fyxmll Hmmjsitj §itatg THE GIFT OF ..^•^vvilaXfirnJLiU^vJL.. J^(jUnjiMjr,. .A.a7b1.?.t rJaX.,. 678-2 Cornell University Library BS2651 .K73 olin 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/cu31924029293242 THE TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST BOYLE LECTURES 1903-5 THE TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST VIEWED IN SOME OF ITS ASPECTS j (, {> ft | j | BY R. J. gNOWLING, D.D. CANON OF DURHAM, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM J FELLOW OF king's COLLEGE, LONDON NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE i9°S 9 ,1 ,1 3 1'l )i n ;i HiiMi.n'ii'ai 7 HTQ \ li /i !i ii M X) 0.3 A, 77 tn| Printed by Hazelly Watson also contains an energetic attack on the Dutch theories. ' See in this connection Dr. Lock's valuable paper on New Testa- ment Criticism read at Liverpool Church Congress, 1904. INTRODUCTORY 9 It is not too much to say that not only do we find references in their writings to nearly every one of St. Paul's Epistles, but that their early date absolutely forbids us to place the Epistles at the date demanded by Steck, Volter, and Van Manen. It may be alleged, perhaps, that these Apostolic Fathers were not quoting from our canonical Epistles, but from the fragments and sayings of which our canonical letters are said to be composed. Now such a supposition, of course, begs the whole question as to the nature of the contents of the letters in question ; it presents, moreover, a strange series of improbabilities. It would require us to believe that a whole number of frag- mentary letters written by unknown authors, but at the same time proceeding from one and the same circle of thinkers, had gained such value and influence in the Church as to mould the language of men like Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius in different parts of the Christian world, and that these fragments had further been not only used, but incorporated, by some unknown writer or writers, into the canonical Epistles attributed by the Church to no less a person than St. Paul, the great Gentile Apostle. But so far as the evidence in our possession goes, there is no reason to suppose that these Epistles, as we have them, are materially different from their original form. No doubt the writings in question present diiificulties both of text and context ; but " it is clear,'' says B. Weiss with great force (and no one has examined the text of the Pauline Epistles with greater care), " that if one does not understand how this or that passage fits into the connection, it is far more difficult to conceive how an interpolator could come to interrupt a lucid text with interpolations alleged to be so incongruous." ^ ■ Inquiry concerning the Genuineness of the Pauline Epistles, P- 5 (1897)- 10 TESTIMONY OP' ST. PAUL TO CHRIST But it is of interest to turn back to the earliest piece of positive external evidence. St. Clement of Rome is the earliest of the three Apostolic Fathers we have named, and we may place him 93-7. It should be carefully noted that this is the date fixed upon by Harnack. What does St. Clement tell us ? In the opening paragraph of chapter xlvii. of his Epistle we read : " Take up the Epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle. What wrote he first unto you in the be- ginning of the Gospel ? Of a truth he charged you in the Spirit concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because that even then ye had made parties." To appreciate the force of this we must remember that St. Clement is writing to the same Church as that to which St. Paul's own Epistle purports to be addressed, the Church at Corinth ; and long ago Paley pointed out with his usual robust commonsense that this was written (vis. Clement's Epistle) at a time when probably some must have been living in Corinth who remembered St. Paul's ministry there, and the receipt of this Epistle, and that the testimony is still more valuable, as it shows that the Epistles were preserved in the Churches to which they were sent, and that they were spread and propagated from thence to the rest of the Christian community (Paley, H.P., xvi. i). This one passage from St. Clement is enough, in Professor Schmiedel's view, to guarantee the authorship and early date not only of one, but of the four great Epistles of St. Paul, which the Germans classed as the Hauptbriefe ; viz. Romans, i and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians.^ How does Van Manen meet this evidence ? He falls back upon the idea that St. Clement was quoting from a shorter and not our canonical text — a mere assumption, and, as I venture to think, an assumption which shows plainly the weakness of his case. ' Art. " Galatians," Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1622. INTRODUCTORY ii Let us take one or two other instances of the pecu- liar manner in which Van Manen deals with external evidence. It is surprising to find that, after rejecting Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and other remains of early Christian literature, he accepts the Apology of Aristides, and places it probably between 125 and 130, and regards it, if not as delivered before the Emperor Hadrian, yet as coming to us from Aristides. In it he finds points of contact with the Epistles of St. Paul, especially with Romans. Now according to Van Manen, the date of Romans is not far from 120 A.D. But how is it, then, that this Epistle, which had only just gained any status in the Christian Church, could have so influenced Aristides some ten years later that he should make use of it in a defence of the truth of the Christian religion, although it was not the work of St. Paul at all, and was wrongly attributed to him ? This same Aristides is related to Paul in his Soteriology and his high Christology ; but although he mentions the Twelve, he never speaks of Paul by name, and therefore Van Manen maintains that he knew nothing of Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles ; he makes mention of the Pauline letters without troubling himself about their supposed author Paul ! But what kind of argument is this ? In an address delivered to a Roman emperor, or in an address couched at least in this form, why should Aristides mention Paul by name? Justin Martyr in his Apology, a few years later, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus, refers to our Gospels, but he does not mention the name of the author of any one of them, whilst the way in which he speaks of John as a man of our number, one of the Apostles of Christ, in relation to the authorship of the Apocalypse, shows that he did not consider that the names even of the chief Apostles were likely to carry weight, as being widely known. 12 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST in such a work as he was issuing. A reference to the Twelve Apostles as a body was perfectly natural on the part of Aristides, because he is reciting the main facts connected with Jesus and the first preaching of His religion ; but there was no need to mention Paul by name, an obscure Jew, no doubt, in the eyes of the Romans. It is not perhaps to be wondered at that, after remarking on the testimony of St. Clement of Rome as above, and adding that its colourlessness {i.e. of his Epistle) forbids the suggestion that circumstances of the time as indicated by it are fictitious, Schmiedel should add : " There is, then, hardly any necessity for going into the evidence of Marcion, who about 140 admitted the Pauline Epistles into his Church lectionary." Marcion's testimony is, as we shall see later, a sore stumbling-block to Van Manen. Whether there was an authoritative list of Paul's Epistles before Marcion, as Zahn conjectures, or not, or whether we can prove or not that Paul's Epistles were read in the worship of the Christian Church from the beginning, as Godet argues, one thing is certain, that the same ten Epistles which Marcion accepted are found in the Muratorian canon dating some thirty to forty years after Marcion wrote ; that the canon distinctly implies that these ten Epistles were read in the public services of the Church ; that they were not so honoured at haphazard, but after their claims had been duly examined ; that it makes an incredible demand upon us to suppose that the whole Church should have accepted any of these Epistles on the authority of one in whom St. Polycarp had recognised " the firstborn of Satan," whilst it is equally incredible that Marcion him- self should have accepted these same ten Epistles, many of which he was driven to mutilate by the exigencies of his theory, unless he knew that their authorship could not be disputed. That Marcion's text shows us that he found varieties of INTRODUCTORY 13 readings in the Epistles of St. Paul may be readily granted (Zahn, Einleitung, i. 112); but this admission is very far removed from the view that the text transmitted to us has suffered from any extensive interpolations, as also from the groundless theory that in the Galatian Epistle, for example, Marcion's text is the original, and that ours is the later version.^ We have already remarked on the manner in which one of the most acute of German critics condemns the attempts, often ingenious enough, to trace interpolations more or less extensive in the text of the Pauline Epistles. Another German of a much more advanced school, C. Clemen, has borne witness to the futility of these attempts with regard, at all events, to the Galatian Epistle, in which, after the keenest examination, he can only find two instances of a gloss, while in other respects he bears a candid testimony to the entire unity of the Epistle.^ I propose to follow up these remarks, which are of a more or less general and introductory character, by a brief examination of the evidence on which we accept the several Epistles attributed to St. Paul. One or two points may, however, be emphasised at once. If these Epistles, which are, as we believe, justly accredited to St. Paul, had been derived from heretical Gnostic sources, carrying us into the second century, and a considerable way into it, how is it that their relation to the great Gnostic systems of the second century is so indefinitely maintained ? There is, to say the least of it, considerable ground for believing that Basilides, Valentinus, and their followers made use of these Epistles. If so, why is it ihat the terms contained in them are employed in a very different way from that which is ' Cf. as against this SiefEert, Der Brief an die Galater, p. 31 (1899). ' C. Clemen, Die Einheitlichkeit der ^aulinischen Brief e, p. 125. 14 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST characteristic of second-century Gnosticism ? The attempt to find Gnostic terms or a Gnostic meaning in such a passage as Rom. xvi. 25, because we read of the re- velation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, is nothing short of an absurdity, and the same judgment may be passed upon many similar attempts with reference to the Galatian Epistle. It is quite beside the mark, for example, to take such words as j3ddote neutest. Formel "in Christo Jesu," p. 2. On the naturalness of the expectation of the Parousia, cf. Abbott, Ephesians, p. xx. EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT lO; manner as it is presented to us in the Ephesian Epistle. But at least we may say that the breaking down of the barrier between Gentile and Jew was St. Paul's favourite doctrine. We have a parallel to his attitude in the Ephesian Epistle in Rom. xi. 1 7-24 ; it is indeed the consideration of this, amongst other close parallels, which has led to the remark that the undesigned coincidences between Ephesians and Romans present the strongest argument for the Pauline authorship.^ Moreover, St. Paul was looking back over the incidents of a long battle, and now that the victory was won after a long and hard struggle, he could rejoice with a natural joy in the proclamation of peace, and in the recon- ciliation through the Cross of Him who had slain the enmity thereby. Certainly it is strange that Von Soden should argue that the writer's thoughts about the death of Christ are different from those of St. Paul, and that the death is not regarded by him in the same light as by St. Paul. But when Von Soden quotes in defence i. 15-^— ii. 10, and says that in this passage, whilst reference is made to the resurrection and the whole work of salvation, yet the death of Christ is not regarded, it is to be noted that two or three times the death is associated with the resurrection, and that the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ are shared by Christians as by members who are such in virtue of their union with the Head, and that a few verses later in the same chapter we read, " But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ" (ii. 13). Indeed, it is much truer to say that the historical cause of redemption is always found in the expiatory death of Christ, and that this is so in Ephesians and Colossians, equally as in the earlier Epistles (cf. Eph. i. 7, ii. 13, 16, and Col. ii. 14-15). It is certainly strange that men should object that in ' Lock, Art. " Ephesians," Hastings' B.D., i. 717. io8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST this Ephesian Epistle Christ occupies a predominant place which He does not occupy elsewhere, especially in the representation of His work in relation to the universe. But first of all it must be again borne in mind that in the Colossian Epistle we have the same great aim, viz. to extend the reign of Christ, to promote His reign in heaven, and on the earth and under the earth (Eph. i. lo, 21-2 ; Col. ii. 15). And, as before remarked in other connections, it is quite justifiable to find at least the germs of these thoughts in i Cor. viii. 6, and to maintain that if Paul could write Col. i. 16, it is difficult to see why he could not write Eph. i. 7, 10 (cf also i Cor. xv. 27 ; Eph. i. 22). So, again, in Rom. viii. 19-22, Christ is " the agent of a cosmic redemption " ; and we have to remember in this connection the influence which current Jewish apocalyptic literature may have had on St. Paul's cdsmology, no less than on his eschatology, and that this influence may have had a place in the wide conception and boundless signifi- cance attaching to our Lord's redemptive work in Colossians and Ephesians alike.^ So, too, with reference to the allegation that in Ephesians we have " the Church," but elsewhere some local church, it may perhaps be noted that in such passages as i Cor. xv. 9, Gal. i. 13, we have the term used in a collective sense, and again in an abstract sense, i Cor. xii. 28 (Jacquier, u.s. ?• 309)- But, further, it may be safely said that many of the differences between Colossians and Ephesians, so emphasised by Von Soden, would be very considerably diminished, even if they were not removed altogether, by bearing in mind the different circumstances which each Epistle was specially designed to meet. The imagery of the body, e.g. in Eph. iv. 16, is evidently introduced to represent the mutual relation of Christians to each other ; in Col. ii. 19 the same ' See, especially, Bacon, Introd. to the N.T., pp. 119-20. EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT 109 imagery is introduced to represent more clearly the position of Christ. But this is exactly what might be expected in view of the different object of the two letters. And whilst it is quite possible to suppose that the same writer would transfer a metaphor from one object to another, it is not so easy to see why a forger writing Ephesians and wishing to imitate Colossians should act so boldly. Certainly it is urged that whilst both letters give us a glimpse into the relationship of Christ to the universe, this reference is occasioned in the Colossian Epistle by questions raised touching the moral and religious aspect of the Christian life, which give it a real significance ; whilst in Ephesians it simply serves to crown the idea of the Church (Von Soden, u.s. p. 97). But here again it is easy to see that St. Paul's triumphant assertion of the universal headship of Christ is closely connected with practical questions, which were " burning questions " in Colosse ; it was needful, therefore, to insist upon the fact that in the physical and spiritual world alike Christ was the one Lord, and to protest against the teaching of men who were introducing a theosophic and false asceticism which threatened to hinder a pure and healthy development of family and social life. Nor is it a fair description to say that in Ephesians the cosmic significance of the person of Christ is merely introduced to crown the idea of the Church ; ^ it would be much nearer the mark to say that, as in Colossians so in Ephesians, the Apostle is still mindful of the unique dignity of Christ, and still rebukes the teaching derogatory to Him, and that the Church is regarded as deriving its fulness from Him, for this was the eternal purpose of God to sum up all things in Christ (Eph. i. 10). Without Him, indeed, the Church was incomplete, not merely in idea, but in reality, ' See Bacon, u.s. p. 114, as against this ; and also Zahn, Einleitung, i. 330; Weiss, Introduction, i. 345, E.T. no TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST because from His fulness and by His gifts the whole universe was filled (cf Eph. i. lo, i8, 23 ; iv. 7, 10 ; Col. i. 16 ; ii. 9, 10). Once more ; we remember how large a portion of each Epistle is occupied by the enumeration and enforcement of the plainest moral duties ; but here, again, in each . case we have with this enforcement a characteristic difference. In Colossians Christians are bidden to these duties by virtue of the Headship of Christ. This they were in danger of disregarding, on account of the false teaching around them, vainly puffed up with their fleshly mind ; they were then to rise with Christ to His exalted and heavenly life, far above the superstitions and vices of earth ; they were to live in union with Him who was all and in all. But in the Ephesian Epistle similar duties of the same practical kind are brought home to men's minds by the thought of the unity in the one body, of their membership with one another as members of the body of Christ. And so it may be said that whilst in Colossians the main theme is the vital connection with the Head, in the Ephesians it is the unity in diversity among the members.^ But if the differences between the two Epistles are thus occasioned by the relation in each case of the writer to his readers, it is no longer needful to see in these differences any argument against the authorship of each Epistle as the product of one and the same mind. What is the alternative ? It can only be, as is now generally admitted, that some scholar of St. Paul, writing after his master's death, has composed this Epistle in his master's name. But how difficult to imagine that a man so versatile, so able to give to the world such a splendid representation of Pauline thought, should have put such a limitation upon his powers as to confine himself almost entirely to the brief contents of the Epistle to the Colossians, since his borrowings are ' See the remarks of Abbott, Ephesians, p. 125. EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT in for the most part drawn from that Epistle. There would seem, too, to have been no special reason for his choice of that Epistle, in face of the fact that he shows no special knowledge of the particular and distinctive dangers which threatened the Colossian Church (Abbott, u.s. p. xxiv). Lastly, let us look at the estimate given us by Von Soden of the powers of this unknown writer, and then ask ourselves whether it does not make a less demand upon us to believe that we are listening to St. Paul himself, " non cuivis Paulinum pectus effingere" (Bengel). In this Epistle, says Von Soden {u.s. p. 104), we learn to know a man who had his origin among the Christians of the Jewish Diaspora of the second generation ; a man who kept both Paul's learning and memory in truthful remembrance, so far as was possible to one not trained in the Rabbinic schools or of an equal religious originality and energy ; a man who united a practi- cal mind and a clear outlook with a high enthusiasm and bold speculation, who was able with impressive affection to present that which was a bond of union to the two opposing types of Christianity ; a man of no ordinary rhetorical gifts, of high culture, able to grasp with fine intelligence the ethical consequences of the new religion, and capable, not only of receiving the thoughts of others and revising them independently, but of comprehending and satisfying the essential needs of his own time. Surely, as we read such words as these, we cease to be surprised that, in spite of some difficulties, the trend of modern thought is decidedly favourable to the Pauline authorship of the Epistle before us, or that we are bidden, as an alternative, to find the writer not further removed from the Apostle than one of the " teachers " whom the Church owes to the gift of her ascended Lord (Eph. iv. 11). From Ephesians we pass to the Philippians, which, as we have already noted, is very generally accepted as the work of St Paul ; and this acceptance we may justly claim as 112 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST one of the most important gains in New Testament criticism since the days of Baur. The objections made by this famous critic need not detain us, since the most strenuous and almost sole opponent of the Epistle amongst later critics of the first class, C. Holsten, regards the arguments of Baur as feeble or forgotten. In this connection it is of interest to note that Holsten himself acknowledged that the theology of the Epistle is in every way Pauline. Many of the objections which have been raised against Philippians may be answered, as in the case of Ephesians, by a simple recollection of the particular circumstances in which the letter was written. And whether we place Philip- pians first or last in the order of these four Epistles of the First Captivity (Moffatt, Historical N.T., p. 130^), it is quite plain that we are dealing with a letter, not with a theological treatise, — with a familiar letter, the outpouring of a heart full of gratitude, of a love deep and solicitous.^ It is equally plain that in a letter addressed to a simple-minded people like the Philippian converts, and to a Church far removed from the mystic speculations which were so rife at Colosse and Ephesus, there would be no need to discuss a heresy altogether strange and unknown * ; it is equally plain that ' See a strong advocacy of the view that Philippians is the last of the four, by Dr. H. A. Kennedy, Expository Times, 1898. In i. 7 the two legal terms cxTroXoyto and /SejSai'oxrtr seem to Suggest that the Apostle's trial had begun. ^ See in this connection Von Soden's recent remarks, Urchristliche Literaturgeschichte, p. 54 ff. ' Dr. Moffatt quotes Ramsay's remarks : " The tone of Colossians and Ephesians is determined by the circumstances of the Churches addressed. The great cities of Asia were on the highway of the world, which traversed the Lycus Valley, and in them development took place with great rapidity. But the Macedonians were a single-minded people in comparison with Ephesus and Laodicea and Colosse, lying further away from the great movements of thought. It was not in Paul's way to send to Philippi an elaborate treatise against a subtle speculative heresy which had never affected that Church " (see Historical N.T., p. 130, 2nd edit. EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT 113 a man fabricating a letter of Paul's — say, between 70-80 A.D. — would scarcely be likely to make the Apostle tell the Philippians that he trusted to come to them shortly, when the news of his death must have been established beyond a doubt. And it is evident that the force of this consideration would apply even more pointedly to the arbitrary treatment of this Epistle by Van Manen, as, according to him, it could not have been written earlier than the beginning of the second century, probably at 125 A.D., in Syria or Asia Minor, from its dependence on the four Hauptbriefe and its origin from the same circle, although not later than 140 A.D., as Marcion's testimony bars the way. But here, as elsewhere. Van Manen and other opponents fail to take into account the external evidence for the Philippian letter, to say nothing of the fact that its whole contents, with their personal details, with their outpourings of heart to heart, would seem to forbid any possible motive for an invention. It is no wonder that Haupt in the latest edition of Meyer (p. 10 1) should criticise Van Manen's attack in the Encycl. Bibl. so severely ; " every- thing in Philippians which resembles earlier Epistles is an imitation, everything which is not imitated betrays a later date. In this way any writing might be proved to be spurious." The Philippian letter, it is not too much to say, was certainly known to St. Clement of Rome, as also to St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp. If we take the first named and earliest, St. Clement, we may perhaps lay a stress upon the thought in Cor., xvi. 2, where Christ is spoken of as being with them that are lowly of mind, for He came not in arrogance or in pride, but in lowliness of mind. For although an Old Testament pas- sage is cited (Isa. liii.), yet the word denoting lowliness of mind seems to reflect not only the thought but the lan- guage of Phil. ii. 3, 6, 8. In Cor., xlvii. 2 we have the phrase 114 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST "in the beginning of the Gospel," which, we recollect, finds an earlier place in Phil. iv. 15; and there are other likenesses which in combination may perhaps point to a knowledge by St. Clement of our letter. In the Epistles of St. Ignatius the evidence is more definite. Thus in Rom., ii. 2 Ignatius prays for nothing more than to be poured out as a libation to God, while there is still an altar ready, with which we may compare the use of the same striking metaphor in Phil. ii. 17. In his letter to the Philadelphians (viii. 2) Ignatius bids them " do nothing in a spirit of factious- ness," an injunction which reminds us verbally of Phil. ii. 3, a reminiscence rendered more remarkable by the fact that in an earlier chapter of the same letter (i. i) Ignatius has the second part of St. Paul's injunction, " nor yet for vain glory," employing a word which is found nowhere else in the New Testament except in Phil. ii. 3. So, again, in writing to the Smyrnaeans, St. Ignatius twice uses words which sound like reminiscences of St. Paul's Epistle ; e.g. he writes (iv. 2), " I endure all things, seeing that He Himself enableth me," a turn of thought which reminds us forcibly of Phil. iv. 13, although it is true that both the verbs are found in other Epistles. The testimony of Polycarp is specially emphasised by Dr. Zahn, and he justly thinks that this alone, as a piece of evidence occurring in a letter addressed by Polycarp to the same PhiUppian Church, should have protected our Epistle from any suspicion {Einleitung, i. 393),^ for we must bear in mind that twice in his letter St. Polycarp reminds his ' Polycarp knows apparently of more than one letter to the Philip- pians. But it is quite a feasible view that the plural may refer only to one letter (Lightfoot, Phili^jiians, p. [42, and Moffatt's Historical N.T., p. 634), or that, as Zahn thinks, Polycarp may have included the Thessalonian Epistles as addressed also to Churches of Macedonia (cf. Meyer-Haupt, p. 94). But with respect to the use of our Epistle the question is one of secondary importance, and we fully agree with Bacon {Introd.,^. 124) that if more than one letter had survived to Polycarp's day, it would have survived to ours. EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT 115 converts of the fact that Paul had written to them (iii. i, xi. 3). The testimony of St. Polycarp in the contents of the letter itself is considerable, and it is somewhat surprising that B. Weiss should speak of the expression " enemies of the Cross," for whom Polycarp begs the Philippians to pray as the only reminiscence -of our Epistle. But chapter ix. 2 gives us what may fairly be regarded as a reminiscence of Phil. ii. 16, as Lightfoot holds, " being persuaded that all these ran not in vain " (cf., however, Gal. ii. 2), and the opening words of Polycarp's letter certainly remind us of our Epistle, " I rejoiced with you greatly in our Lord " (Phil, iv. 10)1; and Lightfoot again sees in them an expression taken from it. Again, when we read that Polycarp, in speaking of the exalted Christ, says (ii. i), " Unto whom all things were made subject that are in heaven and that are on the earth," we are at least reminded of the language of Phil, ii. 10, although it must be allowed that similar phraseology is found elsewhere. In the curious apocryphal book The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs, we have at least two expressions which remind us very forcibly of our Epistle. This curious book, in its Jewish form, is placed earlier by Dr. Charles than has been the case when its Hebrew origin has been neglected. He derives its Jewish form from the second century B.C., whilst he supposes that the various Christian interpolations date from the middle of the second Christian century and onwards. The two passages are : (i) "The king of heaven will appear on earth in the form of a man " (eV jLtope^iJ dvdpciTrov ; Ben/., x. i^) ; and possibly we ought to read " of a man of humiliation " (jaTreivcia-ew^ ; cf. Phil. iii. 21). (2) "Ye will see God in the fashion of a man " (iv (rxjjfiaTL dvOpcoirov ; Zed., ix. 19). Here, however, the doctrine is probably Docetic, and un- doubtedly so in Asher, vii. 9, " God in the semblance of ii6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST man." It may be that more than one hand was at work in these interpolations, but they remind us irresistibly of the language employed in Phil. ii. $-6} In the writings of Christian Apologists there are frequent thoughts and expressions closely connected with the thoughts and language of our Epistle, without pressing the language from Justin Martyr and that of the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, relating to a heavenly citizenship (cf. Phil. iii. 20). Melito speaks of our Lord as " having put on the form of a servant," and Theophilus of Antioch uses the phrase " minding earthly things " (cf Phil. iii. 19) ; and so, again in speaking of things that are "true and useful and just and lovely," the same writer very probably had in mind Phil. iv. 8, and the word " lovely " (vpocrtjiLK'tj?) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament except in this verse. The testimony of heretical writers may also ^be quoted ; e.^. that of the Sethiani, who, according to Hippolytus, found a support for their own doctrines in their niethod of inter- preting Phil. ii. 6-'/ ; or, again, that of the Valentinian Cassianus, who, according to St. Clement of Alexandria, appears to have quoted Phil. iii. 20. It was contained in the Apostolicon of Marcion, and there may be possibly a reference to it in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, 27. In the Muratorian canon it finds a place. St. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian refer to passages in it as the words of Paul, and St. Irenzeus, who plainly knows of only one Epistle of Paul to Philippi, definitely quotes iv. 18 as the words of Paul.^ Before we conclude this brief summary of external ' See Art. "Testaments of XII. Pat." in Hastings' B.D., iv. (Dr. Charles draws attention to the important passage \Benj., xi.] relating to St. Paul, with its mention of the Apostle's writings and achievements). See, further, Hibbert Journal, April, 1905, and Dr. Charles' article on the book before us. ' See Lightfoot, Phili^pians, p. 76, and Jacquier, u.s. p. 348. It may be observed, in passing, that no one repudiates more strongly than Van EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT 117 evidence, one touching and pathetic addition to it may be cited. The Christians of Vienne and Lyons, writing in the reign of Marcus Aurelius to strengthen their brethren in the faith (about 177 AD.), dwell not upon the sufferings of the martyrs in their Churches, but upon their sober- mindedness, their Christian spirit, their gentleness and humility, their refusal to be proclaimed as martyrs. In this letter one powerful incentive to the cultivation of this spirit of humility is given us in the passage which speaks of those who had become imitators of Christ, and then follows an exact quotation from Phil. ii. 6. " Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God." This reference, moreover, is of further value in that it shows how the Christians of those early days were wont to derive the most practical lessons from the humiliation and sufferings of their divine Lord and Saviour ; and it will always be of service in the interpretation of this difficult passage to remember that St. Paul himself undoubtedly wrote it with a practical purpose in view. He is bidding his converts to refrain from faction and vainglory ; he asks them to act in lowliness of mind, and then he enforces his request by a reference to the unique and transcendent example of divine lowliness and con- descension (Phil. ii. 6). Attention has already been drawn to the inconsistency of those critics who credit St. Paul with this Christological passage, while they refuse to him the authorship of Colossians or Ephesians. It would, of course, be impossible to attempt an examina- tion of the numberless contributions which have been made Manen the view that our Epistle is a piece of patchwork or a com- bination of two or more letters. It would seem, therefore, that he will have nothing to do with the partition theories of Volter and Clemen, although the latter does not deny that the two letters which are, as he thinks, joined together, are both the work of Paul. Cf. Meyer-Haupt, p, 95 ; and Zahn, Einleitung, i. 297. ii8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST to the interpretation of the words and those which follow ; but one or two things may be said. In the first place there is no justification for regarding the passage as referring merely to an ideal pre-existence of Christ in the idea or mind of God. Such a thought is not only foreign to the plain practical bearing of the con- text, but it is at variance with the Apostle's description. You could not ascribe to a pre-existent idea conscious thought and willV; and as in 2 Cor. viii. 9, so here, a moral act and a practical example are in the Apostle's view. It is significant and satisfactory that in the most recent edition of Meyer's Commentary Dr. Haupt, after pointing out what he regards as the insuperable diiificulties of the passage, expresses the hope that there will be no revival of this attempt to explain the words by reference to a so-called ideal pre-existence. Of any attempt to regard the verse as an interpolation, such as that of Briickner, we need not speak ; there is nothing to support it, and it is purely arbitrary.^ ' Witness of the E;pisiles, p. 291. 2 Moflfatt, Historical N.T., p. 635, 2nd edit. In any attempt to understand the words, it may be fairly said that great assistance will be found in the text and in the marginal readings of the R.V. Taking these as guides, St. Paul, we hold, speaks of Christ Jesus as being, i.e. being originally in the form, i.e. lin the nature, of God ; and although He was so, accounting it not as a prize, a thing to be eagerly grasped at or retained, to be equal with God. Then follows the contrast, a contrast obscured in the A.V., where the words "thought it not robbery" would mean that our Lord asserted His claim of equality with the Godhead. But such an assertion would not fitly find a place in the present context, where an example of self- abnegation and humility is to be enforced. In the Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons the words are evidently used as ex- pressing our Lord's self-surrender (see Speaker's Commentary, iii. 620, in loco). " But," i.e., on the contrary. He emptied Himself of His glory, taking the nature (the same word as is used above of the " nature " of God) of a bond servant, being made (in contrast, i.e., to what He originally was, and marking the entrance upon a new exist- ence) in the likeness of men ; the plural being used because Christ in EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT 119 A parallel, indeed, has often been drawn between this passage and 2 Cor. viii. 9, and we may say with Zahn that it contains hardly more dogmatic teaching than the teaching in the Corinthian Epistle. But in each case we have seen how practically the Apostle raises the simplest duties of daily life to a higher, nay, to the highest, level, as partaking of the Spirit of Christ, as making men sharers of the mind of Christ, who was equal with God, the mind of Him who alone knew the Father. In this matchless combination of dogmatic and practical teaching we have again a proof not only of St. Paul's true excellency in word and wisdom, but also of the central and His humanity represents mankind : " He was not mere man, as other men, but more." But as the Apostle proceeds we see that the cHmax is not yet reached ; the punctuation and the conjunction mark a further stage in our Lord's condescension and a further incentive to us in His example. " And being found in fashion as a man," in contrast, again, to what He eternally was. There is no hint whatever in the words of any unreality in our Lord's humanity, and nothing to countenance the Docetic view which Marcion in early and Baur in modern days sought to discover in them. It is not too much to say that the whole passage implies the contrary: "the form of a servant (already) ascribed to the Incarnate One implies likeness to men in their present condition in all possible respects ; for how could one be in earnest with the servant's work whose humanity was in any sense Docetic?" "He humbled Himself," still subsisting in the form of God. The act was voluntary, while a further sign of humility and surrender is marked in the be- coming obedient unto death, yea (R.V.) the death of the Cross. The nature of a bondservant might have been assumed without the death of a slave, but the cup of humiliation was drained to the dregs in the sacrifice of the Cross.* And so we may see how true it is that the divine law which Christ enunciated was fulfilled in His own person : " he that humbleth himself shall be exalted," and the whole creation, animate and inanimate, joins in the hymn of praise to Him who enters once again, both as His right and as His reward, upon the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. * See Gifford, The Incarnation, A Study of Phil., ii. s-". in September and October of Expositor, 1896, and R. B. Drummond, Afostolif Teaching and Qhrisf^ Teaching, pp. 232-3 (1900), I20 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST absorbing place which Christ filled in the Apostle's every thought.^ If he had written in earlier days to the Galatians, " It is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me," to the Philippians he can say, " To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain " ; to the Colossians he speaks of " Christ who is our life," with whom our life is hidden ; whilst for the Ephesians his last words are a prayer that " grace may be with all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness," with a spiritual and eternal love, centred in Him whose love passeth knowledge. Men sometimes speak and write as if the Church of Christ was a great social institution, a civilising agency — that and nothing more. But the opening words of the little note of St. Paul to Philemon may reveal to us that the simplest acts of courtesy and the obligations of social life were what they were for the Christian Apostle, because they flowed from a divine strength and fellowship : " Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." No wonder that Harnack should ask, " Where have we another example in history of a religion intervening with such a robust supernatural consciousness, and at the same time laying the moral foundations of the earthly life of the community so firmly as this message ? " ( What is Christianity } p. 171).^ ■ Dr. Chase thinks it probable that St. Paul's words, "taking the form of a servant" (Phil. ii. 7), may allude to Isa. (xlii. 19, xlviii. 20, xlix. 3, 5), and his prophecies as to the servant of the Lord, whilst the preceding and succeeding context in Philippians guard against any mis- conception. In the LXX the servant is both itais and hovKos, so that we may have a point of contact in the Christology of St. Paul and St. Peter (cf. Acts iii. 13, 26). 2 Cf. the remarks of Dr. Wace in Sjieaker's Commentary, iii. 765. LECTURE VII THE PASTORAL EPISTLES THE Pastoral Epistles are still the most keenly disputed of St. Paul's letters, and that, too, after a struggle, roughly speaking, of a whole century. They have been called a perennial source of difficulty to apologetics ; but it might be as truly said that, in spite of all efforts, the writings still present unsolved problems to those who refuse them to St. Paul. We may begin by stating the present position of the opponents of the Pauline authorship of the letters as we have them. " Critics generally admit," says a representative writer in the ranks of the opposition : (i) " that fragments at least of genuine letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus are here present ; (2) that neither the regulations of Church order, nor, in their general traits, the parties opposed, are altogether out of relation to the later Pauline period ; (3) that many whole phrases, not merely in the epistolary parts, but even in the portions regarded as interpolated into the genuine historical framework, are Pauline, whether borrowed from the primary canon or derived from tradition " (Bacon, Introduction, p. 128). Upon these three statements one or two remarks may be made. In the first place it is something to be told that the heretics opposed, and the mode of opposition to them, are not altogether out of relation to the last days of St. Paul's career, J3l 122 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Baur's chief attack against the Epistles was based upon the ground that they were connected with heretical Gnostic doctrines characteristic of the second century, and other writers have attempted to connect various passages, very often very simple ones, with other and similar doctrinal errors. It would now seem that this line of attack must be modified. But to this we shall return. Another point is this : the letters, as we have them, contain interpolations from, and fragments of, genuine letters of Paul, and we are told that the prevailing efforts of criticism are in the direction of separating the elements which may have formed the original letters from the material, Pauline and otherwise, interpolated by early Church editors in adapting these private notes to the public uses of " ecclesi- astical discipline." But if this is to be the future task of criticism, it is easy to see that a boundless field is opened out for the play of individual acuteness and subjective fancy. Thus, Harnack asks us to believe that these three Epistles consist, as it were, of three layers. We have : (i) Pauline letters or fragments of letters, which he places as early as 59-60 A.D. ; (2) these were worked over and expanded between the years 90-110 ; (3) and (as if the preceding strata were not sufficient) the letters thus revised received further additions up to some- where about the middle of the second century {Chron., i. 484). It is also to be noted that in 2 Timothy, which perhaps lends itself most easily to any process of disintegra- tion, (i) the theories of interweaving of document with document are too intricate to be probable ; (2) that no one theory has commanded anything Hke a common consent.^ What could be more arbitrary than to take such a passage as the first chapter of Titus, and to recognise in the first six 1 See, especially, Lock, Art. " Pastoral Epistles," Hastings' ^.Z*., iv. 777, and Belser, Einleitung, p. 642. The best and fullest statement of the different attempts to break up the Pastorals is in Dr. Moffatt's Historical JV,T., pp. 700-4; but Ije does not seem very ^an^uine as to results, THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 123 verses a genuine Pauline fragment, but to reject the next three verses (7-9) as non-Pauline ? Is there any documentary evidence, we ask, for such a rejection ? None whatever. Upon what, then, is it based ? Simply upon the pre- supposition that Paul could not mention " episcopus " and presbyter in the same paragraph. During at least some sixty to seventy years past it would have been possible to quote a whole catena of writers who, in their multitudinous efforts to separate Pauline and un-Pauline elements, have demonstrated the subjective and precarious nature of all such attempts. Moreover, these efforts of one critic after another in this direction do not lighten, but rather complicate, the problem before us. In the latest edition of his Commentary on these Epistles (1902), B. Weiss (pp. 68-9) does not hesitate to say that the insertion of such fragments as those supposed into letters with the peculiar tendency of which these frag- ments have nothing to do, could only be meant to give the latter the appearance of genuine Pauline letters. But if this is so, these letters lose the character of free pseudonymous productions, and become refined forgeries. But Professor Bacon, in the same connection, makes some remarks with regard to Marcion which open up the whole question of the external evidence for these Pastoral Epistles. According to him, Marcion cannot have been ignorant of these Epistles, and he admits that they were also known to St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp. He also allows that Marcion would not have scrupled to eliminate anything obnoxious to his own beliefs from these letters, if they had occupied, to his mind, the same position as the other letters which he accepted. But the fact that Marcion rejected the Pastorals from his canon at least proves their existence. Moreover, Marcion would not have hesitated to eliminate passages although he assures us that the various attempts agree in one or two passages at least with a fair measure of unanimity. On McGiffert's ingenious attempts in the same direction, see Dr. Horton's criticism, Pastoral Epistles , pp. 16-19, 124 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST obnoxious to him, whether he placed these Epistles on the same level as the other letters of St. Paul or not. He did not' hesitate to make such eliminations in dealing with the Epistle to the Galatians, and no scruples hindered him in applying the like treatment to the Gospel of St. Luke. Marcion rejected these Epistles not merely because they were private letters, for he accepted Philemon, but because they were so entirely opposed to his own heretical system.^ To say that he did so because he might well regard their somewhat mixed mass of regulations, exhortations, and de- nunciations as on the whole falsely purporting to come from Paul, is to go beyond the evidence and beyond what is required for the attitude of Marcion. But it should always be borne in mind that we have positive external evidence of the letters before the time of Marcion. This brings us to a consideration of the evidence bearing upon the authorship from an external point of view. It is sometimes alleged that the external evidence is weaker than in the case of any of St. Paul's other letters. But where is the proof of this statement ? One thing seems tolerably certain, that these Epistles were known to the literature of the Sub-Apostolic age as early as any of St. Paul's letters, and that this testimony meets us from various quarters. Let us briefly illustrate this statement. In the frequently noted points of contact with St. Clement of Rome, Holtzmann could see only indications of a common Church atmosphere, whilst Harnack confesses himself unable to decide definitely how the undeniable relation between the Pastorals and St. Clement is to be explained {Chron., i. 485). But one or two passages at least can be fairly quoted by those who maintain the priority of the Pastoral Letters. Thus, when St. Clement speaks of those " who are ' B. Weiss, Die Briefe Pauli an Tim. und Titus, p. 56 (1902) ; Jacquier, u.s. p. 386 ; Belser, Einleitung, p. 631. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 125 ready to every good work " {Cor., ii. 7), we have an almost verbal reminiscence of Titus iii. i. And so again, when St. Clement bids us (xxix. 1) approach God, " lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto Him," we are irresistibly reminded of I Tim. ii. 8, although the phrase is admittedly used by many writers.^ In the so-called Epistle of Barnabas one point of connection is so striking, viz. that between xiv. 6 and Titus ii. 14, " having delivered us from darkness, to prepare a holy people to himself," that, according to B. Weiss, if this one case is admitted, the other reminiscences of Barnabas may fairly be allowed.^ In the letters of St. Ignatius we find reminiscences of each of the Pastoral Epistles, as Holtzmann appears to admit {Einleitung, iii. 291). For instance, Holtzmann notes that the word for " refresh " (2 Tim. i. 16), dvarjfv^eLv, which is found only here in the New Testament, occurs twice in the same sense in EpA., ii. i and Smyr., x. 2 ; and the same remarkable use of other words peculiar to ,our Epistles is also found in the Ignatian letters.' And if in Magnesium, viii. i, we do not find a direct quotation, there is at least a close and likely reference to the false teaching which consisted in old and useless Jewish fables " Do not," says Ignatius, " be seduced by heterodoxies nor by fables (mythic teachings) ancient and useless. For if we still live according to the Jewish law, we confess that we have not received grace," the word for ^ See New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905), p. 55. ' See B. Weiss, u.s. p. 55, and Einleitung, 3rd edit. p. 35, where he refers not only the above instances to the use of the Pastorals by Clement, but he points out several other reminiscences, and also that Clement has other favourite expressions in common with the Pastorals, and that he has borrowed a number of their peculiarities, e.g. ava^amvpfiv, jrt,(TT0)6eis, irpocrKkitris, ayayrj, avoaios, jSSeXuKTOs. Cf. also JVew Testament in the Ajiostolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905), on the Epistle of Barnabas, p. 14. ' Weiss notes erepohihaarKoKelv, ava^amvpeiv, ava^jnixeiv, eTrayyiKKeaBai, alxfidKaTi^etv, KaTd(TTriiJi,a. 126 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST '' useless " being found in a somewhat similar context in Titus iii. g} So, again, Holtzmann points to the manifest reference in St. Polycarp's Epistle {Phil., iv. i, to i Tim. vi. 7, 10). " But the love of money," writes St. Polycarp, " is the be- ginning of all trouble, knowing . . . that we brought nothing into the world, neither can we carry anything out " ; and to this we may add another noteworthy reminiscence in Phil., ix. 2, of 2 Tim. iv. 10, where we have the phrase " They loved not the present world." To these two passages we may add a third parallel, which B. Weiss admits to be raised, with the two instances just quoted, above all doubt, between Phil., v. 2, and i Tim. iii. 8, in the directions to the officers of the Church.^ In commenting upon the evidence from the letter of Polycarp, Harnack lays stress upon the fact that Polycarp not only knows the Pastoral Epistles himself, but presupposes that his readers know them ; and whilst in some cases he thinks that it may be urged that Polycarp may be merely referring to some commonplace saying, or to some common basis in his appeal to his converts, yet in chapter five of Polycarp's Epistle, 2 Tim. ii. 12 is too plainly cited to admit of any such explanation. Nor must it be forgotten that in the Didache we find the employment of words which may be fairly described as characteristic of the Pastoral Epistles, and the same remark may be made of some of the words and phrases in the Clementine Homihes.^ It may here be noted that B. Weiss, in summing up the ' See on the remarkable force of this evidence, New Testament in the A;postolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905), p. 72 ff. ' N.T. in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 1905), p. 96, fully admits the force of these passages, and lays stress also upon Phil., viii. i, and I Tim. i. I ; Phil., xi. 4, and 2 Tim. ii. 25. ' B. Weiss, DieBrie/e Pauli an Timotheus und Titus, p. 55 (1902), and Einleitung in das N.T., p. 38, 3rd edit. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 127 results of his investigation of the earliest traces of the New Testament Epistles, remarks that the Pastoral Epistles evidently belong to those that are best known. From every quarter during the second century an accumulation of evidence comes to us. We turn to the Apologists Justin Martyr and Aristides, and we find references to two of the three Epistles. In a later Apologist, Athenagoras, the use of the second Epistle to Timothy can scarcely be doubted, and the same may be said of i Timothy and Titus in the writings of Theophilus. In one of the most beautiful of early Christian writings, the Epistle to Diognetus, we have again (xi. 3), what may be fairly called a kind of quotation of, or at least a reminiscence of, i Tim. iii. 16, " for which cause He sent forth the Word, that He might appear unto the world, who, being dishonoured by the people, and preached by the Apostles, was believed in by the Gentiles." In the pathetic letter of the Christians of Vienne and Lyons we have a remarkable phrase, " the pillar and ground," the Greek words being in both cases similar to those in I Tim. iii. 15 ; while in the same letter we have a reference to the words closely following in i Tim. iv. 3. In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs it is quite possible that the phrase, " the mediator of God and men " (Dan vi.) may be borrowed from i Tim. ii. 5. In all this it is remarkable, as Dr. Weiss points out, how frequent is the use of that Epistle of the three which is most disputed, viz. I Timothy. Whatever difificulties there may be in finding certain traces of the Pastorals in some heretical writings, owing, perhaps, to their personal character, there can be little doubt from the testimony of Tertullian that the heretics appealed to more than one passage for their secret tradition.^ Tertullian himself, with Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, 1 Deprcescr. hcBret., 25 ; and cf. i Tim. vi. 20 ; 2 Tim. i. 14. 128 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST names and cites the Epistles as the work of Paul. The words of the Muratorian Fragment may well suffice for a conclusion. Of the blessed Apostle himself the writer says that he wrote one letter to Philemon, one to Titus, and two to Timothy, out of personal regard and affection, but that these too are hallowed in the respect of the Catholic Church for the arrangement of ecclesiastical discipline. Surely this statement of the Muratorian Frag- ment, so far from militating against the claims of the three Epistles, as Holtzmann would suggest, shows us that their claims had been duly weighed before these writings were held in regard by the Church. Before we pass from this external evidence we may note that Professor Ramsay reminds us that the apocryphal Ads of Paul and Tkekla contain references to names mentioned in the Pastoral Epistles, such as Demas and Hermogenes, and introduces these characters, as we might expect, as hostile to Paul and as bringing charges against him {Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 392, 417). Professor Ramsay's testimony also goes to show that the tone of the Pastoral Epistles is consistent only with an early date of persecution, and that therefore these letters, for this reason alone, could not be placed at the late date which the opponents of their authenticity often demand. Surely it is strange that when we hear so much of the denial of these Epistles, little or no stress is laid upon the fact by those hostile to their claims that one of the most learned of German classical scholars. Dr. Blass {Acta Apostolorum, p. 24), and in our own country Professor Ramsay, should have so recently acknowledged these writings as the undoubted work of St. Paul.^ Of course, it must be admitted that so far we have been dealing mainly with only one line of evidence ; but " it is ' To these names may be added those of Dean Bernard, Camb. Greek Test. ; Dr. Lock, Art. in Hastings' B.D., iv. ; and Dr. Findlay, Art. "Paul," Hastings' B.D., iii. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 129 remarkable," says Dr. Sanday {Inspiration, p. 364), " that the external evidence for the Pastoral Epistles should be so good and so early as it is ; because, apart from the question which seems to have been raised and debated during the second century, whether letters to individuals could rightly have canonical value assigned to them, it would be only natural to suppose that such letters would be later in getting into circulation than letters addressed to churches and read in public services." But if the external evidence was stronger than it is ^ we are not, of course, justified on this ground alone in asserting the Pauline authorship, although the evidence is forthcoming that this line of proof is so satisfactory. And to some minds the points of internal evidence which favour the Pauline authorship will always appear the strongest part of the defence. The most recent attack upon the Pastoral Epistles in England has been made by Dr. Moffatt in Encycl. Bibl., iv. In this full and elaborate attack Dr. Moffatt almost entirely ignores the external evidence whilst he has nothing to say to the remarkable internal evidence which immediately demands our attention. The large number of personal names introduced into these letters is very striking, and the fact that these names are not introduced as mere empty names, to give an appearance of genuineness to the letters, but that they often stand out as figures of flesh and blood.^i It is also significant that in this long list of names so many are not met with in the Acts or in other Pauline letters. A man who was concocting a letter in the second century, with the idea of passing it off as St. Paul's, would have been bold indeed to have introduced so many names, quite new and quite unknown. 'Against McGiffert's statement as to this alleged weakness (cf. Aj>ostolic Age, p. 399) we may place Zahn's discussion, Einleitung, i. 486 ; and Belser, Einleitung, p. 631. 1 Zahn, Einleitung, i. 457 ; Belser, Einleitung, p. 632 ; Weiss, u.s. p. 66 ; Salmon, Introduction, p. 410. 9 130 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST It may of course be argued that a forger could easily introduce names which in the nature of the case no one could test, because no one was aware of their existence. But quite apart from the large number of these unknown names,^ we must remember that such names by no means stand alone. They are found side by side with the names of some ten other persons who are known to us in other parts of the New Testa- ment. And not only so, but these names of persons thus otherwise known to us are here dealt with in a most surprising manner. Demas, e.g., is known to us in Col. iv. 14 and Philem. verse 24 ; but in each of these Epistles he is closely associated with the honoured name of Luke. In 2 Timothy all this is changed ; he is no longer in honour, but in disgrace. " Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world " (cf iv. 10). Is this the work of a forger? Who is it that thus dares to put the brand of disgrace upon Demas ? We have, too, the confident as- sertion that Demas had gone to Thessalonica, but there is nothing to connect him with this region except the inference that he may have been a fellow citizen of Aristarchus of Thessalonica, with whose name that of Demas is associated in Philem. verse 24.^ There are other notices which are puzzling if we suppose that the Epistles are fictitious; e.g., Tit. iii. 12. We could understand, that Tychicus might be sent to Colosse, but why to Crete, in company with Artemas, of whom we know nothing from any other New Testament ' Dr. Salmon (Introduction, p. 410) justly comments on the fact that the Pastoral Epistles have nothing to say of Aristarchus, although, as he says, his name ought to have occurred in that enumeration of his attendants which St. Paul makes in accounting for his being left alone. The probable explanation may be that Aristarchus was dead at the time. But if the list was a forgery, the question may be fairly asked. How is it that the forger who can give so courageously the history of Paul's other attendants, fails in his heart when he comes to speak of Aristarchus ? * Zahn, Einleitung, i. 458, 481. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 131 record? And it would savour of grievous clumsiness in a forger to introduce in the very next verse Apollos, with- out any indication that he is the famous personage of I Corinthians and Acts, as also at Crete in company with Zenas the lawyer who is not mentioned elsewhere. And why, we might further ask, should the letter have been addressed to Crete at all ? Trophimus, again, is left by St. Paul at Miletus sick (2 Tim. iv. 20). We learn from Acts XX. 4-15 that Trophimus had on one occasion been at Miletus with Paul ; but would it not be in plain contradiction with the notice in Acts to leave him sick at Miletus, for in Acts xxi. 29 we find him with St. Paul at Jerusalem ? So, too, the notice that Titus had gone to Dalmatia surprises us ; in all consistency Titus should have been sent to Crete (2 Tim. iv. 10). But granting that some at least of the personal notices in the Pastoral Epistles need not present any surprise, such a point of detail as that in i Tim. v. 23 seems quite in- explicable as the notice of a forger. There is no connection in the words with what precedes or with what follows which would have been likely to have suggested such a piece of advice to any one imitating the Apostle. It would have found a place much more naturally in the exhortation of iv. 4-16, or we should rather have expected the Apostle to have forbidden wine altogether as a sequel to the in- junction, " Keep thyself pure." Such a notice, too, as that contained in 2 Tim. iv. 13 is quite beyond the art of a forger, and the series of inter- pretations which commentators have devised in their dealing with the words shows how hazardous their introduction would have been on the part of any one uncertain of his ground. But on the supposition that the Apostle was released, and that he went again to Ephesus, as he intended, according to I Tim. iii 14, the notice about the cloak and the exhortation to Timothy to bring it become quite 132 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST intelligible/ On his way to Ephesus he could easily touch at Troas ; but his subsequent arrest would prevent him from again going there to take up what he had left. Anyhow, some such hypothesis is quite reasonable, for we cannot suppose that the notice in 2 Timothy refers to the Apostle's visit to Troas in Acts xx. 6, since in that case he would have left at Troas for several years articles which were evidently highly valued by him. Moreover, when we come to examine these Pastoral Epistles, the whole description, of Timothy and Titus is quite the reverse of what would have been natural to an imitator of Paul. In Phil. ii. 19 the Apostle had spoken in the highest terms of Timothy ; but in the Pastorals we do not find that the representation is altogether the picture which we might have expected to have been drawn for us. If, however, we contrast this with the legendary panegyric which was so often in vogue in the early Church, and if we bear in mind that a pseudonymous writer would have been far more likely to exalt Timothy than to pass reflections upon him, it becomes very difficult to believe that the description of Paul's " son in the faith " is otherwise than strictly true. Both Timothy and Titus are represented not only as young men, but as despised on this account, and, what is still more strange, as constantly needing the warnings of St. Paul. Dr. Moffatt, in his recent elaborate attack, maintains that the author who wrote from what he conceived to be the standpoint of Paul is least successful in reporting what would have been Paul's tone and temper to colleagues like Timothy and Titus, and he speaks of the curt and in- congruous general instructions which are put into the Apostle's mouth. Whether St. Paul's advice is to be regarded as curt and incongruous is perhaps open to question ; but surely the more curt and incongruous we make it, the more difficult it is to conceive that any forger should ' Weiss, U.S. p. 321. See also Salmon, Introd., p. 401. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 133 introduce it. If it be urged, as Dr. Moffatt apparently urges, that all this curtness is introduced by a man who was surrounded by those who were accustomed to exalt Paul above every one else, it must be remembered that this somewhat curious method of exalting Paul is at the expense of the character of Timothy, and of the disparagement of one who is at least so important as to be marked out as a representative official of the Church, and the recipient of two of Paul's letters, and who is still, in spite of his failings, the son of the Apostle's tender love. This com- bination of sternness and tenderness, and the warnings of a man who knew intimately, from previous knowledge and experience, the dangers of a temper like that of Timothy, would come naturally from one holding the position of St. Paul, giving his final and solemn exhortations for the guidance of life and the welfare of the Church. But a forger writing in the second century would scarcely have essayed such a bold and hazardous task,^ thus to represent such a combination in St. Paul, and to depict at the same time the weakness of his colleagues and the high authority intrusted to them in spite of it. Moreover, this representation demands that 2 Timothy should be written first, then Titus, and then i Timothy, because of its sharper and more dictatorial tone, and because in it the writer stands further from the influence of his master. When he wrote 2 Timothy he had considerable Pauline material at his disposal ; but all this genuine material is at a discount when the writer wishes to elaborate some point of ecclesiasticism or Church organisation. In the early Church, it is true, the general belief was that 2 Timothy was written last of the three epistles, with its rich personal references and its evident reflection of the closing phase in the Apostle's career ; but now we are assured that a comparative study of the contents ' Zahn, Einleitung, i. 459 ; Lock, Hastings' B.D., iv. 773, as against Moffatt, Encycl. Bibl., iv. 5095. 134 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST compels us to reverse the order, and that 2 Timothy is to be placed first. The reason for this reversal of what seems to most plain people the natural order we have already seen. But it is not only that in these Epistles the picture of the relationships between the chief personages concerned seems strange, unless upon the supposition that it is drawn by one who had a full understanding of the truth, but that the whole situation represented becomes inconceivable if the letters are fictitious. For, on this latter supposition, we are dealing with an author who would presumably draw his material from what was already known of the life of Paul. And if this knowledge was derived from the Acts and the Pauline Epistles, and, as we are assured, from genuine fragments of Paul's own writing, a pseudonymous editor or author would at least have given us something consistent with these sources, and not have involved himself in such frequent difficulties. For it is surely a strange result of all the patchwork by which we are asked to believe that the Epistles have gained their present form, that we should still be left with a set of circumstances which cannot be fitted into the known events of St. Paul's life without the most violent expedients. Indeed, those who defend the Epistles would act wisely in giving up all attempts to fit them into any scheme of Paul's life which is covered by the Acts and the Apostle's acknowledged Epistles, and the difficulties of doing so may be frankly admitted.^ For then we fall back upon the possibility that these writings may come to us from some period of St. Paul's life subsequent to his first recorded captivity. It will, of course, be at once said that we have no ground for believing that the Apostle was released ' Dr. Clemen's recent attempts in this direction, and his arbitrary assignment of fragments of 2 Timothy to different dates in St. Paul's career, are fresh evidence of this {Paulus, i. 146 fE). He assigns, e.g., 2 Tim. iv. 19-22, Titus iii. 12-14, to the year 57 ; 2 Tim. iv. 9-18 to the imprisonment in Caesarea, and 2 Tim. i. 15-18 to that in Rome. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 135 from his first imprisonment. But this is to dispose of a considerable body of evidence in a somewhat hasty manner. In the first place, we have at least one Epistle of the Apostle, admitted, as we have seen, to be such by critics of all schools — Philippians — in which the tone is very different from that of 2 Timothy. In Philippians, to say nothing of a similar state of expectancy in another undoubted Epistle, Philemon, a note of joyful assurance of release is struck which contrasts in the most marked manner with the language of 2 Timothy. In this last Epistle all hope of acquittal is gone, death stares the writer in the face, he is already being poured forth as an offering, and the time of his departure is at hand. This, and much besides, may be adduced to show that the view of a second imprisonment cannot be lightly dismissed. And although it may be said that we cannot make the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles to depend upon an event which cannot be proved, or the event to depend upon Epistles the genuineness of which is disputed, yet, at least it may be said that the hypothesis of a release and second imprisonment of St. Paul explains our letters in the most satisfactory manner, whilst the existence of our letters may be ad- duced as supplementing and completing the presumptive evidence from other Epistles which point to the Apostle's release. Dr. Harnack, we may note in passing, now speaks of St. Paul's release from his first imprisonment as an un- doubtedly assured fact ^ {Chron., i. 240). The question of language is another problem which presents so many difficulties in connection with our three Epistles, and it may be conveniently raised at this point. For it is very noticeable that several expressions occur in the Epistle to the Philippians and in the Pastoral Epistles, ' The present writer may refer for the question of St. Paul's release and second imprisonment to the Critical Review, July, 1898. 136 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST but in no other writings of St. Paul.^ But this would be obviously quite natural on the supposition, which is so well supported by recent scholars, that Philippians is the Epistle which may be placed nearest to the Pastorals in point of time. Again, it would be very natural that a lengthy residence in Rome should result in the employment by the Apostle of the many Latin isms which we find in these Pastoral Epistles, as even Holtzmann allows. We have, e.g., the phrase Si' rjv aXrioLV = quam ob rem (instead of the simple Sio), a phrase occurring three times in these Epistles ; the phrase \o.piv e)(€LV = gratiam habere, which is found twice ; so, again, KaKovpyo^ = maleficus, which is only found in the N.T. Epistles in 2 Tim. ii. 9 ; and to these may be added the hapaxlegomena, dSrjX.OTT^s = incertitude (i Tim. vi. 17) and trpoKpi^La =^ prcejudicium (i Tim. v. 21), (Holtzmann's Einleitung} p. 286). So far as the general style and language of the Pastorals are concerned, they are sometimes defended on the ground that the Apostle was an old man, and that he writes at this period of his life as an old man. But, if so, it must be remembered that in the Philippian Epistle, in which, as we believe, we may see the writing which precedes the Pastorals most closely, no one discovers anything to betoken the characteristics of an old man's style. The aim of the letters gives us the best, and perhaps the truest, explanation. In ' Cf., e.g., a-eixvos Phil. iv. 8, and elsewhere three times, m'z. in 1 Tim. iii. 8, 11 ; Titus ii. 2; ewex^iv, Phil. ii. 16 ; only once elsewhere, vz'z. I Tim. iv. 16 ; irpoKOTrrj, twice in Philippians, viz. i. 12, 25 ; and once elsewhere, i Tim. iv. 15. So, too, we may notice that in Phil. i. St. Paul speaks of his desire to depart (dvaXfio-ai, verse 23), of his conflict {ayav, verse 30), of his willingness to be offered (crnevSonai, ii. 17), of his pressing on (iii. 14) in his contest for a prize. When we turn to 2 Tim. iv. 6 we find the same ideas and the same language. The Apostle is ready to be offered (o-TreVSofiai), the time of his departure is at hand (acoXuo-ir), he has fought a good fight (ayav). See Speaker's Commentary, iii. 758. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 137 his earlier writings St. Paul had been concerned mainly with polemical questions, with arguments and discussions, whereas now he is rather insisting upon practical piety and the rules of holy living,^ he is giving instructions ; and even when he has in mind the errors of false teachers he does not enter upon their detailed refutation, but contents himself with defining the attitude most becoming for Timothy and Titus in face of such dangers. In this connection it should also be remembered that many of the hapaxlegomena in these Epistles may be fairly explained by bearing in mind the objects of the Apostle in characterising doctrinal errors and in laying down more minutely regula- tions for Church government and offices.^ As a matter of fact, the argument, from the occurrence of so many hapaxlegomena, has been overstated. That a large number of this class of words is found in the three writings none will deny ; but this is the case in other Pauline Epistles, and the other groups of the Apostle's letters are characterised by expressions peculiar to them and to their subject matter ; moreover, this argument from language may be said to cut both ways.' It is only fair to mark the hits, as well as the misses ; and even Holtzmann is constrained to allow that there is a rich district of language common to our three Epistles and to all which bear the name of St. Paul ; constantly we are meeting with words character- istic of one and the same writer, of his turns of expression and his modes of thought. Closely allied to this question of language is that of the references in the writer of these Epistles to heresies and strange doctrines. Three points may be noted. In the ' Lock, Paul the Master-Builder, pp. 117-21. * See, amongst other recent defenders of the Epistles, Belser, Einleitung, p. 637. ' See the whole question of language discussed from a conservative standpoint by Weiss, u.s. \iy>'2,, p. 47 ff, and Zahn, Einleitung, i. 480-8. 138 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST first place there is nothing in the expressions employed which can be definitely connected with the Gnosticism of the second century/ One famous passage (i Tim. vi. 20) was relied upon by Baur in proof of this, where the Apostle exhorts Timothy to turn away from profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge falsely so called. But although Baur has had some able followers, yet fatal objections have been raised to this late Gnostic interpretation of this passage not only by Dr. Weiss and Dr. Zahn in Germany, but by Dr. Hort in England, whose investigations have gained the high praise of the last-named German scholar {Einleitung, i. 484). It may be at once admitted that Marcion uses the word " oppositions " — the same word which is used in i Tim. vi. 20 of oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called. But how does Marcion employ the term ? Of the " Opposi- tions " of the Old and New Testaments and as the title of a book. The word might well be used in this sense by Marcion in accordance with his whole system ; but the reference to any book bearing the title is very unlikely in I Tim. vi. 20. Moreover, it would be strange indeed that the false teachers who, like the followers of Marcion, opposed the law and the Gospel, should be characterised as desiring to be teachers of the law (i Tim. i. 7), that they should be spoken of as lovers of Jewish fables (Titus i. 14) and as belonging in great part to the circumcision (Titus i. 10). A much more likely interpretation is that given by Hort,^ who sees in the words under consideration a reference to the endless contrasts of decisions, founded on endless dis- tinctions, which played so large a part in the casuistry of the Scribes as interpreters of the law ; in other words, the ' See, on the strained nature of some of these supposed references, Weiss, U.S. p. 20, 24 ; and of. Belser, Einleitung, p. 634. * Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 133, 140, 219. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 139 setting one point against another, " objections " almost " cavils." ^ It was not, of course, unnatural that the Fathers of the second century should feel that heretics of their own day and of their own century were referred to in such a phrase as " knowledge falsely so called." But not only are there traces of the use of the word Gnosis, as signifying esoteric lore, long before the days of the great Gnostic sects, — " knowledge," e.g., in the Colossian Epistle, is a favourite word constantly on the lips of the false teachers (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 414), — but the same word might easily be used to describe the special claim which the Rabbis made to superior wisdom. And we remember how our Lord Himself had His word of warning and judgment against those who by their study of the law actually took away the key of "knowledge " (Luke xi. 52). It is from this point of view that so distinguished a scholar as Dr. Hort has insisted in his chapter on the Pastoral Epistles that the errors in question are entirely Judaistic. That they were mainly so we can scarcely doubt, if we fairly take into account the language used by the writer. We have, e.g., the fact upon which both Weiss and Hort alike insist, that those who are addressed are not summoned to refute fundamental errors, but to reject point- less speculations. And thus they are warned not to give heed to fables and endless genealogies (i Tim. i. 4), not to give heed to "Jewish fables " (Titus i. 13), the " fables " in each case being presumably the same ; and we also may note that the genealogies are connected very significantly with strifes about the law (Titus iii. 9). In this connection reference is sometimes made to a passage in the historian Polybius (ix. 2. i), where precisely the same phrase occurs, " genealogies and fables " — a phrase which evidently includes not so much what we mean by genealogies proper, but the mythological legends and tales connected with the births of ' Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 133, 140, 210. 140 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST demigods and heroes. And not only so, but it is still more suggestive to find that Philo used the term " genealogicum " to include all the primitive human history in the Pentateuch. It was a fair inference that if this term could be thus applied, such a word would be even more applicable, especially in combination with " fables '' to the legendary history of the patriarchs and heroes of early Jewish times, like the Hagga- doth or similar legendary literature. And the legitimacy of this inference may be said to be placed beyond a doubt by the contents of The Book of Philo concerning Biblical Antiquities, falsely attributed to Philo, and dated within the first century of our era — a book which had almost escaped notice until some few years ago. It had been printed three times before 1550 A.D., but from that period until 1898 scarcely anything had been heard of it. But it will be noted that Dr. Hort's Judaistic Christianity anticipated the re-publication of this curious book by four years.^ " In the Pastoral Epistles," writes Dr. James {Church Congress, 1898), " St. Paul repeatedly warns Timothy and Titus that they are to avoid Jewish fables and endless genealogies as being unprofitable and vain. It has been a commonplace of criticism to say that by these genealogies we are to under- stand the long mystical pedigrees of spiritual beings or aeons, which are so prominent a feature of the Gnostic aeons of the second century ; and upon this supposition is founded an argument against the genuineness of the Epistles in question. But this book of the false Philo shows us exactly what St. Paul did mean, and why he connected the mention of the endless genealogies with that of the Jewish fables. For " Philo " devotes a very considerable part of his book to enumerating and naming the descendants of the antediluvian patriarchs and of the sons of Noah. The names he gives them and the numbers he assigns to their families are of course purely fanciful ; but we can easily see ' Hort, U.S. p. 13s, and Art. " Genealogy," Hastings' B.D., ii. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 141 how they would afford scope for discussions and speculations to those who elected to believe in them, and also how singularly well chosen are the epithets which St. Paul applies to them." Moreover, in addition to this book of the pseudo-Philo, we have the equally remarkable apocryphal book, the Book of Jubilees, one object of which was to glorify the patriarchs by legendary additions and emendations of their history^ a book closely concerned throughout with numbers and generations. The most recent editor of this book. Dr. Charles, although he places it in the second century B.C., instead of in the first century of our era, with many scholars, writes of it as follows : " The Pauline phrases, ' fables ' and ' endless genealogies,' ' old wives' fables,' ' genealogies and fighting about the law,' form a just description of a large portion of Jubilees. The ' old wives' fables ' may be an allusion to the large rdle played by women in it." ^ It would seem, therefore, that we are at least justified in closely connecting these errors with those of Jewish schools and teachers ; but whether we can do so entirely is, of course, a further question. Dr. Hort is evidently of opinion that we can, and he regards such a restriction as " forbidding to marry," which we should not expect to emanate from the Jews, as being possibly connected with the Jews of the Diaspora in their exposure to so many foreign influences, and as indicative of a view of marriage, which might soon place it, like other abstinencies, under some religious ban. Certainly there are some very striking points of contact between the dangers or possible dangers remarked upon in the Pastoral Epistles and the tenets of the particular sect of the Ophites with which Lightfoot would connect them.^ ' Book of Jubilees, p. Ixxxv. * Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 414 ; and Professor Massie, Art. " Fable," Hastings' B.D., i. 142 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST The Ophites, who regarded the symbol of the serpent with reverence and honour, taught, it would seem, by myths, They forbade marriage ; they maintained that the resurrection was spiritual — in other words, they said, with Hymenaeus and Philetus, that it was past already ; and it may be that there are also evidences of the use amongst them of the " genealogies " mentioned in the Pastorals. Bishop Lightfoot places the heresy at such an early date as to regard its origin as contemporaneous with the Apostles ; but it must be remembered that in giving a summary of the account of this heresy in Hippolytus, he recognises that we are not dealing with the original form of the heresy, and that later accretions have gathered around it. But the point with which we are chiefly concerned is this, that the heresy in question was Jewish in its origin, and that whilst it might be classed as Judaic-Gnosticism, it is to be distinguished from the Gnosticism of the later second century Gnostic sects.^ But whilst the association of the false teachings with Judaic elements may be undoubtedly acknowledged, it is doubtful whether it is any help to the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles to go further than this, and to attempt to identify their language with a rejection of any one definite heresy. The traces, e.g., of a connection with the tenets of the Ophites may be combated by the argument that these traces do not fit in with the tenets of the Ophites alone, and that certain details may be quoted against the identification of the teaching in question with that of this one sect. Indeed, the very indefiniteness of the language used, and the varied and sometimes contradictory nature of the attempts made to refer it to this sect or to that, may rather be fairly used as an argument for the early date of the Epistles in contrast to the more definite and technical language of the Gnosticism of the second century. And ' Weiss, U.S. p. 43. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 143 in this connection it is very noteworthy that critics like Holtzmann and Von Soden, no less than some of the most orthodox defenders of the Epistles, reject any relation to the concrete teaching of any one false sect, and allow that only a budding Gnosticism is in general combated. But this, surely, is exactly what might be admitted by the most strenuous defenders of the three Epistles. And if we turn for a moment to the Church government which we find in these letters, may not the same note of indefiniteness equally tell in favour of an early date ? These Epistles represent a kind of transition stage, and if the " ecclesiasticism " which is alleged against them had been so predominant, the whole representation of Church government would have been different. " They signalise the first step," as it has been said, " towards the formation of the Diocesan episcopate." The Apostle has the oversight and the government over the Churches ; but that power may be delegated by him to others, and these Epistles give us two instances of this delegation to Timothy and Titus over the Churches of Ephesus and Crete. But if these Epistles had been forgeries coming to us from the close of the first century, all this would have been different. We should not have had, as even the opponents of the Epistles admit, a delegation of an entirely peculiar and exceptional character, which differed from that of the diocesan as well as of the metropolitan episcopate ; in other words, we should have had not the introduction of an expedient to which the history of the first century contains no analogy, but the introduction of a permanent institution. And if this is so, the question may be fairly asked as to where these Epistles could be placed more naturally and fitly than in the closing years of St. Paul's life ? ^ One further point, to which we have already referred, • Church Quarterly Review, vol. xlii. p. 299 £E. Bishop Gore, Church and the Ministry, p. 247. 144 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST must always be kept prominently in view. The three Epistles stand or fall together : this is generally admitted.^ But we are constantly told that the chief object of the writer was to insure the acceptance of the traditional teaching of the Church, and to lay stress upon its episcopal organisation. But if so, it must always remain a curious fact that the letter which advanced criticism regards, as we have noted, as the earliest of the three, viz. 2 Timothy, should be just the letter in which no trace of this tendency to insist upon ecclesiastical matters is found, replete as it is with quite general exhortations to Christian endurance, and an honour- able fulfilment of the Christian calling.^ It has become, as we have seen, almost an axiom of advanced critics of a certain school to regard 2 Timothy as the earliest of the three, and as the letter standing nearest to the Pauline tradition, and containing probably genuine Pauline notes and reminiscences. This, then, is the letter which would obviously command the widest and greatest respect, as being rich in such genuine Pauline treasures, whilst in the other two letters, which make ecclesiastical organisation their chief concern, the personality of Paul retires into the background. This is an inversion of what we might justly expect, viz. that the rich Pauline reminiscences would be used to support the demand for ecclesiastical organisation. This consideration brings us to a brief notice of the attacks directed against the more doctrinal bearing of the Epistles. Thus, it is urged that the word Si/catoo-wiy is no longer used in its I technical Pauline sense, but rather as a virtue which the Christian must seek to gain like other moral virtues (cf 2 Tim. ii. 22). But St. Paul frequently employs the word in this later sense in his earlier Epistles (cf, e.g., 2 Cor. ix. 10 ; Rom. vi. 13, viii. 10). And in these Pastoral ' See Holtzmann, Einleitung, p. 274. 2 Ibid., p. 274 ; Weiss, u.s. p. 80. THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 14S Epistles there are also other passages which lay stress upon the grace of God, and upon being justified by His grace (cf. Titus iii. 4-6, ii. 11-14 ; 2 Tim. i. 9). The truth is that St. Paul, in writing practical advice for the government of the churches, in the midst of a society where every form of vice and licentiousness abounded, would naturally include the cultivation of moral virtues. The words which occur so frequently in these Epistles denoting soundness and healthiness, and other terms relating primarily to health and disease, which are characteristic of them, cease to surprise us when we remember that for St. Paul salvation was the power of a new and divine life, the gift of a renewed nature, from which good works naturally flowed. And how natural, we may add, would such metaphors derived from the thought of bodily health and soundness come to us from a man whose closest friend was Luke the physician, from a man who had known a worse disease working in his members than that of impaired bodily health, who could pray for his converts in his earliest letters, that their spirit and soul and body might be preserved entire, without blame, at the coming of Jesus Christ (i Thess. v. 23).^ There is one passage in the New Testament which has been spoken of as the favourite passage of the great Selden,** in which we find in a most striking degree the combination of grace and works ; the grace of God and the godly, righteous, and sober life as the outcome of the reception of that gift. " For the grace of God," writes St. Paul to Titus (ii. 11-14), "hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world ; looking for the blessed hope ' It is quite possible that the frequent use of these medical metaphors in the Pastoral Epistles may be referred to St. Paul's intimacy with St. Luke. Plumptre, Expositor, p. 146 (1876); Lock, Hastings' B.D., iv. 772 ; Findlay, Epistles of Paul, p. 213. ' See Quarterly Review, July, 1887, p. 238. 10 146 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works." It is indeed alleged that here again the stress is laid chiefly upon doctrinal teaching, and that this is character- istic of a time later than that of St. Paul ; that the word " faith," e.g., is used in the Pastorals not as a subjective feeling, but as describing a body of objective truths, in the sense, in fact, of a creed. Yet not only is it likely that St. Paul would point to " a form of sound words " in contrast to the sickly effects of questionings and disputings (i Tim. vi. 4 ; 2 Tim. i. 13) ; but we have references in his earlier writings to a form of doctrine (Rom. vi. 17), a pattern of teaching, where- unto his converts had been delivered, a passage in which we have a cognate word for " form " or " pattern " to the word used 2 Tim. i. 13 ; and so, too, he speaks in i Cor. xv. 3 of delivering to his converts that which he had received. Moreover, we can see also in the earlier Epistles how easily the term " faith " might come to be applied to the main facts and truths of the Christian religion, to be, in fact, a synonym for the term " the Christian religion " (Gal. i. 23 ; iii. 23) ; how fitly St. Paul would bid the Corinthians to stand fast in the faith, to try themselves whether they were in the faith. And what, after all, was more natural (a point which the opponents of the Epistle never for a moment consider) than that St. Paul, as life grew to its close, should seek not only to insure the Apostolic teaching as a possession for the Church, but that he should again and again point to the facts which formed the groundwork of that teaching, and to the motives which would be likely to gain the most ready acceptance. And so, here again, we come across one of the chief and greatest characteristics of St. Paul's teaching, his wonderful power of uniting a personal and unbounded THE PASTORAL EPISTLES 147 devotion to Christ with the simplest practical guidance for the Christian life and the Christian Church. Surely from this point of view nothing could be more significant than the fact that in those "(Faithful Sayings," which are found only in these Pastoral Epistles in the New Testament, but which had so evidently gained a wide accept- ance at the period when, as we believe, these Epistles were written, we should find a reference made in the two sayings, which were probably the first and last of the five (i Tim. i. 15 ; 2 Tim. ii. 11-13), to the Incarnation, the Life and Suffering, the Death, the Resurrection, the Ascension of Christ, as a power of forgiveness for the past, of endurance in the present, of hope for the future. This Christ in whom " the Faith " was centred had given Himself a ransom for all. The Redeemer of the world. He had not only been manifested in the flesh, One mediator between God and men, Himself the Man ; but to Him in His ascended glory prayer was to be addressed, because He was ever at hand to bless and deliver. His words are the canon of truth, of Christian understanding, of Christian life ; He is our ensample in the daily struggles with the world ; He is our Judge, testing our service and our loyalty, in whose presence we all stand. Need it surprise us if, as St. Paul thought of Him, upon whose Name, as the bond of their union and strength, men were to call as they called upon Jehovah (2 Tim. ii. 19, 22) ; in whose Incarnation the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all men (Titus ii. 11), abolishing death and bringing life and incorruption to light, his vision should pass beyond the limits of this present time-world to his Lord's heavenly kingdom (2 Tim. iv. 18), and that he should look for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ? (Titus ii. 13, R.V.) LECTURE VIII THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES IN the preceding lectures an endeavour has been made to justify our use of all those Epistles in the New Testament which are attributed to St. Paul. But before we proceed to estimate the Apostle's testimony in relation to the Life of the Gospels, and in relation to the life of the Church, another New Testament book, the Acts of the Apostles, claims our serious consideration for this, the last lecture of this first series. How far are we justified in referring to this book as an authentic record of St. Paul's witness and work ? In answering this inquiry, we may start by observing that, whoever the writer of the Acts may have been, he is remarkably accurate in his descriptions of St. Paul's labours. No book of the New Testament has been exposed to severer scrutiny in England, Germany, America, Holland, during the last few years, and it may be fearlessly asserted that that scrutiny has testified to the carefulness and know- ledge of the writer in a very striking degree. Let us confine ourselves for the moment to that part of the book which deals most fully with St. Paul's missionary journeys, and consider how closely the record touches the religious, political, social life of the ancient world. Bishop Lightfoot long ago pointed out that the most difficult of all subjects for accurate treatment in the first century was the administration of the Roman Empire and its provinces. 148 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 149 Here, if anywhere, we might expect that a writer would make some grave blunder, and prove his incapacity to deal with matters as a serious historian. But if a writer can be shown to be accurate here, we may justly count upon his accuracy elsewhere, and even in points which still present uncertainty we may fairly ask ourselves if it is not more likely that we are in fault rather than the writer whose accuracy has been put to such searching proof In this connection reference may be made to a now familiar instance of St. Luke's accuracy, and this instance is placed first, because, although familiar to some of us, it is so striking in itself, and because it has a special interest for Londoners. In the description of St. Paul's visit to Thessalonica (Acts xvii.) St. Luke speaks of the magistrates of that city as " politarchs." No classical authors use the word of the magistrates of any city (although we find in their pages closely similar forms), and this was quoted as a glaring instance of St. Luke's inaccuracy. But an inscription on an arch spanning a street of the modern Saloniki has been fortunately preserved for us, and there the exact title is found. The arch is assigned to the time of Vespasian, and the entablature preserved by the British Consul in 1876 at the instance of Dean Stanley may now be seen in the British Museum. But since that date we have had fresh inscriptional evidence of a remarkable character, both from Dr. Zahn and Professor Burton. The latter has collected no less than seventeen inscriptions on which the word or a closely similar form occurs. Of these no less than thirteen are referred to Macedonia, and of these five again to Thessalonica. The number of " politarchs " in the latter city varies from five to six, and the inscriptions extend in date from the beginning of the first to the middle of the second century. This accuracy of St. Luke appeals to us all the more powerfully because we are able to contrast it with the ISO TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST mistakes which have found their way into the better known apocryphal Acts, e.g. the Acts of Paul and Thekla. There we read of a pro-consul at Iconium ; but as a matter of fact no pro-consul was ever resident at Iconium or was governor of the province in which Iconium was situated.^ This mention of a notable apocryphal Acts leads us to remark, in passing, that it would be difficult to overestimate the differences between our canonical Acts and the Acts bearing the names of various Apostles, such as Peter, John, Andrew. We have had during the present year, in connection with this subject, the publication of a newly discovered fragment, which appears to have formed part of an Acts of Peter. This fragment was discovered at Akhmim in Egypt, in 1898, the place previously noted as the site of the discovery of the fragment of the so-called Gospel of Peter, and it is placed at the opening of the third century. In it we find St. Peter represented as performing a number of cures in his own house at Jerusalem. A bystander asks why he does not cure his own daughter. The girl is very beautiful, but a paralytic. To confirm the faith of the bystanders, the girl, in answer to St. Peter's bidding, comes to him in the strength of Jesus. But the gladness of the spectators is doomed to be of short duration, for she is ordered to return again to her couch and suffer as before, since that is profitable for her and for her father. St. Peter then explains that the girl has been struck by paralysis in answer to her parent's prayer, because her hand had been sought by a suitor who had attempted to carry ' It is perhaps worth noting in passing that the writer of the article "Asia Minor" in the new edition of Herzog, Dr. Johannes Weiss, bears frequent testimony to the help of Ramsay in testing these and other particulars, and that both he and another distinguished German, C. Clemen, now unhesitatingly come forward as advocates with Ramsay of the S. Galatian theory. So also Von Soden, Urchristliche Literatur- geschichte, p. 30 (1905). The same view is strongly maintained in Professor Bacon's Story of St. Paul, p. 99 (1905), although on the other side Schiirer, Holtzmann, Schmiedel must still be ranked. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 151 her away. Her lover, Ptolemaeus by name, is also intro- duced into the story. At first grieving bitterly for his loss, he is afterwards saved from despair, and makes his will before his death, by which he bequeaths a field to St. Peter's daughter. The Apostle himself administers the property, and devotes not a part, but the whole, of the price to the poor. Many of the traits in this curious story may be connected with various Scripture notices, but the whole story (both in its details and in its attempt to recommend the morals of a later date) stands in marked contrast to what has been truly called " the grave simplicity and catholicity of the canonical Acts." ^ There are two other particulars in this first missionary journey to which Dr. Weiss directs attention, both of which testify to the acquaintance of the writer with the life and scenes which he describes. One is the notice of the Magian Elymas at Cyprus, so natural when we recall how a Roman governor was wont to be accompanied in his provinces by his comites or cohors amicorum. The other is the name Sergius Paulus. Amongst many points of interest in a recent article, in which no less a person than Professor Mommsen is prepared to accept the account in the Acts of St. Paul's missionary journeys as for the most part a contemporary and trustworthy historical narrative, we find the probable identification of the Sergius Paulus of Acts xiii. with one of the curators of the Tiber, a man of Praetorian rank.^ A stronger case might, I think, undoubtedly be made out, and we might fairly take into account Pliny's mention of a certain Sergius Paulus as a chief authority for parts of his Historia Ndturalis, which curiously enough do contain special information about Cyprus. There is, too, the connection of ' Expository Times, June, 1903, gives an account of C. Schmidt's book by Professor Allan Menzies. See Die alien Petrusakten, pp. 7 fE, by C. Schmidt, 1903. ' Zeitschri/t /iir die neuiest, Wissenschaft, Heft 2, p. 83 (1901). 1 52 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST the gens Sergia with the island, confirmed by a recently discovered inscription ; whilst another inscription, which had already been partly made public, is now more accurately deciphered, containing apparently the words " Paul pro- consul.'' It would seem indeed that even the most arbitrary and depreciatory criticism is constrained at all events to bear testimony, however grudgingly, to St. Luke's remarkable accuracy in connection with the kind of details which we have been considering. " After every deduction has been made," writes Schmiedel in " Acts," Encycl. Bibl. (i. 47), " Acts certainly contains many data that are correct, especially in the matter of proper names, such as Jason, Titius Justus, Crispus, Sosthenes, or in little touches such as the title politarch, which is verified by inscriptions from Thessalonica, as in the title of chief man for Melita, and probably the name of Sergius Paulus, as pro-consul for Cyprus.'' ^ Inscriptions indeed play an important part in the right understanding of this first missionary journey. It is barely twenty years ago, for instance, that it was known by the evidence of an inscription that Lystra was a Roman colony at all ; and whilst it is true that no trace of the actual Temple of Zeus has been discovered, yet other inscriptions help us to see the perfect naturalness of the expression : " Jupiter whose temple was before the city." One other point of primary importance is connected with the visit to Lystra and the incident of stoning in that town. "From 2 Tim. iii. 10- 11," says Ramsay, "it is clear that Timothy, son of a Jewess Eunice, wife of a Greek, and brought up in the Jewish faith by his mother and his grand- mother, Lois, saw this occurrence. Certainly he was con- verted at this time, and doubtless helped to consolidate the ' Bearing all this in mind, it surely becomes very difficult to suppose that St. Luke, of all New Testament writers, should have commenced his Gospel with a grave and gratuitous historical blunder in his account of our Lord's birth, THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 153 newly founded Church in Lystra." These remarks of Ramsay may, I think, be fitly compared with those made long ago by Paley {Hora Paulina, xii. 5). He points out how in writing to Timothy St. Paul reminds him of the persecutions which he endured at Antioch, Iconium, Lystra. The con- formity between the Epistle and the history in Acts is striking. Not only does St. Paul suffer persecution in the three cities in the order mentioned in the Epistle ; but also, whilst Lystra and Derbe are commonly mentioned together in the Apostolic history, no mention is made in the Epistle of Derbe. Why? Because the Apostle is enumerating his persecutions, and no persecution occurred at Derbe. Paley further asks, How did these persecutions become so well known to Timothy as St. Paul affirms? Now, in Acts xvi, I, at the commencement of St. Paul's second journey, he revisits Derbe and Lystra, " and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy." He must, therefore, have been converted before ; he was already a Christian disciple. But it is expressly stated in the Epistle that Timothy was con- verted by St. Paul himself, and the inference is therefore plain that this conversion must have taken place on St. Paul's former journey, the time when he underwent the persecutions referred to in the Epistle. This inference is also strengthened by the notice in Acts xvi. 3 that this same Timothy was well reported of by the brethren at Iconium and Lystra. This coincidence between 2 Timothy and Acts xvi. i is claimed by Paley to be something more than artificial. Supposing, he argues with great force, that the writer of the Epistle had been seeking for some coincidences between the history and the names of the cities which he mentions, then surely he would have sent us at once to Philippi and Thessalonica. There Paul suffered persecution, and thither, from what is stated, it may easily be gathered that Timothy accompanied him. This would have been far easier than to 154 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST have appealed to persecutions as well known to Timothy, in the account of which persecutions Timothy's presence is not mentioned, although it may be so fairly inferred. In the earlier part of his second missionary journey, St. Paul (Acts xvi. 12) comes to Philippi, described by our R.V. as " a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a Roman colony." It is the only place in the New Testament in which the word KoXojvCa occurs, and the Revisers rightly insert the word " Roman " to distinguish it from any Greek colony, and to emphasise the fact that Philippi was enjoying the JUS Italicum, governed by Roman law, and on the model of Rome. The statement of St. Luke might mean that Philippi was the first city which they reached in the district of Macedonia, Neapolis being regarded generally as Thracian and not Macedonian. But there are weighty objections to this, both geographical and grammatical ; it is doubtful, e.g., whether Philippi itself was not as Thracian as Neapolis, since Neapolis was in the territory of Philippi ; and the grammar of this interpretation seems impossible, since trpmrr] appears to be never so used in this sense without some qualifying words. Again, St. Luke's statement might mean that Philippi was the first city in rank of this district, i.e. one of the four districts into which the Romans had divided the province of Macedonia. But then the difficulty is that Amphipolis was the chief city of the district, to which both it and Philippi belonged, and in St. Luke's day it was still more than equal to Philippi in importance. But here again Ramsay helps us to see how St. Luke may have keenly entered into the feelings of rival Greek cities, and how in this word Trpwrij he may be bringing vividly before us the claims made by Philippi as against Amphipolis, a case of rivalry customary enough between two or even three cities. It is quite true that the title irpdiTn, THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES ISS as an absolute title of rank, is only found in towns of Asia Minor, but the title was frequent in Asia and Cilicia, and might easily have been used elsewhere. The word rendered " district " (|u,epis) has also caused great difificulty, and it has even been objected that it is never used in the sense of the district of a province. Dr. Hort went so far as to suggest IliepiSos (instead of /ieptSos), a chief I city of Pierian Macedonia, as he felt so puzzled by the word /lepi?. But here again Professor Ramsay has shown that the word is certainly used in Egypt as a technical term in the sense of the subdivision of a large district or province ; so that St. Luke's accuracy cannot • fairly be questioned for a similar use of the word. There is, however, a further reason why the passage before us is of interest just at present. Mr. C. H. Turner (Art. " Philippi," in Hastings' Dictionary) has endorsed, with his great authority, an emendation adopted by some earlier writers, and in our own day by Dr. Field and Dr. Blass. It is, as he calls it, a simple emendation ; he would read TrpwTT^s for irptoTT) Tqistles, p. 255. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 175 the Old Testament prophecies relating to the Lord God of his fathers. His loyalty and allegiance to Jehovah alike demanded an answer to that question pressing upon him day by day, as he came into contact with fresh thought, as he embraced new activities : " Who art Thou, Lord ? " And in Jesus, whom he had persecuted, he had learnt to see not only the Messiah, the Christ, but the Son of God, who had His saints in Jerusalem, in Damascus, in Lydda and Joppa, in Rome and Corinth, in Philippi and Thessalonica, in Ephesus and Colosse. And these sanctified ones were such " in Christ Jesus " (i Cor. i. 2), just as Israel of old had been a nation of saints in the power and the service of the Lord Jehovah. How marvellously the utterance of that voice had found fulfilment — in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils from false brethren, in perils from his own country- men ; the voice which had come to the Apostle in the solemn hour of his conversion, bidding him open the eyes of the blind " that they might receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those that are sanctified by faith in Me" (xxvi. 18). " By faith in Me." No wonder that as St. Paul looked back over all that had happened since that great crisis in his spiritual history, as he recognised the brightness of that light as the brightness above that of the sun which had con- ferred upon him, as upon every penitent, such joy and hope and strength, he should exclaim, " The life that I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me " (Gal. ii. 20). No one has helped to emphasise this conviction more than Dr. Harnack. " Above all," he writes, " Jesus was felt to be the active principle of individual life." " It is not I that liveth, but Christ who liveth in me," he adds, quoting the words of St. Paul : " He is my life, and to press onwards to Him through death is great gain." 176 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST And both the Acts and the Epistles bear witness loud and full to the working of that active principle of individual life. Men and women of every social grade, of varying nationalities, of wide and varied culture, pass before us with their sins, their follies, their trials and temptations, and we feel that in so far as Christ liveth in them they become even here and now " children of the resurrection " — of that resurrection, which no one could deny, from uncleanness to holiness, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. In the renewing and transforming of this great multitude of human souls, in the building up of the Christian character, in the earnest desire for the best gifts and for a still more excellent way, we mark influences far reaching, never ceasing, " Acts of the Apostles," which no lapse of time can efface and destroy. Epistles " known and read of all men." No wonder that even Dr. Schmiedel is constrained to tell us that the value of the Acts as a devout edifying work cannot be impaired by criticism, and that sayings such as we find in its pages are of the deepest that can be said about the inner Christian life.^ • "Acts" in Encycl. Bibl., i. 58-9. See also Pfleiderer, Urchris- tentum, i. 549. Second Series St. Paul's Testimony in Relation to the Gospels 12 LECTURE IX THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL BEHIND the witness and the work of St. Paul there ' stands one great historical fact, upon which both witness and work depend — his conversion. We have three accounts of this event in the Acts, and it would be easy to point to critics of the first rank, both at home and abroad, who affirm that, in spite of differences in detail, the essential facts in these accounts are the same. . The remarks of Professor Ramsay are not a whit too strong ; the slight variations in the three accounts of Paul's conversion do not seem to be of any consequence — the spirit and tone and the essential facts are the same (Si. Paul, p. 379). No one has helped us to realise this more fully than the famous German scholar Dr. Blass, and the variations to which he frankly draws attention are so natural that they increase rather than militate against the general impression of the truthfulness of the whole narrative. Take, e.g., the mention of Ananias of Damascus. When he is first introduced in St. Luke's own account of the conversion, he is simply described as " a certain disciple " (Acts ix. 10). When St. Paul, later on, is making his defence in the presence of a Jewish crowd in Jerusalem, before which it was obviously important to em- phasise the description of Ananias and the part he played, he is described as " a devout man according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews " (Acts xxii. 1 2). But in the still later narrative, when St. Paul stands before Festus and 179 1 80 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Agrippa, no reference whatever is made to Ananias (Acts xxvi. 1 2 ff), probably because the mention of his name would carry no weight with such an audience. It is, moreover, important in this connection to observe that in St. Paul's two great speeches, before the Jews in J erusalem and Festus and Agrippa at Caesarea which describe his past life, there is a remarkable return to the phraseology and ideas of the earlier chapters of the Acts, especially of chapter ix. And this similarity extends not only to a whole section like ix. 3-9, the account of the appearance of the Lord on the way to Damascus ; but in chapter xxii. we have such characteristically earlier expressions as Jesus of Nazareth, the God of our fathers, the Righteous One, thou shalt be a witness, to call upon His name, and similar expressions in chapter xxvi.^ Or we may turn to the writer of the first part of the article " Paul " in the Encycl. Bibl. He tells us of these three accounts that while " they all differ in detail, they all agree in substance. The differences are fatal to the stricter theories of verbal inspiration, but they do not constitute a valid argument against the general truth of the narrative." I am quite aware that the author of the article " Resur- rection " in the same Encyclopaedia tells us of these same accounts, " that they contradict one another so violently that it is difficult to imagine how it could ever have been possible for an author to take them up into his book in their present form " (iv. 4063). Without making capital, as one fairly might, out of " the violent contradiction " between these two critics in the same Encyclopedia, it may suffice to say that St. Luke, who was no mean historian, evidently found it quite possible " to take up into his book " the three narratives. And even if we admit for a moment that St. Luke was not their author in their present form, what a ' Rackham, Acts, p. xlvi. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL i8x strange man the final redactor of the book must have been to allow these flagrant inconsistencies in the narrative to remain under his very eyes ! So far as St. Paul's own references to his conversion are concerned, we are met again and again with the same phenomenon, which is so characteristic of many recent attacks upon the historical facts of early Christianity, viz. that the same objections are brought forward again and again as if they had never been answered. Thus it is urged that when St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, " Am I not an Apostle ? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord " (i Cor. ix. l), the true key to the understanding of such expressions is to be found in 2 Cor. xii. i, where he writes, " I must needs glory, though it is not expedient ; but 1 will come to visions and revelations of the Lord." May not the Apostle, it is urged, have " seen " the Lord in one of these visions — visions with regard to which he could not even affirm whether he was in the body or out of it ? But, as a matter of fact, it is this very passage in 2 Corinthians which enables us to draw a hard-and-fast line of demarcation between the heavenly visions and revelations vouchsafed to the Apostle from time to time, and the " seeing " the Lord to which he refers in i Cor. ix. i and XV. 8. How, e.g., are we to account for the essential difference in tone with regard to the visions and revelations in 2 Corinthians, of which he speaks with the utmost reserve, of which it is not expedient that he should glory, and the manner in which he places in the forefront of his preaching, and regards as containing the basis of his claim to the Apostolic office, such words as these, " Am I not an Apostle ? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? " No one, let us note in passing, has emphasised this essential distinction between the words in 2 Corinthians and in I Corinthians more forcibly than the great classical i82 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST scholar of Germany, Dr. Blass [Die heilige Schrift und die evangelische Kirche, p. 12 ; and to the same effect, Weiss, Leben Jesu, ii. 583 ; and Zdckler, Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi, pp. 2, 22). " Have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? " The words can scarcely refer to a seeing of Jesus during His earthly life.'' For even if St. Paul had so " seen " our Lord, what he is concerned with in the passage before us is his claim to be an Apostle, and a witness equally with the Twelve of the Lord's resurrection. The fact that he had seen Jesus during His earthly life could not in itself have justified Paul's claim to Apostolic rank and dignity ; it could not in itself have afforded any ground for his appeal to his Apostolic authority.^ Moreover, it should never be forgotten that St. Paul describes the appearance of Christ thus vouchsafed to him as the last of a series. He does not say in i Cor. xv. 9 that Christ appeared to him the last ; but that He appeared to him for the last time, i.e. as in a series which was now closed. An attempt, indeed, has recently been made to weaken the force of the expression " for the last time " {ea~)(aTov), and to make it simply contain a reference to St. Paul's own unworthiness, and appeal is made to i Cor. iv. 9, " God hath set forth us the Apostles last of all " (ecr^arous).^ But the Greek in i Cor. xv. 9 is quite different. The Apostle, although he is deeply conscious of the grace of God, is not speaking ' On the other hand, it should be noted that Professor Ramsay contends that St. Paul had actually seen in Jerusalem the Jew with whose fame Jerusalem and all Judaea were ringing ; and still more recently Dr. Clemen {Paulus, ii. 83) considers it not so impossible that St. Paul may have seen and even heard Jesus. Pfleiderer (JJrchristentum, i. 60, 2nd edit, 1902) holds that we cannot know; but that at all events i Cor. ix. can only relate to a " seeing" of the risen Christ (see, further, Lecture XXIV.). * Einleitung in das N.T., Bleek-Mangold, p. 475, 4th edit. ' Ostern und Pfingsten, p. 36, E. Yon Dobschutz (1903). THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 183 of the unworthiness of the Apostles, but rather of their claims to authority and of the appearances of Christ Vouchsafed to him and to them alike in a series which had now closed : " The risen Christ never reappeared." ^ It would, therefore, seem that we are fully justified in saying that there must have been something which diff- erentiated this appearance from those other visions of Christ, which, as we know, were not lacking in the early Church, and with which, no doubt, St. Paul was familiar ; otherwise it would have been meaningless to speak of it as final. And if we ask what was the distinction, we must remember that St. Paul classes this appearance to himself with the appearances made to the first disciples. The same word describes them all (cf i Cor. xv. 3-8) ; and if he had only meant that the exalted Christ had appeared to him in a vision ; if there was nothing " objective " about it, as there was to the first disciples, it is difficult to see why he should have emphasised the fact that this same Christ had been buried and rose again, and that this rising had taken place on the third day. Here, again, we may refer to the testimony of a learned layman like Dr. Blass. In his opinion nothing could be clearer than that St. Paul means that our Lord's body rose from the grave on the third day. How, he asks, could one speak of a definite moment of the rising of a spirit, if one could speak of rising again in such a case at all ? Or how could one speak of the revivification of that which is always living ? ^ Is it said that the Apostle speaks of some inward revelation when he writes, " It pleased God to reveal his Son in me " ? (Gal. i. 16). In the first place it may be fairly urged that even if he does so in this particular passage, ' Stttdies in the Gospels, p. 304, E.T., Professor Rose (1903). ' Blass, U.S. p. 14; Zockler, in Herzog's Realencyclopddie, Heft 81, p. 36 (1900). i84 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST there is no difficulty whatever in supposing that the revelation of God to him would have a twofold side, the outward and the inward. Indeed, it may be said that so far from these words in Galatians proving anything against an appearance vouchsafed to the senses, they rather show that without this inward revelation the out- ward appearance could never have been recognised for what it was in its full meaning, nor could the Apostle have been assured against all suspicion of an illusion of the senses.^ Moreover, it is most important to note that in his words to the Galatians, St. Paul plainly associates the revelation of the Son of God with a certain place, Damascus, and that, too, as Paley long ago remarked, quite incidentally {Harm Paulinm, v. 2). St. Paul writes, " When it was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood ; neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me ; but I went away into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus." " In what may be called the direct part of the account," says Paley, " no mention is made of the place of his conversion at all ; a casual expression at the end, and an expression brought in for a different purpose, alone fixes it to have been at Damascus." It is no wonder that Paley emphasises the extraordinary simplicity and undesignedness of this coincidence with the narrative in the Acts. But if the incident narrated in the Acts had never occurred, what need to mention Damascus at all ? The inward spiritual grace was indelibly associated in St. Paul's mind with the outward and visible sign.^ ■ Weiss, Einleitung in das N.T., p. 112, 3rd edit. ; Sieffert, Der Brief an die Galater, p. 36 ; Thackeray, St. Paul and Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 8. ' McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 121 : "The reference to Damascus in Gal. i. 17 indicates that the appearance took place in or near that city, as stated in the Acts." THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 185 In this connection we may note that a subtle attempt has been recently made to show that when St. Paul writes, " He was seen of me also," he was referring, no doubt, to a vision, but to something, nevertheless, which he regarded as real. " The only thing," adds Dr. Schmiedel, who makes the remark, " which would prevent him from doing so, would be if the vision offered that which, according to his ideas, was utterly impossible." " But," he continues, " in the case before us, this is far from being so. In the New Testament the resurrection of a man — e.g. of the Baptist or of Elijah — is supposed to be thoroughly possible" (Art. " Gospels," Encycl. Bibl., iii. 1879). Let us look at this for a moment. No doubt in the New Testament we find reference made to the supposed resurrection of the Baptist ; but one is puzzled to know what Schmiedel means by the resurrection of an Elijah. Whatever may be the views of Professor Schmiedel, the Jews, at any rate, most certainly believed that Elijah had never died, and therefore no parallel can be drawn between Elijah's ascension to heaven and the appearances after death of the risen Jesus. And so far as the Baptist is concerned, what parallel exists between the statement with regard to him in the Gospels, and the appearance of the risen Jesus vouchsafed to St. Paul in i Corinthians? Weizsacker long ago argued that the belief that John the Baptist had risen from the dead is an instance of a current belief among the Jews that the dead would rise again and appear on earth. But what did he mean on his own acknowledgment ? Simply that the dead would return to a renewal of their old earthly life. No doubt the popular belief of the time laid stress upon the resurrection of the body, but the resurrection would not take place until the Messianic kingdom ; or, if according to some statements, the resurrection involved the spirit alone, or the righteous were to rise with their former bodies, which i86 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST were to be transformed like those of the angels, yet all this, again, was to take place at the final judgment. Elsewhere, indeed, Schmiedel tells us that in Jewish Christian circles a conception was current of a resurrection with a new earthly body, in accordance with which Jesus was taken to be the risen Baptist or Elijah. But if we ask what ground there is for referring this conception to Jewish Christians, there is none. In the Gospels, indeed, we have, as we have seen, the expression of a popular belief of the time — that, and nothing more (cf. Mark vi. 14-16). But even if this popular belief had originated in Jewish Christian circles, of which there is certainly no hint in the Gospels, it would not in the least account for the statements of the Evangelists in connection with the resurrection of our Lord. " The resurrection as it actually took place," writes Dr. Edersheim, himself a Jew by birth, and presumably acquainted with Jewish traditions and belief, " would be quite foreign to Jewish ideas. These embraced the continuance of the soul after death and the final resurrection of the body, but not a state of spiritual corporeity, far less under conditions such as those described in the Gospels. Elijah, for instance, who is constantly introduced in Jewish tradition, is never represented as sharing in meals and offering his body for touch." ^ But if the appearance of the risen Christ to St. Paul was a mere vision, and if all the other appearances of the risen Saviour are to be regarded in the same light, since one and the same word is used by St. Paul for them all, is there not a remarkable omission in i Cor. xv. ? If the Apostle is giving us in that list a complete statement, as Schmiedel dogmatically maintains, should we not have expected him to say, " and that he was seen by Stephen " ? ' Jesus the Messiah, ii. 624. See also Heinrici, Urchristentum, p. 38 (1902); Weiss, Leben Jesu, ii. 561, 4th edit; H. A. Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, p. 248 (1904), as against the very bold assertions of Dr. Percy Gardner. Cf. Lecture XXV. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 187 We know from St. Paul's own words what an impression the scene of the martyr's death had made upon him. We can scarcely doubt that St. Paul had heard the assertion, " Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Why, then, is no reference made to St. Stephen in the list of i Cor. xv. ? Is fit not because there was something which differentiated the appearance on the way to Damascus, from the vision granted to St. Stephen, something which classed the former with the accounts of the appearances as they are represented in the Gospels ? Dr. Schmiedel insists with all the force of his assertive eloquence that it is inconceivable that St. Paul should have passed over any proofs of the resurrection of Jesus where- with to silence his opponents ; why, then, we ask again, is no reference made to the witness of St. Stephen, sealed as it was by his death, and known, as it must have been, to St. Paul ? The writer of the article " Stephen " in the Encycl. Bibl. does not attempt to deny that Stephen died in a fanatical riot for his own word and confession ; and if that confession was, " Hereafter, ye shall see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God," we can understand that the charge was blasphemy, and that the death penalty would follow. But it is urged that St. Paul was prepared for the appear- ance on the road to Damascus. Doubts had been working in his mind for some time previously. What if the Christians whom he persecuted, those Christians who were so blameless in life and conversation, so joyous and steadfast in their faith, were right ? What if those heartrending scenes, as Schmiedel calls them, which must have been enacted when Saul haled both men and women before the judgment seat, should have led him to ask himself whether the authority from the chief priests was rightly bestowed, whether he was indeed doing God service ? i88 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST It was impossible, it is urged, but that such questions should arise. By fresh efforts of fanatical zeal the voice of conscience was drowned-; but time and again the living figure described to him by the Christians must have stood before his soul ; time and again the intellect refused to bow before it, until finally the image of fancy could yield no longer to the effort of thought. Now what justification is there for all this ? None what- ever, so far as St. Paul's own language is concerned ; and it is by that, and not by any imaginary picture, that the issue must be decided. Even if we put out of consideration the Apostle's own statement in i Tim. i. 13, where he draws a very different picture (since we are refused the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles), we fail to find anything in the Apostle's generally accepted writings which can justify the extraordinary representation given above. " He always held," writes Dr. Weiss, " the persecution of the Church to be the greatest sin of his life (i Cor. xv. 9 ; Phil. iii. 6) ; but he never indicates that it was in opposition to his better will and conscience that he struggled against the truth." ^ Moreover, he evidently regards — and nothing, surely, is more remarkable — his merit in persecuting the Church of Christ as equal in merit to his blamelessness in keeping the righteousness which was of the law (Phil. iii. 6), a further testimony which comes to us from an Epistle the authenticity of which few critics nowadays would care to dispute. It would seem, in truth, that even in quarters where we might not expect it, St. Paul's own language cannot be held to justify the view of any gradual passage from the Jewish synagogue to the Christian Church. " It is at all events certain," writes Dr. Holtzmann in his recent edition of the Acts, " that the Apostle knows nothing of a gradual process which has drawn him closer to Christianity, but only of a sudden halt which he was compelled to make in the midst of ' Weiss, Leben Jesu, ii. 581, 4th edit. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 189 an active career. He knows only of an instantaneous revela- tion, not a bridge which might have led him from one bank to the other (Phil. iii. 5-9). He looks on himself as a suddenly subdued rebel whom God leads in triumph over the world (2 Cor. ii. 14;) " Hand-Commentar zum N.T." 3rd edit, pp. 70-1 [1901]. "A year or two after the death of Jesus," writes Dr. Moffatt,^ " one of the brilliant leaders in the Jewish party of the Pharisees, suddenly (KaTeXyjtfydrjv vtto Xpua-Tov) became a Christian." And in this statement he refers to the remarkable word which St. Paul uses of himself in the Epistle to the Philippians, " I was apprehended by Christ Jesus " (iii. I2),"a word which denotes that the Apostle was seized upon, taken possession of by Christ, or that he was overtaken by Christ. And if we take into account the Apostle's language and attitude in the Acts, what do we find ? Not that his soul was filled at the time of his conversion with the reproachful image of Jesus, but that, on the contrary, he knew not the voice which spake to him : " Who art Thou, Lord ? " In each of the three narratives this same question finds a place. But it will no doubt be said, how do you explain the words, " It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," words which once, at all events in the Acts, are described as spoken to St. Paul by Christ Himself? (Acts xxvi, 14). No doubt such words are sometimes taken to mean that Saul the Pharisee had been fighting against the scruples which came to him in his relentless persecuting zeal : " He repressed the scruples, yet the sword had entered his soul." So both Schmiedel and Pfleiderer would represent the Apostle's mental condition.^ I cannot think that such an explanation is warranted in ' Historical N.T., p. 121, 2nd edit. 2 It would seem, however, that Dr. Clemen does not at all agree in this view of the words, as in such an interpretation we should have expected some intimation in his Epistles that the Apostle had perse- cuted the Christians against his better knowledge {Paulus, i. 207). 190 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST face of St. Paul's own statements, and it is by these, as in the former case, that the issue must be decided. Nor can I think that it is needful to explain the words before us as if they contained any reference to the prickings of con- science against which the Apostle was struggling in vain, whether those prickings were caused by the sufferings of the Christians, or by the Apostle's own refusal to entertain the idea that righteousness, after all, could not be attained on the lines of a Pharisaic legalism. A very careful explanation has been recently suggested by Dr. Findlay, to whom we owe the article on " Paul " in Hastings' B.D., iii. 703, in which, whilst he holds firmly to the conviction that Paul had not sinned against the light, he sees in the words we are considering, " It is hard for thee to kick against the goad," that which touched the secret of the hearer's heart. " Paul's teaching on the law and faith rehearses the process that turned him from a Pharisee into a Christian. His soul had been pierced and lacerated by his sense of moral impotence in face of the law. Like a stupid beast, Saul knew not whither this incessant goad was driving him, nor whose was the hand that plied it ; he had struggled in wild and vain resistance till the appear- ance and words of Jesus explained everything " {u.s. p. 703). But may not the proverbial expression before us be inter- preted in a simpler and perhaps even truer way than this? Why should the expression, proverbial as it undoubtedly is, indicate anything beyond the certainty that Paul's efforts to retard the advance of the religion of the Crucified would only recoil upon himself? or, that he was only offering by all his frenzy and rage a vain and perilous resistance ? In other words, Saul the Pharisee had thought that in the persecution of Jesus he was the possessor both of right and strength, so foolish was he and ignorant, like as a beast before Him whose power, though unseen, was pressing him sore, against which his fierceness and zeal were worse than THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 191 vain. Hitherto Saul had simply thought of Jesus as " One who was dead " ; now he must be brought to confess that His was the unseen hand which was laid upon him, leading him on by a way he knew not/ But, again, suppose, if you will, that the account given of St. Paul's state of mind on the road to Damascus is correct, viz. that he was violently agitated by the martyrdoms and sufferings of the Christians, and that in his own inner life he found no satisfaction ; suppose, if you will, as De Quincey long ago urged, that the radiant countenance of Stephen haunted Saul in sleeping, and troubled him when awake; suppose, if you will, that his mind was full of the thought, derived, we are asked to believe, from Jewish theology, that the death of a righteous man might avail with God as an atonement for sin : what then ? " Perhaps," says Dr. Schmiedel, " the Christians had already begun to quote in support of this view Isa. liii., which Paul, in all probability, had in mind, when in i Cor. xv. 3 he says that he received by tradition the doctrine that Christ, according to the Scrip- tures, had been delivered as a propitiation for our sins." Let us look at this statement for a moment. If the Chris- tians had thus interpreted Isa. liii., they must have commenced their interpretation surprisingly early, for the trend of modern criticism is to place the date of Saul's con- version within a very short period, a year or two, of the crucifixion.^ ' On the force of the word eKrpw/io reference may be made to the literature cited in Witness of the £J>istles, p. 381. Sabatier, L'Apdtre Paul, 3rd edit, pp. 45-6; Zahn, " Paulus " in Herzog's Realencyclo- ^ddie, Heft 141 (1904), both emphasise the force of the word as indicat- ing a sudden and violent break with the Apostle's former thought and endeavour. ^ So, amongst recent writers, Clemen, Paulus, i. 350, w;ho places St. Paul's conversion possibly in the same year as, and at all events in the year following, the death of Jesus. A similarly early date is adopted by Hamack, McGifEert, Moffatt {^Historical Introduction, p. 121), and others, as also earlier by Keim and Renan. V. Weber argues for the second year after our Lord's death. See further. Lecture, XXIV. 192 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST But not only must the Christians have thus transferred to their Master almost immediately after His death Isaiah's picture of the suffering servant of God, but St. Paul himself must have accepted the truthfulness of that picture, and derived from it a power transforming his whole life. But this transference and this transformation, how were they effected, and why were they effected ? There is no evidence that the Jews at the time of the Advent interpreted Isa. liii. of a suffering Messiah. The German writer Carl Holsten, of whom Schmiedel speaks in the highest praise, and who is still quoted on all sides as giving us the most searching analysis of the state of Paul's mind at the time of his con- version, admits this most distinctly. He writes : " This idea of a suffering Messiah, suffering even to death, was so far removed from the orthodoxy of Jewish belief that a suffering Messiah during the lifetime of Jesus was still to His disciples an inconceivable and enigmatical representation " (Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus, p. 98), and he quotes in support Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23. He might indeed have quoted testimonies from all four Evangelists to the same effect. Other testimonies of the same import may be given from impartial writers. " Suffering and death," says Dr. Dalman, " for the actual possessor of the Messianic dignity are in fact unimaginable according to the testimony of the Gospels " ( Words of Jesus, p. 265, E.T.).^ Professor Gunkel admits that this conception of a suffering Messiah was not the view of official Judaism in the time of Jesus, but he pleads that this did not stand in the way of its acceptance as a belief in certain secret circles.^ But if we know anything about Paul at all, we certainly know this, that he did represent official Judaism, and therefore, accord- ' No stronger testimony could be borne to this point than that which F. C. Baur long ago emphasised in his Church History of the First Three Centuries, i. 42, E.T. ' Zum religionsgeschichtlichen VerstUndnis des N.T., p. 79 (1903). THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 193 ing to Gunkel, we could not possibly have expected him to hold the belief in question. " No Jew," writes Wernle, " before Jesus had explained Isa. liii. of a dying Messiah." ^ But Gunkel rightly sees that the real problem is to show how the belief in the resurrection, even if we allow it to have existed among the disciples, was transferred to the person of Jesus — " the Jesus," as he expresses it, " who was executed in shame and disgrace upon the Cross." In urging the force of this problem, he touches upon what is and must be the great difficulty in the whole matter. We are so accustomed to glory in the Cross, to associate with the triumph of the Cross whatsoever things are honourable, lovely, and of good report, that we forget that for St. Peter and St. Paul alike, the two great preachers of the Acts, the Cross had been associated, not with a blessing, but with a curse CAvddefia 'Iiycrous, i Cor. xii. 3). St. Paul had heard the terrible words which formed as it were the creed of unbelief : '' cursed," not merely by man, but by God, in Jewish eyes, was every one that hangeth on a tree.^ So keenly has all this been felt that it is urged again and again, as by Pfleiderer, that as the Cross was an offence to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks who had no conception of its meaning, the most favourable soil for Paul's preaching was evidently among the Jewish proselytes. They had some knowledge of the Old Testament and of the Messianic hope, while they were free, so it is urged, from Jewish national and legal prejudices.' But we must remember, in the first place, that there were pro- selytes and proselytes, and that it is by no means so certain that the picture drawn for us above would have proved everywhere correct. It is surely very doubtful how far ' Die Anfdnge unserer Religion, p. 30 (1901). 2 Chase, Credibility of the Acts , p. 149. ' Urchristentum, i. 80 ff (1902). 13 194 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST we can claim the proselytes as always heralds of the way of Christianity, and as always supporters of the doctrines of Paul. Moreover, even if the picture is correct, it fails to explain the fact that the preaching of the Cross and the belief that He who died there died for our sins did not originate with St. Paul. He preached that which he had previously received ; he preached that which was the sum and substance of the Christian faith common to himself and to the Twelve ; in this respect, at all events, other men had laboured, and St. Paul had entered into their labours. But why did men like St. Peter and St. John, with all their Jewish instincts and training, preach the Cross ? Why did the men and women whom Paul dragged into prison lay down their lives for a crucified fellow countryman ? That belief must have originated very early, as we have already seen, and it must have grown very quickly. It must have found acceptance not only in Jerusalem, but in Damascus, and even in foreign cities (Acts xxvi. ii). So that what we have really to account for is not the acceptance of the Cross by Jewish proselytes, but by Jews, by men who were Hebrews of the Hebrews. What we have to account for is the fact that these men were ready not only to glory in the Cross themselves, but also to spread the knowledge of it and the teaching of it at the risk of their own lives. This, it may be, is an old-fashioned argument, and the world has outgrown whatever cogency may have once belonged to it. It is not, however, a question of antiquity, but of validity, and at all events we have here an argument which will appeal to practical men. The late Lord Salisbury was a keen and far-seeing statesman, and when he was asked some years ago upon what evidence he accepted the Christian faith, he pointed not only to its moral conquests, but to the fact that its central doctrine was testified to by men who had every opportunity of seeing and knowing, and whose THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 195 veracity was tested through long lives by tremendous trials both of energy and endurance. But, further, in the case of St. Paul, just as any attempt to explain his conversion by natural causes presupposes the existence of his faith instead of accounting for the origin of it, so, too, with regard to his Apostleship. St. Paul became not only a convert, but a missionary, an Apostle of the Gentiles. To account for this additional fact, another picture is presented to our view. We are asked to see in the Apostle a man who in his Tarsian home had become acquainted with religious prose- lytes, who had often busied himself with the question as to how the limits imposed by Jewish national pride and the wretched formalism of the Rabbis could be overcome, and the multitude of the heathen seeking salvation be won for God.' But in the first place we must remember that so far as we know anything of it, the missionary zeal of Saul of Tarsus was directed not to the purpose of making converts from heathenism, but of preventing Christians from con- verting Jews.^ And even if we credit him with the expectation of a future missionary era, which was certainly rare among the Jews, we should have to account even then for the gulf which separates St. Paul's liberal efforts as a Christian missionary from the narrow view of the Jews towards the Gentile world and of its reception into the Church of God. And, in the next place, could any statement be more diametrically opposed than the above to the picture which we gain of St. Paul's former life from his own pen ? The whole of his early training and his past career up to the time of his conversion, what was it but a proof, as he reminds the Galatians, that he had learnt the liberty of the Gospel in no human school ? (Gal. i. 12). • Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, i. 80-1 (1902). 5 See Art. " Proselyte," Hastings' B.D., iv. 136 196 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST In writing to the Philippians, as also to the Romans (xi. i), he prides himself upon the fact that he was not only not born of proselyte parents, but that he was descended from the faithful tribe of Benjamin. He had not been admitted in mature years to a proselyte's share in the covenant, but on the eighth day he had received the sign of circumcision (Phil. iii. 5-6). In answer to the taunts of his enemies, he asserts, with pardonable dignity, that he, equally with them, was of the seed of Abraham, and that though born in Tarsus, he had equal claim to the title of Israelite and Hebrew (2 Cor. xi. 22). All this we may learn from statements of St. Paul which we may fairly describe as practically undisputed. But let us look at the Apostle for a moment, not only before, but after his conversion. Instead of regarding the Gentiles only as most in need of the grace of God, what a change ! He never forgets that the Gospel was for the Jew first ; and if the certainty that he was appointed by God to be the Apostle of the Gentiles was experienced immediately upon his conversion, and if he felt at once an impulse to announce the glad tidings to the Gentiles, this was not because of his previous intimacy with Jewish proselytes or his sympathy with their antipathies to Jewish pride and prejudice, but because of the revelation of Jesus, whom he now knew as the Christ, in whom there was neither Jew nor Greek, for all were one in Him. Even if we admit that it is probable that there did exist in St. Paul's mind some germs of a view wider than the purely Jewish, even then the question would inevitably arise, as in fact it did arise, of the exact relation of the Gentile to the Jew, and of his share in the Messianic salvation. And Paul's views on this point, far removed as they were from the contemporary hatred of the alien and the stranger, and from the rigorous exclusion of the Gentile from the blessings of the Messianic kingdom, could only have come to him by revelation. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 197 But, once more, it is further urged that in dealing with St. Paul's conversion, and with the belief that he had seen the risen Jesus, we are dealing also with a man of shattered nerves, an epileptic, prone to see visions and to receive revelations by his own acknowledgment.^ But even supposing that St. Paul was an epileptic, supposing that the disease or malady from which he suffered was epilepsy, does this reduce him to a mere shattered wreck of a man, always imagining that his own fancies were revela- tions ? Bishop Lightfoot admitted that St. Paul's " thorn in the flesh " may well have been epilepsy, and one of the most recent and ablest commentators on 2 Corinthians, Dr. Plummer, is of the same opinion. But, as they both point out, the fact that a man is an epileptic does not reduce him to the level of a lunatic : Julius Caesar, Plutarch, Cromwell, Napoleon, Peter the Great, were all epileptics.^ At the same time we must remember that we are by no means shut up to the conclusion that St. Paul's malady was epilepsy, and Professor Ramsay has maintained most forcibly, and in a most interesting manner, that the Apostle's " thorn in the flesh " may have been malarial fever.' But there are two further matters to be borne in mind. In the first place, St. Paul distinctly asserts that the malady, whatever it was, came upon him after the visions and revela- tions ; it did not precede them. In other words, whatever ' Cf., or example, amongst recent writers, the remarks of Weinel, Paulus, p. 23 (1904), and Pfleiderer, Urchristentum, i. 62, 2nd edit. ^ See Dr. Plummer's valuable note, 2 Corinthians, pp. 239-45 (1903). ^ Historical Commentary on the Galatians, p. 422. Dr. Menzies Alexander, in the Expository Tim.es, July and September, 1902, argues forcibly that St. Paul's infirmity was caused by a fever, which bore the name of Malta fever, which frequented the coasts and banks of large rivers, and he draws out a long list of parallelisms between the symptoms of St. Paul's infirmity and those of the so-called Malta fever. He also points out with great force (and his testimony as a medical man is of weight on such a point) that even if it could be shown that the malady was epilepsy, yet that epilepsy is by no means incompatible with a vigorous intellectual life. 198 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST the malady was, it was not the cause of the visions and revelations. In the next place, it is important to note that those who describe the Apostle's malady as epilepsy are accustomed to see in his conversion an illustration of an attack of that disorder. But how can this be ? St. Paul himself tells us that the thorn in the flesh was given to him after the vision of fourteen years before ; but that vision was manifestly not his conversion, it was granted to him after he became a Christian, not at the time of his conversion : " I knew a man in Christ fourteen years ago " (2 Cor. xii. 2)} But if we believe that St. Paul is speaking the words of truth and soberness ; if we credit him when he tells us that his visions and revelations were not evolved out of his own inner consciousness, but were " of the Lord " ; ^ if we recognise that the only justification of his claim to be an Apostle is based upon the fact that he had seen the risen Christ, then we can understand much which otherwise is wholly inex- plicable. Here is a man in the prime of life, with every prospect of success before him, endowed, as his letters show us, with intellectual force and power, of indomitable energy, with a keen sense of duty and its requirements, with a full knowledge of the whole case which could reverse his decision, passing in a moment from the social and religious life of a Pharisee, from his position as an accredited emissary of the Sanhedrin, to a homeless and perilous calling amongst the followers of a despised and hated sect. " What shall it profit ? " That is the question which men have always asked, and which they will continue to ask, as there is set ' See Dean Bernard's note, in loco, in the Expositor's Greek Testa- ment, 1903. 2 " Dean Stanley contrasts the reticence of the Apostle with the details given by Mahomet. People who claim to have received revelations commonly do give details. It is specially remarkable that St. Paul never quotes these experiences in heaven (2 Cor. xii. 4) as evidence for his teaching. How easy to have claimed special revelation in defence of his treatment of the Gentiles ! " (Plummer, 2 Cor., p. 197). THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL 199 before them this startling change in the career of St. Paul. What shall it profit ? Nothing, so far as the vain-glory of life is concerned ; nothing, so far as things which perish in the using are concerned. But from the day of his conversion St. Paul never wavered in his choice ; and as he advanced in years, and cares pressed more heavily upon him, men saw in him a brighter light than that which shone out of heaven on the road to Damascus, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that light, which never failed, led him on from faith to faith, in journeyings often, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren. " Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect ; but I press on, if so be that I may apprehend, seeing that also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus." To start thee on thy outrunning race, Christ shows the splendour of His Face : What will that Face of splendour be When at the goal He welcomes thee ? Christina Rossetti. LECTURE X THE TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO THE FACTS AND TEACHING OF THE GOSPELS THE subject is one ol permanent interest in New Testament criticism. With regard to the four Gospels, fresh views may be current from time to time as to their relationship to each other, their mutual dependence, their exact dates ; but the relation of St. Paul's Epistles to these documents will always remain of primary interest and importance. Some seventy years ago the famous attack of David Strauss upon the historical character of the Gospels received perhaps its most effectual repulse by the evidence afforded from St. Paul's Epistles to the main facts of those Gospels, and by a testimony to those facts of so early a date that the growth of a myth would seem to be forbidden. Any one at all conversant with the attacks upon the Christian faith must have noted, as one of their characteristic features, that the same points are constantly urged, as if they had never been dealt with or anticipated by Christian Apologists. And so the mythical theory often meets us to-day, in a more or less modified form, no doubt, but still substantially the same as at its first appearance nearly seventy years ago. One cannot, for example, read the commentaries of H. Holtzmann, or The Oldest Gospel by J. Weiss, or Pfleiderer's account of primitive Christianity, without becoming painfully aware of this. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 201 But whilst this mode of attack has presented itself again and again, it must not be thought that it has gained strength by repetition ; on the contrary, the, means of defeating it have been materially strengthened, and its insufficiency abundantly exposed/ The first series of these lectures has, I trust, at least shown us how the evidence for the authenticity of a large majority of St. Paul's Epistles, if not for that of the whole of those claimed for him, is commending itself to the consideration, and in no small degree to the acceptance, of men of very varied schools of thought, and that no serious importance attaches to recent attacks upon positions already won. Or, again, it has become so customary with some writers to assert that St. Paul's attention was fixed so entirely upon the crucified and risen Christ that the details of the earthly life of Jesus became to him of little or no importance, that we forget how much may be said, and in fact has been said, sometimes in unexpected quarters, in qualification of this statement. A countryman of his own, Paul Peine, in his full and admirable Jesus Christus und Paulus (1902), who has drawn out more completely than any one since Paret (1858-9) the relation of St. Paul to the historical Christ, has rightly criticised Harnack's famous What is Christianity f by pointing out that no real attempt is made to work out the problem of the relation of Paul to Jesus, and that this remains a most decided defect in Harnack's book. If we confine ourselves to the last ten or twelve years, one might of course expect to find from conservative critics like Dr. ' Cf. Fairbairn's Philosophy of the Christian Religion^ p. 467 ; Church Quarterly Review, April, 1904, on " The Silesian Horseherd," one of the most recent attempts at reviving the mythical theory. Amongst German books may be noted Das Leben Jesu, in seinen neueren Darstellungen, p. 15 fE (1892), by C. Uhlhorn ; Life of Christ, i. i6o, E.T., by B. Weiss; Art. "Jesus Christus" in jiew edition of Herzog's Encyclo;pcedia, by O. Zockler, 1900. 202 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Zahn an acknowledgment of St. Paul's testimony to the facts and teaching of the Gospel, and it would be easy to note the fulness and the frankness of this acknowledgment. Professor O. Zockler, e.g., the writer of the article " Jesus Christus " in the new edition of Herzog's Encyclopcedia, now in course of publication, speaks of the testimony of St. Paul's Epistles to the person and life of Jesus as a testimony of invaluable worth. But in other quarters the force of the same evidence is evidently felt in no inconsiderable degree, and it would be easy to adduce many names not altogether unknown in England in proof of a statement which may seem at first sight somewhat hazardous.^ Let me refer as an example to one of the most recent of the many so-called " scientific " Lives of Jesus which have come to us from Germany. ' Amongst these names may be mentioned Nosgen, " Die apostolische Verkundigung und die Geschichte Jesu " {Neue ^akrbucher filr deutsche Theologie, (1895) ; Sabatier, DAfdtre Paul, p. 61 ff (1896) ; Titius, Der Paulinismus unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Seligkeit, p. 8 ff (1900) ; Wendt, Die Lehre yesu, pp. 44, 270 (1901), and " Die Lehre des Paulus verglichen mit der Lehre Jesu " [Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche (1894) ; Drescher, Das Leben Jesu bei Paulus (1900); Sturm, Der Apostel Paulus und die evangelische Uberlieferung, 1897 and 1900 (Forsetzung), Berlin ; Heinrici, Der Zweite Brief an die Korinther, p. 276 (as against Schmiedel), 1900, and Das Ur- christentum, p. 94 ( 1 902 ) ; Belser, Einleitung in das N.T.,'^. 447 ( 1 902) ; Furrer, Das Leben Jesu Christi, p. 14 ff (1901), 2nd edit. 1905 ; Feine, Jesus Christus und Paulus, 1902. For the earlier testimony of Keim and other well-known writers reference may be made to the account given in the Witness of the Epistles, chapter ii., entitled " An Historical Retrospect.'' It would be easy to quote English writers who have recently borne the same testimony, e.g. Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 443 ff; R. B. Drummond, Apostolic Teaching and Christ's Teaching, p. 29 ; Headlam, Critical Questions, p. 173 ff; Bishop of 'Svcmva.^a.xa, Epistle to the Romans, i. 234; Chase, Lord's Prayer in the Early Church, p. 19 ff; C. Anderson Scott, Expositor, ii. 202 (1900) ; and Bishop Lightfoot's Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 36, 71-2. The literature of a more recent date is discussed in Lecture XXIV., of the present work. Von Dobschiitz, while limiting the Apostle's knowledge of Jesus, regards him as making the words of Jesus his constant guide. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 2O3 The writer Oscar Holtzmann lays stress, e.g., upon the manner in which St. Paul shows his acquaintance not only with the fact of the crucifixion, but with the details which were connected with it ; he knows, e.g., of the night of our Lord's betrayal ; he knows of the institution of the Eucharist ; he refers to '' the Twelve " as if he was evidently using a familiar term ; he knows, too, of some of the details of our Lord's earthly life, that He was born under the law ; he knows of the impression which our Lord's character had made upon men ; and it is frankly admitted by Holtzmann that St. Paul in all probability derived this information from St. Peter when he went up to visit him in Jerusalem and abode with him for fifteen days (Gal. i. 18). If we turn to our Lord's teaching, we find that, according to Holtzmann, St. Paul must have had considerable acquaintance with it. He can refer, e.g., to our Lord's teaching as to marriage, to His ordinance for the maintenance of the Church, to His appeal to love as the fulfilling of the law ; he knows of our Lord's great discourses as to His coming to judgment, and he borrows some of his phraseology from it ; he speaks, e.g., in his earliest Epistle of that coming as of the coming of a thief in the night. We are reminded, too, of the way in which the language so frequent in the Epistles as to the building up, the edifying of the Christian community, as to the authority which the Lord gave for building up, and not for casting down (2 Cor. x. 8), may have passed to St. Paul from our Lord's use of the same metaphor when He spoke of building His Church. Once more, Holtzmann points to the significance of the resur- rection appearances related by St. Paul to the Corinthians, e.g. the Apostle's reference to the five hundred brethren, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, an intimation that the testimony to the resurrection could not only be confirmed by numerous witnesses, but that that testimony was not concerned with events from which 204 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST St. Paul and his converts were separated by a long lapse of years. Now what we learn from these writers to whom reference has been made is this, that they are all agreed that the amount of information which St. Paul possessed as to the facts and teaching of the Gospels was by no means so small as it is sometimes represented to have been. It may also be said that there is a growing agreement among those critics who occupy, more or less, a conservative standpoint, that St. Paul's statements about the person of Christ have for their source the teaching of Christ about Himself, and, further, that there is no reason to suppose that this testimony of St. Paul differed from that witnessed to by the Twelve and by the Church.^ Take, in illustration, the Epistle which many modern critics regard as the earliest which St. Paul wrote — the Epistle to the Galatians. It is evident that St. Paul uses language which implies, as we shall see more fully, no small knowledge of facts relating to Jesus on the part not only of the Churches in Galatia, but also of the Churches in Judsea (cf i. 18-22). But this is by no means all. In the controversy between St. Paul and the Jewish Christians, for which our primary source of knowledge is Gal. ii., the whole question as to " the Gospel of the ' See, e.g., Feine, u.s. pp. 155, 169, 267, and also Das Christentum Jesu und das Christentum der Afostel, p. 43 (1904) ; Zockler, u.s. p. 6; Wendt, u.s. p. 46; Titius, u.s. pp. 17-18; Heinrici, Der Zweite Brief an die Korinther, p. 44 (1900) ; Seeberg, Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit, p. 66 (1903) ; Resch, Der Paulinismus und die Logia Jesu, p. 620 (1904). Amongst English writings reference may be made to Sanday, Art. "Jesus Christ," Hastings, B.D., ii. 648, and Art. " Son of God," ibid. iv. 577 ; Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 475 ; R. B. Drummond, Apostolic Teaching and Christ's Teaching, p. 254; Headlam, Critical Questions, p. i89ff; Dean Bernard, Expositor, November, 1903. Also see Cremer's Reply to Harnack, E.T. p. 15. To these may be added the very able criticism of Harnack and Loisy by M. Lepin, Jisus Messie et Fits de Dieu, pp. 208, 211, 221 (1904). TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 205 circumcision " was in reality a question about Christ. But that term, " the Gospel of circumcision," what did it involve on the part of the older Apostles ? Surely a recognition of the fact that a revelation of God in the Old Covenant was not the only revelation. Henceforth God stood revealed not only by Moses, but in Christ : " Sinai was dwarfed in comparison of Calvary." ^ But what possibility could there have been of any agree- ment between St. Paul and the Twelve, of any adjustment of the demands of the two contending Gospels of circum- cision and uncircumcision, if St. Paul, on the one hand, and the Twelve on the other, had entertained opposing con- ceptions of our Lord's person and claims ? ^ Or again, if the question is raised, as we shall see that it has been raised, as to how far the Epistles of St. Paul may be regarded as representing the common Christianity of the period to which they belong, it is no doubt true that St. Paul had his own gospel, to which he gave unhesitating utterance, and to which he boldly appealed, the doctrine of justification by faith. But there is no evidence that this gospel made him indifferent to the historical data of the life of Jesus. Not only was the person who was the main substance of that gospel the same person as the Saviour preached by the Twelve, but in writing to Churches which he had not himself founded, and in which there is no reason to suppose that he had any personal acquaintance with the large body of believers, St. Paul evidently takes for granted a considerable knowledge as to the person of Jesus, as also of His earthly life and work. We shall see this plainly enough in speaking of the Epistle to the Romans. And here I pause to refer to a writer whose name has become notorious in England, the Abb6 Loisy. He, too, assures us that the Pauline Christology is amply ' Bishop of Exeter, St. Athanasius, Prolegomena, p. xxii. (1893). 2 See Cremer's Refly to Harnack, E.T., p. 17. 206 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST justified, and that our Lord's consciousness of His Messiah- ship may be shown to be unique even if we take only those parts of our Gospels which are accepted by the general consensus of critics. It is something to be assured of this by a writer who refuses to admit that our Lord spoke the words given to us both by St. Matthew and St. Luke (Matt. xi. 27 ; Luke X. 22), and who sees in St. John's Gospel not an historical document, but a symbolical and allegorical mode of instruction ; and we may justly protest against the surrender of such special and important testimony to our Lord's unique claims.^ But the Abb6 Loisy, no less ^han Harnack, whom he so avowedly attacks, fails to give us any satisfactory or con- sistent account of the testimony of St. Paul. Thus he assures us that the first theory about Christ was formulated by Paul.^ This Apostle, who had not known Jesus, was the first or one of the first to feel the need of forming an idea of Christ and a definition of Him as the Saviour, since he was compelled to explain, and could not simply narrate. And in his last Epistles, we are told, he comes to identify Christ, more or less, with Eternal Wisdom, attributing to Him a cosmological function. But why " in his last Epistles " ? St. Paul's language in his " last Epistles " does not go one whit beyond the language, as we have already seen, in his earlier Epistles. In I Cor. viii. 6 he speaks of " one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through Him." Is not St. Paul's language more easily explained by the view that he already knew how our Lord had spoken of Himself in relation to the Father as " the Agent of all divine works " ' See the criticism of Loisy by M. Lepin, Jisus Messie et Fils de Dieu, p. 167 fE; and the able Articles on " Loisy's Synthesis of Christianity," by the Rev. A. C. Jennings, The Churchman (1904). ' Cf. The Gospel and the Church, E.T., pp. 45, 96. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 207 (Loisy), than on the supposition that the language which supports these high claims was merely a product of the Christian tradition ? If we turn to the passages in The Gospel and the Church, in which the Abb6 Loisy refers to the traditions of our Lord's life, it cannot be said that St. Paul's relation to these traditions is described in a manner free from in- consistency. The Abb6 takes, for instance, what we may call a crucial passage (i Cor. xv. 3-4V and he quotes Harnack's words that St. Paul ranked himself with the early Christian community in attaching supreme value to the ideas of the death and of the resurrection of Christ. " But," replies the Abb6, " this death and resurrection might well give rise to different conceptions " ; and he warns us against attributing the same conceptions to the early be- lievers, or to Jesus Himself, or to the Apostle of the Gentiles. The passage from the Epistle to the Corinthians, " For I delivered unto you that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, and that He rose again the third day," by no means makes it certain that the idea of the Atonement by death existed from the beginning with the distinctness that the teaching of Paul conferred on it ; and we are further asked to note that St. Paul says, " according to the Scriptures," a fact which shows that the historical character of the tradition alluded to must not be exaggerated. But surely St. Paul's attitude in i Cor. xv. is that of a man who felt that he and his brother Apostles were on common ground, "' whether it were I or they, so we preached, and so ye believed " ; and it seems a strange argument to maintain that the historical character of the tradition relating to the significance of our Lord's death is invalidated because an appeal is made to the Scriptures. Moreover, St. Paul in his earliest Epistles had spoken, • Pp. 126-7 208 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST as we have seen, of Christ dying for us, of Christ giving Himself for our sins (i Thess. v. lo ; Gal. i. 4), so that it would appear that a similar tradition as to the effect of our Lord's death must have existed at a much earher date than the Corinthian Epistle. But one more astonishing statement must be quoted in this connection. " The passage in Mark " (which Loisy regards as the primitive text in the Gospels known to us), " where it is said that Christ came to give His life a ransom for many (x. 45), was in all probability," says Loisy, " in- fluenced by the theology of Paul, and as much may be said of the narrative of the Last Supper." ^ And so we are actually asked to believe that the words, " This is My blood of the new testament which is shed for many," must have been added by St. Mark after the teaching of Paul. So, too, the earliest statements, which St. Mark first followed, contained no words which brought out the redeeming intention of the Lord's death. Does this seem at all probable ? We have already seen that the tradition as to the atoning virtue of our Lord's death goes back far earlier than the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in which, let us remember, we have St. Paul's account of the institution of the Eucharist. But, further, whenever St. Mark's Gospel was written, there is surely every reason to believe that the celebration of the Lord's Supper had become a long-established fact in the Christian Church. Can we suppose for a moment that the whole meaning and character of that Sacrament was altered at the bidding of St. Paul, and that St. Mark, " the interpreter of Peter," as Papias calls him, would have so transformed the meaning and the bearing of our Lord's words and deeds? Whatever may be the view of the Ahh6 Loisy, one thing ' U.S. p. 129. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 209 seems clear, viz. that St. Paul, whilst he speaks so much of the exalted Christ, whilst he prays to Him, worships Him, finds his life in Him, never allows us to lose sight of the historical Jesus. What could be more significant than the manner in which he introduces his account of the Eucharist? " The Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed^ Or take, if you will, those words upon which we dwelt last week, " Have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? " The correct reading is surely full of significance. It is not, " Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord ? " but simply, " Have I not seen Jesus our Lord ? " The Divine Guide and Ruler of the Church, the Lord of all, was the same Jesus of the Gospels, of whom the Twelve had testified, and whom St. Paul had seen on the way to Damascus. St. Paul had not forgotten the reply to his question of astonishment, " Who art Thou, Lord ? " . . . "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." But even if we take only the two facts of .the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Lord as known to St. Paul, we shall find enough cause to pause to consider the im- portance of St. Paul's testimony in relation to them. Take the first only. There have been men, even in our own day, who have made the preposterous assertion that Jesus never died ; and if the evidence for the fact had not been so positive, not only from the New Testament but from secular history, we should no doubt have been told that the whole story of the Passion was a myth. Had it not been foretold in the Book of Wisdom (ii. verse 10 ff) that tjjie righteous man should suffer reproaches and torment and be put to a shameful death, and was not Jesus pre-eminently the Righteous One ? But quite apart from the testimony of the famous Roman historian, quite apart from the incomparable touch in the Acts wherein the Roman Festus, with all his aristocratic ignorance, asserts at any rate the fact of the death of Jesus 14 210 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST as certain (xxv. 19), quite apart from the incredible supposi- tion that the Christian Church could have been founded by the followers of a half-dead Christ creeping out of His grave/ St. Paul in his earliest letters not only accepts the fact of the death of Christ, but he is evidently acquainted with the- agents and the mode of that death ; he writes to the Thessalonians, and accuses his own countrymen of the murder of Jesus in the same sentence in which he describes them as the murderers of their own prophets, " who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out " (i Thess. ii. 15). In writing to the Galatians he reminds them how vividly in his preaching to them he had depicted before their eyes Jesus Christ crucified (Gal. iii. i) ; and if we turn to Acts xiii. we may see how the preaching thus characterised carries us back to the earliest days of the Apostle's first missionary journey. Moreover, not only the fact of the death of Christ, but the doctrine based upon it, was part of the tradition which St. Paul had received, and which he shared with the other Apostles. Christ died, but why ? For our sins, according to the Scriptures (i Cor. xv. 3, 11). The tradition thus assures us that at a very early date the death of a crucified Jew had become associated by St. Paul and the Twelve alike, not with the curse of God passed upon it by the Jewish law, but with the blessing of the Gospel of peace for men and women burdened with sin, and that this unique value was attached to that death, not as the result of a long and laborious brooding over the Scriptures, but as belonging to it from the first. No one has emphasised more than Harnack the view that i Cor. xv. 3 refers to a common tradition, common to St. Paul and the Twelve ; and it would certainly seem that, as an integral part of that tradition, there was a whole series of facts, the atoning * See for the entire rejection of such a notion amongst recent writers, Clemen, Paulus, i. 197. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 211 death, the resurrection, and that, too, on the third day, which was from the first connected with Jewish prophecy, and not gradually adapted to it, as time went on or fancy prompted. And so, when we find that the mythical theory is still with us, albeit in some modified form ; or when we are told that the narratives in our Gospels may have been in some cases adaptations, in some cases accretions or even creations, that metaphor was translated into fact, and that unconscious tendencies were often at work ; or when we are asked how, if we had only know the Christology of St. Paul, we could have drawn from it the form of the historical Jesus ; or how, on the other hand, if we had only known the historical Jesus, we could have inferred that such a Christology as that of Paul could result ; — an examination of the evidence to be gathered from the Apostle's own writings will still present some serious counter-considerations. That evidence is not to be judged as if it was only of a reflective character upon the events of the life of Jesus seen through a long retrospect of years : in some particulars it carries us up to the earliest period of the existence of the Christian Church ; in other particulars it is plainly incidental, it is used as occasion demands, and it justifies the inference that it has behind it a large reserve of early teaching and tradition. In the nature of the case, these facts and the sources from which they were derived would not be elaborated in detail. For whilst it is true that the Epistles are also Gospels, yet epistles must remain epistles ; they are not, at all events, biographies ; and St. Paul's Epistles are manifestly the out- pouring of the heart, of a heart yearning sometimes for sympathy, but always ready to impart some word of comfort to others ; they are evidently written with the pre- supposition, as Dr. J. Weiss frankly admits, that much is taken for granted as already known, that fuller information had been already given. Nothing is more natural than that 212 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST a letter should thus allude to, or assume acquaintance with, familiar facts, without entering upon any details and without delaying over explanations. In writing to a friend to-day and making a reference to the war, one would scarcely think it necessary to stop and explain that a reference is intended to the war between Russia and Japan. Moreover, it is very noteworthy that even St. Paul's references to such a doctrine as the pre-existence of Christ occur for the most part in some hortatory connection, or are introduced to enforce some practical advice in relation to Church life and custom. These and similar references are evidently made as if they concerned not some private speculation, but as if they were truths widely known ; nor is there the least consciousness that the Apostle is advancing this high teaching for the first time, as something peculiar to his own gospel and quite distinct from that accepted by the other Apostles. Take, e.g., i Cor. viii. 6, where we have expressions used with all the precision of a creed — expressions evidently embodying a generally accepted belief,^ which must have had a much earlier origin than the date of the letter. ' Cf. Peine, yesus Christus und Paulus, p. 156 ; Titius, u.s. p. 11. See, further, Findlay's valuable note on i Cor. viii. 6, in the Expositor's G.T., ii. Professor Bacon, Story of St. Paul, p. 315 (1905), regards i Cor. viii. 6 as the words of the Corinthians, who thus enunciate " an out- and-out Logos doctrine ' ' ; and he adds, ' ' This gnosis Paul does not dis- approve.'' But Paul does not merely disapprove ; he associates himself with the Corinthians in this acknowledged Christology, although he admits that there are some who do not possess this gnosis. Professor Bacon further urges that the language of i Cor. i. 24 and ii. 6-16 applies the terms o-oi^ia and Sivafus Oeov in a technical sense to Christ, and identifies Him with the creative " Wisdom " of God. But although beyond all doubt St. Paul was conversant with the Jewish conception of Wisdom and with the Book of Wisdom, it must not be forgotten that in the passage just mentioned St. Paul applies his language not to Christ, as the agent in creation, but as the crucified Christ. Professor Bacon (p. 208) does good service in pointing out how the later con- ceptions of Ephesians and Colossians with regard to Christ and his relation to humanity and creation are already present in a partly developed form in St. Paul's earlier Epistles. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 213 And so, when we are told that from our modern stand- point Paul's reasoning rests not on memories of the Galilean Jesus, but on a direct and immediate intuition of that living and exalted Christ whose holy land is in the human spirit (Moffatt, Hist. N.T., p. 42, 2nd edit), we must carefully weigh what such a statement at least involves. Certainly St. Paul had not, like St. John, the memories of hours and days spent in intercourse with the human Jesus ; certainly we may allow that St. Paul's chief aim was to set forth the inner contents of the faith as a spirit and a character pro- duced and sustained by God's grace in human nature. But had he no information, had his converts no information, as to the Source and Giver of this grace ? Was " the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," which he emphasises in his earliest as in his latest Epistle, conferred by a Person of whom he knew nothing, and about whom his converts could learn nothing ? Consider for a moment what is implied in this language, " the living and exalted Christ." It takes for granted that some Person had lived, and was living still, who had fulfilled adequately the claims to be the Messiah ; it takes for granted that not only St. Paul was himself assured of the justice of this claim, but that his followers also had accepted its validity ; that the present life and the exaltation of this Messiah belonged to a world beyond the grave, for no follower of Jesus could have called Him " the exalted Christ " during His earthly career. This conception which St. Paul enter- tained of the Christ as living and exalted, does it not remind us at least of the Christ of the early speeches of St. Peter and St. John ? (cf Acts iii. 15, v. 30). He is the Prince of life. He is exalted to God's right hand ; and thus for St. Paul, no less than for the Twelve, it would seem that the living Christ is seen to be the foundation of his preaching and the source ot the salvation which he proclaimed. Moreover, we seem to be the more justified in appealing to the early addresses in 214 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST the Acts, since even Schmiedel allows that they carry us back to a primitive source. But we may proceed further : this conception of the Christ would have stirred, we can scarcely doubt, the eager curiosity of Jew and Gentile alike, wherever St. Paul delivered his message. The former would not be inclined to accept a fellow Jew as his Messiah without substantial proofs and definite statements. The latter, the Gentile, would not have been baptized into the name of a Jew, of a man belonging to a despised and hated race ; he would not have regarded Him as the Lord of his spirit and the inspiration of his life without some proof of His present authority and some knowledge of what manner of man He was. Nowhere has this been more strikingly recognised of late years than in Das dlteste Evangelium, by J. Weiss (p. 33 ff), 1903. I select this writer not only on account of the dis- tinguished name which he bears, but because, while asserting so strongly the pervading presence of much that is legendary in our Gospels, he is also constrained to admit so much which bears very closely upon our present inquiry. After pointing out that at first sight the Pauline Epistles seem to contain no trace of any special interest in the earthly life of Jesus, he proceeds to show that this statement, so often repeated even to tediousness, requires serious modification. As a proof he instances the brief statements made in i Cor. XV. 3-4, in which, as he says, some have made the mistake of seeing an exhaustive representation of the contents of St. Paul's preaching ; whereas these statements are rather meant to be a brief introduction to the more detailed con- sideration of the resurrection appearances in the verses which follow. Moreover, these statements in i Corinthians cannot be understood without being supplemented both as regards the past and as regards the future. The thought, e.g., that TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 215 Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was raised to power and glory could only receive its completion in the Apostle's preaching when it was added for what purpose this Son of God had been so exalted, viz. for judgment and salvation. As one who comes from heaven and saves us from wrath, Paul had preached the Son of God in Thessalonica (i Thess. i. 10), so that the Parousia, with judgment and announcement of salva- tion, was an essential element of the Gospel, and Paul speaks of the day when God would judge the secrets of men's hearts through Jesus Christ. But if in a message of glad tidings the announcement of a coming judgment was included, so a summons to repent- ance and to a conversation worthy of the Gospel must also have found a place. If, moreover, it may be fairly con- tended that Eph. ii. 16 goes too far when it marks out the union of Jew and Gentile as specifically contained in the preaching of Jesus, and the calling of the Gentile as the peculiar mystery of Paul's gospel (iii. 5, 6, 9), yet we cannot but think that some teaching as to the relation of the Jews to salvation and as to the calling of the Gentiles would have formed a part of that gospel. When Paul, e.g., would preach before the Gentiles the Son of God of the seed of David, he could not avoid expressing himself as to the relation between the Gospel and the Old Testament promise of Messianic salvation. Paul, too, we must never forget, had to face the hostility of the Jews of the Dispersion, and he would naturally be called upon to explain why he, a Jew, had separated himself from Judaism, and consequently to explain, as in Acts xiii. 26 ff, how the Son of God had indeed come to the Jews according to the promise, but had been rejected and slain by them. But in this affirmation he could scarcely refrain from making reference to a whole series of incidents connected with the mode of the death inflicted upon, and relating to the character of. Him who died ; and that he 2i6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST actually made such references many notices in his Epistles intimate, e.g. Gal. iii. 2 ; Phil. ii. 8 ; 2 Cor. x. i. Nor could the Apostle have remained content with enunciating a mere theory as to the obduracy of the Jews, when it was a matter of justifying the new religion and its propaganda. That Jesus was under the law during His earthly life could only have formed one part of the Apostle's preaching ; he must have been ready with vouchers from deeds and words of Jesus in support of his position that " Christ was the end of the law " (Rom. x. 4).^ It is, in fact, inconceivable that in his missionary preaching St. Paul could have disclaimed all knowledge of the particulars relating to the historical Jesus. How could he have reckoned upon being understood even in the smallest degree, unless he could have declared who this Jesus actually was, what He did, and what He taught. Surely all this (and much more might be added) should be weighed more carefully than is often the case. But all this aspect of St. Paul's missionary preaching is entirely forgotten and ignored by Von Soden in his famous essay in proof of the little interest the Apostle evinced in the human life of Jesus,^ and this omission on the part of the writer is rightly insisted upon by Feine (as earlier by Paret) no less than by J. Weiss. If Paul used of Christ the highest predicates, Son of God, the Lord, the Judge, the Saviour ; if he desired to make any impression upon his ' Cf. Feine, Jesus Christus und Paulus, pp. 245, 248-9, 258, 261, 267, to the same effect. * Theologische Abhandlungen, C. Weizsdcker gewidfnet, especially p. 115 (1892). It is noticeable that even Von Soden allows that St. Paul shows evidence of an intimate acquaintance with the words of Jesus, and that on four occasions he makes an appeal to the words of the Lord (although in i Thess. iv. 15, this reference to the words of the earthly Jesus is doubtful). See, further, below. Various strictures upon Von Soden's article have been passed, not only by Feine, but by Titius, U.S. p. 17 ; Nosgen, u.s. p. 49, and in England by Dr Sanday, Inspiration, pp. 288, 317 ; Dr. Bruce, Expositor's Greek Testament, i. 16; R.B. Drummond, u.s. p. 11, TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 217 hearers by his preaching, he must show by what right a man whose life lay before them as belonging to the immediate past, and who was thus an historical person, could claim such distinction ; he must be ready with the proofs that this man was in truth the Christ, and it was impossible that this could be done except by the method of instruction and information as to the life which Jesus lived and the work which He accomplished. Nothing could more plainly show than the notices in Gal. iii. i, and i Cor. ii. 2 how vividly the missionary Paul had represented Jesus to his hearers in proof of the greatness of the love which led Him to sacrifice His life (Peine, u.s. p. 57). Before we pass to an inquiry as to St. Paul's sources of information, two or three further considerations may be noted. We do well to bear in mind that the Epistles no less than the Gospels have a language of their own, and that some of the most characteristic terms of one group of writings are altogether wanting in the other. (To this subject further reference will be made.) But what better proof could we have that the language of the Gospels on the one hand, and of the Epistles on the other, is in striking harmony with the particular period which each group of writings purports to describe ? At the same time, whilst we recognise this difference of phraseology in many particulars, we may also recognise a remarkable continuity between the leading conceptions of Gospels and Epistles alike. Take as a single example what is perhaps the central conception of the Gospels, the con- ception of " the kingdom of heaven," and consider how comparatively seldom the phrase occurs in the Epistles.^ And yet no New Testament writer has caught more fully • Cf., e.g., the frequent use of the word eKKKija-ia in the Epistles, with the fact that it occurs only in Matt. xvi. 18, xviii. 17 in the Gospels, and the recurrence of the phrase "the Son of Man" in all four Gospels, with its absence in the Epistles. See, further, Lecture XIII. and Dr. Sanday, Inspiration, p. 289 ; Expositor's Greek Testament, ii. 164. 2i8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST than St. Paul the essential meaning of the teaching of Jesus, or grasped more fully the innermost and distinctive meaning of that phrase " the kingdom of God." " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17). We seem to be listening once more to the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount or to the parables of that spiritual kingdom the fruit of which is righteousness, peace, and joy; and "what a description," writes Dr. Sanday, " in those few strokes ! . . . how undreamt of by Pharisee, or Sadducee, or Essene, or Zealot ! There was only one school where the Apostle could have learnt that lesson — the school of Jesus. If we had only that one verse it would suffice to tell us that the teaching of Jesus had really sunk into his soul." ^ Secondly, if, as is still sometimes urged, and with so much perversity, the language of St. Paul's Epistles had seriously affected the alleged facts and the language of the Gospels, it is strange that St. Paul's essential principles should not have been more directly enunciated in the Gospels, rather than that they should have been left to be inferred from them. When Dr. Harnack says that St. Paul was the disciple who carried out the boldest enterprise, viz. the admission of the Gentiles to the Church without being able to appeal to a single word of his Master, such a statement helps at all events to remind us that St. Paul never claims to quote a single saying of Jesus in support of his contention that the barrier between Jew and Gentile had been broken down. That the Apostle was not acquainted with the spirit of Christ's teaching as to the value of this distinction and its temporary nature is much more than we can fairly affirm ; ^ ' " St. Paul's Equivalent for the Kingdom of Heaven " {Journal of Theol. Studies, July, 1900). See, further, in Lecture XI. * See J. Weiss, Das dlieste Evangelium, p. 38 ; Wendt, u.s. p. 22 ; Drescher, Das Lehen Jesu, p. 21 ; Titius, u.s. p. 18. To these may be added Von Dobschutz, Das a;postolische Zeitalter, p. 13 {Religionsge- schichtliche Volksbucher), 1905. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 219 but at the least it is a striking testimony to his sincerity and candour that we never find any alleged words of Jesus introduced to the effect that no Gentile need be circumcised to enter the Christian Church.^ If we remember the intensity of the struggle which, according to the acknowledged Epistles of St. Paul, threatened to divide, and for a time divided, the early Church of Christ, this reserve becomes all the more noteworthy. On the other hand, it is significant that as occasion de- mands, both the teaching and the facts of Christ's life seem to have been at St. Paul's command for reproof and correction ; that when he is writing on eschatological subjects, as in I Thessalonians, he has in mind our Lord's teaching in words closely resembling the teaching on the same subjects in the Gospels ^ ; that when he is writing to the Corinthians on questions of order and discipline, he is able to refer to an institution which, whatever difiSculties may surround it in the eyes of modern critics, is closely associated in the Gospels, as it is by St. Paul, with the Lord Jesus and with the night in which He was betrayed ; that he is able to draw a line of demarcation, as we shall see, between disputed questions in which he could appeal to a definite command of Christ, and those in which he could claim no such authority. ' All this forms an undesigned coincidence with the fact that St. Paul alone gives us a saying of the Lord Jesus definitely so described outside the four Gospels, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and that he is able to do so for the immediate purpose in hand, viz. to enforce a ' This point is rightly emphasised by Keim, Geschichte j^esu, iii. 583. * Wendt, U.S. p. 13, points out that although Paul introduces some traits that cannot be referred to a tradition from Jesus, yet this does not injure the impression of agreement with Jesus on the whole as to eschatological questions. The remarks of Dr. Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, and his references on p. 97 (1903), are also of great importance. 220 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST practical and charitable duty. His frequent references to our Lord's teaching are most easily accounted for by supposing that the Apostle had at his command some oral tradition, or possibly some early reminiscences of Christ's teaching derived from his own early acquaintance with some of the first followers of the Lord.^ Even if it is alleged that in such a passage as i Tim. vi. 3, where reference is made to " healthful words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ," we have not St. Paul's words at all ; yet at least we have in such a passage a proof of the conviction of the next generation to the Apostles, that St. Paul had attached the greatest importance to the words of Jesus.^ It is, of course, quite possible to maintain, with Heinrici, that St. Paul's reference to a command of the Lord in I Cor. vii. 25 (see, further, in Lecture XIV.) presupposes that the Apostle had at his disposal a collection of the words of Jesus,' and there is much to be said for the same writer's belief that there was very early in existence a collection of the most important Old Testament prophecies which bore upon the theology of the early Christian Church. But let us look a little more closely at the probable sources from which St. Paul derived his knowledge of the life and teaching of his Master. Whether Professor Ramsay is right in maintaining that St. Paul had actually seen in Jerusalem the Jesus with whose fame the whole city and all Judaea were ringing, I do not ' See, in this connection, V. Bartlet, A^osiolic Age, p. 363. ' Nosgen, u.s. p. 66. ' Peine, however, thinks that the traditional material was quite sufficient. Dr. Rendel Harris [Contemporary Review, September, 1897) maintains that St. Paul, St. Clement, and St. Polycarp, all had access to a collection of Logia of Jesus. See also Professor K. Lake {Hibbert Journal, January, 1905), who would substitute St. Luke for St. Paul. According to another view, St. Clement had access to a Pauline manual of the words of the Lord {Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1827). * Theol. Abhandlungen, C. Weizs&cker gewidmet, p. 339; and also Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 282. TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 221 venture to affirm. But in this connection a most important and suggestive passage may be quoted from the famous work of Dr. Dalman. He is speaking of the Davidic descent of Jesus, and to his mind the most convincing evidence that the Holy Family was really possessed of Davidic descent is the evidence of St. Paul. The scribes held to the opinion that the Messiah must be a descendant of David, and so it is certain that the opponents of Jesus would make the most of any knowledge they could procure which tended to show that Jesus did not fulfil this condition. And St. Paul, as a persecutor of the Christians, would have been well instructed in regard to this point. And as he, after mingling freely with members of the Holy Family in Jerusalem, shows by his language that he knew no sort of doubt, it must be assumed that no objection was known to him. This passage, so important in itself, further suggests to us that if a persecutor of the Christians was well instructed in the one historical point to which reference is made, there is no reason to suppose that he would have limited his inquiries to that one particular. It is indeed very difficult to believe that whilst St. Paul speaks of the Gospel as becoming known to him by revelation, and of the Son of God as revealed in him, he had made no acquaintance with the Christianity which he so persistently attacked, with the teaching and the life of Him in whom the Nazarenes recognised the Messiah of their country and nation. No one amongst recent critics has admitted this more plainly than Dr. Wendt, the German critic whose name is so well known in England. He points out that Saul of Tarsus before his conversion must have had a certain knowledge of the views of the Christians and of the life and teaching of Jesus in whom they saw the Messiah ; and that this Saul would not have so passionately persecuted the faith of the Christians unless he had had some know- 222 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST ledge of the manner in which that faith stood in contradiction to the fundamental axioms of the Pharisaic party. It must also be remembered that St. Paul had come into communication with many who had been in Jerusalem during our Lord's earthly ministry, and with others who had been associated with the life of the Church from its earliest days, who had been both ministers and eyewitnesses of the word. All this we can infer from documents which, as we have already seen, can be fairly used for our purpose. Within three years of his conversion St. Paul had gone up to Jerusalem to make the acquaintance not only of St. Peter, but of St. James, the Lord's brother. The word which he uses in this connection is a remarkable one (Gal. i. i8), IcTToprja-aL. In the A.V. and all other E.V. it is translated " to see " ; but in the R.V. it is rendered " to visit '' in the text, and in the margin " to become acquainted with." Dr. Edersheim takes it to mean a careful and searching inquiry on the part of Paul (/esus the Messiah, ii. 625), and it would certainly seem that its usual meaning is to know or learn by inquiring.^ In his article on the " Resurrection " Dr. Schmiedel does not attempt to dispute that St. Paul must have obtained much information on this occasion, and this admission is something (although we shall have occasion to return to it again). If we attach any importance to the " We "-sections in Acts, and if we do not it is difficult to see what part of the New Testament has a better claim upon our attention, St. Paul must, at one time in his ministry, have visited Philip the Evangelist at Caesarea ; he must have lodged with Mnason, an old disciple, i.e. a disciple from the beginning, from the great Pentecost (Acts xxi. 8, 16) ; he must have been in close fellowship with Barnabas and Mark, both of whom enjoyed the friendship of Peter, he ' See, on its force here, Sabatier, L'Apdire Paul, p. 66, 3rd edit., and Nosgen, " Die apostoliche Verkundigung und die Geschichte Jesu," Neue jahrbucher fiir deutsche Theologie, i. 86 (1895); also Bacon, Story of St. Paul, p. 53 (1905)- TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 223 meets St. James in Jerusalem, in the latter as well as in the earlier part of his career ; and he mentions amongst his fellow countrymen Andronicus and Junias, who had been converted to the faith of Christ at an earlier date even than St. Paul himself (Rom. xvi. y)} That St. Paul preached what he spoke of as his own gospel we know, and if that gospel had not contained something which the Apostle himself claimed to be characteristic of his own teaching, it is difficult to see why he should have spoken thus at all. But there is no vestige of proof that the message which St. Paul proclaimed as the Apostle of the Gentiles made him indifferent to the teaching and facts of the life of Jesus, as may be shown from each group of his writings. It is also of interest to bear in mind how often St. Paul appeals to traditions (irapaSdcreis), or employs words of similar import in his appeals to his converts.^ Moreover, Peine, endorsing the earlier remarks of Paret, justly calls attention to the fact that St. Paul must at least have been aware that no positive saying of the historical Jesus could be brought forward in opposition to the teaching of his own peculiar gospel ; ^ otherwise he would have been in constant fear that all his theology would be endangered. A dispute between Paul and the primitive Apostles was only possible if it belonged to a province of teaching where there was room for various deductions and conclusions, and not to ' See, in this connection, the noteworthy remarks of Dr. O. Holtzmann, Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wtssenschaft, 2 (1904), and Clemen, Paulus, i. 350 (referred to further in Lecture XXIV.) ; and also Zahn, Einleitung, ii. p. 162. ' Peine, u.s. p. 68 ; Seeberg, Der Katechismus der Urchrtsienheii, p. 46, 50 (1903); Heinrici, Theol. Abhandlungen, C. Weizsdcker gewidmet, p. 347 ; and Bishop Gore, Romans, i. 234. On the force of such passages as Gal. vi. 6, with reference to " catechetical " instruction in the early Church, see Theol. Abhandlungen, C. Weizsdcker gewidmet, pp. 65, 366 ; Seeberg, u.s. p. 268 ; Wright, Synopsis of the Gospels, p. xli. and p. 3. , ' Peine, Jesus Christus und Paulus, p. 69, and to the same effect Titius, U.S. p. 12. 224 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST a province which had been already covered by a decisive utterance and judgment of the Lord. It is, however, constantly affirmed by some recent writers, as, e.g., by Dr. Percy Gardner {^A Historical View of the N.T., p. 213), that St. Paul tells us in the plainest and most decisive language that of eyewitnesses he made no inquiry as to the life of Jesus, and that it was his one purpose not to dwell on Christ after the flesh, but after the spirit. But how do we know, and how can we possibly affirm, that St. Paul thus acted ? We have seen reason to believe that he could not have persecuted beyond measure the Church of God (Gal. i. 13) without learning something of the Christian community, of the teaching and circumstances of its Founder ; and as a conscientious Jew (and undoubtedly St. Paul was one) he would scarcely have urged the Nazarenes to blaspheme the name of Christ without making it his business to gather some knowledge of the pretender's Messianic claims. And are we also to suppose that St. Luke, who was St. Paul's constant companion, took such an intense interest in tracing the origins of the Christian faith, and yet that St. Paul knew nothing and cared nothing, for those facts which engrossed the attention of his intimate friend ? ^ To such a question one would have thought that there could be only one reply. Moreover, it is not fair to use the antithesis Christ after the flesh and after the spirit, as if it was meant to assert that St. Paul felt no interest in the circumstances of the earthly life of Jesus. The statement in 2 Cor. v. 16 shows us what such v?ords may mean, and probably do mean. The Apostle is contrasting a knowledge of Christ (not Jesus) after the flesh, with the knowledge which enables a man to say that he is " in Christ," that he > More than one writer has noticed that Von Soden, in his article on the interest of the Apostolic Age in the Gospel history, makes no reference to St. Luke's preface {Theol. Abhandlungen, C. Weizsaiker gewidmet, p. 113 ff [1892]). TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 225 is a new creature ; in other words, he regards Christ no longer as a Jew, but as a Christian would regard Him — not as one whose thoughts were fixed upon a material kingdom, or upon an earthly Messiah, but upon a Christ living in the hearts of men, reigning in His Church, not after the flesh, but after the spirit.^ And, naturally enough, St. Paul fixes the thoughts of his converts, as his own thoughts were fixed, upon the risen and ascended Christ, who was for them, as for him, the hope of glory. The Epistles are not narratives like the Gospels, but letters in which the Apostle warns, exhorts, and cheers, letters in which the practical bearing of the Christian life was enforced anew. But, nevertheless, there is much in these letters which could scarcely have been understood, unless writer and reader alike possessed a knowledge of the life and teaching of the historical Jesus. In this connection I would refer to a striking and helpful passage in the Dean of Westminster's Ephesians (p. 23 fif). He insists upon the significant fact that in St. Paul's thought " the Christ " takes to so large an extent the place of "Jesus," and he sees in this the reason why the Apostle dwells so little upon the earthly life and words of the Lord, so little upon the facts of the Gospels, except those of the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension. Of the miracles, of the public working of Jesus, of the miracle of His birth, we read nothing ; and the same may be said of His struggle with the Pharisees, of the training of the Twelve, of the ' A similar interpretation adopted by Baur is endorsed by Feine, u.s. p. 67, in an admirable discussion of the verse. See also the remarks of the Dean of Westminster, E;phesians, p. 23 ff, and to the same eifect Menzies, The Earliest Gospel, p. 7 ff. To these may be added Barth, Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu, pp. 2-3, and more recently still V. Weber, Biblische Zeitschrift, ii. 178 (1904). Professor Weber strongly maintains that the verse in question marks the change in St. Paul's conception of Jesus as a purely Jewish Messiah to that of Jesus as the Messiah for all mankind. For earlier views as to the meaning of this much disputed text, reference may be made to the Witness of the Epistles, pp. 2-3. See also Lecture XXIV. IS 226 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST discourses to the multitude. The relation of the institution of the Eucharist is a solitary and, as it were, incidental exception. Not that we are for a moment to suppose that this was due to ignorance of, 'or indifference to, the great story of our Gospels ; some of this story at least must have been known to St. Paul, and must have been believed by him. " But he had a message peculiarly his own, and that message deals not with the earthly Jesus so much as with the heavenly Christ. . . . We may not, indeed, think that ' Jesus ' and ' the Christ ' can ever in any way be separated ; St. Paul's frequent combination of the two names is a witness against such a supposition. Yet there are two aspects ; and it is the heavenly aspect that predominates in the thoughts of St. Paul." This passage is of great value in its bearing upon our present subject. If I venture to criticise it at all, it will simply be in this way : these conclusions seem scarcely to express how much information about our Lord St. Paul's statements to his converts presuppose. It is, e.g., not merely the death on' the Cross which St. Paul emphasises, but the fact that He who died there died for our sins. But why was that death a death for our sins ? What was it that conferred such a special and unique value upon that death ? Surely the sinlessness, the perfect offering, of Him who died : " He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." It is the testimony of St. Paul ; it is the testimony, we have good reason to believe, of St. Peter and St. John. And it would be difficult to find any statement which showed more clearly the marvellous impression which our Lord's life had made upon His immediate followers. Moreover, this statement comes to us from Jews, from men, i.e., who knew the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who could declare that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. It comes to us from the Apostle, who em- phasised most strongly the propagation of sinfulness from TESTIMONY TO FACTS AND TEACHING 227 Adam downward. Such a statement, in short, could scarcely have been made without imparting to those who heard it, especially if they were Jews, some definite reason why it should be made and why it should be accepted. And yet St. Paul makes it to his Corinthian converts, to a largely mixed Church, without any explanation or enlarge- ment ! It must not be forgotten, too, that in his earliest Epistles the same significant value as attaching to the death of Christ is stated. To the Thessalonians the Apostle speaks of Jesus as One who died for us, and to the Galatians he speaks at the outset of Him who gave Himself for our sins. But if this is so, then at least it is evident that sinlessness was not first attributed to Jesus by the later voice of the Church, but that from the first it was associated with Him as the essence of His character as also the essence of His sacrificial work. Let us look in conclusion at one remarkable feature of this knowledge of Jesus which St. Paul's words again pre- suppose. It has been pointed out that the first authoritative life of St. Francis of Assissi by Bonaventura was written the same space of time after the death of St. Francis as that which separates the death of Jesus from the earliest probable date of a deliberate record of His life. Further, it is said that this life of St. Francis is laden with miracles, in contrast to a life of the saint written by three of his companions twenty years from his death, a life singularly free from the miracu- lous. The inference, of course, is that our Lord's life also, as time went on, became laden with miracles. But what we desire to point out is this : that in the case of our Lord the miracles were there from the first : there is no question of " the growth of the miraculous," the miracu- lous is involved in St. Paul's conception of the Christ, a conception which meets us in Epistles and Gospels alike. It is not merely that two, if not three, of St. Paul's writings 228 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST date within twenty years of the death of Jesus, and that the cardinal miracle of the resurrection of Jesus is emphasised in them again and again, but that St. Paul's claim insisted upon in each of these Epistles is that he was an Apostle, and that the signs of an Apostle involved the working of miracles. From the earliest days of his ministry this power had been his. But the power was not his own ; it was derived from Christ, and only the possessor could be the bestower. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, could work miracles : they were among the credentials of his mission from the Christ, just as in His ministry on earth our Lord had sent forth His Apostles with authority and power to heal the sick and to cast out demons. But by the side of this recognition of the miraculous there is something else ; there is a reserve in the appeal to miracles and in the place assigned to miracles, a reserve which characterises St. Paul no less than his Master. The Apostle does not see in miracles the fullest proof of Christian power, nor does he assign to them the highest place in the rank of Christian gifts. A man might be able to remove mountains, but without love the power would profit him nothing. So, too, Christ, whilst He could appeal to miracles in proof of His Messianic calling, never, on the other hand, ceases to utter His words of warning to a generation " seeking after a sign." All this caution and reserve bears upon it the stamp of truth. In an age which we are assured was characterised by a craving for miraculous powers, in an Empire the chief cities of which were full of quacks and miracle-mongers, amongst a people whose sons claimed to cast out devils, there is this marked and significant refusal to magnify for mere display, or gain, or popularity, a power which the Lord possessed and gave, not for vain-glorying, but for edification. LECTURE XI I AND 2 THESSALONIANS IN what relation do these two Epistles, which we are accustomed to consider the earliest of those written by St. Paul, stand to the facts and the teaching narrated in our Gospels ? There is a striking passage in Dr. Sanday's famous article " Jesus Christ " (Hastings, B.D., ii. 648) in which he writes : " Let us suppose for a moment, with the more ex- treme critics, that a thick curtain falls over the Church after the ascension. The curtain is lifted, and what do we find? St. Paul and his companions give solemn greeting to the Church of the Thessalonians (which is) in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. An elaborate process of reflexion, almost a system of theology, lies behind those familiar terms." But we read a few verses further, and we find that this same Jesus is spoken of as the Son, the Son of God, in a most remarkable connection. The service of these Thessalonian converts is to be rendered, as a result of their conversion, to a living and true God, and the recompense of their service is in the power of His Son. " How ye turned unto God from idols " : the Apostle is reminding them of an earlier teaching, of a knowledge which they had gained in the past, " to serve a living and true God " ; and then he adds, still remind- ing them of a previous teaching, " and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath to come." 229 230 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST If a whole system of theology lies behind the first verse of the Epistle, a whole series of facts lies behind the words which we have just read. It is indeed quite possible that some of the words quoted point to the germ of some re- cognised Confession of faith in Him who was " Very God," as contrasted with vain gods and heathen idols : perhaps they contain at least the germ of some baptismal Confession of belief in the Father and the Son.^ In the Encycl. Bibl., iv., we have an article entitled " Son of God," written by an American professor, in some respects one of the most painful articles in the whole work. Dr. Schmidt argues against Dr. Sanday's reference to i Thess. i. lo. His first point is that it is impossible to prove that the Epistle was written twenty-three years after the death of Jesus. Such an objection, it must be remembered, entirely ignores the fact that nearly every modern critic, belonging either to the conservative or to the liberal school, accepts I Thessalonians as the work of St. Paul, and regards it as the second earliest, if not the earliest, of all his writings. But, further, Dr. Schmidt would have us believe that in this appeal to Pauline literature we are really passing away from the direct transmission of the words of Jesus, and having recourse to Hellenistic sources. In Hellenistic circles he would find the derivation of the term " Son of God." But we have already seen in a former lecture that it is impossible to find any parallels to the New Testament use in the heathen employment of such titles as " Son of God," and in their application to kings and heroes translated to be with the gods. Even if we admit that no contemporary ever called Jesus " Son of God," and that if the title was not in use as Messianic such a fact is quite natural, yet it must not be forgotten that we have to deal, as of the first importance, ' Dr. Lock, Art. " i Thessalonians," Hastings, iv. 745 ; and see also Seeberg, Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit, p. 70 (1903). I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 231 with the testimony of Jesus Himself, and that it is scarcely open to doubt that He claimed a filial relationship peculiar to Himself; that for Him the title " Son " meant heritage to the throne of God, and that that relationship could not be transferred to others or subjected to change.^ And we cannot pretend that the claim to this unique relationship was unrecognised by St. Paul. The Apostle was a monotheist, jealous of the rights of Jehovah ; and yet he does not hesitate to speak of the Son in the same breath with God the Father. He is, as it were, " bracketed with God the Father." But, further, as the Son, He is to be waited for from heaven. Elsewhere in this short Epistle we see something of what this implies ; it implies a Parousia, a coming, a presence, a judgment, a day of the Lord. And with such language there is attributed to the Son a power and an authority which could be nothing less than divine. No doubt the disciples had been accustomed to call their Master Lord in His earthly lifetime, and possibly in some cases they employed the title very much as scholars would address a Jewish Rabbi. But now all is changed, and it is not sur- prising that the Church refuses to give currency to the title " Son of Man," " for Jesus is Ruler over heaven and earth " ; " ' the Lord'" (as St. Paul calls Him more than twenty times in this one short Epistle), says Dalman, " as Paul in the Epistles to the Thessalonians rightly designates Him who comes with the clouds of heaven." ^ 1 Dr. Schmidt does not hesitate to afQrm that Jesus never spoke the Parable of the Vineyard and the Husbandmen, but that it was the work of early Christian theology. But here is a parable which comes to us with the attestation of each of the first three Gospels, and the reasons against it given by Jiilicher, upon which Schmidt entirely depends, are quite insufficient to show that Jesus could not so have spoken. The parable finds a place in a very recent German Geschichte 'Jesu, i. 192, by P. W. Schmidt, 1904 ; and it is forcibly defended by Zimmer- mann, Der historische Wert der dltesten Uberlieferung von der Geschichte Jesu im Markusevangelium, p. 81, 1905. 2 Words ofjesiis, p. 266, E.T. 232 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST But although He is thus the exalted Lord, we are not permitted for a moment to lose sight of the fact that all power is given to Him not onlyi in heaven, but on earth. The Church is brought into closest relationship with Him. This Church of the Thessalonians is " in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace and peace come from Him as from the Father ; they are an abiding blessing and posses- sion : " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you " (i Thess. V. 28); "the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times and in all ways " (2 Thess. iii. 16). The Thessalonian Christians are in Him as they are in^ the Father ; their life in the flesh, their work of faith and labour of love are accomplished in the Lord. The Churches of Judsea, which, although separated from them by land and sea, are at one with them in peril and suffering, are also in Christ Jesus ; the Apostle's true life depends upon their steadfast- ness in the Lord ; his exhortations flow from Him, his commands are given through Him. And not only does Christ's presence permeate the life of the Church and of the Christian, but its power is known and felt in the world beyond the grave. Free among the dead, those that sleep " in Him " shall rise first, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again. From whence did St. Paul derive this conception ? It is quite as mystical as anything which meets us in the writings of St. John ; it has no parallel in the Old Testament or in secular literature. No one, e.g., is said to be " in Abraham " or " in Moses," either in life or in death, and the attempt to find such a phrase in secular literature as " in Plato " can scarcely be described as successful.^ Moreover, it would seem that this early mysticism of St. Paul is by no means confined to this one ' See especially Deissmann, Die neutestamentliche Formel ,, in Christo yesu," p. 88; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 160; and references to earlier writers in the Witness of the Epistles, p. 428. See also H. Cremer's Re^ply to Harnack, p. 127, E.T., and Bacon, Story of St. Paul, p. 239 (1905) I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 233 passage ; no one, e.g., can fail to see the striking similarity both in expression and in spirit between such a passage as 2 Thess. i. 12 and John xvii. i, 10, 21-26.^ But if this mighty and continuous power is attributed to the Lord Jesus both in this world and in the world beyond the grave, it is surely no wonder that a special stress should be laid by every Christian upon what was known of His example, of His teaching and His precepts. Thus, when St. Paul writes, " For ye know what command- ments we gave you through the Lord Jesus" (i Thess. iv. 2), we see how the Apostle associates purity of heart and mind with the thought of Jesus (cf i Thess. iv. 8) ; when he prays for the Thessalonians that the Lord may direct their hearts into the love of God and the patience of Christ (2 Thess. iii. 5), he means not " the patient waiting for Christ," as in A. v., but rather the patient endurance of which Christ has left an example (R.V.). In their own sufferings at the hands of their fellow countrymen the Apostle reminds the Thessalonians that they were imitators of the churches of Judaea. But he goes further than this ; he bids them not to be moved by their afflictions, " for verily when we were with you, we told you of them beforehand," " for yourselves know that ye were appointed thereto," and this suffering associates them, not only with their fellow Christians, but with the example of Christ : " Ye became imitators of us and of the Lord" (i Thess. i. 6).' Further endeavours have been made to trace other points of connection between our Lord's teaching and that of St. Paul 1 Bishop Lightfoot, Notes on EJiistles of St. Paul, p. 107. See, too, Nosgen, u.s. p. 72, and P. Ewald, Das Haupt^roblem der Evangelien- frage, p. 82, who both rightly compare the familiar formula with the phraseology of St. John, as, e.g., John xv. 1-5. ^ For these and other points in connection with this Epistle, see Peine, Jesus Ckristus und Paulus,^^. 84, 295 ; 'Wev^dX, Zeitschrift filr Theologie und Kirche, Heft i. 6 (1894); Titius, Der Paulinismus unter deTU Gesichts^unkt der Seligkeit, pp. 10, 14 (1900) ; Sturm, Der A^ostel Paulus und die evangelische Uberlieferung, i. 21, ii. 24, 33. 234- TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST in these two short Epistles. Thus, e.g., it has been noted that there are indications that St. Paul was acquainted with the instructions of our Lord in sending forth His Apostles into the world (cf. Luke x. 7). He claims that he might have been burdensome " as an Apostle of Christ " (i Thess. ii. 6 ; 2 Thess. iii. 8). And it is possible that there may be a connection between other words in these Epistles and the same charge to the Apostles, e.g. we read, " He that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God" (i Thess. iv. 8) ; and in Luke X. 16 we read, " He that rejecteth you, rejecteth Me," where the R.V. enables us to note that the same Greek verb is used both in the Epistle and in the Gospel. But there is no need to press this coincidence. In the same way it may seem to some of us a little precarious to find a reminiscence of the Lord's Prayer in 2 Thess. iii. 3, although Peine, while he frankly admits that no express reference to that Prayer is to be found in any of St. Paul's Epistles, evidently thinks that a good case may be made out for a reminiscence here and in Col. i. 13.^ Further reminiscences are claimed of our Lord's de- nunciation of the Pharisees, and if we put side by side the parallel passages (Matt, xxiii. 31, Luke xi. 47), and compare them with i Thess. ii. 14, some interesting points of contact may undoubtedly be noted. If the verb li&iuiKUv, which occurs at least once in the New Testament (in i Thess. ii. 15) caimot also be claimed for Luke xi. 49, yet at all events the conclusion which St. Paul draws from the murder of the prophets by the Jews, viz. that the nation was thus filling up their sins alway, affords a striking parallel, to the words of our Lord (Matt, xxiii. 31-2), "Ye witness to yourselves that ye are sons of them that slew the ' Peine, u.s. p. 252. See also Chase, The Lord's Prayer in the Early Church, p. 24. Lightfoot holds that here, as in John xvii. 15, there may be an indirect allusion to the Lord's Prayer (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, p. 126). I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 235 prophets. Fill ye up, then, the measure of your fathers." To such expressions as these we shall return.^ But, further, this holiness of life and patient endurance of suffering which the Apostle thus enjoins are connected with a kingdom (i Thess. ii. 12). Christians are to walk worthy of God, who calleth them into His own kingdom and glory ; they are to be counted worthy of the kingdom, for which they also suffer (2 , Thess. i. 5). And if it be said that in these expressions St. Paul is using language common to him with the Jewish Rabbis, it is also remarkable that the same word used by St. Paul with regard to God " calling " us into the kingdom is used by our Lord Himself in the invitation to the banquet in the Messianic kingdom (Matt. xxii. 3, Luke xiv. 16). So, too, in the expression " to be counted worthy of the kingdom '' we have an exact parallel on the lips of our Lord, an expression found no- where else (Luke xx. 35), " to be counted worthy to obtain that age." ^ No doubt St. Paul sometimes uses the term " the kingdom " of a present, and sometimes of a future period ; but the chief point to notice is that in his earliest Epistle the conception of the kingdom is not lost sight of, but fills an important part in Christian instruction (cf Gal. v. 21). And not only so, but that, as in the Gospels, so also in these Epistles, that kingdom is a moral and spiritual kingdom, a kingdom both within and among the Thessalonian Christians, because they were in Him who was the Lord of that kingdom, whose grace and whose Spirit were working in their midst.' 1 Other alleged references seem too general, as, e.g., 1 Thess. v. 13 and Mark ix. 50, or i Thess. v. 18 and Matt. vi. 10, Mark iii. 35 ; and whatever may be said in favour of an Agra^hon of our Lord in iv. 15, the claim of I Thess. v. 22 to be regarded as an Agraphon can scarcely be regarded as valid (cf. Sturm, u.s. ii. 39). ^'Dalman, Words of Jesus, pp. 1 18-19, E.T., and Peine, u.s. p. 171. » See, further, Peine, u.s. p. 173. 236 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST There was one respect indeed in which the kingdom, as St. Paul knew it, was even further removed than in the Gospels from all that was merely temporal and material. The glory of the ascended Christ had risen upon it, trans- forming and enriching all human life, and a new and divine power was not only teaching men, but enduing them with much strength to do the will of their Father in heaven. But this brings us face to face with the paradox that this power of life, of life conferred both in this world and for that which is to come, had been gained through suffering and death, the suffering of Him who was associated in honour and worship with God the Father, and yet " Who died for us" (i Thess. v. 9), from whose death it follows that, " whether we watch or sleep, we shpuld live together with Him." There is no statement of a theory — only the statement of a fact ; but can we not see how much such a simple statement presupposes, " Who died for us ? " Its brevity is a proof that the Thessalonians must have known before- hand something of the meaning and value of the death of Christ, that they were not listening to a statement of the consequences of that death for the first time. Of one of those consequences the Apostle in the same breath reminds them, " that we should live together with Him." And so it would seem that the doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ was no afterthought of St. Paul's, but that he had held it and proclaimed it in his earliest teaching.^ " Whether we watch " ; so the R.V. renders the verb in the margin, and we can scarcely doubt that the Apostle who used it and the Christians who read it must have known that the reiterated counsel to watch was the re- iterated counsel of Christ Himself : "What I say unto you, ' See Bishop Lightfoot's important comments, Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, p. 77. I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 237 I say unto all, Watch " ; " Watch, for ye know ijot " ; " Watch and pray." Twice in this short Epistle, and three times elsewhere, St. Paul uses the same word, and we can further mark its impress upon the mind of the Church in the favourite Christian names Gregory, Vigilantius. But, further, this early Epistle of St. Paul contains not only the utterance of this wise and divine counsel, but also the reason for it : " The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night : let us watch and be sober " (i Thess. v. 2, 5). We are so accustomed to the phrases " the day," " the day of the Lord," " that day," phrases which meet us, let us remember, in the latest as in the earliest Epistles of St. Paul, that we forget their tremendous force and their original association. But here again we may notice that we are evidently dealing with teaching which had become already familiar to the Thessalonians, " for ye yourselves know perfectly," the Apostle writes (i Thess. v. 2). And it is important to lay stress upon this element of previous familiarity, because its admission carries us back of necessity to a much earlier date than that of the actual composition of the Epistle. Moreover, this expression " the day of the Lord " (cf 2 Thess. ii. 2) meets us again and again in the Old Testament. No Jew could mistake its meaning ; and when our Lord said, " Many shall say to Me in that day" (St. Matt. vii. 22), He put forward a claim to the administration of a divine judgment to which no Jew could be insensible ; and St. Paul as a Jew would have known that he was transferring to Jesus of Nazareth, in his language to these Thessalonian converts, a share at least in the prerogative of the Lord Jehovah.^ ' " Here it is plain that St. Paul has taken his stand on the teaching of Jesus Himself. For there can be no doubt whatever that one of the lofty claims which our Lord put forward with emphasis and frequency was His position as the Judge of the final destinies of mankind. It will suffice to refer to such familiar passages as Matt. vii. 22-3, xiii. 41, XXV. 3 1 ff. This was the point, we may say, at which the foundations 238 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST When men tell us that in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord is preaching nothing more than a lofty morality, they would do well to bear in mind the force and the meaning of this claim to judge and to award. But St. Paul speaks not only of " the day of the Lord," but of the coming, the presence of the Lord.^ Seven times in these Thessalonian Epistles the word Parousia occurs, and we cannot doubt that for St. Paul the expression found its parallel in that phrase, " the day of the Lord." But the word Parousia in this association is undoubtedly a New Testament word.^ It carries us back to the question asked by the disciples on the Mount of Olives, " What shall be the sign of Thy coming ? " (Parousia) ; and to the solemn answer of our Lord, in which the word thrice occurs with unmistakable emphasis. What was more natural than that an expression so closely associated with such a scene should pass into the current language of the early Church? And so it finds a place in the language not only of St. Paul, but of St. Peter, St. James, and St. John, all of them, let us not forget, men of Jewish birth and of Jewish training.' There is no diiificulty in admitting that some of the features in the description of the Parousia also find a place of a distinctly Christian Eschatology were laid " (Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, p. 194 [1904]). And he rightly adds, with equal emphasis, " There was nothing to correspond to it in Judaism. There could not be, for the Jews had never conceived of a Messiah who should pass through a career of earthly activity, a career checked by death, and then return as the medium of God's fixed purpose for the universe." ' The Parousia was to be likewise " the day of judgment," also called "that day" (Matt. vii. 22, xxiv. 36; Luke vi. 23, x. 12, xxi. 34). Dr. Charles, Art. " Eschatology," Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1375. Cf., also, Art. " Parousia," Hastings' B.D., iii. 674. Cf., also, Peine, U.S., pp. 166, 177 ; Sabatier, L'A^dtre Paul, p. 104, 3rd edit. ^ For Spitta's attempt to find parallels to its use from other sources the present writer may refer to the note, p. 127, Epistle of St. James (Westminster Commentaries). ^ See also Dr, Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, p. 159 (1902). I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 239 in Jewish literature. St. Paul, e.g., speaks of the coming of the Lord " with all His saints " (i Thess. iii. 13), and whether we take the term saints to mean angels or men, or to include both, we find in Jewish literature that both are represented as attending the Messiah. At the same time it is noticeable that one striking feature in the description given by the Apostle to the Thessalonians can scarcely be said to find a parallel in contemporary Jewish writers, viz. " the rapture of the saints on (or into the) clouds of heaven." ^ But however this may be, the truly remarkable fact is that such a description should be referred to the presence, the return, of Him who while on earth had been deemed unfit to live, and whose name had been once blasphemed by the writer of these two Epistles to the Church of Thessalonica. Before Him Paul labours to present his converts as his crown of joy ; and his hope is that their hearts may be established unblamable in holiness before God at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints (i Thess. iii. 13). Now, although our Lord is not actually called the Judge in these Epistles, and His judgment seat is not mentioned as in 2 Cor. v. 10, yet in St. Paul's language He is so closely associated with the Father in relation to the coming judgment as to make the association inseparable. The day of the Lord is the day of the Lord Jesus, and the question presses upon us, and a very important one it is, Whence did St. Paul derive any justification for his use of such language ? The answer is from the words of Christ Himself. In this closing portion of i Thessalonians, in the fifth chapter, St. Paul again uses language which irresistibly reminds us of our Lord's last great discourse on the Mount of Olives, and in that same discourse our Lord had employed language ' Thackeray's Si. Paul and Contemporary Jewish Thought, pp. 107-10, and Dr. Charles, Art. " Eschatology,'' Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1382. 240 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST about Himself which altogether transcended the current Jewish conception of the Messiah. Only in the Similitudes of the Book of Enoch is the Messiah spoken of as the universal Judge; elsewhere God, and not the Messiah, is so represented. Moreover, it is one thing for our Lord to use language about the Son of Man, which conceived of him (as in the Book of Enoch) as the Judge of men and angels, but quite another thing to claim that that conception was realised in Himself^ Whatever difficulties may surround the description of our Lord's trial, it would seem certain that He went to His death because He claimed a divine prerogative of Judgeship in the eyes of those who dared to condemn Him.^ The case stands thus : Even if we rule out the Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, and St. John, in all of which our Lord is regarded as the future Judge ; even if we rule out such a statement as that of St. Luke (Acts x. 42), " This is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead," it cannot be seriously questioned that in the earliest Epistle of St. Paul, Jesus of Nazareth is associated with the Father in the tremendous prerogative which men usually ascribe to God alone, and that in this ascription language is used which transcends the current Jewish view of the Messiah's office, and that this language is so employed as plainly to indicate that St. Paul is repeating teaching which to a great extent had already become familiar and well known. There is, as we have said, every reason to believe that this teaching carries us back to the words of Christ Himself' 1 See Dalman's note, Words of Jesus, p. 313. * Cf. Zahn Das Evangelium des MatthWus, pp. 694-5 (1903) ; and Dalman, u.s. p. 314. ' No recent writer has drawn out more fully than Dr. H. A. Kennedy the many points of comparison between the language of St. Paul and that of the Old Testament prophets and of Jewish Apocalyptic books ; but at the same time no one has emphasised more firmly the many parallels between i and 2 Thessalonians and our Lord's eschatological teaching, which, as he believes, undoubtedly influenced St. Paul's thought and words (cf. St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, pp. 49, 55, 95, 180). See, further. Lecture XXIV I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 241 If not, its only basis is the imagination of St. Paul — an imagination evolving features not only transcendent, but absolutely unique. And this baseless imagination had wrought its effect upon the lives and work, and upon the most cherished hopes, of Jews and proselytes in the Church of Thessalonica. Let us look a little more closely at some points of con- nection between the language of the Gospels and that of I Thessalonians, and we shall note a similarity both in word and thought. The Apostle (v. i) speaks of " times and seasons," just as our Lord had spoken to His disciples of the times and seasons which the Father had put in His own power (Acts i. 7). " The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night," says the warning voice of the Apostle, and we at once recall our Lord's imagery in His last discourse to His disciples before His death in St. Matthew's Gospel, and in another connection in St. Luke's. The need of watchfulness, the fatal security, the relapse into drunkenness, and the suddenness of the destruction as travail coming on a woman with child, all this vividness and emphasis of warning meet us in the first three gospels, and we are reminded of them also in St. John.^ We must be careful, no doubt, not to press the verbal ' Cf., e.g., John xii. 35-6, and i Thess. v. 4, 5. For the general con- nection between i Thess. v. 1-3 and the Synoptists, see Matt. xxiv. 38, 42-51 ; Luke xvii. 26-30 ; and between i Thess. v. 6, 7 and the same, see Matt. xxiv. 42, 49; Mark xiii. 35, t^t, Luke xii. 35, 45, and xxi. 34. In some cases, no doubt, the verbal parallels are noticeable, e.g. aSs^v'ihiQS, eK^euyeu', neSieiv, ypriyopelv, Opofla-Oai (2 Thess. ii. 2). Sturra, le.s. ii. 35 ; Feine, u.s. p. 17, point out that the description of the Man of sin (2 Thess. ii. 3) has many points of contact with the language of our Lord, and to these references may be added Kennedy, Si. Paul's Conception of the Last Things, pp. 207-21. See, too, Zahn, Einleitung in das N.T., i. p. 159; Titius, u.s. 15 ; Wendt, u.s. 19. Bishop Light- foot, Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, p. 72, dwells also upon the special points of coincidence between St. Paul's language here and that of St. Luke's Gospel (xxi. 34, 36), and sees in it a confirmation of the traditional account of the close intercourse between the two men. 16 242 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST similarities between i Thess. and the Gospels too far, al- though in some respects they are of no little interest. Even if we admit, for instance, that our Lord's own words, as given to us in Luke xxi. 34, " Take heed to your- selves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with sur- feiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare," find a striking counterpart in Isa. xxiv. 17, 20, this does not do away with the fact that a remarkable parallel exists between the language of St. Luke's Gospel and that of the Epistle before us.^ Another passage in an earlier part of i Thessalonians, to which reference has already been made, remains for treatment in this connection, " For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep" (i Thess. iv. 15). Have we here a " word of the Lord " received by tradition or by revelation ? In either case the details here given are, as in the closing chapter of this Epistle, in striking harmony with our Lord's sayings in the Gospels. The thought of the coming of the Messiah in the clouds, of the angels who accompany Him, of the trumpet which is the summons to the elect, all these are familiar to us in the Gospels.^ The thought, moreover, 1 Sturm, U.S. ii. 36, carefully points out that whilst in St. Luke xxi. 35 we have nayls, and in i Thess. v. 3 Mv, this may be accounted for, as has sometimes been supposed, by different translations of the same word in a common Semitic primitive text or tradition (see Witness of the Epistles, p. 405). But at the same time he also points out that irayis may have been employed from its use in an eschatological passage (Isa. xxiv. 17) : cf. the use of the words KpanrdXr] and ixedrj in the same passage (verse 20). St. Paul, in his injunctions to the Thessalonians, might easily have introduced the word dSi'i/, not only because of the popular expression, " the birth-pangs of the Messiah," but as a remin- iscence of the words of our Lord in Matt. xxiv. 8, Mark: xiii. 8. 2 See Charles, Art. " Eschatology," Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1381-2. It is strange that Von Soden in the essay quoted above (p. 129) should affirm that i Thess. iv. 15 contains no trace whatever of connection I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 243 of the meeting of the saints with their Lord in the air affords at all events a striking parallel to the thought of Matt. xxiv. 31, where the elect are gathered together to Christ by the summons of the trumpet. A reminiscence of this teaching of the Lord would seem to have been again present to St. Paul's mind when he writes later on (2 Thess. ii. i), " Now we beseech you,, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him,'' where he employs the cognate noun " our gathering together " of the same verb which is used in Matt. xxiv. 32, of the gathering of the elect.^ It has indeed been often urged that this teaching of St. Paul as to " the last things " is derived from Jewish Apoca- lyptic literature. But even those who press this view are constrained to recognise that there are features in St. Paul's description which have no parallels in Jewish litera- ture, and this absence, which is unmistakable, may be noted as perhaps the most striking characteristic in St. Paul's picture.^ Moreover, the passages which are sometimes cited in this connection from 2 Esdras must be greatly strained before they can be brought into any close relationship with the Apostle's teaching. Thus it is urged that 2 Esdras v. 41 shows that others besides St. Paul had been busied with the same problems which occupied the Thessalonian with the Gospels. Lightfoot, Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul, p. 65, thinks that the Apostle is referring not to some recorded saying of our Lord, but more probably to a direct revelation. The use of the phrase "the word of the Lord" in the Old Testament seems to him to favour this meaning. But it must be remembered that in commenting on I Thess. V. 2. 3, Lightfoot considers it probable that St. Paul is referring to the very words of Christ. 1 Peine, u.s. p. 179 ; Titius, u.s. p. 15 ; Kennedy, u.s. p. 169; and so, too,Wdh\evAierg, Der ersteund zweite Thessalonicherbrief,^. 137. On p. 167 Kennedy gives a whole series of striking verbal agreements between 2 iThess. ii. 2-4, 8, and passages in St. Mark xiii, and St. Matt. xxiv. See, further, Lecture XXIV, ^ See, e.g., on this point Kennedy, u.^, p. 193, 244 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Church/ The question, however, which distressed St. Paul's converts was related to the Advent of the Lord : should those which were then alive have any advantage over others who had previously gone to their rest ? But the question of Esdras is concerned with the people of Israel : was the blessing of God's promise confined only to those who lived to see the end of His judgments, or was it extended also to the previous generations of Israel ? The whole question was a national one, and concerned the chosen people only. And it is impossible to see how the answer given to it involves any literary dependence on the part of St. Paul : " I will liken my judgment unto a ring ; like as there is no slackness of the last, even so there is no swiftness of the first." Or, again, if such words as 2 Esdras xiii. 24 had any real bearing upon the question of the Advent with which St. Paul was concerned ; if they contained a current Jewish belief, why did not the Apostle refer to them ? " Know this, therefore that they which be left behind are more blessed than they that be dead." The question which pained the minds of St. Paul's converts as to whether those who died before the Lord's Parousia should share in its blessedness was a very natural one, but the answer given in 2 Esdras as to the greater blessedness of those which are left is the exact opposite of the teaching of St. Paul.^ Even if, therefore, the phrase " they that are left " was " taken over from Judaism," we have still to account for the fact that the Jewish teaching connected with the last days, and with those who should see them, was so very different from the judgment of St. Paul. Moreover, St. Paul, it will be noticed, passed his judgment not as if he had in mind any current or popular belief, but ' See Mr. Ropes, Die S^riiche Jesu, p. 154 ; see also Thackeray, St. Paul and Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 104 ; but, on the other hand, Wohlenberg, ZJer erj^e Thessalonicherbrief, p. 98, who thinks that the alleged likeness urged by Steck deserves no further consideration, and Lock, " i Thessalonians," Hastings' B.D., iv. 745. * See Wohlenberg, u.s. p. 98, as against Thackeray, u.s. p. 104. 1 AND 2 THESSALONIANS 245 in the most solemn and emphatic manner by appealing to a " word of the Lord." ' In many respects it would seem that there is no need to go beyond the Synoptic Gospels for many of the features in St. Paul's description of the coming of the Lord.^ But even if there are some features to which we cannot find a precise parallel in the sayings, recorded in our Gospels, this need not surprise us. It may be that in the words, " We which are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep," we have one of the Logia {Logoi) of the Lord which may find a place outside those recorded by our four Evangelists, and the words are so regarded by one of the most thoughtful of recent writers on the Logia, who is certainly not disposed to over-rate their number. And we must not forget that St. Paul sometimes definitely shows us that he had access to facts and teaching which are not recorded in our Gospels (cf Acts xx. 35, I Cor. xv. 5-7), and in the words we are considering it is possible no doubt to find another instance of such knowledge.' At the same time these words do not go beyond a very natural inference from the sayings of Christ which the Evangelists have given us. The question as to whether the members of the Church, who were already dead, should share ' The latest writer on Jewish Messianic hopes still sees in the words something fantastic ; but he is inclined to regard them as not so " offen- sive " if we regard the feature of " the meeting the Lord in the air " as a compromise between the Jewish Messianic hopes which were centred in this world and the hopes which were centred in the heavens ; between • the lower and the higher, as he calls it, of the old and new eschatology (Die Messianisch-Apokaly^tischen Hoffnungen des Judenthums , p. 1 14 [1903], by W. Baldensperger). Bat the words need not be explained as a compromise ; they institute not only a new feature, but they claim a distinct and decisive authority as the words of the Lord Jesus. 2 Zahn, Einleitung in des N.T., p. 159 ; Peine, u.s. pp. 178-9 ; Wendt, U.S. p. 15 ; Titius, u.s. p. 15. ^ Wohlenberg, Der erste und zweite Thessalonicherbrief, p. 103 (1903) ; Zahn, u,s. p, 159. 246 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST in the glories of the kingdom is not actually considered by our Lord in so many words. But side by side with the promise that some should live to see His return, there is the declaration that others should die previously (Matt. xvi. 28, Mark ix. i, Luke ix. 27 ; and of. Matt. xx. 23, Mark x. 39, John xiii. 36, xxi. 18) ; and again and again the thought recurs that all would share in the glory of the Messianic kingdom, that for this end the dead should be raised, the dead in Christ, and the patriarchs and prophets who had longed to see His day.^ There are one or two other important thoughts closely connected with this latter part of i Thessalonians and with the thought of our Lord's return. " The Saviour is also the Judge." ^ It is a striking paradox, and one which we may gather from the words of St. Paul's earliest Epistles. He prays for his converts that they may be presented entire and without blame at the coming of the Lord (i Thess. v. 23) ; he reminds them that God had not appointed them unto wrath, but unto obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (i Thess. v. 9). " The Saviour is also the Judge." Here, as Dr. Harnack has forcibly reminded us, we have not only a paradox, but a paradox in which Christianity shows its superiority to other religions of the world. In days when we hear so much of the study of comparative religions we do well to emphasise the features by which Christianity differs from other religious systems.^ Another thought of a different kind may be also con- nected with the same promise and expectation of our Lord's return. It has often been pointed out with great force that no real analogy exists between the expected return of our Lord and the expectation of the return of our own King ' Wendt, U.S. p. 15 ; Zahn, u.s. p. 160. ' Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, p. 66 (1902). ' See further on this point, Lectures XX. and XXIV. I AND 2 THESSALONIANS 247 Arthur. In the latter case this expectation, as is the case in other alleged parallels, was based upon the supposition that death had never taken place ; but in the case of our Lord, the expectation was preceded by an indubitable historical fact — the crucifixion. Men have sometimes gone further back in search for a parallel, and we are reminded of the expectation which prevailed in the Roman Empire that Nero would return from the East with a large host to defeat his enemies. And here, again, the expectation was based upon a denial of death, upon the supposition that the dreaded Nero had never died. But this is not all. It is a fact, and we need not dispute it, that this belief in the return of Nero arose very shortly after his death. Here, then, it might be urged, we have a signal proof of the way in which such stories easily and quickly gained credence. The vital point, however, is not how quickly the belief arose, but how lengthy was the endur- ance which it secured. Nero died in 68 A.D. Five years passed, and the belief in his return was widely spread among the uneducated people of the Gentile world. Yet another ten years passed, and we reach the date which marked the assumption of the last pretender to the part of the dreaded tyrant. Little by little the belief in the return of a Nero, conquering and to conquer, had been waning, and by the close of the first century it had appar- ently ceased to exist. But how can we compare a belief which embraced, say, some twenty to thirty years with the belief in the expecta- tion of the return of Jesus Christ, strong and enduring in millions of Christian hearts to-day, which accept in humble faith and trust the angel's message of hope and joy, " This same Jesus, which was taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven " ? 248 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST In conclusion, we should do well to remember that the large space devoted to the subject of our Lord's return in these two short Epistles to the Thessalonians is due to the fact that the subject was uppermost in the minds of those to whom St. Paul was writing. But if the Apostle could adduce this wealth of teaching about this one subject, the Parousia, as need required, it is a fair inference that he must have had acquaintance with other large tracts of our Lord's teaching, and that he could have drawn upon that knowledge if there had been any immediate cause. It must not be forgotten that in these Epistles we have references to the traditions which St. Paul had received ; to the charges which he gave his followers in the Lord Jesus ; to the word of hearing, i.e. the word of God, the Gospel, which worked in them that believed. But without attaching too much weight to such expressions, we have endeavoured to show how fully St. Paul was conversant with the great absorbing topic which engrossed the Thessalonians ; and how much is pre-supposed in his words, what a know- ledge of the facts connected with our Lord's life and work underlies that one verse in the first chapter of the Apostle's earliest Epistle ; " And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath to come." LECTURE XII EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS A CONSIDERABLE number of modern critics incline to the belief that in Galatians we have the earliest of St. Paul's writings. If this is the case, it would obviously increase the value of its testimony to the facts of our Lord's Life. But in any case we are justified in believing that we are dealing here with an authentic Epistle of St. Paul, as I have tried to show, in spite of some recent very arbitrary and unfounded attacks. Now there is one notice in this Epistle which, even if it stood alone, would help us to realise the fact that St. Paul had access to primary sources of information. In Gal. i. i8 we read, " And after three years I went up to Jerusalem to inquire of Peter." I have already spoken of the force of the word " to inquire " which the Apostle uses, and, indeed, even in very unexpected quarters we may find a remarkable testimony to its importance. Thus, after speaking of the appearances of the risen Lord in i Cor. xv.. Dr. Schmiedel writes, " Unquestionably this passage {i.e. Gal. i. i8) goes back to the communications made by Peter during that fifteen days' visit of Paul three years after the conversion of the latter " {Encycl. Bibl., Art. " Gospels," ii. 1 879) ; and again, " during his fifteen days' visit to Peter and James (Gal. i. 18), Paul had the best opportunity to perfect his knowledge on the subject in the 249 250 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST most authentic manner " {Encycl. Bibl, Art. " Resurrection," 4057)-' But we surely cannot suppose that this rich opportunity was limited to information as to the appearances of the risen Lord, important as such information would obviously be. And this Epistle before us contains many indications that St. Paul's information could not have been so limited, and that a large amount of information on the part of his readers is also taken for granted by the Apostle. In the opening verses of the first chapter not only is the resurrection of Christ taken for granted, but we read that, " He gave Himself for our sins " (Gal. i. 4). Although the expression is not precisely the same, we are at once reminded of the statement made to the Corinthians, in which the resurrection and the atoning death of Christ occupy the most prominent place in that which the Apostle had received (i Cor. XV. 3). If, then, this Epistle is the earliest of the Apostle's writings, it is in itself a means by which we may carry back the testimony of i Corinthians to an earlier date, and see a proof of the consistent manner in which the Apostle preached everywhere and at all times the same tradition. But as in writing to the Corinthians there was occasion to emphasise the fact and nature of the resurrection of Christ, so in writing to the Galatians there was occasion to emphasise the fact and nature of the Cross of Christ ; and the Apostle does this in a manner which shows that he must have been very closely acquainted with the details of our Lord's death. In the Gospels, e.g., our Lord is spoken of as given up, " betrayed " into the hands of wicked men ; but at the same time, in the Gospels we are plainly taught to see that that betrayal was voluntarily submitted to ; and so here the Apostle speaks of " the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me " (Gal. ii. 20, R.V.). In the verb " gave ' On the force of the word laro^aai (Gal i. 18), see Lecture X. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 251 Himself up " we have precisely the same word which is used in each of the four Gospels of our Lord's betrayal : " He was given up," and yet " He gave Himself up " ; and there is no occasion to insist upon seeing in this passage with Von Soden in the essay already mentioned (p. n6) any reference to the words of Isa. liii. 12/ Nor does it seem fanciful to recognise in the appeal which so closely follows an in- timation that the Apostle had so plainly painted Christ before His Galatian converts that they had, as it were, seen Him with their bodily eyes, and that, too, as One crucified (Gal. iii. i).^ In this connection it is well to remember the significant fact that St. Paul uses the word " tree " of the Cross in this Epistle, and that he uses it once elsewhere, when he was probably addressing some of the members of these same Galatian Churches (cf Acts xiii. 29 ; Gal. iii. 13). But the same word is used of the Cross twice by St. Peter (in Acts y. 30, X. 39), and once again in his first Epistle (i Pet. ii. 24). The joint use of this significant word by St. Peter and St. Paul alike seems in itself to point to some common and familiar recital of the story of the Cross and of the reigning of the Lord from the tree. There are, of course, many other indications which point to a similar probability in the various notices of the New Testament Epistles. But whilst St Paul thus places in the forefront of his Epistle the death and the resurrection, there in no proof that his knowledge and his interest were limited, as we are so often assured, to these two facts of the Gospel record. He refers to this Christ whom he preached as being of the seed of Abraham ; he knows that there was a James in ' For Dr. E. A. Abbott's criticism on the word napablSam, see Lecture XIII. ^ On the force of the word Trpoey pdcfni, as referring to the vivid repre- sentation of the details of the Passion (Tyndale renders it " described "), see Furrer, Das Leben yesu, p. 14 (1904) ; Sabatier, L'A^dtre Paul, p. 64, 3rd edit. ; Nosgen, u.s p. 46 ; Peine, u.s. p. 55. 252 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST the family to which the Christ belonged ; he speaks of him as " the Lord's brother " ; he refers to Cephas and John as prominent members of the Church at Jerusalem, a reference entirely in harmony with all that we may gather from the Gospel narrative ; he speaks of his persecution of " the Church of God" (i. 13), and the inference is that he was aware that from a very early date a Christian community had existed to which the same name was given as Jesus had given to His Church.^ And in this connection it is of interest to note that in the first chapter of this Epistle, St. Paul draws a marked contrast between that which he had learnt from flesh and blood, i.e. from other men like himself, and that which had been revealed to him through Jesus Christ. So, too, our Lord, when He foretold the founding and the triumph of His Church in St. Matthew's Gospel, drew the same contrast in St. Peter's case between the knowledge gained by flesh and blood and a revelation of divine knowledge from heaven. This striking relationship in phraseology between St. Paul's words of himself and our Lord's words of St. Peter has been pointed out by more than one able writer,^ although we may hesitate to press it too closely, as such expressions as " flesh and blood " and the word " to reveal " were in frequent use in Jewish religious circles.' But we are, it would seem, on firmer ground when we remind ourselves how in one brief command St. Paul sums up " the law of Christ " (Gal. vi. 2), and we see in that summary how clearly the Apostle knew the mind of the Teacher in the Gospels. The Pharisees had laden men with burdens too heavy to be borne ; Christ had laid upon them a light burden, the love which could endure all things ; and for Thessalonians and Galatians alike, this law of Christ was ' See the very suggestive remarks of Dr. T. M. Lindsay in the Hibbert journal, October, 1902, p. 167. ^ See, e.g., Feme, u.s. p. 62 ; Nosgen, u.s. p. 72 ; and Rendall, Ex- positor's G.T., iii. p. 155. ^ Cf. Sturm, U.S. ii. p. 21 ; Cremer, Worterbuch der N.G., p. 84. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 253 the law of a kingdom, the inheritance of all who walked in the Spirit worthily of the God who called them. And as in His earthly ministry our Lord had taught men to see in the kingdom which He preached the kingdom of the Father, so this revelation of the kingdom of a Father is made known by St. Paul to wise and simple alike. Every Christian can cry, " Abba, Father " (Rom. viii. 1 5 ; Gal. iv. 6), words which seem from the first days of the Church to have passed into current and liturgical use.^ And if we ask why, the answer surely is that if they are not a quotation from the Lord's Prayer, they are at least a prayer consecrated by the use of the Lord Himself Nor is it at all improbable that there is in the words a reference to the first clause of the Lord's Prayer, Twice in St. Paul's Epistles, here and in Rom. viii. 15, we find the same expression, Abba, Father ; and once in the Gospels (Mark xiv. 36), where, in the solemn scene of His Passion, our Lord prays, Abba, Father. What more likely than that this remarkable invocation, which thus appears quite in- dependently in St. Mark and in St. Paul, should point to a common source ? And if the Lord's Prayer, in which even Professor Gardner can assure us that we have the most authentic of all Christian documents,^ was in current Christian use, nothing was more likely than that the initial word of the prayer should become as it were a title for the prayer itself, just as, it has been suggested, we use the words Pater-Noster to describe the Lord's Prayer. But such a summary as that which St. Paul gives us of the " law of Christ," in such words as these, in Gal. v. 14, " The whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this : Thou ' Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 2nd edit. p. 176 ; Feine, u.s. p. 253 ; Seeberg, Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit, p. 240 (1903) ; Sturm, U.S. p. 13, for references. See also Dr. Moulton, Expositor, January, 1904, p. 71, and Dr. Chase, The Lord's Prayer in the Early Church, p. 24. 2 Historic View of the N.T.,^. 80. 254 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," or, in Gal. v. 2, " Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing," opens out not only the question of the relation of St. Paul to the law, but of the relation of Christ to the law. Was St. Paul in the position which he assumed towards Judaism really dependent upon the historical Christ ? It is certainly remarkable that although the Apostle must so often have come into conflict with like opponents, he has not precisely referred to any of the words uttered by Jesus in His denunciation of the Pharisees. But the whole attitude which Paul assumed, and the confidence with which he asserted his liberty, and yet his bondage as "under law to Christ" (i Cor. ix. 21), become more easily intelligible if the Apostle had known the position which Christ Himself had taken up with regard to the law, if he knew that in his conflict against the Judaisers, against those whom he regarded as false brethren, Jesus was, so to speak, on his side.^ But if love was the fulfilling of the law, if in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availed anything nor uncircumcision, it followed that, without expressly cancelling them, those portions of the Old Testament law which related merely to ceremonial strictures were declared to be without further import, and that St. Paul in this Galatian Epistle was in reality only drawing the practical consequences which followed from the teaching of his Master.^ This is at least one answer to the position taken up by Von Soden (u.s. p. 129), viz. that St. Paul, even when he does show acquaint- ance with the words of the Lord, does so not in relation to any of the great cardinal principles of the Gospel, but only in relation to questions of custom or ritual. And so again, if the fulfilling of the law of Christ was ' Drescher, Das Lehen yesu bei Paulus, p. 21 (igoo). ' Titius, U.S. pp. 14, 18 ; Feine, u.s. pp. 247, 249; Wendt, u.s. p, 22, EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 255 love, then it followed that the particularism of the Jewish religion was done away, and we can understand that universalism, i.e. the proclamation of the truth that Jew and Gentile were alike under law to Christ, would become the dominant thought of St. Paul's teaching. For the law of Christ was a law not for this nation or for that, but for human nature : " For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male or female ; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 28, R.V.). " As many as were baptized." The words demand attention from another point of view. If this was the general condition of admission into the Christian Church, if this Sacrament of Baptism was common to and accepted by all the Christian Churches, not only for those which Paul had himself founded, but also for those which he had not (cf Rom. vi. 3 ; Col. ii. 12), it is difficult to credit that Baptism was anything else than an institution of Christ Himself^ And when we consider St. Paul's whole attitude, which was one not easily prone to lay stress upon outward signs of religion, this likelihood is further increased. It must also not be forgotten that the manner in which the Apostle refers to Baptism in close connection with the Lord's Supper (which he undoubtedly referred to the Lord) points very remarkably to the same conclusion (cf i Cor. X. 2-4).' Quite apart from the statements in the early chapters of the Acts or in the first Epistle of St. Peter, and quite apart from any strengthening of the case which these passages of Scripture might justly afford, such a statement as Rom. vi. 3 is in this connection of special importance, ' On Pfleiderer's very fanciful attempt to connect the phrase "putting on Christ" (Gal. iii. 27) with the worship of Mithra, see Clemen, Die religionsgeschichtUche Methode in der Theologie, p. t^t,. ^ Riggenbach, Der Trinitarische Tau/befehl, p. 100 (1903). 256 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST " Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death ? " The Apostle is writing to Churches the members of which were for the most part, at all events, unknown to him ; but he has no doubt whatever that the deep moral and spiritual significance of baptism would be at once recognised by all — nay, that all were already aware of it. If it is said that the Apostle is here attaching an allegorical meaning to baptism, then this would be in itself a proof that baptism had been already long estab- lished as a custom of the Churches, for we do not draw out the spiritual meaning of facts, or deduce allegorical lessons from them, unless we are quite sure of the facts themselves. Attempts have indeed been made to derive St. Paul's conception in the passage just quoted either from some words of the Lord in the Gospels, as, e.g., " The cup that I drink ye shall drink, and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized " (Mark x. 39 ; Luke xii. 50), or to refer it to some unrecorded saying of Christ on the ground of a passage in Apost. Const., v. 7. But it is much more probable that this later passage may be explained as dependent on Rom. vi. 3, or on some current teaching of the Church to which St. Paul thus draws attention in that Epistle. Various attempts, we know, are being made at the present time to connect the Christian Sacraments with divers rites and mysteries of the pagan world. But it is noteworthy that one of the most recent of German writers on the Apostolic Age refuses to see any connection with any supposed magical efficacy in the Christian Sacrament of Baptism, and that he rightly lays stress upon the extra- ordinary moral power of the Christian life which in this passage of the Romans is described as conferred upon those EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 257 who are baptized.^ He notes especially, e^., Rom. vi. 12 : " Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, lest ye should obey the lusts thereof; neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Possibly St. Paul in writing to the Galatians does not enlarge upon the institution of the Sacrament of Baptism because he had no occasion to do so. Unlike the Lord's Supper in the Corinthian Church, it had not presented itself to the Galatians, so far as we know, as a matter of controversy or dispute. At the same time it is important to observe that St. Paul finds in the Old Testament figures both of Baptism and of the Eucharist, and that this reference of Old Testament types to the two Sacraments is best explained on the supposition that the Apostle regarded both as equally derived from the Lord Jesus. But however this may be, it is straining language quite beyond its legitimate use to see in i Cor. i. 17 a proof that baptism was not an institution of Jesus (Art. " Wash- ings," Encycl. Bibl., iv. 5273): "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." The words might easily mean that Christ had sent others to baptize, al- though not so definitely the Apostle.^ For him a special mission was given to preach the good tidings, and the words properly mean, " For Christ sent me not to baptize, but sent me to preach the Gospel." In this same chapter of I Corinthians, St. Paul had already testified to his authority to baptize by his mention of Crispus, Gaius, the household of Stephanas, all of whom had been received by him into the Church ; and it is remarkable that he 1 Von Dobschiitz, Probleme des apostolischen Zeitalters, p. 73 (1904). ' In support of this view of the words reference may be made to Drescher, Das Leben Jesu bei Paulus, p. 28 (1900). 17 2S8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST places the crucifixion of the Lord and Christian baptism in the closest connection (i Cor. i. 13), as though he saw in the latter what it has so well been called, " the means and seal of admission to all the benefits of Christ's Passion." ^ But a further question connects itself with the baptism thus definitely mentioned in Galatians for the first time (iii. 27), although its operation is fairly presupposed in I Thess. in such words as these, " For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification . . . who also giveth His Holy Spirit unto you " ( i Thess. iv. 8). What guarantee did St. Paul possess that he was right in thus admitting both Jew and Gentile, bond and free, barbarian, even Scythian, to the Church's privileges ? Be- cause God had shown His recognition of the gospel which the Apostle had preached ; and so St. Paul could write to the Galatians, " For He that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for me also unto the Gentiles " ; and again, " He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith." Here are two passages in which we can scarcely doubt that the Apostle refers to the possession and to the working of miraculous powers. The verb which he uses in both passages, although in a somewhat different construction in each, constantly refers to the exhibition of God's power in a miraculous manner. Thus in the Second and Third Books of the Maccabees it appears that it is used four times of a miraculous interposition of a divine power, and in the New Testament this use is characteristic of the word.^ It is employed constantly by St. Paul, and in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark it is used in close connection with miraculous power (Matt. xiv. 2, Mark vi. 14 and xvi. 20). ' Canon Evans, Speaker's Commentary, in loco. ? Dean pf Westminster, E;phesians, pp. 241-7. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 259 This being so, it is very natural to connect the passage in Gal. ii. 8 above with St. Paul's defence of his Apostolic authority elsewhere, as, e.g., in 2 Cor. xii. 12 ; cf. Rom. xv. 8.^ No doubt the word 8waju,€ts in Gal. iii. 5 may refer to wonders wrought in the moral as well as in the physical world, and in i Cor. xii. 6 the God who "worketh all in all " worked by a variety of operations, including gifts of prophecy, as well as gifts of healing and of " powers." But this latter word is, as we have seen, used both by St. Matthew and St. Mark of miracles in connection with the same verb as in Gal. iii. 5, and it is closely connected in I Cor. xii. 9 and 28-9 with the thought of gifts of healing. Moreover, on the S. Galatian theory this passage (Gal. iii. 5) becomes full of significance, since it may thus be connected, as Professor Ramsay connects it, with the events of St. Paul's first missionary journey, and be taken as a reference to them. " He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you (or, in you), doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith ? " "I do not need," the Apostle seems to say, " to supply the answer " (Ramsay, Galatians, p. 327). " You yourselves know the facts, and you can answer the question. You remember the lame man at Lystra (Acts xiv. 9), who had the faith of salvation, the disciples at Antioch filled with joy and the Holy Spirit (xiii. 52) ; the signs and wonders ' The words in Gal. iv. 14 seem to intimate that St. Paul was received with another sign of the reception due to an Apostle. "Ye received me," he writes, " as an angel of God." It is a striking thought suggested by Ramsay that in such words " an angel " or " messenger of God," St. Paul may have been reminding the Galatians that some of them had spoken of him as Hermes, the messenger of Zeus. But whilst there may be a reminiscence of the events at Lystra in the Apostle's mind, we can scarcely fail, as we read his words, to recall the saying of our Lord in Matt. x. 40 ; and in this connection we may also remember that I Thess. iv. 8 reminded us of similar words of our Lord to His followers, as reported in Luke x. 16. 26o TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST at Iconium (xiv. 3) and among the Gentiles in general (xv. 12)." Long ago Paley emphasised the significance of this claim to miraculous powers which St. Paul thus makes, and it will be noticed that this claim is found in three of the Apostle's letters which we cannot possibly hesitate to ascribe to him (Galatians ; 2 Corinthians ; Romans). Moreover, it will be further noted that in 2 Corinthians he speaks of these miracles as " the signs of an Apostle " (xii. 12),^ and that in writing to the Romans he distinctly describes these miracles as wrought, not by his own power, but by Christ (xv. 19). Several inferences would seem to follow: (i) that St. Paul must have regarded our Lord as Himself in possession of the miraculous power which He thus conferred upon others ; (2) that it is unreasonable to expect that St. Paul should give us detailed accounts of the miracles wrought by our Lord in His earthly life when that same miraculous power was still at work in the Church ; ^ (3) that it is incredible that St. Paul should thus play into the hands of his opponents by laying claim to a power which neither he nor his converts possessed ; (4) and lastly, that whilst no doubt the Apostle lays great stress upon " spiritual gifts," it must not be forgotten that amongst ' On the force of this passage and of Gal. iii. 5, Rom. xv. 19, Dr. Plummer rightly dwells (cf. 2 Cor., p. 208) ; so, too, Dr. Sanday in answer to what he truly calls the one-sided treatment of such references by Dr. Percy Gardner, Journal of Theol. Studies, January, 1902, p. 232. " Let the reader," writes Dr. Sanday, " confront these pages [i.e. pp. 221, 227 in A Historic View of the N.T>j with the very plain and direct language of 2 Cor. xii. 12, Rom. xv. 19, and let him remember that ' spiritual gifts ' included xopla-fiaTa la/idTav, and evepyfjiiara Sui/dfiemv (i Cor. xii. 9)." See, further, Titius, u.s. p. 14. * In commenting on a similar passage in Heb. ii. 4, " God also bearing witness with them both by signs and wonders and by manifold powers," Bishop Westcott remarks, " the passage is of deep interest, as showing the unquestioned reality of miraculous gifts in the early Church." In the same manner from the Epistle of St. James (v. 14-15), we learn that it is Christ who would raise the sick, and that Christ is the living source of the Church's supernatural power. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 261 these same gifts we find " gifts of healings, workings of miracles " (i Cor. xii. 9). I do not lose sight of the fact that in the latest phase of the attack upon the miraculous in the New Testament we are encouraged to believe that " the historic Jesus " was able to perform miracles of healing disease, and that it is granted that He was able to accomplish what we should call nowadays faith-healing. But by what right do we confine our Lord's miracles, or those of His Apostles, to these so-called " faith-healings " ? If we consider for the moment only the miracles of St. Paul, we must remember that at least one of them, recorded at some length in one of the " We "-sections, the raising of Eutychus from the dead, scarcely falls under the head of faith-healing. St. Luke's statement in the case in question is quite positive : " He was taken up dead " (Acts xx. 9). We do not read, as in the case of the demoniac boy, that " he became as one dead " (Mark ix. 26). And the statement is all the more important when we remember that St. Luke claims to have been an eyewitness of the whole scene. But we are now asked, in the case of St. Paul, as in that of our Lord, to accept the theory that the miracles of healing are due to the magnetic personality of the Apostle. What- ever else may be thought of such a theory, it is at any rate not new ; some such explanation was favoured long ago by David Strauss in the second edition of his Life of Jesus. But when all is said that can be said in explanation of the power of healing diseases, there must remain what Dr. Harnack himself called stories of which we cannot fathom the secret, and reports of miracles which cannot be explained away by naturalistic solutions.^ There is one other passage in this Epistle to the Galatians ' Harnack's Wesen des\Christentums fur die Christliche Gemeinde gefruft, by W. Walther, p. 48 (1904). A Refly to Harnack, by H. Cremer, E.T., p. 198 (1903). The Finger of God, by T. H. Wright, p. 194(1903). 262 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST which is closely connected with a subject which is receiving much notice : " When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law " (Gal. iv. 4). Attention has already been called to the bearing of such words upon our Lord's pre-existence. But we may further note that this conception of " the fulness of the time " was a favourite one with St. Paul both in his earlier and later Epistles (cf. Eph. i. 10 ; i Tim. ii. 6). In relation to the Advent, we remember that the first words of our Saviour's preaching narrated by St. Mark are these : "The time is fulfilled" (Mark i. 15); and it is begging the whole question of the relation of the Epistles to the Gospels to affirm that St. Mark's words, which he attributes to our Lord, were an imitation of Pauline phraseology. At least we should remember that there is every reason to believe that St. Mark and St. Paul were long enough in each other's company for the latter to have learnt something from St. Peter's interpreter of the words and contents of our Lord's preaching. But the expression " born of a woman " also demands the most careful attention. Has it any close bearing upon the subject of our Lord's Virgin birth? It is difficult to say ; but at least two considerations with regard to St. Paul's words should be carefully weighed. The one is that many distinguished critics do regard the words as asserting St. Paul's belief in our Lord's birth of a Virgin Mother.^ And the other is the peculiar phraseology of the words themselves. It is often said that in St. Paul's language we need find nothing else but a reference to a common Jewish phrase, " man that is born of a woman " (Job xiv. i), or again, ^ The Rev. W. C. Allen, although allowing that this interpretation of the words must remain open, seems to attach more weight to St. Paul's words in i Tim. ii. 15, " The Birth of Christ in the N.T.," Interpreter, p. 123, February, 1905. It is noticeable that in the R.V. the article is found, "She shall'be saved hy the child-bearing" (cf. Church Quarterly Review, January, 1893, p. 483). EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 263 "amongst those born of women" (Matt. xi. 11). But it is important to note that in the original language St. Paul says, not " born of a woman," but " made of a woman," and that he uses a diiferent verb from that which is always used elsewhere to express " naturally born of a woman." This distinction has been well emphasised by a distin- guished modern scholar, the present Bishop of Salisbury, and it at least helps us to see that St. Paul's language must not be dismissed as colourless in this connection.^ We must, of course, remember that the probabilities that St. Paul was acquainted with the doctrine of the Virgin birth by no means depend upon this one disputed passage, and we are quite justified in referring to the Apostle's conception of our Lord as the new Man, the second Adam, as demanding a perfectly unique manner of birth for Him who was thus the beginning of a new humanity.^ Nor should it ever be forgotten that we owe to St. Paul's constant companion the fullest account of our Lord's birth, an account the truthfulness of which no modern criticism has discredited ; and it would be strange, to say the least of it, if this account, so well known to St. Luke, was unknown to St. Paul. But in this same verse in Galatians there is another significant phrase, " made under the law." It has, indeed, been rightly maintained that the words might mean " made under law," i.e. under law in general, intimating that our Lord became man, and that, like other men, whether Jews or Gentiles, He became subject to a ' The Baptismal Confession and the Creed (S.P.C.K.), p. i8 (1904). St. Paul says, "made of a woman" {yevon^vov Ik. yvvaiKos}, but " naturally born of a woman " would rather be expressed by yemridevTa €K yvvaiKos. In Job we have four or five times in the LXX the phraSe, "born of a woman"; and in each case we have yewr^rbs yvvaiKos (cf. Matt. xi. II, Luke vii. 28, ivyevvqTols yvvaiK&v). In all these we have a cognate of the same verb, yevvda ; but not St. Paul's verb, ylvofuii., ' See, amongst recent writers, Resch, Der Paulinismus und die Lo§ia yesu, p. 620 (1904). 264 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST legal dispensation. But even those who press this meaning admit that the words refer primarily, at all events, to the Jewish law. And if this is so, the phrase, let us remember, carries with it St Paul's knowledge of the facts of our Lord's circumcision, of His presentation in the Temple,^ of His becoming " a son of the law," and possibly of His coming forward as a teacher at the requisite age of thirty years. As we look back upon this short Epistle to the Galatians we may thus fairly conclude that, like i and 2 Thessalonians, it presupposes no inconsiderable knowledge of the life and teaching and claims of our Lord. We have before us in the scope of one short letter not only what has well been termed the " Pauline Gospel of the Infancy," but also the Pauline Gospel of the Cross and the Resurrection, a Gospel in which the Apostle finds the hope and the pledge of redemption for all " under law," i.e. for the Jew first, and also for the Gentile. Once more let us note that this pledge of redemption was given in " the fulness of time." ^ No phrase was more calculated to go home to the mind of a man like St. Paul. Politically, religiously, socially, the world was longing for a Redeemer, and with the fulness of time there came the Christ. It has, indeed, been recently said by a distinguished writer, Goldwin Smith, that the Messianic hope is a Jewish dream, the creation of national vanity, and without interest or importance to the modern mind. One would have thought that this hope, transformed and spiritualised by the Christ Himself and by His greatest Apostle, this hope ' On the absence of any contradiction between St. Luke's statements and the requirements of the law, see A Short Introduction to the Gospels (Chicago), by Professor E. Burton, p. 74 fE (1904). 'Jeremias, Babylonisches im N.T., p. 48 (1905), duly emphasises the importance of this phrase as showing that Christianity gives in substance what other religions had only given beforetime in a shadow. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 265 which conquered " the old pagan world, on which disgust and sated loathing fell," would have commanded a more appreciative and a truer treatment. St. Paul was a Roman citizen proud of his name and privilege ; but there passed before his eyes the vision of an empire greater and wider than that of Rome, an empire in which another King, " one Jesus," ruled, the Jesus which was " the Christ." St. Paul in his Tarsian home had known something of the teaching of the Stoics, of their dreams of human brother- hood, of their lofty theories of human nature ; but St. Paul had seen in the Christ the Man in whom the bondman and the free, the Greek and the barbarian, were one ; it is the thought which finds expression for the first time amongst the Apostle's letters in this Epistle to the Galatians. St. Paul was a Jew, and he had felt in his inmost soul something of the holiness and righteousness of Jehovah ; but he had learned to see in the Christ the Righteous One, the sinless Son of God, the King in His moral perfection and beauty. To-day we are again face to face with imperial, social, religious problems ; and how can we meet them more confidently than in that same conviction, which deepened with St. Paul's own spiritual growth and know- ledge, that " Christ is all and in all " (Col. iii. 11; cf. Gal. iii. 28), a conviction which found its loftiest expression in the later Epistle to the Ephesians, that God was working out His purpose through the ages, to sum up all things and all persons in the Christ ? LECTURE XIII EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS THE Epistles to the Corinthians afford us some rich illustrations as to St. Paul's knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus. The poverty, e.g., which marked our Lord's entrance into the world, so different in its sur- roundings from Jewish expectations and so unacceptable, therefore, except on the supposition of its truth — the poverty which marked the whole of His earthly career — is signifi- cantly referred to, as Baur long ago admitted, in St. Paul's words, " Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor" (2 Cor. viii. 9). Such words are of course valuable, as we have seen, from another point of view, inasmuch as they bear the strongest testimony to our Lord's pre-existence, and to that pre-existence as personal and not merely ideal. Attempts have sometimes been made to lessen the force of this reference to our Lord's poverty on the ground that as spiritual riches, and not material, are evidently in the writer's mind, so the literal poverty ought not to be pressed, as the words simply emphasise the renunciation by our Lord of His heavenly riches in becoming man. But still it may be fairly urged that a reference to our Lord's actual poverty would be of force here in a passage in which the Apostle was seeking to stimulate his Corinthian converts to some gift of love for the poorer brethren, and that such a reference would be quite in harmony with the 266 EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 267 incidental notices of the Gospels/ notices further borne out by the striking statement of Eusebius that the last members of the family of Jesus of whom we have any knowledge, when summoned before Domitian, appeared as poor men, as horny-handed rustics.^ But there are other references which St. Paul makes in these letters to our Lord's earthly life, references very signifi- cant, because they are introduced so incidentally, and because they suggest the inference that the Apostle who knew so much must also have known more. This is a thought which seems constantly to suggest itself as we read these Corinthian Epistles. Thus St. Paul is able to refer to our Lord's brethren, and apparently to one amongst them by name (i Cor. ix. S). He knew that our Lord had chosen a circle of twelve intimate friends, and he refers to them by the name of " the Twelve," as evidently an official title, since the number was not pre- cisely exact at the time to which the Apostle alludes (i Cor. XV. 5). He mentions to the Galatians two amongst them, Peter and John, in a manner which singles them out as of special importance (Gal. ii. 8) ; and he speaks to the Corinthians of Peter, and of the Apostles and brethren of the Lord, as married men (i Cor. ix. 5). He knows, moreover, as we saw in the last lecture, " the signs of the ' Cf. Drescher, u.s. pp. 23-4 ; Peine, u.s. p. 295, referring to Matt, viii. 20; Sturm, u.s. i. ii ; Nosgen, u.s. p. 59 ; Heinrici, Der Zmeite Brief an die Korinther, p. 276, in opposition to the view of Schmiedel that Paul knew nothing of the circumstances of the life of Jesus. In other recent writers, as, e.g., O. Holtzmann, it is allowed that there may be a reference to our Lord's earthly poverty, and Weinel, Paulus, p. 247 (1904) is fully of the same opinion. * Eusebius, H.E., iii. 19-20. Dr. B. Weiss, Life of Christ, i. 215, E.T., remarks that the emperor was reassured by their statements con- cerning the kingdom of Christ, and still more by their poverty-stricken look; and he adds that the passage is interesting because the last members of the family of Jesus with whom we become acquainted appear as needy, horny-handed rustics, and thus confirm the statement that the family was without possessions. 268 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Apostle," in the power of working miracles conferred upon him (2 Cor. xii. 12); he knows, too, that our Lord had ordained that they which proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel (i Cor. ix. 14), in words which may fairly be regarded as a direct reference to our Lord's charge to His Apostles (Luke X. 7) ; ^ he seems to have in mind our Lord's positive ordinance when he speaks in this same chapter of his right {i^ovcTLo) and that of his fellow Apostles to eat and to drink, to reap the carnal things of their converts (i Cor. ix. 4, 11). " Have we not a right to eat and drink ? " he asks, using the same word for right or power which our Lord had used in chargirtg His disciples, and perhaps recalling our Lord's own words : " And in that same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give," which precede the clause, " For the labourer is worthy of his hire " (l.c).^ It is interesting to note in this connection that St. Paul also employs the same figurative language as our Lord had employed of the work of the Gospel, e.£^. to plant a vineyard, to feed a flock, to sow, to plough, to reap,* although such figures may be thought too general to prove any positive reminiscence of our Lord's words. But over and above this knowledge of our Lord's home and public life, there is a higher knowledge, that of the character of Jesus and of the impression which that character had made upon men. It is not only that the ' This is admitted by those who allow but few references to our Lord's words in St. Paul's writings, e.g: Schmiedel, I}er Zweite Brief an die Korinther, p. 261, 2nd edit. ; Wernle, Die Quellen des Lebens ^esu, p. 5 ; so, too, Wendt, u.s. p. 60. * So, too, it is quite possible to find a reminiscence of Matt. xii. 5-6 in the preceding words (i Cor. ix. 13). Peine, u.s. p. 289, is probably right in thinking that in i Cor. x. 27, compared with Luke x. 8, "What- ever is set before you, eat," and "Eat such things as are set before you," we have an accidental recurrence of the same phraseology, as itapaTiBiviu is a very customary expression for setting food before people, and St. Luke and St. Paul are referring to very diverse matters. ' Sabatier, L'A^dtre Paul, 3rd edit., p. 69 ; Sturm, u.s. ii. 16 ; Titius, U.S. p. 16. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 269 Apostle refers to this virtue or to that as characteristic of our Lord, but that he sets Him before us as an example of perfection. The Christ had appeared in the likeness of the flesh of sin, so the Apostle tells the Romans (Rom. viii. 3) ; but by Him the power of sin had been broken, and sin had been condemned in the flesh, and thus this passage would silently intimate that He who had thus overcome sin had been Himself free from sin. It is therefore not surprising to read, as in 2 Cor. v. 21, that God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.^ It may be at once admitted that in one of the most remarkable pictures of the Messianic kingdom in Jewish literature, in the Psalms of Solomon, which carry us back to a date within half a century or so of our Lord's Advent, the Messiah is represented as pure from sin and as reigning in a sinless kingdom (Ps. xvii. 36, 41). But it is quite impossible that the picture of the sinless Messiah in the Psalms of Solomon could have created the picture of the Jesus of the Gospels. A large portion of the description in the Psalms of Solomon relates to an earthly kingdom ; the Messiah will overthrow the Gentiles, Jerusalem is to be the capital of the kingdom, and the glory of the Temple worship will be restored. The kings of other nations were to come to see the Messiah's glory, the Gentiles were ' Both Wendt and Drescher, no less than Nosgen and Feine, remark upon the significant language employed in Rom. viii. 3 ; and O. Holtz- mann seems unable to get rid of the testimony to our Lord's sinless life in 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Rom. v. 19. Drescher argues with much force {u.s. p. 25) that if it is said in Rom. viii. 3 that God in the person of Christ had broken the power of sin, it is tacitly presupposed that Christ was without sin, and that if Paul further represents the death of Christ from the point of view of an offering, it is scarcely conceivable that he did not maintain the faultless- ness of the sacrificial victim. For the views of earlier writers, and their testimony to our Lord's sinlessness, the present writer would refer to the Witness of the Epistles, p. 299. Resch, Der Paulinismus und die Logia Jesu, p. 160 (1904), would connect, with Thenius, some of St. Paul's statements definitely with our Lord's temptation as recorded in the Gospels ; but he is obliged to lay stress chiefly upon Heb. ii. 18, iv, 15. 270 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST to be His subjects and should serve beneath His yoke. No doubt the Messiah's rule is to be restorative, not only destructive. He was to be mighty through the spirit of holi- ness, and iniquity and wickedness were to be unknown. Indeed, it is even possible to see in some of the words of this Psalm an anticipation of the words of the angels' song, as they tell us of the birth of a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. But if so, all the more remarkable becomes the contrast between the picture of the Messiah in the Gospels with His lowly life, His poverty. His shameful death, and the picture of the Messiah in the Psalms of Solomon with His earthly kingdom and its far-reaching sovereignty, without a single hint of suffering or shame or loss. Surely, in face of such a picture as that of these Psalms, representing current Jewish views at the time when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, nothing is more astonishing than that men who were Jews, men like St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, should all regard and reverence the lowly Nazarene not only as the Messiah, but as " pure from sin," although He died a death of which it was written in the Jewish law, " cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Where could we find a more remarkable testimony to the marvellous impression which our Lord had made upon those who knew Him best, and upon men to whom as Jews the idea of a sinless man was quite unknown ? ^ Moreover, this testimony to the holiness and sinlessness of Jesus comes to us not only, as Peine expresses it, from the theologians Paul and John,^ but from the whole collective Apostolic Church. Whatever men may presume to say of our Lord's miracles, ' Sturm, U.S. ii. 6, and Dean Bernard's note on 2 Cor. v. 21 in the Expositor's Greek Testament. ' Peine, Das Christentum yesu und das Christentum der AJiostel, p. 56 (1902). Peine notes the following passages : Acts iii. 14, iv. 27, vii. 52; 2 Cor. V. 21 ; Rom. i. 4, v. 18, viii. 3 ; Phil. ii. 8; i Pet. ii. 22; Heb. iv. 15, vii. 26, ix. 14; John viii. 46; i John iii. 5. Moreover, the power of the forgiveness of sins, which was in itself a divine act, the whole Apostolic Church derived from Jesus. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 271 one thing can scarcely be disputed, viz. that it was part of the primitive Gospel that He was Himself a moral miracle. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that this conception of a Messiah " free from sin " is not found at all in post- Christian Jewish theology ; nowhere is it inti mated that the Messiah is sinless ; on the contrary. He sins and atones for His sins, and through toil and suffering becomes wholly righteous.^ It is also noteworthy that the same group of Epistles in which this remarkable and positive statement of our Lord's sinlessness is made is also full of notices which reveal to us how fully St. Paul must have been acquainted with our Lord's human character. These notices may sometimes no doubt refer to the exalted Christ and sometimes to the earthly Christ ; but they are at all events sufficiently numerous to give us a clear view of Jesus as He lived amongst men, and they are also in close accordance with that picture of Jesus which we derive from our Gospels. Of the love of Christ, of His perfect obedience, of His meekness and gentleness. His self-sacrifice and unselfish- ness, St. Paul plainly speaks ; and these characteristics, to which the Apostle thus refers in this one group of Epistles, to say nothing of others, are in striking similarity with the points of our Lord's character which meet us in the Gospels.^ If indeed our Lord was sinless, then there could have been no separation between the character which He portrayed and the realisation of the highest moral ideal. Moreover, in many quite incidental notices we see how much St. Paul must have known of the character of Christ. He writes, e.g., to the Corinthians (i Cor. x. 32, xi. i), and exhorts them, " Give no occasion of stumbling either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God ; even as I also please all • Weber, yiidische Theologie, p. 259 (1897) ! ^'^^ Sturm, u.s. ii. 6. ' See the valuable remarks of Drescher, Das Leben 'Jesu bei Paulus, pp. 24, 26 ; P. W. Schmidt, Geschichte Jesu, ii. 66 ; H. Holtzmann, Protestantische Monatshefte, p. 464 (1900). 272 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of the many that they may be saved." And then he adds the significant words, " Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." But what is the inference ? Surely that the life of Christ, which the Apostle bids the Corinthians imitate in him had been itself void of offence towards God and man, and full of the spirit of a love seeking the highest good and salvation of others. As we look back upon the picture drawn by St. Paul of our Lord's character ; as we think of the grace, the beauty of Him who for our sakes became poor, it is not surprising to find that St. Paul should present this same Jesus to the Corinthians and to the Romans as the second Adam, the head and type of a new humanity. It has been said that the conception of an ideal man was foreign to Jewish thought ; but however this may be, St. Paul sees in Christ the sinless man, in contrast to the man who had fallen by sin, the bringer in of a new life in contrast to him who brought death and all our woe. It is customary to allege that in such language St. Paul is really using phrases which correspond very closely to the title which our Lord so often used of Himself, and which is found in each of the Evangelists, " the Son of Man." And even if we cannot positively aiifirm that St. Paul's words show his acquaintance with the title, it would seem very bold to assert that they did not.^ But it is interesting to observe that Dr. Dalman, who ' Peine, u.s. p. 210, strongly maintains that St. Paul appears to know the title and to have it in mind, although he does not utter it, as, e.g., in relation to i Cor. xv. 26. It is urged also by Schmiedel that the use of Ps. viii. in i Cor. xv. 27 (cf. Heb. ii. 5) presupposes this acquaint- ance with the title by Paul and other Apostles. Cf. Peine, I.e., and Dr. Driver, " Son of Man," Hastings, B.D., iv. 582 ; and, to the same effect, Muirhead, Eschatology of ^esus, p. 168. It is, of course, possible that in addition to the more probable reason given above, the New Testament Epistles avoided the use of the title, because it was so likely to be taken quite literally, and to be misunderstood by their Gentile readers, who would think that the person so styled was the son of some particular man. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 273 thinks it quite unnecessary to find any reference to this self-designation of Jesus in St. Paul's words in i Cor. xv. 45, 47, also sees in St. Paul's language a remarkable depth of meaning. " It is occasioned," he thinks, " by the contrast which substantially determines the entire passage, instituted between the earthly nature represented in Adam and his posterity, and the heavenly nature bequeathed by Christ to those that are His." Moreover, he distinctly denies that the title, " the last Adam," or " the second man " can in any way have been derived from Jewish theology, and he speaks of it as probably used by St. Paul in i Cor. xv. 45 for the first time.^ The same writer, it may be added, points out that probably the same feeling which to-day prevents us from naming and invoking Jesus as the " Son of Man " may well have been active from the beginning. The Church saw in the title (whatever else it may have been) a testimony to the reality of our Lord's human nature ; but they refused to give currency to the title, since the " Son of Man," as St. Paul teaches in his earliest Epistles, was set upon the throne of God, a Ruler over heaven and earth : " He is Lord of all." But, further, when we consider what a stumbling-block the Cross was at first to St. Paul, and when we also con- sider all that the Cross afterwards became to him, we can see an additional reason why he should lay such stress upon the obedience and character of Him through whose offering of Himself it was possible for sinful men to be made the righteousness of God. And not only so, but we can also understand how every detail of the Cross and Passion by which the obedience of the Saviour was consummated and ^ That there is no occasion to suppose that St. Paul was borrowing from the Rabbinic theology, see Dalman, u.s. pp. 247, 252 ; and Dr. Findlay's valuable note on i Cor. xv. 45, 47, in the Expositor's Greek Testament ; and Mr. H. St. John Thackeray, Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 49. " The theory," he adds, " that St. Paul here conceives of Christ merely as the pre-existent heavenly man of Jewish theology ... is most certainly to be rejected." 18 2;4 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST His offering perfected should become part of the sacred tradition, of the sacred deposit committed from the first to every member of the Church. There are, as we have seen, notices both in St. Paul's Epistles and in other New Testament Epistles which may be -fairly cited in support of this likelihood. Wendt, indeed, maintains that it was only the crucified Jesus whom Paul paints before the eyes of his converts (cf i Cor. ii. 2 ; Gal. iii. i), and he refers to i Cor. xi. 23 as one of the passages, which shows that the Apostle only rarely and once in a way alludes to any sayings of Jesus. But it might be as fairly maintained that if St. Paul could refer so fully to the incidents preceding the death , of Jesus, when and because occasion demanded, he could have referred to other events in the life of His Master, if need had arisen for any such reference. Moreover, the Apostle's introduction of the recital which he gives us in i Cor. xi. 23 ff is full of significance. Nothing, so far as we can see, in the instructions which St. Paul was giving to the Corinthians led up in any way to a mention of the incident of our Lord's betrayal. And yet St. Paul introduces a reference to the fact, as perfectly well known, " Our Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed" (i Cor. xi. 23). And as in the Gospels the marking out of the traitor is closely connected with the institution of the Eucharist, and either closely precedes or follows it, so St. Paul significantly connects together the two incidents, as if a continuous recital of the events of the Passion was a familiar theme.^ ' See, to this effect, a remarkable passage in Holtzmann, Hand- Commentar zum, JV.T.,i. i, 24, 3rd edit. This is the more notice- able because Holtzmann contends that St. Paul's Epistles contain few references to events in the life of Jesus. It is difiScult to see how Dr. Abbott's criticism, Paradosis, 131 1, 1355, etc., can be thought to inter- fere with or to lessen in any degree the historical character of St. Paul's notice in i Cor. xi. 23. Dr. Abbott makes much of the fact that St. Luke is the only Evangelist who omits the words, " One of you shall deliver EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 275 What are we to say of the solemn words which follow the reference to the betrayal? In the first place we do well to remember that St. Paul was writing to a Church in which he had undoubtedly many opponents, and it is impossible to conceive that in face of this state of things he would have attempted to introduce anything unknown to the early tradition of the Church or at variance with that which he had received in common with the Twelve. What would the party of Peter, or the so-called Christ-party, have said in face of such an attempt — parties composed of men who were beyond doubt ready to take up and discuss Paul's every word ? And yet we are seriously asked to believe that St. Paul is not referring to an historical tradition, but to that which he had " received of the Lord " in a vision. But why in a vision ? It is entirely begging the question to say that the words necessarily point to anything of the kind. They may, and probably do, point to an historical tradition. No one has insisted upon this more emphatically than Dr. Zahn. " Apart," as he says, " from the absurdity of such a superfluous revelation, an immediate communication from the Lord would have been expressed quite otherwise." me up," and he thinks that the omission can only be justified on the supposition that St. Luke regarded such words as unhistorical. But, on the other hand, due weight should surely be given to the fact that St. Luke is the only Evangelist who speaks of Judas as jrpoSdnjs (vi. 16), a word which scarcely admits of any misinterpretation, to say nothing of the way in which, as Dr. Abbott allows, St Luke sometimes follows St. Mark in the application of the term jrapadiSafii to the act of Judas, St. Luke is the only Evangelist who speaks of Judas as being guide to them that took Jesus (Acts i. 16), a notice exactly in accordance with another notice peculiar to St. Luke (xxiii. 47), " He that was called Judas went before them." The truth seems to be that the verb irapaSiStoni is best interpreted by its context, and here, in i Cor. xi. 23, the significant mention of the night seems naturally to connect it with the dark treachery of Judas ; and so, too, in Matt. iv. 12, Mark i. 14, where we have the same verb TrapcSo&q, the context shows us that a reference is made to the fact that John "was delivered up " (ets (fruXaKriv, cf. Dr. Swete's note on Mark i. 14) ; and the comment of J. Weiss on Mark i. 14 (Meyer's Kommentar) does not alter this fact. 2/6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST And he quotes a whole series of passages which bear out this contention ; so, too, Dr. Schmiedel, who on this point, at all events, is found in perfect agreement with a strong conservative critic like Dr. Zahn.^ St. Paul says nothing more and nothing less than that the tradition which he had delivered to the Corinthians, and of which he now reminds them, is not only identical with that which he had himself received in earlier days, but that it can be followed up to Jesus Himself, whose words and deeds on the night before His death are here in question. The more closely we look into this supposition that St. Paul could have forced the celebration of the Eucharist upon the Church apart from historical facts, apart from the sanction and the usage of the Twelve, the more groundless does it become.^ St. Mark, e.g., according to all reliable tradition, is styled " the interpreter of Peter." But in St. Mark's Gospel, to say nothing of others, the Gospel, i.e., which is generally regarded as the earliest of the four, the ' Za.hn, Einleitungin das N.T., p. 171 ; Schmiedel, Die Briefe an die Korinther, p. 162, 2nd edit. Schmiedel draws a contrast be- tween the passage 1 Cor. xi. 23 and the words of Paul in i Thess. iv. 15, which perhaps refer to a special revelation, and he lays equal stress with Zahn upon the distinction between ano and ■napa, inasmuch as the former points to an indirect reception, probably here by oral tradition. See further for this, Witness of the E;pistles, p. 424 ; also Ropes, Die Spriicke Jesu, p. 135. ' And yet this is what we are asked to do, not only by Dr. Gardner, but by Dr. E. A. Abbott (Contrast, p. 7), who asks us to believe that St. Paul could teach in Corinth and establish in Christendom words that were only meant, not said, by the Lord Jesus. Amongst other writers who have lately insisted upon referring the Lord's Supper as an historical ordinance to Christ Himself we may quote Weizsacker, Afost. Zeitalter, p. 574, 3rd edit; O. Holtzmann, Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft, Heft ii. 9 (1904) ; Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, p. 567, and edit. ; Von Dobschiitz, Studien und Kritiken, i. 16, 1905 ; Furrer, Das Leben Jesu Christi, pp. 14, 238. For a criticism of Dr. P. Gardner's contentions, reference may be made to Wright's Some N.T. Problems, ■p. 139; 7x3sik\a.-ad.'s Early Eucharist, ^p. 120; Sanday's Art. "Jesus Christ," Hastings' B.D., ii. 638. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 277 Gospel which gives us the old Jerusalem tradition, we find an account of this institution in perfect accordance in its main facts with St. Paul's statement to the Church at Corinth. No doubt it will be urged that there are serious differ- ences between St. Mark's recital and St. Paul's, and that St. Mark's, as containing the oldest Gospel tradition, must be regarded as correct. But let us remember that St. Mark gives us not only the teaching of St. Peter, according to the generally received opinion — St. Mark was also the com- panion of St. Paul and the companion of St. Luke when the two Evangelists shared St. Paul's first imprisonment in Rome. We are certified of this from Col. iv. 10, 14 ; and even Schmiedel allows us to retain the personal notices in this Epistle as genuine. But in view of this meeting of the three men as com- panions in Rome, and in view, too, of the fact that when St. Mark wrote his Gospel the celebration of the Eucharist must have been for a considerable period an established act of worship in the Church,^ it seems incredible that the earliest Evangelist should have given currency to an account of the Eucharist which essentially differed from that acknow- ledged and received by St. Paul and St. Luke. It is quite true, e.g., that both St. Mark and St. Matthew say simply, " This is My body," whilst St. Paul says, " This is My body which is for you " or " which is broken for you." But we can scarcely doubt that the accounts of St. Mark and St. Matthew were in essential agreement with St. Paul, since St. Mark reads, " This is My blood which is shed for many," and St. Matthew has, " This is My blood which is shed for many, unto remission of sins." Again, it is quite true that neither in St. Matthew nor in St. Mark, according to high authority, does the word " new " occur ; but it is equally true to say that the inauguration of ' Rose, Studies in the Gospels, pp. 249-50, E.T. 278 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST a New Covenant is necessarily involved in these accounts. St. Mark and St. Matthew both write, " This is My blood of the covenant " ; but such words, let us never forget it, were spoken primarily to Jews, and they would carry back the thought of our Lord's first hearers to Exod. xxiv. 8,^ and to the ratification of the solemn covenant between God and His people : " Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." But when Christ says, " This is My blood of the covenant," can we doubt that He would thus draw a distinction between the covenant inaugurated by the blood of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings and His own blood, between the victims, the calves and goats, slain to ratify the Old Covenant, and ■ His own death, the offering of Himself? Moreover, this blood, according to St. Mark's account, is to be shed for many. It was not only to inaugurate a covenant, but to be a redemptive sacrifice. According to St. Mark's account and that of St. Matthew, a new state of things is represented as connected with the death of Jesus ; and if they omit the word " new " in speaking of the Christian Covenant, it is surely not without significance that they should both at once add our Lord's words of the fruit of the vine, " until I drink it new in the kingdom of God." How the early Church developed this thought of the " New Covenant " we can abundantly see. Christ, says the writer of Hebrews, is the mediator of a " New Covenant " (Heb. ix. 15), and we need look no further than 2 Cor. iii. 6 to see how St. Paul regarded himself and spoke of himself as the minister of a " New Covenant." If our Lord had used such a phrase on the solemn occasion of His Last Supper with the Twelve, we can at once tmderstand how the words ' Peine, JeSus Christus und Paulus, p. 236 ; andhe rightly concludes, " Ob der Bund ausdriicklich als Kotvos bezeichnet wild oder nicht, ist ohne Belang." See also, to the same effect, Titius, u.s. p. 176. ^ This is frankly admitted, amongst more recent writers, by Wendt, J)ie Lehre jfssu^ 2nd edit., p. 569. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 279 would become, as it were, consecrated words in connection with the Gospel message.^ At all events, this use of the expression by St. Paul in writing to his converts, as of something which would be at once intelligible to them, is most significant. It is again significant that only in these two Gospels, St. Mark and St. Matthew, do we find our Lord's saying that His life should be a ransom for many (Mark x. 45 ; Matt. X. 29) ; so that Peine is quite right in insisting that the words at the Last Supper do not stand as it were by them- selves ; they are related in a very deep sense to the two passages just named.^ Moreover, the prophet Jeremiah had used the very phrase "a New Covenant" (xxxi. 31), and every Israelite was looking forward to that covenant with eager hope. Jeremiah, too, had connected that New Covenant most clearly with the thought of pardon and forgiveness, and, in a far deeper and truer sense than in the old sacrificial ritual, our Lord would teach His hearers in that solemn hour of approaching parting from them that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Forgiveness is associated with His death, " This is My blood of the covenant which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins." One other point must be briefly noticed in this same con- nection. We do not find in St. Matthew or St. Mark the words which St. Paul quotes as spoken by our Lord, " This do in remembrance of Me" (i Cor. xi. 24-5). Hence Schmiedel has maintained that as St. Matthew and St. Mark would not dare to omit such words of Jesus at such a solemn hour, ' Feine, u.s. p. 246 ; Titius, u.s. p. 177 ; so, too, Dean Bernard, Expositor" s Greek Test, iii. 54, and Heinrici's note on 2 Cor. iii. 6. | * "It would not show a want of the critical spirit," writes Dr. P. Gardner, "to go further than this, and to maintain, with Professor Harnack, that Jesus, assigned a special significance to His death in relation to the forgiveness of sins" {Historic Vi?w of the N.T,^ p. 100), 28o TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST they were therefore never spoken by Him at all, but that by degrees, one after another of His followers, as they ate the bread and drank the cup, and repeated the words, " Take, eat," or " Drink ye all of it," gradually and unconsciously fell into saying : " We do this in remembrance of the Lord," words which soon became transformed into : " Do this in remembrance of Me." But this attempted explanation of Dr. Schmiedel, which painfully reminds us of a scene depicted in a religious novel, Robert Elsmere, and which seems to be equally devoid of any solid foundation, fails at least in two respects, to say nothing of others. In the first place, it fails to tell us why the early Church repeated the sacred Feast without any definite commission to do so from the Lord, and in the next place the objection to the omission of the words, "Do this in remembrance of Me," in St. Matthew and St. Mark, has really no weight at all, simply because at the time of the composition of these Gospels there is every reason to believe that the Lord's Supper was everywhere an integral . part of Christian worship.^ But, further, this act of worship was closely associated with a particular day. " The first day of the week " is an expression used not only by each of the four Evangelists, but by St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. Whatever date we assign to the Gospels, it is evident that this day, this " first day of the week," must have had some special meaning for Christians, when St. Paul wrote to the Church at Corinth, and he had already prescribed the same day for the churches of Galatia. He does not consider it necessary to give any reason for its selection. " Now con- * For an historical sketch of the different views with regard to the institution and meaning of the Eucharist, including those of Harnack, Julicher, Schmiedel, and other recent writers, see Das Abendmahl im Zusammenhang mit dem Leben Jesuundder Geschichte des Urchris- tentums, Heft i., by A. Schweizer, 1901 ; and, further, P. Schmidt Qeschichte Jesu^ ii, 373 (1904). EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 281 cerning the collection for the saints," he writes, " as I gave orders to the Churches of Galatia, so also do ye. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store as he may prosper." But we turn to St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul, and we note that in one of those passages of the Acts which belong, as we have seen, to the most authoritative part of the book, the " We "-sections, he unites together in a most definite manner the institution of the Christian Sunday and the institution of the Holy Communion. At Troas, St. Luke and St. Paul are gathered together with their companions and the Church to break bread on the first day of the week (Acts xx. 7). How impossible it is for " advanced criticism " to break down the force and the witness of this passage we shall see further in the next lecture. But if on the third day, i.e. " the first day of the week," Jesus Christ rose again according to the Scriptures, then, and then only, we can understand how a man like St. Paul, with all his Jewish instincts and Jewish training, could centre the thoughts of Christians, not upon the Jewish sabbath, the seventh, but upon the first day of the week, as the day of holy communion with their risen Lord and of mutual and loving intercourse : " Seeing that we who are many are one bread, one body : for we all partake of the one bread " (i Cor. xi. 17). Many years ago Bishop Westcott pointed out that no evidence of the power or reality of a belief can be less open to suspicion than that which is derived from public services, which, as far as all evidence reaches, were contemporaneous with its origin and uninterruptedly perpetuated through the body which holds it. That statement receives a continuous illustration from the facts of which I have just spoken, the fact of the existence of the Holy Communion, the fact of the existence 282 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST of the Christian Sunday. And the force of this illustration cannot be broken unless we are prepared to invalidate the proof afforded by one of St. Paul's practically undisputed Epistles, I Corinthians, and by a document which we are justly entitled to attribute to one of the Apostle's intimate friends. There is another point of view from which the Holy Communion is now constantly regarded, viz. from the point of view of comparative religion.^ One of the boldest amongst the many bold attempts in this direction is un- doubtedly that of Professor Gunkel of Berlin, who is not content without carrying his Old Testament criticism into his consideration of the New Testament books and of the early Christian Church. Dr. Gunkel, with no want of gravity, asks us to see in the celebration of a certain day for the worship of the sun- god the origin of the Christian Sunday.^ All difficulties, we are assured, connected with the introduction of the first day of the week into Christian worship would vanish if we adopt this easy solution. But is it so easy? In the first place. Dr. Gunkel does not attempt to deny that the celebration of the first day of the week belonged to the very earliest Christian origins, and he does not hesitate to refer to Acts xx. 7 and i Cor. xvi. 2 in proof of this. He also further allows that this celebration of the first day could not have been derived from Old Testament prophecies, alth6ugh sanction for it was subsequently found in Hos. vi. 2. But Dr. Gunkel thinks that he is on safe ground in maintaining that this solemn observance of the first day of the week was derived from Babylonian in- fluences. No doubt it is very difficult, as Gunkel very plainly saw, to account for this observance, apart from a ' See further for literature on this point, and the strictures of H. Holtzmann and others, Lecture XXII. * Zum religions^eschichtHchen VersiS,ndniss des N.T„ p. 73 £f (1903). -isstp aqi Xoj uoste34 ^U&ptjjns ^ SAtetj &m 'tureloojd asut^ |nBj 'IS puE sjadsof) jnoj jjh noiqAv /(^p 34; uo pnap am uiojj 3SOJ pjo^; jno jj joj 'Xaoaxji siq oj aougjajjip siqBjapjsuoD Xj3a b s3>iBm Apins ;i ^ng •4X4jb]/\[ upsnf jo sSui^uAV 3m m suHjisuq^ Suouib punoj ^sjg seav ^i ^bij^ sjitupB aq puB 'lou 40 suBi^suq^ aAiijuiud asaq; jo sXBp aq; u; pasn XuBnpB sbm XBpung auiBU aqi jaq^aqAV j3;;buj ou sajiBUJ ?i jBqi sa§jn XjaAiBU ^BqAvamos pjjunjg -jq •saouBAjasqo snoiSipj -iiaqi 04 puiJj b qons jo |bai;s3j jaqiouB *ppB o? pajBD 3ABq pjnoM 40 'ppB 01 ;qSnBi uaaq 3ABq pinoAV inBj ^jg jo aouanyui aqj japun atuoD pBq oqAV suBpsuqQ Xub ;Bqa XpJin 11^ 1^ II s; 40u 'jBApsaj qsiAvaf 34nosqo ub p35j4BUJ qoiqAV XBp 3qi 3^Bn;3d43d pinoAV qD4nq3 UBpsuq^) 3ioqAV 3qi ;Bq; ssoddns 01 43A3iBqM UOSB34 ou SI 343q; ;na '^^]\'^ SUBJlSUq^ 3[i;U3{) puB suBiisi4q3 qsiAigf Xq p3;d3DDB sbav ^i puB 'qD4nq3 3qi jo sXbP ;S3I1;4B3 aqi UI04J p3;d3DDB XjpS^^IlUpB SBM 5[33M 3qi JO Xbp ;s4g 3qi jo uo;iB4q3i30 siqj '3DBid ;x3u 3qi uj ■SMsf 3q; JO P40T; u2p43Aos 3qi q;;Av sns3f 4{3qi psgiiuspi snq^ suBi^suq^) Xl4B3 Sq^ XqAV >ISB O; UpS 340J343qj 3ABq 3^YV ■Xlu2l343AOS 3nb;un puB ssauipq sijj ui 4U3uib;s3X PIO ^H^ JO P°9 ^H^ 43q;B4 inq 'uo[XqBa jo po§-uns 3q^ Xi3D4Bds sbjw suBijsuq^ ;s3pio 3vp Xq p3dd;qs40M p4oq 3qi 30Bid is4g 3qi ui ^ng "snsaf 4i3q; q^iM 'p3^0A3p SBM uns 3q; JO Xbp sq; diqs40AV ssoqAV 01 'p4oq 3q; p3ij;;u3pi suBi;si4q3 3S3qi puB 'p3i{n4034 343av S43qui3ui UBpsi4q3 isapjo am S3p4p 3S3qi jo ^no '. uns 3q; jo XBp sq^ 31B4q3pD 01 pSUJO^SnODB XpB34|B 343AV qOiqAV UISlBpnf Ul S3p4p u;b;43D 343M 343qi ^Bq; uiB^uiBUJ o; 43q;4nj sBq 3q 'OS Supq sjqx "poS-uns 3qi jo XBp sq; ui04j uoiiB4q3pD sjj SuiAuap 343M Xsqi ;Bq; sssusnoiosuoD ^nj Xub ;noq;iAv Xbp am 43AO Jtoo^ suEi^suqQ Xi4B3 3qi iBqi sijuipB an iuojiBUBidxa 3q^ sj 'usqi 'iBqyW •340u3! Xpuajsis -43d jooqDS siq puB pjiung qoiq/A 'idbj iBouoisiq ure;43D fSZ SNVIHJLNIHOD 3HX OX S311SIda 284 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST vance of the first day of the week without having recourse to the worship of the sun-god or to any of the various religions invoked by Dr. Gunkel. The early Christian Church was founded not upon myths, but upon facts, upon the historical facts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Son of God. But again : an attempt is made to distinguish between the words of our Lord at the institution of the Eucharist and the sacramental teaching which in the early Church became associated with it. The latter, it is asserted, we owe entirely to St. Paul, and it cannot be derived from the simple statements of Jesus at the Last Supper.^ But whatever points of contact may be discoverable between the teaching of St. Paul and the idea common to so many Oriental cults that the worshipper at a sacrificial feast entered into actual communion and oneness with the god whom he worshipped by partaking of the blood of a consecrated victim, we must remember that this idea of partaking of blood, of tasting or enjoying blood, would have been most repugnant and abhorrent to every Jew. But if we once admit that the words and acts of in- stitution go back to our Lord Himself, we cannot avoid the fact that the Holy Supper was ordained for, and partaken of, in the first place, by men who were Jews. No one has insisted upon this more strongly or more ably than Dr. Furrer in his recent popular Leben Jesu? In the next place we cannot but remember that St. Paul in this first Epistle to the Corinthians lays stress upon the ' Cf., e.g., Heitmiiller, Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus, p. 36 ff (1903). It will be noticed that Heitmiiller, while he insists no less than Dr. P. Gardner upon the mystical meaning of the Lord's Supper in St. Paul's teaching, definitely allows that the words of institution, at least in their simplest form, go back to an actual ordinance of Christ Himself, and that they were not the outcome of a vision of St. Paul. * We could easily explain the recital, he points out, if we were in the Grecian world, for the Greeks of old believed that if one enjoyed the flesh and blood of a consecrated victim, the deity itself entered into EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 285 fact that he too goes back to the words and institution of Jesus ; and he must ihave felt that in his own teaching with reference to the Supper of the Lord he was not at variance with, but rather dependent upon, the mind of Christ. It is one thing to trace some point of analogy in the Holy Communion to this religion or to that ; but still, it is well to remember that to trace an analogy is not to discover a cause. In the Holy Communion we see the fulfilment of the deepest cravings of human nature for union with the divine — cravings witnessed to by the crude and fantastic rites of this religion or that ; but that ful- filment is assured to us not by the words of any human teacher, but by the words and presence of Him who was both human and divine, " the Lord Jesus," as St. Paul calls Him.^ " The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread." The solemn words remind us that the thought of our Lord's violent death, quickly ap- proaching Him, was one which came to the disciples as a surprise. " It is a masterpiece," says a thoughtful German critic, Dr. Wendt, " of the practical skill of Jesus as a Teacher, that in this situation He did not give them a piece of theoretical instruction which they would not have correctly grasped, but spoke to them by means of an action which would stamp itself for ever on their memories."^ And twenty centuries of Christian history, during which, so far the partaker. But, he pointedly adds, we are not in Greek territory, but in Jerusalem, from which such thoughts were far removed, and he goes on to speak of the deep repugnance of the Jew to the enjoyment or tasting of blood {Leben Jesu, pp. 238-9 ; 1901, ist edit., 2nd edit., 1905). See, further. Lecture XXIV., for the recent strictures of Dobschiitz, no less than of Nosgen and Peine, upon the attempts to refer the derivation of the Eucharist to pagan mysteries. ' See, further. Lecture XXIV. and literature there given. ' Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, p. 568, 2nd edit. 286 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST as we know, the Holy Supper has been commemorated without break or interruption, witness to what we may reverently call " the practical skill " of the divine Teacher ; and men and women have felt in their inmost souls, as they eat that bread and drink that cup of blessing, that they proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. LECTURE XIV EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS {continued) WE have noted in the preceding lecture some of the points of contact between our Lord's teaching and that of St. Paul which we may find in these two Corinthian Epistles. There are perhaps no Epistles of St. Paul in which the points of contact are more numerous ; and although no doubt some of them may not seem very important, it is impossible to question the significance of others. The conception, e.g., of the kingdom of God occupies a prominent place in the first Epistle, and although it does not occur in so many words in the second, yet there, too, such passages as 2 Cor. vi. 2, " Behold now is the acceptable time ; behold now is the day of salvation," ^ have been taken to indicate that the kingdom of God, which was life and salvation, had already come, and that " the fulness of time " in the world's history had been realised. Here, then, as Wendt says, is one of the chief points of agreement between the teaching of Paul and the teaching of Jesus. The Apostle indeed uses the term, as we have previously noted, much more seldom than his Lord ; but his use of it points back to the earlier teaching of Jesus (i Cor. vi. 9), and it is also evident that he uses the term as Jesus had done in a twofold sense ; that is to say, he conceives of the kingdom I See Feine, u.s. pp. 281-2, who compares Luke iv. 19, 21. 287 288 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST as present (i Cor. iv. 20)^ and as future (cf. i Cor. vi. 9, XV. 50). In this relation of the kingdom to the Apostle's eschatolo- gical teaching it is specially important to notice, in passing, that when St. Paul writes, "When He {i.e. Christ) shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father" (i Cor. XV. 24), or, again, verse 28, " When all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected to Him that did subject all things unto Him," that these terms " the Father," " the Son," are used by the Apostle in the same absolute sense in which we believe that our Lord Himself uses them in the Gospels. If our Lord did so use them, and if from His use of them the terms passed into the current teaching of the Church, then we can understand St. Paul's use of them ; otherwise, it is difficult, one might say impossible, to account for the Apostle's language. But this twofold conception of the kingdom as present and future, and the passages in these Epistles in which the conception is embodied, are of great importance from another point of view. In the first place, such passages help us to see how far removed was St. Paul's whole idea of the kingdom, of its realisation, of its contents, from that which was prevalent at the time of the Advent, as we gather a knowledge of it from the Psalms of Solomon. On the one hand, it has been well pointed out that all idea of a visible earthly reign of the Messiah, all thought of a visible Hebrew kingdom or of Jerusalem as its centre, every shred of nationalism, has disappeared. But on the other hand, it has been noted ' Cf. Wendt, Die Lehre fesu, especially pp. 270-1, 2nd edit., and, amongst English writers, Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, p. 289 (1904), in which he points out that such a passage as I Cor. iv. 20 shows that we cannot restrict St. Paul to the purely eschatological sense of the word "kingdom" or the idea which it embodies. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 289 with equal truth that the eschatological side of Jewish hope has been deepened, spiritualised, and strengthened.^ To what source do we owe this abrupt transition from the Psalms of Solomon to the teaching of St. Paul ? To the words and the teaching of Christ. For our Lord, as for St. Paul, the kingdom of God is both present and future ; for our Lord, as for St. Paul, the kingdom which had been the nationalist hope of the Jew, the salvation which was primarily of " the Jews," widens and deepens into a reign of life for all who should receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness (Rom. v. 17). But one, at least, of these passages relating to the kingdom is of further import, because we have in it the formula which so often recurs in the Epistles of St. Paul, " Do ye not know ? " or " Ye know," sometimes no doubt in quite a general sense, but sometimes in a way which seems to suggest that the Apostle was basing his teaching upon some sayings of our Lord, upon some tradition of the teaching which he had himself received, and to which he could confidently refer.^ " Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world ? (i Cor. vi. 2). " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? " (i Cor. vi. 9). This latter passage is of peculiar interest, because Harnack and others consider that the catalogue of sins which follows this appeal may be traced back in its origin to words of the Lord, and, further, that we may perhaps account on this supposition for the formula which so frequently occurs, " They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God " ' Bishop of Exeter, Regnum Dei, pp. 39, 96. ^ Peine, u.s. p. 295, gives some interesting- illustrations. Thus i Cor. iii. 16, ix. 13 ; 2 Cor. v. 1,6; Gal. ii. 16 ; Eph. vi. 8, 9 may well point back to some previous teaching or expression ; but Rom xiv. 14, with its positive statement, may well refer to Matt. xv. 11; so, too, i Thess. iii. 3 may be referred to Mark viii. 34, and possibly, according to Peine, I Cor. vi. 16 to Matt. xix. 5. 19 290 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST (cf. Gal. V. 21 ; Rom. i. 32 ; Eph. v. 5), pointing us back to some previous teaching on the subject.^ The former passage (i Cor. vi. 2) is also taken by many writers to refer to our Lord's own sayings (Matt. xix. 28 ; Luke xxii. 30), although it is quite possible that the words of Dan. vii. 22, 27 (cf Wisdom iii. 8 ; Rev. xx. 4) ^ may account for St. Paul's language. At the same time we must remember that in St. Paul's earliest Epistle (i Thessalonians) we find passages in which the saints are definitely associated with Christ in the judgment. If we turn to another familiar tract of our Lord's teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, we find evidence in i Corinthians of St. Paul's acquaintance, if not with its letter, yet, at all events, with its spirit. We may compare, e.g., as Resch does, such words as, " Being reviled, we bless ; being persecuted, we endure " (i Cor. iv. 12), with the famihar Beatitudes, " Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake ; blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you " (Matt. v. 11).^ Or, again, with St. Paul's sad irony, " Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us," we may compare, as Holtzmann does, the familiar words, " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," and the promise which tells us how they that hunger after righteousness shall be filled. Or, again, as we listen to St. Paul's indignant remonstrance ^ See, especially for the view of Harnack and a valuable discussion of it, Peine, u.s. p. 294. ^ Kennedy, u.s. p. 192. Peine takes the passage as probably referring to Luke xxii. 30, u.s. p. 178. ^ M. Goguel lays stress upon the same parallels, and gives us next in order i Cor. v. 4 and Matt, xviii. 20, " In the name of our Lord Jesus ye being gathered together and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus." The word for "gathered together" (o-ui'ijyjiicW) is the same as that used in the Saviour's promise in St. Matthew {L A^dtre Paul et Jesus Christ). With this Peine agrees (u.s. p. 293) ; but it is not wise to insist too strongly upon this alleged parallel. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 291 to these same Corinthian converts, " Now there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong ? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" (i Cor. vi. 7): is it fanciful to catch an echo of that same Sermon on the Mount, " If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also " ? But whilst we may thus show how clearly St. Paul's teaching is the teaching of our Lord in the proclamation of His kingdom, it is no doubt possible to push the points of likeness too far. Thus, e.g., we noted in a previous lecture that it is not wise to suppose that because St. Paul introduces familiar imagery, e.g. that of building, or of the working of leaven, or of removing mountains, that he is in any way dependent upon any particular sayings of our Lord. At the same time, it remains a noteworthy fact that in I Cor. ix. 7 St. Paul uses a whole series of images of the work of the Christian ministry, the imagery of planting a vineyard, of feeding a flock, of sowing and reaping, which reminds us of the figures under which our Lord Himself loved to represent the work of those who were to preach His Gospel. But whether we have regard to the close or to the commencement of our Lord's ministry, we cannot fail to see how plainly St, Paul's conceptions of his Master are connected with the representations of the Gospels. Thus, when he tells the Corinthians (2 Cor. v. 14), that we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, we are at once reminded of our Lord's imagery of the Son of Man, the Judge of mankind, sitting in judgment upon the throne of His glory (Matt. xxv. 31); and when St. Paul, in the same breath, reminds his converts of the purpose of that manifestation, viz. that each one may receive the things done in the body, we remember how our Lord had said, " The 292 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with the angels ; and then shall He render to every man according to his deeds " (Matt. xvi. 27). St. Paul, moreover, conceives of our Lord not only as a future, but as a present judge, and he does so in words which irresistibly remind us of Christ's own promised presence in His Church. The Corinthian Christians are to judge the evil-doer, but they are to do so " in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus " (i Cor. v. 4). Here we have a close parallel extending even to verbal identity, with our Lord's familiar words, " Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them " (Matt, xviii. 20). It may be remarked in passing that this phrase "in My name" has recently received very striking illustrations from its use in the papyri, and in heathen mystical and magical formulae.^ But, quite apart from these uses, it may well have had its origin far back in the Old Testament ; and if such a phrase was often used by our Lord, as the New Testament testifies, we are thus enabled to understand the frequent employment of similar phrases by St. Paul and the other Apostles. If, moreover, St. Paul had thus before him the thought of Christ as the Judge, it does not seem fanciful to suppose that he would have been acquainted with the principle upon which that judgment was based ; and if so, he might well have recalled the manner in which our Lord identified Himself with the least of His brethren at the judgment (Matt. xxv. 40), as he wrote to the Corinthians those pathetic words, " And thus, sinning against the brethren, and wounding their conscience when it is weik, ye sin against Christ" (i Cor. viii. 12). But there are other sayings connected with our Lord's ministry, sayings second to none in beauty and importance, ' HeitmuUer, Im Namen Jesu, p. 197 ff (1903).] EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 293 which it is necessary to consider in our treatment of these two Corinthian Epistles. It will seem to most, if not to all of you, quite incredible that any criticism, even the most advanced, should seriously ask us to believe that our Lord's words in Matt. xi. 25, Luke X. 22, concerning the unique relationship between Himself and the Father, were not uttered by Hirt, but were composed, and attributed to Him, from one or more passages in this first Corinthian Epistle (cf, e.g., r Cor. i. 19 — iii. 21, XV. 27). St. Paul speaks to the Corinthians of God destroying the wisdom of the wise and rejecting the prudence of the prudent ; he speaks of a hidden wisdom of God, of a wisdom revealed through the Spirit, of the things of God which none knoweth save the Spirit of God, of God's good pleasure to use the foolishness of the thing preached, of babes in Christ. Elsewhere he tells us that the Father had put all things in subjection under the feet of Christ. And from these and similar sayings we are asked to believe that our Lord's words are derived, " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes ; yea. Father, for so it was well pleasing in Thy sight. All things have been delivered unto Me of My Father ; and none knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither doth any man know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." ^ But this is not all. There are some other words of our Lord which closely ' So Pfleiderer, ZJaj- Urckrz'siefiium, i. 66S (igoz) ; Brandt, £vang. Geschichte, p. 562 ; but, on the other hand, the important criticism of Feine, u.s. p. 266, should be consulted. Peine points out that even in the matter of language there is no reason to suppose that the S)moptic text has been subjected to any Pauline influence ; many of its expressions are found in the LXX., and he also reminds us that H. Holtzmann regards St. Paul as dependent upon the language of the Gospels, which had exercised a great influence upon him. See also P. W. Schmidt, Geschichte Jesu, ii. 67 (1904) ; Sturm, u.s. ii. 18. 294 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST follow this claim to be the revealer of the Father, words which have touched the heart of humanity as no words of any human teacher have ever touched it, words which in their calm and beauty evoked the wonder and admiration of the great Unitarian teacher William Channing, and words so lofty in their claim and grandeur that another great Unitarian teacher. Dr. Martineau, refused to believe that Jesus in His humility could ever have spoken them : " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls." And we are still asked to believe that these words also were never spoken by Christ ; that they are a later composition, reminiscences borrowed from Ecclesi- asticus li. or other sources, and united in St. Matthew with the previous sayings derived from St. Paul. But surely this makes a demand upon our credulity which is insupportable, and the only thing which affords us no surprise is that we are called upon to accept this origin of our Lord's sayings by the same critic, O. Pfleiderer, who asks us to believe that the matchless stories of the incarnation and infancy were composed from St. Paul's words to the Galatians, iv. 4. It is, however, no wonder that the most acute of recent German critics should remark that if this alleged derivation of our Lord's sayings is true, we are face to face with a psychological enigma (Feine, u.s. p. 266). Can we suppose for a moment that words of such sublimity, and at the same time of such humility, could have been composed by some unknown Christian out of scattered sayings from a pre- Christian and a Christian document, from a combination of the Book of Ecclesiasticus with St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians ? Even if we suppose that our Lord had in mind the words of another Jesus, the son of Sirach, there is an infinite distance between personifying Wisdom and extolling her attributes, and presenting oneself in human EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 295 form and guise as the rest and guidance and goal of humanity. " Come unto me," so Wisdom had said (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 19, li. 23) ; but Jesus alone, the Son of Man, and yet fairer than the sons of men, could add, " And I will give you rest." The fact is that the alleged dependencies of the Gospels in Matt xi. 25, Luke x. 22, upon Ecclesiasticus are very superficial, and that in many respects they are such as might be found on the lips of any Jewish speakers. But whilst the points of likeness are present, those of contrast are entirely absent. Jesus, the son of Sirach, for example, in his prayer thanks God because He has hearkened to him and delivered him from peril ; our Lord, in His prayer, thanks the Father for revealing to babes what had been concealed from the wise and prudent.^ I have already spoken in an earlier lecture of the Abb6 Loisy and of his refusal to admit that our Lord spoke the words before us. But if this is the way to retain the Catholic faith, viz. by giving up some of the most decisive sayings of our Lord about Himself and His relation to the Father, it may be a short and easy,i but it is surely, none the less, a very precarious method. It must be remembered that not only does Dr. Harnack admit that our Lord spoke the words in question, but that they are regarded by many " scientific " critics as forming part of that collection of discourses which may have come to us from St. Matthew, and that more than one representative writer^ of the liberal school of theology in the Roman Church refuses to follow the Abb^ Loisy in the rejection of a passage of which Keim long ago affirmed that there is no more violent criticism than that which Strauss had introduced in his repudiation of a passage so strongly attested. ' See the excellent remarks of Lepin, ySsus Messie et Fits de Dieu, PP- 174-S (1904). ^ Cf. the valuable book of M. Lepin, yisus Messte et Fits de Dieu, 1904, with Appendix on Loisy's position, pp. 251-79. 296 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST On the other hand, how easy it is to believe that those words of our Lord upon which we have been dwelling were known to St. Paul, and that in his exposition of the true and the false wisdom, in his declaration as to God's method of revealing His deep things to men, in his reproof of pretentious learning and sophistry, he was reiterating a law of God's kingdom which he had learned from the teaching of Him whose mind in this same declaration he significantly claimed to possess (i Cor. ii. i6), a law which could not be broken, that the things hidden from the wise and prudent were in God's good pleasure revealed unto babes. And the words in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke which follow upon this law, which tell us of the reciprocal knowledge of the Father and the Son, are words, remember, which are unlike anything else in the Synoptic Gospels ; they remind us, as no other words in those Gospels remind us, of the Gospel of St. John. They have been justly called " an aerolite from the Johannean heaven," and they come to us in all reasonable probability from amongst the earliest materials which our Evangelists possessed. And yet we are still asked to believe that such words as these, so unique in their position, so profound in their teaching, are derived from some obscure Christian scribe. One thing is certain, that if such an unknown person could have invented such a saying, he would not have dared to place it where he has ; the aerolite which had come from the Johannean heaven would have found a place, not in the first or third Gospel, but in the fourth. But there is a further reason which has been urged for the likelihood that our Lord's sayings which we are con- sidering were known to St. Paul. We have seen how fully the Apostle was acquainted with the various traits of our Lord's character. Upon two of these he specially insists in writing to the Corinthian Church, when he beseeches his con- verts by the " meekness and gentleness of Christ " (2 Cor. x. i). EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 297 These virtues had no doubt been foretold of the Messianic King ; but St. Paul speaks of their realisation in Jesus as of something which he could assume as well known to his readers. Our Lord Himself had spoken of the meek as the inheritors of the earth ; He had entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as a King, but yet as one of the meek of the earth (Matt. xxi. 5), and He had referred to Himself as " meek and lowly in heart " in the same breath in which He had bidden men to come unto Him and rest (Matt. xi. 29). It is not surprising that a picture so gracious and so power- ful should make an impression upon St. Paul. He, too, was strong and could make his boast in the Lord ; but there were also times when he could best appeal to the meekness of Christ, and when he could use of himself, as he does twice in this Epistle (2 Cor. vii. 6, x. 1), the same word which our Lord had used in His own gracious invitation, " I am meek and lowly of heart." ^ Side by side with this picture, St. Paul, we may well believe, could place another, drawn also from the life and teaching of the historical Christ, and a most popular and recent Life of fesus in Germany rightly lays stress upon the two passages (2 Cor. x. i and i Cor. xiii.), and sees in the latter a psalm of ^ love, one of the most costly pearls of the New Testament, derived from the picture of the historical Christ.^ Many other parallels more or less close have been drawn between St. Paul's exhortations in these Corinthian Epistles and the teaching of the Gospels. But it is time to pass to those cases which enable us to see the distinction which the ' Dean Bernard in Expositor's Greek Test., 2 Cor. x. i ; Feine, u.s. p. 257 ; Sturm, u.s. p. 21 ; Weinel, Paulus, p. 245 ; P. W. Schmidt, Geschichte fesus, ii. 67. Heinrici thinks that the words in 2 Cor. x. i refer to Christ in His exaltation, but at the same time he fully admits that the picture of the exalted Christ cannot be separated from that of the historical Christ. ' Furrer, Leben Jesu Christi, p. 15. 298 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Apostle so clearly draws in writing to Corinth, a distinction so important for our subject, between decisions made on his own authority and those which he makes on the authority of Christ. St. Paul is dealing with the great moral and social question of marriage, a question so important and so likely to demand attention in a city like Corinth, with its mixed population, its varied nationalities, and its thousand incen- tives to profligate living. In I Cor. vii. lo the Apostle writes, " But unto the married I give charge ; yet not I, but the Lord " ; and he then proceeds to give a decision which is in exact accord with the stringent command of Christ, a command which in all probability represents the earliest tradition contained in St. Mark, " That the wife depart not from her husband, and that the husband leave not his wife." The word which the Apostle uses is a very remarkable one : " I give charge," i.e., I pass on the order — the potent word of the Lord.^ Whether he refers to the words, " Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her " (Mark x. ii), or, as is sometimes thought, to the words given us by the same Evangelist, as by St. Matthew, " What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder " (Mark x. 9 ; Matt. xix. 6), it is equally certain that he regards the marriage tie as indissoluble, and that he refers this view of the nature of marriages to a categorical command of the Lord. But in the verses which follow in this same chapter of i Corinthians, in which the question of mixed marriages is to be decided, marriages, that is, with regard to which no decision had been pronounced by Christ, because the state of things which they involved had not arisen in His earthly ministry, the Apostle's language is very different : " But to the rest say I, not the Lord " (verse 12). So again, later in this ^ See Evans, Speaker's Commentary, in loco. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 299 same chapter, when another social question arises as to the marriage of daughters living at home,^ the Apostle is again conscious that he has with regard to such cases " no command from the Lord ; but," he adds, " I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord," a judgment faithful and marked by a full consciousness of my responsibility, the judgment of one who has the Spirit of God (verse 40 ; cf. xiv. 37), but not of one who has a direct command from Christ. We have already had occasion to see that in i Cor. ix. 14 St. Paul refers to a command of the Lord in relation to another question which arose in the Church, viz. as to the maintenance of the Apostles by the Christian community. And here St. Paul is as certain as in regard to the question of marriage and the nature of the marriage tie that the historical Christ had spoken, " Even so did the Lord ordain that they which proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel " (i Cor. ix. 14). The word which he uses when he says that the Lord " ordained " is the same word which is used in the Gospel of St. Matthew (xi. i), of our Lord charging the Twelve ; and we have spoken in a previous lecture of the way in which St. Paul's defence of his Apostleship (i Cor. ix. 14) reminds us of the words of our Lord's charge to the Seventy, as given us in Luke x. 7. So strikingly, indeed, does St. Paul introduce his " com- mand of the Lord " with respect to marriage in contra- distinction to his own " opinion," that Heinrici (Peine, p. 68) considered that the Apostle had a collection of sayings of the Lord at his disposal. But if we are not inclined to go so far as this, yet at all events St. Paul's attitude shows how conscious he was of " the living voice of tradition," and of the weight attaching to the positive decisions of his Master. And as we look 1 This is the interpretation of the passage (i Cor. vii. 36 fE) recently endorsed by the authority of Von Dobschiitz, Das apostoUsche Zeitalter, P- 33 (1904)- 300 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST back upon the manner in which he was able to refer to the words of the Lord, which he had received in this tradition, as one question after another arose in the Church at Corinth, whether it was a matter relating to the order and revision of worship, or to the maintenance of the clergy, or to the moral life of the Christian home, it is difficult to believe that these occasions were exhaustive, or that the Apostle was not in possession of a further knowledge of his Master's life and teaching from which he could have drawn had occasion demanded. It is, at all events, not without interest in this connection to recall that this Epistle (i Corinthians) was written by St. Paul from Ephesus, and that it was the elders of that same Ephesian Church whom the Apostle reminded of some other words of the Lord when he wished to enforce the practical Christian duty of labouring for the help of the weak, " The words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said," (as if there was no doubt of their authenticity), " It is more blessed to give than to receive." Again we see how aptly the Apostle was able to recommend a practical duty to the Church by a direct reference to words of the Lord. We turn in conclusion to the great fact of the resur- rection, the evidence of which is so specially emphasised in this first Corinthian Epistle. Few things in modern criticism are more astonishing than the stress laid by such a writer as Dr. Schmiedel upon the special evidence which is contained in this Epistle.'^ He insists in the strongest terms upon the peculiar opportunities which St. Paul had for collecting his evidence, and he also insists that even if other portions of this i Corinthians could be shown not to be St. Paul's, yet the passage in i Cor. xv. 1-4 would still stand firm, as containing one of the earliest statements of Christian tradition. But if we ask why Dr. Schmiedel is so insistent, the answer is very disappointing. ' Encycl. Bibl., Art. " Resurrection," iv. 4057. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 301 In the first place, his object is to insist that St. Paul is giving us a full and exhaustive list of the appearances of the risen Lord. But there is no reason to suppose that St. Paul is doing anything of the kind. It is very easy to see a definite and fitting purpose in the selection which he makes. Let us confess, if you will, that the Apostle's object is apologetic, that he wishes to adduce evidence which would be calculated to impress the minds of the Corinthians.^ But, if so, we have the key to his selection. That selection is, so to speak, official. St. Peter and the Twelve ; James, the head of the Church at Jerusalem ; the Apostles in a body ; his own testimony in full agreement with that of the Twelve, the appeal to the Five Hundred, most of whom were still alive, who not only might be questioned, but who afforded, by the very fact of their existence, a proof (as O. Holtzmann reminds us) that St. Paul was not proclaiming an event far removed in point of time.^ In such a list there is nothing surprising in the fact that no reference is made to the testimony of the women. Various reasons are given for this. Sometimes it is urged that women were not admitted as witnesses in a Jewish court of law, or that as women were at a discount in that age their witness would not tell, ar^d that the Apostle feared that an appeal to such testimony would only produce an unfavourable impression. But let us bear in mind the official character of the Apostle's selection, and we shall see at once that he appeals to those by name who would claim special credit in the Church, and that it would be nothing to ' See Rose, Studies in the Gospels, pp. 270, 276 ; V. Bartlet, Apostolic ■^g^t P- 5- For a somewhat different metho d in the explanation of the appearances, see Milligan's Resurrection of our Lord, p. 155. ' Schmiedel, Encycl. Bibl., iv. 4057, rejects without any scruple Steck's attempt to see in the appearance to the five hundred brethren a modification of the original account of what happened at Pentecost. Dobschutz has recently followed Steck in a more positive manner ; but Schmiedel's reply to Steck seems equally unanswerable in the case of Dobschutz : " the two accounts are totally different.'' 302 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST the point to lay stress upon the testimony of women whose names, however valued elsewhere, would carry little or no weight in Corinth. Nor must it be forgotten that, according to the Gospel narrative, the disciples did not believe in the testimony of the women, but that, on the contrary, their testimony failed to convince them. In the same way we may account for the omission in St. Paul's list of our Lord's appearance to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, although it is im- possible, in passing, not to remark upon the striking un- designed coincidence which that incident supplies between St. Luke's Gospel and this Epistle to the Corinthians. St. Paul tells us of an appearance to St. Peter, and the only mention of this appearance in the Gospels is in the words which greeted the two disciples on their return from Emmaus : " The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon " (Luke xxiv. 34 ; i Cor. xv. 5). In a famous old book of the eighteenth century, Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, the advocate on behalf of the witnesses points out how the counsel on the other side had not only commented adversely upon the evidence of the women, but had called them " poor silly women, wherein there is an end of their evidence." " But," it is urged in reply, " suppose the women to be wit- nesses, suppose them to be improper ones, yet surely the evidence of the men is not the worse, because some women happened to see the same thing which they saw ; and if men only must be admitted, of them we have enough to establish the truth." In the next place, Dr. Schmiedel insists upon the value of St. Paul's testimony in i Cor. xv. because his great object is to show that, as the Apostle uses the same word for the appearance of our Lord to him on the way to Damascus as he uses for the Easter appearances to St. Peter, St. James, and others, that therefore all the appear- EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 303 ances are equally visionary. But as a matter of fact the word upon which Dr. Schmiedel lays such stress, the word oicjiOr], which St. Paul uses, is by no means to be limited to visionary appearances. On the contrary, according to its constant use in the New Testament, it is employed of persons and of things, not as if they were regarded as visionary appearances, but " as either seen or supposed to be seen in their reality." In one passage, indeed (Acts xvi. 9), the word is used of a vision ; but we know this because the word does not stand .alone, but another word denoting " a vision " is associated with it, so as to intimate to the reader that only a vision is there thought of^ It is quite true that St. Paul speaks once of the appear- ance of our Lord vouchsafed to him on the way to Damascus as a vision (Acts xxvi. 19) ; but here again it is noticeable that the word which the Apostle uses is by no means limited to appearances which would be described as visions ; e.£^. in Ecclesiasticus xliii. 2 it is used of the sun " when it ■ Dr. Milligan, The Resurrection of our Lord, p. 155 ; Dr. Plummer, St. Luke, p. 558 ; M. Goguel, L'A^dtre Paul et yesus-Christ, p. 82 (1904). Dr. H. A. Kennedy rightly remarks that " the process of super- physical activity in the existence of the exalted Christ must be on a different level from that which belongs to His followers, just because of His position as Kipios {St. PauVs Conception of the Last Things, p. 233). He also remarks that it is difficult to say how far we can be helped in representing to ourselves St. Paul's conceptions by the narratives of the appearances of Jesus to the disciples after His resurrection. . . . The descriptions given are remarkable for their sobriety and restraint. One is never conscious of any bizarre element in perusing them. Yet we find nothing parallel to them in the rest of the New Testament. They are confined to our Lord's post-resurrection existence. But they appear, to us, in not a few points, to adjust them selves with remarkable accuracy to St. Paul's idea of the trSfia •nvevfuiTiKov (ibid., pp. 232-3). These remarks maybe commended to the notice of Dr. P. W. Schmidt, and with him other critics of the same school, as he apparently thinks that he has only to quote 1 Cor. xv. 50 for a proof that St. Paul's con- ception of the spiritual body is in fiat contradiction with St. Luke's description (xxiv. 39) of our Lord's Body after His resurrection (see his recent Geschichte Jesu, ii. 406). 304 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST appeareth " ; it is used by the prophet Malachi of the messenger of the Lord : " Who shall abide when he ap- peareth ? " (Mai. iii. 2). No doubt the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke xxiv.) speak of the manner in which the women had claimed to have seen " a vision of angels," where the same word is used (Luke xxiv. 23), but it is quite evident that St. Luke's narrative describes the appearance of our Lord to the women as something more than a vision. St. Luke again describes the people as saying of Zacharias " that he had seen a vision (the same word) in the Temple " (Luke i. 22) ; but it is again quite evident that St. Luke's narrative describes the appearance of the angel to Zacharias as some- thing more than a vision. Moreover, it is always well to remember that St. Luke elsewhere clearly distinguishes between visions and realities. Of St. Peter, e.g.. Acts xii. 9, we read that he knew not, after his release from prison, " that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision." The words at least show us that St. Luke was able to distinguish between the record of an actual fact and a vision. Moreover, the word Si^Qy\ is not the only word which is used of our Lord's appearances after His resurrection. Another word, e.g., is used by St. Luke in Acts i. 3 (oTTTavojiAevos, " being seen "), which certainly cannot be taken in the limited sense which Schmiedel's theory would require. The word is only found in this one passage in the New Testament, but it is used twice in the Septuagint. In one place (i Kings viii. 8) it occurs in the description of the staves of the ark, the ends of which were seen from the holy place before the oracle ; so that the word cannot in this place denote anything but an actual appearance of the portion of the staves. In Tobit xii. 19 it is used of the angel Raphael, and here it is actually employed in distinction to a vision ; the angel assumes a human form, and travels as EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 305 the guide of Tobit ; only his eating and drinking were not so in reality : " ye did see a vision " (Tobit xii. 19). It would, therefore, seem that this word which St. , Luke uses again enables us to draw a contrast between an actual reality and a vision. But this incident, in the book of Tobit, strengthens the point to which attention was drawn in an earlier lecture, as it again helps to mark the contrast between the description of our Gospels as to our Lord's spiritual body and the description which the Jews give us of the appear- ances of angels. The angels, e.g., who visited Abraham are represented, as is the case with Raphael, as not really eating, but only making, a show of doing so. And yet we are perpetually told, as, e.g., by Dr. Percy Gardner {A Historic View of the N.T., p. 166), that the tales of our Lord's corporeal resurrection were the results of the experience of Christians, results moulded by the beliefs of the time as to the nature of spirit and its relations to a material body. But whatever these results were moulded by, they were certainly diametrically opposed, as we have already seen, to the current views of the time. And in opposition to Dr. Gardner's bold assertion, we may turn to the latest edition of his Leben Jesu by the veteran German theologian Dr. B. Weiss, vol. ii. 561, 4th edit., in which he points out that the resurrection of Jesus in a glorified body, as it is described in our Gospels, was absolutely strange to an age which only knew of a re-awakening of the dead to an earthly life, or of the continuous existence of the soul beyond the grave.^ ■ See, further, Lecture IX., and the references there given ; also Lecture XXIV. The present writer may refer to the Witness of the Epistles , p. 370 ff, for a further examination of the resurrection appearances as given in our Gospels and in I Cor. xv. The remarkable coincidence between the notice in i Cor. xv. 5 and Luke xxiv. 34 is of interest from this point of view. But it is very unlikely that if St. Peter played the part in the resurrection history which modern unbelief still assigns to him, as, e.g., in Schmiedel's Art. " Resurrection," Encycl. Bibl., iv. 4084, 20 306 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST But further ; if our Lord's appearances are to be regarded as merely visionary, then we are driven to believe that the accounts of the appearances which are given in our Gospels are fictitious ; they are so " materialistic " as to be unworthy of credit, and Schmiedel would dismiss them as " unhistorical embellishments." But where is the genius in the early Christian community who could have invented the episode of the two travellers and their journey to Emmaus, or the story in the last chapter of St. John's Gospel which tells us of our Lord's appearance to His disciples on the Lake of Galilee ? These conversa- tions between the divine Lord and His followers, these wondrous touches by which He manifested Himself to His own, these searchings of heart and revelations of character which stand out so clearly in the presence of Him who knew so well what was in man — can we suppose for a moment that they were the invention of a few unlettered peasants who had nothing whatever in their own current views of the life after death to guide them in drawing such a picture ? ^ Our Lord's appearances, then, as they are narrated in the that such a brief and incidental notice should be given of the appear- ance to the Apostle as that in Luke, I.e. Von Dobschiitz has recently made a bold attempt to identify the appearance to the Five Hundred (i Cor. xv. 6) with the coming down of the Holy Spirit upon the assembled Church on the Day of Pentecost. This identification is scarcely likely to gain much assent, especially when it is supported by maintaining that the exalted and glorified Christ is identified with the Spirit, i.e. an indwelling power (Rom. viii. 9 ; 2 Cor. iii. i6 ; cf. Ostern und Pfingsten, p. 34 [1903]). ' The Bishop of Exeter, in Critical Questions, p. 1 19, forcibly writes : "Do not the sayings of the risen Lord convince us that they come from none other than Himself ? Among all our Lord's words that live and bear living firuit among His followers for all time, such words as these take naturally, and of themselves, a foremost rank. Brethren, these are real words, spoken, if ever Christ spoke on earth, not words transferred from earlier reminiscences, nor invented by wit of man. I do not know how it may be with all of you, but to me the words of the risen Saviour carry conviction of peculiar force and cogency, bear on their face the true stamp and mark of their origin." EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 307 Gospels, demand something very different from a belief in the mere continuance of the spiritual life after death, as Harnack and his followers would apparently ask us to conclude. And that St. Paul wished to insist upon a very different aspect of these appearances, no less than the Evangelists, is plain from the stress which he lays upon the fact that Christ was buried, and that He rose again the third day. Here is the real and sufficient answer to the ridiculous objection that Paul does not mention the empty tomb. If he does not actually mention it, can we doubt that he presupposes it when he so positively states that our Lord was buried, and that He rose again the third day ? ^ He goes out of his way to introduce the words, " and that He was buried," to make it clear that the same Person who was laid in the grave rose from the grave.^ He does not even say that Christ " was buried according to the Scriptures," but he introduces the burial as a fact quite apart from any connection of it with Scriptural prophecy.^ > See Lecture XI., for the remarks of Dr. Blass. Dr. P. W. Schmidt, in his recent Geschichte Jesu, ii. 407, apparently thinks that the words "and that He was buried " simply emphasise the fact that our Lord died ; but St. Paul frequently speaks of our Lord dying and rising again without mentioning His burial, and he evidently does so here to show that the fact of His burial was specially a part of the early Christian tradition which he had received. No one has insisted upon the empty tomb more decisively than Von Dobschiitz, Ostern und Pfingsten, p. 15. ^ Professor J. V. Bartlet well points out that the explicit statement "and that He was buried" confirms the view often confidently challenged that the empty grave was an element in the original Apostolic witness, and not a later supplement {AfostoUc Age, P-4)- ' " The run of the sentences (' that He was raised on the third day . . . and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve') tends to support the view implied in our Gospels that the very first appearances were on the day of resurrection itself (.which, apart from some such manifestation, could hardly be dated at all), and, therefore, in Jerusalem not in Galilee, as some eminent critics assert" (J. V. Bartlet, u.s. p. 6). 308 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Nor can it be alleged with any fairness that because the Scriptures had foretold it the statement of the resurrec- tion on the third day was at once credited. Not only was there nothing in the Scriptures to explain the resurrection as it actually took place according to our accounts of it, but the passage in Hosea vi. 2, which is so often mentioned in this connection, is not quoted or even referred to in the New Testament or in the Fathers with any application to the resurrection of Jesus.^ But if our Lord rose again on the third day, then and then only, as we have already observed, can the institution be explained of the first day of the week as the special day of Christian worship. I have already referred to the significance of the notice in I Cor. xvi. 2 in its bearing upon this subject ; and I have also stated that modern criticism makes curious expedients to get rid of the force of the Apostle's language. Thus we are asked to believe that as the Church of Corinth consisted for the most part of poor people, for many of them the last or the first day of the week was pay- day ; the first day, therefore, was the day on which they could most easily lay by something.^ But the distinguished writer who makes this conjecture is constrained to remind us in a note that it will first have to be considered whether weekly payments of wages were usual, and also which day of the week was reckoned as the first in the civil life of Corinth. And not only so, but he further proceeds to com- ment upon what he calls the valuable indications in the " We "-sections of Acts, to which we have already referred : " Upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together (at Troas) to break bread " (Acts xx. 7) ; and we • Stanton, Jewish and the Christian Messiah,-^. 381 ; Rose, Stttdies in the Gospels, p. 271 ; Loofs, Die Auferstehungsberichte, p. 9. ' Deissmann, Art. " Lord's Day," Encycl. Bibl.^ iii. 2813. EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS 309 are told that as this passage is from the pen of an eye- witness, we are justified in regarding it as affording the first faint yet unmistakable trace of a setting apart of the first day of the week by Christians for purposes of public worship. There can be only one reason why the first day of the week was thus honoured : " Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." On the ascension of our Lord and its significance it may be well to dwell in the next lecture. But it may be added here that another event which is so closely associated with the resurrection and ascension in the hopes and beliefs of the early Christians, our Lord's return to judgment, is emphasised no less in i Corinthians than in the earliest of St. Paul's Epistles. It is often maintained that the Apostle's thoughts had undergone a change with regard to our Lord's return in the interval between i Thessalonians and the two Corinthian Epistles, and that we have no longer the imagery or the conceptions of his earlier writings. But at all events we have in i Corinthians the same thought as in i Thessalonians of " the day of the Lord " (i Cor. i. 8, V. 5 ; 2 Cor. i. 14) ; we have the same thought of the association of the saints in the judgment (i Cor. vi. 2) ; we have the same word used of Christ's " coming," viz. His " presence " (i Cor. xv. 23) ; we have the sound of the trumpet (i Cor. XV. 52), and the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. V. 10). And the overwhelming thought of Christ, as the one Judge before whom he and all men must appear, was ever present to the Apostle as the years rolled on. We note its presence and its influence in the Epistle to the Romans, as in these letters to Corinth ; it meets us in the Apostle's last words to Timothy, " I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom " (2 Tim. iv. i), as it had met us in his earliest letter to the Church at 310 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Thessalonica. The Apostle's perspective as to the near approach of the day of the Lord might change with time, but nothing could ever change his abiding conviction as to the certainty of that " appearing " or as to the tremendous issues which were involved in the coming and the presence of the Judge. LECTURE XV EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS THE Epistle to the Romans is of special interest in our inquiry, because in it we have the first Epistle (so far as we know), written by St Paul to a Church which he had not founded. If, therefore, we find him referring to facts in our Lord's life and to points in His teaching as generally known, it is evident that the Apostle is appealing to a widely accepted tradition, and not simply to his own individual information. In this connection we may note the remarkable expres- sions in which St. Paul seems to imply some common form of teaching which the Church in Rome had received. Thus he thanks God in vi. i6 that these Roman converts had become obedient to that form or pattern of teaching where- unto they were delivered, and with this passage we may connect not only 2 Tim. i. 11, but also the many passages in which reference is made to some received and accepted tradition. Allusion has already been made to some of these passages,^ but it is well to be reminded of their import and value. No doubt it may be urged that the Apostle is referring chiefly to moral teaching, and one of the most elaborate of German books on the Catechism and Creed of the early Church commences with drawing out the manner in which this passage in Romans may be connected with the catalogue ' See Lecture X. 3" 312 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST of sins which the Christian was to avoid.^ But the earliest Christian tradition must have consisted, as we have seen, of certain facts, and these facts may not unfairly be regarded as constituting part of the " form " of teaching. When we examine this Epistle to the Romans, we come across a con- siderable body of evidence calculated to show that St. Paul's acquaintance with the incidents and teaching of our Lord's life was by no means confined to a knowledge of His death and resurrection. Without laying stress upon such general notices as that our Lord was an Israelite according to the flesh (Rom. ix. 3, cf Gal. iii. 16), or, with Dr. Zahn, upon such prophetic utterances as Rom. xv. 12, "There shall be the root of Jesse, and He that ariseth to rule over the Gentiles," ^ it is to be observed that St. Paul speaks at the outset of our Lord's descent from David as a fact so well recognised that it required no proof or explanation from him. Reference has already been made to the importance attached by such a high authority as Dr. Dalman to this statement of St. Paul.' In this connection we may further remember that the same fact seems to have formed at a very early date a part of the missionary preaching of the Apostle, a part of the Creed of the Church, if we compare such statements as those in Acts xiii. 22, 32-7, and 2 Tim. ii. 8. Now it has been recently urged that St. Paul would not have accentuated this expression, or spoken of our Lord so emphatically as of the seed of David and of Israel " according to the flesh," if he had been acquainted with the fact of the supernatural birth. But this is by no means a con- vincing argument. In the first place we are not bound to suppose that St. Paul would have emphasised in a letter the peculiar ' Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit, p. i flf (1903), by A. Seeberg, * Einleitung, ii. 167. ' Cf. Lecture X., and also Neander, Life of Christ, E.T. p. 20. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 313 manner of our Lord's birth, and it was quite sufficient for the purpose which he had in hand to draw attention to our Lord's humanity and descent from the chosen race. The acceptance of the supernatural birth would in no way have interfered with a belief in those facts. St. Ignatius, e.g., again and again places side by side the two facts of our Lord's descent from David and His birth of a Virgin, and lays stress upon His humanity as Son of Mary.' It is indeed urged that Rom. i. 3 distinctly implies the birth of our Lord from a human father, since it is the lineage of Joseph,, and not Mary, which is referred to David. But not only is it maintained by many able writers that Mary as well as Joseph was of the house of David, but it would also seem that even if we admit that the descent from David is attested by the Evangelists only with reference to Joseph, yet the recognition by Joseph of the Child supernaturally born to Mary gave to that Child all the legal rights of a son. It is also noticeable that this particular phrase of St. Paul, " made of the seed of David," reminds us of the phrase in Gal. iv. 4. As a matter of fact, St. Paul does not say, " born of the seed of David," for which expression another verb might have been used, whilst he employs a verb which would denote transition from one state of being to another.^ Attention has been called in a previous Lecture (XII.) to the peculiar wording of the statement in Gal. iv. 4, and it does not seem an unfair inference that by this particular phraseology St. Paul may really be intimating the fact that he was quite aware that something attached to the birth of our Lord which demanded an unusual mode of expression. But without insisting or dwelling further upon this, there is another passage in this Epistle to the Romans which requires to be considered in this connection. ■ Cf., e.g.', E^h., xviii. 2, xx. i ; Trail., ix. i ; Rom., vii. 3. * See Sanday and Headlam, Romans, in loco. 314 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Although St. Paul never uses the expression " original sin," it is quite certain that he does regard every man as inheriting a taint from Adam's nature (Rom. v. 12 ; cf. I Cor. XV. 22), and that according to him all had sinned through that naturally engendered corruption. But over against the first Adam is set the second Adam, over against the one man who fell and involved all men in his fall is set the obedience of the one Man' who knew no sin, the Giver of grace and of newness of life. Surely there must have been something in that sinless nature which differentiated Him who bore it from every man who was naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam. What was it ? " And Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man ? " And the angel answered, and said unto her, " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee : wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called Holy, the Son of God " (Luke i. 34-S).^ These words occur, let us never forget, in the Pauline Gospel, the Gospel of St. Luke. No one can fail to see the significance of the fact that the fullest account of our Lord's birth is found in the Gospel of the intimate friend and companion of St. Paul. And if St. Luke was in Palestine, in Jerusalem, as there is every reason to suppose, during the years A.D. 57-8,^ can we suppose for a moment that he would fail to inquire carefully concerning the beginnings of the human life of Him who was born in Bethlehem, the Saviour, Christ the Lord ? It is sometimes urged (as, e.g., by B. Weiss and Wendt) that this sinlessness of Jesus was taken for granted by St. Paul, since he saw in Him the risen Saviour who took ' On the retention of these words the present writer may refer to Our Lord's Virgin Birth, pp. 26, 94, and to a valuable article in the Zeitschrift fUr die neutest. Wissensckafi, p. 91, Heft. i. (1905), by the Rev. G. H. Box. ' Cf. Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem ? p. 88. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 31 S away by His death the sin of the world.^ But before we pass on, it may be noted that St. Paul lays stress upon the perfect obedience of Jesus in this Roman Epistle (chapter v. 19), in contrast to the disobedience of the first Adam, and this seems to point to the fact that the Apostle had learnt at least something of the life of perfect sub- mission to His Father's will which our Lord had led. So, too, although the passage (Rom. viii. 3) undoubtedly refers to the death of Christ, " For what the law could not do, wherein it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," it is well to be again reminded that the whole context, with its ex- hortation to a walk of moral obedience, seems to connect the condeinnation of sin in the flesh not only with the death of the Cross, but also with the life of obedience which was perfected in that final offering.^ To our Lord's public life and ministry the Epistle to the Romans bears a striking testimony. We have already seen how emphatically it testifies to St. Paul's claim to miraculous powers (Rom. xv. 19), and to his statement as to the derivation of those powers directly from our Lord. The Apostle again testifies in this same Epistle to the fact that whilst Christ was the minister of circumcision (Rom. XV. 8), whilst His ministry was thus confined in its range to Israel, Christ was also " the end of the law to every one that believeth " (Rom. x. 4). And yet it is also true that faith does not make void the law ; it estab- lishes it (cf. Rom. iii. 31 and Matt. v. 17). In dwelling upon such statements as to our Lord's purpose in His ministry and activity, we have another remarkable utterance of the Apostle in this same Epistle : ' See, e.g., B. Weiss, Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, p. lo. ^ For this point cf. especially M. Goguel, UA^dtre Paul et yesus Christus, p. 74. 3i6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST " I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself; save that to him who accounteth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean (Rom. xiv. 14 ; cf Col. ii. 21). If we cannot find, with some able critics, a direct reference in these words to our Lord's own teaching, " Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man ; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man "(Matt. xv. 11; Mark vii. 15, 19), yet it cannot be denied that St. Paul's declaration exhibits both in spirit and in the letter a remarkable likeness to our Lord's words in the Gospels. And we see how the great principle for which St. Paul so zealously contended thus carries us back to a decision of the historical Christ. At all events, the Apostle " knows and is persuaded in the Lord Jesus," and he must at least have felt confidence that no saying of the historical Christ could be quoted against him.^ How closely the Apostle had caught the spirit of our Lord's teaching, even if he had not known the words of His discourses, we may plainly see from other instances. " The kingdom of God," e.g., in the Epistle to the Romans, " is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (xiv. 17). And we need not look further than the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount to see how closely righteousness, peace, and joy are associated together in the teaching of Jesus as to God's kingdom. Or if we compare this same verse in the Romans with another familiar utterance in the same Sermon, " But seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness " (Matt. vi. 33), we are again sensible of the similarity. In this same practical part of the Epistle we trace other reminiscences of the Sermon on the Mount, or at least a constant reiteration of its spirit. ' Titius, U.S. p. 14; Peine, u.s. p. 258. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 317 For example, when Paul bids his converts to " Bless them that persecute you, bless and curse not " (Rom. xii. 14), our thoughts carry us back to the familiar words, " Love your enemies, and pray for those that persecute you " (Matt. v. 44), and the whole context of the verse in Romans expresses the spirit of the same Sermon on the Mount. So again the repeated exhortations in this same practical part of the Epistle, e.g. Rom. xiv. 4, 10, 13, against judging our brethren, or setting at nought our brethren, remind us of the familiar and emphatic command, " Judge not, that ye be not judged, and condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned " (Matt. vii. i ; Luke vi. 37). In close juxtaposition to the bidding not to judge one another any more, St. Paul exhorts that no man put a stumbling-block in his brother's way or an occasion of falling (Rom. xiv. 13, 21) ; and our thoughts at once recur to Matt, xviii. 6-^ : " Whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on Me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling ! for it must needs be that the occasions come ; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh ! " We recall, in passing, how the same spirit, the same teaching, is evident in the two Corinthian Epistles. It is heard in the vehement assertion, " Wherefore if meat make my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, lest I make my brother to stumble " (i Cor. viii. 13) ; it is heard in the indignant and yet pathetic appeal, " Who is weak, and I am not weak ? who is made to stumble, and I burn not ? " (2 Cor. xi. 29). As, in fact, we read St. Paul's plea for considerate treatment of our brethren throughout this practical part of his Epistle to the Romans, we cease to feel surprised that his teaching should be summed up in words which again carry us back to our Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, 3i8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST " Owe no man anything, but to love one another " (Rom. xii. 8 ; cf. Gal. v. 14 ; cf. also Mark xii. 28). But whilst the Apostle thus reminds his converts of their social duties in words which are so manifestly in agreement with the mind of the historical Christ, he is not forgetful of duties imperative upon them as members of a state, as the citizens of an empire : " Render to all their dues," " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God," " Ye must needs be in subjection not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience' sake " (Rom. xiii. i, S, 7)} Such exhortations, even if they do not presuppose, as many able critics have maintained, St. Paul's acquaintance with our Lord's own decision, " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's " (Matt. xxii. 21), are at least in striking harmony and accord- ance with it. And this accordance is admitted by critics who differ widely in many respects. To another familiar part of the Sermon on the Mount St. Paul makes no direct reference ; but just as in Gal. iv. 6, so in Rom. viii. 15, we may again have an echo of the utterance with which our Lord had taught His disciples to draw nigh unto God, Abba, Father : " For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear ; but ye received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father." And just as in i Corinthians we found passages which reminded us of our Lord's words of commission to the Twelve (cf ix. 14), so it is quite possible to note, in the Epistle to the Romans, passages which remind us of the words and the spirit of Christ in His exhortations to His chosen friends. "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves," we read in our Lord's charge to the Twelve ; and in '■ These points are admirably emphasised by Titius, u.s. p. 13 ; and amongst the most recent critics it may be noted that P. W. Schmidt, Geschichte Jesu, ii. 67-8, draws attention to them. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 319 his final exhortation to the Roman brethren St. Paul writes, " I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple unto that which is evil," the word for " simple " occurring in the New Testament only in St. Paul's writings (Phil. ii. 15) and in the passage St. Matt. x. 16. But here, in spite of the agreement of several writers in the probability of a reference in the Epistle to the Gospels, there is no need to strain the point too far. So, again, in the exhortation upon which such stress is laid in Rom. xii. 18 and xiv. 19 as to peaceful living and peaceful dealing, we may find a parallel in the words of Jesus, " Be at peace with one another " (Mark ix. 50). Such a charge might, no doubt, seem to be a very general one and to be couched in very general language. Three times, it is true, the same charge occurs in St. Paul's Epistles — once when he is writing to the Thessalonians, once to the Corinthians, and now again to the Romans ; but still the fact remains that the charge, thus familiar in St. Paul, is found only once elsewhere in the New Testament and that in our Lord's words to His disciples just quoted from St. Mark. In our Lord's final discourse to His Apostles on the Mount of Olives, one remarkable expression, " And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled " (Luke xxi. 24), reminds us of St. Paul's language in this Epistle to the Romans, where he speaks of a hardening in part which had befallen Israel, " Until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in " (xi. 25). It will be noticed that the likeness of phraseology occurs in the Gospel of St. Paul's friend and companion. It is, of course, quite possible that St. Luke's phrase is simply his equivalent for St. Matthew's and St. Mark's statements in the same discourse, that the Gospel must first be preached among all the nations before the end comes (Matt. xxiv. 14 ; Mark xiii. 10) ; but we are by no means shut up to this interpretation of his words. 320 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST St. Paul, in the part of the Epistle with which we are now concerned, is filled with a great hope for the future of his people. The hardening is only partial ; it would have its limit when all nations of the world enter into the kingdom, when, in other words, the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. This interpretation of the words would at least be in harmony with the universalism which is so characteristic of St. Luke's Gospel ; and if it be urged that St. Paul's teaching, on this interpretation, differs from that of Jesus, since our Lord speaks of the rejection of Israel, it must be remembered that there are passages in which He also speaks of the return of Israel to their Messiah. Thus in St. Matthew and St. Mark our Lord says to the rebellious city, as He passed from the Temple for the last time before His passion, " Ye shall not see Me until ye shall say. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord " (Matt, xxiii. 39 ; Luke xiii. 35).' But without dwelling longer upon this significant likeness in phraseology between St. Luke and St. Paul, in connection with our Lord's final utterances, let us ask if there are any indications that the Passion and its details were known to St. Paul and to the Roman Christians he was addressing. It is quite true that strong objections have been raised against citing Rom. xv. 3, " For Christ also pleased not Himself; but, as it is written. The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me," as any definite reference by St. Paul to the Passion history ; and it is urged that the Apostle simply makes a general reference to an Old Testament passage. But we surely ought to consider, first, that we have already had proof that St. Paul was closely acquainted with the incidents of the Passion (i Cor. v. 7) and as he presupposes an acquaintance with such facts on the part of his converts in Corinth, so here, in quoting an Old Testament prophecy to the , Roman Christians, he presupposes an * See the remarks of Feine in this connection, u.s. p. 262. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 321 acquaintance on the part of readers whom he had never seen, with a marked feature in our Lord's sufferings. But if he had had no ground for presupposing this knowledge, if he had not been aware that his readers would at once recognise its fulfilment, he would scarcely have quoted with such emphasis an Old Testament prophecy. Other Old Testament passages might have enforced the general lesson of our Lord's unselfishness, as, e.g., Ps. xl. 8, " Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." But the passage before us contains what certainly looks like a special reference to the received accounts of the bitter mocking and reviling in those last sad hours of our Lord's earthly life. But if we are at all justified in maintaining that St. Paul takes for granted in this Epistle and in i Corinthians the details connected with the death of our Lord, we can have no doubt whatever as to his acquaintance with the fact of our Lord's burial, " We were buried with Him through baptism into death " (Rom. vi. 4). It is, of course, easy to say that burial would always be regarded as the natural sequence of death. But, as we pointed out in the last lecture, the stress thus laid upon our Lord's burial in relation to Christian baptism is significant when we remember that St. Paul had already referred to the same fact as part of the Christian tradition which he had himself received (i Cor. XV. 3). The burial of our Lord was a fact so un- doubted, and the symbolism of Christian baptism was so bound up with it, that the Apostle asks how it was possible that any well-instructed Christian could be unaware either of the fact or of its import. " Or, are ye ignorant ? " he asks in surprise (Rom. vi. 3). There may not be valid grounds for referring the Apostle's words to an Agraphon of our Lord, or even for deriving them from such passages as Mark x. 38, Matt. xx. 22 ; but it may at least be inferred that St. Paul was alluding to some generally received Christian teaching. Here, again, as Peine reminds 21 322 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST us, we see the fundamental place which baptism held in the teaching of the Church. And St. Paul must have been sure of this, or he would not have so confidently appealed to the knowledge of his readers with regard to the signifi- cance of this sacrament. If the Christ who had lain in His grave was also the risen Christ, then we can see how the Apostle could express himself as he does. Closely united with the burial is the resurrection ; but this resurrection is not regarded as only spiritual : Jesus was raised from the dead. St. Paul does not simply say that Jesus lives, but that He was raised by the glory of the Father. I have already spoken at some length of the nature of this resurrection of our Lord (see Lecture IX. and XIV.), and there is no need to dwell upon it further at present except to notice that St. Paul's phrase, " raised from the dead," or some precisely similar expression, is found in all the accepted Epistles of the Apostle, and that it also finds a significant place in his earliest, no less than in his latest. Epistle. An attempt has been very recently made to distinguish between the fact of the resurrection and the manner of our Lord's appearances afterwards to His disciples. The former, it is said, is asserted in the Creeds ; the latter is not described in them. But, in the first place, the Creeds are a summary of facts, not a description of them ; and, secondly, the Gospels de- I scribe fully enough the manner of our Lord's appearances, and that description comes to us most fully from the Gospel of St. Paul's intimate friend. Moreover, it is, as we have seen, a description which could not have been based upon any current Jewish expectations with regard to the resurrection. But it is important to notice that in this Epistle to the Romans the ascension is most distinctly implied, even if it is not directly asserted or described : " Who shall lay any- EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 323 thing to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth ; who is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ that died ; yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us " (viii. 34). We cannot fail to see how much is contained and implied in the statements of this one verse. But Dr. Harnack must needs find some other implication in the Apostle's language, and he lays stress upon the fact that resurrection and sitting at the right hand are here regarded as one act, without any mention of ascension. So, too, Schmiedel regards this passage as placing the sitting at the right hand of God immediately after the resurrection. But the answer is that the ascension is implied in the session, and that the verb used in the phrase " raised from the dead " must be interpreted in a way altogether contrary to its New Testament usage, if we take it to mean any exaltation beyond the mere recall from death.^ There is much in the Apostle's language, in his earliest as in his latest Epistles, which seems to presuppose our Lord's ascension, and we shall have occasion to dwell upon it further in our con- sideration of the Epistle to the Ephesians. For the present it is sufficient to say that, as we find it difficult to believe that St. Paul was unacquainted with the fact of our Lord's Virgin birth, in face of the account given in St. Luke's Gospel, so we find it difficult to believe that he was un- acquainted with the fact of our Lord's ascension, in face of the account given us in the opening verses of the Acts of the Apostles. The author of Supernatural Religion, in his eagerness to find some story which may present a parallel to the belief in 1 Dr. Swete, The Afostles' Creed, pp. 67-8. In his Einleitung, ii. 168, Dr. Zahn gives a useful series of passages which refer to our Lord's exaltation to heaven and to the right hand of God, e.g. Rom. viii. 34; Eph. i. 20; Col. iii. i; Phil. ii. 9 ; i Tim. iii. 16, amongst St. Paul's Epistles. The remarks of M. Goguel in this connection are disappointing, u.s, p. 84 ; see also Lecture XXIV. 324 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST our Lord's ascension, refers again, in his popular edition, to the disappearance of Moses, as it is described for us by Josephus. Of course, it is presupposed that the writer of the Acts was acquainted with and dependent upon Josephus. It must suffice to say, in passing, that this assumption fails to commend itself to many distinguished critics of the first rank ; that it is highly improbable that St. Luke would, so to speak, have gone to school to Josephus, and that, on the other hand, it is highly probable that there would be a certain similarity between two writers in dealing with the same historical period and the same historical events. In the account which Josephus gives of the end of Moses, he states that, although Moses wrote in the holy books that he died, lest they should say that he went to God, this was not really his end. As he went to the place where he was to vanish out of their sight, all followed weeping. After reaching the Mount Abarim, he dismissed the elders, and as he was about to embrace Eleazar, the high-priest, and Joshua, a cloud suddenly stood over him, and he disappeared in a certain valley (Jos., Ant., iv. 8, 48). Now it is no doubt true enough that in the Acts Moses is a favourite representative of the Messiah ; but if we grant this much to the author of Supernatural Religion, we cannot grant him a parallel of any weight whatever to the ascen- sion in the instance before us. Moses is represented by Josephus as disappearing without dying the natural death of all men, whilst our Lord's 4£ath is emphasised by every New Testament writer as an undoubted and indisputable fact. The difference is crucial. In the one case we have a vague and shadowy disappearance ; in the other, a shameful death, and its sequel, a glorious resurrection and ascension. It will be noted that the other alleged parallels of Enoch and Elijah both fail, for the same crucial reason.^ 1 On Pfleiderer's recent attempts {Early Christian Conception of Christ, p. 107) at comparisons between Greek and pagan myths and EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 325 But Dr. Schmiedel has also a comparatively short and easy method for dismissing the evidence for the ascension. He not only speaks of the silence of the New Testament writers as to the event, which is making a very large and quite an unjust assertion ; but when he comes face to face with the account given in Acts i., he tells us that this account, which he is obliged to get rid of, is a piece of information which did not become known to the compiler of Acts until late in life.^ In the first place, however, there is nothing strange in the fact that St. Luke, in the close of his Gospel, should have made a brief reference to our Lord's parting from His disciples, and that he should have given a fuller and more circum- stantial account of that same event in his second and later book. But it does not follow that the longer or the later account should be dismissed as untrustworthy and fictitious. Pro- fessor Zockler, in his Art. " Jesus Christus," Herzog's Realen- cyclopadie, gives us more than one instance of the way in which a writer in the ancient world would give a twofold account of the same event, one brief, the other longer and more circumstantial. And he instances the manner in which Josephus closes one book of his Antiquities, viz. Book xvii., with a brief reference to the sending of Quirinius to Syria and Palestine, and then opens the succeeding book (xviii.) with a more detailed account of the same incident. Moreover, there is a remarkable consensus of opinion (and some very advanced critics might be named as s^apport- ing it — Schmiedel himself, amongst others) that the early addresses of St. Peter in the Acts must have been derived from some primitive Christian document. But if St. Luke's information was so good for these addresses, why should it not have been equally good for such an event as the ascension ? our Lord's ascension, see the remarks of Westcott, Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 116, and The Gospel of Life,^^. 156, 252 ; The Inter- preter, May, 1905 ; and Witness of the Epistles, p. 397 ff. • Encycl. Bibl., iv. 4059, Art. " Resurrection." 326 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST At least the narrative in the Acts does not look like an invention : " Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? " (Acts i. 6). Such a question reveals not only the earthly and the national character of the hopes which the Twelve still entertained, but we may well say that it was of too primitive a character to suppose it to be the invention of a later generation/ In addition to all this, we must remember that it is quite possible, as Dr. Chase has urged, that St. Luke may have met St. Peter in Rome — an im- portant point, he adds, for the criticism of the third Gospel and the Acts. I will only add that two other arguments to which Dr. Schmiedel attaches great importance were anticipated and refuted some ten years ago (1894) in Dr. Swete's excellent book on The Apostle£ Creed. Let us refer to one of them to-day. It is a good instance of the way in which people* who attack the Christian faith airily repeat the same objection, as if they had made some great discovery. Dr. Schmiedel declares that the fact of the ascension ought, if known, to have been mentioned by St. Paul in I Cor. XV. 4-8, where he lays stress upon two facts of the common Christian tradition, the death and the resurrection of our Lord. But one would have thought that the veriest tyro in New Testament criticism Would have asked. What was St. Paul's purpose in writing i Cor. xv. ? To establish the truth of the resurrection ; and to do this there was obviously no occasion to refer tt) the fact of the ascension. Of the ascension we may say, as of the resurrection, that there was no Jewish expectation to create the story which is given us by St. Luke, and that the alleged parallels to the event signally fail. If, however, we are content to believe that Jesus lives, not that Jesus was raised, there is, of course, no need and no place for the incident of the ascension. How then did the ' See McGiffert's remarks, History of the Apostolic Age, pp. 41, 64, 82. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 327 story of that event, so un-Jewish, so unintelligible, except as a direct sequel to the resurrection, find a place in the records of the New Testament? As the thought of the Lord's ascension is closely con- nected in St. Luke's account with the thought of the Lord's return, so we find that St. Paul never forgets that the ascended and glorified Christ is to return to be our Judge. And if, in deference to textual criticism, we must now read the verse (Rom. xiv. 10), " For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God" (not Christ), yet we see in this same Epistle how closely St. Paul associates our Lord with the Father in office and judgeship, how none of us can escape responsibility to Christ both in the present and in the future, for in the previous verse of this same chapter He is de- scribed as Lord both of dead and living. So in the close of his Epistle, as in the beginning, St. Paul would keep before men's minds the day when God would judge the secrets of all hearts by Jesus Christ (Rom. ii. 16). LECTURE XVI EPISTLES OF ST. PAULS FIRST AND SECOND IMPRISONMENTS THE Epistles of St. Paul's two captivities, which are so marked by a high Christology, are also characterised by the most practical exhortations and advice. These practical exhortations, even if they present few verbal parallels to our Lord's teaching, are in a very remarkable degree permeated by its spirit. There are, moreover, passages which certainly seem to indicate that the example of Christ must have been presented by St. Paul to his converts, as, e.g., when he writes to the Colossians, " As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him " (ii. 6). Or, if we turn to another remarkable passage (Eph. iv. 21), " But ye did not so learn Christ, if so be that ye heard Him, and were taught in Him, even as truth is in Jesus," we may note that this is the only passage in the Epistle where we have the name " Jesus " by itself, and it certainly looks as if the Apostle was here referring to the historical Jesus, in whom his converts had learnt to see the way, the life, and the truth.'' Such a reference to the historical Jesus is full of significance, for it shows us plainly that St. Paul, even in the Epistle which treats most richly of the Christ as the hope of all mankind, in whom the Gentile and the Jew were made one, never forgets that this same Christ, as ' Dean of Westminster, E^hesians, p. 107. 328 LATER EPISTLES 329 seen in Jesus, is the perfect moral character, the embodiment of righteousness and truth. And as the example of Christ and His indwelling presence were to restore and renew men's moral character, so, too, the spirit of His teaching was to be their constant and their practical guide. It may perhaps be going too far to say that the agreement of Eph. iv. 32 — v. 2 with Luke vi. 32-3, 35-6, in the Sermon on the Plain, is beyond dispute. At the same time, as St. Paul bids his converts to be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, as he bids them to be imitators of God, as beloved children, we remember how our Lord had said that His followers were " to be sons of the Most High," " for He is kind " (the same word as is used by St. Paul) ^ " towards the unthankful and the evil," that they were, in other words, to be imitators of God. " Be ye merciful," He says, " as your Father is merciful." The same word to express the kindness of God is no doubt often used of the divine character in the LXX. ; but it is noticeable that St. Paul alone of the New Testa- ment writers uses the cognate noun no less than eight or nine times of the goodness and the kindness of God, or of the fruit of the Spirit in the Christian character. No command of Christ is better known to us than the familiar " Take no thought for the morrow " ; but it is interesting to note that the Revisers, in St. Matthew's Gospel, translate " Be not anxious for the morrow," and that the same verb occurs, and is similarly translated, in St. Paul's command to the Philippians, " In nothing be anxious " (Phil, iv. 6). This thought of anxious care is frequently present to St. Paul, and the verb which expresses it is found in his writings alone in the New Testament (outside the Gospels), and in them no less than seven times. One remarkable instance of its use may be seen not only in this Philippian Epistle, but in I Corinthians, a use which has suggested to many of the , ' Sturm, U.S. p. 12. 330 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST older and also of the more recent critics that the Apostle may have had in mind the story which we owe to his friend and companion, St. Luke, the story of Martha and Mary.^ Not only does the Apostle use this same word of reproof, the word denoting anxious care, when he bids his converts to be free from cares, " For the married is careful for the things of the world '' (cf i Cor. vii. 32 and St. Luke x. 41), but it is noticeable that he also uses another word in the same context which is full of significance. St. Luke had spoken of Martha as " cumbered," or, rather, " distracted " (R.V. marg.), about much serving (x. 40) ; and St. Paul closes his exhortation with the words, " That ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction " (i Cor. vii. 35). The word which the Apostle uses is found nowhere else in the New Testament, and it is closely allied to the word " distracted," which is used only by St. Luke.^ Surely it is no wonder that the command to be anxious in nothing should go home to the hearts of men like the early Christians, who whilst they were so much in the world were bidden not to be of it, and we find an interesting instance of this in the fact that among the early Christian names we have Amerimnos, meaning " one without anxious care " (cf i Pet. v. 5). ' In this same Philippian Epistle it is possible that we have a reminiscence of some other familiar words of our Lord which again carry us back to the Sermon on the Mount. The Apostle describes his converts as those who are seen as lights in the world (Phil. ii. 15), and we recall the description given by our Lord Himself of His followers, " Ye are the light of the world " (Matt. v. 14). It is, of course, quite true that very similar imagery is found in another of these Captivity Epistles (Eph. v. 8), as also in ' See, e.g., Findlay, Exposiior's Greek Testament, ii. 836, and, amongst older commentators, see Stanley, Corinthians, in loco. * The verb and the cognate adjective are both found in the LXX. ; but in the New Testament the verb and the adverb occur only in St. Luke and St. Paul. LATER EPISTLES 331 I Thess. V. 5. But there again the precise words, " children of light," " sons of light," recall our Lord's words not only in St. Luke xvi. 8, but in St. John xiii. 36. In St. Paul's solemn and final declaration to Timothy, " The Lord knoweth them that are His," and, " Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord " (not Christ, as in A.V.) " depart from unrighteousness " (2 Tim. ii. 19), we have no doubt words which may be referred to a reminiscence of Old Testament passages, as, e.g., Numb. xvi. 5, Isa. xxvi. 13. But it is worth noting that one of the latest writers on the Pastoral Epistles regards these words of St. Paul as mediated through the sayings of Christ in Matt. vii. 23-4, Luke xiii. 25-7, a view which is supported by a careful consideration of the R.V. " Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord ! " "I know not whence ye are : depart from Me, all ye that work unrighteousness." The same writer makes the interesting and important observation that in i Timothy parallels may be found with the Gospels, and more especially with St. Luke, and that in the same manner reminiscences of our Lord's teaching occur in the Epistle to Titus.^ I have spoken in an earlier lecture of the possible con- nection between the Lord's Prayer and the Epistle to the Colossians. But it is also noteworthy that in one of the Epistles of the second captivity we find words which have been often regarded as a reference to the same divine Prayer. St. Paul writes to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 18), " The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto His heavenly kingdom : to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen." Here Dr. Chase, in his valuable treatise, finds a reference to two clauses of the Lord's Prayer, and so to the use of that Prayer in the early Church.^ It is quite 1 Cf. Dr. Lock in Hastings' B.D., iv. T]o, 783. 2 The Lord's Prayer in the Early Church, p. 24. Cf. also the remarks of Peine, u.s. p. 253, and Lock in Hastings' B.D., iv. 776. 332 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST true that in St. Paul's immediately preceding words he says, " And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion " ; and this language, it may be granted, suggests that we have here an echo of the Old Testament language, " Save me from the lion's mouth " (Ps. xxii. 22), the phrase being evidently employed as a proverbial expression for extreme danger. So, too, it may be granted that in the doxology Just quoted we may have a reference to another verse of Ps. xxii., viz. verse 29. But even so, this does not interfere with the remarkable juxtaposition in the Apostle's language of the conceptions which are also united in the Lord's Prayer, that of deliverance from evil, and that of the heavenly kingdom. At all events it is noticeable that the same words of this same 22nd Psalm, which were evidently present to the mind of our Lord as He hung in suffering upon the Cross, were doubtless present also to the mind of His faithful follower as he lay bound in his prison at Rome. The Pastoral Epistles, indeed, are full of words of strength and encouragement for all in bonds or distress, words which in many instances carry us back to the sayings of our Gospels. Thus, in this same Second Epistle to Timothy, the " faithful saying" (ii. 11-13) may come to us as the fragment of an early Christian hymn, and a hymn based upon such words as those of our Lord in Matt. x. 33, Luke xii. 9. If we pass to a further consideration of our Lord's instructions to His disciples, we are reminded more than once of His language by the Epistles before us. In Phil. ii. 15, e.g., we read "that ye may be blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world." Not only do we find here, as we have already noted, the word " harmless," which is used by St. Paul once elsewhere (Rom. xvi. 19), and nowhere else in the New Testament except in our Lord's charge to the Twelve (Matt. x. 16) ; but if we admit that the phrase " a LATER EPISTLES 333 perverse generation" is here derived not from our Lord's use of the words (Matt. xvii. 17, Luke ix. 41), but from Deut. XXX. 4-S, yet we have still to bear in mind that there is a possible reference, or, at least, a remarkable likeness in the latter part of this verse of Philippians to our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount, " Ye are the light of the world." In this connection we may. consider the remarkable passage (i Tim. v. 18), "For the Scripture saith. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. And the labourer is worthy of his hire." This verse has been urged as an argument against the authenticity of this Epistle, on the ground that St. Paul is quoting from St. Luke's Gospel. But it is a perfectly reasonable explanation that the words " the Scripture saith " refer only to the first clause from Deut. XXV. 4, and that the latter part of the verse is a popular saying, which St. Paul may certainly have known as used by our Lord (cf i Cor. ix. 14), but which he does not cite as from a written Gospel.^ But before we pass to a further inquiry as to the scope and extent of our Lord's teaching, it may be well to remind ourselves that these Epistles are not by any means devoid of references to the circumstances of our Lord's life. If we are not told so plainly as in Gal. iv. 4 that Jesus was " born under the law," yet, as Zahn points out, the fact that Jesus was placed under the law is presupposed in Col. ii. 14 and Eph. ii. 15.^ Again, it is noticeable that St. Paul speaks (Col. ii. 11) of the circumcision of Christ (cf. Gal. iv. 4 ; Rom. xv. 8) ; and although the reference in Colossians is to Christian baptism, yet it seems to take for granted the fact that our Lord was also in this ordinance of circumcision obedient to the law. 1 Zahn, Einleitung, i. 478 ; Peine, u.s. p. 289 ; Plummer, St. Luke, p. 274- 3 Einleitung, ii. 167. 334 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST In 2 Tim. ii. 8 we have an emphatic reference to our Lord's birth of the seed of David, to which Zahn again draws attention, and we have already spoken in earlier lectures of the significance of the way in which St. Paul takes for granted this Davidic descent of the Saviour. -And as in the first recorded missionary address of St. Paul (Acts xiii. 23), so here in his latest recorded utterance, we have a plain and definite reference to the same feature in our Lord's descent. And this feature, must have been undeniable, as there is the best reason for supposing that St. Paul had accurate know- ledge of the carefully kept genealogies of the royal house of David. In this connection it is of interest to note that Gamaliel was himself of David's house and lineage. If any doubt had been thrown upon the Davidic descent of Jesus, Gamaliel would have been acquainted with it, and his disciple Saul would not have accepted as the Messiah one whose claims to the royal lineage were invalid.^ If we carry on our thoughts to the close of our Lord's earthly career, we remember that in i Tim. vi. 13 reference is made to the good confession which Christ Jesus witnessed before Pontius Pilate, a reference all the more notable because it seems (as Zahn, P. Ewald, and others have pointed out) to be con- nected with St. John's account of the events of our Lord's trial. And here we may remark, in passing, although without laying too much stress upon it, that Wendt does not hesitate to find a reference to the Lord's Supper in the constant allusions of St. Paul to the efficacy of our Lord's blood- shedding. In this connection we may call to mind that in the Colossian Epistle we have two striking references to the ' See the valuable remarks of Dr. Gifford in his Commentary (Rom. i. 3). Gamaliel, as he points out, was himself of the house and lineage of David, being grandson of the great Hillel, and he quotes Taanith, chap. iv. 2. " Rabbi Levi saith : They found a roll of genealogies at Jerusalem in which it was written Hillel from David." LATER EPISTLES 335 mode of our Lord's death, to the nails of the Cross and to the blood of the Cross (i. 20, ii. 14; cf Eph. ii. 13, 16).^ Only once, argues Dr. B. Weiss, does St. Paul refer to any definite incident of the Passion, and he cites as this one incident i Tim. vi. 13, and remarks that Paul, in reminding Timothy of his confession at Christian baptism, recalls the occasion of the good confession of Jesus before His Roman judge.^ But if St. Paul could thus refer for a practical and hortatory lesson to a definite scene of the Passion, as to something well and widely known, may we not fairly suppose that he could have referred to other details also, if any immediate occasion had required ? Moreover, in this same First Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul speaks not only of the historical circumstances, but also of the doctrinal import of our Lord's death. Thus (i Tim. ii. 6) we read of Christ Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all. The word " ransom " in this passage naturally carries us back to our Lord's own sayings in Matt. xx. 28, Mark x. 45, and we do well to remember that the saying occurs in the two Evangelists precisely in the same form, and that it is quite arbitrary to maintain that our Lord never spoke it.' Feine certainly seems quite right in believing that the natural collocation of the words is " a ransom for many," and that this collocation is one which we undoubtedly derive from a study of the Greek text. It is also noticeable that both in St. Matthew and in St. Mark the Lord's declaration that His life would be a ransom follows closely upon the plain fore- telling of His sufferings and death. Feine rightly refuses to follow Schmiedel in the supposi- 1 Wendt, U.S. p. 54 ; Nosgen, u.s. p. 55. 2 Das Evangelium unddie Evangelien, p. 5. ^ The word in i Tim. ii. 6 is aniKm-pov. Dr. Swete points out in Mark X. 45 that this word is a variant for XvTpaxns in Ps. xlviii. (xlix.) 2. In the Gospels we have Xirpov avri iroW&v, and, as Dr. Swete remarks, the avTi belongs to the imagery of the Xirpov (cf. viii. 37, di/roXXay/ia rqj 336 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST tion that some Aramaic word may have been used in the Gospels which meant deliverance in quite a general sense without any reference to an expiatory sacrifice.^ But the passage in St. Matthew and St. Mark not only connects itself with our Lord's words at the Last Supper (Matt, xxvi. 28, Mark xiv. 24), but also with the primitive tradition which St. Paul had received, and with the definite statement that Christ died for our sins(i Cor. xv. 3). We have spoken in a previous lecture of the early date which must be assigned to this tradition ; and it seems an effort of despair to get rid of the plain meaning of St. Paul's words when it is actually urged that we need not interpret them in a literal sense.^ But we must not forget that the same verse in 2 Tim. ii. 8, which speaks of the incarnation, speaks also of the resurrection, and there is a tone of assurance and positiveness about the Apostle's statements which is in itself strengthening and re- freshing : " Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my Gospel." It is indeed very possible that we have here, as in 2 Tim. i. 13, the traces of an early creed in use in the Church. And so, too, in i Tim. iii. 16 we have not only what is probably the fragment of a Christian hymn, as we have again e.g., in Eph. v. 14, but also what is practically a creed, " and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness ; He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen ^ Feine, u.s. p. 116. ' Wrede, Paulus, p. 112 (1905). Dr. Allan Menzies, in a long and elaborate note on Mark x. 45, points out that Jewish thought is acquainted with the idea that by Sufferings and by the death of saints guilt maybe removed, and he maintains that although we read (Mark viii. 37) that no one could give any equivalent for his soul (ajraXXa'yfta), yet the death of the Messiah might furnish such an equivalent. But whatever criticisms may be passed upon this, we cannot follow him when he adds that this idea is perhaps too developed to be ascribed to Jesus Himself, though it probably entered into Pauline doctrine {The Earliest Gos^dl, p. 201). LATER EPISTLES 337 of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory." The words are no doubt open to more explanations than one, but they at least speak of our Lord as pre-existent and as afterwards manifested in His earthly life. In the words " justified in the Spirit " we may see a reference to the ratification set upon our Lord's claims by His resurrection from the dead. And if the words " seen of angels " do not refer to the appearances of angels in connection with our Lord's earthly life, they carry us on, as it were, to our Lord's glorified life, to which the words " received up in glory " also refer beyond reasonable dispute. It is, of course, quite possible that in the clauses of this early hymn we have a triple antithesis : the flesh, the spirit ; angels, nations ; the world, the divine glory. Such an antithetical mode of expression would be quite characteristic of St. Paul, and so in the words " the Gentiles," or " the nations," we may have a reference to the dwellers on earth, in distinction to the angels, the inhabitants of heaven ; and this distinction would be preserved whether the words " seen of angels " refer to the incarnation or to the resurrection of Christ.^ But without any further attempt to explain the exact meaning and relation of the various clauses, it may be well to note one or two recent criticisms on the fragment before us. It is said, e.g., by the writer on these Pastoral Epistles in the Encycl. Bibl., iv. 5086, that if the words " received up in glory " contain an allusion to the ascension, such an allusion is thoroughly un-Pauline. But why ? The same word " received up " is used twice in the first chapter of the Acts (verses i and 22), with reference to the ascension, and the cognate noun is found in St. Luke's Gospel (ix. 51), with undoubted reference to the same event. Or, again, it is said by the same critic that the word 1 The words " preached among the Gentiles " are connected by some writers with Matt, xxviii. 20. See, e.g., amongst recent commentaries, the Century Bible, in loco. 22 338 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST " world " has here its sub-Pauline emphasis of " evil," " believed on in the world." But had not St. Paul himself in his earlier Epistles placed in sharp contrast the world and " them that believe " (i Cor. i. 21) ? Had he not written, " Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God " (i Cor. ii. 12) ? Had he not spoken of being crucified to the world (Gal. vi. 14) ? In the same way we are assured that the expression " seen of angels " is a sub-Pauline development ; and this is apparently proved by rejecting the Epistle to the Ephesians (cf. Eph. iii. 10) as not belonging to the Apostle. So, too, the expression " was manifested in the flesh " is called un-Pauline and distinctly Johannine. But if we admit, as there is every reason to admit, that St. Paul regarded our Lord as pre-existent, and that his language in his accredited writings with regard to Him is " distinctly Johannine," it is difficult to see why we should reject the phrase before us as expressing St. Paul's belief and that of the Church. Moreover, St. Paul had employed the very same verb in Rom. xvi. 26 of the mystery which hath been kept in silence, but now is manifested, and it was therefore likely enough that he should characterise the substance of the mystery of godliness, concerning which he is speaking to Timothy, by the same expression.^ If, however, even if it could be shown that the expression " received up in glory " does not allude to the ascension, we must remember that one of the Epistles of St. Paul's first captivity is so very definite in its allusion to this event that we sometimes speak of this Epistle, that to the Ephesians, as " the Epistle of the Ascension." It is quite true that in one passage of this Epistle we have words which might seem at first sight to justify the teaching of Dr. Harnack and Dr. Schmiedel, viz. that St. Paul omits all mention of the ascension. The Apostle {e.g. Eph. i. 20) speaks of the might which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him ' B. Weiss, Die Brief e Fault an Timotheus und Titus, p. i66. LATER EPISTLES 339 from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places. But if this language is to be taken as justifying the omission of the ascension, it is difficult to say what we are to make of a later statement in this same Epistle (iv. 10), " He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens that He might fill all things."^ It is also to be remembered that St. Luke was very probably in St. Paul's company when the Epistle to the Ephesians was written, aud if so it is noticeable that as St. Paul closely connects the thought of the ascension with the bestowal of the gifts for men (Eph. iv. 7), so St. Luke's description of the early days of the Church finds a fitting commencement with the record of the event which assured the fulfilment of the promise of the Father and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, it may be fairly said that these later Epistles of St. Paul are the best comment upon our Lord's claim, " All authority hath been given to Me in heaven and upon earth " (Matt, xxviii. 18), upon the new and wider relation between Himself and the universe which was marked by such a claim.^ Thus the Apostle can speak of Christ as the Head of all principality and authority, as being set in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion (cf., e.g., Col. i. 20, ii. 10 ; Eph. i. 20). The tremendous claim which our Lord makes after His resur- rection, a claim which neither prophets nor kings had ever dared to make, is the justification of the rank assigned to our Lord in St. Paul's words, both in relation to the universe and in relation to the Church. But whilst St. Paul makes reference to the incarnation, the resurrection, the ascension of our Lord, we must con- stantly bear in mind the many indications that he kept closely before his converts the unique and wonderful life » Cf. Dr. Swete, The Apostles' Creed, p. 68. * Dr. Swete, Expositor, October, 1902, p. 248. "*! 340 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST which Jesus of Nazareth had lived and the example which He had bequeathed as an exhaustless legacy to men. Allusion has already been made to this aspect of the Apostle's teaching, which is contained in these later Epistles no less than in his earlier writings. Let us look for a moment at one other striking instance of this feature in the Apostle's exhortations. It has been noted as a special characteristic of the Epistle to the Philippians that so much stress is laid in it upon the Christian ideal of perfection (cf i. 6, lo, ii. 15, iii. 12, 15, etc.).^ And this perfection, if it was no longer for St. Paul a perfection according to the law, from whence could it be derived.'' Only, it would seem, from the teaching and example of Christ. That Jesus stood forth amongst His fellows as a teacher would certainly seem to follow from St. Paul's constant exhortations to a Christian life. And if, as is plainly the case, the righteousness of the law is no longer the righteousness which St. Paul has under consider- ation (Phil. ii. 6-9), as a means of perfection, it is equally plain that the righteousness which he demands is a righteous- ness derived from Christ and from Christ alone. But the bestower of this righteousness must have been Himself the Righteous One — perfect, sinless, and in Philippians (cf. ii. 6), no less than in Romans, St. Paul points to that perfect obedience by which the many were made righteous. Again, we can scarcely fail to see the marvellous, the unique impression which our Lord's character had made upon the world, when a Hebrew of the Hebrews could find in it that which alone could satisfy his cravings for a realisation amongst men of the righteousness of God, when we remember that that life of obedience was also to St. Paul's knowledge a life of humiliation and obscurity, so far as its earthly surroundings were concerned, and that its issue was a death of degradation and shame. ' Drescher, Das Leben yesu bet Paulus, p. 59 (igoo). LATER EPISTLES 341 We have before touched upon the question of St. Paul's universalism, his proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentile no less than to the Jew. There is a passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians to which reference is sometimes made in this connection : " And He came and preached peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nighl" (ii. 17). The words may mean that Christ came, i.e., at His Advent, and preached peace to Jew and Gentile alike.^ But there is, no doubt, a very different interpretation of the words, which has been recently advocated by the Dean of Westminster.^ In the words " He came and preached " he sees not a reference to the work of the Lord Jesus on earth before the crucifixion, but to the work of the exalted Christ in announcing the peace which His death had made. Or, again, it may be noted that the words are sometimes referred not to the coming of Christ into the world at His Advent, but to the whole of His sojourn on earth, just as we read, " John came neither eating nor drinking," or, as St. Paul says elsewhere, " Christ came to save sinners." In this way our Lord's whole manifestation and appearance are regarded as bringing a great message of peace to mankind without any reference to any special passages such as those quoted by Dr. Zahn.^ But in any case these words before us present a wide view of the meaning of the Gospel and of its purpose to embrace both Jews and Gentiles alike. The question, however, is often raised as to how far St. Paul in his missionary efforts, in his proclamation of a message of peace for the world, was at one with the purpose and outlook of the historical Jesus. According to Dr. Harnack, the mission to the heathen did not lie within the horizon of Jesus, as we read the story of ' Cf., e.g., Zahn, Einleitung, ii. 167, with references to John x. 16, xii. 32 ; Matt. viii. 11 ; Luke xiii. 29. ' Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 66. ' See E. Haupt, Der Brief an die E^heser, in loco, 1902. 342 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST His life in the Gospels. This statement becomes all the more serious when we are also asked to believe that the familiar last charge to the disciples (Matt, xxviii. 19) was not spoken by Jesus, but was a later addition to the Gospel bearing the name of St. Matthew.^ But even if we confine ourselves to the words of the historical Jesus in the first three Gospels, it is difficult to see how Dr. Harnack's remarks can be justified. In the first place our Lord's whole attitude towards the Old Testament would be altered, and the representation which He gives us of His own work and person. He claims, for example, to be the Servant of the Lord, the Servant of Isaiah's prophecy ; but this Servant was to be a light to the Gentiles (Isa. xlix. 6). And not only would He have fallen short of the representation in Isaiah's prophetic picture, but He would have been not greater, but less, than Jonah, to whose successful preaching to the Gentiles He refers in His teaching (Matt. xii. 39-41).^ In our Lord's preaching of the kingdom we see how plainly He passes beyond the limits of Israel (Matt. viii. 11, xxi. 43). The Gospel from the beginning is conceived of as embracing the whole world ; the parables speak of the universality of the kingdom, the field is the world ; again and again are the disciples reminded of the fact that this Gospel was to be preached among all nations ; wherever the Gospel was preached in the whole world a memorial was to be found of the action of the woman who had ' Hamack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, p. 25 ff. For a special criticism of Harnack's whole position with regard to this question frequent reference is made above to the able treatise of Professor Bornhauser, of Griefswald, Wollte Jesus die Heidenmission ? (1903). With regard to the words of our Lord's last charge in Matt, xxviii., see, for a valuable maintenance of the conservative position, Zahn, Das Evangelium des MatthcLus, pp. 711-13 (1903); Professor Riggenbach of Bisle, Der Trinitarische Taufbefehl, 1903 ; and Dr. Swete Expositor, October, 1902. ^ Bornhauser, u.s. p. 18 ; Zahn, u.s. pp. 712-13. LATER EPISTLES 343 washed the feet of the Lord ; for His name's sake the disciples were to be hated among all the nations. It is difficult to see how our Lord's parable of the wicked husbandmen is to be interpreted with any reasonableness except upon the supposition that He meant His Gospel to pass beyond the limits of Judaism. The kingdom is to be given to other husbandmen, that is to a nation which will bring forth its fruits in due season, and the expression seems to exclude the supposition that only some othw part of the Jewish nation is meant. Whatever doubts may be thrown upon this parable by Jiilicher or by Harnack, there are no sufficient grounds for its rejection. Indeed, criticism seems to run riot when, in face of such a passage as Matt. X. 1 8, " Ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles," we are asked to believe that the kings and governors need not mean Gentiles, and that the clause " for a testimony to the Gentiles " is added in the sense of Matt, xxviii. ip."' If we are referred to such passages as Matt. xv. 24, " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," they are fairly interpreted as meaning that our Lord's purpose was to confine Himself to His own people during His earthly ministry ; but this in no way invalidates the proof that He foresaw a world-wide preaching of the Gospel, a prescience which may be inferred from so many passages in the Gospels. But the more we lay stress upon such a passage as this as teaching us that our Lord's horizon was bounded by Israel, the more difficult does it become to understand how the early Christian Church ever undertook so quickly and so eagerly the work of preaching to the ' Harnack, u.s. p. 25. Dr. Harnack seeJns to rest his case for the most part upon Matt. x. 23 ; but this is a very disputed passage, and has been very variously explained (cf. Bomhauser, u.s. p. 60 ; Zahn, u.s. P- 405). 344 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST heathen, and that, too, before the mission to the Jews was fully completed. If our Lord had never given any definite command for such work, how is it that His followers so speedily caught the spirit of freedom of His Gospel and acknowledged the universalism which it breathed ? " Paul," says Dr. Harnact, " was not the first missionary to the heathen." But all the more surprising is it that this should be so, and that the field of missionary enterprise should have been so early occupied, and that, too, without any express command from our Lord. No wonder that we are assured that the beginnings of missions to the Gentiles are not quite clear.^ But it is notable that at the Jerusalem Council no question is raised as to the admission of Gentiles to the Church, but only as to the restrictions which should be guarded in that admission. Nowhere do we find that the mission to the Gentiles in itself is opposed, but only the conditions under which the Gentiles should be received into the fellowship of the Church.^ If, again, in the first three Gospels our Lord's horizon never extended beyond the Jewish nation, and if His teaching as reported in these Gospels had so plainly shown what His attitude of exclusiveness was towards the Gentile world, it is strange that there is no intimation that St. Paul's own liberal position was challenged on the ground that it was opposed to the instructions of Jesus. Surely, if any proof could have been forthcoming from the lips of Jesus to the effect that St. Paul was acting in a manner directly at variance with his Master's views and purpose, this proof would have been produced by men who were filled with personal hatred against the Apostle, and whom he could describe in his earliest Epistle as forbidding him to speak to the' Gentiles, that they might be saved ' Hamack, u.s. p. 33. ' Riggenbach, u.s. p. 152. LATER EPISTLES 34S (i Thess. ii. 15).^ The words of Neander have by no means lost their force : " Although Paul," he writes, " first brought out the idea of the conversion of the heathen into perfect clearness before the Apostles, yet he advocated it in no other power than that of Christ. Had not the idea been contained in Christ's teaching, the other Apostles could not have recognised Paul as a Christian, much less an Apostle.^ But whilst Jesus is nowhere represented in the Synoptists before His death as giving commission to His disciples to preach to the heathen, nothing was more natural than that after that event, and after the resurrection which attested His triumph over death, He should declare to His chosen witnesses that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. And St. Paul had entered into these labours, and had laboured more abundantly than all others, but at the same time he never forgot that the Gospel which he preached was for the Jew first and secondly for the Greek. It was the order of his Master, and St. Paul who loved his nation was prepared to follow it unhesitatingly. And it is an order which, as we have seen, was perfectly natural ; there is no contradiction between the " historical " and the " dogmatic " tradition concerning Jesus in this respect. The Christ who was made, in St. Paul's own words (Rom. xv. 8), a minister of circumcision for the truth of God, the Christ who was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, was also the risen Christ, in whom neither circumcision availed anything nor uncircumcision, the Christ who could send forth His disciples as One having authority, that they should make disciples of all nations, and baptize them into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here we have the explanation and the justification of the closing benediction of St. Paul upon the Church of Corinth, 1 Bornhauser, us. p. 70. ' Neander, Life of Christ, p. 93, E.T. 346 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST with which it has been rightly said that the historical treatment of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity commences : " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all " (2 Cor. xiii. 14). But this passage (Eph. ii. 13) opens out to us the whole question of the relation of St. Paul's Epistles to the Gospel of St. John, and not only to the Synoptists. The German writer P. Ewald, who traced some years ago (1890) frequent reminiscences of St. John's teaching in the Epistles of St. Paul, compares the passage we have been considering with John x. 16 : " And other sheep I have which are not of this fold ; them also I must bring." But the writer who, of all others, has gone most thoroughly into the subject before us, P. Peine, is disposed to doubt whether our Lord ever spoke the words attributed to Him in St. John, as in that case he holds that St. Paul's struggle for the universalism of the Christian Church and the recognition of Gentiles freed . from the bondage of the law would be unintelligible. But it would seem that there were many words of our Lord not only in St. John, but in the first three gospels, which were not understood at first, words which had a close bearing upon the same great subject. But whilst Peine thus declines to admit this parallel, which H. Holtzmann allowed (although he did so to establish, as he imagined, the dependence of St. John upon St. Paul), yet he instances many other points of likeness between the fourth Gospel and the Pauline Epistles, some of which we have already noted. He lays considerable stress, e.g., upon the parallel presented between John xii. 35 and Eph. v. 8 (i Thess. v. 5).^ And as he thinks it probable that in John iii., which treats of our Lord's con- versation with Nicodemus, we have a true tradition, he ' It may be remarked here that P. Ewald finds one of his notable parallels between this same chapter, Eph. v. 13 and John iii. 20. LATER EPISTLES 347 conceives that it is quite possible to establish a relation between our Lord's words as to the new birth and St. Paul's teaching as to regeneration in Titus iii. 3. No doubt the parallels adduced both by Peine and P. Ewald will appeal with very different force to different readers. It does not seem well, e.g., to force a parallel, upon which Feine is inclined to insist, between 2 Cor. iv. 3 ff and John viii. 44. But still the list in both writers is a valuable one, as it shows that the spirit, if not the phraseology, of the teaching in St. John was known at an earlier date than is often admitted to be the case. In this connection the editors of the newly discovered " Sayings of Jesus " make a remark of considerable import in affirming that the mystical elements in Christ's sayings, which found the highest and most widely accepted expression in St. John's Gospel, may well have been much more general and less peculiarly Johannine than has hitherto been taken for granted. We have previously spoken of the importance of the phrase " in Christ " which marks the mystical element in St. Paul's theology, and although there are passages in the Synoptists which might teach such a truth, it is with the phraseology so characteristic of St. John that we must naturally connect it.^ That St. Paul should thus refer to our Lord's teaching and character, and to the great facts of His life, in these latest Epistles, is surely not surprising. Let us remember that we have in 2 Tim. i. 13 a word closely related to that remarkable word of which we had ' Feine, in his ^esus Christus und Paulus, gives us no less than some eighteen points of coincidence between St. John's Gospel and St. Paul's Epistles, some of which have been noted above. Those relating to Ephesians are John iv. 34, v. 30, vi. 38, vii. 17, ix. 31, and Eph. vi. 6; Col. i. 9, iv. 12 ; John x. l6 and Eph. ii. 13 ; John xii. 36 and Eph. V. 8 ; John xiii. 2-17 ; Eph. iv. 2, 32. In these references we trace a similarity of thought, not always a similarity in expression. Reference may also be made to the parallels adduced by P. Ewald, a large number of which are related to Ephesians, as well as to other 348 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST occasion to speak in Rom. vi. 17, where the Apostle reminds his converts that they had become obedient from the heart to that form of doctrine whereunto they were delivered. There St. Paul recalls the form or pattern of teaching which the Roman believers had received, and here he says to Timothy, " Hold fast the pattern of healthful words which thou hast heard from me." In each of the Pastoral Epistles we have this significant expression " sound," i.e. " healthful." Moreover, in his First Epistle to Timothy, the Apostle refers not only to healthful teaching, but to the source upon which that teaching was based he speaks of sound, healthful words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ (i Tim. vi. 3). It is surely a suggestive fact that as St. Paul had bidden the elders of the Church at Ephesus " to remember the words of the Lord Jesus" (Acts xx. 35), so in writing to the same Church he urges a consent to the healthful words of the same Lord. Here, again, it seems much more satisfactory to see in such language a reference to the words of Jesus as the norm and rule of Christian teaching than to regard the expression as simply meaning words which concern the Lord Jesus, as in the expression " the word or preaching of, or concerning, the Cross " ( i Cor. i. 1 8). But if the Apostle had simply meant this, he would scarcely have expressed himself as he does. Nowhere else in the New Testament is the same phrase found which we find here, except in Acts xx. 35, and none can doubt its Epistles of St. Paul. See Witness of the Epistles, pp. 329-346, for an examination of P. Ewald's references. Archdeacon Watkins, in Smith's Diet, of the Bible, and edit., I, Part II., p. 1754 (1893), also gives a valuable list of parallels between Colossians and Ephesians and St. John's Gospel. Cf., e.g., John iii. 13 and Eph. iv. 9-10; John iii. 20-1 and Eph. v. 11, 13; John xii. 35 and Eph. v. 8; John xiii. 34 and Eph. iv. 2, 26, 32, v. 21; John xiv. 30 and Eph. ii. 2 ; so also John iii. 3 and Col. iii. 1-2, 9-10; John vi. 32-3 and Col. ii. 17; John xiii. 34 and Col. iii. 13 ; John xiv. 6 and Col. ii. 3 ; John xviii. 37, xv. 15, xvii. 26 and Col. i. 26-7. LATER EPISTLES 349 meaning there or its reference to the actually spoken words of Jesus. We may again pause to enforce the conclusion that if St. Paul was able to remind the elders of the Church at Ephesus of a word of the Lord Jesus for an immediate and practical purpose, he must have had at his command, in these sound words of the same Lord to which he refers, a further source for instruction and righteousness, if any necessity or occasion had presented itself It may be noted, in passing, as a matter not without interest, that we have in the introduction to the earlier discovered sayings of Jesus (1897) indications of a formula similar to that which is employed in some of the earlier citations of our Lord's saying, as, e.g., in St. Clement of Rome (xiii.), where we read, " Especially remeihbering the words of the Lord Jesus, which He spake in His teaching . . . for thus He said," or in Acts xx. 35, "And to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said." And it is held to be quite possible that these formulae are themselves derived from the introduction to a primitive collection of Sayings known to St. Paul and St Clement alike. But although such suggestions can never be without interest, it cannot be said that we have at present any definite support for them, nor can we pass beyond the region of conjecture. Once more, it has been recently maintained that these prison Epistles of St. Paul indicate not obliquely the growing need of some evangelic compositions and the danger which existed lest the historical tradition of Jesus should be swamped by contemporary speculations and the presence of semi-Oriental fantasy (Moffatt's Hist. N.T., p, 230, 2nd edit.). St. Paul, it is urged, realised this danger himself, as we learn from his expressions in these Epistles (cf, e.g., Col. ii. 6, iii. 17, Eph. iv. 21) ; and yet if we ask, What saved the Church ? we are told that it was not spiritual speculation like that of St. Paul, which could not afford any guarantee that 3SO TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST it would keep by the track of the Gospel as given in history. But St. Paul's own writings, and by no means in the least degree his latest writings, his captivity Epistles, enable us to see how firmly and constantly he kept before him the historical tradition concerning Jesus, in spite of all that is said about his spiritual speculations, and how, in spite of his high Christology (which, as a matter of fact, is found in his earliest, no less than in his latest, Epistles), he is by no means forgetful of the principles and the teaching of the Jesus of the Gospels. Third Series St. Paul's Testimony in Relation to the Life of the Church LECTURE XVll THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY WE think of St. Paul, and rightly, as the great missionary Apostle. But before we pass to a consideration of his missionary journeys, it is well not to forget the earlier period, during which the Apostle was influencing the life of the Church by his teaching and by his work. I am not thinking only of the Apostle's dis- cussions with the Jews in the synagogues ol Damascus and Jerusalem, although his testimony before his fellow countrymen must have been indeed remarkable, little as we are told of it. We may note, e.g., that St. Paul's declara- tion that Jesus is " the Son of God " is borne in the first place not before Gentiles, but before Jews (Acts ix. 20). This appears to be the only certain occurrence of the title in the Book of the Acts, and there is little doubt that it was a Messianic title with which the Jews would be familiar. And this language of St. Paul in his earliest preaching is in remarkable and apparently quite undesigned agree- ment with his language about himself when referring to his conversion : " It was the good pleasure of God," he writes to the Galatians, " to reveal His Son in me " (Gal. i. 15).^ In the same chapter of the Acts, which opens with the picture of Saul breathing out slaughter against the disciples of " the Lord," this same Saul is represented as seeing in Jesus " the Lord," and as pro- ' Chase, Credibility of the Acts, p. 177. 353 23 354 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST claiming this same Jesus as " the Son of God." No wonder that such a message was received with amazement both at Damascus and in Jerusalem. But the marvellous change which had been wrought in Saul gave him from the first not only boldness in preaching and a divine strength, but won for him the confidence of those who were ready to rank themselves as his disciples. For it would seem, from the remarkable rendering adopted by the R.V., by Westcott and Hort, and by the German Nestle (Acts ix. 25), that St. Paul had already gained in Jerusalem disciples of his own. But now there came a strain which must have been harder for a man of Paul's temperament to bear than all the plots of the Jews. He leaves Jerusalem for Tarsus in peril of his life, and yet he is not to go at once and far hence among the Gentiles, but to spend many years in his native town, where it is possible that his relations with his old home might have embittered and endangered his stay.^ But few things seem to confirm more strikingly the truth of St. Luke's narrative than this blank of some ten years, of which the historian says nothing, and to the labours of which St. Paul himself only incidentally refers. Nothing is further removed from the picture of a mere fanatic than this quiet patience of St. Paul for a further and fuller sphere to be revealed to him ; and if St. Luke had been intent on magnifying his hero, it is strange that he should leave him at the end of this lapse of years to be sought out by Barnabas, rather than to come forward on his own initiative. He is brought to Antioch by the man of whom it has been truly said that he twice saved Paul for Christianity — Barnabas, so full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, so generous in his gifts and in his friendship. For a whole year the two friends were gathered together 1 See Art. " Paul," by Dr. Findlay, in Hastings' B.D., iii. 704, and of. Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 46. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 355 in the Church, and taught much people, and it would seem, as the rendering of the R.V. intimates, that one result of this spread of the faith among the Gentiles followed in the bestowal of the name " Christians," a name coined at first perhaps in mockery and ridicule, but destined to confer a glory upon the city of Antioch in comparison with which, as St. Chrysostom, in later days, reminded its inhabitants, all claims to distinction were of little worth. It is note- worthy that Harnack declines to accept the doubts which have been raised against the historical character of the bestowal of the name " Christian " ^ in the Acts, and it is very probable that he is right in his conjecture that the name was first coined by the Roman officials in Antioch, and was afterwards taken up by the common people ; so that even if we do not take into account the remarkable inscription at Pompeii, we may be assured of the antiquity of the name.^ In two ways St. Paul's work at Antioch must have strengthened and prepared him for his great future. First of all, he would of necessity be brought into contact with every kind of light and pretentious wisdom, of super- stition and depravity combined ; he would be aware of the prevalence all around him of every form of profligacy and vice. Daphnici mores were as proverbial as the morals of Corinth. In the busy agora he would find a representative of Roman, Greek, Jew alike ; whilst the worst features of East and West marked the life of a city devoted to the pursuit of art and wealth and pleasure. And at the same time he would learn that there were men and women in Antioch, as in Corinth, who were not ashamed of the name given to them in derision and scorn, who were not ashamed ' Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, p. 295, and, to the same effect, Dr. Clemen also {Paulus, i. 215). * See, as against the recent objection of P. W. Schmidt, Die Geschichte Jesu, ii. 19, Harnack and Clemen, u.s., and Art. " Christian" (Gayford) in Hastings' B.D., i. 356 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST to confess the faith of a crucified malefactor. In the second place, he would learn to recognise, and to bear testimony to, the strengthening bonds of a common need sustained by the ties of a common brotherhood. He and Barnabas were dispatched to Jerusalem to minister during the famine and to distribute relief And as the charitable work thus accomplished in Jerusalem bore fruit in the increase of grace conferred upon the Church in Antioch, so St. Paul may early have been stimulated to the undertaking of a further and greater work, which occupied so much of the energies of his after years, and to which he refers so touchingly in his letters, the collection for the poor saints, which he helped to bear with his own hands, and at the risk of his life, to the holy city.^ And now all that had happened since the day of the Apostle's conversion, his years of retirement in Arabia, his perils from his own countrymen, his ministry of service and faith in Jerusalem and Antioch, his fearless and continuous proclamation that Jesus was the Christ, — all this was to bear a rich and enduring harvest. Paul and Barnabas are sent forth by the Church to the work to which God had called them. It was quite in accordance with the fitness of things that the work of evangelising the Gentile world should take its start from Cyprus. Already men of Cyprus and Cyrene had preached the Lord Jesus at Antioch, and that not only, as it would seem, to Jews, but also to Gentiles ; and their success had occasioned the sending of another Cypriote, Barnabas, to the same city. There he had recognised and welcomed the grace of God bestowed upon the labours of his fellow countrymen. But Barnabas would also not forget that they in turn would welcome grace for grace in any fresh effort to Christianise their island home. ' Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 52, 54 ; and Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alien Kir c he, p. 152. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 357 And in this choice of Cyprus St. Paul would also be interested, not only because of its nearness to his own native Tarsus, but also because of his friendship with Barnabas. That friendship may well have commenced at an earlier date than the first mention of the two men together in the New Testament (Acts ix. 27). It is, indeed, not at all improbable that Barnabas, as an Hellenist, might have been a fellow student with Saul at the famous University of Tarsus. In the work of Paul and Barnabas in Cyprus we have the first use of a word which has been fitly called one of the missionary words in Acts. It is only so used by St. Luke and St. Paul, and only by the former in the second part of his book — the part which describes the great missionary journeys. It helps us to realise how much is contained in the simple phrase, " when they had gone through the whole island " (Acts xiii. 6), preaching first of all in the Jewish synagogues, according to Paul's usual custom to offer the word of God first to the Jews, and making every effort as missionaries. It is not, perhaps, surprising that various critics should have exercised their ingenuity in dealing with the scene connected with Paphos. The surprising thing is that St. Luke should describe so briefly and in such a matter-of-fact way an incident so full of significance for the future work of St. Paul : Paul, a Roman citizen, face to face, at the opening of his missionary labour, with an official representative of the Empire, and not only so, but face to face with a representative of those strange Oriental systems of religion which exercised, as we know, such a wonderful fascination over varying grades of rank and culture in the Roman world. Here, at least, was a splendid opportunity for elaboration and embellishment. And if this tale had been a forgery, we can scarcely believe that it would have been narrated as we find it. Dr. Schmiedel expresses his surprise that the narrative 358 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST shows such little interest in the subsequent history of the sorcerer.^ No doubt if it had done so it would have been quite in accordance with a fictitious story, concluding as we might expect it to conclude. But this is by no means the only place in the Acts where the reserve of the writer marks the truthfulness of his narrative. He fixes attention upon the main points, and we have the defeat of the Magian and the conversion of the pro-consul. But this episode is one of the many passages in which we are asked to find parallels between the deeds of St. Peter and St. Paul in accordance with the supposed tendency of this Book of the Acts. Both St. Peter and St. Paul perform a miracle in their infliction of punishment — both confute a sorcerer, both are interested in converting a high Roman official.^ And so we are thus asked to believe that three alleged parallels — the death of Ananias and Sapphira, the discomfiture of Simon Magus, the conversion of Cornelius — taken from three different episodes in St. Peter's career, are here combined in St. Paul's career at Cyprus, and in a few graphic verses by St. Luke. Surely this is an instance of a critic finding what he wishes to find, and it would certainly never occur to the plain reader that St. Luke was instituting and emphasising a parallel between three incidents in St. Peter's career and three incidents in that of St. Paul. The fact is that this alleged series of parallelisms is played out ; it is out of date, and Dr. Schmiedel, and those who still adopt it, are defending a " tendency " which has in reality no existence. If an author had been concocting this wonderful series of parallelisms, why, we may well ask, has he omitted the crowning parallelism of all ? Why has he not brought St. Peter and St. Paul together as martyrs in Rome? ' Art, " Bar-jesus," Encycl. Bibl., i. 481. ' So, too, Schmiedel in Art. cited ; and cf., with the narrative here, Acts V. i-io, viii. 18-24, x. i ff. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 359 On the other hand, there is surely nothing strange in the fact that some points of likeness, some closeness of com- parison, should be found in the lives of two great missionary- preachers living in the same period, under the same Empire, and traversing to some extent the same ground, coming into contact with the same classes of people. All this may be fairly maintained without taking into additional account the many marks of an historical character in the narrative of the Acts. There is, e.g., the careful accuracy of the writer in the term " pro-consul," in his name, Sergius Paulus, witnessed to by Mommsen and by one critic after another of the first rank. There is the figure of the Magian, which might easily have found a place amidst the varied comites of the pro-consul's suite. There is, too, the presence of medical terms, which seem to imply the careful hand and eye of St. Luke. To what desperate straits Dr. Schmiedel and Dr. Clemen are reduced in dealing with this narrative it is not difficult to see. The latter, e.g., cannot refuse to acknowledge an historical kernel in the episode. But his view is that the Magian was threatened with a divine punishment by Paul and Barnabas for his spiritual blindness, and that, as he may have become blind later on in life, this calamity was supposed to be the result of the malediction of the missionaries. It is the old story : the historical is perforce admitted ; the supernatural must be by any and every means excluded. Apart from this supernatural element, Dr. Clemen here, as so often through his work, not only maintains the general historical character of the narrative, but quite ridicules the attempts to deny it {^Paulus, i. 224). It is, of course, quite possible that the conversion of Sergius Paulus may have further increased St. Paul's intense desire to carry the Gospel to Rome, and to show that in the heart of the empire, as well as in a distant province, he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. From Cyprus the Apostles' line of progress would natur- 36o TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST ally lead them to Pamphylia, and it is difficult to believe that this course had not been fully planned before they started from the Syrian Antioch/ This is the decided view of Professor Ramsay ; but, on the other hand, it has been recently conjectured that it was not until the missionaries reached Perga that the momentous decision was arrived at that henceforth to the Gentiles should be preached the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that John Mark returned to Jerusalem because he could not face the new conditions of the work. But however this may be, the narrative of the Acts lends likelihood to the impression that something unexpected changed the Apostles' plans, and prevented them from preaching in Perga, although they did so on their return journey. It is quite possible that St. Paul may have been seized with a sudden illness in the low-lying districts of Pamphylia, in which the climate was always so enervating, and that he had been obliged to seek a higher country, naturally the Pisidian Antioch, for his health's sake. If we accept the S. Galatian theory,^ and locate the Churches of this first missionary journey in the Roman province of Galatia, it is, of course, quite reasonable to see in the words of the Galatian Epistle, " Ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh, I preached unto you the first time " (iv. 13, R.V.), a reference to this illness. But whatever may have been the cause why the missionaries hurried on to Antioch, it is certain that no place could have been more congenial to St. Paul, not only for his health's, but also for his work's sake. Antioch was not only a Roman colony, but it was a great and important centre of commercial life, as also of civil and military administration, and it was thus just the kind of place in which the keen eye of St. Paul would 'Art. "Pamphylia" and "Perga," Hastings' B.D., p. 659. Dr. Chase, Credibility of Acts, p. 88, takes a different view. ' J. Weiss and C. Clemen may now be added to the supporters of this view ; so, too, Von Soden, Urchristliche Literaturgeschichte, pp. 30-1 (1905). THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 361 see a splendid vantage-ground for the furtherance and spread of his message. Such a choice of place would be fully characteristic of the Apostle's missionary methods. At all events the issue justified the selection ; for with the exception of Corinth, another great commercial centre, the preaching of the Apostles was more successful at Antioch than in any other city (cf Acts xiii. 44, 48-9).^ Possibly this success was helped forward by the fact that the teaching of the Gospel did not touch the fortunes of the Gentiles at Antioch, as was afterwards the case at Philippi and Ephesus. If we pass to the consideration of St. Paul's address to the Jews of Pisidian Antioch, we are at once struck by the fact that if a romancer had wished to construct such a Pauline sermon, he had no model to help him in the Apostle's own writings. We have, of course in St. Paul's Epistles passages in which he addresses Gentiles and passages in which he addresses Jews ; but no Epistle (as Dr. Chase well reminds us) gives us at length St. Paul's first exposition of his gospel to Jews, and to Jews alone. No doubt it is easy to say that the speech at Antioch resembles the earlier speech of St. Stephen or the addresses of St. Peter, and to point to this similarity as a proof of its fictitious character.^ But with regard to the words of St. Stephen, it is only in the earlier parts of his speech that any resemblance can be found, and there is surely nothing strange in this when we remember the ample evidence that the historical element played a very important part in Jewish speeches.* Thus Samuel recapitulates, as it were, the history of his nation in his vindication before the assembled people of God's righteousness ; and in his warning, like that of St. Stephen, he is mindful that the blame would rest upon his hearers as ' Art. " Antioch," Encycl. Bibl., i. 184. 2 See, amongst recent writers, Von Soden, Urchristliche Literatur- geschichte, p. 125 (1905). ' See Speaker's Commentary on Acts vii. 2 ; also Blass, Acta A-postolorum, p. 149. 362 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST it had upon their fathers (i Sam. xii. 1-12). And more fully still does Nehemiah give us (ix. 6-38) the confession of the Levites of God's goodness in their history and of the per- versity with which the nation had cast the divine law behind them. But this is not all that may be said. The French writer, A. Sabatier, to whom we owe so much of interest and value in his treatment of the work and teaching of St. Paul, frankly admits that the sketch of the history of the Jewish people to the reign of David which marks St. Paul's missionary discourse at Antioch recalls the commencement of St. Stephen's address in an earlier part of Acts. But he also takes care to add that if the history is the same, the point of view from which it is treated is widely different. In 'St. Paul's case the historical incidents are not introduced, as in St. Stephen's speech, to mark the ingratitude of the people, but rather to trace the divine promise which the Apostle follows in its course through the history of Israel.^ So far as the similarity to St. Peter's early addresses is concerned we may frankly admit it. What, indeed, was more probable than that such a similarity should exist? The two men are represented as addressing for the first time an audience of their own countrymen on the theme that Jesus was the Christ, and their efforts are directed towards the same end, viz. the proof of this all-important state- ment. One of the chief further objections raised is that St. Paul would not have allowed his own special doctrine of justifica- tion to occupy such a small part of the discourse, and, in fact, to be referred to only in one concluding verse.^ But, on the other hand, nothing would seem more natural than that the Apostle should thus lead up to this doctrine in a 1 L'A:p6tre Paul, p. 89, 3rd edit. (1896). ^ Clemen, Paulus, i. 226. Hamack, Die Mission und Ausbrei- tung des Christentums , speaks, with some qualification, of this address as a beautiful example of missionary preaching to Jews. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 363 speech which represents an earlier stage of the teaching which was afterwards developed (as we believe) in the Galatian Epistle addressed to the same Pisidian Antioch amongst other Churches. And here again Sabatier has done good service in pointing out more than one coincidence between the words of St. Paul in this closing verse of his address at Antioch and his language elsewhere, coincidences which are very striking when the Greek text in the two cases is considered.^ I can only make a brief reference to another Continental critic,^ who, from a very different point of view, has recently examined at length the supposed origin of the speeches in Acts. He not only attributes the sermon before us in many respects to an imitation of the address of St. Stephen, but considers that its fundamental thoughts are modelled upon the address of St. Peter to Cornelius and his friends (Acts x. 34-43). But it is difficult to see why a likeness should not exist in a declaration by St. Peter and St. Paul alike of the main facts of the Gospel history. It is,however, more profitable to turn from these unnecessary strictures to the striking points of coincidence which have been noticed between St. Paul's address in the synagogue at Antioch and the Apostle's Epistle to the Galatian Churches. If, indeed, the Church of the Pisidian Antioch was one of the Churches of Galatia, nothing was more likely than that there should be these points of likeness, and their existence is no small evidence for the truthfulness of St. Luke's record of the speech. Thus the whole burden of the sermon is to show not only how the Jewish law was of a preparatory character, but also how the whole history of the people was the history ' Cf., e.g., ovK r/SvvTiBrjTe €v vofiia, with the phrase to dSivarov Tov vofiov (Rom. viji. 3) ; and SiKouodrjvai constructed with drrd, as in Rom. vi. 7 ; and the general expression ttos 6 marevau with Rom. i. 16, iii. 22 ; n A;pdtre Paul, p. 91, 3rd edit. (1896). 2 Professor Soltau.'jSin the Zeitschrift fur die neutest. Wissen- schaft, Heft 2 (1903). 364 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST of a progress to a fuller stage of development. The Epistle speaks of the fulness of time ; the sermon speaks of John fulfilling his course, of God fulfilling His promise. The verb expressing the justification by faith through Jesus is never used in the Acts except in this address, but it occurs frequently in the Galatian Epistle. The sermon speaks of the action of the Jewish leaders, how, when " they had fulfilled all things that were written of Him, they took Him down from the tree" ; the Epistle emphasises the fact that the hanging on a tree was a necessary step in the redemption wrought by Christ from the curse of the law ; and nowhere except in this address at Antioch does St. Paul use the same word " the tree" (^v\ov) in this same sense. Many other instances could be given ; and although it might be alleged that such fundamental topics touching the very foundations of his gospel must be naturally found in every Epistle and address which St. Paul wrote or delivered, we must remember that there is no such close and mutual resemblance between any other of St. Paul's addresses and Epistles, and we may fairly say that the coincidences in this case are so striking as to make each of the two documents the best commentary on the other.^ But there are other considerations of interest connected with the speech. St. Paul appeals to a few notorious facts. He makes mention, e.^., of the work and preaching of the Baptist ; of the death of Jesus, and that, too, in Jerusalem by the agency of Pilate and the Jews ; of the testimony of the Apostles, boldly delivered in Jerusalem, that through Jesus, the risen Saviour, is preached that which the Baptist had preached, and that which St. Paul himself was preaching, the message common to the forerunner and the heralds of the Gospel alike, the forgiveness of sins. But, further, it is noticeable that St. Paul emphasises not only the death of Christ, but the ' See Professor Ramsay, Historical Commentary on the Galatians, pp. 399-401 ; and see also Dr. Chase, u.s. p. 181-2, THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 365 burial of Christ/ There was no mistake about the fact of the death : Christ had lain in the tomb, but God raised Him from the dead. And to that fact there were witnesses, competent witnesses, who had not only come up with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, but, as the R.V. allows us to read the words, " who are now His witnesses unto the people." The message, then, was a living message, and those who witnessed to it were doing so in the very city in which, to all appearance, the tragedy of the Cross had finally and fatally wrecked their hopes. It is this ready and steadfast confidence in the truth, unbroken by danger, undisturbed by the assaults of foes without or within the Church, which stands in such marked contrast to the halting, hesitating, half-hearted confessions on Christian lips to-day. " And we know that the Son of God is come," wrote St. John. " I know whom I have believed " : it is the last recorded testimony of St. Paul. When one of the most famous of the early Christian Apologists, Justin Martyr, stood for trial before his Roman judge, he was asked, " Are you not then a Christian ? " " Yes, I am a Christian." " And do you suppose that if you are scourged and beheaded, you will ascend into heaven ? " "I do not suppose it, I know it." In the great fact, then, of the resurrection St. Paul saw the proof, the unmistakable proof, that God had declared this Jesus who was crucified to be the Son of God with power ; and the best commentary on the Apostle's words at Antioch, as he spoke of the Saviour of the seed of David, whom God brought to Israel (Acts xiii. 23), may be found in the opening verses of the Epistle to the Romans. There, too, we have closely united the thought of Jesus, born of the seed of David ' It is noticeable that in xiii. 29 the burial following upon the death of Christ is treated as if it was also'the act of the Jews ; and it is a fair inference that if the author of St. Luke's Gospel had been giving us a speech of his own composition, he would not have expressed himself quite in this manner (cf. V. Bartlet's note, in loco, Century Bible). 366 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST according to the flesh, and the thought of His Sonship, to which God had set His seal before the eyes of men by the resurrection. It was to these same two facts that St. Paul could appeal in after years, and which thus formed his first and his latest message, " Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, of the seed of David " (2 Tim. ii. 8).^ But as in the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul speaks of God sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin (viii. 3), so also in the Epistle to the Galatians (and, as we believe, in his preaching to the Church in the Pisidian Antioch), he speaks of God sending forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law (Gal. iv. 4). With this re- markable verse in the Galatian Epistle Professor Ramsay compares the words of the address in the synagogue of the Pisidian Antioch. " It is clear," he says, " that the teaching so briefly summed up in this verse is to be understood as already familiar to the Galatians. Paul is merely revivifying it in their memory." But he seems, we may venture to think, to go too far in taking the words of the address at Antioch : " To us is the word of this salvation sent forth " (Acts xiii. 26), as referring to the same teaching as that contained in the verse Gal. iv. 4.^ The verb " sent forth " in both places is no doubt the same, but the expression " word of salvation " does not seem to be used in the mystical sense, as Dr. Ramsay thinks, of " the word " in the fourth Gospel. But quite apart from this, it is important to note that he regards Gal. iv. 4 as containing a summary of facts which were already previously known. One other point may be noted before we pass on. Dr. Harnack, in some recently published addresses and essays,' has maintained that one word commonly employed by us to-day was wanting in the early Christian phraseology, the ' See Dr. Gifford's Commentary, Rom. i. 3-4. * Historical Comm.entary on the Galatians, p. 397. ' Reden und AufsHtze, i. 307 (1904). THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 367 word " Saviour." This is indeed a surprising statement. We remember that the word occurs in the angels' announce- ment of the birth of Christ, " There is born unto you this day, in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord " (Luke ii. 14). But Dr. Harnack suggests to us that as the word was often used by the Greeks and others with reference to their gods, so from this pagan source the word was introduced by St. Luke into his Gospel. Surely this is an arbitrary supposition. To say nothing of the fact that the word occurs twice in the writings of St. John (iv. 42 and i John iv. 14), it is used in this first missionary address of St. Paul, where we read of a Saviour Jesus. And if it is said that St. Luke, as the writer of the Acts, puts the word into Paul's mouth, we must remember that it is used in one of the early addresses of St. Peter (Acts v. 31), in a portion of the book, that is, which comes to us confessedly from a primitive source, and that it is used again by St. Paul in one of his generally accepted Epistles (Phil. iii. 20). More- over, the cognate noun " salvation " (a-oiTr/pta) was one which a Jew would naturally associate with the Messianic salvation and deliverance from sin (cf. Psalms of Solomon, x. 9, xvi. 5). And if St. Matthew does not use the word " Saviour," he at least takes care to emphasise the meaning of the name " Jesus " : " It is He that shall save His people from their sins" (orojo-ei. Matt. i. 21). Why should it be thought strange that St. Paul should speak of " a Saviour Jesus " (awTTip 'Irjo-ov?), and should connect the coming of this same Jesus, as he does in this address, with the forgiveness of sins ? (Acts xiii. 24, 38). Two results are mentioned in the Acts as following upon St. Paul's testimony at Antioch, and both bear upon them the impress of truth. In the first place we may notice that there was a division in the city. The Cross was, as ever, hateful to the Jew ; for him it had no beauty that he should desire it, and he could not understand that the new 368 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST religion " should choose as symbol of its faith the rack on which a slave must die." On the other hand, there was something in St. Paul's message which appealed to the Gentiles ; they were glad and glorified the word of God. The Cross was set for the rise and fall of many a soul in Antioch, and before the Cross the thoughts of many hearts were revealed. And, secondly, we notice that the women of Antioch are represented as exercising an important influence, and that, urged on by the Jews, they raise a persecution against the Apostles. This action on the part of the ladies of Antioch is frankly accepted by the writer of the article on " Antioch " in the Encycl. Bibl., as it has been often noticed that it is strictly in accordance with what we might expect from the prominent rdle played by women in so many parts of Asia Minor. But the first missionary journey gives us another striking address of St. Paul, delivered to a very different audience. In the visit of Paul to Lystra, Dr. Clemen finds unmistak- able proofs of the truth of the narrative, not only in the notice of the Temple of Zeus before the city, a local and undoubtedly a correct touch, but also in the naturalness of the way in which the inhabitants, under the influence of strong excitement, express themselves in an outburst of their own native language.^ Lystra was a Roman colony, but it stood somewhat retired from the traffic of the high- road ; and whilst its inhabitants included no doubt a military aristocracy and an educated class, yet they were to a great extent an uneducated and superstitious people. Two things at least may be noticed in St. Paul's address at Lystra. There was nothing in it distinctively Christian : it might have been spoken by a pious Jew ; and yet the very absence of Christian phraseology witnesses to the truthful report of the speech, as also to the tact of St. ' See, to the same effect, Zahn's recent remarks, Der Brief des Paulus an die Galaier, p. 14 (1905)., THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 369 Paul. This " natural religion " of the address at Lystra and its appeal to the material benefits of life would be likely to influence men who were so dependent on rain and fruitful seasons. Or it may be that the Apostle's purpose was merely to check an act of idolatry on the part of the inhabitants, rather than to preach a Gospel ; or the speech may have been interrupted before the Christian application was enforced. But in any case it is difficult to believe that any one who was concocting a speech for the Apostle would have made it void of any Christian reference what- ever. At the same time, the whole narrative shows us in the plainest manner that St. Paul, in his preaching to the inhabitants of Lystra, proclaimed something far higher than a creed of natural theology. We have a pathetic notice which illustrates the success of the Apostle's preaching at Lystra in the words of Acts xiv. 20. The Lycaonians, with all the fickleness of a mob, had changed their minds, and at the instigation of the Jews had stoned Paul. Supposing that he was dead, they had dragged him out of the city. But in marked contrast to this brutal violence " the disciples stood round about him." The notice shows us that there were Christian disciples at Lystra who were not ashamed to confess their faith and to share in the tribulation of the teacher to whom they owed their salvation. The Apostles pass on to Derbe, and there, too, their preaching is evidently not in vain, for, as the R.V. points out, " they made many disciples " ; not simply " had taught many," as the A.V. renders the words. So, too, on the return journey, we find Paul and Barnabas entreating those same disciples to continue in the faith, the faith which they had previously received, and commending them to the Lord, in whom they had already believed (such is the force of the Greek). Amongst the disciples who stood around St. Paul at 24 370 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Lystra there is good reason to think that Timothy was numbered ; and in a previous lecture attention has been drawn to the remarkable and apparently undesigned coincidence between the narrative in Acts and a notice in 2 Tim. iii. II. It may be further noted that in the same Epistle St. Paul says to his son in the faith, " God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness (or cowardice), but of power and love and discipline " (i. 7). The virtue of manliness which in ancient pagan ethics was the chief, of all the virtues has its ideal purified and ennobled in the New Testament ; and a very thoughtful and recent writer upon the ethical teaching of St. Paul has connected the possession ^ of this virtue of manliness with the incident before us. " Wherever we meet St. Paul, in the presence of friends or foes, of individuals or of a crowd, of a Roman governor or a Roman jailer, he is always the same courageous and re- sourceful leader. ... At Lystra he was stoned and dragged out of the city as dead. But the next day he went forth with Barnabas to Derbe. ' And when they had preached the Gospel to that city . . . tAey returned to Lystra^ ' What a glimpse of quiet, unbending courage does the simple notice of the historian give us ! Or take this from the Apostle's own pen : ' I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost, for there are many adversaries ' (i Cor. xvi. 8-9). The very gravity of the peril is only another reason why he should stick to his post." It is this same remarkable courage of St. Paul which appealed to the judgment of an English novelist like Charles Reade, and in his useful little book on Bible Characters he specially connects St. Paul's bravery with this same incident at Lystra, and his fearless return to the city where his foes had so recently sought to kill him. It is possible, of course, that the magistrates may ' " Pagan Virtues in the Ethical Teaching of St. Paul," by the Rev. G. Jackson, Expositor, March, 1905. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY 371 have changed between the first and second visit of the Apostle to Lystra ; but even so, the fact of his bravery remains unimpaired, for there were the same impulsive inhabitants and the same Jewish residents to face. Before we pass from the consideration of St. Paul's first missionary journey, we may ask what was the lasting import of his message to those Churches of Galatia which he had already evangelised. We have seen in previous lectures that his teaching, whether oral or written, could scarcely ^ave been without some definite references to the facts of the life of Jesus. This is clearly pointed out by J. Weiss and other writers, and it is acknowledged, at least to some extent, by Dr. Harnack. But whatever else St. Paul's message may have contained of references to a knowledge of the life of Jesus, it was most certainly the message of a crucified Christ. He appeals to the Galatians as men before whose eyes Jesus Christ had been openly set forth crucified (iii. i), and he reminds them, in the closing verses of his Epistle, that his only glory was in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (vi. 14). It was by this simple message, and by that which followed upon its acceptance, a death unto sin and a deliverance from the power of sin, that the Galatians were to learn to live by the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit. St. Paul himself had gained this new power, and had entered upon this new life, because he had himself been crucified with Christ, because he had felt in his own experience that, believing in Him, the crucified and risen Saviour, he had been justified by faith, and not by the works of the law. And so he could ask his Galatian converts a question which carried them back to the earliest days of their Christian life, " Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith ? " and that faith was faith in a living Person, in the Son of God, who loved them, who had given Himself up for those who were Jews by nature and for sinners of the Gentiles alike : " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor 372 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST uncircumcision, but faith that worketh by love." This was the message the sound of which was to go forth into all lands and its words unto the ends of the world. And for those who listened to this Gospel and who walked by this rule, peace and mercy would be upon them, since'they were, whether Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, the true, the spiritual Israel of God (Gal. vi. i6)} This was the Gospel of a kingdom rich in grace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ ; this was the Gospel of life, since the very scars which marked St. Paul as the slave of Jesus (Gal. vi. 17), revealed the working of a law in his members, a law which Christ Him- self had proclaimed : " He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." In a famous old Norman cathedral there is a Greek cross, on which are inscribed the four simple Latin words, " Rex, Lex, Dux, Lux " ; and the Cross may be for us to-day what it was for St. Paul, what it was for his Galatian Christians, what it has been for twenty centuries of history, the sovereign law of human life ; and in obedience to that law, the Cross becomes not only the guide of life, but the light of life. ' It is noteworthy that Professor Bacon, who speaks of the serious exceptions which he finds himself obliged to take to the accuracy of St. Luke's story of the first missionary journey, admits that, in spite of all, the light that story sheds is considerable. It shows us the Sjrian Church, by this great enterprise of Barnabas and Paul, giving practical realisation to the dream of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and he sees in the Syrian Antioch the cradle of a new world-religion {Story of St. Paul, p. 105 [1905]). LECTURE XVIII THE APOSTOLIC COUNCIL: THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY. THE interval between St. Paul's first and second missionary journeys was marked by an event which concerned the whole future life and development of the Christian Church — the Apostolic Council. From the day that Paul and Barnabas had turned to the Gentiles in the Pisidian Antioch, their preaching had been blessed, and signs and wonders done by them testified to the accom- panying grace of God. But the door of faith which was opened to the Gentiles, was it to be an open door or a door narrowed by at least one irremovable obstacle ? " Except ye be circumcised according to the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Such was the doctrine which St. Paul and the Church of the Syrian Antioch were being asked to endorse. The emissaries of the Pharisees had come down from Judaea to teach it. Henceforth, if such a doctrine was enforced. Gentiles might be admitted to the Church of Christ, but their salvation must be regarded as bound up with, and entirely dependent upon, the doctrine in question. We cannot doubt that St. Paul and the brethren in Antioch would feel that such a state of things would be fatal to the peace and progress of the Church.^ Moreover, ■ Whether we endorse the Bezan text or not, it gives us in this place a good description of St. Paul's attitude. For a good commentary upon it see Mr. Rackham, Acts, p. 243. 373 374 TESTIMONY OP ST. PAUL TO CHRIST we should remember that many modern critics, as we noted in an earlier lecture, regard St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians as one of his earliest, if not his earliest writing. It is placed, for example, by the distinguished Romanist theologian, Dr. V. Weber, after Acts xiv. 28, i.e. before the meeting of the Apostolic Council.^ St. Paul then had already encountered Jewish emissaries, the subverters of souls, in Galatia ; he had already proclaimed " in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Certainly such language as that which meets us in Gal. vi. 1 2, " They compel you to be circumcised," is more intelligible before the Apostolic Council than after it. Of course, this early date requires us to identify St. Paul's visit to Jerusalem in Gal. ii. i-io not with his going up to the capital for the Apostolic Council, but with the earlier visit at the time of the famine in Acts xi. 29 and xii. 25. But if we follow not only recent conservative critics, as, e.g., Dr. Zahn and Dr. Chase, but writers of a very different school, as, e.g.. Dr. Schmiedel and Dr. Clemen, and identify Gal. ii. I- 10 with the Apostolic Council in Acts xv., we note that St. Paul speaks distinctly of a gospel which he had laid before the Gentiles (Gal. ii. 2) ; and that gospel of justification by faith contained in the Galatian Epistle, and, as we have seen, in Acts xiii., is as far as possible removed from any insistence upon the obligation of circumcision for Gentile converts. Now in the Encycl. Bibl. Professor Schmiedel has given us at great length his version of the Apostolic Council, and he does so, as we might expect, with a deliberate attack upon the account given us of the Council in the Acts. He points out, it is true, that Acts xv. and Gal. ii. can only be meant to refer to the same event ; but we wonder, at the end of his 1 Die Abfassung des Galaterhriefs vor dem Afostelkomil, pp. 91, 286, 289 (1900). THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 375 criticism, as to how much, or rather as to how little, is left to us upon which we can depend in St. Luke's record. But one or two remarks may be made upon this criticism of Dr. Schmiedel's. He objects, e.g., that in Galatians St. Paul treats with the other Apostles as an equal, but in the Acts as an inferior. But is this so ? It was nothing strange, but, on the other hand, it was perfectly natural, that a solution of a common and pressing difficulty should be found in an appeal to the mother Church at Jerusalem, and that in an assembly held in Jerusalem St. Peter and St. James, who seemed to be pillars (Gal. ii. 9), should occupy a prominent place. Dr. Schmiedel further objects to the addresses which are represented to have been spoken by St. Peter and St. James. But both addresses bear upon them the stamp of truth : St. Peter's impatient and generous character, and the striking coincidence with some of his words elsewhere, e.g. the phrase, " God that knoweth the hearts," used by him alone in the New Testament as an epithet of God ; the practical and peaceable wisdom of St. James, as shown in the letter of the Council ; his utterances so thoroughly Hebraic in their conception and language ; the remarkable points of likeness between the wording of the Eirenicon and the words of the Epistle attributed to James, the Lord's brother ; the same verbal description of the Judaisers in the circular letter of the Council as those " who have troubled you " as is twice given of the same enemies in the Galatian Epistle (i. 7 and v. 10) ; — these and other indications of truthfulness might easily be multiplied.^ But without dwelling upon the points in the addresses delivered in face of this great crisis in the Church, there was one method of appeal the force of which was felt and recognised by St. Paul and the pillar Apostles alike — the appeal to facts. The grace of God to which Paul and ' See these points ably drawn out by Mr. Rackham, Acts of the Apostles, p. 2S4 ff. 376 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Barnabas had commended their brethren as they passed from place to place had been abundantly poured forth upon the two missionaries who had been content to hazard their own lives. No doubt the result of the Council may be best described as a compromise.^ Certain injunctions were still laid upon the Gentile converts, but not the grievous yoke upon which the Judaising party had insisted. St. Paul's preaching among the Gentiles was to be ackowledged by the Church as no less a divine work than St. Peter's preaching to them of the circumcision. In such a compromise St. Paul and the other Apostles might well feel the constraining power of the love which was the very bond of peace and of all virtues ; and as we read the pathetic words, the appeal made to him by his brethren in the Apostolic office, with which he closes his account of his visit to the Council, " Only they would that we should remember the poor" (Gal. ii. lo), we recall how St. Paul, in response to that appeal, was ready, in season and out of season, to stir up his Churches to the recognition of the duty and privileges of Christian fellowship, and how a greater than St. Paul had said, " The poor ye have always with you, and when ye will, ye can do them good." If the pillar Apostles at Jerusalem never forgot this injunction, it is certain that St. Paul, for his part, never failed to catch its spirit. The testimony of St. Paul before the first Christian Council went far to restore comparative rest and peace to the Church life in Antioch. The letter from the Church at Jerusalem, dispatched by emissaries so trusted as Judas and Silas, was to the distracted Christians a letter of consolation and also of exultation.^ But already the large ■ See, for a recent and able account of the historical character of the narrative, identifying Gal. ii. with Acts xv., Art. " Paulus " (Zahn) in Herzog's Realencyclo^Sdie, 3rd edit., Heft 141, p. 79 (1904). ' After the words " from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well," the Bezan text adds, "going on in the Holy Ghost." In such words, as Mr. Rackham well remarks, «.j. p. 256, lies the essence of the THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 377 and generous heart of St. Paul was feeling in a sense the care of all his Churches, and he desires to visit with Barnabas the brethren in the different towns of his first missionary journey, and to see how they fared. It is a pathetic and, at the same time, a truthful statement in the Acts that in this proposed journey Barnabas never shared. The recollections, perhaps, of an earlier friendship in Jerusalem constrained Barnabas to desire the presence of Mark. But for the time Mark had forfeited the confidence of St. Paul, and the Gentile Apostle saw in Silas a Roman citizen (it would seem) and one of the first men in the Jerusalem Church, a more acceptable and promising fellow worker. In later days there is every reason to believe that both Barnabas and Mark regained the friendship and the confidence of St. Paul, which were for the present so strained. " In the first soreness of separation each turned to the home of his family," writes Dr. Swete.^ Whilst Paul went by land through the Cilician gates, Barnabas sailed with Mark to Cyprus. Nothing is told us in the Acts of the later history of Barnabas or of Mark, and all that we gather from it is that more labourers went forth into the harvest : Barnabas and Mark on the one hand, Paul and Silas on the other. One of the first things to be mentioned in St. Paul's second missionary journey is the loyalty which marked his relation to the Jerusalem compact and so to the life of the Church. He delivers the decree to the Churches which he had founded on his previous journey, so that they also received the decision, no less than the Churches of Syria and Cilicia, which had been specially mentioned in the Apostolic letter.^ ■whole matter. That, too, is St. Paul's conclusion in his Epistle to the Galatians. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but life in the Spirit : "Walk in the Spirit." 1 St. Mark, p. xviii. 2 Cf. Expositor's Greek Testament, ii. 337, and Mr. Rackham, u.s. p. 270. 378 TESTIMONY OP ST. PAUL TO CHRIST If St. Paul had been left to his own guidance, we can scarcely doubt that he would have found his way to Ephesus in the earlier part of this second missionary journey. But another and a higher guidance, to which St. Paul never failed to submit himself, controlled his steps. Asia and Bithynia were alike forbidden. But as the Apostle gazed at the opposite shores of Macedonia from Troas, he may well have wondered if by the will of God he would be called to cross the narrow sea which separated him from that western Roman province in which his work was to be so wonderfully blessed. A vision of the night resolved the Apostle's doubts, and very graphically does the R.V. present the scene : " And a vision appeared to Paul in the night ; there was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying. Come over into Macedonia and help us " (Acts xvi. 9). The one Greek word which marked the voyage to the Macedonian shore as swift and sure ("we made a straight course," eu^uS/ao/xi^o-a/iev), might fitly describe a journey in which the Apostle would see a harbinger of coming success ; and, as we know, the sequel justified the omen, and the Churches of Macedonia remained dearest to St. Paul's heart. It would be difficult to find any sphere of his work in which St. Paul's testimony had richer or more extensive results in relation to the Gospel and the life of the Church than in the Roman province which he now reached. Let us look for a moment at the historical setting of St. Paul's visit to Macedonia. Some of the notes of accuracy in the account are so clear that there can scarcely be any mistake about them. The position, e.g., of independence and prominence occupied by women both in Philippi and in Bercea, is quite in accordance ,with what we know from inscriptions of the honourable place assigned to women in Macedonia.^ And this same note of trustworthiness in the record marks the ' See, amongst recent writers, Clemen, Paultts, i. 258. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOUrNeY 3;^ position which is also assigned to women in the Pisidian Antioch (Acts xiii. 50), a notice strictly in accordance with our knowledge of Phrygia and Asia Minor in general. So, again, the description of Lydia reminds us of the trade-guilds so characteristic of the geographical Lydia. It is quite , possible that Lydia acted as agent for some great firm of dyers. Thyatira, in northern Lydia, from whence she came, possessed, as the inscriptions again inform us, various kinds of guilds, not only of dyers, but of potters and loom-makers.^ Moreover, the labour of recent historians has enabled us to see that no error can be alleged against the description which St. Luke gives of Philippi. We have remarked, in a previous lecture, upon this point, and upon the probability that St. Luke may have in mind the title of " first '' given to a first-class city, and that he may be thus showing his acquaintance with the rivalries of Greek cities in gaining the rank of first, second, or even a lower class.* Other indications of accuracy meet us as we proceed with the narrative ; for example, the baffled owners of the slave- girl, seeking a specious revenge for their pecuniary losses ; the tumultous haste of the crowd in which St. Paul's appeal to his Roman citizenship may well have passed unheeded ; the fussiness of the magistrates in a Roman colony like Philippi ; the little band of Jewish proselytes gathering so naturally by the river-side for prayer ; the title given to the politarchs at Thessalonica ; the charge of treason brought against the Apostles both at Philippi and Thessalonica ; the phrase " taking security," — all this and much else brings ' Clemen, u.s., and in Encycl. Bibl., Art. " Lydia " and " Thyatira." * There are, of course, other explanations of St. Luke's words. Dr. Clemen, in his recent book, advocates that of Mr. Turner, to which reference was made in Lecture VIII., Paulus, i. 258 (irpanj rijs being changed into irparqs). It is also noteworthy that Dr. Clemen sees no difficulty in the title given to the magistrates at Philippi, u.s. p. 2$q. See, further, Journal of Theol. Studies, 1899, p. 114, and Cicero, De leg. agr., ii. 34, 93. 38o TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST before us a scene full of life and reality, rich with the impress of first-hand knowledge and truth. What is the objection raised against a narrative so full of striking testimonies to the genuineness of the record ? Chiefly, as we might expect, the miraculous element which is seen in the earthquake and the escape from prison. It is true that we sometimes find that the story is said to be modelled on the story of the earlier liberation of St. Peter, or it is asserted that it must have been borrowed from some classical incident in a play of Euripides ; but still it is rejected chiefly, it would seem, because of the miraculous element which it undoubtedly contains. A further objection is that St. Paul would not have spoken as he did to the Thessalonians (l ii. 2) of his shameful treatment at Philippi, if he had been so miraculously delivered there. But in a short Epistle the Apostle would scarcely do more than refer somewhat briefly to his sufferings at Philippi, which, however, he speaks of as welhknown.to the Thessalonians. It is worth looking for a moment at Dr. Schmiedel's treatment of the incident in question. He rejects, of course, the miraculous interposition and liberation ; but at the end of his article on " Acts " in the Encycl. Bibl. he pens these remarkable words : " Particularly beautiful figures are those of Lydia and the jailer at Philippi. The jailer knows that most important question of religion. What must I do to be saved ? (xvi. 30) ; and Peter also (iv. 12), as well as Paul, expresses the conviction that Christianity alone has a satisfactory answer to give." This is a remarkable acknowledgment, and also a remarkable interpre- tation of Dr. Schmiedel of the old question, which has been sometimes so differently treated, " What must I do to be saved ? " But what becomes of the description of the jailer, of his trembling for fear ? what becomes of the imperative urgency of his question, unless some event in the narrative led up to it and explained it? It is, of course, easy to THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 381 allege that this narrative, with its marvellous incidents, is freely constructed by the editor of Acts, based, no doubt, upon certain traditional facts. But it is surely difficult to have any patience with these repeated attempts to eliminate everything in a narrative which transcends the ordinary experiences of human life. St. Luke, as we have every reason to believe, and as Dr. Clemen allows, was with St. Paul at Philippi, and probably remained on there during St. Paul's absence. He had, therefore, every opportunity to know and to verify the facts which he so vividly relates. In his most valuable introduction to the Philippians Bishop Lightfoot points out that Philippi, and the accounts connected with it in the sacred pages, present us with a picture of the universality of the Gospel, and of its method and its power of appeal to every social grade of human life. The purple-dealer and proselytess of Thyatira ; the native slave-girl with the divining spirit ; the Roman jailer — all alike acknowledge the supremacy of the new faith, and they are representatives of three different races : the one an Asiatic, the other a Greek, the third a Roman.^ Whether the slave-girl was a Greek is perhaps more than we can safely affirm, but at least we may say that the principal figures at Philippi are the woman and the slave, and that Christianity ranks amongst its noblest triumphs the amelioration and elevation of womanhood and the emancipation of countless human beings from the hard lot of slavery.'' For the Jews, indeed, the woman was neither to learn the law nor to teach it ; she could give no witness in court except in certain cases, and Gentiles, women, and slaves were classed together as of a lower religious status. Of Greek literature it may be said that it was full of attacks on women ; and Aristotle could describe • Philippians, p. 54- ' Dr. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, p. 140, 2nd edit. 382 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST both women and slaves in words of worse significance than contempt.^ But in the little Church assembled in the house of the Christian purple-seller at Philippi, Lydia, too, could claim, no less than any other member of the Christian community, to be " faithful in the Lord," in the same Lord who was rich indeed to all who called upon Him. It may be further said that the conversions in the Philippian Church are typical also in another respect. The religion of the family, the religion of the home, the hallowing of family life, this is the lesson taught us as we read of Lydia and her household, of the jailer and all that were in his house. It was this which made Tertullian give us his bright picture of Christian marriage, in which he represents husband and wife as together in prayer, in Church, at God's feast, in persecutions, in times of repose — a picture rendered all the more remarkable when we remember Tertullian's own strong predilection in favour of celibacy. It was this which ' enabled St. Clement of Alexandria to see in the united prayers of father, mother, and child a fulfilment of the divine promise, " Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." ^ And, to pass to our own modern days, it was this which called forth those prophetic words of Dean Church, " When home life, with its sanctities, its simplicity, its calm and deep joys and sorrows, ceases to have its charm for us in England, ' "We do, of course, still talk about the 'republics' of ancient Greece and Rome ; but such a word, in such a connection, is only dust in the eyes of those who do not know. Republic, indeed ! Why, in. the city of Rome, in the first century of the Christian era, out of a population of 1,610,000, the historian Mommsen tells us 900,000 were slaves. Think of it ! three out of five of the men and women whom St. Paul passed in the streets of the imperial city slaves, with less rights in the eyes of the law than your dog ! The same is true of Athens." (The Difference Christ has, made, p. 11, by the Rev. G. Jackson, in the series What is Christianity ? 1905.) ' See Dr. Bright, Primitive Church Life, p. 140 ; E. de Pressens6, Early Years of Christianity, iv. 227, E.T. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 383 the greatest break-up and catastrophe in English history will be not far off." ^ The words were written a generation ago, but who shall say that they have no warning voice for us to-day ? But St. Paul's teaching was not only rich in elevat- ing the position of the woman and the slave, and in transforming the meaning of the word family (for al- though the slave might be ranked as a member of the familia, we cannot conceive of him as in the Christian Church " a brother beloved ") ; it was also to show that Christianity could ennoble and sanctify honest labour, and that it could insist upon what was in fact the true dignity of work. It may be said that Judaism, unlike Greece and Rome, had already held manual labour in the highest esteem. But it must be remembered that there was a time in Jewish history when this had not been so ; and although, in the days of our Lord's Advent, the dignity of labour was no doubt fully recognised and enforced, this change from the way in which labour had been regarded in the Apocrypha, notably Ecclesiasticus, seems to have been due to no religious motive, but rather to social and political circumstances and considerations.'' But in Chris- tianity the motive was solely and distinctively religious. Or if we turn to Aristotle's Politics, we see how he speaks with contempt of those who live from the labours of their hands, and we contrast the philosopher's words with the exhortations of St. Paul to the Macedonian workmen in Thessalonica, or his touching appeal to the elders of Ephesus, " Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me." ^ " Here for the first time," writes Von Dobschiitz, " has the moral worth of work received a clear expression, which ' Infiuences of Christianity (Lectures in St. Paul's, p. 133). ' See Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, pp. 188, 199. ' Cf. Speaker's Commentary, iii. 697. 384 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST transcends the old Jewish view in Gen. iii. 17"; and he points out how, again and again in the history of the Christian Church, men have forgotten, in social distress or in eager expectation of the end, the imperative Christian duty of work.^ From the busy artisan city of Thessalonica, and from Beroea, wh^e his converts were apparently of a higher social grade, St. Paul, pursued by the relentless hatred of his fellow countrymen, passed to the city which still claimed to be the chief home of Greek art and philosophy, Athens. In the graphic picture of St. Luke, drawn, we can scarcely doubt, from St. Paul's own personal experience, we mark not only the traits so characteristic of Athenian life — its leisure, its restless curiosity, its over-religiousness — but also the life of a university town in which commerce had no place, whilst the memories and traditions of the past, and the presence of at least two great opposing philosophic schools, attracted students and stimulated discussion. At a later period of this same first Christian century, in which St. Paul came to Athens, the city received the visit of a notorious and pretentious philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana. As he wended his way from his ship to the city we read in his Life how Apollonius met many philosophers ; some were reading, some were declaiming, others were arguing ; all of them alike gave him their greeting. It is one touch out of many which enables us to see how faithfully St. Luke hit off the academic learning and leisure which still found a home in Athens.^ Within the last few years a keen discussion has arisen as to whether St. Paul addressed the philosophers on Mars' * See Die urchristlichen Gemeinden, p. 71 (1903). * See, further, Feine, Art. " Stoizismus und Christentum " in the Tfieologisches Literaturblatt, xxvi. 7, February 7, 1905. The same article also points out how in this address at Athens, as in Romans i. 19, various points of contact with Stoical teaching and language may be illustrated, although acquaintance with the Apocr3rpha is also admitted. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 385 Hill or whether he was taken to the King's Hall, where the court of the Areopagus sat. In the latter case the proceedings would take the practical form of a preliminary- inquiry into the nature of the Apostle's teaching ; in the former he would be simply represented as responding to the curiosity of the Athenians to know more of the teaching which had already attracted the crowds which thronged the Agora.^ It is often said that St. Paul had no eye for the beauty of nature, and he has sometimes been compared in this respect with St. Bernard, of whom it is related that he rode all day along the Lake of Geneva, and asked in the evening where he was. But it is difficult to recall the varied metaphors which find a place in St. Paul's letters without entertaining some doubt as to the correctness of this view. So, too, when he speaks at Athens : the world for him is still God's world ; he calls it the cosmos, a thing of order, as the Stoics around him would recognise ; and it is surely not without significance that this is the only time the word " cosmos " occurs in the Acts. And not only so, but St. Paul could speak of a divine order in the world of human life no less than in the world of nature : God had made of one every nation of men • Dr. Chase is at issue with Professor Ramsay as to the site of St. Paul's address. But although he argues with great force against the supposition of a formal religious tribunal, we may venture to think that he goes somewhat too far in a counter-direction, and that he scarcely disposes of the difficulties which Professor Ramsay so carefully enumerates against the supposition that the speech of St. Paul was delivered on the summit of the Areopagus, and not before the court in the Stoa Basileios. In this connection it may be further noted that a controversy has arisen over the interpretation given by Dr. Chase to the word Seia-LdaifUHxaTcpovs. He regards the word as expressive of rebuke not wholly unmingled with contempt. Yet it is not only difficult to believe that St. Paul would thus commence a speech in which he wished to gain a hearing, but the context (Acts xvii. 24), where the verb evtrejStiTe is regarded by him as one result of this SeunSaifiovia, would certainly suggest that the adjective is used here in a good or at least a neutral sense. 25 386 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST to dwell on all the face of the earth. It was a truth which sorely needed to be remembered by these Athenians, boasting to be sprung from the soil. Little did they anticipate that not to a Greek, not to a Roman, but to a Jew, the world would owe the promulgation, and, what was still more, the preserva- tion of an everlasting bond ,of holiest brotherhood, which would unite in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. All through the course of human history this divine order might be traced ; the history of nations was not a mighty maze without a plan, it was in reality the good hand of our God upon those who were made in His image. And the purpose which ran through the ages, what was it ? That men should realise the nearness of God and their own divine sonship ; that they should not always be groping after Him, as in an outer darkness, for they were also His offspring. And the hymn of the heathen poet, no less than the Jewish Book of Wisdom, could speak of the divine Father and of His closeness to each one of His children.^ " Come and behold the works of the Lord." The words of the Hebrew psalmist were chosen by the Father of German history, Sebastian Frank, as a motto for his book, which he entitled A Bible of History. Can we doubt that they express the mind and the spirit of St. Paul as he too looked back and read the page of history ? " Come and behold the works of the Lord." Let us pause for a moment at this mention of the Book of Wisdom. Some notable points of contact have been pointed out between this book and St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.^ But J it is a matter of considerable interest that points of contact with the same book may be found in the • Perhaps St. Paul may have said, " as certain of our poets have said," to intimate that he, too, could " take his place as a Greek among Greeks." On the manner in which the same truths are set forth in Acts xvii. 23 ff, and in Rom. i. 19 ff, see Westcott, The Gospel of Life, p. 200. " Sanday & Headlam, Romans, p. 51. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 387 speeches attributed by St. Luke to St. Paul both at Athens and at Lystra. What is the inference? It is surely not unfair to conclude that the existence of such a joint literary characteristic confirms the conclusion that the Epistle to the Romans and the two Pauline speeches are the production of one and the same mind.^ Van Manen also acknowledges this acquaintance of the Epistle to the Romans with the Book of Wisdom, but he would argue from this against the Jewish nationality of the writer of the Epistle. , But there is surely no reason why the Jew St. Paul should not have been acquainted with the Book of Wisdom. The author of that book, in spite of his Hellenic culture, is a Jew, and a Jew of a stiff orthodox fashion. And St. Paul, whose acquaint- ance with Stoical philosophy may easily have been acquired at Tarsus, so famous for its Stoical teachers, may well have been specially attracted by a book so closely allied to the same system of philosophy. But this testimony of St. Paul to the power and the providence of God, what answer had it already received in Athens ? " He beheld the city full of idols." It was this which provoked the spirit of the Apostle within him, and it is no small proof of the truth of the narrative that with such a sight before his eyes St. Paul's words at Athens contain no mention of the beauty of the scene around him, of the glories of art, of silver and gold, the work of men's hands. But still there was something left ; and to that St. Paul appealed : there was the instinct, nay, the desire of worship, the recognition of some unknown and higher power. St. Paul does not say, " What therefore ye ignorantly worship," but, " What ye worship in ignorance, this set I forth unto you." The God whom St. Paul proclaimed was a righteous Judge, strong and patient, provoked indeed every day, but overlooking hitherto the times of men's ignorance. But because righteousness was in truth the habitation of His ' Chase, Credibility of Acts, p. 222. 388 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST throne, St. Paul could see in Him not only a God of moral order, a moral ruler in the history of the world, but a God of judgment in the appointment of a day in which He would judge the world by the Man whom he had ordained. In view of that judgment, St. Paul had but one command for all men everywhere (as the original so pointedly expresses the words), that they should repent. Did they ask for an assurance that the world's history was to find its consumma- tion in a day of judgment ? That assurance had already been given, and given once for all, in the fact that the minister and mediator of that judgment had been raised by God from the dead. Repentance, resurrection, what had the men who were listening to St. Paul to do with either? The Stoic, who found his counterpart, according to Josephus, in the Pharisee, might well thank God that he was not as other men ; the Epicurean might regret that some whim or instinct had failed to obtain the satisfaction which might make his life one rounded whole ; but repentance which St. Paul proclaimed as the one great divine command for wise and simple alike, what did he, what could he know of its meaning or its necessity ? Resurrection, judgment, had not these philoso- phers put away childish things, and were they there to listen to those stories of the other world at which every schoolboy had learnt to smile? It is perhaps possible, if we adopt one little touch introduced into the narrative by the R.V., that worthier feelings than those of ridicule and contempt were stirred in some of the audience of St. Paul, and they said " we will hear thee concerning this yet again " (R.V.). But no word of the historian leads us for a moment to suppose that any great success attended St. Paul's efforts in Athens. But at least this sobriety and restraint in the narrative is a remarkable evidence of its truthfulness, a sobriety and THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 389 restraint which is evident in the speech and in the sequel alike ; and Dr. Clemen candidly remarks upon this element of truthfulness. It is not, moreover, without importance to point out that, whilst Professor Soltau (u.s. p. 133) finds that some of the addresses in the Acts are imitated from St. Paul's letters, as, e.g.,m the speech at Athens, Acts xvii. 22-31 from Rom. i. 11-14, Dr. Von Soden, on the other hand, finds one of his weightiest objections to the addresses in the fact that they are devoid in his judgment of any relationship with St. Paul's Epistles.^ Here was a splendid opportunity for a forger ; for the first time St. Paul had come into contact with the learning and culture of Greece ; and it would have been easy and natural enough to represent the scene on Mars' Hill as a great triumph for the preaching of the word ; here, too, would be an opportunity to find a parallel to St. Peter's successful preaching with its thousands of converts in St. Paul's bringing to naught the wisdom of this world. An ingenious attempt has indeed been recently made to show that St. Paul's preaching at Athens, if judged by a modern standard, might be called successful, and that if one or two notable conversions were effected by a modern sermon, the preacher would be more than satisfied. But the mention of St. Paul's converts at Athens does not necessarily follow in the narrative as the immediate result of a single sermon. And if the statement " Howbeit certain believed " is to be regarded as representing the sum total of conversions, it can scarcely be said that the Apostle's teaching had made much way. It has sometimes been thought that a modern discovery marks the former existence of a synagogue in Athens. On a slab found at the foot of Hymettus we read, " This is the gate of the Lord : the righteous shall enter into it " ^ (Ps. cxviii. 20). But even if we see in this slab I Urchristliche Literaturgeschichie, p. 125. ' Encycl Bibl., Art. " Athens," i. 383 ; and in Hastings' B.D. i. 197. 390 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST a Christian, and not a Jewish, inscription, since it dates apparently from the third or fourth century, it by no means loses its interest. On the contrary, it indicates in this case the existence of a Christian Church in Athens in the earlier days of the Church's life, and it helps us to see that even if St. Paul never visited Athens again, yet his testimony had not been altogether in vain. It is interesting to note how much Christianity owes to Athens. From Athens, e.g., came the earliest Christian apologist Aristides, and as we read his Apology we cannot help being sometimes reminded in its wording of the Christian philosophy taught by St. Paul before the Areopagus. Thus Aristides points out that the philosophers err in asserting that any such thing as de- ficiency can be present to deity, as when they say that He receives sacrifice and requires burnt-offering and libations and immolations of men and temples. But God, he adds, is not in need, and none of these things is necessary to Him. Christians do not worship idols made in the image of man, but they pray that those in error may repent, that so they may appear before the awful judgment which, through Jesus the Messiah, will come upon the whole human race. The latter words remind us of the one distinctively Christian statement in St. Paul's speech at Athens, viz. that God would judge the world by that Man whom He had or- dained, and that He had given assurance of it by the resur- rection of Jesus from the dead. Here, again, we have a mark of restraint and truthfulness which a second-century writer would have found it hard to maintain. It may be added that St. Paul may have introduced this special Christian statement for more reasons than one. No doubt it brought his teaching to a sharp issue with that of the philosophers before him, whether Stoic or Epicurean. But more than this, there is one Epistle of St. Paul's of which it has been truly said that in it the Apostle's preach- THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 391 ing seems mainly to have turned upon one point, the approaching judgment and the coming of Christ.^ Now this first Epistle to the Thessalonians was written shortly after St. Paul's visit to Athens and during his stay at Corinth ; and whilst one characteristic note of the Apostle's teaching in this Epistle is thus found to be emphasised in his speech at Athens, it may be observed that another characteristic note from the teaching of the same Epistle occurs in his earlier speech at Lystra. In the Epistle he exhorts the Thessalonians " to turn unto God from idols to serve a living and true God " ; in almost similar words he warns the inhabitants of Lystra " to turn from these vain things unto the living God." In each case St. Paul com- mences his work amongst Gentiles by a similar bidding. It is interesting to note that both the narrative in the Acts and the statements of St. Paul in i Corinthians indicate that, as the. Apostle passed to Corinth, he determined no longer to appeal to philosophy as a philosopher, but to preach the simple tidings of a Gospel which possessed indeed a sancta simplidtas, and which was the power of God and the wisdom of God. We may see in Acts xviii. 5, as Professor Ramsay maintains, a picture of the Apostle wholly absorbed in preaching, in teaching the word (so, too, McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 263). And this picture would be quite in harmony with that which is presented to us by St. Paul's own declarations to the Corinthian Church. Thus he tells us how he came among the Corinthians in much fear and trembling ; how his preaching was free from all rhetorical art and human wisdom ; how he determined, in short, to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. " Where is wise man ? where is scribe ? " (i Cor. i. 20) he asks. Greek sophist and Jewish scribe alike had failed to grasp, with all their subtlety and disputatious argument, the ' See Dr. Chase, Credibility of Acts, pp. 197, 231, 233. 392 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST meaning of the Cross and its divine power to save and bless. What had caused the insistence upon this one theme in the Apostle's efforts to win souls at Corinth ? If we interpret it as due to the consciousness that at Athens other topics had found too prominent a place, then this remarkable change in his utterances at Corinth affords corroboration of the truthfulness of the account of his previous experiences in Athens. But however this may be, the Apostle's reference to his fear and much trembling amongst the Corinthians is in striking accordance with the notice in Acts xviii. 9 : " And the Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision. Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace." Nowhere was there more need of a bold and consistent witness than in this miniature world of Corinth. In many respects Corinth differed from Athens : the latter was the educational centre, with all its old and memorable traditions of the history of the past ; but Corinth was the actual centre not only of government as the capital, but of trade, as so easily accessible by land and sea alike. If we glance for a moment at some of the characteristic features of Corinth, we can see something of the place in which Paul was now called upon to bear his witness — a place marked not only by the intellectual restlessness of Athens, but also proverbial for its manifold forms of vice. Corinth was, in fact, a city which combined in itself some of the most marked characteristics of the busiest and the gayest of European capitals, full of every nationality, the home of every pretentious, intellectual craze, Greek, Roman, Oriental in one ; the worshipper of wealth and pleasure ; the harbour for the commerce of East and West alike. In the streets and in the schools of Corinth Paul's witness was to be borne ; no doubt there was cause for fear and trembling, and yet in the midst of his anxiety and apprehension the Apostle is cheered by the message of hope for himself and THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 393 his work — a message which has cheered so many Christian labourers in London to-day : " Be not afraid ... I am with thee ; I have much people in this city." No doubt these Corinthian converts were still so tied and bound in some respects by the fatal associations around them that it was difficult for them, as i Corinthians plainly shows, to rejoice in the fulness of the freedom which Christ bestowed, to rise at once and entirely above the conventional views as to the sins of the flesh, to overcome the spirit of quarrelsomeness and the love of litigation so common amongst the Greeks, to quell the keen and subtle doubts which surrounded even the great fact of the resurrection of the Lord. But still, whilst we are not called upon to regard these early Christian Churches as entirely Churches of saints in name and in deed, yet a greater and more speedy result followed St. Paul's preaching than could have been humanly expected. Now it is just this demonstration of the Spirit in moral and spiritual power which stands out to-day, in spite of all adverse criticism, as the clearest and most significant outcome of St. Paul's work in Corinth. The very address of St. Paul's two Epistles, "To the Church of God which is at Corinth," is it not in itself what Bengel long ago called it, ingens paradoxon, a mighty paradox ? And yet that paradox was true. Amongst the Corinthians, a name which even in our modern language has become a synonym for profligate idleness, there was a Church of the living God. Two recent attempts to describe early Christianity in Corinth enable us to realise this, although the two writers do not treat the subject entirely from the same point of view.^ ■ Urchristentum in Korinth, by Dr. G. HoUmann (1903), and Die urchristlichen Gemeinden, by Professor E. Von Dobschutz (1902). See also his Probleme des apost. Zeitalters (1904). 394 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Thus we have been assured at length how the intel- lectualism, the overweening pride, the love of parties, the unseemly behaviour at feasts of charity, the value attached to ecstatic worship and magical efficacy, all may be traced back to Greek and pagan influences. But after everything has been said in this direction that can be said, what then ? We have the simultaneous confession so strikingly made that it is just here, in this manifest contrast between the old religions and the new faith, that the true greatness of St. Paul is seen. St. Paul esteems the gift of tongues as something of high value ; he thanks God for it. And yet the same Apostle in the Psalm of Love of the New Testament (i Cor. xiii.), which takes its place amongst the noblest passages of the world's literature, praises love as that which is highest and as the goal of all things. Here, so it is main- tained, is the undying service of St. Paul, that he regarded the Spirit not merely as having a sphere in the world beyond the grave but as an inward and moral principle for us here and now. By him religion and morality are thus joined together, and in so doing the Apostle made in truth no new discovery ; he was but following in the steps of that greater One, who once in Galilee had united religion and morality in a manner which can never be surpassed.^ We cannot endorse such a judgment in all its particulars, but we can see in it, at any rate, an acknowledgment of the unique power of the faith which Paul preached — a power and a faith which we owe to Christ our Lord. But the same writer shows us that this is by no means all. What, he asks, is the new fact which separated the Corinthian Christians from their fellow citizens in Corinth? It was the word of the Cross, which was the centre of St. Paul's preaching. And those who called upon the name of the Lord were also those who awaited the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ (it Cor. i. 7). What a message of > Urchristentutn in Kbrinth, Dr. Holltnann, p. 29. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 395 hope and power for the poor and sorrowful, for the lonely folk of whom the Church was so largely composed ! Such men were rich, though poor, rich in the word, rich in know- ledge. But Christianity, as St. Paul fully recognised, demands more than knowledge ; it demands the penetration of the whole life with the fundamental thoughts of the Christian faith. And this lesson could only be learnt by degrees, and even in our modern days this is the hardest task to effect in the religious life. And yet, in spite of this difficulty, the Apostle is not concerned as to the result. Why ? because of the conviction that every Christian had received a gift, the grace of God in Christ. This, in a word, was the new power which could make men and women young in the faith endure unto the end. The faithfulness of God was the pledge that the result would be even so. In the same manner one of the best-known of modern Church historians in Germany, E. Von Dobschiitz, has recently emphasised the moral power of the Christian faith. But he rightly shows much less inclination than his fellow country- man to lay such excessive stress upon points of likeness between Christianity and other religions. What we have to do, he urges, is not merely to insist upon the points of likeness and contact, but also upon the points of unlikeness and contrast. No doubt, as he reminds us, Christianity was an enthusiastic movement, with its ecstatic conditions and all kinds of spiritual workings ; but, more than this, and above all this, it was a thorough and moral renovation which owed its power to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. " This," he adds, " is to me the greatest thing in Paul, that he was able to raise the Gentile Christian Churches, gathered by him in part, at all events, out of the most worthless grades of social life, to the heights of Gospel piety and morality.^ As we look back over St. Paul's many labours, both in Macedonia and in Corinth, we recall, it may be, the mocking ' Prohleme des a^ost. Zeitaliers, p. 79. 396 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST words once uttered by the early and bitter opponent of Christianity, the heathen philosopher Celsus : " Only sinners become Christians," said he, in contempt and scorn ; but we may also recall the justification of the answer returned by the Christian Church : " Yes, because only Christ can transform sinners into saints." LECTURE XIX THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY. IN the third missionary journey of St. Paul, Ephesus occupies the prominent, the foremost place. Evidently its attraction had been long felt by the Apostle. In his second journey it was for him the city in which the East might be said to look out on the West,^ and as such he thought of it not only for its own attractions, but as a further stage towards his final goal, the capital and the centre of the civilised world — Rome itself At the close of this second journey St. Paul had passed from Corinth to Ephesus ; but his stay had been short, and he was only able to commence the preaching which was afterwards to occupy such a lengthy period. " If God will," he had promised to return from Jerusalem, and by that same divine will he had come unto Ephesus again. No choice of place could have been more in accordance with St. Paul's usual methods than that of Ephesus, where so many great commercial roads converged, and from whence the crowds of provincials who came for worship or for trade, or for both, could carry the tidings of the new religion to their homes. But although St. Paul's work in Ephesus had been deferred, all his previous labour had not been in vain, in view of the great Roman province Asia and its renowned capital ; rather it is rightly regarded as a preparation for Ephesus, as Ephesus in turn was a preparation for Rome. ' Ramsay, Art. " Roads and Travel," Hastings' B.D., v. 388. 397 398 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST If Ephesus differed in many respects from the cities of Macedonia, or from Athens and Corinth, yet St. Paul must have found there evils very similar to those which he had before found, and perhaps even in some respects more diffi- cult to combat. As at Athens, he would meet men eager for philosophic teaching, curious to know something of any new cult ; as at Athens, he would find men with leisure for nothing else but either to tell or to hear some newer thing (Acts xvii. 2i) — the school (0^0X17) of Tyrannus bore witness in its very name to the leisure thus employed ; as at Athens and at Corinth, he would see Greek art pandering to the service of gods made with men's hands ; as at Corinth, he would mark again the sensuality associated with the ritual of a temple and a worship still Greek in name ; and as at Philippi, and in a far more widespread form, he would note the debasing influence of Oriental quackery and superstition. In such a city, where such influences were rife, although the Apostle found disciples who had been carefully pre- pared by Aquila and Priscilla, and although on his arrival the little band who had already been baptized with John's baptism were baptized into the name of Jesus, it is surely not surprising that God should work special miracles by the hands of St. Paul (Acts xix. 11). A further and convincing demonstration of the Spirit and of power was needed to show not only to Greeks, but to Jews also, that there was at Ephesus, as elsewhere, one Name, and one only, given under heaven, whereby men must be saved. In the synagogue it is evident that the Christian preaching met with some considerable success ; but, as at Athens, as at Corinth, a crisis came, and a separation had to be made between those who would welcome and those who would oppose the kingdom which St. Paul proclaimed, and the Way which had been taught by Him who was Himself the Way, the Truth, the Life.' Henceforth, from the lecture-room of Tyrannus, or from the pastoral visitation of house to house. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 399 the word of the Lord was to sound forth far and wide throughout the province. But this wide audience to which St. Paul now appealed had lived all their lives amidst the practices of magical arts in a place which was itself a centre of the study of magic formulae, of those " Ephesian letters " and spells, symbols of mystic meaning, the utterance of which was regarded as conferring a potent charm. Indeed, these so-called " Ephe- sian letters " were said to be of special efficacy in connection with cases of possession by evil spirits.^ Jews as well as Greeks were victims of these miserable superstitions ; Jews, too, had their strings of magical names, their formulae of exorcism, their medley of spells.^ And they, too, had seen the successful results which followed upon St. Paul's appeal to the name of the Lord Jesus. Why, then, should not they employ the same name and anticipate the same success ? The R.V. brings out this point by adding one little word in the text : " But certain also of the strolling Jews " (xix. 13). The word " also " contrasts, as it were, the claims which the Jewish exorcists made so rashly and their use of a name the potency of which they had never felt, with St. Paul's possession of a divine power and reliance on a divine Person. And the sequel marks this contrast. The evil spirit prevails over the Jewish exorcists, and so masters them that they flee naked and wounded. Jews and Greeks alike had been wont to use strangely varied names and spells ; but now it became known to all, to Jews and Greeks alike, that the name of Jesus was the name of the Lord, a name not only to be heard, but to be magnified. To mark this unique power of the name of Jesus is the object of the startling episode introduced by St. Luke, and it is no small proof of the » Art. " Exorcists," Encycl. Bibl., ii. ^ See Art. " Exorpists," u.s., and Laible, Jesus Christ in the Talmicd, p. 49, E.T. 40O TESTIJMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST truth of the incident that it stops where it does ; that, in other words, it establishes the pre-eminence of the name of Jesus ; but it adds nothing further to satisfy curiosity as to the victims of a strange and masterful power of evil. But St. Paul's testimony to the name of Jesus had a further and a deeper effect : " Many also of them that had believed came, confessing and declaring their deeds '' (Acts xix. 1 8). We are told that " they had believed," but plainly not with the heart unto righteousness ; but now that the name of Jesus was shown to be the Name above any other name, such a proof of power carried with it conviction. It looked indeed as if these people, while professing a Christian belief, had still clung in secret to their magic and their incantations. But the sacrifice of their gains is the best proof that they had now learnt the meaning of those two demands which Christianity had made upon them from the first : repentance towards God, and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. The burning of the parchments, of the rolls of magical formulae, is one of the many dramatic touches in the vivid account of St. Paul's work in Ephesus, and we noted in a previous lecture how two words at least occur in the narrative, the use of which is plainly corroborated on the papyri, which bear their witness to the widespread prevalence of the superstitious arts of that old pagan world.-^ But there were other dwellers at Ephesus who also spoke evil of the Way, although actuated by motives differing in some respects, at least in appearance, from those which prompted the Jews. Amongst the latter the motive was ostensibly religious, the motive of an intolerant sect, and of a blindness to see the truth of the things spoken of by Paul. But in the skilled craftsmen and in the artisans of Ephesus the Apostle had to face men who could appeal ' See note in loco in Expositor's Greek Testament, and, amongst recent writers, Clemen, Faulus, i. 284. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 401 not only to the disrepute brought upon their religion, but also to the loss inflicted upon their pockets. At Ephesus, as at Lystra, it is remarkable that this fierce opposition did not come from the priesthood.^ They, like the Asiarchs, may have been interested in St. Paul's teaching, or possibly they did not feel in any acute manner the popular danger which the last new religion was destined to provoke. But the craftsmen and the workmen who gathered round Demetrius, associated with him, perhaps, in one of the many trade guilds, organised so frequently in Asia Minor, told a different tale. Their business was endangered, and as the Christian teaching gained ground, there was a manifest falling off in the purchase of the silver shrines of the goddess, which occasioned so much outlay and gave employment to so many hands. In quite a naive manner Demetrius puts this business loss first ; he relegates, as it were, to the second place of importance the risk attaching to the worship of the goddess, the risk that she should be made of no account. But the kind of appeal urged by Demetrius has always been specious and effective. One of the most serious obstacles to the preaching of Christianity in Japan came at first from those who were apprehensive that their ill-gotten gains should come into disrepute, like the trade of Demetrius at Ephesus. At the same time, even if the words of Demetrius were exaggerated for his purpose, his attitude was in itself a remarkable testimony to the spread and the influence of the Christian teaching. No doubt as the preaching continued its effects would be felt through a widening portion of the province, and there would be a falling off in the number of pilgrims, and consequently in the "gains of Demetrius and the craftsmen. And if Demetrius had chosen, as seems to have been the case, a great festival of the goddess for the utterance of his complaints, we can easily understand how ' Cf. Art. " Diana," Encycl. BibL, ii. iioo. 26 402 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST forcibly his words would appeal to men who felt and knew that in honouring their goddess they were benefiting them- selves. There are few scenes even in this latter part of Acts more vivid and lifelike than the scene which follows in the theatre at Ephesus. Not the least remarkable feature in it is the place assigned to St. Paul. He does not go into the theatre to face the mob, but conforms to the wishes of his friends that he should not so endanger himself A forger would have told the story differently. How easy and how telling , to describe the Apostle, who counted not his life dear unto himself, as braving the angry crowd in the theatre, and constraining them to grant safety to himself and his fellow travellers The description could scarcely have been invented ; but it becomes more intelligible if we remember that St. Paul's friends were men of influence — the Asiarchs, who would regard the Apostle perhaps as some new teacher, one amongst many such, and who would not be swayed by the vulgar and narrow prejudices which Demetrius so skilfully stirred.^ Even in quarters in which we might least expect it the force of this truthfulness has been felt. It would be easy, e.g., to dwell upon the characteristics of the mob so strikingly in accordance with those attributed to it by the pseudo-Heraclitus, himself an Ephesian philosopher, who does not spare his fellow citizens in the description which he has given of their exhibitions of unbridled passion. But let us turn for a moment to the chief character in the scene in the theatre, that of the secretary or the clerk, as we may call him,^ who not only vindicates the conduct of St. Paul's friends, and secures their safety from attack, but also brings the foolish mob to see the likely consequences of their headstrong folly. 1 Art. "Asiarchs," Encycl. Bibl., i. 341. ' Art. "Town Clerk" (Ramsay), Hastings' B.D., iv. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 403 It is worth noting how the writer of the article " Ephesus in the Encycl. Bibl. is constrained to acknowledge the marvellous skill with which the character in question is drawn. " Owing to the decay of popular government under the empire," he writes, " the ' public clerk ' became the most important of the three ' recorders,' and the picture in Acts of the ■ town clerk's ' consciousness of responsibility, and his influence with the mob, is true to the inscriptions" (ii. 1303), where, let us remember, the title occurs again and again. How striking, again, is the introduction of the Jew Alexander into the scene and the part which he plays in the uproar. The anxiety of the man is so naturally drawn, for there were many Jews in Ephesus, and Alexander is rightly apprehensive that the mob in their excitement might fail to discriminate between Jew and Christian. And his surmise was correct, for no less natural than the apprehension of Alexander is the undiscriminating anger of the mob. Not even a Jew, to say nothing of a Christian, could obtain a hearing from them ; his very appearance only added fuel to the flame, and the frenzy of the crowd found vent in the loud cry .which signified, according to the probable reading, an exclamation of devotion to the goddess, the source of their wealth, Great Artemis ! It is not surprising that in the anticipation of such frenzy by a mob described in the words of a philosopher of Ephesus as a crowd no longer of men, but of beasts,^ Paul's friends should have taken measures to insure his safety. This entreaty of the Christian disciples was seconded, as we have seen, from a strange quarter. " Certain of the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him and besought him not to adventure himself into the theatre" (Acts xix. 31). The R.V. has "chief officers of Asia " (and in the margin " Asiarchs") ; and no doubt reference ' On the remarkable points of contact between the description of the Ephesians in the letters of pseudo-Heraclitus of Ephesus and in the Acts, see Bishop Gore, Ephesians, p. 253, and V. Bartlet, Apostolic Age, p. 147. 404 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST is made in this well-attested title to the Asiarchs, who were selected from the wealthy citizens, owing to the expenses which their terms of office involved, and who apparently formed a kind of council responsible for the maintenance of the imperial cult, the worship, that is, of Rome and of the Emperor throughout the whole province of Asia. But if this is so, their introduction here throws a remarkable light not only upon the attitude of the more educated classes towards Christianity, but also of the representatives of the Roman imperial policy towards the Christian Church. It is a very likely surmise that they met in Ephesus at the time of the great annual festival of Artemis ; and as they represented various great cities of the province, their friendship with Paul is the more remarkable. Such a fact seems to testify not only to the spread of the faith far and wide outside Ephesus, as we have good reason to believe was the case, but also to the wonderful power of St. Paul's own personality. According to his own statement, he had worked as a poor man at Ephesus to meet his own necessities and for the maintenance of his friends, and yet he had gained not merely the acquaintance or the curious attention, but the friendship, of the leading men of Asia, men of high social and official status. The tolerant attitude of the Roman officials towards the Apostle, as also that of the representatives of the empire, is well marked throughout the Acts ; and we may justly suppose that to show the wide and constant prevalence of this friendly feeling at the date of the Apostle's labours was one of St. Luke's main objects as an historian, and it is difficult to see why the frank acknowledgment of such a purpose should in any degree invalidate the historical value and character of the book.^ It is a corroboration of the ' In answer to the recent strictures of Von Soden in this respect, in his UrchristUche Literaturgeschichte, p. 117, s^&'We.ndA, Die A^ostel- geschichte, p. 17. The third missionary journey 40s truthfulness of the picture in the Acts to recall how in Smyrna an Asiarch forbade the violence of the crowd which sought to let loose a lion on the aged and saintly Polycarp. But it is of further interest to note that some of the characters depicted at Ephesus are reproduced, so to speak, in our modern world. We have the Asiarchs represented again in modern India, in the regard of any new cult with equanimity, one might almost say with friendliness ; and missionary workers have not failed to point out the analogies between Ephesus and its religions and the situation of mission work in India in relation to priests and people (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 28 1). Demetrius, too, and his craftsmen have also their counterpart, as we have seen, in our modern world, and it was only, we may add, by the persistent attitude of a few Christians in Japan who had nothing what- ever to boast of in the way of social culture or social status, that the evil to which I referred was checked and further progress made. But the bearing of St. Paul and his friends, and the testimony which their lives bore to their faith, had influenced not only the Asiarchs ; they had had an effect upon the most influential officer in the city, the secretary, who was brought into such close relationship with the representatives of the imperial rule. In a few words he declared, without the slightest hesitation, and as if he was quite aware, in his responsible post, that the statement could not be refuted, that the accused Christians had been guilty of no act of sacrilege, of no impiety towards the goddess by word or deed. Not only the secretary's position, but his tactful opening remarks that all the world recognised the honour due to the Ephesian Artemis, would add force and persuasiveness to his exhortation. Moreover, if he was correct, then the danger was great from an official point of view ; for not only was there no cause for the tumultuous assembly which had collected, but it was very possible that the Roman power 4o6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST might see in such an assembly, unusual and illegal, a reasonable cause for a prosecution for sedition. For the present no charge had been proved, and no charge or inquiry could be made except in the pro-consul's court or in a legal assembly. The assembly before him, such as it was, the secretary dismissed, thus following up his practical action by a practical procedure, and employing a word, " Ecclesia " which might help to save the riotous crowd from further official notice.^ St. Paul's work in Ephesus thus stood interrupted, but it cannot be said to have failed, and his testimony had not been delivered in vain. Professor Orr rightly asks " whether Christianity must not have become an exceedingly powerful force before, in a city like Ephesus, we could have the adepts in magical arts bringing their books and burning them, to the value of some ;£'2,ooo of our money ; or before we could have a riot instigated by Demetrius, on the plea that not only the trade of shrine-making was brought into dis- repute, but the worship of the great goddess Artemis was in peril of being subverted, not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia ; or whether things must not have gone far to justify even a hyperbole like Paul's, that the Gospel had been preached in all creation under heaven, and was also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing (Col i. i6, 23, R.V.)." ^ The last words in this quotation are taken from the Epistle to the Colossians, and it would seem a fair inference that the Gospel had found its way to the great centres of trade which might so easily be reached from Ephesus. The letter to the Colossians also reminds us that in two other cities in the Lycus valley Christian communities had been formed, in Hierapolis and Laodicea. Possibly Timothy had evangelised the three cities, as he is specially ' See Art. " Ephesus " (Ramsay) in Hastings' B.D., i. 723. ^ Neglected Factors in the Early Progress of Christianity, p. 44 (1899). THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 407 mentioned in the letter to Colosse, and we can scarcely doubt that other of St. Paul's fellow helpers, men like Epaphras or Titus, would assist in this great mission work. It is indeed quite possible that the period of St. Paul's stay at Ephesus was signalised by the foundation of all the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse of St. John. Not only their nearness to Ephesus, but their trade in each case would make communication easy and practicable.^ Among these Churches it is noticeable that this city of Hierapolis has been described as the place in which the native superstition is revealed to us in its sharpest and most aggressive form, and nowhere probably was the opposition between the worship of the goddess Diana and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ so strongly accentuated. When we think of the abominations which the heathen worship implied, we can see perhaps a fuller meaning in the warnings issued in the Colossian and Ephesian Epistles alike." Yet even in this place Christianity had found a home, and Epaphras, a faithful minister in Christ, had striven that his brethren might stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God (Col. iv. 12). Although the adversaries were many, a door great and effectual thus stood open to St. Paul and to those who laboured on his behalf, not only at Ephesus (i Cor. xvi. 9 ; Col. iv. 3), -but throughout the province which was the largest and the richest in the East. No sooner had the Apostle left Ephesus than another door was opened to him (2 Cor. ii. 12-13) ! but for more reasons than one, possibly through depression or ill-health, or possibly as to his anxiety as to news which Titus would bring of the Church in Corinth, he was scarcely fit to respond to the opportunity at the moment Troas, with its open door, • See Art." Hierapolis " (Ramsay) in Hastings' B.D., ii. ' Art. " Hierapolis," in Encycl. Bihl., ii. 2064 ; and cf. Col. iii. 5, 16; Eph. iv. 17-19, V. 3. 408 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST had probably been evangelised on some former occasion, and its position perhaps afforded a good field for fresh mission work in the neighbourhood. But however this may have been, St. Paul, in his anxiety hurries on to Philippi, where probably he met Titus, and gained intelligence as to how his severe letter to Corinth had been received. The news which greeted him as to the state of things in Corinth was by no means altogether satisfactory ; but it is impossible to deal here with the extremely difficult and disputed question of the exact relationship between St. Paul and his Corinthian converts. But there was one matter evidently very dear to the Apostle's heart, the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem. The two Corinthian Epistles show how St. Paul's thoughts, in spite of all his other cares and anxieties, were set upon this (cf. I Cor. xvi. i ; 2 Cor. viii. 9 ; Rom. xv. 25). Two whole chapters of 2 Corinthians are devoted to enforcing the need of a response to this great offering on the part of the Corinthian Christians. There had been a time, St. Paul reminds them, when they had shown more readiness than the Macedonian Churches, but now there was a very grave danger lest Achaia should fall behind Macedonia. Few things are more striking and more pathethic in the account of this collection for the saints than the ungrudging praise bestowed by St. Paul upon the Macedonians. For them it had been a privilege to give ; they had not waited to be asked ; and when we remember that there is good reason to believe that the condition of the whole of Greece was marked at the time by poverty and distress, we see a further fitness of meaning in the Apostle's words when he refers to the grace of God which had been given in the Churches of Macedonia, how that, in much proof of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality (2 Cor. viii. 2)} It is a remarkable proof of the way in which all the best traits of the Macedonian people, ' See Dean Bernard, Expositor's Crreek Testament, iii. 84. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 409 their sturdy perseverance, their indomitable character, their unshaken fidelity, were drawn out by the message of the Gospel and the teaching of St. Paul.^ " Only they would that we should remember the poor " (Gal. ii. 10). The years which had passed since the Jerusalem Council had not lessened, but increased, St. Paul's sense of the value and constraining force of this bond of holiest brotherhood in uniting the scattered Churches of Christ in one.^ And now he is anxious that the delegates from Asia and Galatia, from Macedonia and Achaia, should accompany him to Rome, as a guarantee that this great work of the collection had been carried out with a love that seeketh not her own. But closely connected with this desire to visit Jerusalem was the further desire that he must see Rome. It must have cost the Apostle something to say farewell to the Churches of Macedonia and to the Church at Corinth ; but necessity was laid upon him. During his short and farewell stay of three months in Corinth it would seem that much had been done to restore St. Paul's authority, and the later history of this same Corinthian Church bore witness to its fidelity to Apostolic teaching. These same three months were also doubly fruitful, for in them the Apostle wrote the treatise which was, of all his letters, the most marked by calm and measured argument, the Epistle to the Romans. Writing from Corinth, where the Cross had been known as a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, St. Paul declares that, never- theless, he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, and that even in the imperial city itself he was prepared to assert its truth and its meaning. That meaning was this, that the Gospel, simple as it was to some, repellent as it was at first sight to all, was the only method by which the problem could be solved — how is righteousness to be obtained ? Hitherto ■ Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, pp. 248-2. ' Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. xxzvi. 410 TESTIMONY OF ST PAUL TO CHRIST that problem had baffled Jew and Greek alike ; and its solution could only be found in the gift of God through faith, i.e. through loyal attachment to Christ, the gift of a righteous- ness which in its nature excluded boastfulness, for its attain- ment was open to all alike, to the Gentile no less than to the Jew. For by certain great redemptive acts, by His Cross and Passion, by His glorious resurrection, Christ had died for our sins, and had been raised again for our justifica- tion.^ But these acts constituted for St. Paul no mere historical drama in the past ; they were for every Christian a law, a law of life out of death ; and in so far as the Christian identified himself with Christ, and shared in the death of Christ, he would be a sharer also in Christ's resurrection, knowing this, that our old self is crucified with Him, that we should no longer serve sin. Henceforth, as one who shared in the resurrection of his Lord, the Christian was to present his members as instruments of righteousness unto God. " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ " ; " Thus do they say of friends, that such an one has put on such an one " : so wrote St. Chrysostom.^ And thus this sympathy, this suffering with Christ, was really union with Him ; and, united with Him in baptism, the Christian was dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus, i.e. in the risen, ascended, and glorified Christ. In Him and through His Spirit the Christian receives the true life. His body, mortal as it is, would die because of sin ; but a man's body is not his all — his highest faculty is the spirit, and the spirit is life because of righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of Christian practice and endeavour. But if the Spirit of God dwell in a man, it would confer life even upon his jiortal body, which the grave might seem to claim, even as the body of Christ Himself was raised from the dead by the same Spirit (Rom. viii. lo-li). ' Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 162. ' C£ his comments on Eph. iv. 24, and other instances in Wetstein. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 4" How natural it is that this teaching of the Epistle to the Romans should find expression when and where it does in the Apostle's life. Day by day in Corinth St. Paul was coming into contact with men who had yielded their bodies as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, with men who ridiculed the idea of a bodily resurrection ; he had come into contact with different forms of religious faith in vogue in East and West, with every kind of char- latanry and superstition, with every sort of effort, maimed and faulty at the best, to procure for men and women some kind of access to the divine power to which they would feign approach in supplication and worship. And now the Apostle realised that he was about to start on his journey to the great capital of the world, in which he was to proclaim the same message as in Corinth, the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This Roman letter was St. Paul's philosophy of history, but it was in the highest and strictest sense a religious philosophy ; it pointed men and women not to abstract truths or theories, but to Jesus Christ the righteous, and declared that in union with Him the power of God unto salvation would rest upon them. The best and noblest minds in Roman philosophic circles could talk of duty, but it was a duty which held up its naked law in the soul, whilst for St. Paul that law had been embodied in a life, a life once lived and still living, in a Person through whose gift of right- eousness death no longer reigned, but life. But before St. Paul was destined to reach Rome, the goal of all his efforts, before he could see face to face the Roman Christians, much would be undergone. Nowhere, perhaps, in his history does his trust in God or his own personal courage stand out more clearly than in the determination at any cost to reach Rome, in spite of his own apprehensions, in spite of the repeated warnings of others. Modern writers have laid stress upon the re- 412 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST markable coincidences between this apprehension on the Apostle's part as it is expressed in the Acts and in the Roman Epistle alike. But it should not be forgotten that one of the ablest portions of Paley's HorcB Paulince is concerned in tracing the remarkable coincidences in this respect between the two writings. In Rom. xv. 30 and in Acts XX. 22-3 it is the same journey to Jerusalem which is spoken of. The Epistle was written immediately before St. Paul set forward upon this journey from Achaia ; the words in the Acts were uttered by him when he had proceeded on that journey so far as Miletus. And these two passages, as Paley observes, without any resemblance of being borrowed from one another, represent the state of St. Paul's mind with respect to the events of the journey in terms of substantial agreement. The only difference is that in the history his thoughts are more inclined to despondency than in the Epistle. In the Epistle he retains his hope that " he should come unto them with joy by the will of God " ; in the history his mind yields to the re- flection that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city that bonds and afflictions awaited him. But Paley proceeds to point out how natural this is. That the Apostle's fears should be greater in this later stage of his journey than when he wrote his Epistle, that is, when he first set out upon it, is no other alteration than might well be expected. Those prophetic intimations to which he refers when he says, " The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city," had probably been received by him in the course of his journey, and were probably similar to what we know he received in the remaining part of it at Tyre (xxi. 4), and afterwards from Agabus at Csesarea (xxi. ii).'' Moreover, it is easy to see that the Apostle's fears would have been already intensified by the discovery of the plot of the Jews at Corinth to murder him, probably ' Horce Paulince, ii. 5. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 413 at sea, after he had embarked on a pilgrim ship at Cenchreae. This obliged him to change his plans, and it was now arranged that he should meet the delegates at Troas. Meanwhile, St. Paul returns to Macedonia, and celebrates the Passover in the Church to which he was always so closely attached, the Church at Philippi. Here, too, St. Luke is closely associated with the Apostle's journey, for the " We "-sections recommence at xx. 6 with the words, " And we sailed away from Philippi . . . and came unto them to Troas " ; and it is a fair inference that the future Evangelist was one of the delegates chosen to proceed to Jerusalem, although with his characteristic modesty he does not tell us this in so many words. At Troas, let us remember, St. Luke had entered, as it were, into the drama of the Acts, and now that he found himself again at Troas, and again in the company of the great Apostle, it was only natural that he should recount in detail the incidents of the story, and more especially so when we take into account their remarkable nature. In the first place we come across the significant phrase which occurs in these verses only in Acts, " The first day of the week " (xx. 7), coupled with the fact that this same day is evidently regarded as the day of Christian assembly and for the breaking of the bread. On these points we have already spoken in a previous lecture. From these few words we can at least see how the thoughts of Christians at this early date were wont to centre around the Lord's death, which they would show forth till He came, and upon the Lord's resurrection, and how this assembling of them- selves together on this first day of the week commemorated the two great facts which proclaimed and certified a world's redemption. But one other incident at Troas must have been of peculiar significance for St. Luke, the raising of Eutychus from the dead. No one can reasonably doubt that the 414 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST minute details of the narrative at least suggest that they come to us from an eyewitness. We have already spoken of the miraculous power which undoubtedly St. Paul claimed, and which the early Church attributed to him ; and here the most striking manifestation of that power is recorded by his intimate friend. The positive assertion of St. Luke, who had the best means of knowing, " He was taken up dead," differs not only from the manner in which at Lystra Paul's enemies supposed that he was dead (Acts xiv. 19), but also from the manner in which St. Mark tells us of the lunatic boy that " he became as one dead " (ix. 26). Dr. Clemen and others have, of course, done their best to show that the mere fact that the young man had swooned away has been magnified into the cause for the assertion of a striking miracle.^ But to say nothing of the fact that St. Luke was a physician, and that it is by no means fanciful to trace a physician's hand in the details and wording of the narrative, it may be remarked that there is little point in St. Luke's addition, "They brought the lad alive" (v. 13), unless it had been firmly believed that he had actually passed from death unto life. It was fitting that such a restoration from the power of death should take place amidst a scene which must have spoken so vividly of Him who had brought life and immortality to light. One other incident finds a fitting place in the narrative before St. Paul leaves Asia on his last journey to Jerusalem. In his anxiety to reach the Holy City for the day of Pentecost the Apostle chooses a vessel which would sail past Ephesus without stopping : but he determines, nevertheless, to deliver a farewell charge to the elders, the representatives of the Ephesian Church, at Miletus some thirty miles farther on his route. ' Clemen, Paulus, i. 293. On the force of the language see Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 290 ; as against Professor Bacon's attempt to weaken it, Story of St. Paul, p. 157. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 415 Most valuable contributions have been recently made to a fuller understanding of this address/ which is so character- istic of St. Paul in its simplicity, its courageous appeal, its pathos, its personal emotion. And not the least important merit of these contributions has been to prove how often the Apostle's language in his Epistles, and more especially in his Epistle to the Ephesians, is in harmony with the language of this address. A few instances may be given here. The Apostle speaks to the elders of the whole counsel of God, and we remember that this thought of the counsel of God's will is a favourite one in the Epistle to the Ephesians ; there we read of the counsel of Him who worketh all things according to His will (i. Ii), and that will is emphasised more richly than in any other letter as a purpose not only for Jews, but for the world ; it was an unchanging purpose which had run through the ages, and in its working St. Paul saw, and would teach others to see, hope for Jew and Gentile alike, hope for the whole wide world in the mystery, the secret of Christ which had not been made known in other generations, but was now revealed, of a Christ who was the hope of glory in the Gentile as in the Jew, and who would gather up all things in one. Or, again, we note in the address how the thought of the pastoral office, its cares and its dangers, was specially present to the mind of St. Paul ; we note his anxiety to enforce its many and responsible duties upon his hearers ; and we remember that in his Epistle to the Ephesians, and in that Epistle alone, St. Paul speaks not only of Apostles, prophets, evangelists, but of the divine gift of pastors, for the perfecting of the saints. Or, again, we may notice that the thought of redemption, of purchase, and of the price as being that of the blood of ' Chase, Credibility of Acts, p. 247 ff. ; Rackham, Acts, p. 384. 4i6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST the Son of God, is prominent in the Epistle to the Ephesians and Colossians, as also in the great Epistle written within a short time of the farewell visit to Ephesus (cf. Eph. i. 7, 14, ii. 13 ; Col. i. 20 ; Rom. iii. 25, v. 9), and we recall the words at Miletus in which the Apostle speaks of the Church of God purchased with His own blood (R.V.). Once more, in the two metaphors, that of building and that of inheritance, which the Apostle uses, as he solemnly commends his sorrowing friends to God, we have language prominent in the Ephesian Epistle, and the great work of the Church is expressed in the words " the building up of the body of Christ " ; and as the Apostle writes he thinks of the eternal purpose which no lapse of time and no opposition of men could frustrate, until we all come to the unity of a common faith and a common knowledge of the Son of God. And so, too, with the thought of the inheritance : it is a portion or lot amongst all them that are sanctified. So the Apostle describes it in his words of fare- well ; and thus we find him in the Ephesian letter reminding his converts that even here and now we have an inheritance and a foretaste of the full riches of its glory, and he bids the Colossians thank the Father for the share which they enjoy here and now of the inheritance of the saints in light. Of course, as in the case of the other addresses in Acts, this charge to the Ephesian elders has been the subject of unceasing attack. Dr. Clemen sees in it the hand of his versatile " author to Theophilus," on the ground that the writer of the " We "-sections would never have allowed St. Paul to speak in the way which is here attributed to him. But Clemen admits that the separation from the Ephesian elders may have been of a very painful character, when we remember the Apostle's forebodings of danger which he had expressed so shortly before in his letter to the Church of Rome,' ' Paulus, i. 297, THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 417 On the other hand, there are not wanting " advanced " critics who see in this speech one of the best attested dis- courses in the Acts ; and in the fact that it is probably the one recorded address at which St. Luke himself was present we possess a fresh guarantee for its faithful transmission.^ In this record we mark both the hand and the judgment of St. Paul's familiar friend. Nothing would have been more natural than that he should have given us some of the words of St. Paul's long discourse at Troas, a place endeared to him by very sacred memories ; but St. Luke tells us nothing of the contents of this discourse, whilst he gives us a full account of an address which was at once the fittest vindica- tion of the Apostle's character, the best summary of his preaching and work, and the best guide for the shepherds of the flock of Christ. If we turn again to the contents of the address, that which strikes us most amongst so much that is noteworthy is its testimony to the thoroughness of St. Paul, a thorough- ness which characterises both his teaching and his work : " Ye yourselves know after what manner I was with you all the time" Twice he uses a remarkable word, " I shrank not." All that was profitable, the whole counsel of God, he had declared it unto them with perfect sincerity, without hesitation. He had only one object, to finish his course and his ministry ; ever before his eyes there is the familiar imagery of the race-course, and life itself was cheap if peradventure even that must be surrendered to enable him to reach his goal. But whilst the Apostle had thus taught in public, whilst he had gone about (Acts xx. 25, R.V.), it may be as a missionary to neighbouring cities, preaching the kingdom, no teacher had been less " careless of the single life." There had been a time when this same Paul had entered every house as the persecutor of the Church of God, haling men ' Cf. Expositor's Greek Testament, ii. 429. 27 41 8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST and women to prison ; now in Ephesus he had also passed from house to house, a messenger of the glad tidings of peace, of deliverance and freedom to them that were bound. No Pharisaic pride or Stoical disdain had marred his efforts as in lowliness of mind he served the Lord, admonishing every one night and day, and that, too, with tears, those tears of which he was not ashamed to speak in his labours for Ephesus and for Corinth, and of which he makes mention even to his beloved Philippians, as he poured forth his grief for the enemies of the Cross of Christ. And yet, whilst we mark this depth of sympathy, we are conscious that there is not wanting a firm note of warning ; whilst the gentleness of Christ was not forgotten, the stern commands of Christ would ever ring in the ears of those who were called upon to be overseers in the Church of God : " Take heed to yourselves . . . watch ye " ; so the Lord had warned the men whom He had specially chosen to carry on His work, and so, in the same words, St. Paul warns those who had entered into the same labours, who had been called to their office not by man, but by the Holy Ghost. And this thoroughness had marked both the Apostle's character and his life. It was not merely that he had not coveted the gold or the silver or the riches which were so abundant in Ephesus : St. Paul was not the man for mere negations, for a mere abstinence from covetous desires. As he could appeal to his audience for the sincerity and publicity of his teaching, so, too, he could appeal to their acquaint- ance with the sincerity and publicity of his practice : " Ye yourselves know," he says, " that these hands," the hands marked by toil and service, " ministered unto my necessities, and to those that were with me." An Apostle not only in name, but in deed, had been amongst them ; no trafficker in Christ ; no XptcrTe/iiTropos, to use the striking word of the Didache, xii. 5, in its sharp condemnation of teachers who would live as idlers whilst they claimed the title of Christians, THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 419 but an Apostle who, like Christ Himself, had been full of lowliness, and who had learnt in a life of patient service the meaning of the Beatitude which Christ Himself had taught, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." Moreover, it is just because the Apostle's teaching had been so thorough that he could allude as he does to the Christian faith in his words of farewell, that he could take for granted that the presbyters whom he was addressing were at one with him in the acceptance of the great Christian verities, and that he could enforce the duties of the Christian ministry, and utter his warnings against their neglect and perversion. The elders, e.g., were " to feed the Church of God which He had purchased with His own blood " (Acts xx. 28, R.V.), or, as the words may mean, " with the blood of His own Son." ' Whatever may be the exact wording of St. Paul's solemn charge, no Christian at all events can fail to see the depth and the richness of the teaching which it must presuppose. In the days of old Israel had been the sheep of God's pasture, purchased and redeemed for the tribe of his in- heritance ; and now St. Paul could see in the Church of Christ another and a truer Israel, the little flock to which the Father had given the kingdom, and for which the Good Shepherd had been content to lay down His life. Or consider the stern words of warning which the Apostle utters against those who, after his departure, should claim a grievous and disastrous rule, " speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them " (R.V.). It was because St. Paul had known in his own soul, and had enforced in his own life and practice all that was meant by Christian discipleship, that he employs a word which is only used in the Acts of Christian disciples, and utters his warning against the wolves who would make a prey even of the sheep already ' See Hort, Ecclesia, p. 14, and W.H., " Notes on Select Readings." 420 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST to all appearances gathered safely within the fold. St. Paul had shown himself a true Apostle ; he was also a true prophet. The groups of Epistles which we associate with his two captivities testify that his warning was needed, and that dangers of the kind which he had foreseen soon pressed upon the Church. The words of St. Ignatius, too, become full of significance in the light of St. Paul's address to the assembled elders, where he bids these same Ephesians shun as wild beasts the men who were wont of malicious guile to hawk about the Name {Eph., vii). " I have learnt," he writes, " that certain persons passed through you bringing evil doctrine " {Eph., ix.). " Be not deceived, my brethren : corrupters of houses shall not inherit the kingdom of God " {Eph., xvi.). Christian discipleship, what did it mean for St. Paul ? It meant, in a word, that he was " the servant of the Lord." Three times in this address at Miletus he speaks of the Lord Jesus ; to His grace he had owed his ministry. Christ had come to minister, and St. Paul, Apostle of the Churches as he was, was still amongst them as one that serveth. The words of the Lord Jesus had shown him the true meaning of life, the surrender of self.; and of faith towards the Lord Jesus he had testified to Jews and Greeks alike. And the testimony of this one speech to the supreme place which Christ filled in the Apostle's heart and life, how wonderfully does it receive confirmation in St. Paul's own letters ! From Ephesus he writes the Epistle which we call our i Corinthians. Later on he writes from Macedonia (2 Corinthians), and, again, before the farewell at Miletus had taken place, he had written from Corinth to Rome. The Christology of these three Epistles is in striking harmony with that of the address to the assembled elders at Miletus. To the Corinthians the Apostle had spoken, as to the Ephesians, of the words of Christ as a binding rule of life and reference, of his ways which were in Christ, of the ministry which he THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY 421 had received of the Lord Jesus. He begs the Corinthians to receive the grace of God, he appeals to their knowledge of the grace of the Lord Jesus, and so he speaks to the Ephesians of the Gospel of the grace of God. To the Romans, as to the Ephesians, he speaks of the costly purchase whereby God had redeemed mankind, in that He spared not His own Son. As we mark these various points, and add to them the coincidences noted above between the address at Miletus and the Epistle to the Ephesians, we find it difficult to believe that some unknown " author to Theophilus," or some later writer of the second century, could thus have gathered into one address a whole series of coincidences with the Apostle's words and thoughts, especially if we remember that we are asked by Schmiedel and others to assign the Epistle to the Ephesians to a date between 100-130 A.D. If St. Paul speaks to us anywhere in the Acts, we feel that he speaks to us in the sorrowful scene at Miletus and in the hour of parting, and yet a parting which was not without hope, for the Apostle shared with the elders and the Church of God the same divine gift, " the inheritance amongst them that are sanctified." Once again, in later years, St. Paul, in writing to these same Churches of Ephesus and Colosse, of Hierapolis and Laodicea, tells them of the riches of the glory of this same inheritance, splendid, undefiled, in com- parison with which the gold and silver, the apparel and the magnificence of the great capital of Asia were as vanity and nothingness ; and as he writes he keeps ever before these same Churches the thought with which he had strengthened their elders as they received his parting words, the thought of the one Lord, the one faith, the one hope of their calling. LECTURE XX JERUSALEM : ROME ST. PAUL'S journey from Miletus to Jerusalem furnishes us with fresh proof of his dauntless courage and of his entire submission, in the face of danger, to the will of God. At Tyre and at Caesarea he was met by the warnings and entreaties of his disciples, who sought to prevent him from hazarding his liberty and his life in the Jewish capital. Even St. Luke and St. Paul's comrades (Acts xxi. 12) joined in the same effort to turn their beloved friend and master from his purpose. But in bonds, in imprisonment, in the certainty of delivery into the hands of his enemies, in the prospect of death itself, the Apostle could only read the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And yet in the whole scene which St. Luke so vividly depicts for us we note the intense humanity of the Apostle. His heart was almost broken, as he himself expresses it, in his rejection of the pleadings of his friends. But we cannot doubt that as at a later period, when he reached Rome, so now, when the last days of his journey to Jerusalem were being accomplished, human friendships cheered and strengthened him. Thus he starts from Caesarea in company with disciples. On the way he apparently lodges with a disciple, an early disciple, one Mnason of Cyprus. The notice is significant. Mnason may well have been an old friend of St. Paul ; quite possibly he was one of the men of Cyprus driven from Jerusalem after the 422 jerIj SALEM: ROME 423 murder of St. Stephen, whom the Apostle had met in earlier days at Antioch, when he and another native of Cyprus, Barnabas, had been gathered together with the Church. Once more, at the end of his journey, further tokens of the presence of friends awaited St. Paul. He enters Jerusa- lem to receive a glad welcome from those who are described by the name already endeared to Christians as " the brethren." In writing to the Church at Corinth St. Paul had bidden them to quit them like men, to be strong, and to let all their things be done in charity (i Cor. xvi. 13-14). His own behaviour at this great crisis in Jerusalem is the best com- mentary on his words to the Corinthians. His presence in the capital at all was a proof of his strength in the Lord ; and the purpose for which he had come was a proof of his charity, of his love for the brethren. And now another appeal was to be made to the charity which sought not its own. St. James and the elders suggest that the Apostle should disarm the false and bitter prejudice which was rife against him by what was virtually an act of charity. Four poor men, evidently members of the Jewish Christian Church, were not able, it would seem, owing to their poverty, to fulfil their Nazirite vow. In such circumstances the more wealthy Jews were often ready to help their poorer countrymen, and St. Paul was prepared to follow this precedent. He would become as a Jew to the Jews ; he would conform to the necessities of the law ; he would place himself, as it were, on a level with these poor Jewish Christians, and he would publicly join with them in the Temple in the ritual and sacrifices required for the fulfilment of their vow. It was in the pursuance of this act of charity, and apparently at the moment when it had all but reached its completion, that St. Paul was seen in the Temple by some of those Jews from Asia who were probably enraged enough that the Apostle had hitherto escaped them. Now their opportunity again 424 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST had come. They were ready to sacrifice both St. Paul and their fellow countryman Trophimus to the rage of a Jewish mob, a mob more numerous and frenzied by the concourse of visitors to the feast. No charge was, humanly speaking, more likely to succeed than that made against St. Paul and his friends by these Asiatic Jews, relentless in their hatred and without scruple in their designs. The accusation was that St. Paul had brought Trophimus into the inner court of the Temple, and had thus defiled it, since Jews alone had the right of entry there. The charge was untrue, as St. Luke tells us (Acts xxi. 29), but it served its purpose, and mob violence sought to enforce at once the penalty of death, which the law ordained for the alleged profanation. The writer of the article " Paul " in the Encycl. Bibl. roundly declares that all this narrative in Acts is inexplicable in face of St. Paul's statements in the Epistles. But not only is it quite consistent, as we have noted, with the principle to which the Apostle had given utterance, that he would become as a Jew to the Jews,^ an utterance which may date long after he had written the Epistle to the Galatians, to which the above writer specially refers ; but the whole narrative seems to carry upon the face of it remarkable evidence of its truth. In the first place it is scarcely likely that a forger would have invented an incident so com- plicated, and referring to details of which even now we know but little, as, e.g., the details connected with the Nazirite vow and the conditions of Paul's association with the men who were bound by it. It would have been easy to have selected some other and less involved instance of St. Paul's willingness to keep the law. In the next place, the picture of the rage and fanaticism of the Jews, and the minute knowledge which the whole ' Weinel, Paulus, p. 184, strongly disputes the passage before us, and its application to the Apostle's principle ; but Wrede's language in this connection seems much more guarded (Paulus, p. 45 [1905]). JERUSALEM: ROME 425 scene shows of the Temple and Jerusalem, seem to warrant us in believing that we have a description from an eye- witness who had been with St. Paul in the holy city. Take, e.g., the little touches in the narrative which evidently refer to the Tower of Antonia, in which the Roman soldiers were lodged, and to which there was a flight of steps from the Temple. Thus we read " tidings came up," i.e., to the chief captain in the tower ; so, too, the captain takes soldiers and " runs down," i.e., from the tower. The reference to the pollution of the Temple by the introduction of a Greek into the Holy Place is quite in accordance with our knowledge derived from a source outside the New Testament which is often cited.^ And we may add, in passing, that in the latter part of the chapter, in St. Paul's appeal to his citizenship, and in the permission which the chief captain gave him to address the crowd. Dr. Clemen sees nothing unhistorical. In this address we have the earliest of that series of " apologies," or defences of the Gospel, which are so prominent in this latter part of Acts. The scene upon which St. Paul gazed as he stood on the staircase of the castle was a remarkable one, and we can scarcely doubt that his thoughts travelled back to his last public appearance in Jerusalem, when, in company with another frenzied crowd, he had kept the garments of those who stoned Stephen. It is indeed striking to note that we may have in the address remini- scences of St. Stephen's own words. Already the fearful cry had been raised, " Away with him ! " and St. Paul well knew the import of such a demand. But for the moment the angry cries were hushed in silence, and St. Paul commenced his testimony on behalf of the same faith for which St. Stephen had died. The speech ' Cf. Josephus, B.J., vi. 2, 4 ; and on the famous inscription discovered by Clermont-Ganneau, see Schiirer, Jewish People, Div. ii., vol. i. p. 266, E.T, 426 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST was one in which every word must have told, and it met, at least by implication, the various charges which had been brought against the Apostle, e.g. that he had despised the law and profaned the Temple. But how was it likely, St. Paul would imply, that a blasphemer or a profane person would have gained the attention or the sympathy of Ananias, " a devout man, according to the law, well reported of among all the Jews " ? how, was it likely that one who had profaned the Temple should describe himself as praying in its courts ? But the Apostle, in spite of all that he had uttered by way of conciliation, could scarcely fail to have perceived that there was only one issue to his speech ; it was the issue in a more aggravated form which had followed upon the message of salvation to another audience, composed, like that before him, of Jews, the message to the Pisidian Antioch, in which the words, " I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles," had stirred up bitter and persistent persecution against the speaker. And Jewish fanaticism and narrowness were the same, whether in Antioch or in Jerusalem ; and as the Apostle told of the commission delivered to him in the words, " Depart, I will send thee far hence unto Gentiles," words which intimated that as at Antioch, so in Jerusalem, the Jews would not have ears to hear, the fateful cry again arose, " Away with such a fellow from the earth ! " Once more the chief captain saved his prisoner ; but in his own anxiety to know the meaning of the charge made against him, he commanded that Paul should be put to the torture. We may note, in passing, that Dr. Clemen frankly allows that the Apostle may have claimed his rights as a Roman citizen against this further harshness and indignity. But in the subsequent account of St. Paul's examination of a judicial character before the Sanhedrin, to which the chiliarch evidently wished that his prisoner should submit, Dr. Clemen sees nothing historical. JERUSALEM: ROME 427 He even thinks — and this shows how far this so-called scientific criticism would carry us — ^that it is possible that in the incident of the High Priest commanding Paul to be struck on the mouth, the influence of our Lord's Passion story may be seen. In St. John xviii. 22 we read, " One of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, ' Answerest thou the High Priest so ? '" and in Acts we read (xxiii. 2, 4) that in answer to Paul's remonstrances against the blow which the High Priest had ordered to be struck, they that stood by said, " Revilest thou God's High Priest ? " ^ St. Paul's testimony before the Sanhedrin is very briefly described, but it would seem from Acts xxiii. 9 that he had told before them, as before the people, the story of his conversion and the appearance to him of the risen Christ. St. Paul's action in dividing the Council, when he saw that some of the members were Pharisees and some were Sadducees, has been severely criticised, and it is, as we might expect, regarded as unhistorical by Dr. Clemen. But we must remember that no less an historian than Mommsen has pointed out that it redounds to the credit of St. Luke as a truthful historian that he should thus have recounted incidents which did not always tell to the credit of St. Paul.^ So far as the ethics of the incident are concerned, it is quite certain that the Apostle might fairly claim to be at one with the Pharisees in the same great hope, the Messianic hope, and in the belief in the resurrection of the dead. But passions as violent as those of the street mob had been stirred ' Clemen, Paulus, i. 308-11. Dr. Moffatt, Historical N.T., p. 675, 2nd edit., agrees with Clemen in regarding Acts xxii. 30 to xxiii. 10 as an unhistorical insertion, and he also agrees with Clemen that the word aKpi^ea-repov of xxiii. 15, suggested to the editor that a previous and ineffective examination must have taken place. But what a wonderful person this editor must have been to concoct such an episode as that in xxiii. i- 10, and to support it by another unhistorical episode as Clemen considers John xviii. 22 to have been ! * Zeitschrift fiir die mutest Wissenschaft, Heft ii., 1901. On the incident, see also Rackham, Acts, p. 431, and Vernon Bartlet, Apostolic Age, p. 163. 428 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST in the midst of the grave assembly of the Sanhedrin, and once again Paul is saved from being torn in pieces by the efforts of the Roman soldiery. But whatever difficulties this episode of St. Paul's arraign- ment before the Sanhedrin may present, it is at least in- telligible that in these perils in the city and from his own countrymen the Apostle should be cheered by a vision of the Lord whose He was and whom He served : " Be of good cheer, for as thou hast testified concerning Me at Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." It is one of many incidents which tell us how at each great crisis of his life St. Paul's brave testimony to his Lord is rewarded by a vision bringing fresh courage and strength. The whole narrative shows that St. Paul had delivered his message fearlessly in Jerusalem, although it is evident that his words had no effect on the fanatical Jews, and that his presence only goaded them on to greater madness is seen by the conspiracy of the forty men who bound themselves by an oath to kill him. That such conspiracies played a part in Jewish life we know well from sources outside the New Testament, and that such deeds of secret violence should be rife at this particular period in the capital is exactly what we might expect from the picture drawn for us by the Jewish historian Josephus. The minute details introduced into the narrative by St. Luke show us that his description is based upon very accurate information. Moreover, the action of the Roman officer Lysias is very natural in face of the fact that he found himself responsible for a troublesome prisoner who claimed the rights of Roman citizenship. His care, for instance, that his prisoner should be conducted in safety to Caesarea is plainly intimated, and the number of the escort, which seems almost too numerous to protect a single prisoner, is fully accounted for by the fear of a surprise from the conspirators or other fanatical Jews. But the same vision JERUSALEM: ROME 429 which had intimated to St. Paul that his witness in Jerusalem was over had also assured him that his heart's desire was to be fulfilled in bearing witness also in Rome. But the imperial city was not yet reached, and the Apostle would first be called upon to take his stand before the re- presentatives of the empire in his fatherland, and before those who might fitly be described as rulers and kings. The first of these representatives was the procurator Felix. And here we may remark, in passing, that Mommsen rightly blames those critics who suppose that the trial before Felix and again before Festus is simply a repetition by the writer of the same event, and that one trial or the other was a mere invention. Nothing is more credible, according to Mommsen, than that the accusation made before one governor should be repeated under another, especially as the first trial had led to no definite result, and obviously the two trials would present analogous features.^ Of Felix the Roman historian has written that he wielded the power of a king with the mind of a slave (Tacitus, Hist., v. 9). It is, of course, easy to affirm that the description of St. Paul's interview with Felix is so coloured by its apologetic tendency that it is difficult to say whether it is true or not. But one thing is certain, that the character of Felix stands out in the whole scene in a way which precisely corresponds to the words of Tacitus. The speech of the hired orator Tertullus shows us with what servile flattery the favour of such a man would be sought, and how even he could be addressed in terms which might have been used in speaking of the emperor himself But with all his power and arrogance there was in Felix the mind of the slave ; freedman though he was, he had never known the truth which alone could make him free. It is no apologetic colouring, but the plain unvarnished statement of the effect of all fearless Christian preaching, ' Zeitschrift fiir die neutest. Wissenschaft, Heft ii. 1901. 430 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST like that of Paul, when we read that, as the Apostle reasoned of righteousness and self-control and the judg- ment to come, that judgment before which even judges must take their stand, Felix was terrified/ Nothing could mark the base nature of this man more strikingly than the way in which St. Luke represents him as drowning the voice of conscience and yet clinging with the covetousness which God abhorreth to the hope of a bribe, finding in this expectation a reason for seeing his prisoner the oftener, and yet leaving him in bonds at the desire of his guilty wife, or, as a kind of set-off against the charges brought against him, to gain favour with the Jews. A man of diiferent character succeeded Felix ; and in Festus we have the picture of a Roman at least concerned to act fairly by his prisoner and to appeal to the purest traditions of Roman justice (Acts XXV. i6). Such traditions had been cruelly falsified by his predecessors, and even in Festus himself it must be admitted that we have no ideal judge. His proposal that Paul should go up from Caesarea to Jerusalem for trial before him, in conjunction with the Sanhedrin, enabled the Apostle to realise more fully than ever that no Roman procurator, however specious his intentions, could be relied on to prevent the Jews from executing, sooner or later, their plans of revenge. And so the words were uttered which saved Paul from the surrounding perils of his false brethren, " I appeal unto Caesar." This picture of Festus which St. Luke gives us, like that of Felix, is true to all that is known of the man. We mark not only his desire to do justly, but also the proud con- tempt of the Romans for the provincials and their doings. ' Dr. Clemen objects to the incidental reference to the collection for the poor saints (Acts xxiv. 17) as being improbable. But if a man with St. Paul's Epistles before him had been concocting this address, he would surely have made a much more pointed and fuller use of the collection (Clemen, Paulus, i. 314 ; and see, on the other hand, the remarks of Paley, Horce Paulines, ii. i). JERUSALEM: ROME 431 He sees that nothing criminal or which fell within his jurisdiction could be fairly alleged against the strange prisoner before him, and, in company with Gallio and Claudius Lysias, he speaks almost contemptuously of the certain questions of Jewish law and of religion of which Paul stood accused. We mark the same tone when the Roman aristocrat proceeds to speak " of one Jesus who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive." But this almost contemptuous ignorance of the Roman made it likely enough that he should seek for information about a case which had become the matter of an appeal to the emperor. Such a source of information was quickly found in King Agrippa, the last of the Herods. He had come to salute the new governor, and Festus laid Paul's case before him as before one who was well versed in Jewish law and religion. But the Apostle had made his appeal to Caesar, and he might therefore have declined to plead before Agrippa. And yet we can hardly doubt that he would recall his Lord's good confession before Pontius Pilate, and that he would think himself happy, as he tells us, to declare the Gospel of Christ before the rulers of this world, before Festus and Agrippa alike. And as we recall St. Paul's words, whether before the rulers of the world or the council of the Jewish nation, we see how all turns on the question of the resurrec- tion from the dead, and how his witness is a witness to the fact that in Jesus the Christ this resurrection from the dead is assured. And in this "defence," delivered before a Jewish king, we see how the Gospel was shown to be a message for high and low, rich and poor, one with another. St. Peter, in his earliest addresses in Acts, had appealed to the voices of the prophets, and St. Paul does the same. St. Peter had read in the utterances of the prophets that the Christ must suffer and rise again ; St. Paul's reading of the prophets was in effect the same. St. Peter had 432 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST spoken of faith in a living Person, and St. Paul does the same. Each was to be a witness of the things which he had heard and seen, the things which had fulfilled the prophetic words. Repentance and faith were the burden of the message alike to the crowds in Jerusalem and to the brilliant assembly which sat in the judgment hall at Caesarea, with Festus and Agrippa, in great pomp. Moreover, it was because St. Paul had fearlessly preached the universa- lity of the Gospel for Jew and Gentile alike that he had incurred, as he says, the deadly hatred of his nation. And, as he spoke, he could scarcely have forgotten that in the earlier days of the Church's life another Agrippa had seized St. Peter, and would have sent him not only to prison, but to death, in order to please the Jews. But the Christian faith had grown since then, and now another Herod Agrippa bids Paul to speak for himself The speech which followed this permission has gener- ally been regarded as the most finished in the Acts, and it was quite in accordance with the fitness of things that it should be so.^ After all that the Apostle had suffered at the hands of his countrymen, and after his message had been delivered before the Sanhedrin at the risk of his life, it must have been a unique experience to be called upon to plead his cause with the permission and in the presence of a . Jewish king. And nowhere perhaps had St. Paul's own words received a more striking fulfilment than before his present audience. To the Corinthians St. Paul had spoken of the Cross as a stumbling block, and Agrippa could not accept St. Paul's proof from the prophets that the Christ must suffer, whilst to Festus the Cross was foolishness, and the preacher of a crucified and risen Christ, in whose light both Jew and 1 " Oratio haec magnopere elaborata, condicioni rerum et moribus personarum accommodatissima, flumine et fervore eloquentiae praestans " (Blass, Acta A;postolorum, p. 263). JERUSALEM: ROME 433 Gentile should see light, could only be regarded as a madman. And so, although much had happened since St. Paul's first missionary address in the synagogue of the Pisidian Antioch, the burden of his preaching was ever the same, that Jesus was the Christ, and that in that strange paradox of victory through suffering all the promises of God were Amen in Him. And in each case Jewish ears had refused to hear the message : at Antioch it had been received with open scorn ; before Agrippa the Apostle's appeal had been dismissed with something like a sneer. But whilst the Jews at Antioch had rejected and condemned St. Paul, Agrippa, although he rejected him, could not condemn him, and in that verdict of acquittal Festus joined. Again, we may notice in this same address how St. Paul, no less than St. Peter, appeals to the evidence of well- known historical facts. Nowhere does St. Paul speak more confidently of the moral and spiritual change which Christianity had wrought in men, and nowhere does he speak more confidently of the historical facts upon which that transformation of character depended, " This thing was not done in a corner." Men sometimes speak as if the strength of St. Paul's case was no longer ours to-day. We are often told that the argument from prophecy does not hold the place which it once did, and that the voices of the prophets are hushed so far as their evidential value is concerned. And yet that marvellous picture of the suffering Servant of the Lord stands out for us to-day in colours which no lapse of time can dim, with its union of ignominious de- gradation and of glorious conquest, and we are sure that no human painter's hand and mind alone could have portrayed such a fulfilment of the motto, Vincit qui patitur, " He conquers who suffers." Never before has the life of Christ been so scrutinised in every detail, and yet we can welcome such scrutiny and investigation, because we 28 434 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST remember that we are not dealing with some prehistoric or mythic period, but with a province of the Roman empire, its government, and its procedure, " this thing was not done in a corner,'' and because we can test the New Testament records in the light of all that we have learnt to know of Jewish expectancy and hope. And St. Paul's mission, what was it ? He tells us, as he stands before Agrippa, that he had been sent to the Gentiles to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light. And the inner witness corroborates the appeal to the external facts, " One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see." St. Peter's declaration had been in effect the same, " And we are witnesses of these things," he maintains before the Jewish council, and he adds, " And so is the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey Him " (Acts V. 32). There was thus a twofold witness : the historical witness borne to the facts, and the internal witness of the Holy Ghost in bringing home to men's hearts and minds the meaning of those facts. And St. Peter and St. Paul alike in their testimony could fearlessly appeal to that twofold witness. Already, when St. Peter spoke, the Holy Ghost had been at work, in the favour which the early believers won, like Jesus, from God and man ; in the peace and calm with which they worshipped in the Temple and from house to house ; in the exulting, bounding gladness which filled each believing soul ; and the Christian life had testified that the kingdom of God was indeed righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Already the Holy Ghost had been at work, as signs and wonders had been done in the name of the Lord Jesus, and as the grace of for- giveness and the full measure of conviction followed upon the preaching that Jesus was the Lord. And as the Gospel had passed from Jerusalem to the great Gentile world beyond, and to the great capital of the empire, Rome itself, JERUSALEM: ROME 435 the same results had accompanied the twofold witness, the witness to the facts of Christ's life and to the teaching that He was the firstborn from the dead, the Giver of light and life, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. What was St. Paul's special relation to the life of the Christian Church in Rome ? We have already touched upon this subject indirectly in the account of the Epistles written, as we believe, from Rome during the Apostle's first im- prisonment, and we have tried to note something of the moral and spiritual force of a message embracing the three great relationships of heathen life, those of master and slave, of husband and wife, of parent and child. In Rome, no less than in Colosse, there was need to recall men to their duties in connection with these three social relationships. For already two great tendencies so fatal to the highest Christian life were developing : the tendency, on the one hand, to dis- regard the moral law, and the tendency, on the other hand, to adopt an ascetic mode of life. In Rome, as at Colosse, these influences were at work, and St. Paul had marked them ; and whether there was actually a special sect of vegetarians in Rome, as Von Dobschiitz and others have thought,^ or whether the Apostle is speaking quite generally, it is evident that in Rom. xiv. he has in mind some danger due to excessive scrupulosity and asceticism. In this connection it is interesting to note the view recently advocated by Von Dobschiitz of the probable formation of the Church in Rome.^ He supposes that in the reign of Claudius the news of Christianity may have been carried to Rome through some unknown agencies direct from Palestine, and in this connection we naturally think of an Andronicus and Junias. Here, in the capital of the world, all kinds of Christian circles were formed, which later on were united into one Church. This theory is in some respects very ' Die urchristlichen Gemeinden, p. 93 £f. ' Das aipostolische Zeitalter, p. 16. 436 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST similar to that advocated by Dr. Sanday and Dr. Headlam in their Commentary on Romans (pp. xxvii., xxxv). The freedom of circulation and movement in the Roman empire would bring together many groups of Christians in Rome. Some may have come from Palestine, some from Corinth or Ephesus, some from Tarsus or the Syrian Antioch ; there may have been at first no concerted action in the matter, and for a time the Church in Rome would consist of a number of such little groups as could be marked by the household of Prisca and Aquila, or by the household of Narcissus or Aristobulus. But if such a view is at all correct, we may see at once that St. Paul must have come into constant contact with the Church in some pious house- hold or family, and how often he must have noted the pure, simple life of some brother or ' sister in the Lord.' Not that this theory requires us to suppose that the Church was without organisation or that Church doctrine was neglected. There are indications in the Roman Epistle, as, indeed, there are in the Apostle's earliest Epistle (i Thess. v. 12) of the presence of some kind of regular ministry,^ and it is not too much to say that the Apostle assumes everywhere throughout the Christian community a knowledge of a common basis of teaching and of fundamental Christian doctrine. Such considerations as the above suggest further reference to the last chapter of Romans, a chapter which is so closely related to the circumstances we are considering. This chapter we know has been often refused to St. Paul ; and if it is attributed to him, it is a favourite theory that it should be regarded as a circular letter of the Apostle, addressed not to Rome, but in the first place to Ephesus. But Dr. Clemen has recently come forward as a staunch supporter not only of the Pauline authorship, but also of Rome as the destination ' Sanday and Headlam, u.s. p. xxxv., and Speaker's Commentary, iii. 727. JERUSALEM: ROME 437 of this chapter.^ And it is interesting to note that he quotes at length Dr. Sanday's and Dr. Headlam's Commentary as to this, and to the remarkable character of the names mentioned in the chapter before us.^ It is a striking fact, for example, that we find that very few of these names occur in the inscriptions of Ephesus or in the province of Asia ; and this comparison suggests at all events that such a combination of names — Greek, Jewish, Latin — could only be found in a mixed population like that which formed the lower and middle classes of Rome. It is not pretended that this evidence is conclusive, but at all events it shows us that there is no a priori improbability in the names being those of Roman Christians, and that it would be difficult anywhere else to illustrate such a heterogeneous collection.' Those of us who have read Bishop Lightfoot's Philippians are not likely to forget the interest awakened by the comparison which he institutes between the names mentioned in Rom. xvi. and the names found upon the graves of the imperial household in the Appian Way. And the interest in this comparison is increased when we remember that St. Paul's converts in many cases were taken, as he himself tells us, Phil. iv. 22, from amongst the retainers of the emperor. But since Bishop Lightfoot's time more evidence has been forthcoming, and it is perhaps possible to go further, and to say that if there was any Church in which the " not many ' Dr. Lock, in speaking on "The Authenticity of St. Paul's Epistles" (Liverpool Church Congress), 1904, endorses the conjecture of Spitta and Dr. Gifford that this chapter is a short letter of greeting sent by St. Paul to Rome after his release from imprisonment, and he sees in it a valuable corroboration of the fact of the release. For Spitta's theory see his Untersuchungen icber den Brief des Paulus an die Romer, p. 88, and for Dr. Gifford, Romans, in the Speaker's Cominentary, iii. 29. ^ See p. xciv. On the ease with which Aquila and Priscilla would have moved from Ephesus to Rome, and from place to place, see Ramsay, Expositor, December, 1903, p. 401 ff., and Lightfoot, Biblical Essays , p. 300. ' Clemen, Paulus, i. 106-7. 438 TESTIMONY OE ST. PAUL TO CHRIST wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble," had an exception, it was at Rome.^ We have, for instance, the fact that the retinue of the emperor would probably contain some members of a certain degree of culture, and such culture is perhaps witnessed to in the name Philologus, although the name was common enough amongst slaves and freedmen. The name of Herodion, moreover, whom Paul mentions as ,his kinsman, seems to indicate that the bearer was a freedman in the household of some member of the Herod family, e.g. Aristobulus, or possibly of the notorious Narcissus, whose freedmen, even after his death, would be distinguished as Narcissiani. But we may turn to other evidence of a more positive character. " The very existence of the catacombs," writes Professor Orr, in his valuable little book on Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity (p. 1 14), " taken in connection with the circumstances of their origin, is a proof that the Church of Rome must from the earliest period have had among its members persons of wealth and distinction. The oldest of the catacombs go back to the first century — one or two, perhaps, to Apostolic days. In nearly all cases they seem to have been begun as private burial-places in the gardens or vineyards of persons of the wealthier class, while the elegance and refinement of their construction and the elaboration of their decorations point to lavish outlay by their owners." And on another page (p. 96) he expresses his conviction that although it may be going too far to say, with Professor Ramsay, that Christianity spread at first among the educated more rapidly than among the uneducated, yet this statement is to be preferred to the well-known statement of Gibbon, that the new sect was composed, for the most part, of the dregs of the populace. In this connection it is a satisfaction to be able to refer ' Dr. Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. xxxv., xciv. Lightfoot himself says just the opposite {Phili^^ians, p. xx.). JERUSALEM: ROME 439 again to the writer who stands in the front rank amongst recent German historians, Von Dobschiitz/ He points out that although in the earliest times Christianity, so far as the palace was concerned, penetrated only to the chambers of the servants or the barracks of the guard, or to the ranks of the Court pages (whilst Judaism had its advocates amongst the fashionable ladies of society), yet it possessed some members of high social status amongst its adherents, and that the view put forward by the old and new opponents of the Christian faith, viz. that Christianity was simply a religion of the proletariat, is entirely onesided, as the adherents of the Church were taken for the most part, not from the lowest, but from the middle ranks of Society (and with this we may compare Dr. Clemen's frank acknowledgment of the same truth). But the same writer also points out the reasons why, in his judgment, Christianity made such social progress. There was, no doubt, a great religious yearning through the whole Roman Empire for something higher than a contentment with the things seen and temporal. The Egyptian Isis and the great nature goddess of the Phrygians were as much at home in Rome as in the cities and towns of a Greek character. He further points out that, concurrently with the introduction of all kinds of new religions, there were to be found quacks, magicians, and priests of every sort, and rhetoricians declaiming on all kinds of religious questions, all eager and intent to trade upon the superstitions of the people.^ In all this there was, no doubt, movement and life, but still there was nothing that satisfied. Then, adds Von Dobschiitz, came the Gospel, with its glad message of the grace of God and the forgiveness of sins, of the blessing ' Das apostolische Zeitalter, p. 21. * Ibid., pp. 14-15. See also Clemen, Paultis, ii. 320-1, on the whole social question, and the undoubted influence of the Christian faith upon all classes. 440 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST of divine sonship, of a new moral power, of the resurrection and eternal life. But in the same paragraph he forcibly reminds us that whilst the religious element was thus the primary one in the new movement which Christianity introduced, yet we must not overlook the great and powerful influence of the social factor, that strong social feature of brotherly help on behalf of the poor and needy which from the beginning found a place in the Christian Church. It was this social bond which, as we have seen, was doubtless realised by the Apostle with renewed force as he found himself in the capital of an empire where the power and influence of a common citizen- ship were borne in upon him at every turn. And Christians were members of a nobler household than that of Caesar or of Aristobulus ; they were fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. But at the same time, whilst the Acts tells us how St. Paul's preaching in Rome centred around the teaching of the Kingdom of God, of the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts xxviii. 30),^ the Apostle never forgets to remind men that they were bidden not to make these high and lofty themes a pretence for neglecting their duties as the citizens of a mighty empire. The Christian citizenship was in heaven (Phil. iii. 20), and yet in this same Epistle, written from Rome, the Apostle had said, " Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ," i.e. behave as citizens worthy of the gospel of Christ (Phil. i. 27). Before the close of the first century another great Christian teacher, St. Clement of Rome, had written from the same metropolis of the empire to the Church at Corinth, and it is interesting to note how frequently he, too, uses On St. Paul's preaching in Rome, as described in the Acts, and his intercourse with his fellow countrymen, the present writer may refer to the Expositor's Greek Test., ii. 549 ; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. xxi., and for the conclusion of the Acts to Mr. Rackham, Journal of Theological Studies, i. 76 (1899) ; Blass, Acta A^ostolorutn, p. z^. JERUSALEM: ROME 441 language which enforces this thought of citizenship, and how, like St. Paul, he ever keeps before his mind the life of a Christian citizen lived in the world, and the life, the higher life of a Christian, as a citizen of a heavenly kingdom. But a further thought connects itself with the teaching of St. Paul and with the fact that he lays such stress upon the life of the Christian home and the Christian citizenship. In the Epistles of the first imprisonment, family life, as we have seen for the first time, is regulated in all its rela- tionships ; and in the Epistles of the second imprisonment we have the natural climax in this connection, for family life, citizen life. Church life, ministerial life, are fitly described as brought under the reign of law.^ But all this is thoroughly characteristic of St. Paul. As he writes from the loneliness of his Roman prison he is mindful, no less than in the days of his active missionary labours, that behind the life of the citizen and of the home, behind the public life of those who ministered about holy things, there is the inner life hidden with Christ in God upon which all else depends. As in writing in his early missionary days to the Thessalonians he had bidden them to observe their social duties, and yet at the same time to possess themselves of their own vessels in sanctification and honour, so in writing at the close of his life to Timothy, the Apostle bids him to be an ensample to them that believe in purity ; while at the same time he emphasises the importance of showing piety in the family circle, of being ready to distribute, of manifest- ing the love which issues from a pure heart. In the personal life of the Christian, and in the life of the Christian community, there were laws which could not be broken — the law of purity, the law of bearing one another's burdens, the law of Christ ; and St. Paul insists upon these personal and social obligations in his first letter and in his last. Once more : as we recall to mind the Epistles of St. Paul's > Cf. Lock, Si. Paul the Master-Builder, pp. iii, 117. 442 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST first and second captivity, as we think of the wide and varied interests with which they deal, of the care which they reveal not only for the welfare of the Churches, but for the well-being of the simplest ties of home and family life, as we mark the deepening affection which would em- brace all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness, and the breadth of sympathy which would take account of whatsoever things were true and honourable, lovely and gracious, just and pure, we cannot wonder that the same St. Chrysostom who bids us remember that even if the Apostle was a Paul he was also a man, should also give him that title which has become so closely associated with his name, " the heart of the world." And yet with all this wealth and width of human affection, sustaining, strengthening, guiding it, there was the same constant and familiar reference as in earlier days to divine truths and divine aid. Whether St. Paul is writing his great philosophical letter to Rome, or whether he is writing to Philemon from the capital about a runaway slave, we have the same words of greeting, " Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ." Never in the Apostle's mind are the claims of Christian philanthropy dissociated from the highest doctrinal teaching ; but the revelation of God in Christ is brought to bear upon these claims, imparting to them from its own divine light and life a fresh and fadeless beauty.^ ' On the evidence for St. Paul's second imprisonment, and for the Pastoral Epistles, the present writer may refer to an article contributed to the Critical Review, viii. 336-44, and to the Expositor's Greek Test., ii. 552. He is glad to be able to add some recent remarks of great value by Dr. Zahn,Art. "'Sa.-aS.MS,^' Sxi'S.exzo^^s Realencyclop&die, Heft 141, p. 370 (1904) ; and by Professor Ramsay, Hastings, B.D., v. p. 376 : " If Clement (Cor. 5) had caught the least spark of the Pauline and the Roman spirit and thought, he could not have called Rome (as some modem scholars maintain that he did) ' the goal of the West ' or ' his limit towards the West,' ro rcpfia Tfjs Sucreay ; and Lightfoot has rightly expressed the general Roman point of view in that age, which looked on Rome as the centre of empire, not as its limit, nor as belong- ing to the Western part of the Empire." LECTURE XXI ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION IN one of the most interesting of recent books upon the language of the New Testament we have been reminded how often the title " Son of God " occurs in imperial inscriptions. It is used as a title of the Roman emperor, Csesar Augustus, and his successors, apparently as a translation of the Latin words Divi filius. Amongst these inscriptions Dr. Deissmann mentions one at Tarsus in honour of Augustus ; and he conjectures that St. Paul, in his younger days, may well have read the striking words " Son of God " before they became known to him in all their later fulness of meaning.^ It is an interesting conjecture. But we must not forget that St. Paul was a Jew, and the title " Son of God " would have been known to him as a theological student from Jewish sources. And if in his earlier days he had read the inscription at Tarsus, his thoughts would probably have led him to contrast the title as applied to a Roman emperor with its application to the Messiah expected by every pious Jew. But more than this, a day came when St. Paul would have read such a title no longer with Jewish, but with Christian eyes, and the contrast would have been deeper still between the Caesar on his throne and the Son Of God, by faith in whom the Apostle lived, the Son of God who 1 Bibelstudien, i. 167. 443 444 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST had loved him and given Himself up for him. St. Paul's conversion had brought him into relationship with a person and a life, and no one has helped to emphasise this more than Dr. Harnack : " Above all things," he writes, " Jesus was felt to be the active principle of individual life." " It is not I that lives," he adds, " but Christ that liveth in me," quoting the words of St. Paul. Or, as Weinel still more recently puts it, " On that day before Damascus, Saul died, and yet from that day he lived ; for if he lives no longer, another lives in him : a Being from another world henceforth lives in his heart." ^ No man insisted more strongly than St. Paul upon the value of the corporate Christian life ; but no man knew more fully that that corporate life could only be sustained by the constant endeavour " to present every man perfect in Christ." Now this conception of union with Christ, of growth, of perfection in Christ, which, as we have seen, meets us in the Apostle's earliest letters, and not only in those of his later years, is no doubt a conception which may be called mystical, a word of which we have frequent mention in our own day. No later mystic ever desired more intensely than St. Paul that his own will might be merged in the will of God, that the God of peace would sanctifiy him wholly, and that his love might be free from every trace of self-seeking and self- interest. " This is the will of God," St. Paul says in his earliest Epistle, " even your sanctification." In a life of prayer without ceasing he reads the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning his converts. The German philosopher Nietzsche, of whom we have heard so much in recent years, seems to have regarded St. Paul almost as if he had been some hated enemy before him in the flesh, and he has contrasted the Apostle's ecstasies and reveries with those of one of the most dis- tinguished of mystics, Madame Guyon, much to the ' Paulus, p. 74 (1904). ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION 44S advantage of the latter. But a countryman of his own, Professor Weinel, to whom we owe one of the most recent of German monographs on the Apostle's life and work,^ has justly reminded Nietzsche that, while Madame Guyoh lived in abnormal conditions, and seemed, in her nervous excitement, to hover, as it were, between this world and the next, St. Paul, in spite of his visions and revelations, makes upon us the impression of a man who possessed the full powers of manhood unimpaired, a man who, in spite of his ecstasies, was full of wise intelligence, and clear and concise in his judgments.^ No doubt the life of St. Paul had points of contact with that of many a visionary ; but the Apostle's life is not dependent upon any ecstatic conditions ; it is rather a firm, unruffled, confident life in the Spirit, i.e. in Christ. It is a well-merited rebuke from one who has studied, as carefully as any of his German contemporaries, the character and career of St. Paul. " Pray without ceasing." The later mystic found such close union with God that he does not so much pray to as live in God ; that prayer is not any particular action, but is rather the work of the soul's whole being.' St. Paul, too, lived, as it were, in the atmosphere of prayer ; but as in the case of the best and the truest mystics, St. Paul's mysticism was marked by this feature, that it was never divorced from " the work of faith and the labour of love." The words occur in one of St. Paul's earliest Epistles (i Thess. i. 3), and this same Epistle in which we read the command to pray without ceasing is also the Epistle which contains the most strenuous exhortation to hard and earnest work. There is nothing here of the visionary or fanatic, 1 Weinel, Paulus, p. 109. 2 No one has insisted more strongly than Dr. Clemen upon the splendid missionary enthusiasm of St. Paul, and, at the same time, upon his sobriety of judgment {Paulus, ii. 318). 3 Overton's Life and Opinions of William Law, p. 273. 446 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST and those who are rash enough to regard St. Paul as such must look for other authorities than the Apostle's own state- ments "to support their contention. Nothing would have been easier for the Apostle, if he had been a mere enthusiast, than to throw himself heart and soul into the excitement, and thus to encourage the idleness which threatened the sobriety, the peace, the very existence of the Church in Thessalonica. But what could be further from such mad counsels than such words as these, " And that ye study," i.e. that ye make it your ambition " to be quiet and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you " ? It is not too much to say that the Apostle who thus preached the dignity of prayer and the dignity of work was introducing a silent and yet an irresistible revolution into the whole social life of the ancient world. You may urge, perhaps, that Judaism, unlike Greece and Rome, had already reckoned manual labour in the highest esteem ; but it should also be remembered that there was a time in Jewish history when this had not been the case. And although in the days of our Lord the dignity of labour was no doubt fully recognised and enforced, this change from the manner in which labour was regarded in the Apocrypha, notably in Ecclesiasticus, seems to have been due to no religious motive, but rather to social and political considerations. On the other hand, in Christianity the motive was solely and distinctively religious. And whatever may have been the developments of civilisation, the spirit which first honoured the mechanic and the worker with his hands, that hallowing of toil which first taught the world that trade and industry need never degrade the body and soul of a free man, was the creation of Christianity and of Christianity alone. This aspect of the religious life is recognised not only in St. Paul's earliest Epistles, but in the early days of the Church's history, as, e.g., in the catacombs. The figures ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION 447 which were once thought to represent instruments of torture are now seen to represent the tools of the baker, the smith, the gardener. The word operarius first became in the Christian Church a title of honour, and there is something very suggestive in the old tradition, if it be nothing more, which assigned some trade or occupation to each of the Twelve Apostles of Christ. The miserable idleness which prompted men to dawdle away hour after hour on the steps of the circus or the theatre was strongly condemned by the Church, and Christians withdrew themselves from the gross, sensual pleasures around them, and from employments which were worse than death, by honest work and the recollection of the dignity impressed upon it by the Son of God. And those who thus worked were earnestly taught to work not only for themselves, but that they might have to give to him that needed ; and as a simple matter of fact the largest share of alms to the Church's labour of love was contributed by those who earned their daily bread in the sweat of their brow. Thus from the first St. Paul seems to have anticipated and to have refuted two prevalent mistakes which arise when men, on the one hand, banish themselves from social communion with the idea of becoming purer and holier, or when, on the other hand, men imagine that socialism alone can regenerate human nature, or curb its passions by a motive power as strong as the love of a Christian for his Lord. " The love of Christ constraineth us.'' The words contain the motive power in which one of the most recent of German critics, Dr. Clemen, finds the true explanation of St. Paul's vigorous life and work, of his intellectual and moral virtues, of his capacity for dealing with all sorts and conditions of men ; and we welcome such an acknowledgment as a testimony not always borne to the great and abiding inspiration of St. Paul's life. " The love of Christ constraineth us " : in such words we see the 448 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST truest safeguard against what has been called the anti- nomianism of mysticism ; the claim of complete freedom from every code but the law of love. The constraint of which the Apostle speaks is itself the expression of the highest law. " The love of Christ constraineth us." Why ? " Because," adds St. Paul, "we thus judge that one died for all; therefore, all died ; and He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again " (R.V.). Men have often drawn comparisons between Paul and Seneca, and a recent critic of the latter tells us that the gospel of Seneca, with all its searching power, seems to be without some of the essential elements of a religion eifective enough to work upon human character. " Where, it may be asked, is the power to come from which shall nerve the repentant one to essay the steep ascent to the calm of inde- fectible virtue ? and what is the reward which can more than compensate for the great renunciation ? " ^ St. Paul's words answer both questions : the love of Christ is the power, and the power is the reward. We know how the word " conscience " in the New Testa- ment has become a Pauline word, and we need not hesitate to acknowledge that the Apostle would naturally derive it from the Stoic teachers who influenced his language and his thought ; for it is amongst the Stoics that the word " con- science " first received anything like a full moral significance, and became, as it were, current coin in the mixed vocabulary of the Roman world.^ And to conscience St. Paul could appeal as a witness of the sincerity of his purpose, as a judge of the truthfulness of his preaching, as a motive for Christian action in Church and State alike. To have a conscience void of offence, a conscience pure and good, was 1 Dr. S. Dill, Xoman Society from Nero to M.Aurelius, p.3io(i904). For the influence of Athenodorus see Art. " Tarsus " in Hastings' B.D. ' Davison, The Christian Conscience, p. 26 ; Bacon, Story of St. Paul, p. 21 ; Lightfoot, Philif^ians, p. 303. ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION 449 the aim of Christian endeavour and the foundation of the Christian labour of love. But conscience was what it was for St. Paul, something much more than a natural faculty common to every man alike, because in the Son of God revealed in the Apostle, " in Christ," he had found a witness, a motive, and a judge combined. Christ, who had become to the Christian not only wisdom and righteousness, but also sanctification and redemption, was Himself the guide of conscience and its Lord. In Christ the love of God was shed abroad in men's hearts, and in proportion as they yielded themselves to it they found a relief from the condemning voice within and a power for the fulfilment of the moral law. And as in the light of that love sacrifice was freely offered, so service was gladly welcomed. Our Lord had recognised and taught that the pagan ideal was the opposite, and He draws in pointed language the contrast between it and the Christian life. On the one side stood the princes of this world : " Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them " ; and on the other side stood those who were to sit indeed upon twelve thrones, but who had yet to learn that in the kingdom of God greatness meant ministry, and primacy meant servitude (Matt. xx. 25, Mark x. 42).^ There is, then, a sense in which the Christian must always be ready to obey the counsel, " Fling away ambition, love thyself last." (Henry VIII., iii. 2.) And yet was he to entertain no ambition, no true self-love ? St. Paul, we cannot doubt, had his early ambitions and his good prospects, however silly and calumnious were the Jewish stories which described him as an ambitious man thwarted and disappointed in his aims. But as a preacher of the Gospel of Christ St. Paul had brought himself under bondage to all (i Cor. ix. 19), and his old ambitions and views of life had given place to the one legitimate ambition. " We labour," ' Peine, ^esus Christus und Paulus, p. ji. 29 450 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST he writes to the Corinthians, i.e. we make it our ambition, " whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto Christ " (2 Cor. V. 9) : "Haec una legitima ambitio," as Bengel so finely called it. It is an ambition attained, as holy and humble men of heart have testified in life and in death, and yet an ambition never satisfied, at least on this side of the grave : " Not as though I had already obtained, or am already made perfect." How fully Bengel had himself made that ambition of St. Paul his own we may learn from the words repeated to him as his eyes closed in death : " Lord Jesus, unto Thee I live, unto Thee I suffer, unto Thee I die ; thine I am, living or dying." There is one other passage in St. Paul's writings in which he again connects this same word, " we aim," i.e. we make it our ambition, with his ministerial work. " Yea, making it my aim," he writes from Corinth to the Church in Rome, " being ambitious so to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was already named, but, as it is written : They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came " (Rom. xv. 20). St. Paul, then, was not content to confine himself to the same ground, to work, as it were, in the same groove ; he would seek to plant his message amidst new surroundings ; he would look for a harvest on other soil. Truly it was a grand ambition, thus, in the abundance of his own poverty, to make others rich. And yet, even in the face of such a result as the obedience of the Gentiles, boasting is excluded ; the Apostle never forgets that he serves the Lord Christ : " I will not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me." And so, when he writes from Corinth to Rome of fresh regions won over to the faith, he still speaks of his work as fulfilling the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel which he had made it his ambition to preach from Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum, thus marking the whole extent of his labours. And in Corinth itself, intellectual, moral, social, ritual difficulties had claimed ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION 451 St. Paul's attention ; and if we ask how they were met, we find that in each case appeal was made to the Person or the life or the teaching of Christ. And so it ceases to be surprising that in no Epistle do we meet with the intro- duction of the name of Christ so continuously as in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. And that name, the name, was so often on the Apostle's lips, because although he was absent from his true home Christ Himself was present in his heart, and his sole ambition and his only glory was to be able to say, " But we have the mind of Christ." "Christ! I am Christ's, and let the name suffice you, Ay for me, too. He greatly hath suffic'd ; Lo, with no winning words I would entice you : Paul has no honour and no friend but Christ." If indeed it can be truly said that no one can doubt the power of personality in the religious life, and if all religions which occupy the foremost place in the world testify to this in a greater or less degree, such a fact is pre-eminently true of Christianity. One testimony after another might be quoted in proof of this. But if we turn to a little popular book just published by one of the most famous of " scientific " German critics for the benefit of the German laity. Professor Wernle's Sources of the Life of Jesus, we find that whatever else in Wernle's view we may learn from St. Paul, we may at least learn this, that in Jesus, notwithstanding the fact that He died a death of shame on a cross, St. Paul saw his own life and that of the world divided as it were into two parts — with Jesus, without Jesus. In words of almost evangelical fervour he adds that in Jesus we behold a Man who helps us to understand aright ourselves, the world and God, who accompanies us as the truest Friend and Guide in the needs and struggles of the present, and to whom we can entrust ourselves with all confidence for the future. ' Die Quellendes Lebens Jesu, pp. 4, 87 (1904). 452 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST In face of the intense personal devotion of St. Paul to our Lord, it becomes unintelligible to speak of the Apostle as if he was the founder of Christianity. How, indeed, can we even speak of him, with Wrede, in another of the series of popular books which are at this moment issuing from the press in Germany, as the second founder of Christianity, or proclaim that St. Paul, although not better, was greater than his Master ? But St. Paul's sole ambition is to gain Christ and to be found of Him ; he is calm and secure when he can say that he has the mind of Christ ; he only asserts himself when he has no command from the Lord ; he bids his followers to imitate his example, but he adds in the same breath, " as he also imitated Christ," and we have seen how throughout his Epistles he, too, goes, as it were, back to Christ ; he speaks of his own teaching everywhere in every Church, but that teaching was to be a remembrance of his ways which were in Christ (i Cor. iv. 17). It might perhaps be expected at first sight that St. Paul, who had probably not known Jesus of Nazareth, like His immediate followers in His earthly walk, would be always in danger of indulging in all kinds of ecstasies and reveries, of no longer keeping the Christ before his mind as an historical Person who had lived on the earth, and whose example, men and women could make in some degree their own. But it is remarkable, as we have endeavoured to show, that St. Paul, while he regards Christ as the source and principle of his life, whilst for him to live on earth is " Christ " and to be " with Christ " is his deepest longing (Phil. i. 21, 23),^ is by no means concerned only with those, ' "St. Paul was able to ignore many aspects of the Last Things on which Jewish and Christian Apocal3rptic had set great importance. To go to Christ, to be with Christ, overshadowed all the accompani' ments of the End" (Kennedy, Si. PauVs Conception of the Last Things, p. 312). ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION 453 and by no means appeals only to those, whose religious life is of the same mystical order as his own. And the time of his life when it has been urged that his forced inactivity at Rome would be sure to lead a man of his temperament to develop his already existing tendency to mystical thought is also the time which is marked by the most practical, if also the most mystical, of his Epistles.^ In the enforcement of the simple duties to which these Epistles so pointedly refer, Feine well reminds us that the Apostle demands the fulfilment of the law of love by all Christians as an obligation incumbent upon them by the life and self-sacrifice of Christ Himself: this obligation and its motive St, Paul proclaims in his latest as in his earliest Epistles (Phil. i. 8 ; Eph. iv. 15, v. 2). The same writer, in one of the most striking passages of his book, points out how, whilst a St. Augustine may be said to have re-discovered, as it were, the humility of Christ, whilst a St. Bernard was absorbed in the contemplation of the sufferings and Passion of Christ, whilst a St. Francis was devoted to an imitation of the poverty of Christ, all these differing traits of practical love were combined in the image of the character of Jesus which lived in the soul of St. Paul. And if we ask how the Apostle learnt these three great characteristics of the perfect life, his Epistles show us that he learnt them from the know- ledge of the historical Jesus as He lived and walked amongst men (cf Phil. ii. S J 2 Cor. i. s, iv. 5 ; 2 Cor. viii. 9, x. i ; I Thess. i. 6 ; Phil. iii. 10 ; 2 Thess. iii. S). Humility, suffering, poverty — surely to live a life of which all these formed a definite part would be to incur a burden too heavy to be borne ! And yet we recall St. Paul's utterance of another paradox of the Christian life, " as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Homeless, he could find a joy in human friendship ; once, if not twice, in the one private note which > Inge, "The Mystical Element in St. Panl's Theology," in the Expositor, August, 1896 (p. 120). 4S4 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST has come down to us, he speaks of the joy and comfort which he had gained from the friendship of Philemon. In his earliest Epistles he speaks of those whom he had won to the faith of Christ as his glory and his joy ; and in later years, in the loneliness of his Roman prison, he speaks of his absent brethren at Philippi as his joy and crown ; later still, in his last letter before his death, he expresses the desire that he may be filled with joy in the fellowship of his son Timothy (2 Tim. i. 4), a fellowship to be realised in a common love and hope, if not in a mutual presence. In the earliest group of the Apostle's Epistles the key- note is struck, " Rejoice always " (i Thess. v. 16), the keynote of a joy in the Holy Ghost which was to prevail even in the midst of afflictions (i Thess. i. 6). In the building up of the Christian life, whilst " love was the foundation, joy was the superstructure." The note of joy is prolonged as he bids the Roman Christians to be in full sympathy with all that rejoiced no less than with those who wept. Amidst the deepest anxieties of his calling and the painful disregard of his authority, St. Paul tells the Corinthians of his joy, which is, he says, the joy of them all ; he thinks of himself as a helper in their joy, and not as having lordship over their faith. And it is, perhaps, no wonder that men should find a motto for St. Paul's life in the words taken from the Epistle, of which the most marked characteristic is Christian joy, words in which the Apostle speaks of his readiness to be poured out as a libation in the shedding of his blood, and of his joyfulness in the thought of associating his converts with him in a community of Christian sacrifice and suffering (Phil. ii. 17).' But the joy of which St. Paul speaks is a joy which had been gained after a struggle ; this inward peace has followed upon a storm. Men have disputed, and probably will continue to dispute, as to whether, in the seventh chapter of the Epistle > Weinel, Paulus, p. 141. ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL' DEVOTION 455 to the Romans, we are to find a picture of St. Paul's own life.^ But one thing is certain, that the man who wrote that chapter must have known in his inmost being the force of temptation, the strength of sin, and the power of its law, the struggle between the flesh and the spirit.'' And he must have known in his own experience what it was to delight in the law of God after the inner man, i.e. in his true personality, and to have the mind of the Spirit which was life and peace. But St Paul's joy is so deep and so true because he never forgets that even when a battle is won the enemy may attack again, he never forgets the real nature of the foes with whom he has to deal. May we not see this in the two Epistles which were written so nearly at the same time in his first Roman imprisonment ? In the one (Philippians) he tells us of the joy of preaching Christ, the joy of Christian service and friendship, the joy of the Christian life ; in the other (Ephesians), whilst he speaks so fully of the life of the Church, of the citizenship of the saints, of the house- hold of God, he is ever mindful that there is a dark world, a realm of darkness, in which the Christian has to wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual and invisible foes. But even in the preparation for that war from which there was no discharge, St. Paul could rejoice and be glad, and he could write to the Christians at Colosse from the same Roman imprisonment, that he was with them in the spirit, joying and beholding their order and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ (Col. ii. s).* Contrast this deep and spiritual joy, this joy in the Lord, • See the remarks of Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. i8i, and Kennedy's St. Paul's Conception of the Last Things, p. 146. ' On this sense of sin, and St. Paul's revolt from the yoke of sin, see Ramsay, " The Attitude of St. Paul to Greek Philosophy," Hastings, B.D. V. 150. ' See, on the possible military metaphor, Dr. T. K. Abbott, in loco. 456 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST which finds a place not only in a St. Paul, but in a St. Peter, as he bids his converts rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, in a St. John as he prays that his joy may be fulfilled, in a St. James as he bids his brethren count it all joy to be tested by trials, the overflowing bounding joy which finds a place in the life of the early Church (Acts ii.), with the gloom and terror which pervaded the highest social circles of pagan society, with the pessimism which is marked on the pages of poet, philosopher, historian alike. It was the contrast between a living hope and a despair which was a sickness unto death, a hope which was to St. Paul an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and in the possession of which he could pray for the Christian Church, even as he marked the fall of Israel, their hardened heart, and their darkened eyes, or as men and women passed before him given up to passions of dishonour, serving the creature and exchanging the truth for a lie : " Now the God of peace fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope in the power of the Holy Ghost." Once more : we may note that St. Paul's mysticism was very far removed from a mysticism falsely so called, which has sometimes undervalued and despised the sacraments and ordinances of the Church. At his Baptism the Christian made a profession of obedience to his Lord ; but more than that, his relationship with Christ became so close and intimate that it might be fitly spoken of as actual union.^ And if we ask how the union thus begun is to be sustained, St. Paul teaches us to see in the Holy Communion a constant renewal of it : " The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? " Moreover, it is noteworthy that St. Paul thus emphasises the importance of these two great Sacraments of Baptism ' Sanday and Headlain, Romans, p. 154. ST. PAUL AND PERSONAL DEVOTION 457 and the Holy Communion in writing to the two Churches of Rome and Corinth. Who shall say what help the Apostle's solemn and inspiring words may have been to the Christian societies in those two great centres of pagan life and culture, those little groups of Christians striving together in the faith of the Gospel, and doing their best to remember in the midst of every kind of vice and temptation that in the Cross of Christ the world was crucified unto them and they unto the world ? But crucifixion was painful, and it could only be endured by union with Him who, though once crucified through weakness, was now living by the power of God. In the strength of that union St. Paul could say, " Come, self-devotion, high and pure " ; he could find that singleness of heart and aim, that detachment from mean ambition and petty rivalries which marked the whole of his Christian course. These strifes and jealousies look poor and miserable indeed when viewed in the light of the lives of men who have been content to follow in the footsteps of St. Paul. " I have had no home but the world," said the famous missionary of the seventeenth century, Capillas, as the mandarins condemned him to die, " no bed but the ground, no food but what Providence has sent me day by day, and no object but to do and suffer for the glory of Jesus Christ and for the eternal happiness of those who believe in His name."^ The words breathe the very spirit of St. Paul. Our Lord had said to His chosen followers, " Ye shall be " not merely " witnesses unto Me," but " My witnesses " (Acts i. 8, R.V.), an infallible promise and a priceless honour, realised by those who in the midst of the fire have nevertheless felt themselves to be the nearest to God. " For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him ; if we endure we shall also reign with Him ; if we shall deny Him, He also will deny * Hardwick, Christ and other Masters, p. 306, 458 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST us ; if we are faithless, He abideth faithful ; for He cannot deny Himself." Such words form the only one of those " Faithful Sayings " which finds a place in the last and dying charge of St. Paul ; and the Apostle read in such words the law of the life of the Christian and the law of the life of God. LECTURE XXII ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE NO one has enforced more pointedly than Dr. Harnack the two sides of the message of the Gospel, the socialistic and the individualistic. " It is not only," so he tells us, " that the Gospel preaches solidarity and the helping of others ; it is in this message that its real import consists. In this sense it is profoundly socialistic, just as it is also profoundly individualistic, because it establishes the infinite and independent value of every human soul." Such and similar statements obtain an illustration from the Epistles of St. Paul. No one insisted more: strongly than the Apostle upon the fulfilling of the law of Christ in the bearing of one another's burdens ; no one endeavoured more earnestly to inspire in the hearts of men separated widely by social distinctions the spirit of Christian brotherhood ; no one ever brought the highest sanctions of the Gospel to bear so closely upon home and family life. Here lay the socialistic side of St. Paul's work. How, we ask, did the Apostle enforce it ? By the proclamation, you will say, of great Christian principles, e.g. in relation to slavery, principles which did not abolish the evil, but which sapped its foundations and assured its final doom. As the Master in his Sermon on the Mount, so the disciple in his letters brought great principles to bear upon moral and social life. And in such a procedure there was nothing hasty, nothing revolutionary. Nothing, for example, could 459 460 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST have been worse, humanly speaking, for the fate of the slave throughput the empire, than to have preached a doctrine of resistance and an appeal to violence and force. How the spirit of St. Paul's teaching grew and became a mighty factor in the early life of the Church may be seen by the single circumstance that whilst thousands of epitaphs in the catacombs have been deciphered, hardly one refers in any way to the social condition of the bearer as marking either slave or free man ; and those antecedents of life which are so elaborately marked in Pagan inscriptions are hardly ever noted on the Christian's grave.^ Slavery in the Christian Church had lost its terrors, and St. Paul can even use it as a figure of the manner in which Christians belonged to God. " But now," he writes to the Romans, " being made free from sin, and become bondservants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification and the end eternal life " (Rom. vi. 22 ; cf. verse 1 8) ; and to the Corinthians he writes, " You were bought with a price : become not bondservants of men" (i Cor. vii. 23 ; cf vi. 20).^ But with all this there was another side to St. Paul's teaching, or rather a complement of his teaching, upon which he never failed to insist. St. Paul had to oppose evils which had come to be regarded as part of the social life of the time, vices of which in our modern world it is a shame even to speak. How did he accomplish his work ? By an appeal to that which Dr. Harnack calls the value of the individual soul : " Know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost ? " ' The old Egyptian was wont to say of a drunkard that he was " a temple without a god." St. Paul could write to the city which had become a by- word for sensuality, "If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, ' E. De Pressens6, The Early Years of Christianity, iv. 499, E.T. ' Dobschutz, Die urchristUchen Gemeinden, p. 37. ' Cf. E. Loring Brace, Gesta Christi, p. iJ, ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE 461 which temple ye are." Or, to pass for a moment from these stern words of warning, consider the infinite pathos which lies in the Apostle's appeal on behalf of their weaker brethren to the same Churches of Rome and Corinth, " For if because of meat thy brother is grieved, thou walkest no longer in love. Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died" (Rom. xiv. 15); or again, "For through thy knowledge he that is weak perisheth, thy brother for whose sake Christ died" (i Cor. viii. 11). How could St. Paul enforce more strongly the value of the individual soul, or how could he bind more closely the tie of Christian brother- hood than by the reminder that weak and strong alike had been purchased by the same price and redeemed by the same deliverance ? ^ It would seem, indeed, that upon every class of sin — and sins were rife in a city like Corinth — St. Paul brought to bear the highest Christian principles. He speaks, e.g., of those who had been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, thieves, covetous, drunkards, ex- tortioners, " And such," he adds, " were some of you ; but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God " (i Cor. vi. 9). In such words we have again the mention of the two principles, as Von Dobschiitz calls them, to which the Apostle in an earlier part of the letter had appealed as efficacious for the prevention of sensual sin, the power of Christ, and the freedom which Christ conferred, the inner freedom which delivered from the law of sin and death.^ But it is noticeable that in this list of vices to which St. Paul refers in i Cor. vi. 10 he names not only sensual sins, but also, with them, as equally excluding from the ' In his The Difference Christ has Made, p. 13 (in the series "What is Christianity"), the Rev. G. Jackson admirably enforces the historical importance of this single fundamental Christian truth, the belief in the importance of the individual soul before God. 2 Dobschiitz, u.s. p. 45. 462 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST kingdom of God, the sins of extortion and covetousness. Evidently in the business and commercial pursuits which played such a prominent part in their lives the Corinthians were lacking in the elementary spirit of Christian brother- hood, and were in danger of failing to rise above the level of heathen practice around them. We cannot suppose that St. Paul is referring to some single isolated case when he asks, " Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbour, go to law before the unrighteous ? " (i Cor. vi. r). The words of warning rather suggest that the danger was widespread, and, in making these appeals to heathen law courts, these Christians were forgetting the spirit of their Master and Judge in heaven, to which St. Paul would recall them. Christianity not only forbade dishonesty in business, it also forbade a stiff and unbending insistence upon one's own rights if the brotherhood of the faith was to be a reality and not merely a name. It was their failure to realise this sense of brotherhood as the starting-point, as the measure, and the test of every action, which opened out the way even in Christian circles for the promotion of every kind of selfish and malicious interest. But the fact that these Corinthian Christians engaged in lawsuits one with another seems in itself to suggest that they were by no means converts made from the lowest classes. In fact, this is only one of many indications that there were many well-to-do, if not wealthy, members in some at least of the Churches with which St. Paul was concerned. In the world of Christfan service it has been well and truly said that St. Paul had a place for the rich, and that it was not a part of his purpose to reproach the wealthy because they were wealthy, or to represent poverty as a synonym for holiness.^ Nor was the Apostle a preacher of what has been called the modern conception that men, in proportion as they enjoy better social sur- ' Peabody, yesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 196. ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE 463 roundings, are found to be more receptive of morality and belief A man might give all his goods to feed the poor, but such a sacrifice might bring him no whit nearer to the love of Christ or to the purity of God.^ But as no one was less selfish than St. Paul, so no one encouraged more solicitously to every opportunity of un- selfishness in others. He bids the Corinthians lay by in store week by week as God had prospered them ; he re- minds them that the love of God was the reward of the cheerful giver, and in such statements we have the Magna Charta of free charity.^ He accepts gifts on occasion from the Church at Philippi, and speaks of their liberality as a sacrifice well pleasing to God ; he bids those who have houses to eat and to drink in not to shame the poor by a display of their abundance of food. How painfully the Apostle felt any remissness on the part of the Church to minister to the needs of others we can see in the contrast which he draws between the Corinthian slackness and the Macedonian zeal for the collection on behalf of the poor saints in Jerusalem. Nor can we fail to notice how highly St. Paul commends those who were willing to devote their goods as well as their time to the service of the Church. Take, e.g., the case of Stephanas. Not only Stephanas, but his household, had given themselves to the service of the Church (i Cor. xvi. 15-18). Possibly Fortunatus and Achaicus were his household slaves ; at all events they journeyed with Stephanas to St. Paul at Ephesus. We are not told it in so many words, but it is quite probable that Stephanas bore the cost of the journey at his own expense, just as some Athenian citizen was wont to bear some burden in the service of the State from his own private purse.^ But however this may have been, it is at 1 Cf. Rogge, Der irdische Besitz im N.T., p. 113 (1897). ^ Uhlhorn, p. 85, below. ' Dobschutz, Die urchristtichen Gememden,^. 48. 464 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST least evident that Stephanas and his household had " set themselves " to minister unto the saints, the expression " set themselves " indicating that it was in their power to arrange their time or to dispose of their substance as they would. And it is evident how keenly St. Paul appreciates this service, and how high is the reward which he would bestow upon it. But whilst there is no trace in the New Testament that St. Paul regarded wealth as sinful,^ the Apostle knew full well the dangers which wealth brings with it, the responsi- bilities which must attach to it, the uncertainty of its tenure. The desire to be rich was in itself a temptation ; the love of money was a root of all kinds of evil. Men reached eagerly after money in the hope of securing it rather than after the hope in God, in whom was the life which was life indeed (i Tim. vi. 19). And when the Apostle speaks to the Colossians of the covetousness which is idolatry (Col. iii. 5), we are reminded of our Lord's own teaching as to the fatal danger of attempting a divided service between God and Mammon.^ In the possession of the true life St. Paul would teach us that the Christian is also in the possession of the true wealth : " Charge them that are rich in this present world . . . that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communi- cate " (i Tim. vi. 17). The last phrase, " willing to com- municate," may very possibly mean, " ready to sympathise," as the R.V. has it in the margin ; and, if so, St Paul's charge would teach us that our duty is not fulfilled when our alms are given or our cheque is written, but that something more is needed, the gift of sympathy, which would regard suffering not as something altogether external to ourselves in our own health and strength, but as if we too were feeling its burden ' Cf., Uhlhom, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, p. 82, E.T. " Rogge, U.S. p. 106, ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE 465 and its pain. Even the man who had made it a habit to steal might learn to enjoy the possession of this true wealth, not in defrauding others of what was theirs, but in imparting to them of what was his own (Eph. iv. 28). And so in his latest, as in his earliest. Epistles St. Paul condemns idleness, and he makes it his glory and his boast that he himself had worked with his own hands, that he might not be chargeable to any.^ " Good men spend and are spent," said Seneca ; but his words failed to gain much response in a selfish and sensual age. The philosopher himself amassed a fortune of enormous wealth. But when St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, " I will most gladly spend, and be spent to the last farthing for your souls " — for such is the force of the verb which is used here and here only in biblical Greek (2 Cor. xii. 15), his words evoked a wide and an ever-widening response, because they came from the lips of one who had learnt the secret of life, who knew both how to be filled and how to be' hungry, both how to abound and how to be in want, and who could impart his secret without money and without price to all sorts and conditions of men. In his self-abasement and poverty St. Paul could write to Timothy of the God " who giveth us," not, who will give, as of some future or far-off possession, " all things richly to enjoy." We have already had occasion to refer to the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in connection with the founding of the Church in the heart of the empire. Many of us are tempted to read this chapter as if it was a mere list of names. But in the early days of the Church's life there were those who were keenly alive to the importance of this close of the Epistle. For it testifies to the wide affection of the Apostle, to his respect for Christian women, and to the glory which had been bestowed upon Christian woman- ' Uhlhorn, u.s. p. 82. See, further, Bacon, Story of St. Paul, p. 241 (1905). 30 466 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST hood ; it shows how St Paul could see in the unselfish love which marked each Christian family a reflection of the love with which Christ had loved the Church, and it gives us a proof that St. Paul was never ashamed to rank amongst his friends those who filled a comparatively humble sphere in social life. And so St. Chrysostom can tell us that, although many were wont to hurry over this part of the Epistle, he himself takes a very different view of the value of its contents. " For it is possible," he adds, " even from bare names to find a great treasure. And therefore," he adds, " though there is nobody that listens to it, let us do our part, and show that there is nothing superfluous, nothing added at random in the Scriptures." A careful study of the names and of the considerateness of the Apostle in the praise which he bestows upon each enables us to test St. Chrysostom's declaration. St. Paul, for example, has sometimes been accused of a want of due respect towards women. This last chapter of his Epistle to the Romans is sufficient in itself to refute such a charge. From the beginning to the end, the writer chooses with the most apt consideration the title and the merit which belongs to each member of the household of God, and recognises the special work which a woman, and often only a woman, can do in the Church, until we are led to exclaim, in the further words of St. Chrysostom, " An honour we have in that there can be such women amongst us ; but we are put to shame in that we men are left so far behind them." Even in other passages of his Epistles, in which it may be urged that the Apostle speaks more severely, he does so because he has known what Christian womanhood could be, and what it ought to be ; whilst his severity is tempered by the bright and happy picture of the Christian matron and the Christian home. Nor can we forget that our Lord himself had bidden His disciples to expect the multiplication of the dearest ties of home in a spiritual sense. And such ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE 467 a recollection connects itself with one striking expression of St. Paul in the chapter before us, " Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine." Evidently the Apostle had received such Christian kindness from the mother of Rufus that he regarded her as related to himself by the same endearing tie. The words, indeed, have been connected with the word which speaks of a love more sacred still, " Woman, behold thy Son. . . . Behold thy mother." And if, as is quite possible, the thought of Rufus had re- minded St. Paul of the way of the Cross, it may well be that his regard would find in the dying charge of Jesus its most fitting, its most delicate expression. But as in dealing with the question of slavery there was nothing revolutionary in the Apostle's teaching, and his aim was ta inspire a new spirit into the relationships of master and servant, so, too, in dealing with the family, and with the position of womanhood, there were no doubt many details which might press for a solution ; but the Apostle sought to enrich and to sanctify the closest human tie by the spirit which breathed in the Ephesian and Colossian Epistles alike,^ and by that divine union " in Christ " which was conferred upon all " whose loves in higher love endure." As we pass beyond the Christian Church we note that, contemporaneously with its teaching and its progress, great ideas were working in other religions, ideas which showed that men far and wide were oppressed with the sense of mysteries which they could not fathom and by the weight of burdens which they could not sustain. The sense of guilt, the hope of penetrating the unseen, the craving for communion with the divine, and the desire for a higher morality, the tie of brotherhood resulting from a common worship and the exercise of a common life — all these were at work. It has, therefore, been often pointed out that the ' In this connection Bousset's remarks are of value (Der A^osiel Paulus, p. 9 [1904]). 468 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST success of the religion of Mithra, at all events in the West, was undoubtedly due to the spirit of fraternity and charity which was so marked in his guilds and in his sacraments.' In the sacramental mysteries not only did the lonely and the disconsolate find strength and sympathy, but high and low, rich and poor, were united by a common bond. Dr. Harnack, indeed, assures us that if Christianity had not contained sacraments, men would have invented them, and that, in fact, no religion could possibly have prospered without them. But when a likeness is drawn between the initiation into the pagan mysteries and into a common brotherhood of worship and ritual on the one hand and the Christian sacrament of Holy Baptism on the other, let us remember that the pagan and the Christian conception of life were two very different things. For the most part the purifications and lustral washings of the pagan world were due to superstitious > fear and dread ; and even when they were used to fit men for taking part in some sacrifice or celebration of the mysteries, they have been truly described as resembling the ceremonial cleansings of the Levitical law much more than anything found in the Christian Church.^ It seems a strange confession of inability to grasp the intense moral and spiritual power of the Christian life to liken such expressions as " to be in Christ," which are so common in St. Paul's writings, with the raving Bacchantes under the influence of their god, or with the orgiastic enthusiasm of half-barbaric religions.* No doubt the pagan mysteries, with their partaking of a common meal by the initiated, and with their festivals, which aimed at communion with the deity, helped to create not ' See, e.g., amongst recent writers, S. Dill, Roman Society from. Nero to M. Aurelius, p. 612. ' Cheetham, The Mysteries, Pagan and Christian, p. 10 (1903). " Von Dobschutz, Sfudien und Kritiken, i. (1905), p. 38, and his protest. ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE only a sense of unity, but a sense of brotherhood so strong as often to transcend all the barriers of national and social life. But these common instincts and cravings of humanity were not crushed, but ennobled in the Christian Church ; and men who have done their best to minimise the historical facts connected with the institution of the Eucharist are constrained to bear witness to the social and moral power of " the breaking of the bread " in the infant life of the Christian community.^ But if we are no longer seriously asked to believe that St. Paul paid a visit to Eleusis, we are reminded that in his missionary journeys he had come into close contact with the Hellenistic world, and that he may thus have learnt to know the meaning of the religious mysteries which it enjoyed. Had St. Paul then gained the unique satisfaction of knowing all about the mysteries without being initiated ? or even if he had gained this knowledge, are we to suppose that the Apostle would care to utilise what he knew of these mysteries in his teaching about the Sacraments of the Christian Church ? No doubt, in a great international centre like Cornith, pagan clubs and associations of every kind grew and multiplied ; but St. Paul's attitude towards the pagan feasts at Corinth, so far as we know it, cannot be said to be very sympathetic (i Cor. x. 20-1), and he would scarcely have adopted points of ritual from the Eleusinian mysteries in the wholesale manner which has sometimes been alleged. But even if we grant the Apostle both knowledge and inclination, we cannot suppose that he possessed the power thus to thrust his own sacramental views upon Jews and Gentiles alike in a Church which was by no means unanimous in the acceptance of his authority or in obedience to his commands. But if there is good ground for believing that the two ' Pfleiderer, Gifford Lectures, ii. 85, 122, 126, E.T. 4;o TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST great Sacraments may be traced to Jewish sources, why should we seek to exaggerate the pagan influence which on the showing of those who are most in sympathy with it is so precarious and uncertain ? Thus Dr. Percy Gardner writes, with reference to these pagan religions, that it must be allowed that our objective knowledge of them is not good, and that it constantly breaks down when one tries to build upon it.^ But if we believe in the act of " the breaking of the bread " at all, as it is twice mentioned in the Acts, it is surely not difficult to believe that St. Paul would impress by such an act the lesson of Christian unity, and that that unity could only be sustained in and through Him apart from whom Christians could do nothing. The notion of connecting Christianity with every pagan cult has become so increasingly popular that it is difficult to limit the lengths to which it may carry us. We are asked, e.g., by Dr. H. Holtzmann to believe that the influence of at least one Eastern religion — the religion of Mithra — is traceable upon the Sacraments of the New Testament, be- cause it was known not only in St. Paul's home at Tarsus, but because the Romans may have learnt it in their battles with the Cilician pirates.* Truly a likely source for the derivation of the sacramental teaching of the Church of Christ ! To show the extraordinary bias of Holtzmann's mind in favour of this peculiar theory, he treats us to an examination of the alleged influence of Essenism and its common meals upon the Christian Sacraments, an influence which in the case before us he totally rejects in his anxiety to make room for his own assumptions.* But, further, the words mentioned by Dr. Holtzmann * as a serious argument in proof of the close connection between St. Paul's teaching ' A Historic View of the New Testament,'^. 179(1904). " Archiv fUr Religionswissenschaft, Heft i. p. 66 (1904). ' U.S. pp. 60-1. * U.S. p. 64. ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE 471 and that of the pagan mysteries are of the most general kind, and there is no difficulty in supposing that the Apostle would know something of the phraseology current in the religious and social world around him. The word " perfect," e.g., which no doubt means " initiated " in its classical usage, may be an illustration of this ; but at the same time we must remember that the same word occurs in the LXX., in Philo, and that it is used in the most Jewish document of the New Testament, the Epistle of St. James, more frequently than in any other New Testament book. Dr. Percy Gardner asks us to believe that Christianity takes up, as it were, and sanctifies the thoughts and influences which were at work in paganism, and to this request we very cordially respond.-' The pity is that so much time should be spent in tracing out an origin for the Christian Sacraments which is quite at variance with the source to which the New Testament refers them. No doubt we may insist upon the social power of the Christian Sacraments ; but we must never forget that this social and universal power is derived not from the real or supposed contact of Christianity with any other system of religion or philosophy,^ but that it is seen and felt because it is the gift of Him with whom every Christian is united in baptism, and by whom every Christian is fed and sustained in the Holy Communion. One of the greatest triumphs of modern archaeology has been the revelation of the wide spread of Mithra worship throughout the Roman empire. How this religion passed from the East to the West we cannot say. It would seem that some seventy years B.C. it may have made its first 1 U.S. pp. 185, 230. ' See, e.g.. Bacon, Story of St. Paul, p. 260 (1905) : " Cosmopolitan- ism is the last thing Paul would learn from his Jewish antecedents ; it was strange doctrine even to the elder Apostles, and yet it was involved in the Spirit of Christ. Paul has the merit of infusing with imperishable life what in Stoicism was but a barren ideal." 472 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST appearance, but probably during the reign of Tiberius it began to establish its hold upon the empire by the missionary efforts, as we may call them, of soldiers, merchants, and slaves. Gradually it worked its way, as the religion of the poor and despised, to that of the imperial Court and of the upper classes of society, and one place after another familiar to us by name bears its unmistakable witness to the spread of this strange cult. We may trace it from the mouth of the Danube to the great military outposts of Chester and York.^ What was the exact secret of its influence who shall say ? But it appealed undoubtedly to the various yearnings which were affecting men's hearts and minds, and its social and moral triumph was great ; it appealed to all classes, and it made that appeal in the West at a time when a great political unity had already been achieved. For a while it waxed strong, and beyond doubt it presented points of likeness which might easily be exaggerated with the sacramental system of the Christian faith ; and so it has been truly remarked of its sacred ablutions and its feast in honour of its God that such festivals and lustrations easily lent themselves to a com- petition with Baptism and the Holy Communion.^ But these guilds and colleges of the votaries of Mithra, although they spread far and wide throughout the great Roman empire, had their day, and they ceased to be, in spite of 'the desperate efforts which were made to restore and revive them. There must, then, as Von Dobschiitz frankly declares, have been something in Christianity which gave it a victory in its conflict with the ecstatic and magical cults by which it was surrounded ; otherwise it would have gone under with them, if it had not possessed a power which was stronger and more enduring than they, and that power was the Gospel, that power was the Person of ■ S. Dill, U.S. pp. 594, 596 ; Bigg, The Church's Task, etc., p. 48 (1905). ' Art. " Mithras," Diet, of Christian Biog., iii. 926. ST. PAUL AND SOCIAL LIFE 473 the living Christ.^ The archaeological testimony which witnesses so clearly and so increasingly to the existence of the cult of Mithra witnesses none the less clearly to the fact that the spread and popularity of that religion could not prevent it from sharing the fate of the numerous other religions which in the Roman empire contended with it for popular favour and renown. But to-day, over an empire greater than that of Rome, the Christian Sacraments unite Christians in a great spiritual society, which century after century has made its conquests in East and West alike, which aims at a world-wide dominion, and claims to possess the power of an endless life. And why? because it is founded not upon theories, but upon facts ; and those facts are the life and death and resurrection of a divine Person, in whom Christians become members one of another, because they are the members of a Church which is the Body of Christ, of a divine Person whose word is pledged that against His Church no powers seen or unseen can prevail. ■ Probleme des a^ost. Zeitalters, p. 128. The words are well worth quoting in full, " Es muss etwas in dam Christentum gewesen sein, was anders war als jene Religiositat, eine Kraft, die es fiber all jene Gebilde erhob. Das ist das Evangelium, und der darin zusammen- gefasste Eindruck der Person Jesu Christi. Dass man dessen Bedeutung fiir die ganze Entwicklung unterschatzt, darin sehe ich den Hauptfehler dieser ' religionsgeschichtlichen ' Betrachtungsweise." LECTURE XXIII ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK IN a former lecture we dwelt for a short time upon the self-devotion which characterised St. Paul's career. It is this feature in his character which has impressed most strongly the recent as well as the earlier students of his life, and we find this recognition in quarters where it is very welcome. Thus Professor Bousset, in his little pamphlet of last year on the Apostle, speaks of this offering up of himself as the highest thing in St. Paul ; and he adds that this offering which St. Paul made was by no means the offering of a weak will, it was rather the offering of a strong nature and of a masterly will which was thus presented in sacrifice to its God and Saviour. But with this recognition of the Apostle's entire self-devotion there is also the recognition of his practical and tactful energy.^ In our own country Professor Ramsay and Dr. Lock have helped us to understand this combination in St. Paul of heroic self-sacrifice and of methodical and resourceful working, more especially in the field of missionary labour. And in Germany writers so far removed from one another in many respects as Dr. Zahn and Dr. Clemen have been loud in their praise of the methods of St. Paul's missionary 1 Bousset, Der A^ostel Paulus, pp. 15-16 (1904) ; Weinel, Paulus Der Mensch und sein Werk, pp. 276-7 (1904) ; Wemle, Was haben wir heute an Paulus ? pp. 17, 39 (1904). 474 ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 475 endeavours. If it was ever given to a man " to think imperially '' it was so in the best and highest sense to St. Paul. Possibly Dr. Clemen is right when he thinks that from the earliest days of the Apostle's first missionary journey, from his encounter with Sergius Paulus, the repre- sentative of the Roman world, he was encouraged to hope that the heart of the empire might be won for Christ. At all events, we know how for years St. Paul's fervent desire was to preach the Gospel in Rome, and in his visiting Spain, " the chief centre of Roman civilisation in the West," ^ we see the further working out of his resolve that, if possible, the Christian religion should become the religion of the empire. And we can trace how the eager wish of the great Apostle influenced the record of his friend and companion St. Luke, and led him to emphasise the successive steps by which the Gospel travelled from Jerusalem to Rome. We may readily grant that this was one of the chief, if not the chief motive of St. Luke as an historian, and it is difficult to see why such a recognition of his purpose should in the slightest degree detract from the value or the truthfulness of his narrative. But whilst the Acts of the Apostles thus bears witness to St. Paul's great purpose and its accomplishment, it also enables us to trace in some detail the methods of his working and their value and effect. In the first place we may be enabled to distinguish in the Acts between what have been well called the two types of mission — the diffused and the concentrated mission.^ Each has its place in the Church, each has its place in the history of St. Luke. In the case of St. Paul it might perhaps at first sight look as if the diffused type of mission was all that the Apostle recognised and cared for, that his own aim was active aggression and the ' Ramsay, St. i'aa/, p. 255, and Art. " Roads and Travel," Hastings' B.D., V. 377. ' Church Quarterly Review, Ivi. 174. 476 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST making of converts far and wide. But none the less, St. Paul had learnt and appreciated the value of concentration. His work shows how often he was content to build up some centre of Christian life, from which the light and the joy of the Gospel might radiate to the neighbouring country ; and thus expansion and concentration went hand in hand. The Apostle's work spread through the great Roman province of Asia, but it had its definite centre, its headquarters in the capital ; and from Ephesus the missionaries of the Gospel carried their message, as we have seen, and founded Churches. And Ephesus was chosen by St. Paul because, as we have already noted, in accordance with his rule of choice, Ephesus" was one of the great centres of the busy commercial life of the empire. How often missionary work has failed of its success because St. Paul's careful methods have been for- gotten ! It has been said that since the days of St. Paul no greater or more fascinating personality has been brought to bear upon the heathen than that of St. Francis Xavier. But it is no harsh criticism that sees in his methods the crucial example of total failure of concentration, of belief in quantity rather than quality, of counting the number of baptized, not of seeking to build up his neophytes in the faith and practice of the Gospel. And here we may note another characteristic of St. Paul's missionary writing. As Dr. Zahn, no less than Dr. Lock, has so well pointed out, one of the most important means of St. Paul's success was the trust which he placed in his fellow workers, and his discriminating knowledge in the due assign- ment of their work.^ To say nothing of the more familiar names, such as those of Timothy or Titus, how much we may learn from the account, brief as it is, of two such men as Epaphras and Epaphroditus ! Both were content to visit St. Paul when he lay bound as a prisoner in Rome. In ' Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alien Kirche, p. 145 ; Lock, St. Paul the Master-Builder, p. 145. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 477 Epaphras we may see not only the founder of the Church at Colosse, but it may well be the Evangelist of the neigh- bouring towns, and we know how dear Epaphroditus was to the Church at Philippi and to St. Paul. What description could reveal more clearly the worth of Epaphroditus and the place which he had gained in the affections of St Paul than the simple description, in the Apostle's own words, in which he speaks of him as " my brother, and fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier " (Phil. ii. 25) ; in other words, of one united to him by the enduring bonds of Christian affection, of common work and common danger.^ There is, of course, a further sense in which the word " concentrated " may be used of St. Paul's missionary work, although, as we have said, concentration with St. Paul was the first and best step towards diffusion. Wherever he found a Jewish synagogue he made that the starting-point for his preaching, and the Sabbath assembly the opportunity for his first sermon. We have before spoken of the absurdity of the objection that St. Paul, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, could not have acted in this manner. But as Dr. Zahn has so well insisted in discussing the missionary methods in the times of the Apostles, " Where was the missionary to the Gentiles more likely to come across Gentiles looking for salvation than in the synagogue ? To the missionary to the Gentiles the synagogue formed a natural bridge to that portion of the heathen population which was open to religious impressions." ^ It is quite likely, as Dr. Zahn is also careful to point out, that, as at Lystra and at Athens, the Apostle may often have taught in public or in the market places.^ But the accounts in the Acts, which always describe him as going first to the Jewish synagogue, are ' Lightfoot, Philijipians, p. 123. ' See also Liddon, Essays and Addresses, p. 105 (1892). ' See especially his recent valuable remarks in Art. " Paulus der Apostel," in the 3rd edit, of Herzog's Realencyclo^ddie, Heft 141, p. 75 (1904). 478 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST exactly what we should expect ; and although it is easy to pass a kind of sneer on " St. Luke's stereotyped formula " in making St. Paul thus address his own countrymen first of all, the strange thing would surely have been if St. Paul, with all his intense patriotism, with his heart's desire and supplication for Israel that they might be saved, had passed by the door of the synagogue without entering, and had never made an effort to enlighten his countrymen as to the message which pointed to the Christ as the same Lord, rich unto all that called upon Him, and which knew no distinction between Jew and Greek. If, therefore, we thus regard the Apostle's habitual mode of action in going first to the Jew and then to the Gentile, we shall see how such a plan not only falls in with his natural and national instincts, with his intense affection for those who were his kinsmen according to the flesh, but how it was likely to forward and expedite his work. Moreover, if we bear in mind this mode of action, which was so characteristic of the great missionary, who could become a Jew to the Jew, no less than a Greek to the Greek, much further light is thrown upon the Apostle's addresses in the Acts. It is quite true, as we have observed, that the address at the Pisidian Antioch is the only missionary address to Jews which is given us at any length in the Acts. But it does not follow that the speeches at Lystra or at Athens contained the whole substance of St. Paul's preaching in these places. On the contrary, as we have some reason to believe, the addresses both at Lystra and at Athens were called forth by special circumstances, and we are definitely informed that St. Paul reasoned at Athens in the synagogue with the Jew and the proselyte. But it is quite unreasonable to suppose that this teaching could have been carried on with- out some definite reference to the words and acts of Jesus. No one has insisted upon this more strongly than Dr. Zahn ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 479 in his account of the Apostle's missionary methods, ahd we have already seen how much Dr. J. Weiss, a writer of a very different school, is prepared to grant as presupposed in St. Paul's missionary preaching. Even Wernle, who mini- mises St. Paul's acquaintance with the facts of the life of Jesus, is constrained to grant that the Apostle may have entered into some detail as to these facts in his missionary teaching. One of the fullest accounts of St. Paul's life and work which we have lately received from Germany, by Dr. Weinel, dwells with great eloquence and at considerable length upon the preparation for the Gospel. It is pointed out, for instance, how the soil was prepared for it both outwardly in the empire and inwardly in men's hearts, and how the door which St. Paul said was open to him at Ephesus was in reality open to him throughout the whole wide empire. As we might expect, reference is made to the preparation for the Gospel message afforded by the guilds, the clubs, the mysteries ; but it is also frankly acknowledged that deeper than any such influences was the religious need. Philosophy had destroyed the old gods, and even the populace craved in some sort for the wisdom which the philosophers claimed. Stronger, too, than the desire for enlightenment and wisdom in all classes, was the longing for a revelation ; and at such a time when scepticism prevailed as to truth, the more absurd the claims of any Eastern religion, the higher was the value set upon it ; but behind all this scepticism and extravagance there was, nevertheless, a genuine craving for purity and a higher life.^ But this picture, which corresponds so closely in many respects to that drawn in an earlier lecture, has this special value for our subject. The description is meant to lead up to the statement that St. Paul was the man for the time ; he represented Christianity as the time demanded — for the Greek as wisdom, for the Jew 1 Weinel, Paulus, Der Mensch und sein Werk, pp. 127-8. 48o TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST as righteousness, but for all men alike as a redemption and a revelation. The same writer also treats at length of St. Paul's missionary preaching ; and he tells us that if we want to understand what that preaching was, we must have recourse to the positive references to it contained in the Apostle's own letters.^ And so he takes his stand upon such a passage as that which meets us in St. Paul's earliest Epistle, which shows us how he had exhorted the Thessa- lonians to turn unto God from idols and serve a living and true God (i Thess. i. 9). Here is a point which, though placed first in the missionary preaching, plays no rdle in the Epistles. The Apostle had commenced his preaching by contrast- ing the living and true God with the dumb idols of wood and stone. Life, eternal life, was what men were seeking, and only the living God could confer such a gift ; and so the Apostle reaches the centre of his preaching — the living God, who had spoken to men by His works and in their consciences and had proved Himself to be the possessor of all power, in that He had raised His Son from the dead. But we are assured almost on the same page that Paul had not related much about Jesus, that he had only spoken of His death and at the same time of His mighty working. True, he had represented Jesus as crucified before the eyes of the Galatians ; he had told the Corinthians of his determination to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and in this message of the Cross the Apostle had shown most effectively the love and the power of God and the reality and gravity of sin. But of the actual life of Jesus it would seem that St. Paul had related little or nothing. Probably the moral commands and the sayings of Jesus were more prominent in the course of later instruction, and probably, too, the detailed proofs from the Old Testament prophecies were mentioned later, although I Weinel, u,s. p. 143. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 481 the first preaching would contain, no doubt, a reference to the ancient revelation of God. But the same writer who gives us this description of Paul's missionary preaching, which seems to lay little stress upon the life of Jesus, proceeds to show how the example of Jesus must have formed a part of the Apostle's preaching, or he would not so often have referred to it, and no writer has more fully emphasised, as we shall see later, in a further page of his book the knowledge which Paul possessed of our Lord's earthly life, a knowledge shown in the incidental references which the Apostle makes to the conditions in which Jesus lived. Another well-known German, Professor Wernle, sees in Paul the great missionary Apostle, and at the same time one of the greatest Church organisers for all time ; and Christianity, he holds, has never had a greater or a wiser teacher of the religious common life than the mystic who insisted so much upon the personal relation of man to God. He finds the proof of this in the manner in which the Apostle uses the forms which he found in the Jewish Church or in the heathen mysteries, or in the Greek religion, in the service of the Christian Church ; without mysteries there is no religion, no guarantee of a world beyond the grave.^ Reference has already been made to the exposition of similar views. It may be sufficient here to note that this insistence upon the social power of the Holy Communion ought to make such writers ask not only whence that social power was derived, but whether this power would have had any existence at all except for a certain historical fact ? If Christians celebrated the Lord's Supper on the first day of the week, it was because they believed that our Lord rose on that day. But if, as Wernle elsewhere asks us to do, we are to regard all the appearances con- nected with our Lord's resurrection as later accretions ; if there was no grave found empty ; if the Holy Communion * Wernle, Paulus als Heidenmissionar, pp. 26, 29. 31 482 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST was only gradually regarded in the Church as an ordinance instituted by our Lord Himself, it is difficult to see how this wonderful power, of which Wernle speaks so enthusi- astically, could have had any endurance or, in fact, any origin.^ But this endurance, we are assured, is due to the work and the genius of St. Paul, and that work called into being an organisation more enduring and endowed with fuller life than the Roman state itself And this work was fostered by Christian faith and Christian love.^ But is it possible that the faith and love of the early Church were sustained by a fanciful interpretation of Old Testament prophecies, or by a reception of Holy Baptism which reduced it to the level of a magical or mechanical rite, or by an ingenious combination of ideas derived from Jewish sacrifices and pagan mysteries? Let us look at the matter a little more closely. We are asked to picture St Paul entering the synagogue and proclaiming that the Messiah has come. And in answer to the question where is He, and what is He doing now ? St. Paul proclaims the Gospel of the Cross. But such a proclamation must have been a matter of the most profound astonishment to every Jew in the synagogue. How, then, must the claims of Jesus of Nazareth be sustained ? By a series of references to the Scriptures in a manner quite devoid of any regard to the actual historical meaning of these writings. And as one result of this wonderful procedure we are further asked to believe that Jews, in the name of a crucified fellow countryman, were ready to share in a common meal with Gentiles, and . to become members of one and the same Church. Or, if we turn to the Gentiles, we are asked to believe that the only thing they had to do was to listen to and accept the Apostle's preaching, and to be baptized forthwith. ' Die Anf&nge unserer Religion, pp. 70, 82, 85. ' Wemle, Paulus als Heidenmissionar, pp. 22-3, 29. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 483 But the formula of baptism would have created some difficulty to the mind of an intelligent Gentile, and he would have felt little inclination to be baptized into the name of a crucified Jew, unless his mental powers were of such an order as to make him the willing slave of every kind of superstitious quackery. But if this was the type of man from which the converts to Christianity were recruited, what becomes of the moral beauty of the Christian life or of the mani- festation of a character to the sublimity of which no pagan ethics had ever attained ? And yet, as a matter of historical fact, we know that baptism " in the name of Jesus " was not the mere utterance of a name. The words witnessed to a divine power and a divine per- sonality which dominated the hearts and afifections of men, and united as one holy brotherhood those who were far removed from each other not merely by land and sea, but by differences of nationality, of temperament, of religion. We have previously spoken of the description of Christianity as both socialistic and individualistic, and this twofold aspect of our faith has its bearing not merely upon the ordinary relationships of family life, but also upon the attitude of the Christian to missionary work and enterprise. No writer of the New Testament has insisted more strongly than St. Paul upon the solidarity of the human race.^ All Christians unite, in St. Paul's conception, to form a single man ; the barriers between Jew and Greek and bond and free are broken down. "There can be," he writes to the Galatians, " neither Jew nor Greek ; there can be neither ' " God, it is said, in the Acts, has made all nations of one blood to dwell together on the face of the earth. Here is a revolution greater than any political or social revolution in history. In the Greek or Latin writers you may find faint breathings of a common humanity ; you will find no recognition of universal brotherhood " (Goldwin Smith, The Founder of Christendom, p. 17). 484 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST bond nor free ; there can be no male and female, for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 28). And as the years rolled on, St. Paul is ready to impress this vital truth not less, but more emphatically. We read the Epistles of his first captivity, Ephesians and Colossians. As he writes to the Ephesians he rejoices in the thought that, as it has been well put, the Jew lost nothing, he gained everything — gained new brothers, gained the whole Gentile world ; while the Gentile, too, had gained all — he, indeed, had nothing to lose ; * he had gained brotherhood with the Jew, a place in the divine family. And as he writes to the Colossians, the Apostle thinks of the new man renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him, where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondmen, freemen ; but Christ is all and in all (Col. iii. 11). In the words "barbarian, Scythian," we have not, as in the other clauses, an antithesis, but a climax, for in St. Paul's days, at all events, the Scythians were looked upon as more barbarous than the barbarians ; and yet even they were to be brought to God in Christ, and to be sharers of the hopes and inheritance of the saints. Men, ^ alas ! are slow to recognise the obligation which such words impose upon us as Christians to-day. The writer of a very thoughtful article in The East and the West has pointed out how the difficulty which men had and still have in recognising this indefinite extension of the area of Christian duty is brought home to us by the study of the Acts of the Apostles, and that St. Luke's profound sense of proportion is witnessed to by the manner in which he has emphasised the central conflict in the early history of the faith. "In the persecution," adds the writer, " of St. Stephen, in the story of Cornelius, narrated at what might seem such disproportionate length, in the whole history of St. Paul we find this battle being fought out, as the very ' Dean of Westminster, Ej^hesians, p. 62. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 485 central and crucial one . . . and the old antagonism of the Judaising teachers who opposed St. Paul reappears to-day in the ignoring of our world-wide duty, and in the prejudice of Colonial Christians against missionary work among the native races which surround them, whom they decline to recognise as brothers." ^ But then the same St. Paul insists most strongly, as we have seen, upon the value and accountability before God of each human soul. And the immediate need of insisting upon this aspect of St. Paul's teaching has been recently brought home to us in a very striking manner. It has, for instance, been maintained ^ that the preaching of the Christian missionaries with regard to suicide is one of the greatest obstacles to the spread of Christianity in Japan, and they have been urged by a thoughtful Japanese writer to reconsider their position and their teaching as to the sinfulness of this act of suicide. On the other hand, it is most important to note that there are indications amongst the Japanese themselves that in many quarters this sanction of suicide in war no longer exists, and that as it is not considered disgraceful to be made a prisoner in battle, so the original reason for committing suicide is now removed.' ' Bishop Hamilton Baynes, " The Ethical Basis of Missionary Enthusiasm," October (1904). " The East and the West, p. loi, January, 1905. ' " In all Christian countries suicide is considered a sin. It is ascribed either to lunacy or to lack of courage to meet life's difficulties. In England, since the Middle Ages, suicide has been legally punishable. That every soldier should go out to battle prepared to die for his country is eminently desirable, but the notion that the more who die the better, and that men should resort to suicide to increase the mortality, would certainly, if encouraged, conduce to national annihilation in the case of a long war. The hope of the many should be, while facing death, to escape it and come home victorious " (Extract from a speech delivered last September to the Tokyo Education Society against suicide, by Professor Ukita). The speaker is a Christian, but tYieJa^an Weekly Mail -points out that \he same opinions are shared by many who are not Christians. See Quarterly Pa^er of the Guild of St Paul, Easter, 1905, p. 10. 486 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST But unfortunately, whilst the importance and the greatness of national unity have been taught in Japan, and, no doubt, with splendid results, the counter truth of Christianity is comparatively unrecognised and unknown. Christianity never forbids a man to sacrifice his life for others unselfishly, but it does forbid him to sacrifice it for himself selfishly. " No man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself," wrote St. Paul, and so far he might seem to inculcate merely the human virtue of Altruism ; but St. Paul adds what no mere human code of ethics could add, the reason of Christian obligation and service : " For whether we live we live unto the Lord, and whether we die we die unto the Lord." But whilst the Christian thus recognises the supreme obligation to Christ, he is conscious that patriotism has never been a virtue alien to his faith, and he remembers how the Lord wept a patriot's tears over Jerusalem, and how his greatest missionary Apostle was ready to exclaim, " For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain." Christianity, indeed, would take this great virtue of patriotism and deepen it and strengthen it, inasmuch as it would always bid us to be mindful that there are other and more subtle foes even than the greed and ambition of other nations, and that those words of St. Paul in which he warns us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against foes more deadly in their destruction of all moral and true progress, have their bearing upon national as well as upon individual life. Japanese patriotism may in truth teach us in England a very severe and salutary lesson in its stern and supreme devotion to national aims and interests.^ But still there are, if report speaks truly, evils in Japanese life which may sap and will sap the vigour of any nation unless watched and remedied. There is, for instance, the looseness of the marriage ' See "Japanese Patriotism and Christianity," p. 271, The Inter- preter, March, 1905. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 487 tie and the consequent impairment of home life and home affection. This is one reason, at least, why we may believe that Japan would gain no small advantage by an acceptance of the Christian faith, for no one will dispute that even in the most degenerate days the sanctity of home life prevails wherever Christianity is recognised in deed and in truth. And in this connection we may remind ourselves that it is possible to point to some facts which must in time promote the growth at least of the Christian spirit in Japan. A Japanese writer, e.g., has recently given us his thoughts upon The Awakening of Japan, and he tells us, amongst other things, that " the elevation of womanhood is one of the noblest messages that Christianity has given us." There is, moreover, an absence of the evil against which the missionaries of the early Church had to fight, an evil which has so often proved prejudicial to Christian work in India ; an absence of the class prejudice ; so that the rich and the poor already unite together without scruple in Christian fellowship.^ In the Japan Church of to-day one may find educated men like the teachers of English in good schools, government officials, and the poorest of the poor, and St. Paul's words are finding their fulfilment as the members of such a Church, drawn together from every social class, become " one man in Christ Jesus." There is, again, the recognition in Japan of the benevolent and civilising agencies of Christianity as seen, for example, in the Red Cross Society, the very name of which must tell its own tale to a quick and impressionable people, and in the spread through Christian influence of hospitals and homes and orphanages. But the danger is lest Christianity should come to be regarded as consisting of these in- fluences, and lest the Christian spirit should be recognised without the corresponding recognition of the Christian faith. > " The Japan Church " in The East and the West, April, 1905. 488 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST No modem nation has learnt more truly than Japan that there is nothing fruitful except sacrifice, and it may well be that her people already see in the Cross the symbol of self- denyiftg service and love. The Cross was all that for St. Paul, but it was something more. And those who are trying to win them to Christianity are telling us that there is evidence that the Cross is something more for many men and women in Japan, and that beneath the surface of the life, which even as we view it is so full of pathos, so eager to love the highest when it is seen and known, so rich in patient endeavour,^ there is a sense of sin which must be awakened sooner or later in all who are brought near to the love and purity of Christ.* That sense of sin and of its burden, the truth that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain because its need of redemption has not been fulfilled, is the great truth which St. Paul proclaimed, and it is proclaimed by the comparative study of religion to-day ; and unless Christianity could assure us that the burden can be lifted and a Redeemer found, it could not rightly or justly claim to be a Gospel for all mankind.' " The value of comparative religion," said Dr. Jevons at the Church Congress of 1904, " is that it shows that the question which Christianity undertakes to answer is the question which shakes every religious-minded man to the very centre of his being, whatever his religion, ' What shall I do to be saved ? ' " * I have spoken hitherto principally of Japan, because of its immediate interest for us as a Church > See, e.g., Kokoro, by Lafcadio Heam. ' Quarterly Paper of St. Paul's Guild, p. 14, July, 1904. ' See Dr. Jevons' paper " Christianity and Other Religions," Liverpool Church Congress, 1904. < In his treatment of St. Paul's attitude to Greek philosophy. Professor Ramsay has recently remarked that " there was in Hellenic thought no real conception of sin. . . . Such an idea as rising above oneself, trampling one's nature under foot as sinful, striving after the divine nature, is essentially anti-Hellenic, and it is only 'rarely that ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 489 and as a nation. " When before," the question has well been asked, " in the history of missions since the first days had the Church to evangelise a first-class power and a people bubbling over with life, and reaching out as a nation to all the noblest instincts of humanity and justice and freedom ? It is in this uniqueness of Japan as a mission field that the claim comes so strongly to England in bringing this country to Christ."^ But we must perforce turn to another field of missionary work, which is always of permanent interest — that of our great dependency of India. Students of comparative re- ligion often mark the points of likeness between Hinduism and Christianity, but there are differences between them so great as to be fundamental ; and in this connection it is deeply important to remember two things : first, that St. Paul's words about the Cross which he spake to the Jew and to the Greek are true of Hindu thought to-day. Thus the thought of a suffering and a dying God is to the Hindu to-day the same as it was twenty centuries ago, " Unto Jews a stumbling-block, and unto Gentiles foolishness" (i Cor. i. 23, R.V.).^ But with all this rejection of our Lord's atoning death, it is none the less true that the life of Jesus has become the ideal , of life for the cultured classes of India ; and as is the case in Japan, so, too, in India there is the recognition that this life is the light of men, and that St. Paul was right when he bade men to be followers of Christ.' It is surely a gleam of hope to find that the impression made by our any faint traces of it can be found even in those Hellenic philosophers who have been most affected by foreign thought." "But," he adds, " it was in this revolt from the yoke of sin, in this intense eagerness after the divine, that St. Paul found the motive power to drive men on " (Art. " Religion of Greece," Hastings' B.D., v. 150. ' Quarterly Pa^er of St. Paul's Guild, p. 8, July, 1904. ' " Hindu Religious Ideals," The East and the West, p. 167, April, 1904. ' The East and the West, u.s. p. 175 ; also October, 1904, p. 476. 490 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Lord's character is so widely spread to-day, and the prayer of St. Paul may well rise to our lips that men who are thus drawn by the ethical beauty of the character of the Gospels " may grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." But as evidence increases to show us how marvellous is the effect which the beauty of Christian character and the ' ideal as seen in our Lord have had upon the intelligence and reverence of the Hindu, and as men justify their larger hope for the future of India by reminding us of those striking words of Keshub Chunder Sen, " None but Jesus ever deserved this bright, this precious diadem, India ; and Jesus shall have it," ^ all this does not lessen, but increase, our responsibilities, and it should in proportion increase our efforts. " A consecrated imperialism " ought to be our in- centive and our aim. Can we doubt that it was so with St. Paul ? Can we doubt that such a phrase " a consecrated imperialism " expresses the spirit of St. Paul and the manner in which he would have us work to-day ? ^ And if a great door is opened to us in India, it may be said with truth that in Africa a totally new departure has been constituted for us by the events of the past generation. Take, e.g., the new colonies added to our imperial rule in South Africa by the recent war, and consider how pressing, as we have just been told, is the question of religious education, an influence which will affect as no other the life of a new colony, for in children we always see the to- morrow of society. When St. Paul wrote to a Roman colony like Philippi, he does not forget that he is writing to fellow citizens ; on the contrary, he emphasises the thought of the citizenship in which both he and his converts shared. " Only behave as ' See the words quoted in the Hibbert yournal, p. 625, April, 1905. * For the phrase see " A Generation of Missions," by the Bishop of St. Albans, The East and the West, p. 4, January, 1905. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 491 citizens," he writes, " worthily of the Gospel of Christ " (Phil, i. 27). And how were they to play their part as good citizens ? We remember how the preaching of the Gospel at Philippi had recognised the honour of women and the claims of the slave, how it had hallowed the relationships of the family and the home, and how the highest example was to be brought to bear upon the duties of Christian charity, " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus " ; how the Apostle prayed • that the love of his converts might abound in knowledge and all discernment (Phil. i. 8). And yet there was something more to add : " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, take account of these things " (Phil. iv. 8). The Apostle of Christ was not afraid to claim, in the name and for the service of his Master, all that was good even in the pagan world around him.^ We speak of a liberal education, but could any education be more deeply rooted in its principles and yet wider in its scope than that which St. Paul's exhortations to the Philippians would teach us to offer to our fellow citizens to-day ? What, it is often asked, were the qualities which made ' In this connection the recent remarks of Professor Ramsay may be specially noted (Art. " Religion of Greece," Hastings' B.D., v. 150). St. Paul, he says, "would not have his Churches lose anything of the excellences of the Greek spirit. His extreme fondness for the word charts can hardly be quite separated in his mind, and could not possibly be separated in the minds of his numerous Hellenic readers, from the Greek charts, the grace and charm which is of the essence of Hellenism. And he sums up in three Greek words his counsel to the Colossians and to the Asians generally, when he urged them to ' make their market to the full of the opportunity which their situation offered them ' " (Col. iv. 5 ; Eph. v. 16; cf. Phil. iv. 4, 8). At the same time it will be remembered that in this same article (see above) Professor Ramsay rightly lays his finger upon the great fault of the Greek Sophia of the time, the absence of any real conception of sin. 492 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST St. Paul so great and so successful as a missionary ? First, his sincerity. This is frankly acknowledged, just as we have seen that the Apostle's tact was acknowledged, in quarters where we might not expect the recognition to be so unqualified.^ Nothing insincere could find a place in the teaching of a man who lived and spoke " in Christ " : " for we are not as the many, making merchandise of the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ " (2 Cor. i. 17). Three times in writing to the Church of Corinth, in which his motives and his authority had been impugned, he appeals to this virtue of sincerity, and in writing to his beloved Philippians he prays that they may be sincere (i. 10). And the testimony of his conscience bears him out in this appeal to a sincerity which he calls a sincerity of God, and which he speaks of as coming from God. The first words attributed to the Apostle in his first missionary journey express his condemnation of guile and of the attempt of the sorcerer Elymas to pervert the right ways of the Lord (Acts xiii. 10) ; and in his earliest Epistle he reminds the Thessalonians that his exhortation is not in guile, that his constant endeavour had been to please not men, but God, which proveth the hearts ; and there is a ring of sincerity in his appeal to his sufferings and labours : " Even as ye know," he says, " what manner of men we showed ourselves towards you for your sake " (i Thess. i. 5). To this sincerity of character there was joined a boldness of speech. One notable word expresses this — irapprjCTLa — a word which has for its root meaning " freedom," " boldness of speech," and which may be used also of boldness of action. The word is full of interest in its New Testament use ; it is characteristic of the teaching of the Apostles, of the teaching, e.£:, of St. Peter and St. John, nay, even of our ' Wemle, Paulus als Ileidenmissionar, pp. 16-17. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 493 Lord Himself, and it frequently occurs in this relation in the Gospel of St John. It is the gift for which the Apostles pray in the first recorded hymn of the early Church (Acts iv. 29), and it is markedly characteristic of St. Paul. It is used of his earliest Christian preaching in Damascus, of the great crisis in the Pisidian Antioch when he turned from the Jewish to the Gentile world ; it is used again of his latest missionary preaching in Rome. It occurs in his earliest Epistle when he reminds the Thessa- lonians that suffering had only intensified his boldness ; it is his closing prayer in the Epistle to the Ephesians that utterance may be given unto him in opening his mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel . . . that in it he may speak boldly, as he ought to speak (Eph. vi. 19-20). And with this boldness of speech there was a marvellous power of sympathy both in word and in deed. This sympathy may well have conduced to the success of St. Paul's work in more ways than one. It showed itself in the desire to acknowledge all that was good and all that savoured of truth in the religious beliefs arid aspirations of those whom he sought to win. Nowhere is this more plainly exemplified than at Athens ; and if we acknowledge this desire on the part of the Apostle, it seems to indicate that the opening words of his address were not words of rebuke or of contempt, but of commendation : " Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are some- what religious " (R. V. marg.). And so he proceeds to press home a divine truth from a line of a Greek poet ; and from an inscription to an Unknown God whom the Athenians worshipped, although in ignorance, he would lead them on to a worship in spirit and in truth.^ In this tactfulness of St. Paul, in this touch of sympathy with the search and feeling after God, we may still find one of the most important lessons for our missionary work ' Liddon, Essays and Addresses, p. 105. 494 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST to-day.^ It would seem, for example, from the statements of those who know India well, that there never was a time when it was more needful to study a religion like that of India with genuine sympathy and with a serious desire to understand its inwardness and power. Professor Bousset is evidently fully alive to the working of this vein of sympathy in St. Paul when he speaks of him as "an Oriental who made the Gospel at home in the West, and who became to the Jews a Jew, to the Greeks a Greek." ^ And this sym- pathy of St. Paul showed itself not only in a desire to appreciate things lovely and of good report, but in an intense personal sympathy, in a sympathy not only with truths, but also with persons. There is one passage in the Apostle's writings which in some respects stands alone ; it is the passage in which he is compelled, in spite of his humility, by the attacks and taunts of his opponents, to lift the veil which probably would have otherwise concealed from us for ever many of the sorest dangers and struggles of his life. He recounts his dangers and his fears in detail, and as he concludes the recital he adds to the list, " that wfiich came upon him daily, the care of all the Churches " ; and then follows the question which shows so plainly the lesson of sympathy which he had learnt from his own sufferings and his own ministry : " Who is weak and I am not weak ? who is made to stumble and I burn not ? " The weak and the erring came to him with some tale of shame, with some instance of heartless, selfish decep- tion, and the Apostle felt the shame as his own, and the righteous indignation of the true Christian against wrong. Such words reveal both the tenderness and the strength of St. Paul's sympathy. It was this same Corinthian Church to which he thus appealed which had previously shown such grievous moral • See in this connection Max MuUer, Life and Letters, ii. 436. ' Bousset, Der A^ostel Paulus, p. 15. ST. PAUL AND MISSIONARY WORK 49S enervation and such a scarcity of Christian charity, and it was to the same Corinthian Church that St. Paul had written the words which reveal the same union in his character of tenderness and strength, " Quit you like men, be strong ; let all that ye do be done in love " (i Cor. xvi. 13). What was the secret which sustained this sincerity and simplicity of character, this straightforwardness and boldness of speech, this wide and deep sympathy ? It was " the secret of a durable enthusiasm." And nowhere is this enthusiasm revealed more plainly than in the words of the Apostle's prayer taken from the Epistle which opens out the widest sphere of Church work and missionary effort for all time : " That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ; to the intent that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God " (Eph. iii. 19). LECTURE XXIV RECENT LITERATURE IN this concluding lecture it may be of some interest to look back upon the literature which has been published during the last two years in connection with our sub- ject. This survey, although it must be brief, may act as a kind of supplement to the former lectures. In the first series an endeavour was made to show that we are justified in accepting the Epistles which Church tradition refers to St. Paul, and also the Acts of the Apostles, which the same Church tradition refers to St. Luke. Last year saw the publication in Germany of a Life of St. Paul which claims the title of " scientific," and we are informed that it is the first life of the great Apostle which has issued from Germany on similar lines for some forty years.^ The writer, Dr. C. Clemen, is well known in England, and his close connection with our subject is further illustrated by the fact that during this present year he has published a small pamphlet on the Acts of the Apostles, considered in the light of the most comprehensive critical inquiry. The writer shows himself well acquainted with our English literature, and many familiar English names find a place in the index to his Paulus? ' Paulus, sein Leben und Wirken, in two volumes, 1904. ' It is, however, surprising to note the absence of such distinguished scholars as Dr. Salmon, Dr. Lock, Dean Bernard, Mr. Rendall, and others, whose labours on the Acts and the Epistles of St. Paul can scarcely be passed over in silence. 496 RECENT LITERATURE 497 Dr. Clemen devotes a large portion of the first volume of his work to a refutation of the theories of Van Manen and other critics, who boldly deny that St. Paul wrote any Epistles, or that we know anything definitely about his personality. It may seem surprising that Dr. Clemen spends so much time in the re-slaying of the slain ; but it must not be forgotten that Van Manen's theories have been very recently advocated not only in England, but in Germany, by a certain Pastor Kalthoff, whose view that Jesus was no historical person, but only the embodi- ment of the communistic ideas of the second century, reminds us of the earlier Dutch critic. Dr. Loman. In the lectures of the first series an endeavour was made to show how both conservative and liberal critics join hands in repudiating the conclusions of the Dutch theo- logians, and it may be sufficient here to add that Kalthoff' s renewal of these theories has been sufficiently met and answered by Dr. Bousset in his well-known little book on our knowledge of Jesus — a book which seems to have been called forth by the laudable desire to guard the German laity against the fallacious statements of Pastor Kalthoff and his friends.^ Kalthoff's first reason for his negations is to be found in the assertion that because in the course of critical inquiry some Epistles have been refused to St. Paul, it is a matter of no great difficulty to refuse them all to St. Paul. This, says Bousset, is to argue as if because some paintings of Rubens have been shown to be derived not from Rubens himself, but from his school, we are there- fore justified in thus setting aside the person of Rubens altogether. And he rightly proceeds to point out that recent criticism, so far from justifying a refusal to St. Paul of a large number of letters, has, on the other hand, tended to ' See Theologische Rundschau, p. 248, June, 1904, and Bousset, Was wissen wir von fesusl p. 9 (1904), and also Von Soden, Urchristliche Literaturgeschichte, p. 59 (1905). 32 498 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST justify the acceptance of a large majority of the letters ascribed to him.^ At the present moment a whole series of little books of a popular kind, on religious-historidal questions, is being issued in Germany at the price of a few pence each, written by men like Pfleiderer, H. Holtzmann, Von Dobschiitz, and others. Professor E. Vischer of Bisle, known to us in England first of all through Dr. Harnack, writes in this series on the Epistles of St. Paul. Although he is well aware of recent objections raised even against those Epistles which have been generally recognised, he accepts without hesitation all those Epistles to the number of nine which are also accepted by Dr. Clemen ; and even when he comes to deal with Ephesians, he frankly acknowledges that the alleged objections are by no means decisive, and that more is to be said for St. Paul's authorship than against it.^ When we turn to the book on Paulus in the same popular series, written by a very advanced critic. Dr. Wrede of Breslau, we find that he condemns as a grievous aberration of criticism the recent attempts in Holland and Germany to refer all the Epistles of St. Paul to a later date, and that he insists upon the fact that like i Thessalonians, Galatians and 2 Corinthians point in numberless ways to conditions which are justly conceivable at the exact period to which the letters have always been referred. Wrede himself is prepared to accept no less than eight of the Epistles as the work of St. Paul.' Another popular series on a more expensive scale, which is also in course of publication in Germany, next demands ' Mr. J. M. Robertson's Pagan Christs is rightly criticised by Pro- fessor Margoliouth, Expositor (December, 1904), p. 41 1 : "In his latest work, however, Mr. Robertson has adopted the extraordinary view of the Epistles propounded by Van Manen, who regards them all as spurious ; but he fails to draw the inference that the evidence of spurious Epistles would not be worth having." ^ Die Paulusbriefe, p. 67, ff (in the series Religionsgeschichtliche Volkshiicher), 1904. ' Paulus, p. 2, in the same series, 1905. RECENT LITERATURE 499 our attention. The work on St. Paul in this series, which is entitled Lebensfragen, is committed to Dr. Weinel. In his full and attractive monograph he only employs six Epistles as coming to us from St. Paul ; but he frankly admits that in addition to these six, an overwhelming number of critics also accept the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, and he rightly condemns the light-hearted facility, not to say inconsiderateness, with which Kalthoff decides against these and other Pauline Epistles in a few brief pages.^ It is important to note that Weinel, no less than Vischer, Wrede, and Clemen, recognises the power and the originality of these letters, and that such documents irresistibly proclaim and demand the existence of a strong personality behind them. Quite apart from the force of external evidence in their favour, this must always remain a fact of the highest importance. How, e.g., except upon this supposition, can we account for the language of St. Clement of Rome, when he speaks of St. Paul as having preached righteousness unto the whole world {Cor., 5), or for the language of St. Polycarp when he declares, " Neither am I, nor is any other like unto me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul ! " {Epist., 3).^ It is important to note that Dr. Clemen's name may here be added to the list of those who accept the much-disputed 2 Thessalonians, although he still rejects Ephesians for reasons precisely similar to those which we discussed in an earlier lecture.' ' Paulus, Der Mensch und sein Werk, pp. 313-14. See also Von Soden, Urchristliche Literaturgeschichte, p. 60 (1905). ' See the valuable remarks of Dr. Lock at the Liverpool Church Congress, 1904, on The Authenticity of St. Paul's Epistles. ' Clemen, Paulus, i. 139. See Lecture VI. in first series. Many of Dr. Clemen's objections, as, e.g., the use of the title " holy " in Eph. iii. 5, if the writer was St. Paul, have been sufBciently answered by the Dean of Westminster in his £j>hesians (p. 77), and by Dr. Lock (Art. " Ephesians," Hastings, B.D., i.). See also P. Ewald, Die Briefe des Paulus an die E^heser, Kolosser, und Philemon, p. 160, ff (1905). SCX3 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST With regard to this particular Epistle, the present year has seen the publication of another volume of the valuable series of commentaries edited by Dr. Zahn. In this volume Professor P. Ewald defends St. Paul's authorship of Colossians and Ephesians alike, and he does not hesitate to characterise Ephesians as a forgery (not merely a pseudonymous writing) if it comes to us from any hand but that of St. Paul.^ The nett result, then, of Dr. Clemen's inquiries, as, indeed, of recent German criticism as a whole, into the authorship of the Epistles attributed to St. Paul, is at least encouraging. It is exactly sixty years ago since Ferdinand Baur wrote his famous work on St. Paul (1845), and we recall the fact that he admitted only four Epistles as coming to us from the Apostle's hand, viz. Romans, i and 3 Corinthians, Galatians. The most recent criticism in Germany allows double that number, and we may without hesitation add to the four already mentioned i Thessalonians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.^ Nor must it be forgotten, as we have pointed out, that even the much-disputed 2 Thessalonians and Ephesians are accepted by many able critics, and that the Pastoral Epistles are by no means entirely rejected.' One word in passing upon the term " scientific," which is claimed by Dr. Clemen and others, whilst all conservative critics are described as " apologetic." If we look carefully into Dr. Clemen's book, we find that some few years ago he entertained very different views on some points to those which he now holds. In those days, e.g., according to Dr. Clemen's judgment, Galatians was written after Romans, quite late in St. Paul's life. Now we are assured on • Cf. P. Ewald, U.S. p. 25, ff (1905). ' See, e.g., to this effect the most recent account of early Christian literature by Von Soden, Urchristliche Literaturgeschtchte, p. 11, flf (1905). ' Dr. Deissmann sees no reason to doubt the authenticity of all the Epistles which have come down to us as St. Paul's, although he admits that the Pastorals still present some difficulties (cf. Evangelium und Vrchristenium, 1905). RECENT LITERATURE Jol the same authority that Galatians is the earliest Epistle which the Apostle wrote. Are we listening now to the " scientific " or to the " apologetic " Clemen ? What guarantee can there possibly be that a writer who thus completely alters his standpoint with regard to an Epistle, so important for the chronology of St. Paul's life and for the development of his doctrine, may not confess himself equally wrong with regard to other vital points in the Apostle's career ? There are other details in Clemen's inquiry which, stand out for us as of very considerable importance. We find, e.g., that he places St. Paul's conversion within a year, possibly in the same year, as the death of Jesus. It is quite true that in his attempt to account for the fact of the Apostle's conversion he falls back upon explanations which have been suggested again and again, and which certainly are not supported by St. Paul's own language, as we endeavoured to show in an earlier lecture.^ The importance of thus bringing the two events, the death of Jesus and the conversion of Paul, into such close juxta- position scarcely needs to be insisted upon. The author of Supernatural Religion, in the latest edition of his book, speaks of St. Paul as having been converted by a vision seen many years after the death of Jesus. But we have already referred to the different view held by Harnack and others. And the same thing may be said if we take into account the most recent German literature. Thus Wernle speaks of Paul becoming a Christian Apostle not long after the death of Jesus.^ Bousset refers to the tradition which places the conversion quite close to the death of Jesus, and Von Dobschiitz speaks of the same event as taking place perhaps eighteen months and at the latest five years after the death of Jesus.^ ' Lecture IX. 2 Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu, p. 4 (1904). ' Was wissen wir von Jesus? p. 18, and Jesus, p. 6 (1904); Von Dobschiitz, Das afost. Zeitalter, p. 8 (1905). S02 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST But there is more to be said in this connection. Bousset points out that St. Paul was in a position to have intercourse with the oldest generation of Christians, and Clemen lays special stress upon the notice of Andronicus and Junias in Rom. xvi. j} They were evidently no obscure Christians, and yet they must have embraced the Christian faith at an earlier date than St. Paul himself, as he describes them as those " who were in Christ before me." But if this was so, then it follows that before St. Paul's conversion men and women were related to Jesus of Nazareth by a close and living tie : they were " in Christ " ; and there is no hint that such a phrase meant to them anything else or less than what it meant to St. Paul. But the nearer we are able to carry back the existence of such a belief to the death of Jesus, the more wonderful and surprising does it become. Dr. Pfleiderer, in his recent book on the Early Christian Conception of Christ, would discriminate (p. i6) between the belief of the Jewish Christian community from the beginning and the belief which prevailed later in Gentile Churches, and which was derived from St. Paul. But if words are to retain any significance, the import of the phrase '' in Christ " as it is applied to Andronicus and Junias must have been recognised from the very beginning of the Christian community before St. Paul joined its ranks. And we have to ask ourselves how such a belief could have grown up in so short a time, a belief which involved so much, and testified to a union so intimate between the believer and Christ. For there is good reason to believe that when St. Paul speaks of Andronicus and Junias as his kinsmen, he means that they were Jews. ' Paulus, i. 350. On the other hand, it should be noted that Dr. Zahn, in his recent article " Paulus der Apostel," in the 3rd edit, of Herzog's RealencyclojiSdie, Heft 141, p. 68 (1904), places St. Paul's conversion in 35 A.D., and considers that " the new Chronology " which places the event in the year of the crucifixion makes Rom. xvi. 7 meaningless. RECENT LITERATURE S03 Closely connected with this question of the early date of St. Paul's conversion is that of the Apostle's acquaint- ance with Jesus. One inference, at all events, follows from the notice we have just been considering with regard to Andronicus and Junias, viz. that if St. Paul had not known Jesus, he must have been brought into very early and close familiarity with those who were fully acquainted both with Him and His teaching. Reference was made to this subject in an earlier lecture ; but a recent French work by Maurice Goguel deals with it at very considerable length.^ No doubt, as this writer remarks, we can come to no certain decision in the matter, and he regards the ex- planations of the much-disputed 2 Cor. v. 16 as too hypothetical to justify any definite conclusion. He quotes the names of some distinguished critics both on the affirma- tive and on the negative side ; but his sympathies are evidently with those who hold that in any case there could have been no close or lengthy contact between Paul and Jesus, or there would have been some reference to it in the Apostle's letters. Moreover, if St. Paul had known much of Jesus, the decided probabilities are that he would have taken part against Him, and we should have learnt something of all this from the Epistles in which Paul so pointedly states that he had persecuted the followers of Jesus. The inference, then, that if the Apostle had seen Jesus he could not have really known Him, or have come into close contact with Him, Goguel regards as lessening the importance of the question we are considering. But we shall see that if Jesus of Nazareth and Saul of Tarsus never met in Jerusalem, the latter may have learnt much about the teaching and the life of his future Master, as Goguel very distinctly allows. I spoke in an earlier lecture of the manner in which > EA^dtre Paul et Jisus Christ (392 pages), p. 14 (1904). S04 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST more than one recent Life of fesus in Germany shows that much more may be said than is often admitted in favour of the view that St. Paul possessed no small knowledge of the earthly life and teaching of Jesus. But since the pub- lication of the books to which reference was then made, fresh literature of the same kind claims attention. One of the most recent and popular Lives of Jesus is that which we owe to Dr. P. W. Schmidt, of Basle. He points out that Paul was probably not in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, or the self-accusations which we find in his Epistles would have contained some acknowledgment of his share in the actual guilt of the death of Jesus.^ But, apart from this. Dr. Schmidt is evidently in agreement with H. Holtzmann's fesus und Paulusf in which it is noted that the virtues which Paul associates with his " heavenly man " are entirely in accordance with those which in the Gospels are ascribed to the historical Jesus, viz. obedience, humility, unselfishness, peaceableness, righteousness, truthfulness. Dr. Schmidt further acknowledges St. Paul's evident acquaint- ance with some of the sayings and modes of speech which are known to us in the Gospels, and he cites in his list the references which we have already noted to the Roman, Corinthian, and other Epistles.' Another popular life of Jesus is that by Professor Furrer of Ziirich, so well known for his geographical studies in connection with the Holy Land. His lectures on our Lord's earthly life were delivered to all sorts and conditions of people, and however much we may find wanting in them, they are remarkable as an honest and reverent attempt to help men and women to a realisation of the picture of the ' Die Geschichte ^esu, ii. 66 (1904). ' Protestantische Monatschrift, 1900, pp. 463-8. ' Amongst less familiar references, Schmidt regards 2 Cor. i. 17 = Matt. V. 37, Rom. ix. 33 = Matt. xxi. 42, Rom. xiv. i2=Matt. xii. 36. In I Thess. iv. 15-17 and in i Cor. xi. 23 he prefers to see information derived from special revelation. See u.s. pp. 67-8. RECENT LITERATURE 505 historical Jesus presented to us in the New Testament. Furrer lays stress upon the fact that our oldest witness is St. Paul, and that the Apostle evidently knew much more of the historical Jesus than we gather from his letters. From such a notice as Gal. iii. i, in which St. Paul speaks of Jesus Christ as openly set forth crucified among the Galatians, we may infer that the Apostle knew many details of the sufferings of Christ. He had evidently made careful inquiries as to the descent of Jesus, and speaks of him as being beyond all doubt of the seed of David (Rom. i. 3). He possesses exact information as to the institution of the Lord's Supper (i Cor. xi. 23-6). He is able to discrimi- nate in social life between circumstances with regard to which he had received a positive command from the Lord, and those with regard to which he had not. He exhorts his Corinthian brethren by the meekness and gentleness of Christ (2 Cor. X. i.), and in Furrer's view we owe the marvellous Psalm of Love in i Cor. xiii, i to St. Paul's knowledge of the character of the historical Jesus. And we are reminded that St. Paul had many opportunities of gaining a rich knowledge both of the life and of the teaching of Jesus in his persecution of the Christians and in his later intercourse with Barnabas and Peter. This insistence upon St. Paul's acquaintance with the historical Jesus is the more notable because Dr. Furrer also insists upon the Apostle's constant realisation of the glorified Christ, who lived in his soul, to whom he looked up in holy joy, and the quite secondary place which all human communication as to the Gospel occupied in his consciousness. Let us turn to another instance of German literature, of which I have already spoken — Dr. Weinel's account of St. Paul and his work in the series entitled Lebensfragen} Weinel assures us that St. Paul attached no value to the Christ according to the flesh, and that Jesus as a human » Paulus, DerMensch und sein Werk, p. 244 (1904). S06 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST being has scarcely any importance for him ; the Apostle is only interested in the present work of Jesus in believers, and in His death. Even when he speaks of the gentleness, the love, the truthfulness of Christ, he is thinking of Him as the living and exalted Lord. But on the next page Weinel assures us that we must not conclude that St. Paul knew nothing of Jesus. On the contrary, the Apostle remains the best and surest witness for the historical personality of Jesus, and his witness can only be got rid of if we declare all his letters fictitious. According to his own words, St. Paul had learnt from the Apostles themselves the cir- cumstances of the life of Jesus"; and although from a religious point of view he is chiefly concerned with the exalted and living Christ, yet we find everywhere traces of his acquaint- ance with the accounts of Jesus as we afterwards find them written in our Gospels. It is true that Weinel considers that St. Paul knew nothing of a supernatural birth of Jesus ; but he notes that the Apostle refers to the descent of Jesus from David, to the fact that He was born under the law, and that mention is made of the brothers of the Lord. So, too, the traits in the character of Jesus, which, as Weinel believes, St. Paul ascribes to Him as a heavenly being, stand in no contradiction to His appearance as a man. When St. Paul speaks of the sinlessness of Jesus, he speaks of the impression which the person of Jesus had made upon His disciples : not purity alone beamed forth from Jesus of Nazareth, but goodness, love, self-surrender, self-sacrifice. In this connection it is noticeable that whilst Weinel holds that St. Paul, in speaking of our Lord becoming poor, is thinking primarily of the laying aside of divine glory, yet such a statement only receives its full meaning if Jesus belonged, as a man, not to the noble, but to the poor ; so that in this case also Paul corroborates the tradition of the Gospels. Moreover, according to Weinel, we find in RECENT LITERATURE 56? St. Paul not merely references to the words and commands of Jesus, but actual quotations of them. Of course, in this connection the most significant passage is the account of the institution of the Eucharist ; but Weinel is also able to refer to St. Paul's prohibition of divorce in the significant words, " But unto the married I give charge, yea, not I, but the Lord," and to the Apostle's appeal to another ordinance of the Lord, that they which proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel ; whilst we are justly reminded that in other places St. Paul says, on the contrary, that he has received " no command " of the Lord. At the same time Weinel rightly emphasises the fact that St. Paul shows himself the truest disciple of Jesus, in that, like his Master, he speaks of love as the fulfilling of the law, and sees in this law of Christ a law of greater breadth and freedom than the law of the Old Covenant. If we turn again to the second popular series of German books which we have previously mentioned, we do not find such lengthy references to St. Paul's knowledge of the historical Jesus. But still we do find, on the whole, a considerable recognition of such knowledge. Thus Dr. Vischer writes that, in distinction to the disciples who had had intercourse with Jesus during His ministry, and in distinction to the circles from which the Gospel tradition first proceeded, any notices of the life of Jesus fall sur- prisingly into the background in the case of St. Paul. We meet in St. Paul's Epistles with surprisingly few reminiscences of the words and deeds of Jesus in His lifetime, although we do find numberless explanations of the significance and the reason of His death. But Vischer puts forward one or two solutions of this. In the first place we may notice that in the greater number of his letters St. Paul is \yriting to Churches in which he had already worked for a longer or shorter time, and in all cases he is writing to Churches in which the Gospel was So8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST already known. We cannot therefore draw the conclusion that St Paul had at first announced only that as the subject of his preaching which he deals with in his letters ; and he adds that we have also positive indications, as in i Cor. xi. 23, that St. Paul had made fuller communications to his Churches as to the life and work of Jesus than we can gather from his Epistles alone. But as the first disciples, starting from their own experiences, saw in the death and resurrection the conclusion and the crowning of the life of their Master, and as in their representation of Christ the recollection of the life of Jesus with his never-to-be-forgotten words and deeds was of the greatest concern, so, too, St. Paul started from his own experiences of the offence of the Cross and of the heavenly vision, and for him the Gospel was the message of a heavenly Being who had come down from heaven to suffer and to die.^ Another little book in the same series purports to give, as we have seen, an account of Paul. Dr. Wrede, to whom we owe this account, points out many differences between the teaching of Jesus and that of His Apostles. But at the same time he quite emphatically admits that many rules and directions of Jesus were undoubtedly known by tradition to St. Paul.^ All these points of contact, however, are of secondary importance, although they are not denied. According to Wrede, Jesus knew nothing of that which for St. Paul was everything. He attributed, e.g., no such significance to His death as that which St. Paul attributed to it. St. Paul, in fact, was not a disciple or servant of an historical and human Jesus, but of another Being altogether ; and he could invest Jesus of Nazareth with such high attributes because he had never known Him Paul, in fact, was the person who first introduced into Christianity the ideas which made it a religion of redemption, and which ^ Die Paulusbriefe, p. 15 (1904). ' Faulus, p. 91 (1905). RECENT LITERATURE 509 have made it most influential and most powerful. No wonder that Wrede asks us to believe that the influence of Jesus was stronger — not better — than that of Jesus. Surely Dr. Deissmann speaks much more accurately and more convincingly when he tells us that Paul was not " the second after Jesus, but the first ' in Christ,' " and that although St. Paul refers to the exalted Christ in many passages which are usually referred to the earthly Christ, yet the earthly life of Jesus has for Paul such significance that it endowed the glorified Christ with the personal characteristics of the earthly — a sure protection against any false step of the religious fancy.^ Before we pass from the consideration of this remarkable little series of German books, a word may be added as to Dr. Wernle's statements in his account of the sources of the life of Jesus. He sees in St. Paul the oldest historical and literary witness of Christianity, and yet the most scanty of all sources for our knowledge of Jesus. Paul laid little stress upon the details of the life of Jesus, which could only be known to him through tradition : the Jesus whom he preaches is the Son of God, who came down from heaven to die and to rise again for us ; all else recedes into the back- ground. Yet even Wernle allows that Paul had some knowledge of the earthly Jesus ; he can refer, e.g., to our Lord's words in His decision against divorce (i Cor. vii. 10), and our Lord's words in His ratification of the claim of the Apostles to the support of the Church (i Cor. ix. 14) ; he can give us an account of the Last Supper on the night of the betrayal (i Cor. xi. 23), and he can group together the witnesses for the resurrection (i Cor. xv. 4) ; and Wernle makes the further important remark that, although we cannot say so for a certainty, yet Paul as a missionary may ' Evangelium und Urchristentum in Beitrdge zur Weiterent' wicklungder Religion, pp. 117, 122 (1905) ; and cf. also Theologische Rundschau, April, 1905, p. 136, Art. "Jesus und Paulus," i. Sio TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST well have given the newly converted Christians more information concerning Jesus in his oral teaching.^ In a certain sense, Wernle also acknowledges that Paul gives us more than the most exact information. We hear from him that a man Jesus, in spite of His death on the Cross, was able to confer such power through that death that a Paul was conscious that he was conquered, redeemed, blessed by Him, and that his own life and the whole world might be divided, as it were, into two parts — without Jesus, with Jesus. Explain it as we may, says Wernle, here, at all events, is a fact which compels our astonishment. In this statement of Wernle we have an example of a characteristic feature of much of recent German criticism, viz. the acknowledgment of the marvellous impression made by Jesus upon those around Him and upon His greatest Apostle, St. Paul. We find marked evidence of this in many writers of the highest repute, and it might be easily illustrated from the pages of Bousset, Deissmann, Von Dobschiitz, H. Holtzmann, Von Soden, and others.^ But it is time to turn to books which come to us from other sources. Within the last year two French writers, representing two very different schools of thought, have treated of the subject with which we are immediately con- cerned. The Abb^ Jacquier, of Lyons, in his learned Histoire des Livres dn Nouveau Testament (1905), has given us a summary of St. Paul's knowledge of the historical Jesus,' ' Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu, p. 5 (1904), in the series Religions- geschichtliche VblksbUcher. ' See, e.g., Bousset, Was missen wir von Jesus? p. 72 ; Von Dob- schiitz, Die urchristlichen Gemeinden, p. 272 ; Von Soden, Die wich- tigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu, p. 11 1 ; Deissmann, Beitrdge zur •meiterentwicklung der Christlichen Religion, p. 89, ff. ^ Pp. 22-4. After pointing out that we can only expect in St. Paul an oral tradition, as he had not been an actual witness of the scenes, and only tells us what he had received (i Cor. xv. 3), and after explain- ing that the letters of St. Paul naturally contain only allusions to facts and teaching upon which the Apostle had previously dwelt, Jacquier mentions the references to our Lord's earthly circumstances in Rom. i. RECENT LITERATURE 511 and to Maurice Goguel, representing apparently a very- liberal French position, we owe a more lengthy treatment of the same subject.^ If we confine ourselves to the latter, we come across statements of no little interest. Goguel rightly lays stress upon the fact that incidental circumstances occasion St. Paul to give us the information which we gather from him. The Apostle, e.g., supplies us with a full account of the institution of the Eucharist ; but if the peculiar cir- cumstances of the Church of Corinth had not drawn forth the Apostle's declaration, it might easily be argued that he knew nothing of the Eucharist, since he does not definitely mention it elsewhere, or that at any rate he attached but little importance to it. In treating of the references to the character of Christ, Goguel evidently inclines to refer the expression "who knew no sin" (2 Cor. v. 21) to the pre-existent Christ, but at the same time he sees in this passage, together with Rom. i. 4, a proof that Paul recognised the perfect holiness of Christ. And this proof is further con- firmed by the way in which the Apostle speaks to the Romans (cf v. 18) of the obedience of Christ. The efficacy of the death of Jesus was so great because it was not the death of a sinner, like the death of any other man, but the 3, Gal. iv. 4, Rom. ix. 4-5, 2 Cor. viii. 9, Phil. ii. 5 ; to His character (2 Cor. X. I, Rom. xv. 3, 2 Cor. v. 21). He next gives in detail the references to our Lord's death and resurrection, as, e.g., Gal. iii. i, i Cor. V. 7, I Tim. vi. 13, i Cor. xi. 23, i Cor. ii. 8, i Thess. ii. 15, Gal. iii. 13 ; to the fact that He died for our sins, that He was buried and rose again the third day (Rom. v. 6, vi. 5, 9, I Cor. xv. 3-4) ; and to the as- cension in I Tim. iii. 16. Jacquier also gives a list of the appeals made by St. Paul to our Lord's words (cf , e.g.. Matt. xix. 6, Mark x. 9= i Cor. vii. ID, Matt. X. 9-11, Luke x. 7 = 1 Cor. ix. 14, Luke x. 16=1 Thess. iv. 8, Matt, xxiii. 13 = Gal. iv. 17, Luke vi. 28=1 Cor. iv. 12-13, Matt. v. 39-40=1 Cor. vi. 5, Matt. xvii. 20=1 Cor. xiii. 2, Luke xii. 33 = 1 Cor. xiii. 3, Luke vi. 28=Rom. xii. 14. • L'A^dtre Paul et Jesus Christ, pp. 69-99 (1904)- (The volume contains nearly 400 pages.) These two French books are mentioned at some length, not only for their own importance, but also because so much space has been given to German literature. SI2 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST death of one perfectly holy ; and His obedience was not only an obedience in the face of death, but the perfect obedience of a whole life. Goguel also notes that when Paul commands his readers to be imitators of him, as he also is of Christ, (i Cor. xi. I ; cf. Col. i. lo), it is evident that such an exhortation implies the idea of the absolute perfection of Christ, and he rightly concludes that the impression which we gain from St. Paul's Epistles of the personal character of Jesus is exactly that which meets one in reading the Synoptists, and that Drescher is correct in maintaining that St. Paul has selected precisely those traits of character in Jesus which are also specially emphasised in the Gospels. With regard to the institution of Holy Baptism, Goguel makes some important observations. It is probable that Paul knew of the institution of this sacrament by Christ, or that he at least protected its observance by the authority of Christ. We cannot conclude from the Apostle's words (i Cor. i. 1 6) that he regarded baptism as a rite of human origin and devoid of importance. If this had been so, the Apostle would not have tolerated it at all, but would have counted it among the weak and beggarly elements which he combats so forcibly. And to this negative argument we can add a positive one from the place which baptism occupies in the symbolic language of St. Paul (cf Rom. vi. 3, i Cor. xii. 13, Gal. iii. 27). From these considerations we are justified in maintaining at least the probability that St. Paul sup- ported the practice of baptism by the authority of Christ. Time does not allow us to give the many references which Goguel rightly finds in the Epistles of St. Paul to the death and passion of Jesus ; but we may note that he regards these references as very precise and definite in relation to the mode, the time, the circumstances, and the instruments of the Saviour's sufferings. But in speaking of the resurrection it is very note- worthy that Goguel condemns it as a grave error to class RECENT LITERATURE 513 the appearances of Christ, which Paul mentions in i Cor. XV. 1-4, as merely subjective. Goguel argues, with the German writer Paret (so well known in earlier days of criticism for his full treatment of the relationship between Paul and Jesus), that St. Paul in this passage contents himself with an allusion to the accounts which he had previously given to the Corinthians, and that these need by no means to be limited to a simple " was seen " {bx^Srj). He also draws a distinction, with Paret and others (see Lecture IX.), between the manner in which the Apostle speaks of these appearances of the risen Christ in i Cor. ix. i, xv. 4-8, and the visions or revelations of the Lord in 2 Cor. xii. i,^ and he also points out that a bodily resurrection of Christ seems to be demanded by St. Paul's argument in i Cor. xv., in which he is combating the doubts which had arisen in the Corinthian Church upon the subject of the resurrection of the dead. In considering the words of Jesus and St. Paul's acquaint- ance with them, Goguel distinguishes between actual quota- tions which are extremely rare and simple allusions. We may select one or two of these latter which are of special interest. In the words of St. Paul to the Romans (xiv. 14), " I am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself," it is quite possible that St. Paul is simply expressing a personal conviction which he has " in the Lord " ; but Goguel holds that in this case we should expect the Apostle to have spoken of Christ rather than of Jesus, since by the expression " the Lord Jesus," Paul designates rather the historical Christ. He therefore inclines to the view that Paul is thinking of such words as those which Jesus utters in St. Matt. xv. 1 1 : " Not that which enters into the mouth defiles the man." Here, then, St. Paul 1 See, to the same effect, amongst recent writers, Dr. Zahn, Art. " Paulus der Apostel " in the new edition of Utrzog'sRealencyclo^ddie, Heft 141, p. 72 (1904). 33 514 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST enunciates a broad principle which was already contained in the teaching of Jesus. In i Thess. ii. 12 the thought of the call of God into His kingdom recalls the words of the parable of the marriage feast (Matt. xxii. 3, Luke xiv. 16). And in this same Thessalonian Epistle, especially in the latter chapters, he finds frequent reminiscences of our Lord's words in the Gospels, and of words similar to them. It is important also to note, if we bear in mind the remarks of an earlier lecture, that the verses 21, 26 of i Cor. i., in which St. Paul speaks of the wisdom of this world which knows not God, are regarded as a reminiscence of the words of Jesus in Matt. xi. 25. Goguel draws attention to the fact that I Corinthians is the Epistle which presents us with the greatest number of points of contact between St. Paul and his Master, and it is not too much to say that he adduces from nearly every chapter some instance which goes far towards justifying this remark. We have already drawn attention to the fact that St. Paul never quotes directly any words of Jesus in relation to his disputes with Jewish Christians and the requirements of the law, but Goguel is able to refer to the remark of Paret that the Apostle must at least have been certain that no direct command of Jesus could be quoted against him. But although St. Paul's knowledge of the life and words of Jesus was so full, and whilst there is no difficulty in supposing that he could have gained information about them before his conversion in his inquiries relating to the Christians whom he persecuted, no less than in his after-intercourse with St. Peter and others (Gal. i. 18-19), Goguel again agrees with Paret in maintaining that the gospel of Paul commences at the point at which the life of Jesus ends according to the flesh. The events of the life of Jesus had for St. Paul no religious interest, for the object of his faith is exclusively the glorified Christ. At the same time Goguel guards him- self against any separation of the historical from the glorified RECENT LITERATURE 515 Christ, and he quotes with approval the conclusion of Dr. Schmoller, that the actual information which St. Paul gives us as to the life of Jesus presupposes a much greater and fuller knowledge.^ There is one other recent book from Germany which is so full, and in many respects so suggestive, that it ought to receive, if time allowed, much more than a brief notice. Dr. Alfred Resch, so well known for his AgrapJia and other theological works, has lately given us a most elaborate account of the mutual relations, as he conceives them, between Paulinism and the Logia of Jesus.^ In this book Dr. Resch claims the fullest acquaintance with the life and teaching of Jesus on the part of St. Paul. We have, e.g., a list of references given us in St. Paul's Epistles to the most important events in the life of Jesus extending from His baptism to His ascension.^ But whilst some- thing may be said for some of these references, and an allusion to the transfiguration might be possible in such a passage as 2 Cor. iii. 18, it must be confessed that in some cases the supposed reference is very fanciful. We are asked, eg., to find a reminiscence of our Lord's words in Gethsemane (Mark xiv. 37), in the words of St. Paul,, "that whether we wake or sleep we may live together with Him" (i Thess. v. 10). In a later part of his book^ Dr. Resch gives his reasons for believing that St. Paul was fully acquainted with our Lord's Virgin birth. The representation of our Lord as absolutely sinless, as the second Adam, the head of a new humanity, presupposes a birth of Jesus different from the propagation of the. 1 Schmoller, Art. Die geschichtliche Person Jesu nach den jiault- nischen Schriften, pp. 656-705, in Studien und Kritiken, 1894. 2 Der PauUnismus und die Logia Jesu (656 pages), 1904. ' Pp. 203, 3S4, 528. If no reference is made to any of our Lord's miracles, Dr. Resch refers to St. Paul's own testimony (2 Cor. xii. i2> as showing that the miraculous power which the disciple possessed must have been also possessed by the Master. * Pp. 619-20. Si6 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST old humanity, and points back to a primitive tradition of the Virgin birth which Resch finds in his Gospel of the Infancy {Kindheits-evangelium). In this knowledge on St. Paul's part Dr. Resch sees an explanation of the fact that St. Paul's Christology never raises contradictions and that his conception of the Christ did not expose him to a struggle in this respect with the early believers. But it can scarcely be said that this attempt of Dr. Resch to restore a Kindheits-evangelium has proved very successful,^ although, of course, one might fully agree with him in the inference which he draws from St. Paul's language concerning our Lord as the Head of a new humanity. In this recent work Dr. Resch strongly maintains his previous view that St. Paul was in possession of a primi- tive Gospel, the Hebrew Logia of Jesus, for his knowledge of his Master, although no doubt oral tradition and the nearness of the Apostle to the events of the Gospel story must also be taken into account.^ How St. Paul came into possession of these Logia we do not know ; but Resch strongly supports the conjecture that they were known to him at a very early date in a written form, and - that only thus can we explain the fact that the Apostle did not go to Jerusalem to the headquarters of the Twelve upon his conversion, but into the solitude of Arabia. It is further suggested that Ananias may have placed some such written information in the hands of St. Paul." With regard to St. Paul's knowledge of the words of Jesus, Dr. Resch finds numberless parallels between the Apostle's writings and the great discourses, as also the parables of Jesus. In some cases, no doubt, St. Paul's language is very similar to that in the Gospels. We may ' Dr. Sanday, "Jesus Christ," Hastings' B.D., i. 644. 2 M.J-. pp. 25, 533. 3 U.S. pp. 534-5. RECENT LITERATURE 51; take as a single instance the similarity between the language of the Parable of the Sower in the Synoptists and St. Paul's words in i Thess. i. 6 ; but it is very doubtful whether any distinct reminiscence of the familiar parable is present, and in many cases which Resch adduces the criticism of Vischer seems fully justified, viz. that very often the supposed agreement consists simply in the fact that the same word occurs in Paul and in the Synoptists, and often in a very different sense, as, e.g., in the alleged parallel between Gal. iv. 13-14 and Matt. xxvi. 41.^ But in spite of so much that is fanciful, we gladly welcome Dr. Resch's strong belief that the word " in- spiration " may well be applied to the thoughts of a man who was full of the Spirit, who took his stand, as it were, upon the historical Jesus, whilst he lived in constant intercourse with the exalted Christ (2 Cor. xiii. 3). If we turn back for a moment to the writer from whom we started. Dr. Clemen, we find that, with most of the " advanced " critics of Germany, he regards St. Paul's interest as centred around the two facts of the death and resurrec- tion of Jesus. But nevertheless he favours the view that the Apostle had seen Jesus, and that he may have been in Jerusalem at the time of our Lord's death. He holds that frequently in the Epistles we find words of Jesus which go back to oral tradition, a dependence upon the preaching of ' Theologische Rundschau, p. 142 (April, 1905). Dr. Resch gives us a long list of Agrapha, p. vi., and their supposed parallels in St. Paul's Epistles. These Agra^ha have been subjected to a severe examination by Mr. Ropes, and passages like i Cor. vii. 31, xi. 18, I Thess. V. 21, Eph. iii. 15, iv. 26-7, are not regarded by him as containing any sayings of Jesus. On the other hand, he finds in I Thess. iv. 16-17 a genuine Agraphon, while as to i Cor. xi. 24 he is doubtful (Zlze Spruche Jesu, pp. 135, 153 [1896]). See for further criticism Sturm, Der A^ostel Paulus und die evangelische Uberlie- ferung, 1897 ; Church Quarterly Review, October, 1890 ; and a recent article "Agrapha," by Mr. Ropes, in Hastings' B.D., v., where the literature is given. The present writer may refer to the Witness of the Epistles, pp. 1 14-32. 5i8 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST Jesus, and a correct acquaintance with the figure of Jesus. Surely all this is remarkable enough when we consider the very different standpoint of the two critics, Dr. Resch and Dr. Clemen.^ In the third series of these lectures we were able to touch upon some of the historical facts connected with St. Paul's missionary journeys. And here again Clemen's book presents us with much that is of interest both on account of its fulness and of the constant admission of little points of accuracy in St. Luke's narrative. To some of these we have already referred. In a pamphlet published during this present year. Dr. Clemen gives us a summary of his views on each of the important episodes familiar to us in the Acts, and it is of no little interest to note how much he admits as ' Two recent books in England and America may also be here referred to, as they both help to show us that St. Paul's knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus must have been in all probability very considerable. One is entitled Si. Paul's Conception of the Last Things (1904), by Dr. H. A. Kennedy. The writer is fully alive to the many and varied influences with which St. Paul may have come into contact ; but he rightly emphasises (p. 55) the manner in which, as he believes, the Apostle was powerfully influenced by the Apostolic tradition of the eschatological teaching of Jesus ; the most striking instance he finds in 2 Thess. ii. See also pp. 167 ff for other parallels, to which reference has been made in an earlier lecture. Dr. Kennedy does admirable service in pointing out that in marked contrast with the prophetic descriptions of the Day of the Lord St. Paul scarcely ever paints a picture of the Parousia, and in passages where we might expect the use of vivid imagery it is entirely absent, and he rightly sees in this lack of pictorial drapery another instance of the remarkable sobriety and self-restraint of the Apostle in dealing with those eschatological events which gave free play to the most extravagant fancies of Jewish Apocal)rptic writers, p. 192. See also pp. 97-102. On p. 262 Dr. Ken- nedy adds some qualifications of the view entertained by many scholars that in the interval between i and 2 Corinthians St. Paul advanced to a new and more spiritual view of resurrection. The other book comes to us from America, The Story of St. Paul, by Professor Bacon. On p. 16 he expresses his belief that Paul had had no personal contact with Jesus of Nazareth ; he may have been absent from Jeru- salem, or his student's days may not have begun, but with all his bitter regrets the Apostle never reproaches himself with any part in the plots against Jesus. But on p. 53 we read that the same Paul who resorted RECENT LITERATURE 519 historical in more or less degree/ Thus he points out that it is going much too far to regard as unhistorical the repre- sentation in the Acts that Paul preached first in the syna- gogues to his own countrymen before he turned to the Gentiles. This acknowledgment is of peculiar importance in the face of recent allegations against the historical character of the Acts in relation to the Apostle's action. With regard to the incident of the Nazirite vow in Acts xxi., which has sometimes caused such difficulty, Dr. Clemen admits that he is prepared to retract his own former doubts against the historical character of the incident, although it is only fair to add that he still declines to admit another incident closely connected with St. Paul's stay in Jerusalem, viz. the manner in which the Apostle designated himself (xxiii. 6) as a Pharisee before the Sanhedrin. Again and again in Clemen's pages we come across the admission that even in the narrative of the first part of the Acts some kernel of historical fact is plainly discernible, although, as we might expect, he attaches a higher historical value to the second part of the same book. He further frankly admits that whereas in some cases difficulties occur in points of the narrative, these same difficulties, on closer inspection, become a witness for the truthfulness of the account. If, e.g., it occasions surprise at first sight that Paul and Barnabas should be regarded as gods on account of the one miracle of healing the lame man to Peter to hear his story, la-Top^a-ai Kijc^aj', cannot have regarded himself as fully equipped whilst he was ignorant of the life and teaching of Jesus and of fundamental Christian doctrine. How, indeed, could he have been a leader of persecution against the sect, or have cast his vote against them on a life and death issue, without knowing some- thing of their history and teaching ? And on p. 54 it is well stated that St. Paul's bloody persecution, " even unto foreign cities," implies even at that time a Christology which to the eyes of the Pharisee encroached upon the prerogatives of God. 1 Die A^ostelgeschichte im Lichfe der neueren text-quelkn und historisch-kritischen Forschungen, p. 40 ff (1905). S20 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST at Lystra, we remember that the same thing is related of ApoUonius, whose home in Tyana was but some few hours distant, and that the mention of the temple of Jupiter before the city is one which meets us in connection with many other places, as, e.g., Claudiopolis. As an evidence of correctness in small details Clemen emphasises the fact that in Acts xiv. 6 Iconium is men- tioned in a way which is inconsistent with its common description as a city of Lycaonia. But it would seem that the inhabitants of Iconium always regarded themselves as belonging to Phrygia, and so a notice which might seem at first sight to betray inexactness is in reality a proof that in the first missionary journey we are dealing with a narrator who was well acquainted with the local and social conditions/ In the second missionary journey Clemen points to the evidence of the inscriptions in relation to the trade of Lydia, and to the peculiar title, " politarchs," given to the magistrates of Thessalonica, whilst he finds no difficulty, but rather another indication of accuracy, in the two titles given to the magistrates at Philippi. So, again, another accurate touch is to be found, he thinks, in the prominence assigned to the women in Philippi, Thessa- lonica, and Beroea, which is so strictly in accordance with the position enjoyed by women elsewhere in Macedonia. In the local details connected with Athens Clemen holds the view, supported so strongly, as we have seen, by Professor Ramsay, that St. Paul was taken not to Mars' Hill, but to the Court of the Areopagus in the Stoa Basileios. And with regard to the inscription to an unknown God, he frankly admits that, although elsewhere we find inscriptions of altars dedicated to unknown gods, yet there is no difficulty in sup- posing that one particular altar would be dedicated in the terms which St. Luke describes, especially when we remember ■ The same argument is elaborated fully by Professor Ramsay (see Art. " Iconium,'' Hastings' B.D., ii. 443). RECENT LITERATURE 521 that in Rome we have Set deo sei decs. The Latin names of Titius Justus and Crispus, which meet us in Corinth, are also quite in accordance with all that we know from other sources of the Corinth of the time. Some little space is devoted by Clemen, as we might naturally expect, to the many points of interest which the inscriptions confirm in relation to St. Paul's visit to Ephesus. Another detail of accuracy of a somewhat different kind is noticeable. Amongst the many "shrines" of the goddess which have been found in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, none have been discovered of silver ; these " shrines " are always made of terra-cotta. This at first sight might seem surprising ; but, as Clemen points out, in agreement with Ramsay, it is exactly what we might expect, since the silver " shrines " would have been quickly melted down on account of their monetary value. If we ask why at Ephesus the Asiarchs are represented by St. Luke as favouring St. Paul, Dr. Clemen provides us an answer in the belief that the Asiarchs, in their anxiety to promote the cult of the emperor, would welcome anything that tended to depreciate the worship rendered to Artemis. In concluding his summary, Clemen endorses, with so many writers of various schools, the many notes of accuracy contained in the account of St. Paul's shipwreck. In doing so he refers to the help received in working out these notes of accuracy from James Smith of Jordan Hill, and in more recent days by the Germans Breusing and Von Gorne, both of whom write with a full technical knowledge. At the same time he rightly condemns the strictures passed by Mommsen on St. Luke's use of the term the sea of Adria (Acts xxvii. 27), and refers to the geographer Ptolemy as endorsing the application of the term current no doubt in St. Luke's day to the sea between Sicily and Crete. Dr. Clemen attaches a high value to the Acts for a representation of the life of St. Paul, and it is noteworthy 522 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST that he ascribes the authorship of the " We "-sections to St. Luke. He passes in review the claims of Timothy, Silas, Titus, but he does so only to reject them.^ It is also noteworthy that he acknowledges that in some parts at least of the book we find indications of the writing of a medical man, and that so far his own countryman. Dr. Zahn, and the Englishman, Dr. Hobart, have proved their case. In one passage Dr. Clemen is constrained to feel the force of this medical language. In Acts xxviii. 3 we read that a viper fastened on St. Paul's hand at Malta. Here we have, as Clemen admits, two medical terms, one used in describing the viper {drjptov), and the other in the effect of its attack on St. Paul, viz. that nothing amiss (atOTTOv) had happened to him. But the proof we are assured only belongs to the section in question, and we cannot argue from it to the whole book. But if we can find medical terms not only in the " We "- sections and in other parts of the book, and if, in addition to the evidence from medical terms, the language and ex- pressions of the " We "-sections are closely related to the language and expressions of the rest of the book, it seems at least probable that one person was the author of the whole. If so, we can understand that he would leave the " We "-sections as they are, and that he thus retains the first person plural to mark the incidents at which he was himself present.^ But we find it difficult to believe that another and a careful writer (as the author of the Acts ' It is noticeable that Von Soden in his chapter on the Acts in his recent UrchriMiche Literaturgeschichte, p. 126, quite admits that Luke, the companion of St. Paul, may have been the author of the Reisehericht in its original form, and that in spite of all deductions he regards Acts as a book of imcomparable value. Schmiedel and Van Manen alike favour the claims of Luke as the probable author of the journey narrative (see Critical Questions, p. 75). ^ As against the strictures of Professor Bacon in his recent Story of St. Paul, p. 156, to the effect that the author of the Diary must have been a Jew, see Church Quarterly Review, October, 1901, p. 17, and RECENT LITERATURE 523 evidently was, whoever he was) would have introduced the " We "-sections, revising them as he chose, and yet leaving them as they are. Clemen is evidently puzzled, and he actually goes so far as, to say that in spite of his care elsewhere, the author may have left these sections in their present form out of carelessness. But it is time to turn to a brief consideration of the religious-historical method in theology, which is being so widely applied in Germany to the facts of the Creed and to the origin of the Sacraments of the Church. And here Dr. Clemen may again be of service, for he has. recently issued a remarkable pamphlet on the subject, in which he refuses to go to the lengths of the more " advanced " critics amongst his countrymen.^ In this connection we may recall that Clemen, in his account of St. Paul's life, insists upon the fact that the Apostle was above all things a Jew, and that his Epistles show this in his Rabbinical methods of argument and in his profound acquaintance with the Old Testament.^ Whatever other influences may have surrounded Paul, as, e.g., the Stoic atmosphere in Tarsus, the Jewish element was always predominant, and no essential influence was exercised upon the Apostle's thought by the rites and mysteries of other religions. Thus, in relation to the supposed influence of the religion of Mithra, Clemen insists upon two points which are of special value. Reference was made in a former lecture to the fanciful idea of Dr. H. Holtzmann that the religion of Mithra became known to the Romans through their intercourse with Cilician priests. Dr. Clemen points out that although Cilicia, the home of St. Paul, was the Critical Questions, p. 75. In the same article in the Church Quarterly Review a detailed examination is made of Acts xvi. 10-17, and the identity of language with the rest' of the book is fully shown. ' Die religionsgeschichtliche Methode in der Theologie (1904). ^ See, also, on the predominance in St. Paul of Jewish thought and influence, Vischer, Die Paulusbriefe, pp. 17-18 (1904); and Wrede, Paulus, pp. 6, 47 (1905)- 524 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST first place in the empire which was connected with the Mithra worship, yet that worship had certainly not exercised any great influence in Cilicia. About loo A.D. Dio Chrysostom knows nothing of the Mithraic worship in Tarsus ; and Clemen rightly infers that its influence upon the earliest Christianity must have been in any case very small indeed. In dealing with this same religion of Mithra, Dr. Clemen draws attention to the fact that, whilst in the representation of a sacred meal the initiated are described as wearing masks representing the nature of Mithra under different attributes, we are nowhere told that they have " put on " the god, as Christians are said to have " put on " Christ (Gal. iii. 27). Pfleiderer, in his recent book, makes much of a supposed likeness of ex- pression, but it is evident that Clemen by no means takes a similar view. As one reads this valuable brochure of Clemen, one is inclined to think that Pfleiderer might often have been more careful to follow his own caution, viz. that in the study of other religions we should mark not only points of similarity to Christianity, but also points of diversity. This canon of sound criticism has been rightly followed by Von Dobschiitz in his recent article on Sacra- ment and Symbol in Early Christianity. Paul, he points out, does not speak as if he was a jnucrraytuyos, that is a teacher initiating his converts into mysteries resembling those so popular in the heathen world around him ; and in another place he rightly sees in the monotheistic piety of St. Paul, rooted as it was in its pure and spiritual character in the Old Covenant, a protection against the intrusion of pagan ways of thinking and against the introduction of magical rites and secret initiations.^ Another writer to whom frequent mention has been made, ' Sakrament und Symbol im Urchristentum, pp. 1-40, in Studien und Kritiken, i. (1905) ; and Nosgen, Die Religionsgeschichte und das Neue Testament, pp. 943 ff, in Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift {icpi^). RECENT LITERATURE 525 Dr. Paul Peine, has also dwelt at considerable length upon the subject before us in another popular series of German books which are specially designed to treat of Christianity in its relation to the modern spirit/ Peine points out that as St. Paul's conception of Christian baptism is quite un- Jewish and has no analogy in the Old Testament, men sought for analogies in other religions, and claimed to have found them in the old Egyptian worship. Osiris is killed, and comes to life again, and so the belief arose that one could attain through death to eternal life by becoming united with this God who dies and rises again. The knowledge of this worship, it is argued, may have become widespread in the East, and thus have gained the attention of the Jews, through whom it passed to St. Paul, and through St. Paul to Christianity. But Peine does not express himself a whit too strongly when he says that such assertions misconceive the whole character of early Christianity. This is not a religion of myth, but of living and personal experience. In the Gospel new powers are seen to be at work, and the person of Jesus Christ transcends in might of religious efficacy all other appearances in history. And in Christian baptism Paul has symbolised his own Christian experience ; and in this personal experience, and in the manner in which the Apostle is wont to distinguish between his own pre- Christian and Christian consciousness as between dayand night, truth and falsehood, new and old, life and death, we have all the elements which we require for the understanding of the Apostle's teaching as to baptism, and there is no need to refer to any questionable parallels with a religion with which it cannot be proved that Paul had any acquaintance whatever.^ 1 Das Christentum fesu und das Christentum der A^ostel in ihrer Ahgrenzung gegen die Religionsgeschichte, in the series Christentum und Zeitgeist , p. 56 (1904)- 2 Peine, u.s. p. 56, and see also Von Dobschutz, u.s. p. 23, and the supposed influence of the myth of Osiris. Peine also refers to the supposed connection between Mithraism and the Christian Eucharist ; 526 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST No one, in fact, can study even, in the most cursory manner, these alleged parallels without seeing how ludicrously inadequate they often become/ Take, as a single instance, the ascension of our Lord which the Church has so recently celebrated. Dr. Pfleiderer, in his recent book, informs us that ascension-myths may be found in manifold shapes. Hebrew legend, it is true, knows of only two assumptions — that of Enoch and that of Elijah ; but in Greek legend such assumptions are of very frequent occurrence, and, according to the original significance of these legends, the whole man, both body and soul, was directly translated into the other world of bliss, " without passing through the gate of death." ^ But where is there any analogy between these Jewish and Greek assumptions and the ascension of our Lord into heaven ? ^ Our Lord did pass through the gate of death, and no fact is more certain than that the Cross was regarded as the only way to His crown.* But, further, whilst our but he does not discuss the question, as he considers that the influence of Mithraism cannot be traced sufficiently early to render such an inquiry at all apposite. The remarks of Dr. S. Dill may well be com- pared with those of Feine : " Futile attempts have been made to find parallels to Biblical narrative or symbolism in the faint and faded legend of Mithra recovered from his monuments. . . . But one great weakness of Mithraism lay precisely here, that in place of the narrative of a divine life, instinct with human sympathy, it had only to offer the cold symbolism of a cosmic legend {Roman Society from Nero to M. Aurelius, p. 622 [1904]). ' See Science and Sophistry , by F. Blass, E.T., in Expository Times, October, 1904. * Early Christian Conception of Christ, p. 106. ' Bishop Westcott, in speaking of the religions of India, remarks, " The assumption of humanity by Vishnu is in appearance only, and the human nature is wholly laid aside when Krishna, slain by a random shot of the hunter Jara (that is, decay, old age) returns to the Great Being " (The Gospel of Life, p. 156). The same writer forcibly reminds us that it was not until he had ceased to be the champion of men and had consumed in the fires of Oeta whatever showed his fellowship with men, that Hercules was received into the mansions of the Gods (The Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 116). * Arnold Meyer, in his lengthy examination of our Lord's resurrection. Die Auferstehung Christi, 1905 (in the series already mentioned RECENT LITERATURE 527 Lord's risen and glorified life was reached through death, it is equally certain that Jewish expectancy could never have created the conception of a suffering Messiah.^ No doubt, in what has been called the most authoritative document of patristic Judaism, the Targum of Jonathan (fourth century A.D.), much of the language as to the Servant of God in Isa. lii. 13-liii. 12 is referred to the Messiah, but the remarkable thing is that those verses which speak of the sufferings of the Servant are referred not to the Messiah at all, but to Israel as a nation : " It is no mere rhetoric to say that from the Apostolic period to the present day, the Cross has been to the Jews a stumbling block." ^ Recent writers, indeed, have insisted, that there were con- under the title of Lebensfrageii), apparently thinks that the writer of the Fourth Gospel makes our Lord appear to seven of His disciples after His resurrection (John xx. i), because the number seven was so frequently symbolical in Oriental religions, p. 167. Yet it is not only very difficult to understand the consummate art which a forger must have possessed to concoct such a story as that in John xxi., but it is very strange that no reference should be made to this number seven if any symbolical meaning was attached to it by the forger. In the Apocr5^hal Gospel of Peter, e.g., the soldiers affix seals to the sepulchre, and we are told that seven seals were so affixed. Meyer also strongly maintains (pp. 23, 213) that St. Paul's list of our Lord's appearances was meant to be exhaustive, and that, as no reference is made to John xxi., the appearance there mentioned must be dismissed as unhistorical ; but as we have already noted (Lecture XIV.) there is not the slightest proof that St. Paul's list was exhaustive. 1 See a remarkable article, " The Poverty of Christ," by Dr. J. M. Robertson, in the Expositor, p. 332, May, 1905. 2 See Muirhead, The Eschatology of Jesus, p. 203 (1904). The same writer remarks, " No doubt, in the early Christian centuries, one finds in Jewish circles— elicited probably by controversy with Christians — the idea of a dying Messiah, and even the idea of merit available for others in the righteous sufferer. But a glance at the passages where these ideas appear shows the fallaciousness of the hope of finding in them points of contact with Christian doctrine. Thus in Fourth Ezra (75-96 A.D.) the Messiah dies, but His death is only an incident in an eschatological programme which assigned to the Messiah no other function than that of living for 400 years with the godly previous to a final judgment executed by Jehovah Himself." See also to the same effect Stanton, Art. " Messiah," Hastings, B.D., iii. 354. 528 TESTIMONY OF ST. PAUL TO CHRIST ceptions present in Judaism in the days of St. Paul which might easily have led him to entertain the views which he held about our Lord's Person, dnd to regard Him as a pre- existent heavenly Being.^ But the offence of the Cross had not ceased, and the question may still be asked, how Paul could see in a crucified blasphemer the Lord of his life, and the Saviour of the world. For the testimony of St. Paul to Christ is twofold. He finds in Him not only his own redemption from sin, but a ransom for all ; he recognises His power not only in his own inmost soul, as he brings every thought into captivity to His law, but he sees this power at work in the hearts and minds of men and women all around him ; he is sure that this power cannot be restrained by any barriers of social or national life, by any limits of age or time. And as his vision passes beyond the fashion of this world, the Cross in which he had gloried is still the central pledge of redeeming love ; he sees all things reconciled to God by the blood of the Cross. What was it that had thus transfigured the emblem of degradation and shame until it became a manifestation of the glory of the Lord ? The Cross was a revelation of life in the midst of death, of a life which had loosed the pangs of death, because it could not be holden of it ; the revelation of a love from which St. Paul was persuaded that neither things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, could separate him, the revelation of " the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ' See, e.g., Wrede, Paulus, p. 86, 1905. INDEX Abbott, E. A., 251, 274-276 Abbott, T. K., 79, 85, 86, 89, 95, 100, loi, 106, 455 Acts of the Apostles — Accuracy, 35, 149-162, 354, 355, 357. 359. 370, 374, 378. 379. 380, 381, 384, 388, 392, 400, 402 ff, 412, 421-430. S19-523 Addresses, 169-173, 361-369, 375, 385. 389. 391. 415-421,425. 429. 431-434, 477-481, 509, S19 Authorship, 162 ff, 522, 533 Acts of Paul and Thekla, 38, 128, 150 Acts of Peter, 150, 151 Aristides, Apology of, 11, 13, 63, 127, 390 Ascension of Isaiah, 27, 58 Askwith, 20, 27, 28 Avircius, St., 92 Bacon, 4, 5, 27, 73, 108, 109, 119, 150, 162-164, 212, 372, 414, 46s. 471, 518 Baldensperger, 244 Baljon, 8 Barnabas, Epistle of, 62, 79, 95, 125 Bartlet, J. V., 29, 85, 91, 92, 220, 301, 307. 365. 403. 427 Basilides, 54, 57, 63, 97 Belser, 35, 95, 122, 124, 129, 137, 138 Bengel, ill, 393, 45° Bernard, Dean, 128, 198, 270, 279, 297, 408 Bigg, 472 Birmingham, Bishop of, 143, 202, 223, 403 Blass, 82, 128, i55, 159, 161, 179, 182, 183, 307, 361, 432, 440, 526 Bornhauser, 342, 343, 345 Bousset, 8, 467, 474, 494, 497. 5oii 510 Canterbury, Dean of, 120 Charles, 27, 58, 115, 116, 238, 239, 242 Chase, 35, 69, 120, 164, 173, 174, 193, 202, 234, 253, 331, 353, 361, 364, 374, 385, 387, 391,415 Cheetham, 468 Cheyne, 42 Christology, 14, 39-50, 65-72, 86, 89, 99, loi, 106, 109, 117 ff, 147, 171, 173, 174, 206, 211, 212, 215 ff, 224, 227-233, 240, 246, 265, 271, 273, 291, 327, 337, 339, 420, 431 fif, 449, 451, 452, 471, 473. 502.509.516, 519, 527.528 Chrysostom, St., 59, 355, 419, 466 Clemen, 4, 8, 13, 21, 22, 24, 29, 35, 56, 65, ^^, 82, 134, 150, 158, 164, 182, 189, 191, 210, 255, 355, 359. 360, 362, 378, 379, 400, 414, 416, 425-427. 430, 437. 439- 445-447, 474. 475. 497. 499. 5oo, 517, 518, 520-524 Clement, St., of Alexandria, 23, 37, 58, 80,97, 116, 127, 382 Clement, St., of Rome, 8-10, 12, 51, 52, 56, 61-63, 79, 94, 95, 103, 113, 124, 125, 220, 349, 440, 442, 499 529 34 530 INDEX Colossians — Authorship, 5, 38, 73-75, 77-86, 91, 101, 499 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 234, 277, 316, 323, 328, 333, 339, 345. 348, 349- 464> 512; (2) the life of the Church, 88, 120, 255, 26s, 349. 406, 407, 421, 4;33, 44I1 4SS. 484 Corinthians I. — Authorship, 6, 7, 10, 51-56, 266, 500 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 191, 193, 207, 208, 210, 220, 245, 249, 250, 254, 257, 260, 317, 320, 321, 326, 329, 336, 505, 509, 512-514; (2) the life of the Church, 88, 98, 175, 260, 274, 278, 281, 292, 308, .391, 396, 407, 408, 423, 441, 451, 452, 460, 461, 463, 480 Corinthians II. — Authorship, 6, 7, 10, 56-60, 498, 500 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 181, 224, 239, 278, 279, 317, 345, 453, 503-505, 5", 515, 517; (2) the life of the Church, 198, 203, 345, 407, 408, 450, 463, 465, 492, 494 Dalman, 39, 40, 69, 192, 221, 231, 235, 240, 273, 312 Davison, 448 Deissmann, 3, 40, 106, 158, 232, 308, 443, 500, 509, 510 De Pressens6, 460 Didache, 23, 24, 54, 62, 95, 126, 418 Dill, S., 448, 468, 472, 526 Drescher, 202, 218, 254, 257, 267, 269, 271, 340, 512 Driver, 272 Drummond, J., 4, 27, 48 Drummond, R. B., 119, 204, 216 Ecclesiasticus, 294, 295, 303, 383 Edersheim, 186, 222, 383 Enoch, Book of, 102, 172, 240 Ephesians — Authorship, 3, 5, 38, 65, 73, 87, 94-111,499, 500 Relation to (1) the Gospels, 262, 300, 323, 328, 333, 338, 339, 341, 347, 348, 415, 453, 517; (2) the life of the Church, 88, 120, 383, 415, 417-421, 441, 453, 455, 465, 467, 484, 495 Esdras II., 243, 244, 527 Ewald, P., 334, 344, 346, 347, 499, 500 Exeter, Bishop of, 70, 95, loi, 103, 205, 289, 306 Fairbairn, 201, 202, 204 Feine, 40, 56, 66, 68, 70, 201, 204, 212, 216, 217, 220, 223, 225, 233-235, 238, 241, 243, 245. 251, 252, 269, 270, 272, 278, 279, 287, 289, 290, 294, 316, 321, 331, 333, 336, 345, 384, 449, 453, 525, 526 Findlay, 89, loi, 102, 128 145, 190, 212, 330 Friedlander, 81 Furrer, 202, 276, 284, 504, 505 Galatians — Authorship, 6, 7, 13, 15, 28-38, 500 Relation to (l) the Gospels, 184, 195, 203-205, 210, 216, 227, 249 ff, 267, 274, 280-289, 294, 313, 333, 510, SI I, 517; (2) the life of the Church, 360, 363, 364, 366, 371, 372, 374- 376, 409, 483, 524 Gardner, P., 186, 224, 255, 260, 276, 279, 284, 305, 470, 471 Gifford, 69, 334-366, 437 Godet, 12 Goguel, 290, 303, 315, 323, 503, 511, 512-515 Gunkel, 192, 193, 282-284 INDEX S3I Harnack, 3-5, 8, 10, 18, 27, 28, 41, S3. S7, 65, 67, 71, 72, 82, 92, 98, 122, 135, 175, 191, 201, 206, 218, 261, 279, 299, 323, 342- 344, 355- 371, 444, 449 Haupt, 5, 20, 73, 75, 79, 80, 82, 85, 86, 114, 117, 118,341 HeitmiiUer, 284, 292 Hermas, 97 Hobart, 164, 522 HoUmann, 393, 394 Holsten, 112, 192 Holtzmann, H., 8, 18, 24, 28, 82, 124-126, 136, 156, 164, 166, 188, 274, 282, 470, 498, 504 Holtzmann, O., 203, 223, 267, 269, 276 Hort, 84, 95-97, 138-141, 171, 419 Ignatius, St., 8, 11, 23, 24, 36, 54, 56,61, 80,95,96, 114, 123, 125, 313, 420 Inge, loi, 453 Irenaeus, St., 23, 24, 37, 53, 55, 63, 80,97 Jacquier, 23, 38, 63, 79, 82-84, 98, loi, 116, 124, 510, 511 Jevons, 488 Jubilees, Book of, 141 Jtilicher, 4, 5, 18, 27, 82, 84-86, 91, 97, 98, 100-103, 231, 343 Justin Martyr, 11, 24, 35, 37, 55, 61, 80, 116, 365 Kalthoff, 494, 499 Keira, 191, 202, 219, 295 Kennedy, H. A., 26, 112, 219, 228, 240, 241, 243, 288, 303, 452, 455, 518 Lepin, 204, 206, 295 Liddon, 477, 493 Lightfoot, Bishop, 20,28, 31, 35, 36, 38,45,75,83,96, 115,116, 139- 142, 202, 233, 234, 236, 241, 243, 381, 409, 437 Lock, 8, 19, 20, 36, 88, 95, 100, 102,, 107, 122, 128, 133, 137, 145, 230, 331, 437, 441, 474, 476, 480, 499 Loisy, 205 ff, 295 Loman, 6, 7, 35, 38, 497 Marcion, 12, 13, 18, 23, 24, 37, 57, 63,64, 73, 81,98, 113, 116,123, 124, 138 Max Miiller, 494 McGiffert, 4, 18, 27-29, 31, 84, 123, 129, 184, 326, 391 Menzies, 151, 225, 336 Meyer, Arnold, 527, 528 Milligan, 301, 303 Milligan, G., 24 Moffatt, 19, 21, 27, 29, 31, 73, 75, 100, 112, 114, 118, 122 133, 189, 191, 349, 427 Mommsen, 151, 160, 359, 429, 521 Muirhead, 272, 527 Neander, 312, 345 Nietzsclie, 444, 445 Nosgen, 202, 216, 220, 233, 251, 252, 269, 285 335, 524 Origen, 24, 37. 80 Orr, 406, 438 Paley, 10, 55, 152, 153, 171, 184, 260, 412, 430 Pastoral Epistles, 121-147 Authorship, 34-121 ff, 128, 147, 500 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 309, 31 1> 323, 331, 333-337, 348, 511 ; (2) the life of the Church, 143-145, 152, iS3, 220, 370, 441-444, 457, 464 Pfleiderer, 18, 46, 66, 67, ^T, 82, 90, 182, 189, 195, 197, 255, 293, 469, 524, 526 Philemon — Authorship, 73-77, 5°° Relation to the life of the Church, 74, 75, 120, 442, 499 S32 INDEX Philippians — Authorship, 6, 38, 72, 89, iii- 120, 135, 136, 500 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 1 17, 119, 120, 323, 329, 330, 332, 340, 453, 511; (2) the life of the Church, 188, 437, 440, 441, 452, 455. 463* 477. 490. 491 Plummer, 59, 60, 197, 303, 333 Polycarp, St., 8, 9, 11, 12, 24, 36, 52. S3, 57. 62,80, 95-97, 113- 115, 123, 126, 220,405 Psalms of Solomon, 269, 270, 288, 289, 295, 367 Pseudo-Philo, 140 Rackham, 180, 373, 375-377, 4i5. 427, 440 Ramsay, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 85, 86, 92, 112, 128, 154, 156, 157, 159, 161, 179, 197, 220, 228, 259, 314, 356, 364, 366, 391, 397, 405-407, 437, 438, 442, 455, 475, 488, 491, 520 Renan, 6, 28, 95, 191 Randall, 29, 252, 480 Resch, 204, 263, 269, 515-517 Reuss, 18, 27, 74 Riggenbach, 245, 342, 345 Romans — Authorship, 11, 32, 34, 38, 57, 60-65 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 205, 216, 218, 253, 260, 269, 289, 3". 327. 345. 365. 366, 505, Siii 513; (2) the life of the Church, 88, 146, 255,408,411, 416, 420, 435. 436, 440. 442. 450, 456, 457, 460, 461, 465. 486, 502 Ropes, 244, 276, 517 Rose, 183, 249, 277, 301, 308 Sabatier, 28, 47, 74, 82, loi, 191, 202, 222, 238, 251, 268, 362, 363 Salisbury, Bishop of, 263 Salmon, 54, 82, 88, 129, 130, 132, 496 Sanday, 7, 40, 44, 52, ^^, 81, 83, 128, 204, 216-218, 229, 230, 260, 276, 516 Sanday & Headlam, 46, 63, 65, 69, 202, 204, 220, 232, 313, 386, 409, 410, 438, 440, 456 Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, 381 Schmidt, N., 230 Schmidt, P. W., 231, 271, 293, 303, 307, 318, 355. 504 Schmiedel, 5, 10, 18, 34, 35, 60, 81, 82, 90, 152, 163, 164, 171, 173, 176, 185-189, 249, 268, 276, 280, 300, 303-306, 323, 325, 326, 338, 358. 359. 374, 375, 380, 421, 522 Schiirer, 1 50, 425 Seeberg, A., 20, 223, 230, 253, 312 Sieffert, 13, 31, 38, 45, 46 Smith, Goldwin, 260, 483 Smith, James, 16, 521 Soltau, 363, 389 Spitta, 22, 63, 238, 437 Stanton, 57, 308, 381, 527 Steck, 14, 56, 74, 75, 244, 301 Sturm, 202, 233, 235, 241, 242, 267, 268, 270, 293, 297, 329, 517 "Supernatural Religion," 159, 323, 501 Swete, 323, 326, 335, 339, 342, 377 TertuUian, 23, 24, 37, 58, 80, 127, 382 Testament of Hezekiah, 23, 24, 27 Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs, 20, 115, 116, 127 Thackeray, H. St. John, 67, 184, 239, 273 Thessalonians I. — Authorship, 4, 17-23, 74, 89, 498 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 154, 210, 215, 216, 219, 227, 248, 258, 259, 289, 309, 319, 331, 345,346,453,504.514.515.517; (2) the life of the Church, 380, 383. 391. 436, 441. 444-446. 454, 480, 492 INDEX 533 Thessalonians II. — Authorship, 4, 22, 24-28, 499, 500 Relation to (i) the Gospels, 234, 235. 518; (2) the life of the Church, 383, 441, 446, 453 Titius, 202, 204, 212, 233, 243, 245, 254, 268, 316, 318 Uhlhorn, 463, 465 Van Manen, 6ff, 14, 15, 18, 35, 51- 53, 56-58, 60, 63-65, 71, 76, 113, 155, 167, 169, 387, 497, 498, 522 Vienne and Lyons, Epistle of the Churches of, 24, 117, 127 Vischer, 4, 490, 499, 507, 523 Von Dobschutz, 86, 103, 182, 202, 218, 257, 276, 285, 299, 306, 307. 383, 393, 395- 435. 439. 460, 461, 463, 468, 472, 501, 510, 524, 525 Von Soden, 4, 18, 89, 94, 105, 107, 109, HI, 112, 143, 150, 216, 360, 361, 389, 402, 497, 499, 500, 510, 522 Watkins, H. W., 348 Weber, V, 29-31, 35, 225, 374 Weinel, 197, 297, 424, 444, 445, 454. 476, 479, 480, 499. 505- 507 Weiss, B., 4, 8, 9, 36, 45-47, 49. 52, 62, 76, 83, 97, 103, 109, 123- 126, 129, 132, 137, 138, 142, 184, 186, 188, 201, 267, 305, 315. 335. 338 Weiss, J., 150, 151, 200, 211, 214, 216, 218, 275, 360 Weizsacker, 18, 82, 161, 166, 185, 276 Wendt, 27, 160, 202, 204, 219, 221, 233, 241, 245, 246, 253, 268, 276, 285, 288, 335 Wernle, 40, 43, 59, 193, 268, 451, 474. 481, 482, 492, 501. 509. 5 10 Westcott, Bishop, 65, 260, 281, 325, 386-526 Westminster, Dean of, 100, 225, 258, 328, 341, 484, 499 Wisdom, Book of, 209, 212, 290, 386, 387 Wrede, 4, 24, 336, 498, 499, 508, 509, 523, 528 Wright, A., 223, 276 Zahn, 4, 8, 29, 38, 40, 45, 75, 79, 109, 117, 129, 133, 137, 138, 149, 159, 160, 191, 202, 240, 241, 245, 275, 276, 312, 323, 333. 341. 343. 356, 368, 374. 442. 476, 477. 502, 513 ZSckler, 46, 182, 183, 201, 202, 204, 325 Printed by Hasell, Watson