w w (JJorttell HntOErBttg Htbrary 3tl)aca, 3Jem ^ark THE GIFT OF ALFRED C. BARNES 1889 Date Due PRINTED IN U. 5. A. (Or NO. 23233 Cornell University Library BS2407 .W11 New Testament history, by G. W. Wade, D. olln 3 1924 029 306 301 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029306301 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY BY G. W. WADE, D.D. WITH A CONTRIBUTION BY J. H. WADE, M.A. WITH TEN MAPS AND PLANS II idavcorepov to e^riTaa-fxevov METHUEN & GO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON n J ■"Lft.AA.>i--i r F»>5i published in ig22 X>3 AMABILI AMATAE PREFACE THE present work is intended to be a companion volume to my Old Testament History (first published in 1 90 1 ) . But the shorter period needing to be covered, and the greater importance of the subject have rendered both possible and desirable a difference in the manner of treatment ; and of the three parts into which the book is divided two are devoted to introductory- matter. The first of these embraces a description of Palestine in New Testament times ; an historic sketch of the causes producing the pohtical and rehgious conditions of that country at the beginning of the first centiu-y a.d. ; some account of the external circumstances, Roman and Jewish, obtaining in the same period ; and a short review of the hterary tradition inherited by the New Testament writers. The second, besides describing the principal MSS. and Versions of the New Testament and the methods of textual criticism, comprises a detailed investigation of the historical value of the separate New Testament books. In order, however, to preclude misapprehension, it is necessary to qualify what has just been said by adding that the sketch of Jewish history is restricted to such matters as explain the circum- stances mentioned or imphed in the New Testament, and that the inquiry into the origin and authority of the New Testament writings does not extend to those of the Pauhne Epistles which are sufficiently widely recognized to be genuine for their com- position by St. Paul to be here taken for granted. The third and principal part of the volume contains a narrative of our Lord's ministry, based on the earliest sources ; an account of the Christian Church during the period included in the Book of Acts ; and an attempt to trace the development of theological thought in successive groups of New Testament documents. Though I have not hesitated to indicate my own conclusions when necessary or expedient, my chief aim has been to present vii viii NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY impartially in connection with matters of controversy such amount of evidence as may enable readers to draw their own inferences. It is, of course, impossible for anyone to deal with an historical subject without certain presuppositions which are the outcome of previous reading and experience, and many factors have doubtless contributed to form my own ; but the one which I feel has been most influential is my earUer study of the Old Testament. The present work is comprehensive in scope ; but in order to bring it within the compass of a single volume, severe compression has been necessary, and this has rendered a superficial treatment of various important matters unavoidable. Apart, however, from the defects due to this cause as well as to my own limitations of capacity and learning, it is hoped that not much of what is essential to the scheme of the book has been sacrificed to brevity, and that lucidity has not been seriously impaired by concentration and compactness. Everywhere use has been made of information furnished by other writers ; and many of the foot-notes indicate the authorities to whom I am most indebted, though not the extent of my indebtedness. But whilst I have borrowed freely wherever I could in this way profitably supplement my own resources (verifying to the best of my abihty what has been thus derived), yet I have maintained independence both in the plan and execution of the work ; and the book is not only more substantial but more original than its predecessor. I wish, in conclusion, to acknowledge most gratefully the assistance I have received from my wife, who has not only aided me in preparing the MS. for the Press, but also has given me the advantage of her counsel ; from Principal Joyce, who has read most of the proof sheets and furnished me with several illuminating suggestions ; and from Miss Adela E. Joyce, who has prepared all the maps. I owe the greater part of the opening chapter to my brother, whose further collaboration was prevented by consequences resulting from the Great War. Justice to these generous helpers requkes me to add that for everything in the book to which exception may be taken the responsibihty is solely ™in^- G. W. W. Sit mihi remissio omnium neglegentiarum et ignomntiarum. CONTENTS PART I PAGE I The Topography of Palestine ...... 1 II Political and Religious Developments among the Jews from the Exile to the Fall of Jerusalem . . . .13 III The Roman Empire ....... 63 (a) The Provincial System. (6) Conditions in the Empire conducive to the Diffusion of IV Jewish Institutions ........ 90 (a) The Organization of Worship, Teaching, and Discipline. (b) Religious Sects. V Prevailing Ideas and Methods of Jewish Historians . .106 PART II VI Textual Criticism 124 (a) Early Writing Materials. (&) Manuscripts and Versions. (c) Principles of Textual Criticism. VII Documentary Criticism 148 (o) The Synoptic Gospels. (b) The Fourth Oospel. (c) Acts. {d) The Epistles and Revelation. X NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY PART III PAGE Preliminary Note : The Chronology of the New Testament . 341 VIII The Ministry of Jesus according to the Earliest Sources . . 350 Additional Note : Jesus' Ministry according to the Fourth Gospel 484 IX The History of the Church in the Apostolic Age . . 490 X Theological Development in the New Testament . . . 597 (a) The Teaching of Jesus. (b) The Teaching of the Primitive Church. (c) The Teaming of Revelation. (d) The Teaching of Si. Paul. (e) The Teaching of Hebrews. (/) The Teaching of the Johannine Writings. Appendix A ......... 681 Appendix B 683 Index 685 LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS 1. Maf of Palestine in the Time of Christ 2. Site of Jerusalem 3. Plan of Jerusalem 4. Maj) of Asia Minor 5. Plan of Herod's Temple . 6. Map of the Province of Galatia 7. Map of the Sea of Galilee 8. Map of the Environs of Jerusalem 9. Map of Macedonia and Greece . 10. Map of the Mediterranean *** Of the above, Number 2 is reproduced from the Encycloposdia Bibliea, by the kind permission of Messrs. A. and C. Black. In the preparation of Numbers 3, 5, 7 and 8 use has been made of the maps and plans in Sanday's Sacred Sites of the Gospels (Clarendon Press, 1903). Number 6 is based on the map in Lake's The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul (Rivingtons, 1911). Fqr the aspistance thus obtained I wish to express my grateful acknowledgments, ■ist PAO INQ PAGE 1 9 12 66 91 266 371 432 543 586 PALESTINE o ■» IP I B zo 2» 3° Miles I Over SOOO feet above sea-level ^ - lOCfO ■ Palestine in the Time of Christ. Erratum. — The name Aiiiun, placed in the map south of Salitn, should have been placed . at the same distance iwth of it. NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY PART I I THE TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE A FRENCH critic has said that in any attempt to explain a great personality or a great movement regard must be paid to race, period, and place. If this be so, as assuredly it is, topography is as necessary a preliminary to the study of Christianity as ethnography or contemporary history. The scenes associated with it have not only formed the stage upon which the drama of its rise and early progress has been enacted, but have materially helped to mould its development. Accord- ingly, before describing the circumstances and conditions of which some knowledge is essential for understanding the contents of the New Testa- ment, it is expedient to furnish a brief account of the land that was the sphere of our Lord's ministry and of the earliest labours of His Apostles. The Hebrew race had a decided proclivity towards a religious inter- pretation of the universe ; and this was promoted and enhanced by the character of its physical surroundings. Palestine is very insignificant in size, measuring only 160 mUes by 80 miles, and covering not more than about 10,000 squarei mUes ; but its features are so exceptional that it could scarcely have failed to produce a peculiar people. Bounded on the north by mountains, on the east and south by deserts, and on the west by an almost harbourless coast-line, it has few points of attachment to the outer world. Its chief characteristics are its isolated situation, its prevailingly high altitude, and its variety of surface. Its isolation in early times was almost complete, the only circumstance that brought it into connection with neighbouring countries being the fact that along the level shore that borders the Mediterranean ran part of the high road between the basins of the Euphrates and the Nile. Except when the great military powers of antiquity quarrelled amongst themselves for the possession of this thoroughfare, they left Palestine severely alone; and its isolation was only decisively destroyed when, in consequence of the victories of Alexander the Great, the tide of Greek civilization inundated the East, and when later it became incorporated in the comprehensive dominions of the Eoman empire. Between the Syrian desert and the 1 1 2 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY sea the land is virtually a southward prolongation of the two mountain ranges that bound it on the north, Lebanon and Herman. The parallel ridges that constitute this southern extension attain a general elevation of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and are severed from one another by a deep depression, threaded by the river Jordan. The two, though both are high, are very dissimilar in confoimation ; for whereas the western in its course from north to south is interrupted at one point by an extensive plain called Esdraelon, and is then cut by a number of torrent valleys, the southern extremity ending in a parched plateau called the Negeb or "South," which sinks into the desert of Sinai, the eastern, on the other hand, consists of a tableland, almost unbroken save for three rivers. The surface of the country, viewed from west to east, is equally diversified, for part of the coastal plain is flanked on the east by a line of low hills called the Shephelah (or " Lowland ") ; then comes a central range of higher hOls ; next to these is the gorge of the Jordan, which for almost all its length is below sea-level ; and finally, between this and the Syrian desert is the elevated tableland mentioned above. As might be expected from this diversity of surface, the productiveness of the soil varies greatly. Although both wheat and barley are grown, it is only in the level strip along the coast that cereals are largely cultivated. Numerous kinds of fruit are produced on the hUl-sides, notably grapes, olives and figs. The depth of the Jordan valley renders its air very hot ; and where the valley, which is from three to fourteen miles wide, expands to its greatest breadth, the soil is very fertile, and the heat makes the vegetation extremely luxuriant. But the principal occupation of the people of Palestine has always been in general the rearing of sheep and cattle rather than the cultivation of the soU. The Negeb (or South), just mentioned, and the high ground lying to the east of the Jordan are especially adapted for pasturage ; and the incidents inseparable from a shepherd's life have ever been an unfailing source of popular similes and metaphors. In one district the inhabitants derived their subsistence from the water as well as from the land. For though the Hebrews scarcely came in contact with the Mediterranean Sea, yet they were not without fisheries, since the Jordan, before discharging itself into the large lake, of unexampled saltness, called the Dead Sea, forms in its course two other lakes, the Sea of Mekom (Lake Huleh) and the Sea of Gennesaret {Galilee or Tiberias) ; and the latter of these abounded in fish. The principal political divisions of Palestine in New Testament times were (beginning at the northern extremity) Galilee, Samaria, Jud^a (all on the west of the Jordan), and Per^a (on the eastern side). Of these, the most important in connection with New Testament history are the first three, which it is desirable to describe in some detail. AU of the Jordan north of the Galilean lake, and one-third of its length to the south of that, was (it is said) reckoned to Galilee,^ so that the boundaries of the latter reached from the foot of Lebanon to the southern edge of the plam of Esdraelon ; and comprised the former territories of 1 Hastings, D.B., ii. p. 99. It was originaUy a small district near Phoenicia (1 K.g. IX. 11). TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE 3 the tribes of Asher, Zebultm, Issachar, and Naphtali. Ttougt virtually confined to the west of the Jordan and the lake, the province in strictness " ran right round the lake, and included most of the level coastland on the east." ^ It is the most productive and attractive part of Palestine, for though its northern division is mountainous, yet since its southern half embraces Esdraelon, it takes in a great proportion of flat or gently undvdating ground. The mists which condense on the summits of Lebanon furnish the country with copious springs, so that its knoUs are well timbered ; and cornfields, vineyards, and olive groves (cf . Dl. xxxiii. 24-28) abound. And as the fruitfulness of the soil was supplemented by the store of fish obtained from the lake, and the climate is genial, conditions of life were very favourable, and the population was dense. The prospects, where the ground rises, are exceedingly varied and impressive. In the south the verdant level of Esdraelon extends to the base of the Samaritan hills ; on the west stretch the tranquil waters of the Mediterranean ; on the east is the oval lake ; whilst in the north the highlands, not sombre like those of Judsea, but exhilarating in their aspect, are backed by the massed heights of Lebanon, and the graceful cone of Hermon. Galilee had formerly been known as Galilee {i.e. " circle ") of the nations (Is. ix. 1, cf. 1 Mace. v. 15), and for long after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua it had had a large Gentile population which the Israelites had been unable to exterminate. After the deportation of the Ten Tribes in 722, the non-Israelite element must have been greatly increased, and the Jews who had settled there were in 164 B.C. all brought back to Judaea (p. 32). But 60 years later submission to the Mosaic Law was enforced upon its inhabitants (p. 37), who eventually became quite loyal to the Jewish connection. Nevertheless, the Galileans remained in many respects diSerent from the people of Judsea. Through their situation they were separated by a considerable distance from Jerusalem and were brought into close contact with non-Jewish nationalities. Not only was Phoenicia near their borders, but through their territory there passed the roads connecting Damascus and the East with the Mediterranean sea- board, Egypt, and the south. The main route from the former crossed the Jordan half-way between the lakes of Merom and Gennesaret, and then sent ofi branches to Acco, to the maritime plain (across Carmel), to Samaria and Jerusalem, and to the Jordan vaUey and Jericho. Conse- quently the Galileans were much more open to new impressions, and much less under the influence of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, than was the population of the Jewish capital. Of the towns of Galilee the richest in sacred associations is Nazaeeth (Na^aQed, Na^agh:, Nd^aga), the modern El Nazirah. In position it lies midway between the Mediterranean and the lake, being almost due west of the southern extremity of the latter. It is buUt on the slopes of a basin among the heights on the north of Esdraelon, and little can be seen from the town itself but the rim of the encircling hills, though from the summit of these some of the splendid views previously alluded to (see above) are obtained. In our Lord's time it was insignificant, and it 1 G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land, p. 458. i NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY was regarded with contempt even in its own neighbourhood {Joh. i. 46;. Overhanging the town is an abrupt limestone clifE (30 or 40 feet high) ; and at some distance from it there is a precipice descendmg 80 to 300 feet (cf. Lk. iv. 29). Only two places in the vicinity of Nazareth receive mention in the Gospels ; one is Cana of Galilee,^ the other is Nain. A good deal of uncertainty exists with respect to the site of the former. It stood on higher ground than Capernaum (cf. Joh. ii. 12) ; and has been identified with two places, the modern Kefr Kenna, Z\ miles north-east of Nazareth, and Khirhet Kand or Kana Jelil, a more distant village 7 or 8 miles north north-east of Nazareth. As the name of the second corresponds closely to the ancient title (Jelil is the Hebrew GalU, " circle," p. 3), and the surroundings of the locality are reedy (the Hebrew Kdndh means " a reed "), probability seems to be in its favour. The site of Nain, on the contrary, is undisputed. It is the modem Nain on the northern slope of " Little Heimon "—the ancient " hill of Moreh "—a desolate-looking height rising abruptly at the eastern end of Esdraelon. The three towns, or villages, just named are the only spots among the hills of Galilee which, so far as is recorded, were frequented or visited by our Lord, Whose ministry was chiefly discharged amid the cities situated by the marge of the lake. This lies in a deep hollow, 689 feet below sea-level, and is 12 miles long by 8 across. The descent from the western uplands to the southern half of the lake is extremely steep ; but along the northern halt the hiUs on the west retire, leaving a plain of some 10 square miles in extent, now called El Ghuweir. Elsewhere around the edge of the water there runs a narrow level belt of green sward, fringed by a strand of pebbles. In this sheltered hoUow a semi-tropical climate prevails, and the vegetation which clothes the foot of the hiUs is peculiarly rich. Of the towns on or near the shore the most interesting for New Testament history is Capernaum, the scene of numerous incidents. Its situation, however, is left by the New Testament writers in great obscurity, and the only indications of either its position or its size are the facts that it was close to the lake, contained, or was near, a customs house (Mk. ii. 1, 14), and was a Roman military post (Mt. viii. 5=Lk. vii. 2). To be a convenient site for the collection of tolls, it must have stood on a road traversed by merchants. Two localities have been identified with it. One is Khan Minyeh, within the plain of El Ghuweir, described by Josephus {B.J. iii. 10, 8) as of wonderful fertility and beauty. Here are remains of buildings (though not extensive), and not very far away are springs, one being of great volume. The other locality is Tel Hum, which lies nearer the mouth of the Upper Jordan, 2\ miles away. Here there occur heaps of shattered masonry stretching for more than a mile along the shore, and a ruined synagogue. The situation of the first-mentioned place is considered by many observers to answer best to the allusions in the New Testament and in Josephus, the latter applying the appellation Capernaum to a copious fountain. Others, however, deem the second, as nearest the border between the territories of Hero d Antipas and Herod Philip (p. 51), AshJ[Alh^itL)° ^^"'^'^'^ " ^^^ ^*"* (Kanah) in the former territory of TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE 5 the most suitable for the collection of tolls ; and it is in favour of it that its name appears to reproduce closely in its final syllable the termination of the original Aramaic CapJia/r-nahum, whilst the greater extent of the ruins here points to its being the site of an important town, such as Capernaum must have been. Choeazin has been plausibly identified with a ruin called Kerdzeh, in a valley 2| mUes north of Tel Hum. South of Capernaum was Magdala, which is with much likelihood identified with El Mejdel; the place had some reputation in antiquity for the manufacture of woollen cloth and for dyeing. At the point where the lake, as it stretches southward, begins to narrow, was situated Tiberias, the most important city in Galilee, and the capital of the tetrarchy. It was built by Herod Antipas on the site of the ancient Rahkath {Josh. xis. 35) ; and was more Gentile in character than most of the Galilean towns. It was little frequented by the Jews, since Antipas was reported to have disturbed the tombs of the dead in la3ring the foundations of his new buildings, and so to have polluted the latter. At the extremity of the lake was TaricJwcB (so called from the dried fish (toqIxv) prepared there) ; but though it was a town of some note, it is not named in the New Testament. Next to Galilee, in a southerly direction, lay the region of Samaria. The northern limit was En^annim (Jenin) on the edge of Esdraelon, whilst the southern border extended westward, down the present Wddy Ishar, to the Shephelah, and eastward, down the lower end of the Wddy Farah, to the Jordan. The district, which roughly corresponded to the territory of the tribes Manasseh and Ephraim was less than 25 miles across from north to south, with an undulating surface and very fertile soil. The chief city, Samaria, the capital of the old Ephraimite kingdom, was destroyed by the Jewish leader, John Hyrcanus (p. 37), rebuilt by Pompey, and embellished by Herod the Great, who called it Sebaste, in honour of Augustus (EE^aardq). Another important locality was Shechem (the modern Ndblus), between Mounts Ebal (north) and Gerizim (south). Near this, to the east, was Sychar {El Askar). There is a copious spring at Askar, and near it, a short way on the road to Jerusalem, is Jacob's Well. A little distance east of Sychar is Shalem or Salim, which has been identified with the Salim, near which was .^non, where (according to the Fourth Evangelist, iii. 23) John baptized. Salim is a village near the Wady Earah, visible from Mount Gerizim, whilst some ruins called Ainun are situated about seven miles to the north. But, as these are on the top of a hill without any water, whereas at the .^non of Joh. iii. 23 the writer states that there was much water, there are difficulties in the way of identification.^ From the border of Samaria there stretches towards the Sinaitic desert the land of JuD^asA, the least attractive and least fertile portion of western Palestine. It is a bare and waterless plateau, a large part of it being between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above sea-level, parched and barren. The eastern side overlooking the Dead Sea was known as Jeshitnon (" Desola- tion"), a solitary waste of ridged and furrowed rock, which is cut at intervals ' A Wady Suleim occurs near Anata, the ancient Anathoth, not far from Jerusalem. 6 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY by deep gullies. This ends abruptly in olifis which descend precipitously some 1,200 feet to the margin of the water. The western flank is less declivitous, the plateau breaking up into a number of more or less detached hills, separated by deep and tortuous ravines, with here and there a wider vaUey. From the base of these hills there rise farther westward the series of lower heights constituting the Shephelah or Lowland (p. 2). The exposed situation and stony soil of the centre of Judsea afiord but little scope for agriculture ; and the principal employment of its inhabitants is the pasturage of sheep. The Shephelah, on the contrary, where streams abound, admits of profitable cultivation ; and cereals and fruits are easily produced there. Of the Judsean cities the most important and interesting is Jerusalem ; and of the situation and aspect of this in New Testament times a separate account is given below (p. 9). As there explained, the Jewish capital is flanked on the east by the gorge of the Kjcdkon ; whilst on the farther side of this there extends a range of heights, one of the eminences of which is the Mount of Olives. On the south-eastern slope of this stood Bethany (the modern El Azariyeh). This is now a small and deca5dng village, which gets its present name from its association with Lazarus {J oh. xi. 1) .' Of the hamlet of Bethphage that once lay near it no trace survives ; but it seems to have been situated somewhere between Bethany and Jerusalem. Ephram (Joh. xi. 54) is the modern et Taiyebeh, some 14 miles north north-east of the latter. The site of Emmaus, described as three score furlongs distant from the capital {Lk. xxiv. 13), is uncertain. The name appears to be reproduced in the modern Amwds, 20 miles away in a west north-west direction, near Aijalon ; but this does not agree with the distance mentioned. A more probable identification is Mozah (Beit Mizzah), about 55 furlongs from Jerusalem. Near this is the village of Koloniyeh, an obvious corruption of the Latin Colonia, which must have derived its name fcom a settlement of veterans established there by Titus (Josephus, B.J. vii. 6, 6), and which is said to have been called Emmaus at the time when it was given to the soldiers. Others suggest El Kubeibeh, 63 stadia from the capital, towards Lydda. Akimathea is probably er-Ram, a village 5 miles due north of Jerusalem ; though some identify it with Eamathaim (1 Sam. i. 1), the modern Beit Eima, 2 miles north of Timnathah, in the district once known as Moimt Ephraim. Five miles south of the city is Bethlehem, situated along the mam ridge of the Judeean plateau and built on a narrow platiorm projecting from the watershed. Vineyards are still luxuriant there and ohve groves and fig trees are numerous. Some 17 miles south south-west IS Hebron, a city which, prominent in the Old Testament, is not named in the New Testament. On the northern frontier of Western Palestine there lay along the Mediterranean coast the territory of Phcenicia, including the important towns of SiDON, Saeepta (formerly Zarephath) and Tyre ; whHst south of the latter, near the promontory of Carmel was the port of Ptolemais (the ancient Acco and the modern Acre). South of Carmel and situated either on the sea or within the maritime plain were a number of places TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE 7 that were seldom or never Jewish, possessions. The most important was GffiSARBA, previously known as Straton's Tower, and converted by Herod the Great into a splendid harbour. When Judaea was reduced to a Eoman province, Caesarea became its administrative capital. Other towns that may be mentioned in order from north to south are Joppa, Apollonia, AzoTUS (anciently AsMod), Ascalon, Anthedon, and Ga2A. The last was originally 3 miles from the sea, but being destroyed in 96 B.C. (p. 38), it was rebuilt later on a site closer to the shore. N.E. and S.E. from Joppa were Antipatris and Lydda, within the Plain ; whUst in the Shephelah were Modin and Gazara (the Gezer of the Old Testament). Along the southern border of Judsea there stretched the country of Idum^a (the ancient Edom), which is of interest as being the home of the family of Herod. In the description of the region east of the Jordan the order observed will be, as before, from north to south. Beyond the sources of the river, and outside Palestine proper, were two small states of which the capitals were Ghalcis and Abila. The first was situated ia the gorge between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ; it is not mentioned ia the New Testament, but requires notice here as being the kingdom of Herod, brother of Agrippa I and of Herodias, and grandson of Herod the Great. The second of the two places just named stood on the north slope of Hermon, and its territory appears to have included both Hermon and Anti-Lebanon. South-east of Abila was Damascus, a place of much antiquity and of great size, and having even now a population of 150,000. In the second quarter of the first century a.d. it was in the possession of an Arabian called Aretas, who governed it by an ethnarch. South of Damascus stretched a district which St. Luke (iii. 1) calls " the Itursean and Trachonite country." Trachonitis comprised the rugged plateau called Trachon (now known as El Leja) together with the region lying between it and the ranges of Hermon and Anti-Lebanon. But as Anti-Lebanon was the home of the iTUEiEANS, a race of archers, whose influence extended over part of the level ground at the foot of the range between it and the Leja, the Evangelist seems to have used for one and the same country a designation com- pounded from names respectively appropriate only to the extremities of it. On the southern slopes of Hermon was CjESaeea Philippi (the earlier Panias). Between Trachonitis and the Jordan lay Gaulanitis (which got its appellation from the city of Golan {Josh. xx. 8) in the ancient Bashan) ; and within this, near the spot where the Jordan enters the Lake of Galilee, was Bethsaida Julias (p. 51), which is generally identified with a ruin called El Tell. Half-way down the eastern shore of the lake is a locahty called Khersa, which seems to be the site of the Geeasa of Mk. v. 1. Some of the towns on or near the lake, having a Hellenistic population, con- stituted a confederation of Ten, and were known collectively as the Decapolis. They originally comprised Scythopolis, Pella, Gadara, Hippos, Dium, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Raphana, Kanatha and Damascus. These, with the exception of Damascus (which in position was far removed from the rest, and has been noticed above), and Scythopolis, which was in the Jordan valley west of the river, were all situated east of the river or the 8 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY lake, though not clustered together. Pella was in the river valley; Gadara on higher ground above it ; Hippos on the lake shore ; Dium and Gerasa (the latter distinct from the Gerasa of Uh. v. 1) were in ancient Gilead ; Philadelphia was in what was once the territory of the Ammonites ; whilst Raphana and Kanatha were in the region known as the Hauran, south of El Leja. c i. t i * The country on the farther side of the Jordan, south of the Lake ot Galilee, is drained by three rivers, the YarmuJc, flowing into the Jordan near the southern end of the lake, the Arnon, discharging itself into the Dead Sea, half-way between its two extremities, and the Jabbok, midway between the other two rivers ; and the name Per^a probably applied to all the district from the Yarmuk to the Arnon, though Josephus {B.J. iii. 3, 3) describes it as extending from Pella to Macheerus (p. 9). It thus coincided with the former territories of the tribes Manasseh, Gad and Reuben. It is an undulating tableland of high elevation, not unfertile (since many of its watercourses are perennial), but mainly given over to pasture, and chequered in places with extensive tracts of woodland. In connection with New Testament history it is the least interesting of the divisions of Palestine, for though it was probably traversed by our Lord on His journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, no localities within it are named in association with that occasion. One place, however, is mentioned in Joh. i. 28 as having been a scene of the preaching of John the Baptist. This is Bethany beyond Jordan, which has been identified with some ruins called Betdne (probably the Betonim of Josh. xiii. 26). It is situated on high ground, a little south of the Jabbok, near the modem Es Salt. In Joh. i. 28, however, the Syriac versions (cur. and sin.) replace Bethany by Bethabarah, which has been taken to be the same as a ford on the Jordan called Abara near Scythopolis (the modern Beisan^). But such a name, meaning " house of passing-over," must have been applicable to more fords than one,^ and may have denoted a spot near Jericho, where the Jordan could be crossed {Josh. ii. 7). It is difficult to feel great con- fidence in the details of the early part of the Johannine narrative (see p. 223) ; and Mh. i. 5 suggests that the principal scene of the Baptist's preaching was west of the Jordan, in the neighbourhood of Judaea, although it is, of course, possible that he did not confine himself to any single region. It remains to say something about the singular ravine which is the most striking peculiarity of Palestine, and which severs it into two halves. The depression within which the Jordan flows extends the entire length of the country from north to south. Commencing as a mere mountain defile between Lebanon and Hermon, it deepens and widens as it stretches south- ward, and eventually expands into a broad valley, in some places 14 miles across and at its lowest point nearly 1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. This valley is traversed by the river, the sources of which are the mountain torrents springmg from the sides of Hermon. These unite near the ancient city of Dan into a single stream, which plunges 1 See Sanday, Sacred Sites of the Gospel, p. 23. ^ G. A. Smith, H.O.U.L., p. 496 note. The Site of Jerusalem. TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE 9 down the great gorge just described, and finally, finding no exit, floods tie floor of the valley at its southern end, and forms the salt expanse of the Dead Sea. In the course of its journey, it falls some 2,500 feet. The secondary bed which its ceaseless flow has cut in the bottom of the main valley is 100 feet deep, and here and there almost a mile wide ; but it is so overgrown by a tangled thicket of canes and willows that the present river winds its way through the jungle in almost complete obscurity. Of the cities situated in the valley those which were of most importance in New Testament times were Scythopolis, Pella (p. 7) and Jericho. The first on the west of the river was the ancient Betfishan, and became known as Scythopolis in the third century B.C. ; it was situated near a road leading up from a ford (Bethabara, p. 8) through the valley of Jezreel into the plain of Esdraelon. Pella was on the eastern edge of the valley, about half-way between the Yarmuk and the Jabbok, and stood at the base of the eastern tableland. It was thither that the Christians retired from Jerusalem before the final phase of its siege. Jericho owed its importance to its command of the southern fords of the Jordan and to the exceptional fertility of its immediate surroundings. It stood on the right bank, at the foot of the Judsean hiUs (whence it was reached by the Wady Kelt, in the sides of which there are numerous caves, the resort of robbers, cf . Lk. x. 30), and was 6 miles from the fords and about 10 from the river's mouth. The fruitfulness of the neighbourhood, which was famous for its groves of balsam and palm trees, was augmented by irrigation works constructed by Herod the Great ; and both he and his son Archelaus rebuilt and enlarged the city. On the heights above the eastern shore of the Dead Sea was the fortified palace of Machcerus, which Herod the Great built on a platform overlooking the picturesque ravine of the CaHrrhoe, which opens upon the lake about 12 mUes from its northern end. Probably at the shallow southern end of the Dead Sea once stood the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, though some authorities maintain that they were situated at the northern extremity of the lake.'- The City of Jerusalem The origin and meaning of the name Jerusalem are both uncertain. In Hebrew it has the vowels of a dual — YerusJialaim, which may have reference to the two hiUs on which the place stands, or to the Upper and Lower cities of which during its later history it consisted. But it is transliterated in the LXX as 'IsgovaaXij/i, and the last vowel of the shortened form Shalem {Ps. Ixxvi. 2) is in Hebrew also e ; so Yerushalem may be regarded as the primitive vocalization of the name amongst the Israelites. But the earliest known appellation of the city is Urusalim, which occurs in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, dating from the fourteenth century B.C. This is a Babylonian form of the name ; but whether it was from this that the Hebrew form was adapted, or whether the latter is the original Canaanite name which the Babylonians modified is uncertain. If the ' See Driver, Genesis, pp. 170, 171. 10 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY name is Babylonian its meaning is probably " city of Salim " (Salim being a god known in Phoenicia, Assyria, and North Arabia). But if the Hebrew form of the word is the earliest, the signification is more doubtful ; of various conjectures perhaps " Shalem founds " is best.^ Several other names at different periods were applied to the city. In Jiid. xix. 10, 1 Ch. xi. 4, it is called Jebus ; but this is probably only derived by inference from the fact that its inhabitants in the time of David were called Jebusites. A more frequent appellation is Zion (from a Hebrew root meaning " to be dry "), which appears to have designated originally only the lower extremity of the eastern of the two hills alluded to above. By the Roman Emperor Hadrian the native name for the city was replaced by jElia Capitolina (p. 59). In the New Testament the name " Jerusalem " appears both as 'lEQovaaXriij. (as in the LXX) and 'legoadXv/xa (the latter being usually a neuter plural). The site of Jerusalem consists of twin promontories projecting south- wards from the main plateau of Judaea and separated from the surrounding hUls on the east and west by two deep ravines (which finally unite), and from one another by a shallow valley. The depth of the ravines rendered the city in early times almost impregnable on three sides : only on the north where the summits of the hills connect with the plateau could it be attacked with much prospect of success. The eastern of the two promontories is flanked on the one side by the gorge of the Kidron, now called the Wady Sitti Mariam (beyond which rises the Mount of Olives, 2,693 feet above sea-level), and on the other side by the shallow valley mentioned above, which, formerly known as the TyropcBon (or valley of the oheesemakers), is now called El Wad. The top of the eastern hill is not uniformly level, but is broken by four distinct summits, the highest of which is 2,524 feet above the sea, but only little more than 200 above the bed of the Kidron. The western hiU has on its east side the valley of El Wad, and on its western side the second of the two ravines alluded to, formerly called the valley of the Son of Hinnom, but now the Wady er Rababi. This hill is higher by one or two hundred feet than the eastern hill, and reaches to more than 2,600 feet above the sea, but is much flatter. It descends very abruptly at its southern extremity, which is 400 feet above the point where the valleys of El Wad and Er Rababi meet. During the later period of the Hebrew monarchy, and through the whole of the post-exilic age, Jerusalem extended over both the eastern and the western hUls ; but it is not certain when the occupation of the second of these began. Solomon's Temple (the site of which was retained for the two succeedmg Temples, pp. 14, 47) was erected on the eastern hiU ; but It has been held by some that the Jebusite fortress of Zion, which was captured m the previous reign of David, was on the western hiU, which IS superior m height to the other. Probably, however, the earUest Jeru- s alem was on the southern extremity of the eastern e minence alone, ston^i^'^oi xxxS.^""^*^^^^^^'''- ^'^^ ''''' ''''' "^ "--^ °f "-y^S a corner TOPOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE li for this, unlike the western ridge, has an accessible water supply (at Gihon in the Kidron gorge) ; and the relatively low elevation of this part of the hiU in comparison with the site of the Temple accounts for the statement that when Solomon caused the Ark to be removed from Zion to the Temple it was " brought up " to the latter (1 Kg. viii. 4). Zion was probably the citadel (^ aKQo.) during the Greek period (cf. 1 Mace. i. 33) ; and Josephus {Ant. xii. 5, 4), who describes it as built in the lower city {rj xdrco ndXtg), must have been mistaken in stating that it overlooked the Temple, though its garrison would be in a position to interfere with the approaches to the latter.^ The side of the city most open to attack was the north (p. 10), and here three walls were successively built. The earliest ran west from the centre of the western wall of the Temple area ; whilst the second, outside this, continued the northern wall of the same area,^ and so brought the whole of the latter within the line of the fortification. Both these walls existed in the time of our Lord. Outside the second there gradually came into being a suburb called Bezetha ; and this was eventually comprised within the city through the erection beyond it of a third wall by Herod Agrippa I (a.d. 37-44). The mural boundaries of Jerusalem during our Lord's lifetime formed an irregular trapezium. Among the buildings and other localities which were enclosed by the fortifications, it will sufiice to enumerate those which are of interest in connection with the New Testament. (1) On the WESTERN hiU was the Prmtorium, once the palace of Herod the Great, and afterwards the residence of the Eoman procurator, whenever he transferred his quarters from Ceesarea to Jerusalem (p. 54). Near this was the gate (now called the JafEa gate) through which our Lord probably passed when led forth to be crucified outside the walls (most likely some- where on the ground afterwards covered by the suburb Bezetha). (2) East- ward of, and opposite to, the palace of Herod stood the palace of the Maccabean princes, which has been thought to be the residence occupied by Herod Antipas when he visited Jerusalem {Lk. xxiii. 7). (3) At the southern extremity of this hUl is the so-called cenaculum, which, from the fourth century a.d., has been believed to mark the site of the house where the Last Supper was held ; and near it is (4) the reputed residence of Caiaphas. (5) South of the eastern hiU, at its foot, is the pool ofSiloam, fed by a conduit from Gihon (the modern Virgin's Spring) in the Kidron ravine. (6) Higher up the eastern hiU probably stood Zion, the citadel. (7) North of this, at a still higher elevation, was the area of the Temple, at the north-west corner of which was (8) the castle of Antonia {Acts xxi. 34), reached from the Temple courts by a flight of steps {Acts xxi. 35). In the suburb Bezetha was (9) the pool of Bethesda,^ if this can plausibly be identified with the present Birket Israil. When Bezetha was incorporated in the city itself, the new wall then built may have comprised within its compass the sites of Golgotha and of the tomb wherein our Lord's 1 G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. p. 447, 8. 2 Smith, op. cit., i. 208. 3 In Joh. V. 2 the uncials A C have BijffeaSd, NL 'B-qBiaSa, 12 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Body was laid after His crucifixion. The garden of Gethsemane was situated at the base of the Mount of Olives, and reached by crossing the Kidron {Mk. xiv. 26, Joh. xviii. 1). When our Lord visited Jerusalem shortly before His arrest and death, His voluntary movements were probably confined to the eastern hill, on which the Temple stood. Perhaps not till after His arrest at Geth- semane was He taken to the western hill, where there were (according to tradition) the house of the High Priest, and the Prsetorium of the Eoman governor ; though the Last Supper is likewise associated with the same locality. PLAN OF JERUSALEM 1 Palace of Herod 2 Palace of the Maccabees 3 CenactUum4; House of Caiaphls 7 Th^T , Pool of Siloam. 6 Z/on ' The Temple area 8 Castle ofAntonia wnt^h c^, • 9 PoolofBethesda lO yirffPn^iol'^Z^'^''^ *» To jy/Mi^-afe the fortifications and the sites of the chief buildings in Jerusalem tn the itnte of Chfist, II POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS AMONG THE JEWS FROM THE EXILE TO THE FALL OF JERUSALEM THE circumstance that the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, whereas the New Testament is written in Greek, although all of the one and most of the other proceed from men of the same race, is significant of the great difierence in the conditions under which they were produced. During the period within which the writings of the Old Testa- ment had their origin the Hebrew nation was an unimportant factor in the principal movements of the ancient world, and occupied a backwater in the stream of human history. Submerged successively beneath each of the great empires which in turn dominated the East — Assyria, Baby- lonia and Persia — it remained largely unaffected by its contact with them, and it was itself too insignificant and isolated to be an intellectual and spiritual force among them. But it was otherwise when the Mace- donians advanced eastwards and broke the strength of Persia at Issus (333) and Arbela ^ (331). By the conquests of Alexander and the estab- lishment, after his death, of Macedonian dynasties in Syria and Egypt, the Hebrew race was swept into the main current of human progress. Thenceforward, whilst not itself uninfluenced by Western ideas, it reacted still more powerfully upon its surroundings. The Hebrew language and the related Aramaic began to be replaced for literary purposes by Greek. Knowledge of Greek enabled Jewish thinkers to become ac- quainted with the products of Hellenic culture ; and this modified in some degree their outlook upon the problems of existence. But the use of Greek had the far greater result of making known to non-Jewish peoples Jewish religious writings ; and through them religious beliefs, which otherwise might not have circulated beyond the limits of the Jewish community, eventually penetrated throughout the Western world. i. The Persian Period List of Persian kings from the End of the Jewish Exile to the Fall of the Persian Empire. B.C. Gyrus {capture of Babylon) ....... 538 Cambyaes .......... 529 ^ Also called Gaugamela. 13 14 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Pseudo-Smerdis Dariu3 I (Hyetaspis) Xerxes I . • • Artaxerxes I (Longimanus) Xerxes II . • • Sogdianus Darius II (Nothus) Artaxerxes II (Mnemon) Artaxerxes III (Ochus) . Arses . • • Darius III (Codomannus) . ,, ' , Overthrow of the Persian Empire by Alexander B C. 522 521 485 464 424 424 423 405 358 337 335 330 With the conquest of Judah by the Babylonian Idng Nebuchadrezzar the last of the Hebrew kingdoms came to an end in 587 B.C., and was not revived for more than 400 years (p. 36). The supremacy of Babylon was short (587-538) ; but its displacement by that of Persia made no alteration in the dependent condition of the Hebrew people, who remained subjects of the Persian empire for two centuries (538-330). Nevertheless an event of the greatest moment in their history occurred when Cyrus the Elamite, after taking Babylon, determined in 537 to concede to such of the Jews as desired it, restoration to their own soU, for it was to the interest of his empire to have on the western border of his territory where it touched Egypt a population conciliated in this way, whom gratitude was likely to render loyal. How many of the Jews who were settled in Babylonia took advantage of this grace is very uncertain ; but though a number of the exiles continued to remain in the land of their captivity, a certain proportion ^ under a descendant of the house of David called Zerubbabel, who had been appointed by the Persian authori- ties governor (or Tir-shatha), returned to Palestine, and there enjoyed, though tributary, some measure of self-government. The territory which they occupied was much smaller than that embraced within the earlier kingdom of Judah ; and some conception of the restricted area within which they dwelt may be derived from the fact that, though it extended eastwards to the Jordan and included Jericho, yet westwards it did not reach beyond the Shephelah (p. 2), for it did not comprise Gezer ; and neither Ramah, 5 mUes north of Jerusalem, nor Hebron, some 22 miles south of the same city, was within its boundaries (the former belonging to the Persian province of Samaria, and the latter being in the possession of the Edomites). Hence the region cannot have measured much more than 20 miles from north to south, or more than 30 from east to west. The first collective work undertaken by the Jews on their return to their own country was the erection of the Second Temple. The foundation was laid in the reign of Cyrus in 536 ; but in consequence of impediments (p. 15), the building was not completed tUl the reign of Darius I in 516. It is probable that its ground-plan was the same as that of Solomon's previous structure, which consisted of a porch, a central hall and an inner 1 The number is represented in Ez. ii. 64 f . as nearly 50,000, but the items con- stituting this figure only amount to about 30,000. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 15 sanctuary. Unfortunately no complete description of the second Temple survives, and even its dimensions are imperfectly stated, for its length is not mentioned at all, and its height and breadth are both given as 60 cubits (Ez. vi. 3). The contents of the new building differed in some respects from that of the old, the ten lampstands made by Solomon being replaced by one, and the Most Holy Place having nothing except a stone marking the site where the Ark (now destroyed) had once been. In front of the whole there were two courts (1 Mace. iv. 38, 48, cf. 3 Is. Ixii. 9), and not one only. It was 72 years after the completion of the Temple that the city was successfully surrounded by a wall. In David's time Jerusalem seems to have been confined to the eastern hUl (p. 10), but by the date of the Exile it had extended to the western also ; and when in 444 Nehemiah decided to fortify it, the walls he constructed embraced both hills. With the restoration of a section of the Jewish people to their own soil there came into existence the distinction between those who inhabited Judsea and those who constituted the " Dispersion." In a measure, indeed, there had been a " dispersion " ever since a large proportion of the kingdom of Israel had been carried into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 ; and the number of persons of Hebrew race who were settled out- side the limits of Palestine was considerably enlarged by those Jews who, after being deported to Babylonia, remained there, instead of returning to their former country with Zerubbabel. Subsequent events caused a still further diffusion, and in course of time the extent and importance of the Dispersion not only in Asia but also in Africa and Europe became very great, eventually exercising much influence upon the history both of Judaism and of Christianity (see p. 77). To the north of the Jewish community in Judaea there dwelt the Samaritans, who were themselves, in part, of Hebrew stock and, in part, the descendants of the settlers whom various Assjn-ian sovereigns had successively established in Samaria, after the downfall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 (2 Kg. xvii. 24, Ez. iv. 2, 10). These, because they came from Cuthah (near Babylon) among other places, were called Cuthites by the Jews. With the immigrants the residue of the native population amalgamated, and in the mixed community that resulted Hebrew influence preponderated. For though at first the religion that prevailed was syn- cretistic, combining the worship of Jehovah with that of various heathen deities (2 Kg. xvii. 33, 41), yet ultimately the Samaritans became mono- theists, rendering devotion to Jehovah exclusively. In the time of Zerub- babel (536), they desired to co-operate with the returned Jews in building the second Temple {Ez. iv. 1-2) ; but their proposal being rejected by reason of the Jews' desire not to contaminate themselves with a community whose origin they regarded as tainted, the Samaritans in revenge impeded the completion of the Temple by making misrepresentations to the Persian authorities (Ez. iv. 4, 5, 24). About 433 the cleavage thus occasioned was widened by Nehemiah, who tried to prevent intermarriage between the two communities ; and a member of the high priest's house, who had wedded a daughter of SanbaUat, one of the leaders of the Samaritans 16 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY {Neh. iv. 2), was expelled by him (presumably because he would not repudi- ate his wife i). The social division thus created was followed by a per- manent religious separation. The Samaritans were loyal to the leading principles of Judaism. They acknowledged the law of Moses, practismg circumcision, and observing the Sabbath and the prescribed annual festi- vals ; they looked for a Messiah ^ (on the strength of the prediction in Dt. xviii. 15, 18, of. Joh. iv. 25) ; and they even adopted the regulation which allowed only a single centre of sacrificial worship. But instead of the Temple at Jerusalem they had as their sanctuary a temple: erected about 430 B.C. on Mount Gerizim (p. 5), the hill wherefrom the blessings of the Law had been pronounced (according to Dt. xi. 29, Josh. viii. 33, 34) ; and, whilst accepting the Pentateuch, they rejected all the other writings which the Jews ultimately deemed canonical. It was probably the high priest's relative expelled by Nehemiah (as mentioned above), and called by Josephus Manasseh, who gave the Samaritans their Bible. When, forced to leave Jerusalem he would naturally take refuge with his father-in- law ; and he doubtless carried with him a copy of the Pentateuch which had now been completed (p. 17) ; and this would give him a special qualification for ministering as priest in the new temple reared on Gerizim. It is not perhaps unlikely that the final purification of the Samaritan worship from heathen admixture was the result of the introduction among the Samaritans of the Law-book brought by Manasseh. In any case, the Samaritans eventually became free from paganism, so that the Jews did not universally deny that they might belong to the congregation of Israel, or invariably treat them as on the same level as heathens.* The body of exiles who returned with Ezra in 458 brought with them a code of laws much more elaborate in character than any that had existed previously. There had been several codes in pre-exibc times. Two are embodied in the constituent document of the Pentateuch which is com- monly known as the Prophetic narrative, and dates from the ninth, or at latest, the eighth century, whilst another occurs in the book of Deutero- nomy, dating from the seventh century. But in the course of the Exile, and in the century that followed it (when, in the absence of any independent political life, the interest of the people was concentrated upon their reli- gion), a more extensive code was drawn up, and conveyed to Jerusalem by Ezra and his companions. This code, probably combined with the previously existing documents into the Pentateuch, in practically its present shape, was solemnly promulgated in 444 {Neh. viii. ix). The laws of this code, with some accompanying history conveniently designated the Priestly narrative, were, as contrasted with those of earlier origin, marked by several distinctive features, the most important being the u2J^^^ It^m * "^'^ *°< "^^"^"^l^^ ^fe was recognized in the Deuteronomio same cod^ (^i f-sf'"''' ^^ ' ^^^^"""^^ ^tli Canaanites were forbidden by the , ,^!^^^^ ^^^^-iif^- " *S^ ••^s.to'^e'-," i-e- of true religion and Divine favour, from tubh (Hebrew shubh) : see Expositor, March, 1895. io.vuui, num ' See Edersheim, Life and Times of Jems, I. 400-403, JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 17 institution of circumcision as a religious ordinance,^ an enlarged calendar of festivals, the establisliment of an annual fast (the day of Atonement), a number of very minute enactments respecting the ritual of holy days and sacrifices, and the restriction of the priesthood, hitherto shared by all Levites, to the descendants of Aaron. The expansion of the earlier legislation by this last body of laws, and the consolidation of all the codes, together with the historical narratives associated with them, into a single corpus — the Pentateuch — gave to the Hebrew religion a complexion which was in some measure new. As the authorship of the whole of the five books was ascribed to Moses, all their contents were believed to come down from a venerable antiquity ; and the enactments comprised in them, whether of an ethical or a cere- monial nature, were held to have been communicated to the great legislator by God Himself. The nation's duties in every direction were now felt to be precisely defined, and assumed a statutory character ; all command- ments were regarded as of equal obligation ; and a sense of proportion was no longer preserved in the estimate of their relative value. In conse- quence, piety was not so much faith in the Divine goodness and spon- taneous devotion to the Divine service as fear of the Divine severity and a meticulous anxiety to fulfil the letter of the Divine injunctions. This legalistic conception of religion did not, of course, destroy in fine characters true spirituality, but it inevitably tended in the case of the multitude to render purity of motive of less account than external conduct, and to place ritual on the same level as morality. The introduction, among the post-exilic community, of the legislation contained in the Priestly code had two important institutional results. One of them was the elevation, into a position of great power and prestige, of the High Priest, a title for the chief of the sacerdotal order now adopted for the first time (p. 92). The other was the acquisition of much influence among both the priesthood and the laity by a body of juristic experts, whom the task, first of multiplying copies of the Law and then of expound- ing it, had brought into existence, and who were variously called Scribes {Sopherim, yQafiuaretg), Lawyers (vo/j,ixoi), and Teachers of the Law (vofiodiddaxa^ot) . The importance of the Priesthood serving the Second Temple, in the centuries following the age of Ezra and Nehemiah, was due to two factors. One was the protracted political subordination of the Jewish community to foreign rulers, which, in consequence of the removal of most secular matters from its control, left its ecclesiastical oflGicials paramount among their countrymen. The other was the inference drawn from past calami- ties, which were traced to disloyalty to God and His laws ; so that the people sought to safeguard themselves against further chastisement by showing greater concern for the regulations of their religion, and increased respect for the priests, who were the persons expressly responsible for enforcing them. The chief member of the priesthood, the High Priest, * This is enjoined in Oen. xvii. 9 f., a passage which comes from the Priestly docu- ment. 2 18 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY held Ms office (which was hereditary) for life ; and it was only through superior force that in subsequent times secular rulers made and unmade High Priests at their pleasure (pp. 30-1). The^High Pnest was not only invested with the prerogatives belonging to his sacred office, but, masmuch as in ancient societies there was not the same hard and fast line drawn between secular and religious functions as prevails now, he enjoyed political as well as ecclesiastical authority. Nor did the influence of the pnesthood rest only upon popular sentiment. The enactments of the Law, in the form in which it appeared after the time of Ezra, ensured for the pnests great wealth. In the legislation contained in the latest of the four codes of Law comprised in the Pentateuch, the dues assigned to them were far more extensive than those prescribed in the earlier codes.^ The possession of material resources on such an ample scale reinforced the ascendancy which they had as the hereditary intermediaries between the people and the Deity, and contributed to render them predominant in the common- wealth. Within the Jewish community they were no longer overshadowed by a native sovereign who could evoke the veneration due to the Anointed of Jehovah ; nor was their influence disputed, as in earlier times, by prophets claiming to be directly inspired by God ; so that to their power there was little or no counterpoise. The emergence into importance of the class of Scribes was due to the great reverence now felt for the Law, and the intricacy of its directions, which required authoritative interpretation. At an earlier period acquaintance with the rules of the Law, and the solution of such difficulties as presented themselves in the application of them to practical life were expected of the priests (cf. Mai. ii. 7). But eventually there arose a body of men who, without being priests, devoted themselves to the study of the Law, and became its official exponents. The need of exposition and explanation was all the greater because the Pentateuch was not a work produced at one time, but was a combination of documents composed at difierent times and reflecting conditions of life and phases of thought prevailing in successive periods ; and the more the Law became valued, the more influential and respected became the professed students and interpreters of it. It was from them that the people in general sought instruction about the contents and meaning of the Law, and about the way to observe it in practice. Their decisions constituted a system of oral tradition, and the respect paid to the rules which they laid down was such that it was eventually declared to be more culpable to teach contrary to the precepts of the Scribes than to teach contrary to the written Law itself.2 1 For the emoluments of the Priesthood see Sohiirer, Hist. Jewish People, II. i. 230 f., Bevan, Jerusalem under High Priests, pp. 9-11, and of. below p. 93. " Sohiirer, History of Jewish People, II. i. p. 334, ii. p. 12. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 19 LIST OP HIGH PRIESTS From the Ebttten to the Pall of Jerusalem Jeshua (contemporary with Cyrus, 538- 529 B.C.) JoiaMm Eliashib (c. wUTi Artaxerxes I, 464r-424) Joiada Johanan or Jonathan Jaddua (c. with Alexander the Great, 336-323) Onias I Simon I (the Just) Eleazar (c. with Ptolemy II, 285-246) ^M 5) T1 jlRflf^ jl Onias II (c. with Ptolemy III, 246-221) Simon II Onias III (c. with Antioohus IV, 176-164) Jesus or Jason (c. with Antioohus IV, 175-164) Onias IV or Menelaus (a. with Antioohus IV, 175-164) Jakim or Alcimus (c. with Demetrius I, 162-150) [Judas] 1 Jonathan (153) Simon (142) John Hyroanus (135-105) Aristobulus I (105) Alexander Jannseus (104^83) Hyroanus II (69) Aristobulus II (69-63) Hyroanus II {iterum) Antigonus (40-37) Ananel (c. with Herod the Great, 37-4) Aristobulus III (35) Ananel {iterum) (34) Jesus, son of Phabes Simon, son of Boethos (24) Matthias (5-4) Joseph Joazar Eleazar, son of Boethos (c. with Arohe- laus, 4 B.c.-A.D. 6) Jesus, son of Sie Joazar (iterum) Annas (or Ananus, 6-15),* (c. vnth Quiri- nius, 6) Ishmael, son of Phabi (c. with Valerius Gratus) Eleazar,^ son of Annas. Simon, son of Camithos (17-18) Joseph Caiaphas * (18-36) Jonathan,^ son of Annas (c. with Vitel- lius, 35-39) Theophilus, son of Annas (37 f.) Simon Cautheras (c. with Agrippa I, 41-44) Matthias, son of Aimas Elionaios, son of Cantheras Joseph (c. with Herod of Chalcis, 44-48) Ananias,' son of Nedebaios Ishmael, son of Phabi (c. with Agrippa II, 50-100) Joseph Cabi (61-62) Ananus, son of Annas (62) Jesus, son of Damnaios (62-63) Jesus, son of Gamaliel (63-65) Matthias, son of Theophilos (65) Phannias (67-68) Religion in the Persian Period The experiences of tie Exile and the conditions which prevailed in Judsea for a long time after the Eetum made a deep impression upon those of the Jewish people who had been restored to their own land. They had come to entertain a profound sense both of Jehovah's power and of His purity, so that they were for the most part not only estranged from all tendency to idolatry,^ but were intensely concerned to avoid everything that might infringe the Divine prerogatives, or ofiend the Divine holiness. Their convictions about God's transcendent elevation above the world, and His separateness from every form of evU, influenced * Josephus represents Judas as high priest in Ant. xii. 11. 2, but omits his name from the list of high priests in xx. 10. ' The Annas of Lk. iii. 2. ° Conjectured to be the Alexander of Acts iv. 6. * The Caiaphas of Lk. iii, 2, Mt. xxvi. 57. ' The 'lui/aflas of Acts iv. 6, D. ° The Ananias of Acts xxiii. 2. ' This survey includes features marking the prior Babylonian period. ' The idolatrous practices denounced in 3 Is. Ivii. (Trilo-Isaiah) probably prevailed amongst the population left behind in Palestine. 20 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY not only their forms of worship, but also their theological- speculations ; and in respect of both practices and beliefs they differed in a marked degree from their forefathers of the pre-exilic period. (1) It was the sense of God's sanctity and of the necessity of avoiding in the approach to Him every kind of defilement that dictated the elaborate ceremonial regulations of the Priestly code to which allusion has been made (p. 17). To avoid any profanation of the Divine majesty by the careless use of the Divine name of Jahveh, the very mention of it was avoided by the employment, in speech, of various substitutes such as My Lord (Adonai) or the Name, or the Blessed or the Heavens ; whilst when the consonantal letters of the Hebrew Scriptures were supplied with vowels the consonants of Jahveh received the vowels of Adonai, producing the form Jehovah.i But inasmuch as it is far easier to be careful about external religious observances than to maintain a high standard of morals, there not infrequently co-existed with great scrupulousness in regard to the formal side of religion much inhumanity and even corruption ^ ; whilst at the same time the burden occasioned by the attempt to keep a number of minute rules of conduct inevitably induced a resort to various subterfuges whereby the rules were kept in the letter, though violated in the spirit. The importance which even the prophets of the post-exilic period attached to ceremonial duties contrasts rather strikingly with the attitude of those of an earlier time. The pre-exilic prophets had protested against the idea that rites and ceremonies could be in the sight of God of equal value with the practice of the social virtues ; and had contended that sacrifices and formal homage, if unaccompanied by obedi- ence to His ethical requirements, only angered Him,^ whereas some at least of their successors placed ritual and moral ordinances upon the same plane (cf. 3 Is. Ivi. 2, Iviii. 13-14, Mai. i. 6 f., iii. 7 f.). (2) The enhanced conception which the Jews of the post-exilic age had acquired of God's greatness issued in a heightened consciousness of the peculiar relation in which they believed their race to stand to Him. They felt that between themselves and Gentile nations there was a deep cleavage rendering intimate intercourse with them unlawful. Inter- marriage with neighbouring peoples like the Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians, was forbidden by Ezra ; and even the alliances already con- tracted were dissolved {Ez. x., Neh. xiii. 23 f.). In defence of such measures a plea may, no doubt, be founded on the consideration that otherwise a small and feeble community, deprived of national independence, ran great risk of being absorbed by the heathen populations around it, and of losing its distinctive religious faith. Even in the earliest code of laws prescribed in the Pentateuch, prohibitions occur against unions with the Canaanites (Ex. xxxiv. 12-16). Nevertheless, the exclusiveness of the post-exilic Jews was in some measure a new departure. It did not prevail in the times of the early monarchy, for King David was descended from a marriage 1 The circumstance that the first vowel in these words is respectively « and e depends upon a particular rule of Hebrew vooalization. " Gf. 3 Is. Iviii., Mai. iii. 5 a See Is. i. 10-17, Hoa. vi. 0, Am. v. 21-24, Mic. vi. 6-8, Jer. vii. 4^7, 21-23. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 21 between a Hebrew man and a Moabite woman ; he himself had among his wives a princess of Geshur, a small Aramean state ; and his son Solomon wedded the daughter of the King of Egjrpt, as well as women of various other nationalities. History shows, indeed, that the influence of such unions upon the purity of the Hebrew religion was often injurious.^ Yet whatever excuse there may have been for the policy adopted by Ezra, and his successors in the circumstances of the Jewish people, it could not fail to have prejudicial results through fostering in the Jews themselves spiritual pride and inhumanity, and earning for them the aversion of other .peoples. (3) The deeper conviction of the Divine majesty and purity which marked religion after the exile, and the tendency to regard the Deity as elevated above all immediate contact with the earth and with mankind, led to a great development of Angelology. About the origin of the belief in angels something will be said later (p. 110) : here it is only needful to note the large space which they filled in theological speculation during the period now considered. The idea that God was surrounded by a host of ministering spirits, who were the agents alike of His beneficent purposes and of His retributive judgments was prevalent in Israel from very early times. But in proportion as He came to be viewed as farther and farther removed from the world and from direct converse with men, greater was the importance that was naturally attached to the subordinate spiritual beings who spanned the chasm separating Him from humanity, and the more increasingly were they regarded as the normal intermediaries for the conxoiunication of His will and the accomplishment of His ends. (4) The development of a belief in God's transcendent perfection soon rendered it impossible any longer to consider Him (as He had previously been considered) the source of the mischievous thoughts that so often find entrance into human minds. Accordingly, to explain the facts of human experience there arose the idea that the temptations which beset men came from a Spirit of evil. Before, and even during, the exile Hebrew writers did not hesitate to regard Jehovah Himself as the cause of evil as well as of good (Am. iii. 6, 2 Is. xl. 7, Lam. iii. 38) ; and not alone of the external ills that happen to men, but also of the wrongful impulses which assail men from within {Ex. vii. 3, 1 Sam. ii. 25, 2 Sam. xxiv. 1). Jehovah might indeed give scope to a subordinate spirit to tempt individuals to wrong (1 Kg. xxii. 21), with a view to testing or punishing them ; but such a spirit was stiU considered to be one of His servants and attendants in the courts of heaven ; and though he might be styled the Satan {Job i. 12), the word was a descriptive title (" the adversary " of men) and was not a proper name. But in the course of the post-exilic age the term Satan became at last a personal designation ; and to the spirit so named were ascribed the pernicious suggestions that took shape in men's hearts as well as the physical sufEerings that tormented their bodies. Hence when in the interests of late religious conceptions some of the historical books of the Old Testament were re- written by the author of Chronicles (possibly 1 See 1 Kg. xi. 5-8, xvi. 31. 22 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY at the very end of the Persian, though more probably in the succeeding Greek period) the earlier representation that David was tempted by Jehovah to number Israel (2 Sam. xxiv. 1) was changed, and the tempta- tion was attributed to Satan (1 Oh. xxi. 1). Like Jehovah, Satan, as the paramount spirit of evil, was also thought to have at his disposal the services of inferior agents for carrying out his malignant designs. It has been suspected that the growth of a belief in a predominant Spirit of evil opposed to God, and in the activity of angels both good and bad owed something to Persian influence during the period in which the Jews were subject to Persian rule. Zoroastrianism recognized the, existence of two rival Spiritual Powers, one, Ahuramazdah (Ormuzd), being the source of all good, and the other, Angra Mainhu (Ahriman), being the source of aU evil. Each of these had subordinate spirits under his control, Ahuramazdah being attended by seven Archangels ^ and a host of inferior angels, and Angra Mainhu beng served by a multitude of demons. Amongst the good spirits were ihefravdsMs or spiritual counter- parts of the pious, which, dwelling in heaven, aided men upon earth ; and there seem to have heen fmvdsMs of nations likewise. There also prevailed a belief in a renewal of the world tinder a miraculous Being called Saoshyant, "Benefactor." These beliefs have obvious analogies with the Jewish belief in God and in Satan, in good and bad angels, in the guardian spirits of nations and individuals (Dan. x. 13, 20), in the expectation of a renovated universe (such as appears in 3 Is. Ixv. 17, Ixvi. 22), and of a Supernatural Deliverer, to whom reference will be made later. But whilst the religion of Persia can scarcely have failed to leave some impres- sion upon Jewish thought, yet in view of the existence of elements in early Jewish religion from which many features in the beliefs of later times most resembling the Persian could have developed, it seems probable that the influence of the Persian religion upon Jewish ideas was stimulating rather than definitely creative. (5) After the Eeturn from the Exile the prophetic expectations about the Future underwent a marked change, which will be best understood by contrasting them with those which prevailed in the precediag age. Since in the early days of Israel's history Jehovah was regarded as a national God, who took part with His people in their conflicts with their enemies, it was natural that His Day {i.e. the occasion when He would manifest His superiority over Israel's foes and their gods) should at first have been anticipated as a moment of unqualified triumph for Israel and of decisive overthrow for its oppressors. By the prophets of the eighth century, however, who believed that Jehovah was primarily a God of righteousness, and who recognized how flagrant were their countrymen's sins against Him, the Day of Jehovah was expected to be an occasion of chastisement, though not of final destruction, for Israel itself. All moral and social evils (for which no multiplication of sacrifices and material ofierinss could procure condonation) would be eradicated through a searching iudement executed by some hostile power ; and this, when its purpose was accom- ^ Gf. Tob. xii. 15, Mnocli xo, 21, Rev. viii. 2. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 23 plished, would be followed by a period of permanent peace and felicity for the purified remnant. The agency which, in the prophets' conceptions, was to bring about the judgment was generally some foreign power within the political horizon, while the era of happiness which was the prospective sequel was to reproduce in a heightened degree the glories of the past. Sometimes the future was depicted as a theocracy, administered by God Himself, without mention of any himian intermediary. Most commonly the hoped-for felicity was expected to be realized under the rule of a succes- sion of just and beneficent kings of David's dynasty (Am. ix. 11, Is. xxxii. 1, Jer. xxiii. 5), in fulfilment of the covenant which was believed to subsist between Jehovah and David, in whose family God's fatherly relations with the nation were concentrated (2 Sam. vii. 14, Ps. Ixxxix. 26, 27). But in some few prophecies there was foretold the advent of a pre-eminent descendant of David's house who would be exceptionally endowed with qualities of wisdom, piety, and power, and who would be the agent and representative of God (Is. ix. 1-7, xi. 1-9, Mic. v. 2 f.). Although the term Messiah (" Anointed ") is not actually used of this ideal sovereign in the prophecies referred to, it came to be employed as a distinctive appellation for him ; and in consequence, the era of happiness destined to end all sin and sorrow is generally styled, even when a personal Messiah does not ^figure in the descriptions of it, the Messianic age, though a more appropriate term might be the Golden Age.^ But whilst the expectation of the emergence from among the Hebrew people of a Messiah persisted long after the eighth and seventh centuries, yet in the course of time a different conception of the way in which the reUef from foreign oppression was to come also grew up. The expansion of successive heathen empires by the absorption of the one immediately preceding had enlarged for the Jews their view of the external world and of the (Strength of the forces that held them in thrall, and caused them to despair • of ithe vindication which they desired, save through some extra- ordinary intervention of God. Accordingly, the prophets of this period largely detached their minds from the iprocesses and actuahties of earth, ■and looked ior God to i destroy from heaven their collective enemies super- naturally. The occasion and manner of this great world-judgment were imaginatively conceived, with much variation in detail ; and the overthrow of the human foes of God and of Israel is sometimes represented as accom- panied by the punishment of hostile spiritual powers which were in alliance with them. These are among the features that distinguish what has been termed Apocalyptic prophecy, as it made its appearance during the Persian .period, beginning with Ezelciel (xxxviii.-xxxix.) in the sixth century, and including Joel (circ. 400) and Is. xxiv.-xxvii. (fourth century). But whilst the Apocalyptic prophets of the Old Testament believed that the heathen generally would be the objects of a consuming judgment, yet for the most part th^y contemplated that there ,would remain survivors who would recognize the supremacy of Israel's God and the prerogatives of Jehovah's people. Thus their hopes about the future embraced in a sense ^ Cf. Lake, Landmarks 0/ Marly ChriatianUy, p. 19. 24 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY the extension of a knowledge of Jehovah amongst mankind as well as the predominance of the Jews over the rest of the nations. (6) The most illuminating thought, however, respecting the difiusion throughout the world of a knowledge of the true God was expressed by a prophet living towards the end of the Exile, who declared that the calamities endured by Israel were destined by Jehovah to be instrumental in acquaint/- ing the heathen peoples with Himself and with their own sins against Him. In 2 Is. lii. 13-liii. 12, under the figure of Jehovah's Servant, collective Israel seems to be portrayed, first as sustaining with patience the utmost humiliation and outrage, and next as undergoing national extinction ; but subsequently as being revived from this condition and as creating by such revival a conviction in the heathen peoples witnessing it that its suffer- ings were undeserved, and were designed by God to expiate the heathens' own offences. The personification involved in such a portrayal rendered possible the application of the description to an individual Person ; and it proved to be the passage in the Old Testament which was deemed by the Christian Church to prefigure more accurately than any other the character and work of our Lord. (7) Prior to the seventh century God's dealings with His people are usually represented as confined to the collective nation ; the rights and responsibilities of the iadividual are lost sight of ; and his fate is merged in that of the majority of his countrymen. But in the seventh century a feeling that individuals ought to be credited with their own merits, and held accountable for none but their own sins, began to arise ; and in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel God is represented as declaring that the destiny of each person should be determined by his own righteousness or wickedness, independently of the conduct of others.^ In the unqualified way in which this principle is stated by these prophets, the solidarity between the individual and the community imposed by the facts of this life and the constitution of human society, is ignored ; for the consequences of individual offences, as a matter of experience,often fall upon others besides the actual offenders. But the appreciation, at this period, of the claims and responsibilities of individuals as distinct from the nation or the race to which they belonged was a notable contribution to theological thought, and led to important deductions at a later time. ii. The Greek Period ^ The dissolution of the Persian empire through the invasion of Asia by the Macedonian Alexander seems to have been welcomed by its Jewish subjects : so great a political upheaval offered at least the chance of a change for the better in their dependent condition. And although the Persian kings had not been, on the whole, harsh rulers, nevertheless one of them, Artaxerxes Ochus (358-337), had been severe in his treatment of them, for he had deported to Hyrcania a number of Jews who had been 1 Jer. xxxi. 29-30, Ezeh. xviii. 1 f. 2 On the history of this period see Sohurer, Hist. JewUh People, I. i. p. 186 f. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 25 involved in a rebellion organized in Phoenicia and Egypt against the Persian domination ; and consequently it was not unnatural that the Jewish people should view with satisfaction the catastrophe which Alexan- der brought upon those who had been their over- lords for two centuries.' The event, however, had for them evil results as well as good, though it cannot be doubted that for the world at large the beneficent consequences greatly preponderated. The territory occupied by the Jews during the early part of the Greek period did not differ greatly in extent from that which was in their hands under the Persians. On the north it reached just beyond Bethel and Bethhoron ; westwards the border ran along the Shephelah, Emmaus and Timnath being included in Judaea, but Gaza being Philistine ; on the south the frontier did not reach to Hebron (which belonged to Edom), but Bethzux, 4 miles north of Hebron, was on the Jewish side of the border-line ; whilst towards the east Tekoa was a Jewish possession, but places like Jericho, and the Jordan valley, and Engedi by the western littoral of the Dead Sea, were probably idumsean. Thus the area of the region which the Jews owned about the beginning of the third century seems to have been somewhat enlarged towards the north, but diminished on the east. Alexander's invasion of the Persian dominions was the first occasion when the Jews, in common with many other Asiatic peoples, came into contact with Hellenism and all that the term connotes. Greek colonies, indeed, had long existed on the seaboard of the Mediterranean and the Euxine ; but not before this had Greek influence penetrated into the interior of Asia Minor, or reached as far south as Palestine. Among the characteristics of the Hellenic spirit were (a) individual liberty, so far as it was compatible with the restrictions inseparable from participation in the social and political life of a state ; (b) a large measure of emancipation from the tyranny of tradition and custom, and the free exercise of a spirit of scientific and critical inquiry ; (c) the systematic development, by training, not only of the mind but of the body also ; {d) a love of the beautiful in literature and art. Hellenic influence, indeed, was not at its highest and best as manifested by the Macedonians. But even so, with its freedom, its intellectual interests, and its architecture and statuary, it was bound to exercise a considerable attraction upon the populations of Asia, or at least upon certain circles amongst them. And through the agency of the Macedonians it at last produced an effect upon the civilized world (as it then was) on a scale wHch in the hands of the true Greeks themselves, divided as they were into a number of small city-states devoid of any unity, it had never attained. Alexander did not leave the HeUenization of Asia Minor to chance enterprise, but pursued a systematic policy. After defeating the Persian king Darius Codomannus at Issus, at the foot of Mount Amanus, in 333 B.C., he had Syria and Palestine at his mercy ; and as he advanced south- wards towards Egypt, his intention of permanently holding and organizing the country was shown by his issuing money coined at Acco, Damascus, 1 Probably Is. xxiv.-xxvii. reflects Jewish feelings at this crisis. 26 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and other places, by establishing Greek colonies in several existing cities, and by founding and equipping with Greek institutions a number of new- cities. To celebrate his success at Issus he reared at the head of the Sinus Issicus (gulf of Alexandretta) a city which (like one of still greater importance built in Egypt) he called after his own name Alexandria ; and amongst towns in Palestine which he founded or colonized were Pella (named after his birthplace), and Samaria, where in 331 he planted a number of Macedonian settlers. He is even represented as having visited Jerusalem, though the story in the form in which it is given by Josephus (Ant. xi. 8) is discredited by its anachronisms ; and he certainly seems to have shown much favour to the Jews, many of whom were established by him in the Egyptian Alexandria. Judsea was placed by him in the satrapy of Ccsle Syria, the centre of government being at Samaria. But the penetration into Asia of Greek culture involved the introduc- tion of Greek religion. Many of the most characteristic institutions of Greece, such as the theatre, were inseparably connected with religion ; and the arts were widely employed in its service. This fact was not, indeed, a serious obstacle to the adoption of Hellenic civilization by most of the Asiatic communities, for these possessed considerable assimilative power in connection with foreign cults, and the Greek deities were often blended with the native divinities, though they seldom altogether replaced them. Where, however, Hellenic customs, associated with the worship of the Hellenic gods, were introduced among a people like the Jews, whose reUgious principles at the time were of a most exclusive nature, and to whom the representation of the Divine under material forms was abhorrent, there, as might be expected, very fierce resistance was encountered. PALESTINE UNDER EGYPTIAN RULE Syhchkonism of Egyptian and Syeian Kings Kings of Egypt. B.o. Kings of Syria. 306 Antigonua Ptolemy I Lagi (Soter) . . .305 301 Seleuous I (Nioator) Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) . . .285 281 Antiookus I (Soter) 261 Antioohus II (Theos) Ptolemy III (Euergetes) . . .246 Seleuous II (CaUinious) 226 SeleucusIII 224 Antioohus III (the Great) Ptolemy IV (Philopator) ... 221 Ptolemy V (Epiphanes) . . 205 Transfer of Palestine from Egyptian to Syrian rule .... 198 ^ 187 Seleuous IV (Philonatorl Ptolemy VI or VII 1 (Philometor) . 182 xuiupaior; 175 Antioohus IV (Epiphanes) 164 Antioohus V (Eupator) 162 Demetrius I 150 Alexander Balas ' There is reason to thiii that two other kings reigned for a few months between Ptolemy Epiphanes and P. Philometor and between the latter and P. Physeon respeo- JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 27 Kings of Egypt. B.o. Kirigs of Syria. Ptolemy VII or IX i (Euergetea II or Physoon) . . . . 146 (Demetrius II Antiochus VI (Theos) Trypho 138 Antiochus VII (Sidetes) 128 Death of Antiochus VII Death of Ptolemy VII {IX) . . 116 ? Alexander died in 323 B.C., less ttan 10 years after his final victory over the Persians at Arbela ; and his empire then fell to pieces in the course of a struggle between his principal generals. Out of the struggle four emerged successfully, Antigonus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Cassander. Of these Antigonus secured the greatest extent of territory, stretching from the Mediterranean t© the Indus ; Ptolemy had Egypt ; Lysimachus Thrace ^ ; and Cassander, Macedonia. Antigonus eventually lost Baby- Ionia and Persia, which were seized by Seleucus, another of Alexander's officers. Bach of the five had assumed the title of king by 305, though the term had in strictness no territorial reference : they were Macedonian kings ruling in difierent countries which formed part of the Macedonian empire. In 302 an alliance was made against Antigonus by the rest ; and in 301 he was defeated and killed in a battle at Issus in Phrygia by the joint forces of Lysimachus and Seleucus. Between these two his remaining dominions in Asia Minor were divided, Syria faUing to Seleucus, During the lifetime of Antigonus the occupation of Palestine had been disputed between him and Ptolemy, since the command of the trade route along the Mediterranean (p. 1) and the possession of the ports of Tyre and Sidon brought great commercial advantages, whilst the forests of Lebanon were of particular value to Ptolemy inasmuch as Egypt had little timber.' After the death of Antigonus the country changed hands several times ; but by Seleucus Mcator, who succeeded to the throne of Syria, it was left to Ptolemy. As regards the conduct of the latter towards the Jews the statements of Josephus (Afit. xii. 1) produce a rather con- flicting impression, but the fact that Alexandria came to have a very large Jewish population seems to imply that the treatment which they received from the Egyptian kings was in general favourable ; and this is confirmed by the fact that whereas Seleucus founded in his dominions a number of great cities, which he could scarcely do without impairing the rights of the earlier possessors of the soil, Ptolemy founded, or re-founded, only one, viz. Ptolemais, the ancient Akko.* Ptolemy I (known as Soter) was succeeded in 285 by his son Ptolemy II (Philadelphus). If he was not actually the first to institute the famous Library of Alexandria, he certainly did much to develop it, appointing, as chief librarian, Zenodotus, the Homeric critic, who was tutor to his ■' There is reason to think that two other kings reigned for a few months between Ptolemy Epiphanes and P. Philometor and between the latter and P. Physoon respec- tively. ' Josephus (Ant. xii. 1) describes Lysimachus as governing the Hellespont. * Bevan, Jerusalem under the High PrieMs, pp. 24-5. * Mahaffy, Empire of the Ptolemies, pp. 89, 90. 28 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY son. It was probably in the reign of Philadelphus that a beginning was made in the rendering of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Josephus {Ant. xii. 2) represents that the Egyptian King, desirous to add to his library a translation of the Jewish Scriptures, sought the favour of the Jews by ransoming a vast number of Jewish captives and by sending a quantity of valuable presents to Jerusalem, and obtained from the high priest Eleazar a copy of the Law, and the service of 72 elders (six for each tribe) to translate it. The narrative of Josephus, obviously embroidered as it is,i was still further exaggerated in later times, when each of the 72 trans- lators was related to have put the whole of the Old Testament into Greek, with such accuracy that their translations agreed perfectly together. It seems, on the whole, probable that the translation was really made to meet the needs of the Jews settled in Alexandria ; that the several parts of the Old Testament were rendered into Greek at separate times (the merits of the rendering varying greatly in difEerent parts) ; and that the Pentateuch was the first group of books to be translated (as Josephus represents). With the diffusion of Greek through the East generally, and the disappearance of a knowledge of Hebrew amongst the Jews (with the exception of those who, like the Scribes, were professed students of the Scriptures), the Septuagint version (as the Greek translation came to be styled) replaced the Hebrew text as the Bible of the common people. It was from it that the writers of the New Testament usually quoted, and the Old Latin Version was eventually made from it. In addition to the LXX, a number of other Jewish religious writings, composed in Greek, and comprised in the Apocrypha, were eventually produced at Alexandria. Both Ptolemy II and his son Ptolemy III (Euergetes) were strong enough to retain during their lives secure hold upon Palestine. The boundary between their Palestinian territory and the dominions of the Syrian kings was the river Eleutherus (the modern Nahr el Kehir), a small stream flowing from Mount Lebanon into the sea between Byblus and Aradus. This was so dangerously near to Antioch, the Syrian capital, as to make the recovery of Palestine (a country which geographically belongs to Asia and not to Africa) a constant aim of the later Seleucid kings. Antiochus III (224-187), the contemporary of Ptolemy IV (Philo- pator) and of his son Ptolemy V (Epiphanes), was the first to invade it, unsuccessfully in 221, but with more success subsequently, when Egypt was reduced to a state of weakness through internal disputes during the minority of Ptolemy V. In 199 he was in occupation of Palestine, but his forces were driven out almost immediately by Ptolemy's general Scopas who placed an Egyptian garrison in Jerusalem. Next year, however, Antiochus gained a victory near the site of the later Panias, close to the sources of the Jordan, which proved decisive. It gave him possession of Samaria, Judsa, and the district on the east of the Jordan ; and from 198 for nearly a hundred years the Jews were included within the dominions of the Syrian kmgs. As they were relieved of the garrison in Jerusalem the change of rule was for a time grateful to them, especiaUy as Antiochus 1 The translation is described as aoqompUshed in seventy-two days (Ant. xii. 2, 13). JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 29 exempted from taxation anything intended for the Temple service, and granted to the population of the capital many favours. PALESTINE UNDEE SYRIAN RULE Synchronism or Jewish Leaders and Syrian Kinos Jewish Leaders, B.C. Kings of Syria. 187 Seleuous IV (Philopator) 175 Autioohus IV (Epiphanes) Judas Maccabaeua .... 165 164 Antiochus V (Eupator). 162 Demetrius I (Soter) Jonathan . .161 150 Alexander Balaa /Demetrius II . J Antioohi \ Theos; VTrypho , .p. J Antiochus VI (Epiphaneg, Dionysus or ^*''| Theos) Simon 142 138 Antiochus VII (Sidetes or Soter) JohnHyrcanus .... 135 Judcea independent .... 128 Death of Antiochus VII The reign of Antiochus III is important for Jewish history not only because in it Jud»a ceased to be an Egyptian, and became a Syrian, province, but also because it witnessed the first entry of the Romans upon the field of Asiatic politics, in which they were free to engage in consequence of the overthrow of Hannibal and the Carthaginians at Zama in 202 B.C., and of PhiUp of Macedon at Cynoscephalse in 197 B.C. The ambition of Antiochus led him to interfere in Greece, where the ^tolians, who had a grievance against Rome, applied for his aid ; and the consequent contest with the Romans had momentous results not only for himself but also, in the sequel, for the Jews. For after Antiochus had been defeated at Thermopylae (191 B.C.) and driven from Europe, the Romans followed up their success by crossing the Hellespont, and after vanquishing him again at Magnesia (190 B.C.), deprived him of all his territory west of Mount Taurus, giving it to Eumenes, King of Pergamum. They also exacted a heavy indemnity and compelled him to furnish hostages for the payment of it, among the hostages being his own son Antiochus. This success over so powerful a ruler caused the Romans to be looked upon as likely to be the protectors of such Asiatic peoples as were hard pressed by the superior forces of their neighbours ; and in the reign of Antiochus IV the Jews were among those who turned to them for help. Antiochus III was killed in. Elam (Elymais) in 187, and was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV. Seleucus enabled his brother Antiochus to return from Rome by sending thither his own son Demetrius instead. His reign was necessarily an unambitious one, since he was chiefly occupied in the work of extracting money from the country in order to pay the indemnity due to Rome. He was eventually murdered by a minister named Helio- dorus ; and as Demetrius, his heir, was at the time in Rome, the crown was seized (175) by his brother Antiochus IV (Epiphanes). During the century and a half separating Alexander's death from the 30 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY accession of Epiphanes, the penetration of Palestine by Hellenic influences had been continuously proceeding. Its progress was attested by the names of many of the towns within it ; for Anthedon, Apollonia, Straton's Tower, Ptolemais, Hippus, Scythopolis, Pella, Dium, Philadelphia, Antipatris and Panias are all Greek appellations, applied either to new towns founded by Greeks, or to existing Semitic cities containing large Greek colonies. Coins were in circulation bearing not only Greek inscriptions but the figures and emblems of Greek deities. Greek worship prevailed either by the side of, or in combination with, native cults ; and Greek athletic festivals were established in various places. It was in the districts sur- rounding Judaea, and especially in the towns on the coast, that Hellenism was most influential ; but even within the ancient territory of Israel there were localities where Greeks were settled. The small Jewish com- munity thus had near them numerous centres of Greek culture, with which they came in contact through trade and other chaimels, and this environment could not have failed in the long run to affect them, so that the introduction of Hellenism among them might have been peaceful, had it not been for the violent action of Epiphanes. This Syrian king was a man of vehement impulses and extravagant conduct, and, if opposed in his desires, tyrannical and cruel. Having determined to spread Greek culture through his realm with a view to unifying the diverse races contained in it and so rendering it more defen- sible against the Romans (who had interfered with him in a successful war against Egypt), he had no scruple in trampling upon the feelings of those of his subjects who, like the Jews, felt their religion to be outraged by some of the most distinctive institutions of Greek life. Yet in the innovations which he wished to introduce he was not without sympathizers among the Jews themselves ; nor in attempting to apply compulsion did he act without provocation. Many members of the priestly families, whom the possession of civil power as well as of ecclesiastical dignity (p. 18) had rendered worldly, were disposed to welcome the policy of their Greek rulers, a symptom of this inclination among them towards Greek ways being the adoption of Greek names. The High Priest, indeed, Onias III, was opposed to the novel usages ; but his brother Jason induced Antiochus to remove Onias from office in favour of himself, and to allow the erection of a gymnasium in Jerusalem (1 Mace. i. 14). In consequence, Jewish youths began to exercise themselves like Greeks, and to wear the characteristic dress of the latter, the chlamys and the fetasos.^ There were numbers, however, who shared the views of Onias, and to whom such athletic traming was abhorrent, partly perhaps from sheer conservatism, but largely, no doubt, because Greek public games were generally con- ducted in honour of some deity, ^ and because there were various debasing elements m Greek life and manners. Those who took up an attitude of opposition to the spread of Hellen ism were known as Hasidim or Asidceans ' The chktmys was a short mantle of oblong shape, pinneTeither at the th^ so that It hung down the back or on the right shoulder so that it covered the left arm. The petasos was a broad-brimmed cap of felt Herlct^aXTiv.ls^r "'''^^*^' '^'^ ^""^ ^'''' ^^^ '^«>^ - 1^°-- "* JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 31 (the Hebrew term being equivalent to " pious " or " godly "). Tbeii feelings were still further exasperated by the fact that the Syrian king replaced the high priest Joshua or Jason by a more favoured rival called Menelaus (who was not even a Levite but a Benjamite), and drove Jason into exile. Menelaus added to the odium entertained for him by procuring the death of the deposed Onias III, who had taken refuge at Daphne, near Antioch (2 Mace. iv. 34-35). The strained relations between the king and the bulk of the Jews reached breaking-point in the course of the war between Syria and Egypt (now under Ptolemy VI, Philometor). A false report in 170 B.C. of Antiochus' death caused Jason to return to Jerusalem with an armed force and to slaughter the adherents of Menelaus (who represented the party loyal to the king). This not unnaturally appeared to Antiochus to be a revolt against his authority at a critical time, so that he hastened back from Egypt to Jerusalem, and wreaked his vengeance upon it by a massacre of the citizens and by plundering the Temple ; whilst two years later a garrison was placed in the citadel.^ Finally he resolved to abolish the rites of the Jewish religion altogether. The daily sacrifices (p. 93) were prohibited, an altar to Zeus Olympius was erected on the altar of burnt-ofEering, and swine were sacrificed upon it ; copies of the Law, wherever found, were destroyed ; and the possession of such, together with the practice of circumcision and other Jewish religious observances, was made punishable with death (Dec. 168 B.C.). On the monthly anniversary of the king's birthday, the Jews were compelled to partake of the idolatrous sacrifices then ofiered in every locality, and were also constrained to keep the festival of Dionysus (1 Mace. i. 4:1 f., 2 Mace, vi, 1 f., vii. 1 f., Dan. xi. 31). THE HASMONiEANS Genbaloot of the Hasmon^ans Mattathiah John Simon Jtjdas Eleazar Jonathan I John Hyrcanus _! I Aristobtjuis I Alexander Jann^eus = Alexandra HYBCANtrS II ARISTOBIJLtrS II Alexandra = Alexander Antigontts _J 1 I ARiSTOBtTLUS III Mariamne (married Herod) »% TJioai whose names are printed in capitals occupied positions of authority, either aajeaders of the Jewish armies, as High Priests, or as sovereigns. ' Cf. 1 Mace. i. 20-28, 33. For the site of the citadel see p. 11. 32 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY By such of the people as were faithful to their religious principles, the tyrannical injunctions of the Syrian kings were defied ; and the same spirit of loyalty to the Law caused many to die unresistingly when attacked on the Sabbath rather than break the Law by standing on their defence (1 Mace. ii. 29-38, 2 Mace. vi. 11). Leaders in the organization of resist- ance were forthcoming from the town of Modin (probably represented by the modern el Medijeh) near Lydda, where a priest named Mattathiah (who drew his lineage from a certain Hashmon, whence his descendants came to be called Hasmonteans) set on foot a revolt (167 B.C.) by killing both an apostate Jew and the king's commissioner ; and his five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar and Jonathan, formed a rallying point round which insurgents could gather. Though each of the five brethren is said to have had a distinguishing epithet (1 Mace. ii. 2-5), yet the title applied to Judas, who was styled Maccabcms, " the Hammerer," wa« extended to all, and they were known collectively as the Maccabees. They did not themselves belong to the Asidean or pietist party (p. 30) ; but in taking up arms against the Syrian tyrant they had its support. They proceeded to destroy the heathen altars in their neighbourhood and to restore, even by force, the observance of the Law (1 Mace. ii. 45-48). After the death of Mattathiah in 167 Judas, whom his father had regarded as best qualified to act as military leader, took command of the irregular bands that collected for national defence. When the Syrian forces which Antiochus (who was himself engaged in war with the Parthians) sent to suppress the revolt moved against him, he defeated them in a series of engagements at Bethhoron, Emmaus, and Bethsura (Bethzur).^ These successes enabled him to take possession of Jerusalem (with the exception of the citadel, p. 31). In Dec. 165 the Temple was re-consecrated, a new altar was raised, and the sacrifices prescribed by the Law were renewed. The day (the 25th of Chislev, equivalent to Nov.-Dec.) on which the altar was dedicated was afterwards observed as an annual festival (the EnccBnia (Joh. X. 22) or Lights (Jos. Ant. xii. 77) ). The struggle, however, con- tinued some time longer ; and in the course of it the Maccabees, Judas and Simon, brought from Gilead and Galilee a number of their country- men who were being persecuted by the heathen population around them. They did not restrict themselves, however, to protecting the members of their own faith, but made incursions into Edom and Philistia, destroying Hebron, and overthrowing Ashdod ; and by these last achievements they gave early indications of the desire for secular power which characterized them at a later time. Antiochus IV, who had made an expedition into Elam in order to obtain money by plundering some rich temples there, but met with little success, died in 164 ^ in Persia, and was succeeded by his son Antiochus V, a 1 1 Mace. iii. 10-iv. 35, 2 Mace. viii. J" If the death of Antiochus occurred about the middle of 164, the three and a half years elapsing since Deo. 168 (p. 31) when the Temple at Jerusalem was dese- crated, correspond to the time, times and half a time " of Dan. vii. 25 (cf Driver, Dan p.QZ) For varying accounts of Antiochus' death see 1 3iacc. vi. If., 2 Mace, 1. i^ I., IX. X X- JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 33 minor. One of the Syrian generals, Lysias, wlio had appointed himself guardian of the young king, undertook to relieve the garrison besieged in the citadel of Jerusalem, and with a powerful army met and defeated Judas at Bethzacariah, a locality south-west of Bethlehem, Eleazar the brother of Judas being killed in the engagement. Jerusalem was then beleaguered ; but the appearance of a claimant to the Syrian throne in the person of Philip (whom Antiochus IV had named as guardian to his son) induced Lysias to come to an arrangement with the Jews. It was agreed that the Jewish religious institutions should be restored, and that the Jews should be allowed freedom to observe the injunctions of their Law unmolested. This compact (in 163 B.C.) ended the war for religious liberty, and none of the subsequent Syrian sovereigns interfered with the practice of the Jewish faith. The fortifications of Jerusalem, however were dismantled by the orders of Antiochus in spite of a pledge which he had given to the contrary. With this result attained there ensued in course of time a readjustment of parties among the Jews. Henceforward no overt disloyalty to the written Mosaic Law was manifested by any. But it was inevitable that some degree of estrangement should arise between military leaders like the Hasmonseans and the section of the priests, who, previously known as the Asideans (p. 30), came at a later period to be styled the Pharisees (see p. 102). These, whose interest was centred in the practice of their rehgion, ceased, as soon as religious liberty was secured, to feel much concern for the political ends that began to appeal to the Hasmonseans. The latter, encouraged by the success which they had gaiaed over the Syrian forces, aspired to fling ofi Syrian control altogether, and to vindi- cate their country's independence ; whilst with these patriotic aims there could hardly fail to be mingled some elements of human ambition. Consequently (as will be seen), though they were originally the military champions of the more rigid section of their countrymen against the lazer party, within which the High Priests in general were included, yet as they became more involved in political schemes, attained to greater power and rank, and grew more worldly in character, they were gradually aUenated from their former associates, and came to share the views and feelings of their original opponents, who were eventually represented by the sect of the Sadducees (p. 100). The attempt which the Hasmonseans now made to add political inde- pendence to the religious freedom abeady secured was aided by the increas- ing weakness of Syria in consequence of the disputes for the succession following upon the death of Antiochus IV. Not only were the material resources of the Syrians divided and dissipated, but both the individual capacity of the Hasmoneeans and the forces which they had at their disposal rendered them valuable aUies to any party that could obtain their support, so that rival claimants to the crown sought to outbid each other in the concessions which they granted in order to gain their friend- ship. The Hasmonseans showed no lack of readiness to turn to account the quarrels of their rulers ; and they were so adroit in taking advantage of the situation that first the High Priesthood, and then independent 3 34 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY political autiority with the title of King, fell to their house. Nevertheless their power was due to the divisions among their opponents more than to any other cause ; so that it has been justly observed that its growth was the work of the Gentile kings themselves.^ Another factor which in some degree contributed to their success (at least indirectly) was the Eoman state ; and the early phases of Rome's interest in Jewish affairs deserve notice in view of the decisive part which she came afterwards to play in Jewish history. Knowledge of her victory in the contest vsdth the most powerful of the Seleucids (p. 29), and her later interference with Antiochus Epiphanes when he was bringing to a successful close a war with Egypt (p. 30) led the Hasmonseans to seek her help in their own struggles ; and more than one embassy was sent to the west (1 Mace. viii. 17 ff., xii. 1 ff.). These embassies, however, did not procure for the Jews, when fighting for their liberties, more than diplomatic support. Rome was glad enough to see a bufier state arise between Syria and Egypt,^ but she was not prepared to help its development with military aid, and when the liberties were actually won, the Romans' active intervention took a form inimical to Jewish independence. The pretender PhUip, who appeared as a rival to Antiochus V (p. 33) was speedily overthrown by Lysias ; but Demetrius, son of Seleucus IV, and so cousin of Antiochus, who succeeded in escaping from Rome (p. 29), now returned to Syria ; and as he detached the soldiers of Antiochus from their allegiance, he was able to put to death both the King and his guardian. The place of the High Priest Menelaus (who had been executed by Antiochus) was filled, by the direction of Demetrius, with Alcimus, a man of Aaronic descent but of Hellenist sympathies, whose Hebrew name was Jakim or EUakim, and whom, in virtue of his lineage, the Asideans were content to accept and trust (1 MaxM. vii. 13). But the appointment of Alcimus, as the nominee of the Syrian king, the Maccabees, who saw that the only hope of permanent peace for the coimtry lay in independence of Syria, would not tolerate ; and war broke out in consequence. Judas defeated at Adasa, near Bethlehem (161), the Syrian general Nicanor, who fell in the battle ; and he then tried once more to strengthen his position by negotiation with Rome. The Romans, who were quite ready to weaken the Syrian monarchy, concluded a treaty of alliance with the Jews, and threatened Demetrius with their intervention if he gave further ground for complaint (1 Mace' viii. 31-32) ; but in spite of this they took no action.-^ Even if they had done so, it would have been too late for Demetrius , almost immediately avenged the death of Nicanor by sending against Judaea a large force under Bacchides, who, in 161, overthrew and killed the Jewish leader at Elasa (an unidentified locality). Judas was^succeeded (161) by his brother Jonathan (161-143) who at first exercised, authority from Michmash (1 Mace. ix. 73) In spite of the loss occasioned by the death of Judas, the Macoabean party offered party offered -, ■ . . i • ,, . . -" -^ake peace. A decisive improvement m the position of Jonathan was caused by the sufficient resistance to Bacchides to inducejbhe latter to make peace. A ^ Sevan, House of Sekncus, II, p. 216. ' Of. Morrison, The Jews under the Romans, p. II. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 35 appearance of a rival to Demetrius called Alexander Balas,^ who was favouied by Rome and who, by allowing Jonathan to occupy Jerusalem and afterwards appointing him (152) High Priest (Alcimus having died several years previously), obtained his aid against Demetrius, in spite of the latter's attempt to seduce Jonathan by the offer of remitted tribute and enlarged territory. The side to which Jonathan had committed himself proved successful, for in 150 Alexander Balas defeated Demetrius, who lost his life in the battle. The conqueror, however, was confronted in 147 by a competitor in Demetrius 11,^ the son of Demetrius I, who entered CUicia from Crete. The new-comer, who was styled Nicator, obtained the help of Ptolemy PhUometor of Egypt, and forced Alexander Balas to take refuge ia Arabia, where he was assassinated, so that Deme- trius II became king in 145. Jonathan was able to extort from the new sovereign the territorial concessions ofEered by the latter's father ; and the three Samaritan districts of Lydda, Ramah, and Ephraim were added to Judaea. But in spite of this favour, on the rise of a new claimant to the Syrian crown, Antiochus VI (son of Alexander Balas), who was put forward by a minister named Diodotus or Trypho, Jonathan, whose poUcy was dictated by his worldly ambition, deserted Demetrius, and took part in the war against him, enlarging his own power whilst ostensibly supporting the authority of Antiochus VI. He, too, Hke his brother, entered iato relations with Rome, and renewed the imderstanding previ- ously initiated by Judas (1 Mace. xii. 1 fE.). His iacreasing strength excited the fears of Trypho, who contemplated seizing the throne of Syria for himself (1 Mace, xii, 39) ; and beiag treacherously induced to place himself in the latter's hands at Ptolemais, he was murdered (143) at Bascama, an unknown locality east of the Jordan. Jonathan, who (as has been seen) was the first of the Maccabees to attain to a recognized position of power through the acquisition of the High Priesthood, was succeeded in that office by his brother Simon (143- 135), who received it not by the appointment of a Syrian king but by the sanction of his fellow-countrymen.^ The assassination of Antiochus by Trypho, who assumed the crown, caused Simon to reverse the policy of Jonathan and to side with Demetrius II, receiving.as the price of his support, exemption for the Jews from all tribute to Syria (1 Mace. xiii. 36 f.). This was tantamount to independence, so that documents were now dated by the years of Simon's High Priesthood, the first synchronizing with 143 B.C. His authority as Prince and High Priest was finally confirmed at an assembly held in 141 B.C., and declared hereditary " until there should arise a faithful ptophet " who should direct otherwise (1 Mace. xiv. 41). Simon consolidated his power by obtaining possession of Gazara and of the citadel of Jerusalem (142 B.C.) * ; and he also annexed Joppa, ^ He rested his pretensions to the throne upon his claim to be son of Antiochus Epiphanes (of. Jos. Ant. jdii. 2,,1), and is called Alexander Epiphanes in 1 Mace. x. 1. Balaa was his proper name, and Strabo calls him Balas Alexander. " The Demetrius of 1 Mace. x. 67, 2 Mace. 1. 7. ' Probably Ps. ox. has the occasion in view. * Josephus {Ant. xui. 6, 7) represents that Simon razed the citadel as well as the hill on wluch it stood ; but the statement is difficult to understand. 36 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY which was valuable for its harbour. Simon sent an embassy to Kome in order to cement the friendly relations previously existing between the Romans and the Jews. An interesting fact recorded by the Roman historian Valerius Maximus is that the envoys of Simon (1 Mace. xiv. 24) attempted to spread among the Romans a knowledge of their national God Jehovah Sebaoth (whom the historian confounds with Jupiter Sabazius), and were sent home in consequence. Nevertheless the authority of Simon was recognized by the Romans in a senatorial decree which was sent to Ptolemy VII of Egypt (1 Mace. xv. 16 fi.). Simon continued to be involved in the dispute concerning the succession to the Syrian throne ; and when Demetrius II was taken prisoner by the Parthians, his brother Antiochus VII, known as Sidetes (138-128), in order to ensure the continued support of Simon, confirmed the concessions previously granted by Demetrius, together with the privilege of coining money. An eventual breach between them caused a war, in which Demetrius' forces were defeated. But though Simon was successful against the Syrians, he, together with two of his sons, fell a victim to his own son-in-law Ptolemy, who assassinated him at a stronghold called Dok ^ near Jericho in 135. Ptolemy, however, was disappointed in his hopes of filling his place, for John, Simon's sur- viving son, whom he also tried to kiU, took refuge in Jerusalem and at once occupied his father's position. John (135-105), who assumed the additional name of Hyrcanus, was the first of the Hasmonaeans to break decisively with the sect of the Phari- sees (whose name first occurs in this reign), and to attach himself to the opposing body of the Sadducees. The cause of the Pharisees' opposition to him was his ambition and increasing absorption in worldly policy ; and they also resented his retention of the High Priesthood, for which his birth was held to disqualify him (since it was alleged that his mother had been a captive (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10, 5) ). In consequence of their antagonism he abolished certain religious regulations which they had imposed upon the people ; but the growing hostility between the pietists and the worldly Hasmonaeans did not become extreme untU later. Hyrcanus was involved in war with his Syrian overlords at the outset of his reign ; and Antiochus Sidetes, an abler sovereign than most of his predecessors, was strong enough to wrest from him Joppa, Gazara, and other cities (places for which Simon, his father, had refused to pay tribute), and to besiege Jerusalem, demanding 500 talents as the price for withdrawing his forces from the' capital. Hyrcanus, however, appealed to Rome; and the Romans, for the first time, intervened efiectively in Jewish afiairs by directing Antiochus to abate his claim, and especially insisting upon the restoration of Joppa. This pressure caused him to grant Hyrcanus more moderate terms, which were accepted ; and the siege of the capital was raised Antiochus, however, feU in battle against the Parthians in 128 • and then the weakness of Syria under his brother Demetrius III and his successors enabled Hyrcanus to recover from the subjection to which Antiochus had reduced him From 128 for nearly sixty years the Jewish commonwealth was independent. Probably the Dagon of Jos. Ant. xiii. 8, 1. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 37 JUD^A INDEPENDENT JudcBa. B.C. Syria. John HyrcanuB (see p. 31) 128 Demetrius III 125 Alexander Zabinas ' 122 Antiochus VIII (Grypus) ^ 113 Antioohua IX (Cyricenus) ' 111 Antiochus VIII (iterum) Judtea under a monarchy Arifltobulus I . . 105 Alexander Jannaaua . . 104 95 ( The sons of Antiochus VIII * 1 The son of Antiochus IX * 83 Tigranes (King of Armenia) Salome Alexandra . . 78 Hyroanus II ) Anstobulus II j . 69 Antiochus XIII 65 Syria made a Boman province AristohiXus dethroned . 63 Antigonus .... . 40 Amigomia executed End of Jewish independence ) ' . 37 The prolongation in Syria of internal strife coincided witli tLe rise, in tte farther east, of the power of Parthia ; and these two circumstances left Hyroanus free to pursue a career of conquest, in which he employed mercenary troops. He first invaded the district east of the Jordan and took Medeba ; then he attacked the Samaritans, captured Shechem, and destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim (p. 16) ; next he subjugated the Idumeeans, who were compelled to practise circumcision and to receive the Jewish Law ; and finally, again assailing the Samaritans, he took Samaria in spite of the intervention of Antiochus IX and razed it to the ground.* Of these events the subjugation of the Idumseans and the enforcement upon them of the requirements of the Law had in the sequel important consequences for the Jews. In 105 Hyroanus, after ruling for thirty years, was succeeded in the High Priesthood by his son Judas, who, in addition to his Hebrew name, took the Greek name of Aristobulus. Though he died after reigning only a single year (105-104), his short period of ofi&ce was noteworthy for his assumption of the title of king. The contrast in inclinations and sym- pathies which the Hasmonaeans of this period offered to Judas Maccabseus and his brothers is marked by the fact that Aristobulus was called a " lover of the Greeks " {cpiXiXXriv).'' ,He undertook a war against the Iturseans and incorporated with his own domains some territory which they had occupied. This seems to have been a portion of Galilee ; and its popula- tion, hitherto more Gentile than Jewish, was compelled to submit to the Jewish Law. Aristobulus I was succeeded by his brother Jonathan (104-78), who ' An Egyptian pretender supported by Ptolemy VII (Physcon). ° Son of Demetrius III. ' Brother of Antiochus Grypus. * Seleucus, Antiochus, Philip, Demetrius. * Antiochus Eusebes. * For its rebuilding see p. 47. ' Jos. Ant. xiii. 11, 3, 38 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY took the Greek name of Alexander, adding to it Ms Hebrew name in the Greek form of Jannseus. He was an ambitious and warlike ruler, and the secular character of his policy excited the bitter resentment of the Pharisees, whose influence was widespread among the Jewish people. An insult which he received when discharging on one occasion the High Priest's office led him to massacre 6,000 of his fellow-countrymen ; and on another occasion when, after an unsuccessful campaign against the Nabatseans, a rebellion broke out against him, he crucified after its sup- pression 800 Jewish prisoners. He extended the boundaries of his kingdom by including within it the coast towns from the frontier of Egypt to Mount Carmel,^ and the country east of the Jordan from the Dead Sea to the Lake of Galilee. He also confirmed Jewish supremacy over Edom, appointing as governor of the country a certain Antipater, probably a native Idumsean,^ whose father or grandfather, like others of the same people, had been forcibly converted to Judaism by John Hyrcanus (p. 37). By these enlargements his dominions approximated in area to those of the early Hebrew sovereigns David and Solomon. At his death in 78 he committed his authority to his widow Salome (78-69), who, after the fashion of the times, had assumed the Greek name of Alexandra. Revers- ing the internal policy of her husband, she made friends with the Pharisees and restored the ordinances abolished by John Hyrcanus (p. 36). She appointed her elder son Simon (also called Hyrcanus) High Priest, and destined the sovereignty for him also ; but after her death in 69 the Succession was disputed by her younger son Aristobulus, who forced his brother to resign both the High Priesthood and the throne. He was not, however, allowed to reign (as Aristobulus II 69-63) in undisturbed tran- quillity, for the cause of the dethroned Hyrcanus was supported (from interested motives) by Antipater, son of the Idumsean Antipater mentioned above. The struggle that ensued, which it is unnecessary to follow here, ended with the suppression of Jewish independence in 63, through the interference of the Romans, which brought the Greek period to a close. Religion in the Greek Period It has been pointed out that the two centuries (538-331 B.C.), during which the Hebrew people were subject to the rule of Persia, witnessed the beginning of Apocalyptic prophecy (p. 23) ; and as this underwent further development during the period here reviewed, the distinction between it and the prophecy of earlier times requires some additional explanation. (1) The tone of the Apocalyptic prophets was not in the main denunciatory, like that of earlier prophets; but consolatory, and aimed at fostering faith m God and at encouragmg their countrymen with the hope of speedy relief from the evils that afflicted them. (2) Whilst, however, the deliver- ance of Israel from its troubles seemed overdue, the prospect of its being brought about by God through ordinary human means appeared to be 1 Schiirer, Hist. Jewish People, etc., I. i. p. 306. ' Represented by Nicolaus of Damascus 'as descended from a Babylonian Jew (Jos. Ant. XIV. 1, 3). •' JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 39 altogether otitside the range of political eventualities. The absorption of the greater part of western Asia by a single colossal empire Uke the Persian (and the position was not much improved when this was succeeded by the Greek) caused the prophets of this age to look for judgment upon their oppressors and redemption for themselves to be accomplished super- naturaUy by the direct intervention of the Almighty. The manner of such intervention was in general conceived vaguely ; but the most original and significant conception was the substitution of a heavenly Deliverer for a national Messiah. A superhuman Being, pre-existent with God, was expectfed to descend from heaven to earth ; and He being appointed by God to judge the world, would destroy sinners and save the righteous. (3) Whereas in earlier periods of Jewish history the claims of justice were considered satisfied if the recompense which men deserved was realized in the fortunes of their families, their country, or their posterity, this solution had now come to be viewed as inadequate, and it was no longer felt to be consistent with justice that men for their good or evil conduct should be rewarded or punished by God in the aggregate, reason demanding that each person should be held accountable for his own actions alone. Hence there grew up the expectation that all who had died without receiving their deserts here would severally meet with their due recompense hereafter. The possibility of this development was ensured by the prevalence amongst the Jews, from primitive times onwards, of a belief in the continuance of the dead, in a shadowy state of existence, within Sheol, an abode under the earth, where all the departed, whether bad or good, were gathered without distinction. This belief that the human spirit persisted in Sheol enabled the opinion to gain ground that, if the fortunes of individuals during their lifetime had not corresponded to their merits, the balance would be redressed after death. In consequence of this conviction, there emerged the anticipation either of a bodily resurrection (regarded variously as extending to all men, or as confined to the righteous only), or else of an immortality of the spirit for the pious and of annihilation for the impious. When the good and the bad were equally believed to experience resurrec- tion, the scenes of their final destiny (endless felicity, or equally unending wretchedness, according to their deservings) was for the most part sensu- ously imagined ; the bliss of the former was represented as enjoyed on a renovated and transformed earth, whilst the misery of the latter was the Bufiering of ever-gnawing worms and of unquenchable fire.^ (4) The conception of the Divine transcendence and of God's remoteness from the world and human life, which is noticeable in the Persian period (p. 21), became still more manifest in the age that followed ; and there ensued in consequence an even greater development of Angelology and Demonology. To evil spirits were ascribed not only the iUs which troubled individual meuj but the calamities which afflicted nations ; for the various heathen peoples were each supposed to have their guardian Spirits (cf. Deut. xxxii. 8, LXX), and the prostration of Israel beneath Persia and Greece was accounted for by the hostile influence of the angels of these two powers {Dan. X. 13, 20). * Of. 3 Is. IxTi. 24, and see p. 424, 40 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY The Greek period may be regarded as extending from 331 (the date of the overthrow of the Persian Empire by Alexander) to 63 (when the independence enjoyed by the Jews under the Hasmonaean kings was destroyed by Rome) ; but the limits within which were produced the Apocalyptic writings characteristic of the period were narrower than these, the earliest (so far as is known) originating in the second century B.C. The precise date of these compositions, however, is not uniformly ascertainable ; and the difficulty of placing them in their chronological order is increased by the fact that many are either composite, or have undergone extensive interpolation. A peculiarity common to all that ostensibly proceed from individual prophets is that they are really pseu- donjrmous, being attributed to Enoch, Moses, Daniel (seemingly a righteous character famous in tradition, Ezek. xiv. 14, xxviii. 3), and other great characters of legend or of history. The reason for this is doubtless the fact that prophetic inspiration by this time was believed to have ceased (cf. 1 Mace. iv. 46, xiv. 41), so that anyone who desired to influence his contemporaries by making known his convictions about the future of his race could only secure attention for his message under the name of some earUer prophet or patriarch ; and this he did the more readily as Semitic writers were quite indifierent to literary reputation (cf. p. 117). One of these writings is included in the Hebrew Bible, and another has a place in the LXX ; but the rest are outside of both the Hebrew and the Greek Canon of Scripture. The names and probable dates of the Apocalypses of the Greek period are as follows, though many of the dates are rather uncertain : — Enoch i.-xxxvi. circ. 170 B.C. Enoch Ixxxiii.-xc. (Dream Visions) . . . 166 B.C. ? Daniel 166 B.C. Enoch xci.-civ end of second century B.C. Sibylline Oracles (part) . . end of second century B.C. Enoch xxxvii.-lxx. (Similitudes) beginning of first century B.C. Testament of the XII Patriarchs (part) first century B.C. Book of Jubilees .... first century B.C. ? Wisdom of Solomon .... first century B.C. ? The features which have been described above as characteristic of these Apocalyptic works are by no means found uiiiformly or consistently m all of them ; and it is desirable to draw attention to certain variant representations occuning in several. (1) In some Apocalypses (e.g. the book of Juhikes) the early prophetic conception of a human king sprung from the tribe of Judah is retained ; and It IS noteworthy that in the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs the Messiah (if the Messiah be really meant) is expected not only to save the race of Israel, but to gather together the righteous from among the Gentiles (Test. Naph viu 3). The Similitudes of Enoch stands aptrt from the rest of the Apocalypses m respect of the Messianic anticipation which it contains, since m it there is substituted as the agent of deKverance a JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 41 celestial Judge and Saviour instead of an earthly sovereign. TTiia seems to have been suggested by a passage in the book of Daniel, the original significance of which was diSerent In Daniel the prophet is represented as seeing in vision successively four savage beasts come up from the sea, symbolizing the consecutive empires of the Babylonians, the Medes,i the Persians, and the Greeks, and then " one like unto a son of man " coming with the clouds of heaven. This last figure is explained to mean " the saints of the Most High," i.e. the Jewish people, who are thought of as possessing the qualities of humanity as contrasted with the nations preceding them, whose rule was based on brute force. To God's people would be assigned universal authority; and their dominion would be everlasting. The figure " like unto a son of man " is in Daniel clearly a personification of Israel in the future ; but in Enoch it is transformed into a person. Enoch is described as saying " I saw one who had a head of days (i.e. God, " the Ancient of days," cf. Dan. vii. 13), and His head was Uke white wool ; and with Him was another Being, whose countenance had the appearance of a man. . . . And I asked the angel who went with me . . . concerning that Son of man." He then learnt that He had existed before Creation, and that to Him judgment was committed, and that before Him all evil would pass away, whilst the righteous and the elect would be saved and " with that Son of man would they eat and lie down and rise up for ever and ever." The transformation in Enoch of a symbol for the Israehte people into a heavenly Person, the destined Saviour of Israel, was probably aided by the fact that in the second century B.C. there were believed to exist in heaven angehc representatives of nations and peoples on earth (cf. p. 39). It may be conjectured that the Son of man in Enoch is a development of the angelic representation of Israel, who in Daniel is Michael, but in the work here under consideration has been transmuted into a Personality of still higher dignity and more com- prehensive functions. This conception of the future Deliverer as destined to descend from heaven as the universal Judge and the vindicator of God's loyal servants,is of great importance in connection with the New Testament, since it furnishes a clue to the language used by Christ about Himself (p. 460). (2) Concerning the way in which the miscarriages of justice so often occurring on earth would be redressed in the future, the ideas of difierent writers varied considerably. The conception of a resurrection is found both in Daniel and in parts of Enoch ; but the resurrection is only partial, not universal. In Daniel it is declared that " many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." The reference is probably to such Jews as were pre-eminent for righteousness or wickedness, the heroes and apostates respectively of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. In Enoch i.-xxxvi. it ' The author of Daniel regarded the Babylonian empire as destroyed by the Medes (probably in consequence of the prediction in Is. xiii. 17, Jer. li. 11); and considered that the empire of the latter was subsequently displaced by the Persians (cf. Dan. V. 31 with vi. 28). 42 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY is represented that sinners who have met their deserts on earth wiU not be raised from the dead ; but that there wiU be a resurrection of the righteous and of sinners unpunished in this Ufa, that they may receive respectively recompense and retribution. Though the nature of the resurrection is not defined in these passages, it is no doubt to be assumed that a revival of the actual bodies of the dead is intended. And in the books of Maccabees, which reflect the beliefs of this period, the future hfe destined to be enjoyed by the righteous after death is conceived on very materiahstic Unes. One of the Jews tortured to death by Antiochus for the sake of his religion is recorded to have put out his hands and his tongue for severance, and to have said, " From heaven I possess these, and for His laws' sake I contemn these, and from Him I hope to receive these back again " (2 Mace. vii. 10, 11). But elsewhere the idea that prevails is that of a spiritual immortahty. In Enoch xci.-civ. and in Jubihes the dead are to be raised from Sheol as spirits and will have much joy, becoming companions of the heavenly hosts. And in the Book of Wisdom it is the souls of the righteous that have a happy immortality. " The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. . . . For even if in the sight of men they are punished, their hope is full of immortality ; and having borne a little chastening they shall receive great good ; because God made trial of them and found them worthy of Himself " (iii. 1-5). (3) Logically, the nature of a bodily resurrection should imply that the scene of the future hfe is earth ; whilst a behef in the immortality of the soul alone should involve the inference that the sphere of such immor- tahty is heaven. But speculations of this character are governed by the imagination rather than by logic, and consistency cannot be looked for. The Hebrews, indeed, found it difficult to divest the idea of spirit altogether from physical associations ^ ; so that the earth was often conceived to be the abode of the righteous after death, and thought of as being fitted for them through a transformation sensuous rather than spiritual (Enoch xlv. 4, cf. 3 Is. Ixv. 17 f.). Naturally when a writer on such a subject went into details, it was from the earth that he took them. In Enoch i.^ xxxvi. the earthly Jerusalem is the capital of an eternal kingdom, but in Ixxxiii.-xc. a New Jerusalem is described as descending to earth from heaven. The doom of the wicked was represented by some Apocalyptists : {Enoch, " Dream Visions ") as endless torture by fire, and the sight of their suffering was even conceived to enhance the happiness of the righteous, s But by others none save the righteous were regarded as having a renewed phase of existence, the wicked being seemingly annihilated. (4) The important place which angels had in the theology and eschato^ logy of this period is shown by the circumstance that numbers of them received personal designations. In the book of Daniel only Michael (the angelic prince of Israel) and Gabriel are mentioned by name ; but in Enoch several others have individual appellations— Eaphael, Phanuel and Uriel. Eaphael also occurs in the book of ToUt (v. 4). In the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs the prince of evil spirits is called Beliar ; 1 For spirit conceived materially and quantitatively see Num. xi. 17, 2 Kg. ii. 9, JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 43 and in Tdbit (iii. 8 f.) mention is ako made of a demon called Asmodeeus. In Enoch Ixix.-xc. there occur the names of no fewer than twenty evil angels. The final judgment which is executed upon men is also sometimes regarded as extending to the fallen angels, who had seduced human women (of. Gen. vi.. 1-4), and whose offspring had corrupted the world. These, after being imprisoned under the earth, are, at the judgment, punished with eternal torment. iii. The Roman Period GovfcBNORS OF Syria from 65 e.g. to a.d. 69.' M. ^milius Scaunis, 65 B.C. [On. Pompeius Magnus, 64-63] H, ^milius Scaurus, 62 Maroius Philippus, 61-60 Leiittilus MaroeUinus, 59-58 A. Gabinius, 57-55 M. Licinius Crassus, 54-53 C. Cassius Longinus, 53-51 M. Calpumius Bibulus, 51-50 Veiento, 50-49 Q. Metellus Soipio, 49-48 Sextus Cseaar, 47-46 Cajcilius Bassus, 46 C. Antistius Vetus, 45 L. Statius Murcus, 44 0. CtosiUs Loiiginus, 44-42 toeoidiua Saxa, 41-40 P. Ventidius, 39-38 C. Sosius, 38-37 L. Munaoius Plancus, 35 L. Calpumius Bibulus, 32-31 (?) Q. DidiUB, 30 M. MesSalla Corviaus, 29 M. TulUus CScero, 28 (?) Varro, date uncertain M. Agrippa, 23-13 M. Titius, about 10 C. Sentiua Satuminus, 9-6 P. Quinctilius Varus, 6-4 P. Sulpicius Qulriiiius, 3-2 ^ (?) C. Csesar, 1 b.c.-a.d. 4 ^ L. Volusius Satuminus, 4-5 P. Sulpicius QuiriniuB, 6 f. C. Csecilius Oreticus Silanus, 11-17 Cn. Calpumius Piso, 17-19 Cn. Sentius Satuminus, 19-21 L. ^lius Lamia, date uncertain L. Pomponius Flaocus, 32-35 (?) L. ViteUius, 35-39 P. Petronius, 39-42 C. Vibius Marsus, 42-44 C. Caseius Longinus, 45-50 C. Ummidius Quadratus, 50-60 Cn. Domitiua Corbulo, 60-63 C. Cestius GaUus, 63-66 C. Licinius Mucianus, 67—69 The intervention of Rome in the affairs of Asia Minor began with the war against Antiochus III of Syria (p. 29), which resulted, after the battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.), in the enlargement, at the expense of his territories along the .iEgean, of the kingdom of Pergamum. Rather more than half a century later Pergamum was bequeathed by its last king Attalus to the Roman state (133), and this constituted the first Asiatic province which the Romans acquired, and to which others were speedily added. It was in the course of the war against Mithradates, King (74-66) of Pontus, success in which rendered the Roman state paramount in western Asia, that Pompey, who had been invested with almost autocratic authority in the east, sent (65) his general Scaurus into Syria to interfere in the quarrel between Aristobulus II and his brother Hyrcanus (p. 38). Scaurus decided in favour of Aristobulus ; but in 63 Pompey himself 1 See Sohiirer, Hist. Jewish People, I. i. 328-370. ' See p. 343. ' Some think that the actual legati during these years were successively M. Lolliua and C. Maroius Censoriantis, who were guardians of Gains Csesar, 44 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY proceeded towards Judaea. At Damascus both brothers appeared before him to press their claims, whilst representatives of the Jewish people, who were also present, desired the abolition of the monarchy altogether, and the restoration of the High Priestly government. As Pompey delayed a settlement, Aristobulus withdrew to Jerusalem and prepared for resist- ance ; but eventually submitted to the Roman leader. His Sadducean partisans, however, refused to do so ; and when the adherents of Hyrcanus surrendered the city of Jerusalem, they retired into the citadel on the Temple hill. This was stormed, and its capture was followed by a dreadful massacre (cf. Ps. Sol. viii. 23), whilst the walls of the city were demolished. Pompey entered the Temple and penetrated even to the Holy of Hohes ; but he did not rifle its treasure. Nevertheless the desecration of the Temple left bitter memories, and must have filled those Jews who were zealous for their religion with a deep hatred for their Roman conquerors. Syria had been made a Roman province in 64 ; and Pompey now included in it all the coast towns, the Greek cities (the Decapohs) east of the Jordan, and the districts round ScythopoUs and Samaria. But Judsea itself was placed under tribute, and its administration left to Hyrcanus with the title of High Priest and Ethnarch, though not of king. His rival Aristo- bulus (whom Pompey held responsible for the resistance at Jerusalem) and many other Jews were carried captive to Rome (Ps. Sol. viii. 24), where, after figuring in Pompey's triumph (61 B.C.), the majority were allowed to settle. Hyrcanus did not retain for long the civil power given to him by Pom- pey. Gabinius, the governor of Syria in 57-55, took from him the political administration of the country, confining him to his priestly duties, and incorporated Judsea in the province of Syria. The country, however, did not remain free from disturbances. Aristobulus and his sons Alexander and Antigonus, who had been imprisoned by the Romans, but had escaped, made repeated attempts (56 and 55) to recover the power they had lost ; but their endeavours all proved abortive and eventually Aristobulus perished by poison (49 B.C.). In 54 Crassus, who succeeded Gabinius as proconsul of Syria, showed nothing of the self-control of Pompey ; and on his march to fight the Parthians he pillaged the Temple of its treasure. An insurrection by the Jews, following upon the defeat and death of Crassus at Carrhse (53 B.C.), was suppressed by Cassius, the lieutenant of Crassus, who sold 30,000 Jews as slaves. In the civil war between Pompey and Csesar (49-48), Hyrcanus and Antipater supported Csesar, who received from the latter most valuable aid at Alexandria, where there was secured for him the help of the Jewish population of that city (47 B.C.). As a reward for this service Cresar (47) rescinded the arrangements previously made by Gabinius in regard to Judasa, and Hyrcanus was again appointed Ethnarch of the Jews ; whilst Antipater was made chief minister {imreoTwg), having, as before, the control of the taxation. Jerusalem was permitted to be fortified once more ; the country was freed from tribute ; and the people were aUowed the control of their own internal administration. Further concessions were granted in 44, Joppa and various other places, which had been severed from Judaia by Pompey, being now restored to JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 45 it. The favours shown by Caesar to the Jews were not confined to those who were resident in Palestine, for Roman citizenship was conferred on the Jews of Alexandria ; and when Ceesar was assassinated in 44 the Jews are recorded as having been conspicuous amongst foreign nations for their grief (Suetonius, Julius 84). Antipater was murdered by a rival in 43 ; but he left two sons, Phasael and Herod, the latter of whom became a conspicuous figure ia Jewish history for the next sixty years. The brothers, after being governors of Jerusalem and Galilee respectively during their father's Ufetime, were made, during 41, tetrarchs of the Jews by Antony, Iljrrcanus being again deprived of his poUtical authority. It was not long before Hyrcanus lost his Uberty as well. Antigonus, the son of his brother Aristobulus, had intrigued with the Parthians with a view to recovering his father's throne ; and by a Parthian force that crossed the Euphrates and entered Palestine, Hyrcanus and Antipater's son Phasael were made prisoners, and Antigonus was appointed King (40 B.C.). Thereupon Herod, who escaped capture, made his way to Rome. The reign of Antigonus (whose Hebrew name was Mattathias) was a brief one. Herod on his arrival at Rome secured the favour of both Antony and Octavian ; and, in view of the Parthian invasion, was formally declared King of Judsea by the senate. Returning to Palestine in 39 and being supported at Antony's direction by two successive pro-consuls of Syria, P. Ventidius (who conquered the Parthians ia 38) and C. Sosius, he was ia a position to besiege Jerusalem ia 37. The city offered a stubborn resistance, but was at last taken, and Antigonus was carried away prisoner by Sosius to Antioch, where he was executed. With him ended the Has- moEBBan dynasty after a period of sovereignty lasting not quite seventy years. , TABLE or THE EOMAN EMPERORS (TO THE MIDDLE OE THE SECOND CENTURY) AND THE HERODS B.C. Roman Emperors. The Herods. 37 Herod king of Judsea, Galilee and Tra- ohonitis 27 Augustus (■Arohelaus ethnaroh of Judsea 4 i Antipas tetrarch of Galilee (.Philip tetraroh of Traohonitis Birth of our Lord I Arohelaus deposed I Judsaa under procurators The Crucifixion Philip dies Agrippa I king of Traohonitis j Antipas deposed [ Agrippa I king of Traohonitis and Galilee Agrippa I king of Traohonitis, Galilee, and Judsea (Agrippa I dies 44 \ Judaea, Galilee and Traohonitis under pro- ( curators 2 A.D. 6 14 Tiberius 29 34 37 Caligula 39 41 Claudius 46 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY A.D. Roman Emperors. The Berods. j Agrippa II king of Traohonitis 53 I JudiBa and Galilee under procurators 54 Nero ^ 68 Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian 70 Fall of Jertisalem 79 Titus 81 Domitian ' 96 Nerva 98 Trajan 100 Agrippa II dies 117 Hadrian 132-135 Revolt of Bar Gochbd 138 Antoninus Pius 161-180 Marcus Aurelius The Herodi^ Herod (distinguished as the Great) * was by nature ambitious, passion- ate, sensual, and cruel, but was nevertheless an energetic and capable, if unscrupulous, ruler. Although he had mounted the throne (37 B.C.) by the destruction of the last of the Hasmoneean kings, he was connected with the Hasmonsean house by his marriage with Mariamne, the grand- daughter of Hyrcanus. Hyrcanus himself had been released from his captivity among the Parthians (p. 45) ; but as his ears had been cut ofE by his captors, and he was thus incapable of resuming the High Priest's functions [Lev. xxi. 17-21), Herod chose as High Priest in 37 a certain Ananel, with whose appointment the regular succession of descendants of Aaron as High Priests was interrupted. After a very brief interval it was restored (35) by Herod's nomination of Hyrcanus' grandson Aristobulus III ; but since the latter was a Hasmonsean, he was feared by Herod as a possible rival, and was put to death, and thenceforward the High Priesthood was disposed of according to the pleasure of the secular ruler of the day. At the outbreak of the war between Antony and Octavian, Herod, as being greatly indebted in the past to Antony (p. 45), had prepared to help him ; but he did not take active part against Octavian, and after the defeat of Antony at Actium (31 B.c), he was able to conciliate the conqueror, whom in the following year he met at Rhodes. Before leaving Jerusalem he directed, as a precaution against plots in his absence, the execution of Hjrccanus. The territory which Herod possessed at the beginning of his reign was not the whole of Palestine, for Antony in 34 had given to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, the entire seacoast (except Tyre and Sidon) from the river Eleutherus to the Egyptian border, as well as the district of Jericho. But after the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra in 30 he received from Octavian several of the southern coast towns as well as Jericho and Samaria ; in 1 With Nero the Julian dynasty ended. '■ Vespasian, Titus and Domitian constituted the Flavian dynasty. ' See Sohiirer, Hiat. Jewish People, I. i. p. 400 f . * He is the Herod of MaU. ii. 1 f ., Lk. i. 5. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 47 25 his realm was still further enlarged by the inclusion within it of Tracho- nitis, Batanea, and Auranitis (p. 7 ) ; whilst in 20 he obtained the districts north and north-west of the Lake of Gennesaret. By these additions his dominion grew to twice its original size. Within this extent of territory he exercised sovereign rights ; he had the title of King ; he could pass and execute laws ; he could impose taxes ; he had unrestricted power of life and death over his subjects ; and he organized and controlled his own army. But this considerable authority was quaUfied in certain ways (of. p. 69). (a) He could not make peace and war independently of the Eoman government ; (6) he had, in the event of Rome being at war with a foreign power, to provide auxiliary troops and sometimes money ; (c) he could only issue a copper coiaage of his own ; (d) his nomination of his successor had to be confirmed by the Emperor. His subordinate position was evidenced by the fact that his subjects took the oath of allegiance not only to him but also to the Emperor. By the Jews he was regarded with much disUke, partly on account of his oiigin, partly by reason of his dependence upon the Romans and his Gentile tastes and sympathies, and partly because of his oppressive taxa- tion. By race he was an Idumsean (p. 38), though his family had been Jews for three generations. He owed his position of sovereign to the authority and support of Rome, and he was naturally indisposed to allow the Sadducean priestly families to enjoy in addition to their ecclesiastical prerogatives any secular power, making it his policy to conciliate the opposite party of the Pharisees. This, however, did not prevent him from indulgiag his inclination for Hellenic usages. He aggrieved the bulk of his people by constructing a theatre in Jerusalem and an amphitheatre in the Plain where games were held (Jos. Ant. xi. 8, 1), and he even made provision for heathen worship within his dominions. Yet he did not repeat the outrages of Antiochus Epiphanes ; and in order to avoid ofEending in certain directions the rehgious sentiments of his Jewish subjects, he refrained from the use, on his buildings or coinage, of repre- sentations of the human figure. And though some of the structures which he reared were designed for his own sole pleasure and advantage (Uke the palace at Jerusalem and the fortress (named Antonia) on the north of the Temple, see p. 11), others were of real value to the people. He adorned Samaria and called it Sebaste in honour of Augustus. He replaced Straton's Tower by a new city which he named Ctesarea (building a palace there which afterwards became the residence of the Roman procurator. Acts xxiii. 35), and provided it with a harbour by the con- struction of a breakwater. Among other undertakings he rebuilt the fortress of Machserus on a height above the eastern shore of the Dead Sea and erected a palace within it. But his greatest architectural achieve- ment was the building of the Third Temple to take the place of the comparatively humble one raised by Zerubbabel (p. 14). This was begun in 20-19 B.C., and though the actual fane was completed in a year and a half, the surrounding buildings took eight years, and the whole work was not finished imtil a.d. 62-64, shortly before its destruction by the Romans in 70. For a description of its plan see p. 90. 48 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY The domestic life of Herod was marked by a number of tragedies due to his jealousy and his passionate temper. He had ten wives and fourteen children, his favourite wife being Mariamne, granddaughter of Hyrcanus. She was his first victim, being executed on a charge of unfaithfulness in 29 B.C. Alexandra, mother of Mariamne, was put to death in 28 for attempted treason. Costobar, the husband of Herod's sister Salome, whom his wife desired to get rid of, was betrayed by her and executed in 25. His two sons by Mariamne, Aristobulus and Alexander, excited his suspicions in consequence of their natural resentment at the death of their mother ; and being slandered by their half-brother Antipater (son of the king's fijst wife Doris), were charged with plotting against him, and were put to death in 7 B.C. Finally Antipater himself became suspected of attempting his father's Ufe, and he, too, was executed in 4 B.C. It is not surprising that the Emperor Augustus should have said that it was better to be Herod's pig (vg) than his son {viog). Herod in his old age was attacked by a loathsome disease (Eus. H.E. i. 8) ; and his death was eagerly anticipated by numbers of his subjects. In the course of his life he altered his mind three times as regards the disposal of his crown after his death. By his first will he left the succession to his favourite son Antipater, directing that, if Antipater should die before himself, it should then pass to Herod Philip, son of his third wife who, like the second, mentioned above, was called Mariamne. In a second wUl he wished Antipas (son of Malthace) to succeed him. But in his final testament he divided his dominions, naming Archelaus (also son of Malthace) his successor on the throne of Judsea (to which were attached Samaria and Idumsea), giving the tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraa to Antipas, and bestowing the tetrarchy of Gaulonitis, Trachonitis, Batanea and Panias upon Phihp (son of Cleopatra). TABLE OF THE HEBODS AND THE ROMAN PROCURATORS B.C. 37 Herod the Great, King of JtTDiEA, Gauiee, and Tkaohonitis 4 Partition of Herod's Dominions between his sons JUDiEA GaULEB TbAOHONTTIS Archelaus, ethnarch Antipas, tetrarch Philip, tetrurch A.D. J Deposition of Archelaits, and 6 1 Appointment of Procurators Copouius 9 M. Ambivius 12 Annius Rufus 15 Valerius Gratus 26 Pontius Pilate 36 MaroeUus Death of Philip 37 MaruUus Agrippi I, i4 39 {Deposition of Antipas and union of Gaulbb and „ . ,r ^ ' Teachonitis under Agrip;ia I Umon of JnD.>EA, Galilee and Tbaohonitis under A" rippa I Death of Agrippa ; Appointment of Procurators " Cuapiua I'adus Tiberius Alexander *° Ventidius Cumanus 41 44 JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 49 A.D. JlJD^A GaLILBB TkACHOJJITIS 52-S3 JnD^A and Galilee under procurators Tkaohonitis under a kinj Felix Agrippa II 60 Festus 62 Albinus 64 Gessius Floras 70 Jerusalem captured 73 Jttd^a made a province 100 Death of Agrippa II The death, of Herod was followed by a dispute between two of his sons respecting the succession to the kingdom of Judsea. Against the nomination of Archelaus as heir to his father's principal dominions appeal was made by Antipas to the decision of Eome, whither both claimants proceeded. In the meantime the Emperor Augustus had placed Judsea temporarily under a procurator, Sabinus, whose rapacity and oppression provoked a rebelUon. The rising in Judsea was accompanied by another in GaUlee, headed by Judas the Gaulonite (p. 55). These were only suppressed by the intervention of QuintiKus Varus, the governor of Syria, who crucified 2,000 of the rebels. At Rome the dispute between Archelaus and Antipas was argued before Augustus, and the strong feeling against the house of Herod entertained by the Jews was manifested by a request that the Eomans should allow no further members of the family to rule in Judsea, but should sufier its people to be governed by their own laws under Roman suzerainty. Augustus, however, decided in favour of Archelaus, but severed from the territory assigned to him by his father the cities of Gaza, Gadara and Hippos ; and instead of allowing him to be king, gave him the title of Ethnarch. This, however, was superior to the title Tetrarc/i borne by Antipas and Philip. It had been bestowed on Hyrcanus II (see p. 44), but is otherwise rare. The term tetrarch, which originally meant the ruler of a fourth part or division of a country (xeTQaQxla being first used in connection with the four districts into which PhiUp of Macedon divided Thessaly (Dem. Phil. iii. § 26) ), by this time had lost its former signification, and was used to designate a dependent prince (as in Galatia (see p. 265) and elsewhere). Archelaus, by his father's last will, received as his possessions Judsea, Samaria and Idumsea. Though not allowed by Augustus to retain his father's style of king, he was promised this title by the Emperor, should he prove worthy of it. He was not twenty when he assumed authority, and his period of rule was short and troubled. By disposition he was cruel and tyrannical (cf. Mt. ii. 22) ; and he gave great offence to the Jews by marrying the wife of his half-brother Alexander, though she had children by her former husband. He, too, like his father and brothers, interested himself in building schemes, and founded the city of Aichelais, near Jericho. He so far respected his subjects' sentiments that he did not use heathen symbols on his coinage. But his administration excited much discontent; and the measures which he took in suppressing it caused complaint to be made against him at Eome, whither he was summoned by Augustus, and by him was deposed (a.d. 6). He was banished to Gaul, though, since his grave was shown in the fourth century at Bethlehem, 4 50 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY he may have returned to Palestine before his death. His territory was taken over by the Emperor, and except for a short interval (41-44) was governed by a procurator (see p. 53). The transfer of Judaea to thedirect administration of Eome changed for the worse the position of its mhabitants, for though the Herodian family were in general self-seeking and brutal, they were bound to their subjects, at least ostensibly, by the tie of a common reUgion, whereas between the Roman procurators and the people whom they ruled there was no such Unk ; so that any consideration shown for a race which they despised depended upon the policy of the Roman state and the humanity of individual of&cials (cf. p. 55). Hebod Antipas 1 (a shortened form of Antipatros), who was the full brother of Archelaus, never really had the title of king, though he is loosely styled so in Mlc. vi. 14. His dominions were in two separate halves. He possessed Galilee, on the western shore of Lake Genneaaret (with his capital at Tiberias), and Persea, on the east of the Jordan ; but between them came the region of Decapolis (p. 7), the towns oonstitutmg that confederation not being coterminous, but interpenetrating the tetrar- chies of Antipas and his brother PhOip (p. 51). In character Antipas resembled his father, but was endowed with less ability. Like him he built extensively, the principal town that owed its foundations to him being Tiberias, mentioned earlier (p. 5). Like his father also he respected Jewish religious feeling to the extent of avoiding the use, on his coins, of any image ; and he joined others of his famUy in protesting against the conduct of the Roman procurator Pilate in setting up in the palace at Jerusalem a shield with an emblem that gave ofience to the Jews. His first wife was the daughter of the Arabian king Aretas (cf . p. 370) ; but on the occasion of a journey to Rome he became attached to Herodias, the wife of one of his brothers, who, called by Josephus Herod but by St. Mark Philip, and possibly having both names, occupied a private station, and who entertained him on his way. In consequence of this passion he divorced the daughter of Aretas and then married Herodias. According to St. Mark, this union, efiected whilst Herodias' husband was alive, evoked a reproof from John the Baptist, whose ministry, if exercised in Peraea, was within the dominions of Antipas, and the tetrarch in consequence put him in prison, where his death was procured by Herodias. The place of his murder is not mentioned by St. Mark ; but Josephus, who attributes his captivity to Herod's fear of his influence with the people {Ant. xviii. 5, 2), represents that he was imprisoned and executed at Machaerus (p. 9). Antipas' conduct naturally embroiled him with Aretas, who for the wrong done to his daughter, and for other reasons, declared war (a.d. 36), and defeated his forces. The Emperor Tiberius gave orders to the governor of Syria (Vitellius) to avenge the defeat of his vassal ; but as the Emperor died shortly afterwards, VitelUus proceeded no further with the punitive expedition. It was within the dominions of Antipas that our Lord spent most of 1 He is the Herod of Lk. iii. 1, 19, ix. 9 {= Mk. vi. 14, ML xiv. 1), xiu. 31, xxiii, 7, Acts iv. 27, xiii. 1. /. . JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 51 His ministry. It was also to Antipas, when in Jerusalem, that our Saviour, according to Lh. xdii. 6-12, was sent for trial by Pilate. When Agrippa, the brother of Herodias, was appointed by Caligula to succeed Philip in the tetrarchy of Trachonitis (see below), he received from the Emperor the title of king. This promotion caused Herodias to persuade Antipas to seek the same honour for himself, and he went to Eome to petition for it. Agrippa, however, had causes of resentment against Antipas ; and he accordingly now accused him to the Emperor of treasonable negotiations with the Parthians, and of having collected arms for some sinister purpose. As Antipas could not rebut the charge, he was at once deposed by Caligula and banished, as Archelaus had been (p. 49), to Gaul (a.d. 39),'' where he died ; whilst his tetrarchy was conferred upon Agrippa. The territory possessed by Philip (who is alluded to in Lh. iii. 1, but must be distinguished from the Philip of Mk. vi. 17 (see p. 50) ), consisted of the region known in the Old Testament as Bashan (situated between the Yarmuk and its sources, on the south, and Hermon and Damascus on the north) and called by St. Luke (iii. 1) " the Itursean and Trachonite coun- try," together with the district of Panias, near the sources of the Jordan. PhiUp, who married his half-niece Salome, was the best of the Herods. Upright and unambitious, he ruled justly and pacifically. He had his father's fondness for building cities, two of which are mentioned in the New Testament. One of these was Csesarea PhiHppi, which was an enlargement of the earlier Panias (p. 7), and the other was Bethsaida Julias (p. 7), which was converted from a village into a flourishing town. It was to his dominions that our Lord on one occasion retired when He deemed it expedient to withdraw from the territory of Herod Antipas. Philip is said to have been the first Jewish prince to stamp a human likeness upon his coins, which bore successively the features of Augustus and Tiberius. He died in a.d. 33-34 ; and for a short while his realm was incorporated in the province of Syria. Eventually, however, it was conferred by Caligula in 37 upon Agrippa, son of Aristobulus, the second son of Herod the Great. Agrippa I ^ had been educated at Rome, where, in consequence of his extravagant habits, he had grown impoverished. He became, however, intimate, during the hfetime of Tiberius, with Gains Cahgula ; and near the close of Tiberius' reign, was put in prison by the Emperor for having incautiously expressed a wish that CaHgula might succeed to the throne. Released on the accession of Caligula, he received many favours from him, being appointed to the tetrarchy of Philip, to which there was added later Abilene, the tetrarchy of Lysanias (executed in 34 b.o. by Antony) ; and in 38 he was allowed the title of Mng. On the deposition of his uncle Antipas, his territory was still further enlarged, since Caligula appointed him in a.d. 40 to be successor of Antipas in the tetrarchy of ' Joaephus' statements are inconsistent : in Ant. xviii. 7, 2, he gives as Ms place < of banishment Gaul ; in B.J. ii. 9, 6, Spain. ^ The Herod of Acts xii. 1. 52 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Galilee and Perasa (p. 50). Finally, when Caligula was succeeded in 41 by Claudius, the latter, in gratitude for services which Agrippa rendered him, gave him the territories of Judsea and Samaria, so that he possessed at last all the domain once ruled over by his grandfather Herod (p. 47). He is represented by Josephus {Ani. xix. 7, 3) in a very favourable Kght, being described as naturally generous and humane ; and though he indulged his private tastes for Greek and Eoman institutions, like the theatre and the arena, his attitude towards his Jewish subjects was, in general, very concihatory. He carefully observed, at least within his own realm, all the injunctions of the Mosaic Law ; and he used his influence on one occasion to prevent a statue of the Emperor from being erected in a Jewish synagogue at the Phoenician city of Dora (the ancient Dor). His adherence to the Jewish faith inevitably inclined him to regard unfavourably those who, like the Christians, might be considered disloyal to it ; and he consequently persecuted them, putting James, the son of Zebedee, to death, and imprisoning Peter, with the intention of executing him also, though the Apostle was enabled to escape {.4cte xii. 1-19). To- wards the end of his reign he became involved in a dispute with the people of Tyre and Sidon.^ resulting in an economic war, which, as Phoenicia was largely dependent upon Palestine for corn, wine, and oil (cf. 1 Kg. v. 9, Ez. iii. 7, Ezek. xxvii. 17), ended in the submission of the former. He died in a.d. 44 at CsBsarea, after a very brief iUness, the circumstances of which are somewhat differently related in Josephus {Ant. xix. 8, 2) and Acts xii. 19-23 (see p. 239). He left one son, Agrippa, and three daughters, Berenice (Acts xxv. 13), Mariamne, and DrusiUa. Of these, Agrippa eventually succeeded to his father's dominions, Berenice married, first, Herod, son of Aristobulus, and afterwards Polemon of Cilicia, whilst Drusilla married, first, Azizus, King of Emesa,^ and next, Felix the Roman procurator {Acts xxiv. 24), the last imion taking place during her former husband's lifetime. Ageippa 11,2 ^ijg Qjjiy gQjj pf Agrippa I, was but sixteen at the latter's death. In view of his youth, he was not allowed to succeed at once (a.d. 44) to his father's possessions, all of which were placed under a Roman procurator (Tac. Ann. xii. 23). But in 50 he received from Claudius the kmgdom of Chalcis (p. 7) ; and he was also permitted to nominate the High Priest (p. 55). In 53 he was given, instead of Chalcis, his father's origmal tetrarchy of Trachonitis, together with the tetrarchy of Abilene and some other domains. At a later date Claudius' successor Nero like- wise bestowed upon him certaiu important cities in Galilee and Persa, mcluding Tiberias, Tarichese, and Bethsaida Julias ; and his tetrarchy was also enlarged by Vespasian. He did not, however, obtain the whole of Galilee or Peraja, nor was he granted Samaria and Judsea (governed by a Roman procurator), so that his realm' was less extensive than that which his father ruled at the time of his death. His capital was Ca3sarea Philippi, which he re-named Neronias. ^^JLikeJiis father, he kept on good terms with his subjects, observing ^ These places were included in the Roman province of S%ncia On the Oroutes. a The Agrippa of Acts xxv. 13. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 53 the Law himself and even requiring the princes Azizus and Polemon, who married two of his sisters, to be circumcised. His professed devotion to Judaism did not prevent him from maintaining friendly relations with the Eoman authorities, and on his coins 'he styled himself Philokaisar and PMloromaios. On the entrance of the procurator Festus upon his office after the recall of Felix (p. 58 ), he went to CECsarea with his sister Berenice to salute him ; and on the occasion of the outbreak of the Jewish revolt against Eome (a.d. 66), he joined the Eomans. His sister Berenice (or Bernice, Acts xxv. 13),^ who had been the wife of his uncle Herod, King of Chalcis, shared his home after her husband's death, and the relations between them caused much scandal.^ After marrying, as her second husband, Polemon of Cilicia (p. 52), she returned to her brother ; and then created further scandal by her relations with the Roman Titus, who, it was rumoured, promised her marriage, though the promise, if made, was never fulfilled. After the accession of Titus (a.d. 79) to the Imperial throne, little is known of either Berenice or Agrippa. The latter is said to have lived till the reign of Trajan and to have died about a.d. 100. The Roman Procurators It has been deemed expedient to narrate the history of the Herods consecutively, but the narrative has shown that at various iatervals different parts of the territories ruled by them came under the direct authority of the Roman State, and were administered through procurators : it is now desirable to consider both the functions and powers of these, and to say something about such of them as figure in New Testament history. Under the arrangement by which the provinces under the Empire were divided iuto two classes, senatorial and imperial (p. 64), procurators existed in both classes. They comprised, however, two types of officials one being a finance officer merely, whilst the other had complete charge of such countries as were not quite ripe for inclusion in the Roman provin- cial system. The second possessed authority similar, though iaferior, to that of legati. Like the latter they were military commanders, with some military force at their disposal ; but as the force was small, they had, in case of serious emergencies, to depend upon the army of a neighbouriug legatus. The latter, moreover, if invested by the Emperor with the necessary power, could at his discretion interfere with the afiairs of a district under a procurator whenever he had reason to fear serious trouble there. After the deposition of Archelaus in a.d. 6 (p. 49), his dominion was placed beneath the control of a procurator of the second type, who was under the authority, to the extent described above, of the governor of Syria.' Syria was defended by a large force of legions, there being three in the reign of Augustus and four in the reign of Tiberius ; but the pro- 1 Berenice is a corruption of <^ipeviKii, which is represented in Latin by Veronica. » Cf. Juvenal, Sat. vi. 157-8. ' See Jos. Ant. xviii. 4, 2, xx. 6, 2, but cf . Morrison, Hisst. of the Jews under the Romans, p. 121, 34 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY curator of Judsea, whose seat of government was Caesarea, had only aimUary troops. These troops appear to have consisted of one squadron (ala, Urj) of cavalry and five battalions (cohortes, anelQai) of infantry, and to have numbered in all about 3,000 men. They were drawn principally from the districts about C^sarea and Samaria, and accordingly were called Kauyagsls xal Ze^aa-rrjvoL The title Augustan, appUed to a par- ticular cohort that is mentioned in Aas xxvii. 1, was probably an honorary designation bestowed, as a distinction for conspicuous valour, upon one of the five (of. p. 73). It is natural at first sight to suppose that the Italian cohort stationed at Caesarea (Acts x. 1) was raised in Italy, but there is some difficulty involved in the inclusion of such a cohort among the auxiliary forces stationed in Judsea, so that possibly the ezplanation is that this particular cohort was composed of Roman citizens of Italian origin but resident in Caesarea or Samaria. A detachment of the garrison stationed at Caesarea, the centre of government, was usually posted at Jerusalem, occupying the fortress of Antonia on the north of the Temple (p. 11), which could be easily reached by a stairway. With the detach- ment there was a small body of cavalry. The Eoman procurator in Judsea, besides being invested with military authority, also discharged judicial functions. The duty, however, of administering justice did not belong to him alone, but was shared with him as regards Jews by the Jewish Sanhedria (p. 100). The prociirator, to whom aU cases involving a death sentence had to be referred for con- firmation, was not bound to be guided in his decision by the Jewish Law ; but it was within his competence to follow it, if he chose. The procurator's authority to inflict capital punishment in the case of provincials was unrestricted ; but in the case of Roman citizens, although he could pro- nounce a capital sentence, he could not legally execute it, if the accused appealed to the Emperor. Such an appeal could be made even at the beginning of the judicial proceedings ; and entailed the transfer of the trial to Rome. Cases could be decided by a procurator in accordance with his own judgment alone ; but he frequently utilized the assistance furnished by assessors constituting his council (av/nPovXiov). In addition to the duties already described, there belonged to him the care of the finance of his district. As he was an Imperial officer, the revenue which he collected was paid into the imperial fiscus. All the gold and silver coins that circulated in Judeea were Roman, and bore the Emperor's image or emblem : the Jewish kings were only permitted to issue a copper coinage. For the nature of the taxes and the methods employed in levying them, see p. 70. The situation created by the direct government of a race extremely sensitive in regard to their religion by the representatives of a people in which religious sentiment was conspicuously weak was a difficult one. On the whole, the policy pursued by the Romans towards the Jews was considerate. Though after the deposition by Archelaus in a.d. 6 the appointment of the High Priests fell to the legatus of Syria or the procurator of Judeea for the next thirty-five years (a.d. 6-41), nevertheless when Agrippa I in 41 became King of Judsea as well as of Galilee and Trachonitifl JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 55 (p. 52), the right of nominating them was transferred to him ; whilst after his death in 44, though the administration of Judaea and Gahlee relapsed to Kome, yet from 44 to 66 the right was not resumed by the Bomans but was given to certain Jewish princes, first to Herod, King of Chalcis, and then to Agrippa II, King of Trachonitis. After a.d. 6 the High Priest's robe was kept in the fortress of Antonia by the Eoman commander and allowed to be used only on the three great festivals and the Day of Atonement ; the reason for its retention by the military authority was that, since the vestment was essential for the religious ceremonies, it enabled control to be exercised over the appointment to the High Priesthood.^ In a.d. 36, however, the governor of Syria, VitelUus, at the request of the Jews, gave it up altogether. The worship of the Em- perors (p. 81), though enforced elsewhere in the Empire for political reasons, was not demanded of the Jews except in the reign of Caligula (37-41). It was deemed sufficient i£, in the Temple, sacrifice was ofiered not to Caesar but "for Caesar and the Eoman people." The soldiers were even allowed to dispense with their military standards while in Jerusalem, for, as those of the legions bore an eagle and those of the cohorts a serpent woven on a piece of cloth, under which might be placed the likeness of the Emperor, they gave great offence to Jewish f eeUng. And although the Emperor's head was stamped on the gold and silver coins which were not minted in the country, the copper coinage bore nothing but his name. Nevertheless, whilst the Eoman state in the principles of its administration made many concessions to its Jewish subjects, the same considerateness was not uniformly manifested by the officials representing the government. Even those who were upright in character did not recognize that the tranquillity of the country depended as much upon tact and sympathy as upon justice ; and since many of them were not conspicuous for integrity or moderation, it is not surprising that under their rule numerous insur- rectionary outbreaks occurred. Between the dethronement of Archelaus in a.d. 6 and the appointment of Agrippa I to be king of Judaea in 41, there were seven Eoman procurators. The first was Coponius (a.d. 6-9), the contemporary legatus of Syria being P. Sulpicius Quirinius. It was Quirinius who undertook the " enrol- ment " of which mention is made in Acts v. 37. This, which occurred in A.D. 6 or 7, included both a census of the population and a registration of the value of their property, and gave great offence to the religious sentiments of the Jews, since it was carried out by Gentile officials, and did not conform to the regulations of the Jewish Law. Opposition to it was offered by Judas, son of Hezekiah, a native of Gamala in Gaulonitis, but usually called the Galilean. At this time Galilee was under Antipas, and though the enrolment applied to the whole of the province of Syria, it would only affect such parts of Palestine as were included in the province, namely Samaria and Judaea. These accordingly must have been the scene of the insurrection, which ended with the death of the leader and the dispersal of his followers. The disturbance gave rise to the revolu- ■ Foakes-Jaokson and Lake, Beginnings of Ghrislianity, Pt. I, p. 14. 56 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY tionary party of the Zealots (though this designation was perhaps of later origin). The six procurators who followed Coponius were Marcus Ambivius 9-12 ?), Annius Eufus (12-15 ?), Valerius Gratus (15-26), Pontius PiLATUS (26-36^), Marcellus (36-37), and Maeullus (37-41). The long tenure of office enjoyed by some of these exemplifies the tendency of the emperors to change the governors of the imperial provinces as little as possible, in the hope that they would have less temptation to rapacity (cf. p. 70), though the practice was not always justified by its results. This was manifestly so in the instance of Pontius Pilate. He is described as unbending and obstinate in disposition, and in his public actions as guilty of corruption, violence, oppression, and intolerable cruelty. On more than one occasion he ofiended the religious susceptibilities of the Jews, first by causing his soldiers to enter Jerusalem with their standards bearing the figure of the Emperor (p. 55) ; and next by applying the treasures in the temple to the building of an aqueduct (see Jos. Ant. xviii. 3, 1, 2 ; B.J. ii. 9, 2-4). On the first occasion he had to remove the causes of ofience. His indifierence to all considerations of justice when our Lord was brought before him for trial wiU appear in the course of the history. His want of humane feelings, illustrated by the occurrence recorded in Lh. xiii. 1, was evinced repeatedly ; and finally the resultant complaints against his conduct led VitelUus, governor of Syria, to send him to Rome to answer for his proceedings. Of his subsequent fate nothing is known with certainty, though tradition represents him as having committed suicide in the reign of Caligula (Eus. H.E. ii. 7). Pilate's successor was Marcellus (36-37) ; and it was during his term of office that Vitellius at the Passover of a.d. 36 restored to the Jews the High Priest's robe (p. 55). Like consideration for Jewish reKgious feeling was shown by Vitellius (37) in a war against the Arabian king Aretas, who had defeated the forces of Antipas (p. 50). The direct route of his army from Antioch (the residence of the Syrian governors) to Petra was through the Holy Land, but in deference to the Jews, who regarded the passage of the Roman standards through their country as a profanation, the Roman general avoided it. The successor of Marcellus was Marullus (37-41), whose governorship coincided with the reign of the Emperor Caligula. As has been stated, the worship of the head of the Roman state had not hitherto been enforced upon the Jews ; but by Caligula, whose weak mind caused him to take seriously the divine attributes that were ascribed to him, an efiort was made to compel the Jews to conform to the prevalent usage. At Alexan- dria the synagogues were profaned by the erection in them of an image of Caligula 2 ; and m Syria, Vitellius' successor, Petronius was directed to have a statue of the Emperor placed in the temple at Jerusalem. Appeals addressed to Petronius by the Jews of the capital, who were resolved to endure the utmost extremities rather than to submit to the threatened sacrilege, induced him to send a letter of remonstrance to the 8 ^l^HE^^ft^i ™ *'"' *'"''^*'^ '^^^'^ °* ^^^ ''®'^" °^ Tiberius (A.D. 14-37). JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 57 Emperor ; whilst Agrippa I, who happened to be then in Italy, petitioned Caligula to refrain from dedicating the statue. From the goodwill which he entertained towards Agrippa he yielded ; but he resented the remon- strance of Petronius, who was only preserved from disgrace by the Emperor's death through violence in a.d. 41. In A.D. 41 the direct authority which Rome had hitherto exercised in Judsea was for a time suspended, inasmuch as Claudius, on succeeding Caligula, gave Judasa to Agrippa I (p. 52). But when Agrippa died in 44, all his possessions came once more under the government of Roman procurators, though Trachonitis and portions of Galilee and Persea were afterwards (52-3) bestowed upon Agrippa II (p. 52). The first pro- curator after the reign of Agrippa I was Cuspius Fadus (45), who, though an upright ruler, betrayed his lack of sympathy with Jewish sentiment by an endeavour (foiled through the influence of Agrippa II) to take back into Roman keeping the High Priest's robes, which Vitellius had given up to the Jews in 36 (p. 55). During the rule of Fadus there occurred a threatening movement by a pretended prophet called Theudas, who seems to have contemplated an insurrection, and sought to win popular support for himself by telling his followers that he would open a way for them across the Jordan by dividing the stream ; but the movement was arrested by the dispatch against it of a body of horsemen who captured Theudas and put him to death. The incident is of interest chiefly from the allusion made to it in Acts v. 36-7. The successor of Fadus was Tiberius Alexander, who, though the precise date of his entering upon his office is unknown, was procurator until 48. He executed James and Simon, the sons of Judas the Gaulonite (p. 55), on suspicion that they meditated designs like their father's. A severe famine which began during his predecessor's tenure of office extended into his period of rule, and is of importance in connexion with the chronology of Acts. Tiberius Alexander was followed by Ventidius Cumanus (a.d. 48-52). On the occasion of a sanguinary disturbance between the Jews and the Samaritans, the former charged the procurator with acting harshly to them, and with having taken bribes from the Samaritans. Agrippa II, who was at Rome at the time, supported the Jews, and Claudius, deciding in their favour, banished Cumanus. At the request of the ex-high priest Jonathan, the head of the Jewish delegation that accused Cumanus, the procuratorship was next given to Antonius Felix (52-60), a freed man, who was brother of the Emperor's favourite Pallas. Felix, who was three times married (the name of his first wife being DrusiUa, granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra (Tac. Hist. V. 9) and that of his second being unknown ^), had as his'l^ third partner DrusiUa, sister of Agrippa II and consequently a Jewess (Acts xxiv. 24). In his administration of Judsea, his reliance upon the influence of Pallas with Claudius led him to throw ofE aU restraint (cf . Tac. Ann. xii. 1 Like the others she was a princess, since Suetonius calls h im trium reginarum, maritum {Claud. 28). 58 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 54) ; and Ms cruelty and misgovernment ^ rendered the condition of the country, bad enough under his predecessor, stUl worse. The Zealots and Sicarii committed many outrages, and the excitement among the people was still further stimulated by religious enthusiasts who claimed the power of working signs portending the advent of national liberation. One of these latter was an Egyptian Jew who gathered round him a multi- tude of people by the promise that he would cause by his mere word the walls of Jerusalem to fall, and so enable his followers to enter the city and secure the government. Felix attacked and dispersed his adherents, but the Egyptian himself escaped.^ With this insurgent St. Paul was mistakenly identified by the military tribune Lysias commanding at Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 38). It was during the governorship of Felix that the Apostle was imprisoned at Csesarea, where he remained during the last two years of the procurator's tenure of his office. Felix was recalled by Nero probably in a.d. 58 (see p. 347) and was succeeded by Porcius Festus. Festus (58-61) was a man of better character than his predecessor, but he was unable to repress successfully the disorders that were rife in the country. By him St. Paul, who had been left in prison by FeUx and who as a Roman citizen had appealed to the Emperor for trial at Rome, was sent to Italy. Festus did not occupy his office long, dying when he had filled it barely two years. Some short interval separated the death of Festus from the arrival of his successor ; and during this time the duty of government was discharged by the high priest Ananus, son of the Annas before whom our Lord was tried. It was by Ananus that James the " brother " of our Lord is said to have been put to death circ. 61 or 62 (see Jos. Ant. xx. 9, 1, cf. Eus. H.E. ii. 23). The procurator sent to succeed Festus was Albinus (62-64). He was so corrupt that he accepted bribes from aU parties, from the Sicarii no less than from the supporters of Roman authority; so that both the capital and the country were reduced to complete anarchy. He was recalled by the Emperor in 64. The last procurator was Gessius Florus (64-66), who was even worse than Albinus, and brought matters to a crisis by taking money from th& :i treasury of the Temple. This produced tumults which the procurator 1 punished savagely but was unable to put down. An attempt to pacify the populace of Jerusalem was made by Cestius Gallus the legatm of;| Syria, who was aided by Agrippa II ; but all efforts were vain, and the renunciation of allegiance to Rome was openly marked by the cessation in the Temple of the daily offering on behalf of the Emperor (see p. 55). The Zealots, aided by Idumasans, became masters of the city ; the palace of the high priest Ananus was burnt, and Ananus himself kiUed. The Roman garrison in the fortress of Antonia capitulated on terms ; but the ' Of him it is observed by Tacitus (Hist. v. 9) that per omnem savitiam et libidmm ms regium semh mgenio exercuit. „ J .'I°f P^2^^ ^^^^ t'^o rather inconsistent accounts of this Egyptian impostor in .."{•"• 1^' ° »"" in Ara. XX. 8, 6. The former account is reproduced in Eus. H.S. Ill a1. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 59 compact was broken and the soldiers were all massacred. In consequence, Gallus besieged Jerusalem with a large force, but was compelled to abandon the siege with heavy loss, and the whole of Palestine broke into revolt. The retirement of GaUus enabled the Jewish Christians about this time to withdraw from Jerusalem and take refuge in Pella (Eus. H.E. iii. 5, 3, of. p. 446). Titus Havius Vespasian was sent in 67 with a force of some 60,000 men to deal with the insurgents ; and Galilee, where John of Gischala (a place south-west of the Waters of Merom) led the rebellion, was first subdued (a.d. 67) ; but John fled to Jerusalem, where he butchered a number of the principal inhabitants. Vespasian, after subjugating Idumsea, Samaria, and Persea, invested the Jewish capital in 68 ; but the death of Nero (a.d. 68) and the dispute respecting the succession to the Empire interrupted the siege, until Vespasian himself became Emperor in 69. Then early in 70 Titus, the new Emperor's son, was sent into Judsea, and the investment of the capital was renewed. The defence was weakened by conflicts, within the walls, of rival sections headed by John of Gischala and Simon Bar-Giora ; and finally, after a siege of many months, the Temple was stormed and burnt, and the city, in which famine had long raged, was captured and razed to the ground. With its over- throw the Jewish State ceased to be. The High priesthood was abolished, the daily sacrifice came to a permanent end, the Sanhedrin was dissolved, and the tax previously contributed by all Jews for the support of the Temple was henceforward paid to the Roman treasury. In the subsequent triumph enjoyed by Vespasian and Titus the sacred vessels of the Temple and the roUs of the Law figured among the spoil carried in procession, whilst coins were struck to commemorate the captivity of Judsea. The war, however, was not absolutely brought to a close until the last fortress held by the insurgents, Masada, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, south of Engedi, was successfully attacked in 73 ; but with the capture of this the struggle was finally concluded. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the country was constituted an independent province, held by a legion, the commander of which was the governor, The seat of Roman authority continued to be Csesarea ; and since Jerusalem was now merely the site of a Roman camp, the only centre of Jewish religion and of Rabbinical studies was Jamnia (the ancient Jabneh ^). It was not in Palestine but among the Jews of the Dispersion that insubordination to Roman rule was first renewed. Shortly before the end of the reign of Trajan (98-117) disturbances of a serious character either broke out or were brewing in Cyprus, Egypt, Gyrene, and Mesopotamia,^ where the Emperor was engaged in war with the Parthians. The revolt was suppressed with severity, and under Hadrian (117-138) the Jews were for a time more tranquil. Hadrian, who had a passion for founding cities, rebuilt Jerusalem ; but was ill-advised enough not only to give it a new name — ^lia Capitolina ^ — and to erect on the site of the Temple a forum dedicated to Jupiter, but to forbid the practice of cir- cumcision. These outrages upon the sentiments of the Jews caused in ^ In the valley of Sorek, west-north-west of Jerusalem, near the sea. ' Eus, H.E. iv. 2, ' MUua was the nomen of the Emperor. 60 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 132 a violent insurrection in Judasa itseH, the leader of which was Simeon Bar-Coziba, who styled himself Ba/r-Cochbd,—" son of the star, m aUusion to the prophecy in Num. xxiv. 17. He was supported by a distanguiflhed Eabbi named Akiba, and was hailed by him as the Messiah (cf. ^ms.H.E. iv. 6). The movement was at first successful ; and smce Tenems Eufus, the contemporary governor of Judsea, was unable to suppress the revolt, Sextus Julius Severus had to be recalled from Britain by the Emperor in order to cope with the insurgents. By Severus the rebellion was quelled in 135 ; and the bloodshed that accompanied its suppression is said to have much exceeded that which marked the capture of Jerusalem by Titus. The Jews were now forbidden under pain of death to set foot in Jerusalem, which was occupied by heathen colonists ; and the country was hence- forward called by the Roman authorities Syria Palcestina. The outbreak in the reign of Hadrian was the last attempt on the part of the Jews to revolt against Rome. By Hadrian's successor, Antoni- nus Pius, the prohibition of circumcision was withdrawn ; and under succeeding Emperors, many of their former privileges, such as exemption from military service, were restored. But the spirit of the race, though subdued, was not conciliated ; and in spite of the toleration accorded to their religion, they continued to cherish bitter animosity against their rulers. It has, indeed, been a conspicuous feature of their later history that they have never amalgamated with the peoples among whom they have lived, and have repeatedly given countenance to Tacitus' description of their distinctive quahties, — Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia im promptu, sed adversus omves alios hostile odium. Religion in the Roman Period The control exercised by the Roman power over the Jews began in 63 B.C., and extended long beyond the limits of the time covered by the present work. Of the principal Apocalyptic writings which throw light upon the development of Jewish religious thought during the period with which alone we are concerned (namely from 63 B.C. to the end of the first century a.d.), one — the Book of Revelation — is embraced within the New Testament, and the leading ideas of this, which are Judaeo-Christian, do not fall to be considered here, but will come under notice later. The rest, of which one is included in the Old Testament Apocrypha, are the following : Psalms of Solomon ^ . . . 70-40 ^ B.C. SibyUine Oracles (part) . . . before 31 B.C. Assumption of Moses ^ . . . a.d. 7-29. Slavonic Enoch (The Secrets of Enoch) first half of the first century a.d. Apocalypse of Baruch . . . latter half of the first century, 2 Esdras about a.d. 120. [a.d. "■ Now existing only in Greek, but originally in Hebrew. ^ That parts of this work date after 48 b.o. appears from reference in it to tha death of Pompoy which occurred in that year. ' Originally written in Hebrew but translated into Greek. JEWISH RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 61 All of these works, like most of tte preceding period, are pseudony- mous. Several of them are composite, the dates of the constituent parts varying, and not being always easily determined with certainty. The distinctive speculations respecting the future which are con- tained in these books, though not without significance for the New Testa- ment, are of less importance than those reviewed in connexion with the Greek period, and may be treated more briefly. An interesting proof that there survived, by the side of the belief in the coming of a Heavenly Man, the older expectation of a Messiah, born of the house of David, is presented by the Psalms of Solomon. In Ps. xvii of the collection there is a prayer that begins : " Behold, Lord, and raise up unto them (the Jewish people) their King, the son of David, in the time which Thou, God, knowest, that he may reign over Israel thy servant ; and gird him with strength that he may break in pieces them that rule unjustly." The Messiah here described is clearly human, not superhuman ; and it is anticipated that, exercising the authority of an earthly king, he will not only overthrow the foreign oppressors of his people, but will destroy the predominance of those Jews who, in the eyes of the party from which these psalms emanated, were irreligious and unjust. This group of psalms was the production of the Pharisees ; and the section of the Jews against whom sentiments of hostility are manifested consisted of the Sadducees. Another conception of earlier days is preserved, with some modifica- tion, in the Apocalypse of Baruch. Here the expectation of a great gath- ering of the enemies of Israel for a final conflict, which occurs in Ezehiel and Joel (p. 23), survives. They are represented as mustered under a " last leader," but they are destroyed and their leader is put to death by God's Messiah, the protector of God's people. This representation is of interest in connexion with various passages in the New Testament (such as 2 Thess. ii. 8, Rev. xx. 7 foil.). In some of these Apocalypses the thought of the evil condition of the present world (though it is by no means confined to these but appears earlier) receives conspicuous emphasis. In 2 Esdras it takes the form of a contrast between two worlds or ages, that which now exists and that which is to come (see vii. 50). The one is corrupt and transitory, full of sadness and infirmity, and will be ended by the judgment ; whilst the other will be permanent and immortal, abounding in virtue and happiness (iv. 11, 27, vii. 12, 13, 113, 114). The same idea of the two worlds recurs in several places in the New Testament (see Lk. -ks.. 35, Mt. xii. 32, Eph. i. 21). The only, really novel development of thought exhibited by these Apocalypses of which account need be taken here is the anticipation of a Millennium, which is of importance in view of the recurrence of the idea ia Rev. xx. 4. It appears first in Slavonic Enoch. The writer of this, arguing from the fact that the earth was created in six days, which were followed by a seventh day of rest, and assuming one day with God to be as a thousand years, concludes that the ordinary history of the world will be completed in 6,000 years, and that after the expiration of these 62 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY there will be a period of rest and bliss for another thousand years, after which millennium time will pass into eternity.^ In Slavonic Enoch there is no mention of a Messiah in connexion with the Millennium. A parallel conception of a limited Messianic age on earth, lasting not a thousand but only 400 years, occurs in 2 Esdras. During this space of time the Messiah, whom God is represented as addressing as " My Son " (2 Esd. vii. 28, xiii. 37), will be manifested, and at its expiration will die.^ The origin of the number 400 has been sought in a comparison of Ps. xc. 15, "Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us," with Gen. xv. 13, where the affliction of Israel in Egypt is described as lasting 400 years.^ After the death of the Messiah there will ensue a brief interval, and then a new era wiU begin, inaugurated by a judgment- scene in which the Judge is God. There wUl be a resurrection of the dead, and good deeds will be rewarded and evil punished. " The pit of torment shall appear and over against it shall be the place of rest ; and the furnace of Gehenna shall be shewed, and over against it the paradise of delight " (2 Esd. vii. 36). 1 Charles, Eschatology, p. 261. " In 2 Esd. vii. 28 the correct reading is my son the Messiah, not my son Jesus (see Box, The Ezra Apocalypse, p. 114). " Charles, Eschatology, p. 286. Ill THE ROMAN EMPIRE BY the middle of the first century a.d. Eome had reduced under its sway all the southern parts of Europe, the western portion of Asia, and the north coast of Africa. It was thus supreme over the Medi- terranean, ruling all the lands which are washed by that sea, and several which are not. The frontiers of its dominions were on the West, the Atlantic ; on the North, the Trent, the Ehine, the Danube, the Black Sea and the Caucasus ; on the East, the upper waters of the Euphrates and a more or less undefined line running from thence to the Eed Sea ; and on the South, the edge of the African desert. Authority over this vast territory, stretching about 3,000 miles from East to West, and 2,000 from North to South, was enforced, under republican forms, by a single ruler. Octavian was the first to possess the supreme authority. Though by a constitutional fiction he was the servant of the State, yet, since to him alone the soldiers took their oath of allegiance (sacramentum), this fact made him its master. Accordingly, though in form many functions of government were left to the Senate, the reality of sovereignty rested with the Emperor. In the New Testament no distinction is made between the titles Emferor and King, ^aadeiis being employed for both (1 Pet. ii. 17, Matt. ii. 1). The cognomen CcBsar, which was received by Octavius when he was adopted by Gains Julius Cfesar and became C. Julius Csesar Octavianus, and the title Augustus (in Greek Ze^aaxdo) which he then assumed, were taken by all his successors ; for the use of these titles in the New Testament, see Mark xii. 14, Lk. ii. 1, Acts xxv. 25. (a) The Provincial System ^ The centre of government was Italy, outside of which the subject lands of the empire were divided into provinces (inagxlai). The names of these, as given below, did not always coincide in extent with the coun- tries which were denoted by them before their annexation by Eome ; and in the New Testament some ambiguity is occasioned by the uncertainty whether its writers in particular passages employ the names in the official or the popular sense, the latter corresponding to the older kingdoms out of which the Eoman provinces had been constructed by combination or division. Examples of such ambiguity are furnished by the terms ^ See Arnold, Eoman System of Provincial Administration. 63 64 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Galatia (p. 266) and Pontus. The number of the provinces varied through the inclusion in the provincial system of additional territories or through the subdivision of existing provinces. At the death of Augustus (a.d. 14) there were about thirty, at the death of Claudius (54) thirty-five under Nero (5^68) thirty-sk, and at the death of Trajan (117) the number had been increased to forty-five. . i r j Although the Roman empire constituted a umty under a smgle head, there was no uniformity in the method of its administration. Amongst the provinces there were two distinct classes ; whilst outside the provinces there were numerous semi-independent States which, so long as theii external policy was controlled by the Emperors, were aUowed much liberty in respect of internal government. The classification of the provinces was efiected in 27 B.C. by Augustus, who divided them between the Senate and himself. Sach of them as were little liable to disturbance he assigned to the Senate, which appointed the governors of them by lot out of ex-consuls and ex-praetors, the term of office bemg restricted to one year. Two of the Senatorial provinces, Asia and Africa, were reserved for ex-consuls '(consulares), whilst the rest were given to_ ex- prsetors {prcBiorii). Both classes of governors, however, were officially styled 'pro-consuls {dvOvnaTOi), though the pro-consuls of Asia and Africa had twelve lictors, whilst the others had only six. None of the governors of the Senatorial provinces had an army ; though each was allowed a small force for the purpose of maintaining order, and in Africa a legion was stationed. The revenue of these provinces went into the State treasury (wrarium) which was administered by the Senate, but in each province certain dues were payable to a separate imperial treasury (fiscus), which was under the exclusive control of the Emperor, and these dues were placed in the charge of a special finance officer {procurator, see p. 53). The number of provinces belonging to this class remained constant. On the other hand, those provinces which were less tranquil (requiring the presence of considerable military forces to ensure them protection or to repress disorder) and aU new territories were under the exclusive supervision of the Emperor, who nominated his own deputies {}egati) for such periods as he pleased, out of ex-consuls, ex -praetors, or even mere knights. Imperial deputies who were ex-consuls or ex-prsetors of Sena- torial rank were uniformly called legati Augusti (or Ccesaris) proprcBtores (nQea^evral xal avTiargarr^yol rov EefiaaTov) and such had five lictors. Certain officials drawn from the Equestrian order, who were placed by the Emperor in charge of such provinces as either needed some, but not much, military force, or presented peculiar problems of administration had the same style as the fiscal agents in the Senatorial provinces and were called frocuratores (imrQonoi, Snagxoi,, or fiyEfiovEq) , but had judicial and administrative, as well as financial, powers. The governor of Egypt had the special title of prcsfectus. As the frontiers of the Empire were extended, and additional regions were included in it, the Imperial provinces increased in number, since the newly acquired countries naturally caUel* for military occupation, and so fell to the care of the Emperor. Circumr;' stances sometimes made it desirable for the Emperor to take over a THE ROMAN EMPIRE 65 Senatorial province, and to surrender one of his own in exchange, so that the distribution of the provinces between the two authorities was con- stantly being modified. The following is a list of the provinces in existence during the first century. Those that at difEerent times were transferred from one class to the other and consequently appear twice are indicated by italics. Senatorial under proconsuls Africa Sicily Sardinia and Corsica (27 b.c.-a.d. G and after 67) Hispania BoBtica ^f,r-'*^°'l(27B.c.-llB.c.) niyricum) ) ^ ' Macedonia (27 b.c.-a.d. 15 and after 44) Gallia Narbonensis (27-22 B.C. and after 11 B.C.) Bithynia and Pontus Cyrene and Crete Cyprus (after 22 B.C.) Achaia (27 b.c.-a.d. 15, 44-67, and after 74) Imperial (a) Under proprcetors Hispania Tarraconensis Dahnatia (after 11 B.C.) Moesia (divided by Domitian) Pannonia (divided by Trajan) Germania Superior Germania Inferior Achaia (a.d. 15-44 and 67-74) Syria Lusitania Gallia Narbonensis (22-11 b.c.) Cyprus (27-22 b.c.) Aquitania Gallia Lugdunensis Gallia Belgica Galatia Macedonia (a.d. 15^4) Pamphylia Britannia Numidia (&) Under pvcurators Cappadocia Mauritania Thrace Sardinia and Corsica (a.d. 6-67) Cilicia Alpine Provinces jfj?^^ ^°**i*' ^ (Alpes Mantimee Bhffitia Noricum Judaea (sometimes under native rulers) .,<•' (c) Under a prw/ect , ,;, Egypt A large proportion of the provinces of the Empire are either not men- 1 tioned at all in the New Testament or are only slightly alluded to, so that i they require no notice here, but several of them figure prominently in it. i Asia, in many ways the principal of the provinces by reason of its ! 5 'M' 66 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY population, wealth, and ciilture, was first organized in 129 B.C. out of the kingdom of Pergamum, which its King Attains III bequeathed to the Eomans in 133. It embraced Mysia, Lydia, and Caria, most of Phrygia, and the numerous islands lying near the coast. Pergamum (on the Caicus), the capital of the ancient kingdom, remained for a while the capital of the province ; but, later, Ephesus, at the mouth of the Cayster, became the seat of government. Rivals of Ephesus in importance were Smyrna (on the coast) and Sardis (on the Hermus). Other towns men- tioned in the New Testament are Miletus, Troas, Assos, Adramyttium (on the coast), Mytilene (in Lesbos), Thyatira, Laodicea, Philadelphia, Colossse, Hierapolis (inland). In Asia there existed a provincial association which had as its object the encouragement of the worship of Rome and the Emperor. Its designa- tion was Koivov 'Aaiag (Commune Asia) and its naembers were termed Asiarchs. They appear to have been the high priests of the new imperial cult (which had its earliest centre at Pergamum), and administered funds devoted to the maintenance of it. It naturally fell to the Asiarchs to see that no forms of worship other than those allowed by the Roman State were introduced into the province. It is not known for certain how long they held of&ce, but the title was seemingly retained after their office had expired, and was one of much dignity. In neighbouring provinces there were officials bearing analogous titles (Bithyniarchs, Galatarchs, Syriarchs, etc.), and presumably invested with similar duties. The name Asia was ambiguous (cf. p. 63), since, besides denoting the Roman province, it might be used of that part of it in particular (exclusive of Phrygia) which lay along the jEgean coast. It appears to have this signification in Acts ii. 9, where it is distinguished from Phrygia. Macedonia was conquered by the Romans at the battle of Pydna, 168 B.C., and was at first divided into four districts in which there were established federations retaining a certain measure of independence. Of this division possibly the memory survives in Acts xvi. 12. The arrange- ment proving unsatisfactory, the coimtry was organized as a province in 146. Its extent varied at different times. During the period covered by the historical narratives of the New Testament it stretched from Thrace (from which it was separated by the river Nestus) to the Adriatic, and included Thessaly and part of Epirus. By Augustus it was placed in 27 B.C. under the Senate, but at the beginning of the reign of Tiberius (a.d. 15) it was transferred to the Emperor ; whilst by Claudius in 44 it was restored to the Senate. Its most important towns lay on the Tia Egnatia (p- 75) ; among these were Thessalonica, ApoUonia, AmpM- polis and Philippi. Other places of some note were Neapolis (the port of Philippi), Beroea, and Pydna. Thessalonica and Amphipolis were both " free " cities (p. 71) ; whilst Thessalonica was the seat of the Roman governor. Philippi had the distinction of being a Roman colony, for some of the troops of Octavian and Antony were established there in 42 B.C., after the victory gained over Brutus and Cassius ; and a second body of soldie» were sent thither by Augustus after the battle of Actium (31 B.C.). THE ROMAN EMPIRE 67 AcHAiA, conquered in 146 B.C., was at first included in the province ^ of Macedonia, but in 27 B.C. it was made a separate Senatorial province, I comprising all Greece, from Thessaly and the southern part of Epirus to ' the extremity of the Peloponnesus. At a later date Thessaly was dis- connected from it and attached to Macedonia (p. 66). In a.d. 15 Achaia, together with Macedonia, to which it was once more joined, became a |single Imperial province, but it was retransferred to the Senate in a.d. 44, so that on the occasion of St. Paul's visit it was under a proconsul {Acts xyiii. 12). Its most famous city was Athens ; but its official capital and chief trading centre was Corinth, of which Cenchreae was the eastern, and Lechseum the western port. Corinth was destroyed by Mummius in 146, but the city was refounded as a colony by Julius Caesar, its settlers consisting largely of freedmen. (See further p. 553.) BiTHYNiA AND PoNTUs formed a single province, constituted out of the kingdom of Bithynia (left to the Romans by its king Nicomedes III in 74 B.C.), and the western part of Pontus (the kingdom of Mithradates). The joint province was under the Senate until a.d. Ill, when it was trans- ferred to the Emperor. None of its towns is mentioned in the New Testa- ment, though Nicomedia, in Bithynia, was a place of importance. Cyprus, when annexed in 58 B.C., was at first attached to Cilicia ; then for a short period it was given to Ptolemy of Egypt ; but in 27 B.C. it became a separate province, first under Imperial, and then, after a.d. 22, under Senatorial control, so that when visited by St. Paul and Barna- bas (Acts xiii. 7) it was governed by a proconsul. Its principal towns were Paphos (the seat of the government) and Salamis. Cyeene and Crete formed a joint province, the former being first included in the Roman provincial system in 74 B.C. and the latter in 68 B.C., and the two being united by Augustus and placed under the Senate. Of Crete the only localities named in the New Testament are certain places on the coast, Salmone, Lasea, with a neighbouring harbour called Pair Havens {KaXol Ai/^eveg), and Phcenix. Galatia derived its name from a body of Gauls who in the third cen- tury B.C. crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor, and after perpetrating many ravages, finally settled in the region around Ancyra. In 64, Pompey placed the Galatians under three chiefs, the ablest of whom was Deiotarus, who afterwards received the title of king. The last king, Amyntas, was killed in battle, and his realm in 25 B.C. was reduced by the Romans to a province. This included, beside Galatia proper, parts of Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Pontus ; and eventually in a.d. 70 it was augmented by the addition to it of Cappadocia. Of the northern portion of the pro- vince (the district inhabited by the descendants of the Gauls) the chief cities were Pessinus, Ancyra (the modern Angora), and Tavium ; wHlst of the southern part the principal places were Pisidian Antioch,i Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra, all of which were inhabited by Asiatic peoples (not Celts), though Antioch and Lystra contained Roman colonies (p. 71). Cappadocia was annexed in a.d. 17, and remained a separate province ^JStriotly Antioch ad Pisidiam, "Antioch bordering Pisidia," It was really in Phrygia. 68 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY under procurators until 70, when it was attached to Galatia (p. 67). It was a poor district, possessing few towns. Pamphylia was at first comprised in Cilicia, but was severed from it in 25 B.C., and probably administered by the legatus of Syria. But when in A.D. 43 Lycia was added to it, it became a separate province under the Emperor. Among its chief towns were Perga and Attalia ; whilst others named in the New Testament are Myra and Patara. Cilicia was acquired in 103 B.C., but not effectively occupied until 67 B.C., when Pompey suppressed the pirates which had their haunts there. The province varied greatly in the extent of territory included in it at difierent times. Physically it consisted of two halves, a western section of mountainous character (Cilicia Tracheia), and an eastern section, level and fertile (Cilicia Pedia or Campestris). It was the western half alone which constituted the province during the rule of Augustus, who placed it under a procurator subordinate to the legatus of Syria. The country was famous for a dark-coloured fabric made of goats' hair which was called xMxiov, and furnished material for sackcloth (Rev. vi. 12) and tent cloth. ^ Its most important towns were Seleuceia (on the sea) and Tarsus (on the Cydnus), the latter being a free city (p. 71) and the seat of a univer- sity whose students were not inferior to those of Athens and Alexandria (Strabo, Geog. xiv.). Syeia was conquered in 64 B.C., when the dynasty of the Seleucids was ended (p. 37). The province, which embraced aU the country from the gulf of Issus to the borders of Egypt, and from the Arabian desert to the sea, was placed under the control of the Emperor, who was represented by a legatus. But at diSerent times various parts of Syria (in the geo- graphical sense) were under jwasi-independent native rulers, including Com- magene, Emesa, Abilene, Chalcis, and others mentioned below. The most important of its cities (outside those in native states) was Antioch, reckoned as the third city of the Empire. This was built on the Orontes and was distinguished from various other Antiochs by the designation 'Avrioxela fj TtQog Adqnirj (the latter place being a grove sacred to ApoUo). The city was some 14 miles from the sea, and had a port at the mouth of the Orontes called Seleuceia, both it and Antioch being founded by Seleucus Nicator. Of the semi-independent states which were in the vicinity of the province of Syria, and some of which at difierent times were included in it, the following, as being directly or indirectly alluded to in the New Testament, may be noticed here. (1) The Kingdom of the iTURiEANS. This tribe, famous as archers,^ lived on the slopes of Anti-Lebanon, their kingdom extending on both sides of the range, and their capital being Chalcis, in the plain between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. In the time of Antony, their king was named Lysanias and was executed by the Roman triumvir in 36 B.C. His kingdom was subsequently divided into four sections : (a) The ■■ It was the weaving of this material that constituted the secular occupation of St. Paul, who was a native of Tarsus. " Cf. Verg. 0. ii. 448 Iturceos taxi torquentur in arcus, THE ROMAN EMPIRE 69 Telrarchy of TJlatha and Panias (the former, the region round Lake Merom and the latter near the source of the Jordan), conferred in 20 b.c. upon Herod the Great, and afterwards, in part, upon Herod's son Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis ; cf. Lh. iii. 1. (6) The Tetrarchy of Ahila, on the eastern slope of Anti-Lebanon, bestowed in a.d. 37 upon Agrippa I (p. 51) and in A.D. 53 upon Agrippa II (p. 52). (c) The Kingdom of Ghalcis (north of Panias), given in a.d. 41 to Herod, grajidson of Herod the Great, and afterwards (until 53) to Agrippa II (p. 52). {d) The Kingdom of the Iturwans, in a restricted sense (between HeUopoUs and Laodicea ad Dibanum. (2) The Kingdom of the Nabat^ans. This Arabian tribe in the fourth century B.C. occupied Petra, driving the Edomites northwards. From 9 B.C. to a.d. 40 they were ruled by Aretas IV, whose daughter was married to, and afterwards divorced by, Herod Antipas (p. 50), and who was in possession of Damascus (which he governed by an ethnarch) in the time of St. Paul (2 Oor. xi. 32), circ. a.d. 35. (3) Teachonitis. This, from 37 to 4 B.C., formed part of the kingdom of Herod the Great, and at his death was bestowed upon his son Philip, who had the title of tetrarch. When the latter died in a.d. 36, it came under the direct rule of Rome for a short while ; but in a.d. 37 it was given to Agrippa I (p. 51), who was allowed the style of king. On Agrippa's death in 44, it, together with the rest of his domains, passed again under Roman rule ; but in 53 it was bestowed upon Agrippa II (p. 52), who governed it until his death about a.d. 100. (4) Galilee. This, like Trachonitis, was included in the realm of Herod the Great. At his death in 4 B.C., it, together with Persea, was given to his son Antipas (p. 50), who, like his brother Philip, had only the title of tetrarch. On the deposition of Antipas in a.d. 39 it was transferred to Agrippa I, king of Trachonitis, but at his death in 44 it was taken over by the Romans and governed by procurators. (5) JuDiEA. This, with Trachonitis and Galilee, constituted the kingdom of Herod the Great. At his death (4 B.C.) it was bestowed on his son Archelaus (p. 49), to whom was given the title of ethnarch ; but when he was deposed in a.d. 6, it was placed by the Romans under pro- curators. In A.D. 41 it again received a king, being added to the other territories conferred upon Agrippa I (p. 51). At his death in 44 it, like the rest of his possessions, was once more deprived of independence ; and though in 53 Trachonitis was separately treated, and given to Agrippa 11, the remaining portions of the territories of Agrippa I (Judaea and Gahlee) continued to be ruled by Roman procurators, until after the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, when Judaea was made a separate province and governed by a legatus of consular rank. To the states here named and to others like them the Roman Emperors allowed a measure of independence ; but their rulers were expected to govern in the interest of Rome, and their foreign policy in particular was controlled from Italy (cf. p. 49). Their independent status was not guaranteed to them by treaty, but was granted or withdrawn by Rome at will ; yet in practice the right of interference was not often exercised. 70 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY for the subservience which the Emperors required they could easily secure, since they had the power of removing an intractable ruler, or of augmenting his authority and dignity if he became amenable to their wishes. For the sake of completeness brief mention may here be made of a few remote countries outside Eoman territory to which occasional allusions occur in the New Testament. The most powerful state in the east was Parthia, situated south-east of the Caspian Sea. The Parthians were at one time included in the dominions of Alexander and his successors ; but in 256 B.C. they were constituted an independent kingdom by Arsaces ; and eventually dominated the lands extending from India U) the Euphrates. At various times they were rivals of Rome for the mastery of the East, and on more than one occasion they interfered in the afiairs of Palestine (p. 45). They are referred to in the book of Enoch (Ivi. 5) and perhaps in Rev. ix. 14-16. Media lay south and south-west of the Caspian and east of the Tigris. Elam was south of Media, and near the head of the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, west of Media, was the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, the latter river separating the Roman Empire from the group of countries here enumerated. The division of the Roman provinces into two classes by Augustus greatly improved the condition of many of the subjects of the Empire. Even in the senatorial provinces, some check could be put on the rapacity of governors by the Emperor in virtue of his proconsulare imperium, and in the last resort a misgoverned region could be transferred to the class of imperial provinces. In the latter there were not the same incentives or opportunities for misconduct as in the countries under the immediate control of the Senate, since their governors were appointed for variable periods (five or even more years), were regularly paid, and were dependent for promotion upon the Emperor, who generally exercised a close super- vision over them. But besides this, the whole system of provincial taxation was changed for the better by Augustus. In the time of the Republic the taxes and customs were not exacted by the state from the taxpayers through its own officials ; but large companies (publicam, leXomai), consisting of wealthy persons, contracted for the collection of them, paying a lump sum to the state treasury, and re-imbursing them- selves for their outlay and their trouble by what they exacted through their agents from the people. Both the amount of the taxes and the method of collecting them were naturally often oppressive, since there was no definite register of property to enable the amount to be fairly appor- tioned to the different localities, whilst the publicani were under the temptation of extorting as much as they could for their own advantage. Under the Empire two alterations were made. (1) A census both of the population and of the taxable capacity of the various provinces was instituted, such being taken, in the case of Judsea, certainly in a.d. 6, when, after the deposition of Archelaus, it was included in the province of Syria (p. 56), and possibly on an earlier occasion (see p. 343). (2) The system of allowing capitalists to contract for the collection of the revenue was discontinued in connection with the direct taxes, which were now placed in the hands of government officials (the quaestors in senatorial, the THE ROMAN EMPIRE 71 procurators in imperial provinces), and retained only in respect of the indirect taxes. In ttose parts of Palestine where authority was exercised by vassal Hngs, such were empowered to levy customs for their own revenue. Hence during o\ii Lord's lifetime whilst the taxes and customs exacted in Judsea, which was under a procurator, went to the Eoman Emperor (Mk. xii. 14, Lk. XX. 25), the customs levied at Capernaum in Galilee {ML ii. 14) went to Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of that region The TeAcorai mentioned in the New Testament were not the Roman publicani, but their subordinate agents (portitores) who, if Jews, were detested not only for the oppressive- ness of which, as a class, they were guilty, but also for being in many cases the tools of a foreign power. The aQxneX&vai (cf . Lk. xix. 2) were probably more important agents, occupying a position intermediate between the Telmai and their Roman capitaHst employers. In addition to taxation levied for secular purposes every Jew likewise paid an individual con- tribution of a half shekel [diSgaxiiov) for the maintenance of the Temple worship. In respect of administration the large majority of provincial cities were allowed to have their own magistrates and civic regulations. In most there existed a senate {liovlrj) and a public assembly (ejcjcAjjcr/a). The regular meetings of the latter were called v6/^i/j.oi (or nvgiai) ixxXr^aiai ; whilst extraordinary meetings could be held by permission of the Roman authorities, such being styled (at least in some places) avyxlr]-toi ExxXrjaiai (cf. Acts xix. 39). A certain number of towns were " free " (i.e. exempt altogether from Roman taxation and from the control of the provincial governor), among them being Tarsus, Thessalonica, and Athens. The bestowal of this autonomy naturally encouraged much local pride and patriotism, such as that evinced by St. Paul (Acts xxi. 39). Distinct from these privileged cities, whose inhabitants were chiefly provincial, were the Roman colonies, towns which ordinarily consisted of Roman citizens, either estabUshed in places from which the previous population had been expelled, or planted in locahties where the existing citizens were allowed to remain, and to share the privileges of the settlers. Under Augustus colonies were mainly intended to serve as settlements for veterans ; and compensation was sometimes paid to those who were dispossessed of their farms or estates. But the name and status might also be bestowed upon a place without the introduction into it of any new citizens, and merely with the design of conferring upon it rank and privilege. Among the towns mentioned in the New Testament that had the style of " colony " were Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, PhiUppi, and Corinth. The titles of the chief magistrates of provincial towns were very varied. In Roman colonies they were called prcetors (axQmrjyol) or duoviri (dvavdgiHoi). In Hellenic cities the old term Archons was sometimes retained ; but more common designations were arQarrjyoi and dtjmovQyoL In Thessalomca (a free city) the principal ofi&cials were styled Politarchs (noXixoQyai, Acts xvii. 6), a title occurring elsewhere in Macedonia (where it seems to have been frequent), in Bithynia, in Thrace, and in Egypt. An official who had no counterpart in the Roman cities was the town-clerk or secretary 72 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY fygafi/.iaTevi;), who kept the city records and seems to have exercised considerable authority {Acts xix. 35). In the island of Melita (Malta) the chief administrator was styled the Primus (6 ng&roi). The collective inhabitants of Roman colonice and municipia (the latter differing from the former in history, but not at this time in legal rights) possessed the Roman franchise ; but this could also be acquired by individual residents of cities that were not colonies or municipalities. It was obtainable in various ways : (a) as a mark of favour or reward, (&) in exchange for money, (c) through manumission. Josephus, a native of Jerusalem, received it as a distinction from the Emperor Vespasian; and Claudius Lysias, a trihunus militum, procured it by purchase {Acts xxii. 28). The privilege of citizenship, however acquired, was transmitted from father to son, as in the case of St. Paul. The possession of it was of great value, since every Roman citizen (I) was exempt from scourging or torture^ and from such an agonizing and ignominious punishment as crucifixion ; (2) had the right to appeal to the Emperor (representing the Roman people) against sentences pronounced by a magistrate ; (3) could claim, if accused of a capital offence, to be tried by the Emperor before being sentenced. Presumably the Emperor did not hear all such appeals in person, but tried most cases through his representatives at Rome ; but the mere removal of the trial from places where local prejudice was strong to the capital might in itself be an advantage. Persons who were not Romans by race but who became Roman citizens, assumed Roman names, in addition to, or in substitution for, their own. Thus, the Jew Josephus took the name of Flavins, after the Emperor Tiberius Flavius Vespasianus, and the Greek Lysias assumed the name of Claudius {Acts xxiii. 26), after the Emperor Claudius. St. Paul either replaced his Hebrew appellation Saul by the Latin Paulus, or united the two names. The defence of the Empire against foreign foes, and the maintenance of order within it was secured by a standing army. This consisted of two sections, the legions and the auxiUary forces (auxilia), the former being drawn from Roman citizens and the latter from provincials not possessed of Ronian citizenship. Jews (as has been said) were exempted altogether from mihtary service. The legions shortly after Actium numbered eighteen ; in the time of Tiberius, they amounted to twenty-five ; and byA.D. 69 they were further increased to thirty or thirty-one. A legion during this period was composed of ten cohorts {ane'iQai), each divided into three maniples ^ and each maniple comprising two centuries. The total number of men in a legion was between 5,000 and 6,000, so that in size a legion would correspond approximately to a brigade (which normally consists among ourselves of four battalions each of 1,022 men). The legions were commanded by legati legionum. Of the officers those of superior rank (corresponding broadly to our commissioned officers) numbered six in each legion and were styled tribuni militum {xMagxai), whilst those of inferior rank Gf. Cic.ym Fern Aotll. V. 170. Facinus est vincire, scelus verberare, propeparrici- dium necare. f c ir " In Polybius the term ontpa is periiaps used of a maniple (xi. 23). THE ROMAN EMPIRE 73 (non-commissioned officers) were called centuriones (iHarovTaQxat). Each maniple was under the first of its two centurions. From the centuries parties of four soldiers each (quaterniones, rergadia) were drawn for the purpose of guarding prisoners, each party being placed on duty for three hours (the night being divided into four watches and the duties of the day being similarly apportioned). Prisoners were usually chained to one or two of the soldiers who guarded them {Acts xii. 6, xxi. 33, xxviii. 20, Eph. vi. 20, Phil. i. 7, cf. 2 Tim. i. 16), ^ and the guards were held responsible for the safe custody of the imprisoned and suffered the penalty of death if the latter escaped (cf. Acts xii. 19, xvi. 27). To every legion there was attached a force of cavalry, the divisions of which were called alee (Uai,). The auxihary forces, infantry stnd cavalry, were divided into cohortes and alcB respectively ; and the infantry officers bore the same titles as those of the legions. The Se^i6}xi§oi mentioned in Ads xxui. 23 were probably javelin-throwers, constituting a variety of light-armed troops, but the precise nature of their equipment is obscure. The term speculatores, which generally denotes military scouts, was employed to designate the Emperor's bodyguard (Tac. Hist. II. 11), and was apparently also used of the bodyguard of less important sovereigns (e.g. Herod Antipas, Mk. vi. 27). In Italy no legion was stationed. The defence of the country and its capital was entrusted to three or four urban cohorts and nine praetorian cohorts, each containing 1,000 men, and recruited at first almost exclusively from Italians. The urban cohorts (as their name suggests) were kept within Eome ; whilst the praetorian cohorts had a camp just outside the walls, near the porta Viminalis. By Augustus only three of the praetorian cohorts had been stationed near Rome, the rest being dispersed among neighbouring towns ; but by Tiberius they were concentrated in the camp just alluded to, north-east of the city. The whole force was known a.a prcBtorium (see Tac. Hist. II. 11 veterani e prcetorio) and its camp castra prcetoria (prcstorianorum). Besides these there were certain Italian cohorts, consisting of Roman volunteers, but stationed in the provinces (cf. p. 54). It was on the frontiers of the Empire and in those provinces which were most exposed to invasion that the legions were quartered. In Syria, during the reign of Tiberius, there were four legions, which constituted the largest force in any single province, the reason being the danger threatening from the Parthians. Soldiers belonging to a special force engaged in conveying supplies and dispatches between the provinces and the capital were called Frumentarii and Peregrini. The separate legirfns were not only distinguished by numbers but by names. These were sometimes local designations like Gallica and Germanica ; others were complimentary titles, such as Victrix, Ferrata, Fulmimata. The cohorts and aloe of the auxiliary forces were named after the nation or people from which they were drawn, e.g. cohors Ascahnita/rum. Some also seem to have borne honorary titles such as Augusta (Zepaarij) ; see Acts xxvii. 1 and cf. p. 54. The total military ' Cf. Seneca, Epist. v. 7 (quoted by Blass), Eadem catena custodiam (=vinctum) et militem copulabat. 74 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY force of Rome in the middle of the first century a.d. has been estimated at about 320,000 men. The population of the Roman Empire at the death of Augustus has been calculated to have been not more than 54 millions, the population of the capital being placed at about 800,000. The figures given above for the whole Empire can scarcely be more than conjectural ; whilst even in regard to Rome opinions vary greatly, some authorities holding that the total population was about 1,200,000. Be this as it may, it is certain that slaves formed a very large proportion of it, for the conquests made during the last century of the Republic and the early years of the Empire greatly enlarged the sources from which they were procurable. They were drawn especially from the East, as shown by some of the names common among them {e.g. Syrus). They were at the absolute disposal of their owners ; and this fact throws light upon the attitude of mind of Christians when calling themselves dovloi 'Itjoov Xgiarov. But though they were the property of their masters, they were frequently able to save money to purchase their freedom, whilst a generous owner sometimes bestowed it (cf. p. 72). When manumitted, they passed into the class of lihertini (cf. Acts vi. 9), from which several of the professions were largely supplied. {b) Conditions in the Empire conducive to the Diffusion of Christianity In spite of the cruelty and other vices which marked several of the early Roman Emperors, as well as many of their subordinate officials, certain conditions which prevailed under their rule, and for the existence .:; of which they were largely responsible, were such as to contribute very materially to the spread of Christianity. It will therefore be expedient to enumerate a few of the factors which conduced most conspicuously to this result. 1. The mere subjection to a central authority of a number of peoples who had once been engaged in frequent hostilities with one another ensured a peace which allowed scope for mutual intercourse, and the consequent spread of moral ideas and influences. 2. The security against external aggression afforded by the armies posted on the frontiers prevented the extension of a new movement Uke Christianity from being endangered in its early stages by the irruption of barbarian tribes. 3. The existence of a common system of law throughout the civilized world promoted the administration of justice. Though the Romans to a large extent respected the native laws of the races and peoples under their control, yet cases of injustice could be checked by the central power, and individuals who enjoyed the Roman citizenship could, if accused where a current of prejudice ran strongly against them, make appeal to have their case tried at Rome (cf. p. 72). 4. The gTowth of a community of sentiment between various races THE ROMAN EMPIRE 75 and peoples was developed through inclusion in a common Empire and participation in common advantages and privileges. 5. Improved means of communication between distant places provided by the construction of roads, and the more or less successful attempts to sappress brigandage on ,land and piracy at sea, facilitated evangelistic efforts. I Inasmuch as the journeys of St. Paul occupy much space in Acts, it is desirable to say a little more about the principal routes linking Palestine and Syria with the ^Egean coast, Greece, and Italy. The extensive system of roads instituted by the Romans had as its main object the rapid transit of messengers bearing dispatches to and from Eome, and the easy passage of troops ; but its existence also fostered commercial traffic and encouraged intercourse for general purposes. The development of such intercourse was itself a means for conveying a Igiowledge of Christianity from one district to another, even apart from direct missionary enterprise. The roads, paved with blocks of stone resting on cement, were usually about 9 or 10 feet wide ; milestones were erected along them ; and at various points military guards were stationed for the protection of travellers, though it is clear, from St. Paul's reference to perils from robbers (2 Cor. xi. 26), that no little insecurity continued to prevail. Along the roads generally there existed places of entertainment {deversoria), but they were commonly of poor quality, so that there was the greater need of, and scope for, the virtue of hospitality which was so warmly enjoined by St. Paul and other Apostles {Rom. xii. 13, 1 Pet. iv. 9, cf. Acts xxi. 16). As regards the rate of travel it has been estimated that Imperial couriers riding, and assisted by relays of horses, could cover in a day about 50 miles, persons using carriages about 25 miles, and pedestrians 15 miles ; though under particular circumstances these figures were doubtless not seldom exceeded. Infantry soldiers on march accomplished 20 mUes at the ordinary pace and 24 at a quicker rate. From Palestine and Syria to Italy there were four main land and sea routes. (1) A road leading from Jerusalem and Antioch through the Syrian gates (the name given to the pass over Mount Amanus) to Tarsus, thence through the Cihcian gates (over Mount Taurus) to the cities of South Gralatia, and thence to Laodicea, Tralles, Sardis, Adramyttium and Troas ; from Troas by s&a to Neapolis, by which Philippi could be reached (Acts xvi. 11-12) ; thence along the via Egnatia through Amphi- pohs, ApoUonia, and Thessalonica (Acts xvii. 1) to Dyrrhachium, on the Adriatic ; and thence by sea to Brundisium, from which port the via Appia crossed the Italian peninsula to the west coast, proceeding along it from Sinuessa to Rome. (2) A route taking by land the same direction as (1) as far as Laodicea, thence down the valley of the Mseander to Ephesus ; and from the latter city by sea to Corinth, and thence along the west coast of Epirus, whence the passage across the Adriatic could be efiected to Brundisium, and so, as in (1), to Rome. From Pisidian Antioch there was an alternative route to Ephesus, which kept along higher ground, away from the vaUey of the Maeander, and which was followed on one 76 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY occasion by St. Paul {Acts xix. 1) ; whilst from this another road diverged to the city and port of Smyrna. (3) A coasting voyage from CsBsarea, Sidon, or Seleucia along the south and west shores of Asia Minor to Miletus or Ephesus, whence the passage could be made to Corinth as m (2). (4) A voyage from some Palestinian or Phoenician port along the south coast of Asia as far as Myra, where a large corn ship from Alexandria might be picked up (of. Ads xxvii. 1-6) ; such could reach Puteoli or Ostia (for Rome) by crossing to the straits of Messina, and proceeding through them along the west coast of Italy (cf. Ads xxvii. 7, xxviii. 11-U). The most expeditious was the overland route by the via Egnatia, for the others involved a longer sea voyage, with the chance of bad weather. Naviga- tion over any considerable stretch of sea, though actually suspended for not more than four months in the year (November 10 to March 10), was only regarded as safe between May 26 and September 14. It was in consequence of the dangers attending voyages in the early spring that Jews, resident over sea, usually made their pilgrimages to Jerusalem at Pentecost rather than at the Passover (cf. Ads xx. 16). Even in the summer the westward voyage was not unattended with difficulty, for in the open sea ships encountered the Etesian winds which blew steadily from the west for forty days after July 20. A voyage from Csesarea or Sidon to Puteoli would under favourable conditions be accomplished in six or seven weeks. Merchant vessels, unlike ships of war which were equipped with both oars and sails, usually had sails only. The masts were generally two — a main mast, carrying a large sail supported on a yard, and a much smaller mast, placed near the centre of the vessel and carrying a foresail (dgTe/icov, Ads xxvii. 40). Latin writers also mention a top-mast carrying a triangular top-sail (sufparum), and some suppose that this is meant by the term axBvoq in Ads xxvii. 17. Sails were not shortened by furling, but by lowering the yard with the saU attached. A vessel was steered not by a rudder but by two paddles [nriddXia) on either side of the stern. These, when not needed, could be hoisted up and lashed to the vessel's side until required again {Ads xxvii. 40). Several anchors were ordinarily carried (Ads xxvii. 29, 30). The hulls of ancient ships were not very substantially built, so that in rough seas the timbers were liable to start, rendering it necessary to secure them by cables passed under the keel and made taut on deck {Ads xxvii. 17). Vessels were distinguished by names and emblems. The use of the verb dvcocpdaXixelv {Ads xxvii. 15) suggests that sometimes on either side of the stem eyes were painted. As the compass was unknown, a ship's course, if out of sight of land, was steered by the sun and stars {Ads xxvii. 20). The size of ships and the number of persons which they could carry must have varied considerably. Josephus {Vit. 3) relates that a vessel in which he once voyaged had about 600 people on board. Even in Homeric times vessels are represented as conveying 120 warriors {II. ii. 510). The rate of a ship's progress under favourable conditions might amount to 110-150 nautical miles (125-170 miles) in24hours,i though an • Peako's Commentary on the Bible, p. 615 (Haverfield). THE ROMAN EMPIRE 77 average daily run would probably be less than this (96 or 100 nautical miles). (5) But besides the conditions favourable to the progress of Christianity which were due to the order maintained by the Eomans throughout their empire, and their organization of traffic by land and sea, there were three others even more advantageous. These were (i) the extensive dispersion of the Jewish race throughout the world ; (ii) the widespread currency of the Greek language ; (iii) the prevalence of religious unrest among pagan peoples. (i) The wide difiusion of the Jewish race in the first century, ^ in consequence of which an acquaintance with the Hebrew Scriptures and the prophecies in them relating to the Messiah penetrated in different directions had various causes. One was the deportation of Jewish captives by the several kings who from time to time obtained the mastery over Palestine. Another was the anxiety on the part of dwellers in Palestine to escape from the strife prevailing between the rival powers of Syria and Egypt for the possession of the country (p. 27 f.). And a third was probably the trading enterprise which marked the Jewish race, and which led many to migrate to those lands where they could best secure fortunes. They were sufficiently intelligent and industrious to make them desirable settlers ; and the rulers of many places encouraged them by bestowing upon them favours. Possibly, too, among the incentives to emigration were the greater intellectual freedom to be found in Greek- speaking lands, and the allurements which literature, art, and science had for gifted individuals.^ After a.d. 70 the dispersion of the Jewish people was greatly increased in consequence of the destruction of Jerusalem. The countries to which bodies of Jews were first forcibly transferred by their various conquerors were Assyria (with its subject territories) and Bajjylonia. A portion of the population of the Kingdom of Israel was deported by the Assyrian Sargon in 722 B.C., and settled in the neighbour- hood of the Habor {Chaboras, an affluent of the Euphrates), and in various cities of Media (2 Kg. xvii. 6), and, as far as is known, remained per- manently in the land of their exUe (see Jos. Ant. xi. 5, 2). Many of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah were carried captive to Babylonia by Nebuchadrezzar in 597 and 587 ; and though sections of them returned to their own land with Zerubbabel in 537 (p. 14) and with Ezra in 458, considerable numbers continued to remain in a land which in respect of material advantages was much superior to Palestine. About the middle of the fifth century B.C. Hyrcania, a district south of the Caspian Sea, also received a number of Jewish captives (p. 24). But it was not alone in the countries watered by the Tigris and Euphrates and in the regions beyond those rivers that people of Jewish stock were to be found. Con- sequent upon the overthrow of the last of the Hebrew kingdoms, fugitives from it made their escape into the adjoining lands of Moab, Ammon, and Edom. Syria in the fiist century a.d. is represented as having a large number of Jews ; and both Antioch and Damascus were among the cities 1 Cf. Josephus, Ant. xiv. 7, 2, who quotes Strabo. ' G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. pp. 393^. 78 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY in it where thousands of them were settled. They were also to be found in most parts of Asia Minor, such as Phrygia, Lydia and Galatia ; whilst evidence of their presence in towns like Ephesus, Sardis, Smyrna, Pergamum, Adramyttium, Miletus, Hierapolis and Laodicea is forth- coming from official documents (quoted by Josephus), from inscriptions, and from epitaphs.^ Africa as well as Asia had a large Jewish population, which was con- centrated chiefly in Egypt. In 587 a number of Jews, from fear of the Babylonians, migrated to Egypt, where they established themselves in Noph (Memphis), Tahpanhes (Daphnis), Migdol and Pathros [Jer. xliv. 1). All these places were in Lower Egypt, but later in the sixth century Jews also settled at Syene (Assouan) and Yeb (Elephantine) ; and in the last- mentioned locality there was buUt a temple of Jehovah (Yahu). But the principal city in Egypt where the Jews made their home was Alexandria, for Alexander incorporated a number of them among the citizens of his new foundation. The Alexandrian Jews contributed pre-eminently to the difiusion of their own, and indirectly of the Christian, faith throughout the world, for it was to meet their needs that there was produced the LXX translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (p. 28), so that these became intelligible to a multitude of people who were acquainted with Greek but not with Hebrew. Jewish settlements in Africa were not confined to Egypt, for mention is made of such in connexion with Cyrenaica (cf. Lk. xxiii. 26, Acts xi. 20, xiii. 1) and other parts of the African continent. The distribution of Jews throughout various regions of Greece and the islands of the jSlgean is shown by mention of them in the Maccabean period at Sparta, Sicyon, and in Cyprus, Delos, Samos, Cos, and Ehodes ; whilst references to Jewish places of worship at PhUippi, Thessalonioa, Beroea, Athens and Corinth occur in the account of St. Paul's missionary travels in Acts (xvi. 13, xvii. 1, 10, 17, xviii. 4), and evidence of their exist- ence in various other localities (such as Argos and Tegea) is furnished through documents conferring freedom on slaves and through inscriptions.' In Rome the multitude of Jews was very large, especially after Pompey in 62 B.C. carried thither a great number of captives (p. 44). They excited much dislike, and were expelled both by Tiberius (in a.d. 19) and by Claudius afterwards {circ. a.d. 49). This last expulsion (cf. .icfc xviii. 2) is connected by Suetonius ^ with disorders among the Jews caused by one " Chrestus," the name being possibly an error for " Christus," and the disorders resulting from the hostility of the Eoman Jews towards the Christians. The peculiar features of the Jewish religion distinguished the Jewish communities so markedly from the adherents of other cults that it was often found desirable to grant them in various localities certain powers of self-government. At Alexandria, for instance, they were controlled by an ethnarch of their own ; at Antioch there was an official called the 1 See Hastings, D.B. v. pp. 93-5. " Hastings. D.B. v. p. 97. ' See Claud, 25, Judcsos, impulsore Chr&sto, asHdui iHrrmWuantes Boma. expulit. THE ROMAN EMPIRE 79 Archon of the Jews ; and at Berenice, a city of Cyrenaica, the Jewish, resi- dents appear to have formed an independent corporation (noXhev/xa) ruled by &Qxovreg. Throughout the Empire, indeed, the Jews were greatly favoured ; for they were allowed the free exercise of their religion ; they had the right to administer their own funds (a privilege which enabled them to remit money for the support of the Temple at Jerusalem, see p. 71) ; they were permitted to inJlict through the Sanhedrin correctional discipline upon their own members for breaches of their Law ; they were not obliged to appear before a judicial court on the Sabbath Day ; they were exempted from military service (since the duties of such were in- compatible with the observance of the Sabbath) ; and imperial emblems were usually excluded from Jerusalem. Not aU the emperors, indeed, conceded uniformly the toleration here described, for Caligula attempted to exact from the Jews Emperor-worship, which neither his predecessors nor his successors demanded. After the fierce war which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem, the condition of the Jews was not so favourable (p. 59), but their religious freedom was not impaired until the reign of Hadrian (117-38), and even his restrictions were removed by his successor (p. 60). Among the Jews of the Dispersion at large there were two classes difiering in their religious attitude towards the Law. One section found their situation among pagan surroundings a strong incentive to a rigid adhesion to Mosaism, rendering them opposed to any departure from its regulations, so that amongst them there was exhibited towards Christianity much hostility ; and Hellenists {i.e. Greek-speaking Jews) were prominent in the persecution of both St. Stephen and St. Paul {Acts vi. 9, ix. 29). The other section were led by contact with Greek culture, especially in centres of intellectual life, like Alexandria, Antioch and Tarsus, to adopt a more liberal interpretation and application of the Law, and were more tolerant in their bearing towards Gentiles and Gentile religions than their countrymen in Palestine (cf. Joh. vii. 35).^ (ii) If the Jewish race in consequence of their extensive diflusion spread far and wide a knowledge of their Scriptures, it was the prevalence, throughout a large part of the Eoman Empire, of the Greek language that enabled them to do this. In the most distant provinces, indeed, and doubtless in the rural districts of all the provinces, native tongues predominated among the masses of the people (cf. Acts xiv. 11). In Judaea during the first century a.d. Aramaic (which had displaced Hebrew) was still current. It was almost certainly the language spoken habitually by our Lord, for various Aramaic phrases uttered by Him are preserved {Boanerges, Talitha koum, Ephphatha, Eloi {or Eli), lama sabacMhani) ; and it was adopted by St. Paul when addressing a multitude at Jerusalem {Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2)." The use of it is further attested by the occurrence in the New Testament of words and names like Abba, Aceldama, Amen, ^ A Babylonian Jew called Ananias told Izates, son of Helena, queen of Adiabene, • that he might worship God without being ciroumcised (Jos. Ant. xx. 2, 4). ' An Aramaic phrase, Maran atha (" Our Lord, come "), occurs in 1 Cor. xvi. 22. 80 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Corhan, Gahhaiha, Gelienna, Golgotha, Mammon, Raca ; and by personal appellations such as Cephas, Martha, Tahitha, and the numerous class containing the element har [Barahhas, Bartholomew, Barnabas, Ba/rtimoBus). It was even the medium for literary composition, for Josephus wrote in it his History of the Jewish Wars, which he afterwards translated into Greek. But notwithstanding the survival of this and other languages in various districts within the Roman provinces, the Greek tongue was understood and spoken almost everyTvhere by the educated classes, and some acquaintance with it was possessed by numbers of the less educated, since numerous slaves and freedmen were of Greek descent or drawn from Greek-speaking regions. The conquests of Alexander had carried Greek culture eastward and southward ; and when after his death Syria and Egypt became respectively the Icingdoms of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies (p. 27), Greek speech and modes of thought penetrated even among the aUen races living by the Orontes and the Nile. In Egjrpt, as the evidence of recently found papjrri shows, Greek was used with perfect freedom by peasants, who at the same time talked and wrote their native languages. The strongest opposition to the extension of Greek influence came from the Jews of Palestine. But, as has been seen, HeUenic cities were founded along, and even within, the Jewish borders (p. 26) ; Greek words were stamped upon the money that circulated in the country ; and the Aramaio-spealdng population could scarcely have held commercial or other intercourse with the peoples about them without being bilingual. Greek influence in Palestine is also attested by the prevalence of Greek names like Andrew and Philip among our Lord's disciples, and Jesus Himself, since He was able without an interpreter to converse with persons who were not Jews (Mk. vii. 26), could probably, like many others,*under- stand and use the Greek language. Among the Jews of the Dispersion Greek must have been the vernacular tongue in which devotions were conducted, those who thus habitually spoke Greek being styled Hellenists (cf. Acts vi. 1). In Egypt the Old Testament Scriptures were translated into Greek ; and in addition to this, books like the Wisdom, of Sohmcm, Susanna, the Song of the Three Holy Children, and others were composed in Greek ; whilst the widespread use of the LXX outside Egypt is evidenced by the fact that in most of the references to the Old Testament occurring in the New Testament this version and not the original is quoted. The extensive prevalence of Greek thus enabled the early preachers of Christianity, though Jews by race and using Aramaic as their native speech, to obtain a hearing from audiences of most diverse nationalities. Latin was the only rival to Greek as a channel of communication between difierent races and peoples ; but it was not a very serious rival, except in the West, where it eventually ousted the native tongues of Gaul and Spain. The Romans seem to have made little effort to difiuse it in the East ; and though it was naturally employed there by Roman officials in state documents and inscriptions, yet an announcement or a record in Latin was generally accompanied by its equivalent in Greek, Thus the monumentum Ancyranum, an account of the Roman Empire drawn up by Augustus and found at Ancyra in Galatia, was composed ' THE ROMAN EMPIRE 81 in Greek as well as Latin. Again, over our Lord's cross the superscription was written not only in Latin and Hebrew (Aramaic) but in Greek likewise. In the Temple the warning to Gentiles not to enter the inner courts (p. 90) was couched in Greek ; and it was in the same language that St. Paul addressed the Eoman trihunus militum {Acts xxi. 37). And the circum- stance that in the eastern part of the Empire the ruling authorities took no steps to make Latin dispute for predominance with Greek witnesses to the strong position occupied by the latter as a medium for practically universal intercourse, as well as to their own excellent sense in recognizing the fact. Even at Rome itself the Christian Church which was estabhshed there was as familiar with Greek as with Latin ; and when St. Paul ad- dressed an epistle to it, he wrote it in Greek. It was not at Eome, but in the province of Africa that the need first arose for a Latin translation of the Scriptures. (iii) The reUgious unrest of the pagan world during the early centuries of the Roman Empire contributed to the spread of Christianity, if not directly at least indirectly, by creating an interest in it. The worship of the traditional gods of Rome, though specially encouraged by Augustus for State reasons, could not deeply influence the feeUngs or greatly move the springs of conduct. Among the educated and thoughtful classes the place of religion had been filled by the systems of different philosophers ; but the masses to whom philosophic reflection was uncongenial had, prior to the first century B.C., no moral support but their current religious beUefs, from which they could extract little to inspire hope ; and uneasy minds had before them only a vague but alarming prospect of the pains of Tartarus. 1 There is small reason for wonder, therefore, that many whose emotions were strong and whose consciences were sensitive, should have yielded to the spell of the religions of the East and of Egypt, which taught how the soul could be secured against the perils which the unseen future might have in store. But before giving some account of the Oriental cults which competed with Christianity, it is desirable to say something about that feature in the State religion with which the Christian faith came into deadly conflict, viz. the worship of the Roman Emperors ; and to notice briefly two influential systems of philosophy. The first suggestion in the direction of deifying a human being probably came to Rome from outside ; but there already existed in Roman minds an idea which prepared the way for its reception. ^ This was the beUef in, and reverence for, the Genius, conceived as a spiritual counterpart, accompanying each man through his life, and specially concerned with the perpetuation of his family and the maintenance of its welfare. From a slightly different point of view, it was a divine element which became incarnate in successive generations, and which ensured the permanency of the stock as contrasted with the transitoriness of individual lives. It is obvious that the same idea could easily be transferred from the individual '■ Of. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, i. Ill, Mtemas . . . paenaa in morte timen- dum eM, " See Warde Fowler, Roman Ideas of Deity, pp. 81 f ., 107 f. 6 82 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and his race to the jState. This also could be regarded as having its genius, the source of its stability and prosperity. The massive strength of Rome, the extraordinary good fortune which attended its enterprises, and the authority attaching to its name or to the names of its official representa- tives could scarcely fail to make a great impression upon the provincials, inducing a belief in some inseparable protective power that was more than mortal ; and the awe which this belief created almost inevitably found expression in acts of worship and adoration. A cult of the genius of Rome had begun in the provinces as early as the second century B.C., there being, for instance, a templum urbis Romce at Smyrna in 195. This tendency to pay worship to the divinity of Rome would be intensified through the establishment of the Empire. The substitution of order, security, and peace for the social chaos, the massacres, and the confisca- tions of the preceding century must have led many to feel that in Augustus, the author of so beneficent a change, there was inherent something divine. Deification of human beings would be easiest, indeed, in the case of the mighty dead, who had laid aside the infirmities of the flesh which linked them so obviously to common men. Julius Ceesar, for whom during his lifetime Antony had proposed divine honours in 45 B.C., was the first to be officially styled after his death Dimis Julius, by an ordinance in 42 B.C. But from the deification of the dead to the worship of the living was only a step ; and the proneness of the human mind to desire some concrete embodiment for an abstract conception would be gratified by the thought of Divinity impersonated in the head of the State. Amongst the Romans, indeed, the title Divus, used by a Roman Emperor, probably did not mean that he was a Deity in the full sense, but merely that he was worthy of the reverence and trust entertained towards the gods. And even though the individual ruler might be contemptible, the principles of Authority and Law for which he stood were deserving of veneration. Moreover, in the provinces the less admirable side of the court-life at Rome was lost in the distance separating them from the capital. The Emperors themselves were naturally not blind to the advantage accruing to their newly established imperial power from an attitude of adoration on the part of the people towards the ruler of the state. The early Emperors, however, were too sensible to allow the cult of themselves to run to extremes. Both Augustus and Tiberius would not let a temple be dedicated to themselves during their lifetime in Rome itself, and only permitted the raising of such in the Asiatic provinces (the first being bmlt at Pergamum in honour of Rome and Augustus in 29 B.C.), though the erection of temples in honour of Divus Julius was required at Ephesus and Mcsea.i Caligula, however, showed much less self-restraint, and being intoxicated with vanity, was the first to promote vigorously the deification of himself (p. 56). By Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Titus the worship of the reigning Emperor was not enforced (though it may he reasonably supposed that those who failed to render it, especially in Asia Minor, were always liable to persecution at the hands of local authorities). Cf. Foakes-Jackson and Lake, Beginnings of Christianity, Pt. I, p. 204. THE ROMAN EMPIRE 83 It was Domitian wto first renewed the effort to compel Ms subjects to pay him Divine honours ; and it was upon the Christians that the con- sequences of refusal pressed most heavily. They had inherited the monotheistic faith of the Jews, and some of the titles given to the Emperor, such as Divi filius, were pecidiarly abhorrent to those who beUeved exclu- sively in the Divine Sonship of Christ. And whereas Judaism was a religio licita, Christianity enjoyed no such toleration, and consequently its adherents had no legal protection when they refused to render worship to the Emperor — a refusal which could be treated as disloyalty to the State as well as to its head. It is not surprising, therefore, that the relations between the Christians and the Empire became, before the end of the first century, very different from those subsisting earUer, or that the spirit in which the Emperor is referred to in the book of Revelation (xiii. i f., 12, xiv. 9-11, xix. 20) contrasts strikingly with that which marks the Epistles of St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 1-7, Tit. iii. 1 ; cf. also 1 Pet. ii. 13). Among the thoughtful classes belief in the traditional mythology of Rome was undermined by philosophy which, in general, substituted for theoonfficting wills of discordant divinities some unifjang principle as an explanation of nature and as a guide for human life. Here it is only necessary to say something about the two philosophical schools which are mentioned in the New Testament, namely Stoicism and Epicureanism. Both were based on a materialistic view of the universe, but though they started from similar premises, they differed widely in the practical con- clusions which they drew from them. The founder of Stoicism was Zeno, a native of Cition in Cjrprus, who established about the end of the fourth century B.C. a philosophical school which obtained its name from the place where he taught (the Stoa Poecile, at Athens). The ethical teaching of the Stoics was a materialistic pantheism. The ground-work of their system was the belief that the only reahty was matter, but that in matter there was an active, rational principle, which was the source of all phenomena. This cosmic principle they identified with God or Zeus, so that there subsisted a single Divine entity beneath manifold diversity ; and just as from God all things came, so to Him all things would ultimately return. Since God was the immanent Reason pervading the universe, and mankind was part of universal nature, men would attain to virtue through Uving in accordance with nature, regulated as this was by the Divine Reason. A good and wise man would be indifierent to all external ills, for such ills, being ordained by God, could not really be evils. The basic materialism and fatahsm of the system was thus qualified by the recognition of a moral order in theiiworld, by the admission of human freedom, and by belief in communion between God and man consequent upon the common possession of reason. God was addressed in prayer, human efiort was demanded, and human duty and responsibiHty were asserted. As the human will was free, men could five according to, or in defiance of, nature, just as they might choose, and so could co-operate with, or oppose, the purpose of God of which nature was the expression. There was even recogjoized a limited immortality of the soul ; for the souls of good men were believed to survive 84 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY until the return of all things into God, who at certain long intervals was thought to re-absorb the Universe into ffimself and then generate it anew. . / j. j. Of aU the Greek philosophies Stoicism had most pomts of contact with Judaism, for like Judaism it taught what in practice was mono- theism, though of a pantheistic type ; and Josephus was led to compare it with Pharisaism (see p. 103). In regard to this comparison it is not improbable that there was really a Semitic element in Stoicism, which has been described as the introduction into Greek philosophy of the Semitic temperament and spirit. Zeno, its founder, was called the Phoenician ; no less than six later Stoic teachers came from Tarsus ; and two others from neighbouring Cilician towns ; whilst others again were natives of various places in Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. St. Paul, who was not only brought up at Tarsus, but lived there after he became a Christian {Acts ix. 30, xi. 25) probably gained there some acquaintance with Stoic doctrine ; certainly his utterances present some interesting parallels to Stoic thought and language. ^ In his speech at Athens the Apostle quoted part of a verse from the Stoic poet Aratus [Acts xvii. 28), who hke himself was a native of Cilicia. Nevertheless there was a fundamental difierence between the Stoic idea of God and that of Judaism or Christianity, for whereas in the former a beUef in the Divine immanence was alone influential, in the latter this was supplemented by a behef in the Divine transcendence, which ensured far more efiectively for ordinary minds a feeling of accountabihty to a Divine Judge ; whilst, in addition, the self-sufficiency of most of the Stoic philosophers and their unsympathetic temper were altogether alien to the ideal Christian character. Though the Stoics often spoke of God as a Father," they could only do so at the cost of consistency ; and their system had no place for a unique source of moral inspiration, such as Christians have in Christ. Epicureanism, unhke Stoicism, had no Eastern affinities, but was exclusively Greek. It originated with Epicurus, who, though born in Samos (in 342 B.C.), was an Athenian by race and largely by residence. His teaching was based on that of Democritus, whose determinist system he modified in the interest of a doctrine of free will, with much resultant loss of coherence. His theory of conduct rested, like that of the Stoics, upon a materialistic theory of nature ; for he considered the world to be the result of a clash of atoms which, falling downwards through space, swerved slightly, and so came into collision with one another, this initial swerve not only occasioning ultimately the constitution of the physical universe, but also explaining the existence of free-will in man. But the principle recognized by Epicureanism as a guide to conduct was not, as in Stoicism, accordance with nature conceived as an ordered system controlled by reason, but the following of such natural impulses and instincts as arise ^ The correspondence between the teaching of St. Paul and the maxims of the Roman Stoic Seneca (the two were contemporaries) is especially close : see Lightfoot, Philippians (1885), pp. 278-90. ^ Seneca described God as having a fatherly mind towards good men ; and Epio- tetus bade men consider all that belongs to God as belonging to a father. THE ROMAN EMPIRE 85 in the individual through sensation. Pleasure and pain, which are known hj immediate experience, were held to be the decisive criteria for deter- mining human behaviour, pleasure being the only good and pain the only evU. Nevertheless, though pleasure was the end to be attained, it was not necessarily the satisfaction of the moment that should be sought (for this might be attended by disproportionate pain), but a stable condition of mental and moral tranquilUty. Hence temperance and self-control, though not valued for themselves, were valued as means for reaching the true end of life, which was, in theory, a surplus of pleasure over pain. In regard to religion. Epicureanism did not deny the existence of the gods, but only denied that mankind had anything to hope or fear from them, for they were unconcerned for either the welfare or the woe of man. After death no future hfe for man was possible, for the soul, being material, perished with the body. As the earth was the sphere of conduct, so it was the only scene of recompense and retribution for wise and for fooUsh behaviour.'- It wiU be seen that Epicureanism could, without inconsistency, advocate the practice of several of the virtues ; but it was unable to supply a strong stimulus to the pursuit of them. On the principle of Hedonism, which constituted its foundation, it was always easy for individual disciples of this school to reckon that the course of conduct to which their desires impelled them would yield more pleasure than pain ; and in the absence of a moral ideal, of the hope of a heaven, or of the fear of a hell, no motive was afiorded for the regulation of life other than the pressure of the strongest impulse. Such a system at best could only produce a balanced and placid frame of mind ; whilst upon gross natures its efiect tended to be disastrous, since it could readily be made to countenance aE kinds of self-indulgence and vice. By numbers of people who were not attracted by philosophical specula- tions emotional satisfaction was found in various rehgions that had their origin in the East. These Eastern faiths were propagated by traders, soldiers and slaves ; and when estabUshed in the Roman capital, they were fostered by private associations (sodalitates), which were not only religious confraternities but burial clubs. These embraced men of all nationalities and classes (for the countries in which they took their rise had been absorbed by Rome and ceased to exist as independent poUties) ; and so they tended to level the barriers between difierent races and ranks. In this way they were inimical to patriotism ; but at the same time they fostered in their votaries a sense of common humanity, and so prepared men's minds for the conception of a universal reUgion replacing national cults. The popularity which they enjoyed in the Early Empire was occasioned by the appeal which the strangeness of their rites made to the senses, the satisfaction which they professed to give to the desire for the removal of moral stains, and the assurance of safety which they offered to souls dismayed at the prospect of death. The most important of the cults from the East which, whilst competing * Cf, Lucretius, De Berum Natura, iii. 1025, Hiz Acherusia fit stiiltorum deniqne vita. 86 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY with Christianity in some respects, paved the way for its extension, were those of Cyhele and Attis, of the Eleusiniam Mother (Demeter), of Isis and Osiris, and of Mithras ^ ; whilst a religion which exercised much influence upon thoughtful and spiritually-minded men was Judaism. The worship of Cybele had been imported into Eome from Asia Minor as early as the closing years of the second Punic War, when Attains of Pergamum, with the view of cementing friendship with the Romans, presented to them in 204 B.C. a black fetish stone (perhaps of meteoric origin) which was supposed to be the abode of the goddess. The worship of the Great Mother (»5 /iieydXr] firjrriQ) as she was called, received, however, little encouragement from the Roman authorities during the Republic, citizens being forbidden to enter her priesthood or to participate in her rites ; and it was not until the reign of Claudius that this prohibition was withdrawn. The cult was of Phrygian origin, and was one of the many developments of nature worship. Cybele was an earth-goddess, who loved the youthful Attis, personifying the spirit of vegetation, mourned over his death, and rejoiced when he revived. The cause of his death was variously represented ; but according to one form of the myth, Cybele, through jealousy, drove him mad, and in his frenzy he mutUated himself at the foot of a pine-tree (which became his symbol). The goddess grieved for him passionately, but after three days he returned to life, and her grief was changed to joy. The day on which the death of Attis was commemorated was marked by scenes of wild and tumultuous sorrow ; whilst the day that celebrated his return to Hfe was characterized by equally extravagant joy. But to this orgiastic nature -worship there had come to be attached ethical and spiritual ideas. The restoration of Attis from death became to his worshippers an assurance of their own immortality after the termination of this life. Purification from sin was a condition of this salvation, and was believed to be effected through a mystic baptism of blood (the taurobolium). A bull was sacrificed on a platform built over an excavation in which the worshipper stood (as in a grave), and when the animal was killed, the blood poured down upon him. The rite, no doubt, in origin goes back to a time when the blood of some fierce and strong animal was thought to communicate ferocity and strength to anyone who steeped himself in it ; but though the repulsive immersion was retained, it came to be regarded as imparting moral purity and not the animal's physical qualities. Another ceremony practised in connexion with the worship of Attis also exhibits the spirit- ualizing of earlier crude conceptions. In primitive times the consumption of food in common was believed to unite in a covenant men with men and worshippers with their God, since they thereby became partakers in some degree of the same physical nature. But when it ceased to be credible that a divinity could eat material food, it was deemed sufficient for the food eaten by his votaries to be brought into contact with his altar or his emblem in order to effect the same union. Hence meat and drink con- secrated by having been contained in the tambourine which was among 1 See Cumont, Oriental Beligions in Roman Paganism. THE ROMAN EMPIRE 87 the symbols of Attis were thouglit to be a means of communion with, the deity ; and the worshipper who partook became a mystic of Attis, and was by the god sustained in his spiritual trials. The Eleusinian mysteries (derived from Attica), in which worship was ofiered to Demeter (the Corn Mother) and Core or Persephone (the Corn Maiden), were also marked by a sacrament. The worshippers annually partook of a posset of meal and water, representing the body of the Corn goddess ; and this a;ct renewed the bond uniting them to their deity, as well as the bond uniting them one to another. The meal hkewise puri&ed them, and enabled them to see without danger the ear, or sheaf, of corn which was believed to be the Corn Mother upon whose favour the next harvest depended. Participation in, and abstention from, these mysteries were held to be attended by rewards and punishments both in this life and in the next. In the c^ourse of time ethical ideas (JUalified the purely ceremonial aspect which the mysteries first presented ; and when Orphic doctrines were blended with them, there was developed the belief that the retribution of the next life was spiritually and not merely ritually conditioned. Thei religion of Isis and Osiris came from Egypt. It spread into Italy from the Mediterranean islands in the first century B.C. (there being Collegia devoted to the worship of Egyptian deities in the time of Sulla) and was at first regarded by the Eoman Senate with grave disapproval, owing to the corruption of morals which attended it. But after the death of Csesar a temple was built to Isis and Serapis (a title of Osiris as god of the lower world) by the triumvirs for the sake of popularity ; and in the reign of Caligula it enjoyed imperial favour, whilst its character in some measure underwent a transformation. The ablutions, which were a conspicuous feature in Egyptian ritual, and which at first were practised with a view to physical purity, came to be regarded later as conducive to the removal of moral stains. Physical abstinence and self-mortification were also believed to expiate sins and to render the worshipper fitter for approach to the deity (cf . Juv. Sat. vi. 523 f ., 537 f .). The cult also fostered a belief ia a future life. Osiris, like Attis, had been restored from the dead after he had been slain by Set ; and celebration of his revival to life, which took place in the autumn, was attended by emotional outbursts on the part of the worshippers, similar to those which accompanied the festival of Attis (p. 86). To the votaries of the god, a future existence of happiness was assured through initiation into certain mysteries, where- by they became assimilated to the Divine object of their devotion ; and the prominence which was given to the hope of immortality was the principal reason for the attraction which the religion of Isis had for many. MiTHRAiSM had its origin in Persia, Mithras being a sun-god, who in some unexplained way had displaced Ahuramazdah (p. 22). Its pre- valence in Asia Minor is attested by the name Mithradates occurring in the list of the kings of more than one State. Although it reached Rome before the Christian era, it did not become influential there until two or three centuries later. Like the earlier form of the Persian rehgion (p. 22), it recognized two antagonistic powers, one of light and good, and the 88 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY other of darkness and evil, each controlling a host of spirits who were the agencies that brought about the blessings and the calamities experienced by mankind. Mithras seems to have been the leader of the armies of light, and he stood perhaps to Ahuramazdah as Apollo stood to Zeus. In the perpetual conflict between the powers of good and evil men were expected to take their part. The human soul was the scene of an inward struggle corresponding to the greater struggle without, so that, as com- pared with many contemporary religions, Mithraism was morally stimulat- ing. Its division of the world into two mutually hostile camps was a conception that specially appealed to the fighting spirit in men, and made it a religion that was particularly popular amongst Eoman soldiers, whose sympathies it also enlisted by the stress it laid upon truthfulness and fidelity. Unlike so many Eastern religions, it gave no honour to the female sex, and no woman's name is said to be found among its votaries. It had its mysteries, into which the devout were admitted by successive stages ; and the tauroholium, which was borrowed from the religion of Cybele, had a place in its ritual. It, like other religions, also encouraged its followers to believe in a future life which was enjoyed by the souls of the righteous (after they had been tried by Mithras) in the celestial realms of light. A feature in these cults deserving notice is the application of the term Lord {tcvQiog) to some of the deities worshipped in them. For instance, in many recently discovered papyri the title is given to Serapis, whose worshipper, when thanking him for having preserved him from peril, or when inviting friends to supper in the god's temple, describes him as the Lord Serapis. This, though it is not likely to have originated the Christian practice of calling Jesus " Lord," may possibly have contributed to the extension of it. The interest of these religions for the study of the New Testament is not merely the circumstance that they were symptomatic of certain spiritual emotions and aspirations to which Christianity, when it entered the world, was able to appeal, but the fact that they were marked by various features of ritual and teaching which occur also in the worship and doctrine of the Church. It is especially to Christianity as it is pre- sented in the writings of St. Paul that they oSer resemblance. The significance attached to sacraments, and the idea of a new birth and of a union between the worshipper and the divinity worshipped, which were efiected by means of them, have their parallels in his Epistles ; and it is an important question how far his exposition of the Christian faith was influenced by his acquaintance with these religions, which had their followers among the Gentile peoples to whom he preached (p. 654). But apart from the difierence of moral standard distinguishing Christianity from even the best of the heathen cults, the former had as its object of worship and imitation not a shadowy mythical figure but an historic character, whose life and teaching were sufficiently well known through trustworthy traditions handed down by a continuous succession of believers from the time of His activity on earth. ^ ' See Deissmann, 8t. Paul, p. 117. THE ROMAN EMPIRE 89 In addition to tie other Oriental religions just described Judaism could not fail to have likewise an attraction for many persons in the Western world, especially the more reflective classes. The extent of the Jewish Dispersion (see p. 77 f.) naturally spread widely some knowledge of the leading characteristics of the Jewish faith, and afforded to the Jews themselves exceptional scope for the propagation of their religious principles. Various features, indeed, of the religious usages of the Jews excited ridicule, especially their abstention from the flesh of swine, their practice of circumcision, and their rigid observance of the Sabbath ; whilst their exclusiveness excited against them much hostile feeling. Nevertheless, to religious minds, dissatisfied with the polytheism and idolatry of current beliefs and the immorality of the age, there was much in Judaism that was calculated to make a strong appeal. Its strict monotheism, the absence in the practice of its worship of any image or symbol of the Deity, its Scriptures purporting to contain a Divine revela- tion, and the belief in another life, which, though not universally accepted by the Jews themselves (p. 101), yet had the adhesion of a powerful section among them, were bound to arrest the attention of serious and earnest thinkers. And although in the case of many such, the burdensome requirements of the Jewish Law prevented them from becoming proselytes, yet it was possible to adopt the monotheistic and spiritual faith of the Jews without being circumcised or actually joining the Jewish community. Accordingly a considerable number of non-Jews attached themselves by a loose tie to the Jewish religion, frequenting the synagogues and observing the moral, and some of the ceremonial, rules of the Law. These constituted the class described in Acts as " devout " and " God-fearing " persons (x. 2f., xiii. 16, 26, 50, xvi. 14, xvii. 4, 17, xviii. 7). Although, indeed, in one passage (xiii. 43) the expression " devout proselytes " is actually employed, it seems clear that this must be used with some inexactness. That the " God-fearers " alluded to were not really persons who accepted the whole Jewish Law seems proved by the fact that the description eiae^'^g xal (poPovfievos tov 6e6v is applied to the Eoman Cornelius (Acts x. 2, cf. V. 35), who is definitely stated not to have been circumcised (xi. 3). The familiarity with the Jewish Scriptures which this class acquired through their attendance at the Synagogues would render them more accessible to the arguments of the early Christian preachers than the heathen to whom the Scriptures were wholly strange ; so that probably they constituted a large proportion of the first Gentile converts to Christianity. IV JEWISH INSTITUTIONS (a) The Organization of Worship, Teaching, and Discipline The Temple THE Temple in existence duiing the period covered by the New Testament was the Third, having been built by Herod the Great. Possibly Herod's structure was a renewal of Zerubbabel's Temple (p. 14), embeUished and emiched, and furnished with more extensive courts. The Third Temple, like its predecessors, was biiilt on the eastern of the two hills which Jerusalem at this time occupied (p. 10) and over- looked the Kidron. Adjoining on the north rose the castle of Antonia (p. 11), manned by a Eoman garrison, which was thus in a position to interfere at once in the event of any rioting in the vicinity (cf . Acts xxi. 32). The fabric of the Temple was surrounded by three courts, and as the middle one of the three was subdivided into two halves, there may be said to have been four in all. All the courts were roofless enclosures (except so far as they had cloisters). 1. On the outside of all was a large court 500 cubits square, into which Gentiles were admitted, as well as Jews,'^ and which was styled, in conse- quence, the Court of the Gentiles. The walls of this were bordered on the inside by cloisters, of which that on the east was known as Solomon's porch, or portico (Acts iii. 11, v. 12). It was in this court (from whicli access was gained to the castle of Antonia by a flight of stairs. Acts xxi. 35-40) that cattle and birds were sold for sacrificial purposes, and foreign money changed {Mk. xi. 15) ; whilst in its cloisters teachers used to sit or walk whilst instructing their disciples (cf. Mk. xi. 27, xii. 35, Mt. xxvi. 55). 2. Within this external court was an interior court of oblong shape, with its longer axis running east and west. This was situated on higher ground than the outer court, and was separated from the latter by a stone parapet about 5 feet high, beyond which no Gentile was allowed' to penetrate on pain of death.^ Tablets were placed along the parapet, warning trespassers of the fate to which they were liable ; and one of these * This is the -^ auXij r/ S^uStv tov i>aov of Rev. xi. 2. ' It is to this that St. Paul alludes in Eph. ii. 14. 90 E Court of [els -* [|1 tKe Priests Court 1 Court of the 2 of the I i-*_j Women Israelites Court of the Gentiles C.E.R. PLAN OF HERODS TEMPLE 4" Porch of the Temple 5 Holy Place 6 Holy of Holies 1 Solomon's Porch 2 tficanor or Beautiful Gate 3 Altar of Burnt Offering 7 Meeting Place of the Sanhedrin JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 91 ffiif been found in recent years, bearing tbe ioscription : /irjBha dkXoyevfj elsJiOQeveadai ivrog rov nsgl ro Isqov rgvqjdxrov xai tieqi^oXov, og d'av kfpd^ iavzo) airiog Saxai 6ia ro iiaxoXovdelv ddvarov. The inner court itself was divided by a second wall into two halves: (a) an eastern half, called the Court of the Women, because Jewish women as well as men were allowed to enter it ; and (6) a western half, more elevated than the other, and styled the Court of the Israelites, only male Jews being admitted to it. Entrance into the last was gained by nine gates, four on the north and south and one on the east (opening from the Court of the Women and called the Beautiful Gate, Acts iii. 2, 10). Eound the Court of the Women ran a series of colonnades, and under these were placed receptacles shaped Kke ram's horns and numbering 13, which were designed for receiving ofierings bestowed for religious purposes. This part of the Court was in consequence called the Treasury (ML xii. 41, Joh. viii. 20). 3. Inside the court of the Israelites, on a still higher level, was an innermost court, called the Court of the Priests, into which lay persons were only permitted to enter for special purposes (such as certain rites connected with sacrifice). This court formed an enclosure within which the Temple itself was constructed. In the court, and in front of the Temple, there stood the altar of burnt-offering (on the north of which was the place where the victims were slaughtered and dressed) and the brazen laver where the priests washed before discharging their duties. The altar, made of unhewn stone, was 15 feet high and 4-8 feet square. The actual Temple stood on ground rising above the level of the sur- rounding court, and was approached by twelve steps. It resembled, in general plan, that built by Solomon, and like the latter was 60 cubits long and 20 cubits broad on the inside ; but must have greatly exceeded it in height. Without, on three sides there were chambers arranged in three stories, up to a height of 60 cubits ; but above these chambers the central stractuie rose to an additional height of 40 cubits, containing an upper chamber of equal area with the space below ; so that externally the building was 100 cubits high La aU.^ The area of the surrounding chambers, and the thickness of the various walls, must have made the exterior length of the Temple 85 cubits, and the exterior breadth 70 cubits. At the east end there was a porch 11 cubits deep, and of the same height as the main building, but projecting 15 cubits beyond each of the external walls of the latter. The total length of the fabric (including the porch) was, like its height, 100 cubits.^ Prom the porch access was gained to the building through a vast gateway without a door. The Temple itself was divided within into two compartments, the Holy Place (40 X 20 cubits), on the east, and the Most Holy Place (20 X 20 cubits) on the west. From the porch the Holy Place was separated by a veil ; whilst from the Holy Place the Most Holy Place was marked off by two veils. Within the former were the golden altar of Incense, the golden table of * Josephus, B.J. V. 6, 5. ' On the dimensions of the Temple see Hastings, D.B, iv. pp. 714-5. 92 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Shewbread, and a seven-branched golden lamp-stand ; whilst the latter, constituting the innermost sanctuary, was entirely empty. Entrance into the Holy Place was confined to Priests, whilst into the Most Holy Place the High Priest alone penetrated once every year, on the Day of Atone- ment. Neither division was lit by windows. The term to Ieqov was sometimes applied comprehensively to the whole enclosure comprising the courts as well as the actual structure of the Temple (see Mk. xi. 16, Lk. ii. 37, 46, Acts xxi. 26, 27) ; and sometimes designated the latter exclusively (see Mt. iv. 5 ( = Lk. iv. 9), xii. 6). The Temple building was strictly termed 6 vaog {Mt. xxiii. 35, xxvii. 40, Lk. i. 9, 21) ; but this word is used irregularly in Mt. xxvii. 5 for one of the Temple courts. The Priesthood and its Duties The idea behind the conception of Priesthood in antiquity seems to have been the possession of the special knowledge requisite for propitiating the Deity, and ofEerLng acceptable service to Him (see 2 Kg. xvii. 24-28). In an age when such service consisted mainly in external rites and practices, and the arts of reading and writing were not widely diffused, acquaintance with the right method of conducting worship would tend to be restricted to certain experienced persons who were familiar with it through family traditions, and whose kaowledge would be orally transmitted to their pos- terity. This was the case among the Hebrews. Before the ExUe, though probably not in the earliest times, the priesthood was confined to the tribe of Levi ; but in the post-exilic period the priestly office was legally restricted to one Levitical family — the house of Aaron. Hence, when the essential qualification for the priesthood was descent from Aaron, it was of the utmost importance to establish this by carefully preserved pedigrees. But though all descendants of Aaron were theoretically on the same level, this was not the case in practice. It was from certain families only that the High Priests were commonly chosen ; and those who were thus distinguished occupied a much higher rank than the rest. The title High (Heb. Great) Priest seems to have originated in post-exihc times, being used by the prophets Haggai (i. 1) and Zechariah (iii. 1) and in the priestly code of the Pentateuch {Lev. xxi. 10) but rarely elsewhere. In pre-exihc times the principal member of the sacerdotal order seems to have been called simply the priest (2 Kg. xi. 9, Is. viii. 2), or the head priest (2 Kg. xxv. 18). During the early monarchy he was removable by the sovereign (1 Kg. ii. 26, 27) ; but in the post-exilic period his office gradually became tenable for fife. Under the Eoman rule, however, this arrangement ceased to prevail, and the High Priests were appointed and deposed at the discretion of the secular authority. During their tenurfe of the position, they were not only the reHgious heads of the nation but exercised great secular power as well. In consequence of the frequency with which the office changed hands there was always a number of persons'; ■ who, though not discharging its duties, yet retained the title of it; and since (as has been said) the High Priests were usually selected from a small JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 93 number of families, tte same title (0/ ugyjEeeig, Mk. xv. 1, Mt. xxi. 15 ^) seems to have been also applied comprebensively to the members of those families. The religious duties specially required of the High Priest were to ofEer sacrifices on various important occasions, such as the annual feasts, and particularly on the Day of Atonement ; and he seems to have been accustomed to officiate on the Sabbaths, and on the festivals of the New Moon (Jos. B.J. v. 5, 7) The rest of his time was occupied with the discharge of civil duties (p 92). Three High Priests are named in the New Testament, Annas, Caiaphas, and Ananias (Lk. iii. 2, Joh. xviii. 13, Acts xxiii. 2). Next in rank was the Captain of the Temple (0 argaTrjydg tov iegov, Ads V. 24) ^ whose function it was to preserve order in the Temple and its neighbourhood. He was a priest, and bore in Hebrew the title of ruler of the house of God {Neh. xi. 11). Other officials who acted under the authority of the captain of the Temple bore a title like his, and were called arQarrjyoi {Lk. xxii. 4, 52). These had under them numerous watchmen (Levites) who attended to the opening and closing of the gates ; and kept guard over the valuable treasures often stored in the Temple (cf. Jos. B.J. vi. 5, 2 f£. ; see p. 44). There were also officials (treasurers) who had charge of the large sums of money that were contributed for rehgious purposes. The chief of such officials was naturally a person of much importance.* The power and influence of the Priesthood was greatly increased by the augmentation of their emoluments, as enjoined in the Priestly code, which far exceeded those prescribed in the earher code of Deuteronomy. Over and above a large share of various sacrifices, both pubhc and private, there were given to the priests the first fruits of certain products of the soil, the first-born of animals (or a sum of money in substitution) and a proportion of the tithes (the rest going to the Levites). By the more religious part of the population the tithes of even garden herbs were paid with the greatest scrupulousness (cf. Mt. xxiii. 23). The expenses of the services of the Temple were defrayed by a poll-tax of half a shekel levied upon every male Hebrew above the age of twenty years (Ex. xxx. 13) and by voluntary gifts. For the collection of the latter there existed within the Temple, in the Court of the Women, the trumpet-shaped chests mentioned on p. 91. Of the numerous sacrifices offered in the Temple the two that were in some ways the most significant were (1) the " continual " burnt-ofiering, presented twice every day, at dawn and in the evening ; (2) the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement. The interruption of the first, both in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes (Dan. viii. 11) and in the siege of Jerusalem by the Eomans (Jos. B.J. vi. 2, 1, see p. 59) was most acutely felt. The victim was a lamb, the blood of which was dashed on the altar * The R.V. disguises the identity of the title by the rendering chief priests instead of High Priests. The high priests are described as " the rulers " (oi apxavres) in Acts iv. 5, but distinguished from them in Lk. xxiii. 13, xxiv. 20. • See Jos. B.J. vi. 5, 3. ' ' The principal treasurer was of sufSoient dignity to form, with the High Priest, part of a deputation to the Emperor Nero (Jos. Ant. xx. 8, 11). 94 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of burnt-ofEering, wUlst the flesh was burnt. The second was of annual occurrence, and was marked by two exceptional features. Two goats were set apart, one for Jehovah, and the other for Azazel, a demon believed to haunt the desert. The first was sacrificed and its blood sprinkled on the Mercy seat (or Propitiatory) in the Holy of Holies, which the High Priest entered on this occasion only. The second, after an acknowledg- ment of the people's offences had been made over it, was sent away into the wilderness to carry with it symbolically the national sins that had been confessed by the priest. The days on which the annual feasts and fasts were held, were as follows : — (a) The Passover on the fourteenth day of the First Month (Nisan = Mar.-Ap.). (b) The feast of Unleavened Bread on the seven days immediately following the Passover (Nisan 15-21). (c) The /«as« of Weeks (Pentecost), on the fiftieth day after the second day of Unleavened Bread. ^ (d) The feast of Trumpets, on the first day of the Seventh Month (Tishri = Sept.-Oct.). (e) The Day of Atonement (a universal fast), on the tenth day of the Seventh Month. (/) The /east of Tabernacles, on the fiLfteenth day of the Seventh Month. (g) The feast of Dedication, on the twenty-fifth day of the Ninth Month (Ohislev = Nov.-Dec), see p. 32. (h) The feast of Purim, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the Twelfth Month (Adar = Feb.-Mar.). Besides the fast on the Day of Atonement, fasts were also observed in the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months in commemoration of the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (Zech. viii. 19, cf. vii. 5, Jer. xxxix. 2) ; and in the time of our Lord individual Jews of a strict type also fasted twice a week (Lk. xviii. 12). The Synagogue The word synagogue means primarily " an assembly," but came to mean secondarily a "place of assembly" for the purpose of religious worship. The origin of synagogues must go back to the earliest post- exilic times. Inasmuch as some twenty-five years before the overthrow? of the kingdom of Judah, Josiah had confined all sacrifices to one centrai sanctuary, namely Jerusalem (in accordance with the directions of Dmiet- onomy), the Jews, when they returned from captivity to their own country, naturally maintained the same restriction and practised sacrificial worship in the Temple only.2 This limitation of sacrifices to a single locahty caused religious devotion to seek satisfaction in other directions. The 1 In calculating the date of Pentecost from the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it has to be remembered that the Hebrew months were lunar. Pentecost fell early in the Third Month (Sivan = May-June). ^ In the sixth century B.C., however, an altar for sacrieoe existed at the Jewisli settlement of Yeb (Elephantine) in Egypt. JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 95 suspension, during the period of exile in a foreign land, of the sacrificial system confined public worsHp to the reading and exposition of the Scrip- tures (or at least to those parts which were then in existence) and united prayer ; and though the ofiering of sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem was resumed after the Return, the practices which had for a while replaced it were not discontinued. A single allusion in the Old Testament to synagogues appears to occur in the present Hebrew text of Ps. Ixxiv. 8, " they (the enemy) have burnt up all the synagogues (hterally " appointed places ") of God in the Land " ; but as the LXX has Aevre xal xaranavacofiBv Tag iogras Kvgiov and rfjg yfjq, it is very doubtful whether the apparent allusipn is a real one. But be this as it may, the need for appropriate buildings where public prayer could be offered and rehgious instruction could be given was bound to arise when in the course of time the majority of the Jewish people lived at a distance from Jerusalem. Synagogues existed not only in the towns of Palestine (cf. Mk. i. 21, vi. 2) but in most of the important cities of the Eoman empire {Acts ix. 2, xvii. 17, xviii. 7, etc.). In Jerusalemi itself they were numerous, serving the needs not only of natives of the capital, but of such Jews as, though resident elsewhere, were sojourners in the city ; and reference is made in particular to those of the Cyrenians, Alexandrians, Cilicians and Asians as well as of a body of freedmen {Ads vi. 9). At Philippi, where the Jewish community was perhaps small, mention is made not of a synagogue, but merely of a place of prayer {TtQoaevyri, i.e. olnog ngoaevxfjg). Though there seems to have been no uniform practice in regard to the choice of a site for a synagogue, the account of St. Paul's visit to the proseucha at PhiHppi, which he expected to find near a riverside {Acts xvi. 13), suggests that, where possible, they were built close to streams, perhaps for the convenience of obtaining the water needed for lustrations. In plan the buildings varied ; at Capernaum, for instance, a synagogue of which ruins remain had a double colonnade running down the centre. ^ Of the furniture of a synagogue the principal articles were a chest, where the copies of the Scriptures, wrapt in cloths, were kept, seats of honour near it, a platform (or tribune) with a lectern, seats for the male congrega- tion, a gallery for women, lamps for lighting the building, and horns and trumpets for blowing on festivals. In places where a large population was entirely or mainly Jewish, and where a considerable measure of local independence was allowed by the foreign power to which the Jews were subject, the management of the synagogue was in the hands of the same body of elders that directed civil afiairs. It is these elders who are presumably designated as ol aexofreg in Acts xiv. 5.^ Elsewhere the elders of the synagogue possessed authority only oyer religious matters, and were in consequence quite distinct from the civil magistrates of the locaUty. There were no ministers formally appointed to conduct the services, but there were particular officials empowered to superintend them. These officials were (1) the " ruler of ' See Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., i. p. 434. ' Cf . the reading of D. in Acts xiv. 2 ol dpxi-ffvvayoryol twv lovSalav Kal ol dpxovres T^s avvayuyijs. 96 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY the synagogue " ^ {dgxtawayccyuQi, whose function it was to decide who should take part in the service, to maintain order, and to prevent breaches of the Mosaic Law (cf. Lk. xiii. 14) ; (2) the attendant {vnr,gh:r]<;), who had charge of the building and its furniture, handed the copies of the Scriptures to the persons who were selected to read them {Lk. iv. 17, 20), and called upon a priest, if present, to pronounce the concluding Blessing. The service (at which alms were collected) was divided between different members of the congregation. The several parts were as follows : (1) the recitation of three short sections from the Pentateuch, Dt. vi. 4r-9, xi. 13-21, Num. XV. 37-41 (the whole being styled from the opening word (" Hear ") of the first {Dt. vi. 4), the Shema) ; (2) a series of Eighteen Blessings (called the Shemoneh Esreh, the Hebrew for "eighteen"); (3) prayer; (4) two Lessons, one from the Law and the other from the Prophets, which included the Historical books (cf. Acts xiii. 15, xv. 21, Lk. iv. 17) ; (5) an exposition of the Scripture read ; (6) the blessing, pronounced by a priest (if one was present), but changed to a prayer if there was none. The attitude adopted by those who ofiered prayer and read the lessons was standing (cf. Lk. iv. 16), but the preacher who delivered the exposition sat. The lesson from the Law was fixed, the whole of the Pentateuch being read through in a cycle of three years ; but the lesson from the Prophets was left to the choice of the reader (cf. Lk. iv. 16, 17). As Hebrew was little understood by the mass of the people even in Palestinej,, , the lessons, as they were read, were translated by an interpreter into Aramaic wherever this was current, whilst amongst the Dispersion prob- bably the Septuagint translation was used. The principal service took place on the forenoon of the Sabbath ; but there were also shorter services on the afternoon of the Sabbath, on Mondays and on Fridays. From what has been said, it will be seen that though the synagogue was primarily a house of prayer, it was also a place of instruction in the Scriptures,^ The elders of the synagogue had the right of exercising discipline over its members ; and ofienders were punished by exclusion, which might be either temporary or permanent {Joh. xvi. 2) ; and the penalty was greatly ': dreaded (Joh. ix. 22, xii. 42). It appears also that the elders had the power of inflicting chastisement by scourging {Mt. x. 17, Mk. xiii. 9, Acts xxii. 19), this sentence being probably carried out by the vnrjQeirjq^ For the conviction of a person the evidence of at least two witnesses was required (see Bt. xix. 15, cf. Mt. xviii. 16, xxvi. 60, 2 Cor. xiii. 1). The Scribes The class of professional copyists and teachers of the Law, who were designated by the names of Scribes or Lawyers (see p. 17), came into existence after the Return from the Captivity. The origin and develop-' ^ There were sometimes more than one {Mk. v. 22, Acts xiii. 15), the title being perhaps retained by those who had once held the office. ' The Jewish practice of reading Lessons at meetings for public worship was adopted by the Christian Church, communications from Apostles and others being read on such occasions (see Col. iv. 16, 1 Thes. v. 27, Eev. i. 3, and cf. Eus. H.E. h.r 23). JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 97 ment of such a class is readily explicable from the circumstances of that period, and by the conditions prevailing in subsequent centuries, (a) The disuse of Hebrew amongst the mass of the people and its replacement by Aramaic called for a body of persons capable of understanding the Hebrew Scriptures and translating them into the current form of speech. (6) The intricacy of a legislative system of which the several parts originated at times widely separate from one another (p. 16) demanded the skill of a professional order to explain its provisions, (c) As the Jewish people grew in numbers and were more and more widely diffused, the multiphca- tion of copies of the Law and the other Scriptures, the reading of which entered into the synagogue services (p. 96), became increasingly important. (d) The application of the principles of the Law to every department of Ufe, with a view to emphasizing the difierence between Jew and Gentile, could not be accomplished without the help of trained expositors, able to show how regulations should be fulfilled in a number of cases that had not been contemplated when they were originally enacted. As new needs arose to which the principles of the Mosaic legislation had to be adjusted, there was wanted a system of oral comments more flexible than the fixed rules of the written code. The decisions of the Scribes respecting the meaning and requirements of the Law had to be confirmed by the Sanhedrin (on which they had representatives, p. 99) before they became binding ; but the respect paid to their interpretations was such that sanction to their ruUngs was customarily granted. In Jerusalem the Scribes met, for mutual con- sultation and for the communication of instruction to others, in some of the cloisters within the outer courts of the Temple (p. 90). It was in these that our Lord is represented by St. Luke as listening to them (LJc. ii, 46), and in these He Himself afterwards came into conflict with them in the course of His teaching {Mt. xxi. 23, Joh. xviii. 20). The method of instruction adopted was the constant repetition by the pupil of what was imparted, the exposition of the Law as transmitted or originated by the Scribes being delivered orally and not written down.^ A Scribe, before he was allowed to teach publicly, had to be formally admitted into the body of professional teachers of the Law ^ ; and with a view to becoming qualified, an aspirant to inclusion in the order had to become a pupil of some distinguished Eabbi. It was in accordance with this practice that St. Paul came from his native town Tarsus to be trained at Jerusalem under Gamaliel (Acts xxii. 3). In the interpretation of the Scriptures there was room for differences of opinion ; and as a result the, decisions of famous Scribes were adopted by bodies of disciples, who thus constituted Schools, called after their masters' names. Of such schools the two best known were those that perpetuated the teaching of Eabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai (contemporaries of Herod the Great). Since it was held to be derogatory to the Law to make the study of it a means ^ The ideal student was one who like a water-tight cistern allowed nothing to escape from his mind that was once put into it. * Morrison, Tlie Jews under the Romans, p. 286. 7 98 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of livelihood, every Scribe was expected to follow some secular occupation. Hence Hillel, mentioned above, was a hewer of wood ; others of almost equal reputation were needle-makers, bakers, and tailors ; whilst St. Paul was a weaver of Cilician tent-cloth. In virtue of their profession great respect was both claimed for, and rendered to, the Scribes, for the profound reverence felt for the Law was naturally extended to its expounders, since the traditions of which they were the channel were considered to have been derived from God no less than the written Law itself. They were saluted by the title of Rabii or Rahhoni (both meaning " my master ") ; and were accorded by the populace various tokens of distinction. The deference thus paid to them inevitably had upon those who were ambitious an injuriotis effect, fostering in them a spirit of pride and ostentation, and creating in the unprincipled a tendency to hypocrisy (Mk. xii. 38-40). And since the general trend of their teaching was to treat the ethical and ceremonial regulations of the Law as of equal importance, and, by insisting upon the observance of the minutest details, to sacrifice the spirit of it to the letter, their influence upon religion was often pernicious {Mt. xv. 3-6, xxui. 16 foil.). Nevertheless, just as the Law cotild develop virtues of high excellence, so among the professional teachers of it there were sincere and noble characters (see Mh. xii. 34). The Scriptures which in the time of our Lord constituted the subject of the Scribes' studies were those included in the Canon of the Old Testa- ment. They were divided into three divisions, (1) the Law (consisting of the Pentateuch), (2) the Prophets (subdivided into (a) the Former Prophets, comprising the Historical books of Joshua, Judges, 1, 2 Samuel, 1, 2 Kings, and (6) the Latter Prophets, viz. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezehid and the Twelve Minor Prophets (the last being included in a single laook) ) ; (3) the Hagiographa or Writings (consisting of Psalms, Proverbs, Job^ The Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles). Of these three divisions (cf. Lk: xxiv. 44) the first was regarded as of the highest importance and value. But though the Pentateuch was invested with pre-eminence, th« other books were held to be also Divine (cf. Mt. i. 22, Heb. i. 1), and the term " law," indeed, was often extended so as to include them. Thus a passage from the Psalms was cited by our Lord as " written in the Law " (Joh. x. 34) ; and a quotation from Isaiah is similarly represented by St. Paul as con- tained in the Law (1 Oor. xiv. 21). The body of expository and supplementary traditions which the Scribes attached to the legislative parts of the Pentateuch was known as the Haheha. This determined the manner in which the injunctionsof the Law were to be observed under varying circumstances, and how difficulties arising out of its obscurity or want of explicitness were to be solved. The body of comments which accumulated around the narrs* tive section of the Pentateuch and around the historical and prophetical books was styled the Haggada. This consisted of edifying illustrations and imaginative expansions of those portions of the Scriptures which deaflt with the past fortunes and with the future destiny of Israel. Thus, for JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 99 example, tlie history of Abraham was enlarged by describing bow be was the first to teach men that there was only one God, the Creator of the Universe, and how for this the people of Chaldea raised a tumult against him (Joe. Ant. i. 2, 3 ; 7, 1). Numerous statements contained in the New Testament for which no authority exists in the Old Testament seem to be really drawn from the traditions included in the Haggada, such as Acts vii. 22 (Moses' training in Egyptian wisdom). Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19 (the Law ordained by angels). Gal. iv. 29 (persecution of Isaac by Ishmael), 1 Cor. X. 4 (the Rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness), 2 Cor. xi. 14 (Satan fashioned as an angel of light), xii. 2 (number of heavens), 2 Tim. iii. 8 (Jannes and Jambres), Heb. xi. 37 (Isaiah (?) sawn asunder), Jude 9 (dispute between Michael and the Devil for the body of Moses). In general the tendency of the Scribes in their exposition of Scripture was to sacrifice history to edification. Hence narratives historical in charac- ter, or purporting to be such, were frequently allegorized to the neglect of the writer's original intention ; and the practice is followed by St. Paul in Gal. iv. 22-25. The Sanhedrin The term Sanhedrin was an Aramaic adaptation of the Greek word avv^Sgiov, meaning a council or assembly. There existed among the Jews more than one body denoted by the word ; for there was a great awiSgiov and two lesser awedgia ; but the title Sanhedrin was applied par excellence to the former. The origin of this council is very obscure and both its constitution and its functions seem to have varied at different periods of Jewish history. In the time of the Maccabees mention is made of a senate {yeQovaia) in connection with both Judas and Jonathan (2 Mace. i. 10, 1 Mace. xii. 6) ; and Josephus (Ant. xii. 3, 3) uses the same term in relation to a still earlier period, namely, the reign of the Syrian king Antiochus the Great (224-187). How the powers of such a senate were adjusted to those of the HasmonEean princes is unknown. When the Romans became masters of Palestine, the authority of the Sanhedrin was curtailed by Gabinius (57-55 B.C.), but his arrangements were after- wards cancelled (p. 44). It continued to exercise jurisdiction until the outbreak of the war against Eome in a.d. 66 ; and with the conclusion of that war it finally came to an end (a.d. 70). Its numbers seem to have been 71, the figure reproducing that formed by the association with Moses of 70 elders (as related in Num. xi. 16). It was composed in New Testament times of three classes, chief priests, eMers, and scribes (cf. Mk. xiv. 53, xv. 1, Mt. xxvii. 41). The collective council, besides being styled the Sanhedrin, was also known as rd ngEapvregwv {Acts xxii. 5) ; whilst individual councillors were called povXEvxal [Lk. xxiii. 50). How vacancies in it were filled is not known with certainty. Its place of meeting was the Hall of Hewn Stone within the great (or outer) court oi the Temple. The president was the acting High Priest (Mk. xiv. 53, Acts xxiii. 2, Jos. Ant. xx. 9). The members were set apart by a rite of ordination, which was conferred by three persons, one of whom 100 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY at least could trace his own ordination back to Moses. ^ Its functions appear to have been partly judicial and partly administrative, the range of its jurisdiction being confined to Jews except where profanation of the Temple was concerned. As the highest court of justice, it decided suits remitted to it when an inferior court failed to reach a decision. It alone was competent to deal v/ith cases afiectiag a tribe, a false prophet, or the High Priest. In the New Testament several varieties of charges are represented as brought before it for investigation, such as blasphemy (Mk. xiv. 55-64, Acts vi. 13, 14), false pretensions [Acts iv. 7 f .), disloyalty to the Mosaic Law, and profanation of the Temple {Acts xxiv. 5, 6). Its authority was not restricted to Jews resident in Judsea, but extended to those dwelling in other countries [Acts ix. 2) ; and the Roman officials could bring accused persons before it {Acts xxii. 30). Nevertheless its coercive powers were limited, for (o) according to Josephus {Ant. xx. 9) it could not be assembled by the High Priest without the consent of the Roman procurator, and after £0 a.d. could not of itself execute a death sen- tence ^ ; (6) it had no authority to proceed against Roman citizens except in regard to the ofience of trespassing upon the inner courts of the Temple (p. 90). Twenty-three members out of the seventy-one formed a quorum ; and whilst a majority of one sufficed for an acquittal, a majority of two was required for conviction. (6) Religious Sects It was not until late in the Greek period that religious differences, turning upon the attitude deemed desirable towards Gentile peoples and their practices, manifested themselves among the Jews (p. 30) and eventually resulted in the formation of two religious parties, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Some light upon the origin of these parties is furnished by the books of the Maccabees, and further knowledge about their distinctive characteristics is afforded by the references to them in the New Testament ; but the principal sources of information concerning them are the writings of Josephus. The Sadducees The sect of the Sadducees (though the word " sect" in this connection does not connote severance from the religious unity of the nation) repre- sented, with some modification, the party which in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes sympathized with that king's endeavour to introduce among the Jews the usages of Greece (p. 30). It seems to have consisted mainly of the high priestly houses and their supporters, for the members of it are described as few in number but men of wealth and distinction,* such ' Ederaheim, Life and Times of Jeaus, II. 554. " See Joh. xviii. 31. The execution of Stephen must have been in defiance of the Law, which the Jews, in their exasperation at his speech, disregarded (Acts vii. ^ Jos. Ant. xviii. 1, 4 ; of. xiii. 10, 6. JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 101 language suiting those who possessed the means, and enjoyed the rank, that pertained to the priestly order. ^ The appellation Sadducees is of doubtful origin. It is most plausibly derived from Zadok, who was made High Priest by Solomon (1 Kg. ii. 35), and to whose posterity the priesthood was limited by the legislation proposed in the writings of Ezehiel (xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 15, xlviii. 11) ; but it is some objection to this derivation of the name that the d is doubled (though BeeNeh. iii. 29,xi. 11 LXX). Another suggestion is that it represents Zaddikim, the righteous, ^ though in this etymology the substitution of u for i is a diiEculty. Since among the post-exilic Jews (deprived, as they were, of political independence) it was the priests who came to enjoy a monopoly of civil and religious authority, it was inevitable that the Sadducean party, which included most of the priestly houses, should be infected with a worldly spirit. They were naturally brought into closer contact than the majority of their countrymen with Gentile peoples ; and were in con- sequence inclined to subordinate religious to political questions (cf. Joh. xi. 48), valuing the priesthood chiefly for the secular power which it con- ferred. Even in the time of Nehemiah the family of the contemporary high priest entered into aUiance with the families of Tobiah the Ammonite and SanbaUat, an official in Samaria ^ ; and during the reign of Antiochus IV the high priest Jason co-operated with the king's desire to Hellenize Jerusalem (p. 30). The later Sadducees, indeed, warned by the outbreak of popular indignation headed by the Maccabees, did not, in the pursuit of their political interests, show any unfaithfulness to the letter of the Mosaic law. But they lacked the enthusiastic devotion to it which caused others of their countrymen to supplement its requirements by a number of traditional rules ; and they kept to the written enactments (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10, 6) without seeking, at least to the same extent as the Pharisees (p. 102), to guard against possible infractions of them by the help of the oral exposition of the Scribes (p. 97).* The worldliness which characterized them made them unsympathetic towards outbursts of patriotic feeling ; and the fact that they attached little importance to any part of the Old Testament Scriptures except the Law indisposed them to share the Messianic expectations based on the writings of the prophets. In their attitude to religious speculation the Sadducees were conser- vative. The principal points of difference between them and the rival sect of the Pharisees were the following, (a) They did not share the belief that there would be after death a second lite and a discrimination between the just and the unjust according to their deserts (cf . Mlc. xii. 18, Lh. XX. 27, Acts xxiii. 8). The belief in question found no expression in ' For the connection between the Priesthood and the Sadducees of. Acts iv. 1, V. 17. * See Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., i. p. 323. It is implied that the Sad- ducees were content to call themselves " the righteous " in contrast to their rivals, who might be regarded as the " unco guid." » Cf. Neh. xiii. 4, 28, Ez. ix. 2. • When in office, however, they conformed to the practice of the Pharisees : see Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., I. p. 313, 102 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY the Law, and to men devoid of religious fervour and spiritual feeling it naturally made little appeal. According to Josephus (Ant. xviii. 1, 4) their own conviction was that the soul perished with the body ; and though the correctness of this statement is disputed, '^ it is generally agreed that they did not accept the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead (of. Acts iv. 2, v. 17, xxiii. 6). (b) They are represented as disbelieving in the existence of angels and spirits, though it is not clear how they reconciled such disbelief with the repeated allusions to angels in the Pentateuch. Possibly it was to the later developments of angelology only (p. 42) that they were opposed, (c) They denied the absolute pre-ordination of human fate by God, holding that good and evil were within man's own choice. Their hostility to new departures in theological thought was probably due in large measure to their absorption in secular afEairs, which led them to despise the imaginative elements entering into the beliefs and hopes of religious enthusiasts. The Pharisees Just as the sympathizers with Hellenism in the age of Epiphanes had their later representatives in the Sadducees, so the spirit of the pietists (the Asidseans), who under that king were rigidly loyal to the Law, was reproduced subsequently in the Pharisees. Their name (Heb. PerusMm), which appears first in the time of John Hjrrcanus (p. 36), and means " those who separate themselves from others " (through conviction of their superiority in sanctity) was probably bestowed upon them as » reproach by their opponents, though it eventually became accepted by themselves.^ Such separation did not involve withdrawal from the mass of their country- men in worship, but only aloofness from social intercourse with such as would not, or could not, avoid ceremonial defilement. Their characteristics were an intense zeal for the strict maintenance of the Law, and a profound contempt for all who had less knowledge of, or less concern for, its require- ments than themselves {Joh. vii. 49). They shunned association not only with the Gentiles but likewise with those of their own race who might have been contaminated through contact with them or in other ways (see Lh. v. 30, xv. 2, and cf. p. 384). Yet notwithstanding the scorn which the Pharisees felt for the bulk of their less scrupulous compatriots, they enjoyed among them much esteem ; and in their rivalry to the Sadducees, they had the support of most of the people (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10, 5). In order to preserve themselves from violating the Law unwittingly even in the slightest degree, the Pharisees reinforced its regulations by those contained in the traditions of the Scribes (p. 97) ; and since those who originated and developed the system of oral traditions and those who put it into practice were commonly of the same way of thinking, the most influential of the Scribes belonged to the party of the Pharisees (cf. Mk. ii. 16, Lk. V. 30). With the new developments in theological speculation ^ See Edersheim, op. cit. i. p. 315. ^ The title which they preferred to apply to themselves was Habirim (" com- panions " or " associates "). JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 103 which the Sadducees rejected the Pharisees were in sympathy, (a) They believed souls to be imperishable, and held that after death a judgment was in store for the righteous and the wicked, and that the souls of the former would receive back their bodies, in which they would enjoy felicity, whilst the souls of the latter would be eternally punished. The righteous were expected to enjoy their merited happiness in a kingdom established on earth by the Messiah, who woidd expel all sinners from it, and would reduce the |_Gentiles to subjection, (b) They acknowledged the existence of angels and spirits, attributed many maladies to the activity of demons, aad practised exorcism, (c) They conceded that men enjoyed a certain measure of free will and so were responsible for their actions, but they also maintained that Divine pre-determination was a factor in human conduct. In regard to the questions of Free Will and Determinism the divergence between them and the Sadducees was probably not really so great as it seems, and amounted to a difference of emphasis rather than of substance. i In contrast with their rivals the Pharisees made, not political power, but religion their first interest, however formal and external their conception of religion was ; and their zeal for spreading their faith was intense. Their attitude to political issues was governed by the religious aspect of the latter. It was because their race was the chosen of God that they resented the supremacy of a heathen power over the land and people of Jehovah, and waited expectantly for some act of Divine intervention which would put an end to such usurpation. By a small section who were impatient of delay the overthrow of Roman rule was sought through force, and these came to be called Zealots. They did not enter into existence as a distinct party until the date of the enrol- ment instituted in a.d. 6 (when Quirinius was legatus of Syria), which had as its object the direct taxation of the Jewish people by the Romans. This proceeding met with great opposition, which was headed by Judas of Gamala (Acts v. 37), aided by a Pharisee called Sadduc (Jos. Ant. xviii. 1, 1). Their example of armed resistance to Roman authority was followed in the rebellion of a.d. 66 ; and a conspicuous part was taken by the Zealots in the war that ended in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (cf. p. 58). An extreme wing of this party was known as the Sicarii (cf. Acts xxi. 38), who practised secret assassination, and derived their title from the daggers (smxe) with which they accomplished their murders. The Essenes Some notice is desirable of a small religious sect, or rather order, of Jews, to which no allusion, indeed, occurs in the New Testament, but with which the early Christians have been often compared, whilst its tenets are of Hiterest in connection with St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians. This order was known as the Essenes ^ ('Eaarjvoi, 'Eaaaloi, 'Oaaaloi), and is ' Cf. Morrison, The Jews under the Romans, p. 322. * See Jos. Ant. xiii. 5, 9, xviii. 1, 5, B.J. II. 8, 2-13, Sehurer, Jewish People, II. ii, 188 f., Lightfoot, Colossians (1886), p 347 f., Edersheim, Life and Times, I. 324 f., Morrison, Jews under the Romans, p. 323 f. 104 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY estimated by Joseplius to have consisted of no more than 4,000 persons. They are first mentioned, by the writer just named, in relation with the history of Jonathan the Maccabee (161-142 B.C.) ; but the date of their origin is quite obscure. Their name perhaps is most plausibly regarded (on the assumption that it was conferred upon them by. others than themselves) as a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Hitsonim," outsiders," since they stood outside the religious system of their countrymen,^ though it has also been traced to a place called Essa, on the shore of the Dead Sea, near which they were principally found. They constituted a very close society, and imposed a period of probation upon all who sought to join them. They were governed by certain officials {im/j.e^r]ra(), a hundred in number, elected by themselves ; and were under an obligation to conceal nothing from one another ; to divulge none of their pecuHar doctrines to the outer world ; and to transmit them to posterity in the exact form in which they had received them . In their habits they were ascetic, being extremely abstemious in regard to food, and averse to marriage, preferring to adopt as their own the children of others. Many of them were credited with remarkable prophetic powers, and great skill in the interpretation of dreams (see Jos. Ant. xiii. 11, 2, xvii. 13, 3). In certain respects the Essenes resembled the Pharisees. Like them they entertained the greatest reverence for Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures ; observed the Sabbath with the utmost strictness ; were exceedingly earnest in the pursuit of ceremonial purity, through the constant use of lustrations ; and believed in the existence of angels. But in other respects they diverged widely from them. They ofEered no animal sacrifices, did not recognize the Aaronic priesthood, denied himian free will altogether, and held that, though the soul was immortal, there was no resurrection of the body, which was the prison of the soul and perished at death. Certain of their principles of conduct present a likeness to Christianity. Their rules pledged them to the practice of obedience, piety, justice, and veracity ; the avoidance of all oaths (except on the occasion when first admitted into the society) ; the promotion of peace ; and the assistance of all needing succour. Still more notable features of resemblance to the early Church were their communism in respect of property, and their participation in common meals. They kept no slaves ; private possessions were disallowed among them ; and whatever they earned by their labours (their sole occupation being agriculture) was put into a common purse. Their meals, taken together, began and ended with prayer ; and the meal of which they partook at midday seems to have been regarded as a religious function. But the features of contrast between them and the early Christians are no less striking. Members of the primitive Church were not recluses or ascetics, but mixed freely in the society around them, and at least one of the Apostles was married. Jesus, so far from being careful to avoid ceremonial defilement, exposed Himself to adverse comment by consorting with tax-gatherers and ' Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., I. p. 332, who compares the Greek 'Ao-iSaioi as the equivalent of the Hebrew Haaidim. JEWISH INSTITUTIONS 105 " sinners " {Mh. ii. 15, 16) ; and both He and His disciples frequented the Temple where worsMp centred in the sacrificial system {Mk. xi. 15, Acts ii. 46, iii. 1). Finally there prevailed widely in the Church a belief in the resurrection of the body. By one curious characteristic the Essenes were distinguished from Pharisees and Christians alike. This was the custom of addressing prayers towards the sun, which they possibly regarded as a symbol of God (the Source of spiritual illumination). This peculiarity has been variously ascribed to the influence of Pythagoreanism (which, like other Greek philosophies, entered Asia in the wake of Alexander's conquests), of Zoroastrianism, and of Buddhism. As there is no evidence that the Essenes shared the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, and as reverence for the sun was much more distinctive of the followers of Zoroaster than of those of Pythagoras or of Buddha, a connection between Essenism and Persia seems most plausible. PREVAILING IDEAS AND METHODS OF JEWISH HISTORIANS IN view of the discussion in subsequent chapters of the historical value of the New Testament documents, it is desirable to consider the psychological conditions of historical writing during New Testament times, the pre-suppositions with which the New Testament historians approached the tasks they set themselves, the conceptions which they entertained about the natural world and its processes, and the literary usages of their race. This can best be done by reviewing briefly the governing ideas and the traditional methods of composition characteristic of the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures, for the Old Testament constituted the most potent influence, both spiritual and intellectual, to which the New Testament writers were subject. Some of the facts here surveyed have come under notice previously, but it will be an advantage to regard them again from a special standpoint. Ruling Convictions, Beliefs, and Mental Habits 1. The dominant feature of the writings of the Old Testament is the teleological view held by their authors about human history. They believed that the processes of nature and the incidents of human life were alike directly controlled by God, whose purposes they both subserved. In order to exhibit this conviction in concrete form, and to Ulustrate it by conspicuous examples, it was obviously expedient to show that events, specially if of a striking character, had been predicted or foreshadowed before their occurrence, so that the coincidence between the prior announce- ments (through various agencies) and the subsequent fulfilments in experience might leave no doubt that the events had been designed and regulated by a Divine Power. Intimations about the future, illustrative of the Divine government of the world, were most commonly represented as conveyed through prophets ; but other means by which God's control of human fortunes was evinced were angelic visits, dreams, and voices from heaven. That there existed among the Hebrew people, though doubtless not among them exclusively, persons gifted with an exceptional power of foresight is beyond dispute. A prophet, indeed, was not primarily a, 106 IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 107 /ore-teller of tke future, but a spokesman /or God, revealing to the mass of those who were less well endowed with spiritual insight the Divine will. Bjiowledge of God's will, however, necessarily involved some measure of prevision into the future, if events were really designed by Him, and if it entered into the scheme of His Providence that men, for the guidance of their conduct, should have some understanding of His plans (cf. Am. iii. 7). Prediction, through human agents, of future events is specially adduced in 2 7s. xl.-lv. as evidence that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the Author of all that happens (see 2 Is. xli. 21-29, xliii. 9-13) ; and as instances of remarkable foresight exhibited by the prophets of Israel there may be cited the prophecy of Amos respecting the deportation of the Ten tribes (Am. V. 27, cf. 2 Kg. xvii. 6), that of Isaiah concerning, first, the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib, and next, the deliverance of the city from him {Is. xxxvii. and cf . 2 Kg. xix. 35, 36), and those of Jeremiah and Deutero- Isaiah relating to the restoration of the Jewish exiles from the Babylonian captivity {Jer. xxix. 10-14, 2 Is. xliv. 26-28, and ci.Ez.L). The faculty of prediction manifest in these and many other passages seems, so far as it admits of explanation, to be based on the strong faith which the prophets had in the government of the universe by a righteous God, united with an acute perception of the political forces in operation around them, so that they did not hesitate to predict confidently the issues to which contem- porary movements seemed to be trending. But their anticipations about even the near future were not always exactly verified ^ ; whilst their prophecies relating to God's designs for His people at a more distant date, though often substantially realized, were yet not seldom realized in a manner very unlike their expectations. Of the habit shown by Hebrew historians of drawing attention to such marks of Divine purpose as were manifested by the agreement of events with prior predictions examples occur in 1 Kg. xiv. 18, xv. 29, xvi. 34, 2 Kg. vii. 17, ix. 25, and various other places. It is obvious that the impression made upon the bulk of their readers would be the deeper in proportion to the closeness of the corre- spondence between prophecy and fulfilment ; and consequently both the compilers of the historical books and subsequent copyists of them would be tempted to adjust to a prediction the account of the event believed to have fulfilled it, so that the agreement between them might appear as detailed as possible. And that this was sometimes done can be shown to be probable by one or two instances. Thus in 2 Kg. xvi. 9, where it is stated that the king of Assyria deported the inhabitants of Damascus to Kir, the words to Kir are absent from the LXX, which suggests that they were inserted in the Hebrew in order to make the incident fulfil exactly the prophecy of Amos i. 5. Similarly in 2 Kg. xxiii. 16-20 ^ it may be suspected ' For instance, Isaiah at one time seems to have expected that the Assyrian army, which he regarded as designed by God to chastise Judah, would approach Jerusalem from the north (x. 28-32) instead of from the south-west, as was actually the case. ' This passage is itself of late origin ; note the anachronistic allusion to the " cities of Samaria " which did not become a province until after 722 ; see Bumey, Notes on Kings, p. 179, 108 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY that the statement that Josiah burnt the bones of the dead on the altar at Bethel is an addition introduced to bring the king's action into accord with the prediction related in 1 Kg. xiii. 2 : at least in the preceding v. 15, the altar is said to have been destroyed. Conversely there also appear to be cases where the account of the prophecy has been adapted to the event ; in 7s. xxxix. 6, 7, for example, the prediction that the possessions and posterity of Hezekiah should be carried away to Babylon, not to Assyria (which in the eighth century was the power that menaced Judah) looks like a modification of Isaiah's actual prophecy by a later writer who wag acquainted with the deportation of the Jews to Babylon by the Babylonian Nebuchadrezzar. Of the several ways by which the predetermination of history by God is illustrated in the Old Testament the following are examples : — (a) Revelations of the future through prophets. The instances already cited (p. 107) may be supplemented by Jud. iv. 7, 1 Kg. xvii. 1, xx. 13, xxi. 19, xxii. 17, etc.^ (b) Predictions conveyed through angels. The visits of angels com- municating information about the future can scarcely be regarded as anything but an impressive method of giving objective expression to the Divine resolves of which the events foretold are held to be a realization. Instances occur in Jud. vi. 12, xiii. 3. (c) Announcements of the future through dreams. Examples are found in Gen. xxxvii. 5-11, xli. 1-32, 1 Kg. iii. 5, Dan. iv., vii., viii.^ (d) Voices from heaven. The disclosure of a Divine decision through a voice from heaven is not so common a representation in the Old Testament as the methods just enumerated, but an explicit instance occurs in Dan. iv. 31, and possibly 1 Kg. xix. 12 is meant to be regarded as such. (e) The belief that everything in human history pre-existed in the Divine mind likewise occasionally took shape in the representation that the plan of an earthly institution or building was stored with God in heaven : see Ex. XXV. 40, Num. viii. 4 (the Tabernacle), 1 Ch. xxviii. 19 (the Temple). In one at least of the Old Testament books an efiort has been made to accredit prophecies about the future by blending with them statements purporting to be predictions about an earlier future, but being (it would seem) really descriptions of the past, in order that the known agreement of past history with the alleged prophecies of it might create confidencfe in the fresh predictions put forth concerning the actual future. This has occurred in the book of Daniel, written probably about 165 B.C. In it the experiences of Israel during the period between its subjugation by the Babylonians and the outrages committed upon its religion by Antiochiis Bpiphanes in 168-165 (p. 31) are represented as predicted by Daniel (portrayed as one of the Jewish exiles in Babylon in the sixth century B.C.), in order that certain prophecies relating to a time which was still future to the author of the work might win credence from his contemporaries, What distinguishes such vaticinia post eventus from genuine prophecies is, 1 Prophets and dreama were channels of revelation among the Greeks ; see^aoh The.b. an, Horn. Jl. v. 148-161. IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 109 in general, the greater minuteness of detail marking the supposed pre- dictions. Prophecy that relates to the real future is commonly rather general and indefinite in its terms (cf. p. 107), whereas history presented in the guise of prophecy is characterized by much precision and circum- atantiaUty ; so that where in Daniel exactness of definition gives place to vagueness, it may be suspected that the writer is passing from an account (however disguised) of the known past to a forecast of the unknown future. The transition from exactness to vagueness occurs where the narrator proceeds to deal with events subsequent to Antiochus' persecution of the Jews, with which the author of the work was almost certainly contemporary.^ 2. A characteristic of the Hebrew mind was the tendency to invest with sensible qualities, realities which can only be considered by us to be purely spiritual and imperceptible to the senses. Even in post-exilic times religious thinkers, whose conception of God's spiritual nature was exceptionally elevated, found a difficulty in reaHzing His Presence with His people, save through some manifestation appeahng to the senses. Fire is one of the most usual tokens of the Divine Presence in the Old Testament (Gen. xv. 17, Ex. iii. 2, xiii. 21, Dt. iv. 12^); whilst another is the cloud, in which Jehovah is represented as descending from heaven (Ex. xix. 9) and fiUing the sanctuary of the Tabernacle and of the Temple (Ex. xl. 34, 1 Kg. viii. 10). No doubt both of these signs were invested by the best minds of the nation with symbolic significance, the first indicating the destruction awaiting every1)hing that was inimical or ofiensive to so holy a God (cf. Dt. iv. 24, Is. xxxiii. 14, Num. xvi. 35, Heb. xii. 29), and the second suggestive of the mystery enshrouding His Nature and PersonaUty. Nevertheless the circumstance that the Deity was thus considered to be in a sense visibly present among His people, shows how hard it was for the Hebrews to detach the notion of Spirit or a Spiritual Being from materialistic conceptions. Akin to the habit of thought just noticed is the tendency to represent occasions when the Almighty was believed to be operative or active in an exceptional degree, as marked by the occurrence of physical disturbances, such as storm and earthquakes (Ex. xix. 18, Ps. xviii. 7, cxiv. 7, Joel iii. 16, and cf. Mt. xxvii. 51, xxviii. 2).^ 3. A further feature of much importance in Hebrew ways of thinking was the absence, at least in comparatively early times, of any rigid separ- ation in idea between the human and the Divine. It was customary for a Semitic people to regard the national God as the Author and Father of the .race, the director of its policy, and the cc.ntroller of its destinies ; and as the Divinity exercised His authority and enforced His will through the agency of human delegates. Divine titles and designations were ascribed to these as being His representatives and vicegerents. Thus the term '-•S : ' ^ See Driver, Dan. p. Ixvi. " It waa a symbol of divinity in other religions ; of. Verg. A. ii. 682 f., and see Eobertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 193. ' Cf. Verg. A. iii. 90-92. 110 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY El (God) is applied to Nebuchadrezzar by Ezekiel (xxxi. 11, xxxii. 21) ; and an ideal King who was expected to arise and safeguard Israel against both the sins that provoked Jehovah's anger, and the calamities with which they were punished, was called by Isaiah El Oibbor (Divine Warrior), Similarly the title Elohim (God) is used of the judicial authorities of the Jewish nation in Ps. Ixxxii. 1, 6 (cf. Joh. x. 34, 35), of a royal personage in Ps. xlv. 6, and of the shade of the deceased prophet Samuel in 1 Sam. xxviii. 13. Inasmuch as a national king was the representative of his people, he was thought to stand in the same relation to the national divinity as that occupied, according to Semitic ideas, by the people themselves ; and hence, since the IsraeUtes were regarded as the sons and daughters of Jehovah (2 Is. xliii. 6), just as the Moabites were termed the sons and daughters of Chemosh {Num. xxi. 29), and since Israel as a unit could be styled Jehovah's son or first-born {Ex. iv. 22, Hos. xi. 1), the same title could be applied in a stiU more intimate and personal degree to the sovereign, and he, like his collective subjects, could be designated God's son (2 Sam. vii. 14, Ps. Ixxxix. 26, 27). The same title or an equivalent was .also applied to individuals other than the king, who by reason of their character appeared to resemble God, or to be in an exceptional degree deserving of His care {Wisd. ii. 18).^ (4) Another influential idea current in the ancient world and shared by the Hebrew race was the behef in the existence of a multitude of super- human agencies, which at first, perhaps, were not clearly distinguished from gods, but which eventually came to be regarded as inferior to gods^ though superior in power to men. The idea had its origin in primitive animism. Early man, being conscious that he was subject to varioiiB external forces, interpreted them as proceeding from a source analogonB to himself ; so that everything which happened, and which he could not put down to any visible cause, he ascribed to the agency of unseen personal spirits. Occurrences of a fortunate character were attributed to beneficent spirits, and those of a calamitous kind to malignant spirits. By the Hebrews, in consequence of the development among them of a behef k the existence of one supreme God, these spirits were conceived, at least in historic times, to be powers not independent of, but subordinate to, Jehovah, constituting His court, His messengers, or His armies {Ps. ciii. 20, 21, cxlviii. 2, Joel ii. 11). They were generally described as " angels " {Gen. xvi. 7, xxxii. 1, Jud. xvi. 3), " holy ones " {Dt. xxxiii. 2, Zech. xiv. §)■, or " sons of God " {Gen. vi. 2, Job i. 6, Ps. Ixxxix. 6) ; and were imaginei after the likeness of men {Gen. xviii. 2, xix. 1, xxxii. 24, Josh. v. 13). They not only fulfilled God's benevolent designs towards men {Gen. xlvii. 16, Ex. xxiii. 20, Num. xx. 16, 3, 7s. Ixiii. 9, Ps. xxxiv. 7), but also carried out His d-estructive judgments (2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17, 2 Kg. xix. 35). AH ' The Hebrew terms for " God" {El, Elohim)when applied to human beings seem to have signified what in Greek and Latin might have been expressed by the adjec- tives dews and divinus, implying in them supernatural excellence of various kindfi. eeios is rarely found in the LXX, occurring only in Ex. xxxi. 3, xxxv. 31, Job xxvii. 3, xxxiii. 4, Prov. ii. 17, Ecclti.s. vi. 35. It is even rarer in the New Testament (il'Dd xvii. 29, 2 Pet. i. 3, 4). IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 111 thiough. the Old Testament angels figure as the Divine agents ; but some difference is observable in this respect between the earher and the later books. In the earlier writings revelations are commonly represented as imparted by God to His prophets directly, but in consequence of the increasing sense of the distance separating God from His creatures (p. 21), communications from Him to them came, in books of exiho and post-exihc date, to be described as made through angeUc intermediaries {Ezek. xl. 3, Zeeh. i. 9, 11, 12, iv. 4, 10, etc., Dan. x. 5f., xii. 6). At a later period even the Law, recorded in the Old Testament to have been imparted to Moses directly, was represented as mediated through angels (Acts vii. 53 mg., Gd. iii. 19). But though the Hebrew writers certainly believed in the existence of a host of spirits subordinate to God, the ascription of various events and occurrences to angelic agency often does not mean more than that the inci- dents in question were providential. This is obviously the case in Gen. xxiv. 40, Ex. xxxiii. 2, Ps. xxxv. 5 ; and it is tolerably clear that in some of the instances quoted above, where angels are represented as preserving, destroying, or otherwise influencing, the lives of men, the mention of them is only a dramatic way of implying that what happened was due to Divine Providence (see 2 Kg. xix. 35, Dan. vi. 22). In Daniel angels are associated with the fortunes of nations ; and in the Apocalyptic writings attributed to Enoch (e.g. Ixxi. 10) are depicted as having charge over the elements (the sea, frost, hail, rain, snow, etc., cf. Rev. vii. 1, xiv. 18). By the side of the view that angels were sometimes God's agents for inflicting evil upon men by way of punishment (cf. Ps. Ixxviii. 49), there survived a belief in spirits or demons essentially evil, inhabiting solitary or desert places, and having sometimes the form of beasts, such as satyrs or he-goats (7s. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14, Lev. xvii. 7, 2 Oh. xi. 15), to which propitiatory sacrifices must have been occasionally offered (since such a practice was expressly forbidden). A generic term for these demons seems to have been Shedim (Dt. xxxii. 17, Ps. cvi. 37) ; but individual names or titles were given to some among them, such as Azazel {Lev. xvi. 10, 22). But with this belief in the demons of the deserts there came to be blended another of different origin. It has been shown that there grew up a conviction that there was a supreme spirit of evil (once con- ceived to be an attendant upon God in heaven but sceptical of human virtue), for whom a proper name was coined by converting the descriptive epithet " the Satan " {i.e. " the adversary ") into the personal appella- tion " Satan " (see p. 21). Under this powerful Spirit all the other spirits of ill were ranged. In Greek an equivalent for " the adversary " was found in 6 did^oXog, " the slanderer " (the rendering employed by the LXX in Job i. 6, etc.), whence the English word " Devil." In later Judaism, as in the contemporary world at large, the malignant activity of demons, who had their abode principally in the air and acted at the instigation of Satan (who was called " the prince of the power of the air," Eph. ii. 2), was held to be the source of most of the worst Uls, both moral and physical, that afflict mankind. They prompted men to all kinds of wickedness, inciting them to idolatry and inspiring them with 112 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY malicious and evil thoughts (cf. Joh. xiii. 2, 1 Cor. ii. 6, 8). Human bodies as well as human minds were exposed to their influence. To their agency were ascribed various illnesses (cf. 1 Cor. v. 4, 5, 2 Cor. xii. 7, 1 Tim. i. 20), more especially those maladies of which the origin was more than usually obscure, and which were attended by convulsions, violent screaming, or other alarming symptoms. Most afflictions, in fact, which made the sufferers appear very different from their ordinary selves (so as to suggest that they had come under the control of some alien power), were explained as due to the action of demons. Insanity and epilepsy, in particular, were put down to " possession " by demons ; and even infirmities of a more common kind, if marked by exceptional features; were accounted for in the same way.i The expulsion of a demon from a possessed man could be accomplished (it was thought) by several methods. Amongst them was the pronunciation over the afflicted individual of the name of a personality more potent than the demon ; for since a name and the personality designated by the name were very imperfectly dis- tinguished in antiquity, the mention of the former was supposed to put into operation the powers inherent in the latter. Resultant cures are explicable as the consequence of ' ' suggestion, ' ' the remedial efEects of which are well known in modern science. If a " possessed " person could be induced to believe that the personality whose name was uttered over him was superior to the demon in himself, the mention or invocation of the name was calculated to tranquillize him, and so give the recuperative capacity of nature scope to assert itself. (5) A circumstance that afEected deeply the view of human history taken by the writers of the Old Testament was the conviction that marvels of an extraordinary character were repeatedly wrought by the immediate act of God, or through the agency of men specially commissioned and abnormally empowered by Him. The Old Testament historians Lived in a pre-scientific age, when there was little notion of physical law ; so that the tendency of a religious people to discover in any impressive experience proof of God's direct volition and operation was unregulated by any adequate acquaintance with the methods of the Divine activity as we have learnt them. Any theistic explanation of the universe, of course, recognizes that everything that happens has its ultimate origin in the will of God, and since He (so far as we are aware) is able to do as He pleases without external restriction, and since human personalities are known to be endowed by Him with delegated powers of initiative, the possibility of occurrences of an extremely abnormal character unparalleled by previous experience must be admitted by all theists. " Laws of nature " are nothing but generalizations from experience, and those which are based on the most extensive series of observed occurrences are only " justifiable expectations, that is, very high probabilities. "^ The only 1 As far back as Homer's time a victim of a wasting sickness was described b8 one whom " a hateful demon assailed " (Od. v. 395-6) ; whilst anyone whose conduct was difficult to account for, or who appeared to be infatuated, was addressed as Sai/niwe (II. ii. 200). ' Huxley, Science and Christian Tradition, p. 205. IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 113 " impossibility " is the self-contradictory, and the " possibilities " are likely to exceed rather than come short of anticipation. Nevertheless experience has made it increasingly probable that the Divine modes of working in the physical world are constant ; so that both our practical enterprises and our scientific reasoning presuppose the prevalence of such regular sequences as are styled natural laws.^ Hence there is a strong presumption against the truth of reports of departures from -well- established laws of nature, and the evidence adduced for such departures must be proportionately strong. So firmly grounded, indeed, is oui belief in the regularity of nature that, if there is good evidence for some abnormal occurrence, it is attributed to the action of some physical law not yet detected, and is not put down to the unaccountable will of God. And though a real capacity of initiative has been bestowed by God on man, so that human volition can interfere with the otherwise unvarying sequence of one physical event upon another, yet the control which the human will can exercise over the natural world is usually confined within narrow limits. And if our acquaintance with the whole sphere of nature and consequently of the Divine laws governing it is so imperfect that much that is now regarded as incredible may become in the future worthy of credence, yet scientific inquiry is sufficiently comprehensive and minute as to render reported occurrences contravening well-established generali- zations more questionable than they have appeared to be in the past, though the relations of mind to matter are no doubt still inadequately explored. But among the Semitic peoples in primitive times the scientific investigation of nature scarcely existed at all, so that the imagination had free play in picturing the method of God's activity in the universe, and in estimating the range of the control over the external world conceded by Him to particular individuals. In the prevalent ignorance of physical law, it was inevitable that anything which excited surprise or awe should be explained as due to God's immediate agency, or the agency of human beings supernaturally endowed by Him. And though God's activity was recognized in the ordinary operations of nature, yet it was the exceptional and unusual in natural phenomena or in human history that seemed in that age to manifest His control over the world most clearly. This habit of mind could hardly fail to produce a readiness to put a supernatural construction upon any startling experiences suggestive of Divine Provi- dence, without inquiring whether they admitted of a natural explanation. The stronger the religious faith of the Hebrew historians, the more uncritical would their attitude tend to be towards anything witnessed or reported which appeared to illustrate the Divine power or goodness. Their dominant interest was not historical accuracy but religious edification. Accordingly, in regard to occasions on which God is represented to have departed from His customary methods in the natural world (as ascertained by us not merely through common experience but through scientific research), or to have invested chosen individuals with an abnormal measure of control over nature, we have to decide whether it is more probable that ' Cf. Rashdall, Philosophy and Religion, p. 158. 114 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY the incidents happened as described, or whether the records are inexact or fallacious. On the one hand, there is considerable evidence that the influence of personality is much greater than is commonly supposed, and that surprising power can be exerted by exceptional individuals over the minds, and through them over the bodies, of other human beings. On the other hand, there seems to be much less satisfactory evidence for the direct influence of psychic forces over inanimate nature ; whilst it is a matter of common knowledge that reports of occurrences by actual spectators are liable to be inaccurate, and the transmission of such reports to become distorted and exaggerated. The evidence of witnesses, however honest they are, may at all times mislead, unless they are also acute and cautious observers ; for every account of an event involves not only the witness's perceptions, but likewise his inferences, which are guided by his past experience, and depend upon his range of knowledge, his faculty of judgment, and other qualities ; so that a spectator requires to exercise much circumspection lest he should imagine he sees what he expects to see. And if first-hand evidence of the original witnesses may thus be inaccurate, further error is likely to be introduced when their testimony is handed down through a series of subsequent retailers of it, whose narratives are readily affected by imperfections of memory, looseness of description, or the play of fancy. The variations which occur in versions of events transmitted by word of mouth are notorious, so that even after a very short interval, it is frequently impossible to recover the actual details ; and in such variations any features of the original account appealing to the sense of wonder are generally enhanced by the successive narrators, for as Aristotle observes, " the wonderful gives pleasure."^ Facts such as these are bound to affect our estimate of the accounts of the marvellous proceeding from ancient times ; and from the tendencies marking writers of antiquity in general, the authors of the Biblical records were not exempt. Of the attitude of the latter towards the miraculous illustrations are afforded by a number of narratives in the Old Testament of which Moses and the prophets Elijah and Elisha are the central figures, though some of a remarkable character fall outside these groups of narratives. The ascription of so many miracles to these three figures exemplifies the proneness for stories of a marvellous character to gather round personalities to whom great religious significance had become attached. How all the records of wonder associated with Moses and the other conspicuous personalities named originated — how much substantial fact they contain, and how far fancy has embroidered this particular or created that, it is, of course, impossible to decide with certainty. The age which witnessed their origin was one which was sure to invent stories of marvels, if none were already current, about the characters which it held in admirationi|s But in regard to a certain number of miracles it seems possible to arrive at some probable conclusions as to the way in which they came into existence. Of some the origin must (in all probability) be sought in ' Arist. Poet. xxiv. § 17, to Savimaroy i)Si. IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 115 various natural phenomena of an unusual kind, which, were imagined to be the result of supernatural agency. Of others an explanation appears to be furnished by the prosaic interpretation of figures of speech, metaphors being construed as descriptions of matters of fact. It is only a limited number which can with some confidence be accounted for in this way ; but the circumstance that in such cases good reasons are forthcoming for the explanation ofEered, suggests that the conclusions reached admit of a wider application, although specific evidence may be wanting. (i) The narrative of the Plagues of Egypt represented in Eoood. vii.-xi. as brought about by Moses' rod, which he was directed to wield at Jehovah's command, seems to have taken rise in accounts of various natural inflic- tions to which Egypt is exposed, and which, coinciding with a demand from the Israelites for a release from bondage, were attributed to the intervention of Israel's God. The first plague may be explained by the reddish discolouration of the Nile either by mineral matter brought down when its level rises, or to minute organisms of which it is sometimes full. If the latter explanation be adopted the presence in the water of so much organic matter would lead to the multiplication of frogs ; and heaps of the latter, when dead and decaying, would breed flies and other insects. FUes are notoriously disseminators of diseases, such as constituted the fifth and sixth plagues. The occurrence of both thunderstorms and swarms of locusts, though not common in Egypt, is not unknown. The darkness represented as the ninth plague may have been caused by the Hamsin wind, which, blowing from the south or south-west, fills the air with blinding sand and dust. The tenth plague is explicable by some fatal epidemic. The amplification of incidents such as these, with adjustment of the details so as to make them befall the Egyptians only (as the objects of Jehovah's anger) or correspond more exactly to the offence committed, would easily result in descriptions such as are preserved in Exodus. In the case of the eighth plague the invasion of the land by swarms of locusts is expressly ascribed to a natural agency — an east wind blowing from Syria (where locusts are commoner than in Egypt) ; and their removal is similarly accounted for by a veering of the wind to the west. The enhance- ment of the marvellous features in process of time is visible when the account of the first plague in J E is compared with that in P ; thus in J E the conversion of water into blood is confined to the Nile (vii. 17, 24), whereas in P it afiects all receptacles of water throughout the land (vii. 19). Similarly the narrative of the Passage of the Red Sea appears to describe an event which can be explained likewise by the operation of natural causes, but which, viewed in the light of religious belief, has been imaginatively embellished and expanded into a miracle. The site of the Israelites' passage is doubtful ; it may have been at the northern end of the Gulf of Suez or the southern end of the shallow Bitter Lakes, though the conditions implied in the record seem best suited by the latter. The narrative itself represents that the immediate agency which rendered a passage through either practicable was a strong wind, and if this, designated as an east wind, really blew from the south-east, it would have driven the waters of the lake in a north-westerly direction, enabling the southerly 116 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY end to be crossed without danger. A sudden change in the course of the wind would allow the waters to be restored to their previous level, with fatal results to any pursuers that had ventured to follow in the Israelites' tracks. If this reconstruction of what happened is approximately correct,^ the incident was providential (as viewed from the Hebrews' standpoint), not miracidous, but could not fail to be magnified into a wonderful marvel in subsequent narratives (Ex. xiv. 29). It may also be reasonably suspected that the narrative of the parting of the Jordan when touched by the feet of the priests bearing Jehovah's Ark {Josh, iii.) originated in some surprising but natural event. The river near Jericho wasfordable (Josh. ii. 1, 2 Sam. xv. 28) ; but the passage would have been greatly facilitated if, just before the Israelite host had approached the banks, the river's course had been temporarily dammed by a landslip at some spot above the fords, ^ and the level of the water below them had been consequently lowered. Such an occurrence would readily be converted into a story of miracle. The narrative of the floating axe-head, related in 2 Kg. vi. 1-7, may have been suggested by the circumstance that in the excessively salt Dead Sea many things float that elsewhere sink. If some heavy object liable to sink in the fresh waters of the Jordan was seen to float in the lake near the river's mouth on some occasion when a prophet was present, the experience might be explained as due to his wonder-working power.' (ii) Though probably the most fruitful source of miracle stories in the Old Testament is the expansion and embellishment of impressive but natural incidents, yet some narratives of the miraculous appear to have originated from a prosaic interpretation of metaphorical language. Thus in a passage of the book of Jashar (a poetical record of Israelite achieve- ments to which a few allusions are found in the Biblical writers), Joshua was described as commanding the sun and the moon to stand still, the one on Gibeon, and the other in the Valley of Aijalon, till the nation should avenge itself upon its foes. The poet's words are obviously imaginative ; but by the historian who wrote Josh. x. 12-14 they were taken in a matter- of-fact spirit and understood literally, and the sun is declared to have stayed in the midst of heaven, and to have hasted not to go down about a whole day. No other example is quite so clear as this ; but there are several miracles of which some misinterpreted poetical phrase offers a more or less plausible explanation, among them being those related in Num. XX. 8 f . (cf. Num. xxi. 17, 18), Josh. vi. (cf. the Greek phrase avro^osl nokv d^etv, ThuG. ii. 81, iii. 113), and Is. xxxviii. 7. 1 See McNeile, Exodus, pp. xcvii., xcviii. Another explanation of what occurred is that the Israelites, escaping in the direction of the Mediterranean coast towards Canaan, dammed back the eastern (Pelusiao) branch of the Nile, and so caused the lower part of the channel to become a swamp ; that the Egyptians entered the boggy ground ; and that the Israehtes then out the dam, allowing the waters to return, and so overwhelmed them (see Willcooks, From the Garden of Eden to the Crossing of the Jordan, p. 67). " This happened, according to Arabic historians, in a.d. 1267 (Sayce, JSorly' History of the Hebrews, p. 249). ' Cf. Sanday, Divine Over-ruling, pp. 72-4. IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 117 A certain number of Old Testament miracles ofEer parallels to some of those wMcli are recounted in the New Testament ; and the most con- spicuous (including some already referred to) may be enumerated here : — (a) The change of water into some other fluid {Ex. vii. 20). (6) The instantaneous cure of leprosy, or the equally speedy production of the same disease {Ex. iv. 6, 7, 2 Kg. v. 27). I (c) The multiplication of food (1 Kg. xvii. 14-16, 2 Kg. iv. 1-7). 1 (d) The restoration of the dead to life (1 Kg. xvii. 22, 2 Kg. iv. 18-37) . (e) The conception and bearing of a child by a woman of advanced age {Gen. xviii. 11, xxi. 1, 2). (j) The ascent of a human body into heaven (2 Kg. ii. 1-11). It is convenient to append here an account of two cures related by Tacitus to have been wrought upon sick and infirm persons by the Emperor Vespasian (reigned a.d. 68-79). At Alexandria the Emperor's aid was sought by two men, one blind, and the other crippled in his hand. The former begged him to moisten his eyeballs with saliva, and the other desired him to tread with his foot upon the maimed hand. The Emperor at first hesitated, but eventually consented, and at once (according to the historian) the cripple recovered the use of his hand, and the blind received his sight (Tac. Hist. iv. 81). The same miracles (with some variation) are reported by Suetonius {Vesf. 7). Tacitus wrote his Histories during the reign of Trajan (98-117) ; so that he was separated from the incident recorded by only some twenty-five or thirty years. If the cures were examples of faith-healing it may be suspected that the account (especially as regards the rapidity of the recovery) has lost nothing by repetition. Literary Methods From this review of the dominant ideas prevailing among the Biblical historians transition may be made to a consideration of their literary aims and methods. The difierence between their usages and those followed by responsible modern historians is so great that, unless it is recognized that each age must be judged by its own standards, there is a likelihood on the one hand of the historical value of some of the Biblical writings being overrated and on the other of serious injustice being done to the motives of their authors. 1. A general characteristic of Semitic writers, in making use of earlier authorities, was the habit of reproducing not only the substance, but even the actual wording, of such authorities without any indication of indebtedness. At the present time literary honesty requires that an author, whilst assimilating the information of previous writers, should not appropriate their actual words on any substantial scale without some acknowledgment of the debt ; but no sense of any obligation to do this was felt by the Hebrew historians. There existed among them no notion of property in literary compositions; authors rarely appended their names to anything which they wrote ; and the important considera- tion for them was the utility and value of a work, not the interest or reputation of its writer ; and if a book could be improved by being copied 118 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY with expansions, omissions, or other modifications in various places, large sections of it would be embodied verbatim in a new work by a sub- sequent writer without any sense that plagiarism (as it would be now considered) was thereby committed. It was on this principle that the author of the books of Chronicles proceeded in his use of the works of his predecessors (the writers of Samuel and Kings) as appears from a com- parison of passages where the few verbal divergences are marked by italics. 1 1 Sam. xxxi. 1-4 1 Ohron. x. 1-4 Now the Philistines fought against Now the Philistines fought against Israel : and the men of Israel fled from Israel ; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain before the Philistines and fell down slain in mount Oilboa. And the Philistines in mount Gilboa. And the Philistinffl followed hard upon Saul and upcm his followed hard after Saul and after his sons ; and the PhiHstines slew Jonathan sous ; and the Philistines slew Jonathan and Abinadab and Malohi-shua, the sons and Abinadab and Malehi-shua, the sons of Saul. And the battle went sore against of Saul. And the battle went sore Saul, and the archers overtook him ; and against Saul, and the archers overtook he was greatly distressed by reason of the him ; and he was distressed by reason archers. of the archers. In the following parallel the Chronicler has handled his source more freely, giving his own version of what is related ; but, through misimder- standing a phrase in the source, he has been betrayed into a blunder, for ships of Tarshish, which probably describes a class of vessels, has been interpreted by him to mean ships voyaging to Tarshish (in Spain), although the port of departure was Ezion-geber (on the Red Sea). 1 Kg. xxii. 48, 49 2 CJiron. xx. 35-7 Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish And after this did Jehoshaphat, king to go to Ophir for gold ; but they went of Judah, join himself with Ahaziah, not ; for the ships were broken at Ezion- king of Israel ; the same did very geber. Then said Ahaziah, the son of wickedly, and he joined himself with him Ahab, unto Jehoshaphat, Let my servants to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they go with thy servants in the ships. But made the ships in Ezion-geber. Then Jehoshaphat would not. EUezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath destroyed thy works. And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish, 2. Hebrew historians, when reconstructing past history, were fre- quently in the habit of transferring to earlier times the conditions obtaining in their own. It was thought that principles and observances which they themselves were familiar with and valued must have been practised by the great characters whom they venerated ; and so their origin was ante- dated. Thus the Chronicler, familiar with institutions and ritual which were not developed until after the Exile, represents them as existing in the time of David and other early Hebrew sovereigns ; whilst the author of the Priestly code attributes the legislation enjoining them to Moses. ' SUght differences in the Hebrew, which are not easily represented in English, are ignored. IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 119 It is impossible in the space here available to prove by examples the statements just made ^ ; but the Priestly writer's habit of ascribing to Moses usages which originated later may be illustrated by the fact that he carries back to Moses' time the custom of dividing war booty equally between the fighting and the non-fighting men (Num. xxxi. 26, 27), which is expressly asserted in 1 Sam. xxx. 24, 25 to have been initiated by David. 3. A preference for the concrete over the abstract led the Hebrew writers to represent rules which they desired to enforce, or principles which they Sought to affirm, as arising out of particular occasions, which, as fat as can be judged, were the inventions of the narrators. Names and ether details were introduced, which give the appearance of historical ifeality to the incidents described, but are no guarantee that what is stated is actual history. Thus the punishment appropriate for one who blasphemed the Name of Jehovah is described in Lev. xxiv. 10-23 as being determined in the instance of a man who was the son of an Egyptian father by an Israelite mother, the mother's name being given as Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, a Danite. In spite of the circumstantiaUty of this account, it is practically certain that in so late a document as the Priestly code the name must be fictitious. Again, the legislation respect- ing the right of daughters to inherit their father's property in the event of his dying without a male heir is related to have arisen out of a claim made by the daughters of a certain Zelophehad, a Manassite {Num. xxvii. 1-11). The names of the daughters are recorded as though they were historic persons ; but the fact that they are almost or altogether identical with the appellations of certain towns or clans renders it extremely probable that in this case, too, the occasion is imaginary, and the recital of it k only a method of illustrating a legal issue. ^ The same fondness for thus investing with an air of reality the imaginative reconstructions of the past has led the author or authors of this document to give names to the tribal representatives described as assisting Moses and Aaron in taking a census of the people, and to furnish precise figures of the numbers included in each tribe (Num. i.). In reality, the names are largely of a late, and not an early type, and the figures are inconsistent and impossible,^ so that they can have no ancient documentary authority behind them, but must be the arbitrary choice of the compiler of the list. The presence of other details in a record is as little a guarantee of its historical value as the occurrence in it of personal names : for instance, the minuteness of desdtiption marking the book of Esther does not justify the conclusion that its contents are a trustworthy transcript of events. 4. In Hebrew historical writing a large place is occupied by speeches for which in many cases the historian himself must be responsible, as regards not only the wording but even the substance. This practice was not peduliai" to Hebrew writers, but was followed also by those of Greece and Rome. For example, Thucydides, whilst claiming to have tried 1 See Driver, L.O.T. pp. 129 f., 500, 501. » See Gray, Numbers, pp. 392, 398. ' Id. ib. pp. 6, 11, 12. 120 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY to give the general tenor of what was actually Baid, admits that he put into the mouth of each speaker the sentiments which he deemed appro- priate to the several occasions (i. 22) ; and the admission is confirmed by the fact that, though they are uttered by very different persons, they are nevertheless all alike distinctly Thucydidean in style.^ Again, the method pursued by Tacitus in recording speeches can be ascertained by a comparison of his reproduction of one deUvered by the Emperor Claudius to certain leading Gauls {Ann. xi. 24), with a fragment of the actual address preserved on a bronze tablet found at Lyons. The historian, though he retains the substance of the oration, condenses it to a con- siderable extent, departs from the order of the topics treated, and re- casts the whole in his own peculiar diction." And that the custom of Hebrew writers was similar is proved by the speeches put into the mouth of David or of his successors by the writer of Chronicles, for these contain idioms that are distinctive of the Hebrew of the Chronicler's own age (fourth century b.c.).^ In view of this it seems reasonable to suppose that the same thing has been done by others whose special phraseology is not so easily detected, and that many of the speeches which their narratives contain are their own compositions, representing their ideas of what the situations in question required. 5. Another feature marking the Hebrew historians which may be noticed here is the frequent absence of any sense of proportion in dealing with numbers and quantities ; so that they often mention figures which must be greatly in excess of the reality which they purport to describe. Noteworthy instances of exaggeration occur in connexion with the IsraeUtes who departed from Egypt at the Exodus {Ex. xii. 37, cf . xxxviii. 26), the men fit for military service in David's reign (2 Sam. xxiv. 9, 1 Gh. xxi. 5), the silver and gold amassed by the same king for the building of the Temple (1 Gh. xxii. 14), and the sacrifices offered by Solomon at its consecration (2 Gh. vii. 5). Such figures suggest caution in the accept- ance elsewhere of large numbers as accurate, even though they are of more moderate proportions than these. 6. It has been already noticed that Hebrew writers took extremely little care to connect their own names with the products of their pens. Considerable as is the number of historical books included in the Old Testament, yet in the case of only one is the title which it bears the name of the author of the whole, or of the greater part, of the work ; all the others are reaUy anonymous. The same is true of some of the poetical books, including the poem of Job. In consequence of this indifference on the part of writers to the preservation of their memories, the recollec- , tion of the real authorship of a book speedily became altogether lost ; so that when subsequent generations sought to associate a book with a person, they had no trustworthy historic clue, and accordingly ascribed it to some distinguished personality who happened to fill a conspicuous 1 Bury, Ancient Greek Historians, p. 109. Jebb {Hellenica, p. 286) observes that in the speeches contained in Livy the rhetorical colour is uniform. ' See Furneaux, Annals of Tacitus, ii. pp. 208-14. ^ See Driver, Expositor, April, 1895, p. 241. IDEAS AND METHODS OF HISTORIANS 121 place in the Mstory contained in it, even though his responsibiUty for it, m any full measure, is clearly out of the question. Thus, for example, the book of Samuel was attributed to the prophet Samuel, although the prophet's death is related in the first half of the work (represented now by the first book).^ In a similar way the origin of the Pentateuch was connected with Moses, although of the laws which it comprises a large number can only have come into existence after his death. The slight interest felt in the origin of literary productions sometimes seems to have caused works that almost certainly proceed from different authors to be ascribed to a single writer, error being specially easy if they happened to bear the same name. Such confusion may have occurred in connexion with sections of the books of Isaiah and Zechariah. Quite different from the attribution of books to the wrong authors through ignorance is the deliberate adoption by a writer of another and a greater name than his own in order to secure for his work more authority than it would otherwise command. Of such pseudonymous works the 'Old Testament contains two examples. One is the book of Ecclesiastes, purporting to proceed from Solomon (eleventh or tenth century B.C.), but probably not of earlier date than the fourth century ^ ; the other is the book of Daniel, professing to contain the visions seen and related by a Jew in Babylon in the sixth century B.C., but being almost certainly the production of a writer in the second century b.c' Outside the Hebrew canon of Scripture there are numerous books bearing the names of characters famous in Israel's history, such as Enoch, Moses, Solomon, Isaiah, Baruch and Ezra, which appear to date from the first century B.C. or later. This pseudonymity was rendered almost inevitable through the reverence paid to the conspicuous personalities of antiquity, which unduly depreciated the inspiration of writers living in more recent times. ' By the Jews Samuel was originally regarded as a single book ; and it is enume- rated as such by Origen, following Jewish usage (see Eus. H.E. vi. 25). ' Driver, L.O.T. p. 446. ' Driver, ib. p. 467. PART II A HISTORY depends for its essential value upon the truth and fidelity of its representations ; and to ascertain the facts, if any, lying behind a professedly historical narrative is the ultimate aim of historical criticism. But before this end can be reached, various preliminary inquiries are often indispensable. When a history relates to ancient times, the preliminary work generally includes more than one stage. (1) When an account is preserved not Ln the original manuscript of the author but in several copies presenting numerous textual variations, it is necessary to compare and appraise the difierent MSS. in order to discover which among them is the least corrupted and best transmits the authentic words of the author. (2) When there exist several records purporting to relate the same series of events, but manifesting substantial discrepancies, it is needful to estimate, if possible, their respective values as historical authorities by considering what relation they bear to one another, what special sources of information may have been used by the several aythors, and what aims and methods each pursued in his work. It is only when these investigations have been undertaken that it becomes possible to attempt to produce a narrative that may claim to be a fairly trustworthy version of the events which it is desired to recount, so far as the facts are recoverable. Of these processes the first, distinguished as Textual Criticism, is, in connexion with the New Testament, of much less moment than the second. Though it is a matter of extreme interest to try to ascertain the actual words penned by the authors of the New Testament books, issues of material importance rarely hinge upon variations between MSS. But upon the second process, known as Documentary Criticism, grave conse- quences turn. For since between the Four Gospels which profess to give an account of one and the same Life there are certain divergences, the tenor of the history that is to be constructed from them is bound to be influenced by the conclusion reached as to which of the conflicting narra- tives is most authoritative. Documents which are not primarily historical but didactic or homUetic, like the Epistles, furnish, of course, decisive evidence for the teaching of their writers ; but inasmuch as one is anony- mous, and several raise doubts as to the correctness of their traditional origin, there is need of criticism in regard to these also, with a view to determining their authenticity and the value of such parts of their con- tents as depend upon this. 123 VI TEXTUAL CRITICISM (a) Early Writing Materials THE commonest and cteapest material for writing purposes in ancient times was papyrus [ndnvgoq, called also ^v^Xog, whence /3/jSAog and ^ijiXlov ^ ). This was obtained from the pith of a plant (cyperus papyrus), then found chiefly in Egypt and stiU occurring in Nubia and Abyssinia, which grows in shallow water, and is about 6 feet in height with a tufted head. The stem of the plant, which contains a cellular pith, was cut into longitudinal strips (philyrcB) and these were then laid side by side, whilst other strips were placed transversely across them ; and the sheet thus formed, after being moistened with water and paste, was pressed, dried, and smoothed. A number of such sheets, varying in size but measuring on an average about 5 inches by 10 inches, were then attached to one another by their longer edges, to constitute a roll (volumen), the usual number of sheets used in Pliny's time being twenty, though this figure was not constant. The writing as a rule was arranged in columns from 2 to 3 inches wide (ae^ideg) ^, usually on one side only, the lines in the columns being parallel with the long edge of the roll. Eolls which had both their sides covered with writing (cf. Ezeh. ii. 10) were called biblia opisthographa, but these would rarely be intended for sale, though authors sometimes saved material by writing on the back of a roll already filled (cf . Juv. Sat. i. 4-6).^ The length of a roll was quite arbitrary, but since a long and heavy roll must have been very trouble- some to handle, there was probably a demand for a convenient length. It has been calculated that the Gospel of St. Luke would require a roll measuring 31 or 32 feet ; and inasmuch as Acts is about as long as the Third Gospel, it has been inferred that when these works were written the measurement named was that of a normal roll to which a writer ' Similarly the Latin liher primarily means the bark of a tree. The English bcxik, on the other hand, comes from the A.S. b6c, " a beeoh tree," beeohen wood being an early writing material. " The Hebrew term was delathoth (mistranslated " leaves " in Jer. xxxvi. 23, see mg.), a. word which means literally " doors " ; columns of writing were so called from their shape. ' It seems probable that the sealed volume referred to in Rev. v. 1 was a book or codex, not a roll, and that the pa^ssage should run a book written within, and on the back (or outside) close sealed with seven seals. 124 TEXTUAL CRITICISM 125 adjusted his matter if he did not wish to occupy two or more rolls. St. Mark's Gospel, which is the shortest of the four, would need a roll of 19 feet in length ; for the Epistle to the Romans one of 11| feet would be necessary ; and for 2 Thessalonians one measuring IJ feet, with the contents arranged in five columns. For small works, or subdivisions of large works, there could be cut off from rolls of average length sections of suitable size, such sections being termed tomes {ro/xoi}. When a roll, called xecpaMg (Ezek. iii. 3) or mipaUg pi^Uov {Ps. xl. 7), was filled with writing, it was wound (cf. Lh. iv. 20, Tmlfa;) either upon itself, or upon a stick or two sticks {ducpaXoz, umbilicus i), fastened to one or both of its shorter edges. In the last case it could be wound round one of the sticks as it was unwound from the other. The application of papyrus to writing purposes goes back to a remote antiquity. The earliest papyrus roll now existing, which contains a portion of a work written in the Egyptian hieratic script, has been assigned to about 2500 b.c.^ The same material was employed for brief letters as well as for larger writings ; for instance in 2 Joh. 12 jjapr?;; doubtless means papyrus. Papyrus was not the only material employed for writing ; more lasting but more expensive materials were the skins of sheep or goats or other small animals {dupdiqai, memhranm). Skins specially prepared in such a way that both sides could be used were known as memhranm Pergamence (whence the French parchemin and owe parchment) since they were produced chiefly at Pergamum in Asia Minor, though they could be imitated else- where. The best parchment was made from the skins of very young calves, and was called in consequence " vellum " (vitulinum or pellis vituUna). The employment of skins as writing material is very early, one in the British Museum going back to the year 2000 B.C. Reference is made to fxefiPgdvai in 2 Tim. iv. 13 (where the Latin term appears in a Greek dress), and these may have been parchments, though the actual term membrana Pergamena is said not to appear in use until the beginning of the fourth century a.d. Probably all the original autographs of the New Testament books, as well as the earliest copies of them, were on papyrus.' It was plentiful at Rome and probably elsewhere under the Empire, whereas vellum was not a common writing material in the time of the early Emperors. The latter took its place from the fourth century to the fourteenth, and in turn was gradually superseded after the fourteenth century by paper. There was, of course, some overlapping, ,the papyrus period in the case of the New Testament lasting as late as the seventh century.* When veUum was employed, it was often coloured purple or some other bright tint, and purple vellum codices (p. 126) occur among extant MSS., one of them obtaining its name from its colouring (Codex Purpureus PetropoUtanus). ' These terms probably denote the projecting horns at the extremities of a stick or cylinder. ^ Papyrus rolls have been found not only in Egypt but in Italy at Eerculaneum. " Kenyon, Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 26. '' Souter, Text and Canon of the New Testament, p. 5. 126 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY For writing on papyrus the ordinary implement was a reed (xdXa/ioc; (3 Joh. 13), cdamus) ; but for writing on the harder surface of parchment a quill could be used. In early times the ink {fiiXav, fieMvcov) commonly employed was composed of water mixed with soot and rendered adhesive with gum, whilst other ingredients for ink were gall-apples and the liquid of the cuttle-fish (sepia). What was written could be blotted out (of. Ex. xxxii. 33), or, if on parchment, could be washed ofE {Num. v. 23). Coloured inks, especially red, were used in the Middle Ages, chiefly for ornamental purposes (examples of such being found in existing MSS.), whilst other materials both for writing and for decoration were silver and gold. There exist no manuscripts of the New Testament inscribed with gold lettering, but several are written in silver letters on a purple ground. These purple codices are supposed to have originated at Con- stantinople. A roll, when completed, was tied, wrapped up in a cover (often of coloured vellum) called gjmv6XT]g or qjadSvrjg, labelled, and then placed for safe keeping in a circular box or canister {m^oiTOQ, xlart], dsta, capsa, scrinium). If the matter inscribed on the manuscript was intended to be protected against perusal by unauthorized persons, the edge of the roll might be sealed. The trouble involved in continually taking out a roll from its receptacle, unfolding it, and keeping it open for the purpose of copying a statement was enhanced by the fact that ancient writers did not use writing-desks large enough to accommodate an open roU, but unfolded it upon their knees. The inconvenience of consulting documents of this nature helps to explain the inexactness with which a writer sometimes reproduced the authorities which he followed, preferring after the perusal of a passage to draw upon his recollection of it, when committing it to writing, rather than go to the trouble of inspecting the original repeatedly. Works produced under such circumstances could scarcely fail to exhibit departures from the authorities transcribed ; and many of the divergences manifest in those Gospels which seem to be directly dependent upon an earlier document are readily explained by failures of memory occurring in the process of transcription. As rolls made of pap)Trus must have been fraU, the fact accounts for the non-survival of any MSS. of the New Testament written on that material except the merest fragments (p. 128). The process of frequently unfolding and refolding rolls of papyrus was especially calculated to cause harm to them at the ends ; and probably < the mutilation which the final chapter of St. Mark's Gospel has apparently^ undergone finds in this its explanation. - Both papyrus and parchment, when intended for writings of con- siderable length, could be used in another form beside that of the roll- viz, the codex. This was a collection of sheets of either of the two materials named, which, folded down the middle and placed inside one another, were then stitched or otherwise fastened at the crease. Owing to the convenience of this arrangement for lengthy works by (1) afEording ease in handling, (2) facilitating the finding of references, (3) enabling both sides of the material to be utilized, (4) admitting a number of separate writings to be united in a single volume, the employment of codices made TEXTUAL CRITICISM 127 of papyrus began as early as the third century a.d., and possibly earlier (of. p. 124). The fact that codices are later than rolls is incidentally shown by the circumstance that in the case of the earliest surviving, the contents of each page are arranged in several narrow columns, though there was obviously not the same necessity for such an arrangement in the case of a page as in the case of a roll. The Sinaitic and the Vatican MSS., which are the oldest (p. 142), have respectively four and three columns on a page ; whereas those of a slightly later date, including the Alexandrian MS., have only two. This last was the commonest number, though the Paris and Bezan MSS. have only one. The circumstance that in the case of many MSS. each page contained several columns conduced to the liability of passages becoming misplaced ; for if one or more verses happened to be accidentally omitted by a copyist, who then inserted in the space between two columns the passage which he had overlooked, the marginal insertion might by a subsequent copyist be introduced into the wrong column. In the codex, as in the roll, clauses were not regularly separated by punctuation, or words accented, untU about the ninth century A.D. The number of lines in the columns of a codex usually remained fairly constant, though the figure varied somewhat. In the New Testa- ment the Vatican MS. (B) has from forty to forty -four lines in a column, the Sinaitic MS (ik) has forty-eight, and Codex Claromontanus has twenty-one. As parchment or vellum would allow the ink of a writing to be washed or scraped ofi, codices of this material (which was not always easy to procure) were sometimes used twice over, the earlier writing being more or less thoroughly erased. Such codices are known as palimpsests (of which the Paris MS. symbolized by C is a conspicuous example), and others are those known as P, Q, E, Z and S. In connexion with the subject of ancient writing materials and the impediments which their clumsy nature threw in the way of historical and literary researches, attention may be caUed to the absence in antiquity of many of the facilities which in modern times are at the disposal of investigators and writers, and enable them to attain a degree of accuracy and precision which was impossible in the past. 1. There did not exist in ancient times anything equivalent to the encyclopsedias and other books of reference which in the present day so greatly aid inquiry. There were libraries in various places, the best- known and most important being those at Alexandria, founded and enlarged by various Ptolemies ; whilst two were established at Rome by Augustus. But a visit to such collections was not within reach of all ; and it is not likely that their treasures could be as easily consulted as are those of modern libraries. 2. A great drawback to accuracy of description was the absence of maps. Without such helps statements as to distances and directions, at least in connexion with unfamiliar regions, can scarcely fail to be vague ; so that it is not surprising that ancient writers were often loose and mis- leading in their references to the position of places and their relation to other localities. 128 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 3. A still more serious obstacle to exactness in the writing of history was the lack of a recognized chronological era. Early historians made shift to date events by various devices, one of the commonest being to fix the time when notable occurrences happened by reference to contem- porary kings or magistrates (like the archons at Athens or the consuls at Eome). But this method furnished no clear historical perspective, and, in the absence of a system of synchronisms, could only be of limited value. (In the books of 1, 2 Maccabees years are reckoned from the Seleucid era, which began in 312 B.C. (see 1 Maco. i. 10, etc.) ). (&) Manuscripts and Versions As none of the autographs of the several writers whose works compose the New Testament have survived, the original text of their writings, from which the multitude of existing MSS. have descended through a series of intermediate MSS. (Ukewise lost), has to be reconstructed so far as possible by a process of inference from its present-day representatives. It is the task of textual criticism to determine, with a view to this, the value of the different authorities which are available. The principal authorities are four : — (1) Fragments of Greek papyri, containing merely short portions of the New Testament ; (2) Greek vellum MSS., divided into (o) Uncials, (b) Minuscules or Cursives ; (3) Versions (in various languages) ; (4) Quotations in Patristic writers. Of these the most important and valuable are the Greek MSS., for they were written in order to reproduce accurately the original autographs of the New Testa- ment books. Versions were likewise designed to represent the original text ; but they cannot do this with the precision of Greek MSS. owing to inexactness in the equivalence of words belonging to distinct languages, and differences between linguistic idioms, which often made it necessary for a sense-translation to be substituted for a word-for-word rendering (cf. p. 133). (l) Papyri Of these there are nearly twenty fragments. They date from the third to the sixth century, and are usually denoted by an antique p and a distinguishing numeral. They are preserved in various places, including London, Paris, Berlin, Philadelphia, Cambridge (U.S.A.), etc., and seldom contain more than a very few verses. The earliest are pi and p5 of the third century ; the most considerable in point of size is pis (fourth century).! (2) Greek Manuscripts Of the two classes into which Greek manuscripts are divided, Undds and Cursives, the former are the most important because the earher in origin. Uncial MSS. or majuscules (as they are also called) are writteBf ^ Souter, Text and Canon of the New Testament, pp. 19, 20. TEXTUAL CRITICISM 129 in characters resembling capitals, eacli letter being separate. '^ Minuscules or cursives are written in a running hand, the letters in each word being connected together. The term cursive, in strictness, describes a careless nmning hand used in private writings (generally on papyrus), whilst minuscule denotes a literary hand, in which the letters, though connected, are carefully formed. The uncial manuscripts of the New Testament date from the fourth to the ninth century ; whereas the minuscules vary in date from the ninth to the sixteenth ; the oldest of which the exact age is known goes back to the year a.d. 835. There is (as might be expected) some over- la,pping in the use of uncial and cursive hands ; and an uncial at Oxford really forms one manuscript with a cursive at Petrograd. The MSS. included in each of these classes are conveniently distinguished by symbols. The uncials, of which there are about 168, and which are usually described by names der ved from the places whence they were obtained, or where they are now preserved, or from persons associated with their history, are denoted by the capital letters of the Enghsh (or Roman), Greek, and Hebrew alphabets (the letter J being omitted from the first-named alpha- bet, and aU the letters resembling English being omitted from the second). The minuscules, which number about 2,318, are indicated by Arabic numerals. In addition to manuscripts, there also exist some other authori- ties styled Lectionaries, which contain passages of Scripture from the New Testament that were read at pubhc worship. These number 1,565.^ It will be seen from these statements that the manuscripts available for determining the text of the New Testament are far more numerous than those which are forthcoming in the case of any other ancient writings. For though of the surviving plays of Sophocles there exist about 100 maijuscripts, and of those of ^Slschylus some forty or fifty, yet for the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus the sole authority is a single MS. The uncial manuscripts of the New Testament also exceed in age those of most classical books, for the earhest MS. of Sophocles is not older than the eleventh century, the two earhest MSS. of Lucretius date from the tenth and the ninth centuries, and only in the case of Vergil are there MSS. nearly as old as the earliest New Testament codices. Since of the uncials there are more manuscripts than there are letters of the three alphabets named above, it has been deemed expedient, in order that the letters may suffice for all, to divide the books of the New Testament into four groups, namely (1) the Gospels, (2) Acts and the CathoUc Epistles, (3) the Pauline Epistles, (4) Revelation ; and to distribute the successive letters to the several MSS. of each group separately. Hence the same symbol may denote difierent MSS., according as it is employed in connexion with one group or another. For example, H represents three distinct uncials, Codex Seidelianus II, Mutinensis, and CoisUnianus, '■ The term Uttera unciales is thought to mean " letters an inch high." No existing , MSS. have letters of this size, but some are written in characters | of an inch high, with initials nearly twice as large. ' The figures are taken from Kenyon, Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 129. 9 130 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY according as the GoSJpSls, Acts, and Pauline Epistles are under coliAidera- tion. The satne system has been extended to the figures diesignatiag Oiinuscules, so that, since there are more minuscule MSS. of the Grospbw than of the Epistles, the same codex is indicated by 33 in connexion witli the Gospels and by 17 in connexion with the Pauline Epistles. Butsiilbfe this method is apt to cause confusion to those who are not expeirte, some textual critics wisely differentiate between the ambiguous symbols ieithet by placing distinguishing abbreviations over or beside these (H", H"*, jfi"™, evan 2, act 2), or distinguishing numerals under these (Hi, Hj, S,). The date of a manuscript is, for the most part, detemlined by pal£^- graphical indications, such as the style of the letters and the presence or absence of punctuation (the earHest lacking punctuation marks), though it is occasionally fixed by a note in it stating the year when it was produced {e.g. the cursive 481 bears the date May 7th, a.d. 835). This oldest uncials, which are the most valuable, difier widely in their readings from one another, whereas the minuscules, which are generally of later date than the leading uUcials, mostly present the same type of text. Some codices are bilingual (Greek and Latin, Greek and Egyptian, Latin and Gothic, etc.), the two languages being commonly written side by side on opposite pages (as in Codex Bezse) ; though occasionally a Greek manuscript has ait interlinear translation (e.g. Codex Boerneidanus). Corrections of the original text are often introduced by later hands ; in such cases the original reading is marked in textual notes by an asterisk, and the corrections by a small letter (*■ ''' '■) attached to the symbol of the MS. In some codices alterations have been made by a series of correctors, Codex Sinaiticte having had eight correctors, and Codex Bezse more than a dozen. It was by such later hands that the breathings, accents, aiid punctuation marks absent from the earhest text were commonly supplied. The following is a list of the principal uncials (classified according SA they contain the groups of New Testament books mentioned above), With the symbols, character, and date of each, and the places where they ire severally preserved. The most important are marked by an asterisk. (a) Manuscripts of the Gospels Name. Symbol. Chdracter. Date. Place. *Sinaitiou3 e« complete iv cbnt. or begin, of v Petrograd ♦Alexandrinua A almost complete middle or end of V London *Vati6anus 1209 B complete iv Rome *Ephraemi C incomplete V Paris *Bezae (Gk. and Lat.) D almost complete V or vi Cambridge Basiliensis E almost complete viii Basel BorediahtiB F incomplete is Ufcreciit : SeideHaaus I (or Wblfii A) G incomplete X Lottddii m Cambridge SeideUanus II (or Wolfu B) H incomplete ix Hamburg C^rius K complete ix Paris RegiuB L almost complete viii Paxis Campianus M complete ix !^aris *Purpureus Petropolitdnus N incomplete end of vi Rome *Sinopensis fragmentary vi Paris TEXTUAL CRITICISM 131 Name,. Symbol !. Gkiracter. Date. Place. ♦Gaelpherbytanus I P fragmentaiy vi Wolfenbettel ♦Guelpherbytanus 11 Q fragmentary V Wolfenbiittel ♦Nitriensis E fragmentary vi London V'aticanus 354 S complete A.D. 949 Rome ♦Borgiajins (Gk. and Lat.; 1 T fra;gfli6nta»y V Kome Nanianus U complete ix or X VeiKiee Mosquensis V incomplete ix Moftcotp ♦Freer or Washington w complete ? V I>etr6tt Monaoensis X incomplete ix or X Munich Barberini Yi incomplete viii or ix Rome *DubIinensis Z incomplete V or vi Dublin Tischendorfianus IV r incomplete ix Oxford and Sangallensis (6k. and Lat.) A almost complete ix-x Petrograd St. Gall Tischendorfianus IH A incomplete ix Oxford *Zaoynthi«s A incomplete viii London Petropolitamis n aliBost complete ix Petrograd *EoSsaaensis 2 incomplete vi Rossano *BBratinus * incomplete v or vi Berat *■ iftcomplete viid orix Athos il complete viii or ix Athos (6) Manuscrifts of Acts and the Catholic Epistli iS Name. Symbol. Character. Date. Place. *Siiiaiticus X complete iv or V Petrograd *Alexandrinus A complete V London *Vatieanus 1209 B complete iv Rome *Ephia!Bmi C incomplete V Paris ♦Bezae D Acts only, nearly complete vi Cambridge *Laudianus (Gk. and Lat/ ) E, Acts only, nearly complete vi Oxford Mutinensia H^ Acts only, nearly complete ix Modeaa Mosquensis K^ nearly complete ix Moscow AngelicuB La Acts incomplete, .. Epp. complete ix Rome PorpB^anus Ps incomplete ix Petrograd ■^ complete viii or ix Athos (c) Manmcripts of the Pauline Epistles Name. Symbol. Character. Date. Place. *Sinaitlcus 8 complete iv or V Petrograd *Alexandrinus A incomplete V Loudon *Vatioanua 1209 B incomplete iv Rome *Ephraemi C incomplete V Paris *Claromontanus(Gk.andLat.) Dj nearly complete vi Paris Sangermanetisis (6k.a;ttd Lat.)E, incomplete ix Petrograd ' Au^ehfeis (Gk. and Lat.) F. incomplete? ix Cambridge Boemeriaams (Gk. and Lat.) Gg almost complete ix Dresden ' ^ This symbol has been :gi*en by some New Testament Textual critics to a MS. of ninth century date preserved at Banbury. ' This is said' to be only a faulty copy of D^. It is sbmetiines styled P4ro- p6Vltantis. ' By some authorities Gj is held to be a copy, by others to be the original, of Pj. It is said to have once formed part of Cod«x Sangallensis (A). 132 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Name. Symiol. Character. Date. Place. ♦CoisUnianus 202 H3 incomplete vi Paris, Athens, Petrograd, Moscow, Turin, Kief ♦Freer W complete ? V Detroit Mosquensis Kj ahnost complete ix Moscow Angelicus Lj almost complete ix Rome Porphyrianus P2 incomplete ix Petrograd * almost complete viii orix Athos (d) Manuscripts of Revelation . Name. Symbol. Character. Date. Plau. ♦SinaiticuB N complete iv or V Petrograd *AlexandrinuB A complete V London Vatioanus 2066 i Bj complete vui Borne ♦Ephraemi C incomplete V Paris Porphyrianus Pj incomplete ix Petrograd The following is 1 a short list of the most valuable minuscules : — Symbols. ConknU. Date. Place. 1 ev. act. paul xii Basel 13 ev. xiii Paris 28 ev. xi Paris 33 ev. act (13), paul (17) ix-x Paris 61 ev. act (34), paul (41), rev. (92) xvi Dublin 69 ev. act (31), paul (37), rev. (14) XV Leicester 118 ev. xiii Oxford 124 ev. xii Vienna 131 ev. act (70), paul (77) xiv Kome 157 ev. xii Rome 209 ev. act (95), paul (108), rev. (46) xiv Venice 346 ev. xii Milan 614 act. paul xui? Milan Of these 13, 69, 124, 346, with some others, are derived from a common archetype, as proved by Ferrar, and are known as the Ferrar group. They are remarkable for placing the section about the adulterous woman, which is ordinarily found in Joh. vii. 53-viii. 11, after Lk. xxi. 38 (see p. 233). Another group, which also originated from a common archetype, consists of 1, 33, 118, 131, 157, 209 and one or two besides. The cursive 33 is the most valuable of its class, and another very interesting one is 614. (3) Versions Versions are translations of the New Testament into the various languages which were spoken in those parts of the Roman world into which Christianity spread in the second and following centuries. They became necessary as soon as the new Faith was diffused among classes of people who were not famOiar with Greek. It is probable that they first originated in glosses written in Greek manuscripts underneath the words of which they were the equivalent. Such interlinear glosses, if afterwards collected 1 Sometimes denoted by Q (Swete, Apoc. p. clxxxii.). TEXTUAL CRITICISM 133 and copied into a separate volume, would furnist a continuous translation, which could be used with most facility if it were transcribed on to pages opposite the original. This seems to have been done in the case of the uncial D, wherein each page of the Greek is faced by a rendering of its contents into Latin. The countries in which versions were earliest made were Syria, Italy (with Roman Africa) and Egypt. Other lands in which versions of less importance for critical purposes were produced include Armenia, Ethiopia, and Moesia (the last being occupied by the Goths, for whom a translation in the fourth century was made by Ulfilas). The value of versions in textual criticism turns upon the closeness wherewith they represent the original of which they are renderings. If a translation is made with care and accuracy, it becomes comparatively easy to re- construct the Greek text from which it has been derived, and this re- construction adds to the existing Greek MSS. the equivalent of another. And in the case of certain versions, the date at which they were made is prior to that of the very oldest of surviving Greek MSS., the earliest Syriac and Latin translations having been produced in the second century, and the earliest Egyptian in the third, whereas the Vatican MS. B1209 belongs to the fourth century. Hence these translations are evidence for a Greek text which was current at a date not very far removed from the age when many of the original writings of the New Testament were composed. Various causes, however, inevitably prevent a translation from being a sure clue to the exact wording of the original. Among them are the differences of idiom between one language and another, the fact that the words of one language which are roughly equivalent to those of another are rarely quite synonymous with them (making it impossible to infer with certainty from a particular rendering which of two or more synonyms was used in the original), the absence in one language of distinctions {e.g. gender) exhibited by another, and fluctuations in the translator's skill and consistency.^ Nor again is it always possible to discover the date of a version, and so to ascertain whether it is likely to have been made from early or late Greek MSS. Moreover, the autographs of the versions have disappeared like the originals of which they are renderings, and the copies of the autographs have sustained textual corruptions. Sometimes the original renderings have been deliberately corrected by reference to those of other authorities, and sometimes unintentional errors have been introduced in the mere process of copying. It is, however, obvious that accidental errors of transcription will seldom coincide in the Greek and in a translation : consequently when the quality and character of a version have been ascertained and chance mistakes have been eliminated, it becomes extremely useful for determining the original text amongst a number of variants. The maker of a translation is less likely to have departed purposely from the original than the copyist of a Greek MS. ; '; ^ The lack of uniformity sometimes shown in rendering the same word, even in contiguous verses, may be illustrated from the Vulgate, where in 1 Joh. ii. 3-5 Tr/pufiev T))/Jw, and rrjpf are represented by observemus, custodit and servat, whilst in Jas. iv. 4, ToD KOir/wv is translated by both rmtndi and scBCuU. So Kepafuof is rendered in Mk. xiv. 13 by lagenam but in Lk. xxii. 10 by ampkoram. 134 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY S,nd if two or more versions, produced in places widely separate, agiee, tliere is strong probability that the reading which they have in common goes back to the autograph. And in particular the evidence of a version is of great value in connexion with questions of additions or omissions, where accuracy of rendering is of no moment. The difierent versions are about nine in aU, but, as will be gathered from what has already been said, the most important are the Latin, the Syriac, the Egyptian, and the Gothic. In the case of Latin and Syriae, there are early versions and later revised versions. Thus, the Latin versions are divided into the Old Latin, which dates from the second century, and of which the various MSS. difier widely from one another, and the Vulgate, a revision of the Old Latin, which was made (a.d. 384-5), by St. Jerome. Of the Old Latin version there existed three types, styled respectively, the African (the most primitive), the European, and the Italian. Of the MSS. of this version enumerated below k, e and h are African, a, b and f^ are European, whilst d, f, gig. are Italian. Of the Vulgate the best MSS. are am, dun,ful, and lind. Of the Syriac there are similarly an Old Syriac (third century) represented by two MSS. known as the Sinaitic and the Curetonian ; a revision of this, called the Peshitto (fifth century) ; a revision of the Peshitto, of a somewhat free character, Efiade for Philoxenus, a bishop of Hierapolis in 508 and called the Phil- (fxenian ; a revision of this (in the direction of greater literalness) produced in 616 by Thomias of Harkel (Heraclea) and called after him the Harkleian ; and an independent version, existing only in fragments, which is assigned to the sixth century, and known as the Palestinian (or Jerusalem) version. The Egyptian or Qaptic versions are distinguished, according to the dialect in which they are written, as the Sahidic (sometimes cited as the Thebaic), eamposed in the speech of southern (or Upper) Egypt in the third century, and the Bohairic (sometimes called the Memphitic) and composed in the speech of northern (or Lower) Egypt in the third or fourth century.^ The Gothic version was made in the fourth century, and exists only in fragments. All the preceding versions were made directly from the Greek ; but there aje some versions of later date, which are translations not of the Greek Original, but of some other version. Among these are the Armenian, made from the Syriac and Latin ; the Ethiopian (Abyssinian) from the Syriac ; the Georgian from the Syriac and Egyptian ; and the Arabic partly from the original Greek, partly from the Syriac and Egyptian. The following is a list of the Versions, with some of the principal T ' " their dates, and the localities where they are preserved : — Yerswn, M88. Symbol, Date. Place, *Latin Vetus Lat. vet ii cent. Veroellensis (ev.) a iv Ve^-celU Verouensis (ev.) b iv-v Verona Calbertinus (ev. apt. paul) c xii Paris Bezos (ev. act. paul) d vi Caiobri(Jge 1 Kenyon, Textual Criticism of th? New Testament, p. 185. But by other scholars this version is assigned to the sixth or seventh century. TEXTUAL CRITICISM 135 Version,. Yiilg^te MSS. Palatinus (ey.) Brixianus (ev.) Corbeiensia (ev.) Corbeiepsisi (ot.) Gigaa (act. ^•ev.) Claromontanus (ev. act.) Vindoboneusia (ev.) Bobiensi? (ev.) Amiatinus Oavensis Dublinensia Punel9ieiiaia Puldensia Toletanus Lindiafamensia Curetonian Sinaitio [numerous] Peshitto Phil^enian Bqxirleian [several] Palestinian [fragments] [fragments] [nupierous] mn Sahidic Bohairic Armenian Vehis Vulgate "pic Qothic Arabic Symbol, Date. Place. e iv or V Vienna, Dublin f vi Breaoia fit X Petrograd ff, V Paria g. gig xii Stockholm hi V Rome i v-vl Vienna k iv Turin Lat, vg iv ^m vlii Florence oav. ix La Cava, nr- Salerno dub. viii or ix DubUn dun. vii or viii Durham fuld vi EvJda tol viii Madrid lind. vii or viii London Syr. ii Syr. vet ii-iii Syr. cur V London Syr. sin. iv-v Sinai Syr. pesh v & foil, cent i. London and else- where Sijc. phil Syr. hi vi Oxford, America vii London, Cam- bridge, Rome Syr. pal vi London, Petro- grad, Oxford Eg. iii Eg. sah (th) iii Paris Eg. boh (me) iii-iv Oxford, Paris,Lo?i- or vi-vii don Arm. vet V various places Arm. vg. xii Eth. v-vi Paria and else- where Goth. (Go) iv Upsala and else- where [several] [several] [several] Persian (4) Patristic Quotations. The assistance contributed to the Textual criticism of the New Testa- ment by Patristic quotations is qualified by considerations afiecting both the original writers and later copyists. ^ (1) A Patristic writer usually quotes only isolated and comparatively short passages from the New Testament books, unless he happens to be a commentator. (2) In an age when writings existed only in manuscript, and consequently were difficult to consult (p. 126), quotations would naturally be often made from memory instead of being verified by reference to documents, the * The ayjnbol h ia also used in connexion with Acts and the Catholic Epp. to denote the Codex Fhriaeensis, a fragmentary palimpsest of the sixth century, now »t Paris, which is also occasionally represented by Fl. ' See Stiidia Biblica, ii. p. 195 foil. (Bebb). 136 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY tendency to trust to the memory being greatest in the case of homUetic writings, where various passages were often combined. (3) The original text of a Patristic work has often to be reconstructed from corrupt MSS. before it can be used as evidence in textual criticism, and such recon- struction has been only partially accomplished. Copyists were incUned to assimilate to the text current in their own time, and consequently familiar to them, any divergences occurring in the works they were repro- ducing. In the case of the Latin Fathers in particular, the monks, to whom the multiplication of manuscripts was often committed, and who were well acquainted with the Vulgate, were prone to substitute for the readings of the manuscript they were copying, the readings of the Vulgate text. If, however, the possibility of errors arising from these sources is kept in view, the quotations found in the writings of various Fathers are of much value as confirming or discounting the readings of MSS. ; and since the approximate dates of the Patristic writers are known, they throw much light upon the text prevailing at a definite date. Further, as it can generally be ascertained in what country the several Patristic writers lived, the quotations in their works are also evidence for the type of text used in certain parts of the world (e.g. Clement of Alexandria and Origen for Egypt, Irenseus for Gaul, Tertullian for Carthage) ; and may help to indicate the locality whence the readings characterizing certain MSS. originated. A brief list of important Patristic writings and writers is subjoined ; of the dates many are only approximate and some imcertain : — ■ Clement of Rome, d. 95 or 100 ? Hippolytus, d. after 217 Epistk of Barnabas, 70-100 ? TertulUan, d. 220-240 Teaching of XII Afostles, " before Origen, d. 253 rather than after 100 " ? ^ Cyprian, d. 258 Ignatius, d. 107 or 117 Dionysius of Alexandria, d. 265 Hermas, d. early second century Methodius, d. 311 Aiistides, d. after 133 Eusebius of Csesarea, d. 340 Marcion, d. after 138 Athanasius, d. 373 Jtistin Martyr, d. after 145 Basil, d. 379 Polycarp, d. 156 ^ Gregory of Nazianzus, d. 389 Papias, d. 156 ? Gregory of Nyssa, d. 396 Tatian, d. 172 Ambrose, d. 397 Muratorian Canon, 170-180 Epiphanius, d. 403 Athenagoras, d. after 176 Chrysostom, d. 407 Hegesippus, d. after 180 Jerome, d. 420 Irenseus, d. 202 Augustine, d. 430 Clement of Alexandria, d. after 203 (c) Principles of Textual Criticism As has been already said, the object of textual criticism is to produce a text approximating to the original autographs by inferences based on a ' J. A. Robinson places it later. * Studia Biblica, ii. p. 105 f. (Turner). TEXTUAL CRITICISM 137 comparative valuation of tlie variant readings presented by existing MSS. and tie other authorities just reviewed. The divergences that mark these authorities are due to two sources. One is the occurrence of errors of trcmscription, which are almost inevitable whenever a writing of any length is copied by hand. The likeness to one another of various letters, words, or sentences within the same line or neighbouring lines is apt to occasion the eye of the copyist to pass insensibly from one to the other and lead to the omission of all that intervenes. If the copyist is writing from dictation he may mistake one word for another similarly pronounced. Injury to a manuscript (and to accidental injury papyrus rolls, owing to the fragility of their material, must have been peculiarly exposed) is liable to cause words to be misread, and so reproduced incorrectly. Such errors as these are mechanical and inadvertent. And since every transcription involves the possibility of mistakes, the chances of such happening are increased iadefinitely when a MS. becomes the ancestor of a long Une of later MSS., inasmuch as in every additional copy most of the earlier mistakes will be repeated and fresh errors made. The second source is the introduction of irimtional changes due to various causes, such as the desire to correct real or seeming faults in the text copied, to render obscure passages more lucid, to supply from another quarter additional matter, and the like. Changes of this Mnd, arising from the copyist's wish to replace what he has before him by what in his opinion the original author wrote or ought to have written, are more difficult to deal with than the changes resulting from mere accidental mistakes in transcription. A constant motive for intentional changes in the Gospels was the desire to assimilate the text of one Gospel to the text of another, the shorter of the two texts being expanded by the insertion of words occurring only in the longer, so as to remove divergences between them, and thus to preclude sources of per- plexity. Thus in Mk. xiii. 18, where the best MSS. have TigoaEt'txEaBe Si Iva fiil yhrjrai xeiiiiovog, some introduce after yevrjrac the words ?5 (pvy^ vftibv from Ml xxiv. 20. It was some time before the books of the New Testa- ment were placed on the same footing as those of the Old Testament, so that the temptation to alter the original text of them by additions or other modifications calculated to explain or improve the sense was not counteracted by any feeling of their exceptional sacredness, such as that which safeguarded in the age of the Massoretes the text of the Hebrew Scriptures. The occurrence of transcriptional errors was facilitated by the presence of contractions ; for instance 02 was used for 0£'Oi:, KI for KYPIOS, YZ for YIOS, IIP for UATHP, IS for THZOYS, and such abbreviations were liable to be expanded differently. The varieties of mechanical, or unde- signed, changes are too numerous to be illustrated thoroughly ; but some of the commonest may be briefly enumerated and exemplified. They are : — 1. Confusion of letters formed similarly— 2 Pet.n. 13 AnATAIi: a,ni AFAnAIS ; Rom. v. 1 EXOMEN &nd. EXQMEN; 2 Cor. i. 15 XAPIIS and XAPAN; Ads xii. 25 EIE and ES; perhaps 1 Tim. iii. 16 OS and ©2( = Oedi) ; 1 Tim. i, 4 OIKONOMIAN and OIKOAOMHN, 138 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 2. Confusion of letters similarly pronounced— ^ci« xxvii. 39 iSoiaai, *jid ixamaai ; Rev. i. 5 Xvaavrt, and )i^aavri ; xvii. 8 xalTieg earl aad xal ndqeatai ; Mk. ix. 40 ^/tdj)' and v/j.cov.^ 3. Eepetition or omission of neighbouring syllables or letters (identicftl or similar)— ^icts xxviii. 1 MEAITHNH H NHZOS and MEAJTH H NHSOS; xxviii. 13 nEPIEAONTEZ and nEPTEAQONTEZ ; 1 Th. ii. 7, iyem^nev TJmot and iyevridrjuev vffiioi, ; Tit ii. 5. olxovQyovg and olxovgovg ; Lh. vi. 35 |Uj;5ej' djtEAm'CojT^ee and nr}6ha inehzl^ovreg, 4. Transposition of letters or syllables— MA. xiv. 65 eXapov and ePaUon (epaXov) ; ^c£s xxiii. 23 SeiioXafiovg and deSic^dXovg. 5. Difierent division of adjoining words — 1 Tim. iii. 16 6/ioXoyov/ieiia)s and dfioXoyov/^Ev cog ; Mk. xv. 6 oj< TiagrjTovvTO and Si/Treg jjtowto ; 2 TA. ii. 13 oTi' aQxfjg and d^apx'?''. 6. Misinterpretation of abbreviations — Acts vii. 46 roj oixco 'Iif>ti»fi (mistaken expansion of Tq> >ic5 (=xvgico) 'laxcbfi ; Joh. i. 18 /lovoy^v:^ dsdg (mistaken expansion of ftovoyevfig vg (=vl6g)). _ 7. Confusion of letters and numerals — Acts xxvii. 37 UAOIQ G C=7?A(ji%^j diaxoaiai) and UAOIQ QC (=7ikol(p ibg). 8. Absence of punctuation and other diacritic marks — Jas. v. 6 oAb avriTdaaeraL v/ilv (affirmatively or interrogatively) ; 1 Cor. vi. 4 xadl^sre (imperatively or interrogatively) ; 1 Cor. xvi. 3 (comma before or after 8i imaroXcov) ; Mk. iv. 20 iv rgidxovra and h Tgidxovra. 9. Incorporation of words supplied in the margin or otherwise to complete the sense — 1 Cor. iv. 6 /itj vneg & yiygamai, with or without a following (pgoveiv ; 1 Tim. vi. 7, Sri or dfjXov ore ; Mk. xii. 32 elg iariv or eIq ear IV deog ; Mt. x. 42 xpvxQov or ipvxgov vSarog. In the correction of accidental errors of transcription it is a sound principle, in cases where two alternative readings are equally plausible, to prefer that which, if original, accounts best for the existence of the other. The abundance of textual authorities (manuscripts and versions) for the New Testament renders it seldom necessary to have recourse to conjecture ; but in a few instances it seems probable that some errors (transcription»ls or otherwise) have occurred for which no surviving authority affords a means of correction, so that conjectural emendation seems unavoidable. Examples of such are Mk. iv. 29 6 xagnog, conj. 6 xaigdg ; v. 20 EN THI AEKAnOAEI, conj. EN THI HOAEI (cf. LL viii. 39), the I of THI having been taken for the numeral " ten "; iJev. xviii.l7 TOnON, con]. nONTQN ; Acts ii. 9 lovdaiav, conj. FogSvalav ; xx. 28 rov Idiov, conj. addition of vioii ; Col. ii. 18 & iogaxEv e/i^are^cov, conj. diga xeve/iPareiicov ; Heb. xi. 37 ineigdaQrjaav, conj. ejig'^adrjaav ; 1 Tim. vi. 19, 6e/xihov, conj. de/j.a Uav. But errors of transcription such' as those illustrated are much leas important than the alterations of the text that have been made by copyista purposely. Intentional changes owe their origin, as has been said, to various motives ; and copyists, in making them, sought among other things : ' Probably there was little distinction in the pronunciation of these pronouns, and they seem often to have been confused: cf. 1 Cor. xv. 14, 1 Th. i. 9. TEXTUAL CRITICISM 189 (i) to replace a rare or unfamiliar word by one more readily intelligible (e,^,. 1 Cor. ix. 9 }crj/j,(aaEig and (pi/j,6aEu; 1). (ii) to substitute for a word wMcli might be niisunderstood anotber more explicit and unambiguous (e.g. 1 Cor, vii. 39 xoiM^fj and anoddvrj). (iji) to correct a real or supposed error (e.g. Lk. iv. 44 zfjg 'lovdalag and rfjii rahkalag). (iv) to harmonize discrepant statements in parallel passages (e.g. 1 Cor. xi. 24, the addition after ehsv of A(j,pETe, (pdyere, cf. Mt. xxvi. 26). It is to this class, consisting of deliberate alterations, that most of the Yariant readings occurring in the difierent authorities belong, and it is the chief task of textual criticism to endeavour to distinguish among such those readings which reproduce the original, and those which have -been designedly introduced by some later copyist. The most olpvious test to apply is that of intrinsic 'probability, it being assumed that the reading which yields the best sense is likely to be the text which the author wrote. Under certain circumstances this is decisive ; but in general, and when applied in isolation, it is untrustworthy, since the author may have expressed his meaning badly, and a copyist, improving upon him, may be responsible for the more plausible reading. The test that suggests itself next is that which is afforded by the mere process of counting the number of manuscripts supporting the conflicting readings, and adopting t^i^t which has the majority of authorities in its favour. This, however, may also be misleading, for it assumes that of two MSS. one containing fr genuine and the other a corrupted text, the former would be reproduced on a larger scale than the latter, whereas a great demand for copies in one lopality may have caused a bad MS., if the only one available, to be multiphed frequently, whilst the absence of any such demand in another locaUty may have prevented the multiplication of copies of a much better MS. there procurable. A more satisfactory, though, if taken by itself, still a fallacious, test is the age of the manuscripts that can be cited in favour of one or other of the variants. There is a presumption that the more ancient a MS. is, the less corrupt it is likely to be. Nevertheless there is no certainty that this is so, for of two MSS. which differ in respect of a particular passage, the older may have been copied from another of only a little earlier date than itself, whereas the younger may have been copied from a very ancient MS. ; so that the relative age of the two surviving MSS. is no sure clue to the antiquity of the readings contained in them. More reliable evidence for the age of a particular reading is in some cases afforded by the earliest versions (if the dates of these can be ascertained with fair precision and by the quotations in the earliest Patristic urriters (whose dates are known). As has been seen, the chief versions that can be dated with approximate exactness are the Latin Vulgate, the Gothic and the Harkleian Syriac versions ; the dates of the others are inferential. But it seems generally agreed that the Old Latin, the Old Syriac and the Egyptian ♦ TJie various readings npted in the cpurse of the folloTving pages render the multiplication of examples here unnecessary. 140 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Sahidic versions are the earliest, and go back to the beginning of the third or even the end of the second century. These, therefore, must have behind them better Greek manuscripts than any now existing ; and subject to the quaUfications previously mentioned (p. 133) they are them- selves practically equivalent to very early Greek M8S. The same is true of the Fathers. Various cautions have to be observed in appealing to the evidence which their writings afiord (see p. 135) ; but when it is sufficiently clear that the text of these works has not been corrupted, and that their writers, in quoting particular passages, were using a manuscript and not drawing upon their memory, they are for those passages as good as dated MSS. and show when and where a particular type of text prevailed. Read- ings, then, which have the combined support of the earliest extant Greek MSS., the oldest versions, and quotations from the most ancient of the Fathers, especially if the evidence comes from widely-severed regions, have strong claims to be original as compared with readings which have in their favour the large majority of the remaining Greek MSS. but lack attestation from the earliest versions and Fathers. The agreement of the early versions and Fathers with certain MSS. or groups of MSS. (if it is tolerably constant) accredit such MSS. as being good ones, so that they have some claim to be trusted even in cases where on grounds of intrinsic probability the readings of other MSS. seem to deserve the preference. The prima facie plausibility of particular readings can then be re-considered in the light of the value of the documents containing them ; and the latter factor may turn the balance against a reading which at first sight appears to be better than its rival. The MSS. which are thus recommended in consequence of the support which their peculiar readings receive from versions and Fathers will best be shown by examining the evidence for the various readings in a few selected passages.^ 1. MJc. ix. 38. (i) 5^ ovx axoXovdet 'rjiilv xal ixcoXvaajisv avTov on ovx dHoXovdsl rjniv t AEFGHKMN, etc., most minuscules, Syr. (hi.). Go. (ii) xai excoXiiofiEV (or ixcokvaa/^ev) avrov oti ovx axoXovOel yfiiv (or /leS' Tjficav) N BCLzl !P, a few min., Lat. (vet./), Syr. (vet."'"-, pesh., pal.), Eg. (sah., boh.), Eth. (iii) Sg ovx axoXovdei ■^fitv (or /ieO' ruiSiv) xai ixcoXvofiev (or ixoXvaaiut) avr&v. D X, a few min., Lat. (vet. a k), Syr. (hi. mg.). 2. Mk. ix. 49. (i) Tiag yao nvgi aXiadr/aETai xai naaa Bvaia dXi aXiadrjaerai. ACEFGHKMN, etc., most min., Lat. (vulg.), Syr. (hi. pesh.), Arm., Go., Eth. (ii) Jia; yoQ tivqI dXiadijaerat. X BLzl, some min.. Eg. Lat. (vet. k), &jt. (vet.''°). (iii) naaa yog Bvaia aXl dXiad^aerai. D, two min., Lat. (vet.). * ' Cf. Westoott and Hort, New Testament, Introd., pp. 100-104 ; Souter, Novvm:'. Testamentum Qrace, TEXTUAL CRITICISM 141 3. Lk. xxiv. 46. (i) oiiTcog yiyQanrai xai ovrcog edsi noBeXv Tov Xqwtuv. kl^X. rA A n, other late uncials, Lat. (vulg.), Syr. (pesh. M.), Eg. (sah., some codd.). (ii) ovrcog yiygcmrai naQelv rov Xqiotov. iiBCDh, Lat. (vet.), Syr. (pal). Eg., Eth. (iii) oikwg eSei naQelv lov Xqiotov. Some min., Syr. (vet.'"), Aim. 4. Lk. xxiv. 53. (i) cdvovvreg xal evXoyovvTEg rov 6e6v. AFHKM, all min., Lat. (vulg.), Syr. (pesh. hi.), Arm., Eth. (ii) s'dXoyovvreg rdv 6e6v. «BCL. Syr. (vet. ""■• pal). Eg. (iii) alvovvreg rov Oeov. D, Lat. (vet.). An examination of the above passages shows that the readings under (i) are much fuller than those under (ii) and (iii) and virtually include them ; and the fact can be explained by one of two hypotheses. Either the reading in (i) is the original in each case, and those in. (ii) and (iii) have been abbreviated from it ; or else the original reading is found in either (ii) or (iii), whilst (i) has arisen from a combination of these (a process known as "conflation"). Which of these explanations is the more plausible may antecedently be a matter of opinion, though probably to the majority of minds it will seem more likely that a copyist expanded by inclusion of variants than shortened by omissions, and that consequently the readings in (i) are conflate, combining those in (ii) and (iii) instead of these latter being independent abbreviations of the more extensive texts in (i). But a conclusion may be reached of a less subjective character if it is observed that the readings marked (i) are attested mostly by late versions, Uke the Gothic (fourth century), the Vulgate (fourth century), the Peshitto and Harkleian Syriac (fifth and seventh century), the Armenian (fifth century), and the Ethiopian (fifth or sixth century), whereas those marked (ii) and (iii) have together the support in general of the Old Syriac (third century), the Old Latin (second or third century), and the Egyptian versions ; though this support is distributed between them. The two latter groups of readings, therefore, appear to be earlier than the first group, so that in spite of the numerical preponderance of manuscript authority which can be cited in favour of the first group, this group is less likely to be original than its rivals, and the readings included in it really seem to have been formed by uniting the shorter readings in the other groups. If this is so, then a clue is afiorded to the relative authority of difierent MSS. ; so that in judging of the support forthcoming for alternative readings in various passages, the MSS. which attest each have to be valued as well as counted, their value depending upon the proof previously obtained that they are in the habit of preserving readings of early date. Such proof is furnished partly, as has been seen, by the evidence of the earhest versions, and partly by the readings that occur in quotations by the earhest Fathers. !Now, in the case of the numerous MSS. which agree in having the readings 142 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY distinguished as (i), this proof seems to be lacking ; the supporting versions are comparatively late, and the Fathers that quote their readings did Hot liv6 heioie the fourth century. Accordingly where they conflict with MSS. which, though fewer, can be shown in crucial instances to possess early readings, as tested by Versions and Fathers, they must be judged to be of inferior worth. Their greater numbers cannot outweigh the testimony of those whose value has been established in the way described. Though it is by no means intrinsically incredible that late MSS. should possess an early text, through being copied from an early parent MS. (p. 139), yet these, in reality, seem to be derived from a comparatively late parent MS., the scribe of which aimed at producing as full a text as possible by incor- porating all or most of the variations which he found in the manuscripts before him, instead of adopting those only which rested on the earliest and best authority. The mere numerical preponderance of the codices which reproduce the readings of this hypothetical late document is for critical purposes a matter of indifierence. For if by some fortunate chance the immediate ancestor of a group of MSS. should be found, it is plain that tie derivative MSS. could be disregarded ; and the same is also true, if the existence of silch an ancestor is not established by actual discovery but only inferfed on good grounds from a study of existing MSS. A group of MSS. which share some peculiarity must have been copied from a siligle MS. which was marked by it ; and if that peculiarity is judged, by com- parison with the readings of another gtoup of MSS., to be an error, any disproportion in the number of MSS. included in the two grotips is of Iro accotmt. Thus the genealogy of MSS., if ascertainable, nuUifies the valftei which would otherwise attach to numerical superiority of MSS. Partici^ pation ifi erroneous readings points to derivation from a corrupted source, and a thousand copies of a corrupted MS. are of no more worth than one. The choice between the readings grouped under (ii) and (iii) on the scote of antiquity iS difficult to decide. Those marked (ii) are suppOtWS by the two oldest extant Greek MSS. J* and B ; and the primd/ade value attaching to the readings of these MSS. by reason of their age is confirmed by the corroboration which they receive from the early versions. But the readings arranged under (iii) are also bound to be ancient, for though D, the only uncial that generally supports them, is a MS. of later origin than X and B, its text often has the corroboration not only of the Old Latin version, but of the Old Syriac versions, and so is both early and vnidy attested. Hence in deciding between them the appeal in the last resoffc has to be made to the intrinsic probability of particular readings. As compared with the text of N and B, the text of D and its supporteris te often marked by additions, of which some are certainly interpolatibiif, whilst others have all the appearance of being original, so that the questiofi of the exact value of this text in general is a subject of much discussitlM'. An extensive comparison of existing MSS. and versions on the lilrS* just illustrated has caused them to be divided into three groups, exhibiting different types of text, though many MSS. have a mixed text (see below, p. 147). The first type corresponding to that which is exemplified by the readiflgS TEXTUAL CRITICISM 143 taatked (i) above is conveniently known as the Syrian, or preferably the Antiochene text, and has been designated by the symbol a. It is called Antidehene because its readings coincide with those found in the writings of St. Ohrysostom (d. a.d. 407) and other Fathers connected with Antioch. Its most striking characteristics are smoothness of diction and fullness of matter, results attained by the conflation of readings occurring in MSS. of the other t^o typefe of text ; and where it has not combined the readings of both, it reproduces first those of one and then those of the other, some- times with and sometimes without modification. These facts imply that the writer ot writers who originated this type of ,text had documents belonging to the dthei groups before them, so that it must be later in date than the rest. The inference as to its comparative lateness is confirmed hf the fact that readings marked by the features just described are not fotmd in any Fathers " before the middle of the third century at the very earhest," ^ and occur chiefly in Patristic writings from the time of Chiysostom onwards. The formation of this text is considered by Westcott aBd Hort, on the strength of the marked consistency of method observable in It, to be the result of deliberate editing, it being supposed that a revision of the text previously current in the Church took place at Antioch abottt the fniddle of the fourth centtny, though there exists no direct evidence of such a revision in any ecclesiastical historian. This text is virtually identical with the so-called textUs rec&ptus,^ which prevailed in the Chntch idc jifsStlf fifteen centuries, and is represented by the Authoriz;ed Version. The Uncial MSS. which in geSnetfal exhibit this type of text are : lb the Gospels AEFGHKMN (generally) S U V Tzl (except in ML) AH^ iind most Cursives. In Acts and the Catholic Epistles Hj Kg La Pj- In the Pauline Epistles Kj Lj. In Revelation Bj (= Qi- AMong the versions the Peshitto Syriac sometimes supports it. The second type of text, illustrated by the readings marked (ii) occurs in the Wo most ancient of our existing Greek MSS. (viz. K and B) and in some of the earliest versions. By Westcott and Hort it is regarded as the residual text which remains when aU readings are eUmiaated which for various reasons (such as paraphrase, assimilation, interpolation, omission or styUstic improvement) may be deemed corrupt. Hence, as being free fi*bm "the tendencies manifested by other types of text towards the dehber- a'tfe riifiidificaticin of the original in divergent directions, it has been termed by them the Neutral text, though, as its value is disputed by some textual dritfcs, it is best styled the p text. Its readings are found in the writings of the Alexaindrian Fathers Clement and Origen as well as in the later writers Eusebius and Cyril, So that it might be called the Alexandrian text, if this term had not been given by Westcott and Hort to another, difiering ' Westcott and Hort, New Testament, Int., p. 114. ' A term derived from a phrase ooourrmg in the preface of an edition of the New Testament published by the Elzevirs in 1633, " Textum ergo habes nunc ah omnVma receptum." This edition was practically identical With those of Stephanus (1546, 1649 and 1550) and of Erasmus (1516-1535). 144 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY slightly from the ^ text and conveniently symbolized by y, which will be noticed below. The j3 text has decidedly earher attestation among Patristic writers than the a text, the date of Clement being the end of the second century, and that of Origen the first half of the third century. It is because the MSS. J< and B (if purely transcriptional errors on the part of the copyists who wrote them be allowed for) approach most nearly to this type of text that they are rated so highly by Westcott and Hort. Of the two B is considered by these scholars as the more authoritative when they come into conflict with one another ; and though it is by no means exempt from careless mistakes of transcription, it has been pronounced by another scholar ^ to be the only MS. of the New Testament which preserves a text free from any signs of deliberate revision. When X and B are in agree- ment, their authority is held by their defenders to outweigh, generally speaking, that of any other combination of MSS. Thus in Mt. xi. 19 these two MSS. are the only xmcials that have xal idixaicodrj f) ao(pia and tS>v igycmi avrfjg, though they are supported by Syr.'"''', Eg.''"'', and some Armenian and Ethiopic manuscripts ; and their combined authority is held to out- weigh that of CDEPGKLMNiT, supported by almost all cursives, the Old Latin version, the Vulg. and the Syr .'■■"'■ '"'' '*", which instead of egyiov have TExvcov. Their preponderant value, however, when united as witnesses to the original text of the New Testament, or to such approximation to it as is now attainable, is conditional upon their complete independence of one another ; and some critics doubt this, though the fact that there are no fewer than 3,000 differences between them in the Gospels alone^ seems to dispose of the doubt. In some cases, however, both B and >i, the chief authorities for the /3 text, seem, as compared with the d text or even the a text, to contain readings which are almost certainly erroneous (e.g. ML iv. 21, vno rriv Xvxviav, others, inl rrjv Xvxviav ; Acts xi. 20, ' EXXrfvunaQ, A D "EXXrjvag; Acts xii. 25, elg 'hgovaaXi'ifi, A el leg., DE ajio 'leg. The principal MSS. (including the two just named) which support the j3 type of text are : In the Gospels i< B L C (less regularly) T X (both these sometimes) Y and A (in ML). In Acts and the Catholic Epistles K B A C (generally). In the Pauline Epistles NBACPa. In Revelation (which is lacking in B) N C (generally). Of the cursives 33 and 81 frequently exhibit readings of the j3 type. Among the versions that countenance it are the Egyptian (especially the Bohairic) and some form of the Old Syriac. The subdivision of the /3 text which is denoted by y is not a very important variety. Its peculiar readings appear to be dehberate improve- ments of the style and diction, but are not in substance of great moment. They are not found as a whole in any single MS., but they are thought to be discernible in i< C L X and the cursive 33 where these are not supported by B. 1 B. Weiss (see Kenyon, Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 309). ' Peako'a Commentary on the Bible, p. 600 (J. O. F. Murray). TEXTUAL CRITICISM 145 The third distinctive type of text is customarily known as the Western Text, though it is also called the Syro-Latin, and is best designated as the <5 text. The most important uncial that commonly, but not invariably, exhibits it is D ; but it is also found in two of the oldest versions, the Old Latin and the Old Syriac. It occurs in the quotations of Justin Martyr (d. middle of second century), Irenseus (9. circ. 180), Tertullian (fl. circ. 200), and Cyprian (fl. circ. 240) ; so it is quite as old as, if not older than, the /S text. But though, as has been already said, it contains some peculiar readings which seem to be authentic, yet in general in this variety of text the original appears to have been treated with exceptional freedom, so that one textual critic has pronounced it "by far the most depraved text." It is characterized by paraphrastic interpretations, harmonistic assimilations, the substitution of synonyms, remarkable omissions, and even more remarkable additions, instances of the last occurring in Mt. xx. 28, Lk. wi. 4, xxiii. 53, and in numerous passages in Acts (see p. 252 f .). The general prevalence of additions in the 6 text makes its occasional omission of passages occurring in the § text all the more noteworthy ; so that Westcott and Hort in such cases give preference to its readings, holding that in these instances the MSS. B and X, which are the main supports of the j8 text, have been interpolated. The passages in the 8 text from which such interpolated matter is absent are styled by them " Western non-Inter- polations." Striking instances occur in Mt. xxi. 44, Lk. xxii. 191", 20, xxiv. 6, 12, 40. The principal authorities for this text, viz. D, Latin vet. and Syr. sin., vary a great deal among themselves ; of these D seems the most arbitrary in its readings, and some scholars think that a consensus of Lat. vet. and Syr. sin. may yield a really primitive text even when unsupported by the great uncials.^ The uncials that preserve the 8 text more or less uniformly are : In the Gospels and Acts D. In the PauUne Epistles (lacking in D) Dj Bj Fa Gj. In Revelation P2. Among the versions that display this type of text are, as has been said, the Old Latin and the Old Syriac, the most valuable manuscript of the former being k (p. 134). The Sahidic Egyptian version also often agrees with this text. In connection with the reasoning by which it has been sought to establish the relative lateness and inferior value of the a text one argument requires some qualification. It has been shown that a feature of the a text is that its readings are usually the longest ; this feature, however, is not confined to it, but occurs occasionally in some forms of the <5 text, and even of the (8 text. A couple of examples will suffice : (1) Joh. ix. 8. a text, TU9JA65 fiv. jS text, TiQoaahrjg ijv. 8 text, rvq>Xdg xal jiQaaahrj^ iff. 1 Lake, Text of New Testament, p. 91. 10 146 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (2) Lk. X. 42. a text, ivdg di iariv XQnia. /? text, dXlycov Si iariv ;f(?Eia rj ivdg Instances like these may seem at first sight to destroy the claim to superior antiquity made on behalf of the p and d texts. But length is only suggestive of lateness ; the substantial evidence for the antiquity of these texts, as compared with the a text, really comes from their occurrence in the earUest versions and Fathers. If the /? text is held to be the one that represents most nearly the original autographs of the New Testament writers, the history of the divergences from it has been thus described.^ Corruption began at a very early date. Absolute accuracy of transcription was little prized, and copyists freely amended or extended the text before them by additions or supposed corrections. They did this especially with regard to the Gospels, since they were tempted both to incorporate incidents in our Lord's life which were recorded in other writings, or in oral tradition, and to correct one Evangelist by another. Hence as early as the second century there came into existence, first in the East and then, by transfer, in the West, a type of text characterized by very wide departures from the original. This was the d text.* Meanwhile at Alexandria another kind of modification was introduced. There copyists, who were accustomed to literary Greek, made alterations of a verbal character in order to improve the style of the original, whilst not seriously aSecting its substance. Thus arose the y text. At a later stage, as copies multiplied and textual divergences became more marked, it was sought to provide a remedy by an authoritative revision. The principles regulating it were : (1) the combination, where possible, of variant readings ; (2) the removal of roughnesses and obscurities. The first resulted in the production of conflate readings, the second in the insertion of names instead of pronouns, of conjunctions to avoid asyndeton, and of familiar phrases in the place of unusual ones. These changes issued in the a text. The supposed revision is thought to have been effected in two stages, the first being preserved in the Peshitto Syriac, which is intermediate between the more ancient texts and that represented by the fully developed a text, as seen in E P N. and the bulk of the later uncials and cursives. The relative excellence of the leading MSS. is generally estimated by the character which they present in the Gospels. But they are not homogeneous throughout, so that the one which is of the highest merit in the Gospels may not be equally good elsewhere. One cause of this was doubtless the transition from rolls to codices as documentary materials. Only small portions of the New Testament could be contained on a single 1 The description is taken with some abbreviation from Kenyon, Textual Oritkim of tJte New Testament, p. 300 f. ^ I.e. as represented by D ; the Sinaitio Syriae ha^ » text free frojij some of the unfavourable characteristics of D. It has been suggested by some textual critics that the 5 text includes a number of second century texts, varying among themselves, which were current in different places ; and that the ^ and a texts represent succes- sive revisions of these local texts ^see Cambridge Biblical Essays, p. 534). TEXTUAL CRITICISM 147 roll ; so that when rolls were replaced by codices (which were larger) the contents of a codex would be drawn from several roUs, and these might represent different types of text. Thuszl, a MS. of the four Gospels, in three out of the four has the a text ; but in St. Mark it has readings that agree with the /3 text, so that in that Gospel it must have been copied from a difEereut original. Similarly the Vatican MS. B, which in the Gospels is the best representative of the ^ text, is stated to have a distinctly Western, or <5, type of text in the Pauline Epistles. A certain number of MSS. have a mixed text throughout. Thus C belongs con- sistently neither to the a type nor to the p type, and this prevents it from being as valuable a witness to particular readings as might be expected from its age. Other MSS. which have a mixed text are the purple manu- scripts (p. 126) N i7 and 'To) in Tyre and had been done (e-/erii9T\(7a.v) in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they Sidon, which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sack- would have repented long ago, sitting in cloth and ashes. Howbeit I say unto sackcloth and ashes. Howbeit it shall you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in and Sidon in the day of judgment than the judgment than for you. And thou, for you. And thou, Capernaum, shalt Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto thou be exalted unto heaven ? Thou heaven ? thou shalt go down unto Hades, shalt go down unto Hades. The extremely close verbal resemblance here observed requires an explanation, and to account for it by a common oral tradition is as little adequate as in the preceding case. In the second of the paraUel passages quoted the remarkable character of the likeness between the versions in Mt. and Lk. is more obvious in the Greek even than in the English of the R.V., because both contain the curious constructions oix Ixavdg ha vno Trjv ardyrjv slaiXdfjg and dAA' elni Xoycp. It is also note- worthy that in (d) both Evangelists vary the affirmative sentences in the first two vv. by a rhetorical question in the third verse. It is true that the class of parallel passages here under consideration consists mainly of Christ's own utterances, which might be expected to be transmitted with much verbal accuracy ; but they are not exclusively confined to these ; and, as a matter of fact, of the four passages quoted at length'^one does not contain any words of His. A fully satisfactory explanation of the almost identical phraseology here employed by the two Evangelists can only be found in the assumption of the use, by one or both writers, of a documentary source. It has been shown that, in the case of another set of parallel passages, the hypothesis that both writers have used a common written source, sometimes with great exactness, sometimes with much freedom, best accounts for the facts ; and analogy suggests a like origin for the present set. The conclusion in one respect is not so cogent here as in the former case, for the original document upon which it is inferred that the parallel versions depend cannot be produced. But short of this decisive evidence, the conditions of the problem are much the same as in the previous instance, and are best satisfied by a similar solution. With regard to the nature of the document which is thus either par- tially or in its entirety embodied in both Mt. and Lk. there is room for much difference of opinion ; and in the absence of any general agreement 11 162 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY about it, it has come to be a practice to denote it by the symbol Q (standing for the German word Quelle, " source "). The most striking feature in it is the number of sayings or groups of sayings which it contains, including various Parables or Similitudes. Nevertheless, its contents are not confined to our Lord's sayings, but comprise a few narratives. The most important of these are the substance of the preaching of John the Baptist, the accounts of our Lord's Temptation, of the healing of the centurion's servant, of the inquiry sent by the Baptist to Christ, of the ofier of discipleship made by certain individuals, and of the cure of a demoniac. The prominent place occupied in Q by our Lord's Sayings has suggested that it was in reality nothing but a collection of such, the narratives in it being merely intended to explain the circumstances under which certain sayings were uttered, or the occasions which served to elicit them. Thus of the two miracles, the healing of the centurion's servant can be regarded as introduced because of the declaration, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel (Mt. viii. 5-10 = Lk. vii. 2-9) ; and the cure of the demoniac as narrated for the sake of the saying. If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you (Mt. xii. 22 f ., 27, 28 = Lk. xi. 14, 19, 20). But it is certainly strange that Q, if it is only a collection of our Lord's utterances, should include the preaching of the Baptist, a narrative of our Lord's temptation, and an account of the message of inquiry which the Baptist sent from prison. These narratives seem out of place in a mere compilation of oracular Sayings. Again, it has been suggested that the three narratives mentioned above, together with the two miracles, do not really belong to Q, but are taken from Mk., though not from Mk. in its present condition (which does not include them) but in a larger form known to, and used by, the authors of the First and Third Gospels, and that from this they were subsequently omitted.^ This view has the advantage of making Q a much more uniform kind of document than it appears at present, for if these narratives are subtracted, the rest of it wiU consist of Sayings only. But a serious objection to it is the unlikelihood that Mk. was ever larger than it is now, since there could have been no sufficient motive for reducing it in size afterwards ; so that this solution also of the difficulty presented by the peculiar contents of Q seems to require rejection. But the peculiar character of Q remains to be explained ; and a third suggestion may be hazarded, namely, that Q, beginning as it does with the account of John the Baptist's preaching of repentance, and going on to give a symbolic account of Jesus' conquest over the temptations that assailed TTim in connexion with His consciousness of Messiahship, was originally designed to be a history of our Lord's ministry, including an account of its relation to that of His predecessor. But the plan of its author, so far as can be judged, was not carried to completion ; the work was left a torso. There are only two miracles related, and there is no account of the Passion. Consequently it seems best to regard Q as a Gospel which was begun but never finished, and which, unlike Mk., included a large number of our Lord's sayings. * See Holdsworth, Gospel Origins, pp. 52, 53. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 163 This fragmentary Gospel was used by the authors of both Mt. and Lk., whose treatment of it may plausibly be deduced from their handling of the Second Gospel ; and since it seems certain that they did not incorporate the whole of Mh., it may be inferred that they did not embody the whole of Q. But whereas we are acquainted with the real extent of Mh., we have no means of estimating the real extent of Q, since the only possible recon- struction of it by the extraction of the passages occurring exclusively in Mt. and Lh. together is liable to mislead as seriously as a reconstruction of Mlc. from Mt. and Lh. would do, for such would by no means correspond accurately to the second Gospel as we possess it. It is likewise impossible to determine with certainty whether, in the sequence of the different parts of Q, the order of Mt. or of Lk. is to be preferred, since there is much variation between them, and no independent witness to which appeal can he made. A review of the Synoptist Gospels shows that each of them has a certain quantity of matter comprised in none of its companions ; but it will be seen from the table which is given on p. 148 f . that the amount of material contained exclusively in the Third Gospel greatly exceeds the material that is found exclusively in each of the other two. Lh., like Mt., has a long narrative relating to the Birth of our Lord, though it is quite distinct from that which occurs in Mt. But in addition to this and some other isolated sections in the earlier part of the book, which are peculiar to it, the Third Gospel has a group of passages, occupying rather more than eight chapters (ix. 51-xviii. 14), which, though consisting, to some extent, of matter comprised in Q, yet in the main exists nowhere else. This group of passages is inserted between two extracts drawn from Mh., which in that Gospel are in close contiguity though not quite consecutive (occurring respectively in Mh. ix. 38-40 and x. 13) ; whilst the intervening Marcan section, which in the original links the sections extracted, is entirely omitted. This insertion (for such it may be termed in respect of its position among the extracts which in Lk. have been incorporated from Mh.) is sometimes termed St. Luke's Greater Interpolation, in contrast to the group of passages contained in Lh. vi. 20-viii. 3, which has been called the Lesser Interpolation. The Greater Interpolation calls for notice here because it is frequently thought to be drawn from a written source. Some scholars, indeed, hold that such written source is simply Q, which the Third Evangelist may have used more extensively than the First, or which he may have known and utilized in an expanded form. There are, however, certain features about it which seem to sever it from Q (see p. 198), so that another view, which likewise assumes that this special matter had a documentary origin, is that it has been derived from a written source which was not employed by any of the other Synoptists, and which, owing to the occurrence in it of numerous references to our Lord's journey from GaUlee to Judsea, has been styled St. Luke's " Travel Document." There are reasons, however, which are adverse to the hypothesis that this portion of the Third Gospel as a whole had any documentary origin, and it is more probable that St. Luke has here gathered together a number of traditions transmitted for the most part 164 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY orally, though the parables included may have existed previously in an independent collection (p. 198). But whilst the derivation of the contents of Lie. ix. 57-xviii. 14 from a " Travel Document " does not commend itself, this part of the Third Gospel may conveniently, for the sake of distinction, be termed St. Luke's " Travel Section," though it comprises a few incidents that probably occurred before our Lord's departure on His journey to Jerusalem. The two documents, Mk. and Q, and possibly a summary of Parables do not exhaust all the written Sources utilized in the composition of the collective Synoptic Gospels, but further consideration of other sources may be deferred here. The acceptance of the theory that such written sources as have just been described underlie the Synoptic Gospels is not, of course, a denial that oral tradition was the earliest means of transmitting the memory of the facts connected with our Lord's ministry, but only denies that it was the stage immediately preceding the independent composition of at least the two longest of these Gospels as we possess them. It maintains that Mt. and Lk. are both separated from that stage by an intervening documentary stage, which is represented by the shortest of the Gospels and by another written work which has not survived. The analysis of the Gospels into their sources, so far as these are dis- coverable, is only a preliminary step to an estimate of the historical worth of their contents. It is clear that as historical authorities for New Testament history, Mk. and Q must claim first attention. The contents of these documents are not of necessity prior in date and superior in value, to every one of those sections which are peculiar to Mt. and Lk. But whereas in the instance of a passage occurring in only one of these Gospels, it can merely be a matter of conjecture that it is an extract from a docu- ment accessible to the authors of both Mt. and Lk., but disregarded by one of them, in the instance of a passage appearing in both we know that it must come from a source earlier than either. Mk. and Q are such sources. They are documents which enjoyed sufficient currency to become known to two different writers (viz. the First and Third Evange- lists) working independently ; and they had acquired sufficient authority to induce both these authors to borrow from them. They are therefore of primary importance to the historical investigator, and the value of them it is essential to appraise as carefully as possible. Of these documents Q is likely to be the older for two reasons. (1) If in origin it is prior to Mk. and was known to the author of the latter, an explanation is afiorded of the fact that Mk. includes so small a proportion of the Sayings of our Lord. In Q it is the teaching of Jesus that occupies most space, whereas in Mk. it is the incidents of His life ; so that since the two are in this way the complement of one another, and since Q is (seemingly) incomplete and fragmentary, it looks as though the writer of Mk. was acquainted with the scope of Q (so far as it went) and did not wish to cover the same ground. (2) This presumption finds some corro- boration from an inspection of the few passages in both which relate to the same occurrence. In regard to these a comparison between Mk.'s account and the parallels in Mt. and Lk. (derived from^Q) suggest that the DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 165 former is abbreviated from the latter. Tie most conspicuous case where the suspicion is raised is in connexion with the preaching of John the Baptist; and when the corresponding passages are placed side by side the grounds for the inference will become apparent. It will suffice here to reproduce Lie. M^k. i. 7, 8 Lk. iii. 7, 16, 17 He preached, saying, There oometh He said therefore ... I indeed bap- after me he that is mightier than I, the tize you with water ; but there oometh he latohet of whose shoes I am not worthy that is mightier than I, the latohet of to stoop down and unloose. I baptized whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose : you with water, but he shall baptize he shall baptize you with Holy Spirit you with Holy Spirit. and with fire : whose fan is in his hand throughly to cleanse his threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into his gamer, but the chaff he will bum up with un- quenchable fire. The resemblance between Mk. and Lh. (whose narrative together with the parallel in Mt. is derived from Q) is sufficiently near to suggest that Mh. is not independent of Q ; and if so, there are features in Mk. which favour the conclusion that his account is secondary. Mk., for example, contains the statement that John's Successor is to baptize with Holy Spirit, but he has no mention of the baptism with fire. The reference in Mt. and Lk., however, to this last must be original since it clearly has in mind the subsequent statement about the unquenchable fire of judgment in store for the unrepentant. A natural explanation of this difference between the Gospels seems to be that Mk. was acquainted with, and used, the passage from Q, which the other Evangelists have quoted at length but which he has abbreviated ; and since he did not intend to include the later mention of the unquenchable fire, he left out also the prior allusion to it occurring in the words " and with fire." This is perhaps the most striking, though not the only instance where St. Mark seems to show knowledge of Q,^ but it does not appear that he used it at all extensively ; and the suggestion has been made that he quoted it from memory. If Q was thus prior to Mk. and known to the writer of the latter, and if it was an imperfect Gospel, lacking in its un- finished state a number of important details about our Lord, especially those connected with His Passion, a satisfactory motive is found for the scheme followed in Mk. The latter seems to have been designed not to supersede but to supplement Q by furnishing an adequate account of our Lord's ministry, whUst omitting altogether, or repeating very concisely, matters already contained in Q. In particular, the comparatively small amount of discourse in Mk. as contrasted with the quantity in Q, thus finds a simple explanation ; had the writer desired to supersede Q, he would probably have preserved a full report of at least some of the dis- courses which it contained, instead of reproducing so little of them. It is now expedient to consider some external evidence which may ' Another is Mk- iii. 22-27=M«. xii. 24-29=LJ;. xi. 15, 17-22. See Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem, pp. 169 foil. (Streeter). 166 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY possibly throw light upon the origin of Q or of some of its contents. This evidence consists of certain statements made by the historian Eusebius, which are partly his own and partly preserved by him from earlier authori- ties. (1) " Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence " (H.E. iii. 24) ; (2) " Since IrensBus was one of these (i.e. the ancient presbjrters and writers of the Church), we will now give his words, and first what he says of the sacred Gospels : ' Mat- thew published his Gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the Church in Rome ' " (H.E. V. 8) ; (3) " Pantsenus was one of these (i.e. of many Evangelists), and is said to have gone to India. It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time " (H.E. V. 10) ; (4) " [Origen] testifies that he knows only four Gospels, writing as follows : ' Among the four Gospels which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a tax-gatherer, but afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language ' " (H.E. vi. 25) ; (5) " But concerning Matthew [Papias] writes as follows : ' So then Matthew wrote the oracles (rd Adyta) in the Hebrew language and every one interpreted (i.e. translated) them as he was able ' " (H.E. iii. 39). The term Logia used in this last passage admits of being understood as a description of an historical work, including both narratives and sayings, but the predominant sense in which it is employed in the LXX is that of " Divine utterances " (Num. xxiv. 4, Dt. xxxiii. 9, Ps. sii. (xi.) 6, cxis. 11, 67, Wisd. xvi. 11, cf. also Acts vii. 38), and it has this meaning in 1 Pet. iv. 11, and perhaps in Rom. iii. 2. Now if these statements and the First Gospel be compared together, the following conclusions seem to emerge, (a) Our First Gospel cannot be the actual Gospel which St. Matthew is represented to have written, for it is in Greek and not in Hebrew. (6) It cannot be a Greek translation made by St. Matthew himself of his alleged Hebrew Gospel, for it has been shown that for a large part of the material embodied in it the writer has been dependent upon ML, and it is impossible to suppose that one, who, like St. Matthew, was one of the Apostles and therefore a first-hand witness of our Lord's ministry, could have been indebted on so great a scale to the writings of one who was not included in the Twelve, (c) Nor can the document used by Mt. and Lk. in common, which has been denoted by Q and which seems to have been begun on the lines of a Gospel, though never finished, have been a Greek rendering of the Gospel ascribed to St. Matthew, partly because it is so incomplete, and partly because it does not appear why, in this case, St. Matthew's name should have been attached to the First Gospel in particular, seeing that Q is common to DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 167 both, the First and the Third, (d) The numerous Sayings of our Lord which constitute so large a part of Q can with much more plausibility be identified with a Greek translation of the collection of oracles compiled by St. Matthew of which Papias speaks, for though these occur not only in the First but also in the Third Gospel, yet the fact that they are much more impressively arranged in the former than in the latter will account for the name of St. Matthew being associated with it.^ The conjecture may also be hazarded that the existence of a collection of our Lord's Sayings in Aramaic made by St. Matthew and incorporated through the medium of a Greek version, first in Q and afterwards, through Q, in the First Gospel is the origin of the tradition that St. Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew (the term Hebrew being employed inaccurately instead of the more correct word Aramaic. It has been seen that Busebius quotes Ireneeus to the effect that Matthew published his Gospel during the period that Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the Chujch at Eome. Much uncertainty prevails as to when the two Apostles were together at Rome ; but it seems probable that if they were ever there in company, it was not before 59 or after 64. If, then, reliance be placed on the statement of Irenseus, and if what is described as Matthew's Gospel was really his collection of our Lord's Sayings (or Logia), the date of the Matthaean compilation wUl fall between the years just named ; and the date of Q, which has drawn material from them, will be later than this. How much later depends upon the date to which the composition of Mk. may plausibly be assigned ; and as reasons will be given for thinking that Mk. was written before a.d. 70, the origin of Q, which is probably earlier than Mk., may be placed conjecturally about A.D. 65. But it is not likely that Matthew's collection of oracles was the first of its kind. At the date suggested above (59-64) it is most likely to have been composed out of earlier and briefer summaries of our Lord's utterances, suoh as would almost certainly be called for, and circulated, long before an account of His life was required. The latter would be superfluous for such of the early Christians as had been His personal followers ; but it was of great moment to know exactly what He had said about the Kingdom of God, what His principles of conduct were, and how His teaching and practice difiered from the rules laid down by the Scribes ' Burkltt {The Gospel Hist., etc., pp. 126, 127) holds that the Matthssan Logia ^ttei collection of Proof -texts (or testimonies) from the Old Testament made by th6 Apostle for comparison with the history and teaching of our Lord. Many of the quotations from the Old Testament that occur in the Krst Gospel seem to be inde- pendeut translations from the Hebrew, not taken from the LXX. (see p. 191), but dnee they do not always agree with the existing Massoretio text, and since there are Some curious errors in the designations of the writers from whom the quotations are drawn (a passage from Zechariah, for instance, being assigned to Jeremiah, see xxvii. 9), it has been thought that they cannot be taken directly from the Old Testament, but from some intermediate source, such as a collection of texts designed to iUustrate the fulfilment of prophecy by Christ. A composite quotation drawn from such a ooUeotion might be cited under the name of only one of the prophets referred to, instead of both. 168 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and Pharisees. Of the probable character of the earliest collections of the Lord's memorable sa3n[ngs or Logia a trustworthy idea may perhaps be derived from the small group of sayings, inscribed in Greek on a papyrus leaf, which was found in 1897 at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, and which has been thought to go back at least to the second century. Of these seven or eight sayings some resemble, without being quite identical with, certain that are included in the New Testament, whilst others are altogether different from any previously known ; whether the latter are genuine or not need not be considered here. The greater part of it is transcribed in this place merely because it is in all probability analogous to the collec- tions which paved the way for the compilation by St. Matthew. A few of the sayings, some of which are only fragments, are as follows : — 1. . . . " And then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother's eye " (cf. Lk. vi. 42). 2. " Jesus saith. Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in no wise find the kingdom of God, and except ye keep the Sabbath, ye shall not see the Father." 3. " Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found aU men drunken, and none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieveth over the sons of men, because they are bUnd in their heart, and see [not, poor, and know not] their poverty." 4. " Jesus saith. Wherever there are [two, they are not without] God, and [if anywhere one] is alone, I say, I am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me ; cleave the wood and there am I." Two other sayings resemble in substance Mk. vi. 4 and Mt. v. 14''.* It will be observed that in this collection the occasions when the sayings were uttered are not indicated. The document presents just a short series of disconnected aphorisms, each prefaced by Jesus saith. A parallel example, more or less close, of seemingly detached sayings, which have been brought together, occurs in Lk. vi. 39-45 : if they were separated they would appear as follows : — (a) " Can the blind lead the blind ? shall they not both fall into a pit? " (b) " The disciple is not above his Master ; but every one when he is perfected shall be as his Master." (c) " And why beholdest thou the mote, etc." (d) " For there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit, etc." In Mt. these sayings are not arranged as in Lk., but are placed in connexion with different contexts ; for (a) Lk. vi. 39 appears in Mt. xv. 14 ; (b) Lk. vi. 40 in Mt. x. 24 ; (c) Lk. vi. 41-42 in Mt. vii. 3-5 ; {d) Lk. vi. 43-45 in Mt. vii. 16-18, 20, xii. 34, 35. If the larger part of Q has been rightly traced to a Greek rendering of the collection of our Lord's sayings attrilDuted to St. Matthew, it follows that much of the contents of Q proceeds ultimately from one who was in a good position to authenticate the subject-matter which he reports. St. Matthew was not a conspicuous figure among the Apostles, but he was ' See Grenfell and Hunt, Sayings of our Lord from an early Greek Papyrus. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 169 probably a man of capacity and experience, since lie occupied the position of collector of tolls. And as he had excellent opportunities of hearing oiir Lord's words, and (so far as can be judged) was well qualified to record them clearly, so he may be credited with a desire to do so faithfully. At the same time it is necessary to remember that the report which we possess is separated from what Christ actually said by two stages, for His words, uttered in Aramaic, have been translated into Greek, and the Greek translation, which does not exist independently, has to be recovered from the reproductions of it preserved in Mt. and Lk. Moreover, in view of the fact that the disciples occasionally misunderstood their Master during His lifetime, it is possible that some of His utterances have been mis- apprehended, or that they have been translated unintelligently, and their real significance, in consequence, has been disguised or distorted. Never- theless, the ethical and spiritual quality of His sayings, as contained in Q, seem to warrant that in general His teaching has been recorded and preserved without serious misrepresentation. An estimate of the date of the composition of Mh. is more conveniently deferred for the moment (see p. 171). The need of such a work would not be felt till Christian preachers began to appeal to those who, like the Jews of the Dispersion and the Gentiles among whom they lived, knew nothing about Jesus, and untU the number of those who had been of His company began to be thinned by death. But as soon as personal testimony grew deficient, written narratives of our Lord's life would be required, and required, too, in the Greek language, the chief medium of intercourse throughout the Roman jBmpire (p. 79). There seems to be no sufficient reason to suppose that Mk. was originally composed in Aramaic.'- The features in it which suggest an Aramaic original may be accounted for by the assumption that the writer reproduced in Greek, matter which was orally related to him in Aramaic, or in imperfect Greek contaminated with Aramaic. This assumption appears to be justified by what is reported by Papias about the author of the Second Gospel. St. Mark must have been acquainted with St. Peter at an early date in Jerusalem (see Acts xii. 12 and p. 170), and was probably a companion successively of both St. Paul and St. Peter at Rome, and it was doubtless while he was associated with the latter that he obtained the information about our Lord's life which he preserved in his gospel. For Papias (cf . Eus. H.E. iii. 39) states that " the presbyter (John ?) ^ related that Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed Him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord's discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely." ' An Aramaic origin for the Second Gospel is advocated by Allen, 8t. Mark, p. vu. foil. 2 See p. 228. 170 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY This statement that St. Mark's Gospel is based on Peter's reminiscences also appears in Justin, who styles it 'Anofivri/ioveu/iaTa rov Jlergov, and is confirmed by Irenseus (cf . Bus. H.E. v. 8), who says that Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, after the departure (l^oSov) of Peter and Paul at Eome, handed down in writing the preaching of Peter. TertuUian, again, virtually repeats the statement of Irenaeus about the derivation of the Second Gospel from the preaching of Peter : " What Mark published may be described as Petrine, for Mark was Peter's interpreter." Lastly, Clement of Alexandria (cf. Eus. H.E. vi. 14) adds that Mark was urged to undertake the task of preserving St. Peter's words by others, stating that " as Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time, and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel, he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it (i.e. the request addressed to Mark)." These various pieces of evidence agree in representing that the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, upon which the other two are so largely dependent, was composed by one who was not an eye-witness of at least the greater part of what he relates, but was indebted for his information to another. St. Peter, however, the informant whose statements he reported, had excellent opportunities of knowing almost all the events and circumstances related in the Second Gospel. He belonged to Galilee, the scene of the earliest incidents of our Lord's ministry ; he was an Apostle, and so a constant companion of Jesus ; and he is one of the three who is recorded to have been present on occasions when most of the other Apostles were absent (v. 37, ix. 2, xiii. 3, xiv. 33). The account of Papias that St. Mark reproduced information derived from St. Peter is confirmed by certain features in the Second Gospel. Its narrative of our Lord's ministry virtually begins with the call of St. Peter and his brother ; and this is followed shortly by an account of a visit by Jesus to St. Peter's house, where the Apostle's mother-in-law was healed of a fever. Moreover, St. Peter is named first in the list of the Twelve (iii. 16), and he generally acts as their spokesman (viii. 32, x. 28, xi. 21), and is addressed as their representative (xiv. 37, xvi. 7). Nevertheless it is probable that St. Peter was not St. Mark's sole authority when he wrote his Gospel. . As the latter's home was at Jerusalem, he may have come in contact with others of the Apostles, whose recollections about Jesus he would learn. And it is possible that of certain scenes during the last week of our Saviour's life, which was spent at the Jewish capital, St. Mark was himself a spectator.^ It has been conjectured with some plausibility that the young man alluded to in Mk. xiv. 51, 52, was the writer of the Gospel, for the incident, if a stranger were concerned, seems too unimportant to deserve narration. If the conjecture is well grounded, Mark may have witnessed * It is not unlikely that the opening words of the Muratorian canon, quibus tairm interfuit et ita posuit, which must relate to the author of the Second Gospel, mean that St. Mark was present on certain occasions in the lite of our Lord, quibaa being a mutila- tion of aliqu9)us. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 171 what occurred in Gethsemane, whilst Peter and the other disciples slept (Mk. xiv. 32-42). It has been objected to this, indeed, that since the Crucifixion probably took place in a.d. 29 (p. 342) St. Mark, a young man then, would have been rather old to act as the attendant {inriQEzrig) of St. Paul and St. Barnabas in a.d. 47 {Acts xiii. 5, where John stands for John Mark). If, however, St. Mark was not more than eighteen at the date of the Crucifixion, he would not have been more than thirty-six in A.D. 47. But be this as it may, the amount of matter in the Second Gospel that depends upon the writer's first-hand evidence can, at most, be very small ; the bulk of the statements contained in it may be regarded as derived from the personal recollections of St. Peter (and perhaps others of the Apostles) communicated to St. Mark orally. The conclusion that, though St. Mark was not an eye-witness of most of the events he records, yet he had access to some one who was, is a fact which justifies, in connexion with his account of our Lord's ministry, a feeling of much greater security than would be reasonable if the source of it were altogether unknown. The value, however, of information resting upon personal recollections communicated by word of mouth to another individual who preserved this in writing naturally depends not only upon the authoritativeness of the ultimate source of it, but also upon the interval elapsing between the occurrence of the incidents related and the time when the narrative of them was drawn up ; so that it is necessary to investigate the probable date of Mk. It has been seen from the passage quoted from Irenaeus (p. 170) that St. Mark is said to have handed down the preaching of Peter " after the departure " {i.e. death, cf. 2 Pet. i. 15) of St. Peter and St. Paul, which probably imphes a date after a.d. 6^. Clement, it is true, definitely asserts that St. Mark wrote his Gospel at Rome whilst St. Peter was there. But if the Logia compiled by St. Matthew were written when St. Peter and St. Paul were together at Rome (p. 166), and time has to be allowed for the composition of Q (which probably embodies the Logia), and for the use of Q by Mark, the date of Mk. is pushed towards 70, some years after the death of Peter (probably) in 64. It has, indeed, been contended that the origin of the Second Gospel is much earlier than 64 "• and that it was composed before 47, St, Peter's recollections of his Lord being communicated to St. Mark before the Apostle was compelled to leave Jerusalem in a.d. 44. But this early date, which disregards the conclusions based on the evidence that the Matthsean Logia were composed when St. Peter and St. Paid were " founding " (perhaps in the sense of consolidating) the Roman Church, and the presumption that the Logia were used by Q and Q by Mk. is likewise not easily reconciled with the internal evidence of ch. xiii., whether that chapter be the composition of St. Mark himself or incorporates an Apocalyptic document {vv. 5-29) previously in circulation. For this seems to contain references to trials in store for Christ's disciples, which ' If St. Luke's writings (the Third Gospel and Acts) were composed, as some contend, before 62 (see p. 252) an early date (somewhile before 60) is required for St. Mark's Gospel (see Harnack, Date of Acts and the Synoptic Gospels, p. 126). 172 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY are so circumstantial that they appear to reproduce the experiences under- gone by St. Paul in 56-59 and the persecution of the Christians at Rome in the time of Nero, there being a strong temptation, after such had occurred, to make the language of prediction fit the event accurately (p. 108). A date decidedly later than 47 is thus suggested for the book that includes this chapter. But that St. Mark's Gospel was composed before a.d. 70 is rendered probable by two facts, (a) Notwithstanding the predictions in xiii. 2 of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, the reference to the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans {v. 14) is not couched in the terms used by Lk. in xxi. 20 (cf. xix. 43), but retains the enigmatic phraseology of Dan. xi. 31, which the author of the Third Gospel discards. (6) The direction in v. 14 bidding those in Judsea flee to the mountains betrays no acquaintance with the circumstance that the Christians in Jerusalem fled before the siege to Pella, across the Jordan (Eus. H.E. iii. 5, 3). The language here noted throws light, strictly speaking, only on the date of the Apocalyptist whose work the Evangelist probably incorporates; but the fact that the latter has not qualified it points to his having pro- duced his Gospel before the events of 68-70. If the date of the book lies between 64 and 70, it was in all likelihood written after the execution of Peter (who probably met his death in 64) and 66 or 67 was perhaps the year of its composition. That Rome was its place of origin, as the state- ment of Irenseus seems to imply, is confirmed by various pieces of internal evidence. Among these are (a) the reference to Simon of Cyrene as the father of Alexander and Rufus (xv. 21), a Rufus being mentioned in Rom. xvi. 13 (but see p. 283) ; (6) the numerous Latinisms,^ drpxiQuyv, xEvrvgicav, xTJvaog, xodgdvTTjg, Aeyecoi', fiodto?, ^Eorrii; (= sextaritis), TiQaixwQwv, otiexov- }.dra>Q, (pQayEkXoco (= flagello) ; (c) the reference to the divorce of a husband by a wife (x. 12), which was possible according to Roman, but not according to Jewish, Law. If the date here supported be accepted, it wiU appear that the interval between the last events related in the Gospel and the committal of an account of them to writing amounts to rather more than a generation During this period the preservation of the details of our Lord's life alid ministry must have depended mainly (in spite of Lk. i. 1) upon the tenacity of the memories of His disciples. Though they had not been trained in the Rabbinic schools, where the pupils were expected to transmit what they were taught to others in the exact form in which it had been imparted to themselves (p. 97), many of the scenes and incidents in which their Lord had figured would doubtless remain fixed in their recollections. Yet there is an antecedent presumption that even the earliest Gospel does not afiord a perfectly trustworthy narrative. The actual spectators of the occurrences related are not likely to have had either the necessary motives or the necessary facilities for taking and preserving notes of all that they heard or saw, and when the reminiscences of even an Apostle were first recorded thirty-seven years afterwards by one who was himself 1 The term /t/ui/iJaTros, though adopted by the Romans in the form grabaiua, was a Macedonian word. , DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 173 an eye-witness of no more than one or two of the scenes recorded, it is reasonable to suppose that a report was produced in which honesty of intention did not keep the writer wholly free from errors due to defective information, judgment, or insight. In the course of the interval separating our Lord's death from the composition of Mk. the facts of His ministry would be increasingly viewed through the refracting medium of current ideas and beliefs respecting the Christ. Presuppositions as to the power and authority over nature appropriate to the Son of God, presumptions based on the history and prophecies of Scripture, liability to put a prosaic interpretation upon figurative and rhetorical phraseology — all these cannot have been without their influence in shaping a record of His life, and have to be taken into account in estimating the historic value of its various contents. Nor can it be overlooked that there is some reason for thinking that there were two editions of the Second Gospel, and that if so, then the matter that finds place in the Gospel as we have it, but was absent from its earliest form, probably rests upon tradition rather than upon the reminiscences of an authoritative informant like St. Peter. The Gospel according to St. Mark Since so much has abeady been said about the origin, date, and historical value of the Second Gospel, it is unnecessary here to do more than summarize what is known about its author, and to call attention to certain features characterizing his work. The writer is not named in the book itself, but according to tradition he was Mark, whose Hebrew name was John, but who had taken as a surname a Roman Tprmnomen Marcus.'- He was the son of a woman called Mary, who was a resident at Jerusalem, his father's name being unknown. It has been conjectured that it was at his mother's house that our Lord partook of the Last Supper with His disciples, and that Mark may have followed Him when He left to go to Gethsemane, and so may have witnessed what happened there (see p. 170). His mother was well Icnown to St. Peter, who went to her house after his escape from prison {Acts xii. 12). That he was a Jew by race might be inferred from his Hebrew name John, and is definitely affirmed by St. Paul in Col. iv. 10-11. He was cousin to Barnabas ; and he probably met St. Paul for the first time when that Apostle, together with Barnabas, brought relief from the Church at Antioch to the Church at Jerusalem in a.d. 46 (Acts xi. 29, 30), and he seems to have accompanied them to Antioch on their return thither. When they departed on their First Missionary tour in a.d. 47 he went with them in a subordinate capacity (v7ir]Qh:T]g, Acts xiii. 5), his duties perhaps including that of baptizing converts. At Perga, for some reason unexplained, he refused to go further, and returned to Jerusalem. When about A.D. 50 St. Paul proposed to Barnabas that they should revisit the cities where they had made converts on the previous journey, ' Other instances of Jews who had taken Roman names are Joseph Barsabbas who was also called Justus, and Syroeon who was called Nigeri 174 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Barnabas wished to take his cousin with them ; but St. Paul refused to allow it since Mark had deserted them on the former occasion ; and so Barnabas, with Mark, proceeded to Cyprus, leaving St. Paul to go to Galatia. Nothing is known of the work accomplished hj the two in Cyprus, or of Mark's subsequent career during the next ten years, until he is mentioned by St. Paul as amongst those who were with him at Eome (59-61). The Apostle thus appears to have been reconciled to him, and to have found in him a zealous fellow-worker (Col. iv. 10, Philem. 24, cf. 2 Tim. iv. 11). If the Pastoral Epistles are genuine and St. Paul was released from his first imprisonment, Mark must have returned to the East, for the Apostle, when imprisoned again, wrote to Timothy at Ephesus, directing him to bring Mark back to Rome (2 Tim. iv. 11). It was in any case at Rome that Mark became an attendant upon St. Peter. From the afiectionate term — " my son " — ^which that Apostle applies to Mark in his First Epistle (v. 13) it has been inferred that he may have been the younger man's instructor in Christian doctrine, since among the Jews pupils were often addressed by their teachers as their " sons " (Prov. i. 8, Ecclus. vii. 3). Probably it was after the death of St. Paid in 61 (see p. 348) that Mark attached himself to St. Peter, and rendered Mm service until he, too, was martyred in 64 (p. 172). A tradition preserved by Eusebius {H.E. ii. 16 and 24) relates that he was the first to go as a Christian missionary to Egypt, preaching there the Gospel which he had written, and was the first to establish churches at Alexandria, where he presided over the Christian community until the eighth year of Nero {i.e. A.D. 62) ; and the fact that he laboured in Egypt is asserted also by Epiphanius, Jerome, and others. But the date mentioned in connexion with his work in that country is not easily harmonized with the better attested record of his association with St. Peter at Rome. As has been seen (pp. 169-70), Papias, Irenaeus, TertuUian and Clement (all included in the second century A.D., though Clement at least lived into the third) state in various terms that it was the substance of St. Peter's account of his Master, imparted to those whom he instructed, that St. Mark reproduced in his Gospel. Certain points in their statements and inferences from them deserve attention. (1) Mark is called St. Peter's interpreter, so that it is a reasonable conclusion that what St. Peter narrated either in Aramaic or in indifierent Greek to St. Mark, the latter rendered into fair, though not polished, Greek. ^ (2) The Apostle in relating our Lord's words and works to his hearers, observed no systematic arrange- ment, so that if St. Mark reported faithfully but not in order what was said and done by Jesus, the responsibility for the lack of order was not his but St. Peter's. The statement that he wrote with accuracy but not in order what he remembered of St. Peter's recollections of Jesns' ministry requires a little further comment. Although precise notes of 1 Zahn, holding that St. Peter did not need an interpreter in the ordinary sense of the term, explains the words ^p/ivji/eiTTjs Xiirpov yevo/xei/os to mean that St. Mark became, through writing his Gospel, the channel whereby the Apostle's instruction was transmitted to a wider circle than he himself could possibly reach : cf. I.N.T, ii. p. 455. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 176 time are not conspicuous in the Second Gospel and the sequence of events is often indicated only vaguely {e.g. ii. 1, 23, iii. 1, iv. 1, viii. 1), and although the writer rarely attempts to date the events which he relates by reference to contemporary rulers, native or foreign, as the author of the Third Gospel does, yet the incidents recorded by him in general follow a natural order. Thus the succession of occurrences is plainly marked in i. 21, 29, 32, 35, iv. 35, v. 21, vi. 1, vii. 24, 31, xi. 1, 11, 12, etc. ; and in spite of gaps in the record (contrast iii. 13 with iii. 20), his narrative, judged by internal evidence, " presents a reasonably consistent account of the public life of our Lord."^ Accordingly it seems necessary to understand Papias' description of St. Mark's work as written " accurately but not in order " {dxQi^cb? ov fimnoi rdfet) to mean something else than grave disregard for chronological sequence in the connexion of the events. Possibly the criticism was designed to imply that it was deficient in the Studied arrangement to which the historians of antiquity devoted much care, with a view to producing an impressive efEect. Perhaps more likely it refers to the fact that examples, now of Christ's works (i.-iii.), and now of His teaching, are grouped together (iv. 1-32), instead of each instance being placed in the situation where it occurred. In any case, the defect of which complaint is made is not of such a character as to disturb the impression produced upon the readers of the Gospel that there is in the narrative an orderly development of events, culminating in the tragedy of Calvary, which warrants the belief that in general it is faithful to facts in its account of the main turning-points of our Lord's ministry. But though the Gospel is a history, it was not with a purely historical aim that its author composed it. His principal motive is suggested by the heading of his work — The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of 6od.^ The purpose of the earliest Christian writers, like that of the earliest Apostolic preachers, was to persuade men that Jesus was the Messiah, and to refute the presumption raised against such a belief by the ignominy of the Crucifixion. Such a purpose led to the selection of such incidents in their Master's life as were most calculated to create in men a conviction of His goodness and His power, to indicate correspondence between previous predictions about the Messiah and their fulfilment in the activities and the experiences of Jesus, and to reiterate His announcements about the coming kingdom, so that their narratives were in a measure a defence of the Faith in an historical shape. As has been seen, St. Mark's Gospel is not a first-hand, but a second- hand authority for our Lord's life and teaching, though for most of the events of His life it is the best we have. Amongst the sources upon which it is based are (a) St. Peter's oral instruction ; (6) the writer's own memories ; (c) possibly the document Q ; (d) probably (in ch. xiii.) " a fly-leaf of early Christian Apocalyptic prophecy, pseudonymously put into the mouth 5'' 1 Burkitt, The Gospel History, etc., p. 75. • The word dpxii seems intended to convey the thought that the good tidings from God came fiist not through John the Baptist but through Jesus (of. Heb. ii. 3, Joh. i. 8), John being merely the herald of the latter. 176 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of our Lord " ^ ; (e) probably some narratives resting on tradition, one at least appearing to be a variant version of an incident related in another part of the Gospel (see p. 414). The date of the Gospel has already been discussed, and it has been shown to be probable (p. 171) that it was written between the death of St. Peter in 64, and the siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Bomaus in 70 (about 67 ?), and most likely at Rome, where a work written in Greek would easily circulate (p. 81). If written at Eome, it would be intended for the use of Gentile Christians, and this conclusion is corroborated by its explanations of the situation of certain places in Palestine (i. 9, xi. 1), which would be unfamdliar to residents outside that country, and of Jewish customs, words, and phrases which would be unintelligible to Gentile readers (see iii. 17, v. 41, vii. 3, 4, 11, xi. 1, xv. 22, 34, 42). If the conclusion be correct that there were two editions of Mk., one used by St. Luke and the other by the author of the First Gospel (p. 158 f.), the later being identical with the book as we have it, and the earlier being shorter (lacking vi. 45-viii. 26, and perhaps some briefer passages), the interval 64r-70 probably saw both editions issued, inasmuch as the Evangelist nowhere gives any indication that he was acquainted with the fall of the Jewish capital. It is of the first edition that Rome may most confidently be regarded as the birthplace ; the enlarged second edition was most likely prepared elsewhere (perhaps in Palestine). St. Mark, in many passages common to him and the other Synoptists, exhibits certain features which have a bearing upon his quaUties as an historian as compared with those of Mt. and Lh. (1) In the following he represents our Lord as unable to do what He desired on various occasions : — (a) vi. 5. He could there do no mighty work . . . and he marvelled because of their unbelief, changed in Mt. xiii. 58 to He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. (&) vi. 48. He would have passed by them ; omitted in Mt. and Lk. (c) vii. 24. He wished that no one should know, and could not be hid; absent from both Mt. and Lk. (2) In the following Jesus is depicted as deprecating the application to Himself of the attribute " good." X. 18. Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, even God; changed in Mt. to Why askest thou me concerning that which is good ? me there is who is good. (3) Ignorance is attributed to Him in the following cases : — (a) xi. 13. Seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon ; and when he came to it he found nothing hut leaves ; in Mt. our Lord's expectation is not explicitly expressed. (6) V. 9. He asked him (a " possessed " man). What is thy name ? omitted in Mt. (c) V. 30. Who touclied my garments ? omitted in Mt. {d) vi. 38. How many loaves have ye ? omitted in both Mt. and Lk- (e) ix. 16. What question ye with them ? omitted in both Mt. and Lk. 1 Moffatt, L.N.T. p. 207, DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 177 (/) ix. 21. How long time is it since this hath come upon him ? omitted in Mt. and Lk. {(j) ix. 33. What were ye reasoning in the way ? omitted by Mt. and Lk. (4) In the following instances Jesus is described as manifesting strong human emotions, such as anger, surprise, or mental distress:— (a) i. 43, He sternly {i/j,fioi/xr]adixevog) charged him ; the participle is omitted in Mt. and Lk. (6) iii. 5, WJien he had looked round about them with anger ; the whole phrase is omitted in Mt., and the words loith anger are omitted by Lk. (c) vi. 6, He marvelled ; omitted by Mt. and Lk. {d) X. 14, He was moved with indignation ; omitted by Mt. and Lh. (e) xiv. 33, Began to he greatly amazed and sore troubled; omitted by X;fc. (5) The following phrases reflect severely on the mental and moral qualities, or on the conduct, of the disciples : — (a) iv. 13. Know ye not this parable and how shall ye know all the parables? omitted by Mt. and Lk. (6) iy. 40. Have ye not yet faith ? softened in Mt. to ye of little faith. (c) vi. 52. For they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened ; omitted by Mt. {Lk. does not retain the passage). (d) viii. 17. Have ye your heart hardened ? omitted by Mt. (Lk. does not contain the passage). (e) viii. 33. Get thee behind me, Satan (addressed to St. Peter) omitted by Lk. (/) ix. 10. Questioning what the rising from the dead should mean omitted by both Mt. and Lk. ig) ix. 32. They understood not the saying and were afraid to ask him omitted by Mt. {h) X. 24. And the disciples were amazed at his words ; omitted by both Mt. and Lk. (i) xiv, 50. And they all left him and fled ; omitted by Lk. In consequence of the conspicuous candour here displayed by St. Mark, the confidence reposed in his Gospel, as compared with the other Synoptists, on the ground of its priority, is further justified. It is not unlikely that the severity of the judgments passed here and there upon the Apostles is due to the derivation of the narrative from the teaching of St. Peter. " It is the personal remorse of an impulsive nature that shines through the many statements in the Gospel which describe the lack of faith, the ambition, the sluggish intelligence, the disgraceful flight of the disciples. "1 But St. Mark had been a companion of St. Paul before he acted as the mterpreter of St. Peter ; and if, when recording the latter's recollections, he preserved his tone of self-condemnation, he may reasonably be expected to reflect something of the mind of the former also. The employment of Jesus Christ (i. 1) as a proper name probably reproduces the usage of the Church generally (see Acts ii. 38, iii. 6, etc.), and not of St. Paid alone, !■ See Allen, St. Mark, p. 22. 12 178 NEW 'rtESTAMii^rl' litStORY but possibly the description of the Gospel not as of the Kingdotn bilt as of Jesus Christ the Son of God, and the addition in viii. 35, x. 29 to'/o^ nt'^ sdhe of thfe Words dhd the gospel's are due to Pauline influence (d. the Apostle's language in Rom. xv. 19, 1 Cor. ix. 23) ; the explanation of oflr' Lord'^ eliiploymeiit 6f parables (iv. 11-12) corresponds to St. Palil's views as expressed id Rom. xi. 8 (cf. ix. 18) ; and there iS k striking coincidence between oUr Lord's use of the word ransom (Xm^oi) in con- nexion with His death (x. 45) and St. Paul's phrase " the raiisOiiiing (AnoXixQioaiQ) that is in Christ Jesus " {Rom. iii. 24). It is also interesting to note that the words Abhd, Fdther, Occur in the New Testament ottly in Mk. xiv. 36, Rom. viii. 15, arid Gdl. iv. 6. St. Mark's quotations from the Old Testament, which occur allrioat exclusively in the utterances of our Lord or of Other persons figuring in his narrative, and are rarely introduced by the Evangelist himself, are' usually froin the LXX. Thus in his citation (i. 3) from 2 Is. xl. 3, 4, he connects with the words " The voice of one Crying " the following '' in the wilderness," as the LXX does ; whereas the Hebrew takes " in the wilderness " with " make ye ready." The quotation in xii. 10 correSJ)ond# Verbally with the LXX version bi Ps. cxviii. (= cxvii.) 22 ; whilst that in vii. 6, 7 reproduces substantially the LXX reridering of 7s. xrix. 13, which varies considerably from the Hebrew. There are, hot^ever, some exc^J)tioiis. The (Quotation in xii. 36 froin Pi. ex. 1 has vnoxdzw tcSv no8u)v aov for the LXX's vnonodiov rcov noScbv aoli (which is clOSe tO tM Hebrew) ; whilst that in xiv. 27, from 2 Zech. xiii. 1, ii nearer to the Hebrew than to the LXX. The incomplete quotation in iv. 12 from 7s. vi. &, Iff departs in the final clause from both the LXX and the Hebrew ; ini the quotation in i. 2 (really from Mai. iii. 1, though ascribed tO Isdidh) ailso varies from the Greek version as well as from the original Hebrew.^ St. Mark has certain features of style which, though most otviolis in the original Greek, are to some extent discernible evei in an English translation. One of the most prominent is a redundancy o'f eXpi'e^MfllH already alluded to (p'. l56), of which the following are additio'nal illiMtra-j tiOlis : — ','. i. 28. went out everywhere into all the districts. ii. 25. when he had need and was a hungered. iv. 1. all the multitude were by the sea on the land. v. 23. that she may be made whole and live. vii. 21. from withini out of the heart of rrian. X. 30. now, in this present time. xiv. 61. he held his peace and answered nothing. In the following examples the same idea is repeated in two forms, affirmative and negative : — ii. 19. Can the sons of the bridechamher fast while the btidegreom is with them ? as lon^ as they have the bridegroom with them ihey cannot fa^' ' The quotation from Malachi in i. 2 has been associated with the one from luim in i. 3 through both having in common the phrase make ready (the way), Heb. pi%nA, which occurs only in these two passages ttnd in 3 la. Ivii. 14, Ixii. 10. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 179 ii. 27. The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. iii. 26. he cannot sta/nd but hath an end. X. 27. With men it is impossiMe but not with God, for all things are possible with God. xi. 23. shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe. Otter conspicuous characteristics are a fondness for the historic present (i. 12, 21, 30, 38, 40, 44, etc., cf. p. 156) ; for the combination of ehai with a present or perfect participle (i. 6, 33, ii. 6, 18, iv. 38, v. 5, etc.) ; for the use of fjg^aro {rJQ^avro) with an infinitive (i. 45, ii. 23, iv. 1, v. 17, 20, etc.) ; for the employment of a superfluous 6V« before statements in the oratio recta (i. 15, 37, iii. 11, 22, iv. 21, v. 23, viii. 4, ix. 11, etc.) ; for the adverbial use of nokXd (v. 10, naQExdXei aindv noXka, vi. 20, noXXa riTioQBi, see also xv. 3) ; for a love of compound verbs ; for diminutives (Bvydrgiov, noQaaiov, naidCaxr], IxdvSia, nXoiaQiov, coraQiov) ; and for jisyndeta (v. 35, ix. 38, x. 27, 28, 29, xii, 24, 29, xiv. 19). There is also observable a tendency to accumulate negatives idiomatically (i. 44, iii. 27, V. 3, ix. 8, xi. 14, xii, 14, 34, etc.), and to employ with a preposition a compound verb containing the same preposition (i. 16, 21, ii. 21, v. 13, 17, vii. 25, ix. 42, x. 25, etc.). The connective xai is very frequently used instead of the more idiomatic di even where an adversative particle would be more appropriate (vi. 19, xii. 12). This is not the only Hebraic feature of his style ; other Hebraisms occur in i. 7 (o^ . . . airov), ii. 7 (dvo Wo, cf. m. 39, 40), viii. 12 [el dodi^aexat for ov /i^ dodrj). Not a few of his sentences are harshly constructed, the most notable occurring in iv. 31, v. 23, vi. 8-9, 22, viii. 28, xii. 19, 38, xv. 8, 11. St. Mark has a number of favourite words, amongst which are the following : — again (or back), ndXiv being interjrreted, fiedegnrjvevo/ievog he amazed, i>SaiifiEO[iai look around, neQi^Mnofiat bring (or bring forth), cpegco much (or greatly), noXM centurion, xsvrvglmv no more, ovxeri charge, SiaxniXXoiiai riot yet, oiinco come, Igxofiac pallet, xgd^arrog dumb, Sktkig flague (or malady), /idani dry up (or wither, or pine away), question, aw^rireoi irjgalvo/iai round about, xvxkq) go (or proceed) out, ixnogevoiiai stand by (or is come), nagearrixa go in (or into), elanogEvofiai straightway, evdvQ gospel, Ivayyihov teaching, Sidaxv hoU (my. Ids) peace, aicondco which is (or that is to say), S iariv in the morning, ngwt unclean, dxddagrog It has been previously mentioned (p. 145) that a form of text which is marked by certain peculiar characteristics, and which is commonly known as the " Western " (ot 8) text is found in certain MSS., Versions and Fathers. The principal uncial in which these peculiarities occur is the Bezan MS. (D) ; and as some of these are of a rather remarkable nature, a list of the most notable in Mk. is here subjoined, together with the readings (most commonly approved, as based on the best author- ities) which they replace or supplement, 180 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Approved Text ^ Western Text i. 6, for camel's hair (rplxi'-i) subelitutes a camel's skin (JeppTji/) i. 41, for being moved with compassion subatitutea being moved with anger ii. 14, for Levi ai^atitutes James iii. 18, for ThaddaBus aubalitmtea Lebbasus iii. 21, for is beside Himself aubatitutea makes (people) beside them- selves vii. 19, for draught (d^eSpcico) subatitutea intestinal canal ((Sxerdi') viii. 24, after men omits for I behold them ix. 12, for Elijah indeed cometh subatilutea If Elijah cometh X. 16, for And he took them in his arms aubatitutea And he called them xiii. 2, after thrown down adds and after three days another shall be raised without hands xiv. 22, fcrr and when he thought thereon aubatitutea and he began to weep he wept XV. 25, for crucified him aubatitutea guarded him XV. 34, for Eloi subatitutea EU The moat important question in textual criticism relating to St. Mark's Gospel concerns the genuineness of the last twelve verses (xvi. 9—20). The external evidence for their authenticity is their occurrence in the following authorities.* Manuscripts— A CDEFGHKLMWXrAH'i'SS, 69 and all late manuscripts. Of these L and 'ir break off after v. 8. L introduces, with the words " these, too, are somewhere current," the alternative short conclusion mentioned below ; and finally adds, with the words " And there are these also current," the conclusion con- tained in the twelve verses 9-20. In the case of 'I' the short ending follows imme- diately after v. 8 without any prefatory words. Certain cursives prefix a note to the verses in question, stating that they are not included in some copies, whilst a few of these cursives add that they occur " in the ancient copies." One cursive (22) has tAos after both v. 8 and v. 20, and has at v. 8 the note " In some copies the Evangelist is completed here, but in many these (i.e. w. 9-20) also are current." Similar notes occur in some other cursives. The uncial W after v. 14 inserts the following ' : — KiiK€7voL dTTcKoyovvTo \4yovT€S &TI. 6 aliiiv oCtos t^s d.vofjiia^ Kal r^s ATrtffWas inrb rbv Zarapov (TTtv, 6 firj kC]v Til inrb ri^v ■jrvev/j.druv 6.K6.dafyra ttjv aX'^dcLav tov deov KaToKa^iadai eKeivot ^\eyov Tifi X/71 (TTi^, Kal 6 XpLo-rbs kKeivois trpofr^Xeyev Uri Tre-trX-fiporraL 6 8pos tCjv erwv r^s cl^owrias tov "ZaTava, 6.\\b. eyyl^ei &Wa deivci, Kal ijTrkp frOiv* [wi'] [eyuj] afiapr/iaavruv See Expositor, Dec. 1895, p. 404. m . 9- 10. V. U. Vt' . 12, 13. V. 14. V. 15. V, 16. vv • 17, 18. 182 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and twice in Paul ; (rvvepfyiu four times in Paul ; /3e/3au5w five times in Paul and twice in Hebrews ; \a\eiv y\t!!ii.vq (viz. Jesus) must have occurred in some previous sentence, so that the passage has every appearance of being "the beginning of a narrative taken from another source " ' and severed from ite true context. A plausible explanation of its origin came to light at the end of last century. It has been mentioned that the passage occurs in many, though not in aU, of the MSS. of the Armenian version ; amd in one ■of them, found in 1891 at Edschniatzen,near Mount Ararat, and dating from a.d. 986,* its authorship is ascribed to a presbyter called Ariston, who has been conjecttirally identified with the Aristion who is included by Fapias amongst the disciples of the Lord (Eus. H.E. iii. 39, cf . p. 228^), and on whose authority some of Papias' accounts of the words of the Lord were based. If this is correct, the passage probably dates from early in the second century a.'D., since it seems to have been known to Justjn Mart}^: and to Irenseus. In addition to, or in place of, w. 9-20 there appears in certain manuscripts another and shorter appendix to the Gospel, which is as follows : — " And all that had been enjoined on them (the women) they reported briefly to the companions of Peter. And after these things Jesus Himself from the east even to the west sent forth through them the holy and incorruptible proclamation of eternal salvation." Both the Longer and the Shorter appendix are found in the Uncials L ■ir and itwo fragments (the Shorter being placed before its companion) ; but a translation of the Shorter alone occurs in the Godex Bobiensis (k) of the Old Latin version, and in some Ethiopio manuscripts ; and it is also inserted in the margin of the cursive 274 of the Harkleian Syriao, and of some manuscripts of the Egyptian versions. No mention of the Shorter conclusion has been found in any Father.' This Appendix (it will be seen), Uke the Longer, represents that the women carried out the directions of the Angel recorded in «. 7 without smoothing over the discrepancy with V. 8 ; but whilst mentioning that our Lord appeared to His disciples, it gives no details. It has little documentary support, and the internal evidence is against its authenticity, the expression " the holy and incorruptible proclamation of etepial salvation " being suggestive of a second-century date. In spite of the inoonsistepcy noticed between it and v. 8, it has, unlike the Longer conclusion, all the appearance of having been expressly composed by an unskilful writer to round oft the awkward termination of the Gospel in k. 8. The reference to the diffusion of the Gospelfrom the east to the west has suggested that it had its origin at Rome.' Though it is improbable that either of the two Appendices is the Gospel's original ending, it is equally improbable that it was brought by its author intentionally to a conclusion at v. 8. The book manifestly cannot have finished without relating ,ho» 1 Allen, St. Murk, p. 192. ' The combination 6 Kiipios 'l-qaom occurs, within the [Gospels, only.in Lh.X!xv. 3, but is found several times in Acts (xx. 24, etc.) and in St. Paul (2 Oar. xi.,23, xvi. 23). ' Westoott and Hort, New Testament, App., p. 50. * See Expositor, Oct. 1893, p. 241 f. 6 Against the identification see Bacon, The Beginnings of Ooapel Story, ]p. 238. • Westoott and Hort, New Testament, Appendix, p. 38. ' Swete, St. Ma/rk, p. ci. I?j9f;U>lENTAR¥ GEITICISM 183 thy)romise that Christ would meet His followers in Galilee {v. 7) wa* fulBUed ; b^t 4ipw the oonolusion came to be mutilated can only be conjectured. ' A possible explana- tion is that it was due to accident at a very early date (before copies of the autograjA had been multiplied) through the fragility of the material upon which tiie work was ymttfifi ,(pf . p. 126,). j^nfit^eji f^ that gt. Mark i^iljended to include, in additipp/to the aooonnt oi the Res\irreption appearances, Bon;ie matters jelating to the,ea,rly Church (of. p. 243) ; but was interrupted before he could embody in his Gospel the remainder of the material he 'had ooUeoted.' * The ,G.ospel according to St. Matthew In regard to ithe origin of tlie First fGospel the external and the internal iBvidence are in conflict. It has 'hee^n seen (p. 166) that Irenseus, lOrigen, ;aiid Euaebius aiU artitribute its authorship to Matthew, who, from being a (toll-ooUeotor, became a .disciple and Apostle of our Lord, though since (they likewise agree in representing that he wrote it in Hebrew, the existing 'Gospel which we have can, at most, ibe only a translation of the original waii. But this account is aA variance with the evidence afforded by |the ihook itself. As has been shown, it incorporates almost all the substance of Mk., omitting (pp. 149-52) only three miracles (i. 23 f ., vii. 32 f ., viii. 22 f .), two other incidents (ix. 38-40, xii. 40-44), and one parable (iv. 26-29), in adflitionto some slighter matters (i. 45, iii. 20, 21, vi. 12, 13) ; whilst to •some extent there is retained even MA;. 's phraseology (see pp. 153-4 and cf. xiv. 22-26 with Mk. vi. 45-50 ; xv. 32-39 with Mk. viii. 1-10 ; xvii. 1-7 •with Mft. ix. '2-5 ■; xx.i23-28 with MA;, x. 40-45). It is extremely impro- able either that an Apostle and eye-witness of our Lord's ministry should have depended in this way forihis information upon the production of one who was not an eye-witness, or that a Greek rendering of ihis work should agree so closely with St. Mark's Greek. But the inconsistency between the external itestimony and 4ihe internal conditions admits of being reconciled, if account'be taken of the stateraentof Papias that St. Matthew composed in Hebrew awoik which Papias calls rd Xoyia. This term though applic- lableitoian historical woik like the First Gospel, is equally appropriate to a lOdleotion of oracles or sayings (see p. 166) ; and.evidence has been adduced that the iEirst Gospel, besides embodying St. Mark's Gospel, also includes in whole or in part another source, Q, which embraces a number of iparables, detached utterances, and connected discourses of Jesus. If, then, it is. assumed that a collection of these was compiled by St. Matthew ,in Hebrew (by which term is doubtless meant Aramaic) and entitled Aoyja Mvgmxd in a Greek translation, and that the Greek rendering of this oolleotion, first incorporated in Q, entered through the latter into the composition of the First rGospel, the ascription of that Gospel to ■Sit. >lbitthew can be reasonably. explained. The book is anonymous, and 'the author was probably obscure ; so that if there prevailed a tradition that a.woirkiby an Apostle had been drawn upon, it.-jFOuld be natural for 'the name .of that Apostle to be associated iwith it, in order to enhance its .authority. It is true that the Xoyia appear to be embedded likewise in the TJiird Gospel; Iji^t iqiisijauch as t]t(Js j^Jp^pel lyas .known, or geijerally 1 Cf. Zahn, I.N.T. u. p. 479. 184 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY believed, to be the production of St. Luke, there was not the same motive for displacing the name of the real author by that of one who had only contributed some of the materials of it. About the actual writer of the Gospel nothing is known, though it may be inferred from the general character of the work, especially from the interest displayed in the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecies by the acts and experiences of Jesus, and from various other features noticed below (p. 187) that he was a Jewish Christian. Little more is known about the Apostle whose name is connected with it. St. Matthew was a collector of tolls at some place on the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum (p. 4), within the dominion of Herod Antipas. It appears from the parallel narratives of his call (Mt. ix. 9= Mk. ii. 14) that he was also named Levi, both of his names being Hebraic.^ Shortly after he was summoned by Jesus to join Him, he entertained Him at a feast (though see p. 384), but apart from this incident he does not figure in the Gospel history. Though he is represented in the Talmud as having been put to death by a Jewish court, he is expressly declared (in Clem. Alex. Strom, iv. 9) not to have suffered martyrdom.^ The two sources already mentioned, St. Mark's Gospel and Q, do not exhaust the materials employed in the composition of the First Gospel. The writer also had at Ms disposal much other (presumably oral) infor- mation ; and his Gospel is, next to St. Luke's, the longest. As it embodies the Gospel of St. Mark almost in its entirety, and supplements it with matter derived alike from Q and from current tradition, it naturally exceeds the Second Gospel considerably in extent. But in respect of the matter common to both, it is of inferior authority wherever the two are in conflict, for it is one degree farther removed from the primary source, viz. the reminiscences of St. Peter. Nor, indeed, in respect of our Lord's Sayings, as preserved in St. Matthew's Logia, does it stand any nearer to the original source, if the writer became acquainted with them through an intermediate channel, the document Q. Nevertheless for the Sayings it is, in common with St. Luke's Gospel, our sole authority, since neither the collection of the Logia nor Q has survived in an independent form. Those parts of its contents which are common to it and to the Third Gospel, and which come from Q, naturally as a whole command greater confidence than those passages which it alone contains. Among the latter, however, there are many which on grounds of intrinsic probability have every claim to credence. Such in particular are those which consist of parables and aphorisms, for these are antecedently less likely to be the creations of pious fancy than narratives of incident (e.g. xxvii. 52, 53). Whether the account of the supernatural Birth of Jesus, and the incidents that are related to have attended it (ch. i., ii.), is a history of actual occurrences is considered elsewhere (pp. 360-2). Probably the title of the book — /?/|9^* yeviaecos 'Irjooy Xgtarov vlov Aaveld viov 'APQadfi— does not relate td"': > It is said by Edersheim (Life and Times, etc., i. p. 514) to have been the custom for natives of Galilee to have two names — one Jewish and one GaUlean. ' Hastings, D.B. iu. p. 296. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 185 the circumstance that it contains a genealogy of our Lord and the story of His nativity (though ydveaig is used of this in i. 18), but is to be under- stood in the sense of " Book of the history of Jesus Christ," etc. (like " the book of the history of Adam," LXX, ^ pip^og yeviaewg avdQmmav (='Heb. Adam) in Gen. v. 1). In the endeavour to estimate the qualities of the writer of the First Gospel as an historian, much help may be obtained by examining the way in which he has dealt with his principal source, the Gospel of St. Mark ; and the following are some of the characteristics that emerge from such an examination. 1. In the early part of his appropriations from St. Mark he has made some' strange fchanges in the order of events, as will be seen from the table (p. 148 f.); and it is not until the account of John the Baptist's death (xiv. 1-12 = Mk. vi. 14-29) that the alterations are abandoned, though passages which in Mk. are in juxtaposition are still often separated by the insertion of matter derived from Q. The reasons for the writer's departure from Mk.'s order of events in the early part of his book are not always very apparent. But in one or two incidents he produces a more logical (as contrasted with a chronological) sequence than is found in Mk., as when (in x. 5-42) he attaches to the account of the appointment of the Twelve the directions given to them by their Master, which in Mk. are related subsequently (see Mk. vi. 7-13, compared with iii. 14^19). The deaire to secure this result will also account for his transference of some of our Lord's utterances from the position which they occupy in Mk. : the saying for instance about the proper place for the lamp {Mk. iv. 21) is removed from after the parable of the Sower to after the declaration that the disciples are the light of the world {Mt. v. 15) ; whilst the direction to forgive, when praying, all ofEences is moved from its position after the statement of the need of faith in making requests of God {Mk. xi. 25), and is placed after the Lord's Prayer {Mt. vi. 15). The principle of associating with one another passages similar in contents or tenor, which is observable in the instances just enumerated, is a general feature of the author of Mt. The grouping together of kindred incidents or discourses is found (as has been noticed, p. 175) in Mk., but it is much more conspicuous in the First Gospel. Thus three miracles, two from Mk. and one from Q, are brought together in Mt. viii. 1-17 ; four miracles, two from Mk. and two from traditions preserved only in this Gospel, are united in ix. 18-34 ; three parables, two from Mk. and one from Q, are associated in xiii. 1-32. Groups of three are exceptionally common, and occur in connection with warnings (v. 22, vi. 2-18), classes of persons (xix. 12), contrasts (xxiii. 23), and addresses (" Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, xxiii. 13, 15, 23, etc.), aU these being confined to this Gospel, though it has many others which come from its sources, e.g. the threefold temptation (iv. 1-11), and the triple question about the Baptist (xi. 7-9), both from 6, Christ's three prayers in Gethsemane (xxvi. 36-46), and St. Peter's three denials (xxvi. 69-75), both from Mk. But the writer does not restrict himself to threefold groups ; he also arranges his matter by fives and sevens, Thus five discourses are each closed with the same phrase "it Ue NEW TESTAMEJ^T HISTORY came to pass when Jesus ended . . ." (yii. 28, xi. 1, xiii. 53, xix. 1, xxvi. 1); and the first of these idiscouises, the Sermon on the Mount, contains ifiye contrasts drawn between directions delivered " to them of old tjjpje," and the commands enjoined by Jesus (v. 21, 27, 33, 38, 43). Grouping by seven is found in connexion with the parables contained in ch. xii;. (where oniy two are derived from Mk.) and with the W.oes contained in ch. xxdii. (of which four alone come from Q). Three, jive and seven are aU favourite numbers with Hebrew writers, and the frequent adjustment of the subject matter to .these figures gives .to the First Gospel an exceiptipn- aUy formal aspect. And to what lengths the author was prepared to go in the initerest of symmetry is well illustrated by the construction of the genealogical table in ihis opening chapter, where in order to flidapt to t^ number of generations from Abraham to David the number from Davi^ to Jeconiah he omits the names of three kings (Ahaziah, Joaah, an4 Amazdahi) between Joram and Uzziah. The fact that the author of Mt. supplemented what he drew from the Second Gospel by matter taken from Q almost inevitably rendered space an imjportaBt consideration, so that it was natural that he should not only omit a few iucidents recorded by Mh- (see p. 183), ,but should also frequently abbreviate his language. Thus where Mark uses two 8ynon3Tnous, oj almost synonymous, phrases, he frequently omits one (p. 156). Other examples of small lomisaions, where the Second Evangelist is redundant, are found in xii. .8 compaied with Mh. ii. 25, in xiii. 2, compared with M,k. iv. 1, in XV. 6 compared with Mk- vLi. 13, and in xix. 26 compared with Mk- X. 27.1 Similarly to save space long passages in Mk. are sometimes much curtailed, as ds the case with Mh.ix. 1-12 (the paralytic at Capernaum), Mk. V. 1-20 (the demoniac at Gerasa), Mk. v. 22-43 (Jairus' daughter), and Mk. ix. 14:--29 (the epileptic boy), which are reduced to much smaller compass in Mt. ix. 1-8, viii. 28-34, ix. 18-26, and xvii. 14—20 respectively. But alterations of Mk. are occasioned by other considerations than .the desire for brevity. ,Some changes are introduced in the interest of clearness or accuraoyj as when there is substituted the later ,name Matthew for thjB earlier Levi in ix. 9 ( == Mk. ii. 14), ,the verb cruc^yioi kill in xx. 19 ( == Mk- X. 34), the description in the holy place for where he ought not in xxiv. 15 {=== Mk. xiii. 14), the title tetro/rch ior king in xiv. 1 (= Mk. vi. 14) ^; ,(tr an erroneous statement is omitted as in xii. 4 (compared with Mk. ii. 2Q).' There are also some changes in local names such as Gadarenes (viii. 28) for Mk.'s Gerasenes (v. 1) and Magadan (sy. 39i) for Mk.'s Dalmanviha (viii. 10). To the passage in Mk. viii. 14-21, relating our Lord's warriing,to His disciples to ibeware-of the leaven of the Pharisees, there is addedihis explanation that by the term " leaven " was meant the teaching lof ;thiB Pharisees (ixvi. 12). Similarly .to Mk. ix. 13, containing Jesus' statement 1 Conversely, however. Ml. x. 9 has " nor silver, nor brass " where A Mh. yii- ^¥ "jno .brass" find Lk. iix. 3 has "no sjlyier." ' In ^v. 9 king is retaip?d. ' In view Of these corrections it is remarkable that in xxiii. ,35 the priest Zadiaiisli (son of Jehoiada) is described as the son of Barachiah, whereas the error is not jn»de in Lk. 3d. 50, where ihe fatiiarts name is .absent. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 187 that Elijah had akeady oome, tibie First Evangelist appends a verse (xvii. 13) explajduing ithat the disciples understood Him to refer to John the Baptist. Ib certain iastanoes it is the form rather than the substance of Mk.'s etatement tihat he improves, toy smoothiag out awkward constructions as m JK. Ii8 (ef . Mk. v. 23,), xiii. 8 ,(«f . Mk. iv. 8), xiii. 32 (of. Mk. iv. 31), xix. 29 ,(,cf. Mk. X. 29, 30), xxi. 26 (cf. Mk. xi. 32), xxiii. 6, 7 (of. Mk. xii. 38, 39), xxiv. !&, TO p6ihiy,iJta . . eazog (of. Mk. xiii. 14, to ^diXvyixa sarr^wra), ,j3ii.''24.(cf. Mk. xii. 19)iajid xxvi. S6,(cf . Mk. xiv. 49). In xvi. 4 (ov Sod^aetai) the Hebiaic idiom el M^feTai, eampkyed in MJc,. yjii. 12, is replaced by one more consonant with Greek usage ; and in xxiv. 31 he substitutes the more natural phrase an' cbcgwv ovQavcav etog d,xQoy\> omxcav for Mk.'s curious lejppression ^Ji' dtcgov yijg Scos Shqov mgavov (xiii. 27). •jOn the other hand some of the compressions of Mk. for which the ■autlmr of the First Gqspel is responsible have resulted in a lack of lucidity. Tihus in xiv. 9 the reference, " to theim that sat at meat with him " is very laibmjit because of the omission of Mk.'s statement that Herod on his Ibilthday ihad made a supper to the members of his court ; and in xxvi. (67-68 ilie taunt " Prophecy " uttered by the soldiers when bufEeting our JjOTd is obseuire by -reason of the absence of all mention of the previous 'blindfolding. In some places the First Evangelist, in his reproductions of ML, gives quite a difierent turn to the statement of his authority, notable instances occurring in xxi. 3 as compared with Mk. xi. 3 (see p. 434) and ID XKvii. 48, 49, as compared with Mk. xv. 36 (p. 468). More important than this proneness to introduce verbal alterations into Mk.'s narrative are certain lOther aims and tendencies manifested iby the Rrst Evangelist. These are (i) a desire to trace throughout our Jiord's ministry a close fulfilment of prophecy, leading in some places to a modifi- (OaJtioa of the statements derived from his authorities in oider to render theoopiespond^nce more exact ; (ii) an inclination to lomit or to qualify •espressions implying in our Lord human weaknesses or human limitations ; and conversely to enlarge or enhance the details of wonders attributed to Him, soras to make them more impressive ; (iii) a like inclination to remove or to iDiinimize statements reflecting unfavourably upon the disciples. (i) As one cd the purposes of the writer in composing his Gospel was to ■coaviaoe 'those of 'his readers who were Jews that Jesus was the predicted Messiah ;of their race, attention ds repeatedly drawn to the fact that numerous incidents recounted albout Him accorded with statements contained in the Scriptures (i. 22, 23, ii. 17, 18, 22, 23, iv. 14-16, viii. 17, xii. 17-21, xiii. 34, 35, xxi. 4,-5, xxvii. 9). Th« desire to illustrate the close lOorrespondence between ^prediction and event has in one instance caused him to do 'violence to the sense of the Hebrew parallelism occurring in the praphecy .quoted (xxi. 2-5, contrast Mk. xi. 2). In a second instance .(iSKvi. 15) healters the words of Mk. ,(xiv. 11) in such a way as to recall a passageifrom Zeoharidh (xi. 12, LXX) without actually citing it. And in a third 'instance (xxvii. 34) relating to our Lord's action in refusing the wine -ofEered ^to Him on the Cross, he departs from MA. 's representation (xv. 23) (merely (as it would appear) in order to secure a fulfilment of the words of Ps. ilxix. 21 (= :lsviii. 22). In a similar spirit he seems (to have put an 188 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY erroneous seuse upon our Lord's declaration that to those who desired of Him a sign none should be given save the sign of Jonah (xii. 40) (see p. 414). (ii) A sense of profoundest veneration for Jesus and of reverence for His Apostles leads to the introduction of changes in passages derived from the Second Gospel which might appear incompatible with these feelings. Thus in regard to our Lord, Mh.'s numerous statements attributing to Him some inability to do all that He wished, questions implying ignorance, or the display of some strong emotion are often omitted or modified (see p. 176 f .), though this is not done quite uniformly (see ix. 30). It is probably from the desire to remove any suspicion of Jesus' powerlessness to protect Himself against those sent to arrest Him, had He wished to do so, that there is inserted between Mk.'s verses xiv. 47 and 48 the three verses xxvi. 52-54 (suggesting that more than twelve legions of angels were available for His defence). In certain passages, as compared with the parallels in Mk., there is some enhancement or accentuation of the miraculous : for instance, in viii. 16 Mk.'s many is changed to all ; in ix. 22, XV. 28, xvii. 18 (all passages derived from Mk.) the immediacy of the cures is emphasized by the addition that they took place from that very hour ; and in xxi. 20 the withering of the barren fig tree, observed, according to Mk. xi. 20, only on the following day, is expressly stated to have happened (and presumably to have been observed) at once. More- over in the narrative of two miracles derived from Mk. the number of sufEerers relieved is doubled, two demoniacs being substituted for one at Gadara (Gerasa), and two blind men for one at Jericho (viii. 28, xx. 30), though there may have been another motive for this (p. 431). (iii) Similarly in regard to the Apostles, the writer was unwilling to see them placed in an unfavourable light, and so he removed many passages in Mk. that were calculated so to place them. Instead of Mk.'s (ix. 34) " They had disputed one with another in the way who was the greatest " he substitutes (xviii. 1) the less invidious inquiry, " In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, ' Who, then, is greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? ' " and in Mt. xx. 20, 21, the request attributed by Mk. (x. 35-37) to the sons of Zebedee that they might occupy places of distinction near Him in His glory, is ascribed to their mother. He retains, however, in xvii. 14-20 the story of the disciples' inability to heal the epileptic boy (taken from Mk. ix. 14^29), and even adds a verse (xvii. 20) in which the disciples' want of faith is emphasized. From the comparison here instituted between the First and Second Gospels, it is clear that when Mt., in borrowing from Mk., has departed from him, his divergences from his authority, viewed from an historical standpoint, are, in general, for the worse. In particular, his departure from Mk.'s order involves a much less intelligible sequence of occurrences. Thus Mk. represents our Lord as at first preaching freely in the synagogues, as subsequently evoking strictures from the Scribes by declaring to a paralytic the forgiveness of his sins (ii. 6), and as finally incurring the murderous hostility of the Pharisees and Herodians by His cure, on the Sabbath, of the man with a withered hand (iii. 1-6). After this, our Lord is not again related to have entered a synagogue in Galilee except on one DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 189 occasion at His own town of Nazareth (vi. 1, 2). The breach with the Jewish religious leaders thus accounts for His organization of His followers into a distinct body (as narrated in Mk. iii. 13-19). i But in Mt. the organization of the Apostolic company (Mt. x. 1-4) is recounted before the healing of the man with the withered hand (xii. 9-14), which, as in Mh., is the incident that determines the adversaries of our Lord to seek His life ; and in consequence, the development of events is less compre- hensible. As a narrative, then, of objective facts Mt. is inferior to Mk. But it is probable that Mt. was not greatly concerned to relate the incidents of Christ's ministry in exact chronological sequence (for the artificial system in which he has arranged so much of his materials appears to be incompatible with this) ; his real interest lay in illustrating efEectively certain aspects of Jesus' life and work with a view to proving that He was the Messiah of Jewish hopes, and in preserving a record of His discourses. And if his book is, in consequence, a less valuable historical document than St. Mark's (recording less accurately both what actually happened and how it came to happen), yet it attests most significantly the heightened appreciation by the Christian community of our Lord's Personality, and is of the greatest worth through containing so much of His teaching which is absent from the Second Gospel, and even from the Third Gospel. A large proportion of the teaching of Jesus finds a place in Mt. through the inclusion in the Gospel of extracts from Q. The freedom with which the writer of Mt. has handled the order of the occurrences in Mk. (see p. 148) renders it probable that he has used the same liberty in re-arranging the sections derived from Q, though the question cannot be tested. But of the actual phraseology of the sections Mt. probably preserves more than Lk., who seems to have endeavoured to improve the Greek (see p. 201). On the other hand there occur a few passages derived from Q in which it is the author of Mt. who seems to have modified the original. Thus in Mt. vi. 33, which is parallel to Lk. xii. 31, the First Evangelist has Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness, whereas the Third Evangelist has merely Seek ye His kingdom ; and the prevalence of Jewish-Christian sym- pathies in Mt. and his frequent use of righteousness (seven times)^ suggest that in this instance Lk. preserves the saying in the most authentic form. Even in the matter of style, Mt. occasionally is more literary than Lk., e.g. in vi. 30 he has d^ipievvvaiv, where Lk. (xii. 28) has the Hellenistic aiicpidl^si.^ The First Gospel, besides combining materials taken from Mk., with others derived from Q and modifying these in various ways, also includes (as has been said) much substantial matter not found elsewhere. This matter consists partly of Sayings of our Lord and partly of incidents occurring in His ministry ; and since the source of it cannot be traced either to St. Peter (as in the case of the materials obtained from St. Mark) or to St. Matthew (as in the case of the sayings or discourses drawn from Q), its origin is doubtful, and the historical value of parts of it open ' See Burkitt, The Gospel History, pp. 67-69, * Not found in Mk. and only once in Lk, ' Cambridge Biblical Essays, p. 486, im NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY to question. The Longer Sayings include various utterances comprised in tte' Serition on the Mount ; the Parables of thei Tares, the Hid Treasure, the Pearl of great price, the Drag-net, the Unmerciful Servant, the Laboilteis in the Vineyard, the Two Sons, and the Marriage FeasSj certain words addressed to the Scribes and Pharisees ; the additional Parables of the Ten Virgins and of the Talents ; and the dramatic piotnie of the Judgment in xxv. 31-46. The parables can hardly fail to be authentic utterances of Jesus. On the other hand, the Judgment Scene, in which the Son of Man is depicted as separating those who are brought before Him as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats, has been suspected of not being our Lord's, at least in its present form. It has been suggested that it is a Christian homily^ ; and certain features have been pointed out in it {e.ef. the description of the Son of Man as " sitting on the throne of His glory " (v. 31, cf. also xix. 28) and of " the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels " {v. 41), which recAU the language of the Book of Enoch. ^ Among the Shorter Sayings (which cannot be enu- merated here) perhaps those of which the genuineness is most doubtful are the passages in xvi. 17-19 concerning St. Peter and the Church, the passage in xviii. 17, in which mention is again made of the Church, and the passagd in xxviii. 19, 20 in which the Risen Lord directs His disciples to baptize in the name of the Trinity. The references to the Church are isolat^ in the Gospels ; and though the word itself may well have been used by Jesus of His followers as constituting the real Israel (see p. 389), yet of these two references at least the first seems to have in view a stage of organization that was not reached until after our Lord's death (see p. 418). The direction to baptize disciples in the name of the Trinity also seemSj in the light of the fact that the baptismal formula both in Acts and in tho Epistles of St. Paul is in the name of Jesus, or the equivalent of this (see p. 628), to be most probably anachronistic. As is shown in the table (p. 148 f.) there are several incidents in the narratives of our Lord's birth and death which occur only in Mt. In view of the inferior authority for them as a whole, and the internal improb- ability of some, it is likely that several are unhistoric, but a discussion of them will be most in place in the course of the history. Numerous features in the First Gospel favour the conclusion already mentioned that the author of it was a Jewish Christian, who composed it for the benefit of his fellow countrymen. To preclude as far as possible the impression that there was any serious inconsistency between our Lord's teaching and the enactments of the Jewish Law he omits (xii. 8), in reproducing Mk., Jesus' saying " The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath " ; and in connection with defilement (xvi. 16, 17) the earlier evangelist's comment on our Lord's decision, " This He said, making all meats clean," is not retained. Jesus' essential harmony with the Law he further seeks to illustrate by the inclusion of a command to His disciples to observe and do all that was enjoined by the Scribes and Pharisees (xxiii. 2, 3), and a direction to them, in bringing an accusation, 1 Allen, St. Mt. p. 316. ' Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, ii. p. 341, DdCUMENTARt CKlTlCISM 191 to pro(iuce at least two -stitnesses, iti accordance with Df. xix. W. He lays (d,s ia^ been said) ^ea* rtrtss upon the actfomplishmeiit By" Jesus of nilmerous Old Testament prophecies ; a6d thoste WHch he himself quotes (unlike the citations from the Old Testa!me»t occtttring in our Lord's o#n diSbOilrseS, or rh the utterances of othets, which are generally td.ten from the LXX^yheiibstly translates from the' Hefbrew (tho>ttgh not always ftCovJrately'), Or else adapts from some Greek e6l1e'ction of texts (see p: 167). Eiaiiiple^ar6folW(dinri. 15 (= JBo». xi. 1), ii. 18 (= J6r. xxxi. 15), iv. 15, 16 (= is. i±. 1, 2), VJii. 17 (= 2 Is. liii. 4)^, xii. 18-21 (= 2 7s. xlii. 1-4), xiii. 35 (= Ps: Ixxviii. 2), xxi. 5 (= 2 Zect ix. 9), xxvii. 9 (= 2 Zech. xi. l»). The only exception seems to be i. 23 (= 7s. vii. 14), whele the LXX version is almost verbally followed.* Mt. traces our Lord's descent back to Abraham ind tici furth^T ; and though he throWs into reHef the hostility shown to the M^^si^h by His oWn countrymen and their responsibihty for His death (iivii. 24, 25), he illustratefs how JestiS' deSir'ed! the salvation of His own pedple before that Of others (x. 5, 6, 23), aild how the transfer of the privileges of the Jews to the Genltiles' (Xxi. 43) Was the conseqaefiee of their oWh ingratitude'. Eveil the langttage used by the JeWS iri speaking of Gferrtiles is ascribed to JesuS (vii. 6, cf. xv*. 26). The writet more than once derignat^s Jerusalem " the ho'ly 6ity " (iv. 5, xxvii. 53) ; and he almost ihtariably, in the spirit of Jewish s'cnipulorasness, replaces Mk.'s expression " the Mrigdota of God," by " the*- Mrfgdtfrtl of heaven." And that he was fltit only himself a Jewish Christian, but wrote fo* Jewish Christians and Adt tor Gdhtiles aippears frdm his itsc! of Jewish expressions which to GedWiile readers must have been perplexing or ilnintelligible (V. 22 Raca), xvi. 19, iViii. 18 (to hind and to IdOse), and from the ofiiission, in his extracts fftim ML, of explaiiations Which for Jewish readers were superfluoiIS. ThtiA he Ottilts the eXplaSatory n!ote aboilt the Jewish practice of cere- mtttiially washing the hands before eating (ML vii. 3, 4) and the ideliti- fiei,tita of the first day of uHleaVehed bread with the Passover (ML XiV. 12, (). 342, 343. 192 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Son of David, and fulfilled the Messianic predictions of the prophets ; and that if He overruled in some respects the letter of the Mosaic Law in pro- moting mercy and humanity, in other respects He enforced its demands in a far more stringent form (v. 21-37). A conspicuous feature of the First Gospel is the prominence in it of St. Peter. Not only does this Gospel alone include two miracles with which St. Peter solely is connected (xiv. 28-32 and xvii. 24-27), but it alone adds to the account given by Mh. of the Apostle's confession of our Lord's Messiahship the singular blessing pronounced upon him (xvi. 17-19) ; whilst it is not perhaps unsigmficant that in Mt.'s list of the Apostles St. Peter is not only placed before the others, as is the case in the remain- ing two Synoptists, but he is distinguished as " the first " (x. 2). According to Origen (Eus. H.E. vi. 25, 4) Mt.'s Gospel was the earliest written ; but if the writer has used Mh. in its compilation, this is impossible. The probable date at which the book was written can only be determined vaguely by its dependence upon MTc. and by a comparison between it and Lk. In the first place, as Mk. was probably composed between 64-70, it is likely that Mt. was written after (perhaps some years after) the latter date. It has indeed been argued that a date prior to the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 is more plausible, since the writer has not altered (xxiv.l5) Mk.'s language relating to that event as St. Luke has done ; but he may have preferred to retain in this case the actual words of his authority.^ And there seems to be at least one passage in the Gospel reflecting the writer's acquaintance with the destruction of the Jewish capital, for the words of the Jews to Pilate, " His (Jesus') blood be on us and on our children " (xxvii. 25), acquire a deep significance if the writer who records them (they appear nowhere else) wrote after the event that so plainly appeared to fulfil them. Secondly, the fact that the First and Third Gospels are seemingly quite independent of one another is most intelligible if they were both composed about the same time, and the work of each was unknown to the other. And if Lk. was written about 80 (see p. 204) it may be presumed that something like this date saw the production of Mt. Which of the two was slightly the earlier is a question not easy to decide, and not very important. The author of the First Gospel, like the other evangelists, has a favourite vocabulary, the following being some of the expressions and phrases which occur in his work most frequently and distinctively. Those that are included in the Ust are either found only in Mt. amongst the Synoptists, or else appear in Mt. at least twice as often as in Mk. and Lk. together.* afterward, ■SazeQov come, nQoaegxo/iai altar, dvaiaarrioiov come (imperative), Seine appear, be seen, faivo/iai coming (of Christ's Return), nagovaia as, &aneQ command, xeXevco be it done, yev^Qrjro) depart, be removed, fierapalva) called (with a name), ^eyofievog dream, ovoq ' Stanton, The Oospels as Historical Documents, ii. p. 367. » Use has been made of Hawkins' Hora Synoptical, pp. 3-8. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 198 the end of the world, fj avvireMa rov aicbvog evil, the evil one, rd novrjgdv, 6 exceed/inghj, aqidSga Father {our, your, etc.), nari^Q (^/.iwv, etc.) Father which is in heaven, natr^o 6 Iv rot? odQavoti; Father, Heavenly, natrjQ 6 oigdvtog food, rqoqyri fool, fooUsh, ficoQd; fulfil, nlriQoco gather, take in, awdyoj gift, dcbgov gnashing of teeth, 6 flgvy/^dg -imv dddvrcov governor, ■^■ye/icbv henceforth, dn uqti hide, xQVTiTco hypocrite, vnoxQnijc. iniquity, dvo/iia judgment, xglaig keep, observe, rrjQeco kingdom of heaven, ^ flaadela tow o'dgavcbv now, S.QTL only, fidvov profess, SixoXoyko profitable, expedient, av/Kpegei, raiment, hdviia reward, hire, /iiaOog righteousness, dixacoavvrj Sadducees, £a8Sov>ealoi said (was), spoken, iyQeOrj, gtjdiv sheep, nQo^arov swear, 6/j.vva) take counsel, avfi^oijXiov Xafi^dvai that (= in order that), Sniog then, TOTS think, Soxsl with dative. iveeping, x?Mvd/i6g wise, gigdviftog withdraw, dvaxcogko worship, nQoaxuvim He shares with Lk. a fondness for Idem {nat Idov) and for the particle oHv (which is very rare in ML). He has in passages peculiar to himself one or two Latin words like /.Miov (v. 41), mvarcodla (xxviii. 65), besides those contained in sections derived from Mk. oiQ {daadgwv, drjvdgiov, xijvaog, nQoncLgiov, (pgayeUdco.) But more noteworthy than the preference shown for certain words are the changes of construction which the author of the First Gospel introduces into the sections which he has appropriated from the Second Gospel. He seldom retains ore before the or. recta, or rfflij,! and he sometimes omits Ttdhv — all these three words being characteristic of Mk. (p. 179). In some respects his Greek is less Hebraic in structure than Mark's ; and in particular his use of connective particles is more varied, de being frequently substituted for the xai which is so common in the Second Gospel. He often replaces Mk.'s historic present by past tenses (cf . Mt. xiii. 2 with Mk. iv. 1 ; Mt. viii. 25 with Mk. iv. 38) ; and Mk.'s imperfects by aorists (cf. Mt. x. 1 with Mk. vi. 7, Mt. xiv. 5 with Mk. vi. 20, Mt. xiv. 19 with Mk. vi. 41, Mt. xvii. 10 with Mk. ix. 11) ; and he sometimes prefers to use the passive voice where Mk. has the active (cf. Mt. viii. 15 with Mk. i. 31, Mt. xiv. 11 (bis) with Mk. vi. 28 (bis), Mt. xix. 13 with Mk. x. 13, Mt. xxiv. 22 with Mk. xiii. 20). He rarely reproduces the periphrastic expressions formed by the verb el/xi and a present or perfect participle, of which Mk. is so fond ; and he often avoids ^ Mt. has ei9ijs only seven times as compared with Mk.'s more than forty times. On the other hand Mt, has ei9iu>s twelve times as contrasted with its entire absence in Mk. 13 194 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Mk.'s asyndetai (cf. Mt. xix. 26, 28 with Mk. x. 27, 29, Mt. xxii. 29 with Mk. xii. 24, Mt. xxiv. 7 with Mk. xiii. 8), his employment of ^g^aro (cf. Mt. X. 5 with M^. vi. 7, M. xix. 27 with Mk. x. 23), and his practice of repeating, after a verb compounded with a preposition, the same pre- position {e.g. he uses ■tjkdev elg rijv awaywyip/ (xii. 9) for Mk.'s eiafj^Sev eig avvaycoyrjv (iii. 1*)). He uniformly substitutes 6 PaamarTJg where Mk, has 6 ^oLinl^cov to designate John the Baptist (cf. Mt. iii. 1, xiv. 2, 8 with Mk. i. 4, vi. 14, 24^). Though he exhibits a certain sameness of phraseology, he displays in general more variety of diction than characterizes his principal source. It will be of some service to append here, as was done In the case of Mk., a few of the most interesting readings of the Western text (5) as represented by the Bezan MS. (D) with support from some of the manioscripts of Lat. vet., and from one or more of the Syriac versions. Approved Text. Western Text. V. 22 after angry . . . brother adds without cause. X. 3 for ThaddsBus nubstitutea Lebbaeus. X. 23 after flee unto the next adds and if they persecute you in the second, flee unto the next. XX. 28 after many adds Seek ye from little to increase, and from greater to become less. And when ye enter and are bidden to sup, do not recline in the prominent places lest one more honourable than thou come, and the host come and say to thee. Go lower ; and thou be put to shame. But if thou settest thyself down in the inferior place and one inferior to thyself come, the host will say to thee. Come higher ; and this shall be profitable for thee. XXV. 1 after the bridegroom adds and the bride. XXV. 28 for to him that hath the ten substitutes to him that hath the five talents talents. The Gospel according to St. Luke The Third Gospel difiers from the other Gospels in being dedicated to an individual, one TheophUus, a person of rank,* who had been instructed in the history and doctrines of the Christian faith, but who had probably not yet become a member of the Church. Like the rest, it is anonymous, but is traditionally ascribed to St. Luke, being first attributed to him by Irenseus and the Muratorian Canon. He is also credited by tradition with the authorship of Acts, the two books being successive volumes of a single work, and it is the later of the two that furnishes means for 1 For asyndeta in Mt. see xxvi. 34, 35, 42, xxvii. 2. " For detailed proof see Allen, St. Matt. pp. xix.-xxx. ' Mk. has 6 paTTia-r-fis in vi. 25, viii. 28. * The title KpaTiaros applied to Theophilus was used of the governor of Palestine {Acts xxiii. 26, xxiv. 3) and of other officials and persons of distinction. Cf. Jos, Vita, 76. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 195 deciding whether the traditional assignment of both to him is justified ; so that the question is most conveniently discussed ia detail in connection ■with. Acts (p. 234 f.). Here the results of the discussion may be assumed, and it suffices to say that St. Luke is one of some three, or more, possible authors of Acts, and since he is the only one whose name is connected with it ill antiquity, the hypothesis that accounts satisfactorily for the work being ascribed to him is the assumption that he really wrote it. His authorship of Acts carries with it the authorship of the Third Gospel likewise, since the two works are too similar to one another in style and phraseology to be attributed to different writers (p. 237). By various early authorities St. Luke is described as of Antiochene parentage (Eus. H.E. iii. 4, 7) ; and his connexion with Antioch is confirmed to some extent by the fact that he shows much interest in the city, and seems to have had special knowledge about it and its people (Acts vi. 5, xi. 19-28, xiii. 1, etc.). His name, AovxSg, is probably an abbreviation for Lucanus, a form of the name which actually occurs in certaia MS8. of the Old Latin version, in one MS. of the Vulg., and in one, i£ not more, sepulchral inscriptions containing the names of the EvangeUsts.^ It can, however, stand for names as dissimilar as Lucianus, Ludm, or Lucilius (cf. Theudas for Theodorus, Antipas for Antipater, Demas for Demetrius, as well as Silas for Silvanus). It may be inferred that St. Luke was of Gentile, not Jewish, origin, since ia Col. iv. 10-14, where he is mentioned, he is not included amongst " those of the circum- cision " ; and the inference is confirmed by his use of ol ^oQ^aQoi to describe the natives of Melita in Acts xxviii. 2, 4, a phrase more natural to a Greek than to a Jew (though cf. Col. iii. 11). He is represented by St. Paul (Col. iv. 14) as a physician ; and this description of him is perhaps corroborated by the use of a number of words and phrases which, though not exclusively medical, appear to have been commonly employed by physicians (see p. 206). It is also noteworthy in this connexion that he alone records our Lord's quotation of the proverb Physician, heal thyself. It has been conjectured that he belonged to the class of freedmen (lihertini), among whose ranks many physicians were found : for instance, Antistius, the surgeon of Julius Caesar, and Antonius Musa, the physician of Augustus, were both freedmen.* The interest which in Acts he displays in those persons of Gentile origin who felt the attraction of Jewish monotheism and morality, and whom he calls the devout (ol aep6//.evoi) or the God fearers [ol (po^ovfievoi rov 6e6v), favours the belief that he was included amongst them before he was converted to Christianity ; and the supposition that he had in this way become familiar with Jewish rites and usages will account for his allusions to matters connected with the Jewish religion without any explanation being offered of them (see Acts ii. 1, ix. 1, xii. 34, xviii. 18, XX. 6, xxi. 23-27, xxvii. 9). If he were reaUy an Antiochene, it has been suggested that he may have been won to the Christian faith by some of the Cypriote and Cyrenian Christians who went to Antioch 1 See J.T.S. Jan. 1905 (p. 257), Ap. 1905 (p. 435). * Plummer, St. Lk. p. xviii. 196 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY after the death of Stephen {Acts xi. 20). He became (probably when he was quite a yoimg man) attached to St. Paul, though the place where they first met is uncertain. According to the 5 text of Acts xi. 28 (p. 253), the two were together at Antioch certainly before 46 and probably before 41 (see p. 345) ; but otherwise there is no evidence of their meeting imtil St. Paul went to Troas about the end of a.d. 49, or the beginning of 50 ; for it is only in Acts xvi. 10 that, according to the majority of early M8S., the extracts incorporated in Acts from a diary kept by the writer begin. In any case he accompanied St. Paul on the latter's Second missionary journey {circ. a.d. 50) and travelled with him to Philippi, but stopped in that city (which may have been then his ordinary abode) whilst the Apostle and his companions, Silas and Timothy, went on to Thessalonica. On St. P^iul's Third Journey he rejoined him, some five or six years later, as he returned through Macedonia from Greece, probably at Philippi, where the second extract from the diary occurs ; and according to the subscription to 2 Cor. in some MSS. and versions, he conveyed, in company with Titus, that letter to its destination. From Macedonia he went with St. Paul to Jerusalem, was probably with him when he was taken thence to Csesarea, and certainly was his companion when the Apostle was sent to Eome {Col. iv. 14). At Rome he apparently did not share his imprison- ment, but took part in his evangelistic labours {Philemon, 24). If, as is unlikely (p. 594), St. Paul's trial ended in his acquittal, which was followed by a second imprisonment at a later date, St. Luke was again with him during this second period of captivity, when the Pastoral Epistles, if genuine, were written (2 Tim. iv. 11). He is represented variously by later authorities to have been a missionary in Achaia and in Egypt, being described as the second bishop of Alexandria in the latter country. According to tradition he died in Bithynia at the age of 74, one account stating that he was martyred, and another that his end was natural. In his preface the Evangelist alludes to the existence of many previous attempts to narrate the facts that were generally believed among the Christian communities ; and of such the Third Gospel has incorporated in whole or in part at least two (pp. 155, 161). These are (1) the document commonly symbolized by Q ; (2) the Gospel of St. Mark. (1) In regard to Q, since it no longer exists, it is impossible to say how much of it is embedded in Lk. (2) With respect to the use of Mk. the table on p. 148 f . shows that a large portion of that Gospel as we know it is not reproduced in Lh. The neglect of certain of the contents of Mk., especially of the section vi. 45- viii. 28, has been accounted for on various groimds, and among explanations that have been ofiered are the preference for other more or less similar narratives, the need for some omissions in order to include additional matter, the rejection of such parts as appeared unsuitable for the writer's special purpose, or even some accidental oversight (see p. 159).^ But it ' Cf. Holdsworth, Gospel Origins, p. 154 ; Carpenter, Christianity accordim to 8t. Luke. p. 131 f. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 197 is difficult to think that any of the reasons suggested sufficiently explain the absence from the Third Gospel of the whole section just cited, which comprises narratives that can hardly have failed to appeal to St. Luke if he had known it ; and the most plauBible account of the omission is that he used an early edition of Mk. (Proto-Marh) which did not include this section (p. 160). This conclusion seems to carry with it the corollary that St. Luke was not acquainted with the First Gospel, which is based on Mh. as we possess it, and confirmation is furnished by the fact that several passages of Mt. of much interest to Gentile readers, for whom St. Luke wrote (p. 202), have no place in his Gospel (see Mt. ii. 1-12, xxi. 43). (3) Besides the portions of St. Luke's Gospel which are derived from Q and Mh., there are others that occur in neither of the remaining Synoptists ; and the character of these (if minor incidents and sayings are ignored) can be seen from the table on p. 148 f . They may be classified as (o) the narrative of the Nativity (ch. i., ii.), with the genealogy in iii. 23-38 ; (6) certain occurrences and discourses represented as happening either in Galilee or after our Lord's arrival in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem ; (c) a long section (including various materials from Q and a few from Mh.), which extends in the gross from ix. 51 to xviii. 14, and is brought into connexion with Jesus' journey from Galilee to Judsea ; (i) the narrative of the appearances of the Risen Lord in xxiv. 13-53. The sources from which these originated are uncertain, (a) The matter comprised within the first two chapters of the Gospel looks like the contents of a separate document, incorporated by St. Luke. It reflects, in general, the mentality of a Jewish (not a Gentile) Christian ; and reproduces the literary manner of the Old Testament. Possibly two or three originally detached narratives have been combined in it ; of which the conclusions occur in i. 80, ii. 40, 52. On the other hand, so much of the diction is Lucan that, if St. Luke has used earlier documents, he has either himself translated them from the Aramaic, or has recast the translation of another.^ The sections (6) and (c) consist probably, in the main, of oral traditions collected and written down by St. Luke. The section marked (c) is very extensive, and embraces both incidents and discourses, the former including three miracles (xiii. 10-17, xiv. 1-6, xvii. 11-15), and the latter a large number of very impressive parables, amongst them being those of the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Barren Fig-tree, the Great Supper, the Lost Piece of Silver, the Prodigal Son, the Unjust Steward, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Unrighteous Judge, and the Pharisee and the Tax-gatherer. Two hypotheses framed to account for * There are certain reasons for conjecturing that the first two chapters (or rather i. 5-ii, 52) are an addition to the Gospel as at first written, and prefixed to it probably by St. Luke himself, (a) In Acts i. 1 the Gospel is described as concerning all that Jesus began to do and to teach, a description which is more appropriate, it the book once began at iii. 1 and not at i. 6. (/3) The comprehensive chronological statement given in iii. 1 is more suitable at the outset of the narrative than at a later stage. If these reasons have weight, it must be inferred that the Third, like the Second Gospel, once opened with the mission of the Baptist and our Lord's baptism by John. Of. Moffatt, L.N.T. pp. 272-3. 198 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY its origin postulate for it documentary sources. Some scholars think that it comes from an expanded form of Q.^ As has been seen, Q contained incidents as well as discourses ; and it is quite possible that an enlarged form of it was used by St. Luke, just as the enlargement of the earliest edition of Mk. was utilized by the writer of Mt. It is, however, against this hypothesis that the section in question comprises so many parables ; for Q, as it exists in Mt. and Lk. together, contains comparatively few ; so that, if it was expanded before St. Luke became acquainted with it, it must have changed its character in some considerable measure. Others prefer to assume the existence of a distinct written source, which has been described as a " Travel Document," relating the most notable occurrences that happened in the course of our Lord's journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, which seems to be represented as accomplished by way of Samaria (ix. 51-53, xvii. 11), and not as in Mk. (x. 1), through Persea. Certainly, portions of its contents are linked with stages of that journey (ix. 51, 57 ; x. 38 ; xiii. 22 ; xiv. 25 ; xvii. 11). But there is no list of places passed through, which is the more remarkable in view of the interest displayed in localities by St. Luke in Acts ; local references are vague (x. 38, xi. 1, xiii. 10, xiv. 1) or absent (xi. 14, 29, xii. 13, xv. 1) ; and the lack of any definite trace of systematic structure favours the view that the matter in this section (apart from the extracts from Q and Mk.) is not taken from an independent document, but consists of a number of oral traditions relating partly to our Lord's journey from Galilee to Judaea, and partly to other periods of His ministry. At the same time, there are certain special features connected with some of the parables comprised in the section which suggest that St. Luke may have drawn upon a separate collection of these. Not only do a number of them lack specific references to the Kingdom of God (in this contrasting with the series in Mt. xiii., cf. Mk. iv. 26-32) and convey ethical and religious teaching of a general character, but they also, for the most part, begin with the same or similar stereotyped phrases — A certain man had or did something, or TJiere was a certain man who — (see x. 30, xii. 16, xiii. 6, xiv. 16, XV. 11, xvi. 1, 19). " DifEerent kinds of parables spoken by Christ . . . may have had a special interest and attraction for particular individuals, and so may have been separately collected and preserved."* One of the authorities from whom St. Luke drew some of the traditions incorporated in this Travel Section (to use this designation for the sake of convenience) was perhaps Philip the Evangelist ; for certain references are made to the Samaritans, amongst whom Philip laboured {Acts viii. 5). Another may have been a woman of the company that ministered to Christ of their substance. Among them was Joanna, the wife of Chuza, steward of Herod Antipas, who is mentioned as having been with Him in Galilee (Lk. viii. 3), and may have attended Him on the way to Jerusalem, and so would be in a position to impart information about incidents on the road, (d) The account given of the appearances of our Lord after 1 See Stanton, Oospels as Historical Documents, ii. p. 227 foil. ^ Stanton, Op. cit. ii. p. 231. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 199 His death (xxiv. 13-53), which difierS from that contained in Mt. xxviii. 9^20, seems to represent traditions derived from circles in Jerusalem. Sti Luke, in describing the reasons that led him to write his Gospel, though he admits that he was not an eye-witness of what he records, seems td claim for his work in Comparison with earlier narratives of a similar Character (i. 3), superior completeness, arrangement and accuracy.^ And certainly the compass of the Third Gospel much exceeds that of the only one (St. Mark's) which is really known to have preceded it in date. It begins, for instance, its account of Christ's life with His birth (iiot His baptism), gives greater space to incidents in His Ministry connected with Jerusalem, and concludes with mention of His final departure to heaven. It comprises much more of His teaching, pays more attention to synchronisms (i. 5, ii. 1, iii. 1), and is sometimes more circumstantial in icespeot of the place or occasion of events (cf. v. 12 with Mk. i. 40 ; Vi. 6 with MJc. iii. 1 ; ix. 37 with Mk. ix. 14). As concerns arrangement, Sti Luke, in dealing with material taken over from the Second Gospel, genetally follows the order of Mk., and in this regard is superior to Mt. Iii tespect of those of our Lord's utterances which he shares with the First Gospel and which come from Q, he does not betray the same tendency as Mt. to aggregate them in long discourses. In connexion with some of the difiefences between him and the First Evangelist in the handling of Q, a reason for the arrangement adopted seems to have been a superior sense of natural fitness, as where Christ's reference to the Queen of Sheba is placed before that to the Ninevites (in accordance with the sequence in which the narratives in question occur in the Old Testament), instead of idee versa (as in Mt. xii. 41, 42). In a few cases he likewise clears up obscurities or avoids errors occurring in the other Synoptic Gospels, tepkcuig, for example, an indefinite by a definite subject (cf. vi. 7, with Mh. iii. 2), and omitting in xi. 51 the erroneous description of the murdered pi:iest Zachariah as " son of Barachiah " (given in Mt. xxiii. 35). But whilst in some ways the Third Gospel thus appears to advantage as compared with the remaining Synoptists, and whilst it presents, by the Bide of both Mk. and Mt., more the aspect of a history, yet closer investigation reveals features which qualify the high estim&te which might Otherwise be formed of the merits of St. Luke as an historian (cf. p. 247). Thus, though he preserves for the most part Mk.'s order of events, he departs seriously from it by placing before any account of our Lord's activity at Capernaum (iv. 31 f., Mk. i. 21 f.), a description of a Visit paid by Him to Nazareth (iv. 16 f .), which in Mk. is represented as occurring much later (see Mk. vi. 1-6), and, by St. Luke's own acknow- ledgment, certainly followed, instead of preceding, the beginning of the ministty at Capernaum (see Lk. iv. 23). Although he retains Mk.'s account of St. Peter's confession of Jesus' Messiahship, he omits all mention of the journey (through the villages of Csesarea Philippi, Mk. viii. 27) in the course of which the incident took place (see Lk. ix. 18 f.). And these ' Eusebius {H.E. iii. 4 and 24) explains St. Luke's superior accuracy as due to his intimacy and stay with St. Paul and his acquaintance with the rest of the Apostles. 200 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY instances, where he has diverged for the worse from his sources in respect of occurrences, are paralleled by others where he has done the same in respect of sayings. In more than one passage he seems to have obscuied the meaning of the original utterance which he purports to reproduce. For example, in connexion with Christ's denunciation of those who built the tombs of the prophets whom their ancestors killed (from Q), the force of the reproach is destroyed in xi. 47-48 ; in Mt. xxiii. 29-31, our Lord contends that the builders of the prophets' tombs, by denying that they would have slain the prophets as their fathers had done, at least acknowledge that they have in them the blood of murderers ; but there is a lack of reason in His words as represented by St. Luke, "So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers, for they killed them, and ye build their tombs." It is thus apparent that in regard to material which he has derived from others, he has not uniformly improved upon his authorities, but that his presentation of it is sometimes inferior, so that his implied disparage- ment of St. Mark in i. 1-3, is scarcely called for. In respect of material found only in his own Gospel any judgment passed upon its historical value must be based largely upon presumption ; but certainly as regards the parables and discourses of our Lord occurring only in Lk., their striking character is sufficient, warrant for the conclusion that in substance they are generally authentic. The large amount of matter which St. Luke desired to include in his Grospel as compared with that comprised in Mk. must have made necessary some compression of what was borrowed from the Second Gospel, in order to economize space. Presumably for this reason he abbreviates con- siderably (iii. 19, 20, ix. 7-9) the account given by Mk. vi. 17-29 of the Baptist's imprisonment and death. From the same motive he often reduces St. Mark's duplicate expressions or detailed descriptions (see p. 156 f ., and cf. also xxii. 34, with Mk. xiv. 30, and xxiii. 38, with Mk. xv. 26) ; and in other ways simplifies his reports (cf. iv. 31, 32 with Mk. i. 21, 22 ; V. 22 with Mk. ii. 8 ; viii. 4 with Mk. iv. 1, 2 ; viii. 52, 54 with Mk. V. 40, 41). But the changes made in the form of what has been transferred from Mk. are not due merely to the need for brevity. St. Luke possessed literary qualities superior to those of St. Mark, and introduced into the latter's language verbal alterations to improve the style. Thus he (a) generally supplies conjunctions to avoid asyndeton (cf. ix. 49 with Mk. ix. 38 ; xviii. 28 with Mk. x. 28 ; xx. 33, 34 with Mk. xii. 23, 24) ; (b) sometimes substitutes for two co-ordinate verbs a participle and a single verb (cf. ix. 1 with Mk. vi. 7 ; ix. 10 with Mk. vi. 30) ; (c) occasionally replaces an unusual word or a vulgar phrase by a more usual or fitting one (cf . v. 18 with Mk. ii. 4 ; viii. 42 with Mk. v. 23) ; (rf) frequently exchanges Mk.'s historic present for the more appropriate aorist (cf . v. 20, 22, 24, 27 with Mk. ii. 5, 8, 10, 14) ; (e) sometimes dispensegi-a with Sri before the oratio recta (cf. v. 12 with Mk. i. 40 ; xxi. 8 with Mk. xiii. 6) ; (/) abnost invariably omits Mk.'s repeated evdvg and ndXiv. Some of the awkward constructions which are apparent in certain of Mk.'s sentences are improved by St. Luke (cf., for example, xviii. 29-30 DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 201 with ML X. 29, 30 ; xx. 6 with Mk. xi. 32 ; and xx. 28 with ML xii. 19). On the other hand, St. Luke himself is not altogether free from anacolutha and other varieties of careless expression, instances occurring in ix. 3, xxiv. 27, 47. The sections derived from Q which are contained in LL appear in general to reveal traces of modihcation as compared with those in Mt. The following will serve as an illustration : — Mt. V. 39, 40, 42 Lk. vi. 29, 30 (39) fiffTis )V SXK-qv, koL t^v SXK-qv. Kal airb tou atpovTos (40) (coi T^ 9i\ovTl am KpiOrjvai Kal rbv aov rb i/idnov, Kai rhv xircDva fjAj Xt-Twva ffov Xa^eiv, d^es airrc^ Kal t6 KtoKia-QS. ifiAriov. (30) irivrl ahovvTi. follow Him as they were fishing in the Lake of Galilee ; but by the Fourth Evangelist Andrew is described as being a disciple of the Baptist, as attaching himself to Jesus in cbnsequeflce of some words" from the Bapti^, and as then bringing his brother to Jesus. (6) la Mk. the cleansing' rf the Temple is placed at the end of our Lord's ministry, and it is represented as the action that finally led to His death being compassed by the Je'sWsli ecclesiastical leaders ; whereas by the Fourth Evangelist it is assigned to a very early period in the Ministry, (c) St. Mark states thaD JeSuS began His teaching (in Galilee) after John had been committed to prison ' The Appendix to the Fourth Gospel is here excluded. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 219 but the Fourth Gospel impUes that Jesus began to teach and make disciples (in Judaea) at a time when John was still baptizing and before he was imprisoned, (d) The offence taken at Jesus by the people of His own locality, eliciting from Him the comment that a prophet has no honour m his own country, is placed by Mk. (vi. 1-6) seemingly at Nazareth (of. i. 9, Lk. iv. 16, 23) ; but by the Fourth Evangelist in Judaea (iv. 43, 44). The latter, however, separates from the incident the question, " Is not this the carpenter ? " which Mk. joins to it, and which he places (like Mk.) in Galilee (vi. 42). (e) Peter's confession, of which in Mk. (viii. 27) the scene is Caesarea Philippi, seems in the Fourth Gospel to be made at Capernaum (vi. 69, cf. v. 24) and is couched in different words. (/) The incident of the Anointing of Jesus at supper by a woman is placed by Mk. after the entry into Jerusalem ; the woman is nameless and anoints Jesus' head ; whilst the host is called Simon the leper. But in the Fourth Gospel the incident is placed before (though only shortly befoie) the entry into Jerusalem ; the woman is Mary (sister of Lazarus) and anoints our Lord's /eei (hke the woman described in Lk. vii. 37 f.) ; and the host is not designated. The account reflects some of Lk.'s phraseology (See p. 217). {g) At the Last Supper Jesus is described in both Mk. and the Fourth Gospel as being asked which of the disciples was to betray Him ; but whilst Mk. relates that our Lord merely responded in vague terms that it was one of the Twelve that dipped with Him in the dish, the toxirth EvangeUst states that Jesus repUed that it was he to whom- He Shcmld give a sop, and that He thereupon dipped a sop and gave it to Judas, thus marlang him out to the rest. (A) In regard to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion there is a variation of date. Mk. represents the Supper as the regular Passover meal, and consequently as eaten on the evening of Thursday, Msan 14 (according to our reckoning), which by the Jews was regafded as the beginning of Nisan 15. It is, therefore, imphed that the Crucifixion took place after the Passover had been held (though in xiv. 1, 2 the chief priests seek to destroy Jesus prior to the feast, and there are some other facts in Mk.'s account which conflict with the conclusion that the Last Supper took place on the Passover day, see p. 344). But the Fourth EvangeUst describes the Supper as eaten before the Passover (xiii. 1, xviii. 28, xix. 14), and the Crucifixion as occurring on the actual Passover day (though before the evening), (i) The arrest of our Lord is represented hy Mk. (xiv. 43) as accomplished by an armed multitude assembled by the chief priests, scribes, and elders ; but in the Fourth Gospel (xviii. 3) it is effected by a cohort (or perhaps a maniple)' of Roman soldiers, (j) In the account of the Crucifixion Mk. relates that the soldiers compelled Simon, a Cyrenian, to carry the cross for Jesus to the place of execution, but the writer of the Fourth Gospel pointedly affirms that Jesus carried _ the cross for Himself, {k) In respect of the Resurrection appearances a " direct comparison between Mk. and the Fourth Gospel is rendered impossible by the loss of the original ending of the former (p. 180) ; but if, as is probable, Mk. represented the Risen Jesus as appearing first to St. Peter and his fellow apostles in Galike (xvi. 7), it is clear that the two Gospels must have conveyed very difierent impressionSj since the Fourth 220 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY represents that our Lord was seen first by Mary Magdalene at Jerusalem, which is also described as the scene of other appearances to the disciples, whilst nothing is recorded of any appearance in Galilee except in the last chapter, which is of the nature of an appendix (p. 232). (Z) It is also noticeable that whilst in Mk. and the other Synoptists, scribes, tax- gatherers and " sinners "' are conspicuous, in the Fourth Gospel these classes of persons are not mentioned at all. But remarkable as these differences are, there are two others far more fundamental. One concerns the duration of our Lord's ministry. Mk (with whom apparently the remaining Synoptists agree) represents Jesus' public ministry as almost entirely confined to Galilee, or districts near it, and does not relate that He went into Judsea until He proceeded to Jeru- salem on the occasion that ended in His arrest and trial, whilst he mentions only a single Passover, viz. that for which the disciples prepared the Last Supper (xiv. 1). But the Fourth Evangelist, on the contrary, describes Jesus as visiting Jerusalem three times (ii. 13, v. 1, vii. 10) prior to His entry into the city in procession, represents much of His teaching as conducted at the Jewish capital, and mentions three Passovers as occurring in the course of the ministry (ii. 13, vi. 4, xiii. 1). Among the occasions on whicli our Lord is recorded to have gone up to Jerusalem in addition to the Passovers named in ii. 13, xiii. 1, are an unnamed feast (v. 1)^ and the feast of Tabernacles, in the autumn (vii. 2, 10)^ ; and He is also said to have spent at Jerusalem the feast of Dedication, in the winter (x. 22). From the fact that St. Mark gives account of only one Passover it is a natural inference that the Second Evangelist regarded the events of our Lord's ministry as all taking place within a year (cf. Eus. H.E. in. 24, 8). St. Luke also does not mention any journey to the Jewish capital after Jesus had attained to manhood except the one which ended in the Crucifixion. But the definite allusions in the Fourth Gospel imply that the writer meant to represent the ministry as extending over more than two years, so that unless good reason is discovered for qualifying the inference about St. Mark's conception of the duration of Jesus' public activity, there is a grave divergence between the Evangelists. The other fundamental difference between the Second and Fourth Gospels relates to the course pursued by our Lord in respect of His self- disclosure, and to the character of His discourses. In the Second Gospel Jesus is represented as aimouncing the near approach of the Kingdom of God and the need for a change of heart in aU desirous of entering that Kingdom [Mk. i. 14, 15) ; and His teaching about it is illustrated by par- ables, the Evangelist even going so far as to say (iv. 34) " without a parable spake He not unto them " (the multitudes). The parables apart, most of His utterances are exceptionally concise, aphoristic, and pointed, easily retained in the memory, and stimulating refiection. And though He is addressed by some of the sufferers whom He heals as the Holy One of God • The true reading is probably ioprifi " a feast " (Pentecost, Trumpets or Purim) not t) ioprri (Passover or Tabernacles). 2 If chapters v. and vi. ought to be transposed (p. 232), this feast may be the same as that mentioned in v. 1. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 221 and as the Son of God, He tries to silence them and to prevent them from making Him known: it is not until His journey into the villages round Csesarea Philippi that He elicits from St. Peter an acknowledgment of His Messiahship, and alludes to His future coming in the glory of His Father. But almost from the beginning of the Fourth Gospel there is in the speeches of Jesus nothing of the protracted reticence about Himself and His Personality which marks His utterances in the first half of the Second Gospel. As has been seen, He is designated at the outset by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God ; Andrew tells his brother Peter that he has found the Messiah ; Nathanael salutes Him as the Son of God and the King of Israel ; and He explicitly informs the Samaritan woman that He is the Messiah. Moreover, His utterances, instead of being brief and pregnant, emphasizing, even at the cost of exaggeration, the point which it is desired to drive home, are largely argumentative and abstract. No doubt numer- ous concise and pointed sayings occur in the discourses contained in the I Fourth Gospel (see ii. 16, 19, iii. 3, 6, iv. 21, 44, vi. 27, 35, vii. 24, 37, viii. 34, xii._ 24, 25, xviii. 36, and several others^) ; but many of them are in contexts which by their general spirit produce a very difierent impression from that cbnveyed by the discourses in the Synoptists. In place of being devoted to the enforcement of the ethical principles on the observance of which entry into the Divine Kingdom was dependent, Jesus' longer utterances are mainly concerned with the relation of His own Personality to the Father and to mankind, and with the necessity of beUef in Himself as a condition of possessing enduring life (see v. 19-47, vi. 26-40, 44, 58, viii. 31-58, xiv.-xvi.). The prominence of the pronoun iycb is very noticeable in all these. Jesus describes Himself mystically as the bestower of the Water of Life, as the Bread from heaven, as the Light of the world, as the Door of the sheep, as the Good Shepherd, as the Eesurrection and the Life, as the True Vine. And whilst there are numerous figurative expres- sions like these, there are none of the vivid and forcible parables of the kind exemplified in the Synoptic Gospels. And though it is inteUigible that Jesus might have varied His teaching according to the needs of particular occasions and the character of His audiences, and that the writer of the Fourth Gospel may have aimed at illustrating exclusively a type _of instruction which the Sjmoptists had altogether omitted to reproduce, the explanation lacks plausibility when it is discovered that some of the speeches ostensibly reported as uttered by Jesus closely resemble reflections proceeding from the historian himself, and that Jesus and the Evangelist speak in the same style (cf. iii. 5-12 (15) with 13 (16)-21, and v. 20-24 with iii. 31-36). In fine, the discourses in the book wear the aspect less of utterances actually spoken by Jesus, and remembered by one who heard them, than of meditations wherein the author expounds his own ideas about the significance of Jesus' Person.^ In regard to some of the minor divergences just noticed, they are not absolutely irreconcilable with one another and mutually exclusive. St. ' See Drummond, Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 18, 19. ' The style of the Fourth Gospel has numerous points of contact with that of 1 Joh. (see p. 320). Mark's Gospel is not an exhaustive account of our Lord's ministry (nothing, for instance, is said in it about the preaching at Chorazin and Bethsaida alluded to in Mt. xi. 21, Lh. x. 13). He, like the other Evangelists, was interested primarily, not with recording fully the results of historical inquiry, but with confirming his readers' Christian faith ; and this could be done by a selection of Jesus' deeds and sayings which left much for another writer to relate. Consequently the meeting of Peter and Andrew with Jesus beyond Jordan may have preceded, and prepared the way for, their call in Galilee ; so that the account in the Fourth Gospel may in this respect be complementary to that in the Second. Similarly Jesus' preac)}- ing in Galilee after John's imprisonment may have been preceded by some preaching in Judsea prior to it^ ; and the Journeys to Jerusalem mentioned by the Fourth Evangelist may have been omitted by St. Mark because he purposely restricted the scope of his work, or for some other reason. It has been contended, indeed, that there are features in the Second Gospel itself favouring a longer duration than a year for our Lord's ministiy, since the plucking by the disciples of ears of corn (after Jesus' ministry had been some time in progress, Mk. ii. 23) can only have occurred between the middle of April and the middle of June, whereas the later incident of the Feeding of the 5,000 happened when the grass was green (Mh. vi. 39), i.e. not before the spring of the following year ; so that the Crucifixion- Passover must have been the second, at least, that fell within the ministiy. It has also been argued that for a visit or visits to Jerusalem previous to the processional entry evidence is forthcoming in the Lament over Jerusalem quoted in Mt. xxiii. 37 f., Lk. xiii. 34 f. (from Q) ; and if this reasoning is soimd, the chronology of the Synoptists affords room for two cleansings of the Temple, one at the beginning, and the other at the end of CJhnst's ministry. It seems more likely, however, that the detail about the green grass was due to St. Mark's faculty for describing a scene pictorially than that it was actually remembered by St. Peter ; whilst for the inference deduced from the Lament over Jerusalem see p. 448. And though in view of the incompleteness of the Gospels as histories the abstract possibility must be admitted that various narratives in the Fourth Gospel fill gaps in the accounts contained in the Synoptists, yet on a general view of the two records the conclusion to which a broad comparison of them points is different from this. The impression left is that, if events followed the course described in the one, they did not follow the course described by the other. In regard, for instance, to the divergence respecting the journeys to Jerusalem, the supposition that the narrative of these in the Fourth Gospel supplies a defect in the Second ^ is not really probable, for the fact that Mk. could relate the journey from Galilee to the borders of Tyre and ^ Any corroboration, however, for this which may be derived from the reading in Lk. iv. 44 rri^ 'louSalas (NBCLQE Syr. (vet.) Eg.) instead of t^s raXiMlos (A D X r A Lat. Syr. (vulg.) Eg. (some codd.) ) is dekisive, since Judcex can be regarded as the equivalent of Palestine, as in Lk. xxiii. 5, Acts x. 37 (see Plummer, St. Mte, p. 141). Jesus' teaching began in Galilee (Lk. xxiii. 5). * See Moffatt, L.N.T. p. 541, and of. Sanday, Criticism of Fourth Qospd, pp. 1*^ 148, Peake, I.N.T. p. 214. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 223 Sidon renders it unlikely ttat he would have omitted the more important pilgrimages from Galilee to the Jewish capital related in the Fourth Gospel, if such had reaUy occurred ; and even if he did omit these for some reason, it is eminently unlikely that the two other Synoptists would have been equally silent about them.'- Again, although one cleansing of the Temple by Jesus does not absolutely preclude a second, it is scarcely likely that there should have been two, marked by almost identical features but followed by very different consequences, and that one should have produced from the priesthood only a remonstrance, but the other a decision to take His life. And again, on comparing the versions of our Lord's reply to the question who was to be the traitor, we can have no doubt which is the one that bears the stamp of probability. And once more, if our Lord had endeavoured at the outset of His ministry to avoid being addressed as the Holy One of God or by a similar title, it is not easy to believe that He could have plainly declared Himself to be the Messiah to the Samaritan woman. Finally, i£ the general style of our Lord's discourses is faithfully represented by MJc. and by Q, it is difficult to think that His manner of speech could have resembled the style of the Fourth Evangelist. Consequently, we seem driven to choose between the two representations ; and to conclude that if one, for the most part, is approximately true to external facts, the other in the same proportion is untrue to them. Now if in the Fourth Gospel we have a work by one of the Apostles, we might anticipate (as has been already observed) that in its narrative of Jesus' public ministry the development of events, if not agreeing wholly with the account of the Synoptists, especially of St. Mark, would be even superior in naturalness and credibility ; and the critical moments in it would appear in their proper sequence. But the antecedent expectation based upon the supposition that it is the work of the Apostle John is not corroborated by the results of a comparison of its contents (as just instituted) with those of the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, St. Mark's. For although there may be good grounds for preferring, in a few instances, the repre- sent9.tions of this Gospel to that of MJc., yet, on the whole, it can scarcely be denied that the general course of events as narrated by the Second Evangelist produces the impression of being more historical than that traced by the Fourth. The hesitation which, according to Mh., Jesus evinced in making known His Messianic office. His efiorts to avoid notoriety, relinquished only as the nature of His destiny and its duties grew clearer, the slowness with which His disciples came to understand who and what He was, the various causes of, and the gradual stages in, the development of the animosity displayed towards Him by the ecclesiastical authorities — these are all features which give to the record in the Second Gospel a plausibility which is lacking to that of the Fourth Gospel. But if the latter conforms to historical probabilities less closely than the former, which comes from one who was not among the immediate followers of Jesus, it is exceedingly difficult to think that the history which commands ^ Mt. ixi. 10 implies that the people of Jerusalem, when Jesus went thither at the close of His ministry, were unacquainted with Him, 224 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY less confidence than its rival can be the composition of one whose oppor- tunities of obtaining information were so much better. But if it is unlikely that the Fourth Gospel is the production of St. John, it may be next inquired whether there is any individual mentioned in the Gospel to whom its authorship can be conjecturally attributed. In the course of perusal attention is arrested by xix. 35, where after the statement that blood and water came from the side of the dead Jesus when pierced by a soldier, there is added, " He that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true, and he (iHetvoc;) knoweth that he saith true." The most natural interpretation of the passage is that the writer is describing himself as the eyewitness of the fact related, and though it is not clear to whom he appeals in ixelvog olSev xzX, the pronoun is perhaps best understood to refer to the Eisen Christ (cf . p. 469), as One who could vouch for his truthfulness. If this is correct, the writer was probably a recent disciple who witnessed the last scenes of Jesus' life, but little more. Now, in the account of our Lord's trial, reference is made (xviii. 15) to a disciple who entered into the court of the high priest, and being known to the high priest, brought in Peter. It has been assumed by many that the disciple was St. John. But this is improbable if the " beloved disciple " is reason- ably identified with St. John (p. 207 f .), for the epithet is absent here, and it is not likely that an individual thus designated on the occasion of the Last Supper would so soon afterwards be described simply as " another disciple." Who he reaUy was is not explained. But if he were present at the trial, he was doubtless present at the Crucifixion ; and as the writer of xix. 35 was a spectator of the latter scene and clearly a disciple (for only to a follower of Jesus would the efEusion of blood and water from our Lord's side be a fact of importance), it may be conjectured that he was the disciple mentioned in xviii. 15, and that he was the author of the Gospel. It is now desirable to consider the statements of various ecclesiastical writers which purport to throw light upon the origin of the Gospel. The external authorities which either certainly or probably identity the Fourth Evangelist with St. John the Apostle are the following, the names being arranged in approximate chronological order backwards. 1. Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea 314r-340) explains the reason why John (into whose hands the other Gospels had come) composed a fourth Gospel to have been the fact that there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Jesus at the beginning of His ministry (H.E. iii. 24, 7). In the context of this passage Eusebius implies that the author of the Fourth Gospel was the Apostle John ; and elsewhere (iii. 23, 1) expressly speaks of the Apostle and Evangelist John, " the one whom Jesus loved " as having returned from exile on the island (of Patmos) after the death of Domitian (a.d. 96). 2. Origen (b. at Alexandria a.d. 185, d. 253) wrote a work entitled " Exposition of John's Gospel," from which Eusebius {H.E. vi. 25, 9) quotes the words " Why need we speak of him who reclined upon the bosom of Jesus, John, who has left us one Gospel, though he confessed that he might write so many that the world could not contain' them ?" (see Jo%. xxi. 25). DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 225 3. Polycrates (bishop of Ephesus circ. a.d. 200-210) mentioned, in a letter addressed to Victor, Bp. of Eome, that John who was both a witness (/uaeTu;) and a teacher, and who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the nha}.ov (see Ex. xxviii. 36), slept at Ephesus (Eus. H.E. iii. 31, 3). 4. Clement of Alexandria (d. after a.d. 203) describing the order of the (Jospels according to the tradition of the earliest presbyters (ram dvdxoBev TiQea^vriQcov) relates that after the first three Gospels, John last of all, perceiving that the external facts (rd aw/j.arixa.) had been made plain, and being urged by his friends and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel (Eus. H.E. vi. 14, 5-7). 5. Irenseus (bishop of Lyons, b. in Asia Minor probably between a.d. 120 and 130 and d. about 202) states (as quoted by Eusebius, E.E. v. 8, 4) that after the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke had been written, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also reclined on His bosom, published his Gospel while staying at Ephesus in Asia. Irensus appUes the same description (" the disciple of the Lord ") to John elsewhere (H.E. iii. 23, 3), relating that he remained in Asia until the time of Trajan (98-117). 6. The Muratorian Canon (or catalogue), generally assigned to the last quarter of the second century, attributes the Fourth Gospel to John, one of the disciples. It represents that when his feUow-disciples and bishops urged him to write, he bade them fast for three days, and then tell one another whatever should be revealed about the execution of their request ; and that on the same night it was disclosed to Andrew that John should relate all things under his own name, but subject to the revision of all the rest. The author of the catalogue then quotes the opening words of 1 Joh. i., and adds that the writer of those words thereby confessed that he had been not only an eyewitness, but also a hearer and a writer of all the wonderful works of the Lord in order. The account of the circumstances under which the Gospel was written is doubtless legend- ary, but the growth of the legend implies that when it arose the Gospel was connected with the name of John the Apostle. The passages here quoted from various patristic writers, including some living in the last quarter of the second century, agree generally in representing the Fourth Gospel as being the work of the beloved disciple whom they name John, and whom there can be little doubt they identified with the Apostle, the son of Zebedee. No real importance can be attached to the fact that by certain of these he is designated as a " disciple " and not as an " Apostle " of Jesus. The prevalent belief of the early Church was disputed only by a small body, called the Ahgi {circ. a.d. 170), who declared the author of the Johannine writings to have been Cerinthus (said to have been a contemporary of St. John's). By Eusebius, the Evangelist is declared to have returned from his exile at Patmos after the death of Domitian in a.d. 96 ; and by Irenseus he is definitely asserted to have been alive as late as the beginning of Trajan's reign (a.d. 98), and consequently if he is identified with John the Apostle (as he is by Eusebius), he must have attained a very advanced age, and presumably died a natural death. 15 2^6 N]p:\Y testaj([¥:nt ^istohy The tradition, howeyer, that descij-ibes John tl^e A^-pqsfi.^ as haying survived to nearly the end of the first century is not the only one relating to him : there is another whic!h represents him as having perished by violence. This is found only in two late ecclesiastical writers, but is based by them on the authority of Papias, who wrote in the first half- of the second century. (1) In a single nianuscript of a ninth-century historian named Georgius, Kfamartolus it is stated that John, after writing his Gospel, was. deemed worthy of martyrdom. " For Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis, having been an eyewitnes? of it, alleges in the second book of The Oracles of tk^ Lord {r&v xvQiaxcbv Aoyiwv) that he was put to death by Jews (vnb, 'lovdaicoy avrjQidr)), having plainly fulfilled, toget];ier with his brother, the prediction of Christ about them and their own, confession and agree- ment concerning it " (the last words referring to Mk. x. 38, 39). (2) In the fra-gment lately found of an Epitome (seventh or eighth century) of the Chronicles of Philip of Side (in Pamphylia), a Church historian of the fifth century, it is affirmed that " Papias in his second book says that John the Divine and James his brother were put to dea,th by Jews." The statement made by Papias finds some cpijfirmation from three other quarters. (3) A Syriac calendar dating from the fifth century, and drawn up at Edessa, commemorates on Dec. 27 ^ the martyrdom of " John and James, the Apostles at Jerusalem." (4) A Syrian homily by Aphrahat (Metropolitan of Nineveh) belonging to the fourth century, after enumerating the names of numbers, whip, ha J sufiered martyrdom or persecution, including Jesus, Stephen, Simon (i.e. Peter) and Paul, adds that James and John " trod in the footsteps of their Master Christ." (5) Clement of Alexandria cites an allusion by Heracleon {circ. A.p. 160-170) to some who had escaped martyrdom ; and the Ust, while in- cluding the names of Matthew, Philip, Thpmas, Levi (here distinguished from Matthew), and " many others," omits apy mention of John ; and the absence of the name of the son of Zebedee is difi&cult to account foij if he really died a natural death. ^; Clement himself states that tte teachingi of Christ's Apostles, up to the ministry of Paul, was brought to. a close ri^i the time of Nero (a.d. 54-68), which seems to presuppose the death of aft tjhe Apostles before 70. Attention has also been called ^ to the fact that Ignatius (cirq. 110), writing to Ephesus, makes no allusion to St. Jolin in connectipn with thsl Church, whilst mentioning St. Paul, l}i^, silence thiis suggesting that h^-. 1 In a calendar of Carthage Dec. 27 is the commemoration of John the Baptist- and of James the Apostle ; but since Juiie 24 ia also represe^nj^d as ,the commeifioratifidi of the Baptist, it is probable that in this calendar Dec. 27fOnce, commemorated, Jpi;!}! the Apostle together with his brother (see BurKitt, Oo^pel History, etc., p. 25S). ^ For the passage quoted see Moffatt, L.N.T. pp. 605-6 ; H. L. Jackson, Problms, of the Fofirpi,, Oospel, pp. 145t147; • ' See Charles, Revelation, i. p. xlv. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 227 was unaware that tie Apostle John ever resided in that city with which luB name was afterwards associated. In none of the documents here quoted as affirming that John suffered martyrdom is the year of his death given. Some scholars who accept the statement attributed to Fapias conjecture that he was put to death at the same time as his brother James (Acts xii. 2) by Herod Agrippa I in or before a.d. 44. But this date seems out of the question in view of the mention of John, together with Peter and James the "brother" of the Lord, in Gal. ii. 9 (if that letter was most probably written after a.d. 50, or even (as is possible) between 47 and 49). A more plausible date for John's death would be shortly before the siege of Jerusalem, if that city were tjie scene of his death, as the Calendar cited above seems to imply. Of the conflicting traditions here compared, the one which represents that St. Johnv like his brother St. James, perished as a martyr, seems to have most claim to be credited. Though the testimony supporting it is small in extent, and reaches us through late sources, yet it ostensibly rests upon the early authority of Papias ; and it is favoured by our Lord's prediction that both the brothers should drink of the same cup whereof He drank (Mk. x. 39). If the prediction had been unfulfilled, there is considerable probability that Jesus' words would have been passed over in silence by the Evangehsts. The opposing tradition that connects the authorship of the Fourth Gospel with St. John, and represents him as living till nearly the end of the first century a.d. is in coUision with the internal evidence of the Gospel, which (apart from the statement in the Appendix, xxi. 24) is unfavourable to the supposition that it was written by an Apostle, who would hardly have produced a work diverging so remarkably from the Synoptic Gospels and presenting a far less plausible narrative of events. But if the contents of the Fourth Gospel appear to be incompatible with the traditional view that it was written by St. John, and if the evidence of Papias that the younger brother of James died at the hands of the Jews (presumably before a.d. 70) be accepted, the connexion of the Gospel' with the name of St. John has to be accounted for. At first sight the mpst satisfactory explanation would seem to be that St. John was responsible for the Gospel indirectly. There is nothing in the evidence for his martyrdom to show that he suffered at the same time as James, prior to A.D. 44 ; so that he may have lived long enough to reflect deeply upon the work of the glorified Christ as manifested in the spiritual life of the Church, and to have imparted his thoughts to others. It is conceivable that an intimate disciple of St. John's received oraUy from him a great deal of instruction during the Apostle's lifetime ; and put on record the substance of his teaching at a period when further intercourse with him had been prevented by death. It has been argued, indeed, that the impression of the sons of Zebedee which the Synoptic Gospels convey discountenances the idea that one of them was calculated by disposition to produce so spiritual a work as the Fourth Gospel. He was a Galilean fisherman, and if better off than some of his fellow- Apostles (since his father had hijed servants (Mk. i. 20)), yet was regarded as unlearned and 228 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY ignorant {Acts iv. 13) ; and he was characterized in early manhood by- intolerance, ambition, and a passionate temper {Mk. ix. 38-40, x. 37, Lk. ix. 51-56). This objection, though serious, is not by itself fatal, for since Jesus is represented as having chosen both of them, together with Peter, for special and privileged intimacy, it may be supposed that He perceived in them a capacity for exceptional spiritual development. But the circumstance that St. John is grouped by St. Paul (in Gal. ii. 9) with St. James as occupying a similar (though not perhaps exactly the same) standpoint does not favour the conclusion that he really developed into a thinker of such mentality as that reflected in the Johannine Gospel. And if the possibihty of such development cannot be positively denied, it is still scarcely credible that St. John's recollections of the objective facts of his Lord's mini stry (even if the transmission of them to us through another person be allowed for) could depart so widely from the reminis- cences of St. Peter (as reproduced by St. Mark), or could leave on the reader so inferior an impression of historical reaUty. The extreme difficulty of believing that the Apostle John was in any way responsible for the contents of the Fourth Gospel renders it necessary to explain the traditional association of it with the yoimger son of Zebedee as due to confusion between two persons bearing the same name. There would be a tendency for a work known to have been written by a John to be attributed to the most famous possessor of that name, and this would certainly be the Apostle. And there is not lacking some ground for identifying the Fourth Evangelist with a John mentioned by Papias, who (as quoted by Eusebius H.E. iii. 39, 3 f.) alludes to two persons called John, one being the Apostle and the other being styled " the Presbyter." He is reported as saying, " If anyone came who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders — what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the disciples of the Lord said, or what things Aristion and the presbyter John the Lord's disciples say. For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books {i.e. probably written exposi- tions of the Gospels) would profit me as much as what came from the Hving and abiding voice." Eusebius regards the mention by Papias of two Johns as confirming the statement of persons who asserted that aS Ephesus there were two tombs, each of which was called John's. The fact that there were at Ephesus two tombs to which the name of John was attached is not very important, for the name was a common one ; but the mention by Papias of a presbyter called John is suggestive. For the Second and Third Epistles, which are traditionally attributed to John, purport to be written by a presbyter (or elder), and the connexion in thought and diction between these two letters on the one hand and the Gospel and the First Epistle on the other is close enough to justify the inference that they all come from one source (p. 320 f .), and if so, from the pen of John the Presbyter. The individual who thus became subsequently known by this title was probably a resident at Jerusalem and became an adherent of Jesus very shortly before the latter's arrest {Joh. xviii. 15), and by mentioning that he brought St. Peter into the high priest's court DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 229 (v. 16) lie has introduced his own figure into a corner of one of the scenes which he describes (just as the Second Evangelist has done in Mh. ziv. 51, 52). One who had come into contact with Jesus for the first time not long before His trial might still claim to have seen and heard Him (i. 14). One or two guesses as to the Beloved Disciple made by scholars who are disinclined to identify him with St. John the Apostle may be mentioned here. One is that he was Nathanael, the Israelite " in whom was no guile " (i. 47). Nathanael is not included in the fists of the Apostles given by the Sjmoptists, unless he is identical with Bartholomew, but he is comprised in the small group described in Joh. xxi. 2. If, however, he was really the same as Bartholomew, the difficulty found in ascribing the Gospel to an Apostle remains as serious as ever. Another conjecture is that the Beloved Disciple was Lazarus, of whom it is said that Jesus loved him (xi. 3, 5, 36).^ A third is that he was the young man of great wealth mentioned in MJc. x. 17, for of him, too, it is recorded that Jesus loved him (v. 21), and though he then went away from our Lord sorrowful, it has been asked whether Christ's love may not have availed to bring him back.^ None of these conjectural identifications has any plausibihty. In the Gospels generally (as has been already observed) the biographical interest is subordinated to the refigious (cf. Mk. i. 1, Lk. i. 4), and the purpose with which the Fourth Gospel was composed is expUcitly stated in XX. 31, " that ye may befieve that Jesus is the Chiisb, the Son of God, and that beUeving ye may have fife in His name." In promoting this end the author seems to have felt that the previous deUneation of the historical Jesus did inadequate justice to the significance which the Christ had come to have for the Church.* He therefore sought to replace it by another, corresponding more closely, as he befieved, to Christian experience. This fresh portraiture of the Lord he produced partly by re-arranging and modifying the recorded sequence of the events of the ministry, but more especially by introducing a difierent conception of Jesus' PersonaUty through a series of discourses ascribed to our Lord Himself. Yet if the writer, to express his conviction of what Jesus was to mankind, handled with great freedom the actual incidents of His life, and inserted in his work discourses largely unhistorical, his procedure was not out of keeping with earUer precedent, and he only carried into practice principles of historical composition previously exhibited in the Old Testament. If he reconstructed the past so as to harmonize the record of it with ideas about Jesus current during his own later life, which the Church had only recently come fuUy to entertain, he merely pursued a method foUowed by the author of the Books of Chronicles in his revised account of the reigns of the early Judeean kings (p. 118). If he put into the lips of the Lord Himself some speeches which were probably never delivered, in order to give greater force to the truths which he believed and valued, he only imitated the example of the writer of Deuteronomy ' The same two verbs are used in these passages as are employed in reference to the Beloved Disciple. ' H. L. Jackson, The Problem of the Fourth Oospd, pp. 164, 167. * Cf. Cambridge Biblical Essays, p. 295 (Brooke). 230 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (seventh century B.C.) who, to impress on his contemporaries duties which he deemed of highest importance, placed his appeals in the mouth of Moses. In view of the proneness of Jewish writers to communicate abstract ideas through the medium of circumstantial narratives which were the creations of fancy (p. 119), it is most likely that the Evangelist, in associating with definite times and localities some of the utterances attributed to Jesus, drew upon his imagination, choosing for them what seemed appropriate settings. This may be the explanation of certain of the visits of Christ to Jerusalem which figure in the Fourth Gospel, the ritual of the festivals held there being thought to afiord a suitable environ- ment for discourses designed to convey particular ideas ; though another reason may be found in the desire to emphasize the sin of the ecclesiastical authorities in rejecting the Messiah, who is accordingly depicted as giving to them the fullest opportunity of hearing Him (cf. vii. 3, 10). How small the writer's real interest was in the recording of events appears from the way in which some of the scenes and occurrences described by him lack all proper conclusion, e.g. the conversation of Nicodeiuus with Jesus (iii. 1-15 (21)), and the dispute of the Jews with Him about breaking the Sabbath (v. 10-47). On each occasion it is the discourse and not the situation that is, for the narrator, of any importance. Of the seven iniracles contained in the Fourth Gospel (five being peculiar to it) several are plainly regarded as symbols of various aspects of Christ's Personality (the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life) which are expounded in succeeding addresses.^ The circumstance that his work is an interpretation of a Lite rather than a transcript of it does not, of course, rob of credibility all the details contained in it which are not found in the Synoptists. But it is inevitable that the nature of his work must reduce the confidence that can be reposed in such details ; and though there are cases where his representations seem more accurate than those of St. Mark (p. 344), it is impossible that such are numerous. The date when the Gospel was written, if the view here adopted of its origin be correct, can be confined within comparatively narrow limits. The author appears acquainted with all the Synoptists, so that he must have produced his own book after the publication of the latest of the other Gospels, which was probably subsequent to a.d. 80 (p. 192). If he was an actual witness, when a young man, of our Lord's trial and death in A.D. 29 (p. 342), and was, at the time, not more than seventeen, he may have lived till, but can scarcely have outlived, the end of the first century j and the composition of the Gospel may accordingly be dated about A.D. 90. The locality where it was written can only be conjectured. Some confusion seems to have happened in connexion with the authors of the Fcfurth Gospel and of the Book of Revelation (p. 326) ; and the confusion is most intelligible if the two were alike associated with the same region. The second of these works was almost certainly written in the Roman province of Asia ; and Irenseus probably reflects a well-grounded belief in assertmg that Ephesus, the capital of Roman Asia, was the place where the Gospel known as John's originated. The Appendix to the Gospel (xxi.) must 1 Cf. ix. 39, and see Sohmiedel, The JoJiannine Writings, pp. 95 f., 113 i. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 231 have been added by another hatid (p. 232) after the death of the Evangelist, who had come to be mistakenly identified with John the son of Zebedee ; the use of the present tense in v. 24, " this is the disciple which beareth witness of these things," doubtless refers inerely to his permanent testimony imparted through his book. The literary style of the Fourth Gospel has several peculiarities. Though the Greek in which it is writteil is correct as regards the construc- tion of the words composing each clause or sentence, it is very unidiomatic in respect of the arrkngemeht of the clauses or sentences themselves. These, for the most part, are loosely co-ordinated with one another, instead of being compacted into a period by appropriate subordination. Some of the peculiarities distinguishing it from Classical Greek are Semitic in character ; and among such features may be reckoned the frequent addition to an affirmative statement of its equivalent in a negative foriia (or vice versa), this recalling the parallelism so customary in Hebrew (i; 3, 20, iii. 16, x. 5, xviii. 20). A substantive is often repeated where a pronoun would serve as well (i. 4, 10, 44, 45, ii. 9) ; instances of asyndeton are extremely numerous ; and when a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence is employed, a preference is shown for oi^v, sometimes without any trace of its proper meaning (xviii. 4, 28). The final particle Iva is alliiost twice as common as in all the Synoptists taken together. The vocabulary specially distinctive of the Gospel includes the follow- ing words and phrases : abide in (a person), iiev(o iv love, to, ayandm Comforter, the, 6 naQmXr)xoq manifest, to, cpaveQodb MrMess (spiritual), axozla openly, Tiaggrjala eii^adl (or ehduring), akovioq proverb, Tiagoi/ila Jceep (a commandment or a word), true, alrfiriQ, dXrjdtvog Tfjgeto {ivro^v or Xdyov) truth, d^deia lait ^ay, ike, fi iaxcnrj ■^fiega witness, /lagrvQia lay down life, to, riBevai ipvxi^v witness, to hear, fiagrvQeco life (spiritual), Cmij Word, the, 6 Aoyoc. light (spiritual), (p&q works, egya love, AyaStrj world, xoafiog Of the two equivalents for behold ! or see ! — iSi and idov — the former is niuch more common than the latter. Of the alternative forms for the name Jerusalem 'hgoadXv/^a is uniformly employed to the exclusion of 'hgwaaX'^li. The word 'Aiir^v is invariably doubled. There is a com- plete absence of the substantive nlaTig ; but the verb maxEvco is excep- tionally frequent. The title 6 paTinarrj; is not used of John the Baptist. The Johannine writer, like St. Luke (p. 205), sometimes applies the title 6K6qio? to Jesus in narrative passages, these two being in this excep- tional among the Evangelists (see J oh. iv. 1). The Latin words that occur in this Gospel comprise drjvdeiov, Kivrmv, aovSdgiov, qiQayiXhov, rirXog. Certain awkward transitions, and a lack of connexion between various passages suggest that the Gospel h^s undergone abine dislocation arid perhaps interpolation. 282 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY The most notable of the unevenneases which call for explanation and are best accounted for by the supposition of some disarrangement of the text or the insertion of glosses, are the following : (a) In oh. i. the three verses 6-8 break the natural connexion between v. 5 and V. 9 ; whilst v. 15 disturbs that between v. 14 and v. 16. They are perhaps editorial additions intended to prepare the way for the reference to John the Baptist in v. 19. (6) In ch. V. the scene is Jerusalem, but in ch. vi. it is implied that Jesus is in Galilee, v. 1, and Capernaum, v. 59, without any mention being made of His return from Judaea. Probably the order of the two chapters should be inverted : vi. 1 would follow naturally upon the close of ch. iv. (where Jesus is represented in Galilee) ; and vii. 1 (which states that Jesus walked in Galilee because He would not walk in Judsea, since the Jews sought to kill Him (see v. 18)) would form an appropriate sequel to the conclusion of ch. v. But within ch. vii. itself there appears to be some disorder ; in w. 14-24 the subject of discussion is Jesus' authority to heal on the Sabbath, which is the same as that in ch. v. Accordingly the proper order is probably V. 1-47, vii. 14-24, vii. 1-13 (the " feast " of vii. 14 being the " feast " of v. 1). (c) In ch. xii. the narrative passage 366-42 seems out of place, for it separates the discourse in xii. 20-36a (which ends with an exhortation to men to walk while the light is among them) from xii. 44—50 (where Jesus declares that He has come as a Ught into the world), the two sections being marked by lunship of subject. The misplaced passage should probably follow at the close of the chapter. (d) In ch. xiii. m. 18 and 19 disturb the sequence between v. 17 and v. 20. (c) The conclusion of xiv. 31 (" Arise, let us go hence ") has its proper sequel in xviii. 1 (" When Jesus had spoken these words he went forth," etc.), not in the con- tinuation of Jesus' discourse and prayer contained in ch. xv., xvi. and xvii. These three chapters appear to be a later addition after the original plan of the book was complete. (/) Chapter xxi. is of the nature of an appendix to the Gospel, which has its proper close at XX. 30, 31. Within the appendix v. 24 is an insertion by some persons (pro- bably ecclesiastical authorities) who beUeved (mistakenly, if the reasoning of the preceding pages is of any value) that the Beloved disciple was a witness of all that was recorded in the book, and were wishful to vouch for his veracity. It seems most likely that the rest of the Appendix -was not attached to the book by its author, for not only does the concluding v. 25 suggest a different hand from xx. 30, 31, but, though there are points of contact between this chapter and the preceding part of the book, yet certain slight pecuUarities in the vocabulary are unfavourable to the supposition of identity of origin.^ Thus whilst ch. xxi. has some peculiar words and phrases in common with the earlier chapters (17 flaXatro-a tjjs TijSepidSos (vi. 1, xxi. 1 only), 6\papwv (vi. 9, 11, xxi. 9, 10, 13 only), the names Didymus (xi. 16, xx. 24, xxi. 2 only) and Nathanael (i. 45-49, xxi. 2 only), and the double 'Ajx-fiv ), yet (pavepoOffBai and ipavepovi/ eavT6v in connexion with the Resurrection appearances {w. 1, 14) only recur in the ungenuine section at the close of M!:. (xvi. 12, 14) ; oi li.Se\<)>oi for members of the Christian community {v. 23) is isolated in the Gospel, though common in Acts ; and instead of apviov (v. 15) and vpo^ca-iov (w. 16, 17) John elsewhere uses d/ixis and irp6(iaTov ; and it is, at least, rather noteworthy that three such common verba as twiarpicpu, la-xiu, and ToX/j-da, which are altogether absent from ch. i.-xx. should appear in ch. xxi. If the conclusion is correct that the last ch. is by another hand, it is idle to speculate who was responsible for adding it, or where he wrote (though both Ephesus and Rome have been suggested).' It is distinguished from the body of the work by showing acquaintance with the tradition that associated some of the Resurrection appearances with GaUlee, whereas in the preceding chapter they are confined to Jerusalem ; and it is not improbable that it owed its origin to a desire to adjust the account preserved in ch. xx. to that contained in the Synoptists (as represented by Mt. xxviii. and the lost conclusion of MIc. (which must have recorded an appearance of the Risen Lord in Galilee) ). The most important textual problem presented by the Fourth Gospel is the quos- » See MofEatt, L.N.T. p. 572. - Stanton, Gospels as Historical Documents, iii. pp. 19, 21. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 233 tion of tho authenticity of vii. 53-viii. 11 (known as the pericope adulterce). The pas- sage is contained inDFGHKUr and some cursives ; in some manuscripts of Lat. vet. {be effg) and in Lat. vg. ; in Syr. (pal.), Eg. (some MSS.), Eth. Arm. (some MSS.), and is recognized by the Latin Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine. It also occurs in the cursives 1, 19, 20, 129 and others at the end of the Ooapel ; whilst in the cursives 13, 69, 124, 346, 656 it is placed at the concliision of Lie. xxi. But it is absent from N AiBC'L^NTWX A^ and numerous cursives (including 22, 33); from Lat. vet. (a f g), Syr. (cur., pesh., hi.). Eg. (sah. and boh. (some MSS.)), Goth., Arm. (some MSS.), and from all Greek patristic writers prior to Euthymius (twelfth century), who states that it was either absent from, or obeUzed in, the accurate copies. It will be seen that the weight of MS. authority is decidedly against it ; and that the earliest external evidence is chiefly Western. Internally, the text of the passage " varies much in the documents which contain it." ' Against the supposition that it is genuine, and was removed for prudential reasons, is the fact that in the authorities which omit it the omission is not confined to viii. 3-11, but includes vii. 53-viii. 2. On the other hand, the hypothesis that it is an interpolation is greatly favoured by the facts (o) that its presence disturbs the appropriateness of the pronoun them in viii. 12, and of the Pharisees in viii. 13, which cannot relate to the scribes and Pharisees of viii. 3 (since these had departed (vui. 9) ), but find a natural explanation in vii. 45 ; (6) that its occurrence between the two discourses vii. 37-39 and vui. 12-19 destroys the appositeness of the occasion for the second, which, if the passage be omitted, appears to have been uttered, like the first, on the last day of the Feast of Taber- nacles, marked by certain ceremonies (p. 209). A narrative concerning a woman " maUoiously accused before the Lord touching many sins " is said by Eusebius (H.Ii. iii. 39, 16) to have been contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews ; and the description is sufficiently suitable for the passage here considered to render it probable that the source whence it was taken is the work to which Eusebius refers. It has been mentioned that the section by some cursive MSS. is included in St. Luke's Gospel ; and certain phraseological features in it are suggestive of St. Luke, as will be seen from the following table, where the number of times that various words found in it occur in the several Gospels, together with Acts, are noted : — Mt. Mk. Lk. Acts. Joh. rafo.yl'^miiai. . 3 1 8 20 1 Xais, Xao/ . . 10 2 (or 3) 36 (or 37) 43 2 iirh Tov vvv — — 5 1 thev Sf 1 — 58 16 1 ipii/jiepos oVi 1 — 3 3 fX" with infin. 1 — 5 6 2 On the other hand ipoirdu (v. 7) is more common in the rest of Joh. than in St. Luke's two works taken together. (c) Acts The scope of the Acts of the Apostles (as it is termed in codex B)* extends from the Ascension of our Lord to the imprisonment of St. Paul at Eome, a period of about thirty-two years ; and in it is traced the ' These MSS. are here defective, but could not have contained the verses. * These MSS. leave a blank space suggesting that the existence of the passage was known to the copyist but that it was not found in the copies reproduced. ' Westoott and Hort, App. p. 88. The most interesting variation occurs in the uncial tJ, which at the end of vui. 8 adds after lypa, Karayo/iai, irapa\iyo/iat, irXoos, iTOT\eu) and ships (dpTe/uiv, ir/fo0ij, ^evKTripla). The identity of the diarist can be ascertained with some plausibility from the names of the persons (1) who accompanied St. Paul On the journey from Troas to Philippi (where the we first appears in most early * Enc. Bib. I. col. 39. » See Hamaok, Imhe the Physician, p. 9. ' Hawkins. Hora Synopticce,^ pp. 185-188. 286 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY manuscripts {Acts xvi. 11)) ; (2) who accompanied the Apostle to Kome (as related in the last of the we sections {Acts xxvii. 1-xxviii. 16)) and are alluded to in the Epistles which were written during his imprisonment. (1) The Apostle's companions on the voyage from Troas to Philippi were (so far as is known) only Silas (xv. 40), Timothy (xvi. 1) and the writer of the diary, who might be either of the two named, or a third person. Silas, however, does not seem to have been with St. Paul after his Second missionary journey ; he is not named in Acts after xviii. 5, and is only mentioned in 1 Th. i. 1, 2 Th. i. 1 (written from Corinth), and in 2 Cor. i. 19 (written from Macedonia). Moreover, it is against his authorship of the we passages that he was certainly with St. Paul on many occasions where the first personal pronoun does not appear in the narrative {Acts XV. 40, xvi. 19, 25, 29, xvii. 4, 10, xviii. 5). Timothy, though he accompanied St. Paul on his outward journey from Troas to Plulippi and went on to Greece, did not on the return journey sail with the Apostle from Philippi to Troas (where the we again appears), but waited for him ■ with others at the latter place {Acts xx. 4). Silas and Timothy being thus eliminated, the diarist must be a person unnamed. (2) The friends who are mentioned in the Epistles as being with St. Paul at Eome, presumably at difEerent times, were Timothy (just con- sidered), Tychicus, Aristarchus, Epaphroditus, Epaphras, Onesimus, Mark, Justus, Demas, and Luke.^ Of these the first three were among those who waited for St. Paul at Troas ; Epaphroditus and Epaphras seem not to have accompanied the Apostle on the voyage from Csesarea to Rome, but to have gone to him from Philippi and Colossse respectively {Phil. iv. 8, Col. i. 7, 8, iv. 12) ; the slave Onesimus may be excluded at once ; whilst Mark was absent from the Second missionary journey altogether. Such facts seem to limit the possible writers to Justus, Demas, and Luke^ ; and of these, if any importance be attached to tradition, it is obvious that Luke is marked out as the actual author. But before considering his claims further, account must be taken of one of St. Paul's friends who is not mentioned in Acts, but who is known to have been with St. Paul some time during his Second missionary journey, namely Titus (see 2 Cor. vii. 6, viii. 16, xii. 18). The mere fact that he is not named in Acts has been taken to support the conclusion that he was the anonymous writer of the diary ; but otherwise there seems nothing to favour such a conclusion ; and the same silence of Acts can be adduced on behalf of Luke. Moreover Titus was with St. Paul on the occasion of his visit to the Apostles at Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 1), so that it is impossible to think that such difiBculty would attend the reconciliation of the narrative contained in Gal. ii. and Ads xv. (see p. 245), if Titus had been the author of Acts, or had been in any way responsible for information included in it. On the other hand^ Luke's authorship is supported by both external and internal evidence. His name is attached to the work in a number of 1 See Col. iv. 10-14 ; PJiilemon 23, 24 ; Phil. ii. 25. ' Mention should perhaps be made of four others alluded to in the Pastoral Epistles— Crescens, Eubulus, Pudens, and Linus ; but the authenticity and date of these letters are too uncertain for the names cited from them to be considered here. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 237 cursive manuscripts ; and the composition of it is ascribed to him by the Muratorian Canon, by Irenseus, by Clement of Alexandria, and by Tertullian ; and this testimony is confirmed by various literary features. (1) The allusion to a former treatise (i. 1), sent (as Acts was) to Theophilus, can only be to the Gospel associated with the name of Luke. (2) There appear in Acts references to incidents related only in the Third Gospel (cf. AcU i. 4 with Lh. xxiv. 49, Acts iv. 27 with Lk. xxiii. 7-12). (3) The occurrence, in connexion with infirmities and disease, of medical terms (though see p. 206) agrees with St. Paul's description of Luke as a physician, the most noticeable of such terms being dx^vg (of a mist darkening the eyes, cf. Galen, dx^eg rcov d^daX/iwv), dvaxadl^eiv (" to sit up in bed "), nliingaadac (of inflammation), SvaeineQia. (i) The similarity between the vocabularies of Acts and the Third Gospel. It will be sufficient here to cite the following statistics in respect of words peculiar to Acts and the Third Gospel as compared with Acts and each of the other three h — Acts and Lh. Acts and Mt. Acts and Mk. Acts and Joh. 58 17 14 13 This last evidence, derived from the diction of the two works, establishes a strong presumption in favour of their common authorship, which is further confirmed by the description of the Apostle Simon as the Zealot, which occurs in Acts i. 13, and Lk. vi. 15 only ; by the use of the expression the Most High God five times in the Third Gospel and twice in Acts (whereas it occurs only twice elsewhere in the whole of the New Testament) ; and by the not infrequent doubling of a vocative (cf. Acts ix. 4, xxii. 7, xxvi. 14 with Lk. X. 41, xxii. 31).^ At the same time there are sundry linguistic differences between Acts and the Third Gospel which caU for attention and require explanation. (a) There are certain words and phrases which are frequent in Lk., but wholly absent from Acts : — dyandoi syivero with a finite verb Tt^ovaiog dfiaQTcoXog d/iolcog axQCupelg (6) There are also conversely several words or phrases which never occur in Lk., but are frequent in Acts : aiQEOig imnaXeouai (to call upon) ngoanagreQEa) dvakaii^dvo) im/ihco nQoaXa/:iPdvo/j.ac dvd6miTog emara/xai rigag yivog //.ezanE/ino/iac rr]Qeco diaXsyo/iai 6fiodv/j,ad6v Xdiagxog inavQiov SQa/j,a Xcogiov. imxaXEo/iai (to be named) 7iaQQr]aidCo/j.ai These distinctive expressions can be supplemented by others which are frequent in one of the two books, but are found only rarely in the other. And even more significant than such difierences of vocabulary ' Hawkins, ilor. Hyn.', iDp. 175, 176. ' Burkitt, The Gospel History, p. 114. 238 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (pfirtly explicable by difierence of subject-matter) are certain constructions constituting stylistic features. Amongst those wMcli are char^/Oteristic of Lk. but are seldom used in Acts are the following : — iyhero followed by xal (eleven times in Lk., once doubtfully in Ads). h TO) with the infinitive (thirty- two times in Lk., seven times in Acts), xal adrdg (forty-one times in Lk., eight times in Acts).^ The replacement of grammatical usages which are conspicuous ia the Gospel by other equivalents in Acts {e.g. iyhero followed by an infinitivp), in writings which various other phraseological facts connect together (as shown on p. 237), seems only explicable by the assumption that, if tjie two books proceed from one writer, they niust have been compose^ at different periods ; and since the Gospel is clearly the earlier, Acts must be separated from it by some considerable interval during which the author's fondriess for particular expressions and constructions change4. If the conclusion be accepted that the Third Gospel and Acts were composed by the same individual, the inference just drawn that Ads was written some years later than the Gospel, after an interval at least long enough to allow for some alteration in the writer's style, carries with it the consequence that it was probably produced in the tenth decade of the first century. For it has been already shown (p. 203) that the Third Gospel bears indication of having originated after the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, perhaps about 80, and if the two works were both composed by St. Luke, but severed by several years, the later of the two must have been written within the first century, but not far from its close. This result is confirmed by a second consideration. Certain historical events or circumstances described or alluded to in Lk. and Acts are also mentioned by Josephus, and a comparison between the accoimts given of the same facts by the two writers raises the question whether the author of Ads was acquainted with the works of Josephus, the dates of which are approximately known. Josephus wrote his Jewish War probably between 70 and 79, his Antiquities in 93-94, and his Life after a.d. 100. The most noteworthy instance in the Third Gospel, in connexion with vyhich St. Luke has been suspected of having read Josephus and drawn a mistaken inference from his statements has already been considered (p. 204). In regards to Acts the most important passages for the purpose of comparison are the following : — (a) Acts V. 36, 37. Gamaliel is represented as saying (in a speech delivered probably about a.d. 30), " Before these days rose up Theudas, giving himself out to be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves, who was slain. . . . After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the enrolment, and drew away some of the people after him ; he also perished." Josephus {Ard. xx. 5, 1) relates that whilst Cuspius Fadus was procurator of Judaea (drc. a.d. 45) a, certain Theudas, professing to be a prophet, persuaded a great part of the people to follow him to the Jordan which he declared he would divide, ' Hawkins, Hor. Syn.^, pp. 178-180. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 239 and afiord them an easy passage through it, but that Padus dispatched against them a troop of horsemen who took Theudas prisoner and cut ofi Ms head. The historian then proceeds to state that in the procuratorship of Fadufi' successor, Tiberius Alexander, there were executed the sons of Judas of Galilee, who must be the Gatdonite of that name {Ant. xviii. 1, 1), the instigator of a revolt when P. Sulpicius Quirinius was governor {legatus) of Syria (a.d. 6-11). It wiU be seen that whilst the revolt of Judas, according to Josephus as well as St. Luke, occurred before Gamaliel's speech, the disturbance caused by Theudas (as described by Josephus) took place some fifteen years after it ; but that Josephus mentions the name of Theudas before that of Judas, so that the writer of Acts, who, if Josephus is correct, commits an anachronism in the case of Theudas, may have been led to arrange the insurrections in the wrong order and to misdate that of Theudas through a careless reading of Josephus. (h) Acts xii. 20. In the account of the death of Herod Agrippa it is related how the king, when addressing the people of Tyre and Sidon, was greeted with great adulation by them, his speech being described as the voice of a god, and how, because he gave not the glory to God, he was smitten by an angel and was eaten by worms. The parallel account in Josephus (Ant. xix. 8, 2) makes no mention of the Tyrians and Sidonians, but represents that at a festival. Herod, gorgeously arrayed in a robe covered with silver, appeared so resplendent that his flatterers declared that he was a god, and that they would henceforward regard him as more than mortal ; that he accepted the impious adulation without protest, but almost at once perceived an owl perched above his head, which he took to be a messenger of doom (ayyekog xaxCov), and that he died of a disease of the intestines in great agony in five days. There is nothing materially inconsistent between the two accounts (for audience may have been granted to the ambassadors from Tyre and Sidon on the occasion of a festival which was calculated to impress them) ; and there is little here which suggests borrowing on the part of the writer of Ads, though the use by both authors of the word ayyeXoz is a curious coincidence. The ascription, however, by St. Luke of Herod's illness to an angel of the Lord ia fully in accord with Hebrew habits of thought (see 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 2 Kg. xix. 35) ; and the two narratives may be quite independent. (c) Acts xxi. 38. In the conversation between St. Paul and the military tribune {xiXiaQx°i) who, during the governorship of Felix, delivered him from the mob at Jerusalem by arresting him, the Apostle is represented as being asked by the officer whether he was the Egyptian who had stirred up sedition and led into the wilderness 4,000 Assassins. Josephus [B.J. ii. 13, 5) refers to an Egyptian false prophet who, when Felix was governor, gathered on the Mount of Olives 30,000 adherents, and prepared to break into Jerusalem, but who was attacked by FeUx, and the greater part of his followers were either destroyed or taken. It is probable that both writers refer to the same occurrence, but there is not sufficient resemblance between their language about it to serve as convincing evidence of indebted- ness on the part of St. Luke. In addition to these passages there occur a few verbal resemblances 240 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY between Acts and the writings of Josephus to which little significance can be attached, since similar circumstances, at distinct periods in history, may not unnaturally be described by difEerent writers in similar (if common) words quite independently. The only case, therefore, which reaOy occasions serious suspicion of acquaintance by St. Luke with Josephus' Antiquities, is that marked (a). In this instance, though it is, of course, possible that in the two writers the name Theudas designates difierent persons,^ it seems more likely that St. Luke has made a blunder which becomes explicable if it is assumed that he had been betrayed into it by a cursory perusal of Josephus, whose narrative he reproduced inaccurately from memory. And fi the suspicion be justified, the date of Acts, in which the statement apparently derived from the Antiquities occurs, is thrown almost to the end of the first century A.D., since the work from which it borrows was written in a.d. 93-94. There is nothing incredible in this conclusion, for, on the supposition that St. Luke was not more than twenty-five when he joined St. Paul at Troas or Philippi about the year A.D. 50, he would be no more than seventy by the time the Antiquities was published. There are numerous instances of works of importance having been produced by their authors at an age more advanced than this ; and Acts is not an extensive book, or beyond the capacity of a septuagenarian to compose. If there is anything in the tradition that St. Luke's age at his death ^yas seventy-four, it follows (on the previous assumption that he was twenty-five in a.d. 50) that he died in a.d. 99, and that Acts probably had its origin between 95 and that year. There is, indeed, another tradition that he was martyred under Domitian (81-96) ; but accounts concerning the manner of his end vary, and the weight of evidence seems to be on the side of the date suggested above. As to the place where the book was written, there are no indications ; and conjectures difier according to the view taken of the time of its composition. If it were written before the termination of St. Paul's trial, no place is more likely than Eome. But as this date is improbable, there is nothing to connect the work with Eome any more than with several other localities ; and Greece, Palestine, and Ephesus have all been proposed, without any plausible evidence being adduced in favour of any of them. The conclusion that Acts probably originated as late as 95-100, entails the consequence that the book was separated from the latest incidents recorded in it (viz. St. Paul's voyage to Italy, and his two years' imprison- ment at Rome, circ. 59-61) by an interval of about thirty-five years. In the case of the earliest parts of Acts the interval is much greater, since all that is recorded in these occurred (on the hypothesis of St. Luke's age adopted above) in the writer's boyhood. It therefore becomes a question of great moment, in connexion with the value of the history contained in Acts, to inquire how much of it depends upon previous written records, and how much upon tradition and oral communications. : But before investigating the authorities used by St. Luke in his second ' The name Theudas can represent Theodorus, Theodolus, and several similaj' apiJellations. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 241 work and estimating its historical worth, it is desirable to consider the several purposes which the author had in view, since various omissions noticeable in it may be accounted for by the fact that some matters passed over by him did not fall within the aims which he was pursuing. It is manifest that the book does not comprise an exhaustive accovmt of the early history of the Christian Church. Attention is confined to the activities of some five or six of the principal figures in it (p. 234) ; and the author's concentration upon these few leading characters and upon various incidents in which they took part, renders it probable that his design was not to furnish even a genenal sketch of the development of the Church during the first thirty or thirty-five years of its existence, but to illustrate only certain aspects of that development. The purposes which he set before himself and which presumably dictated his choice of materials, seem to have been : — (a) to illustrate the influence of the Holy Spirit in directing the under- takings of the Church (cf. i. 8, iv. 8, viii. 29, xiii. 2, xv. 28, xvi. 6, etc.), such influence being regarded as continuing in the world the work of Jesus (cf. xvi. 7) ; (6) to trace the extension of the Gospel from Jerusalem through Samaria (viii. 5), Phoenicia, and Greece to Eome ^ ("cf. Acts xxiii. 11), which was not only the capital of the empire, but might from an eastern point of view be regarded as tantamount to the ends of the earth ^ ; (c) to show how the Gospel, before it was preached to the Gentiles, was ofiered to the Jews, and how, in general, they rejected and opposed it, in spite of the testimony rendered to it by their own Scriptures (xi. 19, xiii. 5, 46, xvii. 2, xxviii. 25) ; (d) to exemplify the favourable judgment passed upon the Christian preachers by the Roman authorities with whom they came in contact (xiii. 12, xvi. 35, xviii. 12, xix. 35, xxvi. 32), as contrasted with the persecution which they sustained from the Jews and which was unprovoked by any disloyalty on the part of the Christians towards their nation or its reUgious institutions. If these were the principal aims which the author of Acts had in mind, it is plain that the scheme of his work was a limited one. Such a limitation of plan being perfectly legitimate, there is no justifiable ground for criticism if there is not found in his book matters which we have no right to seek in it. It was natural that he should devote more attention to the missionary labours of St. Paul than to those of the other Apostles, since he had himself shared many of them. But though the travels and the preaching of St. Paul occupy nearly half of his work, it was not his object to give a complete account of St. Paul's career. He was the historian of the expanding Church, not the biographer of an individual Apostle, however eminent. This fact accounts, at least in part, for the absence from Acts of many incidents in St. Paul's ' This is not really disproved by the facts that there were Christians at Rome before St. Paul went there (xxviii. 15). The writer, in the latter half of his work, is concerned with tracing the extension of the Gospel through the labours of St. Paul. ' In Pi. Sol. viii. 16 Pompey is described as 6 a?r' ia-xdrwv rrjs 7^s. 16 242 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY experience which are mentioned in the Epistles. The writer omits, for instance, all reference to the Apostle's retirement from Damascus into Arabia, and his return thence {Gal. i. 17) ; he relates nothing about his work in Cilicia (Gal. i. 21, cf. Acts ix. 30, xi. 25) ; he gives no information about the five occasions when he was flogged by the Jews ; he represents Timothy and Silas as joining him at Corinth from Macedonia (Acts xviii. 5), but says nothing about Timothy's previous arrival at Athens and his return thence to Macedonia (1 Th. iii. 1, 2) ; he mentions two visits to Corinth, but is silent concerning another which intervened between them (p. 276) ; he narrates the story of only a single shipwreck, though St. Paul, previous to the one described by St. Luke, states that he sufiered as many as three (2 Gor. xi. 25) ; whilst he makes no mention of Titus, to whom the Epistles contain so many allusions ; and never refers in his narrative to St. Paul's collection of money for the relief of the poorer Christians at Jerusalem, though it figures frequently in the Apostle's letters (Rom. xv. 26, 1 Gor. xvi. 1, 2 Gor. viii. 1-4, ix. 1-5).^ It is noteworthy, too, that there is no hint anywhere that St. Paul ever wrote letters to his converts ; and there is little sign that St. Luke, in composing Acts, ever consulted them. Doubt- less the latter, in his selection of materials, was guided by two main considerations, one being the particular ends which he had set before himself (see above, p. 241), and the other the sources of information at his disposal (if, as in his Gospel (Lk. i, 3), he aimed at reporting only those matters which rested upon what he deemed to be good evidence). But he is hardly likely to have been altogether indifierent to a third, namely, limits of space, which, in view of the tolerably uniform extent of the longest of the New Testament books, seems to have been to their writers a matter of some moment. It is now desirable to proceed with the attempt to value the worth of Acts as a history by considering the nature of the authorities available for the historian and the care and judgment he has shown in the use of them. It is obvious that for acquiring information about the earUest events which he sought to record, he was not so favourably situated as he was in regard to the latest. The narrative of Acts includes incidents which occurred very shortly after our Lord's death (circ. a.d. 29), whereas the writer, if identical with St. Luke, did not, in aU probability, come into contact with any of the chief actors in the history which he relates until more than twenty years afterwards (circ. 50-57 a.d.). For events prior to this date he was dependent upon information supphed by others. As to his informants for different parts of his narrative some plausible conjectures may be ventured : — (1) For his account of the occurrences related in the opening chapteis of Acts, in which the scene is Jerusalem and St. Peter is the most prominent figure, his informants were probably persons who were not primary authorities, and of whom only one can reasonably be thought to have preserved written notes of what had been reported to him. St. Luke (for it will be henceforward assumed that he was the author of ' ' ' In Acts xxiv. 17 St. Paul is represented as alluding to It in a speech. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 243 accompanied St. Paul to Jerusalem, and wliilst it is improbable that lie met there either St. Peter (to whom there is no allusion in the second half of the work) or St. John (p. 497), he can scarcely have failed to have had some intercourse with members of the Church who had consorted with these and other leading Apostles during the period immediately succeeding Pentecost. Possibly, too, some particulars relating to the earliest days of the Church may have been derived from Mnason, who is described as an original disciple, and with whom St. Luke and St. Paul lodged on the journey from Csesarea to Jerusa-lem {Acts xxi. 16). But it seems not unlikely that St. Mark was his principal source of information for the incidents in which St. Peter took the chief part. St. Mark acted as St. Peter's interpreter (p. 169), and it is antecedently probable that he took down from St. Peter's recollections matters relating not only to our Lord's life, but also to the period following the Crucifixion and Resurrection. St. Mark went to Rome (p. 174), and there St. Luke must have become associated ^ with him, and if St. Mark, who had presumably had oppor- tunities of meeting St. Peter at Jerusalem, had preserved any notes of what he had then learnt from him, he may well have communicated some of them to St. Luke, when he encountered him at the Roman capital. It is, at any rate, worth observing that the word xgd^aTrog, which in the Synoptic Gospels is distinctive of Mk., occurs in Acts v. 15, ix. 33, in connexion with accounts of two miracles of healing wrought by St. Peter. It is perhaps also not without significance that the verb fiedeg/j.rjVE'iofj.m, which is aknost peculiar to St. Mark's Gospel among the Synoptists, is found twice in Acts, once in a narrative in which St. Peter figures (iv. 36- V. 11), and once in connexion with an incident in St. Paul's First Missionary journey when St. Mark accompanied him.^ St. Mark could also furnish information respecting Barnabas, to whom he was related. (2) Some knowledge concerning Stephen's trial and death could be procured from St. Paul, who was present at Stephen's execution ; whilst another source of information about the events of that particular crisis would be Philip, who, like Stephen, was one of the Seven " deacons," and at whose house St. Paul and St. Luke stayed when at Csesarea. The narrative of Philip's own activities St. Luke is also likely to have owed to Philip himself or to his daughters (from whom Papias (Bus. H.E. iii. 39, 9) records that he heard a wonderful tale about one who rose from the dead, * " WJiereyer in the Paulinp Epistles St. Luke's name is found, there also we find the name of St. Mark " (Hamaok, Date of Acts, p. 29). ' By some scholars it is thought that in Acts i.-Y. a series of doublets can be detected, as the contents of ii. 1 to end and v. 17-42 are in some degree parallel to those of iii. 1-v. 16, Thus : — A B ii. 1-13 (the gift of the Spirit) = iv. 23-31. ii. 14-36 (a speech of St. Peter) = iii. 11-26. ii. 37-il (a large number of converts) = iv. 1-4. ii. 42-47 (the prevalence of communism) = iv. 32-t. 16. V. 17-42 (attempt to suppress Christian preaching) = iv. 5-22. If these series of passages are really parallel, but in some measure divergent, accounts of the same incidents, which have been united by St. Luke, then the series marked B probably proceeds from St. Mark. See Hastings, D.A.G. i. pp. 23, 24. 244 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY clearly implying that they transmitted stories of their own, or of an earlier, time).^ (3) Several incidents relating to Antioch (xi. 19 f.) could have been ascertained from St. Paul, who laboured there for a year (xi. 26) ; whilst by tradition St. Luke himself is said to have been an Antiochene, and so may have had many acquaintances there who could give him information. (4) Various facts connected with the Herods may have been obtained from Manaen, who is described as avvT:Qotal airol), tell {ATtayiKKeiv), keep (SiarriQslv). In spite, therefore, of the presence in it of certain words and phrases that do not occur in St. Luke's writings or only in the letter of Lysias (dvaaxEvd^eiv, diaariXXeaQai, inavdyxeg, eS ngdrrsiv, oi dyanrjrol fnicov, together with the greetings Xalgeiv (in the infin.) ^ and Eggmao), it may be suspected to be St. Luke's own production. The other letter is the one forwarded by Claudius Lysias to Felix (xxiii. 26-30) ; and this, too, has a few words found nowhere in the New Testament except in the Third Gospel and Acts — m,ost excellent ' See Chase, The Credibility of the Acts, p. 294 and cf. p. 125 f. Ohase thinks that at Pentecost St. Peter spoke in Greek. Notable, in particular, is the nee of i irais BeoS {Acts iii. 13, 26, iv. 27, 30). • Cf. James i, 1, and see p. 261. 252 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (xedriarog), questions {^riTrifiaTa), plot {ini^ovMi), accusers (xazriyoQoi), ocAeM'g'e(ly«A?j/ia), whilst it has several more which, though not exclusively Lucan, are characteristic of St. Luke (dv^e, avk^a^pdvetv, dvaigelv, immfpiai, i^aigeXv, iniyiyvcbaxeiv, iyxaXelv, xardyeiv, i^avrfji;, noQayyiXXeiv). The only word that appears not to occur in either of St. Luke's two books is fiavddveiv ; so that it is probable that this letter likewise owes its existence to the Evangelist's skill in composition. The abruptness with which Acts ends (terminating as it does with the statement that St. Paul preached and taught " the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him ") is strange enough to call for remark. If the weight of evidence be held to incline to the view that Acts was written after 70, if not after 95, it follows that the writer was acquainted with the death of St. Paul at the hands of the Roman authorities ; so that his curious silence about the end of St. Paul's trial must be explained by the fact that it did not result in a full acquittal, and by the consideration that, if he mentioned any other ending (whether conviction followed by execution, or liberation merely in consequence of the prosecutors' failure to proceed with the case within the legal period of perhaps two years), ^ he would stultify his purpose of showing that the Romans in general were not unfavourable to Christianity (see p. 241). On the other hand, if the grounds for dating the Third Gospel after a.d. 70 (p. 203) and Acts after a.d. 95 be considered inadequate, the strange termination of the latter book can be converted into an argument for placing the composition of the work at an early date, prior to the end, in 61, of St. Paul's trial, the result of which St. Luke at the time of writing did not know.^ By some who take this line it has been contended that the author contemplated a third work which he did not succeed in writing, though the support for this contention, derived from the use in Acts i. 1 of Tciv fiEV TtQwTov Xdyov in reference to the Gospel (where t6v nkv ngdreom Xoyov might be expected, if only two books were designed), is negUgible (see Mt. xxvii. 64, Acts vii. 12 and note Joh. i. 15, xv. 18). It has already been noted in connexion with some of the Gospels that certain remarkable variations of text occur in the Bezan MS. (D) ; and similar variant read- ings, much greater in number, and almost as striking in character, are presented by it in Acts. In many instances its peculiar readings are supported by one or two other uncials (C E), by one or two cursives (especially 137) and by some codices of the Old Latin (especially gig.). The departures from the best-attested text are sometimes in the direction of greater brevity, but more often in the direction of greater length and completeness. Their nature will best be realized from a selection of examples, others being noticed elsewhere (pp. 519, 536, 560, 567). Approved Text D X. 19 three ' omiis. xi. 12 making no distinction ,, ^^ ' 25 f '"^'^ •^'^°™ ^'''''* '^ ^*'"^"S^^'^ " 1 See Lake, Interpreter, Jan., 1909 ; Hastings, D.A.C. i. p. 20. ' Hamack holds that Acts, up to xxviii. 28, was written during the second year of the Apostle's imprisonment (61 or 62), and that™. 30, 31 are a postscript ?iddedsoon after a change had occurred in his situation (s?e Date of Acts, p. 94). ' Read by N C E etc. ; B has two. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 253 Approved Text xvii. 18 because he preached Jesus and the resurrection, iv. 6 for John iv. 24 after heard it V. 15 after them V. 18 after public ward V. 39 after them vi. 8 after people viii. 24 after upon me X. 25 for And when it came to pass that Peter entered, Cornelius met him xi. 2 for And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem they of the circum- cision . . . D omits. xi. 27 after Antioch xi. 28 for And there stood up one of them named Agabus and signified xii. 3 for it xii. 10 after went out xii. 22 foi- And the people xiii. 8 after the faith xiv. 2 after the brethren XT. 20 after blood XT. 29 after it shall be well with you XT. 34 (mg.) after there XTi. 30 after out XTi. 35 after the magistrates xvi. 39 for and they came and . . . from the city xvii. 15 after Athens substitutes Jonathan. adds and perceiTcd the working of God. adds for they were freed from every infirmity which each of them had. adds and each one went to his own house. adds neither you nor kings nor tyrants. adds through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. adds and he did not cease weeping much. substitutes And when Peter drew nigh to Csesarea, one of the servants ran forward and signified that he had come. And Cornehus sprang forth and met him. substitutes Peter then after some time wished to go up to Jerusalem, and having summoned the brethren and having confirmed them, making a long discourse, (went) through the coun- try places teaching them. And he met them [the brethren at Jerusa- lem] and reported to them the grace of God. But the brethren of the circumcision . . . adds and there was much joy. substitutes And we having been gathered together, one of them named Agabus spake signifying. substitutes his attack upon the faithful. adds and went down the seven steps. substitutes And he having become recon- ciled to them of Tyre, the people. adds since he heard them gladly. adds but the Lord quickly gave peace (cf. ix. 31). adds and that whatsoever things they wish not to be done to themselTCS, do not to others. adds being influenced by the Holy Spirit. adds and Judas alone went forth. adds having secured the rest. adds gathered together in the market place and, remembering the earth- quake that had taken place, were afraid and. substitutes and they came with many friends unto the prison and exhorted them to go forth, saying. We were ignorant in regard to you, that ye are righteous men. And haTing brought them out, they exhorted them, saying. Go forth from the city, lest they collect together again, crying out against you. adds And he passed by Thessaly, for he was prcTCnted from proclaiming the Word there. 254 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Approved Text xviii. 17 after all xviii. 27 for And when he was minded to pass over into Aohaia, the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him. D adds the Greeks. substitutes And certain Corintlfians, sojourning in Ephesus, having p/eaxi, exhorted him to pass with theip to their country ; and he having con- sented, the Ephesians wrote to the disciples in Corinth to receive the man. adds from the fifth to the tenth hour. substitutes Among whom the sons of a certain Sceva, a priest, wished to do the same, who were in the habit of exorcizing such persons ; and enter- ing in imto the possessed man, they began to call over him the Name, saying. We command thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth to come forth. adds having stayed at Trogyllium. adds in Jerusalem adds and Myra substitutes and they brought us to those with whom we should lodge, and having arrived at a certain village, we stopped with Mnason a Cypriot, an original disciple. From xxii. 29 to the end of the book D is defective, but some variants in xxii. 30-xxviii. 31 deserve notice which occur in the authorities most akin to the Bezan MS., e.g. the cursive 137, and the Syriac and the Old Latin versions. xix. 9 after Tyrannus six. 14 for And there were seven sons of one Sceva a Jew, a chief priest, which did this. XX. 15 after at Samos and XX. 23 after abide me xxi. 1 after Patara xxi. 16 for bringing one Mnason of Cyprus, an original disciple, with whom we should lodge. Approved Text. xxiii. 24 after the governor xxiv. 27 for and desiring to gain favour with the Jews Eehx left Paul in bonds. xxviii. 19 after my nation of xxviii. 31 after none forbidding him 137, Syr. or Lat. vet. add for he was afraid lest the Jews should seize and Mil him and he himself should meanwhile be accused of having received money substitute and left Paul in custody on account of DrusUla. add but in order that I might ransom my soul from death add saying that this is Jesus Christ the Son of God, through whom the whole world wiU begin to be judged. The quahty and extent of the longer readings found in the S text but absent from the Approved text have suggested that they are not copyists' insertions in the one or omissions in the other, but that both the longer and the shorter texts are authentic, and proceed from St. Luke himself ; and that of the two the 5 text is the earUer copy (subsequently modified by the author), on the ground that if the 8 text is assumed to be the later, its comparative proUxity cannot be accounted for.' It certainly contains a number of dupUoate phrases and other superfluities lacldng in the alternative text (e.g. viii. 1 Siuy/Jtos fuyas Kal B\i\l/is for Siu7/ids jieyai ; xvii. 6 poUnTes k&I Xeyovres for XeyovTts, etc.) ; but, on the other hand, it also in many passages has readings superior in lucidity to those occurring in the majority of manuscripts {e.g. xiv. 2, cf. p. 531 ; xix. 14, cf. p. 562 ; xx. 14, cf. p. 567 and xxi. 16, cf. p. 570). And if it is assumed that the more lucid text is the earlier, which was afterwards altered by its author, it foUows that St. Luke's first thoughts were often better than his second. ^ See Blass, Acta Apostolorum (1895), pp. 30-32. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 255 fwd that lie obscured sentences which, as origin£|.lly penned, were perfectly clear. ^ But on the same presupposition that both texts are authentic productions of St. Luke's, the view that the 5 text is the later of the two is also confronted with a serious objection in the restricted currency of the text, which has survived in only a few manuscripts, whereas an improved text might be expected to have the wider circula- tion. Hence it is probable tha/t the presupposition in question is erroneous ; that St. Luke did not prepare two texts ; and that what he actually wrote is not preserved exclusively in either the Approved or the 5 text.' (d) EpisUes and Revelation — The Epistle of James ' The Epistle that goes by the name of James is the first of those which are called Catholic because they are addressed not to some particular Ohureh, but to Christians scattered over a v^ide area (cf. p. 257). It purports to be written by a James who describes himself merely as a servant (or slave) of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The name (which comes from Jacob {Jacobus *)) is apphed to three persons in the New Testament — ^the two Apostles, James the son of Zebedee and James son of AlphaeuB, together with James, " brother " of our Lord. The letter can scarcely have been written by the first,* since he was put to death as early as a.d. 44 (p. 522) ; so that on the supposition that the Epistle is genuine, the authorship really lies between the second and the third, unless the two, as same have argued (p. 364) are one. The absence of any definition serving to distinguish the author from other Jameses favours the conclusion that he was the most important of those who bore the name, and this was he whose relationship to Jesus was likely, after his conversion, to secure for him special regard. James (if rightly identified with one of the younger sons of Mary), became eventually a leading figure in the Christian Church at Jerusalem (see Acts xii. 17, Gal. i. 19, ii. 9, Acts xv. 13, xxi. 18). His sympathies were Judaistic, and the Jewish Christians who sought to pei;petuate withijji (the Church the cleavage between Jew and Gentile seem to have regarded him as their leader (cf. Gal. ii. 1%), though they probably took up a more extreme position than he. It appears that he was mainly responsible for imposing on Gentile Christians certain requirements, cal- culated to conciliate Jewish sentiment [Acts xxi. 25, cf . xv. 13-29 and pp. 57iJ-2). The influerice which he exerted in the Church doubtless accounts for the representation that he was the first bishop of Jerusalem (Eus. > Cf. Snc. Bib. i. col. 53. ' Cf. Eamsay, Expositor , Dec, 1897, p. 460 f. (especially p. 469). For a suggested explanation of some of the features of this text see Rendel Harris, A Study of Codex Bezce ; of. also Lake, Text of New Testament, p. 85 f. ' The order i in which the Epistles are arranged is approximately chronological, but has in places been modified in order to keep together certain books rightly or flTongly attributed to the same writer. ' For the replacement of the 6 by m in English (as also in the Italian Giacomo and the Spanish Jaime) cf . the French Sainedi from Sabbati Dies, ^ It is ascribed to the son of Zebedee in a manuscript of the Old Latin version (Zahn, Int. New Testament, i. p. 106). 256 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY H.E. iii. 7, 9, iv. 5, 3). By Josephus {Anl. xx. 9, 1) he and some others are stated to have been accused before the Sanhedrin by the high priest Ananus during the interval between the procuratorships of Pestus and Albinus {i.e. 61-62), and to have been stoned to death as breakers of the Law. Hegesippus (of. Eus. H.E. ii. 23, 3-18) gives a much more detailed, and in many ways improbable, account of his end, which is placed shortly before Vespasian's siege of Jerusalem. But though the Epistle under consideration, if genuine, most probably proceeds from the James here described, both its authenticity and its origin in the Apostolic age have been denied, and it has been regarded by many (chiefly on the ground of defective external attestation) as dating from the second century a.d. ; though a few scholars (in consequence of its rather peculiar contents) have taken it to be in the main a pre- Christian work. It is therefore necessary to illustrate briefly the nature of the external evidence and to consider a little more carefully the internal characteristics. External Evidence (a) In Clement of Rome (circ. a.d. 95) there occur certain verbal parallels with the Epistle, e.g. ch. 21 iyxavxa>/iEV0Lg iv dXal^oveig. rov Xdyov avrm (at. Jas. iv. 16), ch. 46 tva r( egetg xal dvfioi xai dixooraaiai xal ayjoftaza TtdXe/iog re iv v/j,iv (cf. Jas. iv. 1). Both writers quote Prov. iii. 34. (6) The Teaching of the XII Apostles (beginning of second century ?) has the command ov diipv^i^aeiq ndregov sarai, fj ov (cf. Jas. i. 8). (c) Ignatius (d. a.d. 117) uses the word ddidxQirog in the sense of " unhesitating," " whole-hearted " (cf. Jas. iii. 17). {d) Hermas {circ. a.d. 130) has so many resemblances to expressions and ideas found in the Epistle that some who reject St. James' authorship of the latter do not deny the dependence of the former upon it."^ (e) Justin (d. circ. 160) has in Tryph. 49 the phrase [XQiaTcb) ov y.al TO dai/j,6vLa ipQlaaovaiv (cf. Jets. ii. 19). (/) The Muratorian Catalogue (170-180 ?) omits the Epistle, together with Hebrews and 1, 2 Pet., but the catalogue is imperfect. ig) Clement of Alexandria (d. 200-220) has the following suggestive parallel in Strom, iv. 6 aoqjdg ivdeixvvado} t5)v aoipiav airov /xfj Adyot? /lovov dAA' iv egyoig dyadotg (of. Jas. iii. 13). (A) Origen (d. 253) cites numerous passages from the Epistle, and quotes ii. 26 as iv rfj (psgo/nevj] 'laxcopov iniarokfj, and iv. 10 with the words (ptjoi yaQ 'IdKoi^og. (i) Eusehius (d. 340) reckons the Epistle among the disputed books (rd dvTikeydixsva) ; and elsewhere {H.E. ii. 23-25) remarks of James that he " is said to be the author of the first of the so-called Catholic epistles ; but it is to be observed that it is regarded as spurious {voOEi'ietm) — at least not many of the ancients have mentioned it. . . . Nevertheless we know that these (the seven so-called Catholic Epistles) also, with the rest, have been read publicly in most churches." » Cf. Moffatt, L.N.T., p. 467. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 257 Evidence for the use of the Epistle prior to the date of Hermas is not very strong, and the doubts prevailing about it in the time of Eusebius naturally make its genuineness suspected ; but whether such doubts are expUcable by uncertainty about the Apostolic authority of the writer (who does not style himself an Apostle), or justify the conclusion that the letter does not proceed from James the Lord's brother but is of later origin, must be decided in connexion with the impressions left by the internal evidence of its contents and style. Internal Evidence The book, though beginning with the customary superscription of a letter, is, in substance, really of the nature of a homily, and consists of a series of short, practical counsels on various subjects. It is addressed to the Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion, who, since the Epistle in its present form is a Christian document fi. 1, ii. 1, 7, v. 7, 8, also i. 18, 21), ^ are most naturally understood to be Jewish Christians outside Palestine. Taken strictly the words mean the whole body of the Jewish people (cf. Acts xxvi. 7) scattered among the Gentiles ; and the use of this strange expression for the comparatively few Jews who were converted to Chris- tianity is probably due to the writer's conception of them as the true Israel (cf. p. 389). That both those addressed in the letter and the writer of it were Christians of Jewish origin is probable from various features in it. The former's assembly for worship is called a synagogue (ii. 2) ; allusion is made to their confession (so characteristic of the Jews) of the Divine unity (ii. 19, cf. Bt. vi. 4) ; and faults conspicuously Jewish are denounced (i. 26, iii. 9, v. 12). The latter uses Hebrew phraseology like " Gehenna " (iii. 6) and " the Lord of Sabaoth " (v. 4), and refers several times to the Law (ii. 9-11, iv. 11, 12) ; perhaps (in v. 20) draws upon the Hebrew original of Prov. x. 12, where the LXX diverges, though elsewhere (ii. 23, iii. 9) he seems to cite the LXX (Gen. xv. 6 in i. 26) ; and employs various Old Testament similes and figures of speech (see i. 10, iv. 4, 14). The most remarkable characteristic of the work is the paucity of the references to Christian doctrines, such as the Messianic dignity of Jesus, the significance of His death, and the fact of His risen life (though see ii. 1).^ The author's interest is centred in the sphere of conduct, his aim being to encourage patience, to insist on the valuelessness of faith apart from works, and to warn against various prevalent vices and faults. " Much of it might have been written by one who remained at the Old Testament point of view." * In consequence it has even been suggested by some that it was originally the production of a Jewish writer, which has been adapted for Christian use by small insertions in i. 1, ii. 1. But the reference to Jesus Christ in the second of these passages has hardly the appearance of being inserted ; there are Christian elements in the book besides these ; whilst ' Cf. abo V. 14 with Mh. vi. 13. ' In V. 11 Job, and not Jesus, is adduced as an example of patience ; contrast Beb. xii. 1, 2 and 1 Pet. ii. 20-23. ' Peake, Int. New Testament, p. 84. 17 358 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY a Jewish work would almost certainly have contained allusions to the ceremonial injunctions of the Law. Moreover the description of those to whom the letter is sent as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty (ii. 12), the reference to the gift of the Spirit (iy. 6), and the expectation of the coming of the Lord (v, 7, 8) are difficult to reconcile with the sup- position that the writer was a non-Christian Jew ; the tone of the boQk is that of Judaistic Christianity, not of pre-Christiai} Judaism. By others who recognize that it is a Christian work various features in it have been held to be inconsistent with St. James' authorship, and to indicate that it was written at a date outside the limit of St. James' life. The principal of these are : — (a) The parallels traceable between it and some of St. Paul's Epistles, especially Romans, of which it must suffice to notice only a few. James Romams i. 2, 3. Count it all joy when ye fall v. 3. Let us boast in our tribulations, into manifold trials, knowing that knowing that tribulation worketh the proof of your faith worketh patience. patience, i. 22. Be ye doers of the word and ii. 13. Not the hearers of law are not hearers only. just before God, but the doers of law shall be justified, iv. L Come not they (wars and fight- vii. 23. I see a different law in my ings) hence, even of your pleasures members, warring against the law that war in your members ? of my mind. From these parallels it has been inferred that the author of the Epistle was acquainted with Romans, and as Romans was not written until 55 or 56 (p. 287) and St. James perished in 61, indebtedness on the part of the latter is rather improbable. (6) The contention that " by works a man is justified and not only by faith " (ii. 24), which looks like an intentional correction of St. Paul's conclusion that " a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law " [Rom. iii. 28). (c) The quality of the Greek in which the Epistle is composed, for since there occur in it a number of words very common in classical writers which are not found in other parts of the New Testament,^ this rich vocabulary is thought to have been beyond the resources of an unlearned Jew like its reputed author St. James. (d) The character of the teaching, with a meagre Christology resembUng that of the Teaching of the XII Apostles (second century a.d.).^ I ;j Accordingly the book has been assigned to the period which saw the production of the latter work, i.e. the half-century between a.d. 100 and 150. These reasons are inconclusive, (a) If the parallelism implies indebted- ness on either side, the priority may be on the side of St. James. (6) The suggestion that the passage (ii. 14-26) denying that faith can justify Vtl).out works is aimed at controverting St. Paul or correcting a perversion of his 1 Mayor, St. Jamea, p. ccxix. ^ Moffatt, L.N.T., p. 471. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 259 views is not supported by the nature of the argument, for the writer takes as an example of valueless faith the mere belief, not that Jesus is Lord or that He was raised by God from the dead {Rom. x. 9), but that God is One ; and he may have in view the idea cherished by some Jews that though they were sinners, yet because they knew God, the Lord would not impute sin to them.^ (c) It was not impossible for one born in GaUlee of parents occupying a lowly station to acquire not only familiarity with the Greek language, but, if a man of capacity, also something of Greek culture. Moreover, the construction of the sentences is comparatively simple, and the use of particles is limited, {d) The character of the teaching may be due to the early, rather than the late, date of the work, for the absence of any exposition of the significance of Christ's death is paralleled by the early speeches in Acts. And that the late period to which the origin of the Epistle has been assigned is really improbable appears from the manner in which many passages of the Epistle reflect various parts of the Sermon on the Mount, and others of our Lord's discourses. It is the substance rather than the actual form of our Lord's maxims that is preserved, as will be seen from a comparison of the following passages out of a larger number. James i. 5. Mt. vii. 7. " Ask and it shall be given you." ii. 5. Lk. vi. 20. " Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of heaven." ii. 13. Mt. V. 7. " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." iii. 12. Mt. vii. 16. " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " iii. 18. Mt. V. 9. " Blessed are the peacemakers." iv. 4. Mt. vi. 24. " Ye cannot serve God and mammon." iv. 10. Mt. xxiii. 12. " Whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted." iv. 12. Mt. vii. 1. " Judge not that ye be not judged." V. 1. Lk. vi. 24. " Woe unto you that are rich." V. 2, 3. Mt. vi. 19. " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth where moth and rust doth consume." V. 12. Mt. V. 34. " I say unto you, Swear not at all." It is difficult not to regard the statements and counsels in St. James as reproducing memories of our Lord's injunctions and admonitions, but equally difficult not to consider that they would have been verbally much closer if the Epistle had been written in the first quarter of the second century, when the Synoptic Gospels were in existence (p. 192).^ The " brethren " of our Lord, though they did not beheve in His claims whilst He * a. Mayor, Op. cit., p. cxxxv. ' Contrast the Teaching of the XII ApoaUes, where there occur quotations from the Gospels such a^ " Bless them which curse you, and pray lor your enemies." ..." For what thank have ye, if ye love them which love you ? do not even the Gentiles the same ? " . . . "If any one give thee a blow on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. If any impress thee one mile, go with him two ; if any take thy cloak, give him also thy tunic " (see Lh. vi. 27-29, 32, Mt. v. 39, 40). 260 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY was with them, can scarcely have failed to be acquainted with the principles of His life and with the tenor of His utterances, caught from Him before or during His public ministry. On the whole, then, acceptance of the traditional authorship is con- fronted with slighter obstacles than either of the suppositions (1) that it is a late production falsely attributed by its actual author to James, in order to secure for it authority (which is unUkely in view of the absence of any title like " Apostle " being attached to the name (contrast 2 Pet. i. 1)) ; (2) that the author was an unknown James (of first century date) whose name led to his becoming confused with the "brother" of the Lord (which is improbable, since an obscure and unauthoritative writer would scarcely have addressed a letter to an extensive, instead of a local, circle of readers). The doubt expressed in Eusebius about its genuineness (p. 256) is certainly a fact of importance, but does not seem entitled to outweigh counter- considerations. Supporters of the view that the Epistle is the work of James the Lord's " brother " and of pre-Paidine date mostly place it very early, e.g. between 40-50 (in which case it must precede in point of time all the other New Testament writings). One reason for dating it within this decade is the assumption that, if it were written after 50, it must have contained allusions to the settlement reached at the Council of Jerusalem (usually assigned to circ. A.D. 49). But even if St. Luke's account of the Council is correct and the Council described in Acts xv. took place in 49, the contention is not very convincing ; and since considerable doubt attaches to the accuracy of the narrative in Acts xv. (see p. 248) and the date of the concessions required of the Gentile Christians was probably later than 49 (p. 538), there is no necessity to confine the Epistle narrowly within the fifth decade a.d. And if its origin be placed rather later than 50, at some date between St. Paul's Second and Third Missionary journeys (say A.D. 52), certain facts are accounted for. St. Paul's work in Asia Minor during his First Journey, when reported to James {Gal. ii. 1-10), would draw the latter's attention to the Jewish Christian converts in those parts, whose needs would the more appeal to him as St. Paul's special province seemed to be the Gentiles. If the Epistle was dispatched before St. Paul started on his Third Journey, that Apostle might find copies of it in the course of his tour through Galatia and Phrygia (Acts xviii. 23), which would account for such resemblances as exist between it and the Epistle to the Romans (written in 55-56). On this view it may be a little later in date than 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The place of origin may be assumed to have been Jerusalem ; certainly the allusions in i. 11, iii. 12, v. 7 (end) are consistent with conditions prevailing in Palestine. An interesting suggestion ' which explains many of the peculiarities of the letter is that it was written by James the Lord's " brother," after his conversion, to his unconverted countrymen. By the best of these he was held in esteem (see Jos. Ant. XX. 9, 1, Eus. H.E. ii. 23, 10) ; and in the hope of predisposing them to faith in Jesus, he sought in the Epistle to bring before them the spiritual beauty of His teach- ing, without naming Him (the references to Him in i. 1, ii. 1 being regarded as inser- 1 See J. H. Moulton in the Expositor, July, 1903. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 261 tions by one Trho wished to a4apt the work to Christian use). But to this, as to another, view, the explanation of the words Jesus Christ in ii. 1 as a gloss presents difficulties (p. 237). The Epistle contains sixty-four words whicli are not found elsewkere in the New Testament ; thirteen of them are apparently used for the first time by St. James. ^ Certain words and phrases have been noted as common to the Epistle and to the speech and letter attributed to St. James in Acts xv., viz. the salutation xaiqtw and the words imaxinreaQai, imargiqieiv, rrjQetv, diarrjQEiv, ayanrpidi; ; cf . also the address axovaare, aSeXoi, dxovaars /.lov (Acts xv. 13). But see p. 251. The Epistles to the Thessalonians The Church of Thessalonica Of the founding of the Thessalonian Church an account will be given on p. 548. From the narrative in Acts it might be inferred that the Church consisted partly of Jews, but mainly of " God-fearing " Gentiles. The evidence, however, of 1 Th. makes it plain that of the Gentiles who were converted the majority had once been pagans. This appears from (a) St. Paul's statement that those to whom he wrote " had turned to God from idols " (1 Th. i. 9) ; (6) the exhortation to them to refrain from immorality (1 Th. iv. 3 f .), which is more natural if addressed to former heathens than to Gentiles who had been previously God-fearers. There is thus a serious omission in Acts xvii. 4, if the text found in most manu- scripts (including K and B) is correct — xal rtveg ef avraiv (i.e. the Jews) iTteiadrjaav . . . rcov re aefioixEVCov 'EUijvcov nXfjBog noM. But certain codices (including AD 33), supported by the Vulgate, replace the last words by Ta))» TE ae^ofiivoiv xai 'EXXijvo)v nXfjQoq no\v, and it may be urged in favour of this reading that it gets rid of the expression oi oe^o/j-evoi "EXXriveg which does not occur elsewhere. The only allusion in Acts to the time spent by St. Paul at Thessalonica is the statement that he preached in the Jewish synagogue on three Sabbath days (or perhaps " for three weeks "). But the fact that the Apostle appears to have converted a number of Gentiles directly from heathendom almost necessarily impUes that he spent at the place much more than the three weeks (at the most) suggested by Acts. This conclusion is supported by the circumstances (a) that during his residence there he had to maintain himself by his trade (1 Th. ii. 9) ; (h) that whilst there he twice received gifts of money from the Christians at PhiUppi (Phil. iv. 16), a place 100 miles away ; (c) that he was there long enough to establish some kind of organization for the Church (1 Th. v. 12) ; (d) that from thence he probably engaged in mission work elsewhere in Macedonia (1 Th. i. 7). Accordingly the whole interval spent in the place may have amounted to some months. ^ Mayor, &l. James, p. ooxvlii. 262 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Place of Origin, Occasion, and Date of the Epistles The Epistles purport to have been written by St. Paul, Silvanus (or Silas), and Timothy, so that the three must have been together when the letters were composed. Some MSS. (A C K^) and the Syriao and Ethiopic versions attach to the end of both letters a note stating that they were written from Athens. It was to Athens that St. Paul went from Beroea, and there he was joined certainly by Timothy (1 Th. iii. 1) and probably by Silas likewise (Acts xvii. 14, 15). But before the first of the two letters was written Timothy was sent back to Thessalonica (1 Th. iii. 1, 5), seem- ingly as a substitute for the Apostle himself (whom some cause hindered from going (1 Th. ii. 18)) ; and if Silas had also reached Athens, he, too, had been dispatched on some mission, since St. Paul speaks of being left at Athens by himself. It may therefore be inferred that 1 Th. was written not from Athens, but from a city where St. Paul was once more joined by his companions, this being Corinth, whither he journeyed from Athens, and where both Silas and Timothy came to him from Macedonia (Ads xviii. 5). The occasion for writing 1 Th. was a report brought back from Thessa- lonica by Timothy (iii. 6). The report was in part satisfactory, and in part disappointing ; for it seems to have represented that the Christians there were showing under persecution much patience and mutual affec- tion, but that these virtues were accompanied by a tendency to sensuality (iv. 3-4), and some unsettlement of mind (due to anxiety about their friends who had died before the Lord's Second Advent). It is also probable that information had reached St. Paul that he had been traduced by certain enemies (perhaps Jews), who had misrepresented his motives, and accused him of being actuated by self-interest. In order to encourage the Thessa- Ionian Christians in well-doing, to warn them against their temptations, to relieve them of their fears, and to clear his own character St. Paul Wrote 1 Th. in the course of his stay at Corinth, where he spent a year and a half (Acts xviii. 11). It was not composed until sufficient time had elapsed to allow the excellent example set, in some respects, by the Thessalonian Church to become known in Achaia (1 Th. i. 7, 8), so that, if the Apostle reached Corinth in the summer of a.d. 50, the date of the letter may bs the end of that year, or early in 51. The Second Epistle contains nothing which directly throws light upon the place, occasion and date of its composition ; but if the First Epistle was sent from Corinth, it is highly probable that the Second was dispatched from the same place. The occasion which produced it was possibly Some information about the Thessalonians (brought by the unnamed friend who had carried to them the First Epistle) wMch confirmed the impression abeady received of their many virtues ; but indicated that they had drawn from the Apostle's previous letter hasty conclusions concerning the immin- ence of Christ's Second Coming. Consequently there was needed ftoni him some qualification of his former language, which might prevent theffi from abandoning their ordinary avocations through anticipations of the nearness of the end of the world. Since in subject matter and diction the Second Epistle closely resembles the First, it must, if genuine, have DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 263 fdllowed very clbsfely its ptedecessor ; and may be dated early in a.d. 51. Ptobably these two letters are the earUest of St. Paul's that have bfeen preserved. Authenticity of the Epistles The gfenuinehess of all the Epistles bearing St. Paul's name has been qtiestioned by various scholars ; but it does not fall within the scope of the prfeSerlt wotk to discuss the extravagances of criticism, so that in the case of several of thfe Epistles their authenticity will be assumed. There are, however, some which have been suspected for reasons deserving of consideration, and among them are 1 and 2 Th. In general the absence from these Epistles of the phrases most dis- tiilbtiVe of St. Paul's theology renders it highly iitiprobable that they are foiCgeries, for anyone who wished to make his own productions pass for St. Paul'^ would naturally intrbduce as much As possible of the Apostle's characteristic phraseology. Moreover it is eminently unlikely that a forger, w'riting after St. Paul's death, *ould have attributed to him the expefitation that he would survive until the rettm of Christ (1 Th. iv. 15-17). Nevertheless the PatUine authorshij) of both haS been impugned. (1) Against the genuineness of the First Epistle the most solid objections ate based on {a) 1 Th. ii. 16, (6) 2 Th. ii. 2. (o) In 1 Th. ii. 16 the concluding sentenbe " But the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost " seems most intelligible if understood as a Reference to the Pall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, in ^hich case the Epistle Cannot ptoceed from St. Paul. It is, however, possible either to interpret the words not of external overthrow but of spiritual bUndness and obduracy, viewed as a proof of God's wrath (cf . Rom. Xi. 8, 25) ; or (since this is not the ptitM, facie sense) to understand the past tense ^cpdaaev as anticipatory, ithpljrifig the fcertainty of the vengeance ; or to consider the clause a gldss inttbduced into the text after A.d. 70. (&) In 2 Th. ii. 2 the final words of the sentence slg to fifi raxsoig aakevdfjvM ^/lag . . . //jjte dia nvEii/iarog ff^e dia. X6yov /iijte 6i imaroXfji; (hq 8t' fiiiihv have been thought to refer to a forged letter which was in circulation, and which (it has been suggested) must be the present First Epistle. But if the words 8i' imaroXfjg wg Si' ■fjfi&v were meant to be taken together (in the sense of " by a letter purporting to come from us ") the expression used would probably have been di imoTo^g dig naq finmv (cf . Acts ix. 2, xxii. 5) ; and it seeihs likely that the real meaning of the whole passage is " That ye be not quickly disturbed . . . either by spirit (i.e. prophesying) or word (i.e. oral teaching) or letter, as if such disturbance really came through us " (d>g 6i f)ii&v going with aaKevQfivM). (2) It is the Second Epistle that has been most widely suspected of being unauthentic. The chief cause of such silspicion is its great similarity in general tb 1 Th.,^ coupled with the contrast between its esChatologiCal ^ Cf. the following parallels — I. i. 1-3=11. i. 1-3 I. iv. 11=11. iii. 11-12 i. 4 = ii; 13 v. 23=: iii. 16 ji. 9 = iii. 8 T. 28= iii. 18 264 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY section (ii. 1-12) and the corresponding section in 1 Th. iv. 13-18. In consequence it has been argued that the letter was composed after St. Paul's time by a writer who wished to circulate the idea about the Man of Sin contained in ii. 1-12 by enclosing it in a letter modelled upon a genuine Epistle of St. Paul's. But the allusion to the Temple in ii. 4 points to the letter having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 ; and it is improbable that a forged letter written at that early date would be accepted at Thessalonica. The similarity of the two Epistles is sufficiently explained if they were written by St. Paul within a short period of one another, his thoughts when composing the second moving on the lines followed by him when engaged on the first. And the difference between the two eschatological passages 1 Th. iv. 13-18 and 2 Th. ii. 1-12 involves no contradiction. The expectation of the Lord's near advent expressed in 1 Th. is not abandoned in 2 Th. ; it is only asserted that His coming will not occur until a preliminary sign of the end (the revelation of the Man of Sin) has taken place. Some scholars have held that the second Epistle is really earlier than the first. '^ Space only permits notice of one or two reasons urged in favour of this position. It is argued (a) that the writer would not call attention to his autograph as a proof of genuineness (2 Th. iii. 17) except in the first letter sent to his readers ; (6) that the reference in 1 Th. iv. 11, " That ye study . . . to do your own business and to work with your hands even as ive charged you," must refer to a command in a previous letter, and such is found in 2 Th. iii. 10 ; (c) that the tone of 2 Th. is more Jewish than that of 1 TA.^, which is natural if it is the earliest letter, since the Jewish element in the Church was probably stronger at first than it was later. But (a) attention is drawn to his autograph in 1 Cor. xvi. 21, although this was not the first letter sent to Corinth (see 1 Cor. v. 9) ; (6) the allusion to a prior command may relate to the Apostle's oral teaching (as in 2 Th. iii. 10) ; (c) before St. Paul wrote either letter, the G-entiles preponderated in the Church, and there was no consideration requiring him to write first to the minority. The Epistle to the Galettians The Galatian Church The identity of the community which constituted the Galatian Church, and which received from St. Paul the Epistle to the Galatians, is a warmly debated question ; and in order to understand the point at issue, it is > See J.T.S. Oct., 1913, pp. 66 f. ' This impression is favoured by the reference to " the man of sin," which would be more inteUigible to Jews than to Gentiles, and by the reading in ii. 13 a-ra/rxi' (supported by EFG^Pj) instead of dx' dpxvs (given by X ADEKjLj) whioh, iJ original, is inappropriate to the Thessalonian Church as a whole (since it was not the first to be founded by St. Paul in Macedonia or elsewhere), but becomes intelligible if understood of the Jewish section of the Church, for it was amongst the Jews that the Apostle won hig first converts {Acts xvii. 4) in this city. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 265 necessary to consider to what peoples the name Galatians could be applied, and to indicate the districts which they occupied. The people who were originally designated by this term were a division of the Celtic race. It was not the only name by which they were known, for besides being called by Greek writers FaXdrai, they were also described as Kekroi and rdXXoi.. Of the three terms, Kektol is the earliest that occurs (see Hdt. ii. 33) and FdViOi the latest, the last being a transliteration of the name {Galli) employed by the Romans. The regions which they occupied when they first figure in history were in Western Europe (Hdt. iv. 49), the present France, whence they had penetrated to the British Isles. But in the fourth century B.C. they began to migrate southwards. Some crossed the Alps, invaded Italy, and sacked Eome (390 B.C.), others a century later pressed into Thessaly and Greece, but met with a repulse at Delphi (279 B.C.). A detachment of this latter body transported themselves over the Hellespont, and in the course of fiity years devastated a large part of Asia Minor, as far as the Taurus. But after sustaining a severe defeat from Attalus, Bling of Pergamum, about 232 B.C., they were confined to a district some 200 miles long and 100 broad lying along the 40th parallel of latitude (about that of central Mysia), and between the 29th and 33rd meridians of longitude. This was divided between the three tribes of which the invaders were composed, the Tolistobogii, who settled round Pessinus, the Tectosages, whose centre was Ancyra, and the Troomi, whose principal town was Tavium. The territory thus occupied had previously been in the possession of the Phrygians. These were likewise immigrants from Europe, who had crossed the Hellespont about 1000 b.c, and established themselves in most parts of the peninsula of Asia Minor, south of the Propontis and the Euxine, the best known of their settlements being Troy. Though at one period a dominant people, they eventually degenerated, so that they offered little resistance to the warlike, though less civilized, Galatse. The latter became the ruling class amid a larger subject population, to whom they left the industrial occupations of the cities and the labour of culti- vating the soil, whilst they devoted themselves to pasturage and to war. The Phrygians, like the Galatse, had also, on their entry into Asia, found in possession an earlier people whose racial affinities can only be conjectured ; they are supposed to have been allied to the Lycaonians, who retained their own tongue as late as the first century a.d. Other elements in the mixture of nationalities that resided in Galatia and the sur- rounding regions were Romans, Greeks, and Jews ; so that the population of the country was of an extremely diverse character in St. Paul's time. In the course of the second century B.C. the Galatians became unwiUing subjects of the Kingdom of Pontus; but the overthrow of Mith- radates Eupator (111-67) by the Romans brought them under the influence of a still greater power. Rome at first allowed them their independence ; and in 64 B.C. Pompey gave to each of the chiefs of the three Galatian tribes the status of tetrarch, whilst Deiotarus, tetrarch of the Tolistobogii (for whom a speech was once delivered by Cicero) was eventually made king of Galatia, But when one of bis successors, Amyntas, whose 266 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY possessions comprised Pisidia, Pamphylia, and parts of Phrygia and Lycaonia besides the old kingdom of Galatia, died in 25 B.C., his dominions were incorporated in the Eoman Empire, and with the exception of Pamphylia, which was treated separately, were constituted a single province. It is from the inclusion of the territory of the three Galatian tribes within the larger Roman province of Galatia that there has arisen the uncertainty about the Galatian Church. The appellation Galatia may denote either the Roman province, which extended northward and south- ward almost from the Euxine to the ^gean (or more exactly from the border of Bithynia-Pontus to that of Pamphylia), or only that part of it which once formed the Kingdom of the Galatse ; and the description Galatians could be used of the inhabitants of any portion of the province, or could be applied in a distinctive sense to those (in the north of it) who were Galatians by descent, and whose chief towns were Pesslnus, Germa, Ancfra, Pteria, and Tavium. In contrast to these, the population of the southern part of the province was mainly Phrygian and Lycaonian by race, and Galatian only politically ; and the districts occupied were probably known as Phrygia Galatica and Lycaonia Galatica, since there were districts of ancient Phrygia and Lycaonia outside the province of Galatia, which were called Phrygia Asiana and Lycaonia Antiochiana, and from which it must have been desirable to distinguish them. The chief towns in this portion of the province were Antioch (usually called Pisidian, because on the borders of Pisidia), Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, the two former being Phrygian and the two latter being Lycaonian. It is in consequence debatable whether St. Paul, in writing his Epistle to " the Galatians," directed it to the people who dwelt in North Galatia, and who were Galatians by race as well as by inclusion in the Romah province, or to the people who lived in South Galatia, and who were Galatians only in virtue of a political arrangement. The use of the term Galatia (cf . 1 Cor. xvi. 1) and GalatioMS by St. Paul himself settles nothing, for he habitually employed geographical names (like Asia, Macedmia, Achaia) in the Roman sense, and so probably meant by Galatia the Roman province,^ and would describe as Galatians any of its inhabitants, whether living in the north or the south of it. St. Luke, on the other hand, who, besides employing the Roman provincial names (Asia, Bithynia, Macedonia, Achaia), is fond of using geographical names in an historic or a popular sense like Phrygia {Acts ii. 10), Lycaonia (xiv. 6), Pisidia (xiv. 24), Mysia (xvi. 7), Hellas (xx. 2), would perhaps have employed Galatia to denote the district that had anciently been the territory of the Galatse ; but he does not happen to mention the name at all, and only has the adjective Galatic in two passages, which are ambiguous. The passages are as follows :— ( Pmufi are omitted by G3, and were not read by Origen.^ The locality whence it was sent is more uncertain. Several references in the last chapter suggest that it was Corinth ; and if this chapter really belongs to the letter (see below), the bearer of the Epistle was Phoebe, who was a member of the Church at Cenchrese, the eastern port of Corinth (xvi. 1). St. Paul's host at his place of sojourn was Gains (xvi. 23), and a Gains was one'of the few persons whom he had baptized at Corinth (1 Cor. i. 14-16). The treasurer (olxovdftog) of the city where the letter was written was Erastus, who is represented in 2 Tim. iv. 20 as staying at Corinth. These allusions in the letter point to Corinth as the place of origin ; and though Corinth is not actually mentioned in St. Luke's account of the Third journey in Acts xviii. 23-xxi. 15, as a city in which St. Paul stayed when in Greece, it was the seat of Roman authority there and had a Church. This conclusion is further confirmed by one or two other coincidences between the Epistle and the narrative in Acts. Timothy and Sosipater (or Sopater) are among those who join with the writer in the salutation with which the letter concludes (xvi. 21) ; and these two were also among the companions of the Apostle when in the course of his Third journey he returned from Greece {Acts xx. 2-4). And though by reason of the doubts attaching to the connexion between oh. xvi. and the rest of the letter, these references cannot be reUed on for dating the Epistle, yet, since the letter was written just before St. Paul's departure for Jerusalem (xv. 25), Corinth, the principal city in Greece (the country whence the Apostle turned his face homeward, Acts xx. 3), is still the most probable place of origin. The occasion of the letter was the fact that on the outward stage of his Third journey he had contemplated, when at Ephesus, a visit to Rome (Acts xix. 21) ; but when he was in Greece he was unable to gratify his wish ; and accordingly desired to explain the cause. Feeling himself under the necessity of returning to Jerusalem with the money collected in Macedonia and Achaia (cf. 2 Cor. viii. 1 f., 1 Cor. xvi. 1 f.) before proceeding further westward, he wrote to the Roman Christians to tell them of the alteration of his plans, and to express his intention of seeing them as soon as his urgent business ' of taking relief to Jerusalem had been dispatched (xv. 22-28). The date of the Epistle will accordingly be very early in a.d. 56, prior to the plot laid against him by the Jews, which led him to return to Asia through Macedonia, instead of by the direct sea route (Acts xx. 3 *). It is thus of later origin than the Epistles to the Corinthians, as shown by the contrast between 2 Cor. viii. (with its allusion to a contribution only then begun at Corinth), and Rom. xv. 26 (which refers to a contribution completed in Achaia), though it was not separated from these by any long interval. But whilst the immediate motive for the letter was the need of account- ing for the postponement of a contemplated visit, there were circumstances ^ G3 has T&ffLV rots oviriv kv dyaTrri BeoO K\r]ToU ayiois. ' The fear of the Jews at Jerusalem which St. Paul entertained when writing tha letter (xv. 30) is reflected in Acts xx. 22, 23. 282 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY that caused St. Paul to take the opportunity of giving his opinions on certain important questions of Christian doctrine. As has been shown, the Roman Church consisted of both Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish Christians generally, as he knew by the trouble he had had with the Galatian Church (p. 273), entertained views which in certain points he considered to be gravely erroneous ; and it was always possible that they would seek to imbue the Gentile Christians with the same errors. One of the features distinguishing Jewish Christianity was a belief in the per- manent obligation of the Mosaic Law. Another was probably an under- rating (as St. Paul deemed it) of the importance of Jesus' death, which, to judge from the speech of St. Peter at Pentecost {Acts ii. 23) and on other occasions (Acts iii. 13, 14, iv. 10, x. 39), was regarded indeed as being a murder of more than ordinary heinousness (since the Victim was the Messiah, as shown by His resurrection), but was not considered to be of greater moment spiritually than the death of the many prophets who had perished at the hands of their countrymen.^ And since St. Paul was writing to Eome, the centre of a large population and the capital and most influential city of the Empire, he availed himself of the occasion to place before the Church there his deliberate conclusions about the authority of the Law, and about the significance of the death and resurrec- tion of Jesus. The Epistle is consequently the most theological of the writer's letters, and is the most valuable source from which to obtain some knowledge of his distinctive views. The Integrity of the Epistle Doubts of different degrees of seriousness have been raised in regard to the authenticity of the whole or part of the last two chapters, and in regard to their connexion with the rest of the Epistle. The circumstances creating these doubts are that the final doxology (xvi. 25-27) is difEerently situated in different manuscripts, the uncial Lj, a number of cursives, and Syr. (hi.) omitting it at the end of ch. xvi., and having it, instead, at the end of ch. xiv., whilst A Pj have it in both places, and G3 omits it in both ; that in the codex Amiatinus of the Vulgate a heading summarizine the contents of ch. xiv. is followed immediately by a summary of xvi. 25-27 j and that Cyprian, Tertullian and Marcion do not quote from ch. xv., xvi. From these facts it has been inferred by some that both these two chapters are not really part of the Epistle ; but the plausibility of this inference is very difierent in the case of each of the two. (1) In regard to ch. xv. it is decidedly small, (a) The MS. authority for the position of the doxology at the end of ch. xiv. is not great, for almost all the best MSS. (ii BCD) and several versions place it after xvi. 23 or 24. (/3) The beginning of ch. xv. (1-6) is a conclusion to the preceding argument in ch. xiv., without which the previous chapter is incomplete : vv. 7-13 support the argument by quotations from the Old Testament ; whilst the subsequent passage (w. 14^end) relates to » Cf. Lake, Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 408, 409. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 283 the collection for Jerusalem, to wHch references occur in 1 Cor. xvi. 1 f., 2 Gor. viii. 1 (letters wHch, were composed almost contemporaneously ■with Romans, though before it). The omission of ch. xv., as well as of ch. xvi., by Marcion was probably due to his objection to the Old Testament, from which ch. xv. contains citations (cf. also v. 4), and to the statement that Christ was a minister of the Circumcision {v. 8). Where the same two chapters were omitted (after his example), as would appear to have been the case in Africa, the position of the doxology at the close of xiv. 23 in A La Pa can be accounted for by the supposition that it was added for the purpose of Church reading, in order to give to the Epistle an appro- priate termination.'- (2) In regard to ch. xvi. it is otherwise. The chapter is preceded by a benediction (at the close of ch. xv.), which is appropriate to the end of a letter ; and is itself marked internally by features which appear strange in a letter sent to Rome. Verses 3-16 contain salutations to an exceptionally large number of persons, and to. 17-18 show intimate knowledge of disputes in the Church addressed — circumstances which are surprising in Ught of the fact that the Eoman capital was a city which St. Paul had never previously visited. As Aquila and Priscilla (Prisca), whose names occur in xvi. 3, were at Ephesus when St. Paid wrote 1 Cor. from that place (see 1 Cor. xvi. 8, 19), and were probably also there at a later date (2 Tim. iv. 19), it has been suggested that this chapter is part of a letter sent, not to Eome but to Ephesus, where the Apostle's friends must have been numerous, and where his knowledge of the Christian community was great. It is true, indeed, that the names found in ch. xvi. can almost all be paralleled from inscriptions found in Rome f that Aquila and PrisciUa had originally been residents at Rome, and having been compelled to leave by Claudius {Acts xviii. 2), may naturally be supposed to have returned thither after the death of the Emperor in 54 ; that Rufus, who is greeted in v. 13, seems to be the same as the Rufus mentioned in Mk. XV. 21 (a Gospel written at Rome, p. 172) ; that the names of Aristobulus and Narcissus (vv. 10, 11), whose slaves are greeted, coincide with those of a grandson of Herod, who hved in retirement and died at Rome, and of a notable Roman freedman who was put to death in the reign of Nero ; and that the name of Prisca (or Priscilla) has been associated with a church on the Aventine hill since the fourth century, and with a cemetery in the catacombs.^ Nevertheless, most of the names in the chapter occur in other places besides Rome ; and the difficulties of regarding the chapter as belonging to a letter sent to Rome are reaUy serious, (a) It is strange that so many persons who had laboured with, or befriended, St. Paul [vv. 3, 9, 12, 13), or had been fellow-prisoners with him (v. 7) should all have gone to Rome, and that the Apostle should be famiUar, in some cases, with their activity there (vv. 6, 12). (6) It is ^ See Sanday and Headlam, Rcnnans, pp. xoyi., xovii. Zahn holds that the doxology originally stood after xiv. 23 (I.N.T. i. p. 382 f.). ' See Sanday and Headlam, Bomans, p. 421 f. • Lake, Early Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 332, 333 ; Sanday and Headlam, Romans^ pp. 419, 420. 284 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY rather curious that there should have been " a church " in the house of Priscilla and Aquila both at Ephesus (1 Cor. xvi. 19) and at Rome (as stated here, v. 5). (c) It is hard to understand how St. Paul, who had never been at Eome, should have been acquainted with the divisions in the Church there, and the character and methods of the persons occasioning them (m. 17, 18), or, if he had come to know of them by report, should not have indicated the source of his information. On the other hand, the references at once become plain if this chapter was originally part of one to the Church of Ephesus, where St. Paul had laboured for some years, where Priscilla and Aquila were staying shortly before he came there {Acts xviii. 24-26) and before he wrote Romans, where the allusion to Epsenetus as the first-fruits of Asia would be appreciated {v. 5), and where St. Paul had anticipated that religious dissensions would arise (Ads xx. 29, 30). These considerations point to Ephesus as the destination of the letter to which the chapter originally belonged, '^ and which was probably written from Corinth, to commend Phoebe to the Ephesian Church {v. 1). The allusion to Andronicus and Julius as the writer's feUow-prisoners may be explained by reference to the many imprisonments mentioned by St. Paul in 2 Cor. xi. 23, of one of which Ephesus may have been the scene. ^ This fragment of a letter to Ephesus was perhaps attached to the Epistle to the Romans, on the occasion of a copy of the latter (which was of a character Ukely to cause its circulation outside Rome itself) having reached Ephesus. (3) In ch. xvi. the majority of the best uncials (i< A B C) have the words " The grace of our Lord," etc., only at u. 20 ; D E Fj Gj have it only in V. 24 ; La has it in both these places ; and P2 has it after v. 27. The preponderance of textual authority is in favour of v. 20 as the right position. The chapter was doubtless meant to end originally at v. 20, then a post- script {vv. 21-24) to the letter (to Ephesus) was added (partly by Tertius, the Apostle's amanuensis), and to this was finally appended by the Apostle himself the doxology in w. 25-27 to round ofi the conclusion. By some scholars, however, this doxology (marked by an anacoluthon) is considered to be an unconnected fragment.* Attempts have been made to explain the peculiarities just described by supposing that St. Paul issued the Epistle in two forms (or recensions) — as a letter addressed to the Roman Church and as a circular letter suited for other Churches. The supposition that it served as a circular letter will account for its having been received at Ephesus, where a fragment of another letter became appended to it (if ch. xvi. originally had no connexion with the other fifteen chapters). The hypothesis, however, of two recensions does not find much support in the usage of St. Paul, who certainly in one case, when wishing a letter to reach more than one Church, directed that it should be sent on by the Church that first received 1 Moffatt, L.N.T. p. 135 f. " Cf. also the allusion in 2 Cor. i. 8 to the afSiotions sustained by St, Pa.ul in Aeiai and 2 Cor. vi. 5 (in impriscmments). ' See Baoou, I.N.T. p. 104 (note). DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 285 it (see Col. iv. 16) ; wldlsfc the instance of a circular letter, supposed to be furnished by Ephesians, is probably illusory (p. 291). ^ The Epistle to the Colossians The Church at Colossce The town of Colossse (or as it was caUed later, Colassse) was comprised in the country of Phrygia, but belonged administratively to the Eoman province of Asia (p. 66). It was situated on the Lycus, a small affluent of the Mseander, which in the time of Herodotus ran underground for half a mile (Hdt. iii. 30), though this feature, if the site of the place has been correctly identified, has now disappeared. Styled by both Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) and Xenophon (431-355 B.C.) an important city, it is described by Strabo (b. about 63 B.C.) as a small town {ndXiana), the inhabitants of which derived much revenue from a dye to which the place gave its name. During the reign of Nero in a.d. 60 or 64 (according to Tacitus and Eusebius respectively) it, together with the cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, was destroyed by an earthquake,^ and perhaps (unlike Laodicea) it never recovered from the disaster. The Christian Church at Colossra was not founded by St. Paul, for in his letter to it he represents his acquaintance with its rehgious life as depending not upon personal knowledge, but upon hearsay (i. 4, 9) ; and he seems to include the members of it among those who had never seen him (ii. 1). The circumstance seems strange in view of the fact that the main road from South Galatia to Ephesus passed through it ; but the perplexity is cleared up by the statement in Acts xix., that when St. Paul, in the course of his Third Missionary journey, travelled from the Galatic district and Phrygia to Ephesus, he did not take the regular route (p. 269). But if the Apostle never visited Colossae personally, he was doubtless responsible for its evangeHzation. During his protracted residence at Ephesus between a.d. 52 and 53, it is reasonable to suppose that in prosecuting his missionary labours in the province of Asia (Acts xix. 26), he largely used the aid of some of his disciples. In the case of Colossse he employed the services of Epaphras (Gol. i. 6, 7), whose efforts to disseminate the Christian faith extended to Laodicea and Hierapolis also {pdl. iv. 12, 13), and who was probably helped by Philemon (Phm. 1). Nothing is known of the nationality of Epaphras beyond the fact that he probably belonged to Colossse {Gol. iv. 12), and was presumably not of Jewish origin, since he is not comprised in iv. 11 amongst those of the Circumcision. Certainly the Colossian Christians were in the main Gentiles, for St. Paul speaks of " the mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory " [Gol. i. 27) ; alludes to their uucircumcision * See a long discussion in Lake, Earlier Epp. of St. Paul, p. 335 f . " By Tacitus {Ann. xiv. 27) Colossse is not mentioned, but the shook which des- troyed Laodicea doubtless extended to the towns in its vicinity as represented by Kusebiue. 286 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (ii. 13) ; and refers to their lives before their conversion in terms not generally appropriate to Jews (i. 21). The Christian community at Colossee seems to have met in the house of Philemon (Phm. 2), and Archippus was a leading member and minister in it (Gol. iv. 17). Place, Date, and Occasion of the Letter The Epistle, which contains greetings from Timothy, was composed when St. Paul was a prisoner (iv. 3, 10) ; and though he was in confinement at Csesarea (56-58) before being carried to Rome (where he was in captivity from 59 to 61), it seems more probable that it was written from the latter than from the former place. The Apostle, it is true, was not treated rigorously at either city {Acts xxiv. 23, xxviii. 30, 31), and Aristarchus (iv. 10) was at both places with him, for he accompanied him on the voyage from Palestine to Italy [Acts xxvii. 2). But the runaway slave, Onesimus, who was the companion of Tychicus, the bearer of the letter (iv. 9), would be more secure at Rome than at Csesarea ; and if the Epistle had been sent from Csesarea, the allusions to friends who were sending greetings (iv. 10-14) would have doubtless included the name of Phihp the Evangelist,^ who was a resident there {Acts xxi. 8). Moreover, it is improbable that the evangelistic work alluded to in the letter (iv. 11) could have been carried on at Csesarea, whereas it was possible at Rome {Acts xxviii. 30) ; and a fact also pointing to Rome is the expectation, entertained by the Apostle at this time, of an early decision of his case {Phm. 22, a letter written simultaneously with Col., see p. 293). The date of its composition was probably 59 or early in 60, for there is no allusion in it to the earthquake which, according to Tacitus, destroyed the cities of the Lycus valley in the latter year. Information about the Colossian Church had reached St. Paul through Epaphras (i. 8), and had rendered him anxious about it. There had been introduced into it doctrines which in the field of both thought and conduct were inconsistent with the true faith of the Christian Church. These doctrines attached importance to circumcision (ii. 11), to matters of food, and to the observance of Sabbaths, new moons, and other feasts (ii. 16) ; so that they point to contact with Judaism. It does not appear, however, that the advocates of these views contended, like Judaistio Christians in general, that circumcision and obedience to the Mosaic Law were essential to salvation, but only that they conduced to Christian perfection ; and they were characterized by certain tenets distinct from those of the Judaizers, such as the worship of angels and the practice of abstinence not only in respect of meats and drink but perhaps also of marriage (ii. 21), amounting to asceticism. The angels seem to have been regarded as elemental powers controlling the planets and other luminaries (ii. 18, rd azoixela tov xoofiov), and perhaps determining, through the motions of these, the days and seasons which were religiously observed. Prayer to the angels as intercessors, instead of appeals addressed directly 1 Moffatt, L.N.T. p. 159. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 287 to God, was claimed to be a mark of tumility and of spiritual superiority (ii. 18), whilst the ascetic practices mentioned seem to imply that contact with material things was avoided so far as possible, as involving pollution by evil. The innovators thus appear to have made pretensions to a deeper wisdom and to a more refined purity than were possessed by their fellow-Christians (ii. 23). It is an attractive suggestion that the views current among the Colossians were akin to those of the Essenes, for, as has been shown, these were especially careful to do no work on the Sabbath, drank no wine, abstained from marriage, and believed in the existence of angels (see p. 104). The communities of the Essenes, indeed, lived in Palestine, not in the Eoman province of Asia ; but it is not improbable that sympathy with some of their doctrines prevailed amongst Jews resident elsewhere ; and numbers of Jews are known to have been settled in Lydia and Phrygia, whither they were deported from Babylonia by Antiochus the Great (Jos. Ant. xii. 3, 4). But though there are affinities between the errors of the Colossian Church and the beliefs of the Essenes, the importance assigned to angels, which is among the principal of the errors combated by St. Paul, seems to go beyond anything known to have been distinctive of Essenism. These angel mediators bear some resemblance to the hierarchy of subordinate agencies which in the system of the later Gnostics were thought to intervene between the Deity and the material world ; so that, on the whole, the views introduced into Colossse by certain teachers (ii. 8) under the name of " philosophy " were most likely syncretistic — a mixed product of Judaism and of local speculations of the kind that subsequently developed into Gnosticism. To counteract such St. Paid insisted upon the sufficiency, for redemption and reconcilia- tion, of Christ, in whom dwelt all the plenitude of the Godhead in corporeal form, through whom aU things were created and in whom all things consisted, who was the head of all the angelic powers worshipped by the Colossians, and in whom they were circumcised with a circumcision which divested them of aU the corrupt afiections of the flesh. In Him was to be found the true wisdom and the perfect knowledge (ii. 3, cf. i. 9) to which those who sought to mislead the Colossians falsely laid claim (ii, 8). The Epistle was conveyed to Colossse by Tychicus, a native of the province of Asia {Acts xx. i), who was accompanied by Onesimus, a slave who had escaped from his master, and whom St. Paul was sending back (see p. 293). The Epistle to Colossae was not the only one written to the Christians of Asia about this time by St. Paul. A letter was also carried by Tychicus, intended, mediately or immediately, for Laodicea, a city some twelve miles west of Colossse ; and in the Colossian letter directions were given (iv. 16) that the communications received by these two churches should be exchanged.^ It has been suspected by some that the Epistle styled To the Ephesians is really the letter which the Colossians were to get from Laodicea ; and the resemblance between Col. and Eph. is certainly ' In Col. iv. 16 the epistle from Laodicea obviously means a letter -which the Colos- eians were to receive from the Laodioeans, to whom it had been sent by St. Paul. 288 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY so striking that, if they are both St. Paul's, they must have been written within a very short period of one another ; or else one has been composed, on the basis of the other, by a later writer. The question, however, of these two alternatives is best reserved for consideration in connexion with Efh. The Epistle to the Ephesians Authenticity The authenticity of Ephesians has been denied more persistently than that of any of the letters associated with St. Paul, except the Pastoral Epistles. This is not occasioned by any serious deficiency in the external evidence, for it is reckoned as St. Paul's in the Muratorian Fragment, and it has early attestation from Patristic writers, as will appear from the following instances of its use.^ (a) Clement of Rome (d. circ. a.d. 95) ch. 46, " Have we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace that has been shed upon us, and one calling in Christ ? " (cf . Eph. iv. 4—6) ; ch. 36, " The eyes of our hearts were opened " (cf. Eph. i. 18) ; ch. 38, " Let each man be subject to his neighbours " (cf. Eph. v. 21). (&) Ignatius (d. 110-120) ad Eph. i., " Being imitators of God " (cf. Eph. V. 1) ; ad Pol. 5, " To love our partners as Christ loved the Church " (cf. Eph. V. 29). (c) Polycarp (d. 156) ch. 1, " By grace are ye saved, not by works " (cf. Eph. ii. 5-9). {d) Irenseus (d. 202) adv. hcer. v. 2, 3, " As the blessed Paul saith in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones " (cf. Eph. v. 30). These quotations suffice to prove that it was in existence at the end of the first century, or beginning of the second century a.d., and that by the end of the second century it was believed to be St. Paul's. The reasons that have caused its genuineness to be doubted are internal, and are of the following nature. (1) It bears an extremely close resemblance to Colossians, it being stated that out of the 156 verses of Eph., seventy-eight contain expressions identical with those in Col.,^ and that the parts of the latter which are not represented in Eph. are almost confined to the warnings against the false teaching prevalent at Colossae (Col. ii.) and the personal salutations and messages {Col. iv. 10, 18). It is impossible here to compare all the similar passages,^ but besides the beginning and the conclusion (Col. !• 1, 2 = Eph. i. 1, 2 ; Col. iv. 7, 8 = Eph. vi. 21, 22) the following parallels are typical : — ' See Abbott, Eph. and Col. pp. ix.-xiii. ; Bacon, Int. N. T. p. 116 note. * Davidson, Int. to N.T. ii. p. 200. ' A very full list of parallel passages is given in Moffatt, L.N.T. pp. 375-381; see also Paley, Harm Paulince, oh. vi. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 289 (o) Col. i. 13, 14. The Son of his love, Mpli. i. 6, 7. The Beloved, in whom we in whom we have our redemption, have our redemption through his the forgiveness of our sins. blood, the forgiveness of our tres- (b) Col. ii. 19, Prom whom all the body Eph. iv. 16 From whom all the body fitly being supplied and knit together framed and knit together (avv^i^a- {ivLxo/nryoiiMevov Kal (rw^L^at^d/xevov) ^6}j.evov) through every joint of the through the joints and bands supply (rrji exixo/»77ias) . . . maketh inoreaseth with the increase of God. the increase of the body. (c) Col. iii. 6. Because of which things Eph. v. 6 Because of these things oometh Cometh the wrath of God upon the the wrath of God upon the sons of sons of disobedience. disobedience. (d) Col. iii. 9. Seeing that ye have put Eph. iv. 22. That ye put away, as con- off the old man with his doings and coming your former maimer of life, have put on the new man. the old man . . . and that ye . . . put on the new man. Cf . also tie following : — (e) Col. u. 13, 14. Eph. ii. 1, 5, 15. (/) Col. in. 16. Eph. V. 19. {g) Col. iii. 22. Eph. vi. 5, 6. (2) The vocabulary of the Epistle is rather peculiar. Some thirty-eight words (exclusive of proper names and quotations from the Old Testament) occur in it, which are found nowhere else in the New Testament ; and about the same number are said not to occur elsewhere in St. Paul (if the Pastorals are assumed to be not genuine), though found elsewhere in the New Testament.^ (3) The style is involved and rather verbose, being characterized by lengthy and badly articulated sentences [e.g. i. 3-10, 15-21, iii. 1-7, 8-12, 14-19), by the frequent occurrence of particular constructions (such as the use of the genitive case and of the preposition iv), and by a tendency to pleonasm (e.g. i. 5, rr/v evdoxlav rov dE^rjfiazog avrov, i. 11, rijv ^ovXijv rov 6eX^/iarog avrov, ii. 2, rov ag/ovra Tfjg i^ovalag rov idgog, IV. 23, T(j5 nveiifiaTi zov voog vfi&v. (4) Two phrases in particular have been deemed suspicious, viz. the reference to Apostles and prophets (ii. 20), and to the holy Apostles and prophets (iii. 5), suggesting that the writer was not himself an Apostle ; and the claim in iii. 3, 4 to have understanding in the mystery of Christ, suggesting that the writer wished his teaching to be taken for St. Paul's, and appealed to the letter he was composing to justify his pretensions. In view of these features it has been concluded by many that Eph. is an expansion of Col., lacking the local references and personal greetings of the latter ; and was produced by a later writer for the benefit of the Church in general. But the reasons for denying its Pauline origin are not convincing. (1) Its resemblance to Col. is more intelligible if it was written by St. Paul about the same time as the latter, than if composed by another person, who by extracting on a large scale phrases from Col., * Notable among them is o Sidpo\os for which elsewhere St. Paul uses 6 Saroi/as. The phrafle e'v toU eirovpavloit is found five times in Eph., but nowhere else in St. Paul (though he has evovpivioi five times (1 Cor. xv. 40, etc.) ). 19 290 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY constructed a patchwork counterfeiting an original work. For the com- position of such, involving great trouble, there seems to be lacking any adequate motive, in view of the co-existence with it of Colossians, its model. (2) The number of words peculiar to the Epistle can be paralleled from other letters of St. Paul ; for example, Galatians, a work not quite so long as Ephesians, has not less than thirty-one ; and Philipjnans, only two-thirds as long, has at least as many. It may be noticed that seven words, if not more, are common to Colossians and Ephesians, but absent from every other Pauline Epistle. (3) The style appears not so much to be unlike that of St. Paul as to exhibit extreme examples of features occurring in letters of indisputable genuineness ; for long and loosely- jointed sentences are found in Bom. i. 1-7, Col. i. 9-12. Moreover the connective did, which is frequent in the acknowledged Paxdine Epistles (occurring twenty-one times) appears five times in this Epistle. (4) The pre-eminent place which St. Paul assigned in the Church to the Apostles appears from 1 Cor. xii. 28, where " Apostles "^ are named first aiid " prophets " are enumerated next ; nor is the use of the epithet Syioi in connexion with them impossible for St. Paul, since it is clearly to be understood in the sense of " consecrated " (by calling), not " saiiitly " (in personal character) ^ ; and St. Paul's modest estimate of himself is manifest ia iii. 8. Nor is there anything incompatible with St. Paul's authorship in iii. 3, 4, since the appeal to the contents of the letter as proof of his inspiration is natural in an Epistle sent to churches which he had never visited (p. 285). On the whole, then, both the likenesses and the differences between Col. and Eph. seem sufficiently accounted for (a) by the usual explanation that both letters were written under similar circumstances {Col. iv, 3, Eph. vi. 20), but that in Col. he was addressing a Church in which certain erroneous doctrines had been introduced, whilst in Eph. he was writing to churches (p. 292) where no such teaching was current, but where much of the contents of the previous letter was likely to be of service ; (6) by the supposition (if the features of style seem to require it) that St. Paul dictated the two letters to different persons who acted on occasions as his secretaries. Colossians was clearly written by an amanuensis (Col. iv. 18) ; and it is not unreasonable to suspect that the Apostle was similarly aidefj in the penning of Eph., though not by the same individual. Destination But whilst it is probable that the Epistle was written by St. Paul, it is equally probable that it was not written to the Church of Ephesus. (1) In i. 1 the words iv 'Etpiacp are omitted by the uncials K and B, and by the corrector of the cursive 67. (2) The Patristic writers TertuUian, Origen, and Basil furnish evidence of the existence of manuscripts from * The term need not fee confined to the Twelve, b^t taken to include all travelling miasionaries of the Goapel. » Of. Peake, Int. to N.T. p. 57. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 291 ■mhkih. tte words ev 'Eq>£am were absent. Terttdlian (circ. 220) affirms that Marcion falsified the title of the Epistle, asserting that it was sent to the Laodiceans ; but in support of the charge of falsification he appeals not to the evidence of the text but to the truth of the Church, so that in the manuscripts used by both himself and Marcion the words iv 'Etpibtp, which would have settled the matter, cannot have been included.^ By Basil [oirc. 350) it is stated that his predecessors {ol ngd ^/icuv) and the most ancient manuscripts which he had consulted alike recorded the latter half of the opening verse in the form roig dyioig rot? oHai xai niaroXi; iv Xqunq} 'Iriaov. (3) The contents of the letter are very difficult to reconcile with the supposition that it was intended expressly for the Bphesians, amongst whom St. Paul had lived and worked for nearly tliee years {Acts xx. 31, cf. xix. 8, 10, 22), for (a) it seems to be implied that the writer's knowledge of the Church addressed, and its knowledge of him, had been obtained by report only, as in the case of the Colossians (i. 15, iii. 2, iv. 21), and that he had had no share in founding it ; (6) there is a complete absence of salutations and of personal reminiscences, such as occur in Colossians, though that was written to a Church which St. Paul had never visited. It is almost incomprehensible that an Epistle " more like a treatise than a letter,"^ in which no individual friends are greeted, should have been sent to a Church with the members of which the Apostle had the aSectionate relations represented in Acts xx. 17-38. If the letter was not directed to Ephesus, it must have been either (1) a circular letter meant for several churches in the province of Asia, but for none of them in particular, so that no name was inserted in it by the writer -, or else (2) it was dispatched to some individual Church other than Ephesus, the name of which was lost at an early date. (1) The first of these alternatives has been held to be favoured by the absence of local or personal allusions, and it has been suggested (a) that in i. 1, after the words rolg dyloig toIq oSai a blank was left,' in which the name of each Church that the letter reached could be inserted when it was read ; or (6) that no name was intended to be mentioned, but that the words Toig dyloig rolg oiai xal mcnoig were meant to signify " to the saints that are also faithful," or "to the saints existing and faithful," or " to the saints who are really such, and faithful." It can be urged against the various forms assumed by this explanation (a) that for the hypothesis of a blank space in a circular letter no support is afforded by other Epistles intended for readers scattered over a wider area than a single city, since in these either a comprehensive address occurs (as in 1 Cor. i. 1, 1 Pet. i. 1), or the name of the Church receiving the letter first is used, and a direction added that the communication is to be forwarded to a second Church (as in Col. i. 2, iv. 16) ; (b) that the proposed ^ TertuUian's words are Eoclesice quidem veritate epistulam istam, " ad Ephesios " luAemus emiasam, non " ad Laodicenos" sed Marcion e» titulum aliquando interpolare geatiit. This passage in Origen is given at length in T. K. Abbott, Eph. and Col. p. ii. ; J. A. Robinson, Eph. p. 292. " T. K. Abbott, Eph. and Ool. p. iii. ' In this case an iv might be expected after toZi ovaiv. 292 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY translations of Tolg dyloig toi? otai xal marotg are unnatural, and that the presence, originally, of a place-name after rotg o'Sai is rendered extremely probable by the close parallels of Rom. i. 7 naaiv rotg oimv h Pdifif} iyajirp:olQ dsoU, 2 Cor. i. Irfj ixxhrjalq. tov 6eov rfj oSaj] iv KogMqi aiw Tot? dy[oiQ naaiv toIq oiatv iv oXj) rfj 'Axa'ig., and Phil. i. 1 nSaiv rolg iyloig ev Xgiatcp 'Irjoov rolg oiaiv iv ^iXlnnoig. (2) Since the difficulties attaching to the first alternative render the second the most probable, it remains to consider what name (other than Ephesus) has been accidentally lost after tolg oUai. It is clear from Col. iv. 16 that a letter was received from St. Paul by the Church at Laodicea ; and this has been identified with the present Epistle. The identification is plausible and may be accepted, but it is not necessary to suppose that the first destination of this letter was Laodicea, and that the words that originally followed rolg o^ai, were iv AaoSixeiq. It is a serious objection to such a supposition that greetings to the brethren at Laodicea are conveyed to them in a communication sent, in the first instance, to the Colossians {Col. iv. 15). In view of this, it may be here suggested that the name lost after rotg oiai is that of Hierapolis (cf. Col. iv. 13). This place, situated six miles to the north of Laodicea, would be the first of the three cities in the Lycus valley to be reached by Tychicus, the bearer of " Ephesians " (vi. 21), if he travelled from Rome to them by the overland route along the via Egnaiia (p. 75), and through Neapolis, Troas, Pergamum and Sardis ; and, as it was not visited (so far as is known) by St. Paul, it may well be that neither he nor his friends at Rome had personal acquaintances there. The absence of any mention of the city in Revelation favours the inference that the Christian Church there was small. If " Ephesians " were really directed to Hierapolis ia the first instance, it was probably intended to be sent on next to Laodicea, and afterwards to Colossae (Col. iv. 16). It is noteworthy that in the passage just cited the Apostle describes the letter which the Colossians are to read as the Epistle Jroni (not to) Laodicea, which suggests that the letter in question was not sent directly to the Laodiceans. The words iv 'IsQaiioXa may have been obliterated in i. 1 through some injury to the papyrus on which the letter was written ; and the absence of them (it may be presumed) has been faithfully reproduced in X and B. But since any writing of St. Paul's would be valued at Ephefeus, no doubt copies of the letter to Hierapolis would reach it, or be made there ; and later transcribers of these might easily assume that the city where such copies occurred was the original destination of the letter, and so supply the lost words by iv 'Eipk(f, which are found in all uncials except the two just named. Occasion and Date If the Epistle was really written by St. Paul, its close relation to Colos- sians shows that it must have been composed when his mind was still full of the ideas and phraseology that occur in the latter, so that the occasion and time of its production are determined by those of the com- panion Epistle. As has been seen. Col. was written during St, Paul's DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 293 imprisonment, probably at Rome,^ at the end of 59 or the beginning of 60, and was conveyed to CoIosssb by Tychicus. The dispatch of this letter, elicited by the erroneous teaching which was penetrating the Colossian Church, afforded an opportunity of sending by the same messenger another (the present) letter, written under the same circumstances (iv. 1, vi. 20), to the adjoining town of Hierapolis, whence it was to be passed onto Laodicea. Although the letter to Hierapolis would reach first those for whom it was intended (p. 292), yet i£ it was to be transmitted to Lao- dicea and then to Colossse, it woidd not arrive at the latter town until after the receipt there of the Epistle to the Colossians (as implied in Col. iv. 16). Tfie Epistle to Philemon Destination, Occasion, and Date This Epistle is the only private letter of St. Paul's (apart from the Pastorals) that has been preserved, and was penned by his own hand (v. 19). It was addressed by St. Paul (who in writing it associated Timothy with himself, cf. Col. i. 1, Phil. i. 1) to Philemon (together with Apphia^ and Archippus, probably his wife and son). Philemon seems to have been a resident at CoIosssb, where the Christian community met at his house {Phm. 2). He had been converted to Christianity by St. Paul himself {v. 19), doubtless during the latter's long residence at Ephesus (Acts xix. 8-10) ; and perhaps subsequently taken part in spreading the Gospel among his fellow-citizens {v. 1). The occasion which elicited the letter was the return to him, at the instance of St. Paul, of Onesimus, a Colossian slave ^ (Col. iv. 9), who had escaped from him, taken refuge at Rome (see p. 286), and there been won to the Christian faith by the Apostle, who, though wishful to keep him owing to his helpfulness (vv. 11-13), yet sent him back with a letter explaining the circumstances. Onesimus accompanied Tychicus, who was the bearer of the Epistle to Colossse ; and the letter to Philemon was obviously composed at the same time and place as the latter, since all the persons mentioned in it as sending their salutations (m. 23, 24) occur amongst those named in Col. iv. 10-17 ; so that if the argument (p. 286) that Colossians was written from Rome be sound, the conclusion follows that Philemon was sent from the same city, the date being probably 59, or the beginning of a.d. 60. The Epistle to the Philippians Phihppi was the first place where the Christian faith was preached in Europe. Of the character of the Christian Church established there a ^ There is a suggestive coincidence between the phrase (-ri. 20) irpecrpei'iu h dXuTei and Acta xxviii. 2 rrjc S-Xmiv ravr-qv irepkei/xoi, the singular being used in each case. ' This is thought to be a Phrygian name and not the Koman Appia. ' The name was specially oommon amongst slaves. 29* NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY very favourable impression is derived from St. Paid's letter to it. His tigk opinion of it is manifest in more than one expression of commendatioB and affection (ii. 12, iv. 1). Though it was almost entirely Gentile, it was not marked by the licence which was so often rife in Gentile Churches.. The letter, indeed, contains warnings against those who seemingly abused the Apostle's doctrine of righteousness through faith, and made it a pretext for profligacy, but there is no suggestion that such antinomianism was widespread in the Philippian Church. Nor again does it appear that emissaries of the Judaistic Christians were active there. Cautions are given against yielding to the claims of Judaism ; but there is no hint that those who advocated such claims had in any way diverted the aEegiance of the Philippians from St. Paul. Their principal fault was a tendency to dissensions, which seem to have been due not to doctrinal differences but to personal rivalries and ambitions (iv. 2). In consequence of such, St. Paul presses upon them the need of unity, counselling them to avoid disputes and disunion, to cultivate self-efiacement, and to keep in mind the humility of Christ (i. 27, ii. 2-8). Place of Origin, Date, and Occasion of the Epistle The letter was written by St. Paul when a prisoner. Since he was a captive for at least two years both at Csesarea and at Rome and had been imprisoned for shorter periods in other places (2 Cor. vi. 5, xi. 23), Ephesua being probably among them (of. p. 284), it is, in the abstract, possible that it was composed at any of these cities. But that Rome was really the place of origin is favoured by various allusions, (a) Timothy is included with the writer, as in the case of Col. and Philem. (probably written from Rome, p. 293). (6) Reference is made to the fact that hi imprisonment for the Christian faith had become known to the Pr«toriani guard (i. 13), for that this is the sense of to TiQaizcogtov (which might otherwise signify the Government House at Caesarea, and its occupants), is favoured by the addition to it of xai rot? Xoinoig naaiv. (c) The writer expected shortly a favourable decision of his case (ii. 24, cf. i. 26)i which is against Csesarea. (d) He sends greetings from Christians beloi^- ing to the Emperor's household (iv. 22). These features in the letter do not exclude Ephesus, for (a) Timothy was there (Acts xix. 22) ; (6) the Apostle was probably imprisoned there ; (c) Praetorian troops and (d) members of the imperial household were there (as proved by inscriptions) ^ ; but they point with greater plausibility to Rome. If this conclusion be accepted, the date of it must fall within 59-61, the two years which St. Paul spent in prison at the capital whilst awaiting trial. The occasion which led to its dispatch was the intended return to PhUippi of Epaphro- ditus, the messenger who had brought to St. Paul funds supplied by the Philippians, and who, having recently recovered from a serious illness,, was desirous of seeing his friends again (ii. 25-27). The Apostle took advantage of his journey to send by him^ a letter to the Philippian 1 These are quoted in MeNeile, 8t. Paul, p. 229. ^ In ii. 25 the aorists iiyTja6.fj.ijv and ^Tre/xi/'a are epistolary. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 295 Church, perhaps in answer to a letter frona. it (of. ii. 25), conveying to its inembers his gratitude for their Mildness, and giving them information about himself and his prospects, at the same time addressing to them such admonitions as they seemfed to him to require. In the salutation (as has been said) he unites with himself Timothy (who was known to the Philip- pian Christians (.4ct« xvi. 1 f. and p. 542 f.) and had joined him at Rome) ; but the Epistle is written throughout in the first person singular. It has been questioned whether the letter was composed at an early or a late period in St. Paul's imprisonment ; but the considerations that favour the latter view preponderate, (i) Sufficient time had elapsed for his influence as a prisoner for the Christian faith to extend to his sur- roundings (i. 12, 13). (ii) Several communications must have passed between Rome and Philippi, for (a) news had reached Philippi of St. Paul's irdprisonment at Rome ; (6) money had been sent from Philippi to Rome through Epaphroditus (iv. 18), who after his arrival bad fallen ill ; (c) information of his illness had been received at Philippi (ii. 26) ; (d) wotd must have come of the Philippians' distress at the tidings (ii. 26). (iii) After the departtire of Epaphroditus, the only person in full sympathy with St. Paul was Timothy (ii. 19, 20), so that it may be inferred that Aristarchus and Luke, who had accompanied the Apostle to Rome {Acts xxVii. 2), can have been no longer there. Moreover when Phil, was written Timothy was shortly leaving Rome (Phil. ii. 19), whereas nothing is said about his departure in Col. or Philem. (iv) A crisis in his imprison- ment was close at hand (ii. 23) ; and though he professes himself hopeful of the result of the trial (which was clearly impending when he wrote), the tone of the Epistle is not so buoyant as that of the letter to Philemon, which Was written at the same time as that to Colossse (p. 293). (v) When Philippians was written, St. Paul seems to have contemplated a visit to Macedonia in the eveiit of his release {Phil. ii. 24), whereas when composing Philemon he had looked forward to a visit to Colossae {v. 22), so that the change of plan presumes some interval between these two letters. The datfe of Phil, may therefore be plausibly assigned to the beginning of 61. The only counter-balancing arguments of any weight are (a) various parallels in thought and expression between this Epistle and that to the Romans (written in 56), suggesting that a shorter interval separated these than elapsed between the other fepistles of the captivity and Romans ^ ; (6) the less lofty heights of doctrine attained in this Epistle, as compared with the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians, pointing to the existence of a less advanced stage of Church development at Philippi than at GolOssse or Ephesus, so that it is argued that Philippians is priot in time to Colossians or Ephesians.^ But the difference in the teaching may bfe explained by a difference in the character and circumstances of the Churches concerned, as easily as by any sequence in time.* Advanced ' Of. i. 10 with Bom. ii. 18, ii. 2 with Rom. xii. 16, ii. 3 with Sam. jdi. 10, ii. 10 with Bom. 3dv. 11, iii. 4; 5 with Bom. xi. 1, iv. 18 with Bom. xii. 1. See further in Light- foot, Phil. pp. 43, 44. ' See Lightfoot, Phil. pp. 41-46. ' Cf. Vintoent, PMl. xxiv. ; Moffatt, L.N.T. p. 170. 296 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY theological speculations may be current earlier in one place than another, and a wise teacher adapts his instructions to his disciples' needs. It would have been superfluous for St. Paul in a letter to Philippi to deal with errors which had not appeared there, though prevalent at CoIossbb. The letter appears not to have been dictated uninterruptedly. The conclusion, begun at iii. 1, is re-commenced at iv. 8 ; and there is a bene- diction both in iv. 7 and iv. 23. The argumentative and denunciatory tone of the passage iii. 2-iv. 1 (so unlike the rest of the Epistle) has sug- gested to some that it is part of a diSerent letter. The Pastoral Epistles The Pastoral Epistles, unlike all the other letters ascribed to St. Paul (except Philemon), are addressed not to Churches but to individuals. The three letters (1, 2 Timothy, Titus), which are collectively thus desig- nated on account of the pastoral duties enjoined in them, exhibit so much resemblance to one another that, if authentic, they must have been written within a short interval of each other, and in any discussion of their origia they are best treated as a group. Of no others of the letters associated with the name of St. Paul is the genuineness so widely disputed, partly on external grounds, but chiefly in consequence of their contents and style. The chief feature in the external evidence against them is their rejection by Marcion (circ. a.d. 140), who, since he sought to free the Church from the influence of Judaism, and accordingly attached great value to St. Paul's writings, would probably have included these Epistles in his New Testament canon if he had not entertained doubts about their authenticity. It is, however, mainly for internal reasons that their genuineness has been called in question, so that consideration of the external evidence may be more advantageously deferred till later (p. 303). These internal reasons are : (1) The allusions in them to various circum- stances and incidents to which there are no references in Act~^, and which are not very easily fitted into the period of history covered by Acts. (2) The character of the protestations and admonitions addressed in them to Timothy and Titus, which appears out of keeping with the long and intimate friendship subsisting between St. Pard and both of them.' (3) The emphasis laid upon Church organization, to which it is thought St. Paul would have attached less importance. (4) Suspicions raised by the nature of the erroneous teaching denounced, which has been regarded as pointing to conditions prevailing after St. Paul's lifetime. (5) 'The stress placed upon " works," which is unlike St. Paul's habit. (6) The contrast presented by the style to that of St. Paul's undisputed letters, and the large number of words either peculiar to each of the three Epistles or occurring in these collectively but nowhere else in the New Testament, (1) Preparatory to considering in detail the allusions to temporal and local circumstances comprised in the Epistles, it will be convenient to summarize what is narrated elsewhere respecting the relations of St. Paul to the two individuals to whom the letters are inscribed. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 297 (a) Timothy, the son of a Greek father but a Jewish mother, and a native of Lystra,was converted during St. Paul's First missionary Journey, probably by the Apostle himself (1 Cor. iv. 17), and was taken as his companion in the course of his Second Journey. He was with him in Macedonia, was left behind at Beroea, joined him at Athens, was sent back to Thessalonica, rejoined him at Corinth and, though his subsequent movements are not described, he may have accompanied St. Paul to Ephesus and have stayed there {Acts xviii. 19). At any rate he was at that city when the Apostle visited it during his Third journey (Acts xix. 1), and was sent by him, towards the close of his stay there (which lasted more than two years and three months), to Corinth by way of Macedonia (p. 276). He returned quickly from Corinth and then went again with St. Paul to the same locality. From Corinth he returned with the Apostle, but instead of travelling by land, went by sea to Troas and joined him there (Acts xx. 4). After this he is not again named in Acts. He was with St. Paul at Rome {Col. i. 1, Philemon 1, and Phil. i. 1), and from thence the Apostle thought of sending him to Philippi {Phil. ii. 19). He is nowhere again mentioned except in the Pastoral Epistles. (6) Titus, born of Gentile parents {Gal. ii. 3), was at Antioch when St. Paul went thither after his First journey, and was taken by him to Jerusalem, when he had an interview with the elder Apostles in 49. On St. Paul's Second journey he was with him at Ephesus, and probably went three times to Corinth on missions for the Apostle, (a) He was most likely the bearer of 1 Cor. ; (/?) he carried the severe letter with which 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is plausibly identified (p. 277) ; {y) on returning from Corinth by way of Macedonia, he met St. Paul there, and was sent back with another letter, comprised in 2 Cor. i.-ix. (p. 278). After this there is no allusion to him in the New Testament outside the letters here discussed. Of the three Epistles the one which contains the largest number of allusions to persons, places and circumstances is 2 Tim. These allusions, ' notably the directions in iv. 13-14, together with the urgent commands in iv. 9, 21, are not exactly of the character likely to proceed from a forger ; but they are difficult to harmonize with one another and with the recorded events of St. Paul's life. (i) Two passages— i. 15-18 (with which cf. i. 8, ii. 9) and iv. 6-18 — \ point to a period when St. Paul was in prison at Rome. The first refers ' to the kindly services there of a certain Onesiphorus ; the second implies that St. Paul, when he wrote, was lonely and had been in danger of death ; and it repeats a figure of speech used in Phil. ii. 17. Demas, who, when Oohssians and Philemon were written from Rome (probably early in the imprisonment, p. 293), was with St. Paul, had now forsaken him and gone to Thessalonica. Mark, who was at Rome when the same two letters were written, must have left, and his return was desired. Others who are not mentioned either in Col. or in Philemon had also departed, one (Crescens) to Galatia, another (Titus) to Dalmatia, and only Luke remained. The circumstantial evidence of these passages is consistent with a date between 59 and 61, and suggests that the Epistle in whole or in part, was written at Rome, about the same time as, though later than, Philip- 298 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY plans, and not long before the writer's execution. Tychicus, wio carried OolosHans to its destination {Gol. iv. 7), had been dispatched to Ephesus, presumably on his way to Colossae ('o. 12). The first hearing {prima actio) tff the Apostle's trial had taken place (v. 16), atid had issued in a reinand {ampliatio), whereas when Phil, was composed the trial had 8eemin|ly not begun (cf. Phil. ii. 23). Timothy, to whom the letter purports to be Written, and whom St. Paul had with him when Phil, was compost, had seemingly gone to Asia, and being expected to return to Eome by way of Troas, was requested to bring with him some articled which St. Paul, if he was writing from Rome early in 61, must have left there some three years before. (ii) On the other hand, the short passage iv. 19-22a ^ does not appear to be reconcilable with a date during the imprisonmeut at Rbm^ Recorded in Acts. Clearly v. 216, conveying salutations frbfn a nuinber of people, is inconsistent with the statement in v. 10 that only Luke was with the writer. Allusion to the fact that St. Paul had left Trophimts sick at Miletus leads to the inference that this section was written shortly after the Apostle had been at that place whUst still a free man (as happened during the Apostle's Third journey {Acts xx. 15)). But inasmufch as Trophimus was with St. Paul at Jerusalem at the termination of his Third journey {Acts xxi. 29), it seems necessary to conclude further thdt the section was written at some city where St. Paul stayed some little time prior to going to Jerusalem, and where Trophimus could have rejoined him. A city which would meet these requirements is Csesarea, where St. Paxil spent many days on his way from Ptolemais to the Jewish capital {Acts xxi. 10). From here it may be supposed that this short section was written by St. Paul in the spring of 56 to some friend at a place (Ephesus ?) where he must have had many discipleis. The friend, however, can hardly have been Timothy, for Erastus is mentioned as having stayed at Corinth (he is not in the list of those who accompanied St. Paul from Greece to Asia, Acts xx. 4), and Timothy must have been acquainted with this circumstance, since he was one of the Apostle's companion^ who joined him at Troas on his last journey to Jerusalem {Acts xx. 5). The connexion with Asia of Onesiphorus, to whose household gteetingJ are sent, is implied in 2 Tim. i. 18 ; whUe the resideiifce at Ephesus of . Aquila and Prisca (PriscUla), who are likewise saluted, appears from Ads xviii. 18-26. So far as this reasoning is sound, it follows that 2 Tim. is not a coherent whble but Consists of portions of at least twd letters, fcomposed at difEerbnt dates, which have been united together. Parallfels, if not certain, at least probable, are afforded by the combination in 2 Cor. bf two distinbt letters (p. 277), and the attachment to Romans of a fragment of a letter feeemiiiglj seiit to Ephesus (p. 283). Another possible analysis is to assign i. 15-18 and iv. 6-10 (only) to Borpe mi iv. ll-21o to Csesarea after Si. Paul Jmd been transferred thither from Jerusalem by Claudius Lysias (Acts xxiii. 31 f.). This explanation makes more intelligible the ^ In contrast to 22a, which is addressed to a single individual, 226 is a salutation to several persons. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 299 request for the cloak and other articles which the Apostle may have left at Troas on his journey to Jerusalem less (perhaps much less) than two years before. The " first defence " will then be the hearing before the Jewish Sanhedrin {Acts xxii. 30) ; the desertion of friends maly be that of the Jewish Christians ; the support given by the Lord {v. 17) maly refer to what is related in Acts xxiii. 10 ; the " proclamation " to the Gentiles inay have in view the defence at CsBsarea before the Boman governor Felix and his retinue ; and the deUverance from the Hon may be explained by the ad}oumment of the case in spite of the eagerness of the Jews for the Apostle's con- tifttion (Acts xxiv. 22). This analysis, however, leaves the reference to Trophimus and Miletus (v. 20) quite obscure ; and it is difficult to think that St. Paul could have looked iotwsixd to spending the winter with his correspondent (o. 21) unless he were a free man. The Eipistle whicli, next to 2 Tim., preserves most references to the ciTCumstaiices in which: it was written (wholly or in part) is Titus. In i. 5 it is impli'ed that the writer had been with Titus in Crete, and had left him there. No precise indication is furnished of the place of origin of the letter ; but in iii. 12 the writer directs Titus, on the arrival of a messenger (Artemas or Tychicus) to join him at Nicopolis. There were more towns than one which bore this name (in Cilicia, Thrace, and Epirus respectively) ; but it is generally assumed that the place meant was in the last-mentioned country, near the entrance of the Ambraciot gulf. If this is' correct, the letter might be written from any town lying between Crete and North- West Greece. It is not easy to adjust to the narrative of S^. Paul's movements ia Acts a visit to Crete ; but it is certain that Acts is a very imperfect record ; and in view of this incompleteness a voyage to Crete may easily be among its omissions. The period which afEords most room for the occurrence of such a visit is the interval of nearly three years spent at Ephesus (52-55) during his Third journey ; and it may be supposed that he went to the island with Titus, whom he left there on his departure, and afterwards sent to him the letter here con- sidered (perhaps from Ephesus) through the agency of ApoUos ^ and Zen'as. But if so, Titlis came back to Ephesus before 55, for he was the bearer of various I'etters to Corinth from that city for the Apostle. ScOpe for the missionary work in Crete that is here implied is afiorded by no otlier occasion within the period covered by Acts, for when the ApOstle Was in the island at the end of 58, on his way to Eome, he was there only through stress of weather, was a prisoner, and was seemingly not accom- panied by Titus (see Acts xxvii. 2). Whether the contemplated journey to Sfitjopolis was ever accomplished there is nothing to show. Possibly the Apostle intended to break new ground in Epirus via Macedonia ; but in consequence of his anxiety about the Corinthian Church (p. 278), chaiig'ed' his plans, and proceeded from Macedonia to Achaia and Corinth as- f^ated' in Acts xx. 1, 2 (p. 279). In 1 Tim. tlie only local' reference is in i. 3, where the writer alludes to a previous exhortation to Timothy to stay at Ephesus whilst he himself goes to Macedonia. Since Tiniothy accompanied St. Paul to Macedonia on his Second journey in 49 {Acts xvi. 1, 11) and on his Third journey in ^ Apollos, who had left Ephesus for Corinth before St. Paul's arrival at the former city {Acts xix. 1), must have returned. 300 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 52 {Acts XX. 4, 2 Cor. i. 1, p. 297), the occasion here implied, when he left Timothy at Ephesus, must be passed over by St. Luke in Acts. The only period to which such an occasion can be assigned is the long stay at Ephesus between 52 and 55 ; but the fact that within this period he went to Corinth (p. 276) and possibly to Crete (see above), renders the supposition less probable than it might otherwise appear to be. This review of the allusions to St. Paul's movements in these Epistles seems to show that though it is not easy, it is not insuperably difficult to explain some, if not all, as having occurred within the period of history included in Acts. Eusebius, indeed, repeats a tradition that the Apostle was released after the two years mentioned in Acts xxviii. 30, became again a travelling evangelist, and was imprisoned at Eome a second time, during which captivity he wrote 2 Tim. (H.E. ii. 22, 2) ; whilst the Murar torian fragment represents that he went from Kome to Spain. If St. Paul was not put to death until 64 or 67, there is ample space between 61 and even the earlier of these dates for journeys not only to Spain but also to the East (Ephesus, Crete, Macedonia, Greece, Miletus, Troas) ; and many find it easier to accept the tradition of a release in 61 and a second imprisonment than to adjust to the history comprised in Acts the allusions in these letters. But the assumption of a release in 61 involve?; the assignment of the composition of Acts to a date anterior to such an occurrence, since it is incredible that St. Luke knew of St. Paul's liberation without saying a word about it when he wrote Acts xxviii. ; and the objections to placing Acts so early are serious enough (p. 240) to render preferable the dating of the Pastorals prior to 61, if their genuineness, can be successfully defended against the other suspicious features occurring in them, which remain to be considered. (2) Even though the circumstantial allusions may admit of being more or less plausibly explained, the general tenor of the letters is not very favourable to their authenticity. For on the hypothesis that St. Paul, before writing 1 Tim., had left Ephesus on a short visit to Macedonia, leaving Timothy behind (1 Tim. i. 3, cf. iii. 15), there hardly seems occasion for so considerable a letter of instructions to him as the one in question, seeing that the writer himself must have spent a long while in training and organizing the Ephesian Church, and certainly Timothy can scarcely have required at this late date a solemn assurance of St. Paul's apostleship (1 Tim. ii. 7). Similarly, if St. Paul, before writing the Epistle to Titus, had been recently in Crete, and had left Titus there to carry on his work, a description of the qualities essential for a bishop (or overseer) {Tit. i. 7 f.) seems rather superfluous. These features become more intelligible on the hypothesis that the Epistles are not wholly genuine, but whilst comprising authentic extracts from St. Paul's correspondence, have been expanded and modified by some later adapter for the purpose of giving to Church of&cials counsel which he judged to be in accordance with St. Paul's mind. (3) The suggestion that, as the letters now stand, they include elements which do not proceed from St. Paul, but have in view conditions existing after his time, is favoured not only by the stress laid upon ecclesiastical DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 301 organization, but also by certain features of tbat organization. St. Paul was not indifferent to rule and order in the Church : both he and Barnabas when in South Galatia are expressly said to have appointed elders in every Church {Acts xiv. 23) ; elders from Ephesus were addressed at Miletus and styled bishops {Acts xx. 17, 28) ; bishops and deacons are greeted in the Epistle to the PMli'p'pians (i. 1) ; and there is nothing inherently unlikely in the representation that St. Paul commissioned Titus, as his delegate, to appoint elders in the cities of Crete {Tit. i. 5). But the space given in these letters to the subject of Church officers is more than might be expected from St. Paul ; there is a conspicuous absence of references to the gifts of the Spirit (save for the allusions to prophecies in 1 Tim. i. 18, iv. 14) ; and in addition to bishops (or overseers) and deacons, there appears also an organized body of widows (1 Tim. v. 9). (4) The kind of false teachers whom the writer has in view is not easily determined, for their characteristics are only vaguely described. It is clear that some of those whose doctrines are denounced were Jews, who were led away by " fables {/xv6oi) and endless genealogies " (1 Tim. i. 3-11, Tit. i. 14, iii. 9), such fables and genealogies perhaps being legends (supposed to be edifying) about the patriarchs and heroes figuring in the Scriptures. ^ But others were probably Gentiles of incipient Gnostic tendencies, who were disposed to regard matter as evil and to advocate asceticism (1 Tim. iv. 3-5), to multiply mediators between God and man (1 Tim. ii. 5) and to disparage the Old Testament (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17), and for whose teaching the writer wished to furnish a corrective. New departures in intellectual or religious development are very difficult to date with certainty; but on the whole the phases of thought against which these Epistles are directed seem to belong to a period rather later than St. Paul's lifetime. (5) Much importance is attached in these letters to correctness of beUef. In several passages here, but probably nowhere else in St. Paul (though see Rom. i. 5 mg.), ?J marig appears to designate the intellectual content of the Christian faith formulated as a body of doctrine (1 Tim. iii. 9, iv. 1, 6, v. 8, vi. 10, 21, 2 Tim. iii. 8, iv. 7 and perhaps Tit. i. 13). (6) Much stress is put upon good works (1 Tim. ii. 10, v. 10, 25, vi. 18, 2 Tim. iii. 17, Tit. ii. 14, iii. 4) ; no others of the Epistles attributed to St. Paul " lay at all the same emphasis on right hving as the index to right beUef." ^ (7) Both the style and the vocabulary are unlike those of St. Paul's acknowledged correspondence. There is a variation in the opening salutation, " grace, mercy, and peace " being substituted for the " grace and peace " found in Thess., Qal., Cor., Rom., and the Epistles of the Captivity ; though this is of little significance. There is a comparative absence of the impetuous manner of the Apostle that elsewhere often results in broken sentences {Eph. iii. 1-7, iv. 1-6) ^ ; clauses are arranged ■' _ ' Of. Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 135, 136. Reference is made, by way of iliustration, to the book of Jubilees. ' Bernard, Pastoral Epistles, p. 46. ' An incomplete sentence occurs in 1 Tim. i. 1-4. 302 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY with a good deal of symmetry (1 Tim. v. 10, 2 Tim. ii. 11-13, Tit. i. 7-3) ; and there is much repetition of stereotyped phrases (" sound doctrine " (4 times), "faithful is the saying" (5),^ "knowledge {Iniyvmaig) of the truth " (4), " keep (the) deposit " (3) ). The vocabulary peculiar to these epistles is very noteworthy. There are at least 130 substantives, verbs, and adjectives which do not occur anywhere else in the New Testament; and the total number of iinaS Xeydneva has been calculated to amount to 176, a figure " proportionately twice as great as in any other " of tba letters bearing St. Paul's name.^ Certain words which, though not &nai XtyoixEva in the New Testament, yet are not found in any other reputed Pauline epistle are frequent here {agveo/iai 6 times, ^i^Tj?.og 4, ixrgiTioimt 4, ivai^Eia 10, fiiJdog 4, nagairiofiat 4, nQoaixo) 6, vyialvo) 8). Conversely, numerous words which occur frequently in the other epistles, and whioli may be deemed characteristically Pauline, are here lacking ; among such are axgo^vaTla (found elsewhere in Paul 19 times), yvcogl^ca (18), daccudm (27), i^vdegog (16), evsgydco (17),- xaragydco (25), xaregydCoficu. (20), xavj^doixm (35), ovgavog (21), Tiegiaaevoo (26), Tiegmaiico (32), ngdaam (18), a&iia (91), (pgovico (24), x'^^Q^^o/iai (16). Certain adverbs, particles, and prepositions, not uncommon in other letters, are also wanting, e.g. S^a (15 times elsewhere), aga oih (12), di6 (27), di4rc (10), ijieira (11), o^«eTt (15), o^j' (38), ware (39). No doubt the diction of an author varies greatly with his subject-matter ; and the unique occurrence in these letters of terms like avrldeaig, ysveaXoyia, iniaxonri, Xoyo/iaxia, ve6^>vro^, ndgoivog, ngea^vrig, XEXvoyoveiv, vdgonorelv, (pUavrog, with many others, is amply explained by the nature of the topics dealt with. Again, the absence from the Pastorals of the words cited above is paralleled by the absence of some of them from genuine Paidine letters (for yvmgiim, fcaregydCo/iai, cpgovica, and ;(ao/fo/iat are missing from 1, 2 Thess., aacQO- pvarLa from 1, 2 Th., 2 Cor., and Phil., and dixai6m from the same, as well as from the other Epistles of the Captivity). Even the non-occurrence of certain of the particles just noted is not unexampled elsewhere, for agB is absent from Phil, and Col., ovxiri from the same and 1 Cor., and etoito from Rom. and 2 Cor.^ Nevertheless, though these considerations impair, they do not destroy the force of the argument based upon the difierenoe of phraseology subsisting between these Epistles and the rest of the letters associated with St. Paul's name. In view of these peculiarities of both matter and manner (and it is the combination that is significant), it is difiicult to think that the Pastorals are throughout St. Paul's handiwork. It is not improbable, indeed, that portions of original letters written by the Apostle have been used in theil composition,* for it is unlikely that an admirer of St. Paul's, in producing a letter ostensibly proceeding from him, would have represented him as ' Turner, who favours the Pauline authorship, suggests that this phrase is the marginal note of an appreciative reader (The Study of the N. T., p. 21). " Bernard, Pastoral Epistles, p. xxxvi. ' See Expositor's Oreek Test. iv. pp. 69, 71. • The abruptness of 2 Tim. i. 15-18 in its present context is very marked. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 308 forsaken botk in Asia and at Rome (2 Tim. i. 15, iv. 16). ^ But if so, authentic fragments seem to have been made the basis of complete Epistles which in their entirety are not the Apostle's. The practice of composing letters to represent the sentiments and views of another person seems to have been not uncommon in antiquity.^ St. Paul himself refers to the possibility of letters circulating in the Thessalonian church which falsely purported to come from him (2 Th. ii. 2). Under these circumstances it seems the most plausible explanation of the conflicting features of the Pastoral Epistles to suppose that a writer, believing himself to be in accord with St. Paul's teaching, and possessing some remains of his correspon- dence, expanded such into these letters, in order to combat erroneous speculations in the Church by opposing to them sound teaching and an objective standard of belief. He probably lived at a time when ecclesias- tical organization was growing in importance, and seemed to offer a safeguard against the spread of moral and intellectual error. Timothy and Titus are thus representative figures, standing for those whom the writer really wished to admonish and instruct. If genuine portions of Pauline correspondence are embodied in the letters, the largest element is to be found in 2 Tim., the smallest in 1 Tim. It is, of course, impossible to distribute with any confidence the several sections of 2 Tim. and Tit. between St. Paul and the writer who may have incorporated Pauline fragments ; but it may be suggested that tte following passages are authentic : — ■ 2 Tim. i. 1-10 ? 15-18 ^ ; ii. 1-10 ? iii, 10-12 ; iv. 6-18,^ 19-22.* Titus i. 1-5 ; iii. 12-15.^ In 2 Tim. it seems probable the iv. 1-5 is not part of the authentic material, since there is an inconsistency between v. 5 (implying that the person addressed is to remain where he is), and v. 9 which bids him join the writer (St. Paul ?) as soon as possible. In the case of 1 Tim. there are no sufficient criteria for discriminating between what comes from the Apostle, and what does not. Possibly the Epistle is altogether the work of the pseudonymous writer who, in mentioning a journey to Macedonia (i. 3) and expressing a hope of returning shortly (iii. 14, cf. iv. 13), only seeks to give verisimilitude to a letter falsely purporting to be composed by St. Paul. The date of the Epistles as they stand cannot be much later than the end of the first century a.d., for though the evidence of acquaintance with them by Clement of Eome (a.d. 95) and Ignatius {circ. 110) seems doubtful, that adduced from Polycarp (d. 156) appears undeniable. The most cogent parallels are as follows * : — Clement, ad Corinth, i. § 2. iroi/ioi eig nav egyov AyaBov (cf. Tit. iii. 1, 2 Tim. ii. 21). • Cf. Conybeare, Myth, Magic, and Morals, p. xxvi. ' Oioero on one occasion wrote to Atticus, Si qui erunt, quibus putes opus esse meo nomine litteras dari, veiim conscribas curesque dandas (ad Att. iii. 15). • Dating from 59-61. * Dating from 56 ? » Dating from 52-55. • Sm Sicpoaitor'a Greek Testament, iv. pp. 76, 79. 804 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY § 45. Tcov iv xaBagq. awetSijoEi Xargeiiovrmv (cf. 2 Tim. i. 3). Ignatius, ad Polycarp. § 3. iregodidaaxa^ovvreg (cf. 1 Tim. i. 3, vi. 3). § 6. igiaxere d> argareveadE (cf. 2 Tim. ii. 4). § 7. Broifiol iare elg evTtoitav ffem dvrjxovaav (cf. Tit. iii. 1). Polycarp, ad Philipp. § 4. dgx'fl ^i itdvTcov yiaXenSyv tfiXagyvgla. siSdteg oiv 8zi oidiv elarjviyxa/iev elg r6v xda^um, dAA' oiSi e^eveyxelv ri SpfOyuer (cf. 1 Tim. vi. 10, 7). § 5. iav TioXirevaS/ieBa A^icog avTOH, teal avftpam- Xevao/iev avr& (cf. 2 Tim. ii. 12). § 9. ov yag zov vvv fjydjcr)aav aiwva (cf. 2 Tim. ii. 2). As regards the localities where the three Epistles were written, notes, not always consistent or plausible, are appended to them in certain manu- scripts. 1 Tim. is associated with Laodicea in A Kj La but with Nicopolis inPj. 2 Tim. is also assigned to Laodicea by A, but to Eome by Kj Lj Pj. Tit. is connected with Nicopolis by AHjKaLjPa. These statements seem to be merely conjectures based on names mentioned or imphed in the letters themselves and on the assumption that they proceed from St. Paul. The Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews, though lacking in the best manuscripts an author's name, is ascribed in several later codices (L^ Pj and many cursives) to St. Paul. Of the Patristic writers who refer to it, some attribute it without hesitation to St. Paul ; others imply the existence of doubts about his responsibility for it ; whilst others again either themselves assign, or repeat traditions assigning, its origin to some other writer. As regards its destination the title To {the) Hebrews found in MSS. and versions seems, indeed, definite enough, but it is not part of the letter ; and even if it were, it is not free from ambiguity, and nothing is said about the locality to which the letter was sent. Consequently it is desirable to consider in some detail both the external and the internal evidence bearing upon its authorship, the place of its origin, the persons addressed, and its date. Authorship The earliest views respecting the authorship of the book vary with the regions where they were current, there being a decided difierence of judgment among writers belonging to the eastern churches compared with those of the western churches. (i) In Egypt the view generally prevailed that the Epistle proceeded DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 305 indirectly, though probably not directly, from St. Paid. The following expressions of opinion are preserved by the historian Eusebius : — (a) Clement of Alexandria (d. after 203) is reported as sajdng that the Epistle is the work of St. Paul, and that it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language ; but that Luke translated it carefully and published it for the Greeks, and hence the same " colour " of expression is found in this Epistle and in Acts. He is further represented as explain- ing that the words, " Paul the Apostle," were probably not prefixed because, in sending it to the Hebrews who were prejudiced and suspicious about him, he wisely did not wish to repel them at the very beginning by giving his name {H.E. vi. 14). (6) Origen (185-253) is quoted (Eus. H.E. vi. 25) as stating that the diction of the Epistle to the Hebrews was not marked by the rudeness of speech with which the Apostle charged himself (2 Cor. xi. 6), but that in its composition it is better Greek ; and again, that the thoughts of the Epistle are admirable and not inferior to those of St. Paul's writings. He further expresses the opinion, " I should say that the thoughts are those of the Apostle, but that the phraseology and composition are those of some one who remembered the Apostolic teachings and made notes, as it were, of what was said by his teacher " — and he reports the view of some that the author was Clement of Rome, of others that it was Luke (H.E. vi. 25). (c) Dionysius (a student under Origen, and subsequently Bishop of Alexandria, d. 265), quotes Heb. x. 34 as St. Paul's. (ii) On the other hand, in the western churches of Italy and Carthage the Pauline authorship was denied. At Rome, Gains, a writer of the early third century, counted only thirteen letters of the Apostle, not including Hebrews (Eus. H.E. vi. 20), and both he and Irenseus are said by Stephanus Gobarus (a writer of the sixth century) to have expressly denied St. Paul's authorship of the Epistle. That the Roman Church disputed its authenticity on the ground that it was not by St. Paul is expressly affirmed by Eusebius {H.E. iii. 3, vi. 20) ; and St. Jerome re-asserts the same statement, remarking that the custom of the Latins did not receive it among the canonical Scriptures as St. Paul's. The denial in the Roman Church of the Pauline authorship of the Epistle is the more significant from the fact that the letter was known there at a very early date, the first traces of its use being found in the writings of Clement of Rome {circ. a.d. 95). At Carthage, Tertullian {circ. 220), quoting Heb. vi. 1, 4-6, attributed its origin to Barnabas. This evidence, which, on the whole, is adverse to the conclusion that the letter proceeds from St. Paul, must now be examined in the light of the contents and style of the book. Internal Evidence This may be considered under the heads of (a) incidental allusions ; (6) dominant theological ideas ; (c) vocabulary and stylistic features. (a) The letter differs from all the Epistles commonly regarded as St. 20 306 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Paul's by beginning without any personal greeting from the writer to those whom he addresses. Both he and they appear to have been Jews by race, since he exhorts his readers to renounce with him fellowship with those who had crucified and killed Jesus (xiii. 13) and this implies that the readers of the Epistle had been previously in close association with them. But the circumstance that the letter was sent to Christian Jews (Hebrews in the racial sense) is rather unfavourable to St. Paul's authorship, for it was the Gentiles and not his own countrymen that he considered to have special claims upon his care. The writer reckons himself amongst such as received the tidings of salvation from the actual hearers of the Lord (ii. 3), whereas St. Paul strenuously contended that he had received through revelation the Gospel which he taught {Gal. i. 12, cf. E'ph. iii. 3). A reference, indeed, occurs to St. Paul's frequent companion Timothy, who appears to have been recently released from prison (xiii. 23) ; but Timothy must have been a friend of many others beside the Apostle. Clearly the features here noticed are opposed for the most part to the supposition that the letter is the production of St. Paul.^ (6) Some of the elements of likeness and uidikenesB between the theology of the Epistle and that of the Pauline writings are reviewed elsewhere (p. 668), so that here it wiU suffice to notice only a few points emerging from a comparison. Common to the writer and St. Paul are an extremely high estimate of Christ as the Divine Son, the Creator and Sustainer of the world, and exalted, after enduring death, to heavenly glory {Gol. i. 15-17, Phil. ii. 9, Heb. i. 3) ; the use of expressions borrowed from the Jewish sacrificial system in order to describe His death ; the temporary value assigned to that system ; and the stress laid upon "faith" as the condition of salvation. But the attitude of the two writers to the Jewish Law is quite diSerent : and the contrast drawn between the Law and grace by St. Paul is absent from the Epistle, Christ being regarded not as the annuller but as the fulfiller of the Law ^ ; whilst faith, which is in St. Paul an act of trust in Christ, is in this author an act of trust in God and in the Unseen (such as was shown by the great characters in the Old Testament). And whilst the essence of Christ's redemptive work for mankind was, in the mind of St. Paul, His death in the flesh and His renewed life in the Spirit, whereby the strength of sin was destroyed in beUevers and power to live a new life was communicated to them, in the mind of the writer of Hebrews it was partly the expiation of sin through His blood, partly the example of His patient life, and partly His inte^ cession in heaven. There is only one reference to the Resurrection— xiii. 20. (c) There is a decided dissimilarity between St. Paul's Uterary manner (even though this varies a good deal) and that of the writer of Hebrews. The style of the former is impetuous, marked on some occasions by abrupt ^ In X. 34 the reading roh 5ecj-/aoiS /xov has the support of X and the Old Latin, but Tois Sej/t/ois is found in AD 33 and most of the versions. ^ Cf. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, p. 78. Nevertheless the writer speaks of an " annulling of a foregoing commandment on account of its weakness and unprofitableness " (vii. 18). DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 307 transitions, by btoken constructions [e.g. CfAl. ii. 6-10), by frequent rhetori- cal questions, or by impassioned pleadings (see, for instance, Rom. ui. iv. vi., 1 Oor. vi.), and at other times by long and almost breathless statements (see Eph. i. ii.. Col. i.). But the latter's style is distinguished by a tranquil and measured movement ; he has his thoughts well under control ; his arguments are efiectively articulated ; and his work has a more literary quality than any other in the New Testament. One striking contrast is observable in the way in which St. Paul's own personaUty comes into prominence throughout his correspondence, as compared with the almost complete self-suppression of the author of this Epistle. This is exemplified by the fact that the pronoun Eyc6 (in the nominative) occurs more than 60 times in St. Paul (exclusive of quotations), whilst in Hebrews it is found nowhere outside of quotations. Characteristic features of diction cannot he illustrated extensively here ; and vocabulary is always very largely determined by subject-matter. Nevertheless the use of particular con- junctions and other connectives often throws light upon identity or difference of authorship, and of such several that are frequent in the Pauline Epistles are absent or rare in Hebrews, and vice versa. Thus aga or &Qa oiv is found 27 times in St. Paul, but only twice in Hebrews ; and vwl appears eighteen times in St. Paul but only once or twice in Hebrews. The rhetorical question rt oih/ ; or rt otJv Myco (iQavfiEv) ; so common in iJomaws has no place in ^feferews. Conversely SQev (" wherefore ") is absent from the Pauline Epistles, but occurs six times in Hebrews. Very significant is the circumstance that whereas the combinations 'Irjoov? XQiareg (especially 6 ■^/iKregog hvqioq 'Trjoovg XQiarSg) and Xgiazog 'Irjoovi are extremely common in St. Paul, the first is used by the author of Hebrews only three times, and the latter never, the simple 'Irjaovg or Xgiardg or d XgiardQ being otherwise uniformly employed. And another conspicuous diSerence is the formula with which quotations from the Old Testament are introduced. St. Paul generally prefaces them with «a6ci»s {xaddnsg, Sansg) yeygamxai or xaza ro yeygafi/xevov ^ ; but the author of Hebrews uses xaddig Myei (or some equivalent), the subject of the verb being God or the Son or the Holy Spirit. The united efEect of these difEerences is fully to confirm the judgment pf the early Western Churches that the Epistle is not the work of St. Paul. It is not hkely to be a translation of an Aramaic letter, written by him, which has been rendered into Greek by a companion like St. Luke (as Clement thought), for the argument in ix. 15, 16 turns upon the ambiguity of the Greek word dtaB'qxri. The authorship must therefore be sought elsewhere. As has been seen, it was attributed by some in ancient times to Barnabas, Luke, and Clement of Eome ; and it has been assigned in modem times to Silas, ApoUos, Aquila, PrisciUa, Philip and St. Peter^ though the last, at least, was an actual disciple of Jesus (contrast ii. 3). The choice between these (if the author is to be looked for in the New Testament) may be postponed until after a consideration of the place where it was probably written, and the community to which it was sett. ^ In Eom. ix. 17 there is used the phibse X^ei ij ypa.(t>'fi. 308 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Destination, Place of Origin and Date The first two of these questions are conveniently dealt with together, since the most plausible answer to one or other of them is furnished by the salutation forwarded through the writer from " Those of Italy (xiii. 24r, oi and Tfj(; 'IraXlai;). This phrase suggests that the author was either writing from Italy to a definite group of persons outside that country who had connexions in Italy, or to Italy from a land where he was sur- rounded by some ItaUan friends. On the surface, indeed, the title of the Epistle To Hebrews seems most appropriate to the Jews of Jerusalem who spoke Aramaic, and were distinguished as " Hebrews " from their fellow- countrymen of the Dispersion, who, as speaking Greek, were styled " Hellenists " {Acts vi. 1) ; but various features in its contents almost decisively negative this conclusion. It is very improbable that Jewish Christians resident at Jerusalem should all have owed their faith to the teaching of Jesus' disciples (ii. 3, xiii. 7) and not to Jesus Himself : that a letter to such would be composed in Greek, or be filled with citations from the LXX and not from the Hebrew Bible ; that a body which at one time received help from Gentile Christians (Acts xxiv. 17) should here be commended for relieving others (vi. 10) ; and that there should occur no allusion to the Temple, but only to the Tabernacle. And the fact that the earliest quotation from the letter occurs in the writings of Clement of Rome {circ. a.d. 95) strongly favours the inference that the second of the alternatives stated above is the true one, and that the letter was sent to Italy, and, most likely, to the capital Rome. At Rome there were large numbers of Jews (p. 78), some of whom had been converted to Christianity, so that the title To Hebrews (if taken to mean Jews by descent though not by language) is not inconsistent with the supposition that Rome was the destination of the Epistle. Other suggested destinations besides Rome (Antioch, Ephesus, Csesarea, Alexandria) are little better than guesses. If the letter was really sent to Rome, then, since the writer had Uved amongst those whom he addresses, and looked forward to rejoining them (xiii. 19, 23) he is most plausibly to be sought for amongst those individuals of the Apostolic age who had been at Rome ; but who at the time of writing were living somewhere outside Italy (there being no clue to the precise locality). This condition (as far as is certainly known) is met neither by Barnabas ^ (p. 541), who possessed a faculty for exhortation {Acts xi. 23, cf. iv. 36 and Heb. xiii. 22), and who, being a Levite {Ads iv. 36), might be expected to be interested in the Jewish sacrificial system ; nor by ApoUos, who was a Hellenist and whose eloquence, Alexandrian learning,^ and knowledge of the Scriptures {Acts xviii. 24) would render him competent to write such a letter ; nor by the Evangelist PhiHp. It is satisfied, however, by St. Peter, by St. Luke, by Silas (probably), and ^ He is, however, represented in certain traditions as having visited Rome (Zahn, I.N.T. i. p. 433). * The Epistle exhibits numerous parallels to the phraseology of the Alexandrian Philo { see ITarrar, Hebrews, pp. 38-41. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 309 by Aquila and Priscilla. Certain resemblances have been traced in the book to St. Peter's Epistle ; but St. Peter was himself one of our Lord's disciples, and not a follower of them, as the writer seems to have been (ii. 3), and he was probably deficient in his command of Greek (p. 174), whereas the author writes good Greek. The inference that Silas went to Rome is derived from the assumption that 1 Pet. is genuine (p. 312) and was written from that city by Silas with considerable freedom at St. Peter's dictation (1 Pet. v. 12). But Silas was a member of the Church of Jerusalem {Acts xv. 22) whereas the author of Hebrews was probably a Hellenist. Luke went to Rome with St. Paul {Acts xxvii. 1) and most likely left it after the latter's execution : and facts favouring his authorship are his capacity for writing excellent Greek (see Lk. i. 1-4), and some points of contact between his vocabulary and that of the Epistle {e.g. the frequent use of re, which is rare in the New Testament except in Lk., Acts and Rom., the occurrence of icazavoeoj twice in the Epistle, eight times in Lk., but only four times in the rest of the New Testament, and the numerous instances of xad' fjiieQav and xal aizdi; (pp. 204, 238) ; whilst a few words (like aQxtfyog, darstog, dta^aivm, diariBefiai, e'SBertog, IXdafto/iai, noQecodev) are found only in Lk. and Heb. But to be set against this agreement in diction are certain differences, notably the absence of some Lucan words and phrases like and rov vvv, jtagaxgrji^a, and especially of the preposition aiiv. Moreover, it is extremely improb- able that Luke, who was a Gentile, would have elaborated such a com- parison between Christianity and the Law of Moses as appears in this Epistle. Aquila and Priscilla resided at Rome until they were expeUed with other Jews by Claudius {Acts xviii. 2), and since the others who satisfy the condition of acquaintance with Rome have been eliminated, the book may be conjecturally assigned to either of these. Some scholars ^ found an argument in favour of Priscilla upon the circumstance that the letter does not at present begin with a salutation from the writer, for, if the author were a woman, there would be a temptation to suppress the fact in view of St. Paul's dislike of female teachers. But the occurrence of the mascuUne participle in a self-allusion by the writer (xi. 32) is against this identification unless the grammar is intended as a disguise, or is the substitution of a copjrist. If the letter was written by either Aquila or his wife, the place of origin may have been Ephesus, for they were both there when St. Paul wrote Rom. xvi. (see v. 3), if that chapter was really sent thither from Rome (see p. 283). The persons to whom the letter was addressed must have previously been adherents of Judaism, since only for those who were contemplating a relapse to Judaism would the author's argument for the superioiity of Christianity to the religion of Moses have any force ; and only from those who accepted the Old Testament would his appeals to its evidence evoke a response. But amongst such there might be proselytes from heathenism, or individuals belonging to the class of '' God-fearers," and it is perhaps these, who (he apprehended) might fall away not from Christ 1 See Peake, Hebrewn, p. 37 i. 310 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY only but from the living God, and return to heathen vices (iii. 12, xii. 16, xiii. 4). Christiaiis of Gentile, as well as of Jewish, race could be regarded as the seed of Abraham (ii. 16), since Christif^ns, constituted the true Isra,el [Oal. iii. 29, cf. Rom. iv. 1, 12). Nevertheless, that those to whoijj the Epistle wa,s sent h,ad been Jews by religion a,nd were also foi; the most part Jews by birth seems clear alike from pajrticiilar passages like vi. 6, X. 29, xiii. 13), and from the genieral drift of the contents. The word " Gentiles " indeed, does not occur in it. For the settlement of the date few indications are afEorded by the book. If it were sent to Christians of Jewish origin in Palestine, the abs.ence of any reference to the Temple and the Temple sacrifices seems to exclude a date previous to 70, and to point to its being written many years after the destruction of Jerusalem, for, had the memory of that event been recent, allusion to such a judgment of God would have added force to the writer's ajguments. But if, as seems probable, it was addressed to a. body of Christian Jews at Rome (p. 308), the fact that the writer deals with the ritual of the Tabernacle as described in the Old Testament Scriptures, and not with that of the Temple, is not surprising, and is compatible with a date prior to a.d. 70. And the allusion to sufEerings (x. 32-34, xii. 4, 7) finds a natural explanation in the hostihty felt at Rome towards the Christians, which, rendered it easy for Nero in 64 to incite the populace against them. The Jewish, religion was tolerated by the Roman State (p. 79) whereas the Christian was not, and there would be a tendency for Jewish Christians in times of trouble to revert to theii; earlier faith. Nevertheless, it looks, in view of xii. 4, 7, as if those addressed had only experienced imprisonment and confiscations, and the full horrors of the persecution fallowing the burning of the city had not yet begun, A plausible date would, therefore, seem to be shortly before a.d. 64- If it was composed, as some think, during the reign of Domitian (81-96) * it is difficult to understand how the author could say that those to wham he wrote had not yet resisted unto blood. The First Epistle of St. Peter Both of the letters bearing St. Peter's name claim to be written by the Apostle, but the authenticity of the First is much better established thai} that of the Second. The genuineness of the First, indeed, is suppojrted by such strong external attestation that discussion of its authorship might here be dispensed with (as in the case of most of St. Paul's Epistles), were it not for certain internal peculiarities which throw some doubt upop its origin. Authorship Patristic evidence for the existence and authority of the, Epistle in the Church is generally allowed to be both ample and early.* Under, tlie^e 1 See MoGifEert, Apostolic Age, pp. 463-4. " MofEatt, L.N.T. p. 335. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 311 circumstances it seems vmnecessary to adduce illustrations at any length, and it will sufGice to quote the folloTring parallels : — 1. Clement of Rome (d. 95-100) 1 Pet. vii. 4. yv&jjtev (55? iariv rlixiov {i.e. i.. 19, rc/j,((p al/iari, . . . Xgcarov. TO al/jia Tov Xgiarov). jdix. 5, iyuTirj xakiTnei nkfjOos iv. 8, dycbijj xahiTttu nkfjdog d/xag- dftOQti&v.^ riwv.^ Clement also uses the words ayaQonoita, d.deXq>6Tr]q, dngoc(a)7ioki^/j,mo)g, inoyganiioq, which, within the New Testament, only occur in 1 Pet.^ 2. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles {circ. 100) 1 Pet. i. 4, dnixov t&v aaqmtciJm xai acofia- ii. 11, naqaxaXai . . . inexeaSdi t&v rix&v inidv/iicbv. aagxixcov im&v/j.ta>v. 3. Polycarp (d. 156) 1 Pet. i. 3, eig Sv ovx ld6vreg niarivBTe i. 8, els 8v dgrt [ir) dgcovrsg, niarev- Xagq. dvexXakiftcp xal dsSo^aa- ovre^ ds dyaXhaads x'^9 dvex- vii. 2, v/j(pcnnez ngog rd? si/di;. iv. 7, j^^are ets ngoaevxdg. L Irenwus. (d. 202) quotes in adv. hcer. (iv. 16, 5, v. 7, 2) from the Epistle, introducing the citation with the words, " Peter says " (cf, Eus. H.E. V. 8). 5. Eusebius states that Papias {circ. 130) used testimony from the First Epistles of both St. John and St. Peter {H.E. iii. 39, 17) ; and after dividing Christian writiags into three classes Accepted {6fio2.oyoviiEva.),. Disputed (dvTtAsyd/ieva) and Spurious {v66a), he places 1. Pet. in the first class (cf. iii. 25, 2). The Epistle is not enumerated in the Muratorian Canon, but that catalogue appears to be mutilated at the beginning and end, and may have sufiered loss in the middle also. But though the external evidence for the early origin and circulation of the First Epistle is thus convincing, its Petriue authorship has been questioned on various grounds. The principal of these are the following, (o) The Greek is too correct and idiomatic to proceed from St. Peter, who though doubtless sufiBieiently acquainted with the Greek language to speak it, yet required the assistance of an interpreter when at Rome (p. 169). (6) The Epistle contains fewer references to incidents in our Lord's ministry and to His teaching than might be expected from an Apostle, especially one who enjoyed a special degree of intimacy with his Master, (c) It exhibits both in ideas and language a close resemblance to some of the Epistles of St. Paul, so that it is surprising to find " the first and nearest of the Twelve so much more afiected, apparently by the teaching of Paul * The quotation oomes from Prov. x. 12, where the LXX rendering is viivTas roiis /li) (piKom.KavvTa.s KoKiirru Ma. ' Bigg, St. Peter and St. Jude, p. 8, where, however, StririKos and wapoiKla are wrongly inol'uded. 312 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY than of Jesus." ^ It has also been held to show unmistakable traces of its writer's acquaintance with the Epistle to the Hebrews (cf . 1 Pet. i. 2 with Heb. xii. 24). {d) The persons to whom the letter was addressed were residents in five districts (constituting four Roman provinces) in Asia Minor — Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (see p. 65) — with which St. Peter cannot be shown, independently of this epistle, to have had any connexion. The weight of these reasons, substantial though they are, is much reduced by several considerations. (a) The comparative scholarliness of the Greek, which is exemplified by the frequent use of fiiv . . 8i (i. 20, ii. 4, iii. 18, iv. 6), by such an arrangement of the article as is seen in ^ rov 6eov /langoBvi^la (iii. 20, cf. i. 17, iii. 3, iv. 14, v. 1, 4) and by the paucity of Hebraisms, though a certain number of such occur (rdxva vTiaKofjg, i. 14, cf. iv. 3, i. 13, etc.), may be due to an amanuensis. This is not likely to have been St. Mark, though he is mentioned as joining in the salutations sent by the writer of the letter (for there is little likeness between the style of the Epistle and that of the Second Gospel), but may have been Silvanus. It was certainly in some sense through the agency of Silvanus that the letter was written (v. 12), and though the expression employed may, and probably does, imply that he was the bearer of the letter to its destination, it is equally probable that it means that it was also composed by him, though whether St. Peter dictated it in Aramaic, which was rendered by the amanuensis into Greek, or whether he spoke in Greek, which was corrected or improved by his assistant, or whether he left the latter free to express as he deemed best the thoughts communicated, cannot, of course, be decided. (6) The small number of references to our Lord's works and words can be accounted for in some measure by the fact that the Apostles and early preachers of Christianity were certainly more concerned to encourage their hearers with the hope of their Lord's Second Coming from heaven than to inform them about the details of His life on earth (cf. p. 497). There are, however, in the Epistle two or three references which unobtrusively harmonize with the supposition that the writer was an eyewitness of Christ's earthly life and a hearer of His words (see v. 1 ; and cf. i. 13 with Lh. xii. 35 ; ii. 12 with Mt. v. 16 ; and iii. 14 with Mi. v. 10). Moreover there are a few parallels to ideas occurring in coimexion with St. Peter in the narrative of Acts (cf. i. 17 with Acts x. 24 ; iv. 13 with Acts v. 41 ; V. 1 with Acts V. 32, x. 39 ; ii. 4 with Acts iv. 11). The reasons marked (c) and (d) are most conveniently discussed in relation to the questions when and where the Epistle was written. Place and Date The letter purports to have been written in Babylon (v. 13)^, but it is disputable whether the name is to be understood literally or in a transferred 1 Bacon, Int. to N.T. p. 153. ' The phrase r) h Ba/SuXfii'i ai is not here used in its technical sense as a collection of Sacred Writings, but refers to books of a religious character generally circulating in the Church. 22 338 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 2 Pet. (a) ii. 3. Whose judgment now from of old lingereth not. (ii) ii. 4 foil. (Examples of pivine retribu- tion) Fallen angels, the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah (the story' of Lot being mentioned). (e) ii. 10, 11. They tremble not to rail at dignitaries, wherpas angels bring not a raiUng judgment against them. (d) ii. 13. Spots i^cnriXoi) and blem- ishes revelling in their love feasts (v. I; deceits) while feasting with you. (e) ii. 15. Having followed the way of Balaam (the story of the ass being mentioned). (/) ii. 17. These are springs without water g,nd mists driven by a storm, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved. (g) ii. 18. Uttering swelling words of vanity. (h) iii. 3. In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own (/Sias) lusts (there being added an illustration of the mockery). Jude 4. Who were of old set forth unto this judgment. 5 f. [Examples of Ljivine ret/^jbnUoD,) Israel in the wilderness, Fallen angels, Sodom and Gomorrah. 8, 9. 12. They rail at dignitaries, though Michael the archangel, when de- puting about the body of Moses, did not bring against him a railing judgment. The spots (oi (TTTiXitSes) in your love- feasts, while feasting with (you). 11. They went in the way of Cain and ran riotously in the error of Balaam. 12, 13. These are . . . clouds vithont water carried along by winds . . . wandering stars for which the black- ness of darkness hath been reserypd for evcf. Their mouth speaketh swelling words. In the last times there shall be mockers walking after their owii (eaiTcDi/) lusts. 16. 18 The similarity between these passages is too great to be explicable by mere coincidence, and points to indebtedness on one side or the other. Some instances like (6), (e) and (h) may be explained either as an expansion of Jvde by the writer of 2 Pet., or a modification and abbreviation of 2 Pet. by St. Jude. The instance (a) looks rather more intelligible and original in 2 Pet. than in Jvde, for in the former " judgment " has the natural sense of a sentence of punishment, whereas in the latter it must mean a sin (explained in the rest of the v.) which is its own punishment. On the other hand, in the case of both (c), (/) and (g), the originahty appears to be on the side of Jude, for in 2 Pet. the alljision to the angels is quite obscure and is only elucidated by reference to the passage in Jwrfs i the " blackness of darkness " is much less appropriate in connexion with the metaphors of waterless springs and mists than in connexion with the figure of wandering stars, whilst the phrase " uttering swelling words of vanity" as compared with "their mouth speaketh swelling words" is less close to the language of the Assumption of Moses (an Apocryphal work written between a.d. 7 and 29), which seems to be tfip ultimate source, and of which a fragmentary Latin version has as eorum hguelm ingentia.^ And that Jude is really the original, of which use has been made in 2 Pe(., becomes highly probable in view of the circumstance that 1 James, 2 Pet. and Jude, p. xlv. DOCUMENTARY CRITICISM 339 it is mucli the shorter and that most of its contents are represented in 2 Pet,, which adds a great deal to them ; ' for on the opposite supposition it ig difficult to understand why Jude should have been written/ since it supplements 2 Pet. in so small a degree. This conclusion that in 2 Pet. there is incorporated so much of Jude does not necessarily involve the result that it cannot have been written by St. Peter, for both the First and Third Evangelists have drawn largely upon St. Mask's Gospel. Nevertheless, it seems rather improbable that St. Peter, whose power of thought is evinced by the First Epistle bearing his name (even though the language of it may be due to Silvanus, p. 312)-, should have borrowed on so extensive a scale from the short letter of Jude. On the whole, then, the inference that 2 Pet. is dependent upon Hilde and pot vice versa is unfavourable to the view that St. Peter was its author, and confirms the decision already reached from a consideration of its style and its apparent anachronisms. If 2 Pet. is not by St. Peter, and yet purports to be written by him, it is in strictness a forgery, though the judgment to be passed upon its author must be qualified by considerations that are inapplicable to similar forgeries at the present day. What little hesitation was felt in antiquity, even by individuals of great repute, in regard to composing, or procuring the composition of, letters bearing a false name may be seen from the request put by Cicero to his friend Atticus, quoted on p. 303. And during the centuries immediately preceding and following our Lord's birth there was a strong motive from reasons already explained (p. 121) for the production both by Jews and Christians of pseudonymous works. It is from this point of view that the conduct of the writer of 2 Pet. must be estimated. His work has been described as that of a man who was confronted with a special crisis : " Two forms of false teaching were current in his circle ; one that of the Libertines, the other that of the deniers of the Second Coming. There was need that the members of his Church should be reminded of the teaching of the first preachers of the Word upon these points. ... To meet the danger of the Libertine teaching he borrows and expands the words of an Apostolic writer (Jude) who himself refers back to the Apostles ; to meet the other error he quotes, it maybe, real words of St. Peter, or else an ancient writing in the prophetic manner ; and he puts the whole of his warning into the form of a letter from St. Peter, feeling that he is taking the attitude which St. Peter himself would have taken, and perhaps knowing that he is to a great extent using words which were handed down to him as St. Peter's own." ^ If the preceding reasoning is sound, the name of the author is entirely unknown, and the date at which he wrote is conjectural. It is not altogether unlikely that he was acquainted with some, if not all, of the Gospels. At any rate, the words in ii. 20, " the last state is become worse than the first," appear to reproduce the saying of our Lord in Mt. xii. 45 (= Lk. xi. 25). Mention has already been made of the allusion in i. 17 to the Transfiguration (where, however, the words represented as heard 1 James, 2 Pet. and Jude, pp. xii., xiii., xvi. * James, op. cit., pp. xxxiii.-xxxiv. 340 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY from heaven, though nearly resembling those in Mt. xvii. 5, are not exactly identical with them ^). ' Finally, the allusion in i. 14 to Christ's prediction of St. Peter's speedy death looks like a reference to Joh. xxi. 18, 19, though the verbal resemblance is not close. If the Epistle really shows that the writer knew the Fourth Gospel, the date cannot be earlier than A.D. 100 ; and many scholars place it either in the first or the second quarter of the second century. As the Epistle was known to Clement of Alexandria (p. 335) it must certainly have been composed before the end of that century. The destination and place of origin are quite obscure. The persons for whom the letter purports to be intended are some to whom the writer had preached (i. 16), and to whom St. Paul had written (iii. 15) ; but no further clue to their identity is afforded. Some scholars, who consider the Epistle an authentic production of St. Peter's, and call attention to the author's self-designation Zv/iicov nhgog,^ naturally suppose that they to whom it was sent were Jewish Christians, probably resident in Palestine and its vicinity ; they suggest Antioch as the place where it was written, and date it between 60 and 63, making it earher than 1 Pet. (p. 314).= ^ The difference between 1 Pet. i. 17, Mk. ix. 7, and Lk. ix. 35 is greater. ' Described by Zahn {I.N.T. ii. p. 271) as "strikingly original " and " unheard of elsewhere in Petrine and pseudo-Petrine literature." » See Zahn I.N.T. u. pp. 208-10. PART III PRELIMINARY NOTE THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT THE asoertainment of the precise year in which each of the principal events recorded in the New Testament took place is a very difficult task, and the inquiry into it does not lead to results that are beyond question. The civiUzed nations of antiquity did not use for the fixing of dates any generally recognized era ; and ancient historians, including the historical writers of the New Testament, were commonly content to indicate the succession of incidents by giving the corresponding regnal year of some contemporary sovereign, or the names of the magistrates in whose term of office they severally happened. But it is not always possible to state with confidence the equivalent of such dates measured by the Christian era, partly because the season varied at which the Calendar year in ancient times began, partly because the years of a reigning long might be reckoned in various ways {e.g. the beginning of the year next after his accession might be counted as the opening of his second year, the preceding few months being regarded as constituting his first year, or the years of his reign might be calculated accurately by every twelve months), and partly because the months of which account was taken might be lunar. And in connexion with the New Testament there are special difficulties. Firstly, since the New Testa- ment writers composed their histories less from an interest in the accurate presenta- tion of events than from a desire to confirm the religious faith of their readers (cf. p. 175), they were Uttle concerned about dating exactly many of the matters recorded. Secondly, it is not always easy to decide whether certain accounts in which dates occur, and which, if historical, should be considered in the construction of a chrono- logloal scheme, have an historical basis or have merely a poetic or symboUcal value. Details of time and place are not, as has been shown (p. 119), sufficient proof that the accounts in question have a foundation in external facts. Thirdly, in regard to our Lord's life, the Evangelist who suppUes the most numerous and the most precise chronological figures is St. Luke, so that many of the most definite dates available are furnished by a Gospel which, as compared with St. Mark's, is in certain respects secondary. And fourthly, there exists in respect to the duration of Jesus' ministry a grave divergence between the Synoptists collectively and the Fourth Gospel (which gives a series of references to various Jewish feasts, including three Passovers, see ii. 13, V. 1, vii. 2, x. 22, xi. 55), and implies a ministry lasting more than two years, whereas the Ssmoptists mention only one Passover ; so that some of the results reached must vary accorcUng as one or other of these authorities is followed. In the calcu- lations here made it will be assumed (for reasons given elsewhere) that the estimate of the Synoptists is for the most part the more trustworthy. For the Gospel history the date that can be determined with most confidence is that of our Lord's Crucifixion ; and this is best taken as the point from which to calculate the year of His Birth, for with the date of the Nativity few persons can have been acquainted, whereas the Crucifixion was known to numbers of people, so that >ny precise dating of it, even if found only in comparatively late Patristic authorities, seems deserving of confidence, the information having " filtered down in oral tradition or lost document through the obscure generations that intervene." * » Hastings, O.B. i. 414 (Turner). 341 342 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY By three Patristic writers, Tertullian, Hippolytua, and Laotantius the Crucifixion is represented as having taken place in the consulship of L. Rubellius Geminus and C. Fufius Geminus (there being some Uttle variation in the forms of their names), who were consuls in a.d. 29 (=782 a.tj.o.). By Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian this year is equated with the fifteenth of the reign of Tiberius, whereas Julius Afranius and pseudo-Cyprian equate it with the sixteenth year of Tiberius.' In strictness, thf spring of a.d. 29 fell within Tiberius' fifteenth year, not within the sixteenth, for Augustus, his predecessor, died on August 19th a.d. 14. According to Lk. iii. 1, 2 the fifteenth year was the date at which John the Baptist began his mission, and nothing is said as to when our Lord commenced His. Jesus, indeed, according to Mk., did not begin His ministry until after the Baptist's arrest (i. 14) ; but there is no indicatioil how long thfe' Isctter's fnission lasted. But if it is as.sumed to have occupied only a few months and our Lord's ministry to have lasted less than a year (as the absence of any mention by the Synoptists of a Passover prior to the one that synchronized with the Crucifixion suggests), St. Luke aiay have placed the Pkssion within the sixteenth year of Tiberius, i.e. within a.d. 30 ; and those writers who assign the Crucifixion to Tiberius' sixteenth year may inerely have inferred it from StJ tiAei But the three authorities who expressly name his fifteenth year as the date of f^at Svent probably preserve an independent tradition ; and on the strength of tjeir evidence it will here be accepted that our Lord's death occurred in a.d. 29, in the consulship of the two Gemini, during the proouratorship of Pontius Pilate (26-36)> and the high-priesthood of Caiaphas (18—36). On the basis of this date an attempt may be made to calculate the year of His nativity. It has been seen that the Synoptists treat the pubUc ministry as lasting rather less than a year. If, then, the Crucifixion occurred in a.d. 29, Jesus' first preaching may be placed in a.d. 28. If this was really the date when His ministry began, the year of His birth may with some probability be fixed at 2 b.o., since He is stated by St. Luke to have been about thirty years old when He began to teadii (iii. 23). The Bvangehst's expression " about thirty," however, leaves room for a margin of a year on either side ; and the Nativity may have happened in any one of the years 3, 2 and 1 B.C., all being included within the reign of Augustus (27 B.Oirf A.D. 14=727-767 A.tr.c), though all falling outside the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C. By St. Luke no year of the Emperor is mentioned, but the event is described as occurring when an enrolment, distinguished as " first " of a series, was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Lk. ii. 1). PubUus Sulpioius Quirinius is ordy known with certainty to have discharged the office of legatus of Syria from a.d. 6 to 11. During this period of his service in the East there was held about a.d, 7 aa enrolment which extended to Galilee (though that region was at the time under the immediate authority of Herod Antipas (tetrarch from 4 B.C. to a.d. 39) ) and to Which allusion is made in Acts v. 37, for it had provoked a, revolt headed by Judaatii^: Gaulonite (Jos. Ant. xvii. 13, 5, xviii. 1, 1). But a mutilated inscription (found near Tibur in 1764) refers to a Roman official in the reign of Augustus who was fejohfe;,; of Syria twice, and though the name of the official has been lost many scholais con- sider that he must have been Quirinius. If so, he was governor of Syria not only in A.D. 6-11, but on some occasion prior to a.d. 6, and the governorship in question has been thought to have been the years between the periods of office of P. Quintilias Varus (6-4 b.o.) and C. Caesar (1 b.c.-a.d. 4), i.e. the three years 3-1 b.o. If this conclusion is correct, it will be seen that 2 B.C., the year deduced independently to, the probable date of the Nativity, falls within the first of Quirinius' two govemorshdpw?^ The conclusion, however, that Jesus was borii about 2 B.C., though based larg^- on data suppUed by St. Luke, conflicts Trith one statement made by him, viz. thSfet; John the Baptist, who was (according to the Evangehst) only six months older ftaii*^ our Lord, was bom in the reign of Herod King of Judsea, if by Herod is meant Heroff* the Great (37-4 b.o.) and not his son Arohelaus (4 b.c.-a.d. 6). By the First Evan- gelist the Herod to whose reign the Nativity is assigned was certainly taken to bo the father of Archelaus (ii. 1 foil., 20, 22) ; and if the narrative ia his second chapter is viewed as historical, our Lord's birth cannot have happeiled later than 5 or even 6 B.C. (see v. 16). And it has been urged in favour of the still earlier year 7 B.C. that 1 Hastings, D.B. i. pp. 413, 414. CHRONOLOGY OF THE N.T. 343 there then ooourred a remarkable conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which was perhaps accompanied by the appearance of an evanescent star (such as was seen in A.D. 1604) and may have prompted the visit of the magi to Bethlehem. But the reality of this visit and its sequel is not above suspicion (p. 363), so that it is precarious to construct a chronological scheme upon it. As regards St. Luke it probably should be assumed that by Herod the King of Judaea (i. 5) he meant Herod the Great but placed the birth both of John the Baptist and of Jesus in his reign erroneously. Por if Quirinius was really legatus of Syria twice, his first period of office could not have fallen within Herod's lifetime, since the legati from 10 to 4 B.C. are known (M. Titius, 0. Sentius Satuminus (9-6), and P. QuintiUus Varus (6-4) ). An interesting attempt to show that an enrolment may have taken place at a time when both Quirinius was in command in Syria and Herod the Great was King of Judsea has been made by the help of evidence furnished by papyri found in Egypt and by some recently discovered inscriptions. ' In Egypt there prevaOed between the years a.d. 90 and 230 a system of periodic enrolments, the interval between them being fourteen years (since actual census papers occur belonging to the years a.d. 20, 34, 48, 62). It is argued that the system was probably instituted by Augustus, and was not confined to Egypt, but applied generally, though not universally, to the provinces of the Empire. The purpose of the enrolments conducted in Egypt was the enumeration of the inhabitants, not the valuation of their property. The papyri (it is said) show that every person to be enrolled was required to return to his own city and village. If the system was reaUy applied to other provinces beside Egypt, and dated from the time of Augustus, the years when enrolments took place within his reign would, reckoned backwards, be a.d. 6 and 8 B.C. ; and of these two the first meijitioned would be that of Acts v. 37 and the last mentioned that of Lk. ii. 1, 2. This latter would fall within the period of King Herod's rule over Palestine ; and it is suggested that the method of it was possibly left to the King, who, to conciliate Jewish feeling, gave it a tribcd character, and directed those who were to be enumerated to repair to their ancestral homes. The governor of Syria, however, from 9 to 6 B.C. was not Quirinius but C. Sentius Satuminus, to whose term of office the first census in Syria is attributed by Tertullian ; and an explanation of the circumstance that St. j[(U)i8 represents the enrolment as occurring in the " governorship " of Quirinius is (it is argued) to be found in the fact, attested by inscriptions, that for two years between 10 and, 7 B.C. he was engaged in fighting the Homanades (a tribe occupying the mountain chains of Taunus and Taurus along the north of CUicia and Pisidia), and that St. Luke, following perhaps popular usage, dated the enrolment by the successful soldier's psriod of command, and not by the period of office of the actual provincial governor. But if Jesus was bom in 8 B.C. he would have been thirty in a.d. 22, and it is impossible to reconcile this with the statement that the preaching of the Baptist, shortly before the beginning of Jesus' ministry, occurred in the fifteenth year of Tiberius except by the assumption that " about thirty " means thirty-three, and that the fifteenth year of Tiberius is reckoned not from the death of Augustus in a.d. 14 but from the date (a.d. 11) when that Emperor bestowed upon Tiberius authority over the legions and provinces equal to his own. For such a mode of reckoning a parallel has been adduced from the case of Titus, whose reign was counted from the day when he was made the colleague of Vespasian. This endeavour to bring the date of our Lord's birth into connexion both with Quirinius and Herod {Lie. ii. 1, i. 5, Mt. ii. 1) involves an historical construction resting upon analogy. It extends to other parts of the Roman empire a system of enrolment only known to have been adopted in Egjrpt, and extends to the regnal years of Tiberius a method of reckoning oidy known to have been applied to the regnal years of Titus. The theory also renders it necessary to explain the words riyeiioveioi'TO! ttjs ^vpias Kv/nivlov not of the ordinary authority of the legatus but of an extraordinary miUtary command exercised by another officer, operating with an army on the northern, frontier of the province of Syria. ^ ' See Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem ? p. 131 f. ; Calder in Discovery, Ap. 1920, p. 103. ' Quirinius could not in virtue of such a command be accurately termed eirlrpo-n-os (procurator) in Judsea (Justin, Apol. i. 34, a passage to which Plummer {St, Lk. p. 51) appeals). 844 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Attention may now be turned from the years of our Lord's Birth and Death to the days on which these events occurred. The day of the week on which Jesus was crucified is represented both by the Synoptic writers and by the author of the Fourth Gospel as the day before the Sabbath, i.e. Friday (Mk. xv. 42 ; Joh. xix. 31) ; but in respect of the day of the (Jewish) month Nisan there is a discrepancy between them. The Arrest was effected on the evening on which He shared with His disciples the Last Supper, and by St. Mark, followed by the other Synoptists, the supper is regarded as the Passover (Mh. xiv. 14). The time for the observance of the Passover was the fourteenth (natural) day of Nisan ; but though the Paschal lambs were killed in the afternoon of that day, they were not eaten until after sunset ; and since the Jewish day began at sunset, the eating occurred, according to Jewish methods of reckoning, on the fifteenth. Our Lord was arrested immediately after the supper, and was crucified on the day following, i.e. on Nisan 15th, on the evening of which the Sabbath (Saturday), which would be Nisan 16th, began (Mk. xv. 42). But the Fourth Gospel represents the Crucifixion not as following, but as preceding, the celebration of the Passover (Joh. xviii. 28). The Last Supper, therefore, was not an observance of the Passover meal, but must (according to the Fourth Evangelist's narrative) have occurred on the evening of the thirteenth (natural) day (counted by the Jews as the beginning of the fourteenth day). As the two accounts are manifestly incompatible, and a choice has to he made between them, that of St. Mark and the other Synoptists might seem, on the strength of their superior credibility in general, to be in this case also the more deserving of credence. But there are certain features in the Synoptic account itself which raise doubts of its correctness. (1) In Mk. xiv. 1, 2, it is stated that the chief priests expressly desired to avoid the execution of Jesus during the feast ; but if the Last Supper was the Passover meal, Jesus was arrested after the feast had begun, and was put to death on the 15th of Nisan, the first day of Unleavened Bread. (2) la Mk. xiv. 47 one of the disciples is described as carrying a weapon, a proceeding which is unhkely on so solemn an occasion. (3) In Mk. xv. 21 Simon the Cyrenian is repreV sented as coming out of the country, seemingly from work ; if the day were the 14th it would be natural for him to be returning from labour in order to partake of the Passover the same evening ; but he would not be at work on the 15th, the first of the days of Unleavened Bread — see Ex. xii. 16. (4) In Mk. xv. 46 Joseph of Ari- mathsea is related to have bought a linen cloth wherein to wrap our Lord's body, which he would not have done on a feastday like the 15th.* Thus St. Mark's narrative seems to be characterized by internal inconsistencies which create a disposition to reject its representation that our Lord's death took place on the 15th of Nisan, and to adopt the Johannine account, which dates it on the 14th. And although in general the Second Gospel is a better historical authority than the Fourth, yet of the closing scenes of our Lord's life the account in the latter may proceed from an actual eye- witness (see p. 224). Consequently there appears to be good reason for accepting the conclusion that the day of the Crucifixion was Friday, Nisan 14th. It has, however, to be considered whether this conclusion is compatible with the inference already reached about the year of our Lord's death, since it was not possible for Friday to fall on the 14th of Nisan in every year indifferently. Now it has been calculated that the 14th of Nisan was a Friday in each of the two years 29 and 30, one or other of which has been shown to be probably the year of the Crucifixion.' The calculations are too intricate to be reproduced here ; but if the results of them stand investigation, it will be seen that the conclusion that our Lord suffered on Nisan 14th is consistent both with the statement of Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Lac- tantius (p. 342) that His death took place in the consulship of the Gemini, a.d. 29, and with the inference conveyed by St. Luke's Gospel that He was crucified in a.d. 30 (ibid.). St. Luke is an earlier authority than the Patristic writers named ; but A.D. 29 has been taken as correct because it seems unlikely that Tertullian and the other Fathers would have departed from the inference deducible from St. Luke's date for the Baptist's ministry in iii. 1, 2, had there not been a trustworthy tradition associating the Crucifixion with the year of office of the consuls mentioned. And (as 1 See Allen, St. Mark, p. 170. « See Hastings, D.B. i. pp. 411, 412. CHRONOLOGY OF THE N.T. 345 has been said) it is not impossible that St. Lnke may have had the same year in mind, for if the beginning of Tiberius' second year was equated with the spring and not the autumn of a.d. 16, the beginning of the Emperor's sixteenth year would be the spring of a.d. 29. And in any case, even if the view be preferred that the year of the Onioiflsdon was a.d. 30, it is equally in agreement with the conclusion that the day was Nisan the 14th. The equivalent days in our calendar would be, for a.d. 29 Maioh 18th or April 15th, for a.d. 30 April 7th. About the month and day of Christ's birth nothing is really known. The date December 25 (associated in primitive times with the worship of Mithras) has been regarded as the anniversary of the Nativity since the fourth century, but does not agree well with the representation of St. Luke, who relates that sheep were still in the fields at night.* In the time of Clement of Alexandria the day was identified by some with April 21 or 22, by others with May 20.* For the history included in Acts and in St. Paul's Epistles there are no specific dates furnished by the books named. Conclusions respecting the chronology can only be reached through a combination of the allusions made by these authorities to various contemporary rulers and officials in connexion with successive events, and by the intervals of time here and there related to have elapsed between different ooourrenoes ; and since the limits of the reigns and governorships within which the events mentioned fell are not always ascertainable with exactness, whilst the intervals separating one occurrence from another are not uniformly noted, it is clear that any euronological scheme can at the best be only approximate. The following are the principal marks of time in Acta and the PauUne Epistles which can be made the basis of some inferential dates. ° 1. The feast of Pentecost marked by the occurrences described in Acts ii was that belonging to the year of the Crucifixion, a.d. 29. It seems probable that the growth of Qie Church recounted in Acts ii-v, and the persecution and death of Stephen (Acta vi., vii.), followed within a very few years, perhaps not exceeding three. If Stephen's death be assigned to 32, then another year seems sufficient for the extension of Christianity to Damascus, where believers were found shortly afterwards {Acts ix. 1). ' 2. The conversion of St. Paul took place not long after the death of Stephen and three years before the Apostle's first visit to Jerusalem (Oal. i. 18). This visit fol- lowed immediately upon his escape from Damascus {Acts ix. 25, 26), which happened when that city was included in the dominions of Aretas IV, who was King of the Nabatseans from 9 B.o. to a.d. 39 (2 Cor. xi. 32, 33). As the place was under Roman authority in a.d. 33,* it cannot have become the possession of Aretas before a.d. 34, and St. Paul's escape and first visit to Jerusalem must have occurred at the earliest in A.D. 35. If the interval of three years mentioned in Qal. i. 18 is taken inclusively, the date of his conversion, reckoned backwards from 35, will be 33, the year after that which has just been conjecturally assigned to the martyrdom of Stephen. St. Paul, after his visit to Jerusalem, withdrew to Tarsus {Acts ix. 30) where he seems to have stayed for some time, and whence he was brought by Barnabas to Antiooh, where the two laboured together for a whole year {Acts xi. 26). This collaboration appears to have occurred before the arrival at AntSooh of certain prophets from Jeru- salem {Acts xi. 27). 3. The year in which Agabus (included among the prophets just mentioned) visited Antioch and there foretold a severe famine seems to have preceded the death of the Emperor Caligula, since it is expressly noticed that the famine (in contrast to .the prediction of it) happened in the reign of Claudias (a.d. 41-54). As Caligula died in 41, the prophecy was perhaps delivered in 40. This date will thus reflect light upon the period during which St. Paul and Barnabas were together at Antioch, and which must have fallen between 35 and 40, probably nearer the latter year than the former. ' But see Edersheim, Life amd Times, i. pp. 186-7. ' Plummer, St. Luke, p. 55. ' Hastings, D.B. i. pp. 415-425, from which many of the facts are drawn, though some of the conclusions differ. * Damascus coins between 65 B.C. and a.d. 33 supply evidence that the city was then under Roman authority, but between A.D. 34 and 62 evidence is lacking. 346 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 4. Tho exeoution of James the son of Zebedee took place by order of Herod Agrippa I (Acts xii. 2), who died in a.d. 44. James probably perished not long before the king's death ; and his execution may therefore be plausibly dated about A.D. 43.^ 5. St. Paul's second visit to Jerusalem (according to the enumeration of Ada) coincided with the occurrence of the famine in the reign of Claudius. The precise date of the famine in Judaea is not known. Josephus {Ant. xx. 5. 2, cf. 2. 6) states that a great famine happened in the procuratorships of Padus and Tiberius Alexander (p. 57), i.e. between 44 and 48, and no greater precision than this seems obtain- able from ancient sources ; but there is a general concurrence of opinion that the famine was felt in Judsea about a.d. 46. If this was the year in which St. Paul and Barnabas went from Antiooh to Jerusalem with relief {Acts xi. 30), it seems likely that after tho full year's co-operation between them at Antiooh (p. 345), one or both of them departed from the place, but subsequently returned to it before 46. 6. The interval separating this famine-visit to Jerusalem from the departure of St. Paul and Barnabas on their First Missionary journey is not stated ; but their start may perhaps be placed early in a.d. 47, and the journey itself be assumed to have lasted fifteen or eighteen months, ending late in 48. In the course of it the Apostles were at Cyprus during the proconsulship of Sergius Paulus. The date of his period of office is not known ; but from the fact that the proconsul of 51 was Julius CorduB, and the proconsul of 52 was L. Annius Bassus, it is clear that Sergius Paulus must have governed the island either before the first-named or after the last- named. The summer of 47 assumed for the Apostles' visit will agree with the first of these alternatives. 7. In the interval between the First and the Second Missionary journeys St. Paul went to Jerusalem for the third time (reckoned as the second in Cfal. ii. 1), fourteen years after the visit mentioned in Gal. i. 18 and Acts ix. 27, 28. It is possible, indeed, that the fourteen years include the three years named in Oal. i. 18 ; but this is an unnatural interpretation, and the other is preferable. On the assumption that the fourteen years are exclusive of the three, and the two intervals constitute, if taken together, a period (reckoned exclusively) of sixteen years after the Apostle's Con- version in 33 (p. 345), the date wiU be a.d. 49. According to the narrative of Acts iv., a general council was gathered at Jerusalem during this visit, but as has been shovn (p. 2T1), there are grounds for suspecting the accuracy of St. Luke's account of the conference of St. Paul and Barnabas with the elder Apostles. The meeting of the former with James, Peter, and John described in Oal. ii. 1-10 was probably altogether a private interview, which was not followed by any conference of the Church at that time (a.d. 49) ; and the general council which passed resolutions subjecting the Gentile Christians to certain regulations was held at a later period (see p. 538). 8. The time intervening between the private meeting of St. Paul and Barnabas with the three representatives of the Jerusalem Church, and St. Paul's start on his Second Missionary journey, though it cannot be determined with certainty, is scarcely likely to have been long ; and his departure may be plausibly assigned to the autnmn of 49. This date harmonizes with the dates of two other occurrences, the expulfdoB of the Jews from Rome by Claudius, and the appointment of Gallic to the proconsul- ship of Achaia. For St. Paul in the course of his journey reached Corinth, where he found Aquila, who was one of the Jews recently expelled by Claudius {Acts xviii. 2), and where his own arrival seems to have preceded Gallio's appointment. The date of the expulsion of the Jews was Claudius' ninth year ;' and as he entered upon his reign in 41, the ninth year would begin in 49. Of Gallio's proconsulship the date is not known exactly ; but since Gallio's brother Seneca was in exile until A.Di449, and as it is not probable that Gallio would have received promotion during his brother's disgrace, the year 60 seems the earliest for his entry upon his provincial command. It appears, however, from the order of events in Acts xviii. 11, 12, that Gallio did not reach Achaia until St. Paul had been at Corinth for eighteen months. The ApoStfc's Second journey was a protracted one ; for he passed through Sjfria, Cilicia, Sftuth ' In Acts xii. 1 the words about that time in reference to the famine year, if this was A.D. 46, must be interpreted loosely. ' This date is given by the historian Orosius (circ. 410 a.d.). CHRONOLOGY OF THE N.T. 347 ©alatia (p. 268), Masedonia,. and' Athens before his arriTal at Corinth, spending time ^Oogh in Macedonia to found Churches at PhiMppi and Thessalonioa ; so that he Wn hardly have reached! Corinth much before the summer of 50. If he was there a year and a half before Gallio eamfe; the actual date of the latter's entry upon his office iHoist have been late in 51. i The abortive attempt by the Jews to bring St. Paul to WiaJ before Gallio occurred shortly aftenvards ; but since the Apostle did not leave Gorinth' immediately {Acts xviii. 18), he probably did not depart much before the ijjriiig of 52. He does not appear to have stayed long an3rwhere on the homeward jwiimey, and his arrival at Jerusalem and his return to Antioch may be fixed for the summer of 52. 9. The duration of the Apostle's stay at Antioch before departing on his Third MisSonary journey is vaguely described in ^cij xviii. 23 as " some time " ; but his deaicB to revisit the numerous churches established in the previous journey must have caused the period spent in rest to be short ; and he may have left before the end of 52. In the course of tliis j6umey he stopped two years and three months at Ephesus (ylcfa xix. 8-10),^ whence he can scarcely have departed before the early summer of 56 (see 1 Cor. xvi. 8) ; and as he afterwards proceeded through Macedonia (where he stayed long enough to give the converts there much exhortation {Acts xx. 2) ) to i&ree6e, spending in the latter country (reached in the autumn, perhaps October or November, of 55) three months, he probably did not leave Greece (Corinth) for Pales- tine until the beginning of 56. He kept the feast of Unleavened Bread (in March) at PhUippi {Acts XX. 6), and he hoped to spend Pentecost (in May) at Jerusalem {Acts xx. 16). It was probably whilst St. Paul was absent on this journey that the Council of Jerusalem was held (pp. 571-2), though there is nothing to indicate whether the date ■ was nearer 52 or 56. i 10. On the Apostle's arrival at JerusaleBi in the early summer of 56, he was arrested, i and spent two years in custody at Caesarea {Acts xxiv. 27), the imprisonment there lasting until the supersession of the procurator FeHx by Festus. The date of Felix's recall is uncertain. After he was deprived of his office, he was prosecuted by the Jews of Csesarea, but unsuccessfully, his acquittal being attributed by Josephus {Ant. XX. 8, 9) to his brother Pallas, who interceded for him with the Emperor. According to Tacitus {Ann. xiii. 14), Pallas fell from power in a.d. 55 ; but being a wealthy man, he may have retained sufficient influence to secure Felix from punishment some years afterwards. Felix seems to have entered upon his office in 52 ' in the reign of Claudius, and as St. Paul, when tried before him, spoke of him as having been long in authority {Acts xxiv. 10), it is difficult to account for the Apostle's words if they were uttered before 56. Moreover, Josephus {Ant. xx. 8, 5) records a large number of incidents that occurred under Felix's rule subsequent to the accession of Nero to the throne in 64 ; and this, again, favours the belief that he was in office some years after the date of Pallas' fall. Accordingly, the year of his recall may have been as late as 58, to which the previous dates reached in connexion with St. Paul point. It must, however, be allowed that this date contradicts that which is given by Eusebius for the super- sesBion of Felix by Festus, which is assigned to the second year of Nero, whose acces- sion occurred in 54. U. After Festus in 58 replaced Felix in the procuratorship, St. Paul was sent for trial to Rome. The voyage was a slow one ; and the vessel was in a haven of Crete some time after the Day of Atonement, which fell in the autumn {Acts xxvii. 9), whilst after the shipwreck at Melita three months were spent on that island {Acts xxviii. 11) . ' A fragmentary inscription containing a letter from the Emperor Claudius to the people of Delphi, and alluding to Gallio seemingly as proconsul, has been plausibly dated about the beginning of 52 : see Deissmann, St. Paul, pp. 235-260 ; McNeile, St. Paul, pp. xv.-xvii. ' The time is described in Acts xx. 31 as three years. ' Josephus {Ant. xx. 6, 3 ; 7, I ; B.J. ii. 12, 7) states that Felix was the successor of Oumanns, whose office lasted from 48 to 52. Tacitus, indeed, speaking of the year L 52, represents FeUx as having been then for some time governor of Judaea, and Cumanus pas contemporary governor of Galilee. But Josephus (b. a.d. 37) Uved nearer" the date i in qutetion than Tacitus (b. a.d. 54), and there is no evidence of a division of Palestine between two governors. 848 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY so that it was probably not till the spring of 59 that the Apostle reached Rome. There he was kept in custody for two full years, i.e., according to previous oaloulatioM, 69-61, beyond which the narrative of Acts does not carry the history. For reMons given elsewhere (p. 300), it seems liltely that St. Paul was brought to trial, condemned, and executed at the close of the two years' imprisonment {i.e. in 61). Those who think that he was acquitted mostly suppose that he lived three years longer, during which he visited Gaul and Spain (in accordance with the purpose expressed in Horn, XV. 28), and afterwards journeyed again to Greece and the East (see 1 Tim. i, 3j 2 Tim. iv. 13, 20 ; Titus iii. 12). At the end of this period he met his death in ^he persecution of the Christians by Nero, a.d. 64.* His age at his death is unknown. In Philemon 9, written during his Roman imprisonment (p. 293), he describes himself as " Paul the aged," but probably he was worn by toil and suffering rather than by years, since he is represented as a young man at the time of Stephen's death (jicU vii. 68) about the year 32, so that he can scarcely have been much more than sixty if he was executed in 64, and probably under sixty if his death happened in 61. The following is a summary table of the dates resulting from the foregoing discussion : — Birth of our Lord 2 B.C. [Augustus, 27 b.c.-a.d. 14] Begirming of His Ministry 28 a.d. [Tiberius, a.d. 14r-37] Crucifixion 29 „ Pentecost 29 „ Death of Stephen 32 „ Conversion of St. Paul 33^ „ St. Paul's First Visit to Jerusalem 35 „ Activity of St. Paul and Barnabas at Antioch 39 or 40 „ [Caligula 37-41] Death of St. James, son of Zebedee 43 „ [Claudius, 41-54] St. Paul's Second (Famine) visit to Jerusalem 46 „ „ First Missionary joumev (to Cyprus and Galatia) 47-48 ,. Third visit to Jerusalem and Second to the Apostles 49 ,, „ Second Missionary journey (to Galatia and Greece) 49-52 „ Arrival at Corinth Summer of 50 „ „ 1, 2 Thess. 51 „ Departure from Corinth Spring of 52 „ „ Return to Syria Summer of 52 „ „ James, Oal. 52 „ ,, Third Missionary journey (to Galatia, Asia, and Greece) 62-56 „ [Nero, 54^68] At Ephesus 62-65 „ „ 1 Cor. Spring of 56 „ ,, 2 Cor. Autumn of 55 ,, „ Tn Greece Autumn of 55 „ ,, Bom. beginning of 56 „ „ Departure from Greece beginning of 56 „ „ At Philippi March, 66 „ „ Return to Jerusalem May, 66 „ „ The Council of Jerusalem 1 between 53 and begiiming of 66 ,. „ St. Paul's imprisonment at Csesarea 66-58 „ „ Arrival at Rome 69 „ „ ' Eusebius places St. Paul's martyrdom in 68, but this is probably an error. ^ If the fourteen years of Oal. ii. 1 include the three years of Qal. i. 18 the Conver- sion might be placed in 36, and the death of Stephen one or two years later than 32 ; but the longer interval after the Crucifixion which this involves makes these dates less probable. CHRONOLOGY OF THE NT. 349 Col, Eph., Philem. late in 59 or early in 60 a.d. [Nero, 54r-68] PMl. late in 60 or early in 61 , ' iJ St. Paul's death at Rome 61 , Death of St. James, the Lord's "brother" ? 62 , ) >» 1 Pet. ? 63 , Death of St. Peter ? 64 , > )j Heb. ?64 , Death of St. John, son of Zebedee ? 66 , » J- Mk. 7 68 , » » Fall of Jerusalem 70 , , [Vespasian, 68-79] Jvde 7 70-75 , > »» Mt., Lk. ? 80 , , [Titus, 79-81] Jdh., 1, 2, 3 Joh. ? 90-100 , [Domitian-Trajan, 81-117] iJei)., Acta 1 96-100 , , [Nerva-Trajan, 96-117] Pastoral Epistles ? 100 , , [Trajan, 98-117] 2 Pet. 1 100-110 , » VIII THE MINISTRY OF JESUS ACCORDING TO THE EARLIEST SOURCES The Sources FOE the Ministry of Jesus the primary source is, in the main, the Gospel of St. Mark (p. 164) ; and from this the narrative that follows is principally drawn. Even the contents of the Second Gospel, however, are probably not uniformly of equal value ; at any rate, if there were two editions of it (p. 160), it is antecedently likely that what appears in the second alone is derived not from the reminiscences of St. Peter but from tradition. Into the narrative based on Mh. some details contained in the parallel accounts of the other Synoptists but absent from the Second Gospel have been introduced where they seem to be intrinsically probable ; whilst where there are discrepancies attention has been called to them. There have been embodied also such of the contente of Q as concern occurrences and incidents, though some uncertainty attaches to the proper arrangement of these, since they are not always placed in the same order or setting by the First and Third Evangelists. Events mentioned by either Mt. or Lk. alone have also been noticed, but have not been, as a rule, incorporated in the history because, though many may well be true, they have not, like most of those included in Mh., the authority of an Apostle behind them. The Johannine Gospel is not drawn upon prior to the period of the Passion, except for the purposes of comparison ; for besides the fact that the work is probably of much inferior historic value, it is almost impossible to dovetaU into a scheme of events occupying only a year another, in most respects very different, which extends over more than two. The Ministry of Jesus § 1. Proclamation by John of the Judgment and the Kingdom The Book of Malachi, the last of the Prophetic writings of the Old Testament (according to the arrangement of the Hebrew Canon), closes with a prediction of the coming of the great and terrible day of JehoVah. All through Israel's history, indeed, God had sent His messengers from time to time with predictions of mingled tenor, announcing chastisement 350 THE MINISTRY OF JESpS 351 for Israel itself by reason of its ofEenoes, as well as redemption from external subjection for those who, through repentance and amendment, ^hovfld be spared in the approaching crisis. But by Malachi an announce- ment of unprecedente4 nature w^s madp. The prophet Elijah vas to reappear in order to heal family divisions and social disorders, and so to prepare his countrymen for the ordeal awaiting them, lest the whole population of the land should be utterly destroyed jinder Jehovah's ban.^ "VP'ith the closing of the Canpn of the Jewish Scriptures, Prophecy in Israel was believed to have come to an end ; and for a long interval there ceased to be any authoritative channel of communication from God to Hip people. The withdrawal of the Almighty's custornary means pf reyealing His will was fervently deplored, arid the renewal of it was longingly awaited (see Ps. Ixxiv. 9, 1 Mace. iv. 46, xiv. 41, Song of the Three Ohildren, 15). The only oracles of God to which recourse could |}e h8.|d werp \(rritten records, consisting of the Old Testament bppks, preserved and expounded by the Scribes, and pseudonymous .works pf more recent dates, circulating as productions of some of the great per- sonahties of the past (p. 121). In such conditions it occasioned all the grpater excitement shortly after the beginning of the second quarter of the first century A. p., wnen there suddenly appeared in Judsea pne ip whom the spirit of prophecy, so long in abeyance, seemed once more to revive. The man who thus startled his conteinporaries with an announcement, after the manner pf the ancient prophets, about the near future was called John (the Greek name 'Icodvrje representing the Heb. JoJianan, " Jehovah hath been gracious "). By St. Mark no account is given of his parentage, but he is described by Lk. as the son of Zachariah and his wife Ehzabeth (EUsheba, cf . Ex. vi. 23), his father being a priest belonging to the " course " of Abijah,^ and his mother being also represented 9,s a descend^iut pf Aaron. It is related, too, that Judaea was the country of his birth, though the name of the town where he was born is not given, for there is no SlausibiUty in the view that by nohg 'lovda {Lk. i. 39), where his p^renjis welt, is meant the town pf Juttah, a place enumerated among the cities I assigned by the Priestly code of the Pentateuch to the priesthood (Josh. xxi. 16, cf. XV. 55). k The account of the circumstances of John's birth furnished by St. Luke (who dates it in the reign of Herod the Great,' see p. 342) breathes the atmosphere of the Old Tes(amen(). Zaqharj^h and Elizabeth were clijlcjjess, anfi being bpth a.dx?-nqe(i jn years entertained little expectation of haying offspring, for whiph they craved (LJc. * According to Rabbinic teaching the period of Elijah's advent would be a timp of genuine repeijtfince by Israel, the prophet's specifil function cqnsisting in settling pefplexing questiojis, making peace, and jrestorjpg to, apd excluding iiQjfa, tjie cop- gregation of Jsrael, fhose who were wrpngfully qutside or within it (Edersheim, Life and Vimes, etc., U. p! 708). " ' j ' The priests, according to 1 Oh. xxiv., were divided by David into twenty-four - courses, eaqh being on duty for a week. Of the tweiity-four only foijr returned fropi the Exile (Ez. ii. 3p-39), bjit it must be supposed j;fj^t |;iiesp wrerq s;iJ)diyide(J into [ twenty-four,' whiqh revived' the np,mes qf the brigm'al courses. Abijah's was the ' eighth.''"'' ■""■' " ' ■ ' ' '" ''" " '"' '" ' •■'■■■■■ 'In Lk. i. 5 Judesa is used in a comprehensive sense, including GaUlee and other districts. 352 NEW TESTAMENT HIST6RY i. 13). On an oooasion when the former was offering incense during the weekly turn of his course within the Holy Place of the Temple (p. 91), there appeared to him the angel Gabriel (see Dan. viii. 16 and of. p. 42), who announced that his wife should bear him a son, whom he was to name John, and who, refraining from all products of the grape (cf. Jud. xiii. 5, 7), should be filled with God's Spirit, and be endued with the power of EUjah in order to prepare a people for the Lord (cf. Lk. i. 17 with Mai. iv. 6). Zaohariah, being incredulous and askmg for a sign (cf. 2 Kg. xx. 8), was told, both as a pledge that the promise would be fulfilled, and as a punishment for his disbeUef, that he should be stricken with deafness and dumbness (Lk. i. 62-64) until the child's birth. When he reappeared from the sanctuary, the worshippers in the court of the Israelites (p. 91) remarked his speechlessness, and concluded that he had seen a vision. In accordance with the angel's announcement, EUzabeth conceived (with Lk. i. 25 cf. Gen. xxx. 23) ; and in the course of her pregnancy she was visited by Mary, the mother of Jesus (p. 360), who was her liinswoman. When she was dehvered and her relations assembled to circumcise the child, it was proposed to call him after his father ; but his mother declared that his name was to be John, and when his father was consulted, and by means of a writing-tablet confirmed Elizabeth's words, he immediately recovered his hearing and speech and praised God. The occurrence created much awe and expectancy as to the child's future ; and Zaohariah uttered the prophecy known as the Benedictus. The narrative admits of being taken in three ways : — (1) It may be accepted literally as a report of experiences perceived through the medium of the senses. (2) It may be given a psychological interpretation, the scene with the angel, his communication, the infliction of the dumbness for disbeUef, and the sudden recovery of the power of speech being regarded as a dramatic externalizing of Zachariah's inward behefs and misgivings respecting God's graciousness, and his maintenance of silence about his hopes and fears until the desired event came to pass.' (3) It may be viewed as the creation of religious fancy, owing its origin to John's subsequent career as a prophet, which caused it to be thought that such a remarkable personality could not lack, in the circumstances of his birth, features that marked the history of such Old Testament figures as Isaac and Samson and Samuel, a parallel with the second of these in particular being suggested by John's ascetic habits (Mt. xi. 18). The pre-anuouncement of the name to be given to the child follows the precedent recorded in the instance not only of Isaac but of Ishmael and Solomon. The words put into the mouth of the angel concerning the destiny of him whose bWi was predicted reproduce the prophecy of Malachi (iv. 5), the comparison of John with Elijah perhaps originating with our Lord (Mk. ix. 13, Mt. xi. 10 (=Lk. vii. 27, from Q). The Benedictus consists largely of expressions drawn from the Psalms and other books of the Old Testament (see Ps. xli. 13, oxxxii. 17, ovi. 10, 45 ; Is. ix. 2). Of John's childhood no details are recorded. But in early manhood he withdrew into the desert to spend there a period of solitude. The reasons that led him to sunder himself from his home and family, and to abandon the priestly life with its prerogatives and privileges (p. 93) to which his birth entitled him, can only be conjectured. Possibly he had grown dissatisfied with the formal type of piety which was the prevailing characteristic of contemporary religion, and had come to recognize its unworthiness of God, whom it was supposed to content and gratify. And if feeling himself to be in touch with a Source of spiritual inspiratioi! (cf. Lk. i. 80), he had begun to cherish the thought that he might be destined by God to bring about a spiritual renewal among his countrymen, it was in the wilderness that a Divine revelation might be most confidently expected to come, for there he would be free from the distractions ffiat 1 Cf. B. Weiss, Life of Christ, i. p. 237 (E.T.). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 353 elsewhere might dull his sensitiveness to the Divine monitions. It was in the desert that both Moses and Elijah had held communion with God, and had been inspired to accomplish for Him their great achievements (Ex. iii., 1 Kg. xix.). The scene of his retirement was probably the desolate waste which slopes eastward from Hebron down to the shores of the Dead Sea, and is known as the Jeshimon. The term, derived from a Hebrew root meaning " to be desolate," is applied in the Old Testament to several locahties, e.g. the wilderness of the Israelites' wanderings (Dt. xxxii. 10, Ps. Ixviii. 7, kxviii. 40), the waste part of the Jordan valley, north of the Dead Sea and east of the river {Num. xxi. 20, xxiii. 28), and the desert stretching between Canaan and Babylonia (2 Is. xliii. 19, 20). But it was also used to designate the wilderness near Ziph (a little to the south-east of Hebron), where David concealed himself from the pursuit of Saul (1 Sam. xxiii. 19, xxvi. 1). This is a region which, in all, covers an area thirty-four miles by fifteen. The cultivated land near Hebron is quickly replaced, as the traveller moves eastward, by rolling hills and waterless vales, each ridge crossed being barer than the last. These are succeeded by a limestone plain, where the only vegetation consists of short bushes and thorn- brakes ; and then, when the sea comes fully into view, there is a precipitous descent, amid crags and boulders, down to the margin of the water, i It was to this barren country that John withdrew, sustaining himself with such meagre fare as locusts (which, unlike most winged creeping things, were not forbidden by the Law to be used as food (Lev. xi. 22 ^) ) and the honey stored by wild bees ^ (cf . Dl. xxxii. 13, Jud. xiv. 9, 1 Sam. xiv. 27, Is. vii. 22). The outer garment (l/idrwv, simlah) customarily worn was in his case made of camel's hair,* which recalled the hairy mantle associated in the Old Testament with the prophetic character (2 Zech. xiii. 4) ^ ; and his undergarment was fastened about the waist with a leathern girdle, such as Ehjah was accustomed to gird himself with (2 Kg. i. 8, LXX, !^(hvr]v SeQiiar tvTTv). The duration of John's seclusion in the Jeshimon is unknown. In the course of it he became possessed with the conviction that a crisis in his nation's history was close at hand, and that he was charged to prepare his countrymen for it. Had John been of the number of those who beUeved that the racial privileges of Israel were indefeasible, such a conviction might have caused him to seek to fortify in them the hope, never far from the hearts of most, that God would shortly intervene to * See G. A. Smith, H.O.H.L. pp. 312, 313. ' Locusts prepared in various ways are still eaten by the modern Arabs. The idea that John's food consisted of the pods (/cepdria in Lk. xv. 16) of the carob tree, called the " Locust tree " or " John the Baptist's tree," is erroneous. ' The neighbourhood of Jericho, in particular, abounded with honey (Jos. B.J. IV. 8, 3). The term " wild honey," however, is said to be applied generally to the sweet sap of certain trees (Gould, St. Mark, p. 8). * In Mk. i. 6, D and some Old Lat. MSS. have Sippi]v KafiTJhov (i.e. a camel's skin) instead of rplxas ra/i'^Xoi;. ' In the Ascension of Isaiah, ii. 10, the prophets are represented as all clothed with garments of hair. 23 354 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY restore to His people their national independence, and subjugate before them those who held them in subjection. By numbers the Kingdom of God was identified with a Kingdom for Israel. But John realized that merely to belong to God's chosen race conferred no title to His favour, and that if a judgment was in store for the Gentile oppressors of Israel, a judgment also awaited unrepentant offenders within Israel itself. So when under the influence of the belief that God was about to vindicate Himself finally, he abandoned his solitude and appeared among the people in the spirit of a prophet, it was to convey a warning rather than to impart consolation, and to address to them an urgent call to repent, if they hoped to escape the Divine wrath and to fit themselves for the Divine Kingdom, which those who should survive the judgment might look to share. It has been maintained that St. Mark affords no support for the behef that the nearness of the kingdom of God had any place in the preaching of John, who only proclaimed the need for repentance. ^ But it is unlikely that the Second Evangelist would have applied to John the quotation from the Second Isaiah (xl. 3), which is prefixed to his account of the Baptist's preaching if he regarded him as a herald of the judgment only, and not of the kingdom also. MWs statement that John declared the kingdom of heaven to be at hand (iii. 1) is confirmed by Lh. ui. 18 (" he piBached good tidings unto the people "). Moreover in Q (as good an authority as Mlc.) there is evidence that John set before his hearers substantially the idea of the kingdom ; for he declared that at the cleansing of the threshing-floor (see below, p. 356) the wheat would be stored in the gamer ; and the gamer is equivalent to the kingdom (Mt. iii. 12 = Lk. iii. 17). The year when John emerged from his retirement with his message was probably very early in a.d. 28 (see p. 28). Judaea at this time was under the direct control of Eome, Tiberius, who had succeeded Augustus io A.D. 14, being the reigning emperor. Syria, in which Judsea was include^, was an imperial province (p. 65), the legatus being Lucius .zEIius Lamia; but Judsea was under the special charge of a procurator, Pontius Pilate, who had entered upon his ofl&ce in 26. Various parts of Palestine, however, were governed by sovereigns who were allowed by the Emperor to enjoy some measure of independence (pp. 68-69). The Jewish High Priest was Joseph Caiaphas, who was appointed about a.d. 18. But the personal authority of his father-in-law Annas, who after having been nominated High Priest in a.d. 6, had been deposed from his office in a.d. 15, continued to be so great that even during the high priesthood of Caiaphas he enjoyed his former title, and St. Luke treats him and his son-in-law as jointly " high priest " (btiI dgjjt^gecog "Awa xal Kaid(pa). Religious enthusiasm has always been prone to consider the conditions of its own age to be critical ; and no doubt there were circumstances, both political and social, which helped to shape John's conviction that the time had come for God to interpose for the deliverance of His faithful servants and the confusion of His enemies. Foreign rule was a continuous outrage upon the religious sentiment of the Jews, who had constantly before them in the presence of Roman soldiers at Geesarea and Jerusalem 1 See Loisy, Les Evangiles Synoptiques, i. p. 435, who thinks that Mt, in iji. ^i has adjusted John's proclamation to that of Jesus {Mk. i. 15). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 355 (p. 54), and in the circulation of a coinage bearing the representation of the Eoman emperors, evidence of their subordination to the hated Gentiles. Taxes were exacted to swell the revenues of the aUens, and were rendered not the less odious because Jews were found base enough to become the agents of the Roman publicani in their collection (p. 70). Nor were the Roman officials and their underlings the only oppressors. Annas had an evil reputation for avarice ; and the indignation which he and his family- excited by their injustice and rapacity is evidenced by the curse pronounced upon them in the Talmud : " Woe to the house of Annas ; Woe to their serpent-like hissings." ^ Nor was it only the sins of the chief priests that must have seemed to John provocative of the Divine wrath. One to whom the ethical side of religion appealed strongly must have felt the same repulsion as did prophets like Amos and Isaiah towards the prevailing conception of reUgious duties fostered by the ^Scribes (see p. 96;. And whilst the age by reason of its wickedness might seem ripe for God's judgment, there had been indications that men, in their impotence to remedy peaceably some of the evils, were eager to adopt methods that John believed to be not those whereby God designed to vindicate the cause of His people, as when Judas of Gamala caused an insurrection in a.d. 6 or 7 (p. 55). In view of such attempts in the past (which might be repeated at any moment) by a section of his countrymen in order to efiect a change of conditions by force (cf. p. 58), John might perhaps have deemed that the occasion had come for God to forestall all such human schemes by His own intervention. But whatever may have been the signs of the times which led him to infer the nearness of the Divine judgment and to predict the establishment of the Divine kingdom, the issue once more illustrated how, in the utterances of God's prophets, illusion and truth were mysteri- ously blended. It was probably in the neighbourhood of the Jordan (perhaps between Jerusalem and Jericho)^ that John first announced his message. This " wild land " is Ukened by St. Mark to the desert traversed by the Hebrew exiles when returning from Babylon ; and John himself to the Voice which the prophet of the Captivity heard crying there (2 Is. xl. 3, LXX), ' ' Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." ^ Upon the people his words made a profound impression ; and the population of the capital and of the surrounding districts quickly gathered round him, many of the Pharisees and Sadducees mingUng with the multitude. It was upon the sterner aspect of the impending crisis that his austere temperament caused him mainly to dwell. An exacting search (he declared) into the secrets of men's lives was imminent ; and that they might face the ordeal in hope and not in despair they needed to be convinced of, and to confess, their offences, and prove by amendment of life the sincerity of their contrition. Repentance and obedience, indeed, as conditioning national '■ Quoted in Hastings, D.B. i. p. 100. * St. Luke's phrase els irSicrav t^v ireplxt^pov tov 'lopSdvos must include the Jordan valley ; of. Om. xiii. 10, 11, LXX. Mt. has " in the wilderness of Judaea." ' The Hebrew connects " in the wilderness " with " prepare," but the parallel to this (" in the desert ") is omitted by the Evangelist, 856 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY deliverance were not wholly ignored in the teaching of the Jewish Eabhis (p. 606). But among many of the Jews a serious obstacle to a genuine endeavour after a better life was the prevailing confidence in their descent from Abraham, to whom God had imparted pledges of eventual felicity for his posterity. How profound was the conviction entertained about their privileged position as God's people appears from the appeal made to the Almighty in 2 Esd. vi. 55 : " All this have I spoken before thee, Lord, because thou hast said that for our sakes thou madest the world (cf. vii. 11). As for the other nations which also come of Adam, thou hast said that they are nothing, and are like unto spittle ; and thou hast likened the abundance of them unto the drop that falleth from a vessel " (cf. 2 Is. xl. 15). This delusion that, because they were of the seed of Abraham, they were immune from the judgment, John bade them dismiss. God was able of the very stones to raise up in their stead children unto Abraham. It was probably (as stated by the First Evangelist, Mt. iii. 7-10) the Sadducees and Pharisees whom he saw amongst his audience that he chiefly sought to disabuse of their trust in their descent ; for the scathing terms with which he prefaced his exhortation — " Ye offspring of vipers " (cf . Mt. xii. 34, xxiii. 33), " who warned you to flee from the wrath to come ? " — are more appropriate to the leaders of religion, the tendency of whose teaching he deemed pernicious, than to the multitude (Lk. iii. 7J. Retribution (he declared) was imminent, and only practical proof of repentance could avert from them the impending destruction. Lk. (iii. 10-14) reports replies which John returned to the inquiries of various classes who sought his counsel as to the conduct required of them. He bade the tax- gatherers, who were especially exposed to the temptation to be dishonest and rapa- cious (p. 70), to refrain from exacting more than was due. Soldiers on service { ^ livTiarevdeLffa irapd^vos Mapta/i eyevvTjaev ^lyjaovv rbv \ey6fievov Xpundii. With this text most MSS. of the Old Lat. agree. (6) The Sinaitic Syriao has : Jacob begat Joseph. Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary theVirgin, begat Jesus caUed the Messiah. In v. 21 this MS. (supported by Syr. our.) has slie shall bear to thee a son ; and in v. 25 has and she bore a son to him and he caUed, etc. One MS. of the Old Latin also omits knew her not till. 360 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY kinship of the two might be only on the maternal side, and in Lk. ii. 4 the Sinaitic Syriac implies that both Joseph and Mary belonged to the house of David. Though popularly Jesus was regarded as the son of Joseph (Mt. xiii. 55, Lk. iv. 22), and Mary herself refers to her husband as Jesus' father (Lie. ii. 48), both Mt. and Lh. affirm that Mary was a virgin when she became the mother of Jesus. The First Evan- gehst relates how Joseph to whom she was espoused, when he learnt, before marriage, her condition, intended to put her away privately (the annuUing of a betrothal, since the man was virtually the husband of the woman (Qen. xxix. 21, Dt. xxii. 23, 24), in strictness requiring a formal separation, cf. Mk. x. 2) ; but in a dream was warned by an angel that she had conceived through Holy Spirit (i.e. the creative power of God) and that the Son to Whom she would give birth should be called Jesus (p. 358) because He should save His people from their sins ; how in this way (according to the historian) the prediction in Is. vii. 14 was fulfilled ; how Joseph acted upon the admonition and took Mary to be his wife ; and how in due course her Son was bom, the place of His nativity being Bethlehem, which the sequel of the narrative implies to have been the home of Mary and her husband. Lh.^s account, though not designed to supplement Mt.'a (since there is little or nothing to suggest that either Evangelist &ew the work of the other), is largely complementary of it, carrying back the story to an earlier stage ; but in some respects it conveys a different impression from MVa. The home of the betrothed pair was Nazareth (i. 26, 27), where the angel Gabriel (p. 352) announced to Mary that through the descent upon her of Holy Spirit, she would bear a Son Who would in consequence be called Son of the Most High, and Who would receive the throne of His ancestor David and endless sovereignty. Mary was strength- ened in her faith in the angel's communication by being told that her kinswoman Elizabeth had, though old, conceived a child (p. 352) ; and to verify the fact she visited the latter, who recognized, through the movement of her unborn babe,* that Mary was the destined mother of the Messiah. Mary therefore gave utterance to the Magnificat,^ and shortly afterwards returned to her home. Before the birth of her Child she and Joseph, in consequence of an imperial decree directing an enrolment of the population (p. 343), went to Bethlehem in Judah,' since Joseph belonged to the house of David. There, crowded out of the ordinary lodging place,* they found shelter in a cattle-stall, where the Child was bom, and was laid by His mother in a manger. The two accounts, if historical, may be regarded as derived from Joseph and Maiy respectively ; but their value as history has been much disputed. The following are in brief the principal considerations urged in favour of their substantial accuracy. (a) The narratives are mutually independent ; but although they are not quite consistent in deta0, they agree in representing that Mary while still a virgin conceived through the influence of the Divine Spirit, and that her Son was born at Bethlehem. The communications through angels can be regarded merely as a Semitic method of indicating that certain inward convictions were really intimations from God (cf. p. 352). (6) The silence of Mk., Q, St. Paul, and the Fourth Evangelist admit of explanation. ' For fa-Klprijffep in this connection cf. Oen. xxv. 22 (liXX). ' It has been debated whether this was originally put into the mouth of Mary or Elizabeth (i. 46). All Greek MSS. and almost all versions ascribe it to the former; but three MSS. of the Old Latin version (a, b, I) attribute it to the latter. The facts (a) that in v. 56 the statement " Mary abode with her " (Elizabeth) suggests that Elizabeth was the speaker of m. 46-55, (;8) that the hymn is based on the Song of Haimah (1 Sam. ii. 1-10), and that Elizabeth's position, and not Mary's, resembled that of Hannah (a married woman who had conceived after a long period of child- lessness) favour the conclusion that the hymn is hers. But the omission from it of any v. corresponding to 1 Sam. ii. 5^, which would be most appropriate to Eliza- beth, and the preponderant weight of the textual authorities assigning it to Mary, seem decisive for the latter (see Emmet, Eschatological Question in the Gospel, p. 175 f .). ' There was a Bethlehem in Galilee, once belonging to Zebulun (Josh. xix. 15). ' The term KaTd\vfi,a. means " guest-chamber " in Lk. xxii. 11, but " 1 place " in Ex. iv. 24 (LXX). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 361 Mk. embodies only the Apostles' (particularly St. Peter's) personal witness to Jesus' ministry ; but that the author was acquainted with the Virgin Birth is suggested by his avoidance of the expression " the son of Joseph " in connexion with Jesus, Whom he calls " the son of Mary " (vi. 3). The document Q was almost exclusively a record of Christ's teaching. St. Paul dwells so little upon the facts of our Lord's earthly life that his silence is in no way remarkable ; but by the parallel drawn between Jesus and Adam {Bom. v. 12-21) he suggests that His birth, Uke the origin of Adam, was a new creative act of God. The author of the Fourth Gospel was certainly acquainted with the First and Third Gospels (p. 217), so that it was unnecessary for him to supply what was already narrated in them ; nevertheless he betrays his know- ledge of the Virgin Birth by recording Mary's expectation at Cana that her Son could work miracles (ii. 3-5). (c) The difficulty of explaining how narratives of such an Hebraic character as those in Mt. L, Lk. ii. can have been invented is greater than that involved in accepting them as founded on fact. In the Hebrew Scriptures there is no instance (on which the New Testament account might be supposed to be modelled) where a virgin is represented as becoming a mother through Divine Power ; and the prophecy in Is. vii. 14 (LXX), predicting that a virgin is to bear a Son, is isolated in the Old Testament, and being quoted in the New Testament by Mt. only, is not likely to have produced the narratives in question. (d) The very idea of the Incarnation of the Son of God seems to involve the neces- sity of His birth otherwise than by the ordinary process of human generation ; and the most natural way in which a Divine Personality can be imagined to have assumed human flesh is by being conceived and bom of a virgin mother. (e) Without a departure from the normal mode of birth the taint of moral corrup- tion inherited by men from Adam (or if the account of the Fall in Gen. m. be discarded as serious history (cf . p. 655), the moral infirmity universal in mankind) would have attached to our Lord. The miracle of His siuleasness requires for Him a miraculous physical origin, involving both His community with human nature and His exemption from its proneness to sin.^ Some counter-considerations, stated with equal brevity, are as follows : — (a) The conclusion that the accounts in question are historical is not easily recon- ciled with the impression left by Mk. of Jesus' relations with His own family and with John the Baptist, (a) It is difficult to suppose that, had Mary been aware that her Child was of supernatural origin, she would have taken part in an effort to put restraint upon His actions (Mk. iii. 21, 31). (^) It is strange that the Baptist suspected Jesus to be TTia predicted successor only from the reports heard about Him (Mt. xi. 2, 3 =Lk. vii. 18, 19) when he could scarcely have failed, if Lh. i. 39-45 is historical, to be made acquainted with the truth by his mother Elizabeth. (b) If the Virgin Birth was a fact, it is reasonable to think that Mary would have disclosed it, after the wonder of the Resurrection, to the Apostles, from whom infor- mation would have reached St. Mark (the interpreter of St. Peter), St. Paul, and others. Mk.'s use of the phrase " son of Mary " instead of " son of Joseph " is com- patible with the supposition that Joseph, at the time alluded to, was dead.^ St. Paul's statement that " God sent forth His Son born of a woman " clearly involves no necessary reference to our Lord's birth of a virgin (see Mt. xi. 11 ; Job xiv. 1). And the tone of Mary's address to her Son in Joh. ii. 5, whilst it is in keeping with the Johannine representation that quite early in Jesus' ministry His Measiahship was known to many (see i. 36, 41, 49), does not carry with it any conclusive inference as to the writer's acceptance of the narratives of His birth in Mt. and Lk. (c) If the historical testimony to the Virgin Birth appears defective, the alterna- tive is not to suppose that the account of it was produced solely in consequence of the prophecy in Is. vii. 14 (LXX), and designed to supply a fulfilment of it. It is more probable that increasing reflection upon the title " Son of God " caused the moment when Jesus became " the Son " to be carried back in Christian thought ' See Gore, Dissertaticms, pp. 1-68 ; Box, The Virgin Birth of Jesus ; Plummer, St. Mt., p. 3 f. ; St. Luke, p. 35 ; McNeile, St. Mt. pp. 10-13. * Cf. 2 Sam. iii. 39 (of Joab and Abishai) " the sons of Zeruiah." 362 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY from His Baptism, when the Holy Spirit came (according to Mk. i. 11) upon Jesus Himself, to His conception, which was traced to the Spirit's descent upon His mother. But the tendency to seek in the Old Testament predictions relating to Jesus would draw attention to Is. vii. 14 ; and the rendering of it in the LXX ^ was calculated to react upon the beliefs of the Church. It has been conjectured that in Lk. i. the ksfi clause of v. 34 has been introduced into an older version of Jesus' Birth : w. 32, 35 need not mean more than that Mary's offspring was to be a hiiman Messiah (ef. Pi. ii. 7, Is. ix. 6, 7), and mention to Mary (v. 36) of Ehzabeth's pregnancy in her old age is more naturally understood as a sign of the future eminence of the CMd she was to bear than of His supernatural origin (for this latter would be self-manifest to the mother, if she conceiTcd before union with her husband, and would not require a premonitory token, whereas a prediction of future greatness for a child bom in the usual way would call for the guarantee of a previous sign that could at once be tested). ' (d) In our profound ignorance of God it is impossible to determine from ahtecedent presumptions how the union of the Divine with the human in One Who waa both " Sod of God " and a son of man must have been conditioned. To some it will appCaf most reasonable to suppose that His Divine sonship was constituted by perfect spiritneu' communion between Him and the Father rather than by His having entered the world through a unique process of physical generation. It is clear, at any rate, that two of the Evangelists could relate the life of Him Whom they believed to be the Son of God (Mk. i. 1, Joh. XX. 31) without recording that He was bom of a virgin. (e) It is not very comprehensible how the entail of corrupt propensities in human nature could [have been severed by our Lord through His not having a human father, so long as He had a human mother, who inherited and could transmit it. And if such severance were possible, it would only render Him less qualified to be an example to mankind. His ability to sustain men under stress of temptation is expressly con- nected by the writer of Hebrews with His having been likewise tempted (ii. 18) : the reasoning would plainly lose in cogency if the power of resistance in His case and theirs were essentially different. And it is remarkable that St. Paul, who of the New Testament writers dwells most upon the depravity transmitted by Adam to his pos- terity (p. 649), is silent about the Virgin Birth of Jesus. ' St. Luke relates that the birth of Jesus was announced to some shepherds (watching by night their flocks in the fields) by an angel who, as proof of his words that a Child, bom that day in the city of David, was Messiah Lord, explained the circumstances in which He would be found ; and that there then appeared a multitude of othe^ angels proclaiming " Glory to God in the highest height, And on earth peace among men of His favour." * The shepherds put the angel's message to the test, and finding the Child as described, caused great astonishment when they related their experiences. Luke proceeds to record the circumcision of Jesus (cf . Lev. xii. 3) Who thenreceiv^ His name (cf. Lk. i. 59), the Purification of Mary,^ the Presentation (or consecratoj) of her Child to the Lord (cf. Ex. xiii. 12, 13, 1 Sam. i. 24r-28), and the offering by M# of the sacrifice required on the former occasion (Lev. xii. 8), which would not be eaiftf than forty-one days after the birth of her Son.* When the Christ-child was taien into the Temple He was seen there by two aged and devout persons, Simeon and Anna, who both spoke of His mission and destiny, the utterance of the former including * The Heb. word which is represented in the LXX by -n-apdivos means » young woman of marriageable age, without any impUcation of virginity ; and even jrapWw! itself is in one passage used of a girl who was not a virgin (Gere, xxxiv. 3). 2 Cf. Lk. ii. 12. " Cf. B. Weiss, Ufe of Christ, i. p. 230 (E.T.). * In the Song of the Angels the reading h iiv8pilnroi.s eiSodm (N A B D, Lati Bgi (sah.) ) renders the hymn a distich and makes the clauses more symmetrical than the alternative ev d,vOpil>wois eiiSoKla (L P, etc., Syr. Eg. (boh.) ), for this involves a triple arrangement, with no conjunction between the second and third members, wMch are almost tautological. ■• Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., i. p. 194. " In Lk. ii. 22 airrCiv is probably a subjective gen., and refers to the Jews : of. Mk. i. 44 {a&ToU). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 363 the Nunc DimiUis. After the rites were ended, JesuB returned with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth. The story of the herald angels is obviously poetry rather than history. If a Hebrew (loet could declare that at the Creation the morning stars sang together and all the sons Of God shouted for joy (Job xxxviii. 7), it would be felt to be not less appropriate that the heavenly host should hymn the opening act of human Eedemption (of. Lk. XT. 7). The pubUo testimony borne by Simeon and Anna in the Temple to Jesus i& the Messiah is difficult to reconcile not only with the lack of insight in regard to Hhn afterwards manifested by His relations but also with the widespread surprise 4nd inorfeduUty which He encountered during His ministry. The narrative may have been created by the conviction that the childhood of One who was the Author bf salvation could not have passed without some intimation of the truth falling from : fMphetid lips. Whereas Lk. represents that Jesus was taken back to Nazareth after the rites in the Temple were completed, Mt. impUes a stay of more than a year at Bethlehem, tod relates an incident which occurred when the Child was between one and two. Whilst Herod the Great was still on the throne (p. 342), there arrived at Jerusalem certain Magians^ (or astrologers) from the East,^ inquiring where they could find and worship the new-bom King of the Jews, whose star they had seen at its rising. Herod hearing of their errand, and ascertaining that the Messiah was expected to be bom at Bethlehem (in accordance with Mic. v. 2, cf. Joh. vii. 42), learnt from the Magians when the star first appeared, so that he could infer the Child's age, and com- manded them to inform him when they had found Him. Guided by the star to the house whereithe Child and His mother were dwelling, they gave Him gifts of homage, gold and frankincense and myrrh ; but, in consequence of a, dream, they returned home without again seeing Herod. Joseph, by direction of an angel seen in a dream, took the Child to Egypt, and so saved Him from Herod, who, since his first plan for destroying Him was foiled by the Magians, sought to gain his end by putting to death all the male children in Bethlehem under two years of age (cf. Jar. sxxi. 15). When Herod died, Joseph, informed by an angel in a dream as before, returned from Egypt *ith the Child (cf. Hos. xi. 1) ; but learning that Arohelaus had become king of Judaea, refrained, through fear, from dwelling again in Bethlehem, and retired to Nazareth (in Galilee (ruled by Antipas) ), so that Jesus became known as a Nazarene. Whether this narrative is substantially true or is the creation of fancy is a matter of debate. It may be argued that there prevailed a widespread expectation of a New Age,' that stars were deemed the celestial counterparts of great personahties (cf. ^i 60), that some Eastern astrologers, acquainted with Hebrew Messianic prophecies, ifiay have inferred from the appearance in the heavens of a nova, that the 'predicted King had been born amongst the Jews, and that they came to investigate the truth. A serious obstacle to the acceptance of the story as history is that after such an incident aS that recounted, the lack of faith in Jesus shown by His family is almost inexpHoable. It the narrative owes its origin to the imagination it may be accounted for by (i) the I wish to show that the extension of a knowledge of Christ among the Gentiles was fftrSshadOwed in His childhood ; (ii) an inclination to draw parallels between Jesus tad Moses and between Jesus and Israel by representing that (a) His life was sought by a contemporary Jewish king as Moses' was by Pharaoh,* and (/3) that He, like the Israelite people, aiter sojourning in Egypt, came out from it. A reason why Herod the Great and not Arohelaus (in whose reign Jesus was probably bom, p. 342) is depicted as the tyrant can be discovered in his notorious jealousy and cruelty (p. 48). ' ' Magi, originally the name of a Median tribe constituting a priestly order among the Persians (Hdt. i. 101, 132), came to be used generally of Magicians (cf. Dan. ii. 2 ; I Acts +iii. 9 (imjeiav), xiii. 6, 8). |, ' Justin, c. Tryph, 78, has oi diri 'Apa^las ix6.yoi. ' Cf. Verg. E. iv. 6, 7 (written in 40 B.C.), lam redit et Virgo (Astrsea), redeunt Saturnia Tito ; iam nova progenies ceslo demittitur alio. * See Box, Virgin Birth of Jesus, pp. 20, 21, who observes (p. 12) that Mt. i., ii. seem " to exhibit . . . the characteristic features of Jewish Midrash or Haggada." Midraah has been defined as " a didactic or homiletio exposition or an edifying religious story " (Driver, L.O.T. p. 497). See also p. 98 above. 364 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY As Herod ruled over Galileo and other adjoining regions as well as Judaea, Egypt was the most natural place of refuge for his intended -victim. The passages cited from the Old Testament (Flos. xi. 1, Jer. xxxi. 15) did not create the account,* but were adduced to illustrate it after it had taken shape ; it is noteworthy that Num. xxiv. 17 is not included among them in connexion with Mt. ii. 2. What prophecy is alluded to in Mt. ii. 23 is obscure ; probably it is Is. xi. 1, where the Heb. for " branch " is netser. The only other incident in the early life of Jesus that finds a place in Gospel records is narrated by St. Luke, who relates that He was taken, when twelve years old, by Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem on the occasion of the annual Passover festival. When they started on the return journey, Jesus, without their knowledge, remained behind ; and it was not until He had been missing for three days that they came back to the city and discovered Him in the Temple courts seeking instruction from the teachera gathered there (cf. Acts xxii. 3), who were astonished at His intelligence. When He was found. His mother remonstrated with Him ; but Jesus expressed surprise that they did not realize that it was His duty to be in His Father's house. ' The fact that His answer was not understood cannot but cast some further doubt upon the historical reality of the narratives just recounted. As mention has been made of the " brethren ' ' of .Jesus (p. 359) it is desirable to con- sider here the precise relationship implied.' Three opinions have been held, distin- guished as (a) the Helvidian, (6) the Epiphanian, (c) the Hieronymian, these being so called from their respective supporters in the fourth century, Helvidius (cm. A.D. 380), Epiphanius (circ. 370) and Jerome (Hieronymus, circ. 342-420). (a) The Helvidian view (previously entertained by Tertullian) represents that they were the younger children of Mary by Joseph. This is the most natural inference from the language of the Evangelists in Mt. i. 25, Lk. ii. 7 (" her first-born sou "). It is stated in Joh. vii. 5 that the brethren of Jesus before His resurrection did not beUeve in Him, and their disbehef is borne out by the conduct ascribed to them in Mk. iii. 21 (p. 392). The conversion of James, the eldest of them (Mk. vi. 3), was doubtless caused by the appearance to him of our Lord after His death (1 Cor. xv. 7) ; and James probably convinced his brothers of their previous error (cf. Acts i. 14). The chief diflBculties attaching to the Helvidian theory arise from two circumstances : (a) that the attempted control of Jesus by His " brethren " suggests that they were older and not younger than He ; (/3) that when dying. He commended His mother to the care of St. John and not to His " brethren," which seems to imply that they were not Mary's children at all. But these difficulties are adequately met by the pleas (a) that, if all the four named in Mk. vi. 3 had by that time reached manhood, their interference with Jesus under the impression that His mind was unhinged is not unnatural, even though they were His juniors ; (j3) that if they were all married before the date of the Crucifixion and not present at the scene of it, a sufficient explana- tion is afforded of our Lord's act in consigning Mary to the charge of St. John, who may have been her nephew (p. 365). (b) The Epiphanian view, which had been favoured by Origen, maintains that the brethren of Jesus were the sons of Joseph, not by Mary, but by a former wife. This opinion seems to have arisen from the unwillingness to believe that Mary, after havmg borne the Son of God, could have given bii-th to other children. There is no evidence that Mary was Joseph's second wife, and the only argument for this view furnished by the Gospel narrative is the attitude of our Lord's brethren towards Him in Mk. iii. 21, which has been considered above. (c) The Hieronymian view, as explained by St. Jerome and developed by others, regards our Lord's " brethren " as strictly His maternal cousins. James, the eldest 1 The passage in Jeremiah relates to the departure of the Jews into exile in 587 B.C., which is imagined as bewailed by Eachel, buried in Ramah, five miles north of Jerusalem. The evangelist has brought Rachel into connexion with the massacre at Bethlehem seemingly through the association of Rachel's grave with Ephrath or Bethlehem in Gen. xxxv. 19. " For this rendering of ev tois tou irarpdi nov cf . Ocn. xli. 51 LXX ; for the alter- native " about my Father's business," cf . Mk. viii. 33. ' See Lightfoot, Oal. p. 252 f. ; Mayor, St. James, p. i. f. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 365 of the brothers, is identified arbitrarily with James, son of Alphssus ; and Alphaeus is identified with Clopas (both names being assumed to represent the same Aramaic original, Halphai), whose wife, Mary, is supposed to be one with the Mary described OS mother of James the Little and of Joses {Mle. xv. 40), and with the sister of o\ir Lord's mother {Joh. xix. 25). It follows, thou, that James and Joses, together with Judas ^ and Simon {Mk. vi. 3) were really cousins of Jesus. A variety of this theory represents the brothers as the paternal cousins of Jesus, Alphseus (or Clopas) being regarded as brother of Joseph, a view having the authority of Hegesippus (Eus. H.E. iii. 11). There are some serious difficulties attending both forms of the theory, (a) Although it is possible that d5eX0i4s might be used in Greek for " cousin " (like the cdrresponding word in Hebrew (1 Ch. xxiii. 21, 22) and the Latin /roier), it is improbable in the New Testament, where &ve\j/i.6i is employed (Col. iv. 10). (/3) It is almost impossible to suppose that any of our Lord's brethren can have been included among His disciples during His lifetime, in view of the statement in Joh. vii. 5. (7) The identification of the wife of Clopas and mother of James and Joses with the sister of our Lord's mother (Joh. xix. 25) is not very plausible, since it involves the assumption that two sisters bore the same name ; a more likely supposition is that Mary's sister was Salome, the wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John. (5) It is unlikely that the " brethren of the Lord," if the sons of Mary and Clopas and cousins of Jesus, should be mentioned so often in company with our Lord's mother, who on this theory was only their aunt (see Mh. iii. 31 ; Joh. ii. 12). (e) The theory makes it logically necessary to understand our Lord's words in Mk. iii. 34, 35, " my brethren . . . my brother and sister," to mean " my cousins," which is unnatural. Of the three views here discussed the Helvidian appears the best grounded. § 2. The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus It is rather difficult to determine the motive which led Jesus to come to John to be baptized. But the fact (which the subsequent narrative makes clear) that He had not yet attained to a full consciousness of His relations to God and His future destiny renders possible some solution of the problem. It seems, indeed, inadmissible to assume in order to account for His action, that He was already beginning " to bear upon His heart the burden of the sins of others, even as . .He was to bear them in His body on the tree,"^ so that He submitted to the rite vicariously. Kor again does it appear appropriate to think of Him, just at this stage, as seeking to consecrate Himself to His life's work ^ ; and the less so, inasmuch as there * seems no instance elsewhere of water being used as a medium for con- secration. An explanation, however, may perhaps be found in another direction. Since even at a later time than this Jesus asked of one who addressed Him as " Good Master," why he called Him good, and declared I" none to be good save God, it is intelligible that He, however unsullied by actual sin, could feel that mere experience of temptation (to which it is * recognized that He was exposed {Mk.i. 13, Heb. ii. 18, iv. 15) ) made baptism fitting for Him as for others. " To have been tempted is to have seen sin face to face,"' and to have become sensible of the need of such spiritual f" ^ In Lk. vi. 16 " Judas of James," one of the Twelve, is understood to mean Judas brother of James (cf. Jude 1). Some have thought that Simon the Zealot, I also among the Twelve, was the Simon enumerated among the Lord's brethren in Mk. vi. 3. ' See Hastings, D.G.O. i. p. 864. » AUen, St. Mark, p. 55. ' Thompson, Je^us according to St. Mark, p. 117, 366 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY help as a symbolic act could supply. A consciousness of imperfection presupposed in all process of growth and development (cf . Lk. ii. 52) might well cause Him to wish to brace Himself for the better achieving of whatever God might require of Him by submitting to a rite significant of a self- committal to a life of increased devotion to the Divine will. The place where Jesus was baptized is not stated in the earliest aooounts : only in the Fourth Gospel (Joh. i. 28 and its context) is it impHed that it was Bethany or Bethabara beyond Jordan, and these localities are not easy to identify (p. 8). From the narrative of the Baptism contained in Mk. and Lh. it appears a reasonable infeienpe, that Jesus was not recognized by John as the destined Successor of whom he spoKe (p. 356), though the contrary is virtually affirmed in Mt. iii. 14, where it is added that John would have hindered Him from His purpose, asserting that he had need to be baptized (with Holy Spirit) by Jesus ; but that the latter persisted, declaring that it became Him and others (riidv) to fulfil all righteousness. The supposition that John did not know Him explains the inquiry which, when he was in prison, he sent to Jesns (p. 404). Moreover it is unhkely that if John had been convinced of the Messiahehip of Jesus before, or at the moment when, he baptized Him, any of his disciples would have been allowed to constitute an independent body called after his own name (Mt. xi. 2 {^=Lk. vii. 18), Acts xviii. 25, xix. 3), instead of becoming followers of the Christ. The Baptism of Jesus was the occasion when probably for the first time He realized His relation to God and God's people, and had to face the question what His part in the accomplishment of God's purposes was designed to be. As He came up out of the water He saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Divine Spirit as a dove descending into Him ; and a Voice came out of the heavens, " Thou art my Son, the Beloved, in thee I am well pleased." The narrative, presumably derived in the last resort from Jesus Himself, is evidently symbolical in character, representing dramatically with the help of external imagery the moment when witHn Him there first emerged into full consciousness the internal con- viction that He was the Messiah of God, and, for the purpose of dis- charging so august an office, was endued with the Divine Spirit. The moment was probably the climax of a protracted process of reflection and introspection, which, in the spiritual tension accompanying the reception of Baptism, had reached a clear issue. If it is permissible to distinguish some of the factors which humanly speaking contributed to the conclusion, they may have included the following : (a) the influence of prophecy, which led Him to cherish with peculiar intensity the prevalent expectation of a Messiah ; (b) the impression produced by John's declaration that his own mission was only preliminary to the advent of a Mightier Personality ; (c) a sense of being in possession of a profound insight into God's character and requirements, and of a harmony of will between Himself and the Almighty, such as subsists between a Son and a Father ; {d) the discovery of the presence in Himself of unusual psychical endowments, enabling Him to produce by an exertion of wiU-power marvellous effects upon other minds and bodies. Of these factors the most decisive and fundamental was the third. For as regards the fourth, though at a subsequent date oui Lord appealed to His ability to work miracles as evidence of His being endowed with the Holy Spirit, yet miracles were no conclusive proof that the Spirit animating one who performed them was good and not evil THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 367 (Dt. xiii. 1-3, Mk. xiii. 22). And, as will be seen, a choice between divergent ends to wMch. the exercise of supernormal powers might be directed afforded occasion, in the case of Jesus, for a series of severe spiritual conflicts. The expressions and imagery marking the description of Jesus' inward experiences at His Baptism have their origin in the Old Testament. The dove as a symbol of the Spirit seems to be a development of the idea .iinderlying the figure of speech in Gen. i. 2, where the Divine Spirit is said to have " brooded " (like a bird) upon the face of the waters at the Creation. By Philo the turtle dove (rgvydv) is represented as an emblem of Divine wisdom, being a bird of solitary habits and accustomed to soar aloft, in contrast to the pigeon (jiegiareQa), which signifies human intelligence, since it is tame and mixes with men. If Philo drew upon some current system of symbolism, it is possible that the same may be the immediate origin of the imagery here, though the word used is notrguycoi' hutneQiareQci.'^ The words uttered by the heavenly Voice (for which cf. Dan. iv. 31 and see p. 108) reproduce those of Jehovah to the Messianic King in Ps. ii. 7, but in a modified form, Yi6g fiov el av, iym atj/iegov yeyhvrjxd ae being replaced \)j Sv el 6 Yiog /xov 6 dyajirjtog, ev aoi evSoarjaa (though D and some other " Western " authorities seem to have assimilated the text here to that of the psalm). The epithet " The Beloved " (d ayojirjTog), here addressed to Jesus, is a title applied to Israel in 7s. v. 1, whilst the equivalent, d f)yamrifihog, is also used of Israel in 2 7s. xliv. 2 (cf. also Bt. xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5).^ Some small but noteworthy variations from Mk.'s account of the Baptism of Jesus are introduced by the other two Synoptists. Both substitute in connexion with the Spirit's descent upon Jesus the preposition iit-l (cf. 2 Is. xiii. i) for Mk.'s eh, whilst Lk. represents the Spirit as being " in bodily form " hke a dove and Jesus as praying at the time. The words of the Voice from heaven are given in ML as " This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased," a change which impUes that the address 'was regarded by the First Evangehat as an assurance about Jesus imparted to John ; iWhereas Lk. follows Mk.'s version. p The clearness of conviction with which Jesus at His baptism appre- hended His exceptional relation to God was not unaccompanied by uncertainty on many points. The consciousness of being the Son of God, ' and of being endowed through the Divine Spirit with mysterious powers, still left obscure the objects for which He might draw upon them, the extent to ,which He might presume upon God's protective care, and the course of action whereby He could best accomplish the end which God desired. For the leisure and reflection needed for a solution of such problems a return to His own home, close to the busy arteries of trafiic which intersected Galilee, and to the populous shores of its lake (p. 3), ofiered no fit opportunity. Only in the solitude of the wilderness could the L spiritual struggle, as opposing alternatives presented themselves to Him, ^ See Conybeare, Expositor, June 1894. W ' Cf. the application to Jesus of Hog, xi. 1. (originally relating to Israel) in Mt, ii. 15. 368 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY be fought out. And so He felt impelled to withdraw^ into some lonely region (the locality of which is quite unknown, though tradition has placed it near Jericho) in order to decide whether various suggestions that forced themselves upon Him called for adoption or for rejection. But though it was during the period spent in the wilderness that such spiritual debate was most intense (inasmuch as certain initial decisions had to be reached), yet seasons of inward conflict must often have recurred all through His life (cf. Lh. iv. 13 6 did^o^og Aniarr) &tc avrov S-xQi xaigov, xxii. 28), as the pressure of material circumstances, the opposition of foes, or the promptings of friends revived past trials and solicitations (Mk. viii. 33, Joh. vi. 15) and created fresh misgivings. Though His belief in His Messiahship, once acquired, does not seem to have really faltered, yet it was not until after some considerable interval that it became robust enough to be avowed even to His most intimate companions. The account, which occurs in both Mt. and Lh., and was doubtless derived by them from Q, must in substance come from communications imparted by Jesus at a later date to His followers. It is marked by the same externalizing of purely spiritual experiences which is discernible in the story of the Baptism, and Jesus Himself is known to have used such a fashion of speech {Lk. x. 18) ; though there are features in the narrative (Mt. iv. 2 (= Lk. iv. 2), 11) which look as if they had been introduced into it through the literary influence of the Old Testament. The temptations with which Jesus is represented as assailed by the Devil are three in number, but the order of the second and third is different ia the two Evangelists. That of Mt. seems psychologically to be the most probable, and is adopted here. Jesus, after fasting forty days (for this figure cf . Ex. xxiv. 18 (Moses), 1 Kg. xix. 8 (Elijah) ) became a-hungered, and was approached by the Tempter who bade Him, if He were Son of God, convert the stones about Him into bread, and to whom He replied by quoting the words of Dt. viii. 3 LXX, " Man shall not live on bread alone [which in the original passage refers to the manna], but on every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God " ^ (cf . Joh. iv. 34). The idea intended to be conveyed must be that Jesus, under stress of physical needs, felt an impulse to put to the proof His filial relationship to God by trying whether it empowered Him to work a miracle to relieve His wants ; and to doubt the reality of His Sonship, should the power to do so be withheld. But the true proof of Sonship was obedience to His Father's monitions and the discharge of the duty com- mitted to Him. Next, the Devil took Him (in spirit) to a wing-Uke pro- jection (perhaps a cornice) of the Temple cloisters' (p. 90), and again casting doubt upon His being Son of God, directed Him, if He were truly such, to cast Himself down, in reliance upon the promise, in Ps. xci. (xc.) 11, 12, LXX, of angelic protection. Jesus' reply was again a quotation from Dt. (vi. 16, LXX), " Thou shaft not put to the proof the Lord thy • With Mk. i. 12, ri irveOiua airriv e/t/SdXXei kt\. should perhaps be oompared 1 Kg. xviii. 12 ; 2 Kg. u. 16 ; Acts viii. 39. ' The second clause is absent from Lk. * The Greek is t6 irrepiyLov tov iepov (not tqv vaov). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 369 God." The test of SonsMp which, in this case, suggested itself was to discover whether, if He were really God's Son, His Father would shield Him from harm, even though He should place Himself deliberately in harm's way. Possibly the thought of the particular test to be applied occurred to Him from the recollection of what He had seen as a youth on the occasion of one of the annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, for on some lofty point of the Temple buildings a, priest was every day stationed to watch for the earliest sign of dawn in order to announce it as the signal forofiering the morning sacrifice.^ Finally, the Devil took Him to a high mountain {Lh. merely has " led Him up ") and showing to Him^ from thence aU the kingdoms of the world, over which he claimed control (cf . Joh. xiv. 30), offered them to Him on condition that He would worship him. In answer Jesus bade Satan depart, and drawing once more upon Dt. quoted the injunction in vi. 13 in the form " Thou shalt worship' the Lord thy God, and. Him alone thou shalt serve." The Devil then left Him and angels came and ministered to Him (cf. 1 Kg. xix. 5, 6 (Elijah) ). The nature of this last temptation differed from that of the two earlier. Mis- givings as to His filial relation to God ceased to be felt ; but there were two ways of achieving the universal supremacy promised in prophecy to God's Son, the Messiah. One was to adopt the worldly methods of force and violence, involving allegiance to the prince of this world ; the other was to prevail through the spirit of meekness and patience, whatever the experi- ences which God might require Him to undergo. From the decision to which Jesus now came, He never swerved. The narrative in various ways illuminates the development of our Lord's character. It demonstrates that the sinlessness which the New Testament writers recognize as marking Him was consequent not upon exemption from suggestions to sin but upon conquest over them. It shows, too, that (as might be expected) He had steeped Himself in the study of the Hebrew Scriptures, and drew upon them for support and guidance in repelling the assaults of temptation. It confirms the inference, deducible from other evidence, that He shared the belief of His age in the existence of a pre- dominant evil Personality, the author of all forms of physical and moral ill. Moreover, the account of the First and Second Temptations throws light upon the limits within which He came to deem it permissible for Him either to seek to exert the exceptional powers with which He found Himself endowed, or to presume upon the omnipotence of God for His aid and protection. He concluded (it would seem) that He might not use His powers to satisfy His own needs, and that He might not expect God to suspend the operation of His laws in response to eccentric demands. The principal difEerence between Mt. and Lk. consists in the fact that Lk. places last the Temptation of which the Temple is represented as the scene. Probably Mt. adheres more closely to the original order ; Lk.'s motive, if it was he who departed from that order, was perhaps a feeling that what occurred at Jerusalem could most fittingly be regarded as the climax of the series. With Lk.'s dj'a7a7div . . . ^7076 in a spiritual or mental sense cf. Ezek. xxxvii. 1 (LXX), Eev. xvii 3 ; Mt. has irapa- ' Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, i. p. 303. '' Lk. adds " in a moment of time." ^ The LXX has shalt fear. 24 370 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Xo/i/3di'ci. Mk 's account looks like an abbreviation of the longer one in Q (reproduced in mt. and Lk.) of -which he probably had knowledge (see p. 164). His addition thai JesUs " was with the wild beasts " was probably designed to accentuate not so mniili: the idea of Jesus' loneliness as of His being in the haunts of demons, which were thongtt of as dwelhng, under animal forms, in desert places (cf. Mt. xii. 43, Lev. xvi. 10, and see p. 94). At the end of the period spent in the wilderness, Jesus returned with His mind cleared as to certain issues. But a decision as to His immediate course of action was the result of information which He received about John the Baptist. The duration of the latter's ministry is unknown, but was probably brief, perhaps only a few months (p. 342). It was brought to an end by Herod Antipas (p. 50), who apprehended him when engaged in preaching and baptizing on the other side of the Jordan (within his territories), and committed him to prison at Machserus on the t)ead Sea (p. 9), and before long put him to death there (p. 406). The motive of Antipas in arresting him is represented difierently by Josephus and St. Mark (whose account is adopted by the other Synoptists). The former (Arii. xviii. 5, 2) states that it was due to the fear of John's influence over the people, since it was in his power to raise a rebellion among them ; hut the latter attributes it to John's rebuke of Herod for marrying Herodias, his niece and the wife of his brother Herod Philip, during her husband's life- time. The Herod Philip^ here meant is distinct from the Philip (Herod's son by Cleopatra) who ruled the tetrarchy of Trachonitis (p. 51). He was the ofispring of Herod by Mariamne,^ and had been named in his father's first wiU (p. 48), but was omitted from the second, and remained in a private station. Antipas, journeying to Rome, had lodged with Mm, and there met Herodias. A passion sprung up between them ; and it was agreed that the two shoidd marry as soon as Antipas could divorce his own wife (who was daughter of the Nabataean king Aretas). The latter, on hearing of the compact, fled to her father ; and Antipas felt himself free to carry out his desires in regard to Herodias. The consequent feud with Aretas caused Antipas to take up his quarters at Machaerus, as being neai the Arabian frontier where he might expect hostilities to develop. St. Mark's statement about the cause of the Baptist's imprisonment is not absolutely incompatible with the representation of Josephus, but it ia difficult to understand how John, whilst at liberty, came into personal contact with Antipas ; so that possibly he was really arrested in conse- quence of the tetrarch's fears lest the religious excitement caused hy tis preaching might issue in a popular rising, and that the censure which he passed upon the conduct of Antipas occurred during his captivity on the occasion of an interview (cf. Felix and St. Paul, Acts xxiv. 26). The tetrarch's feelings about John were mixed, and he could nOt make up his mind what to do ; but Herodias' hatred for him was unrelenting, and thei revenge she took will come under notice later. 1 He is called Philip (only) in the New Testament. In more than one case the same name was borne by two or more children of Herod, for two, if not three, sons were called Antipater or Antipas. \ ' Two of Herod's wives- were named Mariamne, o / Bethsaidaylulias o Chofazin'p (Kerazeh) \ _ V Capernaunu (TeUHum).'^ o Cana? (KhirbetKana) oCana? (KefrKenna) ©NAZARETJl ' THE I SEA OF GALILEE o 1 a 3 a. s Miles ,*# 2"o illustrate the Galilean Ministry. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 371 § 3. Jesus' Renewal of John's Announcement, and His Cure of Diseases It was apparently the tidings of John's arrest that determined for Jesus His immediate course of action. This was the prosecution of the work which, hitherto carried on by John, the tyranny of Antipas had now interrupted ; the captivity of the first herald of the kingdom of God, if the time of it could be ascertained, would date the commencement of his Successor's efiorts to proclaim the same message. The Fourth Gospel, indeed, describes Him as making disciples in Judaea and baptizing there (through the agency of those whom He had previously gathered about Him) before John was arrested (Joh. iii. 22, iv. 1,2); but this representation is probably unhistoric,^ being contradicted by the tradition preserved in Acts i. 22, X. 37, xiii. 23, 24, which implies that the beginning of Jesus' preaching dated from the close of John's. It was not to Judssa but to Galilee that He directed His steps after His return from the wilderness. ' His motive for going to that district first of all was not (so far as may be judged) that it was the neighbourhood of His home, since for some while He avoided His own town Nazareth,^ but that He felt a profound sympathy for those who, like the majority of the Galileeans, were deemed by the ; ecclesiastical leaders of the people outcasts from the pious circles of Israel. To these whom their countrymen despised and who, less immersed in the traditions of the Scribes than the population of Jerusalem and Judaea, were likely to be more open to fresh spiritual infiuences. He was strongly drawn ; and among them He might look to find a readier hearing than among the denizens of the capital and its vicinity. Accordingly in their j cities and villages He began to renew the announcement which had previously been the burden of John's utterances, that the kingdom of God was at hand, and that those who sought to enter it must repent of the sins which would else exclude them.^ The time when He embarked upon His |; ministry, as far as it can be fixed with some probability, was the year j A.D. 28, the fifteenth of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (see p. 342), His age being about thirty. It is not stated exactly where He commenced to preach, but it seems most likely that it was along the shores of the Galilean Lake. This was fringed with flourishing towns, but so far as available evidence goes, it was not the largest and most important (like Tiberias), but the less con- siderable that He made the chief centres of His activity. As has been said, the beginning of His ministry was a continuation of ■^lie mission of John ; and the substance of His earliest proclamation was the same (cf. Mk. i. 15 with Mt. iii. 2). There was, however, a distinction ' That Jesus did not preach, in Judsea prior to going to Galilee is confirmed by the fact that Scribes and Pharisees proceeded from Jerusalem to Galilee in order to interview and question Him (Mk. iii. 22, vii. 1). ' Yet Mt. iv. 12 represents that He went from Judsea to Nazareth, and from the latter town to Capernaum. ,, . _ 'In Mh. i. 15 the addition to repent ye of the words and believe in the Gospel, which 18 peculiar to the Second Gospel, is perhaps due to Pauline influence (see Menzies, The MaAita Gospel, p. 64), or to later editing : cf . viii. 35, x. 29. 372 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY between them as regards both spirit and method. A difierence of emphasis caused Jesus' declarations about the approaching crisis to be more of a Gospel — " good tidings " — than John's, in whose utterances the Judgment had occupied more space than the Kingdom, and whose preaching is only once described by the term EvayyeXlieadai (Lk. iii. 18) And this was accompanied by a diSerence of bearing. John had pursued the severe life of an ascetic ; his very garb contrasted with that of ordinary folk ; he made his abode in solitary places, and those who desired to hear him had to seek him there ; so that the people who were thus forced to leave their customary resorts were by that very fact the more liable to have their emotions violently stirred. But Jesus, less austere in His habits, betook HimseU to the dwellings of men, frequented their synagogues, shared on occasions their simple pleasures, and so made His appeal to them more temperately and tranquilly. And though He did not conceal from His hearers the doom in store for the unrepentant (and as He increasingly encountered hypocrisy and malice His language grew stronger), yet He addressed Himself to their reflection as well as to their fears, and laid stress on the consolation that was soon to be forthcoming for the suffering and the troubled. And a stiU more impressive contrast was presented by the fact that whereas John did nothing to relieve the afflicted, Jesus accompanied His preaching by numerous cures of the infirm and suffering (cf. Joh. X. 41, Acts X. 38). The possession and exercise of this faculty of healing could not fail to signalize Him as more amply endowed with the Divine Spirit than His predecessor. The Kingdom of God was an idea sufficiently familiar for Him to assume that it would be intelligible to His audiences, though the notions which different individuals attached to it must have varied greatly. It admitted of both a concrete meaning — an organized external polity ruled by God either directly or through His appointed representatives and ministers^ — and a more abstract sense — the supremacy of God and His holiness over human nature. The two were in a measure complementary, for an external kingdom of which God was the ruler must involve the suppression in it of everything base and unworthy, whilst the sovereignty of God over human hearts would leave the claims of justice unsatisfied unless recompense objectively corresponded to desert. In the case of Jesus it was the spiritual aspect that was the more absorbing ; so far as the external realization of it was concerned. He left it obscure whether the sphere of it was to be earth or heaven. He concentrated His efforts upon the task of making His hearers understand the qualities of character and temper which alone could have place within it, and the principles of conduct which alone could afiord men any hope of entering it. But whilst He did not explain the nature and constitution of the Kingdom, He certainly seems to have thought of it not as destined to be evolved gradually out of the circumstances of the existing world, but as about to be ushered in supernaturaUy by an immediate act of God. Of the precise time of its manifestation He claimed no knowledge (see p. 445) ; but it 1 Cf . Mic. iv. 7 ; Is. is. 6, 7, xxiv. 23 ; Ps. ii. 6. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 373 appears beyond doubt that He Himself expected it, or at least caused others to expect it, within a very short interval — within, indeed, the lifetime of His own contemporaries. It was then merely as a herald of the coming Kingdom and a teacher of the morality conditioning participation in it (cf. Mt. iv. 23, xi. 1, Lh. iv. 43), like John the Baptist himself, that He appeared first to His country- men. Although He had gained the belief that in destiny and dignity He was more than this, and that He was preordained to fill, under God, the most exalted station in that Kingdom, yet He gave at the outset no hint that He was superior to all prophets. To declare Himself at once the destined Messiah of His race, would be to excite in the people expectations of a pohtical character which He was convinced He was not meant by His Father to fulfil. So it was simply as a prophet that He was regarded by those of the people whom His discourses impressed, and it was only as a prophet that He at the outset described HimseK (Mk. vi. 4, 15, Mt. xxi. 11). In proceeding to proclaim the advent of the Kingdom, Jesus did not rely upon His own unaided exertions ; but sought in the towns of Galilee and by the shores of its lake sympathizers who were willing to make the sacrifices necessary to assist Him. It was both the practice and the duty of a Eabbi or Teacher to gather round him a circle of disciples,^ and His doing this would assimilate Him in popular estimation to the class of Rabbis. The first Galilaeans whom He enlisted in His service were two brothers, sons of Jonas or John (Mt. xvi. 17, Joh. i. 42), one named Simon (Simeon, Symeon), and the other called Andrew. They were both fisher- men, residents of Capernaum ; and at the time when Jesus, as He passed along the shore, summoned them to join Him, were engaged in their usual occupation. Our Lord, playing with the word "fishers," bade them follow Him and He would make them fishers of men ; and they, at once, abandoning the business which occupied them, attached themselves to Him and became sharers in His work. The words in the narrative of St. Luke (v. 11) " they left all " need not be understood literally. The summons meant, indeed, a call to subordinate their worldly ties and interests to the duty of extending a knowledge of the Kingdom and its nearness, and of the conditions controlling participation in it ; but it did not involve immediate surrender of their homes or of their other possessions (see Mk. i. 29, ii. 15). The call of Simon and Andrew was succeeded by the call of another pair of brethren. These were James (or Jacob) and John, the sons of Zebedee (= Zebadiah) and of his wife Salome,^ who were likewise fishermen (represented as partners of the other two, Lk. v. 7, 10) and were busy at the time, together with their father and some hired servants, in putting their nets in order. They • showed as little hesitation as Simon and his brother, and without delay followed after Him. The readiness with which these men reUnquished their calling and threw in their lot with Jesus favours the idea that they ' Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., i. p. 474. 5 Cf. Mk. XV. 40 with Mt. xxvii. 66. 374 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY may have encountered Him before. An explanation of how this could have happened is afEorded by the assumption that Salome, the mother of James and John, was a sister of our Lord's mother (see p. 365). Their kinship would lead to intercourse between the two houses ; and when Jesus visited His cousins by the lake-side. He would naturally become acquainted with others, like Simon and Andrew, who followed the same pujsuit. Nevertheless, the obedience shown by all the four to His sudden command to leave their avocations is perhaps to be accounted for by their sharing the behef that He was a prophet. Prophets were thought to act abruptly, and their bidding was usually obeyed without hesitation (see 1 Kg. xix. 19-21, 2 Kg. ix. 1-3). The four who thus became our Lord's first disciples were all friends of one another (as has been said), and partners in the business of fishing {Lk. V. 10). Though their occupation was comparatively humble, they were not employed by others, but had boats of their own ; whilst Zebedee, the father of James and John, had servants under him {Lk. v. 2, 3, Mk. i. 20). Simon (also called Cephas or Peter) was married (cf. 1 Oor. ix. 5), and with him and his wife there Kved the latter's mother. AH the four disciples named must have been acquainted with Grreek, for in Galilee there was a great [mixture of nationalities (see p. 3), and the names Peter and Andrew are both Greek. Nevertheless their knowledge of it was probably colloquial rather than Uterary. The tongue they usually employed was Aramaic ; and GaUlsean Aramaic, as compared with that which was current at Jerusalem, was marked by distinctive features {Mk. xiv. 70, Mt. xxvi. 73). The reason is fairly clear why the circumstances in which the foui just mentioned were called by Jesus are described, whilst the occasions when He summoned various others whom He associated with Him are not related. Peter, James, and John became in a special degree the intimate companions of their Master, and reference to Peter's call naturally carried with it Andrew's also. The only disciple besides these whose call is recounted by Mark is Levi (or Matthew), whom Jesus summoned to follow Him at a somewhat later date ; and the allusion to the occasion is explained by its connexion with an incident that followed upon it {Mk. ii. 15-17). An account of the call of Peter, Andrew, James and John which is given by St. Luke (v. 1 f.) differs from that contained in Mk. and foUowed by Mt. (iv. 18, 22) in various details, (a) Jesus is described as entering Simon's boat in order to preach from it, without being thronged by His hearers. (6) After concluding His discourse, He directed Simon, who had fished fruitlessly through the night, to let down his nets, which then enclosed such a quantity of fish that they nearly broke, and the fishers had to summon their partners to help them, both boats being filled till they began to sink, (c) On this Simon Peter threw himself at Jesus' Imees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord " ; but Jesus bade bim dismiss his fear.ior from thenceforth he should catch men ; and when the boats were brought to land, the four left all and followed Him. The miraculous catch of fishes may be an elabora- tion of the metaphor of " fishers of men," symboUzing the numbers that through their exertions were to be secured ; and the figure of speech may have been converted into a physical occurrence (cf. Lk. xi. 29, 30, 32 with Mt. xii. 39, 41, 40). A miraBU- lous catch of fishes occurs likewise in the post-Eesurrection narrative comprised in Joh. xxi. ; and the fact that Peter's words to Jesus are more appropriate to a time THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 375 after his denial of his Lord has suggested that St. Luke has blended with a report of the call of the disciples some tradition connected with the appearance to them of the. Risen Christ (p. 476). 'The Fourth Evangehst represents that before the arrest of John the Baptist, Andrew (of Bethsaida) and an unnamed companion were disciples of John, who directed their attention to Jesus, with Whom they spent the day ; and then Andrew sought his brother Simon and brought him also to Jesus. But though an earlier .©eeting between Jesus and the two brothers explains very naturally the promptitude jnth which the latter are described as answering the call of our Lord by the lake-side, yet the language attributed on this occasion to the Baptist (who alludes to Jesus as the Lamb of God), to Andrew (who informs Simon that they had found the Messiah), and to Jesus (Who tells Simon that he should be called Cephas (or Peter) without any reason being given or implied for such a change of name) is so difficult to reconcile with the representation of Mark and the other Synoptists that the historical value of the narrative falls under grave suspicion. The Fourth Gospel (i. 43-51) contains also an account of the call by Jesus, when in Galilee, of another disciple, Philip, who is related to have brought to our Lord Nathanael of Cana (xxi. 2). The latter is not named in the New Testament outside the Fourth Gospel, but has been generally identified with Bartholomew.^ The cir- cumstances that here, at a very early period in our Lord's ministry, Philip is described as recognizing in Jesus " Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote," and that Nathanael ill stated to have addressed Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel, are features in the narrative which cannot be easily harmonized with the Apostles' first confession of Jesus' Messiahship at a much later date, as represented by the Synoptists (Mk. viii. 27 f.). It was with, a sound judgment, as the event showed, that Jesus avoided at the outset of His Galileean mission, His native Nazareth (of. Mh. vi. 1-6, and p. 402) ; and the first place where He is recorded to have preached was Capernaum. Here He, in company with some of the disciples whom He had aheady attracted to Him, entered the synagogue of the town, where, as was customary, a stranger, if known or conjectured to belong to the lettered class, might be asked, after the reading of the Scriptures, to instruct the worshippers (p. 96). In the course of .the service, Jesus was invited by the president of the synagogue to undertake this duty. Although nothing on this occasion is recorded of the tenor of His teaching, yet the manner and tone of it at once arrested attention by the contrast it afforded to the characteristic practice of the Scribes. The latter were conscious of no inspiration which would justify them in handling boldly the difficulties which the Law and its application to the complexities of life presented, so that their comments upon it could hardly fail to be hair- splitting and pedantic, and were based, where possible, upon the pro- nouncements of their predecessors. Very different was the spirit which marked the teaching of Jesus, if it exhibited in the synagogue there the same features as those which are apparent in the discourses delivered elsewhere, or at other times. His principles will fall to be considered more in detail later (p. 602 f .) ; here it suffices to notice summarily what lay at the root of the difference between His method of dealing with the Law and that of the Scribes. Like them He acknowledged its Divine L_ ^ He has also been identified with others of the Twelve, see Hastings, D.B. iii. 488-489. The meaning of his name favours the suggestion that he was the same as Matthias. 376 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY authority ; and its rules He honoured alike in precept and in practice.^ But unlike them He subordinated the letter to the spirit, whilst insisting that the scope and intent of its spiritual meaning should be construed in the most comprehensive and exacting measure. In thus passing judgment upon current religious standards He assumed the same attitude of authoritative criticism as was manifested by certain of the Old Testament prophets.^ Filled with a tranquil confidence that He possessed a true insight into the character of God, He freely corrected contemporary notions of religious duty, wherever these clashed with, or fell short of. His own conception of the Divine nature and will. In consequence He created amongst His hearers great astonishment, conveying to them the impression that He was Divinely empowered to teach as He did.' The independence which distinguished the teaching of Jesus as con- trasted with the spirit in which the Scribes commented upon the Law was not the only fact that excited wonder amongst those who were gathered in the synagogue. There chanced to be in it a man suffering from a disordered mind, one of a class in whom the existence of mental derange- ment, sometimes accompanied by physical afilictions (cf. Mh. ix. 17), was popularly ascribed to the presence in them of demons or spirits of evil, by whom their victims were controlled (just as a prophet might be controlled by the Spirit of God, Mk. xii. 36). The afflicted man in the synagogue (presumably admitted there during a lucid interval) had probably had his attention arrested and his fears excited when Jesus, Whose name he had learnt, made the subject of His preaching the approach of the Kingdom of God, the establishment of which meant the overthrow of all demon powers. Inferring that such a herald of the Divine Kingdom must occupy a special relation to God, and therefore be hostile to the demons that had the mastery over himself, he screamed, " What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus the Nazarene ? Art thou come to destroy us ? I know who thou art, the Holy One of God." The title by which he addressed Jesus was appropriate to One whom he judged to be conse- crated in a pre-eminent degree to the service of God (the same is used of Aaron in Ps. cvi. 16) ; and his outcry expressed his shrinking from Him. Jesus, so far as can be ascertained, participated in the contemporary belief respecting the activity of demons as the source of various mental and physical disorders ; and presuming that an evil spirit was really present in the man, bade it be silent and come out of him. The command had its effect ; and after a final paroxysm of madness, and a loud cry, the sufierer was restored to sanity. This narrative (omitted by Mt.) of the healing of a demoniac is an example of a class of cures attributed repeatedly to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, four instances being described in detail in Mh. (i. 23-26, v. 2-15, vii. 25-30, ix. 17-27), whilst there are, in addition, three general references > See Mk. x. 17-19; Mt. v. 18 (=Lfc. xvi. 17); Mk. i. 44. 2 Is. i. 11-17 ; Mic. vi. 6-8. ' In Mk. i. 22 the word i^ov ' Mk.'s language is modified by both Mt. (viii. 16) and Lk. (iv. 40, 41), see p. 157 ; Mt., whilst retaining Mk.'s mention of the eventide, omits to explain that the day was the Sabbath. ' Lk. has " knew that he was the Christ." ' Lk. represents that it was the multitudes who came to Him (iv. 42). * Lk. (iv. 43), interpreting Mk.'s 4^tj\6ov to mean " came forth from God," sub- stitutes ire(ndXiiv. 380 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY proceeded through Galilee/ preaching in the synagogues and healing those who were " possessed " by demons. It was in the course of this tour, though the precise locality of the occurrence is not described,^ that the next miracle narrated in detail by Mh. took place. The reports which had spread about Jesus' healing faculty caused a leper to come to Him seemingly when He was alone in a house {Mk. i. 43, 44) ^ and entreat Him to remove his affliction, saying " If Thou wilt, Thou canst cleanse me." The near approach to Him of a person in such a condition is strange, since a leper was required to keep aloof from passers-by (cf. Lk. xvii. 11-19) and to make known his state by crying " Unclean " [Lev. xiii. 45). But Jesus did not avoid him as a Rabbi would have done, but was moved by his appeal, and touching him said, " I will, be thou cleansed." St. Mark seems to imply that the leprosy was at once healed,* and the man was sternly charged not to disclose to anyone what had occurred (cf. p. 401) but to show himself to the priest that he might by him be declared ceremonially clean, and then offer the sacrifices prescribed by the Mosaic Law (Lev. xiii., xiv.) as a proof to people that a complete cure had been effected. The account is not without difficulties. The particular nature of the malady repre- sented as cured instantaneously is not specifically explained, and under the term leprosy (Heb. tsdra'ath) the Bible includes more than one kind of cutaneous disease. One variety seems to be what modem medical science terms psoriasis, which is neither contagious nor dangerous to life. But real leprosy (elephantiasis) is contagious, though not easily communi- cated ; and whilst not rapidly fatal, is rarely cured, and if it yields to remedies, the curative process is protracted. The immediate response of Jesus to the leper's petition, and the fact that He did not shrink from touching ^ the polluted flesh, could not faU to stimulate into action any latent reserves of vitality in the sufferer, enabling diseased to be replaceiji by healthy tissue. But whether the disease was of the gravest variety is not stated ; and the direction to the man to show himseK to the priest might apply to the time when the process of recovery, started at once, was, after an interval, completed. The command that what had occurred should not be made known was disobeyed by the leper, who proclaimed the relief that he had experienced. There ensued the consequences which Jesus had sought to avoid : multi- tudes flocked around wherever He went, bringing (it may be presumed) ^ In Lk. iv. 44 N B C L, the Sinaitio Syr. and some other authorities have Judesa instead of Galilee ; if this is accepted as the true reading, Judcea must be underatood to mean Palestine as a whole. ^ Mt. has " when he had come down from the mountain " (viii. 1) ; Lie. has " while he was in one of the cities " (v. 12). " Mt. (viii. 1) implies that Jesua was attended by large crowds, which rendere the subsequent injunction of secrecy unmeaning. • This follows from the general tenor of the narrative, not merely from the writer t characteristic ei66s. Old Testament stories of leprosy appearing and disappearing in a moment [Ex. iv. 6, 7, 2 Kg. v. 14, 27) may have been influential. ^ For Jesus' practice of tonching many of those who sought to be cured by Him cf. Mk. V. 23, vi. 5, vii. 32, viii. 23 ; Lk. iv. 40, xjdi. 51. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 381 their sick relations to be healed, so that when He entered a city, the deUvery of His Message was much impeded. Accordingly He withdrew again to lonely localities where they who wished to hear Him could come to Him, but where the diseased and infirm could not so easily accompany them, for His mission was to save men's souls, not to cure their bodily ills. The journey through Galilee being ended (nothing is said about its duration), Jesus returned to Capernaum. It was apparently a Roman military post, and when He entered the place. He received a request from a centurion ^ belonging to the Roman force there. The man must have been one of those Gentiles who, by St. Luke in Acts, are called " God- fearers " (p. 89). This is at least a plausible inference from the fact that those who (according to Lk.) conveyed his petition to Jesus were Jewish elders.^ The petition was on behalf of his servant (Mt. nalg, Lk. SovXoq) who was near death ^ ; and the Jews who came to Jesus declared that the centurion was deserving of consideration, since he was attached to their nation and had built for them their synagogue. Jesus consented to go to the man's abode ; and on the way thither was met by others of his friends through whom he begged Jesus not to trouble himself further : he had regarded himself unworthy to approach Jesus or to receive Him into his house (to enter which he supposed Jesus as a Jew would regard as' polluting), but felt assured that the latter had only to express His will, and the servant's recovery would follow. He himself knew what it was both to obey and to command, and he implied that Jesus could control disease as easily as he could rule his subordinates. On this Jesus turned to the crowd that followed Him and declared that equal faith He had not found in Israel.* He then gave the messengers to understand that the request was granted, and on their return to the centurion's house the servant was found restored. This miracle ^ is of a startlingly difierent kind from those previously encountered, involving, as it does, a cure at a distance. That the cen- turion's servant knew of his master's appeal to Jesus for help, and looked forward with hope to His intervention, may be assumed ; but the difficulty is to explain how Jesus' wiU to heal was communicated directly to the sick man, so that through his mind his physical powers were at once reinforced and the recovery of health vigorously started. Consideration of the way in which one person's thoughts are conveyed to another through spoken sounds will perhaps suggest an explanation. Certain mental ' Only in Lk. is the request conveyed by others, in Mt. the centurion makes his own appeal. I ' The fact that these approached Jesus on behalf of the centurion suggests that there was as yet no open breach between them and our Lord, and so favours the assignment of the incident to this early stage in the Ministry, instead of after the appointment of the Twelve Apostles, where it is placed by Lk. (vii. 2-10). ' Mt. describes him as paralysed and in great agony. * Mt. adds here that Jesus went on to declare that many foreigners would feast with the patriarchs in the kingdom of heaven, whereas the Jews, heirs of the kingdom by race, would be excluded ; but Lk. places the utterance in a different connexion I (xiii. 28-29). I ^ Oil a similar case in Joh. iv. 40-54 see p. 485, 382 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY processes in the first individual are transformed into nerve-energy con- trolling his organs of speech, and by these are transmitted as vibrations of the ether to the ears of the second, and the impressions produced on the latter's auditory nerves connected with his brain are converted into thoughts. If it is assumed to be possible for mental impulses to be trans- mitted without speech to some medium analogous to the ether, and, conveyed by this, to enter (otherwise than through the organs of hearing) another brain, thought-transference between two persons at a distance becomes intelligible. If telepathy is a real process, and if Jesus posseased great powers of " suggestion," a volition on the part of our Lord to heal the servant might influence the latter, and set in motion forces conducive to his recovery. This is not the place to consider the evidence for telepathy, but the hypothesis of thought- and wiU-transference, if justified, will account for what is narrated. § 4. Antagonism of the Ecclesiastical Authorities Up to this point the prominent feature in the historian's narrative is the impression made by Jesus upon the mass of the people by reason of the authoritativeness with which He taught, and His exceptional faculty for relieving sufierings. But among the religious leaders causes of resentment towards Him could not for long be absent. The priesthood, prone to be guided by precedent, inevitably disapproved of those elements in His teaching which clashed with traditional views ; whilst His habit of consorting with persons whom the pious held in contempt gave scope for suspicion and dislike. And occasions speedily presented themselves when the secret feelings of hostility which had been growing found vent in open complaint and censure. The first was soon after His return to Capernaum. He took up His abode in a house (perhaps His own, p. 384), and as soon as it was heard that He was within, a great number of people assembled, so that further access to the entrance of the building was precluded. He proceeded to address them, but it was not long before He was interrupted. Four men approached the house, carrying between them a paralytic, and finding it impossible to bring him to Jesus through the doorway by reason of the crowd, they mounted by an outside stair to the flat roof, and dislodgiag part of it,i lowered the pallet, on which the man was lying, into the room where Jesus was. The determination which the paralytic and his friends showed in thus overcoming the obstacles that impeded them manifested great faith in Jesus' graciousness and power ; and it had its reward. Jesus appears to have possessed a wonderful faculty for penetrating into men's secret thoughts ^ ; and divining that what was likely to hinder the paralytic from making the efiort essential to his recovery was the ^ Mh. (ii. 4) has d.7reaT4ya" i.«t considera- tions of ihumanity must take precedence of legal obUg?itionfi. In Lk. -vi, .1 A C D. ?J1!^' 1 The ppept from whom David received the Shewbread was Ahimeleeh,, father of Abiathar (1 Sam. xxi. 1 f.). The clause " when Abiathar was high priest," is absent f^om, D, l^h (vet,) Syr, (si^.)., " /,e. .a^ well,, as. over the obligation to fastj ^ TJie. tfuj?, text hflS,//,eifoi(,..not /ielfBi-: cf<.ijft. xii. 41 (jrXetop)i The- re8din& /j-ell^av makes Jesus exonerate His followers by appealing to His, o-wn i pie'eiBinenti authority as the Sop; of mai) (th^ Messialii). THE MINISTRY OF jESUS 387 a' number of other textual authorities have the curious expression " on the second- first sabbiith " instead of " on a sabbafih " (N B L and various cursives and versions). The iiilli'plest fijiplanation of it is l!ha,t it Has arisen fi/om a dittograpli that has been mirinlferji'eted, iiA im^/SdTij) ^ixTif) bfeing read as ^K aa^pdrtfi /S'd-Tij) the superfluous ^a beiife tfakeri for nUineralH, and the ivhoie phrase being understood to mean ei) (rap^a.Ti^ Sevrepoirpiirifi.^ In ift. vi'.tihe Be^an ihanuscript transfers v. 5 to after V. 10 and substitutes after v. 4 the narrative of the man working on the Sabbath, which is r^rodubed' oh' pi 207'. The coilduct of Jesus in excusing His followers for breaking the Sabbath gave to the religious authorities such ofience, that on a following Sabbath ^k. vi. 6) they watched Him narrowly. He had entered, as was His wont, the synagogue (the locality is not stated in ML, but it was presum- dhly Capernaum) ;. and amongst the people assembled in it, there chanced to be a maai with a withered hand. The Scribes and Pharisees (Lk. vi. 7), from previous experience, did not doubt Jesus' power to heal the man's infirmity ; the question they sought to solve was whether He would do S6 on tne Sabbath, and' by causing the afflicted' person to exert himself, would give them a handle for accusing Him of occasioning the Sabbath to be broken: The Sanhedrin had authority to punish infractions of the Mosaic Law (p. 100)'; and if Jesus should do anything in violation of the Law, He would be liable to be charged before •that body. Jesus discerned theii' intentions {Lk. vi. 8), and did not shrink from the issue. He bade the man stand forth in full view of the whole assembly, and tten challenged His would-be accusers' to say whether it was lawful on the Sabbath to do good or tO'do ill, to save life or to kill. To the question so put they would have had no difficulty in returning an answer : their own principles ! allowed the Sabbath rest to be disturbed if life were in danger. ^ And they might have contended that they were in no way false to those principles, if j in the case before them, they demurred to the cure which they perceived Him to be contemplating, for a withered hand (they could have argued) did not imperil life, and it was better that the man's rehef should be postponed for a day (cf. Lk. xiii. 14) than that the Sabbath should be profaned. But a consciousness of their own malice and the contrast to I it presented by His gracious purpose kept them silent. And then Jesus hade the man stretch forth his helpless hand ; and faith in Him Who gave ' the command enabling him to do what had been previously impossible, J he stretched it forth and it was restored. If the description of the man's hand (the whole arm being perhaps meant) as " withered," with the , bones and muscles atrophied, is accurate, an emotional impulse was not j calculated to restore it to normal conditions instantaneously ; so that , unless there is some exaggeration, the cure was a very remarkable one. a Lk: re60j?ds two othe* instances of cures effected by Jesus on the Sabbath, with #congequeht iiid^gnation among certain who witnessed them. These instances are |,, plao,e|d by the EvangeUst in the Travel-section of his Gospel (p. 198) ; but they may .J- really have occurred in GaUIee. Of the one occasion (xiii. 10-17) the scene was a Byfta^ogiJe, andth'e pefeori 'healed wks a Woman suffering from curvature of the spine ; J I'BurMtt, ffospe! History,' p. 81, riote. ^ " Mt. (xii. 11) represents Jesus as telling them that none would hesitate on the Sabbath to save a sheep that had fallen into a pit. 388 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and exception was taken to His action by the president of the synagogue. Of the other (xiv. 1-6) the scene was the house of a Pharisee where Jesus was a guest ; the sufferer relieved was a dropsical man ; and those that eyed His action malevolently were Scribes and Pharisees who were present. In both cases Jesus defended His action by the practice of His adversaries, who were accustomed on the Sabbath to relieve the wants of their cattle or to deliver them from situations of peril. * The conduct of Jesus in healing on the Sabbath infuriated the Pharisees, and they determined to compass His death. The Sanhedrin, however, had no power to inflict a capital sentence (p. 100) ; and so it was not enough to bring against Him a charge of breaking the Law, for the Eoman authorities, by whom questions of life and death were decided, might not consider such a charge, even if proved, deserving of the extreme penalty. Accordingly the Pharisees to accompUsh their end consulted with the Herodians.2 These were partisans of the ruhng dynasty in Gahlee, and being interested in worldly pohtics rather than in reUgious' questions, were not the Pharisees' natural allies. But in the present instance they were likely to co-operate with them, since they would regard with suspicion any religious reformer who might create an agitation among the populace and so endanger the security of Herod, who would be held responsible by the Romans in the event of disorder. Antipas had imprisoned John the Baptist through fear of his influence with the people (p. 370) ; and a similar motive might induce him to seize Jesus and possibly to destroy Him. The occurrence in the synagogue marked a crisis in the career of our Lord. At the outset of His ministry He sought to discharge His mission within the organization of the Jewish rehgious system. But the heads of that system had become openly antagonistic to Him, and He could not again with any safety place Himself in His enemies' power. Accordingly, , henceforward He kept away from the synagogue, never entering another, at least in Galilee, save on one occasion, when He visited His own town of Nazareth {Mk. vi. 1, 2). He withdrew once more to the seashore, where He was attended by large crowds. His fame by this time had spread far. From Judaea and even Idumsea (whither Jev^ish influence had extended, p. 37), in the south ; from the country to the east of Jordan ; and from the neighbourhood of the Phoenician towns. Tyre and Sidon, in the north, people hearing of what He did, are represented as flocking to see Him, just as they had collected around John the Baptist. But in the case of Jesus the crowds must have included numbers of afflicted persons who desired to obtain the benefit of His healing power. It was believed that even to touch Him brought relief to sickness and infirmity (cf. v. 28, vi. 56) ; so that they pressed upon Him and hampered the dehvery of His Message. Consequently, in order that He might give instruction without impediment, He asked for a small boat to be placed at His disposal, from which He could speak at the water's edge. He did not, however, refuse to relieve sufiering ; but continued to heal both physical and mental ' In Lk. xiv. 5 i;16s fj (3o0s has the support of A B N, Lat. vet. (some codd.) and Eg. sah., 6tios i) /3oCs that of K L, Lat. vet. (some codd.), Syr. sin., and Eg. boh. ' Mention of these is absent from Mt. (xii. 14) and Lk. (vi. 11). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 389 diseases. And as on previous occasions (i. 24, 34), the demoniacs who addressed Him as the Son of God (cf. Lie. iv. 41), thereby implying that He was the Messiah, were charged not to make Him known. The time for His self-disclosure had not yet arrived. * *^ § 5. The Nucleus of a New Ecclesia The schemes of the Pharisees after the last incident in the synagogue showed clearly that henceforward the ecclesiastical leaders would no longer tolerate Jesus. If He had ever hoped to bring them to share His own spiritual convictions, or to enlist their co-operation in calling the nation to repentance. He could do so no more. He accordingly retired from the sea to the hilly country in the vicinity of the north-west shore of the Lake. There (according to Lk. vi. 12) He spent the night in prayer ; and in the morning He selected Twelve (the figure clearly having relation to the number of the tribes of Israel, cf. Mt. xix. 28 = Lh. xxii. 30) to he His constant companions, whom He might train, and eventually send forth in various directions to impart His Message and to heal disease. The existing age was believed to be largely under the domination of Satan and his demons ; but the dawn of a new age was on the point of breaking, and to the Spirit of God working in Jesus the predominance of the spirit of evil was already giving way (cf. Mt. xii. 28 = Lk. xi. 20). But whilst the Twelve were meant to be His helpers in announcing the nearness of God's Kingdom and its conditions, and in releasing men from the power of Satan, they also constituted the nucleus of a new society, a Spiritual Israel within which were to be incorporated all who accepted His teaching. The Twelve whom our Lord chose to be His emissaries and delegates (St. Luke says that He called them Apostles) ^ are variously named in the different lists enumerating them, and it is a little doubtful whether the same twelve individuals are meant ; but the circumstance that so many Jews had double names (p. 384) renders it probable that some, if not all, of the variations in lists are due to the fact that the several writers use oiJy one, but not the same, element in such compound names. The order in which the names are arranged diiiers in the several lists, which are as follows : — Mh. Mt. Lk. Acts. 1. Simon Peter 1. Simon Peter 1. Simon Peter 1. Peter 2. James, son of 2. Andrew 2. Andrew 2. James Zebedee 3. John 3. James, son of Zebedee 3. James 3. John 4. Andrew 4. John 4. John 4. Andrew 6. Philip 5. PhiUp 5. Phihp 5. Phihp " ' Mt. (xii. 18-21) quotes, in connection with His desire to avoid notorietv, 2 Is. xHi. 1^. ' 1 ' ^ 'In Mk. iii. 14 oBs khI dToa-rdXavs (ivd/iaa-ev has the support of N B C and the Eg. »nd Ethiopio versions. Jesus Himself could be regarded as the Apostle of God (Heb.. vi. 1), mo NEW TESTAMENT HJSTGiRY Mh. Ml. Lk. Acts. . 6. Bartholomew 6. Bartholomew 6. Bartholomew C. Thomas 7. Levi or Iviatthew 7. Thomas 7. Matthew 7. feartholomew 8. Thomas 8. Matthew 8. Thomas 8. Matthew 9. Jamea, son of 9. James, son of 9. James, son of P. James, sow of Alphffius AlphsBus Alphaeus Alphseus 10. ThaddsEus JO. Thaddasus 10. Simon the Zealot 10. Simon the Zealot 11. Simon the Zealot 11. Simon the Zealot 1 1 . Judas, son of 11. Judas, son of James J?.m68 12. Judas Isoariot 12. Judas Iscariot 12. Judas Iscariot 12 [.Judas lacariot] The appellation Bartholomew is a patronymic (son of Talipai), ap,4 possibly the Apostle's real name was Natlianael (JoJi- i. 45), wIlo was ^ friend of Philip, with whoiji in the Synpptic lists Bartholomew is associated. In tjie enumeration of Mk. and Mt., Thaddceus i? repl^ce.i}. i;a the Bszs,^ codex and some Old Latin manuscripts by fjebbceus ; whilst ip the t\yo Ij^ts of St. Luke his place is taken by JudqiS, son of ffames ^ ; and it seems prpbable that the same individual is meant. The name Peter (the jGrep^ rendering of the Aramaic Cephas, Joh. i. 42, 1 Cor. xv. 5) seems tp haye been given to Simon by Jesus Himself, Who also called the tjyo sons of Zebedee Boanerges, a title which is interpreted to mean " Thupderers," ^ presumably because of a certain vehemence of character (cf. Mk. ix. 38, Lk. ix. 54). Thomas and its Greek equivalent Didymus (Joh. xi. 16) ■jvas a nickname, " Twin " : according to the Ada ThomcB his real nai]ae was Judas. James, the son of Alphasus, was known as " the Little," or " the Younger " (6 fiixgog), if he can be identified with the Jamfis of Mk. XV. 40. The epithet the Cananman given to Simon in Mk. and M^' is equivalent to the epithet 6 Ztj^corilg in Lk. The name Iscariot ('lax/fQuM), applied to the last of the Twelve, is generally taken to be a tr£i.nsht"Tatioii of the Hebrew Ish Keriyyoth,^ " man of Kerioth " (perhaps Kerioth-Hezron in Judah {Josh. xv. 25), or Kerioth on the east of the Dead Sea, the mpdern Kureiyat). The Apostle in question would then perhaps be the oii}y non-Galilaean among the Twelve. It was probably after the appointment of the Twelve that JeglJS delivered the discourse which is generally, but seemingly erroneously, called the Sermon on the Mount. The name is derived from Mt. v. 1, but the address wliich follows in Mt. v., vi., vii., is lacking in iinity 98 regards its contents ; and comparison with Lk., where in vi. 20-49 there is a discourse much briefer in extent, but beginning and ending similarly, seems to show that the Sermon in Mt. is drawn from various sources. All that Mt. and Lk. have together may be presumed to come froiji Q, whilst the considerable sections which are peculiar to Mt. probably have some other origin. Not all the material assignable to Q occurs in Lh. vi. 20-49, some parts being found elsewhere in the Third Gospel, But ttie Lucan section just mentioned exhibits a unity of tenor which, cpmbinpd ' It has been conjectured that LebLcsus is meant to represent Levi (as djstjnqtfrom Matthew), though this is unhkely. ' The title seems to be a transliteration of the Heb. bene rogez, the last term being used in connexion with thunder in Job xxxvii. 2. ^ Mt. converts the name into an adjective — 6 'Iir/capniTTjs. THE MINISTRY OF JEStJS 391 with a formal beginning and end, renders it likely that it really represents a single discourse. And if so, the occasion to which it is ascribed by Lk. is much more plausible than that to which it is attributed by Mt. By both it is described as addressed by Jesus to His disciples, but whereas Mt. has previously related nothing about the disciples except the call of Peter, Andrew, and the two sons of Zebedee, Lk. has recorded the selection of the Twelve Apostles from among other followers ; and the choice of them would afiord an appropriate opportunity for an exposition of the 4characteristics which were to mark the adherents, and especially the emissaries, of Jesus, the principles which were to guide their conduct, and the recompense which they might look for. The conclusion that the occasion of the Sermon is more faithfully represented in Lk. than in Mt. makes the designation of it as the Sermon on the Mount unsuitable, since St. Luke records that it was delivered on a level place after Jesus had descended from the mountain. Mt., who in his additions has aimed at throwing into rehef the difference between the teaching of Jesus and that of Moses, has intentionally brought the two into comparison by representing that the Law of the Christian community, like the Law of the Jews, was deUvered on a mountain. ^ The substance of the Sermon, so far as can be judged, consisted of four divisions, (a) Pour Beatitudes pronounced upon certain classes and conditions of people — the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the unpopular — who were such for the sake of Jesus and the principles which He taught ^ ; (6) Injunctions to display submissiveness under wrong, and to practise unlimited charity both in action and judgment, and towards enemies no less than friends ; (c) Cautions against self-deception in condemning others ; (d) A warning that professions would be tested by conduct ; (e) Descriptions of the happy and unhappy consequences of obedience and disobedience. In Lh. to the f out Beatitudes there are attached four Woes pronounced upon the rich) the full, the gay, and the popular, to which nothing corresponds in Mt. Mt. quaJifiea the first and second Beatitudes, representing them as applying to the poor in spirit, and to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness ' ; and he adds four others, relating to the meek, the merciful, the pure-hearted, and the peace- tnakerS. He further expands the Sermon (as it is contained in Lk.) by incorporating with it (1) a series of contrasts between the legislation and rules of conduct prescribed in earlier times, which prohibited murder, adultery, and perjury, but allowed retalia- tion and resentment against enemies, and the corresponding precepts of Jesus, forbid- ding even anger, lustful looks, oaths, and resistance to evil, and enjoining love for ftnemies ; (2) a series of passages, contained also in Lk. xi., xii. and other places, inotiloating (a) trust in God's providential care, (b) confident prayer to Him ; (c) need of undivided service ; {d) expediency of repairing wrongs to fellow-men before ^ Cf. Loisy, Les Evangiles Synoptiques, i. pp. 539, 540. ' Mt. has " for righteousness' sake ... for my sake " ; Lh. " for the Son of man's sike." The fovlrth beatitude seems to have been expanded to nlake it reflect inOfS closely the persecutions sustained, after Jesus' death, by His followers at the hands of the Jews. ' That Lk.'s version here is nearer than Mt.'s to the actual words of our Lord is probable from a comparison of Mlc. x. 11-12 with Mt. xix. 9 (where the latter qualifies hia source). 392 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Batiafaction is exacted by the Divine Judge. The injunctions relating to the practice of prayer include the model form of supplication known as the Lord's Prayer. This (which in Lk. xi. 1 is represented as furnished in answer to a request made to Jesus by His disciples that He would teach them to pray) appears in a shorter and a longer form in Lk. and Ml. respectively, the former lacking the third petition and the second half of the sixth, aa well as having other differences. In regard to it, only two expres- sions call for note here : (o) The phrase Tbv d/yrov . . . rbv einoi(nov is best explained on the supposition that ii finoOffa, strictly " the coming day," had become synony- mous with " the day " (of. Prov. xxvii. 1, LXX), so that the words in question mean "the bread of the day" (cf. Lat. vet. panem quotidianum) ; (4) the combination pucrai i]u,ds OTri tov TTovrfpou is more natural if the genitive comes from o trovqpis (of. Mt. xiii. 19) rather than from tA irorqp6v (Lk. vi. 45) : cf . 2 Th. iii. 1, Rom. xv. 31 and contrast 1 Cor. i. 10. The implication in the fifth petition that God's forgiveness is dependent upon a forgiving spirit shown by the petitioner towards his fellows is made explicit in Mt. vi. 14r-15 (cf . Mk, xi. 25, Ecclus. xxviii. 2) ; and the consequence of failure on the part of men to forgive one another is enforced in Mt. xviii. 21-35 by the parable of the Unforgiving Debtor. Nevertheless forgiveness is to be conditional upon acknowledgment of the offence ; and if, after every means of convincing the offender of the wrong done has been exhausted, he remains obdurate, relations with him are to be broken off {Mt. xviii. 15-17, see p. 424). The duty and potency of importunate prayer are emphasized by two parables peculiar to Lk. : (a) the Friend at Midnight (xi. 5-8) ; (6) the Widow and the Unrighteous .Judge (xviii. 1-8). The fact (illustrated in them) that importunity prevails even where right motives are inoperative, leads to the conclusion that it cannot fail to prevail vnth God Who is both righteous and gracious. After the delivery of the Sermon Jesus seems to have returned to Capernaum, for this is probably the scene of the next incident related by St. Mark. In spite of the animosity of the Scribes and Pharisees towards Him, the popular interest which He caused did not diminish. As soon as it was known where He was,'^ the crowd intruded upon Him and His disciples even at meal times. A report of His proceedings, and especially (it may be supposed) of His disregard of the rules laid down by the Scribes for the observance of the Sabbath, and the ofience thereby given to that influential class, had reached His relatives ^ at Nazareth, and had caused them much distress. In His youth and early manhood He had apparently shown no disposition to subvert traditional standards, and the only explana- tion of His conduct now was that He was beside Himself with morbid self-exaltation ; so they left home with the intention of placing some restraint upon Him. But if His relatives were only animated by a wish to protect Him against Himself, there were others. Scribes from Jerusalenij who were actuated by suspicion and prejudice, and prepared to put the worst construction upon the exercise, by One Whose teaching they disliked, of powers which they could not deny. They appear to have witnessed a cure by Him of a demoniac. By St. Mark no account is furnished of the occasion which the subsequent narrative imphes, but both Mt. (xii. 9 f.), and Lk. (xi. 14 f .), drawing upon Q, relate that there was brought to Jesus a man who was dumb,^ his infirmity being attributed, like so many others, to the influence of a demon. When Jesus enabled the man to regain his ^ In Mk. iU. 20 Ipxerai, els oXkov may mean that He went home (see p. 384). " In Mk. iii. 21 the meaning of oi ira/j' airou is explained in v. 31 ; the Vulg. has sui. ' Mt. xii. 22 adds that the man was blind also. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 393 lost capacity for speech, ^ the Scribes, since His success in efiecting a cure was indisputable, accounted for it, in their malice, by the presence in Him of a demon, Beelzebul, contending that with the authority of Satan, the ruler of the demons (p. 22), He had driven out the subordinate demon that had caused the man's dumbness. Jesus detected their unuttered thoughts (cf. Mk. ii. 8), and replied that variance between Satan and one of his subject spirits was as suicidal as variance between members of a kingdom or a household. What the Scribes and others had witnessed could only mean that Satan himself had been mastered by One Who was stronger than he ; and that Jesus, in recovering the dumb man from the power of the demon, had despoiled Satan of what he had held in possession. In ascribing a work of beneficent, not malign, character to Satanic agency they were incurring the guilt of blaspheming the Divine Spirit through which Jesus cast out the spirits of evil {Mt. xii. 28, cf. Lk. xi. 20) ; and this sin was less pardonable than any other.^ The word Beelzebul is elsewhere unknown as the name of a demon. It may mean either " Lord of the lofty abode " (of. 3/s. Ixiii. 15, Heb.)or " Lord of dung " (a con- temptuous substitution). The Syr. and Vulg. have Beelzebub (" Lord of flies "), the name of the god of Ekron mentioned in 2 Kg. i. 6. In Mt. xii. 27, 28 and Lk. xi. 19, 20 Jesus cites as a parallel to His own action the exorcism of demons practised amongst the Jews, which they would not allow to be due to Satanic agency. Lk. attaches to this context two sayings of Jesus derived from Q: (1) a warning that in a conflict between good and evil neutraUty is equivalent to hostihty towards the good ; (2) another warning (having in view the recent cure of the demoniac) that an evil spirit, when expelled from a man, returns reinforced, if the man meanwhile has not come under the control of a good spirit. Mt. places the first saying here, but the second in a different connexion. Meanwhile there had arrived ^ from Nazareth His relatives, including His Mother * and His " brethren," who had left their home in the hope that by their interference they might prevent Him from pursuing His present course of conduct. When they came, He was no longer engaged in Eontroversy, but in a house surrounded by a multitude of persons attentively Ustening to His teaching. The interest and sympathy mani- fested by them (Mt. xii. 49, Lk. viii. 21) caused Jesus to feel a sense of spiritual kinship between them and Himself. The crowd hindered His Mother and her companions from approaching Him, but they succeeded in, getting a message transmitted to Him, informing Him that they were outside, and wished to see Him. Jesus seems to have divined their intentions. Probably He had previously found them prone to misunder- stand and misinterpret Him, and He felt that in spite of their relationship to Him, there was in them little affinity of spirit to Himself. And so, when He received the message. He asked, " Who is my mother and my 1 In Mt. xii. 23 the multitudes ask whether Jesus can be the son of David. ' Mt. (xii. 32) seems to draw a distinction between the humanity of Jesus and the Divine Spirit within Him, an utterance against the former being pardonable, but against the latter unpardonable ; but see p. 616. Lk. (xii. 10) has this verse, which must come from Q, in a different context. ' Mk. iii. 31 resumes the narrative left unfinished in vv. 20, 21, ' Joseph was probably dead, 894 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY brethren ? " and then looking around on those who were seated neai Him, He answered His own question by saying, " Behold my mother and my brethren. Whoever doeth the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." This incident is preserved in a leas intelligible form in Mt. (xii. 46 £.) and Lie. (viii. 19) than in Mh., for the two later Go.spels omit Mk.'s statement that the relations off Jcsua started from home in order to put some check upon His movements, and the absence of this leaves the attitude of Jesus towards His Mother and brothers unex- plained. They also virtually retain Mh.'a " standing without," though by them no previous mention is made of His being in a house. An occurrence similar in tenor to the foregoing is reilated by Lk xi. 27, 28. When a womaji pronounced blessed the mother who bore Him, Jesus declared that they rather were blessed who heard the word of God and kept it. St. Mark, having thus briefly traced our Lord's ministry from iie beginning up to the point where an open breach occurred between Him and the Scribes and Pharisees, and having also shown how unsympatheticaUy He was regarded by members of His own family, proceeds at this point to exemplify the matter and manner of His instruction ; and relating how, after the occurrence just recorded, He again began to teach, seated in a boat on the Lake, takes the opportunity of describing how He taught by parables. Parables, as well as fables, were favourite means of pointing a moral among the Hebrews {Jud. ix. 7 f., 2 Sam. xii. 1-4, 2 Kg. xiv. 9, 7s. V. 1 f., Ezek. xvii. 3), so that Jesus, in employing the former, followed the precedent of other teachers. ^ Though the term parable was used to include brief aphorisms and proverbs (Prov. i. 6, Ezek. xii. 22, Mk. iii. 23, vii. 17, Lk. iv. 23), it strictly signified an extended simile, without the comparison being made explicit. Parallels were drawn from the natural world and from the ordinary proceedings of men to throw Ught upon spiritual principles ; and in them lessons,^ which in the abstract might be difficult to grasp, or might fail to arrest or retain the attention, were conveyed by concrete and realistic stories, embellished by details calculated to render them attractive, but not necessarily answering to anything in the subject which they were intended to illuminate. They thus differed from allegories, in which a number of points in the illustration correspond to an equal number of points in the matter illustrated. Some of our Lord's parables, indeed, are not easily distinguishable from allegories; but in general to press the parallelism through all the details is to distort the true significance of the narratives, and leads to mistaken inferences. It was the Kingdom of God which many of our Lord's parables were designed to explain. The similitudes which He employed were meant to impress upon men's minds the supreme importance of the Kingdom, the suddenness of its advent, and the necessity of being ready for it. But though it is certain that Jesus made parables a vehicle for instructing the people at large, it is remarkable that of the few preserved in the Second Gospel some at least appear from their purport to be really intended for His Apostles rather than for the multitude, and to be calculated to prepare 1 Mt. (xiii. 35) in connexion with Jesus' use of parables quotes Ps. Ixxviii. 2 (attri- buted to " the prophet," probably David being meant). " In Mk. xui. 28 xapa/SoXi) virtually has the meaning of " lesson." THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 393 them for experiences awaiting them in their proclamation of the Kingdom, and to .encourage them to sustained efiort in their work. The first parable narrated is that of the Sower. Though it is not ^?preesly said, like those that follow it, to relate to the Kingdom, it upmisibakably does so, since the Seed sown is " the Word,"i i.e. the message concerning the Kingdom {Mt. xiii. 19), the Sower beiag Jesus Himself, fix a^jyone engaged in the same mission. Under the figure of a husbandman .Wjying his land, whose seed is sometimes thrown accidentally ibeyond the limits of the field on to the road, where it is devoured by birds, or falls 'Sphere the rock conies near the surface and the soil is quickly baked by the sun (said to be a characteristic of the corn-lands of Galilee), or gets oast limong patches of thorns which choke it, but at other times is scattered jipon fertile soil, there is set forth both the failures and the successes of those syho were, or would be, engaged in dispersing among men the announcement of the coming of God's Kingdom. The various places •where the seed falls correspond to human characters, some of which produce &o good result, either because the impression made by the Message is (djestroyed at once by evil influences,* or becomes evanescent in conse- quefice of tribulation, or is impaired through the competition of other interests, whilst others' yield the fruit of a good life, meet for inclusion iu the Diyijje Kingdom. The explanation of both this and further parables Jesus Tvas begged by His disciples to communicate to them ; and He accordingly interpreted it in detail. Parables lyere in general designed as a vehicle for popular instruction {Mk. iv. 2, 33) ; and iij order to serve as such their import was bound to be perspicuous and .easily apprehended. There was always, however, the possibihty of their true signifi- oanpe being fnis^ec^ by some of the hearers ; and even the chosen Twelve were not invariably quick or sure in comprehending their Lord's meaning. And inasmuch as these were to aid Him in His teaching, it was important to explain fuUy to them the lessons which the parables were intended to convey it anything in them was obscure. ■ The purport of the parable of the Sower is expressly said to have been expounded to the Twelve at their own petition,' though Jesus expressed His surprise ftt theii finding it difficult to understand ; and the same request is represented as put and fulfilled in the case of another, reported by Mt. alone (but see p. 396) ; whilst Mk. iv. 34 suggests that the like was done in other instances. But it is strange that the Second Evangelist should also (iv. 11 f.) represent Jesus as avowing that He was ready to import the secret of the Kingdom {i.e. the laws conditioning participation in it) plainly to the Apostles, but purposely spoke to the multitude (described as oi ffu) in parables which conveyed the truth only indirectly, in order that (in the words of is. vi. 9, 10) it might be concealed from them, to the end that they might not turn ftnd bp for^vep. Such an intention it is impossible to attribute to our Lord ; the potion must represent the belief entertained by St. Paul and adopted here by St. Mark, that the rejection of Jesus by the mass of the Jews was Divinely ordained (Rom. xi. 7, 9,), anil that the enigmatic form in which His teaching was couched served, in God's pufpose^, to bring about the result.* "■ In the course of the interpretation the seed becomes identified with the hearers qf the Word whose characters result from the seed, according to the soil receiving it. ' Mt. and Lk. identify the birds with the devil and his agents. " In Mk. iv. 13 Jesus' words presuppose a question from the disciples like that in Lk. viii. 9 ; their question in Mk. iv. 10 is more clearly expressed in Mt. xiii. 10. ' Mt. (xiii. 13) for Mk.'s Ua p^ivovTei ^Xiirwaiv, ktK. (followed by Lk. viii. 10) substitutes SKdrovres oi SKiirovan' kt\., and represents Is. vi. 9, 10 as thereby WflUed. 396 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Jesus proceeded to enjoin the Apostles, in figurative terms, not to keep to themselves, but to transmit to others, any knowledge which they received from Him : a lamp was not meant to be put under a corn-measure or under a bench (or couch), but in a lampstand, where it could shed its light (cf. Lk. viii. 16, xi. 33). "^ And He went on to affirm that recompense and retribution awaited men's treatment of His message ; and that whilst effort to retain truth imparted would be rewarded by the communication of further truth, indifference would be penalized by the loss of what was already acquired. The parable of the Sower, according to St. Mark, was followed by another parable, the Seed growing secretly (found only in the Second Gospel). In it the interval elapsing between the announcement to mankind of the message about the Kingdom and the actual realization of the latter was compared to the period of inaction between sowing and harvest. Like the seed germinating in the ground, so the message was working secretly in men's hearts ; but just as the ripening of the grain was awaited by the husbandman before he put in the sickle, so God was awaiting the maturity of the spiritual conditions which He desired before intervening to preserve and to destroy. From such a comparison those who were entrusted with the diffusion of the message among men might learn not to lose heart because the consummation of their hopes was delayed. To this parable was appended a third, the Mustard Seed, in which the Kingdom was likened to a seed of the mustard-plant, of which, though the smallest of all seeds, the upgrowth exceeded in size all herbs. ^ This is sometimes thought to imply that the Kingdom would be consummated by a process of development, or to depict it as an expanding institution (the Church). But such explanations are contrary to the general drift of Jesus' teaching, at least in Mk., for this represents the realization of the Kingdom as abrupt and sudden, and the parable is probably meant to encourage the disciples with the prospect of seeing momentous results in the future, though the immediate outlook v/as so unpromising. Both Mt. and Lh., drawing upon Q, place in succession to the last mentioned parable another, wherein the Kingdom is compared to leaven mixed in three pecks (adja = Heb. Seim, Gen. xviii. 6) of dough, the whole of which it causes to ferment, the truth illustrated being the power of the unseen forces that were secretly at work to bring about the Divine ends. With the parables of the Sower, the Mustard Seed and the Leaven Mt. combines four others : (1) the Wheat and the Tares,' (2) the Hidden Treasure, (3) the Pearl * Mt. V. 14^16 gives to the figure of the lamp » rather different significance by representing Jesus as commanding those addressed to let the light of their good works shine forth that men might glorify God. In Lie. xi. 33 kXiciJ is replaced by Kpnri (" cellar "). " The Siriapis arvensis (field mustard) is said togrow in Palestine under favourable conditions to a height of 10 or 12 feet (Hastings, D.B. iii. p. 463). The description in Mk. iv. 326 is conventional : of. Ezek. xvii. 23, Dan. iv. 12. ' Thought to be not a vetch but the Bearded Darnel (Lolium temulemtum), a plant as tall as wheat or barley and at an early stage resembling them. The interpretation of this parable, at least in its present; form, probably does not proceed from our Lord, THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 397 of great price, (4) the Drag net. The first and fourth throw light on the mixed char- acter of the aggregate of people drawn together by the proclamation of the Kingdom, of whom the good and the bad would only be separated at the end of the age ; whilst the second and the third illustrate the surpassing value of the Kingdom, in comparison with which all else is worthless. In connexion with Jesus' use of parables the First Evangelist quotes Pa. Ixxviii. 2. § 6. Unfriendliness on the other side of the Lake At the conclusion of the section in Mk. which furnishes examples of Jesus' parabolic teaching, the Evangelist resumes his narrative of events interrupted at iv. 2. Our Lord, after He had finished His instruction of the multitude, remained in the boat, and bade His disciples cross to the other side of the Lake. There He viras less known, so that for a brief whUe He hoped to have respite from the numbers that thronged Him ; whilst in view of what is said in Mk. v. 19 He may have contemplated an attempt to preach on the eastern shore. The disciples at once did as He wished, and leaving the crowd behind, but being accompanied by some enthusiastic followers in other boats, they started. In the course of the passage there sprang up one of the violent squalls to which this low-lying sheet of water is subject. The waves that were raised promised to swamp the boat, so that the disciples grew seriously alarmed for their safety. Jesus was asleep on the helmsman's cushion in the stern, and was awakened by them with the words, " Teacher, carest thou not that we perish ? " He at once arose, and according to the Evangelist's narrative, He rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, " Hush, be still." The wind, thereupon, fell, and the storm was succeeded by a profound calm. Then Jesus turned to the disciples and said, " Why are ye timid ? How is it that ye have not faith ? ^ The experience fiUed them with awe, and they began to wonder, in the light of it, Who their Master could be. The narrative is obviously meant to describe a miracle, for though the wind might drop suddenly, the swell resulting from it would not naturally subside with the same rapidity. But whether Jesus really controlled the elements as here related, or whether the miracle has been imported into the story, is a question to which the answer depends upon the pre- suppositions with which the account is approached. If it is assumed that Jesus had at His disposal ijhe resources of omnipotence which He drew upon, or dispensed with, at pleasure, acting as God and man by turns, the narrative is credible as it stands. But on the assumption that His miracles in general were accomplished through faculties of Divine origin inherent in His humanity and occurring, though in a much smaller degree, in other individuals, parallels to such control over natural forces as is here related are more difficult to find than parallels (admitted by medical science) to His miracles of healing. And although the future may Who at this stage of His ministry could scarcely have spoken of Himself as the Son of man (cf. p. 383) or of His Angels and His Kingdom {Mt. xiii. 41). The authenticity of the explanation of the parable of the Drag net is also open to suspicion in consequence of its resemblance to that of the Tares : cf . vv. 49, 50 (which suit ill the figure of " fish ") with vv. 41, 42, ' In Mt. the reproof is uttered before the storm is calmed. 398. NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY enlarge our knowled'ge of the range of power to which human' person-- alities (participating as they do in varying measure in the Spirit; of God)' can attain, yet until further evidence is forthcoming for the exercise by the human will of control over the elements, we are left to conclude that the present narrative has been shaped under the influence of later religions- reflection. If this conclusion is justified, it may be supposed that Jesus, in reality, encouraged His terrified disciples to' have faith in ©od's pro- tecting providence, and that His own tranquil confidence in His Father proved well founded through the speedy lulling of the tempest ; but that the incident has been enhanced in consequence of presumptions as to what was appropriate for the Son of God in such an emergency (cf. Ps. Ixv. 7, Ixxxix. 9, civ. 1, cvii. 29). This narrative is the first of a series of four reports of miracles related- by St. Mark consecutively. The second is connected with the eastern shore of the Lake. This is variously described as the country of the G«rasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes, in Mk., Mt. and Lk.^ respectivdy. The best-known places bearing the names Gerasa and Gadara are too' far away to be meant (the first being in Gilead, 30 miles from the Lake, and the second 5 or 6 miles from it). But there is a modern village called Khersa situated on the shore, with a steep precipice in its neighbourhood, of which Gerasa or Gergesa may have been the ancient name. As Jesufe landed here, He was met by a madman,^ whose mania was so violent that people had been unable to provide fetters sufficiently strong to control him ; and naked and bleeding from self-inflicted gashes he used to haunt the tombs in the vicinity of the place, thereby confirming the popular idea that he was a victim of the demons supposed to frequent such localities. When the poor wretch saw Jesus approach, he ran towards Him ;■ but cowed by the command which Jesus addressed to the unclean spirit tcf come forth, he fell dbwn prostrate, with a loud petition that He, Son of the Most High God, would not torment him. 3Ik. describes the demdniap as calling Jesus by His personal name ; but this is difficult to understand) unless the narrative is much compressed and Jesus had been there long enough for His name to have reached the man's ears. The address,' " Thou Son of the Most High God " is more intelligible, even if the man were a heathen, for the Divine appellation " God Most High " {El Elyoiij was not confined to the Jews (Ps. xviii. 13, Ecolus. vii. 15), but was innse among pagans ^ ; and the madman in his awe would not unnatuialljr salute Jesus by the highest titlfe he could think of. Jesus, in answer, asked his name, the commonplace question being perhaps- designed to help him (accustomed as he was to be mocked and jeered at) to recover,' at least momentarily, his self-possession. The man, with a touch of 1 There is, however, strong support for Gerasenes in Lk. viii. 26 (B D, etc.), and in V. 37, where C has the same reading. ' Mt. viu. 28, who omits the account of the demoniac at Capernaum {Mh. i. 23-28)/ mentions two demoniacs on this occasion, who rendered the road dangerous^ ' It wasltnownat least to the Phoenicians, in whose theogony there was an 'EAiof' KaXoiS/iei/os "Ti/ziffTos (Driver, Gen. p. 165). In the Old Testament it is put into 'the mouth of Melchizedek, Balaaffli, and the liing of Babylon. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 599 sardonic humour suggestive of. a. semi-lucid interval, replied " Legion " (asthoughi he would say; " I feel as if I were possessed by 5,000 devils ").^ The tranquillizing influence which Jesus was beginning to exert over him^ was. manifest by his begging that Jesus would not send the demons out of the country,^ but that they might be allowed to enter a vast herd of swine feeding on the cliffs. Wandering spirits (it was assumed) needed a- tenement, and could dWell in the bodies of animals as well as in those of human beings. Jesus consented to the petition, and though the Evangelist doubtless assumes that the demoniac's madness was now transferred to the swine, probably in reality the man, believing himself delivered from his tjrrants, who had passed into the swine, strove with shouts and violent gestures to drive the latter as far from him as possible ; and thereby so frightened them that they plunged madly down the steep into the water and were drowned. The relief arising from the reflection that the evil spixits had left him for ever was calculated to aid the maniac's cure, so tiab he' became calm and allowed himself to be clothed. Those who had charge of the herd (presumably an aggregate of smaller herds belonging to different owners)) when they saw the occurrence, hurried away and reported it in the town and outlying farms, a large crowd gathering in consequence, to ascertain the circumstances. They found the man, with his senses restored, seated quietly in the comj)any of Jesus ; and the proof of I the lattep's- power, affordedboth by the cure of the demoniac and by the destruction of the swine; filled them with a sense of fear. But the relief rendered to their fellbw-man moved them less than the loss of their property, andi they entreated Jesus to withdraw from them. He did not hesitate to leawe those who did not want Him ; and He entered a boat to return. The manwho had been healed begged that he might accompany his Dfeliverer ; but Jesus would not permit it, and since He Himself was apt allowed to stay in. the district, directed him, instead, to go home and tojmake known to his friends the mercy which God; had shown him. Our Lord's injunction possibly had in view the prospect of a second and more successful visit to the east of the lake, for which the tidings of what had happened might prepare the way (cf. Mk. vii. 31). The man obeyed, and proceeded to proclaim throughout the district of the Ten Towns ^ (p- 7) the wonderful cure that Jesus had wrought in him. The' question, has been raised whether it was justifiable for our Lord to'inflioti on the owners of the swine the heavy loss caused by the destruc- tion of the herd. It is a precarious explanation to suppose that the owners t were Jews, who i by keeping pigs broke the Jewish law, and consequently had: no daim to consideration ; for it is by no means clear that the in- hsbitiantfe of this district were predominantly. Jews.* A preferable aolution of the difficulty is that Jesus did not foresee what would happen to the swine. There is considerable evidence that Jesus' knowledge. ' Cf. Gouldj St: Mk. p. 90. ' ■ 2/f . represents ■that they asked not to be sent into the abyss (jprobably meaning the sea, cf. Job xxviii. 14, LXX). ' 'Dk. has "throughout the whole orty " (cf. p. 138). * Josephus describes themas a mixture tif Jews and'Syrians {B.J. iii. 3, 5). 400 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY during His earthly life, was not all-embracing {Mk. v. 31, vi. 38) ; and He possibly thought that in unclean beasts unclean spirits would find a congenial home, without considering such a contingency as the com- munication to the herd, through the man's behaviour, of panic terror. The boat in which Jesus re-embarked crossed to the western shore, seemingly putting in at Capernaum.^ There a multitude at once flocked to Him, and He apparently resumed His teaching by the sea. Knowledge of His ability to cure diseases was by this time widespread ; so that it is not surprising that one of the presidents of the local synagogues (p. 95), Jair (cf. Num. xxxii. 41), or Jairus, by name, whose only daughter, a girl of 12 {Lk. viii. 42), was at the point of death, came to Him, beseeching Him to lay His hands upon her, that she might recover. Touch was sometimes employed by our Lord in performing works of healing (see note, p. 380) ; so that His habit was perhaps commonly known. Jesus immediately accompanied His petitioner, and was followed by a large crowd that pressed close to Him in eagerness to see another marvel. Among those who had also heard of the cures efiected by Him was a woman who had sufiered from heemorrhage for twelve years, and who, in spite of expensive treatment by physicians, had not regained her health. She now came behind Him amid the crush, in the confident hope that she would be healed if she could but touch one of the tassels hanging from His outer garment.^ She succeeded in doing so, and her faith brought about her relief. Possibly the cessation of the haemorrhage was gradual, but it began from the moment that she touched the Lord's raiment. But what she did was not undetected by Jesus, Whose extraordinary psychical sensitiveness (it would seem) caused Him to discern near Him an intense desire for His help, which the woman probably shrank from seeking openly because her malady rendered her ritually unclean {Lev. xv. 25 f.). Turning to the crowd. He asked who touched Him, some of the disciples being surprised at His question under such circumstances. As He glanced about Him, the woman, filled with apprehension, came and confessed the truth ; whereupon Jesus at once calmed her fears, and declaring that her faith had healed her (cf. Mk. x. 52, Lk. xvii. 19), bade her go in peace and be fully restored.' Meanwhile messengers had come from the house of the president of the synagogue, announcing that his daughter was dead, so that there was no need to trouble the Teacher further. Jesus overheard the message, and bade the father take courage and have faith. When the house was reached. He allowed none to enter except Peter, James and John. Then going in with them He found the professional mourners * already gathered. He ordered them to cease their wailing, for the maid was not dead but ' Cf. Mt. ix. 1. The First Evangelist inserts a number of incidents between the occurrence just related and the next which by MR. are placed earlier. ' These, made of white wool, fastened with a cord of blue, every Jew was required by the Law to attach to the four corners of his garment {Num. xv. 38 f.). ' Eusebius H.E. vii. 18 represents that the woman was a Gentile and belonged to Csesarea Philippi, and tradition names her Bemice. * References to such occur in Am. v. 16, Jer. ix. 17, 2 Oh. xxxv. 25. For fife- players on such an occasion (Mt. ix. 23) cf. Jos. B.J. Hi. 9, S. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 401 sleeping ; but His words were received with derision. He turned them out of the house ; and then in company with the parents entered the room where the maiden lay. Then He took her by the hand, and addressing her in Aramaic said, " Damsel, arise." The touch, the voice, the aid given by the hand — all (it may be supposed) contributed to rouse her from her death-like trance, and she got up and was able to walk, to the amazement of those who were present. Jesus then directed that the occurrence should not be made known (cf. i. 44, vii. 36), perhaps because it would encourage hopes that could seldom be fulfilled ; and He told her parents to give her food. It is, of course, possible that when Jesus said ovk aniOavsv aXXa xaBevdei, His meaning was that a state of death from which there was to be an immediate awakening could only be regarded as a sleep. ^ But if death had really occurred, He must have brought back the soul which had departed, and instantaneously restored the physical organism, fatally injured by disease, to a condition enabling it to retain the vital principle ; and if He, being human as well as Divine, actually possessed power to do this, it might be expected that something analogous would occur in ordinary experience, for which there does not appear to be adequate evidence. It seems, therefore, preferable to conclude that our Lord, when using the words just quoted, meant exactly what they signify when taken literally. Thoiigh (if the narrative is accurate) He was not at the moment in the room where the maid lay and so could not have detected by the evidence of sight signs of life imperceptible to her parents, yet He may have been sensitive to indications other than those which appeal to the organs of vision. " There is probably no such sensitive receptor as certain developments of the human body, and when one asserts that he has feeling of a certain kind, or that he can see or hear certain things ' which to other less receptive organisms are not apparent, we shoidd be able to allow that the condition is quite possible, and that the recipient of the impression is a living scientific proof of it. " ^ Such assertions, of course, if they are to carry conviction to the minds of doubters, require to be supported by evidence that can be tested ; but in this case, according to the historian, it was forthcoming in the fact that the maid awoke and rose up. Although the persons in the house are represented as believing that death had taken place, error, especially in an age when medical knowledge was very defective, must have been easy. Nevertheless if life was not really extinct, so that there was no restoration of the actually dead, yet the existence of Old Testament narratives relating the revival of the dead (p. 117) would almost inevitably create the belief (reflected in the Evangelist's narrative) that re-animation of the lifeless had on this occasion also occurred. Mt. represents that Jainis told Jesus at the outset that his daughter was dead (not dying), and begged Him to restore her to hfe ; whilst Lk. (who confuses our Lord's '■ Swete, St. Mk. p. 102. » British Medical Journal, June 18, 1910, p. 1473 (T. Claye Shaw, M.D., F.R.C.P.). The passage in the origiaal context is not brought into connexion with the miracle here discussed. 402 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY entry into the liouse. with His entry into the child's chamber) states that when Jesus bade the maid arise her spirit returned. In Mt. the raising of Jairus' daughter is foUowed by two other miracles recorded in the First Gospel alone. One, wrought seemingly at " the house " in Capernaum (p. 384) was the restoration of sight to two blind men (ix. 27-31). This has been suspected of being a dupUoate of the very similar miracle at Jericho in Mt. xx. 29-34 (=Jlf/e. X. 46-.52) ; common features are the afflicted men's address to Jesus (*' Haye mercy upon ua, thou Son of David ") and His touching of their eyes.^ The other, also at Capernaum, was the expulsion of a demon from a dumb man, whose speech thereupon returned {Mt. ix. 32-34). The comment of the Pharisees in v. 34 is omitted by D and the Old Lat. and Syr. versions, and may be interpolated from xii. 24. Lh., piior to relating the raising of Jairus' daughter, narrates how on going to a place called Nain (p. 4), Jesus met a funeral procession carrying to burial a young man, the only son of a widow ; and how Jesus, stopping the bearers of the bier, bade the young man arise, whereupon he sat up and began to speak (vii. 11-17). The exjilanation suggested above would apply to this instance hkeivise. From Capernaum Jesus, followed by His disciples, went to His early home Nazareth (15 or 20 miles away to the south-west, p. 3). It was the first occasion on which He had visited the town since He had begun His public ministry ; so that when, according to the custom which He had followed elsewhere (Mk. i. 21, iii. 1), He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and taught. He created great astonishment among those who had been acquainted with Him as a youth, by the character of His teaching. But whilst this impressed numbers who heard Him, it also perplexed them ; and the perplexity was increased by reports of His wonderful works. His authoritative words, and the marvellous cures which He had efiected, could not be accounted for by either heredity or training. Previously when living in the place, He had only been known as a carpenter,^ not as a Rabbi, much less as a prophet ; and His mother, His brethren and HJ3 sisters were in no respect distinguished above their neighbours. Tte contrast between His past and His present, ajid between His relatives and Himself, was a baffling problem ; and being inexplicable, was irritat- ing. Consequently people took refuge in the conclusion that He was seeking to impose upon them. Such a repulse from His fellow-citizens, so unlike that which He had received in many places, drew from Him the comment, couched in a current proverb, that it was what prophets, honoured though they might be by strangers, were to expect from their own country and kin. This failure to inspire any general confidence jn Himself and His mission limited the scope of the relief which He could bring to the diseased. Where faith was wanting He could do nothing, and only a few sufferers had suflB.cient trust in Him to enable thejn to experience the benefits He was ready to confer. St. Luke strangely places the vi.sit to Nazareth almost in the forefront of our Lord s public ministry (iv. 14-30), though he inconsistently includes in his account of what Jesus said there a reference to previous work at Capernaum (v. 23). He represents Jesus as reading on the Sabbath, for the second lesson, 3 Is. Ixi. 1, 2 (quoted fropi ^^ LXX with an insertion (v. 18, last clause) from 3 Is. Iviii. 6), and declaring in a dis- course which He proceeded to deliver (cf. Acts xiii. 15 and p. 96) that the prophets 1 Cf. McNeUe, St. Mt. pp. 128-9. ^ Mt. has " the carpenter's son," Lh. " Joseph's son." THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 403 wprds were then and there fulfilled. His lowly station made His hearers sceptical, and they bade Him do there miracles similar to those reported from Capernaum ; but instead of gratifying them, He likened them to the widows and the lepers of Israel who were unreHeved by Elijah and Elisha, when those prophets benefited a widow of Sidonian Zarephath, and Naaman the Syrian captain. Infuriated, they endeavoured to destroy Him by flinging Him from the hill (p. 3), but He neverthe- less went on His way unharmed.^ The repulse which our Lord encountered at Nazareth led Him to leave the place for a renewed tour of instruction in the neighbouring towns ; but He did not now confine Himself to His own individual efforts. The time had at length come for using the help of the Twelve whom, after the hostility manifested in the synagogue at Capernaum (p. 388), He had chosen and taught with a view to employing them as agents for extending a knowledge of the Kingdom independently of the opportunities presented by the Sabbath meetings for public worship. Accordingly He began to send them forth in pairs to declare amongst men the need of repentance as an essential condition for entrance into the Divine Kingdom. And as the spiritual influences of that Kingdom were already making themselves felt, His own preaching being accompanied by the expulsion of demons and the cure of the sick, so He likewise now commissioned His Apostles to exorcize in His name unclean spirits and to heal diseases (cf . Mlc. vi. 13, Mt. X, 1,^ Lk. ix. 1). They were to take with them no provisions fqr their journey, nor even the means of buying or carrying such ; they were to restrict themselves to such garments as were absolutely necessary (even an additional tunic being disallowed) ; they were to depend for their sustenance upon the hospitality of those to whom they preached ; and they were not to be fastidious about their lodging, but remain in the house which they first entered.^ Should shelter be refused and the people of any place decline to give them a hearing, they were to make it plain to such that further intercourse or warning was impossible for the future, and that they were free from all responsibility for any consequences that might ensue-* These directions were obeyed, and the Twelve went forth pveaching, exorcizing demons, and healing many sick persons. In the cure qf disease they employed as an aid the external application of oil, a remedy often figuring in ancient medical treatment.^ Between the different S3Tioptic accounts of the injunctions given by Jesus to the Twelve there are a certain number of discrepancies. In Mk. a staff is not forbidden, Rnd footgear is allowed, but restricted to sandals, whilst all money, even copper, is ' hoiay,LeslIv. Syn. i. p. 839; supposes that Lk. has transposed the visit to Nazareth from its true chronological position in order to symbolize, at the outset of his history, the rejection of Jesus by the Jews and the consequent extension of the Gospel to the Gentiles. ' Mt. (x. 8) adds " raise the dead," but the words are not in all MSS. ^ "In Mt, they are directed to find out some one fitted by character to entertain them. ' For the symbolic act of shaking off the dust of a place which is to be left to its {ate cf. Ads xiii. 51. ' Cf. Pliny, H.N. xv. 7 veteri oleo losus est ad quaedam genera morborum, Jos. B.J. i. 33, 5 (Herod Agrippa in his last illness was put into a bath of oil). The use of saliva by our Lord {Mk. vii. 33, viii. 23) is a parallel. 404 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY prohibited. Jiff, and Lh. alike exclude both staff and shoes (for the latter of. also Lk. X. 4), but whereas Mt., like Mk., forbids all kinds of coins, Lk. excludes silver only (unless ipryipiov is a general term for money). Mt's account is expanded by the addition of some Marcan passages which in the Second Gospel occur in another connection (eh. xiii.), as well as sections which are partly derived from Q and partly are peouUar to himself. The First Evangehst (x. 5) represents our Lord as directing the Twelve to go neither to the Gentiles nor to the Samaritans, but to " the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and with this Jesus' own practice agreed (cf. Mk. vii. 27 ; Mt. XV. 24). The appended sections from Mk. and from Q warn against allowing the fear of men and of human tribunals to take the place of the fear of God ; and declare that strife and not peace must be the result of His mission in the world. The appro- priations from Q are by Lk. (xii., xiv.) placed in a different context. Before Jesus had entered upon the opening stage of His mission, His forerunner, John the Baptist, had been arrested by Herod Antipas (p. 370). At some period during his imprisonment he had heard of Jesus' activity, and the report of it now i prompted him to send some of his disciples to Him with the question whether He was really the expected Messiah.^ As there is nothing in the earliest authorities to favour the view that John, when baptizing Jesus, had recognized Him to be his destined Successor (p. 366), the inquiry must have proceeded not from waning faith or flagging patience because Jesus' career so far had not answered his expectations (though this, in view of Mt. iii. 14, 15, may be in the mind of the First Evangelist), but from a nascent hope, roused by what he had heard, that Jesus might be the anticipated Deliverer. The question was not answered directly (Jesus had not yet determined to reveal the truth about Himself even to His own chosen disciples, p. 389), but the inquirers were told to inform John of the cures wrought on the diseased and infirm, of the raising of the " dead," and of the preaching of good news to the poor, all such occurrences suggesting that the powers of the Messianic age were already at work (cf . Is. xxxv. 5, 6, 3 7s. Ixi. 4) ; and a caution was added against allowing disappointment at the want of explicitness in the message to stand in the way of belief. On their departure Jesus imparted to the multitude His own judgment concerning John, to see whom crowds had gone forth into the wilderness. He declared that he was more than an ordinary prophet ; that he was the Messenger whom Malachi (iii. 1) had predicted Jehovah would send to prepare the way before Him ^ ; that none among mankind was greater than he ; but that even he, as being only a herald, and so outside, of the Kingdom of God, was inferior to an actual member, however insignificant, of that Kingdom. And then, in view of the fact that, whereas numbers of the common people had been influenced by John, the Pharisees and Scribes had rejected his teaching, Jesus went on to compare the attitude of the latter towards John and 1 Mt. places the incident after the Mission of the Twelve, Lk. earUer. ' It is possible, though not Kkely, that by v vldv ToO drBpiiirov ipxift^vov iv tj ^aaCKdq. (xvi. 28) ; Lk. merely T^v ^acCKaav toO dioO, ■ ^ Some difficulty is presented by the inconsistency between the prohibition, imposed bJi the disciples (viii. 30), of any disclosure of His Messiahship (cf. Mt. xvi. 20) and the apparent identification of Himself with the Messiah in the address to the mtiltitude (viii. 38). But the words in the latter verse seem oarefuHy chosen in order to leave scope for His hearers to taie, if they pleased, rejection by the Son of man to mean rejection by another than Himself. The right moment for a pubKo identification of Himself with the Messiah had not yet come. The concluding words of this discourse (ix. 1) involve the inference that our Lord expected that He would return a second time within a generation, for not only is this sense put upon Mk. ix. 1 in Mt. xvi. 28, but it is con- firmed by the statement in Mk. xiii. 26, 30, Mt. x. 23, and by the belief entertained by the Apostles and others. Jesus' expectation (if the Evange- list's language does not misrepresent it) was not fulfilled in a literal sense ; nevertheless there occurred within the period He named events manifesting in a signal way the presence of Divine activity in the world, namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish commonwealth, and the rise of the Christian Church, and this in a measure — though only in a measure — •verified our Lord's faith in God's vindication of Himself and His Gospel (cf. Lk. xxi. 20-24). To the north-east of Csesarea Philippi, 14 miles away, rise the lowest slopes of Hermon, and here, on the sixth day after Jesus, with His disciples, had reached the place, He underwent a remarkable psychical experience. As He had done on a previous occasion (p. 400), He drew apart Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and with these He ascended the mountain side. With a violent end confronting Him, Messiah though He was, His thoughts turned both backward to the preannouncements of the Messiah's advent in the previous history of His nation, and forward to the realization of the Messianic glory to which the way of attainment was to be through the gate of death. Becoming rapt in contemplation He saw Himself transfigured in the dazzling light of heaven, His garments white and lustrous, and Moses and Elijah talking with Him. This vision of Himself, by some '[,■ teansference of thought, He communicated to His three Apostles, who consequently, in a trance-like condition, saw the same two figures which , appeared to Jesus' mental view ; and Peter, speaking for himself and his 1 1 .^mpanions (they were aU filled with fear and bewilderment), said it was well that they were there ; and should they construct three tents (or booths) to shelter their Master and those who were conversing with Him ? And i'then, as the conviction of His Father's approval impressed itseU again upon Jesus' spirit with the same intensity as once before at His baptism. He caused the impression of this likewise to reach the disciples, who in- wardly heard, as out of the cloud that concealed the Deity Himsel£,^the words, " This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him " (cf . Bt. xviii. 15 end). 1 Cf. Ex. xvi. 10, xix. 9, xl. 35 ; Num. xi. 26. 420 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY And suddenly the state of abnormal sensibility which for a brief time had marked the three Apostles passed away, and they found themselves with Jesus only. The supposition that what is recorded in Mk. ix. 2-8 represents psychic experiences which had their origin and centre in the mind of Jesus and were transmitted by Him to Peter, James and John, best explains the fact that the three Apostles became sensible of the presence with Jesus of Moses and Elijah. The hypothesis of an actual appearance to the disciples of the spirits of the dead Legislator and the dead Prophet is faced with the difficulty of explaining how they were recognized ; whilst if it is suggested that the disciples' vision of them had its source in themselves independently of Jesus, the Messiah being associated by them with the two great per- sonahties named, such a solution is not plausible in view of the fact that their belief in Jesus' Messiahship had only recently found expression, and they are scarcely likely at this stage to have searched the Scriptures for passages throwing light upon the nature of His office. It seems probable, therefore, that it was in Jesus' mind alone that the Transfiguration scene originated ; that He mentally saw Himself transformed from earthly to heavenly conditions ; that He thought of Moses and Elijah as witnessing to Him ^ by reason of the predictions found in Dt. xviii. 18 f . and Md. iv. 4-6 ; and that in order to confirm the Apostles' faith, He conveyed to their minds by some process of telepathy, both the vision which then filled His own mind and the voice of Divine approval of which He was more than ever conscious. In Mt. the words of the Voice from heaven are assimilated to those at the Baptism (in 2 Pet. i. 17 the assimilation is carried further still), and the Apostles' fear is experienced when they hear the Voice. In Lh. the Transfiguration is placed " about eight days " after the avowal at Csesarea Philippi ; Jesus is stated to have ascended the mountain to pray ; Moses and Elijah speak to TTim of His approaching death (cf . Lh. xxiv. 25, 26), and the words heard from heaven are, " This is my Son, my chosen (of. Mt. xii. 18, 2 la. xlii. 1), hear ye him." As Jesus and the Three returned to the rest of the disciples, Peter and his companions were directed by their Master (who desired to retain within His own control the right time for His self-disclosure (cf. viii. 30)) not to reveal what they had seen until after He, the Son of man, should have risen from the dead. The injunction perplexed them, for though they were familiar with the idea of a general resurrection at the last day (p. 41), their Master clearly had in view His own individual resurrection prior to that ; and they discussed therefore with one another what He meant. Nor was this the only element in His recent utterances which puzzled them, for He had declared that He, the Christ, the Son of man, was destined to sufier ; so they called His attention to the statement of the Scribes that the coming of Elijah must precede that of the Messiah (it being understood that the purpose of the former's advent was to set everything right for the latter) and asked how it was that prophecy affirmed (as He implied it did) that the Messiah must suffer and be rejected ? Jesus acknowledged that (according 1 The same are probably the " two witnesses " of Rev. xi. 3. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 421 to tiie Scriptures) Elijah, when he came, was to effect a moral reformation (Mai. iv. 5, 6, of. Eoclus. xlviii. 10) ; but He declared (having in mind John the Baptist, cf. Mt. xvii. 13) that he had already come, and men had worked their will upon him, as had also been predicted (the reference being probably to the persecution of Elijah by Ahab and Jezebel, 1 Kg. xviii., xix.). The disciples were seemingly meant to infer from His words that there was a foreordained parallelism between the destiny of John and Himself, and as the former had suffered death, so they must expect that He too must suffer. In Mk. ix. 12, 13 some misplacement of clauses seems to have occurred. In v. 12 the order of the two halves of the verse ought probably to be transposed, so that the question in 126 may form part of what the disciples said, and 12a may immediately precede v. 13 as it does in Mt. xvii. 12 ; and this transposition has been adopted above. Mk. ix. 11-13 is absent from Lk. When Jesus and His companions rejoined the rest of the Twelve, next day (according to Lk. ix. 37) they found a multitude gathered round them, listening to a dispute between them and some Scribes. As soon as the crowd saw Jesus, Whose unexpected arrival startled them, they ran towards Him ; and when He asked them why they were disputing, a man explained that he had brought to be cured by the disciples (in the absence of Jesus) his son,^ who was deaf and dumb and suffered from convulsions ;* but they had failed to heal him. It was possibly this failure that occasioned the dispute with the Scribes, who contended that it proved that Jesus, Whose name had presumably been used to expel the evil spirit distressing the boy, was an impostor. Jesus, rebuking the lack of faith evinced by the disciples, bade the sufferer be led to Him. The boy, when he reached Jesus' presence, had one of the violent seizures with which he had been afficted from childhood, causing him to fall to the ground ; and the father entreated our Lord to help them if He could. Jesus declared that every- thing was possible to one that believed ; whereupon the father, begging Him to aid his unbeUef , recovered from the mistrust caused by the disciples' failure, and perhaps by look and bearing imparted something of his own renewed faith to his unhappy son. For when Jesus addressed the evil spirit that was held to occasion the maladies which He was asked to cure, saying, " It is I that command thee to come out of him," the boy, after another convulsion, became as still as a corpse, and was deemed by the bystanders to be dead ; but Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him and he stood up. It is apparent from the account that, as in other cases, faith contributed to the cure, though the faith in question was primarily, at any rate, the father's, the influence of this upon the son being only an inference. On the other hand, lack of sufficient faith in their own power to convey relief had occasioned the failure of the disciples (as implied in Mk. ix. 19, cf. Mt. xvii. 20). This was explained to them afterwards by Jesus, Who intimated that for such a case as that which they had vainly 1 According to Lk. ix. 38 his only son ; cf. vii. 12, viii. 42. ' In Mt. xvii. 15 he is described as a limatio (o-eXiji'icii'eTai). 422 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY sought to heal their spiritual resources required to be reinforced by prayer ;i and in such preparation they had been deficient.^ § 9. Departure for Jerusalem Jesus' premonition that He was destined to be killed by His own people now led to a decisive change in the sphere of His activity. If He, the Son of man, the Heavenly Messiah, foreboded that He would be put to death by those whom He had come to save, it was inconceivable that such a crime should be perpetrated until the supreme ecclesiastical authorities, the priests and elders at Jerusalem, had an opportunity of fully considering His claims. His work in Galilee, if not altogether a failure, had been successful only in a qualified degree. It is clear, from the denunciation of woe against Chorazin, Bethsaida, and even Capernaum (Mt. xi. 21-24 = Lk. x. 13--15), that His preaching had made comparatively little impression upon these places. But even if it had not lacked success, His mission was incomplete so long as it did not include the capital. He must, of course, have been fully aware of the increased danger that He was incurring from the hostility of the Pharisees and the priesthood by proceeding to Jerusalem, the centre of their influence. But there seems no sufficient reason for supposing that He went thither with the settled intention of provoking His death.^ That He really went up to Jerusalem in order to address to its inhabitants the same call to repentance as He had urged upon the Gahlfeans seems certain from His lament over the city in Ml!, xxiii. 37-39 ( = Lk. xui. 34, 35) ; whilst the conviction which He entertained before leaving Galilee that He was going to destruction is sufficiently accounted for by the probabilities of the situation, without being attributable to a deliberate resolve to throw away His hfe as « sacrifice for the people. Accordingly, from the vicinity of Csesarea PhiMppi, Jesus turned southward in the direction of Judsea and Jerusalem. He had journeyed to Caesarea Philippi along the east bank of the Lake of Galilee and the upper waters of the Jordan ; but He now directed His course along the western side of the river and the lake, taking Capernaum on His "way. He kept His movements as secret as possible, for He did not wish His design of ascending to the capital to be interrupted, and He desired to famiharize His disciples -with the thought of His death as brang part of the predetermined counsel of Ood and as having its sequel in His resurrection after a very brief interval. But when He proceeded to speak of it, the idea was altogether too strange and mysterious for them to comprehend it ; and in their awe of Him, now that they acknowledged Him as Messiah, they were afraid to ask for an explanation, and so passed on their way full of peiplexity and mental distress. Mt. haa a, narrative of an incident that occurred on their arrival at Capernaum. The collector of tie Temple-tax of half a shekel, or two draohmce (p. 71), about \s. U^a ^ In Mk. ix. 29 A C D L and several versions add " and by fasting." ° In Mt. the failure is simply attributed to their insufficient faith, and they »w told that faith no greater than a mustard seed would enable them to remove moun- tains (cf. p. 434). ^ As represented by Sobweitzer, Quest of the. Historical Jesus, p. 389. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 423 Wked Peter whether Jesup paid the tax aiuj was f|,nswered in the affir»iative. When Peter entered the house where Jesus was, the latter showed His kaovf]Bdge of what had taken place by reminding Peter that kings took tribute from subject-peoples, not from their own family, and that by analogy He and His disciples, as members of God s family, should be free from contributing to the support of God's Temple. But to avoid offence He bade Peter cast a hook into the lake, and he would find ip. the mouth of the first fish caught a stater (the equivalent of four drachmce), which would ' sufSoe for the tax due frpm two persons. To regard this narrative as recording a real miracle is to suppose that Jesus availed Himself of supernatural power or knowledge to provide money which could have been otherwise obtained. To avoid this conolur Bios, it has been suggested that He really bade St. Peter procure the money by fishing find then selling what he took. But it seems more hkely that the story is the product of a subsequent time (but prior to a.d, 70), when Christian and non-Chri?tian Jews were becoming more and more sundered, and some of the former were inclined to refuse the Temple-tax, an inclination which the narrative was designed to repress. Jesys' wordp about His impending death made so little impression upon His disciples that they were chiefly pccupied with mutual rivalries, On the way to Capernaum He had overheard, or perhaps detected by His preternatural insight into men's thoughts (cf. p, 387), a dispute between ■ them as to which enjoyed pre-eminence over the rest. The discussion had possibly been occasioned by the privilege granted more than once to Peter, James and John. He now questioned them about it, and shame kept them silent. So after reaching the house (p. 384), He took the opportunity of explaining how real pre-eminence was to be attained, i namely, not throijph lordship and mastery, as the Gentiles thought, })Ht by way of service : he who would be first of all must be the servant of all. And in order to rivet upon their minds by a concrete illustration the lesson that unassumingness (in contrast to self-assertion) was the quaUty of highest excellence, He placed a Uttle child (perhaps plajdng fjiear the house) in the midst of them, so that when they in the future saw a child, they might mark the character to which they were to conform their own. And He then took the little one into His arms and declared ' that whoso welcomed a child because children and childlike dispositions were commended by Him,^ thereby welcomed Him, and a welcome extended to Him was a welcome to God (cf. Mt. x. 40, Lk. x. 16), s t In Mt. xviii. 2-4 the words of Jesus to the disciples after this dispute are given i rather differently from Mk.'s version, for He is represented to have begun by taking ft Jjttle phjld and saying that except they turned and became as little children they should in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven ; and that whoso should humble Wwself as a Uttle child was greatest in the heavenly kingdom. f; The rebuke which the disciples had just received created in them piisgivings about their conduct on a recent occasion, which was now related to Jesus by St. John. They had encountered (possibly in the course of their evangelistic tour, see Mk. vi. 7) a man who had presumably noticed them using the name of Jesus for the purpose of exorcising demons, and had copied their example (cf . Acts xix. 13) ; but because he did not i belong to their company, they had sought to stop him ; so they wished to ■ know what Jesus thought of their action. Their Lord replied that their I __ _ (■ > Cf. Allen, St. Mark, p. 129. 424 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY interference was unjustified : in combating evil as Jesus and His disciples combated it, the man was enlisted on the same side.^ After this interruption our Lord resumed His previous train of thought. The principle that the reception of a little child because the childlike nature was approved by Christ was equivalent to the reception of Christ Himself, admitted of wide application. The smallest service to one of His disciples because they were Christ's (Jesus here for the first time unmistakably used the title Christ (or Messiah) of Himself) would not go unrewarded : conversely, the occasioning of such a one's spiritual downfall would entail retribution so severe that drowning in the sea would be a preferable fate. Jesus then warned His hearers that to avert spiritual destruction in Hell,^ the self-inflicted sacrifice of any faculties which were likely to prove incentives to sin was expedient. Every Ufe devoted as an offering to God, to be burnt (as it were) in His altar-fixe, must at all cost be preserved from moral corruption (just as sacrificial flesh was salted to keep it from physical corruption). Then, varying the metaphor, He implied that the Apostles were meant to be in a moral sense the salt of mankind, keeping the world wholesome by their spiritual influence; but if they themselves became corrupt (through mutual jealousy and wrangling), they were useless for the purpose they were intended to serve.' Mt. (xviii. 10-35), after including most of this passage from Mk., adds (o) a warn- ing against despising little ones * ; (6) a similitude (drawn from Q, see Lk. xv. 4-7) illustrating the care shown for the erring by God, Who.is likened to a shepherd seeking straying sheep ; (c) directions how men are to treat ofEending fellow-men ' ; (d) the parable of the UnJEorgiving Debtor (with w. 21, 22, of. Lk. xvii. 3, 4 and see p. 392), who, though a debt of 10,000 talents (nearly 2^ millions sterling) owed by him has been remitted, yet exacts a debt owed to him of 100 denarii (£4). From Capernaum Jesus now proceeded to turn His back finally on ^ For Mk.'s Kaff i]/j,C>v . . . virep rn^-Civ Lh. (ix. 50) substitutes the second person. The incident is absent from Mt. Both Mt. (xii. 30) and Lk. (xi. 23) elsewhere include (from Q) a converse saying, " He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." Varying circumstances may make each of the aphorisms equally true. ^ The word here used, Yhna, is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Qi Hinnom, the valley of Hirmom (p. 10), which had once been the site of human sacri- fices, had been in consequence desecrated by King Josiah (2 Kg. xxiii. 10), and had become a receptacle for the refuse of Jerusalem, for the destruction of which fires were often kindled. Its associations led to its name being used to denote the place of punishment for the mcked after death. The language of Mk. ix. 43, 48 is derived from 3 Is. Ixvi. 24. » At the end of Mk. ix. 49 there is added in A C D N Lat., Syr. (pesh., hi.), etc., the words xal TrSao dmia. aXi aXurOTjireTai. (taken from Lev. ii. 13). The addition is probably a gloss, but seems to give the right clue to the thought expressed in the rest of the v., which is otherwise obscure, the obscurity being increased through the R.V. rendering of wvpl by " with fire." The only translation which yields sense is " for fire " (of. for the dat. 2 Pet. iii. 7 {Tediiiravpiber of nafiops the latter phrase in the sense put upon it by A N and other MSS. which replace it ''y 5ict Tov ir^pav TPO 'IppSdvov. 1 In Mt. lie is represented as already ^ disciple. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 427 enumerated in Oen. x. being seventy).* On Lk. x 21, 22 see p. 617. Lh. x. 23, 24 recurs in Mt. xiii. 16, 17 in another connexion. The Third Evangehst also introduces here aquestion, put by a lawyer, which resembles that in Mk. x. 17, but eUcits an answer I like that given in Mk. xii. 30, 31, and is followed by the Parable of the Good Samari- I tan (see p. 429). Another occurrence related by St. Luke alone seems to belong to this period. The district of Peraea formed part of the dominions of Herod Antipas, who appears to have heard that Jesus was passing through it. The same motive that caused him to fear John the Baptist's influence with the people (p. 370) likewise made hiTn appre- hensive of Jesus, but it served his purpose as well to drive Him out of his territory as to kill Him ; and it was probably with this end in view that he uttered threats to take His life, hoping that they would be reported and would induce His withdrawal, information of such threats was carried to Jesus by some Pharisees, and as it cannot be assumed that all Pharisees were equally hostile to Him, those who com- municated Herod's words probably did so from friendly reasons. Jesus, however, felt BO fully assured that His destiny was determined by His Father's will that He was undisturbed by tidings of Herod's menaces ; but He penetrated the tetrarch's motive, , and bade His informants carry word to " that fox " that however he might threaten, yet for a short while still (cf . Ros. vi. 2) He Himself had works of mercy to perform, and only when those were aooompUshed would His career reach its prescribed com- pletion. Nevertheless He was departing from Herod's dominions (though not from fear of him) for no prophet of God could perish elsewhere than at the religious capital of God's own people ! (of. 2 Gh. xxiv. 20-21 ; Jer. xxvl. 20-23). It was seemingly in continuation of the journey through. Persea that Jesus was approached by a party of Pharisees, who demanded His opinion on a legal point — the lawfulness of divorce. Their object was to discover whether His teaching was at variance with the Law, in order that, if it proved to be so, they might convict Him of encouraging disloyalty to the Mosaic legislation. In it the right of a husband to divorce his wife was recogmzed (though the purpose of the enactment in Bt. xxiv. 1-4 to which they referred was to impose limitations upon the exercise of the right *) ; and Jesus did not dispute that the Law allowed it. But He declared that it was a concession to avoid worse evils, and that it did not COjtrespond to the purpose of God^ Who at the Creation designed the uniow between a man and a woman to be permanent. When Jesus reached a house where He meant to lodge, His disciples qtuestioned Him about the same subject ; and to them He laid down the principle that divorce, followed ' by a second marriage, involved adultery. The conchasion to be drawn from the statement here made is considered elsewhere (see p. 610). In Mt. ' the question put to Jesus is couched in the form " Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for every cause ? " thus inviting ffim to take a side in a dispute hetween two Rabbinic schools (p. 609). His utterances concerning re-marriage after divDroe are differently worded in various Synoptic passages. Adultery is committed (o)in Mk. X. 11, 12 by a husband or wife divorcing the other and re-marrying ; (6) in Mt. six. 9 by a husband divorcing his wife, except ff>r fornication, and re-marrying. " * It is noteworthy that Lk. xxii. 35 (addressed to the Twelve) refers to x. 4 addressed to the '.Seventy. Eusebius {H.E. i. 12) mentions as included by .tradition among the Seventy Barnabas {Acts iv. 3), Sosthenes (1 Cor. i. 1), Matthias, Joseph {Acts i. 23) and Thaddeus (enumerated by Mk. among the Twelve (p. 390) ). ' See Driver, Dt. p. 269 f. ' The incident is absent from Lk., but Jesus' decision on the subject appears in Lk. xvi. 18. 428 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and by the man who marries the divorced woman '■ ; (c) in Lh. xvi. 18 as in Mt. xix. 9, but without the exception, (d) In Mt. v. 32 a man divorcing his wife except for fornica- tion is said to cause her to commit adultery, and the man who marries her is declared an adulterer. The case contemplated in Mk. x. 12 of a woman divorcing her husband was only possible according to Roman, not Jewish, Law, though it had occurred in the instance of a Jewish princess, Salome, sister of Herod the Great (Jos. ArU. xv. 7, 10). In Mt, the disciples, after Jesus' reply, are represented as saying that on the principle affirmed by their Master, it was better not to marry, and He is said to have replied that abstinence from marriage was expedient only in certain circumstances due to physical or religious causes. The reputation of Jesus as a prophet had preceded Him, and probably it was in the expectation that mere physical contact vdth Him (cf. Mh. viii. 22) would impart a blessing that some little children were brought to Him that He might touch them. The disciples, jealous that the time and attention of their Master should be thus occupied, censured those who had charge of them. But Jesus indignantly checked their interference, and bade them allow the children to come to Him, for they only would enter the Kingdom of Heaven who received the message about it with the trustfulness and docility of children. And taking them in His arms, and lajnng His hands upon them (cf. Gen. xlviii. 14, 15), He blessed them. From the house where He had stayed {Mk. x. 10), He was again departing, when there ran up a man who, addressing Him as " Good Teacher," asked Him what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, conscious that God was the Source of all goodness, including His own (cf. Joh. V. 19), remarked the epithet, and asked why he had so saluted Him, since none was good but God. Then adopting the man's assumption that he could gain eternal life by doing certain acts instead of being of a certain character. He cited some of the commands of the Decalogue (vi., vii., viii., ix. v.).^ These the other declared he had always kept; and though his reply seemed to reflect self-complacency, yet the fact that he was not content with negative virtues, but was eager to attain to positive merits, won for him our Lord's afiection. Nevertheless he had to learn that he sought his end along mistaken lines ; and since he supposed that it could be reached by obedience to external commands, it was needful to impose one which he would find it difiicult to discharge. So Jesus directed him to bestow all his possessions on the poor, and follow Him. To the demand thus made he was unequal, for he had great wealth, which he coidd not bring himself to sacrifice. The inquirer is described by Mt. (xix. 20) as a young man, by Lk. as a ruler (of a synagogue, p. 95, ct.Joh. iii. 1), the two descriptions not being very consistent. For " Good Teacher, what shall I do ? " Mt. substitutes "Teacher, what good thing shall I do ? " with a corresponding change in our Lord's reply (see p. 176), and adds to the commandments cited " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself " (Lev. xix. 18). Lk., in addition to reproducing Mk.'s narrative, recounts also (x. 25-37) that the same inquiry was put to Jesus by a lawyer ; that when Jesus asked him what waa directed in the Law, he cited the words of Dt. vi. 5 and Lev. xix. 18 enjoining love to God and to one's neighbour ; that Jesus approved the answer, and when theiJaan ' The last clause is absent from X D, Lat. (vet.), Syr. (vet.) and Eg. (sah.). ' Lk. haa the order vii., vi., viii., ix., v. (cf. Rom. xui. 9). Mk. adds " Do not defraud." THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 429 rejoined by asking who was his neighbour, Jesus related the parable of the Good Samaritan, who succoured a wounded Jewish traveller, whom a priest and a Levite passed by. The parable did not answer the inquirer's question directly (contrast Ml. 36, 37 with o. 29), but by the instance of the Samaritan who considered even a hated Jew, when in misfortune, his neighbour, implied that every one, especially if needing help, should be counted such. »' ' Jesus, as His questioner withdrew", remarked how difficult entrance into the Kingdom of God was for the rich.^ His words greatly astonished His disciples (since there prevailed the beHef that prosperity was a proof of God's approval). But Jesus affirmed that it was more difficult than the passage of a camel through the eye of a needle, causing His followers to ask who, if the rich were excluded, could possibly be included ; and Jesus thereupon explained that God's power could not be measured by man's. The recent incident reminded the disciples that they had done what another had found too hard, and Peter gave expression to their reflections. Jesus replied that sacrifice made for Him and for His message had abundant compensations (though not without persecutions*), even in the present (ties of blood being replaced by ties based on spiritual affinity, cf . Mh. iii. 35) ; and would be recompensed in the future by eternal Ufe. But God's estimate of merit was not man's, and many who supposed that they had I first claim to a reward would find themselves accounted last. Mt. prefixes to the promise of compensation for sacrifices in Christ's cause an Msurance (drawn from Q, cf. Lk. xxii. 30) that when the Son of man should sit on His throne. His Apostles should also sit on thrones administering justice to ^ the tribes of Israel. He also appends (xx. 1-15) the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, Ti^iierein an employer is represented as duly paying to some labourers the stipulated day's wage but no more, whilst generously giving the same wage to others who had done less than a day's ^rork, and thereby eliciting murmurs from the former. The parable seems out of harmony with its immediate context, and appears to be directed against the discontent of the Pharisees, who were lifelong observers of the Law, with the Divine mercy shown to tax-gatherers and sinners who for a large part of their lives had neglected it (cf. p. 384). Attention may be called here to certain parables peculiar to Lk. which relate to wealth and its use. An appeal to Jesus made by a man who had a dispute with his brother about the division of an estate and who wished our Lord to decide it (xii. 13^15), evoked a warning against oovetousness, embodied in the Parable of the Kich Fool (whose end came as soon as he had amassed the fortune he had hoped to enjoy). The wisdom of so using wealth lawfully acquired as to promote its owner's spiritual welfare in the next world was illustrated (xvi. 1-12) by the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward (who shrewdly provided for his future material needs even by fraudulent application of what was not his own). JTinally, the truth that the possession of great wealth was calculated, if not employed for the reUef of others' necessity, to have as its sequel torment in Hades, whilst extreme poverty, if patiently borne, might be the prelude to eternal felicity, was set forth in the parable of the Rich Man and the beggar liazarus (xvi. 19-31). This parable is an expansion of the Krst Beatitude, as expressed in Lh. vi. 20, and requires to be qualified in the same way as the latter. ' In Mk. X. 24 " the rich " of v. 23 is replaced by " those who trust in riches " on the authority of A C D N Lat., Syr., but the substitution is not found in N B Lat. (vet. k). Eg. (sah.). ' This clause, absent from Mt. and Lk., may reflect the conditions of the Apostolic age, and be unauthentic. ' For " judge " in the sense of rule cf . Jud. x. 2, xii. 9, etc. 480 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY As the company proceeded towards Jerusalem, Jesus went on alone, in front of His disciples ; and the prospect of the fate awaiting Him there invested His mien and bearing with a solemnity that awed His followers. When He allowed them to rejoin Him, He explained for the third time what He expected to befall Him. The account of what He said on this occasion, as compared with the two preceding, corresponds so much more closely to the events which actually occurred, including not only His condemnation by the Sanhedrin and His consequent execution by the Gentiles (results which perhaps might be confidently anticipated (p. 100) ), but also the mocking and other incidents of His trial, that probably the historian, in the light of what he knew to have taken place, has made our Lord's words more precise than they actually were. Had so exact a prediction of His sufferings been uttered, the close agreement of events with the pre-announcement of them should have caused the Apostles to abide the fulfilment of the prophecy about His resurrection with greater hopefulness than was the case. But it was the prospect not of outrage and death for their Master, but of a share in His ultimate triumph, that principally engaged the minds of the Apostles : and James and John, still prompted by ambition, despite Jesus' earlier rebuke (ix. 35 f.^), asked that when He entered upon His glory, they might fill the places of most honour next to Himself. Jesus gave them to understand that closeness to Him in His glory must depend upon nearness to Him in the prior sufferings ^ ; and asked whether they were able to drink of the same cup of destiny ^ as He, or be immersed in the same flood of ill.* They responded in the aiBrmative ; and their Master thereupon declared that they should ; but that in the bestowal of the honour they coveted, fitness (not favour) would decide. The request of the two became known to the rest, who were indignant at theii conduct ; and the quarrel did not escape the notice of Jesus. Calling them to Him He contrasted the principles prevailing in the world and in the Kingdom of God : in the one, primacy and greatness were associated with mastery ; but in the other it was dependent upon service. For He Himself had come not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. In Mt. the request for precedence put by James and John proceeds from their mother (of. p. 188 ). After xx. 28 there is added in D Lat. (vet.) and Syr. (cur.) a passage transcribed on p. 194, the greater part of which is paradlel to Lk. xiv. 8-11. From Lh. the request of the sons of Zebedee is absent, but a contention as to which of the Apostles was greatest appears in the account of the Last Supper (p. 456) j and 1 The parallelism in substance between Mk. ix. 30-37 and x. 32-45 is suggestive of variant versions of a single occasion (cf . Loisy, Les Evang. Syn. ii. p. 235). * Cf. the Agraphon, Qui iuxta me est, iuxta ignem est ; qui longe eat a me k/ngi est a regno. ' For the metaphor of. xiv. 36 ; Rev. xiv. 10, xvii. 2, 4 ; 2 Is. li. 17 ; Jer. xrv. 15; Ezek. xxiii. 32 ; Hob. ii. 16 ; Ps. xi. 6, Ixxv. 8 ; Horn. II. xxiv. 527, Soioi yif « iriOoL KaraKeiaTai iv Ai(5s oObet dJjpwf ola Sidojtrt KaKwv, h-epos S^ edojv. ' ;; ♦ In Mk. X. 28 for the sense of ^airTifo/iai cf . Is. xxi. 4 (LXX) -^ wo/iia ;iie ^arrllei. ■ In Ps. Ixix. 2 Symmachus has e^airrlcrOrji' eis direpdvTovs )caTo8i}o-«s, and in Jtf- xxxviii. 22 he has i§6,iTTi,cav els HXimi toiJs Triiai aov. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 481 in this the substance of Jeans' reproof {Mk. x. 42-45) is reproduced, but without any eqniTalent for the trords " and to give His life a ransom for many." Jesus, in the allusion to His impending death just related, attached to it a significance of which there is no suggestion in the earUer references to His end. It is plain that He now thought of His death (in some measure voluntary, since by dereliction of duty He could have shunned it) as a means of bringing within the Kingdom numbers who would other- wise be left outside it ; but it is not equally clear whether by the words 6 vldg rov dvOgconov . . . iJAfle . . . Sovvai rf/v yivxrjv avrov Xvtqov dvri Twiklm He meant that His impending death was to be regarded as substitutionary, His life being delivered up to save the forfeited lives of sinners, or was to be viewed merely as a means of deliverance for them from the control of sin (through the appeal which His self-sacrifice in pursuance of His mission was calculated to make to their hearts) without any idea of substitution or exchange being involved. The question is discussed further on pp. 620-1. The road from the Jordan towards Jerusalem passed through Jericho (p. 9). A report about Jesus had preceded His approach to the place, so that as He departed from it. He and His disciples were attended by a great concourse. The trampling of the crowd attracted the attention of a blind beggar named Bartimseus, who was seated by the wayside. In spite of Jesus' instructions to the Apostles to disclose to none that He was the Christ (viii. 30), hints of it had doubtless got abroad and had reached the bUnd man ; so that when he asked who was passing and was told it was Jesus the Nazarene, he cried out " Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me ! " The crowd bade him hold his peace ; but he was too intent upon recovering his sight, if that were possible, to heed their interference, and only repeated his appeal. His cry reached our Lord's ears ; and stopping, He directed that he should be brought to Him. Bartimseus at once sprang up (the bystanders no longer rebuking but encouraging him), and casting aside his loose upper garment lest it should impede his movements, went to Jesus. In reply to a question, he explained that he wanted to regain his sight ; and Jesus at once declared that through his faith, his impaired power of vision was restored to soundness. In response to so stimulating an assurance the inactive organs and nerves resumed their suspended functions ; and once more able to see, he mingled with the crowd to follow his Benefactor on His way. jlf<. (xx. 29-34), who with Lk. omits the cure of a blind man at Bethsaida (Mk. viii. 22-26), represents that Jesus restored sight (by touch) to two men and not to one alone (cf. p. 398). St. Luke follows St. Mark in mentioning one blind man only, ;i but diverges from the Second Evangelist by placing the cure in the course of Jesus' «liproaeh to Jericho, and not of His departure from it. St. Luke also narrates that Jesus, after healing the blind man, entered Jericho. The town, as being on the road from the fords of the Jordan to Jerusalem (from which it was distant between fifteen and twenty miles), was a suitable spot for collecting tolls on merchandise passing from Persea, the territory of Herod Antipas, to the Roman province of Judaea. One of the chief collectors (apxiTeXtivris) of such tolls, probably ih the service of the Roman publicani, though a Jew by race, who had his residence here and whose name was Zaoohseus (=Zaccai, cf. Ez. ii. 9), wished to see Him ; but 482 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY being overtopped by the crowd in consequence of bis shortness of stature, climbed a tree known as a fig-mulberry ' (avKoiiopia). Jesus presumably overheard the man's name shouted by the multitude, perhaps accompanied with expressions of execration on account of his profession, and was filled with the pity He always felt for such social outcasts as he. So He called to him, and told him that He was going that day to rest at his house. Zacchseus, full of joy, descended and prepared to receive TTim ; but our Lord's words at once drew murmurs from the crowd, prejudiced as they were against the tax-gatherer's calling. It looks, indeed, as though Zaochseus had in the past been as unscrupulous as his class were generally reputed to be ; for while Jesus was in his house, he declared his intention of giving ^ half his possessions to the poor and of making fourfold restitution (cf. Ex. xxii. 1, 2 Sam. xii. 6) to all whom he had wronged by false statements or unjust exactions. In the resolve thus made known Jesus saw the fruits of His compassion for one who, disliked by his compatriots, was yet an Israelite, and if a sinner, was for that very reason an object of solicitude to Him who came to seek and save the lost in Israel (cf . Ml. xv. 24, x. 6). § 10. Entry into Hie Capital and Purification of the Temple ■ When our Lord turned His steps from Galilee towards Jerusalem, ifil was in the expectation that He was going to His death (p. 422). His life had been sought, indeed, in the course of His Galilean ministry, in consequence of His attitude towards certain regulations of the Jewish Law, which the zealous upholders of the Law would not tolerate (p. 388). But the certainty with which He anticipated death at Jerusalem was due to His determination to make known there His conviction that He was the Messiah, with the result of exposing Himself to repudiation by the priesthood and deliverance to the Roman authorities for execution as an impostor. Such an issue He could only avoid by remaining in obscurity, and to do this would be to abandon the very purpose which His Father had designed Him to accomplish — the revelation to God's people of the Divine nature and the Divine requirements. It was therefore with ' the intention of challenging acceptance or rejection by the hierarchy of , the capital that Jesus determined to enter Jerusalem in a manner that would call attention to His Messianic claim. The Messiah was a King, andai it was as a King, and not as a prophet merely, that Jesus resolved ttf present Himself to them. But His conception of kingship did not involve regal state or warlike equipment : the qualities which He deemed kingly | were those of humiUty and peaceableness, and it was in the aspect of the j king portrayed in 2 Zech. ix. 9 that He wished to appear at the religions:|| centre of His race. Although it is probable that He had not previously been in Jerusalem during His ministry (see p. 220), He must have been there in earUer years, for one of His disciples was seemingly a Judsean (p. 390), and the fact that after a few hours' stay in Jerusalem, He retired to Bethany to spend the night {Mk. xi. 11) shows that He had acquaintances , there. Bethany was a village less than two miles east of the city {Joh. xi. 18), near the Mount of Olives, the site being commonly identified with the modern El Azeriyeh (which owes its name to the association of Bethany 1 The tree has a short trunk, leaves resembling those of the mulberry, and fruit like the fig. ' In Lk. xix. 8 the presents SiSoifu and diroSiSw/xi probably mean " I give," " I restore " here and now. ht: r Gibeon \^ \ oRamah \ (er-RSm) < iel-KubSbeh \ 1 oMizpah \ I - ^ JCaldniyeh ^*=*,^( Emmaus ? ) \ oAnathoth / y^==>=^~ JERUSALE^^ ^y\Bethpha^p''''°°^ ^^^^ Bethany / \ 1 ■ RacheJ's Tomb/ ENVIRONS OF JERUSALEM C.B.K / ^ 7 Bethlehem 1 r **♦ To illustrate the Jvdaan Ministry. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 433 with Lazarus {Joh. xi. 1)). Here He seems to have been received and entertained by a woman named Martha, whose sister Mary became preoccupied with hstening to His discourses, leaving the task of providing the meal to Martha, who in consequence complained to Him, but was told ambiguously that one, not many, things were needed, and what Mary had chosen could not be taken from her.^ These particulars are furnished by Lh. only, but though he leaves unnamed the village where Martha dwells, St. Mark's statement already referred to imphes that Jesus found hospitality at Bethany, and St. Luke's narrative suits well the circumstances. Apparently between Bethany and the Mount of Olives was another village called Bethphage, and the nearness of the two localities to one another enabled Jesus to make arrangements for a plan which He carried out next day. On Nisan 9 (Sunday), He sent to Bethphage (of. Mt. xxi. 1) two of His disciples, telling them that at the entrance of the place they would find an ass's colt ^ tied at a house-door, and were to unloose it and bring it to Him ; and in case they were questioned about their proceedings, they should say that their Master needed it and would return it. They carried out the directions, and bringing the colt, which was without trappings, to Jesus, put upon its back some garments in place of a saddle, and then Jesus mounted it. To do Him honour some carpeted the road with their outer robes (cf. 2 Kg. ix. 13), whilst others strewed upon it layers of fallen leaves.^ A joyous procession, with Jesus in the centre, was formed ; and by both those who were in front and those who were behind was raised a song of prayer and praise, drawn in part from Ps. cxviii. 25, 26, a psalm liturgically used at the feast of Tabernacles, and containing words which, originally meant as a welcome to the pilgrims that came up for the feast, were now employed to greet Jesus as One whose approach preluded the establishment of the kingdom of the national hopes : " God save him ! " " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord : Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David ; Save him from on high." The words do not necessarily imply that Jesus was greeted as the actual sovereign of the coming kingdom ; they were compatible with His being the herald of it, and Mt. records that when it was asked who He was, the multitude replied that He was the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of GaUlee. Jesus, after having thus entered the city, proceeded to the Temple courts (p. 90) ; and having looked around and observed much that called for reform, He withdrew, since the hour was late, and returned to Bethany. Mh.^3 description of the oolt whereon no man had ever yet sat reproduces the idea found in the Old Testament that what had previously been used was unsuitable for sacred purposes (Num. xix. 2 ; Dt. xxi. 3 ; 1 Sam. vi. 7 ; 2 Sam. vi. 3 ; cf. Lk. xxiii. 53). Mt. in his account of the entry (xxi. 1-11) quotes freely the prophecy from Zaih. ix. 9, which seems to have been in our Lord's mind, but misunderstandiig the parallelism of the words " an ass, and a colt, the foal of a she-ass " (describing a single ' In Lie. X. 42 /iep/s is used in the double sense of a portion of food and of a lot in life (Ps. Ixxiii. 26). * Joh. has " branches of the palm trees " ; cf . 1 Mace. xiii. 51. " Mh. merely has irSKov, which is applicable to both a horse and an ass. 28 434 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY animal) represents that the disciples brooght to Jeans a she-ass together Trith its colt, and placed their garments on them both. Our Lord's undertaking to send back the colt is replaced by an assurance from Him that the owner of the ass and the colt would send them. Mt. has for the greeting of the crowd " God save the Son of David " ; and the Evangelist adds that in the Temple He healed the bUnd and the lame. The same words " God save the Son of David," shouted there by the chil- dren, were made by the priests and scribes a subject of complaint to Jeaus, but He bade them take note of what was said in Ps. viii. 2 (LXX), which was then finding its fulfilment. Lk. has " Blessed is the Idng that cometh in the name of the Lord : peace in heaven and glory in the highest " ; and adds that when some of the Phariseea, as Jesus descended the Mount of Ohves, bade Him rebuke the disciples for so hailing Him, He replied that, if they ceased, the very stones would immediately take up the cry (cf. Sab. ii. 11). Lh. also records that as Jesus drew near the city He lamented over its insensibihty to its true welfare (as evinced by these complaints of the Pharir sees), and the retribution which was so shortly to overtake it. J oh. who states that Jesus " found a young ass and sat thereon " in fulfihnent of Zech. ix. 9, appears to place the Entry on Nisan 10 (Monday), it the " six days before the Passover " (xii. 1) be reckoned inclusively, for the sixth day would be Nisan 9 (Sunday), and the entry occurred on the day following (xii. 12). The next day (Nisan 10, Monday) He started early from Bethany for Jerusalem. On the way, according to the historian's narrative, He saw a solitary fig tree prematurely in leaf ; and since the fruit usually appears before the leaves, which afterwards screen it, the sight of the foliage caused Him (for He had seemingly not yet broken His fast) to hope to find, if not ripe figs (these are not forthcoming until May or June, and this was only March or April), at least immature green figs. The tree, however, proved to have none. Jesus, therefore, in His disciples' hearing, addressing the deceptive tree, sentenced it to perpetual sterility. After He had carried out at Jerusalem the design for which He went thither and which is related below (p. 435), He returned to Bethany; and on the ensuing morning when He and His disciples passed the tree a second time, it was noticed that it had withered. Peter drew his Lord's attention to it ; whereupon Jesus bade them have faith in God, and declared that anyone who should bid the neighbouring hill (the Mount of Olives) be transported into the sea, without doubting that his desire would be fulfilled, should find it realized. And He went on to assure them that whatsoever they prayed for, with full confidence that they would receive, they should have ; but He enjoined them that their prayers should be accompanied by the forgiveness of such as had wronged them (cf. p. 392).i The beginning of this narrative represents Jesus as cursing the tree for false pretensions to fruitfulness. His action admitting of being under- stood as a warning to the bystanders against insincere professions and hypocrisy, although no such warning is explicitly enforced in words. But in the conclusion the lesson conveyed is the power of prayer, when accompanied by faith, a further and more extreme illustration of what faith can accomplish being added. But the latter — the removal of mountains — was a common figure of speech for the surmounting of diffi- 1 Mk. xi.26 (R.V. mg.) is found in A C D, etc., and Lat. vet. (most oodd.), but is absent from X B L, from Lat. vet. (some codd.), Syr. (sin.), and Eg. : cf. Ml. vi. l->- THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 435 culties (see 1 Cor. xiii. 2, Mt. xvii. 20, Zech. iv. 7 i) ; and this suggests that the withering of a tree by a word may also have been a rhetorical hyperbole, used by our Lord to indicate how much could be achieved by laith — a hyperbole which has been taken literally and converted into an boouirence (cf. p. 116). If a figurative expression has thus' been material- ized into an actual incident, the need at a later period of accounting for Jesus' action would naturally lead to the invention of circumstances supposed to be appropriate, such as those which are described in the opening of the story. This explanation seems preferable to believing that Jesus really treated an inanimate object as if it were a responsible agent, and that His words caused the tree to decay within a few hours. Mt. represents that as soon as Jesus imprecated barrenness upon the fig tree, it withered away immediateh/ (cf. p. 188). In Lk. xvii. 6 (of. Mt. xvii. 20) a petition % the Apostles that Jesus would increase their faith is answered by the statement that if they had faith as a grain of mustard seed, they might bid a sycwmine tree * plant itself in the sea, and they would be obeyed. The Third Gospel does not contain the cursing of the fig tree, but has a parable (xiii. 6-9) in which the owner of a vine- ■; jiatd, when ordering the feUing of a fruitless Fig tree, is entreated by his vine dresser f :|(> spare it for another year in the hope that after being pruned and manured, it may produce fruit ; if it then fails to do so, it deserves no further respite. The fig tree stands for the Jewish people, and the postponement of its destruction illustrates the Divine mercy. Some suppose that it is this parable that has been transformed into the narrative of the Cursing of the Fig Tree. I On the morrow of the day which had seen Jesus enter Jerusalem attended by an acclaiming multitude, He again (as has been said) returned thither accompanied by His disciples alone. On the preceding visit He had gone to the Temple and had noticed what took place in the outer court, where it was customary to ofier for sale the animals and birds required for the altar, together with the other commodities (like wine and oil) which were used in connexion with various sacrifices. Here, too, were the tables of the money-changers who were wont to supply the half-shekels paid as the annual Temple dues (p. 71), receiving their value (no doubt with a substantial commission for the accommodation) in the several sorts of coins which pilgrims from foreign countries brought with them. This traffic was permitted by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the market i in the Temple for the sale of sacrificial victims seems to have been known as " the bazaars of the sons of Annas," Annas himself having a bad reputa- tion for avarice as well as violence (Jos. Ant. xx. 9, 2 f .).^ The merchandise Sold thus brought in much gain both to the vendors and to the priesthood ; and the desecration involved was increased by the fact that the Temple \ court was made a thoroughfare between the eastern and western sides of ' the city. To such desecration Jesus proceeded to put an end. He drove from the court the sellers and buyers, turned out the tables of the ex- changers and the seats of the dealers in doves, and stopped the passage of those who carried goods through the court ; and He justified what He did by reference to 2 Is. Ivi. 7, " My house shall be called a house of 1' A famous Jewish teacher is said to have been known as " a rooter-up of moun- tains." " The Black Mulberry (Moms nigra). ' Edersheim, L. and T. i. p. 371. 486 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY prayer for all the nations," adding, " But ye have made it a robbers' cave " (cf. Jer. vii. ll).i St. Mark cites no further utterance of our Lord's in connexion with His cleansing of the Temple, but there is reason to suspect that He said more than the words here recorded by the Evangelist. For at His trial there was brought against Him the charge that He had said, " I will destroy this temple which is made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands " (p. 460) ; and it seems probable that the charge rested upon the distortion of some expression used on the occasion just described. That the words attributed to Him before the Sanhedrin were not those which He actually said is an almost certain conclusion from the circumstance that, though they were uttered only a few days before, the witnesses summoned to testify to them could not agree about them ; but unfortunately the earliest authorities do not enable their original form to be recovered. Under these circumstances it seems necessary to have recourse to the version of them which appears in Joh. ii. 19 (where the purification of the Temple is antedated, p. 218) and which are appropriate to the situation. " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." This version may correctly preserve the fact that the words which were misrepresented at His trial really began with an imperative, the priests being ironically bidden to bring to final destruction, by a continuance of their conduct, the religious system of which they were the authorized guardians and of which the Temple at Jerusalem was the local centre, and Jesus going on to declare that He Himself within a brief interval would restore it in a worthier form. The Fourth Evangelist has explained that by the Temple which was to be destroyed and then restored Jesus meant His body ; but if so, His meaning was expressed so enigmatically that the import of His words could scarcely fail to be misunderstood. It seems much more likely that He really referred to the actual Temple and the religious system which hinged upon it, and that His words were a declaration that the latter would before long be replaced by another from which the abuses He had condemned would be absent.^ § 11. His Death Devised The utterances and actions of Jesus were bitterly resented by the High Priestly party and the Scribes ; and in consequence they sought His destruction. They did not, however, find it easy to accomplish it, since upon the multitude, here as in Galilee {Mk. i. 22), His teaching of which the Temple (it would appear) was daily the scene (cf. Lk. xix. 47) made a deep impression, and an attempt at open violence might have been attended by danger to themselves {Mk. xi. 18, cf. xii. 12, 37). Nor was assassination under cover of darkness altogether feasible, for Jesus ^ For the account o{ the cleansing of the Temple in the Fourth Gospel see p. 485. " The Jeivish and Christian religious communities might be described figuratively as buildings : of. 1. Ow. iii. 16, 17 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16 ; Eph. ii. 21. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 437 did not remain in the city during the night, but every evening retired with His disciples to Bethany for rest. In these circumstances it was decided to proceed circumspectly and to try to draw from Him statements clashing with the Law, or calculated to awaken the suspicions of the Roman governor, or in some way likely to turn the tide of popular feeling, now running in His favour. Repre- sentatives, therefore, of the High Priests, Scribes, and Elders (the three constituent elements of the Sanhedrin, p. 99) took the opportunity when He and His disciples again came to the city on Nisan 11 (Tuesday) to ask Him, as He was walking and teaching in the Temple courts (cf. Lh. XX. 1), the nature and source of His authority for interfering with arrange- ments that had their sanction.^ Their own authority had been transmitted to them from their predecessors : the prerogative of priesthood, for example, belonged exclusively to the descendants of Aaron, and Scribes who undertook to teach had themselves been instructed by Scribes (p. 97). Hence they desired to know what warrant Jesus possessed, that He had presumed to decide adversely to their own regulations. But they over- looked the fact that there was another kind of authority besides theirs, having its origin in the illumination imparted directly by the Spirit of God, and manifesting its credentials through the intrinsic appeal which it made to the reason and conscience of men. Such in all ages had marked the prophets ; and it was this which Jesus claimed, even in a higher measure than the prophets had done. But instead of affirming plainly His possession of this kind of authority He was content to suggest it. So He said that He would put to them a prior question, and upon their response His own reply would depend. Was the teaching of John, which had its symbol in the baptism which he administered, of Divine or human origin ? His interrogators were confronted with an awkward dilemma. If they said that it came from a Divine source, i.e. that John was endowed with the spirit of the ancient prophets, not only might Jesus claim for what He Himself had said and done the same authority, but He could ask them how it was that they, for the most part, had rejected John (cf. Lk. vii. 30) ; whilst if they replied that it was of human origin (their real opinion), they feared a violent protest from the people, who (with an appreciation of vital religion truer than their own) held that John was really a prophet, and who might stone those who denied it [Lh. xx. 6). So they escaped the dilemma by professing ignorance ; and thereby released Jesus from any obligation to give them the explanation which they had sought from Him. When our Lord was in Galilee one of the forms into which He cast His teaching was the parable (p. 394). The same method of instruction was now adopted by Him in an attempt to expose to the members of the Sanhedrin the true bearing of their attitude towards Himself, some ima- ginary incidents being recounted, which reproduced under a transparent disguise the conduct of the Jewish ecclesiastical rulers. ■* In Mh. xi . 28 " these things " refer to what is recorded in xi. 15-18. 488 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Mt. places in immediate auooession to the interview just narrated three parables, the first of which was addiessed to the Scribes and Pharisees and illustrated their attitude to John the Baptist. This described how a man had Two sons, one of whom at first met with a refusal his father's orders to go to work, but afterwards repented and went ; whilst the second at first professed obedience, but did not carry out Us promise. The first son represented the tax-gatherers and loose women, who though leading, at first, godless lives, yet repented at John's appeal ; whilst the second son stood for the professedly pious classes, who nevertheless repudiated the teaching of John. The Vatican MS. and some versions alter the order in which the two sons are mentioned, and in Mt. xxi. 31 replace d irp&ro! by 6 litrrepos as the argument requires. But D, Lat. vet., and the Siuaitio Syr., which have the ordinary arrangement adopted above, nevertheless replace in v. 31 6 irpuros by 6 (a-xaros, which supposes that the priests, recognizing that Jesus' question was intended to condemn themselves, refused to draw the inference He wanted. Mk. illustrates by only a single parable (whict by Mt. is placed second in his group of three) the way in which Jesus sought to create, in His opponents a sense of the real significance of the course they were pursuing in regard to Himself. The parable in question (the Wicked Husband- men) was designed to be a warning of what the consequences of their conduct would be, if it remained unchanged. The owner of a vineyard after fencing it against depredators (cf. Ps. Lsxx. 12, 13), excavating a wine vat (vTio^ijviov), and building a tower to shelter a watchman (Is. V. 2), let it to tenants while he went abroad. At the vintage season he sent several servants in succession to demand the proportion of the produce due to the owner, but these the tenants either beat or murdered. FinaEy he sent his only well-beloved son, in the hope that he at least would be respected ; but the occupants of the vineyard, recognizing him to be the heir, and hoping by his death to secure the property for themselves, killed him likewise and cast out his body.-"- Such conduct could have only one issue ; the owner would come and destroy the tenants and would transfer the vineyard to others. And then Jesus asked His audience whether they were unacquainted with the purport of even so familiar a passage in the Old Testament Scriptures as Ps. cxviii. 22, 23, describing how the stone which human builders rejected was deemed worthy by God of the position of greatest eminence and importance. The general meaning of the parable was clear on the surface. By a vineyard of which the owner was God, Israel was frequently symbolized in the Old Testament (Is. iii. 14, v. 2 f .), and the figure as now used by our Lord had the same import. To those who were responsible for the spiritual welfare of the people, God had sent His prophets to demand His due ; but they had maltreated or killed them and were now meditating the djestruction even of God's Son, a crime which would cause their overthrow and their replacement by others (i.e. the class whom the religious leaders despised, but from whom the adherents of Jesus were drawn and who constituted a new ecclesia). The application of the passage from Ps. cxviii. to the situation was equally plain. The stone, originally a figuift for Israel, once despised and oppressed by the great powers of the eaat, • Mt. and Lk. represent that the husbandmen ejected the sou from the vineyard before killing him (of. Heb. xni. 12). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS i39 but afterwards vindicated by God, was here used as a symbol of Jesus i^mself, Who, rejected by the contemporary ecclesiastical authorities, was destined to unite the walls of the spiritual building which God was about to rear.^ This reference to themselves was not lost upon the representatives of the Sanhedrin, and they were eager to arrest Him ; but the fear of the multitude continued to deter them, and they were constoined for the time to abandon their purpose and to leave Him. , :' Mt- implicitly and Lh. expressly represent the parable as addressed not to the dq)ftta/t4on from the Sanhedrin but to the people, though they inconsistently retain St. Mark's words in xii. 12, the former evangelist appending as an explanation from Jesus that the Kingdom of God should b^ taken from them (the Jews) and given to another nmtion. The alteration reflects the condition of the later period when the Jewish polity came to an end through the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 a.d., and when the Olmstial Church became almost exclusively Gentile. To Christ's quotation from Pi. csTO. both Evangelists ' add from Q the statement that he who should faU on the stow would be shattered in pieces (cf . Js. viii. 14^15), but he on whom it shoi^d fall would be scattered like chafi. Mt. Subjoins a third parable which likewise Is assumed to be addressed to the Jewish people as a whole, not to the hierarchy only. In it the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a royal Marriage Eeast, to which those who were invited refused to come, SDjae proceeding about their business, whilst others killed or injured the servants who were sent to apprise them that the feast was ready. The king in anger destroyed the murderers and their city, and bade his servants fill their places with persons gathered from the highways. Lk. xiv. 15-24 has what appears to be a duplicate verwon of the parjible,^ but differing in respect of the giver of the feast ("a cejrtaiA man") ajid the classes of persons brought to fill the vacant places (poor from the streets, as w?ll as travellers from the highways), and not mentioning any maltreatment of the bearer or bearers of the invitation. Of the two versions Lk.'s is likely to be the most origiraal, the invited guests representing the Jewish religious classes, who for -the most part rejected <3od's message, the poor from the streets standing for tfce publicans and sinners, and the travellers from the highways symbolizing the Gentiles (pf. Mt, viii. ll=Lh. xjii. 28). In Mt., where there are only two classes, the invited guests are the Jews collectively (who reject the Divine invitation, kill Jesus and some of His Apostles and Evajigelists (St. Stephen, St. James " brother " of our Lord, mi pohsjljy Sfe. John (p. 226) and are punished by the destruction of Jenisale»), tkWH the tayellers from the roads are the Gentiles. The modifications reflect events subsequent to the Crucifixion. There is also appended to this parable in Mt. a portion ptattotiher (JR. xxii. 11-13) of which the beginning is lost. TWs must have described how «, King ssued invitations to a feast, the surviving part of the story naristing how the Kingcame in to see the guests and observed one who lacked a wedding gai> went, and wh), having no excuse for his discourtesy, was cast forth. This dearly can he no part of the first parable, for persons gathered from the roadside could not be Bxpeoted to be properly attired. The lesson implied is that inclusion within God's fttroured peoplt Israel does not of itself ensure salvation (ct Mt. iii. 9, xiii, 47, 48). !" On one oc;asion during our Lord's ministry in Galilee there had been formed against Him a rather unnatural alliance between the Pharisees and the Herolians (p. 388). The same alliance was now renewed with tbfi snister purpose of putting to Him a question seeming to admit of ody two answirs, either of which would compromise Him. Some repre- sentatives of bth parties came to Him under pretence of seeking from Him, as a canud and fearless instructor in religious duty, a solution of 1 <3t. Aetsiv. 11 ; 1 Pa. ii. 4r-7. ' Mt. xxi.44 is omitted by D, Lat. vet., Syr. vet. ' This is rpresemted as narratod ai & meal wli^e Jesui3 Vns piesent. 440 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY a difficulty, and asked Him whether it was right for them to give tribute to the Roman Emperor (p. 71). The Law enjoined certain dues to God, but said nothing about dues to a foreign potentate, the payment of which appeared like disloyalty to their Divine King. They anticipated that He would be driven either to deny the lawfulness of tribute paid to the Emperor and so render Himself liable to be viewed by the Bomans as a plotter of sedition, or else to admit its lawfulness and so disavow any claim to be the Messiah of popular expectation, with consequent loss of popular sympathy. Jesus detected the insincerity of their pretended interest in religious truth, and told them to bring Him a denarius as a specimen of the coinage in which the tribute was paid. This, being silver, bore (unlike the copper coins) the head of the Emperor ; so when they produced one. He inquired with whose effigy and title it was stamped, and on being informed, He bade them pay both to the Emperor and to God what belonged to each. The answer surprised the questioners, partly because it successfully evaded the snare which they had laid for Him, and partly, perhaps, because it presented the subject of the question in a new aspect. For it suggested the reflection that inasmuch as Caesar, whose coinage circulated among them, gave the country security and orderly rule (cf . 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14), he had a claim to a return ^ in the shape of tribute. Between his rights and God's there could be no necessary conflict (since God was the ultimate source of all government, af. Rom. xiii. 1-7), and loyalty to their Divine King was not incompatible with submission to their human ruler. The failure of the Pharisees together with their Herodian allies did not discourage their opponents, the Sadducees, from propounding to Him a problem, bearing upon one of the principal matters of religious controversy. They denied a future life in which the Pharisees believed (p. 101), and they professed to be desirous of an opinion about it from the new Teacher. Their question, however, was not intended to elicit fresh HghtAipon the subject, but to expose Jesus to derision, whilst it might also dimage the rival sect. The popular conception of a future life took a very nsaterialistic form (see p. 42), and it was supposed that the bodily function^and social relationships of the present age would be restored in the lext. This enabled them to submit to Him a case, possible rather thaa actual, in which a widow whose husband had died childless was married acccording to the law of Dt. xxv. 5, 6, to his sis brothers in succession, ^.ch of whom had no children ; and they wished to know whose wife of he seven she would be in the life after death. Jesus replied that in consilering such a contingency as an impediment to belief in the resurrectioijthey showed themselves ignorant both of the power of God and of the evidJnce furnished by their own Scriptures. In the first place, God was abb not only to restore men to life after they had died, but to alter the comitions of life, so that they would not be the counterpart of those of the (resent world ; and the complications that perplexed the Sadducees wiild not arise. The state of human beings after the resurrection would respnble the state ^ For the SoOvai. of the Pharisees Jesus substitutes iirddre. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 441 of angels (whose reality the Sadducees also denied, p. 102), and a relation- Bhip like marriage, which was necessary now for the continuation of the race, would then not be called for,i since those who should share that second life would be immortal (cf. Lh. xx. 36). And in the next place, evidence that death did not end human existence was furnished by the passage of Exodus (iii. 1 f.) called " the Bush " ^ (the authority of which, as part of the Law, the Sadducees admitted, p. 101). In this Jehovah, addressing Moses, declared that He was the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob ^ ; and since He entered into such intimate relations with the patriarchs as to be called their God, they must be still alive, otherwise the privilege and distinction conferred by intimacy with the Deity would be as transitory as ordinary human intimacies. Death changed the position of men relatively to this world, but not relatively to God, in regard to Whom they were alive even after they had died. The argument for human immortality here used by Jesus appears on the surface to lack cogency ; for Jehovah's words, " I am the God of Abraham," etc. (there is no verb in the Hebrew), only mean that He was the Deity formerly worshipped by the patriarchs, and no more necessarily imply their survival than the words of Pharaoh's counsellors (Is. xix. 11), " I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings," imply the continued existence of the ancient kings. Yet if not in form, yet in essence the reasoning of our Lord is the same as that which appeals most forcibly to the human mind still. In the race of men, who physically have so much in common with the brute creation, there are present moral and intellectual qualities, such as the sense of right and the desire for truth, which not only create belief in, and worship of, God, but crave for satisfaction from God. But this craving is too persistently baffled and foiled here for this life to be the limit and sum of our being, unless it can be assumed that the Creator has meant such a yearning to be finally disappointed. If this is too pessimistic a view of God and the world to be permanently harboured, another sphere of existence must be postulated, wherein right will be vindicated and truth attained. It will be observed that Jesus' reasoning points to the immortality of the human soul, not necessarily to the resurrection of the body, against which the Sadducees' argument was directed ; and it can only afford countenance for the latter, if it is assumed that the body is an inseparable constituent of human nature. The discussion between the Sadducees and our Lord was heard by a Scribe whose sympathies were with the Pharisees * on the question debated, and who (in common with others to whom Lk. xx. 39 alludes) approved of the answer returned by Jesus to His recent questioners. ' Contrast the materialistic view in Enoch x. 17-19. ' Cf. Som. xi. 2 (mg.) " in Elijah," i.e. in 1 Kg. xix. 14 f. So PhUo refers to God's words iy rats 'Apais, i.e. in Oen. iii. 15 f. It is noticeable that the citation comes from the " Law " (p. 98). ' Lk. represents that Moses called the Lord by this title. * Mt. xxii. 35 describes him as a Pharisee. The incident is omitted by Lk., though there is some similarity of diction in Lk. x. 26, 27 442 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY He now came forward with an inquiry of his own. Although all the commandments of the Law were believed to have Divine authority behind them, and although the Eabbis, whilst distinguishing between " light " and " heavy " commandments, declared the former to be as bindi^ as the latter, nevertheless thoughtful minds could not but feel that they were not aU really on the same level. Self-distrust, however, caused the Scribe to seek some authoritative guidance ; so he asked Jesus which commandment took precedence of the rest as most fundamental. Jesus in reply afi&rmed it to be that contained in Dt. vi. 4, declaring Jehovah, the God of Israel, to be One — Indivisible and Alone ; and enjoining for Him fervent devotion of both the intellect and the affections. Our Lord then went beyond what was asked of Him by adding that the command- ment next in importance was that given in Lev. xLx. 18, directing a man to love his neighbour as himself. ^ The Scribe approved of the answer which Jesus had given, saying that love for God and for one's neighbour was superior to all material offerings. Jesus, seeing the intelligence that marked the man's comment, told him that he was not far from the Kingdom of God, since he understood and appreciated the principles of spilitadl religion which conditioned entrance into it. It may be perhaps assumed that the dialogue between Jesus and the Scribe was heard by many listeners, who could not but recognize the penetration marking the replies of the former to the problems submitted to Him ; at any rate, none of those who from malicious motives were wishful to shake His authority attempted to interrogate Him further. After thus reducing His adversaries to silence, Jesus continued to teach in the Temple courts ; and in the course of His instruction He asked those who listened to Him for an explanation of an assertion made by the Scribes and generally accepted, that the Messiah was to be a descendant of David. Their assertion was, no doubt, countenanced by passages like 7s. xi. 1, or Jer. xxiii. 5 ; but it called for explanation in view of tih0 utterance of David himself in Ps. ex. 1 (allowed to be a Messianic psalm), where he used the words " Jehovah said unto my Lord, ' Sit at my right hand until I place thine enemies beneath thy feet.' " If David called the Messiah " Lord," how could the latter be his son, one among a numher of other members of his dynasty, a sovereign of the same ty^jc as himself ? To solve the problem no explanation is related to have been offered hy the Scribes or supplied by Jesus ; and the latter's purpose in putting the question is not quite certain. It is not likely that He wished to deny that by physical birth He, the Messiah, was sprung from David, a con- clusion to which several considerations point (p. 358). Indeed, there must have been many living at the time who could trace their lineage to that King.^ On the assumption that Jesus believed Himself to belong to David's line, probably His aim was to suggest to His hearers that His descent from David was the least important part of His real dignity. ' In Mt. our Lord concludes by saying that on these two eommandmenta the whdls Law and the Prophets depend. 2 The Rabbi ffillel, who in early lile was a poor man, is said to have been of Davldio descent (Kennott, Interpreter, Oct. 1911, pp. 46, 46). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 443 His right to deference from the people, when He taught and acted authori- tatively, was independent of it, and based upon His occupying a more intimate relation to God than the Messianic King of popular expectation. He accordingly drew attention to a Davidio psalm wherein the writer, by ^applying to the Messiah the title " my Lord," showed that he looked for a Messiah who was not to repeat (as a dynastic successor might do) his own earthly glories, but was to discharge an office of transcendent dignity. Pa. ox. is described in the title prefixed to it aa a psalm of David, and our Lord's aigument assumes that David was its writer. Though it is possible that in doing so He only took up the standpoint of the Scribes themselves, reasoning vidth them on their own ground, yet it seems most likely that He really shared their beUef, His Divine Sonship being manifested under the intellectual Umitationa of human nature, which caused Him to participate in the literary and historical ideas of Hia age.^ The teai=iorigin and date of the psalm is obscure. Its very inclusion in the Fourth book at the Psalter is in itself unfavourable to its composition by David ; and a view which has some plausibility is that it was composed in the second century B.C., and relates to Simon Maccabseus. He was of priestly descent (p. 32) but not of high-priestly lineage, and the bestowal upon him of secular rule and of the High Priesthood (1 Mace. xiv. 41, see p. 35) recalled the combination of functions discharged by Melohizedek {Pa, ex. 4, Oen. xiv. 18). It has been pointed out that of vv. 2, 3, 4 (apart from the apening words of the psalm) each begins with one of the four letters that compose Simon's name. If the psalm is not of Davidic authorship, our Lord's argument here falls to the ground ; but He could easily have expressed in another way the con- clusion vrhioh He wished to suggest. The Scribe who had recently questioned Jesus about the relative importance of the various parts of the Law showed that the body to which he belonged included men of honest and truth-loving disposition. But there were others of a different character ; and these were more repre- sentative of their class as a whole. A feature about them which specially excited the indignation of our Lord was the disparity between their profession and their practice. By profession they were exponents of the Divine Law, and therefore might be expected to observe in their oonduct the moral principles therein enforced — especially consideration for the poor ; but in practice they were grasping and pitiless. The reputation for piety which they acquired by the length of their devotions won them influence, through which they were able to gratify their avarice, eating the unprotected out of house and home (in violation of the Law in Ex. xxii. 21). Hence Jesus, in His teaching, denounced them. Their vices (He affirmed) were aggravated by their hypocrisy, and would consequently bring upon them a proportionately stern judgment. In Mt. xxUi, 1-8 our Lord's denunciation, which in Mk. is limited to the Scribes, is made to include the Pharisees also. According to the First Evangelist's account He declared that since the Scribes were the successors of Moses and expoimded the taw, the precepts which they enjoined were to be observed, but their example was to be avoided, ' their dominant motive being ostentation. Mt. also (xxiii. 13-36) ' Cf. Lux Mundi, pp. 369, 360 : " Christ's true Godhead is shown in His moral and spiritual claims . . . not in any miraculous exemptions of Himself from the conditions of natural knowledge in its own proper province." ' The phylacteries mentioned in ML xxiii. 5 were leather cases containing strips of parchment inscribed with certain passages of Scripture, which were bound on the forehead and arm. For borders or tasads, see p. 400. 444 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY appends to the section derived from Mk. a series of seven Woes ^ directed against the Scribes and Pharisees. These are expanded from a shorter series of denunciations which the writer took from Q and which occur also in Lk. xi. 42-52 (see p. 411). In the passages peculiar to Jtf<. (xxiii. 15-22) the Scribes are denounced for their castiistry in respect of oaths, and the unreal character of their ostentatious religiousness. St. Luke also (xiv. 7 f.) records that Jesus when sitting at meat at a Pharisee's house (where the dropsical man was healed, p. 388) noted how the guests chose thp, most prominent seats, and thereupon delivered a warning against self-assertion ; and likewise exhorted his host to invite to his table not his friends who could repay his hospitality, but the poor and the afflicted who could not, and to await a recompense at the resurrection of the just. It is with this occasion that St. Luke connects the parable of the Great Supper (p. 439). The scene of Jesus' teaching in the Temple was usually the court of the Gentiles (p. 90). It was in all probability here that (according to Lk. xui. 1-5), our Lord was informed of a massacre of certain Galilaeau pilgrims at Jerusalem by Pilate, who had butchered them in the Temple courts, where their blood mingled with that of the animals they were slaying for sacrifice. Our Lord's informants seem to have inferred that such a slaughter pointed to exceptional sinfulness in the victims of it, but Jesus declared that a fate as tragic as that which they had mentioned, or as that of eighteen men killed by the fall of a tower near the pool of Siloam, would overtake themselves unless they repented. On another occasion He passed with His disciples from the court of the Gentiles into the court of the Women, from which all non- Jews were debarred (p. 90). Here, opposite to the Treasury (p. 91), our Lord took His seat,^ whence He observed the people depositing, in the receptaclea placed there, their various gifts of money. The rich and the poor were doubtless easily distinguishable by their dress and appearance, and wMlst the wealthy contributed much, a poor widow put in two lepta, the whole sum scarcely exceeding the value of half a farthing of our coinage (p. 683), and being the minimum allowed to be given. Jesus must have penetrated into the widow's secret thoughts ; and comparing the proportion of her gift with the smallness of her means. He called His disciples to Him and declared that the widow had contributed more than any of the ofEerers, for whilst the others had bestowed what they could spare, she had given what amounted to all her possessions. When Jesus left the Temple courts for the last time, one of His disciples drew His attention to the magnitude of the building and its materials. The Apostles were almost all GaUlseans, unfamiUar with the capital, so that the size and costliness of its splendid fane had made the deeper impression. The great bulk of the stones of which it was built may be judged by the figures furnished by Josephus, who describes some of them as being 25 X 12 X 8 cubits (Ant. xv. 11, 3). But Jesus could find nothing to admire in the external splendour of a religious system or of its environment when the true spirit of devotion was absent ; and He anti- cipated that the insincerity marking so much of the Temple worsbp 1 Mt. xxiii. 14 making the number eight, is absent from the earliest MSS. and Vera, and comes from Mk. xii. 40. ' This narrative is omitted by Mt., but is reproduced in Lk. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 445 wotUd speedily bring down a nemesis from a God for Whom the material apart from the spiritual could have no value. So in answer to His disciples' expressions of wonder and admiration, He returned the reply that of the structure at which they were gazing not one stone would be left resting on another. Though this conversation took place privately between Jesus and His disciples, yet possibly some part of it in a garbled form got abroad, and a distorted version of what our Lord really said may have constituted the basis of the accusation afterwards brought against Him (but see p. 436). The substantial fulfilment of His words is recorded by Josephus {B.J. vii. 1, 1), who relates that after the siege of Jerusalem in 70, when the population had been massacred, Titus ordered the eastern city and the Temple to be demohshed, though some of the towers and the western wall were left. Jesus' startling response must at once have turned the thoughts of the disciples towards the end of the existing age, for only in conjunction with such a catastrophe was the destruction of the Temple imaginable ; and when the party had crossed the Kidron and reached the Mount of OUves, which confronted the Temple from the other side of the ravine, four of the Apostles, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, asked Him privately when the event of which He had spoken would happen, and by what indications they could judge of its near approach. The particular informa- tion which they wanted He could not give. He answered solemnly and impressively that heaven and earth would pass away sooner than His prediction fail of fulfilment (cf . 2 Is. li. 6) ; and that it would be accom- plished within a generation (cf. Mt. xxiii. 36) ; but of the precise time ^ none but the Father — not even the Angels or the Son — had any knowledge. They must therefore be on their guard lest the crisis should overtake them unawares, like the sudden return from abroad of a householder who on his departure had appointed to his servants their duties without intimat- ing when he might be expected back. Their only security against being surprised by the impending overthrow was unceasing watchfulness (cf. Mt. XXV. 1-13). To the disciples' question our Lord's reply as represented in Mk. xiii. is long and detailed, a. number of premonitory signs being given, divided into three stages : (1) the appearance of impostors claiming to be the Christ, the occurrence of international strife and physical calamities, the prosecution of Christ's followers before both Jewish and Gentile courts, and the proclamation of the Gospel to all nations ; (2) the desecration of Jerusalem and the Temple, followed by a time of great tribulation for the Jewish people : (3) a convulsion of nature, and the descent from heaven of the Son of man. Both in manner and matter this section presents various singular features, (a) Its length in the Second Gospel is altogether excep- tional ; and it is marked by a fourfold use of rdre, found only twice elsewhere in Mk. (li. 20, iii. 27), though frequent in Mt., and by the phrase " the elect," occurring nowhere else in Mk.^ but common in the Book of Enoch. (6) The parable (m. 28, 29) of the fig-tree (the unfolding foliage of which heralds the summer as the signs described are precursors of the end) is introduced otherwise than is usual in our Lord's parables.' (c) There is an inconsistency between the enumeration in w. 5-29 of a I ■ — ' _ _ — — — — — ' In Mk. xiii. 32 ignorance of the day and hour is a rhetorical expression for complete ignorance of the occasion. ' It is found in Lk. xviii. 7. ' Lk, modifies the phrase in Mk, (of. Lk. xxi, 29 with xviii. 1), 446 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY series of signs of the catastrophe, presaging by their succession its nearer and nearer approach, and the stress laid in v. 35 upon the need of watohfuhiess, because of the uncertainty whether it will happen sooner or later. The latter alone is in harmony with Jesus' assertions elsewhere ; for that He anticipated that the Judgment would take the world by surprise, without any preliminary warning, is clear from Mt. xxiv. 37- 39, 43-51 (=Lh. xvii. 26, 27, xii. 39-46) aU from Q (of. also Lk. xvii. 20). (i) A specific prediction by our Lord that the Gospel was to be proclaimed universally (cf. Mk. xiv. 9) Is difScult to reconcile with the astonishment caused when the first Gentiles were admitted into the Church (Acts x. 34, 45). These peculiarities render it probable that the passage xiii. 5-37 is composite, that our Lord's actual reply to the inquiry in «. 4 is confined to vv. 30-37, and that it has been expanded by the inclusion of a small Apocalypse of Christian origin, or, if of Jewish origin (as many think), yet adjusted to Christian belief. On the other hand, between m. 30 and 32, the superficial inconsistency is not substantial enough to prevent both of these verses from being assigned to our Lord, for He certainly expected the Judgment and the establishment of the Kingdom to take place soon (Mi. i. 15, ix. 1), and v. 32 is most unlikely to be an invention. The Apocalyptic passage intervening between the disciples' question («. 4) and Jesus' answer in w. 30-37 appears to reflect occurrences or conditions of the Apostolic age, and to date from shortly before 65 a.d., when there had appeared impostors like Theudas and Simon Magus, pretending to be propheta^ or incarnations of divine power {Acts v. 36 and p. 238, viii. 10), when there had occurred notable famines and earthquakes (pp. 521, 286), when the Jewish revolt was on the point of breaking out, when the diffusion of the Gospel among the Gentiles had been some time in progress, when Christian evangelists had been brought before not only Jewish but Eoman authorities (like Felix, Festus, and the Emperor), and when Cali- gula's attempted profanation of the Temple (p. 56) had created an expectation that a like or greater enormity would be perpetrated before the end of the age (of. 2 Th. ii. 4). That this Apocalypse was a written document warning Christians to seek safety in time by calling attention to indications of the impending overthrow of the Jewish poUty is suggested by the parenthetic " let hiTn that readeth ^ understand " {v. 14) ; and that it was produced before the actual FaU of Jerusalem seems put beyond doubt by the fact that the Christians did not escape to the mo people (of all of whom, Galilseans as well as others, she could be regarded 448 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY as the mother, 2 Esd. x. 7) as a hen gathers her brood under her wings to protect them against peril, but how they had refused to be preserved, He declared that her dwelling was forsaken by God (cf. Jer. xii. 7), and that He Himself would never again be seen by her citizens until He should come as the heavenly Messiah and be greeted by the saved with blessings as God's representative. The occasion of the Lament is given differently in the First and the Third Gospels, Mt. placing the utterance before, and Lh. after, the Entry into Jerusalem ; but the latter occasion alone seems appropriate (see p. 222). At Bethany, Jesus had friends and acquaintances (p. 432), and on Nisan 12, Wednesday, He was entertained by a man named Simon who had formerly been a leper (possibly the same as he whom Jesus had healed in Galilee (Mh. i. 40, p. 380)). Whilst He was seated at the meal, a woman came with a flask (aXd^aaTooq) ^ of genuine {niarucflg),^ and consequently costly, nard, and emptied it over His head to do Him honour (cf. Ps. xxiii. 5). She was doubtless one who accepted Him as the Messiah, and thus manifested her veneration and devotion. To some who were present the unsparing use of the ointment seemed wasteful, for, if it had been sold, it would have fetched a price (300 denarii) that might have afiorded reUef to many indigent persons. But Jesus would not allow the woman's conduct to be thus made the subject of censure. Her motive rendered her act a very graceful one. There would never be any lack of poor to receive the alms of the charitable ; but He would not always be with them, and the opportunity for those who believed in TTiTn to show their faith and love might not recur ; and convinced as He was that His death was imminent, and that the body of one executed as a criminal was not likely to receive the anointing usually bestowed on the dead by their friends (cf. 2 Gh. xvi. 14), He declared that what had been done would supply what might be lacking at His burial, and would be recorded to the honour of the doer wherever the Gospel should be pro- claimed.^ The circumstance that the earliest EvangeUst, notwithstanding this declaration, does not state who she was suggests that by the time he wrote, her name had passed into oblivion. In Mt. xxvi. 8 the complaint about the waste of such valuable ointment proceeds from the disciples ; and in v. 13 Jesus spealcs of " this Gospel " (i.e. the record of His life and death, a later meaning of the word). In Lh. the occurrence here related is missing ; but in vii. 36-50 there is found a narrative of an incident similar in character (in both Jesus' host is called Simon * and the woman brings an dXd^acTpos /lOpov), but differing in so many partioulaiB that the two cannot easily be taken to be variant versions of the same occurrence. The chief divergences appear in connexion with (1) the place and time (during the 1 Cf. Pliny, H.N. xiii. 3, unguenta optima servantur in alabastris. " Swete quotes Theophylaot, Trji/ liSoXoi' vdpSov xal lUera irfo-Tews KaraffKevaffOeuraV.^ contrasted with this kmd was a pseudo-nard. The Vulg. has here nardi spicati and some suspect tuttik^s to be a corruption of o-iriKiTrii or (ririKaTov. ' The language of Mk. xiv. 9 seems to reflect the conditions of the Evangelist's own day. * The name was very common ; seven persons (besides the individual here men- tioned) are called by it in the New Testament, THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 449 Galiliean ministry) ; (2) the host (desoribed as a Pharisee, with no mention of his having been a leper) ; (3) the woman (desoribed as a sinner and probably a prosti- tute) ; (4) the details of her act (she wets Christ's feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, and then anoints them) ; (5) the comment (made by the Imst on Jesus' conduct for allowing such a woman to touch Him) and the reply (explaining the inten- sity of the woman's gratitude by the magnitude of the sins which had been forgiven her, and illustrating it by the parable of the Two Debtors, whose debts, unequal in amount, are remitted by their creditor).* In Joh. xii. 1-8 there is an account of an incident more nearly resembling that of Mh., but it is placed six days before the Passover and just before the Entry into Jeru- salem ; the name of the host is omitted ; Lazarus (not named in Mk.) is said to have been one of the guests ; the woman is identified with Lazarus' sister Mary ; the stricture upon her is passed by Judas Iscariot, whose interest in the poor is desoribed as insin- cere and whose real motive was oovetousness (since if the ointment had been sold, and the price put into the common purse, he could have dishonestly purloined from it) ; and Jesus' words (in Mk. xiv. 8) are reported difEerently. There is also some confusion as regards details between this incident and the incident in the Third Gospel related above (cf . p. 217). It seems improbable that the Johannine account in which tazaruB and Mary figure can be historically accurate. It presupposes the miracle of Lazarus' restoration to life, an occurrence about which grave doubts are unavoid- able ; whilst on the assumption that it happened, it is almost incredible that amongst the company acquainted with such a wonder any, even Judas, could have taken exception to Mary's token of devotion. And against the supposition that Mary under any circumstances was really the woman in question is the fact that Lk., who is an earlier authority than Joh. and who mentions Mary and the attention with which she listened to Jesus' words (x. 38-42), does not connect such an incident with her. The wish entertained by Jesus' enemies not to risk such disturbance as was likely to attend an attempt to seize Him during the Passover might have led them to defer His arrest until after the festival had closed, had not treachery on the part of one of the Apostles given them an oppor- tunity of accomplishing their purpose earlier. The traitor was Judas, the motive of whose baseness is left to be conjectured. Possibly his Master's declaration that He was destined to be put to death and that He expected His disciples to be capable of self-sacrifice like His own, had shattered the hopes which he had cherished about the expected kingdom ; and the disappointment caused him to seek revenge on one whom he held to have deceived him, and at the same time to ingratiate himself with such as might do more for him. Acquainted as he must have been with the hostility felt by the priests and Scribes towards Jesus, and either inferring that they would be glad to compass His death, or actually getting to know their secret intention to do so, he now went to them and ejEpressed his willingness and power to further their aims, for through his knowledge of Jesus' movements he could enable His enemies to arrest Him before, instead of after, the feast. It was with much satisfaction that the priests and Scribes received the traitor's ofier, and they readily promised to reward him for his services.^ He arranged to guide under * In Lk. vii. 47 the first half of the verse seems to mean that the forgiveness of the woman's many sins (which she herself knows has been granted) can be inferred by others from the great love she has manifested (for &n referring to a thought unex- pressed cf. Horn. Od. iv. 206). Her faith was the cause of her pardon, her love was its consequence. But vv. 48, 49 do not cohere with the context, and seem to repro- duce V. 20, 21 (=Mk. ii. 5-7). ' Mi. represents that the price of liis treachery was thirty silver pieces (apyipia) 29 450 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY cover of night an armed band to the spot where Jepus was most likely to be found and where He could be made a prisoner with small danger of a disturbance being occasioned or a rescue effected. The sign by which He could be identified in the darkness was a kiss, to be given Him by Judas. § 12. The Last Supper The conference between Judas and the chief priests may have occurred early on the morning of Thursday, Nisan 13th. In the course of the same day (immediately preceding the Passover day, Nisan 14th) Jesus was asked by His disciples where He wished preparations to be made for the observance of the Feast. During one of His daily visits to Jerusalem from Bethany our Lord had apparently made acquaintance with a resident in the capital, who was probably a sympathizer and who had undertaken to place at His disposal a room where the Passover meal could be eaten. It is not unlikely that the house was the home of the Evangelist St. Mark, and that the owner was his father (p. 458).'^ Jesus had not disclosed His plans to any of the disciples ; but as He knew that water for the household would be fetched at a certain hour of the day, it was easy to direct some of the Apostles to the house by telling them to go into the city at a par- ticular time when they would meet a man (presumably a servant), bearing a pitcher, whom they were to foUow to the dwelling into which he entered and the owner of which would, in answer to their inquiries, show them the room which had been reserved for their Master's use. Two of the disciples (Lk. names Peter and John), carrying out these instructions, found the house ; and there they made such preparations as the occasion required and the circumstances admitted. The lamb that was needed could not, of course, at once be provided by the two disciples. This had to be killed on the 14th of Nisan (which began at sunset on the Thursday and ended at the same hour on the Friday), the time of the slaughter being the afternoon of Friday, the person who should slay it being the head of the household or company that was to share it, and the place being the court of the Priests within the Temple area. The Passover meal would be eaten on the evening of the same day before sunset, after which the 15th day of Nisan woidd begin, constituting the first day of Unleavened Bread. The preparations made by the two disciples would therefore include the provision of unleavened cakes, of bitter herbs, :aiid of the other minor accompaniments of the Passover, but not the IdUing or the roasting of the lamb, which was its central feature : these acts would be deferred until the morrow. Under ordinary circumstances Jesus would presumably have stayed at Bethany until the afternoon of Friday, Nisan the 14th, and then have proceeded to the Temple in order to ofier the Passover sacrifice. But as it was. He felt sure that He would be delivered into the hands of His enemies before the Feast began. His power of penetrating the minds of paid at onoe. If these were tetradrachms or shekels, they would amount to about £4 15s. '■ By the time the moident related in Acts xii. 12 occurred, he was probably dead. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 451 those with, whom He was brought into contact must have enabled Him to read the heart of Judas, even if the latter's mien had not revealed his change of attitude. He therefore suddenly returned to Jerusalem with the Twelve on the evening of Thursday (Nisan 13th) ; and they all supped together. The seats round the table were probably arranged in horse- shoe fashion, every one present reclining with his left elbow resting on a cushion, and his right arm free.^ Jesus knew it to be the last meal that He would share with His followers ; and in the course of it He disclosed the foreboding which possessed His mind. As they were eating He unexpectedly declared that one of them would betray Him. Such an utterance could not but fill most of them with astonishment and dismay, for the very fact that they were partaking of a common meal should, of itself, have been an assurance against such treachery as He spoke of. Jesus, in answer to their inquiries, did not expose the traitor, but re- iterated His statement that it was one who was actually present at the table and sharing the meal (cf. Ps. xli. 9). And He then added that His departure from earth in the way He had just indicated had been foretold in the Scriptures (the reference being presumably to 2 Is. liii.) and was therefore predetermined by God ; but the fact that the traitor's design was not independent of the Divine will did not reheve him of responsibility for his sin : it would have been better for him had he never been born. Mt. represents that Jesus intimated to Judas himself in answer to the latter's question, that he was the traitor (the EvangeUst perhaps supposing that the oom- munioation was made in a whisper, so that none of the others heard). In Lk. the prediction of the betrayal is not uttered until after the institution of the Eucharist. In Joh. it is stated still more improbably than in Mt. that Jesus in reply to the disciple " whom He loved " (p. 207) declared that the traitor was he to whom He should give the morsel of bread which He should dip in the dish, and that He then handed it to Judas, bidding him do quickly what he had in hand (none at the table understanding the rignificance of the words). In the narrative above it has been assumed that the Last Supper was held on Nisan 13th ; but the day of the month is really uncertain. St. Mark ia xiv. 12 relates that the disciples prepared for it on the first day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover was sacrificed (cf. Mk. xiv. 1, Lk. xxii. 1), such language identifying two days which in strictness were distinct, the Passover being the 14th (natural reckoning) and the first day of Unleavened Bread being the 15th. But since Josephus {B.J. v. 3, 1) represents the day of Unleavened Bread as occurring on the lith day of Xanthicus (i.e. Nisan), Mk. may be presumed to have adopted a popular usage, and to have meant by his composite phrase the same date. If so, he represents the preparations for the supper to have been made early on the 14th, and the supper itselE to have occurred on the evening of the same day (as we divide time), but on Nisan 15th (as the Jews reckon), and so to have been an actual Passover meal (cf. Lk. xxii. 15). The Crucifixion, therefore, which, according to this account, was subsequent to the Passover, must have taken place during Nisan 15th. But by the Fourth Evangelist the Last Supper is placed before the Passover (xiii. 1, 2, 29) ; and the Jews ' Edersheim, Life and Times, eto., ii. p. 494 : of. Joh. xiii. 23. 452 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY at the trial of Jesus are expressly declared to have avoided entering the residence of the Roman Governor lest they should, through con- tracting defilement, be prevented from eating the Passover (xviii. 28). Consequently the Johannine writer seems to have thought that the Last Supper happened on the 13th of Nisan, and the Trial and Crucifixion on the 14th. Of the two authorities the Second Gospel is in most respects much superior to the Fourth ; but in connexion with the days of the Crucifixion and of the preceding meal the latter probably deserves the preference ; and even in Mh. there are features difficult to reconcile with the representation that the Last Supper was held on the 14th and was a Passover, and that our Lord's death occurred on the 15th (see p. 344). On the whole, it seems most likely that the disciples' preparations were really made on the 13th (for the 14th), but that Jesus, expecting to die before the festival, ^ partook of the supper (though not as an anticipatory Passover, as has been suggested by some) on the evening of the 13th, and suffered on the 14th. In the course of the meal, Jesus made of the bread and the wine which formed part of it emblems of His impending death, and a means of uniting in spirit His followers with Himself. Having taken an unleavened loaf (or cake) and having blessed God for the material good (cf . Mh. vi. 41,viii. 6), He broke it up and gave the portions to His disciples, saying (though the precise words cannot with confidence be ascertained), " This is " my body, which is being broken for you : do this in commemoration of me." Similarly at the close of the Supper He took a cup of wine, and when He had again given thanks. He handed it round, and when they had drunk of it. He said, ^ " This is ^ my blood of the new * covenant (t% xaivr/g Siadrjxrjs), which is being spilled for (fee'e) many : do this, as oft as ye drink it, in commemoration of me." And He then went on to declare that He would not again ^ drink of wine until He should drink it new * in the Kingdom of God : the Supper was a farewell meal. Our Lord's procedure on the occasion, interpreted by His words, constituted an enacted symbol. The loaf of bread represented ° His Body, and the breaking of the loaf typified the violence shortly to be inflicted upon Him, causing the destruction of His physical life ; whUst His distri- bution of the fragments amongst the disciples for their consumption intimated His desire that they should assimilate the Spirit which animated Him, and by imitating His self-surrender might thereby gain their true life (cf. Mh. viii. 34, 35). The pouring of the wine and the passing of the 1 In Lk. xxii. 15 the words " this Passover " possibly refer to the Passover of that year falling on the morrow, participation in which Jesus had desired, but (as He now reaUzed) in vain. See J.T.S. July, 1908, pp. 569-72. * In Aramaic the copula would be absent. ' Mt. allows it to be inferred that the words that follow were uttered not after, but before, the wine was drunk. * The adjective Kai.v6s as contrasted with v4os means something fresh or new in kind : cf. Mk. ii. 22, Bev, xxi. 5, and the significance of dKaKaivwo-is in Bom. xii. ?, Tit. iii. 6. s This implies that Jesus partook of the cup which He handed to the others, I" For this sense of earl cf. Oal. iv. 24, THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 453 oup for His disciples to dxink its contents had the like import. But the resemblance of red wine to blood (leading it to be called the blood of the grape, Gen. xlix. 11) caused Jesus to attach to it a significance which the bread could not equally well convey. In antiquity the tie of common blood was the closest of bonds ; and where it did not exist by nature, it could be created artificially. Probably the primitive method of contract- ing a blood covenant was for the parties concerned to open their veins and suck one another's blood (as is still done by certain Arab tribes), or to draw blood from each other and allow it to flow together into a bowl, the mixture being drunk (see Hdt. iv. 70) ; but a less repulsive method was to smear the blood from the two upon a stone, where it could commingle.^ A modification of the latter method admitted of being adapted to the institution of a covenant between worshippers and their god, the blood of a victim being applied to the persons of the former and to the altar of the latter. This was done on the occasion of the covenant which was contracted between Israel and Jehovah at Mount Sinai ; for Moses, after reading the book of the covenant to the people, then took the blood of sacrificial victims and sprinkled part of it upon Jehovah's altar and part on the people, saying, " Behold the blood of the covenant which Jehovah hath made with you on all these conditions" (Ex. xxiv. 1-8). Since, however, Israel's continual infraction of Jehovah's commands brought constant retribution upon them, the prophet Jeremiah, at a later date, was inspired to declare that Jehovah would make a new covenant ((5«a9?f«j)j' xaivrjv) with His people, putting His law in their hearts and forgiving their iniquity (Jer. xxxi. 31-34). It was of this new covenant that Jesus, when He gave to His disciples the cup of wine to drink, affirmed Himself to be the mediator (cf. Heb. ix. 19-22). Through His Blood God and man, estranged by the sins of the latter, were to be re-united ; and the spirit which impelled Him to sacrifice Himself for human redemption would, if absorbed and reproduced by them, preclude the recurrence in them (at least to the same extent as before) of the ofiences which had come between them and their God. His blood-shedding was the evidence and demonstration of the love which filled Him, and which, as evoking from others love in return, was calculated to exert over them redemptive power. But it seems possible that Jesus also thought of His death as having an atoning value in the sense of being expiatory of human transgressions ; and if so. He departed from the ideas conveyed both by the Sinaitio covenant and by the new covenant of which Jeremiah spoke. The victim, whose blood at Sinai was the medium of the covenant efEected between Israel and Jehovah, was not a sin-ofiering ; and Jeremiah, when ' he asserted that God would forgive His people's sins and remember their iniquities no more, made no allusion to the necessity of any sacrifice upon which the'Divine pardon was dependent. But the idea that the sufiering and death of the innocent could avail with God for the forgiveness of the sinful was implied in 2 Is. liii. (p. 24) ; and the words of Jesus, to at/j.d /lov ... rd Exxvw6fievov ■6neQ no}.X(i)v, viewed in the light of His earUer declaration (Mlc. x. 45), 6 Yidg rov avQQdmov . . . ^^6ev . . . dowai zf/v ^ Cf. W. R. Smith, BeUgion of the Semites, p. 315. 454 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY WX'fp' ai^ToiJ XvTQOP dvrl noXXmv, appear to show ttat He regarded Himself as realizing the prophet's description of the vocation and fimction of Jehovah's Servant, and as ofiering, through His own life-blood, an atoning, as well as a covenant, sacrifice. At the Supper, however, Jesus had in contemplation not only His impending sacrifice of His life, but likewise His eventual entrance into His glory. In addition to intimating that the broken bread and the poured-out wine were symbols of His approaching death. He also encouraged His disciples by His concludiag words {Mk. xiv. 25) to believe that the Eongdom which they were to share with Him was not far away. To eat and drink in God's Kingdom or in His Presence was a familiar figure of speech for participation in supreme felicity (cf. Lk. xiii. 29, xiv. 15, Mt. xxii. 1 f,, Rev. xrs. 9, and see Is. xxv. 6), and the Supper of which Jesus and His loyal followers were then partaking could thus be regarded as an antici- pative symbol of a happier and more blessed Feast in the near future (cf. Lk. xxii. 29, 30). Of the institution of the Eucharist there are four accounts, one in each of the Synoptists, and a fourth in St. Paul. These accounts faU into two divisioiig, Mt. agreeing closely with Mk., and Lk. with St. Paul. The differences affect chiefly the words of our Lord, and will be most easily discerned if the reports of them are placed in parallel columns for comparison. Words in brackets have inferior textual author- ity. Mk. xiv. 22-25 Mt. xxvi. 26-29 And as they were eating, he took a And as they were eating Jesus todk t loaf and, having blessed, brake it and loaf and, having blessed, brake it ; And gave it to them and said. Take ye, this he gave to the disciples, and said. Take is my body, And having taken a cup ye, eat, this is my body. And harag and given thanks, he gave it to them ; taken a (or the) cup and given thanks he amd they all drank of it. And he said gave to them, saying. Drink ye all irf unto them. This is my blood of the (new) it ; for this is my blood of the (new) covenant which is spilled for many. covenant which is spilled for many nnto Verily I say unto you, I will no more remission of sins. But I say unto yon, drink of the fruit of the vine until that I will not drink henceforth of this irnit day when I drink it new ia the kingdom of the vine vintil that day when I drink it of God. new with you in my Father's kingdom. 1 Ctyr. xi. 23-25 Lk. xxii. 17-20 . . . The Lord Jesus, in the night in And having received a cup and having ■which he was betrayed, took a loaf, and given thanks, he said. Take ye this, and having given thanks * he brake it and divide it among yourselves ; for I say said. This is my body which is (broken) unto you, I will not drink from hence- for you ; this do ia commemoration of forward of the fruit of the vine until the me. Ia Eke manner also the cup after kingdom of God shall come. And havii|;, I supper, saying, This cup is the new cove- taken a loaf and having given thankfli nant in my blood : this do ye, as oft as he brake and gave to them, salying, Thi* ye drink it, in commemoration of me. is my body * " which is given for you > this do ye in commemoration of Me. And the cup in like manner after supp^j sit- ing. This cup is the new oovtnatt in niy blood, even that which is spilled for yqC'* * iHKoyioi (Mh. xiv. 22) and f uxttpiirT^w are virtually synonymous : see 1 W. xiT. 16. ' All the words between the two asterisks are omitted by D and some MSSj A \ Lat. vet. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 455 Of these four authorities St; Mark and St. Paul ^ are the earliest and best, and the account given above (p. 462) is based on them. Between M.k. and Mt. the only noteworthy difference is tie addition by Mt., to what was said in connexion with the Oup, oi the words ds &tj)e(rLv a/xapnuv (of. Mk. i. 4). Between these two and St. Paul the most serious variation is the absence from the foralei', and the presence in 1 Oor., of the direction of Jesus to the disciples to perpetuate His symboUo action. It has been argued that the command originated with St. Paul, who, in saying that he received from the Lord that which he delivered {v. 23), meant that it came to him thfough a special tevelation ; and that St. Mark's afeoount Of the Eucharist, in which the wbida in question are not included, is nearest to Jesus' ipsiSaima verba at the supper. But the fact that the Euoharistic rite waft observed in the primitive Church from the earliest times, so far as our authorities go {Acta ii. 42), affords strong support to the conclusion that the observance really had its origin in an actual injunction (^ oiif Lord's ; for Without siich, it is difficult to understand Whjr such enacted Sytn- bolism should have been at once regularly repeated by His followers. Lie. has expanded the words used of the cup in St. Paul by t6 [iir^p iixGiv ] iKxvvv6ii.ivov, derived from Mh. ; tut, added aa they stand (in the iioin.), they agree with fb iroT-iipioj/ instead of t<} di/ian. In Mk. the addition of (caij'^s has the support of A alone aiiiong the great uncials, though it appears in the Old Latin, the Sinaitic and other Syriao versions, but in Mt. it is supported by C D likewise. It will be seen that Lk. speaks of two cups, one before luentioh of the bread and one after ; and places after the first and before the secoiid. Jesus' declaration that ' He would not again drink of the fruit of the vine save in the kiiigdom of God — a declaration which in Mk. forms the conclusion of our Lord's words at the Supper, the variation in the I'hird Gospel can be explained by the supposition that Lk., whilst wishing to preserve Jesus' statement that He would hot again drink of the fruit of the vine till the kingdom should come, sought to preclude the ilnpression that He partook of the wine that symbohzed His own bloOd ; and so distinguished between two cups, one of which Jesus shared, and the other He did not. A difficult textual problem, however, is raised by the omission in Lk. xxii. otv. 19 (from rb itrkp i iii&v to i,v&iJ,vTinv) and v. 20 by D and certain codices of the Old Latin version (a, i), and the dinissioh of i). 20 (alone) by the Old Syriac. If this represeilts the original text, the Third GdSpel then nlentioiis only one cup, but places the administration of it befote that of the bread (of. 1 Oor. x. 16), and says nothing of its symbolizing Christ's blood. This is, no doubt, the harder reading, and has weighty support? but not enough to counterbalance the MSS. and versions that contain the disputed words ; and the Omission by the 5 text of v. 2() may at least be sufficiently accounted for by the desire of odp^ists to get rid of the iiiention of more than one cup. Joh. does not naiTate the institution of the Eucharist, but relates that Jesus, * in the touTse of the Supper, rose from the table, took water and a towel, and washed the feet of His disciples (in spite of a protest against His doing so from St. Peter) ; arid after He had sat down again. He declared that He had giveii them an example Whieh thej- should follow. r When the Supper was ended, a tymn was sung ^ ; and on the conclusion of this the cotnpany left the house. Judas withdrew froni the others to execute his part ol the compact with the priests ; whilst Jesus and the fresi 6r the Apostles departed from the city, as had been their previoils ousiom at nightfall (M.k. xi. 11, l9). The direction taken was towards the Mount of Olives. On the road Jesus intimated to His disciples that He I anticipated immediate violence from His foes and desertion on the part of His followers, quoting the words of Zech. xiii. 7 (with some modification), ^ ' I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad ; " ' but ■'I* ' — - — ■ ' ' ■^ ' The Apostle's account probably came " from the Lord " through the Twelve. ' If the Last Supper was really a Passover meal, this would be part of the Hatkt (Ps. oxiii.-cxviii. ). \ In LXX A the passage runs lldra^oc rbv iroL^iva. Kal 5LaffKopin(r6i]ipei rbv airroO aravpdv: of. also Mk. viii, 34. In many instances it was probably only the cross-bar that was carried. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 465 .mentioned by St. Mark (xv. 21, cf. Rom. xvi. 13). The place to which the cross was borne was a mound known as Golgotha,^ the name (" Skull ") perhaps describing its shape. The site has not been identified with certainty; but the locality, though outside the city, was near it (cf. Joh. xix. 20), and is described by Eusebius as being on the north of Mount Zion. There is a knoll close to the Damascus road which may be the spot ; but it is possible that the name was not derived from the shape of the place, but from some other cause. Two malefactors were also led forth to be crucified with Him. Mt. adds to the mocking, the placing in the Prisoner's hands of a cane or reed (as a sceptre), Tvith which He was afterwards beaten about the head. Lh., who passes over the mocking by the Roman soldiers (p. 463), relates that in the procession to Golgotha were a number of women who bewailed Him, and that Jesus, turning to them, bade them weep rather for themselves and their children, for a time of such distress was approaching that the curse of barrenness would be counted a blessing (of. Mk. xiU. 17). ', Jdh. gives a different description of the scourging and mocking. Pilate, after the mob's demand for Barabbas, directs Jesus to be scourged (apparently as a lighter punishment in lieu of the extreme penalty clamoured for by the Jews, cf . Lk. xxiii. 22) ; and the soldiery, in addition, mock Him in the way recorded by the Synoptists. Then PUate presents Jesus, wearing the scarlet (or purple) robe and the wreath of thorns, to the Jews, who raise the cry " Crucify him " ; whereupon the governor bids them take the responsibility of His execution upon themselves, for he regards Him aa innocent. The Jews declare that by their Law He deserves death for repre- senting Himself as the Son of God. This alarms PUate, who, returning into the castle, asks Jesus of His origin. Receiving no answer, he reminds Him of the power he possesses over Him, and Jesus replies that such power is only delegated to him (by God). Pilate makes another effort to save Jesus' life ; but fear of a charge of treason which the mob begin to suggest at last causes him to surrender Him to His enemies. The Fourth Evangelist states that Jesus bore the cross for Himself (in contrast to Mk. xv. 21). §14. The Crucifixion and Burial Before being fastened to the cross, Jesus was offered a draught of wine drugged with myrrh, intended to dull the senses to the impending torture ; but wishing seemingly to keep His mind unclouded as long as possible, He refused it. The method of crucifixion is not indicated in the Synoptists, but the victim's hands were usually made fast to the cross-bar by nails (of. Joh. xx. 25), and the feet were probably secured in the same way (of. Lk. xxiv. 40). The upright post projected above the cross-bar, 80 that over the sufferer's head a notice could be placed, bearing his name and describing his ofience. Jesus was stripped of His garments before He was fastened to the cross, and these fell as a perquisite to the quaternion of soldiers who conducted the execution, and who divided the different pieces among them, casting lots, if not for aU, at least for the tunic (xircov).^ Above Jesus' head was placed a board bearing in the three languages current in Palestine — Latin, Greek and Aramaic ^ — ^ More con'eotly Oolgoltd. * Joh. xix. 23, 24, where the soldiers' action is regarded as a fulfilment of Ps. xxii. 18. * These are mentioned only in Joh. xix. 20. 30 466 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY an inscription, of whioli the most probable Greek version, out of the four given by the Evangelists, is that which occurs in Joh., 'Iijaovg 6 Na^eoQaios 6 Paadei); r&v 'lovdaCcav, though Mh. has no more than the last four words. The title must, as the Fourth Evangelist represents, have ^ven great ofience to the Jews, and there is nothing impossible in the statement that the Roman governor, when they wished him to replace it by the words, " I am the King of the Jews," found satisfaction for the mortification they had occasioned him by curtly refusing to alter what he had written. On either side of our Lord were crucified the two malefactors, robbers, who were brought to be put to death with Him. By those of the passers-by who were acquainted with the charge laid against Him, that He had claimed to be able to destroy the Temple and restore it in three days, these words were flung at Him, as He hung dying ; and He was bidden, if possessed of the power to which He made pretensions, to descend from the cross. Similar taunts were ofiered by such of the priests and Scribes as watched His agonies : they exclaimed that His ability to save men did not extend to Himself, and professed that if He, the Messiah, Israel's King, Would now perform before them the miracle of releasing Himself from the cross, they would beUeve in Him. Even His feUow-sufierers joined in deriding Him, and reproached Him for not using for His own deliverance and theirs the superhuman resources which as Messiah He had at His disposal. But the scoffing priesthood and its supporters were not the only witnesses of the Lord's death, for a small group of broken-hearted women also stood by the cross. They were those who had ministered to Him in GaUlee, and had come with Him from thence to Jerusalem. Three are named in particular by MJc., Mary of Magdala (who, according to Lk. viii. 2, had once been a victim of demoniacal possession and had been healed by Jesus), Mary, mother of James the Little and Joses (see p. 365), and Salome, who may have been sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. These, whom devotion and sympathy chained to the spot, remained until the end came. Ml, instead of the wine drugged with myrrh, substitutes wine mingled with gall (presumably to recall Ps. Ixix. 21 *), and gives for the title on the cross ovt6s is twi/ 'lovSalwp. The scoffing attributed by Mk. ('S'ho i8 fol- lowed by Mt.) to both the malefactors is here ascribed to one only : the other, rebukiiig his companion, begged Jesus to remember Him when He should come in His KingdW", and received from Jesus the reply that that day he should be with Him in Paradise (the place of repose for the righteous after death (cf . 2 Cor. xii. 4, Bev. ii. 7) ). Jbk. does not allude to the mockery of the priests and passers-by ; and in ennmer- ating the women who stood by the Cross probably nanies four — the mother of Jesns, her sister^ Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Of these the last three may with some plausibility be identified with those named by Mk., the sister of our Lord's * Mt. xxvii. 34 is adjusted to the psalm by the substitution in A and some other textual authorities of &^os for olvov. ' Lk. xxiii. 34" is absent from B D W Lat. vet. (some oodd. ), Syr. sin. and Eg. sah. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 467 mother being assumed to be Salome, and Mary the wife of Clopas to be Mary the mother of James and Joses. The Evangelist relates that when Jesus saw His mother. He commended her to the charge of the disciple " whom He loved," and she was taken by him to his own home. The committal by Jesus of His mother to the care of St. John (if he is meant by the beloved disciple, p. 208) ia intelligible enough in view of the fact that Mary's other children did not beUeve in His claims (p. 393), and of the probability that St. John was Mary's nephew ; but the absence of all mention by St. Mark of Mary's presence at the Cross is strange it she were really there. The crucifixion took place ttaree hours before noon ''- ; and it is related that, from midday until the time when Jesus breathed His last, darkness covered the whole country (cf. Am. viii. 9). Any interval of gloom, from whatever cause, coinciding with the last hours of the Saviour's dying agony would inevitably become invested by Christian believers with significance, since portents in the sky were thought in antiquity to mark the death of gieat personalities.^ Of the last moments and dying words of our Lord the records preserved are separately very brief in compass and divergent from one another in detail. If the substance of Mh.'s account be followed (it most likely rests in the last resort upon the reports of witnesses like the women and Simon the Cyxenian), Jesus at the ninth hour from daybreak {i.e. about three in the afternoon at this season of the year), cried (in the words of Ps. xxil. 1), " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " The cry caused some who were standing near to think that He called for help to Elijah.^ One of the crowd, probably a Eoman guard, compassionating the inevitable thirst of the Sufferer, dipped a sponge in the mixture of acid wine and water which, under the name of posea, was used by the soldiers as a beverage, and fastening it upon a reed or cane, pressed it to His Ups, whilst deprecating interference from his companions on the plea that they should wait to see whether the appeal to Elijah was answered. After receiving the wine Jesus uttered a loud cry and then yielded up His Spirit. The Evangelist records that at the moment when He expired the veil of the Temple separating between the Holy Place and the Most Holy was rent throughout. The statement is often taken literally ; and the occurrence attributed to the efiect of an earthquake shock,* such as is recorded in Mt. But it is not ascribed to this cause by the only writer who mentions an earthquake ; and it is probably to be understood in a figurative sense, symbolizing the removal, through Christ, of every obstacle impeding the approach of Christians to the very presence of God (cf. Heb. X. 19, 20). Upon one of the spectators the circimistances of the Lord's death produced a deep impression. This was the centurion, who ' Aceording to Joh. xix. 14 it was noon before PUate deUvered Jesus to be crucified. ' Cf. Verg. 0. i. 466-8. Ille (the sun) etiam exstincto miseratus Ccesare Bomam. Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, Impiaque OBtenmm timuerunt scecula noctem, ' In Mk. XV. 34 most MSS. give as the opening words of our Lord's cry, 'EXuf, 'EXiof ; but D E have 'H\ei, 'HXe(, which transliterates the Hebrew of the psalm and explains better the mistake of the bystanders. In Mt. xxvii. 46 there is still stronger authority for this reading. * According to Jewish tradition there were two veils before the Most Holy Place, so thick and heavy that a rent in them could scarcely have been caused by an earth- quake (Edersheim, L. & T. ii. p. 611). 468 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY was in command of the soldiers, and who may have heard the reason why the Jewish priests had brought about His execution. From this man the meekness and patience of Jesus (so unlike his previous experience of similar scenes) and perhaps the gloom that shrouded the landscape, extorted the confession that He whose sufferings he had watched was a Son of God (the words perhaps meaning that He must have been a super- human Being, 1 though interpreted by the EvangeUst in a Christian sense (of. Mk. i. 1) ). The words whioh by Mh. (xv. 36) are put into the mouth of the soldier who offered Jesus vinegar are attributed by Mt. to the rest of the spectators, and this is rather more natural, since only Jews would be likely to mistake our Lord's cry for an appeal to Elijah. The Krst Evangelist mentions an earthquake as following Jesus' death and opening tombs from which rose the bodies of Christian beUevers,* and entering Jerusalem after Jesus' Resurrection appeared to numerous persons there. The passage clearly preserves traditions of visions of the dead, seen, or supposed to be seen, at a much later date than the Crucifixion, with which they are inappropriately brought into cormexiou, through the fancy that the graves were opened by the earthquake. Mt. unites others with the centurion in the acknowledgment that Jesus was divine. Lk. represents the darkness prevailing from noon till our Lord's death as due to the sun failing.' If this is meant to suggest an eclipse (though it does not necessarily do so), such an occurrence is impossible when the moon is full, as is the case on the 14th of a lunar month. The Evangelist omits Jesus' anguished appeal to God ; and represents that the cry which He uttered just before He expired was, " Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit " (cf. Ps. xxxi. 5). Eor the centurion's oji-os 6 &v8paT0! Tl6s 8coO ^v he substitutes 6 &v8ponros ovros SlKaios ^v (cf. Wisd. ii. 18) ; and relates that the multitudes who witnessed what happened returned home smiting their breasts. Joh. records that Jesus, after commending His mother to " the beloved disciple " (p. 208) cried, " I thirst," thereby fulfilling the words of Ps. Ixix. 21 ; that some one raised to His lips a sponge fuU of vinegar by means of a hyssop-stem,* and that Jeaus, when He received it, cried, " It is finished," and expired. If Joh.'s account is derived from an eye-witness, the cry, " I thirst," though not mentioned by Mk., explains what is related in Mk. xv. 36. It was now late in the day (Friday, called the Preparation, cf. Jos. Ant. xvi. 6, 2), and within a few hours there would begin the Sabbath, which coincided with the Passover festival. The Mosaic Law forbade that the corpse of a person hung or impaled should be left in that condition during the night {Dt. xxi. 22, 23, cf. Jos. B.J. iv. 5, 2), so that no Jew who respected his religion would have sufiered those who had just been executed to remain where they were. But the body of Jesus was not allowed to be disposed of with the indignity with which the corpses of the two criminals crucified with Him were probably treated, though it was not the Apostles (perhaps by tliis time on their way to their GaUlean homes) who saved it from being dishonoured. A member of the Sanhedrin and 1 Cf. Swete, St. Mk. p. 366. 2 For &ym {Mt. xxvii. 52) cf. Act^ix. 13, 41. ' In Lk. xxiii. 45 toO ijXLov iKKelirovTOi is read by K B C L and the Eg. versions, though A D, etc. and the Lat. and Syriao versions have /tai iaKm-loSri 6 ■JJXios. * Hyssop, a species of marjoram, though having a straight slender stalk, is not a very suitable means for the purpose described (contrast Ex. xii. 22, 1 Kg. iv. 33), and it has been conjectured that mathirif is a textual error for iitro-ifj, " a spear-shaft." THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 469 a man of position, called Joseph, a resident of Arimatliea (p. 6), who, looking for the Messianic Kingdom (with Mk. xv. 43 cf. Lh. ii. 25, 38), had probably come to identify Jesus with the Messiah (cf. Mt. xxvii. 57, Joih. xix. 38), and had taken no part in condemning Him (cf. Lk. xxiii. 51), found courage to apply to the Roman governor for permission to pay the last offices to Him. Pilate was surprised at the information that He was already dead, and it was only after verifying the fact through the centurion that he granted the request. Joseph, having bought a hnen cloth, and probably obtaining help from a friend or friends, took the Body down from the Cross, wrapped It in the linen, and carried It to a neighbouring tomb hewn in the face of a rock, the entrance of which he closed with a stone. The place of burial is represented as observed by Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses. Mt,, who describes Joseph as a rich man, and the tomb in which he laid Jesus as newly made and intended for himself (cf . 2 Is. liii. 9), proceeds to relate that on the morrow (i.e. on the Sabbath) the priests and Pharisees petitioned Pilate to make the sepulchre secure until the third day, lest the disciples of Jesus should secretly remove the Body, and then pretend that His prediction that He would rise from the dead after three days had been fulfilled. * Pilate gave them leave to take a guard of Roman soldiers and secure the sepulchre, which they did by sealing the stone (cf. Dan. vi. 17) in the presence of the soldiers. In view of the fact that the Apostles themselves did not understand what our Lord meant when He spoke of His rising from the dead (Mk. ix. 32), it is unUkely that the Jews attached any importance to His words, even if they were acquainted with them ; and such an appUcation, as here described, to a Gentile on the Sabbath, and the performance, on that day, of such work as was involved in the seaUng, seems even more improbable. In Mk., who is followed by Lh., there is no hint that the tomb was sealed and guarded. Joh. relates that the Jews asked Pilate, in case those who had been crucified were not yet dead, that their legs might be broken to put an end to the remnant of life in them, and so enable the bodies to be removed. The two robbers were still alive ; but Jesus had already expired. One of the soldiers, however, stabbed His side, causing to issue forth a gush of blood and water. The occurrence is vouched for by a witness who is possibly the writer of the Gospel (p. 224) ; and who affirms emphatically the certainty of his knowledge. ^ If the narrative really rests upon such good authority, the details it supplies supplement very considerably the brief account in Mk. The explanation of the outflow of blood and water is obscure ; but it has been suggested that there occurred a rupture of the heart, followed by an effusion of blood into the lungs and the filling of the pericardium with serous fluid. This blood (it is supposed) had rapidly separated into its more solid and more Uquid constituents ; and these, when they issued forth after the pericardium had been penetrated by the soldier's lance, were distinguishable to the sight.' In the circumstance that Christ's hmbs were not broken, but that His body was pierced, the Evangelist saw a fulfilment of certain Scriptural passages — Ex. xii. 46, Num. ix. 12 (referring to the Paschal Lamb), Ps. xxxiv. 20, 2 Zech. xU. 10 (where, though the majority of Heb. MSS. have me, some read him). The Fourth Evangelist, in his account of the Burial, states that Joseph was aided ^ As the prediction is represented as " remembered " by the Pharisees the reference seems to be to Mt. xU. 40. ' In Joh. xix. 35 the witness appeals to some one who is acquainted with the truth of his statement, " He (iKeXvo%) knoweth that he (the witness) saith true " ; but it is uncertain who is meant by intivos. The pronoun has been taken to refer (o) to the writer himself (cf . ix. 37) ; (6) to the disciple " whom Jesus loved " (mentioned in xix. 26) ; (c) to the Living Christ (see 1 Joh. iii. 3, 5, 16, and cf. the asseveration in 2 Oor. xi. 31). The last seems the best explanation. ° Stroud, Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, quoted by Westcott. 470 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY ia the removal of the Body from the Gross by Nioodemus (previously mentioned in iii. 1 f., vii. 50), and that the tvro brought a mixture ^ of spices, weighing about a hundred pounds, which they used in preparing it for burial. It is not asserted that what is here recorded rests (hke the statement in xix. 34) upon the first-hand testimony dt an eye-witness ; and the quantity of spices seems excessive ; but if there was any- thing done to embalm the Body, the appropriate occasion would be before (as heie represented), and not after. It was laid in the tomb. § 15. Life from the Dead It has been seen that Jesus, after His avowal to His disciples at Caesarea Philippi that He was the Christ, explained that snfierLag and death awaited Him, though He was not destined to remain in the world of the dead, but to rise again from it. But their expectations prevented them from understanding Him ; to them the death of the Messiah was an idea unfamiliar and unintelligible. Consequently, when He was arrested, they forsook Him and fled ; and when He ended His earthly life on the Cross, the hopes which they had fixed on Him ended also. From this condition of despair they emerged within a very brief period (not exceeding, at the most, a few weeks), with their faith in Him not only renewed but heightened ; and they proceeded to attempt to convert their countrymen to the same beUef which they themselves had regained, namely, that the Jesus Who had been crucified was really the Messiah predicted by the prophets. This transition from the profoundest despondency to buoyant confidence, inducing multitudes of persons to credit theii statements and resulting in the rapid growth of the Christian Church, has to be accounted for ; and the existence of that Church is the best evidence that some real experiences lie behind the records in the Gospels and elsewhere in the New Testament, representing that Jesus after His death and burial showed Himself to be aUve. The nature of those experiences it is now necessary to examine by consideration of the earUest testimony available. Unfortunately the earliest Gospel on which principal rehance has been placed for the history of our Lord's earthly life is, as regards an account of His Resurrection, incomplete . Of the concluding chapter of Mk. only the first eight verses are genuine. The remaining twelve verses are absent from the oldest MSS. and various other textual authorities, and seem to be of decidedly later origin (p. 180). Of the rest of the Gospels only one, viz. Mt., contains a narrative which in part, at least, may with some plausibUity be regarded as based upon the missing portion of Mk. In the instance of Lk. the divergences from what is suggested by Mk. and related by Mt. are too considerable to be derived from Mk.'s lost conclusion. In the fijst chapter of Acts there is a description of Christ's final departure to heaven, which conveys a different idea from that produced by the account in the last chapter of the Third Gospel, though both proceed from the same author. The Fourth Gospel has a narrative virtually peculiar to itself, though not without points of contact with the other Gospels. In consequence of the mutilation of Mk., evidence from the Gospels ' Most MSS. have liiyfM, but N B have SXiyiM (" a roll "). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 471 respecting the circumstances and manner in wMck Jesus gave proof, after He had been put to death, that He was alive, comes from relatively late sources. Happily this deficiency of early evidence from the Gospels is in some measure made good by information forthcoming from another quarter. This is the testimony of St. Paul, afiorded partly by himself in 1 Cor. XV. (wMch is prior in date to any of the Gospels), and partly, through St. Luke, in various narratives comprised in Acts. The most trustworthy account, then, of the Eesurrection must be looked for from the witness of St. Paul (direct or indirect), in combination with the narrative of Mk. xvi. 1-8, supplemented by that contained in Mt. xxviii. 10, 16, 17 (as presimi- ahly resting upon what was once included in Mk.). The accounts of Lk. and Joh. require, of course, to be noticed ; but in consequence of their later date, and the difiBiculty of tracing their origin, they vnH be treated as of secondary value. It wiU conduce to clearness to consider separately : — I. The earliest evidence relating to the time when Jesus rose from the dead, and to the occasions when He showed Himself aUve. n. The earliest evidence bearing upon the nature of the appearances of the Risen Lord. ni. Various conclusions deducible from such evidence. I. The Earliest Evidence for the Time of the Resurrection and of the Appearances of the Risen Jesus The documentary testimony earUest in date is that of St. Paul, who in 1 Cor. xv. 3 f., tells the Corinthians that what he had related to them conoerrdng the appearances of the Risen Lord he had himself received from members of the Church. He recounts how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried ; that He had been taised on the third day according to the Scriptures ; that He had appeared to Cephas (Peter) ; then to the " Twelve " ; then to above SOO brethren together ; then to James ; then to all the Apostles ; and, last of a;U, to hiruself. It is desirable to comment briefly upon various Matters contained in this statement. (i) The six appearances enumerated are not necessarily exhaustive of all that had come to St. Paul's knowledge, though there is nothing that suggests a selection out of a large number. Only two can be plausibly identified with any recorded in the Gospels. The first (to Peter alone) is perhaps alluded to in Mk. xvi. 7, by the separate mention of that Apostle ; the Second (to the Twelve) is probably the same as that related in Mt. xxviii. 16, the " twelve " being strictly eleven. (ii) In regard to the scenes of these appearances no particular localities are specified by St. Paul. But from the evidence of St. Mark and of the First Evangelist it seems probable that the earhest, at least, occurred in Galilee, (a) According to Mk. xiv. 28 Jesus, when predicting His resurrection, ideclared that He would go before His Apostles into GaUlee. i(6) Mt., whose acoountin xxviii. 1-8 agrees substantially with Mk. xvi. 1-8, and who may be presumed in xxviii. 16 f. to have made some use also of the missing part of the Second Gospel, expressly states that it was in Galilee 472 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY that the eleven disciples saw their Lord (xxviii. 16, 17). The third appear- ance — that to 500 together — probably occurred in Galilee ; for at Jerusalem even by Pentecost the number of believers appears to have been not more than 120 in all (Acts i. 15). Presumably the 500 included Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias.^ (iii) St. Paul represents that Christ was raised " on the third day according to the Scriptures " ; and the form of the statement leaves it uncertain whether the Apostle's assertion had behind it the testimony of witnesses independently of the Scriptures, or whether it was a prediction in the Scriptures [Ps. xvi. 10 and Hos. vi. 2) which afforded ground for it. None of the New Testament writings affirms that any human eye beheld Jesus rise from the dead ; but St. Mark has a narrative which imphes that proof was forthcoming early on the third day after the Crucifixion that He had already risen from the grave. Three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary, mother of James the Little, and Salome (the same that had watched the Crucifixion, Mk. xv. 40), went to the tomb of Jesus very early after sunrise on Sunday morning to anoint His body ; discovered to their surprise that the stone closing the sepulchre had been removed ; saw a yoimg man (clearly an angel ^) seated within, who declared that Jesus was risen and was not there (they might see where He had been laid) ; and were directed by him to inform His disciples and Peter (assumed to be still in Jerusalem) that they should see Him in Galilee as He had previously told them (see Mk. xiv. 28). The narrative goes on to relate that the women fled from the tomb in a panic, and said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. The Gospel now ends abruptly with the words e referred to in xxiv. 34 is the same as that to St. Peter mentioned in 1 Cor. xv. 5, and the scene of the latter was originally Galilee (as Mk. xvi. 7 suggests), this, too, has been transferred by Lk. to Jerusalem. No other evange- list describes Jesus' Ascension into heaven (though see Mk. xvi. 19), and the two versions of it, in the Gospel and Acts, are not, as they stand, easily harmonized. Pre- sumably in Acts the Evangelist sought to preserve a tradition Which he had learnt since the composition of his first work. Though the period of forty days (Acts i. 3) is conventional, yet inasmuch as no appearances of the Risen Lord are recorded after Pentecost (fifty days after Easter) ■except that seen by St. Paul, it seems probable that all, with this exception, occurred •approximately within six weeks. Joh. describes how Mary Magdalene, seemingly unaccompanied by other women ' (oontrast Mk. rvi. 1, Mt. xxviii. 1, Lk. xxiii. 55 (cf. viU. 2) ), came early to the tomb, on the first day of the week (Sunday) whilst it was yet dark (contrast Mk. xvi. 2), her purpose not being mentioned.' On reaching it, she found the stone removed ; and on discovering that the tomb was open, she inferred that the body of the Lord had been taken away, and returning hastily, she reported to Peter and John her con- clusion. The two Apostles, on hearing her tale, ran to the sepulchre and looking into it, found it empty save for the cloths in which the Body had been wrapped and which retained the relative positions that they occupied when they swathed the Body.* They drew the same inference as Mary, and returned to their home (assumed to be Jerusalem). Mary, who had seemingly followed them back to the graveside, remained by it weeping ; and, like the Apostles previously, she looked into it and saw two angels within (of. Lk. xxiv. 4). In answer to their inquiries why she wept, she explained that the Body of her Lord, which she was seeking, had been removed. Then IJtoung round, she suddenly beheld the Lord Himself, though she did not recognize Him. He put to her the same inquiry as the angels ; and she, taking Him to be the gardener, asked Him, in case He had taken away the Body, to tell her where it ^ In Lk. xxiv. 51 the words Kal dve of water and the Spirit " (see further p. 678). From Jerusalem Jesus went into the country parts of Judsea, and there baptized through the agency of His dis- ciples. John, at this time (according to the EvangeUst's view), was not yet impri- soned (contrast Mk- i. 14), and to some of his own followers, who were jealous of the numbers who flocked to Jesus, he again afiirmed that Jesus was his Superior. Second Tear. From Judaea (where He is assumed to have stayed until the end of the year, iv. 35) Jesus, suspecting that His increasing influence would excite the hostihty of the Pharisees, started on His return to Gahlee and passed through Samaria. There through weariness He stopped at a place called Sychar (p. 5), where there was a well ; and whilst the disciples departed to buy food. He asked drink of a Samari- tan woman (in spite of the antagonism between Jews and Samaritans), and in the course of converse told her that He could quench the thirst of the spirit. Displaying aequaintanoe with the woman's past and present hfe, He impressed her as being a prophet, and she sought from Him a decision of the controversy respecting Jerusalem and Gerizim (p. 6) as the true sanctuary of God ; whereupon He declared that spiritual and intelligent worship, such as God desired, was not Umited by locahty but turned upon a true knowledge of the Divine nature. When the woman said that she knew that the Messiah (called by the Samaritans the Tahebh, " Restorer," p. 16) would explain all things, Jesus aifirmed HimseU to be the Messiah. To His disciples, who had returned with food and pressed Him to eat. He declared that His food was to do the will of God ; and He bade them note the promise of a spiritual harvest in the Samaritans whom the woman had fetched from the city to hear Him. Many of these were convinced by His words, and acknowledged Him to be the Saviour of the world. ' When He reached Galilee, He was welcomed by the Galilseans who had been at Jerusalem with Him. When He was again at Cana He was asked by an officer of the King (Antipas) to heal his son, who was sick at Capernaum ; and in response He declared that the sufEerer was already restored to health, his recovery being reported to the father before the latter reached his house. This miracle bears some resemblance ^ The Aramaic was probably Nakdimdn. ' For the sense of b/vBev in Jah. see iii. 31, xix. 11 ; and cf. i. 13, 1 JoA. iii. 9, iv. 7. 486 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY to the caae of the centurion's servant related in Q {Mt. viii. 6 f. = Lh. vii. 2 f.). In both oases (a) the miracle is placed early in Jesus' Ministry, (6) the appeal to Jesus ia made by a person of authority, (c) the locality is Capernaum, (d) mention is ma^le of the man's faith. On the other hand in Q the appeal proceeds on behalf of a servant from a Roman centurion who deprecates Jesus' coming to his house, while in Joh. it is made for a son by one who is seemingly a Jew, and who is urgent that Jesus should hasten to his house. If the two are variant versions of the same occurrence, a contributory cause of the variation was probably the ambiguity of the word iraU {Mt.) which, intended in the sense of SoCXos (Lk.), was taken to mean vl6s (Joh.). In Mt. the sufEerer is described as being tortured with paralysis ; in Lk. he is simply designated as sick and near to death ; in Joh. he is also near death, but suffering from fever. Like the sign at Cana this miracle is not made by the Evangelist an occasion for expUoit spiritual teaching. To explain our Lord's next movements it seems necessary to assume some dis- arrangement of the text, and to find the sequel of ch. iv. in ch. vi. (see p. 232), After what has just been related, Jesus crossed the sea of GaUIee and there fed the 6,000 who gathered round Him (p. 470.). The Evangelist represents that this " sign " persuaded those who witnessed it that Jesus was the expected Prophet of Dt. xviii. 15 (ef. Acta iii. 22), and they were ready to make Him their King ; so that to avoid them He withdrew into the neighbouring hills. In the evening the disciples took a boat and started for Oapemaum ; and when three or four miles out they saw Jesus walking' on the sea to them. In spite of the alarm they felt, they took TTim on board and' found themselves straightway at their destination (p. 409). The multitude which witnessed the miracle of the Feeding came thither later in boats from Tiberias, and once more flocked about Him. Addressing them in the synagogue (vi. 59) He bade them seek not material but spiritual food, which they would receive through behef in Himself, Who had been sent by God. To test His words a sign was demanded of Him (such as the descent of manna from heaven, an accompaniment of the Messianic Age in Apoc. Baruch xxix. 8), but He declared that He was the true bread from heaven (cf . Ps. Ixxvui. 24), and that belief in Him ensured eternal life. When some objected that His lowly birth did not justify such language about Himself, He explained that only those could accept His teaching who were drawn to Him by God. In reiterating His assertion. He used even more mysterious language, aiBmiing that unless they ate His flesh and drank Hi a blood they lacked true life (see p. 679). In consequence of this perplexing teaching, numbers withdrew from Him ; but when the Twelve were asked by Him whether they too would forsake Him, Peter, answering for the rest, declared that they believed and knew Him to be the Holy One of God. The transposition of ch. vi. to form the continuation of ch iv. makes chs. v. and vii. the immediate sequel of vi. The occurrence of an unnamed feast, which can plausibly be identified with the Passover ^ (see vi. 4), caused Jesus to go a second time to Jerusalem, where at the pool of Bethesda (p. 11) He cured a man infir m for thirty-eight years ' who had been unable to profit by the intermittent healing pro- perties which the water was credited with possessing. As this deed of mercy was done on the Sabbath, the fact of the man's carrying his pallet attracted the notice of the Jews, who charged Jesus with brealdng the Sabbath ; and Hia defence that He only worked as did His Father merely made them more eager to destroy Him for blasphemy. Jesus proceeded to declare that the Father, from whom the Son derived all His power, would enable Him to perform a still greater marvel by giving life to the spiritually dead, and that honour done to the Son, by response to His teaching, was honour rendered to the Father also. And then to authenticate His right to~ speak as He did. He cited the testimony of the Baptist, of His own miracles, and of the Scriptures ; but added that, if men would not believe Moses who wrote of Him, He could not expect them to credit His own words. The violence which menaced Jesus now caused Him to withdraw from Judasa to Galilee (vii. 1) ; but there His brethren were sceptical of His claims (of. Mk. iii. 21, 31) because He had sought ' In Joh. V. 1 there is considerable authority for the reading ij co/jti) found in N C L, 33 and the Eg. versions ; and the addition tQv dfii/tuv occurs in A. ' Jesus' words to the infirm man are similar to those addressed to the paralytic jn Mk. ii. 11 ; cf. also the Jews' accusation in Joh. v. 18 and Mk, ii. 7, THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 487 retirement instead of remaining at the capital, and they bade Him show Himself in ■public. Third Year. When the feast of Tabernacles (Sept.-Oot.) came round, Jesus, after first refusing to go again to Jerusalem (where death threatened Him, v. 18) without a clear perception that the time had come for Him to face it), went thither in secret ; and His teaching made a great impression upon some of the people, who were ignorant of their leaders' desire to kill Him. They could not, however, reconcile His known origin from Galilee with the mystery which was expected to surround the Messiah. On the eighth and last day of the feast (p. 209) Jesus reiterated the state- ment which He had made once before (iv. 10) that belief in Him was the means of allaying spiritual thirst, i He again produced upon some of His hearers (though not all) the conviction that He was the expected Prophet (Dt. xviii. 15, 18) ; and even the officers whom the priests and Pharisees sent to arrest Him had to abandon the attempt. The authorities only felt scorn for the populace, and flouted the appeal of Nicodemus that they should give Him a fair trial ; but they felt it desirable to undermine His influence before renewing the effort to destroy Him. Opportunity for further controversy came when Jesus in the Treasury of the Temple (p. 91) declared that He was the Light of the world (p. 91), and that whoso followed Him would enjoy the light of life ; for the Pharisees continued to deny His claims to have God as His Father and to speak for Him, whilst He affirmed that their father was not God but the Devil, for otherwise they would not seek to kill Him. When He went on to say that if a man should keep His saying He would never die, they charged Him with having a demon, since He implied that He was greater than Abraham who had succumbed to death. A cUmax was reached when He asserted that He existed before Abraham (cf. Joh. i. 1, 14), this causing His adversaries to endeavour, though unsuccessfully, to stone Him. The sight (on a following Sabbath) of a man bUnd from birth having led the dis- ciples to ask whether his misfortune was the penalty of his own or his parents' sin (of. Ex. XX. 5), Jesus replied that it was designed to furnish an occasion for displaying God's goodness ; and then in order to heal him, He anointed his eyes with clay (cf . Uk. vii. 33, viii. 23) made by spitting on the ground,^ and bade him wash in the pool of Siloam (p. 11).' The circumstance that the cure was wrought on the Sabbath prompted the Pharisees first to seek to disprove that a cure could have been accom- plished by a Sabbath-breaker, and then to contend that it was performed through Satanic agency (cf. the accusation in Mk. iii. 22). Jesus, avowing to the man that He was the Son of God, won his adhesion ; and then illustrated by His recent restora- tion of physical sight His primary mission to impart spiritual enlightenment and to convict of bUndness those who claimed to be enlightened already. In a subsequent discourse, delivered at the feast of Dedication (p. 94), Jesus styled Himself the Good Shepherd of the sheep, contrasting Himself with other leaders whose motives of conduct were different from His own, for He was prepared to lay down ' His life for His sheep, which were not confined to those of the Judsean fold.' A demand from the Jews that He should say plainly whether He was the Christ caused Him to complain of their disbelief in His earUer statement, and to declare that He and the Father were One. This renewed the attempt to stone Him for blasphemy, "• In Joh. vii. 37-38, Jesus' words should be punctuated, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drinlc he that believeth on me." The words quoted as from Scripture are perhaps Ex. xvii. 6 ; cf . 1 Cor. x. 4. * " The use of saUva was a well-known Jewish remedy for affections of the eyes." Edersheim, Life and Times, ii. p. 48. ' The interpretation " Sent " attached to Siloam (ix. 7) has reference to the Hebrew Shiloah (from the root shdlah, " to send "), represented by SiXoii/u (LXX). • It has been suggested that in Joh. x. 11 rlBriaLv t^v fvx^^ means "to stake, or S risk, Ufe." The usual expression for this is TraparWeaOat tt\v ^vxh"- ' The figure of the " Door " in x. 7, 9 disturbs awkwardly the figure of the " Good Shepherd." In x. 8 the words ivph ^/ioO are absent from N and the Lat., Syr. (sin.) and Eg. versions ; and the omission makes it easier to understand iaoi 'fjKDov to mean those who entered the fold otherwise than by the door, as the Shepherd did, the refer- ence being to the Jewish hierarchy. 488 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY a charge which He met by citing the scriptural application of the title " gods " to such as acted as God's intermediaries {Ps. Izxxil. 6, of. p. 109). An attempt to arrest Him led Him to withdraw across the Jordan to Persea after some three or four months had been spent in Judaea. rrom Persea He was recalled, by the illness of a friend called Lazarus, to the west of the river, in spite of the danger from Jewish hostility to which He thereby exposed Himself and of which the disciples reminded Him. The house of Lazarus (described as the brother of Mary and Martha, who are mentioned in Lie. x. 38, 39) was at Bethany (two miles from Jerusalem), which Jesus, apparently in consequence of waiting for Divine guidance (cf. ii. 4, vii. 6), did not reach until after Lazarus' death. He sought to console Martha by telhug her that belief in Him (such as Lazarus, it is impUed, had gained) ensured the continuance of true life in spite of physical death ; and then with her and her sister Mary He went to the tomb in which the dead man had lain for four days (by which time decay was thought to set in). There Jesus ordered the stone to be removed, and after a thanksgiving to His Father for hearing an unuttered prayer, bade Lazarus come forth ; and the command was obeyed. The miracle won for Jesus a number of adherents ; but the priests and Pharisees, fearing that popular excitement and resultant disorder might embroil them with the Roman authorities, and being advised by Caiaphas, the high priest, that it was better to sacrifice a single Uf e than to expose to destruction the whole nation, determined to bring about His death without further delay. Jesus, becoming apprised of His peril, retired from the vicinity of the capital to a locality called Bphraim in the wilderness. ^ The Passover, however, was approaching, and six days before its occurrence (Nisan 9, Sunday) He returned to Bethany and supped with Lazarus. In the course of the meal, Mary, one of the sisters of Lazarus, anointed with precious ointment the feet of Jesus. The recent miracle wrought by Jesus in raising the dead continued to induce so many to beUeve in Him that the Jews began to plot the death of Lazarus also. On the day following the supper Jesus entered Jerusalem, and from this point onward the Synoptists and the Fourth Evangelist narrate the incidents of the Betrayal, the Arrest, the Trial, the Passion, and the Resurrection in common, though Joh. departs from the accounts of his predecessors in numerous particulars. He adds that after the entry into Jerusalem certain Greeks sought to see Jesus through the help of Philip and Andrew ; and Jesus in a discourse declared that only through death could a spiritually fruitful life be attained, though human nature shrank from the trial. Not- able among the omissions of the writer is that of the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, which he does not regard as a celebration of the Passover (contrast Mk. xiv. 12 f.), and at which he describes Jesus as washing the disciples' feet and bidding them, after His example, wash one another's feet. Between the accounts of the Supper and the Arrest there are interposed a series of discourses in which Jesus describes Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and as the true Vine ; predicts the coming of the Comforter (napd/cXijros) in order to guide the disciples into all the truth ; and in a long petition addressed to His Father prays both for them and for all who through them should beUeve on Him. In the present arrangement of these dis- courses there appears to be some disorder, the proper sequence being probably xv., xvi., xiv., xvii. (the scene of the last being perhaps the road from the Upper Room to the Garden where He was betrayed). This short summary of the contents of the Fourth Gospel will sufficiently confirm what has already been said (p. 218 f.) about the different idea which it produces of our Lord's ministry from that which is created by the other three, in spite of certain points of contact with them. It diverges from them in respect of the locality (largely Judffla, not Galilee)," the duration (substantially three years instead of one), the development of events (the final resolution of the Jews to lull Jesus ' formed after the Raising of Lazarus, not after the Cleansing of the Temple), the principal subjects of the discourses • Usually thought to be the wilderness of Judaea (p. 353), but taken by some to be on the east of the Jordan. " There are three visits to Galilee (i. 43, iv. 3, 43, vi. 1), each followed by a return to Judaea (ii. 13, v. 1, vii. 10), the last including a stay in Persea (x. 40). ^ Six resolves, or attempts, to seize or destroy Jesus are mentioned — v. 18, vii. 30 44, viii. 59, x. 39, xi. 57 (which led up to His arrest). THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 489 (Jesus' own Personality, and His relation to the Father, not the Kingdom of heaven and the Scribes' interpretation of the Law), the style of speech (the absence of parables, so conspicuous in the Synoptists), and the movement of Jesus' utterances (which from the first circle around His Messiahship, instead of progressing towards a public disclosure concerning it). It is true that the actual Ministry must have comprised numerous aflts, occurrences, and utterances which find no place in the Synoptists, and which a later author might aim at supplying ; yet the impression left by the Gospel is not that another's memory has filled up gaps in preceding memoirs, but that there hats been » subordination of the facts of history to an ideal reconstruction of Jesus' life, for the promotion of certain desired ends. What those probably were is explained elsewhere (p. 670 f.). IX THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE § 1. The Events of Pentecost THE balance of evidence (as has been shown) points to Galilee as the locality whe're the Apostles first became convinced that their Lord had triumphed over death. The conviction that He was alive re-estabUshed their faith that He was the Messiah, and altogether changed their outlook upon the future. They could now anticipate with confidence that He would speedily return from the heaven to which God had raised Him, and would usher in the Divine Kingdom. But it was not GaUlee but Jerusalem that would seem to them the most appropriate scene of that event. The capital was associated with all the glories of past Jewish history ; it was the site of God's Temple ; thither Jesus had gone to make His final appeal to His countrymen, and there He had died ; and it was impossible not to think that the city which had witnessed His ignominious and agonizing death would see His vindication. Accord- ingly, they returned to Jerusalem as soon as possible, to make known the experiences which had happened to them, and to await what was in store for them. Aroimd them there gathered in the capital other disciples, including the remaining children of the Lord's mother, who had been converted to belief in Him (see p. 364), and certain women who had attended Him in His journey to the capital, and who perhaps had remained there when the Apostles fled to their distant homes. In the number of the Twelve a gap had been created by the defection of Judas, who had come to a violent end, and more than one tradition circulated concerning the manner of his death and the reason why a locality near Jerusalem was called, through association with him, " the Field of Blood." As soon as his end was known, the Eleven Apostles assembled together, and after prayer, drew lots to decide which of two who, like themselves, had been witnesses of Jesus' Eesurrection, should make up the original figure of twelve. The two were Joseph Barsabbas (" Son of Sabba "), who bore, besides, the Eoman name of Justus, and Matthias ; and the lot fell in favour of the latter. St. Luke {Ads i. 22) represents the Twelve as constituting an official body of witnesses to the Resurrection, and Matthias' election as designed to fill a vacancy in their 490 THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 491 number, regarded from this standpoint. But since the testimony of one who had seen the Risen Jesus would be of equal value, whether he was included in the Twelve or not, it is perhaps more likely that the fiUing of the vacancy in the number of the twelve had in view the twelve positions of dignity and authority which Jesus had declared the Apostles were to occupy in the Kingdom of God {Mt. xix. 28 = LJc. xxii. 30). One tradition about Judas' end, found in Mt. xxvii. 3-10, related that when on the morning of Jesus' trial he saw that the Master was condemned, he in remorse brought back the thirty pieces of silver to those who had paid him, declaring that he had betrayed to death the innocent, flung the money down in the Temple court, "^ and then took his own life. The priests felt some scruple about putting blood-money into the Temple treasury (here called the corban), and so bought with it a plot of ground to serve as a cemetery for foreigners. The purpose for which the money was originally given to Judas caused the spot to be oaUed, or its real name (perhaps Acddamach, " field of rest =/coi/ii;ri5/5io>') to be corrupted^ into, Acelddmd, " the field of blood." The number of silver pieces for which Judas sold his Master recalled to the First Evangelist the sum mentioned in 2 Zech. xi.[12, 13 as the hire given by the people to the prophet, and he quotes the passage with considerable variation (replacing, for instance, " I cast them unto the potter"* by "I (or they) gave them for the potter's field"); but through a lapse of memory or from some other reason he assigns it to Jeremiah.' The section in Mt. containing this narrative is not consecutive with the preceding context, in which the chief priests are represented as in the quarters of the Roman procurator, not in the Temple. A different tradition, probably of later origin, is preserved in Acts i. 18-20. This relates that Judas retained the money and that he himself bought with it a field where he met with a bloody death , though how it occurred is left obscure * ; and the name attaching to the field is supposed to have been suggested by the blood with which it was stained. Not long after the return of the Apostles to Jerusalem, there took place amongst them an occurrence to which they attached the greatest significance. After the lapse of seven weeks, or, reckoned inclusively, fifty days, the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the morrow of the Passover) was followed by the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, or Harvest (see Lev. xxiii. 15-21). Early in the morning (the day being Sunday) the disciples, probably including others than the Twelve (cf. Acts i. 14), were assembled in a house for participation in common devotions, when suddenly and simultaneously a Divinely-inspired impulse to praise God seized the whole company. The minds of all being engrossed with the wonderful experiences which had befallen some of their number since the recent Paschal festival, their feehngs of gratitude and enthusiasm became so intense that they ' In Mt. xxvii. 5 6 vaSs (the sanctuary) must be used irregularly for t6 lepSv : cf . Joh. ii. 20 when va6s seems to comprise all the Temple buildings. ' The original reading, found in a few Hebrew MSS. as in the Syriac, was probably the treasury. " The error was perhaps helped by Jeremiah's purchase of a field and his visit to the potter's house (xxxii. 6 f., xviii. 2 f.) : see McNeile, St. Mt. p. 408. ♦ In Acts i. 18 it is generally assumed that vprjVT)! yev6/ievos means " having fallen headlong, or prostrate " ; but it has been suggested that irp-qv^s has the sense of " swoUen " (cf . irp-fiBa), and that what is signified is that Judas swelled to such a bulk that he eventually burst. A fragment of Papias represents Judas as irpTfirBeh iirl ToirouTov T^v a-dpKa, Siare ix-qSk OTrdSev li/ia^a pg.Sio>s Siipx^rai eKeivov SivaaBtu, Si.e\Beiv, kt\. SBeJ.T,S, Jan. 1912, p. 278 f. (Chase). 492 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY could no longer retain their self-control. They were carried away by a tide of emotion which was too strong and impetuous to find expression in connected or ordered speech, and obtained relief in fervid thanksgivings, partly coherent and partly fragmentary, uttered not only in one or other of the tongues, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin, with which most were acquainted, but also in words and phrases of some of the strange languages heard at Jerusalem on festivals, and perhaps likewise in inarticulate cries and ejaculations. In their excitement they seem to have made a common move towards the courts of the Temple ; and they at once attracted attention from the crowds there. In the strange sounds that proceeded from them some of the bystanders who had come from foreign lands here and there caught wordi that were familiar to them, and filled with astonishment, formed the impression that the Apostles, simple Galilaeans by birth, had been miraculously gifted with abUity to speak other tongues than their own. But for the most part, those who heard them could not understand them, and attributed their unintelligible utterances to the effect of wine. The mockery of those who accounted for what they witnessed by the supposition of intoxication reached the ears of St. Peter, who, recovering his self-control, stood up and, addressing the multitude, proceeded in a speech not only to correct the misconception about the condition of himself and his fellow-Apostles, but also to explain the import of the occurrence. The discourse which he delivered was the first Christian sermon ; and its burden was the Messiahship of Jesus attested by His Resurrection, and confirmed by the outburst of ecstatic speech among His followers which had just been heard, and of which the Scriptures contained prediction. With what accuracy the speech, as reported, represents the actual tenor of what was said is quite uncertain. St. Luke was not present, and it is not likely that he received written notes of it from any who listened to it. The wording bears marks of his style (p. 204) ; but the argument from the Scriptures which occupies so much space iu it must reproduce with tolerable faithfulness the real character of the Apostles' preaching at this stage of their missionary activity (cf. 1 Pet. i. 10-12, 24, 25, ii. 6-10, 22-25). St. Peter began by asserting that what had attracted so much notice was not the result of drunkenness (which was excluded by the earliness of the hour ^), but evidence of the fulfilment of a prediction once made by the prophet Joel, who (ii. 28-30) had foretold that in the last days God would diffuse His Spirit throughout His people, who should be endowed more widely than before with the faculty of " prophecy " ; and that such an experience would be among the signs that should herald the approach of the Day of the Lord. The Apostle then went on to make known the truth which he and his companions were specially concerned to proclaim. Jesus the Nazarene, a man whose Divine Mission was evidenced by the ^ The hours in Roman usage were measured from sunrise to sunset, each being one-twelfth of the period of daylight. At this time of the year (end of May) the third hour would be about 8 o'clock. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 493 wonders He wrought among the people (as many who were present knew) had been surrendered to the Gentiles in accordance with God's plan that He should undergo suffering, and had been put to death by them.^ But though allowed to die, He was not allowed to be retained by death, ^ as, indeed, had been predicted in Ps. xvi. 8-11, wherein David declared that God would not abandon his soul in Hades' or let him undergo corruption in the grave. David himself had died (his tomb was among them, Neh. iii. 16), so that his words could not apply to himself ; but being endowed with the spirit of prophecy, and beheving that among Ms posterity there would arise the Messiah, or Christ, he, identifying himself with his greater descendant, expressed his confidence that God would not leave him in the power of death. This Messiah was Jesus, whom God had actually raised, as all the Apostles could testify. And Jesus, having been exalted to heaven, had from thence bestowed upon His followers the Holy Spirit, the Source of the ecstatic utterances to which all present had just listened. This exaltation of Jesus to a dignity which David did not attain had likewise been predicted by David himself, who in Ps. ex. 1 represented One whom he styled his Lord as invited by Jehovah to sit at His right hand until He should make His enemies His footstool. And finally Peter concluded his speech by emphatically bidding the whole people recognize that God had made Jesus, Whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ. St. Peter, in representing David as the author of the psalms cited, shared a belief, current in his own day, which has been questioned in ours (cf . p. 443) ; but as regards Psalm xvi., it was not very material to the Apostle's argument whether it proceeded from David, or from another prophet, who might be supposed to speak in the person of the Messiah. St. Peter put upon the passage quoted from this psalm a meaning almost certainly not intended by the psalmist ; for the true rendering of «. 10 ( = Acts ii. 27) is " Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol, Thou wilt not suffer Thy godly one to see the pit," the writer beUeving that God would preserve him from premature death, and grant to him fellowship with Himself during the normal period of human existence (u. 11). Nevertheless God's care for, and interest in, the righteous (in which the psalmist expresses his faith) really constitutes a basis on which an expectation of renewed life after death can reasonably be built (cf. p. 441). The audience was profoundly moved, both by the prophetic ecstasy which they had witnessed and by St. Peter's subsequent discourse. Some among the multitude must have been spectators of the tragedy of Calvary ; and those who were now convinced of the appalhng guilt of their nation asked remorsefully what they were to do. St. Peter in answer bade them repent, and be baptized " after " the name of Jesus Christ, thereby acknow- ledgLmg the Crucified as the Messiah and avowing themselves His followers : by so doing they would obtain forgiveness of their sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, in accordance with God's promise imparted through ' In Acts ii. 23 by " lawless men " are meant the Romans : cf. 1 Cor. ix. 21 (where TO(s ivinois refers to Gentiles). ' In Acts ii. 24 St. Peter, drawing upon the LXX of Ps. xviii. 5, uses the term " pangs of death " where the Heb. has " cords of death " which the verb " holden " requires. 'In early Greek Hades was the name of the god who presided over the nether world, not of that world itself. 494 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Joel (ii. 32). The words here reproduced are declared by the historian to be only a summary of a longer exhortation to seek safety whilst they could from the vengeance impending over a guilty age (cf. Gal. i. 4). To this earnest address there came a great response if, as the historian relates, those who were persuaded by the Apostle's words numbered about 3,000 persons. Figures in ancient writers are seldom trustworthy (p. 120) ; but it is clear from later narratives that the Christian body at Jerusalem soon reached considerable proportions (since seven individuals were shortly required to superintend the distribution of relief to its indigent members). Loyalty and brotherhood were conspicuous features of the community — loyalty to its teachers and brotherhood, among its various members. This prevailing harmony was marked and fostered by participa- tion in united prayer and common meals at one another's houses, whereat the breaking of a single loaf between a large number of persons was a continual reminder of the fellowship which aU had with one another in virtue of their relation to their common Lord, and a commemoration of the last occasion when, supping with His disciples. He constituted the bread and the wine symbols of His Body and Blood, given and shed for many. For this memorial observance every day's united meal afforded an opportunity, and Jesus seems to have expected that it should be made such, if St. Paul's report of His words preserves a true tradition — " Do this as oft as ye drink it (i.e. the wine ordinarily consumed at meals) in commemoration of me." An element of awe entered into the f eehngs with which the Christians were now regarded, for the multitude was deeply impressed alike by the evidence of prophetic inspiration manifested from time to time among them, and by the many striking cures (for such seem to be meant by the " wonders " and " signs " of Acts ii. 43, cf. iii. 2 f.) which were wrought on the sick by the Apostles. Yet not only wonder but admiration must have been evoked by two other features. One was the unselfishness distinguishing behevers in Christ ; for private possessions were not retained by their owners for their personal use if a fellow-Christian needed help, but were sold voluntarily to supply the assistance required (see Acts V. 4). The second was the joyousness of their rehgious life, which was observable both in their public devotions at the Temple, and their private Eucharistic meals. Such traits made a strong appeal to the populace of Jerusalem, and attracted numbers to the Christian ranks* St. Luke represents (1) that the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost was accompanied by a sound as of a violent wind, filling the house and heard outside it,^ and by the settling of a tongue, Uke fire in appearance, upon each of the assembled disciples; (2) that when the disciples began to speak, they became intelligible to the whole of the audience, though this was composed of persons drawn from aU regions of the known globe. The wind-Hke sound and the flame-hke tongues are doubtless meant as symbols of a Spiritual Presence (cf. p. 109) ; for the words " wind " and " spirit" are indistinguishable in Hebrew (of. 2 Is. xl. 7, 13) ; tongues are a natural emblem for the diffusion of a Divine Message ; and " fire " is a frequent mark of a, theophany in the Old Testament (of. Ex. iii. 4, xix. 18). But the rest of his account {Acts ii. 4, 11), whether it impUes the miraculous endowment of the apostles with a faculty for speak- 'In Acts ii. 6 for ^wvi) of the noise of wind cf. Joh. iii. 8. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 495 ing foreign languages or a miraculous change of what they said in their own tongue into the various tongues, familiar to their hearers as it passed from their lips to the other's ears, creates a difEerent impression from that left by other references to the gift of tongues in the New Testament, especially by the first-hand evidence of St. Paul. The Apostle's allusions to it in 1 Cor. xiv. 4-6, 13, 14, 16, 17, 23, show that it was generally incomprehensible, though capable of being understood by some persons. In consequence of its being usually uninteUigible and therefore unedifying, the Apostle attached little value to it, and discouraged it {v. 19). It may sometimes have con- sisted of altogether unmeaning sounds and cries, in which violent reUgious emotion found vent. But the facts that it bore the name it did {yXwcari or ■YXiia-a-ais 'KaSeiv), that it was compared by St. Paul to the use of a foreign language (1 Cor. xiv. 11), and that it sometimes admitted of being interpreted, point to the conclusion that it might consist in part, at least, of words and expressions which could be understood by some of the hearers whilst remaining unintelhgible to others and even to the speaker himself. With regard to this last statement, there is evidence that words once heard without being comprehended and afterwards forgotten may eventually emerge from the subliminal into the supraliminal consciousness under stress of excitement. It seems probable that it was this kind of mixed speech which marked the Apostles at Pentecost : foreign phrases and idioms,'oaught from travellers along the trade routes of Gahlee, and perhaps sounda wholly inarticulate, were mingled with their native Aramaic as they lost their self-control in the course of their fervent thanksgivings. The surprise with which such foreign words would be recognized by those who were acquainted with them was calculated to occasion magnified reports. Possibly a consideration causing St. Luke to give readier credence to such reports and to put upon what occurred the construction that appears in Acts was the idea that the inauguration of a religious movement designed to embrace within its scope all mankind was likely to have been aooompanied by some reversal of the barriers interposed between men by the curse of Babel (Gen. xi. 7-9). Illustrations of the way in which persons under certain conditions are able to speak in a language of which in a normal state they are ignorant have been adduced from modem tiiQes. One, mentioned by Coleridge, is the case of a young woman who could neither read nor write, but who, when sufiering from a nervous fever, continuously talked Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the explanation being that she had previously been a servant in the house of a pastor who was accustomed to walk up and down near the kitchen, reading aloud to himself passages from his favourite books.' Such pheno- mena can be accounted for by the supposition that speech is ordinarily under the oonljrol of the supraliminal consciousness, but that when this is disturbed through some exceptional strain, the subliminal consciousness becomes active, and persons can recaU languages which they have previously had opportunities of hearing without (it may be) in the least understanding them.^ Another explanation of what is related by St. Luke is that the feelings and thoughts ot the Apostles on the occasion were communicated to the bystanders by thought- transference, and that the mental impulses thus created in them clothed themselves in apprbpriate words in their own mother tongues.' This is a more plausible hypothesis in oBsea where the spealdng with tongues occurred at exclusively Christian gatherings, li^B those which St. Paul has in view in 1 Cor. xiv. 23, than in connexion with Pente- cost ; in the one instance there was at the start a bond of sympathy between the speakers and hearers which was lacking in the other, for the " multitude " in Acts ii. 6 was non-Christian. The efiect produced upon the populace at Pentecost was enhanced by a, i;eiijarkable cure wrought on a lame man who was well known to all who visited the Temple. He was accustomed to lie at the eastern entrance of the Court of the Women, which was called the Beautiful Gate (p. 91) and to beg alms of the worshippers as they passed in. When on a certain 1 Quoted by Wright, Some New Testament Problems, p. 292. " See Lake, Early Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 241-252. ' Joyce, Inspiration of Prophecy, p. 149. 496 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY day, late in the afternoon, St. Peter and St. John went thither to pray, the infirm man begged of them as of others. In reply St. Peter told him that though he could not bestow upon him money, he would give him such relief as was in his power, and then commanded him in the name of Jesus Christ to walk, helping him at the same time to rise (cf. Mk. i. 31, V. 41). The man responded to the stimulating address, and standing up began to walk. When he found that he had recovered his power of movement, his feehngs of gratitude led him to enter with the two Apostles into the Temple in order to render thanks to God for the mercy experienced. To the cure probably two factors contributed. One was the renewed hope and confidence inspired by St. Peter's words in the man himself, who may have recognized the leader of the Nazarenes on whom the Spirit of God had descended ; the other was the exercise by the Apostle of " suggestion " to promote the afflicted man's recovery. To the possession of healing powers which may thus be described St. Paul at a subsequent date laid claim, ascribing them to the Spirit as their source (1 Gor. xii. 10, 11 , Gal. iii. 5) ; and as he counted them among the marks of an Apostle (2 Gor. xii. 12), his evidence corroborates St. Luke's account of the exercise of like powers by St. Peter. The only feature in the present narrative which causes serious difiiculty is the statement that the man, who was forty years old, had been lame from his birth. Joints and muscles long disused become atrophied ; and reports of similar cures wrought on crippled limbs are in general the more credible the shorter the period during which the infirmity is represented to have lasted. In the case of congenital lameness the limbs afflicted are likely not to develop equally with the rest of the body, so that the report, in representing the man as a cripple from infancy, may be inaccurate. News of what had occurred speedily spread through the city ; and as the two Apostles, accompanied closely by the man to whom had been given back the use of his feet, were returning from the Court of the Women into the Coxirt of the Gentiles, they were met at the portico known as Solomon's (p. 90) ^ by a crowd filled with wonder and curiosity. St. Peter, seeing this, availed himseU of the opportunity to speak to them of Him Whose emissaries and messengers he and his fellow-disciples were. The speech repeated much that had already formed the substance of the Apostle's address at Pentecost (Acts ii. 14^36) ; but it introduced certain new thoughts called forth by the event they had just witnessed. The tenor of it was as follows : — (1) The power that had recovered the cripple of his lameness was not their own, but proceeded from Jesus Whom God had glorified by the miracle — Jesus, God's Servant (2 Is. xUi. 1, Iii. 13), the Holy and Righteous One, the Pioneer of Life, whom they had rejected before Pilate in favour of a murderer, and had killed ; but whom God had raised from the dead, as ^ In Ada iii. 11 the fact that the crowd ran to meet Peter and John and the lame man as they left the Court of the Women is made clear in D, and the Old Latin codex A which after k/jotoCi'tos . . . 'Iu6,vvr)v add iKwopcvoiiii/ov Si tou Ilh-pov mi ^liodvov. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 497 His disciples could bear witness. It was faith, inspired by Him ^ that had lestored to the cripple the soundness which they observed. (2) Through repentance for the execution of the Messiah (a sin committed in ignorance by His slayers and fulfilling the Divine plan that the Christ was to suffer (cf . Lk. xxiv. 26) ) they might hope for relief in the period of distress destined to precede the Messianic age,* and eventually for the speedy return of Jesus the Christ from heaven where He was reserved against the time appointed for the re-establishment in the world of the perfect order intended by God (cf. Mh. ix. 12, Acts i. 6) and foretold in prophecy. Moses, for instance, had predicted the coming of a Prophet greater than himself {Bt. xviii. 15), obedience to whom was the only safeguard from destruction. (3) They whom the Apostle was addressing were the disciples of the prophets and heirs of the covenant made by God with their fathers (Gen. xxii. 18) ; and to them, in the first place, God, having raised up Jesus as Moses' greater successor, had sent Him to bless them by turning each of them from his iniquities. St. Peter's speech was followed seemingly by one from St. John, and the siunmary purporting to reproduce what was said by the former may represent the substance of addresses from both the Apostles. But they were not permitted to disseminate their teaching without serious opposition. The High Priesthood was in the hands of the Sadducees (p. 101) ; and to them such discourses as the Apostles had so far delivered were ofiensive on many grounds, [a) The Sadducean priesthood had been chiefly responsible for the death of Jesus Whom His disciples represented as the promisedMessiahof their race. (&) The declaration that He Who had been executed by them as an impostor had been raised from the dead proved, if true, that one of their most distinctive beliefs was untenable, (c) The contention that Jesus, as the Messiah, would shortly return, was likely to foster among the people expectations that might lead to outbreaks against Eoman rule, involving peril to, and perhaps forfeiture of, their own prerogatives. But whilst the Apostles' preaching thus alarmed and irritated the ecclesiastical authorities of the nation, it met with a different reception from the people at large. There was less sympathy among the mass of the Jews with the Sadducees than with the Pharisees, who cherished a belief in a future life and the resurrection of the dead ; and claims advanced on behalf of a Messiah, even though not a Messiah of the type popularly expected, generally evoked enthusiasm among the multitude. And though the Apostles did not shrink from placing the responsibility for slaying Jesus upon their countrymen, they reassured those whom they addressed by declaring that through repentance and faith they could still share in the Messianic kingdom. Consequently many amongst those who Ustened to the Apostles believed ; so that the number of the converts was increased to about five thousand. ' This seems to be the sense of i) Triffris i] SC airov {Acts iii. 16). »Cf. Mk. xiii. 8. 32 498 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY § 2. Persecution by the Priesthood The High Priestly party did not delay long before taking action. The Apostles had scarcely brought their speeches in the Temple to a conclusion when a body of priests/ together with the captain of the Temple (p. 93), attended doubtless by a body of men belonging to the Temple guard, suddenly appeared and arrested them, consigning them to prison with a view to examining them on the morrow. Next day a meeting of the Sanhedrin was called, which was presided over probably by the High Priest himself, Caiaphas, who was supported by his father-in-law Annas, with other of the high priest's relations, of whom two, John and Alexander, are especially mentioned.^ Before this court the two Apostles were brought ; and without being arraigned on any definite charge, were interrogated as to the power or name by which they had effected the heaUng of the lame man. The use of spells as means for the expulsion of demons or the cure of physical infirmities was a familiar practice in this age (p. 112), it being believed that the maUgnant spiritual agency causing the malady could be forced to retire before a superior Power, if the latter's name were pro- nounced over the afflicted individual. The inspired courage previously evinced by St. Peter when he spoke to the people was even more manifest now, when he stood before the chief council of the Jewish nation. He replied without hesitation to the High Priest's question that it was by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom they had crucified, but whom God had raised from the dead, that the former cripple, standing in their presence, had been restored to soundness. Quoting Ps. cxviii. 22 (of. 1 Pet. ii. 6, 7), he declared that Jesus was the stone which, despised by them, the builders, had been made by God the angle-stone consoUdating the walls of the spiritual structure which was to defy overthrow. And he then added with great emphasis that through no other name or per- sonality was the Messianic salvation which they, the Jews, looked for, to be secured. The bearing and words of the Apostles, and their application to Him, Whom they maintained to be the Christ, of a figure of speech used in the Scriptures originally of Israel but appropriate to the Messiah, Who could be regarded as the representative of Israel, recalled to their minde Jesus Himself, Who had made use of the same passage from the Psahns (see Mk. xii. 10-11), and Whose influence was traceable in the transformation that had taken place in His followers, who earher had seemed very ordinary persons, quite untrained in Eabbinical learning. The members of the Sanhedrin, who now bade the accused withdraw whilst they consulted among themselves,^ were in a difficult position. The cure wrought on ^In^cteiv. Ithe reading of X AD E P,Lat.,' Syr., (peah. hi.), Eg. is oUepers, but B C and the Arm. and Eth. versions have ol dpxicpeis. ' Of these neither is mentioned elsewhere, but for the latter the uncial D has Jonathan, who was the son of AnnM and succeeded Caiaphas in the high priesthood. ' The account of the subsequent discussion may be based on a report furnished by some members of the Sanhedrin who later grew sympathetic towards the Christian faith, or is perhaps constructed by inference from the decision reached. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 499 the crippled man was undeniable, and to account for it they had no explanation to set against that supplied by Peter and John. But it was dangerous to leave them and their companions alone, for fear of religious excitement and consequent disorder among the populace ensuing upon their activity ; whilst it was equally dangerous to suppress them by superior force, since the marvellous cure had created a great impression. Under these circumstances they contented themselves with merely prohibiting them from speaking in the name of Jesus, a policy of which the feebleness was apparent when the Apostles asked them whether they or God had the most right to their obedience. However, not seeing their way at the moment to any other course of effective intervention, they threatened them further and discharged them. When Peter and John returned to the rest of the disciples, and related what had occurred before the Sanhedrin, the whole company united in prayer to God, recalling how the words of Ps. ii. 1-2 had been fulfilled by the alliance of Gentiles (like Herod and Pilate) with the Jews against Jesus, God's Anointed, and how the only result of their conspiring was to bring to pass the Divine counsels ; and they petitioned for boldness to deliver their Message, and for signs and wonders, wrought through the name of Jesus, to attend it. Proof that their prayer was answered was seen in the persistency with which they, inspired by the Spirit,^ continued to preach and to bear their testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. The Christian community did not cease to be marked by unity and brotherhood. None regarded his property as exclusively his own, but deemed it a trust, designed to be used for the support of others no less than of himself. Probably there was no merging of private possessions into a siagle stock,^ but voluntary contributions were made on a generous scale to a sustentation fund (cf. Acts iv. 37, v. 1). Such spontaneous benevolence had nothing in common with socialistic commimism, of which the essence is the exploitation of the industrious, thrifty, and honest by the idle, thriftless, and dishonest, but had its motive in a feeling of spiritual kinship (one of the terms by which they described themselves being "the brethren" {Acts ix. 30, xi. 29, xii. 17, xv. 1, xvii. 10, etc.)) ; whilst an auxiliary cause was the prevailing belief that Christ's Second advent was near at hand and would inaugurate a new age, in which all their interests were centred, so that much provision for the brief future ttiat remained to be spent under ordinary conditions appeared to be nnaecessary. Nevertheless, as the interval expected to elapse before the Lord's return grew longer and longer, the experiment, however well- mtentioned, proved disastrous ; and it is not surprising that eventually the Jewish Christians had to be relieved at the expense of a number of Gentile communities (see Acts xxiv. 17, 1 Cor. xvi. 1-3). But whilst during the period described there was no replacement of voluntary _ * The descent of the Spirit is represented by the historian as acoompamed (like the meophanies in the Old Testament) with a shaMng of the place where they were assem- bled (see£a;. xix. 18, Ps. xviii. 7,lxviii. 8, /«. vi. 4, Hob. iii. 6): ef. Verg. A. vi. 256, am paJiiui mngire Bolvrni el inga capta wtoveri Sdvarum . . . adventante dea. 'Cf. Hort, Christian Ecdesia, p. 48. 500 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY generosity by compulsory communism, there was some attempt at organization, for the owners of property, when they sold it to supply the needs of the necessitous, placed the proceeds at the disposal of the Apostles, who became responsible for disbursing the money in the relief of want. One who sold an estate and gave the price to the Apostles was a Levite called Joseph Barnabas, ^ a native of Cyprus, who was destined afterwards to figure conspicuously among the evangelists of the Church. The action of Barnabas, though not exceptional, is mentioned as a contrast to the conduct of another individual, one Ananias, who, having disposed of some property, brought to the Apostles part of what it fetched, professing that it was the whole. He thus laid claim to greater credit for liberality than was his due. The presentation of the money seems to have been made at a public meeting of the community, in the presence of which St. Peter (having learnt the facts through some ordinary channel of information or penetrating, through some faculty of thought-reading, to the man's consciousness of guilt) ^ taxed him with his duplicity, declaring that he had attempted to deceive not merely his fellow-men but the Holy Spirit, that was in the midst of them. Ananias was so conscience-stricken at the Apostle's words that he died on the spot.' It is likewise represented that his wife Sapphira, who was an accomplice in her husband's deceit, and who a few hours later came in without being aware of what had happened, was questioned by Peter about the transaction and repeated her husband's falsehood ; and when the Apostle exposed to her the gravity of the sin, she too fell dead. There is some improbability in the account that the circumstances of the husband's sudden end were so closely repeated immediately afterwards in the case of the wife, and that St. Peter addressed to the latter words amounting to a sentence of death (contrast his language to Simon the Magian, Acts viii. 21-23). But though the report in this respect may well have been heightened, yet what occurred struck awe into all who heard of it both within and without the Christian body, here called by St. Luke for the first time the " congregation " or " church " (the Greek term implying that it was the true successor and representative of God's chosen People (see p. 389) ). The power of healing possessed by the Apostles, of which an illustration has already been furnished, and of which further instances occurred that are not described in detail, increased their influence among the people and much augmented their adherents. Even those who through fear of the ecclesiastical authorities shrank from joining the group of believers who were accustomed to unite together in Solomon's Porch (p. 90), ' In Acta iv. 36 the name " Barnabas " is explained to mean " son of encourage- ment " {vibs TrnpaKKiiaeas), but the true etymology seems to be " son of prophecy " or " of a prophet " (from the root ndbd). Encouragement and consolation were func- tions of a prophet (of. 2 Is. xl., 3 Is. Ixi.). The rule that members of the tribe of Levi should be landless (Num. xviii. 24) did not extend to such as resided outside Palestine. 2 Cf . 2 Kg. V. 26. " A somewhat parallel occurrence is commemorated by a monument in the market- place of Devizes, Wilts. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 501 nevertheless held them in great esteem, and even used to carry i their sick into the streets in order that, as Peter passed by, at least his shadow might fall upon the sufierers, in the hope that relief might thereby be brought to them. The report of cures efiected spread beyond the confines of Jerusalem, so that persons afflicted with physical or mental diseases were conveyed from the neighbouring towns to the capital, and received benefit. The widespread influence which the Apostles acquired created such indignation amongst the Sadducean party that Caiaphas and his supporters, in spite of their fears of the people, decided to check the Christian movement forcibly, lest popular enthusiasm for the disciples of Jesus, with their declaration that He was the Messiah, should imperil their authority. They accordingly seized, not Peter and John only, but the Apostles collectively, and put them in prison. But by some means not explained, but attributed to God's providence, and so represented as the work of an angel (cf . p. Ill), their escape by night was secured ; and in the morning they entered the Temple courts as before, and there proceeded to teach. The Sanhedrin had intended to try them ; and with this purpose in view, sent for them from the prison, and were much perplexed and disturbed when their officers reported that they could not be found. Information presently came that the Apostles were in the Temple courts ; and the captain of the Temple guard (p. 93) brought them thence, though without violence, since the use of force to them might have been resented by the populace. By the Sanhedrin they were charged with defiance of authority, and with seeking to induce the people to hold them responsible for the execution of Jesus. But Peter again, acting as spokesman for the rest of the Twelve, reiterated his earlier plea (cf. Acts iv. 19) that their duty to God transcended any duty owed to the Council ; and renewed his assertion (cf. Acts iii. 13) that the God of Israel had raised up Jesus to fulfil the Divine promises, that the authorities of the nation had killed Him, but that He had been exalted by God to be the Messianic Deliverer, whose mission it was to lead Israel to repent, and to procure for it forgive- ness, and that of His exaltation to heaven both they and the Holy Spirit present among them could affirm the truth. This answer so exasperated the majority of the Sanhedrin that they were prompted to have them executed, though they lacked legal authority to do so. But before they gave expression to any such decision, one of their number, when the prisoners had been temporarily removed, recom- mended caution. This was Gamaliel,^ known as " the elder Gamaliel," to distinguish him from his grandson of the same name. He himself was grandson of HUlel, one of the most famous of Jewish rabbis, and was conspicuous among contemporary teachers for the sympathy which he showed for Greek learning.^ Gamaliel belonged to the sect of the Pharisees ' In Acta V. 15 the subjeot of CK^dpeiv is 6 Xaiis mentioned in v. 13, the intervening ». 14 being parenthetical. ' It seems possible that Gamaliel was the ultimate source whence some information about the proceedings that followed was derived. " As a rule the Jewish Rabbis discouraged acquaintance with Greek.- 502 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY who, though they had been hostile to Jesus oh aocoiint of His disregard of the letter of the Mosaic Law, and His claim to be the destined Messiah, yet were not antagonistic to a belief in the resurrection of the dead and did not cherish the same class-interests as the Sadducees (p. 101). Conse- quently, like others of his party, Gamaliel was disposed to be more tolerant than the High Priest and his adherents towards the Christians. So he proceeded to deprecate any hasty action by the Sanhedrin, urging that if the new movement was of purely human origin, it would not last, whereas, if it were Divinely inspired, opposition to it was futile and impious. Some such advice as this seems consistent both with the tenets of the Pharisees, who, without being fatalists, placed great stress upon Divine Providence as a factor in human history (p. 103), and with the reputation that Gamaliel bore for liberality of thought. But in the speech attributed to him by St. Luke, his citation of instances of abortive movements in the past appears to involve a serious chronological error, so that unless this is explained away by the assumption that two ringleaders of sedition bore the same name, the speech would seem to have been composed without sufficient care by St. Luke himself (see p. 238f.). The suggestion of Gamaliel, who must have had many supporters belonging to his own sect in the Sanhedrin, was adopted ; and the Council, after beating the Apostles for their disregard of the orders previously given them, and again admonishing them to speak no more in the name of Jesus, released them. The second warning had as little effect as the first. The Apostles left the council-chamber counting it an honour to incur suffering and humiliation for the Name (i.e. the combination Jesiis Christ), and continued as hitherto to proclaim both in the Temple and in private houses that Jesus was the Messiah. The point in the history here reached marks the end of a stage in the relations between Christianity and Judaism. So far, there had fallen from the Christian teachers no word derogatory to Jewish institutions ; and the leaders of the Church had only come into collision with the Jewish officials who had been mainly responsible for the death of their Lord. But henceforward there began to be displayed in certain quarters within the Church an attitude of criticism and detachment as regards the Jewish Law and its ordinances ; so that there gradually developed between Christianity and Judaism a rift which time has not yet bridged. § 3. Appointment and Work of the Seven " Deacons " As the number of disciples increased and there was, as yet, httle organized distribution of functions among the infant community, it was inevitable that some defects or oversights should occur, causing complaint. The occasion is only vaguely indicated by the phrase " in those days " (Acts vi. 1, cf. i. 15), so that its relation to the events previously recorded cannot be precisely determined. The friction was due to the composite character of the growing Church. Having originated in Palestine, it consisted at first of Jews who habitually spoke Aramaic (p. 79). But Jerusalem was the resort of numerous Jews from countries where the THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 508 medium of intercomse was Greek (p. 80) ; and of these some had become converts to the Christian faith. Such, however, were a miaority, and the administration of the afEairs of the whole body naturally rested at the outset with the Aramaic-speakiug section of it. The chief duty which called for attention was that of providing support for the poor and unpotected. In that age the absence of any form of state relief rendered the obligation of supplying the needs of the indigent one of the most imperative of religious duties ; and liberality to the necessitous was not only inculcated in the Old Testament (Ex. xxiii. 11, Dt. xv. 11, Lev. xxv. 35), but was specially enjoined by the Pounder of Christianity (Mt. v. 42 = Lk. vi. 30). Among those whose poverty was greatest were widows ; and their daily wants were supplied from the common fund (Acts iv. 34, 35), by individuals appointed for the purpose, probably by the Apostles (in whose hands the money contributed to the fund was placed, see p. 500). These individuals were taken exclusively at first from among the " Hebrews " ('EPgawi), as those were called who used the Aramaic vernacular ; and in the distribution of alms the widows of the Hellenists ('EUrpiKtrai) ^ or Greek-speaking Jews did not receive their proper share. This led to dissatisfaction, which it was expedient for the Apostles to remove as soon as possible. They therefore summoned a meeting of the whole body of the Church and explained the situation. It was clearly undesirable that the time which they devoted to imparting the Christian message should be consumed ia providing for the physical necessities of the poorer disciples. They proposed, therefore, that seven persons (the number having a sacred character 2), all of good report and characterized by religious enthusiasm and practical wisdom, should be elected by the rank and file of the Church, and formally appointed over the administration of relief by the Apostles, who should confine themselves to more strictly religious functions, prayer and the proclamation of the Message. The proposal met with approval, and the assembly chose Stephen, Philip, Broohorus, Nioanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolaus. AU the names are Greek, and prudence would dictate the inclusion among the seven of some who were Hellenistic in sympathy. One, indeed, Nicolaus, was of Gentile origin, and had been converted to Judaism before he became a Christian. When elected, they were brought before the Apostles, who, after prayer, laid their hands upon them, the rite, in accord with traditional usage, symbolizing the transmission to them of authority to act as the Apostles' representatives in regard to this particular duty (see Num. xxvii. 18, 20, 23, Dt. zxxiv. 9). From the employment of the words diaxovia and diaxoveiv in connexion with their appointment, the Seven are often described as the Seven Deacons. But their proper title seems to have been " the Seven " simply (Acts xxi. 8) ; they are never explicitly styled deacons in the New Testament, and they really discharged only a temporary function, which after the death of one of their number, and the dispersal of the others, was eventually transferred to a different body (Acts xi. 30). * The term 'EXXijcioraf (unlike "EXXi/kcs) marks a class within the Jewish people. ' It probably went back to the " seven planets " known to the Babylonians (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Satum). 504 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY The dissatisfaotion manifested by the Greek-speaking Jews seems to have been allayed by the measures adopted to deal with it. The numbers of the disciples gained for the Christian faith kept constantly increasing; and amongst those who accepted its promises and obligations were a large body of priests (probably from the inferior ranks of the Jewish priesthood). In the account of the Seven contained in Acts, a perplexing feature is the way in which the history passes over the exercise of their duty as relieving officers and proceeds to narrate the activities of some of them as Evangelists. The most remarkable among them was Stephen, eminent even among his companions for grace of speech^ and for healing power. His varied endowments made him an influential and convincing advocate of the Christian faith. But if his success as a preacher and controversialist eclipsed that of the rest, it also concentrated upon him the antagonism which Christianity encountered from a section of the Jews. As one who was familiar with Greek, Stephen would naturally address himself principally to his fellow Hellenists. Although the Jews of the Dispersion were probably, in general, more liberal in thought than those of Palestine (p. 79), there were some who were no less zealous for the traditional beliefs of Judaism than their Palestinian countrymen. Stephen belonged to the liberal section amongst the Hellenists, and it was seemingly from some fellow-HeUenists that he encountered most opposition. These were members of a synagogue called the synagogue of the Libertini (manumitted descendants of Jewish slaves, p. 44), Cyrenseans and Alexandrians (p. 78), and were supported by other Hellenists from Cilicia and Asia. Unequal to him in debate, they procured men to misrepresent his words, and to charge him with having declared that by Jesus the Nazarene the Temple would be destroyed and the institutions of Moses changed (the accusation resembling that brought against our Lord HimseU, Mk. xiv. 58, Mt. xxvi. 61). The ground of such a charge, which St. Luke describes as false, is not explained. It is not likely that Stephen disparaged the distinctive institutions of Judaism openly and explicitly, for such a contention at this early stage would have alienated from Stephen the sympathies of the Twelve no less than of other Jews. Probably he afftrmed, Hke Jesus Himself, that the mere external performance of the commands of the Law, apart from real sympathy with its ethical principles, would not ensure admission into the kingdom of God. Any denial of the intrinsic value of the Temple ritual and the ceremonial regulations so carefully guarded by the oral traditions of the Scribes would suffice to provoke the Pharisees, who had the support of the mass of the people (p. 102) ; so that the ofience with which he was accused at once created a commotion. He was arrested and brought into the presence of the Sanhedrin, presided over by the High Priest (p. 99) ; and before this [body the witnesses suborned by his opponents gave evidence. But the seriousness of his position did not dismay Stephen, whose countenance, indeed, so far from wearing the depressed look of a prisoner on trial for his life, seemed to 1 In Acts vi. 8 -wK-fifyqi x^P^'^o^ (may perhaps be illustrated by Lk. iv. 22; of^ also Ps. xlv. 2, Horn. Oi. viii. 175 xi^P'S ifi^tirepuj-TpiipeTai iirhaaiv. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 505 some of the bystanders to be irradiated with supernatural dignity and glory. To the High Priest's question whether the accusation was true, he replied in a long and really remarkable speech. Although it contains a certain number of phrases characteristic of St. Luke,i it has some expressions which do not recur anywhere in the New Testament, and a few of which are rather noteworthy. ^ In general it is sufficiently distinctive amongst the speeches recorded in Acta to render it probable that it preserves something of Stephen's actual address. In it various incidents of Hebrew history are related, but with numerous and striking divergences from the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the speaker (or the historian who reports him) either depending upon the LXX (where it departs from the Hebrew), or drawing upon a treacherous memory, or else substituting for the statements and figures of the Scriptures others resting upon tradition.' To the charge of having used words derogating from the honour due to the institutions and possessions upon which the Jews placed such value, the speech indirectly supplies some sort of answer ; for in it Stephen magnifies three things highly esteemed by his countrymen, namely (a) the land of Canaan, as having been destined for their race by God from the time of Abraham ; (6) the Law, as containing living oracles, and as imparted through Angelic agency ; and (c) the tabernacle, the precursor of the Temple, as built according to a Divinely communicated plan. Nevertheless, there were implicit in his argument three contentions that really impugned the importance of the Mosaic Law and the Temple. The first was that God's relations with men were independent of place, since He had revealed Himself to the patriarchs and to Moses in Mesopotamia, in Haran and in the wilderness ; the second was that Moses had foretold the advent of another prophet [Jesus], so that the Law could not be the final disclosure of God's intentions for His people ; whilst the third was that every material building was inadequate and unessential as a dweUing- plaoe for the Creator of all things. And though formally the speech was Stephen's plea in his own defence, it was in substance an indictment of his countrymen, in which the Jews were arraigned as persistent rebels against God ; and the charge was supported by instances drawn from their past history, illustrating the way in which they, in contrast to their great ancestors, had repeatedly opposed the schemes of Divine Providence. The speech may conveniently be divided into five sections : — (1) In the first place, attention was drawn to the faith and obedience of Ahraham, who by Divine direction left his native land for another which was to be shown him, and proceeded first to Haran, and thence, after his father's death, to Canaan, where, however, God gave him no inheritance, though promising it (at a time when he had no ofispring) '■E.?. ^laTroffrAXeti;, a-anipla, KaravoeTv, SiaT6,^ " worthy," makes it not improbable that Chrestiani (retained in the French Chretien) was the way in which the word was popularly pronounced. Like some other appellations applied at first jestingly or scornfully,' this name, coined by the Antiochenes, eventu- ally became the accepted designation of our Lord's disciples even among themselves, appearing first in 1 Pet. iv. 16 (cf. Tac. Ann. xv. 45). I The next incident related by St. Luke and vaguely connected with the preoedmg by the loose term " in those days " (Acts xi. 27) is the arrival at Antioch from Jerusalem of certain Christian " prophets." These were a class of persons who did not ordinarily discharge any regular office in the Church, but who were endowed with certain spiritual faculties enabling them by penetrating insight and fervent language to guide, encourage, and edify the Church (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 3, Acts xv. 32). Like the ancient Hebrew prophets, some or all possessed in a remarkable degree the gift of prescience ; and among those who visited Antioch from Jerusalem was one named Agabus, who predicted the occurrence of a great and widespread famine throughout the Roman Empire. The prediction was probably uttered ! before the death of Caligula in 41, for it is specially noted by the historian ' of Acts that it was fulfilled in the reign of Claudius. Confirmation of this is- in some measure afiorded by the evidence of Tacitus (Ann. xii. 43) and Suetonius {Chmd. xviii.),* though they do not mention Judsea. The predic- tion as reported in Acts xi. 28, " a great famine over all the world " (i '■ At the end of Acts xiii. 8 D E and Syr (hi.) add iveid^ ijSiora iJKOvev avrdv. 526 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY stated in definite tetms. The belief attributed to him was perhaps a persuasion that St. Paul was really the messenger of some divinity, but did not amount to a conviction of the supreme claims of Christianity. The interview with the Roman ofl&cial and the impression produced on him may have resulted in turniag St. Paul's thoughts for the first time towards the evangelization of the Roman empire/ though the idea, no doubt, was brought to maturity by later occurrences. This is the last incident related in connexion with Cyprus, and from that island the Apostles crossed to Pamphylia,^ no doubt landing at Attalia (of. Acts xiv. 25), a city founded by Attalus II, King of Pergamum (159-138 B.C.), and serving as the principal port of the country. They did not stay there, but passed on to Perga on the river Cestrus, some twelve miles north-north-east, which was one of the chief towns of the province. Here a dissension occurred among the party, for Mark withdrew from the others and returned to Jerusalem. The cause of the disagreement is not described. St. Paul at a later date complained that Mark had not gone with them to the work (Acts xv. 38), so that the younger man must have shown an unwillingness to fall in with St. Paul's plans which, in the opinion of the latter, convicted him of faint-heartedness and want of resolution. On the other hand, Mark displayed no disiQclination after- wards to join Barnabas ia missionary exertions in Cyprus {Acts xv. 39) ; nor was Barnabas disposed to take the same unfavourable view of his action now as did St. Paul. The occasion of the difference could have been no dispute about the duty of ofiering the Gospel to the Gentiles, for it was not imtil later that the Apostles addressed themselves directly to the heathen {Acts xiii. 46, cf. xiv. 27). The quarrel therefore must have related to the local sphere of their labours. It is observable that it was not until Perga was reached that Mark severed himself from his companions, whilst, after his departure, St. Paul and Barnabas appear not to have stayed at Perga, but to have gone to Pisidian Antioch. This suggests that Mark was desirous of remaining in Pamphylia, whereas St. Paul, who carried Barnabas with him, wished to transfer their efiorts elsewhere. Some idea of the direction in which St. Paul wished to go is indicated by the mention of two provinces which at a later date he tried to evangelize, namely Asia and Bithynia {Acts xvi. 6), and to either of them Antioch ofiered access ; for from thence it was possible to go west- wards to Ephesus, the capital of the former province, and northwards to Nicomedeia, the principal town of the latter.^ If this is the right explanation of the dissension, it turned on Mark's unwillingness to partici- pate in the more ambitious enterprises which commended themselves to St. Paul. That the rift between them was not permanent appears from Col. iv. 10. 1 McGifEert, Aposk Age, p. 175. ' St. Luke indicates that St. Paul, from Cyprus onward, was more prominent than Barnabas by using in Acts sdii. 13 the phrase oi irepl IlaCXoi', " Paul and his company " ; contrast xii. 25, xiii. 2. But the order " Barnabas and Paul " is retained in xiv. 14 and xv. 12. ' See the map of Asia Minor in Hastings, D.B. vol. v, between pp. 400 and 401. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 627 After Mark's return to Jerusalem, the others left the plains of Pam- phylia and proceeded over Mount Taurus to Pisidian Antioch (100 miles distant). The designation Pisidicm is strictly a misnomer, since the town, founded by Seleucus Nicator (312-280) and called after his father, was really in Phrygia ; but it was so close to the borders of Pisidia that lit was distinguished as Antiochia ad Pisidiam. Though it was not the loriginal intention of St. Paul and Barnabas to stop here, they were com- Ipelled to do so through some malady that attacked the former {Gal. iv. 13). The nature of this malady is quite obscure, and among the guesses hazarded are ophthalmia, epilepsy, and malaria.^ It is against the two latter conjectures that the affliction seems to have rendered the sufferer = unsightly (Gal. iv. 14) ; whilst ophthalmia, which is certainly disfiguring, appears inconsistent with the intense gaze which St. Luke seems to attri- bute to St. Paul as well as to others (Acts xiii. 9, xiv. 9^). On the whole, it seems most likely that the trouble which at intervals distressed him was some cutaneous and repulsive disease, such as erysipelas.' But be this as it may, the illness detained him at Antioch, and his enforced sojourn there altered his own and his companion's plans and caused them to evangelize a district in which (it would seem) they did not origin- ally intend to preach, but which was nearer than that previously con- templated (cf. Gal. iv. 13). Antioch, though in Phrygia, was likewise in the Roman province of Galatia and indeed the centre of military and civil administration * ' in the southern part of the province. Whether it was to the people of Antioch and of the towns in the vicinity, mentioned below, that the Epistle to the Galatians was afterwards addressed, is a much debated question, which is discussed at length on p. 266 ; and the conclusion there reached that the letter was really sent to converts made in this district, the southern half of the Roman province, and not to dwellers in the northern half, is adopted here, allusions in the Epistle being used to supplement the statements of Ads. The Antiochenes, though politically i Galatians, were racially a mixed population. There was the original Phrygian stock ; there must have been a Greek element (p. 68) ; there were Roman settlers, for it had been made a colony by Augustus ; and there were also numbers of Jews who had a synagogue in the place. The inclusion of Jews among the inhabitants gave the Apostles an opening, and it was to their own countrymen that they first imparted the Gospel * Eamaay supposes that St. Paul was attacked by malaria in the enervating oUmate of low-lying Perga and went to the higher ground of the interior to get rid o|:it {8t. Paul the Traveller, p. 93). But the journey to Pisidian Antioch was one of five days at least and involved an ascent to a city 3,600 feet above the sea, an arduous undertaking for an invalid. ' Cf. Eamsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 38, 39. ' Of erysipelas in the face it is stated that " redness gradually appears over the whole surface of the face, and is accompanied with swelling, which in the lax tissues of the cheeks Bud eyelids is so great that the features soon become obliterated and the countenance wears a hideous aspect " {Enc, Brit. viii. p. 531). * Eamsay, op. cit. p. 104. 528 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY When they entered one Sabbath the Jewish place of worship, theii presence in it was noticed.fand after the reading of the two lessons, the presidents of the synagogue sent to ask them to address the congregation (p. 96). St. Paul, though he was a more recent convert to the Christian faith than Barnabas, was the better speaker {Acts xiv. 12) ; and he seized the opportunity of delivering a discourse, addressed both to the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles present, of which St. Luke purports to give the tenor. The Apostle took as the subject of his discourse the same idea as that expressed in Dt. i. 31 (a chapter which may have furnished the lesson from the Law read on the occasion), namely the graciousness of God to Israel. He began by relating the Divine favours successively conferred upon the Chosen people — their deliverance from Egypt, the support afiorded to them ^ in the wUderness, their settlement in Canaan, and the bestowal upon them first of judges and then of kings ; next, he explained how the promises made to David, the king after God's own heart (2 Sam. vii. 12, 16), had been realized by the advent of Jesus, a descendant of David's race, to be a Saviour, as previously announced by John the Bap- tist ; for though the Jews of Jerusalem, not recognizing Him, nor under- standing the utterances of the prophets, had killed Him, yet He had been raised by God from the dead, and had been seen by His Galileean disciples ^ ; then he affirmed that the object of the presence of himself and Barnabas among them of the Dispersion was to communicate this good news, pointing out that the Messianic dignity of Jesus and His resurrection from the dead were fulfilments of prophecies in Ps. ii. 7 ^, 2 Zs. Iv. 3, and Ps. xvi. 10 ; and finally, he declared that through Jesus was ofEered the forgiveness of their sins, so that [through faith in Him] believers [on repentance] could receive from God that acquittal for their ofiences and shortcomings which they could not secure by attempts to fulfil the Law [which were boimd to prove futile], whilst he warned his hearers in the words of the prophet Habakkuk (i. 5, LXX) against courting destruction by despising the Divine Mercy.* The speech put into St. Paul's mouth in Acts xiii. 17-41 is doubtless the free composition of St. Luke (who was not present), in accordance with the regular practice of ancient historians (p. 119) ; for it has several marks of his style (e.g. ivqg, irog, EvayyeXt^o/iai, i^cmoariViCO, fiera raiha, nag 6 Xadg, TiQoajtdrjfii, acoTrjQia, fSnoatQitpco).^ In general tenor it bears some resemblance to the speeches to the Jews of Jerusalem attributed to St. Peter in Acts ii. and iii. (cf. especially w. 27-31 with f In Acts xiii. 18 iTf>oTro. also has "Apeios irdyos iv 'BXeKO'iVi \ir'/avi CTronjo-aro. 552 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY see -whether he was liable to the charge of introducing unauthorized objects of worship. But since the speech which he made does not appear to be a defence against an accusation, and since there is some evidence that the council had certain duties in connexion with education,^ it has been suggested that he was conducted before it in order that he might prove to its satisfaction that he was a competent teacher of philosophy or religion.^ This view accords best with the tenor of the speech delivered by the Apostle, and with the disparaging epithet (p. 551) which was applied to St. Paul by some of the philosophers, who were perhaps desirous of finding out whether he really had any qualifications for the role he assumed. With this intention it may be presumed that they took him to one of the colonnades adjoining the Agora, and there interrogated him. The speech which St. Luke puts into the Apostle's mouth as a reply, though no doubt owing its form to the author of Acts, probably represents substantially the manner in which St. Paul addressed a cultivated audience. He took as his subject one that was suggested to him by an altar which he had seen inscribed ^/WfiZT.Qr QEQI. Inasmuch as the various divinities worshipped by most of the peoples of antiquity presided over different provinces in nature, or departments of human life, it was im- portant to direct prayers and thanksgivings for particular favours to the appropriate god ; but since it was not always certain who this was, an altar under such circumstances might be erected with the inscription rip TZQoarjxovrL dsq> or dyvmarcp Qew.^ The ambiguity of this last phrase (which could mean " To Unknown God " as weU as "To an unknown god ") enabled St. Paul to assume that the Athenians, being religious above the average of men, had been worshipping, though ignorantly, the One true God ; so that he proceeded to explain something about His nature, deducing from His relations to the Universe and to mankind His immanence and transcendence, the unreasonableness of idolatry, the Divine forbearance in the past, and the nearness of a future judgment through the agency of One who had been designated as the Di\'ine repre- sentative by His resurrection from the dead. A rather fuller analysis of the argument of the speech is as follows : — (a) As the Maker of the Universe, God could neither dwell within temples built by human hands, nor require offerings tendered by the same.* (6) As the Creator of men, the Arbiter of their destinies, and the Disposer of their places of habitation. He had given to them clues to guide them to Him, though He was not really a remote God, inasmuch as He encompassed ^ See Piularcli Vit. Gic. 24^ dieirpd^aro d^ (6 KiKipuv) r^v ^^ 'Ape/ou 7rd7ou ^ou\t}v \I/T)(t>l(xaa-Sai Kal Sc'qBrivai ii.ivav avrbv (Gratippus) 4v 'AfliJ^ais . . . icai SiaXiyeaBai Tois reois ujy Koa/J-ouvTO. t7}v irdXlv, ^ See liamaay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 243-247 ' The inscriptions of a parallel character mentioned by secular writers or discovered by explorers are usually in the plural. At Olympia, for example, there was an altar " to Unknown Gods " {ayviia-TOis Bcols). * This would have received the assent of the Epicureans : of. Luor. De rer. nat. ii. 646-50 divum natura . . nil indiga nostri. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 553 their whole existence, and was immanent in them ; as their own Stoic poet(Aiatu8, ciVc. 270b.c.) had written (in his -poem. IJegl r&v 0aivofih'(ov), "For of Him we are also the ofEspring." ^ (c) Since God's Personality transcended man's personality, it was irrational to suppose that material images, devised by human art, could bi any way represent the Divine nature. r {i) The idolatry of the past due to ignorance God had overlooked, 'but now He required repentance from the guilty, whom He was about to call to account and judge through One of whose Divine authority He had I given assurance by raising Him from the dead. The Greek philosophic mind was generally more appreciative of Intellectual truth than sensitive to moral obligations, and the Apostle's hearers, whilst they would readily acquiesce in his statement that within God men had their existence and from Him drew their origin, would be less responsive when he declared that God would exact a reckoning from them. And as soon as he proceeded to speak, in connexion with Divine judgment, about resurrection from the dead, some of those present began to scofi ; and though others expressed a wish to hear more from him on another occasion, it was clear that his speech exerted little influence upon I his audience. He won a few converts, including a member of the Council of Areopagus, Dionysius by name, and a lady of rank called Damaris ^ ; hut on the whole his endeavours to evangelize the Athenians were un- successful, and he may have received an intimation that he would not be ' allowed to teach further in the city. St. Paul when he first reached Athens had sent back word by his I attendants that Timothy and Silas were to come to him there fromBeroea (p. 550). It is plain from 1 Thess. iii. 2 that Timothy carried out his wishes and rejoined him, but was sent back speedily to Thessalonica. From 1 Thsss. iii. 3 it may be inferred that the Cliristians at Thessalonica were exposed to severe trials, and Timothy's presence was perhaps desirable to encourage them to endure such bravely. Nothing is said about Silas' movements, but if he accompanied Timothy to Athens, he, too, must have been dispatched on a similar mission (perhaps to Philippi), for St. Paul after Timothy's departure was left alone. ^ Dispirited in consequence of his want of success at Athens (cf. 1 Gor. u. 3) the Apostle proceeded to Corinth, about fifty miles distant. This was a city both politically and commercially much more important than Athens, since it was the residence of the Roman proconsul (p. 67), and , being situated on the isthmus uniting the Peloponnese to Northern Greece and separating the Corinthian gulf (on the west) from the Saronic gulf (on the east) it was on the highway between north and south and east and ' A close parallel occurs In Gleanthes (300-220 B.C.), Hymn to Zeus, Ik aov yap thim hiUv. ' There ia some inconsistency between the mention of these converts at Athens and the statement in 1 Cor. xvi. 15 that the household of Stephanas (apparently a Corinthian) formed the first-fruits of Arohaia (the province in which Athens was situated). I ° In 1 Tliess. iii. 1 the plural is probably epistolary. 554 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY west. Tte small area pf the Corinthian territory and its position b^tweej the Mediterranean and Mgesm seas caused its population to turn for i^ main support to a seafaring life, and for several centuries prior tp, iti conquest by Rome it was a maritime and colonizing power conspicuoiui for its enterprise. Its downfall occurred in the war between the Eomans and the Achsean league (of which it was a member) ; and it was taken, ani dismantled by the consul Mummius in 146 B.C., remaining for a hundre® years a mere village. But in 46 B.C. it was re-founded by Julius Ca3sar as a Roman colony, receiving the title of Colonia Laus Julia Corinihi ; a^ in 27 B.C. it became the capital of the Roman province of AchaH In consequence, its population, besides comprising native Greeks, waa also - partly Roman, and included, in addition, a considerable number of Jei^ (cf. Acts xviii. 4). Philosophy, rhetoric, and the fine arts were cultivated;,' ^ but the citizens, though quick-witted, were vain, turbulent, and f actioii|^- whilst the tendency to licentiousness, which was characteristic of the Greeks generally, was aggravated by the circumstance that it was tie^ resort of traders from the East, bringing thence, especially from Phry^. the impurity which was there so closely associated with religion, so tl^ the place became a by- word for sexual immorality.^ ,, - Though the prevalent wickedness might seem to call for the preaching;: of Christ's Gospel immediately to all classes of the population without -^. distinction, yet here, as elsewhere, St. Paul made the Jewish synagogue the first scene of his labours. There before the arrival of Timothy and: Silas he found companions in a certain Jew called Aquila, a native^ of Pontus by birth, and his wife Prisca or Priscilla. Aquila had previously . been a resident at Rome ; but in consequence of an edict issued by Claudius in a.d. 49 (p. 78) expelling all Jews from Rome, he had settledin Corinth. Like St. Paul, he was a weaver of tent cloth (p. 68), and the circumstance that the two had a common occupation bringing them together, the Apostle stayed at his house. Since no mention occurs of the conversion and baptism of Aquila and PrisciUa, it is natural to assume - that they were Christians before meeting St. Paul, for a Christian Church was in existence at Rome (p. 280). At any rate, if they were still Jews when at Corinth, they are represented as Christian teachers not long after this date (Acts xviii. 26). As usual, St. Paul took the opportunity ofiered by the Sabbath servicegi ^ at the synagogue to reason with both the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks ; , but his teaching there does not seem to have been very persuasive.^ His first converts were Stephanas and his household (1 Gor. xvi. 15), and . probably Gains (1 Cor. i. 14), though it does not appefir whether the^ . were Jews or Gentiles. The sense of his failure at Athens, and perha^ " his anxiety about the Thessalonian Church, which had compelled him to send back Timothy to Thessalonica (p. 553), may have impaired for the' moment his powers.^ Encoxiragement, however, came with the arrivsl* of his two friends from Macedonia. Timothy brought good news (1 TW ^ It gave rise to the verb Kopi.vdi.6,l!LaOai. "^ See AcU xviii. 4 lireiBev (imperfect). ' Cf. Rackham, Acts, p. 324, THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 5,55 lii, 6 f.)> and tte reception of it led the Apostle to write to the Church at IheSsaloiiica the First Epistle to the Thessalonians (p. 262) late in 50 or BBily in 51. Possibly the friend who conveyed the First Epistle speedily retuHied with further news. Seemingly, too, Silas brought from the Hiurch at Philippi funds which set him free from the necessity of earning il,0wn living (2 Cor. xi. 9). Being thus relieved from many anxieties, H Paul became immersed '^ in his Message, the tenor of which he himself I.Mcribes in 1 Cor. ii. 2 as " Christ crucified." The renewal of his vigour, Rwever, was not attended by any greater success among the Jews ; and fcit rejection of the Gospel, accompanied, as it was, with blasphemy Igaiinst, Christ (cf . 1 Gor. xii. 3), caused him finally to abandon the syna- gegue, and to declare that henceforward he would address himself to the jl^lpa. He accordingly left the house of Aquila ^ and took up his abode WJK a certain Titus (or Titius) Justus, a " God-fearer," whose house Pl^jijied the synagogue ; and the bulk of those whom he influenced were pao-Jews (cf. 1 Gor. xii. 2). Yet he was not entirely unsuccessful even apong his countrymen (cf. 1 Gor. vii. 18), for his converts included the mlei of the synagogue (p. 95), whose name was Crispus, and who seems to, have been, like Gains, anlong the earliest of the Corinthians to be jitted into the Christian Church (cf. 1 Gor. i. 14). Henceforward his evangelistic work was confined to the, Gentile section t the population. Some features in Corinth were conducive to the spread Ithe Christian faith. Its people were familiar with the religions of th,e (p. 85), which at this time were extending their influence westward, hat in some of the doctrines and rites of Christianity (such as the idea it.Divine Saviour and the use of sacraments) they would find nothing pnge (cf. p. 86 f.) ; and such points of likeness to other cults would ^possess them in its favour. On the other hand, the sexual licence [TOY'alent in Greece generally and in Corinth in particular, the factious mmk and fickleness inherent in the Greek character, and its preference iPi'tDtellectual subtlety and rhetorical skill over ethical qualities made ■lumbers of the Corinthians (as 1 Gor. reveals) very unsatisfactory converts. jMthough St. Paul won many to the Christian faith (as presaged in a vision ifijji which the Lord is represented to have encouraged him), so tha,t the jorinthian Church became one of the most important of those founded by i(*im, yet he had in it cause for much anxiety in consequence of the self- -lonoeit, the unruliness, the partisanship, and the tolerance of immorality f,|iioli, conspicuously marked it. The Christians of Corinth seem to have jpSiiexposed to less persecution than those of other localities, and this Ijtpramty may have contributed to the prevalence among them of many |||!|l,esirabl6 developments. I , The time spent by St. Paul in Corinth amounted to a year and a half, ^ipmg which he extended his labours not only to the port of Cenchrese, [liithe Saronic gulf, but likewise to other parts of the province of Achaia jfiom. xvi. 1, 2 Gor. i. 1). The bulk of those who were converted consisted Tl(ls seems to be tl*e sense of a-weixero in Acts xviii. 5. ' In Acts xviii. 7, the Bezan codex replaces eKeTSev by dTro tov 'AKi\a, 556 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of persons in a humble station of life (1 Gor. i. 26) ; but there were a few^- of higher rank and better circumstances. Besides Crispus and Gaius others (designated by name) included Erastus (who was the treasurer— olxovdfio:; — of the city), Tertius,i Quartus, Fortunatus, and Achaicia, (Rom. xvi. 22, 23, 1 Gor. xvi. 17). As the last four names, as well as that of : Gains, are Latin, it is possible that St. Paul's influence penetrated among the Roman residents in the place (p. 554). ■ The lapse of time did not mitigate Jewish animosity against St. Paul, : to which reference is made in 1 Thess. ii. 7 ; and after the appointment of Gallic to the proconsulship of Achaia, an attempt was made by the Jews ' to procure the Apostle's punishment by the Eoman authorities. Gallic, who was the brother of Seneca the philosopher, and uncle of the poet. Lucan, and whose full name (through adoption) was Junius Anneeiu, Gallic, probably did not reach his province till a.d. 51 (p. 346) ; and it may have been late in this year that a concourse of Jews brought St. Paul before him. The charge was similar to, but not quite the same as, that laid against the Apostle at PhUippi (Acts xvi. 21). There the native population complained that St. Paul and Silas (taken to be Jews) were not i: satisfied with practising their own religion, which the Roman government _ allowed them to do (p. 79), but sought to extend it among non-Jews. , Here the Jews accused St. Paul of teaching a form of religion which was not Judaism recognized by the Romans as a religio lidta and was therefore illegal. Gallic, however, was not inclined to adjudicate between what he took to be rival Jewish sects. So before St. Paul could say a word in his own defence, the proconsul declared that the charge was not any ofience against the statutes or against morality, of which he as a Roman magistrate was bound to take notice, but turned upon questions relating to the interpretation of their own Law, which the Jews were ; empowered to decide themselves. He accordingly dismissed the case and directed the court to be cleared. The scanty respect which the Roman official showed for the Jews encouraged the Greek populace ' to manifest their dislike for the latter by beating Sosthenes,' the successor of Crispus as ruler of the synagogue, who had presumably taken a promi- nent part in the accusations against St. Paul ; and Gallic allowed this piece of mob violence to be enacted without interference. The rebufE which the Jews sustained in the proconsul's court secured ' for St. Paul freedom from further molestation ; but his plans were too " comprehensive to sufier him to remain indefinitely in any one place or province. And as one of his objects was to consolidate the Church by. keeping the Christian communities that had been founded in various localities in touch with one another, and with the parent communities at Antioch and at Jerusalem, he determined to return to Syria, probably," early in 52. Having taken leave of his Corinthian converts and being , accompanied by Aquila and PrisciUa, he went to Cenchrese, where he had He was St. Paul's amanuensis when he wrote Rom. xvi., see ver. 22. In jictoxviii. 17D E HLP supported by Lat. vet. (943. ) have irdi'Tes ol"E^Xl)l'«■ Probably distinct from the Sosthenes of I Cor. i. I. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 557 %i hair shorn ^ after having left it untrimmed for a certain period in consequence of a vow. At the expiration of such vows it was usual for the hail to be cut or shaved and probably (as in the case of temporary Nazarites) to be burnt on the altar {Num. vi. 18). The customs involved in the obeervance of vows like this must have long been conventional, but probably they had their origin in the practice of making ofierings of hair ^ a divinity, the usage being not confined to the Hebrews but occurring amongst other peoples, and the hair being allowed to grow freely for a period in order that there might be more to ofier as a sacrifice (perhaps as a substitute for the whole person of the ofierer^). The fact that St. Paul ^i taken such a vow shows that whilst he vindicated for Gentile Christians Bedom from the obligations of the Jewish Law, he himself nevertheless Wbntinued to take part in practices to which he, as a Jew, had been accustomed in his youth. From Cenchreas he and his companions crossed ti'Ephesus, where Aquila and Priscilla took up their abode. St. Paul, however, appears to have remained there only as long as the ship was in port, or (if he had to change vessels) until he could find another going to Syria'. Ephesus was the principal city in the Roman province of Asia ; and the Apostle seems to have felt that the prohibition against his preach- ing m that province was now removed, for during his stay in the place he leasoned in the synagogue with the Jews. The Ephesian Jews seem to have given him a favourable hearing, since they appealed to him to remain longer. But this he was unwilling to do, giving as his reason (acoordiug to D and many other manuscript authorities) that he wished to keep the approaching feast (the Passover ?) at Jerusalem. Doubtless, too, he wished to discharge there the duties connected with his vow (by offering 'bertain sacrifices in the Temple), and to bring into relation with the Church at the Jewish capital the new Churches he had established among the Gentiles ; so promising to return to Ephesus if God allowed him, he took his leave and sailed for Caesarea. His next movements are rather uncertain. The text of Acts xviii. 22 merely has " he went up and saluted the Church and went down to Antioch," and " the Church " is generally taken to mean the Church at Jerusalem. But usage makes it probable that it refers to the Church of the place previously named (cf. Acts viii. 1, 3, xi. 26, xiv. 26, 27, xv. 4), so that dva^dg may mean that the Apostle "went up from the harbour of Caesarea into the city; and this is the way in which the passage is understood by the Bezan MS., which in xix. 1 has BiXovTOQ de rov IlaiiXov xara rrjv ISiav ^ovXrjv nogeveadai ei; 'lEQoao^v/ia elnev a^rai to Tivevfia vnoarQecpeiv elg rrjv 'Aalav, dieXQoyv de ra avcoreQixd etc. On the other hand, it may be argued that the words " he went iovm {xari^T]) to Antioch " are more appropriate to a journey from Jerusalem than from Caesarea. If St. Paul on this occasion really pro- ceeded to Jerusalem (as his going to Caesarea implies that he intended to do), it may perhaps be conjectured that the reception which he met with there was an unfriendly one, since on the next occasion when he went ' Some suppose that it was Aquila and not Paul who took the vow, a view which 4cts xviii. 18 admits of ; but cf. lod. 24. * Cf. Gray, Numbers, p. 69. 558 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY thitlier lie did so witli much trepidation {Acts xx. 22). In any case, either from Csesarea or from Jerusalem he returned to Antiooh, the place whence he had departed on the important tour just concluded. § 9. St. PauVs Third Missionary Journey It has been assumed here that the Apostle's return happened in the summer of a.d. 52, the Second Missionary journey having occupied between two and three years. The length of his stay at the Syrian capital is not stated ; but since he was now responsible for the care of so many Churches | both in Asia and Europe, it is scarcely likely to have been protracted,*' There was, indeed, a special reason for his revisiting some of the districts he had previously traversed. He probably received about this time disheartening news concerning the Galatian Churches. Although in preaching salvation through faith, independently of circumcision and the ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic Law, he had had the countenarifie ' of the leaders among the Apostles (p. 539), there was an influential section in the Church at Jerusalem that took strong exception to this, his funda- mental principle, and insisted that circumcision was obligatory upon all Christians. In doing so they could appeal not only to the observance of the Law by Jesus during His earthly ministry (p. 380), but also to certain parts of His teaching, which seemed to imply that the Law was, for His followers, to be of perpetual validity (p. 607). And in accordance ■ with this contention they had sent emissaries into G-alatia to impress upon ■ tlie Churches at Derbe, Lystra, and the neighbouring towns, whicli had ' been evangelized by Paul and Barnabas (p. 530), the necessity of submitting to circumcision. This mission, about which nothing is mentioned in Ads, and which seems to have been headed by a person of some eminence in the Church (cf. Gal. v. 10), was engaged not only in neutraKziag St. Paulas teaching but in undermining his authority. Information about its activities caused the Apostle to write to the Churches in question, that were lending a ready ear to the arguments of the Judaizers, the Epistle to ■ the Galatians, the date of which, though not ascertainable beyond doubt, seems to be most plausibly assigned to the interval between its author's return from his Second journey and his departure upon his Third (p. 272). If this conclusion is justified, St. Paul must have felt, immediately after the dispatch of it, that the situation was too grave to be dealt with by correspondence ; for he determined to appeal to the seceding Churches once more in person, by going to them for the third time, this visit, how- ever, being intended to constitute the initial stage of another journey to the West. Accordingly he left Antioch before the end of a.d. 52, and following the same route as on the previous journey (Acts xvi. 6 f.), he quickly crossed Cilicia and the territory of King Antiochus, and reached Southern : ' Some soholara thinlc that the visit of St. Peter to Antiooh when he was rebuked ^by St. Paul (Oal. ii. 11-16) occurred during the interval between the latter's Second and Third journeys (Hastings, D.B. iii. p. 709). THE CUtJilCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 559 atia. St. Luke's rapid narrative dismisses tie time spent there almost In a line, merely stating tkat the Apostle passed through the Galatic region and Phrygia i in order, establishing all the disciples ; so that this ;k the only light thrown by the account in Acts upon the success that mpowed his efforts to defeat the Judaizers. He was under promise to go j^ Ephesus (p. 557) ; and it was with this end in view that, after traversLag .5fluit St. Luke rather curiously describes as " the Galatic region," he entered Phrygia, crossing the border probably near Metropolis. Here 'tie load to Ephesus forks, one branch following the valley of the Mseander firough Apamea, Colossse, and Laodicea (this being the easier and more equented route), and a second keeping upon higher ground (rd dvcoxEQixa pM some distance north of the river. It was the latter road that was men by St. taul, who would pass through Tralles, traverse the lower fllopes of Mt. Tmolus, and reach his destination by way of the valley of the Cayster. ' Previous to the Apostle's arrival at Ephesus there had been staying pere a Jew of Alexandria called ApoUonius or Apollos, who, besides being p eloquent speaker, was deeply versed in the study of the Scriptures, and perhaps trained in the allegorical system of interpretation for which Alexandria was famous. When he came to Ephesus he was not a Christian, tut a disciple of John the Baptist. He had been instructed by the latter in the way of the Lord (of. Mk. i. 3), and, like him, was intent upon pro- -Ifioting among his countrymen the reformation which was the necessary jonditioh for entrance into the Kingdom of God. He was familiar -wiih. tlie prophecies relating to the Messiah (cf. Lk. xxiv. 27), whose speedy advent John had announced ; but he was ignorant of the fact (as Christians .Held it) that the Messiah had already come in person, if not in function. He SiCqftrdingly expounded in the synagogue the prophecies about the pkrist, but did not identify the Christ, as Christian teachers did, with ilesus. This explanation of the statement in Acts xviii. 25, ididaaxev dxgtjSflJs rd negl xov 'Itjoov, assumes that the latter words do not bear the sense, which they have in Lk. xxiv. 19, and that a more correct descrip- tio^i 6f tie instruction given by Apollos would have been that he taught carefully rd negi rov Xgiarov, which only to a Christian meant rd tibqI '|j|(io«, and that this phrase has been substituted by St. Luke as an equiva- lent, though Apollos himself could not have used it until he met Christian believers able to show him that the Christ had already appeared in the person of Jesus. ^ Those who convinced him that this was so were Aquila aijid PrisciUaj who had made Ephesus for a time their home (p. 557), and who, having learnt the nature of the teaching he had been imparting, cpmmunibated to him what they knew and believed about Jesus, and JEereby led him to recognize that of the Messianic prophecies which he »|itni studied Jesus had already fulfilled some, and was expected to fulfil '■Sthers ^when He should cbme a second time. It may be assumed that jEvi ' In Ads xviii. 22 ipuylav (without the article) is a substantive ; cf. Acts xxvii. 5 ipta/i^uWaK), 1 TJiess. i. 8 (Axauq.). 'See J.T.S. Oct. 1905; Lake, Early Epistles of 8t. Paul, pp. 108-10. 560 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY ApoUos, being thus brought to accept the Christian faith, received Christian baptism (cf. Acts xix. 5). The zeal that had marked him as a disciple of John was not likely to be impaired when he became a Christian. But Ephesus, where he had been so recently active in continuing the mission set on foot by John, was not the best sphere for him to advocate the new faith of which he had become an adherent. Achaia ofiered a more favour- able field ; so when he was disposed to go thither ^ the Christians at Ephesus encouraged him to do so, and wrote on his behaH a commendatory letter to their fellow-Christians at Corinth. There he became a great source of help to the Church (Acts xviii. 27, 28, 1 Cor. iii. 6), using his knowledge of the Old Testament and his rhetorical skill to much efieot in controversy with the Jews, contending that their Scriptures proved the Messiah whom they looked for to be Jesus. Upon the Corinthian Christians he made such an impression that some professed to be his dis- ciples rather than St. Paul's (1 Cor. i. 12). But although by zealous partisans he was thus brought into rivalry with the latter, no feeling of jealousy subsisted between him and the Apostle ; and on a later occa- sion, after Apollos had left Corinth and returned to Ephesus, St. Paul earnestly exhorted him to visit the Corinthian Chuich once again (1 Cor. xvi. 12). It was during the absence of Apollos from Ephesus, when he went to Corinth shortly after his acceptance of the Christian faith, that St. Paul reached the Asian capital from Galatia. When he had come there, he found a small body of men, twelve in aU, who, though they had been baptized, had not experienced the ecstatic state usually associated "with the presence of the Holy Spirit, and indeed, were not even aware of the occurrence of such experiences.^ Further inquiry elicited the fact that they, like Apollos, had undergone only the baptism of repentance preached and administered by John,' and had not become believers in Him Whom John had foretold as destined to follow him, and to baptize with the Spirit. This, however, was due not to rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, but to ignorance of the evidence pointing to His being such. When this evidence was placed before them, they became believers in Him, and were baptized into His name. And when St. Paul laid his hands upon them (cf . p. 509), the same ecstasy seized them as had marked other believers at a similar critical moment in their religious life (cf. Acts x. 45, 46) ; and they spoke with " tongues " and " prophesied." It appears from this narrative that Baptism at this period was " into the name " of Jesus, and that the rite was the symbol of admission into the Christian body regarded as the sphere wherein alone the gift of the Spirit was conferred. But there is a difference of view discernible between this passage and the one just cited : in X. 45 no hint is given that the bestowal of the Spirit did not occur until * The Bezan MS. represents that the suggestion of a missionary journey through Greece came from certain Corinthian residents at Ephesus, who heard his preaching and pressed him to accompany them on their return home (p. 254). ^ In Acts xix. 2, D for lariv has Xa/ipdvovcriv tikes. " In Acts xix. 1 it seems necessary to assume that by fiaS-riTas is meant disciples of John the Baptist. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 561 Apostolic hands were laid on the baptized, whereas here the gift is repre- sented as following the laying on of St. Paul's hands. J ;• If At Bphesus St. Paul continued the same policy as he had observed previously, addressing first his own countrymen in the synagogue and seeking to win them (Acts xix. 8, nddum, present tense) to Christianity. He persisted in doing this for three months, taking as the subject of his discourses the Kingdom of Heaven and the conditions of entrance, namely, repentance towards God and faith in Jesus (cf. Acts xx. 21). The length of time that he taught in the synagogue suggests that he was tolerated by the Jews longer at Ephesus than at many places. But when some of them not only refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah, but calumniated the Christian profession, he at last withdrew both himself and his disciples altogether from the synagogue and transferred his preaching to the lecture- room of a certain Tyrannus (perhaps a teacher of philosophy or rhetoric) which, according to the Bezan manuscript, was available from shortly before midday tiU late in the afternoon. ^ This was the scene of his labours for two years. His first convert was Epsenetus {Rom. xvi. 5), and if the last chapter of iJo«a»s is really part of a letter to Ephesus (p. 283), a considerable number of Ephesian Christians are also known by name, of whom Andronicus, Junias, and Herodion certainly were Jews and probably a woman called Mary likewise. The first two of these were not converted by St. Paul, but had been members of the Christian Church before him. There is mention of other Ephesians also in 2 Tim. i. 15, 16. In his preaching the Apostle must have displayed much conciliatoriness and tact, since among the friends he made were certain of the religious officials of the province called Asiarchs (p. 66). Whether he confined his residence to Ephesus all the while is not clear. On the assumption that in the Pastoral Epistles are contained portions of letters written by St. Paul, or that the letters are based on trustworthy traditions of his missionary enterprises, it is not improbable that the evangelistic work which he initiated in Crete and left to Titus to continue (Tit. i. 5) was undertaken from Ephesus (p. 299). During this sojourn in the principal city of the province of Asia he had an exceptional opportunity of extending the Christian faith, since the city was the seat of the Roman government, a great emporium for trade, and a place of resort for the numerous votaries of the goddess Artemis (p. 564) ; so that among those who heard him would be many who had connexions with other towns, and would carry thither information about him and his Message. Possibly Philemon, a native of Colossse, who was converted by the Apostle presumably at Ephesus, made known his teaching to his fellow-townsmen. At any rate, Christian churches were eventually founded in various localities in the neighbourhood (cf . 1 Gw. xvi. 19, " the churches of Asia "), among them being HierapoUs, Colossse, and Laodicea. In the last two St. Paul was personally unknown (Ool. ii. 1), so that it is clear that the Apostle's evangelistic work in the vicinity of Ephesus was prosecuted partly through * St. Paul presumably spent the earlier part of the day in working at his trade to supply his needs. 36 562 NJ5W TESTAMENT HISTORY the agency of disciples, among whom was Epaphras {Col. iv. 12, 13) ; and so vigorously must it have been carried on that St. Luke represents that the whole province heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. The impression produced at Ephesus by St. Paul's preaching was enhanced by various cures which he wrought amongst those who had come under the influence of his personality. Such confidence came to be felt in his power to heal disorders that even handkerchiefs and aprons which had been in contact with his body were believed to have become imbued with remedial virtue, so that when they were carried to afflicted persons the sufierers received relief {Acts xix. 11, 12), the demons to which many of the maladies were attributed being expelled. It is not stated that the practice was authorized or countenanced by the Apostle ; but that cures occurred need not be questioned. Such might well result from the renewed faith and hope which even material articles associated with the Apostles might create in many who had despaired of recovery ; and what is related in Acts xix. 11, 18 is readUy paralleled by the cures sometimes following upon contact with relics or the use of charms. It appears that St. Paul must also have healed cases of " possession " (p. 112) by pronouncing over the " possessed " the name of Jesus (cf. Mk. ix. 38 f.). For certain Jewish exorcists proceeded to imitate him in this, adjuring the evil spirits by the Jesus Whom Paul preached to leave the unhappy men into whom they were supposed to have entered. On one occasion two ^ of the sons of a certain Jew called Sceva, who is described as a chief priest (see pp. 92-3), are related to have done this. ^ But when they went to the house of an afflicted person whom they hoped to deliver from his malady by the spell of Jesus' name, he turned upon them with the words, " Jesus I know, and Paul I know ; but who are ye ? " and being endued, no doubt, with the strength that madness often confers, attacked them so violently that, though they escaped from the house, it was not without much injury both to their garments and to their persons. This occurrence, when it became known, caused the name of Jesus to be held in greater reverence by all, both Jews and Greeks. The awe which was thus inspired had an important consequence upon many of the Christian converts at Ephesus. The city was one of the principal seats of Oriental magic, certain magical formulse deriving their designation from it and being entitled 'Ecpiaia yedfifiara. These were employed as spells to exert constraint over demons, either neutralizing their malign influence ^ or compelling them to serve the purposes of the utterers of the spell. The words thus used as charms and incantations, though often transformed by constant use into meaningless jingles like acr^i, xardani, aU, rexQaS, were probably 1 In Acts xix. 14 Iwra is omitted by J), and the number two, read by the Old L**. codex gig. ia confirmed by a/j-cporipi^p in v. 16, though H L P and some versions there have airruv or omTi,ium. Indeed, all is said to be a possible meaning of afi.ip6Tepoi. in papyri. ' In Acts xix. 13 after i^opKi^oi iifids presumably ^^eXffere must be suppUed. ^ Cf. Plut. Symp. vii. 5, 4, oi /^iyoi roils daL/xovi^^oiihovs KeXeiovin tA, 'E^^ffio ypdfi^ara irpds ain-oi)s KaraX^yeLf (" repeat "). THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 563 corruptions of names once full of significance. The source of some is no longer recoverable, but of others the origin is clear enough. For instance, in a tablet on which is inscribed a long adjuration addressed by a girl to a demon, invoking the latter to bring her lover to her, the potent name by which the demon is adjured is that of Jehovah Sabcfoth (reduced to Ida), 'AcoO and 'ApacoO).^ Among the Ephesians who had been converted to Christianity many, previous to the incident in which the sons of Sceva figured, had been in the habit of practising such magic ; but now, alarmed by what had occurred, they came forward and confessed what they had done.? And not a few brought the rolls in which the magic formulse were contained, and burnt them publicly, though such rolls were of no small value, and the destruction of them was a considerable sacrifice on the part of their owners. St. Luke represents that the total worth of those which were burnt on this occasion amounted to 50,000 drachmw, or not very much less than £2,000, whilst if the purchasing power of the sum mentioped be considered, the actual equivalent was greatly in excess of this. During these two years spent at Ephesus where the Apostle had the companionship and help of Timothy, Titus, and some other disciples, he had much trouble with the Church at Corinth. That city was a hot-bed of vice (p. 554), and the pervading immorality was calculated to exercise a pernicious influence upon the Christian community. To put its members op their guard against this, St. Paul wrote a letter (now lost) counselling them not to associate with immoral persons, by which admonition he meant them to exclude from social intercourse any professing Christian who pursued a vicious life, but which was taken to be a direction to have nothing to do with anyone, Christian on non-Christian alike, who was guilty of licentious conduct — advice which, in a place like Corinth, would have been impracticable (1 Cm-, v. 9, 10). Of this letter a fragment may survive in 2 Cor. vi. Id-vii. 1 (p. 274). Information also reached him from Corinth through the servants of a lady called Chloe, indicating the existence in the Church there of much that was unsatisfactory, more especially the tolerance shown towards one of its members who had been guilty of a grossly incestuous union; whilst he also received from the Corinthian Christians themselves a letter wherein they sought his opinion on various subjects concerning which they were much perplexed. To put an end to the evils which had been brought to his notice, he directed Timothy, accompanied by Brastus (who was a native Corinthian), to go to Corinth through Macedonia {Acts xix. 22) ; whilst in order to pave the way for Timothy's arrival and to answer the questions which had been put to him, he wrote a second letter (our 1 Corinthians, p. 275) which Titus conveyed by sea, and which would reach its destination before Timothy. Timothy, however, never got as far as Corinth, or if he did, failed to effect any reform ; and, in consequence, St. Paul himself paid a hurried visit to the Corinthian Church, crossing to Greece by ship (p. 276). ' See Haatinga, D.B. iii. p. 211 , and Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 271 f. ' In Aets xix. 18 Tb.% irpd^eis airSv may mean •' their speUa." 564 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY On this occasion he seems to have been grossly insulted/ and had to return without bringing about any improvement in the situation. He thereupon wrote to the offending Church a third letter, couched in a tone of great severity, of which a part has been plausibly identified with 2 Cor. x.-xiii. (p. 277). This letter, like the one immediately preceding it, was carried by Titus. Meanwhile events occurred at Ephesus, which, coupled with St. Paul's impatience to ascertain what eSect his stern language had had upon the Corinthians, caused him to leave Ephesus and to set out for Macedonia, in the hope of meeting Titus there. His intention was to return from Greece to Jerusalem, and eventually to proceed to Eome (cf. Rom. i. 13), a goal which he was destined to reach indeed, but otherwise than he had hoped. Ephesus, as has been said, was famous for the great temple of Artemis, built in the fourth century B.C., on the site of one destroyed in 356 on the day when Alexander the Great was born. The shrine contained an image of the goddess, consisting of a block of wood, the upper part of which was carved in the shape of a woman's head and bust (the latter being covered with a number of breasts). This image was of great antiquity ; so that in the absence of any knowledge of its origin, it was reputed to have fallen from heaven (Sjoxcete;). It really represented not the Greek goddess Artemis, but a native deity, personifying the productive power of nature, who had been identified with the huntress- goddess of Greece. Of it Ephesus was styled the sacristan (ve(i>xoQO(;). The existence, within the city, of this emblem of the goddess, and the celebrated fane in which it was kept, brought to its citizens much profit. Not only was the festival of the Artemisia held there, attracting crowds of worshippers, but small models of the shrine of the goddess, enclosing her image, were in much request among them. These were made by a guild of silversmiths, whose trade and prosperity were likely to be injured by the spread of a rehgion which was hostile to aU idolatry. Consequently, the influence which St. Paul was exercising in the city's neighbourhood impelled the warden or president of the guild, called Demetrius, who organized the trade and so brought business to his fellow-members, to take steps to render unpopular the man who was responsible for their losses. Summoning a meeting of his fellow-craftsmen, he reminded them that their occupation was the source of their wealth, and that St. Paul, not only at Ephesus, but almost throughout the province, had convinced many that gods made by human hands were no gods ; and he insisted that there was danger lest their own craft should be discredited, the temple of the goddess depreciated, and her magnificence impaired. This appeal to trade interests and religious fanaticism was successful. The guildsmen, filled with rage, began a tumult which extended to the whole population. Two of St. Paul's companions, Gaius and Aristarchus (both styled by Luke in Acts xix. 29, Macedonians, though in xx. 4 Gaiua is represented as belonging to Derbe and so a Galatian), were seized and carried into the theatre'' where an irregular mass meeting assembled. ' Some think that Timothy was the person who had been insulted ; see Hastings, D.B. iii. 711. ^ It is said to have been capable of holding 24,000 persons. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 565 Thitlier the Apostle, as soon as he heard what had happened, wanted to go, in order to speak on their behalf and his own ; but he was prevented from doing so by the disciples, and he was also counselled by some of the friends whom he had among the Asiarchs (p. 461) not to venture himself among the mob. As the demonstration was held in defence of the local cult and of idol worship generally, it was obviously not more menacing to the Christians than to the Jews, whose hostiUty to idolatry was notorious ; and the latter, realizing this, put forward one of their number called Alexander, with instructions to speak for them and dissociate them from St. Paul and his fellow-Christians. But the populace, recognizing his nationality, would not give him a hearing ; and for two hours kept shouting in honour of their divinity.^ The tumult was only calmed by the action of the Clerk of the City,^ who, addressing the multitude, declared that the reputation of Ephesus for devotion to Artemis was world-wide, and that under such circumstances there was no need for the assertion of it by any rash proceedings ; that G-aius and Aristarchus were not charged with robbing their temple (cf . Rom. ii. 22) or insulting their goddess ; that if Demetrius and his fellow-guildsmen had any private suit against them, they could obtain a decision from the Roman proconsul on the regular court-days ; and that if anything further was called for,^ the matter could be settled in the lawful assembly, which alone was competent to transact public business, whereas they ran a risk of being brought to account for that day's concourse, for which no sufficient explanation could be given. With these words he closed the meeting, which dispersed. It is clear from the incident that the danger which the Christians incurred in the course of their missionary efiorts did not always proceed from the antagonism of the Jews. Amid a heathen population they had often to advocate a monotheistic and spiritual faith in opposition to polytheism and idolatry ; and in doing so they were liable to give great offence to various classes of people whose personal interests were bound up with the maintenance of idolatrous rites.* The peril to which St. Paul was exposed at Ephesus is possibly understated in the account given by St. Luke in Acts xix. 23-41, for the Apostle himself refers to a very dangerous situation in which fhe had recently been placed when he wrote 2 Cor. i.-ix. (see i. 8-11 ®). Moreover, the disturbance organized by Demetrius was probably only one of several of like character ; and in some that had occurred at an earUer date St. Paul was subjected to mob violence, allusion to such being made in 1 Cor. xv. 31, 32 (a letter probably written prior to the incident related in Acts xix. 23-41), where he speaks ' In Acts xix. 34, D, instead of reading McydXri -q "Aprejais 'E^ecrluv, omits the article and makes the cry an appeal to the goddess. * The function of the 7pa^;uaT6i)s -riis iriXeus doubtless varied at different times and places, but at this period he was responsible for the form of the decrees submitted to the people after approval by the Council or Senate. At Ephesus he seems also to have acted as chairman of the popular assembly (see Hastings, D.B. iv. p. 800). ' In Acts xix. 39 Trepl Mpav is read by K A D and other uncials and most versions ; rcpairipoi by B, 431 and Lat. vet. {gig.). * Gt. the experience at Philippi {Acts xvi. 19 f.). ' Some conjecture that the passage refers to a dangerous illness. 566 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of having " fought with beasts at Ephesus." In view of the fact that he was a Roman citizen, it is not probable that he ever fought in the arena (if he had, he would scarcely have escaped with his life) ; and the expression (like the phrase in 2 Tim. iv. 17, " I was deHvered out of the mouth of the Hon," of. Ps. xxii. 21) is doubtless to be understood otherwise than literally. If Rom. xvi. was directed to Ephesus (p. 283), it must be concluded from it that at some period during his sojourn in the city he was imprisoned, since he there speaks of Andronicus and Junias as his fellow-prisoners. It is noteworthy, however, that at this period there is no trace of persecution of Christianity because its followers did not take part in the worship of Rome and the Emperor. It has been seen that of the Asiarchs whose function it was to foster that worship (p. 66) some were friends of St. Paul, and the Apostle used to admonish his converts to honour all civil rulers {Rom. xiii. 1-7). Probably at this time the Christians generally were regarded as merely a Jewish sect ; if so, then as Jews they were exempted by law from any obUgation to render divine honours to the head of the State (p. 79). The outbreak of popular indignation just described happened in the summer of 55 ; and shortly afterwards St. Paul, when he had taken leave of the disciples there, departed for Macedonia by way of Troas, where an opportunity offered of preaching the Gospel (2 Cor. ii. 12). His anxiety, however, caused him to proceed on his journey without any long delay. In Macedonia his solicitude about the Corinthian Church (p. 278) was relieved by the arrival of Titus, who reported that the disorders in the Church had diminished, and that the Apostle's authority there had been vindicated. It was from Macedonia, and perhaps from the city of Philippi that he expressed his deep satisfaction at this good news by sending to Corinth the communication contained in 2 Gar. i.-ix., chapters difEering widely in temper from the four that follow, and seeming to constitute a distinct Epistle, written at a rather later date than ch. x.-xiii. This letter was speedily followed by another journey undertaken by the Apostle to Greece (Acts xx. 2), when he can scarcely have failed to stay at Corinth. If this supposition is correct, he must have visited that city three times. On this occasion he spent three months there, or in other parts of the province (Achaia), though unfortunately no particulars of his work have been preserved ; and during this period he wrote the Epistle to the Romans (p. 281). He probably entered Greece at the close of 55, so that his stay ended early in the spring of 56. It had been his original purpose to sail for Syria as soon as navigation opened (p. 76) ; but a plot of the Jews to murder him when he was embarking, or else in the course of the voyage, decided him to travel back by Macedonia, the route by which he had come. At the interview which he had had with the three leading Apostles in 49, before starting on his Second journey (p. 539), he had been requested by them to remember the poor of Jerusalem ; and during his Third journey he had set on foot a fund for their reUef. Delegates from the churches through which he had passed in Galatia, Asia, and Macedonia had accom- panied him to Corinth with the sums collected ; and they were now to go with him to carry the money to Jerusalem (the Apostle himself being THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 567 Seemingly entrusted with the contributions of the churches in Achaia). The delegates were seven, including Sopater of Beroea, Aristarohus and Secundus of Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe (p. 564), Timothy of Lystra, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Ephesus^ (of. Acts xxi. 29). But the reasons that rendered it expedient for St. Paul to return by land did not apply in the case of the delegates just named ; so they adhered to the original arrangement and went by sea to Troas, where they agreed to wait for the Apostle. The latter journeyed through northern Greece to Macedonia ; and at Philippi he was joined by St. Luke. From PhiUppi, after the Passover festival (a.d. 5G), the two went down to Neapolis, and thence took ship for Troas, not reaching it until the fifth day out, in consequence of unfavourable winds (contrast xvi. 11), and staying there seven days. The vessel seems to have arrived at the port on a Tuesday, so that the day before the resumption of her voyage was Sunday. This being the first day of the week, which began according to the Jewish system of reckoning on the evening of Saturday, the travellers assembled with the Christian converts whom St. Paul had made there on his way to Macedonia (2 Gor. ii. 12), to partake of the Agape (of which the Eucharist seems to have formed the conclusion, cf. 1 Gor. xi. 17-34). The place of meeting was a room in the third story of the house ; and there St. Paul discoursed at some length, prolonging his address until midnight. Though it was only March or early April, the number of lights in the chamber made the atmosphere hot ; and this and the lateness of the hour caused a young man named Eutychus, who was seated in the window (unprotected by lattice- work) to slumber, and in his sleep he sUpped and fell to the ground. He was picked up, as the bystanders believed, dead ; but St. Paul descending and embracing him, told them to desist from the distress which such a belief had occa.sioned them, for his life was yet within him (cf . Mk. ix. 26, Acts xiv. 19). The stunned man was carried home ; and the Apostle, with the rest of the company, re-ascended to the upper foom, where the interrupted meal was proceeded with, and where converse was continued until break of day. In the morning, as St. Paul and his fellow-travellers were taking leave of the rest, Eutychus, who was Suf&ciently recovered to move about, was brought by his friends to join in the farewells, to the great rehef and comfort of those who had witnessed the accident. It seems reasonable to infer from St. Luke's narrative that, though Eutychus was found unconscious after his fall and was taken for dead, yet he wag not really killed. The fact that St. Luke, whose interest in miracles has been noticed (p. 247), and who appears to have had in mind, when writing his account, the stories told of EUjah and Elisha (with Acts xx. 10 f. cf. 1 Kg. xvii. 21, 2 Kg. iv. 34), has, nevertheless, not left a decisive impression that a stupendous miracle was wrought by St. Paul (it is noteworthy that there is absent from the narrative anything equivalent to the explicit statements in 1 Kg. xvii. 22, ' In Acts XX. 4 for 'Airiai'oi D has 'E0^(rioi. For Tychicus cf . Col. iv. 7 ; for Trophimus see 2 Tim. iv. 20. 568 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY 2 Kg. viii. 5), afiords sufficient ground for concluding that St. Paul's words in v. 10 were strictly correct, and that the Apostle was sure, when he felt the body, that life was not extinct. The ship in which St. Paul and the delegates of the churches were making their way towards Syria was a coasting vessel, its first port of call after leaving Troas being Assos, on the gulf of Adramyttium, a little to the east of the promontory of Lectum. St. Paul consequently decided to cross to Assos by the shorter land route, about twenty miles in length, leaving his companions to proceed thither by sea and pick him up there. This they accordingly did, St. Luke going in the ship. The stopping-place next to Assos was Mitylene, the principal town in the island of Lesbos. Sailing from thence, and probably anchoring the following night close to the mainland opposite Chios, ^ the vessel touched at Samos on the second day out from Mitylene ; and after passing ^ Trogyllium (the promontory at the end of the peninsula of Mycale confronting Samos) came next day to Miletus. Miletus lies south of Ephesus, at the mouth of the Maeander, and the Rircumstance that St. Paul had embarked on his homeward voyage in a ship that did not call at the latter city, where he had resided so long, was due to his wish to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. To have gone to a place to which he was bound by many interests and where he had provoked much hostility {Acts xix. 23) would have delayed him seriously. Neverthe- less, he could not approach Ephesus so closely (it was only thirty-five miles from Miletus) without seeking to give to the representatives of the Church there some words of admonition on what he seems to have felt might prove, and St. Luke appears to imply, did prove, ^ the last occasion of their meeting. So from Miletus he sent for the Elders of the Christian body at Ephesus to come to him ; and when they reached him he deUvered to them, in the interval before the saiUng of the vessel, a parting address. It was devoted to {a) a vindication of his conduct and ministry during the period of his residence in the province of Asia ; (6) a charge to the elders of the Church ; (c) a farewell and concluding exhortation. The speech, which must have been heard by St. Luke, and which, though containing various features of the latter's style,* is likely to reproduce more closely than most of those contained in Acts the matter and the manner of the speaker, naturally falls into three sections, the divisions between them occurring at m. 28 and 32. The following is a brief summary. {a) The Apostle declared that his mode of life, marked by humUity, sorrow, and trials, was known to all of his hearers, who could testify to the outspokenness and candour of his teaching, and to the impartiality and persistence with which he had sought to win both Jews and Greeks to repentance towards God and faith towards Jesus. He felt bound to ' This seems to be the significance of the statement in Acts xx. 15, Ty iwioiir-g ' The Bezan MS. has " anchoring off." ^ This is a natural deduction from the emphasis placed in v. 38 upon St. Paul's words in v. 25. ' E.g. SiflXffoj' {v. 25), Trpoaixere iavToTs {v. 28). THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 569 go to Jerusalem,^ and lie anticipated tribulations in the future similar to those which he had experienced in the past ; but he set no value on his life, provided he could accomplish the duty imposed upon him by the Lord Jesus of preaching the Gospel of God's grace. And as he behoved that the end of his career was not far ofi, and that they would not see him again, he solemnly declared that he had discharged his responsibiUties as a revealer of God's purposes to mankind. (6) Those whom he addressed likewise had responsibilities. They had been made by the Holy Spirit overseers of the Church which God had acquired by the death of His own Son ^ ; and as the Church was exposed to the inroads of unscrupulous intruders from without and to the lures of false teachers from within, he warned them to be on their guard, and to keep in mind the admonitions which he had incessantly given them during the three years he had spent among them. (c) Finally he commended them to God,^ whose graciousness was disclosed by His Word ; and he called their attention to his own dis- interestedness (for he had, out of the proceeds of his own manual labour, both supported himself and helped others (cf . 1 Thess. ii . 9, 2 Thess. iii. 8, 1 Cor. iv. 12) ) in order to encourage them to follow his example, remember- ing the saying of the Lord Jesus that to give was more blessed than to receive.* At the conclusion of the address, St. Paul prayed with his hearers, who, broken-hearted at the thought that they would never see him again, took a sorrowful leave of him, and then escorted him to his ship. When the voyage was resumed the vessel had a straight run to Cos, and then doubHng the peninsula of Cnidus, reached Rhodes the next day ; and finally arrived at Patara, a port of Lycia, or, according to the Bezan text, Myra (cf. xxvii. 5), a harbour as far east from Patara as the latter is from Rhodes. The ship either reached the termination of her voyage at one or other of these places, or else was bound for some other destination than Syria ; in any case, it became necessary for the passengers for the latter coimtry to find another vessel saiUng to a port nearer Palestine and Jerusalem. They succeeded in getting taken on board a ship bound for Phoenicia ; and in it they crossed to Tyre, sighting Cyprus and keeping to the south of it. This ship discharged her cargo at Tyre, so the travellers had to stay in that port for a week until the operation of unloading was completed. They searched for and found a body of Christians known to be there, who were inspired to warn St. Paul not to set foot in Jerusalem, though the warning did not deter him from his purpose. When the ship was once more ready to sail, the travellers were escorted by the members of the Tyrian Church until they gained the beach ; and then, after united ' One reason for this constraint was the conveyance of the money collected for the relief of the poor there (cf. xxiv. 17). ' If in Acts XX. 28 the reading of S B, rrjv iKKKufdlav rod 6eou be adopted in pre- ference to TTii/ i. ToS Kvplov {i.e. Jesus), found in A C I) E, it seems necessary to assume at the end of the verse the loss, after tov ISlov, of the word vloO. ' B and Lat. vet. {gig.) read Kvplt^. • This is the only saying of our Lord included in the New Testament outside the 570 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY prayer, they took leave of one another, St. Paul and his companions goinf on board the vessel. From Tyre the travellers sailed to Ptolemais (p. 6>, about twenty-five miles south of Tyre. Here there was a body of Christians, with whom they spent a day ; and then on the morrow they left for Crosarea (more than thirty miles further south), though whether they proceeded thither by sea, changing ships, or went by land is obsoxire. At Coesarea they stopped at the house of Philip, one of the Seven (p. 503), here by St. Luke styled the Evangelist, who had four daughters endowed with the spirit of prophecy. 1 It is not recorded that any prediction about St. Paul was uttered by these prophetesses, but one was delivered by the same prophet Agabus, who had at an earlier date foretold the famine of a.d. 46 (p. 521). This man, who had come from Jerusalem, on entering Philip's house took St. Paul's girdle to illustrate by a significant action (after the custom of the ancient prophets^) what he was about to announce, bound with it his own hands and feet, and declared that the Jews at Jerusalem would bind in like manner the owner of the girdle, and deliver him to the Gentiles. Such an utterance naturally caused great distress amongst those to whom it became known, and they entreated St. Paul not to go up to the Jewish capital. But as he could not be turned from his aim, but declared that he was ready to incur not imprisonment only but death for the sake of the Lord Jesus, they desisted from their efforts to dissuade him. § 10. Peril at Jerusalem The Apostle's previous haste {Acts xx. 16) gave him some days' leisure, which he spent at Cassarea, and during which he may have written to some friend at Ephesus the letter of which a fragment is preserved in 2 Tim. iv. 19-22 (p. 298), whilst the rest of the party made preparations for a journey to Jerusalem by road (probably procuring horses to carry the baggage^). When they started they were accompanied by some disciples belonging to Cassarea, who came with them to conduct them to the house of a certain Cypriot called Mnason, an original {dgx^^og) disciple, probably one of those who were associated with the Apostles before Pentecost, or converted after it, who lived between Cfesarea and Jerusalem and at whose house they could break their journey, since the distance between the two cities was more than fifty miles.* When they finally arrived at their destination, they were wamily welcomed by the Church there ; and on the following day they had an audience with St. James ^ Though at this time all were unwedded, two married at a later period, and with their father removed from Coesarea to Hierapolis (in the province of Asia) ; see Eus. H.E. iii. 30, § 1, 31, § 4, v. 24, § 2. Eusebius, however, seems to confuse Philip the Evangelist with Phihp the Apostle. 2 See 1 Kg. xi. 29-31, xx. 35, xxii. 11, Is. xx. 2 f., Jer. xix. 1-13, etc. ^ In Acts xxi. 15 the sense of ^TrttrKevacrd^evot is probably the same as that of iiro^iiyia eTnaKevda-aa-Oat, " to lade baggage-animals," in Xen. Hell. vii. 1, 18. " In Acts xxi. 16 dyovref Trap v ^evi/ici> Mvdcravi. must be a compressed phrase for dyovre^ irapb. M.vd(nova Xva ^cvicBdixev irap airt^ : cf. the reading of D (p. 254). THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 571 and the elders (cf. Acts xi. 30). To them St. Paul gave an account of his ministry among the Gentiles, and the success which God had granted him. He must have felt, however, no little anxiety about the reception he would meet with from the Jewish section of the Church generally. Although the three principal Apostles, in the course of his interview with them in 49, had not required the imposition of circumcision upon Gentile beUevers, or qualified in any way the terms in which he presented the Gospel to non-Jews (p. 539), yet ever since that understanding had been reached there had occurred a vigorous and unscrupulous effort on the part of the Judaistic Christians to make his converts in Galatia believe that their salvation depended upon their submission to the Jewish Law. An apprehension of their hostility and a desire to disarm it as far as possible had probably been factors in causing him to promote so ener- getically the collection of a fund for the relief of the poor in the Church of Jerusalem, in accordance with the wishes of the elder Apostles {Gal. ii. 10). This must have helped in some measure to placate his opponents ; but the position was an awkward one. St. Paul, in consequence of his contention that to a believer in Christ circumcision was a matter of indifference (Gal. v. 6), could easily be represented as discouraging even Jewish Christians from practising that rite, and this charge he learnt had heen actually brought against him. St. James and the elders of the Jerusalem Church, whilst rejoicing at the progress of the Gospel among the Gentiles through his agency and thanking God for it, yet told him that the Jewish Christians, who were very numerous and extremely zealous for the Mosaic Law, had had the statement pressed upon them that he was in the habit of dissuading their countrymen of the Dispersion (p. 77) from circumcising their children or respecting the customs of their religion. Therefore to avoid the friction which was likely to ensue aa soon as his arrival at Jerusalem became widely known, they recom- mended that he should demonstrate the falsity of such a charge by himself observing the Law to which as a Jew he was subject. They represented that an opportunity of his doing this was afforded by the presence among them of four men who had undertaken a vow (similar to that with which St. Paul had once bound himself. Acts xviii. 18, see p. 557) and had allowed their hair to grow for a certain time, and who, now that the interval had expired, were wishful to shave their heads and offer the necessary sacrifices, but being poor men, found it difficult to defray the expense. St. Paul, therefore, through associating himself with them and by paying for the sacrifices (which consisted, in the case of each individual, of two lambs and a ram, as well as cereal and drink offerings (Num. vi. 13-15) and so were costly) could prove that the accusations against him were unfounded. The proceeding recommended was not unwonted, for Herod Agrippa I, when the Emperor Claudius enlarged his dominions (p. 52) and he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving at Jerusalem, is related to have ordained that many of the Nazarites should shave their heads (the period for which they had become such having expired), the funds that enabled them to do so being no doubt supphed by him (Jos. Ant. xix. 6, 1). St. James also explained another source of trouble in the Church 672 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY which they had already taken steps to remove. Social relations between the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church were prejudiced by the fact that the latter, through the sexual licence to which they were accustomed by reason of the impurity so common in heathen countries, and through their habit of eating certain kinds of food forbidden to the Jews, rendered themselves " defiled," and unfit for Jews to associate with. Consequently, to facilitate intercourse, they had required of the Gentiles abstinence from meats ofiered to idols, from the use of blood as food (see Lev. iii. 17, Gen. ix. 4, Dt. xii. 16, and cf. 2 Zech. ix. 7), from eating the flesh of animals strangled (from which the blood had not been drained, in accordance with the command in Lev. xvii. 13, cf . 1 Sam. xiv. 32, 33), and from fornication, and had conveyed to them these their decisions in writing. What is here related ia for reasons given previously (p. 5.38) a reconstruction of the history contained in Acts respecting the resolution of the Council of Jerusalem about the measure of submission to the Jewish Law reqiiired of the Gentiles. In view of the absence of all reference by St. Paul to its provisions, in letters written (so far as can be judged) not very long after a.d. 49, the year to which the Council appears to be assigned in Acts xv., it seems impossible that the Council can have met at so early a date. On the other hand, it is clear from St. James' speech in Acts xxi. 25, at which St. Luke was present, that a resolution of the nature described above had been passed prior to A.D. 56, when St. Paul returned to Jerusalem from his Third journey (begun about 52). From this it appears probable that the Church at Jerusa- lem came to the decision in question during the absence of St. Paul, who was not a party to it, but found it an accomplished fact on his arrival. The passing of the resolution was seemingly the work of St. James and the Jerusalem elders, both St. Peter and St. John apparently being absent. It was a departure from the imder- standing with St. Paul*reaohed at thejprivate interview in 49, as described in Oal. ii. 1-10 ; for St. Paul then received tho impression that no Jewish ceremonial restrictions were to be imposed on the Gentiles (p. .537). But St. James may now have considered that a modification of the understanding with St. Paul was necessitated by circum- stances, in view of the spread of the Gospel among the Jews of Palestine (Acts xxi. 20),* if peace and friendliness were to be maintained between the two wings of the Church. Restrictions about eating flesh with the blood prevailed at a later period in certain churches, and were probably based on .such a decision as is recorded in Acts xxi. 25 (see Rev. ii. 14 and cf. Eus. H.E. v. 1. 26). The precise purport of the decree of the Jerusalem Council (whatever the date when it was passed and circulated) is a matter of dispute in consequence of a serious variety of readings in Ads xv. and xxi. The chief uncial MSS. (N A B 0) and many other textual authorities represent the decree as consisting of four clauses ; of which, according to the natural interpretation, only one is a moral requirement, whilst the other three are ceremonial regulations relating to food. But Codex D, together with one Old Latin manuscript (gig.), onaits in xv. 20, 29, xxi. 25 aU reference to things strangled (ttviktSv, irviKTi.), and the omission appears in various Latin Fathers. If the reading of D and its supporters, which make the decree to consist of three clauses only, is the original text, it is possible to regard all the three clauses as prohibiting infractions, not of ceremonial, but of mora] laws, " things offered to idols " being equivalent to sacrificial meals in a heathen temple (and not merely meat bought in the market after consecration to a heathen god, of. 1 Oor. x. 25-28), and " blood " standing for " murder." This gives to the provisions of the decree a uniform ethical character. It is, however, against the originality of the reading of D that (a) in Acts XV. 29, this and some other MSS. and versions, after " from fornication ' add, in dislocation of the construction, the words " and whatsoever ye wish not to 1 The words irio-ai /iupidSes are, of course, not to be understood literally. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 573 be done to yourselves do not do to another," ^ which suggests that the shorter reading has arisen through tampering with the text, in order to convert into a moral injunction what was originally, in the main, a ceremonial rule ; (6) the word al/j-a in the cuntext in question is not a natural expression (in spite of Acts v. 28, Bev. vi. 10, xix. 2) for " murder " {ipdvos, which occurs in Acts ix. 1, Lk. xxiii. 19, 25, Bom. i. 29). Moreover it is hard to believe that the Jerusalem Church deemed it necessary to embody in a decree sent to Gentile Christians such elementary moral prohibitions as those which this reading represents (though see 1 Pet. iv. 15). The question, however, is com- plicated by the fact that the reading of D is supported by Irenseus, who lived in Gaul, where a food law was observed (see Eus. H.E. v. 1, 26), and where consequently there would be little motive for altering the text, if it was at first a food law, into a moral enactment.* The 'suggestion made by St. James to St. Paul that the latter should allay the suspicions of the Jewish Christians by participating in the sacrifices ofEered by the four men under a vow was readily accepted, for St. Paul maintained that a person, if he was a Jew when he became a Christian, should continue to be such in his religious practices (1 Cor. vii. 18, of. ix. 20). The interval included in the vow of each of the four seems to have ended on successive days, so that St. Paul, who had already spent two days in Jerusalem {Acts xxi. 17, 18), had to stay there four days more in order to accompany each individual into the Temple courts to announce the termination of the vow, and to declare himself responsible for the cost of the ofierings. His assuming responsibility for the expenses of the men seems to have been held equivalent to taking the same vow as they (see Acts xxi. 26, where dyviaOelg and twv ■^fiegan- rov ayviafiov reproduce the language of Num. vi. 5, LXX). ' The last of the four, with the Apostle's help, was discharging the duties obligatory upon him just before the expiration of the seven days (reckoned inclusively) to which St. Paul's responsibility for the four compelled him to prolong his stay, when certain Jews from Asia, residents in Ephesus, recognized him in one of the inner courts of the Temple, which could be entered by Jews but not by Gentiles (p. 90). These men raised an outcry, calling the attention of all bystanders to tiim as the man who showed himself everywhere antagonistic to the Jewish people, their Law, and their Temple, and who had defiled the last by introducing Greeks into a part of it from which they were excluded on pain of death. The latter charge was based upon the fact that they had observed in the city their fellow-Ephesian Trophimus, whom they maliciously alleged that St. Paul had taken with him when he passed from the Court of the Gentiles into one of the interior courts. The state- ment conveyed from mouth to mouth spread through the city, and at once created a tumult. St. Paul was seized as he was standing probably in the Court of the Women, was hurried out of it (the gates of which (p. 91) were immediately closed by the Temple Guard (p. 93), and was on the point of being lynched by the enraged mob, when information reached the military tribune in command of the cohort that occupied the castle of Antonia (p. 54). The Roman officer, who was called Claudius ^ The addition of the command interrupts the connexion between the prohibition iHx^(r8ai eiSaXoOirav ktX. and the relative clause ej dv 3(.aTripovvTes, kt\. * See Lake. Early Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 48-60. » See McNeile, St. Paul, p. 97 574 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Lysias, taking a body of troops at once rushed down the steps leading from the fortress to the outermost Temple court (p. 11) and intervened between the mob and their intended victim. After arresting St. Paul, he directed him to be bound by chains to two soldiers, and then sought to learn the offence he was charged with. As the uproar prevented hini from ascertaining the facts on the spot, he ordered the prisoner to be escorted to the castle ; but such was the violence of the multitude thirsting for his life ^ that the Apostle had to be carried by the soldiers. But before St. Paul entered the gates he asked leave in Greek to speak to the ofiScer, much to the latter's surprise, who said that he had taken him for an Egyptian impostor, whom he described as having recently raised a sedition and placed himself at the head of a body of Assassins (p. 103), though Josephus represents that the pretender in question claimed to be a prophet and led a great multitude to the Mount of Olives by a promise that from thence they would see the walls of Jerusalem fall at his command.^ The Roman had probably inferred from the scene he had just witnessed that St. Paul was the impostor in the hands of his enraged dupes. But the Apostle answered, not without some natural pride, that he was a Jew by race and a Tarsian by birth, and consequently a citizen of no insignificant city (p. 68) ; and with great courage and with a desire to conciliate his fellow-countrymen, he begged the tribune's permission to address the people. The officer granted him leave ; so standing on the stairs, he faced the surging crowd below, and having by a gesture gained silence, he tried to vindicate his conduct, speaking to them in Aramaic,^ a fact which helped to secure him for a time a quiet hearing. Though St. Paul had not been guilty of taking Trophimus beyond the barrier separating the court which the Gentiles might enter from that which they might not, yet he was conscious that he had denied that the institutions distinctive of his race were essential to participation in the Messianic Kingdom. It was, therefore, his object to show that it was only through Divine direction that he had preached to the Gentiles and presented to them the good news of the Kingdom in a form acceptable to them, and he sought to prove this by recounting the circumstances of his conversion and certain incidents that followed it. Consequently, his speech (which St. Luke probably heard and has reproduced in Greek) repeats to a large extent matters already related in Acts (see ix. 1-30). There are, however, various difierences between the two narratives (p. 514) ; and these, added to the evidence supplied by similar divergences between several parallel passages in the Old Testament serve to illus- trate the comparatively slight interest that the Biblical writers took in historic precision and consistency. In the speech stress was laid upon a number of facts all indicating that it was not through any predisposition on the part of St. Paul himself that he had preached to the Gentiles. (1) He was a Jew by race and a Jew by ■ With Acts xxi. 36 cf. Lk. xxiii. 18. ' See Jos. Ant. xx. 8, 6, B. J. ii. 13, 5, cf. p. 58. ' St. Paiil would be acquainted with this in consequence of his early education (nee 2 Oor. xi. 22, Phil. iii. 5). THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 575 training, having been taught by Gamaliel, one of the most famous Scribes of the time (p. 501). The genuineness of his zeal for the Law (ef. ffaZ. i. 14) which had been implanted in him by heredity and education he had jnanifested by persecuting the Christians, as the High Priest and Elders could themselves testify, since they had authorized him to bring to Jerusalem from Damascus such Jews as had accepted the Christian faith. (2) On his way to Damascus he had heard at noontide, One speaking to him from the midst of a blaze of Divine glory. Who had asked why he persecuted Him in the persons of His followers, and declared Himself to be Jesus of Nazareth. The Speaker then bade him go to Damascus, where he would be instructed in what was required of him, and he obeyed, going thither blinded by the supernatural light which he had seen. (3) At that city a certain man called Ananias, himself a Jew and a devout adherent of the Law, had restored to him his sight and had declared that what had happened to him was of Divine arrangement, for it was the God of Israel who had appointed him to know His purpose, and to see and hear the Righteous One (cf. Acts iii. 14, and see p. 496) ; that he was to bear witness to aU the world of his experience ; and that he should at once be baptized for the cleansing of his sins, and invoke the name of Him whom he had seen (thereby acknowledging Him as Lord). (4) At a later date (St. Paul here omits aU reference to the interval spent in Arabia {Gal. i. 17) and his subsequent activity at Damascus {Acts ix. 19-22)), the same Heavenly Figure that had previously appeared to him near Damascus had directed him when in a trance at Jerusalem to leave the city because its people would not receive his testimony ; and that when he represented that their attitude was not unnatural after the part he had taken in persecuting Christian believers, and in abetting the murder of Stephen, he was told that he was to be sent- unto the Gentiles. (This last account diverges from that contained in Acts ix. 30, where it is represented that the Christians at Jerusalem, to save him from an attempt by the Jews to kill him, sent him away first to Caesarea and then to Tarsus ; and the divergence may be explained by the assumption that St. Luke describes the external facts of the occasion in question, whilst St. Paul in this speech traces to the overruling of Christ the course of events which ultimately ended in his mission to the Gentiles.) Up to this point the people had listened patiently to the Apostle's self-defence ; but as soon as they heard him mention the Gentiles they raised a clamour for his death. The tumult grew so threatening that the Roman officer ordered him to be brought at once into the castle ; and, as he had been unable to understand the Apostle's Aramaic speech, he directed that he should be interrogated under torture (on the assumption that he was a foreigner, if not a slave) in order to extract from him the nature of the charge against him. But as the soldiers were stretching him forward with thongs to a post, preparatory to scourging him, he asked the centurion in charge whether it was lawful for him to scourge a Ronjan, and that, too, untried.^ The illegality of such treatment was notorious, ' lu Acts xxii. 25 d/carct/cpiros seema to be used for dxpiros. 576 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY so that the centurion at once informed his superior officer of the statement made by the prisoner. The tribune questioned St. Paul whether it was true, and on his answering in the affirmative, he could not repress his surprise/ saying that he himself had paid a large sum for his Roman citizenship, and implying doubt whether the prisoner (whose clothes may have been tattered in consequence of his maltreatment by the mob) could really have been in a position to do the same. In the reign of Claudius the Roman franchise had been freely sold (Dio Cass. LX. 17), and the tribune's name of Claudius suggests that it was under that Emperor that he had become possessed of it. Paul's citizenship, however, went further back than his questioner's ; and he answered that he was free-born. Scourging was not to be thought of after this (p. 72). He was at once loosed from the thongs, and the mere fact that he had been bound for the purpose of undergoing this torture rendered the tribune apprehensive of the consequences. As the Roman was thus afraid to extort information from his prisoner in the way he intended, he determined to bring him before the Sanhedrin (p. 100), not for decisive trial but for prior examination ; and the next day, summoning that body, he placed Paul before it. The president was the High Priest Ananias, son of Nebedeus, who had been appointed in A.D. 47 by Herod, King of Chalcis. A very compressed report of the proceedings before the Sanhedrin is furnished by St. Luke, for the charge laid against the Apostle by his accusers is omitted by the historian, who begins his account with the words with which St. Paul opened his defence. But the accused had no sooner stated that he had conducted himself hitherto with the full approval of his conscience (meaning, probably, that he had been faithful to the institutions and the spirit of Judaism as he had understood them) than the High Priest ordered him to be smitten on the mouth. St. Paul, after having protested against Ulegal treatment by a Roman official, was not disposed to submit to such from a Jewish court. Turning to Ananias he said hotly, " G-od wiU smite thee, thou whitewashed wall," ^ and asked with what face he, when trying another according to the Law, could himself break the Law. The bystanders angrily told him that the person he was reviling was God's High Priest ; and St. Paul, in reply, said that he did not know that he was the High Priest, and himself quoted the passage in Ex. xxii. 28, which prohibits the reviling of God's representative. It is difficult to think that St. Paul was really ignorant of the rank of the man who was responsible for maltreating him, for this was probably indicated by his position and dress. Irony, however, was not alien to St. Paul (see 1 Cor. iv. 8, 10, viii. 1), and he might well mean that such unpriestly conduct efiectively disguised from him the High Priest's dignity. And, having shortly before turned to account in his need his Roman citizenship, he now took advantage of the com- position of the court to escape, if possible, an unfavourable decision. 1 In Acts xxii. 28 the Eg. boh. version makes the tribune say ; Bow easily thou eillest thyself a Soman citizen. ' During the siege of Jerusalem Ananias was caught in an aqueduct, where he had concealed himself from the partisans of Menahem, and slain (Jos. B. J. ii. 17, 9). THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 577 It contained members of bott tte Sadducees and the Pharisees, sects sundered from one another by deep religious cleavages (p. 101), and St. Paul, observing the fact, exclaimed that he was a Pharisee by training and descent, and that he was being examined in connexion with the hope of a resurrection of dead men.i It might have been thought that the Pharisees would have been too intent upon promoting the punishment of one whom they regarded as a renegade to be led away by such a tactical device ; but to a party appeal the response is often speedy. The Apostle's expectation of creating a division among his judges was not disappointed. On such an issue as that which he raised the Pharisees at once took his part. As he had defended his conduct in preaching to the Gentiles by pleading the directions of a superhuman Personality who had appeared to him from heaven, they were wUling to accept his defence, and declared him innocent of wrong, and if a spirit or an angel had really spoken to him 1 The aposiopesis meant, as plainly as any words, that they were not prepared to fight against heaven. The dissensions that ensued caused the Eoman tribune to fear for Paul's safety amid the contending sects, and he, therefore, had him removed back to the castle. On the following night, the historian relates that the Lord appeared to the Apostle, and announced that he was to bear witness to Him at Rome as he had already done at Jerusalem (cf. p. 106 f.). The circumstance that their intended victim was thus snatched from their grasp so exasperated a number of the Jews that more than forty of them bound themselves under a curse that they would not touch food until they had compassed his death. Their plan was that the chief members of the Sanhedrin (to whom they communicated their design) should apply to the Eoman tribune for a further inquiry into St. Pad's case," and that they themselves should waylay and assassinate the prisoner as he was being brought down for examination. The Apostle's conversion to Christianity does not appear to have caused a permanent breach between him and his family ; and his nephew who was in Jerusalem at the time, having overheard the contrivance of the plot, at once proceeded to the castle, where the Apostle, though chained to a soldier (cf. xxviii. 16), was easily accessible to any who wished to visit him, and informed him of what he had learnt. St. Paul thereupon asked a centurion within reach to take his informant to his superior oflB.cer, since he had an important communication to make to him. Lysias listened to the young man's report and his urgent appeal that he would not give way to the request of the conspirators ; and being naturally unwilling to see a Eoman citizen fall a victim to Jewish fanaticism, he ordered the matter to be kept secret, and immediately took precautions to defeat the design.^ He directed 1 In Acts xziii. 6 vepl ^XtISos Kal dvaa-riaews Beems to be a hendiadys. Syr. pesh. omits Kat. ' In Acts xxiii. 20, though most uncials (N ABE) have /j.4\\uv (referring to Lysias) the true reading may be /iiWovTes (found in the Latin and some of the Syriac versions) or /x^XXok, referring respectively to oi 'louSaroi and t6 awiSpwv (cf. o. 15). ' In Acts xziii. 24 the cursive 614, an 01^ Lat. codex (gig.) and some other authori- ties after wph^ *i}Xuta rbv iiyefudva add (as an explanation of Lysias' action) ((po^-fiBti yip ^^TTore apirdaaPTes airiv ol 'lovSaioi aTTOKTdvoiaai, Kal airrhs /neTa|i> lyKXri/ia IxV 37 578 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY two of his centurions to get together, by the third hour after sunset, a force of no less than 470 men (a smrprisingly large body), consisting of heavy-armed infantry (200), cavalry (70), and a special class of Ught^armed troops ^ (200) termed de^mM^oi, to provide horses for the prisoner and iiig attendants (probably St. Luke and Aristar&hiis, see Acts xxvii. 1, 2), and to convey them safely to Csesarea, where Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judsea (p. 57), was residing. He forwarded with them a letter partly to explain to his superior his reasons for sending St. Paul to him, and partty to specify the nature of the charge against him (so that the letter was equivalent to the usual elogium or abstract of a prisoner's offence^ whiuh' went with him to the magistrates who were to try him). The original was written in Latin, and as St. Luke is not likely to have seen it, the Greek version of it which he supplies must express his own idea of its contents (which was probably not seriously divergent from the truth). In it Lysias is represented as explaining that he had rescued the prisoirer from a Jewish mob after he had learnt that he was a Eoman (though in reality this fact had only come out when he himself was on the poiat of scourging him, p. 575), had brought him before the Jewish Sanhedria in ordet to ascertain the accusation against him, had discovered that it turned upon disputed interpretations of the Jewish Law (a term which could be applied to the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole, p. 98), and did not involve any criminal ofience ; but, as he had learnt of a plot agadnst him, he sent him to the procurator, before whom he had directed the accusers to bring their case. The march of between 60 and 70 miles from Jerusalem to Csesarea was accomplished in two stages, the troops halting at Antipatris (p. 7) 35 or 40 miles away. Here the infantry, thought to be needed only as long as the force was in the neighbourhood of the Jewish capital, returned^ whilst the troopers proceeded ^another 30 miles to Csesarea with' their prisoner. Felix, having read the letter brought from Lysias, asked St, Paul of what province he was, in order to assure himself that he came Tinder his jurisdiction ; and having been informed that he belonged to Cillcia> which was subject to Syria (p. 68), he arranged to hear the case as soon as the accusers arrived, and ordered him meanwhile to be kept in custody in the PrcBtoritem, or Government House, which had once been the pakee of Her'od (p. 47). Mve days after St. Paul's arrival 4t Osesarea, the High Priest Ananias and several elders representing the Sanhedriii reached Ctesaieaj accom- panied by a certain TertuHtis,^ probably a Rotnan catisidicus, at pleaid«rt whom, as better acquainted than themselves with the usages at the Boman k'w-collrts, they brought with them as counsel for the prosecution ; and m ipyipLov eVKt)us. The charge of having received bribes in order to connive at deeds of violence had been brought against Ventidims Cumanus, procurator of Jndsea between 48 tad 52 (see p. 57). 1 This word is translated in the Vulgate by Icmcearii : the Alexandrian MS. reads Se^io^6\ovt. See p. T*. ^ The name is a diminntive of Tertius ; of. ImcuUus and Lucim. Marulliis and Marius; Cainlias and Catiua. THE CHURCH IM THE APOSTOLIC AGE 579 toy J)!res6nted before lies procutator their case against St. Paul. The speedh of Terttilltts must have been d^liveted in Latin, and St. Luke was |B»ebaibly there and heard it ; at any rate he has skilfully reproduced in brief 1h.& purport of such an oration as would be delivered under the like dfcttfittstances.- In the best nMinuBcripts the summary is remarkably 'Concise ; bu!t Some te(*tuatl authorities have a rather more extensive version ^ which is he*e folowed. The speaker began with compliments {the 'usual CaptaHio heftevoletitieB of a Latin orator) calculated to prepossess PeKx in fa-C^our of the prosecutors, alioiding to the tranfuillity secured by his admin'tgtratiOn Bind the Reforms he had introduced (contrast p. 57) ; aind then proceeded to complain that the prisoner (a) was an instigator of insurrection among the Jews generally ; (6) was a ringleader of the sect oi the IN'SaareKes ; (c) had attemipted to profane the Temple. The man (he said) had been Seized aHd Would have been tried by the Jews, but the ■iribun* Lysi'a;s had taken him oTJt of their hand's by main force, and had eommanded h'is accusers to attend before the procuraitor, who would be ffble' to form a judgment about the truth of their accusations by examining I/jT^as himSelf . Affee* the ctetclusion of Tertullius' speech, asseveration of the tru'th of his statements came also from the Jews who appeared with him. The' changes thus advanced' algaiinst St. Paul were all serious. The fitst ftepresente'd him as an harMtuail fomen*er of treason ; the second aesei'ted' tihttt he was a leader of a Jewish sect which the Jews disowned, and eoliteequenfly had no claim, to the toleration which they enjoyed (p. 79)' ;• and the third accused him. of attempting to ignore the prohibition fsancttioft'ed by the Eomans) exolWding all' Cl-entiles' fiom the inner courts of the Temple {p: 90). The speech of Tertullus glossed over the attempt tolyiach St. Paul without a trial, and implied that Lysias had interfered with the exercise by the Jewish authori'ties oi powers allowed by the Bmperbr (p. 100). In answer to the charges b*t)ught by his accusers Paul was called upon by Fielix to neh'a.t them, if possible ; and he replied to them in order. After expressing' satisfaction that he had to appear before so experienced a judge (Felix had prbba'bly'been'J)i!ocurator of Judaea for four years, p. 347), he first repelled the accusaiiion of creatiilg a sedition by stating that it was less than twel've d'ays ^'since he had arrived at Jerusalem (which was a tftort period for treasonable machitiationsj inasmuch as for several days he' 'had 'been in custody), a'nd denying that he had been found disputing in t&e sywagpgues or coiletitifig a concourse in the city. Next, as regards the imputation that he belonged to the s'ect-of the Nazaienes, he admitted that he followed a Rule of life (cf. Acts ix. 2, xxii. i) which his opponents thils described, but d'eliied the implication that such a Rule was incon- ''■ In Acts xxiv. 6-8 the passage noted in the R.V. mg. is contained in tlie uncial E, the dursive 614, Lat. vet. {gig:), Syr. (pesh. hi.), Eth. ; but omitted by K AB H L-P, Hat. (vulg.), Eg. The longer text makes the sentence (v. 8) Tap oS Suc^irjj.eto., whifch will' then refer to Lysias^ not St. Paul, nmoh more intelhgible ; cf. v. 22. ' In Acts xadv. 11 the twelve days named appear to be the sum of the seven days of xxi. 27 and the five days of xxiv. 1, these last feeing reckoned fi'om St. Paul's depaitiire froiii Jerusalem to his trial before Felix 580 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY sistent with the Jewish faith or piactice, since he accepted, just as they did, the teaching of the Law and the Prophets, and expected, as they did, a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous ; and in consequence he trained himself to avoid any conscious ofience towards either God or man. Thirdly, in respect of the charge that he had profaned the Temple, he had come to Jerusalem after an absence of many years to bring alms to his countrymen, and it was whilst he was presenting certain offerings in the Temple (p. 573) without disorder that they found him there. Those who alleged the opposite — certain Jews from Asia — should have attended to prove it, or else they who were in the court should show what offence they had found him guilty of, unless it was the expression of his belief in the resurrection of the dead. In spite of the corroboration given to the statements of TertuUus by the deputation from the Sanhedrin, it was impossible for the procurator to give his decision at once. The letter received from Lysias made it plain that in the tribune's opinion the prisoner had not been guilty of treason or sedition ; but it was possible that by his evidence the other charges might be established. Felix therefore adjourned the case, until the arrival of Lysias at Csesarea, by pronouncing the usual f ormida AmpUus (sc. cognoscendum). He no doubt shrewdly suspected what the motives were which animated the accusers in bringing forward the case, since the historian represents that he was well acquainted with the principles of the Christians (he had been for some years in the country) ; and it was probably this knowledge that convinced him that Lysias was right in judging St. Paul to be innocent of any political offence. Accordingly, though he retained him in custody, he allowed him as much indulgence as possible, the prisoner being chained to a soldier who guarded him, but permitted to receive attention and care from his friends. The contemplated second hearing of St. Paul's case before Felix never occurred. Lysias did not attend ; and since it was clear to the Jews that without his testimony they could not succeed in obtaining a conviction and that, even if he were williag to give evidence, it might not be favourable to them, they, for the time, took no steps to pursue the matter further. If they had failed to destroy the man they hated, they had, at any rate, secured his incarceration. On the other hand, the procurator was sufficiently indifferent to the claims of justice to allow the accused to remain in captivity without further trial. He was not, however, without interest in his prisoner ; which was increased by the fact that DrusUla (the third daughter of Agrippa I), who now passed as his third wife (p. 57), was a Jewess, and was perhaps curious to know something about St. Paul. Accordingly the two came to the palace of Herod where St. Paul was confined, and summoning him before them, heard him discourse about his faith in Christ. The Apostle must have known the relations subsisting between his two hearers, and was not likely to let slip an opportunity for trying to awaken Felix to a sense of the fundamental principles of religion — righteousness, self-control, and responsibility to a future Judge. His words alarmed Felix, but do not seem to have produced in him any real reformation, for he hoped that his captive would offer him a bribe to secure THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 581 his release ; and in order to encourage him to do so, he had frequent interviews with him. His expectations of receiving money from St. Paul and of hearing the evidence of Lysias were both disappointed ; and when he was removed from his office two years later (a.d. 58), the Apostle was still in prison. The recall of Felix followed upon some violent disputes at Csesarea, between the Jewish and the Syrian inhabitants of the city, respecting equality of political rights (iaonohrela), the Jews claiming precedence. On the occasion of a fight between the two parties, Felix had let loose upon the Jews his soldiers, who killed many and pillaged their houses. * In consequence, he had reason to fear Jewish complaints at Rome about his conduct (complaints which were actually made, and almost resulted in his punishment) ; so that when he was displaced from his procurator- ship in 58, it was from a desire to conciliate those whom he had offended that he left St. Paul in prison.* He was succeeded by Porcius Festus, and it was during the latter's period of office that St. Paul's captivity at Csesarea came to an end, though it was followed elsewhere by another term of imprisonment equally long. § 11. Appeal to Ccesar and Voyage to Italy The appearance of a new procurator afforded to the Jews the prospect of carrying to a successful issue their design of destroying St. Paul. Ananias, the chief priest, had been deposed by Agrippa II and succeeded by Ishmael ; but there was no change in the malevolence of the Sanhedrin. Accordingly, when Festus, two days after his arrival at Csesarea, went up to Jerusalem, the principal members of that body petitioned him to bring St. Paul to trial before them at the Jewish ca|)ital, intending to efiect his assassination on the road. The procurator, however, since the prisoner was at Csesarea and he himself was shortly returning thither, saw no reason for the transfer ; and directed that the more influential individuals among them should attend there and conduct the prosecution before him. After an interval of little more than a week, Festus returned to Csesarea ; and next day he took his seat on the tribunal surrounded by his legal assessors {consiliarii, cf. Suet. Tib. 55), and ordered the trial to be begun. The charges were naturally a repetition of those previously alleged (p. 579). The accusation of treason against the Emperor was doubtless based on St. Paul's preaching of Jesus as the Messiah, Who, risen from the dead, was to come again to inaugurate the Kingdom of God (cf. Acts xxv. 19) ; for such could easily be distorted into a design to set up a rival emperor. The prisoner again denied that he had been guilty of any offence against the Mosaic Law, against the Temple, or against the state. The witnesses *Jos. Ant. XX. 5, 17. ' On the other hand another motive is suggested by an interesting variant reading in Acta xxiv., where in place of v. 27'' the cursive 64 and the Harkleian Syriao mg. have t6v di IlaOXov daa-ev (v T-qp-fi /xe ireWxi Xpumavbv iroi^irai, which, in vie^v of ireiBofiai in v. 26, appears to deserve confidence, and ia t^dopted ^boye, THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 585 small effort or great he would to God that not the king only but all his hearers might become such as he, save for the chains he was wearing. With this the assembly broke up. St. Paul was taken back to his quarters, whilst Agrippa, Festus, Bernice, and the rest of the assessors retired to confer together. They agreed that there was nothing in the prisoner's conduct to render him deserving of death or imprisonment ; and Agrippa, as having presided over the informal investigation just held, gave to the procurator his considered conclusion that the accused might have been discharged, had he not appealed to the Emperor. In putting on record this decision, St. Luke brings to a termination one of the objects which he had in view in composing Acts. It was amongst his purposes to illustrate how St. Paul, as a representative Christian, though he was calumniated and persecuted by the Jews, was yet uncondemned by a succession of judges who heard his self-defence. In consequence of St. Paul's appeal to the Emperor it was decided that he ought to be conveyed to Italy for trial, and the Apostle and certain other prisoners were placed in the charge of a centurion named Julius, belonging to a cohort called the " Augustan (or ' His Majesty's ') cohort " {aneiga Sspaaxr)). It seems best to explain the title in this way, for if the cohort in question got its name from being one of the five stationed at Csesarea or Samaria (Sebaste), it would, if called after the latter city, have been styled ajtetga Hepaarrjvi]. It has been conjectured that this cohort belonged to a body of legionaries employed on the lines of communication between Eome and the provinces and engaged in the transport of supplies to the armies (and hence called frumentarii), in carrying dispatches, and in escorting prisoners. Honorary titles, indeed, such as ZfeySaoT^ would be, though conferred upon legions (p. 73), do not appear to have been commonly borne by cohorts. Nevertheless in an inscription from Berytus a certain Quinctius Secundus " who took the census of the city of Apamea at the command of Quirinius " (of. p. 55) styles himself " a prefect of the fiist Augustan cohort,^ " so that if this evidence is trustworthy the occasional use of the epithet " Augustan " in conne-Tion with a cohort seems to be established. To convey the prisoners to Eome the centurion embarked in a ship of Adramyttium (in Mysia), which, though not bound for Italy but only to certain places on the coast of the province of Asia, could take them to a port where another ship, sailing for Italy, might be found. Among those who accompanied St. Paul on the voyage were the Thessalonian Aristarchus (Acts xx. 4) and St. Luke. The former may have been a prisoner (cf . Col. iv. 10), arrested with the Apostle at Jerusalem. The second was perhaps allowed to attend St. Paul in the capacity of his physician, or even as his servant, for Pliny {Epist. iii. 16) mentions that in the reign of Claudius a certain ex-consul, Psetus, when brought as a prisoner from lUyricum to Rome, was attended by several slaves, whose duties his wife Arria was ready to discharge, if permitted to accompany him.^ ' The inscription is cited in Rackham, Acts, p. 497. The epithet was also applied to aUs, an ala being called in an inscription ala Aug. ob virtatem appellata, 'See Bamsay, St. Paul the J'raveller, p. 316. 586 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY The sMp left Osssarea probably in September (cf. Acts xxvii. 9). Her first port of call was Sidoa, where 8t. Paul had friends, whom the centurion allowed him to visit and whose attentions would be grateful. She was next bound for Myra in Lycia, so that a straight course would have taken her to the south and west of Cyprus. But at this period of the year the prevailing winds were westerly, so that the vessel had to sail east of that island, keeping under its lee. According to some textual authorities in Acts xxvii. 5, it took fifteen days to cross the CUician gulf between Cyprus and the mainland. In consequence of the tmfavourable conditions, it was also necessary to hug the CUician and Pamphylian coast in order to catch any land breezes that might help her on her way. At Myra, Julius found a ship bound from Alexandria with corn for Italy, and to this he transferred his prisoners, who, with the guards and sailors, made up a total of (probably) 276 persons on board (cf . p. 588). The winds continued baffling, so that it took many days of coasting to arrive ofi Cnidus, the most westerly extremity of Caria. To cross from thence the open sea direct to Malea, the southernmost point of the Peloponnese, was impossible in the teeth of the wind ; so the ship, steering south, rounded Cape Salmone (north-east of Crete), and then sailed under the lee of the island, reaching with difficulty a harbour called " Fair Havens," a small bay on the south coast, east of the promontory of Lisses, near which was a town called Lasea. By this time October must have begun, for the Day of Atonement, the 10th of Tishri (which fell at the end of September or the beginning of October) was past, and navigation (which closed on November 10th) was already becoming dangerous. A consultation was accordingly held by the officers of the ship ; and St. Paul, in consequence of his importance (as indicated by the favour shown him by distinguished people like Felix, Festus, and Agrippa) and perhaps of his experience as a traveller by sea as well as by land, was also asked for his opinion. He pointed out the risk not only to the ship and her freight, but also to the lives of those on board, if the voyage were continued. But the centurion, with whom, as an officer in the imperial army, the decision rested, was guided by the advice of the pilot and the shipmaster, and resolved to proceed. The harbour " Fair Havens," in spite of its name, was ill-suited for wintering in ; so it was deemed advisable to try to make for another, about 40 miles farther west, called Phoenix. This was a small bay, now called Loutro, situated not far from the town of Lappa. It lay on the eastern side of a narrow peninsula projecting from the island southward, and in it ships could remain securely sheltered from the prevailing winds during the winter months. On the west of the peninsula is another bay, now called Phineka. By St. Luke the harbour of Phoenix is described as facing south-west and north-west {aarA Xipa xal xarct x^ogov), whereas (Loutro looks eastward. It has been suggested, indeed, that Phineka is Phoenix (the name of which it clearly preserves), for it fronts to the west or south- west. ^ But a harbour facing these quarters of the compass would be a very exposed anchorage for a ship when west winds were blowing, and 1 See Page, Acts, p. 286. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 587 piobably Loutro was tke harbour in whicli it was proposed to pass the winter. As St. Luke never saw tke place, he may have misunderstood some expressions used in connexion with it by the sailors, who perhaps said that it could be reached from Fair Havens by sailing first south- west (to double the promontory of Lisses) and then north-west, the direction in whixsh Loutro lies, when the promontory is passed. With the intention, then, of gaining Phoenix, the seamen took advantage of a gentle southerly breeze to try to weather the intervening cape by keeping close to the shore. But they failed in their purpose, since a violent squaU from the east- north-east (Euraquilo) suddenly rushed down from Mount Ida and caught the vessel, so that she could not double the point, and the crew^had to let her run before the gale. Getting under the lee {i.e. west) of the little island of Cauda or Clauda (the modern Gozzo), they were able, though with difficulty, to haid in the boat (St. Luke helping) ; and then inasmuch as the cargo of wheat was likely to swell in consequence of the seas that were shipped, and the hull to be strained through the pressure of the wind on the mast and its sail, they had to " frap " the vessel by passing ropes umder the keel and tightening them with a windlass in order to prevent the planks from starting. As the wind continued to blow furiously there was danger lest the ship njight be carried on to one or other of the Syrtes, the great sandbanks along the north coast of Africa, so that it became necessary to lower the mainsail (together with the yard to which it was attached) and so check the ship's way. There is, however, some uncertainty as to the meaning in Acts xxvii. 17 of ;faAd(Taj'Te; rd axevog, for though it seems possible to take TO axevog to mean the mainsail (cf. Acts x. 11), it has been inter- preted to denote a sea-anchor or some other heavy article, which, attached to a cable, was dropped into the sea from the stern and towed behind to reduce the ship's speed. ^ As the vessel laboured heavily, on the next day they proceeded to lighten her by throwing overboard some of the cargo, and on the day following even the ship's fittings, which were perhaps fastened along the taffrail. And since the sky was too obscured by the douds for their position to be ascertained from sun or stars, and the storm did not abate, the crew began at last to abandon all hope of safety. As their fears took away aU appetite for food, there was some risk of their beoomiag too weak to save their lives, if a chance of doing so should present itself ; so St. Paul came forward at this critical juncture to encourage and advise them. After having reminded them of the counsel he had given at Pair Havens, he conveyed to them a Divine assurance (graphically repre- sented as imparted to him by an angel) ^ that he was destined to stand before the tribunal of the Emperor, and that not only his own life, but those of his fellow- voyagers would be preserved, though the vessel would be wrecked on an island. On the fourteenth night after leaving Fair Havens, as the ship continued to drift across that part of the Mediterranean stretching between Greece and Sicily, which St. Luke calls the Adrias, but * See Blaas, Acta Apostolorum (1895), p. 277. 2 For an inward intuition similarly communicated cf. Acts viii. 26. 588 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY which was more commonly styled the Ionian Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected (probably from the sound of breakers ^) the nearness of land ; and on sounding twice in succession they found the water shoaling. Fearing that they might, under these circumstances, run aground on a reef, they cast out four anchors from the stern and waited for daylight. The sailors lowered the boat under pretence of casting additional anchors from the bow also, to enable the vessel to ride the more steadUy, but really in order to escape, believing she would founder ; but at the suggestion of St. Paul, who declared that the only hope of safety lay in remaining on board, the soldiers cut the ropes, so that the boat floated away. Whilst day was dawning the Apostle urged them all to take food, which they greatly needed ; and himself set the example by breaking, with thanks- giving, a loaf, of which he ate and distributed the rest to his companions.^ After they had been refreshed, the crew proceeded to lighten the ship still further by casting more of the wheat into the sea (cf. Ads xxvii. 38 with V. 18). When it became light, they saw land close to them, but did not recognize it. Noticing a bay with a shelving beach, they decided to try to run the ship aground upon it ; and with this object they slipped the anchor cables (leaving the anchors in the sea), loosed the rudder-bands which lashed to the sides of the vessel the steering paddles (p. 76) when they were not needed, and hoisted the foresail in order to get way on the ship. But before going far, she struck on a ridge of sand or mud below, or just rising above, the surface of the sea, with deep water on either side, so that whilst the bow remained immovable, the stern began to break up through the strain caused by the heavy sea that was running. The soldiers, knowing themselves to be responsible for the safe custody of the prisoners, wanted to kiU them to prevent them from attempting to escape. But the centurion, wishing to preserve St. Paul, interfered, and directed that those who could swim should by that means reach the land, whilst the rest should support themselves on planks or broken timbers ; and eventually in these various ways all on board, numbering, as has been said, probably 276 souls,^ succeeded in getting safe to shore. The shipwrecked crew discovered that the name of the island was Melita. Its identity has been disputed, since there are two islands bearing names which resemble the Greek MeUrrj, namely Melida in the Adriatic, near to the coast of Illyria, and Malta, in the Mediterranean, 60 miles south of Sicily. The principal reason for identifying the scene of the ship- wreck with the former is its situation in the Adriatic, which is supposed to be denoted by St. Luke's term Adrias. This, however, though derived from the Italian town of Atria (near to the mouth of the Padus) and originally applied to the northern half of the modern Adriatic, was later (in the second century a.d.) used to describe that part of the Mediterranean ^ In Acts xxvii. 27 W A C H L read irpoadyeiv (or irpo(ra7a7eti') tlvcl aiVots x^pap, but B has irpoiraxiiv and the Old Lat. (A.) resonare. ^In Acts xxvii. 35 after eaBleivthe cursive 614 and the Syr. (hi.) and Eg. (aah.) versions add ^7rt5i5ot!'s Kal Tjfitv. ' In Acts xxvii. 37 most MSS. have Sia/cicrio ipSoix-qKovra 'i^, but B and Eg. (sah.) read ws i^So/MTiKovTa f^ (of. p. 138). THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 589 (outside tte Adriatic) which was more commonly known as the Ionian or Sicilian sea ; and this extended use may well have begun to prevail when St. Lute wrote. If so, the position of Malta, which would lie in the course of a ship driven by a gale from the east, and the local tradition in the island, where a bay on the north-east coast is called St. Paul's Bay, render it probable that it was here that the shipwreck occurred. The conclusion is further confirmed by the circumstance that a corn ship from Alexandria wintered here (Acts xxviii. 11), for the island is in the track of traders between Egypt and the west coast of Italy. Moreover, St. Luke's account can be readily explained from the conditions at St. Paul's Bay. On the northern side of the entrance there is a small islet, known as Salmonetta or Salmun ; and if a spit of land, washed by the sea on either side, then joined the islet and the shore, it would correspond to the rdjiog dtddkaaaog mentioned in Acts xxvii. 41. For the vessel to clear the promontory of Koura Head (forming the southern side of the entrance) and to take ground between Salmonetta and the mainland, it is only necessary to assume that the wind, which had previously been east-north- east, had veered to east-south-east. It is true that the local tradition connects the scene of the wreck with a spot on the south shore of the bay, to which the ship might have been forced by an eas1> north-east wind, but modern investigators seem to agree that the Retails of the narrative are best satisfied by the site described above. ^ The earliest inhabitants of Malta (the area of which is small, its length being 17 miles and its breadth about 9) are said to have been Phoenicians (Died. V. 12) ; and though the island had afterwards been colonized by the Greeks, probably the original stock was predominant (especially as at a still later date it passed into the possession of Carthage, the chief colony of the Phoenicians of Tjrre) ; and St. Luke calls them ^dgpaQoi,. They treated the shipwrecked crew with kindness, providing them with fire (for doubtless the late autumn was cold and rainy) and probably with food also. St. Paul took part in the coUecting of fuel, and when he laid the faggots on the fire, a small snake, which was taken to be a viper, was roused to activity by the heat, and fastened on his hand. The natives standing round at once thought that the death which he had escaped at sea he had now incurred on shore ; and that it was inflicted upon him by the goddess of Justice for some heinous crime. But as no evil conse- quenbes ensued from the bite, they shortly changed their minds and concluded that one who was immime to snake-poison could only be a god (of. Acts xiv. 11). The fact that vipers do not now occur in Malta has'been urged against the identification of the scene of the shipwreck with that island, or even against the whole story. But vipers, though not found there now, may have existed in earUer times (like wolves in England) ; or the snake may have been really non-poisonous, but popularly thought to be venomous (as so many harmless creatures are). There are said to be in Malta two snakes of the family Ooronella, lacking poison fangs, one of which is like a viper in colouring.* 1 See Hastings, D.B. iu. pp. 336-7. ' Ramsay, Luke the Physician, pp. 64. 390 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Near the plaee wihOTe tke landmg from the wreck was efiected there were the estates! of a certain Roman caEed Popiljus or Publius,^ wko is styled by St. Luke the Prinms [6 ng&rog) of the island. The titk seems to be official rather than a meie honorary epithet, for it occui's in two inscriptions ^ ; but its real significance is obscure, and at one time undeic the Etopire the island was governed by a procurator.' If Popilius was -a, Roman official, it was natural that he should entertain Julius, a militairy officer; and he would doubtless extend his invitation to the eentuiiojl'B distinguished prisoner and his friend and physician Luke. CirCu-mstanGes enabled the kind attention to be almost at once repaid, for the father 'of their host was ill with fever and dysentery, and to the sufferer the Apostift brought relief. St. Paul's gift of healing had doubtless becomie fcnown through Aristarchus and Luke, and his reputation for more than ordinary powers must have been enhanced by the incident of the snake. The hope which information about his son's guest probably created in the sick Ba^an must of itself have helped him to resist the malady which had attacked him; and when the Apostle, coming to him, prayed and laid his hands upon Mm (cf. Acts ix. 17), he recovered. This cure was the first of many, for other persons in the island who were suffering from various diseases received relief, some cures perhaps being effected by Luie's skill as a physicia/n (for he participated in the honours bestowed by the people upon theifr bene- factor), but others being instances of faith-healing. The party spent the winter in the island, staying there three months after their arrival (probably about the middle of November), and when they left, those whom they had benefited were led by gratitude to put on board the ship that conveyed them away the things which they needed for the voyage. Navigation reopened on March 11th ; and as another corn- ship, called the Dioscuri (whose effigies formed the figurehead of the vessel (p. 76)i, and bound from Alexandria to Rome, had wintered at the island, they embarked upon her. The ship touched at Syracuse on the east coast of Sicily, some 90 miles distant, stopping three days there ; and then as the wind was not favourable for a straight run, they had to tack* to treaieb Rhegium (Reggio) on the Italian side of the straits of Messina, 60 or 70 miles from Syracuse. After a day spent there, the wind shifted to the south, so that Puteoli (or Dicsearchia), 200 mUes or more from Rhegium, was gained by the next day. PuteoM (PiizzioU), though 120 or 130 miles from Rome, now served, at least for travellers, as its port, since entrance to ©stia at the mouth of the Tiber was impeded by silt. Christianity kad! ahready spread to it, and the body of Chiistians these entreattfed St. Patfl^fid 1 Popilius is a Eoman cognomen, Publitvs isi a prsenomen ; and though BcSttXios is the usual equivalent of Publiws, a Eoman of rank -would be most likely designated by his cognomen ; of. Felix, Festus, etc. 'One is in Latin Meli[tensiuin] priirms omniitmi] ; the other is in G*e6k, KmKitti KXauSIou wiis . . . UpouSiji's iTTTreCs Vap.a;iwv irft&Tas MeXeraiMC Kai jraTpSm, » An inscription (quoted by Raokham, Ads, p. 493) has Ghrestion, a ffeeS/mim of. Augustus, procurator of the islands of Melita and Gaulos. * In Acts xxviii. 13 "the reading of most MSS. irepieKdSvTes yields the best sense ; that of X B nrefieKivrei, " having detached " the anchor cables (cf. xxvii. 40), seems a superfluous observation, and rki i.yKv'pa,s would scarcely be omitted. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE S91 Ms two 'C(Wnpaiiions to stay wi*h them a week, Julius seeminglj allowing tkem to do so under guard. From Puteoli there ran a roaid (the via CafWpana} to Capua, where the travellers could get on to the ma A'ppla, which was the main highway between Rome and Brundisiiim for the east (p. 75). Then they passed successively through Appii Forum and Tres TaberiMe, both near the Pomptiae marshes, about 45 and 35 miles from R'dme respectively, where thfey were met by parties of fellow-Christians> W'ho, having heard of thek arrival, had come to pay them a tribute of respee*. The meeting was very welcome to St. Paul, who at the sight of frt'ettds thanked God and took courage. TraveUers along the Appian way entered the walls of Rome by the Pdrta Capena. As soon as the capital was reached, Julius handed over his prisoners to the commander of the force to which he belonged. This &f6ce* is described by a number &i manuscripts (H3L2P2, etc.) in Acts xitviii. 16 as 6 cnsQatonESdQxrjq, and it has generally been thought that he was the commander of the Prsetorian guards (sp. 73), whose camp was outside the Pwta, Viminalis, and who as a body could be designated as jntBtmiim, the term used in Phil. i. 13.^ But if the conjecture is correct that the guards who conveyed Patd to Rome were drawn from the fm/mmtarii (pi. '585), it would be to the principal officer of this force (which had its camp on the Cselian hill) to whom the prisoners would be transfertred' (iiWs xxviii. 16 mg.). That this was the ease is implied by the reading of ffiie of the MSS. (gig.) of the Old Latin version whixdi renders r& atgato- nSdSiQxtj t)y frincipi peregrmonem, the Fnmentarii being also known as P6i<6g>fini. In any case the officer, whoever he was, who had henceforward the responsibility^ of keepiag St. Paul in custody against the time of hi» trial, aloWed hito to reside by himself in a lodging outside the eamp,^ wJtih a soldier who guarded 'him. At Rome there was a very large Jewish community (p. 78), and St. Paul was naturally anxious to asoertain their feelings towards both the 6hti^ian faith and himself. Aeco^ditagly three days after his arrival he Javi'fted to his lodging the leading Jews from the various synagogues, witE 8 view to explaining both the reason for his appeal to the Emperor and th« MfiSistency of his- dhristianity with the ancestral faith of his race. He d'ddfeed that, though he had been disloyal neither to the Jewish people flOr'td the Jewish religion, he had been delivered as a prisoner into the' hands of the Romans ; and that though the Romans' after inquiry had bees FSfedy" to acquit him, the Jews had opposed it, and he had been compelled top'ttppeyi to the Emperor, not in order to accuse his countrymen, but to flafve&e own Hfe.^ The cause of the Jews' artimosily and of his imrprison- tnent was really the religious hope which both they -and he alike cherished, bufWhicfh both interpreted differently ; aind it was in order to Set forth to feein his convictions about it that he had sought an interview with them. In reply the Jewish representatives said that they had not received any > See Lightfoot, Phil. pp. 101-2. 'Added in Acts xxviii. 16 by the cursive MS. 614 and the Stockholm MS. (gig.) of the Old Lat. ' This is added by a few authorities in Acts xxviii. 19. 592 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY unfavourable report about St. Paul from Jerusalem either by letter or by word of mouth ; but as regards the Christian sect, they knew that every- where it was the subject of adverse comment. Still they wished to arrive at an equitable decision concerning it, and desired to gain from him information about it. In view of the facts that there existed at Rome a Christian Church numerous enough to have made it worth while for St. Paul to write a long letter to it (p. 279), and that disturbances caused by disputes about Christ may have occasioned the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in the reign of Claudius (p. 554), the ignorance concerning Christianity here professed by the Jews of Rome is rather perplexing ^ ; but if the report of their words is accurate, it may perhaps be assumed that they wished to pose as impartial judges of St. Paul's case, whilst desirous of concealing the progress which Christianity had already made in the Roman capital. Arrangements were accordingly made for a meeting on an appointed day, and a large gathering assembled at St. Paul's lodging. To it he set forth his conception of the Kingdom of God, as he had come to entertain it under the influence of his belief that Jesus was the destined Messiah, pre-announced in the Law and the Prophets. But to the idea that Jesus, known to have been put to an ignominious death at the instigation of the authorities of their nation, was nevertheless the Son of God and the King of Israel, and that the salvation of which it was claimed that He was the source was independent of the Law, the keeping of which was the absorbing interest of their lives, the majority of the Jews manifested an invincible repugnance. Though the Apostle won some to his views, upon others he made no impression, and before the assembly dispersed he pointed out how aptly the Holy Spirit, through the prophet Isaiah (vi. 9 f .) ^ had spoken to their ancestors, whose true descendants they showed themselves to be, affirming that the wilful closing of their minds to the truth would in the end render them impervious to it. But the gracious purpose of God was not destined to be baffled ; the salvation which the Jews refused would be ofiered to and be accepted by the Gentiles. These concluding words of the Apostle's speech are not very relevant to the situation, since (as has been seen) there was already existing in Rome a Christian Church ; so that they should perhaps be taken to represent not so much what St. Paul said on this occasion as St. Luke's final statement of the reason why the Christian Church, though originally of Jewish origin, had, by his time, become predominantly Gentile. With this unsuccessful appeal made to the Jewish community at Rome the account of the early Church contained in Acts closes. It marks the completion of another of the purposes which St. Luke had in view in writing the second of his two works. It was part of his design to illustrate how untiringly St. Paul sought to commend the Christian faith to God's chosen people, and how it was only after their repudiation of the Gospel that it was ofEered to the Gentiles. The antagonism to it manifested at Pisidian Antioch (Acts xiii. 45), at Corinth (xviii. 6) and at Ephesus (xix. 9), 1 Contrast Acts xvii. 6, xxiv. 5, and of. MoGiffert, Apoat. Age, p. 362. « The same passage is quoted in Mk. iv. 12, Mi. xiii. 14-15, Joh. xii. 40, Bom. xi. 8. THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 593 was finally repeated at Rome, and demonstrated that henceforward between the Jewish synagogue and the Christian Church there would be severance. The trial of St. Paul was postponed for at least two years. During this interval he lived, under guard, in a house which he rented, welcoming those who cared to converse with him, and expounding to them the Kingdom of God and the relation to it of Jesus Christ. In this work he met with no hindrance. Even some members of the Emperor's court (perhaps minor officials) became Christians {Phil. iv. 22). Moreover, he was not the only Christian worker in the city, where his example encouraged others. His activity even stimulated some who were not very sympathetic towards him to emulate or to surpass him in zeal {Phil. i. 15), such rivals being probably members of the Jewish section of the Church, who were perhaps envious of the growing numbers of Gentile Christians. ^ But whatever their motives may have been, their efforts only caused St. Paul to rejoice greatly that the name of Christ was being more and more widely made known among the citizens of the capital. St. Luke in bringing Acts to an end by describing the absence of any impediment to St. Paxil's proclamation of the Gospel at Rome was clearly wishful to emphasize the toleration extended to Christianity by the imperial authorities up to the close of the period covered by his history. The book of Acts being probably written after a great change had taken place in the attitude of the Roman govern- ment towards the Christians (p. 240), it' was natural for its writer to contrast with the injustice and cruelty of the Rome of his later years (spent under Domitian (81-96) ), the reasonableness and fairness of the same great power in his earlier days, prior to a.d. 64. Why the Jews at Jerusalem were so dilatory in pressing their suit against St. Paul at Rome is far from clear. That the Roman Jews had heard nothing to St. Paul's prejudice before his arrival at the capital is not unintelligible, since the Apostle's appeal to the Emperor may have taken his opponents by surprise ; and in any case during the winter the usual cbinmunications between the east and the west must have been interrupted. But it might have been expected that in the course of the following summer the prosecution would have been resumed with vigour. Possibly the long delay is to be accounted for by the accusers' desire to wait until they could obtain the countenance of some individual powerful enough with the Emperor to ensure the conviction of the prisoner. Their experience of FeUx and Festus had not been encouraging ; and they may have anticipated defeat imless they could secure the assistance of one who was in a position to exert influence at the Imperial Court.^ During the two years of his imprisonment at Rome (59-61), St. Paul wrote four letters that have been preserved in fuU, namely Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and Philippians, probably in this order (p. 295), and a fifth (later than Philippians), part of which may be embodied in 2 Tim. iv., 6-18 (see p. 303). From the Church at Philippi he received help ^ The same are described most contemptuously in PhU. iii. 2. ' Nero's mistress Poppsea was a Jewish proselyte. 38 594 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY through Epaphroditus {Phil. iv. 18), as lie had done previously at other places (p. 548) ; and his afEection for Ms converts there was so great that he accepted their bounty without hesitation. The loneliness of his captivity, which, notwithstanding his opportunities for missionary labour, must have been trying, was relieved by personal intercourse with several friends. Aristarchus and Epaphras seem to have been his fellow-prisoners {Col. iv. 10, PJim. 23). Others who were at Rome for shorter or longer periods, and some of whom conveyed the letters mentioned above to their destination,were Timothy, Tychicus, Mark, Demas, Jesus Justus, Onesimus, Onesiphorus and Luke. If 2 Tim. really includes portions of a letter written during the years 59-61, two more can be added, Titus and Crescens. When St. Paul's trial came on, Demas and perhaps Titus and Crescens abandoned him, leaving Rome for other places ; and of those who were at the capital at the time Luke alone proved staunch to the last (2 Tim. iv. 10). The Apostle at one period in his captivity was very hopeful of acquittal {Phil. ii. 24, Phm. 22). His case, when brought up for decision, was probably heard not by the Emperor himself but by some subordinates, acting as his representatives, who were perhaps chosen from the officers of the praetorian guard {prcefedi prcBtoni, p. 73) and are denoted by the term to jcQaacogiov in Phil. i. 13. To those who tried him the Apostle had an opportunity of showing that he was a prisoner for the sake of the Christian faith and of exhibiting the fortitude which it inspired in him. The accusation preferred against him which by the Romans would be considered most serious was not that of being a Christian (for if Christianity had been accounted a crime at this date, not St. Paul alone but others would have been involved), but of being a danger to the peace of the Empire, in consequence of the disturbances that attended his activity in various places. This was one of the charges brought against him by the Jews {Acts xxvi. 5) ; and evidence in support of it could be produced from many localities (Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Corinth, Ephesus, and Jerusalem). The trial seems to have occupied two hearings (2 Tim. iv. 16) ; whether it resulted favourably or unfavourably is disputed. If, as appears most probable, it ended in his condemnation, his conviction would be followed by his execution. Since he was a Roman citizen, he was exempt from the more barbarous punishments often inflicted upon such as had no civic rights ; and he was presumably beheaded. The traditional site of his death is now occupied by the Abbey of Tre Eontane, three miles from Rome on the road to Ostia (Eus. H.E. ii. 25). Those who believe that the Apostle was acquitted, or that the charge against him was held to be not proven, and who think that the Pastoral Epistles are genuine in their entirety and written after his release, can, from the allusions in these letters, construct a conjectural outline of his movements after leaving Rome. As he contemplated, when writing to the Romans, a journey to Spain {Rom. xv. 28), he may have travelled thither from Italy, and the Muratorian Canon represents him as doing so, its statements being held to be confirmed by Clement of Rome, who describes the Apostle as having preached righteousness to the whole world THE CHURCH IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE 595 ftnd reached the end of the west (t6 xiQiia r^g dvascog).^ Later, he returned to the east (having intended to do so when the Epistle to the PhiUpfians was written (Phil. i. 27, ii. 24) ) ; proceeded to Ephesus ; and from thence departed for Macedonia by way of Troas, leaving Timothy behind at Ephesus, and sending 1 Timothy to him there. Possibly from Macedonia he went back to Ephesus, and thence sailed to Crete, where he left Titus in chargej whilst he himself once more returned to Ephesus and wrote to Titus the Epistle bearing his name. He even planned to go to Nicopolis in distant Epirus {Tit. iii. 12). But in 64 occurred the fire at Rome, responsibility for which Nero fastened on the Christians. The consequent persecution which started in the capital would give scope for any dormant hostility felt towards them to become active elsewhere ; and St. Paul was amongst those arrested (perhaps at Miletus), and was sent to Rome by way of Corinth for trial. From Rome he wrote 2 Timothy. About the circumstances of his second trial as little is known as about those of his first, though the few details mentioned in 2 Tim. (if this was composed during a second captivity in 64) can be employed to illustrate it, instead of being applied to the trial in 61. On the assumption that the Apostle, released in 61, lived to be imprisoned and tried again, the year 64 seems the most probable date of his execution, though Eusebius assigns his death to the thirteenth year of Nero, i.e. a.d. 67. According to Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, St. Paul and St. Peter were executed about the same time (Eus. H.E. ii. 25). The fact that so much more is known about St. Paul ^ than about the rest of the Apostles justifies a few woids of comment upon his Ufe and labours. By none was greater work accomplished for Christianity. His ambitions were remarkable (cf . Rom. i. 14, 15, xv. 24) ; but the sagacious methods by which he pursued them and Ms success in realizing them were almost equally remarkable. His aim was the difiusion of the Christian faith through the Roman Empire, and if he really effected his design of penetrating into Spain, he may be said to have carried the Gospel of Christ almost from one end of the Empire to the other. In any case, he spread the knowledge of it through four provinces in Asia, and two of the most important provinces in Europe. This was one of his great achievements ; and he thereby had a prominent share in transferring a religious movement from the region of its birth, whence it eventually almost disappeared, to another where it took firm root, and whence it has been disseminated across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. And a second achievement, which was of equal importance, and upon which the permanent success of the first depended, was the emancipation of Christianity from the fetters of the Jewish Law. This was the more noteworthy because it involved a departure not only from the attitude towards Judaism taken up at first by the personal disciples of Jesus, but from the precedent set by our Lord ' Probably Clement's statement is only an inference from Bom. xv. 28, and does not preserve any independent tradition. * Of the great personalities of antiquity the two best known are Cicero and St. Paul (Inge, Outspoken Essays, p. 205). 596 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Himself. Yet the step taken by St. Paul was crucial in the history of Christianity. Without his insight and courage in contending for the exemption of the Gentiles from the distinctive requirements of Judaism, the Christian Church might have survived only as a Jewish sect or perished altogether. He started it upon a separate career ; and it was owing to his exertions that it became independent of the organization within which it originated, and was enabled to pursue a course of continuous expansion among the Gentile races of the western world. Whether or to what extent these great services have been qualified by the influence exerted by various aspects of his theology this is not the place to determine. Certainly there were elements in it tending to blunt the keen edge of Jesus' declarations about the real conditions of salvation. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT IT does not fall within the scope of this volume to give a comprehensive account of the Theology of the New Testament, nevertheless even a New Testament History may reasonably be expected to trace briefly the historical development of the theological ideas found in its constituent writings. The chronological succession, indeed, in which the New Testa- ment books were composed is not quite identical with the natural succession of the theological conceptions in them ; for the Synoptic Gospels, Acts, and Revelation are probably later than most of the Epistles. But the Synoptic Gospels and Acts rest upon sources (oral narratives, if not documents) which are anterior in date to the Epistles, whilst the theology of Revelation is of an obviously early type. Chronology is therefore not seriously violated if, for the purpose of sketching the historic growth of the Theology of the New Testament, a beginning is made with the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels and the document symbolized by Q (since these are the best authorities for the Teaching of Jesus) ; if, next, there are considered the early chapters of Acts and some of the Catholic Epistles, as representative of the Primitive Church ; if the book of Revelation is treated after these ; and if this is followed in order by the Pauline Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Johannine writings. (a) The Teaching of Jesus according to the Earliest Sources For our Lord's teaching about God, about the future, and about His own mission and Person, the primary authorities are St. Mark's Gospel and Q. It cannot, indeed, be assumed that every statement even in MJc, which is represented as proceeding from our Saviour really does so. For since the Gospel was probably separated by a whole generation from the lifetime of Him Whose words are recorded, and since during that generation the Christian community to which the writer belonged had passed through many experiences, it is not unlikely that these experiences are reflected in his report of the age preceding, the origin and currency of various beliefs and practices of the Church being antedated. And since in the early Church there were one or two personalities of outstanding distinction who were sure to impress deeply men of slighter individuality with whom they came in contact, and since St. Mark, at more than one period, was a 597 598 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY companion of St. Paul, it may be suspected that Ms work is not altogether free from Pauline ideas and phraseology. Still, the discoverable traces of such influence are not numerous, and do not seriously afieot the confidence which can be reposed in the Second Gospel as affording, so far as it goes, a faithful testimony to our Lord's utterances. The contents of Mk. can be supplemented by most valuable materials from Q, the author of which seems to have especially aimed at reproducing our Lord's sayings, more particularly those of a terse and aphoristic character. But though Mk. and Q are our most authoritative sources, it would be unreasonable to exclude from the list of trustworthy data everything that appears only in Mt. or in Lk. For it is intrinsically probable that many statements occurring in only one of these two Gospels may really come from Jesus ; and though it may be difficult to reach a confident decision about such, yet two criteria are helpful. One is the tenor of a saying, for if this implies a condition or standpoint which eventuaUy ceased to obtain in the Church, it is not likely to have been invented. The other is the form in which a saying is cast : parables, for instance, scarcely occur in the New Testament outside the Synoptic Gospels, so that the genuineness of those which rest upon the testimony of no more than one Gospel need not be questioned. Before an attempt is made to describe even briefly the substance of Jesus' teaching it is desirable to note certain features marking the language in which it was conveyed and which is liable to be a source of misunderstanding. (a) Since our Lord, in His discourses, aimed at impressing upon His hearers the vital importance of the issues which He placed before them. His commands and statements were often of a sweeping and unqualified character {Mt. vii. 1= Lk. vi. 37, Mt. vii. 7, 8 = Lk. xi. 9, 10, Mk. xi. 24). He presented alternatives in vivid contrast ; emphasized now one, now another, line of conduct, as varying conditions demanded ; depicted classes of people in strong colours ; pronounced summary judgments ; and did not refrain from the use of irony {Mk. vii. 9, cf. Mt. xxiii, 32). For the guidance of men's actions He did not legislate or impose rules, but affirmed principles ; and even these He did not always present in an abstract form, but substituted concrete illustrations of them {Mk. ix. 41, Mt. V. 39-40 = Lk. vi. 29-30) which furnish instruction but not definite regulations for other cases. In consequence, there occasionally appear in what He said verbal discrepancies ; and His injunctions do not always admit of being literally obeyed, independently of circumstances. (6) Like the Hebrew prophets our Lord constantly used figurative language to express His thoughts arrestingly ^ ; but His metaphors were liable to be misapprehended, and as the Evangelists' own narratives show, sometimes were misapprehended even by the Apostles. ^ A proneness to put a literal construction upon figures of speech is confined to no class or ' See Mk. x. 25, xi. 23, xii. 40, Mt. vii. 3-6 (= Lk. vi. 41, 42), xxiii. 24, Lk. xix. 40, xxi. 18 (cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 45, 2 Sam. xiv. 11). ^ »See Mk. viii. 14-21. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 599 period ; and accordingly " the abuse of metaphor has been one of the standing errors in theology." (c) Confirmation of His convictions about Himself and His mission He sought for in the Hebrew Scriptures, sometimes giving to their words an import other than that which was seemiagly intended by the original writers ; and in referring to the various books composing the Old Testa- ment He shared the current views of their authorship/ from which the cohclusions reached by modern investigators often diverge. Jesus, in proclaiming the nearness of the Kingdom of God, could count upon His announcements being intelligible to His contemporaries. The actual expression " the kingdom of God " or " the kingdom of the heavens " ^ occurs nowhere in the Old Testament, but the nature of God's " sovereignty," exercised first over Israel and destined to be exercised finally over all the world, was a familiar idea to the Jews. The thought of Jehovah as Israel's King is found in 1 Sam. viii. 7, xii. 12 — ^passages reflecting the ideas of a Deuteronomic writer (seventh century B.C.) ; and the complementary notion that the Israelites were Jehovah's subjects and servants finds frequent expression {Lev. xxv. 55, Ez. v. 11, etc.). Their service, indeed, was very imperfectly rendered ; and it was recog- nized that not by the people universally, but only by a fraction of them was the Divine rule faithfully obeyed. Nevertheless Israel as a whole was distinguished from other communities by its knowledge of the one true God and by the possession of His written Laws, so that the Almighty could be represented as declaring that it should be for Him a kingdom of priests (i.e. agents to instruct all mankind in His requirements) and a holy nation {Ex. xix. 6) ; and in a measure it really became such. The experience of the Exile put an end to all formal disloyalty to Jehovah ; whilst the difiusion of Jewish communities in many parts of the world (p. 77 f.) made numbers of Gentiles acquainted for the first time with a spiritual and monotheistic religion. Israel's subjection, however, to foreign , powers for centuries after the Return from the Exile appeared to the faithful to be so incompatible with the privileged relations granted to the nation by God, that they anticipated that He must soon intervene to redeem them ; and that by some decisive interposition He would deliver them from their oppressors and establish for ever His own sole and perfect rule, securing for them perpetual righteousness and peace. Of the circumstances destined to mark God's intervention in the fortunes of His people, various ideas were entertained in diSerent circles (p. 40 f .), and found expression in prophecies and apocalypses. Sometimes the jDivine Kingdom was thought of as being established on earth, without any mention of the presence in it of a human king, representative of the Divine King (see Dan. vii. 18, 27). At other times it was hoped that God would raise up a sovereign of David's line, by whom aU ofienders would be extirpated from Israel, and aU the heathen would be subdued {Ps. Sol.'xvii. 23 f .). A third form which the hope of redemption assumed ' See MJc. i. 44 (referring to Lev. xiv. 2 f.), xii. 36 (referring to Ps. ex.). ' For such substitution from motives of reverence, see p. 20. For " heavens " cf. Dan. iv. 26. 600 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY was ttat a Heavenly Man would descend from God, to told for Him a universal judgment and to bring all mankind before His bar (Enoch, Similitudes). After the severance of the wicked from the righteous, and the consignment of the former to annihilation or to imending tortures, the latter were to enjoy endless felicity, either on a new earth or in heaven. Of the expectations here enumerated the one with which that of Jesus accorded was the last. He looked for a universal judgment (over which He believed that He Himself would preside), to be followed by the entry of the righteous into the Kingdom of God. Of the nature of the Kingdom and the sphere where it was to be inaugurated He gave no account ; and the fact that in speaking about it He used language which is largely metaphorical leaves His thoughts concerning it very obscure. When He spoke of many " recUning " (i.e. at a banquet) with the Hebrew patri- archs in the kingdom (Mt. viii. 11 = Lk. xiii. 28), He was clearly employing a figure of speech and not describing in matter-of-fact terms a scene that could only be enacted on a material, if a renovated, earth. ^ When, however, He told His Apostles that they should sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt. xix. 28 = Lk. xxii. 30), it is not quite certain whether He thought of them as exercising authority upon earth or as descending with Him on the clouds as His assessors at the Judgment and afterwards returning to reign with Him in heaven. As will be seen, there prevailed subsequently in some quarters within the Christian Church the belief that there would be a reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years before the final consummation of the existing age and the beginning of the next (p. 61). But there is no clear hint of a Millennium in oui Lord's references to the future ; and what seems to throw most light upon His thoughts about the hereafter, and suggests that He regarded the conditions supervening upon the judgment as celestial and spiritual,* is His declaration that those who should attain to the resurrection from the dead would neither marry nor be given in marriage but be in heaven as angels (Mk. xii. 25). To be a denizen of the kingdom is represented as equivalent to the possession of life (Mk. ix. 43, 45, x. 30) ; but the idea of corporeal existence, if not excluded, is discountenanced rather than favoured. The substance of our Lord's earliest utterances may be fittingly classed under the head of Eschatology, for in them He announced the nearness of the kingdom and of the judgment preliminary to it ; and explained the conditions governing human destinies in the approaching crisis. Of the actual time when the judgment would take place He disclaimed all knowledge (Mk. xiii. 32). Nevertheless, He anticipated its occurrence within the existing generation,' so that watchfulness was imperative, if men were not to be taken by surprise, like the servants of a householder whom their master on returning from a long absence found sleeping (Mk. 1 Of. Mt. xxii. 1-14 (Parable of the Marriage Feast), Lk. xiv. 15-24. "In Hebrew thought, however, "Spirit" was conceived after a semi-physical fashion, as though it were a rarefied substance ; and St. Paul could speak of a spiritual body ; see p. 478. 'See Mk. ix. 1, xiii. 30. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 601 xiii. 34-37).! They slioidd not be misled by the lack of all outward signs of what was at hand. Events were moving towards an inevitable end, and God was only abiding the opportune moment for intervention, like a husbandman awaiting the right time for harvesting the grain abeady sown in the earth {ML iv. 26-29). Unseen forces were at work, destined to cause a momentous change in prevailing conditions, like leaven mixed with meal {Mt. xiii. 33 = Lk. xiii. 20-21). And the contrast between the small promise, which, at the time, there seemed to be, of such a reality as the kingdom of God and the impressive manifestation of it which would shortly be witnessed was compared to the contrast observable between a tiny mustard seed and the tall and spreading plant that springs from it (MA. iv. 30-32). Whether Jesus really gave to His disciples any indications whereby the approach of the final judgment could be inferred is doubtful. There is found in Mk. xiii. 5-29 an enumeration of various signs heralding the event, which is comprised within a discourse ascribed to our Lord. But such a recital of premonitory tokens would only have blunted His frequent counsels to His followers to keep watch, and there are internal reasons for suspecting that this passage does not really proceed from Him (p. 445). The eschatological expectations entertained by our Lord, when con- sidered in the light of (experience and of modern conclusions respecting the earth and the system of which it forms part, appear to have comprised elements of temporary as well as of permanent value. It is possible, indeed, that His meaning was not clearly understood, and that His lan- guage has not been reported accurately ; and that what He uniformly had in mind was an inward kingdom of pure motives, without any trans- formation of outward circumstances except such as might result from a change in the human spirit. Nevertheless, it is difficult to suppose that the expectation of the Lord's near return would have prevailed so widely in the primitive Church {Jas. v. 8, 1 Pet. iv. 7, 1 Cor. vii. 29, Rom. xiii. 11, Rev. i. 3) had there been no support for it in the actual teaching of Jesus Himself.^ But if so. His anticipation that within a generation He would descend in visible state from heaven to judge the world has been proved by the subsequent lapse of nearly 2,000 years, within which no such event has occurred, to have been illusory. Great cataclysms both physical and political have, it is true, taken place in the course of those 2,000 years, ,which were veritable judgments from God ; but none of them correspond to the form in which our Lord's predictions about the nature and the time of the End were couched. And the idea of a visible descent of a supreme Judge from heaven to earth clearly implies a pre-Copernican theory of the Universe, in which the globe was imagined to be a flat disc overarched by the sky as a solid vault, above which was the abode of God ; and like that theory it is no longer tenable. With the substitution of a heliocentric theory of the solar system, and the disappearance of the conception of heaven as a locality above men's heads, the idea of Christ's 1 Cf. also Mt. xxiv. 43-51 (= Lk. xii. 39-46) and Mt. xxv. 1-12 (The Ten Virgins). ' Cf. Haatings, D.B. ii. p. 635 (Sanday). 602 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY bodily Keturn from it (like that of His bodily Ascension to it) needs to be reformed. When the scenic and dramatic features in the traditional representation have been discarded, there remains as a permanent element in it the thought of a spiritual judgment, enacted we know not how, in which the conduct and motives of men, after death, wiU be scrutinized impartially and receive their due recompense. Ultimate arraignment before Divine Justice seems to be a vital factor in any theory of morals recognizing that the human conscience speaks with authority. Nor have Jesus' warnings about the shortness of the interval before that judgment, and the consequent need of watchfulness, lost their force. Though the continuance of the world is prolonged, the individual Ufe is still short, and men's souls are often required of them suddenly and unexpectedly (cf . Lk. xii. 16-21), so that the error in our Lord's eschatological expectations is of slight importance. Whilst Jesus said little about the details of the judgment and the kingdom. He spoke more fully concerning the conditions which men had to satisfy in order to sustain the one and gain the other. A main part of the burden of His preaching, like John's, was Eepentance. There was, indeed, nothing novel in the declaration that such was needed. It was universally recognized that to the sins and follies of the people was due the delay in their deliverance from calamity ; and it was currently said that if Israel would repent together for a whole day, the redemption by Messiah would come.^ But Jesus' idea of the conduct pleasing to Grod was more exacting than that of His contemporaries, and the change of mind (/lerdvoia) which He declared to be necessary was more compre- hensive and complete. It was equivalent to entrance upon a new life marked by the docility, receptiveness, and humility characteristic of childhood (Mh. x. 15). In stimulating His hearers to amend their ways, Jesus had recourse to both warnings and encouragement. On the one hand. He admonished them that their destinies would be decided, and their admission into, or exclusion from, the kingdom determined, not by their professions but by their practice. They would be judged by their works, as trees by their fruits (Mt. vii. 18-27 = Lh. vi. 43-49) ; and the worth of their works would be estimated by the spirit which inspired them. The greatness of the exertions demanded was illustrated by the metaphor of a passage along a hampered road and through a narrow gate {Mt. vii. 13-14 = Lh xiii. 23-24). The neglect of faculties and opportunities would result in their withdrawal ; {Mt. xxv. 29 = Lk. xix. 26) ; and the scrutiny would be speedy, sudden, and searching {Mt. v. 25 = Lk. xii. 58, 59). The perishable treasure of earth must be forgone for the sake of enduring treasure in heaven ^ ; but no half-hearted measures would avail ; men could not serve both God and their own worldly interests. Riches, indeed, were calculated, save for God's grace, to render the salva- tion of their owners impossible. It was better for a man to sacrifice ' Sohiirer, Hid. of the Jewish People, 11, ii. 163. ' Cf. the Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price (Mt. xiii. 44-46). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 603 any one of his pkysioal members, however precious, than to imperil, through preserving it, the attainment of true life (Mk. ix. 43-48). On I the other hand, God was both able and willing to help men in their f endeavours towards such attainment. Petitions and appeals addressed to Him were answered (Mt. vii. 7-11 = Lk. xi. 9-13) ; prayer might even hasten the coming of His Kingdom, and so they were bidden to pray for it (Mt. vi. 10 = Lk. xi. 2 )i ; and He was ready to forgive their offences and shortcomings, if they, on their part, forgave those of their feUow-men (Mt. vi. 12, vii. 1, 2, xviii. 21, 22 = Lk. xi. 4, vi. 37, 38, xvi. 3, 4)a. He was unwilling that any should perish (Mt. xviii. 12-14 = Lk. xv. 4-7), for He was more tender and gracious than any human father (ZJfc. xv. 11-32) ; and they who subordinated all earthly considerations to the desire to reach His Kingdom would find, as birds and flowers could teach, all their necessities supplied by Him (Mt. vi. 8, 25-33 = Lk. xi. 9-13, xii. 22-34, Mt.x. 29-31 = Lk.xu.Q,7). The Message about the Kingdom, giving rise to the impulse to seek it, proceeded from Him ; and like a seed, if its growth was not prevented or counteracted by evil influences, it would produce in time due result (Mk. iv. 1-20). It is sometimes represented that the stress laid by Jesus upon the fatherliness of God was a new feature in Jewish religious teaching, and indeed, constituted the heart of His own revelation about God. Yet in point of fact, in the Old Testament God is not seldom described as a FaAher to Israel, not only in virtue of His relation as Creator (3 Is. Ixiv. 8, Mai. ii. 10) or as its Redeemer from bondage (Dt. xxxii. 6, Hos. xi. 1), but by reason of His pity, tenderness, and loving-Mndness (see 3 Is. Ixiii. 16, Jer. iii. 4, xxxi. 9, Ps. oiii. 13, and cf. Mai. iii. 17) ; and the title also occurs in the Apocrypha (Wisd. xiv. 3, Ecclus. xxiii. 1, 4, li. 10, Toh. xiii. 4). What Jesus really did was not to introduce a novel conception of Godj but to make a not unfamiliar aspect of Him a more efiective motive for influencing individual conduct. In current thought and practice God was principally viewed as the Father of the nation (though see Wisd. ii. 16), whilst the loving side of the Divine parenthood was obscured by a sense of God's transcendent dignity, creating a meticulous fear of infringing the honour due to Him (cf. Mai. i. 6) ; Jesus, however, sought to lead men to think of Him as of One in Whom every member of God's People might repose perfect confidence, just as a child trusts fully his earthly father. Yet there was no lack of sternness in our Lord's teaching about God. The measure which men meted to others would be returned to them {Mt. vii. 1, 2 = Lk. vi. 37, 38) ; the unforgiving would be unfor- given ; and the reparation due to fellow-men but not rendered here, would hereafter be exacted by God to the uttermost (Mk. xi. 25 (cf. Mt. vi. 14, 15), Mt. V. 25, 26 (= Lk. xii. 58, 59) ). The mercy which men desired from ^ The shorter form of the Lord's Prayer found in Lk. must be more original than the longer in Mt., for it is incredible that if the latter were the earlier versiou.it would have' been reduced in compass. In Mt. the Doxology occurs only in the later uncials E G K L, etc., and in the Lat., the Syr. (cur. pesh. pal.), and some other versions. ^ Cf. the Parable of the Two Debtors in Mt. xviii. 23-35. 604 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY God, and which He was prepared to show to them, was conditional upon their displaying like compassion to their fellows (Mt. xviii. 21-35). Jesus thus depicted God's love for mankind as having in view their moral perfection : in His thought human salvation meant redemption from sm and its replacement by righteousness and holiness.^ The emphasis put by popular Christianity upon God's mercy, without any proportionate stress upon the stringent terms conditioning it, is a caricature of its Foun- der's attitude. Who insisted that only sin repented of and forsaken was pardonable, and the sincerity of the repentance and the reformation would be judged by One Who could read men's hearts. The Gehenna of fire of which He spoke (see Mh. ix. 43-48, Mt. x. 28 = Lk. xii. 5, and of. Lk. xvi. 23 f.), even if only a metaphor, must have represented in His mind a terrible reality. The profound confidence which our Lord placed in God's care for His creatures is one of two factors that must be taken into account in considering the aspect in which He viewed property and wealth. He could call upon men to lay aside anxiety about the morrow and its needs because He felt assured that God was fuUy acquainted with their necessities, and, if it was for their ultimate welfare, would satisfy them. It was, however, rendered clear both by other utterances of His {e.g. Lk. xvi. 20, Mt. viii. 34) and by His own actual experiences that God's servants cannot with perfect certainty and in all circumstances expect to be sustained or pro- tected by Him in a world which He in part governs by physical laws and in part allows to be controlled by free human agents whose motives are often evil. God's love for the dutiful and trustful will be realized in the long run ; but it may not be in this stage of existence, but only in the next. The other factor was the conviction which He entertained that the interval destined to elapse before the crisis which was to usher in the Divine Kingdom would be brief. It was natural that having this expecta- tion He should regard the husbanding of possessions and the exercise of anxious forethought about them as superfluous in an age hastening to its end. The like anticipation was a motive that led His followers after His death to adopt for a while a voluntary form of communism (p. 499), But Jesus, in exhorting men to give and to lend to all who begged or borrowed, had no thought of promoting an economic revolution, or of advocating a uniform distribution of wealth (cf. Lk. xii. 13-15). The notion of transforming the circumstances of earthly Ufe through a recon- struction of society must have been as far from His mind as was the notion of disturbing the existing poUtical relations of Judaea and Rome {Mk. xii. 13-17). AH such ideas, even if it is imaginable that they ever occurred to Him, were precluded by the shortness of the time for putting them into practice. But though He expected all earthly institutions to be replaced speedily by a Divine Kingdom supernaturally revealed, it is not true that Jesus' moral precepts as a whole were only adapted for the short interim that was expected to precede the end of the present age. He clearly thought of the Kingdom of God as a realm wherein the * Cf. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, p. 36. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 605 ruled would be like tlieir Ruler, and where consequently good will and love would be universal, though the manifestation of such qualities would presumably take other forms than those pecuhar to earthly conditions. The ethical principles which He enjoined He did not deem to be valid for a brief interval only ; He beheved them to be of absolute and per- manent worth. 1 The future felicity, the attainment of which was represented as depen- dent upon obedience, patience, and self-sacrifice in the present was vari- ously represented in its relation to the conditions determining it, according to the particular thought which it was desired to emphasize. (a) Sometimes in order to illustrate God's justice, it was made to appear as recompense for service rendered, the reward being graduated according to desert {Mt. xxv. 14-30, LJc. xix. 11-27). (6) At other times in order to accentuate God's graciousness the recompense was depicted as given independently of what is in strictness due, and as bestowed by way of bounty {Mt. xx. 1-16). (c) And again occasionally the result secured by the observance of the Divine commandments, and the sacrifice of everything impeding achievement of the desired end was described as life (Mk. ix. 43-47), man's true goal being the perfection which marks the living and eternal God Himself (cf. Mt. v. 48). What was distinctive in Jesus' reUgious teaching viewed in detail will be best brought into relief by comparing it with the ideas and hopes prevailing among various sections of His contemporaries. In general, both national independence and the moral purification of Israel itself entered into the conception of salvation cherished by the religious classes. The section in which selfish and party considerations were uppermost was that of the Sadducees, who were chiefly interested in safeguarding the authority and privileges which they enjoyed through their possession of the priesthood, and who lacked the religious hope inspired by the belief (which they rejected) in a resurrection to another life after death (p. 101). With them our Lord came into collision through the stir which His Per- sonaUty and teaching occasioned among the people, and which seemed to threaten their tenure of power by exciting the suspicions of the Romans. To another section, which, like the Sadducees, pursued political schemes, though with a different aim from theirs, no reference occurs in the New Testament, though it looks as if one of Jesus' disciples at one time belonged to it {Mk. iii. 18, cf. Lk. vi. 15). This was the party of the Zealote (p. 103), to whose fanatical and reckless patriotism, Jesus' idea about the Kingdom of God, and the means by which its advent was to be promoted, was altogether opposed. It is probable that He had their schemes in mind when He inculcated the principle of non-resistance to exactions and tyranny,^ wishing men to understand that the estabUshment of the Kingdom could never be advanced by violent and bloody enter- prises. With the views of the Pharisees, so far as these were indisposed ' Cf. Moftatt, Theology of the Gospels, p. 60. ' That the Fourth EvangeUst did not thmU that Jesus meant the direction in Mt. v. 39 to be carried out quite literally appears from what he records in Joh. xviii. 22, 23. 606 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY to take up arms against Rome, trusted that God would rescue them from subjection by some supernatural act, and believed that they could best hasten His vindication of them by repentance for the past and a closer adherence to His Laws for the future, Jesus was in accord ; but at the same time, from their conception of the kind of jconduct that would win, and of the nature of the sins that would forfeit, the Divine approval, His own convictions diverged widely. Injustice is liable to be done to the religious sentiments of many Pharisees if the traits which evoked severe denunciation from Jesus are treated as being universal among them, and if spiritual elements are regarded as altogether absent. They professedly held that participation in the Kiagdom of God was contingent upon faithful service ; and that obstinate sinners, even if of Jewish descent, would be excluded from it, whilst the righteous of other nations would have a place within it.^ Never- theless to the preaching of John the Baptist most of them turned a deaf ear (cf. Lk. vii. 30), through their confidence in the prerogatives of their race ^ ; whilst between them and Jesus there was even greater variance, hinging upon a different estimate of God's character. In the view of the Pharisees at large all parts of the Law represented the mind of God, and equally demanded obedience.^ The provisions relating to the various classes of sacrifices, to the kinds of food that might or might not be eaten, to the avoidance of ceremonial uncleanness, and to the measures to be undertaken if it were accidentally contracted, were of Divine origin no less than the commands enjoining moral duties. And since the written code was not sufficiently comprehensive and precise to settle all questions that might arise through the great variety of human circumstances, the commands of the Pentateuch had been supplemented by the oral traditions of the Scribes (p. 97), adhesion to which was con- sidered to be a duty as binding as obedience to the Law itself. This anxious solicitude to carry out the Law to the letter, though it was com- patible, in the finer characters, with true spirituality (cf. Mh. xii. 32^34), was liable to produce among persons of a more ordinary type, results of a very unsatisfactory kind, (a) It tended to destroy all sense of the intrinsic superiority of the ethical over the ceremonial regulations of the Law, and even to cause the subordination of the former to the latter when they came into collision, for it is so much easier to be careful about the formal rites of religion than to cultivate the social virtues or the graces of character. (6) It fostered the idea that so long as the outward conduct was beyond censure, the motive that prompted it was negligible, (c) The effort to obey a legal system must often have checked spontaneity of devotion, and impaired the idea -which men were meant to have of God's nature, [d) It was apt to create in those who succeeded in keeping the ceremonial Law better than others a feeling of intense seK-satisfaction and a profound contempt for their laxer countrymen (cf. Lk. xViii. 10). ' Montefiore, Teaching of Jesus, pp. 61, 62, 66. " ML iu. 9 = Lk. iii. 8. ' Nevertheless the Talmud contains the statement — " What is hateful to thee do not to thy neighbour : that is the Law, all the rest is commentary." THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 607 (e)_The reputation wHcli accrued to the pious in proportion to their diligent practice of the Law was conducive to hypocrisy, since the less epnsoientious sought to gain a character for being reUgions by acts of formal devotion which were beUed by the principles ruling their conduct in social relations. Yet if religious duty really consists in the strict observance of a body of external regulations, of all of which God was the Author, there was nothing unreasonable in the endeavour to adjust discrepancies or explain obscurities by the deliberate conclusions reached by learned men ; and Jesus, in describing the traditions of the Scribes as having only human authority, in contrast to the injunctions of the Law as being the Word of God [Mk. vii. 9-13), appears, on the surface, to be showing as much reverence as the Pharisees for the written code with a less practical realiza- tion of the difficulties of its interpretation. But in point of fact, our Lord penetrated beneath the letter of the Law to the principle underlying it. He regarded its collective enactments as designed to express the will of a Deity Whose supreme attributes were His justice and benevolence, and Who sought the true welfare of His creatures ; so that conflicting regulations ought to be judged by reference to this principle. Imitation of the Divine goodness should accordingly be the rule for human conduct ; and the truest way of honouring God was to serve mankind. This con- viction that love and pity and impartial justice between individuals were characteristics of God thus became a touchstone for determining which of the oommands of the Law was most important, whenever a collision ooGurred between them. Consequently the relief of human want or suffer- ing, -and the performance of duties to parents or dependants, took prece- dence over the discharge of ceremonial requirements, though these were to be observed when not overruled by higher considerations (Mk. i. 44, Mt. xxiii. 23 = Lk. xi. 42). Fundamentally, indeed, the commands of the Law were as permanent as heaven and earth (Mt. v. 18 ^ = Lk. xvi. 17) ; but siuce inward sincerity was essential to rehgion, conventional religious observances were better disregarded if the reaUty of the feeling they purported to express was absent (Mk. ii. 19, 20). Even social arrangements which had the explicit sanction of the Law, if they violated principles to which the facts of human nature bore witness, were open to criticism. The ideas governing our Lord's teaching, as compared with those to which the Scribes and Pharisees attached importance, were illustrated by the decisions He enunciated in the course! of discussions concerning the Sab- bath, defilement, fasting, vows, and divorce. (a) Rest from work on the Sabbath was prescribed in the earhest code of the Pentateuch as well as in the latest (see Ex. xx. 8-11, xxiii. 12 (E), xxxiv. 21 (J),. Lev. xxiii. 3 (P), and enforced by a narrative recoimting how a man who gathered fuel on that day was put to death by Divine sanction (Num. xv. 32-36, see p. 386). Moreover, in later Jewish history the scrupulousness with which pious Jews observed the injunction was ' In view of the context it seems necessary to regard the words fws dv TrdvTo, yh7)Tai. as a gloss on " till heavet and earth pass away " (of. MoNeile, St. Mt. p. 59). 608 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY strikingly exemplified by an incident in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes (p. 32). The prohibitions of Sabbath work contained in the Law had been elaborated by the Scribes ; and though it does not appear that necessary labour on the Sabbath was forbidden (see Lh. xiii. 15), yet every concession was hampered by restrictions. By our Lord the obligation of the Sabbath rest, imposed as it was by a Law which He as well as they regarded as of Divine origin (Mk. vii. 13), was not denied ; but when the Pharisees complained that His disciples were breaking the Sabbath by plucldng ears of corn on that day, He refused to subordinate to the Scribes' interpretation of the commandment the duties of mercy and humanity ; and was able to cite precedents which His opponents were forced to recognize (p. 386). He might, indeed, have appealed to the principle expressly represented as dictating the rule of the Sabbath rest in the earliest of the Pentateuchal codes, namely, that it was designed to secure repose and refreshment for all who laboured, and consequently ought in no way to be an impediment to the rehef of human necessities (see Ex. xxiii. 12 (E) ; contrast xxxi. 12-17 (P) ). But though He did not actually go behind the later precepts of the Law to the regulations of an earlier time which were marked by a different spirit. He aflfirmed the principle impUoit in them, namely, that the Sabbath was intended to be a blessing and not a burden, by declaring that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. And later when He saw in the synagogue on the Sabbath a man with a withered hand, He did not, as He might have done, bid him come to Him on the next day (since the case was not urgent), but healed him on the spot. On neither occasion did He repeal the Law of the Sabbath ^ ; but when the prophetic principle was at stake that God desired mercy and not sacrifice (Hos. vi. 2) our Lord did not hesitate to reassert it. (6) A conspicuous feature of religious practice amongst the Jews was the habit of frequent ablutions both of the person and of utensils in order to remove causes of ceremonial defilement {Mk. vii. 3, 4). This usage had its origin in the beUef, transmitted from primitive times, that various objects (such as a human corpse or the bodies of certain beasts and reptiles) were sources of mysterious danger which infected all persons and things that came in contact with them, and which could be communicated through touch by these to others (see Num. xix. 11, Lev. xi. 24 f .).' Where contamination was known to have been incurred, particular rites of puri- fication were prescribed ; but besides such occasional lustrations, regular washings were practised with a view to counteracting inadvertent defile- ment. The conception of uncleanness which such washings presupposed was essentially external, and to this our Lord's view of what constituted defilement was diametrically opposed. So when wonder was expressed that His disciples ate bread with "defiled" hands. He declared that real pollution came not from without but from within and had its seat in ^ For instances in the earliest sources of Jesus' observance of the Law and His inculcation of obedience to it see Mk. i. 44, xiv. 12, Mt. v. 18 (= Lk. xvi. 17), xxiii. 23 (= Lk. xi. 42) ; of. also Mt. xxiii. 2, 3, xvii. 27. " See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 446 f. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 609 the heart, whence evil thoughts had their origin. What caused a man to be defiled in the sight of God was nothing external which could be removed by outward purification, but an inward disposition of the will, deliberately harbouring the malign suggestions to which human nature was liable. The spirit of man (He implied) could only be polluted by spiritual foulness ; and in the light of such a principle, contact with anything physical, clean or unclean, became religiously a matter of indifference {Mh. vii. 14^23). (c) In the Mosaic Law a single annual fast was enjoined, namely on the Day of Atonement, to which at a later age others were added in com- memoration of certain signal calamities sustained by the Jewish people (Zech. vii. 5, viii. 19) ; whilst in our Lord's time there were also two weekly fasts. The fact that there existed in the Law an explicit direction to fast on a particular occasion makes it difficult to suppose that our Lord was altogether opposed to fasting hy rule. But the multiplication of fasts was based on the belief that self-mortification in itself gave satis- faction to God, and averted His wrath ; and this tended to impair the sincerity of the religious life, wherein the external manifestation of joy or sorrow should correspond to the inward emotions. Hence Jesus defended His disciples for their non-observance of the fasts practised by the Pharisees and the followers of John the Baptist, on the ground that such were not in consonance with the sense of joyous satisfaction which His followers derived from His presence among them. Nevertheless Jesus recognized that religion appealed difierently to various tempera- ments ; and that the asceticism of John the Baptist, so far as it was a genuine token of humility and penitence, had, no less than His own less austere manner of life, its defence and justification {Mt. xi. 16-19 = Lh. vii. 31-35). {d) The tendency of the Scribes to promote (as they imagined) the honour of God even at the cost of annulling and destroying the most solemn obligation subsisting between men led them to decide that if any- one vowed to God something which might otherwise have been appHed to the relief or comfort of his nearest relations, the vow held good ; and the mere fact that by a hasty word some property of value had been dedicated to sacred purposes, was held to prevent it from being used for any other. This ruling, which rated the formal service of God higher than the service rendered to Him through the discharge of family and other human obligations, was declared by our Lord to amount to the cancelling of a divine commandment by a human regulation. The teach- ing of the Scribes, though designed to conserve God's dignity, really derogated from it, since it subordinated the performance of a duty, having for a moral God a high value, to an offering which for Him could be of no intrinsic worth. (e) A declaration respecting divorce was obtained from Jesus through an effort made by the Pharisees to induce Him to give a decision on a question which was debated between the supporters of two Eabbis, Hillel and Shammai. The Law enacted that adultery on the part of a woman should be punished by her execution, her paramour being put to death with her {Dt. xxii. 22, cf. Lev. xx. IQ, Joh. viii. 5) ; and i^ sucl^ a, 39 610 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY case the wronged husband was free to marry again. The Law also allowed a man to put away his wife " because he had found some unseemly thing in her," the divorced woman, and a fortiori the husband, being permitted to marry a second time (Dt. xxiv. 1, 2). There was thus no room for dispute that divorce was permitted by the Mosaic Law ; but the Law did not explain what was meant by " some unseemly thing," which was interpreted by the disciples of Shammai to signify unchastity only, but by those of Hillel to cover trivial oSences.^ Jesus, in giving His decision, restricted divorce further than even the school of Shammai, and asserted that the right of divorce was only a concession to men's hardness of heart ; according to the original purpose of God, as implied in Gen. ii. 27, marriage was indissoluble (Mk. x. 11, Lk. xvi. 18). The principle affirmed by Jesus was reasserted by St. Paul as regards marriages where both parties were Christians, for he directed (and expressly afiinned that his direction was the Lord's) that a wife was not to depart from her husband (if she did, she was to remain unmarried or else be reconciled to him) and that a husband should not leave his wife (1 Cor. yii. 10, of. Som. vii. 2-3). But where one of the partnera was an unbeliever, and left the other, the Apostle seems to have modified the com- prehensive principle laid down by the Lord, and declared (1 Cor. vii. 15) that the believing partner was not under bondage in such cases (i.e. apparently was not bound to consider the union permanent, but was free to marry again). But even in respect of marriage subsisting between professing Christians, it might be contended, in view of our Lord's habit of making comprehensive statementa requiring qualifications suggested by reflection and experience (p. 598), that His assertion of the indissolubility of marriage presented an ideal ' which, in view of the actual conditions of life, could not be uniformly maintained ; and that where departures from it were expedient, the circumstances in which they were admissible must be left (at least for ChristiaJis) to the Christian society to determine. This seems to be the explanation of the addition with which the First Evangelist (Mt. v. 32, xix. 9) qualifies the prohibition of divorce and remarriage in Mk. x. 11, the inserted clause " except for fornication " representing the judgment of the contemporary Church as to one, though the sole, ground upon which a marriage might be dissolved and seemingly remarriage sanctioned. If so, the Evangelist, or those whose opinions he expresses, held the same view as the school of Shammai. It is difficult to account quite satisfactorily for Mt.'s use of irapcKTbs '\&YOV TTopvela^ and fj.7] itrl iropveL(ff where iioLx^ias and fj-otx^ig. might be expected, but it seems more natural to assume that the term employed is meant to embrace post-nuptial, as well as pre-miptial, unchastity than to confine it to the latter only (which cannot be supposed to be worse than the former), or to take it to mean prosti- tution in the strict sense (cf. Hos. ii. 5).' This brief comparison will suffice to throw into reUef the different way in which the contemporary leaders of religion and our Lord viewed religious problems, and to exemplify how remote the spirit of Jesus was from the rigid but casuistic legalism of the Pharisees. It has been seen that in the early utterances of our Lord the Kingdom of God was a reality expected to be manifested in the future. This is clear not only from the announcement with which His ministry opened, that ^ The supporters of HiUel included among adequate causes of divorce even such a trifle as burning the husband's food. (Driver, Dt. p. 270.) ^ Cf . the idealistic, but generally impracticable, principles enunciated in Mt. v. 33-42, vii. 1. ' For discussions of the whole question, issuing in conflicting conclusions, see Charles, The Teaching of the New Testament on Divorce ; Chase, Whai did Christ teach about Divorce ? THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 611 the Kingdom was at hand {rjyyixev ^ PaacXela rov Oeov),^ but also from the fact that men were bidden to pray for its coming (Mt. vi. 10 = Lk. xi. 2). In strictness, however, the term ^ Paadeia rov 6eov means God's " reign " rather than God's " realm," so that a community yielding present obedience to God amidst an evil world would constitute a " Kingdom " of God. Such a Kingdom was, in idea, to be looked for in the Jewish people as a race, since they in a degree beyond the other nations of the earth were acquainted with the Divine requirements. The great majority of them, however, so far from receiving Jesus as a messenger from God, empowered to instruct them, forced Him to withdraw from their synagogues and sought His life. In these circumstances He began to despair of saving His countrymen as a whole ; and it was in the small band of disciples, who within the racial Israel adhered to Him and accepted His teaching, that He saw the spiritual and essential Israel of God. This conception seems to be implied in the choice of Twelve, corresponding to the number of the IsraeUte tribes (cf. Mt. xix. 28 = Lk. xxii. 30), to be His intimate companions and missioners (Mk. iii. 14, vi. 30). The same idea underUes the term ecclesia, which, though within the Gospels it is only found in Mt. xvi. 18, xviii. 17, (see p. 612), yet from its currency amongst His followers, immediately after His death, would seem to have been employed by Him. The word occurs in the LXX as one of the renderings (the other being Synagoge) of the Hebrew terms eddh and kahdl, both meaning " assembly," especially of the Israelite people ; and since the assembly of Israel was represented as the Lord's assembly (Dt. xxiii. 2, Mic. ii. 5, cf. Neh. xiii. 1, Ecclus. xxiv. 2), it was probably in consequence of this that Jesus adopted it to denote the body of His followers. These, as already conforming to the laws of the future Kingdom, could be regarded as potentially included in it ; indeed, since, so far as the influence of Jesus was manifest in an inward change of heart,^ it was evident that the Kingdom of God in the sense of His acknow- ledged sovereignty was already present, at least within a narrow circle. Although it was not yet consimimated as it was designed to be in the future, the first stages of its realization were actually accomplished. Its potency was active in Himself, and was manifested by His control over demon powers (Mt. xii. 28 = Lk. xi. 20). And if the Kingdom was regarded as having its visible inception on earth in the collective body of Jesus' disciples, it becomes intelligible how one as great as John the Baptist could be pronounced to be not, as yet, included within it. Over this " Assembly of God " (cf. Acts xx. 28) the Apostles can have exercised no authority during their Master's lifetime on earth ; they only enjoyed a closer intimacy with Him and the privilege of fuller instruction {Mk. iv. 10, 11, 34, vii. 17, x. 10) than the rest. They were, hke Jesus Himself, preachers of repentance and healers of disease ; and the name " Apostle " had reference to their being " sent forth " in these capacities ^ For other passages implying that the kingdom was in the future see Mt. viii. 11 = Lh. xiii. 25, Mk. xiv. 25, ^ Cf. Lh. xvii. 21. In the only other passage in the N. T. where evri! occurs, it means " within " and not " among " (see Mt. xxiii. 26), though it has the latter sense in various passages of classical authors. 612 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (inolrjaev dcbdexa . . . ha dnouTiXXf] a^roi? xrjQiiaaeiv), the word being thus equivalent to "envoys " or " emissaries." Nevertheless, in the choice and appointment of these there was the germ of an organization which came into existence after Jesus' death ; and even whilst Jesus lived the body of His followers entered upon its career as a society. Though stiU within the pale of Judaism, it was marked by attachment to One whom the rehgious leaders of the people rejected, and by the adoption of His rule of life. Inclusion in this Society (forming a sphere within which certain qualities of character, fitting men for admission into the con- summated Kingdom, could develop) was probably accompanied by submission to the rite of Baptism. It is not actually stated in the earhest documents, Mk. and Q, that this was enjoined by Jesus upon His followers. But He Himself had been baptized by John ; and, inasmuch as the tenor of His earliest preaching was the same as John's (cf. Mh. i. 15 with Mt. iii. 2), it seems most likely that He required of those whom He moved to repentance the same symbohcal act of inmiersion in water (cf . Mk. i. 4, 5, 8). Indeed, the circumstance that after our Lord's death the Apostles regularly baptized those whom they won over to their own faith finds its natural explanation in the supposition that they had previously been accustomed to practise the rite by Jesus' own direction.^ Whether any, and if so, what, form of words was used with it cannot be ascertained ; but it seems most likely that baptism " into the name of Jesus " came into use after, rather than before, His death, for it implied an acknowledgment on the part of the baptized that they accepted Jesus as the Messiah of prophecy, and Jesus did not openly claim to be the Messiah until shortly before His death (see p. 616), and was finally demonstrated to be such (in the belief of His followers) only by His resurrection from the dead (cf . Acts ii. 32-36, Rom. i. 4). The conclusion that Jesus probably used the term imcXiiala in connexion with the body of His followers is supported (as has been aaid) by the employment of it, after His death, by His Apostles ; but that the actual utterances containing it which are found in Mt. xvi. 18, xviii. 17 are authentic is difficult to believe. In the case of the second passage its genuineness seems improbable in view of the authority implicitly ascribed to the f /c/cXT/iria ; for the Christian brotherhood is not likely to have exercised such authority over its individual members so long as Christ was with it. The infer- ence seems reasonable that the whole section (Mt. xviii. 15—20) " in its present form belongs to a date when the Church was already an organized Body." ^ This is con- firmed by the language of v. 20, which clearly has in view Christ's spiritual Presence with His Church' (cf. 1 Cor. v. 4). The section Mt. xvi. 17-19 is even less likely to have proceeded from our Lord. It seems impossible to suppose that if a pre-eminent position among the Apostles had really been given to St. Peter by his Master as is here implied, there could have arisen between them later any dispute as to which of them was the greatest {Mk. ix. 34). The passage seems to reflect the position and leadership which St. Peter acquired amongst the disciples after the Crucifixion, by reason partly of his tendency to take the initiative {Mk. viii. 29, ix. 5, xi. 21, xiv. 29, cf . Joh. xviii. 10) and partly of his being the first to see the Risen Jesus (1 Cor. xv. 5) and the influence ' Cf . Headlam, The Doctrine of the Church, pp. 39, 40. " MoNeile, St. Matt., p. 266. ' This seems to negative the idea that our Lord by the Mcclesia in this passage meant the local Jewish Mcclesia to which both the oflender and [the offended belonged (Hort, Christian Mcclesia, p. 10). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 613 which he in consequence probably exercised upon bis companions (cf . Lie. xxii. 32) ; and, like Mt. xvui. 17, it points (v. 19) to a time when the Church was an organized community, wherein St. Peter, with the rest of the Apostles (of. Mt. xviii. 18), was the dispenser of the spiritual blessings with which the Church was entrusted, determined who should be admitted into it, and decided what its members might or might not do.' That Jesus adopted Baptism as a symbolic rite from the precedent set by John ia probable, since His doing so accounts for the subsequent practice of the Early Church (Acta ii. 38) ; but the particular injunction ascribed to Him in Mt. xxvui. 19, that the Apostles should make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, is difficult to reconcile with the evidence of Acts, (a) It is impossible to think that if such a command had been given, there would have been any question about baptizing Gentiles (Acta x. 47), or that surprise could have been expressed that God had granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life (Acts xi. 18). (b) It is less easy to suppose that a command to baptize into the name of the Trinity was by the Early Church disregarded, and baptism into the name of Jesus (Acta viii. 16, xix. 5) substituted in its stead, than that the Trinitarian formula eventually in Church practice replaced the formula containing only the name of Jesus Christ.' A not improbable conclusion is that the present text of Mt. xxviii. 19 is designed to give the sanction of Christ to contemporary ecclesiastical usage; but since a number of passages in the historian Eusebius reproduce the verse in question in the form iropevd^vres jua^T/reucrare irdpra ra ^dvq ^v Tt^ dvd^ari fiov, it has been inferred by several scholars that this last was the original reading in Mt.,' though there are no variations in the existing MSS., and though in certain passages Eusebius quotes our Lord's command in the famihar form. The earliest Synoptic accounts of our Lord's life thus make it clear that at first He conceived the Kingdom of God to include in general only His own countrymen.* Though quite early in His ministry it was evident that the Pharisees were hostile to Him, and, as being the most influential sect, were certain to carry numbers of the populace with them in their opposition to Him, yet He appears never to have preached outside His own land, and it was only from Jews that He constituted the society that was to be a training-school for the Kingdom of God.® That He contemplated that Gentiles would find a place in the Kingdom is, indeed, apparent from at least one passage in the earliest sources (see Mt. viii. 11, 12 = Lk. xiii. 28, 29). But in view of His declarations about the permanence of the obligation of the Law — see Mt. v. 18 ( = Lk. xvi. 17) and cf. Mt. xxiii. 23 ( = Lk. xi. 42) — it must be supposed that He looked forward to their inclusion as proselytes of Judaism, through acceptance of the Law (interpreted in the light of His own spiritual teaching). In one parable, it is true, viz. that of the Wicked Husbandmen {Mk. xii. 1-12), He appears, at first sight, to represent the Kingdom of God as destined to be transferred from the Jews to the Gentiles ; but probably the predicted ' This is the sense of Mt. xvi. 19 ; the keys are those carried by the steward in the Divine household (cf. Is. xxii. 22, Bev. Hi. 7) and are thus a figure for administrative authority ; whilst " to bind " and " to loose " signify to forbid and to allow respectively and stand for the exercise of legislative authority. " The Teaching of the XII Apostles has both /3an-r(f ei;/ els 6vofi.a Xlarpis Kal TioO Kal 'Aylov IIi-eu/iiaTos and;3. (Is Svo/ia Kvplov (oh. vii., ix.). ' Cf. Foakes-Jackson and Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I. pp. 335-7. On the other hand see J.T.S., July, 1905, pp. 481-572. * In the First Gospel Jesus is represented as expressly forbidding the Apostles to go either to the Samaritans or to the Gentiles (x. 5, of. v. 23). 5 In Mt. viii. 12 the Jews are " the sons of the kingdom," i.e. the original heirs. St. Paul calls Jesus a minister of (i.e. to) the Circumcision (Bom. xv. 8). 614 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY transfer is not from tte Jews to the Gentiles, but from the religious leaders of the Jews to others of their compatriots whom they despised (see p. 438). The prediction in Mk. xiii. 10 that the Gospel was to be preached to " all the nations " occurs in a passage which probably comes from an independent Apocalypse reflecting conditions of the Apostolic age (p. 445 f.). Nevertheless, Jesus' discrimination between the values of the ceremonial and the moral Law reaUy cut at the root of the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and paved the way for the recognition that God would judge each by an ethical standard, independently of the ritual provisions of the Mosaic Law. It is now desirable to consider the Personality of Jesus, so far as it is revealed through His own teaching preserved in Mk. and Q, or, in other words, the Gheistology of the earliest Gospel records. If, as seems prob- able, the narrative of the Baptism is based on intimations conveyed by Jesus Himself to His disciples, it is apparent that our Lord believed Him self to have been endued with the Divine Spirit prior to, and in preparation for. His ministry. And it was certainly through the Spirit of God that He shortly afterwards claimed to cast out demons, in contradiction to the assertion of the Scribes that He expelled them through the power of Beelzebul (or Satan). To a spirit from God was attributed by the Hebrews generally any extraordinary faculty, or even any unusual conduct (madness not excepted).^ But what was pre-eminently regarded as marking the presence of the Divine Spirit was the endowment distinctive of the class of prophets, including not only those who were ecstatics (Num. xi. 25, 1 Sam. X. 10), but also those who, as religious teachers, reasoned with their countrymen in the name of God (2 Is. xlviii. 16, 3 7s. Ixi. 1). There had appeared, however, no prophet for many generations untU the emergence from the wilderness of John the Baptist ; and it was as a prophet that Jesus also both described Himself and was described by the multitudes (Mk. vi. 4, 15, viii. 28, cf. Mt. xxi. 11, 46, Lk. vii. 6, xiii. 33, xxiv. 19).^ But whilst Jesus spoke of Himself as a prophet. He had felt sure, ever since the occasion when He came to John and was baptized by him, that He was something more, that He stood in a closer relation to God, not only than ordinary men, but even than the inspired order of prophets — that He was, in fact, the Messiah, 6 XQiaxoq, of whom these had spoken. So far as it is at all possible to penetrate into our Lord's self-consciousness, and to follow the development of His thoughts, an attempt has already been made to indicate the source of such a conclusion, which seems to have had its origin in a pre-eminent sense of Sonship (p. 366). There were, however, two conceptions of the Messiah. The one was that of a national sovereign of Davidic stock, with whom the title was usually, though not exclusively, associated. The other was that of a celestial Being who would descend from God to judge the world, and who, though for the most part ^ See Judges xiv. 6, 19, xv. 14, Ex. xxxi. 3, xxxv. 31, 1 Sam. xvi. 14. ' So too in Joh. iv. 19, vi. 14 (Acts iii. 22, vii. 37). The usual title, however, by which He was addressed, or aUuded to, by His immediate disciples and by others waS the Aramaic Babbi, or its Greek equivalents dtdd' v/iag), so that it became a pledge not only of a changed mind and purpose, but also of belief in, and acceptance of, Jesus as the final revealer of God's wUl, and so fitted them to receive the Holy Spirit with which He had been endowed, and which He now bestowed from heaven upon His followers, such a gift demonstrating that they who received it stood right with God. UsuaDy this proof followed baptism, supplication for it being accompanied by " laying on of hands " (p. 509) ; but occasionally signs of the Spirit's presence preceded baptism (Acts x. 44-48). Seemingly any Christian could administer the baptismal rite (cf. Acts ix. 18). In general it is faith that is represented as cleansing the heart [Acts xv. 9), though St. James insists that faith without works is dead and has no saving virtue (Jas. ii. 14-26) ; whilst St. Peter directs the minds of his readers to the contemplation of Christ's life on earth, which furnished an example for them to follow (1 Pet. ii. 21, iv. 1, 13). The act of baptism, which ensued upon a convert's confession of faith, was regarded as a symbol of moral cleansing, not as an effectual means of producing it, if an inference may be drawn from the obscure passage 1 Pet. iii. 21. Here the writer, after declaring that in the Ark eight souls were brought safely through water, proceeds " which [i.e. water) also in the antitype brings you to safety, even baptism," and the meaning seems to be that the water of baptism spiritually sustains the baptized {i.e. supports their new resolutions by the pubHo promise involved) as the Flood sustained the Ark, and carries them into safety. The Apostle guards himself from being understood to attribute a mechanical efiect to the rite by adding that what in baptism really saves is the search after God which a good conscience continually pursues.^ There may be noticed here the various phrases used in connexion with Baptism in Acts. They are (a) ^OTnO^eiv (or PamiCeadai) im tw Svofiari 'Irjoov Xgiarov (ii. 38, with a variant iv) ; (6) ;8.v iv rco dv6/iari I. X. (x. 48) ; (c) (3. elg rd ovo/j,a ToiT /. X. (viii. 16, xix. 5). Of these the expression PoTTill^eiv iv T(j) Svdfiart seems to relate to the form of words used, " to baptize with the name " ; wMlst /?. im to) dvdfiuTi is virtually equivalent to this and means " to baptize after the name " (cf. xexXfjaBai im xivi). But p. eIq tb dvofia appears to imply a consecration to the service of the Person whose name is used, for this must be the significance of passages like 1 Cor. i. 13, elg to Svofxa UavXov i^omTlaBrjTs ; and 1 Cor. x. 2, navrsg elg t6v Moydarpi i^cuiriaavTo iv rfj veqiih] xal iv Tfi OaXdaar). It wiU be observed that throughout the period covered by Acts the Name in, or into, which converts to the Christian faith are represented as being baptized is that of Jesus Christ, or the Lord Jesus, not that of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts ii. 38, x. 48 (Peter), viii. 16 (Philip), xix. 5 (Paul) ). It is extremely difficult to think that if the name of the Trinity were really used baptismally in the early Apostolic Church ' In favour of construing eh 6e6v with iirepihTriua ia the parallel use of the same preposition after drepurap in 1 Kg. xi. 7. But see Bigg, St. Peter and St. Jude, p. 165. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 629 there would have been so little trace of it in Acts ; and the circumstance throws doubt upon the authenticity of the command in Mt. xxviii. en- joining it (see also p. 613). Baptism marked the inclusion of believers ^ within the Church (ij iKKXrjala). This term, which was probably, though not quite certainly, employed by Christ Himself (p. 611), was at any rate used from very early days by Christians to designate their united body (Acts v. 11, viii. 1, xi. 26). Each of the Christian communities in the several cities where converts were made could be called an ecclesia (see 1 Thess. i. 1, 1 Cor. i. 2, Rom. xvi. 1, Rev. i. 4, ii. 1, 8, 12) ; but their members were all included in one comprehensive ecclesia. The term implied that the Christians, through believing Jesus to be the Messiah, were the Spiritual Israel, the Jews, though bearing the name of Israel, having showed themselves through their unbelief to be no true part of it (cf. Rom. ix. 6, 7). And as an indication that this was the light in which the Christians in the early Apostolic age regarded themselves is the fact that they continued to worship in the Temple {Acts iii. 1, v. 42), though they gathered in turn at each other's houses for prayer and other religious purposes. Their private gatherings did not replace, but only supplemented, the Temple services ; and so long as they were tolerated, they did not segregate themselves from their fellow-Jews. The principal end for which they met privately was to preserve, by a solemn Breaking of Bread together, the memory of the Last Supper. This apparently formed part of an ordinary meal {Acts ii. 42, 46, cf. 1 Cor. xi. 20, 21), occurring in the evening, especially on the first day of the week {Acts XX. 7, 8). The act of sharing a meal in common, the bread being broken and the wine drunk after the example set by their Master when He was last with them, and the words He used on that occasion repeated, must have conveyed a mysterious sense of continued union with Him, and through Him with God. Whether it was also regarded as an em- blematic foretaste of the Messianic banquet (cf. Mt. viii. 11, Mk. xiv. 25) there is nothing to show. There is no evidence to prove that the offering of the accompanying thanksgiving {evyaQiarla, 1 Cor. xiv. 16, cf. Acts xxvii. 35) for the boon alike of material food and spiritual sustenance was restricted to any Church officials, though presumably this function was ordinarily discharged by some one invested with authority (see p. 631), if such were available. Nothing, however, is said that " would justify us in thinking that if a body of Christians were present with no duly appointed minister they would abstain from the Breaking of Bread."^ Nor is there anything to decide whether the bread and the wine were distributed to each person by the presiding official, where one was present, or by a substitute in his absence, or whether they were passed around. Another ceremony practised was that of the Laying on of hands. This, ^ This was one of the terms employed by Christians to designate themselves (see Acts ii. 44, iv. 32) ; others were " the brethren," " the disciples," " the saints " (Acta XV. 1, 32, xi. 26, xiv. 28, ix. 32, 41 ; of. Rom. viii. 27, xU. 13, 1 Cor. vi. 1, etc.). The name " Christians " seems to have originated among the heathen populace (p. 521). " Cf. Headlam, The Doctrine of the Church, p. 81. 680 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY accompttnied by prayer, was observed on various occasions, including tlie Etijpointmcnt of persons to an office {Ads vi. 6, and cf. j). 503), the choice and dispatch of emissaries from the Church on a misHJonary enterprise {Ads xiii. 3), and supplication for the bestowal of the Holy Spirit (Acta viii. 15-17, cf. xix. 6). The precise significance attached to the act of laying on of liands is left quite obscure, though it seems to have been associated with the bestowal of a blessing. It is noteworthy that, whilst on two occasions the religious rapture, associatiul with the descent of the Holy Ghost, followed this rite, on another the like sjiiritual ecstasy was experienced by certain Gentiles even before they had received Christian baptism (Acts x. 44-47). After the death of Jesus the need for some sort of authority in the Church would quickly arise ; and so long as His Apostles lived thoy would naturally occupy the position of leaders. This (it would appear) was in consequence not so much of any formal commission of authority given them by Christ in His lifetime to exercise government over the Church after His departure as of their special competence to transmit His teaching. ^ After His death they were the surest source whence new disciples could derive a knowledge of Christian principles, and probably of Christian interpretations of prophecy ; they constituted a centre of fellowship in which others could join (see Ads ii. 42) ; they were regarded as the respon- sible heads of the community, to whom was entrusted such property as, in the voluntary communism that prevailed, was devoted to the general needs of the society {Acts iv. 35) ; and they convened meetings of the Church {Acts vi. 2). As the Christian faith extended and communities of Christians became established elsewhere than at Jerusalem, the Apostles at the latter place sent some of their number to these to bring them into relation with the central body, so as to qualify them for receiving whatever privileges this enjoyed {Acts viii. 14 f., cf. xix. 5, 6). To representatives of the Apostles also a missionary of independent disposition like St. Paul deemed it expedient, in the interest of unity, to give an account of his labours {Oal. ii. 2 f.). Amongst the Apostles themselves the lead was generally taken by St. Peter ; but it is plain that he enjoyed no primacy, for he was subject to the control of the whole body, wliich on one occasion sent him and John to see the converts at Samaria, and to which, on another, he gave an explanation of his having baptized and held social intercourse with certain Gentiles (viii. 14, xi. 1 f.). One who was not originally included in the Twelve seems at a later date to have filled a position superior even to St. Peter's. This was James (see p. 255), whose kinship with Jesus probably contributed to his authority in the Church when he became a member of it {Acts xxi. 18, Gal. i. 19, ii. 9). There were others who discharged important functions in the com- munity besides the Apostles. * The next in dignity were those who were ' Cf, Hort, Christian Eccleaia, p. 84. Tho most authoritative passagos are Mi. X. 40 (= Lk. X. 16), xix. 28 (= Lie. xxii. 30) ; cf. also J oh. xiii. 20. " The name was not confined oxclusivoly to the Twelve ; for it is applied to St. Paul, Bamabae, James (the Lord's " brother "), and seemingly to Andronieus and Junias (Bom. xvi. 7). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 631 known as Prophets (1 Gor. xii. 28, Eph. iv. 11, cf. Rev. xviii. 20). These cWed the influence they exerted not to any official standing but to their possession of a certain faculty for emotional speech and a gift of foresight ascribed to the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The duties of " eyangeUsts," " pastors," and " teachers " are sufficiently explained by their names ; aind all of them probably exercised an itinerant spiritual miniBtry. But there was another class of stationary officials who became necessary as soon as it was desirable to give to the Church some adminis- trative organization independent of that of Judaism. The first group of such officials, specially created at Jerusalem for the better distribution of relief to the needy, consisted of Seven persons, who were chosen by the Church collectively and then empowered by the Apostles to act as its agents and representati-vres. This body seems only to have been appointed to meet a temporaiy want ; and later their duties were apparently absorbed by another body called " Elders " or " Presbyters " (Acts xi. 30, XV. 2, XX. 17). These were no doubt the counterpart of the Jewish " elders " (p. 95), though they must have been free from many of the secular responsibilities that rested upon the latter. They were primarily local Church rulers, but gradually came to discharge likewise such spiritual functions as preaching and teacHhg (ef . 1 Tim. v. 17). Since the Apostles in their missionary tours were nnable to stay long at any one city, they were accustomed before their departure to appoint ofhcials with this title to take charge of the Christian commimities which they had cstabhshed in various places (Acts xiv. 23, xx. 17, 1 Pet. v. 1). Such were also called " Overseers " or " Bishops " (imaxonoi), this term describing the oversight which they were expected to maintain over their feUow- Christians in their several locahties, in consequence alike of their age and their authority (Acts xx. 23, 1 Pet. v. 1,2). Eventually the words " Elder " (or " Presbyter ") and " Bishop " became allocated to distinct orders of Chilrch officers, the latter denoting the superior order ; but this occurred outside the period covered by the New Testament writings. The separa- tion of the two orders and the subordination of Presbyters to Bishops was an arrangement demanded by the exigencies of the developing Church and not enjoined by any command of Christ so far as extant evidence shows. 1' Nowhere in the New Testament is the term IeqeXq, the designa- tion of the Jewish priests (Mlt. i. 44, ii. 26, etc.), applied to the elders or any other ministers of the Christian Church, though Christians collectively are' described as fegeis (Rev. i. 6, v. 10, xx. 6, cf. 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9), their relation' to G-od and the world being considered to be the same as that of andient Israel, the priestly nation of mankind (cf . Ex. xix. 6, 3 7s. Ixi. 6, and pp. 23^-4)'; whilst St. Paul uses the verb legovgyelv of ministering the Gospel to' the Grentiles (Rom. xv. 16). Below the Presbyters was another order ^ St. Jerome (quoted by Cohii, Evolution of the CHristvan Ministry, -p'. 27) writes : " liet bishops be also aware that they ate superitir t'b presbs^fers mbre owing to 'custom than to any actual ordinance of the Lord." Possibly the beg innin gs of the monarchical episcopate are reflected in the conduct of Diotrephes described in 3 Joh. 9, 10, not without protest on the part of the writer of that Epistle ; cf. Purchas, Johannine- Problems, p. 14. 632 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of officials called " Deacons " (Phil. i. 1, cf. 1 Tim. iii. S), the name being equivalent to " minister " ; they were perhaps primarily charged with the administration of charity, when the Presbyters became immersed in other duties. It is possible that women could act as such (Rom. xvi. 1), though the term here may mean no more than " helper." All those who served the Church in the several capacities just enumer- ated, as well as in some others, did so because they were, or appeared to be, endowed with certain bountiful gifts (xoQia/iara) from above (Rom. xii. 6 f., 1 Cor. xii. 4 f.). Nevertheless they naturally fell into two distinct classes. Some were universally recognized to possess certain qualifica- tions fitting them for special functions, and did not require, in order to perform them, any commission from the general body of the Church. Among such, no doubt, were the Prophets and Teachers. But there were others who, though none the less ^ted in variotis ways, yet seemed to need public authorization if they were to exert proper influence ; and so they were expressly appointed to such offices as involved the exercise of rule and the management of afiairs. Such were the " Seven," the Presbyters (or Bishops), and the Deacons. The " Seven," who seem to have been intended to meet a particular emergency, were chosen by the whole Christian community at Jerusalem, and were then appointed to their office by the Apostles (Acts vi. 5, 6). Presbyters in the Churches of South Galatia were appointed by St. Paul and Barnabas (Acts xiv. 23) ; but at Ephesus those whom the Apostle at Miletus mentioned as having been made overseers (or bishops) by the Holy Spirit may have owed their position to the action of the local Church guided by precedent. If the Pastoral Epistles are genuine (p. 296 f.), it may be inferred from them that Timothy was appointed a Presbyter by St. Paul acting in conjunction with a body of presbyters (1 Tim. iv. 14, 2 Tim. i. 6), the hands of all being laid upon him ; whilst Titus was commissioned by the Apostle to act as his delegate in Crete and to appoint Presbyters there (Tit. i. 5) after the precedent set by himself and Barnabas in Galatia. It will be seen, from what has been said, that the different orders in the Church appear to have come into existence as the necessity for them arose. As the Christian community was at first only a sect within the pale of Judaism (cf. Acts xxiv. 5, 14), there was at the outset no call for any separate organization. It was only when the Jewish authorities rendered it impossible for the Christians to unite with them for worship or other purposes that the latter had to provide for their own reUgious and social needs ; and they naturally modelled their new arrangements upon those with which they were famihar. From the Synagogue they adopted the Presbyterate ; out of this there was evolved the monarchical Episco- pate, by which it was apparently sought to reproduce the Apostolate ; whilst the Diaconate, which was originally constituted (though with- out this particular title) in order to distribute rehef to the indigent and then discontinued, was afterwards revived under pressure of siimlar urgency. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 633 (c) The Teaching of the Revelation The book of Revelation was probably composed, at least in its present form, in tte latter part of the reign of Domitian, perhaps between a.d. 90 and 96 (p. 333), so that it is later by some thirty or thirty-six years than the latest of the Pauline Epistles. But development of thought does not uniformly keep pace with succession in time ; and the theology of Revela- tion is of a somewhat primitive character. Accordingly consideration will best be given to it here, before attention is turned to the theological con- structions of St. Paul. The book is of a very pronounced Apocalyptic type. Like so many other Apocalypses, it was the production of an age marked by deep depression in consequence of the conditions surrounding the Christian Church. The latter half of the first century a.d. witnessed outbreaks of fierce persecution of which Christians were the victims. Nero (54-68) diverted upon them the odium which his responsibihty for the burning of Eome, had the fact become widely known, would have excited against himself ; whilst under Domitian (81-96) Christianity as a reUgion was more directly proscribed by the State. It was with the aim of encouraging his co-religionists under the severe trial to which they were subjected that a certain John, seemingly a Christian prophet, wrote the work here imder notice, seeking to sustain their courage by holding out the prospect of speedy deUverance for them and of retribution for their adversaries. The author has been greatly influenced by earUer writings and his work is so permeated by the conceptions, vocabulary, and even the style of the Old Testament that it is much the most Hebraic work of any of the books of the New Testament. In a measure it hes in the succession of the prophetic writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. More especially does it recall the Apocalyptic parts of Daniel ; for, like the latter, it is full of sjonbohc animals, numbers, and names. It is not unhkely, indeed, that it incorporates portions of earher productions of Jewish origin, which have been adapted by the author to lus own purposes (p. 334). As might be expected from the object and design of the book, the Eschatology is the most conspicuous and distinctive element in it, the Christology and Soteriology adding comparatively little to the results of previous thought. 1. Eschatology The writer's aim, as has been said, was to comfort his distressed fellow- Christians with the anticipation of a speedy conclusion to their sufferings ; and he claimed to reveal what was shortly to come to pass (i. 1, xxii. 6, 10). He sees in vision a universal and final judgment embracing the dead and the living (xx. 11-13). The Judge is unnamed, but is probably God (xx. 11, cf. Rom. xiv. 10, Dan. vii. 9, 10), though Jesus Himself is to come with the clouds, visible to aU, and causing universal, consternation (i. 7). The judgment is followed by the appearance of a new heaven and a new earth, the vanishing of the sea (the prophet's attitude towards which reflects the idea of the antagonism between Jehovah and the Deep, p. 640), and the 684 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY descent from heaveH of the holy city, new Jerusaletn (cf. p. 108), the destined home for ever of God's faithful servants. But the most i^rominent charaoteiristic of the book's Eschatology is the space given to various events preceding the final judgment scene. These are marked by the activity of certain powers, hostile to Christ's people, which arc symboUcally represented by various figures, viz. (1) a dragon, (2) a beast with ten horns and seven heads, (3) a second beast with two horns (styled the false prophet, xvi. 13), (4) a harlot mounted on a scarlet-coloured beast. These starid tespectively for (1) Satan, (2) the imperial line of the Caesars, (3) the heathen priesthood devoted to the cult of the Emperors, and (4) the city of Eome itself ; and they arc all inflamed with animosity against Christ and His followers. The successive events that occur prior to the universal judgment are (1) the destruction of the harlot Rome (the city on seven hills (xvii. 9) being called symbolically Babylon (xvii. 5, xviii. 2, cf. 1 Pet. V. 13) ) by the first beast, which, froin representing the Caesars, comes to stand for a single emperor (xvii. 11) who is inspired by hatred of his native country and his people (xvii. 16) ; (2) a war between the same beast, aided by the false prophet, against Christ, Who descends from heaven and vanquishes them, afterwards casting them into a lake of fire ; (3) the chaining in the abyss for a thousand years of the dragon, Satan (who gave to the beast his authority), and the reign of Christ on earth with His martyred saints for the same duration of time ; (4) the unloosing of Satan at the close of this period, and a renewed struggle at Harmagedon betwben him, at the head of a host of nations, and the forces of God, resulting in his being cast into the same lake of fire as his minions, the beast and the false prophet. After this there ensues the imiversal judgment. The author in representing the Roman government under the figure of a many-headed and many -horned beast uses the symboUsm of Daniel ; and he also appUes to his own purposes Daniel's symboUc nunabers (xi. 2, xiii. 5, where forty-two months is the equivalent of the three and a half years of Dan. vii. 25, xii. 7). In styHng the nations which Satan gathers for the decisive struggle by the names Gog and Magog he draws upon the apocalyptic prophecy constituting Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix. Har- magedon, in spite of its meaning the mountain of Megiddo, is clearly intended to denote the valley of Megiddo, the scene of more than one great conflict in Hebrew history. The description of the glories of the New Jerusalem in xxi. 10 f . is influenced by 3 Is. Ix.-lxii. But whilst the eschatology thus reflects the imagery of the Old Testament, it also contains features which reproduce contemporary behefs of the Roman world. Nero, who perished by his own hand, was shortly afterwards believed by many not to have died but to be in hiding ^ in Parthia or elsewhere, and was expected to return to take vengeance upon the inhabitants of his Capital. To this expectation the writer seems to refer when he speaks of an Emperoi* who is one of seven and is included among five who have fallen, but Who is destined to return as an eighth (xvii. 11, see p. 333). The name Nerm 1 See Tac. Hist. ii. 8, quoted on p. 333. In Sibyll. Or. v. 27 f. allusion is made to the return of Nero, designated by the numeral 50 (N'). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 635 Kesar, written in Hebtew characters, is the most probable explanation of the numerical cypher 666, since the omission of the final n of Neron, yielding the number 616, accounts for the substitutioh of this figure ill place of 666 in the uncial MS. C and two cursives.^ The ten kings who are described as aiding Nero against Rome can thus be plausibly identified with the kings that came from the sun-rising (xvi. 12) and taken to denote Parthian chiefs, whom Nero, it Was anticipated, would bring with him. The representation of the New Jerusaleln as descending from heaven to earth appears to haVe its roots in the belief prevailing in some of the later writings of the Old Testament that everything round which the religious emotions of the Jewish people more particularly clung had its couilterpart in heaven, where there was supposed to exist the original, of' which the object visible on earth was only an image or copy. The source of such a conception would seem to be a Confusion between the idea of a thing as it fexists in the mind of God Who knows and designs all, and the concrete embodiment of the idea ; the latter is strangely thought of as bemg all the while in heaven, reserved against the due time for its manifesta- tion on earth. Among the singular features in the eschatology of the book is the announcement of a reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years, to share in which all Christian martyrs are expected to rise from the dead before the gCheral resurrection and the destruction of the existing world. This representation embodies the notion (finding expression in certain Apoca- lyptic writings) that between the present age and a future age belonging to a difierent order there will be an interval, which, whilst continuous with the present age, will be marked with great fehcity for God's servants. This is a compromise between the view common in the Old Testament that the endless bliss for the righteous people Of God will ensue, without any abrupt break, upon the fcouditions now prevailitig (see Is. is.. 1-7, Mic. V. 2 f., Jer. xxxiii., Joel ii. 18, iii. 21), and the view that the future age Of happiness will be ushered in by a final judgment accompanied by the disappearance of the present world. The idea of a Millennium has parallels elsewhere, though the particular number of years varies or is left undefined. It occurs in the Apocalypse of Baruch, xl., xlii. " And his (the Messiah's) principate will stand for ever, until the world of corrup- tion is at an end and until the times aforesaid are fulfilled." Then " cortuption will take those that belong to it, and life those that belong to it." It is found also in a difierent and more definite form in 2 Esdras vii. 28. " For my son the Messiah ^ shall be revealed with those that be with him, and shall rejoice them that remain four hundred yeats. And after these years shall my son the Messiah die, and aU that have the breath 1 Among other proposed solutions of the cypher are Aareiris and (on the assump- tion that 6l6 was the original figure), 'k.alcrap 6eiis.and Taios Kaicap (i.e. Gaius Caligula). For the use of a number to represent a name an interesting parallel is quoted from a reoently-found papyrus, " I love her, the number of whose honourable name is 547 " — ^Moulton, From Egyptian Rubbish Heaps, p. 33. ' This is the reading of the Syriao, Ethiopio and Arabic versions ; the Latin hsis "my son Jesus," a Christian modification : see Box, The Ezra Apocalypse, p. 114. 686 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY of life." But ttough the conception in Rev. is in some measure similar, both the expression which it obtains and the motives inspiring it are distinctive. For (a) the period of Christ's reign is fixed at a thouBand years (for which see p. 61) ; (b) Christ does not die at its close ; and (c) there is a preliminary resurrection of mart)rr8 to share it. It seems clear that this representation owes its origin to the persecutions to which Christians were at the time exposed ; and was due to the conviction that the exceptional sufferings of the martyrs entitled them to an exceptional reward, a claim which at a time when a belief was entertained in a general resurrection of all men could best be met by predicting for the martyrs a revival to life prior to that enjoyed by the rest of the righteous. The conflict at Harmagedon initiated by Satan, after being loosed from the abyss at the termination of the Millennium, ia modelled, as has been said, upon the account in Ezekiel of the assault by Gog and his allies upon Israel. In the Old Testament writer the attack is made upon God's people by the most distant nations of the earth, who, previously having heard nothing of Israel's God, at last, in this way experience His might, as He repels them and defends His servants. In the same manner the author of Revelation, after describing the overthrow of the Roman empire and the felicity of God's saints during the thousand years that follow it, supposes that the rest of the heathen world at the close of that period will be incited by Satan to provoke a final display of Divine power, which will be manifested in their destruction. 2. Christology The conception of Christ's Person which the book presents is rather lacking in precision, and the language used, whilst suggesting ideas which obtain more explicit expression elsewhere in the New Testament, leaves the actual views of the writer somewhat ambiguous and obscure. Jesus, described as " like unto a son of man " (i. 13, and cf. Enoch xlvi.), is desig- nated the Son of God (ii. 18, cf. ii. 27, iii. 5, xiv. 1), seemingly being such by origin and in essence, though other men may become the sons of God (xxi. 7, cf. Joh. i. 12, xii. 36). He shares God's throne (vii. 10, iii. 21, xxii. 1) ; and to God and to Him worship is ofiered in common by the inhabitants of heaven and by the redeemed of earth (v. 13, 14, vii. 10, cf . xx. 6). In some passages the title of the " Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last," which is claimed by the Almighty as His own (i. 8, cf. xxi. 6 ') seems to be ascribed to Jesus (i. 17, ii. 8, xxii. 13), Who is also styled the beginning of the creation of God {■^ &Qxh ''^VQ ^f/trecos rov deov, iii. 14), a phrase in which, if xrCaiQ means the physical universe, rj dgy/i may mean that He is the embodiment of the principle governing it (cf. Rom. viii. 28), whilst if it signifies the new creation of redeemed humanity, tJ dgxij may mean that He is the originating Source. The latter is rendered probable by the fact that whereas in iv. 11, xiv. 7 it is God Who is praised as the Creator, in V. 9, 10 Jesus is praised as the Redeemer. Jesus possesses the seven 1 Cf. 2 la. xUv. 6, xlviu. 12. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 637 Bpirits of God, an expression probably denoting the plenitude of tlie Divine energies (iii. 1). One of the principal functions attributed to Him is that of revealing the future. He alone is able to unfold the sealed book of destiny (v. 5) ; and is the faithful witness Who testifies to the Divine purpose, and communicates it to His servants, the Christian prophets ; for the testimony borne by Jesus to God (xii. 17) constitutes the spirit of prophecy (i. 5, 2, xLx. 10). It is perhaps as the channel of Divine revelation that He is called " the Word of God " (xix. 13, cf . i. 9). Like God Himself He searches men's inmost thoughts (ii. 23, cf. Ps. vii. 9, xxvi. 2, Jer. xvii. 10, XX. 12), and He determines who shall be consigned to, or released from, the regions of the dead (i. 18). On the other hand, His participation of God's throne appears as a privilege bestowed upon Him as a recompense for His triumph over temptation and trial (iii. 21). Jesus in His human life is regarded as being sprung from the tribe of Judah and from the house of David (v. 5, xxii. 16). He is entitled " the Lion of the tribe of Judah," the designation going back to the imagery employed in Jacob's Blessing {Gen. xlix. 9) ; and in keeping with the militant associations suggested by it is the martial role in which He figures, making war at the head of the armies of heaven. It is seemingly in consequence of the victory He thus gains over His foes, executing upon them the vengeance of God, that He acquires the name " King of kings, and Lord of lords " (xvii. 14, xix. 16). 3. Soteriology The writer in his opening utterances of praise to Jesus describes Him as One " Who loveth us and loosed ^ us from our sins by His blood " (i. 5). In other passages when alluding to Jesus as the Author of human salvation, he employs for the most part phraseology of a more decidedly sacrificial character. The name most commonly used to designate Jesus is the "Lamb " (v. 6, 12, vi. 1, vii. 10, xiv. 1, xix. 9). The seer beholds in heaven a Lamb standing as though it had been slain, and hears a song of praise addressed to Him, declaring that He had purchased unto God with His blood, men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation (v. 9, xiv. 3, 4). A white-robed midtitude before God's throne are described as having washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb (vii. 14, cf. xxii. 14), whose death had been pre-ordained by God from the foundation of the world (xiii. 8). Because of the shedding of His blood men were able to get the better of Satan, their accuser before God (xii. 11). The figure of the Lamb is most likely derived from 2 Is. liii., a passage which itself reproduces Sacrificial ideas of expiation and atonement (p. 24). But no effort is made by the author of Revelation to penetrate behind the imagery or to explain the necessity of the death of Jesus, and the way in which His blood availed for the remission and purification of sins. He appears to have accepted the idea countenanced in 2 7s. that Christ, through His death, had rendered satisfaction for men's ofEences and had redeemed ^ In i. 5 the reading Xvaavrt. occurs in X A C, and some other authorities : 'Kov Cf. Kennedy, Theology of the Epistles, pp. 155, 156. 644 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY possible that He is expressly called God, and described as "He who is over all, God blessed for ever " (cf. Tit. ii. 13, Joh. xx. 28, 2 Pet. i. 1). If attention is confined to these passages, it is allowable to put upon the Apostle's Christology an Alexandrine interpretation, and to suppose that he meant that the Divine graciousness, evinced in the earthly life of Jesus and in the beneficent purposes which He pursued, was a principle which God had had abiding with Him from eternity, and which had governed the act of Creation from the first. But another passage seems to show that his notion of Christ's pre-existence was not as abstract as this, and that he thought of Christ as pre-existing as an individual Person. For he represents that the Son originally possessed with God a standing such as might have kindled unbounded ambitions ; yet that He did not aspire to grasp at equality with God (as some of the angels may be supposed to have done, ^ or as Adam is described in Gen. iii. as essaying to do *), but divested Himself of His heavenly dignity, assuming, instead, the form of a bond-servant and submitting to the death of the Cross {Phil. ii. 6). This conception of Jesus as having an individual and personal existence with God prior to His birth on earth seems to have Hebraic rather than Hellenic or Hellenistic affinities, and was perhaps derived from the portrayal of the " Son of man " contained in the Similitudes of Enoch (see p. 41) ; for though the Apostle does not use the title " Son of man," he seems to betray familiarity with the idea through his use of the phrase " the (second) man from heaven " (1 Cor. xv. 47).^ And behind it was probably the belief current in Jewish circles that of what had been, or was to be, manifested on earth there existed a counterpart in heaven (p. 108), which might be regarded as descending thence when the person or thing appeared in terrestrial surroundings. How St. Paul imagined the Incarnation of the pre-existent Son to have been effected is not clear. He represents Christ as sprung from the family of David (Eom. i. 3) ; but he nowhere alludes to the Virgin Birth (p. 360). In consequence of the humility and self- sacrifice which He had displayed in taking human flesh and in imdergoing all the ignominy and agony of crucifixion, God had supremely exalted Him, so that to Him every creature, terrestrial, celestial, or infernal, must yield homage {Phil. ii. 10) and render the title of Lord (this being the title used in the LXX as an equivalent for the ineffable name Jehovah, Ex. iii. 15, 2 7s. Iii. 8, etc.). But although the Apostle thus emphasized the high dignity which Christ enjoyed before His appearance on earth, and the glory to which He was raised after His submission to death, yet he retained the Jewish monotheistic faith and affirmed the Son's subordination to the Father, representing that to the latter. Who is termed His God (2 Cor. i. 3, cf. 1 Pet. i. 3, Rev. i. 6, Joh. xx. 17), He was destined to restore all the authority entrusted to Him, and to place Himself in subjection, so that God in the end might be all in all (1 Cor. xv. 28). (b) St. Paul's conception of the Holy (or Divine) Spirit had, like that of 1 Cf. RashdaU, Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology, p. 127. '^ Cf. Kennedy, op. cit. p. 159. j » Cf. Foundalims (by Seven Oxford Men),' p. 173. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 645 other New Testament writers, its links with the Old Testament. In the Jewish Scriptures various capacities and aptitudes, physical, artistic, intellectual, ethical, and prophetic, were ascribed to the gift, coiiferred on favoured individuals, of the Spirit (see Jud. xiv. 6, Ex. xxxi. 3, 7s. xi. 2, 3 Is. Ixi. 1, Joel ii. 28). In the early Church, religious ecstasy, ability to pre- dict the future, possession of qualities leading to office in the Church, and a heightened consciousness of love to God and of moral power were all similarly attributed to the presence of the Spirit as their immediate occasion. The bestowal of the Spirit upon men might be referred to the grace and bounty either of God or of Christ (Rom. viii. 9", and 1 Cor. iii. 16, Rom. viii, 9", Gal. iv. 6). But St. Paul's strongest religious conviction was that his spiritual life was due to his union with Christ (see p. 657), so that he was led not only to regard the dwelling of the Divine Spirit in the hearts of men as equivalent to the dwelling therein of Christ (Eph. iii. 16, 17), but even to identify Christ with the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 17, 18).^ Christ was both the spiritual influence that penetrated and swayed the minds of individual believers, so that He could be said to be " in them " {Rom. viii. 1, 10, 2 Cor. v. 17, xiii. 5, Col. i. 27), and He was also the influence pervading the Church within which believers were included, and enveloping its members like an atmosphere, so that they coidd be likewise said to be " in Him " {Rom. xvi. 7, 1 Cor. iii. 1, 2 Cor. v. 17). Since the heavenly Christ was a Spiritual Being, and since in the case of spiritual realities it is difficult to discriminate between cause and effect, it was almost inevitable that in St. Paul's language the conceptions of Christ and of the Spirit should sometimes merge into one another in the manner illustrated. Yet since he thought of Christ as still an individual Person (cf. p. 644), he might, if called upon to distinguish between Christ and the Holy Spirit, have said that the former was the active Source of the effects manifest in Christians, whilst the latter was the sum of the moral and intellectual energies emanating from Him and present in them. Nevertheless there are passages where he ascribes to the Spirit Itself personal activities (e.g. Rom. viii. 26), and seems to co-ordinate the fellowship of the Spirit with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God (2 Cor. xiii. 14), so that there appears in his writings the germ of the later definition of the Trinity.2 The most important difference between St. Paul and the Primitive Church in general as regards the Spirit related to the value of the various endowments marking individuals in the Church, to which allusion has been made. It has already been noticed that among the gifts of the Spirit mentioned in the Old Testament is prophecy, a word which could describe equally the agitated outbursts of partially intelligible or wholly im- inteUigible speech marking the bands of religious fanatics that roamed about the country in the time of Samuel (1 Sam. x. 5, 6, xix. 23) and the illuminating and impressive addresses of an Isaiah. In the early Church there occurred phenomena similar to both of these varieties of prophecy, * In this passage the words Ka9direp Awl) Kvptov Trvev/iaros seem to mean " as may be expected from the Lord Who is Spirit." " Cf. also 1 Cor. xii. 4-6, Eph. iv. 4-6, and see 1 Pet. i. 2, 1 Joh. iv. 2. 646 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY and it was the first that attracted most attention. The ascription of uncontrollable utterances to Divine influence was not confined to the Christian community ; in other religions rapturous excitement was believed to betoken the descent of a god upon his votaries. In such conditions there was danger of excessive value being attached to the emotional side of religion ; and it was due to St. Paul that " prophesying " and " speak- ing with tongues " were not allowed to be overrated as gifts of the Spirit. Though he did not desire to suppress such outbreaks of pent-up feeUng, he pointed to the virtues of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, self- control, and other moral qualities (Gal. v. 22, 23, Rom. xiv. 17, of. 1 Gor. xii. 28-31, xiii. 1) as the most precious marks of the presence, with the Church, of the Divine Spirit, which for him represented " not so much an ecstatic as an ethical power ^ ; " and by his discriminating judgment he contributed greatly to the maintenance of Church life on sane and sober lines. (c) It has already been shown that St. Paul represented Christ Jesus as exalted by God over all other existences in the universe, giving Him the name (probably KvQiog) that is above every name (Phil. ii. 10, see p. 644) ; but he had occasion to emphasize in particular His superiority to the elemental spirits which were thought to control the movements of the heavenly bodies, whereby the occurrence of holy days (weekly, monthly or annual) was determined and which in this way exercised influence over human fortunes. The Apostle feared that the observance of the Jewish Law, with its festivals and fasts, would bring Christians under bondage to such spirits (Gal. iv. 3), who would be on the watch to exact from them the penalties awaiting infractions of the Law ; so he contended that the bond written in the ordinances of the Law to men's prejudice had been cancelled by Christ. He had nailed this bond to His Cross ; and as He hung there, He had stripped from Himself those principalities and powers which during, and in consequence of. His life in the flesh, had had a hold upon Him ; and had displayed them in triumph, ensuring thereby for all believers freedom from their authority and influence (Col. ii. 8-23). (d) In St. Paul's writings the thought of the Kingdom of God is largely replaced by that of the Church. Although allusion occurs to the kingdom as an inheritance in the future (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10, xv. 50, Gal. v. 21, 1 Th. ii. 12), yet it is also spoken of as a sphere into which Christians had already been translated (Col. i. 13), so that it must have been, ia a measure, identified with the Church. To the Church the relation occupied by Christ is illustrated by a number of metaphors. Sometimes the figure of speech is derived from a building, the Christian community being a sanctuary of which Christ is the chief corner-stone (Eph. ii. 20-22) ; at other times it is drawn from marriage, Christ loving and cherishing the Church as a man does Ms wife (Eph. v. 28-30, cf. 2 Cor. xi. 2). But most often the Church is described as the Body of Christ of which individual Christians are the limbs and members (1 Cor. xii. 27, Rom. xii. 4, 5, Eph. iv. 12). The thought inspiring this conception is the mutual benefit which comes to each 1 MofEatt, Paul and PauUnism, p. 41. THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 647 individual from others through incorporation in a common Society, the importance and value of such union being probably impressed upon him by his experience of the unity of the Roman Empire, cemented as it was by Imperial rule.^ The analogy of the unified State he extended to the Christian community. Though Christ in His distinctive Personality was in heaven, yet He was present through His Spirit in the Church, the constituent members of which became channels for imparting to the rest the advantage of the spiritual gifts with which they were endowed, and also reciprocally derived profit from those which had been conferred upon the others. 3. Soteriology It has been shown that there existed in the Primitive Church the belief that the death of Jesus had been predetermined by God, and that through Him forgiveness of sins was conveyed and salvation obtained {Acts iv. 12, xiii. 38, 39) ; and though an explanation of the way in which His death was connected with the benefit to men of which He was the source had not yet been produced, the search after such was turning towards the prophecy in 2 Is. liii. (see 1 Pet. ii. 23, 24, Acts viii. 30-35). With the tentative speculations that were current St. Paul would become acquainted when he first came in contact with St. Peter, Barnabas, and other members of the Christian body (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 3). But inasmuch as he was not only a man of greater culture than the rest of the Apostles, but had at his con- version undergone an exceptional experience, these circumstances combined to give to his development of the ideas received from others a distinctive character which is discernible in all but the earliest of his Epistles (1, 2 Thess.). By speech a Hebrew ^ and by training a Pharisee he was familiar both with the Old Testament Scriptures (in which he was accustomed to find a clue to God's purposes) and with the body of tradition that had gathered round them ; and in early life he was devoted to the observance of the Law, looking to achieve through obedience to it the righteousness required by God.^ And since the Founder of Christianity had in His teaching disregarded in various ways the traditional interpretation of the Law, he could only suppose that He, instead of being the Messiah, was an impostor, and through the circumstances of His death had incurred the Divine curse [Bt. xxi. 23, cf. 1 Cor. i. 23). But the vision of Jesus in glory (Acts ix.) left him in no doubt that Jesus really was the Messiah ; and this change of intellectual conviction was accompanied by a spiritual revolution, inasmuch as he felt himself endowed with a degree of moral power he had never experienced previously, and with a peace of mind which his efforts to keep the Law had never conferred. These two facts — the endurance of the shaineful death of the Cross by One who was the Messiah, and the inward 1 Cf. MoNeUe, St. Paul, p. 8. ' I.e. a speaker of Aramaic. ' This, if attained, might be termed a man's own (^ lila Smaioavvq, Rom. x. 3, of. Phil. iii. 9). 648 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY transformation which had taken place in himself through faith in Jesus — raised a problem of which he essayed to furnish a solution by a more thorough use of the Old Testament (handled after contemporary methods of interpretation) than had hitherto been attempted. There prevailed in this age a belief that satisfaction for collective sin could be rendered to God through the death of some individual member or members of the sinful community (see p. 620). The belief (it may be supposed) was based partly upon the ideas expressed in 2 7s. liii. and partly upon the analogy of the sacrifice of animal victims enjoined by the Law, such sacrifices being interpreted as substitutionary. It was on these lines that St. Paul sought an explanation of the death of Christ. Although he hardly reproduces the language of 2 Is. liii. at all, yet the ideas conveyed by it seem to lie behind his reference to " the redemption " {ajioXvrgwaig),^ which we have in Christ Jesus {Rom. iii. 24, cf . Col. i. 14), and his declaration to his Corinthian converts that they had been bought {riyoQdadr]aav} at a price (1 Cor. vi. 21, vii. 23).^ Such figures of speech, however little may be the uniformity with which they are worked out in detail, suggest that the Apostle considered that Christ's death was in some sense vicarious, and that on the Cross He, the guiltless (2 Cor. v. 21), underwent the fate deserved by the guilty (cf. Gal. i. 4, ii. 20, Rom. iv. 25, v. 6, 8). The same conclusion is deducible from the metaphors drawn from the Jewish sacrificial system. Although the principle underlying that system is obscure (probably more than one is traceable in it), certain features con- nected with it point to the supposition that the animal victims were thought of as sufiering death in place of human ofEenders whose sins they expiated. To such victims St. Paul likens Christ, describing Him as a sin offering {Rom. viii. 3, cf. 2 Cor. v. 21) ^ ; he speaks of His being set forth by God to make propitiation by His blood {Rom. iii. 25, where the ritual of the day of Atonement is perhaps in his mind) ; and he declares that He gave HimBelf for us, an oSering and a sacrifice {Ej)h. v. 2).* In accordance with the conviction, illustrated by these phrases, that Christ suffered for men as their substitute he represents in forensic language that men are justified by His blood {Rom. v. 9), their acquittal at the bar of God on the counts which were entered against them being secured by His death on their behalf. In the sacrifice thus regarded as necessary for human salvation God is represented as participating in so far as He had not spared His only Son but had sent Him to eSect the redemption of mankind {Gal. i. 4, Rom. viii. 32) ; and hence men could be said to be justified or saved by His grace, since the initial purpose was His {Rom. iii. 1 Cf . 1 Tim. ii. 6, " Christ Jesus Who gave Himself a ransom {ivTiXiTpov) for aU." " The masters from whose control believers had been liberated at auoh cost are variously conceived to be the Law {Oal. iv. 5), or sin (1 Cor. vi. 20, of. Rom. vi. 17, 18), or the evil spirits that were served through the worship of idols {Oal. iv. 8). ' The words Trepl i/j-aprlas and a/xapria in these passages reproduce the phrases used for the sin ofiering in Lev. iv. 3, 25, and other places by the LXX. * Christ is also compared to the Passover Lamb whose blood (according to Ex. xii. 23) preserved the Israelites from the angel wliich destroyed the first-bom of the Egyptians (1 Cor. v. 7). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NT. 649 24, Efh. ii. 5, 8). The benefit of what had been gained for sumeis by Christ was appropriated by them through faith, which was thus the condition of justification {Rom. v. 1).^ But by a substitutionary theory of this simple character St. Paul's inw&id experiences were xmaccounted for. He was sensible of being saved from sin^ not merely assured that he would be spared the consequences of sin ; and so the explanation had to be expanded in order to embrace this foct also. Though the conception of religion entertained by the Pharisees in general was liable to foster formalism and unreality, it cannot be supposed that such traits were universal among them ; and certainly it cannot be doubted that St. Paul had had as a Pharisee a sincere zeal for righteousness. Nevertheless the efforts which he made to attain it were accompanied bv an ever-increasing sense that it was beyond his reach. Though from an external point of view he knew that he fulfilled the Law blamelessly {VMl. iii. 6), he found himself incapable of bringing his nature into complete conformity with the Divine will. The principle upon which the Law proceeded was that (Sod's favour depended on merit, as measured by obedience to His commands (Lev. xviii. 5, cf. Rom. x. 5) ; but with those commands the Apostle's natural instincts and desires came into perpetual collision, and indeed, were only stimulated by the Law's prohibitions (Rom. vii. 7). He was thus conscious of an intense inward struggle,' the inevitable issue of which filled him with despair (Rom. vii. 14-24, cf. Dt. xxvu. 26). And what he knew by experience to be true in his own case he believed to be equally true of others. Amongst mankind at la^e sin and depravity prevailed ; for though this was most conspicuous in the heathen, who were made aware of God's requirements through their reason and conscience (Rom. n. 14, 15), it mark«i the Jewish people also, who possessed His written commandments (Rom. ii. 20, 23). And as the impression thus derived from his own observation was corroborated by various statements contained in the Scriptures, representing wickedness as universal in extent (Ps. xiv. 1-3, quoted in Rom. iii. 10 f.), he was convinced that by Law no flesh in God's sight could possibly be justified. Of the entry among mankind of the ingrained corruption which precluded perfect obedience to the Divine injunctions, the Apostle found (as he believed) a trusrworthy historical account in the book of Genesis. Adam first sinned, and by his sin introduced, if not death,* at least shortened life ' ; involved the natural world in suffering and iaeffectiveness (Rom. viii. 20) ; and also infected human nature with evil, which had its seat in the flesh, and gave to the fleshly instincts a decided bias in a ^ By faith Chiistiaiis are ako said to become tiie sons of Gr the life after death, see p. 47S. 654 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY to conclude that the sacrament of baptism ensured salvation ; and against such an inference St. Paul had to caution some, illustrating the futility of such presumptuous confidence by the fate of the IsraeKtes in the wilderness, who, during their escape from Egypt, had undergone in the Eed Sea an experience analogous to baptism, yet perished in conse- quence of their subsequent ofiences (1 Cor. x. 1-10). In view of this caution, it is the more surprising that he did not express disapproval of vicarious baptism for the dead (1 Cor. xv. 29), which must have originated through the currency of a view about baptism which looked upon it as being in itself a means of salvation independently of moral conditions. Baptism, however, was not the only Christian rite. The Church had received from its Founder the celebration of the Eucharist, instituted by Christ as a memorial of His death and of the new covenant which His Spirit of self-sacrifice was instrumental in establishing. And this view of the rite as a perpetual reminder of the Lord's death until His Return was reaffirmed by St. Paul (1 Cor. xi. 26), who added the further idea that it was a symbol of the unity subsisting between all who partook of it, since they all shared one loaf, and so, though many, constituted one body (1 Cor. X. 17 mg.). The nature of the rite, however, laid it open to another construction. The appeal made to the senses by tjie physical acts of eating the bread and drinking the wine tended to displace in the minds of many the thought of the acquisition of spiritual sustenance by reflection and meditation upon Christ's self-sacri6.ce, and to substitute the notion of an actual feeding upon His Body and Blood, believed to be present materiajly in the elements of Bread and Wine. The practice of consuming consecrated food seemingly in the belief that it would ipso fado bring aboutimion between worshippers and the divinity worshipped, was prevalent in contemporary rehgions (p. 87) ; and it was easy for Christian behevers who were familiar with the usages of such rehgions to transfer the same conception to their own rite.^ And this way of regarding the Eucharist finds some reflection even in St. Paul's own language, when, after saying " The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ ? " he goes on to declare, " Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and the blood of the Lord " (1 Cor. xi. 27). In what precise sense these last words were meant to be understood is not clear. Since he does not speak of " eating the body " or of " drinking the blood " of the Lord, the guilt that he had in roind was probably that of dishonouring peculiarly sacred symbols. But it is not impossible that through the subtle influence upon him of the religious beUefs encountered in Greece and elsewhere, he modified the original conception of the Eucharist in the direction of contemporary Gentile conceptions. As he did not censure the custom of vicarious baptism for the dead (a usage which impUes a magical notion of that sacrament), he may have been prepared to countenance, or at least to take advantage of, ^ The apparent parallelism between the meals held in heathen temples and the Lord's Supper seema even to have led some to frequent both, in the hope of ensuring their salvation with more certainty (1 Cor. x. 21 ; of. Morgan, Religion and Theology of St. Paul, p. 214). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 655 ideas that were in the air, so long as they were calculated to help the extension of Christianity ; and such ideas, if harboured, were not unlikely to react in some measure upon his own views. ^ The conviction that righteousness could not be attained by the Mosaic Law, but only through the redemption effected by Christ (which faith rendered available), carried with it the corollary that salvation was conditioned by the same terms in the case of the whole human race, and that Christ had broken down the wall of partition between Jew and Qentile (Eph. i. 11-18, cf. Oal. iii. 28). But the circumstance that few of God's ancient people had accepted Christianity constituted for St. Paul a serious problem. They had originally been the recipients of great privileges {Rom. iii_. 2, ix. 4, 5) ; yet notwithstanding such favours, they had, as a body, rejected God's grace ; and only a remnant had believed, and their place in His Kingdom seemed to have been taken by the Gentiles. Such an issue could, no doubt, be accounted for in more than one way. From a human standpoint, it might be put down to the free choice of individuals in welcoming or refusing God's conditions ; whilst from a Divine standpoint it could be attributed to the unchallengeable right of the Creator to dispose the hearts of His creatures according to His pleasure. This, however, could not really be a satisfactory explanation, for on one side the comprehensiveness of the Divine mercy, and on the other the equity of the Divine control over human destinies was left permanently impaired. But an historic retrospect reUeved the distress which the wilfulness of Israel occasioned the Apostle. It was through the obstinacy of the Jews in repudiating the Gospel message that he had turned from them to the Gentiles ; and this caused him to hope that the conversion of the Gentiles would stimulate his countrymen to seek again what they had previously rejected {Rom. x., xi.). If so, God's ways would be vindi- cated, and His mercy would ultimately be seen to embrace all the world. St. Paul's exposition of the Divine scheme of salvation, inspired mainly by the spiritual change which he himself had experienced, was shaped by the inherited traditions and prevalent ideas of his race, whilst his statements sometimes show the influence of current controversies. Consequently, certain aspects of it call for remark. (i) The historical worth of the narrative of the Fall in Gen. iii. is not sufficient to support the inferences drawn from it. To the idea that there existed in the first human pair, if not an original harmony between the flesh and spirit, at least no predominance of the fleshly over the spiritual impulses, but that the balance was disturbed by their sin, which corrupted their nature and was punished by death, and that such moral disturbance was communicated to all subsequent generations by physical descent there are various grave objections, (a) Death existed in the animal world long before the appearance of man on earth (as shown by the sciences of geology 1 Several phrases especially associated with the Greek Mystery religions occur in St. Paul's writings — riXecos, reXeioCo-flai, nvetaros o6Sk ex eeX-q'/xaros aapxiis oiSi ex ffeXiJ^aros avdpbs, dW c'k 8eoO eyevriS'ri ; but the weight of MS. authority against the reading is too preponderant for it to be plausible See Box The Virgin BiHh, pp. 228-31. 2 For this sense of ASwi' Sia cf. Plut, Ale. i. H2 A Sih voXKuv KivSivuv i\e6vTa. ' Cambridge Biblical Essays, p. 286 (Inge). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 677 3. Soteriology Tke Soteriology of the Fourtli Evangelist bears, on tie surface, sonje resemblance to that of St. Paul and of the author of Hebrews, in£|,sinuch as in various places our Lord's death is presented in a sacrificial aspect. In the Gospel John the Baptist is represented as pointing to Jesus as the Lamb {6 dfivog) of God ^ that taketh away {6 algcuv) the sio of the world (i. 29, 36), the imagery being borrowed apparently from the lambs killed as a daily ofEering (Ex. xxix. 38 f., Num. xxviii. 3 f.). In the First Epistle Jesus is declared to have been manifested to take away sius (1 Joh. iii. 5), and to be the propitiation {'daofidg) for sins (1 Joh. ii. 2 ; cf. iv. 10 and Rom. iii. 25, iXauzi^Qiov) ; ftnd His blood is described as cleansing from ?ill sin (1 Joh. i. 7). The voluntary nature of His sacrifice is ill\;strated by a figure taken not from the flock but from the shepherd, Jesus being reported as declaring that as the Good Shepherd He lays down His life for {^nig) His Sheep (x- 11, cf. XV. 13, 1 Joh. iii. 16).^ That the writer likewise shared the Pauline universalism, and thought of Gentiles equally with Jews as the recipients of the benefits that Jesus conferred, is apparent not only from some of the statements just cited, but from the declaration ascribed to the Samaritans, " we know that this is, indeed, the Sayiour of the world " {%ov xda/^ov, iv. 42, cf . i. 29, 1 Joh. ii. 2), from Jesus' assertion that He had .other sheep which were not of the same fold as His Jewish followers (x. 16), and from t%e representation that Caiaphas, in affirming it to be expedient that one mg,n should die for the people, uttered an unconscious prophecy that Jesus was to die not only for His nation but for all the children of God. Nevertheless in spite of the likeness in the passages just noted between the views of the Fourth Evangelist and those of his predecessors respecting the death of pur Lord, it is accompanied by some striking differences. There is no adoption of the Pauline theory described on p. 653. The phrase in i. 29 o aigcov zfjv A/iaQtiav (cf. 1 Joh. iii. 5) is ambiguous, and may mean either to remove sin or to bear the consequences of sin, the common usage of aijoco favouring the first alternative (see xi. 48, xv. 2, xvii. 15). And the prevailing Soteriological idea of the Johannine Gospel is that Christ saved men by the revelation of God's character which He imparted to them. God showed men what, in order to attain salvation, they had to be by reveaUng to them, through Jesus, what He Himself was. No man had ever seen God, Who was Spirit (iv. 24, cf . Is. xxxi. 3), uncon- fined to any special locality and invisible to mortal sight (cf. i. 18, v. 37, vi. 46) ; but the only begotten Son interpreted Him {e^t^y^aazo, i. 18). Through the Son came grace and truth (i. 17), the disclosure of the Divine love (iii. 16, cf. xv. 9), which is the essence of the Divine nature ((;f. 1 Joh. iv. 7, 16, V. 1) ; Bind the knowledge of God thus communicated constitutes man's enduring life. Hence Jesus is represented as describing Himself as the Way, the Truti, and the Lite, through Whom alone men could come to ^Cf. 1 Pet. i. 19, Beo. v. 12, six. 7 (where rb apvlov is used). " The writer here goes on to infer that we ought to lay down our Uves for the .brethren, the self-sacnioe by Jesus being assumed to have been of suqh a character that men could imitate it ; cf. our Lord's own language in 1ft. x. 43-45, 678 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY the Father (xiv. 6). Whoso had seen Him had seen the Father. This conception of the mission of Jesus as consisting in a disclosure of the Father's essential nature made through the Son, has its counterpart in one of the most trustworthy reports of our Lord's actual sayings, viz. Mt. xi. 25-27 (= Lk. x. 21, 22), a passage discussed on p. 617. It has been seen (p. 673) that the Fourth Evangelist regards salvation as Life. The agencies whereby, in general, life is represented as com- municated are two, the words of Jesus, imparted by Him personally to His disciples as long as He lived with them, and the Divine Spirit, which was to recall and elucidate them after his death. The words of Jesus (called " the words of eternal life," vi. 68) had been committed to Him by His Father (xvii. 8, 14) ; and through them He revealed the Divine Name {i.e. the Divine character) to those whose spiritual insight and receptiveness caused them to listen to, and believe. Him (xvii. 26, cf. x. 3). His words had a cleansing power (xv. 3) ; and if a man kept them, the Father and He would abide in him (xiv. 23). To them there seems to be ascribed an inherent potency to produce an efiect beyond the measure of any merely human utterances. With the Johannine conception of salvation through Christ's words may be compared not only St. Paul's (in Col. iii. 16, Phil. ii. 16) but also St. James' (i. 21), " Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls " (cf . likewise Acts v. 20). Belief in the words of Jesus necessarily involved acceptance of His claim to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and consequently the authoritative channel of the Father's self -revelation. St. Paul's characteristic word " faith " (nlarig) does not actually occur in the Gospel, but the exercise of faith, expressed by the verb nuTTeveiv,^ is repeatedly accentuated as essential (i. 12, iii. 36, vi. 29, xii. 42, cf. xvi. 9, 1 Joh. iv. 15). The Evangelist is more explicit than the Apostle in insisting upon the moral obligations of faith or belief. In one passage he makes obedience to the Son synonymous with belief in the Son (iii. 36) ; and, in general, he represents Jesus as declaring that only by keeping His commandments could believers be truly His disciples and abide in His love (viii. 31, xv. 10, 14, cf. xiv. 21, 1 Joh. ii. 3, 4, iii. 6, 24, and our Lord's words in Mt. vii. 21 f . = Lk. vi. 46 f .). He thus does not hesitate to depict Christianity under the aspect of a law (sin being expressly defined in the First Epistle as " lawlessness " (1 Joh. iii. 4)), a view of it which is rare in St. Paul, although the two writers were really dominated by the same motive of devotion to the Person of Christ. In the Fourth Gospel no allusion is made in explicit words to the Church, though believers are spoken of as composing a body distinct from the world whilst still abiding in it (xvii. 6, 14), and the Church is mentioned in the Third Epistle (v. 6). The rite of Baptism is described as being practised by the disciples during Jesus' ministry (iii. 22, iv. 1, 2), seemingly after the example of John the Baptist ; but the only reference to its significance occurs in the interview between Jesus and Nicodemus (ch. iii.). 1 The constnictinn of this verb in Joh. is usually irio-Teveiv els (i. 12, ii. U, 23, iii. 16, 18, 36, iv. 39, etc.). It is rare in the Synoptists {Mt. xviii. 6, and perhaps Mk. ix. 42). THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE N.T. 679 where our Lord is reported to have declared that except a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. In the rest of the discourse mention of the water is lacking, and the mysterious movements of the Spirit are compared to the \intraceable course of the wind, though Its presence can be discerned by its efiects just as the wind betrays itself by its sound. The allusion to the water is so isolated that the word has been suspected of being an ecclesiastical interpolation. But the explanation of the slightness of the reference may be that the writer, without wishing to ignore the rite or deny its importance, aimed at dis- couraging the beUef that the Spirit through it was physically conveyed, or that the Presence of the Spirit coidd be infallibly inferred wherever the rite had been undergone. Nothing is said about the institution of the Eucharist. An account is given of the Last Supper ; but it contains a narrative of quite a different symbolic act on the part of Jesus, Who washed successively the feet of the Twelve and then bade them do to one another as He had done to them. The reason for the substitution of this for the Eucharist is perhaps due to the fact that when the Evangelist wrote, the latter rite was ceasing to convey the significance which he believed its Founder intended it to have ; and so he replaced it by an account of another symbolic act more plainly suggestive of humility and brotherly service. But earlier in the Gospel there occurs a passage which is thought by many to have the Eucharist in view. In a discourse (vi. 32-65) placed after the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus is represented as declaring that He was the true bread which came from heaven (and not the manna expected by the Jews to descend again from on high ^); that the bread which He would give was His flesh for the life of the world ; and that to eat His flesh and to drink His blood was to become united to Him and to gain eternal life. It is possible that the writer here sets forth his view of the significance of the Eucharistic rite, as observed by the Church, and regards it as the indis- pensable means for uniting believers with their Lord.^ It is, however, really questionable whether the discourse in vi. 32-65 had, in the mind of the Evangelist, any direct reference to the Eucharist at all. (a) There is an absence throughout of the combination of the terms " body " and " blood," which are elsewhere used in coimexion with the Eucharist, the words employed being " flesh " and " blood," which, together, are a frequent synonym for a human personality (Mt. xvi. 17, Gal. i. 16, Eph. vi. 12). It is, therefore, probable that here their import is similar, and that they refer to our Lord's human nature. (6) Food, and the eating and drinking of it, are metaphors often found in Hebrew thought for purely intellectual or spiritual realities and processes (Ecdus. xv. 3, xxiv. 21, and cf. Joli. iv. 10, 14, 34, vii. 37-39).^ Accordingly, in the passage here considered, 1 Cf. Apoc. Baruch xxix. 8, " The treasury of manna shall again descend from on 'Some, in support of this view, appeal to the parallelism between vi. 51-53 and iii. 3-5 ■ and 'holding that in ch. iii. baptism is affirmed to be essential for receiving the Spirit, contend that in ch. vi. the Eucharist is similarly presented as the necessary medium for drawing spiritual sustenance from Christ. ,,,..„ « J. Lightfoot quotes from the Tahnud the phrase to eat the days of Messiah, 680 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY the expression " to eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink His blood " (*. 53) admits of being interpreted of belief in Jesus' humanity as the medium of a divine revelation, (o) This is confirmed by the occurrence of " believe " in connexion with " btead of life " in i)v. 35, 47, 48 (" I arn the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall not hunger and he that believeth on me shill never thirst." " He that beUeveth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life."). These phrases seem to imply that the belief that Jesus is the teVealer, under the conditions of human nature, of God's character becomes an unfailing source of spiritual sustenance, {d) A caution against a possible misunderstanding of the metaphor is apparently added in v. 63 : Jesus' flesh, if understood in a material sense, profits not at all ; His words about feeding upon His flesh and blood must be interpreted spiritually, i.e. figutatively,^ and only then do they originate and sustain true life. If this is the real tenor of the discourse, it relates to the Eucharist only so fat aM that Sacrament is one of the ttiethods^whereby the spiritual support aSorded by JeSus* earthly life, crowned as it Was by His self-sacrificing death (d. 51), of Which it iS a memorial, reaches men and conduces to their Salvation. Before tliis slight acfcount of the Johannine theology is concluded attention may be briefly recalled to two features of it already noticed, which, in Spite of the Evangelist's blending of the ideal with the real in his historical narrative in a manner alien to our conception of how history Should be Written, yet exhibit in him a spirit congenial to the present age. The first is the introduction of the idea of Continuity in connexion with (a) the Divine Judgment, (6) the Resurrection unto life, which are regarded as processes rather than events. The second is the prominence given to the idea of Unity pervading Revelation, which, proceeding from the Divine Reason, is imparted through (a) the common conscience of mankind, (6) the historic life of Jesus, (c) the Spiritual presence of Jesus with the Church. Indeed, since the lUiiverse is also declared to have been created through the Divine Reason, a unity of origin is attributed alike to the order discernible in the material world and the order induced in the moral sphere by spiritual enlightenment. These features combinejto give to the Fourth Gospel a more modern aspect than is manifested by any other work in the New Testament. ^ For this sense of Tn/eij^a cf. Mev. xi. 8, ij irdXis ij fieydXr] r^rts /caXetrat TTj'eu^aTt/fWS S(55o/ta Kal AtyuirTos. APPENDIX A PASSAGES IN MT. AND LK. ASSIGNABLE TO Q. Mt. Lk. iii. 7-12 iii. 7-9, 16, 17 iv. 3-11 iv. 3-13 V. 3, 4, 6, 11, 12 vi. 20-23 V. 13 xiv. 34 V. 18 xvi. 17 V. 25, 26 xii. 58, 59 V. 32 xvi. 18 V. 39, 40, 42, 44-47 vi. 27-33, 35 vi. 9-13 xi. 2^ vi. 19-21 xii. 33, 34 vi. 22, 23 xi. 34, 35 vi. 24 xvi. 13 vi. 25-33 xii- 22-31 vii. 1-5 vi. 37, 38, 41, 42 vii. 7-11 xi- 9-13 vii. 12 vi. 31 vii. 13 xiii. 24 vii. 16-18 vi. 43, 44 vii. 21 vi. 46 vii. 22, 23 xiii. 26, 27 vii. 24-27 vi. 47^9 viii. 5-10, 13 vii. 1-10 viii. 11, 12 xiii. 28, 29 viii. 19-22 ix. 57-60 ix. 37, 38 X- 2 X. 106, 12, 13, 15, 16 X. 76, 5, 6, 12, 3 X. 24 vi. 40 X. 26-33 ^"- 2-9 X. 34-36 ^ii- 51-53 X. 37, 38 xiv. 26, 27 xi. 2-11 ^«- 18-28 xi. 12, 13 ^"^i- 16 xi. 16-19 "^ii- 31-35 xi. 21-23 ^- 13-15 xi. 24 ^- 12 xi. 25-27 ^- 21, 22 xii. 11 ^^-5 xii 22 ^'" 1* xii! 27, 28, 30 ^i- 19. 20, 23 xii. 35 ^^- 45 xii. 38, 39 ^1- 16. 29 681 682 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Mi. xii. 41, 42 xii. 43-45 xiii. 10, 17 xiii. 33 XV. 146 xvi. 2, 3 xviii. 7 xviii. 12-14 xviii. 15, 21, 22 xix. 286 xxi. 44 [xxii. 1-6, 8-10 xxiii. 4 xxiii. 12 xxiii. 13 xxiii. 23, 25-27, 29-31, 34-36 xxiii. 37-39 xxiv. 26-28 xxiv. 37^1 xxiv. 43-51 [xxv. 14-29 Lh. xi. 31, 32 xi. 24-26 X. 23, 24 xiii. 20, 21 vi. 39 xii. 54-56 xvii. 1 XV. 4-7 xvii. 3, 4 xxii. .306 XX. 18 XX. 9-17] ' xi. 46 xiv. 11, xviii. 146 xi. 52 xi. 42, 39, 41, 47-51 xiii. 34, 35 xvii. 23, 24, 37 xvii. 26, 27, 30, 34, 35 xii. 39, 40, 42^6 xix. 12, 13, 15-26.] ' '■ These parallel passages are equivalent rather than identical, and their derivation from Q is rather doubtful. APPENDIX B TABLES OF MEASURES, WEIGHTS, AND MONEY i Cubit {jifjxvi;) . Fathom {dgyvid) Furlong {arddtov) Mile [filXiov) . Sabbath day's journey Seah (adrm>) Firkin (^sTgjjT'^?) Bath {^dros) . Cor (xdQog) . of Length 17J inches 5 feet 10 inches 194 yards . 1,613 yards . 1,000 yards of Capacity 3 gallons 9 gallons 90 gallons or 11 bushels Pound [Urga) Talent (= 125 Mrqai) 5,050 grains or almost 12 ounces about 90 lb. Mite {MTtrov) .... hd. HaJf-farthing {daadgiov) id. Farthing {xoSQdvrtjg) ¥■ Shilling, " Penny " {dr]vdQiov, dgax/iii) 9id. Halt-shekel (didQaxixov) . Is. Id. Shekel (axaxrjQ) .... 3«. 2d. Mina " Pound " (iivS) £4 Os. Od. Talent {xdkivtov) .... £240 Os. Od 1 The Tables are taken from Hastings, D.B. lii. p. 427 f., iv. p. 901 f . (Kennedy). The English equivalents are approximate only. 683 INDEX Abila, Abilene, 7, 69 Acoo, 6 AoHAiA, 67, 550 Acts, Book of, 233-255 Adkias, The, 587, 588 ^NEAS, 516 jEnon, 5 Aqabtjs, 521, 570 AOEIPPA I, 51, 52, 522, 523 AOEIPPA 11, 52, 53, 582, 584 ALBiNtrs, 58 Alexandeb the Great, 25 Alexander jANNious, 37, 38 Alexander, Tibeeitts, 57 Alexandrine Text, 143, 144 Ananias, 612, 613 Ananias (High Priest), 576 Ananias and Sapphiea, 500 Andrew, S*., 373-5, 488 Angels, Angelology, 21, 42, 43, 110, HI Angels of the Churches, 639 Annas, 354, 435, 459 Antiooh, 68, 520, 521, 540 Antioch, Pisidian, 627-530 Antioohene Text, 143 Antiochus in (The Gebat), 29 Antioohus IV (Epiphanes), 29-32 Antipas, Heeod, 48, 50, 51, 342, 370, 406, 463 Antipater, 38, 44 Antipateis, 7, 578 Antonia, Castle of, 11, 54, 573 Antoninus Pius, 60 Antony, 46, 46 Apocalypses, 40, 60, 445, 633 f. Apocalyptic Prophecy, 23, 38-40 Apollos, 308, 559, 560 Aquila, 283, 309, 564, 655 Arabia, 514 Aramaic phrases in the N.T., 79 Arohelaus, 48-50, 342, 363 Areopagus, The, 551 Arbtas, 50, 345, 370, 515 Arimathba, 6 Aristarchus, 564, 585 Aeistobulus I, 37 Aristobulus II, 38, 43, 44 Artemis, 564 Ascension, The, 475 Asia, 65-66 Asiarchs, 66, 561, 565 Asidseans, 30-31 Assassins, 574 (see also Sicarii) Athens, 67, 660-553 Attalia, 68, 626 Augustan Cohort, 54, 73, 586 AzoTUS, 7, 512 Babylon, SymboUc sense of, 312, 313, 634 Baptism, 357, 485, 612, 613, 627-629, 663, 664, 668, 678, 679 Barabbas, 462 Bar-coohba, 60 Barnabas, 600, 615, 520 f., 638, 540, 541 Beblzbbul, 393 Beloved disciple, The, 207-209, 229 Bbrnioe (Berenice), 52, 53, 582, 583 Bbeoba, 549 Bbthabaeah, 8, 366 Bethany, 6, 432, 448, 475, 488 Bethany beyond Jordan, 8, 484 Bethesda, 11, 486 Bethlehem, 6, 360, 303 Bethphage, 6, 433 Bethsaida Julias, 7, 51, 408, 416 Bezetha, 11 Bishops, see Overseers Bithynia-Pontus, 67, 542 Breaking of Bread, see Eucharist " Brethren " of the Lord, 359, 364, 365, 392-393 Csesar, Appeal to, 72, 582 C^SAEEA, 7, 47, 54, 512, 517, 657, 670, 578, 581 C^SAEBA Philippi, 7, 51, 416 Caiaphas, 459, 460 Caligula, 56, 82, 516, 642 Cana, 4, 484, 485 Candaob, 511 Capernaum, 4, 373, 375. 381, 382, 384, 387, 392, 400, 422, 423, 485-6 Cappadocia, 67, 68 Captain of the Temple, 93 Chalois, 7, 69 Chorazin, 5, 405 685 686 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY " Chriatiana," The name, 521 ChriBtology, 614-018, 623-626, 036, 637, 643-647, 661-663, 074-676 Chronology, 341-349 Church, see Ecclnsia CiuciA, 68, 616, 541, 558 Citizenship, Roman, 72, 575-576 Claudius, 78, 345, 521, 042 Claudius Lysias, 573-4 Cleopas, 474 Codices, 126-127 Cohort, 72 Colonies, 71 Golossians, Epistle to the, 285-288 Community of Goods, 494, 499 Conditions conducive to the Diffusion of Christianity, 74-89 Conditions of Salvation laid down by Jesus, 602-610 Conflation, 141 COPONIUS, 55 COEINTH, 67, 273, 553, 556 Corinthians, Epistles to the, 273-279 Cornelius, 517-519 Council of Jerusalem, 536-539, 572-573 Ceassus, 44 Ceetb, 67, 586 Crucifixion, Date of the, 342, 344, 345 OuMANUs, Vbntidius, 57 Cybble and Attis, Cult of, 86 Cyprus, 67, 524, 526 Cyrene, 67 Damascus, 7, 512, 515 Day of Jehovah, 22 (see also Eschato- logy) Dead Sea, The, 2 Deacons, 645, 632 "Deacons," The Seven, 502, 503 Dbcapolis, 7, 399, 413 Defilement, Jesus' teaching about, 410, 411, 608, 609 Demetrius, 564, 565 Demons, 111, 112, 376-7, 399 Deebb, 533 Devil, 111 Dispersion, The Jewish, 15, 77-79 Divine titles applied to men, 109, 110 Divorce, Jesus' teaching about, 427-8, 609, 610 Documentary Criticism, 148-340 Drusilla, 52, 57, 580 Eastern Cults, 85-88 Ecclesia (Church), 389, 417, 418, Oil, 612, 629, 638, 646 Elam, 70 Elders, Jewish, 95 Elders, Christian, 645, 568, 631, 632 Eleusinian Mysteries, 87 Elizabeth, 351, 352, 360 Elymas, 525 Emmaus, 6, 474 Emperor Worship, 81-83, 332 En/:cenia, 32 Epheaians, Epistle to the, 288-293 Ephesus, 66, 657, 559-566 Epheaim, 6, 488 Epicureanism, 84, 85 Eschatology, 600-602, 622, 023, 633-636, 639-642, 661, 672-674 Esdraelon, 2, 3 Essenes, 103-105 Eucharist, 452-455, 494, 567, 629, 654, 679-680 Eunuch, Ethiopian, 511 EUTYOHUS, 567 Exorcism, Exorcists, 393, 562 Fadus, Cuspius, 57 Fair Havens, 586 Faith, 621, 661, 653, 657, 658, 067, 669, 678 Famine in Judaea, 521, 522 Fasting, Jesus' attitude to, 386, 609 Feasts and Fasts, Jewish, 94 Felix, Antonius, 67, 58, 578-581 Festus, Poroius, 58, 581-585 Floras, Gessius, 68 Fourth Gospel, The, 207-233, 484-489, 670-680 Free Cities, 71 Frumentarii, 73, 691 Gaius, 564, 567 Galatia, 67, 266-270, 542, 559 Oalatians, Epistle to the, 264-273, 558 Galilee, 2, 3, 69 Gallic, 346, 556 Gamaliel, 601, 508 Gaza, 7, 611 Gennbsaret, Lake of, 2, 371, 397, 406, 409 Gentiles admitted into the Church, 611, 616-519, 520, 531, 659 Gerasa, 7, 398 Geeizim, 5, 16, 485 Gbthsemane, 12, 450 " God-fearers," 89, 511, 518, 520 GOLOOTHA, 11, 465 Greek Language, Diffusion of the, 80, 81 Greek Manuscripts, 128-132 Greek Period of Jewish History, The, 24-43 Hadrian, 59 liaggada, 98, 99 Halacha, 98 Hasmonffians, 31-38 Hebrews, Epistle to the, 304-310, INDEX 687 Hebrews, Teaching of the Epistle to the, 659-670 Hellemsm, 25 Hellenists, 503, 520 HJEBMON, 2, 419 Hbbod the Great, 45-48, 342, 363 Heeod Philip, 50, 370 Herodians, 388, 415, 439 Hbeodias, 50, 370, 406 HiEEAPOLis, 292, 293, 561 High Priests, 17-19, 54, 55, 99, 459-460, 504, 576 " Holy and Righteous One," 626 Holy Spirit, 476, 491-5, 509, 519, 624, 644-646, 676 Htboanus, see John Hykoanus lOONIUM, 530 lUiYEiatTM, 549 Immortality, Jesus' teaching about human, 440, 441 Imperial Provinces, 64 f. Imposition of Hands, 509, 510, 524, 560, 630 Isis and Osrais, Cult of, 87, 88 Italian Cohort, 54, 517, 518 Itue^ans, 7, 68, 69 James (son of Zebedee), 373, 400, 430, 456, 522 James (" brother " of the Lord), 255, 359, 364, 473, 538, 570-571, 630 James, Epistle of, 255-261 Jason. 548, 649 JEHOVAH, 20 Jehovah's Servant, 24, 511, 529, 619 Jebioho, 9, 357, 425, 431 Jerusalem, 9, 10, 15, 59, 432 f. Jbshimon, 5, 353 Jestjs Christ — Jesus' Ministry according to the Ear- liest Sources, 358-483 Genealogies, 359 Birth and Childhood, 360-364 Baptism, 358, 365-367 Temptation, 367-370 Beginning of the Ministry, 371-373 Call of certain disciples, 373-375, 384 Authoritativeness of His Teaching, 375, 376 Wonderful cures and other marvels, 376 f. (see Miracles) Antagonism of the Ecclesiastical Auth- orities, 382-388, 393, 410, 427, 436, 439-440 Appointment of Apostles, 389 Sermon on the Mount, 390-392 Parabolic Teaching, 394, 395 (see also Parables) Rejection at Nazareth, 402 Despatch of the Twelve on a Mission, 403 Answer to John's enquiry, 404 Claim to imique knowledge of God, 405 Temporary withdrawal from Galilee into Phoenicia, 412 Return through Decapolis, 413 Avowal of Messiahship at Csesarea PhiUppi, 416 Predictions of Death and Resurrection, 418, 422, 430 Transfiguration, 419 Departure for Judsea, 422, 425 Entry into Jerusalem, 432-3 Cleansing of the Temple, 435 (cf. 485) His death devised, 436 The Anointing at Bethany, 448 Treachery of Judas, 449 The Last Supper, 450 f. Agony in Gethsemane, 456 Trial by the High Priest, 458-9 His Execution conceded by Pilate, 462-3 The Crucifixion and Burial, 465-470 The Risen Life, 470 f. Jesus' Ministry according to the Fourth Gospel, 484-489 Jesus, Teaching of, 597-621 Jewish Historians, Ideas and Methods of, 106-121 Jewish Institutions, 90-105 Joanna, 198 Johannine Writings, The, 207-233, 319- 325, 670-680 John Hyeoanus I, 36, 37 John Hyrcantjs II, 38, 43-45 John the Baptist, 351-357, 370, 404-406 John (son of Zebedee), 224-227, 373, 400, 430, 456, 475, 496, 537 John (the Presbyter), 228, 323-324 Jonah, Sign of, 414, 415 Jonathan Maooab^tjs, 34, 35 Jordan, The, 2, 8, 9, 355, 425 Joseph, 359 Joseph (of Aiimathaea), 469 Joseph Barsabbas, 490 Judaism, 89 JtTDAS Barsabbas, 540 Judas (of Gamala), 55, 238 Judas Iscariot, 390, 449, 455, 457, 491 Judas MAOCABiEUS, 32-34 Jude, Epistle of, 316-319 Judgment, The, 22, 39, 355-6, 372, 445. 553, 600-602, 623, 633, 639, 661, 672, 673. KiDRON, The, 10, 456 Kingdom of God, The, 23, 41, 61, 355. 371, 372, 428, 429, 599 f., 604, 613, 622, 646, 674 688 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY " Larab, The," 375, 637 Laodicea, 66, 292 Last Supper, The, 450-455, 654, 679-680 Latinisms in the Gospels, 172, 193, 205, 231 Lazaetjs, 449, 488 Lebanon, 2 Lectionaries, 129 Legion, 72 Levi, see Matthew, St. " Lion of the Tribe of Judah," 037 Lorjia, 166-168 " Lord," The title, 88, 200, 231, 616, 625, 644, 646 Lord's Day, The, 639 Lord's Prayer, The, 392, 603 LiTKE, St., 195, 196, 236, 237, 543, 585 Lulce, Gospel according to St., 194-207 Lydda, 7, 516, 517 Lydia, 544 Lysanias, 204 Lystka, 531-533 Maccabees, The, 32-38 Macedonia, 66, 543 f. MACHiEBUS, 9, 47, 37(i), 406 Magdala, 5 Magi, Magian, 363, 304, Q09, 510, .525 Magnificat, The, 360 " Man of Sm," The, 640-642 Manuscripts, 128-132 Maecellus, 56 Maris, St., 169-171, 178-179, 243, 524, 526 Mark, Gospel according to St., 153-160 173-183 Maetha and Mary, 433, 488 Maexjuljjs, 56 Maey (mother of Jesus), 358-360, 362, 393, 466-467, 484 Mary (mother af James the Little), 365, 466, 472, 473 Maey (mother of Mark), 522 Maey Magdalene, 466, 475, 472, 476 Matthew, St., 166, 167, 384 Matthew, Gospel according io St., 183-194 Matthias, 490 Media, 70 Medical Language of St. Luke, 206, 237 Melita, 588, 589 Meeom, Waters (Sea) of, 2, 416 Messiah, 23, 40, 41, 61, 366-7, 410-420, 432, 460 (see also :Christology) ■Miletus, -66, 568 Millennium, 61, 62, 635, 636 Miracles of Jesus — Incident of great catch of ifish, 374 "(of. 436)-; cure Of demoniac, 376-7 ; of lEeter's mother-in-law, 377-8 ; of leper, 380 ; of centurion's servant, 381 ; of paralytic, 382-3 ; of man with a withered hand, 387 ; of woman bowed together, 387 ; of dropsical man, 388 ; of blind and dumb man at Capernaum, 392; stilling the storm, 397 ; cure of de- moniac at Gerasa, 398-9 ; of woman with an issue, 400 ; raising of Jairus' daughter, 400-401 ; cure of two blind men at Capernaum, 402 ; of dumb man at Capernaum, 402 ; raising of widow's son at Nain, 402 ; feeding of dfiOO, 407-8, 486 ; walking on the sea, 408-9, 486 ; cure of Syrophccnician woman's daughter, 412 ; of deaf and dumb man in De- capohs, 413 ; feeding of 4,000, 413- 414 ; cure of blind man at Beth- saida, 416 ; of demoniac boy, 421 ; incident of coin found in mouth of fish, 422-3 ; cure of ten lepers, 426 ; of BartimEEus, 431 ; withering of fig- tree, 434-5 ; change of water into wine, 484 ; cure of courtior's son, 485 ; of infirm man at Betjiesda, 486 ; of a man blind from birtb, 487 ; raising of Lazarus, 488 MiTHEAS, Cult of, 87 Mnason, 570 Nabat^ans, 69 Nain, 4, 402 Nathanael, 229, 375, 484 Nativity, Date of the, 342, 344, 345 Nazaeeth, 3, 358, 360, 363, 371, 393, '402 Neeo, 315, 595 Need, Expected Betum of, 333, 634-5 Neutral Text, 143 NiooDEMUs, 470, 485 Number 666, The, 635 Olives, Mount of, 6, 10 Onbsimus, 293 Overseers, 534, 545, 631 Palestine, Topography of, 1-42 Palestine under Egyptian rule, 27, 28 , „ Syrian rule, 29-38 Palimpsests, 127 Pamthylia, 68, 526 Papyrus, papyri, 124-126, 128 Parables of Jesus — Lost sheep, lost coin, prodigal, Pharisee and publican, 385 ; friend at night, widow and judge, 392 ; sower, ,395 ; seed growing secretly, mustard seed, leaven, tares, hidden treasure, pearl of price, 396-7 ; drag net, 397 ; unforgiving debtor, 424 ; INDEX 689 good Samaritan, 429 ; labourers in the vineyard, 429; rich fool, 429; unrighteous steward, 429 ; rich man and Lazarus, 429 ; unfruitful fig- tree, 435 ; two sons, 438 ; wicked husbandmen, 438 ; marriage feast, 439 ; ten virgins, 446 ; talents (pounds), 446; two debtors, 449 Paethia, Paethians, 70, 635 Pastoral Epistles, The, 296-304 Patristic Quotations, 135, 136 PauIi, St., 471, 472, 478-481, 483, 508, 512-516, 523-596, 639-659 Pella, 7, 8, 26, 446 Pentateuch, The, 16, 17 Pentecost, Occurrences at, 491-495 Pbe^a, 8, 425-427 PEEOAM0M, 66 Perimpe AduUerce, 232-3 Persian Period of Jewish History, 13-24 Pbtbe, St., 169-174, 280, 373, 375, 377, 390, 400, 417, 419, 423, 434, 450, 456, 459, 461, 471, 475, 476, 484, 492-3, 496- 501, 509-10, 515-519, 522, 536-537, 539-540, 623-5, 630 Peter, First and Second Epistles of St., 310-316, 335-340 Pharisees, 102, 103, 356, 384, 385, 388, 415, 427, 439, 606 f. Phzladelphia , 66 Philemon, 561 Philemon, Epistle to, 293 Philip (son of Herod), 48, 51 Philip, St. (Apostle), 375, 484 Philip (the " deacon "), 609-512, 570 Philippi, 66, 543, 544 Philippians, Epistle to the, 293-296 Phceniz, 586 Phylacteries, 443 PoMPEY, 43, 44 Pontius Pilate, 56, 461-469 Population of the Roman Empire, 74 " Possession," Demoniacal, 377 Prcelorium, 11, 578 Pra3torian Cohorts, 73, 591 Presbyters, see Elders, Christian Priesthood, 92 f., 631 Peiscella, 309, 554 Procurators, 53-58 Prophets, Christian, 521, 631, 632 Proto-Mark, 158-160 Provincial System, Roman, 63-74 Ptolemais, 6, 570 Q, 160-164, 168, 681, 682 QuiEiNius, 55, 343 Religious Sects, Jewish, 100-105 Resurrection of the Dead, 41, 42, 440, 441, 673 Resurrection of Jesus, The, 470-483 Revelalim, Book of, 325-335, 633-639 Roads and Sea Routes, 75, 76 RoUs, 124-126 Roman Empire, The, 63-89 Roman State ReUgion, 81-83 Romans, Epistle to the, 279-285, 566 Sabbath, Jesus' attitude to the, 386-388, 486, 487, 607, 608 Sacrifices, Chief Jewish, 93, 94 Sadducees, 33, 100-102, 440, 441, 497, 501, 577, 605 Salamis, 524 Salim, 5 Salome, 365, 466-7, 472 Salome Alexandra, 38 Samaeia, 5, 26, 425, 509 Samaritans, 15, 16, 37, 425, 485, 509 Sanhedrin, 99, 100, 459-461, 501, 576-580 Saedis, 66 Saeepta, 6 Satan, 21, 22, 111, 368, 369, 634 Saul, see Paul, St. Scribes, 17, 18, 96, 98, 410, 442, 443, 606- 609 Scriptures, The, 98 Sebaste, 47 Second-first Sabbath, 387 Senatorial Provinces, 64 Septuagint, Origin of the, 28 Seeoius Paulus, 525 Shechem, 5, 37, 509 Shephelah, 2, 6 Ships, 76 Sicarii, 58, 103 SiDON, 6, 412-413, 523 Silas (Silvanus), 309, 312, 540, 541, 542, 549, 553 SiLOAM, Pool of, 11, 487 SmoN (the Magian), 509, 510 Simon Maccabeus, 35, 36, 443 Slaves, 74 Smyrna, 66 " Son of David," 23, 61, 358, 431, 442, 443 " Son of God," 361, 366-369, 398, 480, 617, 618, 643, 662, 675 " Son of Man," 41, 383, 384, 615-617, 675 Soteriology, 618-621, 627-632, 637-639, 647-659, 663-670, 677-680 South, The, 2 Spain, 694 Spirit, Hebrew conception of, 109, 494 Stephen, 504-507 Stoicism, 83, 84 Synagogue, 94-96 Synoptic Gospels, 148-207 Syria, 68 Syrian Text, 143 690 NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY Tabitka, 517 Tables of Measures, etc., 683 Taeiohea, 5 Taestts, 68, 508, 616 Temple, Herod's, 90-92 „ Zenibbabel'a, 14, 15 Tbrtuixus, 679 Tetrarch, 49 Textual Criticism, 124-147 Thessalonioa, 261, 547, 648 ThessaloniaTis, Epistles to the, 261-264 Thomas, St., 476 Thyatika, 66, 544 Tiberias, 5 TiBERitrs 342 Timothy,' 236, 297, 631, 541, 542, 653, 564, 663 Titus (Emperor), 53, 59 Titus (companion of St. Paul), 236, 277, 297, 516, 538, 561, 663, 566 Titus (Titius) Justus, 565 Tongues, Speaking with, 492, 494, 496, 645-6 Teaohonitis, 7, 69 Treasury of the Temple, 91, 444 Tribute, Jesus' teaching about, 440 Tboas, 542, 567 Twelve Apostles, The, 389, 390, 490-1 Two Ages, 61 Tyre, 6, 412, 523 Ulatha and Panias, 69 Versions, 132-136 Vespasian, 59 Via Appia, 76, 591 Via Egnatia, 75, 269, 547 Vicarious aatisfaotion for sin, 24, 430, 620, 621, 648 Virgin Birth, The, 360-362 Vows, 657, 571 Vows, Jesus' teaching about, 609 Western Text, 145, 194, 207, 252-266 Writing Materials, Ancient, 124r-128 ZA00HJ3US, 431-2 Zachaeiah, 351-2 Zealots, 66, 58, 103, 605 Zerubbabel, 14 ZmoN, see SmoN ZiON, 10, 11 Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frame and London A SELECTION FROM Messrs. 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