis regione
fuisse Judseaj : ct cos, cum Ilomana vastaretur manu, et dispergerentur
tota provincia
in orbe Judaji, in Tarsura urbcm Ciliciaj fuisse translates parentum conditionem ado- :
lescentulum Paulum secutum ct sic posse stare illud quod de se ipse testatur HebraBi
: :
Kint? et ego: Israclit\^ sunt? et ego: Semen Abrahae sunt? et ego (2 Cor. xi.) di :
rursus alibi Hebrajus ex Ilebraiis (Pliil. iii.) et ca^tera qua) ilium Juda^um magis in-
: :
dicunt quara Tarsensem. Quod si ita est, possumus et Epaphram illo tempore captum
fUBpicari, quo captus est Paulus et cum parentibus suis in Colossis urbe Asiae coUoca
:
LANGUAGE OF ST. PAULAS INFANCY. 39
times, he might learn his earliest sentences from the Scripture in Hebrew,
yet he was familiar with the Septuagint translation at an early age. For
it is observed that, when he quotes from the Old Testament, his quotations
are from that version ; and that, not only when he cites its very words,
but when (as is often the case) he quotes it from memory Considering
the accurate knowledge of the original Hebrew which he must have
acquired under Gamaliel at J erusalem, it has been inferred that this can
only arise from his having been thoroughly imbued at an earlier period
with the Hellenistic Scriptures. The readiness, too, with which he
expressed himself in Greek, even before such an audience as that upon
the Areopagus at Athens, shows a command of the language which a
Jew would not, in all probability, have attained, had not Greek been the
language of his childhood.
But still the vernacular Hebrew of Palestine would not have been a
turn, Cbristi postea recepisse sermonem," It is unnecessary to dwell on the anachro-
nism, or on the absolute contradiction to Acts xxii. 3.
1 Phil. iii. 5. Cave sees nothing more in this phrase than that " his parents were
Jews, and that of the ancient stock, not entering in by the gate of proselytism, but
originally descended from the natiosa.^' ^Life of St. Paul, i. 2. Benson, on the other
hand, argues, from this passage and from 2 Cor. xi. 22, that there was a difference be-.,
tween a " Hebrew " and an " Israelite." " A
person might be descended from Israel,
and yet not be a Hebrew but a Hellenist. ... St. Paul appeareth to me to have
plainly intimated, that a man might be of the stock of Israel and of the tribe of Benja-
min, and yet not be a Hebrew of the Hebrews but that, as to himself, he was, both by
;
fatherand mother, a Hebrew or of the race of that sort of Jews which were generally
;
most esteemed by their nation." ^History of the First Planting of the Christian Keli
gioc, vol. i. p. 117.
' Acts vi, 1. For the absurd Ebionite story that St, Paul was by birth not a Jew a4
all, but a Greek, see the next Chapter.
3 See Tholuck's Essay (mentioned below,p. 50, note), Eng. Trans, p. 9. Out of
eighty-eight quotations from the Old Testament, Koppe gives grounds for thinking
that forty-nine were cited from memory. And Bleek thinks that every one of hh
citations without exception is from memory. He adds, however, that the Apostle*!
memory reverts occasionally to the Hebrew text, as well as to that of the Septuagint.
See an article in the Christian Remembrancer for April, 1848, on Grinfield's Hellenic
c Ed. of the N. T.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. VAUL.
with a Greek population and incorporated with the Roman Empire, yet
Saul was born and spent his earliest days in the shelter of a home which
was Hebrew, not in name only but in spirit. The Roman power did not
press upon his infancy : the Greek ideas did not haunt his childhood : but
he grew up an Israelitish boy, nurtured in those histories of the chosen
.people which he was destined so often to repeat in the synagogues,^ with
the new and wonderful commentary supplied by the life and resurrection
of a crucified Messiah. " From a child he knew the Scriptures," which
ultimately made him " wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus," as he says of Timothy in the second Epistle (iii. 15). And the
groups around his childhood were such as that which he beautifully do-
scribes in another part of the same letter to that disciple, where he speaki
of "his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice." (i. 5.)
God should in due time be revealed in him, and by him preached to the
Heathen. J But this is all. We find notices of his sister and his sister^a
son,^ and of some more distant relatives :^ but we know nothing of her
who was nearer to him than all of them. He tells us of his instructor
GamaUel ; but of her, who, if she lived, was his earliest and best teacher,
he tells us nothing. Did she die like Rachel, the mother of Benjamin, the
great ancestor of his tribe ;
leaving his father to mourn and set a monu-
ment on her grave, like Jacob, by the way of Bethlehem ? Or did she
live to grieve over her son's apostacy from the faith of the Pharisees, and
die herself unreconciled to the obedience of Christ ? Or did she believe
and obey the Saviour of her son ? These are questions which we cannot
answer. If we wish to realise the earliest infancy of the Apostle, we must
be content with a simple picture of a Jewish mother and her child. Such
a picture is presented to us in the short history of Ehzabeth and John the
Baptist, and what is wanting in one of the inspired Books of St. Luke
may be supphed, in some degree, by the other.
The same feelings which welcomed the birth and celebrated the naming
of a son in the " hill country " of Judaea,^ prevailed also among the Jews
of the dispersion. As the " neighbours and cousins " of Elizabeth " heard
how the Lord had showed great mercy upon her, and rejoiced with her,"
so it would be in the household at Tarsus, when Saul was born. In a
nation to which the birth of a Messiah was promised, and at a period
when the aspirations after the fulfilment of the promise were continually
becoming more conscious and more urgent, the birth of a son was the
fulfilment of a mother's highest happiness : and to the father also (if we
may thus invert the words of Jeremiah) "blessed was the man who
brought tidings, saying, A man child is born unto thee ;
making him
glad." ^ On
the eighth day the child was circumcised and named. In the
case of John the Baptist, " they sought to call him Zacharias, after the
name of his father. But his mother answered, and said, Not so ; but he
shall be called John." And when the appeal was made to his father, he
signified his assent, in obedience to the vision. It was not unusual, on the
one hand, to call a Jewish child after th^ name of his father ;
and, on the
other hand, it was a common practice, in all ages of Jewish history, even
without a prophetic intimation, t@ adopt a name expressive of rehgioni
feelings. When the infant at Tarsus received one name of Saul, it migh*
be " after the name of his father and it was a name of traditional celeb-
rity in the tribe of Benjamin, for it was that of the first king anointed by
Samnel.' Or, when his father said " his name is Saul," it may have been
intended to denote (in conformity with the Hebrew derivation of the word)
^that he was a son who had long been desired, the first born of his parents,
thee out of Zion : thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy
life." From that time, whoever it might be who watched over Saul's
infancy, w^hether, like king Lemuel,^* he learnt " the prophecy that his
mother taught him," or whether he was under the care of others, like those
who were with the sons of king David and king Ahab,^ we are at no loss
to learn what the first ideas were, with which his early thought was
which were laid down by Moses in the 6th and 11th chapters of Deuter-
onomy, were doubtless carefully observed and he was trained in that :
and the Maccabees, were the stories of his childhood. The destruction of
Pharaoh in the Red Sea, the thunders of Mount Sinai, the dreary journeys
in the wilderness, the land that flowed with milk and honey, this was the
" A name frequent and common in the tribe of Benjamin ever since the first King
who was of that name, was chosen out of that tribe in memory whereof they
of Israel, ;
were wont to give their children this name at their circumcision." Cave, i. 3 ; but hf
gives no proof.
* This is suggested by Neander, Pfl. und Leit. 138.
1 Sara. i. 27, 28.
* Prov. xxxi. 1. Cf. Susanna, 3. 2 Tim. iii. 15, with 1 Tim. i. 5.
5 1 Chrou xxvil. 32. ^ Kings x. 1. 5. Cf. Joseph, vit. 76. Ant. xvi. 8. 3.
THE TEIBE OF BENJAMIN".
death of Rachel near the city where the Messiah was to be born ; the
loneliness of Jacob, who sought to comfort himself in Benoni " the son of
her sorrow,'' by calling him Benjamin ^ " the son of his right hand and
then the youthful days of this youngest of the twelve brethren, the famine,
and the journeys into Egypt, the severity of Joseph, and the wonderful
story of the silver cup in the mouth of the sack ; these are the narratives
to which he listened with intense and eager interest. How little was it
imagined that, as Benjamin was the youngest and most honoured of the
Patriai^chs, so this listening child of Benjamin should be associated with
the twelve servants of the Messiah of God, the last and most illustrious of
the Apostles I But many years of ignorance were yet to pass away,
before that mysterious Providence, which brought Benjamin to Joseph in
Egypt, should bring his descendant to the knowledge and love of Jesus,
the Son of Mary. Some of the early Christian writers see in the dying
benediction of Jacob, when he said that " Benjamin should ravin as a wolf,
in the morning devour the prey, and at night divide the spoil," ^ a pro-
phetic intimation of him who, in the morning of his life, should tear the
sheep of God, and in its evening feed them, as the teacher of the nations.''
When St. Paul was a child and learnt the words of this saying, no Chris-
tian thoughts were associated with it, or with that other more peaceful
prophecy of Moses, when he said of Benjamin, " The beloved of the Lord
shall dwell in safety by Him : and the Lord shall cover him all the day
1 It may be thought that here, and below, p. 53, too much prominence has been given
to the attachment of a Jew in the Apostolic age to his own particular tribe. It ia
how far the tribe-feeling of early times lingered on in combination
difficult to ascertain
with the national feeling, which grew up after the Captivity. But when we consider
the care with which the genealogies were kept, and when we find the tribe of Barnabas
specified (Acts iv. 36), and of Anna the prophetess (Luke ii. 36), and when we find St.
Paul alluding in a pointed manner to his tribe (see Eom. xi. 1, Phil. iii. 5, and compare
Acts xiii. 21), it does not seem unnatural to believe that pious families of so famous a
Block as that of Benjamin should retain the hereditary enthusiasm of their sacred clan-
ship. See, moreover, Matt. xix. 28. Rev. v. 5. vii. 4:-8.
" Gen. XXXV. 18. Qen. xlix. 27.
3
^ Nam mihi Paulum etiam Genesis olim repromisit. Inter illas enim figuras el
propheticas super filios suos benedictiones Jacob, cum ad Benjamin dixisset Benjamin, :
ft
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
lOng, and he shall dwell between His shoulders." ^ But he was familial
with the prophetical words, and could follow in imagination the fortunes
of the sons of Benjamin, and knew how they went through the wilderness
with IlachePs other children, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, forming
with them the third of the four companies on the march, and reposing with
them at night on the west of the encampment.^ He heard how their
lands were assigned to them in the promised country along the borders of
Judah : ^ and how Saul, whose name he bore, was chosen from the tribe
which was the smallest,'' when " little Benjamin " ^ became the " ruler " of
Israel. He knew that when the ten tribes revolted, Benjamin was faith-
ful :
and he learnt to follow its honourable history even in the dismal
years of the Babylonian Captivity, when Mordecai, " a Benjamite who
had been carried away," ' saved the nation and when, instead of destruc- :
tion. The Jews," through him, " had light, and gladness, and joy, and
honour and in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king's
;
commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast
and a good day. And many of the people of the land became Jews ; for
the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Such were the influences which cradled the infancy of St. Paul ; and
such was the early teaching under which his mind gradually rose to the
realisation of his position as a Hebrew child in a city of G entiles. Of the
exact period of his birth we possess no authentic information. From a
passage in a sermon attributed to St. Chrysostom, it has been inferred^
that he was born in the year 2 of our era. The date is not improbable ;
but the genuineness of the sermon is suspected ; and if it was the un-
doubted work of the eloquent Father, we have no reason to believe that
he possessed any certain means of ascertaining the fact. Nor need we be
anxious to possess the information. We have a better chronology than
that which reckons by years and months. We know that he was a young
man at the time of St. Stephen's martyrdom, and therefore We know what
were the features of the period, and what the circumstances of the world,
at the beginning of his eventful life. He must have been born in the
later years of Herod, or the earlier of his son Archelaus. It was the
strongest and most flourishing time of the reign of Augustus. The world
was at peace : the pirates of the Levant were dispersed ;
and was
Cilicia
one on SS. Peter and Paul, printed by Savile at the end of the fifth volume of his
edition, but considered by him not genuine. See Tillemont. Schiader endeavours tc
prove that he was born abou* 14 a. d. See his arguments in vol. i, sect. 2, of his work,
^'
Der Apostel Paulus," 1830,
10 Acts vii. 58.
HIS father's citizenship.
lying at rest, or in stupor, with other provinces, under the wide shadow ol
the Koman power. Many governors had ruled there since the days ol
was about the time when Horace and Maecenas died, with others whose
names will never be forgotten and it was about the time when Cahgula
;
was born, with others who were destined to make the world miserable.
Thus is the epoch fixed in the manner in which the imagination most
easily apprehends it. During this pause ui the world's history St. Paul
was born.
It was a pause, too, in the history of the sufferings of the Jews. That
lenient treatment which had been begun by Julius Caesar was continued
by Augustus ;
^ and the days of severity were not yet come, when Tiberius
and Claudius'^ drove them into banishment, and Caligula oppressed them
with every mark of contumely and scorn. We have good reason to believe
that at the period of the Apostle's birth the Jews were unmolested at
Tarsus, where his father lived and enjoyed the rights of a Roman citizen.
Syrian Antioch and its neighbour-city, Seleucia on the sea. Such a city
had the privilege of being governed by its own magistrates, and was ex-
empted from the occupation of a Roman garrison, but its citizens did not
necessarily possess the civitas of R^ome. Tarsus had received great bene-
fits both from J ulius Caesar and Augustus, but the father of St. Paul was
not on that account a Roman citizen. This privilege had been granted to
him, or had descended to him, as an individual right ; he might have pur-
1 Csesar, like Alexander, treated the Jews with much consideration. Suetonius ^
speaks in strong terms of their grief at his death, Cses. 84. Augustus permitted the
largess, when
it fell on a Sabbath, to be put off till the next day. Mangey's Philo. iL
668, 5G9 compare Hor. Sat. i. 9, 69.
:
* For some notices of the condition of the Jews under the Eomans
at this time, see
Ganz. Yermischte Schriften, i. 13. " Die Gesetzgebung iiber die Juden in Rom, und
die kirchliche Wiirde derselben in Romischen Reich." Berlin, 1834.
3 Some of the older biographers of St. Paul assume this without any
hesitation.
Thus Tillemont says that Augustus gave to Tarsus, among other privileges, " le droit
de colonic libre et de bourgeoisie Romaine " and Cave says that this city was a muni-
:
cipium, and that therefore Paul was a Roman citizen. The Tribune (Acts xxi. 39.
xxii, 24), as Dr. Bloomfield remarks (on xvi. 37), knew that St. Paul was a Tarsian,
and thus it came to pass, that, while many of his contemporaries were
willing to expend *'a large sum" in the purchase of "this freedom," the
Junia and Lucius, have Roman names, while the others are Greek.^ All
this may point -^to a strong Roman connection. These names may have
something to do with that honourable citizenship which was an heirloom in
the household ;
and the appellation " Paulus " may be due to some such
feelings as those which induced the historian Josephus to call himself
" Flavins," in honour of Vespasian and the Flavian family.
If we turn now to consider the social position of the Apostle's father
and family, we cannot on the one hand confidently argue, from the posseS"
sion of the citizenship, that they were in the enjoyment of affluence and
outward distinction. The civitas of Rome, though at that time it could
not be purchased without heavy expense, did not depend upon any con^
ditions of wealth, where it was bestowed by authority. On the other
hand, it is certain that the manual trade, which we know that St. Paul
exercised, cannot be adduced as an argument to prove that his circum-
stances were narrow and mean ; still less, as some have imagined, that he
lived in absolute poverty. It was a custom among the Jews that all boy?
shotild learn a trade. "What is commanded of a father towards his
son?" asks a Talmudic writer. "To circumcise him, to teach him the
law, to teach him a trade." Rabbi Judah saith, " He that teacheth not
his son a trade, does the same as if he taught him to be a thief and
Rabban Gamaliel saith, " He that hath a trade in his hand, to what is he
like ? he is like a vineyard that is fenced." And if in compliance with
this good and useful custom of the Jews, the father of the young Ciliciait
sought to make choice of a trade, which might fortify his son against idle-
ness or against adversity, none would occur to him more naturally than the
profitable occupation of the making of tents, the material of which was hair-
cloth, supplied by the goats of his native province, and sold in the markets
of the Levant by the well-known name of cilicium.^ The most reasonable
conjecture is that his father's business was concerned with these markets,
and that, like many of his dispersed countrymen, he was actively occupied
in the traffic of the Mediterranean coasts : and the remote dispersion of
those relations, whom he mentions in his letter from Corinth to Rome, is
favourable to this opinion. But whatever might be the station and em-
ployment of his father or his kinsmen, whether they were elevated by
wealth above, or depressed by poverty below, the average of the Jews of
Asia Minor and Itajgip^^e are disposed to believe that this family were
possessed of that highest respectability which is worthy of deliberate
esteem. The words of Scripture seem to claim for them the tradition of a
good and religious reputation. The strict piety of St. Paul's ancestors
1 Tondentur caprae quod magifis villis sunt in magna parte Phrygiae unde cilicia et ;
caetera ejus generis ferri solent. Sed quod primum ea tonsura in Cilicia sit instituta,
nomen id Cilicas adjecisse dicunt. Yarro, de'Re Rustica, lib. ii. ch. xi. compare Virg. :
Georg. iii. 311-313. See the extract in Ducange KiXtKLa rpdyot dnb KilLKiag oi
:
grow luxuriantly after the rains in spring. The same tents of goat's hair
are still seen covering the plains in the busy harvest.^ There is the same
solitude and silence in the intolerable heat and dust of the summer. Then,
as now, the mothers and children of Tarsus went out in the cool evenings,
and looked from the gardens round the city, or from their terraced roofs
upon the heights of Taurus. The same sunset hngered on the pointed
summits. The same shadows gathered in the deep ravines. The river
Cydnus has suffered some changes in the course of 1800 years. Instead
of rushing, as in the time of Xenophon, like the Khone at Geneva, in a
stream of two hundred feet broad through the now flows idly past
city, it
it on the east. The Channel, which floated the ships of Antony and
Cleopatra, is now filled up ; and wide unhealthy lagoons occupy the place
of the ancient docks.'* But its upper waters still flow, as formerly, cold
and clear from the snows of Taurus : and its waterfalls still break over
with small camps of tents these tents are made of hair-cloth, and the peasantry reside
:
in them at this season, while the harvest is reaping and the corn treading out."
Beaufort's Karamania, p. 273.
4 This is the P^y^a, or " bar," at the mouth of the river {at rov Kvdvov /c6o^j
aard to 'Vrjyjxa KaXovfievov), of which Strabo speaks thus : "Eari 6k ?ii/zvd^o)v roTcg,
IXf^v Kol izakaid veupia, elg bv i/nnLvvTet 6 Kvdvoc, 6 dia^^ecov r^v Tapadv, rug dpx<ii
iXi^v dnh rov vnepiceifxevov rrjg Tzoleug Tavpov kol eariv ettlvelov tj XL[j.vrj rrjg Tapaov,
'
xiv. 5. The land at the mouth of the Cydnus (as in the case of the Pyramus and otber
rivers on that coast) has since that time encroached on the sea. The unhealthiness of
the sea-coast near the Gulf of Scanderoon is notorious, as can be testified by two of
those who have contributed drawings to this book. To one of them, the Rev. C. P.
Wilbraham, Vicar of Audley, Staflfordshire, the editors and publishers take this oppor'
tunity of expressmg their tnanks.
:
the same rocks, when the" snows are melting, Uke the Rhine at Schafifhausen.
We find a pleasure in thinking that the footsteps of the young Apostle
often wandered by the side of this stream, and that his eyes often looked
on these falls. We can hardly beheve that he who spoke to the Lystrians
of the "rain from heaven," and the "fruitful seasons," and of the "Jiving
God who made heaven and earth and the sea," ^ could have looked with
indifference on beautiful and impressive scenery.
Gamahel was celebrated
for his love of nature and the young Jew, who was destined to be hia
:
most famous pupil, spent his early days in the close neighbourhood of much
that was well adapted to foster such a taste. Or if it be thought that in
attributing such feelings to him we are writing in the spirit of modem
times ; and if it be contended that he would be more influenced by the
reahties of human life than by the impressions of nature, then let the
youthful Saul be imagined on the banks of the Cydnus, where it flowed
through the city in a stream less clear and fresh, where the wharves were
covered with merchandize, in the midst of groups of men in various cos-
tumes, speaking various dialects. St. Basil says, that in his day Tarsus
was a point of union for Syrians, Cihcians, Isaurians, and Cappadocians.^
To these we must add the Greek merchant, and the agent of Roman lux-
ury. And one more must be added the J ew, even then the pilgrim of
Commerce, trading with every nation, and blending with none. In this
mixed company Saul, at an early age, might become familiar with the
activities of life and the diversities of human character, and even in his
hood. It is usually the case that the features of a strong character display
themselves early. His impetuous fiery disposition would sometimes need
control. Flashes of indignation would reveal his impatience and his hoE-
esty.3 The affectionate tenderness of his nature would not be without an
object of attachment, if that sister, who was afterwards married,^ was his
playmate at Tarsus. The work of tent-making, rather an amusement than
a trade, might sometimes occupy those young hands, which were marked
with the toil of years when he held them to the view of the Elders at
Miletus.' His education was conducted at home rathe? than at school
Uoliv ToaavTr]v exovaav evKXrjptac, uars 'laavpovg nal KiXimg, KamrodoKag re nal
'
Ivpovg 6l' eavTTjg cvvuTrreiv. Ep. v., Eusebio Samosatorum Episcopo.
3 See Acts ix.
1, 2, xxiii. 1-5 and compare Acts xiii. 13, xv. 38, with 2 Tim. iv. 11,
;
* Acts xxiii.
15.
Acts XX. 34. " Ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my necea<
rities, and to them that were with me." Compare xviii. 3. 1 Cor. iv. 12. 1 Thess,
ii 9. ? Thess. iii. 8.
VOL I. -4
\
a
for, though Tarsus was celebrated for il.s learning, the Hebrew boy would
not lightly be exposed to the influence of Gentile teaching. Or, if he
ff-ent to a school, it was not a Greek school, but rather to some room con-
nected with the synagogue, where a noisy class of Jewish children received
the rudiments of instruction, seated on the ground with their teacher, after
the manner of Mahomedan children in the East, who may be seen or heard
tl their lessons near the mosque.^ At such a school, it may be, he learnt
to read and to write, going and returning under the care of some attend-
ant, according to that custom, which he afterwards used as an illustration
fused sound of voices was unceasing. For pictures of an Egyptian and a Turkish
school, see the Bible CJyclopedia, 1841 ; and the Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, 1847.
^ '0 vofj-og TraiSaycdybg tj/xQv yeyovsv elg Xpiarov. Gal, iii, 24, incorrectly rendered in
th.s English translation. As a Jewish illustration of a custom well known among the
Greeks and Romans, see the quotation in Buxtorf s Synagoga Judaica, oh. vii. " Quando
quis filium suum studio Legis consecrat, pingebant ipsi super pergameno vel tabella
aliqua elementa litcrarum, quibus etiam mel illinebant, deinde eum bene lotum, mun-
dis vestibus indutum, placentis ex melle et lacte confcctis, ut et fructibus ac tragematis
instructum, tradebant alicui Rabbino, qui eum deducat in scholam hie eum ora pallii :
sui opertum ad Praiceptorem ducebat, a quo literas cognoscere discebat, illectus suavi-
tatc deliciarum illarum, ct sic rcducebatur ad matrem suam." The Rabbi's cloak waa
spread over the child to teach him modesty. The honey and honey-cakes symbolized
Buch passages as Deut. xxxii. 13. Cant. iv. 111. Ps. xix. 10.
3 2 Cor. V. 16. 4 Acts i. 6.
ST. Paul's boyhood. 51
Saul was sent to the Holy City'^ between the ages of ten
and thirteen.
Had it been later than the age of thirteen, he could hardly have said that
distant country, is an unportant epoch in his life. In the case of one who
has taken this first journey at an early age, and whose character is, enthu-
hood, and is felt to be more truly the young traveller's home than the land
he is leaving, then the journey assumes the sacred character of a pilgrim-
age. The nearest parallel which can be found to the visits of the scat-
to shock the mind in such a comparison for that locahsing spirit was the
;
same thing to the Jews under the highest sanction, which it is to the Ma-
homedans through the memory of a prophet who was the enemy and not
1 Quoted by Tholuck from the Mischna, Pirke Avoth, ch. v. 21. "We learn from
Buxtorf that at 13 there was a ceremony something like Christian confirmation. The
boy was then called
" Filius Prsecepti :" and the father declared in the
presence of the Jews that his son fully understood the Law, and was fully responsible
for his sins. Syn. Jud. ibid.
See Tholuck's excellent remarks on the early life of the Apostle, in the Studien
^
und Kritiken, vol. viii. pp. 364-393, or in the English translation in Clark's Biblical
Cabinet, No. 28 and separately in his series of Tracts, No. 38. As Olshausen remarks,
Acts xxvi. 4. " My manner of
;
it was after having " nm through the whole circle of the sciences, and laid the sure
foundations of human learning at Tarsus" (i. 5), that he was sent to study the Law
under Gamaliel. So Lardner seems to think. Hist, of the Ap. and Ev. ch. xi. Hem-
sen is of opinion that, though as a Jew and a Pharisee he would not be educated in the
heathen schools of Tarsus, he did not go to Jerusalem to be trained under Gamaliel till
about the age of thirty, and after the ascension of Christ. Der Apo&isl Paulus, p 4-
62 THE LIFE AxCD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
grims from the interior of Asia Minor come down through the passes ci
the mountains, and join others at Tarsus who were bound for Jerusalem.
They returned when the festivals were over ; and he heard them talk of
the Holy City, of Herod and the New Temple, and of the great teachers
and doctors of the law. And at length Saul himself was to go, to see
the land of promise and the city of David, and grow up a learned Rabbi'
at the feet of Gamahel."
COIN OF TARSUS.
With his father, or under the care of some other friend oider than
himself, he left Tarsus and went to Jerusalem. It is not probable that
they travelled by the long and laborious land-journey which leads from
the Cilician plain through the defiles of Mount Amanus to Antioch, and
thence along the rugged Phoenician shore through Tyre and Sidon to
Judjea. The J ews, when they went to the festivals, or to carry contribu-
tions, like theMahomedans of modern days, would follow the hues of nat-
ural traffic ^ and now that the Eastern Sea had been cleared of its
:
andrian corn-ship which subsequently brought him to Italy, " whose sign
was Castor and Pollux." ^ Gradually they lost sight of Taurus, and the
heights of Lebanon came into view. The one had sheltered his early
home, but the other had been a familiar form to his J ewish forefathers.
From the British Museum. It may be observed that this coin illustrates the mode
of strengthening sails by rope-bands, mentioned in Mr. Smith's important work on the
Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul. 1848." p. 163.
' In 1820, Abd-el-Kader went with his father on board a French brig to Alexandria,
on their way to Mecca. See M. Bareste's Memoir of the ex-Emir ;
Paris, 184:8,
Acta xxviii. 11.
HE IS SENT TO JEKUSALEM. 53
How histories would crowd into his mind as the vessel moved on over th^
waves, and he gazed upon the furrowed flanks of the great Hebrew moun
tain ! Had the voyage been taken fifty years earher, the vessel would
probably have been bound for Ptolemais, which still bore the name of the
Greek kings of Egypt ; ^ but in the reign of Augustus or Tiberius, it ia
more hkely that she sailed round the headland of Carmel, and came to
anchor in the new harbour of Csesarea, the handsome city which Herod
had rebuilt, and named in honour of the Emperor.
To imagine incidents when none are recorded, and confidently lay down
a route without any authority, would be inexcusable in writing on thi^
subject. But to imagine the feelings of a Hebrew boy on his first visit to
the Holy Land, is neither difficult nor blamable. During this journey
Saul had around him a different scenery and different cultivation from
what he had been accustomed to, not a river, and a wide plain covered
with harvests of corn, but a succession of hills and vallies, with terraced
vineyards watered by artificial irrigation. If it was the time of a festival,
many pilgrims were moving in the same direction, with music and songs of
Zion. The ordinary road would probably be that mentioned in the Acts,
which led from Csesarea through the town of Antipatris (xxiii. 31). But
neither of these places would possess much
Hebrew of the interest for a "
Hebrews." The one was associated with the thoughts of the Romans and
of modern times the other had been built by Herod in memory of Anti-
;
pater, his Idumean father. But objects were not wanting of the deepest
interest to a child of Benjamin. Those far hill-tops on the left were close
upon Mount Gilboa, even if the very place could not be seen where " the
Philistines fought against Israel . . . and the battle went sore against
Saul . . . and he fell on his sword . . . and died, and his three sons, and his
armour-bearer, and all his men, that same day together." ^ After passing
through the lots of the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, the traveller from
Csesarea came to the borders of Benjamin. The children of Rachel were
together in Canaan as they had been in the desert. The lot of Benjamin
was entered near Bethel, memorable for the piety of Jacob, the songs of
Deborah, the sin of Jeroboam, and the zeal of Josiah.^ Onward a short
distance was Gibeah, the home of Saul when he was anointed King,^ and
the scene of the crime and desolation of the tribe, which made it the
smallest of the tribes of Israel.^ Might it not be too truly .aid concerning
the Israelites even of that period :
" They have deeply corrupted them-
Belves, as in the days of Gibeah : therefore the Lord will remember theii
iniquity. He will visit their sins " ? ^ At a later stage of his hfe, such
wherever lie went. At the early age of twelve years, all his cnthusia&u
could find an adequate object in the earthly Jerusalem ; the first view of
vrhich would be descried about this part of the journey. From the iimi
when the line of the city wall was
was forgotten. The furthey seen, all else
border of Benjamin was almost reached.The Rabbis said that the bound-
ary Mne of Benjamin and Judah, the two faithful tribes, passed througl
^he Temple.^ And this City and Temple was the common sanctuary of
all Israelites. " Thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord : to
testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. There ia
little Benjamin their ruler, and the princes of Judah their council, the
prmces of Zebulon and the princes of ^^ephthali : for there is the seat of
judgment, even the seat of the house of David." And now the Temple's
glittering roof was seen, with the buildings of Zion crowning the eminence
above it, and the ridge of the Mount of Olives rising high over all. And
now the city gate was passed, with that thrill of the heart which none but
a Jew could know. " Our feet stand within thy gates, 0 Jerusalem. O
pray for the peace of J erusalem they shall prosper that love thee. Peace
:
be within thy walls : and plenteousness within thy palaces. O God, won-
derful art thou in thy holy places : even the God of Israel. He will give
^
strength and power unto His people. Blessed be God."
And now that this young enthusiastic Jew is come into the land of his
forefathers, and is about to receive his education in the schools of the Holy
City, we may pause to give some description of the state of Judsea and
Jerusalem. We have seen that it is impossible to fix the exact date of his
arrival, but we know the general features of the period ;
and we can easily
form to ourselves some idea of the political and religious condition of Pal-
estine.
likely that Archelaus also had ceased to govern, and was already in exile.
His accession to power had been attended with dreadful fighting in th(j
his reign of ten years was one continued season of disorder and discontent
and, at last, he was banished to Vienna on the Bhone, that Judaea might
be formally constituted into a Ptoman province. ^ We suppose Saul to
1 " Sanedrhi (ad plagara tompli australem) in parte sen portione Jndss, et divina
prasentia (sen occideutalis tcmpli pars) in portione Benjamin.'' Gemara Babylonia
ad tit. Zebachim, cap. 5. fol. 54. b. See Selden de Synedriis Hebraeorum, n. xv. 4
(Seldcni Opera, 1720, vol. i. f. 1545).
Kee Ps. Ixviii. and cxxii.
3 While the question of succession was pending, the Roman soldiers under Sabinua
had a desperate conflict with the Jews fighting and sacrificing went on together.
;
Varus, the governor of Syria, marched from Antioch to Jerusalem, and 2(K)0 Jews wer
STATE OF JUDJEA AND JEEUSALEM. 5
nave come from Tarsus to Jerusalem when one of tlie four governors, wlic
preceded Pontius Pilate, was in power, either Coponius, or Marcus Am*
bivius, or Annius Rufus, or Valerius Gratus. The governor resided in tha
Cown of Caesarea, Soldiers were quartered there and at J erusalem, an#
throughout Judaea, wherever the turbulence of the people made garrisons
accessary. Centurions were in the country towns ;
^ soldiers on the banks
of the Jordan.^ There was no longer the semblance of independence. The
revolution, of which Herod had sown the seeds, now came to maturity.
The only change since his death in the appearance of the country was that
everything became more Roman than before. Roman money was current
in the markets. Roman words were incorporated in the popular language.
Roman buildings w^re conspicuous in all the towns. Even those two inde-
pendent principalities which two sons of Herod governed, between the
provinces of Judaea and Syria, exhibited all the general character of the
epoch. Philip the tetrarch of Gaulo-
nitis, called Bethsaida, on the north
of the lake of Gennesareth, by the
name of Julias, in honour of the family
who reigned at Rome. Antipas, the
tetrarch of Galilee, built Tiberias on
the south of the same lake, in honour
of the emperor who about this time
" which, supplanting the original religion of the Jews, became, after the
ruin of the Temple and the extinction of the public worship, a new bond of
national union, the great distinctive feature in the character of modern
^
Judaism."
The Apostolic age was remarkable for the growth of learned Rabbin-
ical schools ;
but of these the most eminent were the rival schools of Hillel
and Schammai. These sages of the law were spoken of by the Jews, and
their proverbs quoted, as the seven wise men were quoted by the' Greeks.
Their traditional systems run through all the Talmudical writings, as the
doctrines of the Scotists and Thomists run through the Middle Ages.^
Both were Pharisaic schools : but the former upheld the honour of tradi-
tion as even superior to the law ;
the latter despised the traditionists when
they clashed with Moses. The antagonism between them was so great,
that it was said that Elijah the Tishbite would never be able to recon-
cile the disciples of Hillel and Schammai."
Of these two schools, that of Hillel was by far the most influential in
and Claudius. The image of the emperor was at that time the object of religious rev-
erence the emperor was a deity on earth (Dis asqua potestas. Juv. iv. 71) and the
: ;
worship paid to him was a real worship (see Merivale's Life of Augustus, p. 159). It
isa striking thought, that in those times (setting aside effete forms of religion), the
only two genuine worships in the civilised world were the worship of a Tiberius or a
Claudius on the one hand, and the worship of Christ on the other.
1 The Jewish writer, Jost, seems to speak too strongly of this change See the early
part of the second volume of his AUg. Gesch. des Isr. Yolks.
*
See Acts xxiii. 5.
In earlier periods of Jewish history, the prophets seem often to have been a moro
'
influential body than the priests. It is remarkable that we do not read of " Schools of
the Prophets " in any of the Levitical cities. In these schools, some were Levites, af
Samuel some belonged to the other tribes, as Saul and David.
;
fts own day, aud its decisions have been held authoritative by the gi'eate)
number of later Rabbis. The most eminent ornament of this school was
GamaheV whose fame is celebrated in the Talmud. Hillel was the father
of Suneon, and Simeon the father of Gamahel. It has been imagined bj
some that Simeon was the same old man who took the infant Saviour ip
his arms, and pronounced the Nunc Dimittis.^ It is difficult to give a con-
clusive proof of this ; but there is no doubt that this Gamaliel was the
same who wisely pleaded the cause of St. Peter and the other Apostles,^
and who had previously educated the future Apostle, St. Paul.^ His
learnmg was so eminent, and his character so revered, that he is one of the
seven who alone among Jewish doctors have been honoured with the title
Acts of the Apostles,' that he was " had in reputation of all the people,"
and with his honest and intelligent argument when Peter was brought
before the Council. It has been imagined by some that he became a
Christian : ^ and why he did not become so is known only to Him who
understands the secrete of the human heart. But he lived and died a
Jew ; and a well-known piciyer against Christian heretics was composed or
1 For Gamaliel, see Lightfoot on Acts v. 34 (both in the Commentary and the
Hebrew and Talmudical JSxer citations)] also on Matt. xiii. 2.
Luke ii. 25-35. 3 Acts v. 34-40. 4 Acts xxii. 3.
5 This title is the same as " Rabboni " addressed to our Lord bj Mary Magdalene.
heathen goddess and being asked how he could reconcile this with the Jewish law, he
;
replied, that the bath was there before the statue that the bath was not made for the
5
goddess, but the statue for the bath. Tholuck, Eng. Transl. p. 17.
7 Acts V. 34. Yet Nicodemus and Joseph declared themselves the friends of Christ,
which Gamaliel never did. And we should hardly expect to find a violent persecutor
iimong the pupils of a really candid and unprejudiced man. Schrader has an indignant
chapter against Gamaliel, and especially against the " unchristian " sentiment that the
truth of a religion is to be tested by its success. Der Apostel Paulus, vol. ii. ch. 5.
8 In the Clementine Recognitions (i. 65), Clement is made to say, "Lateuter fratei
noster erat in fide, sed consilio nostro inter eos erat and the plan is more fully stated
In the next section (66). Cotelerius says in a note " Vulpinum hoc consilium Apos-:
tolis indignum est. Decepit tamen Bedam Pseudo-Clemens Rufini. At non ego
credulas illis." See Bede on Acts v. 34, and Retract, ibid. and compare Lightfoot'a ;
Coram. The story is adopted by Baronius see the notes to next Chapter. :
'
of the Jewish schools, that the pupil was encouraged to catechize the
teacher. Contradictory opinions were expressed with the utmost freedom.
This is evident from a cursory examination of the Talmud, which gives us
the best notions of the scholastic disputes of the Jews. This remarkable
body of Rabbinical jurisprudence has been compared to the Roman body
of civil law but in one respect it might suggest a better comparison with
;
contains, shew very plainly that the Jewish doctors must often have
been occupied with the most frivolous questions ; that the " mint, anise,
and cummin " were eagerly discussed, while the " weightier matters of the
law " were neglected : but we should not be justified in passing a hasty
judgment on ancient volumes, which are full of acknowledged difficulties
What we read of the system of the Cabbala has often the appearance of
unintelligible jargon : but in all ages it has been true that "the words of the
wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies." ^
COIN OP CTRENB.
Temple, the necessity of assemblies must have been deeply felt, for united
prayer and mutual exhortation, for the singing of the " Songs of Zion,'*
and for remembering the " Word of the Lord." When they returned,
the public reading of the law became a practice of universal interest
and from this period we must date the erection of Synagogues^ in
the different towns of Palestine. So that St. James could say, in the
council at Jerusalem :
" Moses of old time hath in every city them that
preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." ^ To this
later period the Hth Psalm may be referred,'' which laments over " the burn-
ing of all the synagogues of God in the land.'' These buildings are not men-
^
the time of the Apostles we have the fullest evidence that they existed in
all the small towns in Judaea, and in all the principal cities where the Jews
were dispersed abroad. It seems that the synagogues often consisted of
two apartments, one for prayer, preaching, and the ofi&ces of public wor-
ship ;
the other for the meetings of learned men, for discussion concerning
questions of religion and discipUne, and for purposes of education.^ Thus
the Synagogues and the Schools cannot be considered as two separate sub-
jects. No doulit a distinction must be drawn between the smaller schools
of the country villages, and the great divinity schools of Jerusalem. The
synagogue which was built Capernaum ^ was no doubt
by the Centurion at
a far less important place than those synagogues in the Holy City, where
*'
the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, with those of Asia and
From the British Museum. The beautiful coins of Cyrene shew how entirely it
was a Greek city, and therefore imply that its Jews were Hellenistic, like those of
AJexandria. See above, p. 18, note.
* See Vitringa de Synagoga Vetere, especially bk.
i. pt. 2, ch. 12. Basnage assigns
the erection ofsynagogues to the time of the Maccabees. Meuschen says that schools
were established by Ezra but he gives no proof. It is probable that they were nearly
;
contemporaneous.
Acts XV. 21.
3
See Ewald's Poetische Biicher des Alton Bundes, and Tholuck's Psalmen fiir
4
Greietliche und Laien. Mr. Phillips considers this psalm to be simply prophetic of the
dcstmctiou in the Roman war Psalms in Heb. and Comm. 1846.
:
6 Ps. Ixxiv. 8.
The place where the Jews met for wwship was called j-iDiifi Jn^n^, as opposed to
6
the '11^12: where lectures were given. The term Beth-Midrash is still said to be
used in Poland and Germany for the pbcc where Jewish lectures are given on the law,
"
Luke vii. 5
STUDENT-LIFE. 61
Cilicia," rose up as one man, and disputed against St. Stephen.^ We have
here five groups of foreign Jews, two from Africa, two from Western
Asia, and one from Europe : and there is no doubt that the Israelites of
Syria, Babylonia, and the East were similarly represented. The Rabbini*
cal writers say that there were 480 synagogues in Jerusalem ; and though
this must be an exaggeration, yet no doubt all shades of Hellenistic
and Aramaic opinions found a home in the common metropolis. It is easy
to see that an eager and enthusiastic student could have had no lack
of excitements to stunulate his religious and intellectual activity, if he
spent the years of his youth in that city " at the feet of Gamaliel."
It has been contended, that when St. Paul said he was "brought up^
in Jerusalem, " at the feet of Gamaliel," he meant that he had lived at the
Kabban's house, and eaten at his table.'' But the words evidently point
to the customary posture of Jewish students at a school. There is a curi-
ous passage in the Talmud, where it is said, that " from the days of Mosea
to Babban Gamaliel, they stood up to learn the Law ; but when Babban
Gamaliel died, sickness came into the world, and they sat down to learn
the Law." ^ need not stop to criticise this sentence, and it is not eas'/
have " sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word." ^ But the proverbial expres-
sion must have arisen from a well-known custom. The teacher was seated
on an elevated platform, or on the ground, and the pupils around him oa
low seats or on the floor. Maimonides says :
" How do the mastera
teach ? The doctor sits at the head, and the disciples around him like a
crown, that they may all see the doctor and hear his words. jN'or is tha
doctor seated on a seat, and the disciples on the ground ; but all are on
seats, or all on the floor." ^ St. Ambrose says, in his Commentary on the
1st Epistle to the Corinthians (xiv.), that "it is the tradition of the syna-
1 Acts
vi. 9. It is difficult to classify the synagogues mentioned in this passage.
An "Alexandrian Synagogue," built by Alexandrian artisans who were employed
about the Temple, is mentioned in the Talmud. See Otho's Lexicon Rabbinicum, sub
Yoc Synagoga. We have ventured below to use the phrase " Cilician Synagogue,''
wiiich cannot involve any serious inaccuracy.
' Petitus, as quoted by Yitringa,
p. 168.
- Tradunt magistri nostri a diebus Mosis usque ad Rabban Gamalielem non didice-
;
tempore Rabban Gamaliel mortuus est, cessavit Gloria Legis. Quoted by Vitringa. pt
167. See Lightfoot on Luke ii. 46 and on Matt. xiii. 2.
;
gogue that they sit while they dispute ; the elders in dignity on hio-h
chairs, those beneath them on low seats, and the last of all on mats upon
the pavement,^' And again Philo says, that the children of the Essenea
sat at the feet of the masters, who interpreted the law, and explained it8
figurative sense.^ And the same thing is expressed in that maxim of the
Jews " Place thyself in the dust at the fett of the Wise."^
In this posture the Apostle of the Gentiles spent his schoolboy days, an
eager and indefatigable student. " He that giveth his mind to the law of
the Most High, and is occupied in the meditation thereof, will seek out
the wisdom of all the ancient, and be occupied in prophecies. He wiU
keep the sayings of the renowned men ; and where subtle parables are, he
will be there also. He will seek out the secrets of grave sentences, and
be conversant in dark parables. He shall serve among great men, and
appear among princes : he will travel through strange countries ; for he
hath tried the good and the evil among men." * Such was the pattern
proposed to himself by an ardent follower of the Rabbis ; and we cannot
wonder that Saul, with such a standard before him, and with so ardent a
temperament, " made progress in the Jews' religion above many of his con-
temporaries in his own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the tra-
ditions of his Fathers."^ ,
Intellectually, his mind was trained to logical
acuteness, his memory became well stored w^ith " hard sentences of old,"
and he acquired the facility of. quick and apt quotation of Scripture
Morally, he was a strict observer of the requirements of the Law ;
and,
while he led a careful conscientious life, after the example of his ancestors '
vov/ievoi TOTTOvg, ol KaXovvrai avvayioyal, Kad' fjTiLKtag ev Tu^eatv vnd TcpeaCvripoLg via
Kude^ovrai, {leru Koafiov tov TrpoariKovrog txovreg uKpoaTiKojg. Mangey's Philo. ii. p. 458,
3 Sit domus tua conventus sapientum et pulveriza te in pulvere pedum eorwn, o\
tibe cum siti verba eorum. Pirke Avoth. cap. 1, 4, quoted by Vitringa, p. 168.
< Eccles. xxxix. 1-4. = Gal. i. 14. e 2 Tim. i. 3.
7 Gal. i. 10. 'Apri yap dvdpuTcovg neWu . . . el ydp hi uvdpuTrotg ijpeoKov, XpioToi
^ovlog GvK uv T/jUTjv. "Am I Tiow seeking to conciliate men? . . . Nay, if I still
Btrove (as once I did) to please men, I should not be the servant of Chiit.-
John vii. 49.
STUDENT-LITE. 63
agine him saying to himself, with all the rising pride of a successful Phart
Bee, in the language of the Book of Wisdom : "I shall have estimation
among the multitude, and honour with the elders, though I be young. I
shall be found of a quick conceit in judgment, and shall be admired in the
sight of great men. When I hold my tongue, they shall bide my leisure j
and when I speak, they shall give good ear unto me." ^
While thus he was passing through the busy years of his student-life,
nursing his religious enthusiasm and growing in self-righteousness, others
were advancing towards their manhood, not far from Jerusalem, of whom
then he knew nothing, but for whose cause he was destined to count that
loss which now was his highest gain.'^ There was one at Hebron, the son
of a priest " of the course of Abia," who was soon to make his voice heard
throughout Israel as the preacher of repentance ; there were boys by the
Lake of Galil-ee, mending their fathers' nets, who were hereafter to be the
teachers of the World ;
and there was one, at Nazareth, for the sake of
whose love they, and Saul himself, and thousands of faithful hearts
throughout all future ages, should unite in saying :
" He must increase,
but I must decrease." It is possible that Gamaliel may have been one of
those doctors with whom J esus was found conversing in the Temple. It
is probable that Saul may have been within the precincts of the Temple
at some festival, when Mary and Joseph came up from Galilee. It is cer-
tain that the eyes of the Saviour and of His future disciple must often
have rested on the same objects, the same crowd of pilgrims and wor-
shippers,
Holy City, the same olives on the other
the same walls of the
side of the valley of Jehoshaphat. But at present they were strangers.
The mysterious human life of Jesus was silently advancing towards its
great consummation. Saul was growing more and more familiar with the
outward observances of the Law, and gaining that experience of the
" spirit of bondage " which should enable him to understand himself, and
his fathers nor he were able to bear." He was learning (in proportion as
the period of the Crucifixion, three of the principal persons who demand
the historian's attention are the Emperor Tiberius, spending his life of
shameless lust on the island of Caprese, ^his vile minister, Sejanus, revelling
This first martyrdom has the deepest interest for us ; siace it is the
first occasion when Saul comes before us in his early manhood. Where
had he been during these years which we have rapidly passed over in a
few lines, the years in which the foundations of Christianity were laid ?
instead of expressing his repentance for his opposition merely to the Sa-
viour's followers.3
was that he brought back with him, to 'gratify the pride of his parents, if
they still were living, a mature knowledge of the Law, a stricter life, a
more fervent zeal. And here, in the schools of Tarsus, he had abundant
opportunity for becoming acquainted with that Greek literature, the taste
for which he had caught from Gamahel, and for studying the writings oi
1 Luke xiii. 1.
turned to their homes, they carried with them news which prepared the
way for the Glad Tidings about to issue from Mount Zion to the utter-
most parts of the earth." But as yet the Gospel lingered on the Holy
Hill. The first acts of the Apostles were "prayer and supplication" in
the "upper room ;" breaking of bread "from house to house fniracles
in the Temple ;
gatherings of the people in Solomon's cloister, and the
bearing of testimony in the council chamber of the Sanhedrin.
One of the chief characteristics of the Apostohc Church, coniddered in
itself,was the bountiful charity of its members one coward-s another.
Many of the Jews of Palestine, and therefore many of the earliest Chris-
tian converts, were extremely poor. The odium incurred by adopting the
new doctrine might undermine the livelihood of some who depended on
their trade for support, and this would make alms-giving necessary. But
the Jews of Palestine were relatively poor, compared with those of the
dispersion. We see this exemplified on later occasions, in the contributions
VOL. I.
56 THE LLTE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
which St. Paul more than once anxiously promotea.^ And in the very first
days of the Church, we find its wealthier members placing their entire pos-
sessions at the disposal of the Apostles. 'Not that there was any abohtion
of the rights of property, as the words of St. Peter to Ananias very well
show.' But those who were rich gave up what God had given them, in
general benevolence. That old jealousy between the Aramaic and Hellen-
istic Jews reappeared. Their party feeling was excited by some real or
apparent unfairness in the distribution of the fund set apart for the poor.
" A murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews," ^ or of the Hebrews
against the Grecians, had been a common occurrence for at least two cen-
turies ; . and, notwithstanding the power of the Divine Spirit, none will
wonder that it broke out again even among those who had become obedi-
ent to the doctrine of Christ. That the widows' fund might be carefully
Holy Ghost," and as one who, " full of faith and power, did great wonders
and miracles among the people." It will be observed that these seven
men have Greek names, and that one was a proselyte from the Greco-Syr-
ian city of Antioch. It was natural, from the peculiar character of the
quarrel, that Hellenistic Jews should have been appointed to this office.
From the Hebrew point of view, the disciples of Christ would be regarded
as a Jewish sect or synagogue. The synagogues, as we have seen, were
very numerous at Jerusalem. There were already the Cilician Synagogue,
the Alexandrian Synagogue, the Synagogue of the Libertines, and to
Acts xi. 29, 30 ; and again i>,om. xv. 25, 26, compared with Acts xxiv. 1?
I Cor. xvi. 2 Cor. viii. 1-4.
AotB T. 4 3 Acts vL 1
:
Jhese was uow added (if we may use so bold an expression' the Kazarene
Synagogue, or the Synagogue of the Galilaeans. Not that any separate
building was erected for the devotions of the Christians ; for they met
from house to house for prayer and the breaking of bread. But they were
by no means separated from the nation ;
^ they attended the festivals ;
they worshipped in the Temple. They were a new and singular party in
the nation, holding peculiar opinions, and interpreting the Scriptures in a
peculiar way. This is the aspect under which the Church would first pre-
sent itself to the Jews, and among others to Saul himself. Many different
opinions were expressed in the synagogues concerning the nature and office
of the Messiah. These Galilseans would be distinguished as holding the
strange opinion that the true Messiah was that notorious " malefactor/'
who had been crucified at the last Passover. All parties in the nation
united to oppose, and if possible to crush, the monstrous heresy.
The first attempts to put down the new faith came from the Saddu-
cees. The high priest and his immediate adherents^ belonged to this
party. They hated the doctrine of the resurrection and the resurrection ;
of J^sus Christ was the corner-stone of all St. Peter's teaching. He and
the other Apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin, who in the first
inst^ince were content to enjoin silence on them. The order was disobeyed,
and they were summoned The consequences might have been fatal
again.
but that the jealousy between the Sadducees and Pharisees was overruled,
and the instrumentality of one man's wisdom was used, by Almighty God,
for the protection of His servants. Gamahel, the eminent Pharisee,
argued, that if this cause were not of God, it would come to nothing, like
the teacher, Gamaliel, taking St. Peter's part : at the next persecution,
Saul, the pupil, is actively concerned in the murder of St. Stephen. It
was the same alternation of the two prevailing parties, first opposing each
other, and then uniting to oppose the Gospel, of which Saul himself
^ "
The worship of the temple and the synagogue still went side by side wi1;!l the
prayers, and the breaking of bread from house to house. The Jewish family lifa . . .
was the highest expression of Christian unity. The fulfilment of the ancient law
. . .
was the aspect of Christianity to which the attention of the Church was most directed."
Mr. Stanley's Sermon on St. Peter, p. 92; see James ii. 2, where the word "syn*
gogue" is applied to Christian assembliea
' Acts iy. 1. V. 17. 3 Acts v. 41. ^ See Acts xxiii. 6. 9, 14. 20.
;
the spirit with which he spake." We cannot doubt, from what follows,
t-hat Saul of Tarsus, already distinguished by his zeal and talents among
the younger champions of Pharisaism, bore a leading part in the discus-
sions which here took place. He was now, though still "a young man"
(Acts vii. 68), yet no longer in the first opening of youth. This is evi-
evident, from the nature of this accusation, how remarkably his doctrine
the Gospel than St. Peter and the Apostles had yet attained to. Not
doubting the divinity of the Mosaic economy, and not faithless to the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he yet saw that the time was coming, yea,
then was, when the " true worshippers " should worship Him, not in the Tem-
ple only or in any one sacred spot, but everywhere throughout the earth,
**
m spirit and in truth : " and for this doctrine he was doomed to die.
Mie power of inflicting death.^ On the one hand, we apparently find thG
'existence of this power denied by the Jews themselves at the trial of oni
Lord ;
^ and, on the other, we apparently find it assumed and acted on ic
the case of St. Stephen. The Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, like the Areopa.
gus at Athens, was the highest and most awful court of judicature, espe-
-^ially in matters that pertained to religion ; but like that Athenian tri-
bunal, its real power gradually shrunk, though the reverence attached to
Its decisions remained. It probably assumed its systematic form under the
second Ilyrcanus ; and it became a fixed institution in the Commonwealth
under his sons, who would be glad to have their authority nominally
limited, but really supported, by such a Council.^ Under the Herods, and
under the Romans, its jurisdiction was curtailed ;
* and we are informed,
on Talmudical authority,^ that, forty years before the destruction of Jeru-
true, we must consider the proceedings at the death of St. Stephen as tumult-
uous and irregular. And nothing is more probable than that Pontius Pilate
(if indeed he was not absent at the time) would willingly connive, in the
spirit of Gallio at Corinth, at an act of unauthorised cruelty in a ques*
tion of words and names and of the Jewish law," ^ and that the Jews would
willingly assume as much power as they dared, when the honour of 'Moses
and the Temple was in jeopardy.
The council assembled in solemn and formal state to try the blasphemer.
There was great and general excitement in Jerusalem. " The people, the
scribes, and the elders " had been " stirred up " by the members of the
Hellenistic Synagogue.' It is evident, from that vivid expression which is
1 Most of the modern German critics (Neander, De Wette, Olshausen, &c.) are of
opinion that they had not at this time the power of hfe and death. A very careful
and elaborate argument for the opposite view will be found in Biscoe's History of the
Acts confirmed, ch. vi. See also Krebs, Obs. in N. T. e Flavio Josepho, pp. 64 and
155. Mr. Milman says that in his " opinion, formed upon the study of the cotemporary
Jewish history, the power of the Sanhedrin, at this period of pohtical change and con-
fusion, on this, as well as on other points, was altogether undefined." History of
Christianity, vol. i. p. 340. Compare the narrative of the death of St. James. Joseph.
A. XX. 9.
' John xviii. 31, xix. 6. See the Commentaries of Tittman and Liicke.
3 Jost's Allg. Gesch., vol. ii. p. 6, &c. The Greek term avvedpiov, from which
' Sanhedrin " (]'-i'^";|i2t3) is derived, makes it probable that its systematic organization
dates from the Greco-Macedonian period.
^ We see the beginning of this in the first passage where the council is mentioned by
JoBcphus, Antiq. xiv. See Selden de Synedriis Hebraeorum, H. xv. 15. " Principe*
9.
Synedrii .... summotos interdum fuisse perinde ac Pontifices, idque imprimis secuUs
illis recentioribus, quibus reipublicae, imperii, jurisdictionis facies pro dominantiuni
rictorumque arbitratu crebro mutabat, non est cur omnino dubitemus : etiam et con-
gtitutos subinde a Romanis, prout gubemandi ratio exigebat." Opera I. f. 1672.
5 Otho, Lexicon Rabbinicum, sub voc. Synedrium.
e Acts xviii. 15. ' vi 12.
:
quoted from the accusers' mouths, ^Hhis place^^ "this holy jp/^ice," that
the meeting of the Sanhedrin took place in the close neighbourhood of the
Temple. Their ancient and solemn room of assembly was the hall Gazith,'
or the " Stone-Chamber," partly within the Temple Court and partly with-
out it. The president sat in the less sacred portion, and around him, in a
Remi-circle, were the rest of the seventy judges.''
Before these judges Stephen was made to stand, confronted by his ao
users. The eyes of all were fixed upon his countenance, which grew
bright as they gazed on it, with a supernatural radiance and serenity. In
the beautiful Jewish expression of the Scripture, " They saw Ms face as it
had been that of an angel." The judges, when they saw his gloried
countenance, might have remembered the shining on the face of Moses,^
and trembled lest Stephen's voice should be about to speak the will of
'
Jehovah, like that of the great lawgiver. Instead of being occupied with
the faded glories of the Second Temple, they might have recognised in the
spectacle before them the Shechinah of the Christian soul, which is the
living Sanctuary of God. But the trial proceeded. The judicial question,
to which the accused was required to plead, was put by the president
" Are these things so ?" And then Stephen answered, and his clear voice
was heard in the silent council-hall, as he went through the history of the
chosen people, proving his own deep faith in the sacredness of the Jewish
economy, but suggesting, here and there, that spiritual interpretation of it
which had always been the true one, and the truth of which was now to
be made manifest to all.^ He began, with a wise discretion, from the call
Temple. But they agree in placing it to the east of the Most Holy Place.
Selden describes the form in which the Sanhedrin sat, and gives a diagram with
'*
the " President of the Council " in the middle, the Father of the Council " by bij
Bide, and " Scribes " at the extremities of the semicircle II. vL 1. ff. 1318, 1319. :
rfwelt in detail on the Lawgiver, in such a way as to show his own unques
tionable orthodoxy ; but he quoted the promise concerning " the prophet
/ike unto Moses" (v. 3t), and reminded his hearers that the law, in whiclj
they trusted, had not kept their forefathers from idolatry (v. 39, &c.),
And so he passed on to the Temple, which had so prominent a reference
to the charge against him : and while he spoke of it, he alluded to the
words of Solomon himself,^ and of the prophet Isaiah,^ who denied that
any temple ''made with hands" could be the place of God's highest wor-
ship. And thus far they listened to him. It was the story of the chosen
people, to which every Jew listened with interest and pride.
It is remarkable, as we have said before, how completely St. Stephen
is the for^unner of St. Paul, both in the form and the matter of this de-
fence. His securing the attention of the J ews by adopting the historical
subsequent vision within the precincts of the Temple,' how deep an impres-
sion St. Stephen's death had left on his memory. And there are even
verbal coincidences which may be traced between this address and St.
I
1 Kings viii. 27. 2 Chron. ii. 6. vi. 18.
^ Is. Lxvi. 1, 2. 3 Acts xiii. 16-22. 4 Acts xxvi. 22.
5 Mr. Humphry remarks (Comm. on Acts, 1847, p. 48), that it is not improbable we
owe to him the defence of St. Stephen as given in the Acts. Besides the resemblance
mentioned in the text, he points out the similarity between Acts
vii. 44, and Heb. viii.
5, between Acts and Rom. iv. 10-19, and between Acts vii. 60, and 2 Tim. iv.
vii. 5-8,
16. And if the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, may we not suppose
that this scene was present to his mind when he wrote, " Jesus suffered without the
gate: let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach"?
(xiii. 12, 13.)
6 One of the necessary qualifications of memiOers of the Sanhedrin was, that th^^j
ehould bo* the fathers of children, because such were supposed more likely to lean
towards mercy. See Selden, quoting from Maimonides: "In nuUo Synedriorum
cooptabant quempiam cui proles deesset, unde fieret misericors and again from the
Jerusalem Gemara, ''Is qui non vidit sibi liberos, judiciis pecuniariis idoneus est, at
vero non capitalibus," II. ix. 4, f. 1422. If this was the rule when Stephen was tried,
Bnd Saul was one of the judges, he must have been married at the time.
if
7 He said in his trance, Lord, they know that I imprisoned ard beat in every
synagogue them that believed on thee and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen w&a
;
^hed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment oi
them that slew him." Acts xxii. 19, 20.
72 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
argument in the Epistle to the Romans " Behold thou art called a Jew, :
and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest His
will . . . Thou, therefore, that makest thy boast of the law, through
breaking the law dishonourest thou God ? . . . He is not a Jew which is
Due of those angels themselves, " who do always behold the face of our
Father which is in Heaven." ^ " He being full of the Holy Ghost, looked
up steadfastly into Heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing
on the right hand of God." The scene before his eyes was no longer the
council-hall at Jerusalem and the circle of his infuriated judges ; but he
gazed up into the endless courts of the celestial Jerusalem, with its " innu-
trtiay Tovg uaaofiivovc tKuvov^ KaOv^elvaL Tr/c kut' dvTofj "kvrrng, rd tov 8o7]dovvTO*
"
guccoar His persecuted servant, and to receive him to Himself. And when
Stephen saw his Lord perhaps with the memories of what he had seen on
earth crowding into his mind, he suddenly exclaimed, in the ecstacy of
his vision: "Behold! I see the Heavens opened and the Son of Mai
standing on the right hand of God I
rush and tumult through the streets, hurried him to one of the gates of the
city, and somewhere about the rocky edges of tlie ravine of Jehoshaphat,
where the Mount of Olives looks down upon Gethsemane and Siloam, or
on the open ground to the north, which travellers cross when they go
towards Samaria or Damascus, with stones that lay without the walls of
the Holy City, this heavenly-minded martyr was murdered. The exact
place of his death is not known. There are two traditions,^ an ancient
iTTideiKvvraL axvfJ-a.
'E/c rov slg ttjv dvdlr/Tp. "koy. r. The passage is given at length
in Cramer's Catena on the Acts. A
similar passage is quoted by Mr. Humphry from
Gregory the Great " Scitis, fratres, quia sedere judicantis est, stare vero pugnantis vel
:
adjuvantis. Stephanus autem vidit, quern adjutorem habuit." Horn, xxix. in Fest.
Ascens.
' As to whetherwas a judicial sentence at all, see above, p. 69, note 1.
it
* It is well known
that the tradition which identifies St. Stephen's gate with the
Damascus gate, and places the scene of martyrdom on the north, can be traced from
an early period to the fifteenth century and that the modern tradition, which places
;
both the gate and the martyrdom on the east, can be traced back to the same century.
See Dr. Robinson's Researches, i. pp. 475, 476 and Williams' Holy City, p. 364. It is
;
probable that the popular opinion regarding these sacred sites was suddenly changed
by some monks from interested motives. The writer of this believes that he is the first
to notice a curious turning-point in the history of the traditional belief. In a journal
of the fifteenth century (" Fabri Evagaiorium,''^ unknown till published in 1843 in the
" Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart," though a German abridgment is
in Dr. Robinson's List) the gate of St. Stephen is on the north, but the place of mar-
tyrdom on the east. He goes out of the gate on the north, " quae olim dicebatur porta
Ephraim, quia per earn via ad montem Ephraim, nunc vero dicitur porta S. Ste-
est
phani, quia per eam fuit per banc portam est via in
eductus et extra in valle lapidatus :
Sichem, Samariam et Galilaeam provinciam." Then turning to the right, and round
the N. E. angle of the wall, he descends to the stone where the clothes of the murderera
were laid, not far from the Golden Gate. " Super banc petram posuerunt vestimenta
B-j.a carnifices et Saulus adolescens huic aderat spectaculo, et zelo pro Judaismo
. . .
one, which places it on the north, beyond the Damascus gate ; and a
modern one, which leads travellers through what is now called the gate of
St. Stephen, to a spot near the brook Kedron, over against the garden of
G-ethsemane. But those who look upon Jerusalem from an elevated point
on the north-east, have both these positions in view ; and any one who
stood there on that day ^ might have seen the crowd rush forth from the
gate, and the witnesses (who according to the law were required to throw
the first stones'^) cast off their outer garments, and lay them down at the
feet of Saul.
The contrast is striking between the indignant zeal which the martyr ^
had just expressed against the sin of his judges, aud the forgiving love
which he shewed to themselves, when they became his murderers. He
first uttered a prayer for himself in the words of Jesus Christ, which he
knew were spoken from the cross, and which he may himself have heard
from those holy lips. And then, deliberately kneeling down, in that pos-
ture of humility in which the body most naturally expresses the supplica-
tion of the mind, and which has been consecrated as the attitude of Chris-
tian devotion by Stephen and by Paul himself,^ he gave the last few mo*
ments of his consciousness to a prayer for the forgiveness of his enemies :
and the words were scarcely spoken when death seized upon him, or rather,
in the words of Scripture, " he fell asleep."
" And Saul was consenting to his death." A Spanish painter,^ in a
monly called Herod's Gate. Dr. Robinson (i. 473) seems to think that the Gate of
Ephraim (Neh. xii. 39) and the Gate of Benjamin (Jcr. xxxvii. 13) are identical with
the former and (i. 47 6) he identifies the Porta Sancti Stephani of the Middle Ages
;
with the former, but the Porta Benjamin with the latter. Schulz ("Jerusalem, 1845,"
p. 51) believes the Porta Sancti Stephani to be the modern Herod's Gate, while he con-
siders the Damascus Gate to be the old Gate of Ephraim, and transfers the Porta Ben-
jamin to the east side of the city. He suggests that the Arabic name of Herod's Gate,
" Babez-Zahari "
the Gate of Flowers " may be a translation of the Greek 'Lrt^avog.
See Kicpert's map, which accompanies his Memoir.
There is a legend that St. Mary was standing on a rock on the other side of the
'
valley. An old traveller says, describing the descent of the Mount of Olives, " In
y way they shew'd us y rock whereon o' Lady stood when she saw St. Steven ston'd
to death." Below is He adds, "
the Garden of Gethsemane. little beyond they A
Bhew'd us y^ rock where Steven was ston'd to death proceeding towards Damas-
St. ;
cus gate on y right hand of y way, is Jeremiah's grotto, where he compos'd big
Lamentations, &c." E. Chaloner's Travels in 1G88, a MS. in the possession of the
Duke of Sutherland.
' See Dent. xvii. 5 -7. The stoning was always outside the city, Levit. xxiv. 1 i.
1 Kings xxi. 10, 13. For the forms and regulations at the execution, as ennmeratod by
the Talmudists, see Otho, Lexicon Rabbinicum, sub voc. Lapidatio.
3 The Christian use of the word fiuprvp begins with St. Stephen. See Mr. Humphry's
note on Acts xxii. 20. " Thy martyr Stephen," &c.
* Miletus (Acts xx. 3G), and at Tyre (Acts xxi. 5). See Acts ix. 40.
At
Vicente Joannes, the founder of the Valencian school, one of the most austere ol
6
khe grave and serious painters of Spain. The picture is one of a series on St. Stephen ^
. MOTE ON THE LIBERTINES. T5
his death from a sincere, though mistaken, conviction of duty ; and the
expression of his countenance is -strongly contrasted with the rage of the baf-
fled Jewish doctors and the ferocity of the crowd who flock to the scene of
bloodshed. Literally considered, such a representation is scarcely consistent
either with Saul's conduct immediately afterwards, or with his own expres-
sions concerning himself at the later periods of his life.^ But the picture,
according to the true idea of his art in throwing upon the persecutor's
countenance the shadow of his coming repentance. We cannot dissociate
the martyrdom of Stephen from the conversion of Paul. The spectacle of
hardly too much to say with Augustine,* that " the Church owes Paul to
the prayer of Stephen."
Note on the " Libertines " and the " Citizenship of St. Pauiy
Since this chapter was sent to press, the writer has seen Wieseler'a
Chronologic des Apostolischen Zeitalters (Gottingen, 1848) ; a work of
which both the text and the notes are of great importance. Dr. Wieseler
argues (note, pp. 61-63) that St. Paul was probably a Cilician Liherti-
nus. Great numbers of Jews had been made slaves in the civil wars, and
then manumitted. A slave manumitted with due formalities became a
Roman citizen. Now we find St. Paul taking an active part in the perse-
cution of Stephen ; and the verse which describes Stephen's great oppo
nents,=' may be so translated as to mean " Libertines " from " Cyrene,
Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia." Thus it is natural to conclude that the
Apostle, with other Cilician Jews, may have been, like Horace, " libertino
patre natus." ^ The two passages from Tacitus and Philo, which prove
how numerous the Jewish Libertini were in the empire, will come under
notice hereafter, in connection with Rome.
it was once in .the church of St. Stephen at Valencia, and is now in the Royal Gfillsr|
at Madrid. See Stirling's Annals of the Artists of Spain, i. 363.
1 See Acts xxii. 4. xxvi. 10. Phil. iii. 6. 1 Tim. i. 13.
' Sermo I & lY. in festo sancti Stephani.
8 Acts Ti, 9 4 Sat. i. 6, 45.
CHAPTEE nr..
eluding verses of the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles ? And
the brightness which invests the scene of the martyr's last moments is the
more impressive from its contrast with all that has preceded it since the
Crucifixion of Christ. The first Apostle who died was a traitor. The
first disciples of the Christian Apostles whose deaths are recorded were
liars and hypocrites. The kingdom of the Son of Man was founded Id
darkness and gloom. But a heavenly light reappeared with the martyr-
dom of St. Stephen. The revelation of such a character at the moment
of death was the strongest of all evidences, and the highest of all encour-
agements. Nothing could more confidently assert the divine power of the
now rehgion ;
nothing could prophesy more surely the certainty of its final
victory.
and who can look back, through a long series of martyrdoms, to this,
which was the beginning and example of the rest, these thoughts are easy
and obvious ; but to the friends and associates of the murdered Saint,
such feelings of cheerful and confident assurance were perliaps more difli-
cult. Though Christ was indeed risen from the dead, His disciples could
hardly yet be able to realize the full triumph of the Cross over deatli
;
SAULS PEKSECUTIOl^. 77
Even manj years afterwards, Paul the Apostle wrote to the Thessalomaiis
concerning those who had " fallen asleep" ^ more peaceably than Stephen,
that they ought not to sorrow for them as those without hope : and now,
at the very beginning of the Gospel, the grief of the Christians must
have been great indeed, when the corpse of their champion and their
brother lay at the feet of Saul the murderer.'* Yet, amidst the consterna*
tion of some and the fury of others, friends of the martyr were found,^ who
gave him all the melancholy honours of a Jewish funeral, and carefully
buried him,'* as Joseph buried his father, " with great and sore lamenta-
5
tion."
After the death and burial of Stephen the persecution still raged in
Jerusalem. That temporary protection which had been extended to the
rising sect by such men as Gamaliel was now at an end. Phariseea
and Sadducees ^priests and people alike indulged the most violent and
ungovernable fury. It does not seem that any check was laid upon them
by the Roman authorities. Either the procurator was absent from the
Hellenistic Jews, and possibly Christians. (See Luke ii. 25. Acts ii. 5.) Hammond
(on X. 2) thinks they were proselytes.
4 'EvvEKofiiGav. viii. 2. We are told by Baronius, on the authority of Lucian, a
presbyter of Jerusalem, that Gamaliel, as a secret Christian, sent a number of Christiana
to remove the body of Stephen, and to bury it at his villa, twenty miles from Jerusa-
lem, and that he made lamentation over him seventy days. Not to dwell on the un-
trustworthiness of Lucian's letter, known only in the Latin translation of Avitus (and
Baronius says, "quinam fuerit Avitus iste hand penitus dixerim"), it should be
observed that such a funeral is very inconsistent with all the other occurrences at the
time. The whole story is very curious, and will be found in under the year
vol. vii.,
415, a year remarkable as the time when " magnus ille protomartyr StephanuS rursua
in miraculis redivivus apparuit." Gamaliel appeared to Lucian in a vision by night
and, besides recounting the funeral of Stephen, told how he had protected Nicodemua
at the same villa till his death, when he was buried in the same tomb, as also ultimately
Gamaliel himself, with his son Abibus, his wife and his eldest son being buried else-
where, for they were not Christians. The relics were duly found and au-thenticated by
miracles, in the presence of John, Bishop of Jerusalem, who came from that Synod of
DiospoHs (Lydda) where Pelagius retracted his errors. The day which commemorates
this in the Martyrologium Romanum is August 3 see the notes under that day.
; The
story will be found also in Photius, clxxi. col. 383-6 (Rouen, 1653), and in Bede,
Retract, in Acts v. 34.
* 'ETZGLTjaavTo KOTTETdv /xsyav 7r' avrC) ; see Gen. 1. 10. Chrysostom remarks that
his own beautiful words are his best epitaph 'iKavdv avru linTd^iov dtE^rjWev 6 hay-
ye?uaT7jc, Koi &eig rci yovara sItzuv, k. t. 1. Hom. xviii. in Act. Baronius, under tha
year 34 (vol. i.), where the same story is told more briefly, argues from it in favour of
the opinion that sumptuous and prolonged honours ought to be paid to the remains of
martyrs. See Jerome as there quoted.
78 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
The eminent and active agent in this persecution was Saul. There are
strong grounds for believing that, if he was not a member of the Sanhedrin
at the time of St. Stephen's death, he was elected into that powerful sen-
ate soon after ;
possibly as a reward for the zeal he had shown against the
heretic. He himself says that in Jerusalem he not only exercised the
power of imprisonment by commission from the High Priests, but also,
when the Christians were put to death, gave his vote against them.* From
this expression it is natural to infer that he was a member of that supreme
court of judicature. However this might be, his zeal in conducting the
1 KarijveyKa ipTi(l)ov. (Acts xxvi. 10.) If this inference is well founded, and if the
qualification for a member of the Sanhedrin mentioned in the last chapter (page 71)
was a necessary qualification, Saul must have been a married man, and the father of a
family. If so, it is probable that his wife and children did not long survive ;
for other-
wise, some notice of them would have occurred in the subsequent narrative, or some
allusion to them in the Epistles. And we know that, if ever he had a wife, she was
not living when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians. (1 Cor. vii.) It was cus-
tomary among the Jews to marry at a very early age. See Buxt. Syn. Jud. ch. vL
Acts viii. 3. See ix. 2. 3 xxvi. 9, 10. See xxii. 3. i
me:i and women " (xxii. 4); " and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against
them." (xxvi. 10.)
7 'KvayKa^ov l3?iaa(j)T}fielv. (Acts xxvi. 11.) It is not said that he t^ucceeded in
causing any to blaspheme. It may be necessary to explain to some readers that the
Greek imperfect merely denotes that the attempt was made ; bo in Gal. i. 23, alluded t4
and wide. Damascus Ananias had heard " how much evil hs
Even at ^
without reason that, in the deep repentance of his later years, he remem-
bered how he had persecuted the Church of God and wasted how
it," ^
The moment of lowest depression was the very time of the Church's first
received that Gospel, which the Jews attempted to destroy. Thus did the
providence of God begin to accomplish, by unconscious instruments, the
prophecy and command which had been given :
" Ye shall be witnesses
unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judeea, and in Samaria, and unto
^
the uttermost part of the earth."
The Jew looked upon the Samaritan as he looked upon the Gentile.
His hostility to the Samaritan was probably the greater, in proportion as
into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye
not but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." ^ Yet did
:
the Saviour give anticipative hints of His favour to Gentiles and Samari-
tans, in His mercy to the Syrophenician woman, and His interview with
the woman at the well of Sychar. And now the time was come for both
the " middle walls of partition " to be destroyed. The dispersion brought
Philip, the companion of Stephen, the second of the seven, to a city of
Samaria . '0 He came with the power of miracles and with the news of sal-
vation. The Samaritans were convinced by what they saw they hstened ;
to what he said and there was great joy in that city." When the news
;
came to Jerasalem, Peter and John were sent by the Apostles, and iht
same miraculous testimony attended their presence, which had been given
on the day of Pentecost. The Divine Power in Peter rebuked the powers
of evil, which were working ^ among the Samaritans in the person of Simon
Magus, as Paul afterwards, on his first preaching to the Gentiles, rebuked
in Cyprus Elymas the sorcerer. The two Apostles returned to Jerusalem,
preaching as they went "in many villages of the Samaritans" the Gospel
which had been welcomed in the city.
under his roof in that city one who, like himself, had travelled in obedience
from the border of Arabia near Gaza, to its border near Damascus.
" From Dan to Beersheba " the Gospel is rapidly spreading. The disper-
sion of the Christianshad not been confined to Judaea and Samaria. " On
the persecution that arose about Stephen " they had " travelled as far as
Phoenicia and Syria." " Saul, yet breathing out threatenmgs and slaugh-
1 JlpovrrTipxev. (Acts viii. 9.) Simon was in Samaria before Philip came, as Elymaa
was with Sergius Paulus before the arrival of St. Paul. Compare viii. 9-24, with xiii.
6-12. There is good reason for beheving that Simon Magus is the same person men-
tioned by Josephus (Ant. xx. 7, 2), as connected with Fehx and Drusilla. See Acts
Tdv. 24.
' See some remarks on the words avrrj ectIv Iprjfiog in Greswell's Dissertations, vol.
i. pp. 177-180.
3 Candace is the name, not of an individual, but of a dynasty, like Aretas in
Arabia, or like Pharaoh and Ptolemy. meant Meroe on the Upper
By Ethiopia is
Nile. Queens of Meroe with the title of Candace are mentioned by Dio Cass. liv. 5,
Strabo, xviii. Plin. H. N. vi. 29, 35. See also Euseb. H. E. ii. 1. Probably thia
chambe.'lain was a Jew. See Olshausen.
4 Ps. ixviii. 31.
5 "But Philip was found at Azotus ;
and, passing through, he preached in all the
cities, till he came to Czesarea." (Acts viii. 40.) " And the next day we that were of
Paul's company departed, and came to Caesarea and we entered into the house ; of
Philip the Evangelist, which was one of the seven, aiid abode with him." (xxi. 8.)
6 Acts xi. 19.
ABETA8, KING OF PERSIA. SI
ter against the disciples of the Lord," ^ determined to follow tbern. " Being
He went of his own accord to the high priest, and desired of him letters to
stances in the political condition of Damascus at this time, which may have
given facilities to conspiracies or deeds of violence conducted by the J ews.
There was war between Aretas, who reigned at Petra, the desert-metrop-
olis of Stony Arabia,^ and Herod Antipas, his son-in-law, the Tetrarch of
Galilee. A misunderstanding concerning the boundaries of the two prin-
cipalities had been aggravated into an inveterate quarrel by Herod's un-
faithfulness to the daughter of the Arabian king, and his shameful attach-
ment to "his brother Philip's wife." The Jews generally sympathised
with the cause of Aretas, rejoiced when Herod's army was cut off, and
declared that this disaster was a judgment for the murder of John the
Baptist. Herod wrote to Bome and obtained an order for assistance from
Yiteliius, the Governor of Syria. But when Yitellius was on his march
through Judsea, from Antioch towards Petra, he suddenly heard of tlie
death of Tiberius ( a. d. 31 ) ; and the Boman army was withdrawn, before tho
war was brought to a conclusion. It is evident that the relations of th
neighbouring powers must have been for some years in a very unsettled
1 Acts ix. 1. " xxvi. 11. 3 xxvi. 12. < ix. 2. & xxii. 5.
6 In mountainous district of Arabia, which had been the scene of the wanderings
this
of the Israelites, and which contained the graves both of Moses and Aaron, the Naba-
thsean Arabs after the time of the Babylonian captivity (or, possibly, the Edomites
before them. See Robinson,, Bib. Res. vol. ii. pp. 557, 573) grew into a civilised
nation, built a great mercantile city at Petra, and were ruled by a line of kings, who
bore the title of " Aretas." The Aretas dynasty ceased in the second century, when
Arabia Petraa became a Roman province under Trajan. In the Roman period, a
great road united Ailah on the Red Sea with Petra, and thence diverged to the left
towards Jerusalem and the ports of the Mediterranean and to the right towards ;
Damascus, in a direction not very different from that of the modern caravan-road
from Damascus to Mecca. This state of things did not last very long. (Compare,
for instance, the Peutingerian Table with the Antonine Itinerary.) The Arabs of
this district fell back into nomadic state. Petra was long undiscovered.
their old
Burckliardt was the first to see it, and Laborde the first to visit it. Now it is well
known to Oriental travellers. Its Rock-theatre and other remains still exist, to
show its ancient character of a city of the Roman Empire. See Mannert's Geographic
der G. und R. pt. vi. vol. i. pp. 133-138. For notices of the difierent kings who hme
the name of " Aretas," see "Winer's Realworterbuch.
VOL. I. @
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
condition along the frontiers of Arabia, Judaea, and Syria and the falling ;
of a rich border-town like Damascus from the hands of the Romans into
those of Aretas would be a natural occurrence of the war. If it could be
proved that the city was placed in the power of the Arabian Ethnarch ^
under these particular circumstances, and at the time of St. Paul's journey,
good reason would be assigned for believing it probable that the ends for
which he went were assisted by the political relations of Damascus. And
it would indeed be a singular coincidence, if his zeal in persecuting the
Christians were promoted by the sympathy of the J ews for the fate of
Roman power would have been an act of great audacity ; and it is diffi-
cult to believe that Yitellius would have closed the campaign, if such a
city was in the hands of an enemy. It is more likely that Caligula, who
in many ways contradicted the policy of his predecessor, who banished
Herod Antipas and patronised Herod Agrippa, assigned the city of Da-
mascus as a free gift to Aretas.'* This supposition, as well as the former,
will perfectly explain the remarkable passage in St. Paul's letters, where
he distinctly says that it was garrisoned by the Ethnarch of Aretas, at the
time of his escape. Many such changes of territorial occupation took
place under the Emperors,^ which would have been lost to history, were it
not for the information derived from^ a coin, an inscription, or the inciden-
tal remark of a writer who had different ends in view. Any attempt to
make this escape from Damascus a fixed point of absolute clironology will
be unsuccessful ;
but, from what has been said, it may fairly be collected,
2 Cor. xi. 32.
"
This is argued with great force by Wieseler, who, so far as we know, is the first to
suggest this explanation. His argument is not quite conclusive because it is seldom ;
easy to give a confident opinion on the details of a campaign, unless its history is
minutely recorded. The strength of Wieseler's argument consists in this, that his
different lines of reasoning converge to the same result. See his " Chronologic des
Apostolischen Zeitalters," pp. 161-175 ;
and compare pp. U-2-3, and the note.
3 See, for instance, what is said by Josephus (Ant. xviiL 5, 4) of various arrange-
ments in the East at this very crisis. Similar changes in Asia Minor have been alluded
to before, Ch. I. p. 23.
4 Wieseler justly lays some stress on the circumstance that there are coins of Augus-
tus and Tiberius, and, again, of Nero and his successors, but none of Caligula and
Claudius, which imply that Damascus was Roman. But we cannot acquiesce in the
conclusion which he draws from the coin of Mionnet, w'th the inscription BA2IAEflS
APETOT ^>IAEAAHN02.
It seems to be one of those coins with this inscription
(two of which are in the British Museum, and one is represented at the end of thia
chapter), assigned by Eckhel to an earlier Aretas, who was contemporary with the last
of the Soleucida;, and in whose power we know that Damascus once was, (See
Joseph. Alt. xiii. 13, 3. B. J. i. 6, 2, and Wieseler, p. 169.) The general appearance
and character of these coins justifies Eckhel'B opinion, and it is difficult to explain ih
U'ord ^i^eAA^yi/of on the other supposition
EOADS FROM JERUSALEM TO DAMASCUS. S3
that SauFs journey from Jerusalem to Damascus took place not far from
ihat year wliich saw the death of Tiberius and the accession of Caligula.
No journey was ever taken, on which so much interest is concentrated,
as this of St. Paul from Jerusalem to Damascus.^ It is so critical a
lighted to dwellupon it, and we are eager to learn or imagine all its details.
The conversion of Saul was like the call of a second Abraham. But we
know almost more of the Patriarch's journey through this same district,
from the north to the south, than we do of the Apostle's in an opposite
direction. It is easy to conceive of Abraham travelling with his flocks
and herds and camels. The primitive features of the East continue still
"We neither know how he travelled, nor who his associates were, nor where
he rested on his way, nor what road he followed from ihf Judaean to the
Syrian capital.
His journey must have brought him somewhere into the vicinity of the
the scene of none of those transactions which are related in the Acts. The
blue waters of Tiberias, with their fishing-boats and towns on the brink of
the shore, are consecrated to the Gospels. A greater than Paul was here.
When we come to the travels of the Apostles, the scenery is no longer
limited and Jewish, but Cathohc and widely-extended, like the Gospel
Damascus and Palmyra Fisher's Syria The Modern Traveller The Crescent and the
; ; ;
Eastern Life. The two last, in other respects the most unsatis&ctory, give the best
idea of a journey from Jerusalem to Damascus.
* In pictures, St. Paul is represent'ed as on horseback on this journey. Probably this
IS the reason why Lord Lyttelton, In his observations on St. Paul's conversion, uses the
phrase " Those in company with him fell down from their horses, together with
Saul." p. 318. (Works, 1774.) There is no proof that this was the case, though it if
very probable.
84 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUI..
which they preached : and the Sea, which will be so often spread befort
as in the life of St. Paul, will not be the little Lake of Galilee, but the
great Mediterranean, which washed the shores and carried the ships of the
historical nations of antiquity.'
trance of Galilee ; and Saul and his company may have travelled by this
route, performing the journey of one hundred and thirty-six miles, like the
modern caravans, in about six days.^ But at this period, that great work
of Roman road-making, which was actively going on in all parts of the
empire, must have excended, in some degree, to Syria and Judsea ;
and,
if the Boman roads were already constructed here, there is no doubt that
they followed the direction indicated by the later Itineraries.'* This direc-
tion is from Jerusalem to Neapolis (the ancient Sychar), and thence over
the Jordan to the south of the Lake, near Scythopolis, where the soldiers
of Pompey crossed the river, and where the Galilean pilgrims used to cross
it at the time of the festivals, to avoid Samaria. From Scythopolis it led
to Gadara, a Boman city, the ruins of which are still remaining, and so to
Damascus.^
Whatever road was followed in Saul's journey to Damascus, it is almost
certain that the earlier portion of it brought him to Neapolis, the Sychar
of the Old Testament, and the Nablous of the modern Samaritans. This
city was one of the stages in the Itineraries. Dr. Bobinson followed a
1 The next historical notice of the sea of Tiberius or Gennesareth, after that which
occurs in the Gospels, is in Josephus.
' See the following passages in Dr. Robinson's Researches, vol. iii., pp. 181, 236,
276, 316.
3 See Fisher's Syria, i. 7.
NEAP0LI8.
Bethel.^ This northern road went over the elevated ridges which inter*
vene between the valley of the Jordan and the plain on the Mediterraneat
coast. As the travellers gained the high ground, the young Pharisee may
have looked back, when he saw the and, city in the midst of its hills,
between Ebal and Gerizim. This, too, is the scene of a Gospel history.
The same woman, with whom J esus spoke, might be again at the well as
But as yet he knew nothing of the breaking down
the Inquisitor passed.
of the "middle wall of partition." ^ He could, indeed, have said to the
Samaritans : "Ye know not what we know what we wor-
worship ye :
in Jerusalem, nor yet in this mountain, worship the Father : the true wor-
shippers shall worship Him in spirit and in truth."^ His was not yet the
spirit of Christ. The zeal which burnt in him was that of James and
John, before their illumination, when they wished to call down fire from
heaven, even as Elias did, on the inhospitable Samaritan village.^ Philip
had already been preaching to the poor Samaritans, and John had revisited
them, in company with Peter, with feelings wonderfully changed.' But
Saul knew nothing of the little Church of Samaritan Christians ;
or, if he
heard of them and hngered among them, he lingered only to injure and
oppress. The Syrian city was still the great object before him. And
now, when he had passed through Samaria and was entering Galilee, the
snowy peak of Mount Hermon, the highest point of Antihbanus, almost
as far to the north as Damascus, would come into vievf. This is that
tower of " Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus."^ It is already the
great landmark of his journey, as he passes through Galilee towards the
Lake of Tiberias, and the valley of the Jordan.
Leaving now the " sea of Galilee," deep among its hills, as a sanctuary
of the holiest thoughts, and imagining the Jordan to be passed, we follow
the company of travellers over the barren uplands, which stretch in dreary
J
Researches, iii. 7". John xvi. 2. 3 Eph. ii. 14.
* John iv. 22. s ibj^. 21, 23. 6 Lake ix. 51-66.
See above, p. 80. s gong of So? vii 4
succession along the base of Antilibanus. All around are stony liills and
thirsty plains, through which the withered stems of the scanty yegetation
liardly penetrate. Over this desert, under the burning sky, the impetuous
Saul holds his course, full of the fiery zeal with which Elijah travelled of
yore, on his mysterious errand, through the same " wilderness of Damas-
cus." ' " The earth in its length and its breadth, and all the deep universe
of sky, is steeped in light and heat." When some eminence is gained, the
vast horizon is seen stretching on all sides, like the ocean, without a boun-
dary ;
except where the steep sides of Lebanon interrupt it, as the pro-
montories of a mountainous coast stretch out into a motionless sea. The
fiery sun is overhead ; and that refreshing view is anxiously looked for,
Damascus seen from afar, within the desert circumference, resting like an
island of Paradise, in the green enclosure of its beautiful gardens
COIN OF DAMASCUS.'
of his warlike expedition in the rescue of Lot was " Hobah, which is on
the left hand of Damascus." ^ How important a place it was in the flour-
ishing period of tho Jewish monarchy, we know from the garrisons which
David placed there,' and from the opposition it presented to Solomon.
1 1 Kings xix. 15.
" The word IlHrAI, " fountains," on this coin should be particularly noticed. The
cast was obtained from Paris by the kindness of Mr. Akemian.
3 Josephus raakeo it even older than Abraham. (Ant. 6, 3.) For the traditiona i.
The history of Naaman and the Hebrew captive, Elisha and Gehazi, and
of the proud preference of its fresh rivers to the thirsty waters of Israel,
are familiar to every one. And how close its relations continued to be
with the Jews, we know from the chronicles of Jeroboam and Ahaz, and
the prophecies of Isaiah and Amos.^ Its mercantile greatness is indicated
by Ezekiel in the remarkable words addressed to Tyre,^ " Syria was th;^
linen, and coral, and agate. Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude
of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches ; in the wine of
Ilelbon, and white wool."^ Leaving the Jewish annals, we might follow
its history through continuous centuries, from the time when Alexander
sent Parmenio to take it, while the conqueror himself was marching from
Tarsus to Tyre,"" to its occupation by Pompey,^ to the letters of Julian
the Apostate, who describes it as "the eye of the East,"^ and onward
through its golden days, when it was the residence of the Ommiad Caliphs,
and the metropolis of the Mahomedan world, and through the period
when its fame was mingled with that of Saladin and Tamerlane, to our
own days, when the praise of its beauty is celebrated by every traveller
from Europe. It is evident, to use the words of Lamartine, that, liko
Greek writers the stream is called Chrysorrlioas/ or " the river of goid.^
And this stream is the inestunable unexhausted treasure of Damascus.
The habitations of men must always have been gathered around it, as the
Vile has inevitably attracted an immemorial population to its banks. The
desert is a fortification round Damascus. The river is its life. It ia
drawn out into watercourses, and spread in all directions. For miles
around it is a wilderness of gardens, gardens with roses among the
tangled shrubberies, and with fruit on the branches overhead. Every
where among the trees the murmur of unseen rivulets is heard. Even in
the city, which is in the midst of the garden, the clear rushing of the
current is a perpetual refreshment. Every dwelling has its fountain : and
at night, when the sun has set behind Mount Lebanon, the hghts of the
city are seen flashing on the waters.
It is not to be wondered at that the view of Damascus, when the dim
outline of the gardens has become distinct, and the city is seen gleaming
white in the midst of them, should be universally famous. All travellers
in all ages have paused to feast their eyes with the prospect ; and the
prospect has been always the same. It is true that in the Apostle's day
there were no cupolas and no minarets : Justinian had not built St.
Sophia, and the caliphs had erected no mosques. But the white buildings
of the city gleamed then, as they do now, in the centre of a verdant inex-
haustible paradise. The Syrian gardens, with their low walls and water-
wheels, and careless mixture of fruits and flowers, were the same then as
they are noi7. The same figures would be seen in the green approaches
to the town, camels and mules, horses and asses, with Syrian peasants, and
Arabs from beyond Palmyra. We know the very time of the day when
Saul was entering these shady avenues. It was at mid-day,'^ the birds
were silent in the trees. The hush of noon was in the city. The sun was
burning fiercely in the sky. The persecutor's companions were enjoying
the cool refreshment of the shade after their journey : and his eyes rested
with satisfaction on those walls which were the end of his mission, and con-
tained the victims of his righteous zeal.
We have been tempted into some prolixity in describing Damascus.
But, in describing the solemn and miraculous event which took place in its
re to be found both in the older and later travellers. Irby aixd Man/j;les say it ia
*
outside the eastern gate and in the Boat and Caravan it is described afi ^' about a
ule from the town, and near the Christian burying-ground wWc^ beloug-i ih4
Armenians."
Luke (ix.), twice by the Apostle himself, ^in his address to his country-
men at Jerusalem (xxii.), ^in his defence before Agrippa at Csesarea
(xxvi.). And as, when the same thing is told in more than one of the
Holy Gospels, the accounts do not verbally agree, so it is here. St. Luke
is more brief than St. Paul. And each of St. Paul's statements supplies
something not found in the other. The peculiar difference of these two
statements, in their relation to the circumstances under which they were
given, and as they illustrate the Apostle's wisdom in pleading the cause
of the Gospel and reasoning with his opponents, will be made the subject
of some remarks in the later chapters of this book. At present it is our
natural course simply to gather the facts from the Apostle's own words,
with a careful reference to the shorter narrative given by St. Luke.
In the twenty-second and twenty-sixth chapters of the Acts we are
told that it was " about noon " " at mid-day " when the " great light ''
shone ''suddenly" from heaven (xxii. 6, xxvi. 13). And those who
have had experience of the glare of a mid-day sun in the East, will best
understand the description of that light, which is said to have been " a
light above the brightness of the sun, shining round about Paul and them
that journeyed with him." All fell to the ground in terror (xxvi. 14), or
stood dumb with amazement Suddenly surrounded by a light so
(ix. 1).
terrible and incomprehensible, " they were afraid." " They heard not the
voice of Him that spake to Paul" (xxii. 9), or, if they heard a voice,
*'
they saw no man" (ix. 1).^ The whole scene was evidently one of the
utmost confusion : and the accounts are such as to express, in the most
striking manner, the bewilderment and alarm of the travellers.
But while the others were stunned, stupified and confused, a clear
light broke terribly on the soul of one of those who were prostrated pn the
ground.^ A voice spoke articulately to him, which to the rest was a
sound mysterious and indistinct. He heard what they did i^t hear. He
^ It has been thought both more prudent and more honest to leave these well-known
discrepancies exactly as they are found in the Bible. They will be diflferently explained
by difterent readers, according to their views of the inspiration of Scripture. Those
who do not receive the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration will find in these discrepancies a
confirmation of the general truth of the narrative. Those who lay stress on this
doctrine may fairly be permitted to suppose that the stupified companions of Saul fell
to the ^cund and then rose, and that they heard the voice but did not understand it
Much has been written on this subject by the various commentators.
* from Acts ix. 6,
It is evident 8, xxv^i. 16, that Saul was prostrate on the ground
*
when Jesus Christ spoke to him.
saw what they did not see. To them the awful sound was without a
meaning : he heard the voice of the Son of God. To them it was a bright
light which suddenly surrounded them : he saw Jesus, whom he was per*
secuting. The awful dialogue can only be given in the language of Scrip-
ture Yet we may reverentially observe that the words which Jesua
spoke were " in the Hebrew tongue." The same language/ in which,
during His earthly life, He spoke to Peter and John, to the blind man by
the walls of Jericho, to the woman who washed His feet with her tears
the same sacred language was used when He spoke from heaven to His
persecutor on earth. And as on earth He had always spoken in parables,
so it was now. That voice which had drawn lessons from the lilies that
grew and from the birds that flew over the mountain slopes
in Galilee,
near the sea of Tiberias, was now pleased to call His last Apostle with a
figure of the like significance :
" Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?
It is hard for thee to kick against the goad." As the ox rebels in vain
against the goad ^ of its master, and as all its struggles do nought but
increase its distress so is thy rebellion vain against the power of my
grace. T have admonished thee by the word of my truth, by the death
of my saints, by the voice of thy conscience.^ Struggle no more against
conviction, " lest a worse thing come unto thee."
It is evident that this revelation was not merely an inward impression
made on the mind of Saul during a trance or ecstacy. It was the direct
perception of the visible presence of Jesus Christ. This is asserted in vari-
ous passages, both positively and incidentally. In his first letter to the
Corinthians, when he contends for the validity of his own apostleship, his
argument is, " Am I not an Apostle ? Have I not seen Jesus Christ, the
Lord ? " And when he adduces the evidence for the truth of the Eesur-
rection, his argument is again, " He was seen .... by Cephas .... by
James .... by all the Apostles .... last of all by me ... as one born .
out of due time " (xv. 8 ) . By Cephas and by James at Jerusalem the reality
of Saul's conversion was doubted ;
= but " Barnabas brought him to the
1 It is only said in one account (xxvi. 14) that Jesus Christ spoke in Hebrew. But
this appears incidentally in the other accounts from the Hebrew form I.aovX being
used (ix. 4, xxi^ 8). In ix. 1, 8, &c., it is the Greek I,avXoc, a difference which is not
noticed in the English translation. So Ananias (whose name is Ai'amaic) seems to
have addressed Saul in Hebrew, not Greek, (ix. 17. xxii. 13.)
' The KevTpov, or stimulus, is the goad or sharp-pointed pole, which in southern
Europe and in the Levant is seen in the hands of those who are ploughing or driving
cattle. The words oK'kripov col vrpdc Kevrpa XaKTi^eiv, in ix. 5, are an interpolation
from xxvi. 14. They are in the Vulgate, but not in the Greek MSS. For instances o^
this proverb, which is very frequent both in Greek and Latin writers, see Wett<nn.
3 " Pupugi te stimulis miraculorum, prajdicationis Stephani aliorumquc, remorsibua
conscientiao et inspirationibus internis. Alios adhibebo stimulos sed acriores et majfW
danmo tuo." Tirinus in Poole's Synopsis.
4 1 Cor. ix. 1. * * Acts ix. 27.
; .
Apostles, aud related to them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and had
spoken with him." And similarly Ananias had said to him at their firsi
meeting in Damascus ;
" The Lord hath sent me, even Jesus who appeared
to thee in the way as thou camest " (ix. 11). " The God of our fathers hath
chosen thee that thou shouldest see that just one, and shouldest hear the
voice of his mouth" (xxii. 14). The very words which were spoken by
the Saviour, imply the same important truth. He does not say,^ " I am
the Son of God the Eternal Word the Lord of men and of angels : "
but, "I am Jesus" (ix. 5, xxvi. 15), "Jesus of Nazareth" (xxii. 8). "I
am that man, whom not having seen thou hatest, the despised prophet of Isa-
zareth, who was mocked and crucified at Jerusalem, who died and was buried.
But now I appear to thee, that thou mayest know the truth of my Resurrec-
tion, that I may convince thee of thy sin, and call thee to be my Apostle."
The direct and immediate character of this call, without the interven-
tion of any human agency, is another point on which St. Paul himself, in
the course of his apostolic life, laid the utmost stress ; and one, therefore,
which it is incumbent on us to notice here. "A called Apostle," "an
Apostle by the will of God," * " an Apostle sent not from men, nor by
man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the
dead " ; ^ these are the phrases under which he describes himself, in the
eases where his authority was in danger of being questioned. "No human
instrumentality intervened, to throw the slightest doubt upon the reality
of the communication between Christ Himself and the Apostle of the
Heathen. And, a^ he was directly and miraculously called, so was the work
1 Aiart [irj elirev, syu elfii 6 Yidg rov Qeov; ey6 eI/lll 6 h
dpxy Aoyog' ey6 elfzi 6 h
Se^Lu Kadjj/j,evoc rov Jlarpog '
6 ev fcop^j Qeov vKdpxo)v 6 rov ovpavbv rscvag 6 ttjv
*
yrjv epyacufievog ' 6 ttjv -QaXaTrav dnTiuoag ' 6 rovg 'Ayyi2,ovg Tvolrjaag ' 6 navraxov
Jittpuv Koi rd nuvra TzTiTjpQv ' 6 npouv koI yevvijOeig ; diari [iri elne tcL aefivd ekeIvu koI
ueyaka kol vip7]Xu
dAA' " iy6 eifiL 'lijaovt, 6 JSa^opalogy bv ai) SiuKeig " and rr/g kuto) '
TcoTiEug, dno rov kutu x^^^oy Kal rov ronov Siort ijyvoEL avrbv 6 diuKuv eI yap ydEL ; '
avrbv, ovk dv idiu^Ev ' ijyvo^i ort ek rov Jlarpog 7]v yEvvrjdELg
on 6i uTrd ISa^ap^r
^6cL' eI ovv eIttev avro), 'Ey6 Elfit 6 Tlog rov Qeov' 6 ev dpxy Aoyog' 6 rov ovpavbv
TTotTjaag, eIxev eItteIv, dXlog re eKelvog, Kal aXkov iy{^> 6l6k<j> '
el slitev avrQ EKElva rd
fiEyd?.a Kal lafiirpd Kal vipT]2,d, eIxev eirrelv, ovk Eoriv ovrog 6 aravpudEig
aXX! Iva
uddy on ekelvov Siukei rbv aapKodsvra, rbv fj.op(f>7]v dovTiov XafSovra, rov /xEr' avro-S
cvvavaarpa^Evra, rbv dnoOavovra, rbv ra^Evra, drtb rov Kara x^poov, TieyEL " syu sijui '
himself in the Epistles addressed to those who were most firmly attached to him. They
are found in the letters to the Christians of Achaia, but not in those to the Christians
of Macedonia. (See 1 Thess. i. 1. 2 Thess. i. 1. Phil. L 1.) And though in the
Ephesians and Colossians, not in that to Philemon, which
letters to the is beheved U
have been sent at the mme time. See Philemon, 1.
3 Ovk dTT* dvSpuTTU'j, ovd^ 6l' dvOpunov. Gal. L 1.
92 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Btand upon thy feet ; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to
make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast
seen, and of those things in which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee
from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to
open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the
power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me."
But the full intimation of all the labours and sufferings that were be-
fore him was still reserved. He was told to arise and go into the city,
and there it should be told him what it had been ordained * that he should
do. He arose humbled and subdued, and ready to obey whatever might
be the will of Him who had spoken to him from heaven. But when he
opened his eyes, all was dark around him. The brilliancy of the vision
had made him blind. Those who were with him saw, as before, the trees
and the sky, and the road leading into Damascus. But he was in dark-
ness, and they led him by the hand into the city. Thus entered Saul into
Three days the blindness continued. Only one other space of three
days' duration can be mentioned of equal importance in the history of the
world. The conflict of Saul's feelings was so great, and his remorse so
piercing and so deep, that during this time he neither ate nor drank.^ He
could have no communion with the Christians, for they had been terrified
by the news of his approach. And the unconverted Jews could have no
true sympathy with his present state of mind. He fasted and prayed in
1 Epli. iii. 8. See Rom. xi. 13. xv. IG. Gal. ii. 8. 1 Tim. ii. 7. 2 Tim. i. 11, &c
Acts xxvi. 15-18.
It did not fall in with Paul's plan in his speech before Agrippa (xxvi.) to mention.
Ananias, as, in his speech to the Jews at Jerusalem (xxii.) he avoided any explicit men*
tion of the Gentiles, while giving the narrative of his conversion.
'*
KuKel COL AaTiTjdTjaeraL nepl ttuvtcjv uv riraKTal aoi Troir/aat * is the expresfdoo
in his own speech, (xxii. 10.) See ix. 6, and compare xxvi. 16.
6 Acts Lx. 11. 6 ix. 9.
ANANIAB. 93
Scriptures which he had never understood, the thought own of his cru*
crowded into his mind, ai^4 made the three days equal to long years of
repentance. And if we may imagine one feeling above all others to
were found, each waiting to what the Lord would say unto them,
see
this close analogy wiK not be forgotten by those who reverently read the
two consecutive chapters, in which the baptism of Saul and the baptism
of Cornelius are narrated in the Acts of the Apostles.^ ^
^ Acts ix. and x. Compare also xi. 5-18, with xxii. 12-16.
4 See " The Christian Year Monday in Easter Week.
5 See Lord Nugent's remarks on the Jerusalem Bazaar, in his Sacred and ClasriwJ
Itands," vol. iL pp. 40, 41.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
and the house of Judas, and the place of baptism, may possibly be true.*
We
know nothing concerning Ananias, except what we learn from St,
Luke or from St. Paul. He was a Jew who had become a " disciple " of
Christ (ix. 10), and he was well reputed and held to be "devout accord-
ing to the law," among " all the Jews who dwelt there " (xxii. 12). He is
never mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistles ; and the later stories respect-
ing his history are unsupported by proof.' Though he was not ignorant
of the new convert's previous character, it seems evident that he had no
personal acquaintance with him ; or he would hardly have been described
as one called Saul, of Tarsus," lodging in the house of Judas. He was
not an Apostle, nor one of the conspicuous members of the Church. And
it was not without a deep significance,^ that he, who was called to be an
Apostle, should be baptized by one of whom the Church knows nothing,
but that he was a Christian " disciple," and had been a " devout" Jew.
Ananias came into the'house where Saul, faint and exhausted with
three days' abstinence, still remained in darkness. When he laid his hands
on his head, as the vision had foretold, immediately he would be recog-
nised as the messenger of God, even before the words were spoken, " Bro-
ther Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as
thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be
filled with the Holy Ghost." These words were followed, as were the
wc-?ds of Jesus Himself when He spoke to the blind, with an instantaneous
1 See, for instance, some of the older travellers, as Thevenot, parts i. and ii. Maun-
drell (1714), p. 36. Pococke, ii. 119.
' Tradition says that he was one of the seventy disciples, that he was afterwards
Bishop of Damascus, and stoned after many tortures under Licinius (or Lucianus) the
Governor. Augustine says he was a priest at the time Df St. Paul's baptism. CEcuxne-
nius calls him a deacon. His day is kept on Oct. 1, by the Greeks, on Jan. 25, by
the Latins. See the Acta Sanctorum under that day. Baronius (sub anno 35) says
that he had fled from Jerusalem in the persecution of Stephen, and formed a Chilstian
community at Damascus. The Acta ex MS. Grseco in the Acta Sanctorimi make him
go from Antioch to Damascus.
3 Ananias, as Chrysostom says, was not one to)v Kopv^aiav dnoaToluv, because Paul
was not to be taught of men. On the other hand, this very circumstance shows the
importance attached by God to baptism. Olshausen remarks very justly " Hochst
:
wichtig ist hier der Umstand, dass der Apostel Paulus keineswegs bloss vermittelst
dieser wunderbaren Berufung durch den Herrn selbst Glied der Kirche wird, sondern
dass er sich noch taufen lassen muss." He adds that this baptism of Paul by Ananiaa
did not imply any inferiority or dependence, more than in the case of our Lcrd and
John the Baptist.
* See Acts ix. 19
"
BAPTISM OF SAUL.
and he received sight forthwith" (ix. 18) : or, in his own more vivid ex-
pression, " the same hour he looked up on the face of Ananias" (xxii. 13).
It was a face he had never seen before. But the expression of ChristiaD
love assured him of reconciliation with God. He learnt that " the God
of his fathers" had chosen him " to know His will," " to see that Just
One," " to hear the voice of His mouth," to be " His witness unto all
men." ^ He was baptized, and " the rivers of Damascus " became more to
him than " all the waters of Judah " ^ had been. His body was strength-
ened with food ; and his soul was made strong to " suffer great things" for
the name of Jesus, and to bear that Name " before the Gentiles, and
The period of his first teaching at Damascus does not seem to have
lasted long. Indeed it is evident that his life could not have been safe,
had he remamed. The fury of the Jews when they had recovered from
their first surprise must have been excited to the utmost pitch ; and they
would soon have received a new commissioner from Jerusalem armed with
full powers to supersede and punish one whom they must have regarded as
the most faithless of apostates. Saul left the city, but not to return to
^ why the words direTzeaov dnb rdv dcpda^i/xcov avrov doel TiSTztOe^:
It is difiBcult to see
Bliould be considered merely descriptive by Olshausen and others. One of the argu-
ments for taking them literally is the peculiar exactness of St. Luke in speaking on
such subjects. See a paper oa the medical style of St. Luke in the Gentleman's Mag-
ajrlne for June 1841.
'
xxii. 14, 15. 3 Sec 2 Kings v. 12. 4 See Acts ix. 15, 16.
^ ix. 20. Where 'Irjaovv, and not Xptardv, is the true reading. Yerse 22 (otc oirti
tcTiv 6 Xpiarb^) would make this probable, if the authority of the MSS. were not
flecisive.
Many questions have been raised concerning this journey into Arabia.
The first question relates to the meaning of the word. From the time when
the word "Arabia" was used by any of the writers of Greece or
first
Rome,^ it has always been a term of vague and uncertain import. Some-
times it includes Damascus ;
^ sometimes it ranges over the Lebanon itself,
ally reckon that stony district, of which Petra was the capital, as belong-
ing to Egypt, and that wide desert towards the Euphrates, where the
Bedouins of all ages have lived in tents, as belonging to Syria, and have
limited the name to the Peninsula between the Red Sea and the Persiaa
Gulf, where Jemen, or " Araby the Blest," is secluded on the south.^ In
the three-fold division of Ptolemy, which remains in our popular language
when we speak of this still untravelled region, both the first and second
of these districts were included under the name of the third. And we
must suppose St. Paul to have gone into one of the former, either that
which touched Syria and Mesopotamia, or that which touched Palestine
and Egypt. If he went into the first, we need not suppose him to have
travelled far from Damascus. For though the strong powers of Syria
and Mesopotamia might check the Arabian tribes, and retrench the Ara-
bian name in this direction, yet the Gardens of Damascus were on the
verge of the desert, and Damascus was almost as mucn an Arabian as a
Syrian town.
And if he went into Petraean Arabia, there still remains the question
of his motive for the journey, and his employment when there. Either
retiring before the opposition at Damascus, he went to preach the Gospel,
and then, in the synagogues of that singular capital, which was built
amidst the rocks of Edom,*^ whence Arabians " came to the festivals at
Gal. i. 17.
* Herodotus speaks of Syria as the coast of Arabia. T^f ^ApaSlac rd. Ttapd, -d-aldaaav
"LvpioL ve/uovrac. (ii. 12.) Xenophon. in the Anabasis (i. 5) calls a district in Mesopo-
tamia, to the north of Babylonia, by the name of Arabia 5 and I,K7]vlTat "Apadeg are
placed by Strabo (xvi. 1, and xvi. 3) in the same district.
3 'On AauaoKug rrjQ 'ApadLKTjg yrjg rjv koI tarLV, ei Kal vvv Trpoavevefir/rat ry ISdoo-
foiviKiy 7.eyofitvri ov6' vfidv rivig upvijoaadat dvvavrai. Justin Mart. c. Tryph. Jebb^a
ed. 1719, p. 239. "Damascus Arabiae retro deputabatur, antequam transcripta erat in
Syrophoenicem ex distinctione Syriarum." Tcrtull. adv. Marc. iii. 13, and adv. Jud. 9.
turned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness." ^
paring for his varied work by the intuition of Sacred Truth, it seems the
natural place for some reflections on the reality and the momentous signifi-
ca,me a Jew that he might marry the High Priest^s daughter, and then be-
can\e the antagonist of Judaism because the High Priest deceived him.'''
numbers of strangers there. 'Ad7]v66o)pog, dvr)p (^lIogoc^oq koI jj[uv kralpog ....
evpetp sTTLdfjjuovvrag Hrj TcoXkoyjg [ilv ^Fufiatuv, TzoTikovg 61 koI tuv uXXov ^evcjv,
(xvl 4.) la the same paragraph, after describing its chflfe and peculiar situatioa, he
ys that it was distant three or four days' journey from Jericho. See above, p. 81, n. 6.
1 Acts ii. 11. 3 ggg 2 Cor. xi. 32.
3 Luke iv. 1. 4 Gal. i.1. 5 Acts xxi. 19.
' ToiJ TIavXov KarrjyopovvTSQ o^k alax^ovrai ennvXaarocg rial Tolg rdv 'ipevian^
VOL. I.
THE LIFE ANB EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
And there are modern Jews, who are satisfied with saying that hg
changed rapidl}' from one passion to another, like thc^se impetuous souip
who cannot hate or love by halves.^ Can we then say that St. Paul waa
simply an enthusiast or an impostor? The question has been so well an
swered in a celebrated English book,^ ihat we are content to refer to it.
It will never be possible for any to believe St. Paul to have been a mero
enthusiast, who duly considers his calmness, his wisdom, his prudence, and,
above all, his humiUty, a virtue which is not less inconsistent with fanati-
cism than with imposture. And how can we suppose that he was an im-
postor who changed his rehgion for selfish purposes ? Was he influenced
by the ostentation of learnmg ? He suddenly cast aside all that he had
been taught by Gamaliel, or acquired through long years of study, and
took up the opinions of the fishermen of Galilee, whom he had scarcely
ever seen, and who had never been educated in the schools. Was it the
love of power which prompted the change ? He abdicated in a moment
the authority which he possessed, for power " over a flock of sheep driven
to the slaughter, whose Shepherd himself had been murdered a little be-
fore and " all he could hope from that power was to bB marked out in a
particular manner for the same knife, which he had seen so bloodily drawn
against them." Was it the love of wealth ? Whatever might be his own
worldly possessions at the time, he joined himself to those who were cer-
tainly poor, and the prospect before him was that which was actually real-
ised, of ministering to his necessities with the labour of his hands.=^ Waa
it the love of fame ? His prophetic power must have been miraculous, if
he could look beyond the shame and scorn which then rested on the ser-
r6?MV avTuv KaKOvpyotg koI izluvrig Tioyoir -reTTOLTj/nevoir, Tapaia u^v avrbi', ug avTo^
d/uoAoyel kol ovk apvecTaiy Xeyovreg. 'Ei 'KTihjvuv 6^ avrbv VTrondcvrai, AcCovTeg
rrjv -Kpo^aaiv Ik tov tottov did to ^iTidlrif^eg vtv' avTov ^rjdev, on Tapoevg eljui, ovk
da7jfJ.ov TToTiEog ttoXittjc (Acts xxi.) elra (paGKOvaiv avrbv elvai "E/l/lj?va, Koi 'EA/ljy^'idof
fifjTpbg Koi "E/lA^yvof Tcarpbc nalda '
uva&e6r]KEvaL 61 elg lepoa6?^Vfia, Kai xpovov ekcZ
ucfiEvriiihai, t:in-edv/j,7jKevaL 6^ dvyarepa tov iepeug irpbg ydfiov ayaytadai, Kal tovtov
ivcKC TcpocTilvTOv yevtcdat koI TrepiT/iTjbf/i^aL ' eha ixr) yatovra r^v Kopijv dpyicdat
Kal Kard 7TepL-o/j.?/g yeypaipivai, Kal Kara XaSSdrov Kal vo/iodemac. Epiph. ad Hacr. L
2, 16. Below he argues the impossibility of this story from its coutradictioa
in 25,
to Phil. iii. and 2 Cor. xi. Barnabas, though a Cyprian, was a Levite, and why not
Paul a Jew, though a Tarsian ? And are we to believe, he adds, what Ebion says of
Paul, or what Peter says of him. (2 Pet. iii.)?
hts final departure from Damascus, is said to have been " three years,"
ViUIch, according to the Jewish way of reckoning, may have been three
entire years, or only one year with parts of two others. Meantime Saul
had " returned to Damascus, preaching boldly in the name of Jesus." (ix.
2?.) The Jews, being no longer able to meet him in controversy, resorted
qui facit aliquid quod non faceret si nosset." Div. Thorn. Comm. in Paul. Ep. p. 39L
See the note of Estiu5, and especially the following remark " Objectum sen materia :
misericordiae. miseria est unde quando miseria major, tanto magis nata est misericor-
;
diftm commovero." A man is deeply wretched who sins through ignorance 5 and, as
Augustine says, Paul in his unconverted state was like a sick man who through madness
tries to kill his physician.
3 In Acts ix. 23, the time is said to have been " many days." Dr. Paley has observ-
ed in a note on tho Horas Paulinas Old Testament (1
(p. 82) a similar instance in the
Kin.^'s ii. where " many days" is used to denote a space of " three yeai's:"
38, 39.),
" An-1 Saimci dwelt at Jerusalem many days ; aad it came to pass, at the end of threi
years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away." The edition of the Horse Pauli*
use referred to in this work is that of Mr. Tate, entitled " The Continuous History of
due precautions were taken to evade the danger. But the political cir-
J9etween Herod Antipas and the Romans, on one side, and Aretas, King
of Petra, on the other, and possibly in consequence of tlmt absence of
Vitellius,^ which was caused by the emperor's death, the Arabian mon-
arch had made himself master of Damascus, and the Jews, who sympa-
thised with Aretas, were high in the favour of his ofi&cer, the Ethnarch.^
Or Tiberius had ceased to reign, and his successor had assigned Damascus
to the King of Petra, and the J ews had gained
officer and his sol-
over his
diers, as Pilate's soldiers had once been gained over at Jerusalem. St,
Paul at least expressly informs us,^ that " the Ethnarch kept watch over
the city, with a garrison, purposing to apprehend him." St. Luke says,^
that the Jews " watched the city-gates day and night, with the intention
The Jews furnished the motive, the Ethnarch the military
of killing him.''
force. The anxiety of the " disciples " was doubtless great, as when Peter
was imprisoned by Herod, " and prayer was made without ceasing of the
Church unto God for him." ^ Their anxiety became the instrument of his
safety, Erom an unguarded part of the wall, in the darkness of the night,
probably where some overhanging houses, as is usual in Eastern cities,
opened upon the outer country, they let him down from a window ' in a
basket.^ There was something of humiliation in this mode of escape ; and
this, perhaps, is the reason why, in a letter written "fourteen years" aftcr-
7 Atd &vpidog. (2 Cor. xi. 32.) So Rahab let down the spies and so David escaped ;
from Saul. The word -^vpig is used in the LXX. in both instances. Kdi KaTexdXaaev
avTOVg did Trjg -dvpidoQ. (Josh. ii. Kal KardysL 7} Me^xoX rbv AaSld did ttjc
15.)
^pidoc, Kol aizriAOe Kal efpvye Kal a^i^erai. (1 Sam. xix. 12.)
8 The word in 2 Cor. xi. 32, is capydvri ; in Acts ix. 25, it is aTzvplc, the word used
in the Gospels, in the narrative of the miracle of feeding the " four thousand," aa
opposed to that of feeding the " five thousand," when Ko^ivog is used. Compare Mat.
xiv. 20. ?d;ark vi. 43. Luke ix. 17. John vi. 13, with Mat. xv. 37. Mark viii. 8, and
both with Mat. xvi. See Prof. Blunt's Scriptural Coincidences, pt iv. xi. 1847
9, 10.
In Rich's Companion to the Dictionary, contrast the illustration under Sporta {anypk}
with that under Cophinus (K6fl>tvoc-
f
^
wards, lie sjiocifies the details, " glorying in his infirmities," when he la
Thus already the Apostle had experience of "perils by his own couft
trymen, and perils in the city." Already " in journeyings often, in weari-
ness and painfutness"^ he began to learn ''how great things he was to
suffer " for the name of Christ.^ Preserved from destruction at Damascus,
he turned his steps towards Jerusalem. His motive for the journey, as he
pel. He expressly tells us that he neither needed nor received any instruc-
from those who were " apostles before him." But he
tion in Christianity
must have heard much from the Christians at Damascus of the Galilean
fisherman. Can we wonder that he should desire to see the Chief of the
Twelve, the
brother with whom now he was consciously united in the
bonds of a common apostleship, and who had long on earth been the
constant companion of his Lord ?
How changed was everything since he had last travelled this roaa
between Damascus and Jerusalem. If, when the day broke, he looked
back upon that city from which he had escaped under the shelter of night,
as his eye ranged over the fresh gardens and the wide desert, how the
remembrance of that first terrible vision would call forth .a deep thanks-
giving to Him, who had called him to be a "partaker of His sufferings."
And what feelings must have attended his approach to Jerusalem. " He
was returning to it from a spiritual, as Ezra had from a bodily, captivity,
and to his renewed mind all things appeared new. What an emotion
smote his heart at the first distant view of the Temple, that house of sacri-
fice, that edifice of prophecy. Its sacrifices had been realised, the Lamb
of God had been offered : its prophecies had been fulfilled, the Lord had
1 2 Cor. Both Schrader and "Wieseler are of opinion that the vision
xi. 30. xii. 1-5.
mentioned here is saw at Jerusalem, on his return from Damascus (Acta
that which he
xxii. 17. See below, p. 103), and which was naturally associated in his mind with the
recollection of his escape. Schrader's remarks on the train of ideas are worth quoting.
"Wie genaii er hier die Flucht von Damaskus und die Entziicknng mit einander ver-
bindet, zcigt sein ganzer Gedankengang. Er hat vorher eine Menge seiner Leiden alei,
Christ aufgezahlt. Nun nimmt sein Geist plcitzlich einen hohern Aufschwung ein ;
Theil der Vergangeneit schwebt ihm auf einmal lebendig vor der Seele seine Rede wird ;
abgebrochener, wio ein gehemmter Strom, der auf einmal wieder durchbricht Gott :
* 'IcTop^aac Ui-rpov. i. 18. See the remarks of Jerome and Ohrysostom on thi
oassage. s i pet. iv. 5.
102 THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
come unto it. As lie approached the gates, lie might ha^ie trodcl<;n the
^ery spot where he had so exultingly assisted in the death of Stephen, and
no entered them perfectly content, were it God's will, to be dragged cut
through them to the same fate. He would feel a pecuhar tie of brother-
hood to that martyr, for he could not be now ignorant that the same
Jesus who in such glory had called him, had but a little while before ap-
peared in the same glory to assure the expiring Stephen. The ecstatic
Jook and words of the dying saint now came fresh upon his memory with
their real meaning. When he entered into the city, what deep thoughts
were suggested by the haunts of his youth, and by the sight of the spots
where he had so eagerly sought that knowledge which he had now so
eagerly abandoned. What an intolerable burden had he cast off. He
felt as a glorified spirit may be supposed to feel on revisiting the scenes of
^
its fleshly sojourn."
Tet not without grief and awe could he look upon that city of his fore-
fathers, over which he now knew that the judgment of God was impend-
ing. And not without sad emotions could one of so tender a nature think
of the alienation of those who had once been his warmest associates. The
grief of Gamahel, the indignation of the Pharisees, the fury of the Hellen-
istic Synagogues, all this, he knew, was before him. The sanguine hopes,
however, springing from his own honest convictions, and his fervent zeal to
gogue them that believed in Jesus Christ," and that " when the blood of
His martyr Stephen was shed, he also was standing by and consenting
unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him," ^ and that
when they saw the change which had been produced in him, and heard
the miraculous history he could tell them, they would not refuse to " receive
bis testimony."
BAENAEAS. 10.%
CHicia. The schools of Tarsus may naturally have attracted one, who,
though a Levite, was a Hellenist : and there the friendship may have
begun, which lasted through many vicissitudes, till it was rudely interrupt'-
ed in the dispute at Antioch.^ When Barnabas related how " the Lord''
Jesus Christ had personally appeared to Saul, and had even spoken to
him, and how he had boldly maintained the Christian cause in the syna-
gogues of Damascus, then the Apostles laid aside their hesitation. Peter's
argument must have been what it was on another occasion :
" Forasmuch
as God hath given unto him the like gift as He did unto me, who am I
that I should withstand God ? " ^ He and James, the Lord's brother, the
only other Apostle^ who was in Jerusalem at the time, gave to him ''the
right hands of fellowship," And he was with them, " coming in and going
out," more than forgiven for Christ's sake, welcomed and beloved as a "
of Jesus of Kazareth who suffered, died, and was buried, and of Jesus,
the glorified Lord, who had risen and ascended, and become. " head over
all things to the Church," what was felt of Christian love and devotion,
what was learnt, under the Spirit's teaching, of Christian truth, , has not
been revealed, and cannot be known. The intercourse was full of present
comfort, and full of great consequences. But it did not last long. Fif-
teen days pasised away, and the Apostles were compelled to part. The
same zeal which had caused his voice to be heard in the Hellenistic syna-
gogues in the persecution against Stephen, now led Saul in the same synar
gogues to declare fearlessly his adherence to Stephen's cause. The same
fury which had caused the murder of Stephen, now brought the murderer
of Stephen to the verge of assassination.Once more, as at Damascus, the
Jews made a conspiracy to put Saul to death ; and once more he was res-
2n^d by the anxiety of the brethren.^
' Acts
27 is. = Acts xv. 89. 3 See Acts xi. 17.
* " When
Saul was come to Jerusalem Barnabas took him and brought him to
. . .
the Apostles and he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem." (Acts
. . .
ix 2(>-28.) " After three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode tith
bim fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord'a
brother " (Gal. i. 18, 19.) Acts ix. 29, 30.
r04 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST, PAUL.
of his labours was among the Gentiles. This secret revelation to his soul
conspired with the outward difficulties of his situation. The care of God
gave the highest sanction to the anxiety of the brethren. And he suffered
himself to be withdrawn from the Holy City.
They brought him down to CoDsarea by the sea,=5 and from Csesarea
they sent him to Tarsus.** His own expression in the Epistle to the Gala-
tians (i. 21) is that he went ''into tho regions of Syria and Cilicia."
From this it has been inferred that he went first from Ciesarea to Antioch,
and then from Antioch to Tarsus. And such a course would have been
perfectly natural : for the communication of the city of Ca3sar and the
Herods with the metropolis of by sea and the harbour of Se-
Syria, either
leucia, or by the great coast-road through Tyre and Sidon, was easy and
frequent. But the supposition is unnecessary. In consequence of the
range of Mount Taurus, Cilicia has a greater geographical affinity with
Syria than with Asia Minor. Hence it has existed in frequent political
combination with it from the time of the old Persian satrapies to the mod-
era paclialics of the Sultan : and " Syria and Cilida^^ appears in history
This is well illustrated by the hopeless feeling of the Greek soldiers in the Ana-
basis, when Cyrus had drawn them into Cilicia by various passages in the history of
;
the Seleucidas ;
by the arrangements of the Romans with Antiochus by the division ;
* Acts XV. 23, 41. When we find the existence of Cilician Churches mentioned, the
obvious inference is that St. Paul founded them during this period.
3 The passage in Strabo, referred to above, Ch. I. we
p. 22, is so important that give
a free translation of it here. " The men of this place are so zealous in the study of
philosophy and the whole circle of education, that they surpass both Athens and
Alexandria, and every place that could be mentioned, where schools of philosophera
are found. And
the difference amounts to this. Here, those who are fond of learning
are all natives,and strangers do not willingly reside here and they themselves do nol :
remain, but finish their education abroad, and gladly take up their residence elsewhere,
and few return. "Whereas, in the other cities which I have just mentioned, except
Alexanlria, the contrary takes place for many come to them and live there willingly
:
j
but you will see few of the natives either going abroad for the sake of philosophy, gi
caring to study itat home. The Alexandrians have both characters ; for they receive
many strangers, and send out of their own people not a few."
4 Acts xvii. 17, 18. 5 gee p. 45.
^ See the Treatise called " Macrobii," ascribed to Lucian, wiere Athenodorus an&
106 THE LIFE MfD EPISTLES OF ST. TAUL.
wicked pupil, whose death we have recently noticed. No?/ m\ong th.:i>t
eminent sages and instructors of heathen emperors was One whose leach
ing was destined to survive, when the Stoic philosophy should have per-
ished, and whose words still instruct the rulers of every civihsed nation
How far Saul's arguments had any success in this quarter we cannot oven
guess ;
and we must not 'anticipate the conversion of Cornelius, At least,
he was preparing for the future. In the synagogue we cannot beheve that
he was silent or unsuccessful. In his own family, we may well imagine
that some of those Christian " kinsmen," ^ whose names are handed dowTi
to us, possibly his sister, the playmate of his childhood, and his sister's
son,'^ who afterwards saved his life, were, at this time, by his exertions
gathered into the fold of Christ.
Here this Chapter must close ; while Saul is in exile from the earthly
Jerusalem, but diligently occupied in building up the walls of the "Jerusa-
lem which is above." And it was not without one great and important
consequence that that short fortnight had been spent in Jerusalem. He
was now known to Peter and to James. His vocation was fully ascer-
Nestor are enumerated among those philosophers who have lived to a great age.
'AdTjvodupog, 1,uv6o)vog, Tapaevg^ "LraiKbg, og kol StddaKaXog kyevero KaLOzpog 1,e6aaTov
Oeov, vcj)* ov 7] TapGeiov TzoTitg koI <l>6po)v iKov<j)La6ij, dvo nal oySorjKovra Itt] (Siovg,
krelevrrjCEV kv ry TzaTpidL, kol TLjuiig 6 Tapoiuv drjjuog uvtCj kct' irog iKaarov aTtovijuet
<l)g 7]p<j)L. 'NeoTug de ^ruiKog utto Tapaov, dtdacKaXog Katoapog Tideplov, irr] dvo kcu
ivevj^KovTa, 21. Strabo mentions another Tarsian called Nestor, an Academician,
who was the tutor of Marcellus, xiv. 5.
1 Rom. xvi. See p. 46.
About twenty years after this time (Acts xxiii. 17, 23) he is called veavmg, the
very word which is used of Saul himself (Acts vii. 58) at the stoning of Stepheu. It
is justly remarked by Hemsen (p. 39), that the young man's anxiety for his uncle
(xxiii. lG-23) seems to imply a closer affection than that resulting from relationship
alone.
See Gal. i. 21-24. The Greek words uKovovreg yaav .... vvv evayjeTii^eraL, seem
3
to imply a continued preaching of the Gospel, the intelligence of which came now and
then to Judaea. From the following words, however {iTTeira did, deKarecadpCjv iruv),
St. Paul appears to describe in i. 23, 24 the effect produced by the tidings not only of
bis labors in Tarsus, but of his subsequent and more extensive labours as a missionary
to the Heathen. It should be added, that Wieseler thinks he staid only half a year al
Tarsus.
com OF ARETA8. 107
> From Museum. The inscription is given above, p. 82, n. 4. Since thai
the British
Rcte was written, some important confirmation has been received of the opinion there
expressed. Mr. Burgon, of the British Museum, says in a letter " I have carefully
:
looked at our two coins of Aretas, and compared them with those described by Mion-
net, p. 284. I feel convinced that they are much earlier than the reigns of Caligula or
Claudius, and rank with the coins of the later Seleucidae or Tigranes. These coins of Are-
tas do not appear to have dates and, even granting that the coin of Mionnet, No. 20 p.
:
284, bears A P, which I doubt, he himself (no mean judge in such a matter) does not cite
A
P 05 a date, and I should not admit it as such, till other coins be produced with
unquestionable dates. Nothing is more common than for the most careful and learned
men to draw false inferences from books on coins, if they have not practical knowledge
enough on the subject to guide them in matters which may be regarded as technical.
Sestini (Classes Generales, Florence, 1821, p, 141) does cite A P as a date, a,nd he ia
an authority as good as Mionnet but in this case I think him wrong. As to the word
;
^lAEAAHN, it is worth observing that the later kings of Cappadocia (fearing the
Roman Power) call themselves $IA0PflMAI02."
It should be added, that there are certain consular denarii of the Plautian family,
where King Aretas is represented as kneeling in submission by the side of a cameL
An engraving of one of these coins is to be found in the " Thesaurus Morellianus,
&c.," 1734, PI. I. lig. 1. This is doubtless the same Arabian monarch who is commemo
rated on the former coin, ^not the earlier Aretas of the Maccabees, nor the later Aretas
of St. Paul,but the king who submitted to Scaurus. The Roman general's name ii
in the exergue with that of Aretas and it is interesting to contrast the coin in which
:
the Arabian king calls himself the friend of the Greeks, with that in which he
acknowledges himself the subject of the Romans.
THE LIFJiS AND EPISTLES 0 ST. PAUL*
CHAPTEE rv.
** Atteciat unusquisque vestmm, fratres mei, quit habeat Christianus. Quod homo
eat, commune cum quod Christianus est, secernitur a multis
multis : ; et plus ad illuia
pertinet
quod Christianus, quam quod homo." Aug. in Joh. Ev. cap. i. tract, v.
lliTHERTo the history of the Christian Church has been confined within
Jewish limits. We have followed its progress beyond the walls of Jerusa-
lem, but hardly yet beyond the boundaries of Palestine. If any traveller
from a distant country has been admitted into the cammunity of believers,
the place of his baptism has not been more remote than the "desert" of
Gaza. If any "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" have been
admitted to the citizenship of the spiritual Israelites, they have been
"strang^^rs" who dwell among the hills of Samaria. But the time is
rapidly approaching when the knowledge of Christ must spread more
rapidly, when those who possessed not that Book, which caused perplex-
ity on the road to Ethiopia, will hear and adore His name, and greater
strangers than those who drew water from the well of Sychar v^ill come
nigh to the Fountain of Life. The same dispersion whi-ch gathered in the
Samaritans, will gather in the Gentiles also. The " middle wall of parti-
tion " being utterly broken down, all will be called by the new and gloriaus
of God's ancient people, but the profane city of the Greeks and Romans
AI^'^ocH. 109
IS the place to which the student of sacred history is now directed. Dur*
ing the remainder of the Acts of the Apostles our attention is at least
divided between Jerusalem and Antioch, until at last, after following St.
Paul's many journeys, we come with him to Rome. For some time Con
stantinople must remain a city of the future but we are more than once
;
reminded of the greatness of Alexandria : ^ and thus even in the life of the
crime was engaging Caligula's attention, when Paul was first made a
Christian at Damascus. No one can tell on what work of love the Chris-
See Acts vi. 9, (with ii. 10) xxvii. 6, xxviii. 11 ; and compare Acts xviii. 24, xix. 1,
with 1 Cor. i. 12, iii. 4-6, and Tit. iii. 13.
' The chronological work have been the
authorities principally referred to in this
following English books : 1.
Bp. Pearson's Jinnales Paulini, in the Enchiridion
Theologicum ; 2. The late Professor Burton's Attempt to ascertain the Chronology of
the Acts, Sfc, 1830 ; 3. Greswell's Dissertations, 8fc. 4. Mr. Browne's Ordo Sceclo-
;
rum: and the following German books :l. The first volume of Schrader's ^/jos^ei
Paidus; Anger's Treatise De temporum in Actis Apostolorum ratione, Leipsigj
1833 ; 3. Wieseler's Chronologie des Apostolischen Zeitalters.
3 Acts viii. and Acts ix. (with Gal. i.)
Acts ix. and Acts x.
no THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL,
only conjectural. Thus we have been content to say, tUat he was born in
the strongest and most flourishing period of the reign of Augustus and ;
that he was converted from the religion of the Pharisees about the time
when Caligula succeeded Tiberius.
But soon after we enter on the reign
of Claudius we encounter a coinci-
dence which arrests our attention.
personal presence. In Syria his caprices were felt more remotely but not
less keenly. The changes of administration were rapid and various. In
the year 36, the two great actors in the crime of the crucifixion had dis-
appeared from the public places of Judaea. Pontius Pilate had been ais-
c Tie did not arrive at Rome till after the death of Tiberius. Like his predecessiSf
CLAUDnJS AND HEROD AGEIPPA. Ill
Italy, implored his patron to pause in what he did : an embassy was sent
from Afexandria,. and the venerable and learned Philo ^ was himself com-
missioned to state the inexorable requirements of the Jewish religion.
Everything appeared to be hopeless, when the murder of Caligula, on tho
24th of January, in the year 41, gave a sudden relief to the persecuted
people.
With the accession of Claudius (a. d. 41) the Holy Land had a king
once more. Judaea w'as added to the tetrarchies of Philip and Antipas,
and Herod Agrippa I. ruled over the wide territory which had been gov-
erned by his grandfather. With the alleviation of the distress of the
Jews, proportionate suffering came upon the Christians. The "rest"
which, in the distractions of Caligula's reign, the churches had enjoyed
" throughout all Judaea, and Galilee, and Samaria," was now at an end.
" About this time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain
of the church." He slew one Apostle, and " because he saw it pleased
the Jews," he proceeded to imprison another. But he was not long spared
to seek popularity among the Jews, or to murder and oppress the Chris-
he had governed Judasa during ten or eleven years, the emperor having a great dislike
to frequent changes in the provinces.
1 Tiberius had imprisoned him ,because of a conversation overheard by a slave, when
Caligula and Herod Agrippa were together in a carriage. Agrippa was much at Rome
both at the beginning and end of Caligula's reign. See p. 29, n. 1.
appears from Dio Cassius and Suetonius that this was part of a general system
It
mark that the same date throws some light on that earlier part of the
and 42. Among the English writers, Bp. Pearson (p. 359) imagines tha,t great part of
the interval after 39 was passed in Syria Burton (pp. 18, and 43), who places the
;
conversion very early, is forced to allow nine or ten years for the tims spent in Syria
and Cilicia.
c Wieseler places the Conversion in the year 39 or 40. As we have said before ihe
8
The date thus important for all students of Bible chronology is worthy
of special regard by the Christians of Britain. For in that year the Em
pcror Chxudias returned from the shores of this island to the metropolis of
his enpire. He came here in command of a military expedition, to com^
picte the work which the landing of Cffisar a century before, had begun^
or at iea8t predicted, ^ When Claudius came to Britain, its inhabitants
were not Christian. They could hardly in any sense be said to have been
civilised. He came, as he thought, to add a barbarous province to his
already gigantic empire : but he really came to prepare the way for the
silent progress of the Christian Church. His troops 7/ere the instruments
of bringing among our barbarous ancestors those charities which were just
then beginning to display themselves^ in Antioch and Jerusalem. A
" Tieio name " was faintly rising on the Syrian shore, which was destined to
spread like the cloud seen by the Prophet's servant from the brow of
Mount Carmel. A better civilisation, a better citizenship, than that of
the Roman empire, was preparing for us and for many. One Apostle at
Tarsus was waiting for his call to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to the
Gentiles. Another Apostle at Joppa was receiving a divine intimation
that God is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that
feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him."^
If we could ascertain the exact chronological arrangement of these
passages of Apostolical history, great light would be thrown on the cir-
cumstantial details of the admission of Gentiles to the Church, and on. the
growth of the Church's conviction on this momentous subject. We should
then be able to form some idea of the meaning and results of the fortnight
culty of Peter, whether he knew from the first the full significance of his
call, whether he learnt the truth by visions, or by the gradual workings
of his mhid under the teaching of the Holy Spirit. All we can confidently
assert is, that he did not learn from St. Peter the mystei y " which in other
ages wrs not made known unto the sons of men, as it was now revealed
untu God's, holy apostles by the Spirit ; that the Gentiles should be fellow-
heirs, and f the same body, and partakers of His promise
t in Christ by
*
the GoHpel."
force of his reasoning eonsists in the convergence of his different lines of argument to
one point. The following passages should be especially observed as bearing on thii
particular question, pp. 162-167, and 176-208,
1 It may be gathered from Dio Cassius, Ix. 21, 23, 24 (with Suet. Claud. 17), that
the en^peror left Kome in July, 43, and returned in January, 45. See Anger, p. 40, n. h
' See Acts xi. 22-24, and 27-30.
3 Acts X. 34, 35. 4 Eph. iii. 4-6. See Col. i. 26, 27.
VOT_ I
114 THE LIFE ANB EPISTI.ES OF ST. PAUL,
mately brought St. Peter to Csesarea, then it is evident that St. Paul was
at Damascus or in Arabia when Cornelius was baptized.^ Paul was sum-
moned to evangelize the Heathen, and Peter began the work, almost sim-
ultaneously. The great transaction of admitting the Gentiles to the
Church was already accomplished when the two Apostles met at Jeru-
salem. St. Paul would thus learn that the door had l>eii opened to
him by the hand of another ; and when he went to Tarsus, the later
agreement^ might then have been partially adopted, that he should "go
to the Heathen," while Peter remained as the Apostle of " the Circum-
cision."
18), in the words of Ananias (Acts ix. 15) : and in the vision preceding
his retirement to Tarsus (Acts xxii. 21), the words which commanded
hmi to go were, " Depart, for I will send thee far hence to the Gentiles."
In considering, then, the conversion of Cornelius to have happened
after this journey from Jerusalem to Tarsus, and before the mission of
Barnabas to Antioch, we are adopting the opinion most in accordance
with the independent standing-point occupied by St. Paul. And this,
moreover, is the view which harmonises best with the narrative of Scrip-
ture, where the order ought to be reverently regarded as well as the words
In the order of Scripture narration, if it cannot be proved that the preacb-
^ This is Wiesclcr's view ; Ibut his argumentB are not conciusire. By some (as by
Schrader) it is hastily taken for granted that St Paul preached the Gospel to Gentiles
bt Damascus.
Gal. ii. 9.
pomt of St. Paul's career. A few words may be allowed, which are sug-
gested by this view of the transaction as a typical fact in the progress of
God's dispensations. The two men to whom the revelations were made,
and even the places where the divine interferences occurred, were charac-
teristic of the event. Cornelius was in Csesarea and St. Peter in Joppa ;
the Roman soklier in the modern city, which was built and named in the
Emperor's honour,
the J ewish Apostle in the ancient sea-port which as-
sociates its name with the early passages of Hebrew history, with the
voyage of Jonah, the building of the Temple, the wars of the Macca-
bees.^ All the splendour of Csesarea, its buildings and its ships, and the
Temple of Rome and the Emperor, which the sailors saw far out at sea,^
all has long since vanished. Herod's magnificent city is a wreck on the
shore. A few ruins are all that remain of the harbour. Joppa lingers
on, like the Jewish people, dejected but not destroyed. Csesarea has
perished, like the Roman Empire which called it into existence.
And no men could well be more contrasted with each other than those
two men, in whom the Heathen and Jewish worlds met and were recon-
ciled. We know
what Peter was a Galilean fisherman, brought up in
the rudest district of an obscure province, with no learning but such as he
might have gathered in the synagogue of his native town. All his early
days he had dragged his nets in the lake of Gennesareth. And now he
was at J oppa, lodging in the house of Simon the tanner, the apostle of a
religion that was
to change the world. Cornelius was an officer in the Ro-
man army, name was more honourable at Rome than that of the
l^o
Cornelian House. It was the name borne by the Scipios, and by Sulla,
and the mother of the Gracchi. In the Roman army, as in the army of
modern Austria, the soldiers were drawn from different countries and
spoke different languages. Along the coast of which we are speaking,
mny of them were recruited from Syria and Judsea.^ Eut the corps? tc
yhich CorneHns belonged seems to have been a cohort of Italians geparaix.
Crom the legionary soldiers,'^ and hence called the " ItaUan cohort." He
eras no doubt a true-boi-n Italian. Educated in Komf;, or some provincial
tcwn, he had entered upon a soldier's life, dreaming perhaps of military
glory, but dreaming as little of that better glory which now surrounds the
Cornelian name, as Peter dreamt at the lake of Gennesareth of becomins:
the chosen companion of the Messiah of Israel, and of throwing open the
doors of the Catholic Church to the dwellers in Asia and Africa, to the
barbarians on the remote and unvisited shores of Europe, and to the
undiscovered countries of the West.
But to return to our proper narrative. When intelligence came to
Jerusalem that Peter had broken through the restraints of the Jewish
law, and had even " eaten " at the table of the Gentiles,^ there was gen-
eral surprise and displeasure among " those of the circumcision." But
when he explained to them all the transaction, they approved his conduct,
and praised God for His mercy to the heathen.^ And soon news came from
a greater distance, which showed that the same unexpected change was ope-
rating more widely. We have seen that the persecution, in which Stephen
was killed, resulted in a general dispersion of the Christians. Wherever
they went, they spoke to their J ewish brethren of their faith that the
promises had been fulfilled in the life and resurrection of' J esus Christ.
This dispersion and preaching of the Gospel extended even to the island
of Cyprus, and along the Phoenician coast as far as Antioch. For some
time the glad tidings were made known only to the scattered children of
Israel.^ But at length some of the Hellenistic Jews, natives of Cyprus
and Cyrene, -spoke to the Greeks ^ themselves at Antioch, and the Divine
t-um Italicorum voluntaria, quoe est in Syria." See it in Akerman's Numismatic Illus-
trations, p. 34.
3 I,vve(l)ayeg avrolg. Acts xi. 3. See x. 48. No such freedom of intercourse took
place in his own reception of his Gentile guests, x. 23. {avrovg i^tvLae.)
4 xi. 18.
Lachmann, Olshauscn, and De Wette and Mr. Tate's note, p. 133), probably in the
;
gcnse of Greek proselytes of the Gate. Thus they were in the same position as Gor-
uclius. It has been doubted which case was prior in point of tirao. Some are of
opinion thai the events at Antioch took place first. Others believe thiit tho^e wha
snoke to the Greeks at Antioch had previously heard of the conversioa of Corneliua
INTELLIGENCE FKOM ANTIOCH. 117
timied to the Lord." The news was not long in travelling to Jerusalem
Perhaps some message was sent in haste to the Apostles of the Church
The Jewish Christians in Antioch might be perplexed how to deal witi
their new Gentile converts : and it is not unnatural to suppose that the
presence of Barnabas might be anxiously desired by the fellow-missionaries
of ins native island.
Yie ought to observe the honourable place which the island of {jjprus
was permitted to occupy in the first worli of Christianity. We shall soon
trace the footsteps of the Apostle of the heathen in the beginning of his
travels o^er the length of this island ;
and see here the first earthly
potentate converted and linking his name for ever with that of St. Paul.^
Now, while Saul is yet at Tarsus, men of Cyprus are made the instruments
of awakening the G-entiles one of them might be that " Mnason of Cy-
;
prus," who afterwards (then a disciple of old standing" ) was his host at
Jerusalem ;
^
and Joses the Levite of Cyprus,^ whom the Apo^les had
long ago called " the Son of Consolation," and who had removed all the
prejudice which looked suspiciously on Saul's conversion,^ is tne first
to the Saviour whom they had found, and he laboured himself with abun-
dant success. But feeling the greatness of the work, and remembering the
zeal and strong character of his friend, whose vocation to this particular
task of instructing the heathen was doubtless well known to him, " he de-
parted to Tarsus to seek Saul."
Whatever length of time had elapsed since Saul came from Jerusalem
to Ta/sus, and however that time had been employed by him, whether
he had already founded any of those churches in his native Cilicia, which
we read of soon after (Acts xv. 41), whether he had there undergone
any of those manifold labours and sufi'erings recorded by himself (2 Cor.
xi.) but omitted by St. Luke, whether by active intercourse with the
Gentiles, by study of their literature, by travelling, by discoursing with
the philosophers, he had been making himself acquainted with their opin-
ions and their prejudices, and so preparing his mind for the w^ork that was
before him, or whether he had been waiting in silence for the call of
There seems no objection to supposing the two cases nearly simultaneous, that of
Cornelius being the great typical transaction on which our attention is to be fixed.
1 ALeXdovTSQ rrjv vrjaov . . . rej avdoirdTUi 'LepjiLi HavTic^ .... SavAof, 6 koI HavAa^
Acts xiii. 6-9.
" 'kpxnlL) uadr}--^, Acts xxi. 16. Acts iv. 36. ^ ^cts ix. 27.
^ UapF\'2Aet, xi. 23. Compare vlog 7rapaK?i?}a0)g (iv. 36), which ought rather to hi
tranKlated " Son of Exhortation " or " Son of Prophecy " (n5%1i3 ^^). See xiii 1,
^
God's providence, praying for guidance from above, reflecting on tha coi>
^tion of the Gentiles, and gazing more and more closely on the tjlan o*
the world's redemption, however this may be, it must have been an event'
ful day when Barnabas, having come across the sea from Sciucia, or round
by the defiles of Mount Amanus, suddenly appeared in the streets of Tar-
sus. The last time the two friends met was in Jerusalem. All that they
then hoped, and probably more than they then thought possible, had
occurred. "God had granted to the Gentiles repentance unto ]?fe^
(xi. 18). Barnabas had "seen the grace of God" (xi. 23)with his own
eyes at Antioch, and under his own teaching " a great multitude" {xl S4)
had been " added to the Lord." But he needed assistance. lie needed
the presence of one whose wisdom was higher than his own, whose zeal
was an example to all, and whose peculiar mission had been miraculously
declared. Saul recognized the voice of God in the words of Barnabas :
and the two friends travelled in all haste to the Syrian metropolis.
There they continued " a whole year," actively prosecuting the sacred
work, teaching and confirming those who joined themselves to the assem-
blies ^
of the ever-increasing Church. As new converts, in vast numbers,
came in from the ranks of the Gentiles, the Church began to lose its
vious circumcision, when the Mosaic features of this society were lost in
the wider character of the New Covenant, then it became evident that
these men were something more than the Pharisees or Sadducees, the
Essencs or Hcrodians, or any sect or party among the Jews. Thus a
new term in the vocabulary of the human race came into existence at An-
tioch al30ut the year 44. Thus Jews and Gentiles, who, under the teach-
ing of St. Paul,^ beUeved that Jesus of Nazareth was the Saviour of the
world, " were first called Christians."
1 Chrysostorn says that Barnabas brought Saul from Tarsus to Antioch : utl hravda
KoX iXKideg xpvc^Toi, ical /j.elCo)v rj 'Kolig, koL ttoIv to TiXyOog. Of Antioch he says :
cuoKEL, TToif KcWanep jTj TiLTTapti rbv loyov ide^aro tj TzokLg avTT), koL toXvv rd*' Kapirdv
\'!vi6e(.^cTo. Horn. xxv.
^
Sec Acts xi. 2G. s gee above, pp. 31 and 67.
It is not likely that tliey received this name from the Jews. Thi
" Children of Abraham " employed ^
a term much more expressive of hatred
and contempt. They called them the sect of the Kazarenes." These
disciples of Jesus traced their orighi to Nazareth in Galilee ;
and it was a pro-
verb, that nothing good could come from Nazareth.^ Besides this, there waa
a further reason why the Jews would not have called the disciples of Jesus
by the name of " Christians." The word " Christ " has the same meaning
with Messiah." And the Jews, however blinded and prejudiced on this
subject, w ould never have used so sacred a word to point an expression of
mockery and derision ; and they could not have used it in grave and seri
gave this name to themselves. In the Acts of the Apostles, and in their
own letters, we find tli^m designating themselves as ''brethren," ''disci-
ples," "believers," " saints."^ Only in two places ^ do we find the term
" Christians ; " and in both instances it is implied to be a term used by
those who are without. There is little doubt that the name originated
with the Gentiles, who began to see now that this new sect was so far
distinct from the Jews, that they might naturally receive a new designa-
tion. And the form of the word implies that it came from the Romans,'
not from the Greeks. The word " Christ" was often in the conversation
Maiius and Pompey; and, under the Empire, of "Othonians" and " Yitelliaus," for
the partizans of Otho and Yitellius. The word " Herodians " (Mat. xxii. 16. Mark iii.
6. See p. 34) is formed exactly in the same way.
xii. 13.
8 It is a
Latin derivative from the Greek term for the Messiah of the Jews. It is
connected with the office, not the name, bf our Saviour which harmonises with the 5
important fact, that in the Epistles He is usually called not "Jesus" but "Chi'ist"
(See a good paper in the North British Review on the Antiquity of the Gospels.) The
word '-'Jesuit" (which, by the way, is rather Greek than Latin) did not come into th
vocabulary of the Church till after the lapse of 1500 years. It is not a little remark-
able that the word a proverbial term of reproach, even in Roman Catholic
'-'Jesuit" is
countries ; while the word " Christian " is used so proverbially for all tliat is good, that
ithas beau applied to benevolent actions, in which Jews have participated. (See
Bishop Wilberforce's speech in the House of Lords on the Jews in 1848.) This remlnde
instance, we have every reason to believe that it was a term of ridicule and
enant was inclusive of all others , then and there we were first called
Christians, and the Church received from the World its true and honour-
able name.^
us of the old play on the words XpLordg and Xpjjardg, which was not unfrequent in the
early Church.
J
See Tac. Ann. xv. 44. It is needless to remark that it soon became a title of glory>
Julian tried to substitute the term " Galilean" for " Christian." Mr. Huniphry quotes
the following remarkable words from the Liturgy of St. Clement :
evxcipcaTov/utv soi,
6ti to bvofxa rov Xpiarov gov k'KLKm'X'rjraL ef rijuag, kol gol Trpoa<j)Kii6/Li6a.
^ Apollonius of Tyana was driven out of the city by their insults, and sailed away
(like St. Paul) from Seleucia to Cyprus, where he visited Paphos. Philost. Vit. iii. 16.
See Julian's Misopogen, and what Zosimus says of this emperor's visit to Antioch (iii.
11, p. 140 of the Bonn ed.). See also Chrysostom's first homily on Dives and Lazarus,
and the account which Zosimus gives of the breaking of the statues in the reign of
Theodosius (iv. 41, p. 223). One of the most remarkable is mentioned in the Persian
War under Justinian, where Procopius says, 'Avtlox^ojv 6 drjfxog {eiai ydp cv Kananov-
Saa/LievoL, a/lAd yE^OLOig re kol ara^ta iKavug exovrat) TioXXd elg rbv Xoapbiiv v&pL^ov
re uTzb Tcov eiruXieuv koL ^vv yeXuTL aKoa/no) eruOa^ov (Bell. Pers. ii. 8) 5 the consequence
of which was the destruction both of themselves and th-eir city.
3 Malalas says (Chronog. x.) that the name is given by Evodius, '"'who succeeded St.
Peter as bishop of Antioch." 'Em avrov XpLariavol cbvoftdudriaav, rov avrov ettlgkottov
Y^vodov 7:poGOjjLi7L'}]GavTOQ avrolg kol 7Tid7jGdvTog avrolg rd ovojua rovro. U.p(l)7jv ydp
^ai^tipaloi KOL VaAiTialoL eKaTiovvro ol XptGriavoc, p. 247 of the Bonn Edition. There
is another tradition that a council was held for the specific purpose of giving a name to
the body of believers. The following passage from William of Tyre exhibits, in a short
compass, several of the medieval ideas concerning this passage of the Sacred History.
It will St. Peter is made bishop of Antioch, that the great work of
be observed, that
building up the Church there is assigned to him and not to St. Paul, and the relation
of St. Luke and Theophilus is absolutely determined :
beato Petro, septimus in ordiue Pontificum, in eadem Ecclcsia successit. In hac etiam
primus fidelium habitus est conventus, in qua et Christianorum nomcn dedicatuni est.
Prius enira qui Christi sequebantur doctrinam, Nazareiii dicebantur : postmodura vero
a Christo deducto nomine, auctoritate illius Synodi, Christiani sunt dicti fideles univereL
Uude etiam, quia gens sine dilficultate praxlicaatem suscepit Apostolum, ad Chrieti
fldcm unanimiter conversa, ct nomen, qucd sicut unguentum eflusum longe lateque
redolet, prima invenit et docuit, nomen ej.-.s d'^signatum est novum, ct Theopolis e8t
appellata : ut quae prius hominis nequam et impii [i. e. Antiochi] nomen pertulerat.
In narrating the journeys of St. Paul, it will now be our daty to speak
look, more closely than has hitherto been necessary, at its character, iti
history, and its appearance. The positior, which it occupied near the abrupt
angle formed by the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, and in the opening
where the Orontes passes between the ranges of Lebanon and To,urus, has
already been noticed.^ And we have mentioned the numerous colony' of
Jews which Seleucus introduced into his capital, and raised to an equality
of civil rights with the Greeks.'^ There was everything in the situation
and circumstances of this city, to make it a place of concourse for all classes
ejus qui cam ad Mem vocaverat, domiciiium et civitas deinceps appellaretur, super hoc
condignam recipiens a Domino retrlbutionem." Gul. Tyr. iv. 9.
When the Crusaders were besieged in turn, Peter the Hermit went to the Mahome-
tan commander and appealed as follows (vi. 15) :
Ilanc urbem Apostoiorum princeps Petrus, nostrse fidei fidelis et prudens dispensa-
tor, verbi tui virtute, et exhortationis qua preeminebat gratia, sed et signorum magni-
* people of Antioch, that though they boasted of their city's preeminence in having first
enjoyed the Christian name, they were willing enough to be surpassed in Christian vir-
tue by more homely cities. The writers of the Middle Ages use the strongest language
concerning Antioch. Thus, Leo Diaconus, in the tenth century ; TptrTj rtov nepl rfiv
^LKOVjxt~VT]v TToAfwv, Tw Ts kuXKel koX tQ) iieysdei rCdv tteplSoIuv, en 6^ 7T?t.?j6ec tov dij/xoVf
Kal T'Jjv oIkluv ufirixdvoL^ KaracKevalg (iv. 11, p. 73 of the Bonn and Williana
Edition) :
of Tyre in the twelfth ; Civitas gloriosa et nobilis, tertium vel potius secundum (nam
de hoc maxima quaestio est) post urbem Roman dignitatis gradum sortita } omnium
tJroTinciarum quas tractus orientalis continet, princeps et moderatrix, iv. 9.
122 THE LITE Am. EPISTLES OF ST. PADL.
Silphius, which is on the south side of the river, about the place where it
turns from the north to the west. Five or six thousand Athenians and
Macedonians were ordered to convey the stones and timber of Antigonia
down the river ;
and Antioch was founded by Seleucus, and called after
his father's name.^
This fable, invented perhaps to give a mythological sanction to what
was really an act of sagacious prudence and princely ambition, is well
worth remembering. Seleucus was not slow to recognise the wisdom o'
Antigonus in choosing a site for his capital, which should place it in ready
communication both with the shores of Greece and with his eastern terri-
tories on the Tigris and Euphrates ; and he followed the example promptly,
and completed his work with sumptuous magnificence. Few princes
have ever lived with so great a passion for the building of cities ;
^ and
this is a feature of his character which ought not to be unnoticed in this
narrative. Two at least of his cities in Asia Minor have a close connexion
with the life of St. Paul. These are the Pisidian Antioch'' and the Phry-
gian Laodieea,^ one called by the name of his father, the other of his
mother. He is said to have built in all nine Seleucias, sixteen Antiochs,
due to the Greek kings of Syria and the first five Caesars of Bome.^ If
J
See Acts xiii. 4.
The s+ory is told by Malalas at tlie beginning of the eighth book. See it also in
Vailiant's Scleucidariim Imperium. Some say that Seleucus called the city after his
father, some after his son. ^
3 Mannert, p. 863. ^ Acts xiii. 14. xiv. 21. 2 Tim. iii. 11.
f>
Coloss. iv. 13, 15, IG. See Rev. i. 11. iii. 14. c gee Vaillant, as above.
7 There was another Apamca, much mentioned by Cicero, in Asia Minor, not far
remain, by the banks of the Orontes, The river has gradually changed
its course and appearance, as the city has decayed. Once it flowed round
an island, which, like the island in the Seine,^ by its thoroughfares and
bridges, and its own noble -buildings, became part of a magnificent whole.
But, in Paris, the Old City is on the island ; in Antioch, it was the New
City, built by the second Seleucus and the third Antiochus. Its chief
features were a palace, and an arch like that of Napoleon. The fourth
and last part of the Tetrapolis was built by Antiochus Epiphanes, where
Mount Silphius rises abruptly on the south. On one of its craggy sum-
mits he placed, in the fervour of his Komanising mania,^ a temple dedicated
to Jupiter Capitolinus
and on another, a strong citadel, which dwindled
to the Sarace^i Castle of the first Crusade. At the rugged bases of the
mountain, the ground was levelled for a glorious street, which extended
for four miles across the length of the city, and where sheltered crowds
:culd walk through continuous colonnades from the eastern to the western
suburb. The whol^c was surrounded by a wall, which, ascending to the
aeights and returning to the river, does not deviate very widely in its
course from the wall of the Middle Ages, v/liich can still be traced by the
fragments of ruined towers. This .wall is assigned by a Byzantine writer
to Tiberius, but it seems more probable that the emperor only repaired
what Antiochus Epiphanes had built." Turning now to the period of the
Empire, we find that Antioch had memorials of all the great Romans
whose names have been mentioned as yet in this biography. When
Pompey was defeated by Caesar, the Conqueror's name was perpetuated
in this Eastern city by an aqueduct and by baths, and by a basihca called
Csesarium. In the reign of Augustus, Agrippa ^ built in all cities of the
1 After having said that the district of Seleucis is a Tetrapolis, as containing the
four cities, Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, and Laodicea, he says of Antioch Igti 6t Kal ;
empire, and Herod of Judaea followed the example to the utmost cf his
Caligula.
The character of the inhabitants is easily inferred from the influences
which presided over the city's growth. Its successive enlargement by the
Seleucida3 proves that their numbers rapidly increased from the first. The
population swelled still further, when, instead of the metropolis ^f tie
Greek kings of Syria, it became the residence of Roman governors, ^i'he
mixed multitude received new and important additions hi the ofiicials who
were connected with the details of provincial administration. Luxurious
Romans were attracted by its beautiful climate. New wants continually
multiplied the business of its commerce. Its gardens and houses grew and
extended on the north side of the river. Many are the allusions to An-
tioch, in the history of those times, as a place of singular pleasure and en-
name. Poets have spent their young days at Antioch, ^ great generals
have died there,^ emperors have visited and admired it.^ But, for the
most part, its population was a worthless rabble of Greeks and Orientals.
The frivolous amusements of the theatre were the occupation of their life.
Tiieir passion for races, and the ridiculous party-quarrels * connected with
them, were the patterns of those which afterwards became the disgrace of
Byzantium. The oriental element of superstition and imposture was not
less active. The Chaldean astrologers found their most credulous disciples
in Antioch.^ Jewish impostors,*^ sufficiently common throughout the East,
under the reigns of Caligula and Claudius. Both Emperors patronized the latter.
Mai. pp. 244, and 24G.
5 Chrysostom complains that even Christians in his day, were led away by this pas
fcioi: for horoscopes. See Ilom iv. on 1 Cor. Compare the Ambubaiarum Collegia"
of Horace. Juvenal traces the superstitions of heathen Rome to Antioch, In Tibcrim
defluxit Orontes."
c Compare the cases of Simon Magus (Acts Elymas the Sorcerer (Acts xiiL),
viii.),
and the fions of Sceva (Acts xix,). Wc ehall have occasion to return to this sub>>Ti
again.
ALLEGORICAL bTATUE OF ANTIOCH. 121
imagine the scene of that suburb, the famous Daphne,^ with its fountains
and groves of bay trees, its bright buildings, its crowds of licentious vota-
ries, its statue of Apollo, where,
under the climate of Syria and
the wealthy patronage of Rome,
all that was beautiful in nature
1 Ausonius (Ordo Nob. Urb. iii.) hesitates between the rank of Antioch and Alexaih
dria, in eminence and vice.
" Tertia Phsebese lauri domus Antiochia,
Yellet Alexandri si quarta colonia poni.
Ambarum
locus unus et has furor ambitionis :
fitantly represented on coins, see Miiller, Antiq. Antioch, pp. 35-41, and his Archaolo
Cherubim," or to the Saracen age, when, after many years of Christian hia
tory and Christian mythology, we find the Gate of St. Panl" placed oppo
Bite the " Gate of St. George," and when Dake Godfrey pitched his camp
between the river and the city-wall.^ And there is reason to believe that
earthquakes,^ the constant enemy of the people of Antioch, have so altered
the very appearance of its site, that such a description would be of little
tolic work, parts of the city had something of that appearance, which still
makes Lisbon dreary, new and handsome buildings being raised in close
AvTLox^^icc 7] fxeyaTirj . . . tirade 6^ koL juepog Ad(l)vr/g. Malalas, x. p. 243. And again
under Claudius,'Eaeicr^?? 61 rore Kal i] iieyulri 'Avrioxda noXic, Koi dte^pdy?) 6 vad^
TT/c 'Apre/xidoQ Kal rov 'Apeug Kal rov KpaKAeog Kal oIkol (j)avepol tTveaav, p. 246.
6 Malalas, in the passage last referred to, mentions an earthquake in Asia Minor, and
a gTant of money by the Emperor Claudius for the restoration of the injured cities. For
aid rendered to certain cities of Asia Minor after a similar catastrophe (Tac. A. ii. 47.
Plin. N. n. ii. 86), Tiberius was honoured with a commemorative statue, the pedtjsta]
of which has been discovered at Putcoli. See Muller, Ai-ch. p. 231.
7 Besides the famine in Judaea, we read of three others in the reign of Claudius ; on6
In Greece, mentioned by Eusebius, and two in Rome, the first meitioned by Dio Cu
iias (Ix. 11), the second by Tacitus (A. xii. 43).
8 Antiq. iii. 15, 3. xx. 2, 5. and 5. 2.
FAMINE AND PERSECUTION. 127
inth compassion for the misery she saw around her, she sent to purchp.sa
com from Alexandria and figs from Cyprus, for distribution among th^j
poor. Izates himself (who had also been converted by one who bore tlie
same name ' with him who baptized St. Paul) shared the charitable fee
the Jewish sufferers in Judsea, God did not sufi'er His own Christian peo-
ple, probably the poorest and certainly the most disregarded in that coun-
try, to perish in the general distress. And their relief also came from
nearly the same quarters. While Barnabas and Saul were evangeliziug
the Syrian capital, and gathering in the harvest, the
first seeds of which
had been sown by " men of Cyprus and Cyrene," certain prophets came
down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them named Agabus an-
nounced that a time of famine was at hand.^ The Gentile disciples felt
that they were bound by the closest link to those Jewish brethren whom
though they had never seen they loved. " For if the Gentiles had been
made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty was also to minister
unto them in carnal things"'' 'No time was lost in preparing for the
coming calamity. All the mfmbers of the Christian community, according
to their means, " determined to send relief," Saul and Barnabas being
chosen to take the contribution to the elders at Jerusalem.''
About the time when these messengers came to the Holy City on their
errand of love, a worse calamity than that of famine had fallen upon the
Church. One Apostle had been murdered, and another was in prison
sleep, guards were placed before the door of the prison. And " after the
1 This Ananias was a Jewish merchant, who made proselytes among the women about
the court of Adiahene,and thus obtained influence with the king. (Jos. Ant. xx. 2, 3.)
See what has been said above (pp. 19 and 100. n. 3) about the female proselytes a<
Damascus and Iconium.
* Acts xi. 28. 3 Rom. xv. 27. 4 Acts xi. 29, 30.
passover ^
the king intended to bring liim out and gratify the people with
uis death. But Herod's death was nearer than St. Peter's. For a mo-
ment we see the Apostle in captivity * and the king in the plenitude of his
power. But before the autumn a dreadful change had taken place. On
the 1st of August (we follow a probable calculation,^ and borrow some
circumstances from the Jewish historian^) there was a great commemorar
tion in Csssarea. Some say it was in honour of the emperor's safe return
from the island of Britain.* However this might be, the city was crowded,
and Herod was there. On the second day of the festival he came into
the theatre. That theatre had been erected by his grandfather,^ who had
murdered the Innocents ; and now the grandson was there, who had mur-
dered an Apostle. The stone seats, rising in a great semicircle, tier
above tier, were covered with an excited multitude. The king came in,
clothed in magnificent robes, of which silver was the costly and briUiant
material. It was early in the day, and the sun's rays fell upon the king,
so that the eyes of the beholders were dazzled with the brightness which
surrounded him. Yoices from the crowd, here and there, exclaimed that
it was the apparition
of something divine. And when he spoke and made
an oration to the people, they gave a shout, saying, " It is the voice of a
God and not of a man." But in the midst of this idolatrous ostentation
the angel of God suddenly smote him. He was carried out of the theatre
a dying man, and on the 6th of August he was dead.
1 lierd, TO Tvdaxa, Acts xii. 4. The traditional places of St. James'martyrdom and of
the house of St. Mark (mentioned below) are both in the Armenian quarter. One is
the Armenian, the other the Syrian, convent. See Mr. Williams' " Memoir of Jerusa-
lem," printed as a Supplement to the Holy City," the second edition of which (1849)
had not appeared when our earlier chapters were written.
^ For the tradition concerning these chains, see Platner's Account of the Church of
San Pietro in Vincoli in the Beschreibung Roms. By a curious coincidence, the festi-
val is on August 1st the first day of that festival of Caesarea, at which Agrippa died.
;
The Chapel of the Tower of London is dedicated to St. Peter ad Yincula. See Cun-
ningham's Handbook for London, and Macaulay's History, i. 628.
That of Wieseler, pp. 132-136.
3
This is Anger's view. Others think it was in honour of the birthday of Claudius
(Aug. 1). Wieseler has shown that it was more probably the festival of the Quinquen-
nalia, observed on the same day of the same mouth in honour of Augustus, The ob-
Bcrvance dated from the taking of Alexandria, when the month Sextilis received the
emperor's name.
See Joseph. Ant. xv. 9, 6. It is from his narrative (xix. 8, 2) that we know the
5
theatre to have been the scene of Agrippa's death-stroke. The " throne " (Acts xii.
21) is the tribunal (/3f///a) praitoris or sedes prtetorum (Suet. Aug. 44. Ner. 12. See
Dio Cass. lix. 14). Josephus says nothing of the quarrel with the Tyrians and Sido*
nians. Probably it arose simply from mercantile relations (see 1 Kings v. 11. Ezek.
Exvii. 17), and their desire for reconciliation (Acts xii. 20) would naturally be increased
by the existing famine. Baronius strangely traces the misunderstanding to St. Pete^r's
baving formed Chri?tian churches in Pbopuicia. See the next note.
9
This was that year, 44, on which ^ we have already said so much. The
country was placed again under Roman governors, and hard times were at
hand for the Jews. Herod Agrippa had courted their favour. He had
done much for them, an^t was preparing to do more. Josephus tells us,
that "he had begun to encompass Jerusalem with a wall, which, had it been
brought to perfection, would have made it impracticable for the Romans
to take it by siege : but his death, which happened at Csesarea, before he
had raised the walls to their due height, prevented him." ^ That part of
ihe city, which this boundary was intended to was a suburb when
inclose,
St. Paul was converted. The work was not completed till the Jews wern
preparing for their final struggle with the Romans :
^ and the Apostle,
when he came from Antioch to Jerusalem, must have noticed the unfin-
ished wall to the north, and west of the old Damascus gate. We cannot
determine the season of the year when he passed this way. We are not
sure whether the year itself was 44 or 45. It is not probable that he was
in Jerusalem at the passover, when St. Peter was in prison, or that he
was praying with those anxious disciples at the " house of Mary tho
mother of J ohn, whose surname was Mark." ^ But there is this link of
interesting connection between that house and St. Paul, that it was the
familiar home of one who was afterwards (not always ^ without cause for
anxiety or reproof) a companion of his journeys. When Barnabas and
Saul returned to Antioch, they were attended by " John, whose surname
was Mark." With the affection of Abraham towards Lot, his uncle Bar-
nabas withdrew from the scene of persecution. We need not doubt that
higher motives were added, that at the first, as at the last,'' St. Paul
regarded him as " profitable to him for the ministry."
Thus attended, he willingly retraced his steps towards Antioch. A
field of noble enterprise was before him. He could not doubt that God,
who had so prepared him, would work by his means great conversions
among the Heathen. At this point of his life, we cannot avoid noticing
> See Baronius, under this year, for various passages of the traditionary fife of Si
Peter ; his journey from Antioch through Asia Minor to Rome ; his meeting with Simon
Magus, &c. ; and tho other Apostles ; their general separation to preach the Gospel to
the Gentiles in all parts of the world : the formation of the Apostles' Creed, St.
Peter is alleged to have held the See of Antioch for seven years before that of Rome.
(See under year 39.) The meeting ("in qua neuter errasse monstratur") of St
Paul and Hi. Peter at Antioch (Gal. n. 11) is connected with Acts xv. 35 (year 51)
The same want of criticism is apparent in modern Roman Catholic historians, e. g
R6hrba^,her. llistoire Universelle de I'Eglise Catholique, liv. xxiv. vol. 4.
* B. J. ii. 11, 6.
3 See Robinson, vol. i. pp. 411 and 465 ; Williams' Memoir, p. 84 ; and Schuiz'
Jerusalem.
Acts xii. 12. a See Acts xiii. 13. xv. 37-39.
^ It should be observed that dvcV>idc (Col. iv, 10) does not necessarily mean "nephew.
7 See 2 Tim. iv. 11.
VOL. I.
130 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the steps of his life to this one result, we are called on to notice the singu-
lar fitness of this last employment, on which we have seen him engaged,
for assuaging the suspicious feeling which separated the two great branches
of the Church. In quitting for a time his Gentile converts at Antioch,
tion they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the Gospel of
Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them."-*
i
Acts ix. 27. Gal. i. 22. =^
These were the churches of Lydda, Saron, Joppa, &c.j which Pe^^er had been yUiX,-
CHAPTER y.
The second part of the Acts of the Apostles is generally reckoned to be-
gin with the thirteenth chapter. At this point St. Paul begins to appear
as the principal character ; and the narrative, gradually widening and ex-
panding with his travels, seems intended to describe to us, in minuis detail,
ject is the first journey of the first Christian missionaries to the Heathen.
These two chapters of the inspired record are the authorities for the pre-
sent and the succeeding chapters of this work, in which we intend to fol-
low the steps of Paul and Barnabas, in their circuit through Cyprus and
the southern part of Lesser Asia.
The history begins suddenly and abruptly. We are told that there
were in the Church at Antioch,i " prophets and teachers," and among the
rest whom we are already familiar. The others were
Barnabas,'' with
" Simeon, who was surnamed Niger," and " Lucius of Cyrene," and " Ma-
naen, the foster-brother of Herod the Tetrarch," and " Saul," who still
appears under his Hebrew name. We observe, moreover, not only that
he is mentioned after Barnabas, but that he occupies the lowest place in
this enumeration of " prophets and teachers." The distinction between
these two offices in the Apostolic Church will be discussed hereafter. At
present it is sufficient to remark that the " prophecy " of the New Testament
does not necessarily imply a knowledge of things to come, but rather a
gift of exhorting with a peculiar force of inspiration. In the Church's
?arly miraculous days the "prophet" appears to have been ranked higher
' '^v 'AvTLoxna kutu, t^v ovcav kmcKriciav. Acts xiii. 1.
133 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. TAXH,.
than the " teacher." And we may perhaps infer that, up to this point of
^
the history, Barnabas had belonged to the rank of " prophets," and Saul
to that of " teachers " which would be in strict conformity with the infe-
;
riority of the latter to the former, whicl-j, as we have seen, has been hitherto
observed.
Of the other three who are grouped with thtse two chosen missionaries
we do not know enough to justify any long disquisition. But we may re-
we leam from Josephus ^ that this Herod and his brother Archelaus were
child^o^ Df the same mother, and afterwards educated together at Kome,
it is prooa'Dle that this Christian prophet or teacher had spent his early
childhood with those two princes, who were now both banished from Pal-
estine to the banks of the Khone.^
These were the most conspicuous persons in the Church of Antioch,
when a revelation was received of the utmost importance. The occasion
Oil which the revelation was made seems to have been a fit preparation for
it. The Christians were engaged in religious services of peculiar solem-
nity. The Holy Ghost spoke to them " as they ministered unto the Lord
1 Compare Acts xili. 1 with 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29. Eph. iv. 11.
^ See Acts xiii. 9. Compare Col. iv. 11.
3 Rom. xvi. 21. There is no reason whatever for supposing that St. Luke (Lucanus)
is meant, though Wetstein ingeniously quotes Herodotus in commendation of the phy
gicians of Cyrene : llpuroL juev 'Kporuviijrai irjTpoi iXeyovro dvd tt/v 'E/lAaJa elvaiy
devrepoi Kvprjvaloi, iii. 131
* See above, p. 17, n. 6.
5 Their mother's name was Malthace, a Samaritan. B. J. i. 28, 4. See Ant. xvii. 1,
3. *0 'kpx^'^o.og Koi 'kvri'Kag izapa rivl idiuTfi rpo^iig slxov eirl 'Vu/irjc. Compare
dvaTe6pafiju.evog, Acts xxii. 3. The word cvvTpo<pog, xiii. 1, refers to an earlier period.
One of the sect of the Essenes (see pp. 34, 35), who bore the name of Manaen or Manaem,
ie mentioned by Josephus (Ant. xv. 10, 5), as having foretold to Herod the Great, in
power and future wickedness. The historian
the days of his obscui-ity, both his future
adds, that Herod afterwards treated the Essenoe with great kindness. Nothing is more
likely than that this Manaen was the father of the companion of Herod's children.
Another Jew of the same name is mentioned, at a later period (B. J. ii. 17, 8, 9. Life
6), as having encouraged robberies, and come to a violent end. The name is the sanw
with that of the king oflsrael. 2 Kings xv. 14-^2. See the LXX.
c See above, pp. 29 and 54.
BEVELATION AT ANTIOCH. 133
and fasted." The word here ' translated " ministered/' has been taken bv
opposite controversialists to denote the celebration of the " sacrifice of the
mass " on the one hand, or the exercise of the office of " preaching " on the
Dther. It will be safer if vre say simply that the Christian community at
Antioch were engaged in one united act of prayer and humiliation. That
this solemnity would be accompanied by words of exhortation, and that it
this work were publicly singled out : and we soon see them sent forth to
their arduous undertaking, with the sanction of the Church at Antioch.
Their final consecration and departure was the occasion of another re-
and, with that simple ceremony of ordination ^ which we trace through the
earlier periods of Jewish history, and which we here see adopted, under
the highest authority, in the Christian Church, they laid their hands on
them, and sent them away." The words are wonderfully simple ; but
Deo gratius quam impertiri doctrinam Evangelicam." Fleury says, " Comme ils cele-
broient le service dlvin Tillemont, " Ils estoient occupez aux diverses fonctions de
leur ministere, comme a offrir le sacrifice, et a prescher :" Baronius, more positively,
" Quod habet Latina versio ministrantibus illisj Graece legitur "kenovpyoviyruv, id est,
sacrificantibus. Certe quidem non sine sacrificii incruenti ministerio ejusmodi sacras
ordinationes celebrari, antiqui omnium Ecclesiarum Rituales libri significant."
For the association of Fasting with Ordination, see Bingham, iv. vi. 6. xxi. ii. 8.
"
in the Yulgate and the English. See its use in the following passages Luke ii. 15. :
those who devoutly reflect on this great occasion, and on the position of
the first Christians at Antioch, will not find it difficult to imagine the
thoughts which occupied the hearts of the disciples during the first " Em'
ber Days " of the Church,' their deep sense of the importance of the
work which was now beginning, their faith in God, on whom they could
rely in the midst of such difficulties, their suspense during the absence of
those by whom their own faith had been fortified, their anxiety for the
intelligence they might bring on their return.
Their first point of destination was the island of Cyprus. It is not ne-
cessary, though quite allowable, to suppose that this particular course waa
divinely indicated in the original revelation at Antioch. ^our reasons at
least can be stated, which may have induced the Apostles, in the exercise
of a wise discretion, to turn in the first instance to this Inland. It is sepa-
rated by no great distance from the mainland of Syria ; its high mountain-
summits are easily seen ^ in clear weather from the coast near the mouth
of the Orontes ;
and in the summer-season many v^sels must often have
been passing and repassing between Salamis and Seleucia. Besides this,
it was the native place of Barnabas.^ Since the time when " Andrew
found his brother Simon, and brought him to Jesus," * and the Saviour was
beloved in the house of " Martha and her sister and Lazarus," ^ tlie ties of
family relationship had not been without effect on the progress of the Gos-
pel.^ It could not be unnatural to suppose that the truth would be wel-
comed in Cyprus, when it was brought by Barnabas and his kinsman
Mark ^ to their own connections or friends. Moreover, the Jews were nu-
merous in Salamis.^ By saiUng to that city they were following the track
of the synagogues. Their mission, it is true, was chiefly to the Gentiles :
but their surest course for reaching them was through the medium of the
proselytes and the Hellenising Jews. To these considerations we must
add, in the fourth place, that some of the Cypriotes were already Chris-
tians. No one place out of Palestine, with the exception of Antioch, had
been so honourably associated with the work of successful evangelisation.^
The palaces of Antioch were connected with the sea by the river Oron-
tes. Strabo says that in his time they sailed up the stream in one day ;
See an instance of this in the life of St. Paul himself. Acts xxiii. 16-33. Com-
pare 1 Cor. vii. 16.
' Elxov 6i Kol 'luavvriv iTrrjpeTriv. Acts xiii. 5. See xii. 25, and p. 129, n. 6. above
8 xiii. ft. See below, p. 140.
9 Sec Acts iv. 36. xi. 19, 20. xxi. 16.
w 'Ava7T7Mvr U y^a/iuTTnc inrlv dc ri/v ' kvTLoxeiav aiduuepov, xvi '3
THE ORONTES. 13
tind Pausanias ^
speaks of great Roman works wliicli liad improved ths
navigation of the channel. Probably it was navigable by vessels of some
considerable size, and goods and passengers were conveyed by watei
between the city and the sea. Even in our own day, though there is now
& bar at the mouth of the river, there has been a serious project of uniting
it by a canal with the Euphrates, and so of re-establishing one of the old
lines of commercial intercourse between the Mediterranean and the Indian
Sea. The Orontes comes from the valley between Lebanon and Ant!
Lebanon, and does not, like many rivers, vary capriciously between a win*
Icr-torrent and a thirsty watercourse, but flows on continually to the sea.
Its waters are not clear, but they are deep and rapid.^ Their course has
been compared to that of the Wye. They wind round the bases of high
and precipitous cliffs, or by richly cultivated banks, where the vegetation
of the south, the vine and the fig-tree, the myrtle, the bay, the ilex, and
the arbutus, are mingled with dwarf oak and English sycamore.^ If Bar-
nabas and Saul came down by water from Antioch, this was the course of
the boat which conveyed them. If they travelled the five or six leagues ^
by land, they crossed the river at the north side of Antioch, and came
along the base of the Pierian hills by a route which is now roughly covered
with fragrant and picturesque shrubs, but which then doubtless was a track
1 His words are very vague, and no date is given. 'Opovrr/v rbv "Zvpuv Troraftdv av
rd ndvra ev iaonedoi fiexP'- 'Q'oJiaaarjg ^eovra, dTJk' im Kprjjuvov rs uno^dcoya Kal ig
KaravTEC air' avrov ^epojxevov, rjOelrjaev 6 'Fufiaiov aaL%Evg [?] uvaTrlecadaL vavalv U
"^dXaaarjc ig 'Avrioxetav noltv ' elvrpov ovv avv izovo) re Kal SaTravrj ;^;p?7//ara)i^ opv^dfie-
vog iiTLTT^deiov eg rbv dvdirlovv, e^erpetpev ig tovto tov Trorafiov.
Pans Arcad. viii. 29.
^ Colonel Chesney found the river rapid, and impeded by fish-weirs. He adds,
" Ibrahim Pacha talked of making the river navigable, which might be done by blasting
Bome rocks in its bed, and by removing the wooden fish-weu-s which traverse the river
in several places near Antioch ; it would only be necessary to cut a towing-path for
horses through the woods along its ba,nks. Lieutenant Cleaveland and the other offl-
C5erswere of opinion that a short tug-steamer of sufficient power would certainly go
up the river to Antioch which was in fact done by the Columbine's boat for the
5
greater part of the way and if a row of piles were to be driven into the sea in the
:
line of the river, extending beyond the bar, so as to enable the current of the river to
carry the sand and mud farther out into deeji water, the Orontes would then admit
vessels of 200 tons, instead of being obstructed by a bar, over which there is a depth
of water of from three and a half to nine feet in winter. At any rate, it might be
made navigable for boats, as the average fall of the river, between Antioch and the
Bea, scarcely exceeds five feet and a half per mile and boats would then go twenty-
;
Bevon miles above the town to Murad Pacha and different parts of the lake of Antioch."
K. G. J. viii. p. 230.
3 For
\ lews, with descriptions, see Fisher's Syria, i. 5, 19, 77. n. 28.
Colonel Chesney says, " The windings give a distance of about forty-one mileSi
*
whilst the journey by land is only sixteen miles and a half.' E. G. J. viii. p. 230
Stralx) (xvi. 2) makes the distance from Antioch to Seleicia one hundred and twentjf
p-tadia. Forbiger (Handbuch der Alten Geographic, ii. 645) calls three [German^ ij-
Sjeograplilcal miles.
136 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
well worn by travellers, like tlie road from the Piraeus to Athens, or fronj
Ostia to Kome.
Seleucia united the two characters of a fortress and a seaport. It wa?
situated on a rocky eminence, which is the southern extremity of an ele-
vated range ^ of hills projecting from Mount Amanus. From the south-
3ast, where the ruins of the Antioch Gate ^ are still conspicuous, the
ground rose towards the north-east into high and craggy summits and ;
round the greater part of the circumference of four miles ^ the city was
protected by its natural position. The harbour and mercantile suburb
were on level ground towards the west ; but here, as on the only weak
point at Gibraltar, strong artificial defences had made compensation for
the weakness of nature.'' Seleucus, who had named his metropolis in his
father's honour (p. 122)^ gave his own name to this maritime fortress
and here, around his tomb,^ his successors contended for the key of Syria.'
" Seleucia by the sea " was a place of great importance under the Seluci-
dae and the Ptolemies ; and so it remained under the sway of the Komans.
In consequence of its bold resistance to Tigranes, when he was in posses^
sion of all the neighbouring country, Pompey gave it the privileges of a
" Free City ; " ^ and a contemporary of St. Paul speaks of it as having
those privileges still.^
J
This hilly range was called Pieria. Hence the city was called, to distinguish it
from others of the same name, Seleucia Pieria (Plin. v. 18. Strabo xvi. 2). For the
same reason it was sometimes called Seleucia ad Mare.
* " On the south side of the city there was a strong gate, adorned with pilasters, and
defended with round towers. This gate is still standing, almost entire, and is called
the gate of Antioch." ^Pococke. " On the S. E. side of the walls is the gate of Antioch,
adorned with pilasters and defended by towers this entrance must have been very ;
handsome. Near it, and parallel to the walls, are the remains of a double row of marble
columns." Chesney.
3 " The space within the walls of the town and suburbs, which have a circumference
altogether of about /owr miles, is filled with the ruins of houses." Chesney.
4 'Ttto TTjv enl -QdlaTrav avTT]^ vevovaav irlevpdv h rolg eivLnedoLg, rd r' i/nTropela
paper on Seleucia Pieria," by Dr. Yates, has been published in the Museum of Claa-
tical Antiquities, Part VI.
8 'ETiEvOepav avrr/v tiwive UojUTrZ/iog, dnoKldaag TiypdvTjv. Strabo xvi. 2. TarsUi
hsul the same privileges. See p. 45. Compare p. 25, note. Filn. v. 18.
EXCAVATION AT SELEUCIA. (From Laborde.)
"
SELEUCIA. 187
The most remarkable work among the extant remains of Seleucia, iis an
tmniense excavation, probably the same with that which is mentioned bj
Polybius/ leading from the upper part of the ancient city to the sea. It con
sists alternately of tunnels and deep open cuttings. It is difficult to give a
confident opinion as to the uses for which it was intended. But the best
conjecture seems to be that it was constructed for the purpose of drawing
off the water, which might otherwise have done mischief to the liouses and
shipping in the lower part of the town ; and so arranged at the same time,
as when needful, to supply a rush of water to clear out the port. The
inner basin, or dock, is now a morass ; but its dimensions can be measured,
and the walls that surrounded it can be distinctly traced.'' The position
of the ancient-flood-gates, and the passage through which the vessels were
moved from the inner to the outer harbour, can be accurately marked.
The very piers of the outer harbour are still to be seen under the water.
The southern jetty takes the wider sweep, and overlaps the northern, form-
ing a secure entrance and a well protected basin. The stones are of great
size, " some of them twenty feet long, five feet deep, and six feet wide ;
and they were fastened to each other with iron cramps. The masonry of
ancient Seleucia is still so good, that not long since a Turkish Pasha ^ con
ceived the idea of clearing out and repairing the harbour.
i UpoaBaatv 6e fztav Ix^l Kard tjjv dnd d-aXa.TTTig izTie^pav Kli/naKUT^v Kot x^ipoTcotij-
Tov, eyKXtfiUGL kol cKaTiujxaaL TTVKVolg koX avvex(Tt dteilrj/j./j.iviiv. Polyb. V. 59.
Pococke gives a rude plan of Seleucia, with the harbour, &c. The more exact and
'
tween two solid walls of masonry for three hundred and fifty yards, to the entrance of
the great basin, which is now closed by a garden wall. The port or basin is an irreg-
ular oval of about four hundred and fifty yards long by three hundred and fifty in
width at the southern extremity, and rather more than two hundred at the northern.
The surrounding wall is formed of large cut stones solidly put together, and now ris*
ng only about seven feet above the mud, which during the lapse of ages has gradually
accumulated, so as to cover probably about eight feet above the original level. The
xterior side of tlie basin is about one-third of a mile from the sea ; the interior is clos
o the foot of the hill," pp. 230, 231.
3 Pococke.
Ali Pasha, governor of Bagdad in 1835, once governor of Aleppo. " The found;^
'ion of his plan (when he turned his thoughts to the means of increasing the commer
lial prosperity of thio part of Turkey), was to be the restoration of the once maguifl
138 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
These piers were unbroken when Saul and Barnabas came down ic
.
Seleucia, and the large stones fastened by their iron cramps protected the
vessels in the harbour from the swell of the western sea. Here, in the
midst of unsympathising sailors, the two missionary Apostles, with their
younger companion, stepped on board the vessel which was to convey
them to Salamis As they cleared the port, the whole sweep of the bay
of Antioch opened on their the low ground by the mouth the
left, of
Orontes, the wild and woody country beyond and then the peak of it,
Mount Casius, rising symmetrically from the very edge of the sea to a height
of five thousand feet.^ On the right, in the south-west horizon, if the day
was clear, they saw the island of Cyprus from the first.'' The current sets
northerly and north-east between the island and the Syrian coast.^ But
with a fair wind, a few hours would enable Ihem to run down from Seleu-
cia to Salamis ;
and the land would rapidly rise in forms well-known and
familiar to Barnabas and Mark.
Until the present year (1850) we have not been in possession of ac-
curate charts of the coast near Salamis. Almost every island of the
Mediterranean, except Crete and Cyprus, has been minutely surveyed and
described by British naval officers. The soundings . of the coast of Crete
are as yet comparatively unknown : but the charts of Cyprus are on the
cent port of Seleucia, the masonry of which is still in so good a state that it merely
requires trifling repairs in someand to be cleared out, which might have been
places,
done for 31,000, and partially for 10,000."Chesney.
1 " The lofty Jebel-el-Akrab, rising 5318 feet above the sea, with its abutments ex-
tending to Antioch." Chesney, p. 228. Pliny's language concerning this mountain
is absurdly extravagant " In promontorio Seleucia. Super earn mons Casius. Cujua
:
excelsa altitude quarta vigilia orientem per tenebras Solem adspicit, brevi circumactu
corporis diem noctemque pariter ostendens. Ambitus ad cacumen xix. M. pass, est,
altitudo per directum iv." ^N. H. v. 18. Mount Casius is, however, a conspicuous and
beautiful feature of this bay. St. Paul must have seen it in all his voyages to and
from Antioch, and we shall often have occasion to allude to it.
See above, p. 134, n. 2.
3 " In sailing from the southern shores of Cyprus, with the winds adverse, you
should endeavour to obtain the advantage of the set of the current, which between
Cyprus and the mouths of the Nile always runs to the eastward, changing its direction
to the N. E.
and N. as you near the coast of Syria." ^Norie, p. 149. " The current, in
general, continues easterly along the Libyan coast, and E. N. E. off Alexandria thence, ;
advancing to the coast of Syria, it sets N. E. and more northerly ^ so that country ves-
Bels bound from Damietta to an eastern port of Cyprus, have been carried by the cur-
rent past the island." Purdy, p. 276. After leaving the Gulph of Scanderoon, the
current sets to the westward along the south coast of Asia Minor, as we shall have
occasion to notice hereafter. A curious illustration of the difficulty sometime? expe-
rienced in making this passage will be found in Meursius, Cyprus, &c., p. 158 ; w^here
the decree of an early council is cited, directing the course to be adopted on the death
of a bishop in Cyprus, if the vessel which conveyed the news could not cross to An
tioch.
VOYAGE TO CYPKUS. 13J
the island, the coast trends rapidly to the west, till it reaches Capfl
Grego,3 the south-east extremity. The wretched modern town of Famar
gousta is nearer the latter pomt than the former, and the ancient Salamia
was situated a short distance to the north of Famagousta. Near Cape
St. Andrea are two or three small islands, anciently called " The Keys."
These, if they were seen at all, would soon be lost to view. Cape Grego is
distinguished by a singular promonotory of table land. And there is
little doubt that the woodcut here given from our English sailing direc-
The ground lies low in the neighbourhood of Salamis ; and the town
was situated on a bight of the coast to the north of the river Pediaeus.
1 Captain Graves returned from the survey of Cyprus while these sheets were pass-
ing through the press. His kindness has enabled us to give the accompanying Map
of Cyprus and Plan of Salamis, before the publication of the Governmeiit Charts.
Some further information will be embodied in a supplementary note and we hope ;
that, as Captain Graves is about to proceed to the survey of Crete, we shall soon be in
possession of abundant information with regard to that island.
^ The Dinaretum of Pliny, v. 35. This north-eastern extremity of the island, per
haps from being long and narrow {Kad' 6 arevrj rj vrjoog, Strabo xiv. 6), was called
Ovoa [3odg, or the ox's tail. Ptolem. v. 14, 3.
3 The Pedalium of Strabo and Ptolemy.
4 KXet6eg, mentioned by Strabo, Ptolemy, and Pliny. See what Herodotus says
(V. 108) concerning the Phoenician fleet cruising about the Keys. These islands are
mentioned by Pococke (ii. 219) as follows : " Opposite to the north-east corner are the
isles called Clides by the ancients the largest of which is not a mile in circumference.
;
Authors differ about the number of them those who name but two, probably took
;
notice only of the two largest there are two more that appear only as rocks, the far-
;
thest of which is not a mile from the land. There is another, which has some herbage
on it, and may be the second as to its dimensions it is so very near to the land that it
;
This low land is the largest plain in Cyprus, and the Pedieeus is the only
true river in the island, the rest being only winter-torrents, flowing in the
wet season from the two mountain ranges which intersect it from east to
west. This plain probably represents the kingdom of Teucer, which is
wards between the two mountain ranges to the very heart of the country,
where the modern Turkish capital, Nicosia, is situated. In the days of ^
historical Greece, Salamis was the capital. Under the Roman Empire,
if not the seat of government, it was at least the most important mercan-
tile town. We
have the best reasons for believing that the harbour was
convenient and capacious.'^ Thus we can form to ourselves some idea of
the appearance of the place in the reign of Claudius. A large city by the
sea-shore, awide spread plain with cornfields and orchards, and the blue
distance of mountains beyond, composed the view on which the eyes of
Barnabas and Saul rested when they came to anchor in the bay of Sa-
lamis.
iistory of Salamis was the insurrection of the Jews in the reign of Trajan,
when great part of the city was destroyed.*^ Its demolition was com-
I
See Pococke's description, vol. ii. pp. 214-217. He gives a rude plan of ancient
Salamis. (See above, p. 139, n. 1.) The ruined aqueduct which he mentions appears
to be subsequent to the time of St. Paul. We have not had the opportunity of consult-
ing a more recent work, Von Hammer's Topographische Ansichten aus der Levante.
" See especially the account in Diodorus Siculus (Book xx. pp. 759-761) of the gTeat
ttaval victory of Salamis, won by Demetrius Poliorcetes over Ptolemy. Scylax also
Bays that Salamis had a good harbour. His expression is, "kiiieva ^xovoa Kleicrbv
XetfJ^epivov. See Gail.
3 Acts xiii. 5. Compare v. 9. ix. 20, and contrast xviL 1. xviii. 4.
4 Philo (Lcgat. ad Cai.) speaks of the Jews of Cyprus.
6 Sec above, p. 17, n. 3.
"
The flame spread where the Jews were numerous and wealthy. One
to Cyprus,
Artemio placed himself They rose and massacred 240,000 of their fel^-
at their head.
low-citizens the whole populous city of Salamis became a desert. The revolt of
;
Cyprus was first suppressed Hadrian, afterwards emperor, landed on the island, and
;
marched to the assistance of the few inhabitants (vho had been able to act on the defensive.
He dcteatcd the Jews, expelled them from the island, to whose beautiful coasts no Jew
was ever after permitted to approach. If one were accidentally ^^Tecked on the inhos-
pitable shore, he was instantly put to death."
Milman, iii. Ill, 112. The author says
SALAMIS TO PAPHOS. 141
the Jews and proselytes, who were convinced by the preaching of the
Apostles.*^
velled and frequented road.^ It is indeed likely that, even under the Em-
pire, the islands of the Greek part of the Mediterranean, as Crete and
Cyprus, were not so completely provided with lines of internal communicar
tion as those which were nearer the metropolis, and had been longer under
Roman occupation, such as Corsica and Sardinia. But we cannot help
believing that Boman roads were laid down in Cyprus and Crete, after the
manner of the modern English roads in Corfu and the other Ionian islands,
which islands, in their social and political condition, present many pomts
of resemblance to those which were under the Roman sway in the time of
St. Paul. On the whole, there is little doubt that his journey from Sa-
lamis to Paphos, a distance from east to west of not more than an hun-
dred miles, was accomplished in a short time and without difficulty.
century and the first) may be compared with that of the town of Corfu
in the present day, with its strong garrison of imperial soldiers in the
midst of a Greek population, with its mixture of two languages, with its
symbols of a strong and steady power side by side with frivolous amuse-
ments, and with something of the style of a court about the residence of
its governor. All the occurrences, which are mentioned at Paphos as
takmg place on the arrival of Barnabas and Saul, are grouped so entirely
above (109), that the Rabbinical traditions are full of the sufferings of the Jews in this
period. In this island there was massacre before the time of the rebellion, " and the
sea that broke upon the shores of Cyprus was tinged with the red hue of carnage."
1 Jerome speaks of it under this name " Salamis, quaa nunc Constantia dicitur."
:
Ep. Philem.
See 1 Cor. xiv. 16.
^ On the west of Salamis, in the direction of Paphos, Pococke saw a church and
monastery dedicated to Barnabas, and a grotto where he is saifl to have been buried,
after sufiering martyrdom in the reign of Nero (P. 217). There is a legend in Cedrenuf
and Nicephorus Calistus of the discovery of his relics, with the Gospel of St. Matthew
on his breast, in the reign of Anastasius or Zeno. See Meursiue. A road is marked
between Salamis and Paphos in the Peutingerian Table.
142 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
round the governor's person, that our attention must be turned for a time
to the condition of Cyprus as a Roman province, and the position and
character of Sergius Paulus.
From the time when Augustus united the world under his own power,
the provinces were divided into two different classes. The business of the
first Emperor's life was to consolidate' the imperial system under the show
of administering a repubhc. He retained the names and semblances of
Kome had once enjoyed. He found two
those liberties and rights which
names which was henceforth inseparably blended
in existence, the one of
with the Imperial dignity and Military command, the other with the au-
thority of the Senate and its Civil administration. The first of these
names was " Prastor," the second was " Consul." Both of them were
retained in Italy and both were reproduced in the Provinces as " Pro-
;
praetor " and " Proconsul." ^ He told the Senate and people that he
would relieve them of all the anxiety of military proceedings, and that
he would resign to them those provinces, where soldiers were unneces-
sary to secure the fruits of a peaceful administration. He would take
upon himself all the care and risk of governing the other provinces, where
rebellion might be apprehended, and where the proximity of warlike tribes
made the presence of the legions perpetually necessary. These were his
professions to the Senate : but the real purpose of this ingenious arrange-
ment was the disarming of the republic, and the securing to himself the
absolute control of the whole standing army of the empire.'' The scheme
was sufficiently transparent ; but there was no sturdy national life in
1 Tuv 6vo TOVTUV ovojudruv eirl Trlelarov ev Ty drjuoKparia uvdrjaavTcoVy rd fiev roH
'SiTparijyov, rolg alperolg, o)g Kot tgj 7ro?ifi(p uTrd rov Tzdvv apxo.LOV TvpoarjKov, eduicev,
^AvTicrparr/yovg G(j)ug irpoaeLnuv ' to de drj t6)V 'Tizdruv, rolg tripoig, 6g KoL elprjviKO)-
repotg, 'AvOvTrdrovg avrovg knLKaXeaag. Avrd filv yap rd ovofiara, to ts tov Jlrparriyod
KOi TO TOV 'TirdTOV, ev Ty 'Ira/l/g, eTTjpijae, Tovg 6t e^to irdvTag, cjg Koi dvr' ekelvuv
upxovrag irpoanyopevce, Dio Cass. liii. 13. It is very ipiportaut, as we shall see pre-
sently, to notice the accompanying statement, that all governors of the Senate'' s pro-
vinces were to be called Proconsuls, whatever their previous office might have been
{^Kot dvOvTTuTovg KaTielodat ftij on Tovg dvo Tovg vTtaTevKoragy uXXd Kal Tovg c/l/loi'f ruv
the Emperor^s provinces were to be styled Legati or Proprcetors, even if they had
been Consuls {rovg 61 krepovg virb re kavTov alpeladai, Kal UpeajSevrdg avrov 'Avric-
rpaTTjyovg te ovo/iu^Eadat, mv Ik tQv iiraTEVKOTuv ugl, dtETa^e).
' Provincias validiores, ct quas annuis magistratuum imperii^ regi nec facile neo
tutum erat, ipse siisccpit ; caitera Proconsulibus sortito permisit, et tamen nonnullas
commutavit interdura. Sueton. Aug. 47. Ta jucv uadEVEOTEpa, ug Kal elpTjvaca kci
dnoTie/xa, dneduice Ty Bovly ' Td taxvpoTepa, ug icai c^aXepd Kal ETviKLvdwa, Kal Tjnu
noXenLOvg Tivdg TtpoaocKovg Ix^vra, ?j Kal avTa Kaff kavTd juiya re veuTeptaat dwdjuevcif
Kareaxe '
?y6y<i) /xiv, oivug rj [xlv Tepovaca ddeug rd KuTJuara Trjg dpxr/g KapirajTO, ainbi
de rovg re novovg Kal KLvdvvovg exol '
^py^ de, Iva irrlTy Tcpot^daei rain y ekeIvol fih
Kol uonXoi Kal dfiaxot uaiv, dvrbg Si 6?) fxovog Kal bnla ?X'Q, Kal crpariurxg r^^etpy
Dio Case. liii. 12.
PEOCONSULS ANT) FHOl^RMLVRS. 143
successors from Tiberius to JSTero, the provinces divided into these two
classes. On the one side we have those which are supposed to be under
the Senate and people. The governor is appointed by lot, as in the times
of the old republic. He carries with him the lictors and fasces, the insig-
which in each case is given to the governor in the Acts of the Apos-
tles, is " Proconsul." * The same authorities inform us that Syria was an
imperial province,^ and no such title as " Proconsul " is assigned by the
sacred writers to " Cyrenius governor of Syria," ^ or to Pilate, Festus and
Felix,'' the Procurators of Judsea, which, as we have seen (p. 25), was a
dependency of that great and unsettled province.
1 Which our English translators have rendered by the ambiguous word deputy."
Acts xiii. 7. " The deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus." " Gallio was the deputy
of Achaia," xviii. 12. " There are deputies,''^ xlx. 38.
* All these details are stated, and the two kinds of governors very accurately dis-
linguished in the 53d Book of Dio Cassius, ch. 13. It should be remarked, that hnaoxta,
(the word still used for the subdivisions of the modern Greek Kingdom) is applied in-
discriminately to both kinds of provinces.
^ See Dio Cass. liii. 15.
"*
Strabo xvii. 3. Dio Cass. liii. 12. The latter uses 'EllUg instead cf Axcua. as in
Acts XX. 2.
^AvBvTrarog, xviii. 12. xix. 38.
^ Strabo and Dio. ibid. ? Luke ii. 2.
8 The word invariably used New
Testament is 'Hye/^wv. This is a general
in the
-erm, like the Roman " Prseses " and the English " Governor aa may be seen by
Bio GVssius informs us, in the same passage where he tells us that Asia
and Achaia were provinces of the Senate, that Cyprus was retained by the
Emperor for himself.^ If we stop here, we naturally ask the question,
and some have asked the question rather hastily, ^ how it comes to pass
that St. Luke speaks of Sergius Paulus by the style of " Proconsul ?
But any hesitation concerning the strict historical accuracy of the sacred
historian's language, is immediately set at rest by the very next sentence
comparing Luke ii. and observing that the very same word is applied to
2 with iii. 1,
itore Strabone (lib. 14, in fine) et aliis [?] exploratum habeatur, Cyprum non proconsu-
larem sed prajtoriam factam esse provinciam cur a Luca non Praetor [Proprastor] sed
;
Proconsul nominetur, ea videtur esse ratio, quod eadem prastoria provincia saepe hono-
ris causa data est admiuistranda Ciliciae Proconsuli." Grotius thinks the word is ia-
ftccurately used by St. Luke by a sort of catachresis. " Proprie qui Cypro prseerat
vocabatur uvriarpaTTjyog. Sed non mirum est Graecos ista permiscuisse, aut potius, ut
Ggregii erant adulatores, nomen quam honorificentiissimum dedisse provinciarum recto-
ribus. Generale nomen est Praesidis quo et hie Latine uti licet." Hammond (Annot.
:
on Acts xiii., not in the ed. of 1G53) refutes Baronius, and takes the view of Grotius.
The whole mistake has arisen from the following words in the last paragraph of Strabo's
fourteenth book yeyove arpaTTiyucr/ kitapxio, Kud' avrt/v
:
kyeveTO kTcaoxia V v^eoc,
. . .
KetdaTcep Kal vvv kan, crpaTTjyiKTj. And the whole explanation is to be found in the
clear statement of Dio Cassius (given above, p. 142, n. 1), that all governors of the
Senate's provinces had the title of Proconsul, though they were often only of Praetorian
rank. Thus we find Tacitus calling Caasius Cordus Proconsul of Crete (Ann. iii. 38),
wid T. Vinius Proconsul of Narbonensian Gaul (Hist. i. 48), though we know that
Africa and Asia were the only Senatorian provinces governed by men of Proconsular
Rink. See Dio Cass. liii. 14, and Strabo xvii. 3.
a
is evident, then, that the governor's style and title from this time for-
not all that we possess. The coin, which is here engraved, distinctly pre-
sents to us a Cyprian Proconsul of the reign of Claudius. And the
inscription, which will be found at the end of this chapter, supphes us with
the names of two additional governors, who were among the predecessors
or successors of Sergius Paulus,^
It is remarkable that two men called Sergius Paulus are described in
very similar terms by two physicians who wrote in Greek, the one a heath-
with the Jewish impostor, whom Saul and Barnabas found at the Paphian
court, by those who are acquainted with the intellectual and religious ten-
utterly gone. We can hardly wonder, when the East was thrown open,
1 'Yarepov Trjv [xev 'Kvirpov Kol ttjv TakarLav TTjv izepl "NdpSuva STjfic) uiredQKSVf
avTog 6 rrjv AaXfiariav dvTe?M6e. Dio, liii. 12.
* Tore 6' ovv kol ttjv Kvrrpov kol ti^v TdXariav TTjv NapduvTjatav uTzeduKe rcj ^rj/jxp^
3 If Baur had lived in the age of Baronius or Grotius he would have adduced this
passage as an argument against the historical accuracy of this part of the Acts.
4 TovSe Tov vvv eTtupxov TTjg 'Fuftaluv Tro/lewf, uvdpbg rd, Travra Ttporevovrog epyot^
re Kol loyoog rolg ev ^L7ioGo<pLa, ^epyiov llavlov virdrov. De Anatom. Administr. i. 1.
t. iL p. 218, ed. Kiihn. 2epyLog 6 Kal lIav?iog, dg ov ^ercL 7ro2.vv xpovov eTvapxoQ
kyhero Trig Tvoleug, Kal ^Iddiog .... kcTzevKug {eanovdaKug^ 6s irepl rrjv 'kpiaro-
Te?\.ovg ^iT^oao^iav, uaTtep Kal 6 UavTiog. De Praenot. ad Epig. c. 2. t. xiv. p. 612,
The Sergius Paulus here spoken of was enapxog of Rome about the year 177 a. d., and
?7as personally known to Galen. The passages are adduced by Wetstein without any
remark and from him they are quoted by Dr. Bloomfield, in his Recensio Synoptica,
5
as if they referred to the Sergius Paulus of the Acts, who lived more than a hundred
years earlier. We owe the correction of this mistake to Dr. Greenhill, who wrot th
life of Galen in Smith's Dictionary of Biography.
See Horace's Odes, i. xi., and Lucian's Life of Alexander of Abonotoiclitis.
VOL. I. 10
;
rant soothsayers ;
^ Syria sent her music and her medicines .
; Chaldsea her
" Babylonian numbers " and mathematical calculations." ^ To these cor-
rupters of the people of Romulus we must add one more Asiatic nation,
the nation of the Israelites ;
and it is an instructive employment to ol>
serve that, while some members of the Jewish people were rising, by the
Divine power, to the highest position ever occupied by men on earth,
others were sinking themselves, and others along with them, to the lowest
and most contemptible degradation. The treatment and influence of the
Jews at Rome were often too similar to those of other Orientals. One
year we find them banished ;
^ another year we see them quietly re-estab-
lished.'^ The Jewish beggar-woman was the gipsy of the first century,
fihivering and crouching in the outskirts of the ciliy, and telling fortunes,
as Ezekiel said of old, " for handfuls of barley, and for pieces of bread "
All this catalogue of Oriental impostors, whose influx into Rome was a
characteristic of the period, we can gather from that revolting satire of
Juvenal, in which he scourges the follies and vices of the Roman women.
But not only were the women of Rome drawn aside into this varied ana
multiplied fanaticism ; but the eminent men of the declining republic, and
the absolute st>vereigns of the early empire, were tainted and enslaved by
the same superstitions. The great Marius had in his camp a Syrian,
probably a Jewish prophetess, by whose divinations he regulated the
^ pro-
of the republic, when the oracles were silent,^ sought information from
tence in the great Latin historian is more bitterly emphatic than that in
which he says that the astrologers and sorcerers are a class of men who
" will always be discarded and always cherished." ^
What we know, from the literature of the period, to have been the case
in Rome and in the empire at large, we see exemplified in a province in
the case of Sergius Paulus. He had attached himself to " a certain sor-
cerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus," and who had
given himself the Arabic name of " Elymas," or The Wise." But the
Proconsul was not so deluded by the false prophet ^
as to be unable, or
nnwilling, to listen to the true. " He sent for Barnabas and Saul," of
whose arrival he was informed, and whose free and public declaration of
the " Word of God " attracted his inquiring mind. Elymas used every
-exertion to resist them, and to hinder the Proconsul's raind from falling
tinder the influence of their divine doctrine. Truth ana falsehood were
brought into visible conflict with each other. It is evident, from the
graphic character of the narrative, the description of Paul " setting hi
"the mist and darkness" which on
eyes,"^ on the sorcerer, fell Barjesus,
the groping about some one lead him," that the opposing
for to ^
ficient reasons why liars and hypocrites, like Ananias and Sapphira, and
powerful impostors, like Elymas Barjesus, should be publicly punished in
the face of the Jewish and Gentile worlds, and made the examples and
warnings of every subsequent age of the Church.^ A different passage in
1 For the good and bad senses in which the word Mayof was used, see Professor
Trench's recent book on the Second Chapter of St. Matthew. It is worth observing,
that Simon Magus was a Cyprian, if he is the person mentioned by J osephus. A. xx. 5, 2.
' 'Arsi-iCsLVy " to look intently." Acts xiii. 10. The same word which is used in
xsiii. 1. Our first impression is, that there was something searching and commanding
in St. Paul's eye. But if the opinion is correct, that he suffered from an affection of
the eyes, this word may express a peculiarity connected with his defective vision.
See the Bishop of Winchester's note (Ministerial Character of Christ, p. 555), who
compares the lxx. in Numb, xxxiii. 55, Josh, xxiii. 13, and applies this view to the ex-
planation of the difficulty in Acts xxiii. 1-5. And it is remarkable that, in both the
traditional accounts of Paul's personal appearance which we possess, he is said to have
fead contracted eye-brows. Malalas (x. p. 257, Ed. Bonn.) calls him avvo^pv^ ; and
Nicephorus (H. E. ii. 37) says kutu rilg 6<}>pvc elxs vevovaag. Many have thought tha*
" the thorn in his flesh," 2 Cor. xii. 7, was an affection of the eyes. Hence, perhaps,
the statement in Gal. iv. 14-16, and the TZT^liKa ypdfxiiara, Gal. vi. 11. (See our Pr^
face, p. xvii. note,)
3 It may be added that these phrases seem to imply that the person from whence
they came was an eye-witness. Some have inferred that Luke himself was present.
< It is not necessary to infer from these passages, or from 1 Cor. v. 3-5. 1 Tim. i
ELTMA8 BAEJEStJS. 14$
the life of St. Peter presents a parallel whicli is closer in some respects with
this interview of St. Paul with the sorcerer in Cyprus. As Simon Magus,
'who had " long time bewitched the people of Samaria with his sorce*
ries,"
was denounced by St. Peter " as still in the gall of bitterness and
bond of iniquity," and solemnly told that " his heart was not right in
and as one who sought to pervert and distort that which God saw and
approved as right.'" He proceeded to denounce an instantaneous judg-
ment ;
and, according to his prophetic word, the "hand of the Lord**
struck the sorcerer as it had once struck the Apostle himself on the way
to Damascus ; the sight of Elymas began to waver,^ and presently a
darkness settled on it so thick, that he ceased to behold the sun's light.
This blinding of the false prophet opened the eyes of Sergius Paulus.^
That which had been intended as an opposition to the Gospel, proved the
means of its extension. We are ignorant of the degree of this extension
in the island of Cyprus. But we cannot doubt that when the Proconsul
was converted, his influence would make Christianity reputable and that ;
from this moment the Gentiles of the island, as well as the Jews, had the
news of salvation brought home to them.
And now, from this point of the Apostolical History, Paul appears as
the great figure in every picture. Barnabas, henceforward, is always in
the background. The great Apostle now enters on his work as the
preacher to the Gentiles ; and simultaneously with his active occupation
BO " Saul" is changed into " Paul," at the moment of his first great vic-
tory among the Heathen. '
'"^at " the plains of Mamre by Hebron
20, that Peter and Paul had power to inflict these judgments at their will. Though,
even they had this power, they had also the
if spirit of love and supernatural knowl'
edge to guide them in the use of it.
I
Acts viii. 21-23. John viii. U.
3 Tadiovpyia (xiii. 10), expresses the cleverness of a successful imposture.
4 Notice evddag, xiiL 10, and evdela, viii. 21.
' 'kx^^vg Koi cKorog, xiii. 11. This may be used, in Luke's medical manner, to e.'*
press the stages of the blindness. Compare ecrr} koL TrepienaTec in the account of the
recovery, iii. 8.
"
Durch das Erblinden des Magiers dem Proconsul die Augen geofifnet werden."
^
These are the words of Schrader, who yet exercises his utmost ingenuity to explain
Bway everything supernatural in the occurrence. See Schrader's Paulus, ii. p. 170-175.
Baui 's notion of course is, that the whole story was invented or embellished. Baur'f
r^nlus. Pt. I. eh. iv.
150 THE LIFE AlO) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the Jordan, was to the fisherman of Gahlee, that was the city of Paphos,
had received, or that " Paul," having been a G-entile form of the Apos-
tle's name in early life conjointly with the Hebrew " Saul," was now used
to the exclusion of the other, to Indicate that he had receded from his
position as a Jewish Christian, to become the friend and teacher of the
Gentiles ? All these opinions have found their supporters both in ancient
and modern times.^ The question has been alluded to before in this work
(p. 46). It will be well to devote some further space to it now, once
for all.
It cannot be denied that the words in Acts xiii. 9 " Saul, who is
also Paul " are the line of separation between two very distinct portions
formly called " Saul," while in the latter he receives, with equal consis-
tency, the name of " Paul " It must also be observed that the Apostle
always speaks of himself under the latter designation in every one of his
Epistles, without any exception ; and not only so, but the Apostle St.
Peter, in the only passage where he has occasion to allude to him,^ speaks
of him as " our beloved brother Paul." We are, however, inclined to
adopt the opinion that the Cilician Apostle had this Roman name, a8
well as his other Hebrew name, in his earher days, and even before he
was a Christian. This adoption of a Gentile name is so far from being
alien to the spirit of a may be
Jewish family, that a similar practice
traced through all the periods of Hebrew History.^ Begmning with the
Persian epoch (b. c. 550-350) we find such names as Nehemiah," *'
dius,^ " Ptolemy," " Antipater ^ the names of Greek philosophers, sucli
man names adopted by the Jews, the comcidence is still more striking
**
Crispus," ^ " Justus," ^ " Niger," ^ are found in Josephus ' as well as ia
the Acts. " Drusilla " and " Priscilla" might have been Roman matrons.
The " Aquila " of St. Paul is the counterpart of the " Apella" of Horace."
Nor need we end our survey of Jewish names with the early Roman
empire for, passing by the destruction of Jerusalem, we see Jews, in the
;
7 J oseph Vit. 68, 65. B. J. iv. 6, 1. Compare 1 Cor. i. 14. Acts xviii. 7. CoL iv. IL
8 Hor. I. Sat. v. 100. Priscilla appears under the abbreviated form " Prisca," 2 Tim.
It. 19.
9 See further details in Zunz.
10 Laviri'k ov to ovojua eireK^dii Balrdaap. Dan. x. 1. LXX. See the Hebrew in
Esther ii. 7, So Zerubbabel was called Sheshbazzar. Compare
"-lincs^ i^'n}! fiDIM*
Ezra V. 16 with Zech. iv. 9. The Oriental practice of adopting names which were sig-
nificant must not be left out of view. See Parkhurst, and his quotation from the
Targum on j^-jf-j.
" Perhaps the best note among the commentators ie that of Grotius. " Saulus qm
ft Paulus ; id est, qui, ex quo cum Romanis conversari coepit, hoc nomine a suo nou
fcbludente, caepit a Romanis appellari. Sic qui Jesus Judaeis, Graecis Jason Hillel<
;
gentium missus, a primo ecclesiffi spolio Proconsule Sergio Paulo victorise suae trophaea
retulit, erexitque vexillum, ut Paulus diceretur e Saulo." Hieron. in Ep. Philem.
Augustine, in one passage, takes the same view. " Ipse minimus Apostolorum .tuorum
(1 Cor. XV. 9) cum Paulus Proconsul, per ejus militiam debellata superbia, sub lene
jugum Christi tui missus est, regis magni provincialis efifectus (Acts xiii. 7, 12), ipse
quoque ex priore Saulo Paulus vocari amavit, ob tarn magnse insigne victoriee." Confl
viii. 4. It is impossible not to feel that this theory is very inconsistent with the humil-
ity of St. Paul. Baronius, who sees this objection, gives a conjecture which is more
probable : " Saulo cognomen suum, quod etiam -^Emiliorum familiae fuit, quo sibi magia
arctiusque eo vinculo Apostolum vinciret, Sergius Paulus indidit." And again below
" A Sergio Paulo, amicitiae gTatia, familiae suae cognomine nobilitatus est Apostolus."
' "Vox ilia de coelo prostravit persecutorem, et erexit praedicatorem ; occidit Sau-
lum, et vivificavit Paulum (Acts ix). Saiil enim persecutor erat sancti
Sam. viri (1
factus est Paulus (Acts xiii). Quid est Paulus? Modicus. Ergo quando Saulus, su-
perbus, elatus: quando Paulus, humilis, modicus. Ideo sic loquimur, Paulo post
videbo te, id est, post modicum. Audi quia modicus factus est Ego enim sum mini- :
mus Apostolorutn (1 Cor. xv. 9) et Mihi, minimo omnium Sanctorum, dicit alio loco
5
(Ephes. iii. 8). Sic erat inter Apostolos tanquam fimbria vestimenti sed tetigit Ec- ;
clesia gentium tanquam fluxum patiens, et sanata est. (Matt. ix. 20-22.) Tract, viii.
in Ep. Jo. The same train of thought is found, often in the same words, in the follow-
ing places Enarr. in Ps. Ixxii. 4. Serm. ci. on Luke x. 2-6. Serm. clxviii. on Eph.
:
vi. 23. Serm. cclxxix. de Paulo Apostolo. In one passage he gives point to the con-
trast by alluding to the tall stature of the first king of the Jews. " Saulus a Saiile
nomen derivatur. Qui fuerit Saiil, notis. Ipsius electa est statura proceris [procera].
Sic enim describit Scriptura, quod supereminens esset omnibus, quando electus est ut
ungeretur in regem (1 Sam. ix. 2). Non fuit sic Paulus [Saulus], sed factus Paulua
Paulus enim parvus." Serm. clxix. in Philip, iii. 3-16. In these passages the notion
may be used only rhetorically. In another place he gives it as an opinion. Non ob
xliud, quantum mihi videtur, hoc nomen elegit, nisi ut se ostenderet tanquam mini*
mum Apostolorum." De Sp. et Lit. xii. At one time he finds in Stephen the counter-
part of David : " Talis fuerat Saiil in David, qualis Saulus in Stephanum." Serm*
cccxv. in Sol. Staph. Mart. At another, David prefigures our Lord himself -
"Saiil
erat ille persecutor David. In David Christus erat, in David Christus praefigurabatur
tanquam David Saiili de Coelo, Saule, Saule, quid me perseoueris ? Serm. clxxv.
in 1 Tim. L 15.
SAUL AND PAUL. 153
indicate, by his very name, that he was " the hast of the Apostles," ' and
" less than the least of all Saints." ' Yet we must not neglect the coinci
dent occurrence of these two names in this narrative of the events which
happened in Cyprus. We need not hesitate to dwell on the associations
which are connected with the name of " Paulus," or on the thoughts
which are naturally called up, when we notice the critical passage in the
sacred history, where it is first given to Saul of Tarsus. It is surely not
And though we imagine, as we have said above, that Saul had the
name of Paul at an earlier period of his life, and should be inclined to con-
jecture that the appellation came from some connection of his ancestors
(perhaps as manumitted slaves) with some member of the Roman family
of the JEmiHan Pauli ;
^
yet we cannot believe it accidental that the
words, 6 which have led to this discussion, occur at this particular point of
The Heathen name rises to the surface at the
the inspired narrative.
moment when St. Paul visibly enters on his office as the Apostle of the
Heathen. The Roman name is stereotyped at the moment when he con-
verts the Roman governor. And the place where this occurs is Paphos,
the favourite sanctuary of a shameful idolatry. At the very spot which
was notorious throughout the world for that which the Gospel forbids and
destroys, there, before he sailed for Perga, having achieved his victory,
the Apostle erected his trophy,' as Moses, when Amalek was discom-
3Paulus was the cognomen of a family of the Gens Emilia. The stemma is given
In Smith's Dictionary of Classical Biography, under Paulus ^milius. The name must
of oourse have been given to the first individual who bore it from the smallness of his
stature : it is a contraction of Pauxillus : see Donaldson's Yarronianus. It should he
observed, that both Malalas and Nioephorus (quoted above) speak of St. Paul as short
of stature.
* Hor. I. Od. xii. 37. Acts xx. 24. Compare Phil. iii. 8.
* Compare the case of Josephus, alluded to above, p. 46.
6 Acts xiii. 9.
' See the words of Jerome quoted above, p, 151, n. 3. " VictoriaB suas tr^ipcea reta
\yt, erexitque vexillum.^^
154 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
fited, " built an altar, and called the name of it J^hovali-Nissi, the Lord
my Banner." ^
CHAPTER TL
" Paulus praeco Dei, qui fera gentium
Primus corda sacro perdomuit stilo,
Christum per populos ritibus asperis
Immanes placido dogmate seminat."
Pbudenttos, Coni Symm. Prset
The banner of the Gospel was now displayed on the coasts of the heathen
The glad tidings had " passed over to the isles of Chittim," and had found
a willing audience in that island, which, in the vocabulary of the Jewish
Prophets, is the representative of the trade and civilisation of the Mediter-
ranean Sea. Cyprus was the early meeting-place of the Oriesital and
Greek forms of social life. Originally colonised from Phoenicia, it was
successively subject to Egypt, to Assyria, and to
Persia ; the settlements of the Greeks on its
seems to have been " the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean to the west and north-
west of Judaea." Numb. xxiv. 24. Jer. ii. 10. Ezek. xxvii. 6. See Gen. x. 4, 5. IsaL
xiii, 1.Dan. xi. 30. But primarily the name is believed to have been connected
with Citium (see note which was a Phoenician colony. See Gesenius, undef
2, p. 154),
C^tlS- EpiphaniuB (himself a Cyprian bishop) says, Kcriov n Kvnpiuv vijaor fcaXelrai
tiTioi y(ip KvTzpLOL, Haer. xxx. 25.
From the Bxitiah Museum : see below, p. 156, n. 7.
the Oriental form under which the goddess was worshipped, is represented
on Greek coins :
^ the Temple bore a curious resemblance to those of As-
tarte at Carthage or Tyre :
and Tacitus pauses to describe the singular-
ity of the altarand the ceremonies, before he proceeds to narrate the cam-
paign of Titus.' And here it was that we have seen Christianity firmly
established by St. Paul,
in the very spot where the superstition of Syria
had perverted man's natural veneration and love of mystery, and where
the beautiful creations of Greek thought had administered to what Atha-
nasius, when speaking of Paphos, well describes as the " deification of lust"
1 Deam ipsam conceptam marl hue apptilsam. Tac. Hist. ii. 3. See P. Mela, ii. 7.
" Odyss. viii. 362. See Eurip. Bacch. 400. Virg. ^n. 1. 415. Hor. Od. i. xxx
Lucan. Phars. viii. 456.
3 Tac. Hist. ii. 2-4. Compare Suet. Tit. 5. Tacitus speaks, of magnilicent oflferingg
obscuro. Tac. H. ii. 3. See Max. Tyr. TLai^Lotg tj fiev 'Atppodirij Tag Tifidg exet rd '
6^ ayaTifia ovk uv elKdaatg uXk(xi rw ij TzvpajiidL TievKy, rj 61 vTirj uyvoelrai. Diss. viii. 8.
Also Clem. Alex. Coh. ad Gentes. m. iv.
8 He is alluding to the worship of Yenus at Paphos, and says r^v imdvfiiav i?fo- :
noLTjcavTeg itpoGicvvovciv. Athan. Cont. Grsecos, p. 10, ed. Col. 1686. Compare
Arnob. v. 19.
9 Or rather the north-west. See the Chart, which is due to the kindness of Captair
Graves. R. N. The words of Strabo are : Eld' Udfog .... Xt/niva exovaa ....
6iixi 6^ TTf^^ araSiovg e^TjKOvra rr/g ILa?\,ai7rd(pov ' Koi Travrjyvpt^ovGi did, T7jg 6dov
Tuvrrjg Kcf trog eirl Tr)v YlakaLiza^ov, uvdpeg ojiov yvvai^iv ek 7(ov uXkQv ttoIeuv
ffvvLovTEg. xiv. 6. The following is an extract from some MSS. notes by Captain
Graves :Kouklia (Old Paphos) is three hours' ride from Ktema (near New Paphos)
ftlong a bridle-path, with corn-fields on either side. The ruins are extensive, particu-
larly a Cyclopean wall . with inscriptions of an early date. There are also very
. .
extensive catacombs." The Pent. Table makes the distance eleven miles. Forbigei
(Alte Geographic, iii. 1049) says incorrectly, that Old Paphos was according to StrabQ
rixty stadia " weiter laudeinwarts " from New Paphos.
PAPH08. 157
heathen pilgrims ;
profligate processions, at stated seasons, crowded the
road between the two towns, as they crowded the road between Antioch
and Daphne (p. 125) ; and small models of the mysterious image ^ were
sought as eagerly by strangers as the little "silver shrmes" of Diana at
Ephesus.^ Doubtless the position of the old town was an illustration of
the early custom, mentioned by Thucydides, of building at a safe distance
from the shore, at a time when the sea was infested by pirates ; and the
new town had been established in a place convenient for commerce, when
navigation had become more secure. It was situated on the verge of a
plain, smaller than that of Salamis, and watered by a scantier stream
than the Pediaeus (see p. 139). Not long before the visit of Paul and
Barnabas had been destroyed by an earthquake. Augustus had rebuilt
it
it, and from him it had received the name of Augusta, or Sebaste.^ But
the old name still retained its place in popular usage, and has descended to
modern times. The " Paphos " of Strabo, Ptolemy, and St. Luke,"* be-
came the "Papho" of the Yenetians and the "Baffa" of the Turks. A
second series of Latin Mixed up
architecture has crumbled into decay.
with the ruins of palaces and churches are the poor dwelUngs of the Greek
and Mahomedan inhabitants, partly on the beach, but chiefly on a low
ridge of sandstone rock, about two miles ^ from the ancient port, for the
1 See the story in Athenaeus, xv. 18. 'O 'Kpoarparoc, efiTzopia xp^P-^vog aal x<^P<^v
RoXkrjv TzepLTvXecov, 'KpoGax<^v tzots koX Tldcbo) rrig Kv'wpov, dyaTi/zdriov 'A(ppo6iTijc
aTTida/xialov, upxaiov rrj rexvy, cjvTjGdfievog, fjet ^ipuv eig 'NdvKpartv, k. t. X The
narrative goes on to say that the merchant was saved by the miraculous image from
ehipwreck.
" Acts xix. 24.
3 We learnthis from Dio Cassius. ILacpLoig (yeiafio) TzovfjaaaL Koi xPW^t'^ kx^-pioO'To,
Koi AvyovGTav KaTiElv, Kara 66y[ia kTZETpeipE, liv. 23. See also Senec. Ep. 91.
TTjv TToliv
N. Q. vi. 26. The Greek form Sebaste, instead of Augusta, occurs in an inscription
found on the spot, which is further interesting as containing the name of another
Paulus. MapKia ^lTiltttvov &vyaTpi, dveipLg. Kataapog &eov 1,e6a<TT0v, yvvaiKi TLavXov
^aSlov M-a^ijuov, Se^aor^f Ila^ov (^ovTJrj Koi 6 d^uog. Boeckh. No. 2629. So Antioch
in Pisidia was called Csesarea. See below, p. 170.
* Strab. xiv. 6. Ptol. v. 14, 1.
5 The following passage from a traveller about the time of the Reformation, is a
curious instance of the changes of meaning which the same words may undergo.
'Paphos ruinis plena videtur, templis tamen frequens, inter qu36 Latina sunt praestan-
tiora, in quibus ritu Jtomano divina peraguntur. et Gallorum legibus vivitur." Itin.
Hieros. Barta;i. de Salignaco, 1587.
6 This is the distance between the Ktema and the Marina given by Captain Graves,
in Purdy's Sailing Directions (p. 251), it is stated to be only half a mile. Captain
Graves says : " In the vicinity are numerous ruins and ancient remains ; but when so
many towns have existed, and so many have severally been destroyed, all must be left
to conjecture. A number of columns broken and much mutilated are lying about,and
some substantial and well-built vaults, or rather subterraneous communications, under
a hill of slight elevation, are pointed out by the guides as the remains of a temple dedi-
cated to Venus. Then there are numerous excavations in the sandstone hills, which
Ofobably served at various periods the double purpose of habitations and tombs. S^v-
';
marsh, wliicli once formed the limit (rf the port, makes the shore unhcaUhj
during the heats of summer by its noxious exhalations. One of the most
singular features of the neighbourhood consists of the curious caverns ex-
cavated in the rocks, which have been used both for tombs and for dwell-
ings. The port is now almost blocked up, and affords only shelter for
boats. The Yenetian stronghold, at the extremity of the Western mole,
is now fast crumbling into ruing. The mole itself is broken up, and every
year the massive stones of which it was constructed are rolled over
from their original position into the port." ^ The approaches to the har-
bour can never have been very safe, in consequence of the ledge of rocks
which extends some distance into the sea. At present, the eastern en-
trance to the anchorage is said to be the safer of the two. The western,
under ordinary circumstances, would be more convenient for a vessel dear-
ing out of the port, and about to sail for the Gulf of Pamphylia.
We have remarked in the last chapter, that it is not difficult to imag-
ine the reasons which induced Paul and Barnabas, on their departure from
Seleucia, to visit first the island of Cyprus. It is not quite so easy to give
an opinion upon the motives which directed their course to the coast of
Pamphylia, when they had passed through the native island of Barnabas,
from Salamis to Paphos. It might be one of those circumstances which we
call accidents, and which, as they never influence the actions of ordinary men
without the predetermining direction of Divine Providence, so were doubt-
less used by the same Providence to determine the course even of Apos-
tles. As St. Paul, many years afterwards, joined at Myra that vessel
in which he was shipwrecked,^ and then was conveyed to Puteoli in a
ship which had accidentally wintered at Malta ^ so on this occasion there
might be some small craft in the harbour at Paphos, bound for the oppo-
site gulf of Attaleia, when Paul and Barnabas were thinking of their
future progress. The distance is not great, and frequent communication,
both pohtical and commercial, must have taken place between the towns of
Pamphylia and those of Cyprus.^ It is possible that St. Paul, having
eral monasteries and churches now in ruins, of a low Gothic architecture, are more
easily identified but the crumbling fragments of the sandstone with which they are
;
constructed, only add to the incongruous heap around, that now covers the palace of
the Paphian Venus." MS. note by Captain Graves, R. N.
1 Captain Graves. MS.
' " A great ledge of rocks lies in the entrance to Papho, extending about a league
you may sail in either to the eastward or westward of it, but the eastern passage is the
widest and best." Purdy, p. 251. The soundings may be seen in our copy of Captain
Graves' Chart.
3 Acts xxvii. 5, 6. ^ Acts xxviii. 11-13.
5 And
perhaps Paphos more especially, as the scat of government. At present
Khalandri (Gulnar), to the south-east of Attaleia and Perga, is the port from which
the Tatars from Constantinople, conveying government despatches, usually cross tc
Cyprus. See Purdy, p. 245. and the reference to Irby and Mangles.
PAMPHYLIA. 159
among those districts which lay more immediately contiguous, and the pop-
ulation of which was, in some respects, similar to that of his native pro-
which he afterwards saw on the confines of Europe and Asia,^ may have
directed the course of his voyage. Whatever may have been the calcula-
tions of his own wisdom and prudence, or whatever supernatural intima-
tions may have reached him, he sailed, with his companions Barnabas and
John, in some vessel, of which the size, the cargo, and the crew, are un-
known to us, past the promontories of Drepanum and Acamas, and then
across the waters of the Pamphylian Sea, leaving on the right the cliffs ^
which are the western boundary of Cilicia, to the innermost bend of the
bay of Attaleia.
This bay is a remarkable feature in the shore of Asia Minor, and it ia
not without some important relations with the history of this part of the
world. It forms a deep indentation in the general coast-line, and is bor-
dered by a plain, which retreats itself like a bay into the mountains.
From the shore to the mountains, across the widest part of the plain, the
distance is a journey of eight or nine hours. Three principal rivers inter-
sect this level space : the Catarrhactes, which falls over the sea-cliffs near
Attaleia, in the waterfalls which suggested its name ; and farther to the
east the Oestrus and Eurymedon, which flow by Perga and Aspendus to a
low and sandy shore. About the banks of these rivers, and on the open
waters of the bay, whence the eye ranges freely over the ragged mountain
summits which inclose the scene, armies and fleets had engaged in some of
those battles of which the results were still felt in the day of St. Paul.
From tlie base of that steep shore on the west^ where a rugged knot of
mountains is piled up into snowy heights above the rocks of Phaselis, tho
See pp. 104-106 and 117.
' Strabo's expression is, 01 UufifvTioi, irolv rov KlIlklov ^vlov /xeTEXovrsg, xii. 7.
Acts xxii. 17-21. See p. 104. 4 Acts xvi. 9.
united squadron of the Romans and Rhodians sailed across the bay in the
jear 190 b.c. ;
and it was in rounding that promontory near Side on the
east, that they caught sight of the fleet of Antiochus, as they came on by
the shore with the dreadful Hannibal on board. ^ And close to the same
spot where the Latin power had defeated the Greek king of Syria, an-
other battle had been fought at an earher period, in which the Greeks
gave one of their last blows to the retreating force of Persia, and the
Athenian Cimon gained a victory both by land and sea ; thus winning,
according to the boast of Plutarch, in one day the laurels of Platsea and
Salamis.^ On that occasion a large navy sailed up the river Eurymedon
as far as Aspendus. Now, the bar at the mouth of the river would make
this impossible.^ The same is the case with the river Oestrus, which,
Strabo says, was navigable in his day for sixty stadia, or seven miles, to
the city of Perga.^ Ptolemy calls this city an inland town of Pamphylia ;
COIN OK PSRGA.
the Greek rather than the Roman period : ajid its existing reir'iina are
described as being " purely Greek, there being no trace of any letter in-
habitants." >
Its prosperity was probably arrested by the building of At
taleia ^
after the death of Alexander, in a more favourable situation on
the shore of the bay. Attaleia has never ceased to be an important town
since the day of its foundation by Attains Philadelphus. But when the
traveller pitches his tent at Perga, he finds only the encampments of
shepherds, who pasture their cattle amidst the ruins. These ruins are
walls and towers, columns and cornices, a theatre and a stadium, a broken
aqueduct encrusted with the calcareous deposit of the Pamphylian streams,
and tombs scattered on both sides of the site of the town. Nothing else
remains of Perga, but the beauty of its natural situation, between and
upon the sides of two hills, with an extensive valley in front, watered by
^
the river Oestrus, and backed by the mountains of the Taurus."
The coins of Perga are a lively illustration of its character as a city of
tlieir quarrel and separation.^ Mark " departed from them from Pam-
phylia, and went not with them to the work." He came with them up
the Cestrus as far as Perga, but there he forsook them, and, taking ad-
vantage of some vessel which was sailing towards Palestine, he " returned
to Jerusalem," ' which had been his home in earlier years.^ We are not
to suppose that this implied an absolute rejection of Christianity. A
soldier who has wavered in one battle may live to obtain a glorious vie-
Fellows. See Note 3. [In a letter received from E. Falkener, Esq., Architect, ii
is stated that though the theatre is disposed after the Greek manner, its architectural
details (as well as those of the stadium) are all Roman.]
* Acts xiv. 25.
3 This description
is quoted or borrowed from Sir C. Fellow's " Asia Minor, 1839,"
pp. 190 -103. Gen. Kohler appears to have seen these ruins in 1800, on "a large and
rapid st^-eam " between Stavros and Adalia, but without identifying them with Perga
Leake's Asia Minor, p. 132. See Cramer, ii. 280.
4 Aie?M6vTe(: cltto rrjg TLepyrig, xiii. 14. On their return it is said, ScelBovrsg r3^>
RiGidt^v, xiv. 24. Similarly, a rapid journey is implied in Stodevaavrec r^v A. koI
tvii. 1.
ment of him (Acts xv. 38), but long afterwards, in his Roman imprison-
ment, commended him to the Colossians, as one who was " a fellow-
worker unto the kingdom of God," and " a comfort " to himself ^ and in :
his latest letter, just before his death, he speaks of him again as one
i " profitable to him for the ministry." ^ Yet if we consider all the circum-
stances of his life, we shall not find it difficult to blame his conduct in
Pamphylia, and to see good reasons why Paul should afterwards, at An-
tioch, distrust the steadiness of his character. The child of a religious
mother, who had sheltered in her house the Christian disciples in a fierce
persecution, he had joined himself to Barnabas and Saul, when they trav-
elled from Jerusalem to Antioch, on their return from a mission of charity.
He had been a close spectator of the wonderful power of the religion of
had seen the strength
Christ, ^he under of faith trial in his mother's
home, had attended^he kinsman Barnabas his in his labours of zeal and
he had seen the word of Paul sanctioned and
love, fulfilled by miracles,
he had even been the "minister''^ of Apostles in their successful enter-
prize :
^ and now he forsook them, when they were about to proceed
through greater difficulties to more glorious success. We are not left in
doubt as to the real character of his departure. He was drawn from the
work of God by the attraction of an earthly home.^ As he looked up
from Perga to the Gentile mountains, his heart failed him, and turned
back with desire towards Jerusalem. He could not resolve to continue
persevering, " in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of
robbers."
" Perils of rivers" and " perils of robbers" these words express the
very dangers which St. Paul would be most likely to encounter on his
journey from Perga in Pamphylia to Antioch in Pisidia. The lawless and
maurauding habits of the population of those mountains which separate
the table-land in the interior of Asia Minor from the plains on the south-
coast, were notorious in ail parts of ancient history. Strabo uses the
game strong language both of the Isaurians ^ who separated Cappadocia
from Cilicia, and of their neighbours the Pisidians, whose native fortress-
'
Acts. XV. 37. ^ Acts xv. 39. 3 Col. iv. 10.
" 2 Tim. iv. 11. ^ See Acts xiii. 5.
the first to mention them ; ' and in Zosimus, who relieves the history ol
district.^ The scene of one of the roughest campaigns connected with the
jvars of Antiochus the Great was among the hill-forts near the upper
waters of the Oestrus and Eurymedon.^ 'No population through the midst
of which St. Paul ever travelled, abounded more in those " perils of rob-
bers," of which he himself speaks, than the wild and lawless clans of the
Pisidian Highlanders.
And if on this journey he was exposed to dangers from the attacks of
men, there might be other dangers, not less imminent, arising from the
natural character of the country itself. To travellers in the East there is
rivers in the Levant, are liable to violent and sudden changes.^ And no
district in Asia Mmor is more singularly characterised by its " water
floods " than the mountainous tract of Pisidia, where rivers burst out at
the bases of huge cliffs, or dash down wildly through narrow ravines..
The very notice of the bridges in Strabo, when he tells us how the Oestrus
" though living on the sonth side of Taurus, had not quite given up their robber habits
and did not always allow their neighbours to live in peace."
1 Xen. Anab. i. i. 11. ix. 9. in. ii. 14.
' His name was Lydius to yevog 'loavpog, evredpa/ifiEvog ry avvTjdei Xijareia. Zos.
pp. 59-61, in the Bonn Ed. The scene is at Cremna. See the Map. Compare what
Zosimus says of the robbers near Selge, 265. The beautiful story of St. John and the
robber (Euseb. Eccl. Hist. iii. 23) will naturally occur to the reader. See also the
frequent mention of Isaurian robbers in the latter part of the life of Chrysostom, pre-
fixed to the Benedictine edition of his works.
3 See the account of Arrian, i. 27, 28, and especially the notices of Selge and Saga-
lassus ;and compare the accounts of these cities by modern travellers, P. Lucas, Arun-
del, and Fellows.
4 See especially the siege of Selge by Achseus in Polybius, v, 72-77. Compare the
account of Sagalassus in the narrative of the Campaign of Manlius. Liv. xxxviii. 15,
and see Cramer's Asia Minor.
s Thus the true meaning of 2 Cor. xi. 26 is lost in the English translation. Similarly,
in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vii. 25, 27), Tvorajudt is translated " floods," and the
'image confused. See Ps. xxxii. 6.
6 The crossing of the Halys by Croesus (Herod, i. 75) is an illustration of the difficul-
ties presented by the larger rivers of Asia Minor. Yonones, when attempting to escape
from Cilicia (Tac. Ann. ii. 68), lost his life in consequence of not being able to cross
*be Pyramus.
164 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAlL.
and Euryniedon tumble down from the heights and precipices of Selge to
the Pamphylian Sea, is more expressive than any elaborate description.
We cannot determine the position of any bridges which the Apostle may
have crossed, but his course was never far from the channels of these two
rivers : and it is an interesting fact, that his name is still traditionally
connected with one of them, as we learn from the information recently
given to an Enghsh traveller by the Archbishop of Pisidia.^
Such considerations respecting the physical pecuharities of the country
now traversed by St. Paul, naturally lead us into various trains of thought
concerning the scenery, the climate, and the seasons.^ And there are cer-
tain probabilities in relation to the time of the year when the Apostle may
be supposed to have journeyed this way, which may well excuse some re-
marks on these subjects. And this is all the more allowable, because we
are absolutely without any data for determining the year in which this
first missionary expedition was undertaken. All that we can assert with
confidence is that it must have taken place somewhere in the interval be-
tween the years 45 and 50.^ But this makes us all the more desirous t
determine, by any reasonable conjectures, the movements of the Apostle
in reference to a better chronology than that which reckons by successive
years, the chronology which furnishes us with the real imagery round
his path, the chronology the of seasons.
Now we may well suppose that he might sail from Seleucia to Salamis
at the beginning of spring. In that age and in those waters, the com
mencement of a voyage was usually determined by the advance of the sea-
son. The sea was technically said to be " open" in the month of March.=
1 Ti]v xf^pd-v TTjv lle2,yeo)v dpeivijv' Kpr/juviiv Kol x^padpuv ovanv TrXypT], dg Tvotovoiv
aXkoL re Tcorafiol, kol 6 'EvpvfxedcjVy Koi 6 Kiarpoc;, diro rCtv ^eTiyLHuv opuv elg rijv
If St. Paul began Ms journey in that month, the lapse of two months
might easily bring him to Perga, and allow sufficient time for all that we.
have been at Perga in May^ this would have been exactly the most na^
tural time for a journey to the mountains. Earher in the spring, the
passes would have been filled with snow.^ In the heat of summer the
ff-eather would have been less favourable for the journey. In the autumn
the disadvantages would have been still greater, from the approaching dif-
ficulties of winter. But again, if St. Paul was at Perga in May, a further
reason may be given why he did not stay there, but seized all the advan-
tages of the season for prosecuting his journey to the interior. The habita
of a people are always determined or modified by the physical peculiarities
of their country ; and a custom prevails among the inhabitants of this part
of Asia Minor, which there is every reason to believe has been unbroken
for centuries. At the beginning of the hot season they move up from the
the plains to the cool basin-like hollows on the mountains. These yailahs
or summer retreats are always spoken of with pride and satisfaction, and
the time of the journey anticipated with eager delight. "When the time
arrives, the people may be seen ascending to the upper grounds, men,
women, and children, with flocks and herds, camels and asses, like the
the inhabitants deserting its hot and silent streets. They would be mov-
iBg in the direction of his own intended journey. He would be under no
temptation to stay. And if we imagine him as joining some such compj^-
1 "
March 4. The passes to the Yailahs from the upper part of the valley being still
ihutup by snow, we have no altern-ative but to prosecute our researches amongst the
low country and valleys which border the coast." Sp. and F. i. p. 48. The valley
referred to is that of the Xanthus, in Lycia.
^ April 30. ^We passed many families en route from Adalia to the mountain
plains for the summer." Sp. and F. i. p. 242. Again, p. 248. {May 3.) See p. 57.
During a halt in the valley of the Xantbus (May 10), Sir C. Fellows says that an
almost uninterrupted train of cattle and people (nearly twenty families) passed by.
" What a picture would Landseer make of such a pilgrimage. The snowy tops of the
mountains were seen through the lofty and dark-green fir-trees, terminating in abrupt
cliffs From clefts in these gushed out cascades and the waters were carried . . .
away by the wind in spray over the gTcen woods. ... In a zigzag course up the wood
lay the track leading to the cool places. In advance of the pastoral groups were the
straggling goats, browsing on the fresh blossoms of the wild almond as they passed,
ti more steady courses followed the small black cattle then came the f ocks of . . .
Bheep, and the camels . bearing piled loads of ploughs, tent-poles, kettles
. . and . . .
amidst this rustic load was always seen the rich Turkey carpet and damask cushions
the pride even of the tented Turk." Lycia, pp. 238, 239.
' has always been customary for travellers in Asia Minor, as in the patriarchal
It
Aast, to join caravans if possible. So P. Lucas, on his second journey, waited at
Broussa (ch. 13) and on another occasion at Smyrna (ch. 32), for the caravan going
;
lo Satalia (Attaleia) ; and on a later journey could not leave the caravan to visit sonw
ruins between Broussa and Smyrna IZ^.
166 THE LITE ANT) EPISTLES OF ST. TAUL.
Perhaps it was in such company that the Apostle entered the first
passes of the mountainous district, along some road formed partly by arti-
ficial pavement, and partly by the native marble, with high cliffs frowning
on either hand, with tombs and inscriptions, even then ancient, on the pro-
jecting rocks around, and with copious fountains bursting out " among
thickets of pomegranates and oleanders." ^ The oleander, " the favourite
flower of the Levantine midsummer," abounds in the lower watercourses,
and in the month of May it borders all the banks with a line of brilliant
crimson.'' As the path ascends, the rocks begin to assume the wilder
grandeur of mountains, the richer fruit-trees begin to disappear, and the
pine and walnut succeed ;
though the plane-tree still stretches its wide
leaves over the stream which dashes wildly down the ravine, crossing and
recrossing the dangerous road.^ The alteration of climate which attends
on the traveller's progress, is soon perceptible. A few hours will make the
difference of weeks or even months. When the corn is in the ear on the
lowlands, ploughing and sowing are hardly well begun upon the highlands.
1 In ascending from Limyra, a small plain on the coast not far from Phaselis, Spratt
and Forbes mention " a rock-tablet with a long Greek inscription ... by the side of an
ancient paved road, at a spot where numerous and copious springs gush out among
thickets of pomegranates and oleanders." (i. p. 160.) Fellows, in coming to Attaleia
from the north, " suddenly entered a pass between the mountains, which diminished in
width until cliffs almost perpendicular inclosed us on either side. The descent became
BO abrupt that we were compelled to dismount and walk for two hours, during which
time we continued rapidly descending an ancient paved road, formed principally of the
native marble rock, but which had been perfected with large stones at a very remote
age the deep ruts of chariot-wheels were apparent in many places. The road is much
;
worn by time and the people of a later age, diverging from the track, have formed a
;
road with stones very inferior both in size and arrangement. About half an hour
before I reached the plain ... a view burst upon me through the cliffs ... I looked
down from the rocky steps of the throne of winter upon the rich and verdant plain of
summer, with the blue sea in the distance. Nor was the foreground without its in-
. . .
terest on each projecting rock stood an ancient sarcophagus, and the trees half con-
5
cealed the lids and broken sculptures of innumerable tombs." A. M. pp. 174, 175.
This may very probably have been the pass and road by which St. Paul ascended. P.
Lucas, on his second voyage (1705), met with a paved road between Buldur and
Adalia. " Nous comment ames a rcmonter, mais par un chemin magnifique et pave de
longues pierres de marbre blanc." Ch. xxxiii. p. 310. See Gen. Koehler's Itinerary,
In Leake's Asia Minor. " March 20 (16 hours from Adalia). The two great rangea
on the west and north of the plains now approach each other, and at length are only
divided by the passes through which the river finds its way. The road, however, leaves
ihis gorge to the right, and ascends the mountain by a paved winding causeway, a
7ork of groat labour and ingenuity. At the foot of it are ruins cornices, capitals, . . .
ficriptlons." p. 134.
See the excellent Chapter on the Botany of Lycia in Spratt and Forbes, vol. u
eb. xiii.
See the animated description of the ascent from Myra in Fellows^ Lycia, p. 22L
MOUNT AIN-SCElfEEY OF PISIDA. 167
Spnng flowers may be seen in the mountains by the very edge of the snow,
rhen the anemone is withered in the plain, and the pink veins in the white
asphodel flower are shrivelled by the heat. When the cottages are closed
and the grass is parched, and everything is silent below in the purple haze
and stillness of midsummer, clouds are seen drifting among the Pisidian
precipices, and the cavern is often a welcome shelter from a cold and pen-
etrating wind.'^ The upper part of this district is a wild region of cliffs,
often isolated and bare, and separated from each other by valleys of sand,
which the storm drives with blinding violence among the shivered points.^
The trees become fewer and smaller at every step. Three belts of vegeta-
tion are successively passed through in ascending from the coast : first the
oak woods, then the forests of pine, and lastly the dark scattered patches
of the cedar-juniper : and then we reach the treeless plains of the interior,
After such a journey as this, separating, we know not where, from the
companions they may have joined, and often thinking of that Christian
companion who had withdrawn himself from their society when thi / needed
him most, Paul and Barnabas emerged from the rugged mountain passes,
and came upon the central table-land @f Asia Minor. The whole interior
1 " May 7. Close to the snow many beautiful plants were in flower, especially Ane
mone Appenina, and several species of violet, squill, and fritillary." Sp. and F. i. ^
261. This was near Cibyra, " the Birmingham of Asia Minor." " May 9. Ascending
through a winterly climate, with snow by the side of our path, and only the crocus and
anemones in bloom ... we beheld a new series of cultivated plains to the west, being
upon a level with the tops of the mountains which form the
In fact table-lands, nearly
eastern boundary of the valley of the Xanthus Descending to the plain, probably
1000 feet, we pitched our tent, after a ride of hours Upon boiling the thermo-
meter, I found that we were more than 4000 and cutting down some
feet above the sea,
dead trees, we provided against the coming cold of the evening by lighting three large
ifres around our encampment." Fell. Lycia, p. 234. This was in descending from
Almalee, in the great Lycian yailah, to the south-east of Cibyra.
' For further illustrations of the change of season caused by difference of elevation,
fee Sp. and F. i. p. 242. Again, p. 293, Every step led us from spring into summer
and the following pages. See also Fellows " Two months since at Syra the corn was
:
beginning to show the ear, whilst here they have only in a few places now begun to
plough and sow." A. M. 158. " The corn, which we had the day before seen changing
colour for the harvest, was here not an inch above the ground, and the buds of the
bushes were not yet bursting.'' Lycia, p. 226.
See Sp. and F. l pp. 195-202. Fell. A. M. pp. 165-174. Also Sp. and F. ii. eh. ix.
Sp. and F. ii. ch. xiii.
The yailah of Adalia s 3500 feet above the sea Sp. and F. i. p. 244.:The va^
168 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ing and feeding among the weeds : ^ more frequently it is spread out into
the broad open downs, like Salisbury Plain, which afford an interminable
pasture for flocks of sheep.'* To the north of Pamphylia, the elevated
plain stretches through Phrygia for a hundred miles from Mount Olympus
to Mount Taurus.^^ The southern portion was of these bleak uplands
crossed by St. Paul's track, immediately before his arrival at Antioch, in
Pisidia. The features of human life which he had around him are pro-
bably almost as unaltered as the scenery of the country, dreary villages
with flat-roofed huts and cattle-sheds in the day, and at night an encamp-
ment of tents of goats' hair, tents of cilicium (see p. a blazing fire
in the midst, horses fastened around, and in the distance the moon
shining on the snowy summits of Taurus.^
Eyerdir.8 The position of the city is not far from the northern shore of
this lake, at the base of a mountain range which stretches through Phrygia
plain, " at least 50 miles long and 20 wide," south of Kiutaya in Phrygia, is about
6000 feet above the sea. Fell.A. M. p. 155. This may be overstated, but the plain of
Erzeroum is quite as much.
1 We shall have occasion to mention the salt lakes hereafter.
The two lakes of Buldur and Eyerdir are mentioned below. Both are described as
'
very beautiful. The former is represented in the Map to the south of Lake Ascania,
the latter is the large lake to the south of Antioch. That of Buldur is slightly brakish.
Hamilton, i. 494.
* " March 27 {near Kiutaya).
counted 180 storks fishing or feeding in one small
swampy place not an acre in extent. The land here is used principally for breeding
and grazing cattle, which are to be seen in herds of many hundreds." Fell. Asia
Minor, p. 155. " May 8. The shrubs are the rose, the barbary, and wild almond, but
all are at present fully six weeks later than those in the country we have lately passed.
I observed on the lake many stately wild swans, {near Almalee, 3000 feet above the
gea)."Fell. Lycia, p. 228.
4 We shall have occasion to return presently to this character of much of the inte-
rim of Asia Minor when we come to the mention of Lycaonia (Acts xiv. 6).
Fellows' Asia Minor, p. 155, &c.
See Fellows' Asia Minor, p. 177, and especially the mention of the goats' hair tents.
tion with remarkable clearness and precision. His words are as follows
" In the district of Phrygia called Paroreia, there is a certain mountain
ridge, stretching from east to west. On each side there is a large plain
below this ridge : and it has two cities in its neighbourhood ;
Philome- *
lium on the north, and on the other side Antioch, called Antioch near
Pisidia. The former lies entirely in the plain, the latter (which has a
Roman colony) is on a height."^ With this description before him, and
taking into account certain indications of distance furnished by ancient
authorities, Colonel Leake, who has perhaps done more for the elucidation
of Classical Topography than any other man, felt that Ak-Sher, the posi-
tion assigned to Antioch by D'Anville and other geographers, could not
be the true place : Ak-Sher is on the north of the ridge, and the position
could not be made to harmonise with the Tables.'* But he was not in
possession of any information which could lead him to the true position ;
and the problem remained unsolved till Mr. Arundell started from Smyrna,
in 1833, with the deliberate purpose of discovering the scene of St. Paul's
fitv ^tXofirjTiiov, EK -BaTspov 6e fiepovg 'AvTioxsia, Trpog UcaidLa KaAOVjuivi] ' ij fiiv, iv
icedlo) Kiifzevy ndaa, rj (f km ?.6(j)ov, Ixovca eTcoiKiav 'Fo/uaiuv. xii. 8.
' See Leake's Asia Minor, p. 41. The same difficulties were perceived by Mannert,
p. 179.
3 See Arundell's Asia Minor, ch. xii. xiii. xiv. and the view. There is also a view
in Laborde. The opinion of Mr. Arundell is fully confirmed by Mr. Hamilton. Re-
searches in Asia Minor, vol. i. ch. xxvii. The aqueduct conveyed water to the town
from the Sultan Dagh (Strabo's opeivt] ^dxi^)
;
with the valley of the Maeander, and eastward by Iconium with the ciuu
try behind the Taurus. In this general direction, between Smyrna and
Ephesus on the one hand, and the Cilician Gates which lead down tc
Tarsus on the other, conquering armies and trading caravans, Persian
satraps, Roman proconsuls, and Turkish pachas, have travelled for centu-
"ries.i The Pisidian Antioch was situated about half-way between these
32treme points. It was built (as we have seen in an earlier chapter, TV.
p. 122) by the founder of the Syrian Antioch and in the age of the ;
of greater importance ;
for, like was a Roman Colonial
Philippi,^ it
niE SYNAGOGDE.
if we did not learn it from Pliny, quoted in the preceding note. Mr. Hamilton found an
inscription at Yalobatch, with the letters ANTIOCH EAE CAESARE. (p. 474.)
1 From the British Museum.
' Strabo, speaking of Cibyra in Lycia, says, rerTapai yXuTraig kxpCvTo ol KiBvpdrai,
Ty ILiaiSiKy, Ty ^o?iv/j,cjv, ry 'EXXr/vidi, ry Avduv, xiii. 4. Again, he mentions thirteen
" barbarous " tribes as opposed to the Greeks, and among these the Pisidians. xiv. 6.
We have to return to this subject of language again, in speaking of the speech oi
shall
Lycaonia." Acts xiv. 11.
3 See remarks on Salamis, p. 141.
* The people of Damascus were obliged to use caution in their scheme of assassin-
ating the Jews kdedoLKecav yap raf kavTuv yvvalKag andaa^ t:17]v b7Syu>v vizT^yfiiv^i^
;
dearpoeidyc, ovtuq iv depi Koi aWpio) tott^ iarl KaTaaKs,vaoOlg vnb rijv ^a/japeir:^^
have been checked by the influence of the heathen priests, who would not
willingly see the votaries of an ancient idolatry forsaking the temple for
the synagogue : and feelings of the same kind may probably have hindered
the Jews, even if they had the ability or desire, from erecting religiouf
edifices of any remarkable grandeur and solidity. No ruins of the syna-
gogues of imperial times have remained to us, like those of the temples m
every pro vince, from which we are able to convince ourselves of the very
form and size of the sanctuaries of Jupiter, Apollo, and Diana. There is
little doubt that the sacred edifices of the Jews have been modified by
the architecture of the remote countries through which they have been
dispersed, and the successive centuries through which they have continued
a separate people. Under the Roman Empire it is natural to suppose
that they must have varied, according to circumstances, through all grada-
tions of magnitude and decoration, from the simple proseucha at Philippi ^
book in the sight of all the people . . . and read in the book the law of
God distinctly, and give the sense, and cause them to understand the
reading," ^
the carefully closed Ark on the one side of the building near-
est to Jerusalem, for the preservation of the rolls or manuscripts of the
Law,^ the seats all round the building, whence " the eyes of all them
that are in the synagogue " maybe "fastened" on him who speaks,'
the " chief seats," ^ which were appropriated to the "ruler" or " rulers " of
the synagogue, according as its organisation might be more or less com-
Vlete,^ and which were so dear to the hearts of those who professed to be
and Bernard's " Synagogue and Church " may be consulted with advantage on subjectf
connected with the synagogue.
4 See Philo, as referred to by Winer. Nehem. viii. 4-8.
9 Apxiovvayuyoc, Luke xiii. 14. Acts xviii. 8. 17. npeaCvTepoi, Luke vii. 3. dpxi'
mrvaywyoi, Mark v. 22. Acts xiii. 15. Some are of opinion that the smaller synagogue
THL SYNAGOGUE. 173
sent service-books of the German and Spanish Jews, though their litur-
impossible to determine the period when the sections from these two
divisions of the Old Testament were arranged as in use at present ;
^ but
the same necessity for translation and explanation existed then as now.
The Hebrew and English are now printed in parallel columns. Then, the
reading of the Hebrew was elucidated by the Targum or the Septuagint,
or followed by a paraphrase in the spoken language of the country.'
The Reader stood ^ while thus employed, and all the congregation sat
around. The manuscript was roiled up and retur^ied to the Chazan.*
had one " ruler," the larger many. It is more probable that the "chief ruler " with
the " elders " formed a congregational council, like the Mrk-session in Scotland.
1 The use of the Tallith is said to have arisen from the Mosaic commandment direct-
ing that fringes should be worn on the four corners of the garment.
* " R. Gamaliel dicit Legatus ecclesise fungitur officio pro omnibus, et officio hoc
:
rite perfunctus omnes ab obligatione liberat." Vitringa, who compares Rev. ii. 1.
3 See Winer's Realworterbuch, art. Synagogen.
4 See the words dvaTrrv^ag and irrv^ag, Luke iv. 17, 20. In 1 Mac. iii. 48 the phrase
ifi t^ETzeraaav to ^WIlov rov vofiov.
I'
Luke iv. 17, 20.
A full account both of the Paraschioth or Sections of the Law, and the Haplitcb-
roth or Sections of the Prophets, as used both by the Portuguese and German Jews,
may be seen in Home's Introduction, vol. iii. pp. 254-258.
' See pp. 35, 36. In Palestine the Syro-Chaldaic language would be used ; in the
Dispersion, usually the Greek. Lightfoot (Exerc. on Acts) seems to think that tha
Pisidian language was used here. See the passage of Strabo quoted above.
8 'Avaarug, Acts xiii. 16. On the other hand, sKddiae is said of Our Lord's solemc
teaching, Luke iv. 20.
See Luke iv. 20.
174: THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Then followed a pause, during which strangers or learned men, who had
" any word of consolation " or exhortation, rose and addressed the meet*
val of Paul and Barnabas. Proselytes came and seated themselves with
the Jews : and among the Jewesses behind the lattice were " honourable
women " ^ of the colony. The two strangers entered the synagogue, and,
wearing the Tallith, which was the badge of an Israelite,-"* sat down"^
with the rest. The prayers were recited, the extracts from " the Law
and the Prophets " were read ; ' the " Book " returned to the Minis-
ter,"^ and then we are told that " the rulers of the synagogue" sent to
the new comers, on whom many eyes had already been fixed, and invited
them to address the assembly, if they had words of comfort or instruction
to speak to their fellow Israelites.^ The very attitude of St. Paul, as he
answered the invitation, is described to us. He "rose" from his seat, and
with the animated and emphatic gesture which he used on other occa-
sions, ^ " beckoned with his hand." "
After thus graphically bringing the scene before our eyes, St. Luko
gives us, if not the whole speech delivered by St. Paul, yet at least the
substance of what he said. For into however short a space he may have
condensed the speeches which he reports, yet it is no mere outhne, no dry
analysis of them which he gives. He has evidently preserved, if not all
the words, yet the mry words uttered by the Apostle ; nor can we fail to
recognise in all these speeches a tone of thought, and even of expression,
which stamps them with the individuality of the speaker.
On the present occasion we find St. Paul beginning his address by
connecting the Messiah whom he preached, with the preparatory dispen-
sation which ushered in His advent. He dwells upon the previous history
of the Jewish people, for the same reasons which had led St. Stephen to
1 The sermon in the synagogue in Helon's pilgrimage " is conceived in the irud
Jewish feeling. Compare the address of St. Stephen.
We see how an inspired Apostle uses allegory. Gal. iv. 21-31.
3 See Neh. viii. 6. 1 Cor. xiv. 16. ^ Acts xiii. 50.
* "As I entered the synagogue [at Blidah in Algeria], they offered me a Tallith,
Baying in French, '
wear the Tallith, Tbut I opened
Etes-vous Israelite ? ' I could not
my English Bible and sat down, thinking of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch in Pisidia.^'
^Extract from a private journal.
Acts xiii. 14. ' Acts xiii. 15. s Luke iv. 20.
ciliate the minds of his Jewish audience by proving to them that the Mes-
siah whom he proclaimed, was the same whereto their own prophets bare
witness ;
come, not to destroy the law, but to fulfil ; and that His advent
had been duly heralded by His predicted messenger. He then proceeds
to remove the prejudice which the rejection of Jesus by the authoriti^
at Jerusalem (the metropohs of their faith) would naturally raise in the
minds of the Pisidian Jews against His divine mission. He shows thai
Christ's death and resurrection had accomplished the ancient prophecies,
and declares this to be the "glad tiding" which the Apostles were
charged to proclaim. Thus far the speech contains nothing which couM
offend the exclusive spmt of Jewish nationahty. On the contrary, St.
Paul has endeavoured to carry his hearers with him by the topics on
which he has dwelt ; the Saviour whom he declares is " a Saviour unto
the Cathohcity of Christ's salvation, and the antithesis between the Gos-
pel and the Law. His concluding words, as St. Luke relates them,
Slight stand as a summary representing in outline the early chapters of
the Epistle to the Romans ; and therefore, conversely, those chapters will
enable us to realise the manner in which St. Paul would have expanded
the heads of argument which his disciple here records. The speech ends
with a warning against the bigoted rejection of Christ's doctrine, which
this latter portion of the address was so likely to call forth.
The following were the words (so far as they have been preserved to
us) spoken by St. Paul on this memorable occasion :
" Men of Israel, and ye, proselytes of the Gentiles, and pSsdytS
who worship the God of Abraham, give audience.
" The God of this people Israel chose onr fathers, God's choice of
, .
Israel to be lEs
,
' The beauty of this metaphor has been lost to the authorized version on account of
the reading {hrpo-Ko^opriatv instead of krpo^o^bpriaEv) adopted in the Textus Receptus.
Griesbach, Scholz, and Lachman restored the latter reading, on the authority of the
Uncial MSS., A. C. E. We regret to see that Tischendorf has reinstated the formei
reading (because it has a somewhat greater weight of MSS. of the Greek Testament ia
Its favour), without taking into account the evident allusion to Deut. i. 31, where
"^oo^o^op-qaai is acknowbdged to be the correct reading.
176 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAHL.
gave testimony, and said I ha/ve found David, the son of Jesse^
:
Attested by " And He was seen for many days by them wno
1 We need not trouble our readers with the difficulties which have been raised con-
cerning the chronology of this passage. Supposing it could be proved that St. Paul's
knowledge of ancient chronology was imperfect, this need not surprise us for there ;
eeema no reason to suppose (and we have certainly no right to aggume a priori) that
divine inspiration would instruct the Apostles in truth discoverable by uninspired
research, and non-essential to their religious mission.
' Compare Ps. Ixxxix. 20, with 1 Sam. xiii. 14.
3 Mai. iii. 1, as quoted Mat. xi. 10, not exactly after the LXX., but with Trpb rrpo-
vdirov introduced, as here, according to the literal translation of the Hebrew 'lisb*
* Observe D.eye not lAe^e, and iTzXrjpov not eTr'AijpQae.
'
came tip with Ilim from Galilee to Jerusalem, wlio man> witnew
ren, that through this Jesus is declared unto you the tion. Antithe-
sis between the
n
/
forgiveness oi sms.
P *
And T
m
TT*
Him all
1
who have
1 '
laith
1
Gospel and th
1 This vvv, which is here very important, is erroneously omitted by the Textus Ro-
cepfcus.
' 'O Aaof always means the Jewish people.
3 Ohseive. 7/fislg vfzag, emphatically contrasted with the preceding Oir^vef . . . Trpdf
rov ?MoiJ (Humphry).
* kvacrriaag scilicet eK veKpuv (De Wette). We cannot agree with I^Ir. Humphry
that it can here (consistently with the context) have the same meaning as in vii. 37.
5 Ps. ii. 7.
^ Isaiah Iv. 3 ; observe rd oaia, and compare with rbv oaiov, which follows.
' Ps. xvi. 10.
8 We ai-e here reminded of the arguments of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, jiial
as the beginning of the speech recals that of St. Stephen before the Sanhedrin. Po9
libly, St. Paul himself had been an auditor of the first, as he certainly was of the lasfc
Habak.i.5.
VOL. I. 12
178 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
them ' crowded round the speaker, Legging that " these i\^ori3s," which
had moved their deepest feelings, might be repeated to them on their next
occasion of assembling together.^ And when at length the mass of the
Deople had dispersed, singly or in groups, to their homes, many of the
Jews and proselytes still clung to Paul and Barnabas, who earnestly ex-
horted them (in the form of expression which we could almost recognise
as St. Paul's, from its resemblance to the phraseology of his Epistles,) "to
abide in the grace of God."^
"With what pleasure can we fancy the Apostles to have observed
these hearers of the Word, who seemed to have heard it in such earnest.
How gladly must they have talked with them, entered various into points
more fully than was possible in any public address, appealed them to in
various ways which no one can touch upon who is speaking to a mixed
multitude. Yet with all their pleasure and their hope, their knowledge
of man's heart must have taught them not to be over confident ; and
therefore they would earnestly urge them to continue in the grace of God ;
to keep up the impression which had already outlasted their stay within
the synagogue ; to feed it, and keep it alive, and make it deeper and
leeper, that it should remain with them for ever. What the issue was
;^e know not, nor does that concern only we may be us, sure that here,
as in other instances, there were some in whom their hopes and endeavours
were disappointed ; there were some in whom they were to their fullest
^
extent realised."
The intervening week between this Sabbath and the next had not only
its days of meeting in the synagogue,^ but would give many opportunities
The words rd tdvr) (" Gentiles," Eng. Trans.) in the Textus Eeceptus have caused
1
a great confusion in this passage. They are omitted in the best MSS. The authori-
ties may be seen in Tischendorf. See below, p. 183, note.
* It is not quite certain whether we are to understand elg rd /xera^i) cdSStrrov (xiii.
42) to mean ''the next Sabbath" (like ru ipxojuevu aaSSdru, v. 44), or some inter'
mediate days of meeting during the week. The Jews were accustomed to meet in the
synagogues on Monday and Thursday as well as on Saturday. Rabbinical authorities
attribute this arrangement to Ezra. These intermediate days (Zwischentage) were
called 'D'l^ttD'^in'O ta^Ja'^' Hence the Greek /xera^v, used by the Hellenistic Jews, which
Heaychius explains by /xct* oXtyov, avcL juiaov. See Schottgen, Horse Hebraicae, and
Nork's Rabbinische Quellen u. Parallelen, Leips. 1839.
' 'ETreid&v avToig iirifiivELv ry ;t;aptri rov Qeov. xiii. 43. Compare Acts 3X 2&
I Cor. XV. 10. 2 Cor. vi. 1. Gal. ii. 21.
* Dr. Arnold's Twenty-fourth Sermon on the Interpretation of Scripture.
5 See above, note 2. * Acta xiii. 44.
:
more than the Jews could bear. Their spiritual pride and exclusive
bigotry was immediately roused. They could not endure the notion of
others being freely admitted to the same religious privileges with theitt
Belves. This was always the sin of the Jewish people. Instead of realis*
ing their position in the world as the prophetic nation for the good of the
whole earth, they indulged the self-exalting opinion, that God's highesi
blessings were only for themselves. Their oppressions and their disper-
sions had not destroyed this deeply-rooted prejudice ; but they rather
found comfort under the yoke, in brooding over their religious isolation .
and even in their remote and scattered settlements, they clung with the
utmost tenacity to the feeling of their exclusive nationality. Thus, in the
Pisidian Antioch, they who on one Sabbath had listened with breathless
interest to the teachers who spoke to them of the promised Messiah, were
on the next Sabbath filled with the most excited indignation, when they
found that this Messiah was " a light to lighten the Gentiles," as well as
the glory of His people Israel." They made an uproar, and opposed
the words of Paul ^ with all manner of calumnious expressions, " contra-
"
dicting and blaspheming
And then the Apostles, promptly recognising in the willingness of the
Gentiles and the unbelief of the Jews the clear indications of the path of
duty, followed that bold ^ course which was alien to all the prejudices of a
Jewish education. They turned at once and without reserve to the Gen-
tiles. St. Paul was not unprepared for the events which called for thia
ficilbes the Gospel as coming first to the Jew and then to the Gentile ;*
J
To/f vTcb Tov Uavlov JxyojiEvoigy xiii. 45. This implies indhectly that Paul wa<
the "chief speaker," as we are told, xiv. 12.
* Jla^l^Tjaiaaufievoi. Compare krap^Tjataad/xeda, 1 Thess. ii. 2, where the circum
gtances appear to have been very similar.
3 Isai. xlix. G, quoted with a slight variation from the LXX. See Jsal ylil 6
i^uke ii. 32.
* Rom. i. 16. ii. 9. Compare xi. 12, 25.
180 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the centurion and the Syrophenican woman, whose faith had no parallel
in all the people of " li^^ael :"
tliat which had received an express ac-
be repeatedly called hereafter, is here for the first time brought before our
notice in the sacred narrative of St. Paul's life. Strabo, who was inti-
mately acquainted with the social position of the female sex in the towns
of Western Asia, speaks in strong terms of the pov/er which they possessed
and exercised in controlling and modifying the religious opinions of the
men.^ This general fact received one of its most striking illustrations in
7 'ETTcarevoav baoi fjcav TerayfXEVOL elg C<^7jv al6vtov. xiii. 48. It is well known that
this passage has been made the subject of much controversy with reference to the doc-
trine of predestination. Its bearing on the question is very doubtful. See how
diaTerayni'voQ is used, Acts xx. 13. On the other hand, see rb diaderay/nevov, Luka
iii. 13, and re~a-y/j.evai, Rom. xiii. 1. For Markland's translation, " fidem professi sunt,
quotquot (tempus, diem) constituerant, in ^itam aeternam," see "Winer's Grammatik,
p. 304.
8 Mr. Tate (Cont. Hist. p. 19) says, that this was " the first Christian church, gathered
In part from among the idolatrous Gentiles." This is on the supposition that thfl
'E7i?iTjveg (Acts xi. 20, 21) were all " Greek proselytes." 9 Acts xiii. 49.
^^'Anavrec T?jg i^eiai6ainovia<: (lp:^7j^'rC<: olovrat rag yvvalKag' avrai, 6^ kol rovg ^Iviom.
:
Ihe case of Judaism. We have already more than once alluded to the in*
pa&s a sentence of formal banishment, we are not informed but for the
present the Apostles were compelled to retire from the colonial limits.
In cases such as these, instructions had been given by our Lord Him-
self how His Apostles were to act. During His life on earth. He had
said to the Twelve, Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when
ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony
against them. Yerily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for
Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." ^ And
while Paul and Barnabas thus fulfilled Our Lord's words, shaking off
from their feet the dust of the dry and sunburnt road,^ in token of God's
judgment on wilful unbelievers, and turning their steps eastwards in the
when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of
evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad
for great is your reward in heaven ; for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you." ^ Even while their faithful teachers were re-
moved from them, and travelling across the bare uplands which separate
irpoKalovvrai, npog raf ettc ttMov ^epaneiac tuv -d-euv, kol koprag koI 7TOTvia(7juo'd<^.
vii. 3.
the roads abound with it, and in the summer months it must be a plain dust"
Arundell's Asia Minor, vol. i. p. 319.
Matt V. 11, 12.
7Leake approached Iconium from the northern side of the mountains which separat
Antioch from Philomelium (see p. 169). He says " On the descent from a ridgf :
>)ranching eastward from these mountains^ we 'came in sight of the vast plain aromul
182 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Antioch from Ihe plain of Iconium, the disciples of the former city ro
ceived such manifest tokens of the love of God, and the power of th
" Holy Ghost," that they were " filled with joy " in the midst of perse*
cution.
Iconium has obtained a place in history far more distinguished than that
of the Pisidian Antioch. It is famous as the cradle of the rising power of
the conquering Turks. ^ And the remains of its Mahomedan architecture
still bear a conspicuous testimony to the victories and strong government
of a tribe of Tartar invaders. But there are other features in the view of
modern Konieh which to us are far more interesting. To the traveller in
the footsteps of St. Paul, it is not the armorial bearings of the Knights of
St. John, carved over the gateways in the streets of Rhodes, which arrest
the attention, but the ancient harbour and the view across the sea to the
opposite coast. And at Konieh his interest is awakened, not by minarets
and palaces and Saracenic gateways, but by the vast plain and the distant
mountains.'
These features remain what they were in the first century, while the
town has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, and its architectural
character entirely altered. Little, if anything, remains of Greek or Ro-
man Iconium, if we except the ancient inscriptions and the fragments of
sculptures w^hich are built into the Turkish walls.^ At a late period of the
Empire it was made a Colonia, like its neighbour, Antioch : but it was
not so in the time of St. Paul."* There is no reason to suppose that its
Konieli, and of the lake which occupies the middle of it and we saw the city with its
;
mosques and ancient walls, still at the distance of twelve or fourteen miles from us."
p. 45. Ainsworth travelled in the same direction, and says " We travelled three :
hours along the plain of Konieh, always in sight of the city of the Sultans of Roum,
before we reached it." Trav. in Asia Minor, n. p. 58. P. Lucas, who approached
firom EregU, beyond Lystra and Derbe (see below), speaks of Iconium as " prefeque an
bout de la plaine." Second Voyage, ch. xx.
Iconium was the capital of the Seljukian Sultans, and had a great part in the
growth of the Ottoman empire.
" Konieh extends to the east and south over the plain far beyond the walls, which
are about two miles in circumference Mountains covered with snow rise on
every side, excepting towards the east, where a plain, as flat as the desert of Arabia,
extends far beyond the reach of the eye." Capt. Kinneir.
3 " The city wall is said to have been erected by the Seljukian Sultans it seems to :
have been built from the ruins of more ancient buildings, as broken columns, capitals,
pedestals, bas-reliefs, and other pieces of sculpture, contribute towards its construction.
It has eighty gates, of a square form, each known by a separate name, and, as well as
most of the towers, embellished with Arabic inscriptions. ... I observed a few Greefe
characters on the walls, but they were in bo elevated a situation that I could net de*
cypher them." Capt. Kinneir. See Col. Leake's description and also the recently
;
published work of Col. Chesney (1850) on the Euphrates Expedition, vol. i. p. 348, 349.
* Hence we have placed this coin of Iconium in the note, lest the Latin letters and
tile word COL. should lead the reader to suppose its political condition in the time ol
St Paul resembled that of Antioch in Pisidia. (See p. 170, note.) These coins wer*
'
ICONIUM. 183
character w&s different from that of the other important towns on the
principal lines of communication through Asia Minor. The elements of iti
COIN OF ICONIUM.
not found before the reign of Gallienus, and Iconium is not mentioned by any writer
as a Colonia ; hence Mannert (p. 195) conjectures that was made a garrison-town
it
and took the title an empty honour. Mythological derivations were suggested by
the ancients for the name thus it was said that after the deluge Prometheus and
:
Minerva made images of clay (eIkovio), and breathed life into them. Hence, sayg
Stephanus Byzantinus, it ought to be written EIkovlov {^6ei did. 6L(l>e6yyov), as it if
sometimes on coins. Another story (Eustath. in Dionys. Perieg. v. 856) is connected
with an image of Medusa set up by Perseus. For the relation of the city to Lycaonii
la Phrygia, see below, p. 186, n. 3.
* See Ac is xiv. 1-5.
Perhaps 'EAA^vwv (v. 1) may mean " proselytes," as opposed to " GentileB,''
iBvQv (V. 2).
The distinct appeal to miracles (v. 3) should be especially noticed.
4 Itwould have been a mischievous confusion of history and legend to have intro*
duced St. Thecla of Iconium into the text. But her story has so prominent a place iij
all Romfyji Catholic histories, that it cannot be altogether omitted. See Barorjus (sub
anno 47), Fleury (r. 28), and R6hrbacher (Hist, de I'Egl. Cath., liv. xxv.), vrho v\Tite
much of tlie legendary story, as to imagine St. Paul preacliing long and
late to crowded congregations, as he did afterwards at Assos,^ and hia
enemies bringing him before the ciyil authorities, with the cry that he was
disturbing their households by his sorcery, or with complaints like those at
as if the "Acta Pauli ei Theclae" rested on the same foundation with the inspired nar-
rative of the "Acts of the Apostles." These apocryphal Acts were edited by Grabs
'Spicil. vol. i.)Greek and Latin from MSS. in the Bodleian Library. They are also
in
in the Bibliotheca Patrum,. vol i., and they are noticed by Fabricius, Cod. Apoc. N. T
vol. ii. In Jones on the Canon (vol. ii. p. 353-403) they are given both in Greek and
English.
The outline of the story is as follows. On the arrival of St. Paul ai; Iconium, Thecla
was betrothed to Thamyris. To his despair, and to the mother's perplexity, she for-
gets her earthly attachments, and remains night and day at a window, riveted by the
preaching of St. Paul, which she hears in a neighbouring house (^knl rijg &vptdog ttjc
ciKov avTTjg Kadeodelaa and T7)g cvveyyvg &vpL8og TjKovev vvKTog koi rjfiepag to Xeyofievov
iito Tov Ilavlov, Grabe, p. 97 and again, ug updxvri ettI rrjg -dvpidog deSefievT}, rolg
;
TlaQ.ov loyoig Kparelrai, p. 98). [Cf. Acts, xx. 9.] By the contrivance of the false
disciples, Demas and Hermogenes, (who say that they will prove the resurrection oi
those who know God to consist in their offspring, diSd^ofiev on rjv "keyei ovrog uvd-
craaiv yeveadai, rjdr} yeyovev if olg exofiev ^eov kmyvovTeg,
riicvotg, Kot dvE(JT7]/j.ev,
p. 101). [See 2 Tim., i. 15. iv. 10. also ii. 18.] Paul is brought before Castellius
St.
the Proconsul, and by his orders, with cries of Mdyog kariv unaye tov [idyov cast into
prison. Thecla bribes the jailer with her ear-rings, visits the Apostle, and is instracted
by him. St. Paul is scourged and banished. Thecla is condemned to be burnt, be-
cause she refuses to marry Thamyris but her life is saved by a miraculous earthquake
;
is' enacted and ultimately Thecla is condemned to the wild beasts. But the lioness
;
crouches at her feet, and the monsters in the water {al (puKai^ p. Ill), die when sho
enters it, and float to the surface. Thecla is thus preserved. A lady called Tryphaena
[Rom. xvi. 12], receives her into her house and is instructed by her. Thecla rejoina
St. Paul at Myra, in Lycia. Thence she travels to Iconium, where she finds Thamyris
dead, and endeavours in vain to convert her mother. She goes by Daphne to Seleucia,
and leads an ascetic life in the neighbourhood of that city. Here miracles rouse the
jealousy of the physicians, but their conspiracy against her chastity is defeated
Finally, she dies at the age of ninety, having left Iconium at eighteen.
Though she was rescued from a violent death, Rohrbacher reckons her in the rank of
Stephen as the first of the female martyrs. Grabe seems to be of opinion that the story
has a basi-s of truth, " argumentis nescio quomodo hand usquequaque suflScientibiia
decides strongly against the veracity of the story.It may be worth while to notice one
error in geogi'aphy in the Greek narrative. St. Paul is said to have gone from Antioch
to Iconium (as in the Acts) and Onesiphorus (who had been informed by Titus of the
personal appearance of St. Paul) to have gone with his family to meet him on the royal
roftd, which leads to Lystra (Grabe, p. 95). Now Lystra is on the contrary side of
Iconium from Antioch. On the whole, the mythical character of the narrative, what-
erer basis of truth it may have, is very apparent.
rhecla is often alluded to by the Fathers, especially those of the fourth century,
[I Actxx.7--ll.]
LTCAONIA. 185
Philippi and Ephesus, that he was " exceedingly troubling their city," an(?
" turning away much people." ' We learn from an inspired source ^ that
the whole population of Iconium was ultimately divided into two great fac*
other of the Jews. But here, as at Antioch, the influential classes were
on the side of the Jews. A determined attempt was at last made to crush
the Apostles, by loading them with insult and actually stoning them.
Learning this wicked conspiracy, m which the magistrates themselves were
involved,^ they fled to some of the neighbouring districts of Lycaonia,
where they might be more secure, and have more liberty in preaching the
Gospel.
It would be a very natural course for the Apostles, after the cruel
the only particular in which the resemblance may be traced. Both regions
afford excellent pasture for flocks of sheep, and give opportunities for ob-
the time of his political elevation,'' fed his three hundred flocks. Of the
whole district Iconium ^ was properly the capital : and the plain round
Iconium may be reckoned as its great central space, situ-ated midway be-
tween Cilicia and Cappadocia. This plain is spoken of as the largest in
Asia Minor.'' It is almost like the steppes of Great Asia, of which the
Turkish invaders must often have been reminded,^ when they came to these
level spaces in the west ;
and the camels which convey modern travellers
to and from Konieh, find by the side of their path tufts of salt and prickly
herbage, not very dissimilar to that which grows in their native deserts.^
Across some portion of this plain Paul and Barnabas travelled both
before and after their residence in Iconium. After leaving the high land
to the north-west,^ during a journey of several hours before arriving at the
city, the eye ranges freely over a vast expanse of level ground to the south
and the east. The two most eminent objects in the view are the snowy
summits of Mount Argseus, rising high above all the intervening hills in
the direction of Armenia, and the singular mountain mass called the
"Kara-Dagh," or "Black Mount," south-eastwards in the direction of
Tuv AvKaovuv opoTrsdia tpv^p^ nal ipiXd Kal dvaypoSoTa, vddruv re cirdvig ttoA/Ij?
oTov 6^ iml evpelv dvvardv, (3a6vTara (ppeara tQv ttuvtuv, Kadanep ev "ZodrpoLg, ottov
1 21 TTiTrpdaKerai to v6up. . . . 'KjxvvTag 6' vrrep rpiaKoaiag eox^ noijuvag iv rolg roTcoLg
ovToig. . . . 'Evravda 6e nov Kal to 'Ikoviov iari, ttoUxvlov cvvuKLajuevov Kal
^6pav evrvx^orepav exov rrig XexOecaijg bvaypotoTov. TDifiaLa^ei 6* rjdrj rovroig rclg
Tonoig 6 Tavpog, 6 rrjv KairnaSoKLav opi^ov Kal tj)v AvKaovcav npog rovg VKEpKeijusvoh
KiTiLKag Tovg TpaxstcjTag.
See above, Ch. i. p. 23.
3 See the Synecdemus of Hierocles. Steph. Byz. says it is aoAif AvKaovcag nobg
rolg opoi.g rov Tavpov. Basil of Seleucia, in his life of St. Thecla, says : TroAtr avrt}
Kal rrjg TiLCLdQv Kal ^pvyuv X'^P'^C Trpootfiia KELuevrj. Xenophon, who is the first to
mention Iconium, calls it "the last city of Phrygia" {;rf,c ^ovyiag n6?.cc iex^rri, Anab.
I. 2, 19) in the direction of
" Lycaonia."
4 See Leake, p. 93.
6 The remark is made by Texier in his "Asie Mineure."
c Ainsworth (n. p. 68) describes the camels, as he crossed this plain, eagerly eating
the tufts of Mesembryanthemum and Salicornia, " reminding
them of plains with which
fikeywere probably more familiar than those of Asia Minor." The plain, however, is
naturally rich. See Strabo, and Col. Leake.
7 See above, p. 169, n. 1.
" See Leake,
p. 45.
" {Between Ladik and Konieh). To the north-east nothing
appeared to interrupt the vast expanse but two very lofty summits covered with snow,
at a great distance. They can be no other than th2 summits of Mount Arga3us, abova
Cfcsarca. [This is doubtful see Ham. A. M. ii. p. 305, and Trans, of Geog. Soc. viii,
;
LYSTRA ANB DERBE.
js left beliind, and the traveller moves on over the plain towards Lys
wa and Derbe. Mount Argseus still rises far to the north-east, at the dis
tance of one hundred and fifty miles. The Black Mountain is gradually
approached, and discovered to be an isolated mass, with reaches of the
plain extending round it Hke channels of the sea.^ The cities of Lystra
and Derbe were somewhere about the bases of the Black Mountain. We
have dwelt thus minutely on the physical characteristics of this part of
Lycaonia, because the positions of its ancient towns have not been deter
mined. T^e are only acquainted with the general features of the scene.
While the site of Iconium has never been forgotten, and that of Antioch
in Pisidia has now been clearly identified, those of Lystra and Derbe re-
145.] To the south-east the same plains extend as far as the mountains of Karaman
(Laranda). At the south-east extremity of the plains beyond Konieh, we aremuch
Btruck with the appearance of a remarkable insulated mountain called Kara-Dagh
(Black Mountain), rising to a great height, covered at the top with snow [Jan. 31,]
and appearing like a lofty island in the midst of the sea.
It is about sixty miles dis-
tant." The lines marked on the Map are the Roman roads mentioned in the Itineraries,
See Leake, pp. 93-97. " {Feb. 1. From Konieh to Tshumra.) Our road pur-
J
sues a perfect level for upwards of twenty miles. {Feb. 2. From Tshumra to Kassa-
ba.)
^Nine hours over the same uninterrupted level of the finest soil, but quite uncul-
tivated, except in the immediate neighbourhood of a few widely dispersed villages. It
is painful to behold such desolation in the midst of a region so highly favoured by
nature. Another characteristic of these Asiatic plains is the exactness of the level,
and the peculiarity of their extending, without any previous slope, to the foot of the
mountains, which rise from them like lofty islands out of the surface of the ocean.
The Karamanian ridge seems to recede as we approach it, and the snowy summits of
Argseus [?] are still to be seen to the north-east At three or four miles short of
Kassaba, we are abreast of the middle of the very lofty insulated mountain already
mentioned, called Kara-Dagh. It is said to be chiefly inhabited by Greek Christians,
and to contain 1001 churches but we afterwards learnt that these 1001 churches
;
(Binbir-Kilisseh) was a name given to the extensive ruins of an ancient city at the
foot of the mountain. {Feb. 3. From Kassaba to Karaman.) ^Four hours the road ;
etill passing over a plain, which towards the mountains begins to be a little intersected
with low ridges and ravines. Between these mountains and the Kara-Dagh there is
. . .
a kind of strait, which forms the communication between the plain of Karaman and
the great levels lying eastward of Konieh. Advancing towards Karaman, I perceive
. . .
a passage into the plains to the north-west, round the northern end of Kara-Dagh, sim-
ilar to that on the south, so that this mountain is completely insulated. "We still see
to the north-east the great snowy summit of Argaeus, [?] which is probably the highest
point of Asia Minor." See a similar description of the isolation of the Kara-dagh in
Hamilton (ii. 315, 320), who approached it from the East.
' Col. Leake wrote thus in 1824 " Nothing can more strongly show the little pro-
:
gress that has hitherto been made in a knowledge of the ancient geography of Asia
Minor, than that, of the cities which the journey of St. Paul has made so interesting to
us, the site of one only (Iconium) is yet certainly known. Perga, Antioch of Pisidia,
Lystra, and Derbe, remain to be discovered." p. 103. We have seen that two of these
four towns have been fully identified, ^Perga by Sir C. Fellows, and Antioch by M>
ArundeL It is to be hoped that the other two will yet be clearly ascertained.
188 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
sisted or convinced, now the honest inquiry of a Roman officer, now the
1 The general features of the map on the opposite page are copied from Kiepert'a
large map of Asia Minor, and his positions for Lystra and Derbe are adopted. Lystra
is marked near the place where Leake (p. might be, some
102) conjectured that it
twenty miles S. of Iconium. It does not appear, however, that he saw any ruins on
the spot. There are very remarkable Christian ruins on the N. side of the Kara-dagh,
at Bin-bir-Kilisseh (" The 1001 churches "); and Leake thinks that they may mark the
Bite of Derbe. We think Mr. Hamilton's conjecture much more probable, that they
mark the site of Lystra, which has a more eminent ecclesiastical reputation than Derbe.
See Ham. A. M. n 319, and Trans, of Georg. Soc. vol. viii. [While this was passing
through the press, the writer received an indirect communication from Mr. Hamilton,
which will be the best commentary on the map. The communication says, " there are
ruins (though slight) at the spot where Derbe is marked on Kiepert's map, and as this
Bpot is certainly on a line of Roman road, it is not unlikely that it may represent
Derbe. He did not actually visit Divle, but the coincidence of name led him to think
itmight be Derbe. He does not know of any ruins at the place where Kiepert writes
Lystra, but was not on that spot. There may be ruins there, but he thinks they cannoi
be of importance, as he did not hear of them, though in the neighbourhood and he pre- ;
fers Bin-bir-Kilisseh as the site of Lystra."] The following description of the Bin-bir-
Kilisseh is supplied by a letter from Mr. E. Falkner. " The principal group of the Bin-
bir-Kilisseh lies at the foot of Kara-Dagh Perceiving ruins on the slope of the moun
. . .
tain, I began to ascend, and on reaching these discovered they were churches ; and,
/ooking upwards, descried others yet above me, and climbing from one to the other I at
length gained the summit, where I found two churches. On looking down, I perceived
churches on all sides of the mountain, scattered about in various positions. The num-
ber ascribed to them by the Turks is of course metaphorical but including those in ;
the plain below, there are about two dozen in tolerable preservation, and the remains
of perhaps forty may be traced altogether The mountain must have been considered
. . .
Eacred, all the ruins are of Christian epoch, and, with the exception of a huge palace,
every building is a church."
:
It was a common belief among the ancients that the gods occasionally
visited the earth in the form of men.
Such a belief with regard to Jupi*
ter, " the father of gods and men," would be natural in any rural district
Asia Minor. And it is not without a singular interest that we find one
of Ovid's stories reappearing in the sacred pages of the Acts of the
Apostles. In this instance, as in so many others, the Scripture, in its
corded in the Acts. We must suppose that Paul gathered groups of the
Lystrians about him, and addressed them in places of pubhc resort, as a
Tot; Acog rov ovro^ TTpb TTjg noT.eug avrCtv ; It is more likely that a temple than a
statue of Jupiter is alluded to. The temple of the tutelary divinity was outside the
walls at Perga (see p. 161) and at Ephesus, as we learn from the story in Herodotus
(I. 26), who tells us that in a time of danger the citizens put themselves under the pro-
tection of Diana, by attaching her temple by a rope to the city-wall {avedecav t7)v ttoTuv
ry 'XpTEfiidi, e^uipavTEC ek tov vijov axotviov kg rd recxog). So Pallas is called, "kvaa^
*OyKa Ttpb TTo/ieug. Sept. c. Theb. 164.
* Kat ^aai rovg olKiarug rjpuag rj &eovg 'KoHaKig iizLaTpe^sGdaL rag a-biidv noXttt
Toig aXkoig ovrag u<j>avEtg, ev re -^vacag Kot tlolv iopralg 67}fioTE?jGcv, Dio. Ohrysi
Orat. xxxin. p. 408.
3 Acts xiv. 13.
See the references in Smith's Dictionary of Classical Biography and Mythology
*
conscience.
On one of these occasions ^ St. Paul observed a cripple, who was
earnestly listening to his discourse. He was seated on the ground, for he
had an infirmity in his feet, and had never walked from the hour of his
birth. St. Paul looked at him attentively, with that remarkable expres-
sion of the eye which we have already noticed (p. 148). The same Greek
word is used as when the Apostle is described as " earnestly beholding the
council," and as "setting his eyes on Elymas the sorcerer." On this
occasion that penetrating glance saw, by the power of the Divine Spirit,
into the very secrets of the cripple's ^oul. Paul perceived " that he had
faith to be saved." ^ These words, implying so much of moral preparation
in the heart of this poor Heathen, rise above all that is told us of the lame
Jew, whom Peter, " fastening his eyes upon him with John," had once
healed at the temple gate in J erusalem.^ In other respects the parallel
between the two cases is complete. As Peter said in the presence of the
Jews, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk," so
Paul said before his idolatrous audience at Lystra, " Stand upright on thy
feet." And in this case, also, the word which had been suggested to the
speaker by a supernatural intuition was followed by a supernatural result.
The obedient alacrity in the spirit, and the new strength in the body,
consciousness of a power lie had never felt before, and walked like those
dently a sufficient answer to say that these two divinities were always
represented as companions ^ in their terrestrial expeditions, though we
may well believe (with Chrysostom and others^) that there was something
majestically benignant in his appearance, while the personal aspect of St.
Paul (and for this we can quote his own statements^) was comparatively
insignificant.
How truthful and how vivid is the scene brought before us I and how
many thoughts it suggests to those who are at once conversant with Hea-
then mythology and disciples of Christian theology ! Barnabas, identified
with the Father of Gods and Men, seems like a personification of mild
beneficence and provident care ;
^ while Paul appears invested with more
active attributes, flying over the world on the wings of faith and love,
with quick words of warning and persuasion, and ever carrying in his hand
the purse of the " unsearchable riches." ^
1 Some are of opinion that the " speech of Lycaonia " was a Semitic language
others that it was a corrupt dialect of Greek. See the Dissertations of Jablonski and
Giihling in Iken's Thesaurus.
^ Acts xiv. 12. Hor. Od.
i. x. Ov. Fast. v. 6G8. Hence Xoyov &vr]TolaL npo^rjTcu
Orph. Hymn. So Lucian 'Ep/iov ?iGAiaTUTov kuI loyiuTurov -^euv uTrdvTov,
28, 4. :
Gallus 2, and Macrobius " Scimus Mercurium vocis et sermonis potentum." Sat. l 8
5
fice to the god whom he served. Bulls and garlands, and whatever elsa
was requisite to the performance of the ceremony, were duly prepared,
and the procession moved amidst crowds of people to the residence of the
Apostles. They, hearing the approach of the multitude, and learning
their idolatrous intention, were filled with the utmost horror. They "rent
their clothes," and rushed out of the house in which they lodged, and
met the idolaters approaching the vestibule.^ There, standing at the
doorway, they opposed the entrance of the crowd ; and Paul expressed his
abhorrence of their intention, and earnestly tried to prevent their fulfil-
ling it, in a speech of which only the following short outline is recorded
by St. Luke :
you the Glad Tiding, that you may turn from these vain idols to
the living God, who made the heavens, and the earth, and the
sea, and all things that are therein. For in the generations that
are past, He suffered all the nations of the Gentiles to walk in
their own ways. ISTevertheless He left not Himself without' wit-
ness, in that He blessed ydu,^ and gave you rain from heaven,
and fruitful seasons, filling your ^ hearts with food and gladness."
This address held them listening, but they listened impatiently. Even
with this energetic disavowal of his divinity, and this strong appeal to their
Beason, St. Paul found it difiicult to disturb the Lycaonians from offering
to him and Barnabas an idolatrous worship.^ There is no doubt that St.
1 P. 190.
' 'E^sTTijdTjcraVf not elceTz^drjaav^ is the reading sanctioned by the later critics on fuU
manuscript authority. See Tischendorf.
3 ILvAiovec does not mean the gate of the city (which would be TtvlTi), bat the ves-
tibule or gate which gave admission from the public street into the court of the Atrium.
So the word is used, Matt. xxvi. 71, for the vestibule of the high-priest's palace ; Luke
xvi. 20, for that of Dives house where Peter lodged at Joppa ; Acts
: Acts x. 17, of the
xii. 13, of the house of Mary the mother of John Mark. It is nowhere used for the
gate of a city except in tae Apocalypse. Moreover, it seems obvious that if the priest
had only brought the victims to sacrifice them at the city gates, it would have been no
fifering to Paul and Barnabas.
< Read vulv (with Griesbach, Lachman, &c.) instead of ijulv ; or else omit the word
altogether (with Tischendorf), which gives the same sense.
5 'T/zwv, not Tjficjv, is the right reading. ^ Acts xiv. 18.
VOL. I. IS
ADDRESS TO THE GENTILES. 195
Paul was the speaker, and before we proceed further in the narrative, W
cannot help pausing to observe the essentially Pauline character whici
this speech manifests, even in so condensed a summary of its contents. It
employed, with St. Paul's language kx other parts of the Acts, and in hia
own Epistles. Thus, as here he declares the object of his preaching to b
that the idolatrous Lystrians should " turn from these vain idols to the Hv*
Ing God," so he reminds the Thessalonians how they, at his preaching, had
" turned from idols to serve the living and true God." Again, as he tells '
the Lystrians that " God had in the generations that were past, suffere(3
the nations of the Gentiles to walk in their own ways j " so he tells the
Romans that " God in His forbearance had passed over the former sins of
"
men, in the times that were gone by ; ' and so he tells the Athenians,'
that " the past times of ignorance God had overlooked." Lastly, how
striking is the similarity between the natural theology with which the
present speech concludes, and that in the Epistle to the Komans, where,
speaking of the heathen, he says that atheists were without excuse ;
"for
that which can be known of God is manifested in their hearts, God Him-
self having shown it to them. For His being and His might, though they
be invisible, yet are seen ever since the world was made, being under-
stood by His works, which prove His eternal power and Godhead." ^
The crowd reluctantly retired, and led the victims away without offer-
lish, the columns of a newspaper may be read off as hexameters (spondaic, 01 other-
wise), quite as good as most of the so-called English hexameters which are published.
It seems very unlikely that St. Paul, in addressing the simple and illiterate inhabitants
of Lystra (whose vernacular language was not even Greek), should quote a lyrical
poem. Itwould have been as improbable as that John Wesley, when trying to pacifjF
the Welsh mob at Brecon, should have quoted one of Gray's odes.
5 The Schol. on IL iv. 88, 92 says: 'KizLaro yap AvKuover, tl>g Koi 'KpiOTorkArn
Ur.nTVlJei.
"
nastily decide that they were worse than many others might have been
auder the same circumstances. It would not be difficult to find a parallel
against them. When they heard of the miracle worked on the lame man,
and found how great an effect it had produced on the people of Lystra,
they would be ready with a new They
interpretation of this occurrence.
would say that had been accompHshed, not by Divine agency, but by
it
who came " to destroy the works of the devil," cast out devils by Beel-
zebub the prince of the devils." ^ And this is probably the true explana-
tion of that sudden change of feeling among the Lystrians, which at first
sight is very surprising. Their own interpretation of what they had wit-
nessed having been disavowed by the authors of the miracle themselves,
they would readily adopt a new interpretation, suggested by those who
appeared to be well acquainted with the strangers, and who had followed
them from Their feelings changed with a revulsion as vio-
distant cities.
lent as that which afterwards took place among the " barbarous people
of Malta,3 who first thought St. Paul was a murderer, and then a god
The Jews, taking advantage of the credulity of a rude tribe, were able to
accomplish at Lystra the design they had meditated at Iconium.'' St. Paui
was stoned, not hurried out of the city to execution like St. Stephen,^ the
memory of whose death must have come over St. Paul at this moment with
impressive force, but stoned somewhere in the streets of Lystra, and then
dragged through the city gate, and cast outside the walls, under the belief that
he was dead. This is the occasion to which the Apostle afterwards alluded
iu the words, " once I was stoned," ^ in that long catalogue of sufi'erings,
previous design of stoning St. Paul at Iconium. " Had the assault been completed,
had the history related that a stone was thrown, as it relates that preparations were
made both by Jews and Gentiles to stone Paul and his companions, or even had the
account of this transaction stopped, without going on to inform us that Paul and his
companions were aware of the danger and fled,' a contradiction between the history
'
and the epistles would have ensued. Truth is necessarily consistent but it is scarcely ;
possible that independent accounts, not having truth to guide them, should thus advance
to the very brink of contradiction without falling into it." Horse Paulmas, p. 69
ST. PAUL'S SUFFEKINGS. 197
perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen," " in deaths oft,*
" always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in his body Alway de-
livered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be
^
made manifest in his mortal flesh."
On the present occasion these last words were literally realised, for by
the power and goodness of God he rose from a state of apparent death
if by a sudden Though " persecuted," he was not " for-
resurrection.^
saken,'-
though "cast down" he was " not destroyed." "As the disci-
ples stood about him, he rose up, and came into the city." ^ "We see from
this expression that his labours in Lystra had not been in vain. He had
found some willing Hsteners to the truth, some " disciples " who did not
hesitate to show their attachment to their teacher by remaining near hisi
body, which the rest of their fellow-citizens had wounded and cast out.
These courageous disciples were left for the present in the midst of the
enemies of the truth. Jesus Christ had said,^ " when they persecute you
in one city, flee to another," and the very "next day"^ Paul "departed
with Barnabas to Derbe."
But before we leave Lystra, we must say a few words on one specta-
tor of St. Paul's sufferings, who is not yet mentioned by St. Luke, but
who was destined to be the constant companion of his after years, the
zealous follower of his doctrine, the faithful partner of his danger and dis-
tress. St. Paul came to Lystra again after the interval of one or two
years, and on that occasion we are told ' that he found a certain Christian
there, " whose name was Timotheus, whose mother was a Jewess, while
his father was a Greek," and whose excellent character was highly es-
stated that at the time of this second visit Timothy was already a Chris-
tian ; and since we know from St. Paul's own expression,
" my own son
in the faith," ^
that he was converted by St. Paul himself, we must sup-
pose this change to have taken place at the time of the first visit. And
the reader will remember that St. Paul in the second Epistle to Timothy
See pp. 163, 164.
Compare 2 Cor. iv. 8-12 and xi. 23-27.
3 The natural inference from the narrative is, that the recovery was miraculous and ;
h is evident that such a recovery must have produced a strong effect on the minds oi
the Christians who witnessed it.
4 Acts xiv. 20. 5 Matt. x. 23. e Acts xiv. 20. ^ Acts xvi. 1.
natural. See what is said 1 Cor. iv. 14, 15 " As my beloved sons I warn you for
: ;
though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers ; for
in Christ Jesus T have begotten you through the gospel."
"
(iii. 10, 11) reminds him of his own intimate and personal knowledge of
the sufferings he had endured, at Antioch^ at Iconium, at Lystra^^^ the
places (it will be observed) being mentioned in the exact order in which
they were visited, and in which the successive persecutions took place.
We have thus the strongest reasons for believing that Timothy was a
witness of St. Paul's injurious treatment : and this too at a time of life
when the mind receives its deepest impressions from the spectacle of inno-
cent suffering and undaunted courage. And it is far from impossible that
the generous and w^arm-hearted youth was standing group of dis-
in that
ciples, who surrounded the apparently lifeless body of the Apostle at the
outside of the walls of Lystra.
We are called on to observe at this point, with a thankful acknowledg-
ment of God's providence, that the flight from Iconium, and the cruel per-
secution at Lystra, where events which involved the most important and
beneficial consequences to universal Christianity. It was here, in the midst
of barbarous idolaters, that the Apostle of the Gentiles found an associ-
ate, who became to him and the Church far more than Barnabas, the com-
panion of his first mission. As we have observed above, ^ there appears to
have been at Lystra no synagogue, no community of Jews and proselytes,
among whom such an associate might naturally have been expected.
Perhaps Timotheus and his relations may have been almost the only
persons of Jewish origin in the town. And his " grandmother Lois
and " mother Eunice" ^ may have been brought there originally by some
accidental circumstance, as Lydia^ was brought from Thyatira to Phi-
lippi.'' And, though there was no synagogue at Lystra, this family may
have met with a few others in some proseucha, hke that in which Lydia
and her fellow-worshippers met " by the river side." ^ Whatever we may
conjecture concerning the congregational life to which Timotheus may have
been accustomed, we are accurately informed of the nature of that do-
mestic life which nurtured him for his future labours. The good soil of
his heart was well prepared before Paul came, by the instructions ^ of Lois
and Eunice, to receive the seed of Christian truth, sown at the Apostle's
first visit, and to produce a rich harvest of faith and good works before
the time of his second visit.
' Soft the note on Lystra. Strabo says of Derbe : T^f 'laavpiKrjg kariv kv irXevoai^^
(idTiiara ry Ka-mradoKia ^TTiTre^v/cof. /c. r. A. xii. 6. Stephanus Byzantiniis says that
Derbe was ^povpiov 'laavptac kuI 7u[X'nv [the last word is evidently a mistake perhaps, ;
AS the French translators of Strabo suggest, it ought to be Xluvti] but he implies that ;
It was closely connected with Lycaonia, and at the Bame ti?aae that " the tspeech ol
LTSTHA, ICCNITJM, AND ANTIOCH. 199
Mouniain," which rises like an island in the south-eastern part of the plain
and its neighbour-city. We may, perhaps, infer from the fact that Derbe
is not mentioned in the list of places which St. Paul ^ brings to the vecolc
lection of Timothy as scenes of past suffering and distress, that in thi^
town the Apostles were exposed to no persecution. It may have been a
quiet resting-place after a journey full of toil and danger. It does not
appear that they were hindered in " evangelising " ^ the city : and the
fruit of their labours was the conversion of " many disciples." ^
And now we have reached the limit of St. Paul's first missionary jour-
Lycaonia" was in some way peculiar, when he says that some called it AeTiSeta, 5 iau
ry Tuv AvKaovuv (puvy upKovdog. This variety in the form of the name, added to the
proximity of lake Ak Gol, induced Mr. Hamilton to think Divle might be Derbe.Re-
earches, vol. n. p. 313.
1 2 Tim. iii. 11.
Thus, having consigned their disciples to Him " in whom they had be-
and who was " able to keep that which was entrusted to Him,"'
lieved,"
any Jews resided there, were less inquisitive and less tyrannical than those
at Antioch and Iconium ;
and the votaries of " Diana before the city
at Perga (see p. 160) were less excitable than those who worshipped
Jupiter before the city " at Lystra.^ When the time came for return-
ing to Syria, they did not sail down the Oestrus, up the channel of which
river they had come on their arrival from Cyprus,^ but travelled across
the plain to Attaleia, which was situated on the edge of the PamphyHan
gulf.
voyage, and the former is more conveniently placed on the open sea. At-
tains Philadelphus, king of Pergamus, whose dominions extended from the
north-western corner of Asia Minor to the Sea of Pamphylia, had built
this city in a convenient position for commanding the trade of Syria or
Egypt. When Alexander the Great passed this way, no such city was in
existence : but since the days of the kings of Pergamus, who inherited a
fragment of his vast empire, Attaleia has always existed and flourished,
retaining the name of the monarch who built it.' Behind it is the plain,
I
First Collect for the Ember Weeks. ^ Acts xiv. 23. Compare 2 Tim. i. 12.
' Wieseler (p. 224) thinks the events on this journey must have occupied more thaii
one year. It is evident that the case does not admit of any thing more than conjecture.
< See above, pp. 160, and notes. Acts xiv. 13. e Pp. igq, 161.
' See Strab. xiv. 4 and Ptol. v. 5, 2. Strabo places Attaleia to the west of the Catarr
hactes, Ptolemy to the east. Admiral Beaufort (Karamania, ch. vi.) was of opinion
that the modern Satalia is the site of the ancient Olbia, and that Laara is the true
Attaleia. Manncrt (Gcorg. der G. und R. vi. 130) conjectures that Olbia may have
be'.m tbo ancient name of the city which Attains rebuilt and called after his own name:
AITJLLEIA. 201
over which the river finds its way in waterfalls to the sea, and which con*
ceal the plain from those who look toward the land from the inner waters
of the bay, and even encroach on the prospect of the mountains them
selves.
When this view is before us, the mind reverts to another band of Chris*
tian warriors, who once sailed from the bay of Satalia to the Syrian Anti
och. Certain passages, in which the movements of the Crusaders and
Apostles may be compared with each other are among the striking con-
trasts of history. Conrad and Louis, each with an army consisting at first
of 70,000 men, marched through part of the same districts ^ which were
traversed by Paul and Barnabas alone and unprotected. The shattered
remains of the French host had come down to Attaleia through " the ab-
rupt mountain-passes and the deep vallies " which are so well described by
the contemporary historian.'' They came to fight the battle of the Cross
and Forbiger (Alte Geographie, ii. 268) inclines to think the opinion is very probable.
The perpetual changes in the river-bed of the Catarrhactes have necessarily caused
some difficulty in the identification of ancient sites in tliis part of the Pamphylian
plain. Spratt and Forbes, however (" Lycia," &c., ch. vi.), seems to have discovered
the true Olbia further to the west, and to have proved that Satalia is Attaleia. They
add that the style of its relics is invariably Roman, agreeing with the date of its foun-
dation.
1 See Spratt and Forbes for a full account of the irregular deposits and variations of
4 Tandem vero Pamphyliam ingressi, per abrupia montium, per devexa vallium^
cum difficuUate nitnia .... usque Attaleiam, ejusdem regionis metropolim pervene-
runt." William of Tyre, The passage which follows is worth quoting, both
xvi. 26.
hospitibus. Nam aquas emanans perspicuas et salutare'fe, pojiieriis est obsita fructiferis,
Bitu placens amoenissimo trajectarum tamen frequens et per mare devectarum solent
:
appellant. Unde et totus ille maris sinus, a promontorio Lissidora, usque in insulan:
Cyprum, Attalicus dicitur, qui vulgari appellatione Gulphus Satalice uuncupatur.
" Ad banc perveniens Rex Francorum cum suis, ob multitudinem concurrentium
tantum passus est alimentorum penuriam quod pene residuum exercitus, et maxime
pauperes consumerentur inedia. Ipse vero cum suis principibus, relictis pedestribra
'
with a great multitude, and with the armour of human power ; their jonr*
aey was encompassed with defeat and death ; their arrival at Attaleia wag
disastrous and disgraceful ; and they saifed to Antioch a broken and dis-
pirited army. But the Crusaders of the first century, the Apostles of
Christ, though they too passed "through much tribulation," advanced
from victory to victory. Their return to the place " whence they had
been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled,"
was triumphant and joyful, for the weapons of their warfare were " not
carnal." The Lord Himself was their tower and their shield.
turmis maturat navigio, Isauriam Ciliciamque a Iseva deserens : a dextris autem Cypro
relicta, prosperis actus flatibus, fauces Orontis fluminis, quod Antiochiam prselabitup,
q^ui locus hodie dicitur Symeonis portus, juxta autiquam urbem Seleuciam, et ab An-
Jiochia decern plus minusve paulo distat miliaribus, ingreditur."
Acts xiv. 26. " See 2 Cor. x. 4.
From Fellows' Asia Minor, p. 191. This sculpturing of a shield upon a tc-wer may
also be seen in a drawing of Isaura in Hamilton's Researches, vol. ii. p. 333.
CHAPTEE Vn.
** Inter hos scopulus et sinus, inter haec vada et freta . . . velificata Spiritu Dei fidei
If, when we contrast tlie voyage of Paul and Barnabas across the bay of
Attaleia, with the voyage of those who sailed over the same waters in the
Bame direction, eleven centuries later, our minds are powerfully drawn to-
wards the pure age of early Christianity, when the power of faith made
human weakness irresistibly strong ; the same thoughts are not less for-
cibly presented to us, when we contrast the reception of the Crusaders at
Antioch, with the reception of the Apostles in the same city. We are
told by the Chroniclers \ that Raymond, " Prince of Antloch," waited
with much expectation for the arrival of the French King and that, ;
brought him into Antioch with much pomp and magnificence, showing him
all reverence and homage, in the midst of a great assemblage of the
clergy and people. All that St, Luke tells us of the reception of the
Apostles after their victorious campaign, is, that they entered into the
city and gathered together the church, and told them how God had
worked with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gen-
tiles.''' Thus the kingdom of God came at the first "without obser-
?ation,'^' with the humble acknowledgment that all power is given
from above, and with a thankful recognition of our Father's merciful
love to all mankind.
No age, however, of Christianity, not even the earhest, has been with-
out its difficulties, controversies, and corruptions. The presence o^f Judas
among the apostles, and of Ananias and Sapphira among the first disci-
ples,3 were proofs of the power which moral evil possesses to combine it-
self with the holiest works. The misunderstanding of " the Grecians and
Hebrews" in the days of Stephen,^, the suspicion of the apostles, when
Paul came from Damascus to Jerusalem,* the secession of Mark at the
beginning of the first missionary journey,^ were symptoms of the preju-
dice, ignorance, and infirmity, in the midst of which the Gospel was
to win its way in the hearts of men. And the arrival of the apostles at
Antioch at the close of their journey was presently followed by a trou-
bled controversy, which involved the most momentous consequences to all
future ages of the Church ; and which led to that visit to Jerusalem
which, next after his conversion, is perhaps the most important passage in
St.. Paul's life.
We have seen (Ch. I.) that great number^ of Jews had long been dis-
persed beyond the limits of their own land, and were at this time dis-
tributed over every part of the Koman Empire. "Moses had of old
time, in every city, them that preached him, being read in the Syna-
gogues every Sabbath-day." ' In every considerable city, both of the
East and West, were established some members of that mysterious peo-
ple, who had a written law, which they read and re-read, in the midst of
the contempt of those who surrounded them, week by week, and year by
year, who were bound everywhere by a secret link of affection to one
ctty in the world, where alone their religious sacrifices could be offered,
whose whole life was utterly abhorrent from the temples and images which
crowded the neighbourhood of their Synagogues, and from the gay and
h'centious festivities of the Greek and Roman worship.
In the same way it might be said that Plato and Aristotle, Zeno and
EpicuruR,8 " had in every city those that preached them." Side by side
were not indeed read in connection with religious worship but orallj
taught and publicly discussed in the schools. Hence the Jews, in theii
foreign settlements, were surrounded, not only by an idolatry which
shocked all their deepest feelings, and by a shameless profligacy unforbid-
den by, and even associated with, that which the Gentiles called reli-
statement of the strict regulations of the modern Jews, in their present dispersed stat.
concerning the slaughtering of animals for food and the sale f^f the meat, is given ia
Allen's Modern Judaism, ch. xxii.
resort, buying and selling, conversing and disputing : but their families were
separate : in the relations of domestic life, it was " unlawful," as St. Peter
said to Cornelius, "for a man that was a Jew to keep company or come
unto one of another nation." ' When St. Peter returned from the centu-
rion at Caesarea to his brother-christians at Jerusalem, their great charge
against him was that he had " gone in to men uncircumcised, and had eaten
with them :
" ^ and the weak compliance of which he was guilty, after the
true principle of social unity had been publicly recognised, and which
called forth the stern rebuke of his brother-apostles, was that, after eating
with the Gentiles, he " withdrew and separated himself, fearing them
*
which were of the circumcision."
How these two difficulties, which seemed to forbid the formation of an
united Church on earth, were ever to be overcome, how the Jews and
Gentiles were to be religiously united, without the enforced obligation of
the whole Mosaic Law, how they were to be socially united as equal
brethren in the family of a common Father, the solution of this problem
must In that day have appeared impossible. And without the direct in-
ceed to consider how that grace gave to the minds of the Apostles, the
wisdom, discretion, forbearance, and firmness which were required ; and
how St. Paul was used as the great instrument in accomplishing a work
necessary to the very existence of the Christian Church,
We encounter here a difficulty, well known to all who have examined
this subject, in combining into one continuous narrative the statements in
the Epistle to the Galatians and in the Acts of the Apostles. In the
latter book we are informed of made by the Apostle five distinct journeys
to Jerusalem after the time of his conversion first, when he escaped ;
from Damascus, and spent a fortnight with Peter ^ secondly, when he ;
took the collection from Antioch with Barnabas in the time of famine ;
thirdly, on the occasion of the Council, which is now before us in the fif-
In the Epistles to the Galatians, St. Paul speaks of two journeys to Jerii
salem, the first being " three years" after his conversion,^ the seconc
" fourteen years " later,'' when his own apostleship was asserted and recog-
nised in a public meeting of the other apostles.^ Now, while we have no
difficulty in stating, as we have done,^ that the first journey of one account
is the first journey of the other, theologians have been variously divided in
not possibly be intended.^ The view wc have adopted, that the second
journey of the Epistle is the third of the Acts, is that of a majority of the
best critics and commentators. For the arguments by which it is justi-
fied, and for a full discussion of the whole subject, we must refer the rear
der to the note at the end of this Chapter. Some of the arguments will
be indirectly presented in the following narrative. So far as the circum-
ment of his hunger, the vast sheet descending from heaven, the pro-
miscuous assemblage of clean and unclean animals ^
the voice from hear
ven which said, Arise, Peter, kill and eat,^^ the whole of this imagery-
is invested with the deepest meaning, when we rett^llect all the details of
religious and social life, which separated, up to that moment, the Gentile
from the Jew The words heard by St. Peter in his trance came like a
4 P. 101.
3 Some writers, e. g. Paley and Schrader, have contended that an entirely different
journey, not mentioned in the Acts, is alluded to. This also will be discussed hereafter.
6 Acts X. xi.
7 The last emblematical visions (properly so called) were those seen by the prophet
'^Isuchariah.
it make if I eat the meat of an ox or swine,' we offend against His will, we pol-
to God
lute ourselves by what goes into the mouth, and can consequently lay no longer a claim
tc holiness for the term holiness,' applied to mortals, means only a framing of our
;
'
desires by the will of God Have we not enough to eat without touching forbid
den things? Let me beseech my dear fellow-believers not to deceive themsehe? h-j
broken the law of his forefathers as to eat any thing it condemned as an?
cl&an. though the same voice spoke to him " a second time," and
And
^
" answered him from heaven,"^ "What God has made clean that call
not thou common," ^it' required a wonderful combination of natural ^ and
supernatural evidence to convince him that God is "no respecter of per-
sons," but "in every nation" accepts him that "feareth Him and worketh
righteousness,"^ that all such distinctions as depend on "meat and
drink," on " holy days, new moons, and sabbaths," were to pass away,
that these things were only " a shadow of things to come," that " the
The Christians " of the circumcision," ^ who travelled with Peter from
Joppa to Caesarea, were "astonished" when they saw "the gift of the
Holy Ghost poured out " on the uncircumcised Gentiles and much dis- :
and so much conviction was produced at the time, that they expressed
their gratitude to God, for His mercy in " granting to the Gentiles re-
pentance unto life." ' But subsequent events too surely proved that the
lost sheep of the house of Israel," and He said that it was " not mest to
Baying, *
there is no sin in eating of aught that lives on the contrary, there is sin and
eontamination too." Leeser's Jews and the Mosaic Law ch. on " The forbidden Meat^,' 5
'
Philadelphia, 5594
1
Acts X. 15.
" Acts xi. 9.
The coincidence of outward events and inward admonitions was very similar
3 to th
take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." ^ Until St. Paul appeared be<
fore the Church in his true character as the Apostle of the uncircumcisicm,
few understood that " the law of the commandments contained in ordi-
and that the " othei
nances " had been abolished by the cross of Christ ;
gheep," not of the Jewish fold, should be freely admitted into the " one
increased and became more evident as new Gentile converts were admitted
into the Church. To pass over all the other events of the interval which
had elapsed since the baptism of Cornelius, the results of the recent jour-
ney of Paul and Barnabas through the cities of Asia Minor must have
excited a great commotion among the Jewish Christians. " A door of
faith " had been opened unto the Gentiles." ^ " He that wrought effectib
ally in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same had been
mighty in Paul toward the Gentiles." ^ And we cannot well doubt that
both he and Barnabas had freely joined in social intercourse with the Gen-
tile Christians, at Antioch in Pisidia, at Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, as
''a good while ago " had eaten with Cornelius
Peter at the first " ^ ' at
Coosarea. At Antioch in Syria, it seems evident that both parties lived
together in amicable intercourse and in much " freedom." ^ Nor, indeed,
is this the city where we should have expected the Jewish controversy to
have come to a crisis : for it was from Antioch that Paul and Barnabas
had first been sent as missionaries to the heathen : ^ and it was at Antioch
that Greek proselytes had firstaccepted the truth, ' and that the united
body of behevers had first been called " Christians."
Jerusalem was the metropolis of the Jewish world. The exclusive
feelings which the Jews carried with them wherever they were diffused,
ment would be absorbed and lost. This revolution could not appear to
them in any other light than as a rebellion against all that they had been
taught to hold inviolably sacred. And since there was no doubt that the
great instigator of this change of opinion was that Saul of Tarsus whom
they had once known as a young Pharisee at the " feet of Gamaliel," the
contest took the form of an attack made by " certain of the sect of the
VOL. I. 14
210 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Pharisees " upon St. Paul. The battle which had been fought and lost
in the " Cilician synagogue " was now to be renewed within the Church
itself.
Some of the "false breth.cn" (for such is the name which St. Paul
GaL ii. 5. Acts xv. 2. s Acts xv. 19. Gal. I 7. Acts. xv. 24.
JOUHNEY TO JERUSALEM.
In addition to this mission with which St. Paul was entrusted by the
Church at Antioch, he received an intimation of the Divine Will commu*
Aicated by direct revelation. Such a revelation at so momentous a crisis
must appear perfectly natural to all who believe that Christianity was in
God" stood by him when the ship that was conveying him to
in the night
Jerusalem partly because the Church deputed him, and partly because he
was divinely admonished. Such a combination and co-operation of the
natural and the supernatural we have observed above,^ in the case of that
vision which induced St. Peter to go from Joppa to Csesarea. Nor need
we feel any great difficulty in adopting this view of St. PauFs journey
from Antioch to Jerusalem,from this circumstance, that the two mo-
tives which conspired to direct him are separately mentioned in different
parts of Scripture. It is true that we are told in the Acts simply that it
" brought him down to Csesarea and sent him forth ; " while in the speech
of St. Paul himself,^ we are told that in a trance he saw Jesus Christ, and
received from Him a command to depart " quickly out of J erusalem."
Similarly directed from without and from within, he travelled to
Jerusalem on the occasion before us. It would seem that his com-
panions were carefully chosen with reference to the question in dispute.
On the one hand was Barnabas,^" a Jew and " a Levite" by birth," a
good representative of the church of the circumcision. On the other
hand was Titus, now first mentioned^-'' in the course of our narrative, a
3 Gal. ii. 2. Schrader (who does not however identify this journey with that in
Acts XV.) translates Kara dTTOKdXvrpLv " to make a revelation," which is a meaning th
^ords can scarcely bear. ^ Pp. 207, 208.
5 XV.
Acts
2. 6 ii. 2. ^ 7
lo
Ch.
Acts xv.
III. p. 104.
ix. 30. 9 Acts xxii. 17, 18. 2.
the present Epistle and that to Titus himself, he is only mentioned in 2 Cor. and 2 Tina.
212 THE LIFE AJ^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the Gospel. Had the Judaizers triumphed, would hardly have been
it
said that Paul and his fellow-travellers were "brought on their way
by the Church." > Their course was along the great Koman Road,
which followed the Phoenician coast-line, and traces of which are still
Been on the cliffs overhanging the sea,'^ and thence through the midland
districts of Samaria and Judaea. When last we had occasion to men-
tion Phoenice,^ we were alluding to those who were dispersed on the
death of Stephen, and preached the Gospel " to Jews only " on this
part of the Syrian coast. Now it seems evident that many of the
heathen Syro-Phcenicians had been converted to Christianity : for as
Paul and Barnabas passed through, " declaring the conversion of the
Gentiles, they caused great joy unto all the brethren." As regards
the Samaritans," we cannot be surprised that they who, when Philip first
" preached Christ unto had received the glad tidings with
them,"
" great joy," should be ready to express their sympathy in the happiness
of those who, like themselves, had recently been " aliens from the com-
monwealth of Israel."
Fifteen years ^ had now elapsed since that memorable journey, when
In a later part of this work lie will be noticed more particularly as St. Paul's avvepyo^
(2 Cor. viii. 23).
1 JlpoTteficpdevTEg iTro r/jg eKK?i7]atar. Acts XV. 3. So the phrase TrapaSoOeig ry x^P'''''^
Tov Kvptov vTzb ruv ude?i,(f>o)v (xv. 40), may be reasonably adduced as a proof that the
feeling of the majority was with Paul rather than Barnabas.
" Roman milestones between Tyre and Sidon (iii. 415), and
Dr. Eobinson passed two
observed traces of a Roman road between Sidon and Beyrout. See also Fisher's Syria
(i. 40) for a notice of the Via Antonina between Beyrout and Tripoli.
3 P. 116. Acts xi. 19, 20. It may be interesting here to allude to the journey of a
Jew in the Middle Ages from Antioch to Jerusalem. It is probable that the stations,
the road, the rate of travelling were the same, and the distribution of the Jews not very
different. We find the following passage in the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, who
travelled in 1163. " Two
days bring us from Antioch to Lega, which is Latachia, and
contains about 200 Jews, the principal of whom are R. Chiia and R. Joseph. One . . .
day's journey to Gebal of the children of Ammon it contains about 150 Jews ;
Two days hence is Beyrut. The principal of its 50 Jewish inhabitants are R. Solomon,
R. Obadiah, and R. Joseph. It is hence one day's journey to Saida, which is Sidon of
Scripture [Acts xxvii. 3], a large city, with about 20 Jewish families One day's
journey to New Sur [Tyre, Acts xxi. 3], a very beautiful city The Jews of Sur
are ship-owners and manufacturers of the celebrated Tyrian glass It is one day
hence to Acre [Ptolemais, Acts xxi. 7]. It is the frontier town of Palestine and, in ;
consequence of its situation on the shore of the Mediterranean, and of its large port, it
is the principal place of disembarcation of all pilgrims who visit Jerusalem by sea."
Early Travels to Palestine, pp. 78-81.
< See
pp. 71), 80
= Gal. ii. 1, where we ought probably to reckon inclusively. See note at the end ol
ihiti Chapter.
CONFERENCES AT JERUSALEM. 213
St. Paul left Jerusalem, with all the zeal of a Pharisee, to peraecute
Lnd destroy the Christians in Damascus.^ He had twice entered, as a
Christian, the Holy City again. Both visits had been short and hurriedi
and surrounded with danger. The first was three years after his couTer
gion, when he spent a fortnight with Peter, and escaped assassination by
a precipitate flight to Tarsus.'' The second was in the year 44, when
Peter himself was in imminent danger, and when the messengers who
brought the charitable contribution from Antioch were probably com-
pelled to return immediately.^ Now St. Paul came at a more peaceful
period of the Church's history, to be received as the successful champion
of the Gospel, and as the leader of the greatest revolution which the
world has seen. It was now undeniable that Christianity had spread to
a wide extent in the Gentile world, and that he had been the great instru-
ment in advancing its progress. He came to defend his own principles
must have been there who had studied with him " at the feet of GamaMel.'^
Their opposition was doubtless embittered by remembering what he had
been before his conversion. Nor do we allude here to those Pharisees
who opposed Christianity. These were not the enemies whom St. Paul
came to resist. The time was past when the Jews, unassisted by the
Roman power, could exercise a cruel tyranny over the Church. Its
St. Peter was the first of tlie Apostles who rose to address the assem
jly.' He gave his decision against the Judaizers, and in favour of St
Paul. He reminded his hearers of the part which he himself had taken
in admitting the Gentiles into the Christian Church. They were well
aware, he said, that these recent converts in Syria and Cilicia were not
the first heathens who had believed the Gospel, and that he himself had
been chosen by God to begin the work which St. Paul had only been
continuing. The communication of the Holy Ghost was the true test of
persons, by shedding abroad the same miraculous gifts on Jew and Gen-
tile, and purifying by faith the hearts of both alike. And then St. Peter
went on to speak, in touching language, of the yoke of the Jewish law.
Its weight had pressed heavily on many generations of Jews, and was well
known to the Pharisees who were listening at that moment. They had
been reheved from legal bondage by the salvation offered through faith ;
ence.^ They had much to relate of what they had done and seen toge-
ther : and especially they made appeal to the miracles which God had
worked among the Gentiles by them. Such an appeal must have been
a persuasive argument to the Jew, who was familiar, in his ancient Scrip-
tures, with many divine interruptions of the course of nature. These in-
terferences had signalised all the great passages of Jewish history. Jesus
Christ had proved His divine mission in the same manner. And the
events at Paphos,^ at Iconium,^ and Lystra,' could not well be regarded
in any other light than as a proof that the same Power had been with
Paul and Barnabas, which accompanied the words of Peter and John in
Jerusalem and Judaea.*^
pect, with the austere features, the linen ephod, the bare feet, the long
was the man who now came forward, and solemnly pronounced the Mosaic
rites were not of eternal obligation. After alluding to the argument of
Peter (whose name we find him characteristically quoting in its Jewisl
filment was predetermined by God himself, and that the Jewish dispensa-
tion was in truth the preparation for the Christian.-* Such a decision,
pronounced by one who stood emphatically on the confines of the two dis-
pensations, came with great force on all who heard it, and carried with it
the general opinion of the assembly to the conclusion that those " who
from among the Gentiles had turned unto God" should not be "troubled"
with any Jewish obligations, except such as were necessary for peace and
the mutual good understanding of the two parties.
The spirit of charity and mutual forbearance is very evident in the
decree which was finally enacted. Its spirit was that expressed by St.
Paul in his Epistles to the P.;Omans and Corinthians. He knew, and was
persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself : but to him
that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. He knew that an
idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one : but
all men have not this knowledge : some could not eat that which had been
offered in sacrifice to an idol without defiling their conscience. It is good
to abstain from everything whereby a weaker brother may be led to
with those apostles who bore the name of James. Neander (Pfl. u. L. p. 554) says the
question is one of the most difficult in the New Testament. Wieseler has written an
essay on the subject in the St. u. K. We are not required here to enter into the inves-
tigation, and arc content to adopt the opinion which is most probable.
1 Stanley's Sermons and Essays, &g., p. 295. We must refer here to the whole of
the "Sermon on the Epistle of St. James," and of the " Essay on the Traditions of
James the Just," especially pp. 292, 302, 327.
" liv/xeuv t^riyrjaaro. Acts xv. 14. So St. Peter names himself at the beginning of
his Second Epistle, I,vfj.edv Ukrpog dov2,o^, k. t.
3 Amos ix. 11, 12. We are not required to express any opinion on the application
of prophecy to the future destiny of the Jews but we must observe, that the Apostles
;
themselves apply such prophecies as this to the Christian Dispensation. See Acts ii. 17
4 TvufjTd utt' aluvog, k. t. 1. V. 18. Compare Acts xvii. 26. Rom. i. 2. Eph. i. 10
Ul. 9. 10. Col. i. 26.
THE DECREE.
should be required to abstain from that which had been polluted by being
offered in sacrifice to idols, from the flesh of animals which had been
strangled, and generally from the eating of blood. The reason for thes
conditions is made
stated in the verse to which particular allusion has been
at the beginning of the present chapter.'* The Law of Moses was read
every Sabbath in all the cities, where the Jews were dispersed.^ A due
consideration for the prejudices of the Jews made it reasonable for the
Gentile converts to comply with some of the restrictions which the Mosaic
Law and ancient custom had imposed on every Jewish meal. In no other
way could social intercourse be built up and cemented between the two
parties. If some forbearance were requisite on the part of the Gentiles
in complying with such conditions, not less forbearance was required from
the Jews in exacting no more. And to the Gentiles themselves the
restrictions were a merciful condition : for it helped them to disentangle
themselves more easily from the pollutions connected with their idolatrous
life. We are not merely concerned here with the question of social sepa-
ration, the food which was a delicacy* to the Gentile being abominated
by the Jew, nor with the difficulties of weak and scrupulous consciences,
who might fear too close a contact between " the table of the Lord " and
" the table of Demons," ^
but this controversy had an intimate connec-
tion with the principles of universal morality. The most shameless vio-
lations of purity took place in connection with the sacrifices and feasts
verse with the context. Some consider it to imply that while it was necessary to urge
rhese conditions on the Gentiles, it was needless to say any thing to the Jews on the
subject, since they had the Law of Moses, and knew its requirements. Dean Milman
infers that the regulations were made because the Christians in general met in the same
places of religious worship with the Jews. " These provisions were necessary, because
the Mosaic Law was universally read, and from immemorial usage in the synagogue.
The direct violation of its most vital principles by any of those who joined in the coin*
mon worship would be incongruous, and of course highly offensive to the more zealoul
Mosaists." Hist, of Christianity, vol. i. p. 426, n.
' Acts XV. 21.
* We learn from Athenseus that to tzvlktov was regarded as a delicacy among thf
Greeks. 1 Cor. x. 21.
See Tholuck in his " Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism," part ill
:
Jewish point of view, and consider how violations of morality and contra*
dictions of the ceremonial law were associated together in the Gentile
world. It is hardly necessary to remark that much additional emphasis
is given to the moral part of the decree, when we remember that it waa
addressed to those who lived in close proximity to the profligate sanctua-
not by the law, but by faith : one immediate result was that Titus, the
companion of Paul and Barnabas, " w^as not compelled to be circumcised.'^ *
His case was not like that of Timothy at a later period,'* whose circumcision
was a prudential accommodation to circumstances, without endangering
the truth of the Gospel. To have circumcised Titus at the time of the
meeting in Jerusalem, would have been to have asserted that he was
" bound to keep the whole law." ^ And when the alternative was between
" the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free," and the reimposition of
" the yoke of bondage," Paul's language always was,'' that if Gentile con
verts were circumcised, Christ could " profit them nothing." By seeking
1 We cannot, however be surprised that one great branch of the Christian Church
takes a different view. The doctrine of the Greek Church, both Ancient and Modern,
may be seen in the UrjduTitov, or Greek Book of Canon Law (Athens, 1841). In the
Apostolic Constitutions we find the following: EZnf 'Ettlckotto^ rj UpeG^vrepog r) Aia-
Kovoc (pdyfj Kpea kv al/iaTi ipvxvg avTov, i] &TjpLu?iO)Tov rj -^vrjaLfialov, Kadatpetado). tovto
yap El 6i Aa'iKoc eii], u<j>opLCeodo). The modern comment, after ad-
6 N6/iOf dneiTrev.
ducing Gen. and Levit. xvii., proceeds 'A2,2.(l yap koL e'lg tov veov No/iov tov Evay-
ix. :
tog, uTTo rd oTtola vd evyr) 6tv elvat rpoTvog. (pp. 45, 46.) Again, in one of the Canons
of the TruHian Council, we find : 'H Qeia 7//ilv ypacprj EveTelXaro, uTTsx^aOai, . r. A
Toif ovv did T^v 7dxvov yaaripa, al[xa oiovdi^nore ^6ov rex'^V ''"'^^ KaraaKevu^ovaiv
i66difj.ov Kal ovru rovro eoOtovci^ irpocj^opihg tTZLTLnujiEv. (p. 160.) And in the Coun-
cil of Gaggra, in a decree alluding to 1 Tim. iv. 3, the same condition is introduced
Et Tff toOuwra Kpta (x^)pic ai/xarog Kal eiduXoOvrov Kal tzvlktov) /het' evXaSEiag kcC
mareuc, KaraKpivoL . . . dvdOEfia laru. (p. 230.) The practice of the modern Greeka
is strictly in accordance with these decisions.
* At least the decree (Acts xv. 23) is addressed only to the churches of "Syria aaS
Cilicia," and wc do not see the subject alluded to again after xvi. 4.
* See above, pp. 135 and 168, and Lucian's Treatise de Dea Syria."
* Gal. ii. :5. 6 Acts xvi. 3. Gal. v. 3.
' '16e tycj IIaAof Xsyu vfxiv, on kdv 'KEpLTEfivr,trdt, XpLorbg i//df ov6kv u<pe^ee4
Gal. V. 2.
rUBLIC RECOGNITION OF ST. PAUL'S MISSIOX TO THE HEATHEN. 219
eo be justified in the law they fell from grace.^ In this firm refusal t9
comply with the demand of the Judaizers, the case of all future con*
yerts from heathenism was virtually involved. It was asserted once for all
that in the Christian Church there is " neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision
nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free : but that Christ is
lar of the temple of the*' New Jerusalem," inscribed with the ''New
Name" which proclaims the union of all mankind in one Saviour.
One of those who gave the right hand of fellowship to St. Paul, was
the " beloved disciple" of that Saviour.^ This is the only meeting of St.
Paul and St. John recorded in Scripture. It is, moreover, the last notice
which we find there of the life of St. John, until the time of the apocalyp-
tic vision in the island of Patmos. Por both these reasons the mind
eagerly seises on the incident, though it is only casually mentioned in the
Epistle to the Galatians. Like other incidental notices contained in Scrip-
ture, it is very suggestive of religious thoughts. St. John had been silent
during the discussion in the public assembly ; but at the close of it he ex-
'
Gal. V. 4. Col. iii. 11.
3 The cliarges brought against St. Paul by the Judaizers were*very various at differ*
ent times.
4 It should be carefully observed here that James is mentioned first of these Sdulerm-
posteln (to quote a phrase from the German commentators), and that Peter is men-
tioned by the name of Cephas, as in 1 Cor. i. 12.
5 See Rev. iii. 12. The same metaphor is found in 1 Tim. iii. 15, v/here Timothy ig
called (for this seems the natural interpretation), " a pillar and support of the truth." In
these passages it is important to bear in mind the peculiarity of ancient architecture,
r^al. ii. 9.
*220 THE LIFii AJSTD EPISTI,ES OF ST. PAUL.
pressed Ms cordial union with St. Paul in " the truth of the Gospel.*
That union has been made visible to all ages by the juxtaposition of theil
Epistles in the same Sacred Yolume. They stand together among the
pillars of the Holy Temple ;
and the Church of God is thankful to learn
how Contemplation may be united with Action, and Faith with Love, in
To the decree with which Paul and Barnabas were charged, one condi-
tioFi was annexed, with which they gladly promised to comply. We have
already had occasion to observe (p. 66) that the Hebrews of Judasa were
relatively poor, compared with those of the dispersion, and that the Jew-
ish Christians in Jerusalem were exposed to peculiar suffering from pov-
erty ; and we have seen Paul and Barnabas once before the bearers of a
contribution from a foreign city for their rehef.'^ They were exhorted now
to continue the same charitable work, and in their journeys among the
Gentiles and the dispersed Jews, to remember the poor" at Jerusalem.
In proof of St. Paul's faithful discharge of this promise, we need only
allude to his zeal in making " the contribution for the poor saints at Jeru-
salem," in Galatia, Macedonia and Achaia ; ^ and to that last journey to
the Holy Land, when he went, " after many years," to take " alms to his
nation." = It is more important here to consider (what indeed we have
mentioned before) the effect which this charitable exertion would have in
great occasion ;
and we may rest assured that the union of the Gentile
and Jewish Christians was largely promoted by the benevolent efforts
Thus the controversy being settled, Paul's mission to the Gentiles being
fully recognised, and his method of communicating the Gospel approved of
by the other Apostles, and the promise being given, that in their journeys
among the heathen, they would remember the necessities of the Hebrew
Christians in Judsea, the two missionaries returned from Jerusalem to An-
tioch. They them the decree which was to give peace to the
carried with
consciences that had been troubled by the Judaising agitators and the ;
two companions, Judas and Silas, who travelled with them, were empow-
"^^
ered to accredit their commission and character. It seems also that Mark
' Gal. ii. 5. See pp. 127, 128.
3 Movov rC)V TiTuxuv Iva fivTjfiovevuuEv, 6 nal kaTTovSaoa avrb tovto noirjaau Gal.
ii. 10. Where the change from the plural to the singular should be noticed. Is this
because Barnabas was soon afterwards separated from St. Paul (Acts xv. 39), whc had
thenceforth to prosecute the charitable work alone ?
4 " As I have given order to the Churches of Galatia, &c.," 1 Cor. xv. 1-4. " i\> hatb
pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia, &c." Rom. xv. 25, 26. See 2 Cor. viii. ix.
was another companiou of Paul and Barnabas on this journey for the ;
last time we had occasion to mention his name was when be withdrew
from Pamphylia to Jerusalem (p. 162), and presently we see him once
more with his kinsman at Antioch.^
The reception of the travellers at Antioch was full of joy and satis .
faction.'^ The whole body of the Church was summoned together to heai
the readihg of the letter ; and we can well imagine the eagerness with
which they crowded to listen, and the thankfulness and " consolation
with which such a communication was received, after so much anxiet;^
them, not only because of the principle asserted and the results secured,
but also because it is the first document preserved to us from the acts
a
1 Acts XV. 37. Acts xv. 31.
3 Xalpecv. The only other place where this salutation occurs is James i. 1 ; an uBd>
signed coincidence tending to prove the genuineness of this document.
4 Although the best MSS. omit the words from Tieyovreg to v6/llov, yet we cannot bul
fegrse with De Wette that they cannot possibly be an interpolation.
It is another undesigned coincidence that the names of these two Apostles are hera
In the reverse order to that which, in St. Luke's narrative (except when he speaks of
Jerusalem), they have assumed since chap. xiii. In the view of the Church at Jerusa*
lem, Paul's name would naturally come after that of Barnabas. See above, p. 215, n.
^ 'ATzayyeTikovrag. The present participle may be explained by the ancient idioni
of letter writing, by which the writer transferred himself into the time of the reader
This seems a more natural explanation than that given by Winer^ Gramk. sect. ft*
\
Syrian Christians were " exhorted and confirmed " by the exercise of
this miraculous gift.^ The minds of all were in great tranquillity when
the time came for the return of these messengers " to the Apostles " at
Jerusalem. Silas, however, either remained at Antioch, or soon came
back.'^ He was destined, as we shall see, to become the companion of
St. Paul, and to be at the beginning of the second missionary journey
what Barnabas had been at the beginning of the first.
many others, in making the glad tidings of the Gospel known, and in
the general work of Christian instruction. It is in this interval of time
that we must place that visit of St. Peter to Antioch,'' which St. Paul
mentions in the Epistle to the Galatians ,^ immediately after his notice
of the o.ffairs of the Council, It appears that Peter, having come to
Antioch for some reason which is unknown to us ,^ lived at first in free
and unrestrained intercourse with the Gentile converts, meeting them in
> lovdag re Koi 2iAaf, kol ahTol Tipo^rjTai, ovrsg. k. t. X. Acts XV. 32. Compare
xiii. 1.
' Acts XV. 34. The reading is doubtful. Some MSS. add the words f^ovog 'lovdot,
i%opev6ri ', hut the best omit the verse altogether. The question is immaterial. If the
verse is genuine, it modifies the word arcelvdrjaav in the preceding verse ; if not, we
have merely to suppose that Silas went to Jerusalem and then returned.
3 Acts XV. 35.
<Neander (Pfl. und L.) places this meeting of Peter and Paul later, but his reasons
are far from satisfactory. From the order of narration in the Epistle to the Galatians,
it is most natural to infer that the meeting at Antioch took place soon after the Council
at Jerusalem. Some writers wish to make it anterior to the Council, from an unwill-
ingnrss to believe that St. Peter would have acted in this manner after the Decree.
But it is a sufficient answer to this objection to say that his conduct was equally in-
consistent with his own previous conduct in the case of Cornelius.
ii. 11, &c.
The tradition which represents Peter as having held the See of Antioch before that
of Rome
has been mentioned before, p. 128, note. Tillemont (S. Pierre xxvii. xxviii.
and notes) places the period of this Episcopate about 36-42. Hq says it is " une chose
aseez embarrass6e," and it is certainly difficult to reconcile it with Scripture. For
the Festivals of the Chair of Peter at Antioch and Rome, s'e the Bollandista undei
Feb. 22, and Jan. 18.
WEAK CONDUCT OF ST. PETER AT ANTIOCH. 223
Bocial frieDdship, and eating with them, in full consistency with the spirit
of the recent Decree, and with his own conduct in the case of Cornelius
At this time certain Jewish brethren came " from James," who presided
over the Church at Jerusalem. Whether they were really sent on some
mission by the Apostle James, or we are merely to understand that they
came from Jerusalem, they brought with them their old Hebrew repug-
nance against social intercourse with the uncircumcised, and Peter in
their society began to Yacillate. In weak compliance with their preju-
dices, he "withdrew and separated himself" from those whom, he had
lately treated as brethren and equals in Christ. Just as in an earlier
part of his life he had first asserted his readiness to follow his Master to
death, and then denied him through fear of a maid-servant ; so now,
after publicly protesting against the notion of making any difference
between the Jew and the Gentile, and against laying on the neck of the
latter a yoke which the former had never been able to bear,i we find
him contradicting his own principles, and "through fear of those who
were of the circumcision," ^ giving all the sanction of his example to the
introduction of caste into the Church of Christ.
Such conduct could not fail to excite in St. Paul the utmost indigna-
tion. St. Peter was not simply yielding a non-essential point, through a
tender consideration for the consciences of others. This would have been
quite in accordance with the principle so often asserted by his brother-
Apostle, that " it is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine, nor any thing
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is made weak." Nor was this pro-
Peter was acting under the influence of a contemptible and sinful motive,
the fear of man : and his behaviour was giving a strong sanction to
the very heresy which was threatening the existence of the Church ;
namely, the opinion that the observance of Jewish ceremonies was neces-
sary to salvation. Nor was this alL Other Jewish Christians, as was
naturally to be expected, were led away by his example : and even Bar-
nabas, the chosen companion of the Apostle of the Gentiles, who 'had
been a witness and an actor in all the great transactions in Cyprus, in
Pisidia, and Lycaonia, even Barnabas, the missionary, was -"carried
away" with the dissimulation of the rest.^ When St. Paul was a
Bpectator of such inconsistency, and perceived both the motive in which
it originated and the results to which it was leading, he would have been
a traitor 5 to his Master's cause, if he had hesitated (to use his own
1 Acts XV. 9, 10. Gal. ii. 12. 3 Acts xvi. 3.
* Gal. ii. 13.
* "We can only allude to the opinion of some early writers, that the whole seen Wat
.
empliatic words) to rebuke Peter " before all," and to withstand him
to the face."
It is evident from St. PauFs expression that it was on some public
occasion that this open rebuke took place. The scene, though slightly
mentioned, is one of the most remarkable in Sacred History : and the
mind naturally labors to picture to itself the appearance of the two men.
It is, therefore, at least allowable to mention here that general notion ot
the forms and features of the two Apostles, which has been handed down
in tradition, and was represented by the early artists.^ St. Paul ^ is set
before us as having tie strongly marked and prominent features of a Jew,
yet not without some of the finer lines indicative of Greek thought. His
stature was diminutyve, and body disfigured by some lameness or dis-
his
tortion, which rtiaj have provoked the contemptuous expressions of hia
enemies.^ His beard was long and thin. His head was bald. The
characteristics of his face were, a transparent complexion, which visibly
pre-arranged between Peter and Paul, and that there was no real misunderstanding..
Even Chry:;r^tom advocates this unchristian view.
1 Gal. ik 14, 11.
' For ihe representations of St. Peter and St. Paul in early pictures and mosaics,
Bee the first volume of Mrs. Jameson's " Sacred and Legendary Art," especially pp.
14.^, 159, 161, 162, 201. They correspond with the traditionary descriptions quoted
tn the next note. " St. Peter is a robust old man, with a broad forehead, and rather
coarse features, an open undaunted countenance, short grey hair, and short thick
board, curled, and of a silvery white. Paul was a man of small and meagre stature,
with an aquiline nose, and sparkling eyes in the Greek type the face is long and oval,
:
the forehead high and bald the hair brown, the beard long, flowing, and pointed.
; . .
These traditional characteristic types of the features and persons of the two greatest
apostles were long adhered to. We find them most strictly followed in the old Greek
mosaics, in the early Christian sculpture, and the early pictures in all which the ;
sturdy dignity and broad rustic features of St. Peter, and the elegant contemplative
head of St. Paul, who looks like a Greek philosopher, form a most interesting and
suggestive contrast." The dispute at Antioch is the subject of a picture by Guide.
See p. 199.
3 The descriptions of St. Paul's appearance by Malalas and Nicephorus have been
alluded to before, p. 148. Quoted at length they are as follows :
Ty rjliKia Kovdoei-
StjC (^aXaKpog, jui^OTrSlLog TTjv Kupav Koi rb ysveiov, evpivo^, vTzdylavKog, cvvo^pv^y
TitVKoxpovg, uvdTjpoTTpoaoTvoc, Evncjyuv, iiroyEXiovTa ex^'^ '''^^
X'^P'^'^'^VPO'I (Ppovi^cg,
TjdLKog, Evo/LitXog, Mai. Chronog. x. p. 257, ed. Bonn. Ilav?^,og juiKpbg 7]v roX
yXvKvc.
frvveaTaTifiEvog rd rov Gu/narog juiyEdog Kal loanEp dyKv2.ov avrb KEKTrjixhog' ajuiKpdv
Kol KEKvcpdg, TT'/v oipiv TiEVKbg Kal rb Trpoaconov TrpG(j)Ep7}g ' -ipilbg tt]v KE^aTirjv ' xf^porrol
6i adri^ v<^av ol ocpOaTijuot' kutu kui rag bc^ipvg Eixe VEVovaag' evKajunTj Kal ^ettovgov
T(f) 7rjOO(7(J7rcj nEpi(l)EpG)v rr/v j^lva, Trjv viryvTjv daastav Kal KadEijUEvrjv dpKovvrue
iX<ji l^aivoiiEvrjv 61 ravri^v Kal rr/v KscpaT^yv virb T^oTitalg ralg '&pi^tv. Niceph. H. E. ii.
37. In accordance with these notices, St. Paul is described in the Actaj Pauli et
Theclae, as /HLKpbg [XEytdEi, ipiTibg ttjv Ke(^a7irjv, uyKvlog ralg Kvij/naig, Et)KV7]fj,og, cvvo^
^pvg Tri^)fitvog, ;\:ap^rof Tzl'^p'rjg (Grabe, p. 95) ; and so the TaliTialog ig rphov ovpavbv
uEpoCaTTjGag in Lucian's Philopatris is said to have been uva(l>alavTlag and imp^ivoc
Ed. Tauch. iv. 318.
* See above, p. 192.
PEESONAIi APPEAEAI^CE OF THE TWO APOSTLES. 225
betrayed the quick changes of his feelings, a bright grey eye under thicklj
overhanging united eyebrows/ a cheerful and winning expression of coun-
tenance, which invited the approach and inspired the confidence of stran-
But men of deUcate health have often gone through the greatest exer-
tions :
3 and his own words on more than one occasion show that he
suffered much from bodily infirmity.'' St. Peter ^ is represented to us as
a man of larger and stronger form, as his character was harsher and more
abrupt. The quick impulses of his soul revealed themselves in the flashes
of a dark eye. The complexion of his face was pale and sallow : and
I
the short hair, which is described as entirely grey at the time of his death,
curled black and thick round his temples and his chin, when the two
Apostles stood togetb3r at Antioch, twenty years before their martyrdom.
Beheving, as we do, that these traditionary pictures have probably
some foundation in truth, we gladly take them as helps to the imagina-
tion. And they certainly assist us in realizing a remarkable scene, where
Judaism and Christianity, in the persons of two Apostles, are for a mo*
ment brought before us in strong antagonism. The words addressed by
St. Paul to St. Peter before the assembled Christians at Antioch, contain
the full statement of the Gospel as opposed to the Law. " If thou, being
born a Jew, art wont to live according to the customs of the Gentiles,
and not of the Jews, why wouldst thou now constrain the Gentiles to
keep the ordinances of the Jews ? We are by birth the seed of Abraham,
and not unhallowed Gentiles ;
yet, knowing that a man is not counted
righteous by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, we
ourselves also have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be counted
righteous by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For
by the works of the law shall no man living he counted right eousj^^
60 viel und unter zum Theil so ungiinstigen Umstanden reiste (2 Cor. xi. 23, K) auch
neben geistiger Anstrengung (vgl. Act. xx. 7. 2 Cor. xi. 28) noch korperliche Arbeit
verrichten konnte (1 Thess. ii. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 8)." Realworterbuch, n. 222. See
Tholuck's Essay on St. Paul's early Life for some speculations on the Apostle's tem-
perament.
3 The instance of Alfred the Great may be rightly alluded to. His biographei,
Asser, says that from his youth to his death he was always either suffering pain or
expecting it.
letters, where, in speaking of the " long-suffering of our Lord " and of
the prospect of sinless happiness in the world to come, he alludes, in
that the writings of both Apostles teach the Church the same doctrine :
but the Apostle who was rebuked " is not ashamed to call the attention
of the Church to epistles in one page of which his own censure is re-
COIN OP AtmOCHT
to the point where Paul's address to Peter terminates. Many wi'iters (see especially
Usteri) think it continues to the end of the chapter. We are inclined to believe that
it ends at v. 16 ; and that the words ei 61 (TjTovvTeg, k. t. 1. are intended to meet doc-
trinal objections (similar to those in Rom. iii. 3, 5. vi. 1, 15. vii. 7, 13) which ths
Galatians might naturally be supposed to make.
1 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.
* Sec Sermons by Dr. Vaughan of Harrow (1846), p. 410.
3 The martyrdom at Rome. See Mrs. Jameson's Work, especially pp. 180-1S3,
193-195.
4 From the British Musuem. See Mr. Scharf 's drawing above, p. 125, and what is
said there of the emblematical representation of Antioch. On this coin the seated
figure bears a palm branch, as the emblem of victory.
A
NOTE.
the Galaiian Visit, and we shall designate the visit mentioned in Acts ix.
as visit (1), that in Acts xi. and xii. as visit (2), that in Acts xv. as visii
(3), that in Acts xviii. as visit (4), that in Acts xxi. as visit (5).
I. The Galatian Visit was not the same with visit (1), because it ia
II. Was the Galatian Visit the same with visit (2) ?3 The first im-
pression from reading the end of Gal. i. and beginning of Gal. ii. would be
that it was ; for St. Paul seems to imply that there had been no interme-
diate visit between the one mentioned in Gal. i. 18, which was vidt (1),
and that in Gal. ii. 1, which we have called the Galatian Visit. On the
other side, however, we must observe that St. Paul's object in this pas-
sage is not to enumerate ail his visits to Jerusalem. His opponents ha,
told his converts that Paul was no true Apostle, that he was only a Chris
tian teacher authorised by the J udsean Apostles, that he derived his au
thority and his knowledge of the Gospel from Peter, James, and the res?
of " the twelve." St. Paul's object is to refute this statement. This hi
does by declaring firstly that his commission was not from men but iron
God ;
secondly, that he had taught Christianity for three years without
seeing any of " the twelve " at all ;
thirdly, that at the end of that time
he had only spent one fortnight at Jerusalem with Peter and James, and
1 This question is one of the most important, both chronologically and historically,
in the life of St. Paul. Perhaps its discussion more properly belongs to the Epistle to
the Galatians than to this place ; but it has been given here as a justification of the
view taken in the preceding chapter. It is treated of by Paley {Horce PaulincB\
Winer {Ep, ad Galatas, Lips. 1829, Exc. II.), Anger (Z)e Temporum in Actis raiione,
Lips. 1833, ch. TV.), Hemsen {Leben des Ap. Paulus, pp. 52-69), Neander {Pflanz.
und Leit. i. pp. 183-189), Bottger {Beitr'dge, &fc., Gottingen, 1837, p. 14 et seq.),
Wieseler {Chronologic, pp. 176-208), Schrader {Der Apost. Paulus) also by Burton, ;
Browne, and Greswell. Of these, all except Paley, Bottger, Wieseler, Browne, and
Schrader, adopt our view. The opinions of the latter five writers are referred to below.
" Gal. ii. 1.
3 This is Bottger 's view ; but he is obliged to alter deKarEcadpov into reaodpuiv in
Gal. ii. 1 to support his opinion. p. 233. It is also the view of Mr. Browne
See note on
\Ordo ScBclorum) but he places the conversion much earlier than we think probable..
;
4 We must certainly acknowledge that St. Paul' appears to say this and some com- ;
mentators have avoided the diflBculty by supposing that, although Paul and Barnabas
were commissioned to convey the alms from Antioch to Jerusalem, yet that St. Paul
was prevented (by some circumstances not mentioned) from going the whole way to
Jerus.!.em. For example, it might be too hazardous for him to appear within the walla
of the city at such a time of persecution. For further explanation, see Neandar PJl.
und Leit. p. 188.
^
then had gone to Cilicia and remained personally unknown to the Judoean
Christians ;
fourthly, that fourteen years afterwards he had undertaken a
journey to Jerusalem, and that he then obtained an acknowledgment of
his independent mission from the chief apostles. Thus we see that his
object is not to enumerate every occasion where he might possibly have
been instructed by " the twelve,'' but to assert (an assertion which he con-
fiiTiis by oath, Gal. i. 20) that his knowledge of Christianity was not de-
rived from their instruction. A short visit to Jerusalem which produced
no important results he might naturally pass over, and especially if he
gaw none of " the twelve " at J erusalem when he visited it. Now this
was probably the case at visit (2), because it was just at the time of
Herod Agrippa's persecution, which would naturally disperse the Apostles
from Jerusalem, as the persecution at Stephen's death did ; with regard
to St. Peter it is expressly said that, after his miraculous escape from
prison, he quitted Jerusalem.^ This supposition is confirmed by finding
that Barnabas and Saul were sent to the Elders {npeajSvTepovg) of the
church at Jerusalem, and not to the Apostles.
A further objection to supposing the Galatian Visit identical with vWl
(2) is that, at the time of the Galatian Yisit, Paul and Barnabas are de-
scribed as having been already extensively useful as missionaries to the
Heathen ; but this they had not been in the time of visit (2).
Again, St. Paul could not have been, at so early a period, considered
on a footing of equality with St. Peter. Yet this he was at the time of
the Galatian Visit.
Again, visit (2) could not have been so long as fourteen years ^ after
visit (1). For visit (2) was certainly not later than 45 a. d., and if it was
the same as the Galatian Visit, visit (1) must have been not later than
from 31 to 33 a. d. (allowing the inclusive Jewish mode of reckoning to
be possibly employed). But Aretas (as we have seen, p. 81) was not in
identical with (3), (4), or (5) ? We may put (6) at once out of the
question, because St. Paul did not return to Antioch after (5), whereas
he diJ return after the Galatian Visit. There remain therefore (3) q,t}s^
(4) to be considered. We shall take (4) first.
lY. Wieseler has lately argued very ingeniously that the Galatian
Acts xii. 17. ^ See Gal. ii. 9.
Vint was the same with (4). His reasons are, firstly, that at the Galatim^
could not have been so far on a level with St. Peter's as it was at tha
Galatian Visit. Thirdly, he thinks that the condition of making a coUeo-
fcion for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, which St. Paul says he had
been forward to fulfil, must have been fulfilled in that great collection
which we know that St. Paul set on foot immediately after visit (4),
because we read of no other collection made by St. Paul for this purpose.''
Fourthly, "Wieseler argues that St. Paul would not have been likely to
take an uncircumcised Gentile, like Titus, with him to Jerusalem at a
period earlier than visit (4). And moreover, he conceives Titus to be
the same with the Corinthian Justus,^ who is not mentioned as one of St.
Paul's companions till Acts xviii. that is, not till after visit (3).
(4), even if there were nothing on the other side ; but there are, more-
over, the following objections against supposing the Jj-alatian Visit identi-
cal with (4). Firstly, Barnabas was St. Paul's companion in the Galatian
Visit ; he is not mentioned as being with him at visit (4). Secondly, had
so important a conference between St. Paul and the other Apostles taken
place at visit (4), it would not have be^n altogether passed over by St,
Luke, who dwells so fully upon the Council held at the time of visit (3),,
Gal. ii. 9.
* The collection carried up to Jerusalem at visit (2) might, however, be cited as an
exception to this remark ; for (although not expressly stated) it is most probable that
Bt, Paul was active in forwarding it, since he '7as selected to carry it to J erusalem.
5 Many of the most ancient MSS. and versions read Titus Justus {Ttrov 'lovarov) in
Acts xviii. 7 . Tischendorf, however, prefers 'lovcrov. See above, p. 2 LI, n. 13.
;
against the identity of these two visits urged by Paley and others, and
then the arguments in favour of the identity.
2. In the Galatians, the journey is said 2. The journey may have taken place in
to have taken place /car' uTroKdXvijjty (Gal. consequence of a revelation, and yet m^y
ii. 2) but in Acts xv. 2-4, 6-12, a public
; also have been agreed to by a vote of the
mission is mentioned. church at Antioch. Thus in St. Paul's
departure from Jerusalem (Acts ix. 29,
30), he is have been sent by the
said to
brethren in consequence of danger feared
and yet (Acts xxii. 17-21) he says that
he had taken his departure in consequence
of a vision on the very same occasion (see
*
pp. 211, 12).
are spoken of as St. Paul's companions ; in and therefore inconclusive. In the Acts,
the Acts, Barnabas and others {tlvIq Paul and Barnabas are naturally men-
aklox), Acts XV. 2 ; but Titus is not mefi- tioned, as being prominent characters in
tioned. the history. Whereas in the Epistle, Titus
would naturally be mentioned by St. Paul
as a personal friend of his own, and also
because of his refusal to circumcise him.
4. The
object of the visit in Acts xv. is 4. Both these objects are implied in eacJi.
differentfrom that of the Galatian Visit, narrative. The recognition of St. Paul's
The object in Acts xv. was to seek relief apostleship is implied in Acts xv. 25 : aw
from the imposition of the Mosaic Law, rolg uyairrjrolg y/uuv Bapvu6a not HavlCi
that of the Galatian Visit was to obtain uvdp6K0Lg napadeduKoai rag ipvxug avrup
the recognition of St. Paul's independent iirtp rov ovofcarog rov Kvptov tj/j-uv 'Irjaoi}
apostleship. Xpiorov, And the relief from the imposi-
tion of the Mosaic Law is implied, Gal. ii.
ealem when that decision was made. rally acknowledged to have been written
long after the Council. The probable
reason why St. Paul does not refer to the
decision of the Council is this that the :
Judaising teachers did not absolutely dis-
St. Peter could have behaved as he is de- withdrawal from eating at the same table
Bcribed doing (Gal. ii. 12) for how could
; with the uncircumcised Christians did not
he refuse to eat with the uncircumcised amount to a denial of the decision of 'the
Christians, after having advocated in the Council. His conduct showed a weak fear
Council their right of admission to Chris- of offending the Judaising Christians who
tian fellowship ? came from Jerusalem and the practical;
9. Since in the Galatians St. Paul men- 9. This objection proceeds on the mere
tions James, Peter, and John, it seems most assumption that because James is men-
natural to suppose that he speaks of the tioned first he must be James the Greater,
well-known apostolic triumvirate so often whereas James the Less became even a
classed together in the Gospels. But if so, more conspicuous leader of the Church at
the James mentioned must be James the Jerusalem than James the Greater had pre-
Greater, and hence the journey mentioned viously been, as we see from Acts xv.
in the Galatians must have been before hence he might be very well mentioned
the deatt of James the Greater, and there- with Peter and John, and the fact of his
fore before the Council of Jerusalem. name coming first in St. Paul's narrative
agrees better with this supposition, for
James the Greater is never mentioned thg
;
10. St. Paul's refusal to circumcise Titus 10. Timothy's mother was a Jewess.
(Gal. ii.), and voluntary circumcising of and he had been brought up a Jew ;
'
Timothy (Acts xviii. 21), so soon after- whereas Titus was a Gentile. The cir-
wards. cumstances of Timothy's circumcision will
be more fully discussed hereafter.
Thus we see that the objections against the identity of the Galatiam
visit with visit (3), are inconclusive. Consequently we might at once
conclude (from the obvious circumstances of identity between the two
visits), that they were actually identical. But this conclusion is further
Paul was sent to Rome, we find that he must have begun his second mis-"
sionary journey in 51, and that, therefore, the Council (i. e. -ym^ (3))
must have been either in 50 or 51. This calculation is based upon the
history in the Acts. Now, turning to the Epistle to the Galatians we
find the following epochs
A. Conversion.
B. (probably Judaically reckoned=2
3 years' interval years).
C.Flight from Damascus, and visit (1).
E. Galatian visit.
and 100), we could not put the flight at a more probable date than 38.
If we assume this to have been the case, then the Galatian visit was
88 -j- 13=51, which agrees with the time of the Council (i. e. visit (3))
ns above.
YI. Hence we need not farther consider the views of those writers
who (like Paley and Schrader) have resorted to the hypothesis that the
Galatian visit is some supposed journey not recorded in the Acts at all
for we have proved that the supposition of its identity with the third visit
there recorded satisfies every necessary condition. Schrader's notion is,
that the Galatian visit was between visit (4) and visit (5). Paley
places it between visit (3) and visit (4). A third view is ably advocated
in a discussion of the subject (not published) which has been kindly com-
municated to us. The principal points in this hypothesis are, that the
Galatians were converted in the first missionary journey, that the Galor
tian visit took place between visit (2) and visit (3), and that the Epistle
to the Galatians was written after the Galatian visit and before visit
reverse is the fact. The words of the Chronicon are : Tw clivelv avrbv did, deKureaadpuv
Ituv doKel fxoL rovg xpovovg tuv aTvocToXuv rovg dirb rrjg uval^tpeog dpiO/ielv avTov.
{Chronic, ed. Bonn. i. p. 436.) The mistake has probably arisen from the words Irjj
Teaaapa, which relate to a different subject, in the sentence below (see Wieseler, p. 207).
Acd, of time, means after an interval of." (See Winer^s Grammatik, p. 363, and
Winer's Galat. p. 162. Also Anger, pp. 159, 160.) But it may be used, according
to the Jewish way of reckoning time, inclusively ; thus Jesus is said to have risen
from the dead did rptuv Tf/uepuv {Ignat. ad Trail, c. 9). So in the Gospels jneTa ia
used (Mark viii. 31). The fourteen years must be reckoned frmyi the epoch last men-
tioned, v/h'icli is the visit (1) to Jerusalem, and not the Conversion at least this is the
;
most natural way, although the other interpretation might be justified, if required by
the other circumstances of the case.
1 2 Cor. xi. 32.
which relate to the apparent discrepancies between the
Es^pccially the difficulties
Galatian visit and and to the circumstance that the Apostle does not allude
visit (3),
to the Council in his argument with the Galatians on the subject of circumcision. The
MS. to which we allude is by T. F. Ellis, Esq., formerly Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge.
3 Since these pages were printed, we have seen, in Dr. Davidson's Introduction to
the N. T. (vol. ii.), a good statement of the principal arguments for the view we have
advocated. We may add also the authority of Dr. H. Thiersch, in favour of our view
of this Council. See the recently published English translation of his History of the
Christian Church, p. 120.
f
POLITICAL DIVISIONS AT ANTIOCH. 23.^
CHAPTER YIII.
The life of St. Paul being that of a traveller, and our purpose being to
give a picture of the circumstances by which he was surrounded, it is
of Asia Minor, not only because it was the scene of a very great portion of
his journeys, but because it is less known to ordinary readers than Pales-
tine, Italy, or Greece. We have already described, at some length, the
physical geography of those southern districts which are in the immediate
neighbourhood of Mount Taurus.^ And now that the Apostle's travels
take a wider range, and cross the Asiatic peninsula from Syria to the fron-
tiers of Europe, it is important to take a general view of the political
geography of this part of the Roman empire. Unless such a view is ob-
tained in the first place, it is impossible to understand the topographical
expressions employed in the narrative, or to conjecture the social relations
into which St. Paul was brought in the course of his journeys ^ through
Asia Minor.
It is, however, no easy task to ascertain the exact boundaries of the
Roman provinces in this part of the world at any given date between Au-
gustus and Constantine.3 In the first place, these boundaries were contiit
ually changing. The area of the different political districts was liable tc
sudden and arbitrary alterations. Such terms as " Asia," Fagaphy- ^
lia/' ^
&c., though denoting the extent of a true political jurisdiction, im
plied a larger or smaller territory at one time than aiiother. And again,
we find the names of earlier and later periods of history mixed up together
in inextricable confusion. Some of the oldest geographical terms, such
as "^olis," " Ionia," " Caria," Lydia," were disappearing from ordinary
nse in the time of the Apostles :
^ but others, such as " Mysia " ^ and
" Lycaonia," ^ still remained. Obsolete and existing divisions are pre-
sented to us together : and the common maps of Asia Minor are as un-
satisfactory as if a map of France was set before us, distributed half into
provinces and half into departments. And in the third place, some of the
names have no political significance at but express rather the ethno*
all,
graphical relations of ancient tribes. Thus, " Pisidia " ^ denotes a district
which might partly be in one province and partly in another ; and " Phry-
gia" s
reminds us of the diffusion of an ancient people, the broken portions
of whose territory were now under the jurisdiction of three or four dis-
tinct governors. Cases of this kind are, at first sight, more embarrassing
than the others. They are not merely similar to the two-fold subdivision
of Ireland, where a province, like Ulster, may contain several definite
counties : but a nearer parallel is to be found in Scotland, where a geo-
graphical district, associated with many historical recollections, such
as Galloway or Lothian, may be partly in one county and partly iu
another.
Our purpose is to elucidate the political subdivisions of Asia Minor
1 Acts ii. 9. vi. 9. xvi. 6. xix. 10, 27, 31. xx. 16, l8. xxvii. 2. 1 Cor. xvi. 19.
2 Cor. i. 8. 2 Tim. i. 15. 1 Pet. i. 1.
* Acts ii. 10. xiii. 13. xv. 38. xxvii. 6.
3 See Bottger, 13. He remarks that Tacitus, Yitravius, Justin, &c. speak of Per
germus, Ephesus, Cnidus, Thyatira, &c. as towns of Asia, not of -^olis, Ionia, Caria,
Lydia, &c., respectively. See Acts xxvii. 2. Rev. i. 11.
^ Acts xvi. 7, 8. 5 Acts xiv. 6, 11.
6 In the ordinary maps, ethnographical and political divisions of three or four differ-
ent periods are confused together. " Atlas Antiquus " is, we believe,
Spruner's new
the only one which exhibits the provincial divisions of the " Imperium Romanorum
and it relates to the age of Trajan, when many changes had been made. Observe, for
instance, the union of Crete as one province with Achaia and Macedonia. Under the
earlier emperors it was united with Cyrene. of St. Paul's second journey.
See map
A map of this kind belongs to a period too late for Kiepert's " Hellas," and too early
for Wiltsch's Atlas Ecclesiasticus." In the map published by Neander to illustrate
the first }>lanting of the Church, tlie provinces are not shown ; and it is to be regretted
that the ancient terms, such as Caria, Lydia, &c., have been introduced. Of the Eng
lish maps, that of Colonel Leake is invaluable for its clear representation of the ancient
road^^, and those of Major Rennell are very important for elucidating general gec^^rar
phical relations but neither of them shows the ancient political divisions.
;
' A.cts xiii. 14. xiv. 24. Acts ii. IC. xvi. 6. xviii. 23.
:
as they were in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, or, in other words,
to enumerate the provinces which existed, and to describe the bounda-
ries which were assigned to them, in the middle of the first century oi
the Christian era. The order we shall follow is from West to East, and
in go doing we shall not deviate widely from the order in which the pro*
vinces were successively incorporated as substantive parts of the Koman
empire. We are not, indeed, to suppose that St. Luke and St. Paul used
all their topographical expressions in the strict political sense, even when
such a sense was more or less customary. There was an exact usage
and a popular usage of all these terms. But the first step towards fixing
our geographical ideas of Asia Minor, must be to trace the boundaries
of the provinces. When this is done, we shall be better able to distin-
guish those terms which, about the year 50" A. D., had ceased to have any
true political significance, and to discriminate between the technical and
the popular language of the sacred writers.
along with their influence : and at length the title was en-
of Scotland
tirely transferred from one island to the other. In classical history w
have a similar instance in the name of " Italy," which at first only
denoted the southernmost extremity of the peninsula ; then it was
extended so as to include the whole with the exception of Cisalpine Gaul
and finally, crossing the Rubicon, it advanced to the Alps ; while the
name of " Gaul" retreated beyond them. Another instance, on a larger
however, even in the older poets, ^ the word used in its widest sense to
J
See what Bede says of Ireland (i. 1) : " Haec propria patria Scotorum est : ab hm
egressi tertiam in Britannia Britonibus et Pictis gentem addiderunt."
' 'AoLcp kv Xeifiuvi, Kavarpcov ^ie6pa. 461. See Virg. Georg.
d/i<pl II. ii. i. 383,
which is copied from Homer. It does not appear that the Koman pr<Q writers evei
used the word in its primitive and narrowest gense.
As in .^schylus, Persae and Prom. V. '
:
denote all the countries in the far East. Either the Greeks, made familial
with the original Asia by the settlement of thdr kindred in its neighbour^
or the extension of the kingdom of Lydia from the banks of the Cayster
1 Having the same general meaning as our phrase " The East." This is Mannert's
opinion, Geog. der G. und R. vi. ii. 16. The words "Levant" and "Anadoli" (the
modern name of Asia Minor) have come into use in the same way.
" This is the view of Wieseler, who refers to a psssage in Callinus quoted by Strabo,
where the Lydians of Sardis are called A aiovelg ; and coippares the parallel case of
" Palestine," which at first meant only the country of the Philistines, and then was
oaed by the Greeks and Romans to designate the whole of the land of Canaan. Chro-
Qologie, p. 32.
a The peninsula which we call Asia
Miior was never treated by the ancients as a
geographical whole. The common divisions Were, "Asia within the Halys" and
" Asia beyond the Halys " (as above) or, "Asia within the Taurus " and "Asia be-
5
yond the Taurus." It is very important to bear this in mind for some interpreters of
:
the New Testament imagine that the Asia there spoken of is the peninsula of Lesser
Asia. The term " Asia Minor " is fu-st found in Orosius (i. 2), a writer of the fourth
eentury, though "Asia Major" is used by Justin (xv. 4, 1) to denote the remote and
eastern parts of the continent.
* See below, p. 241.
6 In the first book of Maccabees we find Antiochus the Great called by this
(viii. 6)
Ktle. And even were driven beyond the Taurus by the Romans,
after his successors
we Bee it retained by them, as the title of tlie king of France was retained by our own
monarchs until a vury recent period. See 1 Mac. xi. 13. xii. 39. xiii. 32. 2Mac. iiiS.
ASIA. 239
East, and ordered Antiochus to retire beyond the Taurus, and then con
^
we have lately seen the Apostle sailing to Syria (Acts xiv. 25, 26),
and Troas, from whence we shall presently see him sailing to Europe
(Acts xvi. 11), were the southern and northern (or rather the eastern
and western) harbours of King Attains II. At length the debt of gra-
titude to the Komans was paid by King Attains III., who died in the
year 133, and left by testament the whole of his dominions to the bene-
factors of his house.6 And now the Province of Asia^^ appears for the
first time as a new and significant term in the history of the world. The
Qwly acquired possession was placed under a praetor, and ultimately a
Excedito urbibus, agris, vicis, castellis cis Taurum i&ontem usque ad Halyn (?)
fiumen, at a valle Tauri usque ad juga qua ad Lycaoni^m vergit. Liv. xxxviii. 38.
Compare 1 Mac. viii. 8.
Polyb. xxii. 7, 7. 27, 8. Liv. xxxvii. 54-56. xxxviii. 39. Strabo, xiv. App.
Syr. 44.
3 Livy's words are :
" In Asia Phrygiam utrainque (alteram, ad Hellespontum,
majorem alteram vocant) et Mysiam, quam Prusias rex ademerat, Eumeni restituerunt."
xxxviii. 39. (See xxxvii. 56.) "Phrygia Major" was the great central space of Asia
Minor, which retained the name of its earliest inhabitants. It was subdivided, like
Poland, among the contiguous provinces, and it is useless to attempt to determine its
limits in this passage. (See below, 240, n. 5 and 249, note.) " Phrygia Minor " waa
an outlying district on the Hellespont, inhabited at some period by the same race.
The case of Mysia, in consequence of the difficulties of Acts xvi. 7, 8, will be examined
particularly, when we come to this part of St. Paul's journey.
4 Thus Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe were probably once in " Asia." See below,
under Galatia. [In Van Kapelle, Comment, de Regibus et Antiquit. Pergam. (Am-
gtel. 1842), is a, map showing the extent of the Kingdom of Pergamus in the reign of
Eumenes II. It assigns to him the whole of Phrygia, with Milyas, which is represented
Its a narrow strip running down from the North towards the sea, and terminating in a
proconsul.^ The letters and speeches of Cicero make us familiar with the
names of more than one who enjoyed this distinction. One was the
orator's brother, Quintus ^ another was Flaccus, whose conduct as
;
CODf OF BtniTNIA.'
5 Polyb. XXX. 5, 12. Liv. xlv. 25. Thus Cicero, in his speech for Flaccus, says (c.
27) : " Asia vestra constat ex Phrygia, Mysia, Cai'ia, Lydia." See Cramer's Asia
Minor under Rhodes, &c.
<^
Hence we find both the sacred and heathen writers of the period sometimes includ-
ing Phrygia in Asia and sometimes excluding it. In 1 Pet. i. 1 it seems to be included
in Acts ii. 9, 10. xvi. C it is cx-pressly excluded. See what Wieseler says (pp. 32-35)
on Plin. V. 28.
7 Acts xvi. G. 8 1 Pet. i. 1. Rev. i. 11.
'0 From the British Museum. one of Claudius, struck at Nicsea, the
These coins
other of Nero and Agrippina, struck at Nicomedia show, by the word ANeTIIATOS
that Bithynia, like Asia, was a senatorial province. We learn the same fact from
Strabo (xvii. 3) and Dio (liii. 12).
BITHTNIA. 241
COIN OP BITHTNIi-
Bnder the Roman sceptre. As a new dynasty established itself after the
death of Alexander on the north-eastern shores of the JEgean, so an
older dynasty ^ secured its independence at the Western edge of the Black
Sea. Nicomedes I. was the king who invited the Gauls with whom
Attalus I. had to contend and as Attalus III., the last of the House of
:
Pergamus, paid his debt to the Romans by making them his heirs, so
the last of the Bithynian House, Mcomedes III., left his kingdom as a
legacy to the same power in the year tS.'* It received some accessions
on the east after the defeat of Mithridates ;
^ and in this condition we
find it in the list given by Dio of the provinces of Augustus ;
^ the inter-
mediate land between it and Asia being the district of Mysia, through
which it is neither easy nor necessary to draw the exact frontier-line.^
Stretching inland from the shores of the Propontis and Bosphorus, beyond
the lakes near the cities of Nicsea and Nicomedia, to the upper ravines of
the Sangarius, and the snowy range of Mount Olympus, it was a province
rich in all the changes of beauty and grandeur. Its history is as varied
as its scenery, if we trace it from the time when Hannibal was an exile at
the court of Prusias, to the establishment of Othman's Mahommedan
capital in the city which still bears that monarch's name. It was Ha-
drian's favourite province, and many monuments remain of that emperor's
partiality.'' But we cannot say more of it without leaving our proper
subject. We have no reason to believe that St. Paul ever entered it,
1 See their history in Mannert, m. ix. and the Appendix to Clinton's Fasti Hellenici
' Anno urbis conditse dclxxvi. mortuus est Nicomedes, rex Bithyniae, et per testa-
mentum populum Romanum fecit haeredem. Eutrop. vi. 6. Cf. Liv. Epit. xciii.
3 Tuv Tov UovTOv TToXeuv TLveg rcj rrig Bidwiag vo[i(p TvpoaereTdxaTo. Dio Cass. xliL
45. See Strabo, xii. 3.
* Bi.6vvia jnerd. rov npooKei/iEvov ol Uovrov is reckoned by hijn among the Senatonaa
provinces, liii. 12. See Liv. Epit. cii. There is some inaccuracy in Forbiger, p. 376.
5 See below, on Acts xvi. 7, 8.
6 It was the birthplace of
his favourite Antinous. He took it from the senate, and
placed under his own jurisdiction. (Dio, Ixix. I*.) But when St. Paul passed tJiia
it
way, it was under the senate, as we see by the coins of Claudius and Nero above.
7 Acts xvi. 7. 8 1 Pet. i. l.
VOL. I. 16
242 THE LIFE AMD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
cal limits have not been determined. The true Pamphylia of the earliest
writers is simply the plain which borders the Bay of Attaleia, and which,
as we have said,' retreats itself like a bay into the mountains. How
fimall and insignificant this territory was, may be seen from the records of
the Persian war, to which Herodotus says that it sent only thirty ships :
while Lycia, on one side, contributed fifty, and Cilicia, on the other, a
hundred.^ Nor do we find the name invested with any wider significance,
till we approach the frontier of the Roman period. A singular dispute
between Antiochus and the king of Pergamus, as to whether Pamphylia
was really within or beyond Mount Taurus, was decided by the Romans
in favour of their ally.-^ This could only be effected by a generous inclu-
sion of a good portion of the mountainous country within the range of this
ficult to trace the steps by which it was detached from that province.
We find it (along with certain districts of Asia) included in the military
jurisdiction of Cicero, when he was governor of Cilicia.^ It is spoken of
as a separate province in the reign of Augustus.'' Its boundary on the
Pisidian side, or in the direction of Phrygia,^ must be left indeterminate.
Pisidia was included in this province : but, again, Pisidia is itself indeter-
minate ;
and we have good reasons for believing that Antioch in Pisidia ^
1 P. 159.
* Herod, vii. 91, 92. 3 polyb. xxii. 27, 11. Liv. xxxviii. 39.
4 lasiclent verticem Pisidao, Plin. H. N. v. 24. Strabo (xii.) even says that some
Pisidian towns were south of Taurus. See Cramer.
5 'H ILiaidLK'n is spoken of, as if it were a province of Pamphylia, by Diodorus and
Polybius. See Mannert.
6 Ep. ad Att. v. 21.
Die Cassius, liii. 2G, where we are told that the Pamphylian districts bestowed on
'
Amyntas were restored by Augustus to their own province. So also in the reign of
Claudius, Ix. 17, quoted below, p. 243, n. 4.
Pisidia was often reckoned as a part of Phrygia, under the name of ^pvy'ia Tliai-
Pamphylia on th^; east. Lycia was a separate region on the west, first as
an appendage to Rhodes ' in the time of the Kepublic, and then as a fre
state-'' under. the earliest emperors ; but about the very time when Paul
i^as travelling in these countries, Claudius brought it within the pro-
rincial system, and united it to Pamphylia ; ^ and monuments make us ao
quainted with a public officer who bore the title of " Proconsul of Lycia
^
and Pamphylia."
eyes and given them to hun," and then were " so soon removed" by new
teachers " from him that called them, to another Gospel," who began to
"run well," and then were hindered, who were "bewitched" by that
zeal which compassed sea and land to make one proselyte, and who were
as ready, in the fervour of their party spirit, to " bite and devour one
another," as they were willing to change their teachers and their gos-
pels.^ It is no mere fancy which discovers, in these expressions of St
Paul's Epistle, indications of the character of that remarkable race of man-
kind, which all writers, from Caesar to Thierry,' have described as suscep-
tible of quick impressions and sudden changes, with a fickleness equal to
their courage and enthusiasm, and a constant liability to that disunion
which is the fruit of excessive vanity, that race, which has not only pro-
1 In the division of the fourth century, Pisidia became a province, and Antioch was
its capital. See the Notitia.
' See above, p. 239, n. 2.
8 Polyb. XXX. 5, 12. Liv. xlv. 25. See Cramer.
4 Lyciis ob exitiabiles inter se discordias libertatem ademit. Suet. Claud. 25. Tot^f
AvKiovg cTaaidaavrag, toare koX 'Fufiaiovg Tivug aTvoKrelvai, idovluaaro re, Kal rdv
T^C 'n.ajii(l)v?uag vo/xov taeypaipev. Dio Cass. Ix. 17. Suetonius says, just above, that
about the same time Claudius made over to the senate the provinces of Macedonia and
Achaia. Hence we find a proconsul at Corinth. Acts xviii. 12.
5 The inscription is adduced from Gruter by Mannert (p. 159) and Forbiger (p. 260,
n. 95). At a later period Lycia was a distinct province, with Myra as its capital.
6 Gal. iv. 14, 15. i. 6. v. 7. iii. 1. i. 7. v. 15.
' Caesar, infirmitatem Gallorum veritus, quod sunt in cons^iis capiendis mobiles, et
aovis plerumque rebus student, nihil his committendum existimavit. Caes. B. G. iv. 5.
Les traits saillans de la famille gauloise, ceux qui la diflerencient le plus, a mon avis,
des autres families humaines, peuvent se resumer ainsi une bravoure personelle qu
:
rien n'egale chez les peuples anciens ; un esprit franc, impetueux, ouvert a toutes le
impressions, eminemment intelligent ;
mais, a cote de cela, une mobilite extreme,
point de Constance, une repugnance marquee aux idees de discipline et d'ordre fcd
puissantes chez les races germaniques, beaucoup d'ostentation, enfin une d^suniou
terpetuelle, fruit de I'excessive vanite. Thierry, Hist, des Gaulois, Introd iv.. p-
244 THE LIFE AlTD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
duced one of the greatest nations of modern times/ but which, long befor*
the Christian era, wandering forth from their early European seats, burnt
Rome and pillaged Delphi, founded an empire in Northern Italy more
than co-extensive with Austrian Lombardy, and another in Asia Minor,
equal in importance to one of the largest pachalicks.
For the "Galatia^^ of the New Testament was really the "GauP* of
the East. The Epistle to the Galatians" would more literally and more
correctly be called the " Epistle to the Gauls." When Livy, in his ac-
count of the Roman campaigns in Galatia, speaks of its inhabitants, he
always calls them " Gauls." ^ When
the Greek historians speak of the
inhabitants of ancient France, the word they use is " Galatiaus."^ The
two terms are merely the Greek and Latin forms of the same "barbarian'*
appellation.'*
the language spoken at Ancyra was almost identical with that of Treves.
The French travellers (as Tournefort and Texier) seem to write with patriotic en-
thusiasm when they touch Galatia ; and we have found our best materials in Thierry'a
history.
' Galli. Liv. xxxviii. 12-27. Once indeed, in the speech of Manlius (c. 17), the
Roman general is introduced as saying, " Hi jam degeneres sunt mixti, et Gallograsci
;
vere, quod appellantur." The country of the Galatians was called Gallogrsecia (c. 12,
18). See Justin, xxv. 2.
3 Ta?MTta ; as in Polybius, for instance, and Dio Cassius. Some have even though!
that Ta?MTLai' in 2 Tim. iv. 10 means the country commonly called Gaul and some ;
6 Unura quod inferimus .... Galatas excepto sermone grseco, quo omnis oriena
est
loquitur, propriam linguam eandem habere quam Treviros. Hieron. Prol. in Ep. GaL
It is very likely that there was some Teutonic clement in these emigrating tribes, but
it is hardly possible now to distinguish it from the Keltic. The converging lines of
rdietinct nationalities become more faint as we ascend towards the point where they
meet. Thierry considers the Tolistoboii, whose leader was Lutarius (Luther or Clo-
thair?), to have been a Teutonic tribe. The departure of new German colonies to
Asia Minor is again advocated after 2100 years. See Prof. Ross's Deutschland and
Kleiaaslea.
;
GALATIA.
The Qalatians were a stream from that torrent of barbaiiaus which poured
intoGreece in the third century before our era, and which recoiled in con
fusion from the cliffs of Delphi. Some tribes had previously separated
from the main army, and penetrated into Thrace. There they wer
joined by certain of the fugitives, and together they appeared on the
coa?ts, which are separated by a narrow arm of the sea from the rieb
plains The wars with which that kingdom was
and valleys of Bithynia.^
harassed, made their presence acceptable. Nicomedes was the Ycrtigern
of Asia Minor and the two Gaulish chieftains, Leonor and Lutar, may
:
ing over we have compared them to the Saxons. In their first occupa-
tion they may be more fitly compared to the Danes.^ For they were a
moveable army rather than a nation, encamping, marching, and plunder-
ing at will. They stationed themselves on the site of ancient Troy, and
drove their chariots in the plain of the Cayster.^ They divided nearly
the whole peninsula among their three tribes. They levied tribute on
cities, and even on kings. The wars of the east found them various occu-
pation. They hired themselves out as mercenary soldiers. They were
the royal guards of the kings of Syria, and the mamelukes of the Ptole-
mies in Egypt.5
postremum reges stipendium dare non abnuerent. xxxviii. 16. And Justin Gallo- :
rum ea tempestate tantae foecunditatis juventus fuit, ut Asiam omnem velut examine
ahquo implerent. xxv. 2.
* Elg T7jv Tzokw 'YKlov. Strabo, xiii. 'Ev leLfiQvL KavarpiCf) larav a/naiai. CaUim.
Hym. ad. Dian. v. 257, quoted by Thierry, p. 191. See the beautiful lines he quotes
itt the following page, from the anthology on the death of the maidens of Miletus
(af 6 l^iaardg KeXruv elg Tavrrjv fiolpav irpe^ev 'ApT^f).
5 Dp.nique neque reges Orientis sine mercenario Gallorum exercitu ulla bella gesse-
runi ;
neque pulsi regno ad alios quam ad Gallos confugerunt. Tantus terror Gallici
nominis, et armorum invicta felicitas erat, ut aliter neque majestatem suam tutari
neque amissam reciperare se posse nisi Gallica virtute arbitrarentur. Justin, 1. c.
and further references in Thierry, pp. 196-200. Even in the time of Julius Cjesar, w-s
find 400 Gauls (Galatians), who had previously been part of Cleopatra's bedy-guap.i,
given for the same purpose to Herod. Joseph. B. J. xx. 3.
ence, however, between the Eastern and "Western Gaul, that the latter
His appellation of " tlie Saviour " was derived from this victory. App. Syr. 65.
1
Manlius. The nation was for some time divided into four tetrarchies. Deiotarus waa
the first sole ruler ; first as tetrarch, then as king.
* Liv. xxix. 10, 11. 5 Liv. xxxviii. 16, &c.
6 Sec Cic. de Div. ii. 37. Ep. ad Fam. xv. 2, &c.
7 Ep. ad Att. V. 17.
8 He received some parts of Lycaonia and Pamphylia in addition to Galatia Proper.
Dio Cass. xlix. 32. See above, Ch. 1. p. 23.
9 The Pamphylian portion was removed (see above), but the Lycaonian remained.
Tov 'A/jLvvtov TelevrrjaavTog, i] AvKaoviag 'Fufiatov dpxovra eaxe,
Valaria ^ercL rliq
Dio. C. liii. 26. Sec Eutrop. vli. 8. Thus we find Pliny (H. N. v. 42) reckoning the
Lystreni in Galatia, though he seems to imply (ib. 25) that the immediate ncighboar-
liood of Icoaium was in Asia. It is therefore quite possible, so far as geographical
dilBeuUies are concerned, that the Christian communities in the neighbourhood of
Lyetra might be called " Cluirches of Galatia." See p. 234. We think, however, M
we hav(^ '-aid. that other difficulties are decisive against the view there mentioned.
P0NTU8. 247
was, in some respects, favourable for traffic ; and it is evident that the
district must have been constantly intersected by the course of caravans
from Armenia, the Hellespont, and the South.* The Koman itineraries
under the Roman yoke. In placing Pontus among the provinces of Asia
Minor at this exact point of St. Paul's life, we are (strictly speaking)
guilty of an anachronism. For long after the western portion of the
" Haud magnum quidem oppidum est, sed plus quam mediterraneum celebre et fre
quens emporium. Tria maria pari ferme distantia intervallo habet." xxxviii. 18,
Again, Strabo says of Tavium, e/Lnropelov tQ>v ravry. xii. 5. This last city was tht
capital of the Eastern Galatians, the Trocmi, who dwelt beyond the Halys. The
Tolistoboii were the western tribe, near the Sangarius, with Pessinus as their capital.
The chief town of the Tectosages in the centre, and the metropolis of the nation, wai
Ancyra.
24:8 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
cmpii'e of Mithridates was united partly with Bithynia and partly with
Galatia,^ the region properly called Pontus* remained under the govern*
ment of independent chieftains. Before the Apostle's death, however, it
WSiS really made a province by Nero.=^ Its last king was that Polemo II.,
born in Pontus ? became one of the best and most useful associates of
' See above, under Pamphylia, for the addition to that province. A tract of country,
near the Halys, henceforward called Pontus Galaticus, was added to the kingdom of
Deiotarus.
* Originally, this district near the Euxine was considered a part of Cappadocia, and
called " Cappadocia on the sea (Pontus)." The name Pontus gradually came into use,
with the rising power of the ancestors of Mithridates the Great.
3 Ponti regnum, concedente Polemone, in provinciae formam redegit. Suet. Nero, c.
18. See Eutrop. 13 ; Aur. Vict. Cses. 5. The statements of Forbiger (p. 292) are
vii.
not quite in harmony with those in p. 413. It is probably impossible to determine the
boundary which was ultimately arranged between the two contiguous provinces of
Pontus and Cappadocia, when the last of the independent monarchs had ceased to
reign. In the division of Constantine, Pontus formed two provinces, one called He-
lenopontus in honour of his mother, the other still retaining the name of Pontus Pole-
moniacus.
< P. 24 and p. 25, n. 3. In or about the year 60 a. d. we find Berenice again with
Agrippa on the occasion of St. Paul's defence at Caesarea. Acts xxv., xxvi.
in Judaea,
ft is probable that she was with Polemo in Pontus about the year 52, when St. Paul
was travelling in the neighbourhood.
' Acts ii. 9. 6 1 Pet. i. 1. ' Acts xviii. 2.
reductumest" Tac. Ann. ii. 42. Cappadoces in formam pro vincia3 reducti lb. 66,
See Dio Cass. Ivii. 17. Strabo, xii. 1. Suet. Tib. c. 37. Eutrop. vii. d.
CAFPADOCIA AND CILICIA. 249
Taurus, it was the largest province of Asia Minor.'^ Some of its cities
only twice alluded to, once in the Acts,'^ and once in the Epistles.^
YII. CiLiciA. A single province yet remains, in one respect the most
interesting of all, for its chief citywas the Apostle's native town. For
this reason the reader's attention was invited long ago to its geography
and history.^ It is therefore unnecessary to dwell upon them further.
We need not go back to the time when Servilius destroyed the robbers in
the mountains, and Pompey the pirates on the coast.' And enough
has been said of the conspicuous period of its provincial condition, when
Cicero came down from Cappadocia through the great pass of Mount
Taurus,^ and the letters of his correspondents in Rome were forwarded
from Tarsus to his camp on the Pyramus.^ Nearly all the light vfe pos-
sess concerning the fortunes of Roman Cilicia is concentrated on that par-
ticular time. We know the names of few of its later governors. Perhaps
the only allusion to its provincial condition about the time of Claudius and
Nero, which we can adduce from any ancient writer, is that passage in
the Acts, where Felix is described as enquiring " of what province " St
Paul was. The use of the strict political term,^ informs us that it was a
separate province ; but we are not able to state whether it was under the
jurisdiction of the senate or the Emperor."
and^Csesarea, the city of Basil, to say nothing of Tyana and Samosata.
4 "ii. 9. i. 1. 5 6 Pp. 20-26.
1 Pet. See also 48, 49.
7 Pp. 20, 21. 8 gee below, p. 257, note.
9 Quum essem in castris ad fluvium Pyramum, redditae mihi sunt uno tempore a te
epistolse duas, quas ad me Q. Servilius Tarso miserat. Ep. ad Fam. iii. 11.
10 ETtapxM'Acts xxiii. 34, the only passage where the word occurs in the New Tes-
tament. For the technical meaning of the term see above, p. 143, n. 2. It is strange
that Bottger (Beitr. i.) should have overlooked this passage. He says ( 7), that the
Province of Cilicia ceased to exist at the death of Amyntas, and afterwards makes it
to be included in the province of Cappadocia a mistake which has, perhaps, arisen
;
from the fact that a small district to the north of Taurus was called Cilicia. Anothef
mistake is still more unaccountable, viz. the construction of a Province of Phrygia
( 4, 10). The only authority adduced is a single phrase from the epitome of a lost
book of Livy whereas there is not a trace in history of any such province before the
:
time of Constantine. Then, it is true, we find Phrygia Salutaris and Phrygia Pacatiana
as two of the eleven provinces of the Diocese of Asia but under the earlier emperor> ;
from a passage in Agrippa's speech to the Jews (Joseph. B. J. ii. 16, 4), where he sayi
(1
f50 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
With this last division of the Heptarchy of Asia Minor we are brouglil
the starting-point of St, Paul's second mission^iry journey. Cihcia is
with the rest of Asia Minor. ^ We might illustrate this connection from
the letters of Cicero ;
^ but it is mOre to our purpose to remark that the
Apostolic Decree, recently enacted at Jerusalem, was addressed to the
Gentile Christians " in Antioch, and Syria, and Cihcia," ^ and that Paul
and Silas travelled " through Syria and Cilicia " " in the early part of
their progress.
This second missionary journey originated in a desire expressed by Paul
to Barnabas, that they should revisit all the cities where they had preached
the Gospel and founded churches.^ He felt that he was not called to
spend a peaceful, though laborious, life at Antioch, but that his true work
was " far off among the Gentiles." ^ He knew that his campaigns were
not ended, that as the soldier of Jesus Christ, he must not rest from his
warfare, but must endure hardness," that he might please Him who had
called him.'' As a careful physician, he remembered that they, whose re-
features of his character. Paul was the speaker, and not Barnabas.
The feeUngs of Barnabas might not be so deep, nor his anxiety so urgent.^'
Paul thought doubtless of the Pisidians and Lycaonians, as he thought
afterwards at Athens and Corinth of the Thessalonians, from whom he
that Cilicia, as well as Bithynia, Pamphylia, &c., was " kept tributary to the Romans
without an army," that was one of the senate's provinces?
it
nad been lately " taken, in presence not in heart, endeavouring to see
their face with great desire ^night and day praying exceedingly that ha
might see tlieir face, and might perfect that which was lacking in theil
faith." He was
1 not ignorant of Satan's devices." ^ He feared lest by
any means the Tempter had tempted them, and his labour had been in
fain.^ He " stood in doubt of them," and desired to be " present witfc
them " once more.'* His wish was to revisit every city where converts had
been made. We are reminded here of the importance of continuing a re-
ligious work when once begun. We have had the institution of presby-
separated from each other by a quarrel, which proved that they were in-
deed, as they had lately told the Lystrians, "men of like passions" with
not with them to the work :" ^ and neither of them could yield his opinion
to the other. This quarrel was much more closely connected with per-
sonal feelings than that which had recently occurred between St. Peter
and St. Paul,^o and it was proportionally more violent. There is little
doubt that severe words were spoken on the occasion. It is unwise to be
over-anxious to dilute the words of Scripture, and to exempt even Apos-
tles from blame. By such, criticism we lose much of the instruction which
the honest record of their lives was intended to convey. We are taught by
this scene at Antioch, that a good work may be blessed by God, though
its agents are encompassed with infirmity, and that changes, which are
violent in their beginnings, may be overruled for the best results. With-
out attempting to balance too nicely the faults on either side, our simplest
course is to believe that, as in most quarrels, there was blame with both.
Paul's natural disposition was impetuous and impatient, easily kindled
to indignation, and (possibly) overbearing. Barnabas had shown his
1 1 Thess. ii. 17. iii. 10. " 2 Cor. ii. 11. s i Thess. iii. 5.
4 Gal. iv. 20. 5 Acts xiv. 23. See p. 199.
6 See Ch. TO.
Acts XV.
See the remarks on this subject in Menken's Blicke in das Leben des Aposteli
'
purest Christian zeal, when combined with human weakness and partiality,
may have led to the misunderstanding. How could Paul consent to take
with him a companion who would really prove an embarrassment and a
hindrance ? Such a task as that of spreading the Gospel of God in a hos-
tile world needs a resolute will and an undaunted courage. And the work
is too sacred to be put in jeopardy by any experiments.'^ Mark had
been tried once and found wanting. " No man, having put his hand to
the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." And Bar-
nabas w^ould not be without strong arguments to defend the justice of his
claims. It was hard to expect him to resign his interest in one who had
cost him much anxiety and many prayers. His dearest wish was to see
his young kinsman approving himself as a missionary of Christ. Now,
too, he had been won back to a willing obedience, he had come from
his home at Jerusalem, he was ready now to face all the difficulties and
dangers of the enterprise. To repel him moment of his repentance
in the
was surely "to break a bruised reed" and to "quench the smoking
6
flax."
a sacred truth. The only course which now remained was to choose two
different paths and to labour independently ; and the Church saw the
humiliating spectacle of the separation of its two great missionaries to the
Heathen. We cannot, however, suppose that Paul and Barnabas parted.
ducing him to the Apostles (Acts ix. 27), and the feelings of Barnabas would be deeply
hurt if ho thought his friendship slighted.
3 See p. 149.
* A timid companion in the hour of danger is one of the greatest evils. Matthew
Henry quotes Pro v. xxv. 19 :
" Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble, is
iat, ct tamcn dissensio habet aliquid humana) fragilitatis." Contra Pelag. ii. 522
And Chrysostom says ) UavXog i^yrei to dtKULov, 6 Bapvu(3ag to <pL?idv6po)7rov.
:
depaetukp: of baknabas. 253
like enemies, in anger and hatred. It is very likely that they made a
service. We know nothing of the details of his life beyond the moment of
his sailing for Cyprus ; but we may reasonably attribute to him not only
the confirming of the first converts,^ but the full establishment of the
Church in his native island. At Paphos the impure idolatry gradually
retreated before the presence of Christianity ; and Salamis, where the
tomb of the Christian Levite ^ is shown," has earned an eminent place in
Christian history, through the writings of its bishop, Epiphanius.^ Mark,
too, who began his career a a " minister " of the Gospel in this island,'
justified the good opinion of his kinsman. Yet, the severity of Paul may
have been of eventual service to his character, in leading him to feel more
deeply the serious importance of the work he had undertaken. And the
time came when Paul himself acknowledged, with affectionate tenderness,
not only that he had again become his " fellow-labourer," ^ but that he was
"profitable to the ministry," ^ and one of the causes of his own "com-
fort."
It seems that Barnabas was the first to take his departure. The feel-
ing of the majority of the Church was evidently with St. Paul, for when
he had chosen Silas for his companion and was ready to begin his journey,
1 If Barnabas visited Salamis and Paphos, and if Paul, after passing through Derbe,
Lystra, and Iconium, went as far as Antioch in Pisidia (see below), the whole circuit
of the proposed visitation was actually accomplished, for it does not appear that any
converts had been made at Perga and Attaleia.
' whence also it appears that Barnabas, like St. Paul, supported him-
1 Cor. ix. 6 :
slosely bound up with the city of Antioch and the personal labours of St.
Paul. When he withdrew from Jerusalem, "three years" after his con-
Fersion, his residence for some lime was in " the regions of Syria and
'
Cilicia.'' ^ He was at Tarsus in the course of that residence, when Bar-
nabas first brought him to Antioch.^ The churches founded by the
Apostle in his native province must often have been visited by him for it ;
stated ;
but it can be legitimately inferred. We are, indeed, only told
that certain men came down with false teaching from Judaea to Antioch.^
But the Apostolic Decree is addressed to "the Gentiles of Cilicia^^'^ as
well as those of Antioch, thus implying that the Judaizing spirit, with its
And, doubtless, the attacks on St. Paul's apostolic character had accom-
panied the attack on apostolic truth,^ and a new fulfilment of the proverb
was nearly realised, that a prophet in his own country is without honour.
He had, therefore, no ordinary work to accompUsh as he went " through
Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches and it must have been with
much comfort and joy that he was able to carry with him a document,
emanating from the Apostles at Jerusalem, which justified the doctrine he
had taught, and accredited his personal character. 'Nov was he alone aa
the bearer of this letter, but Silas was with him also, ready " to tell the
same things by mouth." ^ It is a cause for thankfulness that God put it
into the heart of Silas to " abide still at Antioch" ^ when Judas returned
to Jerusalem, and to accompany St. Paul^ on his northward journey.
For when the Cilician Christians saw their countryman arrive without
always sufficiently taken into account by those who have written on St. Paul's voyages.
1 Gal. i. 21. Acts ix. 30. See pp. 104-106. ^ Acts xi. 25. See p. 118.
3 Acts XV. 1. 4 Acts XV. 23. Pp. 210, 219.
< Acts XV. 41. The work of allaying the Judaizing spirit in Cilicia would require
Borae time. Much might be accomplished during the residence at Antioch (xv. 36)
which might very well include journeys to Tarsus, But we are distinctly told that tha
churclies of Cilicia were " confirmed " by St. Paul, when he was on his way to thoee
*f f.ycuonia. ' Acts xv. 27.
" fc^ce p. 222. n. 3 Acts xv. 40.
CILICIA. 25t
tils companion Barnabas, whose name was coupled with his own in the
apostoHc letter/ their confidence might have been shaken, occasion might
have been given to the enemies of the* truth to slander St. Paul, had not
Silas been present, as one of those who were authorised to testify that
both Paul and Barnabas were " men who had hazarded their lives for tho
^
name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Where "the churches" were, which he "confirmed" on his journey,
In what particular cities of " Syria and Cilicia," we are not informed.
After leaving Antioch by the bridge over the Orontes,^ he would cross
Mount Amanus by the gorge which was anciently called the " Syrian
Gates," and is now known as the Beilan Pass.^ Then he would come to
Alexandria and Issus, two cities that were monuments of the Macedonian
conqueror ; one as retaining his name, the other as the scene of his
victory. After entering the Cilician plain, he may have visited Adana,
^gse, or Mopsuetia, three of the conspicuous cities on the old Boman
roads.^ With all these places St. Paul must have been more or less
for some years, since the time of his conversion and if he loved his native
;
place w^ell enough to speak of it with something like pride to the Roman
of&cer at Jerusalem,*' he could not be indifferent to its religious welfare
Among the " Gentiles of Cilicia," to whom the letter which he carried
3 See the description of ancient Antioch above, Ch. IV. p. 123 also p. 136. ;
4 The " Syrian Gates ^' are the entrance into Cilicia from Syria, as the '^Cilician
Gates " are from Cappadocia. The latter pass, however, is by far the grander and
more important of the two. Intermediate between these two, in the angle where
Taurus and Amanus meet, is the pass into Syria by which Darius fled after the battle
of Issus. Both entrances from Syria into Cilicia are alluded to by Cicero (Fam. xv. 4),
as well as the great entrancefrom Cappadocia (Att. v. 20, quoted below).
For a complete account of the geography of this district, see Mr. Ainsworth's paper
in the eighth volume of the Geographical Society's Transactions. The Beilan Pass ia
a long valley, by which Amanus is crossed at a height of near 3000 feet above the
level of the Mediterranean. To the N, of this is a minor pass, marked by an ancient
ruin called the " Pillars of Jonas," which Alexander had to retrace when he turned
back to meet Darius at Issus. Beyond Issus, on the Cilician shore, is another minor
pass, where an ancient gate-way remains.
If the itineraries are examined
and compared together, the Roman roads will be
observed to diffuse themselves among these different towns in the Cilician plain, and
then to come together again at the bend of the bay, before they enter the Syrian
Gates. Mopsuetia and Adana were in the direct road from Issus to Tarsus uEgM
;
was on the coast-road to Soli. Baia3 also was an important to-vn, situated to tho S. of
Issus.
6 Acts xxi. 39.
;
was addressed, tlie Gentiles of Tarsus had no mean place in his afifectiona
cities of that day, where art and amusement were consecrated to a false
religion. The symbols of idolatry remained in the public places, statues,
temples, and altars, and the various " objects of devotion," which in all
" dumb idols " to which, as Gentiles, they had been " carried away even
as they were led," ^ had been recognised as " nothing in the world," ^ and
been " cast to the moles and to the bats." The homes which had once
been decorated with the emblems of a vain mythology, were now bright
with the better ornaments of faith, hope, and love. And the Apostle of
the Gentiles rejoiced in looking forward to the time when the grace which
had been triumphant in the household should prevail against principalities
and powers, when " every knee should bow at the name of Jesus, and
every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." ^
But it has pleased God that we should know more of the details of
1 1 Thess. i. 9. ^ 1 Cor. xii. 2. 3 i Cor. viii. 4.
4 Isai. ii. 20. These remarks have been, suggested by a recent discovery of much
interest at Tarsus. In a mound which had formerly rested against a portion of the
city wall, since removed, was discovered a large collection of terracotta figures and
lamps. At first these were thought to be a sherd-wreck, or the refuse of some Cera-
micus or pottery-work. But on observing that the lamps had been used and that the
earthenware gods {JTi fictiles) bore no trace of having been r^ected because of defec-
tive workmanship, but on the contrary, had evidently been used, it has been imagined
that these terracottas must have been thrown away, as connected with idolatry, on the
occasion of some conversion to Christianity. The figures are such as these, a head
of Pan, showing the mortar by which it was set up in some garden or vineyard
still
the boy Mercury Cybele, Jupiter, Ceres crowned with corn, Apollo with rays, a lion
;
devouring a bull (precisely similar to that engraved, p. 22), with other symbols of gen
eral or local mythology. There are, moreover, some ears, legs, &c., which seem tc
have been votive ofierings, and which, therefore, it would have been sacrilege to re-
move and a great number of lamps or incense burners, with a carbonaceous stain on
;
them. The date when these things were thrown to the " moles and bats " seems to be
ascertained by the dressing of the hair in one of the female figures, which is that of the
period of the early emperors, as shown in busts of Domitia, or Julia, the wife of Titua,
the same that is censured by the Roman satirist and by the Christian Apostle. Some
them are undoubtedly of an earlier period. We owe the opportunity of seeing these
(rf*
remains, and the foregoing criticisms on them (by Mr. Abington, of Hanley, in Staf-
fordshire), to the kindness of W. B. Barker, Esq., who was for many years a resident ai
Tarsus, and who is preparing a work on the history of Cilicia.
Phil. iL 10, 11
THEY CKOSS THE TAURUS. 257
The task now before him was the visitation of the churches he had formed
in conjunction with Barnabas. We proceed to follow him in his second
journey across Mount Taurus.
The vast mountain-barrier which separates the sunny plains of Cilicia
and Pamphylia from the central table-land, has frequently been mentioned."
On the former journey ^ St. Paul travelled from the Pamphylian plain to
Antioch in Pisidia, and thence by Iconium to Lystra and Derbe. His
present course across the mountains was more to the eastward ; and
the last-mentioned cities were visited first. More passes than one lead
down from Lycaonia and Cappadocia through the chain of Taurus into
Cilicia.3 And it has been supposed ^ that the Apostle travelled through
one of the minor passes, which quits the lower plain at Pompeiopolis,^
and enters the upland plain of Iconium, not far from the conjectural site
Yalais conveniently from the banks of the Lago Maggiore would rather
go by the Simplon, than by the difficult path across the Monte Moro ;
and there is one great pass in Asia Minor which may be called the
Simplon 6 of Mount Taurus, described as a rent or fissure in the moun-
tain-chain, extending from north to south through a distance of eighty
miles,^ and known in ancient days by the name of the " Cilician Gates," ^
which has been, in all ages, the easiest and most convenient entrance
Mr. Ainsworth points out some interesting particulars of resemblance and contowrt
Detween the Alps and this part of the Taurus. Travels and Researches in Asia Minor,
fee. (1842), n. 80.
7 Col. Chesney in the Euphrates Expedition, i. 353.
8 Besides the passages quoted below, see Polyb. xiL Diod. xiv. p. 496..
VOL. I. 17
from the northern and central parts of the peninsula to the level by the
sea-shore, where the traveller pauses before he enters Syria. The secur-
ing of this pass was the greatest cause of anxiety to Cyrus, when he
marched into Babylonia to dethrone his brother.^ Through this gorge
Alexander descended to that Cilician plain,'' which has been finely de-
* Xen. Anab.
i. 4. Mannert and Forbiger both think that he went by a pass more to
the east but the arguments of Mr. Ainsworth for the identity of Dana with Tyana,
;
and the coincidence of the route of Cyrus with the " Cilician Gates," appear to be con-
clusive. Travels in the Track, &c., p. 40.
* See Arrian, ii. 7 and Quintus Curtius, iii. 4.
5 Uediov TiXarvTarov re Koi krcLixrjKEaraTOV' w TveptKeirai fi^v 16(j)og etc '^earpov
oX^H-^i aiytaTibg de ciri -^aTiuaarjc fJ^eyiarog kKTeiverai uairep rrjq ^vaeu>g epyaoafiEVT]^
orddiov [JidxrjQ. Herodian. iii. 4.
4 Iter in Ciliciam feci per Tauri pylas. Tarsum veni a. d. iii. non. Octob. Tnde ad
Amanam contendi, qui Syriam a Cilicia aquarum divortio dividit Castra pauc^yS
dies habuimus, ea ipsa, qua3 contra Darium habuerat apud Issum Alexander, imperatc:
baud paulo melior, quam aut tu aut ego. Ep. ad Att. v. 20.
5 The War between Scverus and Pescennius Niger. Herodian, iii. 1-4. He says of
Niger, on the approach of Severus : 'YiKeleve rovTavpov bpovg rd arsvd kol KprjfivtddTi
dicubpuTTeadai, .... TrpojSXTjjua oxvpbv vo/ul^ov tuv h rri dvaroh) dStjv, to SvafSaTOu
Tov opovg- 6 ydp Tavpog fieTa^v dv KaTnvadoKlac Kat Kiliiciag, diUKptveL ra re 7>;
&pKT(f) Kal rd rrj dvaroly eOvr} irpoGKEifieva, iii. 1. When his advanced troops were de-
feated near the Bosphorus, some of them fled nepl rrjv vnupeiav em Talariag re koX
'kaiaq, tpOuGai&tXovrEg rbv Tavpov vTvepfi^vai, Kal evTog tov kpijuarog yeveoQai. lb. 2.
c This was
emphatically the case in the first war between Mahomet Ali and the Sul-
tan, when Ibrahim Tasha crossed the Taurus and fought the battle of Konieh, in De-
cember, 18o2. In the second war, the decisive battle was fought at Nizib, in June,
1839, further to the East : hnt even then, while the negociations were pending, this
pass was the military boundaiy between the opposing powers. See Mr. Ainsworth'a
Travels and Researches, quoted below. He was arrested in his journey by the battle
of Nizib. For a slight notice of the two campaigns, see Yates' Egypt, i. ay. In the
second volume (ch. v.) is a curious account of an interview with Ibrahim Pasha at
Tarsus, io 1833, with notices of the sun-ounding country.
'
in the autumn of the year 52, Wieseler (pp. 36, 44) calculates that a year might be
Bccupied in the whole journey from Antioch through Asia Minor and Macedonia to
Corinth. Perhaps it is better to allow a year and a half and the spring is the more ;
likely season to have been chosen for the commencement of the journey. See p. 165,
4 Very full descriptions may be seen in Ainsworth and in Capt. Kinneir's Travels.
the ruins of a castle, with crumbling walls and round towers, said to be Genoese."
Ainswor:th'S Travels and Researches ii. 77.
8 This gorge is called the Golek Boghaz. It is, as Capt. Kinneir says, " the part of
the pass most capable of defence, and where a handful of determined men, advanta-
geously posted, might bid defiance to the most numerous armies."
9 The general phrase of Xenophon concerning the Cilician Gates is, oSdr iiua^iTck
bnSca hxvp(l>c Kal u/xijxO'Voc elaeWelv crparevuaTi, el rtc EKulvev. Anab. I. ii. Mr
860 THE I.Ih'E A]N> EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
above the level of the sea." This space of high land may be considered
as dividing the whole mountain journey into two parts. For when it ia
passed, the streams are seen to flow in a new direction. Not that we
have attained the point where the highest land of Asia Minor ^ turns the
waters north and south. The torrents which are seen descending to the
right, are merely the tributaries of the Sarus, another river of Cilicia.''
The road is conducted northwards through this new ravine ; and again
the rocks close in upon it, with steep naked cliffs, among cedars and
pines, forming " an intricate defile, which a handful of men might con-
vert into another Thermopylae." ^ When the highest peaks of Taurua
are left behind, the road to Tyana is continued in the same northerly
Ainsworth regards this as applying to the Golek Boghaz 5 but it may be referred with
equal propriety to the other narrow defile in the higher part of the pass, and this refer-
ence is more agreeable to the context.
See the descriptions in Ainsworth and Kinneir.
1
' " The plain, if it may be so called, which occupies the level summit between the
waters of the Seihun and the river of Tarsus is about an English mile in width, the
approach to it being uphill and through a broken and woody country." Ainsw. Trav.
and Res. p. 75. He then proceeds to describe the Egyptian batteries (this was soon
after the battle of Nizib), and adds that the height of this upland, according to hia
observations, was 3812 feet.
3 This is though far less striking in appearance than the
the Anti-Taurus, which,
Taurus, is by the course of the Sarus and other streams.
really higher, as is proved
* See this veryclearly described by Ainsworth in each of his works. " The road is car-
ried at first over low undulating ground, the w^aters of which flow towards the moun-
tains. It enters them with the rivulets tributary to the Sarus, which have an easterly
flow, and follows the waters for some distance, amid precipitous cliffs and wooded
abutments, till they sever the main chain. Beyond this, the road turns Ciff to the
. . .
Bouth, up the course of a tributary. An expansive upland here presents itself [se
. . .
n. 2] Beyond this the waters flow no longer to the Sarus, but to the Cydnus,"
Travels in the Track, &c., pp. 44, 45. " Sixteen miles from Eregli [Cybistra] the
waters begin to flow eastward, and soon collect in a small rivulet, which finds its way
ttirough Taurus to the bed of the Seihun [Sarus]. This is a peculiarity in the hydro-
graphical features of this part of Taurus not hitherto pointed out." Trav. and Rea
p. 71. The fact, however, is implied by Captain Kinneir, who says that, after travelling
Borae miles from Tyana, he found " the Sihoun flowing through the valley parallel with
the road."
* These are Ainswortti's words of the Golek Boghaz (Trav. and Res.
p. 77), but they
must be true also of this portion of the pass though he says in his other work thai
;
three chariots might pass abreast (Trav. in the Track, p. 45). In this part the chief
Turkish defences were erected (Trav. and Res. p. 72.)
LYSTRA. 261
direction ;
' while tliat to Iconium takes a turn to the left, and passei
among wooded slopes with rocky projections, and over ground compara^
lively level, to the great Lycaonian plain.'
1 The roads towards Syria and Caesarea in Cappadocia, and Angora in Galatia, botli
meet at Tyana. See the Map. p. 189. The place is worthy of notice as the native city
of Apollonius, the notorious philosopher and traveller. This is carefully remarked by
the author of the Jerusalem Itinerary.
p. 199, for the remarks of Leake
* See Colonel Chesney's description, and above,
of his maps, in which a delineation of the southern part of the pass is given.
3 Mr. Ainsworth, in the month of November, was six days in travelling from Iconium
to Adanah. Major Rennell, who enters very fully into all questions relating to dis-
tances and rates of travelling, says that more than forty hours are taken in crossing
the Taurus from Eregli to Adanah, though the distance is only 78 miles and he addc* ;
that fourteen more would be done on common ground in the same time. Geog. ol
Western Asia.
4 Inscriptions in Asia Minor, relating to the repairing of roads by the governors ol
provinces and other officials, are not infrequent. See those on public works in Gruter,
p. 149, &c. ;also Boeckh and Texier.
5 See Ainsworth and Kinneir.
6 See the Map with the line of Roman road, p. 189. Cybistra (Eregli) was one of
Cicero's military stations. Its relation to the Taurus is very clearly pointed out in his
letters. " Cum exercitu per Cappadociae partem eam, quae cum Cilicia continens est,
iter feci, contraque ad Cybistr-<>: qmd oppidum est ad montem Taurum, locavi." Ad
Fam. XV. 2. " In Cappadocia tn[t?^iaa non longe a Tauro apud oppidum Cybistra
castra feci, ut et Ciliciam tuerer et Cappadociam tenens," &c. lb. 4. At this point
he was very near Derbe. He had come from Iconium, and afterwards went through
the pass to Tarsus so that his route must have nearly coincided with that of St. PauL
;
The bandit-chief Antipater of Derbe, is ont of the personages who plays a considerable
part in this passage of Cicero's life.
See above, p. 188, n. 1, and p. 198, n. 7 Mr. Hamilton (A. M. vol. ii.) gives a do-
262 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
" As St. Paul emerged from the mountain-passes, and came along tli
lower heiglits through which the Taurus recedes to the Lycaonian levels,
the heart, which had been full of affection and anxiety all through the
vious journey. Here was his first meeting now with the disciples he had
then been enabled to gather. The incidents of such a meeting, the
inquiries after Barnabas, the welcome given to the
Silas, exhortations,
instructions, encouragements, warnings, of St. Paul, may be left to the
imagination of those who have pleasure in picturing to themselves the
features of the Apostolic age, when Christianity was new.
This is all we can say of Derbe, for we know no details either of the
former or present visit to the place. But when we come to Lystra, we
are at once in the midst of all the interest of St. Paul's public, ministry
and private relations. Here it was that Paul and Barnabas were re
garded as heathen that the Jews, who had first cried
divinities ;
^
"Hosanna " and then crucified the Saviour, turned the barbarians from
homage to insult ^ and that the little church of Christ had been forti-
;
fied by the assurance that the kingdom of heaven can only be entered
through "much tribulation.'^*^ Here too it was that the child of Lois
tailed account of his journey in this direction, and of the spots where he saw ruins,
inscriptions, or tombs. He heard of Divle when he was in a yailah on the mountains,
but did not visit it in consequence of the want of water. There was none within
eight hours. See Trans, of Geog. Soc. viii. 154, and compare what is said of the
drought of Lycaonia by Strabo, as quoted above, p. 186.
Texicr is of opinion that the true site of Derbe is Divle, which he describes as a vil
lage in a wild valley among the mountains, with Byzantine remains. Asie MineurC;
ii. 129, 130. The same view seems to be taken by Dr. Bailie, who adduces an inscrip
lion from " Devle or Devre " in his second Fasciculus of Inscriptions (1847), p. 264. g
' See above, p. 250.
" Compare Acts xiv. with 2 Tim iii. 10, 11.
' Sec the account of the topography of this district, Ch. VI. pp. 182, &G.
* Acts xiv. 12-18. pp. 192, &c. * Acts xiv. 19. pp. 195, 196
Acts xiv. 22, p. 199.
LYSTRA.
and Eunice, taught the Holy Scriptures from his earliest years, had beeu
trained to a religious life, and prepared, through the Providence of God^
by the sight of the Apostle's sufferings, to be his comfort, support, and
companion. 1
Spring and sammer had passed over Lystra, since the Apostles had
preached there. God had continued to "bless" them, and given them
" rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and
gladness."^ But still ''the living God, who made the heavens, and the
earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein," was only recognised
by a few. The temple of the Lystrian Jupiter still stood before the gate,
and the priest still offered the people's sacrifices to the imaginary pro-
tector of the city.3 Heathenism was invaded, but not yet destroyed.
Some votaries had been withdrawn from that polytheistic religion, which
wrote and sculptured in stone its dim ideas of " present deities j"'* crowd-
ing its thoroughfares with statues and altars,^ ascribing to the King of
the Gods the attributes of beneficent protection and the government of
atmospheric changes,^ and vaguely recognizing Mercury as the dispenser
of fruitful seasons and the patron of public happiness.'' But many years
of difficulty and persecution were yet to elapse before Greeks and
barbarians fully learnt, that the God whom St. Paul preached was a
Father everywhere present to his children, and the One Author of every
*'
Sfood and perfect gift."
in Acta Apostolorum, Jena, 1766, vol. iii.), thinks that a statue of Jupiter, and not a
temple, is meant. He adduces many inscriptions in illustration of the subject, such aa
the following : "Jupiter Gustos colonife Mutinensis," " Serapi conservatori," " Deo in
cujus tutela domus est and especially one from Gruter, with JUPITER GUSTOS,
and the attributes of Mercury above. The equivalent Greek terms are tvoIlovx^Q aii^
what Mark had once appeared to be, a son in the Gospel.'' Yet how
could he consistently take an untried youth on so difficult an enterprize ?
1 Pp. 197, 198. It is well known that commentators are not agreed whether Lystra
or Derbe was the birthplace of Timothy. But the former opinion is by far the most
probable. The latter rests on the view which some critics take of Acts xx. 4, The
whole aspect of Acts xvi. 1, 2 is in favour of Lystra. St. Luke mentions Lystra after
Derbe, and then says kKet; and again, when referring to the town where Timothy was
well spoken of, he does not mention Derbe at all, but Lystra first and Iconium next.
It is quite unnatural, in the other passage, to place the comma after Tdiog with 01s-
hausen, or to read Ti/j.6de6g re Aep(3aLog with Kuinoel, or Kai A, T. with Heinrichs.
The only motives change appear to be the notion that Timothy's birthplace
for the
ought and the wish to identify Caius with
to be specified, as in the case of the others,
the disciple mentioned xix. 29. But to these arguments Meyer and De Wette very
justly reply, that it was useless to mention Timothy's birthplace, when it was known
already and that the name Caius was far too common to cause us any difficulty.
5
Wieseler (pp. 25, 2G) ingeniously suggests that Timothy might be a native ofDerbe,
and yet met with by St. Paul at Lystra. He is unwilling to think that a new Caius can
be mentioned so soon in company with Aristarchus. But surely we may answer that
the very word AepjSalc^ may be intended to show that a different person is intended
from the Caius of xix. 29.
2 Tim. i. 5.
from this, that diligent inquiry was made concerning his fitness for the
in selecting one, " whose mother was a Jewess, while his father was a
^
Greek."
We may be permitted here to take a short retrospect of the child-
hood and education of St. Paul's new associate. The hand of the Apostle
himself has drawn for us the picture of his early years.^ That picture
represents to us a mother and a grandmother, full of tenderness and faith,
the Corinthian Chloe into relations with Ephesus,^ and caused the prose-
^ Acts xvi. 2.
' Tdg irpoa-yovaag ^irl 'irpo<pijTetag. 1 Tim. i. 18. See iv. 14. We ought to add,
that " the brethren who gave testimony Timothy were the very converts
in praise of
of St. Paul himself, and, therefore, witnesses in whom he had good reason to place the
ntmost confidence.
3 Acts xvi. 4. 4 Acts xvi. 1. 2 Tim. i. 5. iii. 15, &c.
6 If allowable to allude to an actual picture of a scene of this kind, we may
it is
mention the drawing of " Jewish Women reading the Scriptures," in Wilkie's Oriental
Sketches.
' See Ch. II. p. 38, also Ch. I, pp. 17, 18. The authority for tlw statement Eiadi
there is Joseph. Ant. xii. 3, 4.
i Cor. i. 11.
266 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
which, at first sight, seems considerable ; viz. the fact that a religioua
Jewess, like Eunice, should have been married to a Greek. Such a mar
riage was scarcely in harmony with the stricter spirit of early Judaism,
and in Palestine itself it could hardly have taken place.^ But among the
Jews of the dispersion, and especially in remote districts, where but few
of the scattered people were established, the case was rather different
Mixed marriages, under such circumstances, were doubtless very frequent.
We are at liberty to suppose that in this case the husband was a proselyte.
We hear of no objections raised to the circumcision of Timothy, and we
may reasonably conclude that the father was himself inclined to Judaism ;
^
if, indeed, he were not already deceased, and Eunice a widow. This very
circumstance, however, of his mixed origin, gave to Timothy an intimate
connection with both the Jewish and Gentile worlds. Though far re-
moved from the larger colonies of Israelitish families, he was brought up
in a thoroughly Jewish atmosphere : his heart was at Jerusalem while
his footsteps were in the level fields near Lystra, or on the volcanic crags
of the Black Mount and his mind was stored with the Hebrew or Greek ^
:
words of inspired men of old in the midst of the rude idolaters, whose lan-
guage was " the speech of Lycaonia." And yet he could hardly be called
a Jewish boy, for he had not been admitted within the pale of God's an-
cient covenant by the rite of circumcision. He was in the same position,
with respect to the Jewish church, as those, with respect to the Christian
church, who, in various ages, and for various reasons, have deferred their
baptism to the period of mature life. And " the Jews which were in
those quarters," ^ however much they may have respected him, yet, know-
ing " that his father was a Greek," and that he himself was uncircum-
cised, must have considered him all but an " alien from the commonwealth
of Israel."
Xow, for St. Paul to travel among the synagogues with a companion
in this condition, and to attempt to convince the Jews that Jesus \faa
born Greek. The most natural inference is, that his father was living, and most pro-
bably not a proselyte of righteousness, if a proselyte at all.
4 We cannot tell how far this family is to be reckoned Hellenistic or Aramaic (sea
the Messiah, when his associate and assistant in the work was an uncir*
synagogue when they saw in his personal preferences, and in the co-opera-
tion he most valued, a visible revolt against the law of his forefathers.
To imagine that they could have overlooked the absence of circumcision in-
Timothy's case, as a matter of no essential importance, is to suppose they
had already become enlightened Christians. Even in the bosom of the
Church we have seen ^ the difficulties which had recently been raised by
scrupulousness and bigotry on this very subject. And the difficulties
would have been increased tenfold in the untrodden field before him by pro-
claiming everywhere on his very arrival that circumcision was abolished.
His fixed line of procedure was to act on the cities through the syna-
gogues, and to preach the Gospel first to the Jew and then to the Gen-
tile.'^ He had no intention of abandoning this method, and we know that
he continued it for many years.^ But such a course would have been im-
possible had not Timothy been circumcised. He must necessarily have
been repelled by that people who endeavoured once to murder St. Paul,
because they imagined he had taken a Greek into the Temple.^ The very
intercourse of social life would have been hindered, and made almost im-
possible, by the presence of a half-heathen companion : for, however fax
the stricter practice may have been relaxed among the Hellenising Jews
of the dispersion, the general principle of exclusiveness everywhere re-
mained, and it was still " an abomination " for the circumcised to eat with
the uncircumcised.^
It may be thought, however, that St. Paul's conduct in circumcisuag
Timothy was inconsistent with the principle and practice he maintained at
Jerusalem when he refused to circumcise Titus.^ But the two cases were
entirely different. Then there was an attempt to enforce circumcision aa
necessary to salvation now it was performed as a voluntary act, and
:
Ch. VII.
' Acts xiii. 5, 14. xiv 1 xviu 1, 2, 10. xviii. 4, 19. xix. 8, 9 ; and compare
Rom. i. 16. ii. 9, 10.
3 See Acts xxviil Acts xxi. 29, with xxii. 22.
6 See p. 205. e Qal. ii. 3. See p. 218.
268 THE LIFE AITD EPISTLES OP BT. PAUL.
should follow, that doubt might be thrown on the freedom of the Gospel,
and that colour might be given to the Judaizing propensity it is enough :
to answer that indifferent actions become right or wrong according to our
knowledge their probable consequences, and that St. Paul was a better
judge of the consequences likely to follow from Timothy's circumusion
than we can possibly be. Are we concerned about the effects likely to
have been produced on the mind of Timothy himself There was no risk,
?
deed, that the very best arrangements were adopted which a divinely
enlightened prudence could suggest. Paul carried with him the letter of
TIMOTHY.
Lystra, had been obtained before the Apostle took him as his companion.
ences to the day of ordination, with all its well-remembered details, not
only were full of serious admonition to Timothy, but possess the deepest
interest for us.'' And this interest becomes still greater if we bear m
mind that the "witnesses" who stood by were St. Paul's own converts,
and the very " brethren " who gave testimony to Timothy's high character
at Lystra and Iconium ;
^
that the " prophecy " which designated him to
his office was the same spiritual gift which had attested the commission of
Barnabas and Saul at Antioch,^ and that the College of Presbyters, who,
1 To what has been said before add the following note from a,
(pp. 182, 186, &c.),
MS. journal already quoted. " Oct. 6. Left
Traversed the enormous Konieh at 12.
plains for 5K hours, when we reached a small Turcoman village. Oct. 7. At 11.30 . .
we approached the Kara-Dagh, and in about an hour began to ascend its slopes. We
were thus about 11 hours crossing the plain from Konieh. This, with 2 on the other
Bide, made in all 13 hours. We were heartily tired of the plain."
' Roads from Iconium to Tarsus in Cilicia, Side in Pamphylia,
Ephesus in Asia,
A.ngora in Galatia, Csssarea in Cappadocia, &c., are all mentioned in the ancient
authorities.
3 1 Tim. vi. 12. 4 i Tim. i. 18. s 1 Tim. iv. 14. e 2 Tim. i. 6.
7 This is equally true, if the ordination is to be considered coincident with the
" laying on of hands," by which the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were first
communicated, as in the case of Cornelius (Acts x. 44), the Samaritans (viii. 17), the
disciples at Ephesus (xix. 6), and St. Paul himself (ix. 17). See the Essay on the
Apostolical Office in Stanley's Sermons and Essays, especially p. 71. These gifts
doubtless pointed out the offices to which individuals were specially called. Com-
pare together the three important passages : Rom. xii. 6-8. 1 Cor. xii. 28-30. Epk iv.
11, 12 ; also 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11.
8 Compare Acts xvi. 2 with Acts xiii. 51xiv. 22.
Compare 1 Tim. i. 18 with Acts xiii. 1-3.
To Trpetjfivrepiov. 1 Tim. iv. 14. See 2 Tim. i. 6.
210 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OE ST. PAUL.
in conjunction with the Apostle, ordained the new minister of the G ospel^
consisted of those who had been " ordained in every church " ^ at the close
of that same journey.
On quitting Iconium St. Paul left the route of his previous journey ;
certainly most in harmony with our first impressions, to believe that this
city was not unvisited. No mention, however, is made of the place, and
it is enough to remark that a residence of a few weeks at Iconium as hip
head-quarters would enable the Apostle to see more than once all the
Christians at Antioch, Lystra, and Derbe.'^ It is highly probable that he
did so : for the whole aspect of the departure from Iconium, as it is
the general language of Scripture, " Phrygia and the region of Galatia."
We have seen^ that the term " Phrygia" had no political significance
there, and not communicate to them the letter of the Council. But, again, this does
not prove that he is right in including Antioch in Galatia.
3 It is impossible, as we have seen
(pp. 239, 240) to determine the exact frontier.
4 The great road from Ephesus to the Euphrates ascended the valley of the Mseander
to the neighbourhood of Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colosse [Col. iv. 13-16], and thence
passed by Apamea to Iconium. See the references to Strabo and Cicero in the next
note but two.
The Peutinger Table has a direct road from Iconium to Side, on the coast of ?am
5
phylia. Thence another road follows the coast to Perga, and goes thence across "West-
ern Pisidia to the valley of the Mseander. None of the Itineraries mention any direc*:
road from Antioch in Pisidia to Perga and Attaleia, corresponding to the journeys of
Paul and Barnabas. For an allusion to the importance of Side, see p. 23, n. 2, Cora
jare p. 160.
6 Pp. 236, 239, 240, 243, 250, &c., and the notes.
JOURNEY THROUGH PHRYGIA.
ancient and modern roads. We have marked his route in our map along
the general course of the Koman military way, and the track of Turkish
caravans, which leads by Laodicea, Philomelium, and Synnada,^' or, to
93 (Scutari, by Nicsea and Konieh, to Tarsus and Baias), and Route 94. (Constanti-
nople, by the Rhyndacus and Konieh, to Caesarea and Cappadocia.) Both these routes
coincide between Ak-Sher and Konieh. This line of road was also traversed by Otter,
Browne, and Leake (see Leake's map), and by Hamilton Ainsworth, and the author
of the MS. journal we have quoted. See, again, the Modern Traveller, p. 311. (Route
from Konieh to Kiutaya and Broussa.) Ladik is Laodicaea Combusta, situated just
beyond the hills which bound the plain of Konieh (see p. 182, and especially p. 186),
M-Sher used to be identified with Antioch in Pisidia, but is now believed to be Philo
melium (see the next note). Eski-Karahissar is now identified with Synnada. tct
Franz, Fiiuf Inschriften u. Fiinf Stadten in Kleinasien, Berlin, 1840. It is near
eibly identical with ?]
Afium-Karahissar (so called from its opium plantaticns), i
important town half-way between Angora and Smyrna. It is almost certain that St,
Paul must have passed more than once near this place. Mr. Hamilton was there oa
two journeys, from Angorah to Antioch in Pisidia, and fi am the valley of the Heimua
to Iconium. See his Descriptions, i. xxvi. n. xli.
3 See pp. 169, 170,
4 See above, p. 270, n. 2. 5 Acts xiv
272 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
must again repeat that the path marked down here is conjectural- We
have nothing either in St. Luke's narrative or in St. Paul's own letters
occasion, and as the home of the converts he then made. One city indeed,
which is commonly reckoned among the Phrygian cities, has a great place
in St. Paul's biography, and it lay on the line of an important Koman
road.i But it was situated far within the province of Asia, and for
several reasons we think it highly improbable that he visited Colosse
on this journey, if indeed he ever visited it at all. The most probable
route is that which lies more to the northwards in the direction of the
true G alatia.
The remarks which have been made on Phrygia must be repeated, with
some modification, concerning Galatia. It is true that Galatia was a
province : but we can plainly see that the term is used here in its
popular sense, not as denoting the whole territory which was governed
by the Galatian proconsul, but rather the primitive region of the
tetrarchs and kings, without including those districts of Phrygia or
Lycaonia, which wex'e now politically united v/ith it.^ There is abso-
lutely no city in true Galatia which is mentioned by the Sacred Writers
in connection with the first spread of Christianity. From the peculiar
form of expression 3 with which the Christians of this part of Asia
Minor are addressed by St. Paul in the Epistle which he wrote to them,''
of Galatia" were not confined to any one city, but distributed through
various parts of the country. If we were to mention two cities, which,
both from their intrinsic importance, and from their connection with the
leading roads,^ are likely to have been visited and revisited by the
whether St Paul was ever at Colosse. For Bottger's view of Col. ii. 1, see his Third
Essay.
* See pp. 246, 247, and the notes.
3 Talg tKiclrjoiaig rr/c TalaTiag, in the The occurrence of this term in the
pliu'al.
salutation gives the Epistle to the Galatians the form of a circular letter. The samo
phrase, in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, conveys the impression that there was
no great central church in Galatia, like that of Corinth in Achaia, or that of Ephesus
in Asia.
4 Gal. i. 2. 5 1 Cor. xvi. 1.
<5
The route is conjecturally laid down in the map from Synnada to Pessinus ana
Ancyra. Mr. Hamilton travelled exactly along this line, and describes the bare and
dreary country at length (i. xxiv.-xxvii.). Near Pessinus he found an inscription (JSo.
139) relating to the repairing of the Roman road, on a column which had probably
GALATIA. 273
the Galatian tribes, ^ and its trade was considerable under the early em-
perors.'^ Moreover, it had an ancient and wide-spread renown, as the
seat of the primitive worship of Cybele, the Great Mother.^ Though
her oldest and most sacred image (which, like that of Diana at Ephesus,''
had " fallen down from heaven") had been removed to Rome, her wor
ship continued to thrive in Galatia, under the superintendence of her
effeminate and fanatical priests or Galli," and Pessinus was the object of
one of Julian's pilgrimages, when heathenism was on the decline.^ Ancyra
was a place of still greater moment : for it was the capital of the pro-
vince.'^ The time of its highest eminence was not under the Gaulish but
the Roman government. Augustus built there a magnificent temple of
marble,^ and inscribed there a history of his deeds, almost in the style of
an Asiatic sovereign.^ This city was the meeting-place of all the great
roads in the north of the peninsula.^ And, when we add that Jews had
been estabhshed there from the time of Augustus,^' and probably earlier,
we can hardly avoid the conclusion that the Temple and Inscription at
Angora, which successive travellers have described and copied during the
last three hundred years, were once seen by the Apostle of the Gentiles.
However this may have been, we have some information from his own
pen, concerning his first journey through "the region of Galatia." We
been a milestone. Both the Antonine and Jerusalem Itineraries give the road bo
tween Pessinus and Ancyra, with the intermediate stages,
1 The Tolistoboii, or Western Galatians. See Strabo and Livy.
' UeaaLvovg eorlv efnropelov ruv ravry fieytoTov. Strabo xiii. 5. Its position has
been established by Texier and Hamilton. See Franz.
3 See above, p. 246.
4 Compare Herodian's expression of the image of Cybele (i. 11), Avrb to uya?^/ia
dtoTTsrig, tjg MyovaLv, with that in the Acts (xix. 35), 'koIlv veuKopov rov dioTrerovg.
The ancients had a notion that Pessinus derived its name diro tov Tceoeiv. Forbi-
ger, p. 366.
5 Jerome connects this term with the name of the Galatians. See, however, Smith's
Dictionary of Antiquities, under the word. See also under " Megalesia."
6 Ammian. Marc. xxii. 9.
7 The words APKTPA MHTPOHOAIS appear on its coins at this period. It was
also called " Sebaste," from the favour of Augustus. The words 2EBA2THNi2N TEK-
T02Ari2N appear both on coins and inscriptions.
8 This temple has been described by a long series of travellers, from Lucas and Toui^
and in the Archaologische Zeitung for Feb. 1843. We may compare it with the re-
cently deciphered record of the victories of Darius Hystaspes on the ro ik at Behistoun,
See Vaux's Nineveh and Persepolis.
Colonel Leake's map shows at one glance what we learn from the Itineraries^
We see there the roads radiating from it in every direction.
See the reference to Josephus, p. 247, n. 4.
VOL. 1. 18
THE LITE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
know tliat he was delayed there by sickness, and we know in what spirit
sickness v>^hich caused him to preach the Glad-tidings to them at the first.'^
The allusion is to his first visit : and the obvious inference is, that he was
passing through Galatia to some ot^ier district (possibly Pontus,^ where
we know that many Jews were established), when the state of his bodily
health arrested his progress.^ Thus he became, as it were, the Evange-
list But his zeal to discharge the duty that
of Galatia against his will.
was laid on him, did not allow him to be silent. He was instant " in sea-
son and out of season." "Woe" was on him if he did not preach the
Gospel. The same Providence detained him among the Gauls, which
would not allow him to enter Asia or Bithynia * and in the midst of his :
weakness he made the glad-tidings known to all who would listen to him
We cannot say what this sickness was, or even confidently identify it with
that " thorn in the flesh " -^
to which he feelingly alludes in his Epistles,
as a discipline which God had laid on him. But the remembrance of what
he suffered in Galatia seems so much to colour all the phrases in this part
of the Epistle, that a deep personal interest is connected with the circum-
stance. Sickness in a foreign country has a peculiarly depressing effect
on a sensitive mind. And though doubtless Timotheus watched over the
Apostle's weakness with the most affectionate solicitude, yet those who
have experienced what fever is in a land of strangers will know how to
sympathise, even with St. Paul, in this human trial. The climate and the
prevailing maladies of Asia Minor may have been modified with the lapse
of centuries : and we arc without the guidance of St. Luke's medical lan-
guage,^ which sometimes throws a light on diseases alluded to in Scrip-
ture : but two Christian sufferers, in widely different ages of the
Church, occur to the we look on the map of Galatia.
memory as We
could hardly mention any two men more thoroughly imbued with the
spirit of St. Paul, than John Chrysostom and Henry Martyn.^ And
a
1 Gal. iv. 13. See above, pp. 248, 249.
3 Tliere can be no doubt that the literal translation of Sl' uadeveiav ri)c capKog is,
on account of bodily weakness." See Winer's Grammatik, 53. And there seems
uo good reason why we should translate it differently, though most of the English
eoir.meutators take a different view. See Meyer and De Wette. Bottger, in harmony
wit.: his hypothesis that St. Luke's Galatia means the neighbouihood of Lystra and
Derbe, thinks that the bodily weakness here alluded to was the result of the stoning at
Lyetra. Acts xiv.
4 Acts xvi. 6, 7. 5 2 Cor. xii. 7-10.
T There was a great similarity in the last sufferings of these apostolic menj
the same intolerable pain in the head, the same inclement weather, and die sawa
cruelty on the part of those who urged on the journey. We quote the Benedictine VLfe
of Chrysostcm. " Unus e militibus illud unum satagens ut mala morte Joannem need'
;
when we read liow these two saints suffered in their last hours frorc
Mgue, pain, rudeness, and cruelty, among the mountains of Asia Minor
^hich surround the place ^ where they rest, we can well enter into
fche meaning of St. PauFs expressions of gratitude to those who received
iiim kindly in the hour of his weakness.
The Apostle's reception among the frank and warm-hearted Gauls was
peculiarly kind and disinterested. No Church is reminded by the Apos-
tle so tenderly of the time of their first meeting.^ The recollection is used
by him to strengthen his reproaches of their mutability, and to enforce the
pleading with which he urges them to return to the true Gospel. That
Gospel had been received in the first place with the same affection which
they extended to the Apostle himself. And the subject, the manner,
and the results of his preaching are not obscurely indicated in the Epistle
itself. The great topic there, as at Corinth and everywhere, was " t/ie
Cross of Christ Christ crucijied^^ set forth among them.-'^ The Di-
vine evidence of the Spirit followed the word, spoken by the mouth of the
Apostle, and received by " the hearing of the ear." ^ Many were con-
verted, both Greeks and Jews, men and women, free men and slaves.^
The worship of false divinities, whether connected with the old supersti-
tion at Pessinus, or the Roman idolatry at Ancyra, was forsaken for that
of the true and living God.^ And before St. Paul left the " region of
Galatia" on his onward progress, various Christian communities'^ were
added to those of Cilicia, Lycaonia, and Phrygia.
In following St. Paul on his departure from Galatia, we come to a
ret. . . . Cum pluvia vehemens decideret, id nihil curans proficiscebatur ille ; ita ut in
dorso et in pectore aquarum rivi decurrerent. Ingentem rursus solis JEstum pro deliciis
habebat, cum nosset B. Joannis caput, Elisasi instar calvum, sestu vexari. . . . Unde
discesserant redire coacti sunt, quod
enim dolore laborabat,
ille asgrotaret ;
capitis
quod solis radios ferre non posset. Sic igitur reversus appositus est ad patres . . .
Buos et ad Christum transiit." Compare this with the account of H. Martyn's last hours.
" Oct. 2. In the night Hassan sent to summon me away, but I was quite unable to move.
. .We travelled ail the rest of the day and all night it rained most of the time.
. 5
Soon after sunset the ague came on again. My fever increased to a violent degree
. . .
the heat in my eyes and forehead was so great that the fire almost made me frantic.
. . Oct. 6.
.
The sleep had refreshed me, but I was feeble and shaken yet the mer- ;
ciless Has3an hurried me off." The last words in his journal were wi-itten the next
day. He died on the 16th.
1 It is remarkable that Chrysostom and Martyn are buried in the same place. They
both died on a journey, at Tocat or Comana in Pontus.
* The references have been given above in the Vcount of Galatia, p. 243.
meant by the words " Mysia," " Asia," and " Bithynia ?" It will be re-
membered that all these words had a wider and a more restricted sense.^
They might be used popularly and vaguely or they might be taken iu ;
its political character of a province,^ but because they had a history and a
traditional character of their own, sufficiently independent to give them a
name in popular usage. As regards Asia^ it is simply viewed as the
western portion of Asia Minor. Its relation to the peninsula has been
very well described by saying that it occupied the same relative position
1 Acts xvi.
6, 7. For a similar accumulation of participles, see Acts xxv. 6-8.
' See Wieseler's remarks on this passage, p. 31, &c.
3 See above, p. 237.
4 Mysia was at one time an apple of discord between the kings of Pergamus and
Bithynia and at one time the latter were masters of a considerable tract on the shore
;
of the Propontis. But this was at an end when the Romans began to interfere in the
affairs of the east. See Livy's words of the kingdom of Asia Mysiam, quam Prii- :
sias rex ademerat, Eumeni restituerunt and Cicero's on the province of Asia "Asia :
vestra constat ex Phrygia, Mysia," &c., pp. 239, 240. It may be well to add a few
words on the history of Mysia, which was purposely deferred to this place. See p. 239,
n. 3. Under the Persians this corner of Asia Minor formed the satrapy of Littltf
Phrygia : under the Christian emperors it was the province of The Hellespont. In
the intermediate period we find it called " Mysia," and often divided into two parts :
viz. Little Mysia on the north, called also Mysia on the Hellespont, or Mysia Olym-
pene, because it lay to the north of Mount Olympus and Great Mysia, or Mysia ;
Pergamene, to the south and east, containing the three districts of Troas, ^olis, and
Teuthrauia. See Forbiger, p. 110.
6 Acts xvi. 6.
But this is rather like cutting the knot and, after all, there is no knot to be cut,
;
to Asia what Gallicia is to Portugal ; and the journey from Galatia and
Phrygia to the city of Troas has its European parallel in a journey from
Castile to Yigo.
"We are evidently destitute of materials for laying down the route of
St. Paul and his companions. All that relates to Phrygia and Galatia
must be left vague and blank, like an unexplored country in a map (as in
fact this region itself is in the maps of Asia Minor where we are at Ub-
erty to imagine mountains and plains, rivers and cities, but are unable to
furnish any proofs. As the path of the Apostle, however, ajDproaches the
JEgean, it comes out into comparative light : the names of places are
again mentioned, and the country and the coast have been explored and
described. The early part of the route then must be left indistinct. Thus
much, however, we may venture to say, that since the Apostle usually
turned his steps towards the large towns, where many Jews were estab-
lished, it is most likely that Ephesus, Smyrna, or Pergamus was the point
at which he aimed, when he sought " to preach the word in Asia." There
fe nothing else to guide our conjectures, except the boundaries of the pro-
vinces and the direction of the principal roads.^ If he moved from An-
gora ^ in the general direction above pointed out, he would cross the river
Sangarius near Kiutaya,^ which is a great modern thoroughfare, and has
been mentioned before (Ch. YI. p. 168) in connection with the route
from Adalia to Constantinople ; and a little further to the west, near Ai-
zani, he would be about the place where the boundaries of Asia, Bithynia,
and Mysia meet together, and on the watershed which separates the wa-
ters flowing northwards to the Propontis, and those which feed the rivers
of the ^gean.
Here then we may imagine the Apostle and his three companions to
pause, uncertain of their future progress, on the chalk downs which lie
accompanying Franz's Fiinf Stadten, &c. But the boundaries of Galatia, Phiygia,
Mysia, &c., there given, are not provincial.
* Mr. Ainsworth mentions a hill near Angora in this direction, the Baulos-Dagh,
The long range of the Mysian Olympus to the north is the boundary of
Bithynia. The summits of the Phrygian Dindymus on the south are on
the frontier of Galatia and Asia. The Hermus flows through the pro-
Yince of Asia to the islands of the JEgean. The Rhyndacus flows to the
Propontis, and separates Mysia from Bithynia. By following the road
flear the former river they would easily arrive at Smyrna or Pergamua
By descending the valley of the latter and then crossing Olympus,^ they
would be in the richest and most prosperous part of Bithynia. In which
direction shall their footsteps be turned ? Some divine intimation, into
the nature of which we do not presume to inquire, told the Apostles that
the Gospel was not yet to be preached in the populous cities of Asia.-'
The time was not yet come for Christ to be made known to the Greeks
and Jews of Ephesus, and for the churches of Sardis, Pergamus, Phila-
delphia, Smyrna, Thyatira, and Laodicea, to be admitted to their period
of privilege and trial, for the warning of future generations. Shall they
turn, then, in the direction of Bithynia ? ^ This also is forbidden. St.
Paul (so far as we know) never crossed the Mysian Olympus, or entered
the cities of Nicsea and Chalcedon, illustrious places in the Christian his-
1 See Mr. Hamilton's account of the course of the Rhyndacus (i. v. vi. viii.) ; hi&
comparison of the district of Azanitis to the chalk scenery of England (p. 100) ;
and
his notice of Dindymus which seems to be part of the watershed that crosses
(p. 105),
the country from the Taurus towards Ida, and separates the waters of the Mediterrar
nean and ^gean from those of the Euxine and Propontis. In the course of his pro-
gress up the Rhydancus he frequently mentions the aspect of Olympus, the summit of
which could not be reached at the end of March in consequence of the snow.
' The ordinary road from Broussa to Kiutayah crosses a part of the range of Olym-
pus. The Pent. Table has a road joining Broussa with Pergamus.
3 It will be observed that they were merely forbidden to preach the Gospel (TialTjcrai
Tbv loyov) in Asia. "We are not told that they did not enter Asia. Their road lay
entirely through Asia (politically speaking) from the moment of leaving Galatia till
their arrival at Troas. On the other hand, they were not allowed to enter Bithynia
at all {eig rr/v B. Tropevd/jvai). Meyer's view of the word " Asia " in this passage is
surprising. He holds it to mean the eastern continent as opposed to "Europe."
[See p. 237, &c.] He says that the travellers, being uncertain whether Asia in the
more limited sense were not intended, made a vain attempt to enter Bithynia, anci
finally learned at Troas that Europe was their destination.
4 The route is drawn in the map past Aizani into the valley of the Ilermus, and
The scenery of the Rhyndacus, which is interesting as the frontier river, has been
fully explored and described by Mr. Hamilton, who ascended the river to its source,
ind then crossed over to the fountains of the Ilermus and Maeander, near which he saw
Ml ancient road (p. 104), probably connecting Smyrna and Philadelphia with Angora.
jrOUENEY TO THE ^GEAN. 279
the description of the voyage to Rome. (Acts xxvii. 2.) It was a mer-
cantile town, with important relations both with foreign harbours, and the
towns of the interior of Asia Minor.'' From this point the road follows
the northern shore of the gulf, crossing a succession of the streams which
flow from Ida,^ -and alternately descending to the pebbly beach and
rising among the rocks and evergreen brushwood, while Lesbos appears
and reappears through the branches of the rich the
forest trees, till
sea is left behind at the city of Assos. This also is a city of St. Paul.
The nineteen miles of road which lie between it and Troas is the distance
which he travelled by land before he rejoined the ship which had brought
him from Philippi (Acts xx. 13) : and the town across the strait, on the
shore of Lesbos, is Mitylene,^ whither the vessel proceeded when the
Apostle and his companions met on board.
the whole district, without staying to evangelise it. One MS. (D.) has SteXdovTec. It
is not necessary to suppose, with Bottger and De Wette, that Little Mysia is meant.
(Above, p. 276, n. 6.) Wieseler's remark is more just: that they hurried through
Mysia, because they knew that they were not to preach the Gospel in Asia.
^ Hence it was sometimes called the Gulf of Ida. Ka?iovac 6' ol /i^v 'l6alov KolnoVj
oi d' 'AdoafiVTTTjvov. Strabo xiii. 1.
3 The characteristics of this bay, as seen from the water, will be mentioned hereafter
when we come to the voyage from Assos to Mitylene, (Acts xx. 14). At present we
allude only to the roads along the coast. Two roads converge at Adramyttium one :
which follows the shore from the south, mentioned in the Peutingerian Table the ;
other from Pergamus and the interior, mentioned also in the Antonine Itinerary.
The united route then proceeds by Assos to Alexandria Troas, and so to the Helles-
pont. They are marked in our map of the northern part of the -^Egean.
4 Plin. H. N. V. 30. xiii. 1. Fellows says that there are no traces of antiquities to
be found there now, except a few coins. He travelled in the direction just mentioned,
from Pergamus by Adramyttium and Assos to Alexandria Troas.
5 Poets of all ages
Homer, Ovid, Tennyson, ^have celebrated the streams which
flow from the " many-fountained " cliffs of Ida. Strabo says UoTivrcLdaKov t?)v :
ISUt^; oiovTai Mysadai, did rd nTi^dog t-C>v avrrjg (jSovTuv nroTafiuv. xiii. 1.
5 See the description in Fellows. He was two days in travelling from Adramit t
Assos. He says that the hills are clothed with evergreens to the top, and therefore
vary little with the season ; and he particularly mentions the flat stones of the shingle,
and the woods of large trees, especially planes.
' This is the distance given in the Antonine Itinerary.
* The strait between Assos and Methymna is narrow. Strabo calls it 60 stadia ]
Pliny 7 miles. Mitylene is further to the south.
280 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL,
tained. This shore has been visited on many memorable occasions by the
great men of this world. Xerxes passed this way when he undertook to
conquer Greece. Julius Cassar was here after the battle of Pharsalia.=
But, above all, we associate the spot with a European conqueror of Asia,
and an Asiatic conqueror of Europe ; with Alexander of Macedon and Paul
of Tarsus. For here it was that the enthusiasm of Alexander was kindled
at the tomb of Achilles, by the memory of his heroic ancestors here he ;
girded on their armour ; and from this goal he started to overthrow the
august dynasties of the East. And now the great Apostle rests in his
triumphal progress upon the same poetic shore : here he is armed by
heavenly visitants with the weapons of a warfare that is not carnal ; and
hence he is sent forth to subdue all the powers of the West, and bring the
civilization of the world into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Turning now from the district to the city of Troas, we must remember
that its full and correct name was Alexandria Troas. Sometimes, as in
it by the name of Little Plnygia. See above, p. 239, n. 3. For the retreat of the
also
Phrygians from the Dardanelles, see Mannert, p. 406, and Scylax as quoted by him.
* If we are not needlessly multiplying topographical illustrations, we may compare
lh3 three principal districts of the province of Asia, viz. Phrygia, Lydia, and Mysia,
fco the three Ridings of Yorkshire. Troas will then be in Mysia what Craven is in the
West Riding, a district which has retained a distinctive name, and has found its owu
historian.
3 Lucan. Pharsal. ix. 960. See the notes on Julius Cajsar below.
^ Acts xvi. 8, 11. XX. 5. 2 Cor. ii. 12. 2 Tim. iv. 13.
' Strabo xiii. Plin. H. N. v. " Steph. Byz. art, A?>^dv6peia,
' It is given at length by Mannert. iii. 471-475,
ALEXANDRIA TKOAB. 281
and adorned the city, but altered its name, calling it in honour of " the
man of Macedonia (if we may make this application of a phrase which
" ^
Holy Writ^ has associated with the place), Alexandria Troas. This
fiame was retained ever afterwards. When the Romans began their east,
ern wars, the Greeks of Troas espoused their cause, and were thence
forward regarded with favour at Rome. But this willingness to recom-
pense useful service was combined with other feelings, half-poetical, half-
political, which about this time took possession of the mind of the Romans
They fancied they saw a primeval Rome on the Asiatic shore. The story
of JSneas in Virgil, who relates in twelve books how the glory of Troy
was transferred to Italy,-' the warning of Horace, who admonishes his
fellow-citizens that their greatness was gone if they rebuilt the ancient
walls/ reveal to us the fancies of the past and the future, which were
popular at Rome. Alexandria Troas was a recollection of the city of
Priam, and a prophecy of the city of Constantine. The Romans regarded
it in its best days as a " New Troy :
" ^ and the Turks even now call its
ruins " Old Constantinople." ^ It is said that Julius Caesar, in his dreams
of a monarchy which should embrace the East and the West, turned his
eyes to this city as his intended capital ' and there is no doubt that Con- ;
6 Ococ TToTid ttMov avruv irpovvorjoe, ^TjTiuaag, ajia koI 'AM^avSpov .... ^i?i.a7J^avcpog
C/V, Kai TTj^ TTpdg rovg 'ITuLclg cvyyeveiag yvupLfiurara t;\;cjv TeK/j,7]piaf ene^duadij npog r^v
kvepyeaiav veaviKug. New Ilium, however, gradually sank into insignificance,
k. t. A.
and Alexandria Troas remained as the representative of the Roman partiality for the
Troad.
6 Eski-Stamboul.
7 " Quin etiam varia fama percrebruit, migraturum Alexandriam vel Iliiim, transla-
tissimul opibus imperii, exhaustaque Italia delectibus, et procuratione Urbis amicia
permissa." Suet. Cses. 79.
8 Gibbon, ch. xvii. He adds that, " though the undertaking was soon relinquished,
the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers attracted the notice of all who sailed
through the Hellespont." The authorities are Zosimus, Sozomen, Theophaneg, Nice
phorus Callistus, and Zonaras. Thp. references are in Gibbon's note.
:
utmost growth as a city of the Komans. The great aqueduct was not
yet built, by which Herodes Atticus brought water from the fountains of
Ida, and the piers of which are still standing.^ The enclosure of the
walls, extending above a mile from east to west, and near a mile from
north to south, may represent the limits of the city in the age of Claudius.^
The ancient harbour,^ even yet distinctly traceable, and not without a
certain desolate beauty, when it is the foreground of a picture with the
hills of Imbros and the higher peak of Samothrace in the distance,^ is
an object of greater interest than the aqueduct and the walls. All fur-
^ Ntiy 6^ Koi 'Fujuacov unoLKtav SedeKTai. Strabo. Troas Antigonia dicta, nunc
Alexandria, colonia Romana. Plin v. 30. The full name on coins of the Antouines is,
of the sea, Tenedos, Lemnos, and, in clear weather, Mount Athos, 28 leagues distant."
P. 157.
The author of Eothen was much struck by the appearance of Samothrace seen
6
aloft over Imbros, when he recollected how Jupiter is described in the Iliad aa
watching from thence the scene of action before Troy. *'Now I knew," he says, "that
Homer had passed along here, that this vision of Samothrace overtowcring the nearer
island was common to him and to me." P. 64. The same train oi" thought iay b
extended to our present subject, and we may find a sacred pleasure in looking at any
view which has been common to St. Paul and to us.
Acts xvi. XX. 2 Cor. ii. 2 Tim. iv.
ALEXANDRIA TEOAS. 283
HARBOUR OP TROAS.*
When St. Paul's eyes were turned towards the West, he saw the vievi
which is here delineated. And what were the thoughts in his mind whei
he looked towards Europe across the JEgean ? Though ignorant of the
precise nature of the supernatural intimations which had guided his recent
journey, we are led irresistibly to think that he associated his future work
with the distant prospect of the Macedonian hills. We are reminded of
another journey, when the Prophetic Spirit gave him partial revelations
on his departure from Corinth, and on his way to Jerusalem. " After I
have been there I must also see Rome ^ I have no more place in these
parts 3
I know not what shall befall me, save that the Holy Ghost wit-
^
nesseth that bonds and afflictions abide me."
Such thoughts, it may be, had been in the Apostle's mind at Troas,
when the sun set behind Athos and Samothrace,^ and the shadows fell on
Ida and settled dark on Tenedos and the deep. With the view of the
distant land of Macedonia imprinted on his memory, and the thought of
Europe's miserable heathenism deep in his heart, he was prepared, like
Peter at Joppa,^ to receive the full meaning of the voice which spoke to
him In the visions of the night, a form appeared to come
in a dream.
and stand by him ' and he recognized in the supernatural visitant " a
;
1 Engraved from a drawing by the Rev. G. Weston. The view is towards the N.W.,
and includes Tenedos and Imbros, and possibly Samothrace.
" Acts xix. 21.
3 Rom. XV. 23. It will be remembered that the Epistle to the Romans was written
Athos and Samothrace are the highest points in this part of the Mgesrn. They
5
are the conspicuous points from the summit of Ida, along with Imbros, which is nearer,
(Walpole's Memoirs, p. 122.) See the notes at the beginning of the next Chapter.
" Mount Athos is plainly visible from the Asiatic coast at sunset, but not at othei
times. Its distance hence is about 80 miles. Reflecting the red rays of the sun, i1
appears from that coast like a huge mass of burnished gold. Mr. Turner, being . . .
off the N. W. end of Mytilen (Lesbos) 22d June, 1814, says, The evening being clear, '
we plainly saw the immense Mount Athos, which appeared in the form of an equi-
lateral triangle.' " Sailing Directory, p. 150. In the same page a sketch is given Df
Mount Athos, N. by W. M W., 45 miles.
See the remarks on St. Peter's vision, p. 92. See also p. 104, n. 1 ; and p. 207.
' '4i7)o 'MaKFdfjv Ti^. Acts xvi. 9.
man of Macedonia," ^ who came to plead the spuitual wants of his com*
try. It was the voice of the sick inquiring for a physician, of the ignor-
ant seeking for wisdom, the voice which ever since has been calling on
the Church to extend the Gospel to Heathendom,
" Come over ani
Help us."
Yirgil has described an evening ^ and a sunrise ^ on this coast, before
and after an eventful night. That night was indeed eventful in which St.
and (to uso the language of a more sacred poetry than that which has
made these coasts illustrious) ' " He brought the wind out of his trea-
suries, and by His power He brought in the south wind," ^ and prospered
the voyage of His servants.
' Paul may have known, by his dress, or by his words, or by an immediate intui-
St.
tion, thathe was " a man of Macedonia." Grotius suggests the notion of a representa-
tive or guardian angel of Macedonia angelus Macedoniam curans ; as the " prince
of Persia," &c., in Dan. x.
' Yertitur interea coelum, et ruit Oceano nox,
but the simultaneous transition (as it has been well expressed) from the historical to the
autoptical style, as shown by the fuller enumeration of details. We shall return to
this subject again, when we come to the point where St. Luke parts from St. Paul at
Philippi meantime we may remark that it is highly probable that they had already
:
' The classical reader will remember that the throne of Neptune in Homer, wlience
he looks over Ida and the scene of the Trojan war, is on the peak of Samothrace (II,
tm. 10-14), and his cave deep under the water between Imbros and Tenedos (II. xni
32-35).
8 Ps. cxxxv. 7. Ixxviii. 26. For arguments to prove that the wind was literally a
$eMth wind in this case, see the beginning of the next Chapter.
" -
CHAPTER IX.
HpSffeaxe ry TpodSi elra kKeWev Karaxdel^ eirl Trjv NeaTro/ltv, Std ^iTuttttuv trapo^
Sevev MaKedoviav. Martyrium S, Ignatii.
"La religion du Christ ne pouvait demeurer plus long temps circonscrite dani
I'Orient ; bien qu'elle j eut pris naissance, son avenir etait alUeurs. Deja I'OccidenI
exer(jait sur les destinees du monde cette influence qui des-lors a toujours grandi, en
Borte que le Christianisme devait se faire Europeen, pour devenir universel." Rilliei
on the Philippians.
The weather itself was propitious to the voyage from Asia to Europe. It
is evident that Paul and his companions sailed from Troas with a fair
wind. On a later occasion we are told that five days were spent on the
passage from Philippi to Troas. ^ On the present occasion the same voyage,
in the opposite direction, was made in two. If we attend to St. Luke's
technical expression,'^ which literally means that they " sailed before the
wind," and take into account that the passage to the west, between Tene-
dos and Lemnos, is attended with some risk,^ we may infer that the wind
1 Compare Acts xvi. 11, 12, with xx. 6. For the expression, " sailed from Philippi
(XX. 6),and the relation of Philippi with its harbour, Neapolis, see below, p. 286, n. 10.
' It occurs again in Acts xxi. 1, evidently in the same sense.
'Ev6v6po/j,Eu.
3 " All ships should pass to the eastward of Tenedos Ships that go to the
westward in calms may drift on the shoals of Lemnos, and the S. E. end of that island
being very low is not seen above nine miles off. .... It is also to be recollected, that
very dangerous shoals extend from the N. W. an*d W. ends of Tenedos." Purdy's
Sailing Directory, pp. 158, 189. See again under Tenedos, p. 157, and under Lemnos,
p. 153; also p. 160. Captain Stewart says (p. 63) "To work up to the
:
Dardanelles,
I prefer going inside of Tenedos .... you can go by your lead, and during light
winds, you may
anchor any where. If you go outside of Tenedos, and it falls calm,
the current sets you toward? the shoal off Lemnos." [The writer has heard this and
what follows confirmed by those who have had practical experience in the merchant
service in the Levant.]
286 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
blew from tlie southward.^ The southerly wmds in this part of tha
Archipelago do not usually last long, but they often blow with consider-
able force. Sometimes they are sufficiently strong to counteract the
current which sets to the southward from the mouth of the Dardanelles,'^
However this might be on the day when St. Paul passed over these
waters, the vessel in which he sailed would soon cleave her way through
^he strait between Tenedos and the main, past the Dardanelles, and
near the eastern shore of Imbros. On rounding the northern end of this
island, they would open Samothrace, which had hitherto appeared as a
higher and more distant summit over the lower mountains of Imbros.-
The distance between the two islands is about twelve miles.^ Leavino'
o
Imbros, and bearing now a little to the west, and having the wind still
(as our sailors say) two or three points abaft the beam, the helmsman
steered for Samothrace and, under the shelter of its high shore, they
;
creased or retarded according to the winds. In lying at Tenedos, near the north of the
Dardanelles, I have observed a strong southerly wind entirely stop it ; but it came
strong to the southward the moment the gale from that point ceased." Captain Stew-
art, ib. p. 02. For the winds, see pp. 63 and 163.
3 The island Imbro is separated from Samothraki by a channel twelve miles in
breadth. It is much longer and larger, but not so high as that island." Purdy, p. 162.
4 See the preceding note. ^ Acts xvi. 11.
6 " Samothraki is the highest land in the Archipelago, except Candia and Mount
Athos." Purdy, p. 152.
' From the British Museum.
8 An evening view has been quoted before (p. 283, n. 5). The following is a morn
Ing view. " A^ov. 26, 1828, 8 a. m. Morning beautifully clear. Lemnos just opening.
Mount Athos was at first taken for an island about five leagues distant, the outlini
and shades appearing so perfectly distinct, though nearly fifty miles ofZ The base oi
VOYAGE BY SAMOTHRACE TO NEAPOLIS. 287
ancestors in the same seas. It was the " Monte Santo," on which tho
Greek mariner looked with awe, as he gazed on it in the distant horizon^
or came to anchor under the shelter of its coast. It was the sanctuary of
an ancient superstition, which was widely spread over the neighbouring
continents, and the history of which was vainly investigated by Greek and
Roman writers.*^ If St. Paul had staid here even a few days, we might
be justified in saying something of the " Cabiri but we have no reason
to suppose that he even landed on the island. At present it possesses no
good harbour, though many places of safe anchorage : ^ and if the wind
was from the southward, there would be smooth water anywhere on the
north shore. The island was, doubtless, better supplied with artificial
Oecame clear again. It is immensely high and, as there is no other mountain like it
;
to the northward of NegTopont, it is an excellent guide for this part of the coast,"
Purdy, p. 150.
See the account of Mount Athos (Monte Santo) in Curzon's Monasteries of the
1
Levant, Pt. iv., and the view, p. 327. In his sail from the Dardanelles to the moun-
tain, the breeze, the shelter and smooth water on the shore of Lemnos, &c., there
are points of resemblance with St. Paul's voyage. For another account of Mount
Athos, see the second volume of Urquhart's Spirit of the East.
* For a mass of references to those who have written concerning
Cybele and the
Cabiri, and the Samothracian mysteries, see Hermann's Lehrbuoh der gottesdien^tlichen
Alterthumer der Griechen, 65 (Gott. 1846).
3 See Purdy, p. 152.
before the Peloponnesian war, to the mines of Scapte Hyle, and the exile of Tliucydides
See Grote's Greece, ch. xxvi., xlvii., &c.
6 Liv. xlv. 6.
288 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
which the traveller reached on entering this " part of Macedonia," and a
city of no little importance as a Boman military " colony." ^
ch. xii. and the beginning of ch. xiii. For the mention of the two paved roads (which
are, in fact, parts of the Via Egnatia), see the extracts quoted below, p. 289, n. 1.
c A singular mistake is made by Hoog (De Coetus Christianorum Philippensis Con-
ditione prima3va. Lug. Bat. 1825), who says that t?iis Neapolis was called Parthenopd
and erroneously quotes Cellarius.
'
Acts xvi. 12.
8 For the meaning of npuTT) TroXig and of KoXuvin, see p. 290, &c.
9 This is the Mount Symbolum mentioned by Dio Cassius in his account of the battle
See Leake, pp. 214-225.
Hence it was unnecessary for Meyer to deride Olshausen's remark, that Philippi
was the first city" in Macedonia visited by the Apostle, because Neapolis was ita
ftai'bour. Olshausen was quite right. The distance of Neapolis from Philippi is only
PHILIPPI. 280
the ridge is begun immediately from tlie town, through a defile formed
by some precipices almost close upon the sea. When the higher ground
more distant and farther to the right, the towering summit of Athos.'
When the descent on the opposite side begins and the sea is lost to view,
another prospect succeeds, less extensive, but not less worthy of our no*
pearance is either exuberantly green, for its fertility has been always
famous, 3 or cold and dreary, for the streams which water it are often
diffused into marshes,'' according to the season when we visit this corner
of Macedonia j whether it be when the snows are white and chill on the
Bummits of the Thracian Haemus,^ or when the roses, of which Theophras-
tus and Pliny speak, are displaying their bloom on the warmer slopes of
the Pangsean hills.''
twice as great as that from the Piraeus to Athens, not much greater than that from
Cenchreas to Corinth, and less than that from Seleucia to Antioch, or from Ostia tc
Rome.
1 We may quote here two passages from Dr. Clarke, one describing this approach to
Keapolis from the neighbourhood, the other his departure in the direction of Constan-
tinople. "
Ascending the mountainous boundary of the plain on its north-eastern side by
a broad ancient paved way, we had not daylight enough to enjoy the fine prospect of
the sea and the town of Cavallo upon a promontory. At some distance lies the isle ot
Thasos, now called Tasso. It was indistinctly discerned by us but every other object, ;
excepting the town, began to disappear as we descended toward Cavallo." Ch. xii
" Upon quitting the town, we ascended a part of Mount Pangaeus by a paved road, and
had a fine view of the bay of Neapolis. The top of the hill, towards the left, was cov-
ered with ruined walls, and with the ancient aqueduct, which here crosses the road.
From hence we descended by a paved road as before . the isle of Thasos being in
. .
view towards the S. E. Looking to the E., we saw the high top of Samothrace, which
makes such a conspicuous figure from the plains of Troy. To the S., towering above
& region of clouds, appeared the loftier summit of Mount Athos." Ch. xiii.
^ See the very full descriptions of the plain of Berres, in the various parts of its ei-
Virgil's " Biferi rosaria Passti "] and in Greece, near Philippi. " Pangseus mons in
vicino fert," he continues, " numerosis toliis ac parvis ; unde accol8& transferentes coa-
Berunt, ipsaque plantatione proficiunt." Plin. H. N. xxi. 10. See Theoph. Hist. vL 6.
gion around is eloquent of the history of this battle. Among the mountains
on the right was the difficult path by which the republican army pene*
trated into Macedonia ; ^ on some part of the very ridge on which we
Btand were the camps of Brutus and Cassius ;
^ the stream before us is
the riyer which passed in front of them ;
^ below us, " upon the left hand
heartened before the final struggle.^ The city of Philippi was itself a
' See Plutarch's Life of Brutus, with Mr. Long's notes, and Leake, p. 215.
* This is the Mount Symbolum of Dio Cassius. The republicans were so placed aa
to be in communication with the sea. The triremes were at Neapolis.
3 The Gangas or Gangites. Leake, p. 217.
< Julius Casar, Act v. sc. i. The topography of Shakspere is perfectly accurate. la
tiiis passage Octavius and Antony are looking at the field from the opposite side.
6 The battle took placo in autumn, when the plain would probably be inundated,
city in its geographical relation to St. Paul's journey ; not the first politically
tiie first
("chief city," Eng. Vers.), either of Macedonia or a part of it. The chief city of the
province was Thessalonica ; and, even if we suppose the subdivisions of Macedonia
Prima, Secunda, to have sulssisted at this time, the chief city of Macedonia Prima
was not Philippi, but Araphipolis. See Wieseler'a discussion of the subject.
See above, p. 171. i See
pp. 281, 2.
"greeks" and barbarians."
COIN OF PHILIPPI.
privileges of the place as a Roman colony, and with his own privileges ai
and those who were not citizens. When the Greeks spoke of the inhabi-
tants of the world, they divided them into " Greeks" and Barbarians,"^
according as the language in which poets and philosophers had written
was native to them or foreign. Among the Romans the phrase was dif-
ferent. The classes into which they divided mankind consisted of those
who were politically " Romans," ^ and those who had no link (except that
of subjection) with the city of Rome. The technical words were Gives and
Feregrini,'^ citizens" and "strangers." The inhabitants of Italy were
" citizens ;" the inhabitants of all other parts of the empire (until Cara-
calla extended to the provinces ^ the same privileges which Julius Caesar
J From the British Museum.
' Thus Paul, in writing his Greek epistles, uses this distinction. Rom. i. 14.
St.
Col. iii. Hence also, Acts xxviii. 2, 4. 1 Cor. xiv. 11.
11.
3 The word " Roman " is always used politically in the New Testament. John 3d.
48. Acts xvi. xxii. xxiii. xxviii.
" Die Eiuwohner der Provinzen waren entweder Romische Burger oder Latinen
*
Oder Peregrinen. Erstere bestanden theils aus den Biirgern der Municipien u. Colonien.
theils ausden Provinzialen, die einzeln die Civitat erhalten hatten. Sie hatten mil
den Italikern die gewohnlichen Biirgerrechte gemein, das Connubium, Commercium,
den Scnutz gegen Leibestrafen vor formlichen Urtheils-spruch, und die Provocatiou
an den Kaiser wider Strafsentenzen des Magistrats." Walther's Geschichte des Rom,
Rechts. Die Provinzen unter den Kaisern. p. 329 (ed. 1840), See Joseph. A. si 7. 10
11 19.
5 See Milman's Gibbon. I p. 281 and the note.
292 THE LIFE Airo EPISTLES OF ST. rATJL.
the Dispersion while those Strangers who, at various times, and for vari
;
ous reasons, had received the gift of citizenship, were in the condition of
political Proselytes. Such were Paul and Silas,'' in their relation to the
the most important of which were exemption from scourging, and freedom
from arrest, except in extreme cases ; and in all cases the right of appeal
what was called a coloma. A Roman colony was very different from any-
thing which we usually intend by the term. It was no mere mercantile
I
By the Julia Lex de Civitate (b. c. 90), supplemented by other laws.
* We can hardly help inferring, from the narrative of what happened at Philippic
that Silas was a Roman citizen as well as St. Paul. As to the mode in which he ob-
tained the citizenship, we are more ignorant than in the case of St. Paul himself,
whose father was a citizen (Acts xxii. 28). All that we are able to say on this subject
has been given before, pp. 45, 46.
3 Two of these privileges will come more particularly before us, when wo reach
the narrative of St. Paul's arrest at Jerusalem. To the extract given above from
Walther, add the following :
" Korperliche Ziichtigungen waren unter der Republik
nicht gegen Biirger, und auch Gegen Freie
spater nur an geringen Leuten erlaubt.
wurde dazu der Stock, gegen Knechte die schimpflichere Geissel gebraucht." P. 848.
Thus it appears that Paul and Silas were treated with a cruelty which was only justi-
flable in the case of a slave, and was not usually allowed in the case of any freeman.
From pp. 883-885, it would seem, that an accused citizen could only be imprisoned
before trial for a very heinous offence, or when evidently guilty. Bail was generally
allowed, or retention in a magistrate's house was held sufiScient.
* The privilege of a colonia was transplanted citizenship, that of a municipium wa*
rewarding veterans who had served in the wars, and for establishing
freedmen and other ItaUans whom it was desirable to remove to a distance
,The colonists went out with all the pride of Roman citizens, to represent
and reproduce the city in the midst of an alien population. They pro-
ceeded to their destination like an army with its standards ;
^ and the
limits of the new city were marked out by the plough. Their names were
still enrolled in one of the Roman tribes. Every traveller who passed
through a colonia saw there the insignia of Rome. He heard the Latin
language, and was amenable, in the strictest sense, to the Roman law.
The coinage of the city, even if it were in a Greek province, had Latin
inscriptions.^ Cyprian tells us that in his own episcopal city, which once
had been Rome's greatest enemy, the Laws of the XII Tables were in-
See the standards on one of the coins of Antioch in Pisidia, p. 170. The wolf,
3
with Romulus and Remus, which will be observed on the other coin, was common on
colonial money. Philippi was in the strictest sense a military colony, formed by the
sstablishment of a cohors prcetoria emerita. Plin. H. N. iv. 18 ;
Eckhel, n. 75.
^ This has been noticed before, p. 170. Compare the coin of Philippi with that <^
decim tabulis, et publice fere prsefixo jura praescripta sint, inter leges ipsas delinquitur;
mter jura peccatur." De Grat. Dei. 10.
6 Philippi had the Jus Italicum, like Alexandria Troas. This is explained abova
p. 282.
294 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
gov('<mor of the province. Their affairs were regulated by their own magiff
trates. These officers were named Duumviri; and they took a pride in calling
mately coalesced into one, like the Patricians and Plebeians. Instances of
this state of things might be given from Corinth and Carthage, and from
the colonies of Spain and Gaul ; and we have no reason to suppose that
Philippi was different from the rest.
acKEvaGavrtg, rj roizovg TclareZg, <p6po)v dtKrjv, irpoGevxag ravrag sKaXovv koI r]aav
ulv TO iraTiaidv Tvpoaevxcjv tottol tv re rotg 'lovdaioig e^u noleug, nal iv roZf
I.a/LiapeLTaig. A Proseucha may
be considered as a place of prayer, as opposed to a
synagogue, or a house of prayer. It appears, however, that the words were more or
less convertible, and Grotius and Yitringa consider them nearly equivalent. Josephua
(Yit. 54) describes a Proseucha as fieyigrov otKijfia ttoXvv bx^ov iipide^aadac 6vvd-
fievov and Philo (Leg. ad Cai. p. 1011) mentions, under the same denomination,
:
buildings at Alexandria, which were so strong that it was difficult to destroy them.
Probably, as Winer says, it was the usual name of the meeting-place of Jewish congre-
gations in Greek cities.
Other passages in ancient writers, which bear upon the subject, are alluded to in the
following extract from Biscoe " The seashore was esteemed by the Jews a place most
:
pure, and therefore proper to offer up their prayers and thanksgivings to Almighty
God. Philo tells us that the Jews of Alexandria, when Flaccus the governor of Egypt,
who had been their great enemy, was arrested by order of the Emperor Cains, not
being able to assemble at their synagogues, which had been taken from them, crowded
out at tbe gates of the city early in the morning, went to the neighboviring shores,
and standing in a most pure place, with one accord lifted up their voices in praising
God, (In Flac. p. 982, n.) Tertullian says, that the Jews in his time, when they kept
their great fast, left their synagogues, and on every shore sent forth their prayers to
heaven (De Jejun, c. IG) and in another place, among the ceremonies used by the
:
Jews, mentions orntiones littorales the prayers they made upon the shores (Adv. Nat.
i. 13). And long before TertuHian's time there was a decree made at Halicarnassu&
in favour of the Jews, which, among other privileges, allows them to say tbeir prayecs
icar the shore, according to the custom of their country. (Jos. A. xiv. 10 -23.) It ia
LTDIA. 29^
^
dom from iuterruption, this place of prayer was outside tlie gate ;
Macedon,3 and which, in the great battle of the Komans, had been polr
the province of AsiaJ The business which brought her to Philippi waa
connected with the dyeing trade, which had flourished from a very early
period, as we learn from Homer,^ in the neighbourhood of Thyatira, and is
permanently commemorated in inscriptions which relate to the " guild of
dyers " in that city, and incidentally give a singular confirmation of the
veracity of St. Luke in his casual allusions.^
hence abundantly evident, that it was common with the Jews to choose the shore as a
place highly fitting to offer up their prayers." P. 251. He adds that the words in
Acts xvi. 13 "may signify nothing more than that the Jews of Philippi were wont to
go and offer up their prayers at a certain place by the river side, as other Jews, who
lived near the sea, were accustomed to do upon the sea-shore.'' See Acts xxi. 5.
1 Tug -KpoGEvxag TcoLeladau npog ry -QaTidccy, Kara to TtaTpiov edog. Joseph. Ant.
xiv. 10, 23.
^ Both Meyer and De Wette made a mistake here in saying that the river was the
Strymon. The nearest point on the Strymon was many miles distant. This mistake
is the more marked when we find that nvlrig, and not Tro/lewf, is probably the right
reading. No one would describe the Strymon as a stream outside the gate of PhilippL
"We may add that the mention of the gate is an instance of St. Luke's autoptical style
in this part of the narrative. It is possible that the Jews worshipped outside the gate
at Philippi, because the people would not allow them to worship within. Compare
what Juvenal says of the Jews by the fountain outside the Porta Capena at Rome
(iii. 11).
3 Crenides was the ancient name. 4 See Plutarch's Brutus, and Appian.
Talg GvveTidovaaig yvvat^iv. Acts xvi. 13. ^ 2ej3ofj,Evii rbv Qeov. Acts xvi. 14.
7 See Rev. i. 11. s n. iv. 141.
8 Several of the inscriptions will be found in Boeckh. Some were first published by
Spon and ^'heler. We may observe that the communication at this period between
Thyatira and Philippi was very easy, either directly from the harbour of Pergamus, or
by the road mentioned in the last 'chapter, which led through Adramyttium to Troas.
At least this is the first historical account of the preaching of an apostle iu
Europe. The traditions concerning St. Peter rest on no real proof. We
do not hera
inquire into the knowledge of Christianity which may have spread, even to Borne,
through those who returned from Pentecost (Acts ii.), or those who were dispersed
III Stephen's persecution (Acts viii.), or other travellers from Syria to the Wcfit.
296 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUli.
Lydia, being convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, and having made
a profession of her faith, was forthwith baptized. The place of her bap-
tism was doubtless the stream which flowed by the proseucha. The
waters of Europe were " sanctified to the mystical washing away of sin."
With the baptism of Lydia that of her "household" was associated.
Whether we are to understand by this term her children, her slaves, or
that Lydia was listening to conversation rather than preaching. The whole narrative
gives us the impression of the utmost modesty and simplicity in Lydia's character.
Another point should he noticed, which exemplifies St. Luke's abnegtion of self, and
harmonizes with the rest of the Acts viz. that, after saying ; spake" (v. 13),
he sinks his own person, and says that Lydia took heed " to what was spoken by
Paul " (v. 14). Paul was the chief speaker. The phrase and the inference are the
same at Antiodi in Pisidia (Acts xiii. 45), when Barnabas was with St. Paul. See p.
179, n. 1.
4 V. 14.
5 Meyer thinks they were female assistants in the business connected with her trade.
It is well known one of the passages often adduced in the controversy con.
that this is
cerning infant baptism. We need not urge this view of it for belief that infant bap :
tism is " most agreeable with the institution of Christ" does not rest on this text.
6 1 Cor. i. 11. 7 1 Cor. i. IG. xvi. 15. Rom. xvi. 5. Compare Philem. 2
Hob. xiii. 2. 1 Tim. v. 10, &c. Rom. xvi. 23, &c.
MACEDONIA. 297
into a city, they were to seek out " those who wei^e w;j)rtliy," and with
fhem to abide. The search at Philippi was not difficult. Lydia voianta
rily presented herself to her spiritual benefactors, and said to them,
earnestly and humbly, that, " since they had regarded her as a belieyeJ
on the Lord," her house should be their home. She admitted of no refusal
^
to her request, and their peace was on that house."
Thus the Gospel had obtained a home in Europe. It is true that the
family with whom the Apostles lodged was Asiatic rather than European ;
John,3 than to that of Philippi, which received the letter of St. Paul.
But still the doctrine and practice of Christianity were estabhshed in
Europe ; and nothing could be more calm and tranquil than its first begin
nings on the shore of that continent, which it has long overspread. The
scenes by the river-side, and in the house of Lydia, are beautiful prophe-
cies of the holy influence which women,'' elevated by Christianity to their
true position, and enabled by divine grace to wear "the ornament of a
meek and quiet spirit," have now for centuries exerted over domestic hap-
piness and the growth of piety and peace. If we wish to see this in a
forcible light, we may contrast the picture which is drawn for us by St.
Luke with another representation of women in the same neighbourhood
given by the heathen poets, who tell us of the frantic excitement of the
Edonian matrons, wandering, under the name of religion, with dishevelled
hair and violent cries, on the banks of the Strymon.
Thus far all was peaceful and hopeful in the work of preaching the
Gospel to Macedonia : the congregation met in the house or by the river-
side ;
souls were converted and instructed j and a Church, consisting both
of men and women, was gradually built up. This continued for " many
days." It was difficult to foresee the storm which was to overcast so fair
a prospect. A bitter persecution, however, was unexpectedly provoked :
and the Apostles were brought into coUisiou with heathen superstition in
one of its worst forms, and with the rough violence of the colonial
authorities. As show that the v/ork of divine grace is advanced by
if to
difficulties and discouragements, rather than by ease and prosperity, the
4 Observe the frequent mention of women in the salutations in St. PaaPs epistles,
and more particularly m
that to the Philippians. Rilliet, in his Commentary, makes a
iust remark on the peculiar importance of female agency in the then state of society ;
" L'organisation de la societe civile faisait des femmes un intermediaire necessaire poui
que la predication de I'Evangile parvint jusqu'aux personnes de leui* sexe^"
^ Hor. Od. n. vii. 27, &c.
and in different ages.'^ In the time of Jesus Christ and His Apostles,
we are justified in saying that their workings in one particular mode were
made peculiarly manifest.^ As it was in the life of our Great Master, so
other, that these unhappy were really possessed by evil spirits may be seen
sufferers
in a series of pamphlets (partly anonymous) published in London in 1737 and 1738.
For a candid statement of both views, see the article on " Demoniacs " in Dr. Kitto'a
Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature. Compare that on the word " Besessene," in Winer's
Real-Worterbuch and, above all. Professor Trench's profound remarks in his work on
;
coming in the flesh, and that immediately succeeding, it was the wreck and confusion
of men's spiritual life the sense of utter disharmony. ...... The whole
period was the hour and power of darkness of a darkness which then, immediately
;
before the dawn of a new day, was the thickest. It was exactly the crisis for such
Boul-maladies as these,' in which the spiritual and bodily should be thus strangely inter-
linked and it is nothing wonderful that they should have abounded at that time.''
;
P. 1G2. Neauder and Trench, however, both refer to modern missionary accounts oi
nomething like the same possession among heathen nations, and of their cessation oc
ConvPTsiou to Christianity.
DEMONS. 299
imagery and all its ministrations to poetry and art, left man powerless
against his passions, and only amused him while it helped him to be un-
holy. In the lively imagination of the Greeks, the whole visible and
invisible world was peopled with spiritual powers or dcemons.^ The same
terms were often used on this subject by Pagans and by Christians. But
in the language of the Pagan the dsenion might be either a beneficent or
malignant power ;
^ in the language of the Christian it always denoted
what was evil.^ When the Athenians said ^ that St. Paul was introducing
" new daemons " among them, they did not necessarily mean that he was
in league with evil spirits but when St. Paul told the Corinthians ^ that
;
^ For the classical use of the word daifiuv, Trench refers to a chapter in Creuzer's
Symbolik. See the note, p. 155.
' Compare, for instance, dui/xova di^iov (Callim. Hymn, vi.) with daifcova KaKov
(Horn. Od. XX. 64).
Thus Augustine says " Nos autem, sicut S. Scriptura loquitur, secundum quam
3 :
Christiani sumus, Angelas quidem partim honos, partim malos, nunquam vero bonoa
BcBTtiones legimus. Sed uMcunque illarum literarum hoc nomen positum reperitur,
sive da3mones sive d^monia dicantur, non nisi maligni significantur, spiritus." De Civ.
Dei, ix. 19. So Origen : To rQv daiiiovuv ovofia ov jxeaov earlv, ug rb ruv uvOpuiruv^
ev olg Tiv(^ juev ugteIol, riv^g de (pavXot eIglv ue\ 6' enl ruv (pavlav e^a tov
izaxvripov dufxarog dwa/ueug rdaGerat to ruv daLfiovuv ovojxa, 'Klavuvruv koL nepia-
vuvruv rovg dv66novg koI KadeXKovruv dTTo tov Qeov, k. t. A. For more exampTea
of the use in the Fathers, see Suicer's Thesaurus. Josephus takes the same view :
ydp Ka?.ovjj.eva dai^ovia, TavTa 6i TTovijpuv egtlv dv6p6ir(ov TvvevjuaTa, Tolg 0giv eigSvo-
utva Koi KTELvovTU Toijg (3o7}dELag fj,r/ TvyxdvovTag. B. J. vii. 6, 3, where he is speak-
ing of a plant alleged to cure those who are thus affected.
* Acts xvii. 18.
^ 1 Cor. X. 20.
It is very important to distinguish the word AidjSolog DbyH") from da'iiov oi
SaifiovLov (" daamon "). The former word is used, for instance, in Matt. xsv. 41. John
viii. Acts xiii. 10. 1 Pet. v. 8, &c. the latter in John vii. 20.
44. ; Luke x. 17. 1
Tim. Rev. ix. 20, also James iii. 15. For further remarks 3n
iv. 1. this subject sea
uelow on Acts xvii. 18,
300 THE LDE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PATJI^.
agency. ^
One elass of phenomena, affecting the mind as well as the body^
was more particularly referred to preternatural agency. These were the
prophetic states of mind, showing themselves in stated oracles or in
real possession ; how we may disentangle the one from the other how ;
far the supreme will of God made use of these prophetic powers and over-
ruled them to good ends ; such questions inevitably suggest themselves,
but we are not concerned to answer them here. It is enough to say that
we see no reason to blame the opinion of those writers, who believe that a
wicked spiritual agency was really exerted in the prophetic sanctuaries
and prophetic personages of the heathen world. The heathens themselves
attributed these phenomena to the agency of Apollo,^ the deity of Pythonic
spirits ; and such phenomena were of very frequent occurrence, and dis-
3 They were the who spoke with the mouth closed, and who were
eyyaaTplfivdoi.
called YivOuveg (the very word used here by St. Luke, Acts,jvi. 16). Tovg tyyacrpi-
fivdovg vvvi UvOuvag npoaayopevo/itvovg. Plut. de Def. Orac. p. 414. Sec Galen and
the Scholiast on Aristoph. Vcsp. 1014, as referred to by Wetstein. Augustine calls this
girl " ventriloqua focmina" (De Civ. Dei, ii. 23) but Walch thinks from her articulate
;
6 Many details on these subjects are brought together by Walch, in his Essays "De
Bervis Fatidicis," at the end of his Disscrtationes in Acta Apostolorum, Jena, 1766
The book is very Rcarce, and we have not had an opportunity of rradijiig these essayi
with care.
^ UxudioKT}. Acts xvL 16, as in xii. 13
THE DEMONIAC SLAVE. 301
with "a spirit of divination and she was the property of more than
one master, who kept her for the purpose of practising on the credulity of
the Philippians, and realised "much profit" in this way. "We all know
the kind of sacredness with which the ravings of common insanity are apt
to be invested by the ignorant ; and we can easily understand the noto-
riety which the gestures and words of this demoniac would obtain in Phi-
lippi.^ It was far from a matter of indifference, when she met the mem
oers of the Christian congregation on the road to the proseucha, and be-
gan to follow St. Paul, and to exclaim (either because the words she had
overheard mingled with her diseased imaginations, or because the evil
spirit in her was compelled^ to speak the truth): "These men are the
bondsmen of the Most High God, who are come to announce unto you the
way of salvation." This was continued for " several days," and the whole
city must soon have been familiar with her words. Paul was well aware
of this ;
and he could not bear the thought that the credit even of the
Gospel should be enhanced by such unholy means. Possibly one reason
why our Blessed Lord Himself forbade the demoniacs to make Him
known, was, that His Holy cause would be polluted by resting on such
evidence. And another of our Saviour's feelings must have found an
imitation in St. Paul's breast, that of deep compassion for the poor vic-
was grief and indignation, but the grief and indignation of an Apostle
may be the impulses of divine inspiration. He spoke, not in his own
name, but in that of Jesus Christ, and power from above attended his
words. The prophecy and command of Jesus concerning his Apostles
1 "Exovaa Trvev/j.a -KvOavog (like "Pythia mente incitata." Cic. de Div. ii. 87),
Some of the Uncial MSS. read nvev/ia izvOuva, which is adopted by Lachmann and
Tischendorf. The reading is immaterial to the meaning of the passage. Ilvduv is not
exactly synonymous with Apollo, hut rather, as it is explained in Suidas and Hesychius,
taiuovLov /xavTLKov. See the quotation in De Wette : Ta^- ts irvev/naTL nvduvog kvdov-
atuaag, koI (l)avTaGtav fiv^aeug irapsxo/^.evag ry tov daifioviov TTepi^opd tj^lov to
Ecojuevov TcapayopEvaai ' ol 6e ruv daifiovuv Karoxoi ecpaaicov, r?)v vlktjv MjjSoig nape-
aeadat.
^ See what Trench says on the demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes. We
find in the demoniac the sense of a misery in which he does not acquiesce, the deep
feeling of inward discord, of the true life utterly shattered, of an alien power which
has mastered him wholly, and now is cruelly lording over him, and ever drawing fur-
ther away from him in whom only any created intelligence can find rest and peace.
His state is, in the truest sense, " a possession another is ruling in the high places oi
ais soul, and has cast down the rightful lord from his seat and he knqws this an<I ; :
out of his consciousness of it there goes forth from him a cry for redemption, so gooc
aa ever a glimpse of hope is afforded, an unlooked-for Redeemer draws near " P. 15i*
802 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
were fulfilled : tliat "in His name they should cast out daemons.'^ It waa
as it had been at Jericho and by the sea of Gennesareth. The demoniac
at Philippi was restored " to her right mind.'' Her natural powers re-
were disturbing the colony, for nothing could have been more calm and
orderly than their worship and teaching at the house of Lydia, or in the
synagogue by the water side. In the other part of the indictment there
was a certain amount of truth. The letter f the Roman law, even under
the republic,^ was opposed to the introduction of foreign religions ; and
though exceptions were allowed, as in the case of the Jews themselves,,
yet the spirit of the law entirely condemned such changes in worship as
were likely to unsettle the minds of the citizens, or to produce any tumult-
uous uproar ;
^ and the advice given to Augustus, which both he and his
See above, p. 294, n. 1. The word arpaTTjydg is the usual Greek translation ot
4
prato". It is, however, often used generally for the supreme magistrates of Greek
towns. Wetstein tells us that the mayor in Messina was in his time still called stradigo.
^ 'lovdaloL vndpxovTEQ (v. 20), " being Jews to begin with," as Mr. Humphry very
well translates it. Compare 'lovdalog vivdpxcov, being born a Jew," in Gal. ii. 14, p
225.
c The word is similarly used Acts vi. 14. xxvi. 3. xxviii. 17.
'EOti.
"Quotlcs hoc patrum ajvorumque letate negotium est magistratibus datum, ut sacra
7
externa fieri vetarent, eacrificulos vatesque foro, circo, urbe prohiberent . omnem dis- .
part of the accusation, which was adroitly introduced, namely, that the
men were "Jews to begin with," will be fully apprehended, if we re-
member, not only that the Jews were generally hated, suspected, and
despised,^ but that they had lately been driven out of Rome in conse-
Thus we can enter into the feelings which caused the mob to rise
against Paul and Silas^^ and tempted the praetors to dispense with legal
formalities and consign the offenders to immediate punishment. The mere
loss of the slave's prophetic powers, so far as was generally known,
it
was enough to cause a violent agitation ; for mobs are always more fond
of excitement and wonder than of truth and holiness. The Philippians
had been willing to pay money for the demoniac's revelations, and now
strangers had come and deprived them of that which gratified their
superstitious curiosity. And when they learned, moreover, that these
strangers were Jews, and were breaking the laws of Rome, their discon-
tent became fanatical. It seems that the praetors had no time to hesitate,
if they would retain their popularity. The rough words were spoken :
Bee again Livy " Consules spoliari hominem et virgas expediri jussit
: and Dion.
Halic. Totg ftajSdovxoig iKslevaav rbv kadrird re nepiKara^^Tj^ai koi ralg ^d[36oi^ rd
:
oioua ^alvELv, quoted by Grotius. Some commentators suppose that the duumviri tore
oflFthe garments of Paul and Silas with their own hands but this supposition is unae ;
304 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PATJL.
*
Go, lidors :'
strip off their garments : let tker/i he scourged J' The orde^
was promptly obeyed, and the heavy blows descended. It is happy for
us that few modern countries know, by the example of a similar punish
ment, what the severity of a Roman scourging was. The Apostles received
^many stripes and when they were consigned to prison, bleeding and
faint from the rod, the jailor received a strict injunction " to keep them
safe." Well might St. Paul, when at Corinth, look back to this day of
cruelty, and remind the Thessalonians how he and Silas hg,d " suffered
The jailor fulfilled the directions of the magistrates with rigorous and
conscientious cruelty.'^ Kot content with placing the Apostles among the
other offenders against the law who were in custody at Philippi, he
thrust them into the inner prison," ^ and then forced their limbs, lacer-
ated as they were, and bleeding from the scourge, into a painful and con-
strained posture, by means of an instrument employed to confine and
torture the bodies of the worst malefactors.^ Though we are ignorant of
the exact relation of the outer and inner prisons,^ and of the connexion
of the jailor's " house " with both, we are not without very good notions
of the misery endured in the Koman places of captivity. We must pic-
of the prison " into which J eremiah was let down with cords, and where
cessary. It is quite a mistake to imagine that they rent their own garments, like the
high-priegt at Jerusalem.
1 1 Thess. ii. 2.
where the prisoners had light and fresh air (2) the inieriora, shut off by iron gaie
;
" he sank in the mire." ' They were pestilential cells, damp aed cold,
from which the light was excluded, and where the chains rusted on the
limbs of the prisoners. One such place may be seen to this day on
the slope of the Capitol at Rome.'^ It is known to the readers of Cicera
and Sallust as the place where certain notorious conspirators were exe-
and to show how far the cruelty of heathen persecution, which may be
said to have begun at Philippi, was afterwards carried in this peculiar
kind of torture, we may refer to the sufferings " which Origen endured
under an iron collar, and in the deepest recesses of the prison, when, for
many days, he was extended and stretched to the distance of four holes on
the rackP
A few hours had made a serious change from the quiet scene by the
water side to the interior of a stifling dungeon. But Paul and Silas had
learnt, in whatever state they were, therewith to be content." They
were even able to " rejoice " that they were " counted worthy to suffer
"
Master ; and if it seemed " a strange thing" that a work to which thej
had been beckoned by God should be arrested in its very beginning ;
yet
they had faith to believe that His arm would be revealed at the appointed
time. Joseph's feet, too, had been " hurt in the stocks," ^ and he became
a prince in Egypt. Daniel had been cast into the lions' den, and he
1 " Then took they Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah, the son of
Hammelech, which was in the court of the prison ; and they let down Jeremiah with
cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire so Jeremiah sunk in the ;
was EtKide ruler of Babylon. Thus Paul and Silas remembered with joj
the " Lord our Maker, who ^ Racked as they
giveth songs in th/> night P
nere with pain, sleepless and weary, they were heard " about midnight,^'
from the depth of their prison-house, "praying and singing hymns t<?
God." ^ What it was that they sang, we know not ; but the Psalms of
David have ever been dear to those who suffer ;
they have instructed both
Jew and Christian in the language of prayer and praise. And the psalms
abound in such sentences as these : " The Lord looketh down from His
sanctuary : out of heaven the Lord beholdeth the earth : that He might
hear the mournings of such as are in captivity, and deliver the children
appointed unto death." " 0 let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners
come before thee according to the greatness of thy power, preserve thou
:
those that are appointed to die." " The Lord helpeth them to right that
Buffer wrong : the Lord looseth men out of prison : the Lord helpeth
them that are fallen : the Lord careth for the righteous." ^ Such sounds
as these were new in a Roman dungeon. Whoever the other pi'Jsoners
might be, whether they were the victims of oppression, or were suffering the
punishment of guilt, debtors, slaves, robbers, or murderers, they listened
with surprise to the voices of those who filled the midnight of the prison
with sounds of cheerfulness and joy. Still the Apostles continued their
praises, and the prisoners listened.-* "They tliat sit in darkness, and in
the shadow of death : being fast bomid in misery and iron ; wlien they
cried unto the Lord in their trouble. He delivered them out of their
distress. For He brought them out of darkness, and out of the shadow
of death : and brake their bonds in sunder 0 that men would there'fore
praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth
for the children of men : for He hath broke the gates of brass, and
Bmitten the bars of iron in sunder." ^ When suddenly, as if in direct
answer to the prayer of His servants, an earthquake shook the very foun-
dations of the prison,^ the gates were broken, the bars smitten asunder,
and the bands of the prisoners loosed. Without striving to draw a line
between the natural and supernatural in this occurrence, and still less
W. 26.
were doubtless aware of the manner in which they had been brought in
and thrust into the dungeon),'^ and on the wonder they must have expe
who were in pain, and on the
rienced on hearing sounds of joy from those
awe which must have overpowered them when they felt the prison shaken
and the chains fall from their Kmbs and when to all this we add the ;
effect produced on their minds by all that happened on the following day,
and especially the fact that the jailor himself became a Christian ; we
can hardly avoid the conclusion that the hearts of many of those unhappy
bondsmen were prepared that night to receive the Gospel, that the tidings
of spiritual liberty came to those whom, but for the captivity of the
Apostles, it would never have reached, and that the jailor himself was
their evangelist and teacher.
The effect produced by that night on the jailor's own mind has been
" seeing the doors of the prison open, and supposing that the prisoners
were fled," aware that inevitable death awaited him,'' with the stern and
desperate resignation of a Roman official, he resolved that suicide was
better than disgrace, and drew his sword."
man to strike the blow.^ His messenger Titinius held "a Ro-
it to be
man's part " ^ to follow the stern example. Here Brutus bade adieu to
his friends, exclaiming, " Certainly we must fly, yet not with the feet, but
with the hands ;" ^ and many, whose names have never reached us, ended
their last struggle for the republic by self-inflicted death. Here, too, an-
other despairing man would have committed the same crime, had not his
hand been arrested by an Apostle's voice. Instead of a sudden and hope-
less death, the jailor received at the hands of his prisoner the gift both of
temporal and spiritual life.
The loud exclamation of St. Paul, " Do thyself no harm : for we are
8 " The majority of the proscribed who survived the battles of Philippi put an end
to their own lives, as they despaired of being pardoned." Niebulu-'s Lectures, ii. IIS
''S>^6vTiae r]l (puvy iiEydly 6. II. v. 28.
808 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
of the earthquake, the burst of his gratitude towards them as the pre-
servers of his life, and the consciousness that even in the darkness of
midnight they had seen his intention of suicide, all these mingling and
conflicting emotions made him feel that he was in the presence of a higher
power. He fell down before them, and brought them out, as men whom
he had deeply injured and insulted, to a place of greater freedom and
comfort ;
^ and then he asked them, with earnest anxiety, what he muat
do to bo saved. We see the Apostle here self-possessed in the earth-
quake, as afterwards in the storm at sea,^ able to overawe and control
those who were placed over him, and calmly turning the occasion to a
spiritual end. It is surely, however, a mistake to imagine that the jailor's
saved ? " ^ Their answer was that of faithful Apostles. They preached
" not themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord."^ " Believe, not in us, but
i*i the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt he saved; and not only thou, but the like
faith shal] bring salvation to all thy houseP From this last expression,
and the words which follow, we infer that the members of the jailor's
family had crowded round him and the Apostles.^ No time was lost in
making known to them " the word of the Lord." All thought of bodily
1 The word is eloTriid^aag, which, as well as dvaydyuv below, seems to imply that
the dungeon was subterraneous.
Either the outer prison or the space about the entrance to the jailor's dwelling, ii
Bcems to have taken place immediately on coming out of the prison (vv. 30-32) then ;
the baptism of the converts, and the washing of the Apostles' stripes (v. 33) and ;
Dually the going up into the house yelg rbv ohov), and the hospitable refreshment there
afforded. It docs not appear certain that they returned from the jailor's house into
the dungeon before they were taken out of custody (^"c ryg <}>vXaKrj<:. v. 40).
THE MAGISTRATES.
comfort and repose was postponed to the work of saving tlie soui. The
meaning of "faith in Jesus was explained, and the Gospel was preached
to the jailor's family at midnight, while the prisoners were silent around,
and the light was thrown on anxious faces and the dungeon-wall.
And now we have an instance of that sympathetic care, that inter*
change of temporal and spiritual service, which has ever attended the stepi
Df true Christianity. As it was in the miracles of our Lord and Saviour,
w^here the soul and the body were regarded together, so has it always
been in His Church. "In the same hour of the night" ^ the jailor took
the Apostles to the well or fountain of water which was within or
near the precincts of the prison, and there he washed their wounds, and
there also he and his household were baptized. He did what he could to
assuage the bodily pain of Paul and Silas, and they admitted him and his,
by the " laver of regeneration," to the spiritual citizenship of the king-
dom of God. The prisoners of the jailor were now become his guests.
His cruelty was changed into hospitality and love. " He took them up^
into his house," and, placing them in a posture of repose, set food before
to this world and the next. From being the ignorant slave of a heathen
magistracy he had become the religious head of a Christian family. A
change, also, in the same interval of time, had come over the minds of the
magistrates themselves. Either from reflecting that they had acted more
harshly than the case had warranted, or from hearing a more accurate
statement of facts, or through alarm caused by the earthquake, or through
that vague misgiving which sometimes, as in the case of Pilate and his wife,'
haunts the minds of those who have no distinct religious convictions, they
sent new orders in the morning to the jailor. The message conveyed by
the lictors was expressed in a somewhat contemptuous form, "Let those men
go J' 6 But the jailor received it with the utmost joy. He felt his infinite
1 TlapaTiafSibv avrovg ev eKetvy Ty topa ttj^ vvKrug. v 33. The word 7rapa2,aj3dv
implies a change of place, as again dvayaydi^ below.
' Tit. iii. 5.
V. 34. The word uvajaydv implies at least that the house was higher than tn
prison. See p. 308, n. 1.
* ILapedrjKev rpane^av. v. 34. The custom of Greek and Roman meals must be
borne in mind. Guests were placed on couches, and tables, with the dififerent coursei
of food, were brought and removed in succession.
5 Matt, xxvii. 19.
6 Or, as it might be translated, "Let those fellows go :-'
'Anolvaov Toi)g dvOpunovt
trpivOV^. V. 35.
510 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL
debt CI gratitude to the Apostles, not only for his preservation from a
violent death, but for the tidings they had given him of eternal life. He
would willingly have seen them freed from their bondage ; but he was de
pendent on the will of the magistrates, and could do nothing without their
sanction. When, therefore, the lictors brought the order, he went with
them ^ to announce the intelligence to the prisoners, and joyfully told them
tjo leave their dungeon and " go in peace."
But Paul, not from any fanatical love of braving the authorities, but
calmly looking to the ends of justice and the establishment of Christianity,
refused to accept his liberty without some public acknowledgement of the
wrong he had suffered. He now proclaimed a fact which had hitherto
been unknown, that he and Silas were Roman citizens. Two Koman
laws had been violated by the magistrates of the colony in the scourging
day before.*^ And this, too, with signal aggravations. They
inflicted the
were " uncondemned." There had been no form of trial, without which,
in the case of a citizen, even a slighter punishment would have been ille-
gal.3 And it had been done publicly." In the face of a colonial popu-
lation, an outrage had been committed on the majesty of the name in
which they boasted, and Rome had been insulted in her citizens. " No,"
said St. Paul ;
" they have oppressed the innocent and violated the law,
" How often," says Cicero, " has this exclamation, I am a Roman
citizen, brought aid and safety even among barbarians in the remotest
parts of the earth." The lictors returned to the pr^tors, and the praetors
were alarmed. They felt that they had committed an act which, if di-
vulged at Rome, would place them in the utmost jeopardy. They had
good reason to fear even for their authority in the colony ;
for the people
1 It is evident from v. 37 that they came into the prison with the jailor, or found
them in the jailor's house (p. 308, n. 6), for St. Paul spoke "to them" (npdg avroi)^) f
Romanus, judices cum interea nullus gemitus, nulla vox alia istius miseri inter dolo-
;
rem crepitumque piagarum audiebatur, nisi haic, Civis Romanus sum. Hac se com-
memoratione civitatis omnia verbera depulsurum, cruciatumque a corpore dejecturum
arbitrabatur." v. 02. Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum, scelus verberari, prope
parricidium necari." v. 66.
3 "Causa cognita multi possunt absolvi [compare Acts xxvi. 32], incognita quideni
nemo condemnari potest." Verr. i. 9. " Inauditi atque indefensi^ tanquam innocentes
perierant. Tac. H. i. 6. * V. 37.
" Ilia Vox et imploratio Civis Romanus sum, qiite sa?pe multis in ultimis tenii
opem inter barbaros et salutem tulit." Cic. Verr. v. 57
DEPARTURE FROM PHILIP PI. 311
religious influence over the other prisoners would have been gone. As
regards these prisoners, his influence over them was like the sway he
obtained over the crew in the sinking vessel.'^ It was so great, that not
one of them attempted to escape. And not only in the prison, but in the
whole town of Philippi, Christianity was placed on a high vantage-ground
by the Apostle's conduct that night. It now appeared that these perse-
cuted Jews were themselves sharers in the vaunted Roman privilege.
Those very laws had been violated in their treatment, which they them-
selves had been accused of violating. That no appeal was made against
this treatment, might be set down to the generous forbearance of the
Apostles. Their cause was now, for a time at least, under the protection of
the law, and they themselves were felt to have a claim on general sympathy
and respect.
They complied with the request of the magistrates. Yet, even in their
departure, theT were not unmindful of the dignity and self-possession which
ought always to be maintained by innocent men in a righteous cause.
They did not retire in any hasty or precipitate flight, but proceeded " from
the prison to the house of Lydia ^ and there they met the Christian
brethren, who were assembled to hear their farewell words of exhortation ;
and so they departed from the city. It was not, however, deemed suffi-
cient that this infant church at Philippi should be left alone with the mere
remembrance of words of exhortation. Two of the Apostolic company
remained behind : Timotheus, of whom the Philippians learned the
proof" that he honestly cared for their state, that he was truly like-
minded with St. Paul, serving him in the Gospel as a son serves his
father;"" and "Luke the Evangelist, whose praise is in the Gospel,''
though he never praises himself, or relates his own labours, and though
we only trace his movements in connexion with St. Paul by the change of
Vv. 38, 89. 2 ^(jtg xxvii. 3 Acts xvi. 40. * Phil. ii. 19-25
* In ciu xvii. t^e nairative is again in the third person ; and the pronoun is uot
812 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
changed again till we come to xx. 5. The modesty with v/hich St. Luke leaves out all
mention of his own labours need hardly be pointed out.
1 Acts xvii. 14. He is not mentioned in the journey to Thessalonica, nor in the
account of what happened there.
Acts XX. 4^6.
3 Observe, for instance, his mention of running before the wind, and staying foi the
night at Samothrace. Again he says that Philippi was the first city they came to, and
that it was a colony. He tells us that the place of prayer was outside the gate and
near a river-side. no such particularity in the account of what took place at
There is
history of the Church. His medical calling, or his zeal for Christianity^
or both combined (and the combination has ever been beneficial to the
cause of the Gospel), may account for his visits to the North of the Archi-
pelago i'* or St. Paul may himself have directed his movements, as ha
member the debt of gratitude which the Church owes to this EvangeMst,
not only as the historian of the Acts of the Apostles, but as an example
of long continued devotion to the truth, and of unshaken constancy to that
one Apostle, who said with sorrow, in his latest trial, that others had for-
by St. Paul and his companions are so well known, that we have no diffi-
culty in representing to the mind their position and their relation to the
jsurrounding country.
Macedonia, in its popular sense, may be described as a region bounded
by a great semicircle of mountains, beyond which the streams flow west-
ward to the Adriatic, or northward and eastward to the Danube and the
Euxine.' This mountain barrier sends down branches to the sea on the
1 The conjecture that Lucius of Cyrene (Acts xiii. 1) was the Evangelist, has been
mentioned above, p. 132, n. 3.
^ Compare the case of Democedes in Herodotus, who was established first in ^gina,
then in Athens, and finally in Samos. For an account of Greek physicians, see tha
Appendix to Becker's Charicles. Physicians at Rome were less highly esteemed, and
were frequently slaves. At a period even later than St. Luke, Galen speaks of tha
medical schools of Cos and Cnidus, of Rhodes and of Asia. The passage is quoted in
38 of the Third Part of Hermann's Lehrbuch der gr. Antiquitaten (1850).
3 1 Tim. i. 3. 2 Tim. iv. 9, 21. Tit. i. 5. iii. 12. See above, p. 284.
4 2 Tim. iv. 11. See the Christian Year : St. Luke's Day.
5 The Christian women at Philippi have been alluded to before. P 297. See espe-
and Rilliet's note. We cannot well doubt ihd^i presbyters also were
cially Phil. iv. 2, 3
appointed, as at Thessalonica. See below. Compare Phil. i. 1.
6 " The whole of Macedonia, and in particular the route from Bercea to Thessalonica
and Philippi, being so remarkably distinguished by St. Paul's sufferings and adven-
tures, becomes as a portion of Holy Land." Clarke's Travels, ch. xi.
The mountains on the north, under the names of Scomlus, Scordus, &c., are con-
nected with the Hsemus or Balkan. Those on the west run in a southerly direction,
und are continuous with the chain of P'.ndus.
"
flow near it into the Thermaic gulf. The other is the Strymon, which
brings the produce of the great inland level of Serres ^ by Lake Cercinus to
the sea at Amphipolis, and beyond which was Philippi, the mihtary out-
post that commemorated the successful conquests of Alexander's father.
Between the mouths of these two rivers a remarkable tract of country,
which is insular, rather than continental,^ projects into the Archipelago,
and divides itself into three points, on the furthest point of which Mount
Athos rises nearly into the region of perpetual snow."^ Part of St. Paul's
path between Philippi and Beroea lay across the neck of this peninsula
The whole of his route was over historical ground. At Philippi he was
close to the confines of Thracian barbarism, and on the spot where the
last battle was fought in defence of the republic. At Beroea he came
near the mountains, beyond which is the region of Classical Greece, and
close to the spot where the battle was fought which reduced Macedonia
to a province.^
If we wish to view Macedonia as a province, some modifications must
^ These are the mountains near the river Nestus, which, after the time of Philip,
was considered the boundary of Macedonia and Thrace.
' The natural "boundary between Macedonia and Thessaly is formed by the Cambu-
nian hills, running in an easterly direction from the central chain of Pindus. The
Cambunian range is vividly described in the following view from the " giddy height
of Olympus, which rises near the coast. " I seemed to stand perpendicularly over the
Bea, at the height of 10,000 feet. Salonica was quite distinguishable, lying North-
East. Larissa [in Thessaly] appeared under my very feet. The whole horizon from
North to South- West was occupied by mountains, hanging on, as it were, to Olymjpus.
This is the range that runs Westward along the North of Thessaly, ending in Pindus."
Urquhart's Spirit of the East, vol. i. p. 429.
3 'A^LOv evpv ^eovTog,
A^tov, oi KaT^kioTov vdup eTTLKidvarai air}. II. ii. 849.
< The Ilaliacmon, which flows near Beroea, is the most important of them.
5 This is the great inland plain at one extremity of which Philippi was situated, anU
which has been mentioned above (p. 289). Its principal town at present is Serres, the
residence of the governor of the whole district, and a place of considerable importance,
often mentioned by Cousinery, Leake, and other travellers.
8 The peninsula anciently called Chalcidice.
' The elevation of Mount Athos is between 4000 and 5000 feet. The writer haa
heard English sailors say that there is almost always snow on Athos and Olympus, and
that, though the land generally is high in this part of the -^gean, these mountains are
by most conspicuous.
far the
Pydna is within a few miles of Beroea, on the other side of the Haiiacmon.
EOMAK MACEDONIA. 315
cient exactness to the country on its first conquest by the Komans.'* The
rivers ah'eady alluded to, define the four districts into which it was divided.
Macedonia Prima was the region east of the Strymon, of which Amphi-
polls was the capital ^ Macedonia Secunda lay between the Strymon and
;
the Axius, and Thessalonica was its metropolis ; and the other two re-
gions were situated to the south towards Thessaly, and on the mountains
to the west."* This was the division adopted by Paulus ^milius after the
battle of Pydna. But the arrangement was only temporary. The whole
of Macedonia, along with some adjacent territories, was made one pro
vince,^ and centralised under the jurisdiction of a proconsul,^ who resided
at Thessalonica. This province included Thessaly,"^ and extended over
the mountain chain which had been the western boundary of ancient Ma-
cedonia, so as to embrace a sea-board of considerable length on the shore
of the Adriatic.^ The provincial limits, in this part of the empire, are
far more easily discriminated than those with which we have been lately
occupied (Ch. YIII.). Three provinces divided the whole surface which
1 From the British Museum. This coin has been selected in consequence of the sin-
gular union of Greek and Roman letters.was struck just before the
Probably it
subdivision, and the letters LEG commemorate the victory of some legion, which is
further symbolised by a hand holding a palm-branch. The Diana and the club appear
Bimilarly on the coins of Macedonia Prima, which are found in great numbers in
Wallachia and Transylvania a fact sufficiently accounted for by the mines which have
;
coKt The same speech informs us that he he^.d parts of Thrace alsa
31(5 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PATjL*.
extends from the basin of the Danube to Cape Matapan. All of them
are familiar to us in the writings of St. Paul. The extent of Macedonia
has just been defined. Its relations with the other provinces were as
follows. On the north-west it was contiguous to Illyricum,^ which \^ aa
spread down the shore of the Adriatic nearly to the same point to which
the Austrian territory now extends, fringing the Mahometan empire with
a Christian border.^ A hundred miles to the southward, at the Acrocer-
aunian promontory, it touched Achaicu, the boundary of which province
pan thence in an irregular line to the bay of Thermopylae and the north
of Euboea, including Epirus, and excluding Thessaly.^' Achaia and Ma-
cedonia were traversed many times by the Apostle ;
^ and he could say,
when he was hoping to travel to Kome, that he had preached the Gospel
''round about unto Illyricum."^
When we allude to Rome, and think of the relation of the City to the
provinces, we are inevitably reminded of the military roads and here, ;
across the breadth of Macedonia, was one of the greatest roads of the
Empire. It is evident that, after Constantinople was founded, a line of
republic, we find Cicero speaking, in one of his speeches, of " that military
3 Except in the western portion, the boundary nearly coincided with that of the
De Prov. Cons. ii. Compare the letters to Atticus, written on the journey from Romfl
to bis province " Nobis iter est in Asiam, maxime Cyzicum. Dat. xiv. Kal. Mai. dfl
:
Tarentino." iii. G. "Aut acccdemus in Epirum aut tarde per Candaviam ibimus,
Dat. prid. Kal. Mai. Brundisii." iii. 7. " Quum Dyrrachii essemus, duo nuntii. . . .
Pellai mihi prsesto fuit Phaetho. . . . Thcssalonicam a. d. x. Kal. Jun. vsnimus. Dat
iiii. KaL Quint. Tbessalomctt." iii. 8.
on the European side of the Hellespont had been part of the legacy of
King Attains/ and the simultaneous possession of Macedonia, Asia, and
Bithynia, with the prospect of further conquests in the East, made this
were what the Straits of Dover and Holyhead are now ; and even the
passage from Brundusium in Italy, to Dyrrhachium and Apollonia ^ ia
Macedonia, was only a tempestuous ferry, only one of those difficulties
of nature which the Romans would have overcome if they could, and
which the boldest of the Romans dared to defy.^ From Dyrrhachium and
Apollonia, the Via Egnatia, strictly so called, extended a distance of
five hundred miles, to the Hebrus, in Thrace."' Thessalonica was about
half way between these remote points,' and Philippi was the last ^ im-
portant town in the province of Macedonia. Our concern is only with
that part of the Yia Egnatia which lay between the two last-mentioned
cities.
The stations, as given by the Antonine and Jerusalem Itineraries and the Peutinger
Table, will be found in Cramer's Ancient Greece, v. i. pp. 81-84.
7 Tafel. Thus
Cicero, in the passage above quoted (De Prov Cons.), speaks of th
Thessalonicenses as " positi in gremio imperii nostri."
Bee above, p. 288, n. 10, and p. 290, n. 9
318 THE LIFE AI^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
thing to imply that the journey was rapid, we conclude (unless, indeed,
iheir recent sufferings made rapid travelling impossible) that Paul and
Silas rested one night at each of the intermediate places, and thus our
notice of their journey is divided into three parts.
From Philippi to Amphipolis, the Roman way passed across the plain
CO the north of Mount Pangaeus. A traveller, going direct from Neapolis,
to the mouth of the Strymon, might make his way through an opening in
the mountains ^ nearer the coast. This is the route by which Xerxes
brought his army,^ and by which modern journeys are usually made.^
But Philippi was not built in the time of the Persian "War, and now,
under the Turks, it is a ruined Under the Roman emperors, the
village.
position of this colony determined the direction of the road. The very
productiveness of the soil,^ and its liability to inundations, must have
^ The following is the form in which the distances are given in the Antonine Itine.
and Neapolis :PELLA. M. P. XXYHI.
rary, between Edessa THESSALONICA
M.P.XXYn. MELLISURGIN. M. P. XX. APOLLONIA. M. P. XVn. AMPHT-
POLL M. P. XXX. PHILIPPIS. M. P. XXXIIL NEAPOLL M. P. XIL (For Nea-
polis, see above.) In the other authorities there is a slight difference the Peutinger :
Table and the Jerusalem Itinerary give the distance between Thessalonica and Apollo-
nia as thirty-eight miles, and Mellisurgis is not mentioned. See "Wesseling. The
road, in the Peutinger Table, from Pella by Bercea into Thessaly will be mentioned
hereafter.
' This opening is the Pieric valley. See Leake, p. 180. "Though the modem
route from Cavalla to Orphano and Saloniki, leading by Pravista through the Pierio
valley along the southern side of Mount Pangseum, exactly in the line of that of
Xerxes, is the most direct, it does not coincide with the Roman road or the Via Egnatia^
which passed along the northern base of that mountain, probably for the sake of con-
necting both these important cities, the former of which was a Roman colony."
3 Herod, vii.
* Dr. Clarke and Cousin^ry both took this route. It is described in the Modem
Traveller and Murray's Handbook. Leake was at the western opening of the valley
when at Orphano.
5 From the British Museum. One coin bears the name of Claudius the other
;
belongs to the reign of Trajan, though it bears the name of Hadrian, who was Caesai
when Trajan was emperor.
"The plain is very fertile, and
<5
besides yielding abundant harveste of cotton,
wheat, baiiey, and maize, contains extensive pastures peopled with oxen, horses, and
AMPHIPOLIS. 319
caused this road to be carefully constructed ;^ for the surface of the plain,
which is intersected with multitudes of streams, is coverea with planta-
iion of cotton and fields of Indian corn,'^ and the villages are so numer*
ous that, when seen from the summits of the neighbouring mountains,
they appear to form one continued town.^ Not far from the coast, thi
Strymon spreads out into a lake as large as Windermere ;
^ and between
',he lower end of this lake and the inner reach of the Strymoiuc gulf,
sheep. No part of the land is neglected ; and the district, in its general appearance,
is not inferior to any part of Europe." p. 201.
1 See Leake.
' " Des plantes de coton, des rizieres immenses, de grandes plantations de tabac, des
vignes entrecoupees de terres a ble, formaient sous nos yeux le plus agreable spec-
tacle Les produits de cette plaine seraient immenses, si I'activite et I'industrie
des habitans repondaient a la liberalite de la nature.'^ Cousinery, ii. 4, 5.
3 Clarke, eh. xii. At the head of the chapter is a view of the plain as seen from the
hills on the south.
4 The lake Cercinitis. Arr. Alex. i. It is about 18 miles long and 6 broad. See
TO Tit/iivuSeg rov I,Tpv/x6vog. Thuc. v. 7. There is a view of this lake from the north
in Cousinery. Vol. n. p. 3. St. Basil, in writing to his friend Gregory (Ep. 19), de-
Bcribes the Strymon as cxo?MLOTepo} ^evfiarL Tzepi'Kijj.vdi^uv. This river was celebrated
Athen. vii. 56). Colonel Leake
for its eels {I^rovfLuv /le-ytarag ejx^Tiecc Keicrrjfievog.
Bays that " 40,000 brace of large eels are caught here annually, besides the smaller
ones,and other fish." p. 185.
= Leake.For other notices of the importance of this position, see Bp. ThirlwalPs
Greece, iii. 284, and especially Mr. Grote's Greece, vi. 554-562, and 625-647.
6 See Herod, vii. 114. Here Xerxes crossed the Strymon, and offered a sacrifice of
white horses to the river, and buried alive nine youths and maidens.
7 Thuc. i. 100. iv. 102.
8 See especially Cleon and Brasidas in the fourth and fifth books.
all that relates to
^ It was an expedition against Amphipolis that caused the exile ol
his failure in
Thucydides. He had the most intimate personal knowledge of the whole neighbour'
hood, and yet there is some doubt respecting the topographical deta-ils. S*.^ the plan
In Leake, p. 191, and the Admiralty Chart. But consult especially the memoir and
plan at the end of the second volume of Dr. Arnold's Thucydides, and tlie plan, &c. in
Ur. Grote's sixth volume.
320 THE LIFE AOT) EPISTLES OE ST. PAUL.
Philip of Macedon and the citizens of Athens.^ It was also the seen*
of one striking passage in the history of Roman conquest : here Paulus
5]mihus, after the battle of Pydna, publicly proclaimed that the Macedo-
nians should be free ; and now another Paulus was here, whose message
^
between cliffs and the sea, and then across a well-wooded maritime plain,
whence the peak of Athos is seen far across the bay to the left.^ We
quit the sea-shore at the narrow gorge of Anion, or Arethusa,^ and there
enter the valley which crosses the neck of the Chalcidic peninsula. Up
to this point we have frequent historical land-marks reminding us of
Athens. Thucydides has just been mentioned in connection with Amphi-
polis and the Strymon. As we leave the sea, we have before us on the
opposite coast, Stagirus,^ the birth-place of Aristotle ; and in the pass,
where the mountains close on the road, is the tomb of Euripides.^ Thus
^he steps of our progress, as we leave the East and begin to draw near
^ Athens, are already among her historians, philosophers, and poets.
Apollonia is somewhere in the inland part of the journey, where the
Yia Egnatia crosses from the gulf of the Strymon to that of Thessalo-
nica ; but its exact position has not been ascertained. We will, there-
fore, merely allude to the scenery through which the traveller moves, in
going from sea to sea. The pass of Arethusa is beautiful and pictur-
esque. A river flows through it in a sinuous course, and abundant oaks
1 See the passages in the speeches which relate to Philip's encroachment on the
Athenian power in the North of the ^gean.
^ Livy's words (xlv. 30) show that the Romans fully appreciated the importance of
the position. " Pars prima habet opportunitatem Amphipoleos quae objecta claudit ;
qua visitur Euripidis scpulchrum." xxvii. 4. Dr. Clarke, ch. xii., devotes several
Dages to this tomb. The Jerusalem Itinerary, besides another intermediate station at
Pennana, mentions that at the tomb of Euripides. Colonel Leake passed this spot on
his way from Stavros to Orphano and he says, " The opening being in the great post
;
road from Saloniki to Constantinople, and in a country which has often been infested
A'ith robbers, there is a guard-house in the piss, kept by a few soldiers." p. 170.
5 Leake identifies Stagirus with Stavros, a little to the south of Anion, p. 167.
APOLLONIA. 321
and plane trees are on the rocks around.^ Presently this stream is seen
CO emerge from an inland lake, whose promontories and villages, with the
high mountains rising to the south-west, have reminded travellers of Swit
rerland.'* As we journey towards the west, we come to a second lake
Between the two is the modern post-station of Klisali, which may possi
bly be Apollonia,^ though it is generally believed to be on the mountain
slope to the south of the easternmost lake. The whole region of these
two lakes is a long valley, or rather a succession of plains, where the
level spaces are richly wooded with forest trees, and the nearer hills are
covered to their summit? with olives.'' Beyond the second lake, the road
passes over some rising ground, and presently, after passing through a
narrow glen, we obtain a sight of the sea once more, the eye ranges freely
over the plain of the Axius, and the city of Thessalonic#is immediately
before us.
Once arrived in this city, St. Paul no longer follows the course of the
Via Egnatia. He may have done so at a later period, when he says that
he had preached the Gospel " round about unto lUyricum." But at pre-
sent he had reached the point most favourable for the glad proclamation
1 See Dr. Clarke. Cousinery writes with great enthusiasm concerning this glen.
He is travelling eastwards towards Amphipolis, like Dr. Clarke, and writes thus
" On se trouve bientot aupres du grand ruisseau, qui, en sortant du lac, va se jeter dana
la mer par une vallee etroite. Ses riants ombrages font oublier I'aprete de la route
tfu'cn vient de parcourir. que deux lieux d'etendue, serpente entre
Ce ruisseau, qui n'a
la Chalcidique et la Bisaltique deux provinces semblent se separer au milieu d'uue
: ces
^paisse foret, pour ouvrir aux voyageurs un chemin qui, de temps immemorial, a con-
duit de la Macedoine dans la Thrace, a travers des pelouses et des fleurs." p. 116.
^ See Dr. Clarke. Both he and Cousinery make mention of the two villages, the
Little Bechik and Great Bechik, on its north bank, along which the modern road
passes.
3 This is Tafel's opinion ; but Leake and Cousinery both agree in placing it to the
south of Lake Bolbe. Cousinery, looking from the modern road, which passes on the
north side of the lake; says that Polina was one of the villages which he saw on the
opposite hills, i. 115. in what follows " Ou nous retrou-
[He makes a curious mistake :
nothing more were meant than a progress to the very frontier of Hlyricum.
6 The great work on Thessalonica is that by Tafel, the first part of which was pub-
lished at Tubingen in 1835. This was afterwards reprinted as Prolegomena " to the
Diseertatio de Thessalonica ejusque agro Geographica. Berlin, 1839.
VOL. I. 21
:
1 Emathia and Halia were two of its early names. A good outline of the history is
given by Koch in the Einleitung to his Commentar uber den ersten Brief des Ap. P. au
die Thess. Berlin, 1849.
^ Hence the gulf continued to be called the Thermaic Gulf. See two of the accentual
lines quoted by Tafel from a poem of the middle ages
Kal ftexpi- vvv to TreXayog to t^^ QeaaalovLKTjCf
Oep/iacog KoXirog XeyeTai, and r^f OeofiTjc Kufirjg.
THESSALONICA. 323
ern Kome was built and reigned over the Levant, we find both Pagan and
Christian wTiters speaking of Thessalonica as the metropolis of Macedonia,'
and a place of great magnitude.^ Through the Middle Ages it never
ceased to be important ; and it is, at the present day, the second city in
European Turkey ."^
The reason of this continued pre-eminence is to be
Holland's Travels.
13 1 Thess. i. 8. The Epistle was written from Corinth very soon after the departure
froTt. Thessalonica. See Ch. XI.
;
founded forth like a trumpet/ not only in Macedonia and Acliaia, but h
every place."
No city, which we have had occasion to describe, has had so distin-
guished a Christian history, with the single exception of the Syrian An
icioch and the Christian glory of the Patriarchal city gradually faded
;
has deserved the name of " the Orthodox City." ^ The remains of its
and shows how, after the invasion of the Goths, it was the means of converting the
Sclaves, and through them the Bulgarians, to the Christian faith. The peasant popu-
lation to the east of Thessalonica is Bulgarian, to the west it is Greek (Cousinery, p.
52). Both belong to the Greek Church.
3 See what Cousinery says (ch. i.) of the Wallachians, who are intermixea among
the other tribes of modern Macedonia. They speak a corrupt Latin, and he thinka
they are descended from the ancient colonies. They are a fierce and bold race, living
chiefly in the mountains and when trading caravans have to go through dangerous
;
the archbishop of Milan exacted penance from the emperor. See Gibbon, ch. xxvii.
For some notice of the remains of the Hippodrome, which still retains its name, see
Cousinery, ch. ii.
capers lition. The glory of its patron saint, Demetrius/ has eclipsed thai
of St. Paul, the founder of its Church. But the same Divine Providence^
jirhich causes us to be thankful for the past, commands us to be hopefui
for the future ; and we may look forward to the time when a new harvest
of the " work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope," shall
spring up from the seeds of Divine Truth, which were first sown on th
shore of the Thermaic Gulf by the Apostle of the Gentiles.
If Thessalonica can boast of a series of Christian annals, unbroken
since the day of St. Paul's arrival, its relations with the Jewish people
have continued for a still longer period. In our own day it contains a
multitude of Jews^ commanding an influential position, many of whom
are occupied (not very differently from St. Paul himself) in the manufac-
ture of cloth. A considerable number of them are refugees from Spain,
and speak the Spanish language. There are materials for tracing similar
settlements of the same scattered and persecuted people in this city, at
intervals, during the Middle Ages ;
and even before the destruction of
Jerusalem we find them here, numerous and influential, as at Antioch and
Iconium. Here, doubtless, was the chief colony of those Jews of Mace-
donia of whom Philo speaks ;
^ for while there was only a jproseucha at
i
See many allusions to him in Tafel's quotations. Cameniata enumerates Paul first
and Demetrius second among the glorious saints of Thessalonica. De Excidio, &c., 3.
* 1 Thess. i. 3.
3Paul Lucas, in his later journey, says
" Les Chretiens y sont environ au nombre
:
de 10,000. On y compte 30,000 Juifs, qui y ont 22 synagogues, et ce sont eux qui y
font tout le commerce. Comme ils sont fort industrieux, deux grand vizirs se sont mia
Buccessivement en tete de les faire travailler aux manufactures du draps de France,
pour mettre la Turquie en etat de se passer des etrangers mais ils n'ont jamais pu ;
r^ussir cependant ils vendent assez Men leurs gros draps au grand seigneur, qui en
:
fait habiller ses troupes." P. 37. Hadji Chalfa's Bosna and Rumeli (translated from
the Turkish by Von Hammer, and quoted by Tafel,) speaks of the Jews at Thessalo-
nica, in the 17th century, as carpet and cloth makers, of their liberality to the poor,
and of their schools, with more than 1000 children. Cousinery reckons them at 20,000,
many of them from Spain. He adds " Chaque synagogue a Salonique porte le nom
:
de la province d'ou sont originaires les families qui la composent." P. 19. In the
''Jewish Intelligence " for 1849 (vol. xv. pp. 374r-377), the Jews at Salonica are reck-
oned at 35,000, being half the whole population, and having the chief trade in their
bands. They are said to have thirty-six synagogues, " none of them remai'kable for
feheir neatness or elegance of style."
4 They are alluded to in the 7 th century, and i^ain in considerable numbers in tli
The first scene to wMch we are introduced in this city is entkely Jew
ish. It is not a small meeting of proselyte women by the river side, but
a crowded assembly of true born Jews, intent on their religious worship,
among whom Paul and Silas now make their appearance. If the traces
of their recent hardships were manifest in their very aspect, and if they
related to their Israelitish brethren how they had suffered before and
been cruelly treated at Philippi" (1 Thess. ii. 2), their entrance in among
them must have created a strong impression of indignation and sympathy,
which explains the allusion in St. Paul's Epistle. He spoke, however, to
the Thessalonian Jews with the earnestness of a man who has no time to
lose and no thought to waste on his own sufferings. He preached not
himself but Christ crucified. The Jewish scriptures were the ground of his
argument. He recurred to the same subject again and again. On
three successive Sabbaths ^ he argued with them ; and the whole body of
Jews resident in Thessalonica were interested and excited with the new
doctrine, and were preparing either to adopt or oppose it.
The three points on which he insisted were these that : He who was
foretold in prophecy was to be a suffering Messiah, that after deathHe
was to rise again, and that the crucified Jesus of JSTazareth was indeed
the Messiah who was to come. Such is the distinct and concise statement
in the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 3) : and the same topics of teaching
are implied in the first Epistle, where the Thessalonians are appealed to
as men who had been taught to believe that Jesus had really died and
risen again" (iv. 14), and who had turned to serve the true God, and to
"
wait for His Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus
(i. 10). Of the mode in which these subjects would be presented to
his hearers we can form some idea from what was said at Antioch is Pisi-
dia. The very aspect of the worshippers was the same ^ proselytes were ;
Some MSS. omit the article (see Lachmann). If authority preponderated against it,
Btill the plirase would imply that there was no synagogue in the towns recently passed
through.
1 'EttI cdjS^ara "p'la dieXeyero (imperf.). Acts xvii. 2.
* See the account of the synagogue-worship, the desk, the ark, the manuscripts,
(she prayers, the Scripture-reading, the Tallith, &c., given in pp. 172-174.
3 Compare ol (poftovjxevot rdv Qeov (Acts xiii. 16, 20) with ruv aefSo/Ltevuv 'EX^vcj^
(Acts xvii. 4). Some MSS. introduce Kal between the two latter words. See Lach-
manm ;and Paley on 1 Thess.
4 Compare rag ae^oLievcg yvvaiKag Kai rdf evaxv/^ovag (Acts xiii. 50) with yvv UKav
ruv Tzpuruv ova bXiyai (Acts xvii. 4). It will be remembered that the women's plac
iii the synagogues was in a separate gallery or behind a lattice. P 172.
StfBJECTS OF ST. PAUL's PKJflACHING. 327
That St. Paul did speak of Messiah's glorious kingdom, the kingdom
foretold in the Prophetic Scriptures themselves, may be gathered by com-
paring together the Acts and the Epistles to the Thessalonians. The
accusation brought against him (Acts xvii. t) was, that he was proclaiming
another king^ and virtually rebelling against the emperor. And in strict
sake of that kingdom (2 Thess. i. 5). Indeed, the royal state of Christ's
second advent was one chief topic which was urgently enforced, and deeply
impressed, on the minds of the Thessalonian converts. This subject tinges
the whole atmosphere through which the aspect of this church is presented
to us. It may be said that in each of the primitive churches, which are
depicted in the apostolic epistles, there is some peculiar feature which
gives it an individual character. In Corinth it is the spirit of party,^ in
Galatia the rapid declension into Judaism,^ in Philippi it is a steady and
self-denying generosity.^ And if we were asked for the distinguishing
characteristic of the first Christians of Thessalonica, we should point to
their overwhelming sense of the nearness of the second advent, accom-
panied with melancholy^ thoughts concerning those who might die before
it, and with gloomy and unpractical views of the shortness of life, and the
vanity of the world. Each chapter in the first Epistle to the Thessalo-
nians ends with an allusion to this subject ; and was evidently the topic
it
J
328 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
he told tliem also of other coming events, full of practical warning to all
ages, though to our eyes still they are shrouded in mystery, of " the
falling away," and of " the man of sin." ^ " These awful revelations," ha
said, "must precede the revelation of the Son of God. Do you not
rtmerrMr,^^ he adds with emphasis in his letter, that when I was still with
you I often^ told you this. You know, therefore, the hindrance why he is
disciples had been warned in Judaea, that the great day would come sud-
denly on men unprepared, " as the pangs of travail on her whose time is
full," and " as a thief in the night and he showed them, both by
;
" pre-
cept and example, that, though it be true that life is short and the world
is work must be done diligently and to the last.
vanity, yet God's
The whole demeanour of St. Paul among the Thessalonians may be
traced by means of these Epistles, with singular minuteness. We see,
there, not only what success he had on his first entrance among them,''
not only how the Gospel came " with power and full conviction of its
truth," 5 but also " what manner of man he was among them for their
sakes." ^ "We see him proclaiming the truth with unflinching courage,'
endeavouring to win no converts by flattering words,^ but warning his
hearers of all the danger of the sins and pollution to which they were
tempted ;
^ manifestly showing that his work was not intended to gratify
any desire of self-advancement,^ but scrupulously maintaining an houour-
1 2 Thess. ii. .
* ''E;ieyov (imperf.).
them in a moment, as the pangs of travail on her whose time is full." 1 Thess.
V. 1-3. See Acts i. 7. Matt. xxiv. 43. Luke xii. 39. 2 Pet. iii. 10.
4 " You know yourselves, brethren, that my coming amongst you was not fruitless,"
1 Thess. ii. 1.
5 1 Thess. i. 5.
6 " You know the manner in which I behaved myself among you," &c. 1 Thess.
L5. What manner of men we were." Eng. Vers.) Though the words are in the
plural, the allusion is to himself only. See the notes on the Epistle itself.
' " After I had borne suffering and outrage, as you know, at Philippi, I boldly de-
clared {eTra^TjaicaufieOa Xa/ifjaai) to you God's glad-tiding, though its adversaries
coutended mightily against me." 1 Thess. ii. 2.
J
Never did I use flattering words, as you know.^' 1 Thess. ii. 5.
' 'That you should be consecrated to Him in holine^, and should keep yourselves
from fornication .... not in lustful passion, like the heathen, who know not God.
.... All such the Lord will punish, as I have forwarned you by my solemn testi-
mony." 1 Thcs.s. iv. 4-6. It is needless to add that such temptations must have
abounded in a city like Thessalonica. We know from the Asinus of Lucian that tb
place had a bad character.
w 1 Thess. ii. 5.
ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA. 329
ready to devote his life for those whom he loves,'* all th(* watchfulness of
the faithful pastor, to whom " each one " of his flock is the separate
object of individual care.^
And from these Epistles we obtain further some information concern-
ing what may be called the outward incidents of St. Paul's residence in
this city. He might when there, consistently with the Lord's institution ^
and with the practice of the other Apostles,' have been " burdensome " to
those whom he taught, so as to receive from them the means of his tem
poral support. But that he might place his disinterestedness above all
suspicion, and that he might set an example to those who were too much
inclined to live by the labour of others, he declined to avail himself of that
ties (Phil. iv. 15, 16). And the journeys of those pious men who followed
the footsteps of the persecuted Apostles along the Yia Egnatia by Am-
phipoli^ and Apollonia, bringing the alms which had been collected at
Philippi, are among the most touching incidents of the Apostolic history.
And not less touching is that description which the Apostle himself gives
us of that other means of support
" his own labour night and day, that
he might not be burdensome to any of them" (1 Thess. ii. 9). He did
not merely " rob other churches," ^ that he might do the Thessalonians-
service, but the trade he had learnt when a boy in Cilicia ^ justified the
1 " You are yourselves witnesses how holy, and just, and unblamable, were my
dealings towards you." 1 Thess. ii. 10.
' " You know how earnestly, as a father his own children (wj- Trorz/p rsKva iavTOv),
I exhorted, and intreated, and adjured," &c. 1 Thess. ii. 11.
3 "I behaved myself among you with mildness and forbearance ; and as a nurse
cherishes her own children (ra kavTrjg Tetiva) so," &c. 1 Thess. ii. 7. The authorised
version is defective. St. Paul compares himself to a mother who is nursing her own
Child.
4 " It was my joy to give you, not only the Gospel of Christ, but my own life also,
10 " He that hath a trade in his hand, to what is he like ? 33 is like a vinevard tfeai
'
s fenced." Ibid.
S30 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Thessalonica (1 Thess. iv. 11), but to all, in every age of the Church, whc
are apt to neglect their proper business (2 Thess. iii. 11), and ready to
eat other men's bread for nought (2 Thess. iii. 8). Late at night, when
the sun had long set on the incessant spiritual labours of the day, the
Apostle might be seen by lamp-light labouring at the rough hair-cloth,'
" that he might be chargeable to none." It was an emphatic enforce-
suits, even if his stay was limited to the period corresponding to three Sab-
baths. No one can say what effects might follow from three weeks of an
Apostle's teaching. But we are by no means forced to adopt the suppo-
sition that the time was limited to three weeks. It is highly probable
.that St. Paul remained at Thessalonica for a longer period."^ At other
cities,^ when he was repelled by the Jews, he became the evangelist of the
Gentiles, and remained till he was compelled to depart. The Thessalo-
nian Letters throw great light on the rupture which certainly took place
note, p. 69, n. z. Paley, among others, argues for a longer residence than three weeks.
Horae Paulina), on 1 Thess. No. vi. Koch, in his recently published commentary, con-
tends, against Schott, &c., that the tumult which caused St. Paul's departure must have
taken place immediately after the third Sabbath.Einleitung, pp. 8, 9. Benson argues
that thecoming of repeated contributions from Philippi implies a longer residence at
Thessalonica than three weeks. To this Anger replies, that they might have coma
within this time, if they were sent by different contributora
* Acts xiii. xviii. xix., &.
PEKSECtTTION. 33i
with the Jews on this occasion, and which is implied in that one word in
the Acts which speaks of their jealousy ' against the Gentiles. The whole
aspect of the Letter shows that the main body of the Thessalonian Church
was not Jewish, but Gentile. The Jews are spoken of as an extraneous
body, as the enemies of Christianity and of all men, not as the elements
out of which the Church was composed.^ The ancient J ewish Scriptures
are not once quoted in either of these Epistles.^ The converts are ad-
dressed as those who had turned, not from Hebrew fables and traditions,
but from the practices of heathen idolatry.'* How new and how comfort-
ing to them must have been the doctrine of the resurrection from the
dead. What a contrast must this revelation of " life and immortality ^'
have been to the hopeless lamentations of their own pagan funerals, and
to the dismal teachmg which we can still read in the sepulchral inscrip-
tions^ of heathen Thessalonica, such as told the bystander that after
death there is no revival, after the grave no meeting of those who have
loved each other on earth. How ought the truth taught by the Apostle
to have comforted the new disciples at the thought of inevitable, though
only temporary, separation from their Christian brethren. And yet how
difficult was the truth to reahse, when they saw those brethren sink into
lifeless forms, and after they had committed them to the earth which had
received all their heathen ancestors. How eagerly can we imagine them
to have read the new assurances of comfort which came in the letter from
Corinth, and which told them " not to sorrow as the rest that have n
s
hope."
But we are anticipating the events which occurred between the Apos-
tle's departure from Thessalonica and the time when he wrote the letter
from Corinth. We must return to the persecution that led him to under-
take that journey, which brought him from the capital of Macedonia to
that of Achaia.
When the Jews saw proselytes and Gentiles, and many of the lead-
ing women' of the city, convinced by St. Paul's teaching, they must
have felt that his influence was silently undermining tneirs. In propor-
1 TiTj'XciedvTeg. Acts xvii. 5.
* " You from your own countrymen which they
liave suffered the like persecution
[the Churches in Judsea] endured from the Jews, who killed both our Lord Jesus and
their own prophets ... a people displeasing to God, and enemies to all mankind who ;
v^ould hinder me from speaking to the Gentiles," &c. 1 Thess. ii. Contrast Rom. ix.
' The Epistles to Titus and Philemon, if we mistake not, are the only other iustaacea.
* 1 Thess. i. 9.
* Some of these inscriptions may be seen in Boeckh, e. g. No. 1975, where the de-
ceased is described as kaiddv {Blotov oKvroLg virb vdfxaai Motpuv. See aLso 19 S3,
repii'
In 1988 there is a hint of immortality ; but the general feeling of the Greek world
eoncerning the dead is expressed in that one line of ^chylua :
'Ana^ ^ayh'T^ o#i'^
ftTT* avdaraoig.
I Thf*f^ iv. 13. 7 Acts xviL 4. See above.
:;
sembly of the people. But they were absent from the house and Jason and
some other Christians were dragged before the city magistrates. The ac-
instigation (as was alleged) of one Chrestus, or Christus ; and that they
Acts XIV. See pp. 185, 195, &c. also pp. 180, 181.
;
a. 5.
c Rom, xvi. 21. Tradition says that he became Bishop of Tarsus. For some remarks
on St. Paul's kinsmen, see p. 46.
7 Above, p. 304. s p. 303.
The words of Suetonius are quoted p. 303.. n. 4. We shall return to them ftgain
CONSTITUTION" OF A FKEE CITY. 333
must fiave been glad, in the provincial cities, to be able to show their loy-
alty and gratify their malice, by throwing the odium off themselves upon a
sect whose very name might be interpreted to imply a rebellion afi^amst
fche emperor.
COIN OP THESSALONICA.
Such were the circumstances under which Jason and his companions
were brought before the politarchs. We use the Greek the term ad-
visedly ; for it illustrates the political constitution of Thessalonica, and its
contrast with that of Philippi, which has lately been noticed. Thessalo-
nica was not a colony, like Philippi, Troas, or the Pisidian Antioch, but a
free city ^ {Urbs libera), like the Syrian Antioch, or like Tarsus ^ and
Athens. The privilege of what was technically called "freedom" was
given to certain cities of the empire for good service in the civil wars, or
as a tribute of respect to the old celebrity of the place, or for other
reasons of convenient policy. There were few such cities in the western
provinces,^ as there were no municipia in the eastern. The free towns
were most numerous in those parts of the empire, where the Greek lan-
guage had long prevailed and we are generally able to trace the reasons
;
why this privilege was bestowed upon them. At Athens, it was the fame
of its ancient eminence, and the evident policy of paying a compliment to
the Greeks. At Thessalonica it was the part which its inhabitants had
prudently taken in the great struggle of Augustus and Antony against
Brutus and Cassius.^ When the decisive battle had been fought, Philippi
was made a military colony, and Thessalonica became free.
when we come to Acts xviii. 2. At present we need only point out their probable
connection with the word " Christian:^ See pp. 119, 120, and the notes. We should
observe, that St. Paul had proclaimed at Thessalonica that Jesus was the Christ (c
Xpiarog). Acts xvii. 3.
1 From Museum. For a long series of coins of this character, see Mionnet
the British
and the Supplement.
' For an account of the privileges of tibercB
civitates, see Hoeck's Romische Geech-
kjhte, I. ii. pp. 242-250.
^ See p. 45.
4 There were a few in Gaul and Spain, none in Sardinia. On the other hand, they
\prere very numerous in Greece, the Greek islands, and Asia Minor. Hoeck, p. 249.
Such complimentary privileges would have had little meaning if bestowed on a rude
people, which had no ancient traditions.
6 See the coins alluded to above, p. 322. Some have the word EAEXeEPIAS with
tho head of Octavia.
S34: THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL,
The privilege of such a city consisted in this, that it was entirely sell-
governed in all its internal affairs, within the territory that might be
assigned to it. The governor of the province had no right, under ordinary
circumstances, to interfere with these affairs.^ The local magistrates had
the power of life and death over the citizens of the place. No stationary
garrison of Roman soldiers was quartered within its territory.^' No in-
signia of Roman office were displayed in its streets. An instance of the
care with which this rule was observed is recorded by Tacitus, who tells
1 He might, however, have his residence there, as at Antioch and Tarsus. We find,
under the republic, the governor of Asia directed to administer justice to free com-
munities (Cic. pro Font. 32) but usually he did not interfere with the local magis-
;
trates. Even his financial ofiBcers did not enter the territory to collect the taxes, but
the imposts ware sent to Rome in some other way. We may add that a free city might
have libertas cum immunitate (Senec. de Benef. v. 16), i. e. freedom from taxation,
as a Colonia might have the Jus Italicum. See these and other details in Hoeck.
* Hence such cities were called u^po^pjjrot. Plut. Flam. 10. App. Mac. 2. See
Liv. xlv. 26.
3 Tacitus says of Germanicus, that, after a bad voyage across the Adriatic, and after
Actium, " ventum Athenas, foederique sociae et vetustae
visiting the scene of the battle of
urbig datum ut uno lictore uteretur." Ann. ii. 53. And yet he was a member of the
imperial family. So it is said of Tiberius, during his residence among the Greeks at
Rhodes : genus vita) civile ad modum instituit, sine lictore aut viatore gymnasia
iuterdum obambulans, mutuaque cum Grceculis qfficia usurpans, prope ex cequo,^^
Suet Tib. 11. Very severe language is used by Cicero of Piso, governor of Mace-
donia, for daring to exercise " jurisdictio in libera civitate contra leges senatusque con-
sulta." De Prov. Cons. 3.
Bivil wars. See Cic. in Pison. 56. Under the emperors it became more regulated,
like all the other details of provincial administration.
^ Tafel seema to think it had also a senate (J3ov^),
lillfl MAGISTRACY OF THESSALONICA. 335
traies of the place, informs us of their number, and mentions the very
names of some who bore the office not long before the day of St. Paul.
A long street intersects the city from east to west.^ This is doubtless
the very direction which the ancient road took in its course from the
Adriatic to the Hellespont ; for though the houses of ancient cities are
destroyed and renewed, the lines of the great thoroughfares are usually
unchanged.'* If there were any doubt of the fact at Thessalonica, the ques-
tion is set at rest by two triumphal arches which still, though disfigured by
time and injury, and partly concealed by Turkish houses, span the breadth
of this street, and define a space which must have been one of the public
parts of the city in the apostolic age. One of these arches is at the
western extremity, near the entrance from Kome, and is thought to have
been built by the grateful Thessalonians to commemorate the victory of
Augustus and Antony.^ The other is further to the east, and records the
triumph of some later emperor (most probably Constantine) over enemies
subdued near the Danube or beyond. The second of these arches, with
its sculptured camels," has altogether an Asiatic aspect, and belongs to a
period of the empire much later than that of St. Paul. The first has the
representation of consuls with the toga, and corresponds in appearance
with that condition of the arts which marks the passing of the republic
into the empire. If erected at that epoch, it was undoubtedly existing
and is Vardar Gate, because it leads towards that river (the Axius).
called the
* There is also a view of this arch in Cousinery, p. 29. He refers its origin to one
of Constantine's expeditions, mentioned by Zosimus. The whole structure formerly
consisted of three arches it is built of brick, and seems to have been faced with
;
marble.
5 From Boeckh, No. 1967. The inscription is given by Leake (p. 236), with a slight
difference in one of the names. on to mention the raiuag rnc noleuQ and th
It goes
yv[j.vaaidpx^'^' The names being chiefly Roman, Leake argues for a later date than
that which is suggested by Cousinery. In either case the confirmation of St. Luke'^
accuracy remains the same.
IThese words, engraved on the marble arch,^ inform us that the magistrates
of Thessalonica were called j)olitarchs, and that they were seven in number ;
but it appears, from a monument of a different kind, that the title is per-
fectly correct. And the whole aspect of what happened at Thessalonica,
as compared with the events at Philippi, is in perfect harmony with the
ascertained difference in the political condition of the two places. There
is no mention of the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship ; but we ^
are presented with the spectacle of a mixed mob of Greeks and Jews,
^ The masonry consists of square blocks of marble, six feet thick (Dr. Clarke).
It may be well to mention here some of the other remains at Thessalonica. (1) There
are five columns, with an entablature, in the street between the triumphal arches.
This ruin called by the Spanish Jews, Las Incantadas.
is (2) The Rotunda, now a
mosque, an ancient temple, similar to the Pantheon at Rome. These two buildinga
is
were probably in existence when St. Paul was at Thessalonica. The two following are
later. (3) The Church of St. Sophia, now a mosque, built under Justinian by the
architect of the great church at Constantinople. Here a stone rostrum is shown, from
Which St. Paul is said to have preached. (4) Another mosque was formerly tliQ
Church of St. Demetrius [see p. 325], which tradition alleges to have been baiU neai
the site of the ancient synagogue where the Apostle reasoned with the Jews.
Acts XX. 4. 3 Acts xix. 29. ^ Acts. xx. 4.
o
5 See Ch. V. p. 144. See above, p. 290, &c.
Compare Acts xvi. 21.
;
with rods and fasces, appear upon the scene ; but we hear something dis*
meant that a sum of mone t was deposited with the magistrates, and that
the Christian community of the place made themselves responsible that
no attempt should be made against the supremacy of Rome, and that
peace should be maintained in Thessalonica itself. By these means the
disturbance was allayed.
But though the magistrates had secured quiet in the city for the pre-
sent, the position of Paul and Silas was very precarious. The lower
classes were still excited. The Jews were in a state of fanatical displea-
sure. It is evident that the Apostles could not appear in public as before,
without endangering their own safety, and compromising their fellow-
Christians who were security for their good behaviour. The alternatives
before them were, either silence in Thessalonica, or departure to some
other place. The was impossible to those who bore the
first divine com-
mission to preach the Gospel everywhere. They could not hesitate to
adopt the second course ; and under the watchful care of " the brethren,"
' The conduct and language of the Jews in Acts xvii. 7 should, by all means, be
compared with what was said to Pilate at Jerusalem "If thou let this man go, thou
:
art not CcBsar^s friend : whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Csesar."
John xix. 12.
' 'Fa(36ovxoi. Acts xvi. 35, 38.
3 Acts xvii. 5. 4 Acts xvi. 21. s Acts xvii. 7.
^rpaTTjyoL Acts xvi. 20, 22, 35, &c. See p. 294, and p. 302.
' The word krdpa^av implies some disturbance of mind on the part of the magistraf
ea
See above.
9 Aa(36vTeg It is very unlikely that this means, as Grotius supposes,
to Uavov.
that Jason and gave bail for the appearance of Paul and Silas before the
his friends
magistrates, for they sent them away the same night. See Meyer. Hemsen thinks
(p. 132, note) that Jason pledged himself not to receive them again into his house
and Kuinoel, that he gave a promise of their immediate departure. Neither of these
suppositions is improbable but it is clear that it was impossible for Paul and Silas tc
;
Btaj, if the other Christians were security for the maintenance of the peace,
VOL. I. 22
838 THE LIFE AKB EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL,
they departed the same eYening from Thessalonica, their steps being
turned in the direction of those mountains which are the western boundary
of Macedonia. 1 We observe that nothing is said of the departure of
Pydna, the other more to the south. See our map of the north of the ^gean. It is
eonceivable, but not likely, that St. Paul went by water from Thessalonica to the
neighbourhood of Pydna. Colonel Leake, after visiting this city, took a boat from
Eleftherokhori, and sailed across the gulf to Salonica. Vol. in. pp. 436-438. So Dr.
Clarke.
The description of the journey is literally taken from Cousinery, ch. iii He waa
BEBCEA.
uous plain. The banks of this second river are confined by artificial dykea
to check its destructive inundations. All the country round is covered
with a vast forest, with intervals of cultivated land, and villages concealed
among the trees. The road extends for many miles through these woods,
and at length reaches the base of the Western Mountains, where a shoii
ascent leads up to the gate of Bercea.'*
Beroea, like Edessa, is on the eastern slope of the Olympian range, and
commands an extensive view of the plain which is watered by the Hali-
acmon and Axius. It has many natural advantages, and is now considered
one of the most agreeable towns in Rumili.^ Plane-trees spread a grate-
ful shade over its gardens. Streams of water are in every street. Ita
ancient name is said to have been derived from the abundance of its
waters ;
< and the name still survives in the modern Yerria, or Kara-Yer-
ria.5 It is situated on the left of the Haliacmon, about five miles from
the point where that river breaks through an immense rocky ravine from
the mountains to the plain. A few insignificant ruins of the Greek and
Koman periods may yet be noticed. The foundations of an ancient bridge
are passed on the ascent to the city-gate ; and parts of the Greek fortifi-
cations may be seen above the rocky bed of a mountain stream. The
traces of repairs in the walls, of Roman and Byzantine date,^ are links
between the early fortunes of Bercea and its present condition. It still
travelling from Salonica with a caravan to a place called Perlepe, on the mountains
to the north-west. The usual road is up the Axius to Gradisca. But one of the rivers
higher up was said to be flooded and impassable hence he went by Caraveria (Beroea),
;
which is fourteen leagues from Salonica. Leake travelled from Salonica to Pella, cross-
ing the Axius on his way. Ch. xxvii.
1 The Haliacmon itself would not be crossed before arriving at Bercea (see below j.
But there are other large rivers which flow into it, and which are often flooded. Some
of the ''perils of rivers" (pp. 163, 164) may very possibly have been in this district.
See the preceding note. See Leake's remarks on the changing channels of these
rivers, p. 437.
' Compare Leake. 3 See Leake, p. 290, &c.
4 See Tafel (Thessalonica, &c.), who refers to 1, and Cantacuz. iv. 18,
^lian, H. A. xv.
* Leake uses the former term Cousinery calls the town " Caraveria," or " Yerria
:
the Black." In the eleventh century we find it called " Verre." See Buchon's French
Chronicles, iii. 250.
See Leake. It was a fortified city in the eleventh century. Buchon, as above.
See Cousinery (ch. iii.), who reckons tb*> inhabit^ints at 15,000 or 20,000.
540 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ix.), and that other " city" in the same country where " many believed **
because of the word of one who witnessed of Him, and " many more
because of His own word" (John iv.). In a spirit very different from the
ignoble violence of the Thessalonian Jews, the Berceans not only listened
to the Apostle's arguments, but they examined the Scriptures themselves,
to see if those arguments were justified by prophecy. And, feeling the
sulted in the conversion of " many." Nor was the blessing confined to the
Hebrew community. The same Lord who is "rich unto all that call
upon Him," ^ called many " not of the Jews only, but also of the Gen-
tiles." Both men and women,' and those of the highest respectability,
"
among the Greeks,^ were added to the church founded by St. Paul in that
provincial city of Macedonia, which was his temporary shelter from tlie
storm of persecution.
The length of St. Paul's stay in the city is quite uncertain. From the
fact that the Beroeans were occupied " daily in searching the Scriptures'
tfence of some weeks ; and there are other passages ^ in the same Epistli
wrhich might induce us to suppose the time extended even to months
But when we find, on the other hand, that the cause which led him to
.eave Bercea was the hostihty of the Jews of Thessalonica, and when we
remember that the two cities were only separated by a distance of sixtj
miles, that the eyents which happened in the synagogue of one city would
aoon be made known in the synagogue of the other, and that Jewish
bigotry was never long in taking active measures to crush its opponents,
we are led to the conclusion that the Apostle was forced to retreat from
Beroea after no long interval of time. The Jews came like hunters upon
their prey, as they had done before from Iconium to Lystra.^ They could
not arrest the progress of the Gospel,^ but they " stirred up the people "
there, as at Thessalonica before.^ They made his friends feel that his
sion, as on that,' the dearest wishes of his heart were thwarted. The
providence of God permitted " Satan " to hinder him from seeing his
dear Thessalonian converts, whom " once and again" he had desired to re-
visit.s The divine counsels were accomplished by means of the antagonism
of wicked men ; and the path of the Apostle was urged on, in the midst
of trial and sorrow, in the direction pointed out in the vision at Jerusalem,*
An immediate departure was urged upon the Apostle ; and the Church
of Beroea suddenly ^ lost its teacher. But Silas and Timotheus remained
behind, 1^ to build it up in its holy faith, to be a comfort and support in its
1 Those which relate to the widely extended rumour of the introduction of Chris-
tianity into Thessalonica. See below, on 1 Thess. The stay at Athens was short, and
the Epistle was written soon after St. Paul's arrival at Corinth ;
and, if a suflBcient time
had elapsed for a general knowledge to be spread abroad of what had happened at
Thessalonica, we should be inclined to believe that the delay at Beroea was consider
able.
' Wieseler gives a different turn to this consideration, and argues that, because the
distance between Bercea and Thessalonica was so great, therefore a long time must
have elapsed before the news from the latter place could have summoned the Jewa
from the former. But we must take into account, not merely the distance between the
two cities, but the peculiarly close communication which subsisted among the Jewish
lynagogues. See, for instance, Acts xxvi. 11.
3 See pp. 195, 196. 4 See Hemsen's Paulus, p. 136.
5 ^Widov KUKSL calevovre^ Toi)g bx^ov^. Acts xvii. 13. Compare v. 5.
Acts ix. 30.
' See the remarks on the vision at Jerusalem, p. 104.
See above, p. 340. s Acts xvii. 17-21. ' See evOei^^, t. 14..
" Acts xvii. 14. The last mention of Timothy was at Philippi but it is highly pro ;
^le that he joined St. Paul at Thessalonica. See ab6ve, p. 338. Possibly he brouglii
342 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
sary. Meanwhile some of the new converts accompanied St. Paul on hii
flight :
' thus adding a new instance to those we have already seen of the
love which grows up between those who have taught and those who have
learat the way of the soul's salvation.''
Without attempting to may have
divine all the circumstances which
obvious reasons why it was the most natural course. To have returned in
the direction of Thessalonica was manifestly impossible. To have pushed
over the mountains, by the Yia Egnatia, towards lUyricum and the west-
ern parts of Macedonia, would have taken the Apostle from those shores of
the Archipelago to which his energies were primarily to be devoted.
Mere concealment and inactivity were not to be thought of. Thus the
Christian fugitives turned their steps towards the sea,^ and from some
point on the coast where a vessel was found, they embarked for Athens.
In the ancient tables two roads aremarked which cross the Haliac^on
and intersect the plain from Beroea, one passing by Pydna,^ and the other
leaving it to the left, and both coming to the coast at Dium near the base
of Mount Olympus. The Pierian level (as this portion of the plain was
called) extends about ten miles in breadth from the woody falls of the
mountain to the sea-shore, forming a narrow passage from Macedonia
into Greece.^ Thus Dium was " the great bulwark of Macedonia on the
Bome of the contributions from Philippi, p. 329. We shall consider hereafter the
movements of Silas and Timothy at this point of St. Paul's journey. Meantime, we
may observe that Timotheus was very probably sent to Thessalonica (1 Thess. iii.)
from Beroea, and not from Athens. See Hemsen, pp. 117, 127, 138, 162, and Wieseler,
42-45, 246-249.
1 Acts xvii. 14, 15.
See above, on the Also p. 128.
jailor's conversion, pp. 308, 309.
3 'flf I-kX t7]v Qdlaaaav (Acts "as it were to the sea" in the
xvii. 14), translated
authorised version. This need not at all imply that there was any stratagem. Nor is
the word merely redundant. Viger and Winer have shown that it denotes the in-
tention. The phrase eizl is similarly used by Polybius. It seems very likely that
in the first instance they had no fixed intention of going to Athens, but merely to the
uea. Their further course was determined by providential circumstances and, when :
St. Paul was once arrived at Athens, he could send a message to Timothy and Silas to
follow him (v. 15). Those are surely mistaken who suppose that St. Paul travelled
from Macedonia to Attica by land.
4 These roads are clearly laid down in the map of the Northern Mge^M. The dis-
tance in the Antonine Itinerary is seventeen miles. See Wesseling, p. 328. Nicepho-
rus Grcgoras says that Beroea is 160 stadia from the sea (xiii. 8, 3). See also Cantacuz.
5 Mr. Tate (Continuous History, &c.) suggests that St. Paul may have sailed from
Pydna. But Pydna was not a seaport, and, for other reasons, Dium was more conve-
niently situated for the purpose.
e Leake,
p. 425. Above (p. 409) he describes the ruins of Dium, among which are
probably some remains of the temple of Jupiter Olympius, who was honoured here in
periodical games. See Liv. xliv. 6, 7. For Mount Olympus, see pp. 413, 414. Ha
describes it as a conspicuous object for all the country round, as far as Saloniki, auQ
ttg deriving from its steepness an increase of grandeur and apparent height.
Bouth and it was a Roman colony, like that other city which we have
described on the eastern frontier.^ No city is more likely than Diiim to
have been the last, as Philippi was " the first," through which St. Paul
passed in his journey through the province.
where Olympus, dark with woods,
Here then, rises from the plain by
the shore, to the broad summit, glittering with snow, which was the throne
of the Homeric the natural termination
gods,'^ at of Macedonia, and
where the first scene of classical and poetic Greece opens on our view,
we take our leave, for the present, of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The
shepherds from the heights ^ above the vale of Tempe may have watched
the sails moved like a white speck over the
of his ship that day, as it
outer waters of the Thermaic Gulph. The sailors, looking back from the
deck, saw the great Olympus rising close above them in snowy majesty.'*
The more distant mountains beyond Thessalonica are already growing
faint and indistinct. As the vessel approaches the Thessahan archipe-
lago,= Mount Athos begins to detach itself from the isthmus that binds it
to the mam, and, with a few other heights of Northern Macedonia, ap-
pears like an island floating in the horizon.
1 See above, on Philippi.
' The epithets given by Homer to this poetic mountain {(xaKpog, II. i. 398 ; irolv-
detpdc, i. 44 ;
dydvvL^og, Od. ix. 40 5
dyA^eif, II. i. 530 TroXvTvrvxoc,
;
viii. 410) are ai
fully justified by the accounts of modern travellers, as the descriptions of the scenery
alluded to at the close of the preceding Chapter, p. 282, n. 6.
3 See Mr. Urquhart's description of the view over the sea and its coasts (mare voli-
volum terrasque from a convent on the face of Mount Olympus. " I might
jacentes),
have doubted the reality of its hazy waters, but for the white sails dotted along the
frequented course between Salonica and the southern headland of Thessaly. Beyond,
and far away to the east, might be guessed or distinguished the peak of Mount Athos,
and the distincter lines, between, of the peninsulas Pallene and Sithonia. This glimpse
of Mount Athos, at a distance of ninety miles, made me resolve on visiting its shrine
juid ascending its peak." Spirit of the East, vol. i., p. 426. In the same work (p. 418)
are some remarks on the isolation of the mountain. See a passage in Dr. Wordsworth's
Greece, p. 197.
4 Compare p. 314, notes 2 and 7. See also Purdy's Sailing Directory, p. 148. " To
the N.W. of the Thessalian Isles the extensive Gulf of Salonica extends thirty leaguea
to the north-westward, before it changes its direction to the north-eastward and forma
the port. The country on the west, part of the ancient Thessaly, and now the province
of Tricala, exhibits a magnificent range of mountains, which include Pelion, now Patras,
Ossa, now Kissova, and Olympus, now Elymbo. The summit of the latter is 6000
feet above the level of the sea."
5 The group of islands off the north end of Euboea, consisting of Sciathos, Scopelos,
Preparethos, &c. For an account of them, see Purdy, pp. 145-148.
s Cousinery somewhere gives this description of the appearance of heights near
Baloniki, as seen from the Thessalian islands. For an instance of a very unfavourable
voyage in these seas, in the month of December, thirteen days being spent at sea
between Salonica and Zeitun, the reader may consult Holland's Travels^ th. xvL
IHB LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
CHAPTEE X.
(51 rov Heipaia elan'Xevcag uvyei dirb Trjg vedg eg rb uan rpoiuv d^, 7ro/^Ao({
rwj> <pc?^oco<j>ovvr(.)v evervyxave t7)v jnev ^puTijv diuXe^iv, eneidrj ^iloOvrat
rovg 'AdTjvacovg eUev, vTrep iepuv diele^aro . . . koL ravra 'AdrjvyaiVj ov Koi uyvuffTUP
daifi'wav fiufiol Upwrai. ^Philost. Vit. Ap. Ty. iv. 6. vi. 2.
the opinions of the age in which it was written. Apollonius himself produced a great
excitement in the Apostolic age. See Neander's General Church History (Eng. Trana),
pp. 40-43 and pp. 236-238. It was the fashion among the Antichristiau writers of the'
third century to adduce him as a rival of our Blessed Lord and the same profane ;
comparison has been renewed by some of our English freethinkers. Without alluding
to this any further, we may safely find some interest in putting his life by the side of
that of St. Paul. They lived at the same time, and travelled through the same coun
tries ;and the life of the magician illustrates that peculiar state of philosophy and
Buperstition which the Gospel preached by St. Paul had to encounter. Apollonius
was partly educated at Tarsus he travelled from city to city in Asia Minor from
; ;
Greece he went to Rome, in the reign of Nero, about the time when the magicians had
lately been expelled he visited Athens and Alexandria, where he had a singular
;
Putcoli the last scene of his life was Ephesus, or, possibly, Crete or Rhodes. See the
:
Life in Smith's Dictionary of Biography. It is thought by many that St. Paul and
Apollonius actually met in Ephesus and Rome. Burton's Lectures on Ecclesiastical
History, pj-. 157, 240.
ARRIVAL OX THE COAST OF ATTICA. 345
animated with some memory of the past. For a distance of ninety miles,
from the confines of Thessaly to the middle part of the coast of Attica,
the shore is protected, as it were, by the long island of Eubcea. Deep
in the innermost gulf, where the waters of the ^gean retreat far within
the land, over against the northern parts of this island, is the pass ot
Thermopylae, where a handful of Greek warriors had defied all the hosts
of Asia. In the crescent-like bay on the shore of Attica, near the south-
ern extremity of the same island, is ^he maritime sanctuary of Marathon,
where the battle was fought which decided that Greece was never to be
a Persian Satrapy.-* When the island of Euboea is left behind, v/e soon
reach the southern extremity of Attica^ Cape Colonna, Sunium's high
promontory, crowned with the white columns of that temple of Mi-
still
nerva, which was the landmark to Greek sailors, and which asserted the
presence of Athens at the very vestibule of her country.^
After passing this headland, our course turns to the westward across
the waters of the Saronic Gulf, with the mountains of the Morea on our
left, and the islands of ^gina and Salamis in front. To one who travels
in classical lands no moment is more full of interest and excitement than
when he has left the Cape of Sunium behind and eagerly looks for th
first glimpse of that city " built nobly on the ^gean shore," which waa
*the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloqueDce.''^ To the traveller
In classical times its position waa often revealed by the flashing of the
light on the armour of Minerva's colossal statue, which stood with shield and
spear on the summit of the citadel.^ At the very first sight of Athens,
and even from the deck of the vessel, we obtain a vivid notion of the
characteristics of its position. And the place where it stands is so re-
markable ancient inhabitants were so proud of
its its climate and its
the rock of Stirling Castle, bordered on the south by some lower emin-
ences, and commanded by a high craggy peak on the north. This rock is
the ground in the ancient city. That craggy peak is the hill of Lycabet-
tus,^ from the summit of which the spectator sees all Athens at his feet,
landscape, is so like that of Arthur's Seat to Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, and
there is so much resemblance between Edinburgh Castle and the Acropolis, that a
comparison between the city of the Saronic gulf and the city of the Forth has become
justly proverbial.
!
and look^ freely over the intermediate plain to the Piraens and the
sea.
Hymettus. Between Parnes and Hymettus is the plain ; and rising from
the plain is the AcropoUs, distinctly visible, with Lycabettus behind, and
seeming in the clear atmosphere to be nearer than it is.
The outward aspect of this scene is now what it ever was. The hghts
^nd shadows on the rocks of .^gina and Salamis, the gleams on the dis-
tant mountains, the clouds or the snow on Parnes, the gloom in the deep
dells of Hymettus, the temple-crowned rock and the plain beneath it,
are natural features, which only vary with the alternations of morning
and evening, and summer and winter.^ Some changes indeed have taken
place : but they are connected with the history of man. The vegetation
is less abundant,^ the population is more scanty. In Greek and Roman
times, bright villages enlivened the promontories of Sunium and JEgina,
and all the inner reaches of the bay. Some readers will indeed remem-
ber a dreary picture which Sulpicius gave his friend Atticus of the deso-
* See the passage from the Clouds of Aristophanes quoted by Dr. "Wordsworth.
Athens and Attica, p. 58. Theophrastus said that the weather would be fine when
there was lightning only on Parnes.
' This is written under the recollection of the aspect of the coast on a cloudy
morning in winter. It is perhaps more usually seen under the glare of a hot sky.
3 Athens was not always as bare as it is now. See the line quoted by Dio Chrys.
6i Tig ttw roiad' eux' aXkri iroT^ig; Plato, in the Critias, complains that tbo wnod
was cuminishing.
348 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
reign of Claudius, there is no doubt that all the signs of a far more
numerous population than at present were evident around the Saronic
gulf, and that more white sails were to be seen in fine weather plyi:flg
probably more like what it was, than any other spot upon the coast. It
remains what by nature it has ever been, a safe basin of deep water,
concealed by the surrounding rock ; and now, as in St. Paul's time, the
Euxine might then be a conspicuous mark among the small coasting vessels
and fishing-boats ; and one bright spectacle was then pre-eminent, which
the lapse of centuries has made cold and dim, the perfect buildings on the
summit of the Acropolis, with the shield and spear of Minerva Promachus
glittering in the sun.* But those who have coasted along beneath Hymet-
tus, and past the indentations in the shore,^ which were sufficient har-
bours for Athens in the days of her early navigation, and round by the
ancient tomb, which tradition has assigned to Themistocles,' into the bet-
ter and safer harbour of the Piraeus, require no great effort of the ima-
gination to picture the Apostle's arrival. For a moment, as we near the
entrance, the land rises and conceals all the plain. Idlers come down
upon the rocks to watch the coming vessel. The sailors are all on the
alert. Suddenly an opening is revealed ; and a sharp turn of the helm
brings the ship in between two moles,^ on which towers are erected. We
1 " Ex Asia rcdicns, quum ab ^gina Megaram versus navigarem, coepi regione?
circumcirca prospicere. Post me erat JEg'ma ante Megara dextra Pira3us
; ; ; sinistra
Corinthus ;
qua) oppida quodara tempore floreutissima fuerunt, nunc prostrata et diruta
ante oculos jacent." Ep. Fam. iv. 5.
' Corinth was in ruins in Cicero's time. For the results of its restoration, see the
next Chapter.
8 See Acts xviii. 18. Rom. xvi. 1.
< See Smith's Shipwreck, &c. * See above, p. 34.0.
>
The harbours of Fhalerum and Munychia.
7 For the sepulchre by the edge of the water, popularly called the tomb of The-
mistocles," see Leake, pp. 379, 380, and the notes.
8 Some parts of the ancient moles are remaining. Leake, p. 272. See what is said
SCENERY ROUND ATHENS. 349
are iu smooth water ; and anchor is cast in seven fathoms in the basin of
the Pkasus.^
The Piraeus, with its suburbs (for so, though it is not strictly accurate^
we may designate the maritime city), was given to Athens as a natural
advantage, to which much of her greatness must be traced. It consists
of the colossal lions now removed to Venice, which gave the harbour its modern
name, p. 271.
1 " The entrance of the Pirasus (Port Leoni) is known by a small obelisk built ou
a
low point by the company of H. M. ship Cambria, in 1820, on the starboard hand going
in. . The entrance lies E. by. S. and W. by N., and has in it nine and ten fathoms.
. .
There are three mole-heads, two of which you have on the starboard hand, and one on
the larboard. When past these mole-heads, shorten all sail, luff up, and anchor in
seven fathoms. The ground is clear and good. There is room enough for three
frigates. As the place is very narrow, great care is required. During the summer . . .
months the sea-breezes blow, nearly all day, directly into the harbour. The middle . . .
channel of the harbour, with a depth of 9 or 10 fathoms, is 110 feet in breadth ; the
starboard channel, with 6 fathoms, 40 feet ; the larboard, with 2 fathoms, only 28 feet.^^
4 For the work of Themistocles, see Thucyd. i. 93. Corn. Nep. Them. 6, and Pau-
Banias. For the completion of the defences during the Peloponnesian war, seo
Thucyd. ii. 94, and Leake's note, p. 372.
* The height of Munychia. For the military importance of this position in the Ma-
sedonian and Roman periods, see Leake, pp. 401-412. In the same way, the Museum
became more important, in the military sense, than the Acropolis, which, in every
other respect, was infinitely more illustrious. Pp. 405, 406. Compare p. 429, and the
expression of Diodorus, p. 386, n.
^ Stralbo speaks of the population living in " villages about the port." One of them
was probably near the theatre of Munychia, on the low ground on the east of the main
harbour. Leake, p. 396. Even in the time of Alexander, the Pirasus had so much d
slined that a comic writer compared it to a great empty walnut. Leake, p. 402.
were a turbulent and worthless part of its population.^ And the Piraeui
under the Romans was not without some remains of the same disorderly
class, as it doubtless retained many of the outward features of its earliei
brought in daily from the Saronic Gulf and the JEgean ^ the gardens in
the watery ground at the edge of the plain ;
^ the theatres ^ into which
the sailors used to flock to hear the comedies of Menander and the tem- ;
cation, which is famous under the name of the ^^Long Walls P The space
inciuaed between these two arms ^ of stone might be considered (as, indeed,
it was sometimes called) a third city ; for the street of five miles in length
thus formed across the plain, was crowded ^ with people, whose habita-
tions were shut out from all view of the country by the vast wall on either
Bide. Some of the most pathetic passages of Athenian history are associ-
like the crowd at Ephesus (Acts zix. 29). There was another theatre in Munychia,
mentioned by Lysias and Thucydides and there too we have the mention of a great
;
But
the name by which they were usually known at Athens, was " the Long legs," rd
9 Andocides distinguishes the three garrisons of Athens as ol Iv uctel olKovvreg, ol
hv fiaKpC) TEixei, and ol h
Ileipaiei. De Myst. p. 22, Reiske.
So Polytenus speaks of
ol ((wXaKec Tov uareog Koi tov Xleipaieug koI tQv IiKeTluv. i 40, \. That the Longo
mural space was thickly inhabited is evident from the passages of Thucydides and
Xenophon referred to below.
;
miserable inhabitants, who were crowded here to suffocation ; ' or, at the
end of the same war, when the news came of the defeat on the Asiatic
shore, and one long wail went up from the Piraeus, " and no one slept in
Athens that night." ^ The result of that victory was, that these long walls
Sulla, the stones w^ere used as materials for other military works.^ go
that when Augustus was on the throne, and Athens had reached its ulti-
imagine the aspect of these defences in the time of St. Paul, which is in-
termediate to these two writers. On each side of the road ^ were the
broken fragments of the rectangular masonry put together in the proud-
est days of Athens ; more conspicuous than they are at present (for now "
1 Thucyd. ii. 17. * Xen. Hell. ii. 2, 3.
3 Leake 428) thinks that the Phaleric wall may have supplied the materials for
(p.
CJonon's restoration. " At least no further notice of the Phaleric wall occurs in history,
aor have any vestiges of it been yet discovered."
4 For the progress of the work from its first commencement, see Grote's Greece;
vol. V.
5 See what Livy says of their state after the death of Demetrius Poliorcetes. " Inter
angustias semiruti muri, qui brachiis duobus Pir^um Athenis jungit." xxxi. 26. Yet
he afterwards speaks of their being objects of admiration in the time of -^m. Paulus,
Athenas plenas quidem et ipsas vetustate famae, multa tamen visenda habentes
arcem, portus, muros Pirseum urbi jungentes." xlv. 27.
6 Appian says that Sulla made use of the timber of the Academy and the stones
from the Long Walls for his military works. 'TXriv rriq 'kKadrjiiiag ekotzte koI /irjxavdc
tlpyd^ETO fieyiorag to. te fiCKpd ckeTitj Kadypsi, XWovg Kat ^vXa Kal yrjv kg to x^}^^
ueraf^dXXuv. De Bello Mith. 30.
' Tw TEixsL TovTo) (thc Pciralc fortification) ovv^izraL rd, Ka6L2,KVGfiva ek tov ugteoq
dKeXr]' rnvra 6' j)v fxaKpa rstxVi rsTTapaKOvra aradlov rb fJ-^Kog, avvuTxrovra to ugtv
ri) Ilsipatei. Strabo, ix. 1. He goes on to say that a succession of wars had had the
effect of destroying the defences of the Piraius.
8 'kviovTCdv EK Hsipaiug, kpEima tuv tLxo)v egtiv, d Kovov, voTEpov TTjg vrpog Kvtdu
vavfiax'iag, avEGTrjas. Paus. Att. ii. 2.
s Leake thinks that the Hamaxitus or carriage-way went on the outside of the
northern wall (p. 384) but Forchammer has shown that iliis was not the case, p. 24.
;
10 Leake, p. 417.
"See Leake, Wordsworth, and other modern travellers. It seems, from what Spon
and Wl\e]er say. that in 1676 the remains were larger and more continuous than a1
^scnt.
352 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
only the foundations can be traced here and there across the plain), but
still very different from what they were when two walls of sixty feet high,
with a long succession of towers, stood to bid defiance to every invader
^
of Attica.
COIN OF ATHENS.
The consideration of the Long Walls leads us to that of the city walls
themselves. Here many questions might be raised concerning the extent
of the enclosure,^ and the positions of the gates,'' when Athens was under
the Roman dominion. But -all such enquiries must be entirely dismissed.
We will assume that St. Paul entered the city by the gate which led frona
the Piraeus, that this gate was identical with that by which Pausanias
entered, and that its position was in the hollow between the outer slopes
of the Pnyx and Museum.-'* It is no ordinary advantage that we possess
a description of Athens under the Romans, by the traveller and antiquarian
whose name has just been mentioned. The work of Pausanias ^ will be our
1 " There is no direct evidence of the height of the Long Walls but, as Appian (De
;
B. Mith. 30) informs us that the walls of the Peiraic city were forty cubits high, we
may presume those of the Long Walls were not
Towers were absolutely neces-
less.
sary to such a work ; Long Walls leaves no question
and the inscription relating to the
as to their having existed." Leake, p. 424, n. 1. The inscription, to which allusion ia
made,* was published by K. 0. Muller, in his work "De Munimentis Athenarum" (Groti.
1836) ; it is given in Leake's Appendix.
* From the British Museum.
3 Our plan of Athens is taken from
that of Kiepert, which is based on the arguments
contained in Forchammer's Topographic von Athen. (Kiel. 1841.) It differs materially
from that of Leake, especially in giving a larger area to the city on the east and south,
and thus bringing the Acropolis in the centre. Forchammer thinks that the traces of
ftncient walls, which are found on the Pnyx, &c., do not belong to the fortifications of
Themistocles, but to some later defeucoa erected by Valerian.
* For various discussions on the gates, see Leake, Wordsworth, and Forchammer.
Pausanias does not mention the Peiraic gate by that name. See Leake, Word&-
trorth, and Forchammer. The first of these authorities places it where the modem
road from the Pirajus enters Athens, beyond all the liigli ground to the north of the
Pnyx the second places it in the hollow between the Pnyx and the Museum the
; ;
fcbird in the same direction, but more remote from the Acropolis, in conformity witb
1
THE -AGOKA. 363
best guide to the discovery of r/hat St. Paul saw. By following his route
through the city, we shall be treading in the steps of the Apostle himself,
and shall behold those very objects which excited his indignation and
compassion.
Taking, then, the position of the Peiraic gate as determined, or at
least resigning the task of topographical enquiries, we enter the city, and
with Pausanias as our guide, look round on the objects which were seen
by the Apostle. At the very gateway we are met with proofs of the
peculiar tendency of the Athenians to multiply their objects both of art
and devotion.' Close by the building where the vestments were laid up
which were used in the annual procession of their tutelary divinity
Minerva,'^ is an image of her rival Neptune, seated on horseback, and
hurling his trident.^ We pass by a temple of Ceres, on the walls of which
an archaic inscription ^ informs us that the statues it contains were the
work of Praxiteles. We go through the gate : and immediately the, eye
is attracted by the sculptured forms of Minerva, Jupiter, and Apollo, of
Mercury and the Muses, standing near a sanctuary of Bacchus. We are
already in the midst of an animated scene, where temples, statues, and
altars are on every side, and where the Athenians, fond of publicity and
the open air, fond of hearing and telling what is curious and strange,^ are
enjoying their climate and enquiring for news. A long street is before
us, with a colonnade or cloister on either hand, like the covered arcades of
Bologna or Turin.^ At the end of the street, by turning to the left, we
might go through the whole Ceramicus,' which leads by the tombs of
eminent Athenians to the open inland country and the groves of the
Academy. But we turn to the right into the Agora, which was the
centre of a glorious public life, when the orators and statesmen, the poets
and the artists of Greece, found there all the incentives of their noblest
enthusiasm ;
and still continued to be the meeting-place of philosophy, of
idleness, of conversation, and of business, when Athens could only be
fow changes had taken place in the city, with the exception of the new buildings erected
by Adrian.
1 Acts xvii. 23.
"*
This building is the Pompeium (Uo/LiTreiov). Pans. ii. 4. See Forchammer, p. 31.
a We have used the terms ^'
Minerva, Neptune," &c., instead of the more accurate
terms " Athene, Poseidon," &c., in accommodation to popular language. So before
Ch. VI.), in the case of Jupiter and Mercury.
4 'ArriKolc ypafi/xaaLv. Pans. 5 ^cts xvii. 21.
6 Forchammer makes this comparison, p. 34. It is probable., however, that these
covered walks were not formed with arches, but with pillars bearing horizontal entab-
latures. The position we have assigned to this street is in accordance wi'h the plan
of Forchammer, who places the wall and gate more remotely from the Agora than our
EInglish topographers.
' This term, in its full extent, included not only the road between the city wall and
".be Academy, but the Agora itself. See Plan of Athens.
VOL. I. 23
354: THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
proud of lier recollections of the past. On the south side is the Pnyx^^
a sloping hill partially levelled into an open area for political assemblies ;
space within narrow limits, and sculpture has peopled it with impressive
%ures. Among the buildings of greatest interest are the porticoes or
cloisters, which were decorated with paintings and statuary, like the
Oampo Santo at Pisa. We think we may be excused for multiplying
these comparisons : for though they are avowedly imperfect, they are
really more useful than any attempt at description could be, in enabling
memorials of actual history. Among the plane trees planted by the hand
of Cimon,' were the statues of the great men of Athens such as Solon
the lawgiver,^ Conon the admiral,^ Demosthenes the orator.'* But among
her historical men were her deified heroes, the representatives of her
' remarkable that the Pnyx, the famous meeting-place of the political assem-
It is
blies of is not mentioned by Pausanias.
Athens, This may be because there were no
longer any such assemblies, and therefore his attention was not called to it or, per- ;
haps, it is omitted because it was simply a level space, without any work of art to
attract the notice of an antiquarian.
See this more fully described below. 3 gee above, p. 346.
* We adopt the view of Forchammer, which is now generally received, that the
position of the Agora was always the same. The hypothesis of a new Agora to the
north of the Areopagus, was first advanced by Meursius and has been adopted by
Leake.
* In the plan, those two porticoes are placed side by side, after Kiepert. Leake places
them to the N. W. of the Areopagus, in accordance with his theory concerning the new
Agora. See below. The
of these porticoes was so called because the King
first
Archon held Pausanias does not give the name of the second ; but
his court there.
It is inferred from comparing his description with other authors.
Pans. iii. 2. ' Plut. Cim. Wordsw. p. 68.
Pans. xvi. 1. This was in front of the Stoa Poecile, which will be mentiened
below.
PauB. liL 1, w Pans. viii. 4
I
The legends of these two heroes were frequently combined in works of art. See
Wordsworth's Greece. Their statues in the Agora are mentioned by Pausanias, viii. 5.
* Faus. viii.
3 See what Leake says on this street, p. 253. We adopt Kiepert's arrangement.
4 His temple was called Pythium. In this building the naval car,
Apollo Patrous.
used in the Panathenaic procession, was laid up after'its festal voyages, to be exhibited
to travellers " as the Ducal barge of Venice, the Bucentoro, in which the Doge sol-
;
emnized the annual marriage with the sea, is now preserved for the same purpose in
the Venetian arsenal." Wordsworth, p. 189.
5 Apollo Alexicacus, who was believed to have made the plague to cease in the
Peloponnesian war.
6 See Wordsworth, p. 169. This is one of the objects not mentioned by Pausanias.
[t was near the statue of Demosthenes.
7 See the plan. s Acts xvii. 22.
The sanctuary was in a deep cleft in the front of the Areopagus, facing the
Acropolis. See below.
For the position of these temples, see Leake, Section Vn., on the fourth part of
ttie route of Pausanias.
II The history of this temple is very curious. In 1676 it was found entire by Spoa
and Whelcr. Subsequent travellers found that it had disappeared. In 1835 the
various portions were discovered in an excavation, with the exception of two, which
are in the British Museum. It is now entirely restored. The original structure
belongs to the period of the close of the Persian wars.
1' For their position, see Pausanias. These statues were removed by Xerxes and ;
Alexander, when at Babylon, gave an order for their restoration. Images of Brutua
wid Cassius were at one time erected near them (Dio C. xlvii. 20), but probably they
rore removed by Augustus.
'
Agora which are not understood by all men : fof^" he adds, ''the Athe-
nians alone of all the Greeks give divine honour to Pity." ' It is needless
to show how the enumeration which we have made (and which is no morp
than a selection from what is described by Pausanias) throws light on the
words of St. Luke and St. Paul ; and especially how the groping after
the abstract and invisible, implied in the altars alluded to last, illustr^ites
the inscription " To the Unknown God," which was used by Apostol^
wisdom to point the way to the highest truth.
What is true of Agora is still more emphatically true of the Acropolii
for the spirit which rested over Athens was concentrated here. The feel
ing of the Athenians with regard to the Acropolis was well, though fanci
fully, expressed by the rhetorician who said that it was the, middle spact
of five concentric circles of a shield, whereof the outer four were Athens,
Attica, Greece, and the world.^ The platform of the Acropolis was a
museum of art, of history, and of rehgion. The whole was " one vast
J
The Mrjrptjov. See the plan. ^ The Bovlevv^pLov. See the plan.
3 Its position may be seen on the plan, on the south side of the Acropolis.
4 See the inscription in Boeckh. This is attributed to the elevated position of the
Pnyx as seen from the Agora. Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, p. 72.
5 See the restored inscription in Wordsworth (p. 70) : HIEPON NTM^Alii
AHM02IAIS.
6 It is doubtful in altars of Fame, Modesty, and Energy
what part of Athens the
were placed. iEschines alludes to the altar of Fame. The
(^kidoiq Koi ^/jiutjc Kal 'Op/ir/g)
altar of Persuasion (ReLdcj) was on the ascent of the Acropolis. There were many other
memorials of the same kind in Athens. Cicero speaks of a temple or altar to Contu-
melia and Impudentia. De Leg. ii. 11. In the temple of Minerva Polias, in the Acro-
polis, was an altar of Oblivion. Plut. Sympos. 9.
' 'E/^tow (Sofiog, 0) uaTiLara &eC)V, kg uvOpuTvivov piov kol nErafioTiag TrpayfiuTCJV
Sti 6(j>eXtfxog, /nOvot Ttfiug 'ElT^rjvuv vtfiovaiv 'kdrjvaloL. xvii. 1. He adds that this
altar was not so much due to their human sympathy as to their peculiar piety towards
the gods and he confirms this opinion by proceeding to mention the altars of Fame,
,
r?.ripoL did Tvdvruv 6 KalliaTog' eiTrep i] filv 'EAAaf ev fieaui Trjg Tcdarjg yyg' rj
Panath. i. 99
the features of the idolatrous spectacle he saw before him. At the en*
trance, in conformity with his attributes, was the statue of Mercurius Pro*
pylseus.i Further on, within the vestibule of the beautiful enclosure, were
statues of Yenus and the Graces.^ The recovery of one of those who had
laboured among the edifices of the Acropolis was commemorated by a dedi-
cation to Minerva as the goddess of Health.' There was a shrine of
Diana, whose image had been wrought by Praxiteles."* Intermixed with
what had reference to divinities, were the memorials of eminent men and
of great victories. The statue of Pericles, to whom the glory of the Acro-
polis was due, remained there for centuries.^ Among the sculptures on
the south wall was one which recorded a victory we have alluded to,
that of Attains over the Galatians.^ Nor was the Koman power without
its representatives on this proud pedestal of Athenian glory. Before the
entrance were statues of Agrippa and Augustus ; ' and at the eastern ex-
tremity of the esplanade a temple was erected in honour of Rome and the
emperor.^ But the main characteristics of the place were mythological
and religious, and truly Athenian. On the wide levelled area were such
groups as the following : Theseus contending with the Minotaur ; Her-
1 Pans. xxii. 8.
* These statues were said to be the work of Socrates. Pans. ib.
valde ipsas Athenas amo. Odi inscriptiones alienarum statuarum." Att. vi. 1. Within
the enclosure of the Acropolis, Pausanias saw a statue of Hadrian. Unless this also
was a Romanized Greek statue, it was not there in St. Paul's time.
8 This temple is not mentioned by Pausanias. Some fragments remain, and among
fliem the inscription which records the dedication. Augustus did not allow the pro*
jinces to dedicate any temple to him except in conjunction with Rome. Suet. Aug,
3. There was a temple of this kind at Caesarea. See p. 115.
358 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
Minerva causing the olive to sprout while Keptune raises the waves.' Th
mention of this last group raises our thoughts to the Parthenon, the Vir-
gin's House, the glorious temple which rose in the proudest period oi
Athenian history to the honour of Minerva, and which ages of war and
decay have only partially defaced. The sculptures on one of its pediments
represented the birth of the goddess : those on the other depicted her con-
test with Neptune.^ Under the outer cornice were groups representing
the victories achieved by her champions. Round the inner frieze was the
long series of the Panathenaic procession.^ Within was the colossal sta-
tue of ivory and gold, thework of Phidias, unrivalled in the world, save
only by the Jupiter Olympus of the same famous artist. This was not the
only statue of the Virgin Goddess within the sacred precincts ; the Acro-
polis boasted of three Minervas." The oldest and most venerated was in
the small irregular temple called the Erectheium, which contained the
mystic olive-tree of Minerva and the mark of Neptune's trident. This
statue, like that of Diana at Ephesus (Acts xix. 35), was believed to have
fallen from heaven The third, though less sacred than the Minerva Po-
lias, was the most conspicuous of all.^ Formed from the brazen spoils of
the battle of Marathon, it rose in gigantic proportions above all the build-
ings of the Acropolis, and stood with spear and shield as the tutelary
divinity of Athens and Attica. It was the statue which may have caught
the eye of St. Paul himself, from the deck of the vessel in which he sailed
round Sunium to the Piraeus."^ Now he had landed in Attica, and beheld
all the wonders of that city which divides with one other city all the glory
of heathen antiquity. Here, by the statue of Minerva Promachus, he
conld reflect on the meaning of the objects he had seen in his progress.
His path had been among the forms of great men and deified heroes, among
the temples, the statues, the altars of the gods of Greece. He had seen
the creations of mythology represented to the eye, in every form of beauty
and grandeur, by the sculptor and the architect. And the one overpower-
ing result was this :
" His spirit was stirred within him, when he saw the
city wholly given to idolatry."
Museum.
See here, especially. Dr. Wordsworth's Chapter on the three Minervas.
^ AfoTTcrcf. Its material was not marble nor metal, but olive-wood.
The pedestal appears to have been twenty feet, and the statue fifty-five feet, m
height. Leake, p. 351. The lower part of the pedestal has lately been discovered.
' See above, pp. 346, 348.
VIEW FROM THE ACROPOLIS. 359
But we must associate St. Paul, not merely with the religion, bat with
the philosophy of Greece. And this, perhaps, is our best opportunity for
doing so, if we wish to connect together, in this respect also, the appear-
ance and the spirit of Athens. If the Apostle looked out from the pedes-
tal of the Acropolis over the city and the open country, he would see the
places which are inseparably connected with the names of those who have
always been recognised as the great teachers of the pagan world. In oi>
posite directions he would see the two memorable suburbs where Aristotle
and Plato, the two pupils of Socrates, held their illustrious schools. Their
positions are defined by the courses of the two rivers to which we have
already alluded.' The streamless bed of the Ilissus passes between the
Acropolis and Hymettus in a south-westerly direction, till it Yanishes in the
low ground which separates the city from the Piraeus. Looking towards
the upper part of this channel we see (or we should have seen in the first
1 Above, p. 349.
' Leake, p. 275. See Plato's Phsedrus. The Lyceum was remarkable for its plane-
trees. Socrates used to discourse under them (Max. Tyr. 24), and Aristotle and Theo-
phrastus afterwards enjoyed their shade (Theoph. H. Plant, i. 11). We cannot tell
hov/ far these groves were restored since the time of Sulla^ who cut them down. Pint
Sull. 12.
3 Lucian. Gymnas. 7.
*
See an allusion to his birthplace above, p. 320.
5 *Fj7Topev6jLti]v 'AKa6i]/ntag ei'ud AvKecov Trjv e^o) relxovg vtt' avro to tsixoc. Plat,
'^ys. 1.
6 The stream is now divided and distributed, in order to water the gardens and
olive-trees. Plutarch calls the Academy the best wooded of the suburbs of Athens
{6v6po(pop6TaTov ruv Tvpoaaretuv. Sull. 12). Compare Diog. Laert. iii. 7.
' See the well-known chorus in Sophocles. OEd. Col. 668.
:
more venerable than those which had grown up after Sulla's destruction
of the woods, before Cicero * visited the Academy in the spirit of a pil-
grim. But the Academicians and Peripatetics are not the schools to
which our attention is called in considering the biography of St. Paul.
We must turn our eye from the open country to the city itself, if we wish
to see the plaees which witnessed the rise of the Stoics and JEpicureansu
tion, and, having followed it, let us look down from the Acropolis into the
Agora. There we distinguish a cloister or colonnade, which was not men-
tioned before, because it is more justly described in connection with the
Stoics. The Stoa JPascile, or the Painted Cloister,^ gave its name to one of
those sects who encountered the Apostle in the Agora. It was decorated
with pictures of the legendary wars of the Athenians, of their victories
over their fellow Greeks, and of the more glorious struggle at Marathon,
Originally the meeting-place of the poets,'* it became the school where
Zeno met his pupils, and founded the system of stern philosophy v^hich
found adherents both among Greeks and Romans for many generations.
The system of Epicurus was matured nearly at the same time and in the
1 Cicero, at one time, contemplated the erection of a monument to show his attach-
ment to the Academy. Att. vi. 1.
^ 'EvTavda yap kv KepafteiKoi virojievovjiEV avTfjv ' 7j 6i fjdrj irov u(j)L^eTai, iiraviovaa
Piscator. 13.
3 This Stoa is the subject of a long paragraph (xv.) in Pausanias. It was one of the
most famous buildings in Athens, ^schines says distinctly that it was in the Agora
UpoaDidiTS rij dtavoia elg rrjv JloLKtXrjV, uTzavruv yap vfiuv Tuv xaXuv epyuv rd
vno/iVT^uara h r?) dyopg. dvaKetrai. C. Ctesiph. p. 163.
* Hitter's History of Philosophy (Eng. Trans.), vol. iii. p. 452.
6 This garden was proverbially known among
See Juvenal, xiii. 172,
the ancients.
(Epicurum exigui laetum plantaribus horti), and xiv. 319. (Quantum, Epicure, tibi
parvis suffecit in hortis) and compare Cicero's expression, De Nat. Deorum, 1. 43.
:
(Democriti foutibus Epicurus horfulos suos irrigavit). Diogenes Laertius (x.) men-
tions the price at which the garden was bought. Pliny (H. N. xix. 19) traces the lovo
of city gardens to Epicurus (Jam quidem hortorum nomine in ipsa urbe delicias, agros,
villasque possident. Primus hoc instituit Athenis Epicwus otii magister). Some
have thought that the suburb on the Ilissus, mentioned by Pausanias under the name
of "tks gardens" {Kynoi), was the scene of the home of Epicurus. But this is impro-
bable.
6 On his first visit to Athens, at the age of twenty-eight, Cicero lodged with an Epi-
ourean. On the occasion of his second visit, the attachment of the Epicureans to the
garden of their founder was brought before him in a singular manner." There lived
Athens C. Memmius
at this time in exile at The ligure which he had borne in
Rome gave him great authority in Athens and the council of Areopagus had granted
;
* THE "painted POECh" AKD THE " GAEDEN." 363
St. Paul it could not have been forgotten, for a peculiarly affectionatt
feeling subsisted among the Epicureans towards their founder.' He left
the middle of the first century. But it is highly probable that, even then^
those who looked down from the Acropolis over the roofs of the city,
could distinguish the quiet garden, where Epicurus lived a Hfe of philo-
sophic cont^tment, and taught his disciples that the enjoyment of tran-
quil pleasure was the highest end of human existence.
went through the city," he saw dishonoured on every side. He was melted
with pity for those who, notwithstanding their intellectual greatness, were
" wholly given to idolatry." His eye was not blinded to the reality of
him a piece of ground to build upon, where Epicurus formerly lived, and where there
remained the old ruins of his walls. But this grant had given great offence to tho
Btill
whole hody of the Epicureans, to see the remains of their master in danger of being
destroyed. They had written to Cicero at Rome, to beg him to intercede with Men*-
mius to consent to a restoration of it ; and now at Athens they renewed their instances,
and prevailed on him to write about it Cicero's letter is drawn with much art
and accuracy he laughs at the trifling zeal of these philosophers for the old rubbish
;
and paltry ruins of their founder, yet earnestly presses Memmius to indulge them ia a
prejudice contracted through weakness, not wickedness." Middleton's Life of Cicm!^,
Sect. VII.
1 Ritter, iii. 401.
' Diog. La. X. 18. Cic. de Fin. ii. 31. See Cic. Fam. xiii. 1, in the letter alluded to
above' p. 360, n. 6.
3 Valde me Athens} delectarunt urs dunbtaxat et urbis ornamentum, et hominum
:
amores in te, et in nos qusedam benevolentia. Sed multum et philosophia. "Avif kutu,
6i quid est, est in Aristo, apud quern eram." Att. v. 10. Orelli's reading in tJieK
last two clauses is would seem that the philosophers of Athens were just
correct, it
khen all topsy-turvy, and that Cicero found the most satisfaction in hia Epicnreac
friend Anstus.
362 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
den and a grief to him to be " left in Athens alomj' Modefn travellers
have often felt, when wandering alone through the streets of a foreign
city, what it is to be out of sympathy with the place and the people. The
heart is with friends who are far off ; and nothing that is merely beautiful
or curious can effectually disperse the cloud of sadness. If, in addition
1 1 Thess. ill. 1. It may be thought that too much is built here on this one expres-
gion. But we think the remarks by those who considei
in the text will be justified
the tone of the Epistles to the Thessalonians (see next Chapter), and the depression
and sense of isolation evidently experienced by St. Paul when he was without com-
panions. See, especially. Acts xxviii. 15, and 2 Cor. ii. 13. vii. 5. Compare the la
iroduction. xvL
brethren of the scattered race of Israel. Though moved with grief and
Indignation when he saw the idolatry all around him, he deemed that his
first thought should be given to his own people. They had a synagogue
at Athens, as at Thessalonica, and in this synagogue he first proclaimed
his Master. Jewish topics, however, are not brought before us promi-
nently here. They are casually alluded to ; and we are not informed
whether the Apostle was welcomed or repulsed in the Athenian synagogue
The silence of Scripture is expressive : and we are taught that the subjects
to which our attention is to be turned, are connected, not with Judaism,
but with Paganism. Before we can be prepared to consider the great
speech, which was the crisis and consummation of this meeting of Chris-
tianity and Paganism, our thoughts must be given for a few moments to
the characteristics of Athenian religion and Athenian philosophy.
The mere enumeration of the visible objects with which the city of the
Athenians was crowded, bears witness (to use St. Paul's own words) to
their " carefulness in religion." ^ The judgment of the Christian Apostle
agreed with that of his Jewish contemporary Josephus,^ with the proud
boast of the Athenians themselves, exempMfied in Isocrates and Plato, ^
and with the verdict of a multitude of foreigners, from Livy to Julian,^
all of whom unite in declaring that Athens was peculiarly devoted to reli-
Lib, xlv. 27. ^lIoOeol /udTnara ndvruv eIol . . . Kadolov fxlv "EHrivEg Trdvreg, avruv
S 'EXlTjvQv nMov
tovto bx^j uaprvpelv 'AdTjvaioig. Jul. Misopogon. See also Dionys
Hal. de Thuc. 40. Strabo, x. Lucian, Prom. 180. ^1. v. 17. Pbilostr. vi. 2.
5 'kdrjvaioLg Treptaaorepov rj n
rolg dlT^atg eg rd 6eld eari CTVovdr/g. Paus.x:riv 3
CJompare his remark with reference to the altar of Pity, xvii. 3.
< Petron. Sat. c. 17.
364 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
but it had no real power to raise him to a higher position than that which
he occupied by nature. It could not even keep him from falhng continu-
ally to a lower degradation.^ To the Greek this world was everything :
be hardly even sought to rise above it. And thus all his life long, in the
midst of everything to gratify his taste and exercise his intellect, he re-
the true significance of the inscription is that which is pointed out by the
Apostle himself.^ The Athenians were ignorant of the right object of
worship. But if we are to give a true account of Athenian religion, we
must go beyond the darkness of mere ignorance into the deeper darkness
of corruption and sin. The most shameless profligacy was encouraged by
che public works of art, by the popular belief concerning the character of
tian writings.^ It is enough to say with Seneca,^ that " no other effect
could possibly be produced, but that all shame on account of sin must be
taken away from men, if they believe in such gods f and with Augustine,^
that " Plato himself, who saw well the depravity of the Grecian gods, and
has seriously censured them, better deserves to be called a god, than those
ministers of sin." It would be the worst delusion to infer any good of the
Grecian religion from the virtue and wisdom of a few great Athenians
whose memory we revere. The true type of the character formed by the
influences which surround the Athenian, was such a man as Alcibiades,
with a beauty of bodily form equal to that of one of the consecrated stat-
and destitute, likewise, of any filial, devoted love. These perfections can
be shared only by the Christian, who beholds the Redeemer as a wanderer
upon earth in the form of a servant ; and who receives in his own soul
the sanctifying power of that Redeemer by intercourse with Him." ^
When we turn from the religion of Athens to take a view of its Phi-
losophy, the first name on which our eye rests is again that of Socrates *
1 A great number of passages are collected together by Tholuck. See the quotations
tiom Augustine and Clemens Alexandrinus, pp. 106-108 and from Martial, Tereao, ;
nd Amenreus, pp. 125. 126. For practices connected with the temples, see p. 120.
* De Vita beata, c. 26. 3 De Civ. Dei, ii. 14.
4 Tholuck, p. 163.
For Socrates, see eepecially the Eighth Volume of Grote's History, and the Quar
5
This is necessarily tlie case, not only because of his own singular and unap
proached greatness but because he was, as it were, the point to which
all the earlier schools converged, and from which the later rays of Greek
philosophy diverged again. The earlier philosophical systems, such as
that of Thales in Asia Minor, and Pythagoras in Italy, were limited to
physical inquiries : Socrates was the first to call man to the contemplation
of himself, and became the founder of ethical science.^ A new direction
was thus given to all the philosophical schools which succeeded ; and So-
crates may be said to have prepared the way for the Gospel, by leading
the Greek mind to the investigation of moral truth. He gave the impulse
to the two schools which were founded Lyceum, and by the banks
in the .
of Cephisus,' and which have produced such vast results on human thought
in every generation. We are not called here to discuss the doctrines of the
Peripatetics and Academicians. Not that they are unconnected with the
history of Christianity : Plato and Aristotle have had a great work ap-
pointed to them, not only as the Heathen pioneers of the Truth before it
was revealed, but as the educators of Christian minds in every age. The
former enriched human thought with appropriate ideas for the reception
of the highest truth in the highest form ; the latter mapped out all the
provinces of human knowledge, that- Christianity might visit them and
bless them. And the historian of the Church would have to speak of
direct influence exerted on the Gospel by the Platonic and Aristotelian
systems, in recounting the conflicts of the parties of Alexandria, and tracing
the formation of the theology of the Schoolmen. But the biographer of
St. Paul has only to speak of the Stoics and Ejpicureans. They only,
among the various philosophers of the day, are mentioned as having argued
with the Apostle ; and their systems had really more influence in the
period in which the Gospel was established, though, in the Patristic and
Medieval periods, the older systems, in modified forms, regained their sway..
The Stoic and Epicurean, moreover, were more exclusively limited than
other philosophers to moral investigations,^ a fact which is tacitly im-
Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, was a native of the same part
the Levant with St. Paul himself.' He came from Cyprus to Atheni
M a time when patriotism was decayed and political liberty lost, and
when a system, which promised the power of brave and self-sustaining en-
morals, and its theology. The Stoics condemned the worship of images
and the use of temples, regarding them as nothing better than the orna-
ments of art.3 But they justified the popular polytheism, and in fact, con-
&s it is in Jesus." The proud ideal which was set before the disciple of
Zeno was, a magnanimous self-denial, an austere apathy, untouched by hu
man passion, unmoved by change of circumstance. To the "Wise man all
outward things were alike. Pleasure was no good. Pain was no evil.
All actions conformable to Reason were equally good ; all actions coii-
trary to Reason were equally evil.' The Wise man lives according to Rea-
Bon ; and living thus, he is perfect and self-sufficing. He reigns supreme
as a king :
^ he is justified in boasting as a god.^ I^othing can well be
imagined more contrary to thespirit of Christianity. Nothing could be
more repugnant to the Stoic than the news of a " Saviour," who has
atoned for our sin, and is ready to aid our weakness. Christianity is the
School of Humility : Stoicism was the Education of Pride. Christi-
trated both in its earlier and late disciples. Its two first leaders ^ died by
theirown hands like the ; two Romans ^ whose names first rise to the
memory, when the school of the Stoics is mentioned. But Christianity
turns the desperate resolution, that seeks to escape disgrace by death, into
that sublime egotism, which looks down with contempt on human weak-
ness, with the religion which tells us that " they who mourn are blessed,"
and which commands to "rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with
them that weep."
If Stoicism, in its full development, was utterly opposed to Christi-
anity, the same may be said of the very primary principles of the Epi-
1 See the description which a contemporary of St. Paul gives of Stoicism. " Doc-
bona quae honesta, mala tantum quae turpia potentiam, nobili-
VOTes sapientiae, qui sola ;
tatem, caeteraque extra animum, neque bonis neque malis adnumerant." Tac. Hist, iv. 5.
* Hor. Sat. I. iii. Ep. I. i.
cureau ^ school. If the Stoics were Pantheists, the Epicureans were virtu*
ally Atheists. Their philosophy was a system of materialism, in th
strictest sense of the word ; in their view, the world was formed by an ac-
cidental concourse of atoms, and was not in any sense created, or even
modified, by the Divinity. They did indeed profess a certain belief in
what were called gods ; but these equivocal divinities were merely phan-
toms, ^impressions on the popular mind, dreams, which had no objec-
tive reality, or at least exercised no active influence on the physical world
or the business of life. The Epicurean deity, if self-existent at all, dwelt
apart, in serene indifference to all the affairs of the universe. The uni-
verse was a great accident, and sufficiently explained itself without any
reference to a higher power. The popular mythology was derided, but the
Epicureans had no positive faith in anything better. As there was no
creator, so there was no moral governor : all notions of retribution and
of a judgment to come were of course forbidden by such a creed. The
principles of the atomic theory, when applied to the constitution of man,
must have caused the resurrection to appear an absurdity. The soul was
nothing without the body ;
^ or rather, the soul was itself a body, com-
posed of finer atoms, or at best an unmeaning compromise between the
material and immaterial.^ Both body and soul were dissolved together
and dissipated into the elements and when this occurred, all the life of
;
man was ended. The moral result of such a creed was necessarily that
which the Apostle Paul described : "
" If the dead rise not, let us eat
and drink : for to-morrow we die." The essential principle of the Epi-
curean philosopher was that there was nothing to alarm * him, nothing to
disturb him. His furthest reach was to do deliberately what the animals
do instinctively ; ^ his highest aim was to gratify himself. With the
coarser and more energetic minds, this principle inevitably led to the
VOL. 1. 24
has ever had to contend with are the two ruling principles of the Epicu-
reans and Stoics, Pleasure and Pride.
Such, in their original and essential character, were the two schools of
philosophy with which St. Paul was brought directly in contact. We
ought, however, to consider how had been modified by
far these schools
the lapse of time, by the changes which succeeded Alexander and accom-
panied the formation of the Koman Empire, and by the natural tendencies
of the Roman character. When Stoicism and Epicureanism were brought
to Rome, they were such as w^e have described them. In as far as they
were speculative systems, they found little favour : Greek philosophy was
always regarded with some degree of distrust among the Romans. Their
mind was alien from science and pure speculation. Philosophy, like art
and literature, was of foreign introduction. The cultivation of such pur-
suits was followed by private persons of wealth and taste, but was little
for its own sake, but for the service of the state.* Thus, the peculiarly
practical character of the Stoic and Epicurean systems recommended
them to the notice of many. What was wanted in the prevailing misery
of the Roman world was a philosophy of life. There were some who
weakly yielded, and some who offered a courageous resistance, to the evil
of the times. The former, under the name of Epicureans, either spent
their time in a serene tranquillity, away from the distractions and disorders
of political life, or indulged in the grossest sensuahsm, and justified it on
principle. The Roman adherents of the school of Epicurus were never
of vice. Three great names can be mentioned, which divided the period
See what Ritter says of tlie scenes of sensuality witnessed in the Garden even in
the lifetime of Epicurus, p. 402.
See the Fifth Volume of Tenneman)i's Geschichte der Philosophic, Einl., pp. 1-13.
.LATER PERIOD OF THE SCHOOLS. 37]
between the preaching of St. Paul and the final establishment of Ohristi
anity, Seneca, Epictetus, and Antoninus Pins.^ But such men were fe^
in a time of general depravity and unbelief. And such was really the
character of the time. It was a period in the history of the world, when
dria.^ But Alexandria, though she was commercially great and possessed
the trade of three continents, had not yet seen the rise of her greatest
schools and Tarsus could never be what Athens was, even in her decay,
;
to those who travelled with cultivated tastes and for the purposes of
education. Thus Philosophy still maintained her seat in the city of
Socrates. The four great schools, the Lyceum and the Academy, the
Garden and the Porch, were never destitute of exponents of their doctrines.
When Cicero came, not long after Sulla's siege, he found the philosophers
in residence.^ As the empire grew, Athens assumed more and more the
character of an university town. After Christianity was first preached
there, this character was confirmed to the place by the embellishments
and the benefactions of Hadrian. And before the schools were closed by
the orders of Justinian,' the city which had received Cicero and Atticus ^
as students together, became the scene of the college friendship of St
J
The approximation of the later Stoics, especially Epictetus, to Christianity, is re-
markable. Hence ihe emphasis laid by Milton on the Stoic's " philosophick pride, by
him called virtue." Paradise Regained, iv. 300.
" See Tennemann, Tholuck, and Neander. 3 Tennemann.
Basil and St. Gregory,' one of the most beautiful episodes of primitive
Christianity.
Thus, St. Paul found philosophers at Athens, among those whom h
addressed in the Agora. This, as we have seen, was the common meet
ing place of a population always eager for fresh subjects of intellectuai
curiosity. Demosthenes had rebuked the Athenians for this idle tendency
four centuries before, tellingthem that they were always craving after
news and excitement, at the very moment when destruction was impending
over their liberties.'' And they are described in the same manner, on the
occasion of St. Paul's visit, as giving their whole leisure to telling and
hearing something newer than the latest news.^ Among those who
sauntered among the plane trees ^ of the Agora, and gathered in knots
under the porticos, eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were philo-
sophers, in the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question, on
which they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric. Among
the other philosophers, the Stoics and Epicureans would more especially
be encountered ; for the "Painted Porch of Zeno was in the Agora
itself, and the " Garden" ^ of the rival sect was not far distant. To both
these classes of hearers and talkers both the mere idlers and the profes-
sors of philosophy any question connected with a new religion was
peculiarly welcome ; for Athens gave a ready acceptance to all supersti-
tions and ceremonies, and was glad to find food for credulity or scepticism,
ridicule or debate. To this motley group of the Agora, St. Paul made
known the two great subjects he had proclaimed from city to city. He
spoke aloud of " Jesus and the Resurrection," ' of that Name which is
above every name, that consummation which awaits all the generations of
men who have successively passed into the sleep of death. He was in the
ad Ep. Phil., and c. Phil. i. So Thucydides calls his countrymen veoTeponocol ; and
Dica;archus says that the people of Attica are Trepiepyot ralg "Xaliaig.
3 A-cts xvii. 21.
< See above, 354. It is, of coarse, impossible to prcve that Oimon's plane-trees were
micceedcd by others ; but a boulevard is commonly r>pnewed, w^hen a city recovers fhmi
its disasters.
them.^ His own native city was a city of pMlosophers, and was especially
famous (as we have remarked before) for a long line of eminent Stoics,
and lie was doubtless familiar with their language and opinions.
ing to the disposition of those who heard him. Some said that he was a
mere "babbler,'"^ and received him with contemptuous derision. Others
took a more serious view, and, supposing that he was endeavouring to
introduce new objects of worship,^ had their curiosity excited, and w^ere
1 See Ch. III. p. 105. Two of tlie most influential of the second generation of Stoics
were Antipater of Tarsus and Zeno of Tarsus. Chrysippus also is said by Strabo to
have been a native of the same place.
^ I.TTepfxo^oyog is properly a bird that picks up seeds from the ground, and it is so
used in the " Birds " of Aristophanes. Hence, secondarily, it may mean a pauper who
prowls about the market-place, or a parasite who lives by his wits (ex alienis victitans),
and hence " a contemptible and worthless person." Or, from the perpetual chattering
and chirping of such birds, the word may denote an idle " babbler." See Meyer. The
former appears the truest view. See the quotations in Suicer's Thesaurus. The pri-
mary meaning of the word is given by Chrysostom in a striking sentence in one of his
homilies on the Thessalonians "Av fii) yeupyol, ttjv yriv avaiiox^tvaavrtq^ TrepiarelXuffi
Tfi KarafSaTiTiofzeva, TOig G'Kepfio7i6yoLg opveotg iaTretpav.
3 Kalva daifiovia (Acts xvii. 18) 5 the very words used in the accusation against So-
crates. 'AdiKet 1,o)KpdTrjg, ovg fiev 7] 'Kokig voiui^et -Q^eovgy ov vojlll^uv, irepa 6^ Kaivd
daifiovia eia^spuv. Xen. Mem.The word 6at/i6viov is probably here used quite
i, 1.
generally. This is the only place where it occurs in the Acts of the Apostles. See
the remarks which have been made before on this subject, pp. 298-300. Maximua
Tyrius gives the strict definition of Saifiov in the following passage. Tcdeao debv fihff
HMruva koL Xpv<jim:ov kuI Uvdayopav, i^iloi, koI elp^vTj fSadela Ttpbg inELvovg
i
a uTeyKTog 'TS^mKovpog {ovto) yap avrov uvoua^ev) ixOiOTog diKaiog, iravra Tavra h
yf^uTC Kal naidid ridifxevog. 25.
374 THE LIFE A^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
derided and those who listened. Two such classes are usually found
among those to whom truth is presented. When Paul came among the
Athenians, he came, "not with enticing words of man's wisdom," and
to some of the " Greeks'' who heard him, the Gospel was " fooHshness ;" ^
while in others there was at least that curiosity which is sometimes made
the path whereby the highest truth enters the mind ; and they sought to
have a fuller and more deliberate exposition of the mysterious subjects,
which now for the first time had been brought before their attention.
The place to which they took him was the summit of the hill of Areo-
pagus, where the most awful court of judicature had sat from time imme-
morial, to pass sentence on the greatest criminals, and to decide the most
solemn questions connected with religion.'' The judges sat in the open air,
upon seats hewn out in the rock, on a platform, which was ascended by a
flight of stone steps immediately from the Agora.^ On this spot a long
series of awful causes, connected with crime and religion, had been deter-
mined, beginning with the legendary trial of Mars,^ which gave to the
place its name of " Mars' Hill," A
temple of the god,^ as we have seen,
was on the brow of the eminence ; and an additional solemnity was given
to the place by the sanctuary of the Furies,^ in a broken cleft of the rock,
immediately below the judges' seat. Even in the political decay of
1 See 1 Cor. i. 18. ii. 5.
' For the early history of the court, see Hermann's Lehrbuch der G. Staatsalter-
thiimer, c. v., and Grote, vol. v. For miscellaneous details, see Meursius in Gronov.
Thes.
3 'TTzaidpLOL hdiKa^ov. Julius Pollux. Vitruvius mentions a building which Leake
(p. 356) thinks may sometimes have been used by the Areopagites. " Athenis Areopagi
antiquitatis exemplar ad hoc tempus luto tectum." Vit. ii. 1. The number of steps is
sixteen. See Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, p. 73. " Sixteen stone steps cut in the
rock, at its up to the hill of the Areopagus from the valley of
south-east angle, lead
the Agora, which lies between and the Pnyx. This angle seems to be the point of
it
the hill on which the council of the Areopagus sat. Immediately above the steps, on
the level of the hill, is a bench of stone excavated in the limestone rock, forming three
sides of a quadrangle, like a triclinium it faces the south
: on its east and west side
:
is a raised block the former may, perhaps, have been the tr'bunal, the two latter the
:
rude stones which Pausanias saw here, and which are described by Euripides (Iph. T.
962) as assigned, the one to the accuser, the other to the criminal, in the causes which
were tried in this court." The stone seats are intermediate in position to the sites of
the Temple of Mars and the Sanctuary of the Eumenides, mentioned below.
* Pausan. xxviii. 5.
* This temple is mentioned by Pausanias, viii. 5. It was on the southern slope of the
Areopagus, immediately above the Agora, near the Eponymi and the statue of Demo
khenes.
6 The Athenians, according to their usual euphemism, called these dread goddesses
by the name of Ev/ievi6eg or le/ivai; and Pausanias says that their statues in this
place had nothing ferocious in their aspect. The proximity of this sanctuary to the
Areopagi te coui't must have tended to give additional solemnity to tha pIju?*.
THE AREOPAGUS. 375
A thens, this spot and this court were regarded by the people with super-
gtitious reverence.^ It was a scene with which the dread recollections of
the Agora, came, as it were, into the presence of a higher power. ISTo
priate. There was everything in the place to incline the auditors, so far
1 See Aulus Gellius in Winer. In some respects it seems that the influence of the
court was increased under the Romans. See Hermann, 17 6, and Cic. pro Balbo.
^ Some are of opinion that he was forcibly apprehended and put on a formal trial.
It may be argued that, if a public address was all that was required, the Pnyx would
have been more suitable than the Areopagus. But we need not suppose the crowd
about St. Paul to have been very great and though the Pnyx might be equally acces-
;
sible from the Agora, and more convenient for a general address, the Areopag-us waa
more appropriate for a discourse upon religion. We are disposed too to lay great
stress on the verso (21) which speaks of the curiosity of the Athenians. Unless it wero
meant to be emphatic, it would almost have the appearance of an interpolation, 'Ett*-
AajSofiEvoi (v. 19) is a word of general import. See Acts ix. 27.
3 There is indeed an apparent resemblance between Acts xvii. 32 and Acts xxiv. 25,
but even in the latter passage, Felix is rather setting aside an irksome subject than
giving a judicial decision.
^ Xen. Apol. 5 Acts xvii. 21.
Tradition says that he was the first bishop of Athens. The writings attributed ta
6
him, which were once so famous, are now acknowledged to be spurious, and believed
to have been the work of some Neo-Platonist. See Fabr. Bib. Graeca. Malalas calls
him a philosopher, and tells the story of his conversion and ordination as follows
TT^ioa/twc avTov 6 uyiog Uav/iog Trpocrjyopevae, kol kirrjp^Ta rhv uyiov HavXov 6 i^i'v
376 l-HE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
such statues and buildings in every variety of form and situation. On the
rocky ledges on the south side of the Acropohs, and in the midst of the
hum of the Agora, were the " objects of devotion " already described.
And in the northern parts of the city, which are equally visible from the
Areopagus, on the level spaces, and on every eminence, were similar
objects, to which we have made no allusion, and especially that Temple
vvcioc, Tiva KrjftvaaEL^ -debv, CTcepfzoXoye ; Kal aKovaag tov uycov UavTiOV 6 avrbg Ato-
vvaiog diddoKOVTOQ avrdv npoGETteaev avT(f>, alruv avrbv <po)Ticdrivai ksI yeveadai
Xpiariavov ' Kal fSannoac avrdv 6 ayiog Uav'kog k'Koi'qce XpicTiavov ' Kal iopandc
i iiy. IT. rb -^epfibv Tijg -KLaTEug rov avTov A. knoiTjaev avrbv hmoKO'nov ev ry x<^P9
tKLvy. Mai. Chronoff. pp. 251, 252. Bonn Ed.
Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, p. 77. The word x'^P^^yi^^Ti' (^cts xvii. 29;
1
ing out his hand," his bodily aspect still showing what he had suffered
from weakness, toil, and pain ;
^ and the traces of sadness and anxiety
mingled on his countenance with the expression of unshaken faith. What-
ever his personal appearance may have been, we know the words which h
spoke. And we are struck with the more admiration, the more narrowly
we scrutinize the characteristics of his address. To defer for the present
all consideration of its manifold adaptations to the various characters of
his auditors, we may notice how truly it was the outpouring of the emo-
tions which, at the time, had possession of his soul. The mouth spoke out of
the fulness of the heart. With an ardent and enthusiastic eloquence he gave
vent to the feelings which had been excited by all that he had seen around
him in Athens. We observe, also, how the whole course of the oration
was regulated by his own peculiar prudence. He was brought into a posi-
tion, when he might easily have been ensnared into the use of words, which
would have brought down upon him the indignation of all the city. Had
he begun by attacking the national gods in the midst of their sanctuaries,
and with the Areopagites on the seats near him, he would have been in
almost as great danger as Socrates before him. Yet he not only avoids
the snare, but uses the very difficulty of his position to make a road to the
convictions of those who heard him. He becomes a heathen to the hea-
then. He does not say that he is introducing new divinities. He rather
implies the contrary, and gently draws his hearers away from polytheism,
by telling them that he was making known the God whom they themselves
were ignorantly endeavouring to worship. And if the speech is character-
ised by St. Paul's prudence, it is marked by that wisdom of his Divine
Master, which is the pattern of all Christian teaching. As our Blessed
Lord used the tribute-money for the instruction of His disciples, and drew
living lessons from the water in the well of Samaria, so the Apostle of the
Gentiles employed the familiar objects of Athenian life to tell them of what
was close to them, and yet they knew not. He had carefully observed the
outward appearance of the city. He had seen an altar with an expressive,
though humiliating, inscription. And, using this inscription as a text/ he
Bpoke to them, as follows, the Words of Eternal Wisdom.
For as I
iheir desire to
through jour citj, objects of
. ttiitt
and beheld the
thS^'^norance P^^^^^
In worshipping,
your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this^
inscription, TO^ THE Ui^"KITOW]Sr GOD. Whom,
therefore, ye worship, though ye know Him not. Him declare I
unto you.
God dwells not God, who made the world and all things therein^
S thi Aojo-
nor needs
seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth
lis, . ^ _ ^ _ , , .
tLe service of not iTL tcmplcs made with hands.3 JN either is He sorv-
His creatures.
ed by the hands of men, as though He needed any
thing ; for He that giveth unto
it is and breath, and all all life,
things. And He made of one blood ^ all the nations of mankind^
to dwell upon the face of the whole earth and ordained to each ;
^
... i
mail " Do not do this till you have first thrown down the altar of Pity." Luciaiu.
:
Demonax, 57.
1 The mistranslation of this verse in the Authorised Version is much to be regretted,
because it entirely destroys the graceful courtesy of St. Paul's opening address, and
represents him as beginning his speech by offending his audience.
' Although there is no article before dyvucTO), yet we need not scruple to retain the
definite article of the Authorised Version for although, if we take the expression by
;
itself, " To ^JV Unknown God " would be a more correct translation, yet, if we con-
sider the probable origin (see above) of these altars erected to ayvcoarot deal, it will be
evident that " To THE
Unknown God " would be quite as near the sense of the in-
scription upon any particular one of such altars. Each particular altar was devoted
to the unknown god to whom it properly belonged, though which of the gods it might
be the dedicator knew not.
3 Here again (as at Antioch in Pisidia) we find St. Paul employing the very worda
of St. Stephen. Acts vii. 48.
< " Of one blood excluding the boastful assumption of a different origin claimed
by the Greeks for themselves over the barbarians.
* The reading of A. B. G. H. &c. is dedv, not Kvpiov.
The quotation is from Aratus, a Greek poet, who was a native of Cilicia, a cir-
camstance which would, perhaps, account for St. Paul's familiarity with his writings.
His astronomic*! poems were so celebrated that Ovid declares his fame will live ns
loDg as the sun and moon endure
" Cum sole et luna semper Aratus erit."
: How
Uttle did the Athenian audience imagine that the poet's immortality would really be
owing to Lhe quotation made by the despised provmcial who addressed them. Tfo
6PEECH OF ST. PAUL. 3T9
.11
1 11
^i)yeriooked ; command eth
i
1
all men every- past, but now
worlu
where to repent, because lie hath appointed a day ^-^^^,1^^^^^
wherein He will judge the world in righteousness, by J^e^^t-
may have carried away in their hearts the seeds of truth, destined to grow
up into the maturity of Christian faith and practice. We cannot fail to
notice how the sentences of this interrupted speech are constructed to
meet the cases in succession of every class of which the audience was com-
posed. Each word in the address is adapted at once to win and to rebuke.
The Athenians were proud of everything that related to the origin of
their race and the home where they dwelt. St. Paul tells them that he
was struck by the aspect of their city but he shows them that the place
;
and the time appointed for each nation's existence are parts of one great
scheme of Providence ; and that one God is the common Father of all
nations of the earth. For the general and more ignorant population,
Bame words occur also in the Hymn of Cleantbes [p. 5. n. 3], which is quoted at length
in Dr. Bloomfield's Recensio Synoptica.
> See notes upon St. Paul's speech at Lystra. It should he observed that no such me
taphor as " winked at " is to be found in the original.
' Observe the coincidence between this sentiment and that in Rom. i. 4.
bhed that idolatry degrades all worship, and leads men away from true
notions of the Deity. That more educated and more imaginative class of
fthrines and customary sacrifices, to views of that awful Being who is the
Lord of heaven and earth, and the one Author of universal life. " Up to
a certain point in this high view of the Supreme Being, the philosopher of
the Garden, as well as of the Porch, might listen with wonder and admira-
tion. It soared, indeed, high above the vulgar religion ; but in the lofty
and serene Deity, who disdained to dwell in the earthly temple, aad need-
ed nothing from the hand of man, the Epicurean might almost suppose
that he heard the language of his own teacher. But the next sentence,
which asserted the providence of God as the active, creative energy, as
the conservative, the ruling, the ordaining principle, annihilated at once
the atomic theory, and the government of bhnd chance, to which Epicurui
ascribed the origin and preservation of the universe.^' ^ And when the
Stoic heard the Apostle say that we ought to rise to the contemplation of
the Deity without the intervention of earthly objects, and that we live and
move and have our being in Him it might have seemed like an echo of
his own thought ^
until the proud philosopher learnt that it was no pan-
theistic diffusion of power and order of which the Apostle spoke, but a liv-
ing centre of government and love
that the world was ruled, not by the
iron necessity of Fate, but by the providence of a personal God and that
from the proudest philosopher repentance and meek submission were
sternly exacted. Above all, we are called upon to notice how the atten-
tion of the whole audience is concentered at the last upon J esus Christ,*
though His name is not mentioned in the whole speech. Before St. Paul
was taken to the Areopagus, he had been preaching " Jesus and the resur-
rection ^ and though his discourse was interrupted, this was the last im-
pression he left on the minds of those who heard him. And the impres-
sion was such as not merely to excite or gratify an intellectual curiosity,
but to startle and search the conscience. Not only had a revival from
the dead been granted to that man whom God had ordained but a day
J
The sacred grottoes in the rocks within view from the Areopagus should be remem*
bered, as well as the temples, &c. See Wordsworth.
Milman's History of Christianity, vol. n. p. 18. See his observations on the whol
ipeech. He remarks, in a note, the coincidence of St. Paul's ovdiv frooa6e6fj.evog with
the nihil indiga nostri " of the Epicurean Lucretius,
This strikes ua the more forcibly if the quotation is from the Stoic Cleanthea
^ee above.
* See Meyer. Acts xvii. 18.
DEPAKTUEE FROM ATHENS. 381
had been appointed on wMch by Him the world must be judged in righfr
ousness.
Of the immediate results of this speech we have no further knowiedge^^
Whatever may have been the immediate results of St. Paul's sojourn
at Athens, its real fruits are those which remain to us still. That speech
on the Areopagus is an imperishable monument of the first victory of
Christianity over Paganism. To make a sacred application of the words
used by the Athenian historian,^ it was " no mere effort for the moment,"
but it is a " perpetual possession," wherein the Church finds ever fresh
the Atheniau people, in its glory and its shame ; and He has ordained
that one conspicuous passage in the Holy Yolume should be the speech,
vation of the very imagery which surrounded the speaker not only the
sea, and the mountains, and the sky, which change not with the decay of
nations but even the very temples, which remain, after wars and revo-
lutions, on their ancient pedestals in astonishing perfection. We are thus
provided with a poetic and yet a truthful commentary on the words that
were spoken once for all at Athens ; and Art and Nature have been com-
missioned from above to enframe the portrait of that Apostle, who standi
ibr ever on the Areopagus as the teacher of the Gentiles.
CHAPTEE XL
**
1 abjure you, in the name of our Lord Jesus, to see that this letter be read to all
4he brethren."! Thess. v. 27.
" I, Paul, add my salutation with my own hand, which is a token whereby all my
letters may be known." 2 Thess. iii. 17.
COnr OP CORINTH.'
When St. Paul went from Athens to Corintli, hie entered on a scene very
different from that which he had left. It is not merely that Ms residence
was transferred from a free Greek city to a Roman colony ; as would
have been the case had he been moving from Thessalonica to Philippi.*
His present journey took him from a quiet provincial town to the busy
metropolis of a province, and from the seclusion of an ancient university
to the seat of government and trade.^ Once there had been a time, in
the flourishing age of the Greek republics, when Athens had been politi-
cally greater than Corinth ; but now that the httle territories of th
Levantine cities were fused into the larger provincial divisions of the
empire, Athens had only memory of its preeminence, while Corinth
the
held the keys of commerce and swarmed with a crowded population.
Both cities had recently experienced severe vicissitudes ;
but a spell was
on the fortunes of the former, and its character remained more entirely
Greek than that of any other place : while the latter rose from its ruins,
a new and splendid city, on the Isthmus between its two seas, where a
1 From the British Museum. The emperor is Claudius. See Acts xviii. 2.
* See above, p. 333.
3 A journey in the first century from Athens to Corinth might almost be compared
to a journey, in the eighteenth, from Oxford to London.
* See the preceding Chapter on Athens.
384 THE LIFE AUB EPISTLES Of ST. PAXIL,
tnultitude of Greeks and Jews gradually united themselves with the mili
tary colonists sent by Julius Caesar from Italy/ and were kept in order by
the presence of a Koman proconsul.'^
The connection of Corinth with the life of St. Paul and the early pro
gress of Christianity, is so close and eventful, that no student of Holy
Writ ought to be satisfied without obtaining as correct and clear an idea
as possible of its social condition, and its relation to other parts of the
empire. This subject will be considered in a subsequent chapter. At
present another topic demands our chief attention. We are now arrived
at that point in the life of St. Paul when his first Epistles were written.
This fact is ascertained, not by any direct statements either in the Acts or
the Epistles themselves, but by circumstantial evidence derived from a
comparison of these documents with one another.-^ Such a comparison
enables us to perceive that the Apostle's mind, on his arrival at Corinth,
was still turning with affection and anxiety towards his converts at Thes-
salonica. In the midst of all his labours at the Isthmus, his thoughts
were continually with those whom he had left in Macedonia ; and though
the narrative^ tells us only of his tent-making and preaching in the
metropolis of Achaia, we discover, on a closer enquiry, that the Letters
to the Thessalonians were written at this particular crisis. It would be
interesting in the case of any man whose biography has been thought
worth preserving, to discover that letters full of love and wisdom had;
been written at a time when no traces would have been discoverable,
except in the letters themselves, of the thoughts which had been occupying
the writer's mind. Such unexpected association of the actions done in one
place with affection retained towards another, always seems to add to our
personal knowledge of the man whose history we may be studying, and to
our interest in the pursuits which were the occupation of his life. This is
peculiarly true in the case of the Jirst Christian correspondence, which has
been preserved to the Church. Such has ever been the influence of letter-
writing, its power in bringing those who are distant near to one another,
and reconciling those who are in danger of being estranged ; such espe-
cially has been the influence of Christian letters in developing the growth
of faith and love, and binding together the dislocated members of the
body of Our Lord, and in making each generation in succession the
their old place so that Corinth rose with great rapidity to the rank of one of the
;
second cities of the Empire. The historical details will be given in the next chapter.
* Acts xviii. 12 shows that the province of Achaia fv^as proconsular. Sec, undet
Cyprus, pp. 141-145.
See the argument* below, p. 390, n. 3.
* Acta xvLiL 1-4.
LETTERS TO THESSALONICA WEITTEN FROM CORINTH. 38S
teacher ol the next, that we have good reason to take these Epistles to
the Thessalonians as the one chief subject of the present chapter. The
earliest occurrences which took place at Corinth must first be mentioned :
The reasons which determined St. Paul to come to Corinth (over and
above the discouragement he seems to have met with in Athens) were,
probably, twofold. In the first place, it was a large mercantile city, in
immediate connection with Rome and the West of the Mediterranean, with
Thessalonica and Ephesus in the -^gean, and with Antioch and Alexan-
dria in the East.^ The Gospel once estabhshed in Corinth, would rapidly
spread everywhere. And, again, from the very nature of the city, the
Jews established there were numerous. Communities of scattered Israel-
and Euboea.'^ But their chief settlement must necessarily have been in
that city, which not only gave opportunities of trade by land along the
Isthmus between the Morea and the Continent, but received in its two
harbours the ships of the Eastern and Western seas. A religion which
was first to be planted in the Synagogue, and was thence intended to
scatter its seeds overall parts of the earth, could nowhere find a mora
favourable soil than among the Hebrew families at Corinth.'*
reason for identifying the edict mentioned by St. Luke with that alluded tC
by Suetonius, who says that Claudius drove the Jews from Rome because
they were incessantly raising tumults at the instigation of a certain
Chrestus} Much has been written concerning this sentence of the
bitgrapher of the Caesars. Some have held that there was really a Jew
called Chrestus, who had excited political disturbances :
^ others that the
name is used by mistake for Christus, and that the disturbances had arisen
from the Jewish expectations concerning the Messiah, or Christ.^ It
Beems to us that the last opinion is partially true ; but that we must trace
this movement not merely to the vague Messianic idea entertained by the
Jews, but to the events which followed the actual appearance of the
Christy We have seen how the first progress of Christianity had been
the occasion of tumult among the Jewish communities in the provinces ;
^
and there is no reason why the same might not have happened in the
sub poena perpetuae servitutis, nisi obtemperassent." Suet. Tib. 36. Cf. Joseph. Ant.
xviii. 3, 5. The more directly religious persecution of Caligula has been mentioned
previously, Ch. IV. pp. 110, 111.
1 The words are quoted p. 303, n. 4. Compare p. 332.
* This is Meyer's view, to which De Wette also inclines.
3 Such seems to be the opinion of Ammon, Paulus, &c. See Meyer in loc. Arch*
pishop Usher takes the same view.
* See Hug and Kuinoel. Orosius (Hist. vii. 6) seems really to have had the reading
Christo before him. The statement of Dio Cassius (Ix. 6) with reference to Claudius
ttnd the Jews, {rovg 'lovdaiovg nTieovdcavrag avOcg, uare ;(;a/l7r6;f uv dvev rapax^c
ind Tov ox^ov c^uv r^f Tro/lewf eipxdTjvat, ovk k^^Xaae /uv, tu> 6i 6ij TrarptCf) vofMft
^c(f) ;t;p6>/xvoi;f iKsXevae jur) ovvaOpocCeadat) seems to refer to a point of time anterior
to the edict mentioned by Suetonius and St. Luke.
6 In Asia Minor (Ch. VI.), and more especially in Thessalonica and Beroea (Ch. IX.)
6 Christianity must have been more or less known in Eome, since the return of the
Italian Jews from Pentecost (Acts ii.).
marks that these tumults at Rome, excited by the mutual hostility of Jews and Chri
lians, imply that Christianity must already have made considerable progress there.
v> See pp. 119, 120, and Tac. Ann. xv. 44. Acts xviii. 2,
AQUILA AND PKISCILLA. 38T
before their return to Italy (Acts xviii. 18, 26. 1 Cor. xvi. 19), and again,
shortly before the martyrdom of St. Paul (2 Tim. iv. 19), we find them
at Ephesus. From the manner in which they are referred to as having
Christian meetings in their houses, both at Ephesus and Kome, we should
be inclined to conclude that they were possessed of some considerable
wealth. The trade at which they laboured, or which at least they super-
intended, was the manufacture of tents,^ the demand for which must have
4 See p. 151, also p. 46. 'AKvlag ii merely the Greek form of Aquila (used by
Josephus, Appian, and Dio Cassius). The hypothesis of Reiche, that this Aquila was a
freedman of one Pontius Aquila, whose name is mentianed by Greek and Roman
writers, and that St. Luke is in error in calling him a native of Pontus, is very gratui-
tous. Nothing is known of him beyond what we read in the New Testament. The
tradition of the Greek Menology is, that he and his wife were beheaded.
From the mention of Priscilla as St. Paul's avvepyog, and as one of the instructors
we might naturally infer that she was a woman of good education. Her
of Apollos,
name appears in 2 Tim. under the form " Prisca." So, in Martial, Tacitus, and Sueto-
nius, " Livia " and " Livilla," " Drusa " and " Drusilla," are used of the same person.
See Wetstein on Rom. xvi. Prisca is well known as a Roman name.
Aquila, who made the new translation of the Old Testament into Greek in the reign
of Hadrian, was also a native of Pontus.
6 P. 46. 6 From the Musee des Antiques (Bouillon, Paris, 1812-1817), vol. il
^ Rom. xvi. 3.
8 Rom. xvi. 3. 1 Cor. xvi. 19.
* Many meanings have been given by the commentators to aKrtvoTroiol, ^weavers
tapestry, saddlers, mathematical instrument makers. [Another rendering we hav4
met with somewhere, is " rope-makers ;" suggested, perhaps, by the word oxoivonoLo*
388 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
reason why St, Paul " came and attached himself to them " ^ was not
because they had a common religion, but because they had a common
trade. There is no doubt, however, that the connection soon resulted in
their conversion to Christianity.'' The trade which St. Paul's father had
taught him in his youth ^ was thus made the means of procuring him in-
valuable associates in the noblest work in which man was ever engaged.
No higher example can be found of the possibility of combining diligent
labour in the common things of life with the utmost spirituality of mind.
Those who might have visited Aquila at Corinth in the workmg-hours,
would have found St. Paul quietly occupied with the same task as his
which pronounced by the modern Greeks nearly in the same way.] But nothing ia
is
BO probable as that they were simply makers of those hair-cloth tents, which are still
in constant use in the Levant. That they were manufacturers of the cloth itself is lesa
likely.
1 An account of this cloth is given in Ch. II. p. 47. See p. 168 and p. 329.
See the various commentators.
lipoGTiXdev avTolc. Acts xviii. 2.
" They were Christians, and able to instruct others, when St. Paul left them al
Ephesus, on his voyage from Corinth to Syria, See Acts xviii. 18, 26,
See p. 46.
is said above in reference to his labours at Thessalonica,
Sec what p. 329. W
hall meet with the same subject again in the Epistles to the Corinthians.
' 1 Cor. iv. 12. 8 1 Thess. i. 2. ii. 13. 2 Thess. i. 11.
ST. PAUI^'s LABORS AT COEESTTH. 389
On that day the J ews laid aside their tent-making and their other trades
and, amid the derision of their Gentile neighbours, assembled in the housa
of prayer to worship the God of their forefathers. There St. Paul spoke
to them of the " mercy promised to their forefathers/' and of the " oath
Bworn to Abraham," being " performed." There his countrymen listened
with incredulity or conviction
and the tent-maker of Tarsus ''reasoned"
with them and " endeavoured to persuade " ^ both the Jews and the Gen-
tiles who were present, to believe in Jesus Christ as the promised
Messiah and the Saviour of the World.
While these two employments were proceeding, the daily labour in
the workshop, and the weekly discussions in the synagogue, Timotheua
and Silas returned from Macedonia.^ The effect produced by their
arrival seems to have been an instantaneous increase of the zeal and
energy with which he resisted the opposition, which was even now begin-
ning to hem in the progress of the truth. The remarkable word ^ which is
used to describe the " pressure which St. Paul experienced at this moment
in the course of his teaching at Corinth, is the same which is employed of
our Lord Himself in a solemn passage of the Gospels,^ when He says,
" I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitemd till it ;
but God, who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted him by
the coming " ^ of his friends. It was only one among many instances w^
shall be called to notice, in which, at a time of weakness, " he saw the
brethren and took courage," ^
But this was not the only result of the arrival of St. Paul's com-
panions. Timotheus (as we have seen 9) had been sent, while St. Paul
was still at Athens, to revisit and establish the Church of Thessalonica.
1 See Acts xviii. 4. ^ "EireLds.
3 Acts xviii. 5. See note at the end of this chapter. We may remark here that
Silas and Timotheus were probably the " brethren" who brought the collection men-
tioned, 2 Cor. xi. 9. Compare Phil. iv. 15.
* I.vvetxTo. There seems no doubt that the words which succeed should be
X6y(f} and not rcj Ttvevfian. Hammond explains the received reading to mean that Paul
was " distressed in spirit," because he produced little effect on his hearers. But the
Itate of mind, whatever it was, is clearly connected with the coming of Timothy and
Silas, and seems to imply increasing zeal with increasing opposition. The Vulgate has
instabat verbo."
6 Luke xii. 50. e 1 Cor. ii. 3. "^2 Cor. vii. 6.
8 Acts xxviii. 15. See above, on his solitude in Athens, p. 362.
* See above.
The news he brought on his return to St. Paul caused the latter to write
which they had fallen. Many of the new converts were uneasy about the
state of their relatives or friends, who had died since their conversion.
They feared that these departed Christians would lose the happiness of
witnessing their Lord's second coming, which they expected soon to
9), while the tidings of it were still spreading (dTrayye/i/lovcTtv, present) through Mace-
donia and Achaia, and while St. Paul could speak of himself as only taken from them
for a short season (1 Thess. ii. 17). (2) St. Paul had been recently at Athens (iii. 1),.
and had already preached in Achaia (i. 7, 8). (3) Timotheus and Silas were just re-
turned {upvL, iii. 6) from Macedonia, which happened (Acts xviii. 5) soon after St
Paul's first arrival at Corinth.
We have already observed (Ch. IX. p. 331), that the character of these Epistles to
the Thessalonians proves how predominant was the Gentile element in that church, and
that they are among the very few letters of St. Paul in which not a single quotation
from the Old Testament is to be found. [The use, indeed, of the word Satan (1 Thesa
ii. 18) might be adduced as implying some previous knowledge of Judaism in those to
whom the letter was addressed. See also the note on 2 Thess. ii. 8. ]
< Xdpic vfilv Koi siprivTi. This salutation occurs in all St. Paul's Epistles, except tho
three Pastoral Epistles, where it is changed into Xuptf ^Acof elprjvij.
5 The remainder of this verse has been introduced into the Textus Receptus by naa-
take in this place, whe-re it is not found in the best MSS. It properly belongs to 2
Thess.! %
'for their co
and make mention of you in my prayers without versiou.
3 ceasing; remembering always, in the presence of our God
and Father, the working of your faith and the labours of
your love, and the patient endurance of your hope, which waa
4 fixed on our Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, beloved by God,
I know how God has chosen you for the Glad-tidings which 1 ;
brought ^ you worked upon you, not only in word, but also in
power with the might of the Holy Spirit, and with the full
;
great tribulation,^ with a joy which came from the Holy Spirit.
7 And thus you have become patterns to all the believers in
1 It is important to observe in this place, once for all, that St. Paul uses " toe," ao-
sording to the idiom of many ancient writers, where a modern writer would use "
Great confusion is caused in many passages by not translating, according to his true
meaning, in the first person singular ; for thus it often happens, that what he spoke
of himself individually, appears to us as if it were meant for a general truth : instances
will occur repeatedly of this in the Epistles to the Corinthians, especially the Second.
It might have been supposed, that when Paul associated others with himself in the
St.
meant to indicate that the epistle proceeded
salutation at the beginning of an epistle, he
from them as well as from himself but an examination of the body of the Epistle will
;
always convince us that such was not the case, but that he was the sole author. For
example, in the present Epistle, Silvanus and Timotheus are joined with him in the
salutation j but yet we find (ch. iii. 1, 2) evdoKTjaafiev KaraXeKp'&^vai h 'Adrjvaic
fiovoi Kal enefx-^afiev Tifiodeov rbv d6?i<pdv rjfjLuv. Now, who was it who thought fit to
be left at Athens alone ? Plainly St. Paul himself, and he only ; neither Timotheua
fwho is here expressly excluded) nor Silvanus (who did not rejoin St. Paul till after-
reards at Corinth (Acts xviii. 5) ), being by possibility included. Ch. iii. 6 is not less
decisive Ipri 6^ kT^dovrog Ti/nodeov rrpoc V l^d,g u6' v/xuv when we remember that
Bilvanus came with Timotheus. Several other passages in the Epistle prove the same
thing, but these may suffice.
It is true, that sometimes the ancient idiom in which a writer spoke of himself in the
plural is more graceful, and seems less egotistical, than the modern usage but yet ;
(the modern usage being what it is) a literal translation of the Tj/aelg very often conveys
a confused idea of the meaning and we have thought it better, therefore, to translate
;
* See p. 324, n. 3.
692 THE LEFE AND EPISTLES OF BT. PAUL.
have no need to speak of it. For others are telling of their own 9
accord/ concerning me, how gladly you received me, and how
you forsook your idols, and turned to the service of God, the
living and the true and that now you wait with eager longing ifl
;
for the return of His Son from the heavens, even Jesus, whom
He raised from the dead, our deliverer from the coming ven-
geance. IL
He reminds
them of his
Yea, you know yourselves, brethren, that my l
. ^ i p t
own example, commg amougst you^was not iruitless
i
; but after I 2
had borne suffering and outrage (as you know) at Philippi,
I trusted in my God, and boldly declared to you God's Glad-
tidings, although its adversaries contended mightily against me.
For my exhortations are not prompted' by imposture, nor by 3
lasciviousness, nor do I deal deceitfully. But, seeing that God 4
has' tried my fitness for His work, and charged me to declare
the Glad-tidings, so I speak, as one who strives to please not
men but God, whose search tries my heart. For never did 5
I use flattering words, as you know ; nor hide covetousness un-
der (God is my witness) nor did I seek honour
fair pretences, ; 6
from men, either from you or others although I might have ;
1 AvTol.
Iq this and the following verses, we have allusions to the accusations brought
'
against St. Paul by his Jewish opponents. This very charge of seeking to please men,
dvdouTTOL^ upeoKELv, was repeated by the Judaisers in Galatia. See Gal. i. 10.
One upon which St. Paul's Jndaising opponents denied his apostolic
of the gi'ounds
authority, was the fact that he (in general) refused to be maintained by his converts,
whereas Our Lord had given to His apostles the right of being so maintained. St
Paul fully explains his reasons for not availing himself of thiat right in several passages,
especially 1 Cor. ix. ; and he here takes care to allude to his possession of the right,
while mentioning his renunciation of it. Cf. 2 Thess. iii. 9.
and God also my witness, how holy, and just, and un-
is
our Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and who have driven
me from city ^ to city a people displeasing to God, and ene-
;
ever done, to fill up the measure of their sins but now the ;
> We 6annot agree with Winer (Grammatik, p. 236) that og refers to Aoyov here.
'EKdtu^dvTuv, 3 E^j. -3-e;iof, "to make an end of them."
* See what issaid in the preceding chapter in connection with Beroea.
* We read, with Griesbach and Tischendorf, avvepybv rov '&eov, which is analogous
to (1 Cor. iii . 9) &eov ka/nev avvepyol. The boldness of tbe expression probably led to
tlie Tariation of reading in the MSS.
;
these afflictions which have come upon you ; for you your-
selves know that such is our appointed lot, and when I was ^
theus has returned from you to me, and has brought me the
glad tidings of your faith and love, and that you still keep an
affectionate remembrance of me, longing to sgje me, as I to see
you I have been comforted, brethren, on your behalf, and all 7
my own tribulation and distress has been lightened by your
faith. For now, if you be stedfast in the Lord Jesus, I feel 8
myself to live.' What thanksgiving can I render to God for 9
you, for all the joy which you cause me in the presence of my
God ? and day, I pray exceeding earnestly to see you 10
ISTight
with all His people, since some of his people will be on earth.
8 We substitute the personal pronoun for Irjaov Xpiarov in this and some similar
Instances, because it is contrary to the English idiom to repeat the noun in such cases,
4 YLrdodaL cannot to possess ; it means, to gain possession of, to acquire for
mean
me^s own The use of ff/ceuof for body is common, and found 2 Cor. iv. 7. Now
use.
4 man may be said to gain possession of his own body when he subdues those lust
which tend to destroy his mast'^ry over it Hence the interpretation which we hav
;
5 not in lustful passions, like the heathen who know not God.
6 I^Teither must anj man wrong his brother in this matter by his
transgression.' All such the Lord will punish, as I have fore-
BO both we and they shall be for ever with the Lord. "Where- 13
fore comfort one another with these words. -
Y.
The sudden- But of the times and seasons, brethren, when l
coming a^mo- thcsc thiugs shall be, you need no warning. For your- 2
iuiness. selves know perfectly that the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night and while men say Peace and
; 3
Safety, destruction shall come upon them in a moment, as the
pangs of travail upon a woman with child and there shall be ;
for you are all the children of the light and of the day. Wq 5
sleep as do others, but let uswatch and be sober for they who ; 7
Blumber, slumber in the night and they who are drunken, are
;
drunken in the night but let us, who are of the day, be
; 8
Bober arming ourselves with faith and love for a breast-plate
;
and wearing for our helmet the hope of salvation. For to ob- 9
tain salvation, not to abide His wrath, hath God ordained us,
through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether 10
we wake or sleep we should live together with Him. Where- 11
fore exhort one another, and build one another up, even as
you already do.
The PresbytersMoreover I beseech you, brethren, to acknowledge 12
to be duly re-
garded. tliosc
, it- i i
who are labouring among you who preside over ;
change from one metaphor to another, is not unlike the style of St. Paul.
' OIko6o,xeIt. The full meaning is, " build one another up, that you may all toge-
ther grow into a temple of God." The word is frequently used by St. Paul in this
Bense, which is fully explained 1 Cor. iii. 10-17. It is very difficult to express the
meaning by any single word in English, and yet it would weaken the expression too
much if it were diluted into a periphrasis fully expressing its meaning.
' It appears evideut that those who are here directed, vovdETelre, are the same who
. :;
15 patient with all. Take heed that none of you return evil foi
be your lot for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concern-
;
19,20 ing you. Quench not the manifestation of the Spirit ; think
21 not meanly of^ prophesyings try all [which the prophete ;
22 utter;] reject the false, but keep the good;" hold yourselves
aloof from every form of evil.
23 Now may the God of peace
Himself sanctify you concluding
wholly ; and may your whole nature, your
spirit and Stiont?
are described immediately before (v. 12) as vovderovvra^. Also, they are very solemnly
directed (v. 27) to see that the letter be read to all thi Christians in Thessalonica ;
in the early church. (See 1 Cor. xiv.) The gift of prophesying {i. e. inspired preach-
ing) had less the appearance of a supernatural gift than several of the other Charisms
and hence it was thought little of by those who sought more for display than edification.
* AoKifid^eiv includes the notion of rejecting that which does not abide the test.
3 f^Ll?jfiaTi uyio). This alludes to the same custom which is referred to in Rom. xvi.
16. 1 Cor. xvi. 20. 2 Cor. xiii. 12. We was practised in
find a full account of it, as it
the early church, in the Apostolical Constitutions (book The men and ii. ch. 57).
women were placed in separate parts of the building where they met for worship and ;
then, before receiving the Holy Communion, the men kissed the men, and the women
the women before the ceremony, a proclamation was made by the principal deacon
:
" Let none bear malice against any let none do it in hypocrisy." M;; tic ^a^a
:
Tii^og /lit} Tig kv vTVOKptaei ' eha Koi ucKai^iodaaav dl'X'^'kovg oi uvdpsg, Kal uXkri^ag
aX yvvalKeg, to kv Kvptu <j>l7i7]f.ia. It should be remembered by English readers, that
a kiss was in ancient times (as, indeed, it is now in many foreign countries) tho.
ordinary mode of salutation between friends when they met.
^ MSS.
'Aytoig is omitted in the best
" remarked that this concluding benediction is used by St. Paul at th
It should be
tnd of the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians (under a longer form in the 2 Cor.)j
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Thessalonians. And, in a shorter form, it is used
also at the end of all his other Epistles. It seems (from what he says in 2 Thess. iii
17, 18) to have been always written with his own hand.
The " Amen " of the Received Text is a later addition, not found in the best MSS
398 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF SI. PAFL.
of the Jews, lead us to suppose that the Apostle was thinking not onlj
of their past opposition at Thessalonica,i but of the difficulties with which
they were beginning to surround him at Corinth. At the very time of his
tvriting, that same people who had " killed the Lord Jesus and their own
prophets," and had already driven Paul "from city to city," weie
showing themselves " a people displeasing to God, and enemies to all man-
kind," by endeavouring to hinder him from speaking to the Gentiles for
their salvation (1 Thess. ii. 15, 16). Such expressions would naturally
be used in a letter written under the circumstances described in the Acts
(xviii. 6), when the Jews were assuming the attitude of an organised, and
systematic resistance,^ and assailing the Apostle in the language of blas-
phemy ,3 like those who had accused our Saviour of casting out devils by
Beelzebub.
Now, therefore, the Apostle left the J ews and turned to the Gentiles
He withdrew from his own people with one of those symbolical actions,
which, in the East, have all the expressiveness of language,^ and which,
having received the sanction of our Lord Himself,^ are equivalent to the
denunciation of woe. He shook the dust off his garments,^ and proclaimed
himself innocent of the blood ' of those who refused to listen to the voice
which offered them salvation. A proselyte, whose name was Justus,^
opened his door to the rejected Apostle ; and that house became thence-
forward the place of pul^ic teaching. While he continued doubtless to
lodge with Aquila and Priscilla (for the Lord had said ^ that His Apos-
tle should abide in the house where the *'
Son of Peace" was), he met hii
flock in the house of Justus. Some place convenient for general meeting
was evidently necessary for the continuance of St. Paul's work in the
' See Acts V. 28. xx. 2G. Also Ezek. xxxiii. 8, 9, and Mat. xxvii. 24.
Nothing more is known of him. The name is Latin.
9 Luke X. G, 7. We should observe that i/iieve is the word used (v. 3) of the bouM
of Aquila and Priscilla, r/lde (v. 7) of that of Justus.
>o ^vvofiopovaa ry cvvayuya
riE TURNS TO THE GENTILES- 399
factor;^ of A quila and Priscilla. There, too, in the society of Jews lately
exiled from fV^.e, he could hardly have looked for a congregation of
Gentiles; whereas Justus, being a proselyte, was exactly in a position
to receive under his roof indiscriminately, both Hebrews aid Greeks.
Special mention is made of the fact, that the house of Justus was
**
contiguous to the Synagogue." We are not necessarily to infer from
this that St. Paul had any deliberate motive for choosing that locality.
that " by their sin salvation had come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to
jealousy," '
while at the same time he remained as near to them as pos-
sible, to assure them of his readiness to return at the moment of theii*
what occurred on his first visit to Corinth, the images before the " inward
eye," would be not merely the general aspect of the houses and temples of
Corinth, with the e:reat citadel overtowering them, but the Synagogue and
the house of Justus, the incidents which happened in their neighbourhood,
and the gestures a.nd faces of those who encountered each other in the
street.
fruits of j^.chaia." ' The same expression is used in the First Epistle to
1 Rom. XI. 11.
' 'Afrapxv rrjc 'Axatag. Some MSS. have 'Aalag. If that reading is correct, all
difficulty of recouciling Rom. xvi. 5 with 1 Cor. xvi. 15 disappears.
400 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the Corinthians (xvi. 15) of the household of Stephanas ; from wJiich ure
ing the character of those who became believers. Not many of the
philosophers, not many of the noble and powerful (1 Cor. i. 26) but
many of those who had been profligate and degraded (1 Cor. vi. 11) were
called. The ignorant of this world were chosen to confound the wise :
and the weak to confound the strong. Prom St. Paul's language we infer
that the Gentile converts were more numerous than the Jewish. Yet one
signal victory of the Gospel over Judaism must be mentioned here, the
conversion of Crispus (Acts xviii. 8), who, from his position as "ruler
in exasperating the Jews against St. Paul. Their opposition grew with
his success. As we appi'oach the time when the second letter to the
Thessalonians was written, we find the difficulties of his position increasing.
In the first Epistle the writer's mind is almost entirely occupied with the
thought of what might be happening at Thessalonica : in the second, the
Crom Corinth, as St. Paul was writing in one case from, in the other to, that ci^,
* kKovovTEg IttIctevov KOl ICaTTTlCoVTO.
Sec below, 2 Thess. iii. 2.
evil, St. Paul wrote his second Epistle. In this he endeavours to remove*
their present erroneous expectations of Christ's immediate comikg, dt
reminding them of certain signs which must precede the second advent
3 As he himself reminds his readers (2 Thess. ii. 5), and as we find in the Aeti
(xvii. 7). See p. 327.
4 1 Thess. v. 1-11. 5 2 Thess. ii. 2.
2 Thess. ii. 2. Compare 2 Thess. iii. 17.
VOL I. 26
He liad already told tliem of these signs when he was with them and this;
love wherewith you are filled, every one of you, towards each
other. So that I myself boast of you among the churches of 4
God, for your stedfast endurance and faith, in all the persecu-
tions and afflictions which you now are bearing. And these .0
ness cannot Kit render back trouble to those who trouble you,
and give to you, who now are troubled, rest with me,^ when 7
the Lord Jesus shall be revealed to our ^ight, and shall descend
from heaven with the angels of His might, in flames of fire, to 8
take vengeance on those who know not God, and will not
hearken to the Glad-tidings of ray Lord Jesus Christ. Then 9
> It is evident that this Epistle was written at the time here assigned to it, soon after
the from the following considerations
first,
:
(1) The state of the Thessalonian Church described in both Epistles is almost exactly
th(j same. (A.) The same excitement prevailed concerning the expected advent ol
Our Lord, only in a greater degree. (B.) The same party continued fanatically U
Df glect their ordinary employments. Compare 2 Thess. iii. 6-14 with 1 Thess. iv. 10-
12 and 1 Thess. ii. 9.
(2) Silas and Timotheus were still with St. Paul. 2 Thess. i. 1.
' See note on 1 Thess. i. 3.
3 See above, note on the use of the plural pronoun, p. 391, n. 1
* 'And, proceeding from.
;
The glory of our Lord at His coming will be " manifested in His people " (see v.
'
10); that is, they, by virtue of their union with Him, will partake of His glorious
likeness. Cf. Rom. viii. 17, 18, 19. And, even in this world, this glorification takes
place partially by their moral conformity to His image. See Rom. viii. 30, and 2 Cor.
iii. 18.
3 See the preceding remarks upon the occasion of this Epistle.
4 The received text interpolates cjf -debv before KaOiam, but the MSS. do not confirm
this reading.
* Observe that it is Eleyov, not eXe^a.
Nvv here ig not an adverb of time, but (as often) a conjunction ; so " now " ig
suaa transgressor, or, generally, a wicked man, as dvofita is used often simply for
dignity ; hit in this passage it seems best to keep to the original meaning of the
word.
40 i- THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Lord Jesus shall consume with the breath of His mouth, and ^
nal, and a hope which cannot fail, comfort your hearts, and 17
establish you in all goodness both of word and deed.
He asks their word of
Finally, brethren, pray for me, that the i
prajers.
Lord Jcsus may hold its onward course, and
that its glory may be shown forth towards others as towards
you and that I may be delivered from the perverse and
; 2
wicked for not all men have faith. But our Lord is faithful,
; 3
and he will keep you steadfast, and guard you from evil. And 4
I rely upon you in the Lord, and feel confident that you are
following and will follow the charges which I give you. And 5
may our Lord guide your hearts to the love of God, and to
the patient endurance which was in Christ.
Exhorts to an I chargo you, brethren, in the name of our Lord 6
orderly and
1 This appe ars to be an illusion to (altliougli not an exact quotation of) Isaiah jc-
4 : With the breath of His lips He shall destroy the impious man." (LXX version.)
In the Targum Jonathan, this prophecy (which was probably in St. Paul's thoughts) ii
applied to the Messiah's coming, and the impious," {deed//, LXX.), is Intel
pret^d to mean an individual Antichrist
ftEGOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS. 405
8 among you was not disorderly, nor w^as I fed by any man's
my bread by my own labour, toiling night
bounty, but earned
9 and day, that I might not be burdensome to any of you. And
this I did, not because I am without the right of being main- ,
*
11 neither let him eat.' I speak thus, because I hear that some
among you are leading a disorderly life, neglecting their own
12 work, and meddling ^ with that of others. Such, therefore, I
charge and exhort, by the authority of my Lord Jesus Christ,
to live in quietness and industry, and earn their own bread by
own labour. But you,
13 their brethren, notwithstand- Mode of deal-
ft t , Tf*
those
Umg,3 be not weary of domg any man
-I
Such was the second of the two letters which St. Paul wrote to
rhessalonica during his residence at Corinth. Such was the Christian
wrrespondence now estabUshed, in addition to the pohtical and commer-
I
See note on 1 Thess. ii. 6.
now sent, which related to the establishment of a " kingdom not of this
world," ^ and to " riches " beyond the discovery of human enterprise.'
The influence of great cities has always been important on the wide
movements of human life. We see St. Paul diligently using this influence
metropohs. The expression used by St. Luke ^ need only denote that it
4), among whom the Apostle boasted of the patience and the faith of the
Thessalonians,^ the homes of **the saints in all Achaia" (2 Cor. 1. 1),
saluted at a later period, with the Church of Corinth,ii in a letter written
from Macedonia. These churches had alternately the blessirgs of the
presence and the letters the oral and the written teaching of St. Paul
The former of these blessings is now no longer granted to us ;
but those
long and wearisome journeys, which withdrew the teacher so often from
his anxious converts, have resulted in our possession of inspired Epistles,
in all their freshness and integrity, and with all their lessons of wisdom
and love.
Much of the intercourse in Greece has always gone on by small coasters. For the
Roman roads, see Wesseling. Pouqueville mentions traces of a paved road between
Corinth and Argos.
' See above, p. 340.
6 Sec pp. 18 and 385.
e We have not entered into the question of St. Paul's journey from Athens to Co-
rinth. He might either travel by the coast road through Eleusis and Megara, or a sail
of a few hours, with a fair wind, would take him from the Piraeus to Cenchreae.
0 ' Compare 1 Thess. 7, 8.
Horn. xvi. 1. i.
" It is possible that the phrase h navrl totvu (1 Cor. i. 2) may have the sam
(aeaning.
;
NOTE.
NOTE.
There are some difficulties and dififerences of opinion, with regard to the move
ments of Silas and Timotheus, between the time when St. Paul left them in
Macedonia, and their rejoining him in Achaia.
The facts which are distinctly stated are as follows. (1) Silas and Timotheua
were left when St. Paul went to Athens. We are not
at Bercea (Acts xviii. 14)
told why they were left there, or what commissions they received but the Apostle ;
Bent a message from Athens (Acts xviii. 15) that they should follow him with all
speed, and (Acts xviii. 16) he waited for them there. (2) The Apostle was re-
joined by them when at Corinth (Acts xviii. 5). We are not informed how they
'lad been employed in the interval, but they came " from Macedonia." It is not
distinctly said that they came together, but the impression at fei'st sight is that
they did. (3) St. Paul himself informs us (1 Thess. iii. 1), that he was "left
in Athens alone," and that this solitude was in consequence of Timothy having
been sent to Thessalonica (1 Thess. iii. 2). Though it is not expressly stated
that Timothy was sent from Athens, the first impression is that he was.
Thus there is a seeming discrepancy between the Acts and Epistles ; a journey
of Timotheus to Athens, previous to his arrival with Silas and Timotheus at
Corinth, appearing to be mentioned by St. Paul, and to be quite unnoticed by
St. Luke.
Paley, in the Horse Paulinae, says that the Epistle "virtually asserts that
Timothy came to the Apostle at Athens," and assumes that it is " necessary " to
suppose this, in order to reconcile the history with the Epistle. And he pointa
out three intimations in the history, which make the arrival, though not expressly
mentioned, extremely probable : first, come with all
the message that they should
speed ;
them thirdly, the absence of any
secondly, the fact of his waiting for ;
appearance of haste in his departure from Athens to Corinth. " Paul had ordered
Timothy to follow him without delay he waited at Athens on purpose that
:
Timothy might come up with him, and he stayed there as long as his own choice
led him to continue."
This explanation is satisfactory. But two others might be suggested, which
would equally remove the difficulty.
It is not expressly said that Timotheus was sent from Athens to Thessalonica.
St. Paul was anxious, as we have seen, to revisit the Thessalonians but since ;
he was hindered from doing so, it is highly probable (as Hemsen and Wieseler
suppose) that he may have sent Timotheus to them from Berm. Silas might
be sent on some similar commission, and this would explain why the two
companions were left behind in Macedonia. This would necessarily cause St.
Paul to be " left alone in Athens." Such solitude was doubtless painful to him
but the spiritual good of the new converts was at stake. The two companions,
after finishing the work entrusted to them, finally rejoined the Apostle at Corinth.^
That he " waited for them " at Athens need cause us no difficulty for in those :
days the arrival of travellers could not confidently be known beforehand. When
he left Athens and proceeded to Corinth, he knew that Silas and Timotheus could
easily ascertain his movements, and follow his steps, by help of information ob
trained at the synagogue.
^ We should observe that the phrase is " from Macedonia," not " from Beroea,"
408 THE LIFE AND EPI6TLES OF ST. PAUL.
Rent Timotheus to Thessalonica. This view may be taken without our supposing,
with Bottger, that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written at Athens.
Schrader and others imagine a visit to that city at a later period of his life but ;
this view cannot be admitted without deranging the arguments for the date of
1 Thess., which was evidently written soon after leaving Macedonia.
Two further remarks may be added. (1) If Timothy did rejoin St. Paul at
Athens, we need not infer that Silas was not with him, from the fact that the
name of Silas is not mentioned. It is usually taken for granted that the second
sarival of Timothy (1 Thess. iii.with the coming of Silas and Ti-
6) is identical
motheus to Corinth (Acts but here we see that only Timothy is men-
xviii. 5) ;
tioned, doubtless because he was most recently and familiarly known at Thessa*
lonica, and perhaps, also, because the mission of Silas was to some other place.
(2) On the other hand, it is not necessary to assume, because Silas and Timotheus
are mentioned together (Acts xviii. 5), that they came together. All conditions
are satisfied if they came about the same time. If they were sent on missions to
two different places, the times of their return would not necessarily coincide, i In
considering all very needful to take into account that they
these journeys, it is
would be modified by the settled or unsettled state of the country with regard to
banditti, and by the various opportunities of travelling, whjch depend on the sea-
son and the weather, and the sailicig of vessels."
> Something may be implied in the form 6,re S. kuI T. /Silas as well aa Timotheus).
Hindrances connected with some such considerations jn^y b r^few^A te ia Fhil
Iv. 10.
> From the British Museum. The emperor is Gnli^ula-
CORINTH.
CHAPTER Xn
*CoriDthus, Achaiae caput, Grsecise decus, inter duo maria, Ionium et JEgeun^
^asi spectaculo exposita." ^Florus, ii. 16.
Now that we have entered upon the first part of the long series of St.
Paul's letters, we seem to be arrived at a new stage of the Apostle's bio-
graphy. The materials for a more intimate knowledge are before us.
More life is given to the picture. We have advanced from the field of
geographical description and general history to the higher interest of per-
sonal detail. Even such details as relate to the writing materials em-
ployed in the Epistles, and the mode in which they were transmitted from
city to city, all stages in the history of an Apostolic letter, from the
hand of the amanuensis who wrote from the author's inspired dictation, to
the opening and reading of the document in the pubUc assembly of the
Church to which it was addressed, have a sacred claim on the Chris-
tian's attention. For the present we must defer the examination of such
particulars. We remain with the Apostle himself, instead of following
the journey of his letter to Thessalonica, and tracing the effects which the
last of them produced. We have before us a protracted residence in
Corinth, 1 a voyage by sea to Syria,^ and a journey by land from Antiocb
to Ephesus,3 before we come to the next group of the Apostle's letters.
We must linger first for a time in Corinth, the great city, where he
staid a longer time than at any other point on his previous journeys, and
from which, or to which, the most important of his Epistles were written.*
And, according to the plan we have hitherto observed, we proceed to do*
tidate its geographical position, and the principal stages of its history.'
Acts xviii. 11-18. Acts xviii. 18-22. a Acts xviii. 23. See xix. L
* The Epistles to the Thessalonians, Corinthians, and Romans.
* Of four German Monographs devoted to this subject we have made use of three:
Wilckens' " Rerum Corinthiacarum specimen ad illustrationem utriusque Epistota
Paulinje," 1747 ; Wagner's " Rerum Corinthiacarum specimen Darmstadt, 1824 f
that it was " the bridge of the sea." It formed the only line of march for
an invading or retreating army. Xenophon speaks of it as " the gate of
the Peloponnesus," the closing of which would make all ingress and egresa
impossible.' And we find that it was closed at various times, by being
fortified and refortified by a wall, some traces of which remain to the pre-
sent day. In the Persian war, when consternation was spread amongst
the Greeks by the death of Leonidas, the wall was first built.'* In the
Peloponnesian war, when the Greeks turned fratricidal arms against each
other, the Isthmus was often the point of the conflict between the Atheni-
ans and their enemies. In the time of the Theban supremacy, the wall
again appears as a fortified line from sea to sea.^ When Greece became
Roman, the Provincial arrangements neutralized, for a time, the military
impcrtance of the Isthmus. But when the barbarians poured in from the
North, hke the Persians of old, its wall was repaked by Valerian.*
Again it was rebuilt by Justinian, who fortified it with a hundred and fifty
towers.' And we trace its history through the later period of the Vene-
tian power in the Levant, from the vast works of 1463, to the peace of
1699, when it was made the boundary of the territories of the Republic.^
It is from this Greek " bridge of the sea " that the name isthmus has been given
to every similar neck of land in the world. See some remarks on this subject, and on
the significance of Greek geography in general, in the Classical Museum, No. I., p. 41.
* HovTov yeipvpa, Nera. vi. 44. Ve^vpav novrtdda -rrpb Kopivdov reixecov, Isth. iii. ii8,
' A38ilaus, when he had taken Corinth, is spoken of as dvanerdaag rrj^ XleAoTrov-
w^oov rdf TTv/laf. Xen. Ages. 2.
< Herod, viii. 71. See Leake's remarks on this early and rude fortification, and 00
(he remains of the later wall. Travels in the Morea, m. 302^304, also 287.
Polyb. ii. 138. See Plutarch's Life of Cleomenes.
'ETTi OvakepLavov 6h koL VakLrfvov ndliv ol ^Kvdat diatdvTEQ rbv 'iarpov TTOTajLK^
Tqv re Opg.KT]v hl'^ioav, /c.r.A HEloirovvnaLOL 6i dno T^aXdcarjc ^akdaotat
rdv 'laOfiov diereixtoav. Syncelli Chronog. p. .^15, ed. Bonn. See Zonaras.
'See Phrantzes, pp. 96, 107, 108, 117, &c. of the Bonn, edition.
See the notices of the fortress of Hcxamilium in Ducas, pp. 142, 223, 519 of the
Bonn edition and compare what is said in Dodwell's Travels in Greece, pp. 184-186.
:
The wall waa not built in a straight line, but followed the sinuosities of the groun4
'
the ascent is a journey involving some fatigue ; and the space of ground
on the summit is so extensive, that it contained a whole town,^ which, un-
der the Turkish dominion, had several mosques. Yet, notwithstanding its
colossal dimensions, its sides are so precipitous, that a few soldiers are
enough to' guard it.^ The possession of this fortress has been the object
of repeated struggles in the latest wars between the Turks and the Greeks,
and again between the Turks and the Yenetians. It was said to Philip,
when he wished to acquire possession of the Morea, that the Acrocorin-
thus was one of the horns he must seize, in order to secure the heifer.*
Thus Corinth might well be called "the eye of Greece" in a mihtary
sense, as Athens has often been so called in another sense.^ If the rock
of Minerva was the Acropolis of the Athenian people, the mountain of
the Isthmus was truly named " the Acropolis of the Greeks."
It will readily be imagined that the view from the summit is magnifi-
cent and extensive.^ A sea is on either hand. Across that which lies on
The remains of square towers are visible in some places. The eastern portion abutted
on the Sanctuary of Neptune, where the Isthmian games are held.
' Dodwell. The ascent is by a zigzag road, which Strabo says was thirty stadia ia
length.
* " Qua summas caput Acrocorinthus in auras
ToUit, et alterna geminum mare protegit umbra."
Stat. vii. 107.
Compare the expression of Dr. Clarke :
" Looking down upon the isthmus, the shadow
of the Acrocorinthus, of a conical shape, extended exactly half across its length, the
point of the cone being central between the two seas."
3 Dodwell and Clarke. The city, according to Xenophon, was forty stadia in cir-
cumference without the Acropolis, and eighty-five with it. Hell. iv. 4, 11.
4 Poe Plutarch, who says, in the Life of Aratus, that it was guarded by 400 soldiers,
60 dogs and as many keepers.
' Polyb. vii. 605.
e Cicero
(Off. ii. 22) calls it " Grsecise lumen." For the application of the same
phrase to Athens in another sense, see the last chapter but one.
' This expression ('EAAdvwv
uKpoTvoXtg) is used of it in the Scholiast on Pindar.
01. xiii. 32.
Strabo had visited Corinth himself, and his description of the view shows that he
Had seen it. Wheler's description is as follows " We mounted to the top of the
:
highest point, and had one of the most agreeable prospects in the world. On the right
uand of us the Saronic Gulf, with all its little islands strewed up and down it, to Cape
Golonne on tne Promontory Sunium. Beyond that the islands of the Ai-chipela^ro
seemed to close up the mouth of the Gulf. On the left hand of us we had the Gulf of
Lepanto or Corinth, as far as beyond Sicyon, bounded northward with all these
fainouH
412 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
mountains of old times, with the Isthmus, even to Athens, lying in a row, and present-
ing themselves orderly to our view. The plain of Corinth towards Sicyon or B asilico
m well watered by two rivulets, well-tilled, well-planted with oliveyards and vineyards,
and, having many little villages scattered up and down it, is none of the least of the
ornaments of this prospect. The town also that lieth north of the Castle, in little knots
of houses, surrounded with orchards and gardens of oranges, lemons, citrons, and
cypress-trees, and mixed with corn-fields between, is a sight not less delightful. So
that it is hard to judge whether this plain is more beautiful to the beholders or
profitable to the inhabitants." This was in 1675, before the last conflicts of the Turks
and Venetians. Compare Dr. Clarke's description. He was not allowed, however, by
the Turkish authorities, to reach the summit. Wagner alludes in terms of praise to
Pouqueville's description. It may be seen in his Travels, ch. vii.
I
Dodwell whose view was from an eminence to the S.W., from whence
(ii. 189"*,
Mohammed II. reduced the Acrocorinth in 1458. Compare Clarke " As from the :
Parthenon at Athens we had seen the citadel of Corinth, so now we had a commanding
iew, across the Saronic Gulf, of Salamis and the Athenian Acropolis." See above,
ander Athens.
' Td /j.kv npd^ upKTOv jxlpog 'AKpoKopivdov kari rd fidliara opBiov iip' o) Kelrat if
noTiic TpaneCtjSovc enl ;^;cjpioi Tvpog avry ^t^y rov 'AKpoKoplvdov. Strabo. Leake's
description entirely corresponds with this, p. 251.
3 Pliit. Ar. 9. Barth patriotically compares the relation of Corinth to Greece with
Hamburg to Germany " Erat igitur haec
that of : Corinthi ratio similis ei, quaB interest
Hamburgho cum reliqua Germania," p. 6, note.
* He adds that the Sicilian sea was avoided by mariners as much as possible.
6 The proverb concerning Malea in its Latin form was " Ubi Maleam flexeris, ob-
Kviscere quaj sunt domi."
See above, note on the word " Isthmus."
' Hence the narrowest part of the Isthmus was called iio2.Koc, a word which in meatt*
ing and in piratic associations corresponds with the Tarbat of Scotch geography. Th6
distance across is about three miles ; nearer Corinth it is six miles, whence the name
f the modern village of Hexamili.
OORINTH 4:11
COLN OP OORINTH.'
mable value to the early traders of the Levant. And the two harbourfl,
which received the ships of a more maturely developed trade, Cenchreae
on the Eastern Sea, and Ijechaeum^ on the Western, with a third and
Bmaller port, called Schoenus,'* where the isthmus was narrowest, form
an essential part of our idea of Corinth. Its common title in the poets
a female figure on a rock, between two other figures, each of whom bears a
rudder, the symbol of navigation and trade. It is the same image which
appears under anothei* form in the words of the rhetorician, who said that
itwas " the prow and the stern of Greece." ^
As we noticed above a continuous fortress which was carried across
the Isthmus, in connection with its military history, so here we have
to mention another continuous work which was attempted, in connec'
tion with its mercantile history. This was the ship-canal ; which,
after being often projected, was about to be begun again about the very
time of St. Paul's visit.' Parallels often suggest themselves between the
relation of the parts of the Mediterranean to each other, and those of the
Atlantic and Pacific : for the basins of the " Midland Sea " were to the
Greek and Koman trade, what the Oceanic spaces are to ours. And it id
3 Lechoeum was united to Corinth by long walls. It was about twelve stadia dis-
tant from the city. Strabo, and Xen. Hellen. iv. 4 and Agesel. See Leake, p. 251.
Schoenus was at the point where the Isthmus was narrowest, close to the Sanctuary
of Neptune and the eastern portion of the Isthmian wall. The ship is described aa
Bailing to this port in the early times when Athens had the presidency of the games.
* The " bimaris Corinthus " of Horace and Ovid. See Hor. Od. i. vii. 2. Ov. Her.
xil. 27. So Julius Pollux calls it aiicpiddlaaaog. Compare Eurip. Troad. 1097 (J/tto- :
of cutting through the Isthmus. Nero really began the undertaking in the year 52,
but soon desisted. See Leake (pp. 297-302), who quotes all the authorities. Tha
I portion of the trench which remains is at the narrowest part, near the shore of th
Corinthian Gulf. Dodwell came upon it, after crossing Mount Geraneia fron Attica,
F. 183
There is this difference, however, between the Oceanic and th3 Medi-
terranean Isthmus, that one of the great cities of the ancient world
always existed at the latter. What some future Darien may be destined
to become, we cannot prophesy : but, at a very early date, we find Corinth
celebrated by the poets for its wealth.^ This wealth must inevitably
have grown up, from its mercantile relations, even without reference tc
its two seas, ^if we attend to the fact on which Thucydides laid stress^
'/hat it was the place through which all ingress and egress took place
between Northern and Southern Grreece, before the development of com-
merce by water. 3 But it was its conspicuous position on the narrow neck
of land between the -(Sgean and Ionian Seas, which was the main cause
of its commercial greatness. The construction of the ship Argo is assigned
by mythology to Corinth.'* The Samians obtained their ship-builders from
her.
The first Greek triremes, the first Greek sea-fights, are connected
with her history.^ Neptune was her god. Her colonies^ were spread
over distant coasts in the East and West ; and ships came from every sea
to her harbours. Thus she became the common resort and the universal
market of the Greeks.'' Her population and wealth were further aug-
mented by the manufactures ^ in metallurgy, dyeing, and porcelain, which
1 The arguments for this date may be seen in "Wieseler. We shall return to the sub-
ject again.
See Horn. II. ii. 570. Find. 01. xiii. 4.
3 OlKovvTe^ Trjv 'Ko'kiv ol KoplvdLOL eirl rov 'la6/u.ov del St] nore e/Lnropiov elxov, ruv
^lE.ATiTjvuv TO ndlac Kara yrjv rd izTietcj rj Kard &d7\,aGaav, tCjv re evrdg Ile2,07TOvvijaov
Kol Tuv e^cj, did rijc eKstvuv Trap' dX/iijXovg eTTL/itayovTUV, XPW^<^^ dvvarol rjaav
(cl>f Koi Totg nalatoL^ noiTjralg dedrjluraC), k. t. A. Thuc. i. 13.
4 Nai)v kvavTzriyriaaro avrrj ?j nolLg, ov rptijpT] /j,6vov, dXkd Kai avrifv rrjv 'Apy6,
Aristides, Isthm. p. 24.
IlpcjTOi KoplvdLoi "keyovrat iyyvrara rov vvv rpoKov fxeTax^tpLaaL rd Tvepl rdc
vavc, Kol TOtr/peLg npurov ev Koplvdcp T7/g 'E/lAadof vavK-rjyr/d/jvat. ^atverai 6i xai
^aficotg 'AfJ.eivoK?i7](; K.oplv6i.og vavnriybg vavg noiijaag reuaapag. vav/iaxia re naTiaiTaTti
uv Idfiev ytyvETai KopivOiuv irpog KepKvpatovg. Thuc. i. 37. See Poppo's remark on
the word 'EXlddog. " Apud alios populos quidem, ut apud Phcenices, triremes jam
prius in usu fuisse, sed e GrcBcis Corinthios primes f-uisse, qui ejusmodi naves sedifica-
rent, vult dicere." Eusebius attributes the origir of trii'emes to the Phceniciaus and
Egyjitians. Wilckens, p. 43.
c Corcyra, Syracuse, &c.
' KoLv^ ndvTCJV Kara(j)vy7j' odog koX die^odog ttuvtuv uvPoutvuv, kolvov darv rov
E^Ar/vQv, fiTjTpiHToXig re (xrexvug Kal f^trjTiijp. Aristides, p. 23. In another place he
compares Corinth to a ship loaded with merchandise (p. 24), and says that a perpetual
fair w ;i.s hold yearly and daily at the Isthmus.
Foi' some of the details concerning these manufactures, see Wilckens, xxxix
COEESTTH UNDER THE ROMANS. 415
COIN OF CORINTH J
periodical intervals the crowding of her streets and the activity of hcf
trade received a new impulse from the strangers who flocked to tho
Isthmian games ; a subject to which our attention will be often called
hereafter, but which must be passed over here with a simple allusion.
If we add all these particulars together, we see ample reason why the
wealth, luxury, and profligacy of Corinth were proverbial ^ in the ancient
world.
In passing from the fortunes of the earher, or Greek Corinth, to its
history under the Romans, the first scene that meets us is one of disaster
and ruin. The Mummius, about the same
destruction of this city by
time that Carthage ^ was so complete, that, hke
was destroyed by Scipio,
its previous wealth, it passed into a proverb.'' Its works of skill and
and the exhibition of vases and statues that decorated the triumph of the
Capitol, introduced a new era in the habits of the Komans.^ Meanwhile
the very place of the city from which these works were taken remained
desolate for many years.'' The honour of presiding over the Isthmian
games was given to Sicyon ;
^ and Corinth ceased even to be a resting^
place of travellers between the East and the West.^ But a "C^m Corinth
tidvaaa ij KopLvdog ndliv vno Kataapog, &c. Those of Pausanias are not
uvEl7](^dr]
less explicit as to the desolation of Corinth Kopivdov 6^ oIkovol Koptvdiuv ovdeig irl
:
tC)v upxaLuv, ETToiKOL 6^ dnoaTaXevreg vno 'FufiaLuv. Nevertheless, the site, I conceive,
cannot have been quite uninhabited, as the Romans neither destroyed the public build-
ings Lor persecuted the religion of the Corinthians. And as many of those buildinga
were still perfect in the time of Pausanias, there must have been some persons who
bad the care of them during the century of desolation." Leake, p. 231, note a.
8 Pausan. ii. 2.
e On Cicero's journey between the East and West, we find him resting, not at
Corinth, but a* Athens. In the time of Ovid the city was rising again.
416 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
rose from the ashes of the old. Julius Csesar, recognising the importatci
<rf the Isthmus as a military and mercantile position, sent thither a colony
of Italians, who were chiefly freed men.' This new estabhshment rapidly
increased by the mere force of its position. Within a few years it grew,
as Sincapore ^ has grown in our days, from nothing to an enormous city.
The Greek merchants, who had fled on the Roman conquest to Delos and
the neighbouring coasts, returned to their former home. The Jews set-
tled themselves in a place most convenient both for the business of com-
merce and for communication with Jerusalem.^ Thus, when St. Paul
arrived at Corinth after his sojourn at Athens, he found himself in the
midst of a numerous population of Greeks and Jews. They were pro-
bably far more numerous than the Romans, though the city had the consti-
tution of a colony,'^ and was the metropolis of a province.
^ 'EiroiKovc Tov dnelevdepiKov yevovc nletoTovc. Strabo, viii. 6. See Pausan. ii. 1,
See the Life of Sir Stamford RafiSes, and later notices of the place in Rajah
Brooke's journals, &c.
8 See the preceding chapter for the establishment of the J6ws at Corinth.
* See the Latin letters on its coins. Its full name was " Colonia Laus Julia
Corinthus."
A memoir was read on by Professor K. F. Hermann of Gottingen, at
this subject
<he Philosophical Meeting at Basle in 1847. The substance of the memoir is given,
with additional matter, in the Classical Museum, vol. vii. p. 259. " When did Greece
become a Roman province ?" The drift of the argument is to show that the provincial
organisation did not immediately follow the destruction of Corinth by Mummius but ;
that Achaia was not formed into a province till the civil war between Caesar and
Pompey, or perhaps not until the time of Augustus. The apparent evidence in favour
of the common hypothesis, from Pausanias and Strabo, adduced by Sigonius, is shown'
to be inconclusive and direct evidence against it is brought from Plutarch, and the
;
and Corinth, the head of that league, became the metropolis.'* The pro
fince experienced changes of government such as those which have been
alluded to in the case of Cyprus.^ At first it was proconsular.'* After
wards it was placed by Tiberius under a procurator of his own.^ But in
the reign of Claudius was again reckoned among the
it " unarmed pro-
vinces," ^ and governed by a proconsul.'^
One of the proconsuls who were sent out to govern the province of
.^cbaia in the course of St. Paul's second missionary journey was Gallic.
His original name was Annaeus Novatus, and he was the brother of
Annseus Seneca the philosopher. The name under which he is known to
us in sacred and secular history was due to his adoption into the family of
Junius Gallio the rhetorician.^ The time of his government at Corinth, as
indicated by the sacred historian, must be placed between the years 62
and 54, if the dates we have assigned to St. Paul's movements be corrc
We have no exact information on this subject from any secular source,
nor is he mentioned by any heathen writer as having been proconsul of
Achaia. But there are some incidental notices of his life, which give
rather a curious confirmation of what is advanced above. We are inform*
ed by Tacitus and Dio that he died in the year 65. Pliny says that
after his consulship he had a serious illness, for the removal of which he
tried a sea-voyage and from Seneca we learn that it was in Achaia
that his brother went on shipboard for the benefit of his health. If we
knew the year of Gallio's consulship, our chronological result would ba
brought within narrow limits. We do not possess this information ; but
it has been reasonably conjected that his promotion, if not due to his
brother's influence, would be subsequent to the year 49, in which thQ
philosopher returned from his exile in Corsica, and had the youthful Nero
1 KaTiovGi ovK 'E/l/la(5o$' aXV 'Axaiac rjyefxova ol 'F6/LiaL0L, 6i6tl hxei'Pt^oavTO Toi)%
Tac Ann. xv. 73. Senec. Epist. 104. Nat. Qu. 4 Praef. Dio Cass. xl. 35.
w Tac. as above. Dio, Ixii. 2d.
" " Fraeterea est alius usus multiplex, principalis vero navigandi phthisi affectis .
placed under ^is tuition. The interval of time thus marked out betweeai
the restoration of Seneca and the death of Gallio, includes the narrowear
Luke to the proconsulate in Achaia.
period assigned by St.
The coming of a new governor to a province was an event of great
importance. The whole system of administration, the general prosperity,
the state of political parties, the relative position of different sections of
the population, were necessarily afected by his personal character. The
provincials were miserable or happy, according as a Yerres or a Cicero
was sent from Rome.^ As regards the personal character of Gallio, the
inference we should naturally draw from the words of St. Luke closely
corresponds with what we are told by Seneca. His brother speaka
of him with singular affection ; not only as a man of integrity and hon-
esty, but as one who won universal regard by his amiable temper and
popular manners.'* His conduct on the occasion of the tumult at Corinth
is quite in harmony with a character so described. He did not allow him-
Belf, like Pilate, to be led into injustice by the clamour of the Jews ;
' For a description of the misery inflicted on a province by a bad governor, see Cio.
pro leg.Man. 23.
* " Gallio frater
meus, quern nemo non parum amat, etiam qui amare plus non
potest Ingenium suspicere coepisti, omnium maximum et dignlssimum
Frugalitatem laudare coepisti, qua sic a numis resiliit, ut illos habere nec damnare vi-
deatur. Coepisti mirari comitatem et incompositam suavitatem, quae illos quoque,
. . .
quos transit, abducit, gratuitum etiam in obvios meritum. JVetno enim mortaliiim
uni tarn dulcis est, quam hie omnibus. Cum interim tanta naturalis honi vis est, ut
artem simulationemque non redoleat." Qusest. Nat. iv. Praef. The same character ii
given of him by the poet Statius. Sylv. ii. 7 :
ftusserhalb ihres Landes ia jeder Stadt ein anerkanntes Gemeinwesen fiir sich, das sich
/
GALLIC. 419
'Tiolating their own religious law. They seem to have thought, if this
violation of Jewish law could be proved, that St. Paul would become
amenable to the criminal law of the empire ;
or, perhaps, they hoped, as
afterwards at Jerusalem, that he would be given up into their hands for
punishment. Had Gallio been like Festus or Felix, this might easily nav6
happened ; and then St. Paul's natural resource would have been to ap-
peal to the emperor, on the ground of his citizenship. But the appointed
thne of his visit to Rome was not yet come, and the continuance of his
missionary labours was secured by the character of the governor, who
was providentially sent at this time to manage the affairs of Achaia.
The scene is set before us by St. Luke with some details which give
m a vivid notion of what took place. Gallio is seated on that proconsu-
lar chair ^ from which judicial sentences were pronounced by the Roman
magistrates. To this we must doubtless add the other insignia of Roman
power, which were suitable to a colony and the metropolis- of a province.
Before this heathen authority the Jews are preferring their accusation
with eager clamour. Their chief speaker is Sosthenes, the successor of
Crispus, or (it maybe) the ruler of another synagogue." The Greeks'
are standing round, eager to hear the result, and to learn something of
the new governor's character ;
and, at the same time, hating the Jews,
and ready to be the partizans of St. Paul. At the moment when the
Apostle is " about to open his mouth," Gallio will not even hear his
defence, but pronounces a decided and peremptory judgment.
His answer was that of a man who knew the limits of his office, and
felt that he had no time to waste on the religious technicalities of the
Jews.^ Had it been a case in which the Roman law had been violated
nacli seinen vaterlandischen Gebrauchen regierte und die Albgaben fiir den Tempel in
Jerasalem einsammelte." Compare Joseph. B. J. ii. 14, 4, on Caesarea. In Alexan-
dria, there were four distinct classes of population, among which the Jews were citizena
under their Ethuarch, like the Romans under their Juridicus. For the later position
of the Jews, after Caracalla had made all freemen citizens, see Walther, p. 422.
1 The ^r/fxa is mentioned three times in the course of this narrative. It was of two
kinds (1) fixed in some open and public place (2) movable, and taken by the Roman
; ;
On the organisation of the synagogues, see Ch. VI. p. 185. It should be added, that
*re cannot confidently identify this Sosthenes with the " brother " whose name occurf
I Cor. i. 1.
by any bretv ^ >f the peace or any act of dishonesty, then it wonld hare
been reasonal^' ? and right that the matter should have been fully investi-
gated ;
but, since it was only a question of the Jewish law, relating to
the disputes of Hebrew superstition, ^ and to names of no public interest,
The effect of this proceeding must have been to produce the utmost
rage and disappointment among the Jews. "With the Greeks and other
bystanders ^ the result was very different. Their dislike of a superstitious
and misanthropic nation was gratified. They held the forbearance of
GalHo as a proof that their own religious liberties would be respected
under the new administration ;
and, with the disorderly impulse of a mob
which has been kept for some time in suspense, they rushed upon the ruler
of the synagogue, and beat him in the very presence of the proconsular
filled. Though bitter enemies had "set on" Paul (Acts xviii. 10), no
one had " hurt " him. The Lord had been " with him " and " much peo-
1 ZvTTjfia Ttepl ovofidruv, v. 15. We recognise here that much had been made by the
3 The manuscript evidence tends to show that 'Ellijveg is a gloss. It cannot, how-
ever, be well doubted that the persons in question were Greeks. The reading 'lovdcUoi,
found in some MSS., is evidently wrong.
< 'Efiirppadev tov j37jfj.aTog, v. 17.
6 oi^iv TovTuv r. ^fieXev, v. 17. See above on Gallio's character.
See p. 311.
DEPAKTUEE FROM COKINTH. 421
pie " had been gathered into His church. At length the time came when
the Apostle deemed it right to leave Achaia and revisit Judaea, induced (ag
it would appear) by a motive which often guided his journeys, the desire
who were about to proceed from Corinth to Ephesus.^ Before his de-
parture he took a solemn farewell of the assembled Church.^ How touch-
ing St. Paul's farewells must have been, especially after a protracted
residence among his brethren and disciples, we may infer from the affec-
The three points on the coast to which our attention is called in the
brief notice of this voyage contained in the Acts,^ are Cenchreae, the
harbour of Corinth ;
Ephesus, on the western shore of Asia Minor ; and
Caesarea Stratonis, in Palestine. More suitable occasions will be found
hereafter for descriptions of Csesarea and Ephesus. The present seems to
require a few words to be said concerning Cenchreae.
After descending from the low table-land on which Corinth was situ-
ated, the road which connected the city with its eastern harbour extended
a distance of eight or nine miles across the Isthmian plain. Cenchreas
has fallen with Corinth ; but the name still remains to mark the place of
1 See Acts xviii. 21. There is little doubt that the festival was Pente;ost. Se<
W'ieseler.
* Yv. 18, 19. 3 To?f a6el<l>olg anora^diievog, V. 18. < V. 20.
s V. 26. Compare xviii. 6, and see p. 398.
6 V. 31. Compare what is said of his tears at Philippi. Philip, iii. 18.
1 Vv. 29, 30.
Compare vv. 33-35 with xviii. 2 and with 1 Cor. iv, 12.
the port, whicli once commanded a large trade with Alexandria and Aati
och, with Ephesus and Thessalonica, an(f the other cities of the ^gean.
That it was a town of some magnitude may be inferred from the attention
which Pausanias devotes to it in the description of the environs of Co-
rinth ; ' and both its mercantile character, and the pains which had been
taken in its embelhshment, are well symbolised in the coin ^ which repre-
sents the port with a temple on each enclosing promontory, and a statue
of Neptune on a rock between them.
Erom this port St. Paul began his yoyage to Syria. But before th
ressel sailed, one of his companions performed a religious ceremony which
must not be unnoticed, since it is mentioned in Scripture. Aquila ^ had
bound himself by one of those vows, which the Jews often voluntarily
took, even when in foreign countries, in consequence of some mercy re-
ceived, or some deliverance from danger, or some other occurrence which
had produced a deep religious impression on the mind. The obligations
of these vows were similar to those in the case of Nazarites, as regards
abstinence from strong drinks and legal pollutions, and the wearing of the
hab: uncut till the close of a definite length of time. Aquila could not be
literallj a Nazarite ;
for, in the case of that greater vow, the cutting of
the hair, which denoted that the legal time was expired, could only take
place at the Temple in Jerusalem, or at least in Judtea." In this case the
ceremony was performed at Cenchreae. Here Aquila, who had been for
Bome time conspicuous, even among the Jews and Christians at Corinth,
for the long hair which denoted that he was under a peculiar religious re-
striction came to the close of the period of obligation ; and before ac-
companying the Apostle to Ephesus, laid aside the tokens of his vow.
Dr. Sibthorpe, that the name was given from a certain kind of grain which is still cul-
tivated there. Some travellers (for instance, Lord Nugent) make a mistake in identi-^
fying Cenchreae with Kalamaki, which is further to the north.
1 Pausan. ii. 2.
* An engraving of this coin will be given in the second volume.
It may be said that we have here cut what De Wette calls a Gordian knot, in assume
ing that the vow was taken by Aquila and not by Paul.
This view rests partly on the
arrangement of the words, the order being UplaKiXXa Kal 'kKvlag^ contrary to St.
Luke's ordinary practice partly on the improbability that St. Paul should have taken
;
a vow of this kind. See Meyer on this latter point. The opinion of commentators ia
divided on the subject. Chrysostom, Hammond, Grotius, &c., advocate the view we
have taken. Heinrichs says :
PrBcfc'-endum mihi videtur, quia constructio fluit faci-
lior, propiusque fidem est, notitiam hauc, quae breviter nonnisi et quasi per transennam
additur, de homine ignotiore adjunctambut what follows is merely a conjeo-
esse
tare :
" videtur votum nullam novaculam admissurum, antequam
fecisse Aquila, see
ex fuga, quam Roma in Judaeam capessebat, sospes ad ultimum Europae portum venis-
set" Nicmeyer had, perhaps, the same idea :
" Sie nahmen den Weg iiber Cenchrea
nach Ephesus, well Aquila ein Gelvibde hatte, sein Haupt daselbst zu bescheeren."
Char, der Bibel. p. 197 (ed. 1778).
.* See De vVette and Meyer.
/
VOYAGE BY EPHESTJS TO CJS8AREA. 423
From Corinth to Ephesus, the voyage was among the islands of \h9
Greek Archipelago. The Isles of Greece, and the waters which break on
their shores, or rest among them in spaces of calm repose, always present
iome of whom seldom reflect that the land and the water round them were
hallowed by the presence and labours of St. Paul. One great purpose of
this book will be gained, if it tends to associate the Apostle of the Gentiles
with the coasts, which are already touched by so many other historical
recollections.
No voyage across the -^gean was more frequently made than that be-
tween Corinth and Ephesus. They were the capitals of the two flourish-
ing and peaceful provinces of Achaia and Asia,^ and the two great mer-
cantile towns on the opposite side of the sea. If resemblances may be
again suggested between the Ocean and the Mediterranean, and between:
ancient and modern times, we may say that the relation of these cities of
the Eastern and Western Greeks to each other was like that between
New York and Liverpool. Even the time taken up by the voyages con-
stitutes a point of resemblance. Cicero says that, on his eastward passage,
which was considered a long one, he spent fifteen days, and that his return:
A fair wind, in much shorter time than either thirteen or fifteen days-,
would take the Apostle across from Corinth to the city on the other side
of the sea. It seems that the vessel was bound for Syria, and staid only a
short time in harbour at Ephesus. Aquila and Priscilla remained there
while he proceeded.^ But even during the short interval of his stay, Paul
made a visit to his Jewish fellow-countrymen, and (the Sabbath being pro-
bably oue of the days during which he remained) he held a discussion with
them in the synagogue concerning Christianity.^ Their curiosity was ex-
cited by what they heard, as it had been at Antioch in Pisidia ; and per-
haps that curiosity would have speedily been succeeded by opposition, if
their visitor had staid longer among them. But he was not able to grant
the request which they urgently made. He was anxious to attend the
approaching festival at Jerusalem ;
^ and, had he not proceeded with the
ship, this mi^ht have been impossible. He was so far, however, encouiv
a^ed by the opening which he saw, that he left the EphesianJews with a
promise of his return. This promise was limited by an expression of that
1 See how Achaia and Asia are mentioned by Tacitus, Hist. ii.
* AieT^exdv, v. 19. Contrast the aorist with ^e imperfect dieXeyero (v. 4), uaed <rf
The voyage to Syria lay first by the coasts and islands of the --Egean
to Cos and Cnidus, which are mentioned on subsequent voyages,'^ and then
across the open sea by Rhodes and Cyprus to Csesarea.^ This city has the
closest connection with some of the most memorable events of early Chria-
tianity. We have already had occasion to mention it, in alluding to St
Peter and the baptism of the first Gentile convert."* We shall after-
simply to have " saluted the Church," and .then to have proceeded to
Antioch. It is useless to attempt to draw aside the veil which conceals
the particulars of this visit of Paul of Tarsus to the city of his forefathers,
' Tov Qeov -delovTO^. See James iv. 15. 'Eav 6 Kvpiog ^eTiTjay koI ^ijaujuev.
* Acts xxi. 1. xxvii. 7. 3 See Acts xxi. 1-3.
* See p. 115. Compare p. 53. Acts xxi., &c.
Tac. Ann. xiv. 54, and Josephus. See pp. 28 and 55.
7
See the map of the Roman roads in Palestine, and the remarks, p. 84.
* 'AraSaf, v. 22. Some commentators think that -St. Paul did not go to Jerusalem
at all, but that this participle merely denotes his going up from the ship into the town
of Cajsarea : but, independently of his intention to visit Jerusalem, it is hardly likely
that such a circumstance would have been specified in a narrative so briefly given.
'0 We shall see, in the case of the later voyage (Acts xx. xxi.), that he could not bav
ftrrived in time for the festival, had not the weather been peculiarly favourable.
^ A.aTraGd/ji.Evog ttjv kmiliaiaVy v 22.
ST. PAULS LAST VISIT TO ANTIOCH,
coast have been long ago mentioned. Many years had intervened since
the charitable mission which brought relief from Syria to the poor in
Judaea (Ch. IT.), and since the meeting of the council at Jerusalem, and
the joyful return at a time of anxious controversy (Ch. YII.). When we
allude to these previous visits to the Holy City, we feel how widely the
Church of Christ had been extended in the space of very few years. The
course of our narrative is rapidly carrying us from the East towards the
"West. We are now for the last time on this part of the Asiatic shore.
For a moment the associations which surround us are all of the primeval
past. The monuments which still remain along this coast remind us of the
ancient Phoenician power, and of Baal and Ashtaroth,'' or of the Assy-
rian conquerors, who came from the Euphrates to the West, and have left
forms like those in the palaces of Nineveh sculptured on the rocks of the
Mediterranean,^ rather than of anything connected with the history of
Greece and Rome. The mountains which rise above our heads belong to
the characteristic imagery of the Old Testament the cedars are those of :
the forests which were hewn by the workmen of Hiram and Solomon the ;
torrents which cross the road are the waters from " the sides of Lebanon."''
But we are taking our last view of this scenery : and, as we leave it, we
feel that we are passing from the J ewish infancy of the Christian Church
to its wider expansion among the Heathen.
Once before we had occasion to remark that the Church had no longer
now its central point in Jerusalem, but in Antioch, a city of the Gentiles.^
The progress of events now carries us still more remotely from the land
which was first visited by the tidings of salvation. The world through
which our narrative takes us begins to be European rather than Asiatic.
So far as we know, the present visit which St. Paul paid to Antioch was
his last.6 We have already seen how new centres of Christian life had
' KaTcSi] eig 'Avrioxetav, v. 22.
' The ruins of Tortosa and Aradus.
3 The sculptures of Assyrian figures on the coast road near Beyrout are noticed in the
works of many travellers.
* These torrents are often flooded, so that St
so as to be extremely dangerous ;
Paul may have encountered " perils of rivers " in this distric t. Maundrell saya that
Vhe traveller Spon lost his life in one of these torrents.
5 Pp. 108, 109.
" Antioch is not mentioned in the Acts after xviii, 22.
i26 THE LIFE AND EPISTIES OP ST. PACT..
been established by him in the Greek cities of the ^gean. The course oi
the Gospel is further and further towards the West ; and the inspired part
of the Apostle's biography, after a short period of deep interest in Judiea,
finally centres in Rome.
cow OP COPJHTE.l
CHAPTEE xni.
**
We see not yet all things put under Him." Heb. ii. 8.
WiTare now arrived at a point in St. Paul's history when it seems needful
for the full understanding of the remainder of his career, and especially of
his Epistles, to give some description cf the internal condition of those
churches which looked to him as their father in the faith. Nearly all of
these had now been founded, and regarding the early development of
Beveral of them, we have considerable information from his letters to them
and from other sources. This information we shall now endeavour to
bring into one general view ; and in so doing (since the Pauline Churches
were only particular portions of the universal Church), we shall necessa-
rily have to consider the distinctive peculiarities and internal condition of
the primitive Church generally, as it existed in the time of the Apostles.
The feature which most immediately forces itself upon our notice, as
The two great classifications of them in St. Paul's writings are as follows :
cliarisms, or spiritual gifts, were wiought by one and the same s^rit, wlio
distributed them to each severally Recording to His own will ; and among
these he classes the gift of healiiig, and the gift of Tongues, as falling
ander the same category with the talent for administrative usefulness, and
the faculty of Government. But though vre learn from this to refer the
ordinary natural endowments of men, not less than the supernatural powers
bestowed in the Apostolic age, to a divine source, yet, since we are
treating of that which gave a distinctive character to the Apostolic
Church, it is desirable that we should make a division between the two
classes of gifts, the extraordinary ^nd the ordinary : although this division
was not made by the Apostles at tjie time when both kinds of gifts were in
ordinary exercise.
The most striking manifestatioji of divine interposition was the power
of working what are commonly cilled Miracles, that is, changes in the
usual operation of the laws of nature. This power was exercised by St.
Paul himself very frequently (as we know from the narrative in the Acts),
1. aTzoaToTiOL.
(3) Kv6epvr]aELg.
(4) yevri y^uGGuv. See (71).
It may be remarked, that the following divisions are in I. and not in II. viz. p, ;
and : and a", though not explicitly in II,, yet are probably included in it aa
necessary gifts for airoaToloi, and perhaps also for 6L6daKa7Mi, as Neander supposes.
It is difficult to observe any principle which runs through these classifications ;
pro-
bably L was not meant as a systematic classification at all ;
II., however, certainly was
In some measure, because Paul uses the words Tvpurov, devrepovy rpctcv, &c.
St.
Imperfect understanding of the nature of the ;^api(7/za7a themselves they are alluded ;
^ only as things well known to the Corinthians, and of course without any preciai
d^ription of their nature.
-a Rom. xii. G another unsystematic enumeration of four charisms is given ; via,
of healhigj^ which was a peculiar brancH of the gift of miracles,^ and some*
times apparently possessed by those wao had not the higher gift. Th<
source of all these miraculous powers was the charism of faith; namely,
that peculiar kind of wonder-working ^ith spoken of in Matt. xvii. 20
1 Cor. xii. 9 and xiii. 2, which consisted in an intense belief that alj
obstacles would vanish before the powir given : this must of course be
distinguished from that disposition of faith which is essential to the
Christian life.
spoken of both in the Acts and Epistles asa matter of ordinary occurrence ;
and in that tone of quiet (and often incidental) allusion, in which we men-
tion the facts of our daily life. And this s the case, not in a narrative of
events long past (where unintentional exaggeration might be supp(^sed to
Iiave crept in), but in the narrative of t cotemporary, writing mimedi-
*~
ately after the occurrence of the events which he records, and of^'^^'^^
readers
which speak of those miracles as wrought in tbe daily sight o
addressed. Now the question forced upo^i every inteUg^^ ^ *
the^ssu p
whether such a phenomenon can be explained except fcv
more difficult
that the miracles did really happen. Is this assumption
of novelty by
lhan that of Hun|6 (which has been revived with an
^I'r
whenever we meet
modern infidels), 4o cuts the knot by assuming that
be rejected as incredible,
no
with an account oJa miracle, it is i^pso/ado to
often supposed;
we never read of
a knowledge of foreign languages, as is
influence the exercise of the wndentanding was suspended, while the sjdrit
tvas rapt into a state of ecstacy by Ihe immediate communication of the Spirit
of God. In this ecstatic trance the believer was constrained by an irri-
sistible ^ power to pour forth Ms feelings of thanksgiving and rapture la
words ;
yet the words which issued from his mouth were not his own he ;
sion
^
? V ^^^^^^y
.L or unbeliever*? nnA
as one of the gieat instruments for the conver-
. ,
*i"<Xtar more serviceable
. .
' in this respect than the dft
of tongues although
by sne of the new converts it
was not so highly
esteemed, because it seu.ed
less stra.ge and wonderful.
His spirit was not subject v,
will. See I C<m -viv.
xir. o^.
32.
EpIiTjVELa yluaaC)v. , . , '
.'itrrcjifel^nf^^^^^^^^^
" sii^icicnHo refer to moli
' passages as Acta xL 27, 2a
Acts ii 17 is
1 Cor. ; and 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 31, 34.
fc!^V!k
.
Thus far we have mentioned the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which
Rrere vouchsafed to the Church of that age alone ;
yet (as we have before
said) there was no strong line of division, no "great gulf fixed" between
these, and what we now should call the ordinary gifts, or natural endow
ments of the Christian converts. Thus the gift of prophecy cannot easily
who exercised the gift of prophecy for the conversion of their unbelieving
hearers, and the gift of teaching for the building up of their converts in
the faith.
Other mentioned as charisms are the gift of government ^
gifts specially
and the gift of ministration.^ By the former, certain persons were spe-
cially fitted to preside over the Church and regulate its internal order ;
by the latter its possessors were enabled to minister to the wants of their
brethren, to manage the distribution of relief among the poorer members
of the Church, to tend the sick, and carry out other practical works of
piety.
offices which at that time existed in the Church, to which the possessors
of these gifts were severally called, according as the endowment which
they had received fitted them to discharge the duties of the respective
functions. We will endeavour, therefore, to give an outline of the con-
stitution and government of the primitive Christian churches, as it ex-
isted in the time of the Apostles, so far as we can ascertain it from the
information supplied to us in the New Testament.
Amongst the several classifications which are there given of church
officers, the most important (from its relation to subsequent ecclesiastical
history) is that by which they are divided into Apostles,^ Presbyters, and
1.dpiafj.a dt6aaKa?Liag. ' Xapiajxa Kv6spvT7aeug.
' XdpiGfia diaKovtag or avTi/i^Tpeug,
< 'AiroGToTiot KoL 7ipea6vTepot are mentioned Acts xv. 2 and elsewhere, and the two ,
classes of presbyters and deacons are msntioned Phil. i. 1, exiaKOTvocc kqI diuKovot^.
See p. 434, n. 1.
The following are the facts concerning the use of the word aTroaro?/) in thy Nuts^
Testament. It occurs
once in St. Matthew ;
of the Twelve,
Mice in St Mark ; of the Twelve.
432 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Luke, applies the name to Barnabas also. In a lower sense, the term was
applied to all the more eminent Christian teachers ;
as, for example, to
Andronicus and Junias.i And it was also sometimes used in its simple
etymological sense of emissary, which had not yet been lost in its other
and more technical meaning. Still those only were called emphatically
the who had received their commission from Christ himself, in-
Apostles
cluding the elevenwho had been chosen by Him while on earth, with St.
Matthias and St. Paul, who had been selected for the office by their Lord
(though in different ways) after His ascension.
In saying that the Apostles embodied that element in church govern-
ment, which has since been represented by episcopacy, we must not,
however, be understood to mean that the power of the Apostles was sub-
ject to those limitations to which the authority of bishops has always been
subjected. The primitive bishop was surrounded by his council of presby-
ters, and took no important step without their sanction ; but this was far
from being the case with the Apostles. They were appointed by Christ
himself, with absolute power to govern His Church ; to them He had
given the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, with authority to admit or
6 times in St. Luke ;
5 times of the Twelve, once in its general etymological
sense.
once in St. in general etymological sense.
John ;
its
30 times in Acts (always in plural) 28 times of the Twelve, and twice of Paul
;
and Barnabas.
8 times in Romans twice of St Paul, once of Andronicus.
;
3 times Gal. of
in Paul and the Twelve.
;
St.
4 times Ephes. of
in Paul and the Twelve,
;
St.
4 times Timothy of
in PauL 5 St.
once Hebrews
in of Christ himself.
(iii. 1)
;
to exclude ;
they were also guided by His perpetual inspiratlDu, bo thai
all their moral and religious teaching was absolutely and infallibly true ,
and to retain the sins of men.^ This was the essential peculiarity of their
office, which can find no parallel in the after history of the Church. But,
so far as their function was to govern, they represented the monarchical
element in the constitution of the early Church, and their power was a
full counterpoise to that democratic tendency which has sometimes been
attributed to the ecclesiastical arrangements of the Apostolic period.
Another peculiarity which distinguishes them from all subsequent rulers
of the Church is, that they were not limited to a sphere of action defined
by geographical boundaries ; the whole world was their diocese, and they
bore the Glad-tidings, east or west, north or south, as the Holy Spirit
might direct their course at the time, and governed the churches which
they founded wherever they might be placed. ^Moreover, those charisms
which were possessed by other Christians singly and severally, were col-
lectively given to the Apostles, because all were needed for their work.
The gift of miracles was bestowed upon them in abundant measure, that
they might strike terror into the adversaries of the truth, and win, by
outward wonders, the attention of thousands, whose minds were closed by
ignorance against the inward and the spiritual. They had the gift of
prophecy as the very characteristic of their office, for it was their especial
commission to reveal the truth of God to man ;
they were consoled in the
midst of their labours by heavenly visions, and rapt in supernatural ecsta-
sies, in which they "spake in tongues" "to God and not to man."
They had the ''gift of government, for that which came upon them daily
was "the care of all the Churches;" the '' gift of teaching, for they
must build up their converts in the faith even the ''gift of ministration^^
;
was not unneeded by them, nor did they think it beneath them to under-
take the humblest offices of a deacon for the good of the Church. When
needful, they could " serve tables" and collect alms, and work with their
own hands at mechanical trades, " that so labouring they might support
the weak " inasmuch as they were the
; servants of Him who came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister.
Of the offices concerned with Church government, the next in rank to
that of the Apostles was the office of Overseers or Elders, more usually
known (by their Greek designations) as Bishops or Presbyters. These
terms are used in the New Testament as equivalent,^ the former (jmoKovoi'^
denoting (as its meaning of overseer implies) the duties, the latter {npsapv-
-epog) the rank, of the office. The history of the Church leaves us no room
for doubt that on the death of the- Apostles, or perhaps at an earlier
period (and, in either case, by their directions), one amongst the presby-
ters of each church was selected to preside over the rest, and to him was
applied emphatically the title of the bishop or overseer, which had pre-
viously belonged equally to all ; thus he became in reality (what he was
sometimes called) the successor of the Apostles, as exercising (though in
in a lower degree) that function of government which had formerly be-
longed to them. But in speaking of this change we are anticipating ; for
at the time of which we are now writing, at the foundation of the Gentile
Churches, the Apostles themselves were the chief governors of the Church,
and the presbyters of each particular society were co-ordinate with one an-
other. We find that they existed at an early period in Jerusalem, and
likewise that they were a|f|)ointed by the Apostles upon the first forma-
tion of a church in every city. The same name, " Elder," was attached
to an office of a corresponding nature in the Jewish synagogues, whence
both title and office were probably derived. The name of Bishop waa
afterwards given to this office in the Gentile churches, at a somewhat
later period, as expressive of its duties, and as more familar than the other
title to Greek ears.''
The office of the Presbyters was to watch over the particular church in
which they ministered, in all that regarded its external order and internal
purity ;
they were to instruct the ignorant,^ to exhort the faithful, to con-
fute the gainsay ers,^ to " warn the unruly, to comfort the feeble-minded,
to support the weak, to be patient towards all." ^ They were to take
heed to the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers,
to feed the Church of God which He had purchased with His own
blood." ^ In one word, it was their duty (as it has been the duty of all
who have been called to the same office during the nineteen centuries
which have succeeded) to promote to the utmost of their ability, and by
every means within their reach, the spiritual good of all those committed
to their care.'
J
Thus, in the address at Miletus, the same persons are called kniaKoTrovc (Acts xx.
28) who had just before been named TzpeatvTepovg (Acts xx. 17). See also the Pastora]
Epistles, passim.
* 'EnLGKOTcog was the title of the Athenian commissioners to their subject allies.
KaTtfxoivTEg (Eph. iv. 11), diddaicaXot (1 Cor. xii. 28). It is, indeed, possible (aa
Neander thinks) that the dtduaKa?ioi may at first have been sometimes JifFercnt from
CONSTITUTION OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 4:35
Tlie last of tlie three orders, that f Deacons, did not take its place iL
the ecclesiastical organisation till towards the close of St. Paul's life ; or
at least, this name was not assigned to those who discharged the functions
of the Diaconate till a late period ; the Epistle to the Philippians being
the earliest in which the term occurs ^ in its technical sense. In fact, the
word (didKovoc) occurs thirty times in the New Testament, and only three
times (or at most four) is it used as an official designation ; in all the
other passages it is used in its simple etymological sense of a ministering
servant. It is a remarkable fact, too, that it never occurs in the Acts as
the title of those seven Hellenistic Christians who are generally (though
improperly) called the seven deacons, and who were only elected to sup-
ply a temporary emergency.'* Although the title of the Diaconate, how^
ever, does not occur till afterwards, the office seems to have existed from
the first in the Church of Jerusalem (see Acts v. 6, 10) ; those who dis
charged its duties were then called the young men, in contradistinction to
to the presbyters or elders; and it was their duty to assist the latter by
discharging the mechanical services requisite for the well-being of the
Christian community. Gradually, however, as the Church increased, the
natural division of labour would suggest a subdivision of the ministrations
performed by them ; those which only required bodily labour would be in*
trusted to a less educated class of servants, and those which required the
work of the head, as well as the hands (such, for example, as the distribu-
tion of alms), would form the duties of the deacons ; for we may now
speak of them by that name, which became appropriated to them before
the close of the Apostolic epoch.
There is not much information given us, with regard to their functions,
in the New Testament : but, from St. Paul's directions to Timothy, con-
cerning their quahficatibns, it is evident that their office was one of con-
siderable importance. He requires that they should be men of grave char-
acter, and " not greedy of filthy lucre the latter qualification relating
to their duty in administering the charitable fund of the Church. He de-
sires that they should not exercise the office till after their character had
been first subjected to an examination, and had been found free from all
the irpeaSvTepoiy as the x^P'-^H'^ SidaaKa?i,iag was distinct from the ;i;apicr/^a Kv6epv7j-
<T6)f ; but those who possessed both gifts would surely have been chosen presbyters
title of deacon ; thus Philip is called " tha evangelist " (Acts xxi. 8). Id fact, the
office of the seven was one of much higher importance than that held fcj the subsG'
ijuent deacons.
436 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ares, the ge:ieral plan of which was organised by the presbyters. And,
doubtless, those only were selected for this office who had received the
2ndly, Prophets ;
Srdly, Evangelists ;
4:thly, Pastors and Teachers. By
the fourth class we must understand"* the Presbyters to be denoted,
and we then have two other names interpolated between these and the
Apostles ; viz. PrGpkets and Evangelists. By the former we must under-
stand those on whom the gift of prophecy was bestowed in such abun-
offerings, which, in the exercise of this right, he might himself have claimed.
He preferred to labour with his own hands for his own support, that he
Srdly, Teachers.
4 See above, p. 434, n. 7 ^ Acta xxi. 8.
2 Tim. iv. 6. ' 1 Cor. ix. 7-14.
CONSTITUTION OF TIIE PEIMITIVE CHURCH. 437
pie in this respect, that so they might be able to contribute, by their own
exertions, to the support of the helpless.
The mode of appointment to these different offices varied with the
nature of the office itself. The Apostles, as we have seen, received their
would be subjected to the judgment of those who had received the gift of
In all cases, so far as we may infer from the recorded instances in the
Acts, those who were selected for the performance of Church offices were
solemnly set apart for the duties to which they devoted themselves. This
ordination they received, whether the office to which they were called was
permanent or temporary. The Church, of which they were members,
devoted a preparatory season to " fasting and prayer f and then those who
were to be set apart were consecrated to their work by that solemn and
touching symbolical act, the laying on of hands, which has been ever since
appropriated to the same purpose and meaning. And thus, in answer to
the faith and prayers of the Church, the spiritual gifts necessary for the
performance of the office were'' bestowed by Him who is "the Lord and
Giver of Life."
Having thus briefly attempted to describe the Offices of the Apostolic
Church, we pass to the consideration of its Ordinances. Of these, the
chief were, of course, those two sacraments ordained by Christ himself,
which have been the heritage of the Universal Church throughout all suc-
thus he thought to escape the strictness of a Christian life, and fancied that
a death-bed baptism would operate magically upon his spiritual condition,
and ensure his salvation. The Apostolic practice of immediate baptism
would, had it been retained, have guarded the Church from so baneful a
superstition.
1 This condition would (at first sight) appear as if only applicable to Jews or Jewish
proselytes, who already were looking for a Messiah ;
acknowledgment
yet, since the
of Jesus as the Messiah involves in itself, when rightly understood, the whole of Chris-
tianity, itwas a suflScient foundation for the faith of Gentiles also. In the case both
of Jews and Gentiles, the thing required, in the first instance, was a belief in the testi-
mony of the Apostles, that " this Jesus had God raised up," and thus had " made that
same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ." The most important
passages, as bearing on this subject, are the baptism and confirmation of the Samaritan
converts (Acts viii.), the account of the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts viii.),
of Cornelius (Acts x.), of the Philippian gaoler (Acts xvi.) (the only ease where the
baptism of a non-proselyted heathen is recorded), of John's disciples at Ephesua
(Acts xix.), and the statement in Rom. x. 9, 10.
' This appears from such passages as Gal. vi. 6, 1 Thess. v. 12, Acts xx. 20, 28, and
many others.
3 It is at first startling to find Ncander, with his great learning and candor, taking
an opposite view. Yet the arguments on which he grounds his opinion, both in the
Planting and Leading and in the Church History, seem plainly inconclusive. He
himself acknowledges that the principles Inid down by St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 14) con.
tain a justification of infant baptism, and he admits that it was practised in the time
of Irenajus. His chief reason against thinking it an Apostolical practice (Church His-
tory, sect. 3) is, that TertuHian opposed it ; but TertuUian does not protend to call it
on innovation. Surely if infant baptism had not been sanctioned by the Apostles. w
ORDINANCES OF THE CHUKC?H.
practice. This seems evident, not merely because (had it been otherwise^
we must have found some traces of the first introduction of infant baptism
Afterwards, but also because the very idea of the Apostolic baptism, as
the intrance into Christ's kingdom^ implies that it could not have been
refused to infants without violating the command of Christ :
" Suffer little
children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
of heaven." Again, St. Paul expressly says that the children of a Chris-
tian parent were to be looked upon as consecrated to God (dyioi) by virtue
of their very birth ; ' and it would have been most inconsistent with this
view, as well as with the practice in the case of adults, to delay the recep-
tion of infants into the Church till they had been fully instructed in Chris-
tian doctrine.
We know from the Gospels that the new converts were baptized " in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And
after the performance ^ of the sacrament, an outward sign was given that
God was indeed present with His Church, through the mediation of The
Son, in the person of The Spirit ; for the baptized converts, when the
Apostles had laid their hands on them, received some spiritual gift, either
should have found some oue at least among the many churches of primitive Christen-
dom resisting its introduction.
1 1 Cor. vii. 14.
^ Matt, xxviii. 19. We cannot agree with Neander (Planting and Leading, i. 25 and
188) that the evidence of this positive command is at all impaired by our finding bap-
tism described in the Acts and Epistles as baptism into the name of Jesus ; the latter
seems a condensed expression which would naturally be employed, just as we now
Bpeak of Christian baptism. The answer of St. Paul to the disciples of John the Bap-
tist at Ephesus (Acts xix. 3), is a strong argument that the name of the Holy Ghost
two disciples, their Lord's presence was dail} "made kncwn unto tliem ia
the breaking of bread.'' ^ Subsequently the communion was administered
at the close of the public feasts of love {uyanai^) at which the Christians
met to realise their fellowship one with another, and to partake together,
rich and poor, masters and slaves, on equal terms, of the common meal.
But this practice led to abuses, as we see in the case of the Corinthian
Church, where the very idea of the ordinance was violated by the provid-
ing of different food for the rich and poor, and where some of the former
were even guilty of intemperance. Consequently a change was made, and
che communion administered before instead of after the meal, and finally
a festival inmemory of the same event the Church never failed to meet
;
for common prayer and praise on that day of the week and it very soon ;
acquired the name of the " Lord's Day," which it has since retained.
But the meetings of the first converts for public worship were not
confined to a single day of the week they were always frequent, often
;
with the " doors shut for fear of the Jews." The outward form and order
of their worship differed very materially from our own, as indeed was
necessarily the case where so many of the worshippers were under the
miraculous influence of the Holy Spirit. Some were filled with prophetic
inspiration ; some constrained to pour forth their ecstatic feelings in the
exercise of tb3 gift of tongues, " as the Spirit gave them utterance." We
iee, from St. Paul's directions to the Corinthians, that there was danger
1 Luke xxiv. 35.
' Jude This is the custom to which Pliny alludes, when he describes the Chrifr
xli.
eym then lest their worship should degenerate into a scene of confusion,
Irom the number who wished to take part in the public ministrations ; and
he lays down rules which show that even the exercise of supernatural gifts
tion, and could explain their utterances to the congregation. He also for-
But whatever were the other acts of devotion in which these assem-
blies were empl(^ed, it seems probable that the daily worship always con-
cluded with the celebration of the Holy Communion.^ And as in this the
members of the Church expressed and realised the closest fellowship, not
only with their risen Lord, but also with each other, so it was customary
to symbolise this latter union by the interchange of the kiss of peace be-
fore the sacrament, a practice to which St. Pad frequently alludes.''
It would have been well if the inward love and harmony of the Church
bad really corresponded with the outward manifestation of it in this touch-
ing ceremony. But this was not the case, even while the Apostles them-
selves poured out the wine and broke the bread which symbolised the per-
fect union of the members of Christ's body. The kiss of peace sometimes
onl^ veiled the hatred of warring factions. So St. Paul expresses to the
bably, therefore, evening was the time, on ordinary occasions, for tlie meeting of the
church. This was certainly the case in Acts xx. 8 a passage which Neauder must;
have overlooked when he says (Church History, sect. 3) that the church service in tha
time of the Apostles was held early in the morning. There are obvious reasons why
the evening would have been the most proper time for a service wh^ch was to be tittendedl
by those whose day was spent in " working with their hands."
* See no*e cn I Thess, v. 26.
442 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PALL.
was only a " Saviour of His people Israel " and they ignored that true
;
meaning of the ancient prophecies, which St. Paul was inspired to reveal
to the Universal Church, teaching us that the " excellent things " which
are spoken of the people of God, and the city of God, in the Old Testa-
ment, are to be by us interpreted of the " household of faith," and " the
heavenly Jerusalem."
We have seen that the Judaizers at first insisted upon the observance
of the law of Moses, and especially of circumcision, as an absolute re-
quisite for admission into the Church, " saying. Except ye be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Bat after the decision
of the " Council of Jerusalem " it was impossible for them to require this
ittondition ;
they therefore altered their tactics, and as the decrees of the
on the necessity of a separation between those who kept the whole la^
and all others they taught that the uncircumcised were in a lower coa
;
and that only the circumcised converts were in a state of full acceptance
with Him : in short, they kept the Gentile converts who would not sub*
mit to circumcision on the same footing as the proselytes of the. gate, and
treated the circumcised alone as proselytes of righteousness. When we
comprehend all that was involved in this, we can easily understand the
energetic opposition with which their teaching was met by St. Paul. It
(as it might at first sight appear), whether the Gentile converts were cir-
cumcised or not ; on the contrary, the question at stake was nothing less
than this, whether Christians should be merely a Jewish sect under the
bondage of a ceremonial law, and only distinguished from other Jews by
believing that Jesus was the Messiah, or whether they should be the
Catholic Church of Christ, owning no other allegiance but to Him, freed
from the bondage of the letter, and bearing the seal of their inheritance
own letters) from insinuating the most scandalous charges against their
great opponent.'' And thus, in every Christian church established by St.
Paul, there sprang up, as we shall see, a schismatic party, opposed to his
teaching and hostile to his person.
This great Judaizing party was of course subdivided into various sec
tions, united in their main object, but distinguished by minor shades of
difiference. Thus, we find at Corinth, that it comprehended two factions,
rather of Cephas, for they preferred to use his Hebrew name.' These
dwelt much upon our Lord's special promises to Peter, and the necessary
mferiority of St. Paul to him who was divinely ordained to be the rock
whereon the Church should be built. They insinuated that St. Paul felt
doubts about his own Apostolic authority, and did not dare to claim the
right of maintenance,'' which Christ had expressly given to His true Apos-
tles. They also depreciated him as a maintainer of celibacy, and con-
trasted him in this respect with the great Pillars of tlie Church, " the
brethren of the Lord and Cephas," who were married.^ And no doubt
they declaimed against the audacity of a converted persecutor, "born
into the Church out of due time," in " withstanding to the face " the chief
Judaism because he was a rejected caudidate for the hand of the High Priest's daugh- _
De Wette's view of it is different, and will be found in the Introduction to his Com-
mentary on the Epistle. Another hypothesis is stated and defended at length by
Neandcr. (Planting and Leading, p. 383, &c.) It appears to us that both De Wette'j
view and Neander's is inconsistent with 2 Cor. x. 7 elric iTETrotdev kavT(f) Kpiaro^
elvai, TovTo Tioyi^eadu) ttuAiV d(/>' kavToi) on Kudd^ avTog Xpi^arov ovtu kuI Tjjuel{
XpioTov; for surely St. Paul would never have said, those who claim some
imaf^inan/ communion with Christ belong to Christ, so also do I belong to Christ."
6 Gal. ii. 12. Rom. xiv. 1, 2. Rom. xv. 1. 1 Cor. viii. 7. ix. 22.
DIVISIONS IN THE CHUECH, 445
They were individual converts of Jewish extraction, whose minds were not
as yet sufficiently enlightened to comprehend the fulness of " the liberty
f?ith which Christ had made them free." Their conscience was sensitivej
and filled with scruples, resulting from early habit and old prejudices ;
but
they did not join in the violence of the Judaizing bigots, and there was-
even a danger lest they should be led, by the example of tlieir more en--
even this unto you." ' So great is his anxiety lest the liberty which they
witnessed in others should tempt them to blunt the delicacy of their moral
feeling, that he warns his more enlightened converts to abstain from lawful
indulgences, lest they cause the weak to stumble. " If meat make my
brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth, lest I maka
my brother to offend." * " Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty,
only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one an-
other." 3 " Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.^ *
These latter warnings were addressed by St. Paul to a party very dif<
ferent from those of whom we have previously spoken ; a party who called
themselves (as we see from his epistle to Corinth) by his own name, and
professed to follow his teaching, yet were not always animated by his spirit*
There was an obvious danger lest the opponents of the Judaizing section^
of the Church should themselves imitate one of the errors of their antago-
nists, by combining as partizans rather than as Christians ; St. Paul feels
himself necessitated to remind them that the very idea of the Catholic
Church excludes all party combinations from its pale, and that adverse
factions, ranging themselves under human leaders, involve a contradiction
to the Christian name. " Is Christ divided ? was Paul crucified for you ?
or were you baptized into the name or Paul ?" ''Who then is Paul, and
who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed ? " ^
The Pauline party (as they called themselves) appear to have ridi-
culed the scrupulosity of their less enlightened brethren, and to have felt
for them a contempt inconsistent with the spirit of Christian love.^ And
ja their opposition to the Judaizers, they showed a bitterness of feeling
and violence of action/ too like that of their opponents. Some of them,
also, were inchued to exult over the fall of God's ancient people, and to
glory in their own position, a& though.it had been won by supericr merit
These are rebuked by St. Paul for their " boasting," and warned against it
consequences. "Be not high-minded, but fear ; for if God spared not the
natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.'* ^ One section
of this party seems to have united these errors with one still more danger-
ous to the simplicity of the Christian faith ;
they received Christianity
more in an intellectual than a moral aspect ; not as a spiritual religion, so
much as a new system of philosophy. This was a phase of error most
likely to occur among the disputatious ^ reasoners who abounded in the
quence of a law of precepts and penalties, but through the necessary ope-
ration of the spiritual principle within them. Por, as the law against
' See the admonitions addressed *o the nvev /laTcnot in Gal. v. 13, li, 26, and GaL
fi. 1-5.
* Rom. xi. 17-22. a The av^rjTiiTal tqv aluvoc tovtoi , 1 Cor. i. 20.
* 1 Uor. ii. 1.
in sin, that grace may abound was their horrible perversion of the Evan-
gelical revelation that " In Christ Jesus, neither circum-
God is love.
cision availeth anything, nor uncircujncision." ^ " The letter killeth, but
lers shrank from the thought of that tribunal before which account must
be given of the things done in the body. Perhaps, also (as some have in-
ferred from St. Paul's refutation of these heretics), they had misunder-
stood the Christian doctrine, which teaches us to believe in the resurrec-
tion of a spiritual body, as though it had asserted the re-animation of
" this vile body " of " flesh and blood," which " cannot inherit the kingdom
1 This state would be perfectly realised if the renovation of heart were complete
and it is practic&lly realised in proportion as the Christian's spiritual union with Chris*
approaches its theoretic standard. We may believe that it was perfectly realised by
Kt. Paul when h^ wrote Gal. ii. 20.
' Compare 1 Tim. i. 9. diKato) vofiog ov KecTai,
* lldvra fioL ^eanv, 1 Cor. vi. 12. Gal. v. 6.
of God ;
" or it is possible that a materialistic pMlosophy ^ led them tc
maintain that when the body had crumbled away in the grave, or been
consumed on the funeral pyre, nothing of the man remained in being. Id
either case, they probably explained away the doctrine of the E.esurreo
lion as a metaphor, sinailar to that employed by St. Paul when he says
that baptism is the resurrection of the new convert ;
* thus they would
agree with those later heretics (of whom were Hymengeus and Philetus)
who taught " that the Resurrection was past already."
conversion even to the time of his imprisonment, his conflict was! mainly
with the Jews or Judaizers. But there were other forms of error which
harassed his declining years ; and these we will now endeavour (although
anticipating the course of our biography) shortly to describe, so that it
may not be necessary afterwards to revert to the subject, and at the same
time that particular cases, which will meet us in the Epistles, may be un-
derstood in their relation to the general religious aspect of the time.
We have seen that, in the earliest epoch of the Church, there were two
elements of error which had already shown themselves ;
namely, the bigot-
ed, exclusive, and superstitious tendency, which was of Jewish origin ; and
the pseudo-philosophic, or rationalising tendency, which was of Grecian
birth. In the early period of which we have hitherto spoken, and on-
wards till the time of St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome, the first of these
tendencies was the principal source of danger ; but after this, as the
Church enlarged itself, and the number of Gentile converts more and mor
exceeded that of the Jewish Christians, the case was altered. The catho-
licity of the Church became an established fact, and the Judaizers, properly
BO called, ceased to exist as an influential party anywhere except in Pales-
tine. Yet still, though the Jews were forced to give up their exclusive-
ness, and to acknowledge the uncircumcised as "fellow heirs and of the same
body,'' their superstition remained, and became a fruitful source of mis-
chief. On the other hand, those who sought for nothing more in Christi-
' If this were the case, we must suppose them to have been of Epicurean tendencies^
and, so far, different from the later Platonising Gnostics, who denied the Resiu'rectioa,
" Col. ii. 12. Compare Rom. vi. 4.
HERESIES IN THE PKIMITIVE CHURCH.
tern of Judaic Platonism, which explained away almost all the peculiar j
ties of the Mosaic theology into accordance with the doctrines of the Aca-
demy. And thus the way was already payed for the introduction of that
most curious amalgam of Hellenic and Oriental speculation with Jewish
superstition, which was afterwards called the Gnostic heresy. It is a dis-
puted point at what time this heresy made its first appearance in the
Church ; some ^ think that it had already commenced in the Church of
Corinth when St. Paul warned them to beware of the knowledge (
G^^sis)
which pufifeth up ; others maintain that it did not originate till the time
of Basilides, long after the last Apostle had fallen asleep in Jesus. Per-
haps, however, we may consider this as a difference rather about the defi-
nition of a term than the history of a sect. If we define Gnosticism to be
that combination of Orientalism and Platonism held by the followers of
Basilides or Yalentinus, and refuse the title of Gnostic to any but those
on the other hand (as seems most natural), we define a Gnostic to be one
who claims the possession of a peculiar " Gnosis " {i. e. a deep and philo-
sophic insight into the mysteries of theology, unattainable by the vulgar),
then it is indisputable that Gnosticism had begun when St. Paul warned
Timothy against those who laid claim to a " knowledge falsely so called ^
age, these arrogant speculators had begun to blend with their Hellenic phi-
Paul, and afterwards of St. J ohn, were essentially rather of Gentile ^ thaa
of Jewish origin. So far as they agreed with the later Gnosticism, this
^ This is the opinion of Dr. Burton, the great English authority on the Gnostio
heresy. (Lectures, pp. 84, 85.) We
cannot refer to this eminent theologian without
expressing our obligation to his writings, and our admiration for that union of pro-
found learning with clear good sense and candour which distinguishes him. His pre-
mature death robbed the Church of England of a writer who, had his life been spared,
would have been inferior to none of its brightest ornaments.
' Neander well observes, that the essential feature in Gnosticism is its re-establishing
speculations about the emanations of spiritual beings found in the Cabbala ; at least,
Buch is Burton's opinion. (Pp. 114 and 413.) And the angel worship at Colossae be-
longed to the same class of superstitions. Dr. Burton has shown (pp. 304-306) that
the later Gnostic theories of aeons and emanations were derived, in some measure, from
Jewish sources, although the essential character of Gnosticism is entirely Anti-Judaical
4 See the note at the end of this Chapter.
TOL. I. 29
450 THE LIFE A^D EPISTLES OF ST. PALX.
must certainly have been the case, for we know that it was a oharacterit
tic of all the Gnostic sects to despise the Jewish Scriptures..^ Moreover
those who laid claims to " Gnosis " at Corinth (as we have seen) were a
Gentile party, who professed to adopt St. Paul's doctrine of the abohtion
of the law, and perverted it into Antinomianism : in short, they were the
opposite extreme to the Judaizing party. Nor need we be surprised tc
find that some of these philosophising heretics adopted some of the wildest
superstitions of the Jews for these very superstitions were not so much
;
in their practical, aspect. With regard to the former, we find that their
Eph. iii. 19. See Dr. Burton's remarks, Lectures, pp. 83 and 125.
fEEKESlES IN THE PKIMITIVE CHURCH. 4:51
heresy. But this was not the only Jewish element in the teaching of these
errors and the word Cabbala (fi^inp) means tradition. Dr. Burton says, " the Cab-
;
bala had certainly grov/n into a system at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem ;
and there is also, evidence that it had been cultivated by the Jewish doctors long
before." P. 298.
< 1 Tim. ir. 7. 5 Tit. i. 14.
6 This does not prove them, however, to have been Jews, for the superstitious heatnen
were also in the habit of adopting some of the rites of Judaism, under the idea of their
producing some magical effect upon them; as we find from the Roman satirists. Com
pare Horace, Sat.i. 9, 71. (" Hodie tricesiraa sabbata," and Juv. vi. 542-547
Bee also some remarks on the Colossian hf-ietics in our introductory remarks on tl
ISplstle to the Colossians.
' 'EdeloflprjcjKf/.a.
152 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
from the first at Corinth ; how men sheltered their immoralities under the
name of Christianity, and even justified them by a perversion of its doc-
trines. Such teaching could not fail to find a ready audience wherever
there were found vicious lives and hardened consciences. ' Accordingly,
it was in the luxurious and corrupt population of Asia Minor,3 that this
teachers strove to justify the sins of impurity, and to persuade them that
the acts of the body could not contaminate the soul, " Let no man deceive
you with vain words ; for because of these things cometh the wrath of
God upon the children of disobedience." Hymenaeus and Philetus are
the first leaders of this party mentioned by name : we have seen that
they agreed with the Corinthian Antinomians in denying the resurrection,
and they agreed with them no less in practice than in theory. Of the
1 Which
certainly was the reverse of the Judaizing exaltation of marriage.
' Paul declares that these errors shall come "in the last days; " but St. JoliQ
St.
says " the last days" were come in his time and it is implied by St. Paul's words that
;
the evils he denounces were already in action just as he had said before to the Thes-
;
Balonians, to nvaT^piov 7/6t) kvepyelraL r^g dvo/iLag (2 Thess. ii. 7), where the peculiar
expressions avojua and 6 uvofiog seem to point to the Antinomian character of these
heresies.
Both at ColoBsee and in Crete it seems to have been the Jewish form of these here-
3
sies which predominated at Colosste they took an ascetic direction in Crete, among
; ;
a simpler and more provincial population, the false teachers seem to have been hypo-
crites, who encouraged the vices to which their followers were addicted, and inoculated
them with foolish superstitions (lovdaiicol fivdoL-jLtupac ^ririjcTsig koI yeveaXoyiac) but ;
wo do not find in these Epistles any mention of the theoretic Antinomianism which ex-
isted in some of the great cities.
* Eph. See also the whole of the warnings in Eph. v. The Epistle, though
V. 6.
not addressed (at any rate not exclusively) to the Ephesians, was probably sent to
wveral other cities in Asia Minor.
HERESIES IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 453
firat cf them it is expressly said that he ^ had " cast away a go )d con-
science/' and of both we are told that they showed themselves not to be*
long to Christ, because they had not His seal this seal being described
" The Lord knoweth them that are His," and " Let every one
;
as twofold
who nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." ^ St. Paul appears
to imply that though they boasted their " knowledge of Grod," yet that the
Lord had no knowledge of them ;
as our Saviour had himself declared that
to the claims of such false disciples He would reply, " I never knew you ;
depart from me, ye workers of iniquity P But in the same Epistle where
these heresiarchs are condemned, St. Paul intimates that their principles
were not yet fully developed ; he warns Timothy ^ that an outburst of
immorality and lawlessness must be shortly expected within the Church
beyond anything which had yet been experienced. The same anticipa-
tion appears in his farewell address to the Ephesian presbyters, and even
at the early period of his Epistles to the Thessalonians ; and we see from
the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude, and from the Apocalypse of St.
John, all addressed (it should be remembered) to the Churches of Asia
Minor, that this prophetic warning was soon fulfilled. We find that many
Christians used their liberty as a cloak of maliciousness ;
^ " promising
their hearers hberty, yet themselves the slaves of corruption ; " * " turning
the grace of God into lasciviousness ; " ^ that they were justly condemned
by the surrounding Heathen for their crimes, and even suffered punish-
ment as robbers and murderers.'^ They were also infamous for the prac-
tice of the pretended arts of magic and witchcraft,^ which they may have
borrowed either from the Jewish soothsayers ^ and exorcisers,^ or from the
Heathen professors of magical arts who so much abounded at the same
epoch. Some of them, who are called the followers of Balaam in the
Epistles of Peter and Jude, and the Nicolaitans (an equivalent name) in
1 1 Tim. i. 19.
2 Tim. iii. 19. 3 2 Tim. iii. 4 i Pet ii. 16.
6 2 Pet. ii. 19. e jude iv. i 1 Pet. iv. IS.*"
Rev.ii. 20. Compare Rev. ix. 21, Rev. xxi. 8, and Rev. xxii. 15.
9 Compare Juv. vi. 546 " Qualiacunque voles Judsei somnia vendunt."
:
ing meat which had once formed part of a sacrifice. It is remarkable how completely
the Gnostics of the second century resembled these earlier heretics in all the points
here mentioned. Their immorality is the subject of constant animadversion in the
writings of the Fathers, who tell us that the calumnies which were cast upon the Chris-
tians by the heathen were caused by the vices of the Gnostics. Irenteus asserts that
they said, " as mud does not loe its beauty, so they themselves,
gold deposited in the
whatever may be their outward immorality, cannot I e i ajured by it, nor lose theil
454 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
dangers which threatened to blight its growth and destroy its very exist
ence. In its earUest infancy, two powerful and venomous foes twined
themselves round its very cradle ; but its strength was according to its
day ;
with a supernatural vigour it rent off the coils of Jewish bigotry
and stifled the poisonous breath of Heathen licentiousness but the peril ;
was mortal, and the struggle was for life or death. Had the Church's
fate been subjected to the ordinary laws which regulate the history of
earthly commonwealths, it could scarcely have escaped one of the two
opposite destinies, either of which must have equally defeated (if we may
so speak) the world's salvation. Either it must have been cramped into
a Jewish sect, according to the wish of the majority of its earUest mem-
bers, or (having escaped this immediate extinction) it must have added
one more to the innumerable schools of Heathen philosophy, subdividing
into a hundred branches, whose votaries would some of them have sunk
into Oriental superstitions, others into Pagan voluptuousness. If we
need any proof how narrowly the Church escaped this latter peril, we
have only to look at the fearful power of Gnosticism in the succeeding
century. And, indeed, the more we consider the elements of which every
Christian community was originally composed, the more must we wonder
how little the flock of the wise and good '
could have successfully resisted
the overwhelming contagion of folly and wickedness. In every city the
nucleus of the Church consisted of Jews and Jewish proselytes ; on this
of Jesus, but still with all the habits of a life of idolatry and vice clinging
to them. How was it, then, that such a society could escape the two
temptations which assailed it just at the time when they were most likely
their faith, and ready to exchange their new belief for a newer, " carried
losophy for the Gentile they readily combine the Cabbalistic superstitions
of Rabbinical tradition to captivate the Jew. Who could wonder if,
when such incendiaries applied their torch to such materials, a flame burst
forth which well nigh consumed the fabric. Surely that day of trial was
*'
revealed in fire," and the building which was able to abide the flame
was nothing less than the Temple of God.
It is painful to be compelled to acknowledge among the Christians of
the Apostolic Age many forms of error and sin. It
the existence of so
was a pleasing dream which represented the primitive church as a society
of angels and it is not without a struggle that we bring ourselves to open
;
our eyes and behold the reality. But yet it is a higher feeling which bids
us thankfully to recognise the truth that " there is no partiality with God;
that he has never supernaturally coerced any generation of mankind intc
virtue, nor rendered schism and heresy impossible in any age of the Church.
So St. Paul tells his converts ^ that there must needs be heresies among
them, that the good may be tried and distinguished from tfae bad ;
imply-
ing that, without the possibility of a choice, there would be no test of
faith or holiness. And so Our Lord himself compared His Charch to a
net cast into the sea, which gathered fish of all kinds, both good and tad ;
nor was its purity to be attained by the exclusion of evil, till the end
may calm our impatience to recollect that no such Church has ever existed
upon earth, while yet we do not forget that it has existed and does exist
in heaven. In the very Ufetime of the Apostles, no less than now, " the
then, as now, imperfection and evil clung to the members, and clogged the
enovgies, of the kingdom of God ;
now, as then. Christians are fellow
heirs, and of the same body with the spirits of just men made perfect
now, as then, the communion of saints unites into one family the Church
mU-iant with the Church triumphant.
NOTE.
In the above sketch we have taken a somewhat different view of these heresies
from that advocated with great ability by Mr. Stanley. He considers all the
heretics opposed by St. Paul in the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians, and
in those to Timothy and Titus, and even those denounced by St. Peter, St. Jude,
and St. John, to have been Judaizers : and he speaks of St. Paul's opposition
to them as " the second act of the conflict with Judaism." ^ In deference to a
writer who has done much to give clearness and vividness to our knowledge of
the Apostolic age, we feel bound to justify our dissent from his view by a few
additional remarks.
First, we think that even if the Jewish element had been the chief ingredient
in the teaching of these heretics, still they ought not to be called Judaizers. The
characteristic of the original Judaizers was a determination to confine Christen-
dom within the walls of the Synagogue, and to put Christianity on the same
footing with Pharisaism or Sadduceeism, as a tolerated J ewish sect. The rapid
increase and gradual preponderance of the Gentile portion of the Church, soon
rendered the existence of this Judaizing party impossible, except in Palestine.
Hence it seems to introduce unnecessary confusion, if we apply the distinctive
name of Judaizers to heretics whose opinions were so very different from those ad
Tocated by the party originally called by that name.
But farther ; we cannot think that the Jewish element had that preponderai
3 P. 210.
';
ing influence in the heresies of the later Apostolic period which Mr. Stanly
assigns to it. On the contrary, the accounts of them in the Epistles incline uft
to believe that the Jewish element was only the accidental, and the Gentile ele-
ment the essential, constituent of these heresies. Mr. Stanley's reasons for tbs
(3) Mr. Stanley assumes that " those who say they are Jews and are not,"
are to be identified with the Nicolaitans or Balaamites, mentioned in the same
chapter. But this is not quite clear ; and even if they be the same party, there
is no proof that they were Judaizing Christians ; on the contrary, the practices
attributed to them are in direct opposition to Judaism.* And we should there-
fore le inclined to agree with Dr. Burton,^ that their profession of Judaism was
only aiopted to shield them from heathen persecution, at a time when it was
directoJ against Christians, Judaism being a religio licita, which Christianity
was not.
Neander (Church History, sect. 4) thinks that the Nicolaitans of the Apoealypso
4
were not properly a sect, but only a class of people who were in the practice of seducing
Christians to partake in the heathen sacrificial feasts, and, therefore, clearly Anti'
Judaistic. But see " Planting: and Leading," vol. ii. p. 533.
5 P. 237, &c.
6 The chief point of agreement seems to have been, that Cerinthus (as /fell as tbi
later Gnostics) traced back all divine attributes in Christ to the descent bi tho Holj
Spirit on Him at His baptism.
458 THE LIFE AND EnSTf^S OF ST. PAUL.
eeem to have been the very antipodes of one another. The Cerinthiaus are repre*
Bented as advocates of sri'oss sensuality and unbridled licence, like tie Antino-
mians of Corinth : whereas the Ebionites were a sect of ascetics, who practised
the most austere temperance, and resembled the Essenes in the strictness of their
morality. Again, we are told by Epiphauius ' that Cerinthus considered the Law
as the work of an evil spirit, like the later Gnostics ; whereas the p]bionites wer
strict J udaizers, the true representatives of the original party so called. More-
over, St. John is universally believed to have written against heresies which
manifested themselves at Ephesus ; whereas the Ebionites were confined to
Palestine. And though Cerinthus adhered to some of the observances of the Law,
yet he is recorded ^ to have derived his theology, not from Palestine, but from
Alexandria.
Having thus mentioned Mr. Stanley's principal reasons for thinking the here-
sies in question to be Jewish, we will state the arguments which have led us to
think them of Gentile origin.
(1) Their strong resemblance to the Corinthian Antinomianism ; shown by
Hymenaeus and Philetus denying the Resurrection ; and by the Sophists of the
Epistle to the Ephesians [nevol "koyoL^), who justified fornication ; and by their
name of " followers of Balaam," as explained to arise from their persuading their
followers to commit fornication.^
(2) Their eating hduTiodvra,^ which we cannot easily conceive any Jewish
sect doing.
(3) The whole tone in which they are spoken of by St. Peter and St. Judo,
whose denunciations are directed against a system of open and avowed profligacy,
such as might be supposed with greater ease to spring from Heathen laxity than
from Jewish formalism. Surelv. had thev been a ;i,daizing sect, some notice of
the fact must have been found in these Epistles ; wnereas it seems implied thai
they were perverters of St. Paul's doctrines.^
(4) The fact that the Epistles of St. John are directed against heretics who
claimed a peculiar " knowledge of God," and maintained their right to sin ; still
* See Burton, p. 478. It is trie thafc vr t^o - jj-resentation of the doctrine of Cerin-
thus given by others, and adopted by Neander in his Church History (sect. 4), Cerin-
thus only taught that the Law was
given by an anodic Demiurge, who unconsciously
fjid the work of God. But even on this view, he taught that the Jews as a nation wor-
shipped this Demiurge by mistake as the supreme " God," and that beyond this infe-
rior standing point the Law Surely this is enough to show how
could not raise them.
completely the Alexandrian element preponderated over the Jewish in Cerinthus'g
docirine.
By Theodoret, whose statement is believed by Neander.
Lph. V. G. -
Rev. ii. 14. & Rev. ii. 20. 2 Fet. iii. 15.
It is remarkable that the three earliest leaders of the Gnostics, viz. Cerinthus, B-
ilidcs, and Valentiuus. were all Alexandrians; and the pagan name o^ ^h^ sou ^
VOTE ON THE HERESIES OF THE LATER APOSTOLIC AGE. 459
origin of the Mosaic Law either to an evil spirit, or to an inferior and unenlighfr
ened Demiurge.
Basilides (Isidorus) seems to show that Basilidea could not have even been of Jewisb
race. Neander divides the Gnostic sects into two classes, one connected
It is true that
with, and the other opposed to, Judaism, But the connection with Judaism of which
he speaks in the former, only consisted iu their transferring to their own systems eomfl
elements derived from Judaism, which, as a whole, thv.y all considered a religion suited
only to the unenlightened and " psychical *' mass. Jn ail ol tJj.m the speculative aad
J^osophising element, whether derived from Hellenic or Oriental 8^>urccs, ^redoisi*
aftted over the JudaicaL
t HraiiB or Triumph
5 Joicolaii Br. (Ponte Sito).
4 BridK* of Fabnciui (Ponte 4 Capi
e lo of Ctin (Ponte S. BBrU>Ioni>)
6 PbUutw Bridge (Ponte Rotto)
7 RioaiM of Soblician Brid$;
H Tompla of Romutut
1ft dc ipiler Tonan*.
16 Concord.
17 Pietns Romans (S. NicoIh o t
$2 OW
Fishnr ft Portico o. Octa'
*J n.^atre ol Apollo TordiBPna.
93 Tl'str nf Marrellu* (Oraiai Pal
M hiwntre of Pompey.
V. Kri l of Septimiua BmruntL
K Column of Pbooaa
rj Arth of Titus.
W du CoostABbM.
S9 do OallieaD*.
40 4o r>ollabIW
41 Arck ef Prasua *
AqvaJact mt
44 Tomb" of tb* 8eif..o
43 8i<tisouam of 8*rs
44 Ampb.theatr* of StatittM laurM
46 llso<.lani of Hadnan
C 0 N T E NTS
OF
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
St. Returns to Ephesus.^Writes a Let-
Paul pays a short Visit to Corinth.
ter to the Corinthians, which now They
is desiring
lost. reply, farther
Explanations. State of the Corinthian Church. Paul writes The St.
CHAPTER XVI.
Description of Ephesus.^Temple of Diana.Her Image and Worship. ^Po-
liticalConstitution of Ephesus.The Asiarchs. Demetrius and the Silver-
smiths. Tumult in the Theatre. Speech of the Town-Clerk. St. Paul's
Departure 69
CHAPTER XVn.
St. Paul at Troas. He passes over to Macedonia^ Causes of Dejec- his
He meets Titus
tion. at Philippi.- -Writes The Second Epistle to the Cor^
mthmns. Collection for the poor Ch.istians in Judaea.Journey by Illyri-
vi OOUTEKTS.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
Corinth.Isthmian Games.Voyage from Sunday at Troaa. Philippi.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXIL
History of Judaea resumed. Roman Governors.Felix.Troops quartered in
Palestine. Description of Caesarea. Paul accused Speech before
St. there.
CHAPTER XXIH.
Ships and Navigation of the Ancients. Roman Commerce in the Mediter-
CONTENTS. VU
CHAPTER XXIY.
The -A/pian Way. Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. Entrance i;:to
Eome. The Praetorian Prefect Description of the City. Its Popuhition.
The J ews in Rome. The Roman Church. St. Paul's Interview with
Ihe Jews. His Residence in Rome. .......
354
CHAPTER XXY.
Delay of St. Paul's Trial.His Occupations and Companions during his Im-
prisonment. He writes The Episth
Epistle to P/ulernon, Tlie to the ColoS'
CHAPTER XXYl.
The Praetorium and the Palatine. Arrival of Epaphrodilus. Political
Events at Rome. Octavia and Poppaea. St. Paul writes T/ie Epistle to
tfie Fhiltppians
He makes Converts in the Imperial Houjiehold - - 4^5
CHAPTER XXVII.
His Appeal heard.His
Authorities for St. Paul's subsequent History. is
CHAPTER XXYIII.
Tlie Epistle to ihe Hebrews. Its Inspiration not affected by the Doubts con-
ceining its Authorship. Its original Readcra. Conflicting T<timony of
the Primitive Church concerning its Author. His Object in writing it.
549
THE
ST. PAUL.
CHAPTEE Xiy.
" And the magicians did so with their enchantments ; but they could not : theo Om
magicians said, * This is the finger of God.' " Exod. viii. 18, 19.
The next period of St. PauPs life opens with a third journey through the
interior of Asia Minor. ' In the short stay which he had made at Ephesus
on his return from his second journey, he had promised to come again to that
city, if the providence of God should allow it." This promise he was en-
abled to fulfil, after a hasty visit to the metropolis of the Jewish nation,
and a longer sojourn in the first metropolis of the Gentile Church.*
the poor and this we see St. Paul, on the present journey among the
Gentile Churches, "forward to do." We even know the "order which he
gave to the Churches of Galatia" (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). He directed that
each person should lay by in store, on the first day of the week, according
as God had prospered him, that the collection should be deliberately
made, and prepared for an opportunity of being taken to Jerusalem.
We are not able to state either the exact route which St. Paul fol-
that Silas ceased to be, and that Timotheus continued to be, an associate
of the Apostle. It is most probable that Silas remained behind in Jerii-
eulera, whence he had first accompanied Barnabas with the Apostolic let-
ter,^ and where, on the first mention of his name, he is said to have held a
nection with St. PauPs stay at Ephesus, and his subsequent movements.'*
Of the other companions who were undoubtedly with him at Ephesus, we
cannot say with confidence whether they attended him from Autioch, or
joined him afterwards at some other point. But Erastus (Acts xix. 22)
may have remained with him since the time of his first visit to Corinth,
and Caius and Aristarchus (Acts xix. 29) since the still earher period
of his journey through Macedonia.^ Perhaps we have stronger reasons
for concludhig that Titus, who, though not mentioned in the Acts,^ was
certainly of great service in the second missionary journey, travelled with
Paul and Timotheus through the earlier part of it. In the frequent men-
tion which is made of him in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, he ap-
pears as the Apostle's laborious minister, and as a source of his consola-
tion and support, hardly less strikingly, than the disciple whom he had
taken on the previous journey from Lystra and Iconium.
Whatever might be the exact route which the Apostle followed from
Antioch to Ephesus, he would certainly revisit those Churches, which
twice ' before had known him as their teacher. He would pass over the
Cilician plain on the warm southern shore,*^ and the high table-land of Ly-
1 'Byovjuevoc. Acts xv. 22. See Tate's Horas Paulinas, p. 54, and the Index, p. 198j
also pp. 238, 272.
' His name is in the Salutation in the Epistles to the Thessalonians, but not in any
subsequent letters. Compare 2 Cor. i. 19.
Compare again the account of the Council of Jerusalem and the mission of SUai
'
and Barnabas.
< See Acts xix. 22. 1 Cor. iv. 17. xvi. 10. 2 Cor. i. 1. Rom. xvi. 21. Acts xx. 4
See Tate, pp. 52, 53.
Wieseler, indeed, identifies him with Justus, who is mentioned xviii. 7. See tha
note on this subject, Vol. I. p. 211.
' He had been in Lycaonia on the first and second missionary journeys, in Ciliciji OB
'.be wicond ; but be had also been there at least once since his conversion.
" ^efl Vol T. p. 21 and f.he allusions tn t.h(^ climate in Ch. V'l. and VIIT.
caonia on the other side of the Pass of Taurus.' He would see once mow
his own early home on the banks of the Cydnus ; and Timothy would be
once more in the scenes of his childhood at the base of the Kara-Dagh.
After leaving Tarsus, the cities of Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, possibly
also Antioch in Pisidia/ would be the primary objects in the Apostle's
progress. Then we come to Phrygia and Galatia, both vague and indeter-
minate districts, which he had visited once,^ and through which, as before,
we cannot venture to lay down a route.^ Though the visitation of the
Churches was systematic, we need not conclude that the same exact course
was followed. Since the order in which the two districts are mentioned is
of his progress we are in still greater doubt as to the route, and one ques-
tion of interest is involved in our opinion concerning it. The great road
from Ephesus by Iconium to the Euphrates, passed along the valley of the
Mseander, and near the cities of Laodicea, Oolossse, and Hierapolis ; and
we should naturally suppose that the Apostle would approach the capital
of Asia along this well-travelled line,^ But the arguments are so strong
for believing that St. Paul was never personally at Colossae,"^ that it is
safer to imagine him following some road further to the north, such as
that, for instance, which, after passing near Thyatira, entered the valley
* See again Ch. VL and Ch. YIII. for Lycaonia and Mount Taurus.
* See Vol. I. p. 22 and 49.
3 See Ch. VL
and Ch. VIIL, with the map on p. 189.
* See Vol.
270. L s Acts xvi. 6.
p.
e See Ch. Vin.
7 Compare Acts xvi. 6 with xviii. 23. In both cases we should observe that the
phrase ii TalaTiK?) x<^P^ is used. See what is said on the expression " churches of
Galatia," p. 272.
8 This is Wieseler's view. For the province of Cappadocia, see Vol. I. p. 249.
The district ismentioned Acts ii. 9 and 1 Pet. i. L
See Vol. I. pp. 2G9-271, and 272.
JO From Col. ii. 1 we should naturally infer that St. Paul had never been personally
among the See Wieseler on this subject, and on the question whether the
Colossians.
Apostle visited Colossse from Ephesus, p. 51 and p. 440, note. For a full discussioa
on the other side, where all Lardner's arguments are considered, see Dr. Davidson^a
Introduction.
See Leake's map. The characteristic scenery of the Ma3ander and Hermus id
described in several parts of Hamilton's travels. See especially ch. viii. x., xxviiL
xl. ; and especially Vol. L pp. 124, 136. We may observe that, on one
also li., lii.,
flietrict of Asia and Phrygia/ the mountains which contain the uppej
Waters " of the Hermus and Maeander. And now our attention is sud*
denly called away to another preacher of the Gospel, whose name, next td'
that of the Apostles, is perhaps the most important in the early history of
the Church. There came at this time to Ephesus, either directly from
Egypt by sea, as Aquila or Priscilla from Corinth, or by some route
through the intermediate countries, like that of St. Paul himself,^ a
" disciple " named ApoUos,'* a native of Alexandria. This visit occurred
at a critical time, and led to grave consequences in reference to the esta-
blishment of Christian truth, and the growth of parties in the Church ;
duced on the Jewish nation by his appearance, and the number of disciples
Acts xix. 1. It is needless to say that the word " coasts " in the Authorised Yersioa
bas no reference to the sea. So Herodotus uses the expression rd uvu rrjg 'Aacag, i. 177.
3 KarrjvTTjaev.
* Winer remarks that this abbreviated form of the name Apollonius is found ia
Sozomen. It is, however, very rare and it is worth observing that among the terra-
;
cottas found at Tarsus (described Vol. I. p. 256, note) is a circular disc which has the
name A.II0AAi2C inscribed on it in incursive Greek.
s See the excellent remark of Olshausen on the whole narrative concerning Apolloa
That such persons should be found at Ephesus, the natural meet ug-^iace
of all religious sects and opinions, is what we might have supposed a
priori Their own connection with Judaea, or the connection of their
teachers with Judaea, had been broken before the day of Pentecost. Thus
their Christianity was at the same point at which it had stood at the com-
mencement of our Lord's ministry. They were ignorant of the full mean-
ing of the death of Christ ;
possibly they did not even know the fact of
His resurrection ; and they were certainly ignorant of the mission of the
Comforter.' But they knew that the times of the Messiah were come,
and that one had appeared^ whom
the prophecies were fulfilled.
in That
Toice had reached them, which cried, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord^^
(Is. xl. 3). They felt that the axe was laid to the root of the tree, that
"the kingdom of Heaven was at hand," that " the knowledge of Salvation
was come to those that sit in darkness" (Luke i. It), and that the chil-
* Acts xix. 2.
* Kuiuoel thinks they were not even aware of Christ's appearance.
* Note the word fiadriTjjg, xix. 1.
4 S'>c pp. 35-37. Also pp, 9, 10-18, and 105.
6 Aoyiof is probably "eloquent" rather than "learned," inasmuch as in the 8aiD<
ferse Le is called dwuTo^ ev "^alc ypa^alq.
APOLLOS AT EPHESrS. 15
birth and education, lie seems to have had the fullest and most sysitematic
Whether from the Baptist himself, or from some of those who travelled
into other lands with his teaching as their possession, Apollos had received
full and accurate instruction in the " way of the Lord." We are further
told that his character was marked by a fervent zeal for spreading tho
ing the Jews to repentance in the spirit of EUas.^ Hence he wah, like his
wisdom of the just," and " making ready a people for the Lord," ^ whom
be was soon to know " more perfectly." Himself " a burning and shining
light," he bore witness to "that Light which lighteth every man that
Cometh into the world," ^
as, on the other hand, he was a " swift witness"
against those Israelites whose lives were unholy, and came among them
" to purify the sons of Levi, that they might offer unto the Lord an offer-
ing in righteousness," ' and to proclaim that, if they were unfaithful, God
was still able " to raise up children unto Abraham." ^
Thus, burning with zeal, and confident of the truth of what he had
learnt, he spoke out boldly in the synagogue.^ An intense interest must
have been excited about this time concerning the Messiah in the synagogue
at Ephesus. Paul had recently been there, and departed with the promise
of return. Aquila and Priscilla, though taking no forward part as public
teachers, would diligently keep the subject of the Apostle's teaching before
the minds of the Israelites. And now an Alexandrian Jew presented hhn-
self among them, bearing testimony to the same Messiah with singular
eloquence, and with great power in the interpretation of Scripture. Thus
an unconscious preparation was made for the arrival of the Apostle, who
was even now travelling towards Ephesus through the uplands of Asia
Minor.
The teaching of Apollos, though eloquent, learned, and zealous, was
seriously defective. But God had provided among his listeners those who
could instruct him more perfectly. Aquila and Priscilla felt that he was
proclaiming the same truth in which they had been instructed at Corintk
They could inform him that they had met with one who had taught with
authority far more concerning Christ than had been known even to John
the Baptist ; and they could recount to him the miraculous gifts, which
attested the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Thus they attached them
selves closely to ApoUos/ and gave hun complete instruction in that "way
of the Lord," which hehadalready taught accurately,'' though imperfectly
;
arrival at Corinth, he threw himself at once among those Jews who had
rejected St. Paul, and argued with them publicly and zealously on the
ground of their Scriptures,^ and thus ' became " a valuable support to those
who had already believed through the grace of God for he proved with
power that that Jesus who had been crucified at Jerusalem, and whom
Paul was proclaiming throughout the world, was indeed the Christ.'' Thus
he watered where Paul had planted, and God gave an abundant increase.
(1 Cor. iii, 6.) And yet evli ficrew up side by side with the good. For
while he was a valuable aid to the Christians, and a formidable antagonist
to the Jews, and while he was honestly co-operating in Paul's great work
of evangelizing the world, he became the occasion of fostering pai ty-spirit
7 The word yap should be His coraiug was a valuable assistance to the
noticed.
Christians against the Jews, in the controversies which had doubtless been going on
Bin(3e St. Paul's departure.
8 '^TZLdELKvUc ELvai Tbv XpiGTov 'IrjGovv, V. 28. The phrase is much more definite
than those which are used above (r^v 0(Jr)v mv Kvpiov, and rd nepi tov JL v. 25) of th'
time when he was not fully instructed.
2
APOLLOS AT CORINTH. 17
dence in this place, like his residence in Antioch and Corinth, is a subject
to which our attention is particularly called. Therefore, all the features
of the city its appearance, its history, the character of its population,
its political and mercantile relations possess the utmost interest for us.
We shall defer such description to a future chapter, and limit ourselves
here to what may set before the reader the geographical position of Ephe-
sus, as the point in which St. Paul's journey from Antioch terminated for
the present.
We imagined him ^ about the frontier of Asia and Phrygia, on his ap-
proach from the interior to the sea. From this region of volcanic mc^ii-
tains, a tract of country extends to the JEgean, which is watered by t
of the long western rivers, the Hermus and the Mseander, and which ^fl
com OF EPHESTTS. *
< Dae to the kindness of Mr. Akerman. The abbreviation of the word veonooo
(Acts xix. 35) will be observed here. The imao;e, however, of Diana is not the farm
under which she was worshipped at Ephesus.
VOL. 11.
18 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
tion of coast, where the rivers flow by these cities to the sea.'* Between
the Hermus and the Maeander is a smaller river, named the Cayster, separ-
ated from the latter by the ridge of Messogis, and from the former by
Mount Tmolus. Here, in the level valley of the Cayster, is the early
cradle of the Asiatic name, the district of primeval "Asia," not as
understood in its political or ecclesiastical sense, but the Asia of old poetic
legend.3 And here, in a situation preeminent among the excellent posi-
tions which the lonians chose for their cities,'' Ephesus was built, on soma
hills near the sea. For some time after its foundation by Andro.clus the
Athenian, it was inferior to Miletus ;
^ >>ut with the decay of the latter
city, in the Macedonian and Roman periods, it rose to greater eminence,
and in the time of St. Paul it was the greatest city of Asia Minor, as
well as the metropolis of the province of Asia. Though Greek in its
of its inhabitants ; and being constantly visited by ships from all parts of
the Mediterranean, and united by great roads with the markets of the
interior, It was the common meeting-place of various characters and
classes of men.
Among those whom St. Paul met on his arrival, was the small com-
pany of Jews above alluded to,^ who professed the imperfect Christianity
of John the Baptist. By this time ApoUos had departed to Corinth.
Those " disciples " who were now at Ephesus were in the same religious
condition in which he had been, when Aquila and Priscilla first spoke to
1 Rev. i. ii. iii. Laodicea is in the basin of the Maeander Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, ;
nnd Philadelphia are in that of the Hermus Pergamus is further to the north on the ;
Caious. For a description of this district, see Arundell's Visit to the Seven Churches,
and Fellows' Asia Minor.
In the account of St. Paul's return we shall have to take particular notice of thia
coast. He sailed between these islands and the mainland, touching at Miletus.
Acts XX.
3 For the early history of the word Asia, see Vol. I. pp. 237, 238.
Herodotus says of the cities of the lonians generally : 0/ 'iuveg h /caAAiffr^
triyxavov l6pvadfievoi Tvo'kLag ttuvtuv uvOpuiruv tuv ijuelg Idjuev. i. 142 ; and Strabo
says of Ephesus : 'H TroAtf r?) Ttpdc rd aXka zvKaipia tuv tottuv av^erai KaU' UdaTijv
xijj.ipaif kfi-Kopiov ova a /ieyiarov tuv kotcI ttjv 'Aaiav rriv evrbg Tavpov, xiv. An ao-
couDt of the early history of Ephesus to the time of Alexander, will be found in a trea-
tise "De rebus Ephesiorum," by W. C. Perry (Gottingen, 1837). A much more
copious work is Guhl's "Ephesiaca" (Berlin, 1843), of which we shall make abundant
use. See also a paper by Mr. Akerman, containing " Remarks on the Coins of Ephesus,
itruck during the Roman Dominion " (read before the Numismatic Society, May 20^
1841).
6 See Guhl, p. 27 ;
Perry, p. 11. In legend its origin is rsferred to the Ainazona
Above, p. 13. See Acts lix. 1-7.
DISCIPLES OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 19
Jiim, though doubtless they were inferior to him both in learning and zeal.*
St. Paul found, on inquiry, that they had only received John^s baptism,
and that they were ignorant of the great outpouring of the Holy Ghost,
in which the life and energy of the Church consisted.' They were even
perplexed by his question.^ He then pointed out, in conformity with
what had been said by John the Baptist himself, that that propliet only
preached repentance to prepare men's minds for Christ, who is the true
object of faith. On this they received Christian baptism ;
^ and after they
Miletus (Acts xx. 34) he stated that " his own hands had ministered to
his necessities, and to those who were with him " and ; in writing to the
Corinthians he says (1 Cor. iv. 11, 12) that such toil had continued
" even to that hour.'' There is no doubt that he " reasoned " in the Syna-
gogue at Ephesus with the same zeal and energy with which his spiritual
' It is impossible to know whether these men were connected with Apollos. Tho
whole narrative seems to imply that they were in a lower state of religious knowledge
than he was.
' See the last chap, in Vol. I.
3 The English version, " We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy
Ghost," is a literal translation of the Greek, aXk' ovdi el Uvev/xa ayicv karlv riKovcOf
fisv. Some commentators supply dodev, or some equivalent word. If taken thus, the
passage will be a close parallel to John vii. 39, ovno) ydp Hvsijua ayiov "the
Holy Spirit is not yet [given]."
* On the inference derivable from this passage, that the name of the Holy Ghost WM
asecl in the baptismal formula, see p. 439.
f>
See again the last chap, in Vol. I., and the note below on 1 Cor.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Church at Ephesus became a distinct body, separated both from the Jewa
and the Gentiles.
liere he had recourse to " the school of Tyrannus," who was probably a
teacher of philosophy or rhetoric, converted by the Apostle to Christi-
anity His labours in spreading the Gospel were here continued for two
^hole years. For the incidents which occurred during this residence, for
the persons with whom the Apostle became acquainted, and for the pre-
cise subjects of his teaching, we have no letters to give us information
supplementary to the Acts, as in the cases of Thessalonica and Corinth * :
inasmuch as that which is called the " Epistle to the Ephesians," enters
into no personal or incidental details.^ But we have, in the address to
the Ephesian elders at Miletus, an affecting picture of an Apostle's la-
bours for the salvation of those whom his Master came to redeem. From
that address we learn, that his voice had not been heard within the school
of Tyrannus alone, but that he had gone about among his converts, in-
Btructing them "from house to house," and warning " each one" of them
affectionately " with tears."
^ The subject of his teaching was ever the
same, both for Jews and Greeks, " repentance towards God, and faith
towards our Lord Jesus Christ." ^ Labours so incessant, so disinterested,
and continued through so long a time, could not fail to produce a great
result at Ephesus. A
was formed, over which many pres-
large Church
byters were called to preside.^Nor were the results confined to the city
Throughout the province of " Asia" the name of Christ became generally
known, both to the Jews and Gentiles and doubtless, many daughter-
;
and in the present volume those which contain the two Epistles to the Corinthians.
* The peculiarities of this Epistle will be considered hereafter.
*lovdaiovg re Kal 'EAAjyvaf. Acts xix. 10. There must have been many Jews is
Various parts of the province.
'0 What is said of his continued residence at Ephesus by no means implies thai ha
did not make journeys in the province.
EPHESIAN MAGIC.
nection with Colossse, and its neighbour cities Hierapolis and Laodicea.^
the people of Ephesus comes prominently into view. This city was re-
aowned throughout the world for the worship of Diana, and the practice
of magic. Though it was a Greek city, like Athens or Corinth, the manners
of its inhabitants were half oriental. The image of the tutelary goddess,
resembled an Indian idol ' rather than the beautiful forms which crowded:
the Acropolis of Athens : ^ and the enemy which St. Paul had to oppose
was not a vaunting philosophy, as at Corinth,^ but a dark and Asiatic su-
perstition. The worship of Diana and the practice of magic were closely
connected together. Eustathius says, that the mysterious symbols, called
" Ephesian Letters," were engraved on the crown, the girdle, and the feet
ral pile ;
^ and an Ephesian wrestler is said to have always struggled suc-
cessfully against an antagonist from Miletus until he lost the scroll, which
before had been like a talisman. The study of these symbols was an ela-
borate science : and books, both numerous and costly, were compiled by
its professors.''*
This statement throws some light on the peculiar character of the mi>
acles wrought by St. Paul at Ephesus. We are net to suppose that the
Apostles were always able to work miracles at will. An influx of super-
natural power was given to them, at the time, and according to the cir-
cumstances that required it. And the character of the miracles was not
always the same. They were accommodated to the pecuUar forms of bin,
superstition,and ignorance they were requked to oppose.^ Here, at
Ephesus, St. Paul was in the face of magicians, like Moses and Aaron he*
fore Pharaoh and it is distinctly said that his miracles were " not ordi-
;
nary wonders ^ from which we may infer that they were different from
those which he usually performed. We know, in the case of our Blessed
Lord's miracles, that though the change was usually accomplished on the
speaking of a word, intermediate agency was sometimes employed ; as
when the blind man was healed at the pool of Siloam.^ A miracle
which has a closer reference to our present subject, is that in which
the hem of Christ's garment was made effectual to the healing of a
poor sufferer, and the conviction of the bystanders.^ So on this occasion gar-
When the suffering woman was healed by touching the hem of the gar-
ment, the Saviour turned round and said, " Yirtue is gone out of we."
And here at Ephesus we are reminded that it was God who " wrought
miracles by the hands of Paul" (v. 11), and that the name," not of Paul,
but "of the Lord Jesus, was magnified." (v. It.)
These miracles must have produced a great effect upon the minds of
those who practised curious arts in Ephesus. Among the magicians who
1 The narrative of what was done by St. Paul at Ephesus should be compared with
St. Peter's miracles at Jerusalem, when "many signs and wonders were wrought
among the people .... insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets,
and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by
might overshadow some of them." Acts v. 12-16.
* Avvu/2eL^ ov raf rvxovca^. xix. 11.
3 He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the
blind man with the clay, and said unto him Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." Johu
:
ix. 6, 7.
4 Matt.
ix. 20. See Trend on the Miracles, p. 189, &c.
6 Both the words used here are Latin. The former, sudarium, is that which occurs
Vuke xix. 20. John xi. 44. xx. 7, "and is translated " napkin." The latter, semi-
cinctium, denotes some such article of dress shawl, bandkerihief, or apron as la
easily laid aside.
e Kal aTcakTidoaeadai u-k' uvtuv tcIq voaov^, ru re nvev/u,ara ra ncvTjjd k^ipxtdOai
frere then in this city, in the course of their wanderings through the East,
were several Jf.wish exorcists.* This is a circumstance which need not
'Surprise us. The stern severity with which sorcery was forbidden in the
Old Testament ^ attests the early tendency of the Israelites to such prao
tices the Talmud bears witness to the continuance of these practices at
:
a later period ^ and we have already had occasion, in the course of this
;
were accused of such practices. Josephus (Ant. xx. 7, 2) speaks of a Cyprian Jew, a
sorcerer, who was a friend and companion of Felix, and who is identified by some with
Simon Magus. Again (Ant. viii. 2, 5) he mentions certain forms of incantation used
by Jewish magicians which they attributed to King Solomon.
See Vol. I. 145, &c.
6 Observe the phrase in v. 21, " as I told you in time past " {TrpoeliTov), perhaps OQ
the very journey through Galatia which we have just had occasion to mention. St
again Rev. ix. 21. xviii. 33.
6 The word is yorjreg, the customary term for these wandering magicians. See Neao*
der, I. 41, &c., Eng. Trans.
' See V. 13.
Olshausen's version, that he was merely the chief rabbi of the Ephesian Jews (einer
Oberrabbi, der vermuthlich das Haupt der Ephesinischen Judenschaft war) can hardly
be a correct rendering of doxupevq.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
priests. But the Demons, who were subject to Jesus, and by His will
subject to those who preached His Gospel, treated with scorn those wha
used His Name without being converted to His truth. " Jesus I know,
and Paul I know ; but who are ye ? " was the answer of the evil spirit.
And straightway the man who was
possessed sprang upon them, with
fran*tic violence, so that they were utterly discomfitted, and " fled out of
the house naked and wounded." ^
This fearful result of the profane use of that Holy Name which wa3
proclaimed by the Apostles for the salvation of all men, soon became no-
torious, both among the Greeks and the Jews.' Consternation and alarm
took possession of the minds of many ; and in piV)portion to this alarm the
name of the Lord J esus began to be reverenced and honoured.^ Even
among those who had given their faith to St. Paul's preaching,'* some apt-
pear to have retained their attachment to the practice of magical arts.
Their conscience was moved by what had recently occurred, and they
came and made a full confession to the Apostle, and publicly acknowl-
edged and forsook their deeds of darkness.^
The fear and conviction seems to have extended beyond those who
made a profession of Christianity. A large number of the sorcerers them-
selves ^ openly renounced the practice which had been so signally con-
demned by a higher power ; and they brought together the books ' that
contained the mystic formularies, and burnt them before all the people.
When the volumes were consumed,^ they proceeded to reckon up the price
at which these manuals of enchantment would be valued. Such books,
from their very nature, would be costly ; and all books in that age bore a
value, which is far above any standard with which we are familiar.
Hence we must not be surprised that the whole cost thus sacrificed and
surrendered amounted to as much as two thousand pounds of English mo-
ney This scene must have been long remembered at Ephesus. It was
a strong proof of honest conviction on the part of the sorcerers, and a
striking attestation of the triumph of Jesus Christ over the powers of dark-
Greek coin of the Levant the value was about ten-pence. Ther') can be no reason
:
ness The workers of evil were put to scorn, like tlie priests of Baal by
Elijah on Mount Carmel ; ^ and the teaching of the doctrine of Christ
" increased mightily and grew strong." ^
COIN OF EPHKBUS.
CHAPTEE Xy.
*' AL filv kiriaTolal ((p7}al) (Sapelai koI laxvpai' i] 6e Trapovata -rov autfiaro^ de^et^
Ma\ 6 Tioyog k^ovdevrjuevog.^^ 2 Cor. x. 10.
ters of the Apostle himself. This occurrence, which probably took place
not later than the beginning of the second year of St. Paul's residence at
Ephesus, was a short visit which he paid to the Church at Corinth.^
(1) 2 Cor. xii. 14. rptrov rovro trolfiwg cjw eXdelv irpog i/ndg,
If the visit after leaving Ephesus was the third, there must have been a sesona
hefore it.
(3) 2 Cor. xii. 21. /j./) 7rd2.iv kldovra fie raireivuaTi 6 0ed?, Kal TvevdTjcTu ttoTi.Io'Oc
ruv TTpoTjjuaprT/Koruv. He
he should again be humbled on visiting them,
fears lest
and again have to mourn their sins. Hence there must have been a former visit, in
which he was thus humbled and made to mourn.
Paley in the Horaa Paulinte, and other commentators since, have shown that these
passages (though they acknowledge their most natural meaning to be in favour of an
intermediate visit) may be explained away in the first two St. Paul might perhaps
;
only have meant " this is the third time J have intended to come to you and in the
third passage we may take Trdliv with iWovra, in the sense of " on my return." But
we think that nothing but the hypothesis of an intermediate visit can explain the fol-
lowing passages:
(4) 2 Cor. ii. 1. iKptva /it) rcdTiiv h Ivttij Trpbg ifidg kWelv (which is the reading
of every one of the Uncial manuscripts). Here it would be exceedingly unnatural to
join ttuXlv with eXdeiv ; and the feeling of this probably led to the error of the Textus
Receptus.
(5) 2 Cor. xiii. 2. npoetpTjKa Kal Trpoleyu, cjg napdv rb Sevrepov, Kal dndv vv*
[ypd(j)0) in the Textus Receptus is not found in the best MSS.] rolg TTpoT/fiaprriKoai kcU
Tolg XoiTTolc TrdaiVy dri tdv l7.Bcd elg rd ndliVj ov <peLOo/j.ai. I have warned you
formerly, and I now forewarn you, as when I was present the second time, sc note
If we had not possessed any direct information that such a visit had
3een made, yet in itself it would have seemed highly probable that St.
Paul would not have remained three years at Ephesus without revisiting
his Corinthian converts. We have already remarked ^ on the facility of
communication which existed between these two great cities, which were
united by a continual reciprocity of commerce, and were the capitals of
two peaceful provinces. And we have seen examples of the intercourse
which actually took place between the Christians of the two Churches,
both in the case of Aquila and Priscilla, who had migrated from the one
to the other, and in that of Apollos, concerning whom, " when he was dis-
posed to pass into Achaia," " the brethren [at Ephesus] wrote, exhorting
the disciples [at Corinth] to receive him" (Acts xviii. 2t). We have
Been, in the last chapter, some of the results of this visit of Apollos to
though neither Paul had planted, nor Apollos watered them. One evil at
and the very word "to Corinthianise," meant to play the wanton
u^hile I am absent, saying to those who had sinned before that time, and to all the
rest, " If I come again, I will not spare."
Against these arguments Paley sets (1st) St. Luke's silence, whicli, however, is ac-
knowledged by all to be inconclusive, considering that so very many of St. Paul's
travels and adventures are left confessedly unrecorded in the Acts (see note on 2 Cor.
xi. 23,. &c.). (2ndly) The passage, 2 Cor. i. 15, 16, in which St. Paul tells the Corin-
thians he did not wish now to give them a second benefit," devrepav x^P'-'^i whence
he argues that the visit then approaching would be his second visit. But a more
careful examination of the passage shows that St. Paul is speaking of his original
Intention of paying them a double visit, on his way to Macedonia, and on his return
from Macedonia.
The whole argument on both sides is very ably stated by Wieseler, Chronologie, p,
232-241.
1 Vol. I. p. 423. 1 Cor. xvi. 12.
3 Kopivdi'j^o^uai, used by Aristophanes in a lost play (quoted by Steph. Byz.). Ctm
pare also Aristoph. Plut. 149.
28 THE LIFE AJSTD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
nay, the bad reputation of the city had become proverbial, even in foreiga
languages, and is immortalised by the Latin poets Such being the
habits in which many of the Corinthian converts had been educated, wa
cannot wonder if it proved most difficult to root out immorality from the
rising Church. The offenders against Christian chastity were exceedingly
low at the tidings he had received, and when he arrived, he found the
state of things even worse than he had expected ; he tells us that it was
a time of personal humiliation'' to himself, occasioned by the flagrant sins
of so many of his own converts he reminds the Corinthians, afterwards, ;
how he had " mourned " over those who had dishonoured the name of
Christ by " the uncleanness and fornication and wantonness which they
had committed.'**
But in the midst of his grief he showed the greatest tenderness for the
and risen again unto righteousness ; but he did not at once exclude them
from the Church which they had defiled. Yet he was compelled to
threaten them with this penalty, if they persevered in the sins which had
now called forth his rebuke. He has recorded the very words which he
used. " If I come again," he said, " I will not spare." '
occupied a large portion of the " space of three years," which he describes
himself to have spent at Ephesus (Acts xx. 31), he would probably have
expressed himself differently in that part of his address to the Ephesiau
1 Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum. (Hor. Ep. i. 17.) See Vol. 1.
415, note 2.
' Only a part of them who remained unrepentant after rebuke and warning are
called TTo'klovg. 2 Cor. xii. 21.
3 'Ev "kvny (2 Cor. ii. 1). * TaTreivway (2 Cor. xii. 21).
7 2 Cor. xiii. 2.
8 1 Cor. xvi. 7. Yet this admits of another explanation ; for perhaps he Duly meanl
to say, " I will not now (at once) come to you (by the direct route) on my way ta
Macedonia, for a passing visit." &c
BT. PAUL EETUENS TO EPHESUS. 29
presbyters ;
^ and a long visit could scarcely have failed to furnish more
allusions in the Epistles so soon after written to Corinth. The silence of
converts ;
his mildness had been niistaken for weakness ; his hesitation
in punishing had been ascribed to a fear of the offenders ; and it was not
long before he received new intelligence that the profligacy which had
infected the community was still increasing. Then it was that he felt him-
self compelled to resort to harsher measures ; he wrote an Epistle (which
has not been preserved to us) in which, as we learn from himself, he
ordered the Christians of Corinth, by virtue of his Apostolic authority,
**
to cease from all intercourse with fornicators." By this he meant, as
he subsequently explained his injunctions, to direct the exclusion of all
profligates from the Church. The Corinthians, however, either did not
understand this, or (to excuse themselves) they affected not to do so {
for they asked, how it was possible for them to abstain from all intercourse
with the profligate, unless they entirely secluded themselves from all the
business of life, which they had to transact with their heathen neighbours.
Whether the lost Epistle contained any other topics, we cannot know with
certainty ; but we may conclude with some probability, that it was very
short, and directed to this one subject ; ^ otherwise it is not easy to under-
stand why it should not have been preserved together with the two sul>
sequent Epistles.
Soon after this short letter had been dispatched, Timotheus, accom-
panied by Erastus,-* left Ephesus for Macedonia. St. Paul desired him,
1 "Wieseler, however, gets over this,by supposing that when St. Paul mentions three
years spent among his hearers, he means to address not only the Ephesian presbyters
whom he had summoned, but also the companions of his voyage (Acts xx. 4) who h&d
been with him in Macedonia and Achaia.
' See i Cor. v. 9-12. This lost Epistle must have been written after his second
visit ; otherwise he need not have explained it in the passage referred to.
3 Probably it was in this lost letter that he gave them notice of his intention to
visit them on his way to Macedonia ; for altering which he was so much blamed by his
opponents.
< Erastus was probably the treasurer {otKovo/Lcog) of the city of Corinth mentioned
Kom. xvi. 23 and 2 Tim. iv. 20 5 and therefore was most likely proceeding at any rat
t'O Covinth.
so THE LIFE AND EPISTTiES OF ST. PATII*,
if possible, to continue his journey to Corinth ; but (Jid not feel certain
that it would be possible for him to do so ^ consistently with the other
objects of his journey, which probably had reference to the great coUec*
tion now going on for the poor Hebrew Christians at Jerusalem.
Meantime, some members of the household of Chloe, a distinguished
Christian family at Corinth, arrived at Ephesus ; and from them St. Pau.
received fuller information than he before possessed of the condition (X
the Corinthian Church. The spirit of party had seized upon its members,
and well nigh destroyed Christian love. We have already seen, in oui
general view of the divisions of the Apostolic Church, that the great par-
ties which then divided the Christian world had ranked themselves undei
the names of different Apostles, whom they attempted to set up against
each other as rival leaders. At Corinth, as in other places, emissaries
had arrived from the Judaizers of Palestine, who boasted of their " letters
of commendation" from the metropolis of the faith ;
they did not, how-
ever, attempt, as yet, to insist upon circumcision, as we shall find them
doing successfully among the simpler population of Galatia. This would
have been hopeless in a great and civilised community like that of Corinth,
imbued with Greek feelings of contempt for what they would have deemed
a barbarous superstition. Here, therefore, the Judaizers confined them-
selves, in the first instance, to personal attacks against St. Paul, whose
apostleship they denied, whose motives they calumniated, and whose
authority they persuaded the Corinthians to repudiate. Some of them
declared themselves the followers of Cephas, whom the Lord himself had
selected to be the chief Apostle ; others (probably the more extreme
members of the party'') boasted of their own immediate connection with
Christ himself, and their intimacy with " the brethren of the Lord ; " and
especially with James, the head of the Church at Jerusalem. The endea-
vours of these agitators to undermine the influence of the Apostle of the
Gentiles met with undeserved success ; and they gained over a strong
party to their side. Meanwhile, those who were still stedfast to the doc-
trines of St. Paul, yet were not all unshaken in their attachment to his
person : a portion of them preferred the Alexandrian learning with which
Apollos had enforced his preaching, to the simple style of their first
with St. Paul which was thus implied, and even refused to revisit Corinth,
' Timotheus apparently did not reach Corinth ou this occasion, or the fact would
have been mentioned 2 Cor. xii. 18,
' See c.ouv(^ Vol. I.
pp. 444, 445. 3 1 Cor. ii. 1-5. 1 Cor. xvi. 12
STATE OF THEj COEmTHIAN CHUKCH. 31
^ Se the translation of 1 Cor. ii. 2, and the note. Also Vol. I. p. 406.
/
32 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
*jity ; hence we must infer that these Churches also had been infected by
some of the errors or vices which had prevailed at Corinth. This letter
is, in its contents, the most diversified of all St. PauPs Epistles ; and ia
proportion to the variety of its topics, is the depth of its interest for our-
met for worship in some upper chamber, such as the houc.e of Aquila, op
of Gains, could furnish. We see that these seasons of pure uevotion were
not unalloyed by human vanity and excitement ;
yet, on the oiher hand,
we behold the heathen auditor pierced to the heart by the inspired
eloquence of the Christian prophets, the secrets of his conscience laid bare
to him, and himself constrained to fall down on his face and worship God;
we hear the fervent thanksgiving echoed by the unanimous Amen ; we see
the administration of the Holy Communion terminating the feast of love.
Again we become familiar with the perplexities of domestic life, the cor-
rupting proximity of heathen immorality, the lingering superstition, the
rash speculation, the lawless perversion of Christian liberty ; we witness
the strife of theological factions, the party names, the sectarian animosi-
ties. We perceive the difficulty of the task imposed upon the Apostle,
who must guard from so many perils, and guide through so many difficul-
ties, his children in the faith, whom else he had begotten in vain ;
and we
learn to appreciate more fully the magnitude of that laborious responsi-
bility under which he describes himself as almost ready to sink, " the care
thank God who so inspired His Apostle, that in his answers to questions of
transitory interest he has laid down principles of eternal obligation.' Let
us trace with gratitude the providence of Him, who " out of darkness
calls up light by whose mercy it was provided that the unchastity of
the Corinthians should occasion the sacred laws of moral purity to be
established for ever through the Christian world ; that their denial of
' The contrast between the short-lived interest of the questions referred to him for
solution,and the eternal principles by which they must be solved, was brought pro-
minently before the mind of the Apostle himself by the Holy Spirit, under whose gui-
dance he wrote and he has expressed it in those sublime words which might serve a>
;
3 Grace be unto you and peace, from God our father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
4 1 5 thank my God continually on your behalf, for Introductory
thanksgiving
The date of this Epistle can be fixed with more precision than that of any other.
It gives us the means of ascertaining, not merely the year, but even the month and
week, in which it was written.
(1) ApoUos had been working at Corinth, and was now with St. Paul at Ephesua
(1 Cor. i. 12. iii. 4, 22. iv. 6. xvi. 12). This was the case during St. Paul's resi-
(5) He hopes to go by Corinth to Jerusalem, and thence to Rome (xvi. 4 and xvL
25-28). Now the time when he entertained this very purpose was towards the conclu-
fiion of his long Ephesian residence (Acts xix. 21).
(6) He had sent Timothy towards Corinth (iv. 17), but not direct (xvi. 10). Now it
was at the close of his Ephesian residence (Acts xix. 22) that
he sent Timothy with
Erastus (the Corinthian) from Ephesus to Macedonia, which was one way to Corinth,
but not the shortest.
' Sosthenes is, perhaps, the same mentioned Acts xviii. 17. See Vol. I. p. 419
3 The sense of aytoi in the New Testament is nearly equivalent to the modem
" Christians but it would be an anachronism so to translate it here, since (in the
time of St. Paul) the word "Christian" was only used as a term of reproach. The
objection to translating it "saints" is, that the idea now conveyed by that term is quite
from the meaning of ol uyioi as used by St. Paul.
dififerent
The Authorised Version here appears scarcely reconcileable with the order of the
4
both of their and our abode," is frigid, and adds nothing to the idea of navTi roTrw.
St. Paul means to say that lie feels the home of his converts to be also his oum.
Both sentiment and expression are the same as in Rom. xvi. 13 TTjv firjTha avrov Koi :
iaov.
s Observe how evxapioT'j and nov follow immediately after VLavlo^ kuI 'ZuaOhm^.
VOL. II.
34 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
^ortheir con- the gracG which He gave you [at the first] in Clirist
Jesus. Because, in Him, you were every- wise en-
riched with all the gifts of speech and knowledge (for thus C
And He also will confirm ' you unto the end, that you may 8
be without reproach at the day of His coming. For God is 9
faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with His Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master.
Rebuke of their Neverthelcss, brethren, I exhort you, by theio
' '
party-spirit,
^ ^ i t .
Bhowing that, though the salutation runs in the name of both, the author of the Epistle
was St. Paul alone. Compare the remarks on 1 Thess. p. 391, note 1.
1 See note on Rom. ii. 5.
' i. e. He will do His part to confirm you unto the end. If you fall, it will not ho
for want of His help.
3 NoCf refers to the view taken by the understanding yvufiri to the practical decl- ;
22 faith therein. For the J ews ask for a sign from heaven, and
the Greeks demand a system of philosophy but we ^ pro- ;
27 few are powerful, how few are noble. But w^hat the world
thinks folly, God has chosen, to confound its wisdom; and
what it holds for weakness He has chosen, to confound its
28 strength; and what the world counts base and scorns as worth-
less, nay, what it deems to have no being, God has chosen, to
W be fulfilled which saith,^ " He that glorieth^ let him glory in the
Lord:'
n.
I. So,' brethren,' when I myself first came to declare ^ oyn
teaching he
* '0 aluv ovTog distinguished from Koa/ioc by involving the notion of transitory
duration,
5 Observe rcLarevovra^, not TnarevcavTag.
" PFe," including St. Paul and the other preachers of Christianity.
7 All who make an outward profesaion of Christianity are, in St. Paul's
KXTjTotg.
language, " the called." They have received a message from God, which has called
them to enter into His church.
'f^.^ avTov. 9 Jerem. ix. 23, from the LXX., but not literally.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
at*ltabbWDg
among you the testimony of God, I came not with
JSsophr^oJ surpassing skill of eloquence, or philosophy.
hiTreiied^^n For it was no earthly knowledge which I deter- 2
bSfngT to^the
pmt of God.
Jesus Christ alone, and Him crucified. And in '
3
intercourse with you, I was weighed down .by a
feeling of my weakness, and was filled with anxiety, and self
distrust.'* And when I proclaimed my message, I used not the 4
persuasive arguments of human wisdom, but showed by forth
sure proofs the might of the Holy Spirit, that your faith might 5
have its foundation not in the wisdom of men, but in the power
of God.
Nevertheless, among those who are ripe in knowledge ^ I 6
speak wisdom ;wisdom of this passing world, nor
albeit not the
of those who
whose greatness will soon be nothing.''
rule it,
known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
But as it is written,^ ^^Fye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 9
^ave entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
jjrejpared for them that love HimP Yet to us ' God has re- 10
vealed them by His Spirit, for the Spirit fathoms all things,
even the deepest counsels of God. For who can know what is 11
in a man but the spirit of the man which is within him ? even so
none can know what is in God, but the Spirit of God alone.
ISTow to us has been granted, not the spirit of this world, but 12
1 i. e. Him, not exalted 011 the earthly throne of David, but condemned to the death
of the vilest malefactor.
Compare 2 Cor. vii. 15 and Eph. vi. 5. St. Paul appears, on his firstcoming to
Corinth, to have been suffering under great depression, perhaps caused by the bodily
malady to which he was subject (cf. 2 Cor. xii. 8 ; see Vol. I. p. 274), perhaps by the
ill-success of his efforts at Athens. See Vol. I. p. 389.
3 0/ teIeloi is St. Paul's expression for those who had attained the maturity of
Christian wisdom. Compare 1 Cor. xiv. 20 and Phil. iii. 15. Such men could undeav
Btand that his teaching was in truth the highest philosophy.
* Karapyov/xevoi, literally " passing away into nothingness."
5 loiplav iv fivaTijpL(f) is a wisdom revealed to the fivarai, or initiated, i. e. (in this
stronger food, nay you are not yet able, for you are sions.
3 still carnal. For while you are divided amongst
yourselves by jealousy, and strife, and factious parties, is it not
evident that you are carnal, and walking in the common ways
4 of men ? When one says, " I follow Paul," and another " I
follow Apollos," can you deny that you are carnal ?
5 Who then is Paul, or who is ApoUos ? what are it a contra is
"irvxiicb^, properly man considered as endowed with the anima (the living prin
ciple), as distinguished from the spiritual principle. See Juv. Sat. xv. 148.
Isaiah xl. 13 (LXX.).
* The best MSS. are divided between the readings of Xp/.arov and Kvoiov here.
5 And therefore cannot be set against each other " is implied.
This remarkable expression is used by St. Paul repeatedly. Compare 2 Cor. vi I
*nd the note on 1 Tbess. iii. 2.
38 THE LIFE ANT> EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
tion another builds but let each take heed what that is which
;
he builds thereon [" thereon," I say,] for other foundation can 11
no man lay, than that already laid, which is " Jestjs the
Chkist," ' But on this foundation one man may raise a temple 12
lire, and the fire wall test each builder's work. He whose 14
building stands unharmed, shall receive payment for his la-
bour but he whose work is burned down, shall forfeit his re- 15
;
for all things are yours ; both Paul and ApoUos, and Cephas. 22
and the whole world itself ; both life and death, thiogti present 23
' The Textus Receptus, 'Irjoovg 6 Xpiarog, rests on very little MS. authority the ;
beet MSS. being divided between Xpiorbc 'Ijjoovc and 'bioovg Xpiaroc. Yet as the
Textus Receptus gives more distinctly the sense which must virtually be involved in
all three readings, we have retained it here.
* The connection with what precedes is " In calling you God's building, I tell you
no new thing you know already that you are God's temple."
;
Apostles, uay, all things in the universe, are ordained by God to co-operate for you;
good."
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIAI^S. 39
and things to come all are yours but ' you are Christ's ; and
Christ is God's.
. ^
stewards charged to dispense the knowledge of the
. . 1 . T
m
.
stewards that
;
light the darkest counsels, and make manifest the inmost se-
crets of men's hearts ; and then God shall give to each the ^
praise which he deserves.
6 But these things, brethren, I have represented Contrast be-
under the persons of myself and Apollos, for your exStion ^If
sakes that so you may learn not to think of your- philosophical
:
selves above that which has now been written, and abasement of
Christ's Apo-s- '
fer from another ? what hast thou that thou didst not receive ?
and how then canst thou boast of it, as if thou hadst won it foi
8 thyself? But ye forsooth have eaten to the full [of spiritual
food], ye are rich [in knowledge], ye have seated yourselves
upon your throne, and have no longer need ^ of me. Would
that you were indeed enthroned, that I too might reign with
9 you. For,^ as to us the Apostles, I think that God has set us
forth last of all, like criminals condemned to die, to be gazed
at in a theatre ' by the whole world, both men and angels.
All things work together for the good of Christians all things conspire to do ;
Siem service but their work is to do Christ's service, even as He Himself came to do
;
7 The spectacle to which St. Paul here alludes was common in those times. CnnU'
lals condemned to death were exhibited for the amusement of the populace on tJw
40 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
We for Christ's sake are fools, while you join faith in Christ u
with worldly wisdom; we are weak, while you are strongs
3"ou are honourable, while we are outcasts even to the ; present 11
and have no certain dwelling-place, and toil with our own hands 12
refuse of the earth, the very off-scouring of all things, unto this
day. I write not thus to reproach you, but as a father I chide 14
the children whom
For though you may have tenis
I love.
thousand guardians you towards the school of Christ,
^
to lead
you can have but one father and I it was who begat jou in ;
boasters, and shall learn their power, not by their words, but
by their deeds. For mighty deeds, not empty words, are the 20
tokens of God's kingdom. What is your desire ? Must I come 21
to you with the rod of punishment, or in the spirit of love and
gentleness ?
V.
Judgment on It is commoulv rcportcd
*^
that there is fornication 1
tlieincestuous
person. amoug you, and such fornication, as is not so much
as named even among the Heathen, that a man should have
his father's wife. And you forsooth have been puffed up with 2
arrogance, when you ought rather to have been filled with
shame and sorrow, and so to have put out from among you the
man wlio lias done this deed.
For me being present with 3
arena of the amphitheatre, and forced to fight with wild beasts,, or to slay one another
as gladiators.These criminals were exhibited at the end of the spectacle as an exciting
termination to the entertainment {toxaroi uneielxOvoav). So Tertullian paraphraaea
the passage "JVbs Deus Apostolos novissimos elegit velut bestiariosP (Tertul.
Pudicitia, cap. xiv.)
' Hatdayuydq, the guardian slave who led the child to schooL See note 00
ixal. iii. 24
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE COEINTHIANS. 41
1 This expression appears used as equivalent to casting out of the Church ; from
the following words there seems also a reference to the doctrine that Satan is the
author of bodily disease. Compare 2 Cor. xii. 7.
rieal sense, it is inconsistent with the previous eKKaOupare Trjv ir. Cv/ir]v ; for the passage
would then amount to saying, " Be
from taint as you are free from taint." More-
free
over, if so taken, the connection with what follows seems unnatural. There seems no
diflftculty in supposing that t\tc Gentile Christians joined with the Jewish Christians in
celebrating the Paschal feast after the Jewish manner, at least to this extent. And we
see that St. Paul still observed the rj/iepai tuv dCv/zo)v at this period of his life, from
Acts XX. 6. Also, from what follows, we perceive how naturally this greatest of Jewish
Eeaets changed into the greatest of Christian festivals.
' The
letter here referred to has not come down to us. See p. 29.
Nvvi here seems not to be a particle of time (see De Wette in loco).
6 W^eoveKTTjc has undoubtedly this meaning in St. Paul's writings. Compare Eph.
V. 6 (where it is coupled with uKadaprog). So nXtove^ia, in St. Paul, almost invariably
means impurity. See Eph.iv. 19. v. 3. Col. iii. 5. The only places where the word
]b used by St. Paul in the sense covetousness are 2 Cor. ix. 5 and 1 Thess. ii. 5, in the
r.ttor of which passages the other meaning would not be inadmissible. How the word
42 THE LITE Am> EPISTLES OF ST. VAJTL
YI
litigation be- Can there be any of you who dare to brin^ their ]
tTveen Christ- . .
i t i i t
mns ^"i^^st^^o* private dinerences mto the courts 6i law, to be judged
into
courts
Heathen
; and
by the wickcd, and not rather submit them to the
a proo?of evii^
arbitration ^ of Christ's people. Know ye not that 2
you have washed away your stains,-^ you have been hallowed,
you Lave been justified by your fellowship with the Lord
contracted its Pauline meaning may be inferred from the similar use of concupiscent
in English.
1 Dent. xxiv. 7. (LXX.)
* It should be remembered that the law gave its sanction to the decision pronounced
in a litigated case by arbitrators privately chosen
so that the Christians might obtain
;
our God.^
12 [But some of you say] " all things are lawful _^^^Antinotniaii
13 shall not bring me under t/ieir power. " Meat is for the belly,
and the belly for meat," though death will soon, by God's ordi-
but the body is not for fornication,
nance, put an end to both ;
14 but for the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus for the body ^ and
; ;
as God raised our Lord Jesus from the grave, so He will raise
15 us also by His mighty power.^ Know ye not that your bodies
are the members of Christ's body ? Shall I then take the mem-
bers of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot ? God
16 forbid. I^ow ye not, that he who joins himself to an harlot
becomes one body with her ? As it is written, " they twain
Yl shall he one fleshP^ But he who joins himself to Christ, be-
18 comes one with Christ in spirit. Flee fornication. [It is true,
indeed,^ that] all sin springs, not from the body, but from the
19 soul ;
yet the fornicator sins against his own body. Know ye
not that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit which
dwells within you, which ye have received from God? And
20 you are not your own, for you were bought with a price.''
Glorify God, therefore, not in your spirit only, but in your body
also, since both are His.^
1 For the translation of Iv in this verse, see Winer, Gram. cap. v. 52.
See the explanation of this in Vol. I. p. 447 ; and coDipare (for the true side of
n-dvTa i^eariv) Gal. v. 23, Kara tuv toiovtuv ovk eotl vofiog. Also see chap. viii. 1,
below. From what follows it is evident that these Corinthian free-thinkers argued
ihai the existence of bodily appetites proved the lawfulness of their gratification.
3 The body is for the Lord Jesus, to be consecrated by His indwelling to His ser-
vice and the Lord Jesus is for the body, to consecrate it by dwelling therein in the
;
4 Si. Paul's argument here is, that sins of unchastity, though bodily acts, yet injure
a part of our nature which will not be destroyed by death, and which is closely con-
nected with our moral well-being. And it is a fact no less certain than mysterious,
that moral and spiritual ruin is caused by such sins which human wisdom (when un-
;
minion over his own body, but the wife. Do not separate one S
from the other, unless it be with mutual consent for a time, that
you may give yourselves without disturbance to fasting and
prayer, with the intent of shortly living again together, lest,
but men have different gifts from God, one this, another that.
But to the unmarried and to the widows, I say that it would 8
be good for them if they should remain in the state wherein I
myself also am ; yet if their desires do not allow them to re- 9
main contented in this state, let them marry for it is better ;
clean,' but now they are holy. But if the unbelieving hus- 15
not be hindered
Ss\'ife seeks for a divorce, let it ; for in
e Mark x. 12 : Whosoever shmll put away his wife, and marry anothcTj
adultery against her. And
if a woman shall put away her husband,
and be marri ed to another, she committeth adultery.
* 'AkJ^^^, literally "unclean," the term being used in its Jewish sense, to denote
that wl^^^B|6eyowrf the hallowed pale of God^s people; the antithesis to ayio(
which wa^Hpued to all within the consecrated limits.
;
16 For thou who art the wife of an unbeliever, how knowest thou
whether thou may est save thy husband ? or thou who art the
husband, whether thou may est save thy wife ?
1 7 Only let no man seek to quit that condition which General rule,
allotted to him when he was called by the verts shouia
God had not quit that
Lord Jesus. This rule I srive m all the churches, state of life
vrherem they
18 Thus, if anyo
man, at the
^
time when he
'
was called,'' ^^-^^ at their
conversion. '
23 called, is Christ's slave for He has paid a price for you all
;
"
On the inferences from this verse, with respect to infant baptism, see Vol. 1. pp. 438,
439.
1 Ka?.uvt in St. Paul's writings, means " to call into fellowship with Christ " to
oall from the unbelieving World into the Church."
* It is needless to remark that eK^rjOrj is mis-translated " is called " in A. V. through-
out this chapter.
3 The Greek here is ambiguous, and might be so rendered as to give directly oppo-
site precepts ; but the version given in the text (which is that advocated by Chrysos-
tom, Meyer, and De Wette) agrees best with the position of the Kal, and also with the
*
context.
< Observe the change in the Greek from singular to plural.
6 Alluding to their servile adherence to party leaders. Compare 2 Cor^|^^0
[naradovlol). ^^^^k
We
cannot help remarking, that the manner in which a recent infidel wim^Ka
6
spoken of this passage is one of the most striking proofs how far a candid and acut
mind may be warped by a strong bias. In this case the desire of the writer is to prove
that the moral teaching of Christianity isworthless and he brings forward this passage
;
io prove his charge, and blames St. Paul because he assumes these Corin^^fc daugh-
ters to be disposable in marriage at the will of their father. We must H^ose that
hiB writer would ( ^n the same grounds) require a modern missionary to Peisia to
;
of^^
command to give you from the Lord Jesus, but I
them that have wives to be as though they had none and them 30 ;
that weep as though they wept not, and them that rejoice as
though they rejoiced not, and them that buy as though they 31
possessed not, and them that use this world as not abusing it '
for the world, with all its outward show, is passing away.'* But 32
I would have you free from earthly care. The desires of the
unmarried man are fixed upon the Lord Jesus, and he strives
to please the Lord. But the desires of the husband are fixed 33
upon worldly things, striving to please his wife. Likewise 34
also the wife has this difierence from the virgin ; the cares of
the virgin are fixed upon the Lord, that she may become holy
both in body and in spirit ; but the cares of the wife are fixed
upon worldly things, striving to please her husband. Now 35
this I say for your own profit ; not that I may entangle you in
a snare ; but that I may help you to serve the Lord Jesus with
1 seemly and undivided service. But if any man thinks that 36
ne is treating his virgin daughter in an unseemly manner, by
leaving her unmarried beyond the flower of her age, and if
marriage does well, but lie who gives her not in marriage d^ea
"better.
to many whom she will, provided that she choose one of the
40 brethren i
in Christ. Yet she is happier if she remain a widow,
in my judgment ; and I think that I, no less* than others, ha^ e
the spirit of God.
VIII.
1 As to the question concerning meats which have Answer to
6 gods and many lords, yet to us there is but one God, the Fa-
ther, from whom are all things, and unto whom we live and one ;
Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom the life of all things, and our
7 life also, is sustained. But it is not true that " all have know-
ledge " [in this matter] on the contrary, there are some who
;
still have a conscientious fear of the idol, and who think that
the meat sacrificed belongs to a false god, so that, if they eat it,
8 their conscience being weak, is defiled. It is true that our food
cannot change our place in God's sight ; with Him we gain
9 nothing by eating, nor loose by not eating. But beware lest,
it is an answer to a letter received from the Corinthian Church, and therefore con-
stantly alludes to topics in that letter. It seems probable, from the way in which
they are introduced, that these words, navre^ yvuGiv exofiev, are quoted from that
letter.
4 'E^ovaca avrrj. Observe again the reference to the language of the self-sf^^d
^
Pauline party at Corinth. Compare Ttavra [jlol e^eariv (vi. 12). The decrees of the
" Council of Jerusalem " might seem to have a direct bearing on the question discussed
by St Paul in this passage
but he does not refer to "ihem as deciding the points in
;
dispute, either here or elsewhere.Probably the reason of this is, that the de^es were
meant only to be of temporary application and in their terms they applied ^ginallj
;
cnly to the churches of Syria and Cilicia (see Acts xv. 23 ; also Vol. I. p. 231).
18 THE LIFE AXD EPISTLES Oi" ST. PAUL.
IX
He
his
vindicates
claim to
Aiii I iudccd "
,
HO ti'ue apc3tle
^
? " Am 1 indeed ]
the Apostolic
office against
"subiect to man's authority"?^ Have I indeed
" nevcr seen Jesus Christ our Lord ? " Can it be
detracS-''^^
Us rtntniS-
^^^nied that you are the fruits of my labour in the
20 self the slave of all, that I might gain the most. To the Jews
I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews to those ;
law, I lived as one who is free from the law (not that I was
without law before God, but under the law of Christ), that I
22 might gain those who were free from the law. With thgse
Numbers and Dent, xviii.
vii.
^ (Matt. Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor
X. 9. 10.)
t'rip foi your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yei staves; for thi
r' trknian is worthy
of his meat.
^ A t.r; is properly the compulsion exercised by a master over a slave.
I'./
}
pe^opie
you were baptized unto Christ] they all, 2
[^s
through the cloud, and through the sea, were bap-
tized unto Moses. And all of them alike ate the same spiritual 3
food and all drank of the same spiritual stream
; for they 4 ;
but that rock was Christ. Yet [though all received these 5
gifts], few only continued in God's favour, and the rest were
This was the crown made of the leaves of the pine, groves of which surroumlcd
the Isthmian Stadium the same tree stij] grows plentifully on the Isthmus of Corinth,
:
It was the prize of the great Isthmian games. Throughout the passage St Paul al-
ludes to these contests, which were so dear to the pride and patriotism of the Ccrinth-
mM. Compare also 2 Tim. ii. 5.
' This is the literal meaning of the pugilistic term vTrumd^o).
3 St. Paul's meaning is, that, under the allegorical representation of the Manna, the
Water, and the Rock, are shadowed forth spiritual realities for the Bock is Christ, the
;
only source of living water (John iv.), and the Manna also \s Christ, thi k'ue bread
front fieaven (John vi.).
* Yiz. after the flesh-pots of Egypt. * Exod. xxxii. 6. 'LXX.)
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE COKINTHIANS. 61
$ day three and twenty thousand. i Neither let ns try the long
suffering of Christ, as did some of them, who were destroyed
10 by the fiery serpents. Nor murmur against those who are set
over you, as some of them murmured, and were slain by the
11 destroying angel. Now all these things befel them as shadows
of that which was to come
and they were written for our
;
19 What would I say then ? that an idol has any real being ? or
20 that meat offered to an idol is really changed thereby ? Not
so ; but I say, that when the heathen offer their sacrifices, they
are sacrificing to demons, and not to Grod ; and I would not
21 have you become partners ^ with the demons. You cannot
drink the cup of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the cup which has
22 poured libation to demons you cannot eat at the table of the
;
> Numbers xxv. 9, where twenty-four thousand is the number given. See the re-
marks in Vol. I. p. 176, note 1.
* The coming of Christ was ''the end of the ages," i. e. the commencement of a new
period of the world's existence. So the phrase owTEXeta tuv atuvuv is used Heb. ix.
26. The same expression (with aluvog) occurs five times in St. Matthew, signifying
the coming of Christ to judgment.
3 Tbip is addressed to those who were in the habit of accepting invitations to feasts
C^ilcbrated in the temples of the heathen gods kv ei6o)?i,L(f) KaraKeijuevov, viii. 10).
* See vi. 12, and note.
513 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Censnre on the
custom of wo-
My brethren, whereas ^ " you are always mind- 1
,. , , ,
men appearing
unveile.l in the
lul 01 my teachiufi:, and that you keep unchanged
. , . .
t
assembhea for the rulcs which I delivered to you,' in this I praise
pubhc wors'Jy. > >i x.
yeil, let her shave her head at once ; but if it is shameful for a
woman be shorn or shaven, let her keep a veil upon her
to
7 head. For a man ought not to veil his head, since he is the
and the manifestation of God's glory. But
likeness of God,
S the woman's part is to manifest her husband's glory. For the
man was not made from the woman, but the woman from tho
9 man. Nor was the man created for the sake of the woman,
10 but the woman for the sake of the man. Therefore, the wo-
man ought to wear a sign ' of subjection upon her head, be-
ll cause of the angels.'' l^evertheless, in their fellowship with the
Lord Jesus, man and woman may not be separated the one from
12 the other.3 For as woman is sprung from man, so is man also
born of woman and both alike, together with all things else,
;
1 'E^ovT/V. is often used for the dominion exercised by those in lawful authority
over their subordinates (see Luke vii. 8). Here it is used to signify the sign of that
dominion
* The meaning of this very difficult expression seems to be as follows :
The angels
lire sent as ministering servants to attend upon Christians, and are especially present
whoa iha church assembles for public worship ; and they would be offended by any
violation of need scarcely be remarked, that to translate ^id
decency or order. It
ro-dc dyyelov^, "by the hands of angels" (as has been sometimes proposed^ would
from the olhr-r. Compare Gal. iii. 28. St. Paul means to say that the distinction
t)i,vrefen. which only belongs to this life.
the sexes is one
* Literally, that neither I, nor the churches of God, adjnit of such a custom,
* al.
54 THE LITE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
J
The second subject of rebuke is introduced by ovv instead of by iTxara 61 (Which
would naturally have answered the irpurov /uiv), because the Gvvcpxo}ii:vuv, . r. A., iat
3 the explanation of this, see Vol. I. p. 440. It should be observed that a o<im-
For
mon meal, to which each of the guests contributed his own share of the provisional,
was a form of entertainment of frequent occurrence among the Greeks, and k-nown by
the name of tpavog.
* OI)serve the emphatic eyw.
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 55
If^t him cafe at homoj lest your meetings should bring judgment
upon you. The other matters I will set in order when I come*
XIL
1 Concernins:
*=
those who exercise Spiritual Gifts,
^
onthespiritua.
Gifts general]^.,
^
God can call Jesus accursed and no man can say that Jesus ;
6 but all to serve the same Lord Jesus and the inward work- ;
ing whereby they are wrought is vai'ious, but they are all
wrought in every one of those who receive them, by the work-
7 ing of the same God.'^ But the gift whereby the Spirit be-
8 comes manifest, is given to each for the profit of all. To one ^
is given by the Spirit the utterance of Wisdom, to another the
Knowledge * according to the working of the
utterance of
9 same Spirit. To another the power of Faith ^ through the same
Spirit. To another gifts of Healing through the same Spirit.
10 To another the powers which work Miracles to another the ;
i. e, the mere outward profession of Christianity is (so far as it goes) a proof of the
Holy Spirit's guidance. Therefore the extraordinary spiritual gifts which followed
Christian baptism in that age proceeded in all cases from the Spirit of God, and not
from the Spirit of Evil. This is St. Paul's answer to a difficulty apparently felt by the
Corinthians (and mentioned in their letter to him), whether some of these gifts might
not be given by the Author of Evil to confuse the Church.
* It should be observed that the 4th, 5th, and 6th verses imply the doctrine of th
Trinity.
3 On this classification of spiritual gifts, see Vol. I. p. 427, n. 2.
* Tvu)f7i^ is the term used throughout this Epistle for a deep insight into the divine
truth; oo<b'ia is a more general term, but here (as being opposed to yvuatg) probabl;f
means practical wisdom.
6 See Ye*l. I. p. 429. ^ See Vol. I. p. 430.
' See Vol. I. pp. 428-431 for remarks on this and the other gifts mentioned in this
passage
;
members, and as all the members, thongti many,^ are aae body ;
not to the body," does it therebj" sever itself tiom the body
Or if the ear should say, " I am not the eye, therefore I belong ] g
not to the body," does it thereby sever itself from the body ?
But now God has placed the members severally in the body 18
according to His will. If all were one member, where w^ould]9
be the body? But now, though the members are many, yet 20
the body is one. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have 21
no need of thee ;" nor again the head to the feet, " I have no
need of you." ^^Tay, those parts of the body which are reckon- 22
e<i the feeblest are the most necessary, and those parts which 23
another proof that St. Paul was not unacquainted with classical literature.
^ On this classification, see Vol. I. p. 427, note 2 ; on the particular charisms and
offices mentioned in it. see pp. 428-434.
'
;
31 the best gifts and moreover, beyond them all,"^ I will show
;
3 love, I am nothing.
have not And though I sell all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, if 1
4 have not love, it profits me nothing. Love is long suffering
love is kind love envies not love speaks * no vaunts love
; ; ;
and the gift of Tongues shall cease, and the gift of Knowledge
9 shall come to nought. For our knowledge is imperfect, and
10 our prophecying is imperfect. But when the fulness of perfec-
U tion is come, then all that is imperfect shall pass away. When
I was a child, my words were
were child- childish, my desires
ish, my judgments were childish; but being grown a man, I
these three, Faith, Hope, and Love, abide for ever ; and the
greatest of these is Love.
XIV
Uirections for you to follow earnestly after Love ;
I beseech i
\JiG xGrciso of
the gift of Pro- yet I would havo you delis;ht in the spiritual 2;ifts,
phecy, and the . ^ .
^ ^
&
up the Church. I wish that you all had the gift of Tongues, 5
but rather that you had the gift of Prophecy for he who pro- ;
' 'EizEyvcjadTjv, literally " I was known," i. e. when in this world. The tense used
retrospectively ; unless it maybe better to take it as the aorist used in a perfect aense,
which is not uncommon in St. Paul's style.
3 This xQvm distinctly proves that the gift of Tongues was not a knowledge of
foreign languages, as is often supposed. See Vol. I. 429-430.
;
and ^ the secret depths of his heart are laid open ; and so he
will fall upon his face and worship God, declaring to all men
that God is in you of a truth. What follows then, brethren ?
1 Tou IdiuTov, not the unlearned (A. V.)^ but him ivho takes no part in the parti'
eular matter in hand.
* This is evidently the meaning of the verse. Gt:/mpare verse 2, 6 "XaliLv y?.6aa^
oiK dvdpo)7roig ?M7iel uTiXu rw dc(I), and verse 28, kavri) XaTietrcj Kai rcj ^ea>.
3 Is. xxviii. 11. "Not exactly according to the Hebrew or LXX.
That is, a condemnatory sign.
*
6 We mast not be led, from any apparent analogy, to confound the exercise of the
gift of Tonguoa in the primitive Church with modern exhibitions of fanaticism, which
bear a superficial resemblance to it. We must remember that such modern pretensions
\o this gift must of course resemble the manifestations of the original gift in external
features, because these very features have been the objects of intentional imitation.
6 Ov-ru is omitted in best MSS.
to THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
If, when you are met together, one is prepared to sing a hymn. 26
of praise, another to exercise his gift of Teachi'ag, another liis
there be any who speak in Tongues, let not more than two, or at
the most three, speak [in the same assembly]; and let them speak
in turn and let the same interpreter explain the words of all.
;
phets 3 the control over their own spirits'). For God is not the 33
author of confusion, but of peace.
The women 4 your consTrcffation, as in all the conerre-
must not offici- ^i i i
ate publicly in
tlie cojigrega-
o-ations of Clirist s xpeople,
x >
, i
the women must keepi
tio"-
silence ; for they are not permitted to speak in pub- 34
lie, but to show submission, as it is said also in the Book of the
Law."* And if they wish to ask any question, let them ask it 35
of their own husbands at home ; for it is disgraceful to women
to speak publicly in the congregation. [Whence is your claim 36
to change the rules delivered to you?] Was from you that
it
the word of God was first sent forth ? or, are you the only church
which it any think that'he has the gift 37
has reached i xSay, if
of Prophecy, or that he is a spiritual^ man, let him acknow-
ledge the words which I write for commands of the Lord Jesus.
But if any man refuse this acknowledgment, let him refuse it 38
at his own peril.
6 Bvev/iariKoc, the epithet on which the party of ApoUos (the ultra-Pauline party)
especially prided themselves. See chap, iii l-S, and Gal. vi. 1, vuelc ol TrvEVfxaTiKoL
FIRST EPIblLE TO THE COKINTHIAlfS. 61
4oProp]K!cy and not hinder the gift -of Tongues. And let all be
aone wiui decency and order.
XV.
1 Moreover, brethren, I ^
call to yonr remembrance
^
Tiie dwirint
^
of the Reur-
that which I declared to you as the Glad-tidin2:s
of
section of th
Dead establish-
Christ, whicli you then received, and wherein you against iu
^ ' 'I
impugners.
2 now stand firm ;
by which also you are saved if '
3 you still hold it fast, unless indeed you believed in vain. For
the lii-st thing which I taught you was that which I had my-
self been taught, that Christ died for our sins as the ScrijDtures
4 had foretold,' and that He was buried, and that lie rose^ the
5 third day from the dead, according to the Scriptures ; ^ and
6 that He was seen by Cephas, and then by The Twelve ; after
was seen by above five hundred brethren at once, of
that ho
wdiom the greater part are living at this present time, but
7 some are fallen asleep.^ Next He was seen by James, and then
8 by all the Apostles; and last of all He w^as seen by me also,
wlio am placed among the rest as it were by an untimely
9 birth for 1 am the least of the Apostles, and am not worthy
;
grace, which w^as bestowed upon me, was not fruitless but 1 ;
laboured more abundantly than all the rest; 3^et not I, but the
11 grace of God which was with me. So then, whether pro-
claimed by me, or by them, this is the truth which we declare,
and this is the truth wdiich you believed.
12 If then this be our tidings, that Christ is risen from the
Id^tade, literally you are in the way o f salvation. The words which follow (rivi
> Id the original it is kyfiyefnaL, not Jiyq^Utj : " He is risen," t ,t " He rose ; " because
Chript. being once risen, dieth no more.
< Among the Scriptures '*
here refen ed lo by St. Paul, one is the prophecy which
he him.y'lf quoted in the speech at Antioch frona Ps. xvi, 10.
Can we imagine it po?vSible that St. Paul should have said this without knowing it
riiss des Apostels eritscheidet fiir die Richtigkeit des Factums." (De W. in iuco.)
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES oF ST. PAUL.
we proclaim, and vain the faith with which you heard it.
all Christ is already risen afterwards they who are Christ's shall
;
in all.
Again, what will become of those who cause themselves to 29
> This argument founded on the union between Christ and His members : they BO
is
Bhate His life, He lives for ever, they must live also and conversely, if
that because ;
was considered unlawful t ; begin reaping. See Levit. xxiii. 10, 11, and Josephus
Antiq., iii. 10. The metaphj/*, therefore, is, *' As the single sheaf of first-fruits repre-
Bents and consecrates all the harvest, so Christ's resurrection represents and involve*
that of all who sleep in Him." It should be observed that kyhero is not preseuc (ai
In A. v.), but past.
< 'kpxvv Kol k^ovaiav Kol dvvafxiv. Compare Col. ii. 15 : uTTeKdvadjLtevog tUc apx^S
tal Tuc k^ovoiag. Compare also Eph. i. 21.
6 Ps. ex. 1. (LXX.) Quoted, and similarly applied, by our Lord himself, Mk&
jxii. 44.
Ps. viii. 6, nearly after LXX.
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIAlfS. 63
be baptized for the dead,i if the dead never rise again ? Why
ilien do tbey submit to baptism for tbe dead ?
85 But some disputer will say, " How are the dead raised up ?
36 and with what body do they rise ? " Thou fool, the seed which
thou sowest is not quickened into life till it hath partaken of
37 death. And that seed which thou sowest has not the same
body with the plant which will spring from it, but it is mere
38 grain, of wheat, or whatever else it may chance to be. But
God gives it a body according to His will and to every seed ;
the body of its own proper plant. For all flesh is not the same
39 flesh [but each body is fitted to the place it fills] ; the bodies
1 The only meaning which the Greek seems to admit here is a reference to the prac-
tice of submitting tobaptism instead of some person who had died unbaptized. Yet
this explanation is liable to very great difficulties. (1) How strange that St. Paul
should refer to such a superstition without rebuking it (2) If such a practice did
!
exist in the Apostolic Church, how can we account for its being discontinued in the
period which followed, when a magical
efficacy was more and more ascribed to the
material act of baptism. Yet the practice was never adopted except by some obscure
sects of Gnostics, who seem to have founded their custom on this very passage.
The explanations which have been adopted to avoid the difficulty, such us " over the
graves of the dead," or " in the name of the dead (meaning Christ)," &c., are all inad-
missible, as being contrary to the analogy of the language. On the whole, therefore,
the pafjsage must be considered to admit of no satisfactory explanation. It alludes to
some practice of the Corinthians, which has not been recorded elsewhere, and of which
every other trace has perished.
' We read ijfieTepav with Griesbach, on the authority of the Codex Alexandrinus.
probably passed into a proverbial expression. We see, from this passage, that the
free- thinkiug party at Corinth joined immoral practice with their licentious doctrine
^
vA that thv,y were corrupted by the evil example of their heathen neighbours.
"
6 '
^iKv^ipuTE, not awake (A. V.), but cease to be drunken.
;
'
ness and in beauty the heavenly differ from the earthly. The 41
Bun is more glorious than the moon, and the moon is more
glorious than the stars, and one star excels another in the glory
of its brightness. So will it be in the resurrection of the dead
[they will be clothed with a body fitted to their lot] ; it is sown 42
in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dis- 43
honour, it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised
in power ; it is sown a natural ^
body, it is raised a spiritual 44
body for ; as there are natural bodies, so there are also spirit-
ual bodies. And so it is written,'^ " The first man Adam was 45
made a living soul^'^ whereas, the last Adam was made a life-
giving spirit. But the spiritual comes not till after the natu- 46
ral. The first man was made of earthly clay, the second man 47
was the Lord from heaven. As is the earthly, such are they 48
also that are earthly and as is the heavenly, such are they
;
also that are heavenly and as we have borne the image of the 49
;
' For the translation of ipvxifcoc, see note on ii. 14. The reference to this of the fol-
lowing -ijjvxT/v (in the quotation) should be observed, though it cannot be retained m
English.
" Gen. ii. 7, slightly altered from LXX.
3 The importance of the subject justifies our quoting at some length the admirable
remarks of Dr. Burton (formerly Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford) on this pas-
sage, in the hope that his high reputation for learning and for unblemished orthodoxy
may lead some persons to reconsider the loose and unscriptural language which they
are in the habit of using :
After regretting that some of the early Fathers have (when
treating of the Resurrection of the Body) appeared to contradict these words of St,
Paul, Dr. Burton continues as follows :
" It is nowhere asserted in the New Testament that we shall rise again witfi our
bodies. Unless a man will say that the stalk, the blade, and the ear of corn are ac-
tually the same thing with the single grain which is put into the ground, he cannot
quote St. Paul as saying that we shall rise again with the same bodies or at least he ;
must allow that the future body may only be like to the present one, inasmuch as
both come under the same genus i. e. we speak of human bodies, and we speak of
;
heavenly bodies. But St. Paul's words do not warrant us in saying that the resem
bla^ce between the present and future body will be greater than between a man and a
Ett.i, or between a bird and a fish. Nothing can be plainer than the expression vvhicU
ho uses in the first of these two analogies. Thou sowest not th<Jt body that shall be
(XV. 37.) He says also, with equal plainness, of the body. It is sown a naJural body
it is raised a spiritual body : there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual bndy
(v. 44.) These words require to be examined closely, and involve remotely a deej?
5
H Upon the first day of the week, let each of you set apart what-
ever his gains may enable him to spare ; that there may be no
metaphysical question. In common language, the terms Body and Spirit are accus-
tomed and are used to represent two things which are totally distinct*
to be opposed,
Eqit St. Paul here brings the two expressions together, and speaks of a spiritual body.
Paul therefore did not oppose Body to Spirit : and though the looseness of mod-
em language may allow us to do so, and yet to be correct in our ideas, it may savo
some confusion if we consider Spirit as opposed to Matter, and if we take Body to be
a.generic term, which comprises both. A body, therefore, in the language of St. Paul,
is something which has a distinct individual existence.
"St Paul tells us that every individual, when he rises again, will have a Eipiritual
body but the remarks which I have made may show how different is the idea con-
:
veyed by these words from the notions which some persons entertain, that we shall
rise again with the same identical body. St. Paul appears effectually to preclude thia
notion, when h? says, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." (ver.
50.)Burton's Lectures, pp. 429-431.
^ I -x^. 8. Not quoted from the LXX., but apparently from the Hebrew, with
Bcme alteration.
' Hosea xiii. 14. Quoted, but not exactly, from LXX.
8 Why is the Law called "the strength of Sin?" Because the Law of Duty, being
acknowledged, gives to sin its power to wound the conscience in fact, a moral law ;
ot precepts and penalties announces the fatal consequences of sin, without giving ui
any powpr of conquering sin,
. VOL. II.
;
I shall remain with you, or even winter with you, that you may
forward me on my farther journey, whithersoever I go. Por I t
do not wish to see you now for a passing visit but I hope to ' ;
stay' some time with you, if the Lord permit. But I shall re- 8
main at Ephesus until Pentecost, for a door is opened to me 9
both great and effectual; and there are many adversaries
Timotheus. [agaiust whom I must contend]. If Timotheus come i
to you, be careful to give him no cause of fear,^ for he is labour-
ing, as I am, in the Lord's work. Therefore, let no manll
despise him, but forward him on his way in peace, that he
may come hither to me ; for I expect him, and the brethren
with him.
Apoiios. As regards the brother Apollos, 1 urged him 12
much you with the brethren [who bear this letter]
to visit
nevertheless, he was resolved not to come to you at this time,
but he will visit you at a more convenient season.
Exhortations. Be watchful, staud firm in faith, be manful and 15
Btout-hearted.3 Let all you do be done in love. 14
Stephanas,
Fortunatus,
You kuow, brethren, that the house of Stepha-16
n . * i
and Achaicus. nas^wcrcthe first-fruits of Achaia, and that they
have taken on themselves the task of ministering to Christ's
people. I exhort you, therefore, to show submission towards id
men ]ike these, and towards all who work laboriously with
them 1 rejoice in the coming of Stephanas and Portunatus, 17
and A.chaicis, for they* have supplied all which you needed; 18
' i. e. Paul had altered his original intention, which was to go from Ephesus, by
St.
sea, and thencj to Macedonia. For this change of purpose he was re-
to Corinth,
proached by the Judaizing party at Corinth, who insinuated that he was afraid to
come, and that he dared not support the loftiness of. his pretensions by corresponding
deeds (see 2 Cor. i. 17 and x. 1-12). He explains his reason for postponing his visit
iu 2 Cor. i. 23. It was an anxiety to give the Corinthians time f:tr repentance, that h
might not be forced to use severity witli them.
' The youth of Timotheus accounts for this request. Compare 1 Tim. iv. 12.
20 All the brethren here salute you. Salute one another with the
kiss of holiness.''
22 hand. Let him who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ
be accursed. The Lord cometh.^
23,24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My
love be with you all in Christ Jesus.*
and now, after the prospect of completing his charitable exertions for the
Jn ftict. it would have been most incongruous to have blended together a Greek word
(A>;aTHEMA) \'ith a Hebrew phrase (MAR AN ATHA), and to use the compound
as a framiiia of execration. This was not done till (in later ages of the Church) the
mtvaiiing of ttie terms themselves was lost.
* The " Amen " is not found in the best MSS.
& The important application made in the Hora3 Paulinas of those coincidences
between the Acts and Corinthians, and again those referred to below between the Asta
*nd Romans, need only be alluded to.
See Menken-s Blicke in das Leben, u s. w.
soon after this time, in the Epistle to the Roman Christiang;, wtiGBi h%
bad long ago desired to see (Rom. i. 10-15), and whom he hopes at
length to visit, now that he is on his way to Jerusalem, and looka forward
to a still more distant and hazardous journey to Spain (ib. xv. 22-29).
The path thus dimly traced before him, as he thought of the future at
Ephesus, and made more clearly visible, when he wrote the letter at
Corinth, was made still more evident ' as he proceeded on his course.
Yet not without forebodings of evil,* and much discouragement,^ and
mysterious delays,'' did the Apostle advance on his courageous career.
But we are anticipating many subjects which will give a touching in-
terest to subsequent passages of this history. Important events still
detain us in Ephesus. Though St. Paul's companions had been sent be-
fore in the direction of his contemplated journey (Acts xix. 22), he still
By the visions at Jerusalem (Acts xxiii. 11), and on board the ship (xxvii. i23, 24),
* Compare what he wrote to the Romans (Rom. xv. 30, 31) with what be Bfdd at
Miletus (Acts XX. 22, 23), and with the scene at Ptolemais (Ib. xxi. 10-14).
' The arrest at Jerusalem.
CHAPTER XYI.
" But I shall remain at Ephesus until Pentecost j for a door is opened to me hoik
great and effectual, and there are many adversaries against whom I must contend."
1 Cor. xvi. 8, 9.
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Acts xix. 28.
com OF EPHBST3S.'
The boundaries of the province of Asia,'' and the position of its chief city
Ijphesus,^ have already been placed before the reader. It is now time
that we should give some description of the city itself, with a notice of
its characteristic religious institutions, and its political arrangements under
the Empire.
No cities were ever more favourably placed for prosperity and growth
than those of the colonial Greeks in Asia Minor. They had the advan-
tage of a coast-line full of convenient harbours, and of a sea which was
favourable to the navigation of that day by the long approaches;
and,
formed by the plains of the great western they had access to the rivers,
inland trade of the East. Two of these rivers have been more than once
alluded to,
the Hermus and the Maeander." The valley of the first was
bounded on the south by the ridge of Tmolus that of the second was ;
miles from the sea a narrow gorge is formed by Mount Paelyas on the
Bouth, which is the western termination of Messogis/ and by the preci'
pices of Gallesus on the north, the pine-clad summits ^ of which are more
remotely connected with the heights of Tmolus. This gorge separates the
Upper Caystrian meadows from a small alluvial plain" by the sea.
age of which we are writing, ^^aving easy access\ through the defiles of
Mount Tmolus to Sardis, and thence up the valley of the Hermus far
into Phrygia,' and again, by a similar pass through Messogis to the
Mseander, being connected with the great road through Iconium to the
Euphrates, '^it became the metropolis of the province of Asia under the
rode among the roots of Gallesus, or the Aleman, through pleasant thickets abounding
with goldfinches. The aerial summits of this immense mountain towered above us,
clad with pines. Steep succeeded steep, as we advanced, and the path became more
narrow, slippery, and uneven the known sureness of foot of our horses being our
confidence and secm'ity by fearful precipices and giddy heights." p. 103. For the
Cayster and the site of Ephesus, see p. 107. The approach from Sardis, by which we
suppose St. Paul to have come (see above, p. 10), was on this side and part of the
:
morass has advanced considerably into the sea since the flourishing times of Ephesus.
Bee Plin. H. N. v. 31.
6 The only maps which can be referred to for the topography of Ephesus are the
wnen the city of Ephesus was unimportant. See Grote's Greece, vol. m. p. 375 and
compare pp. 235-243.
' In this direction we imagine
St. Paul to have travelled. See above.
Wehave frequently had occasion to mention this great road. See Vol. 1. pp. 269-
272. II. p. 12. It was the principal line of communication with the eastern provinces
but we have conjectured that St. Paul did not travel by it, because it seems probable
that he never was at Colossse.See Vol. II. p. 12. A description of the route by Colos-
886 and Laodicea will be found in Arundell's Asia Minor. The view he gives of tha
cliffs of Colossa) (vol. ii. p. 164) should be noticed. Though St. Paul may never havi
ieen them, they are interesting as connected with Epaphras and his other converts.
.
DESCRIPTION OF EPHESU8. 71
Homans, and the chief emporium of trade on the nearer side of Taurus.^
The city built by Androclus' and his Athenian followers was on the slope
of Coressus ;
but gradually it descended into the plain, in the direction of
the Temple of Diana. The Alexandrian age produced a marked altera-
tion in Ephesus, as in most of the great towns in the East and Lysima- ;
chus extended his new city over the summit of Prion as well as the
heights of Coressus.^ (The Roman age saw, doubtless, a still further in
crease both of the size and magnificence of the place.) To attempt to
reconstruct it from the materials which remain, would be a difficult task,*
far
bour,^ where Aquila and Priscilla landed ; and they visit in its deep
recesses the dripping marble-quarries, where the marks of the tools are
visible still.^ On the outer edge of the same hill they trace the enclosure
of the Stadium,^ which may have suggested to St. Paul many of those
images with which he enforces Christian duty, in the first letter written
from Ephesus to Corinth.' Farther on, and nearer Coressus, the remains
of the vast theatre ^ (the outline of the enclosure is still distinct, though
them missed his antagonist, and with his horn broke a crust of the whitest marble.
The Ephesians were at this time in search of stone for the building of their temple.
The shepherd ran to his fellow-citizens with the specimen, and was received with joy.
His name was changed into Evangelus (the giver of glad-tidings), and divine honours
were afterwards paid to him. Vitruv. x. 7.
6 See Chandler, who measured the area and found it 687 feet in length. The side
next the plain is raised on vaults, and faced with a strong w^all.
1 1 Cor. ix. 24-27.
by Demetrius, there caa
" Of the site of the theatre, the scene of the tumult raised
be no doubt, its wreck of immense grandeur. I think it must have been
ruins being a
lar^ov than the one at Miletus, and that exceeds any I have elsewhere seen in scale,
altL.agh not in ornament. Its form alone can now be spoken of, for every seat ii
removed, and the proscenium is a hill of ruins." Fellows' Asia Minor, p. 274. The
theatre of Ephesus is said to be the largest known of any that have remained to m
from antiquity.
DESCim'TIOK OF EPHESU8. T3
the marble seats are removed) show the place where the multitude, roused
by Demetrius, shouted out, for two hours, in honour of Diana.^ Below
is the Agora,'^ through which the mob rushed up to the well-known place
of meeting. And in the valley between Prion and Coressus is one of the
gymnasia,^ where the athletes were trained for transient honours and a
perishable garland. Surrounding and crowning the scene, are the long
Hellenic walls of Lysimachus, following the ridge of Coressus.'' On a
Bpur of the hill, they descend to an ancient tower, which is still called the
prison of St. Paul.^ The name is doubtless legendary ; but St. Paul may
have stood here, and looked over the city and the plain, and seen the
Cayster winding towards him from the base of Gallesus.^ Within his view
was another eminence, detached from the city of that day, ]3ut which be-
came the Mahomedan town when ancient Ephesus was destroyed, and
nevertheless preserves in its name a record of another apostle, the " disci-
ple" St. John.'
(But one building at Ephesus surpassed all the rest in magnificence and
in fame. This was the Temple of Artemis or Diana,^ which gUttered in
brilliant beauty at the head of the harbour, and was reckoned by the
ancients as one of the wonders of the worldj The sun, it was said, saw
nothing in his course more magnificent than Diana's Temple. (Its honour
dated from remote antiquity) Leaving out of consideration the earliest
temple, which was cotemporaneous with the Athenian colony under An-
droclus, or even yet more ancient,^ we find the great edifice, which was
* Acts xix.
its public buildings, would naturally be between the hill-side on
The Agora, with
tmich the theatre and stadium stood, and the harbour. For the general notion of a
Greek Agora, see the description of Athens,
3 See an engraving of these ruins in the second volume of Ionian Antiquities, pub-
^long the heights of Coressus. It extends for nearly a mile and three-quarters, in a
S.E. and N. W. direction, from the heights immediately to the S. of the gymnasium to
the tower called the Prison of St. Paul, but which is in fact one of the towers of the
ancient wall It is defended and strengthened by numerous square towers of the
Bame character at unequal distances." Hamilton's Kesearches, vol. ii. p. 26. An
engraving of one of the gateways is given, p. 27. & Hamilton, as above.
" This eminence (a root of Coressus running out towards the plain) commands a
lovely prospect of the river Cayster, which there crosses the plain from near Gallesus,
with a small but full stream, and with many luxuriant meanders." Chandler.
' Ayasaluk, which is a round hill like Prion, but smaller. This is the eminence
which forms a conspieuous object in our engraved view. See Vol. I. Its name is said
to be a corruption of 6 dyioc Qeoloyog.
8 One of the chief works on this temple is that of Hirt (Ueber den Tempel der
Diana von Ephesus Berlin, 1809). We have not been able to consult it, though we
:
have used the extracts given by Guhl. See also Miiller's Archaologie. New light
nay be expected on the subject in Mr. Falkener's work. See above.
For all that is known on this subject, see Guhl, pp. 78 and 160.
74: THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
anterior to* the. Macedonian period, begun and continued in the miJsl cl
the attention and admiration both of Greeks and Asiatics. The founda*
tions were carefully laid, with immense substructions, in the marshy
ground.' Architects of the highest distinction were employed.'^ The
quarries of Mount Prion supplied the marble.^ All the Greek cities of
Asia contributed to the structure ; and Croesus, the king of Lydia, himself
lent his The work thus begun before the Persian war, was slowly
aid."*
continued even through the Peloponnesian war and its dedication was ;
^tfieTuuGLv. Philo Byz. de Septem Orbis Miraculis, in the eighth volume of Grono
vius, 2682. Ne in lubrico atque instabili fundamenta tantae raolis locarentur, calcatis
ea substuere carbonibus, dein velleribiis lanae. Plin. xxxvi. 21. He says that it waa
built in marshy ground, lest it should be injured by earthquakes. See Diog.
Laert. ii. 8, 19.
" The first architect was Theodore of Samos. He was succeeded by Chersiphon of
Gnossus, then by his son Metagenes. The building was completed by Demetrius and
PflBonius.
3 Sc-8 above, p. 71.
* Communiter a civitatibus Asise factum. Liv. i. 45. Tota Asia extrueate, PHa.
Xvi. 79. Factum a tota Asia, Plin. xxxvi. 21.
* Timotheus. Seo Miiller's History of Greek Literature.
Strabo, xiv. 1.
TEMPLE OF DIANA. 75
the Asiatic Greek, than the sterner and plainer Doric, in which the Par-
thenon and Propylsea were built.^ The scale on which the Temple was
erected was magnificently extensive. It was 425 feet in length and 220
in breadth, and the columns were 60 feet high.' The number of columns
was 121, each of them the gift of a king ; and 36 of them were enriched
der Diana von Ephesus bezeichnet eine wesentliche Epoche in dieser Kunst. Ei
weckte ganz neuen Geist, und bewirkte den kiihnen Umschwung,
in derselben einen
vermoge dessen es vielleicht allein moglich ward die architektonische Kup.st der Grles
chen auf jene Hohe zu fiihren, wodurch sie das voUendete Vorbild fiir sille gebildetef
Volker und Zeiten ward."
See Vol I. ch. x. ^ Plin. xxxvi. 21.
76 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
the part which was not open to the sky was roofed over With cedar ;
^ and
the staircase was formed of the wood of one single vine from the island of
Cyprus.'' |The value and fame of the Temple were enhanced by its being
the treasury, in which a large portion of the wealth of Western Asia was
Bl>or?d up.^ It is probable that there was no religious building in the
COIN OF EPHESUS.e
1 Ibid. This " Ccelatura " seems to have denoted an enrichment with colour and
metal, which was intended to elucidate the mouldings and to relieve the perspective.
See Plin. xxxiv. 7. Or perhaps the word denotes bas-reliefs. The word " Caelavere "
is applied by Pliny to the decoration of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, which we
know to have been bas-reliefs.
' Plin. xvi. 79. He adds that they lasted 400 years: so Theophrastus, Tovruv
Xooviurara SokeI tcL KviraptTTiva elvai, rd yovv kv 'E0eff^ uv al -dvpaL tov veci
redavpia/ievai, Terrapac kKelvTO yeviag. Hist. Plant, v. 5.
3 Plin, xvi. 79. Vitruv. ii. 9.
* This too seems to have been one of the wonders of the vegetable world. " Etiam
Dunc scalis tectum Ephesiae Dianas scanditur una e vite Cypria, ut ferunt, quoniam ibi
ad praecipuam magnitudinem exeunt." Plin. xiv. 2.
6 A German writer says that the temple of the Ephesian Diana was what the Bank
IMAGE OF DIAUA.
worship between Greek and 0/iental notions, we need not enquire.^ (The
image^ay have been intended to represent Diana in one of her customary
characters, as the deity of fountains ;
^ but it reminds us rather of the
idols of the far East, and of the religions which love to represent the life
of all animated beings as fed and supported by the many breasts of na-
ture.2 The figure which assumed this emblematic form above, was termir
nated below in a shapeless block. The material was wood."* A bar of
metal was in each hand. The dress was covered with mystic devices, and
the small shrine, where it stood within the temple, was concealed by a cur-
tain in front. Yet, rude as,the image was, it was the object of the utmost
Teneration. Like the Palladium of Troy,^ like the most ancient Minerva
of the Athenian Acropolis,^ like the Paphian Yenus ' or Cybele of Pessi-
nus,^ to which allusion has been made, like the Ceres in Sicily mentioned
by Cicero,^ ^it(was believed to have "fallen down from the sky"}" (Acts
xix. 35). Thus it was the object of the greater veneration from the con-
trast of its primitive simplicity with the modern and earthly splendour
which surrounded it ; and it was the model on which the images of Diana
were formed for worship in other cities."
One of the idolatrous customs of the ancient world was the use of por-
table images or shrines, which were little models of the more celebrated
* Miiller says :
" AUes, was vom Kultus dieser Gottin erzahlt wird, ist singular und
flem Hellenischen fremd." See Guhl (p. 86), who takes the contrary view.
' is GuhPs opinion.
This
3The form of the image is described by Jerome " Scribebat Paulus ad Ephesioa :
Dianam colentes, non hanc venatricem, quae arcum tenet atque succincta est, sed illam
multimammiam, quam Graeci izolvfiaanqv vocant." Procem. ad Eph. See Min. Felix
in Octav. Representations in ancient sculpture are very frequent. See for instance
one engraved in the Museo Borbonico. The coin at the head of this chapter gives a
general notion of the form of the image.
4 What kind of wood, seems to be doubtful. Pliny says " Convenit tectum ejus e :
cedrinus trabibus de ipso simulacro Deae ambigitur. Cseteri ex ebeno esse tradunt.
:
Mucianus ter consul ex his, qui proxime vero conscripsere, vitigineum, et nunquani
mutatum, septies restituto templo." xvi. 79. See Vitruv. ii. 9.
Apollod. iii. 12, 3.
Td 6k d-yiurarov . . . hriv 'Adrjvdg aya7\,(xa ev vvv aKpoTzoXeL . . . <j)ij/X7) d* airi
ixei irenelv ek tov ovpavov. Pausan. Att. 26. This was the Minerva Pohas. See
above in the description of Athens, Vol. I. p. 358.
7 See the description of Paphos above. Vol. I. p. 156.
* Altftrum simulacrum erat tale, ut homines, cum viderent aut ipsam videre m
Cerereni, aut efiSgiem Cereris, non humana manu factam, sed coelo delapsam, arbitra"
rentur. Cic. in Verr. v. 187.
10 Toi) Aionerovg. So it is said of the Tauric image of the same goddess
'Ev6' 'AprsfiL^ avyyovog (36fiovg ix^t
AaBelv t' LyaXiia ^euc, 6 (paaiv evdxde
Ei'f Tovade vaovg ovpavov Tceatlv c rro.
Iph. in Taor. 86.
'> See Stiabo iii. and iv., quoted by Biscoe, p. 282.
78 THE LIFE Amy EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
houses.^ Pliny says that this was the case with the Temple of the Cnidiao
Yenus ;
^ and other heathen writers make allusion to the " shrines" of the
Ephesian Diana,^ which are mentioned in the Acts (xix. 24). The mate'
rial might be wood,' or gold,^ or " silver." ^ The was
latter material
that which employed the hands of the workmen of Demetrius. (Erom the
expressions used by St. Luke, it is evident that an extensive and lucrative
trade grew up at Ephesus, from the manufacture and sale of these shrines.^"
Pew of those who came to Ephesus would willingly go away without a
memorial of the goddess, and a model of her temple ; and from the wide
eirculation of these works of art over the shores of the Mediterranean, and
far into the interior, it might be said, with little exaggeration, tnat her
worship was recognised by the "whole world 'J^^ (Acts xix. 27).
The ceremonies of the actual worship at Ephesus were conducted by
the members of a two-fold hierarchy. And here again we see the traces
Diana, were eunuchs from the interior, under one at their head, who bore
the title of high priest,^'* and ranked among the leading and most influen-
tial personages of the city. Along witb these priests were associated a
J
Herod, ii. 63.
^ Asclepiades philosophus deae coelestis argenteum breve figmentum, quocunque ibat,
aecum solitus efferre. Amm. Marc. xxii. 13.
3 Dio (xl. 18) says of the Roman legionary eagle : eort 6^ vedg juiKpoc, Kal kv avrci
derdf ;i;pv(Toi}f evtdpvrat. Compare Cicero's "aquila ilia argentea, cui domi tuse sacra-
Td T^c 'E^eamf 'ApTe/iL^o^ dcfftSpyjuaTa. Dion. Hal. ii. 22. See Strabo iv., and
Died. Sic. XV. 49, referred to by Hemsea, p. 227.
" Herod, as above.
Naci)c xP'^^^ovc dvo. Diod. Sic. in Hemsen, p. 227.
With this passage of the Acts compare Petron. 29 ; " Prieterea grande armarium
11 We cannot be sure, in this case, whether by vdog or vcl^lov is meant the whole
temple or the small shrine which contained the image. Perhaps its form is that repre-
cnted on the first coin engraved in Mr. Akerman's paper in the Num. Chr.
1* We find the image of the Ephesian Diana on the coins of a great number of other
jitiea and communities, e. g. Hierapolis, Mitylcne, Perga, Samos, Marseilles, &c. See
Guhl, p. 104. There is an important inscription in Cliandler (Boeckh, 2954), bearing
testimony to the notoriety of her worship. See part of it quoted below.
13 'lf/;taf evvovxovc dxov, ovg tKulovu Meya/Mfw^ovg, Kal uXXaxot^sv fieTtovrtc det
nvag d^tovc rrjq TOLavrrjc Tvpoaranlac Kal rjyov kv ri/xr) jueydXy. Strabo, xiv. 1. GuhJ
believes that these priests were generally brought from Persia.
14 He was also called Essen and Rex. Sec Hesych., and the Et. Magn. On inacril^
iions an 1 coins he 'is called dpxLtpEvg. See Eckhel, Mionnet, and Boeckh.
WORSHIP OF BIANA, 7^
the service" of the deity, and divided into three classes,^' and serving,
Ii>e the pries Ij, under one head.'* And with the priests and priestesses
would be associated (as in all the great temples of antiquity) a great
number of slaves,^ who attended to the various duties connected with the
worship, down to the care of sweeping and cleaning the Temple. This
last phrase leads us to notice an expression used in the Acts of the
This was the case with Ephesus in reference to her national goddess.
The city was personified as Diana's devotee. The title " Neocoros " was
boastfully exhibited on the current coins.^ Even the free people of Ephe-
sus was sometimes named " Neocoros ^ Thus, the town-clerk could with
good reason begin his speech by the question,
" What man is there that
1 Literally they may be termed a swarm, for their name was Melissae, " bees," per-
haps with some reference to Essen. Hermann thinks the word came from fieXeadai.
' These priestesses belonged to the class of iepodovT^oi, " sacred slaves." For thi
class of devotees, which was common in the great temples of the Greeks, see Hermann's
Gottesdienstliche Alterthiimer, 20, 14-16, &c. also 3, 9. Different opinions have
:
been expressed on the character or these priestesses. An Italian writer says : " Per
quanto casta fosse Diana, e da credersi, che le sue ierodule in Efeso ed altre citta
Greche ballerine, piutosto erano, che Vestali." Boeckh says " Es ist mit der Hiero-
;
dulie nur der BegrifiT jungfraulicher Ziichtigkeit zu vereinen mit mannlichen Heldeu-
muthe." See Guhl, who adds *' ita ut eundem fere in cultu vim habuisse censeam
:
kncws not that the city of the Ephesians is neocoros of the great goddeas
Diana, and of the image which came down from heaven ? "
The Temple and the Temple-services remained under the Romans as
they had been since the period of Alexander. If any change had taken
place, greater honour was paid to the goddess, and richer magnificence
added to her isanctuary, in proportion to the wider extent to which her
fame had been spread. Asia w^as always a favoured province,^ and
Ephesus must be classed among those cities of the Grreeks, to which the
conquerors were willing to pay distinguished respect.'* Her liberties and
her municipal constitution were left untouched, when the province was
governed by an officer from Rome. To the general remarks which have
been made before in reference to Thessalonica,^ concerning the position of
free or autonomous cities under the Empire, something more may be added
here, inasmuch as some of the political characters of Ephesus appear on
the scene which is described in the sacred narrative.
We have said, in the passage above alluded to, that free cities under
the Empire had frequently their senate and assembly. There is abundant
proof that this was the case at Ephesus. Its old constitution was demo-
cratic, as we should expect in a city of the lonians, and as we are dis-
tinctly told by Xenophon : ^ and this constitution continued to subsist
under the Romans. The senate, of which Josephus speaks,^ still met in
more frequent notices of the demus or people, and its assemUy.^ Wher-
ever its customary place of meeting might be when legally and regularly
convoked (ewo/zu kKKlrjaia, Acts xix. 39), the theatre^ would be an obvious
place of meeting, in the case of a tumultuary gathering, like that which
will presently be brought before our notice.
Again, |ike other free cities, Ephesus had its magistrates, as Thessalo-
nica had its politarchs (Yol. I. pp. 334-336), and Athens its archons^
Among those which our sources of information bring before us, are several
The circumstances under which this province came under the Roman power were
fuch as to provoke no hostility. See Vol. I. pp. 239, 240.
* See VoV ^ :!33. 3 Ibid. 333-335, and compare p. 292.
4 Xen. lit, 4, 7. ^ Ant. xiv. 10, 12, also 2, 5, and xvi. 6, 4, 7.
Ach. l at. vii.. 7 See the allusion to the Agora above, p. 73.
In Josephus xiv. xvi. (as above) the senate and assembly are combined. We find
^//of in inscriptions, as in that just quoted, as well as 2954, mentioned above, and oa
coins (Mionnet, Supp. vi. n. 447), also kuKlTjala (Bocckh, 2987). Compare Cic. Tusc.
Qu. V. 36. The senate is sometimes called /SouA?}, as in the inscription last quoted,
eometimes yepovala, as in another inscription. Boeckh, 2987, b.
8 For illustrations of the habit of Greek assemblies to meet in theatres, see Cic. pro
Flacc. vii. Corn. Nep. Timol. 4, 2. Tacitus says of Vespasian :
" Antiochensium
thcatrum ingressus, ubi illis consultare mos est, concurrentes et in adulaticnem efifiisofl
with the Same titles and functions as in Athens.' One of these was that
officer who is described as " town-clerk " in the authorized version of the
Bible {ypauixarevg, Acts xix. 35). Without being able to determine hia
exact duties, or to decide whether another term, such as " Chancellor," or
*'
Recorder," would better describe them to us,'' we may assert, from the
parallel case of Athens,^ and from the Ephesian records themselves,'* that
sent when money was deposited in the Temple ^ and when letters were ;
government. From coins and from inscriptions, ' from secular writers and
Scripture itself (Acts xix. 38), ^we learn that Asia was a proconsular
province.^O We shall not stay to consider the question which has been
raised concerning the usage of the plural in this passage of the Acts ; for
it is not necessarily implied that more than one proconsul was in Ephesus
at the time.''* But another subject connected with the provincial arrange-
I
For instance, besides tlie archons, strategi, gymnasiarchs, &o.
" In Luther's Bible the term " Canzler " is used.
' There were several ypafifxaTelg at Athens. Some of them were state-officers of
high importance.
< In inscriptions he is called ypanfiareijg rov diijjuov and ypaju/xarevg r^f TroAeuf.
6 'Ode VTTO Tov drifiov alpeOeic; ypa/xfiarevc dvayiyvcjaKei rcj re 6ijfj.<f) Koi ry (3ovXf,
Poll. Onom.
6 See Boeckh, Corp. Insc. 2953, b.
' A letter of Apollonius to the Ephesians is addressed 'E^ea^wv ypa/ifiaTemi.
8 The first coin described in Mr. Akerman's paper exhibits to us the same man af
ipxiepevc and ypa/z/iarevg. See note at the end of this chapter.
* 'EiTViJvvfiog.
10 See, for instance, the coin p. 76, and the inscription p. 79.
II
See the account of this province in the first volume.
* Meyer and De Wette it is simply the generic plural, as In
are content to say that
Matt. In the Syriac version the word is in the singular. Grotius takes it as
ii. 20.
denoting the proconsul and his legatus. Basnage suggested that it refers to Celer
and ^lius, who governed the province of Asia as " procuratores Asiae" after the poi-
eoning of Silanus the proconsul (Tac. Ann. xiii. 1), and who might have the insignia
of proconsuls, and be flattered by the title. This view is followed by Blscoe, and by
Mr. Lewin in his Life and Epistles of St. Paul," which has been published during the
progress of the present work. A more probable conjecture is that some of the goverw
, VOL. Tl,
;
and for the convenient administration of justice, the whole country was-
divided into districts, each of which had its own assize town ( forum or
amventus^). The proconsul, at stated seasons, made a circuit through
these districts, attended by his interpreter (for all legal business in the
Empire was conducted in Latin '^), and those who had subjects of Uti-
always in the habit of mentioning the assize-towns, and the extent of the
shires which surrounded them. In the province of Asia, he takes especial
notice of Sardis, Smyrna, and Ephesus, and enumerates the various towns
which brought their causes to be tried at these cities.^ The official visit
remind his fellow-citizens in the same breath that it was the very time of
the assizes [u-yopaiot dyovrat, Acts xix. 38).''
would then be coincident with the great gathering which took place at the
celebration of the national games. It seems that the ancient festival of
the United lonians had merged into that which was held in honour of the
Ephesian Diana.^ The whole month of May was consecrated to the glory
ors of the neighbouring provinces, such as Achaia, Ciiicia, Cyprus, Bithynia, Pam-
pbylia,might be present at the public games. See Biscoe, pp. 282-285. The governors
of neighbouring provinces were in frequent communication with each other. See
Vol. I. p. 24.
1 Conventus was used both for the assize-town and the district to which its juris-
diction extended. It was also used to denote the actual meeting for the assizes. See
Hoeckh's Rom. Gesch. i. ii. p. 193.
' See Vol. I. pp. 3 and 24.
tionem.^' In ch. xxxi. he says of Smyrna and Ephesus, " Smyrnaeum conventum magna
pars ^oliaj frequentat, &c Ephesura vero alterum lumen Asiae, remotiores con-
veniunt Caef-arienses, Metropolitae, &c." The term forum is used as equivalent to con-
ventus and jurisdictio, e. g. in reference to the assizes of Alabanda, ch. xxix., " loa-
because he was occupied with military proceedings in the summer, and need not be
regarded as a precedent for other provinces.
6 What the festival of Delos was for the islands, the Panionian festival was for the
mainland. But Ephesus seems ultimately to have absorbed and concentrated this
celebration. See Hermann, ^ 47, 4. 66, 4. These games were called Artemisia,
Eph isia. and Gilcumenica.
:
THE ASIARCH8. 83
of tLe goddess ; and the month itself received from her the name of Artemi
sionJ The Artemisian festival was not simply an Ephesian ceremony, but
tvas fostered by the sympathy and enthusiasm of all the surrounding neigh'
Dourhood. As the Temple of Diana was called " the Temple of Asia," so
this gathering was called " the common meeting of Asia." ' From tha
towns on the coast and in the interior, the lonians came up with their
wives and children to witness the gymnastic and musical contests,^ and to
enjoy the various amusements, which made the days and nights of May
one long scene of revelry.'* To preside over these games, to provide the
necessary expenses, and to see that due order was maintained, annual
officers were appointed by election from the whole province. About the
time of the vernal equinox each of the principal towns within the district
called Asia, chose one of its wealthiest citizens, and, from the whole
number thus returned, ten were finally selected to discharge the duty of
Asiarchs.^ We find similar titles in use in the neighbouring provinces,
Hyeadat 6i eif avralg {rov firjvbg r^/iepaig) rag ioprug kol t?)v tuv 'Apre/xcatuv iravi^
yvpLv, And it conchides by stiying Ovtu> yap enl ro u/xeivov rrjg QprjoKetag ytvo/xivT/r
:
^ 'Kokig rifiiv hdo^oripa Kal evdai/uuv eig tov navra diajuevel xpovov. The inscrip-
tion has been noticed by a long series of travellers, from Ricaut to Forchammer,
Boeckh's judgment is " Habes fragmentum decreti Ephesiorum de augenda religione
:
Dianae suae, factum fortasse tum, quum asylorum examinarentur jura." Tac. Ann. iii.
61. If this is correct, the stone was cut not many years before St. Paul's arrival in
Ephesus.
' Kotvov 'Aaiag 'E^eaiwv on coins. The temple appears as 6 Trig 'Aclag vdog in in
Bcriptions.
3 Thucydides says of these Ephesian games, ^Aydv koL jvfiviKog and fiovaiKCf,
Thuc. iii. 104.
< 'Hv T^g ^Aprefiidog lepojuijvla, Kal fxedvovTuv izdvra fieard' uare Kal di' 6?ins
WKTog Ttjv dyopdv dnaaav Karelxe nlridog dvOpuiruv. Ach. Tac. vi. p, 363 (ed. 1640).
6 'Aalapxai, Acts xix., translated " Chief
of Asia " in the A. Y. Aristides is the
authority for what is here said of the mode of appointment. From what is said in
Eusebius (H. E. iv. 15) of one Asiarch presiding at the martyrdom of Poiycarp, it hai
been needlessly supposed that in this passage of the Acts we are to consider all but one
to have been assessors of the chief Asiarch, or else those to be meant who had held the
office in
the previous years and retained the title, like the High Priest at Jerusalem.
See Winer's Real Worterbuch. Among the Ephesian inscriptions in Boeckh we find
:M. J. ATP. AI0NT2I0N TON lEPOKHPTKA KAI B ASiAPXON
the following
EK TfiN lAliiN T ^A M0TNAT102 ^-lAOSEBASTOS 0 FPAMMATFYS KAI
ASJAPXH'SA.S. No. 2990. See also 2994. The abbreviation B. ACl. (twice Asiarch^
appears on a coic llypressa, represented in Ak. Num. 111. p. 51.
Ptrabo, xiv. 3. 7 Malalas, pp. 285, 289, ed. Bonn.
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
rather to expend large sums for the amusement of the people and theil
own credit,' they were necessarily persons of wealth. Men of consular
rank were often wilUng to receive the appointment, and it was held to
nhancc the honour of any other magistracies with which they migl t be
invested. They held for the time a kind of sacerdotal position ^ and, ;
when robed in mantles of purple and crowned with garlands,^ they assumed
the duty of regulating the great gymnastic contests, and controUing the
tumultuary crowd in the theatre, they might literally be called the " Chief
of Asia" (Acts xix. 31).
These notices of the topography and history of Ephesus, of its religi-
ous institutions, and political condition under the Empire, may serve to
clear the way for the narrative which we must now pursue. We resume
the history at the twenty-second verse of the nineteenth chapter of the
Acts, where we are told of a continued stay* in Asia after the burning of
the books of the magicians.^ Paul was indeed looking forward to a
journey through Macedonia and Achaia, and ultimately to Jerusalem and
Rome ;
^ and in anticipation of his departure he had sent two of his com-
panions into Macedonia before him.'^ The events which had previously
occurred have already shown us the great effects which his preaching had
produced both among the Jews and Gentiles.^ And those which follow
show us still more clearly how wide a "door"^ had been thrown open to
the progress of the Gospel. (The Idolatrous practices of Ephesus were so
far endangered, that the interests of one of the prevalent trades of the
place were seriously affected ; and meanwhile St. Paul's character had
risen so high, as to obtain influence over some of the wealthiest and most
powerful personages in the province. The scene which follows is entirely
connected with the religious observances of the city of Diana. The Jews^'
fall into the background. Both the danger and safety of the Apostle
originate with the Gentiles.)
(it seems to have been the season of spring when the occurrences took
place which are related by St. Luke at the close of his nineteenth chapter.'^
We have already seen that he purposed to stay at Ephesus " till Pente-
J Compare the aase of those who discharged the state-services or liturgies at Athens.
Such was often the position of the Roman aediles and the same may be said of the
:
sost ]^ and it has been stated that May was the " month of Diana/' in
which the great religious gathering took place to celebrate the games *
If this also was the season of the provincial assize (which, as we haY(
Been, is highly probable), the city would be crowded with various classes
of people. Doubtless those who employed themselves in making the por-
table shrines of Diana expected to drive a brisk trade at such a time j
and
when they found that the sale of tl ese objects of superstition was seri-
ously diminished, and that the preaching of St. Paul was the cause of their
Such a speech could not be lost, when thrown like fire on such inflamma-
tory materials. The infuriated feeling of the crowd of assembled artizans
^ See the end of the preceding chapter,
' See above. 3 ToiSj rexvirag ovvadpoiaaQ, vv. 24, 25.
< Kal Todc irepl rd roiavra hpydrag, v. 25.
See vv. 25, 26.
See V. 27. As one of the commentators says :
" Sic callidus opifex (et habnit in
istac parte per omnia ssecula suos imitatores) causam suam privatam tegit sub larva
religionis."
' See what is said above on the position of the Temple. It would probably be visible
^om the neighbourhood of the Agora, where we may suppose Demetrius to have
harangued the workmen.
8 'Ohfi 7] ^Aala, V. 27. Compare ndorig rrjc Aatag, v. 26 ; and ndvra rodg Karoir
Kovvrag ttjv ^Aoluv, v. 10.
9 'H OLKov/LtevT], V. 27. Compare rig yap eariv dvOpuTrog dg ov yivuoKti, k. t, /I., in
the town-clerk's sneech. v. 35.
86 THE LIFE AJSTD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
broke out at once into a cry in honour of the divine patron jf their city
and fheir craft,
" Great is Diana of ^he Ephesians."^
The excitement among this important and influential class of operatives
was not long in spreading through the whole city.'* The infection seized
upon the crowds of citizens and strangers and a general rush was made ;
to the theatre, the most obvious place of assembly On their way, they
Beera to have been foiled in the attempt to lay hold of the person of Paul,*
though they hurried with them into the theatre two of the companions of
his travels, Caius and Aristarchus, whose home was in Macedonia.^ A
sense of the danger of his companions, and a fearless zeal for the truth,
urged St. Paul, so soon as this intelligence reached him, to hasten to the
theatre and present himself before the people ; but the Christian disciples
used all their efforts to restrain him. Perhaps their anxious solicitude
might have been unavailing ^ on this occasion, as it was on one occasion
afterwards,' had not other influential friends interposed to preserve his
1 In an inscription (Boeckh, 2963 c), which contains the words ypafifiarevg and
iLvdvirarog, we find TH2 MEFAAHS GEAS APTEM1A02 HPO nOAEi22. [In
illustration of this latter phrase, compare what has been said of the Lystrian Jupiter,
Vol. I. p. 190.] In Xenophon's Ephesiaca, cited by Rosenmiiller, we have the words,
^0/j,vvo} Trjv TTuTpcov Tjjuv &e6v, tt)v [leydTirjv 'E(pea[o)v 'AprsfiLv. We read of a similar
cry in honour of jasculapius at Pergamus, and the same title is given on inscriptions
Ncmeses at Smyrna.
to the
V. 29.
^ 3 See above.
4 Something of the same kind seems to have happened as at Thessalonica (Acts xvii.
6, 6) when the Jews sought in vain for Paul and Silas in the house of Jason, and there-
fore dragged the host and some of the other Christians before the magistrates. Per-
haps the house of Aquila and Priscilla may have been a Christian home to the Apostle
at Ephcsus, like Jason's house at Thessalonica. See Actsxviii. 18, 20, with 1 Cor. xvi.
19 and compare Rom. xvi. 3, 4, where they are said to have '* laid down their necks'*
;
6 j:,vveKdr/fj.ovg rov II., V. 29. Compare ovveKi^rjfioq tj/iuv, 2 Cor. viii. 19. See whal
is said above of these companions of St. Piul, p. 11.
* 6 Observe the imperfect ovic eluv, v. 30. See Acts xxi. 13.
8 For the ofBce of the Asiarchs, see above, p. 83.
Ilt/jL\j)avTEC Tvpog avrov, TrapeKu'kovv /ni) dovvai eavrbv elc rb -Qearpov, V. 31. Tha
danger in Paul was really placed, as well as other points in the sacred nar-
which St.
rative, is illustrated by the account of Polycarp's martyrdom. " The proconsul, ob*
lerving Polycarp filled with confidence and joy, and his countenance brightened with
grace, was astonished, and sent the herald to proclaim, in the middle of the stadium,
'Polycarp confesses, that he is a Christian!' When this was declared by the herald^.
^
snam in privacy, while the mob crowded violently into the theatre, filling
the stone seats, tier above tier, and rending; the air with their confuse I and
fanatical cries.
was indeed a scene of confusion
It and never perhaps was the ;
we may confidently say that no one in the city was so well suited to
appease this Ephesian mob. The speech is a pattern of candid argument
and judicious tact.^ He first allays the fanatical passions of his listeners
all the multitude, Gentiles and Jews, dwelling at Smyrna, cried out, '
This is that
teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods ; he that teachea
multitudes not to sacrifice, not to worship.' Saying this, they cried out, and asked
Philip the Asiarch to let a lion loose upon Polycarp." Euseb. H, E. iv. 15.
1 "AAAoi dXXo TL eKpa^ov, v. 32. An allusion has been made (Vol. I. p. 128) to the
peculiar form of Greek theatres, in the account of Herod's death at Caesarea. From
the elevated position of the theatre at Ephesus, we may imagine that many of the
seatsmust have commanded an extensive view of the city and the plain, including the
Temple of Diana.
^
U f>o6aX6vTO)v dvTov ruv 'lovSaiuv, v. 33.
3 Our view of the purpose for which Alexander was put for-
^A-TToTioyeladaL, v. 33.
ward depend upon whether we consider him to have been a Jew, or a Christian,
will
or a renegade from Christianity. It is most natural to suppose that he was a Jew,
that the Jews were alarmed by the tumult and anxious to clear themselves front
blame, and to show they had nothing to do with St. Paul. As a Jew, Alexandei
would be recognised as an ejiemy to idolatry, and naturally the crowd would not heaf
him.
4 KaTaoelaaQ t7)v ;^tpa, ibid. The expression used concerning St. Paul's attitude
before speaking (Acts xiii. 16. xxi. 40) is KardaeLaag {KareoeiGe) ry x^^P^ '
SO of SL
Peter, xii. 17. See the remarks already made on the former passage.
5 See Menken's good remarks on this speech (Blicke in das Leben, u. s.
88 THE LIFE AIN^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
by this simple appeal :^ "Is it not notorious everywhere that this city oi
the Ephesians Neocoros of the great goddess Diana and of the image
is
that came down from the sky ? " The contradiction of a few insignificant
strangers could not affect what was notorious in all the world. Then he
bids them remember that Paul and his companions had not been guilty of
approaching or profaning the temple,^ or of outraging the feelings of the
Ephesians by calumnious expressions against the goddess.^ ) And then he
turns from the general subject to the case of Demetrius, and points out
that the remedy for any injustice was amply provided by the assizes which
were then going on, or by an appeal to the proconsul. And reserving
the most efficacious argument to the last, he reminded them that such an
uproar exposed the city to the displeasure of the Komans : for, however
great were the liberties allowed to an ancient and loyal city, it was well
known to the whole population, that a tumultuous meeting which endan-
gered the public peace would never be tolerated. So having rapidly
brought his arguments to a climax, he tranquillised the whole multitude
and pronounced the technical words which declared the assembly dispersed
(Acts xix. 41). The stone seats were gradually emptied. The uproar
ceased (lb. xx. 1), and the rioters dispersed to their various occupations
and amusements.
^Thus God used the eloquence of a Greek magistrate to protect his ser-
311), and the calm justice of a Roman governor^ Yol. I. p. 420). And,
as in the cases of Philippi and Corinth,'^ the narrative of St. PauPs sojourn
at Ephesus concludes with the notice of a deliberate and affectionate fare-
well. The danger was now over. With gratitude to that heavenly mas-
ter, who had watched over his life and his works, and with a recognition
of that love of his fellow-Christians and that favour of the " Chief of
Asia," which had been the instruments of his safety, he gathered together
the disciples (Acts xx. 1), and in one last affectionate meeting most pro-
bably in the school of Tyrannus ^he gave them his farewell salutations, and
commended them to the grace of God, and parted from them with tears/
This is the last authentic account which we possess, if we except the
meeting at Miletus (Acts xx.), of any personal connection of St. Paul
with Ephesus. The other historical associations of Christianity with this city
are connected with a different Apostle and a later period of the Church,
Legend has been busy on this scene of apostolic preaching and sufferings
Without attempting to unravel what is said concerning others who have
lived and died at Ephesus, we are allowed to believe that the robber-
1 Tl^ hoTLv dvdpuTvoc oc ov yivucKEL, K. T. A., v 55. For the Neocorate of Ephesut
and its notoriety, see above.
* 'lepoavTiovc. The rendering in the English version, "robbers of Churches," is un
fortunate. 3 BXaa<l>t]iiovvTa<;. * Acts xvi. 40. xviii. 18.
DEPARTURE OF ST. PAUL. 89
haunts J
in tlie mountains around have witnessed some passages in tlic lif
of St. John,^ that he spent the last year of the first century in this " metro^
polis of the Asiatic Churches," ^ and that his body rests among the sepul-
chres of Mount Prion." Here we may believe that the Gospel and Epis
ties were written, which teach us that " love " is greater than " faith and
hope" (1 Cor. xiii. 13) ; and here, though the candlestick" removed, is
in the hill strewn with the ruins of many centuries,^ of him who was called
COIN OF EPHESUS.6
J Euseb. H. E. iii. 23,which should be compared with 2 Cor. xi. 26. See Yol. I. p. 162.
It is said that Timothy died at Ephesus, and was buried, like St. John, on Mount
Prion. It has been thought better to leave in reverent silence all that has been tradi-
tionally said concerning the Mother of our Blessed Lord.
3 Stanley's Sermons, &c. on the Apostolic Age, p. 250. See the whole sermon, and
the essay which follows it. ^ See Hamilton, ii. 38, 39.
For the meaning of this term as applied to St. John, see Stanley's Sermons, p. 271.
There is a curious tradition concerning the destruction of the Temple and Image of
Diana by St. John in the apocryphal work of Abdias. We give it at length from Fa-
bricius. " Dum haec fierent apud Ephesum, et omnes indies magis magisque Asise prc-
vinciaeJoannem et excolerent et prsedicarent, accidit ut cultores idolorum excitarent
Beditionem. Unde factum est, ut Joannem traherent ad templum Dianae, et urgerent
eum, ut ei foeditatem sacrificiorum olferret. Inter haec beatus Joannes inquit Duca- :
mus omnes eos ad Ecclesiam Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et cum invocaveritis nomen
ejus, faciam cadere templum hoc, et comminui idolum hoc vestrum. Quod ubi factum
fuerit, justum, nobis videri debet, ut relicta superstitione ejus rei quae a Deo meo victa
est, et confracta, ad id ipsum convertamini. Ad
hanc vocem conticuit populus et :
licet essent pauci, qui contradicerent huic definitioni, pars tamen maxima consensum
CHAPTEK xyn.
' "Withfi ut were fightings, within were fears." 2 Cor. vii. 5.
After Ms mention of the affectionate parting between St. Paul and the
Christians of Ephesus, St. Luke tells us very little of the Apostle's pro-
ceedings during a period of nine or ten months ; that is, from the early
summer of the year a. d. 5t, to the spring of a. d. 58.^ All the informa-
tion which we find in the Acts concerning this period, is comprised in the fol
lowing words :
" He dej)arted to go into Macedonia, and when he had gone
over those parts, and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece,
and there abode three months Were it not for the information supplied
by the Epistles, this is all we should h|^ known of a period which was,
intellectually at least, the most active and influential of St. Paul's career.
ture drawn by his own hand of his state of mind during an anxious and
critical season ;
they bring him before us in his weakness and in his
strength, in his sorrow and in his joy ;
they show us the causes of his
dejection, and the source of his consolation.
la the first place, w^e thus learn, what we should, d priori, have ex-
pected, that he visited Alexandria Troas on his way from Ephesus to
Macedonia. In all probability he travelled from the one city to the other
by sea, as we know he did ^ on his return in the following year. Indeed,
in countries in such a stage of civilisation, the safest and most expeditious
route from one point of the coast to another, is generally by water rather
than by land for the "perils in the sea," though greater in those times
than in ours, yet did not so frequently impede the voyager, as the " perili
but as we find that Tychicus and Trophimus (both Ephesians) were with
him at Corinth (Acts xx. 4) during the same apostolic progress, and re-
ready described the position and character of this city, whence the Apostle
of the Gentiles had set forth when first he left Asia to fulfil his mission,
the conversion of Europe. At that time, his visit seems to have been very
short, and no results of it are recorded ; but now he remained for a con-
siderable time ; he had meant to stay long enough to lay the foundation
of a Church (see 2 Cor. ii. 12), and would have remained still longer than
he did, had it not been for the non-arrival of Titus, whom he had sent to
Corinth from Ephesus soon after the despatch of the first Epistle ; the
object of his mission'^ was connected with the great collection now going
on for the Hebrew Christians at Jerusalem, but he was also enjoined to
enforce the admonitions of St. Paul upon the Church of Corinth, and en-
deavour to defeat the efforts of their seducers ; and then to return with a
report of their conduct, and especially of the effect upon them of the recent
Epistle. Titus was desired to come through Macedonia, and to rejoin St.
Paul (probably) at Troas, where the latter had intended to arrive shortly
after Pentecost ; but now that he was forced to leave Ephesus prema-
turely, he had resolved to wait for Titus at Troas, expecting, however, his
speedy arrival. In this expectation he was disappointed ; week after week
passed, but Titus came not. The tidings which St. Paul expected by him
were of the deepest interest ; it was to be hoped that ke would bring
news of the triumph of good over evil at Corinth : yet it might be other-
by Smyrna
of one of the most peaceful provinces, and that one of the great roads passed
and Pergaraus between Ephesus and Troas. The stages are given in the Peutingerian
Table, and the road is laid down in Leake's Map. At Pergamus it meets one of the
roads in the Antonine Itinerary (sec Wesseling), and the two lines thence coincide
through Adramyttium and Assos to Troas. See our map of the north of the ^gean,
%nd compare Vol. I. p. 278. A description of the country will be found in Fellows'
Asia Minor, ch. i. and ii.
1 In the 2nd Epistle to Timothy. For Tychicus, see Acts xx. 4. Eph. vi. 21. Col.
iv. 7- 2 Tim. iv. 12. Tit. iii. 12. For Trophimus, see Acts xx. 4. Acts xxi. 29. 2
Tim. iv. 20.
' It is not impossible that Titus may have carried another letter to the Corinthians;
if so, it is referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 3, and 2 Cor. vii. 8 ;
passages which some hav
thought too strong for the supposition that they jnly refer to the F-rst Epistle.
92 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
wise ; the Corinthians might have forsaken the faith of their first tea^ther^
and rejected his messenger. While waiting in this uncertainty, St. Paul
appears to have suffered all the sickness of hope deferred. " My spirit
opened to him in the Lord." ^ And thus was laid the foundation of a
Church which rapidly increased, and which we shall find him revisiting not
long afterwards. At present, indeed, he was compelled to leave it pre-
maturely ; for the necessity of meeting Titus, and learning the state of
things at Corinth, urged him forward. He sailed, therefore, once more
from Troas to Macedonia (a voyage already described < in our account of
his former journey), and, landing at NeapoUs, proceeded immediately to
Philippi.5
1 2 Cor. ii. 12. 2 Cor. ii. 12. 3 2 Cor. ii. 12. <
See Chap. IX.
Philippi (of which Neapolis was the first city of Macedonia which he
was the port)
would reach from Troas. See Vol. I. pp. 287-391. The importance of the Philippian
Church would, of course, cause St. Paul to halt there for some time, especially as hia
object was to make a general collection for the poor Christians of Jerusalem. Hence
the scene of St. Paul's grief and anxiety (recorded, 2 Cor. vii. 5, as occurring when he
came into Macedonia) must have been Philippi and the same place seems (from the next
;
verse) to have witnessed his consolation by the coming of Titus. So (2 Cor. xi. 9) we
find " Macedonia " used as equivalent to Philippi (see note 7, below). We conclude,
therefore, that the ancient tradition (embodied in the subscription of 2 Cor.), accord-
ing to which the Second Epistle to Corinthians was written from Philippi, is correct.
6 Phil. iv. 10.
' 2 Cor. xi. 9. The Macedonian contributions there mentioned must have beea
from Philippi, because Philippi was the only Church which at that time contributed t
St. Paul's support (Phil. iv. 9). See Vol. 1. p. 389.
8 Phil. iv. 16.
flowed out of the depth of their poverty, in the richness of their liberality."
In fact, they had been exposed to very severe persecution from the first
" Unto them it was given," so St. Paul reminds them afterwards, "in the
behalf of Christ, not only to beUeve on Him, but also to suffer for Hia
ake."'' Perhaps, already their leading members had been prosecuted
under the Roman law^ upon the charge which proved so fatal in after
times, of propagating a "new and illegal religion" {religio nova et illi-
cita ) ;
or, if this had not yet occurred, still it is obvious how severe must
have been the loss inflicted by the alienation of friends and connections ;
and this would be especially the case with the Jewish converts, such aa
Lydia,"* who were probably the only wealthy members of the community,
and whose sources of wealth were derived from the commercial relations
which bound together the scattered Jews throughout the empire. What
they gave, therefore, was not out of their abundance, but out of their
penury ;
they did not grasp tenaciously at the wealth which was slipping
from their hands, but they seemed eager to get rid of what still remained.
They " remembered the words of the Lord Jesus how He said, it is more
blessed to give than to receive." St. Paul might have addressed them,
as another Apostle addressed some who were like-minded with them :
" Ye had compassion of me in my^ bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling
of your goods, knowing that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring
substance."
Such were the zealous and loving friends who now embraced their
father in the faith ;
yet the warmth of their welcome did not dispel the
gloom which hung over his spirit; although amongst them he found
Timotheus also, his " beloved son in the Lord," the most endeared to him
of all his converts and companions. The whole tone of the Second Epistle
1 2 Cor. viii. 2. Phil. i. 29.
3It must be remembered that Philippi was a Colonia. See Vol. I. pp. 3, 9, &c.
Lydia had been a Jewish proselyte before her conversion.
4
First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xvi. This, however, Timotheus seema
10, 11).
not to have done ; for it was Titus, not Timotheus, who brought to St. Paul the first
tidings of the reception of the First Epistle at Corinth (2 Cor. vii. 6-11). Also had
Timotheus reached Corinth, he would have been mentioned, 2 Cor. xii. 18. Hence it
would appear that Timotheus must have been retained in Macedonia,
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Troas, but also after he reached Macedonia. " When f rst I came into
seems not unlikely that this cause may have contributed to the result.
He speaks much, in the Epistle written from Philippi, of the frailty of his
bodily health ;
and, in a very affecting passage, he describes the earnest*
ness with which he had besought his Lord to take from him this " thorn
in the flesh," this disease which continually impeded his efforts, and
shackled his energy. We can imagine how severe a trial to a man of his
ardent temper, such a malady must have been. Yet this alone would
scarcely account for his continued depression, especially after the assurance
he had received, that the grace of Christ was sufficient for him, that the
vessel of clay'' was not too fragile for the Master's work, that the v/eak-
ness of his body would but the more manifest the strength of God's
Spirit.3 The real weight which pressed upon him was the " care of all
the churches ;" the real cause of his grief was the danger which now
threatened the souls of his converts, not in Corinth only, or in Galatia,
but everywhere throughout the empire. We have already described the
nature of this danger, and seen its magnitude ; we have seen how critical
was the period through which the Christian Church was now passing.'*
The true question (which St. Paul was enlightened to comprehend) was
no less than this ; whether the Catholic Church should be dwarfed into a
Jewish sect ; whether the religion of spirit and of truth should be sup-
planted by the worship of letter and of form. The struggle at Corinth,
the result of which he was now anxiously awaiting, was only one out of
many similar struggles between Judaism^ and Christianity. These were
the " fightings without " which filled him with " fears within ;" these were
the agitations which "gave his flesh no rest," and "troubled him on every
8ide."
J Weneed not notice the hypothesis that St. PaiiPs long-continued dejection waf
v^ausedby the danger which he incurred on the day of the tumult in the theatre at
Ephesus; a supposition most unworthy of the character of him wiio sustained such in-
numerable perils of a more deadly character with unshrinking forlitude.
See 2 Cor. iv. 7. ^ 2 Cor. xii. 7-9. Vol. L pp. 441-445.
* That the great opponents of St. Paul at Corinth were Judaizing emissaries, we
have endeavoured to prove below; at the same time a complication was given to thn
etniggle at Corinth^ by the existence of another element ot error in the free-thinking
party, whose theoretic defence of their practical immorality we have aireaay noticed.
' 2 Cor. vii. 5.
MEETING WITH TITUS. 95
Paul took to keep his integrity in this matter above every shade of sus-
picion ; and we shall find still further proof of this as we proceed. Mean-
while, it is obvious how singularly inconsistent this accusation was, in the
mouths of those who eagerly maintained that Paul could be no true
Apostle, because he did not demand support from the Churches which he
founded. The same opponents accused him likewise of egregious vanity,
and of cowardly weakness ;
they declared that he was continually threaten-
ing without striking, and promising without performing ;
always on his way
to Corinth, but never venturing to come ; and that he was as vacillating
in his teaching as in his practice ;
refusing circumcision to Titus, yet cir-
cumcising Timothy ; a Jew among the Jews, and a Gentile among the
Gentiles.
It is an important question, to which of the divisions of the Corinthian
Church these obstinate opponents of St. Paul belonged. Prom the
notices of them given by St. Paul himself, it seems certain that they were
Judaizers (see 2 Cor. xi. 22) ; and still farther, that they were of the
Christine section of that party (see 2 Cor. xi. t). It also appears that
they were headed by an emissary from Palestine {6 tpxoixevo^, 2 Cor. xi. 4),
who had brought letters of commendation from some members of the
Wieseler is of opinion that before the
coming of Titus St. Paul had already re-
solved to send another letter to the Corinthians, perhaps by those two brethren who
travelled with Titus soon after, bearing the Second Epistle and that he wrote as far ;
as the 2nd verse of the 7th chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians before the
appearance of Titus. He infers this from the change of tone which takes place at thia
point, and from St. Paul's returning to topics which, in the earlier portion of the Epistle,
he appeared to have dismissed ; and from the manner ia which the arrival of Titus itr
mentioned at 2 Cor. vii. 4-7. On this hypothesis some other person from Coriutli
must have brought intelligence of the first impression produced on the Corinthians by
the Epistle which had just reached them and Titus convoyed the farther tidings of
;
Church at Jerusalem/ and who boasted of his pure Hebrew descent, and
Ids especial connection with Christ himself.'^ Srt. Paul calls him a false
(still more distinctly than the First Epistle), not to Corinth only, but to
all the Churches in the whole province of Achaia, including Athens and
Cenchrese, and perhaps also Sicyon, Argos, Megara, Patrse, and oth^er
neighbouring towns ; all of which probably shared more or less in the
agitation which so powerfully affected the Christian community at Corinth.
The two-fold character ' of this Epistle is easily explained by the exist-
ence of the majority and minority which we have described in the Corin-
thian Church. Towards the former the Epistle overflows with love ;
towards the latter it abounds with warning and menace. The purpose
of the Apostle was to encourage and tranquillise the great body of the
Church ;
but, at the same time, he was constrained to maintain his
authority against those who persisted in despising the commands of Christ
delivered by his mouth. It was needful, also, that he should notice their
false accusations ; and that (undeterred by the charge of vanity which
they brought^), he should vindicate his apostolic character by a state-
See 2 Cor. iii. 1. It may safely be assumed that Jerusalem was the head-quartera
of the Judaizing party, from whence their emissaries were despatched. Compare GroL
U. 12, Acts XV. 1, and xxi. 20.
See 2 Cor. xi. 7, 22. 3 See 2 Cor. xi. 18-20, and the note there.
4 1 Cor. ii. 3. 2 Cor. x. 10, 16.
See notes on 2 Cor. viii. 18, 22.
' This twofold character pervades the whole Epistle; it is incorrect to say (as has
been often said) that the portion before Chap. X. is addressed to the obedient section
of the Church, and that after Chap. X. to the disobedient. Polemical passages occur
throughout the earlier portion also see i. 15-17. ii. 17. ; iii. 1. v. 12, &c.
8 It is a curious fact, and marks the personal character of this Epistle, that th
verb KavxdadaL and its derivatives occur twenty-nine times in it, and only twenty-six
times in all the other Epistles of St. Paul put together.
4 Christ, the father of compassion, and the God c^f all ance
^
from great
danger in Prc- ^
St. Paul has given us the following particulars to determine the date of this
Epistle :
(3) He was in Macedonia at the time of writing (2 Cor. ix. 2, Kavxcojuai, pyeseat
tense), and intended (2 Cor. xiii. 1) shortly to visit Corinth. This was the course of
hia journey, Acts xx. 2.
(4) The same collection is going on which is mentioned in 1 Cor. See 2 Cor. viii. 6
and 2 Cor. ix. 2 and which was completed during his three months' visit to Oorinth
;
(Rom. XV. 26), and taken up to Jerusalem immediately after, Acts xxiv. 17.
(5) Some of the other topics mentioned in 1 Cor. are again referred to, espe ^ially
the punishment of the incestuous offender, in such a manner as to show that no 'nng
interval had elapsed since the first Epistle.
For the translation of rj/uug, see the
reasons given in the note on 1 These, i. 2. It
is evident here that St. Paul considers himself alone the wTiter, since Timctbeus was
not with him during the danger in Asia and, moreover he uses eyd frequently, inter-
;
changeably with ?jjj.elc (see verse 23) and when he includes others in the ij/ielc
5 ^
epecifies it, as in verse 19. See, also, other proofs in the note on vi. 11.
3 Kai 7] eTiTTLc, &c., should follow Ti-acrjo/zev. See Tischendorf for the MS. authorities
* We omit the second kqI curijpiag here, with Griesbach's text
VOL. II. 1
;
rely no more upon myself, but upon God who raises the dead
to life, and who delivered me from a death so grievous, and lo
does yet deliver me in whom I have hope that He will still ii
;
1 It has been questioned whetherSt. Paul here refers to the Ephesian tumult of
Acts xix. ; urged that he was not then in danger of his life. But had he been
and it is
found by the mob during the period of their excitement, there can be little doubt that
he would have been torn in pieces, or perhaps thrown to wild beasts in the Arena
and it seems improbable that within so short a period he should again have been ex
posed to peril of his life in th-e same place, and that nothing should have been said of
it in the Acts.
* Literally, that from many persons the gift given to me by means of many may
have thanks returned for it on my behalf
Paul here alludes to his opponents, who accused him of dishonesty and incon-
3 St.
Bistcncy in his words and deeds. From what follows, it seems that he had been sus-
pected of writing privately to some individuals in the church, in a different strain from
that of his public letters to them.
4 It is difficult in English to imitate this play upon the words kiriyivuaiure and
ivayivuoKeTE.
5 /. e. the day when the Lord Jesus will come again.
c. before viaitLiij Ma^KMlonia, See p. 26, note 1.
SEuOND EPISTLE TO THE COKrNTHIAHS. 9'J
promises of God have in Him the yea [which seals their truth],
and in Him the Amen [which acknowledges their fulfilment),
21 uttered to the praise of God by our voice. But God is He who
keeps both us and you stedfast to His anointed, and we also are
22 anointed ^ by Him. And He has set the mark of His own seal
upon us, and has given us His Spirit to dwell in our hearts, as
13 the earnest of His promises. But for my ^ own part, I call
God to witness, as my soul shall answer for it, that I gave up
my purpose of visiting, Corinth because I wished to spare you
24 pain. I speak not ^ as though your faith was enslaved to my
n. authority, but because I desire to help your joy;^ for yom*
1 faith [I know] is stedfast. But ^ I determined not again to i
2 visit you in grief, for if I cause you grief, who is there to cause
3 me joy, but those whom I have grieved? And for this very
reason I wrote to you instead of coming, that I might not re-
which I have formed from fleshly fear, lest I be accused of changing my yea into
nay ;" which is advocated by Winer, but which does not agree with the context.
3 We read karl with Lachmann, Tischendorf, and the best MSS.
4 The commentators do not seem to have remarked the reference of XP^<^<^S to the
preceding XpLcrov, The anointing spoken of as bestowed on the Apostles, was that
grace by which they were qualified for their office. The ii/Lcuc and Tijuuv in verses 20,
21, and 22, include Silvanus and Timotheus, as is expressly stated verse 19.
5 Observe the emphatic kyu.
^ St. Paul adds this sentence to soften what might seem the magisterial tone of thfl
ceive grief from those who ought to give me joy and ; 1 con-
fide in you all that my joy is yours. For I wrote to you out of i
I say,] that I may not press too harshly upon all. For the ^ e
offender himself, this punishment, which has already been in-
flicted on him by the sentence of the majority,^ is sufficient
without increasing it. On the contrary, you ought rather to ;
pain which the offender had drawn down on the Church was not inflicted on the whole
Church, but only on that erring part of it.
3 Ttj roLovTCf). This expression is used elsev/here for a definite ofifending individual.
Compare Acts xxii. 22, and 1 Cor. v. 5. It is not adequately represented by the Eng*
ish " such a man."
* Tuv irXeiovuv, not "many " (A. V.) ; but the majority.
The bestMSS. read u not ^.
6 'Ev 7rpoa6T(p. Compare Proverbs viii. 30: ev^paivbfiTjv tv TrpoauTru avTov (LXX.).
The expression is used somewhat differently in iv. 6.
7 The we of this verse appears to include the readers, judging from thj change ct
person before and after.
^ Namely, from the Christians of Troas.
Opiafi(3Evetv (which is mistranslated in A. V.) means to lead a man aj a captivt
;
those of life.^'
Bt. Paul (who had been so great an opponent of the Gospel) is a captive following
in the train of the triumphal procession, yet (at the same time, by a characteristic change
of metaphor) an incense-bearer, scattering incense (which was always done on these oc-
casions) as the procession moves on. Some of the conquered enemies were put to death
when the procession reached the Capitol to them the smell of the incense was otr//^
;
davuTov elg duvarov ; to the rest who were spared, da/nij ^uTjg elg ^urjv. The metaphor
appears to have been a favourite one with St. Paul it occurs again Col. ii. 15. :
yet as this supposition does not agree well with the context, it seems better to suppose
the plural used merely to suit the plural form of vfiCiv.
'The paronomasia yivcjGKouevr] kuI dvayivucKOfievrj cannot well be here imitated
la English. Compare i. 14.
^ Like the law of Moses.
s Viz of his suflBciency. Compare ii. 16 Uavoc ; in. 5 Uavot. 6 lkuvu^gev.
10 A 0 LGcndal rt uf kavrtov, literally, to reach any conchisicn by my oivn reason,
;
from Grod. For He it is who has made me suflSice for iLe iiAx- 3
rit ; for the letter gives the doom of death, but the spirit gi ves
the power of life. Yet if a glory was shed npon the ministra- 7
tion of the law of death, (a law written in letters, and graven
upon stones)^ so that the children of Israel could not fix their
yes on the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance,
although its brightness was soon to fade how far more glori- 8 ;
^
ous must the ministration of the spirit be. For if the ministra- 9
tion of doom had glory, far more must the ministration of right-
eousness abound in glory.'* Yea, that which then was glorified 10
with brightness, is now turned into darkness,^ by the surpassing
glory wherewith it is compared. For if a glory shone upon 11
that which was^ doomed to pass away, much more shall glory rest ^
upon that which remains for ever. Therefore, having this hope 12
[in the abiding glory of the new covenant], I speak and act
without disguise and not like Moses, who spread a veil over 13
;
his face, that^ the children of Israel might not see the end of
that fading brightness. But their minds w^ere blinded yea to 14 ;
this day, when they read in their synagogues ^ the ancient cove-
nant, the same veil rests thereon, nor ' can they see beyond it
that the law is done away in Christ but even now, when Mo- 15 ;
ses is read in their hearing, a veil ^ lies upon their heart. But 16
' The whole of this contrast between the glory of the new and the old dispensations,
appears to confirm the hypothesis that St. Paul's chief antagonists at Corinth were of
the Judaizing party.
3 To 6e6o^aafj.evov kv tovto) tcj fxepei, that which, in this particular, was glorified
with brightness; ov6^ dedo^aarai, has not so much as been glorified with brightness
the latter expression being equivalent to has no brightness at all. If, with the best
MSS., we read ov instead of ovSt, the meaning will not be essentially altered.
* *Ev, opposed to the preceding ditl.
6 See Exod. xxxiv. 35. St. Paul here (as usual) blends the allegorical with the hih-
veiled [i. e. not revealed'] to them that it {^the ancient covenant] is done away i?t
Christ. KaraoyelTaL is predicated, not of the veil, but of the old covenant. Com-
pare KaTapyov/uEvov in the preceding verse, and the use of the same word in versei
7 and 11.
8 Perhaps there may be here an allusion to the Tallith, which was worn in the syna-
gogue by every worshipper, and was literally a veil hung over the breast. See
Vol. I. p. 173.
; ;
lieving minds the God of this passing worlds has blinded, and
shut out the light of the Glad-tidings, even the glorious bright-
5 ness of Christ, who is the image of God. For I proclaim not
myself, but Christ J esus as Lord and Master, and myself your
6 bondsman for the sake of Jesus. For God, who called forth
light out of darkness, has caused His light to shine in my heart,
that the knowledge of His glory manifested in the face of Jesus
Christ might be shed forth [upon others also].'
7 But this treasure is lodged in a body of framle sickness and
^
*-*
in danger hia
clay, that so the surpassing might which aids me ^^hr p*owe?^S
8 should be God's, and not my own. I am hard Sj^^*^f e^r^
9 pressed, yet not crushed ;
helpless, yet not hopeless
i Kvpiov.
* 'Atto 66^71^ describes the cause, viz. the glory shining on us ; etc ^o^av, the effect
viz. the reflection of that glory by us. For the metaphor, compare 1 Cor. xiii. 11, and
aot3. We observe in both passages that even the representation of divine truth given
as by Christianity is only a reflection of the reality.
' Viz. in his conversion from a state of Jewish unbelief.
St. Paul plainly intimates here (as he openly states xi. 17) that some othof
ECftchers were liable to these charges.
= Compare ii. 15, 16.
For this translation of aldvog tovtov, see note on 1 Cor. i. 20.
' For the meaning of 6a)Tt<y/i6v, compare verse 4.
* Observe the force of the present tense of all these participles, imping thftl th9
state of things described was constantly going on.
8 KvfiiQv is not found in the beet MSS.
P
are on your behalf, that the mercy which has abounded above
them all, might call forth your thankfulness that so the fulness ;
pared me for this very end is God, who has given me the Spirit
fer banishment from the body, and have my home with Christ.''
11 Knowing
" therefore the fearfulness of the Lord's fiisearnestness
^
springs from a
iudffment,
o o I seek to
thoue^h'
win men,^ Jyet T
myJ up-
i.
sense of ws re-
sponsibility to
ri2:htness
o is manifest in the
0 and I
sisrht of God :
7
Christ, whose
commission he
hope also that it is manifested by the witness of your ^^^^'J
^"^^^^
^ The best commentary on the 14th and 15th verses is Gal. ii. 20.
'H//?f, emphatic.
We agree with Billroth, Neander, and De Wette, that this cannot refer to any
actual knowledge which St. Paul had of our Lord when upon earth it would probably
tiave been had that been meant moreover, ol6afiv Kard adpKa, above, doea
'Itjcovv ;
not refer io personal knowledge, hut to a carnal estimate. For other reasons against
sufh an interpretation, see Yol. I. p. 64. St. Paul's vietv of Christ was carnal when
Lo .'.Goked rlike other Jews) for a Messiah who should be an earthly conqueror.
106 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
God. For Him who knew no sin, God struck with the doom 21
of sin on our behalf that we might ^ be changed into the right- Yi
;
iipeai^^o ^the
^^^^^^^ ^ scrvc but in all things I commend my- 4
;
'i2f on, a/5 weil, n'dmlich tveil, pleonastisch (De Wette, in loco). So also Winer
^ 67.
' TtvG)fiEda is the reading of the best MSS.
3 See note on 1 Cor. iii. 9. 4 Is. xlix. 8. (LXX.)
* 'SiVVLafuvTEQ lavTovg, an allusion apparently to ovvcardveiv MurcjV and aborariKiji
^.iriOToXuv (iii. 1) ; as though he said, J commend myself, not by word, bui by deed.
3 For this meaning of iTri-yivuaKofievoif see 1 Cor. xiii. 12,
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 107
15 munion has light with darkness ? what concord has heathen vice.
Christ with Belial ? what partnership has a believer with an
16 unbeliever ? what agreement has the temple of God with idols ?
though I had myself been wronged by you], for I hare said before
4 that I have you in my heart, to live and die with you. Great is
my freedom towards you, great is my boasting of you I am filled ;
with the comfort which you have caused me I have more than ;
5 an overweight of joy, for all the affliction w^hich has befallen me.
1 Observe, as a confirmation of previous remarks, ^/^wv (11), liya (13) ; also 5?/za<
(vii. 2), 7,iyut (vii. 3), rjfiuv (vii. 3), iioi (vii. 4).
* Levit. xxvi. 11, 12 (according to LXX., with slight variations).
3 Isaiah ILi. 11 (accordmg to LXX., with alterations) tayw dade^ouac;
vjudg not
Deing either in the LXX. or the Hebrew.
4 This passage is not to be found exactly in the Old Testament, although 2 Sam. vii
i4 and Jer. xxxi. 9, and xxxiii. 32, contain the substance of it.
5 It is not impossible that the preceding part : the Epistle may have been WTitten
before the coming of Titus. See p. 95, n. 1..
6 St. Paul appears frequently to use ^detpeiv in this sense (compare 1 Cor. iii. 17)
and not in the ordinary meaning of corrupt.
108 THE LIFE ANB EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
fears. But God who comforts them that are cast down, comforted
the comfort which he felt on yom- account, and the tidings which
be brought of your longing for my love, your mourning for my
reproof, your zeal for my cause so that my sorrow has been ;
before regret), that I wrote the letter^ which has given you
pain (for I see that you were pained by that letter, though it
was but for a season) ; ^not that I rejoice in your sorrow, but 9
because it led you to repentance ; for thesorrow which I
caused you was a godly sorrow ; so that I might nowiso harm
you [even when I grieved you]. For godly sorrow works ic
repentance not to be repented of, leading to salvUrjii ; but
worldly sorrow works nought but death. Consider what was i]
1 Viz. 1 Cor., unless we adopt the hypothesis that another letter had been writtoj?
in the interval, according to the view mentioned p. 91, n. 2.
Indignation against the offender. 3 Fear of the wrath of God.
bear them witness) not only according to their means, but beyond
4 their means, and that of their own free will ; for they besought
me with much entreaty that they might bear their part ^ in the
5 grace of ministering to Christ's people. And far beyond my hope,
they gave their very selves to the Lord Jesus first, and to me ^
6 also, by the will of God. So that I have desired Titus [to revisit
you], that as he caused you to begin this work, so he may
it, that this grace may not be wanting ^ in
lead you to finish
7 you but that, as
; you abound in all gifts, in faith and utterance,
and knowledge, and earnest zeal ^ and in the love which joins ^
your hearts with mine, so you vnay abound in this grace also.
8 I say not this by way of command but by the zeal of others ;
3 I would prove the reality of your love. For you know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how, though He was rich, yet
for our sakes He became poor, that you, by His poverty, might
10 be made rich. And I give you my advice in this matter for ;
seemly manner, not only in the sight of our Lord, but also in
the sight of men. The brother ^ whom I have sent likewise 22
with them, is one whom I have put to the proof in many trials,
and found always zealous in the work, but who is now yet
more zealous from the full trust which he has in you. Con- 23
cerning Titus, then (on the one hand), he is partner of my lot,
1 Exodus xvi. 18, quoted according to LXX. The subject is the gathering of the
manna.
' 'E^TjMe in the past, because the act is looked upon, according to the classical
idiom, from the position of the reader.
3 Tcj evayysTiLUi here cannot refer, as some have imagined,
to a written Gospel
the word is of constant occurrence in the New
Testament (occurring sixty times in St.
Paul's writings, and sixteen times in the other books), but never once in the supposed
Bense. Who the deputy here mentioned was, we have no means of ascertaining. Pro-
bably, however, he was either Luke (Acts xx. G), or one of those, not Macedonians (ix.
4), mentioned Acts xx. 4 and possibly may have been Trophimus. See Acts xxi, 29.
;
We may notice the coincidence between the phrase here {cvvsK6r][iOQ ijfiuv) and cvvek^
ii^fiovc Tov UavXov (Acts xix. 29).
4 Tov Kvptov.
5 The best MSS. omit avTov, and read ^f^uv (not v/j,C)v).
c There is even less to guide us in our conjectures as to the person here indicated,
than in the case of the other deputy mentioned above. Here, also, the emissary was
elected by some of the Churches who had contributed to the collection. He may have
been either Luke, Gains, Tychicus, or Trophimus (Acts xx. 4).
-;
you, should find you not yet ready, and so shame should fall
upon me (for I will not say upon you) by the failure of this
5 boast, whereon I founded ^ my appeal to them. Therefore, I
thought it needful to desire these brethren to visit you before
my coming, and to arrange beforehand the completion of this
bounty which you before promised to have in readiness so it ;
' E!c avTovg answers to elg tovq dycovg in the following verse. The Kai before elg
xpoauTzov is omitted by all the best MSS.
' Viz. Titus and the other two.
3 ''XiToaTdaei, literally, the groundwork on which some superstructure is founded^
2f (with the best MSS.) we omit rrjg Kavxvoeug, the meaning will be unaltered. Com-
pare xi. 17.
your seed, and increase the fruits springing from your righteousness.''^
;
furnish you with plenteous store of seed, and bless yotir nghi-
eousness with fruits of increase. May you be enriched with U
all good things, and give them freely with singleness of mind
causing thanksgivings to God from those to whom I bear your
^
God for the proof thus given of the obedience wherewith you
have consented to the Glad-tidings of Christ, and for the single-
miniLed liberality which you have shewn both to them, and
to all. Moreover, in their prayers for you they express the 14
earnest longings of their love towards you, called forth through
the surpassing grace of God manifested in you. Thanks be to 15
God for His unspeakable gift. X
He contrasts Ms
own character
Now I, Paul, my Self cxliort you by the meek- 1
and
with
services
those of
and
ncssfi^eiitleuess of Christ
.
,
dated him. amoug you, yet treat you boldly when I am absent)
beseech you (I say), that you will not force me to show, 2
when I come, the bold reliance on my own authority, where-
with I reckon to deal with some who measure me by the stan-
dard of the flesh. For, though living in the flesh, my warfare 3
is not waged according to the flesh. For the weapons which I 4
wield are not of fleshly weakness, but mighty in the strength
of God to overthrow the strongholds of the adversaries. There- 5
be any among you who boasts that he belongs above the rest to
The party wlio said h/d 6^ Xpiarov (1 Cor. i. 12). See "Vol. I, p. 444. As wc?
have remarked above, p. 96, this party at Corinth seems to have been formed and led
by an emissary from the Judaizers of Palestine, who is especially referred to in thie
chapter.
- ^rjoi, literally, " says he but it is occasionally used Impersonally (see Winer,
"
49) for they say 5" yet as, in that sense, (pad would be more naturally used, the
use of <p7]al and of 6 roLovrog in the next verse, seems to point to a single individual afc
the head of St. Paul's opponents. See last note and p. 96, and compare the use of 6
TOLovrog for the single incestuous person (2 Cor. ii. 7), and for St. Faul himself (2 Cor.
xii. 2).
to my
hand within the field assigned to another. Meantime, IT
" He that hoasteth, let him toast in the LordP For a man la ^
on which erat is often used for esset, and fuerat for fuisset. We understand [xov (not
avToi) with most commentators), because this agrees better with the context {yap fol-
lowing), and with the first verse of the chapter.
3 Tdv vTveoTitav uttootoXuv. This phrase (which occurs only in this Epistle) ia
ironical, as is evident from the epithet vnepXlav, " the super-apostolic Apostles.''^
< The gift of yvuGLQ was a deep insight into spiritual truth. See Vol. I. p. 427, n. 2.
* ^artpuoavreg is the reading supported by the preponderating weight of MS.
authority.
6 See Vol. I. p. 436.
by working with his hands for his daily bread. See Vol. I. p. 388. In
I. e. all
probability (judging from what we know of other manufactories in those times) hit
fellow-v orkmen in Aquila's tent manufactory were slaves. Compare Phil iv. 12,
oldo rancLvoijadai,
!
any of you ; for the brethren/ when they came from Macedo-
nia, su )plied my needs; and I kept, and will keep myself alto-
5ogether from casting a burden upon you. As the truth of
Christ is in me, no deed of mine shall rob me ^
of this boasting
11 in the rsgion of And why ? Because I love you not
Achaia.
12 God knows my But what I do I will continue to do, that
love.
I may cut off all ground from those who wish to find some-
thing whereon they may rest a slander and let them show the ;
13 saine cause for their boasting as I for mine.^ For men like these
are false Apostles, deceitful workmen, clothing themselves in
14 the garb of Christ's Apostles. And no wonder for even Satan ;
you bear with men though they enslave you, though they de-
vour you, though they entrap you, though they exalt them-
21 selves over you, though they smite you on the face, (I speak of
degradation),^ as though I were weak [and they were strong].
And yet, if any think they have grounds of boldness, I too
22 (I speak in folly) have grounds to be as bold as they. Are
Probably Timotheus and Silvanus, who may have brought the contribution sent
boasting, may be found even as I." De Wette refers h cj Kavxcovrat to the Apostolic
Office. We take it more generally. A more obvious way would be to take kv ^
itavxCiVTaL (with Chrysostom and the older interpreters) to mean their abstaining
from receiving maintenance ; but we know that the false teachers at Corinth did not
do this (compare v. 20 below), but, on the contrary, boasted of their privilege, and
alleged that St. Paul, by not claiming it, showed his consciousness that he was not
truly sent by Christ. See 1 Cor. ix.
^ Literally, " / say once more, let none
of you count we," &c.
' Kara uTifitav Aeyu. This explanation, which only requires a slight alteration of
the ordinary punctuation, is simpler than De Wette's, who translates I speak to my
own shame," which the Greek can scarcely mem. St. Paul virtually says, " you bear
with my opponents, as though I we'>-e too weak to resist them."
!
at Philippi),and the three shipwrecks, are all unrecorded in the Acts. The stoning
was at Lystra. What a life of incessant adventure and peril is here disclosed to us
And when we remember that he who endured and dared all this was a man constantly
Buffering from infirm health and 2 Cor. xii. 7-10, and Gal.
(see 2 Cor. iv. 7-12, iv. 13,
6 This solemn oath, affirming his veracity, refers to the preceding statements of his
jftbours and dangers. Compare Gal. i. 20.
' For the historical questions connected with this incident, see Vol. I. p. 100. Also
on WvdpxvCi see Winer's Realworterbuch.
8 (xii. 1.) We prefer the reading Kavxuodai 6^ ov cvii^epet
/loi of the Textus Re-
KOI, instead of the Textus Receptus, el. yap. The whole passage is most perplexing,
from the obscurity of its connection with what precedes and what follows. Why did
St. Paul mention his escape from Damascus in so much detail ? Was it merely as an
event ignominious to himself? This seems the best view, but it is far from satisfactory.
There is something most disappointing in his beginning thus to relate in detail the first
in that series of wonderful escapes of which he had just before given a rapid sketch,
and then suddenly and abruptly breaking off leaving our curiosity roused and yet
;
We take h
Xptaru with dpTrayevra, which would have come immediately after
fieKaTaadp(4)v,had it not been intercepted by the parenthetic clause.
3 Comjjare Luke xxiii. 43, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise, and Rev. il 7.
4 7. e. a painful bodily infirmity. See Gal. iv. 13, 14, and Yol. I. p. 274.
5 Tdv Yivpiov.
The full meaning of kTriaKTivou is, to come to a place for the purpose affixing
dren should not lay up wealth for parents, but parents for chil-
dren. !N"ay, rather, most gladly will I spend, yea, and myself 15
be spent, for your souls, though the more abundantly I love you,
the less I be loved.
But thoughbe granted that I did not burden you myself, 16
it
thT\S'''must
fend myself ? Nay, before God I speak, in fellow-
to%Sh them ^^^P ^^^^^ Christ ; but doing all, beloved, for your
in the?r She- sakcs, that you may be built up. For I fear lest
dience.
perchaucc when I come I should find you not such
as I could wish, and that you also should find from me other
treatment than you desire. I fear to find you full of strife,
jealousies, passions, intrigues,^ slanderings, backbitings, vaunt-
ing, sedition. I fear lest, when I come, my God w^ill again
humble me^ by your and I shall be compelled to mourn
faults,
over many among those who had sinned before my ^ last visit,
UDO-Tj/iapTT/Koreg.
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS, 111)
7 my part, abide the proof.^ Yet I pray to God that I may not
harm you in any wise. I pray, not that my own power may ba
clearly proved, but that you may do right, although I should
seem unable to abide the proof [because I should show no sign
e of power] for I have no power against the truth, but only for
;
' Deut. xix. 15 (from LXX. nearly verbatim), meaning, "I will judge not without
examination, nor will I abstain from punishing upon due evidence." Or else (perhaps),
**I shall now assuredly fulfil my threats."
f 3 This passage, in which ypa^w is omitted by the best MSS., seems conclusive
for the intermediate jom-ney. What would be the meaning of saying, " I forewarn
you as if I were present the second time, now also while I am absent " ? which is the
txanslation that we must adopt, if we deny the intermediate visit. Also the Troov/iap-
iTjKoTEc, contrasted with the loiKol TrdvTeg (v. 2), seems inexplicable except on this
hypothesis. See p. 26, n. 1.
* 'Or; (as frequently) is here equivalent to a mark of quotation.
'A66ki/uoc slvai, means, to fail when tested ; this was the original meamng of the
English to be reprobate (A. V.). Observe, here, again, the reference to the contei^
^see preceding note). A paronomasia on the same words occm-s Rom. i. 28.
P Viz. the proof that Chrisfs power is with me.
120 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
[against you], and you are strong yea, it is the very end of my
;
Autograph ben- The 2:race ofour Lord Jesus Christ, and the love 14
ediction.
of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be
with you all.3
nected with a collection now in progress for the poor Christians in Jud^a.-*
It is not the first time that we have seen St. Paul actively exerting him-
self in such a project.^ Nor is it the first time that this particular contri-
bution has been brought before our notice. At Ephesus, in the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul gave special directions as to the
method in which it should be laid up in store (1 Cor. xvi. 1-4). Even
before this period similar instructions had been given to the Churches of
Galatia (ib. 1). And the whole project was in fact the fulfilment of a
promise made at a still earher period, that in the course of his preaching
among the Gentiles, the poor in Judaea should be remembered (Gal. ii. 10).
The collection was going on simultaneously in Macedonia and Achaia ;
and the same letter gives us information concerning the manner in which
it was conducted in both places. The directions given to the Corinthians
were doubtless similar to those' under which the contribution was made at
Thessalonica and Philippi. Moreover, direct information is incidentally
given of what was actually done in Macedonia ; and thus we are furnished
with materials for depicting to ourselves a passage in the Apostle's Ufa
which is not described by St. Luke. There is much instruction to be
gathered from the method and principles according to which these funds
were gat hered by St. Paul and his associates, as well as from the conduct
of those ivho contributed for their distant and suffering brethren.
Both from this passage of Scripture and from others we are folly
'
Compare x. 8. See note ou ' 1 Thess. v. 25.
The dfirjv is not found in the best MSS.
* The whole of the eighth and ninth chapters.
* See the account of the mission of Barnabas and Saul to JeruBalem ic fiw time Ctf
made aware of St. Paul's motives for urging tMs benevolent work. Bei
BidesMs promise made long ago at Jerusalem, that in his preaching
the necessities of Christ's people " in Judaea, but would " overflow " in
thanksgivings and prayers on their part for those whose hearts had been
opened to bless them (2 C6r. ix. 12-15), or he feared that this charity
might be rejected, and he entreated the prayers of others, " that he
might be delivered from the disobedient in Judaea, and that the service
which he had undertaken for Jerusalem might be favourably received by
Christ's people" (Rom. xv. 30, 31).
Influenced by these motives, he spared no pains in promoting the
work ; but every step was conducted with the utmost prudence and
delicacy of feeling. He was well aware of the calumnies with which his
enemies were ever ready to assail his character ; and therefore he took
the 'most careful precautions against the possibility of being accused of
mercenary motives. At 'an early stage of the collection, we find him
writing to the Corinthians, to suggest that whomsoever they should
judge fitted for the trust, should be sent to carry their benevolen&ij t3
Jerusalem" (1 Cor. xvi. 8) ; and again he alludes to the delegates aom-
missioned with Titus, as " guarding himself against all suspicion which
was charged," and as being " careful to do all things in a seemly manner,
not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men" (2 Cor.
viii. 20, 21). This regard to what was seemly appears most strikingly in
his mode of bringing the subject before those to whom he wrote and
epoke. He lays no constraint upon them. They are to give " not
grudgingly or of necessity," but each " according to the free choice of his
heart ; for God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. ix. t). "If there is a
willing mind,, the gift is acceptable when measured by the giver's power,,
and needs not to go beyond" (2 Cor. viii. 12). He spoke rather as
giving " advice" (viii. 10), than a " command ^ and he sought to prove
the reality of his converts' love, by reminding them of the zeal of others
(viii. 8). In writing to the Corinthians, he delicately contrasts their
wealth with the poverty of the Macedonians. In speaking to the Mace-
donians themselves, such a mode of appeal was less natural, for they were
poorer and more generous. Yet them also he endeavoured to rouse to a
generous rivalry, by reminding them of the zeal of Achaia (viii. 24. ix. 2).
To them also he would doubtless say that " he who sows sparingly shall
wants, and enabling them to be bountiful to others (ib. 8). And that
one overpowering argument could never be forgotten, the example of
Christ, and the debt of love we owe to Him, " You know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, how, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He
became poor, that you, by His poverty, might be made rich'^ (viii. 9).
Nor ought we, when speaking of the instruction to be gathered from this
charitable undertaking, to leave unnoticed the calmness and deliberation of
the method which he recommends of laying aside, week by week,^ what is
devoted to God (1 Cor. xvi. 2), a practice equally remote from the
excitement of popular appeals, and the mere impulse of instinctive bene-
volence.
The Macedonian Christians responded nobly to the appeal which was
made to them by St. Paul. The zeal of then- brethren in Achaia "roused
Compare his language to Philemon, whom he " might have commandel," but
**for love's sake he rather besought him" v. 9. See the Introduction, p. xv.
Compare what was said at Miletus, Acts xx. 35 also Eph. iv. 28.
;
* From 2 Cor. viii. 10, ix. 2, it would seem that the plan recommended in 1 Cor. xvi
? had been carried into eflect. See Paley's remarks in the Horaj Paulinae on 2 Cor
The Bame plan had been recommended in Galatia, and probably in Macedonia.
LIBERALITY OF THE MACEDONIANS. 123
the most of them to follow it" (2 Cor. tx. 2). God's grace was abua
dantly "manifested in the Churches " on the north of the JEgean (ilx
'
heavy trial, the fulness of their joy overflowed out of the depth of their
poverty in the riches of their liberality" (ib. viii. 2). Their contribution
was no niggardly gift, wrung from their coveteousness (viii. 5) ;
but they
gave honestly "according to their means" (ib. 3), and not only so, but
even " beyond their means" (ib.) ;
nor did they give grudgingly, under tho
pressure of the Apostle's urgency, but of their own free will, beseeching
him with much entreaty that they might bear their part in the grace
from that which, is the basis of all true Christian charity. They gave
themselves first to the Lord Jesus Christ, by the will of God" (ib. 5).
the Gospel " they and they only had sent once and again ^ to relieve his
wants, both at Thessalonica and at Corinth (Philip, iv. 15, 16) ; and "at
the last" their care of their friend and teacher "flourished again" (ib. 10),
and they sent their gifts to him at Rome, as now they sent to their un-
known brethren at Jerusalem. The Philippians are in the Epistles what
that poor woman is in the Gospels, who placed two mites in the treasury.
They gave much, because they gave of vheir poverty ; and wherever the
^ See p. 109, n. 2.
" The aorist k-neplaaevaev (2 Cor. viii. 2) does not necessarily imply that the coUeo-
tion was closed aad the present Kavxio/nczL (ix. 2) rather implies the contrary.
;
3In 2 Cor. xi. 9 we find Philippi used as equivalent to Macedonia (p. 92), and so it
may be here. But it is not absolutely certain (ibid.) that the Second Epistle to thd
Corinthians was writteai at Philippi. The Churches in Macedonia were only few, and
communication among them was easy along the Via Egnatia as when the first contribu*
;
tions were sent from Philippi to St.* Paul at Thessalonica. See Vol. 1. p. 329.
4 See above, p. 92. For the account of this relief being sent to St. Paul, see Vol. I
p. 329 ;
and p. 389, n. 3, in reference to Phil. iv. 10 and 2 Cor. xi. 9.
0
124: THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Gospel is preached throughout the whole world, there shall this liberality
be told for a memorial of them.
If the principles enunciated by the Apostle in reference to the col-
lection command our devout attention, and if the example of the Macedo-
nian Christians is held out to the imitation of all future ages of the
Church, the conduct of those who took "an active part in the manage-
ment of the business should not be unnoticed. Of two of these the namea
areunknown to us,^ though tlieir characters are described. One was a
brother, " whose praise in publishing the Gospel was spread throughout
the churches," and who had been chosen by the Church of Macedonia to
accompany St. Paul with the charitable fund to Jerusalem (2 Cor. viii.
18, 19). The other was one " who had been put to the proof in many
trials, and always found zealous in the work" (ib. 22). But concerning
Titus, the third companion of these brethren, " the partner ot St. Paul's
lot and his fellow-labourer for the good of the Church," we have fuller
information ; and this seems to be the right place to make a more parti-
cular allusion to him, for he was nearly concerned in all the steps of the
collection now in progress.
Titus does not, like Timothy, appear at intervals through all the pas-
sages of the Apostle's life. He is not mentioned in the Acts at all, and
this is the only place where he comes conspicuously forward in the
Epistles ;
^ and all that is said of him is connected with the business of the
collection.3 Thus we have a detached portion of his biography, which is
at once a thread that guides us through the main facts of the contribu-
tion for the Judaean Christians, and a source whence we can draw some
knowledge of the character of that disciple, to whom St. Paul addressed
one of his pastoral Epistles. At an early stage of the proceedings he
seems to have been soon
sent, the First Epistle was despatched
after
from, Ephesus to Corinth, not simply enforce the Apostle's general
to
injunctions, but'* to labour also in forwarding the collection (2 Cor. xii.
he had come to Macedonia, and brought the Apostle good news from
Achaia, he was exhorted to return, that he might finish what was so well
See Vol. I. p. 211, note. It is observed there that the only epistles in which he k
mentioned are 2 Cor. and 2 Tim.
3 The prominent appearance of Titus in this part of the history has been made m
argument for placing the Epistle to Titus, as Wieseler and others have done, abotU
this part of St, Paul's life. This question will be discussed afterwanL?.
* See above, p. 91. The had sometliing to do with thb
fact that the mission of Titus
collection, might be inferred from 2 Cor. xii. 18defraud you?" We do
:
" Did Titus
not know who the " brother " was, that was sent with him on that Decision froca
Ephc'Bus.
:
rmjs. 125
S)egun, taking with him (as we have seen) the Second Epistle to the
Corinthians, and accompanied hj the two deputies who have just heen
mentioned. It was a task which he was by no means unwilling to under-
take. Grod "put into his heart the same zeal" which Paul himself had j
he not only consented to the Apostle's desire, but was " himself very
zealous in the matter, and went of his own accord" (2 Cor. viii. 16, It)
If we put together these notices, scanty as they are, of the conduct of
Titus, they set before us a character which seems to claim our admu"a-
tion for a remarkable union of enthusiasm, integrity, and discretion.
After the departure of Titus, St, Paul still continued to prosecute the
labours of an evangeUst in the regions to the north of Greece. He was
unwilling as yet to visit the Corinthian Church, the disaffected members of
Which still caused him so much anxiety, and he would doubtless gladly
employ this period of delay to accomplish any plans he might have formed
and left incomplete on his former visit to Macedonia. On that occasion
he had been persecuted in Philippi,^ and had been forced to make a pre-
cipitate retreat from Thessalonica ;
^ and from Bercea his course had been
similarly urged to Athens and Corinth.^ Now he was able to embrace a
wider circumference in his Apostolic progress. Taking Jerusalem as his
and now on his third progress he would seem to have penetrated into the
mountains of the interior, or even beyond them, to the shores of the Adri-
atic, and " fully preached the Gospel of Christ round about unto Illyri-
must be content to leave this part of the Apostle's travels in some degree
of vagueness ; more especially as the preposition (" unto," fiixp^) employed
in the passage is evidently indeterminate.
The political import of the word " Illyricum" will be seen by referring
to what has been written in an earlier chapter on the province of Macedo-
nia.5 It has been there stated that the former province was contiguous to
the north-western frontier of the latter. It must be observed, however,
on the south, which was incorporated by the Romans with Macedonia, and
formed the coast line of that province where it touched the Adriatic,''
and Barbarous, or Roman lllyricum, which extended towards the head of
that gulf, and was under the administration of a separate gOYernor. This
is " one of those ill-fated portions of the earth which, though placed in im-
tically, with the capitals both of the Eastern and Western empires : but
afterwards it relapsed almost into its former rude condition, and " to tliis
military posts, which was extended along the frontier of the Danube.^ At
first it was placed under the senate :
' but it was soon found to require the
presence of large masses of soldiers : the emperor took it into his own
handSjS and inscriptions are still extant on which we can read the records
of its occupation by the seventh and eleventh legions.^ Dalmatia, which
is also mentioned by St. Paul (2 Tim. iv. 10), was a district in the south-
ern part of this province ; and after the final reduction of the Dalmatian
tribes, '0 the province was more frequently called by this name than by that
of lllyricum." The limits of this political jurisdiction (to speak in general
6 One of the most important of these military posts was Siscia, in the Pannonian
country, on the Save. See App. Illyr. 23, Dio. xlix. 36, seq. The line was continued
by Augustus through McEsia, though the reduction of that region to a province was
later. Six legions protected the frontier of the Danube. Tac. Ann. iv. 5.
7 Dio. liii. 12. 8 Dio. liv. 34.
Orelli's inscriptions, 3452, 3553, 4995, 4996. Josephus alludes to these legions in
the following passage, and his language on geographical subjects is always important
as an illustration of the Acts: 01 uTrd tuv Opg.K0)v 'IXXvptol Tijv jnexpi AaXftarcac
dnoTe/j-vo/ievrjc 'loTpcp KarnKovvreg, ov dual /lovoig Tayfxaatv iTreUovai, ued' uv avTol
nif tC)v AaKuv dvaKonTwaiv opfcdg. B. J. ii. 16.
10 Sec the history in Dio.
11 Hoeck's Rom. Gesch. p. 379. Lalmatia is a name unknown to the earlier Greet
ludtera See Cramer's Greece, vol. L p. 35.
JCLLTKIGUil. 12T
terms) nay bo said to have included Bosnia and the modern ^ Daimatia,
with parts of Croatia and Albania.
But the term Illyricum was by no means always, or even generally,
Used in a strictly political sense. The extent of country included in the
expression was various at various times. The Illyrians were loosely spoken
Df by the earlier Greek writers as the tribes which wandered on the east-
ern shore of the Adriatic' The Illyricum which engaged the arms of
Rome under the Republic was only a narrow strip of that shore with the
adjacent islands. But in the Imperial times it came to be used of a vast
and vague extent of country lying to the south of the Danube, to the east
of Italy, and to the west of Macedonia.^ So it is used by Strabo in the
reign of Augustus,'* and similarly by Tacitus in his account of the civil
wars which preceded the fall of Jerusalem ; ^ and the same phraseology
continues to be applied to this region till the third century of the Christian
era. We need not enter into the geographical changes which depended
on the new division of the empire under Constantine,' or into the fresh
significance which, in a later age, was given to the ancient names, when
the rivalry of ecclesiastical jurisdictions led to the schism of Eastern and
"Western Christ end om.^ We have said enough to show that it is not pos-
sible to assume that the Illyricum of St. Paul was a definite district ruled
1 The modem name of Illyria has again contracted to a district of no great extent
in the northern part of the ancient province.
* Herodotus and Scylax. Compare Appian, Illyr. 1.
' See Gibbon's first chapter.
* Strabo, vii. See Appian Illyr. 6.
6 Tac. Hist. 1. 2, 76, &c., where under the term Illyricum are included Dalmatia,
Pannonia, and Moesia ; and this, it must be remembered, is strictly contemporaneouf
with the Apostle.
See Vopiscus, Aurel. 13. Treb. Claud. 15.
diocese of the Praefecture of Italy. The Pr(sfecture of Illyricum contained only that
part of the old Illyrian country which was called Greek Illyricum, and belonged, in
the time of Claudius, to the province of Macedonia. See above.
* A geos;raphical account of Illyricum in its later ecclesiastical sense, and of the
dioceses which were the subjects of the rival claims of Rome and Coustar tinopie, will
&e found m Neale's History of the Eastern Church.
See Vl. I. pp. 237, 276.
oec the account of the Via Egnatia, Vol. I. p. 317.
128 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAtFL.
Macedonia, and even if his Apostolic labours were entirely to the east-
ward of the mountains, in the country watered by the Strymon and tho
Axius.^
Whether he travelled widely and rapidly in the regions to the north of
mixed with joy. During the course of his stay at Ephesus, and in all
parts of his subsequent journey in Troas and Macedonia, his heart had
been continually at Corinth. He had been in frequent communication
with his inconsistent and rebellious converts. Three letters' had been
written to entreat or to threaten them. Besides his own personal visit
when the troubles were beginning, he had senf several messengers, who
were authorised to speak in his name. Moreover, there was now a special
subject in which his interest and affections were engaged, the contribu-
1 It has been said above (Yol. I. p. 317) that when St. Paul was on the Roman way
was really on the road which led
at Philippi, he to Kome. The ordinary ferry was
from Dyrrhachium to Bmndusium.
' See above, p. 126, comparing Vol. I. pp. 315, 316.
3 Nicopolis was in Epirus, which remembered (see above under Macedo-
it will be
nia), was in the province The following passage may be quoted in illus-
of Achaia.
tration of the geography of the district :
Eum honorem [consulis] Germanicus iniit
apud urbem Acham Nicopolim, quo venerat per lUyricam oram, viso fratre Druso in
Dalmatia agente. Tac. Ann. ii. 53. See Wieseler, p. 353. For the stages on the
Roman road between ApoUonia on the Adriatic and Nicopolis, see Cramer's Greece,
voL i. p. 154.
4 See above, p. 126. It is indeed possible that the word Dalmatia in this Epistle
may be used for the province (of Illyricum or Dalmatia), and not a subordinate district
of what was called Illyricum in the wider sense.
6 The preposition fJiexpt need not denote anything more than that St. Paul came to
the frontier. See Hemsen's remarks in answer to the question, " Kam Paulus nach
Illyricum?" and compare p. 399.
p. 390,
6 See what has been said of these rivers in Chap. IX.
' The question of the lost letter has been discussed above in this volume, Ch. XV
op. 29, 30.
See again, on this intermediate visit, the beginning of Ch. XV.
'
Cion for the poor in Judaea, which he wished to " seal " to those fol
whom it was destined (Rom. xv. 28) before undertaking his journey to
the West.i
Of the time and the route of this southward journey we can only say
that the most probable calculation leads us to suppose that he was travel-
;
ling with his companions towards Corinth at the approach of winter
and this makes it likely that he went by land rather than by sea.^ A good
road to the south had long been formed from the neighbourhood of Beroea,*
connecting the chief towns of Macedonia with those of Achaia, Oppor-
tunities would not be wanting for preaching the Gospel at every stage in
his progress and perhaps we may infer from his own expression in writing
to the Romans
;
(xv. 23),
"I have no more place in those parts," either
that churches were formed in every chief city between Thessalonica and
Corinth, or that the Glad-tidings had been unsuccessfully proclaimed in
Thessaly and Bceotia, as on the former journey they had found but littlo
' For the project of this westward journey see the end of Chap. XV. above.
" See Wieseler. 3 gee Acts xxvii. 9.
4 The roads through Dium have been alluded to above, Yol. I. p. 342, and comjiare
p. ?38, n. 8. The stages between Beroea and Larissa in Thessaly may be seen in Cra-
mer's Greece, vol. i. p. 281. See again p. 450.
5 Athens is never mentioned again after Acts
xviii. 1, 1 Thess. iii. 1. We do not
know that was ever revisited by the Apostle, and in the second century we find that
it
Christianity was almost extinct there. See Yol. I. p. 381. At the same time nothing
would be more easy than to visit Athens, with other " churches of Achaia " during Ms
residence at Corinth. Sf^ Yol. 1. p. 408, and Yol. 11. p. 96.
res*. a.--f
:
CHAPTER XYni.
0 foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" Gal. iil. L
OT. PAUL'S FEELINGS ON APPROACHING CORINTH.CONTRAST WITH iHS FIRST VISIT. RA-M
NEWS FROM GALATIA.HE WRITES THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
It was probably already winter, when St. Paul once more beheld in the
distance the lofty citadel of Corinth, towering above the isthmus which it
commands. The gloomy season must have harmonised with his feelings as
he approached. The clouds which hung round the summit of the Acro-
Corinthus, and cast their shadow upon the city below, typified the mists
of vice and error which darkened the minds even of its Christian citizens.
Their father in the faith knew that, for some of them at least, he had
laboured in vain. He was returning to converts who had cast off the mo-
rality of the Gospel ; to friends who had forgotten his love ; to enemies
who disputed his divine commission. It i-s true, the majority of the Corin-
thian church had repented of their worst sins, and submitted to his Apos-
tolic commands. Yet what was forgiven could not entirely be forgotten
even towards the penitent he could not feel all the confidence of earliei
affection ; and there was still left an obstinate minority, who would not
give up their habits of impurity, and who, when he spoke to them of
righteousness and judgment to come, replied either by openly defending
their sins, or by denying his authority and impugning his orthodoxy.
He now came prepared to put down this opposition by the most deci-
he was the Jewish Inquisitor, the exterminator of heretics, seeking for vic-
tims to imprison or to stone. Now he is meek and lowly, ' travelling in the
into prison ;" he " compelled them to blaspheme." When their sentence
was doubtful, he gave destruction ^ he was " exceed-
his vote for their ;
ingly mad Then his heart was filled with pride and hate,
against them."
uncharitableness and self-will. But now his proud and passionate nature
is transformed by the spirit of God he is crucified with Christ the fer-
; ;
his very denunciations and threats of punishment are full of love ; lie
grieves over his contumacious opponents ; the thought of their pain fills
him with sadness. " For if I cause you grief, who is there to cause me
joy ? " 4 He implores them, even at the eleventh hour, to save him from
the necessity of dealing harshly with them ; he had rather leave his au-
fchority doubtful, and still remain liable to the sneers of his adversaries,
Paul, purified from its The same zeal for God burns in hiis
old alloy.
aeart, though it is no longer misguided by ignorance nor warped by party
spirit. The same firm resolve is seen in carrying out his principles to their
consequences, though he shows it not in persecuting but in suffering. The
same restless energy, which carried him from Jerusalem to Damascus that
he might extirpate heresy, now urges him from one end of the world to the
other,^ that he may bear the tidings of salvation.
The painful anticipations which now saddened his return to Corinth
memory could not but revert to the time when first he entered the same
city, a friendless and lonely ' stranger. He could not but recall the feel-
ings of extreme depression with which he first began his missionary work
at Corinth, after his unsuccessful visit to Athens. The very firmness and
bold confidence which now animated him, the assurance which he felt of
victory over the opponents of truth, must have reminded him by con-
trast of the anxiety and self-distrust ^ which weighed him down at his first
sisted in sin was but small ; and if many of the adult converts were so
tied and bound by the chains of habit, that their complete deliverance
could scarce be hoped for, yet at least their children might be brought
up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Moreover, there were
1 He was at this very time intending to go first Rome, and
to Jerusalem, thence to
thence to Spain ; that is, to travel from the Eastern to the Western extremities of the
civilized world. See Rom. xv. 28. Compare the conclusion of Chap. XVII.
' He was left at Athens alone (1 Thess. iii. 1), and so remained till Timotheua aud
Silas rejoined him at Corinth. See Vol. I. p. 362.
3 See 1 Cor. iii. 1-3. * Acts xviii. 9.
ome even in this erring church, on whom St. Paul could think with un-
mingled satisfation ; some who walked in the spirit, and did not fulfil the
iust of the flesh ; who were created anew in Christ Jesus ; with whom ola
things had passed away, and all things had become new ; who dwelt in
Christ, and Christ in them. Such were Erastus the treasurer, and
Stephanas, the first fruits of Achaia ; such were Fortunatus and Achaicus,
who had lately travelled to Ephesus on the errand of their brethren ; such
was Gains, ^ who was even now preparing to welcome beneath his hospit-
able roof the Apostle who had thrown open to himself the door of entrance
into the Church of Christ. When St. Paul thought of " them that were
such," and of the many others " who worked with them and laboured"*
as he threaded the crowded streets on his way to the house of Gaius,
doubtless he "thanked God and took courage."
But a painful surprise awaited him on his arrival. He found that in-
whom he seems to have regarded with peculiar affection, and whose love
and zeal for himself had formerly been so conspicuous, were rapidly for-
saking his teaching, and falling an easy prey to the arts of Judaizing mis-
sionaries from Palestine. We have seen the vigour and success with
which the Judaizing party at Jerusalem were at this period pursuing their
new tactics, by carrying the war into the territory of their great oppo-
nent, and endeavouring to counterwork him in the very centre of his
remains of their opposition, he heard that they had been working the same
mischief in Galatia, where he had least expected it. There, as in most of
the early Christian communities, a portion of the Church had been Jews
by birth ; and this body would afford a natural fulcrum for the efforts of
the Judaizing teachers ;
yet we cannot suppose that the number of Jews
resident in this inland agricultural district could have been very large.
And St. Paul, in addressing the Galatians, although he assumes that there
were some among them familiar with the Mosaic Law, yet evidently im-
plies that the majority were converts from heathenism.^ It is remark-
i
It would be more correct to write this name Caius but as the name under ita ;
Greek form of Gaius has become naturalised in the English languag-e as a eynonym of
Christian hospitality, it seems undesirable to alter it.
able^ therefore, that the Judaizing emissaries should so soon have gained
BO great a hold over a church consisting mainly of Gentile Christians j
and the fact that they did so proves not only their indefatigable activity,
but also their skill in the arts of conciliation and persuasion. It must be
remembered, however, that they were by no means scrupulous as to the
means which they employed to effect their objects. At any cost of false-
nood and detraction, they resolved to loosen the hold of St. Paul upon the
affection and respect of his converts. Thus to the Galatians they accused
nim of a want of uprightness, in observing the Law himself whilst among
the Jews, yet persuading the Gentiles to renounce it ;
*
they argued that
/lis motive was to keep his converts in a subordinate state, excluded from
the privileges of a full covenant with God, which was enjoyed by the cir-
cumcised alone ;
^ they declared that he was an interested flatterer,^ " be-
coming all things to all men," that he might make a party for himself
and above all, they insisted that he falsely represented himself as an
apostle of Christ, for that he had not, like the Twelve, been a follower of
Jesus when He was on earth, and had not received His commission ;
that,
on the contrary, he was only a teacher sent out by the authority of the
Twelve, whose teaching was only to be received so far as it agreed with
theirs and was sanctioned by them ; whereas his doctrine (they alleged)
was now in opposition to that of Peter and James, and the other
"Pillars" of the Church.'' By such representations they succeeded to a
great extent in alienating the Galatian Christians from their father in the
faith ;
already many of the recent converts submitted to circumcision^*
and embraced the party of their new teachers with the same zeal which
they had formerly shown for the Apostle of the Gentiles ;
^ and the rest
when he heard that those whom he loved were forsaking his cause and
believing the calumnies of his enemies. In this letter his principal object
is to show that the doctrine of the Judaizers did in fact destroy the very
alienation and distrust which had been designedly planted in the minds (A
eating his title to the Apostolic office as received directly from Christ, and
exercised independently of the other Apostles. Such were the cir-
cumstances and such the objects which led him to write the following
Epistle.
1 The date of this Epistle cannot be so clearly demonstrated as that of most of the
others ; but we conclude that it was written at the time assumed in the text on the
following grounds:
Ist. It was not written till after St. PauVs second visit to the Galatians. This
is proved (A) by his speaking of their conversion as having occurred at his first visit
{to TTpoTspov, iv. 13) implying that he had paid them a second visit.
;
(B) (iv. 16)
"Am I now become {yeyova) your enemy by speaking truth among you?" implies
that there had been a second visit in which he had offended them, contrasted with the
first when he was so welcome.
been only converted to Christianity for three years before his second visit (as was
really the case), and he had heard of their perversion not till four years after his
second visit, he could scarcely, in that case, speak of their perversion as having oc-
curred soon after they had been in the right path, in reference to the whole time they
had been Christians. He says virtually, " You are wrong now, you were right a short
time ago.^^ The natural impression conveyed by this language (considering that the
time of their previous stedfastness in the true faith was only three years altogether)
would certainly be that St. Paul must have heard of their perversion within about a
year from the time of his visit. At that time he was resident at Ephesus, where he
would most naturally and easily receive tidings from Galatia. Hence they consider
the Epistle to have been written at Ephesus during the first year of St. Paul's resi-
dence there. But in answer to these arguments it may be replied, that St. Paul does
not say the Galatians were perverted soon after his own last visit to them. His words
are> Q-av/xa^u on ovtcj raxeog [xeTarldeGde, " I wonder that you are so quickly shifting
your ground." The same word, raxeuc, he uses (2 Thess. ii. 2) where he exhorts th
Thessalonians /xy raxicog aalEvOTivai, "not rashly to let themselves be shaken;" where:
ra;t:ewf refers not so much to the time as to the manner in which they were affected
like the English hastily. But even supposing the Tax(jg in Gal. i. 6 to refer simply
to time, and to be translated quickly or soon, we still (if we would fix the date from
ifc) must ask, " quickly after what event ? " " soon after what event ? " And it ia-
fTore natural (especially as ueTandeadt is tlie present tense) to understand " sooa
:
teache^t^'and ^^^^6(1 Him from the dead With all the brethren - 2
at the same time, while the same line of argument was occupying the writer's mind,
and the same phrases and illustrations were on his tongue. This resemblance, too,
becomes more striking when we remember the very diiferent circumstances which
called forth the two Epistles that to the Romans being a deliberate exposition of St.
;
that to the Galatians being an indignant rebuke, written on the urgency of the occa-
sion, to check the perversion of his children in the faith.
This internal evidence, therefore, leads us to suppose that the Epistle to the Gala-
tians was written within a few months of that to the Romans and most probably, ;
therefore, from Corinth during the present visit (although there is nothing to show
which of the two was written the first). The news of the arrival of the Judaizers in
Galatia would reach St. Paul from Ephesus and (considering the commercial relations
;
between the two cities) there is no place where he would be so likely to hear tidings
from Ephesus as at Corinth. And since, on his arrival at the latter city, he would
probably find some intelligence from Ephesus waiting for him, we have supposed, in
the text, that the tidings of the perversion of Galatia met him thus on his arrival at
Corinth.
J
Some of these " brethren in St. Paul's company " are enumerated in Acts xx. 4
Sopater of Beroea ;
Gains of Derbe Timo-
Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica ; ;
theus and Tychicus and Trophimus from Proconsular Asia. The junction of their
;
names with that of Paul in the salutation of this Epistle, throws light on the junction
of the names of Timotheus, Sosthcnes, Silvanus, &c. with Paul's in the salutation at
the head of some other Epistles showing us more clearly that these names were not
;
joined with that of St. Paul as if they were joint authors of the several Epistles re-
ferred to. This clause also confirms the date we have assigned to the Epistle, since it
Buits a period when he had an unusual number of travelling companions, in conse-
quence of the collection which they and he ^vere jointly to bear to Jerusalem. See the
la>st chapter.
^The text used by Chrysostom placed r/fiuv after Ttarpog, which is the usual order.
The meaning of the other reading (which has the greater weight of MS. authority fol
it) is probably the same.
EPISrLE TO THE GALATIA^S. 137
6 1 marvel that you are so soon shifting ' your ground, and
forsaking Him who ' called you ^ in the grace of Christ, for a
7 new Glad-tidings ; which is nothing else ^ but the device of cer
tain men who are troubling you, and who desire to pervert the
8 Glad-tidings of Christ. But even though I myself, or an angel
from heaven, should declare to you any other Glad-tidings than
9 that which I declared, let him be accursed. As I have said
before, so now 1 say again, if any man is come to you with a
Glad- tidings different from that which you received before, let
10 him be accursed. Think ye that man's ^ assent, or God's, is now
my object ? or is it that I seek favour with men ? Nay, if I
still sought favour with men, I should not be the bondsman
of Christ.
11 For I which I
certify you, brethren, that the Glad-tidings
' For the translation of this, see the note on the date of this Epistle, above.
* " Him who called you." St. Paul probably means God. Compare Rom. ix. 24.
3 " In the grace of Christ." It is scarcely necessary (since Winer's writing) to ob-
aeiTe that h cannot mean into ; Christians are called to salvation in the grace of
Christ.
* The Authorised Version, " which is not another,''^ is incorrect ; the aA?.o of this
verse not being a repetition of the preceding irepov.
5 This alludes to the accusation brought against him.See above, p. 133 also 2 ;
save only James,'^ the brother of the Lord. Q^ow in this which 20
I write to you, behold I testify before God that I lie not.) Af- 21
ter this I came into the regions of Syria and Oilicia but I was 22 ;
^ Cephas, not Peter, is tlie reading of the best MSS. throughout this Epistle, as well
as in the Epistles to Corinth ;
St. Peter was or-
except in one passage, Gal. ii. 7, 8.
dinarily known up by the Syro-Chaldaic form of his name (the nama
to this period
actually given by our Lord), and not by its Greek equivalent. It is remarkable that
he himself, in his Epistles, uses the Greek form, perhaps as a mark of his antagonism
to the Judaizers, who naturally would cling to the Hebraic form.
' See note on 1 Cor. ix. 5. 3 'Akovovtec rjaav,
4 See the discussion of this passage, Vol. I. pp. 227-235 ; also see Vol. I. p. 219 and
Vol. II. p. 74. ^ AvTolg. Compare the preceding verse.
6 On these private conferences preceding the public assembly of the Church, see
Vol. I. p. 213.
' Something must be supplied here to complete the sense : we understand dvdsjui}v
from V. 2 ; others supply ov nepieTfnjdrj, but I refuse to circumcise him (which other-
wise I would have done) on account of the false brethren, that I might not seeai to
yield to them." Others again supply TrEpLETfj.ij6jj, which gives an opposite sense. Oui
interpretation agrees best with the narrative in Acts xv.
" Viz. from the ordinances of the Mosaic law
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAKS. 139
6 Bat from those who were held in chief reputatiou ^it oiat
ters not to me of what account they were, God is no respectei
of persons those (I say) who were the chief in reputation gave
I instruction but, on the contrary, when they saw
me no new ;
translation, " he was blamed." For the history of this see Chap. VIL
to he
4 'OpdoTTodelv (only found here), to walk in a straight path.
We read Si here with Tischendorf and the best MSS.
;
of Christ, and not bj the works of the Law ; for by the works
of the Law shall no flesh he justified.^ "
' ^
outward life which still remains, I live in the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I will not set 21
at naught the gift of God's grace [by seeking righteousness in
the Law] ; for if the Law can make men righteous, then Christ
has died in vain.
19 also omitted.
llpoc-ypu(l>Ti.
;
miracles ? ' Came they from the deeds of the Law, or from the
t^3aching of Faith ?
6 So likewise " Abraham ' hadfaith in God. and Faith, and not
is the
7 7 ^1 TT- /
3 Gen. xii. 3, from the LXX. but not verbatim. Compare the similar quotation,
Eom. iv. 17.
spoke of many, but as of one, " (md to thy seed;'^''^ and this
seed is Clirist. But this I say ; a covenant which had been
ratified before by God, to be fulfilled in Christ, the law which
was given four hundred and thirty ' years afterwards, cannot
make void, to the annulling of the promise. For if the in- 18
heritance comes from the Law, it comes no longer from pro-
mise ; whereas God has given it to Abraham freely by pro-
mise.
To what end, was the Law ? it was ' added because 19
then,
of the transgressions* of men, till the Seed should come, to
whom belonged the promise and it was ordained through the ;
^ Gen. xiii. 15. (LXX.) The meaning of the argument is, that the recipients of
God's promises are not to be looked on as an aggregate of different individuals, or of
different races, but are all one body, whereof Christ is the head.
' With regard to the chronology, see Vol. I. p. 176, n. 1. To the remarks there the
following may be added : Tovg nrjdtv ruv tolovtqv oio/j,Evovc elvai daifioviov, d^M
rravra TTjg dvdpuTrtvijg yvufxrig, daifiovdv '
6ai/j,ovdv 6^ Koi Tovg fiavTevo/xivovg
d
Tolg dvdpunoig iduKav ol deol juaOovai SiaKpiveiv
olov ....
a e^eariv dpLdfiTjaavrac
7] fierprjaavTag rj OTTjaavrag eldivai ' rovg rd TOiavra naod ruv Oeuv Tzvvdavofitvovg
udeiuGTa noLEtv ijyelTO '
e^rj 6e 6elv, d juev fiadovrag rcotelv eScokuv ol deol, fiavOdvetv '
u. Se fj,?]
dTjTia Tolg dvOpuTtOLg karl, nsLpdodat izapd t&v dsdv TzwddvEodci, Memorabilia
Socratis, i. 1.
3 MSS.
TlpoaETEdji is the reading of the best
Compare Rom. v. 20 vonog napeia^XdEv iva TclEOvday to TrapuTzru/xa.
4 :
^ Moses is called " the Mediator " by the Rabbinical writers. See several passages
quoted by Schoettgen (Horae Hebraicse) on this passage.
7 St. Paul's argument here is left by him exceedingly elliptical, and therefore very
ol^scure as is evident from the fact that more than two hundred and fifty different
;
conditional promise of God, than upon a covenant made between God and man for in ;
the latter case the conditions of the covenant might be broken by man (as they had
been), and so the blessings forfeited ; whereas in the former case, God being immutable,
the blessings derived from His promise remain steadfast for ever." The passage la
Galatians, ten times in Romans (another example of the similarity between thesa
Epistles), and once in 1 Corinthians. In one of these cases (Gal. vi. 14) it is not in-
terjectional, but joined with kfioi ; in another (1 Cor. vi. 15), it repels a direct hypo-
thesis, " Shall Ida {so and so)? God forbid.^' But in all the other instances iti*
EPISTLE TO THE GALAT1A2JS. 143
Law were given which could raise men from death to life, then
we might truly say that righteousness came from tlie Law.
22 But > the Scripture (on the other hand) has shut up the whole
world together under the condemnation of sin, that through
Faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to the
faithful.
lY.by promise.
1 'Now I say, that the heir, so long as he is a child, has no
more freedom than a slave, though he is owner of the whole
2 inheritance but he is under overseers and stewards until the
;
interjectional, and rebuts an inference deduced from St. PauVs doctrine by an oppo-
nent. So tliat the question which precedes iirj -yevoiro is equivalent to " Bo I then
infer that.^'
' The conneiotion of the argument is, that if the Law could give men spiritual life,
and so enable them to fulfil its precepts, would give them righteousness but it does
it :
not pretend to do this ; on the contrary, it shows the impotence of their nature by the
contrast of its requirements with their performance. This verse is parallel with Rom.
XL 32.
* UaiSayuyog. The mistranslation of this word in the Authorised Version has led
to a misconception of the See note on 1 Cor. iv. 15.
whole metaphor.
3 Ta oroixela tov Koafiov literally means the elementary lessons of outward thingt
Compare Col. ii. 8 and 20.
^ We, namely, all Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles.
:
And because you are the sons of God, He has sent forth the 6
His own Son into your hearts, crying unto Him, and
spirit of
return to an ,
forSworsSi^
bemg. But now, when you have gained the know- 9
ledge of God, or rather, when God has acknow-
ledged you, ^how is it that you are turning backwards to
those childish lessons, void both of strength and blessing?
Would you seek again the slavery which you have outgrown ?
Are you observing days,'* and months,^ and seasons,'' andio
years ?^ I am fearful for you, lest I have spent my labour on n
you in vain. I beseech you, brethren, to become as I am 12
[and seek no more a place among the circumcised] ; for I too
have become you ^ are [and have cast away the pride of
as
my circumcision]. You have never wronged me hitherto
on the contrary, although it was sickness (as you know) which 13
caused ' me to preach the Glad-tidings to you at my first visit,
yet you neither scorned nor loathed me because of the bodily 14
infirmity which was my trial ^ but you welcomed me as an ;
angel of God, yea, even as Christ Jesus. Why, then, did you 15
1 'A/3/3a is word for Father, and it is the actual word with which
the Syro-Chaldaic
the Lord's prayer began, as was uttered by our Lord himself. The 6 Trarrip which
it
5 The Sabbatical and jubilee years. From this it has been supposed that this Epistle
must have been written in a Sabbatical year. But this does not necessarily follow,
because the word may be merely inserted to complete the sentence and of course ;
those who observed the Sabbaths, festivals, &c. would intend to observe also the Sab-
batical years when they came. The plural of the word hiavrovg being used, favours
this view.
6 This is of course addressed to the Gentile converts.
' /. e. by keeping him in their country against his previous intention. See YoL L
p- 274.
8 Uetpaafiov. This was probably the same disease mentioned 2 Cor. xii. 7. It is
very unfortunate that the word temptation has so changed its meaning in the last two
hundred and fifty yeai's, as to make the Authorised Version of this verse a great source
of misapprehension to ignorant readers. Some have even been led to imagine that St.
Paul spoke of a sinful habit in which he indulged, and to the dominion of which he
was encouraged (2 Cor. xii. 9) contentedly to resign himself!
;
lyhad been you would have torn out your own eyes
possible,
16 and given them to me). Am I then become your enemy ^ be-
17 cause I tell you the truth ? They [who call me so] show zeal
for you with no good intent they would shut you out from ;
8 others, that your zeal may be for them alone. But it is good
to be zealous^ in a good cause, and that at all times, and not
when zeal lasts only [like yours] while I am present with
19 you. My beloved children, I am again bearing the pangs of
20 travail for you, till Christ be fully formed within you.
I would
you now, that I might change my
that I were present with
tone [from joy to sadness] for you fill me with perplexity. ;
21 Tell me, ye that desire to bo under the Law, will you not
22 hear the Law? For therein it is written that The aiiegory
Abraham had two sons one by the bond-woman, sLa^'^^teaches
;
23 the other by the free. But the son of the bond- toX'jew!^^'^"
woman was born to him after the flesh whereas the son of the ;
the first given from Mount Sinai, whose children are born into
25 bondage, which is Hagar (for the word Hagar^ signifies
Mount Sinai in Arabia) and herein she answers to the earthly
;
1 seems to confirm the view of those who suppose St. Paul's malady
Tliis certainly
to have been some disease in the eyes. The vfiuv appears emphatic, as if ho would
Bay, you would have torn out your own eyes to supply the lack of mine.
* The Judaizers accused St. Paul of desiring to keep the Gentile converts in an infe-
rior position, not admitted (by circumcision) into full covenant with God and called ;
him, therefore, their enemy. So, in the Clementines, St. Paul is covertly alluded to
as 6 hxQpog uvOpoTzo^.
3 To might also mean, " to be the object of zeal," as many interpreters take
C'i]?.ova6ai
U ;
on the whole, the other interpretation (which is that of Winer, Meyer, and De
but,
Wette) seems to suit the context better. Perhaps, also, there may be an allusion hei'e
^0 the peculiar use of the word C,r}7iUT^^. Compare Gal. i. 14.
With this passage compare Rom. ix. 7-9.
The word Hagar in Arabic means "a rock," and some authorities tell us tna.
Mount Sinai is so called by the Arabs. The lesson to be drawn from this whole pas-
sage, as regards the Christian use of the Old Testament, is of an importance which can
sicarcely be overrated.
6 All the best MSS. read yap, not 6e.
' This clause in brackets is implied, though not expressed, by St. Paul, being nece^
sary for the completion of the parallel.
VOL. n. 10
THE LIFE AJVD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
fore, in the freedom which Christ has given us, and turn not
back again, to entangle yourselves in the yoke of bondage.
Lo, I Paul declare unto you, that if you cause yourselves 2
to be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. I testify 3
again to every man who submits to circumcision, that he there-
by lays himself under obligation to fulfil the whole Law. By 4
resting your righteousness on the Law, you have annulled
your fellowship with Christ, you are fallen from the free gift
of His grace. For we, through the power of the Spirit ^ [not 5
through the circumcision of the Flesh], from Faith [not works],
look with earnest longing for the hope ^ of righteousness. For 6
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor un-
circumcision ; but Faith, whose work ^ is Love.
Warning against You wcro runniug the race well :who has cast 7
the Judaizing
teachers, and a stumblmff block lu vour
tit. way s who has turned
t/ ./
against party
divisions. you aside from your obedience to the truth ? The 8
counsel which you have obeyed' came not from Him who
called^ you. [Your seducers are few; but] ^'A little leaven 9
* The weight of MS. authority is rather against the Travrwv of the received text
j
yet it bears an emphatic sense if retained, viz. " we all, whether Jews or Gentiles-^
tween the Flesh and the Spirit would hinder ^ you from doing
18 that which your will prefers. But, if yoa be led by the Spirit,
19 you are not under the Law.^ Now, the works of the Flesh
1 This proverb is quoted also 1 Cor. v. 6.
This accusation might naturally be made by St. Paul's opponents, on the ground
or his circumcising Timothy, and himself still contiiauing several Jewish observances.
See Acts xx. 6., and Acts xxi. 24.
3 Literally, the stumbling-stone of the cross ; i. e. the cross, which is their stum-
bling-stone. Compare The doctrine of a crucified Messiah was a stum-
1 Cor. i. 23.
bling-block to the national pride of the Jews but if St. Paul would have consented to
;
lation.
5 Levit. xix. 18. (LXX.)
6 "Iva uij noi^n, not " so that you cannot " (A. V.). but tending to prevent you
from.
7 To be " under the yo5$e of the Law," and "under the yoke of the Flesh." is in St
Paul's language the same ;
because, for those who
are under the Spirit's guidance, the
Law is dead (v. 23) ;
they do right, not from fear of the Law's penalties, but through
the influence of the Spirit who dwells within them. This, at least, is the ideal statt
148 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the Spirit, let us take heed that our steps are guided
by the Spirit. Let us not thirst for empty honour, let us not 26
provoke one another to strife, let us not envy one another. YI.
Brethren, I speak
to you who call yourselves the Spiritual," i
even any one be overtaken in a fault, do you correct such
if
of Christians. Compare Rom. viii. 1-14. St. Paul here, and elsewhere in his Epistles,
alludes thus briefly to important truths, because his readrs were already familiar with
them from his personal teaching. By the Flesh (odp^) St. Paul denotes not merely
the sensual tendency, but generally that which is earthly in man, as opposed to what
is spiritual. " Die cdp^ bezeichnet die menschliche Natur iiberhaupt in Zustande
ihrer Entfremdung von gcittlichen Leben." Neander, P. und L., 664. It should be
observed, that the 17th verse a summary of the descriiDtion of the struggle between
is
flesh and spirit in Rom. vii. 7-25 ; and verse 18th is a summary of the description of
the Christian's deliverance from this struggle. Rom. viii. 1-14.
> 'kTLva is less definite than d. In the words which follow, /lOLxeca is omitted in the
best MSS.
^ ^ap/iuKeta, the profession of magical arts. The history of the times in which St,
Paul lived is full of the crimes committed by those who professed such arts. We have
seen him brought into contact with such persons at Ephesus already. They dealt i
poisons also, which accounts for the use of the term etymologically.
^ 'EpiQeta. Compare Rom. ii. 8 and note. Also 2 Cor. xii. 20.
4 Tl'iGTiQ seems to have this meaning here ; for faith (in its larger sense) could not
be classed as one among a number of the constituent parts of love. See 1 Cor. xiii.
'T/zeZf oi TzvevfiuTiKol.. See Vol. I. p. 446.
e The allusion here is apparently to ^sop's well-known fable. It is unfortunate
e. Moreover, '
let him who is receivine; instruction
be
Provision
aaade
t
fo
8
yourselves God cannot be defrauded. Every man
shall reap as he has sown. The man who now sows for his own
Flesh, shall reap therefrom a harvest doomed ^
to perish ; but
he who sows for the Spirit, shall from the Spirit reap the har-
9 vest of life eternal. But let us continue in well-doing, and not
be weary ; ^ for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
selves from the persecution which ^ Christ bore upon the cross.
13 For even they who circumcise themselves do not keep the
Law; but they wish to have you circumcised, that your
that in the Authorised Yersion the two words (l>opriov and (3dpog (v. 2) are translated
by the same term burden, which seems to make St. Paul contradict himself. Hia
meaning is, that self-examination will prevent us from comparing ourselves boastfully
with our neighbour we shall have enough to do with our own sins, without scrutinis-
;
ing his.
1 By the Word is meant the doctrines of Christianity,
' ^dopdv. See Rom. viii. 21.
3 Compare 2 Thess. iii. 13, where the expression is almost exactly the same : fi^
kKKaKrjarire KalcKOiovvTeg.
4 Thus we must understand mjlUoic ypdnnaoLv, unless we suppose (with Tholuck)
that 'K7]?uK0Lg is used for noLolg, as in the later Greek of the Byzantine writers. To
take ypdfiixaTa as equivalent to eKLarolri appears inadmissible. St. Paul does not
here say that he wrote the whole Epistle with his own hand, but this is the beginning
of his usual autograph postscript, and equivalent to the ovtu ypdcpu in 2 Thess. iii. 17.
We may observe as a further confirmation of this view, that scarcely any Epistle bears
more evident marks than this of having been written from dictation. The writer re-
ceived a letter from the venerable Neander a few months before his death, which illus-
trated this point in a manner the more interestir.g> because he (Neander) takes a dif-
ferent view of this passage (P. u. L., p 368). Hia letter is written in the fair and
flowing hand of an amanuensis, but it ands with a few irregular lines in large and
Fugged characters, written by himself and ej^^laining, the cause of his needing the
services of an amanuensis, namely, the weakness cf his eyes (probably the very malady
Df St. Paul). It was impossible to read this autograph without thinking of the preseni
passage, and observing that he might have expressed himself in the very words of St
Paul :
'l^e irTjTi.tKocg col yodixfj.aaiv eypaxpa ry ejny x^'-P^-
The o'vTOL is emphatic.
t Literally, persecution inflicted by the cross of Christ.
150 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon
all the Israel of God.^
Henceforth, let no man vex me [by denying that I am 17
Christ's servant]; for I bear in my body the scars ^ which
mark my bondage to the Lord Jesus.
4 ^riyuara, literally, the scars of the wounds made upon the body of a slave by the
CHAPTER XIX.
OUtu rd Kar* ejuk nrpoOvjuov kuI i[uv Tolg kv Ti2MK[ evayyeliaaadaL. Rom. i> 15.
No sooner had St. Paul despatched to Ephesus the messengers who bore
his energetic remonstrance to the Galatians, than he was called upon tc
inflict the punishment which he had threatened upon those obstinate
sinners who still defied his censures at Corinth. We have already seen
that these were divided into two classes : the larger consisted of those
who justified their immoral practice by antinomian ^ doctrine, and styling
Paul's divine commission ; while the Judaizers, on their part, would foster
any opposition to the Apostle of the Gentiles, from whatever quarter it
might arise.
But now the time was come when the peace and purity of the Corin-
thian Church was to be no longer destroyed (at least openly) by either of
these parties, St. Paul's first duty was to silence and shame his leading
powers (2 Cor. xii. 12). The present was a crisis which required such ai
appeal to the direct judgment of God, who could alone decide betweea
conflicting claimants to a Divine commission. It was a contest like that
between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. St. Paul had already in hia
absence professed his readiness to stake the truth of his claims on thia
issue (2 Cor. x. 8, and xiii. 3-6) ; and we may be sure that now, when he
was present, he did not shrink from the trial. And, doubtless, God, who
had sent him forth, wrought such miracles by his agency as sufficed to
confess that God was on the side of Paul. Now, therefore, that " their obe-
dience was complete," the painful task remained of " punishing all the dis-
obedient" (2 Cor. X. 6). It was not enough that those who had so often
offended, and so often been pardoned before, should now merely profess
once more a repentance which was only the offspring of fear or of hypocrisy.
They had long infected the Church ;
they were not merely evil themselves,
but they were doing harm to others, and causing the name of Christ to be
blasphemed among the heathen. It was necessary that the salt wliich had
lost its savour should be cast out, lest its putrescence should spread to
that which still retained its purity. St. Paul no longer hesitated to stand
between the living and the dead, that the plague might be stayed. We
know, from his own description (1 Cor. v. 3-5), the very form and
manner of the punishment inflicted. A solemn assembly of the Church
was convened ; the presence and power of the Lord Jesus Christ was
especially invoked ; the cases of the worst offenders were separately con
sidered, and those whose sins required so heavy a punishment, were pub-
licly cast out of the Church, and (in the awful phraseology of Scripture)
delivered over to Satan. Yet we must not suppose that even in such
extreme cases the object of the sentence was to consign the criminal to
final reprobation. On the contrary, the purpose of this excommunication
was so to work on the offender's mind as to bring him to sincere repent-
ance, " that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." ^
If
session of the virtues most opposite to their former faults. Thus, he says,
that they were distinguished for the ripeness and soundness of their knov}-
ledge,^ in contrast to the unsound and false pretence of knowledge for
which they were rebuked by St. Paul, Again, he praises the 2>'^re and
blameless lives of their women ; ^ which must therefore have been greatly
changed since the time when fornication, wantonness, and impurity (2 Cor.
xii. 21) was the characteristic of their society. But especially he com-
mends them for their entire freedom from faction and party-spirit,^ which
had formerly been so conspicuous among their faults. Perhaps the picture
which he draws of this golden age of Corinth may be too favourably
coloured, as a contrast to the state of things which he deplored when he
wrote. Yet we may believe it substantially true, and may therefore hope
that some of the worst evils were permanently corrected ; more particu-
larly the impurity and licentiousness which had hitherto been the most
flagrant of their vices. Their tendency to party-spirit, however (so cha-
racteristic of the Greek temper), was not cured ; on the contrary, it
blazed forth again with greater fury than ever, some years after the
death of St. Paul. Their dissensions were the occasion of the letter ot
tine, upon which we have seen him so Jong engaged. The Christians of
Achaia, from whose comparative we:*lth much seems to have been ex-
pected, had already prepared their contributions, by laying aside some-
thing for the fund on the first day of every week ;
^ and, as this had been
going on for more than a year,"* the sum laid by must have been consi-
derable. This was now collected from the individual contributors, and
entrusted to certain treasurers elected by the whole Church,^ who were to
carry it to J erusalem
company with St. Paul.
in
portunity to send a letter by her hands to the Roman Church. His reason
for writing to them at this time was his intention of speedily visiting
them, on his way from Jerusalem to Spain. He desired, before his per-
sonal intercourse with them should begin, to give them a proof of the
affectionate interest which he felt for them, although they " had not seen
6 Ovg lav doKLiiuanre. 1 Cor. xvi. 3. (See the translation of the verse.)
She could not (according to Greek manners) have been mentioned as acting in ih
independent manner described Rom. xvi. 1-2) either if her husband had been living oi
if she had been unmarried.
' On this appellation, however, see Vol. I. p. 435, note 1.
his face in the flesh." We must not suppose, however, that they were
Hitherto altogether unknown to him for we see, from the very numerous
;
salutations at the close of the Epistle, that he was already well acquainted
with many individual Christians at Kome. From the personal acquaint-
ance he had thus formed, and the intelligence he had received, he had
reason to entertain a very high opinion of the character of the Church
^
;
and accordingly he tells them (Rom. xv. 14, 15) that, in entering so fully
in his letter upon the doctrines and rules of Christianity, he had done it
ians were of Gentile origin,'^ which is also evident from several other pas-
sages in the Epistle. At the same time, we cannot doubt that the original
nucleus of the Church there, as well as in all the other great cities of the
Empire, was formed by converts who had separated themselves from the
Jewish synagogue.' The name of the original founder of the Roman
Church has not been preserved to us by history, nor even celebrated by
tradition. This is a remarkable fact, when we consider how soon the
Church of Rome attained great eminence in the Christian world, both
from its numbers, and from the influence of its metropolitan rank. Had
any of the Apostles laid its first foundation, the fact could scarcely fail to
and xi.
4 We cannot, perhaps, infer anything as to the composition of the Church at Rome,
fiom the fact that St. Paul writes to them in Greek instead of Latin ; because Hellen-
istic Greek was (as we have seen, Vol. I. p. 39) his own native tongue, in which he
Beems always to have written ; and if any of the Roman Christians did not understand
that language, interpreters were not wanting in their own body who could explain it
to them. It is rather remarkable that Tertius, who acted as St. Paul's amanuensis,
was apparently (to judge from his name) a Roman Christian of the Latin section
the Church.
in the privileges of Christ's kingdom (Rom. iii. 9 and 29. xv. 1-11) ;
and, on the other hand, the more enlightened Gentile converts were in-
before them that grand summary of the doctrine and practice of Chris^
ianity which is contained in the following Epistle.
Paul had never yet been to Rome. (i. 11, 13, 15).
(1) St.
(2) He was
intending to go to Rome, after first visiting Jerusalem (xv. 23-28).
This was exactly his purpose during his three months' residence at Corinth. See Acts
six. 21.
(3) He was going to bear a collection of alms from Macedonia and Achaia to Jeru-
Balcm (xv. 26 and 31). This he did carry from Corinth to Jerusalem at the close of
this three months'
visit. See Acts xxiv. 17.
(4) he wrote the Epistle, Timotheus, Sosipater, Gaius, and Erastus were witi
Wbcn
him (xvi. 21, 23) of these, the first three are expressly mentioned in the Acts as hav-
;
ing been with liim at Corinth durintr the three months' visit (see Acts xx. 4) and tht ;
EPISTLE TO THE KOMANH. 157
Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from our
Lord Jesus Christ.
8 First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for intention oi
last, was himself a Corinthian, and had been sent shortly before from Ephesua
Erastus,
(Acts xix. 22) with Timotheus on the way to Corinth. Compare 1 Cor. xvi. 10, 11.
(5) Phoebe, a deaconess of the Corinthian port of Cenchreae was the bearer of the
Epistle (xvi. 1) to Rome.
1 'Opia&evTo-c, here equivalent, as Chrysostom says, to SeixdevroQ. We may observe
that the notes which marked Jesus as the Son of God, are here declared to be power
and holiness. Neither would have been sufiBcient without the other.
* Y-vpiog seems to require this translation here, especially in connection with
dovlo^, V. 1.
outward worship. As much as to say, " My worship of God is not the outward service
of the temple, but the inward homage of the spirit." See "KaTpeiav similarly qualified,
chap. xii. 1.
158 THE LIFE AlifD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ther. But I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that lia
have often purposed to come to you (although hitherto I
have been hindered), that I might have some fruit among you
also, as I have among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both 14
fco Greeks and Barbarians, both to wise and foolish ;
therefore, 15
^ far as in me lies, 1 am ready to declare the Glad-tidings to
you that are in Home, as well as to others. For [even in the 16
chief city of the world] I am not ashamed of the Glad-tidings
of Christ, seeing it is the mighty power wherp,by God brings
salvation to every man that has faith therein, ^o the Jew first,
This Giad-tid- and also to the Gentile.^ For therein God's right- 17
thf revSbtioS eousness ' is revealed, a righteousness which springs
pSct mo- from Faith, aud which Faith receives as
mor^e it is writ-
^olfv^^Qtol\'
" By faith shall the righteous live.^^ ^
proMbitiJi^S^
wickedness wherein they live.^ Because 19
revealed.
^^^"^
which cau be known of God is manifested in
^hat
c^nTciencl^w^ their hcarts, God himself having shown it to them ;
God, nor gave Him thanks, but in their reasonings they went
astray after vanity, and their heart, being void of wisdom, was
filled with darkness. Calling themselves wise, they were 22
turned into fools, and forsook the glory ^ of the imperishable 23
1 Paul uses "EZ^jyv as the singular of edvrj, because the singular of the latter
St.
word not used in the sense of a Gentile. Also the plural 'EXlTjveg is used when
is
individual Gentiles are meant tOvrj when Gentiles collectively are spoken of.
;
ALKaioaijvT] Qeov. Not an attribute of God, but the righteousness which God con-
Biders such and which must therefore be the perfection of man's moral nature. This
;
of man 2, in its consequences, as involving a freedom from guilt in the sight of GocL
;
Under the first aspect it is the possession of a certain disposition of mind called ttigtic,
or faith. Under the second aspect it is regarded as something reckoned by God to tha
account of man an acquittal of past offences.
3 Ilabakkuk ii. 4. (LXX.)
* For this meaning of Karixo), compare 2 Thess. ii. 6.
*Ev udiKca, by living in wickedness.
This is nearly a quotation from Ps. cvi. 20 : i/TiA i^avro t7]v 66^av avruv h o/iotct
. -
had bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced and
worshipped the things made instead of the Maker, who is
26 blessed for ever, Amen. For this cause God gave them up to
shameful passions for on the one hand their women changed
;
27 the natural use into that which is against nature and on the ;
other hand their men, in like manner, leaving the natural use
of the women, burned in their lust one toward another, men
with men working abomination, and receiving in themselves
28 the due recompense of their transgression. And as they
thought fit to cast out the acknowledgment of God, God gave
them over to an outcast mind, to do the things that are un'
1 Wherefore thou, 0 man, whosoever thou art that ^ ^as also vio-
judgest others, art thyself without excuse if thou Jy^f acLrnvr
demnest thyself, since thy deeds are the same which pliilosof hers)
uaTL fx.6axov. (LXX.) 'A?i?id(jc(y6at tc iv rivi means to forsake one thing f^r an-
other, to change one thing against another.
1 OvK kdoKLfiaoav u66kl[jlov. A translation should, if possible, retain such playa
. . .
upon words, as they are one of the characteristics of St. Paul's style. A paronomasia
upon t^he same words is found 2 Cor. xiii. 6, 7.
' We venture to consider OeoGrvyel^ active, against the opinion of Winer, Meyer,
find De Wette relying first, on the authority of Suidas, and secondly, on the context.
5
3 How did they know this? By the law of conscience (see ii. 14) confinned by tha
tows of nature (i. 20).
4 'kva-KoloyTjTog. Inexcusable in doing evil is evidently meant, just as it is before
{\. 20) by the same word, uvairoloy^Tovg.
* This appears to be the meaning of Kara alrideLav.
l60 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF 8T. PAUL.
even the day when God will reveal to the sight ^ of men the
righteousness of His judgment. And He will pay to all their 6
due, according their deeds ; to those who with stedfast en- 7
yea upon every soul of man that does the work of evil, upon
the Jew first, and also upon the Gentile. But glory and peace IG
shall be given to every man who does the work of good, to the
Jew first, and also to the Gentile for there is no respect of ii ;
they who have sinned under the Law, shall be judged by the
Law.' For not they who hear the words of the Law [in their 13
1 Literally, " is it the rich abundance of his kindness, Sfc, which thou despisest 7 "
* 'Ev, not against, but manifested in.
3 'AnoKaXvirreiv means to disclose to sight what has been hiddeji; the word reveal
does not by itself represent the full force of the original term, although etymologically
it precisely corresponds with it.
7 We have remarked elsewhere (but the remark may be here repeated with advan*
tage) that the attempts which were formerly made to prove that v6[xog, when used
with and without the article by St. Paul, meant in the former case a moral law tn
general, and in the latter only the Mosaic Law, have now been abandoned by tha
l)est interpreters. See note on iii. 20.
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 161
would tfci
the will of God, and givest ^ judgment upon good or sLce ieybToke
19 evil, being instructed by the teaching of the Law. {hciJ^oAtwar?^
Thou deemest thyself a guide of the blind, a light to God^'Snc?
^
w
those who are in darkness, an instructor of the simple, tSiw'^the
20 a teacher of babes, possessing in the Law the perfect
21 pattern of knowledge and of truth. Thou therefore that
teachest thy neighbour, dost thou not teach thyself? thou that
22 preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? thou that
sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit
adultery ? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou rob
temples ? ^
23 thou that makest thy boast in the Law, by breaking the Law,
24 dost thou dishonour God ? Yea, as it is written, " Through <
you is the name of God llasphemed among the Gentiles.''^
25 For circumcision avails if thou keep the Law but if thou ;
^ If we read el 6i (with some of the best MSS.) the translation must run thus : " But
what, if thou callest thyself," &c. ; the apodosis beginning with verse 21.
' AoKifid^eiv, to test {as a metal hy fire). See 1 Pet. Hence
i. 7. to give judgment
upon (here). Td. SLa^epovra means (as explained by Theophylact), rl del rpa^ai koI
rl Sec jUTj npd^ai. The same phrase occurs Phil. i. 10.
' Compare lepoovTiovc, Acts. xix. 36.
4 Isaiah lii. 5. (LXX.) s See Winer, Gram., 19. p. 126.
VOL. II. ] 1
J 62 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
God. Ill
The advantage be so, what advantage has the Jew, j
" But ^ if this
eisted in their and what has been the profit of circumcision ?"
being entrust- .
ed with the out-
ward revelation
Much evcrvJ way.
J
First, because to their keeping
x o 2 j
God's wiu.
Their faithless-
entrusted the oracles of God. For what, 3 '
The Pharisees and Pharisaic Judaizers sought to gain the praise of men by thei?
^
outward show of sanctity which is here contrasted with the inward holiness which
;
seeks no praise but that of God. The same contrast occurs in the Sermon on the
Mount.
* Ovv, if this he so.
3 'H.TTioTT]c>av refers to the preceding eTnarevdrjaav.
* See note on -yevoiro, Gal. iii. 21.
That is, shall we imagine that Godwill break his covenant with the true Israel,
because of the unfaithfulness of the false Israel ? Compare Rom. xi. 1^.
Ps.4. (LXX.) The whole context is as follows " / acknowledge my trans-
li. :
gression, and my sin is ever before me ; against Thee only have I sinned, and done
this evil in Thy sight ; that Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightesi
overcome when TJwu are judged^
^ Kar' uvOpurcov Aeyu. See note on Gal. iii. 15. And compare also 1 Cor. xv. 32,
and Rom. vi. 19.
8 In this most difficult passage we must bear in mind that St. Paul is constantly re-
ferring to the arguments of his opponents, which were familiar to his reader*? at Rome,
but are not so to ourselves. Hence the apparently abrupt and elliptical character of
the argument, and the necessity of supplying something to make the connection intel-
ligible.
^ The ellipsis is supplied by understanding n from the preceding cla^ise, and Tiiyuh
fitv from the Ibllowing ; the complete expression would have been kqI ri u?) Mytdfiev,
The Bucceediug fri is (as usual) equivalent to a mark of quotation.
EPISTLE TO THli; ROMANS. 16S
What shall we say then ? [having gifts above the The .prj^i^jsea
Vi there is none that under standeth, there is none that seelceth afler
12 Qod, they o/re all gone out of the way, they are altogether tecorm
23 Gentile], since all have sinned, and none have at- escapingpena^"
XoqU {tlvo^) means not by (ri), hut by something else. See iii. 28. and iv. 6<
; ;
The sacrifice of Jcsus. Fop Him hatli God set fortli, in His blood, 21
that^ this Tar- to be Si propitiatorj sacrifice by means of Faith,
not_from God's thereby to manifest the righteousness of God ; be-
^iQ- cause in His forbearance God had passed over the
former sins of men ^ in the times that are gone by. [Him (1 26
say) hath God set forth] in this present time to manifest His
righteousness, that He might be just, and [yet] might justify ^
1
The A. V. here is a mistranslation. Cf. Acts xviL 30. And the note Vol. I. p.
195, n. 2.
' The first St. Paul's Epistles would be to retain the same
wish of a translator of
English root in words employed as translations of the various derivatives of
all the
diKaioc, viz. diKaioavvi], SiKaLOvv, diKatufxa, dLKacoaig, diKaluQ, and dcicaLOKpiaca. But
this is impossible, because no English root of the same meaning has these derivatives
for example, taking righteous to represent diKaiog, we have righteousness for 6iKaio-
ovvi], but no verb from the same root equivalent to SLKaLovv. Again, taking Just for
^ucaiog, we have Justify for dtKciovv, but no term for dcKaLoavvT], which is by no means
equivalent to Justice, nor even to Justness, in many passages where it occurs. The
only course which can be adopted, therefore, is to take that root in each case whick
seems best to suit the context, and bring out the connection of the argument.
3 Tdv kK Ttiareug is not fully represented by the A. V. It means " him whose essen*
tial characteristic is faith,'- " the child of faith." Compare Gal. iii. 7 and Gal. iii. 9.
The word Irjaov is omitted by the best MSS.
4 Observe the article before Kavxvf^i'C-
6 The aorist k^tKleladr) seems used here (as often) in a perfect sense.
6 See note on verse 21.
Xwpif.
7 is very perplexing, as the argument seems to require yap.
The ovv here It is pro*
m God^ cmd it was reckoned rnito him for righteous- SStiaL^* be-
^ nessP Now if a man earn his pay by his work, it Slir^MttT thJ
is not " reckoned to him " as a favour, but it is paid d??n*Tf AbS-
6 him as a debt ; but if he earns nothing by his work, of the promises,
but rests his faith in Him who justifies the ungodly, then his
6 faith is " reckoned to him for righteousness P In like manner
David also tells the blessedness of the man, to whom God
reckoneth righteousness, not by works but by another way,=^
7 saying, " Blessed are they whose iniquities a/re forgiven, a/nd
8 whose sins are covered. Blessed is the ma/n agadnst whom th6
9 Lord shall not reckon sinJ^ ^ Is this blessing then for the cir-
8 " The land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for everJ'
Gen. xiii. 15.
9 This passage throws light on Gal. iii. 18 and 20.
;
not to his children of the Law alone, but to the children of his .
Christians are pCaCC with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ
they rejoice in through whom also we have received entrance into 2
their present this OTaco ^ whcreiu we stand, and through whom
Buflerings, be- i ^
n i
ing filled with
the conscious-
we cxult lu hopc fof tlic futurc maniiestation I
oi
ness of God's
love in the sa-
God's o
fijlorv.
i/
And not only
j
so,^ but we exult also m3
,
L^tiJTde^th^f
gi^es the stedfastness of endurance, and stedfast en- 4
6 i. e. That we might have an ever-living Saviour as the object of our faith, and^
might through that faith be united with Him, and partake of His life, and thus be jus-
tified, or accounted righteous, and (for St. Paul does not, like later theologians, separata
these ideas) have the seed of all true moral life implanted in us. Compare v. 10.
marer. is omitted in the best MSS.
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 16T
His own love to us, because wdiile we were yet sinners Christ
9 died for us. Much more, now that we have been justified in
His blood,^ shall we be saved through Him from the wrath 3 to
10 come. For, if when we were His enemies, we were reconciled
to God by the death of His son, much more, being already ro-
ll conciled, shall we be saved, by sharing in His life. Nor is
this our hope only for the time to come but even [in the midst ;
one man [Adam], sin entered into the world, and by wa^the ^i?pr?-
and so death spread to all
sin death ; mankind, be- SanMnd for^
13 cause all committed sin. For before the Law w^as Adam was for
-.r ,
m
. I
:
condemnation.
The Mosaic
^ . ^ . . ,
'
. Law has added
sin is not reckoned ae^ainst the sinner, when there is law of
^ ^ conscience, ^"^
from Adam till Moses, even over those whose sin '
^.^ ^ transgres-
sion of acknow-
[not being the breach of law] did not resemble the i^l^hat^'thilg
sin of Adam. ITow Adam is an image of Him ^tuaf^VfiTn
15 that was to come. But far greater is the gift than gh4n^Td^ mea
was the transgression for if by the sin of the one ; theFr^^eed l^tl
man [Adam], death j)assed upon the many,'^ much sin might be
more in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ has God's mercy.
AtKCLoc here is a man who righteously fulfils the duties of life, and 6 ayadog is
1
ihs good and benevolent man with whom we ourselves have been brought into contact.
Justified in His blood, i. e. by participation in (ev) His blood ; tliat is,
being
made partakers of His death. Compare Rom. vi. 3-8 also Gal. ii. 20. ;
to it) to introduce the second. The best view of (he passage is to consider uoTrep aa
used elliptically for \the case is"] as what follows, inwhich sense it is used Matt. xxv.
14 : ucKcp yap uvdpuKoc, &c., where it neither has,, nor requires, any answering ?>vto^
* 01 'Kjl'kol, not " many " (A.. V.). but the many nearly equivalent to all.
TUT2 LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAtTL.
the one [Adam], the many were made sinners so by the obe- ;
^^rsion ?f this that the gift of grace may be more abundant ? God
dude from it forbid. We who died' to sin [when we became 2
persist in sin in followers of Christ!^ how can we any lon2:er
o , live in
./
rder to caU
We take t? x^pf-C tov Oeov kol ij 6o>ped, together. Compare the same expression
below, in verse 17 ;
literally, the free gift and the boon of God, an hendiadys for the
freeness of God^s bounty.
' Literally, the boon is not as [that which wasi wrought by one man who sinned.
3 We take diKatujua here in the same sense as in verse 16, because, first, it is difficult
to suppose the same word used in the very same passage in two such different mean-
ings as Recte factum, and decretum absolutorium (which Wahl and most of the com-
mentators suppose it to be). And, secondly, because otherwise it is necessary to take
kvo^ differently in the two parallel phrases 6C hog dcKai6iuaTog and dt' ivog 'KapaizTUf-
fiaiog (masculine in the one, and neuter in the other) which is unnatural.
* Zuric, literally, appertaining to life.
* A light is thrown on this very difficult expression by vii. 13 see note an that :
verse.
6 This was probably an objection made by Judaizing disputants (as it has been made
by their successors in other ages of the Church) against St. Paul's doctrine. They
argued that if (as he said) the sin of man called forth so glorious an exhibition of the
pardoning grace of God, the necessary conclusion must be, that the more men sinne(i
the more God was glorified. Compare iii. 7-8 and verse 15 below. We know also,
that this inference was actually deduced by the Antinomian party at Corinth (see Vol
I. p. 447), and therefore it was the more necessary for St. Paul to refute it.
even as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
6 Father, so we likewise might walk in newness of life. For if
we have been grafted ^ into the likeness of His death, so shall
6 we also share His resurrection. For we know that our old
man was [then] crucified ^ with Christ, that the sinful body
[of the old man] ^ might be destroyed, that we might no
7 longer be the slaves of sin; (for he that is dead is justified^
8 from sin.) l^ow if we have shared the death of Christ, we
9 believe that we shall also share His life knowing that Chris* ;
being raised from the dead, can die no more death has no ;
10 more dominion over Him. For He died once, and once only,
11 unto sin but He lives [for ever] unto God.
; Likewise reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but living unto
12 God in Christ Jesus.^ Let not sin therefore reign in your dy-
ing body, causing you to obey its lusts ; nor give up your mem-
13 bers to sin, as instruments of unrighteousness but give your- ;
sin shall not have the mastery over you, since you are not
under the Law,' but under grace.
- This clause, which is here left elliptical, is fully expressed, Col. ii. 12 : Gvvra^su-
reg avTcj kv to PairrtajuaTL kv w kol cvvrjyepdrjre. This passage cannot be under-
stood unless it be borne in mind that the primitive baptism was by immersion. See
Vol. I p. 439.
* HvfKpvToi. ysyovafiev, &c., literally, have become partakers by a vital union [as
that of a graft with the tree into which it is grafted] of the representation of his
death [in baptism]. The meaning appears to be, if we have shared the reality of hii
death, whereof we have undergone the likeness.
3 Observe the mistranslation in the A. V., is crucified.''^
* On rd Gufia rTjg dfiapnag, see Winer, Gram. p. 173, and De Wette in loco, an
compare rd acofia rrjg aapKog (Col. ii. 11).
5 A^diKaiuraL, meaning that if a criminal charge is brought against a man who Jied
before the perpetration of the crime, he must be acquitted, since he could not have
committed the act charged against him.
6 The best MSS. omit tQ k. rj.
' To be " under the law," in St. Paul's language, means to avoid sin from fear oi
penalties attached to sin by the law. This principle of fear is not strong enough ta
keep men in the path of duty. Union with Christ can alone give man the mastery
over Fin.
170 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
v^ereof Christ- God be thanked that you, who were once the slaves
Hence the *
havo obcycd from your hearts the teaching
of siu,
/ / o t/
slaves of sin can.
^^^^reby you were moulded anew
^ and when you 18
tSr ""freedom ;
aretiiTneiSs*?-
commou Hfc, to show the weakness of your
ry results of
fl^gjiij nature,^ [which must be in bondage either to
and its end is life eternal. For the wage of sin is death but 23 ;
the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord and
master. VII.
As above said. You must acknowledge what ^ I say [that we are 1
not under the not uudcr the La w] ;
knowing, brethren, (for I speak
J
See note on the first verse of this chapter.
' Literally, the mould of teaching
into which you were transmitted. Tlit' meta-
3 There is a striking resemblance between this passage and the words of Socrates
recorded by Xenophon (Mem. 1. 6) j kfiol fiev doKec .... SovXevovra ralg Toiavrat^
i]6oval^ Uereveiv rovf Oeo^g deairoToiv ay ad Co v rvx^lv ovTug yap dv fxovug 6
ToiovToc auOetT].
4 Literally, the fruit which you gain tends to produce {elc) holiness. In other
words, the reward of serving God is growth in holiness.
^ '11 ayvoEcre. Literally, or are you ignorant ; the or (which is omitted in A. V.)
referring to what has gone before, and implying, if you deny what I have said, you
must be ignorant of &c., or in other words, you must acknowledge what I say, or be
ignorant of &c. The reference here is to the assertion in verses 14 or 15 of the pre-
ceding chapter, that Christians " are not under the latv." For the argument of the
present passage, see the marginal summary. St. Paul's view of the Christian life,
throughout the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters, is that it consists of a death and
a resurrection the new-made Christian dies to sin, to the world, to tlie flesh, and to
;
the Law tliis death he undergoes at hie first entrance into communion with Christ,
;
to men who know the Law) that the dominion of the {JiZgn^u,
Law over its subjects lasts only during their life ; eaniiy^^Itire
who was raised from the dead that we might bring forth fruit
5 unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions
occasioned by the Law wrought in our members, leading us to
6 bring forth fruit unto death. But now the Law wherein we
were formerly held fast, lost its hold upon us when we died
[with Christ] : so that we are no longer in the old bondage of
the letter, but in the new service of the spirit.
7 What shall we say then ? that the Law is sinful ? r^^ie Law baa
That be far from us ! But yet I should not have ?o?ethTocS
known what sin was, except through the Law ;
thus fo? w?en ^its
8 the Law had said Thou shalt not coveV But when se'nsT^of dutyt
, .
T ,T the sins which
my sm had gamed by the commandment a vantage
T T T ,
before were
done in igno-
ground [against mej, it wrought m me all manner
. -, . - .
of coveting ;
(for where there is no law, sin is dead).
^
resistance
ot conscience.
9 And I felt ^ that I was alive before, when I knew no '
<f
nature of the
^'^^^
law ; but when the commandment came, sin rose to f^/^^is^Jte ^iT
10 life, and I sank into death and the very command- J^^f ^nltJi^' ;
aad it is both typified and realised when he is buried beneath the baptismal waters,
But no sooner is he thus dead with Christ, than he rises with Him he is made par- ;
over thejaw of Whcrefore the Law indeed is holy, and its com- is '
his mind And ''
man in himself mandmcnts are holy, and just, and good. Do 1 say 13
without the help then that Good became to me Death ? ^ Far be that
of Christ's
Spirit, must con- froni mo.
tinue the slave
SLtMynalSe^
it. that so
JBut X say that sm wrou2:ht this
it might be made manifest as sin, in working Death
^
.
07 ;
the evil, but it is the sin which dwells in me. For I know that I8
in me, that is, in my flesh, good abides not for to will is ;
present with me, but to do the right is absent the good that 1 19 ;
would, I do not but the evil which I would not, that I do.
;
4 It may be asked, how is this consistent with many passages where St. Paul speaks
of the Law as a carnal ordinance, and opposes it (as ypd/Lcjua) to nvevfj.a ? The answer
is, that here he speaks of the law under its moral aspect, as is plain froji the whole
context.
5 Scarcely anything in this Epistle has caused more controversy than the question
whether St. Paul, in the following description of the struggle between the flesh and
the spirit, wherein the flesh gains the victory, meant to describe his own actual state.
The best answer to this question is a comparison between vi. 17 and 20 (where he tella
the Roman Christians that they are no longer the slaves of sin), vii. 14 (where he
says / am carnal, aapKiKog, a slave sold into the captivity of sin), and 4 (where viii.
he includes himself among those who live not the life of the flesh, cdp^, but the life of
the spirit, i. e. who are not carnal). It is surely clear that these descriptions cannot
be meant to belong to the same person at the same time. The best commentary on
the whole passage (vii. 7 to viii. 13) is to be found in the condensed expression of the same
truths contained in Gal. v. 16-18 : Walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil thb
DESIRE OF THE FLESH for the dcsire of the flesh fights against the spirit, and the
;
desire of the spirit fights against the flesh ; and this variance between the flesh and
the spirit would hinder you from doing that wlwh your will prefers ; but if you be
led by the spirit, you are not under the Law.
^ The ey6 is emphatic.
;
kvTOQ eyd, I in myself, i. e. without the help of God. This expression is the key
1
to the whole passage. St. Paul, from verse 14 to verse 24, has been speaking of him-
self as he was in himself, i. e. in his natural state of helplessness, with a conscience
enlightened, but a will enslaved the better self struggling vainly against the worse.
;
Every man must continue in this state, unless he be redeemed from it by the Spirit of
God. Christians are (so far as God is concerned) redeemed already from this state
but in themselves, and so far as they live to themselves, they are still in bondage.
The redemption which they {potentially, if not actually) possess, is the subject of the
8th chapter. Leighton most beautifully expresses the contrast between these two
states (of bondage and deliverance) in his sermon on Romans viii. 35 " Is this he :
that so lately cried out. Oh wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me 7 that
Eow happy man who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Yes,
triumphs, 0 !
3 Winer wishes to join ev (Xp. 'It/ct.) with rjlevdepuae, because there is no rev before
the kv ; but there are so many examples of a similar construction in St. Paul's style,
that we think his reasons insufficient to justify a departure from the more obvious view.
Literally, condemned, i. e. put it to rebuke, worsted it. Compare KareKpive^.
Heb. xi. 7.
5 "/n the flesh,'' that is to say, in the very seat of its power.
^ The contrast between the victory thus obtained by the spirit, with the previToa
174 THE LIFE A^D EPISTLES OF ST PAUT..
Kovv
conauer
TTv.) to
(iieir
fleshly
j
things
o ; but they
^
who live after the Spirit
r
earthly nature. Spiritual thiiigs ; and the fleshly mind is
^
6
are doomed to die but if by the Spirit you destroy the deeds
;
recenseatur. . . . Nam Naturae corruptio alia natura est j ... . ut tamen insit et
bonura animae, illud principale, illud divinum et germanum, et proprie naturale.
Quod enim a Deo est, non tam extinguitur, quam obumbratur. Potest enim obum-
brari, quia non est Deus extingui non potest, quia a Deo est.
;
. . . Sic et in pessimia
aliquid boni, et in optimis nonnihil pessimi. . . . Propterea nulla anima sine crimine,
quia nulla sine boni semine. Proinde cum ad Mem pervenit .... totara liicem stuim
conspicit. Excipitur a Sph'itu Sancto, sicut in pristina nativitate a Spiritu profauo.
Sequitur animam, Spiritui nubentem, caro, ut dotale mancipium, et jam non tinimae
famula, sod Spiritiis. 0 beatum counubium, si non admiserit adulterium." TertulL
de Anima, c. 40, 41.
J
Winer sneers at Tholuck's remark, that yap is a mere transition partiJe here;
but yet what else is it, when it does not introduce a reason for a preceding proposition T!
In these cases of successive clauses each connected with the preceding by a yup, they all
appear to refer back to the first preceding clause, and therefore all but the first yap
might be represented by and. Just in the same way as 6e and set/ are used sometimes,
and but in English as, for example, "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified."
5
" ZuT) in St. Paul's writings is scarcely represented adequately by life; it generally
read dtu to, which Tischendorf prefers on the principle that it is the most diificulJ
jading.
* This translation is necessary to represent the reference to davarcvTe.
EPISTLE TO THE ROMAICS. 1T5
^4 For all who are led by God's Spirit, and they ^^^^ ^^^^^^
'5 alone/ are the sons of God. For you have not re- ^r^uln^^^^^^
ceived a Spirit of bondage, that you should go back ^ove'^to'^'od
again to the state of slavish fear, but you have re- [tef^nLi^^u
ceived a Spirit of adoption wherein we cry unto ^ore^^'erS^t
16 God and say, " Ow Father:'^ The Spirit itself ^Saul^lo G^Id
joins its testimony with the witness of our own spi- Titeiopmen^^*
nothing worth, when set against the glory which from evii. And
,
19 shall soon 3 be revealed unto us. For the earnest (26^ 2T/'""^im-
longing of the whole creation looks eagerly for the Christians' by
time when [the glory of] the sons Of God shall STd, who'\ug-
23 bour, which have not yet brought forth the birth. And not
^
only they, but ourselves also, who have received the Spirit for
groaning inwardly, longing for the adoption ' which shall ran-
J Ovrot, they and they alone, they, and not the carnal seed of Abraham.
* See note on Gal. iv. 6.
3 Me/l/louaav d'K0iia\v(pd7jvaL, which is about to be revealed, which shall soon be
revealed.
4 MaraLOTrjc means the transitory nature which causes all the animated creation so
rapidly to pass away. We join iiv' hTimdi with the following on.
5 which belongs to the glorification of the sons of God.
Literally, the freedom
6 continuing to suffer the pangs of labour even until now. St. Paul
Literally,
here suggests an argument as original as it is profound. The very struggles which all
animated beings make against pain and death, show (he says) that pain and death are
not a part of the proper laws of their nature, but rather a bondage imposed upon
khem from without. Thus every groan and tear is an uncoLScious prophecy of L'bera-
tion from the power of evil.
' TlodeGiav, adoption ; by which a slave was emancipated and made " no longer a
slave but a son." (Gal. iv. 7.) In one sense St. Paul taught that Christians had
adoption (compare Rom. viii. 15. Gal. iv. 5. Eph. i. 5) they
already received this :
were already made the sons of God in Christ. (Rom. viii. 16. Gal. iii. 26.) But in
;
Bom our body from its bondage. For our salvation lies in 24 ^
hope ; but hope possessed is not hope, since a man cannot hope
for what he sees in his possession but if we hope for things 25 ;
ferings, no pow-
er in the whole
ed, them He also justified and whom He justified, ;
can
Creation,
separate them them He also glorified. "What shall we say then to 31
from His love-
these things ? If God be for us, who can be against
this passage he teaches us that this adoption is not perfect during the present life
forth in ardent desires to God, whatsoever the words be, whether new or old, yea pos-
sibly without words; and then most powerful when it words it least, but vents in
sighs and groans that cannot be expressed. Our Lord understands the language a
these perfectly, and likes it best He knows and approves the meaning of His own
;
Spirit He looks not to the outward appearance, the shell of words, as men do."
;
expectation of bonds and imprisonment. See verses 17, 18, and 35, and Acts xx. 23.
1vnfiop(pov^.
<5
Like in suffering seems meant. Compare Phil. iii. 10. Ti)v kw
(av Tijv Tradrjiidridv avrov, cv/j./j.op(j)Ov/xvog rep Oavc'rc^ avTov.
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. in
32 US ? He own Son, bnt gave Him up to
that spared not His
how shall He not with Him also freely give m
death for us all,
at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ ? Can suffering,
or straitness of distress, or persecution, or famine, or naked-
ness, or the peril of our lives, or the swords of our enemies ?
sorrow m mv heart
.
"
_
;
, ^
yea, 1 could wish that 1
.
from their ex-
elusive privi-
If* n 1
myseli were cast out from Christ as an accursed leges, is in ac
. 1
cordance with
/?
thing, for the sake of
1
my brethren, my kinsmen ac-
^gfjj^g/^^pj
4 cording
o t6 the flesh ;
1
who are the seed of Israel,7 ^""^
scendants or
whom God adopted for His children, whose were oniy a^s'SectS
the glory ol the Shekinah, and the Covenants, and ^.ereTosS'^
the Lawgiving, and the service of the temple, and
5 the promises of blessing. Whose Fathers were the Patriarchs,
and of whom {s3 to His flesh) was born the Christ who is ov(^
all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
6 Yet I speak not as if the promise of God had fallen to the
7 ground ;
for not all are Israel who are of Israel, nor because all
are the seed of Abraham, are they all the children of Abra-
8 ham ; but in ^ Isaac shall thy seed he called. That is, not the
Ps. xliv. 23. (LXX.)
' The expressions dpxai and dwafieig were terms applied in the Jewish theology
divisions of the hierarchy of angels, and such as were familiar to St. PauPs Jewi^
ttiaders. Compare Eph. i. 21 and Col. i. 16.
Gen. xxi. 12. (LXX.) Compare Gal. ir. 22. The context is, "Let it not b
VOL. n. 12
178 THE LIFff AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAtL.
St deny^God^s
What shall we say then ? Shall we call God un-14
SmeandselecJ j^st [bocause Hc has cast off the seed of Abraham] ?
LTto ffiswS; That be far from us. For to Moses He saith, "/"ns
serted'^n their wHl have mevcy on whom I will have mercy ^ and
cause of man's . ,
actions the
iJil^ havc I rojised thee up,' that I might show my
answer is, that ^
grievouM in thy sight, because of the lad [IshmaelJi and because of thy bondwoman
\^Hagar\for in Isaac shall thy seed be called."
^ Gen. xviii. 10, from LXX. not verbatim, but apparently from memory.
Lit*rally, coming not from works, but from the caller.
3 Gen. XXV. 23. (LXX.) The context is, " Two nations are in thy womb, and
the eldrr shall serve the younger."
*U9i 12, 3. (LXX.) 6 Exod. xxxiii. 19. (LXX.)
8 Ex'^d. ix. 16, verbally according to LXX., except substitution of i^ijyeipd ae for
and laxvv for 6vva/j,cv.
6uT7)pn**7]c,
f Here comes the great question no longer made from the stand-
'E/Kif ovv ... .
ing-point of the Jew, but proceeding from the universal feeling of justice. St. Paul
answen* the question by treating the subject as one above the comprehension of the
human when considered in itself objectively. If it be once acknowledged
intellect,
that there any difference between the character and ultimate fate of a good and a
is
bad man, the intellect is logically led, step by step, to contemplate the will of the
Creator aa the caL<?e of this difference. The question tl fxe inoivaa^ ovtio^ will equally
occur and be equally perplexing in any system of religion, either natural or revealed.
It ia in fact a difiQeulty springing at once from the permitted existence of evil. Scripi
20 still blame us ? for who can resist his will ?" Nay, rather, oh
man, who art thou that disputest against God ? " /Shall th6
thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou madtt
2lme thus?^^^ '-^
Hath not the potter jpower over the clay,^^^ to
make out of the same lump one vessel for honour and one for
22 dishonour ? But what if God (though willing to show forth His
ture considers men under two points of view ; first as created by God, and secondly,
as free moral agents themselves. These two points of view are, to the intellect of
man, irreconcileable ;
yet both must be true, since the reason convinces us of the one,
and the conscience of the other. St. Paul here is considering men under the first of
these aspects, as the creatures of God, entirely dependent on God's will. It is to bo
observed that he does not say that God's will is arbitrary, but only that men are en-
tirely dependent on God's will. The reasons by which God's will itself is determined
are left in the inscrutable mystery which conceals God's nature from man.
The objection and the answer given to it, partly here and partly chap. iii. v. 6, may
be stated as follows :
Objector.
If men are so entirely dependent on God's will, how can He with justice
blame their actions ?
Answer. By the very constitution of thy nature thou art compelled to acknowl-
edge the blame-worthiness of certain actions and the justice of their punishment (iii.
6) ; therefore it is self-contradictory to say that a certain intellectual view of man'a
dependence on God would make these actions innocent thou are forced to feel them ;
guilty whether thou wilt or no, and (ix. 20) it is vain to argue against the constitutioa
of thy nature, or its author.
The metaphysical questions relating to this subject which have divided the Christiaa
world are left unsolved by Scripture, which does not attempt to reconcile the apparent
inconsistency between the objective and subjective views of man and his actions.
Hence many have been led to neglect one side of the truth for the sake of making %
consistent theory thus the Pelagians have denied the dependence of man's will on God,
:
and the Fatalists have denied the freedom of man's moral agency.
"We may further observe that St. Paul does not here explicitly refer to eternal hap-
piness or to its opposite. His main subject is the national rejection of the Jews, and
the above more general topics are only incidentally introduced.
1 Isaiah xlv. 9. Not literally from either LXX. or Hebrew; but apparently from
memory out of LXX.
* Jeremiah xviii. 6, not quoted literally, but according to the sense. In this and in
other similar quotations from the Old Testament, a few words were sufficient to recall
the whole passage to St. Paul's Jewish readers (compare Rom. iv. 18) therefore, to ;
comprehend his argument, it is often necessary to refer to the context of the passage
from which he quotes. The passage
in Jeremiah referred to is as follows Then 1 :
righteoasn?s?afl
stumbHug, as I lay in Zion 33
it is written, " Behold''
Jews according to His own will whereas here a moral reason is given for their rejec-
;
tion. This illustrates what was said in a previous note of the difference between tho
objective and subjective points of view.
7 Isaiah xxviii. 16, apparently from LXX., but not verbatim, XlQov TcpofSKOfifiaTOi
Koi ntrpav oKavddXov being interpolated, and not found exactly anywhere in Isaiahe
though in viii. 14 there is Xtdov TrpoaKofifieu and nhpag TrrujuaTi, Corapare also
Matt. xxi. 44.
EPISTLE TO THE EOMANS. 181
to this he transfers the description which Moses has given of the Law, viz. " the Word
is nigh thee," &c. and the rest of the passage of Deuteronomy he applies in a higher
;
sense than that in which Moses had written it (according to the true Christian mode of
using the Old Testament) not to the Mosaic Law, but to the Gospel of Christ. The
passage in Deuteronomy is as follows ; " This commandment which I command thee
this day is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou
thouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, that we may
hear it and do it ? JVeither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldest say, Tf-Tio shall
go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it ? Bui
the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that tJwu mayestdtt
if."
4 Isaiah xxviii. 16. (LXX.) See ix. 33.
Joel ii. 32. (LXX.)
182 THE .-ITE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
vitation to be-
heve must be-
Him ofa whom they never heard ? And how shall they
i i
J 15
^ ^
'^olSed
^^^^ Him. if no man bear the tidings And who ?
ing comes by the "Word of God. But I say, have they not 18
heard the voice of the teachers ? Yea, ''Their sound went forth
into all the earthy and their words unto the ends of the worldP ^
Again 1 say, did not Israel know [the purpose of God] ? yea, 19
it is said first by Moses, I will mahe you jealous against therrh
"
which are no jpeojple^ aga/inst a GentAle nation without un-
derstanding will I mahe you wrathP But Esaias speaks 20
boldly, saying, " was found of them that sought me not /
I was made manifest unto them that ashed not after meP
But unto Israel He says, "All daylong have I sjpread forth my 21
a/rms unto a disobedient a/nd gainsaying jpeojpleP ^ XL
The Jews, how-
ever, are not
I say, thcu,^ must we think that God has cast l
au rejected off Hls pcoplc %
; That bc far from us for I am my- ;
those who be- '^ ^ t/
lieve in Christ
have been se-
gglf also au Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the ' '
^as
Benjamin. God has not cast off His people
His people, and
only the unbe-
whom Hc forckucw.
-
Yca, know ye not what
'
is 2
J^T'|^portion gaid in the Scriptures of Elias, how he intercedes
This is a justification of the mission of the Apostles to the Gentiles, which was an
offence to the Jews. See Acts xxii. 22.
' Isaiah lii. 7, apparently from the Hebrew, and not LXX.
3 Isaiah liii. 1. (LXX.)
* There is no English word which precisely represents uko^ in its subjective as well cui
objective meaning.
Ps xix. 4 (LXX.)
6 Deut. xxxii. 21. (LXX.)
' Is. Ixv. 1. (LXX. with transposition).
* The metaphor is of a mother opening her arms to call back her child to her em
brace.
9 Is. Ixv. 2. (LXX.)
M7, like num, asks a question expecting a negative answer
'0 is it true thatt =
must we think that ? Also see note on fir) ytvoiTo, Gal. iii. 21.
" Alluding to Psalm xeiv. 14 ''Jehovah shall not utterly cast out his peopled'
:
(LXX.) No doubt St. Paul's antagonists accused him of contradicting this prophecy
;
?not gifts. What follows then ? That which Israel seeks, Israel
8 has not won; but the chosen have won it, and the rest were
hardened, as it is written, " God''' hath given them a spirit of
slumber^ eyes that they should not see^ and ears that they should
9 not hear^ unto this dayP And David says, ''Let^ their table
he made a snare and a t/rojp^ a/nd a stumbling-hlock and a re-
10 compense unto them. Let their eyes he darhened that they may
not see^and how down their hack alway^
11 Shall we say,' then, " they have stumbled to the Nor is tlie re-
13 For to you who are Gentiles I say that, as Apos- sam? original
and thou being of the wild olive stock wast grafted in amongst
them, and made to share the richness which flows from the root
of the fruitful olive, yet boast not over the branches ;
but, 18
if thou art boastful, thoubearest not the root, but the root
thee. Thou wilt say then, " The branches were broken off that 19
I might be grafted in." It is true,
for lack of faith they were 20
broken off, and by faith thou standest in their place be not :
they were before. For if thou wast cut out from that which 24
by nature was the stock of the wild olive, and wast grafted
against nature into the fruitful olive, how mach more shall
these, the natural branches, be grafted into the fruitful stock
from whence they sprang.
Thus God's Ob-
ject has been
Tor 1 would not have you ignorant,
o brethren, of 25 t/ ?
pSe his' been P^rt of Isracl uutil the full body of the Gentiles shall
spect of God's choice, they are His beloved for their father's
Bakes : for no change of purpose can annul God's gifts and call. 29
'
St. Paul alludes to the Heave-offering prescribed Numbers xv. 20 :
" Ye Ahall
ffer up a cake of the first of your dough for nn heave-offering J'
* Ipaiah lix. 20. (LXX. almost verbatim).
iFaiah xxvii. 9. (LXX. nearly verbatim^
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 185
this present time they have been disobedient,, that upon your
35 the Zord, or who hath been His coimsellor^ " ^ Or " Who hath
first given unto God, that he should deserve a recompense f "
36 For from Him is the beginning, and by Him the life, and in
Him the end, of all things.
Vnto Him be glory for ever. Amen.
XII.
1 I EXHORT you, therefore, brethren, as you would ac- Se ^^ntentS
knowledge the mercies of God, to offer your bodies performT^S of
a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing unto God, lo^ingtotheS
2 which is your reasonable ' worship. And be not ln"d caiiSg^
conformed to the fashion of this passings world, bat neiofiSSSt
be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ^oVedSncVti
by an unerring test ^ you may discern the will of gistrates as or-
God, even that which is 2:ood, and acceptable, and AnTge/eSiy
a
3 perfect.
T-i 1 p 1
(^iii- 8-10) to
1
or throusrn the fmt oi srrace bestowed love, as com-
r r^^ '
S K ^i
'
i t
^ 11 prehending all
upon me warn every man
[as Christ s ApostleJ, i
^^j^j^^j^^^^
* The stopping we adopt is Tjiretdrjaav, tg) vftercpcp k'heei Iva koI avTol e?.ej]dcj(Ji,
^0 Merpov martug here seems (from the context of the following verses) equivalent
to x^P'-^H-'^j as Chrysostom takes it. The particular talent given by God may be called
& measure of faith, as being that by the use of which each man's faith will be tried
r"Compare, as to the verbal expressions, 2 Cor. x. 13.) This explanation is, perhaps*
4
not very satisfactory but to understand fitrpov as meaning amount, is still less so, for
;
a double gift of prophecy did not imply a double faith. The expression is so perplex-
ing that one is almost tempted to conjecture that the words crept into the text here by
mistake, having been originally a marginal explanation of t7)v dvaloyiav rrjg TTicrrewf,
just below.
* The construction and the parallel both seem to require a comma after [ielr], and a
fuUstop after 6id(l>opa.
3 We think it better to take these elliptical clauses as all imperative (with the A. V.)
lather than to consider them (with De AVette and others) as " descriptive of the spher
of the gift's operation " up and then passing into the imperative.
to a certain point,
The participles in verses 9, 16, and 17 seem to refute De Wette's arguments.
* This is the literal translation of llvvaTTay6/u.Evoi.
6 This is the interpretation of Chrysostom^ and is supported by the ablest modern
tntcrpretcrs.
;
20 rmne ; 1 will rejpay^ saith the Lord.'''' ' Tlierefore, " If thmi
memy hunger^ feed liim / if he thirsty give him drinlc ; for irk
so doing ^ thou shalt heajp coals of fire upon his head.'''' Ba
Xni. not overcome by evil, evil with good. bnt overcome
1 Let every man submit himself to the authorities of govern^
ment for all authority comes from God, and the authorities
;
2 which now are, have been set in their place by God : there-
fore, he who sets himself against the authority, resists the or-
9 neighbour has fulfilled the law. For the law which says,
" ^ Thou shalt not commit adultery / Thou shalt do no murder^
Thou shalt not steal / Thou shalt not hean^ false witness / Thou
shalt not covet^'' and whatsoever other commandment there be,
is all contained in this one saying, " Thou shalt love thy neigh-
10 hour as thyself.^'' Love works no ill to his neighbour there-
^
;
tfonr bewn sakc. Somc havc faith that they may eat all things 2 ;
lightened, and him who abstains judge him who eats, for God has
all should treat tx ttti
. t i .
^
W ho i
each other
with charity,
and forbear
from condemn-
rcceivcd
.
that iud2:est
o
him amonff ^ His
auothcr s servant? .
^ people.
o m
To
i
his
art thou, 4
own mas-
ing
ther,whether
one ano- tcr hc must staud or fall ;
^
but he shall be made to
Jews or Gen-
tiles, since
gtaud,' for '
God
him up. There are is able to set 5
ce^edbothiito
some who esteem one day above another; and again
thei/*comraon t^^erc are some who esteem all days alike let each ;
not, disregards it unto the Lord. He who eats, eats unto the
Lord, for he gives God thanks ; and he who abstains, abstains
unto the Lord, and gives thanks to God likewise. For not 7
unto himself does any one of us either live or die ; but whe- 8
ther we live, we live unto our Lord, or whether we die, we
die unto our Lord therefore, living or dying, we are the
;
Lord's. For to this end Christ died, and lived again, that He 9
might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. But thou, 10
why judgest thou thy brother? Or thou, why despisest thou
thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of
Christ. And so it is written, As^ I live, saith the Lord, 11
eoery hnee shall how to me, cmd every tongue shall achnowledge
GodP So, then, every one of us shall give account to God 12
[not of his brethren, but] of himself. Let us then judge each 13
other no more, but let this rather be your judgment, to put no
I
Literally, not acting, so as to make distinctions which belong to disputatious
reasonings.
" These were probably Christians of Jewish birth, who so feared lest they should
(without knowmg it) eat meat which had been offered to idols (which might emif
happen in such a place as Rome), that they abstained from meat altogether.
3 TipoaE'AufjETo, received him unto Himself.
< KaZ uvtoTT} is omitted by the best MSS.
6 Isaiah xlv. 23 (LXX. not accurately, but apparently from memorv).
EPISTLE TO THE KOMAJSTS. 189
scruple to drink wine it may be put only hypothetically. But it is possible that they
;
may have feared to taste wine, part of which had been poured in libation to idols.
4 It is strange that no critic has hitherto proposed the simple emendation of reading
Iv instead of tv, which avoids the extreme awkwardness of the ellipse necessitated by
the received text. Compare ovdh iv, Joh. i. 3. The 9 is governed by npoaKOTtrei, just
as in ix. 32 : irpoaeKo^av t0 Tiidcfi.
party whom he so often exhorts to patience and forbearance those who called them* ;
Belves oi TTvevfiaTLKol (Gal. vi. 1. 1 Cor, iii. 1), and boasted of their "knowledge"
(1 Cor. viii. 1). See Vol. I. p. 444.
10 Kat yap 6 Xpiarog. The " even" of A. Y. is not in the original.
190 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
'^ell upon meJ^ For our instruction is the end of all ^hich was 41
ing, that you may abound in hope, through the mighty working
of the Holy Spirit.
St. Paul gives But I am persuaded, my brethren, both by the 14
these exhorta- ii !
tions boldly to rcports of othcrs, and by my own judgment also,
,^
, - i* ^
^in^*for\e
somcwhat boldly
i
m
parts ' [of this letter], to re-
/ i .
lation of DirUh^ and klinovGiv by " hope " and " trust respectively.
Observe the force of the Kal avrdc eyd.
10 For the meaning of drrd fiepovc, see 2 Cor. i. 14. 2 Cor. ii. 5. Itmight here b
translated in some measure (as Neander proposes, compare v. 24), but that this ia
alieady expressed in TolfxrjpoTepov. The word u6e?>,<pol is omitted in best MSS.
16 that gift of grace which God has given me, whereby Vision Vthi
He Rent me to minister for Jesus Christ, bearing IT the eJpiX
His Glad-tidings to the Gentiles, that I might pre- Zm^'lr^ not
18 ing the things of God for I will not dare [as some of^^^e dangers
;
written, " To^ whom He was not spoken of, they shall see / and
the people who have not heard shall understandP
22 This is the cause why I have often been hindered from
23 coming to you. But now that I have no longer room enough
[for my labours] in these regions, and have had a great desire
Concerning these distinguished Christians, see Vol. I. p. 387. When and where
f>
they risked their lives for St. Paul we know not, but may conjecture at Ephesus. "Wo
gee here that they had returned to Rome (whence they had been driven by the edict
of Claudius) from Ephesus, where we left them last. It is curious to observe the wife
mentioned first, contrary to ancient usage. Throughout this chapter we observe in-
etances of courtesy towards women sufficient to refute the calumnies of a recent infidel
writer, who accuses St. Paul of speaking and feeling coarsely in reference to women
we cannot but add our astonishment that the same writer should complain that the
standard of St. Paul's ethics, in reference to the sexual relations, is not sufficiently
elevated, while at the same time he considers the instincts of the German race to have
firstintroduced into the world the true morality of these relations. One is inclined to
ask whether the present facility of divorce in Germany is a legitimate developmeot of
the Teutonic instinct and if so, whether the law of Germany, or the law of our Sa
;
viour (Mark x. 12) enforced by St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 10), expresses the higher tone or
morality, and tends the more io elevate the female sex.
EPISTLE TO THE KOMANS. 193
soners,^ who are well known among the Apostles, and who
were also in Christ before me.
8 my dearly-beloved in the Lord.
Salute Amplias,
9 Salute Urbanus, my fellow-workman in Christ's service,
1 Asia, not Achaia, is the reading of the best MSS. See Tischendorf ; and compare
Vol. I. p. 399, note 2.
^ When were they St. Paul's fellow-prisoners ? Probably in some of those imprison-
ments not recorded in the Acts, to which he alludes 2 Cor. xi. 23. It is doubtful
whether in calling them his "kinsmen" St. Paul means that they were really related to
him, or only that they were Jews. (Compare Rom. ix. 3.) The latter supposition
seems improbable, because Aquila and Priscilla, and others in this chapter, mentioned
without the epithet of kinsmen, were certainly Jews yet, on the other hand, it seema
;
unlikely that so many of St. Paul's relations as are here called " kinsmen " (verses
7. 11, 21) should be mentioned in a single chapter. Perhaps we may take a middle
course, and suppose the epithet to denote that the persons mentioned were of the tribe
of Benjamin.
3 This Aristobulus was probably the great-grandson of Herod the Great, mentioned
by Josephus and Tacitus, to whom Nero in a.d. 55 gave the government of Lesser Ar-
menia. He had very likely lived previously at Rome, and may still have kept up ac
establishment there, or perhaps had not yet gone to his government. See Tac. Ann.
and Joseph. Ant. xx. 5.
xiii. 7,
There were two eminent persons of the name of Narcissus at Rome about thia
4
time one the well-known favourite of Claudius (Suet. Claud. 28, Tac. Ann. xii. 57,
;
65, xiii. 1),who was put to death by Nero, A. d. 54, soon after the death of Claudius,
and therefore before this Epistle was written the other was a favourite of Nero's, and
:
is probably the person here named. Some of his slaves or freedmen had become
r^hiistians. This Nai-eissus was put to death by Galba (Dio. Ixiv. 3).
VOL. II. 13
194 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Salute Eufiis,^ tlie chosen in tlie Lord, and liis mother, who 13
is also mine.
Salute Asjncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas,
Hermes/14
and the brethren who are with them.
Salute Philologus, and Julia, IsTereus and his sister, andl
Olympas, and all Christ's people who are with them.
Salute one another with the kiss of holiness.^ j
St. Mark (xv. 21) mentions Simon of Cyrene as "the father of Alexander and
Rufus the latter therefore was a Christian well known to those for whom St. Mark
wrote, and probably is the same here mentioned. It is gratifying to think that she
whom St Paul mentions here with such respectful affection, was the wife of that
Simon who bore our Saviour's cross.
^ See note on 1 Thess. v. 25.
Jason is mentioned as a Thessalonian, Acts xvii. 5 ; he had probably accompanie
SI. Paul from Thessalonica to Corinth.
4 Sosipater is mentioned as leaving Corinth with St. Paul, soon after this EpLstl
was written (Acts xx. 4).
5 This Gains (or Caius) is no doubt the same mentioned (1 Cor. i. 14) as baptized at
Corinth by St. Paul with his own hands. In Acts xx. 4 we find "Gains of Derbe''
leaving Corinth with St. Paul, soon after the writing of this Epistle, but this may
perhaps have been a different person ;
although this is not certain, considering how
the Jews migrated from one place to another, of which Aquila and Priscilla are an
obvious example.
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 195
24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you Autograph cou-
elusion.
1 Erastus is again mentioned (as stopping at Corinth) in 2 Tim. iv. 20. Probably
the same Erastus who went with Timotheus from Ephesus to Macedonia, on the way
towards Corinth. (Acts xix. 22.)
* If we retain the ^ in verse 27 (with the great majority of MSS.) we must supply
cvvlaTrifjLL, or something equivalent, here, or else leave the whole passage anacoluthical^
Examples of a similar commendation to God at the conclusion of a letter or speech
are frequent in St. Paul. Compare 1 Thess. v. 23. 2 Thess. ii. 16, and especially the
conclusion of the speech at Miletus. Acts xx. 32.
3 Kripvyjxa, literally, proclamation.
* Meaning the times of the Mosaic Dispensation, as is proved by the use of the
game expression. Tit. i. 2.
5 If we were (on the authority of the Codex Yaticanus) to omit the cj in this passage,
the last three verses would become a continuous doxology. The translators of
the A. V. have tacitly omitted this w, although professing to follow the Textus Re-
ceptus.
6 Some MSS. insert the verses 25, 26, 27, after xiv. 23, instead of in this place 5 bui
the greater weight of MS. authority is in favour of their present position. A good re-
futation of the objections which have been made against the authenticity of the last
two chapters, is given by De Wette {in loco) and by Neander (P. und L. 451-453) ;
out, above all, by Paley's Horae Paulinas, inasmuch as these very chapters furnish fou?
or five of the most striking undesigned coincidences there mentioned.
7 been said as yet concerning Cenchrese, and some interest is given to the
Little has
place both by the mention
of its Church in the preceding Epistle (Rom. xvi. 1), and by
the departure of St. Paul from that port on his fii'st visit to Acliaia (Acts xviii 18V
196 THE LIFE Am> EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
We have seen (Yol. 1. p. 413) that it was seventy stadia, or nearly nine miles distant
from Corinth, and (p. 422) that its position is still pointed out by the modern Kikriea,
where some remains of the ancient town are visible. The road is described by Pausa*
nias as leading from Corinth through an avenue of pine-trees, and past many tombs,
among which, two of the most conspicuous were those of the cynic Diogenes and the
profligate Thais (ad cujus jacuit Graicia tota fores. Prop. ii. 2). For the coast-line,
Bee the chart illustrating Thucyd. iv. 42, 44, at the end of Dr. Ai'nold's second volume,
and compare Poppo's Prolegomena. The coin here engraved is from Millingen
(Recueil de quelqucs MMaillos grecques inedites Rome, 1812), and is that to which
:
allusion was made Vol. I. p. 422, n. 2. It is a colonial coin of Antoninus Pius, and
represents the harbour of Cenchrcfc exactly as it is described by Pausanias. See Leake's
Morea, iii. 233-235.
NOTE ON THE ISTHMIAN STADIOI. 197
time, it seems right that we should state what is known on the subject. No good
topographical delineation of the Isthmus exists. This district was omitted in tha
French Expedition de la Moree ; and the second volumte of the work of Curtius or
the Peloponnesus has not yet appeared. We have given here the plan from Col
Leake's third volume, which is the most complete yet published, and which accu
rately represents the relative positions of the stadium, the theatre, and the temple.
The Posidonium or Sanctuary of Neptune, is at the narrowest part of the Isthmus,
close by Schoenus, the modern Kalamaki (see p. 413, n. 5) and modern travellers ;
may visit the ruins on their way between Kalamaki and Lutraki, from one steam-
boat to the other. St. Paul would also pass by this spot if he went by land from
Athens (p. 406, note). The distance from Corinth is about eight miles; and at
Hexamili, near Corinth, the road falls into that which leads to Cenchreae. {See
the preceding page, and Leake, iii. 286.) The military wall, which crossed the
Isthmus to LechsBum, abutted on the sanctuary (p. 410 n. 7), and was for some
Bpaoe identical with the sacred enclosure. At no great distance are the traces of
the canal which Nero left unfinished about the time of St. Paul's death (pp. 444,
445) ; and in many places along the shore may be seen those pine-trees, whose
leaves wove the " fading garlands " which the Apostle contrasts with the " unfad
CHAPTEE XJ
" Igitiir Oram Achaiee et Asiae, ac laeva mnris prsetwyecyras, Ith<idum et CypruiB
Ineulae, inde Syriam audentioribus spatiis petebat.''' Tac. Hist. il. 2.
In the Epistles wMcli have beeD. already set before the reader in the course
of this biography, and again in some of those which are to succeed, St.
Paul makes frequent allusion to a topic which engrossed the interest, and
called forth the utmost energies, of the Greeks. The periodical games
were to them rather a passion than an amusement ; and the Apostle often
uses language drawn from these celebrations, when he wishes to enforce
the zeal and the patience, with which a Christian ought to strain after his
heavenly reward. The imagery he employs is sometimes varied. In one
instance, when he describes the struggle of the spirit with the flesh, he
seeks his illustration in the violent contest of the boxers (1 Cor. ix. 26).
is used, we find the whole scene in the stadium brought vividly before us,
the " herald " ^ who summons the contending runners, the course, which
rapidly diminishes in front of them, as their footsteps advance to the
See Krause's Gymnastik and Agonistik der Ilellenen (Lcips. 1841), pp. 337-343.
1
The victory in the stadium at Olympia wa,s used in the foi-mula for reckoning Olym-
piads. The stadium was the Greek unit for the measurement of distance. With St.
Paul's frequent reference to it in the epistles, 1 Cor. ix. 24. Rom. ix. 16. Gal. ii. 2.
V. 7. Phil ii. 16. 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, should be compared two passages in the Acts, xx.
24, where he speaks of himself, and xiii. 25, wlicre he speaks of John the Baptist.
' Krjpv^ac. 1 Cor. ix. 27. For the office of the Heralds, see Hermann's Gott. Alt.
viii. 833) that the herald summoned the candidates Ibf
50, 22. Plato says (Legg.
the foot-race lirst into the stadium.
ISTHMIAIT GAMES. 199
goal, the juage ^ who holds out the prize at the end of the course, thi
prize itself, a chaplet of fading leaves, which is compared with the strongest
emphasis of contrast to the unfading glory with which the faithful Chris-
tian will be crowned,^ the joy and exidtation of the victor, which the
Apostle applies to his own case, when he speaks of his converts as his "joy
and crown," the token of his victory and the subject of his boasting.'* And
under the same image he sets forth the heavenly prize, after which his
converts themselves should struggle with strenuous and unswerving zeal,
with no hesitating step (1 Cor. ix. 26), pressing forward and never
looking back (Phil. iii. 13, 14), even to the disregard of hfe itself (Acts
XX. 24). And the metaphor extends itself beyond the mere struggle in
the arena, to the preparations which were necessary to success, to that
severe and continued training,^ which, being so great for so small a reward,
was a fit image of that " training unto godliness," which has the promise
not only of this life, but of that which is to come, to the strict regula-
tions ^ which presided over all the details, both of the contest and the
preliminary discipline, and are used to warn the careless Christian of the
peril of an undisciphned life, to the careful diet,"^ which admonishes us
I
Td, [lev OTCLGO) kTCLlavdavojuevog, rolg 6^ efinrpoadev kTceKreivof^evog. Phil. iii. 14.
* 2 Tim. iv. 8.
3 Bpa(Siov. 1 Cor. ix. 24. Phil. iii. 14. It was a chaplet of green leaves (pOaprdc ;
CT^avoc 1 Cor. ix. 25. (Cf. 2 Tim. ii. 5. iv. 8 also 1 Pet. v. 4.)
; The leaves
varied with the locality where the games were celebrated. At the Isthmus they were
those of the indigenous pine. For a time parsley was substituted for them but in the ;
Apostle's day the pine-leaves were used again. Plut. qu. symp. v. 3. See Boeckh's
Pindar, p. 193.
* 'A6e2,(j)ot fLov, ^^^^ crs^avog Phil. iv. 1. Tig t/jliuv x^^P^ V OTe<{>avo(,
x^P^ fxov.
Kavxvoeug, rj ovxl Koi vfielg. 1 Thess. ii. 19. This subject illustrates the frequent
iise of the word
Kavxvfy^C by St. Paul.
and yv/xvaaLa. 1 Tim. iv. 7, 8. The yvfivuGLov was an important feature
5 Tv/j,vd^G)
of every Greek city. The word is not found in the New Testament, but we i3nd it in
1 Mac. i. 14, and 2 Mac. iv. 9, when allusion is made to places of Greek amusement
built at Jerusalem. For the practices of the gymnasium and the palaestra, see Krause,
rol. i. 2, vol. ii. 1. Faber's Agonisticon, a work of the sixteenth century (in the 8th
f-ol. of Gronovius), contains a mass of information, but there is great confusion in the
arrangement.
s 'Eav fx^ vofii/j,ug udTi^af/.
ii. 5. For the special vofxifia of the foot-race,
2 Tim.
Bee Krause, vol. As regards the more general vo/xifia of the athletio
i. pp. 362, &c.
contests, the following may be enumerated from the Eliaca of Pausanias. Every can-
didate was required to be of pure Hellenic descent. He was disqualified by certain
moral and political offences. He was obliged to take an oath that he had been teu
months in training, and that he would violate none of the regulations. Bribery waa
punished by a fine. The candidate was obliged to practise again in the gymnasium
immediately before the games, under the direction of the judges or umpires, y7ho were
themselves required to be instructed for ten months in the details of the games.
Krause and Hermaim.
7 term used by Aristotle for this prescribed diet, of which we
\\.vaiiyo(^ayLa is the
find an account in Galen. See Krause, p. 358, and especially pp. 642, &c. Compara
Horace, A. P. 414. (Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et akit Abstinuit Yenere et ;
200 THE LIFE A^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
^
all things."
the stadium,^ were among the chief subjects of interest to the whole popu-
lation. Even in Palestine, and at Jerusalem itself, these busy amusements
were well known.^ But Greece was the very home, from which these
institutions drew their origin and the Isthmus of Corinth was one of four
;
interesting question suggests itself here, viz., whether the Apostle was
ever himself present during the Isthmian games. It might be argued a
priori that this is highly probable ; for great numbers came at these
seasons from all parts of the Mediterranean to witness or take part in the
contests ; and the very fact that amusement and ambition brought some,
makes it certain that gain attracted many others ; thus it is likely that the
In exercitationibus laboraverint, tanto plus de victoria sperant." For all this training
In its educational aspect, see Herm. Privatalt. 35-37.
The following energetic passage from St. Chrysostom (who was very familiar with
^
all that related to public amusements, both at Antioch and Constantinople) is well
ip^, dZAti TzpoQ TO (SpafSeiov. kuv nXovaioi, kuv ivevrjTec ucl, kuv ckutttti Ttg, kuv
tnaivy, KUV vPpiC,ri, kuv ItdoLg (SulXrf, kuv Trjv oUiav 6Lap'Kd^ri, kuv iraldag I6y, kuv
yvvaiKa, kuv drtovv, ovdajuug eTZLGTpe^erai, akTC kvog ycveruL juSvov rov rpex^iv, rov
XoSelv to (SpajSelo-fi. 6 TpexcJV ovdajuov laTaTai' eTcet kuv fiiKpov f>advin]ari, to ttuv
uiruXecev. 6 Tpsx^^'^ ov fxovov ovdev v(baLpet npo tov Telovg, dXlcL koL tote [iulioTa
iKLTeivet TOV Sp6fioi\" Homil. vii. in Epist. ad Heb. p. 763.
' It is worth observing, that the only inscription from Tarsus published by Boeckh
(No. 4437) relates to the restoration of the stadium.
3 Nothing is more remarkable than the number and magnitude of the theatres am
stadia in the ruins of the great cities of Asia Minor. A vast number, too, of the in-
Bcriptions relate to the public amusements. It is evident that these amusements must
have been one of the chief employments of the population. See the Travels of Spratl
and Forbes.
f'or the games celebrated at Ephesus, see Guhl's Ephesiaca.
See above, note on yvfivuaiov,
0 See the reference to Herod's theatre and amphitheatre, Vol. I. p. 2. Hence th
ignificance of such a passage as Heb. xii. 1, 2 to the Hebrew Chri"stians of Palestine.
:
ALACEDOl^IA. 201
every shore witli the dispersion of the strangers. But, further, it will be
remembered, that on his first visit, St. Paul spent two years at Corinth
and though there is some difficulty in determining the times at which the
games were celebrated, yet it seems almost certain that they recurred
every second year, at the end of spring or the beginning of summer. ^
Thus
it may be confidently concluded that he was there at one of the festivals.
As regards the voyage undertaken from Ephesus (Yol. II. p. 26), the
time devoted to it was short; yet that time may have coincided with the
festive season; and it is far from inconceivable that he may have sailed
across the JEgean in the spring, with some company of Greeks who were
proceeding to the Isthmian meeting. On the present occasion he spent
only three of the winter months in Achaia, and it is hardly possible that
he could have been present during the games. It is most likely that there
were no crowds among the pine-trees^ at the Isthmus, and that the
stadium at the Sanctuary of Neptune was silent and unoccupied, when
St. Paul passed by it along the northern road, on his way to Macedonia.^
His intention had been to go by sea to Syria,^ as soon as the season
of safe navigation should be come ; and in that case he would have em-
barked at Ceuchrese, whence he had sailed during his second missionary
journey, and whence the Christian Phoibe had recently gone with the
letter to the Romans.^ He himself had prepared his mind for a journey to
Kome ;
^ but first he was purposed to visit Jerusalem, that he might convey
the alms which had been collected for the poorer brethren, in Macedonia
and Achaia. He looked forward to this expedition with some misgiving ;
for he knew what danger was to be apprehended from his Jewish and
Judaizing enemies ; and even in his letter to the Roman Christians, he
1They were, in the Greek way of reckoning, a rpLerrjpLg. Of the four great national
fe?tivals, the Olympian and Pythian games took place every fourth year, the Nemeau
and Isthmian every third the latter in the fourth and first year of each Olympiad.
;
See Hermann, 49, 14, 15. The festival was held in the year 53 a.d., which is the
first of an Olympiad and (as we have seen) there is good reason for believing that
;
the Apostle came to Corinth in the autumn of 52, and left it in the spring of 54.
Wilckens, in his Specimen Antiquitatum Corinthiacarum ( vi.-viii.), enters into the
game inquiry, and comes to the same conclusion, though his dates are different.
' These pine-trees supplied the wreath of the victors* See p. 199, n. 3. They
are still abundant in the neighbourhood, as any traveller may see on his way from
Kalamaki to Lutraki.
3 For the locality of this sanctuary, see the note at the end of the preceding Chapter.
A full account, both of the description, as given by Pausanias, and of present appear-
gjices, may be seen in Leake. The inscription (p. 294) relating to P. Licinius Priscui
Juventianus, who KaTsaKevaaev rag Karalvaeig rolq cltzo rrjg olKovjLiev7]g kizl rd 'laOuLa
For Cenchrefe, see the note at the end of the preceding Chapter.
5 A good notioB
of its position is obtained from the view of the Isthmus, Yol. I. p. 410.
See the end of Ch. XV.
THE LIFE Al^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
requested their prayers for Ms safety. And he had good reason to feajf
the Jews ; for ever since their discomfiture under Gallio they had beeE
irritated by the progress of Christianity, and they organized a plot against
the great preacher, when he was on the eve of departing for Syria. ^ We
are not informed of the exact nature of this plot ; but it was probably a
conspiracy against his life, like that which was formed at Damascus soon
after his conversion (Acts ix. 23. 2 Cor. xi. 32), and at Jerusalem, both
before and after the time of which we write (Acts ix. 19. xxiii. 12), and
necessitated a change of route, such as that which had once saved him on
his departure from Beroea.^
On that occasion his flight had been from Macedonia to Achaia now ;
the scene of his persecution among the Jews of Thessalonica, and passed
on by ApoUonia and Amphipolis to the place where he had first landed on
the European shore. The companions of his journey were Sopater the son
of Pyrrhus,'* a native of Beroea, Aristarchus and Secundus, both of
departed from Ephesus. From the order in which these disciples are
mentioned, and the notice of the specific places to which they belonged,
we should be inclined to conjecture that they had something to do with
the collections which had been made at the various towns on the route.
As St. Luke does not mention the collection,^ we cannot expect to be able
to ascertain all the facts. But since St. Paul left Corinth sooner than
was intended, it seems likely that all the arrangements were not complete,
and that Sopater was charged with the responsibility of gathering tlie
funds from Beroea, while Aristarchus and Secundus took charge of those
from Thessalonica." St. Luke himself was at Philippi : and the remaining
1 Me?i?LOVTL dvdyeodai.
" " The Jews generally settled in gi*eat numbers at seaports for the sake of com-
merce, and their occupation would give them peculiar influence over the captains and
ov/ners of merchant vessels, in which St. Paul must have sailed. They might, thert>
fore, form the project of seizing him or murdering him at Cenchreaj with great proba-
bility of success." Comm. on the Acts, by Rev. F. C. Cook, 1850.
3 For the Via Egnatia and the stages between Philippi and Beroea, see Vol. I. i)p
316-322, 338.
* Such seems to be the correct reading. See Tischeu-
SwTrarpof Tlv^^ov Bepoialog.
dorf. We
might conjecture that the word Uvp^ov was added to distinguish hira from
Sosipater. (Rom. xvi. 21.)
6 Except in one casual allusion at a later period. Acts xxiv. 17.
c Soe IJemsen, pp. 467-475.
four of tlie party were connected with the interior or the coast of Asia
MiDor.^
The whole of this company did not cross together from Europe tc
Asia ; but St. Paul and St. Luke lingered at Philippi, while the others
preceded them to Troas.^ The journey through Macedonia had beer
rapid, and the visits to the other Churches had been short. But the
Church at Philippi had peculiar claims on St. Paul's attention : and the
time of his arrival induced him to pause longer than in the earlier part of
his journey. It was the time of the Jewish passover. And here our
thoughts turn to the passover of the preceding year, when the Apostle
was at Ephesus (p. 41). We remember the higher and Christian meaning
which he gave to the Jewish festival. It was no longer an Israelitish
ceremony, but it was the Easter of the New Dispensation. He was not
now occupied with shadows ; for the substance was already in possession.
Christ the Passover had been sacrificed, and the feast was to be kept with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Such was the higher standing-
point to which he sought to raise the Jews whom he met, in Asia or in
1 Some would read Aep/?aZo? 6^ Ti/j.6deog, in order to identify Gains with tlie dis-
ciple of the same name who is mentioned before along with Aristarchus (Tatov aal
'ApLorapxov Mmedovag, xix. 29). But it is almost certain that Timotheus was a native
of Lystra, and not Derbe (See Vol. 1. p. 264, n. 1), and Gaius [or Caius, see above, p.
34] was so common a name, that this need cause us no difficulty.
^ It is conceivable, but not at all probable, that these companions sailed direct from
Corinth to Troas, while Paul went through Macedonia. Some would limit ovtol to
Trophimus and Tychicus but this is quite unnatural. The expression axpt- rjjq 'kalag
;
seems to imply that St. Paul's companions left him at Miletus, except St. Luke (who
continues the narrative from this point in the first person) and Trophimus (who waa
with him at Jerusalem, xxi. 29), and whoever might be the other deputies who accom-
panied him with the alms. (2 Cor. viii. 19-21.)
3 Acts XX. 16.
4 It may be well to point out here the general distribution of the time spent on the
voyage. Forty-nine days intervened between Passover and Pentecost The days oi
unleavened bread [Mark xiv. 12. Luke xxii. 7. Acts xii. 3. 1 Cor. v. 8] succeeded
the Passover. Thus, St. Paul stayed at least seven days at Philippi after the Passover
(v 6),j^ce days were spent on the passage to Troas (ib.), six days (for so we raav
reckon them) were spent at Troas (\h.),four were occupied on the voyage by Cluos
to Miletus (V. 13-15, see below), ^t^jo were spent at Miletus,in three days St. Paul
went by Cos and Rhodes to Patara (xxi. 1, see below), two days would s- jffice for the
voyage to Tyre (v. 2, Z),~six days were spent at Tyre (v. 4>),two were taken up in
CTOceedi.ng by Ptolemais to Ctesarea (v. 7, 8). This calculation gives us thirti/'seven
204: THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
has been thrown on the possibility of this plan being accomplished in ths
interval ; for they did not leave PhiHppi till the seventh day after the
fourteenth of Nisan was past. It will be our business to show that
the plan was perfectly practicable, and that it was actually accomplished,
this was the time occupied when the Apostle made the passage on his
first coming to Europe.^ On this occasion the same voyage occupied five
days in all ; thus leaving thirteen before the festivAl of Pentecost, after the arrival at
Caesarea, which is more than the conditions require- We may add, if necessary, two
or three days more during the voyage in the cases where we have reckoned inclusively.
The mention of the Sunday spent at Troas fixes (though not quite absolutely) the
day of the week on which the Apostle left Philippi. It was a Tuesday or a Wednes-
day. We might, with considerable probability, describe what was done each day of
the week during the voyage but we are not sure, in all cases, whether we are to
;
reckon inclusively or exclusively, nor are we absolutely certain of the length of the
stay at Miletus.
be observed, that all we have here said is independent of the particular year
It will
in which we suppose the voyage to have been made,'' and of the day of the week on
which the llth of Nisan occurred. Mr. Greswell (Dissertation 25, in vol. iv.) has
made a careful calculation of the different parts of the voyage, on the hypothesis, thai
the year was 56 a.d., when Passover fell on March 19, and Pentecost on May 8 and ;
he has shown that the accomplishment of St. Paul's wish, under the circumstances
described, was quite practicable. He has even allowed, as we shall see, more time
than was necessary, by supposing that the time from Patara to Tyre lasted from Mon-
day to Thursday (p. 523). The same may be said of Wieseler's estimate (pp. 99-115),
according to which the year was 58 a.d., when the 14th of Nisan fell on March 27.
E'; allows five days (p. 101) for the voyage between Patara and Tyre, adducing the
opinion of Chrysostom as one well acquainted with those seas. Hug allows six days.
(Introd. to New Testament, Eng. Transl., Yol. H. pp. 325-327.)
We may observe here, that many commentators write on the nautical passages of
the Acts as if the weather were always the same and the rate of sailing uniform, or as
if the Apostle travelled in steamboats. His motions were dependent on the wind,
He might be detained in harbour by contrary weather. Nothing is more natural than
that he should be five days on one occasion, and two on another, in passing between
Philippi and Troas just as Cicero was once fifteen, and once thirteen, in passing be-
;
tween Athens and Ephesus. So St. Paul might sail in two days from Patara to Tyre,
though under less favourable circumstances, it might have required four or five, or
even more. It is seldom that the same passage is twice made in exactly the same time
by any vessel not a steamer.
Another remark may be added, that commentators often write as though St. Paul
had chartered his own vessel, and had the full command of her movements. This
would be highly unlikely for a person under the circumstances of St. Paul ajid we j
shall see that it was not the case in the present voyage, during which, as at other
times, he availed himsglf of the opportunities offered by merchant vessels or coasters. -
TKOAS. 205
its flourishing period. Among the oak-trees, which fill the vast enclosure
of its walls, are fragments of colossal masonry. Huge columns of granite
are seen lying in the harbour, and in the quarries on the neighbouring hills.^
A theatre, commanding a view of Tenedos and the sea, shows where the
Greeks once assembled in crowds to witness their favourite spectacles.
Open arches of immense size, towering from the midst of other great
masses of ruin, betray the hand of Roman builders. These last remains,
1 It has been remarked above (Yol. I. p. 312), that St. Luke's vocation as a physi-
cian may have caused him to reside at Phihppi and Troas, and made him familiar with
these coasts. The autoptical style (see p. 284) is immediately resumed with the
change of the pronoun.
' For the history of the foundation of the city under the successors of Alexander,
and of the feelings of Romans towards it, see the concluding part of Ch. VIII. The
travellers who have described it are Dr. Chandler, Dr. Hunt (in Walpole's Memoirs,
relating to European and Asiatic Turkey), Dr. Clarke and Sir C. Fellows (Asia Minor),
A rude plan is given by Pococke, 11. ii. 108.
3 Alexandria Troas, must have been, like Aberdeen, a city of granite. The hilla
which supplied this material were to the N.E. and S.E. Dr. Clarke (vol. ii. p. 149)
mentions a stupendous column, which is concealed among some trees in the neighbour-
hood, and which he compares to the famous column of the Egyptian Alexandria.
Fellows (p. 58) speaks of hundreds of columns, and says that many are bristling among
the waves to a considerable distance out at sea. He saw seven columns lying with
their chips in a quarry, which is city. Thus
connected by a paved road with the
granite seems to have been to Alexandria Troas what marble was to Athens and we ;
are reminded of the quarries of Pentelicus. (See the account of them in Wordsworth's
Greece.) The granite columns of Troas have been used for making cannon-balls for
the defense of the Dardanelles. Hunt, p. 135.
4 See the description of these ruins in Dr. Clarke's Travels, and the view, p. 152,
He regards them as the remains of baths, the termination of the aqueduct of Herodes
Mticus. Hunt (p. 135) and Chandler (p. 30) think they belonged to a gymnasium,
perhaps of the time of the Antonines. There are also two views in vol. ii. of the
Transactions of the Dilettanti Society. Dr. Clarke, in a subsequent passage (p. 178).
alludes again to the appearance of these ruins from the sea: "Continuing our course
[from the Dardanelles] towards the south, after passing the town of Tenedos, we were
truck by the very grand appearance of the ancient Balnece, already described, among
206 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the sea. We cannot assert that these buildings existed in the days of St
Paul, but we may be certain that the city, both on the approach from the
water, and to those who wandered through its streets, must have presented
an appearance of grandeur and prosperity. Like Corinth, Ephesus, or
Thessalonica, it was a place where the Apostle must have wished to laj
firmly and strongly the foundations of the Gospel. On his first visit, as
the remains of Alexandria Troas. The three arches of the building make a conspicuous
figure from a considerable distance at sea, like the front of a magnificent palace and ;
this circumstance, connected with the mistake so long prevalent concerning the city
itself fviz. that it was the ancient Troy], gave rise to the appellation of 'The Palace
Bhowing that the observance of Sunday was customary. Cf. 1 Cor. xvi. 2. See
Vol. I. p. m.
3 MeAAwv k^LEvai ry kiravpiov, ib. See v. 13. By putting all these circumstances
together, we can almost certainly infer the day of the week on which St. Paul left
Paul, with, the feeling strongly impressed on his mind that the next dat
was the day of his departure, and that souls might be lost by delay, wa3
continuing in earnest discourse, and prolonging it even to midnight ;
* when
an occurrence suddenly took place, which filled the assembly with alarm,
though it was afterwards converted into an occasion of joy and thanks-
giving. A young listener, whose name was Eutychus, was overcome by
exhaustion, heat, and weariness, and sank into a deep slumber.^ He was
seated or leaning in the balcony ;
and, falling down in his sleep, was dashed
upon the pavement below, and was taken up dead.'*- Confusion and terror
followed, with loud lamei^tation.^ But Paul was enabled to imitate the
power of that Master whose doctrine he was proclaiming. As Jesus had
once said ^ of the young maiden, who was taken by death from the society
of her friends, " She is not dead, but sleepeth," so the Apostle of Jesus
received power to restore the dead to life. He went down and fell upon
the body like Elisha of old,' and, embracing Eutychus, said to the bystand-
ers ;
" Do not lament ; for his life is in him."
With minds solemnized and filled with thankfulness by this wonderful
token of God's power and love, they celebrated the Eucharistic feast.^
The act of Holy Communion was combined, as was usual in the Apostolic
age, with a common meal : ^ and St. Paul now took some refreshmeilt
after the protracted labour of the evening,^ and then continued his conver-
1 ^Raav (51 TtaftTrddE^ Uaval, v. 8. Various reasons have been suggested why this
circumstance should be mentioned. Meyer thinks it is given as the reason why the
fate of the young man was perceived at once. But it has much more the appearance
of having simply " proceeded from an eye-witness, who mentions the incident, not for
the purpose of obviating a difficulty which might occur to the reader, but because the
entire scene towhich he refers stood now with such minuteness and vividness before
his mind." Hackett on the Acts, Boston, U. S., 1852. [See a similar instance in the
case of the proseucha at Philippi, Acts xvi. 13, Yol. I. p. 295.]
* Jlapereivev rbv loyov fiexpL [leaovvKTlov, v. 7. Lialeyoiiivov tov U&v'Aov enl
trT^eiov, v. 9.
3 KaTa<l>ep6/xevog vttvo) jSadel, v. 9. The present participle seems to denote the gra-
dual sinking into sleep, as opposed to the sudden fall implied by the past participle in
tlie next phrase.
4 Karevexdelg and tov {nrvov iireaev, ib. It is quite arbitrary to qualify the words
^pOjf vsKpog by supposing that he was only apparently dead.
s This is implied in -dopydelade below. The word denotes a loud and violent ex-
pression of grief, as in Matt. ix. 23. Mark v. 39.
6 Matt. ix. 24. Mark v. 39.
' 2 Kings iv. 34. In each case, as Prof. Hackett remarks, the act appears to hava
been the sign of a miracle.
s 'AvaSdg not
KMaag tov dpTov, v. 11. The article appears to be used because 0^
ic?Maai dpTov above, v. 7.
0 See Yol. I. p. 439.
1* Tevnd[ivog (v. 11), which is to be distinguished from KJAaag tov tor^v.
208 THE LIFE AJSTD EPISTLEG OF ST. PAIIL.
sation till the dawning of the day.' It was now time for the congregation
that the Apostle himself should join the vessel at Assos, which was only
about twenty miles ^ distant by the direct road, while the voyage round
Cape Lectum was nearly twice as far. He thus secured a few more
precious hours with his converts at Troas : and eagerly would they profit
by his discourse, under the feeling that he was so soon to leave them : and
we might suppose that the impression made under such circumstances, and
with the recollection of what they had witnessed in the night, would never
be effaced from the minds of any of them, did we not know, on the highest
authority, that if men believe not the prophets of God, neither will they
1 'E^' Uavov re 6fiL?i?jaac uxpt avyrjg (ib.) where biiikriaaq denotes conversation
rather than continued discourse, and should be distinguished from dizXiytro and diakt-
yofievov above.
^ We might illustrate what took place at this meeting by the sailing of the Bishop
of Calcutta from Plymouth in 1829. " He and his chaplain made impressive and pro-
meeting, as they had received orders to em-
fitable addresses to us, the first part of the
bark the same morning. began then to speak, and in the middle of my speech the
I
captain of the frigate sent for them, and they left the mreeting." Memoir of Rev. E.
Bickersteth, vol. i. p. 445.
3 See Vol. I. p. 280. The stages in the Antonine Itinerary from Dardanus to Adra-
myttium are ILIO M. P. XII. TROAS M. P. XVL, ANTANDRO M. P. XXXV.,
ADRAMYTTIO M. P. XXXI. Wesseling, pp. 334, 335. Assos lay between Troas
and Antandrus, considerably to the west of the latter.
The impression derived from modern travellers through this neglected region is,
that the distance between Assos and Troas is rather greater. Sir C. Fellows (Asia
Minor, p. 5G) reckons it at 30 miles, and he was in the saddle from half past eight to five.
Dr. Hunt, in Walpole's Memoirs (131-134), was part of two days on the road, leaving
Assos in the afternoon, but he deviated to see the hot springs and salt works. Mr.
"Weston (MS. journal) left Assos at three in the afternoon and reached Troas at ton the
next morning but he adds, that it was almost impossible to find the road without a
;
guide.
In a paper on " Recent Works on Asia Minor," in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Oct
1851, it is sikid (p. 8G7) that Assos is nine miles from Troas. This must be an over-
sight. It is, however, quite possible that Mitylene might have been reached, as wo
\iaveassumed below, on the Sunday evening. If the vessel sailed from Troas at seven
In the morning, she would easily be round Cape Lectum before noon. If St. Paul iefl
Troas at ten, he might arrive at Assos at four in the afternoon and the vessel might
be at anchor in the roads of Mitylene at seven. Greswell supposes that they sailoci
from Arsos on the Monday (p. 521). This would derange the days of the week, as we
have given them below, but would not affect the general conclusion.
^ See Fellows and Hunt. There are now salt-works in the neighbou'-hood of th$
boiling springs.
AS80S. 208
w-oods,^ then in full foliage,'^ which cover all that shore with greenness
and sha-de, and across the wild water-courses on the western side of Ida.^
Such is the scenery which now surrounds the traveller on his way from
Troas to Assos. The great difference then was, that there was a good
Roman road/ which made St. Paul's sohtary journey both more safe and
more rapid than it could have been now. We have seldom had occasion to
think of the Apostle in the hours of his solitude. But such hours must
have been sought and cherished by one whose whole strength was drawB
from communion with God, and especially at a time when, as on this
present journey, he was deeply conscious of his weakness, and filled with
foreboding fears.^ There may have been other reasons why he lingered at
Troas after his companions : but the desire for solitude was doubtless one
reason among others. The discomfort of a crowded shij^ is unfavourable
for devotion : and prayer and meditation are necessary foi maintaining
the religious life even of an Apostle. That Saviour to whose service he
was devoted had often prayed in solitude on the mountain, and crossed
the brook Kedron to kneel under the oUves of Gethsemane. And strength
and peace were surely sought and obtained by the Apostle from the
Redeemer, as he pursued his lonely road that Sunday afternoon in spring,
among the oak woods and the streams of Ida.
No delay seems to have occurred afe Assos. He entered by the Sacred
Way among the famous tombs,^ and through the ancient gateway, and
proceeded immediately to the shore. We may suppose that the vessel was
already hove to and waiting when he arrived ; or that he saw her ap-
proaching from the west, through the channel between Lesbos and the
main. He went on board without delay, and the Greek sailors and the
Apostolic missionaries continued their voyage. As to the city of Assos
J
All travellers make mention of the woods of Yallonea oaks in the neighbourhood
of Troas. The acorns are used for dyeing, and form an important branch of trade.
The collecting of the acorns,and shells, and gall nuts employs the people during a
great part of the year. Fellows, p. 57. One traveller mentions an English vessel
which he saw taking in a load of these acorns. Walpole's MS. in Clarke, p. 157.
^ The woods were in full foliage on the 18th of March. Hunt, p. 134.
3 For the streams of this mountain, see Vol. I. p. 27 9, n. 5.
5 Compare Rom. xv. 30, 31. Acts xx. 3, with Acts xx. 22-25. xxi. 4, 13.
6 This Street of Tombs ( Via Sacra) is one of the most remarkable features ol Am.
it is described by Fellows in his excellent account of Assos (Asia Minor, p. 52). S8
uiso the earlier notices of the city by Leake in Walpole's Travels, p. 254, and by Dr.
Hunt in Walpole's Memoirs, p. 130. The Street of Tombs extends to a great distance
across the level ground to the N.W. of the city. Some of the tombs are of vast dimea-
sions, and formed each of one block of granite. See the engraving in Fellows, p. 48.
These remains are the more worthy of notice because the word sarcophagus was fir^
applied in Roman times to this stone of Assos {lapis Assiiis), from the peculiar power
It was supposed to possess of aiding the natural decay of corpses. Plin. H. N. ii. 95,
Xxxvi. 17. Cf. Aug. de Civ. Dei, xviii. 5.
-VOL, u. 14
210 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
from the shore, and the summits of Ida rose in the evening sky.^
The course of the voyagers was southwards, along the eastern shore
of Lesbos. When Assos was lost, Mitylene, the chief city of Lesbos,
came gradually into view. The beauty of the capital of Sappho's island
was celebrated by the architects, poets, and philosophers of Rome,'^ Like
other Greek cities which were ennobled by old recollections, it was hon-
oured by the Romans with the privilege of freedom.^ Situated on the
' The travellers above mentioned speaJk in strong terms of the view from the Acro-
polis towards Lesbos and the sea. Towards Ida and the land side the eye ranges over
the windings of a river through a fruitful plain. Strabo (xv.) says that the Persian
kings sent for their best grain to Assos. The coins (see Eckhel, p. 450) exhibit a
diota, with the head of a bull, the emblem of agriculture.
Besides the illustrations referred to above, see the view in Texier's Asie Mineure,
and a bas-relief in Clarac's Musee de Sculpture. Part of a frieze and of a Ovclopean
wall, with three of the gateways, are given by Fellows. He conceives that these re-
mains have been preserved from the depredations committed on other towns near the
coast, in consequence of the material being the " same grey stone as the neighboui'ing
rock, and not having intrinsic value as marble." He observed "no trace of the Ro-
raans." Leake says that the hard granite of Mount Ida " has furnished the materials
for many of the buildings and even the sculptures and he adds that " the whole gives
5
perhaps the most perfect idea of a Greek city that any where exists."
* Mitylene pulchra." Hor. Ep, xi. 17. See Od. i. vii. 1 " Et natura et descriptione
:
they would wish for daylight to accompli&h safely the intricate navigation
between the southern part of Lesbos and the mainland of Asia Minor.
It. the course of Monday they were abreast of Chios (v. 15). The
weather in these seas is very variable : and from the mode of expression
employed by St. Luke it is probable that they were becalmed. An
English traveller under similar circumstances has described himself as
" engrossed from daylight till noon " by the beauty of the prospects with
which he was surrounded, as his vessel floated idly on this channel between
Scio and the Continent.s On one side were the gigantic masses of the
mainland : on the other were the richness and fertility of the island, with
its gardens of oranges,'* citrons, almonds, and pomegranates, and its white
scattered houses overshadowed by evergreens. Until the time of its recent
disasters, Scio was the paradise of the modern Greek : and a famiUar
proverb censured the levity of its inhabitants,^ Hke that which in the
f lAHNH. The words Q HI CTP on imperial coins seem to show that it was governed
by a supreme magistrate called prastor. Sometimes we find ApoUo and the lyre (as
here), sometimes Sappho and the lyre. The phrase " Concordia cum Adramytenis "
illustrates the connection of Mitylene with Adramyttium, in the recess of the opposite
gulf. See Vol. 1. p. 279.
1 " The chief town of Mitylene is and on a peninsula (once an
on the S.E. coast,
night. We are indebted for this suggestion to Mr. Smith (author of the " Voyage and
Shipwreck of St. Paul,") and we take this opportunity of acknowledging our obliga-
tions to his MS. notes, in various parts of this chapter.
3 Dr, Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 188. See the whole description. This applies to a
period some years before the massacre of 1822. For notices of Scio, and a descriptioa
of the scenery in its nautical aspect, see the Sailing Directory, pp. 124r-128.
4 It must be remembered that the vegetation, and with the vegetation the scenery,
of the shores of the Mediterranean has varied with the progress of civilization. It
seems that the Arabians introduced the orange in the early part of the middle ages.
Other changes are subsequent to the discovery of America. See Vol. I. p. 21, n. 3.
The winos of Chios were always celebrated. Its coins display an amphora and a bunch
of grapes.
5 The proTsrb says that it is easier to find a green horse (dAoyo Trpdaivo) than s
lOber-rainded Sciot (Xiura <j)p6vi/jLov).
212 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
Apostle's day described the coarser faults of the natives of Crete (Tit
i. 12).
The same Eaghsh traveller passed the island ofSamos after leaving
that of Chios. So likewise did St. Paul (v. 15). But the former sailed
along the western side of Samos, and he describes how its towering cloud-
capped heights are contrasted with the next low island to the west.' The
Apostle's course lay along the eastern shore, when a much narrower
" marine pass " intervenes between it and a long mountainous ridge of the
mainland, from which it appears to have been separated by some violent
convulsion of nature.^ This high promontory is the ridge of Mycale, well
known in the annals of Greek victory over the Persians. At its termina
tion, not mo\'e than a mile from Samos, is the anchorage of Trogyllium
Here the night of Tuesday was spent ;
apparently for the same reason as
that which caused the delay at Mitylene. The moon set early : and it
was desirable to wait for the day, before running into the harbour of
Miletus.3
See the view which Dr. Clarke gives of this remarkable " marine pass," Vol. II. p.
192. The summit of Samos was concealed by a thick covering of clouds, and he was told
that its heights were rarely unveiled. See again Vol. IIL pp. 364-367. Compare
Norie's Sailing Directory, p. 150. " Samos, being mountainous, becomes visible twenty
leagues off ; and the summit of Mount Kerki retains its snow throughout the year."
The strait through which Dr. Clarke sailed is called the Great JBoghaz and is ten miles
broad. (Purdy, p. 118.) The island to the west is Icaria, which, with this portion of
the -^gean, bore the name of Icarus. See Strabo, xiv. 1. napuKeiraL ry I^djuu, vr)oog
i] 'Impla, a0' rj^ to 'iKupiov Tre/layof avrrj 6' kiruvv/iioc kartv 'ladpov, Tvaidog rov
AaiduXov.
^ See Fellows as quoted below. This strait is the Little Boghaz (Purdy, p. 120),
which is reckoned at about a mile in breadth both by Strabo and Chandler. 'H
MvKaXrj eirtKetTai ry ^a/xLa, Kal noiel Trpbg avr^v iireKeiva Trjg Tpuytltov Ka7[,ov[j>evr)r
uKpag, daov t-KraarddLov rropdjuov, xiv. 1. " We overlooked a beautiful cultivated plain
lying low beneath us, bounded by the sea and Mycale, a mountain now, as anciently,
woody and abounding in wild beasts. The promontory, once called Trogilium, runs
out toward the N. end of Samos, which was in view, and, meeting a promontory of the
island, named Posidium, makes a strait only seven stadia or near a mile wide." Chand-
ler,pp. 165, 166. "We shall return presently to this ridge of Mycale in its relation to
the interior, when we refer to the journey of the Ephesian elders to Miletus. In
another sentence Strabo speaks of Trogyllium as izooTcovg rig rrjg Mv/ca/i^yf. It was
evidently a place well known to sailors, from his reckoning the distance from hence to
Sunium in Attica.
3 We should observe here again that Trogyllium, though on the shore of the main-
land, is protected by Samos from the north-westerly winds. With another wind it
might have been better to have anchored in a port to the N. E. of Samos, now called
Port Vathy, which is said in the Sailing Directory (p. 119), to be " protected from
every wind but the N. W." We may refer here to the clear description and map of
Samos by Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, i. pp. 156, 157. But the Admiralty Charts
(1530 and 1555) should be consulted for the soundings, fec. An anchorage will be
the east of the extreme point of Trogyllium, bearing the name of St
fceen just to
PauVs Purt."
TEOGTLLIUM. 213
The short voyage from Chios to Tpogy Ilium had carried St Paii" through
Familiar scenery. The bay across which the vessel had been passing, was
that into which the Cayster ^ flowed. The mountains on the eastern main
were the western branches of Messogis and Tmolus,'^ the ranges that enclose
the primeval plain of " Asia." The city, towards which it is Ukely that
3ome of the vessels in sight were directing their course, was Ephesus,
?vhere the Apostolic labours of three years had gathered a company of
Christians in the midst of unbelievers. One whose solicitude w^as so great
for his recent converts could not willingly pass by and leave them unvisited .
and had he had the command of the movements of the vessel, we can
hardly believe that he would have done so. He would surely have landed
at Ephesus, rather than at Miletus. The same wind which carried him to
the latter harbour, would have been equally advantageous for a quick
passage to the former. And, even had the weather been unfavourable at
the time for landing at Ephesus, he might easily have detained the vessel
at Trogyllium ; and a short journey by land northward would have taken
him to the scene of his former labours.^
Yet every delay, whether voluntary or involuntary, might have been
fatal to the plan he was desirous to accomplish. St. Luke informs us
here (and the occurrence of the remark shews us how much regret was
felt by the Apostle on passing by Ephesus), that his intention was, if
aarrow strait between Asia Minor and Samos. It recedes northwards towards Ephesus,
and southwards towards Miletus, each of these places being about equidistant from
Trogyllium. Up to this point from Chios St. Paul had been nearly following the line
of the Ephesian merchant vessels up what is now called the gulf of Scala Nuova. By
comparing the Admiralty Chart with Strabo and Chandler, a very good notion is
obtained of the coast and country between Ephesus and Miletus.
4 It is surely quite a
mistake to suppose, with some commentators, that St. Paul had
ihe command of the movements of the vessel. His influence with the captain and the
"earn en might induce them to do all in then* power to oblige him ; and perhaps wf
214 THE LIFE AOT EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
presbyters of the Ephesian Church, with the hope of their meeting hiiis
there. The distance between the two cities was hardly thirty miles, and a
good road connected them together.' Thus, though the stay at Miletus
would be short, and it might be hazardous to attempt the journey himself
he could hope for one more interview, if not with the whole Ephesian
Church, at least with those members of it whose responsibility was the
greatest
The sail from Trogyllium, with a fair wind, would require but little
COIN OF JSTTLETUS.''
waiting for those whom the Holy Spirit, by his hands, had made " over-
seers over the flock of Christ (v. 28). The city where we find the
Christian Apostle now waiting, while those who had the care of the vessel
were occupied with the business that detained them, has already been
referred to as more ancient than Ephesus,^ though in the age of St. Paul
inferior to it in pohtical and mercantile eminence. Even in Homer,^ the
may some such feeling in the arrangements at Assos, just as afterwards at Sidon
trace
(Acts xxvii. 3), when on his voyage to Rome. But he must necessarily have been
content to take advantage of such opportunities as were consistent with the business
on which the vessel sailed. She evidently put in for business to Troas, Miletus, and
Patara. At the other places she seems to have touched merely for convenience, in
consequence of the state of the weather or the darkness.
1 Pliny says that Magnesia is fifteen miles from Ephesus ("Magnesia abest ab Epheso
XV. M. P.," V. 31), and Magnesia was about equidistant from Ephesus, Tralles, and
Miletus. See Leake's map, with this road marked from the Pent. Table. It does not
go beyond Magnesia in the direction of Miletus, but follows the great eastern road
towards Iconium, which we have so often mentioned. There is, however, a shorter
road jfrom Ephesus to Miletus in the Pent. Table, passing through Panionium and
Priene, and close behind the ridge of Mycale. This seems to have been the road
which Sir C. Fellows took (pp. 2G6-274). Some of the wanderings of Dr. Chandler
(ch. xl. xli. xlvi. xlvii. xlviii. xlix. lii. liii.) were more in the direction of the longer
route by Magnesia. See also for the part between Ephesus and Magnesia, Pococke'a
Travels, n. ii. 64.
" The distance is about seventeen nautical miles and a half. If the vessel sailed &\
mx in the morning from Trogyllium, she would easily be in harbour at nine.
3 From the British Museum. The common type of the coins of Miletus, a lion look-
ing back on a star, is an astrological emblem, like the ram on those of Antioch.
*
See above, in this volume, p. 18. Compare p. 70. Thus the imperial coins o*
Miletus are rare, and the autonomous coins begin very eai-iy.
Horn. II. 11. 868. Herodotus (i. 142) speaks of it as \he chief city in Ionia.
MILETUS. 215
it gradually began to sink towards its present condition of ruin and decay,
from the influence, as it would seem, of mere natural causes, the increase
of alluvial soil in the delta having the effect of removing the city gradually
further and further from the sea. Even in the Apostle's time, there was
between the city and the shore a considerable space of level ground, through
which the ancient river meandered in new windings, like the Forth at
Stirling.^ Few events connect the history of Miletus with the transactions
of the Roman empire. When St. Paul was there, it was simply one of
not regarded long and tedious, nor is much regard paid to the difference
the remains calkd Palatsha, and generally supposed to be those of Miletus, are no<
evilly those of My vs. See Forbiger, pp. 213, 214, and the notes.
216 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
between day and night. ^ The presbyters of Ephesus might easily reacli
Miletus on the day after that on which the summons was received.'* And
though they might be weary when they arrived, their fatigue would som
be forgotten at the sight of their friend and instructor ; and God, also,
*'who comforts them that are cast down" (2 Cor. vii. 6), comforted hin''
some solitary spot upon the shore to listen to his address. . This little
company formed a singular contrast with the crowds which used to assem-
ble at the times of public amusement in the theatre of Miletus.^ But that
vast theatre is now a silent ruin, while the words spoken by a careworn
traveller to a few despised strangers are still living as they were that day,
to teach lessons for all time, and to make known eternal truths to all who
will hear them, while they reveal to us, as though they were merely
human words, all the tenderness and the affection of Paul, the individual
speaker.'*
For a notion of the scenery of this journey of the presbyters over or round the
'
ridge of Mycale, and by the wii>dings of the Mseander (Katuvdpov re /5odf, MvKaXrig r*
alTTEivd Kdprjva. Horn. II. ii. 869), the reader may consult Chandler and Fellows.
The latter says, " The ride of fifteen miles from Sansun [Pmnc] to Chanly, probably
the ancient Neapolis [more probably Panioniwn^, standing not far beyond the pro-
montory of Trogyllium, is up the steepest track I ever rode over. From the summit
of the main range, of which Trogyllium forms the termination (although Samos is geo-
logically a continuation of it), is seen on either side a perfect and beautiful map, on
one side extending to the mountains forming the Dorian Gulf, and on the other to
those of Chios and Smyrna" (p. 272). Dr. Chandler describes the ascent on the
northern side (p. 180). He was travelling, like these presbyters, in April and tho ;
weather was unsettled the sky was blue and the sun shone, but a wet wintry north
:
wind swept the clouds along the top of the range of Mycale" (p. 184).
' We may remark here, in answer to those who think that the eiriaKOTToi mentioned
in this passage were th(? bishops of various places in the province of Asia, that there
was evidently no time to summon them. On the convertibility of kmaKOT:o<; and
npeaOvTcpoc, see below.
3 Compare a view in the first volume of the Transactions of the Dilettanti Society,
and a vignette in the second volume, which shows the great size of the theatre. There
are three German monographs on Miletus, by Rambach (Hal. 1790), Schrodei (Stral-
Bund, 1827), Soldan (Darmstadt, 1829).
4 For a very commentary on this speech, see the concludmg
instructive practical
sections of Mencken's Blicke in das Lebcn des Ap. P. For the points of resemblance
between the expressions used by the Apostle here and in his Epistles, we have used a
valuable essay by Tholuck in Studien u. Kritiken.
5 'AdE'A(l>ol is found here in the Uncial Manuscript d and in some early versions and ;
we have adopted it, because it is nearly certain that St. Paul would not have begun
his address abruptly without some such word. Compare all his other recorded speechei
in the Act?.
'Y/xelc, emphatic
SPEECH TO THE EPHESIAN PEESBYTEKS. 217
jttg the Lord Jesus ' with all ^ lowliness of mind, and in many
tears 3 andwhich befel me through the plotting'* of the
trials
Jews. And how I kept ^ back none of those things which are
profitable for you, but declared them to you, and taught you
both publicly and from house " to house testifying both to ;
Jews and Gentiles their ' need of repentance towards God, and
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now as for me,^ behold
I go to Jerusalem," in spirit foredoomed to chains yet I ;
know not the things which shall befal me there, save that in
every city the Holy Spirit gives the same testimony, that
bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move
me,^' neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might
finish my course with joy,''^ and the ministry which I received
from the Lord Jesus, to testify the Glad-tidings of the grace of
God.
His farewell now, behold I know that ye all,'^ among whom
And
warning.
^ havc gOHc from city to city, proclaiming the king-
dom of God, shall see my face no more. "Wherefore I take you
1 Tcj Kvpio), With this self-commendation Tholuck compares 1 Thess. ii. 10, and 2
Cor. vi. 3, 4. See note on verse 33, below. " Felix," says Bengel, " qui sic exordiri
potest ,conscientiam auditorum testando."
" "All." Tholuck remarks on the characteristic use of vraf in St. Paul's Epistles^
3 " Tears." Compare 2 Cor. ii. 4, and Phil. iii. 18.
4 " Plotting of Jews." Compare 1 Cor. xv. 31.
5 " ITept back nothing." Compare 2 Cor. iv. 2, and 1 Thess. ii. 4.
6 " House to house." Compare 1 Thess. ii. 11.
7 Observe the article rjyv. ' s Observe the ey6.
^ Aedefievoc eyu is the true reading. St. Paul was dedejuevoc, i. e. a prisoner in
chains, but as yet only in the Spirit, Trvevjuari, not in body. To nvevfxa here is not
the Holy Spirit, from which it is distinguished by the addition of ayiov in the verse
below^. This explanation of the passage (which agrees with that of Grotius and Chry-
Bostom) seems the natural one, in spite of the objections of De Wette and others.
w We have two examples of this afterwards, namely at Tyre (Acts xxi. 4) and at
Caesarea (Acts xxi. 10, 11). And from the present passage we learn that such warn
ings had been given in many places during this journey. St. Paul's own anticipations
of danger appear Rom. ?v. 31.
" The reading adopted by Tischendorf here, though shorter, is the same in sense.
1' Compare 2 Tim. iv.
7, and Phil. ii. 17. See the remarks which have been made
In the early part of this Chapter on this favourite metaphor of St. Paul, especially p
198, n. 1.
J3This "all" includes not only the Milesian presbyters but also the brethren from
Macedon (See Acts xx. 4). Observe also the 6ieM6v. With regard to the expecta-
tion expressedby St. Paul, it must be regarded as a human inference, from the daugei
which he knew to be before him. If (as we think) he was liberated after his first im-
prisonment at Rome, he did see some of his present audience again. Tholuck con>
pares Phil. i. 20, i. 25, and ii. 24.
218 THE LIFE AND EPIS^FLES OF ST. PAUL.
to witness tliis day, that I am clear from the blood of a.l. Foi ^
I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock in
which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers,'* to feed the
Church of God ^ which He has purchased with His own blood.
For this I know, that after my departure grievous wolves shall
enter inamong you, who will not spaio the flock. And from
your own selves will men arise speaking perverted words, that
they may draw away the disciples after themselves.'* Therefore,
be watchful, and remember that for the space of three years ^ I
ceased not to warn every one of you, night and day, with tears.^
Final commen- And' now, brethren, I commend you to God, and
^ See xviii. 6. " Your blood be upoa your own heads : I am clean."
' 'ETTicTKOTrovg. It is scarcely necessary to New Testament the
remark, that in the
words emanoirog and npeafivrepoc are convertible. Compare verse 17 and Tit. i. 5, 7,
and see Vol. I. p. 434. Tholuck remarks, that this reference to the Holy Spirit as the
author of church government is in exact accordance with 1 Cor. xii. 8, 11 and 28.
3 We have retained the T. R. here, since the MSS. and fathers are divided between
the readings Osov and Kvptov. At the same time, we must acknowledge that the
balance of authority is rather in favour of YLvpiov. A very candid and able outline of
the evidence on each side of the question is given by Mr. Humphry. The sentiment
exactly agrees with 1 Cor. vi. 20.
4 We read lavrCov with Lachmann on
the authority of some of the best MSS.
^
5This space of three years may either be used (in the Jewish mode of reckoning)
for the two years and upwards which St. Paul spent at Ephesus or, if we suppose ;
him to speak to the Macedonians and Corinthians also (who were present), it may
refer to the whole time (about three years and a half), since he came to reside at
Ephesus in the autumn of 54 a. d.
6 See p. 217, n. 3. We have much satisfaction in referring here to the second of A.
Monod's recently published sermons. (Saint Paul, Cinq. Discours. Paris, 1851.)
7 This conclusion reminds us of that of the letter to the Romans so recently wri itea.
and toremember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said " It
IS MORE BLESSED TO GIVE THAl^ TO RECEIVE."
The close of this speech was followed by a solemn act of united sup
plication (Acts xx. 36). St. Paul knelt down on the shore with all'
those who had listened to him, and offered up a prayer to that God who
was founding His Church in the midst of difficulties apparently insuperable
and then followed an outbreak of natural grief, which even Christian faith
and resignation were not able to restrain. They fell on the Apostle's neck
and clung to him, and kissed him again and again,'' sorrowing most because
of his own foreboding announcement, that they should never behold that
countenance again, on which they had often gazed ^ with reverence and
love (ib. 37, 38). But no long time could be devoted to the grief of
separation. The wind was fair,'* and the vessel must depart. They
accompanied the Apostle to the edge of the water (ib. 38). The Christ-
Calvin (who takes it as the weak in faith), which is supported by Neander and others,
feems hardly consistent with the context.
1 Qelq to. yovara avTov cvv Ttdaiv avTolg npoarjv^aTO, v. 36.
' KaTe:j)iXovv, v. 37. Observe the imperfect.
* Td TrpoauTTOv avrov -deupelv, v. 38. Observe &C)petv, and contrast it with the
word orjfsade, used by St. Paul himself above, v. 25. Meyer says justly of the wnole
cene : Welche einfach schone und ergreifende Schilderung."
* See below. s Observe dTTOOTraadevTac, xxi. 1.
'EvdvSpoiw/jcavTeCf xxi. 1. See what has been said before on this nautical phrase
Vol. I. p. 285.
' For what relates to this prevalent wind, see below.
8 Dr. Clarke describes a magnificent evening, with the sun setting behind Patmoa.
vbich he saw on the voyage from Samos to Cos, Travels, ii. 194.
l^^sO THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
but the productiveness of the island to which it belonged, and its position
in the Levant, made the city a place of no little consequence. The wine
and the textile fabrics of Cos were well known among the imports of Italy
Even now no harbour is more frequented by the merchant vessels of the
Levant.^ The roadstead is sheltered by nature from all winds except the
north-east, and the inner harbour was not then, as it is now, an unhealthy
lagoon.'' Moreover, Claudius had recently bestowed peculiar privileges on
the city.^ Another circumstance made it the resort of many strangers,
and gave it additional renown. It was the seat of the medical school
traditionally connected with JSsculapius ; and the temple of the god of
healing was crowded with votive models, so as to become in effect a
COIK OF COS.'"
4 The city was restored after the earthquake by Antoninus Pius. Pausan. viii. 43.
5 Amphorae Coae, Plin, xxv. 12, 46. Coae Vestes, Hor. Od. iv. 13.
6 " No place in the Archipelago is more frequentei by merchant vessels than this
vol. iii. 321-329. He describes the celebrated plane-tree, and from this island he
brought the altar which is now in the Public Library at Cambridge. "We may refer
also to a paperon Cos by Col. Leake in the second vol. of the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Literature. There is a monograph on the subject by Kiister (de Co
Insula. Hal. 1833).
From the British Museum. It is a coin of Augustus, exhibiting '\ club and a ser
pent, the emblems of Horcules and ^sculapius. The earliest type on ^be coins of Cos
Is a crab ; after this, a crab with the bow of Hercules.
:
wha knew these coasts so well, could hardly be ignorant of tlic scientific
appears like one of the numerous islands on the coast.^ Its history, as
If we attached any importance to the tradition which represents St. Luke as a painter,
1
we might add that Cos was the birth-place of Apelles as well as of Hippocrates.
' We shall return again to the subject of the north-westerly winds which prevail
during the fineseason in the Archipelago, and especially in the neighbourhood of
Rhodes. For the present the following authorities may suflSce. Speaking of Rhodes,
Dr. Clarke says (vol. ii. p. 223), " The winds are liable to little variation ;
they are
N. or N.W. during almost every month, but these winds blow with great violence
and again, p. 230, " A N. wind has prevailed from the time of our leaving the Darda-
nelles." Again (vol. iii. p. 378), in the same seas he speaks of a gale from the N. W.
" It is surprising for what a length of time, and how often, the N. W. rages in the
Archipelago. It prevails almost unceasingly through the greater part of the year,"
380. And in a note he adds, " Mr. Spencer Smith, brother of Sir Sidney Smith, in-
formed the author that he was an entire month employed in endeavouring to effect
a passage from Bhodes to Stanchio [Cos]; the W. wind prevailed all the tims
with such force, that the vessel in which he sailed could not double Cape Crio.'^
We find the following in Norie's Sailing Directory, p. 127 : " The Etesian winds,
which blow from the N. B. and N. W. quarters, are the monsoons of the Levant, which
blow constantly during the summer, and give to the climate of Greece so advantageous
a temperature. At this season the greatest part of the Mediterranean, but particularly
the eastern half, including the Adriatic and Archipelago, are subject to N. W. winds.
. . When the sun, on advancing from the North, has begun to rarefy the atmosphere
.
of southern Europe, the Etesians of spring commence in the Mediterranean Sea. These
blow in Italy during March and April." In Purdy's Sailing Directory, p. 122, of the
aeighbourhood of Smyrna and Ephesus " The northerly winds hereabout continue all
:
the summer, and sometimes blow with unremitting violence for several weeks," See
again what Admiral Beaufort says of the N. W. wind at Patara.
3 See Acts xxvii. 7.
In the Admiralty Chart of the gulf of Cos, &c. (No. 1604), a very good view oi
4
Cape Crio is given. We shall speak of Cnidus more fully hereafter. Meantime wa
may refer to a view in Laborde, which gives an admirable representation of the passage
^xween Cos and Cape Crio.
222 THE LIFE AXD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL,
well 8S its appearance, was well impressed on the mind of the Greek aavi
gator of old ; for it was the scene of Conon's victory and the memory ;
paratively unknown. But from the time when the inhabitants of the
earlier towns were brought to one centre,^ and the new city, built by
Hippodamus (the same architect who planned the streets of the Piraeus),
rose in the midst of its perfumed gardens and its amphitheatre of hills,
with unity so symmetrical, that it appeared like one house,'' Rhodes has
held an illustrious place among the islands of the Mediterranean. From
the very effect of its situation, lying as it did on the verge of two of the
basins of that sea, it became the intermediate point of the eastern and
western trade.^ Even now it is the harbour at which most vessels touch
on their progress to and from the Archipelago.^ It was the point from
which the Greek geographers reckoned their meridians of latitude and
longitude. And we may assert, that no place has been so long renowned
for ship-building, if we may refer to the " benches, and masts, and ship-
fikill, which was celebrated by Pliny in the time of St. Paul.^ To the
copious supplies of s^ip timber were added many other physical advantages.
It was a proverb, that the sun shone every day in Rhodes ;
^ and hei
inhabitants revelled in the luzuriance of the vegetation which surroundec
them. We find this beauty and this brilliant atmosphere typified in her
coins, on one side of which is the head of Apollo radiated like the sun,
while the other exhibits the rose-flower, the conventional emblem which
bore the name of the island. But the interest of what is merely outwai^d
COIN OP RHODES."
fades before the moral interest associated with its history. If we rapidly
run over its annals, we find something in every period, with which elevated
thoughts are connected. The Greek period is the first, famous not
merely for the great Temple of the Sun,-* and the Colossus, which, like
the statue of Borromeo at Arona, seemed to stand over the city to protect
it,^ but far more for the supremacy of the seas, which was employed to
put down piracy, for the code of mercantile law, by which the commerce of
later times was regulated, and for the legislative enactments, framed almost
in the spirit of Christianity, for the protection of the poor.^ This is fol-
lowed by the Koman period, when the faithful ally, which had aided by
her naval power in subduing the East, was honoured by the Senate and
of the Rhodian coins (as here) was like a tulip and Spanheim thought that it was
;
that of the Malum punicum, which was used for dyeing but there is no doubt that ;
it was the rose conventially represented and sometimes it appears in a form exactly
:
similar to the heraldic roses in our own Tudor architecture. There are Rhodian coins
of Nero's reign in which the emperor is himself represented as the sun, with the inscrip'
tion KA..SAP ATTOKPATfiP NEPQN, and the device of a Victory on the rostrum
of a shipt^ with a rose-flower in the field. See Eckhel, p. 605.
4 Forbiger, 245.
The Colossus was in ruins even in Strabo's time (xiv.). It had been overthrown
5
tical, the latter being 106 feet, the former 105 (70 cubits) . See the paper referred to,
\>. 222, n. 5.
^ Strabo xiv. See Pohb. v. Cic. de Rep. and Sallust. Compare Miiller's Dorians
"
the Emperors with the name and privileges of freedon\: ' and this by the
Byzantine, during which Christianity was established in the Levant, and
the city of the Rhodians, as the metropolis of a province of islands, if no
longer holding the Empire of the Mediterranean, was at least recognised
as the Queen of the -^gean.'' During the earlier portion of the middle
ages, while mosques were gradually taking the place of Byzantine churches,
Rhodes was the last Christian city to make a stand against the advancing
Saracens and again during their later portion, she reappears as a city
;
ennobled by the deeds of Christian chivalry ; so that, ever since the suc-
cessful siege of Solyman the Magnificent,^ her fortifications and her stately
harbour, and the houses in her streets, continue to be the memorials of the
knights of St. J ohn. Yet no point of Rhodian history ought to move our
spirits with so much exultation as that day, when the vessel that conveyed
St. Paul came round the low northern point * of the island to her moor-
ings before the city. We do not know that he landed, like other great
and the vessel which was seen by the people of the city to weigh anchor in
the morning, was probably undistinguished from the other coasting craft
with which they were daily familiar.
'No view in the Levant is more celebrated than that from Rhodes
towards the opposite shore of Asia Minor. The last ranges of Mount
Taurus ^ come down in magnificent forms to the sea ; and a long line of
snowy summits is seen along the Lycian coast, while the sea between is
* After the defeat of Antiochus, Rhodes received from the Roman senate some
valuable possessions on the mainland, including part of Caria and the whole of Lycia.
Liv. xxxviii. 39. Polyb. xxii. 7, 7, 27, 8. [See what has been said on the province
of Asia, Vol. 1. pp. 239, 240, comparing p. 243.] These continental possessions were
afterwards withdrawn ; but the Rhodians were still regarded as among the allies of
Rome. Liv. xlv. xlvi. They rendered valuable aid in the war against Mithridates,
and were not reduced to the form of a province til*l the reign of Vespasian. Sueton.
Vesp. c. 8. Tac. Ann. xii. 58. In this interval, the island was plundered by Cassius
(App. B. C. iv. 72), and Tiberius resided here during pai't of the reign of Augustus
(Tac. Ann. i. 4, iv. 15).
* Itappeal's as the metropolis of the Provincia Insularum in Hierocles, pp. 685, 686.
3 For a curious account of this siege, see Fontani, Libri tres de Bello Rhodio,
Rome, 1524.
* Compare Purdy's Sailing Directory with the Admiralty Chart (No. 1639), attached
PATABA. 225
which the river Xanthus flowed, is now a " desert of moving sand," which
is blown by the westerly wind into ridges along the shore, and is gradually
hiding the remains of the ancient city ;
^ but a triple archway and a vast
theatre have been described by travellers.^ Some have even thought that
ter he says that Andriace had the same relation to Myra. (Acts xxvii. 5.)
5 Admiral Beaufort was the first to describe Patara. Karamania, chap. i. It was
also visited by the Dilettanti Society. (See two views in vol. ii. of the Ionian Anti-
quities.) It is described by Sir C. Fellows both in his " Lycia " and his " Asia Minor.''
See especially the former work, pp. 222-224:. In the travels of Spratt and Forbes th-e
destruction of the harbour and the great increase of sand are attributed to the rising
of the coast, i. 32, n. 189, 196, The following passage is transcribed at length from
this work. i. 30 :
" A day was devoted to an excursion to Patara, which lies on the
coast at some distance from the left bank of the river, about ten miles from Xanthus.
"We rode along the river side to the sand-hills, passing large straw-thatched villages
of gipsies on the way, and then crossed the sand-hills to the sea-side. ... At Patara
is the triple arch which formed the gate of the city, the baths, and the theatre, ad-
mirably described long ago by Captain Beaufort. The latter is scooped out of the
and is remarkable for the completeness of the proscenium and the steep-
Bide of a hill,
ness and narrowness of the marble seats. Above it is the singular pit excavated cn
the summit of the same hill, with its central square column, conjectured, with pro-
bability, by Captain Beaufort, to have been the seat of the oracle of Apollo Patai*eus.
The stones of which the column is built are displaced from each other in a smgiilar
manner, as if by the revolving motion of an earthquake. A fine gTOup of palm trees
rises among the ruins, and the aspect of the city when it was flourishing must have
been very beautiful. Now its port is an inland marsh, generating poisonous malaria ;
and the mariner sailing along the coast would never guess that the sand-hills l)efore
him blocked up the harbour into which St. Paul sailed of old."
^ A drawing of the gateway is given by Beaufort, p. 1. Views of the theatre, 3<l
VOL II. 15
:
they have discovered the seat of the oracle of Apollo, who was worshipped
here as his sister Diana was worshipped at Ephesus or Perga ; ' and the
COIN OF PATARA.'
city walls can be traced among the sand-hills, with the castle ^ that com-
manded the harbour. In the war against Antiochus,
this harbour was
protected by a sudden storm from the Roman fleet, when Livius sailed
from Rhodes.^ Now we find the Apostle Paul entering it with a fair
wind, after a short sail from the same island.
It seems that the vessel in St. Paul had been hitherto saihnff
which o
either finished its voyage at Patara, or was proceeding further eastward
along the southern coast of Asia Minor, and not to the ports of Phcenicia.
St. Paul could not know in advance whether it would be "possible" for
him to arrive in Palestine in time for Pentecost (xx. 16) ; but an oppor-
tunity presented itself unexpectedly at Patara. Providential circumstances
conspired with his own convictions to forward his journey, notwithstanding
the discouragement which the fears of others had thrown across his path. In
the harbour of Patara they found a vessel which was on the point of
of Patara will be founcl in the first volume of the Ionian Antiquities, published by the
Dilettanti Society.
1 See Vol. I pp. 161, 162, and Vol. 11. p. 74, &c.
' From the British Museum. For the oracle of the Patarean Apollo, see Herod, i
182. Cf. Hor. Od. iii. 4, 64. Sir C. Fellows says (Asia Minor, pp. 179-183) that tho
coins of all the district show the ascendancy of Apollo.
3 Beaufort, p. 3.
The Roman fleet had followed nearly the same course as the Apostle from the
-1
Cous. Mhodum ut est ventum navigat Patara. Primo secundus ventus ad ip-
. . .
Bam urbem fcrebat eos postquam, circumagente se vento, fluctibus dubiis volvi ccep-
:
tum est mare, pervicerunt quidem remis, ut tenerent terram ; sed neque circa urbem
tuta static erat, nec ante hostium portus in salo stare poterant, aspero mari, et nocte
immincnte." Liv. xxxvii. 16. We may add another illustration from Roman history,
in Pompey's voyage, where the same places are mentioned in a similar order. Arir
describing his departure from Mitylene, and his passing by Asia and Chios, Lucan
proceeds
Ephesonque relinquens
Radit Baxa Sami : Spirat de littore Coo
Aura fluens : Cnidon inde fugit, claramque relinquit
Sole Bhodon. Phars. viii.
VOYAGE TO PHCENICIA. 227
srossing the opeu sea to Phoenicia (xxi. 2). They ivent on board without
a moment's delay ; and it seems evident, from the mode of expression, that
they sailed the very day of their arrival. ^ Since the voyage lay across
the open sea,'' with no shoals or rocks to be dreaded, and since the north-
westerly winds often blow steadily for several days in the Levant during
spring,^ there could be no reason why the vessel should not weigh anchor
in the evening, and sail through the night.
We have now to think of St. Paul as no longer passing through nar-
row channels, or coasting along in the shadow of great mountains, but as
saiUug continuously through the midnight hours, with a prosperous breeze
filling the canvass, and the waves curling and sounding round the bows of
God "who songs in the night" (Job xxxv. 10), and who
giveth
hearkeneth to those who fear Him, and speak often to one another, and
think upon His name (Mai. iii. 16). If we remember, too, that a month
had now elapsed since the m^on was shining on the snows of Hsemus," and
that the full moonlight would now be resting on the great sail ^ of the
ship, we are not without an expressive imagery, which we may allowably
throw round the Apostle's progress over the waters between Patara and
Tyre.
The distance between these two points is three hundred and forty
geographical miles ; and if we bear in mind that the north-westerly winds
in April often blow like monsoons in the Levant,^ and that the rig of
ancient sailing-vessels was peculiarly favourable to a quick run before the
wind,' we come at once to the conclusion that the voyage might easily be
accomplished in forty-eight hours.^ Everything in St. Luke's account
1 This is shown not only by the participle einlSuvTec, but by the omission of any
Buch phrase as ry inLovay, ry irepa, or Ty exoftevy. Compare xx. 15.
^ Observe the word dianepuv.
" About thirty hours, or perhaps it would be safer to say forty-eight." Now, vessels
rigged like those of the ancients, with one large main-sail, would run before the wind
more quickly than our own merchantmen. Those who have sailed before the mon-
"Boons in the China seas have seen junks (which are rigged in this respect like Greek
and Roman merchantmen) behind them in the horizon in the morning, and before
ihem in the horizon in the evening.
228 THE LIFE AKD EPISIXES OF ST. PAUL.
gives a strong impression that the weather was in the highest degre?
day (probably in the evening) that " the high blue eastern land appeared.'*
unnecessary to dwell upon them here.^ When St. Paul came to this city,
and Isaiah,' when "its merchants were princes, and its traffickers the
honourable of the earth," nor in the abject desolation in which it now
fulfils those prophecies, being " a place to spread nets upon," and showing
only the traces of its maritime supremacy in its ruined mole, and a port
hardly deep enough for boats.^ It was in the condition in which it had
1 'AvacpavevTsg Trjv Kvvrpov koL KaraXtTrovTeg avTjjv evuvvfiov. The word ava^aLvtit'',
in reference to sea voyages, means " to see land, to bring land into view," by a similar
which our sailors speak of " making land." The correspond-
figure of speech to that in
ing word for losing sight of land
is uTroKpvTrreLv. See the commentators on Plat. Protag.
xxiv., and Thucyd. v. 65. The terms in Latin are aperire and abscondereJ^ Virg.
Mn. iii. 205, 275, 291. Heyne says "Terra aperit montes, dum in conspectum eoa
admovet." (Compare the use of the verb " open " by our own sailors.) As to the
construction, De Wette compares TrsTriarev/xac to evajysXiov ; but the cases are not
quite parallel. Confusions of grammar are common in the language of sailors. Thus
an English seaman speaks of " rising the land," which is exactly what is meant here
by uvacpavevTeg. One of the Byzantine writers uses the same phrase in reference to
an expedition in the same sea. 'EXdovreg iug ra Mvpa ol oTparrjyol elarjldov km rdv
KoTiTzov TTjg ArraXetag' ol 'Apadeg KLvyjaavreg utvo rrjg Kvnpov, kol evdcag avrovg
KaTaXa6ovG7]g, irepie^epovro tu KeMyei' ava^avevTCiV 6^ avruv n)v y^v, elSov
hv
avTodg ol orpcTTjyoL. Thcophancs, i. p. 721., Ed. Bonn.
' Mr. Smith says in a MS. note *'The term dva^avhreg indicates both the rapid
;
are covered with snow in winter. Norie, p. 144. See the map of Cyprus in Vol. L
The wTitcr has been informed by Captain Graves, R. N., that the highest part is of a
rounded form.
* Compare Vol. I. pp. 20, 52.
6 One of the fullest accounts of Tyre will be found in Dr. Robinson's third voluma
' Ezek. xxvL xxvii. Isa. xxiii. Sailing Directory, p. 259.
TYRE. 229
been left by the successors of Alexander, the island, "W'hich ouce held
the city, being joined to the mainland by a causeway, with a harboui
on the north, and another on the south, ^ In honour of its ancient great*
ness, the Romans gave it the nanie of a free city ; and it still commanded
Bome commerce, for its manufactures of glass and purple were not yet
decayed,^ and the narrow belt of the Phcenician coast between the moun-
tains and the sea required that the food for its population should be
partly brought from without.'' It is allowable to conjecture that the ship,
which we have just seen crossing from Patara, may have brought grain
from the Black Sea, or wine from the Archipelago,^ with the purpose q\
taking on from Tyre a cargo of Phcenician manufactures. We know that,
whatever were the goods she brought, they were unladed at Tyre (v. 3) ;
and that the vessel was afterwards to proceed^ to Ptolemais (v. t). For
this purpose some days would be required. She would be taken into the
inner dock ; ' and St. Paul had thus some time at his disposal, which he
could spend in the active service of his Master. He and his companions
lost no time in "seeking out the disciples." It is probable that the
Christians at Tyre were not numerous ;
^ but a Church had existed there
ever since the dispersion consequent upon the death of Stephen (Yol. I.
pp. 81, 111), and St. Paul had himself visited it, if not on his mission oi
charity from Antioch to Jerusalem (ib. p. 12t), yet doubtless on his way
1 Stralbo, xvi. Old Tyre ilLalaLTvpog) was destroyed. JYew Tyre was built on a
small island, separated by a very narrow channel from the mainland (See Diod. Sic
Q. Curt. iv. 2), with which it was united by a dam in Alexan
xvii. 60, Plin. v. 19, 17,
der's siege and thenceforward Tyre was on a peninsula.
:
* Strabo, 1. c. The Emperor Severus made it a Roman colonia with the Jus Itali
cum, (See Yol. I. p. 282, n. 2.) For the general notion of a free city {libera civitas)
under the empire, see p. 333. Tyre seems to have been honoured, like Athens, for the
sake of the past.
3 For the manufactures of Tyre at a much later period, see Yol. I. p. 212, n. 3.
4 The dependence of Phoenicia on other countries for grain is alluded to in Acts,
xii. 20. (See Yol. 1. p. 128, note.)
5 For the wine trade of the Archipelago, see what has been said in reference to
Rhodes. "We need not suppose that the vessel bound for Phoenicia sailed in the first
instance from Patara. St. Paul afterwards found a westward-bound Alexandrian ship
in one of the harbours of Lycia. Acts xxvii. 5.
6 \Ye infer that St. Paul proceeded in the same vessel to Ptolemais, partly from the
phrase to -nlolov (v. 6), and partly because it is not said that the vessel was bound
for Tyre, but simply that she was to unlade there" {eKclae to nlolov uTto^opTL^ofievov
Tov ybyiov, v. 3). With regard to eKelae, it seems best to consider it simply to mean
" she was to go thither and unlade there^ The explanation of De "Wette and Meyer,
who distinguish between the harbour and the town, is too elaborate.
Scylax, p. 24, mentions a harbour within the walls.
^Observe the article in tov^ udel^ovg. The word uvevpovTec implies that some
search was required before the Christians were found. Perhaps the first enquuief
would be made at the synagogue. [See Yol. I. p. 407.] For a notice of the Jews ai
Tyi'e in later times, we may again refer to p. 212, n. 3.
230 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
to tlie Council (ib. p. 212). There were not only disciples at Tyre, hai
prophets. Some of those who had the prophetical power foresaw the
danger which was hanging over St. Paul, and endeavoured to persuade
nim to desist from his purpose of going to J erusalem.^ "We see that dif-
ferent views of duty might be taken by those who had the same spiritual
The time spent at Tyre in unlading the vessel, and probably taking in
a new cargo, and possibly, also, waiting for a fair wind,'^ was " seven
days," including a Sunday.^ St. Paul " broke bread " with the disciples,
and discoursed as he had done at Troas (p. 206) and the week days, ;
1 Tu> Uavlu eXeyov did rov Tivevfiarog fiij knilSatveiv elg 'lepoaolvfia, v. 4.
These suppositions, however, ai-e not necessary for the work of taking the cargo
'
;
from the hold of a merchant-vessel might easily occupy six or seven days.
3 'Ujuepac ^rrra, v. 4. We may observe, however, that this need not mean more
than " six days." As to the phrase e^aprhai raf ri/uipac, Meyer and Olshausen take it
to mean " employed the time in making ready for the journey," comparing 2 Tim. iii
17. [See on v. 15.]
* See above, p. 219.
6 Observe k^eXdovrec axid uc f?" T7}g no^euc. There is a di-amatic force, too, la
the imperfect inopevS/xeda.
6 'EttI rtv alytalov, the word used in Acts xxvii. 39, 40, and denoting a sandy or
pebbly beach, as opposed to uktti.
Hammond supposes that there was a proseucha near the place of embarkation.
"
But we need not suppose any reference to a Jewish place of worship either here or a1
Miletus, though it is interesting to bear in mind the orationes littorales of the Jews
Sec VoL I. p. 294.
^ The MSS. vary here. Lachmann and Tiscliendorf have npocrev^ujuevoi aTrrjcTaad'
ueda instead of the common reading, 'Kooa7]v^dfie6a Kal danaaduf-^i. See v. 1,
PTOLEMAIS. 231
ing part of the narrative of this apostolic journey. Tyre^ the city from
which St. Paul had just sailed, had been the seaport whose destiny formed
the burden of the sublimest prophecies in the last days of the Hebrew
monarchy. Casarea, the city to which he was ultimately bound, was the
work of the family of Herod, and rose with the rise of Christianity.
Both are fallen now into utter decay. Ptolemais, which was the interme-
diate stage between them, is an older city than either, and has outlived
them both. It has never been withdrawn from the field of history ; and
its interest has seemed to increase (at least in the eyes of Englishmen)
with the progress of centuries. Under the ancient name of A ceo it appears
in the Book of Judges (i. 31) as one of the towns of the tribe of Assher.
It was the pivot of the contests between Persia and Egypt.^ Not un-
known in the Macedonian and Koman periods, it reappears with brilliant
distinction in the middle ages, when the Crusaders called it St. Jean d'Acre.
It is needless to allude to the events which have fixed on this sea-fortress,
more than once, the attention of our own generation.=^ At the particular
time when the Apostle Paul visited this place, it bore the name of Ptole-
mais,^ most probably given to by Ptolemy Lagi, who was long
it in pos-
session of this part of Syria,^ and had recently been made a Roman it
colony by the emperor Claudius.^ It shared with Tyre and Sidon,' Auti-
och- and Csesarea, the trade of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean
Sea. With a fair wind, a short day's voyage separates it from Tyre. To
speak in the language of our own sailors, there are thirteen miles from
Tyre to Cape Blanco, and fifteen from thence to Cape Carmel; and Acre
the Ancient Ptolemais is situated on the further extremity of that bay,
which sweeps with a wide curvature of sand to the northwards, from the
headland of Carmel.^ It is evident that St. Paul's company sailed from
Tyre to Ptolemais within the day.^ At the latter city, as at the former,
there were Christian disciples,^ who had probably been converted at tho
same time, and under the same circumstances, as those of Tyre. Another
opportunity was afforded for the salutations ^ and encouragement of bro*
t-herly love ;
but the missionary party staid here only one day.^ Though
they had accomplished the voyage in abundant time to reach Jerusalem at
Pentecost, they hastened onwards, that they might linger some days at
Csesarea.'*
One day's travelling by land^ was sufficient for this part of their jour-
ney. The distance is between thirty and forty miles.^ At Csesarea there
was a Christian family, already known to us in the earlier passages of the
Acts of the Apostles, with whom they were sure of receiving a welcome.
The last time we made mention of Philip the Evangelist (Vol. I. p. 80),
was when he was engaged in making the Gospel known on the road which
leads southwards by Gaza towards Egypt, about the time when St. Paul
himself was converted on the northern road, when travelling to Damascus.
Now, after many years, the Apostle and the Evangelist are brought to-
gether under one roof. On the former occasion, we saw that Csesarea
was the place where the labours of Philip on that journey ended."^
Thenceforward it became his residence if his life was stationary, or it
was the centre from which he made other missionary circuits through Ju-
dea. He is found, at least, residing in this city by the sea, when St. Paul
arrives in the year 58 from Achaia and Macedonia. His family consisted
of four daughters, who were an example of the fulfilment of that predic-
tion of Joel, quoted by St. Peter, which said that at the opening of the
new dispensation, God's spirit should come on His "handmaidens" as well
as His bondsmen, and that the " daughters," as well as the sons, should
which feeems to have been altered into the longer phrase, as being the opening of a
Bcparate section for reading in churches. The meaning of tov ttIovv diavvaavre^
seems to be thus accomplishing our voyage." The rest of the journey was by land
' Toi)f ddeX^ovg, with the article as above, v. 4.
' 'AaTvaoufiEvoi. 3 '^fieivajiev Tj/iepav fitav.
< See inL/iEvovTuv r/fiepac Trlecovg below, v. 10.
5 T?/ HavoLov riXd. eig K., v. 8. We may
observe, that the word i^eldovreg is far
more suitable to a departure by land than by sea.
c The Jerusalem Itinerary gives the distance as thirty-one miles, and the stagea
fhim " Civitas Ptolemaida " as follows Mutatio Calatnon. M. xii. Mansio Sica-
: ;
me7ioi, M. in. (ibi est mons Carmtlus, ibi Helias sacrifichim faciebat) ; Mutatio
ccrta, M. vni. {fines Syr ice et Palestinai) ; Civitas CcBsarea Palestina, M. vm. Tho
Mtonine Itinerary makes the distance greater, viz. twenty-four miles to Sycamina,
and twenty from thence to Cajsarea. See Wess. pp. 149, 584. Compare our itinerary
map of I'alcstine in the first volume, p. 84.
7 Acts viii. 40. See Vol. I. p. 80, n. 5.
^ The term "Evangelist" seems to have been almost synonymous with our word
"Missionary." It is applied to Philip and to Timothy. See Vol. I. p. 426 ; als<i
\>. i'65. n. 2.
EVENTS AT C^AiiEA. 233
Csesarea, who seem to have been living that life of single devotcdness
which is commended by St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (1
Cor, vii.), and to have exercised their gift in concert for the benefit of the
Church.
It is not improbable that these inspired women gave St. Paul somo
irtimation of the sorrows which were hanging over him.^ But soon a
more explicit voice declared the very nature of the trial he was to expect.
The stay of the Apostle at Csesarea lasted some days (v. 10). He had
arrived in Judaea in good time before the festival, and haste was now un-
necessary. Thus news reached Jerusalem of his arrival ; and a prophet
named Agabus whom we have seen before (Yol. I. p. 12 coming from
the same place on a similar errand went down to Csesarea, and communi-
cated to St. Paul and the company of Christians by whom he was sur-
rounded, a clear knowledge of the impending danger. His revelation was
made in that dramatic form which impresses the mind with a stronger
sense of reality than mere words can do, and which was made familiar to
the Jews of old by the practice of the Hebrew prophets. As Isaiah (ch.
XX.) loosed the sackcloth from his loins, and put off his shoes from his
feet, to declare how the Egyptian captives should be led away into Assy-
ria naked and barefoot, or as the girdle of Jeremiah (ch. xiii.), in its
strength and its decay, was made a type of the people of Israel in their
privilege and their fall, Agabus, in like manner using the imagery of ac-
tion,4 took the girdle of St. Paul, and fastened it round his own^ hands
and feet, and said, " Thus saith the Holy Ghost : so shall the J ews at Je-
rusalem bind the man to whom this girdle belongs, and they shall deUver
him into the hands of the Gentiles.'^
1 Joel ii. 28, 29. Acts ii. 17, 18. Compare 1 Cor. xiv. 34. 1 Tim. ii. 12 ;
and see
Vol. I. p. 431.
' Meyer sees only in v. 9 " eine gelegentliche Reminiscenz fiir den Leser an eine
foretell what was to come. The word, however, has not necessarily any relation to
fthe futui-e. See Vol. I. p. 429.
4 See another striking instance in Ezek. iv. Compare what has been said before ifl
reference to the gestures of Paul and Barnabas vvhen they departed from Antioch iu
Pisidia, V ol. I. p. 181.
5 It would be a mistake to suppose that Agabus bound Paul's hands and f^>i t Th
correct reading is kavrov. Besides, Agabus says, not " the man whom I biud," but
the man whose girdle this is."
For the companions of St. Paul at this moment, see p. 202 with p. 203, n. 2.
'HZc re Koi ol evronioi, v. 1%
THE LIFE A2TD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
him, was very great. They wept,^ and implored him not to go to Jeru^a'
.^em.^ But the Apostle himself could not so interpret the supernatural in
their earnest supplications, and saw the sorrow that was caused by the
prospect of his danger. But the mind of the Spirit had been so revealed
to him in his own inward convictions, that he could see the Divine counsel
through apparent hindrances. His resolution was "no wavering between
yea and nay, but was yea in Jesus Christ." His deliberate purpose did
not falter for a moment.^ He declared that he was "ready not only to be
bound, but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." And
then they desisted from their entreaties. Their respect for the Apostle
made them silent.^ They recognised the will of God in the steady purpose
of his servant ; and gave their acquiescence in those words in which Chris-
tian resignation is best expressed :
" The will of the Lord he done."
The time was now come for the completion of the journey. The festi-
val was close at hand. Having made the arrangements that were neces-
sary with regard to their luggage,'^ and such notices in Holy Scripture ^
should receive their due attention, for they help to set before us all the
reahty of the Apostle's journeys, he and the companions who had attend-
ed him from Macedonia proceeded to the Holy City. Some of the Chris-
tians of Csesarea went along with them, not merely, as it would seem, to
In answer to Olshausen, who retains dnoan., and supposes the bulk of the luggage to
have been left at Cxsarea in order to liglitcn the laud-journey, it must be remarked,
that, in that case, it would have been left at Ptolemais. But we may very well sap-
pose that St. Paul hoped to stay only a short time in Jerusalem, and to sail soon from
Cccsarea to Rome. Greswell sees, in the allusion to the baggage, some indication ot'
haste but the contrary seems rather implied.
;
JOURNEY TO JEEUBAXEM.
show their respect and sympathy for the Apostolic company,' but to
secure their comfort on arriving, by taking him to the house of Mnason, a
native of Cyprus, who had been long ago converted to Christianity,*
possibly during the life of our Lord Himself,^' and who may have been
one of those Cyprian Jews who first made the Gospel known to the Gieeka
at Antioch (see Yol. I. p. 116).
Thus we have accompanied St. Paul on his last recorded journey to
Jerusalem. It was a journey full of incident ; and it is related more
minutely than any other portion of his travels. We know all the places
by which he passed, or at which he stayed ; and we are able to connect
them all with familiar recollections of history. We know, too, all the
aspect of the scenery. He sailed along those coasts of Western Asia, and
among those famous islands, the beauty of which is proverbial. The very
time of the year is known to us. It was when the advancing season was
clothing every low shore, and the edge of every broken cliff, with a beau-
tiful and refreshing verdure ; when the winter storms had ceased to be
dangerous, and the small vessels could ply safely in shade and sunshine
between neighbouring ports. Even the state of the weather and the direc-
tion of the wind are known. We can point to the places on the map
where the vessel anchored for the night ;
'*
and trace across the chart the
track that was followed, when the moon was full.^ Yet more than this.
We are made fully aware of the state of the Apostle's mind, and of the
burdened feeling under which this journey was accomplished. The expres-
sion of this feeling strikes us the more, from its contrast with all the out-
ward circumstances of the voyage. He sailed in the finest season, by the
brightest coasts, and in the fairest weather and yet his mind was occu- ;
make themselves known in the correspondence of any man with his friends.
Accordingly, we do find in The Ejpistk written to the Romans shortly before
leaving Corinth, a remarkable indication of discouragement, and almost
1 The frequent use of the word TvponefjiTreiv in the accounts of the movements of the
Apostles and thei.' companions, is worthy of observation. See Acts xv. 3. xx. 38.
Horn. XV. 24, &c.
" Compare Iv dpxy. Acts xi. 15.
'kpxd'i^ iiadyry.
3 Hecan hai-dly have been converted by St. Paul during his journey through
Cyprus, or St. Paul would have been acquainted with him, which does not appear to
have been the case. He may have been converted by Barnabas. (See Acts xv. 39.)
But he was most probably one of the earliest disciples of Christ. With regard to the
words uyovreg nap' cj ^evtaOufiev MvdacjvLy we may remark, that the Eugiish version
introduces a new difificulty without overcoming that which relates to the grammatical
sonstruction. [See Vol. I. p. 117, and Chap. V.)
S^e pp. 217, 218. = See p. 227.
236 THE LIFE ANJy EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Bchool of Gamaliel, nor on his return from Damascus, after the greatest
change that could have passed over an inquisitor's mind, nor when he
went with Barnabas from Antioch to the council, which was to decide au
anxious controversy. Now he had much new experience of the insidious
progress of error, and of the sinfulness even of the converted. Yet his
morrow.
'
Rom. XV. 31. We should remember that he had two causes of apprehension, oAe
arising from the Jews, who persecuted him everywhere the other from the Judaising
Christians, who sought to depreciate his apostolic authority. \
See p. 202.
3 See p. 217.
4 Acts XX. 23 should be closely compared with Rom. xv. 30, 31. See also the note
above on dehjievoQ r(p irvevfiari. St. Paul seems to have suffered extremely loth
CHAPTEE XXI.
Tihf avdpa drjaovaw elg 'lepovaalijfi ol'lovdaloi Kai irapadQCovaiv elg x^'^P^i
Acts xxi. 11.
**
When we were come to Jerusalem, the Brethren received us gladly."
Such is St. Luke's description of the welcome which met the Apostle of
the Gentiles on his arrival in the metropolis of Judaism. So we shall find
afterwards ^ " the brethren " hailing his approach to Rome, and " coming
to win tlie hearts of those whom he regarded, in spite of all their weak
nesses and errors, as brethren in Christ Jesus. Accordingly, when the
morning came,^ the Presbyters or Elders of the Church were called
together by James,'^ (who, as we have before mentioned, presided ovei the
Church of Jerusalem), to receive Paul and his fellow-travellers, the mes-
This was not the first occasion on which he had been called to take a
similar part, in the same city, and before the same audience. Our thoughts
are naturally carried back to the days of the Apostolic Council, when he
first declared to the Church of Jerusalem the Gospel which he preached
among the Gentiles, and the great things which God had wrought there-
by.^ The majority of the Church had then, under the influence of the
Spirit of God, been brought over to his side, and had ratified his views by
their decree. But the battle was not yet won ; he had still to contend
Jerusalem four years before.' The foundation of the great and flourishing
Church of Ephesus doubtless furnished the main interest of his narrative ;
but he would also dwell on the progress of the several Churches in Phrygia,
Galatia, and other parts of Asia Minor, and likewise those in Macedonia
and Achaia, from whence he was just returned. In such a discourse, he
could scarcely avoid touching on subjects which would excite painful
feeUngs, and rouse bitter prejudice in many of his audience. He could
< So we understand uairaadfievoc airovg, v. 19. See 1 Thess. v. 26, and Ihe note
Vol. I. p. 397.
6 See Vol. I. p. 214, &c. ^ Kad' tv tKaarov, v. 19.
hfs converts there. He could not enter into the sta^e of Corinth without
alluding to the emissaries from Palestine, who had introduced confusion
and strife among the Christians of that city. Yet we cannot doubt that
St. Paul, with that graceful courtesy which distinguished both his writings
and his speeches, softened all that was disagreeable, and avoided what was
personally offensive to his audience, and dwelt, as far as Jie could, on topics
in which all present would agree. Accordingly, we find that the majority
act of the assembly was to glorify God for the wonders He had wrought.
They joined in solemn thanksgiving with one accord ; and the Amen (ICor.
xiv. 16), which followed the utterance of thanks and praise from apostolic
of the law, and thus disarmed the hostility of the Judaizing bigots. He
vras, indeed, divinely ordained to be the Apostle of this transition- Church,
Had its councils been less wisely guided, had the Gospel of St. Paul been
really repudiated by the Church of Jerusalem, it is difficult to estimate ^he
evil which might have resulted. This class of Christians was naturallj
dislike had been long and artfully fostered ; and they would from the first
have looked on him perhaps with some suspicion, as not being, like them-
selves, a Hebrew of the Holy City, but only a Hellenist of the Dispersion.
Such being the composition of the great body of the Church, we
cannot doubt that the same elements were to be found amongst the Elders
also. And this will explain the resolution to which the assembly came, at
the close of their discussion on the matters brought before them. They
began by calling St. Paul's attention to the strength of the Judaical party
among the Christians of Jerusalem. They told him that the majority even
of the Christian Church had been taught to hate his very name, and to
believe that he went about the world "teaching the Jews to forsake
Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to
walk after the customs." They further observed that it was impossible
his arrival should remain unknown ; his renown was too great to allow
him to be concealed : his public appearance in the streets of Jerusalem
would attract a crowd ^ whom would be
of curious spectators, most of
violently hostile. It was therefore of importance that he should do
something to disarm this hostility, and to refute the calumnies which had
been circulated concerning him. The plan they recommended was, that
he should take charge of four Jewish Christians,'^ who were under a Naza-
ritic vow, accompany them to the Temple, and pay for them the neces-
sary expenses attending the termination of their vow. Agrippa I., not
long before, had given the same public expression of his sympathy with the
Jews, on his arrival from Rome to take possession of his throne.^ And
what the King had done for popularity, it was felt that the Apostle might
do for the sake of truth and peace. His friends thouglit that he would thus,
in the most public manner, exhibit himself as an observer of the Mosaic
ceremonies, and refute the accusations of his enemies. They added that,
1
UXr/doc, V. 22. Not " the multitude," nor the laity of the Church, as some have
imagined. Were uch the meaning, we should have had to nXr/Oo^. There seems to
be some doubt about the genuineness of the clause. See Tischcndorf.
' That these Nazarites were Christians is evident from the words dclv iifj.lv.
3 Eif 'hpoauXvjua iWdv ;^apiCTr77p/oiif i^ETVATjpuae -Qvaiac., ovdev tCjv Kara vofioi
napaXinuv (hu Kal Na^ipaluv ^vpdaOai diera^e /j.d?\.a avxvov^. Joseph. Ant. xix. G, 1
'
It is remarkable that this conclusion is attributed expressly, in the
had long ago given to St. Paul the right hand of fellowship. We have
already seen indications that, however strict might be the Judaical obser-
vances of St. James, they did not satisfy the Judaizing party at Jerusalem,
who attempted, under the sanction of his name,^ to teach doctrines and
enforce practices of which he disapproved. The partisans of this faction,
indeed, are called by St. Paul (while anticipating this very visit to Jerusa-
lem), " the disobedient party." ^ It would seem that their influence was not
unfelt in the discussion which terminated in the resolution recorded. And
though St. James acquiesced (as did St. Paul) in the advice given, it
Paul's great object (as we have seen) in this visit to Jerusalem, was to
spncihate the Church of Palestine. If he could win over that Church to
*he truth, or even could avert its open hostility to himself, he would be doing
more for the diffusion of Christianity than even by the conversion of
Ephesus. Every lawful means for such an end he was ready gladly to
adopt. His own principles, stated by himself in his Epistles, required this
of him. He had recently declared that every compliance in ceremonial
Nay more, he himself observed the J ewish festivals, had previously counte-
nanced his friends in the practice of Nazaritic vows,^ and had circumcised
Timothy the son of a Jewess. So false was the charge that he had for-
bidden the Jews to circumcise their children.^ In fact, the great doctrine
Acts XV. See Gal. ii. 12. " Eoni. xv. 31. tuv dTrecOovvrcv.
3 Eom. xiv.
4 1 Cor. vii. 17-19. Such passages are the best refutation of Baur, who endeavours
to represent the conduct here assigned to St. Paul as inconsistent with his teaching,
5 See the discussion in Vol. I. pp. 267-269.
Acts xviii. 18, which we conceive to refer to Aquila. (See Vol. I. p. 422.) But
ruany interpreters of the passage think that St. Paul himself made the tow. We
cannot possibly assent to Mr. Lewin's view, that St. Paul was still, on his arrival at
Jerusalem, under the obligation of a vow taken in consequence of his escape at
Ephesus.
' Baur argues that this charge was true, because the logical inference from St. Paul'i
242 THE LIFE A2TD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
which he was to perform for them. It was customary among the Jews
for those who had received deliverance from any great peril, or who from
other causes desired publicly to testify their dedication to God, to take
upon themselves the vow of a ISTazarite, the regulations of which are pre-
scribed in the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers.^ In that book no
rule is laid down as to the time during which this life of ascetic rigour was
to continue :
^ but we learn from the Talmud ^ and Josephus that thirty
doctrines was the uselessness of circumcision. But he might as well say that the
logical inference from the decree of the council of Jerusalem was the uselessness o*
circumcision. The continued observance of the law was of course only transitional.
Tf) kxo[ivy vixepg., V. 26.
1 We here adopt Wieseler's view of the vexata qucBstio
concerning the enrd. rj/iepat (v. 27). His argTiments will be found in his Chronologic,
pp. 99-113. This view entirely removes the difficulty arising out of the " twelve days,"
of which St. Paul speaks (xxiv. 11) in his speech before Felix. Yet it cannot be denied
that,on reading consecutively the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses of the
twenty-first chapter, it is difficult (whether or not we identify tuv ij/uepuv rev dyvla/j.ov
with al kiTTd 7j/iepat) to believe that the same day is referred to in each verse. And
when we come to xxiv. 11 we shall see that other modes of reckoning the time are
admissible.
^ " When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of aNazariie,
to separate themselves unto the Lord ; he shall separate himself from wine and strong
drink All the days of the vow come upon
of his separation there shall no razor
hiy head : which he separateth himself unto the Lord,
until the days be fulfilled, in the
he shall be holy and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow." Numb. vi. 2-5
3 Sometimes the obligation was for life, as in the cases of Sampson, Samuel, ana
JoUu the Baptist. That "seven days" in the instance before us was the whole dura-
tion of the vow, seems impossi))le, for this simple reason, that so short a time could
produce no perceptible effect on the hair. Ilcmsen makes a mistake here in referring
to the " seven days" in Numb. vi. G, which contemplates only the exceptional case of
defilement in the course of the vow.
4 Tract. Nazir. (Vol iii, pp. 148, 149 of the translation of the Mischna by Surea*
husius.)
:
days was at least a customary period.' During this time the Kazarite was
bound to abstain from wine, and to suffer his bair to grow uncut. At
the termination of the period, he was bound to present himself in the
temple, with certain offerings, and his hair was then cut off and burnt
upon the altar. The were beyond the means of tho
offerings required
'
rery poor, and consequently was thought an act of piety for a rich
it
man ^ to pay the necessary expenses, and thus enable his poorer country-
men to complete their vow. St. Paul was far from rich ; he gained his
daily bread by the work of his own hands j and we may therefore natu-
rally ask how he was able to take upon himself the expenses of these four
Na^arites. The answer probably is, that the assembled Elders had
requested him to apply to this purpose a portion of the fund which he had
placed at their disposal. However this may be, he now made himself
responsible for these expenses, and accompanied the Nazarites to the
temple, after having first performed the necessary purifications together
with them.^ On entering the temple, he announced to the priests tha*
the period of the Nazaritic vow which his friends had taken was accom
plished, and he waited^ within the sacred enclosure till the necessary
1 After mentioning Berenice's vow (B. J. ii. 15, 1) Josephus continues, Toiig yap rj
v6ai{i Kara7rovovfj,evovc ri tlolv uXkatq avdyKaiq IQoq evx^oOai Trpd rpLUKOVTa Tjfxepuv
uTToduaecv [leTJ^oiev d-vacac olvov re a^e^eadai koI ^vp^aeadat rdc Kofiag.
* And this is the law of the Nazarite, when the days of his separation are fulfilled
he shall be brought unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and he shall ;
offer his offering unto the Lord, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a
burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering,
and one ram without blemish for peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread,
cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil,
and their meat offering, and their drink offerings. And the priest shall bring them
before the Lord, and shall offer his sin offering and his burnt offering : and he shall
offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord, with the basket of un-
leavened bread : the priest shall offer also his meat offering, and his drink offering.
And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation, and shall take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it iia
the fire which under the sacrifice of the peace offerings." Namb. vi. 13-18.
is
offerings were made for each of them, and their hair cut off and burnt la
He might well have hoped, by thus complying with the legal ceremo
nial, to conciliate those, at least, who were only hostile to him because
they beheved him hostile to their national worship. And, so far as the
great body of the Church at Jerusalem was concerned, he probably suc-
ceeded. But the celebration of the festival had attracted multitudes to
the Holy City, and the temple was thronged with worshippers from every
land and amongst these were some of those Asiatic Jews who had been
;
Israel, help. This is the man that teacheth all men every where against
the People and the Law, and this Place." ^ Then as the crowd rushed
tumuituously towards the spot, they excited them yet further by accusing
Paul of introducing Greeks into the Holy Place, which was profaned by
the presence of a Gentile. The vast multitude which was assembled on
the spot, and in the immediate neighbourhood, was excited to madness by
these tidings, which spread rapidly through the crowd. The pilgrims who
flocked at such seasons to Jerusalem were of course the most zealous of
their nation ;
very Hebrews of the Hebrews. We nciay imagine the
horror and indignation which would fill their minds when they heard that
an apostate from the faith of Israel had been seized in the very act of
profaning the Temple at this holy season. A furious multitude rushed
upon the Apostle ;
and it was only their reverence for the holy place
which preserved him from being torn to pieces on the spot. They hurried
him out of the sacred enclosure, and assailed him with violent blows.**
Beparatlon which must be fulfilled before the offering should be made, were in the
course of completion." So it is taken by Dc Wette, who acknowledges the solecism in
irpoarjVExQrj.
1 " This place, ''^
tov tqtvov tovtov, v. 28. " This holy place,^^ rbv uyiov totto^
TovToVf lb. We should compare here the accusation against Stephen, Oi vi. 13.
naverat ^i^/xara AaAwv /carci The two cases are in many respect*
tov tottov tov aylov.
parallel. We cannot bilt believe that Paul must have remembered Stephen, and fell
as though this attack on himself were a retribution. See belcw cn xxii. 2(X Cf. V<A
I. p. 69, also p. 19G.
See Actsxxi. 31, 32.
THE TEMPLE-AREA. 245
Their next course might have been to stone him or to hurl him OTer the
precipice into the valley below. They were already in the Court of the
Gentiles, and the heavy gates ^
which separated the inner from the outer
enclosure were shut by the Levites, when an unexpected interruptioiv
tion of Mount Moriah to the other eminences on which the city was built,
the valley which separated it from the higher summit of Mount Zion, and
the deeper ravine which formed a chasm between the whole city and the
Mount of Olives, these facts of general topography are too well known
to require elucidation.'' On the other hand, when we turn to the descrip-
tion of the Temple-area itself and that which it contained, we are met with
The situation of the place is marked (17' on the Map. See Robinson, i, 350. "II
24:6 THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ing-place " of those who are his children after the flesh, but not jet the
fieirs of his faith. Keeping aloof from all difficult details, and withdraw
ing ourselves from the consideration of those events which have invested
this liill with an interest unknown to any other spot on the earth, we con-
fine ourselves to the simple task of depicting the Temple of ITerod, as it
prophets as the " Outward Court" or the " Court of the Lord's House
and is named by Josephus the " Outer Temple," and both in the Apocry-
pha and the Talmud, the "Mountain of the House." ^ That which was
the " House " itself, or the temple, properly so called,' was erected on the
highest of a series of successive terraces, which rose in an isolated mass
is the nearest point* in which the Jews can venture to approach their ancient temple ;
and, fortunately for them, it is sheltered from observation by the narrowness of the
lane and the dead walls around." It seems that the custom is mentioned even by
Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century.
1 1 Chron. xxi. 18. 2 Chron. iii. 1.
^ See the description of this work in Josephus, B. J. v. 5. 1. Ant. xv. 11. 3.
3 The lower courses of these immense stones still remain, and are described by all
travellers.
The Shushan Gate, which had a sculptured representation of the city of Susa, and
"
was preserved from the time of Zerubbabel. Middoth, p. 326. That which is now
called the Golden Gate, " a highly ornamental double gateway of Roman construc-
tion," is doubtless on the same spot. See the Map.
* Ezek. xiv. 17. Jer. xix. 12. xxvi. 2. In 2 Chron. iv. 9, it is calltd the Great
Court.
The term with which we are most familiar, the Court of the Gentiles, is nevex
applied to this space bj Jewish wi'iters.
7 In the LXX. we find olKog and vadg nsed for that which was properly the Temple,
The expression rd lepbv, in the N. T., is a general term, inclusive of the whole series of
courts. So it is used by Josephus, who speaks of the outer court as to ttoutov itodn
T<) fiudev iepov, while he uses vadc for the Temple itself.
THE TEMPLE-AEEA. 247
which was of costly cedar, and was supported on lofty and massive columns
of the Corinthian order, and of the whitest marble."* On three sides there
were two rows of columns : but on the southern side the cloister deep-
ened into a fourfold colonnade, the innermost supports of the roof being
pilasters in the enclosing wall. About the south-eastern angle, where the
valley was most depressed below the plateau of the Temple, we are to
look for that " Porch of Solomon" (John x. 3, Acts iii. 11) which is familiar
to us in the New Testament :
^ and under the colonnades, or on the open
area in the midst, were the " tables of the money-changers and the seats
of them who sold doves," which turned that which was intended for a
house of prayer into a "house of merchandise" (John ii. 16), and " a den
of thieves" (Matt. xxi. 13). Eree access was afforded into this wide en-
closure by gates ^ on each of the four sides, one of which on the east was
the Koyal Gate, and was perhaps identical with the "Beautiful Gate" of
Sacred History,' while atiother on the west was connected with the
crowded streets of Mount Zion by a bridge over the intervening valley.^
Nearer (as we have seen) to the north-western corner than the centre
of the square, arose that series of enclosed terraces on the summit of
which was the sanctuary. These more sacred limits were fenced off by a
1 In Middoth it is distinctly said that the space from the east and south is greater
than that from the west and north. " Mons aedis erat quadratus, ita ut singula latera
essent cubitorum quingentorum. Maximum spatium erat ab austro proximum ei ab ;
oriente ; tertium ab aquilone ; minumum vero ab occidente. Eo loco, ubi majus erat
epatium, major erat ejus usus," p. 33-i. It appears that Hirt (whose work on the
Temple we have not been able to consult) erroneously places the Temple in the centre,
' We
do not venture to touch the difficulties connected with the dimensions of i^he
Temple. Josephus is inconsistent both with the Talmud and himself. In one ol his
estimates of the size of the whole area, the ground on which Antonia stood is included.
2 To de viraidpov anav iteTTOiKiXTO navTodarvuv Tiidoiv Karearpu/Lcevov. B. J. v. 5, 2.
AiTrXai fiiv al croal iruaai, Kioveg 6' avralg iiovb'kiQoi XtvKoraTijq fiapudpov, Ksdpi-
voig (5^ ((>arv6jua<jiv 6p6<l>uvTO. Ibid. KiovoKpdvov avroig Kard rbv KopivOcov rpoKov
krce^Eipyaofihuv yTiv^alg, e/inlij^iv ifiTrotovaatg did ttjv tov iravrog jueyaXovpyiav
Ant. XV. 11, 5. He adds that the height of the columns was 25 cubits (?), and theii
aumber 162, while each column was so wide that it required three men with out-
Btratched arms to embrace it.
Ihun, have been alluded to before. See Yol. I. pp. 27, 28, and the eiigraviug.
248 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
fievog '
kv avT^ 6' eioryKsoav loov diaaTTj/zaTo^ cTriTiaL, rbv rrjg ayvsiaQ TvpoarjfiaivoV'
aai vofiov, al /xev '^IT^rjVLKolg, al 6^ 'Fu/iaiKolc ypdjUfxaai, fir) delv d?Ji,d(}>v7iov evrdf
Tov dylov napievai ' rd yap devrepov iepbv, ayiov eKaXelro. Josepb. B. J. V. 5, 2. Irs
tie Antiquities (xv. 11, 7) he does not say that the inscription was in dififerent lan-
guages, but he adds that it announced death as the penalty of transgression. [Top
devrepov neplf^olov'] TrepiEixe ipKtov 2.i6lvov SpvcpuKTov, ypa(l)y K6?t,vov eioievai tov
dX?[,oe6vy, davariKTjg uireiTiovjj.ivrjg rrjg ^rj^iag. A similar statement occurs in Philo de
Virt. Qdvarog dnapaiTijrog upiaraL Kard rdv eig rovg evtoq 'nepiji67\.ovg TzapeWovruv
{dexovrat yap elg rovg i^urepo) Tovg navTaxodev navrag) tuv ovx djxoeOvuv. Vol. 11.
p. 577. Ed. Mangey. This fence is mentioned again by Josephus in a striking pas-
sage, where Titus says to the Jews : ^Ap' ovx vj^^k, " juiapuraroL, tov dpv^aKTov tovtov
TTpovfidleade tuv dytuv; ovx 'i'/J'^k '''dg kv avTC) oTrfkag dteoTTjaaTe ypd/j-fiaaiv 'E/IA?;-
viKOig Kal ^[METEpoLg Kexapayfievag, d /xrjdeva to yetatov v7Tep(3atveiv rcapayyellei ; ovx
fjfjLtig 6^ Tovg vTvepddvTag vfilv dvaipelv ETceTpeipa/xev, Kav 'Fcdfialov Tig y ; B. J. vi. 2,
4. From this it appears that the Jews had full permission from the Romans to kill
even a Eoman, if he went beyond the boundary. [These inscriptions have been
alluded to before in this work, Vol. I. p. 3.]
' With this platform begins what is called devTepov lepbv by Josephus. K*e
TcoaapeaKaLdeKa [xlv (3ad/iolg rjv dvafSaTov d-rrd tov nptoTov ' fiETd 6^ TOvg deKUTEaaapac
^adjJLOvg TO fiEXP'' TEixovg diuaTrjua Tvrjxi^v rjv dsKa, irdv laoiTEdov. B.J. v. 5, 2.
In kiddoth we find the following " Ab interiori parte erat cancellata sepes, altitu-
:
dine dccem palmarum, cui inerant effractura) trcdecira quas cffregerunt reges Grascire.
. . . Citra illam erat intermurale dccem cubitorum latitudiue, ubi duodecim gi^us,''
S35. Ijcaviug aside the discordance as to numbers, we may remark that we are left
li'Empercur 47) places the treasury, or treasuries, in the wall of the Court of the
(p.
Women, but facing the Outer Court.
6 "Ad ortnm brumalem erat atrium NazyKCorum quod ibi Nazyraei coquerenl :
elose thm for the night.' We conceive that it was the closing of these
and was then dragged down the flight of steps into the Outer Court.
The interest, then, of this particular moment is to be associated with
the eastern entrance of the Inner from the Outer Temple. But to com-
plete our description, we must now cross the Court of the Women to its
western gate. The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies were still within
and above the spaces we have mentioned. Two courts yet intervened b&
tween the court last described and the Holy House itself. The first waa
the Court of Israel, the ascent to which was by a flight of fifteen semi-
circular steps ; the second, the Court of the Priests, separated from the
former by a low balustrade.^ Where these spaces bordered on each other,
to the south, was the hall Gazith,'' the meeting-place of the Sanhedrin
partly in one court, and partly in the other. A little further towards tht
north were all those arrangements which we are hardly able to associate
with the thought of worship, but which daily reiterated' in the sight of the
Israelites thatawful truth that " without shedding of blood there is no
remission,"
the rings at which the victims were slaughtered, the beams
and hooks from which they were suspended when dead, and the marble
tables at which the entrails were washed :
^
here, above all, was the
Altar, the very place of which has been now identified by the bore in the
1 We can hardly doubt that this is the gate mentioned by Josephus, B. J. vi. 5, 3 :
'H avaroT^LHTj rcvTirj rov kvSoTspo), x^^'^V H'^'^ ovca Koi arL(iapoTUT7], K?i,L0fj.ev7} de uepl
6eLlTjv f/,61ig vtt' dvdptjv eUoaL, koI hox^oIq fxev eTvepeidofiivT] aidripoderoLg, Karairyyag
6' exovcja (SadvTarovg eig rdv ovddv bvra dLJjvEKovg XtOov Kadie/Lievovg. And this, we
think, must be identical with that of B. J. v. 8, 3. Mm tj e^udev rov veu KopLvOtov
XaTiKov. This again is determined to be the gate by which the Court of the Women
was entered fron the east, by Ant. xv. 11 ;
'Elxev 6 kvrbg Tteptpo'kog Kard, r]7Sov j3o?iu(,
iva TOP fieyav, 6C ov TrapijeL/iev dyvol fierd yvvacKuv. Such is the position assigned to
the gate of Corinthian brass by L'Empereur and Winer. Others (Lightfoot, De Wette,
Williams) make it the western gate of the Court of the Women.
^ 'Bad/iot deKaTzevre itpbg rrjv [lel^ova TrvXrjv uTrd rov tuv yvvacKuv diareLXLOiiaTOi,
dvrjyov. B. J. v. 5, 3. " Quindecim
gradus ascendebant ex ejus medio in atrium
Israelis, respondentes quindecim gradibus qui in Psalmis occurrunt in quibus Levitts :
canebant. Non erant gradus recti, sed gyrati instar dimidii rotundte ai-eae." Mid-
doth, p. 342.
' The information which Josephus gives concerning these two courts (or rather two
parts of one court) is scanty. Under the Court of Israel were rooms for the musical
instruments of the priests. Middoth, p. 344.
" In conclavi csesi lapidis consessus magnus Israelis sedebat, &c."
"*
Middoth, p. 378.
See L'Empereur, p. 183. " Partim in atrio, partim in loco communi sive intermurali."
Reference has been made before to this hall, in the narrative of Stephen's trial. Vol.!
p. 70, n. 1. See below, p. 260. Rabbinical authorities say that the boundary line of
Judah and Benjamin passed between Gazith and the Holy Place.
^ Middoth,
pp. 358, 359. The position of these rings, &c. was on the north side of
the altar of burnt offering,
to which the ascent -vas by a gradual slope on the soutl
fiidfi
250 THE LIFE Am> EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
sacred rock of the Moslems, wMcli corresponds exactly with the descrip-
tion given in the Mischna of the drain and cesspool which communicated
with the sewer that ran off into the Kedron,^
The House itself remains to be described. It was divided into three
parts, the Vestibule, the and the Holy of Holies. From the
Holy Place,
Altar and the Court of the Priests to the Yestibule was another flight of
twelve steps,'^ the last of the successive approaches by which the Temple
was ascended from the east. The Yestibule was wider ^ than the rest of
the llouse : its front was adorned with a golden vine of colossal propor-
the Holy Place, which contained the Table of Shew-bread, the Candle-
stick, and the Altar of Incense. After this was the " second veil" (Heb
ix. 3) closing the access to the innermost-shrine, which in the days of the
Tabernacle had contained the golden censer and the ark of the covenant,
but which in Herod's Temple was entirely empty, though still regarded as
the " Holiest of All." (lb.) Holy Place and
The interior height of the
the Holy of Holies was comparatively small but above them and on each :
side were chambers so arranged that the general exterior effect was that of
a clerestory ^ rising above the aisles : and the whole was surmounted with
gilded spikes,^ to prevent the birds from setthng on the sacred roof.
Such is a bare outline of the general plan of the Jewish Temple
Such was the arrangement of its parts, which could be traced, as in a
map, by those who looked down from the summit of the Mount of Olives,
as the modern traveller looks now from the same place upon the mosque
of Omar and its surrounding court. As seen from this eminence, when
the gilded front of the vestibule flashed back the rays of the sun, and all
the courts glittered (to use the comparison of Josephus) with the white-
ness of snow ^ ^while the column of smoke rose over all, as a perpetual
1 This identification is due to Prof. Willis. See Williams' Memoir, p. 95.
* kirh^ 6 vabg dudeKa (3adp.olc W uvajSarog.
3 Josej^lius SQ^s that there were shoulders on each side {euirpoadev uaizep ufioi nap'
iKarepov). Hence the Rabbis explained the use of the word Ariel or Lion in Isaiah
xxix. 1, inasmuch as a lion is broader in front than behind. Middoth, p. 373.
" Yitis aurea expandebatur super portam templi." Middoth, p. 3G2. Taj- xP'^'^^i
4
dfiireXovg, dp' uv (3uTpveg uvdpofi7/Keig KareKpefiavro. Ant. xv. 11, 3. Qavfia koI
Tcv fieyidovg Kai rrjg TtxvTjg Tolg idovaiv. B. J. V. 5, 4. " Vitis aurea Templo re-
perta." Tac. Hist. v. 5.
5 Williams, p. 97
Kara Kopv<pr}v 6^ ;j;puaeouf o^eloig avelx^ Tedrj-y/iievovc, (if pj tlvl npoaKaBe^ofiLvif
uoXvvoiTo Tuv opveuv. B. J. v. 6, 6. From the word Kopv(j>jj we may conclude
(as De Wette remarks, in his Archiiologie) that the roof, like that oi Greek and Roman
temples, was tectum fastigiatum. Lightfoot (Ch. xi.) thinks that the roof had pinna-
cles, " as King's Collodge Chappelle in Cambridge is decked in like manner, to its
great beauty and he adds that the roof was not flat, but rising in the middle, " as
King's Colledge Chappelle may be herein a parallel also."
' To/f eiaacptKvovjuivoic ^tvotg 7rd(i6o)6ev ofioiog bpei x'-'^'^^i' ivTi^pfi haTc^aivnn'
tai }uo Ka6u fii) Kexpvauro "XsvKOTaToq ijv, lb.
lation was sunk at that particular time. This ancient glory was now
ander the shadow of an alien power. The Sanctuary was all but trodden
under foot by the Gentiles. The very worship was conducted under the
surveillance of Roman soldiers. We cannot conclude this account of thfe
Temple without describing the fortress which was contiguous, and almost
a part of it.
If we were to remount to the earlier history of the Temple, we might
perhaps identify the tower of Antonia with the "palac6" of which we
read in the book of Nehemiah (ii. 8. vii. 2). It was certainly the build-
ing which the Asmonean princes erected for their own residence under the
name of Baris.'^ Afterwards rebuilt with greater strength and splen-
dour by the first Herod, it was named by him, after his Romanising
fashion, in honour of Mark Antony Its situation is most distinctly
and that the tank, which is now popularly called the Pool of Bethesda,
the Temple, and thus both in position and in elevation it was in ancient
Jerusalem what the Turkish governor's house is now, whence the best
view is obtained over the enclosure of the mosque of Omar. But this is
1 This view is ably advocated by Dr. Robinson, in his account of Antonia (Res. i. pp.
431-436), and as Mr. Williams remarks (Memoir, p. 100), this reservoir (the Birket
Israel) may still be the Bethesda of the Gospel. See a confirmation of Dr. Robinson's
hypothesis, from the observations of Mr. Walcott, Bib. Sac. i. p. 29. Compare Traill's
northern side of the Temple (Joseph, Ant. xiv. 4, 2. B. J. i. 7, 3.) Compare the ac-
count of the occupation of Antonia by Titus. B. J. vi.
' It had four smaller towers rising from its angles, like the Tower of London, save
that that on the S. E. was higher than the others. UvpyoeidTjg ovaa to ttuv Gxvfia
Kard. yuviav rcaaapatv iripoLg 6iei2.7]TTTO nvpyoig wv ol fiev aXKot ixEVTrjKovTO. rd v'^\)oq
6 6^ knl Ty iieari[i(^pLvri Kol Kar" uvarol^v yuvia ifSdo/irjKOvra ivrixCjv i]v, liaOopuv
Tug oTodg fieTd ruv ottAwv, kv ralg topratg, rdv dr/jitov fijj ri veurepiadecTj TrapeipvTia
TOV, lb.
4 See below, p. 265, note on awelpa.
5 This Prastorium seems to have been the old palace of Herod, connected with
tower called Hippicus, which is identified by existing remains. It was on the western
eidc of the city, and is one of our fixed points in tracing the course of the ancient
walls. See the Map.
'EKudtaev Inl fSr/fiarog elg tOttov ?i.ey6fievov AtdoGTourov, 'Y.ftpuarl Ta0f3adoL
Joliii xix. 13. Something has been said before (Vol. I. p. 419, n. 1 1, on the j3f/ua oi
hatred of their rulers, flocked into the Temple courts, it was found neces*
Bary to order a strong military force into Antonia, and to keep them undei
rms, so that they might act immediately and promptly in the case of any
outbreak.
A striking illustration of the connection between the Fortress and the
Temple is afforded by the history of those quarrels, which arose in refer-
At his death the command that the Procurator Cuspius Fadus should
take the vestments under his care raised a ferment among the whole
Jewish people ; and they were only kept from an outbreak by the presence
of an overwhelming force under Longinus, the Governor of Syria. An
embassy to Rome, with the aid of the younger Agrippa, who was then at
the imperial court, obtained the desired relaxation : and the letter is still
' Joseph. Ant. xx. 1, 2. The letter is quoted in the fifteenth chapter of Mr. Lewin'a
rork on the Life and iEpistles of St. Paul, a chapter which contains much miscellaneoua
jiformation concerning Jerusalem and the Jews at this time.
^ Tiberius Alexander,
a renegade Jew, intervened between Fadus and Cumanus,
IVe shall recur to the series of procurators in the beginning of the next chapter.
^ Joseph. Ant. xx. 6, 2. B. J. ii. 12, 1. In this narrative the tower of Antonia mQ
Mb guards are particularly mentioned.
4 B. J. ii. 13, 3.
s The passages in Josephus, which relate to this Egyptian, are Ant. xx. 8, 6. B. J
0. 13 6.
254 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
before us, on which the events we are now to relate occurred in rapid
Buccession. We left St. Paul at the moment when the Levites had closed
the gates, lest the Holy Place should be polluted by murder, and when
the infuriated mob were violently beating the Apostle, with the full inten-
tion of putting him to death. The beginning and rapid progress of the
commotion must have been seen by the sentries on the cloisters and the
tower : and news was sent up ^ immediately to Claudius Lysias, the com-
mandant of the garrisor^, that " all Jerusalem
was in an uproar" (v. 31),
The spark had fallen on materials the most inflammable, and not a mo-
ment was to be lost, if a conflagration was to be averted. Lysias himself
rushed down instantly, with some of his subordinate officers, and a strong
body of men,'^ into the Temple court. At the sight of 1?he flashing arms
and disciplined movements of the Imperial soldiers, the Jewish mob
desisted from their murderous violence. " They left off beating of Paul."
They had for a moment forgotten that the eyes of the sentries were upon
them : but this sudden invasion by their hatred and dreaded tyrants, re-
minded them that they were " in danger to be called in question for that
day's uproar." (Acts xix. 40.)
Claudius Lysias proceeded with the soldiers promptly and directly to
St. Paul,3 whom he perceived to be the central object of all the excite-
ment in the Temple com^t : and in the first place he ordered him to be
chained by each hand to a soldier :
^ for he suspected that he might be
the Egyptian rebel,^ who had himself balGfled the pursuit of the Roman
fferce, though his followers were dispersed. This being done, he proceeded
to question the bystanders, who were watching this summary proceeding,
half in disappointed rage at the loss of their victim, and half in satisfac-
tion that theysaw him at least in captivity. But " when Lysias de-
manded who he was and what he had done, some cried one thing, and
some another, among the multitude" (v. 33, 34) and when he found ;
1 'AveCf]. Compare this with Karidpafiev in the next verse, and the dvaSad/iol meif
tioned below.
' HapalaOdv oTpariurac Kat kKarovrdpxag, v. 32. The full complement of cenfcU'
rions in the castle would be ten.
3 Tore kyyiaag 6 xf-^'t-o^PX^^- i^-
oelow.^ And meanwhile deafening sliouts arose from the stairs and from
Ihe court, the same shouts which, nearly thi^-ty years before, surroiyided
the praetorium of Pilate,^
" Away with him, away with him."
At this moment,^ the Apostle, with the utmost presence of mind,
turned to the commanding officer who was near him, and, addressing him
in Greek, said respectfully, " May I speak with thee Claudius Lysia>5!
gained an influence over the mind of the Roman officer : and his consent
was not refused. And now the whole scene was changed in a moment.
St. Paul stood upon the stairs and turned to the people, and made a mo-
tion with the hand,^ as about to address them. And they too felt the in-
Brethren and Fathers,^ hear me, and let me now defend my-
self before you.
1 "Ore 6i eyevero eirl rovg dvajSadfiovg, ovvejSi] jSaoTd^eadat avrbv vtvo tQv arpa-
TiUTciv did, T7iv jSiav tov bx^ov, v. 35.
^ Compare Luke xxiii. 18. John xix. 15.
3 MeAAwv eiadyeadai elg rrjv izapefif3o7i.rjv.
4 We need not repeat all that has been said before concerning the importance of
Tarsus. See Vol. I. pp. 22, 48-50, 105, 106, 255, 256. We may refer, however, to the
History of the place by the Abbe Belley in the twenty-seventh volume of the Ac. dea
Inscriptions.
5 'EoTug enl -ruv dvajSadfiuv mreaeiae ry x^^Ph Compare xiii. 16. xxvL 1,
the troubled waters. The silence became universal and breathless : and
the Apostle proceeded to address his countrymen as follows :
shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell to
the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why
fersemtest thou me f And I answered. Who art thou, Lord f
and he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth,^ whom thou per-
secutest. And the men who were with me saw the light, and
were terrified ; ' but they heard not the voice of Him that spake
unto me. And I said. What shall I do,
Lord f And the Lord
said unto me,, Arise, a/iid go into Damascus, and there thou shall
he told of all things which are appointed for thee to do.
HLs hli'idnes3. And when I could not see, from the brightness ot
tSm'.^"^ that light, my companions led me by the hand, and
so I '3ntered into Damascus. And a certain Ananias, a devout ^
man according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews who
dwelt there, came and stood beside me, and said to me. Brother
Saul, receive thy sight j and in that instant I received my sight
and saw liim. And he The God of our fathers hath or-
said,
dained thee to hnow His will, and to hehold the Just One^ and to
hear the voice of His mouth. For thou shalt he His witness to
all the world of what thou hast seen o/nd hea/rd.
' And no w^ why
dost thou delay f Arise and he hajpt/ized and wash away thy ^
At these words St. Paul's address to his countrymen was suddenly in-
terrupted. Up to this point he had riveted their att^ntion.^ They lis-
tened, while he spoke to them of his early life, his persecution of the
Church, his mission to Damascus. Many were present who could testify,
on their own evidence, to the truth of what he said. Even when he told
them of his miraculous conversion, his interview with Ananias, and his
former of which it is used in the accounts of blind men healed in the gospels. Here
the A. Y. translates the same verb by two different words.
1 ILdvTag dvdpunrovc, rather stronger than all men.
^ BuTTTiaat, literally, cause thyself to be baptized (mid.). With the following
dTToTiOvaat, compare 1 Cor. vi. 11.
3 The best MSS. read avTov, and not rov Kvpcov. The reference is to the confession
of faith in Jesus, which preceded baptism.
4 St. Paul expected at first that the Jews at Jerusalem (the members of his own
party) would listen to him readily, because they could not be more violent against
the Nazarenes than they knew him to have been : and he therefore thought that they
must feel that nothing short of irresistible truth could have made him join the sect
had hated.
wliich he
'Bunv ovlaKL^ov. Iivas imprisoning, I kept on imprisoning.
Mafirvg had not yet acquired its technical sense, but here it may be translated
Martyr, because the mode in which Stephen bore testimony was by his death,
' IZvyevdofcslv, to consent gladly. Compare Rom. i. 32.
8 though omitted in the best MSS., is implied in the sense.
T?) dvaipeacL avrov,
Notice the imperfect fjKovov as contrasted with emjpav which follows. See the
remarks on Stephen's speech. Vol. I. p. 71.
As an illustration of St. PauFs wisdom, it is instructive to observe that in xxvi
i'-'
VOL. II. 1
as a *'
devout man according to the law" (v. 12), as one " well reported
of by all the Jews " (16), as one who addressed him in the name of " the
God of their Fathers" (v. 14). In his vision he showed how he had
pleaded before that God the energy of his former persecution, as a proof
that his countrymen must surely be convinced by his conversion : and
when he alluded to the death of Stephen, and the part which he had taken
himself in that cruel martyrdom (v. 20), all the associations of the place
^here they stood ^ must (we should have thought) have brought the
memory of that scene with pathetic force before their minds. But when
his mission to the Gentiles was announced, though the words quoted were
the words of Jehovah spoken in the Temple itself, even as the Lord had
once spoken to Samuel,'^ one outburst of frantic indignation rose from
the Temple-area and silenced the speaker on the stairs. Their national
pride bore down every argument which could influence their reason or
their reverence. They could not bear the thought of uncircumcised Hea-
thens being made equal to the sons of Abraham. They cried out that
such a wretch ought not to pollute the earth with his presence,^ that it
was a shame to have preserved his life : * and in their rage and impa-
tience they tossed off their outer garments (as on that other occasion,
when the garments were laid at the*feet of Saul himself s), and threw up
dust into the air with frantic violence. This commotion threw Lysias into
new perplexity. He had not been able to understand the Apostle's He-
brew speech and, when he saw its results, he concluded that his prisoner
:
17, it is distinctly said that Jesus himself announced from heaven Paul's mission tb
the Gentiles ; and that in same announcement is made to Ananias
ix. 15, the ;
whereas in the address to the Jews this is kept out of view for the moment, and re-
served till after the vision in the Temple is mentioned. And again we should observe
that while in ix. 10, Ananias is spoken of as a Christian (see 13), here he is described
as a strict and pious Jew. He was, in fact, both the one and the other. But for the
purposes of persuasion, St. Paul lays stress here on the latter point.
1 See above, p. 244, n. 1.
^ 1 Sam. iii. 3 Alps utto ttj^ yrj^ top toiovtov.
* The correct reading appears to be KadrjKev. It will be remembered that they were
"
on the point of killing St. Paul, when Claudius Lysias rescued him, xxi. 31.
*
'FcTTTovvTcov Tu lfj,dTia, xxii. 23. Kal ol fidpTvpsg dnedevro tcL Ifidria avTuv napd
TM)r TTocJaf We need
veavlov KaT^ovjitvov SavAov Kal iXoOojSoXovv rbv ^rirpavov, vi. 58.
not, however, suppose, with Meyer, that this tossing of the garments and throwing of
d'dtt, was precisely symbolical of their desire to stone Paul. It denoted simply im-
patience and disgust. So in Lucian we find to ^earpov uizav cvvejue/xr/vei, Kal Itt^
:
dux, Koi IjSCuv, Kal Tug hO^rag aTrv^^tTrTovv. De Salt. 83. See the next note.
c Sir John Chardin, as quoted by Harmer (Obs. iv. 203) says that it is common for
the peasants in Persia, when they have a complaint to lay before their governors, to
repair to them by hundreds, or a thousand, at once. They place themselves near the
gate of the palace, where they suppose they arc most likely to be seen and heard, and
thon set up a horrid outcry, rend their garments, and throw duet into the air, at the
Bomc time demanding justice." Hackett.
THE CENTURION AND THE CHIEF CAPTAIN. 259
lashes," with the officer standing by,* to whom Lysias had entrusted the
superintendence of this harsh examination.
Thus St. Paul was on the verge of adding another suffering and dis-
grace to that long catalogue of afflictions, which he gave in the last letter
he wTote to Corinth, before his recent visit to that city (2 Cor. xi. 23-25).
Five times scourged by the Jews, once beaten with rods at Philippi, and
twice on other unknown occasions, he had indeed been " in stripes above
measure." And now he was in a Koman barrack, among rude soldiers,
rights as a Roman citizen, under which he had before sheltered his sacred
cause at Philippi.^ He said these few words to the centurion who stood
by :
" Is it lawful to put to the rack one who is a Roman citizen and
uncondemned ? " The magic of the Roman law produced its effect in a
moment. JThe centurion immediately reported the words to his command-
ing officer, and said significantly, " Take heed what thou doest : for this
it did not really belong to him ; ' and he hastened in person ^ to his prisoner.
A hurried dialogue took place, from which it appeared, not only that St,
Paul was indeed a Roman citizen, but that he held this privilege under
circumstances far more honourable than his interrogator : for while Claudius
Lysias had purchased^ the right for " a great sum," Paul was " free-born."
1 'E/ceAevaev avrbv dyeadai elg Tr}v napeftSoTiTjv. See above, pp. 253, 4, 5.
^ M-dcTt^LV dveTa^eadai.
3 The correct reading appears to be npoheLvav. "We take rolg l/xdaiv to mean " for
the thongs," i. e. the straps (yevpoig) of which the judariyec were made. Others con-
feider the words to denote the thongs or straps with which the offender was fastened tc
the post or pillar. In either case, the use of the article is explained.
4 "We see this from v. 25, elire rrpbg rbv korCdra kKarovTapxov. Claudius Lysiaa
himself was not on the spot (sse v. 26), but had handed over the Apostle to a centu-
ion, who " stood by," as in the case of a military flogging with us.
5 We must distinguish between fidariyeg, iiaaTi^eLv here (24, 25) and ^afSdi^eiv,
hppafidiadriv (Acts xxvL 22. 2 Cor. xi. 25). In the present instance the object wa
not punishment, but examination.
6 See Vol. I. p. 310.
7 Such pretensions were liable to capital punishment. " Civitatem Romanam usur
pantes in Campo Esquilino securi percussit." Suet. Claud. 25.
s lipoaeTcdCiv 6 x'-^'-'J-oxog k. t. /I.
V/e learn from Dio Cassius, that the civitas of Rome was, in the early part of th
;
Orders were instantly given for the removal of the instruments of torture
' j
and those who had been about to conduct the examination retired. Lysias
was compelled to keep the Apostle still in custody : for he was ignorant of
the nature of his offence : and indeed
was evidently the only sure this
method of saving him from destruction by the Jews. But the Roman
officer was full of alarm for in his treatmetit of the prisoner ^ he had
:
trade which separated the sanctuary from the Court. But the fear of
pollution would keep the Apostle's life in safety within that enclosure.
There is good reason for believing that the Sanhedrin met at that period
in a place less sacred,^ to which the soldiers would be admitted but this ;
is a question into which we need not enter. Wherever the council sat, we
are suddenly transferred from the interior of a Roman barrack to a scene
entu'ely Jewish.
It is unnecessary to repeat here what has been said concerning the citizenship of
Paul and his father. See Yol. I. pp. 45, 46. For the laws relating to the privileges
of citizens, see again Vol. I. p. 310.
* 'EcpofSrjdrj otl rjv avrbv dedcKug. We cannot agree with Bottger in referring the
last word to Tzpoheivav rolg l/udai (v. 25). Nor can we see any ground for De Wette's
notion of an inconsistency between this word and what follows. Lysias was afraid,
because he had so "bound" the Apostle, as he could not have ventured to do, had he
known he was a Roman citizen. It seems, that in any case it would have been illegal
to have had immediate recourse to torture. " Non esse a tormentis incipiendum, Div.
Augustus constituit." Digest. L. 48, tit. 18. Certainly it was contrary to the floman law
to put any Roman citizen to the torture, either by scourging or in any other way. Under
the Imperial regime, however, so early as the time of Tiberius, this rule was violated
liud tortui-e was applied to citizena of the highest rank, more aiid more rteely. See
Geib (Geschichte dcs romischen Criminalprocesses bis zum Tode Justlnians) p. 615,
and the instances tvhich he quotes from Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio, and Seneca.
3 Ty iTravpiov. ^ See above.
6 Tlie Rabbinical way was
of expressing this as follows : Migravit supremus sena-
t'ls omnimodo ab exedra lapidum c^sorum ad taberuas, et a tabcrnis ad .Xerusalera.'-
L'Emp(:reur on Middoth, p. 48. See Vol, I. p. 69.
Paul was now in presence of that council, before which, when he wai
aimself a member of it, Stephen had been judged. That moment could
hardly be forgotten by him : but he looked steadily at his inquisitors ;
among whom he would recognize many who had been his fellow-pupils in
the school of Gamaliel, and his associates in the persecution of the Chris*
tians. That unflinching look of conscious integrity offended them, and hia
confident words
" Brethren,'^ I have always lived a conscientious ^ life
" whited sepulchres" (Matt, xxiii. 27). Lightfoot goes bo far here, as to say that the
words themselves mean that Ananias had the semblance of the high-priest's office with-
out the reality.
5 See Vol. I. p. 49.
6 He was killed by the Sicarii. Joseph. B. J. ii. 17, 9.
' The use of this English word retains something of the ambiguity of the original
ov c ^dsLv, 5tl koTLv dpxt^psvg. It is difficult to decide positively on the meaning of
-
the words. Some think that St. Paul meant to confess that he had been guilty of a
want of due reflection, others that he spoke ironically, as refusing to recognize a
man like Ananias as high-priest,
others have even thought that there was in the
words an inspired reference to the abolition of the sacerdotal system of the Jews, and
the sole priesthood of Christ. Another class of interpreters regard St. Paul as igno-
rant of the fact that Ananias was high-priest or argue that Ananias was not really
;
'.nstalled in this office. And we know from Josephus, that there was the greatest irre*
^ularity in the appointments about this time. Lastly, it has been suggested (Vol. I,
ruler of thy peopleJ^ But the Apostle had seen enough to be conyinced
that there was no prospect before this tribunal of a fair inquiry and a just
decision. He therefore adroitly adopted a prompt measure for enlisting
the sympathies of those who agreed with him in one doctrine, which, though
held to be an open question in Judaism, was an essential truth in Chris-
tianity.* He knew that both Pharisees and Sadducees were among hi.
judges, and well aware that, however united they might be in the outward
work of persecution, they were divided by an impassible line in the deeper
matters of religious faith, he cried out,'* " Brethren, I am a Pharisee, and
all my forefathers ^ were Pharisees : it is for the hope of a resurrection from
the dead that I am to be judged this day." This exclamation produced
an instantaneous effect on the assembly. It was the watchword which
marshalled the opposing forces in antagonism to each other.'* The Phari-
sees felt a momentary hope that they might use their ancient partizan as
a new weapon against their rivals ; and their hatred against the Sadducees
was even greater than their hatred of Christianity. They were vehement
in their vociferations ;
^ and their language was that which Gamaliel had
used more calmly many years before^ (and possibly the aged Kabban may
have been present himself in this very assembly):' "If this doctrine be
of God, ye cannot destroy it : beware lest ye be found to be fighting against
God." " We find no fault in this man what, if (as he says) an angel
"
:
or a spirit have indeed spoken to him, The sentence was left incom-
plete or unheard in the uproar.^ The judgment-hall became a scene of
the most riclent contention ; and presently Claudius Lysias received infor*
mation of what was taking place, and fearing lest the Koman citizen, whonj
he was bound to protect, should be torn in pieces between those who sought
to protect him, and those who thirsted for his destruction, he ordered the
troops to go down instantly, and bring him back into the soldiers' quarteri
when the agitation of his mind subsided, and he was no longer strung up
by the presence of his persecutors, or supported by sympathizing brethren,
can we wonder that his heart sank, and that he looked with dread on the
vague future that was before him ? Just then it was that he had one of
those visions by night, which were sometimes vouchsafed to him, at critical
seasons of his Hfe, and in providential conformity with the circumstances
in which he was placed. The last time when we were informed of such
an event, was when he was in the house of Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth,
and when he was fortified against the intimidation of the Jews by the
words "Fear not: for I am with thee." (Acts xviii 9, 10.) The next
instance we shall have to relate is in the worst part of the storm at
sea, between Fair Havens and Malta, when a similar assurance was given
to him : "Fear not : thou must stand before Caesar." (lb. xxvii. 24.)
On the present occasion events were not sufficiently matured for him to
receive a prophetic intimation in this explicit form. He had, indeed, long
looked forward to a visit to Rome : but the prospect now seemed further
off than ever. And it was at this anxious time that he was miraculously
comforted and strengthened by Him, who is "the confidence of all- the
ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea ; who by
His strength setteth fast the mountains ; who stilleth the noise of the
seas and the tumult of the people." In the visions of the night, the Lord
himself stood by him and said : "Be of good cheer, Paul ; for as thou
hast testified of me at Jerusalem, so must thou testify also at Rome."
(lb. xxiii. 11.)
1 Ev?MftTjSEi^ 6 X- M
^tafy^dady .... ayeiv ts elg tt/v 7rapefj.6oX7jv.
^ With the direct narrative, v. 12-15, we should compare closely the account gives
by St, Paul's nephew, vv. 20, 21.
THE LIFE AlO) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the deed was accomplished.^ Thus fortified by a dreadful cath, they came
before the chief priests and members of the Sanhedrin,^ and proposed the
following plan, which seems to have been readily adopted. The Sanhe-
dristswere to present themselves before Claudius Lysias, with the request
that he would allow the prisoner to be brought once more before the
Jewish Court, that they might enter into a further investigation ^ and :
the assassins were to lie in wait, and murder the Apostle on his way
down from the fortress. The plea to be brought before Lysias was very
plausible : and it is probable that, if he had received no further informa-
tion, he would have acted on it : for he well knew that the proceedings of
the Court had been suddenly interrupted the day before,^ and he would
be glad to have his perplexity removed by the results of a new inquiry.^
The danger to which the Apostle was exposed was most imminent : and
there has seldom been a more horrible example of crime masked under
the show of religious zeal.
The plot was ready: and the next day ^ it would have been carried
into effect, when God was pleased to confound the schemes of the conspi-
1 So we are told by Josephus that ten Jews bound themselves by a solemn oath to
assassinate Herod, and that before their execution they maintained Kalug Kal avv
evaejSeta Trjv avvufiooiav avrolg yeveadai, Ant. xv. 8, 3, 4. Hackett quotes from
Philo a formal justification of such assassinations of apostates.
In illustration of the
form of the oath, Wetstein cites the following from a Rabbinical authority " Post :
jusjurandum non edam nec bibam, qui edit et bibit dupliciter reus est." Lightfoot,
however, shows from the Talmud (Hor. Heb.) that those who were implicated in such
an oath could obtain absolution.
" llpoaeMovreg rolr dpxi^pevGLV Kal Tolg npealSvTepoig, v. 14. Most of the com-
mentators are of opinion that only the Sadducean party is contemplated here, the
But it is far more natural to suppose that
Pharisees having espoused St. Paul's cause.
their enthusiasm in his behalfhad been only momentary, and that the temporary
schism had been healed in the common wish to destroy him. The Pharisees really
hated him the most. It would seem, moreover, from xxiv. 15, that Pharisees appeared
as accusers before Felix.
3 'i2f [itllovTag 6iayivu)CKeiv oKpidearepov tcL irepl avrov. See the next note but
two.
4 Karayuyy, v. 15 Karayuyyc, v. 20. So KaTa(3dv, v. 10, and Kurayaydv, xxii. 30.
;
The accurate use of these words should be compared with what is said by Josephus and
by St. Luke himself of the stairs between the temple and the fortress. They present
us with an undesigned consistency in a matter of topography and they show that thb ;
mann and Tischendorf, jjilTiuv, not /xe/lAovrff. Sanhedrin were about to inves-
If the
tigate (see V. 15), it would be in order that Claudius Lysias might obtain more infor-
mation : and it would be more natural for the young man to put the matter before
him in this point of view.
Observe the young man's words, v. 21 Kal vvv elalv troijuoi npoaSexofxevoi r^>
:
CONSPIBACY. 265
rators. The instrument of St. PauFs safety was one of his own relations,
the son of that sister whom we have before mentioned (Yol. I. p. 49) as
nificant admonition,
" Be careful that thou tell no man that thou hast
laid this information before me."
When the young man was gone, Claudius Lysias summoned one or two
of his subordinate ofificers,^ and ordered them to have in readiness two
hundred of the legionary soldiers, with seventy of the cavalry, and two
Yv. 16-22.
" Two questions easily asked, but not easily answered, suggest themselves whether
St. nephew resided at Jerusalem, and, if so, why he lodged not with
Paul's sister and
them but with Mnason (above, p. 235).
3 So afterwards at Caesarea xxiv. 23, dLara^u/xevog exsiv uveaiv Kal jurjdiva KuXveiv
Tov l&iuv avTov vnTjpeTelv avru. See the next chapter for a description of the na-
uire of the Custodia, in which St. Paul was kept, both at Jerusalem and Cffisarea.
4 The word veavtac is indeterminate, but the whole narrative giva* ihe impreBfeioq
that he was a very young man. See Vol. I. p. 106, n. 2.
5 Yv. 17, 18.
Ilv ovv firj Tvetadyg avTolg, v. 21.
' 'O [lev ovv X' uniTivaEv rbv veaviov itapayyELlaQ. k. t. 7i,
8 Avo TLviiQ Tu)v iKUTovTapxuv, V. 23. The full complement of centurions WGoId
V ten. See below, p. 270, n. 2.
;
hundred spearmen ;
^ so as to depart for Ceesarea at nine in the eyening^
and take Paul in safety to Felix the governor.^ The journey was long,
and it would be requisite to accomplish it as rapidly as possible. Ha
therefore gave directions that more than one horse should be provided fo:
the prisoner.-* We may be surprised that so large a force was sent to se
cure the safety of one man but we must remember that this man was a
;
' The rendering in the English version is probably as near as any other to the true
meaning of the singular word de^ioldfSovQ, which is evidently distinguished here from
legionary soldiers and from cavalry, and therefore doubtless means light-armed
troops. Again, it is distinguished from bowmen and targeteers in the following pas-
sage, M^hich is the only other place where it occurs 01 6i TieyofievoL Tovpjudpxtii etc
:
vTTovpytav tuv crparrjyibv eraxOTjaav arjfiatveL (51 tolovtov d^tu/za Tbi> exovra v(j)'
tavT(fif GTpaTiciTac To^o(p6povg TcevTaKootov^, Kal 7re2,TaaTd^ rpiaKoatovg kul Se^io-
Tid^ovg iKarov. Moreover the word dE^iolajSog (or de^LojSoTioc,
Constant. Porphyr.
as it is in manuscript A.) seems to imply the use of some weapon simply carried in the
right hand. As to to the mixture of troops in the escort sent by Claudius Lysias, we
may remark that he sent forces adapted to act on all kinds of ground, and from the
imperfect nature of his information he could not be sure that an ambuscade might not
be laid in the way and at least banditti were to be feared.
;
cal capitals of the country.' To the roads delineated on the map (Yol. I
p. 92) we must add another, which passes, not by Lydda^ (or Diospolis),
but more directly across the intermediate space from Gophna to Antipatris.
We have thus the whole route to Caesarea before us ; and we are enabled
to picture to ourselves the entire progress of the little army, which took
St. Paul in safety from the conspiracies of the Jews, and placed him under
the protection of Felix the governor.
The road lay first, for about three hours, northwards,"* along the high
mountainous region which divides the valley of the Jordan from the great
western plain of Judaea.* About midnight they would reach Gophna.''
Here, after a short halt, they quitted the northern road which leads to
Neapolis and Damascus, once by Paul under widely
travelled St. differ-
ent circumstances, and turned towards the coast on the Presently left.
they began to descend among the western eminences and valleys of the
mountain-country,^ startling the shepherd on the hills of Ephraim, and
rousing the village peasant, who woke only to curse his oppressor, as he
4 This part of the road has been mentioned before (Yol.I. p. 85) as one where Dr.
Robinson followed the line of a Roman pavement. With the very full description in
his third volume, pp. 75-80, the map in the first volume should be compared. Mr. E.
Smith mentions this part of the route briefly. B. S. pp. 478, 479.
5 Yol. I. p. 85.
6 "We rode hastily to Bireh. . . . reached Bireh in 2 h. 20 m. . . . 35 m. from
Bireh,we came to ruins. Here we found we had mistaken our path. ... 30 m. from
hence we took the following bearings, &c. reached Jufna in 30 m." . . . B. S. 479.
Compare the time in Dr. Robinson's account.
7 Yol. I. p. 84.
8 We started [from Jufna] by the oldest road to Kefr Saba. . . . In 20 m. reached
Bir Zeit. In we found evident remains of the pavement of a Roman road,
this distance,
affording satisfactory proof that we had not mistaken our route." B. S. 480. " The
whole of our way down the mountain was a very practicable, and, for the most part, a
very easy descent. It seemed formed by nature for a road, and we had not descended
far from the point where our observations were made, before we came again upon the
Roman pavement. This we continued to find at intervals during the remainder of the
day. Id some places, for a considerable distance, it was nearly perfect ; and then,
again, it was entirely broken up, or a turn in our path made us lose sight of it. Yet
we travelled hardly half an hour at any time without finding distinct traces of it.
I do not remember observing anywhere before so extensive remains of a Roman road.''
p. 482. A few minutes beyond the village [Um Sufah], a branch of the road led oflF
in the right, where, according to our guides, it furnishes a more direct route to Keft
isabs .
But just at this point the Roman road was fortunately seen following the path
268 THE LIFE AOT EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
heard the hoofs of the horses on the pavement, and the well-known tramp
of the Roman soldiers. A second resting-place might perhaps be found at
Thamna,' a city mentioned by Josephus in the Jewish wars, and possibly
ohe " Timnath Heres," where Joshua ^ was buried " in Mount Ephraim, in
the border of his inheritance." And then they proceeded, still descending
over a rocky and thinly cultivated tract,^ till about daybreak they came to
the ridge of the last hill,'' and overlooked " the great plain of Sharon,
coming quite up to its base on the west." The road now turned north-
wards,^ across the rich land of the plain of Sharon, through fields of wheat
and barley,^ just then almost ready for the harvest. " On the east were
the mountains of Samaria, rising gradually above each other, and bounding
the plain in that direction : on the left lay a line of low wooded hills, shutting
on the left ; and thus informed us very distinctly that this was the direction for us to
take." p. 483.
1 One of the collateral results of Mr. Eli Smith's journey is the identification of the
site of this city not the Timnath of Josh. xv. 10 but a place mentioned in the fol-
lowing passages of Josephus, Ant. xiv. 11, 2. B. J. iii. 3, 5. iv. 8, 1 also 1 Mac. ix. 50. ;
It would appear that in our map, p. 84, this city ought to he placed considerably to
the northward, though still between Gophna and Diospolis. The ruins are now called
Tibneh.
' Josh. xix. 49, 50. xxiv. 30. Judg. ii. 8, 9. Mr. E. Smith observed some remark
able sepulchres at Tibneh.
3 B. S. 486, 487. The traveller was still guided by the same indications of the
ancient road. " Hastening on [from Tibneh] and passing occasionally portions of the
Roman road, we reached in 40 m. the large town of Abud. ... To the left of our
road we passed several sepulchral excavations, marking this as an ancient place. Oui
path led us for a considerable distance down a gentle but very rocky descent, which
was the beginning of a Wady. Through nearly the whole of it, we either rode upon
or by the side of the Roman road. At length the Wady became broader, and with its
declivities was chiefly occupied with fields of grain and other cultivation. After . . .
clearing the cultivation in the neighbourhood, we passed over a hilly tract, with little
cultivation,and thinly sprinkled with shrubbery. ... In our descent, which was not
great,we thought we could discern further traces of the Roman road. But it was
nearly dark, and we may possibly have been mistaken."
4 At this point is the village of Mejdel Yaba in the province of Nablous. " It stands
on the top of a hill, with the valley of Belat on the south, a branch Wady running into
it on the cast, and the great plain of Sharon coming quite up to its base on the west,"
p. 488. Mr. E, Smith arrived there at eight in the evening, having ridden about
thirty miles since the morning. The next day he says " I was disappointed in not
:
procuring so many bearings from Mejdel Yaba as I had hoped. The rising sun shoot-
ing his rays down the side of the mountain, prevented our seeing much in that direc-
tion." p. 490.
5 From Mejdel Yaba Mr. E. Smith did not take the direct road to Kefr Saba, " which
would have led northward, probably in the direction of the Roman road," but went
more to the w by Ras-el-Aiu, and across the river Anjeh near its source, and then
'.,
by Jiljulieh.
6 " Its soil is an inexhaustible black loam, and nearly the whole of it was now under
cultivation, presenting a scene of fertility and rural beauty rarely equalled. Immense
fields of wheat and barley waving in the breeze, were advancing rapidly to maturity.-
p. 491. This was on the 27th of April, almost the exact time of St. Paul's journey.
4
;
ANTIPATKI8. 269
it in from the sea." Between this higher and lower range, but on the
level ground, in a place well watered and richly wooded, was the town of
Antipatris. Both its history and situation are described to us by Josephus,
The ancient Caphar-Saba, from which one of the Asmonean princes had
dug a trench and built a wall to Joppa, to protect the country from inva-
sion,! was afterwards rebuilt by Herod, and named in honour of hia
abundance both of water and wood.'' In the narrative of the J ewish war,
Antipatris is mentioned as one of the scenes of' Yespasian's first military
proceedings.^ It afterwards disappears from history ; ^ but the ancient
name is still familiarly used by the peasantry, and remains with the physi-
cal features of the neighbourhood to identify the site.''
! AEiaag 6e 'AM^avSpog ttjv c<j)odov Avrioxov, rd^pov dpvTTet (3a6eiav, dizd rT}^
Xa6ap^a(3u KaTap^u/iievog, vvv Avrnvarptg KaXelrai, dxpl rirjg elg loTCTjv Oaldaarjg, y
rj
Kol fiovov Tjv kni/iiaxov. Joseph. Ant. xiii. 15, 1. Tovrov deiaag cTpareveodat eirl Tovg
'Apa6ag dpurjfievov, rb fxev /aera^v rrjg virep AvTinarpidog napopecov Koi ruv loirjjg
ded ; but they might very probably be required in the fortress of Antonia.
It would be in the course of the afternoon that the remaining soldiers witli
their weary horses entered the streets of Caesarea. The centurion who
remained in command of them ^ proceeded at once to the governor, and
gave up his prisoner and at the same time presented the dispatch,^ with
;
him down ^ to their Sanhedrin : and there I found that the charge had refer-
ence to certain questions of their law, and that he was accused of no offence
lefortthm}^ FarewdlP^^
1 It is explicitly stated that they came back to their quarters at Jerusalem (eff r^v
' One centurion would remain, while the others returned. Possibly he is the samo
officer who is mentioned, xxiv. 23.
3 'Avadovreg t^v k7naT0?>,i]v ^ye/x,ovi, 7capecT7}aav Kot tov HavXov avTu, v. 33.
4 See next chapter.
6 Tcj Kpauaro) ijye/iovi, v. 26. "His Excellency the Governor." This is evidently
an official title. TertuUus uses the same style, KpartaTS ^TjTn^, xxiv. 3, and Paul him-
self, KpuTLGTE ^rjaje, Xxvi. 25.
^vv Ttj orpaTevfiaTi, which is unfortunately translated in the English version
6
disgrace. But it was false for it is impossible not to see that /xaduv intends to con-
:
vey the impression that Paul's Roman citizenship was the cause of the rescue, whereas
this fact did not come to his knowledge till afterwards. Some of the commentators
have justly observed that this dexterous falsehood is an incidental proof of the genuine-
ness of the document.
8 KaTjjyayov. Here we may repeat what has been said above concerning the topo-
graphy of Antonia and the Temple.
9 This is the natural English translation of Sirefiipa. Our letters are expressed as
from the writer's point of view, those of the ancients were adapted to the position of
the reader.
'0 'Enl aov, at the termination, emphatic.
" 'E/5/5cjao. The MSS. vary as to the genuineness of this word. If the evidence ia
equally balanced, we should decide in its favour ; for it is exactly the Latin " Vale."
Such dispatches from a subordinate to a commanding officer would naturally be in
Latin. See Vol. I. p. 3, where however it ought to be added that Elogium is rathei
a report from a lower to a higher court, upon appeal
herod's pr^torium. 271
Felix /aised his eyes from the paper, and said, " To what province
floes he belong ?" It was the first question which a Roman governor
would naturally ask in such a case. So Pilate had formerly paused,
when he found he was likely to trespass on " Herod's jurisdiction." Be-
sides the delicacy required by etiquette, the Roman law laid down strict
decide thy cause,'* when thy accusers are come." Here then we leave the
Apostle for a time. A relation of what befel him at Csesarea will be
given in another chapter, to which an account of the pohtical state of
Palestine, and a description of Herod's city, will form a suitable intro-
duction.
^ 'E/c Tzotag eTtapxtcLQ . ho.l TzvOoizevog 6tl and KiXtKLac, v. 34. It has already
been observed (Vol. I. p. 143) that errapxia is a general term for both the emperor's
and the senate's provinces, just as T^yejuuv is a general term for the government at
either. For the province of Cilicia see pp. 249, 250.
AiGxovoo/iai GOV, r, v. 35. Compare Sia-yvuoD/xaiy xny 22.
THE LIFE AJSB EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
CHAPTEE XXII.
We have pursued a long and varied narrative, since we last took a gene-
ral view of the political history of Judaea. The state of this part of the
Empire in the year 44 was briefly summed up in a previous chapter (Yol
I. Ch. lY.). It was then remarked that this year and the year 60 were
the two only points which we can regard as fixed in the annals of the
earliest Church, and, therefore, the two best chronological pivots of the
Apostolic history.' We have followed the life of the Apostle Paul
through a space of fourteen years from the former of these dates : and
now we are rapidly approaching the second. Then we recounted the mis
erable end of King Agrippa I. Now we are to speak of Agrippa II.,
who, like his father, had the title of King, though his kingdom was not
identically the same.^
The life of the second Agrippa ranges over the last period of national
Jewish history, and the first age of the Christian Church : and both his
life and that of his sisters Drusilla and Berenice ^ are curiously connected,
> We assume that Festus succeeded Felix in the year 60. In support of this opinion
we must refer to the note (C) upon the Chronological Table in the Appendix.
" Agrippa II.
was made king of Chalcis a. d. 48 he received a further accession of
territory a. d. 53, and died, at the age of 70, a. d. 99. He was intimate with Josephus,
and was the last prince of the Ilerodian house.
3 Titus seems to have been only prevented from marrying this beautiful and profli-
gate princess by the indignant feeling of the Romans. See Dio Cass. Ixvi. 15. Bspe-
JLKT] ig TTju 'Vufjcrjv fiETd TOV udel<pov tov 'AyptTTTTa rjWe .... 7; (J^ V rw TraAariGj
L/CT/ac, Kal tu Tltu ovveyiyveTO' 'KpooedoKdTO St yajHTjOr/aeodai avrC), Kai rcdvTa 'tjdrj
<jr Kal yvvr) avTov ovaa krcouL ' uot' inelvov, dvax^pa-lvovTag Tovg 'Fufiatovg ettl tovtoi^
T/adrjuivov, dTzoTTtiLtpaaOat uvttjv. The name of Berenice is so mixed up with the his
tory 'jf Iho times, and bhc is so often mentioned, both by Josephus and by Roman
ROMAN GOVEENOES IN WDMA.
toy manifold links, with the general history of the times. Agrippa saw
the destruction of Jerusalem, and Uved till the first century was closed hi
the old age of St. John,the last of a dynasty eminent for magnificence
and intrigue. Berenice concluded a life of profligacy by a criminal con
nection with Titus the conqueror of Jerusalem. Drusilla became the wife
of Felix, and perished with the child of that union in the eruption of Ye-
suvius.
We have said that the kingdom of this Agrippa was not coincident
with that of his father. He was never, in fact, King of Judcea. The
three years, during which Agrippa I. reigned at Csesarea, were only an
interpolation in the long series of Roman procurators, who ruled Judaea
in subordination to the governors of Syria, from the death of Herod the
Great to the final destruction of Jerusalem. In the year 44, the second
Agrippa was only sixteen years old, and he was detained about the court
of Claudius, whilst Cuspius Fadus was sent out to direct the provincial
fter his death she lived with her brother, Agrippa, not without suspicion of the most
criminal intimacy {^rjixrjg eTnaxovarjg on ddsXfoj cvvt^el. Joseph. Ant. xx. 7, S.)
Compare Juvenal, vi. 155 :
" Adamas notissimus et Berenices
In digito factus pretiosior :hunc dedit olim
Barbarus incestae, dedit hunc Agrippa sorori."
It was during this period of her life that she made that marriage with Polemo, king
of Cilicia, which has been alluded to in the earlier part of this work. (Yol. I. p. 25.)
Soon she Polemo and returned to her brother and then it was that St. Paul waa
left :
brought before them at Ctesarea. After this time, she became a partisan of Vespasian.
(Berenice partes juvabat, florens Eetate formaque, et seni quoque Vespasiano magnifi
centia munerum grata, Tac. Hist. ii. 81.) Her connection with Vespasian's son ia
mentioned by Suetonius (Tit. 7) and by Tacitus (Hist. ii. 2), as well as by Dio Cassius
The one redeeming passage in her life is the patriotic feeling she displayed on tho
occasion alluded to Vol. II. p. 243. (See Joseph. B. J. II. 15, 16.)
1 From the British Museum. " This prince, notwithstanding the troubles which
now began to afflict his ill-fated country, spent large sums in improving and beautify-
ing Jerusalem, Berytus, and Csesarea Philippi. Of the latter there is a coin extant,
bearing the head of Nero : reverse EHI BA^^IAE. AFPinnA NEPS2NIE, within a
laurel garland, confirming the account of Josephus (Ant. xx. 9, 8), who says Herod
enlarged and called the city Neronias, in honour of the Emperor." Akerman, Num.
111. p. 57. There seems to be some doubt about the coins, one of which Mr. Akerman
gives, bearing the name of Agrippa, with the umbrella or tabernaculum (the Oriental
symbol of power) on one side, and on the other some ears of corn (perhaps having a
Bvmbolical reference to the oblation of the first-fruits, or perhaps only a substitute foy
4he representations which were repugnants to the Jews).
"V OL. TT 18
274 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
253) in placing under the care of the Jews the sacred vestments kept m
the tower of Antonia, and which gave to Herod king of Chalcis the
management of the temple and its treasury, and the appointment of the
high priests. And in other respects the Jews had reason to remember his
admimstration with gratitude ; for he put down the banditti which had
been the pest of the country under Agrippa ; and the slavish compliment
very worthy deeds had been done to the nation by his providence." He
was succeeded by Tiberius Alexander, a renegade Alexandrian Jew, and
the nephew of the celebrated Philo.'^ In relation to the life of this offi-
cial in Judaea, there are no incidents worth recording : at a later period
we see him at the siege of Jerusalem in command Roman forces under
of
Titus :
3 and the consequent inscriptions in his honour at Home served to
point the sarcasm of the Roman satirist.'' Soon after the arrival of Yen-
tidius Cumanus to succeed him as governor ^ in the year 48, Herod King
of Chalcis died, and Agrippa II. was placed on his throne, with the same
privileges in reference to the temple and its worship, which had been pos-
sessed by his uncle. " During the government of Cumanus, the low and
one of the soldiers in Antdaia at the time of a festival. Another was the
excitement which ensued after the burning of the Scriptures by the Ro-
man troops at Beth-Horon, on the road between Jerusalem and Caesarea.
An attack made by the Samaritans on some Jews who were proceeding
through their country to a festival, led to wider results.^ Appeal waa
made to Quadratus, governor of Syria : and Cumanus was sent to Rome
to answer for his conduct to the emperor. In the end he wls deposed,
and Felix, the brother of Pallas the freedman and favourite of Claudius^
succeed him.'
The naention of this governor, who was brought into such intimate
lations with St. Paul, demands that we should enter now more closely intd
details. The origin of Felix and the mode of his elevation would prepare
OS to expect in him such a character as that which is condensed into a few
words by Tacitus,*'' that " in the practice of all kinds of lust and cru-
elty he exercised the power of a king with the temper of a slave." The
Jews had, indeed, to thank him for some good services to their nation.
trates one part of the sentence, in which Tacitus describes his character,
so we may see the other parts of it justified and elucidated in the narra-
^ Josephus and Tacitus differ as to the circumstances of his first coming into the
East. According to one account he was joint-procurator for a time with Cumanus, the
latter holding Galilee, the former Samaria. From the circumstance of his being called
Antonius Felix, it has been supposed that he was manumitted by Antonia, the mother
of Claudius.
^ " Claudius, defunctis regibus aut admodicum redactis, Judaeam provinciam equi-
tibus Romanis aut libertis permisit e quibus Antonius Felix per otnnem scBvitiam
;
Felix, pari moderatione agebat, jam pridem Judseae impositus et cuncla malefacta sibi
Jmpune ratus tanta potentia subnixo.'' Ann. xii. 54.
3 B. J.
ii. 13, 2. 4 Aut. XX. 8, 6. B. J. ii. 13, 5.
See the preceding Chapter.
6 Ant. XX. 8, 5. His treachery to Eleazar the arch-robber, mentioned by Josephua
II the same section, should not be unnoticed.
' See Vol. I. p. 80, n. 1. By Suetonius (Claud. 28) Felix is called " Trium reglna-
r\im Maritus." One of these was another Drusilla.
76 THE LITE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAtTL.
Jewish and Heathen population, which grew so serious, that the tfoopa
were eallecl out into the streets, and both slaughter and plunder waa the
result.
and, finally, three legions were stationed in Britain and three in Judaea.
We know the very names of these legions. Just as we find memorials of
1See especially Eph. vi. 10-18 also 1 Thess. v. 8 ; and 2 Tim. ii. 3, 4.
:
^ We mayadd here, that the division of the provinces under the Emperors arose out
of an earlier division under the republic, when a Proconsul with a large military force
was sent to some provinces, and a Propra3tor with a smaller force to others. See
Hoeck's Rom. Gesch. I. ii. 180, 181.
3 It is enough here to refer to secondary authorities. Hoeck (1. ii. 183) enumerates
the legions and their stations in the time of Augustus Gibbon (Ch. i.) describes th :
" peace establishment of Hadrian," a hundred years later. The original sources of in-
formation are Tac. Ann. iv. 5 ; Dio Cass. Iv. 23 ;
and Joseph. B. J. ii. IG.
* "Hispaniae recens perdomitoe tribus [legionibus] habebantur." Tac. 1. c. At the
later period Gibbon assigns only one legion to the whole of Spain.
6 Tacitus (1. c.) assigns two legions to Africa: but loth before and afterwards only
one was required there. See Ann. ii.52. Hist. iL 97, iv. 23. It must be rememljered
that Egypt is not included.
c At the earlier period we find four legions in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates,
eight on the Rhine-frontier, and six along the Danube (two in Mcesia, two in Panno*
fiia, and two in Dalmatia). At the later period the force on each of these rivers waa
considerably greater. Sec Hoeck and Gibbon.
TKOOPS QD.VPwl^ED IN PALE3TIKE, 277
she second, tlie ninth, and the twentieth in connection with Chester' or
York, so by the aid of historians or historic monuments we can trace the
presence of the fifth, the tenth, and the fifteenth in Ciesarea, Ptolemais, oi
Jerusalem.' And here two principles must be borne in mind which regu-
lated the stations of the legions. They did not move from province tc
province, as our troops are taken in succession from one colony to aiK)ther y
but they remained on one station for a vast number of years. And they
were recruited, for the most part, from the provinces where they wer*
posted : for the time had long passed away when every legionary soldier
1 Antiquarians acquainted with the monuments of Chester are familiar with the
letters leg. xx. v. v. Valens Victrix).
^ In the History of Tacitus (v. 1) these three legions are expressly mentioned
Tres Titum in Judaea legiones, quinta et decuma et quinta decuma, vetus Vespasian!
miles, excepere." Compare i. 10, ii. 4. The same legions are mentioned by Josephus.
See, for instance, B. J. v. 1, 6, v. 2, 3. Orelli says that they were the V. Macedonica,
X. Fretensis, and XV. Apollinaris. The
mentioned in one of his Inscriptions
fifth is
(No. 1170) in connection with the names of Vespasian and Titus. The same legion is
mentioned on coins of Berytus and Heliopolis in Syria and the tenth on a coin of ;
the Roman citizenship. With the distinction between the Praetorian and legionary
goldiers, all necessary connection between citizenship and military service ceased to
exist. In strict conformity with this state of things we find that Cla udius Lysias waf
A citizen by purchase, not because he wa.s a military officer.
But the legionary soldiers, with tlieir cavalry and auxiharies, were not
the only military force in the empire, and, as it seems, not the only one
in Judaea itself. The great body of troops at Home (as we shall see wher
we have followed St. Paul to the metropolis) were tlie Prsetorian Guards,
amounting at this period to 10,000 men.^ These favoured forces were
entirely recruited from Italy ; " their pay was higher, and their time of
service shorter ;
and, for the most part, they were not called out on
foreign service.^ Yet there is much weight in the opinion which regards
the Augustan Cohort of Acts xxvii. 1, as a part of this Imperial Guard.*'
Possibly it was identical ^ with the Italic Cohort of Acts x. 1. It might
well be that the same corps might be called " Italic," because its men
were exclusively Italians ; and " Augustan," because they were properly
part of the Emperor's guard, though a part of them might occasionally be
attached to the person of a provincial governor. And we observe that,
1 It must be borne in mind that some of the soldiers mentioned in the Gospels be-
longed to Herod's military force but since his troops were disciplined on the Roman
:
horse {llri iirneuv Kokovjiivr] lleBacrijvcov), and secondly, we should expect a different
term to be used, such as cTcelpa Kal. ^e6. Wieseler's view may be seen in a long and
valuable note, p. 389. He thinks this cohort was a special corps enrolled by Nero under
the name of Augustani (Tac. Ann. xiv. 15). Augustiani (Suet. Nero. 20, 25). 'Avyova-
reioi. (Dio. Ixi. 20. Ixiii. 8). They were the 6lite of the Praetorians and accompanied
Nero to Greece. The date of their enrolment constitutes a difficulty. But might not
the cohort in question be some other detachment of the Prfetoriau guards ?
' If this is so, we must modify what has been said in Vol. I. p. 28, n. 2. The subject
has been alluded to again, in the account of Cornelius, p. IIG, n. 2. It is there shown
that this corps cannot have been a cohort of Nero's Legio prima Italica. One objeo-
tion to the view of Meyer, who identifies the two, is that Judaea was not under procu-
rators at the time of the conversion of Cornelius. But there is great obscurity about
the early dates in the Acts. If the Augustan cohort is identical with the Augustani
of Neio, it is clear that the Italic cohort is not the same.
C-iESAEEA. 279
while Cornelius (x. 1) and Julius (xxvii. 1) are both Koman names, it is
the shore. The best of the ruins are engulphed by the sand, or concealed
by the encroaching sea. The nearest road passes at some distance, so
that comparatively few travellers have visited Caesarea.^ Its glory was
short-lived. Its decay has been complete, as its rise was arbitrary and
sudden. Strabo, in the reign of Augustus, describes at this part of the
inhospitable coast of Palestine nothing but a landing-place, with a castle
called Strato's tower." Less than eighty years afterwards we read in
See Wieseler'3 argument, p. 393, and the Addenda at the end of his Chronologie.
1
The passages on which it is based are Tac. Hist. ii. 92. iv. 11.
' Fromthe British Museum. For the coins of Ciesarea see Sestini. 149. Eckhel
iii. Mionnet v. 486. Supp. viii. 334.
428.
3 Thus Dr. Robinson was prevented from visiting or describing what remains. The
fullest account is perhaps that in Buckingham's Travels (I. 197-215). See also Irby
and Mangles, and Lamartine. There is an excellent description of the place, with
illustrations, at the end of the first volume of Dr, Traill's Josephus, Woodcuts will
be found in Kitto's Cyclopedia, and in the first volume of Scripture Topography pub-
lished by the Chr. Kn. Society but the sources are not given.
: Our illustration, at
the close of this chapter, is from Bartlett's Footsteps of Our Lord and His Aposlhis.
4 Merd 6e ttjv "Akt/V, l^T^iruvog irvpyog irpoaopfiov exc^v '
fiera^v KdpfirjXog rt
OpG^. Strab. xvi. 2.
5 " Stratonis turris, eadem Caesarea, ab Herode rege condita nunc Colouia prima
:
Vespasian us Ctesaream : ilia Suriae, hfec Judiea? caput fct.'' Tac. Hist. ii. 79.
mo THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
father (see p. 269), he built on the shore between Dora and Joppa, where
Strato's castle stood near the boundary of Galilee and Samaria, a city of
the character of its remains which have been aptly termed " ruins of
ruins," show that it must have long been a city of note under the succes-
iid Tug Kard, Xita TTpooCoAaga passage which deserves careful attention, as illus-
trating Acts xxvii. 12.
'0 O 6i tlaTT'kovr KoL TO CTojxa neTrotfjTat Trpdg (So^^uv, bg dve/xuv alOpiuTaTog.
" See Plin. quoted above.
He was the first biblical geographer (as Forlwger remarks, in his account of Caisa-
rea), and to him we owe the Onomasticon, translated by Jerome. This place was als,
one of the Bcencs of Origcn's theological labours.
CJESAHEA. 281
close connection with Rome and the Emperors, and the large admixture of
heathen strangers in its population. Not only do we see here the resi-
dence of Roman procurators,^ the quarters of imperial troops,^ and the
port by which Judaea was entered from the west, but a Roman impress
was ostentatiously given to everything that belonged to Csesarea. The
conspicuous object to those who approached from the sea was
temple dedicated to Caesar and to Rome ^ the harbour was called :
struction du mole cet edifice s'avan^ait tres loin dans la mer le matiriaux les i^lus
; ;
riches servirent a former sa base." Yoj. dans le Levant, p. 77. This last circum-
stance the appearance of rich materials in the lowest courses of the present ruins
isshown in Mr. Tipping's third plate. B-e visited C^sarea in 1842, approaching from
the south, whence the point of the ruins appears " stretching into the sea and backed by
the sweep of Carmel." On leaving it, and advancing towards Carmel, he found evi-
dences of the former existence of a great population, " the face of the limestone rock,
which for the most part walls in the shore, being hewn into innumerable tombs.*'
^ We are inclined to think that the " praetorium " or " palace " of Herod (Acts xxviiL
35) was a different building from the official residence of Felix and Festus. See how
napayevo/xevog is used xxiv. 24, and compare xxv. 23. We shall have occasion again
to refer to the word npairupiov.
3 See above on the Augustan cohort.
4 This temple has been alluded to before. Vol. I. p. 115. The words of Josephus
are': JlsptKecvTa h KVKlcd rbv 7ii[j.eva XeLordrov lidov KaraaKsvy avvex^Q oUTjaetg^
(cdv Tcj} fia({} KoTiovog rig, ov vedg Kataapog aTvon-rog rolg lan?JovaLV, ixoJV
aydlfiaTa, to iitv Tufirig, to 6^ Katcapog. Ant. In B. J. he says that the statuei
were colossal, that of Caesar equal in size to the Olympian Jupiter, and that of Rome
to the Argive Juno.
5 We may refer here to the inscription on the coin of Agrippa 1., given in p. 2 of
the first volume : KAICAPIA H HPOC Ti2 CGBACTi2 AIMENI.
^ So it is called by Josephus. Ant. xvi. 51 : Uepl 6^ tov xP^vov ^ovtov ffwriXtim
''?m6ev 7] KaiadpeLa ^edvoTTj.
- Lightfoot on Acts vi. 1. See Yol. I. p. 36, n. 3.
Ant. XX. S, 7. B. J. ii. 13, 7.
282 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
\)roke oat, the first act of which was the slaughter of 20,000 Jews in the
streets of Csesarea.^
Such was the city in which St. Paul was kept in detention among the
Roman soldiers, till the time should come for his trial before that unscru
pulous governor, whose character has been above described. Ilis accusers
were not long in arriving. The law required that causes should be heard
speedily ;
and the Apostle's enemies at Jerusalem were not wanting in zeal.
Thus, "after five days,"''' the high priest Ananias and certain members of
the Sanhedrin^ appeared, with one of those advocates, who practised in
the law courts of the provinces, where the forms of Koman law were im,
perfectly known, and the Latin language imperfectly understood.'* Thd
man whose professional services were engaged on this occasion, was called
Tertullus. The name is Roman, and there is little doubt that he was an
Italian, and spoke on this occasion in Latin.'^ The criminal information
was formally laid lodove the governor.^ The prisoner was summoned,' and
Tertullus brought forward the charges against him in a set speech, which
we need not quote at length. He began by loading Felix with unmerited
praises,^ and then proceeded to allege three distinct heads of accusation
against St. Paul, charging him, first, with causing factious disturbances
among all the Jews throughout the Empire ^ (which was an offence against
the Koman Government, and amounted to Majestas or treason against the
Emperor), secondly, with being a ringleader of "the sect of the Naza-
renes"' (which involved heresy against the Law of Moses), and thirdly,
B. J. ii. 18, 1.
* It is most natui-al to reckon these five days from the time of Paul's departure from
Jerusalem.
3 Merd ruv npeaSvTepuv by which we are to understand representatives or depu-
'
advocati {^r/ropsg) were often employed. Geib. p. 602. It was a common practice
for young Roman lawyers to go with consuls and prsfitors to the provinces, and to
" qualify themselves by this provincial practice for the sharper struggles of the forum
at home." AVe have an instance in the case of Calius, who spent his youth in this
way in Africa (in qua provincia cum res erant et posseseiones paterna), turn usus,
quidam provincialis uon sine causa a magistratibus huic atati tributus. Cic. pro
CeeL 30). It must be remembered that Latin was the proper language of the law
courts in every part of the empire. See the quotation from Valerius Maximus in
Vol. I. p. 3, n. 1.
6 See again Vol. I. p. 3 and 4 for remarks on Tertullus and the peculiarly Latin
tharacter of the speech here given.
c 'Eved/uvioav tC) rjyefiovL /card lov WavXav.
' KX?y0tvrof avrov. The presence of the accused was required by the Roman law.
5 See above. It is worth while to notice here one phrase, did rrj^ ctjc 'n-povotac
which is exactly the Latin tuu providcntid. It may be illustrated by tlie inscription
PBOVii). AUG. on the coin of Commodus in the next chapter.
Kivovvra gtilglv txClgl toIq 'lov6aioL^ roig Kara Tijv oUov/xivyv.
'0 UooToaTilri/v rrig tC>v 'Na^copaUov alpfacur. See the note on atpeGig below, o
.
TPZKTULLUS. 283
with an attempt to profane the temple at Jerusalem/ (an offence not only
against the Jewish, but also against the Koman Law, which protected the
Jews in the exercise of their worship). He concluded by asserting (witt
serious deviations from the truth) that Lysias, the commandant of the
garrison, had forcibly taken the prisoner away, when the Jews were about
to judge him by their own ecclesiastical law, and had thus improperly
brought the matter before Felix.^ The drift of this representation, was
evidently to persuade Felix to give up St. Paul to the Jewish courts, in
which case his assassination would have been easily accomplished.^ i nd
the Jews, who were present, gave a vehement assent to the statements of
Tertullus, making no secret of their animosity against St. Paul, and '*
as-
briefly expressing his satisfaction that he had to plead his cause before one
to heresy, he had never swerved from his behef in the Law and the
Prophets, and that in conformity with that belief, he held the doctrine of a
resurrection, and sought to live conscientiously before the God of Lis
fathers,^ and, as to the Temple, so far from profaning it, he had been
V. 14. The authorised version unfortunately renders the same Greek word, in one
case by " sect," in the other *' heresy," and thus conceals the link of connection. Aa
regards NaC<^paiOf, this is the only place where it occurs in this sense. See Vol. I.
p. 119. In the mouth of Ananias it was a term of reproach, as XptoTcavog below
(xxvi. 28) in that of Agrippa.
'
"Of Kai TO lepbv eTcetpaoe (3e67jXci)oai.
^ We have before observed that the Sanhedrin was still allowed to exercise Criminal
Jurisdiction over Ecclesiastical offenders.
3 Compare the two attempts xxiii. 15 and xxv. 3.
4 HvvsnedtvTo appears to be the correct reading.
5 'Nevaavrog avrip tov rj-yejuovog Xeyeiv, v. 10. It is some help towards our real-
ising the scene in our imagination, if we remember that Felix was seated on the tribu-
nal {(3rj/uc) and Festus (xxv. 6).
like Gallio (xviii. 12)
6 (v. 11) it would be possible to begin with the ar-
In reckoning these twelve days
rival in Jerusalem instead of the departure for Csesarea, or we might exclude tli
days after the return to Csesarea. Wieseler's arrangement of the time is as follows
1st day Departure from Csesarea.
: 2nd Arrival at Jerusalem. 3rd Meeting of
: :
Ananias leaves Jerusalem. 13th Ananias reaches Ceesarea. Trial before Felix.
:
' It has been well observed that the classical phrase rw Trarpwcj Qeu (v. 14) was ju-
diciously employed before Felix. " The Apostle asserts that, according to the Romaa
law which allowed all men to worship the gods i>f their own nation, he is not open tc
any charge of irrellgiou." Humphry.
284 THE LIFE AlTD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
that no other charge was brought home to him before the Sanhedrin,
except what related to the belief that he held in common with the Phari-
sees. But, without further introduction, we quote St. Luke's summary of
his own words.
He denies the Knowiiig, as I do, that thou hast been judge over
iiim. this nation for many years, I defend myself in the
matters brought against me with greater confidence. For ^
it is
in thy power to learn, that only twelve days have jjassed since
1 went up to Jerusalem to worship. And neither in the temple,
nor in the synagogues, nor in the streets, did they find me disput-
ing with any man, or causing any disorderly concourse ^ of
people ; nor can they prove against me the things whereof they
now accuse me.
His own state- But
acknowledge to thee, that I follow the
this I
ment
case.
of
I'li
his
n ti it
which they call a sect,^ and thus worship the
opinion,^
God of my fathers. And I believe all things which are written
in the law and in ^ the Prophets and I hold a hope towards God,;
The connexion of this with the preceding is that Felix, having so long governed
the province, would know that Paul had not been resident there before, during several
years ; which he could easily ascertain the date of his recent arrival.
besides
^ 'EntavGTaaic is a Pauline word found nowhere else in N. T. except 2 Cor. xi. 28.
Luke here gives the outline) " Our nation is divided into religious parties, which
:
are called sects (aiptaeig) thus there is the sect of the Pharisees, and the sect of the
;
Sadducees, and so now we are called the sect of the Nazarenes. I do not deny that I
belong to the latter sect but I claim for it the same toleration which is extended by
;
the Roman law to the others. I claim the right which you allow to all the nations
under your government, of worshipping their national Gods (rcj Trarpw^ Ge^)."
5 The MSS. vary
here. Our translation follows the reading of the Vatican MS.
This shows that the Pharisees were the principal accusers of St. Paul and that
;
vhe effect produced upon them by his speech before the Sanhedrin was only momentary,
' Compare 2 Cor. v. & {'ho ko). k. t. A.) where the same conclusion is derived from
There was all the appearance of truthfulness in St. Paul's words : and
they harmonised entirely with the stateme.nt contained in the dispatch of
Claudius Lysias. Moreover, Felix had resided so long in Csesarea,^ whero
the Christian religion had been known for many years, ' and had penetrated
even among the troops, that he had a more accurate knowledge of their
religion" (v. 22) than to be easily deceived by the misrepresentations of
the Jews.i^ Thus a strong impression was made on the mind of this wicked
5 This is the only mention of this collection in the Acts, and its occurrence heie is a
etriking undesigned coincidence between the Acts and Epistles.
6
Jlpoa(l)opdg. We need not infer that St. Paul brought offerings to the temple with
fiim from foreign parts this in itself would have been not unlikely, but it seems in-
;
consistent with St. James's remarks (Acts xxi. 23, 24). The present is only a conden-
sation for " I came to Jerusalem to bring alms to my nation, and I entered the temple
10 make offerings to the temple."
7 We read riveg de with the best MSS.
The best MSS. read not v(p' here.
9 If these events took place in the year 58 A. d. he had been governor six years,
If See Acts viii. 40.
u Acts X. Besides other means of information, we must remember that DrusilU, hid
present wife, was a Jewess.
1* Such is the turn given by Wieseler and Meyer to the words aKptdeorepov elSc^g rd
"Kepi rrjc 66ov. Or they may be taken to denote that he was too well informed con-
cerning the Christian religion to require any further information that might be elicited
Vy the trial : it was only needful to wait for the coming of Lysias.
286 THE LIFE AlW E1ISTLES OF ST. PATJIi.
man. But his was one of those characters, which are easily affected hj
feelings, but always drawn away from right action by the overpowering
motive of self-interest. He could not make up his mind to acquit St.
Paul. He deferred all inquiry into the case for the present. "When
Lysias comes down," he said, I will decide finally >
between you."
Meanwhile he placed him under the charge of the centurion who had
brought him to Ceesarea,^ with directions that he should be treated with
kindness and consideration. Close confinement was indeed necessary, both
to keep him in safety from the Jews, and because he was not yet acquit-
ted : but orders were given that he should have every relaxation which
could be allowed in such a case,^ and that any of his friends should be
allowed to visit him, and to minister to his comfort."*
We read nothing, however, of Lysias coming to Caesarea, or of any
further judicial proceedings. Some few days afterwards ^ Eehx came into
the audience-chamber ^ with his wife Drusilla, and the prisoner was sum-
moned before them. Drusilla, "being a Jewess" (v, 24), took a lively
interest in what Felix told her of Paul, and was curious to hear something
of this faith which had " Christ" for its object.' Thus Paul had an op-
portunity in his bonds of preaching the Gospel, and such an opportunity
as he could hardly otherwise have obtained. His audience consisted of a
Roman libertine and a profligate Jewish princess : and he so preached, as
a faithful Apostle must needs have preached to such hearers. In speaking
of Christ, he spoke of " righteousness and temperance and judgment to
come," and while he was so discoursing, " Felix trembled." Yet still we
hear of no decisive result. "Go thy way for this time : when I have a
convenient season, I will send for thee," was the response of the con-
science-stricken but impenitent sinner, the response which the Divine
Word has received ever since, when listened to in a hke spirit.
' AiayvuGOfiai
^ Ttj 'kKarovT. not "a centurion" as in A. Y.
A natural inference from the use
of the article is, was the same centurion who had brought St. Paul from Anti*
that it
patris (see above) and Mr. Birks traces here an undesigned coincidence. But no stress
can be laid on this view. The officer might be simply the centurion who was present
and on duty at the time.
3 "'ExELv re aveaLv. See below.
^ Kci nr)'V:va kuXvelv tuv 16luv avTov vTTrjperelv avru,
" Merd ijfi^oac TLvag.
By Tvapayevoixevog we must understand that Felix and Drusilla came to some
place convenient for an audience, probably the uKpoarTjpcov mentioned below (xxv. 23)
where the Apostle spoke before Festus with Drusilla's brother and sister, Agrippa and
JJerenice.
' Observe the force of ovay 'lovdai^. We should also notice the pnrase by which
the Goppel is here described, t/jc elg XpioTov Triareug, i. e. the faith in Christ or tho
Messiah. The name "C/jma'an" was doubtless familiarly known at Caisarea. And
ft Jewish princess must necessarily have been curious to hear some account of what
t>rofcsscd to be the fullilment of Jewish prophecy. Compare xxv. 22.
We are explicitly informed why this governor shut his ears to convic-
tion, and even neglected his official duty, and kept his prisoner in cruel
suspense. " He hoped that he might receive from Paul a bribe for his
tle's labours at so critical a time, two years taken from the best part of
a life of such impoftance to the world, would seem to us a mysterious
dispensation of Providence, ifwe did not know that God has an inner
work to accomplish in those, who are the chosen instruments for effecting
His greatest purposes. As Paul might need the repose of preparation in
1 Albinus, who succeeded Festus, is said to have released many prisoners, but those
only from whom he received a bribe. Joseph. Ant. xx. 8, 5. B. J. ii. 14, 1.
' This suggestion is made by Mr. Birks. For the contributions which St. Paul had
recently brought to Jerusalem, see above.
3 We may contrast ujiileL (v. 26) with dtaXeyo/nevov (v. 25) as we have done before
in the narrative of the night-service at Troas, xx. 9. 11.
4 words in v^hich Socrates refused the aid of hii
It is allowable here to refer to the
friends, who urged him from prison while in comparing the two cases we
to escape :
cannot but contrast the vague though overpowering sense of moral duty in the heathen
philosopher, with the clear and lofty perception of eternal realities in the ingpirel
Apostle.
5 See Vol. I. pp. 96, 97.
* See Olshausen's excellent remarks. Komm. p. 898.
7 It is well known that some have thought that the Ephesians, Colossiana, n6
Pliilemon, were written hero, This question will be considered hereafter.
^
sible conjecture fixes this period and place for the writing of St. Luke*
at his own arbitrary pleasure ; and he might also commit the prisoner at
his discretion to any of the several kinds of custody recognised by the Ro-
man law. These were as follows :
^
first, confinement in the public gaol
{custodia jpubUca) which was the most severe kind ; the common gaols
throughout the empire being dungeons of the worst description, where the
prisoners were kept in chains, or even bound in positions of torture. Of
this we have seen an example in the confinement of Paul and Silas at
Philippi. Secondly, free custody {custodia libera), which was the mildest
kind. Here tlie accused party v^as committed to the charge of a magis-
trate or senator, who became responsible for his appearance on the day of
trial ; but this species of detention was only employed in the case of men
of high rank. Thirdly, military custody (custodia militaris), which was
introduced at the beginning of the Imperial ^ regime. In this last species
of custody the accused person was given in charge to a soldier, who was
responsible with his own life for the safe keeping of his prisoner. This
was further secured by chaining the prisoner's right hand ^ to the soldier's
left. The soldiers of course relieved one another^ in this duty. Their
prisoner was usually kept in their barracks, but sometimes allowed to reside
in a private house under their charge.
It was under this latter species of custody that St. Paul was now
placed by Felix, who " gave him in charge to the centurion, that he should
be kept in custody" (Acts xxiv. 23) ; but (as we have seen) he added
tlie direction, that he should be treated with such indulgence as this kind
' See some good observations on this Bubject in Appendix E. of Tate's Continuous
History. Compare Mr. Humphry's note on v. 27.
* The authorities for the following statements will be found in Geib, pp. 561-569.
2 Tac. Ann. iii. 2. xiv. 60.
4 Seneca de Tranquill. c. 10. Alligati sunt etiam qui alligaverunt, nisi tu forte
leviorem in sinistra catenam putas.
6 See Wieseler, Chron. p. 306.
c Meyer and De Wette have understood this aa
'F.xf^iv uveoLv (Acta xxiv. 23).
thouf^'h Paul was committed to the cusiodia libera; but we have seen that thid
St.
kind of distention was only employed in the case of men of rank and, moreover, the ;
ACCESSION OF KESTCS.
mention of the centurion excludes it. But besides this, it is expressly stated (Acts
xxiv. 27) that Felix left Paul chained {dede^ivov). The same word dveaig (relaxa-
tion) is applied to the mitigation of Agrippa's imprisonment (Jos. Ant. xviii. 6, 10)
on the accession of Caligula although Agrippa was still left under custodia militaris,
and still bound with a chain. (See Wieseler, p. 381, note 2.) We shall have occasion
to refer again to this relaxation of Agrippa's imprisonment, as illustrating that of
St.Paul at Rome. There was, indeed, a lighter form of custodia militaris sometimes
employed, under the name of observatio, when the soldier kept guard over his prisoner,
and accompanied him wherever he went, but was not chained to him. (Tac. Ann. iv.
60-67.) To this we might have supposed St. Paul subjected, both ai Caesarea and at
Rome, were not such an hypothesis excluded as to Caesarea by the dsde/ihov (A.
xxiv 27) and dea/icov (A. xxvi. 29), and as to Rome by izpecSevu kv uIvoel (Eph. vL
20), and rovg deafiovg fiov (Phil. i. 13). Compare Acts xxviii. 16, 21.
1 Such seems the meaning of dveaeug ttjc dg r^v diatrav in the passage referred
to in the preceding note.
' Albinus. See above, p. 287. Josephus says that, though he received bribes foe
opening the prisons, he wished by this act to make himself popular, when he found he
was to be superseded by Gessius Florus.
VOL. 11 19
290 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
was coarse and cruel, like that of Felix, or reasonable and just, as that of
Festus seems to have been, ^his first step would be to make himself ac-
quainted with the habits and prevalent feelings of the people he was come
more peculiarly asso-
to rule, and to visit such places as might seem to be
ciated with national interests. The Jews were the most remarkable people
in the whole extent of the Jewish provinces and no city was to any other :
people what Jerusalem was to the Jews. We are not surprised, therefore,
to learn that " three days " after his arrival at the political metropolis,
Festus " went up to Jerusalem." Here he was immediately met by an
urgent request against St. Paul,' preferred by the chief priests and leading
men among the Jews,'* and seconded, as it seems, by a general con-
course of the people, who came round him with no little vehemence and
clamour.3 They asked as a favour (and they had good reason to hope
that the new governor ^ on his accession would not refuse it), that he would
allow St. Paul to be brought up 16 Jerusalem. The plea, doubtless, was,
that he should be tried again before the Sanhedrin. But the real purpose
was to assassinate him ^ on some part of the road, over which he had been
safely brought by the escort two years before. So bitter and so enduring
was their hatred against the Apostate Pharisee. The answer of Festus
was dignified and just, and worthy of his oflGice. He said that Paul was
in custody ' at Caesarea, and that he himself was shortly to return thither
(v. 4), adding that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up an
uncondemned person as a mere favour ^ (v. 16). The accused must have
the accuser face to face,^ and full opportunity must be given for a defence
J
'Evecpdviaav, v. 2. Alrovjuevoi Kar' avrov Siktjv, v. 15. We should eompare St.
Luke's statement with the two accounts given by Festus himself to Agrippa, below.
' Oi. upxicpcl^ Koi ol npuTOi to)v 'lovdatuv Kard tov Uavlov, v. 2. ol apxiepelg koX
el ToeafSvTepoi to)v 'I. v. 15. Thus the accusers were again representatives of the
Sanhedrin.
3 See the second account given by Festus himself to Agrippa, below, v. 24. 'Anav
rd 'n?aiQog tuv 'Jovdaiuv hirvxov /not Iv re 'lepoaolvfxoig koI hdddsy kntSouvTcc /a^
iefy avTov jUT/KeTi.
to be brought before him. " The Jews who had come down from Jerii-
said of PauPs defence, that the charges were still classed under the same
three heads as before ;
viz. Heresy, Sacrilege, and Treason.^ But Festus
saw very plainly that St. Paul's offence was really connected with the
religious opinions of the Jews, instead of relating, as he at first suspected, to
some political movement (vv. 18, 19) and he was soon convinced that he ;
had done nothing worthy of death (v. 25). Being, therefore, in per-
plexity (v. 20), and at the same time desirous of ingratiating himself with
the provincials (v. 9), he proposed to St. Paul that he should go up to
Jerusalem, and be tried there in his presence, or at least under his pro-
tection.9 But the Apostle knew full well the danger that lurked in this
proposal, and conscious of the rights which he possessed as a Roman
citizen, he refused to accede to it, and said boldly to Festus :
0. 595, and p. 689. Compare the following passages: Acts xxiii. 30. xxiv. 19.
XXV. 5.
^ 01 ovv h vfuv dvvaTol avyKarajSavTeg, k. r, A. v. 5.
The course of the narrative shows that they went immediately. This is also as-
'
serted in the word avyKarajSavTe^, which does not necessarily imply that they weni
down in the same company with Festus.
3 T-^ knavpLov, v. 6. ry k^rj^, v. 17.
4 Kadiaag errl tov pTjfiaTOQy w. 6, 17.
s y. 7,
6 See where the knipouvTeg [it)
V. 24, delv ^tjv avrbv h'^ketl is said to have taken
place both at Jerusalem and Caesarea.
7 At this period, an accused person might be kept in prison indefinitely, by the
delay of the accuser, or the procrastination of the magistrate. See our note on thui
lubject, at the beginning of Chap. XXIV.
8 Acts XXV. 8. (1) elg rhv vof^ov ; (2) eig to lepbv ; (3) elg Kai<rapa.
'Ett* e/iov. V. 6. In v. 2 this is omitted.
292 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
needless to say that it was often exercised in the most arbitrary manner.
But the Roman citizens in the provinces, though also liable to be brought
before the judgment-seat of the Governor, were protected from the abuse
of his authority ; for they had the right of stopping his proceedings against
appeal to be lodged in the hands of the Court pronunciation of the single word
;
Jippello was sufficient to suspend all further proceedings. (See Geib, p. 686.)
< We must not confound this right of Appellatio to the Tribunes with the right of
appeal (Provocatio) to the Comitia which belonged to every Roman citizen. Thia
latter right was restricted, even in the Republican era, by the institution of tha
QucEstiones Perpetuce ; because the judices appointed for those Quaestiones being re-
garded as representatives of the Comitia, there was no appeal from their decisions.
In the time of the Emperors, the Comitia themselves being soon discontinued, thia
right of Trovocatio could be no longer exercised. On this subject see Geib, p. 152--168
and 387-392.
"
which the right of appeal was disallowed ; a bandit or a pirate, for ex-
ample, taken in the fact, might be condemned and executed by the Pro-
consul, notwithstanding his appeal to the Emperor. Accordingly, we read
that Festus took counsel with his Assessors,^ concerning the admissibility
of Paul's appeal. But no doubt could be entertained on this head ; and
he immediately pronounced the decision of the Court. ^'Thgu hast
appealed 3 unto Caesar ; to Caesar thou shalt be sent."
Thus the hearing of the cause, as far as Festus was concerned, had
terminated. There only remained for him the office of remitting to the
Bupreme tribunal, before which it was to be carried, his official report
upon its previous progress. He was bound to forward to Rome all the
acts and documents bearing upon the trial, the depositions of the wit-
nesses on both sides, and the record of his own judgment on the case
And it was his further duty to keep the person of the accused in safe
custody, and to send him to Rome for trial at the earliest opportunity.
I
' According to Dio, this was already the case so early as the time of Augustus who ;
(he says) established the prirtciple firjr' avrodiKog iltit' avroreX^g ovru rig to izapdnav
aT<j, ucT /irj ovK e^eaiftov an' avTov dUrjv yiyveadai. (Dio 52-33.) It may be
doubted whether the Emperor at first claimed the right of revepsing the sentences pro-
nounced by the judices of the Quaestiones Perpetuae, which were exempt from the In-
tercessio of the Tribune (Geib, 289-290). But this question is of less importance,
because the system of Quaestiones Perpetuae was soon superseded under the Empire, aa
we shall afterwards have an opportunity of remarking.
* For a notice of such consiliarii in a province, see Sueton. Tib. 33. Their office
Ras called assessura. Sueton. Galb. 14. Compare Juvenal's " Quando in consilio
est aedilibus?
3 The sentence is not interrogative, as in A. V., but the words express a solemB
iecision of the Procurator and his Assessors.
* This report was termed Apostoli, or literce dimissorice. See Geib, p. 689
Apostle Paul." His curiosity was aroused, and he expressed a wish to see
the prisoner. Festus readily acceded to the request, and fixed the next
day for the interview.
At the time appointed Agrippa and Berenice came with great pomp
and display and entered into the audience-chamber, with a suite of mili-
Festus, Paul was brought before them. The proceedings were opened by
a ceremonious speech from Festus himself,^ describing the circumstances
under which the prisoner had been brought under his notice, and ending
all the Jews. They knew me of old ' (I scy) from the
beginning, and can testify (if they would) that following the
strictest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now I
stand here to be judged, for the hope of the promise ^ made by
God unto our fathers. Which promise is the end whereto, in all
their zealous worship,'* night and day, our twelve tribes hope to
come. Yet this hope, O king Agrippa, is charged against me as
a crime, and that by Jews.^ What! is it judged among you a
thing incredible that God should raise the dead ?
Now 1 myself^ determined, in my own mind, that He desmbea
' This is an argumentum ad homines to the Jews, whose own Scriptures furnished
them with cases where the dead had been raised, as for example by Elisha.
6 The eyw from its position must be emphatic.
This speech should be carefully compared with that in Ch. xxii., with the view ol
observing St. Paul's judicious adaptation of his statements to his audience. Thus,
fiere he calls the Christians ayioi, which the Jews in the Temple would not have tole-
rated. See some useful remarks on this subject by Mr. Birks. Hor. Ap. vii. viii.
10 T7?V.
" 'Avaipovjuhuv literally when they were bei?ig destroyed. On the KaTrjveyKt
*l)TjOov see Vol. I. p. 78.
1' 'RvdyKui^ov. For this well known signification of the imperfect ?er Winer
K 41. 3.
m THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
whereo?''had
Whoreupou, O King Agrippa, I was not disobe-
brought on iiini
the hatred of
dicut to tho lieavenlv vision. ^
But first to those at
the Jews.
Damascus and Jerusalem, and throughout all the land
of Judsea,^ and also to the Gentiles, I proclaimed the tidings that
1 By upxiepet^ here, and above, verse 10, is maant (as in Luke xxii. 52. Acts v. 24)
the presidents of the 24 classes {k(l)7jiueplai) into which the priests were divided. These
were ex members of the Sanhedrin, see Winer's Real-Worterbuch, p. 271. In
officio
the speech on the stairs accordingly St. Paul states that he had received his commis-
Bion to Damascus from the high priest and Sanhedrin (Acts xxii. 5).
^ The circumstance of the light overpowering even the blaze of the mid-day sun is
St Paul relates all which the Lord had revealed to him, both at the moment of hh
conversion, and, subsequently, by the voice of Ananias, and by the vision at Jeru-
salem. See Acts xxii. 12-21.
4 We have here the very words of Ananias (Acts xxii. 14, 15) observe especially ;
' 'Err carptipai, neuter, Compare, for the use of this word by
not active, as in A. V.
St.Paul (to signify the conversion of the Gentiles) 1 Thess. i. 9, and Acts xiv. 15,
Also below, verse 20.
This does not at all prove, as has sometimes been supposed, that Saul did noi
preach in Arabia when he went there soon after his conversion see Vol. I. pp. 95 97. ;
' How are we to reconcile this with St. Paul's statement (Gal. i. 22) that he con-
tinuod personally unknown to the Churches of Judaea for many years after his conver-
*ion ? We must either suppose that, In the present passage, he means to speak not iu
the order of time, but of all which he had done up to the present date or else wv j
SPEECH BEFORE AGRIPPA. 29T
fchey should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of their
repentance.
For these causes the Jews, when thej caught me in the
temple, endeavoured to kill me.
Therefore,^ through the succour which I have re- Yet his teach-
ceived from God, I stand firm unto this day, and bear wuh ihe^jtw-
S'^'^^p*^^**
my testimony both to small and great ; but I declare
nothing else than what the Prophets and Moses foretold. That ^ the
Messiah should suffer, and that He should be the first ^ to rise
from the dead, and should be the messenger ^ of light to the house
of Israel, and also to the Gentiles.
and surprise. To the cold man of the world, as to the inquisitive Athe-
nians, the doctrine of the resurrection was foolishness : andheeaid, "Paul,
thou art mad : thy incessant study ^ is turning thee to madness." The
Apostle had alluded in his speech to writings which had a mysterious
Bound, to the Prophets and to Moses' (vv. 22, 23) : and it is reasonable to
believe that in his imprisonment, such " books and parchments," as he
afterwards wrote for in his second letter to Timotheus,'^ were brought to
him by his friends. Thus Festus adopted the conclusion that he had
l^efore him a mad whose head had been turned by pormg over
enthusiast,
strange learning. The Apostle's reply was courteous and self-possessed,
I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words
of truth and soberness : For the king has knowledge of these
may perhaps suppose that St. Luke did not think it necessary to attend to a minuto
detail of this kind, relating to a period of St. Paul's life with which he was himself
not personally acquainted, in giving the general outline of this speech.
1 Ovv here cannot mean " however." See Winer's remarks, 57, p. 425.
' Ei occurs here when we should expect on ; because the doctrines mentioned wero
matters i
and moreover I speak to him with boldness becaiiso ;
Then, turning to the Jewish voluptuary who sat beside the governor,
1 'Ev oMyu cannot mean " almost (as it is in the Au thorised version) which would
be TTOjo' oXtyov. It might mean either " in few words " (Eph. iii. 3), or " in a small
measure,^' or " in a small time." The latter meaning agrees best with the following,
h oAi'ycj Kal iv ttoAX^j (or fieyd7,(f) as the best MSS. read). We might render the pas-
sage thus: "Thou thinkest to make me a Christian with little persuasion." We
should observe that neldeig is in the present tense, and that the title " Christian " was
one of contempt. See 1 Pet. iv. 16.
* The best MSS. have /zeya/l^, not noTiXi^.
' ^kveoTT) 6 (3aai2,ev^, k. t. X. v. 30.
* ^AvaxcjpvoavTe^ iXu?.ovv Trpdg uA/^^Aovf, v. 31.
s 'O uvdpcjTrog ovTo;, which again is contemptuous. See the remarks on roi)f ivOp^
rovf iKelvovg, Acts xvi. 39. (Vol. I. p. 309.) Claudius Lysias uses the expiersjsioa
CHAPTEE XXin.
JLmmer, immer nach West ! Dort muss die Kiisle sich zeigen.
TKiue dem leitenden Gott. Schiller.
knowledge of seamanship was required for the elucidation of the whole subject and ;
none of the ordinary commentators seem to have looked on it with the eye of a sailor.
The first who examined St. Paul's voyage in a practical spirit was the late Admiral
Sir Charles Penrose, whose life has been lately published (Murray, 1851). His MSS.
have been kindly placed in the hands of the writer of this chapter, and they are fre-
quently referred to in the notes. A similar investigation was made subsequently, but
independently, and more minutely and elaborately, by James Smith, Esq. of Jordan-
hill, whose published work on the subject (Longmans, 1848) has already obtained an
European reputation. Besides other valuable aid, Mr. Smith has examined the sheeti
of this chapter, as they have passed through the press. We have also to express our
acknowledgments for much kind assistance received from Admu*al Moorsom and othei
naval officers.
300 THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL
sarj to allude, after the full illustration which the subject has now re*
ceiv3d.^ We must not entertain the notion that all the commerce of the
ancients was conducted merely by means of small craft, which proceeded
timidly in the day time, and only in the summer season, along the coast
from harbour to harbour, and which were manned by mariners almost
ignorant of the use of sails, and always trembling at the prospect of a
Btorm. We cannot, indeed, assert that the arts either of ship building or
navigation were matured in the Mediterranean so early as the first century
of the Christian era. The Greeks and Romans were ignorant of the use
of the compass :
^ the instruments with which they took observations
must have been rude compared with our modern quadrants and sextants
and we have no reason to believe that their vessels were provided with
nautical charts : * and thus, when " neither sun nor stars appeared," and
the sky gave indications of danger, they hesitated to try the open sea.^
But the ancient sailor was well skilled in the changeable weather of the
Levant, and his very ignorance of the aids of modern science made him
the more observant of external phenomena, and more familiar with his
own coasts.*^ He was not less prompt and practical than a modern sep*-
The is to the dissertation on " The Ships of the Ancients " in Mr.
reference here
ISmith's work on
Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, pp. 140-202. This treatise
the
may be regarded as the standard work on the subject, not only in England, but in
Europe. It has been translated into German by H. Thiersch (Uber den Schiffbau der
Grlechen und Romer Marb. 1851), and it is adduced by K. F. Hermann, in his recently
:
is hardly necessary to refer to any of the older works on the subject. A fall catalogue
is given in Mr. Smith's Appendix. Bayf and Scheffer will be found in the eleventh
volume of Gronovius. We shall have occasion to refer to Bockh's Urkiinden pre-
Bently.
" See Humboldt's Kosmos, Vol. H., for the main facts relating to the history of the
Compass.
3 We have no information of any nautical instruments at the time when we read of
Ptolemy's mural quadrant at Alexandria; nor is it likely that any more effectual
means of taking exact observations at sea, than the simple quadrant held in the hand,
were in use before the invention of the reflecting quadrants and sextants by Hooke
and Iladley. The want of exact chronometers must also be borne in mind.
* The first nautical charts were perhaps those of Marinus of Tyre (a.d. 150) whom
dangerous coast.
The ship of the Greek and Roman mariner was comparatively rude^
both in its build and its rig. The hull was not laid down with the fine
men,3 were not steered by means of a single rudder, but by two paddle-
rudders, one on each quarter. Hence "rudders" are mentioned in the
plural^ by St. Luke (Acts xxvii. 40) as by heathen writers: and the
fact is made still more palpable by the representations of art, as in
the coins of Imperial Rome or the tapestry of Bayeux : nor does the
hinged rudder appear on any of the remains of antiquity, till a late period
in the middle ages.^
And as this mode of steering is common to the two sources, from
which we must trace our present art of ship-building, so also is the same
mode of rigging characteristic of the ships both of the North Sea and the
Mediterranean.^ We find in these ancient ships one large mast, with
strong ropes rove through a block at the mast head, and one large sail,
" As both ends were alike, if we suppose a full-built merchant-ship of the present
day, cut in two, and the stern half replaced by one exactly the same as that of the bow,
we have a pretty accurate notion of what these ships were." Smith, p. 141.
shall
" For a full description and explanation of ancient triremes, &c. see Mr. Smith's Dis-
sertation.
See Vorsaee on the Danes and Northmen in England. He does not describe the
3
ing to this arrangement, when we enter upon the incidents of St. Paul's
voyage (xxvii. It, 19). One consequence was, that instead of the strain
being distributed over the hull, as in a modern ship, it was concentrated
upon a smaller portion of it : and thus in ancient times there must have
been a greater tendency to leakage than at present ; ^ and we have the
testimony of ancient writers to the fact, that a vast proportion of the
vessels lost were lost by foundering. Thus Yirgil,'* whose descriptions of
everything which relates to the !sea are peculiarly exact, speaks of the
ships in the fleet of JEneas as lost in various ways, some on rocks and
some on quicksands, but all with fastenings loosened and Josephus re-
the second day, and finally " threw out the cargo of wheat into the sea "
(xxvii. 18, 19, 38).
masts than one. Topsails {suppara) are frequently alluded to : and we shall have
occasion hereafter to refer particularly to a second mast, besides the mainmast. See
Mr. Smith's Dissertation, p. 151, and the engraving there given from M. Jal's Axcheo-
logie Navale.
1 See Smith, p. 63.
" Laxis laterum compagibus omnes
Accipiunt inimicum imbrem, rimisque fatiscunt."
3 Vit. c. 3. Mr. Smith remarks here (p. 62) that, since Josephus and some of hia
companions saved themselves by swimming, " the ship did not go down during the
gale, but in consequence of the damage she received during its continuance." For
the meaning of the word " Adria," see below.
* Probably with the aid of floating spars, &c. See note on 2 Cor. xi. 25.
6 This is what is called "/rapping " by seamen in the English navy, who are alwaya
taught how to frap a ship. The only difference is that the practice Is now resorted to
much less frequently, and that modem ships are not supplied with " undergirders
Bpccially prepared. The operation and its use are thus described in Falconer's Marine
Dictionary :
" To frap a ship is to pass four or five turns of a large cable-laid rope
round the hull or frame of a ship, to support her in a great storm, or otherwise, when
it is apprehended that she is not strong enough to resist the violent I'fforts of the sea.'
' KAViaiTION OF THE ANCrEOTS. 3U3
riod ; ' as one of the most remarkable accounts of the application of thesa
artificial "helps" (xxvii. It) in a storm, is to be found in the narrative
before us.
If these differences between ancient ships and our own are borne in
mind, the problems of early seamanship in the Mediterranean are nearly
reduced to those with which the modern navigator has to deal in the same
seas. The practical questions which remain to be asked are these. Wliat
were the dimensions of ancient ships ? How near the wind could thoy
sail ? And, with a fair wind, at what rate ?
In most of the European languages the nautical term is, like the Greek, expressive of
the nature of the operation. Germ, umgurten; Dutch,
Fr. ccintrer ; ItaJ. cingere ;
by A, Bockh, under the title Urkunden iiber das Seewesen des Attischen Staatea
(Berlin, 1840). A complete account is given of everything with which the Athenian
ships were supplied, with the name of each vessel, &c. and we find that they all :
carried irroCujuaTa, which are classed among the oKevi] Kpe/nacra^ or hanging gear, aa
opposed to the ck. ^vTiiva, or what was constructed of timber. See especially No. XIV.,
where mention is made of the ships which were on service in the Adriatic, and which
carried several vTro^uaara. Bockh shows (pp. 133-138) that these were ropes passed
round the body of the ship, but he strangely supposes that they were passed from stem
to stern (vom Vordertheil bis zum Hintertheil) identifying them with a certain appar
ratus called tormentum by Isidore (Orig. xix. 4, 4), who, however, seems to describe
the common undergirding ropes under the term mitra (funis quo navis media vincitur,
lb. 4, 6). See Smith, p. 174. Bockh says that Schneider (on Vitruv. x. 15, 6) was
the first to think that the vTzo^ufia was not of wood, but tauwerk. He refers, in illus-
tration, to Hor. Od. i. 14, 6, and Plat. Rep. x. 3, 616, c. to vTzo^oivvvvaL as used by ;
Polyb. xxvii. 3, 3, and 6La^u)vvvvaL by Appian, B.C. v. 91, and ^uwvvaL by App. Rhod.
i. 368 ;
to a representation of Jonah's ship in Boeii Roma Subterranea ; to a small re
lief in the Berlin Museum (No. 622), and in Beger Thes. Brand, iii. 406. The ibif
of Ptolemy described by Athenaeus, carried (eAa///?ai^e) twelve iTroCtj/^aTO,
^ See below on the traffic
between the provinces and Rome.
3 Described in Athenaeus, v. 204.
4 Navigium seu Vota. From
the length and breadth of this ship as given by Lucian,
Mr. Smith infers that her burthen was between 1000 and 1100 tons, pp, 147-150
304 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
of weatlier into the Piraeus, furmshes us with satisfactory data for the
calculation of the tonnage of ancient ships. Two hundred and seventy-
six souls ^ were on board the ship in which St. Paul was wrecked (xxvii.
31), and the "Castor and Pollux" conveyed them, in addition to her
own crew, from Malta to Puteoli (xxviii. 11) : while Josephus informs
Jis ^ that there were six hundred on board the ship from which he, with
about eighty others, escaped. Such considerations lead us to suppose
fnat the burthen of many ancient merchantmen may have been from Jive
hundred to a thousand tons.
haw many points of the wind she should sail ? That ancient vessels could
not work to windward, is one of the popular mistakes ^ which need not be
1 " The ship must have been of considerable burden, as we find there were no kas
than 276 persons embarked on board her. To afford fair accommodation for troopa
in a transport expressly fitted for the purpose, we should allow at the rate of a ton
and a half to each man, and, as the ship we are considering was not expressly fitted
for passengers, we may conclude that her bui'den was fully, or at least nearly double
tihe number of tons, to the souk on board, or upwards of 500 tons." Penrose, MS.
Vit. c. 3.
' As it is essential, for the pm^ose of elucidating the narrative, that thts language
Bhould be clearly understood, a compass has been inserted on this page, and some
words of exjilanation are given both here and below. This will be readily excused
by those who are familiar with nautical phraseology.
< Yet we sometimes find the mistake when we should hardly expect it. Thus, Hemsen
Bays (p. 570, note), with reference to the Ivi'euzfahrt," which i7rm?..eiv implies in
Acts xxviL 7, " Doch ist cs wohl zweifelhaft, ob die Aiten diese Art gegen den Wind
u GGxeln kannten."
;
says, that it is possible for a ship to sail on contrary tacks.^ The limits
of this possibility depend upon the character of the vessel and the vio
lence of the gale. We shall find, below, that the vessel in which St
Paul was wrecked, could not look at the wind," for so the Greek word
(xxvii. 15) may be literally translated ii^-the language of English saildirs,
To turn now to the third question, the rate of sailing, the very na-
ture of the rig, which was less adapted than our own for working to
windward, was peculiarly favourable to a quick run before the wind. In
the China seas, during the monsoons, junks have been seen from the deck
of a British vessel behind in the horizon in the morning, and before in the
horizon in the evening.^ Thus we read of passages accomplished of old
in the Mediterranean, which would do credit to a well appointed modern
ship. Pliny, who was himself a seaman, and in command of a fleet at the
time of his death, might furnish us with several instances. We might
quote the story of the frefh fig, which Cato produced in the Senate at
Rome, when he urged his countrymen to undertake the third Punic war,
by impressing on them the imminent nearness of their enemy. " This fruit,"
he says, " was gathered fresh at Carthage three days ago." ^ Other voy-
ages, which he adduces, are such as these, seven days from Cadiz to Ostia,
seven days from the straits of Messina to Alexandria nine days from Pu-
1 The classical passages relating to these winds the monsoons of the Levantare
collected in Forbiger's first volume, p. 619.
^ See Smith, p. 178.
3 " lisdem ventis in contrarium navigatur prolatis pedibus." H. N. ii. 48.
< Smith, ibid.
5 See alDove, in this volume, p. 227, n. 8.
6 " Cum clamaret Carthaginem delendam, attulit quodam die in Curiam praecocem
ex ea provincia ficum : ostendensque Patribus 5
Interrogo vos, inquit, quando hano
pomum decerptara putatis ex arbore ? Cum inter omnes recentem esse constaret
Atqui tertium, inquit, ante diem scitote decerptam Carthagine : tarn prope a muria
habemus hostem." Plin. |1. N. xv. 20. "We may observe that the interval of time
need not be regarded as so much as three entire days though Mr. Greswell appeari
:
VOL. II. 20
506 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF S'L\ PAUL.
from Malta, and landing on the next day some leagues to the south of Car-
thage.^ A
thousand stades (or between 100 and 150 miles), is reckoned by
the geographers a common distance to accomplish in the twenty-four hours."^
And the conclusion to which we are brought, is, that with a fair wind an
ancient merchantman would an hour^
easily sail at the r-ate of seven knots
a former voyage of St. Paul (Chap. XX.), and what will demand our
attention at the close of that voyage, which brought him at length from
Malta by Rhegium to Puteoli (Acts xxviii. 13).
The remarks which have been made will convey to the reader a suffi
cient notion of the ships and navigation of the ancients. If to the above<
mentioned peculiarities of build and rig we add the eye painted at the
prow, the conventional ornaments at stem and stern, which are familiar to
us in remaining works of art,^ and the characteristic figures of heathen di-
our imagination the nature of the voyages that were most frequent in the
ancient world. With the same view of elucidating the details of our sub-
ject beforehand, we may now devote a short space to the prevalent lines
of traffic, and to the opportunities of travellers by sea, in the first cen-
tury of the Christian era.
Though the Romans had no natural love**for the sea, and though a
"Afreto Siciliae Alexandriam septima die . . . a Puteolis nona die lenissimo flatuu
a water-fowl, see Smith, p. 142, and Hermann, 50, 31. And see the Dictionary of Au-
tiquities under " Aplustre."
' AiooKvpoLg, Acts xxviii. 11. Tyg vedg rd napaci]fiov. Plut. Sept.
TLopaariiHf)
Sapp. 'H Trpupa t^v knuvvfiov Trjq VEdg 6edv ex^^^'^C' '^^^ ^l*^*** ^Karepudev^
c. 18.
liucian. Nav. c. 5. Sec the Scholiast on Aristoph. Ach. 547. 'Ev raig noupaic rdfi
rpiTipuv Tjv uyaXfiaid Tiva ^vXiva T^f 'A&rrtHig Ka6idpv/xh>a,
EOMAIT COMMEECE. 307
the carrying trade remained in a great measure with the Greeks, yet a
vast development had been given to commerce by the consolidation of the
Roman Empire. Piracy had been effectually put down before the close
of the Republic. ^ The annexation of Egypt drew towards Italy the rich
trade ot the Indian seas. After the effectual reduction of Graul and
Spain, Roman soldiers and Roman slave-dealers ^ invaded the shores of
Britain. The trade of all the countries which surround the Mediterra-
nean began to flow towards Rome. The great city herself was passive,
for she had nothing to export. But the cravings of her luxury, and the
necessities of her vast population, drew to one centre the converging lines
1 Compare Vol. I. pp. 20, 21. See Hor. "Pacatum volitant per mare navitae," and
Plin.
^ See the passage in Pitt's speeches, referred to in Milman's GibTbon, i. p. 70.
3 For example, the amber trade of the Baltic, and the importing of provisions and
lough-cloths from Cisalpine Gaul. See Strabo, v. Polyb. ii. 15. Columella de R. R,
vii. 2.
quired only to one branch of trade, one line of constant trafi&i across the
waters of the Mediterranean to Rome.
Alexandria has been mentioned already as a city, which, next after
Athens, exerted the strongest intellectual influence over the age in which
St. Paul's appointed work was done : and we have had occasion to notice
some indirect connection between this city and the Apostle's own labours.^
But it was eminent commercially not less than intellectually. The pro-
phetic views of Alexander were at that time receiving an ampler fulfilment
than at any former period. The trade with the Indian Seas, whicii had
been encouraged under the Ptolemies, received a vast impulse in the reign
of Augustus :
^ and under the reigns of his successors, the valley of the
Nile was the channel of an active transit trade in spices, dyes, jewels, and
perfumes, which were brought by Arabian mariners from the far East, and
poured into the markets of Italy.^ But Egypt was not only the medium
of transit trade. She had her own manufactures of linen, paper, and
glass,* which she exported in large quailtities. And one natural product
of her soil has been a staple commodity from the time of Pharaoh to our
own. We have only to think of the fertilizing inundations of the Nile,
on the one hand, and, on the other, of the multitudes composing the free
and slave population of Italy, in order to comprehend the activity and im-
portance of the Alexandrian corn-trade. At a later period the Emperor
Commodus established a company of merchants to convey the supplies
from Egypt to Rome ; and the commendations which he gave himself for
this forethought may still be read in the inscription round the ships repre-
sented on his coins.5 The harbour, to which the Egyptian corn-vessels
See the history of this trade in Deaa Vincent's Commerce? and Navigation of the
Ancients.
3 There is an enumeration of the imports into Egypt from the East in the Periplua
Moris Erythraci, about the time of Nero, and also in the Pandects. The contents of
these lists are analysed by Dean Vincent.
4 Plin. H. N. xiii. 22, 23. xix. 1. Martial, xiv. 150, 115. Cic. pro Rabir. post, 14.
For the manufactures of Alexandria, see Vopisc. Saturn. 8.
6 This engraving is from Mr. Smith's work (p. 1C2), and was taken from a coin at
Avignon. See another from Capt. Smyth's Collection, p. 163. That which is here
rcproscntcd gives a good representation of the upTe/xuv {Acts xxviL 40), which, aa we
Bhall see, was proba])ly the foreail.
.TRAVELLERS BY SEA. 309
were usually bound, was Puteoli. At the close of this Chapter we shall
And when the Jewish war was ended, and when, suspicions having arisen
concerning the allegiance of Titus to Yespasian, the son was anxious " to
rejoin his father," he also left Alexandria'* in a "merchant-ship," and
"hastened to Italy," touching at the very places at which St. Paul
touched, Rhegium (xxviii. 13), and then at Puteoli (lb.).
first at
If such was the mode in which even royal personages travelled from the
provinces to the metropolis, we must of course conclude that those who
travelled on the business of the state must often have been content to
avail themselves o^ similar opportunities. The sending of state prisoners to
Rome from various parts of the empire was an event of frequent occurrence.
Thus we are told by Josephus,^ that Fehx " for some slight offence, bound
and sent to Rome several priests of his acquaintance, honourable and good
men, to answer for themselves to Caesar." Such groups must often have
left Caesarea and the other Eastern ports, in merchant-vessels bound for the
West : and such was the departure of St. Paul, when the time at length
1 Newf ^opTtdoc Oveanaciavbg iniSag diro rrjc 'Ale^avdpdag elg 'Podov dieSaivev
'Evrevdev irMuv krct TpLTjpuv . ... elg Trjv 'EA/la(5a .... KuKsldev and KepKvpas
iiT* dupav 'lanvycav, odev Tjdrj Kard y^v kTVOLelro ttjv nopElav. Joseph, B. J. vii. 2, 1.
' " Nata snspicio est, quasi descisceret a patre .... Quam suspicionem auxit, post-
quam Alexandriam petens diadema gestavit.
> . . Quare festinans
. . . in Italiain^
cum Bhcgium, deinde P'uteolos oner aria nave appulisset, Romam inde conlendit.^
Suet. Tit. c. 5.
2 Joseph, Vit. c. 3.
310 THE lAFE .^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
came for that eventful journey, wliich had been so long and earnestly
cherished in his own wishes ;
^ so emphatically foretold by Divine re vela,
tion ; " and which was destined to involve such great consequences to the
whole future of Christianity.
The which he sailed, with certain other state-prisoners, was
vessel in
it as situated in the deep gulf which recedes beyond the base of Mount
Ida, over against the island of Lesbos, and as connected by good roads
with Pergamus and Troas on the coast, and the various marts in the inte-
rior of the peninsula.^ Since St. Paul never reached the place, no descrip-
tion of it is required."' It is only needful to observe that when the vessel
reached the coast of "Asia," the travellers would be brought some con-
siderable distance on their way to Rome ;
and there would be a good
the Alexandrian corn-ship mentioned afterwards was much larger. The reading
/xiXXovTi rests on better authority than juel/iovreg.
4 This we infer, partly because it is reasonable to suppose that they expected to
reach Italy before the winter, partly because of the delays which are expressly men-
tioned before the consultation at Fair Havens. See p. 332.
5 For the meaning of the word " Asia " in theNew Testament, we need only refer
again to Vol. I. p. 237, &c. It is of the utmost consequence to bear this in mind. If
the conh'ncn; >/^s2a were intended, the passage would be almost unmeaning. Yet
Falconer says (Diss, on St. Paul's Voyage, on the wind Euroclydon and the Apostle's
shipwreck on the island Melita, by a layman. Oxf. 1817), " They who conducted the
ehip meant to sail on their return by the coasts of Asia accordingly, the next day ;
after they set sail, they touched at Sidon," p. 4. Nor are we to suppose ^sia Minor
intended, which seems to be the supposition even of Meyer and De Wette. As to the
text, the general sense is unaltered, whether we read /xtXXovteg or fxeXXovrc.
6 Vol. I. p. 278. See Vol. II. p. 210, n. 4. We need hardly allude to the error of
Grotius, who supposed Adrumetum, on the African coast, to be meant.
Mr. Lewin
assumes that the intention of Julius was to proceed (like those who afterwards took
Ignatius to his martyrdom) by the Via Egnatia through Macedonia but the narrative :
gives no indication of such a plan : and indeed the hypothesis is contradicted by the
word d7Z0TT?iEiv.
' A short notice of it is given by Sir C. Fellows (a. m. p. 39). Mr. Weston, in his
MS. journal, describes it as a filthy town, of about 1500 houses, 150 of which ai'e in-
DEPAETCTEE FROM C^SAREA. 311
COIN OF SIDON.'
vail in the Levant at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn ;
and we find that it did actually blow from these quarters soon afterwards,
in the course of St. Paul's voyage.
Such a wind would be sufficiently fair
for a passage to and the seamen might proceed to that port in the
Sidon ;
p. 221, n. 2. A
similar statement will he found in Purdy, p. 59. Mr. Smith (pp. 22,
23, 27, 41) gives very copious illustrations of this point, from the journal written by
Lord De Saumarez, on his return from Aboukir, in the months of August and Sep-
tember, 1798. He
stood to the north towards Cyprus, and was compelled to run to the
Bcuth of Crete. " The wind continues to the westward. I am sorry to find it almost
s prevailing as the trade-winds (July 4). . . We have just gained sight of Cyprus,
.
against the adverse winds which are almost invariably encountered here, and getting
BufQciently to the northward to have weathered the small islands that lie more immediately
between the Archipelago and Candia, the wind set in so strong from the westward that I was
fiompelled to desist from that passage, and to bear up between Scarpanto and Saxo."
'
the wind continuing in the same quarter.' The passage from Caesarea te
Sid on is sixty-seven miles, a distance easily accomplished, under favoura-
ble circumstances, in less than twenty-four hours. In the course of the
night they would pass by Ptolemais and Tyre, where. St. Paul had visited
the Christians two years before.^ Sidon is the last city on the Phoenician
shore in which the Apostle's presence can be traced. It is a city associa-
ted, from the earliest times, with patriarchal and Jewish History r The
limit of " the border of the Canaanites" in the description of the peopling
of the earth after the Flood (Gen. x. 19),
"the haven of the sea, the
haven of ships" in the dim vision of the dying Patriarch (lb. xlix. 13),
the "great Sidon" of the wars of Joshua (Josh. xi. 8),- the city that
never was conquered by the Israelites (Judg. i. 31),the home of the
merchants that "passed over the sea" (Isa. xiii.), its history was linked
with all the annals of the Hebrew race. Nor is it less famiharly known in
the records of heathen antiquity. Its name is celebratedjboth in the Iliad
and the Odyssey,^ and Herodotus * says that its sailors were the most ex-
pert of all the Phoenicians. Its strong and massive fortifications were
pulled down, when this coast fell under the sway of the Persians ;
^ but its
harbour remained uninjured till a far later period. The prince of the
Druses, with whose strange and brilliant career its more recent history is
most closely connected, threw masses of stone and earth into the port, in
order to protect himself from the Turks :
^ and houses are now standing
on the spot where the ships of King Louis anchored in the last Crusade,
and which was crowded with merchandize in that age, when the Geogra*
pher of the Roman Empire spoke of Sidon as the best harbour of Phoeni-
cia.8
Nor is the history of Sidon without a close connection with those years
in which Christianity was founded. Not only did its inhabitants, with
those of Tyre, follow the footsteps of Jesus, to hear His words, and to be
healed of their diseases (Luke vi. It) : but the Son of David Himself
visited those coasts, and rewarded the importunate faith of a Gentile sup-
pliant (Mat. XV. Mark vii.) : and soon the prophecy which lay, as it were,
cities v^-t their return from the first victorious journey among the Gentiles
{lb. xi. 3). Nor were these the only journeys which the Apostle had
taken through Phoenicia ; ' so that he well knew, on his arrival from
Caesarea, that Christian brethren were to be found in Sidon. He, doubt-
less, told Julius that he had "friends" there, whom he wished to visit,
and, either from special commands which had been given by Festus in favour
of St. Paul, or through an influence which the Apostle had already gained
over the centurion's mind, the desired permission was granted. If we bear
in our remembrance that St. Paul's health was naturally delicate, and that
he must have suffered much during his long detention at Cagsarea, a new
interest is given to the touching incident, with which the narrative of this
voyage opens, that the Roman officer treated this one prisoner "courteous-
ly, and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself." We
have already considered the military position of this centurion, and seen
that there are good grounds for identifying him with an officer mentioned
by a heathen historian.'^ It gives an additional pleasure to such investiga-
tions, when we can record our grateful recollection of kindness shown by
him to that Apostle, from whom we have received our chief knowledge of
the Gospel.
On going to sea from Sidon, the wind was unfavourable. Hence, what-
ever the weather had been before, it certainly blew from the westward
now. The direct course from Sidon to the "coasts of Asia" would have
been to the southward of Cyprus, across the sea over which the Apostle
had sailed so prosperously two years before.^ Thus when St. Luke says,
that " they sailed under the lee ^ of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary,^'
he means that they sailed to the north-east and north of the Island. If
there were any doubt concerning his meaning, it would be made clear by
1 See Vol. 1. p. 425. * See tlie preceding chapter. 3 gee Chap. XX.
* 'TTreTrXevaajiev. So the word is used below, v. 7, and vrroSpaftelVf v. 16. It is a
confusion of geographical ideas to suppose that a south shore is necessarily meant.
Falconer, who imagines the south coast of Cyprus to be intended, was misled by hia
view of the meaning of the word Asia. Hemsen thinks the same, and adds that the
vessel was afterwards driven northwards into the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia. De
Wette gives the correct interpretation " Schifften wir unter (der Kiiste von) Cypern
:
bin. so das dieses linki (westlich) liegen blieb," i. e. sailed under the lee of this
island, or so that the wind blew from the island towards the ship. The idea of sailing
near the coast (the explanation of Meyer and Kuinoel) is no doubt included but th :
two things are distinct. Humphrey seems to blend the two " sailed under the lee of
Cyprus, not leaving it had done in their former voyage, xxi. 3."
at a distance, as they
The best note is and we should expect a Dutch commentator to bo
that of Wetstein ;
better acquainted with the sea than the Germans. " Si ventus favisset alto se commi*
Bissent, et Cyprum ad dextram partem rsliquissent, ut Act. xxi. 3. Nunc autem cogun*
tor legere littus Cilicise. ictet *^yprum et Asiam [Minorem]. Hoc fit vento adverse,
cum navis non possit uvTo<j)daA/j,elv {onder ein zeekere plaats zeylen : laveeren),
0bi nil vis vento contrario cogitur a recto cursu recedere, ita ut tunc insula sit inter
BOfflta inter ventum et navem, dicitiu-/er/i infra insula7n." See Hackett
what is said afterwards, that they " sailed through ^ the sea which is </vef
%gainst Cilicia and Famjphyliay The reasons why this course was taken
will be easily understood by those who have navigated those seas in modern
times. By standing to the north, the vessel would fall in with the current
which sets in a north-westerly direction past the eastern extremity of Cyprus,
and then westerly along the southern coast of Asia Minor, till it is lost at
the opening of the Archipelago.^ And besides this, the land was neared,
the wind would draw off the shore, and the water would be smoother ; and
both these advantages would aid the progress of the vessel.^ Hence, she
would easily work to windward,^ under the mountains oi Cilicia, and
through the bay of Pamphylia, to Lycia, which was the first district in
the province of Asia.^ Thus we follow the Apostle once more across the
sea over which he had first sailed with Barnabas from Antioch to Salamis,
and within sight of the summits of Taurus, which rise above his native
city, and close by Perga and Attaleia, till he came to a Lycian harbour
not far from Patara, the last point at which he had touched on his return
from the third Missionary journey.
The Lycian harbour, in which the Adramyttian ship came to anchor
on this occasion, after her voyage from Sidon, was Myra, a city which has
been fully illustrated by some of those travellers, whose researches have,
within these few years, for the first time provided materials for a detailed
" " From Syria to the Archipelago there is a constant current to the westward,
slightly felt at sea, but very perceptible near the shore, along this part of which
[Lycia] it between Adratchan Cape
runs with considerable but irregular velocity :
and the small adjacent island we found it one day almost, three miles an hour
The great body of water, as it moves to the westward, is intercepted by the western
coast of the gulf of Adalia thus pent up and accumulated, it rushes with augmented
;
violence towards Cape Khelidonia, where, diffusing itself in the open sea, it again
becomes equalized." Beaufort's Karamania, p. 41. See Vol. I p. 138. 11. p. 222.
[Of two persons engaged in the merchant-service, one says that he has often " tricked
other fruit-vessels" in sailing westward, by standing to the north to get this current,
while they took the mid-channel course the other, that the current is sopietimes so
;
etrong between Cyprus and the main, that he has known " a steamer jammed" there*
in going to the East.]
3 It is said in the Sailing Directory (p. 243), that ''at night the great northern
valley conducts the land-wind from the cold mountains of the interior to the sea
and again 241), that " Captain Beaufort, on rounding Cape Khelidonia, found the
(p.
land-breezes, which had generally been from the west, or south-west, coming down
the Gulf of Adalia from the northward."
*
vessel would have to beat up to Myra.
The This is indicated in the map. Tiie
wind assumed to be N.W. and the alternate courses marked are about N.N.E. on
is :
before the time of St. Paul's voyage to Rome it seems to have been united under one
jurisdiction with Pamphylia (lb. p. 243). The period when it was a separate province;,
vith Myra for its metropolis, was much later.
8ID0N TO MYRA. 315
draw a natural inference from the magnitude of the theatre,^ which remains
at the base of the cliffs, and the traces of ruins to some distance across the
plain, we should conclude that Myra once held a considerable population :
while the Lycian tombs, still conspicuous in the rocks, seem to connect it
with a remote period of Asiatic history.^ We trace it, on the other hand,
in a later though hardly less obscure period of history ; for in the middle
ages it was called the port of the Adriatic, and was visited by Anglo-Saxon
travellers."^ This was the period when St. Nicholas, the saint of the
modern Greek sailors, born at Patara, and buried at Myra, had usurped
the honour which those two cities might more naturally have given to the
Apostle who anchored in their harbours.*^ In the seclusion of the deep
1 The two best accounts of Myra will be found in Fellows's Asia Minor,
pp. 194, &c
and Spratt and Forbes's Lycia, vol. i. ch. iii. In the former work is a view in the :
latter sketches of sculpture, &c. A view is also given in Texier's Asie Mineure. The
port was visited by Admiral Beaufort (Karamania, pp. 26-31), but he did not explore
the ruins of Myra itself. For Myra (and also Patara), see vol. iii. of the Trans, of the
Dilettanti Society.
* This gorge is described in striking language, both by Sir C. Fellows and by Spratt
and Forbes.
3 See note 7. ^ From the British Museum.
5 Mr. Cockerell remarks that we may infer something in reference to the population
of an ancient city from the size of its theatre. A plan of this thea.tre is given in
Leake's Asia Minor, and also in Texier's Asie Mineure.
6 It is well known that there is much difference of opinion concerning the history of
Lycian civilisation, and the date of the existing remains.
7 Early Travels in Palestine, quoted by Mr. Lewin, vol. ii. p. 716. It h erroneously
said there that at that time the metropolis of Lycia, on the authority of the
Myra was
Synecdemus (NLvrpoTzoXig r^g Avdag Mvpa), which belongs to a period much later.
The river Andriaki is also incorrectly identified with the Limyrus, though Strrbo'S
own words are quoted : Elra Mvpa kv eiKOGi aradcoLg virep rrjg ^aMTVijg kiri
The relics of St. Nicholas wore taken to St. Petersburg by a Russian frigate during
tbe Greek revolution, and a gaudy picture sent instead. Sp. & F. Compare Fellows
316 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
erected by Trajan near the mouth ot the little riyer Andraki.^ This is the
ancient Andriace, which Pliny mentions as the port of Myra, and which is
described to us by Appian, in his narrative of the civil wars of Rome, as
closed and protected by a chain.'*
Andriace, the port of Myra, was one of the many excellent harbours
which abound in the south-western part of Asia Minor. From this cir-
cumstance, and from the fact that the coast is high and visible to a great
distance, in addition to the local advantages which we have mentioned
above, the westerly current and the off-shore wind, it was common for
ships bound from Egypt to the westward to be found in this neighbourhood
when the winds were contrary.^ It was therefore a natural occurrence,
and one which could have caused no surprise, when the centurion met in
ceeded on her homeward route up the coast of the JEgean, if the weather
permitted : and we now follow the Apostle through a more eventful part
of his voyage, in a ship which was probably much larger than those that
were simply engaged in the coasting trade. From the total number of souls
1 See the description of this grand and solitary building, and the vignette, in Spratt
and Forbes. They remark that " as Myra was the capital of the bishopric of Lycia
for many centuries afterwards, and as there are no remains at Myra itself indicating
the existence of a cathedral, we probably behold in this ruin the head-church of the
diocese, planted here from motives of seclusion and security," vol. i. p. 107
' Hierocl. Synecd. See Wesseling's note, p. 684.
The inscription on the granary is given by Beaufort.
* App. B. C. iv. 82. AevrXoCf e7n';re/x(j)6elg AvSpiaKy, Mvpiuv kTrivetcp, Trjv re a7.vaLV^
l{)(yri^e tov Xi/xtvog, kol kg Mvpa dvyei. See above, p. 225, n. 4.
s See the references to Socrates, Sozomen, and Philo, in Wetstein. It is possible, as
Kuinoel suggests, that the ship might have brought goods from Alexandria to Lycia,
and then taken in a fresh cargo for Italy but not very probable, since she was full
:
of wheat when the gale caught her. [A captain in the merchant service told tbo
writer that in coming from Alexandria in August he has stood to the north towarda
Asia Minor, for the sake of the current, and that this is a very common course.]
6 Mr. Lewin supposes that thff plan of Julius was changed, in consequence of thii
hip being found in harbour here. " At Myra the centurion most unluckily changed
lis plan," &c., vol. ii. p. 716.
See above, p. 310.
: .
MYKA. 317
an bca id (v. 31), and the known fact that the Egyptian merchantmen
were among the largest in the Mediterranean/ we conclude that she was a
vessel of considerable size. Everything that relates to her construction is
interesting to us, from the minute account which is given of her misfortunes,
from the moment of her leaving Myra. The weather was unfavourable
from the first. They were ^^man^ days^^ before reaching Cnidus (v. t)
and since the distance from Myra to this place is only a hundred and thirty
miles, it is certain that they must have sailed slowly (ib.). The delay
was of course occasioned by one of two causes, by calms or by contrary
winds. There can be no doubt that the latter was the real cause, not only
because the sacred narrative states that they reached Cnidus ^ " with diffir
culty,^^ but because we are informed that, when Cnidus was reached, they
could not make good their course ^ any further, " the wind not suffering tJiem"
(ibid.). At this point they lost the advantages of a favouring current, a
weather shore and smooth water, and were met by all the force of the
sea from the westw^ard : and it was judged the most prudent course, instead
of contending with a head sea and contrary winds, to run down to the
southward, and, after rounding Cape Salmone, the easternmost point of
Crete, to pursue the voyage under the lee of that island.
Knowing, as we do, the consequences which followed this step, we are
inclined to blame it as imprudent, unless indeed it was absolutely necessary.
For while the south coast of Crete was deficient in good harbours, that of
Cnidus was excellent, well sheltered from the north-westerly wdnds, fully
1 See the Scholiast on Aristides, quoted by Wetstein. Al vrjeg ruv AlyvnHuv fiel^avs
tlat ruv iiXKuiv^ dneipov Tc?i,7i6og x^P^^'^'
^ The Greek word is fioXig, which is only imperfectly rendered by " scarce " in the
English version. It is the same word which is translated "hardly " in v. 8, and it
occurs again in v. 16.
3 Their direct course was about W. by S. and, when they opened the point, they
:
were under very unfavourable circumstances even for beating. The words fx^ irpo-
CEuvToc rjfxdg rov dvifiov Mr. Smith understands to mean that the wind would not
allow the vessel to hold on her course towards Italy, after Cnidus was passed. So Sir
C. Penrose, in whose MS. we find the following " The course from Myra towards
:
Italy was lo pass close to the Island of Cythera (Cerigo), or the south point of the
Morea; the island of Rhodes lying in the direct track. It appears that the ship
passed to the northward of that island, having sailed slowly many days from the light
and baffling winds, usual in those seas and at that season. Having at last got over
against Cnidus (C. Crio.), the wind not suffering them to get on in the direct course^
it having become steady from the west or north-west, they sailed southwards, till
kf this be the correct interpretation, it is equally evident that the wind must have bew
aearly north-west.
318 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PATH..
Bupplieif with all kinds of stores, and in every way commodious, if needf^d,
for wintering.'
And here, according to our custom, we pause again in the narrative,
ihat we may devote a few lines to the history and description of the place.
In early times it was the metropolis of the Asiatic Dorians, who worship*
ped Apollo, their national Deity, on the rugged headland,'^ called the
Triopian ^ promontory (the modern Cape Crio), which juts out beyond the
city to the West. From these heights the people of Cnidus baw that en-
gagement between the fleets of Pisander and Conon, which resulted in the
maritime supremacy of Athens.^ To the north-west is seen the island of
Cos (p. 219) : to the south-east, across a wider reach of sea, is the larger
island of Rhodes (p. 223), with which, in their weaker and more voluptu-
ous days,^ Cnidus was united in alliance with Rome, at the beginning of
the struggle between Italy and the East.^ The position of the city of
Cnidus is to the east of the Triopian headland, where a narrow isthmus
unites the promontory with the continent, and separates the two harbours
which Strabo has described.' " Few places bear more incontestabl^e proofs
of former magnificence ; and fewer still of the ruffian industry of their
destroyers. The whole area of the city is one promiscuous mass of ruins ;
among which may be traced streets and gateways, porticoes and theatres.''^
But the remams which are the most worthy to arrest our attention are
those of the harbours ; not only because Cnidus was a city peculiarly asso-
ciated with maritime enterprise,^ but because these remains have been less
obliterated by violence or decay. " The smallest harbour has a narrow
entrance between high piers, and was evidently the closed basin for
J
If the words fi^ Trpoceuvrog rov avefiov really mean that the wind would not allow
them to enter the harbour of Cnidus, these remarks become unnecessary.
" Herod, i. 174.
3 For a view of this remarkable promontory, which is the more worthy of notice,
Bince St, Paul passed it twice (Acts xxi. 1. xxvii. 7), see the engraving in the Admi-
ralty Chart, No. 1604.
4 Xen. Hell, iv. 3, 6. See above, p. 222.
6 We can hardly avoid making some allusion here to the celebrated Venus of Praxi-
teles (quam ut viderent multi navigaverunt Cnidum. Plin, H. N. xxxvi. 5, 4). This
object of universal admiration was there when St. Paul passed by for it is mentioned ;
promontory, the other towards the east. Eliac. i. 24. Ai'cad. 30.
8 B;aufort's Karamania, p. 81. The fullest account of the ruins will be found i
ttie third volume of the Transactions of the Dilettanti Society, and in Hamilton's Asia
triremes, whicfi Strabo mentions." But it was the southern and larger
port which lay in St. Paul's course from Myra, and in which the Alexan*
drian ship must necessarily have come to anchor, if she had touched at
Cnidus. " This port is formed by two transverse moles ; these noble worka
were carried into the sea to a depth of nearly a hundred feet ; one of them
is almost perfect ; the other, which is more exposed to the south-west swell,
can only be seen under water.'" And we may conclude our description,,
by quoting from another traveller, who speaks of " the remains of aii:
ancient quay on the S. W., supported by Cyclopian walls, and in some
places cut out of the steep limestone rocks, which rise abruptly from the
waters edge.'"*
This excellent harbour then, from choice or from necessity, was left
rounding which, the same " difficulty'^ would indeed recur (v. 8), but still
with the advantage of a weather shore. The statements at this particular
point of St. Luke's narrative enable us to ascertain, with singular minute-
ness, the direction of the wind : and it is deeply interesting to observe how
this direction, once ascertained, harmonizes all the inferences which we
should naturally draw from other parts of the context. But the argument
has been so well stated by the first writer who has called attention to this
question, that we will present it in his words rather than our own.^ " The
course of a ship on her voyage from Myra to Italy, after she has reached
Cnidus, is by the north side of Crete, through the Archipelago, W. by S.
Hence a ship which can make good a course of less than, seven points from
the wind, v/ould not have been prevented from proceeding on her course,
unless the wind had been to the west of N. N. W. But we are told that
she '
ran under Crete, over against Salmone,' which implies that she was
able to fetch that cape, which bears about S. W. by S. from Cnidus ;
but,
unless the wind had been to the north of W.N.W., she could not have
done so. The middle point between N.jST.W. and W.N.W. is north-west,
which cannot be more than two points, and is probably not more than one,
from the true direction. The wind, therefore, would in common language
Here and above we quote from Beaufort. See his Sketch of the Earhour. The
1
Bamc may he seen in the Admiralty chart, No. 1533. Another chart gives a larger
plan of the ruins, &c. For a similar plan, with views on a large scale, see the third
volume of the Trans, of the Dilettanti Society. See also the illustrated works of La^
horde and Texier. A rude plan is given in Clarke's Travels, ii. 216. Perhaps there
isno city in Asia Minor which has been more clearly displayed, both by descriptiMi
and engravings.
Hamilton, p. 39.
3 For what may be necessary to explain the nautical terms, see the compass on
p. 304.
820 THE LIFE Alff) EPISTLES OF ST. PATJTi.
bare been termed north-west." ^ And then the author proceeds to quote
what we have quoted elsewhere (Yol. II. p. 221, n. 2), a statement from
the English Sailing Directions regarding the prevalence of north-westerljr
winds in these seas during the summer months ; and to point out that the
statement is in complete harmony with what Pliny says of the Etesian
monsoons.^
Under these circumstances of weather, a reconsideration of what has
been said above, with the chart of Crete before us, will show that the
voyage could have been continued some distance from Cape Salmon
under the lee of the island, as it had been from Myra to Cnidus,^ but
that at a certain point (now called Cape Matala), where the coast trends
suddenly to the north, and where the full force of the wind and sea from
the westward must have been met, this possibility must have ceased once
more, as it had ceased at the south-western corner of the Peninsula. At
a short distance to the east of Cape Matala is a roadstead, which was
then called " Fair Havens," and still retains the same name,^ and which
the voyagers successfully reached and came to anchor. There seems to
have been no town at Fair Havens ; but there was a town near it called
Lassea,^ a circumstance which St. Luke mentions (if we may presume to
say so), not with any view of fixing the locality of the roadstead, but
simply because the fact was impressed on his memory.^ If the vessel was
detained long at this anchorage, the sailors must have had frequent inter-
course with Lasasa, and the soldiers too might obtain leave to visit it ;
and possibly also the prisoners, each with a soldier chained to his arb.
We are not informed of the length of the delay at Fair Havens : but be-
fore they left the place, a " considerable time" had elapsed since they
nation with the insight derived from long experience of perils in the sea"
Paul was allowed to give advice at all, implies that he was already held
in a consideration very unusual for a prisoner in the custody of soldiers ;
and the time came when his words held a commanding sway over the
1 'Ikcvov 6s xpovov diayevofihov koL ovrog 7j6r], k. t. A. When they left Csesarea
they had every reasonable prospect of reaching Italy before the stormy season.
Just so Theophrastas reckons from a Heathen festival, when he says rrjv duXavTav
Ik AiovvoLUV nluifiov elvai.
3 Levit. xvi. 29. xxiii. 27. See Philo. Vit. Mos. ii. 657, c.
4 See what the Alexandrian Philo says : AtayyeXslciTjg ovv rf/c ore vogcI (jyrjf^ijCi
Irt 7t?iotjuuv ovTUV dpxv y^p jueroTvupov, TElevToiog Tclovg rolg ^aXarrevovaiv^
drrb ruv TzavTaxodev k[J,7vopLuv elg Tovg oUeLOvg 2.i/UEvag Kal vTVoSpojUovg knavtovai^
KOL fidJuara olg npovota rov p) diaxeijud^eiv em ^evrjv eartv. De Virtut. 0pp. IL
548, 14. Compare Hesiod. Op. et Di. 671, and Aristoph. Av. 709 (Kat TVTjddXiov tcts
vavK?.fjp({) (^pd^EL Kpe[xdaavTL KadEvdetv), and Yegetius (v. 9), as quoted by Mr. Smith,
" Ex die tertio Iduum Novembris, usque in diem sextum iduum Martiarum, marla
clauduntur. Nam lux minima noxque prolixa, nubium densitas, aeris obscuritas, veo-
toram imbrium vel nlvium geminata ssevitia,"
6 "Y^pEtjg, V. 10. See again, v. 21. Compare Hor. Od. l xi. 14. Ventis eldiea
ludibnum. ^
6 Observe the vagueness of the words vijaLov tl.
ffhole crew ; yet we cannot be surprised that on this occasion the centa-
rion was more by the words of the owner and the master than
influenced ^
Variation of Compass 13 W.
from the drawing by Capt. Spratt, R. N., just arrived at the Admiralty (April, 1852).
On comparing it with what is said by Mr. Smith, p. 50, it will be seen to bear out hia
conclusions in all main points. At the time when his work was published, our infor-
mation regarding the coast of Crete was very imperfect : and he found it to be the
general impression of several officers acquainted with the navigation of those seas [and
may add that he has received the same impression from persons
the writer of this note
engaged in the merchant service, and familiar with that part of the Levant], that there
are no ship-harbours on the south side of the island. The soundings, however, of
Lutro, as here exhibited, settle the question.
In further cor.jrmation of the point, Mr. Smith allows us to quotp part of a letter
lie received, after the publication of his work, from Mr. Urquhart, m.p., who is alluding
to what occurred to him, when on board a Greek ship of war and chasing a pirate.
** Lutro
is an admirable harbour. You open it like a box unexpectedly, the rocks stand ;
ipart, and the town appears wiUiin. ... We thought we had cut him off,^nd that we
PHCENXX. 328
-5
vrare driving him right upon the rocks. Suddenly he disappeared ; and, rounding in
town, pre-
alter him, like a change of scenery, the little basin, its shipping and the
gonted themselves. . Excepting Lutro, all the roadsteads looking to the soutliward
. .
* Ttiia chart is taken from Mr. Smith's work, with Fome modificationa. The part
;
the expression really means what at first sight it appears to mear^ and
then to enquire further whether we can identify this description with any
existing harbour. This might indeed be considered a question of mere
curiosity, since the vessel never reached Phoenix, and since the descrip-
tion of the place is evidently not that of St. Luke, but of the sailors,
wrhose conversation he heard.^ But everything has a deep interest for us
wlJch tends to elucidate this voyage. And, first, we think there cannot
be a doubt, both from the notices in ancient writers and the continuance
of ancient names upon the spot, that Phoenix is to be identified with the
modern Lutro.'^ This is a harbour which is sheltered from the winds above*
m.entioned : and, without entering fully into the discussions which have
arisen from this subject, we give it as our opinion that the difficulty is to
be explained, simply by remembering that sailors speak of everything
from their own point of view, and that such a harbour does "look"
from the water towards the land which encloses in the direction of " south-
^
west and northwest."
near Lutro is corrected from the tracing mentioned above. The epot marked Spring
and Church of St. Paul " is from the English Admiralty survey. The cape marked
" C. St. Paul " is so named on the authority of Lapie's map and last French govern-
ment chart of the eastern part of the Mediterranean. The physical features are after
Lapie and Pashley. For a notice of St. Paul's Fountain, see Pashley, ii. 259.
' Observe the parenthetic way in which the description of Phoenix is introduced, v. 12.
* Hierocles, in the Synecdemus, identifies Phcenice with Aradena and says that the ;
island Cla.udos was near it. <toivtKr} r/rot 'ApdSeva' vrjaog KXavdoQ (Wess. ^. 651),
and Stephanus Byzantinus identifies Aradena with An opolis. 'ApddTjv iro^ig Kp^Tijg*
7j 61 'AvuTToXtg ?JyeTaL, did, rb elvat uvu. And the co-existence of the names Phineka
Aradhena, and Anopolis, on the modern chart, in the immediate neighbourhood ot
the harbour of Lutro, establish the point beyond a doubt. Moreover Strabo says (x.
4), that Phoenix is in the narrowest part of Crete, which is precisely true of Lutro
ufid the longitudes of Ptolemy (iii. 17) harmonise with the same result. See Smith
p. 51, and Pashley's Travels in Crete, ii. 257. We ought to add that Pashley says thai
Lutro is called Katopolis in reference to the upper town, i. 193.
3 It seems strange that this view should not have occurred to the commeutators.
So far as we know, Meyer is the only one who has suggested anything similar. " Der
Ilafen bildete cine solche Kriimmung, dass sich ein Ufer nach Nordwest und das an-
dere nach Siidwest hin erstreckte." Such a harbour would have been very "commo-
dious to winter in " and it agrees perfectly with Lutro, as delineated in the recent
;
from the cape, and bore from thence about W. N. W. The sailors already
saw the high land above Lutro, and were proceeding in high spirits, per-
haps with fair-weather sails set,' certainly with the boat towing astern
^
13), a violent wind came down^ from the mountains, and struck the ship
(seizing her, according to the Oreek expression,^ and whirling her round),
cTaca t^e^^dyr) kut^ eipov, " a cloud towards the east rose and broke." There is a
passage in Thucydides which seems at first sight entirely to harmonise with Mr.
Smiths view of Kara. Gylippus is said to have been driven out to sea, in the neigh-
bourhood of Tarentum, vtt' dvsfiov, bg kK7:7iel Tavry [leyag Kard, fSopav kGrrjKug, vi. 104
Yet even here there is a doubt. See Mr. Grote's remarks, Hist. vol. vii. p. 359. The
passage, however, which has been quoted above from Josephus in the description of
Csesarea (p. 280, n. 9) is quite conclusive.
See what is below in reference to xC''^<i<^<^'^''''^^ '^o cKevog^ v. 17.
said
' This is certain, from v. 16.
3 Their experience, however, might have taught them that there was some cause for
fear. Capt. J. Stewart, R. N. as quoted by Mr. Smith, p. 60) observes, in his remarks
on the Archipelago " It is always safe to anchor under the lee of an island with a
:
northerly wind, as it dies away gradually but it would be extremely dangerous with
;
not. Yet we must observe that the word used for the ship hitherto has been irlolov,
not vavg. [Sir C. Penrose, without reference to the Greek, speaks of the wind as
" descending from the lofty hills in heavy squalls and eddies, and driving the now
Almost helpless ship far from the shore, with which her pilots vainly attempted t
elose."]
826 THE LIFE AMD EPISTLES OF ST. PAtJL.
SO that it was impossible for the helmsman to make her keep her course."
The character of the wind is described in terms expressive of the utmost
violence. It came with all the appearance of a hurricane ^ and the :
name " Euroclydon," which was given to it by the sailors, indicates the
commotion in the sea which presently resulted.^ The consequence was.
that, in the first instance, they were compelled to scud before the gale.*
each side of the bow, as we have mentioned above. Even now the " eyes " of a ship
is a phrase used by English sailors for the bow.
"kvEfiog TV(l)tdVLK6g.
3 Whatever we may determine as to the etymology of the word evpoKXvSuv, it seems
oiear that the term implies a violent agitation of the water.
4 'ETTt6vvTEc l(j)ep6jUEda.
Mr. Smith argues in favour of the reading 'EvpaKvlov (Euro-Aquilo. Vulg.), and
5
v^uotes in his Appendix the Dissertations of Bentley and Granville Penn. But we
jave a strong impression that 'EvpoKXvduv is the correct reading. The addition of
the words 6 Kalovjievoq seems to us to show that it was a name popularly given by the
wind and nothing is more natural than that St. Luke should use the
Bailors to the :
word which he heard the seamen employ on the occasion. Besides it is the more diffi-
cult reading. Tischendorf retains it.
Falconer supposes that the wind came from the southward, and clumsily attempts
6
to explain why (on this supposition) the vessel was not driven on the Cretan coast.
' ^kaaov 'Kape?JyovTo. The use of the imperfect shows that they were sailing near
the shore when the gale seized the vessel. Thus we do not agree with Mr. Smith in
referring fier' ov noXi) to the time when they were passing round Cape Matala, but to
the time of leaving Fair Havens. The general result, however, is the same.
8 There is no difficulty in identifying Clauda. It is the Klavdog of Ptolemy and tha
Synecdcmus, and the Gaudus of Pomponius Mela. Hence the modern Greek Gaudo*
nesi, and the Ivalian corruption into Gozo.
9 Wo may observe here, once for all, that the English version, "the quicksands,"
does not convey the accurate meaning of r;)v ^vpTLv, which means the notoriously
the point from wliich the storm came must have been N.B., or rather
*o the Bast of N.E., and thus we may safely speak of it as coming from
We proceed now to inquire what was done with the vessel under thesi
perilous circumstances. She was compelled at first (as we have seen) to
scud before the gale. But three things are mentioned in close connection
with her coming near to Clauda, and running under the lee of it^ Here
they would have the advantage of a temporary lull and of comparatively
smooth water for a few miles : ^ and the most urgent necessity was atten-
ded to first. The boat was hoisted on board : but after towing so long, it
must have been nearly filled with water. : and under any circumstances the
hoisting of a boat on board in a gale of wind is a work accomplished mih
difficulty.'^ So it was in this instance, as St. Luke informs us. To effect
it at all, it would be necessary for the vessel to be rounded-to, with her
head brought towards the wind ;
^ a circumstance which, for other reasons
(as we shall see presently) it is important to bear in mind. The next pre-
caution that was adopted betrays an apprehension lest the vessel should
spring a leak, and so be in danger of foundering at sea.^ They used the
1 These arguments are exhibited with the utmost clearness by Mr. Smith. Adopt-
ing the reading EvpaKvXuv, he has three independent arguments in proof that thg
wind was E.N.E.XN. (1) the etymological meaning of the word (2) the fact that
; ;
the vessel was driven to Clauda, from a point a little west of 0. Matala (3) the fear ;
to the North or South. He adds that a Levanter, when it blows with peculiar violence
some points to the North of East, is called a Gregalia [cf. 6 Ka7MV}j.evog Etipo/c^iJdwv],
and that he had seen many such.
2 See Vv. 16, 17.
3 " The ship, still with her boat towing at her stern, was however enabled to run
under the lee of Clauda, a small island about twenty miles from the south coast of
Crete, and, with some rocks adjacent, affording the advantage of smooth water for
about twelve or fifteen miles, while the ship continued under their lee. Advantage
"
was taken of this comparative smooth water, with some difficulty to hoist the boat
into the ship, and also to take the further precaution of undergirding her by passing
cables or other large ropes under the keel and over the gunwales, and then drawing
them tight by means of pullies and levers." Penrose, MS. It is interesting to observe
the coincidence of this passage with what is said by Mr. Smith.
Sir C. Penrose proceeds to mention another reason for the vessel being undergirded.
" This wise precaution was taken, not only because the ship, less strongly built thaa
"feose in modern days, might strain her planks and timbers and become leaky, but
fcom the fears, that if the gale continued from the north-east, as it probably began,
^ey might be driven into the deep bight o-n the coast of Africa, where were situated
the greater and lesser Syrtis, so much dreaded by the ancients, and by these means of
Becurity be enabled to keep together linger, should they be involved in the quick-
sands."
4 Smith, p. 64.
* Frapping would be of little use in stopping a leak. It was rather a precaution t
828 THE LIFE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
tackling, which we have described above, aud which provided " helps in
fiuch an emergency. They " undergirded " the ship with ropes passed round
her frame and tightly secured on deck.^ And after this, or rather simul-
taneously (for, as there were many hands on board, these operations might
all be proceeding together), they ''lowered the gear." This is the most
litaral translation of the Greek expression.^ In itself it is indeterminate :
but it doubtless implies careful preparation for weathering out the storm.
What precise change was made we are not able to determine, in our igno-
rance of the exact state of the ship's gear at the moment. mean It might
that the mainsailwas reefed and set ^ or that the great yard^ was lower*
;
ed upon deck and a small storm sail hoisted. It is certain that what
English seamen call the top-hamper ^ would be sent down on deck. As tc
prevent the working of the planks and timbers : and thus, since the extensive applica
tion of iron in modern ship-building, this contrivance has rarely been resorted ta,
Besides the modern instances adduced by Mr. Smith, the writer has heard of the fol-
lowing A Canadian timber vessel in the year 1846 came frapped to Aberdeen.
:
(2) In 1809 or 1810, a frigate (the Venus?) came home from India with hawsers round
her. (3) The same happened to a merchant vessel which came from India, apparently
in the same convoy. (4) Lord Exmouth (then Captain Pellew) brought home the
Arethusa in this state from Newfoundland. (5) At the battle of Navarin, the Albion
man-of-war received so much damage during the action, that it became necessary to
have recourse to frapping, and the vessel had chain cables passed round her under
the keel, which were tightened by others passed horizontally along the sides inter-
i.cing them and she was brought home in this state to Portsmouth. See the next
;
note.
>To the classical instances mentioned above we may add Thucyd. i. 29, where the
Corcyreans are spoken of as ^ev^avrer rag naXaiuc vavg toare nT^.utfiovc elvai. Dr,
Arnold says, in his note, that " the Russian ships talicn in the Tagus in 1808 were
kept together in this manner, in consequence of their age aud unsound condition."
Poppo, however, understands the term ^ev^avreg differently.
^ XaMaavreg rd cKsvog. The same verb is used below (v. 30) in reference to
lowering the boat into the water.
3 This suggestion is partly due to a criticism in the English Review (June 1850,
Notice of Mr. Smith's work), based on Isaiah xxxiii. 23 (LXX.). 'E^^dyijaav rd
oxoLvia cov, art ovk hioxvaav' 6 loTog aov IkXlvev, ov ;t;aA(iaci rd hrla, ova dpel
oijfidov. In reference to this passage, we may remark that _;t;aAaw is equally appli-
cable to the spreading of a sail which lowered from a yard, and to the lowering of a
is
yard with whatever belongs to it. The reviewer lays stress on the circumstance that
St. Paul's ship had probably no sail set when she reached Clauda and, ias he justly ;
head gear i. e., very large oKevr], or ropes rove there, to support the yard and sail 5
5
60 that, even when the latter was lowered, considerable top-weight would remain, to
produce much uneasiness of motion as well as resistance to the wind. Two such com-
bioed evils would not be overlooked by sailors, who had a thought about drifting on &
he ehore. Presuming the main-sail and yard to be down, and the vessel snug under
those fair-weather sailg tliemselves, which may have been too hastily used
on leaving Fair Havens, if not taken in at the beginning of the gale they
must have been already blown to pieces.
and so adjusted, as to prevent the vessel from falling off into the trough
of the sea.^ This plan (as is well known to all who have made long voya-
ges) is constantly resorted to when the object is not so much to make
progress, as to weather out a gale.
We are here brought to the critical point of the whole nautical difficul-
ty in the narrative of St. Paul's voyage and shipwreck, and it is desirable
to notice very carefully both the ship's position in reference to the wind
and its consequent motion through the water. Assuming that the vessel
a storm-sail, the heavy anevri, or ropes being no longer of use aloft would naturally be
unrove or lowered, to prevent drift, as a final resource, when the sailors saw mat the
gale was likely to be strong and lasting."
1 i. e. the hull of the vessel is in a direction oblique to the length of the wave&
The following extract from Falconer's Marine Dictionary, under the article Trying
(an equivalent term), may be useful to those who are not familiar with sea-phrases :
" The intent of spreading a sail at this time keep the ship more steady and, by
is to ;
pressing her side down in the water, to prevent her from rolling violently and also ;
to turn her bow towards the direction of the wind, so that the stock of the waves may
fall more obliquely on her flank, than when she lies along the trough of the sea.
In this position she advances very little according to the line of her length, but ii
sailors. It will be seen very clearly by what fellows that if the ship had
been laid-to with her left or port side to the wind, she must have been
driven far out of her course, and also in the direction of another part of
the African coast. In order to make sure of sea-room, and at the same
time to drift to the westward, she must have been laid-to with her right
gide to the wind, or on the starboard tack, the position which she was
probably made to assume at the moment of taking the boat on board.'
We have hitherto considered only Jhe ship's position in reference to the
wind. We must now consider its motion. When a vessel is laid-to, she
does not remain stationary, but drifts : and our inquiries of course have
reference to the rate and direction of the drift. The rate of drift may
vary, within certain limits, according to the build of the vessel and the in-
tensity of the gale : but all seamen would agree, thai, under the circum-
stances before us, a mile and a half in the hour, or thirty-six miles in
twenty-four hours, may be taken as a fair average.^ The direction in which
she drifts is not that in which she appears to sail, or towards which her
bows are turned : but she fails off to lee ward : and to the angle formed
by the line of the ship's keel and the line in which the wind blows we
must add another, to include what the sailors call lee-way : ^ and this may
be estimated on an average at six points (6*1). Thus we come to the
conclusion that the direction of drift would make an angle of thirteen
tion takes place. To use the technical expression, she comes up and falls o^^oscillat-
ing perhaps between and nine points.
five points
1 See Smith,
pp. 64, 68, and compare the following " I ought to assign the reason
:
why I consider the ship to have drifted with her starboard side towards the wind, or
on the starboard tack, as a sailor expresses it. When the south wind blew softly, the
ship was slowly sailing along the coast of Crete, with her starboard side towards the
land, or to the North. The storm came on her starboard side, and in this manner,
. . .
with her head to the Westward, she drifted, first to the South West under Clauda, and
as the wind drew more to the Eastward, her head pointed more towards the North, the
prcper tack to keep farther from the quicksands, whether adopted from necessity or
from choice." Penrose MS.
See the two naval authorities quoted by Mr. Smith, p. 84. The same estimate is
given in the MS. of Admiral Penrose. " Allowing the degree of strength of the gale
to vary a little occasionally, I consider that a ship would drift at the rate of about a
mile and a half per hour."
3 A reference to the compass on p. 304 with the following extracts from Falconer's
Mariue Dictionary, will make the meaning clear. " Lee- Way is the lateral movement
of a ship to leeward of her course, or the angle which the line of her way makes with
the keel, when she is closehauled. This movement is produced by the mutual eflbrt
of the wind and sea upon her side, forcing her to leeward of the line on which she
appears to sail." "Closehauled (au plus pres, Fr.). The general arrangement of a
endeavours to make a progress in the nearest direction possible
ehip's sails, w.hen she
towards that point of the compass from which the wind bloweth. ... In this manner
commonly makes an angle of six points with the line of the wind.
of Bailing the keel
The angle of leeway, however, enlarges in proportion to the increase of the wind and
sea."
SUFFERINGS DTJUINa THE GALE. 331
points (14t^) with the direction of the wind. If the wind was E.N.E^
the course of the vessel would be W. by N.
We have been minute in describing the circumstances of the ship al
this moment ; for it is the point upon which all our subsequent conclusioni
must turn.^ ,
Assuming now that the vessel was, as we have said, laid-to
on the starboard tack, with the boat on board and the hull undergirded,
drifting from Clauda in a direction W. by N. at the rate of thirty-six
we should infer that the precaution of undergirding had been only par-
tially successful, and that the vessel had already sprung a leak. This is
made still more probable by what occurred on the " third day." Both
sailors and passec^ers united ^ in throwing out all the spare gear" into
the sea.^ Then followed " several days " of continued hardship and anxie-
ty."^ ISTo one who has never been in a leaking ship in a long continued
1 Again, our two authorities are in substantial agreement " Supposing the Le-
vanter (as is the most probable, it being the most usual) after the heavy Gregalia,
which first drove the ship off the coast of Crete, and under the lee of Clauda, took
upon the average the dhection of East, the mean direction of the drift of such a ship,
lying-to, as before described,would be between W.N.W. and W. by N. and such ia ;
nearly the bearing of the North coast of Malta from the South side of Clauda." Pen-
rose MS. Compare Smith.
^ It is at this point especially that we feel the importance of having St. Paul's voy-
age examined in the light of practical seamanship. The two investigators, who have
so examined it, have now enabled us to understand it clearl;y though all previous ,
commentators were at fault, and while the ordinary charts are still full of error and
confusion. The sinuosities in this part of the voyage, as exhibited in the common
maps of St. Paul's Travels, are only an indication of the perplexity of the compilers.
The course from Clauda to Malta did not deviate far from.I fe*t,1a' ifht line.
7 The narrative of the loss of the Ramillies supplies a very good illustration of tka
Btate of things on board St. Paul's vessel during these two days. " At this time she
had six feet of water in her hold, and the pumps would not free her, the water having
worked out all the oakum The admiral therefore gave orders for ail the buckets to
gaie * can know what is suffered under such circumstances. The strain
both of mind and body the incessant demand for the labour cf all the
crew the terror of the passengers the hopeless working the pumps at
the labouring of the ship's frame and cordage the the storm
driving of
the benumbing effect of the cold and wet, make up a scene no pf ordina-
ry confusion, anxiety, and fatigue. But in the present case these evils were
much aggravated by the continued overclouding of the sky (a circumstance
not unusual during a Levanter) which prevented the navigators from
taking the necessary observations of the- heavenly bodies. In a modern
ship, however dark the weather might be, there would always be a light
in the binnacle, and the ship's course would always be known : but in an
ancient vessel, " when neither sun nor stars were seen for many days," the
case would be far more hopeless. It was impossible to know how near
they might be to the most dangerous coast. And yet the worst danger
was that which arose from the leaky state of the vessel. This was so bad,
that at length they gave up all hope of being saved, thinking that nothing
could prevent her foundering.'* To this despair was added a further suffer-
ing from want of food,^ in consequence of the injury done to the provisions,
be remanned, and every officer to help towards freeing the ship this enabled her to
:
sailon In the evening it was found necessary to dispose of the forecastle and
aftermost quarter-deck guns, together with some of the shot and other articles of very
great weight ;and the frame of the ship having opened during the night, the admi-
ral was next morning prevailed upon, by the renewed and pressing remonstrances of
his officers, to allow ten guns more to be thrown overboard. The ship still continuing
to open very much, the admiral ordered tarred canvass and hides to be nailed fore and
aft, from under the cills of the ports on the main deck and on the lower deck. Her
increasing damage requi/ring still more to be done, the admiral directed all the guns
on the upper deck, the shot, both on that and the lower deck, with various heavy
stores, to be thrown overboard."
1 Xeifiuvog ovK bXiyov kTriKeifievov.
* Aonrov Trepiripeiro e2,7rlc irdaa rov ou^eadai rjfiag.
3 Mr. Smith illustrates this by several examples.We may quote an instance from
a very ordinary modern voyage between Alexandria and Malta, which presents some
points of close resemblance in a very mitigated form.
" The commander came down, saying the night was pitch dark and rainy, with
symptoms of a regular gale of wind. This prediction was very speedily verified. A
violent shower of hail was the precursor, followed by loud peals of thunder, with vivid
flashes of forked lightning, which played up and down the iron rigging with fearful
rapidity She presently was struck by a sea which came over the paddle-boxes,
Boon followed by another, which coming over the forecastle, effected an entrance
through the skyUghts, and left four feet of water in the officers' cabin. The vessel
seemed disabled by this stunning blow; the bowsprit and fore part of the ship were
for some moments under water, and the officer stationed at that part of the ship de-
scribed her as appearing dui-ing that time to be evidently sinking, and declared that
for many soconas he saw only the sea. The natural buoyancy of the ship at last al-
lowed her to right herself, and during the short lull (of three minutes) her head was
turned, to avoid the danger of running too near the coast of Lybia, which to the
more experienced was the principal cause of alarm; for had the wheels given way,
which was not improbable from the strain thoy had undergone, nothing could hav
: '
land the impossibility of preparing any regular meal. Hence we see tli
rorce of the phrase ' which alludes to what a casual reader mi^^ht suppose
an unimportant part of the suffering, the fact that there was " much absti-
nence." It was in this time of utter weariness and despair that to tho
Apostle there rose up " Hght in the darkness : " and that light was made
the means of encouraging and saving the rest. While the heathen sailors
were vainly struggling to subdue the leak, Paul was praying ; and God
granted to him the lives of all who sailed with him. A vision was vouch
gafed to him in the night, as formerly, when he was on the eve of convey*
ing the Gospel from Asia to Europe, and more recently in the midst of
those harassing events, which resulted in his voyage from Jerusalem to
Rome. When the cheerless day came, he gathered the sailors round him
on the deck of the labouring vessel, and, raising his voice above the storm,
said
and loss.
that what hath been declared unto me shall come to pass. [N'ever-
theless, we must be cast upon a certain island.
saved us, though we had been spared all other causes for apprehension With
daylight the fearful part of the hurricane gave way, and we were now in the direction
of Candia, no longer indeed contending against the wind, but the sea still surging and
and no lull taking place during twelve hours, to afford the opportunity of
''impetuous,
regaining our tack, from which we had deviated about 150 miles. The sea had so
completely deluged the lower part of the ship, that it was with difficulty that suffi.-
dent fire could be made to afford us even coffee for breakfast. Dinner was not to
he thought o/.'-Mrs. Darner's Diary in the Holy Land, vol. ii.
1 lioXl^C daiTiac vTrapxavarj^. See below, the narrative of the meal at daybreak,
vv. 33, 34. The commentators have done elucidate this, which
is in fact no
little to
difficulty to those who The strangest comment is in
are acquainted with sea-voyages.
a book, which devotionally is very useful,Lectures on St. Paul, by the late Rev. H.
Blunt, of Chelsea, who supposes that a religious fast was observed by the crew
Suring the storm.
' 'LraOslc ev jueGU) avrCiv.
3 Kep6fiaaL means " to be spared,''^ not " to gain.'' (A.Y.) We should observe that
St. Paul's object in a luding to the correctness of bis former advice, is not to taual
those who had rejected it, but to induce them to give credit to his present assertions.
4 The vjSpLv was to their persons, the ^Tjjuiav to their property.
Aarpevci. Compaa:e Rom. i. 9, and note.
;
We are not toldhow this address was received. But sailors, howevei
reckless they may be in the absence of danger, are peculiarly open to to*
ligious impressions and we cannot doubt that they gathered anxiously
:
round the Apostle, and heard his words as an admonition and encourage-
ment from the other world that they were nerved for the toil and difficul-
;
After a short interval, they sounded again, and found " fifteen fathoms."
Though the vicinity of land could not but inspire some hope, as holding
out the prospect of running the ship ashore ^ and so being saved, yet the
I
By meant, as we shall see presently, that division of the Mediterranean
this is
which between Sicily and Malta on the west, and Greece with Crete on the east.
lies
period, both In the neighbourhood of Gibraltar and to the eastward of Malta. cap- A
tain in themerchant service mentions a fruit vessel near Smyrna hindered for a fort-
night from loading by a gale from the N.E. She was two days in beating up a little
bay a mile deep. He adds, that such gales are prevalent there towards winter. An-
other case Is that of a vessel boand for Odessa, which was kept three wfteks at MIlo
with an easterly gale. This, also, was late In the year (October). A naval officer
writes thus " About the same time of the year, In 1839, 1 left Malta for the Levant iu
:
at table to a meal during which time we saw neither sun nor stars.' Happily she
;
'
was a powerful vessel, and we forccvi her through It, being charged with dispatches,
though with much injury to the vessel. Had we been a mere log on the water, like
St. Paul's ship, we should have drifted many days.
3 T-KEvnovv ol vavrat ivpoauyeiv rivd avTolg x'^oav. Mr. Smith (p. 78) Truly re-
marks, that this is an instance of " the graphic language of seamen, to whom the ship
is the principal object."
It is hardly likely that they saw the breakers.
To suppose that they becam
aware of the land by the sm(!ll of fragrant gardens (an error found in a recent work)
is absurd for the wind blew from the ship towards the land.
;
' " Thoy can now adopt the last resource for a sinking ship and run her asliore
ANOHOKING IN THE NIGHT. 336
alarm of tlie sailors was great when they perceived how rapidly they were
shoaliug the water. It seems also that they now heard breakers ahead.'
However this might be, there was the utmost danger lest the vessel should
strike and go to pieces. No time was to be lost. Orders were immedir
ately given to clear the anchors. But, if they had anchored by the bow,
there was good ground for apprehending that the vessel would have swung
round and gone upon the rocks. They therefore let go " four anchors
the stern" For a time, the vessel's way was arrested : but there was too
much reason to fear that she might part from her anchors and go ashore,
if indeed she did not founder in the night : and " they waited anxiousijf
for the day."
The reasons are obvious why she anchored by the stern, rather than in
the usual way. Besides what has been said above, her way would be
more easily arrested, and she would be in a better position for being run
ashore ^ next day. But since this mode of anchoring has raised some ques-
tions, it may be desirable, in passing, to make a remark on the subject
That a. vessel can anchor by the stern is sufficiently proved (if proof were
needed) by the history of some of our own naval engagements. So it waig
at the battle of the Nile. And when ships are about to attack batteries,
Btated after the battle, that he had that morning been reading the twenty-
seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.^ But, though it will be
granted that this manoeuvre is possible with due preparation, it may be
doubted whether it could be accomphshed in a gale of wind on a lee shore^
but to do 80 before it was day would have been to have rushed on certain destruction
they must bring the ship, if it be possible, to anchor, and hold on till day-break, &c."
Smith, p. 88.
1 Mr. Smith (p. 91) seems to infer this from the words ^ojSovfzevoi fxij^rug etc rpaxeli
TCTTOvg eKTreouuiv. But the word fiijirug (or /iijivov, according to Tischendorf s read-
ing) would rather imply that the fear was a general one. "We should observe that the
correct reading (and the more natural one) is kicrrsaufxev.
* We must carefully observe that, in anchoring,
besides the proximate cause, viz.^
the fear of falling on rocks to leeward, " they had also an ulterioi object in view,
which was to run the ship ashore as soon as daylight enabled them to seleel a spot
where it could be done with a prospect of safety for this purpose the very best posi-
:
tion in which the ship could be was to be anchored by the stern." Smith, p. 92.
3 Sec Southey's Life of Nelson: "All the line-of-battle ships were to anchor by the
stern, abreast of the different vessels composing the enemy's line and for this purpose 5
they had already prepared themselves with cables out of their stern-ports."
4 This anecdote is from a private source, and docs not appear in any of the printed
without any previous notice. The question in fact is, whethei ancient ships
in the Mediterranean were always prepared to anchor in this way. Some
answer to suppUed by the present practice of the Levantine
this doubt is
eaiqucs, which preserve in great measure the traditionary build and rig
f ancient merchantmen. These modern Greek vessels may still be seen
anchoring by the stern in the Golden Horn at Constantinople, or on the
(Ooast of Patmos.' But the best illustration is afforded by one of the pamt-
lags of Herculaneum, which represents " a ship so strictly contemporaneous
with that of St. Paul, that there is nothing impossible in the supposition,
that the artist had taken his subject from that very ship, on loosing froni
that to have anchored in this way (or indeed in the ordinary way) would
have been of little avail in St. Paul's ship : since it could not be supposed
that the anchors would have held in such a gale of wind. To this we can
only reply, that this course was adopted to meet a dangerous emergency.
The sailors could not have been certain of the result. They might indeed
^ The first of these instances is supplied by naval officer ; the second by a captain
ivho has spent a long life in the merchant service.
Smith, a gee v. 40.
p. 94.
;
Lave had confidence in their cables : but they could not be sure of their
holding ground.
This is one of the circumstances which must be taken into account,
when we sum up the evidence in proof that the place of shipwreck was
Malta. At present we make no such assumption. We will not anticipate
the conclusion, till we have proceeded somewhat farther with the narra-
tive. We may, however, ask the reader to pause for a moment, and re-
consider what was said of the circumstances of the vessel, when we described
what was done under the lee of Clauda. We then saw that the direction
in which she was drifting was W. by Now an inspection of the chart
will show us that this is exactly the bearing of the northern part of Malta
from the south of Clauda. We saw, moreover, that she was drifting at
the rate of about a mile and a half in every hour, or thirty-six miles in the
twenty-four hours. Since that time thirteen days had elapsed : for the
first of the "fourteen days" would be taken up on the way from Fab
Havens to Clauda.^ The ship therefore had passed over a distance of
about 468 miles. The distance between Clauda and Malta is rather lesi
than 480 miles. The coincidence ^ is so remarkable, that it seems hardlj
possible to believe that the land, to which the sailors on the fourteenth
night " deemed that they drew nigh," the " certain island," on which it
was prophesied that they should be cast, could be any other place than
Malta. The probabiHty is overwhelming. But we must not yet assume
the fact as certain : for we shall find, as we proceed, that the condition?
are very numerous, which the true place of shipwreck will be required to
satisfy.
We return then to the ship, which we left labouring at her four anchors.
The coast was invisible, but the breakers were heard in every pause of
the storm. The rain was falling in torrents ;
^ and all hands were weak-
ened by want of food. But the greatest danger was lest the vessel should
founder before daybreak. The leak was rapidly gaining, and it was ex-
1 All that happened after leaving Fair Havens before the ship was undergirded and
laid-to, mustevidently have occupied a great part of a day.
" In the general calculation Mr. Smith and Sir C. Peni'ose agree with one another
and the argument derives great force from the slight difference between them. Mr.
Smith (pp. 83-89) makes the distance 476-6 miles, and the time occupied thirteen days
one hour and twenty-one minutes. With this compare the following: "Now, with
respect to the distance, allowing the degree of strength of the gale to vary a little oc-
casionally, I consider that a ship would drift at the rate of about one mile and a half
per hour, which, at the end of fourteen complete days, would amount to 504 miles
but it does not appear that the calculation is to be made for fourteen entire days it :
was on the fourteenth night that the anchors were cast off the shores of MeliUu The
distance /rom the S. of Clauda to the N. of Malta, measured on the best chart I have,
is about 490 miles and is it possible for coincident- calculations, of such a nature, to
;
be more exact ? In fact, on one chart, after I had calculated the supposed drift, as a
seaman, to be 504 miles, I measured the distance to be 503."
3 See xxviii. 2, 6lu tov verbv i bv k<P''.aTC)Ta, v
VOL. II. 22
358 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
pected that each moment might be the last. Under these circumstancfca
we find the sailors making a selfish attempt to save themselves, and leave
the ship and the passengers to their fate. Under the pretence of carrying
out some anchors from the bow, they lowered the boat over the ship's side
(v. 30). The excuse was very plausible, for there is no doubt that the
vessel would have been more steady if this had been done ;
and, in order
to effect it, it would be necessary to take out anchors in the boat. But
their real intention was to save their own lives and leave the passengers.^
St. Paul penetrated their design, and either from some divine intimation
of the instruments which were to be providentially employed for the
safety of all on board, or from an intuitive judgment, which shewed him
that those who would be thus left behind, the passengers and soldiers,
would not be able to work the ship in any emergency that might arise,
rion ;
3 and they, with military promptitude held no discussion on the
subject, but decided the question by immediate action. With that short
Bword, with which the Roman legions cleft their way through every ob-
stacle to universal victory, they "cut the ropes and the boat fell off,*
and, if not instantly swamped, drifted off to leeward into the darkness,
and was dashed to pieces on the rocks.
Thus the prudent counsel of the Apostle, seconded by the prompt
action of the soldiers, had been the means of saving all on board. Each
successive incident tended to raise him, more and more, into a position of
overpowering influence.^ Not the captain or the ship's crew, but the
passenger and the prisoner, is looked to now as the source of wisdom and
safety. We find him using this influence for the renewal of their bodily
strength, while at the same time he turned their thoughts to the providen-
tial care of God. By this time the dawn of day was approaching.^ A faint
*Y.Lacav avrrjv tuneadv. In the words above (xa^aadvTuv t^v cKd<l>rjv etc rhv
ddTiUGoav) it is cltjar that the boat, which was hoisted on deck at the beginning of the
gale, had been half lowered from the davits.
* The commanding attitude of St. Paul in this and other scenes of the narrative ia
forcil)ly pointed out by the Review of Mr. Smith's work in the North British Review
for May 1849.
^ 'Axpi ov fifielXev iiii'^pa yheodai, v. 33. See v. 39.
SHIPWEECK. 339
iight shewed more of the terrors of the storm, and the objects on board
the ship began to be more distinctly visible. Still towards the land, all
was darkness, and their eyes followed the spray in vain as it drifted off
safety,^ and encouraging them by the assurance that not a hair ^ of their
head " should perish. So speaking, he set the example of the cheerful use
of God's gifts and grateful acknowledgment of the Giver, by taking bread,
" giving thanks to God before all/' and beginning to eat. Thus encour-
aged by his calm and rehgious example, they felt their spirits revive,'* and
" they also partook of food," and made themselves ready for the labour
which awaited them.^
Instead of abandoning themselves to despair, they proceeded actively
to adopt the last means for relieving the still sinking vessel. The cargo of
wheat was now of no use. It was probably spoilt by the salt water.
And however this might be, it was not worth a thought ; since it was
well known that the vessel would be lost. Their hope now was to run
her on shore and so escape to land. Besides this, it is probable that,
the ship having been so long in one position, the wheat had shifted over
to the port side, and prevented the vessel from keeping that upright posi-
tion, which would be most advantageous when they came to steer her
towards the shore.^ The hatchways were therefore opened, and they pro
1 It is at this point of the narrative that the total number of bouIs on board is men*
tioned.
' TovTO yap Tvpnc rrjg v/ieripag aurrjplag v-rrapxet.
3 Our Lord uses the same proverbial expression. Luke xxi. 18,
.* EvdvuoL yevoiJLEVoL iravreg.
5 " All hands now, crew and passengers, bond or free, are assembled on the deck,
anxiously wishing for day, when Paul, taking advantage of a smaller degi-ee of mo-
tion [would this necessarily be the case ?] in the ship than when drifting with her side
to the waves, recommends them to make use of this time, before the dawn would
to
require fresh exertions, in making a regular and comfortable meal, in order to refresh
them after having so long taken their precarious repasts, probably without fire or any
kind of cooking. He begins by example, but first, by giving God thanks for their
preservation hitherto, and hopes of speedy relief Having thus refreshed themselves^
they cast out as much of the remaining part of the cargo (wheat) as they could, to
enable them by a lighter draft of water either to run into any small harbour, or at
least closer in with dry land, should they be obliged to run the ship on the rocks or
beach." Penrose, MS.
6 The following extract from Sir C. Penrose's papers supplies an addition to Mr,
Smith's remarks " With respect to throwing the wheat into the sea after anchoriBgfc
:
540 THE LEFE AUB EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ceeded to throw the grain into the sea. This work would occupy some
time ; and when it was accomplished, the day had dawned, and the land
was visible.!
The sailors looked hard at the shore, but they could not recognise it."
Though ignorant, however, of the name of the coast, off which they were
anchored, they saw one feature in it which gave them a hope that they
might accomplish their purpose of running the ship aground. They per-
ceived a small bay or indentation, with a sandy or pebbly beach :^ and
their object was, " if possible," so to steer the vessel that she might take
the ground at that point. To effect this, every necessary step was care-
fully taken. While cutting the anchors adrift, they unloosed the lashings
with which the rudders had been secured,'* and hoisted the foresail.*
it may be remarked, that it was not likely that, while drifting, the hatchways could
have been opened for that purpose and when anchored by the stern, I doubt not that
;
it was found, that, from the ship having been so long pressed down on one side the
cargo had shifted, i. e. the wheat had pressed over towards the larboard side, so that
the ship, instead of being upright, heeled to the larboard, and made it useful to throw
out as much of the wheat as time allowed, not only to make her specifically lighter,
but to bring her upright, and enable her to be more accurately steered and navigated
towards the land at daybreak."
1 'Ore 6t r][iepa kyevETO.
* Trjv yrjv ovK kTreyivioGKov. Observe the tense, and compare kTreyvufzev below
(xxviii. 1), from which it appears that the island was recognised immediately on
laiiding.
3 KoAttov Tiva Karevoovv exovra alyia?[,6v. In illustration of the last word (as op-
posed to uKT^) see Mat. xiii. 2. Acts xxi. 5.
4 When they anchored, no doubt the paddle rudders had been hoisted up and lashed,
without it, but would press the ship further on upon the land^ and thus enable them
the more easily to get to the shore."Penrose, MS.
See below.
PEOOF THAT THE PLACE WAS MALTA. 34\
the spirit of true Roman cruelty, they proposed to kill them at once.
Now again the influence of St. Paul over the centurion's mind ^ was mado
the means of saving both his own life and that of his fellow-prisoners.
Por the rest he might care but little ; but he was determined to secure
Paul's safety .3 He therefore prevented the soldiers from accomplishing
their heartless intention, and directed* those who could swim to ''cast
themselves into the sea " first, while the rest made use of spars and broken
pieces of the wreck. Thus it came to pass that all escaped safely ^ through
the breakers to the shore.
When the land was safely reached, it was ascertained that the island
on which they were wrecked was Melita. The mere word does not ab-
solutely establish the identity of the place : fortwo islands were anciently
called alike by this name. This, therefore, is the proper place for sum-
that it was the modern Malta. We have already seen (p. 335) the
almost irresistible inference which follows from the consideration of the
direction and rate of drift since the vessel was laid-to under the lee of
Clauda. But we shall find that every succeeding indication not only
tends to bring us to the shore of this island, but to the very bay (the
Cala di San Paolo) which has always been the traditionary scene of the
wreck.
In the first place we are told that they became aware of land iy the
5 Aiaaudrivai, xxvii. 44 ;
dtaoudevreg, xxviii. 1 ;
Scaaudivra, xxviii. 4.
6 See the Chart
' Smith, p. 79, 89. "With north-easterly gales, the sea breaks upon this point
with such violence, that Capt. Smyth, in his view of the headland, has made the
breakers its distinctive character."
THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
without striking on the rocks. But what are the soundings at this point ?
They are now twenty fathoms. If we proceed a little further we find
the vesseTs drift (W. by N.) from the twenty fathom depth, the coinci-
dence is startling.' But at this point we observe, on looking at the chart,
that now there would be breakers ahead, and yet at such a distance
aliead, that there would be time for tJve. vessel to anchor before actually
,
and we see that they are fulfilled without any attempt at ingenious expla^
nation. But we may proceed farther. The character of the coast on the
farther side of the bay is such, that though the greater part of it is
fronted with mural precipices, there are one or two indentations,^ which
exhibit the appearance of " a creek with a [sandy or jpebbly'] shoreP And
again we observe that the island of Salmonetta is so placed, that the
Bailors, looking from the deck when the vessel was at anchor, could not
possibly be aware that it was not a continuous part of the mainland ;
whereas, while they were running her aground, they could not help ob-
serving the opening of the channel, which would thus appear (like the
Bosphorus^') flace hetwejen two seas,^^ and would be more likely tc
attract their attention, if some current resulting from this juxtaposition of
the island and the coast interfered with the accuracy of their steering."
And finally, to revert to the fact of the anchors holding through the
night (a result which could not confidently be predicted), we find it stated,
in our English Sailing Directions,^ tha^t the ground in St. Paul's Bay is so
good, that, while the cables hold, tlmre is no danger, as tlie anchors will
mver startP
Malta was not then the densely crowded island which it has become
during the last half century.'' Though it was well known to the Ro-
mans as a dependency of the province of Sicily,'^ and though the harbour
now called Yaletta must have been familiar to the Greek mariners who
1 Smith, p. 91.
* One place, at the opening of the Mestara Valley (see Chart) has fctill this character.
At another place there has been a beach, though it is now obliterated. See the re-
marks of Mr. Smith, who has and whose authority in any
carefully examined the bay,
question relating to the geology of coasts is of great weight
3 This illustration is from Strabo, who uses the very word diQakaaaoq of the Bos-
traded between the East and the West,' much of the island was dcubfe-
less uncultivated and overrun with wood. Its population was of Phoeni-
cian origin, speaking a language which, as regards social intercourse,
had the same relation to Latin and Greek, which modern Maltese has ta
English and Italian.'^ The inhabitants, however, though in this sense
" barbarians," were favourably contrasted with many Christian wreckers
in their reception of those who had been cast on their coast. They
shewed them no "ordinary kindness for they lighted a fire and welcomed
them all to the warmth, drenched and shivering as they were in the rain
and the The whole scene is brought very vividly before us in the
cold.
sacred narrative. One incident has become a picture in St. Paul's life,
with which every Christian child is familiar. The Apostle had gathered
with his own hands a heap of sticks and placed them on the fire, when a
viper came " out of the heat" and fastened on his hand. The poor supers
stitious people, when they saw this, said to ono another, " This man must
be a murderer : he has escaped from the sea : but still vengeance suffers
factors.
St. Paul was enabled to work many miracles during his stay at Malta.
The first which is recorded is the healing of the father of Publius, the
governor of the iFland,*^ who had some possessions near the place where
Diodorus Siculus \v. ] 2) speaks of the manufactm-es of Malta, of the wealth of itf
"first of the island" was alive, A Greek and Latin inscription, with the wordi
nPQTOS MEAIIAIGN and MEL. PRIMUS, are adduced by Ciantar but Mr. Smith ;
the vessel was lost, and who had given a hospitable reception to the ship-
wrecked strangers, and supplied their wants for three days. The disease
aands on him : and he recovered. This being noised through the island,
other sufferers came to the Apostle and were healed. Thus was he em*
powered to repay the kindness of these islanders by temporal services in-
tended to lead their minds to blessings of a still higher kind. And they
were not wanting in gratitude to those, whose unexpected visit had
brought so much good among them. They loaded them with every honour
in their power, and, when they put to sea again, supplied them with
everything that was needful for their wants (ver. 10).
Before we pursue the concluding part of the voyage, which was so
prosperous that hardly any incident in the course of it is recorded, it may
be useful to complete the argument by which Malta is proved to be the
scene of St. Paul's shipwreck, by briefly noticing some objections which
have been brought against this view. It is true that the positive evidence
already adduced is the strongest refutation of mere objections ; but it ia
people,' and 'barbarians,' of the island. Now, our Malta was at that time fully
peopled and highly civilized, as we may surely infer from Cicero and other writers.
A viper comes out from the sticks upon the fire being lighted the men are not sur- :
prised at the appearance of the snake, but imagine first a murderer, and then a god,
from the harmless attack. Now, in our Malta, there are, I may say, no snakes at all
which, to be sure, the Maltese attribute to St. Paul's having cursed them away. Me-
lita in the Adriatic was a perfectly barbarous island as to its native population, and
was, and is now, infested with serpents. Besides, the context shews that the scene is in
the Adriatic."Coleridge's Table Talk, pp. 185.
3 We have not been able to see the treatise of Padre Georgi. It is entitled Paulm
Apostolus in mari, quod nunc Venetus sinus dicitur, naufragus.'' Yen. 1730. Othef
treatises followed, on the two sides of the question by Ciantar 1738, S. Caspare 1739,
Bcingliaga 1757, and De Soldanis 1758, all published at Venice. Georgi, however, waa
not the first who suggested that the Apostle was wrecked on Melida in the Adriatie.
:
been jealous of the honour of his order, ^vhich had a convent on that
small island. But
more surprising that the view should have been
it is
maintained by other writers since.^ For not only do the classical poets'
use the name "Adria" for all that natural division of the Mediterranean
which lies between Sicily and Greece, but the same phraseology is found
in historians and geographers. Thus Ptolemy ^ distinguishes clearly be-
tween the Adriatic Sea and the Adriatic Gulf. Pausanias'' says that the
Straits of Messene unite the Tyrrhene Sea with the Adriatic Sea ; and
Procopius ^ considers Malta as lying on the boundary of the latter. Nor
are the other objections more successful. It is argued that Alexandrian
sailors could not possibly have been ignorant of an island so well known
as Malta was then. But surely they might have been very familiar with
the harbour of Yaletta, without being able to recognise that part of the
came during the storm. A modern sailor who had
coast on which they
made many passages between JSiew York and Liverpool might yet be
perplexed if he found himself in hazy weather on some part of the coast of
Wales.^ Besides, we are told that the seamen did recognize the island as
soon as they were ashore.' It is contended also that the people of Malta
would not have been called barbarians. But, if the sailors were Greeks
(as they probably were), they would have employed this term, as a
matter of course, of those who spoke a different language from their own."
Again it is argued that there are no vipers that there is hardly any
wood in Malta. But who does not recognize here the natural changes
which result from the increase of inhabitants^ and cultivation? Within
called. See especially his dissertation on the island Melita. Among those who havo
adopted Bryant's view, we have referred by name only to Falconer.
* See Ovid, Fast. iv. Trist. i. 12. Hor. Ep.
See various passages in the third book.
8 Eliac. v. *
5 The passage from the Vandal War has been quoted above. See again the Gothic
War, iii. 40. Thucydides speaks of the Adriatic sea in the same way. We should
also bear in mind the shipwreck of Josephus, which took place in " Adria." Some (e.
g. Mr. Sharpc, the author of the History of Egypt) have identified the two shipwrecks
but it is difficult to harmonise the narratives.
Even with charts he might have a difficulty in recognising a part of the coast,
c
which he had never seen before. And we must recollect that the ancient mariner had
no charts.
'
xxviii. 1. 8 Sec above.
See above, note on the populati.)n of Malta. Sir C. Penrose adds a circumstance,
which it is important to take into account in considering this question, viz. that, in tha
iirao of the Knights, the bulk of the population was at the east end of the island, and
:
SYKACirSE. 347
a very tew years there was wood close to St. Paul's Bay and it is well ; '
known how the Fauna of any country varies with the vegetation.* An
argument has even been built on the supposed fact, that the disease of
Publius unknown in the island. To this it is suflBcient to reply by a
is
simple denial.^ Nor can we close this rapid survey of objections without
noticing the insuperable difficulties which lie against the hypothesis of the
Venetian Meleda, from the impossibility of reaching it, except by a
miracle, under the above-related circumstances of weather," from the disr
that the neighbourhood of St. Paul's Bay was separated off by a line of fortification
built for fear of descents from Barbary cruizers.
1 This statement rests on the authority of an English resident on the island.
* Some instances are given by Mr. Smith.
3 happens that the writer once spent an anxious night in Malta with a fellow
It
traveller, who was suffering precisely in the same way.
4 " If Euroclydon blew in such a direction as to make the pilots afraid of being
driven on the quicksands (and there were no such dangers to the south-west of them),
how could it be supposed that they could be driven north towards the Adriatic ? la
truth, it is very difficult for a well appointed ship of modern days to get from Crete
into and up the Adriatic at the season named in the narrative, the north winds being
then prevalent, and strong. We find the ship certainly driven from the south coast
of Crete, from the Fair Havens towards Clauda (now Gozzi), on the south-west, and
during the fourteen days' continuance of the gale, we are never told that Euroclydon
ceased to blow, and with either a Gregaiia or Levanter blowing hard, St. Paul's ship
could not possibly have proceeded up the Adriatic." Penrose, MS. He says again
" How is it possible that a ship at that time, and so circumstanced, could have got up
the difficult navigation of the Adriatic ? To have drifted up the Adriatic to the island
of Melita or Melida, in the requisite curve, and to have passed so many islands and
other dangers in the route, would, humanly speaking, have been impossible. The
distance from Clauda to this Melita is not less than 780 geographical miles, and the
wind must have long been from the south to make this voyage in fourteen days. Now,
from Clauda to Malta, there is not any one danger in a direct line, and we see that
the distance and direction of drift will both agree."
* This is clearly shown on the Austrian chart of that part of the Adriatic.
6 From the Adriatic Melida it would have been more natm-al to have gone to Bnm-
dusium or Ancona, and thence by land to Rome and, even in going by sea, Syracuse
;
would have been out of the course, whereas it is in the direct track from Malta.
" It is natural to assume that such was its name, if such was its TrapdaTj/iov, i. e. the
Bculptured or painted figures at the prow. It was natural to dedicate ships to the
Dioscuri, who were the hero-patrons of sailors. They were supposed to appear in
those lights which are called by modern sailors the fires of St. Elmo and in art they ;
are represented as stars. See these stars (lucida sidera, Hor. Od. i. iii. 2 5 alba stella,
COIN OP BYEAOtJSE.'
West, after spending much time in those of greatest note in the East,
We are able to associate the Apostle of the Gentiles and the thoughts of
Christianity with the scenes of that disastrous expedition which closed the
progress of the Athenians towards our part of Europe, and with those
Punic Wars, which ended in bringing Africa under the yoke of Rome.
We are not told whether St. Paul was permitted to go on shore at
Syracuse ; but from the courtesy shewn him by Julius, it is probable that
this permission was not refused. If he landed, he would doubtless find
Jews and Jewish proselytes in abundance, in so great a mercantile
emporium and would announce to them the glad tidings which he was
;
commissioned to proclaim " to the Jew first and also to the Gentile."
Hence we may without diflQculty give credit to the local tradition, which
regards St. Paul as the first founder of the Sicilian church.
Sailing out of that beautiful land-locked basin, and past Ortygia, once
an island,** but then united in one continuous town with the buildings
tinder the ridge of Epipolss, the ship which carried St. Paul to Rome
Bhaped her course northwards towards the straits of Messina. The weather
was not favourable at first : they were compelled to take an indirect
course,^ and they put into Rhegium, a city whose patron divinities were^
^ From the British Museum. In earlier types of this magnificent coin, the fish are
Been moving in the same direction round the head. An ingenious theory suggests
that this was the case so long as the old city on Ortygia was an island, and that the
change in the coins symbolised the joining of Ortygia to the mainland.
* See note on the coin. The city has now shrunk to its old limit.
> Mr. Smith's view that irepte'kdovTtg means simply " beating " is more likely to be
correct than that of Mr. Lewin, who supposes that " as the wind was westerly, and
they were under shelter oJ' the high mountainous range of Etna on their left, they
were obliged to stand out to ?ea in order to fill their sails, and so come to Rhegium
by a circuitous sweep." lie adds in a note, that he " was informed ly a friend that
when he made the voyage from Syracuse to Rhegium, the vessel in which he sailed
look a similar circuit for a similar reason."
* Macaulay's Lays of Rome (^Battle of Lake Regillus). See the coin, wHich ex-
hibits the heads of the twin-divinities with the stars.
'
KHEQITJM. 349
Here they remained one day (ver. 13), evidently waiting for a faif
wind to take them through the Faro ; for the springing up of a wind
from the south is expressly mentioned in the following words. This wind
would be favourable not only for carrying the ship through the straits^
but for all the remainder of the voyage. If the vessel was single masted,*
this wind was the best that could blow: for to such a vessel the most
2
COIN OF EHEGITJM.
Before the close of the first day they would see on the left the
volcanic cone and smoke of Strombon,^ the nearest of the Liparian islands.
In the course of the night they would have neared that projecting part of
the mainland, which forms the southern limit of the bay of Salerno.^
Sailing across the wide opening of this gulf, they would, in a few hours,
enter that other bay, the bay of Naples, in the northern part of which
Puteoli was situated. No long description need be given of that bay,
which has been made familiar, by every kind of illustration, even to
those who have never seen it. Its southeastern limit is the promontory of
Minerva,' with the island of Caprese opposite, which is so associated with
1We cannot assume this to have been the case, but it is highly probable. See above.
We may refer here to the representation of the harbour of Ostia on the coin of Nero,
given below. It will be observed that all the ships in the harbour are single-masted.
* From the British Museum. Smith, p. 180. 3
4 We cannot agree with the N. Brit. Reviewer in doubting the correctness of Mi*.
ance of the coast between Cape Spartivento (Pr. Palinurum) and Cape Campanella
(Pr. Minervffi).
7 See the quotation from Seneca's letters below. The early writers say that Ulysses
raised there a temple to the goddess. Strabo, v. The point was also called the Cape
of Surrentum and the Cape of the Sirens. The beauty of this part of the coast if
r!ecribed by Satius. Sjlv. ii. 12^
360 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the memory of Tiberins, that its cliffs still seem to rise from the blue
waters as a monument of hideous vice in the midst of the fairest scenes of
nature. The opposite boundary was the promontory of Misenum, where
one of the imperial fleets ' lay at anchor under the shelter of the islands of
1 The ^fleet of the " Upper Sea " was stationed at Ravenna, of the " Lower " at
Misenum.
' "Hie estpampineis vixidis modo Vesuvius umbris." Mart. iv. 44. "Vesvia
rura." Colum. x.
" Vineta Vesevi." Auson. Idyll, x. See Lucr. vi. 747. Virg.
Georg. ii. 224. Strabo (v. 24) describes the mountain as very fertile at its base,
though its summit was barren, and full of apertures, which shewed the traces of earlier
volcanic action.
3 See the younger Pliny's description of his uncle's death. Ep. vi. 16.
nished with new circumstances to aid our efforts to realise the arrival o{
the Castor and Pollux, on the coast of Italy, with St. Paal on board
And if we wish still further to associate this event with the history and
the feelings of the times, we may turn to an anecdote of the Emperor
Augustus, which is preserved to us by Suetonius.^ The Emperor had been
seized with a feverish attack it was the beginning of his last illness and
was cruising about the bay for the benefit of his health, when an Alexan-
drian corn-ship w^is coming to her moorings, and passed close by. Th(j
Bailors recognised the old man, whom the civilised world obeyed as master,
and was learning to worship as God and they: brought forth garlands
and incense, that they might pay him divine honours, saying that it was
by his providence that their voyages were made safe and that their trade
was prosperous. Augustus was so gratified by this worship, that he im-
mediately distributed an immense sum of gold among his suite, exacting
from them the promise that they wc-uld expend it all in the purchase of
Alexandrian goods. Such was the interest connected in the first century
with the trade between Alexandria and Puteoli. Such was the idolatrous
homage paid to the Roman Emperor. The only difference, when the
Apostle of Christ came, was that the vice and corruption of the Empire
had increased with the growth of its trade, and that the Emperor now was
not Augustus but Nero.
In this wide and sunny expanse of blue waters, no part was calmer or
more beautiful than the recess in the northern part of the bay, between
Baias and Puteoli. It was naturally sheltered by the surrounding coasts,
and seemed of itself to invite both the gratification of luxurious ease, and
the formation of a mercantile harbour. Baige was devoted to the former
purpose : it was to the invalids and fashionable idlers of Rome like a com-
bination of Brighton and Cheltenham. Puteoli, on the opposite side of
this inner bay, was the Liverpool of Italy. Between them was that in*
closed reach of water, called the Lucrine Lake, which contained tho
oyster-beds for the luxurious tables of Rome, and on the surface of which
the small yachts of fashionable visitors displayed their coloured sails.
Still further inland was that other calm basin, the Lacus Avernus, which
an artificial passage connected with the former, and thus converted into a
harbour. Not far beyond was Cumse, once a flourishing Greek city, but
when the Apostle visited this coast, a decayed country town, famous only
for the recollections of the Sibyl.''
fortunis per ilium frui. Qua re admodum exhilaratus, quadra genos aureos cornitibua
(livisit, jusquejurandum et cautionom exegit a singulis, non alic datam summam, quain
(it
wards it was an Itahan town of the first rank. In ihe time of Vespasian
it became the Flavian Colonyj-^ like the city in Palestine from which St.
leges, and these had just been renewed under Nero. It was intimately
associated both with this emperor and with two others who preceded hint
in power and in crime. Close by Baise, across the bay, was Bauli, where
the plot was laid for the murder of Agrippina.'^ Across these waters
Caligula built his fantastic bridge ; and the remains of it were probably
visible when St. Paul landed.^ Tiberius had a more honourable monu-
ment in a statue (of which a fragment is still seen by English travellers
at Pozzuoli), erected during St. Paul's life to commemorate the restitu-
mole, on which the lighthouse ^ stood, and within which the merchantmen
were moored. Such is the proverbial tenacity of the concrete which was
used in this structure,^' that it is the most perfect ruin existing of any
Strabo says, after describing Baias 'E^r/g 6' elalv at nepl AtKaiapxiav uKral, koI avri^
:
jy TToAif. Hv 6^ upoTEoov jiev kmvELov. Kvmtuv, eTv' ocpjivog idpv/xevov Kara 6e r^v
*AvvLpa aTpareiav, cy>vi(,~.tav ^Tt^fialoL, kol juerovo/iaaav UoTioXovg, dirb ruv tppearuv
ol 6' UTTO TT/g Svo jdiag ridv iddruv, linav rd x^^pi-ov eKsl juexpt Batuv, Koi rrig Kv/uaiac,
5n Oetov Trlriptg koTL koI nvpog, kol Oeoiiuv vduruv. v. iv.
3 L'lv xxiv. * See Orelli's Inscriptions, No. 3698.
See above on Csesarea, p. 279, n. 5.
6
6 " In Italia vetus oppidum Puteoli jus colonia) et cognomentum a Nerone apiscun
tur.-'
Tac. Hist. xiv. 27. It appears, however, that this was a renewed privilege.
See Liv. xxxiv. 42. Veil. Pat. i. 15. Val. Max. ix. 3, 8.
7 Nero had murdered his mother about two years before St. Paul's coming. Tac.
Ann. xiv. 1-9.
8 Some travellers have mistaken the remains of the mole for those of Caligula's
bridge. But that was only a wooden structure. See Suet. Calig. 19.
9 The pedestal of this statue, with the allegorical representations of the towns, in
Btill extant. This " Marmorea basis " is described in the seventh volume of Grono*
vius, pp. 433-503.
10 Sec Cramer. There is, however, some inaccuracy in his reference to Pliny.
>
The well-known Pozzolana, which is mentioned also by Pliny, H. N. xxxv. 13, 47
PUTEOU.
the close mercantile relationship which subsisted between Egypt and thia
city. And this remains on our minds as the prominent and significant fact
of its history, whether we look upon the ruins of the mole and think of
15, that they did stay ; otherwise there would not have been time for the intelligence
of St. Paul's landing to reach Rome so long before his own arrival there.
VOL. II. 23
:
CHAPTEE XXIY.
In Tiberim defluxit Orontes. Juv. iii. 62.
mS APPIAN WAY. APPII FORUM AND THE THREE TAVERNS. ENTRANCE ITfTO
now we are about to trace the Apostle's footsteps along that road, which
was at once the oldest and most frequented in Italy,*^ and which was
called, in comparison with all others, the " Queen of Roads." We are no
longer following the narrow hue of compact pavement across Macedonian
plains and mountains,^ or through the varied scenery in the interior of
Asia Minor :
^ but we are on the most crowded approach to the metro-
polis of the world, in the midst of prgetors and proconsuls, embassies,
legions, and turms of horse, " to their provinces hasting or on return,"
which Milton,^ in his description of the City enriched with the spoils
of nations, has called us to behold " in various habits on the Appian
road."
Leaving then all consideration of Puteoli, as it was related to the
sea, and to the various places on the coast, we proceed to consider its
1 An animated description of one of the post stations on one of the roads in Asia
Minor is given by Gregory of Nazianzus. (De Yita sua, 32.) He is describing bia
own parish, and says
Kovig Tti ndvra, Kal i}j6(1)0i ci)V apuaat,
Opyvoi, arevayjuol, TrpuKTopeg, cTpe^STiai, irer^ac.
One of them followed the coast from PuteoH northwards, till it joineu the
Appian Way at Sinuessa, on the borders of Latium and Campania.^ It
appears, however, that this road was not constructed till the reign of
Domitian,^ Our attention, therefore, is called to the other cross-road
which led directly to Capua. One branch of it left the coast at Cumse,
another at Puteoli. It was called the " Campanian Way,"^ and also the
" Consular Way." ^ It seems to have been constructed during the Re-
public, and was doubtless the road which is mentioned, in an animated
passage of Horace's Epistles, as communicating with the baths and villas
of Raise.'
1 The Via Appia, the oldest and most celebrated of Roman roads, was constructed
as far as Capua, a. u. c. 442, by the censor Appius Claudius.
(Liv. ix. 29.) Eight
hundred years afterwards, Procopius was astonished at its appearance. He describes
it as broad enough for two carriages to pass each other, and as made of stones brought
from some distant quarry, and so fitted to each other, that they seemed to be thus
formed by nature, rather than cemented by art. He adds that, notwithstanding the
traffic of so many ages, the stones were not displaced, nor had they lost their original
smoothness. (Bell. Got. i. 14.) There is great doubt as to the date of the continua-
tion by Beneventum to Brundusium, nor is the course of it absolutely ascertained.
Bergier, in his great work on Roman roads (in the tenth volume of Grasvius) makes
little reference to the Appian Way. "We have used chiefly Romanelli and Pratilli, as
referred to below, with Cramer's Ancient Italy.
' Here it came to the customary ferry between the Greek and Italian peninsulas,
and was succeeded on the other side by the Via Egnatia. Strabo, v. 3. vi. 3. Com-
pare Vol. I. p. 317.
3 The stages of this road from Sinuessa appear as follows in the Peutingerian Table :
Savonem Fl. III. ; Vulturnum, VII. ; Liternum, VII. ; Cumas, VI. Lacum Aver- ;
num, II. ;
Puteolos, III. Thence it proceeds by Naples to Herculaneum, Pompeii,
and Surrentum.
Stftbise, In the Antonine Itinerary it is entitled, Iter a Terracina
Neapolim," and the distances are slightly different. A direct road from Capua to
Neapolis, by Atella, is mentioned in the Tab. Peut.
4 This is the road which is the subject of the pompous yet very interesting poem of
Statius, Silv. iv.
5 Suet. Aug. 94.
6Pliny says, after speaking of the District called Laboriae, "Finiuntur Laborise via
ab utroque latere eonsulari, quae a Puteolis et que a Cumis Capuam ducit." H. N.
xviii. 29.
' See the vivid passage in the beginning of Ep. i.xv., where we see that the road
Was well-travelled at that period, and where its turning out of the Via Appia ii
cJearly indicated
" Mutandus locus est, et diversoria not
Praiteragendus eques. Quo tendis ? Non mihi Baias
Est iter aut Cumas, Imva stomachosus habena
Dicet eques.-'
/
356 raE LITE ANI> KPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
The first pai t then of the route which Julias took with his prisoners
was probably from Puteoli to Capua. All the region near the coast, how-
ever transformed in the course of ages by the volcanic forces, which are
still at work, is recognised as the scene of the earliest Italian mythology,
and must ever be impressive from the poetic images, partly of this world
and partly of the next, with which Yirgil has filled it. From Cumae to
Capua, the road traverses a more prosaic district :
' the " Phlegraean
fields " are left behind, and we pass from the scene of Italy's dim mytho-
logy to the theatre of the most exciting passages of her history. The
whole line of the road ^ can be traced at intervals, not only in the close
neighbourhood of Puteoli and Capua, but through the intermediate villages
by fragments of pavements, tombs, and ancient milestones.^
Capua, after a time of disgrace had expiated its friendship with Han-
nibal," was raised by Julius Caesar to the rank of a colony ^ in the reign :
of Augustus it had resumed all its former splendour : ^ and about the
very time of which we are writing, it received accessions of dignity from
the emperor Nero.'^ It was the most important city on the whole line
of the Appian Way, between Rome and Brundusium. That part of the
Mne with which we are concerned, is the northerly and most ancient por-
/ion. The distance is about 125 miles ; and it may be naturally divided
into two equal parts. The division is appropriate, whether in regard to
those clififs,^ on wliich the city of Anxur was of old proudly situated, and
where a narrow pass, between the mountain and, the sea, unites the Papal
States to the kingdom of Naples.
The distance from Capua to Terracina ^ is about seventy Roman miles.
1 On the left was a district of pine woods, notorious for banditti {Gallinaria pinus),
Juv. iii. 305 ; now Pineta di Castel Volturno.
* Tiiis roarl Is noticed by Romanelli in the Diatriba Seconda on the Appian Way
and its branches, at the end of the second volume of his Antica Topografia istorica del
Regno di Napoli (1810). But the fullest details are given by Pratilli, in book ii. ch.
viii. of his work Delia Via Appia (1745). After mentioning some of the milestones
found at Giugliano and Aversa, he says " Per questa strada I'Apostolo S. Paolo,
:
paspcs that way. The ancient road ascended to Anxur, which was on the summit.
('* Svbi77ius impositnm saxis Anxur."
llor. Ep. i. v. 25.) A characteristic view is
giv(;n in See below.
Milman'? Horace.
9 The Btages are as follows (reckoning from Terracina) in the Antouine Itinerary
At the third mile, the road crossed the river Yulturnus at Casilinum, a
fcown then falling into decay.i Fifteen miles further it crossed the Savo^
by what was then called the Campanian Bridge.'"' Thence, after three
miles, it came to Sinuessa on the sea,^ which in St. Paul's day was
reckoned the first town in Latium, But the old rich Campania extended
^^urther to the northward, including the vine-clad hills of the famous
Falernian district through which we pass, after crossing the Savo.'' The
last of these hills (where the vines may be seen trained on elms, as of
old) is the range of Massicus, which stretches from the coast towards
the Apennines, and finally shuts out from the traveller, as he de-
scends on the farther side, all the prospect of Yesuvius and the
coast near Puteoli.^ At that season, both vines and elms would have
a winterly appearance. But the traces of spring would be visible in
the willows;^ among which the Liris' flows in many Silent windings
from the birthplace of Marius in the mountains ^ to the city and the
swamps by the sea, which the ferocity of his mature life has rendered illus-
We speak of Formiss, with its long street by the shore of its beautiful
FDNDis. XVI. FoRMis. XHi. MiNTURNis. IX. siMJESSA. TX. CAPUA. XXVI. The dis-
tances are rather smaller in the Jerusalem Itinerary, where a mufatio Ponte Campano
and a mutatio ad octavum are inserted between Sinuessa and Capua. Casilinum ia
mentioned only in the Peutingerian Table.
1 Morientis Casilini reliquiae." (Plin. iii. 5.) For notices of its more eminent daya
Bee Liv. xxii. 15. xxiii. 17, 18, &c. Casilinum is " New Capua," which rose on itg
ruins in the ninth century, and which appears under the name of Casilino in medieval
chronicles. (Romanelli, iii. 586.)
^ Campano Ponti. Hor. Sat. i. v. 45.
3 Plotius et Yarius Sinuessae, Virgiliusque Occurrunt," lb. 40.
4 Pliny extends Campania to the Liris. " Hinc felix ilia Campania est. Ab hoo
sinu incipiunt vitiferi coUes, et temulentia nobilis succo per omnes terras inclyto, atque
ut veteres dixere : Summum Liberi patris cum Cerere certamen." (H. N. iii. 5.) It
is difficult to fix the limits of the Falernus ager, which extended from the Massio
Hills towards the Yolturmis. See Virg. Georg. ii. 95. Hor. Od. i. xx. Propert iv. 6.
Sil. Ital. vii. 159.
5 See Eustace. The ancient road, however, seems to have followed the coast.
6 March 22. We
cross the Liris by a suspension bridge. It is a large stream
truly a taciturnus amnis winding like the Trent among willow-trees, which showed
nearly the first symptoms of spring we had seen." (Extract from a private jomnal.)
We have already seen that St. PauPs journey through Campania and Latium w^as yerj
early in spring.
^ " Rura, que Liris quieta
Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis."
Hor. Od. I. 31.
*
Liris nutritus aquis, qui fonte quieto
Dissimulat cursum." Sil. Ital. iv. 350.
No descfiption of the Garigliano could be more exou^t.
The Garigliano rises near Arpinum, which was also the birthplace of Honice,
The Marraurmum urbs of Horace, Sat. i. v. 37.
358 THE LIFE JlKL EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
bay, and witli its villas on the sea side and above it among wbich was
;
one of Cicero's favourite retreats from the turmoil of the political world,
and where at last he fell by the hand of assassins.' Many a Udica,^ or
palanquin, such as that in which he was reclining when overtaken by hia
murderers, may have been met by St. Paul in his progress, with other
carriages, with which the road would become more and more crowded,
the cisium,^ or light cabriolet, of some gay reveller, on his way to Baise,-
or the four-wheeled rheda,'^ full of the family of some wealthy senator quit-
ting the town for the country. At no great distance from Formise the
road left the sea again, and passed, where the substructions of it still re-
main, through the defiles ^ of the Csecuban hills, with their stony but pro-
ductive vineyards. Thence the traveller looked down upon the plain ol
Fundi, which retreats like a bay into the mountains, with the low lake of
Amyclse between the town and the sea. Through the capritious care,
with which time has preserved in one place what is lost in another, the
pavement of the ancient way is still the street of this, the most northerly
town of the Neapolitan kingdom in this direction. We have now in front
of us the mountain line, which is both the frontier of the Papal States,
arad the natural division of the Apostle's journey from Capua to Rome.
Where it reaches the coast, in bold limestone precipices, there Anxur was
situated, with its houses and temples high above the sea.^
women and a traveller could hardly go from Puteoli to Rome without seeing manj
;
of them. For a description of the lectica and other Roman carriages, see the Excursus
in Becker's Gallus, Eng. Trans, p. 257.
3 For the cisium see two passages in Cicero " Inde cisio celeriter ad urbem advectus
:
domum venit capite involuto." , (Phil. ii. 31.) " Decern horis nocturnis sex et quin-
quaginta millia passuum cisiis pervolavit." (Rose. Am. From what Seneca says
7.)
(" Quaxlara sunt, quae possis et in cisio scribere." we must infer that such
Ep. 72),
carriages were often as comfortable as those of modern times. See Ginzrot, Wageu
a.Fahrwerke der Griechen u. Romer, i. p. 218.
" Tota domus rheda componitur una." (Juv. iii. 10.) Cf. Mart. iii. 47. The re-
4
mark just made on the cisium is equally applicable to the larger carriage. Cicero
says in one of his Cilician letters (Att. v. 17) :
" Hanc epistolam dictavi sedens in
rheda." Ginzrot gives, from a painting at Constantinople, a representation of a state-
carriage or rheda containing prisoners. [Did Julius and his prisoners travel m this way
from Puteoli ?] The rheda meritoria used by Horace (Sat. i. v. 36) was the commoQ
hack-carriage. We may allude to another well-known scene on the Appiau Way,
where the rheda is mentioned, Cic. Mil. 10.
5 Itri is in one of these defiles. The substructions of the ancient way show that it
nearly followed the line of the modern road between Rome and Naples.
6 "Impositum saxis late candentibus Anxur." (Hor. Sat. i. v. 26.) Superbua
Anxur." Mart vi. 42.) " Arccs superbi Anxuris." (Stat. Silv. i. 3.) " Pra^cipitei
Anxuris arces." (Lucan, iii. 64.) " Scopulosi verticis Anxur. (Sil. Itah viii. 392.)
There are still the substructions of large temples, one of them probably that of Jupiter,
to whom the town was dedicated.
APPII FOEUM AND THREE TAVERNS. 358
After leaving Aiixur,i the traveller observes the high land retreating
again from the coast, and presently finds himself in a wide and remarka-
ble plain, enclosed towards the interior by the sweep of the blue Yolscian
mountains, and separated by a belt of forest from the sea. Here are the
Pomptine marshes, " the only marshes ever dignified by classic celebrity."
is impossible to know which plan was adopted by Julius and his prisoners.
If we suppose the former to have been chosen, we have the aid of
Horace's Epistle to enable us to imagine the incidents and the company,
in the midst of which the Apostle came, unknown and unfriended, to the
corrupt metropolis of the world. And yet he was not so unfriended as
he may possibly have thought himself that day, in his progress from
Anxur across the watery, unhealthy plain. On the arrival of the party
at Appii Forum, which was a town where the mules were unfastened, at
the other end of the canal, and is described by the satirist as full of low
1 The stages during the latter half of the journey, reckoning from Rome, appear
thus in the Antonine Itinerary: ahiciam. xvi. tres tabernas. xvn. appi foro. x.
TARRACiNA. xviH. In the Peutingerian Table BovUIcb intervenes between Rome and
Aricia, and Sublanuvio between Aricia and Tres Tabemae. The Jerusalem Itinerary
has a Mutatio ad nono corresponding nearly to Bovillae, and a Mutatio ad medias
between Appii Forum and Terracina :it makes no mention of Tres Tabernse, but has
instead a Mutatio sjwnsas, for which Wesseling and Romanelli would read ad pontes.
^ " Ora manusque tua lavimus Feronia lympha,
Millia turn pransi tria repimus," &c.
nor.Sat.1.24.
3 " Qua Pomptinas via dividit uda paludes." The length of the
(Lucan, iii. 85.)
canal was nineteen miles. See Procop. de Bell. Got. noXld hravdd kariv
i. 11 ; Jledla
InTzojiora' ()u 6^ Kal TtoTa/iidc, bv AeKavv6(3iov (Decennovium) Aartvuv (puv^
KaXovGLV ol einxupioiy oti (J^ evveaKatdcKa nepiLuv arjiiela (milliaria), oTzep ^vvtiaiv
If TpelQ Kal 6eKa Kal kKarbv Gradiovc, ovru 6/) eKfSdX'Aet kg OdTiaaaav dfi^i noXip
TapaKLvrjv.
4 With Horace's account of his night-journey on the canal, compare Strabo, v. 3.
\lK7jciov rrjg Ta^^aKivijg (Sadc^ovri ettI rrjg 'Fto/nvg Trapa^e^lrjrai ry odu r?) 'Anrmf
dt'jOKl krcl noXXo'dg Tonovg nTii^pavfievT] Tolg kT^eioig re Kal rolg Tvorafttoig idaaim
TcTielraL 61 judXiara vvKTup, wcrr' E/ifSavrag ef earzepag kK^aivsLV irputag Kal j3adiCta
^.oiTidi' ry ()6<4i ry 'Attttw* dlM Kal fied' ^fiipav (ie/iovAKSiTat iiucovuv.
360 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
borrowed from the heart." The diminution of fatigue the more hopeful
prospect of the future the renewed elasticity of religious trust the sense
of a brighter light on all the scenery round him on the foliage which
overshadowed the road on the wide expanse of the the plain to left on
the high summit to the Alban Mount, and more than
all this, this, is in-
volved in St. Luke's sentence, " when Pmd saw the brethren, he thanked
God, a^d took courage^
The mention of the Alban Mount reminds us that we are approaching
the end of our journey. The isolated group of hills, which is called by
this collective name, stands between the plain which has just been tra
U. 12. From the distances in the Itineraries it seems to have been not very far from
ttie modern Cisterna.
APPKOACn TO KOME. 361
versed aud that other plain which is the Campagua Home. All the
of
joases of the mountain were then (as indeed they are partially now) clus
cered round with the villas and gardens of wealthy citizens. The Appian
Way climbs and then descends along its southern slope. After passing
Lanuvium ^ it crossed a crater-like valley on immense substructions, which
itill remain.'' Here is Aricia, an easy stage from Kome.^ The town wa?
above the road ; and on the hill side swarms of beggars beset travellers
as they passed.'* On the summit of the next rise, Paul of Tarsus would
obtain his first view of Rome. There is no doubt that the prospect was,
in many respects, very different from the view which is now obtained from
the same spot. It is true that the natural features of the scene are un-
altered. The long wall of blue Sabine mountains, with Soracte in the
Campagna, which stretched far across to the sea
distance, closed in the
and round the base of the Alban hills. But ancient Rome was not, like
modern Rome, impressive from its solitude, standing alone, with its ane
conspicuous cupola, in the midst of a desolate though beautiful waste.
St Paul would see a vast city, covering the Campagna, and almost con-
tinuously connected by its suburbs with the villas on the hill where he
stood, and with the bright towns which clustered on the sides of the
mountains opposite. Over all the intermediate space were the houses and
gardens, through which aqueducts and roads might be traced in converg-
ing lines towards the confused mass of edifices which formed the city of
Rome. Here no conspicuous building, elevated above the x?,st, attracted
the eye or the imagination. Ancient Rome had neither cupola ^ nor cam-
panile. Still less had it any of those spires, which give Hfe to all the
landscapes of Northern Christendom. It was a wide-spread aggregate of
1 Sub Lanuvio is one of the stations in the Tab. Pent. (See above.) The ancient
Lanuvium was on a hill on the left, near where the Via Appia (which can be tracd
here, by means of the tombs, as it ascends from the plain) strikes the modern road by
Yelletri.
" The present road is modern town of Laricia, which occupies
carried through the
the site of the citadel of ancient Aricia. The Appian Way went across the valley,
below. Sec Sir W. Gell's Campagna, under Aricia and Laricia see also an article, :
entitled "Excursions from Rome in 1843," in the first volume of the Classical Museum,
p. 322. The magnificent causeway or viaduct, mentioned in the text, is 700 feet long,
and in some places 70 feet high. It is built of enormous squared blocks of peperino,
with arches for the water of the torrents to pass through.
3 " Egressum magna me excipit Aricia Roma." Compare Epictetus as quoted her
by Orelli ovk<jvv ev 'kpLKiq, dpLar^aojuev. The distance from Rome was sixteen milei^
:
habitations of the poor aud the dark haunts of filth and misery from
he theatres and colonnades, the baths, the temples and palaces with
gilded roofs, flashing back the sun.
The road descended into the plain of Bovillse, six miles from Aricia :
^
ous families on either hand.^ One of these was the burial-place of the
Julian gens,'* with which the centurion who had charge of the prisoners
was in some way connected/ As they proceeded over the old pavement,
among gardens and modern houses, and approached nearer the busy me-
tropolis the " conflux issuing forth or entering in"' in various costumes
enemies, who were kept far aloof by the legions on the frontier.
Yet the Porta Capena is a spot which we can hardly leave without
lingering for a moment. Under this arch ^which was perpetually drip-
ping s
with the water of the aqueduct ^ that went over it had passed all
an account of the tombs of the Scipios, see the Beschreibung Roms, iii. 612. That of
Cecilia Metella is engraved on our map of Rome. Pompey's tomb was also on the
Appian Way, but nearer to Aricia.
4 Sir W. Gell, on what appears to be a memorial of the burying-place of the Gens
Julia, near Bovillae. See Tac. Ann. ii. 41. xv. 33.
5 He might be a freeborn Italian (like Cornelius, see Yol. 1. p. 115), or he might be
a freed man, or the descendant of a freed man, manumitted by some member of the
Julian house.
6 Much building must have been continually going on. Juvenal mentions the csx-
rying of building materials as one of the annoyances of Rome,
7 Paradise Regained, iv. 62.
8 " Capena grandi porta quae pluit gutta." (Mart. iii. 47.) Hence oalled the moist
gate by Juvenal, iii. 10. Compare Mart. iv. 18. It was doubtless called Capena, aa
being the gate of Capua. Its position is fully ascertained to have been at the point of
union of the vallojs dividing the Aventine, Coelian, and Palatine. See Becker'a
R6mische Alterthiimer, 167 ; also 121, 210. Both the Via Latina and Via Appia
issuedfrom this gate. The first milestone on the latter was found in the fii'st vine-
yard beyond the Porta S. Sebastiano (see map).
This was a branch of the Marcian aqueduct. " Marcia autcm parte sui post hortd
those who, since a remote period of the republic, had travelled by the
Appian Way, generals
victorious with their legions, returning from
foreign service, emperors and courtiers, vagrant representatives of every
form of heathenism, Greeks and Asiatics, Jews and Christians.' From
this point entering within the city, Julius and his prisoners moved on, with
the Aventine on their left, close round the base of the Coelian, and
through the hollow ground which lay between this hill and the Palatine :
thence over the low ridge called Velia,'' where afterwards was built the
imperial power and imperial magnificence, and associated also with the
most glorious recollections of the republic. The Forum was to Kome,
what the Acropolis ^ was to Athens, the heart of all the characteristic
interest of the place.^ Here was the Milliarium Aureum, to which the
roads of all the provinces converged. All around were the stately build-
ings, which were raised in the closing years of the republic, and by the
earlier emperors.' In front was the Capitoline Hill, illustrious long before
the invasion of the Gauls. Close on the left, covering that hill, whose
name is associated in every modern European language with the notion of
imperial Rplendour,^ were the vast ranges of the jpalace the " house of
Caesar" (Phil. iv. 22). Here were the household troops quartered in a
prcstorium ^ attached to the palace. And here (unless, indeed, it was in
ipsius montis usibus nihil ut inferior subministrans, finitur supra portam Capenam."
(Frontinus de Aqua3ductibus, in the fourth volume of Grsevius, 1644.)
' We must not forget that close by this gate was the old sanctuary of Egeria, which
in Juvenal's time was occupied by Jewish beggars. See Sat. iii. 13, vi. 542, which we
have already quoted (Vol. I. p. 147).
^ " The ridge on which the arch of Titus stands, was much more considerable than
the modern traveller would suppose the pavement, which has been excavated at this
:
point, is fifty-three feet above the level of the pavement in the Forum. This ridge ran
from the Palatine to the Esquiline, dividing the basin in which the Colosseum stands,
from that which contained the Forum it was called Velia. Publicola excited popular
:
suspicion and alarm by building his house on the elevated part of this ridge." Com-
panion-Volume to Mr. Cookesley's Map of Rome, p. 30. (See Liv. ii. 7. Cic. de Rep.
ii. 31. Dionys. Hal. v. 19.)
3 This slope, from the arch of Titus down to the Forum, was called the Sacer Clivua
Hor. Od. IV. ii. 33. Mart. i. Ixxi. 5. iv. Ixxix. 7.
4 So the name ought to be written. Becker, i. 219.
o See Vol. I. p. 356.
6 See a fine passage on the Forum in Becker's Alterthiimer, i. 215.
7 We muis4 not enter into any discussion concerning the relative positions of the
Fora of Julius Csesar and Aug^istus. See Chevalier Bunion's Treatises, Les Foruuj
Je Rome," 1837. His general plan is attached to the third of Mr. Bunbury'S articles
on the Topography of Rome, in the Classical Museum, vol. iv, p. 116.
quarters of the household troops attached to the Emperor's residence on tbe Palatine
364 THE LIFE Amy EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the great Prcetorian camp ^ outside the city wall) Julius gave up his pri
soner to Burrus, the Prcetorian Prcpjedy whose official duty it was to
keep in custody ail accused persons who were to be tried before the Em-
peror.3
This doubt, which of two places, somewhat distant from each other,
was the scene of St. Paul's meeting with the commander-in-chief of the
PriBtorian guards, gives us the occasion for entering on a general descrip-
tion of the different parts of the city of Eome. It would be nugatory
to lay great stress, as is too often done, on its seven hills for a great
city at length obliterates the original features of the ground, especially
where those features were naturally not very strongly marked. The
description, which is easy in reference to Athens or Edinburgh, is hard in
the instance of modern London or ancient Rome. Nor is it easy, in the
case of one of the larger cities of the world, to draw any marked lines of
distinction among the different classes of buildings. It is true, the con-
trasts are really great ; but details are lost in a distant view of so vast an
aggregate. The two scourges to which ancient Rome was most exposed,
revealed very palpably the contrast, both of the natural ground and the
human structures, which by the general observer might be unnoticed or
forgotten. When the Tiber was flooded, and the muddy waters converted
all the streets and open places of the lower part of the city into lakes and
canals,^ it would be seen very clearly how much lower were the Foruui
and the Campus Martins, than those three detached hills (the Capitoline,
the Palatine, and the Aventine) which rose near the river ; and those
four ridges (the Ccelian, the Esquiline, the Yiminal, and the Quirinal)
which ascended and united together in the higher ground on which the
Praetorian camp was situated. And when fires swept rapidly from roof to
roof,^ and vast ranges of buildings were buried in the ruins of one night,
1 The establishment of this camp was the work of Tiberius. Its place is still clearly
Visible in the great rectangular projection in the walls, on the north of the city. In
St. Paul's time it was strictly outside the city. The inner wall was pulled down by
Constantine. Zos. ii. 17.
' This is the accurate translation of rw arparoTveddpxfi (Acts xxviii. 16). The
Prcsfectus Prcetorio was already the most important subject of the Emperor, though
he had not yet acquired all that extensive jurisdiction which was subsequently con-
ferredupon him. At this time (a. d. 61) Burrus, one of the best of Nero's advisers,
was Praitorian Praifect.
3 Trajan says (Plin. Ep. x. 65) of such a prisoner, "vinctus mitti ad Praefectoa
Prajtorii mei debet." Compare by Wieseler, p. 393.
also Joseph. Ant. xviii. 6 quoted
< The writer has known visits paid in the Ripetta (in the Campus Martins) by means
of boats brought to the windows of the first story. Dio Cassius makes three distinct
references to a similar state of things. 'O Tif3epic TTelayiaag iraaav Tr)v kv toI(
7re(5iOif 'Fu/jyjv KaTilaftev, loare nleladaL, liii. 20. Compare liii. 33. Ivii. 14.
that cortrast between the dwellings of the poor and the palaces of tha
rich, which has supplied the Apostle with one of his most forcible images,
the first place obliterate from our view that circuit of walls, which is due
in various proportions, to Aurelian, Belisarius, and Pope Leo lY.' The
wall, through which the Porta Capena gave admission, was the old Ser-
vian enclosure, which embraced a much smaller area : though we must
bear in mind, as we have remarked above, that the city had extended it-
self beyond this limit, and spread through various suburbs, far into the
country. In the next place we must observe that the hilly part of Rome,
which now half occupied by gardens, was then the most populous,
is
while the Campus Martins, now covered with crowded streets, was compa-
ratively open. It was only about the close of the republic that many build-
ings were raised on the Campus Martins, and these were chiefly of a
public or decorative character. One of these, the Pantheon, sti]l remains,
as a monument of the reign of Augustus. This, indeed, is the period
from which we must trace the beginning of all the grandeur of Roman
buildings. Till the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, the private
houses of the citizens had been mean, and the only public structures oi
note were the cloacse and the aqueducts. But in proportion as the an-
cient fabric of the constitution broke down, and while successful gene-
rals brought home wealth from provinces conquered and plundered on
every shore of the Mediterranean, the city began to assume the appearance
of a new and imperial magnificence. To lea^e out of view the luxurious
and splendid residences Which wealthy citizens raised for their own uses,''
Pompey erected the first theatre of stone,=^ and Julius Caesar surrounded
the great Circus with a portico.^ From this time the change went on
rapidly and incessantly. The increase of public business led to the erec-
anterior to the time of Nero's fire. Even after the opportunity which
that calamity afforded for reconstructing the city, Juvenal complains of
the narrowness of the streets."^ Were we to attempt to extend our de-
scription to any of these streets, whether the old Yicus Tuscus,^ with its
cheating shopkeepers,^ which led round the base of the Palatine, from the
Forum to the Circus, the or aristocratic Carinas aZong the slope of the
Esquiline,'" or the noisy Suburra, in the hollow between the Yiminal and
Quirinal, which had sunk into disrepute, thou''<;h once the residence of
Julius Caesar,''^ we should only wander into en^iess perplexity. And we
1 The Roman Basilica is peculiarly interesting to us, since it contains the gertn of
the Christian cathedral. Originally they were rather open colonnades than enclosed
halls ;
but, before the reign of Nero, they had assumed their ultimate form of a nave
with aisles. "We shall refer again to the Basilicas in our account of St. Paul's last
trial.
'Three well known Corinthian columns, of the best period of art under the Empe-
rors, remain near the base of the Palatine. They are popularly called the remains of
the Temple of Jupiter Stator perhaps they are part of the Temple of Castor and Pol-
:
lux. See the Beschreibung Roms, iii. 272 also Bunsen's "Les Forum," &c. ; and ;
See Frontinus.
' Juv. Sat. iii. 193, 199, 225, 236. vi. 78.
8 See Liv. xxvii. 37. In another place (ii. 14) he says it was so called from the
Etruscans, who settled there.
Hor. Sat. u. iii. 228. Virg. ^q. viii. 36. Hor. Ep. i. vii. 48.
n Juv. iii. 5. X. 156. xi. 50. Pers. v. 32. Mart. v. xxii. 5. x. xix. 5.
still more difficult to trace the distinctive features of all the parts of that
colossal population which filled it. Within a circuit of little more than
twelve miles ^ more than two millions ^ of inhabitants were crowded. It
is evident that this fact is only explicable by the narrowness of the
streets, with that pecuharity of the houses which has been alluded to
above. In this prodigious collection of human beings, there were of
course all the contrasts which are seen in a modern city, all the painful
lines of separation between luxury and squalor, wealth and want. But in
Rome all these differences were on an exaggerated scale, and the institu-
tion of slavery modified further all social relations. The free citizens
were more than a million : ^ of these, the senators were so few in number,
as to be hardly appreciable :
^ the knights, who filled a great proportion
of the pubhc offices, were not more than 10,000 : the troops quartered in
the city may be reckoned at 15,000 : the rest were the Flehs urhana.
That a vast number of these would be poor, is an obvious result of the
most ordinary causes. But, in ancient Home, the luxury of the wealthier
classes did not produce a general diffusion of trade, as it does in a modern
city. The handicraft employments, and many of what we should call
professions,^ were in the hands of slaves ; and the consequence was, that
a vast proportion of the Plebs urbana lived on public or private charity."
Yet were these pauper citizens proud of their citizenship, though many
of them had no better sleeping-place for the night than the public por-
ticos or the vestibules of temples. They cared for nothing beyond bread
for the day, the games of the Circus,^ and the savage delight of gladiato-
1 A decree was issued by Augustus, defining the height to which these insulcB
might be raised.
* This is of course a much wider circuit than that of the Servian wall. The present
wall, as we have said above, did not then exist.
3 This is Hoeck's calculation, Bunsen, in the Beschreibung Roms, L 183,
i. ii. 131.
makes a somewhat lower Each estimate is based, though in different
calculation.
ways, on the Monumentum Ancyranum. For remarks on the very low estimate of M,.
Bureau de la Malle, in his Economie Politique des Remains, see Hoeck in the Excur*
snis at the end of the second part of his first volume, and Milman's note on Gibbon's
thirty-first chapter.
4 Hoeck.
5 Before Augustus there were 1000 senators ; he reduced them to about 700. Di
Cass. lii. 42. liv. 14.
squalid and miserable, like the Ghetto of modern Rome,'' though the Jews
were often less oppressed, under the Caesars than under the Popes. Here
then on the level grouifd, between the windings of the muddy river and
the base of that hill ^ from the brow of which Porsena looked down on
early Rome, and where the French within these few years have planted
their
cannon we must place the home of those Israelitish families among
whom the Gospel bore its first-fruits in the metropolis of the world : and it
1 Whether the wall of Servius included any portion of the opposite side of the river
or not (a question which is disputed among the topographers of the Italian and Ger-
man schools), a suburb existed there under the imperial regime.
' " Mercis ablegandac Tiberim ultra." (Juv. xiv. 202.) " Transtiberinus ambula-
tor, Qui pallentia sulfurata fractis Permutat vitreis." (Mart. i. 42. Compare i. 109.
vi. 93.)
3 Philo says of Augustus : Ilwf ovv anedexcTo ; ttjv irepav tov Tijdepeug Trora/xoi
fieyuhjv Trig 'i'u/xijg dnoTOfji^v, riv ovk rjyvoei Karexofievrjv kol oUovfisvijv irpog
tion, and near some synagogue; and Horace just above (18) represents himself as
gohig to see a friend, who is lying ill " trans Tiberim."
< The modern Ghetto is the filthy quarter between the Capitoline Hill and the old
Fabrlcian Bridge, which leads to the island, and thence to the Trastevere. It is sur-
rounded by walls, and the gates are closed every night by the police. The number of
Jews is about 8000, in a total population of 150,000.
^ The Janiculura.
" Tontis exul." Mart. x. 5. See Juv. iv. 116. v. 8. xiv. 134.
:
whom in the place of their exile had come the hopes of a better citizeii
The Jewish community thus established in Rome, had its first begin*
Many of them were manumitted and thus a great proportion of the Jews
;
when vague suspicions of this mysterious people were more than usually
excited, that the Jews of Rome were cruelly treated, or peremptorily
banished. Yet from all these cruelties they recovered with elastic force,
and from all these exiles they returned ; and in the early years of Nero,
which were distinguished for a mild and lenient government of the empire,^
1 See Vol. I. p. 18, and Eemond's Geschichte der Aasbreitung des Judentbums,
referred to there. The fibrst introduction of the Jews to Rome was probably the em-
See Juv. xiv. and Cic. pro Flacco and compare Hor Sat. i. v. 100 with i. iv. 142,
;
Many Jews were Roman citizens, like Josephus and St. Paul and there were numt.roui :
proselytes at Rome, especially among the women (see for instance Joseph. Ant. xviiL
3; 5). As in the case of Greece, the conquest of Judrea brought Rome under the io-
f nence of her captive. Hence Seneca's remark Jews Victi vio
in reference to the :
toribus leges dederunt. And Rutilius says, grouping together the campaigns of
Pompey and Titus
Atque utinam nunquam Judsea subacta fuisset
Pompeii bellis imperioque Titi.
the Jews in Rome seem to have enjoyed complete toleration, and to have
been a numerous, wealthy, and influential community.
The Christians doubtless shared the protection which was extended to
the J ews. They were hardly yet sufficiently distinguished as a self-existent
community, to provoke any independent hostility. It is even possible that
the Christians, so far as they were known as separate, were more toler-
ated than the Jews ;
for, not having the same expectation of an earthly
hero to deliver them, they had no pohtical ends in view, and would not
be in the same danger of exciting the suspicion of the government. Yet
we should fall into a serious error, if we were to suppose that all the
Christians in Rome, or the majority of them, had formerly be-en Jews or
Proselytes ;
though this was doubtless true of its earhest members, who
may have been of the number that were dispersed after the first Pente-
cost, or, possibly, disciples of our Lord Himself. It is impossible to arrive
at any certain conclusion concerning the first origin and early growth of
the Church in Rome ;
^ though, from the manifold links between the city
and the provinces, it is easy to account for the formation of a large and
flourishing community. Its history before the year 61 might be divided
into three periods, separated from each other by the banishment of the
Jews from Rome in the reign of Claudius,'^ and the writing of St. Paul's
letter from Corinth.^ Even in the first of these periods there might be
points of connection between the Roman Church and St. Paul ; for
some of those whom he salutes (Rom. xvi. 11) as " kinsmen," are also
said to have been " Christians before him." In the second period it can-
not well be doubted that a very close connection began between St. Paul
and some of the conspicuous members and principal teachers of the Roman
Church. The expulsion of the Jews in consequence of the edict of Clau-
dius, brought them in large numbers to the, chief towns of the Levant
and there St. Paul met them in the synagogues. We have seen what
results followed from his meeting with Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth.
They returned to Rome with all the stores of spkitual instruction which
he had given them and in the Epistle to the Romans we find him, as is
natural, saluting
;
them thus :
" Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers
in Jesus Christ : who have for my sake laid down their OAvn necks : unto
whom not only I give thanks, but also all the Churches of the G entiles.
Likewise greet the Church that is in their house." All this reveals to us
The full toleration of the Jews In Rome is implied in the narration of St. Paul's meet"
ing with the ciders, and in the lines of Persius :
haps only a specimen of other cases of the like kind. Thns he sends a
greeting to Epa^netus, whom he names "the first-fruits of Asia"^ (ver. 5).
and who may have had the same close relation to him during his long
the beloved Persis, who laboured much in the Lord" (ver. 12) with ;
Tryphaena and Tryphosa, and the unknown mother of Rufus (ver. 18).
We cannot doubt, that, though the Church of Rome may have received
its growth and instruction through various channels, many of them were
to the West. Thenceforward they must have taken the deepest interest
in all his movements, and received with eager anxiety the news of his
imprisonment at Caesarea, and waited (as we have already seen) for his
arrival in Italy. It is indeed but too true that there were parties among
the Christians in Rome, and that some had a hostUe feehng against St.
Paul himself ; ^ yet it is probable that the animosity of the Judaizers was
less developed, than it was in those regions which he had personally
visited, and to which they had actually followed him. As to the un-
converted Jews, the name of St. Paul was doubtless known to them ;
Thus, after the mention of St. Paul's being delivered up to Burrus, and
allowed by him to be separate from the other prisoners,-* the next scene ta
dressed his auditors on this point at once, and shewed that his enemies
were guilty of this very appeal to a foreign power, of which he had him-
self been suspected. He had committed no offence against the holy
nation, and the customs of their fathers ;
yet his enemies at J erusalem
had delivered him, one brethren the seed
of their of of Abraham of
the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew the Hebrews of into the hands of the
his only crime had been his firm faith in God's deliverance of his people
through the Messiah promised by the Prophets. " For thz ho][>e of Israel,^
he concluded, I am bound with this chain *
Then- answer to this address was reassuring. They said that they
had received no written communication from Judsea concerning St. Paul,
and that none of "the brethren who had arrived from the East had
spoken any evil of him. They further expressed a wish to hear from him-
self a statement of his religious sentiments, adding that the Christian sect
was everywhere spoken against.^ There was perhaps something hardly
honest in this answer ; for it seems to imply a greater ignorance with
regard to Christianity than we can suppose to have prevailed among the
' MetcL Tjfiepac rpelc, W'bich need not mean three complete days.
' 'Eyevero cvyKa7.taaaOat avrov tovc vvrag tuv 'lovdaluv npurovg. With regard
to elg TTjv ^Evtav, we are convinced, with Wieseler, that it is to be distinguished from
rd Idiov fi'iadufia mentioned below. The latter was a hired lodging, which he took
for his permanent residence and the mention of the money he received from the
;
Pbilippians (Phil, iv.) serves to shew that he would not need the means of hiring a
lodging. The ^evia {hospitivm) implies the temporary residence of a guest with
friendB, as in Philemon 22. Nothing is more likely than that Aquila and Priscilla
were his hosts nt Rome, as formerly at Gorinth.
3 Sec Wieseler, p. 397. < Ver. 17-20. & Ver. 21. 22.
.
Koman Jews. But with regard to Paul himself, it might well be trua
that they had little information concerning him. Though he had been
miprisoned long at Caesarea, his appeal had been made only a short time
before winter. After that time (to use the popular expression), the sea
was shut ; and the winter had been a stormy one ; so that it was natural
enough that his case should be first made known to the Jews by himself.
All these circumstances gave a favourable opening for the preaching of the
Gospel, and Paul hastened to take advantage of it. A day was fixed
for a meeting at his own private lodging.'
They came in great numbers at the appointed time. Then followed
an impressive scene, like that at Troas (Acts xxi.) the Apostle pleading
long and earnestly, bearing testimony concerning the kingdom of God,
and endeavouring to persuade them by arguments drawn from their own
Scriptures,
"from morning till evening." ^ The result was a division
among the auditors ^ " not peace but a sword," the division which has
resulted ever since, when the Truth of God has encountered, side by side,
which is more often quoted in the New Testament than any other words
from the Old, which recurring thus with solemn force at the very close
of the Apostolic history, seems to bring very strikingly together the Old
Dispensation and the New, and to connect the ministry of Our Lord with
that of His Apostles :
" Go unto this ^eo^le and say : Hearing ye- shall
hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive :
for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hear^
ing, and their eyes have they closed ; lest they should see, with their eyes, and
hear with their tars, and understand with their heart, and should he con-
verted, and I should heal themP ^
A formal separation was now made between the Apostle of the Gen-
tiles and the Jews of Romq. They withdrew, to dispute concerning the
**
sect " which was making such inroads on their prejudices (ver. 29). Hs
remained in his own hired house, ^ where the indulgence of Burrus per*
mitted him to reside, instead of confining him within the walls the Praeto-
rian barrack. We must not forget, however, that he was still a pri-
loner under military custody, chained by the arm,^ both day and night,
to one of the imperial bodyguard, and thus subjected to the rudeness
and caprice of an insolent soldiery. This severity, however, was indis-
pensable, according to the Roman law ; and he received every indulgence
which it was in the power of the Prsefect to grant. He was allowed to
receive all who came to him (ver. 30), and was permitted, without hind-
rance, to preach boldly the kingdom of God, and teach the things of the
Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 31).
Thus was fulfilled his long cherished desire " to proclaim the Gospel
to them that were in Home also (Rom. i. 15). Thus ends the Apostolic
History, so far as it has been directly revealed. Here the thread of sa-
cred narrative, which we have followed so long, is suddenly broken. Our
knowledge of the incidents of his residence in Rome, and of his subse-
quent history, must be gathered almost exclusively from the letters of the
Apostle himself.
and compare Eph. vi. 20 {Tzpeapevoj b> alvaei), Col. iv. 18. Phil. i. 13. Possibly two
soldiers guarded him by night, according to the sentence of the Roman law " nox
eustodiam geminat,"quoted by Wieeeler.
I
OKLAT OF ST. PAUL's TRIAL. 37e
CHAPTER XXY.
HATAOS 'O AE2M102 TOT XPI2T0Y. (Eph. iii 1 )
DELAT OP ST. PAUL'S TRIAL. HIS OCCUPATIONS AND COMPANIONS DURING HIS IMPRISOW.
MENT.HE WRITES THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON, THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIAITS,
AND THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS (SO CALLED).
We have seen that St. Paul's accusers had not yet arrived from Palesr-
tine, and that their coming was not even expected by the Roman Jews.
This proves that they had not left Syria before the preceding winter, and
consequently that they could not have set out on their journey till the fol
lowing spring, when the navigation of the Mediterranean was again open
Thus, they would not reach Home till the summer or autumn of the year
61 A. D.* Meanwhile, the progress of the was necessarily suspended,
trial
for the Roman courts required " the personal presence of the prosecutor.
It would seem that, at this time,' an accused person might be thus kept in
how harshly the law has dealt with supposed offenders, and with what in-
difference it has treated the rights of the accused, even in periods whose
^ About this period (as we learn from Josephus) there were two embassies sent from
Jerusalem to Rome ;
viz., was charged to conduct the impeachment of
that which
Felix, and that which was sent to intercede with Nero on the subject of Agrippa'a
palace, which overlooked the Temple. The former seems to have arrived in Rome in
A.D. 60, the latter in a.d. 61. (See note on the Chronological table in Appendix.) It
is not impossible that the latter embassy, in which was included Ishmael the High
Priest, may have been intrusted with the prosecution of St. Paul, in addition to their
other business.
pp. 508, 511, 595, 689. It should be ob-
' See Geib, Romisch. Criminal-Process,
served that the prosecutor on a criminal charge, under the Roman law, was not the
state (as with us the Crown), but any private individual who chose to bring an accusa-
tion. (Geib, p. 515.)
3 At a later period the suspension on the part of the prosecutor of the proceedings
during a year, was made equivalent to an abandonment of it, and amounted to an
abolitio of the process. See Geib, Romisch. Criminal-Process, p. 586. In the time of
Nero the prosecutors on a public charge were liable to punishment if they abandoned
't from corrupt motives, by the Senatus Consultum Turpilianum. See Tacitus, Ann.
xiv. 41 " Qui talem operam emptitasset vendidissetve, perinde poena teneretur, ac si
:
publico judicio calumniae condemnatus." This law was passed a.d. 61, and was after-
Ivards iaterpreted by the jurisconsults as forbidding an accuser to withdraw his accur
Batdon. (Geib, pp. 582-586, and 690.)
376 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
civilization was not only more advanced than that of the Roman empire,
but also imbued with the merciful spirit of Christianity. And even whea
the prosecutors were present, and no ground alleged for the delay of the
trial, a corrupt judge might postpone it, as Felix did, for months and
years, to gratify the enemies of the prisoner. And if a provincial Gover-
nor, though responsible for such abuse of power to his master, might ven-
ture to act in this arbitrary manner, much more might the Emperor him-
self, who was responsible to no man. Thus we find that Tiberius was in
the habit of delaying the hearing of causes, and retaining the accused in
prison unheard, merely out of procrastination.' So that, even after St.
Paul's prosecutors had arrived, and though we were to suppose them
anxious for the progress of the trial, it might still have been long delayed
by the Emperor's caprice. But there is no reason to think that, when
they came, they would have wished to press on the cause. From what
had already occurred they had every reason to expect the failure of the
prosecution. In fact it had already broken down at its first stage, and
Festus had strongly pronounced his opinion of the innocence'^ of the ac-
cused. Their hope of success at Rome must have been grounded either
on influencing the Emperor's judgment by private intrigue, or on produc-
ing farther evidence in support of their accusation. For both these ob-
jects delay would be necessary. Moreover, it was quite in accordance
with the regular course of Roman jurisprudence, that the Court should
grant a long suspension of the cause, on the petition of the prosecutor,
that he might be allowed time to procure the attendance of witnesses ^
from a distance. The length of time thus granted would depend upon
the remoteness of the place where the alleged crimes had been committed.
We read of an interval of twelve months permitted during [N'ero's reign,
' Ktvovvra OTdoiv ndai roZc lovdaloic Kard ttiv nUov/xtvTjv, Acts xxiv. 5,
fflS OCCUPATIONS DUEING HIS IMPKISONMENT. 377
and the accused, with their witnesses, must have been heard on each oi
During the long delay of his trial, St. Paul was not reduced, as he
had been at Csesarea, to a forced inactivity. On the contrary, he was
permitted the freest intercourse with his friends, and was allowed to re-
for who could see without emotion that venerable form subjected by iron
links to the coarse control of the soldier who stood beside him ? how
often must the tears of the assembly have been called forth by the up-
raising of that fettered hand, and the clanking of the chain which checked
its energetic action I
were not fruitless ; in his own words, he begot many children in his
1 Another cause of delay, even if the prosecutors did not make the demand for sus-
pension, would have been the loss of the official notice of the case forwarded by
Festus. No appeal (as we have before observed) could be tried without a rescript
(called Apostoli or literce dimissorice) from the inferior to the superior judge, stating
full particulars of the case. See Geib, p. 689. Such documents could scarcely have
been saved in the wreck at Malta.
* It was Nero's practice, as Suetonius tells us, " Ut contiuuis actionibus omissii
iingillatim quaeque per vices ageret." (Suet. Nero, 15.)
See above, p. 282.
4 Weneed not notice the hypothesis of Bottger, th^t St. Paul's imprisonment at
Borne only lasted five dkys. It has already been refuted by Neander (1. 428) and by
Wieseler, pp. 411-415.
' Acts xxviii. 31 : Krjpvac jv , uerd Trdcrjc napp7]alag a/cwAurwf.
S78 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
chains.
Meanwhile, he had a wider sphere of action than even the me*
tropolis of the world. Not only *'
the crowd which pressed :ipon him
daily, "'^
but also " the care of all the churches," demanded his constant
Yigilance and exertion. Though himself tied down to a single spot, he
kept up a constant intercourse, by his delegates, with his converts
throughout the empire ; and not only with his own converts, but with the
other Gentile Churches, who, as yet, had not seen his face in the flesh.
Perhaps we may be allowed to hope, that as the fault of Demas was the
same with that of Mark, so the repentance of Mark may have been par*
' Col. iv. 7. Eph. vi. 21 ; cf. Acts xx. 4 ; and Tit iii. 12.
8 Vol. I. pp. 162 and 251.
8 2 Tim. iv. 11 : MapKOv uva?.a6dv aye fierCt. aeavTov' earl yap /xoi H;;^orcf itg
iiaKoviav.
'0 Xvvrpyor, Philem. 24 ; cf. Col. iv. 14.
HIS COMPANIONSHIP DIIRINa HIS mPKISONMENT. 37S
> See Col. iii. 22, and Eph. vi. 5. St. Paul's attention seems to have been especially
drawn to this subject at tlie present time ; and he might well feel the need there was
for a fundamental change in this part of the social system of antiquity, such as the
spirit of Christ alone could give. In the very year of his arrival at Rome, s, most
frightful example was given of the atrocity of the laws which regulated the relations
of slave to master. The prefect of the city (Pedanius Secundus) was killed by one of
his slaves and in accordance with the ancient law, the whole body of slaves belong-
;
ing to Pedanius at Rome, amounting to a vast multitude, and including many women
and children, were executed together, although confessedly innocent of all participar
tion in the crime. Tac. Ann. xiv. 42-45.
" With respect to the date of this epistle, the fact that it was conveyed by Onesimua
(compare Col. iv. 9), and the person mentioned as with St. Paul at the time (I'hilem-
23, 24, compared with Col. iv. 12-14), prove that it was sent to Asia Minor, together
with the epistle to the Colossians, the date of which is discussed in a note on the be-
ginning of that epistle.
3 a Greek form of the Latin name Appia ; we are told by Chrysostom that
'An<pta is
Bhe was the wife of Philemon, which seems probable from the juxtaposition of theif
names.
EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 3S^
3J Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father and oul
Lord Jesus Christ.
5 in my 1 T 1 1 P 1
prayers, because I hear oi thy love and laith
^11
for
prayers
PMiemon.
6 towards our Lord Jesus, and towards all God's people, while I
pray ^ may communicate itself to others, and may
that thy faith
become workful, in causing in true knowledge of all the good
7 which is in us, for Christ's service. For I have great joy and
consolation in thy love, because the hearts of God's people
have been comforted by thee, brother.
S "Wherefore, although in the authority of Christ I Request for the
, , . ,
favourable re-
mi2:ht
" boldly enioin ./
upon
i
thee that which is befit- ceptionofone
sunus,
9 ting, yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, as
10 Paul the aged, and now also prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech
thee for my son, whom 1 have begotten in my chains, Onesi-
11 mus ; who formerly was to thee ^ unprofitable, but now is pro-
I2fitable both to thee and me. Whom I have sent back to
thee ; ^ but do thou receive him asflesh and blood. my own ^
1 3 For I would gladly ' retain him with myself, that he might
evangelist resident there on a special mission (compare Col. iv. 17) ; from the present
passage he seems to have lived in the house of Philemon.
3 'OiTog is to be joined with verse 4, as stating the object of the prayer there men-
tioned, while verse 5 gives the subject of the thanksgiving. This is Chrysostom'a
view, against which Meyer's objections appear inconclusive. The literal English of
verse 6 is communication of thy faith may become workful, in
as follows, that the
true knowledge of all good which is in us, for Christ. The latter words are very
obscure, but the rendering adopted in the text appears to make the best sense. The
best MSS. are divided between xpi-f^Tov and xpi-f^Tov irjaovv ; but agree in reading Jj/^lv^
not vfilv.
Most modern commentators suppose a play on the name Onesimus, which means
4
useful ; but there seems scarcely suflBcient ground for this, and it was never remarked
by the ancient Greek commentators, whose judgment on such a point would be en-
titled to most deference.
6 Many of the best MSS. add gol. The omission of Ttpoalatov at the end of tha
verse makes no difference in the sense ; but it is chai-acteristic of St. Paul's abrupt an<3
rapid dictation.
Children were called the cK'kayxva of their parents.
'E6ov/l6//7?v, The imperfect here, and aorist in the preceding and following ver^
re used, according to classical idiom, from the position of the reader of the letter.
; ;
hurried to the house of his master with the letter which -we have just
J 'Eypai/;a, see note above. * Xpiar^ is the reading of tlie best MSS.
Observe the change from singular to plural here, and in verse 25.
3
< 2wai;^;/ia)\wrof, as we have before remarked, perhaps means only that Epaphraa
had voluntarily shared Paul's imprisonment at Rome by taking up his residence with
him, in the lodging where he was guarded by the " soldier that kept him."
The a//77v as usual is interpolated.
Though we have come to the conclusion that St. Paul had not himself (at thia
time) visited Colossae, yet it is hardly possible to read these Epistles without feeling.an
interest in the scenery and topograpliy of its vicinity. The upper part of the valley
of the Majander, where this city, with ite neighbour-cities Hierapolis and Laodicea
(Col. ii. 1. iv. 13. Rev. iii. 14), was sit'iiatcd, has been described by many travellers
and the illustrated works on Asia Minor contain several views, especially of the vast
and singular petrifactions of Hierapolis (Pambouk Kalessi). Colossi was older than
either Laodicea or Hierapolis, and it fell into comparative insigniflcance as they rosu
Into importance. Herodotus (vii. 30) describes it as Uomv iieydT^rjv (ppvyLT/c kv
XvKog TTOTa/idg tc X^^^F^ iopuMuv ucpavt^sTat ; and Xenophon (Anab. i. ii. 6) calls
it TToA/v oUovfih'Tiv Kal neydTirjv. Strabo (xii. 8) reckons it among the nolia/naTa, not
HE WEITE8 TO THE COLOSSIANS. 383
might be read to the whole Colossian Church at their next meeting. The
letter to the Colossians itself gives us distinct information as to the cause
which induced St. Paul to write it. Epaphras, the founder of that
Ohurch (Col. i. t), was now at Rome, and he had communicated to the
Apostle the unwelcome tidings, that the faith of the Colossians was in
danger of being perverted by false teaching. It has been questioned
whether several different systems of error had been introduced among
them, or whether the several errors combatted in the Epistle were parta
of one system, and taught by the same teachers. On the one side we
find that in the Epistle St. Paul warns the Colossians separately against
the following different errors: First, a combination of angel-worship and
asceticism ;
Secondly, A self-styled philosophy or gnosis, which depreciated
Christ ;
Thirdly, A rigid observance of Jewisli festivals and Sabbaths.
On the other side, Eirst, the Epistle seems distinctly (though with an in-
chapter how great was the danger to be apprehended from this source, at
the stage at which the Church had now reached ;
especially in a church
which consisted, as that at Colossae did, principally of Gentiles (Col. i. 25-
2'7. Col. ii. 11) ; and that, too, in Phrygia,^ where the national character
was so prone to a mystic fanaticism. We need not wonder, therefore,
the nbXeig, of Phrygia; and Pliny (v. 41), among its *' celeberrima oppida." In the
Middle Ages became a place of some consequence, and was the birthplace of the
it
Byzantine writer Nicetas Choniates, who tells us that Xuvai and KoXaaaal were the
Bame place (Kuvag, tt6?.lv evdaijuova nal [leyd'k'qv, ndXai rag 'Ko'kaaadg, rrjv iiiov
Tov Gvyypa^icdg na-piSa, p. 230, ed. Bonn). A village called Chonas still remains,
the proximity of which to the ancient Colossae is proved by the correspondence of the
observed phenomena with what Herodotus says of the river Lycus. The neighbour-
hood Wds explored by Mr. Arundel (Seven Churches, p. 158. Asia Minor, n. 160),
but Mr. Hamilton was the first to determine the actual site of the ancient city. (Ke-
Fearcbes, i. 508.)
See Vol h pp 36 and 451. * See Vol. I pp. 236-9.
that St. Paul, acting under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, should hav&
thought it needful to use every effort to counteract the growing eviL,
This he does, both by contradicting the doctrinal errors of the new
Bystem, and by inculcating, as essential to Christianity, that pure morality
which these early heretics despised. Such appears to have been the maim
purpose of the following Epistle.
I The following are the grounds for the date assigned to this Epistle.
(1) It was written in prison at the same time as Philemon, and sent by the same
messenger (iv. 7-9.)
2) It was not written in Ccesarea
(a) Because while writing St. Paul was labouring for the Gospel (iv. 3, 4),
you, since the day when first yon heard it, and learned to know
J
ti'uly the grace of God. And thus you were taught b;^
Epaphras my beloved fellow-bondsman, ^ who is a faithful ser*
3 <rant of Christ on your behalf. And it is he who has declared
to me your love for me ^ in the fellowship of the Spirit.
9 Wherefore dav when first I Prayers for theil
I also, since the
- - T perfection. 1
heard it, cease not to pray lor you, and to ask oi
God that you may fully attain to the knowledge of His will
10 that 3 in all wisdom and spiritual understanding you may walk
worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all things that you may ;
13 For He
has delivered us from the dominion of Atonement and
sovereignty ol
1 T n . 1
created, both in the heavens and on the earth, both visible and
invisible, whether they be Thrones, or Dominations, or Prin-
cipalities, or Powers ^ by Him and for Him were all crea-
;
1 Epaphras is the same name with Epaphroditus ; but this can scarcely be tha
same person with that Epaphroditus who brought the contributions from Philippi to
Rome about this time. This was a native of Colossas (see iv. 12), the other wag
settled at Philippi, and held office in the Philippian Church.
* This interpretation (which is Chrysostom's) seems the most natural. Their love tot
St. Paul was h TTvev/j.aTL because they had never seen him iv odpKi.
3 The punctuation here adopted is iv nday k, t. A, TrepiTvaT^aat k. t. A,
6 Ala T. >ufj.. avT. has been introduced here by mistake from Eph. i. 7, and is not
found in the best MSS.
' EUdv. It is important to observe here that St. Paul says not merely that our
Lord was when on earth the visible image of God, but that he is so still. In Him
only God manifests himself to man, and he is still visible to the eye of faith.
'Ev here must not be confounded with did. The existence of Christ, the ?.oyoc,
\a the condition of all Creation in Him the Godhead is manifested.
;
9 Paul here appears to allude io the doctrines of the Colossian heretics, wha
St.
laught a system of angel worship, based upon a systematic ilassification of the angelij
VOL II. 25
386 THE LIFE AOT) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
ted.i And He is before all things, and in Him all things subsist."
n
And He is the head of the body, the Church; whereof He is 18
the beginning, as firstborn from the dead ; that in all things
His place might be the first.
For He willed ^ that in Himself all the Fulness of the
universe ^ should dwell and by Himself He willed to reconcile 19
;
SSd by^christ
^^^^ lived in wickedness, yet now He has re- 22
conciled in the body of His flesh ^ through death,
hierarchy (probably similar to that found in the Kabbala), and who seem to have re-
presented our Lord as only one (and perhaps not the highest) of this hierarchy. Other
allusions to a hierarchy of angels (which was taught in the Rabbinical theology) may
be found Rom. viii. 38. Eph. i. 21. iii. 10. 1 Pet. iii. 22, joined with the assertion
of their subjection to Christ.
1 Compare Rom. xi. 36, where exactly the same thing is said concerning God; from
which the inference is plain. It appears evident that St. Paul insists here thus
strongly on the creation by Jesus Christ, in opposition to some erroneous system
which ascribed the creation to some other source and this was the case with the ;
early Gnosticism, which ascribed the creation of the world to a Demiurge, who waa
distinct from the man Jesus.
* liVvearriKe, i. e. the life of the universe is conditioned by His existence. See the
previous note on h.
3 EvSonrjGe. Most commentators suppose an ellipsis of 6 Qsog; but the instances
adduced by De Wette and others to justify this seem insufficient and there seems no ;
reason to seek a new subject for the verb, when there is one already expressed in the
preceding verse. It appears better therefore to read avrci and avToi), not aurw and
avTov, in this and the next verse.
4 The word vrPi^ypw/za is here used by St. Paul in a technical sense, with a manifest
allusion to the errors against which he is writing. The early Gnostics used the same
word to represent the assemblage of emanations (conceived as angelic powers) pro-
ceeding from the Deity. Paul therefore appears to say, that the true Fulness of
St.
the universe (or, as he callsit, chap. ii. 9, Fulness of the godhead), is to be found,
not in any angelic hierarchy (see the remarks introductory to this Epistle, page 383),
but in Christ alone.
6 This statement of the infinite extent of the results of Christ's redemption (which
may well fill us with reverential awe), has been a sore stumbling block to many com
mentators, who have devised various (and some very ingenious) modes of explaining
it away. Into these this is not the place to enter. It is sufficient to observe that St.
Paul is still led to set forth the true greatness of Christ in opposition to the angelola*
try of the Colossian heretics intimating that far from Christ being one only of the
;
angelic liierarchy, the heavenly hosts themselves stood in need of His atonement
COiiiparc Ileb. ix. 23.
llere Again is perhaps a reference to the Gnostic element in the Colossian theoso*
phy. was Christ himself who suffered death, in the body of his flesh He was per-
It ;
fect man and not (as the Docetac taught) an angelic emanation, who withdrew from
;
that He
might bring you to His presence in holiness, without
53 blemish and without reproach; if, indeed, you bestedfastir
your faith, with your foundation firmly grounded and immovea-
bly fixed, and not suflTering yourselves to be shifted away from
the hope of the Glad-tidings which first you heard, which haa
been published throughout all the earth, whereof I, Paul, have ^
1 Literally, throughout all the creation under the sky, which is exactly equivalent
to throughout all the earth. St. Paul of course speaks here hyperbolically, meaning,
the teaching which you heard from Epaphras is the same which Hks been published
universally by the Apostles.
' St. Paul's sufferings were caused by his zeal on behalf of the Gentile converts.
3The avri is introduced into dvrava'jT?i7]pcj by the antithesis between the notions of
'rrTiTjpovGdai and iarepeladai.
* Compare 2 Cor. i. 5. TlepiaaeveL rcl TTadrj/^ara tov Xpiarov elg rifj-dg, and also Acts
ix. 4, " Why persecutest thou me." St. Paul doubtless recollected these words when
remotest times, with special reference to the times of the Mosaic Dispensation. Com-
pare Rom. xvi. 25 nvar. xpovoic alovioLg aeoLy., and Titus i. 2.
:
6 The best MSS. are here divided between of and o; if we read o it refers to fivffTT]*
pLW, if Of, to nXovrog ; in either case the sense is the same, since TrActrof is the ricll
' 'hjonv is omitted here in the best MSS. TeAciOf, grown ic the ripeness <>/ ma
turily.
9 Aiiuding to ayuvL^ouevog abov^e.
2
for alli who have not seen my face in the flesh; lliat their
hearts may be comforted, and that they may be knit to-
gether in love, and may gain in all its richness the full assur-
ance of understanding,'' truly to know the mystery of God,-?
wherein are all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge^ 3
hidden.
and warns them
gainst those J this,J lest anv
I sav J
man should mislead vou with 4
them*^
^^ticiiig words. For though I am absent from you 5
in the flesh, yet I am present with you in the spirit,
by a system of Beware ' lest there be any man who leads you 8
,1. i.i
,
misnamed phi- . i t .
t .
1 Viz. all Christians. By the plain natural sense of this passage, the Colossiana
are classed among those personally unknown to St. Paul.
* livvioeug, compare cvveglq TrvevjuariKr} (i. 9).
3 The reading of the MSS. here is very doubtful. The reading adopted above i
that of Tischendorf 's 2d edition.
4 St. Paul here alludes, as we see from the next verse, to those who (like the Colos-
sian false teachers) professed to be in possession of a higher yvucic. In opposition to
them he asserts that the depths of yvuGic are to be found only in the " Mystery of
God," viz. the Gospel, or (as he defines it above) XpiaToc kv ijxiv,
6 'ETvoLKodouovfievoi, observe the present tense, and compare 1 Cor. iii. 10.
'The following paraphrase of this part of the Epistle is given by Neander (Denk-
wiirdigkeiten, p. ^12), "How can you still fear evil spirits, when the Father himself has
delivered you from the kingdom of darkness, and transplanted you into the kingdom
of his dear Son, who has victoriously ascended to heaven to share the divine might of
his Father, with whom he now works in man when, moreover, he by
;
his sufferings haa
united you with the Father, and freed you from the dominion of all the powers of dark-
ness, whom he exhibits (as it were) as captives in his triumphal pomp, and shows their
impotence to harm his kingdom established among men. How can you still let the
doubts and fears of your conscience bring you into slavery to superstition, when Christ
has nailed to his cross, and blotted out the record of guilt which testified against you
in your conscience, and has assured to you the forgiveness of all your sins. Again, how
can you fear to be polluted by outward things, how can you suffer yourselves to be in
captivity to outward ordinances, when you have died with Christ to all earthly things,
ond are risen with Christ, and live (according to youi' true, inward life) with Christ in
heaven. Your faith must be fixed on things above, where Christ is, at the right hand
of God. Your life is hid with Christ in God, and belongs no more to earth."
8 'O av'kayuyuv, literally, who drags you away as his spoil. The peculiar form of
expression employed (similar to riveg eiaiv ol rapdaaovreg. Gal. i. 7), shows that St.
Paul alludes to some ptirticular individual at Colossae, who prcfessed to teaeh a
"Philosophy."
EPISTI;E TO THE COLOSSIANS. 389
Him
you have your fulness for He is the head of all the Prin- ;
you also, when you were dead in the transgressions and un cir-
cumcision of your flesh, God raised to share His life. For Ho
14 forgave us ^ all our transgressions, and blotted out the Writing
against us, which opposed us with its decrees,' having taken
15 it out of our way, and nailed it to the cross. And He dis-
Him, and put them to open shame, leading them captive in His
triumph, which He won ^ in Christ.
16 Therefore, suffer not any man to condemn you and unites Jew-
ish observances
for what you eat or drink
,
'
nor m
.
respect of feast-
^
witjiangei-wor-
sliip and asceti-
and not (as the Gnostics taught) by initiation into an esoteric system of theosophy,
whereby men might attain to closer connection with some of the " Principalities and
Powers " of the angelic hierarchy.
6 The casting off, not (as in outwB,rd circumcision) of a part, but of the whole body
of the flesh, the whole carnal nature. The tuv d/xapriuv of the R. T. is an interpola-
tion.
6 'Ujulv is the reading of the best MSS.
' The parallel passage (Eph. ii. 15) is more explicit, rov vojuov tuv Ivto?,uv h
Soyfiaaiv. On the grammatical difficulties of both passages, see Winer, Gram.
;5sect. 31, 6.
8 Cf. Eph. vi. 12 ; and see Neander's paraphrase quoted above.
'Ev avTu scilicet XpiGrci; the subject is 6 Qeoc.
Compare Rom. xiv. 1-17.
10
II The same three Mosaic observances are joined together, 1 Chron. xxiii. Sit
Compare also Gal. iv. 10.
1* M7]6eLc .... &e?i(i)v, let 7io man
though he wishes it ; this seems the most uatu"
ral explanation of this difficult expression it is that adopted by Theodoret and Tiieo
5
the whole body, by the joints which bind it, draws full sup-
plies 5 for all its needs, and is knit together, and increases in
godly growth.
If, then, when you died with Christ,^ you put away the 20
childish lessons of outward things, why, as though you still
lived in outward things, do you submit yourself to decrees
("hold' not, taste not, touch not" forbidding the use of 21
things which are all made to be consumed in the using 22
founded on the precepts and doctrines of men? For these 23
precepts, though they have a show of wisdom, in a self-chosen
worship, and in humiliation, and chastening of the body, are
of no value to check the indulgence of fleshly passions.
4 dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ,
who is our life, shall be made manifest, then shall ye be mad
manifest ^ with Him in glory.
5 Give, therefore, unto death your earthly
' ' 'J <J
mem- Against hea-
then impurity
bers; fornication, uncleanness,^ shameful appetites, and other vices.
8 former times, when you lived therein but now, with us,^ you ;
10 put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the ^^l^^^ ^^^^'^
people (which is now hidden) will be manifested to all mankind when Christ shall
come again, and force the world to recognise him, by an open display of his majesty.
The authorised version (though so beautiful in this passage that it is impossible to
deviate from it without regret), yet does not adequately represent the original;
" appear " not being equivalent to ^avepadrivaL.
4 Viz. of word as well as deed.
5 T^v Tc2,ove^iav, whence the before-named special sins spring, as branches from the
root. For the meaning of the word see note on 2 Cor. v. 11. Lust is called idolatry,
either because impurity was so closely connected with the heathen idol-worship, or
because it alienates the heart from God.
6 Kal v/xelg, you as well as other Christians. There should be a comma aftef
ahrolg [or rovroLg, according to Tischendorf 's reading], and a full stop at Travrot
Then the exhortation beginning opyrjv, &c., follows abruptly, a repetition of anodi-iBt
being understood from the sense.
7 'AiTK6vad/xevoi is here equivalent to uTzendvoaGde 6e ; compare IvC'vaaade (v. 12).
8 For this use of veog compare Heb. xii. 24.
9 Literally, who is continually renewed [present participle] to the atiaifMmnt
f'^cl of a true knowledge according to the likeness of his Creator.
392 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. lAUl..
condemned, but their exaggerated way of showing it, and the false system on which it
was engrafted.
* 'Ett^ ndai Tovroig evSvaaade.
3 Literally, which is the bond of completeness.
4 The fcreat majority of MSS. read Xptarov.
6 'E-b;^dpiaToi is most naturally understood of gratitude towards one another, espe-
cially as* the context treats of their love towards then: brethren; for ingratitude
destroys mutual love.
6 The punctuation here adopted is 6 loyog k. r. 1. 'Klovaiug. 'Ev Tzday k. r. A,
kavTohg. The participles dL6aaKovTeg, fec., are used imperatively, as in Rom. xii. 9-16.
' The reading adopted is ipal/uolc v/Livoig wdaZf nvev/uariKaig kv ry x^-P'-"'''' adovTSQ,
which is Tischendorf 's, a stop being put after the preceding iavrovg. St. Paul appears
which throws light on the present passage) to contrast
to intend (as in Eph. v. 18, 19,
the songs which the Christians were to employ at their meetings, with those impure w
bacchanalian strains which they formerly sung at their heathen revels. It should b
remembered that singing always formed a part of the entertainment at the banquet*
of the Greeks. Compare also James v. 13, evdvjuel rig ipal^isTu. For the meam'ng
;
as men-pleasers,
!,
but in
.
brother, your fellow countryman they will tell you all which ;
We have seen that the above epistle to the Colossians, and that to
Philemon, were conveyed by Tychicus and Onesimus, who travelled to-
gether from Rome to Asia Minor. But these two were not the only let--
ters with which Tychicus was charged. We know that he carried a third
letter also ; but it is not equally certain to whom it was addressed. This
third letter was that which is now entitled the Epistle to the Ephesians ;
We have before remarked that the right hand, with which he wrote these worda,
was fastened by a chain to the left hand of the soldier who was on guard over him.
The u/i7]v (as usual) was added by the copyists, and is absent from the best 3SSw
(1) St. Basil ^ distinctly asserts, that the early writers whom he had
consulted declared that the manuscripts of this Epistle in their time did
not contain the name of Ephesus, but left out altogether the name of the
Church to which the Epistle was addressed. He adds, that the most an-
cient manuscripts which he had himself seen gave the same testimony.
This assertion of Basil's is confirmed by Jerome,^ Epiphanius,^ and Ter-
tuUian.'*
(2) The most ancient manuscript now known to exist, namely that of
the Vatican Library, fully bears out Basil's words ; for in its text it does
not contain the words "in Ephesus" at all ; and they are only added in
J
The words of Basil are (Basil cont. Eunora. 0pp. i. 254), 'E(f>ealoLg eTviareTiXuv . .
'0NTA2 avTovc idia^vra^ covofiaaev, elwuv T0I2 'AHOIS TOIS 0T2I KAI HIS-
T012 EN XPI2Ti IH20T. Ovto yap ol irpo Tjfiuv irapadeduKaai, Kai ijfXElg tv
rotg naXaiolg rc'iv dvriypdcjxov evprjKajxev.
' (Hieron. ad Eph. i. 1) : " Quidam putant, &c. alii vero simpliciter non ad eos qui
mnt sed qui Ephesi Bancti et fideles sunt ecriptum arbitraatur."
3 Epiphanius quotes Eph, iv. 5, 6, from Marcion's Upbg AaoSiKsag. It is scarcely
necessary here to notice the apocryphal Epistola ad Laodicenses, which only exists in
Latia MSS. It is a mere cento compiled from the Epistles to the Galatiana and
Philippians and was evidently a forgery of a very late date, originating from the
;
wish to represent the epistle mentioned Col. iv. 16, as not lost.
4 Tertullian accuses Marcion of adding the title Upbg AaoSiKeag, but not of altering
the salutation whence it is clear that the MSS. used by Tertullian did not contain
;
The above arguments have convinced the ablest of modern critics that
this Epistle was not addressed to the Ephesians. But there has not been
by any means the same unanimity on the question, who were its intended
readers. In the most ancient manuscripts of it (as we have seen) no
Church is mentioned by name, except in those consulted by Marcion, ao
cording to which it was addressed to the Laodiceans. Now the internal
evidence above mentioned proves that the Epistle was addressed to some
particular church or churches, who were to receive intelligence of St
Paul through Tychicus, and that it was not a treatise addressed to the
whole Christian world ; and the form of the salutation shows that the
Dame of som place ^ must originally have been inserted in it. Again :
the very passages in the Epistle which have been above referred to, as
proving that it could not have been directed to the Ephesians, agree per-
fectly with the hypothesis that it was addressed to the Laodiceans.
Lastly, we know from the Epistle to the Colossians, that St. Paul did
write a letter to Laodicea (Col. iv. 16) about the same time with that to
Coloss^.^ On these grounds, then, it appears the safest course to assume
(with Paley, in the Horae Paulinse) that the testimony of Marcion (un-
contradicted by any other positive evidence) is correct, and that Laodicea
was one at least of the Churches to which this Epistle was addressed.
And, consequently, as we know not the name of any other Church ta
which it was written, that of Laodicea should be inserted in the place
which the. most ancient manuscripts leave vacant.
pose ovaiv used emphatically (" those who are really ayioi, ") as some commentators
mentioned by Jerome took it. It is true that this (the oldest known form of the text)
might be translated " to God's people who are also faithful in Christ Jesus but this
would make the Epistle addressed (like the 2nd of Peter) to the whole Christian
world which is inconsistent with its contents, as above remarked.
;
* De Wette argues that the letter to Laodicea, mentioned Col. iv. 16, must have
been written some time before that to Colossae, and not sent by the same messenger,
because St. Paul in the Colosaian Epistle sends greetings to Laodicea (Col. iv. 15)
which he would have sent directly if he had written to Laodicea at the same time.
But there is not much weight in this objection, for it was agreeable to St. Paul's man-
ner to charge one part of the Church to salute the other ; see Rom. xvi. 3, where he
Bays dcirdaaaOe not uGTrd^o/nai. Moreover it seems most probable that Col. iv. 16-18
was a added to the Epistle after the Epistle to Laodicea was written. It is
postscript,
imagine that the t/> i/c AaodiKEinc (Col. iv. 16) could have been received
difficult to
much before that to the Colossians, from the manner in which it is mentioned, and the
frequent intercourse which must have occurred between such neighbouring churches.
The hypothesis of Wieseler, that the Laodicean Epistle was that to Philemon, is quite
arbitrary, and appears irrcconcileable with the fact that Onesiraus is expressly called
a Colossian, and ^^ as sent to Colosste on this very occasion. See also Horae Paulina
{in loco).
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS {SO CALLED). 39T
Still, it must bo obvious, that this does not remove all the difficulties
of the question. For, first it will be asked, how came the name of La>
dicea (if originally inserted) to have slipped out of these ancient mani>
scripts ? and again, how came it that the majority of more recent manu-
scripts inserted the name of Ephesus ? These perplexing questions are ia
some measure answered by the hypothesis originated by Archbishop
Usher, that this Epistle was a circular letter addressed not to one only^
but to several Churches, in the same way as the Epistle to the Galatiana
was addressed to all the Churches in Galatia, and those to Corinth wero
addressed to the Christians " in the whole province of Achaia." '
On
this view, Tychicus would have carried several copies of it, differently
diversity in their copies, might many of them be led to omit the words in
which the variation consisted ; and thus the state of the earliest known
text ^ of the Epistle would be explained. Afterwards, however, as copiess
of the Epistle became spread over the world, all imported from Ephesus
(the commercial capital of the district where the Epistle was originally
circulated,) it would be called (in default of any other name) the Epistle
from Ephesus ; and the manuscripts of it would be so entitled ; and thence
the next step, of inserting the name of Ephesus into the text, in a plac
where some local designation was plainly wanted, would be a very easy
one. And this designation of the Epistle would the more readily prevail,
from the natural feeling that St. Paul must have written ^ some Epistle to
so great a Church of his own founding as Ephesus.
Thus the most plausible account of the origin of this Epistle seems to
be as follows. Tychicus was about to take his departure from Rome for
Asia Minor. St. Paul had already written '*
his Epistle to the Colossians
expanded from those in Colossians and the passages in Colossians could not be so
;
well explained on the converse hypothesis, that they were a condensation of those in
Ephesians. We have remarked, however, in a previous note, that we must assume the
reference in Colossians to the other epistle (Col. iv. 16), to have been added as a post-
script ; unless we suppose that St. Paul there refers to the r^v kn AaodiKeiac before it
was actually written (aa intending to write it, and send it by the same messenger)
which he might very well have done
598 THE LITE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
at the request of Epaphras, who had informed him of their danger. Bui
Tychicus was about to visit other places, which, though not requiring the
same warning with Colossse, yet abounded in Christian converts. Most
of these had been heathens, and their hearts might be cheered and
strengthened by words addressed directly to themselves from the great
Apostle of the Gentiles, whose face they had never seen, but whose name
they had learned to reverence, and whose sufferings had endeared \im to
their love. These scattered Churches (one of which was Laodicea^) had
very much in common, and would all be benefitted by the same instruction
and exhortation. Since it was not necessary to meet the individual case
of any one of them, as distinct from the rest, li^t. Paul wrote the same
letter to them all, but sent to each a separate copy authenticated by the
precious stamp of his own autograph benediction. And the contents of
this circular epistle naturally bore a strong resemblance to those of the
letter which he had just concluded to the Colossians, because the thoughts
which filled his heart at the time would necessarily find utterance in simi-
lar language, and because the circumstances of these Churches were in
J been objected to the cu-cular hypothesis, that the Epistle, if meant as a cir-
It has
cular, would have been addressed rote ovctv kv 'kaigi. But to this it may be replied
that on our hypothesis the Epistle was not addressed to all the churches in ProconsU"
lar Asia, and that it was addressed to some churches not in that province.
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS (sO CALLED). 399
2 Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from
our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 In the above introductory remarks it is assumed that this Epistle was cotem-
porary with that to the Colossians, which is stated in the Epistle itself (vi. 21.
Compare Col. iy. 7). Its date, therefore, is fixed by the arguments in p. 384.
We may here shortly notice the arguments which have been advanced by some
German critics, for rejecting the Epistle altogether as a forgery. Their objectiona
against its authenticity are principally the following. First, The diflSculties re-
specting its destination, which have been already noticed. Secondly, The want
of originality in its matter, the substance of its contents being found also in the
Colossians, or others of St. Paul's Epistles. This phenomenon has been accounted
for above (p. 398), and is well explained by Paley (Horse Paulinse). Thirdly, Certain
portions of the doctrinal contents are thought to indicate a later origin e. g., the De-
monology (ii. 2 and vi. 12). Fourthly, Some portions of the style are considered un-
Pauline. Fifthly, Several words are used in a sense different from that which they
bear in St. Paul's other writings. These three last classes of difficulties we cannot
pretend fully to explain, nor is this the place for their discussion ; but as a general
answer to them we may remark First, That if we had a fuller knowledge of the per-
;
sons to whom, and especially of the amanuensis by whom, the letter was written, they
would probably vanish. Secondly, that no objector has yet suggested a satisfactory
explanation of the origin of the Epistle, if it were a forgery no motive for forgery ;
4 'H/zaf (here) includes both the writer and {apparently) the other Apostles ; while
Kal vjuelc (v. 13) addresses the readers as distinguished from the writer.
5 'Ev TOif knovpavtoig. This expression is peculiar to the present Epistle, in Thich
H occurs five times.
6 We join dyany with v. 5.
lightenment.
tidlugs of youT salvatiou and you believed in Him, ;
Observe xapiTog, ixf^piruaeVf which would Tbe more literally translated His favour
6 'AvaKSip. T. IT. kv Tu Xpiaru, literally to unite all things under one head, in
union with Christ: so Chrysostom explains it, julav Ke<pa'Xrlv knidelvat ttucl rdv
XpioTov. For the doctrine, compare 1 Cor. xv. 24.
7 'EK?,T}p66i]/Liev, " in hsereditatem adsciti sumus."
for the glory-praise of Him; compare verse 6 (the best MSS. omit the Trjg).
9 UpoeXni^eLv might mean, as some take it, to look forward with hope : but tbe
other meaning appears most obvious, and best suits the context Compare rpoeWov-
TEC, Acts XX. 13.
"0 Compare Rom. viii. 23.
" E/f, not until (A. V.).
Tt/c neptnoi7}aE0)c, used in the same sense here as eKKlrjaia rjv nepteTtoiTjaaTo (Acta
XX. 28). The metaphor is that the gift of the Holy Spirit was an earnest (that is, a
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS ^Su CALLED). 401
light, that you may know what is the hope of His call-
with
19 ing, and how rich is the glory of His inheritance, in His people,
and how surpassing is the power which He has shewn toward
us who believe [for he has dealt with us] in the strength of
;
20 that miffht
wherewith He wrou2:ht
& in Christ, when ornce and dig-
nity of Chri&t.
J
21 own right hand in the heavens, far above every ' Principality
and Power, and Might, and Domination, and every name which
is named, not only in this present time, but also in that which
22 is to come. And '^He put all things under His feet^'' ^ and
gave Him to be sovereign head of the Church, which is His
23 body the ^ Fulness of Him who fills all things everywhere
;
II. with Himself. And you, likewise, He raised from They had beeu
awakened from
1 death ^ when you were dead in transs-ressions
to life,
' o
'/ God's grace,
heathenism tj
3 of disobedience ;
amongst whom we also, in times past, lived,
-part payment in advance) of the price required for the full deliverance of those who
had been slaves of sin, but now were purchased for the service of God.
1 The majority of MSS. read Kapd^ac, which would give the less usual sense, the eyes
cf your heart.
See Col. i. 16 and note.
3 Ps. viii. 6. (LXX.), quoted in the same Messianic sense, 1 Cor. xv. 27, and Heb,
ii. 8. Compare also Ps. ex. 1.
* We see here again the same allusion to the technical use of the word nTiripuiia by
false teachers, as in Col. ii. 9, 10. St. Paul there asserts that, not the angelic hier-
archy, but Christ himself is the true fulness of the Godhead; and here that the
Church is the fulness of Christ, that is, the full manifestation of his being, because
penetrated by His life, and living only in Him. It should be observed that the Chureb
is here spoken of so far forth as it corresponds to its ideal. For the translation f
vTiTjpovfievov, see Winer, Gram. sect. 39, 6.
5 The sentence (in the original) is left unfinished in the rapidity of dictation >jut ;
all of us, in fleslily lusts, fulfilling the desires of our iiesh, and
of our imagination, and were hj nature children of wrath, no.
22 dwelling of the Lord. And in Him, not others only,^ but you
also, are built up together, to make a house wherein God may
m. dwell by the ^ presence of His Spirit.
1 Wherefore I, Paul, who, for maintaining the Themystryof
.
universal sal va-
/. -r
2 cause of you Gentiles, am the prisoner of Jesus tion proclaimed
by Paul, a pri-
Christ 5
for ^ you have heard how ^oner for
I suppose that it.
God's grace was given me, that I might dispense it among you
3 and hov/, by revelation, was' made known to me the mys-
4 tery (as I* have abeady shortly ^ written to you so that, ;
'piKovofiiav, see note on i. 10) the grace of God which was given me for yen.
7 ^Eyvupcodri is the reading of the MSS.
8 The reference is to chap. i. 9, 10.
5 'Ev TTvevfiari. See notes on verses 18 and 2i above.
Av-iov, jg omitted by the best MSS.
404 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAtJL.
am less thau the least of all God's people, this grace was
given, to bear among the Gentiles the Glad-tidings of the nn-
jBearchable riches of Christ, and to bring light to all, whereby $
they might understand the ^
dispensation of the mystery which,
from the ages of has been hid in God, the maker of all
old,
;
things by the Church,^ the manifold wisdom of 10
' that now,
God might be made known to the Principalities and Powers in
the heavens, according to His eternal purpose, which he ful- ii
filled in ChristJesiis our Lord ; in whom we can approach 12
without fear to God, in trustful confidence, through faith in
Him.
He prays for
himself and
"Whercfore I prav
,
r J that I ^
may
J not faint under myJ 13
^em, that they sufferings foT you, which are your
For this 14 glory.
etrengthened
and enlighten-
causc I bcud my kuccs bcforc the Father 4 whose 15
>' '
having your root and your foundation, in love, you may be en- 18
abled, with all God's people, to comprehend the breadth and
length, and depth and height thereof and to know the love of 19 ;
works within us, unto Him, in Christ Jesus, be glory in the
Church, even to all the generations of the age of ages.
Amen.
1 The best MSS. read oUovofita not Koivovta. See note on i. 10.
' Aid 'Irjaov Xpiarov is not in the best MSS.
' I. e. by the union of all mankind in the Church. That which calls forth the ex-
pressions of rapturous admiration here, and in the similar passage in Romans (xi. 33),
The sense depends on the paronomasia between nartpa and naTpta, the latter word
6
6 have one faith, you have one baptism you have one God and ;
Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and dwells
7' in all.'* But each one of us received the gift of grace which
he possesses according to the measure ^ wherein it was given by
8 Christ. "Wherefore it is ^ written " When He went wp on :
9 high^ He led cajptivity cofptim^ and gave gifts unto menP I^ow
that word He went ujp^"^ what saith it, but that He first
10 came down to the earth below ? Yea, He who came down is
the same who is gone up, far above all the heavens, that He
11 might fill all things.^ And He gave some to be apostles,*' and
some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and
12 teachers ; for the perfecting of God's people, to laboiu- ^ in
every part ' to the measure of His ^ growth, who is our head,
even Christ. From whom ^ the whole body (being knit to- 16
gether,and compacted by all its joints) derives its continued
growth in the working of His bounty, which supplies its needs,
according to the measure of each several part, that it may
build itself up in love.
Exhortation to This I say, therefore, and adjure you in the 11
heathen vice Lord, to livc no louffcr
like other Gentiles, whose
and to moral ^ ^
newed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, 24
created after God's likeness, in the righteousness and holiness
Against several of the Truth. "Wherofore, putting away lying, 25
speak every man truth with his neighbour ; for we
are members one of another. ''Be ye a/ngry^ and sin not^^ 26
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, nor give way to 27
the Devil. Let the robber ' rob no more, but rather let him 28
1 Td ndvra. See following verse.
' Av^dveiv elg avrov is to grow to the standard of his growth.
' 'E^ 0^ Trdv TO ou/ua (avvapjuoTi^oyovjuevov Kal avju6ia^6jLievov did, TrdaijQ d^^f),
T^f inixopij-ytac Kar^ evepyeiav, ev /ncTpo) ivog iKdarov /lepovc, ttjv av^rjaiv to%
cu/naTog nocetTai, literally rendered, /rom whom
body {being knit together
all the
and compacted by every joint), according to the working of his bounteous pro-
viding, in the measure of each several part, continues the growth of the body.
Compare the parallel passage, Col. ii. 19, o-u Trdv to aCdixa 6id tuv d^uv Kal aw-
rally rendered in A. v.), but bandits; and there is nothing strange in finding suck
persons numerous in the provincial towns among the mountains of Asirt Minor. Seo
Vol I. p. 102.
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS (sO CALLED.) i07.
ribald jesting, for such speech beseems you not, but rather
5 thanksgiving. Yea, this you know for you have learned ; ^
See, then, that you walk without stumbling, not in folly but
in wisdom, forestalling 6 opportunity, because the times are 16
evil. Therefore, be not without understanding, but learn to 17
know what the will of the Lord is.
Festive meet- Bc uot druuk with wiuc, like those ^ who live 18
ings how to be, nni ^ n* (* \
^ ^W\.iyx^rE, Oi^he verb means to lay hare the real character of a thing by ete*
falls on any object, the object itself reflects the rays implying that moral evil will
5
perhaps referred to, (jxjrl^ov, (purt^ov, 'lepovGaTiTjfx, ^ksc yap aov to <j)C)g, Kal rj 66^a Kv-
piov int CE uvaTETaXKEv (LXX.). We
must remember, however, that there is no proof
that St. Paul intends (either here, or 1 Cor. ii. 9) to quote the Old Testament. Some
have supposed that he is quoting a Christian hymn others, a saying of our Lord (as
;
* We put a full stop after 'Eavrdic, to one another (here), as Col. iii. i6.
' Throughout the whole passage there is a contrast implied between the heathen
and the Christian practice, e. g. When you meet, let your enjoyment consist not in
Julness of wine, hut fulness of the Spirit; let your songs he, not the drinking-song*
of heathen feasts, hut psalms and hymns; and their accompaniment, not the mime
pf the lyre, hut the melody of the heart ; while you sing them to the praise not of
Bacchus or Venus, hut of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the coastruction and punctua*
kion see Col. iii. 16,
.
23 bands, as unto the Lord for the husband is head of the wife, ;
29 love himself: and no man ever hated his own flesh, but
nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ^ also nourishes and
30 cherishes the Church for we are members of His body, por-;
Sltions of His flesh.9 For this cause shall a man lea/ve his''^
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they
32 two shall he one HeshP ^ This mystery is great but I speak ;
body from harm ; and an analogy is implied to the conjugal relation, in which the
husband maintains and cherishes the wife.
^ ^AXkcL can scarcely be translated " therefore " (A. V.)
5 Tot) vdarog (not simply vdarog)] literally by the laver of the water, equivalent to
7i,ovTpov 7z altyyeveaiag (Titus iii. 5). The following h ^rifxarc is exceedingly difficult.
Chrysostom and the patristic commentators generally take it as if it were r kv p. and
explain it of the formula of baptism De Wette takes the same view. But St. Paul
;
Over, as Winer and Meyer have remarked, the junction of kv ^t^ixutl with ayidoy better
Buits the Greek. On this view, the meaning is that the Church, having been purified
by the waters of baptism, is hallowed by the revelation of the mind of God imparted
to it, whether mediately or immediately. Compare Heb. iv. 12, 13.
6 The best MSS. read avrbg, not avrrjv.
The words and of his bones " are an interpolation not found in the best MSS.
10 Gen. ii. 24. (LXX.).
i The lyu is emphatic ;
/, while I quote these words out of the Scriptures, Wi
ihem in a higher sense.
*10 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. TAUL.
And ye, fathers, vex not your children ; but bring them 4
up in such training and correction as befits the servauiS of the
Lord.
ihities of slaves Bondsmon, obey your earthly masters with 5
Rnd masters.
anxiety and
.
self-distrust,^
. -i
m singleness ri
of heart, as
unto Christ ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as 6
bondsmen of Christ, doing the will of God from the soul.
With good will fulfilling your service, as to the Lord our 7
Master,^ and not to men. For you know that whatever good 8
any man does, the same shall he receive from the Lord,
whether he be bond or free.
And ye, masters, do in like manner by them, and abstain 9
from threats knowing that your own Master is in heaven,
;
17 to quench all the fiery darts of the Evil One. Take, likewise,
the helmet of salvation,'^ and the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God.^
i.8 Continue to pray
r J at everyJ season
with all ear- to pray for
others and for
nestness of supplication in the Spirit and to this ^^aui. ;
beloved brother, and faithful servant in the Lord, w^ill make all
^ Kal vjLid^.
6 See the parallel passage. Col. iv. 7.
7 The difficulty of the concluding words is well known : Iv a<j>dapaig, might also b
translated in immortality, with the meaning whose love endures immortally. Ol3
hausen supposes the expression elliptical, for Iva ^co^v exoxjiv h d<pdapaL^ ; but thif
>an scarcely be justified.
8 Afiijv as usual is omitted in the best manuscripts.
NOTE.
To complete the view of the two preceding Epistles, the following tables ar*
added : the first of which gives a comparative outline of their contents ; the
second shows the verbal correspondence between the parallel passages in each :
HI. 18-19. Duties of wives and hus- Y. 21-33. Duties of wives and hua
bands. bands.
20-21. Duties of children and pa- lY. 1-4. DutitBS of children and pa-
rents. rents.
HL 22-IV. 1. Duties of slaves and 5-9. Duties of slaves and masters.
masters. 10-17. Exhortation to fight in the
Christian armour.
JT. 2-4. Exhortation to pray for 18-20. To pray for olhers and for
themselves and Paul. Paul.
5- 6. Watchfulness in conduct
towards unbelievers [Eph
V. 11-17].
7- 9. Tychicus and Onesimus, the 21-22. Tychicus the messenger.
messengers.
10-14. Salutations from Rome.
15-17. Messages concerning Lao-
dicea and Archippus.
18. Autograph salutation and 23-24. Concluding benediction.
benediction.
Verbal resmUances hetween the so-called JSpistle to the Ejphesians and tkt
Col. i. 2.
Col. i. 3.
Col. i. 22,
i)
6-
7 - Col. i. 14.
8-
9 Col. i. 25.
10 Col. i. 20.
11 Col. i. 12.
12
13
14
15
16 Col. i. 3-4.
17
18
19
20
21
16, 18, 19, 21.
22 Col.|i: 13.
23
a 1-
1
2- 13.
Col.
3- 'ii: 21.
4-
5 - Col. ii. 13.
6-
7-
8-
10
11 Col. ii. i;
414 THE LIFE MUD EPISTLES OF ST. PABL.
12. Eph. V. 14
2 13. 15
3 CoLiii. Col. iv. 5.
14. 16
4 15. 17
5 18
6 -Col. iii.lL
[CoI.iu.|}
'
7 20
8 21
9 22 Col. iii. 18.
10 23-
11 24-
12 25 -Col. iii. 19.
13 26-
14 27-
15 28-
Col. ii. 19.
16 ^ 29-
17 30
18 31-^.
19 .
Col. iii. 5. 31^
20 32-
21 33
22 Eph. vi. 1 - Col. iii. 20.
23 2-
i CoLiii. I 9.
3-
24
(10. 4
25 Col. iii. 21.
26 5 iii. 22
27 6 23.
28 7 i- CoiA 24.
29 - Col. iv. 6. 8 25.
30 iv. 1.
31 - Col. iii. 8. 10
32 - Col. iii. 13. 11
,
1- 12 -Col. ii. 15.
2 .
13
3 14
4 15
5 16
6 17
7 18
8 Col. i. 13. 19 Col. iv.jl
9 20 I
10 21
22.
jcoUv.jg^;
11
12 23
13 24
From the first of the above tables it will be seen, that there is scarcely a
Bingle topic in the Ephesian Epistle which is not also to be found iii the Epistle
to the Colossians ;
but, on the other hand, that there is an important section of
1?ablc it appears, that out of the 155 verses contained in the so-called Epistle to
the Ephesians, 78 verses contain expressions identical with those in the Epistle to
the Colossians.
The kind of resemblance here traced is not that which would be found in the
work of a forger, servilely copying the Epistle to Colossa3. On the contrary, it is
just what we might expect to find in the work of a man whose mind was
thoroiiglily iml)ucd with the ideas and expressions of the Epistle to the Colossians
when he wrote the other Epistle.
THE PEiETOKIUM. 4:16
CHAPTER XXYL
01 'EK TH2 KAI2AP0S 0IKIA2.Phil. iv. 22
The close of tlie Epistle, to wMcli our attention has just been turned,
contains a remarkable example of the forcible imagery of St. Paul.^ Con-
sidered simply in itself, this description of the Christian's armour is one of
the most striking passages in the Sacred Volume. But if we view it in
connection with the circumstances with which the Apostle was sur-
rounded, we find a new and living emphasis in his enumeration of all the
parts of the heavenly panoply,'^ the belt of sincerity and truth, with
which the loins ^ are girded for the spiritual war, the breastplate of that
righteousness,'' the inseparable links whereof are faith and love,^ the
strong sandals,^ with which the feet of Christ's soldiers are made ready,''
not for such errands of death and despair as those on which the Praeto-
rian soldiers were daily sent, but for the universal message of the Gospel
of peace, the large shield ^ of confident trust,^ wherewith the whole man
1 Eph. vi. 14-17.
^ For authentic information regarding the actual Roman
Ttjv TzavoTcTitav rov Qsov.
armour of the time, we may refer to Piranesi's fine illustrations of the columns of
Trajan and Marcus Aurehus. There are also many useful engravings in Smith's Dic-
tionary of Antiquities.
3 UepL^uod/Ltevoi Tr)v 6a<j)vv vjuuv ev uXrjOela. The belt or zona (^uaTTjp) passed
round the lower part of the body, below the &u)oa^,and is to be distinguished from the
balteus, which went over the shoulder.
4 'EvdvaduEvoL rbv -^upuKa tt]^ 6iKaLoavv7]g. The &6pa^ was a cuirass or corslet,
reaching nearly to the loins. Its form may be seen in the statue of Caligula, engraved
in Vol. I. p. 110.
5 Ie the parallel passage (1 Thess. v. 8), the breastplate is described as '&6paxa
moTeug Kai dyaTTTjg.
6 The Roman Caligce were not greaves, which in fact would not harmonise with
the context, but strong and heavy sandals. See Juvenal, iii. 232, 306, xvi. 25, and the
anecdote of the death of the centurion Julian in the Temple at J erusalem. Joseph. B,
J. vi. 1, 8.
7 'TTTodTjcd/ievoL Tovg irodag kv irotfiaaia k. r. /I. . .
8 The ^vpedg here is the large oblong or oval Roman shield the scutum not the
elipeiis, specimens of which may be seen in Pirauesi. See especially the pede^lal oi
Trajan's column.
0 Tbv &vpEdv TTjg ncareug.
416 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
is protected,! and whereon the fiery arrows of the Wicked One fall harm*
less and dead, the close-fitting helmet,^ with which the hope of salva- '
tion 3 invests the head of the believer, and finally the sword of the
Spirit, the Word of God,'' which, when wielded by the Great Captain of
our Salvation, turned the tempter in the wilderness to flight, while in the
hands of His chosen Apostle (with whose memory the sword seems insepa-
rably associated^), it became the means of establishing Christianity on
the earth.
All this unagery becomes doubly forcible, if we remember that when
St. Paul wrote the words he was chained to a soldier, and in the close
at Rome : and we believe the truer view to be that which has been
recently advocated, namely, that it denotes here, not the palace itself,
1 Observe et:1 nuoLv, which is not clearly translated in the authorised version.
One of these compact Roman helmets, preserved in England, at Goodrich Court,
is engraved in Smith's Dictionary. (See under Galea.)
3 AVith rfjv npiKe(j}a?iaLav rov guttiplov (Eph. vi. 17) we should compare TrepiKc^a-
Tialav klnida coirijpLag (1 Thess. v. 8).
* Tijv fidxaipav rov UvevfiaTog, 6 kaxLv ()r]fxa Qeov. See note on the passage.
' It is the emblem of his martyrdom and we can hardly help associating it also
:
with this passage. The small short sword of the Romans was worn like a dagger on
the right side. Specimens may be seen in Piranesi. Those readers who have been in
Rome remember that Pope Sixtus V. dedicated the column of Aurelius (ab omni
will
impietate purgatam) to St. Paul, and that a statue of the Apostle, bearing the sword,
is on the summit.
c With Phil. i. 13 we should compare iv. 22 in the authorised version.
7 See above, in the description of Rome, and compare the map.
8 We find the word used for the Imperial castles out of Rome in Suet. Aug. 72
Tib. 39. Calig. 37. Tit. 8. For its application to the palaces of foreign princes
and even private persons, see Juvenal, i. 10. x. 161. These instances are given by
Wieseler, who also refers to the apocryphal ''Acta Thomae."
" Sec above, p. 252. See above, p. 281, n. 2.
> In Wiesclcr'fl note, p. 403,
but the quarters of thaX part of the Imperial guards, which was in imme
diate attendance upon the Emperor. Such a military establishment id
mentioned in the account which we possess of the first residence of
fullest
tion with the " royal house." Such we conceive to have been the bar-
rack immediately alluded to by St. Paul : though the connection of these
smaller quarters with the general camp was such, that he would
naturally become known to " all the rest^^ ^ of the guards, as well as tnose
who might for the time be connected with the Imperial household.
What has just been said of the word " praetorium," applied still more
extensively to the word "palatium." Originally denoting the hill on
which the twin-brothers were left by the retreating river, it grew to be,
and it still remains, the symbol of Imperial power. Augustus was born
on the Palatine ^. and he fixed his official residence there when the civii
wars were terminated. Thus it may be truly said that after the Capi-
tol and the Forum, no locality in the ancient city claims so much of our
interest as the Palatine hill at once the birth-place of the infant city,
and the abode of her rulers during the days of her greatest splendour,
1 KaTielraL 61 rd, (SacileLa naXdriov (Palatium), ovx on Kal iSo^e ttote ovtu^
airil ovofid^eadai, okTJ otl kv ts rw IlaAanw (in monte Palatine) 6 Kataap ukec Kal
kKsl TO crpaT^jiov (Prfeforium) eIx^, Kal rlva zeal irpbg TTjv tov 'FujuyXov TrpoevocKTjatv
^fir]v 7] OiKta avTOv (domus Csesaris) ai^b tov ttuvtoc bpovg e^iafSe' Kal did tovto Kav
d7\.\bBL nov 6 avTOKpdTup KaTaXvy, tt)v tov TcaTiaTLOV k-KLK?iricLV i] KaTayuyr] avraO
laxsi. Dio Cass. liii. 16.
^ See what has been said (Yol. I. p. 142) in reference to the teim proprcstor in the
provinces.
3 Compare Suet. Aug. 49 with Tib. 37, and see Dio C. Ivii. 19. Tac. Ann. iv. 2.
Hist. i. 31.
4 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 6. He uses CTparoTcedov for the prcBtorhim, and fiaaileLov for
the palatium. Co^apare what is said of Drusus, Suet. Tib. 54.
5 Ibid.
6 Natus est Augustus regione Palatii ad Capita Bubula. Suet. Aug. 5.
' Buubury in the Classical Museum, vol. v. p, 229. We learn from Plutarch and
Dionysius that this " wooden hut thatched with reeds, which was preserved as a me-
VOL. II. 2T
4rl8 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAtTL.
close of the Republic, it was still the residence of many distinguished citi*
site side of the hill, immediately above the Circus Maximus.^ It remained
for subsequent Emperors to cover the whole area of the hill with struc-
tures connected with the palace. Caligula extended the Imperial build-
ings by a bridge (as fantastic as that at Baise^), which joined the Pala-
tine with the Capitol. Nero made a similar extension in the direction of
the Esquiline :
' and this is the point at which we must arrest our series
of historical notices ; for the burning of Rome and the erection of the
Golden House intervened between the first and second imprisonments of
the Apostle Paul. The fire, moreover, which is so closely associated with
the first sufferings of the Church, has made it impossible to identify any
of the existing ruins on the Palatine with buildings that were standing
when the Apostle was among the Praetorian guards. Nor indeed is it pos-
sible to assign the ruins to their proper epochs. All is now confusion on
most shared the fate of the city of the Euphrates. The Palatine con-
tains gardens and vineyards,^ and half cultivated spaces of ground, where
morial of the simple habitation of the Shepherd-king," was on the side of the hill
Alterthiimer, p. 425.
4 The position of the " Domus Tiberiana " is determined by the notices of it Iq the
ftccount of the murder of Galba. Tac. Hist. i. 27. Suet. 0th. G. Plut. Galb. 24.
*
See above, p. 352.
c Super templum Divi August! ponte transmisso Palatium Capitoliumque ccnjanxit
Buet. Calig. 22.
' Domum a Palatio Esquilias usque fecit ;
quam primo Transitoriam, mox incendio
absumptam rcstitutamque Aurcam nominavit. Suet. Ner. 31. See Plin. H. N,
Xxxvii. 15.
8 The f arnege gardens and the Villa Mills (formerly Villa Spada) ai'c well known
to travellers. Some of the finest arches are in the Vigna del Collegio Inglese-
THE PALACE OF THE C^SARS.
POLITICAI. EVENTS AT EOME. 419
St. Paul was at Rome precisely at that time when the Palatine was the
most conspicuous spot on the earth, not merely for crime, but for splen-
dour and power. This was the centre of all the movements of the Em-
pire.^ Here were heard the causes of all Koman citizens who had ap-
pealed to Caesar.'* Hence were issued the orders to the governors of
provinces, and to the legions on the frontier. From the Golden Mile-
stone ''
(Milliarium Aureum ^) below the palace, the roads radiated in all
i
The Franciscan conventof St. Bonaventura, facing the Forum.
' See an impressive paragraph in the third volume of the Beschreibung Roms.
Einleitung, p. 7.
3 Compare the language of Tacitus " Yitellium in Palatium, in ipsam imperii
:
have been discovered at the base of the Capitol, near the Temples of Saturn and Cort*
cord. Class. Mus. iv. 24.
6 See Ginzrot-s thirty-seventh chapter (von den Eilboteu und Posten). So far a?
related to government dispatches, Augustus established posts similar to those of King
Ahasuerus. Compare Suet. Aug. 49 with Esther viii. 13, 14.
the perpetual union of the J ew, the Greek, and the Roman." ^
It seems probable that the three letters which we have last read
were despatched from Rome when Paul had been resident there
St.
about a year,^ that is, in the spring of the year 62 a.d. After the depart-
ure of Tychicus and Onesimus, the Apostle's prison was cheered by the
arrival of Epaphroditus, who bore a contribution from the Christiana
of Philippi. We have before seen instances ^ of the noble liberality of
that church, and now once more we find them ministering to the necessities
of their beloved teacher. Epaphroditus, apparently a leading presbyter
among the Philippians, had brought on himself, by the fatigues or perils
of his journey, a dangerous illness. St. Paul speaks of him with touching
affection. He calls him his " brother, and companion in labour, and fel-
low-soldier" 25) (ii. ; declares " that his labour in the cause of Christ had
brought him near to death (ii. 30), and that he had "hazarded his life
and himself. And, when speaking of his recovery, he says, " God had
compassion on him, and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not
have sorrow upon sorrow" (ii. 2t). We must suppose, from these expreS'
sions, -that Epaphroditus had exposed himself to some unusual risk in his
journey. Perhaps his health was already feeble when he set out, so that
We shall find that when he wrote to the Philippians, either towards the
close of this year, or at the beginning of the next, great effects had already
been produced ; and that the Church of Rome was not only enlarged, but
1 We must not pass by the name of Seneca without some allusion to the so-called
correspondence between him and St. Paul but a mere allusion is enough for so vapid
:
and meaningless a forgery. These Epistles (with that which is called the Ep. to the
Laodiceans, described p. 395, note 3) will be found in the Codex Apoc. N. T. of Fabri-
cius Vol. IL), and in Jones on the Canon (Vol. II.).
'"We allude to the combination of the Oriental elpTjvTj with the Greek ;t<*^' *he
opening salutations of all St. Paul's Epistles. See Buxtorf's Institutio Epistolaria
Hebraica (Basle, 1G29). **Gra!ci salutationem significabant per ;i:aipeiv, quod Ilora-
tius Grajcizans expressit (Celso gaudere, &c. Ep. I. viii.). In Historia Sacra N. T.
(KA. Avotac i/ye/uovt ^tjIlkl xa^p^^v, Acts xxiii. 2G) .... Romani salutem dice-
bant Hebraei, Chaldai, Syri Pads nomine in salutantaudo usi sunt, quod ubi pax
est, ibi omnia se prospere habere dicantur," pp. 10, 11. There are some good remarka
on Koch's Commentary on 1 Thess. i. 1.
this subject in
3The state of things described in the 4th chapter of Colossians, the conversion of
Onesimus and his usefulness to St. Paul (Philcm. 11-13), imply the continuance of,
St. Paul's ministry at Rome during a period which can hardly have been less than a
year. Nor would St. Paul, at the beginning of his imprisonment, have written as ha
does (Pbilcm. 22) of his captivity as verging towards its termination.
* See the account of tlie Macedonian collection, pp. 92, 93,
;
event the prsefecture was put into commission, and bestowed, on Fenius
Rufus and Sofonius Tigellinus. The former was respectable,^ but wanting
'In force of character, and quite unable to cope with his colleague, who was
already notorious for that energetic wickedness which has since made his^
name proverbial. St. Paul's Christian friends in Rome must have trem-
bled to think of him as subject to the caprice of this most detestable of
Kero's sateUites. It does not seem, however, that his situation was altered
for the worse ;
possibly he was never brought under the special notice of
Tigellinus, who was too intent on court intrigues, at this period, to attend
to so trifling a matter as the concerns of a Jewish prisoner.
Another circumstance occurred about the same time, which seemed to
threaten still graver mischief to the cause of Paul. This was the marriage
of Nero to his adulterous mistress Popp^a, who had become a proselyte
to Judaism. This infamous woman, not content with inducing her para-
mour to divorce his young wife Octavia, had demanded and obtained the
death of her rival ; and had gloated over the head of the murdered vic-
tim,'* which was forwarded from Pandataria to Rome for her inspection.
Her power seemed now to have reached its zenith, but rose still higher at
the beginning of the following year, upon the birth of a daughter, when
temples were erected to her and her infant,^ and divine honors paid them.
1 Phil. i. 12-14. ,
* " Concessit vita Burrus, [so the name is spelt in the best MSS., not Burrhusi incer-
tnm valetadine an veneno .... Civitati grande desiderium ejus mansit, per memoriam
virtutis, et succe^orum alterius segnem innocentiam, alterius flagrantissima flagitia
(Mors Burri infregit Senecae potentiam) and established the influence of Tigellinus
and from this period, Nero's public administration became gradually worse and worse,
till at length its infamy rivalled that of his private life.
3 Fenius Rufus was afterwards executed for his share in Piso's conspiracy (Tac.
vidit." (Tac. Ann. xiv. 64.) The account of Octavia's fate in Tacitus is given with
peculiar feeling.
" Natam sibi ex Poppaea filiam Nero ultra mortale gaudium accepit ''
Tac. Anik
rv 2?>). Tho temples to Popt)aea are mentioned in a fragment of Dio.
422 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP SI PAUL.
We know from Josephus ^ that she exerted her influeiice orer Nero m
favour of the Jews, and that she patronised their emissaries at Kome ^
lieve that the providence of God did in fact avert this danger ; but at
present all things seemed to wear a most threatening aspect. Perhaps
the death of. Pallas (which also happened this year) may be considered,
on the other hand, as removing an unfavourable influence ;
for, as the
brother of Felix, he would have been wilhng to soften the Jewish accus-
ers of that profligate governor, by co-operating with their designs against
St. Paul. But his power had ceased to be formidable, either for good or
evil, some time before his death.
Church, and St. Paul was unwilling to detain him any longer from his
duties there. He took the occasion of his return, to send a letter of.
,
' Josephus, Antiq. xx. 7, speaks of Nero tt? yvvaiKi Ilomrai^, d^eoceCiic yap yv^
v%ip Tcov 'lovdaicov xo-pt-^^fxevoq. This was on the occasion of the wall which the Jews
built to intercept Agrippa's view of the temple. They sent ambassadors to Eome, who
racceeded by Poppaja's intercession in carrying their point.
Phil. ii. 17, and iii. 11. 3 Philem. 22, 23.
* Pallas was put to death by poison soon after the marriage of Poppofja, and "eodena
anno." Tac. xiv. G5.
6 Phil. ii. 26 e phil. i. 28. 29. ' Phil. ii. 12. * Phil. iv. 15,
mind, and were thus led into disputes and altercations with their brethren*
Two women of consideration amongst the converts, Euodia and Syntych
by name, had been especially guilty of this fault ; and their variance wai
the more to be regretted, because they had both laboured earnestly for
the propagation of the faith. St. Paul exhorts the Church with great
solemnity and earnestness, to let these disgraceful bickerings cease, and to
^
be all " of one soul and one mind." He also gives them very full particu-
lars about his own condition, and the spread of the Gospel at Rome. He
writes in a tone of most affectionate remembrance, and, while anticipat-
ing the speedily approaching crisis of his fate, he expresses his faith, hope,
and joy with peculiar fervency.
The following are the grounds of the date assigned to this Epistle
* :
(1) It was written during an imprisonment at Rome, because (a) the Prcetorium
(i. 13) was at Rome (b) So was the emperor's household (iv. 22)
;
(c) He expected ;
the immediate decision of his cause (i. 19. ii. 27), which could only have been given
at Rome.
(2) It was written during the first imprisonment at Rome, because (a) the mention
of the Praetorium agrees with the fact that, during his first imprisonment, he was in
the custody of the Praetorian Prsefect (b) His situation described (i. 12-14) agrees
;
with his situation in the first two years of his imprisonment (Acts xxviii. 30, 31).
(3) It was written towards the conclusion of this fu-st imprisonment, because (a) he
expects the immediate decision of his cause (b) Enough time had elapsed for the
;
and because Luke was no longer at Rome, as he was when those were written other ;
wise he would have saluted a Church in which he had laboured, and would hav^
" cared in earnest for their concerns " (see ii. 20).
3 For the translation of uytoic, see note on 1 Cor. i. 2.
* ''E-KLaKOTroig. This term was at this early period applied to all the presbyters : eee
Vol. I. p. 434.
5 Aiaicovoic : see Yol. I. p. 436. It is singular that the presbyters and deaconi
should be mentioned separately in the address of this Epistle only. It has been sa.^
(rested that they had collected and forwarded the contribution sent by Epaphroditus.
424: THE LIFE AJfD EPISTLES OF SI. PAUI*
all my prayers
i
makmg my
a
Bupplication for you all'* with joy), for your fellowship in for- 5
warding ^ the Glad-tidings, from the first day until now. And 6
Borne.
Avrh rovTO, accordingly ; compare 2 Cor. ii. 3 and Gal. ii. 10.
4
' TovTo <ppovelv vTtip refers to the preceding mention of his prayers for them.
6 St. Paul defended his doctrine by his words, and confirmed it by his life.
' The grace or gift bestowed on St. Paul, and also on the Philippians, was the powe-r
of confirming the Gospel by their sufferings compare x^P'-'^^^ l^ere with kxapiaOnt :
verse 29.
8 Compare Rom. ii. 18.
'AnpoaKOTvol seems used here intransitively ; at 1 Cor. x. 32 it is active.
7zpatTupL(f}. For the explanation of this, see above, p. 416. have seenWe
that St Paul was committed to the custody of the Prccfectus Prcetorio, and guarded
by different Praetorian soldiers, wlio relieved one another. Hence his condition would
be soon known throughout the Praitorian quarters.
II This expression is very obscure; it may mear^ either to the Prcetorian soldiers
who guard me, and to all the rest of those who visit me ; or to all the rest of tht
Prcetorian Guards. Tbc latter view gives the best sense.
" Toi)c TtXe'iovac, not " many " (A. V.).
;
5 'Eyetpeiv, not kTTKpipeiv, is the reading of the best The Judaizers probably,MSS.
by professing and accusing Paul of teaching
to teach the true version of Christianity,
a false and anti-national doctrine, excited odium against him among the Christians of
Jewish birth at Rome.
6 TovTo, viz. the sufferings resulting from the conduct of these Judaizers.
The words are quoted verbatim from Job xiii. 16 (LXX.). Yet perhaps St. Paul
did not so much deliberately quote them, as use an expression which floated in his
memory.
8 'H iTTLXopTiyia rov xopnyo'^ would mean the supplying of all needs [of the chorus}
by the Choregus. So i] eirixopriyLa rov Trvev/iaroc means the supplying of all needs
[o/ the Christian"] by the Spirit. Compare Eph. iv. 16, and Col. ii. 19.
St. Paul was confident that his faith and hope would not fail him in the day of
trial. Compare Rom. v. 5 (ij eIttlc ov KaraLaxvveL). He was looking forward to hia
final hearing, as we have already seen, page 422.
10 We punctuate this very difficult verse thus, el to Cyv kv aapKi tovtS fxot Kapirdc
ipyov, Koi tI aiprjoo/LiaL, ov yvupt^o). Literally, but whether this life in the flesh (com
pare to -dv/jTov tovto, 1 Cor. xv. 54, and o vvv kv aapKt, Gal. ii. 20) be my labour's
fruit, and what 1 shall choose, I know not. The A. Y. assumes an ellipsis aftef
ance, concord,
and lowliness.
that whcthcr I comc and see you,
d or be absent,
i
I may
J j
used in a way for which there is no analogy ; because the instance quoted by him
(Mark vii. 15)not analogous, kKslva there being exceedingly emphatic, " these (i
is
*ay)," whereas in the tovto here there is no special emphasis. Meyer's interpretation
is still more unsatisfactory, and equally fails to explain the rovro and the Kai. Beza'a
translation "an vero vivere in oarne mihi operae pretium sit, et quid eligam ignore "
comes nearest to that which we adopt but he leaves out the n 6ro, and there is no
;
6 For TrapaKalelv, meaning to entreat, see Matt, xviii. 32, and for napajuvOeiaOaif
were guilty of dissension perhaps Euodia and Syntyche, whose opposition to each
;
14 is God who works in you both will and deed. Do all things
1
OvX apirayfiov r/yijaaro. This very difficult expression clearly admits of the trans-
lation adopted in the authorised version, from which therefore we have not thought it
civil magistrate ; and carried that self-humiliating obedience even to the point of sub-
mitting to death, when He might have summoned " twelve legions of angels " to HIi
rescue.
6 The best MSS. read rb ^Trip.
7 Isaiah xlv. 23 (LXX.), quoted Rom. xiv. 11. It is strange that this verse should
often have been quoted as commanding the practice of bowing the head at the name
of Jesus ; a practice most proper in itself, but not here referred to : what it really pre-
ecribes kneeling in adoration of Him.
is,
8 We
have already remarked that with anxiety and self-distrust is a nearer repre-
sentation of the Pauline phrase, f^erd (p66ov Kai rpofiov, than the literal English of the
words with fear and trembling, as appears by the use of the same phrase, 1 Cor.
iL 3. 2 Cor. vii. 15. Eph, vi. 5. The (pofSog is a fear of failure, the rpo/zof an
fQger anxiety.
.
minded with me, who would care in earnest for your concerns ;
for all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. But you 21
know 7 the trials which have proved his worth, and that, as a 22
son with a father, he has shared my servitude, to proclaim the
Glad-tidings. Him, then, I hope to send without delay, as soon 23
as I see how it will go with me but I trust in the Lord that 1 24 ;
1 'TvTi'p T^f evdoKca^ has perplexed the interpreters, because they have all joined it
with the preceding words. We put a stop after kvepyelv, and take evdoKia in the same
sense as at i. 15 above and Luke ii. 14. It is strange that so clear and simple a con-
struction, involving no alteration in the text, should not have been before suggested.
' TeKva /j.o)jLt7]T(l, yeved. ckoXlH Kal dieaTpaiujj.ev7j. Deut. xxxii. 5 (LXX.). The
preceding a[i6[iT)Ta alludes to this juufirjTd.
3 ^oxjTT/pec. Compare Gen. i. 14. (LXX.)
"*
This but sees to connect what follows with i. 25, 26.
5 / be poured forth. The metaphor is probably from the Jewish drink-
Literally,
offerings (Numbers xxviii. 7), rather than from the heathen libations. The heathen
converts are spoken of as a sacrifice offered up by St. Paul as the ministering priest^
in Rom. xv. 16.
^ may be used for Trpof vfiuc. Cf. 1 Cor. iv. 17.
'Tftlv
' Timotheus had laboured among them at the first. See Acts xvL
AeiTovpyov. Compare verse 30, leLTovpyta:
;
the more anxious to send him, that you may have the joy of
seeing him again, and that I may have one sorrow the less
29 Receive him, therefore, in the Lord, with all gladness, and hold
30 such men in honour because his labour in the cause of Christ
;
brought him near to death for he hazarded * his life that he;
7 of the Law, unblameable. But what once was gain to me, that
8 I have counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
xvi. 17. The English reader must not understand the A. V. " lack of service'^ to con-
vey a reproach. From this verse we learn that the illness of Epaphroditus was caused
by some casualty of his journey, or perhaps by over-fatigue.
4 Literally, to write the same to you. St. Paul must here refer either to some pre-
vious Epistle to the Philippians (now lost), or to his former conversations with them.
5 The Judaizers are here described by three epithets " the dogs " because of their :
uncleanness (of which that animal was the type: compare ,2 Pet. ii. 22); "the evil
workmen" (not equivalent to " evil workers^^) for the same reason that they are called
" deceitful workmen" in 2 Cor. xi. 13 ; and "the concision" to distinguish them from
the true circumcision, the spiritual Israel.
6 We retain and a minority of MSS., because
Geoi here, with the Textus Receptus,
of the analogy of Rom. i. The true Christians are here described
9 (see note there).
by contrast with the Judaizers, whose worship was the carnal worship of the temple,
whose boasting was in the law, and whose confidence was in the circumcision of the!*
flesh.
Apparently alluding to Jer. ix. 24, " He that boasteth let him boast in the Lordj*
which is quoted 1 Cor. i. and 2 Cor. x. 7.
31,
8 Literally, because of the supereminence cf the knowledge of Christ, L e. h^pnust
ins knowledge of Christ surpasses all things else.
;
may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His sufferings, sharing the likeness of His death ;
dead.
Not that I have already won,'* or am already perfect ; but 12
I press onward, if, indeed, I might lay hold on that, for which
Christ also laid hold on me.^ Brethren, I count not myself to 13
have laid hold thereon but this one thing I do forgetting that
;
which is behind, and reaching ^ forth to that which is before, 1 14
press onward towards the mark, for the prize of God's heavenly
calling in Christ Jesus.
Let usall, then, who are ripe ^ in understanding, be thus 15
1 'E/c Qeov, which God bestows, kirl ry ttlotel, on condition of faith. Compare
iirl Tri TtlaTEi, Acts iii. 16.
' 'EAaCov sc. rd (SpajSelov (y. 14). Compare 1 Cor ix. 24, Ovtcj Tpexers tva Kara-
lajSriTe. It is unfortunate that in A. V. this is translated by the same verb attain,
which is used for Karavrriau in the preceding verse, so as to make it seem to refer to
that.
3 Our Lord had " laid hold on " Paul, in order to bring him to the attainment of
"the prize of God's heavenly calling." 'Irjuov is omitted by the best MSS.
'
4 The image is that of the runner in a foot race, whose body is bent forward in the
makes St. Paul seem to contradict himself. TtXeioc is the antithesis of vi^Ttiog. Com-
pare 1 Cor, xiv. 20.
6 See Winer,
45, 7, The precept is
the same given Rom. xiv. 5. The words
KavovL Tb avrd (ppoveiv are omitted in the best MSS.
Literally, / used to tell you.
8 For tlie construction of rove kxOpovg, compare tjiv ^urjv, 1 John ii. 25. The per-
sons meant were men who led licentious lives (like the Corinthian free-thinkers), an^
they arc called " enemies of the cross " because the cross was the symbol of mortifica-
tioa.
EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 431
20 For my life " abides in heaven, from whence ^ also I look for a
21 Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change my vile * ;
beloved.
2 and 1 exhort Syntyche,* to be Euodia and
I exhort Euodia,
3 of on^ mind in the Lord. Yea, and I beseech thee reconciled,
^ '
, to love and fot
6 men. The ^ Lord is at hand. Let no care trouble low goodness,
you, but in all things, by prayer and supplication with thanks-
1 Cf. Rom. xvi. 18.
* UoltTevfia must not be translated citizenship (as has been proposed), whicli would
be TToliTEia (cf. Acts xxii. 28). Jlo^ireuecr^at means to perform the functions of
and is used simply for to
civil life, live; see Acts xxiii. 1, and Phil. i. 27. Hence
noMrevfia means the tenor of life. It should be also observed that vTrdpx^i is more
than ^GTi.
3 'E^ ov. See Winer xxi. 2.
4 Literally, the body of my humiliation.
5 These were two women (see avralg, verse 3, which is mistranslated in A. V.) who
were at variance.
6 We have no means of knowing who was the person thus addressed. Apparently
some eminent Christian at Philippi, to whom the Epistle was to be presented in the
first instance. The old hypothesis (mentioned by Chrysostom) uhat 'ZvC^jyog is a prop
name, is not without plausibility " qui et re et nomine ^v^vyog es." (Gomarus, in
;
Poll Synops.)
7 We learn from Origen (Comm. on John i. 29) that this Clemens (commonly called
Clement) was the same who was afterwards Bishop of Rome, and who wrote the Epis-
tles to the Corinthians which we have before referred to (p. 155). Eusebius quotes the
following statement concerning him from Irenaeus TpiVcj tottu dixb ruv u7ToaT6?.Qv
:
r^v kT^LaKonrjv KTirjpovrai KXi^juijc, 6 Koi eupaicdg rodg juaKapcovg wKoorbXovg Kal avfiGe-
STiTjKdg [ (?) ov/LL6e6ioKcic] avrolg. (Hist. Eccl. v. 6.) It appears from the prasent
passage that he had formerly laboured successfully at Philippi.
Compare (3ij3?iov ^6vtuv, Ps. Ixix. 28. (LXX.), and also Luke x. 20 and Heb>
xii. 23.
10 They are exhorted to be joyful under persecution, and show gentleness to theii
persecutors, because the Lord's coming would soon deliver them from all their afflio
tions. Compare note on I Cor. xvi. 22.
m THE LIFE AlTD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Gen. viii. 21. (LXX.). '<2a<ppdvOT! 6 ^edf 'OSMHN 'ETOAJAS; compare also
Levit. i. and Epb. v. 2.
9
^ The iMuv is emphatic.
CONVERTS m THE IMrEKIAL HOUSEHOLD. 433
tions to the Philippian Church from the Christians in the Imperial house-
hold.^ These notices bring before us very vividly the moral contrasts by
which the Apostle was surrounded. The soldier to whom he was chained
to-day might have been in Nero's body-guard yesterday ; his comrade
who next relieved guard upon the prisoner, might have been one of the
executioners of Octavia, and might have carried her head to Poppsea a
few weeks before. Such were the ordinary employments of the fierce
and blood-stained veterans who were daily present, like wolves in the
midst of sheep, at the meetings of the Christian brotherhood. If there
were any of these soldiers not utterly hardened by a hfe of cruelty, their
hearts must surely have been touched by the character of their prisoner,
brought as they were into so close a contact with him. They must have
been at least astonished to see a man, under such circumstances, so utterly
careless of selfish interests, and devoting himself with an energy so unac-
countable to the teaching of others. Strange indeed to their ears, fresh
from the brutality of a Koman barrack, must have been the sound of
Christian exhortation, of prayers, and of hymns ;
stranger still, perhaps,
the tender love which bound the converts to their teacher and to one
another, and showed itself in every look and tone.
1 This oi cvv i/nol, distinguished from Tvavreg ol dyioi in the next verse, seems to de-
note St. Paul's special attendants, such as Aristarchus, Epaphras, Demas, Timotheus,
&c. Cf. Gal. i. 2.
These members of the imperial household were prohably slaves so the same ex-
'
;
pression is used by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 5, 8). If St. Paul was at this time confined
in the neighbourhood of the Praetorian quarters attached to the palace, we can more
readily account for the conversion of some of those who lived in the buildings imme*
diately contiguous.
3 The majority of the uncial MSS. read irvev/uaioc, and omit the dfzijv.
* i. 13. 5 iv. 22.
VOL. II. 28
434 THE LIFE AND EPIS'IIjES OF ST. PAUL.
But if tlie agents of Nero's tyranny seem out of place in such a scene,
more repugnant to the assemble(? worshippers must have been the in-
fstill
struments of his pleasures the ministers of his lust, Yet some even among
these, the depraved servants of the palace, were redeemed from their de-
courtiers of Nero were the spectators, and the members of his household
the instruments, of vices so monstrous and so unnatural, that they shocked
even the men of that generation, steeped as it was in every species of ob- ^
scenity. But we must remember that many of those who took part in
such abominations were involuntary agents, forced by the compulsion of
slavery to do their master's bidding. And the very depth of vileness in
which they were plunged, must have excited in some of them an indignant
disgust and revulsion against vice. Under such feelings, if curiosity led
them to visit the Apostle's prison, they were well qualified to appreciate
the purity of its moral atmosphere. And there it was that some of these
unhappy bondsmen first tasted of spiritual freedom ; and were prepared
to brave with patient heroism the tortures under which they soon were
destined to expire in the gardens of the "Vatican.
History has few stranger contrasts than when it shows us Paul
preaching Christ under the walls of Nero's palace. Thenceforward, there
were but two religions in the Roman world ; the worship of the Emperor
and the worship of the Saviour. The old superstiti(?ns had been long
worn out ;
they had lost all hold on educated minds. There remained to
civilised heathens no other worship possible but the worship of power ;
and the incarnation of power which they chose was, very naturally, the
Sovereign of the world. This, then, was the ultimate result of the noble
- Sec Tacitus Ann. xv. 37. Dio Ixiii. 13, and especially Suetonius, Nero, 28, 29.
" Tlif Neronian persecution, in which such vast multitudes of Christians perished;
occurred in the summer of 64 ad., that is, within less than two years of the time when
the Epistle to Philippi was written. See the next Chapter.
CONVEKTS m THE IMPEEIAL HOUSEHOLD. 4^
in grovelling souls the consciousness of their divine destiny. Men listened;
and knew that self-sacrifice was better than ease, humiliation more ox
alted than pride, to suffer nobler than to reign. They felt that the only
religion which satisfied the needs of man was the religion of sorrow, tha
religion of self-devotion, the religion of the cross.
There are some amongst us now who think that the doctrine which
Paul preached was a retrograde movement in the course of humanity ;
there are others who, with greater plausibility, acknowledge that it waa
useful in its season, but tell us that it is now worn out and obsolete. The
former are far more consistent than the latter ; for both schools of infi-
^ Had Arnold lived to complete his task, how nobly would his history of the Em*
pire have worked out argument
this great His indignant abhorrence of wickedness
!
acd his entfjuBiastic love of moral beauty, made him worthy of such a theme.
486 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF BT. PAUT<
CHAPTEE XXYH.
We have already remarked that the light concentrated upon that portion
of PauPs life which is related in the latter chapters of the Acts,
St.
makes darker by contrast the obscurity which rests upon the remainder of
his course The progress of the historian who attempts to trace the
footsteps of the Apostles beyond the limits of the Scriptural narrative
tinctness of the onward path, into darkness and bewilderment. Our case
should rather be compared with that of the traveller on the Chinese fron-
tier, who has just reached a turn in the valley along which his course has
led him, and has come to a point whence he expected to enjoy the view of
a new and brilliant landscape ; when he suddenly finds all farther pros-
pect cut off by an enormous wall, filling up all the space between preci-
pices on either hand, and opposing a blank and insuperable barrier to liis
onward progress. And if a chink here and there should allow some
glimpses of the rich territory beyond, they are only enough to tantalise,
without gratifying his curiosity.
it was a Providential design which has thus limited
Doubtless, however,
ur knowledge. The wall of separation, which for ever cuts off the
Apostolic age from that which followed it, was built by the hand of God.
That age of miracles was not to be revealed to us as passing by any gra-
dual transition into the common life of the Church ; it was intentionally
1utJ'fci':ed from all succeeding time, that we might learn to appreciate more
rally its extraordinary character, and see, by the sharpness of the ab
ruptest contrast, the difference between the human and the divine.
A few faint rays of light, howeyer, have been permitted to penetrat
beyond the dividing barrier, and of these we must make the best use we
can : for it is now our task to trace the history of St. Paul beyond the
period where the narrative of his fellow-traveller so suddenly terminates.*
The only cotemporary materials for this purpose are his own letters to
custody in Rome for "two whole years" (Acts xxviii. 16 and 30) but ;
he does not say what followed, at the close of that period. Was it ended,
we are left to ask, by the Apostle's condemnation and death, or by his
acquittal and liberation ? Although the answer to this question has been
a subject of dispute in modern times, no doubt was entertained about it by
the ancient church.'' It was universally believed that St. Paul's appeal to
of the Acts, which breaks off the narrative of St. Paul's appeal to Caegar (up to that
point so minutely detailed) just as we are expecting its conclusion. The most plau-
sible explanations are (1) That Theophilus already knew of the conclusion of the
Roman imprisonment it was ended by St. Paul's death or by his liberation.
; M'hether
(2) That St. Luke wrote before the conclusion of the imprisonment, and carried his
Tiarrative up to the point at which he wrote. But neither of these theories is fully
eatisfactory. We may take this opportunity to remark that the tfieivE and uiredexf-To
(Acts xxviii. 30) by no means imply (as Wieseler asserts, p. 398, 399) that a changed
Mate of things had succeeded to that there described. In writing historically, the his-
iorical tenses would be used by an ancient writer, even though (when he wrote) the
events described by him were still going on.
* If the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, it proves conclusively that
h**. was liberated from his Roman imprisonment for its writer is
; in Italy, and at
liberty. (Heb. xiii. 23, 24.) But we are precluded from using this as an argument,
consequence of the doubts concerning the authorship of that Epistle. See the nexl
f bapter.
3 For the identity of St. Paul's disciple Clemens, with Clemens Romanus, see thf
4-38 THE LIFE Am) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
This author, writing from Rome to Corinth, expressly asserts that Pai4
had preached the Gospel " in the east and in the west that " he had
instructed the whoU world [i. e. the Roman Empire, which was commonly
so called] in righteousness f and that he " had gone to the extremity of
THE west" before his martyrdom.^
Now, in a Romasa author, the extremity of the West could mean nothing
short of Spain, and the expression is often used by Roman writers to de-
note Spain. Here, then, we have the express testimony of St. Paul's own
disciple that he fulfilled his original intention (mentioned Rom. xv. 24-
28) of visiting the Spanish peninsula and consequently ; thp.t he was
liberated from hisfirst imprisonment at Rome.
fully it is currently rexported that the Ajpostle again went forth to proclaim
the Gosjpel, and afterwards came to Rome a second time, and was martyred
under Nero?
Next we have the statement of Chrysostom, who mentions it as an
undoubted historical fact, that " St. Paul after his o-esidence in Rome
*
dejparted to SjpainP
note on Phil. iv. 3. We may add that even those who doubt this identity acknowledge
that Clemens Romauus wrote in the first century.
1 HavTio^ . , . KTipv^ yev6[XEVoq hv ry avaroTiy Koi kv t?) dvcei, rd ytwaiov r^f
TZLareug avrov K?ieog elaCev diKaioavvTjv didu^ac olov tov koo/xov koI \_km'] to Tepfia
rfjc dvaeuq kXddv Kal /lapTvpr/aag em ruv r/yovfievuv, ovrug a'nrfk'kayr] tov Koofiov,
(Clem. Rom. i. chap, v.) We need scarcely remark upon Wieseler's proposal to trans-
late Td Ttpiia rf/f dvaeag the Sovereign of Rome ! That ingenious writer has been here
evidently misled by his desire to wrest the passage (quocunque modo) into conformity
with his theory. Schrader translates fiapTvprjcag " having been martyred there,''^ and
then argues that the extremity of the West cannot mean Spain, because St. Paul wai3
not martyred in Spain but his " there " is a mere interpolation of his own.
;
uno libro scripta sunt. Lucas optimc Theophilo conprindit [comprehendit] quia
[quse] sub prasentia ejus singula gcrebantur, sicuti ct semote passionem Petri eviden-
tcr declarat, sed profectionem Pauli ah urhe ad Spaniam proficiscentis [cmittit].
For an account of this fragment, see Routh's Rcliquia) Sacrac, vol. iv. p. 1-12.
3 The words of Eusebius are, tots fitv ovv aTroloyrjad^evov avdig km T?jv tov KTipvy^
ua'og dtaKovlav \byoq ix^i GTeilaadaL tov unooTolov, devTepov 6' em6avTa Ty avT^
troTiei Tip kut' avTov [Ntpvva] TeleLudrjvaL fiapTVpiu. (Hist. Eccl. ii. 22.)
* l/ltTcl rd yheodai tv 'Y*u^y, n'V.iv elc tt/v Unavtav dmjMev, El 6^ InBlOat
'
Aboat the same time St. Jerome bears the same testimony, saying
that **Paul was dismissed by N'ero, that he might preach Chrisfs Gospel in
ike West."
circumstances, and of the motives which weighed with Nero, to judge how
he would have been likely to act in the case. To the third argument we
may oppose the fact, that we have no account whatever of St. PauPs
labours, toils, and sufferings, during several of the most active years of
his life, and only learn their existence by a casual allusion in a letter to
the Corinthians (2 Cor. xi. 24, 25). Moreover, if this argument be worth
any thing, it would prove that none of the Apostles except St. Paul took
any part whatever in the propagation of the Gospel after the first few
years ; sincewe have no testimony to their subsequent labours at all more
definite than that which we have above quoted concerning the work of
St. Paul after his liberation.
ndXLv lc ravra rcL [leprj [viz. to the eastern part of the empire it does not imply a ;
doubt of his return to Rome], ova lofiev. (Chrysost. on 2 Tim. iv. 20.)
1 Sciendum est ... . Paulum a Nerone dimissum, ut evangelium Christ!
in Occi*
dentis quoque partibus praedicaret. (Hieron. Catal. Script.)
' has indeed been urged that Origen knew nothing of the journey to Spain, b
It
cause Eusebius tells us that he speaks of Paul " preaching from Jerusalem to Ulyri-
cum," a manifest allusion to Rom. xv. 19. It is strange that those who use this argu-
ment should not have perceived that they might, with equal justice, infer that Origen
was ignorant of St. Paul's preaching at Malta. Still more extraordinary is it to find
Wieseler relying on the testimony of Pope Innocent I., who asserts (in the true spirit
of the Papacy) that " all the churches in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily, and the
interjacent islands, were founded by emissaries of St. Peter or his successors " an :
assertion manifestly contradicting the Acts of the Apostles, and the known history of
the Gallican Church, and made by a writer of the fifth century It has been also !
argued by Wieseler that Eusebius and Chrysostom were led to the hypothesis of a
second imprisonment by their mistaken view of 2 Tim. iv. 20. But it is equally
probable that they were led to that view of the passage by their previous belief in th#
tradition of the second imprisonment. Nor is their view of that passage untenable
though we think it mistaken.
44:0 THE LIFE AlfD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the Apostle's personal history, from his liberation to his death. We can-
not fix with certainty the length of the time which intervened, nor the
order in which he visited the different places whjere he is recorded to have
laboured. The following data, however, we have. In the first place his
martyrdom is universally said to have occurred ^ in the reign of Nero.
Secondly, Timotheus was still a young man (i. e. young for the charge
2 Tim. iv. 20. ' Titus iii. 12. e 2 Tim. i. 16, 17.
" See the references to Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome, &c., given below, in a note
near the close of this chapter. .
JO Tim.
1 iii. 2. 2 Tim. ii. 22.
" fice the note on the date of the Pastoral Epistles, in the Appendix.
mS TRIAL. 441
assessors. Tiberius and Claudius had usually sat for this purpose in the
Forum ;
^ but Nero, after the example of Augustus, heard these causes in
the Imperial Palace,^ whose ruins still crown the Palatine. Here, at one
end of a splendid hall,^ lined with the precious marbles ' of Egypt and of
Lybia, we must imagine the Caesar seated, in the midst of his Assessors.
These councillors, twenty in number, were men of the highest rank and
greatest influence. Among them were the two Consuls,^ and selected
representatives of each of the other great magistracies of Rome.^ The
remainder consisted of senators chosen by lot. Over this distinguished
But the reverential awe which his position naturally suggested, was
1The above data show us the necessity of supposing as long an interval as possible
between St. Paul's liberation and his second imprisonment Therefore we must as-
Bume that his appeal was finally decided at the end of the " two years" mentioned in
Acts xxviii. 30, ^that is, in the Spring of a.d. 63.
' Sueton. Oct. 33 ; but Geib (p. 680) thinks this arrangement was not of long dura-
tion.
3 T(i fj,ev aXka avrbg fzsrd tuv ovvedpov koX dieoKeifjaro Kot eSUa^ev, ev HaTiarUf^
iirl (BijfiaTog 7rpoKa6ijjuev(fg. (Dio, Iv. 27.) This is said of Augustus.
4 As to Tiberius, see Dio, Ivii. 7 ; and as to Claudius, Dio, Ix. 4.
* Tiberius built a tribunal on the Palatine (Dio, Ivii. 7). See also Geib, p. 636.
6 Dio mentions that the ceilings of the Halls of Justice in the Palatine were painted
toy Severus to represent the starry sky Kal yap avro'vg [rovg aarepag\ eg rdg opoipag
:
rwv OLKuv Tiiv ev raj vraZari^ kv olg edUa^ev ev^ypaxjjsv (Dio, Ixxvi. 11). The old
Roman practice was for the magistrate to sit under the open sky, which probably sug-
gested this kind of ceiling. Even the Basilicas were not roofed over (as to their cen-
tral nave) till a late period.
7Those who are acquainted with Rome will remember how the interior of many of
the ruined buildingsis lined with a coating of these precious marbles.
8 Memmius Regulus and Virginius Rufus were the consuls of the year a.d. 63 (a.u. a
816). Under some of the emperors, the consuls were often changed several times
during the year but Nero allwed them to hold office for six months. ("Consuktum
;
in senos plerumque menses dedit." Sueton. Nero, 15.) So that these consuls would
Btill be in office till July.
9 Such, at leapt, was the constitution of the council of assessors, according to tha
ordinance of Augustus, which appeirs to have remained unaltered. See Dio, liiL 21
Tci)r vTvarovg, K(iK rcjv dX^fjv dp^ovruv va nap' iKaarov^ l/c re tov ^oitvov t'a
'THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
potence and his cruelty, was blended with contempt for his ignoble lust of
praise, and his shameless licentiousness. He had not as yet plunged into
that extravagance of tyranny which, at a later period, exhausted the
patience of his subjects, and brought him to destruction. Hitherto his
public measures had been guided by sage advisers, and his cruelty had
injured his own family rather than the state. But already, at the age of
twenty-five, he had murdered his innocent wife and his adopted brother,
and had dyed his hands in the blood of his mother. Yet even these enor-
mities seem to have disgusted the Romans less than his prostitution of
the Imperial purple, by publicly performing as a musician on the stage and
a charioteer in the circus. His degrading want of dignity and insatiable
appetite for vulgar applause, drew tears from the councillors and servants
of his house, who could see him slaughter his nearest relatives without
remonstrance.
Before the tribunal of this blood-stained adulterer, Paul the Apostle
was now brought in fetters, under the custody of his military guard. "We
may be sure that he, who had so often stood undaunted before the dele-
gates of the Imperial throne, did not quail when he was at last confronted
with their master. was not in the hands of JSTero he knew
His life ;
that while his Lord had work for him on earth. He would shield him from
the tyrant's sword and if his work was over, how gladly would he " de-
;
part and be with Christ, which was far better." ^ To him all the majesty
of Roman despotism was nothing more than an empty pageant ; the Im
SovXevTuv TvlTjOovg TZEVTeKaideKa tovc KXijp(f) Tiaxovrag, avfi(3ov7iovg ff k^dfirivov
TapelujiSavtv, Also see Sueton. Tiber. 55, and the passages of Dio referred to in the
notes above.
1 From the British Museum. This is one of the large brass coins of Nero's reign,
which exhibit admirable portraits of the emperor. We notice here that peculiar rig
of ancient ships which was mentioned above, pp. 301 and 349.
' " Diis axjua potestas " was the attribute of the emperors (Juv. iv.).
' See his anticipatiors of his trial. Phil. i. 20-25.. and Phil. ii. 17.
HIS TBIAL. 443
perial demigod himself was but one of " the princes of this world, that
the ringleader of a new and factious sect. This charge ^ was the most
serious in the view of a Roman statesman ; for the crime alleged amounted
to majestas, or treason against the Commonwealth, and was punishable with
death.
These accusations were supported by the emissaries of the Sanhedriny
and probably by the testimony of witnesses from Judeea, Ephesus, Cor-
inth, and the other scenes of Paul's activity. The foreign accusers, how-
ever, did not rely on the support of their own unaided eloquence. They
doubtless hired the rhetoric of some accomplished Koman pleader (as
they had done even before the provincial tribunal of Felix) to set off their
cause to the best advantage, and paint the dangerous character of their
antagonist in the darkest colours. Nor would it have been difficult to re-
present the missionary labours of Paul as dangerous to the security of the
1 1 Cor. ii. 6.
^ The order of the proceedings was (1) Speech of the prosecutor; (2) Examina-
tion and cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution (3) Speech of the ;
prisoner (4) Examination and cross-examination of the witnesses for the defence.
;
lidii accusetur quod nunc in publicis judiciis [i. e. those of the Qucestiones Perpetua^
;
which were still not entirely obsolete] non accidit, quoniam Prsetor certa lege sortitur {
Piincipum autera et Senatus cognitionibus frequen?! est ''Quintil. Inst, Orat. iij, 10.)
See Geib, p. 654.
444 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
tween Paul and his opponents and when we consider how easily tha
;
Jews were excited against the government by any fanatical leader who
appealed to their nationality, and how readily the kingdom of the Messiah,
which Paul proclaimed, might be misrepresented as a temporal monarchy,
set up in opposition to the foreign domination of Rome.
We cannot suppose that St. Paul had secured the services of any pro-
fessional advocate to repel such false accusations,' and put the truth
clearly before his Roman judges. We know that he resorted to no such
method on former occasions of a similar kind. And it seems more con-
sistent with his character, and his unwavering reliance on his Master's
promised aid, to suppose that he answered ^ the elaborate harangue of the
hostile pleader by a plain and simple statement of facts, like that which
lie addressed to Felix, Festus^ and Agrippa. He could easily prove the
falsehood of the charge of sacrilege, by the testimony of those who were
present in the Temple ; and perhaps the refutation of this more definite
accusation might incline his judges more readily to attribute the vaguer
charges to the malice of his opponents. He would then proceed to show
that, far from disturbing the exercise of the religio licita of Judaism, he
himself adhered to that teligion, rightly understood. He would show
that far from being a seditious agitator against the state, he taught hiss
of their nation into various sects, which were equally entitled to the protec--
tion of the law ; and that the sect of the Kazarenes had a right to the
game toleration which was extended to those of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees.
We know not whether he entered on this occasion into the pecuhar
doctrines of that "sect" to which he belonged ;
basing them, as he ever
did, on the ^ resurrection of the dead ; aud reasoning of righteousness,
temperance, and judgment to come. If so, he had one auditor at least
1 It was most usual, at this period, that both parties should be represented by advo-
cates ; but the parties were allowed to conduct their cause themselves, if they pre-
ferred doing BO. Geib, p. 602.
^ Probably, all St. Paul's judges, on this occasion, were familiar with Greek, an?'
therefore he might address them in his own native tongue, without the need of an
interpreter.
3 Compare Rom. xiii. 1-7.
* Compare the prominence given to the Resurrection in the statement before the
Sanhcdrin (Acts xxiii. 6\ before FeUx (Acts xxiv. 15), before Fcstus (Acts xxv. 19)
and bcfor'* Agrippa (Acts xxvi. 8).
PKOGRESS OF THE TRIAL.
who had more need to tremble than even FeUx. But doubtless a seared
conscience, and a universal frivolity of character, rendered Nero proof
against emotions which for a moment shook the nerves of a less audacioug
criminal.
When the parties on both sides had been heaid,^ and the witnesses all
Bion, it might have been expected that he would have pronounced the
condemnation of the accused ; for the influence of Poppsea had now
reached its culminating point, and she was, as we have said, a Jewish
proselyte. We can scarcely doubt that the emissaries from Palestine
would have sought access to so powerful a protectress, and demanded her
aid ^ for the destruction of a traitor to the Jewish faith ; nor would any
scruples have prevented her from listening to their request, backed as it
vail. But we know not all the complicated intrigues of the Imperial
Court. Perhaps some Christian freedman of Narcissus ^ may have coun-
teracted, through the interest of that powerful favourite, the devices of
St. Paul's antagonists ; Nero may have been capriciously in-
or possibly
clined to act upon his own independent view of the law and justice of the
1 We are told by Suetonius, as we have mentioned before, that Nero heard both
parties on each of the counts of the indictment separately and gave his decision on;
one count before he proceeded to the next. (Seuton. Nero, 15.) The proceedings,
therefore, which we have described in the text, must have been repeated as many
times as there were separate charges against St. Paul.
" Plin. Epist. ii. 11. " In tertium diem probationes exierunt " and again, Ep. iv. ;
9, " Postero die egerunt pro Basso, Titius, HomuUus, et Fronto, mirifice ; quartum
diem probationes occupaverunt."
3 Suet. Nero, 15. *' Quoties ad consultandum secederet, neque in commune quid-
quam neque propalam unoquoque sententias tacitus
deliberabat, sed et conscriptas ab
et secreto legens, quod ipsi libuisset, perinde atque pluribus idem videretur pronuntia-
bat." This judgment was not pronounced by Nero till the next day (" sequente die
The sentence of a magistrate was always given in writing at this period (Geib,
665), and generally delivered by the magistrate himself. But in the case of the em-
peror, he did not read his own sentence, but caused it to be read in his presence by hia
quaestor (Geib, 512).
^ Poppsea's influence was at its height from the birth to the death of her daughter
Claudia, who was born at the beginning of 63, and lived four months.
5 See last Chapter, p. 422, n. 1.
6 This Narcissus must not be confounded with the more celebrated favourite oi
Claudius. See Dio, Ixiv. 3. The Narcissus here mentioned had Christian converts in
his establishment
see Rom. xvi. 11 and note.
.
case, or to show his contempt for what he regarded as the petty squabble!
However this may be, the trial resulted in the acquittal of St. Paul.
He was pronounced guiltless of the charges brought against him, his fet-
ters were struck off, and he was liberated from his lengthened captivity.
And now at last he was free to realise his long cherished purpose of evan-
gelising the west. But the immediate execution of this design was for
the present postponed, in order that he might first revisit some of his
igarUer converts, who again needed his presence.
and here he found that the predictions which he had long ago utteied to
ing away the behevers after themselves. Hymenseus and Philetus were
sowing, in a congenial soil, the seed which was destined in another century
to bear so ripe a crop of error. The East and West were infusing their
several elements of poison into the pure cup of Gospel truth. In Asia
Minor, as at Alexandria, Hellenic philosophism did not refuse to blend
with Oriental theosophy ; the Jewish superstitions of the Kabbala, and
the wild speculations of the Persian magi, were combined with the Greek
craving for an enlightened and esoteric religion. The outward forms ol
superstition were ready for the vulgar multitude ; the interpretation was
confined to the aristocracy of knowledge, the self-styled Gnostics (1 Tim.
vi. 20) ;
and we see the tendencies at work among the latter, when we
learn that, like their prototypes at Corinth, they denied the future resur-
rection of the dead, and taught that the only true resurrection was that
which took place when the soul awoke from the death of ignorance to the
life of knowledge.^ We recognise already the germ of those heresies
which convulsed the Church in the succeeding century ; and we may ima-
gine the grief and indignation aroused in the breast of St. Paul, when he
found the extent of the evil, and the number of Christian converts already
infected by the spreading plague.
Nevertheless, it is evident from the Epistles to Timotheus and Titus,
written about this time, that he was prevented by other duties from stay-
ing in this oriental region so long as his presence was required. He left
cient to wear out the most robust constitution ; and we know that his
health was already broken many years before.^ But in addition to these
bodily trials, the moral conflicts which he continually encountered could
not fail to tire down the elasticity of his spirit. The hatred manifested
by so large and powerful a section even of the Christian Church ; the de-
struction of so many early friendships ; the faithless desertion of follow-
ers ; the crowd of anxieties which pressed upon him daily, and the care
^ This hypothesis best explains the subsequent transactions recorded in the Pastoraj
Epistles. See note in the Appendix on their date, and the Chronological Table gives
;n the A.ppendix.
See Vol. I. p. 450.
s See Gal. iv. 13-14, and 2 Cor. xii. 7-9.
4:48 THE LIFE A^TD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
part the cause of his opposing those errors by deputy, which w might
rather have expected him to uproot by his own personal exertions.
However this may be, he seems not to have remained for any long
time together at Ephesus, but to have been called away from thence, first
from thence, he appears finally to have left Ephesus for Rome, by way of
Corinth.^ But here we are anticipating our narrative ; we must return to
the first of these hurried journeys, when he departed from Ephesus to
Macedonia, leaving the care of the Ephesian Church to Timotheus, and
charging him especially with the duty of counteracting the efforts of those
heretical teachers whose dangerous character we have described.
When he arrived in Macedonia, he found that his absence might pos-
sibly be prolonged beyond what he had expected ; and he probably felt
that Timotheus might need some more expHcit credential from himself
than a mere verbal commission, to enable him for a longer period to exer-
cise that Apostolic authority over the Ephesian Church, wherewith he
had invested him. It would also be desirable that Timotheus should be
able, in his struggle with the heretical teachers, to exhibit documentary
proof of St. Paul's agreement with himself, and condemnation of the op-
posing doctrines. Such seem to have been the principal motives which
led St. Paul to despatch from Macedonia that which is known as ''the
First Epistle to Timothy in which are contained various rules for the
government of the Ephesian Church, such as would be received with sub-
mission when thus seen to proceed directly from its Apostolic founder,
while they would perhaps have been less readily obeyed, if seeming to be
the spontaneous injunctions of the youthful Timotheus. In the same
manner it abounds with impressive denunciations against the false teach-
ers at Ephesus, which might command the assent of some who turned a
deaf ear to the remonstrances of the Apostolic deputy. There are also
Church.
* See Vol. I. p. G4, and compare Pbilem. 9 and the Chronological Table in ihs
ILppeudix.
' 1 Tim. i. 3. ^ Titus i. 5. * 2 Tim. iv. 20.
FIRST EPISTLE TO TDIOTHEUS. 449
2
*
God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope, to Tim
OTHEUS MY TRUE SON IN ^ FAITH.
Grace, Mercj, and Peace, from God our Father and Christ
Jesus our Lord.
9 that the ^ Law is not enacted for a i righteous man, but for the
3 Not " the faith " (A. Y.), which would require tt}.
VOL. TI. 20
;
lawless and disobedient, for the impious and sinful, for the un-
holy and profane, for parricides and murderers, for fornicators, i
^
world to save sinners /" of whom I am first. But for this cause 16
I received mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew
forth all His long suffering, for a pattern of those who should
hereafter believe on Him unto life everlasting. ISTow to the 17
king 6 eternal, immortal, invisible, the only' God, be honour
and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Tiraotheus is Tliis chsLYP^Q I commit unto thee, son Timotheus, 18
enjoined to ful- . ^ , .
iv. 14). Baur and De Wette argue that this passage is inconsistent with the hypothe
sis thai. 2 Tim. was written after 1 Tim. because Hymenacus (who in this piace is
;
described aa excommunicated and cut off from the Church) appears in 2 Tim. as a
false teacher still active in the Church. But there is nothing at all inconsistent ia
this for example, the incestuous man at Corintli, who had the very same senteucy
;
paBetl on him (1 Cor v. 5), was restored to the Church in a few months, on his repenv
wioe. Do Wette also says that in 2 Tim. ii. 17, ITymenasus appears to be mentioned
to Timotheus for the first time; but this (we think) will not be the opinion of any one
who takes an unprejudiced view of that passage.
FIE8T EPISTLE TO TTMOTHEUS. 46^
that we may
lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness
3 and gravity. For this is good and acceptable in the sight ol
4 God our Saviour, who wills that all men should be saved, and
5 should come to the knowledge ^ of the truth. For [over all]
there but ^ one God, and one mediator between God and
is
6 men, the man ^ Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for
7 all men, to be testified in due time. And of this testimony I
was appointed herald and apostle (I speak the truth in Christ, I
8 lie not), a teacher of the Gentiles, in faith and truth. I desire,
then, that in every place the men should offer up prayers,
'
I
On this expression, see the note on 1 Cor. v. 5.
^ JiaLdevQuiaL has this meaning. Cf. Luke xxiii. 16 and 2 Cor. vi. 9.
3 "First of all," namely, at the beginning of public worship. This explanation,
fv^hich isChrysostom's, seems preferable to that adopted by De Wette, Huther, and
others, who take it to mean " above all things." It is clear from what follows (verse
8) that St. Paul is speaking of public prayer, which he here directs to be commenced
by intercessory prayer.
4 Here we see a precept directed against the seditious temper which prevailed (aa
we have already seen, Yol. 1. p. 454 and 457) among ^ome of the early heretics.
Compare Jude viii. and 2 Pet. ii. 9, and Rom. xiii. 1.
5 EvaefSeca. This term for Christian piety is not used by St. Paul except in the
Pastoral Epistles. See Appendix. It is used by St. Peter (2 Pet. i.6) and by Clemens
Romanus in the same sense.
6 For the meaning of eirtyvoaig compare 2 Tim. iii. 7, and Rom. x. 2, and 1 Cor.
xiii. 12.
"
Etc
7(ip ^oc. This is the same sentiment as Rom. iii. 29, 30.
The.manhood of our Lord is here insisted on, because thereon
^ rests his mediation.
Compare Heb. ii. 14 and iv. 15.
9 Chrysosfcom thinks that there is a contrast between Christian worship, which could
be offered in every place, and the Jewish sacrifices, which could only be offered in the
temple.
10 The men, not the women, were to officiate.
II This was the Jewish attitude in prayer. Cf. Ps. Ixiii. 4.
I'*
After yvvalKag we must supply Tvpoaevx^odaL (as Chrysostom does) or somethiuf
equivalent.
13 It is a peculiarity of the Pastoral Epistles to dwell very frequently on the virtue
:f aoxppoavvv or self-restraint. See list of the peculiarities of the Pastoral Epistles ip
n]>endix.
452 THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OV ST. PAUL.
not how to rule his own household, how can he take charge of
the Church of God ? ) not a novice, lest he be blinded with 6
of the Devi].'
1 Aia rriq reKvoyoviag cannot mean " in child-bearing." (A. Y.) The Apostle's
meaning is, that women are to be kept in the path of safety, not by taking upon them-
selves the office of the man (by taking a public part in the assemblies of the Church,
&c.), but by the performance of the peculiar functions which God has assigned to
their sex.
' It should not be forgotten that the word eTctoKOTroc is used in the Pastoral Epistles
as synonymous with TTpsafSvrepog. See Vol. I. p. 434 and Tit. i. 5 compared with i. 7.
3 Tf)v emoKOTcov, rightly translated in A. V. " A bishop," not the b, in spite of the
article. See note on Tit. i. 7.
Miug yvvaLKog uvdpa (Cf. iii. 12, v. 9, and Tit. i. G). Many different interpreta-
tions have been given to this precept. It has been supposed (1) to prescribe marriage.
(2) to forbid polygamy, (3) to forbid second marriages. The true interpretation seems
to us to be as follows :
In the corrupt facility of divorce allowed both by the Greek
and Roman law, it was very common for man and wife to separate, and marry other
parties, during the life of one another. Thus a man might have three or four living
wives or, rather, women who had all successively been his wives. An example of
;
the operation of a similar code is unhappily to be found in our own colony of Mauri-
tius there the French Revolutionary law of divorce has been suffered by the English
:
or four women who have all been the wives of the same man, and three or four men
who have all been the husbands of the same wcman. We believe it is this kind of
niccessive polygamy, rather than simultaneous polygamy, which is here spoken of, a*
^ pure conscience. And let these also be first tried, and aftei
1 We agree with Huther in thinking the authorised version correct here, notwith-
standing the- great authority of Chrysostom in ancient, and De Wette and others in
modern times, who interpret yvvalKag deaconesses. On that view, the verse is most
unnaturally interpolated in the midst of the discussion concerning the Deacons.
^ This verse is introduced by yap, as giving a reason for the previous directions,
viz. the great importance of having good Deacons such men, by the fit performance
;
of the office, gained a high position in the community, and acquired (by constant inter-
course with different classes of men) a boldness in maintaining their principles, which
was of great advantage to them afterwards, and to the Church of which they were
subsequently to become Presbyters.
3 In this much disputed passage, we adopt the interpretation given by Gregory of
Nyssa. 'O delog dTrooTO?^^ rbv Tijuodeov ctvTiov Kalbv ETEKTTjvaTO, TTOu^Gag avrdv
arvTiov kol sSpaiujua r^g EKKlrjctag. (Greg. Nyss. de Vita Mosis.) So the passage
was understood (as Mr. Stanley observes) by the Church of Lyons (a. d. 177), for in
their Epistle the same expression is applied to Attains the Martyr. So, also, St. Paul
speaks of the chief Apostles at Jerusalem as arvlot (Gal. ii. 9) ; and so, in Apoc. iii. 12,
we find the Christian whoundaunted by persecution described as gtvIov kv
is r<jS
vaw rov Qeov. The objection to Gregory's view, that it would require arvXoVy ia
untenable ; for (rrj^Aof is quite as correctly put in the nominative, in apposition to the
ov involved in elS^g ; and a Greek writer of the 4th century may be allowed to be at
least as good a judge on this point as his modern opponents.
4 We retain the received text here, considering the divided testimony of the MSS.
5 ''EdcuatudTj, justified against gainsayers, as being what he claimed to be.
6 little doubt that this is a quotation from some Christian hymn oi
There can be
creed. Such quotations in the Pastoral Epistles (of which there are five introduced
by the same expression, marog 6 r.oyog) correspond with the late date generally assigned
to these Epistles.
454: THE LIFE AKD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
^ows the veiy early date of this Epistle, and contradicts the hypothesis of Baur as to
its origin. At the same time there is also an Anti-Judaical element, as we have re-
marked above. Vol. 1. p. 452, note 1.
6 rpE<j)(i}v [IE kn veoTTjTog juov, 6 dtdoOg rpocpyv nday aapKi. vr/l^pwaov x^P^^ '^^^
ev(ppoavv7]g Tag Kap6[ag t//xuv, 'Lva nuvroTs nuaav avrapKetav ^;i;ovrcf TrepiGaevujuev
elg ndv epyov dyadbv, hv Xpiaroi 'Ir/aov tQ> Kvp'n^ i][iC)V, 6C oi col 66^a, tl/lit), Kal
apuTog, etc Tovg aluvag. 'kjxrjv. (Apostolical Constitutions, The expression
vii. 49).
Tioyov Oeuv probably implies that the thanksgiving was commonly made in some
Scriptural words, taken, for example, out of the Psalms, as are several expressions m
Ae above Grace.
* from a comparison of tliis with the following verse, that the false teachera
It seems,
on a training of the body by ascetic practices. For the metaphorical
laid great stress
language, borrowed from the contests of the Palaestra, compare 1 Cor. ix. 27, and
Vl. II. p. 198.
The prominence given to this truth of the -aniversality of salvation in this Episfle
FIK8T EPISTLE TO TIMOTHEUS. 45ft
11 These things enjoin and teach; let no man de- Duties of Tim*
therein.^ For in so doing, thou shalt save both thyself and thy
V. hearers.
1 Kebuke not an aged ^ man, but exhort, him as thou wouldest
2 a father treat young men as brothers
; the aged women as ;
3
...
Pay due resrard ' to the widows who are friend- widows
4 less in their widowhood. But if any widow has
are u
supported. .
(compare ii. 4) seems to imply that it was denied by the Ephesian false teachers. So the
Gnostics considered salvation as belonging only to the enlightened few, who, in their
system, constituted a kind of spiritual aristocracy. See Vol. 1. p. 449.
Compare 2 Tim. ii. 22 and the remarks in Appendix 1.
1
3 'AvdyvcjGic does not mean reading in the sense of study, but reading aloud to
others ; the books so read were (at this period) probably those of the Old Testament,
and perhaps the earlier gospels.
4 Compare with this passage 1 Tim. i. 18, and the note.
10 His own would include his slaves and dependents. So Cyprian requires th
Christian masters to tend their sick slaves in a pestilence. (Cyp. de Mortalitate.*>
456 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
especially for his kindred, lie lias denied the faith, and is worse
than an unbeliever.
Qualifications
df -widows on
A widow, to be placed on the
nmst be not 9 i
list,
the than sixty years of age, having been the wife
list. less
XVP^'^ 01* body of church-widows who are mentioned by Tertullian (de Veland. Virg.
0. 9), and by other writers, as a kind of female Presbyters, having a distinct ecclesias-
tical position and duties. The point is discussed by De Wette {in loco), Huther p. 167,
and Wiosinger,.p. 507-522. We are" disposed to take a middle course between the
fii'st and third hypotheses by supposing, viz., that the list here mentioned was that of
;
all the widows who were officially recognised as supported by the Church but was ;
not confined to such persons, but included also richer widows, who were willing to
devote themselves to the offices assigned to the pauper widows. It has been argued
that we cannot suppose that needy widows who did not satisfy the conditions of verse
9, would be excluded from the benefit of the fund nor need we suppose this but
5 ;
since all could scarcely be supported, certain conditions were prescribed, which must
be satisfied before any one could be considered as officially e?ititled to a place on the
list. From the class of widows thus formed, the subsequent Tuy/j.a xvp^'^ would
naturally result. There is not the slightest ground for supposing that xvpoX here
means virgins, as Baur has imagined. His opinion is avcU refuted by Wiesinger,
p. 520-522, and by De Wette in loco,
^ For the meaning of this, see note on iii. 2
by Augustine (in Ps. 75). Hence we see that, Avhcn a widow was received into the
number of church-widows, a promise was required from her (or virtually understood)
that she would devote herself for life to the employments which these widows under-
took viz. the education of orphans, and superintendence of the younger women
;
There ,
and let not the Chnrcli be burdened with them that it may ;
dies.
24 [Li thy decisions remember that] the sins of some men are
manifest before-hand, and lead the way to their condemnation
"Yifiriq here seems (from the next verse) to imply the notion of reward. Compare
TLiia in verse 3 above. Upon a carnal misinterpretation of this verse was founded the
disgusting practice, which prevailed in the third century, of setting a double portion
of meat before the Presbyters, in the feasts of love.
^ In Yol. I. p. 434 we observed that the offices of TrpeojSvrepoc and dLddoKaTiog were
united, at the date of the Pastoral Epistles, in the same persons 5 which is shown by
4 Luke x. 7.
5 This rule is founded on the Mosaic jurisprudence, Deut. xix. 5, and appealed tc. by
St. Paul, 2 Cor. xiii. 1.
6 Kvpiov is omitted by the best MSS.
7 By the chosen angels are probably meant those especially selected by God as H
messengers to the human race, such as Gabriel.
8 The meaning of the latter part of this verse is, if he cr^iUned un
that Timotheus,
5t persons (e. g. friends or relations'! out of partiality, would thereby make himself ^
participator in their sins.
i58 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF BT. PAUL.
but the sins of others are not seen till afterwards. Likewise, 25
also, the good deeds of some men are conspicuous ; and those
which they conceal cannot be kept hidden. YI
Let thoso who are under the yoke as bondsmen, i
Duties of slaves.
for riches fall into temptations and snares, and many foolish
and hurtful desires, which drown men in ruin and destruction.
For the love of money and some, ic is a root of all evils;
through coveting have been led astray from the faith, and
it,
1 The A. V. is inconsistent with the article ol. The ver-b avrikaiL^dvoiLtii has the
Bense of claini in classical Greek (Axist. Ran. 777), though not elsewhere in the N. T.
* Noawv TTcpi antithesis to vytaivovot above. Compare Plato Phaedr. 6 voaijv
^epl Tioycjv aKoijv.
3 The best MSS. read dianaparpi.l^at. The original meaning of napaTpiiSr/ is friction,
4 The A. V. here reverses the true order, and violates the laws of the article.
The words u<pLOTaao dno rwv tolovtcjv are not found here in the best MSS.
6 'TnofiovT/v, stedfast endurance under persecutio7i.
' Here we have another of those metaphors from the Greek games, so frequent with
Bt. Paul. See 2 Tim. iv. 7.
14 good confession, that thou keep that which thou art command-
ed, spotlessly and ii-reproachably, until the appearing of oui:
15 Lord Jesus Christ which shall in due time be made manifest
;
J " The (not a) good confession " means the confession of faith in Jesus as the
Christ. (Compare Rom. x. 10.) Timotheus had probably been a confessor of Christ
in persecution, either at Rome or elsewhere ; or it is possible that the allusion here
may be to his baptism.
^ For this use of /mprvpu with the accusative, compare John iii. 32, 6 hupaKe, tovto
fiaprvpel. Our Lord testified before Pontius Pilate that He was the Messiah.
3 Movof , This seems to allude to the same polytheistic notions of incipient Gnosti-
cism which are opposed in Col. i. 16.
4 Tc5 (^C)VTi is omitted by the best MSS.
5 The majority of MSS. read trig ovrog ^ujjc, the true life, which is equivalent to the
received text.
6 The irapaKaradriKri here mentioned is probably the pastoral office
of superintend-
ing the Church of Ephesus, which was committed by St. Paul to Timotheus. Cf. 2
Tim. i. 14.
7 'kvTLdecELg. There is not the slightest ground (as even De Wette allows) for sup-
posing with Baur, that this expression is to be understood of the contrarice opposi-
tiones (or contrasts between Law and Gospel) of Marcion. If there be an allusion to
any Gnostic doctrines at all, it is more probable that it is to the dualistic opposition
between the principles of good and evil in the world, which was an Oriental element
in the philosophy of some of the early Gnostics. But the most natural intei-pretatiou
(considering the junction with Kevoduviag, and the ?,oyo^uaxiac ascribed to the heretics
above, vi. 4) is to suppose that St. Paul here speaks, not of the doctrines, but of the
dialectical and rhetorical arts of the false teachers.
8 From this passage we see that the heretics here opposed by St Paul laid claim tc
peculiar philosophy, or Tvuoic Thus they were Gnostics, at all events in nanuf
460 THE LIFE Am> EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
how far their doctrines agreed with those of later Gnostics, is a farther question. We
have before seen that there were those at Corinth (1 Cor. viii. 1, 10, 11) who were
blamed by St. Paul for claiming a high degree of yvuaic ; and we have seen him con-
demn the <})L?ioao(t)La of the heretics at Colossoe (Col. ii. 8), who appear to bear the
closest resemblance to those condemned in the Pastoral Epistles. See Vol. 1. p.
448-459.
1 'AfiTjv is not found in the best MSB.
* See note on the date of the Pastoral Epistles in the Appendix.
3 Philo mentions Crete as one of the seats of the Jewish dispersion ; see Vol. I. p. 18.
4 For the mention of Titus, see above, pp. 124, 125. There is some interest
earlier
m mentioning the traditionary recollections of him, which remain in the island of
Crete- One Greek legend says that he was the nephew of a pro-consul of Crete, an-
other that he was descended from Minos. The cathedral of Megalo-Castron on the
north of the island was dedicated to him. His name was the watchword of the
Cretans, when they fought against the Venetians, who came under the standard of St
Mark. The Venetians themselves, when here, " seem to have transferred to him part of
that respect, which, elsewhere, would probably have been manifested for Mark alone.
During the celebration of several great festivals of the Church, the response of the
Latin clergy of Crete, after the prayer for the Doge of Venice, was Sancte Marce tu
nos adjuva ; but, after that for the
Duke of Candia, Sancte Tite, tu nos adjiivn.
P'lshlcy's Travels in Crete, vol. i. p. G and 175.
uis receiving written directions from St. Paul concerning the government
and organisation of the Church, which we have before mentioned in tha
further called for, to meet some strong opposition which that disciple had
encountered while attempting to carry out his master's directions. Thia
may be inferred from the very severe remarks against the Cretans which
occur in the Epistle, and from the statement, at its commencement, that
the very object which its writer had in view, in leaving Titus in Crete,
St. Paul was on the eve of departure on a westward journey, which was to
take him as far as Nicopolis ^ (in Epirus) before the winter. The following
is a translation of this Epistle.
See below, p. 465, note 10.
For the date of this Epistle, see the Appendix.
^
3 The original here is perplexing, but seems to admit of no other sense than thia
;
aiTocjToTiOc Kard. ri/biuptav would mean an apostle sent forth on an errand of punish-
merd ; so 6,7100707^0^ Kara TxiarLv means an apostle sent forth on an errand of faith,
Honipare 2 Tim. i. 1, dTvocTOAo^ Kar' ETzayyelLav
4 For iirlyvijjGL^, see note on 1 Tim. ii. 4.
5 Ev<je(3Eta. See not on 1 Tim. ii. 2.
6 ripo ;rpoa'<Ji' aiuviuv: i. e. in the old dispensation ; of. Rom. xvi. 2<5 and note oa
% Tim. i. 9.
7 Literally, proclamation.
8 The best MSS. omit Mrof here.
R)mmission of
Titus to regu-
This WRS the [verv]j cause i_
./
^
why ./
1 left thee in ft
Always liars and beasts are the Cretans, and inwardly sluggish."
4 Tdv hmaKOTTov: rightly translated in A.V. "a" (not the) "bishop," because the
:''
article is only used generically. So, in English, " the reformer must be patient
equivalent to " a reformer," &c. We see here a proof of the early date of this Epistle,
in the synonymous use of and npeaPvTepog ; the latter word designating
kntaicoiToc the
The best translation here would be
ra7ik, the former tlie duties, of the Presbyter. the
CTm overseer, which is employed in the A. Y. as a translation of iirlaKOTrog, Acts xx.
28 but, unfortunately, the term has associations in modern English which do
;
not
yermit of its being thus used here. Compare with this passage 1 Tim. iii. 2.
^ Cf. 3 John 5, 6. In the early Church, Christians travelling from one place tc
another were received and forwarded on their journey by their brethren 5 this is the
''hospitality" so often commended in the New Testament.
0 See the list in Appendix of words peculiarly used in the Pastoral Epistles, imd
aote on 1 Tim. ii. 9.
14 that tliey may be soand in faith, and may no more give heed
to Jewish fables,^ and precepts ' of men who tm^n away from
15 the truth. To the pm-e all things are pure but to the polluted ;
'
aaf^lSdruVf Col. ii. 16), although it is not seen in the Epistles to Timothy. Comp. m.
9, and see Yol. 1. p. 451.
would seem from this, that the heretics attacked taught their followers t at>-
3 It
stainfrom certain acts, or certain kinds of food, as being impure. We must not,
however, conclude from this that they were Ascetics. Superstitious abstinence from
certain material acts is quite compatible with gross impurity of teaching and of prac-
tice, as we Hindoo devotees, and in those impure votaries of Cybele
see in the case of
and of mentioned so often in Juvenal and other writers of the same date. The
Isis,
early Gnostics, here attacked, belonged apparently to that class who borrowed their
theosophy from Jewish sources, and the precepts of abstinence which they im-
posed may probably have been derived from the Mosaic law. Their immorality ii
plainly indicated by the following words.
'AdoKL/xoL : literally, unable to stand the test ; i. e. when tested by the call of duty,
they fail.
general motives the doctrinG of God oiir Saviour in all things. For 11
.nf ciiristianity.
gyQ^QQ of God lias been made manifest, bringing
salvation to all ^
mankind teaching ns to deny ungodliness 12
;
nerauy.
perform evory good work readily, to' speak evil of 2
hateful and hating one another. But when God our Saviour 4
made manifest His kindness and love of men. He saved us, not 5
through works of righteousness which we had done, but accord-
ing to his own mercy, by the laver ^ of regeneration, and the
renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He richly poured forth 6
upon us, by Jesus Christ our Saviour that, being justified by ; 7
His grace, we might become heirs, through ' hope, of life eter-
Titus must en- nal. Faithful is the savins;,^ and these things I de-
^
./
8
^
force sood
^ This statement seems intended to contradict the Gnostic notion that salvation was
given to the enlightened alone. It should be observed that the ?; of T. R. is omitted
by the best MSS.
* Compare the same expectation expressed, Rom. viii. 18-25.
before auTijpoc. We must not be guided entirely by the rules of classical Greek, in thia
matter. Comp. 2 Thess. i. 12, and see Winer Gram. 19, 5.
4 Aadv 'KEpLovGLov. This expression is borrowed from the Old Testament. Deut.
vii. 6. Deat. xiv. 2. and other places. (LXX.)
5 St. Paul himself had no doubt insisted on tlie duty of obedience to the civil magis^
trate, when he was in Crete. The Jews throughout tlie Empire were much disposed
to insubordination at this period.
G Kovrpov does not mean washing" (A. V.), but laver; i. e. a vessel t?i which
washing takes place.
7 Kar' klmda is explained by Rom. viii. 24, 25.
8 The " saying " referred to issupposed by some interpreters to be the statement
which precedes (from 3 to 7). These writers maintain that the iva makes it ungram-
oatical to refer the rcLarbc 6 "koyo^ to the following, as is done in A. Y. But this ob-
jection is avoided by taking Iva as a part of the quotation, and supposing it used with
EPISIXE TO TITUS. 465
We see from the above letter that Titus was desired to join St. Paul
at Nicopolis, where the Apostle designed to winter. We learn, from an
incidental notice elsewhere,^ that the route he pursued was from Ephesus
to Miletus, where his old companion Trophimus remained behind from
sickness, and thence to Corinth, where he left Erastus, the former Trea-
surer of that city, whom, perhaps, he had expected, or wished, to accom-
pany him in his farther progress. The position of Nicopolis would ren-
occurs nowhere else in the N. T.) already assuming a bad sense, akin to that which it
afterwards bore. It should be also observed that these early heretics united moral
depravity with erroneous teaching their works bore witness against their doctrine
;
;
and this explains the subsequent aiiaprdveL, avTOKaTdapirog. See Vol. I. p. 452-454,
5 Cf. Col. iv. 7. 6 See below, note 10.
7 i. e. The Cretan Christians were to aid in furnishing Zenas and Apollos with all
6iat they needed.
8 The v.fjLr;v is omitted m the oest MSS. 9 2 Tim. iv. 20.
^ It is here assumed that the Nicopolis spoken of Titus iii. 12, was the oily of thai
VOL. II. BO
466 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF BT. PAUL.
der it a good centre for operating upon the surrounding province ; and
thence St. Paul might make excursions to those Churches of Illyiicum
which he perhaps ' founded himself at an earher period. The city which
was thus chosen as the last scene of the Apostle's labours, before his final
imprisonment, is more celebrated for its origin than for its subsequent his-
tory of Actium, and stood upon the site of the camp occupied by his land
lorces before that battle. We learn, from the accounts of modern travel-
lers, that the remains upon the spot still attest the extent and importance
cf the " City of Victory." " A long, lofty wall spans a desolate plain ; to
the north of it rises, on a distant hill, the shattered scena of a theatre ;
and, to the west, the extended, though broken, line of an aqueduct con-
nects the distant mountains, from which it tends, with the main subject ot
the picture, the city itself.'' ^ To people this city, Augustus uprooted the
neighbouring mountaineers from their native homes, dragging them by his
arbitrary compulsion " from their healthy hills to this low and swampy
plain." It is satisfactory to think (with the accomplished traveller from
of which they were deprived, the Greek colonists of Nicopohs were con-
soled with one greater than all, when they saw, heard, and talked with
the Apostle who was debtor to the Greeks."
It seems most probable, however, that St. Paul was not permitted tc
spend the whole of this winter in security at Mcopolis. The Christians
were now far more obnoxious to the Poman authorities than formerly.
They were already distinguished from the Jews, and could no longer
shelter themselves under the toleration extended to the Mosaic religion
So eminent a leader of the proscribed sect was sure to find enemies every-
where, especially among his fellow countrymen ; and there is nothing im-
probable in supposing that, upon the testimony of some informer, he
was arrested ^ by the Duumvirs of Nicopolis, and forwarded to Pome
for trial. The indications which we gather from the Second Epistle to
name in Epirus. There were other places of the same name, but they were compara-
tirely insignificant.
1 See above, p. 128.
See Wordsworth's Greece,p. 229-232, where a map of Nicopohs will be found,
and an interesting description of the ruins. See also Leake's Northern Greece, vol. i
p. 178, and vol. iii. p. 491 and Merivale's Rome, vol. iii. p. 327, 328.
;
3 It may be asked, why was he not arrested sooner, in Spain or Asia Minor? The
explanation probably is, that he had not before ventured so near Italy as Nicopohs.
The law required that a prisoner should be tried by the magistrates within whose
jurisdiction the offence was alleged to have been committed; therefore a prisoner ac-
cused of conspiring to set fire to Rome must be tried at Rome (Geib, 487, 490, 491)
There can be no doubt that this charge must have formed one part of any accusatioa
brought against St. Paul, after 64 a.d. Another part (as we have suggested bciow
may have been the charge of introducing a religio nova et illicit a.
,
f imotlieus render it probable that this arrest took place not later than
said-winter, and the authorities may have thought to gratify the Emperoi
not unlikely that St. Paul may have arrived at Kome some time before
spring.
In this melancholy journey he had but few friends to cheer him. Titus
had reached Nicopolis, in obedience to his summons ;
and there were
others, also, it would seem, in attendance on him ; but they were scattered
by the terror of his arrest. Demas forsook him, " for love of this present
world," 3 and departed to Thessalonica ; Crescens ^ went to Galatia on
the same occasion. We are unwilling to suppose that Titus could havo
yielded to such unworthy fears, and may be allowed to hope that his
journey to the neighbouring Dalmatian was undertaken by the desire of
St. Paul. Luke,6 at any rate, remained faithful, accompanied his mastei
once more over the wintry sea, and shared the dangers of his imprisonment
at Kome.
This imprisonment was evidently more se7ere than it had been five
indeed, are still suffered to visit him in his confinement, but we heai
nothing of his preaching. It is dangerous and difficult ^ to seek his prison
so perilous to show any public sympathy with him, that no Christian ven-
1 The reason for supposing this is, that it leaves more time for the events which in-
tervened between St. Paul's arrest and his death, which took place (if in Nero's reign)
not later than June. If he had not been arrested till the spring, we must crowd the
occurrences mentioned in the Second Epistle to Timothy into a very short space.
^ Even an army was transported across the Hadriatic by Caasar, during the seasou
2 Tim. i. 16] that he was again under military custody, though of a severer nature
than that of his former imprisonment. Very full details will be found in Sir
G-ell's work on Rome and its neighbourhood.
8 2 Tiir.. i. 16
468 THE LIFE AJJD EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
l>een already very great at Rome, to account for the public notice attract-
ed towards a sect whose members were, most of them, individually so ob-
Bcure in social position.'- When the alarm and indignation of the people
was excited by the tremendous ruin of a conflagration, which burnt down
almost half the city, it answered the purpose of Nero (who was accused
of causing the fire) to avert the rage of the populace from himself to the
already hated votaries of a new religion. Tacitus ^ describes the success
of this expedient, and relates the sufferings of the Christian martyrs, who
were put to death with circumstances of the most aggravated cruelty.
Some were crucified ; some disguised in the skins of beasts, and hunted to
death with dogs ; some were wrapped in robes impregnated with inflam-
mable materials, and set on fire at night, that they might serve to illumin-
ate the circus of the Yatican and the gardens of Nero, where this diabol-
ical monster exhibited the agonies of his victims to the public, and gloated
over them himself, mixing among the spectators in the costume of a char-
ioteer. Brutalised as the Romans were, by the perpetual spectacle of
human combats in the amphitheatre, and hardened by popular prejudice
against the " atheistical " sect, yet the tortures of the victims excited even
their compassion. ''A very great multitude as Tacitus informs us, per-
ished in this manner ; and it appears from his statement that the mere
which followed the fire, and ev^n then, probably, but few among those who
perished were ^ Roman citizens. Since that time some years had passed,
and now a decent respect would be paid to the forms of law, in dealing
with one who, like St. Paul, possessed the privilege of citizenship. Yet
we can quite understand that a leader of so abhorred a sect would be sub
jected to a severe imprisonment.
We have no means of knowing the precise charge now made against
the Apostle. He might certainly be regarded as an offender against the
law which ^ohibited the propagation of a new and illicit religion {religio
nova et illicita) among the citizens of Rome. But, at this period, one
article of accusation against him must have been the more serious charge,
of having instigated the Roman Christians to their supposed act of iucen
dip,rism, before his last departure from the capital. It appears that
"Alexander the brass-founder" (2 Tim. iv. 14) was either one of his
accusers, or, at least, a witness against him. If this was the same with
the JeiA^ish^^ Alexander of Bphesus (Acts xix. 33), it would be probable
that his testimony related to the former charge. But there is no proof
that these two Alexanders were identical. We may add, that the em-
ployment of Informer {delator)"^ was now become quite a profession at
Rome, and that there would be no lack of accusations against an unpopu-
lar prisoner as soon as his arrest became known.
1 It was criminal, according to the Roman law, to introduce into Eome any religio
nova et illicita. Yet, practically, this law was seldom enforced, as we see by the
multrtude of foreign superstitions continually introduced into Rome, and the occa
eionai and feeble efforts of the Senate or the Emperor to enforce the law.
Moreover,
the punishment of those whoseems only to have been expulsion
offended against it
from the city, unless their offence had been accompanied by aggravating circum-
stances. It was not, therefore, under this law that the Christians were executed and ;
nova et malefica (Suet. Nero, 16), we must interpret his assertion in accordance with
the more detailed and accurate statement of Tacitus, who expressly says that the vic-
tims of the Neronian persecution were condemned on the charge of arson. Hence the
extreme cruelty of their punishment, and especially the setting them on fire.
^'No doubt most of the victims who perished in the Neronian persecution were
freedmen we have already seen how large a portion of the Ro-
foreigners, slaves, or ;
man Church was of Jewish extraction (see p. 155, n. 3). It was illegal to subject a
Roman citizen to the ignominious punishments mentioned by Tacitus but probably ;
Nero would not have regarded this privilege in the case of freedmen. although by
their emancipation they had become Roman citizens. And we know that the Jewish
population of Rome had, for the most part, a servile origin see Yol. I. p. 38 G,, and ;
1 Clemens Romanus says that Paul, on this occasion, was tried kirt ruv r/yovfievuv.
bi tribunal any cause in the first instance, which would ultimately come under hi*
judgment by appeal.
FIRST STAGE OF HIS FIN^AL T.EIAX.. 47J
From the above description we can realise in some measure the exter-
nal features of his last trial. He evidently intimates that he spoke be-
fore a crowded audience, so that " all the Gentiles might hear and this
i
Tacitus relates that Valerius Ponticus was banished under Nero, " quod reos, ne
apud Praefectum urbis arguerentur, ad Praetorem detulLsset." (Ann. xiv. 41.)
* The procurator performed the functions of our attorney.
friends of the accused to intercede for him, and to endeavor by their prayers and teara
r.omove the. feelings of his judges. This practice was gxadually limited undor tj^.^
fmpprial regime. Geib, p. 590.
472 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
the nave was the tribune/ in the centre of which was placed the magi&
trate's curule chair of ivory, elevated on a platform called the tribunal
Here also sat the Council of Assessors, who advised the Prsefect upon the
law, though they had no voice in the judgment.^ On the sides of the tri
bune were seats for distinguished persons, as well as for parties engaged
in the proceedings. Fronting the presiding magistrate stood the prisoner,
with his accusers and his advocates. The public was admitted into the
remainder of the nave and aisles (which vas railed off from the portion
devoted to the judicial proceedings) ;
and there were also galleries along
the vfhoie length of the side aisles, one for men, the other for women.^
The aisles were roofed over as was the tribune.
; The nave was originally
left open to the sky. The basihcas were buildings of great size, so that s,
vast multitude of spectators was always present at any trial which excited
public interest.
Before such an audience it was, that Paul was now called to speak in
his defence. His earthly friends had deserted him, but his Heavenly
Friend stood by him. He was strengthened by the power of Christ's
Spirit, and pleaded the cause not of himself only, but of the Gospel. He
spoke of Jesus, of His death and His resurrection, so that all the Hea-
then multitude might hear. At the same time, he successfully defended
liimself from the first ^ of the charges brought against liim, which perhaps
1 The features of the basilica will be best understood by the following ground-plan
of that of Pompeii. Here the tribune is rectangular in others it was semicircular.
;
ing trial " Densa circumstantium corona judicium multiplici circulo ambibat. Ad
:
hoc, stipatum tribunal, atque etiam superiore basilicas parte, qua foeminaD, qua vki, et
audiendi (quod orat diificilc) et (quod facile) visendi studio immincbant." (Plin. Ep.
vi. 33.)
^ The hypothesis of an acquittal on the first charge agrees best with the k/b&vodrjv ix
lore, we may suppose, the practice of the Prefects under Nero) to hear and decide
each branch of the accusation separately (Suet. Ncr. 15, before cited). Had the trial
taken place under the ancient system, we might have supposed an Jlmpliatio, which
took place when the judioes held the evidence insufficient, and gave the verdict A^on
liquet, in which case the trial was commenced tie novo; but Geib has shown thai
under the Imperial system the practice of Ampliatio was discontinued. So also was
*he Comperc?idinatio abolished, by which certain trials were formerly divided into n
prima actio and secunda actio. (Sec Geib, p. 377, 378, and GG5-GC7.) We cannoi
therefore agree with Wieseler in supposing this Tvpidrr} urro/ioyia " to indicate an Am'
iivered from the immediate peril, and saved from the ignominious and
painful death ^ which might have been his doom had he been convicted on
such a charge.
He was now remanded to prison to wait for the second stage of his
trial. It seems that he himself expected this not to come on so soon as it
really did ;
or, at any rate, he did not think the final decision would be
given till the following ^ winter, whereas it actually took place about mid-
summer. Perhaps he judged from the long delay of his former trial ; or
he may have expected (from the issue of his first hearing) to be again
acquitted on a second change, and to be convicted on a third. He cer-
tainly did not expect a final acquittal, but felt no doubt that the cause
would ultimately result in his condemnation. We are not left to conjec-
ture the feehngs with which he awaited this consummation ; for he has
himself expressed them in that sublime strain of triumphant hope which
is famihar to the memory of every Christian, and which has nerved the
hearts of a thousand martyrs. I am now ready to be offered, and the
time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me
the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me in that day." He saw before him, at a little distance, the doom
of an unrighteous magistrate, and the sword of a bloodstained execu-
tioner ; but he appealed to the sentence of a juster Judge, who would
soon change the fetters of the criminal into the wreath of the conqueror ;
he looked beyond the transitory present ; the tribunal of Nero faded from
his sight ; and the vista was closed by the judgment-seat of Christ.
Sustained by such a blessed and glorious hope knowing, as he did,
that nothing in heaven or in earth could separate him from the love oi
early years ;
still the faithful companionship of Luke consoled him, in the
weary hours of constrained inactivity, which, to a temper like his,
must have made the most painful part of imprisonment. Luke v/as the
only ones of his habitual attendants who now remained to minister to him;
his other companions, as we have seen, had left him, probably before \m
arrival at Rome. But one friend from Asia, Onesiphoros,^ had diligently
1 See the account given by Tacitus (above quoted) of tlie punishment of the 'Zip
posed incendiaries. In the case of such a crime, probably, even a Roman citizeo
would not have been exempted from such punishments.
2 Tim. iv. 21.
3 2 Tim.
iv. 11. If we suppose Tychicus the bearer of the Second Epistle to Tim-
othy (2 Tim. iv. 12), he also would have been ^dth St. Pa:il at Rome, till lie was
?espathed to Ephesus.
* 2 Tim. L 16.
474 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Bought him out, and visited him in his prison, undeterred by the fear of
danger or of shame. And there were others, some of them high in station,
who came to receive from the chained malefactor blessings infinitely
greater than all the favours of the Emperor of the world. Among these
was Linus, afterwards a bishop of the Koman Church ;
Pudens, the son
of a senator ; and Claudia, his bride, the daughter of a British king.'
But however he may have valued these more recent friends, their society
zonld not console him for the absence of one far dearer to him he longed :
with a paternal longing to see once more the face of Timotheus, his be-
loved son. The disciple who had so long ministered to him with filial
affection might still (he hoped) arrive in time to receive his parting words,
and be with him in his dying hour. But Timotheus was far distant, in
Asia Minor, exercising apparently the same function with which he had
before been temporarily invested. Thither then he wrote to him, desiring
him to come with all speed to Rome, yet feehng how uncertain it was
whether he might not arrive too late. He was haunted also by another
fear, far more distressing. Either from his experience of the desertion of
other friends, or from some signs of timidity which Timotheus himself
had shown, he doubted whether he might not shrink from the perils which
would surround him in the city of JSTero. He therefore urges on him very
emphatically the duty of boldness in Christ's cause, of stedfastness under
persecution, and of taking his share in the sufferings of the Saints. And,
lest he should be prevented from giving him his last instructions face to
1 For the evidence of these assertions, see note on 2 Tim. iv. 21. We may take
this opportunity of saying, that the tradition of St. Paul's visit to Britain rests on no
suflScient authority. Probably all that can be said in its favour will be found in the
Tracts of the late Bishop Burgess on the origin of the Ancient British Church. See
especially pp. 21-54, 77-83, and 108-120.
We cannot say with certainty where Timotheus was at this time as there is no ;
direct mention of his locality in the Second Epistle. It would seem, at first sight
probable that he was still at Ephesus, from the salutation to Priscilla and Aquila, who
appear to have principally resided there. Still this is not decisive, since we know
that they were occasional residents both at Rome and Corinth, and Aquila was him-
self a native of Pontus, where he and Timotheus may perhaps have been. Again it
is difficult, on the hypothesis of Timotheus being at Ephesus, to account for 2 Tim. iv.
12. " TvxiKov (In^areiXa elg 'Ecpeaov," which Timotheus need not have been told, if
himself at Ephesus. Also, it appears strange that St. Paul should have told Timo-
theus that he had left Trophimus sick at Miletus, if Timotheus was himself at Ephesus,
within thirty miles of Miletus. Yet both these objections may be explained away, aa
we have shown in the notes on 2 Tim. iv. 12, and 2 Tim. iv. 20. The message about
r)ringing the ai-ticlcs from Troas shows only that Timotheus was in a place whence the
road to Rome lay through Troas and this would agTee either with Ephesus, or Poa
;
tus, or any other place in the north-west of Asia Minor. [See the map shoeing the
Uomaji roads in tliis district, Vol. I. p. 279.] It is n\ost probable that Timotheus waa
not li.v(!d to any one spot, but employed in the gcncnil superintendence of the Pauline
Church(iK throughout Asia Minor. This h\^)othesis agrees best with his designation as
tui EvfiTigelist C2 Tim. iv. 5), a term equivalent to itinerant missionaiy.
face, he impresses on liim, with the earnestness of a dying man, the varioui
duties of his Ecclesiastical office, and especially that of opposing the h&
resies which now threatened to destroy the very essence of Christianity,
But no summary of its contents can give any notion of the pathetic ten<
demess and deep solemnity of this Epistle.
Timotheus by its contrast with the cowardice of Demas and others. He mentions it
here obviously as a motive to encourage him to persevere in courageous stedfastness.
6 The grac-e of God required for any particular office in the early Church was con
ferred after prayer and the laying on of hands. This imposition of hands was repeater!
THE LIFE A:N"D EPISTLES OP ST. PAUL.
the power of God. For He skived us, and called lis with a holy 9
mission^^aith- tbou hast heard from me, in the faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus. That goodly treasure 14
which is committed to thy chai'ge, guard by the Holy Spirit
who dwelleth in us.
Conduct of cer- Thou already knowest that I was abandoned ^ by 15
tain Asiatic
whenever any one ms appointed to a new office or commission. The reference here
may, therefore, be to the original "ordination" of Timotheus, or to his appointmen'
to the superintendence of the Ephesian Church. See Vol. I. p. 437, and compare Acta
Tiii. 18, and 1 Tim. iv. 14 also Vol. I. p. 269, note 7.
;
J
lucppoviGjuog would restrain the passion of fear.
' Literally, share ajjliction
for the Gla&tidmgs. The dative used as in Phil. i. 27.
(DeW.)
3 Upb xp(>vuv aluvtov (which phrase also occurs in Titus i. 2) appears to mean the
period of the Jewish dispensation. Tlie grace of Christ was virtually bestowed on
mankind in the Masaic covenant, though only made manifest in the Gospel.
* Til'v TvapaKaradriKTiv f.iov. an interpreter as De Wette
It is sti-ango that so acute
should maintain that this expression must necessarily mean the same thing as t?/;'
Kcli)v irapaKaTadriKriv in verse 14. Supposing St. Paul to have said " God will keep
the tmst committed to Him do thou keep the trust committed to thee," it would not
;
follow that the same trust was meant in each case. Paul had committed himself, hia
Boul and body, his true life, to God's keeping this was the TrapaKarad^iTj which he
;
trusted to God's care. On the other hand, the napaKaraOfinri committed to the charge
of Timotheus was the ecclesiastical office entrusted to him. (Compare 1 Tim. vi. 20.)
^ 'TyiaivovTuv loyuv. The want of the article shows that this expression had be-
come almost a technical expression at the date of the Pastoral Epistles.
^'
This appears to refer to tlie conduct of certain Christians belonging to the pro*
r;nc,.' of Asia, wlio deserted St. Paul at Rome Avhen he needed their assistance. Of h
SECOND EPISTLE TO TIM0THEU8. 477
18 very diligently and found me. The Lord grant unto him that
he may find mercy from the Lord in that day. And all his
[I. services ^ at Ephesus, thou knowest better ^ than L
Thou, therefore, my son, stren2:then thy heart ^ Duty of Timo
2
1
is m ^
Christ
^
Jesus. And those
theus on Church
government,
'Ama is used instead of oi kn Tr]Q 'katag, because tliese persons had probably now
returned home.
1 An undesigned coincidence should be observed here, which is not noticed by
Paloy. Blessings are invoked on the house of Onesiphorus, not on himself; and in
verse 18 a hope is expressed that he may find mercy at the last day. This seems to
show that Onesiphorus was dead ; and so, in iv. 19, greetings are addressed not to
himself, but to his house.
^ Tr/v akvaiv. Hence we see that St, Paul was, in his second imprisonment, as in
the first, under Custodia Militaris, and therefore bound to the soldier who guarded
him by a chain. See above, p. 288.
3 Mot is omitted by the best MSS.
4 BeAr^ov, because Timotheus had been more constantly resident at Ephesus than
St. Paul.
5 Rom. iv. 20 and Eph. vi. 10.
Cf.
G We De Wette, Huther, and Wiesinger, that the construction here is
agree with
i-jKovaaq dta /iiaprvpuv, but cannot agree with him in supposing dcd equivalent to
huTVLov, nor in referring this passage to Timothy's ordination or baptism. The literal
English must be, those things which thou hast heard from me by the intervention of
many witnesses, v^Yaoh is surely equivalent to, " & y the attestation of many wit-
nesses." In a similar way St. Paul appeals to the attestation of other witnesses in I
Cor. XV. 3-7.
The Kal seems to have this meaning here.
B ^vyKaaoTrddrjaov is the reading of the best MSS., instead of ci) olv naK.
9 Observe the force of crpaTevofievog. Cf. Luke iii. 14.
l<iOiuuo)c. See Vol. II. p. 199. The word ddlelv is not confined to wrestling,
mi includes the other exercises of the athletic contests also but there is no EngliE^ ;
UotoTov. The Authorised Version, and not its margin, is here ccrrpct
P
Consider what I say ; for tlie Lord wilP give thee understand-
ing in all things. Eemember that Jesus Christ, of the seed ' of 8
David, is ^ raised from the dead, according to the Glad-tidings
which I proclaim. Wherein I suffer affliction even unto 9
chains, as a malefactor ; nevertheless the Word of God is bound
by no chains. Wherefore I endure all for the sake of the 10
chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in
Christ Jesus, with glory everlasting. Faithful is the saying, 11
iiJ^of>4 ij^ qjoQ have died with Him^^ we shall also live with
Him / if we swffer^ we shall also reign with Him / if we deny 12
Him^ lie also will deny us ; if we le faithless^ yet He abideth 13
faithful He cannot deny Himself
He must op- Call ixien to remembrance of these thine^s,
and 14
pose the false ^
teachers and adiurc them bcforc the Lord not to contend^ about
their immorah-
ties, and care- ^^ords,' witli uo profitable end, but for the subver-
fully preserve ^ '
1 Awo-ei, not ^^'qy is the reading of the best MSS. De Wette and others object to
suppose that St. Paul would imagine Timotheus so
this verse, that it is impossible to
dull of apprehension as not to comprehend such obvious metaphors. But they have
missed the sense of the verse, which is not meant to enlighten the understanding of
Timotheus as to the meaning of the metaphors, but as to the personal application of
them.
* i. e. though a man in flesh and blood ; iiierefore His resurrection is an encourage-
ment to His followers to be fearless.
3 'EyTjyep/ntvov not eyepdevTa.
<This is another of those quotations so characteristic of the Pastoral Epistles. It
appears to be taken from a Christian hymn. The Greek may be easily sung to the
music of one of the ancient ecclesiastical chants.
5 Rom. vi. 8, ti uTTeOuvofiev avv XpiGT(p TriaTevojuev bri kol cv^Tjao/xev avT<^.
6 Compare 1 Tim. vi. 4.
7 AoKi/iioc, tested and proved worthy by trial. Cf. 2 Cor. xiii. 7.
'OpdoTOfielv (not found elsewhere in the Ncav Testament) means to cut straignt. So
in the LXX. (hKaLoovvTj opdoro/xEL 66ovg. (Prov. xi. 5.) The metaphor hero, being
connected with the previous epjuTTjv, appears to be taken from the work of a carpenter.
0 See Vol. I.
p. 451, and the passage of Tertullian
quoted in the note there, which
shows that the Gnostics taught that the Resurrection was to be understood of the
rising of the soul from the death of ignoi-ance to the light of knowledge. There is
nothing here to render doubtful the date of this Epistle, for wc have already seen that
"
and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure
love,
23 heart but shun the disputations of the foolish and ignorant,
;
24 knowing that they breed strife and the bondsmen of the Lord
^
;
#ven so early as the First Epistle to Corinth, there were neretics who denied the
resurrection of the dead. Baur's view
that the Pastoral Epistles were written
against Marcion is inconsistent with the present passage ; for Marcion did not deny
the resurrection of the dead, but only the resurrection of the flesh. (See Tertull. adv.
Marcion, v. 10.
The Authorised Version here violates the laws of the article.
1
Numbers xvi. 5. (LXX. with Kvpiog for Qeog.) We must not translate tyvu
'
knew them that were His, and that were holy, and brought them near unto Him-
self; and whom He chose unto Himself, He brought near unto Himself^
3 This quotation is not from the Old Testament ; Isaiah lii. 11 is near it in senti-
ment, but can scarcely be referred to, because it is quoted exactly at 2 Cor. vi 17
The MSS. read Kvpiov instead of the Xptarov of T. R.
4 The thought here is the same as that expressed in the parable of the fishes and of
the tares, viz. that the visible church will never be perfect. We are reminded oi
Rom. ix. 21 by the oksvi] elg anfuav.
5 Compare 1 Tim. iii. 2, and the remarks upon the age of Timotheus in the Essay id
the Appendix, on the date of these Epistles.
6 Kvpiov. Compare dovT^og Xptarov, 1 Cor. vii. 22.
' 'Ayavrjipuaiv. See 1 Cor. xv. 34.
8 The expression 6tu[3o?iog appears to be used here, and in Bph. iv. 27,and Eph. vi.
II, for the devil, who is elsewhere called Daravaf by St. Paul. In the Gospels and
Acts the two expressions are used with nearly equal frequency.
9 The interpretation of this last clause is disputable. The construction is awkward,
and there is a difficulty in referring avrov and kneivov to the same subject but De ;
Wette shows that this is admissible by a citation from Plato. Wiesiuger refers avrot
Sc: Tiraothcus, and kaeivov to God.
;
J
''^axo.Taiq 7][xepaig (used without the article, as having become a familiar expres-
Bion) generally denotes the termination of the Mosaic dispensation ; see Acts ii. 17.
1 Pet. i. 5, 20. Thus the expression generally denotes the time present
Heb. i. 2.
but here it points to a future immediately at hand, which is, however, blended with
the present (see verses 6, 8), and was, in fact, the end of the Apostolic age. Compare
1 John ii. 18, taxuT-n cjpa kariv. The long duration of this last period of the world's
development was not revealed to the Apostles they expected that their Lord's re- ;
turn would end it, in their own generation and thus His words were fulfilled, thai
;
none should foresee the time of His coming. (Matt. xxiv. 36.)
' Several of the classes of sinners here mentioned occur also Rom. i. 30.
3 For the meaning of entyvuGig (Cf. above, ii. 25), see Rom. x. 2, and 1 Cor. xiii. 12,
4 These, as we find in the Targum of Jonathan, were the traditional names of the
Egyptian sorcerers who opposed Mosoe.
'kdoKifioi, See Tit. i. 16, and note.
c It has been thought that this ov TzponoipovaLv km 'k'XeIov contradicts the asser-
tion in ii. 16, km no contradiction, for the
n?.eiov Ttpoicoipovaiv uGe/Sdac; but there is
present passage spealss of outward success, the former of inward deterioration. Im-
postors will usually go on from bad to worse (as it is said just below, TrpoKoipovaiv krl
rb verse 13), and yet their success in deceiving others is generally soon ended
by detection.
7 UapTjKoTi-ovdTjKag cannot be accurately translated "hast fully known " (Authorised
Version), but its meaning is not very different. Chrysostom explains it toUtu^v
udprvg,
In this meaning dyuyij is found in LXX.
Upodeaet : compare Acts xi. 23.
It has been before remarked how appropriate this relerence is. See Vol. I. p. 1*8
SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHEUS. 481
15 hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee
17 eous discipline ;
^ that the man of God may be fully prepared^
verse.
7 N^^e, not " watch." (A. Y.)
8 Compare Eph. iv. 11. And see Vol. I. p. 436.
9 'Hdrj OTTEvSofiac, literally, I a7n already in the very act of being rtoiired out ai^
VOT, TI. 31
482 THE LIFE AI^D EPISTLES OF ST. PATJL.
When thou comest, bring with thee the case ^ which I left 13
at Troas with Carpus, and the books, but especially the parch-
ments.
IntelKgence of Alexander the brass-founder ^ charged me with 14
the progress of
correct to render it " I have fought thejight,^' and seems to introduce a new metaphor 5
dy6v means a contest for a prize, and the metaphor is taken from the Greek foot-
races. I have run the good race would be perhaps more exact. The literal English
is, I have completed the glorious contest. See pp. 198-200 above, and 1 Tim. vi. 12.
* Apojuov, the course marked out for the race. This expression occurs only in two
other places in the New Testament, both being in speeches of St. Paul.
3 " The righteous judge " contrasted with the unrighteous judge, by whose sen-
tence he was soon to be condemned.
^ JldoL is See Tischendorf.
the best reading.
6 Demas mentioned as a "fellow-labourer" at Rome with St. Paul, Philem. 24,
is
and joined with Luke, Col. iv. 14. Nothing further is known of him. Crescens is not
mentioned elsewhere. In saying here that he was deserted by all but Luke, St. Paul
speaks of his own companions and attendants he had ; still friends among the Roman
Christians who visited him (iv. 21), though they were afraid to stand by him at his
trial.
6 Mark was in Rome during a part of the former imprisonment, Col. iv. 10.
Philem. 24.
7 AiaKovtav, not " the ministry." (Authorised Version.)
If we suppose Timotheus was at Ephesus, we must
(see above, p. 474, note 2) that
conclude that Tychicus was the bearer of this Epistle, and the aorist uTveoTeilay " i
send herewith,''^ used according to the idiom of classical letter-writers. See Winer,
41, 5, p. 254.
0 (ifaLlovri^ means either a travelling-case (for carrying clothes, books, &c.), or a
travelling-cloak. The former seems the more probable meaning here, from the men-
tion of the books.
J"
Whether this Alexander is the same mentioned as put forward by the
Xa^KEvc.
Jews Ephesus in the theatre (Acts xix. 33), and as excommunicated by St. Paul (1
at
Tim. i. 20), we do not know. If these names all belong to the same person, he waa
probably of the Judaizing faction. See above, p. 87.
1' 'EvEdu^aro {not "did.'' Authorised Version). The verb evJe//cw/zai, though of
frequent occurrence in the New Testament (in the sense of exhibit, disj}lay, manifest),
docB not elsewhere occur in the same construction as here, with an accusative of the
;
L8 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil, and shall pre-
serve me unto His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory unto
the ages of ages. Amen.
19 Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Salutations and
.
personal intelli-
Onesiphorus. gence.
thing, and a dative of the person. The active form of the verb in classical Greek has
a forensic sense,
viz. to make a declaration against ; and as the verb is here used in
an active sense (the active form of it not occurring in the New Testament), we may
not unnaturally suppose that it is so used here. At any rate, the literal English if
"Alexander manifested many evil things against wze."
1 The " arguments " here mentioned are probably those used by St. Paul in his
defence.
* On this TrpciTT) a'Koloyia, see above, p. 472. The ancient interpreters, Eusebius,
Jerome and others, understood St. Paul here to refer to his Acquittal at the end of hie
first imprisonment at Rome, and his subsequent preaching in Spain but while we ;
must acknowledge that the strength of the expressions '7T?.Tjpo(poprjd?) and nuvra re
eOvij are in favour of this view, we think that on the whole the context renders it
Do
til
J Utmost to come before winter. 21
1 Linus is probably the same person who was afterwards bishop of Eome, and ia
date must be between a.d. 66 and a.d. 100. (See Clinton's Fasti.) The former of the
two epigrams was not published till the reign of Domitian, but it may very probably
have been written many years earlier. Thus the Claudia and Pudens of Martial may
be the same with the Claudia and Pudens who are here seen as friends of St. Paul in
A.D. 68.
But, further, Tacitus mentions (Agric. 14) that certain territories in the south-east
of Britain were given to a British king Cogidunus as a reward for his fidelity to Rome
this occurred about a.d. 52, while Tiberius Claudius JSTero, commonly called Clau-
dius, was emperor.
^
Again, in 1723, a marble was dug up at Chichester, with the following inscription
(in which the brackets indicate the part lost by the portion of the stone broken off)
[N]EPTUNO ET MmERV^E
TEMPLUM
LPRJO SALUTE DOMUS DIVINJ]:
AUCTORITATE TIB. CLAUD.
[COJGIDUBNI REGIS LEGATI AUGUSTI IN. BRIT.
[COLLE]GIUM FABRORUM ET QUI IN EO
[A SACRIS SUNT] DE SUO DEDICAYERUNT DONANTE AREi^M
[PUD]ENTE PUDENTINI FILIO.
Now, the Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus here mentioned as British king of Chi-
chester, is proved by Mr. Williams to be undoubtedly the same mentioned by Tacitus
and we see that Cogidunus had (according to the practice in such cases) adopted the
nomen and pranomen of nis patron the emperor Claudius. Hence, this king's daugh-
ter must, according to Roman
usage (see Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, p. 640).
have been called Claudia. exact accordance with that which was the
It is also in
common practice in such cases, that a daughter of king Cogidunus should have been
sent to Rome (as a pledge of his fidelity) to be there educated. If this was done the
young Claudia would no doubt be placed under the protection of Pomponia, the wife
of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain for this Plautius had been the Imperial
;
legate in Britain, a.d. 43-52, and had been aided by the fidelity of Cogidunus. Noa?
this Pomponia (as we learn from Tacitus, Aiinal. xiii. 32) was accused in a. d. 57 of
being tainted with "a foreign superstition:^'' y^Xnohmd^j noi improbably have been
Christianity. if so, she may have converted her supposed protegee Claudia.
And
Another connecting link between Claudia and Pomponia may perhaps be found in
the cognomen Rufina attached to Claudia by Martial. For a distinguished branch of
thePomponian gens at this period bore the cognomen Rufus ; and if our Pomponia
was of this Rufme branch, it would be agreeable to Roman usage that her prottgh
Claudia should be called Rufina. And this probability is increased when we find a
SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHEUS.
22 The Lord J esus Christ be with thj spirit. Grace concluding ben
edictions.
be with you ^ all.
We know not whether Timotheus was able to fulfil these last requests
of the dying Apostle ; it is doubtful whether he reached Rome in time k
receive his parting commands, and cheer his latest earthly sufferings. The
only inthnation which seems to throw any liglit on the question, is the
statement in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that Timotheus had been libe-
We may, therefore, hope that Paul's last earthly wish was fulfilled.
Yet if Timotheus did indeed arrive before the closing scene, there could
have been but a very brief interval between his coming and his master's
death. For the letter which summoned him ^ could not have been de-
(aswe know was commonly, done by the Jews) from his being under the protection oi
one of this powerful house of Pomponius Rufus, some of whom would thus again be
connected with Roman Christianity.
Lastly, in the above inscription we find the name of Pudens, son of Pudentinus,
united with that of Cogidunus ; which would exactly correspond with the hypothesis
that the former was a son-in-law of the latter.
There are only two diflSculties in the identification of the Claudia and Pudens ol
St. Paul, with the Claudia and Pudens of Martial. First, that, had St. Paul's Claudia
and Pudens been husband and wife, the name of Linus would not have been inter
posed between them. This, however, is not a conclusive objection, for the names
Linus and Pudens may easily have been transposed in rapid dictation. Secondly, that
the Pudens of Martial and of the Sussex inscription acted as a pagan. To meet this,
it may be supposed either that Pudens concealed his faith, or that his relatives, in thei?
he coa^d scarcely have arrived at Rome from Asia Minor before the end of May.
4b6 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
gpatclied from Rome till the end of winter, and St. Paul's marlyrdo^i took
iDlace in the middle of summer.' We have seen that this was sooner than
he had expected ;
but we have no record of the final stage of his trial,
and cannot tell the cause of its speedy conclusion, We only know that it
and still stands unshattered, amid the wreck of so many centuries, upon
the same spot. That spot was then only the burial-place of a single Ro-
man ; it is now the burial-place of many Britons. The mausoleum of
Nor let us think that they who lie beneath its shadow are indeed resting
say, that a spot where the disciples of Paul's faith now sleep in Christ, so
have taken place not later than the beginning of June. We have endeavoured to
show (In the article on the Pastoral Epistles in the Appendix) that this date satisfies
all the necessary conditions.
Such is the universal tradition see note 2 in the next page. The constitutional
;
mode of inflicting capital punishment on a Roman citizen was by the lictor's axe.
The criminal was tied to a stake cruelly scourged with rods, and then beheaded.
;
See Livy, ii. 6. " Missi lictores ad sumeyidum supplicium, nudatos virgis ccedunt,
securique feriuntP Compare Juv. 8, ''legmn prima securisJ^ But the military
mode of execution decapitation by the sword was more usual under Nero. Many
examples may bo found in Tacitus; for instance, the execution of Subrius Flavius
(Tac. Ann. The executioner was generally one of the speculatores, or im-
xv. 67).
porial body-guards, under the command of a centurion, who was responsible for the
ox<'cution of the sentence. See the interesting story in Seneca de Ira, lib. i. cap. ]6.
a The pyramid of Caius Ccstius, which now marks the site of the Protestant burying-
^n-ound, was erected in, or just before, the reign of Augustus. It was outside the walla
in the time of Nero, though within the present Aurelianic walls. See Beschreibuag
Roras, vol. iii. p. 435. Al;-o Burton's Antiquities of Rome, p. 250 ; and Burgess, vol
U. p. 207.
;
near the soil once watered by his blood, is doubly hallowed ; and thai
their resting-place is most fitly identified with the last earthly journey
and the dying glance of their own Patron Saint, the Apostle of the Gen*
jiles.
As the martyr and his executioners passed on, their way was crowded
with a motley multitude of goers and comers between the metropolis
and its harbour merchants hastening to superintend the unloading of
their cargoes sailors eager to squander the profits of their last voyage
in the dissipations of the capital officials of the government, charged
with the administration of the Provinces, or the command of the legions
from Egypt howling for Osiris Greek adventurers, eager to coin their
not, in a procession more truly triumphal than any they had ever followed,
in the train of General or Emperor, along the Sacred Way. Their prisoner,
now at last and for ever delivered from his captivity, rejoiced to follow
his Lord ^ " without the gate." The place of execution was not far dis-
tant ; and there the sword of the headsman ended his long course of
J
Heb. xiii. 12, ^fw rrig 'Kvh]g eTcaOe.
' The death of St. Paul is recorded by his cotemporary Clement, in the passage
already quoted as the motto of this Chapter by the Roman presbyter ,Calu3
; also
(about 200 A.D.) (who alludes to the Ostian road as the site of St. Paul's martyrdom),
by Tertullian (Apol. v. and other passages referred to in the note at the end of this
Chapter), Eusebius (in the passage above cited), Jerome, and many subsequent writers.
The statement of Caius is quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. ii. 25). That of Jerome ia
the most explicit, "Hie ergo decimo quarto Neronis anno (eodem die quo Petrus)
Romse pro Christo capite truncatus sepultusque est, in via Ostiensi." (Hieron.
Catal. Script.) The statement that Paul was beheaded on the Ostian road agrees with
the usage of the period, and with the tradition that his decapitation was by the sword,
not the axe: "Paulum gladio occidit" (Oroslus, Hist. vii. 7) and similarly Lactan- ;
tius de Morte Perse'c. It was not uncommon to send prisoners, whose death might
attract too much notice in Rome, to some distance from the city, uuder a military
escort, for execution. Wieseler compares the execution of Calpuruius Galerianus, as
recorded by Tacitus, " custodia militari cinctus ne in ipsa urbe conspectlor mors foretj
ad quadragesimum ab urbe Lapidem via Appia fuso per venas sanguine extioguitur
(Tac. Hist. iv. 11). This happened a.d. 70. The great basilica of St. Paul now standa
outside the walls of Rome, on the road to Ostia, in commemoration of his martyrdom,
and the Porta Ostiensis (in the present Aurelianic wall) is called the gate of St. Paul.
The traditional spot of the martyrdom is the tre fontane not far from the basilica
see the note at the end of this Chapter. The basilica itself (S. Paolo fuor de' muri)
^vas first built by Constantine. The great work on it is JVicolai della basilica di S
Paolo (Rom. 1815). Till the Reformation it was under the protection of the King?
488 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF BT. FAUL.
Bufferings, and released that heroic sonl from that feeble body. Weeping
friends took up his corpse, and carried it for burial to those subterranean
labyrinths/ where, thrDugh many ages of oppression, the persecuted
Church found refuge for the living, and sepulchres for the dead.
Thus died the Apostle, the Prophet, and the Martyr ;
bequeathing tc
the Church, in her government and her discipline, the legacy of his Apos-
tolic labours ;
leaving his Prophetic words to be her hving oracles
pouriug forth his blood to he the seed of a thousand Martyrdoms
Thenceforth, among the glorious company of the Apostles, among the
goodly fellowship of the Prophets, among the noble army of Martyrs,
his name has stood pre-eminent. And wheresoever the holy Church
throughout all the world doth acknowledge God, there Paul of Tarsms is
of England, and the emblem of the Order of the Garter is still to he seen among its
decorations. (See Bunsen's Beschreibung Roms, vol. iii. p. 440.) The church is de-
scribed by Prudentius (Peristeph. Hym. 12) " Titulum Pauli via servat Ostiensis."
:
1 Eusebius (ii. 25) says that the original burial-places of Peter and Paul, in the
Catacombs {KOLfiTjTfjpta), were still shown in bis time. This shows the tradition on the
subject. Jerome, however, in the passage above cited, seems to make the place of
burial and execution the same. See also the following Note.
NOTE.
WE have not thought it right to interrupt the narrative of St. Paul's last impriB-
onment, by noticing the legends of the Roman martyrology upon the subject, nor
by discussing the tradition which makes St. Peter his fellow-worker at Rome, and
the companion of his imprisonment and martyrdom. The latter tradition seems
to have grown up gradually in the Church, till at length, in the fourth century, it
cotemporary authority) in the passage ^ which we have so often referred to. But
\n neitlier place is it said that Rome was the scene of the Apostle's labours oi
death- The earliest authority for this is Dionysius,'' Bishop of Corinth, (aboui
A. D 17U), who calls " Peter and Paul " the founders of the Corinthian and Rornan
1 Clem. Rom. i. 5.
The passage of Ignatius (ep. ad Rom. c. -4) sometimes quoted is quite inconclusive
(oi/c Tltrpoc Kol Uavlog diaraaaofim vjuiv), even if it be genuine, which few pay
fcagos in the epistles of Ignatius can be conlidently assumed to be.
;
Churches," and says tliat they both taught in Eome together, and suffered martyr
dom " about the same time " (Karci rdv avrov Kaipov).^ The Roman Presbyter Caiuf!
(about A.D. 200), in the passage to which we have already referred (p. 487, note)
mentions the tradition that Peter suffered martyrdom in the Vatican (which, if he
suffered in the reign of Nero, he very probably would have done. See Tac. xv
44, before quoted). The same tradition is confirmed by Ireneeus,'^ frequently
alluded to by Tertullian,^ accredited (as we have before mentioned) by Eusebius ^
and Jerome,5 and followed by Lactantius,^ Orosius,' and all subsequent writers till
place, it contradicts the agreement made at the Council of Jerusalem, that Peter
should work among the Jews (Gal. ii. 9 ;
compare Rom. i. 13, where the Roman
Ohristiaus are classed among Gentile churches) ;
2dly, it is inconsistent with the
First Epistle of St. Peter (which, from internal evidence, cannot have been writ-
ten so early a.s 42 a.d.), where we find St. Peter labouring in Mesopotamia ;
s
3dly, it is negatived by the silence of all St. Paul's Epistles written at Rome.
If Jerome's statement of St. Peter's Roman Episcopate is unhistorical, his
assertion that the two Apostles suffered martyrdom on the same day 'o
may be
safely disregarded. We have seen that upon this tradition was grafted a legend
that St. Peter and St. Paul were fellow-prisoners in the Mamertine.'^ It is like-
wise commemorated by a little chapel on the Ostian Road, outside the gate of San
Paolo, which marks the spot where the Apostles separated on their way to death.''
I
Dionysius, quoted in Euseb. H. E. ii. 25. * Iren. adv. Haer. iii. 3.
8 Jerome says that St. Peter "secundo Claudii anno ad expugnandum Simoneni
magum Romam pergit" (Hieron. Sc. Ecc. sub Petro). Wieseler has shown how this
notion probably originated from Justin's well-known mistake of Semo Sancus for
Simon Magus (Wieseler, p. 572, &c.).
9 necessary to notice the hypothesis that in 1 Pet. v. 13, where St
It is scarcely
Peter sends salutations from " Babylon," he uses Babylon for Rome. We know from
Josephus and Philo that Babylon in the Apostolic age contained an immense Jewish
population, which formed a fitting field for the labours of St. Peter, the apostle of the
circumcision. See Wieseler, p. 557, note 1.
10 See the passage cited above, p. 487, note.
II
See Martyrology of Baronius (Par. 1607) under March 14 (the passage before re-
ferred to, p. 467, note). " Romae natalis sanctorum quadraginta septem martyrum
qui baptizati sunt a B. Apostolo Petro, cum teneretur in custodia Mamertini cum co-
^postolo suo Paulo, ubi novem menses detenti sunt." How obviously UTecoucilal)lf
Is this with 2 Tim. iv. 11, " Luke alone is with me."
Beechreibuug Roms, vol. iii. p. 439.
4:90 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
St. Peter's martyrdom is commemorated at Eome, not only by the great basilicA
?fliicli bears bis name, but also by the little church of Domine quo vadis on the
Appian Way, which is connected with one of the most beautiful legends i of the
martyrology. This legend may be mentioned in advantageous contrast with that
connected with the supposed site of St. Paul's death, marked by the church of
Paolo die tre fontane. According to the latter, these three fountains sprang up
miraculously " abscisso Pauli capite triplici saltu sese sustollente." ^ The legend
goes on to say, that a noble matron named Lucina buried the body of St. Paul
on her own land, beside the Ostian Road.
1 The legend is that St. Peter, through fear of martyrdom, was leaving Rome by the
Appian Road in the early dawn, when he met our Lord, and, casting himself at the
feet of his Master, asked him "Domine quo vadis?" To which the Lord replied,
" Venio iterum crucifigi." The disciple returned, penitent and ashamed, and was mar*
tyred.
* See the Acta Sanctorum, vol. vii., under June 29, in the Acta S. Pauli Apostoli ^
The place is described as bfiing " Ad Salvias Aquas^ tertio ab TJrbe lapide."
mE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
CHAPTEE XXYin.
HE BEING DEAI> YET SPEAJKETH. (Heb. xi. 4.)
Et r/f ovv kKKlijGta Ix^i ravrriv rijv hitLaroTiriv 6g IlavTiov, avrrj evdotii/j,e(,rk
ftal kitl TovTO) Tig Se 6 ypdipag rrjv hTZLarolrjv, to fxlv d?i7]6eg Qedg olSsv.
"Ad Hebraeos epistolam Pauli, sive cujuscunque alterius earn esse putas/'
(HiERONTMUS, Comm. in Titum, c. 2.)
TEE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.ITS INSPIRATION NOT AFFECTED BY THE DOUBTS CON.
CERNING ITS AUTHORSHIP.ITS ORIGINAL READERS,CONFLICTING TESTIMONY OF THE
PRIMITIVE CHURCH CONCERNING ITS AUTHOR.HIS OBJECT IN WRITING IT.TR^iNSL'i*
TION OF THE EPISTLE.
The origin and history of the Epistle to the Hebrews was a subject of
1See Heb. viL 25, xiii. 11-13, and other passages which speak of the Temple services
us going on.
' See xiii. 23. 3 gee xiii. 19, dTroKaraaraOC) vulv.
Clemens Alex. ap. Euseb. (H. E. vi. 14) Orig. ap. Euseb. (H. E. vi. 25) and the
4
; ;
ftb ecrlesiis orientis, sed ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticis Graeci sermonis scriptoribui
;
allowed to be the production of the Apostolic age, and has been read in
the public service of the Church from the earhest times. Those, there-
fore, who conclude with Calvin, that it was not written by St. Paul, must
also join with him in thinking the question of its authorship a question of
little moment, and in " embracing it without controversy as one of the
*
Apostolical Epistles."
But when we call it an E;pistU, we must observe that it is distin-
Scripture now before us, which led to some of the doubts and perplexities
concerning it which existed in the earliest times. Yet, on the other hand,
we cannot consider it merely as a treatise or discourse ; because we find
nally addressed not to the world in general, nor to all Christians, nor even
to all Jewish Christians, but to certain individual readers closely and per-
sonally connected with the writer.
Let us first examine these indications, and consider how far they
tend to ascertain the readers for whom this Epistle was originally
designed.
In the first place, it may be held as certain that the Epistle was ad-
dressed to Hebrew Christians. Throughout its pages there is not a single
reference to any other class of converts. Its readers are assumed to be
familiar with the Levitical worship, the Temple services, and all the insti-
plainly because they were already circumcised. They are called to view
quasi Paaii apostoli Buscipi, licet plerique earn vel Barnabas vel Clementis arbitrentur
et NIHIL ixTEKESSE cujus SIT, cum Gcclesiastlci viri sit et quotidie ecclesiarum lectione
SOD the antitype of tlie priesthood, in His offices the eternal realisation or
the sacrificial and mediatorial functions of the Jewish hierarchy.
Yet, as we have said above, this work is not a treatise addressed to all
&c.) ;
fourthly, their church had existed for a considerable length of time
(v. 12), and some of its chief pastors were dead (xiii, *I)
;
fifthly, their
prayers are demanded for the restoration to them of the writer of the Epis-
tle, who was therefore personally connected with them (xiii. 19) ;
sixthly,
they were acquainted with Timotheus, w^ho was about to visit them (xiii,
23) ;
seventhly, the arguments addressed to them presuppose a power on
their part of appreciating that spiritualising and allegorical interpretation
dangers exclusively, might still have been sent to a church which con-
^ The resemblance between the Epistle to the Hebrews and the writings of Philo is
most striking. It extends not only to the general points mentioned in the text, but to
particular doctrines and expressions : the parallel passages are enumerated by Bleek.
^ It may be considered as an established point, that the Greek Epistle which we
now have is the original. Some of the early fathers thought that the original had
been written in Aramaic but the origin of this tradition seems to have been, 1st, the
;
belief that the Epistle was written by St, Paul, combined with the perception of its
fiissimilarity in style to his writings and 2ndly, the belief that it was addressed to the
;
Palestinian Church. That the present Epistle is not a translation from an Aramaic
original is proved, 1st, by the quotation of the Septuagint argnmentatively, where it
iiiflers from the Hebrew for instance, Heb, x. 38 2ndly, by the paronomasias upon
; :
Greek words, which could not be translated into Aramaic, e. g. that on diaOijKT]
(ix. 16) 3rdly, by the free use of Greek compounds, such as TroTiVjuepuc, unavyaoua,
5
journers who lived in that city so that the argument proves too much.
;
often passed over in addresses directed to the whole body. Again, the
Epistle may have been intended for the Hebrew members only of some
particular church, which contained also Gentile members ; and this would
perhaps explain the absence of the usual address and salutation at the
commencement. Secondly, it is urged that none but Palestinian Jews
would have felt the attachment to the Levitical ritual implied in the
readers of this Epistle. But we do not see why the same attachment
may not have been felt in every great community of Hebrews ;
nay, we
know historically that no Jews were more devotedly attached to the Tem-
yie worship than those of the dispersion, who were only able to visit the
Temple itself at distant intervals, but who still looked to it as the central
point of their religious unity and of their national existence.^ Thirdly, it
is alleged that many passages seem to imply readers who had the Temple
services going on continually under their eyes. The whole of the ninth
and tenth chapters speak of the Levitical ritual in a manner which natu-
rally suggests this idea. On the other hand it may be argued, that such
passages imply no more than that amount of familiarity which might be
presupposed, in those who were often in the habit of going up to the great
feasts at Jerusalem.^
Thus, then, we cannot see that the Epistle must necessarily have been
addressed to Jews of Palestine, because addressed to Hebrews.^ And,
moreover, if we examine the preceding nine conditions which must be sa-
tisfied by its readers, we shall find some of them which could scarcely
apply to the church of Jerusaleni, or any other church in Palestine.
Thus we have seen that the Palestinian Church was remarkable
for its poverty, and was the recipient of the bounty of other
churches ;
whereas those addressed here are themselves the liberal
benefactors of others. Again, those here addressed have not yet re-
sisted unto blood; whereas the Palestinian Church had produced many
martyrs, in several persecutions. Moreover, the Palestinian^ Jews
'
They shewed by the large contributions which they sent to the Temple
this frora
all countries where they were dispersed see above, p. 369.
;
^ Wo cannot agree with Ebrard, that the Epistle contains indications th.ifc the Christ
tians addressed had been excluded from the Temple.
^ Bleck and De Wetto have urged the title Tvpdc 'EfipaLOv^ to prove the same point
But Wioseler (p. 485-488) has conclusively shewn that Eppaloc was applied as pro
perly to Hebrews of the dispersion, as to Hebrews of Palestine.
* Cultivated individuals at Jerusalem (as, for instance, the pupils of Gamaliel}
TETE READERS OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 495
least, when the Scriptures of Hebraism were appealed to, they would not
have been quoted from the Septuagint version, where it differs from tkt
Hebrew.
These considerations (above all, the last) seem to negative the hypo-
thesis that this Epistle was addressed to a church situate in the Holy
Land and the latter portion of them point to another church, from which
;
would have fully entered into such reasoning but it would scarcely have been ad-
;
dressed to the mass of Jewish believers. Bleek (as we have before observed) haa
shewn many instances of parallelism between the Epistle to the Hebrews and the
writings of Philo, the representative of Alexandrian Judaism.
1 The canon of Muratori mentions an epistle ad Alexandrinos (which it rejects),
and takes no notice of any epistle ad Hehrceos. We cannot prove, however, that this
epistle ad Alexandrinos was the same with our Epistle to the Hebrews.
" Bleek has endeavoured to prove (and we think successfully) that
these are not
only from the LXX., but from the Alexandrian MSS. of the LXX. But we do not
insist on this argument, as it is liable to some doubt.
3 It is to be regretted that Wieseler should have encumbered his able arguments in
icast it is thought that Paul abstained from the insci'iption of his name at
he was unpopular." Here then we find that the Epistle was ascribed to
four different writers
St. Barnabas, St. Luke, St. Clement, or St. Paul
With regard to the first, Tertullian expressly says that copies of the Epis-
tle in his day bore the inscription, " the Epistle of Barnabas to the He-
brews." ^ The same tradition is mentioned by Philastrius.^ The opinion
that either Luke or Clement was the writer is mentioned by Clement of
Alexandria,'^ Origen,^ and others ;
but they seem not to have considered
Luke or Clement as the independent authors of the Epistle, but only as
editors of the sentiments of Paul. Some held that Luke had only trans-
lated the Pauline original ; others that he or Clement had systematised
the teaching of their master with a commentary ^ of their own. Fourthly,
St. Paul was held to be, in some sense, the author of the Epistle, by the
Greek ^ ecclesiastical writers generally ;
though no one, so far as we
know, maintained that he had written it in its present form. On the other
hand, the Latin Church, till the fourth century, refused to acknowledge
the E23istle as Paul's in any sense.
Thus there were, in fact, only two persons whose claim to the indepen-
dent authorship of the Epistle was maintained in the Primitive Church,
viz. St. Barnabas and St. Paul. Those who contend that Barnabas was
the author, confirm the testimony of Tertullian by the following argu-
ments from internal evidence. First, Barnabas was a Levite, and there-
fore would naturally dwell on the Levitical worship which forms so pro-
1 Extat cnim ct Bahnab^ titufus ad Hebr^os." Be Pudic. 20. " Sunt alii quoquo
qui epistolam Pauli ad Ilebraeos non adseriint esse ipsius, sed dicant aut Baruaba; esse
apostoli aut," &c. Philast. Hares. 89.
^ T7)v Ttpog 'E(3paL0vg eiriaroXTjv llav/iov ulv elvat (prjoL, yeypd<pOaL 'EjSpatoLC
3 After stating that the style is admitted not to be that of St. Paul, Origen adds Ms
own opinion that the Epistle was written by some disciple of St. Paul, who recorded
the sentiments (rci vor/juara) of the Apostle, and commented like a scholiast {(haKsoel
jXo'^ioypa<l)7/aavTOc) upon the teaching of his master. Tlien follows the passage which
we have prefixed to this chapter as a motto after which he mentions the tindition
;
about Clement and Luke. Origenes, ap. Euseb. Hist. Ec. vi. 25.
4 See the preceding note.
c Even Cyprian rejected it (l)c Exhort. Mart. cap. xi.), and Hilary is the first write
cludes himself among those who hod received the Gosjpel from the original
disciples
of the Lord Jesus (ii. 3),^ whereas St. Paul declares that the
Gospel ^cas not taught him ly man, hut ly the revelation of Jesus Christ
(Gal. i. 11, 12) ;
fifthly, that St. Paul's Epistles always begin with his
name, and always specify in the salutation the persons to whom they are
addressed.^
' The name is translated by Winer, Sohn kr'dftiger religioser Ansprache, and is
primitive opinion that the Epistle contained the embodiment of St. Paul's senti-
ments by the pen of Luke or Clement.
4 Some have argued that this could not have been said by Barnabas, because they
receive the tradition mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, that Barnabas was one
the seventy disciples of Christ. But this tradition seems to have arisen from a confu^
sion between Barnabas and Barsabas (Acts i. 23). Tertullian speaks of Barnabas as a
disciple of the Apostles, " qui ab Apostolls didiclt." De Pudic. c. 20.
6 We have not mentioned here the mistak^is which some suppose the writer to havj
VOL II. 32
4:98 THE LIFE A^B EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
Several very able modern critics have agreed with Luther in assigning
the authorship of this Epistle to Apollos, chiefly because we know him ts
have been a learned Alexandrian Jew/ and because he fulfils the other
conditions mentioned above, as required by the internal evidence. But
We need not dwell on this opinion, since it is not based on external tes-
timony, and since Barnabas fulfils the requisite conditions almost equally
well.
the shadow to the substance, through the type to the antitype. But the
treatise, though first called forth to meet the needs of Hebrew converts,
was not designed for their instruction only. The Spirit of God has chosen
this occasion to enlighten the Universal Church concerning the design of
the ancient covenant, and the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures.
Nor could the memory of St. Paul be enshrined in a nobler monument,
nor \m mission on earth be more fitly closed, than by this inspired record
made concerning the internal arrangements of the Temple and the official duties of the
High Priest. These difficulties will be discussed in the notes upon the passages where
they occur. They are not of a kind which tend to fix the authorship of the Eplstk)
upon one more than upon another of those to whom it has been afisigoed.
1 Actsxviii 24.
ETISTLE TO TSE HEBEEWS, 409
4 on high ;
being made so much greater than the angels, as He
hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they
5 Eor to which of the An2:els said He at any ^
who is highei
P than the Aa-
time, " TJioib art my son^ this day have I legotten g^^^-
(2) Its author was at liberty in Italy and Timotheus was just liberated from im
;
prisonment (xiii. 23, 24). If St. Paul wrote it, this would fix the date at 63 but as ;
7 'knavyaciia, not " brightness " (A. Y.), but emanation, as of light from the sun
The word and idea occur in Philo.
8 XapaKTijpy literally, impression, as of a seal on wax. The same expression is used
Dy Philo concerning 6 dtdLog Ibyoq.
0 't-Kooraaig, not person''^ (A. V.), but substance. Cf xi. 1; and see note on
Hi. 14.
'0 The 6l' kavTov and rjiiuv of T. R. are not found some of the best MSS. m
Tb,e Law (according to a Jewish tradition frequently confirmed in the
New Tea
;
into the world. He saith, ^^And let all the angels of God. icor-
shrp himP ^ And of the angels He saith, " Who maheth his *i
angels s^piHts^ and his ministers flames offire.^'' ^ But unto the
Son He saith, ^^Thy throne^ 0 God^ is for ever and ever i a %
scejptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy hingdom. Thou
hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore^ God^ 9
even thy God^ hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows?^^ And " Thou^ Lord^ in the beginning didst l%
lay the foundation of the earth., and the heavens are the
worTcs of thine hands. They shall jperish^ but thou remainest ^\'\
and they all shall wax old as doth a garvient., and as a ves- 12
ture shall thou fold them ujp and they shall be chan-md
but thou a/H the same^ and thy years shall notfail.^^''
But to which of the angels hath He said at any time, '-^
Sit\^
thou on my right hand^ until I make thy enemies thy foot-
stool.'^^ ^ Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to exe- 14
cute His service, for ^ the sake of those who shall inherit salva-
tion ?
tament) was delivered by angels (Acts vii. 53. Gal. iii. 19. Heb. li. 3). Hence the
emphasis here laid upon the inferiority of the angels to the Messiah, whence follows
the inferiority of the Law to the Gospel. This inference is expressed ii. 3.
1 Ps. (LXX.)
ii. 7.
Epistle are always from the Alexandrian text of the LXX. It is from Deut. xxxii. 43,
verbatim according to the MSS. followed by the T. R. ; but not according to the
Codex Alex., which reads viol, instead of uyyeTioi. The LXX. here difters from the
Hebrew, which entirely omits the words here quoted. The passage where the quota-
tion occurs is at the conclusion of the final song of Moses, where he is describing God's
vengeance upon His enemies. It seems here to be applied in a higher sense to the
last judgment.
5 Quoted according to LXX. The Hebrew is, " Who maketh the winda
Ps. civ. 4.
his messengers, and the flames his ministers." But the thought expressed here is, that
God employs His angels in the physical operations of the universe, llvev/xara is
equivalent to uve/ioi, as at John iii. 8 and Gen. viii. 1. (LXX.)
6 Ps. xlv. G-7. (LXX.)
' Ps. cii. 2G-28. (LXX.) It is most important to observe that this deBcriptioi:,
2 them slip." For if the word declared by angels was stedfast, '
also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and
divers miracles, and with gifts of the Holy Spirit, which He
distributed according to His own will.
jection " under Him, He left nothing that should not be put
unde^r Him.
But now we see not yet all things in subjection niehumiha-
9 under Him. But we behold Jesus, who was ^for was needful,
'
^
that He migM
a little while made lower than the anqelsP crown-
J>e consecrated
b.Y sufferingsaa
ed through the suffering of death with glory and ^^i^st tor
1 The active signification here given in A. V. is defended Iby Buttmaa and Wahl.
See Wahl in voce 7rapa/3/5w.
^ Viz. the Mosaic Law. See the note on i. 5.
3 'EPeBaiudrj, was established on firm ground.
4 On the inferences from this verse, .see above, p. 49 9.
B Mepia/uolc. Cf 1 Cor. xii. 11.
6 The world to come here corresponds with th-e iiellovcav ttoTilv of xiii. 14. The
Bubjection of this to the Messiah (though not yet accomplished, see verse 9) was
another proof of His superiority to the angels.
Bpaxv Tt may mean in a s^nall degree, or for a short time ; the former is the
meaning of the Hebrew original, but the latter meaning is taken here, as we see from
verse 9th.
8 The T. R. inserts kol KarearTjaag avTbv ^ttl rH epya rCbv ^sipuv gov, but this U
not found in the best MSS.
9 Ps. viii. 5-7. (LXX.) Quoted also (with a slight variation) as referring tc oui
Lord, 1 Cor. xv. 27, and Eph. i. 22. The Hebrew Psalmist spealjs of mankind ; im
New Testament teaches us to apply his words in a higher sense to Christ, the repr^
eentative of glorified humanity.
i Compare Phil. ii. 8-9.
502 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
taste death for all men. For it became Him, through whom la ^
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing ^ many-
sons unto glory, to consecrate ^ by sufferings the captain ^ of
their salvation.
For both He that sanctifieth, and they who are ^ sanctified, ii
have all one Father wherefore. He is not ashamed to call them
;
And again, " I will jpict my trust in him / lo^ land the child- 13
Ten which God hath given meP'^ Forasmuch then as " the child- 14
rm" are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise
took part of the same, that by death He might destroy the
lord of death, that is, the Devil ; and might deliver them who 15
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
For He giveth His aid,** not unto angels, but unto the seed of 16
Abraham. Wherefore, it behoved Him in all things to be 17
1 Compare Rom. xi. 36, and 1 Cor. viii. 6. God is here described as the First
Cause (&C ov), aud the sustainer {Sl' oi) of the universe.
^ 'kydyovra is here used for uydyovTL. So SiaKpLvo/^evov, Acts xi. 12.
3 TeAELuaai, literally, to bring to the appointed accomplishment, to develope the
full idea of the character, to consummate. The latter word would be the best trans-
lation, if it were not so unusual as applied to persons but the word consecrate is often ;
used in the same sense, and is employed in the A. V. as a translation of this verb,
vii. 28.
4 'kpxvyov. The aij^ofievoi are here represented as an army, with Jesus leading
them on. Compare xii. 2.
3 of Godr 4 For greater glory is due to Him than unto Moses, in*
5 that hath founded all things is God. And Moses indeed was
^'fcuithful in all the household of God " as " a Servant " ^ ap-
pointed to testify the words that should be spoken [unto him] :
8 will hea/r his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation,
9 -m the day of tenvptation in the wilderness ^ when your fathers
be removed from some English readers by the information that St. James's direction
to "count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations,''^ is, in reality, an admoni'
tion to rejoice in suffering for Christ's sake.
1X^ooTolog is here used in its etymological sense for one sent forth.
*For dfLoTioyia compare iv. 14 and x. 23.
3 We have not departed here from the T. R. but the best MSS. omit Xpicrov.
;
^ Numbers xii. 7. (LXX.) '0 depdrcuv fiov Muvarjc v oAu rcj ohu juov niaroi
iff^i. The metaphor is of a faithful steward presiding over his master's household
(otKOf, not oiKLa).
5 QepdiTuv, quoted from the same verse, Numbers xii. 7. (LXX.) (See above.)
6 See the quotations in i. 5~ ^ Avrot 6e (emphatic).
The above quotation is from Ps. xcv. 7-11, mainly according to the Codex Alexan-
8
drinus of the LXX., but not entirely so, the reaaapaKovra err] interpolate^! in verse
9th being the principal, though not the only variation. The peculiar use of el hera
(and iv. 3) is a Hebraism.
9 MeroxoL. Compare iii. 1 and vi. 4 {[leroxovg Tcvev/xarog)
If Trjv upxriv TTjg vTtoaTuaeug, literally, the beginning of our foundation. Tha
nr\v\m\ moaning of vTroaraoLQ is that whereon anything else stands or , ts supported
,
though thej had heard, did provoke ? Were they not alP
whom Moses brought forth out of Egypt And with whom was ? i"i
He grieved forty years Was it not wdth them that had sinned,
?
He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that
were disobedient And we see that they could not enter in 19
?^ ^
but the report which they heard did not proht them, because
it 9 met no belief in the hearers. For we, that have believed, 3
are entering into the [promised] rest. And thus He hath said,
" So I sware in my wrath^ they shall not enter into my rest^
Although His works were finished, ever since the foundation
1'
seventh day in this wise, ^''And God did rest on the seventh 5
day from all his works ; "^'^ and in this place again " they shall
beiice it acquired the meaning of substantia, or substance (in the metaphysical sense
of the term). Cf. Heb.i. 3, and xi. 1 hence, again, that of subject-matter (2 Cor. ix.
;
4 ; 2 Cor. xi. 17). There is no passage of the New Testament where it can properly
be translated " confidence.''''
1 W.> take the accentuation adopted by Chrysostom, Griesbach, &c., Tiveg (not
' The inference is that Christians, though delivered by Christ from bondage, would
nevertheless perish if they did not persevere (see verses 6 and 14). The interrogation
is not observed in A. V.
3 Ku'ka, literally, limbs ; but the word is used by the LXX. for carcases, Namber?
xiv. 32.
4 'kixeidrjaaaL^ not " that believed not^^ (A. V ). See note on Rom. xi. 30.
tl Let us therefore strive to enter into that rest, lest any man fall
1 The meaning of this is, God's rest was a perfect rest, He declared His intention
that His people should enjoy His rest, that intention has not yet been fulfilled,
its fulfilment therefore is still to come.
' Here it is said they entered not dC aTveLdeiav ; in iii. 19, dt' aizLGTiav ; but thia
does not justify us in translating these different Greek expressions (as in Aw^V.) by the
same English word. The rejection of the Israelites was caused both by unbelief and
by disobedience ; the former being the source of the latter.
3 lal3j3aTi(y/ii6r, a keepiiig of Sabbatical rest.
4 Literally, hath rested, the aorist used for perfect. To complete the argument of
this verse, we must supply the minor premiss, but God-s people have never yet en-
joyed this perfect rest ; whence the conclusion follows, therefore its enjoyment is
Israelites,and the repose of Canaan, were typical of higher realities and that this ;
(ixrog, dpfiuv re Kal fcveXuv, is literally, of soul and spirit, both joint and marrow
tlie latter being a proverbial expression for utterly, even to the inmost parts.
8 Lie/.Tjlvdora, not "into^' (A. Y.). The allusion is to the high priest passing
liirouQ:\i the courts of the temple to the Holy of Holios. Compare ix 11 and 24-.
506 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
of MelchisedecP
after the order ^ Who in the days of his flesh 7
offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and
tears, unto Him that could save him from death, and was
heard because he feared God and though he was a Son, yet ; ^ 8
4 If (with the best MSS.) we omit the article, the translation will I " but whea ,
dation,
of Repentance from dead works,^ and Faith towarda
2 God
Baptism,^ Instruction ^ and Laying on of hands ^
;
and ;
Eesurrection of the dead, and Judgment everlasting.
3,' 4 And this I will do ' if God permit. For it is warned of the
danger of apo3'
^
have tasted the goodness of the word of God,^ and the powers
6 of the world to come,' and afterwards fall away seeing they " ;
1 Srepeaf does not mean " strong''^ (A. Y.), but solid, opposed to liquid. "We use
meat for solid food in general.
* The 1st person plural here, as at v. 11, vi. 3, vi. 9, vi. 11, is used by the writer
it is translated by the 1st person singular in English, according to the principle laid
down, Vol. I. p. 391, note 1.
3 Dead works here may mean either sinful works (of. Eph. ii. 1, venpovg rac^
dfcapnaig), or legal works but the former meaning seems to correspond better with the
;
' Or, let me do, if we read Ttoc^cufiev, with the best MSS.
8 A reason is here given by the writer, why he will not attempt to teach his readers
pentance. The impossibility which he speaks of, has reference (it should be observed),
only tohuman agents ; it is only said that all human means of acting on the heart
hAve been exhausted in such ,a case. Of course no limit is placed on the Divine power.
Even in the passage, x. 26-31 (which is much stronger than the present passage) it is
; but only that it cannot
not said that such apostates are never brought to repentance
be expected they ever should be. Both passages were much appealed to by the Nova-
tians, and some have thought that this was the cause which so long prevented the
an open shame. Tor the earth when it hath drunk in the raiii 1
that falleth oft upon it, if it bear herbs profitable to those for
whom it is tilled, partaketh of God's blessing ; but if it bear 8
thorns and thistles, it is counted worthless and is nigh unto
and reminded cursiug, and its oud is to bo burned. But be- 9
of their motives ^
to persever- lovod, 1, am persuaded better thmgs oi you, and
things that accompany salvation, though I thus
speak. For God is not unrighteous to forget your labour, and lo
the love which ye have shown to His name, in the services
^
stances of the use of the verb, both transitively and intransitively. The literal Eng-
lish of hfJiEalTEvaev dpKC), is, he interposed ivith a?i oath between the two parties-
The " two immutable things*' arc God's promise, and Ilis oath.
8This construction, joining TTapatc?i7jaLv with Kparycat, seems to agree better with
the ordinary meaning both of napaKhjaic (see Heb. xii. 5 and xiii. 22), and of Kparrjcai
Bce Heb. iv. 14) than the A.V.
EPISTLE TO TKE HEBREWS. 509
1 1
^
Priesthood of
Meichisedec) is
distinguished
% him, to '
whom also Abraham p^ave "
c5
cb pa/rt of
tenth ^ ./
f'^om tiie Levi-
tical Priesthood
all,^^
' >
^
who is first,J by tJ
interpretation.yi.
King- of \j
duration
sterna)
and
esi^acy.
3 Righteousness,^ and secondly king of Salem,*^ which
is EjNa OF Peace- without father, without mother, without
table of descent ^
having * neither beginning of days nor end
of life, but made like unto the Son of God remaineth a priest
for ever.
4 'Now consider how great this man was, to whom even Abra-
5 ham the patriarch gave a tenth of the choicest ^ spoil. And
truly those among the sons of Levi who receive the office oi
the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes according
to the Law from the People, that is, from their brethren,
6 though they come out of the loins of Abraham. But he,
whose descent is not counted from them, taketh tithes from
7 Abraham, and blessetli the ^possessor of the promises. I^ow
without all contradiction, the less is blessed by the greater.^'
8 And here, tithes are received by men that die ; but there, by
9 him of whom it is testified that he liveth. And Levi also,
the priesthood of Meichisedec was not, like the Levitical priesthood, dependent on hia
descent, through his parents, from a particular family, but was a personal office.
^ Here, as in the previous undrup and dfirjTcop, the silence of Scripture is in^r
pre ted allegorically. Scripture mentionf? neither the father nor mother, neither the
birth nor death of Meichisedec.
9 For this meaning of aKpoQivia, see Bleek in loco.
10 ^edeiiaTUKE and evTioyriKe, present-perfect. To*' niidTTcvog, compare i 4
Viz. testified in Ps. ex. 4. " Thou art a priest fnr ever '
hood (since under it " the people hath received the Law
what further need was there that another priest should rise
" qfter the order of MelohisedeG " and not be called " after the
order of Aaron." For the priesthood being changed, there is 113
made of necessity a change also of the Law.^ For He^ of 13
whom these things are spoken belongeth to another tribe, of
which no man giveth attendance ^ at the altar; it being evi-i4
dent that our Lord hath arisen ' out of Judah, of which tribe
Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. And this Is 15
far more evident when^ another priest ariseth after the like-
ness of Melchisedec who is made not under the law of a 16
;
word of the oath which was since the Law,' maketh the Son,
who is consecrated for evermore. ^
VIIL
which we
1 ITow of the thin2:s have spoken,' this The Mosaic Law,
Avith its Temple, ,
present tense shows that the Levitical Priesthood was still enduring while this Epistle
was written.
1 'AiTapd(3aTog, non transiens in alium (Wahl).
This seems to refer to the separation from all contact with the unclean, which was
^
required of the High Priest who (according to the Talmud) abstained from inter-
;
course even with his own family, for seven days before the day of Atonement (Tract
Jomah i. 1, quoted by Ebrard).
3 This Kad' Tjftepav has occasioned much perplexity, for the High Priest only offered
the sin-offerings here referred to once a year on the day of Atonement. (Levit. xvi.
and Exod. xxx. 7-10.) We must either suppose (with Thohick) that the Kad' r/fiepav
is used for dia'KavTog perpetually, i. e. year after year ; or we must suppose a refer-
ence to the High Priest as taking part in the occasional sacrifices made by all the
Priests, for sins of ignorance (Levit. iv.) or we must suppose that the regular acts oi
;
other places, for the heads of the twenty-four classes into which the Priests were
divided, who officiated in turn. This latter view is perhaps the most natural. The
Priests sacrificed a lamb every morning and evening, and offered an offering of flour
and wine besides. Philo regards the lambs as offered by the Priests for the people^
and the flour for themselves. (Philo, 0pp. i. 497.) He also says the High Priest
offered evxag Kai -dvoiag Kad' kKdcrrjv 7]ju.epav. (0pp. ii. 321.) See Winer, Realw
(. 505.
4 Oi ApX' Literally, the {ordinary'] High Priests.
5 Viz. the oath in Ps. ex. 4, so often referred to in this Epistle
8 Tete7ielq[xevov, Compare ii. 10.
*
ToZf lEyojievoLg, literally, the things which are being spoken.
* Tuv dyiuv. Compare ix. 12. Eig rd dyia.
512 THE LIFE AJJ^D EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
unto them, '-'Behold the days come^ saith the Lord, when Twill
accomplish for the house of Israel and for of Ju-
the house
dah a new covenant. Not according to the covenant which 1 9
gave unto their fathers^ in the day when I took them, by the hand to
lead them out of the land of Egypt ; because they continued not in
my covenant, and I also turned my face from them, saith the Lord*
For this is the covenant which I will make unto the house of Israelis
after those days, saith the Lord : I will give my laws unto their
mind, and write them upon their hearts ; and I will be to them a
God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach li
5 Our Lord being of the tribe of Judah, could not have been one of the Levitical
Priesthood. So it was said before, vii. 14.
6 Viz. the Temple ritual.
7 KexpVf^cirLaTat, cf. Acts x. 22 and Heb. xi. 7.
eveiy man his neighbour^ and every man his brother^ saying knmA
theLord ; for all shall know me, from the least unto the greatest
12 For I will be merciful unto their unrighteousness, and their sins
13 and their iniquities will I remember no moreJ' ^ In that He saith
*'
new covenant/' He hath made the first old and that which ;
I
The best MSS. read TvoltTijv instead of tvTi^glov, which does not, however, alter the
sense.
' Jer. xxxi. 31-34. (LXX. with the above-mentioned variations.)
3 'n.a?i,aiov/ievov refers to time {growing out of date), and yripaaKov to the weakness
of old age.
4 To re uyiov KoafiiKov, not "A sanctuary" (A. V.), and observe the order of the
words, shewing that Koaf^cKov is the predicate.
5 Exod. XXV. 31, and xxxvii. 17.
6 Exod. XXV. 23, and xxxvii. 10.
7 Exod. XXV. 30, and Levit. xxiv. 5.
8 See the note on ix. 24.
9 Ov/LiLaTijpiov. This has given rise to much perplexity. According to Exod. xxx
G, was not in the Holy of
the Incense-altar Holies, but on the outer side of the veil
which separated the Holy of Holies from the Several methods
rest of the Tabernacle.
of evading the difficulty have been suggested amongst others, to translate ^vfiiaTv-
;
pLov, censer, and understand it of the censer which the High Priest brought into the
Holy of Holies once a year but this was not kept in the Holy of Holies. Moreover
5
^vfitarr/ptov is used for the Incense-altar by Philo and Josephus. The best expl
of the discrepancy is to consider that the Incense-altar, though not within the Holy
of Holies, was closely connected therewith, and was sprinkled on the day of Atone
ment with the same blood with which the High Priest made atonement in the Holj
of Holies. See Exod. xxx. 6-10, and Levit. xvi. 11, &c.
10 Exod. XXV. 11.
II Here we have another difficulty ; for the pot of manna and Aaron's rod were nol
kept in the Ark, in Solomon's time, when it contained nothing but the tables of the
Law. See 1 Kings viii. 9. 2 Chron. v. 10. It is, however, probable that these were
originally kept in the Ark. Compare Exod. xvi. 33, and Numbers xvii. 10, where
they are directed to be laid up " before the Lord," and " before the testimony, [i. e.
the tables of the Law]," which indicates, at least, a close juxta-position to the Ark.
More generally, we should observe that the intention of the present passage is not to
give us a minute and accurate description of the furniture of the tabernacle, but to
allude to it rhetorically 5 the only point insisted upon in the application of the descrio-
tion (see verse 8), is the symbolical character of the Holy of Holies. Hence the
extreme anxiety of commentators to explain away every minute inaccuracy is super-
fluous. Exod. xvi. 32, &a.
VOL II. 33
514 THE LWE AND EPISTLES OF ST. >A[JL.
into the second goeth the High Priest alone, once a year, not
without blood, which he offereth for himself and for the er-
for the present time,^* under n which gifts and sacrifices are of-
standing. Commentators have here again found or made a difficulty, because the
Temple of Herod was in many respects different from the Tabernacle, and especially
because its Holy of Holies did not contain either the Ark, the Tables of the Law, the
Cherubim, or the Mercy-seat (all which had been burnt by Nebuchadnezzar with Solo-
mon's Temple), but was empty. See above, p. 250. Of course, however, there was
no danger that the original readers of this Epistle should imagine that its writer spoke
of the Tabernacle as still standing, or that he was ignorant of the loss of its most pre-
cious contents. Manifestly he is speaking of the Sanctuary of the First Covenant
(see ix. 1) as originally designed. And he goes on to speak of the existing Temple-
worship, as the continuation of the Tabernacle-worship, which, in all essential points,
10 The A. V. here interpolates " then " in order to make this correspond with tha
Kad' Tjv, which figure. "Hv is the reading of the best MSS., and
according to
adopted by Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischcndorf s 1st edition it suits better with ;
xfLTd. than the other reading, bv, to which Tischendorf has returned in his 2nd edition.
to " TO fiTjSefXiav ex^lv stc GweLdrjaiv djuapvLuv Tovg T^arpevovrag aira^ KeKa^apuevovg."
TeTietuaai rbv \ar. is to bring him to the aceomjplishment of the relog of his wor-
ship, viz., remission of sins. It is not adequately represented by to make perfect, as
we have before remarked ; to consuinmate would be again the best translation, if it
desire to correct the soloecism which otherwise is presented by sttik et/xeva. Accord-
ingly, Tischendorf in his 2nd edition returns to the reading of the T. R., which is also
defended by De Wette. The construction is krctKeifieva kirl j3. kuI it. k. t. 1. ; literally,
imposed with conditions of {Itcl) meats, ^-c., until a time of reformation.
* This greater Tabernacle is the visible heavens, which are here regarded as the
outer sanctuary.
3 Literally, this building. This parenthesis nas very much the appearance oi
having been originally a marginal gloss upon ov xsipoTTOLijTov.
4 There is nothing in the Greek corresponding to the words "for us''- (A.Y.).
iinclean person with the water of sprinkling {vScjp ^avrcafiov), which was made with
file ashes of a red heifer. See Numbers xix. (LXX.)
6 'R/ncjv (not vfxuv) is the reading of the best MSS.
' Literally, after death had occurred for the redemption of," 8fc. ; yevo/iivov must
be joined with etc d-KoTivrpoaiv,
8 The Authorised Version is unquestionably correct, in translating SiadfjKij testa-
ment in this passage. The attempts which have been made to avoid tliis meaning, are
irreconcilable with any natural explanation of 6 dtade^evog. The simple and obvious
translation should not be departed from, in order to avoid a difiBcuity and the diffi-
;
culty vanishes when we consider the rhetorical character of the Epistle. The state'
raent in this verse is not meant as a logical argument, but as a rhetorical illustration
which is suggested to the writer by the ambiguity of the word Siad/iKv
;
also, and all the vessels of the ministry, in like manner. And 22
according to the Law, almost all things are purified with blood,
and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was, 23
therefore, necessary that the patterns of heavenly things should
thus be purified, but the heavenly things themselves with
better sacrifices than these. For Christ entered not into the 24
sanctuary s made with hands, which is a figure of the true, but
into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for
us. I^or yet that He should offer Himself often, as the High 25
Priest entereth the sanctuary every year with blood of others
for then must He often have suffered since the"" foundation 26
of the world : but now once, in the end ^ of the ages, hath He
the feast commemorating the opening or inauguration of the Temple by Judas Mac-
cabffius (after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes) was called kyKatvia. (John x. 22.)
4 See Exod. xxiv. 3-8. The sacrifice of goats (besides the cattle) and the sprinkling
of the book are not in the Mosaic account. It should be remembered that the Old
Testament is usually referred to memoriter by the writers of the New Testament.
Moreover, Uie advocates of verbal inspiration would be justified in maintaining that
these circumstances actually occurred, though they are not mentioned in the books of
Moses, See, however, Yol. I. p. 176, note 1.
6 kvTo is not translated in A. V.
6 Exod. xxiv. 8 (LXX. but kveTetlaTo, substituted for ditdeTo).
' Apparently referring to Levit. viii. verses 19, 24, and 30.
8 'Ayia, not the holy places" (A.Y.), but the holy place, or sanctuary. Com-
pare viii. 2. ix. 2. ix. 25. xiii. 11. It is without the article here, as is often the
case with words similarly used. See Winer Gram. 18, 1.
n "LvvTeleia tuv aluvuv means the termination of the period preceding Christ's
coming. It is a phrase frequent in St. Matthew, with aluvog instead of aiuvuv, ^ut not
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 517
and unto them that look for Him shall Pie appear a second
X.time, without sin,^ unto salvation.
1 For the Law having a shadow of the * good things to come,
and not the very image of the reality,<5 by the unchanging
2 sacrifices which year by year they offer continually,' can
never perfect ^ the purpose of the offerers.^ For then, would
they not have ceased to be offered ? because the worshippers,
once purified, would have had no more conscience of sins. But
3 in these sacrifices there ffe a remembran.ce of sins made every
4 year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats
5 should take away sins. Wherefore, when He cometh into the
world, Hesaith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not^ hut-
6 a tody hast thou prej^ared me.^^ In lurnt-offerings and sacri-
7 fices for sin thoio hast had no pleasure. Then said Z, Zc>, /
come (in the volume of the hooJc it is written of me) to do thy
8 will^ 0 God.''^ When He had said before Sacrifice and
^'^
occurring elsewhere. The A. V. translates aluvuv here by the same worti iis Kocfiw
above.
1 'n.e(l)avepo)TaL ; literally, He hath been made manifest to the sight of men,
* The A. V. is retained here, being justified by eavrov TrpomjveyKev, verse 14.
3 liii. 12 (LXX.), afiaprlag ttoAAwv avrjveyiie.
Isaiah
Xupic uftapTLag.
* Tholuck compares Kex(^pLO[ihog and tuv ufxapru'ki-i'^' (vu. 28).
The thought is the same as Rom. vi. 10.
5 Twi^ is omitted in A. Y.
6 Twv TzpayfiaTiiv, the real things.
' Talg avralg is omitted in A. V.
8 TelsLuaai. Compare ix. 9, and note. The TeTiog of the worshippers was entire
purification from sin; this they could not attain under the Law, as was manifest by
the perpetual iteration of the self-same sacrifices, required of them.
8 Tovg TTfioGepxofiEvovg, those who come to qffier.
In the Hebrew original the words are, " thou hast opened {or pierced"] my ears J'
'0
The LXX. (which is here quoted) translates this " od/ia KaTTjpriao) /xoi." Perhaps the
reading of the Hebrew may formerly have been different from what it now is or per ;
baps the Gufia may have been an error for dria, which is the reading of some MSS.
" Ps. xl. 6-8. (LXX. with some slight variations.)
1' FJpr/KEv, not ''said he " (A. Y.), but he hath said, or saith he.
13 I'he first, viz. the sacrifices ; the second, viz. the will of God.
518 THE LIFE ANT) EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But HE, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever 12
sat down on the right hand of God from henceforth expect- 13 ;
ing " till his enemies he made his footstool^ For by one 14
offering He hath perfected for ever the purification of them
^
' In (kv) the will of God Cliristians are already sanctified as well as justified^ and
even glorified (see Rom. viii. 30) ; L e. God wills their sanctification, and has done Hia
part to ensure it.
are being sanctified. The verb to perfect does not, by itself, represent teIeloo. See
notes on X. 1, ix. 10, and ii. 10. We should also observe, that dyLa^ofievovg is not
equivalent to r^yLaafievovc
G Jor. xxxi. 33. (LXX.) The part of the quotation here omitted is given above,
viii. 10-12. from the slight variations between the present quotation and
It appears,
the quotation of the same passage in Chap, viii., that the writer is quoting from
memory.
' Jor. xxxi. 34.(LXX.), being the conclusion of the passage quoted before, viii. 12.
The omission of with the Kai which joins the two detached portions of the quot^
?J:yeL
The meaning of this is, that the flesh (or which hid manhood) of Christ was a veil
His incarnation, thus revealed under its true aspect, we must pass, if we would enter
into the presence of God. Wc can have no real knowledge of God but through Hi
mcarnation.
" 'Ifpea lityav. The same expression is ised for High Priest by Philo and LXX.
EPISTLE TO THE HE5BREWS. 619
a true heart, in
full assurance of faith as our hearts have been ;
^ ^E^l5avTL0jU6voi (alluding to ix. 13 and 21), viz. with the blood of Christ; com-
pare atjuan ^avriajuov, xii. 24. Observe tlie force of the perfect participle in this and
TielovfzevoL ; both referring to accomplished facts. See x. 2.
^Elmdog, not ''faith." (A. V.)
3 Karavoujiev. This is Chrysostom's interpretation, which agrees with the use af
the verb iii. 1.
4 It was very natural that the more timid members of the Church should shrink
from frequenting the assembly of the congregation for worship, in a time of persecution.
6 " The Day " of Christ's coming was seen approaching at this time by the threaten-
ing prelude of the great Jewish war, wherein He came to judge that nation.
6 'E/coujTiWf. This is opposed to the " kav ajxaprrj duovoiug " (Levit. iv. 2. LXX.)
the involuntary sins for which provision was made under the Law. The particular
Bin here spoken of is that of apostasy from the Christian faith, to which these Hebrew
Christians were particularly tempted. See the whole of this passage from x. 26 to
xiL 29.
' ^ETTLyvidGLv. Compare Rom. x. 2. Phil. i. 9, &c.
* Is. xxvi. 11. Zy/Aof Tiij-ipETaL Tiabv uTraldevTov, kol vvv rcvp rovg vTrE-f-avTiav^
Hfrai. (LXX.) Those who look for this quotation in A. V. will be disappointed,
for the A. V., the Holjrew, and the LXX., all differ.
9 k'KoQvrjaKtL, the present, translated as past ia A. Y.
^ The reference is to Deut.
xvii. 2-7, which prescribes that an idolater should be put to death on the testimony of
two or three witnesses. The writer of the Epistle does not mean that idolatry was
actually thus punished at the time he wrote (for though the Sanhedrin was allowed to
judge charges of a religious nature, they could not inflict death without permission of
the RomanProcurator, which would probably have been refused, except under very
peculiar circumstances, to an enforcement of this part of the law) ; but he speaks oi
tjje punishment prescribed by the Law.
620 THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAtTL.
said, " Vengeayiice is mine, I will repay, saith the Lwd'^^^ and
again, " The Lord shall judge his ^eoj^leP ^
It is a fearful 31
1 Deut. xxxii. 35. This quotation is not exactly according to LXX. or Hebrew,
but is exactly in the words in which it is quoted by St. Paul, Rom. xii. 19. The LXX
is hv rjiiepa knSticTjaeug avraTToduau.
(LXX).
Deut. xxxii. 36.
The preceding passage (from verse 26) and the similar passage, vi. 4-6, have
3
proved perplexing to many readers and were such a stumbling-block to Luther, that
;
they caused him even to deny the canonical authority of the Epistle. Yet neither
passage asserts the impossibility of an apostate's repentance. What is said, amounts
to this that for the conversion of a deliberate apostate, God has (according to the
ordinary laws of His working) no further means in store than those which have been
already tried in vain. It should be remembered, also, that the parties addressed are
not those who had already apostatised, but those who were in danger of so doing, and
who needed the most earnest warning.
4 was addressed to the Church of Jerusalem, the afflictions referred
If this Epistle
towould be the persecutions of the Sanhedrin (when Stephen was killed), of Herod
Agrippa (when James the Greater was put to death), and again the mhre recent out-
break of Ananus, when James Ishe Less was slain. But see the preceding remarks,
p. 494.
6 Totf 6ec!<jLL0Lg (not deajuolg fiov) is MSS.
the reading of all the best
Not ''
knowing in yourselves The reading of the best MSS. is Ix^tv
(A. V.).
tavTovg or tavTolg, that ye have yourselves, ov for yourselves, i. e. as your own.
' Habak. ii. 3. (LXX.) Not fully translated in A. V.
s Habak. ii. 4. (LXX.), quoted also Rom. i. 17 and Gal. iii. 11.
The "any man" of A. V. is not in the Greek. TiroarelXonaL, me suhduco
(Wahl), is exactly the English ^mc/i.
10 Habak ii. 4. (LXX.) But this passage in the original precedes the last quota-
mony that he was righteous, for God testified ^ unto his gifts;
chapter. The faith of the Patriarchs was a type of Christian faith, because it was
fixed upon a future and unseen good.
3 TOT'S aiuvag, so i. 2.
merable.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, 13
bnt having seen them afar off, and embraced them,-' and con-
fessed that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth. For 14
they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a
country. And truly if they speak ^ of that country from 15
whence they came forth, they might have opportunity to re-
turn ; but now they desire a better country, that is, an hea- is
venly. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God
for He hath prepared for them a city.
By
faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, 17 '
and he that had believed the promises offered up his only be-
gotten son, though it was said unto ^ him, " l7i Isaac shall thy 18
seed he called; " ' accounting that God was able to raise him 19
up, even from the dead from whence also (in a figure) he re-
;
ceived him.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, conceening things 20
TO COME.
native land." In other words, if Christians regret the world which they have re-
nounced, there is nothing to prevent their returning to its enjoyments. Here again
we trace a reference to those who were tempted to apostatise. For the explanation
of the two imperfects, sec Winer, 43, 2.
^ Gen. xlvii. 31. (LXX.) The present Hebrew text means not the top of his staff,
but the head of his bed ; but the LXX. followed a different reading. The " faith " ol
J"acob consisted in fixing his hopes upon future blessings, and worshipping God, even
in the hour of death.
' 'Ejuvij/xovevae. See verse 15. Joseph's "faith" relied on the promise that the
seed of Abraham should return to the promised land. (Gen. xv. 16.)
3 Exod. ii. 2. (LXX.) 'Idovrec avrb aarelov. The Hebrew speaks of his moiner
only.
4 Exod. ii. 11 (LXX.).
The reproach of Christ's people is here called the reproach of Christ. Compare
5
6 'AirefST^ene, literally, he looked away from that which was before his eyes.
''
M-iaOarr. Cf. verse 6, See Exod. ii. 15. 9 IleTroiTiKSj perfect,
10 Avruv. See Winer, Gram. 22, 4.
^1 ATTEiOTjaaai, not " therji that believed 7iot." (A. V.) They had heard the miracief
sTO?io:ht in favour of the Israelites (Josh. ii. 10), and yet refused obedience.
b24: THE LIFE AND EIS^rLES OF ST. PAUL.
David, and Samuel, and the prophets ; who through faith sub- 33
dued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions,' quenched the violence of fire,*^ 34
escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness ^ were made
strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of
the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again ; 35
received not the promise. God having provided some better 4i)
thing for us, that they, without us, should not be made per-
fect.'^
5 This refers both to Eleazar (2 Mac. vi.), and to the seven brothers, whose torture
is described, 2 Mac. vii. The verb ervfinaviadrjcyav points especially to Eleazar, who
was bound to the rvfiTtavov, an instrument to which those who were to be tortured by
scourging were bound. (2 Mac. vi. 19.) The " not accepting deliverance " refers to,
the mother of the seven brothers and her youngest son (2 Mac. vii.).
6 Better, viz. than that of those wbo (like the Shunamite's son) were only raised to
return to this life. This reference is plain in the Greek, but cannot be rendered
equally obvious in English, because we cannot translate the first dvacrdaeug in this
verse by resurrection.
7 ^E/zTraL-y/xuv. Still referring to the seven brothers, concerning whose torments
this word is used. (2 Mac, vii. 7.)
8 Zechariah, the son of Jehoiadab, was stoned. (2 Chron. xxiv. 20.) But it is not
necessary (nor indeed possible) to fix each kind of death here mentioned on some person
in the Old Testament. It is more probable that the Epistle here speaks of the general
persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes.
9 According to Jewish tradition this was the death of Isaiah ; but see the preceding
npte.
10 The received text is here retained ; but there can scarcely be a doubt that the
reading should be (as has been conjectured) either hnvpdadrjaav or knvpuOrjaav, they
were burned. This was the death of the seven brothers.
i
wandering they of whom the world was not worthy in deserts and
Literally,
in mountains, Sfc. ; i. e. They for whom all that the world could give would hav
been too little, had not even a home wherein to lay their head.
" 'Ve^.FLudibGi, See notes on ii. 10, vii. 11. ix. 9 literally, attain their consumma
;
'
forerunner^ and the finisher of our faith ; who for the joy that
was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame^
3 and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Yea,
consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against
4 Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have
5 not yet resisted unto blood,^ in your conflict against sin
; and
ye have forgotten the exhortation which reasoneth ' with you
as with sons, saying, " My Son, despise not thou the chasten-
6 ing of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son ichom he
7 receiveth.^ If ye endure chastisement,^ God dealeth with you as
8 with sons ; for where is the son that is not chastened by his
father ? but if ye be without chastisement, whereof all [God's
Hon, including the attainment of the full maturity of their being, and the attain
ment of the full accomplishment of their faith; which are indeed identical. They
were not to attain this x^pi-? r/fiuv, i. e. not until we came to join them.
Kal TjfjiElg, let us, as they did. The Agonistic metaphor here (see Vol. 11. p. 199)
1
would be more naturally addressed to the Church of Ale?:andria than to that of Jenv-
salem.
^ EvTveptararog occurs nowhere else. Sin seems here to be described under the
metaphor of a garment fitting closely to the limbs, which must be cast off {aTzodefi.) if
the race is to be won. A garment would be called evTcepiararog, which fitted well all
round.
3 Tnofiovr] (as it has been before remarked) is not accurately represented by
** patience means stedfast endurance, or fortitude.
it
8 Prov. iii. 11-12. (LXX. nearly verbatim.) Philo quotes the passage to the
aame purpose as this Epistle.
^ Throughout this passage it appears that the Church addressed was exposed to per-
secution. The intense feeling of Jewish nationality called forth by the commencing
struggle with Rome, which produced the triumph of the zealot party, would amply
account for a persecution of the Christians at Jerusalem at this period as is argued ;
by those who suppose the Epistle addressed to them. But the same cause would pro
'^ncQ the samft effect in the great Jewish population of Alexandria.
526 THE LIFE AlSJy EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.
flesh, and gave them reverence ; shall we not much rather sub-
mit ourselves to the Father of our 3 spirits, and live ? For u
they, indeed, for a few days chastened us, after their own
pleasure ; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of
His holiness. 'Now no chastisement for the present seemeth 11
to be joyous, but grievous; neverthelefe> afterward, unto them
that are exercised thereby, it yieldeth the fruit of righteous-
ness in peace.^
Wherefore " Lift up the hands which hang down and the fee- 12
ble knees, and " make even paths for ymir feet thart the halt- 13
Observe the perfect yeyovaaL, referring to the examples of God's children men-
tioned in the preceding chapter.
* Elxo/usv TvaLdevTag, The A. V. does not render the article correctly.
3 'Hfiuv understood (without repetition) from the parallel aapKog rjfuov,
is
Kog) full of peace. There can be no peace like that which follows upon the submission
of the soul to the chastisement of our heavenly Father if we receive it as inflicted by ;
the writer of this Epistle used the Alexandrian Text of the LXX. For the Codex
Alftjiandrinus (which, however, is corrupt here) reads fxjj ng karlv kv vfxlv ^l^a niKofai
&VU (pvovaa hox^if where the Codex Vaticanus has ev xo'^y (for kvox'^rj), which cop
was rejected ;
finding no room for repentance, though he
sought it ^ earnestly with tears.
18 For ye are not come to a mountain that may be in proportion
''to the supen-
touched' and that burneth with fire, nor to ''UacJc-
^J^l^^^^l^l^l^^
20 for they could not bear that which was commanded.' (" And
21 and so terrible was the sight that Moses said " I exceedingly
22 fear and qualteP ^)
^But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and
To^evdrjaeraL of the received text have been here interpolated from the Old Testament,
and are not in any of the uncial MSS.
9 Deut. ix. 19, /c^o/36f eifCL (LXX). This is the passage in the Old Testament
which comes nearest to the present. It was the remembrance of that terrible sight
which caused Moses to say this much more must he have been terrified by the reality.
;
10 This is (see Gal. iv. 26) the Church of God, which has its fxijTponoTiLg in heaven,
though some of its citizens are still pilgrims and strangers upon earth.
II We cannot suppose (with most interpreters) that {Mvpiaaiv is to be taken by itself,
as if it were ralg dy'iaic fivptaaiv (cf. Jude 14,) and dyyeXuv navTjyvpet put in appo-
sition to it; nor can we take navTjyvpet kcI kKKlTjaia together, which would make
navvyvpet redundant. But we take fivpLaaiv dyytku)V 'Kavriyvpu together, taking
ravTjyvpec as in apposition to /ivptaaiv dyyeXuv, or else as equivalent to ev Tzavrjyvpei,
which gives the same sense. Jlavrjyvpig properly means a festive assembly, which
reminds us of " the marriage supper of the lamb."
1^ IlpuTOTOKuv. These appear to be the Christians already dead and entered into
their rest dTroyeypajUfiivov means registered or enrolled,
;
Cf. Luke ii. 1. an<3
Phil. iv. 3.
;
God ' the judge of. all, and to the spirits of just meii'^ made
perfect,=^ and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to 24
the blood of sprinkling," which speaketh better things than
that of Abel.5
See that ye reject ^ not Him that speaketh. For if they 25
escaped not, who rejected Him that spake on earth, much '
once more only " signifieth the removal of those things that are
shaken, as being perishable," that the things unshaken may
remain immoveable. Wherefore, since we receive a kingdom 28
that cannot be shaken, let us be filled with thankfulness
whereby we may offer acceptable worship unto God, with reve- 29
rence and godly fear. For " cnir God is a consuming fireJ^ XIII.
ExiiortMion to
eeveral moral
Lct brothcrlv love continue. Be not forgetful to l
^
duties, especi-
ally to courage-
eutcrtaiu strangers,
for thereby
' 'J
some have enter- 2
OU3 profession
of the faitn,
talucd aufi^cls
o uuawares. Eemember the prisoners
X.
3
^
The order of the Greek would lead us more naturally to translate to a judgCy
toho is God of all ; but we have retained the A. Y. in deference to the opinion of
Chi'vsostom.
" These dlicaLOL (being distinguished from the npuroroKoi aboye) are probably the
worthies of the ancient dispensation, commemorated chap. xi.
3 TereleiujUEVuv, literally, who have attained their consummation. This they had
not done until Christ's coming. See xi. 40.
^ Contrasted with the vSup ^avriajnoi) of Numbers xix. (LXX.) Compare ix. 13-14
and X. 22.
5 Or, if we read Kpelrrov and tov (with the best MSS.), "better than AbeV The
voice of Abel cried for vengeance (Gen. iv. 10). Compare xi. 4 ; the blood of Christ
called down forgiveness.
c It is impossible to translate napaiTelaOai by the same English word here and in verse
19th ;
hence the reference of the one passage to the other is less plain, than in the
original.
7 Xp7]/j.aTi^ovTa, literally, " that spake oracularly^
* 'Aira^, once, and once only. Cf ix. 26, and x. 2.
2ei(7w is the reading of the best MSS.
w Ilagg. ii. 6. (LXX., but not verbatim.)
I'
Tie-TzoLrinevovy used here as x^'-P'^'^oltjtoc is (ix. 11. ix. 24), and as we often Uiw
thinfi,s created " as equivalent to things perishable.
'* 'Y.x<^iiev x^P'''^' Compare
x^P'-''^ ^X^h
Luke xvii. 9. If the meaning were " Let
as bold fast [the] grace [which we have received]," it would be KaTexo>fisv r^r x^P^^'
Ev?inj3eiag kuI dt ovg is the reading of the best MSS.
" ?)eut. iv. 24. (LXX. nearly verbatim.)
Viz. Abraham and Lot.
;
the church,
4 as being yourselves also in the body. Let marriage
be held honourable in all things, and let the marriage-bed be
^
term. The meaning is " contemplate the final scene {perhaps martyrdoni], which
closed their life and labours {avacToo<p^)y
' The A. V. here gives an English reader the very erroneous impression that
*
Jesus Christ " is in the objective case, and in apposition to " the end of their conver
cation."
8 Ilapa<pepeade is the reading of the best MSS.
9 BpufxacLv, The connection here The reference seems to be, in
is very diflScult.
the thought passes on to the sacrificial meats, on which the priests were partly sup-
ported. Some think this verse addressed to those who had themselves been priests,
which would be an argument for supposing the epistle addressed to the Church at Je-
rusalem. (Compare Acts vi. 7.)
10 The connection seems to be, that the victims sacrificed on the day of Atonement
were commanded (Levit. xvi. 27) to be wholly burned, and therefore 7iot eaten
" Cremabantur, inquit non ergo comedebantur a sacerdotibus." (Gomarus.)
;
Place, are burned " witJiout the camjpP'^ Wherefore Jesus also, la
that He might sanctify the People "by His own blood, suffered
without the gate. Therefore let us go forth unto Him " with- 13
out the Gwmjp^'^ bearing His reproach. For here we have no 14
continuing city, but we seek one to come.^
By Him therefore let us offer unto God continually a sacri- 15
lice of praise,^ that is, " the fruit of our lips " ^ making confes-
sion unto His name. And be not unmindful of benevolence 16
and liberality ; for such are the sacrifices which are acceptable
unto God.
Render unto them and sub- n
that are your leaders obedience
mission ; for they on their part ^ watch for the good of your
souls, as those that must give account that they may keep ;
their watch with joy and not with lamentation; for that would
be unprofitable for you.
The writer aska
their prayers,
Prav
o
for mc I
^
for I trust ' that I have a 2:oodl8
<=>
givesthem his
own, and com- o in all
conscionce, desirino: my conduct to live rightly.
*' o ^
SlTionfrom "^^^ ^
ratlicr beseech you to do this, that I may 19
Italy.
restored to you the sooner. ^
'Now the God of peace, who raised up ^ from the dead the 20
great ^ shepherd of the sheejp^'' even our Lord Jesus, through
the blood of an everlasting covenant, make you perfect in 21
i
The words ixtfi afiapriaq are omitted in the best MSS.
' Levit. xvi. 27. (LXX. verbatim). The camp {Tzape/i^olri) of the Israelites was
afterwards represented by the Holy City ; so that the bodies of these victims were
burnt outside the gates of Jerusalem. See above, p. 254, note 6.
3 T7)v, literally, the city which is to come. Compare x. 34 and the jSaailelav
dadXevTov, xii. 28.
4 The Christian sacrifice is a " sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," contrasted witk
the propitiatory sacrifices of the old law, which were for ever consummated by Christ
See X. 4-14.
5 Hosea xiv. 2. (LXX.) (The present Hebrew text is different.)
^ AvTot, emphatic.
^ This seems to be addressed .to a party amongst these Hebrew Christians who had
taken offence at something in the writer's conduct.
8 We have already observed that this implies that a personal connection existed
between the writer and the readers of The opinion of Ebrard, that this
this Epistle.
verse is written by St. Luke and verso 23d in his own person,
in St. Paul's person,
xvi. 22) nor is there any inconsistency in asking prayers for a prosperous journey,
;
(Rom. X. 7.)
10 This is an allusion to a passage in Isaiah (Is. Ixiii 11. LXX.) -where God ii
described as " He who brought up from the sea the shepherd of the sheep \viz.
MosesV
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 533
24 Salute all them that are your leaders, and all Christ's
people.
25 They of Italy ^ salute you.
Grace be with you all. Amen.
Ta^ aluvuv is probably to be omitted both 3iere and Rom. xi. 36, and xvi. 27.
Thoy are asked to excuse the apparent harshness of some portions of the letter, on
the ground that the writer had not time for circumlocution.
8 Ol and TP,g We agree with Winer (Gram. sect. 63, ^ 484) in thinking
^iToklag,
that this cLTzb may be most naturally understood as used from the position of the
readers. This was the view of the earlier interpreters, and is agreeable to Greek
analogy. In fact, if we consider the origin in most languages of the gentilitial prepo-
sitions (von, de, of, &c.), we shall see that they conform to the same analogy. Henc
we infer from tlais passage that the writer was in Italy.
( APPENDIX^
APPENDIX I.
Before we can fix the time at which these Epistles were written, we must take iSa
Following data into account.
1. The three Epistles were nearly cotemporaneous with one another. This i&
proved by their resembling each other in language, matter, and style of composition,
and in the state of the Christian Church which they describe ; and by their differing
in all these three points from all the other Epistles of St. Paul. Of course the full
force of this argument cannot be appreciated by those who have not carefully studied
these Epistles ; but it is now almost universally admitted by all i
who have done so,
both by the defenders and impugners of the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles.
Hence if we fix the date of one of the three, we fix approximately the date of all.
2. They were written after St. Paul became acquainted with .^polios, and there-
fore after St. PauVs first visit to Ephesus. (See Acts xviii. 24, and Titus iii. 13.)
3. Hence they could not have been written till after the conclusion of that portion
of his life which is related in the Acts ; because there is no part of his history, between
his first visit to Ephesus and his Roman imprisonment, which satisfies the historical
conditions implied in the statements of any one of these Epistles. Various attempts
have been made, with different degrees of ingenuity, to place the Epistles to Timothy
and Titus at different points in this interval of time ; but all have failed, even to
satisfy the conditions required for placing any single Epistle correctly.'* And no one
nas ever attempted to place all three together, at any period of St. Paul's life before
'
We have noticed Dr. Davidson's contrary opinion before and we should add that Wieseler may;
De considered another exception, only that he does not attempt to reply to the ^-ounds stated by
other critics for the cotemporaneousness of the three Epistles, but altogether ignores the question
of internal evidence from style and Church organisation, which is the conclusive -evidence here-
Subjoined to this appendix will be found an alphabetical list of the words and phrases peculiar 10
the Pastoral Epistles.
the most ingenious theory which has been suggested for getting over this difficulty ;
* Wieseler's is
but has been shown by Huther that neither of the three Epistles can be placed as Wieseler places
it
tliem without involving some contradiction frf the facta mentioned in tbem respe&Vvely. (Se
Ruther's Pastoralbriefe, pp. 12-26.)
:
534 APPENDIX I.
quire an interval oi certainly not les^ than four or five years to account for it. And
even that interval might seem too short, unless accompanied by circumstances which
should further explain the alteration. Yet five years of exhausting labour, great
physical and moral sufferings, and bitter experience of human nature, might suffice to
account for the change.
The development of Church organisation implied in the Pastoral Epistles leads
5.
to the same conclusion as to the lateness of their date. The detailed rules for the
choice of presbyters and deacons, implying numerous candidates for these offices the ;
exclusion of new converts {veocpvroi i) from the presbyterate the regular catalogue ;
Df Church widows ;
are all examples of this.
6. The Heresies condemned in all three Epistles are likewise of a nature which
forbids the supposition of an early date. They are of the same class as those attacked
in the Epistle to the Colossians, but appear under a more matured form. They are
apparently the same heresies which we find condemned in other portions of Scripture
written in the later part of the Apostolic age, as for example, the Epistles of Peter and
Jude. We trace distinctly the beginnings of the Gnostic Heresy, which broke out
with such destructive power in the second century, and of which we have already
geen the germ in the Epistle to the Colossians.
7. The preceding conditions might lead us to place the Pastoral Epistles at an/
point after a. d. 66 (see condition 4, above), i.e. in the last thirty-three years of the
first century. But we have a limit assigned us in this direction, by a fact men-
tioned in the Epistles to Timothy, viz., that Timotheus was still a young man (1 Tim.
iv. 12, 2 Tim. ii. 22) when they were written. We must of course understand this
statement relatively to the circumstances under which it is used Timotheus was
:
t\ou. over all the Presbyters (many of them old men) of the churches of Asia. Ac-
cording even to modern notions (and much more according to the feelings of anti-
quity on the subject), he would still have been very young for such a position at the
age of thirty-five. Now Timotheus was (as we have seen, Vol. I. pp. 197 and 265)
a youth still living with his parents when St. Paul first took him in a.D. 51 (Acts xvu
1-3) as his companion. From the way in which he is then mentioned (Acts xvi. 1-3
compare 2 Tim. i. 4), we cannot imagine him to have been more than seventeen or eighteen
at the most. Nor, again, could he be much younger than this, considering the part
he soon afterwards took in the conversion of Macedonia (2 Cor. i. 19). Hence we
may suppose him to have been eighteen years old iuA. d. 51. Consequently, in 68
(the last year of Nero), he would be thirty-five years old.
8. If we are to believe the universal tradition of the early Church, St. Paul's mar-
tyrdom occurred in the reign of Nero.3 Hence, we have another limit for the date of
the Pastoral Epistles, viz. that it could not have been later than a. d. 68, and this
agrees very well with the preceding datum.
It will be observed that all the above conditions are satisfied by the hypothesis
adopted in Chapter XXVII., that the Pastoral Epistles were written, the two first just
before, and the lac-t during, St. Paul's final imprisonment at Rome. Before examining
I 1 Tim. iii. 6.
' No objection ag.ainst the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles has been more insisted on than
that furnished by the reference to the youth of Timotheus in the two passages above mentioned.
How groundless such objections are, we may best realise by considering the parallel case of those
young Colonial Bishops, who are almost annually leaving our shores. Several of these have been
not more than thirty-four or thirty-five years of age at th^ time of their appointment and how :
naturally might they be addressed, by an elderly friend, in the very language which St. Paul here
addresses to Timotheus.
3 See the authorities for this statement above, p. 487
"
details which fix the order of these Epistles amongst themselves, Tve shall briefly
consider the arguments of those who, during the present century, have denied the
genuineness of these Epistles altogether. These objections, which were first suggested
by Schleiermacher (who rejected 1 Tim. only), have been recently supported by Baui
(with his usual unfairness and want of exegetical discrimination) and (much more
ably and candidly) by De Wette. The chief cause assigned by these writers for re*
jectmg the Epistles are as follows :
Objection, Answer.
1. The Pastoral Epistles cannot, on his- 1. This rejection rests on the arbitrary
torical grounds, be placed iu any portion assumption, which we have already at-
of St. Paul's life before the end of his first tempted to refute in Chap. XXVII., that
Roman imprisonment, from which he was St. Paul was not liberated from his first
object, or do not keep that object consis- answered in the preliminary remarks pre-
tently in view. fixed to the translation of the several
Epistles. "We may add that De Wette
fixesvery arbitrarily on some one point
which he maintains to be the " object
of each Epistle, and then complains that
the point so selected is not properly kept
in view. On such a ground we might
equally reject the most undoubtedly genu-
ine Epistles.
5. More importance is attached to exter- 5. This change is exactly what we
nal morality, and to " soundness " of dog- should expect, when the foundations oi
matic teachings than in St. Paul's other Christian doctrine and Christian moraliiy
Epistles. were attacked by heretics.
536 APPENDLS: I.
Objection. Answer.
. Mo*e importance is given to the hie- 6. This again is what we should hav<
ratchical element of the Church than in anticipated, in Epistles written towards
Kt. Paul's other Epistles. the close of the apostolic age, especially
when addressed to an ecclesiastical officer-
We know that, in the succeeding period,
the Church was (humanly speaking) saved
from destruction by its admirable organi
sation, without which it would have fallen
to pieces under the disintegrating influ-
(1 Tim. iii. 6) from the Presbyterate which had existed fifteen years, or perhaps
shows a long existence of the Church. more. The 7rpeGj3vTpoi and 6lukovoi are
distinct orders as early as the Epistle tc
the Philippians. The ordaining of Trpta-
(SvrepoL in every city was a step always
taken by St. Paul immediately on the
foundation of a church (Acts xiv. 23).
On the other hand, there are some points
in the Church organisation described,
which seem clearly to negative the hy-
pothesis of a date later than the Apostolic
age ;
especially the use of npeajSvTepoQ
and kmoKOTTog as synonymous.
8. The institution of an Ort/cr o/ J^ic?oi- 8. The institution of such an order (so
Objection. Answer,
whereas this very passage is a proof of
the earlier date of our Epistle; because
the xvpai- of 1- Tim. are especially to be
selectedfrom among those who had borne
children, so that no virgin would have
been admissible.
9 Timotheus could not have been con- 9. This is fully answered above, p. 53L
iideied young, after St. Paul's first impri-
Bonment.
10. The somewhat depreciatory tone in 10. We must remember that St. Paul
which Timotheus is addressed, does not had witnessed the desertion of many of
agree with what we know of St. Paul's his disciples and friends (2 Tim. iv. 10),
century. (Baur adds that the peculiar that heresy. We see the germ of it so
heresy of Marcion is distinctly attacked early as in the Epistle to the Colossians.
in 1 Tim. ; but this is allowed by De And even in the Epistles to Corinth, there
Wette to be a mistake. See note on was a party which prided itself in yvroaig
1 Tim. vi. 20). (1 Cor. viii. 1), and seems to have been
(in its denial of the resurrection, &c.)
very similar to the early Gnostics, and at
least to have contained the germ of the
13. Passages from the other Pauline 13. A writer very naturally expresses
Epistles are interpolated into these. the same thoughts in the same way, by
an unconscious self-repetition. So we
have seen in the Colossians and Ephesiaiis,
and in the Romans and Galatians.
Having thus considered the objections which nave been made against the genuine
aess of these Epistles, we may add to this negative view of the case the positive re
sons which may be given for believing them genuine.
1. The external evidence of their reception by the Universal Church is conclusive
;
538 APPENDIX I.
rhey are distinctly quoted by Irenaeus,! and some of their peculiar expressions are
employed in the same sense by Clement, St. Paul's disciple." They are included in
the Canon of Muratori, and and are reckoned by Eusebius among the
in the Peschito,
Canonical Scriptures universally acknowledged. Their authenticity was never dis-
puted in the early Church, except by Marcion and that single exception counts for ;
nothing, because it is well known that he rejected other portions of Scripture, not oa
grounds of critical evidence, but because he was dissatisfied with their contents.
2. The opponents of the genuineness of these Epistles have never been able to sug^
gest any sufficient motive for their forgery. Had they been forged with a view to
refute the later form of the Gnostic heresy, this design would have been more clearly
apparent. As it is, the Epistles to the Colossians and Corinthians might have been
quoted against Marcion or Valentinus with as much effect as the Pastoral Epistles.
3. Their very early date is proved, as we have before remarked, by the synonymous
use Of the words 7rpEa(3vTpog and kmoaorcog.
4. Their early date also appears by the expectation of our Lord's immediate coming
(1 Tim. vi. 14,) which was not entertained beyond the close of the Apostolic age.
See 2 Peter iii. 4.
from the PastoraLs in Clement, because we do not think them sufficiently clear to be convicing. Fop
the same reason we abstain from referring to Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr, beciwise the pa-
eages in their writings which we believe to be allusions to the Pastoral Epistles are not CIstinctly ex-
pressed as quotations, and it might therefore be said (as it has been said by Baur) that tho passages in
the Pastorals were taken from them, not they from the Pastorals.
3 Tlie above discussion of the arguments for and against the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles waa
written before the appearance of Dr. Davidson's third volume. The reader who is acquainUd with that
vahi.able work, will perceive that we differ from Dr. Davidson on some material points ntwr, after con- ;
sidering his arguments, do we see reason to change our conclusions. But this difference ^oes not pre-
vent us from appreciating the candour and abihty with which he states the arguments ow both sides.
We would especially refer our readers to his statement of the difficulties in the way of tt -t hypothesu
that these Epistles were forged, pp. 149-163.
DATE OF THE PASTOEAL EPISTLES. 539
1. 1 Tim. In this we find St. Paul had left Ephesus for Macedonia (1 Tim. i. 3), and
liad left Timothy at Ephesus to counteract the erroneous teaching of the heretics
^iii. 4), and that he hoped soon to return to Ephesus (iii. 14).
2. Titus. Here we find that St. Paul had lately left Crete (i. 5), and that hcs waa
now about to proceed (iii. 12) to Nicopolis, in Epirus, where he meant to spend ths
approaching winter. Whereas in 1 Tim. he meant soon to be back at Ephesus, and
he was afterwards at Miletus and Corinth between 1 Tim. and 2 Tim. (otherwise
2 Tim. iv. 20 would be unintelligible). Hence Titus i must have been written later
than 1 Tim.
3. 2 Tim. "We have seen that this Epistle could not (from the internal evidence oi
its style, and close resemblance to the other Pastorals) have been written in the first
The facts thus mentioned can be best explained by supposing (1) That after writing
1 Tim. from Macedonia, St. Paul did, as he intended, return to Ephesus by way of
Troas, where he left the books, &c. mentioned 2 Tim. iv. 13 with Carpus ; (2) That
from Ephesus he made a short expedition to Crete and back, and on his return wrote
to Titus ; (3) That immediately after despatching this letter, he went by Miletus tc
Corinth, and thence to Nicopolis whence he proceeded to Rome.
;
To complete this subject, we add a summary of the verbal peculiarities of the Pas-
toral Epistles.
1 Had 1 Tim. been written after Titus, St. Paul could not have hoped to be back soon at Eplteena
1 Tim. iii. 14 ; for he had only just left Epheeus, and (on that hypothesis) Tfould be intendii^; to iriixMv
It will be observed that most of the following words or phrases occur in more than
one of these Eoistles, and but one of them {Kalog) in any of the other Epistlci
written by St. Paul.
TTie words or phrases marked * occur nowhere else in the New Testament.
a means 1 ^in.
6 means 2 TI:2,
cmeans Titus.
Thus a' 63 c means occurxng twice in 1 Tim., (hree tiines in 2 Tim., and once in 'iVtui-
* alptTLKO^ c.
....
* (Ive^iKaKog . , . . b.
* dvocnog ab.
dpvovfiai a 63 c\
*
*
dpTLOC
UGTOXdV
...
....
. . . .
b.
a} b.
*
yeveaAoyiai
yvfivaaia
....
....
a^b.
a
a.
c.
a c.
* 6id(3oXoc (for calumniotis) . a b c.
* didyeiv a c.
6tdaaKaXia (objectively used) a* b c3.
6l' tjv ainav . . c, also used once in Hebrews, and four times by St.
Luke. (St. Paul always elsewhere uses 6l6, which
occurs twenty-seven times in his other Epistles, but
not once in the Pastorals.)
kKTpETceadai . . . . b.
Ivrev^iC . .
* iTTiaTOjui^eiv . . . . c.
*
tTTKpaveia (for irapovala) . ab^ c.
* hTEpodidaaKaktlv . . .
evaelSEta
evaeiSCj
evac(3ug
....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
a,
6
b c,\
c,
r altogether thirteen times
) any other of St. Paul's
; not used once in
Epistles.
CnrriatL^ . . . . a* b c.
TjOovaL c.
" nepLOVCLOQ . c.
TTpoaix^'v . a^ c.
* OEflVOTTji . a' c (also ceiivog is only used in Phil. iv. 8 and in a' e)
* cuT^p (applied to God)
ctj<ppa)v and its derivativea . a3 c5 & (aoxppoavvij alone occurs elsewhere in N. T.
viz. Acts xxvi. 25).
* Tvcpovadai . a^b.
* iiyi^f (and derivatives applied
to doctrine) . . . a' c\
vTrofiifivrjaKEiv (and deriva-
tives) . . . . ^' c.
iTTOTVTruaic . . a 6.
542 APPENDIX n.
APPENDIX II,
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
i
60 St. Paul and Barnabas attend the "Council Caractacus captured by the Romans in
of Jcrusiilom." Britain ;
[See Vol. I. p. 227-234 and note (B.) be- Cogidunus (father of Claudia [?], 2 Tim. iv
low.] 21) assists the Romans in Britain.
61 His "
Second Missionary Journey," from
Antioch to
Cilicia, Lycaonia
Galatia,
5'2 Troas, Claudius expels the Jews from Rome (Acta
I'liilippi Thessalonica, Beroea, xviii. 2).
Athens, and
CoiuNTU Writes 1 Thess.
; ; .;
54 ^Spring
^He leaves Corinth, and reaches Death of Claudius and accession of Neso
(Summer)
Jerusalem at Pentecost, and (Oct. 13).
thence goes to Antioch.
(Autumn) ^Hia "Third Missionary Journey."
He goes to
To iJPHESUS.
55 At Ephesus.
66 At EPHESrS.
thence
(Winter) To Corinth, where he writes Gala-
tians.
58 (Spring) He writes Romans., and leaves
Corinth, going by PhUippi and Miletus
(SummerTo Jerusalem (Pentecost), where
he is arrested, aad sent to Caesarea.
59 At CiESAREA. Nero murders Agripphia.
60 (Autumn)Sent to Rome by Festus (about Felix is recalled and succeeded by Festus [see
August). note (C.) below].
(Winter)-Shipwrecked at Malta.
61 (Spring) He arrives at Rome. Embassy from Jerusalem to Rome, to petition
about the wall [see note (C.) below]
(Philem. xxii.).
64 He goes to Spain. [For this and the Great fire at Rome (July 19.^, followed by
(?)
subsequent statements, see Chap. XXVII.] persecution of Roman Cliristians ;
66 (Summer) From Spain (?) to Asia Mmor The Jewish war begins.
(1 Tim. i. 3).
APPENDDL n.
We find in Actsxi. 28, that Agalbus prophesied the occurrence of a famine, and that
nis prophecy was fulfilled in the reign of Claudius ; also that the Christians of Antioch
resolved {upLoav) to send relief to their poor brethren in Judsea, and that this resolution
was carried into effect by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. After relating this, St
Luke digresses from his narrative, to describe the then state (/car' eksIvov t6v xpcvov)
of the Church at Jerusalem, immediately before and after the death of Herod Agrippa
(which is fully described Acts xii. 1-24). He then resumes the narrative which he
had interrupted, and tells us how Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch, after fulfill-
From this it would appear, that Barnabas and Saul went up to Jerusalem, to relieve
the sufferers by famine, soon after the death of Herod Agrippa I.
Now Josephus enables us to fix Agrippa's death very accurately : for he tells us (Ant,
xix. 9, 2) tlia,t at the time of his death he had reigned three full years over the whole
of Judasa ; and also (Ant. xix. 5, 1) that early in the first year of Claudius (41 a.d.)
the sovereignty of Judsea was conferred on him. Hence his death was in a.d. 44. i
The famine appears to have begun in the year after his death; for (1) Josephus
speaks of it as having occurred during the government of Cuspius Fadus and Tiberius
Alexander (Ant. xx. 5, 2). Now Cuspius Fadus was sent as Procurator from Rome on
the death of Agrippa I., and was succeeded by Tiberius Alexander ; and both their
Procuratorships together only lasted from a.d. 45 to a.d. 50, when Cumanus succeeded.'
(2) We find from Josephus (Ant. xx. 2, 6, compare xx. 5, 2), that about the time of the
beginning of Fadus's government, Helena, Queen of Adiabene, a Jewish proselyte,
Jews in the famine. (3) At the time of Herod Agrippa's
sent corn to the relief of the
death, would seem from Acts xii. 20, that the famine could not have begun for the
it ;
motive of the Phoenicians, in making peace, was that their country was supplied with
food from Judsea, a motive which could not have acted while Judaea itself was perish-
ing of famine.
Hence we conclude that the journey of Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem with alma
Note (B.).
In Vol. I. p. 233, we have remarked that the interval of 14 years (Gal.ii. 1) between
the flight from Damascus and the Council of Jerusalem might be supposed to be either
14 full years, or 13, or even 12 years, Judaically reckoned. It must not be imagined
that the Jews same interval of time, 14, 13, or 12 years but the
arbitrarily called the ;
denomination of the interval depended on the time when it began and ended, as fol-
lows. If it began on September 1st, a.d. 38, and ended October 1st, a.d. 50, it would
be called 14 years, though really only 12 years and one month because it began ;
before the 1st of Tisri, and ended after the 1st of Tisri ; and as the Jewish civil yeaf
began on the 1st of Tisri, the interval was contained in 14 different civil years. On
the other hand, if it began October Ist, a.d. 38, and ended September 1st, a.d. 50, it
would only be called 12 years, although really only two mouths le?s than the former
Interval which was called 14 years. Hence, as we do not know the month of the
flight from Damascus, nor of the Council of Jerusalem, we are at liberty to suppose
that the interval between them was only a few weeks more than 12 years, and there-
fore to suppose the flight in a.d. 38, and the Council in a.d. 50.
"We have seen that St. Paul arrived in Rome in spy ing, after wintering at Malta,
md that he sailed from Judaea at the beginning of the preceding autumn, and was at
Fair Havens in Crete in October, soon after " the Fast," which was on the 10th oi
Tisri (Acts xxvii. 9). He was sent to Rome by Festus, upon his appeal to Csesar, and
his hearing before Festus had taken place about a fortnight (see Acts xxiv. 27 to xxv.
1) after the arrival of Festus in the province. Hence the arrival of Festus (and con-
sequently the departure of Felix) took place in the summer preceding St. Paul's
voyage.
This is con^rmei by Acts xxiv. 27, which j ells thf t Pa'.il haQ been in prison two
complete years (disTia TzlijpudEtoTjg) at the time of Felix's departure for he was imt-
;
less than 5 years ; therefore Felix had governed Judsea at least (5+2=) 7 years at the
time of his recal. Now Felix was appointed Procurator in the beginning of the 13th
year of Claudius ^ (Joseph. Ant. xx. 7, 1, dcodeKarov erog rj8rj 7te7r?Li]puKug), that is,
early in the year a.d. 53. Therefore Felix's recal could not have occurred before a.d.
(53-1-7=) 60.
(/?.) But we can also show that it could not have occurred after a.d. 60, by the
following arguments.
1. Felix was followed to Rome by Jewish ambassadors, who impeached him of
mis-government. He was saved from punishment by the intercession of his brother
Pallas, at a time when Pallas was" in special favour with JVero (Joseph. Ant. xx. 8,
9). Now Pallas was put to death by Nero in the year a.d. 62 ; and it is improbable
that at any part of that or the preceding year he should have had much influence
with Nero. Hence Felix's recal was certainly not after a.d. 62, and probably not
after A.D. 60.
2. Burrus was living (Joseph. Ant., quoted by Wieseler, p. 83) at the time when
Felix's Jewish accusers were at Rome. Now Burrus died not later than February
A. D. 62. And the Jewish ambassadors could not have reached Rome during the sea^
Eon of the Mare Clausum. Therefore they (and consequently Felix) must have come
to Rome not after the autumn of a.d. 61.
3. Paul, on arriving at Rome, was delivered (Acts xxviii, 16) r^j CTpaTO'!Teddpx%
a PaUas had been maialy instrumental in obtaining Nero's adoption by Claudius but by presuming ;
too much onhis favour, he excited the disgust of Nero at the very beginning of his reign (a. d. 54)
In A. D. 55 he was accused of treason, but acquitted ; and after this acquittal he seems to have
regained his favour at Court.
VOL. II. 35
546 APPENDIX n.
not Tolc arpaTOTTeddpxaic;^ hence there was a single Prsefect in commajia of ih|
PrEctorians at that time. But this was not the case after the death of Burrus, when
Rufus and Tigelllnus were made joint Praefects. Hence (as above) Paul could noi
have arrived in Rome before a. d. 61, and therefore Felix's recal (which was in th
year before Paul's arrival at Rome) could not have been after a. d. 60.
Therefore FelLx's recal has been proved to be neither after a. d. 60, nor befoM
1. D. 60 ;
consequently it was in a. d. 60.
dence in Rome, would alone have occupied twelve months. Hence we conclude that
from the arrival of Festus to that of Albinus was a period of not less than two years,
and consequently that Festus arrived A. d. 60.
2. The Procurators of Judaea were generally changed when the Propraetors of Syria
were changed. (See "Wieseler, p. 97.) Now Quadratus was succeeded by Corbulo in
Syria a. d. 60 ; hence we might naturally expect Felix to be recalled in that year.
3. Paul was indulgently treated (Acts xxviii. 31) at Rome for two years after hia
arrival there. Now he certainly would not have been treated indulgently after the
Roman fire in (July, 64). Hence his arrival was at latest not after (64 2) a.d. 62.
4. After Nero's acc<JSsion (October 13, a. d. 54 Josephus) ' mentions the following
consecutive events as having occurred in Judaea :
(a) Capture of the great bandit
Eleazar by Felix, (b) Rise of the Sicarii. (c) Murder of Jonathan unpunished.
((/) Many pretenders to Inspiration or Messiahship lead followers into the wilderness.
(e) These are dispersed by the Roman treops. (/) An Egyptian rebel at the head of
a body of Sicarii excites the most dangerous of all these insurrections his followers ;
are defeated, but he himself escapes. This series of events could not well have occu-
pied less than three years, and we should therefore fix the insurrection of the Egyptian
not before a. d. 57. Now when St. Paul was arrested in the Temple, he was at first
mistaken for this rebel Egyptian, who is mentioned as 6 Avyvnrioc 6 irpo tovtuv tuv
flfiepuv diaaraTucaQ (Acts xxi. 38), an expression which would very naturally be used
^f the Egyptian's insurrection had occurred in the preceding year. This would again
1 Tho offlcial phjase was in th plural, -when there was more thau one Prsefect So Trajan writeSi
"vLnctus mitli ad prafedos praetorii mei debet." ^l^lin. Ep. s. 66
For the references, see Vieselor, p, 78, et ae<j.
NOTES OKT THE CHKONOLOGIOAL TABLE. 54:7
agree with supposing the date of St. Paul's arrest to be A. d. 58, and therefore Felix's
recal a. d. 60.
6. St. Paul (Acts xdii. 2) finds Aquila and Priscilla just arrived at Corinth from
Rome, whence they were banished by a decree of the Emperor Claudius. We do not
know the date of this decree, but it could not, at the latest, have been later than a. d.
64, in which year Claudius died. Now the Acts gives us distinct information that
between this first arrival at Corinth and St. Paul's arrest at Jerusalem there were the
following intervals of time, viz. : From arriving at Corinth to reaching Antioch
IX years, from reaching Ephesus to leaving Ephesus years, from leaving Ephesos
to reaching Jerusalem 1 year. (See Acts xviii. xix. and xx.) These make together
5x years ; but to this must be added the time spent at Antioch, and between Antioch
and Ephesus, which is not mentioned, but which may reasonably be estimated at
X year. Thus we have 5^ years for the total interval. Therefore the arrest of St
Paul at Jerusalem was probably not later than (54-1-5 1^=) a. d. 59, and may 'have
been earlier ; which agrees with the result independently arrived at, that it waa
actually in a.d. 58.
It is impossible for any candid mind to go through such investigations as these,
without seeing how strongly they confirm (by innumerable coincidences) the historical
Accuracy of the Acts of the Apostles.
I
INDEX.
A. Antipater, i. 2T.
Antipatris, h. 269.
Abwas, on the destruction of the Temple of Diana Antonia, the fortref s, ii. 251,
by St. John, ii. 89 note. Antonine Itinery, i. 317, 818.
Acamas, promontory of, i. 169. Antoninus, Pius, i. 071.
A.CC0, ii. 231. Anxur, ii. 856, 358.
A.chai, i. 316 ; harbours of, 412; province of, under Apelles, ii. 193.
the Romans, 416. Apollo Patrons, temple of, i. 855.
Acre, St. Jean d', ii. 231. ApoUonia identified by Mr. Arundell, I 168.
A-crocorinthus, the, i. 412; its importance, ib.; Apollonia on the Adriatic, description cf, i. 82<l.
views from its summit, ib. Apollonius of Tyana, i. 120 note ; notice of the 1|
Acropolis, the, i. 346, 354 : wood-cut view of the of, 344.
ruins of the, 356 ; view of the, restored, S7fl. ApoUos, i. 446 ; ii. 13 et seq. ; followers of, 81.
Acts of the Apostles, i. 131. Apostles, Acts of the, i. 131 ; their office in th
Adramyttium, i. 279 ; ii. 810. Primitive Church, 432.
^gina, island of, i. 345. Apostles and Elders, letter of the, to the Christiani
Afium-Karahissar, i. 271. of Antioch, i. 221.
Agabus, the prophet, i. 127 ; ii. 238. Apostolic Church, the, i. 65.
Agora, the, of Athens, i. 354. Appian Way, ii. 354.
Agricola, i. 15. Appii Forum, ii. 359.
Agrippa, Herod, grandson of Herod the Great, i. Appendix : I. On the Date of the Pastoral Epistles,
Ill his death, 128.
; ii. 533. II. Chronological Table, 542.
Agrippa II., 272.
ii. Aquila, i. 386, 388, 422 ; ii. 19, 33 note.
Aizar.i, i. 277, 278. Aquila, the translator of the Old Testament into
Ak-Sher, i. 271. Greek, i. 387.
Alban, Mount, ii. 360. Arabia, the word, i. 96.
Albinus, i. 289 note. Aram, i, 35.
Alcibiades, character of, i. 365; fortifications ol, Aramaean Jews, 1. 85.
at Cos, ii. 220. Aratus, the Greek poet of Cilicia, i. 378 note,
Alexander the coppersmith, ii. 85, 87. Araunah, threshing-floor of, ii. 246,
Alexander the Great, i. 7, 9 ; at Pamphylia, 163. Archeiaus, son of Herod, i, 28 ; his banishment.
Alexandria, eminence of, ii. 808. 54.
Alexandria Troas, i. 280, 281 ; harbour of, 282. Archeiaus, King of Cappadocia, i. 24S.
Ali Pasha, Governor of Bagdad, i. 137. Archippus, ii. 21.
Almalee, in Lycia, i. 167. Areopagus, i. 346, 354 description of the, 876w
;
Almsgiving amongst the Jews, i. 66. Aretas, King of Petra, i. 81 ; coins of, 107.
" Altar of the Twelve Gods " at Athens, i. 854 ; to Arethusa, pass of, i. 320.
the " Unknown God," 364. Argseus, mount, i. 186.
Amphipolis, i. 319. Argo, the ship, i. 414.
Amphitheatres in Asia Minor, ii. 200. Aricia, town of, ii. 360.
INDEX.
Attaleia, bay of, i. 159 town of, 161; history and ; Chloe, family of, ii. 80.
aescription of, 200. Chrestus, i. 886,
Attalus Philadelphus, i. 161. Chrysorrhoas river, i. 83
Attalus III., King of Pergamus, i. 240. Chrysostom, John, i. 274.
Attica, description of, i. S46. Christianity and Judaism, i. 81, 82.
"Augustan Band," the, i. 28. Christianity, dissemination of, in Antioch in PisJ.
Augustine, St., on the names " Saulus" anil dia, i. 180 compared with Greek philosophy
;
" I'aulus," i. 152. 868 ; its foundation in Achaia, ii. 16 in KomCf ;
Balse, ii. 852. of the first, of united Jews and Gentiles, ISO
Balaamites. See Nicoliitans, controversy in the, 204 ; great conference of the
Barjesus, the Sorcerer, i. 147. Apostles and Elders of the, at Jerusalem, 214
Barnabas at Antioch, i. 108, 118; accompanies its decrees, 217 foundation of the, in Macedo-
;
St, Paul to Jerusalem, with contribution-money nia, 2^; constitution of the primitive, 431, 432
in time of famine, 127; becomes one of the et seq. ; ordinances of the, 437 festivals of the, ;
teachers at Antioch, 131 ; departs for Cyprus, 440 ; divisions in the, 441 ; heresies in the, 445,
184 ; arrives at Selucia, 137 ; at Salamis, 138 446.
at Paphos, 141 ; brought before Sergius Paulus, Church of Philippi, ii. 92 ; veneration of for St.
148; visits Pamphylia, 158; arrives at Perga, Paul, ib. liberality to the Apostle, 93, 123.
; its
160; at the table-land of Asia Minor, 167; Church of Tyre, ii.229, 230.
reaches Antioch in Pisidia, 174; accompanies Church, the Roman, ii. 371.
St. Paul to the synagogue there, 174 ; expelled Cibyra, " the Birmingham of Asia Minor," i. 167.
from the city, 181 journeys towards Lycaonia,
;
Cicero, i. 14, 15 ; as governor of Cilicia, 24 ; at
181 ; reaches Iconium, 182 : flies from a conspi- Athens, 860.
racy of the Iconians to destroy him, 185; Cilicia, i. 14, 19 ; Bough CiUcia, 20 ; Flat Cilicia,
reaches Lystra, 188 ; goes to Derbe, 198 turns ; 21 ; as a Roman province, 28 under Cicero, 24
back and re-visits Lystra, Iconium, and Ano description of, 249.
tioch, 199 ; reaches Perga, 200 ; accompanies " Cilician Gates," the, i. 199.
St. Paul to Jerusalem, 211; arrives there, 213; " Cilicium" tents, i. 47, 168.
his address to the Christian conference at Jeru- Cimon, statue of, i. 854.
salem, 215; returns to Antioch, 220; quarrels Cimon of Athens, his victory over the Persians at
with and separates from St. Paul, 252 ; his sub- Platesa and Salamis, i. 160.
sequent life, 253. Cithaeron, hills of, i. 345.
Basil, St. i. 371. Claudia, ii. 474, 484 note.
Basilicas^ the Pauline, ii. 471, 472. Claudius Lysias, ii. 254 ; letter of, to Felix, 270.
Basilides, the Gnostic, i. 459 note. Claudius, the Emperor, ii. Ill, 113 ; his edict bao*
Baptism, infant, i. 296. ishing the Jews from Rome, i. 385.
Baris, \i. 251. Cnidus, notice of, ii. 221, 318.
Bfj/ia, the, i. 419 note; ii. 252 Colossae, ii. 4, 13 ; description of, ii. 883 note.
Benjamin, lot of, i. 53. Colosse in Phrygia, i. 272 note.
Berenice, i. 25, 248 ; ii. 294. Colossians, Epistle to the, ii. 384.
Beroea, description of, i. 339. Colossus at Rhodes, the, ii. 223.
Bethsaida, city of, i. 55. Colonna, Cape, i. 345, 846.
Eethesda, pool of, ii. 252. Colony, constitution of a Roman, i. 292.
Bin-bir-Kilisseh, i. 188. Commerce, Roman, ii. 807.
Bishop, the PrimUive Church,
office of, in i. 433. Conference, great, of the Apostles and Elders at
Bithynia, description of, i. 240. Jerusalem, i. 214, 215.
Bovillae, ii. 362. Constantia, i, 141.
Buldur, marble road at, i. 166; lake of, 168. Consular Way, ii. 855.
Burrus, the praetorian prefect, ii. 864. Contributions for poor Jewish Christians, ii. 120,
154.
0. Conventus, ii. 82 note.
Cabbala, the, i. 36. Converts in the household of Nero, ii. 483.
Capua, 857.
ii.
Coracesium, cliffs of, i. 159.
Csesar J. i. 147.
Coressus mountains, ii. 70.
Ce;area, i. 27, 23, 115 ; its theatre, 128 : descrip- Corinth, i. 348, 883, 385, 411 ; itsearly history, 414
under the Romans, 415; its destruction by Mum-
tion of the city, ii. 280.
Caius or Gains, i. 400. mius, 415 i*e-establishment of the importance
;
Caligula, i. 82, 110. of the city under Julius Csesar, 416; tumult
Carapagna of Rome, ii. 861. at, 420,
Corinthian Church, state of, in time of St. Paul,
Campanian Way, ii. 855.
ii, 153 its subsequent character, ib. ; ii. 80.
Candace, Queen, i. 19. ;
97,
Cai)reae, island of, ii. 350.
Corinthians, licentiousness of the, ii. 27, 28,
Casilinum, ii. 357.
Casius, Mount, i. 133. Cornelius, i. 106, 118 ; conversion of, 114, 115.
Catarrhactes river, i. 159. Corn-vessels of Egypt, ii. 808.
Cos, island of, ii. 219.
Caystcr river, ii. 18.
Caystrian meadows, ii. 71. Cotyaeum, i. 277.
848 notice of, 421; its geographical Council-house of Athens, i. 856.
Cenchreae, i. ;
INDEX. 551
Demoniac slave, the, at Philippi, i. 300, 301. Fellows, Sir C, on places in Lycia and Aeil
Demoniacs, the, of the New Testament, i. 298. Minor visited by St. Paul, i. 348, et seq.
Demosthenes, statue of, i, 354. Festivals of the Primitive Church, i. 440.
Demus, the, of Thessalonica, i. S34. Fcstus, ii, 291,
Denarius, silver, i. 3. Formic, ii. 357.
Derbe, city of, i. 188, 198, 257,261. Fundi, plain of, ii. 358.
" Devil," and " dsemon," i. 299. Furies, sanctuary of the, i. 355.
Di.?earchia, ii. 352.
Diana, temple of, at Perga, i. 160 ; statue of, by
Praxiteles, 357.
Diana of Ephesus, worship of, ii. 21; Temple of
Ephesus, 73 ; worship of, 77. Gaggitas river, i. 295.
Dinocrates, i. 9. Gains or Caius, i. 336 ii. 194. ;
Dionysius, the convert at Athens, i. 381. Galatia, description of, i. 243; foundation of, 246ii
Diogenes, tomb of, ii. 196 note. Galatians, Epistle to the, ii. 135; note on th
Dium, i. 342. chronology of the, i. 227.
Drachma, the, ii. 24 note. Galen, i. 145.
Drepanum, promontory of, i. 159. Gallesus, pi'ecipices of, ii. 70.
Drusilla, wife of Felix, ii. 286.
Gain, the, of Galatia, i. 273.
Dyrrhachium, i. 322 note. Gallic, originally called Annaeus Novatus, ijro-coa-
sul of Achaia, i. 417.
Gallogrsecia, i. 244 note.
E. Gamaliel, i. 56. 67.
Games of Asia and Ephesus, ii. 83,
Easter, ii. 203. Gate of Stephen, i, 74.
St.
Ebionites, the, i. 458. Gauls, settlement of the, in Asia i. 244. ;
Ephesians, Epistle to the, ii. 899 ; parallelism be- its universal spread among the educated classea,
tween it and the Epistle to the Colossians, 412. 15.
Ephesus, its geographical position, ii. 18; descrip- Greeks, the, i. 8 social condition of, 11.
;
552 ETDEX.
I. K.
Iconium (modern Konieh), i. 182 ; its history, ib. Kara-dagh, or Black Mountain, i. 188.
Ilissus, river, i. 349. Kara-dagh, view of, i. 262.
Imbros, island of, i. 286. " Keys, The," i. 139.
lUyricura,i. 31 6 Greek, ii. 126 ; ;
Roman, 126. Kiutayo. See Cotyaeum.
Informers at Rome, ii. 469. KXeideCy i. 139.
Introduction, i. ix.
Konieh. See Iconium.
Isauria, i. 20. Konieh, battle of, i. 258 note.
Isaurian robbers, i. 162.
Isbarta,i. 164 note.
persion, 16; colony of, in Babylonia, ib. ; in 203 ; they both sail from Philippi and arrive at
Lydia and Phrygia, 17; in Africa, ib. ; in Alex- Troas, 205 ; leaves Troas and arrives at Assos,
andria, ib.; in Europe, IS; in Rome, ib.; their 208 ; at Miletus 214 ; at Patara, 226 ; at Tyre,
proselytes, ib. ; forcibly incorporated with 228 ; at Csesarea, 232 ; at Jerusalem, 236 ; writsg
aliens, 19; Jews in Arabia, ib. ; in the east of
his Gospel, 288 ; accompanies St. Paul from
the Mediterranean, ib. ; Jewish sects, 32 ; Jews Caesarea to Rome, 311 ; remains with him tiU
not unfrequently Roman citizens, 46 ; state of the death of St. Paul, 312-486.
the Jews after the death of Herod, 56; mode of Lutar, the Gaulish chieftain, i. 245.
teaching amongst, 58; almsgiving amongst, Lycabettus, i. 347.
65, 66 ; numerous in Salamis, 140
insurrection ;
Lyceum, the, i. 359.
of, at Salamis, ib. ; synagogue of, at Antioch in Lydia, i, 198.
Pisidia, 171 their spiritual pride and exclusive
;
Lydia, her profession of faith and baptism, I,
210; their influential position at Thessalonica, Lydius, the Isaurian robber^ i. 163 note.
826 colony of, at Beroea, 340 in Athens, 363 ;
;
;
Lycaonia, i. 185.
in great numbers in Athens, 3S5 banished from ;
Lystra, city of, i. 187 ; visited by St. Paul, 190.
Rome by command of the Emperor Claudius,
lb.; colonies of, in Asia Minor, 386, 387 their ;
their hatred of the Roman soldiers at Jerusalem, Macedonians, liberality of the, ii. 122.
253; their indignation at the appearance of St. Macedonia Tertia, i. 315 note.
Paul in the temple, 245; slaughter of .Tews in Maeander, valley of the, i. 170 ; river, ii. 21*
the streets of Cajsarea, 281 ; Jews in Rome, note.
869. Magicians, oriental, i. 146, et SCf
/oannea, Vincente, i. 74 note. Magnesia, ii. 214 note
John, the Baptist, ii. 13; disciples of the, 13. Malea, Cape, i. 412.
John, St., i. 127; his meeting with St. Paul, 219. Manaen, foster-brother of Herod Antipas, I 131,
'
Jonathan, the high priest, ii. 275. Mark, John. See John Mark
Joppa, 1. 28. Martyn. Henry, i. 274.
Joses, the Lcvite of Cyprus, i. 117. Mary, ii. 193.
Judaizers generally, i. 444- Massicus Hills, ii. 357.
Judiua, history of, ii. 273; geographical position Megabyzi, or priests of Diana, ii. 78.
of, I. 7 notices of, 19 ; political changes in, 2T
; Melissae, or priestesses of Diana, ii. 79.
jtate of, 54. Mclita, ii. 341, 343.
Judas, i. 220,222. Mercurius, Propylaeus, i. 357.
I.ilia, 194.
ii Mesogoea, region of the, i. 340
luliuB, city of, i. 65. Mossojjis, ii. 70.
;
553
MQlestone, the Golden, i. 355. 52 ; his study there, 63 ; his early manhood,
Miletus, ii. 18, 214. 64 his taste for Greek literature, 65 his pres*
; ;
Minerva Promachus, i. 348, 353 statue ; of, 358. ence at the death of St. Stephen, 74 his perse- ;
Minerva Hygieia, statue of, i. 357. cution of the Christians, 78 his journey t ;
Mithridates, king of Pontus, i. 248. sion, 89 vision of Jesus Christ, 90 his call,
; ;
Mitylene, notice of, ii. 208. 91 ; his blindness, 93 his recovery of sight, ;
" Mnason of Cyprus," i. 117 ; ii. 235. 95 his bapti.sm, to. ; his journey into ArabiA
;
Mnesiclea the architect, i. 357 note Petrsea, 96 his return to Damascus, 99 ; con-
;
Munychia, height of the, i. 349. his return to Jerusalem, 101 his meeting with ;
Muratori's Canon, ii. 438. the Apostles, 103 : he withdraws to Syria an4
Museum of Athens, the, i. 346. Cilicia, 105 travels with Barnabas to Antioch,
;
Mycale, ii. 212. 118 ; carries the contribution mouey from An-
Myra, u. 315. tioch to Jerusalem, in time of famine, 127 de- ;
Mysia, description of, i. 276. parts for Cyprus, 1S4 ; arrives at Seleucia, 138 .
at Salamis, ib. at Paphos, 141 his denuncia-
; ;
NaM^rit^e^s^^the, i. 422 the four, ii. 240, 241 vow synagogue there, 175 ; impression made on his
; ,
hearers, 178 ; scene on the following Sabbath,
of, ii. 243.
Neapolis, or Nablows, i. 84. 179 expelled from the synagogue, ib. turns
; ;
Nea^olis of Macedonia, i. 287, 288. from the Jews and preaches to the Gentiles, ib. ;
journeys towards Lycaonia, 181 arrives at ;
"NeuKopog; ii. 79. Iconium, 182 ; escapes from a conspiracy to
Nereus, ii. 194. crush him, 185 ; reaches Lystra, 188 his mira- ;
Nero, his marriage with Poppseft, ii. 421. cle there, 191 worship offered to him, 192 ; his
;
Nero, ii. 442. address to the Lystrians, 193 stoned in the ;
Neptune, his statue at Athens, i. 353. city, 196 recovers from apparent death, 197 ;
;
Nestor, tutor of Tiberius, i. 106. travels to Derbe, 198 revisits Lystria, Iconium ;
"Nicholas of Antioch," i 19. and Antioch, 199 ; reaches Perga, 200 travels ;
Nicholas, St., ii. 315. to Jerusalem, 211 ; his companions on the jour-
Nicolaitans or Balaamites, i. 457. ney, i&. ; his arrival at the Holy City, 213 his ;
Nicomedes III., king of Bithynia, i. 241. address to the conference of Christians in Jeru-
Nicopolis, ii. 128 note. salem, 215 ; pubhc recognition of his mission
Nicopolis in Epirus, ii. 465. to the heathen, 219 ; his meeting with St. John,
Nicosia, i. 140. ib. ; returns to Antioch, 220 rebukes St. ;
Nizib, battle of, i. 258 note.
Peter for his weak conduct, 224 St. Paul's per- ;
Note on certain Legends connected with St. Paul's sonal appearance, ib. St. Peter's reconciliation ;
death, ii. 488 ; on the heresies of the later Apos- with him, 226 ; he proposes to Barnabas to visit
tolic age, i. 456 ; on the parallelism between
the Churches, 250 quarrels and separates from ;
the Epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians, Barnabas, 251, 252 takes Silas with him into ;
413.
ii.
Cilicia, 254 ; takes Timotheus into companion-
Nymphs of the Demus, i. 356. ship, 265 reaches Iconium,268 journeys through
;
;
Oleander, the, in the Levant, i 166. is joined by St. Luke at Troas, 284 they sail ;
Olives,Mount of, ii. 250. from Troas, 285 arrive at Samotlirace, 286 ;
Olympas, ii. 194. reach Philippi, 290 St. Paul preaches the Gos- ;
Olympus, Mount, i. 314, 315. pel for the first time in Europe. 295 the de- ;
Onesimus, the slave, ii. 379. moniac slave, 300 St. Paul scourged and cast ;
Onesiphorus, ii. 473. into prison, 303 ; his conversion of the jailor,
Onkelos, i. 58. 307 released from prison, 310 ; loaves Philippi,
;
Orontes, valley of the, i. 20 ; the river, I. 122
Pactyas, Mount, ii. 70. at Athens, 362; "left in Athens alone," tD^. '
"Painted Porch," the, i. 368. addresses the Athenians in the Agora, 372 goea ;
Palatine, the, ii. 418. up to the hiU of the Areopagus, 374 his speech ;
Paley's Horae PauUnse, ii 26 note, to the Athenians, 378 ; departs from Athens,
Pallas, death of, ii. 422. 381 ; takes up his abode at Corinth, ib. his ad- ;
Pamphylia, i. 159 ; sea of, ib. dress to the Jews in the synagogue there, 389 ;
Pamphylia, description of, i. 242. rejoined by Silas and Timotheus, ib. -nTites hia ;
Paoli, village of, inPisidia, i. 164 note. from the Jews to the Gentile, 399 his vision, ;
Paphos, i. 141 ; New, history of, 156 d seq. ; Old, 401 ; writes his Second Epistle to the Thessalo-
156. nians, 402 continues to reside in Corinth, 406 ;
:
ParneSj hills of, i. 346, 347. brought by the Jews before Gallio, proconsul of
Paroreia, in Phrygia, i. 169. Achaia, 418 ; who refuses to hear the charges,
Parthenon, the, at Athens, i. 358, 419 departs fi-om Achaia, 421 takes his fare-
;
;
Patara, harbour of, ii. 225. well of the Church of Corinth, ib. ; sails from
Patrobas, ii. 194. Cenchreas by Ephesus to Csesarea, 422 visits ;
Paul, St. a Pharisee, i. 33 ; language of his in- the synagogue at Ephesus, ib. reaches Caesa- ;
fancy, 39 ; his childhood at Tarsus, 40 ; his de- rea, 424 leaves C.-csarea for Jerusalem, ib.
;
13, 49 ;
period of his birth, 44 ; his station in from Antioch, ii. 11 arrives at Ephesus, 19 ;
554
mystic books, 24 ; the Apostle pays a short visit Rome, 467 first stage of his final trial, 471 , is
to Corinth, 26 ; returns to Ephesus, 28 writes ;
remanded to prison, 473 ; writes his Second
she Fu-st Epistl3 to the Corinthians, 33 ; his Epistle to Timotheus, 475 ; his death, 486.
future plans, 67 ; Demetrius and the silver- Paus^anias, his visit to, and description of Athena,
smiths, 85 ; Caius and Aristarchus seized by
the mob, 86 ; tumult in Ephesus, 87 ; St. Paul Pedalium, the, of Strabo and Ptolemy, i. 139.
bids farewell to the Christians of Ephesus, ib. ; Pediaeus river, ib.
departs from the city, it ; arrives at Alexandria PeUa, 314,
i.
Troas, 91 ; preaches the Gospel there, 92 ; sails Pentecost, feast of, at Jerusalem, ii. 242
froo Troas to Macedonia, ib. ; lands at Nea- Perga, i. 60.
polis, ib. ; proceeds to Philippi , i&. ; his love Pericles, statue of, at Athens, i. 357.
for the Philippian Christians, ib. ; passes over Peripatetics, the, i. 359.
to Macedonia, 94 ; state of his bodily health, Persis, ii, 193.
ib. rejoined by Titus, ib. ; writes his Second Pessinus, i. 273.
;
Epistle to the Corinthians, 97 ; collects contri- Peter, St., i. 67, 115 ; iu captivity, 128 ; his ad
butions for the poor Christians in Judaga, 120 ; dress to the Conference of Christians at Jeru
he journeys southwards, 129 his feelings on salem, 215 , his weak conduct at Antioch, 223
approaching Corinth, 130 ; state of the Galatian openly rebuked by St. Paul, 224 St. Peter's ;
Church, 133 ; writes his Epistle to the Gala- personal appearance, ib. ; his reconciliation
tians, 135 ; convinces the Corinthians of his with St. Paul, 226.
Apostleship, 152 ; he punishes the disobedient Persecution of Nero, ii. 434noie; 468.
by publicly casting them out of the Church, ib. ; Petronius, i. 111.
Bends a letter by Phoebe to the Roman Church, Phaleric Wall, i. 351 note.
154 ; his Epistle to the Romans, 156 conspir- Pharisees, thft, i. 32 in Jerusalem, i. 228.
;
;
Philippi, 204 ; they leave there together, ib. ; Philemon, ii. 21 Epistle to, ii. 381.
;
rights as a Roman citizen, ib. taken before the Physicians among the ancients, i. 312, 313.
Sanhedrin, 261 struck by order of the high- .;
Pir^us, the, i. 346-349.
priest Ananias, ib. tumult in the judgment- Pisidia, i. 162 ;robbers of, ib. ; violence of it>
;
tress, ib. conspiracy to assassinate him, 264 ; Plataea, battle of, i, 160,
;
the plot discovered, 265 removed by Lysias to Plato, philosophy of, i, 366.
;
ed, 286 brought up again before the governor, Polycarp, martyrdom of, ii, 86 note.
;
his address to the sailors, ib. tliey anchor for Posts established by Augustus, ii. 419
;
INDEX. 555
Schmmai, Jewish school of, i. 56. mon, 246 that of Zerubbabel, iS. ; that of
;
Schoenus, port of, i. 413. Herod, ib.; the Outer Court, ib.; " Porch of
Scio, ii. 211. Solomon. 247 the "Beautiful Gate," t6. ; th
;
Scylitzes Curopalates, i. 259 n/)te. Bh-nctuary ib.', Court of the Women, 248
,
the ;
Secundus of Thessalonica, i. 336. freasury, ib. the Court of Israel, 249; the
;
Seleucia, foundation of, i. ; immense ex- 122, 136 Court of the Priests, ib. the haU Gazith, t6. ; ;
cavation at, 137 ; its excellent harbour, ib. the Altar, ib. the Vestibule, 250 the Holy
; ;
Seleucus Nicator, i. 122. Place, ib. the Holy of Holies, ib. ; connexion of
;
Selge, i. 163 ; robbers of, ib. the Temple with the fortress Antonia, 253
Seneca, the philosopher, i. 371, 417. Teucer, kingdom of, i. 140.
Church of Corinth, 95 ; directed by St. Paul to Women, influence of, over the religious opiniOTM
return to Corinth, 96 ; his character, 125 ; St. of the ancients, i. 181 ; their holy influence ia
Paul's Epistle to, 461. early Christianity, i. 297.
Troas, description of, ii. 205. See Alexandria
Troas. X.
Triopium, promontory of, ii. 222.
TrogyUium, ii. 212. Xanthus river, ii. 225 ;
valley of the, 1. 166
Trophimus, ii. 91, 110 note,
'^j.-phena., 193.
Tryphosa,
ii.
5).
Y.
TuUianum," the, i. 305. " YaUahs," i . 165 ; that of AdaUa, 168.
Ty chic us, ii. 92, 380, 394.
Tyrannus, ii. 20.'
Tyre, its situation and maritime supremacy, ii. z.
229, 231.
Zabeans, the, ii. 13 note.
u. Zea, i. 350.
Zealots, the, i. 34.
Unknown Gods, altars of the, i 350 iu)le ; 364. Zeno, school of, i, 360 his pnlloBOipby SGI,
Drttanus, IL 193. Zerubbabel, temple of, ii. 2A&
Total 1,06
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